CHAPTER 8

So that was that. Johnny was out of the team. He was done with them. Forever. The kids - well, the kid - who he loved and treated like his own son had betrayed him. For that Larusso girl no less. That family had ruined his life time and time again, and he was done with all of them. Screw them.

The next month was pretty awful for everyone. A dark cloud had been cast over the group. They knew that even with Johnny, their chances of winning the All-Valley was miniscule and without him, they were screwed. Despite his… interesting methods, he was undeniably a good sensei. He made his students faster, stronger, more agile.

His absence was, to nobody's shock, taken the hardest by Miguel. Johnny was like a father to him, and he had been a mentor for him for so long. Without Johnny, Miguel felt extremely lost. He didn't have anyone to help guide him. While Daniel tried hard to connect with Miguel and fill the hole that Sensei Lawrence had left, he knew that Miguel was nowhere near as open with him as he was with Johnny. Not that he was really surprised. After all, Daniel was, at the end of the day, just Miguel's karate sensei and his girlfriend's dad. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Thankfully, the one thing that was playing in their favor was that Cobra Kai had gone quiet again. The last thing they needed would be getting their asses whooped by Cobra Kai on top of everything else.

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Miguel parked his bicycle in the West Valley High car park and locked it, before grabbing his bag and walking into the school. His shoulders were slightly slumped in sadness, as they had been all the time since Johnny's departure. Sensei Lawrence always used to drive him to school, and it used to be one of the high points of his day.

As Miguel switched his books in his locker, he heard a knock on the locker next to him. Miguel looked up to see Hawk.

"What do you want, man?" Miguel sighed. Hawk noticed his friend's expression and he shook his head furiously.

"No! No! You have been sulking about Sensei for a month now! No more of this! This is like longer than you sulked about Sam! If I didn't know better, I think you and Sensei were sneaking a weird, secret relationship behind our backs."

Miguel glared at him and Hawk laughed.

"What? Too soon to joke?!" He asked. "Look, we're all going to go karting tonight..."

"Yeah, I know. Sam told me. I already said I'm not coming." Miguel snapped. Hawk shrugged.

"I don't care! I heard about this new outdoor go karting track in Fontana where the karts go 70 miles an hour. It's gonna be awesome!"

Miguel rolled his eyes.

"Pass." Miguel murmured.

"Nope. No pass. Either you come, or I kidnap you and get my boy tattoo 'Bitch' on your face…"

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"Ayo. Robby!" Kyler said, walking over to Robby after training. Robby glared at him, still seething after Kyler's remarks in Coyote Creek.

"What?" Robby spat.

"I want to apologise. I said some shit at the Creek that wasn't cool." Kyler stammered.

"Yeah, fine, whatever." Robby snapped, not one for apologies.

"And I want to give you an olive branch." Kyler continued. "I know where Diaz and his group are right now. They're at CalSpeed go-karting."

Robby's face went from anger, to delight, to confusion in a matter of seconds as he took in what Kyler was telling him.

"Um… what? How do you know that?" He asked. Kyler grinned.

"It's on Hawk's instagram story. Dumbass forgot to block me when he quit." Kyler stated, handing Robby his phone. His eyes widened as he looked at the picture Hawk had put on his instagram story. Everyone was there: Diaz, Hawk, Sam, everyone. This was their chance.

"Hey, Tory, Shawn, get over here!" Robby shouted. Tory and Shawn walked over to them, confused.

"What?" They asked. Robby smirked at them.

"You ready for some fun…?"

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That afternoon, Demitri, Sam, Chris, Mitch, Hawk and Miguel all walked into the go karting center together. Unfortunately, Bert and Nate were a year too young to participate (there was a minimum age limit of 16) so they couldn't join, but the others could. Everyone was pleasantly surprised to see Miguel there. Since Sensei Lawrence left, Miguel had thrown himself head-first into training and spent every second he wasn't in school beating the crap out of a punching bag and training for the All-Valley. He didn't need Sensei Lawrence in his corner to win the All-Valley.

"Miguel, you're here." Demitri said, voicing everyone's shock to see him in a recreational activity outside of school.

"Yeah. Hawk can be very… persuasive." Miguel murmured. Hawk grinned and slapped Miguel on the back.

"Damn straight." He agreed, before rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "Now, let's get this party started!"

