CHAPTER 68

Marcos and Hawk remained on their feet, a real miracle at this point given the severe blows both had taken. They had landed an endless amount of punches and kicks on one another, not quite enough to knock their opponent out but enough to considerably weaken both of them. Of the two of them, Marcos had the clear upper hand, but to say that he hadn't taken plenty of damage himself would be a lie. Both of the boys' emotional mental states had left them defensively vulnerable to so many strikes. It was now up to the flip of a coin who landed that killer blow and as luck would have it, it was Marcos.

It was an extremely brutal hit too. As Marcos parried two of Hawk's punches, allowing the mohawked teenager to extend both arms in the process, Marcos slapped the arms both sideways so they were pushed out of the way and his head was exposed, at least for a few split seconds before he brought his hands back up to protect himself. And those few split seconds were all Marcos needed to capitalize, sending a vicious spinning heel kick at Hawk's head.

SMACK!

The kick was so powerful, and it so accurately landed to the side of Hawk's head that he could've easily knocked Hawk's head clean off his shoulders. He didn't manage to do that though, instead managing to knock Hawk to the ground, the boy collapsing in a heap and letting out an audible cry of pain.

Marcos had done it. He had won. He stood over Hawk's barely moving body, seeing the boy slowly writhing and groaning in pain and for what felt like the hundredth time, all of a sudden he heard his dad once again, speaking in his ear.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! FINISH HIM, CUPCAKE! You can't let him off this easily! This man wanted to kill you! To beat the fucking shit out of you! You're really going to let him get away with it?! Because if you do, you're a disgrace to our family name! You're a disgrace to this family! To your mother…"

Once again, it was the internal mention of Marcos' late mother that broke him. Even though his father right here was just a figment of his own imagination, of his own subconscious, it still felt so real. It was such an eerie feeling, like the man was standing right in front of him, yelling these things right to his face. Hearing all of it caused the fury to once again bubble up and erupt like an active volcano, swirling around like a tornado and preparing to crash down on his enemy like a tsunami wave.

Marcos was completely gone now. His father's voice had sliced whatever tether he had left to humanity. He was completely unhinged, hell bent on now releasing all of his anger on the helpless boy laying before him. Marcos stood over him once more, crouching down so he was closer to the teenager, and he began to rain killer shots on his opponent. He had no idea how far he was going to go with this, and quite frankly he didn't care at this point. He was hopped up on his feelings of anger and desire for revenge.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Marcos kept going. And going. And going. It was absolutely brutal. As Hawk cried out for him to stop, Marcos did not oblige. This guy wanted to fight him to the end? This is what that entailed. And Marcos knew that there was no way that if the roles were reversed, Hawk would've packed it in and gone home as soon as he won. No… if the past few months were any indication, Hawk wanted him to suffer, so Marcos intended to give him the same thing.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

More punches. More brutal hammers that slammed down on the defenseless teenager. Marcos hit him and hit him and hit him. After almost a week of taking the same thing and even worse from his father, it was almost cathartic being able to release all of his pent up anger and helplessness from this on his opponent.

Marcos didn't get to do so for much longer though. Before he could throw another punch, all of a sudden Marcos felt himself roughly tackled away from Hawk and onto the ground. He landed heavily but wearily rolled to his feet, finding himself standing face to face with someone else, someone equally familiar.

"Robby?" Marcos asked. It was Robby. His stormy, furious eyes scowled daggers at Marcos, the two teenagers illuminated by the moonlight in the canyon.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Robby shouted. "You said you weren't going to fight him!"

"Yeah, well plans change." He shot back. In the corner of his eye, Marcos saw Moon hurrying around behind them and over to Hawk, trying to help the barely conscious boy.

"Turn around. Go home." Robby demanded. Marcos remained right where he was.

"Could say the same to you. This was supposed to be between me and Hawk. Not anyone else."

"And you've clearly beaten him. It's time to go home." Robby responded. Marcos shook his head.

"I wasn't finished yet." He told him, his eyes flickering over to his fallen foe. Robby noticed this and took half a step towards Marcos, forcing himself to push down any apprehension he had about facing such a formidable opponent.

"Yes. You are." He replied. "You want to get him? Then you're going to have to go through me first."

Marcos thought about this for a moment before nodding.

"Fine. I don't care how many of you I beat." He replied, still completely in a trance, wrapped up in his emotions. Before he could stop himself, he was in a fighting stance, Robby doing the same, ready to fight…

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

On a normal day, Marcos Oliviera was a better fighter than Robby Keene. He could feel it, and he knew that Robby could too. Although Robby had come leaps and bounds under the teachings of Chozen since their last fight, they could both clearly sense that Marcos still possessed the advantage between the two, both technically and physically.

