CHAPTER 1

"MIGUEL!"

Tory's voice rang through the air, slicing through the silence that had befell West-Valley High like a knife. Almost the whole school watched as Miguel fell through the air at an agonisingly slow pace. It was like time had completely slowed down, allowing Sam to get a long look at his face as he fell past her. Miguel's face was etched with panic, his eyes filled with terror as he felt himself fall further and further down. He gritted his teeth. He knew that with every passing second he fell for, the 100 times more painful the inevitable CRASH! would be when he inevitably hit the ground, but there was nothing he could do to slow his fall. Sam watched as Miguel's arms flailed all around him, trying desperately to grab onto anything that could save him. But to no avail. Soon, a sickening CRACK filled the air as Miguel landed on the worst thing he possibly could have landed on: the banister of the staircase. Sam almost threw up as she saw Miguel's spine bend at an impossible angle, before the teenager bounced off the banister and landed on the stairs in a motionless heap.

All of the noise and shocked shouts around Sam suddenly diminished, as the ringing in her ears overpowered all of them. She felt her mouth run bone-dry and her head and heart both started pounding louder than a bass drum. Terrified, Sam ventured a glance down the stairs, where a crowd was starting to gather around Miguel's limp body. As soon as Sam saw Miguel, his eyes glassy and his cheeks pale like a corpse, all of the blood felt like it evaporated out of Sam's body. Her legs gave out, she slid to the floor, and she nearly passed out right then and there. The only thing that stopped her from going completely unconscious was the fact that Miguel was lying there on the floor below and she needed to get to him. Forcing her uncooperative legs to scramble to their feet, ignoring the searing pain she was feeling in her arm, Sam eventually made it over to Miguel…

The next couple of minutes went by in a blur. Not that Sam was enjoying herself! Of course not! It was that a certain numbness had taken over Sam. Her whole body throbbed in pain from her fight with Tory, but none of that came even close to the numbed pain her mind was feeling seeing her ex-boyfriend lying there on the ground. Was he her ex-boyfriend? That single word didn't seem to exactly cover their relationship. Well, not for Sam anyways. She still cared about him, cared about him a lot. He was so much more than just an ex, and if last night's kiss had proven anything, it was that the two still had a lot of chemistry between them. Sam had felt something when kissing Miguel - although kissing Robby generated sparks, kissing Miguel was like fireworks. Sam cared about him in a way that she didn't care about anyone else. As Sam thought about her feelings for him, Sam looked at him and was only too aware of his unconsciousness. Tears sprung to Sam's eyes as she thought about the very real chance that that was the last time she, and anyone in the world, would ever see Miguel. Such a sweet, loving, innocent young man ripped off the earth WAY too young. NO! Miguel wasn't dead! He couldn't be! And Sam couldn't afford to think like that!

Just then, Sam was roughly shoved aside by a paramedic, who sprinted over to Miguel and immediately started assessing the situation. The worst part for Sam was that she had no idea what was going on. All she could see was now two paramedics leaning over Miguel's body. She didn't know if he was still alive. If he was still breathing. If he had been killed on impact. Because nobody could survive a 4 story fall like that. NOBODY. Sam furiously threw the thoughts back out of her brain again, but no matter how hard she tried, they kept coming back. As the paramedics loaded Miguel onto a stretcher, Sam finally had a chance to assess the situation around her. Everyone around was gone, leaving the halls deathly quiet. Robby was gone. All of the previously gawking students had disappeared, leaving just her, Miguel and the paramedics in the hallways. But not for long. Miguel was very quickly carried out onto the stretcher and into an ambulance, leaving just Sam in the deserted halls. Sam was about to follow the paramedics out of the building, when suddenly, she felt her hair being grabbed and roughly pulled back, preventing her from moving. Sam spun around in her weakened state to see Tory, brass knuckles in her hands and murder in eyes.

"Hey, Larusso. Ready to finish the fight?" Tory growled, her fingers curling around the spiked knuckles. Sam wanted to run but her legs seemed immobile. Her heart started pounding as Tory prowled towards her like a lion at the end of a hunt. Sam's arms suddenly felt like lead, too heavy to raise to defend herself. She could only watch in panic as Tory drew her fist back, before sending it crashing towards Sam's head…

"NOOOO!" Sam cried, shooting upright in her bed. Sam's head whipped around frantically as she tried to get a bearing of her surroundings. Soon, she realised that she wasn't in West Valley. She was home. She was safe. Tory wasn't around. She was merely having a nightmare, amplified by the fact that her injured arm was throbbing in pain. Sam checked the clock… 4:30. She groaned. It had been exactly 2 weeks since the school brawl and every night since, the second she closed her eyes, she saw Miguel flying over that balcony. Robby running. Tory returning and mauling her, even though the last part didn't actually happen.