For the next 20 minutes, the group were kitted out in fireproof suits and balaclavas, and they were briefed on what they could and couldn't do when out on track. It was a relatively dangerous track with plenty of hills, twists and turns so they were carefully briefed about the meaning of different colored lights, and different colored flags. Miguel knew all of this already: little did people know that before he got into Karate, karting had been his favorite sport and he was pretty darn good at it. The final step before the group got in their respective karts was putting in earpieces and starting a group call with each other so they could talk and communicate while racing.

Finally, it was time for the group to get in their karts. Miguel was seated in the kart at the back, the worst kart, but he didn't care. Despite everything he had been through in the past month, he was excited. He needed something like this to take his mind off everything that was happening. The satisfied pur of the engine vibrated under Miguel's feet as he prepared for the race to start. He could faintly hear Demitri and Sam talking in his earpiece, but he tuned them out as he prepared for the race start. He watched the 5 red lights illuminate on top of the starting line, and when they went out, he roared off the starting line, his quick reflexes enabling him to overtake both Demitri and Chris right off the bat.

10 laps. They had ten laps to put in the fastest time possible. And to do that, Miguel knew that he would need to get to the front of the pack. Fast. Hawk, Sam and Mitch were still ahead of him so he had a lot of catching up to do. Miguel's karting experience came in handy though. He braked for every corner as late as possible, caught every turn at its apex, and wasn't afraid of lead-footing the accelerator.

"Jesus! Miguel! Chill out!" Hawk shouted into his earpiece as Miguel roared past him and waved at him as he went by. Miguel laughed.

"Sorry, buddy. You were the one who invited me to this." Miguel replied, chuckling.

"Yeah, but I didn't know you were an F1 driver!" Hawk exclaimed. Miguel rolled his eyes and stepped on the accelerator, trying to catch up with Mitch, who was currently the second car on the grid. He caught up with him moments later and overtook him and Sam on the same corner.

By the end of the race, Miguel had lapped everyone, and had put in a lap that was nearly 5 seconds faster than anyone else - a truly astronomical margain in the motor racing world. They stepped out of their cars and Miguel was immediately converged upon by his friends.

"What the world was that all about?!" Demitri exclaimed, laughing. "You didn't care to mention that you were some karting legend?"

Miguel shrugged.

"What can I say? I like driving." He replied. He didn't have a car of his own so for a long time, Miguel had relied on karting as his only means of operating a vehicle. "Now, are we going again or what?"

"Fine, but only if you give us a long headstart." Mitch said. Miguel laughed.

"Fine." He replied, and the group began to clamber back into their go-karts. However, just as they were about to light up the traffic lights and begin the race, suddenly, the karting marshall walked onto the track and held up a hand, indicating that they shouldn't start.

"What the hell." Miguel groaned to himself, confused.

"Sorry!" The Marshall called. "Please wait for the rest of the group before you start!"

"The rest of the group?" Hawk asked into their group call earpiece. "Did we invite anyone else?"

"No. No we didn't." Miguel murmured as his heart dropped. He was in the kart at the back of the grid so he had the best angle on the group who were walking towards the grid. Leading the group was someone who still made Miguel's skin crawl: Robby Keene. Accompanying him were Tory, Shawn, Kyler and 2 more Cobra Kai thugs.

"Oh, shit!" Chris exclaimed as he saw them. Everyone on the earpiece went into a frenzy of panic as the Cobras sat in the cars in front of and behind them, effectively surrounding them.

"Guys, shut up!" Miguel snapped into the earpiece moments later, effectively silencing everyone. "Look, I have an idea. Provided, it's not a great idea. It's not even a good idea. It's just an idea…"

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3… 2… 1… GO!

Miguel roared off the starting line but this time, he didn't charge towards his friends ahead of him like he did last time. Instead, he hung back slightly and held up the Cobras behind him, even passed by a couple of them. Miguel smirked as he started to accelerate again. Phase 1 of the plan was complete.

Miguel looked in his wing mirror and saw Shawn accelerating towards him, and he looked in front of him to see Kyler purposely slowing down to push Miguel into him. At this rate, Shawn would be crashing straight into the back of him at 60 miles an hour in a matter of seconds. Just like Miguel thought.

