CHAPTER 18

The next afternoon, Kreese sat in his office in the Cobra Kai dojo, deep in thought. Despite all of the unrest that was raging through the Valley at the moment, Kreese was content. He was feeling happier and more at peace, the most he had felt since he had gotten back from Vietnam. Being back on a battlefield, leading an Army, strategising how to take down the enemy created a satisfaction within him that he hadn't felt for more than 30 years. He felt more at home on battlefields than he ever had during peacetime. And it truly had become a war between his Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do. Both sides had struck fearsome blows to one another, Johnny not training his side well enough to equip them with the skill needed to win. But Kreese wasn't going to make that mistake. He had already drilled into his students the REAL Cobra Kai way and was looking forward to training Miguel too when he returned. Miguel was his secret weapon: as Miyagi-Do dropped their guard thinking that Miguel would never be back to full strength, Kreese would be training the boy to be stronger and fiercer than ever.

But despite all the positives he had going for his side, Kreese was admittedly nervous. Other than Miguel, Hawk and Tory, he didn't really have any other students that could compete against Miyagi-Do at the highest level. He was relying on a student who was still recovering from breaking his back, a student whose anger issues often dragged him back from his full potential, and a student who had to severely cut back on classes due to her community service requirements. And that wasn't where his troubles ended either. He had heard rumors, whisperings through the Valley that Johnny had gone out of town for some reason, and would be joining Miyagi-Do when he returned, fighting on the side of the man he had hated for over 30 years. The fact that Johnny had decided to do that, although Kreese didn't like to admit it, scared him. He knew that if Johnny was seriously willing to put aside his differences and work with Larusso, they were truly desperate so would be pouring more than 100% of their effort into training their students. With both of them firmly rooted against his Cobras, as well as a severe lack of quality pupils in his dojo, Kreese knew that he needed to bring in reinforcements. FAST. He pondered the thought for several moments, mind racing as he considered the millions of possibilities before him, his brain switching back and forth between ideas for news student and ideas for new teachers. New students. New teachers. Eventually, he got it. He figured out the perfect solution, the perfect path he could carve out that would make Cobra Kai unstoppable. He just needed to make two phone calls…

Less than an hour later, Kreese was out of his office and in his car, driving towards West Valley High School. Now that he had sorted out his sensei problems, his next step was to begin thinking about recruiting some new students. But these students couldn't be just anyone. When Johnny had run Cobra Kai, he had made the mistake of recruiting a bunch of nerds and weaklings who couldn't throw a single punch. Kreese wouldn't make the same mistake. If he wanted to destroy Miyagi-Do, he needed to recruit athletes. Teenagers who already had the killer edge that Miyagi-Do and most of Johnny's old Cobra Kai students did not. They would be tough to find, and few and far between, but Kreese knew what he needed to do to get them onboard. And sure enough, within the next week, he had recruited them…

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"All right students, listen up!" Kreese called, and immediately, the Cobra Kai dojo lapsed into silence as all of them turned to face Kreese at the front of the room. As Tory took off her shoes and looked up, she immediately noticed a couple of changes in the dojo. Standing at the front of the dojo, for the first time since Johnny was kicked out, was more than one sensei. In fact, there were two additional senseis standing beside Kreese, both decked out in black Cobra Kai sensei gis and determination filling their eyes as they stared around the dojo at the eager students. All of them looked on nervously though. Who dared to step to Kreese and challenge him for senseiship of the dojo?

It had been a rough two months for Tory, to say the least. For one thing, she had been working to the bone to try and balance getting her GED, working three jobs to earn money for rent, food and her mom's medical bills, on top of trying to continue Cobra Kai. In addition, another massive question mark in Tory's life was Miguel. Even thinking about him sent her into a white-hot rage. She had absolutely no idea where the two of them stood. On one hand, Miguel had gotten her to open up to him in a way that no one had ever gotten her to open up before. He had managed to see a vulnerable side of her that she normally kept hidden deep, deep down, but he had still betrayed her anyways. He had taken advantage of her and cheated, with the girl she hated most in the world no less. The type of pampered, daddy's credit card using girls who had infuriated Tory to no end her whole life. Even after the school fight which had been Sam's fault to begin with for kissing Miguel, because of her family's power in the Valley, Tory had gotten cast away and expelled from the school and was put on probation as Sam walked away scot-free. And her confusion about Miguel had only amplified when he had woken up from his coma and went off the map to somewhere nobody knew, doing something nobody knew. For all she knew, he was in Hawaii, tanning on a beach in Honolulu. He hadn't been in contact with Hawk or Tory or any Cobra Kai for that matter.

Tory closed her eyes and forced her thoughts about Miguel out of her head as she looked around the room and also saw, to her surprise, 7 new students scattered around the room, all of them glancing nervously at Kreese, their masks of toughness pretty easy to see through. But these new students didn't seem like the old batch of Cobras at all. For a start, they were all in their late teenage years (at least 16 or 17), and none of them were the young kids that Johnny had previously let into the dojo. In addition, they all definitely looked like athletes of some kind. They all had quite a bit of muscle on them already, and all had the look of hunger in their eyes that was synonymous with all athletes. When Tory was finally done looking around, she snapped herself out of her trance as she turned back to Kreese.