Resigning to the fact that she wasn't going to be getting any more sleep, Sam slowly rolled out of bed and walked over to her closet, stripping off her sweat-soaked pajamas and putting on a clean pair. She then stumbled back over to her bed and grabbed her phone, turning it on and causing it to illuminate her tear-streaked face. As her phone scanned her face and automatically unlocked, it revealed the last news article she was reading. Block capital letters at the top read… MURDERER OF ALL-VALLEY CHAMPION ARRESTED, GOES TO JUVIE

Rage immediately filled Sam's body. She absolutely HATED that title, and she would sue the news agency if she could. It was so inaccurate, and it made Sam want to throw her phone against the wall in fury. First of all, Miguel was not dead. Sure it had been two weeks of him being in a coma with no sign of improvement, but that didn't mean he was dead. He could wake up at any moment, and calling him dead or a lost cause would be like eliminating all hope that he was still alive. Second… Robby. Robby wasn't a murderer. He wasn't even a bad person, let alone the savage murderer that all articles in the Valley made him out to be. He had just made a mistake, a mistake that any of them could have easily made. Miguel, Tory, Hawk, even she could have easily done the exact same thing Robby did, as Robby didn't purposefully kick Miguel over the balcony. He didn't realise how close to the edge him and Miguel were, and he didn't want to send Miguel into a coma. At least Sam hoped that wasn't the case. She hadn't actually seen Robby since the West Valley brawl, let alone spoken to him about the incident, but she could feel in her heart that he didn't mean to do what he did. And this was only emphasised by the fact that Robby had NOT been arrested: he TURNED HIMSELF IN. He recognised that running from the law wasn't helping anyone, least of all himself, so he voluntarily gave himself up to the police, despite being hit with a 3 month juvie sentence.

Sam put her head in her hands. That fight had affected everyone she cared about, and it was all her fault for kissing Miguel. Miguel in the hospital, Robby in juvie, Aisha being transferred to a Private School, her mom and dad barely on speaking terms after her mom forced her dad to close down Miyagi-Do… it was like Sam's whole world was crashing down around her, and there was nothing she could do but close her eyes and pray…

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Falling. That's all Miguel remembered. After Robby kicked him off the balcony, Miguel didn't even feel the pain of hitting the ground. It was like he had gone straight through the ground and he had been teleported high above another world. Now, Miguel sliced through clouds as he fell through a pale blue sky and made his seemingly endless decline. He lost track of how long he had been falling - hours? A day? A week? It felt like an eternity. He knew that none of this was actually real, and it was definitely his comatose mind playing tricks on him, but that didn't take away from the massive confusion and fear he was feeling. What was going to happen to him? Did this mean he was dead on Earth? Why couldn't he feel any aftermath of his fight with Robby? When was he going to stop falling and reach the ground?

Well, one of those answers was revealed to him pretty fast. As Miguel fell through another sheet of fluffy clouds, feeling his stomach rattle around his body in turmoil, suddenly, Miguel was no longer looking down at more clouds beneath him. Instead, he was looking at the crystal clear ocean all around him, with a small island seemingly in the distance. Miguel was around about a thousand feet in the air, but there was absolutely nothing he could do but brace himself for the impact as he hurtled towards the water…

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Chug! Chug! Chug!

Johnny downed shot after shot after shot of alcohol, not slowing down to breathe, just pouring the fiery liquid straight down his throat. 2 weeks and his life had unravelled completely. He had lost Miguel, Robby, Carmen and his dojo. His life was meaningless and there was nothing he could do to change that.

He was drowning. There was no other way to put it. 2 weeks ago, he had a girlfriend he really cared about, he was slowly mending his relationship with Robby, and he had a non-biological son in Miguel. Now, he had none of them. Carmen, understandably, wanted nothing to do with him after what had happened to her son, Robby was in juvie, not wanting to talk to anyone. And Miguel…

Coaching Miguel over the past year and a half was the best part of Johnny's entire life. The progress that Miguel had made in that time was incredible. He had gone from a shy kid who was getting his ass kicked by asshole jocks, to a strong, confident man who stood up for himself and didn't take shit from anyone, but not compromising his kind personality in the process. That was certainly more than Johnny had ever achieved back in high school. Johnny thought back to the time when he first told Miguel that the young man had the potential to be better than he ever was. He was wrong: Miguel didn't just have the potential, he was already much, much better than Johnny ever was, and probably ever would be. He showed honor towards Robby, but little did he know that showing honor would be his downfall…

Miguel was the only person in Johnny's entire life who hadn't given up on him and was always there for him, and Johnny always tried to return the favor. Miguel was different to everyone else, different to all of the relationships that Johnny had screwed up in the past: Ali, Carmen, Shannon Keene, Robby…

Robby. It had been an absolute whirlwind of a relationship between them. Johnny had made no contact or attempt at a relationship with him for the first 15 years of his life. But then he wanted to get involved but Robby obviously pushed him away. The morning of the school fight though was a massive stride in their relationship. It was almost… father-son normality. Then came the fight and Johnny honestly had no idea where he stood. Should he take the side of his own flesh and blood, who nobody had even seen since the fight? Or should he take the side of the boy who has been nothing but loyal to him ever since they began? Johnny hadn't seen Robby since the school fight: he had stayed drunk and secluded in his dingy apartment ever since that night, and Larusso had taken care of finding Robby and convincing him to turn himself in.

Johnny sat in the wreckage of his apartment and he drank. He didn't just drink himself to oblivion, he drank further than that. He drank so much that he needed subtitles when he spoke. Not that he was speaking to anyone. After Carmen kicked him out of the hospital and he found out that he lost all of his students to Kreese, all Johnny could bring himself to do was sit in his apartment and drink Coors after Coors after Coors until he blacked out…

So that's chapter 1. Hope you enjoyed it! A bit of a slow start but a LOT more to come, trust me! Stay tuned for the next chapter coming soon!