Saying a silent prayer that he didn't screw this up as the consequences would be severe, Miguel stayed exactly where he was, trapped behind Kyler as Shawn barrelled towards him. He watched carefully through his mirrors as Shawn approached, ignoring all of the voices he heard through his earpiece and staying dead-calm.

Finally, when Shawn was a mere second away, Miguel had reached a corner of the track, and the slightly wider track gave him the opportunity to quickly turn into the run-off area, rather than turning into the corner and having Shawn t-bone his kart. This tricked both Shawn and Kyler, and it was so sudden that Shawn didn't have time to brake before going flying into Kyler, sending them both crashing into the barricades. Miguel grinned as he accelerated again.

"YEEEEE HAWWWW!" Miguel laughed as he sped away from the two crashed karts.

2 down. 4 to go.

The two random Cobra Kai thugs were pretty easy to eliminate from the race. All Miguel had to do was swerve into their lane suddenly, and they were so surprised and tried to brake so quickly that they were sent spinning off the track to be helped out of their karts by the marshals. So far, none of what Miguel had done looked in any way deliberate so the marshals hadn't kicked him out yet.

4 down. 2 to go.

Robby and Tory were the only two Cobras left on the track but to Miguel's surprise, they were nowhere near him. They were up ahead, right by… OH CRAP! Both of the two remaining Cobras - Tory and Robby - were converging on Sam. Miguel was quite a bit behind them so he forced himself to push the kart beyond safety limits, reaching 65-70 miles an hour. He was driving faster than cars on the freeway, and it was pretty terrifying as he flung his car around corners in pursuit of Tory, Robby and Sam. The two Cobras seemed to be sandwiching Sam's kart in between them in an extremely similar way to what Shawn and Kyler had just attempted on Miguel, but Sam was a lot less comfortable in a kart than Miguel, so she had no idea what to do.

"MIGUEL! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" Sam shouted into her earpiece. Miguel gritted his teeth and drove even faster until he was alongside the three karts. Robby, who was the one about to ram into Sam, turned to face Miguel and he winked at him. Miguel's blood boiled but he forced himself to stay calm. Suddenly, Johnny's words flashed through Miguel's head. It was when Johnny was trying to teach Miguel how to learn chess, but had no idea how to play himself. It was one of Miguel's favourite memories of Johnny, and one thing that Johnny said stood out in Miguel's head…

"Sometimes, to win at Chess, you have to sacrifice your king"

"Okay, Sam. Listen to me." Miguel said, calmly into his earpiece. Who knew that Johnny's stupid advice might actually save them? "I have a plan, but you're gonna have to trust me, okay? Do you trust me?"

"YEAH, OF COURSE I TRUST YOU!" Sam shouted. "Now, what's the plan?!"

"Please don't hate me for this. I'm so sorry." Miguel murmured.

"For what?!" Sam shouted as she tried desperately to get away from an incoming Robby.

"For this." Miguel growled, before pulling up alongside Sam's car and ramming her off the road, causing both of them to spin off the track but thankfully not hit a barricade - all part of the plan. Robby and Tory, however, weren't so lucky. Sending Sam off the track had sent them flying into each other, crashing and spinning into the barricades. Their karts were broken, but Miguel and Sam's were okay. The two teenagers drove slowly back to the starting line, where the rest of the group were watching on anxiously. They both groaned and got out of their go karts, shaken but otherwise unharmed. But more importantly, they had gotten rid of the Cobra Kais for now.

When Miguel stepped out of his go kart and pulled off his helmet, he was immediately embraced by the whole group. The one guy without a car of his own had managed to send all 6 Cobras into horrible crashes.

"DUDE! THAT WAS AWESOME!" Hawk exclaimed as Miguel limped over. Miguel didn't respond. He first turned to Sam, who was also limping.

"You okay?" He asked. Sam nodded, before looking at him indignantly.

"I can't believe you hit me!" She exclaimed, shaking her left leg, which was the side that Miguel crashed into when he took her off the track. Miguel laughed.

"My bad." He murmured.

"My bad? That's all you have to say for yourself?" Sam giggled. Miguel shrugged.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Miguel pointed out.

"Damn right, it did…"

Okay, so I know that this chapter was pretty slow. This was on purpose because the last couple of chapters have been really intense, and there are huge events happening in the coming chapters so I need to take my foot off the gas for this one. Having every chapter being intense would minimise the effect and be too tiring for me. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Big next chapter coming soon!