But this wasn't a normal day. This was one of the worst days in one of the worst weeks of Marcos' life. It had come after a week of being abused by his father, and a few minutes after a long, bloody fight with Hawk. He could feel the blood slowly trickling down his chin from a slit on his cheek that Hawk had created upon landing a well-placed hook punch. Marcos was clearly carrying some fatigue and wear after his latest fight and after a week of being beaten by his father. Robby, on the other hand, was physically at the top of his game. Chozen's military-like physical training worked him to the bone and it was clearly paying dividends now.

Not only this, but it was clear that from the moment the fight started, this was exactly the same case not only physically, but mentally as well. Marcos' mind was a mess. It was a fucking mess. There was no other way to describe it. With everything going on, it was impossible for Marcos to remain collected and mentally stable, while Robby had never had his mind more balanced. For instance, given Marcos' obvious height and reach advantage over his opponent, a smart strategy that he probably would've deployed on another day would've been to keep his distance and use his reach to keep Robby at his own distance. However, fueled by his rage, Marcos instead lunged straight away at Robby.

Marcos didn't care about all of the small intricacies to fighting, the tiniest of details that he paid attention to and exploited, a combination of these miniscule differences being what made him such a talented fighter on his day. He ignored all of this, instead resorted to slugging a combination of punches so powerful that Robby could almost hear them as they whizzed by his ear and he blocked them. Even though Marcos wasn't at the peak of his game right now, that didn't mean that he was any less lethal of a fighter. Even if his brain wasn't right, he still had his speed, he still had his power, he still had his agility, and that was more than enough to make him a genuine contender in this fight.

Aggressive as he was, Marcos managed to force Robby onto defense early on into the fight, taking him aback and putting the pressure on immediately. Calm down, Robby told himself. This is just another fight. Just another opponent. This is exactly what you've trained for. Helping protect your friends… this is exactly why you're still doing Karate after everything that happened.

As Robby said all of these assurances to himself, he managed to successfully block all of Marcos' maneuvers, exhausting the already tired Cobra and soon allowing time for Robby to throw some strikes of his own. This was one of the greatest strengths to him training under Chozen's karate. His transition from defense to offense and vice versa was so much smoother, as they learned both combined under Chozen's style of Karate, rather than separately like they did with Johnny and Daniel.

Robby's lightning-quick switch from defense to offense also took Marcos by surprise, and Robby almost landed a finishing blow with his first offensive strike. Marcos managed to block it just in time, but still was forced to eat the other two blows Robby threw in his combination, a punch to the solar plexus and a punch to the kidneys that sent Marcos stumbling backwards, stunned for a moment, having to catch his breath.

However, shortly after, Marcos came back out swinging. Sure he had taken those hits from Robby but if anything, they had energized him even more, motivated him even more to destroy his opponent. He sent a brutal combination of his own, around half of his blows managing to bury in their target and knock Robby backwards too.

The two went like this, back and forth, back and forth, for a while. It was not too dissimilar to the fight Marcos had just finished against Hawk. After all, it was the same Martial Art that both Robby and Hawk were using, and they had been trained by almost the same senseis. One key difference though was that while Hawk allowed his anger to propel him, Robby remained dead-calm for the entirety of the fight. No matter how many painful strikes Marcos landed, Robby remained razer-focused on blocking the next one and sending back combinations of his own. He had truly found inner peace training with Chozen, and his arsenal of techniques flowed so smoothly now, just like Marcos' did. He kept himself calm and composed, planning exactly what his next move would be, always managed to stay a few steps ahead and evading Marcos' incoming attacks.

But despite this, Robby knew that he could feel the cruel vortex of fatigue beginning to try and suck him in. The fight was exhausting, as he wasn't used to fighting someone of Marcos' caliber, let alone managing to keep up with him, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to do this forever. Although he was in the best shape of his life and probably the best shape of any of the Miyagi-Do students, Robby still knew that he needed to land a blow quickly if he wanted to win this.

And that was exactly what Robby did. Digging deep in his collection of techniques, Robby decided to use one of the latest moves that Chozen had taught him, one that he had only just earned Chozen's trust enough to take to him. He had never seen it used before being taught it, but had actually heard a bit about it from Mr. Larusso and his dad. It had been used before in the Valley, but thankfully not since Marcos had arrived, so the boy had no idea what to do to counter it.

Ducking under Marcos' latest punch, Robby then threw his own counter strike, not at Marcos face or body, but instead under his arm, right on the pressure point. Before Marcos could react, his entire right arm was pointing downwards, immoblized, and it didn't take long for Robby to do the same with his other arm. Finally, with both arms effectively paralysed, Robby sent a final punch to Marcos' exposed face and knocked him to the ground, laying there in a heap on the sand.

At this point, all of the adrenaline had rushed out of Robby's system and he took in the scene before him. He saw Hawk being slowly helped to his feet by Moon, now semi-conscious and recovering from his beatdown. He then looked down at his opponent, now harmless as he remained on the ground, semi-conscious. For the first time since his arrival in the Valley, someone had not only taken the fight to Marcos and given him a run for his money, but Robby had even knocked him down. He had done it! He had won!