"Cobras, I would like to introduce you to our two new senseis. Say hello to Sensei Silver and Sensei Barnes. They're going to be helping me coach you for the next little while. Miyagi-Do might have bested us at the school fight back when Johnny was at the wheel, but I guarantee you that if you listen to what we say, that loss will not happen agai…"

Just as Kreese was finishing his sentence, suddenly, the bell connected to the front door of the dojo rang as the door swung open. All of the original cobras winced as they started to turn around. They knew how much Kreese HATED it when students showed up late and it would always end with that tardy person doing knuckle push-ups until their hands were practically bleeding. But who was the unlucky individual? Tory wondered to herself as she slowly turned around to face towards the door. When she saw who it was though, her heart literally stopped. She felt her face pale and her legs very nearly give out underneath her. The sight she was looking at was something she had never in a million years expected to see, at least not anytime soon. Walking perfectly fine as if nothing had even happened to him, Miguel strolled into the room, a massive lopsided grin on his face as he looked around the dojo.

"Class…" Kreese announced, a faint smile evident on his face as he saw his star pupil for the first time since he was paralysed. "We have a new student…"

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Earlier that day…

76 days. 76 days since the last time Miguel had stepped onto the mat in the Cobra Kai dojo, and he was finally going back today! To say that he was excited was an understatement. He had been working his ass off for more than 2 months to get back into peak fighting shape and now that today was finally the day he could put his training into good use, he was practically bouncing off the walls in apprehension and excitement.

Despite Carmen and Miguel's yaya's slight lingering doubts about Miguel returning to Cobra Kai, they couldn't help but smile as they saw Miguel emerge from his room that afternoon, all dressed in his Cobra Kai gi for the first time in an eternity, a beaming grin on his face large enough to stretch the whole room.

Miguel had arrived 4 days ago from rehab, and Carmen could have cried tears of joy when she saw the finished product of the program. Not only was he able to walk as if the balcony fall had never happened, Miguel looked infinitely happier than he had when he first got out of the coma. He had looked to have regained his self-confidence and self-assuredness for the first time since… well, since he had broken up with Sam over a year ago. And for all of the progress Miguel seemed to have made over the two month rehab period, Carmen had only Kreese to thank for it. The man had treated Miguel like his own son by sending him to a program that there was no way in hell they could have afforded otherwise. Despite Carmen still feeling worried about the Karate war in the Valley between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do and the impact it would have on Miguel, she knew that Kreese definitely cared about her son and had his back, more so than even Johnny did when Miguel started with him.

"Miggy, are you sure you don't want to take a couple more days away from karate?" Carmen asked that afternoon, concerned, as she sat at the table with her son and watched as he scarfed down a sandwich and then prepared to leave for Karate. "You should slowly reintegrate into the Valley. What you went through was huge, and it might be beneficial for you to take things more slow."

Miguel shook his head.

"Hell, no! Mom, I've been dreaming about this day for two and a half months! I'm not postponing it for a second longer!" Miguel exclaimed, eagerly, as he threw his jacket and his belt into his duffel bag and sprinted around the house and searched frantically for his scooter.

"And you shouldn't have to, Miguelito! Kick their asses! Show them that Miguel Diaz is back!" Miguel's yaya exclaimed cheerfully, shadow-boxing the air for several moments in glee as she watched her grandson.

"Mami!" Carmen snapped, disapprovingly, before turning back to her son, the anxious expression still on her face. "Miggy, are you sure? No one would judge you for taking another couple of days away."

"I'm sure, mom." Miguel stated, determined, as he finally found his scooter buried under a pile of stuff that his mom had made to possibly give to charity if his physical therapy treatment hadn't worked. "I can do this."

"I know you can, sweetie." Carmen nodded as Miguel made his way towards the door. "Be safe!"

"Bye, mom! Bye, yaya!" Miguel called as he quickly sped away from his compound in Reseda and headed towards the Cobra Kai dojo. As he was leaving his house, his head turned towards the apartment opposite his and his face briefly knitted itself in a frown as he thought of Johnny. Despite how close they used to be, Miguel didn't know anything about what was going on with Johnny right now, and quite frankly, he didn't care. As fun as Johnny was to be around, at the end of the day, as a mentor and karate coach, he had failed and it had led to Miguel being in a coma and paralysed. He couldn't risk that happening again, so it was best for him to just stay away from his former sensei.

Around 10 minutes later, Miguel finally pulled up to the dojo and as he stood outside, he couldn't help but smile widely. As he had told his mom, every night for the past 2 years he had dreamed of this moment and it was finally coming true. He couldn't wait to get back into training, get back into his paradise and become unstoppable. Because that was the plan: become an unwavering, unbeatable machine that Robby stood no chance against.

Taking a deep breath, Miguel slowly turned the door handle and stepped into the dojo…