CHAPTER 29

"You fought well today, kid." Kreese remarked. That night, Miguel had been shocked to see a message from Kreese asking him to meet him at the dojo at 9. Miguel had complied, expecting him to be calling Miguel for some extra training, but to his surprise, Kreese had taken him in his car and had driven away from the dojo. They were in the car now and Kreese had just parked after around a 20 minute drive.

"Thanks." Miguel replied as they got out of the car and he looked around. He had absolutely no idea where they were. Kreese had definitely taken him to one of the rougher parts of the city. Kicked over garbage cans were strewn all over the roads. Gangs of thugs huddled in alley ways. "Um… sensei, where are we?" Miguel asked nervously.

"We're training off-campus tonight." Kreese replied.

"Just me? Where's everyone else?" Miguel asked as they walked down the street.

"Just you. Because let's face it, you're my best chance of winning the tournament." Kreese remarked, causing Miguel to smirk.

"You mean I'm your best student?" Miguel commented. Kreese rolled his eyes.

"Don't flatter yourself. You've seen the others." He replied, before stopping at a random dark alleyway and turning into it to find a door covered with iron bars.

Just the sight of the place sent shivers down Miguel's spine. This seemed like the beginning of every missing person story. They could hear faint shouting inside the door, and couldn't see anything around them given that it was pitch-black outside, so Miguel was uneasy. Kreese, however, was extremely calm and just knocked on the door several times. Moments later, the door swung open and none other than Barnes opened it, and Barnes pulled Kreese and Miguel inside.

"Hey." Barnes nodded at Kreese. "Is the boy ready for this?"

"Not in the slightest." Kreese responded, before turning to a now pretty nervous Miguel. "But he's gotta start somewhere, right?"

"Woah, woah, woah, start what?" Miguel stammered.

"Well, right now Keene is fighting against and therefore learning from the best teenage fighters in the state: the boys in juvie with him. So if we want to beat him in the tournament, we need to one-up him. We need to train you with the next tier up: these juvenile delinquents dads."

With that, they reached a door and pushed it open, Miguel following them inside. He couldn't help but let out a small gasp as he stepped into the large space before him. It was the epitome of an underground fight club. Dim lights flickered from the ceiling. The putrid smell of sweat and blood wafted up Miguel's unwelcoming nostrils. A steel cage octagon stood in the center of the room, with two grown adults viciously fighting with each other inside. A couple of other men stood around the cage, bellowing at the men inside. The Cobra Kais walked over to the cage and Miguel watched as one of the men inside expertly threw the other to the ground and pounded on him until he was barely conscious, before standing over him and raising his hands in triumph.

An eruption of cheers and boos echoed through the abandoned club from the mouths of the 8 other men there, all of whom looked absolutely terrifying. They were all at least in their twenties, their backs and chests covered with vicious tattoos of snakes, skulls, fire and anything else that looked terrifying to fight against. They were all shredded with muscle, even the short person who was about 5'8 probably weight about 220 pounds and was 100% muscle. But the scariest part about them were their faces. All of them looked like they had murder in their eyes. They clenched their teeth like a wolf growls and shows its fangs. And when they yelled, it was so booming that it practically shook the room.

After the defeated man had been carried off the mat by two other men, the victor stayed in the ring and looked at the men surrounding it.

"Come on! Who's next?!" He shouted. The thunderous fight club suddenly went deathly silent for nearly a minute, the only sound each of their pounding hearts, before the man standing next to Miguel spoke up.

"He'll do it!" Barnes announced, pointing at Miguel beside him. All of the men turned towards the Cobra Kais and noticed Miguel standing there for the first time. They recognised Kreese and Barnes as the pair had been to the club tons of times beforehand, but they tensed up as they saw the newcomer who looked like a teenager.

"I'm fighting the kid?" The man grunted, slightly surprised. Miguel felt Kreese practically shove him to his feet.

"Yes, Rodrigo, you are." Kreese replied. "You're training him on how to fight against people better than him, so give him everything you've got. Diaz, you got any problems with that?"

Everyone turned and looked at Miguel, who looked anxious beforehand but upon feeling the gaze of the whole room on him, wiped the nerves from his face and walked towards the steel cage, putting on a mouthguard and stepping inside. As soon as he stepped into the steel cage and the door slammed shut behind him, all of the noise coming from around him diminished in his ears. All he could hear was his own pounding heart. All he could see was the opponent before him. Rodrigo looked to be way out of Miguel's weight and age class. He looked to be about 5'8 and 230 pounds of rock hard muscles. He smirked at Miguel as the two men circled on another, practically frothing at the mouth in anticipation like the lion sensing an easy kill. Miguel ignored the fact that the odds were so massively against him - he had beaten the odds before - and he charged at Rodrigo…

Almost as soon as he made the lunge, he knew that he had fucked up. This man was stronger than him so he couldn't outstrike him, and faster than him so he wouldn't be able to dodge and weave around him. Miguel's kicking combination was easily blocked by his opponent, and one uppercut to Miguel's chin was enough to send him staggering backwards. But Rodrigo wasn't about to let him rest there. He continued lunging at Miguel with a flying knee to his chin so powerful that it sent Miguel crashing against the back of the cage and caused him to see stars. They weren't wearing anything to protect themselves so Miguel was forced to feel the full and complete impact of the blow. He stumbled against the back of the cage, leaning against it for support as he couldn't yet stand properly, and he was utter defenseless to protect himself.

"Come on, princess. Tired already?" Rodrigo, smirked, before grabbing him and ragdolling him to the ground as if he were as light as a feather. But that wasn't the end. Keeping hold of the teenager, Rodrigo pulled him up to his feet and ragdolled him to the ground again. And again. And again. Miguel was powerless to stop him and just as he felt him start to lose consciousness, he heard Kreese's bark for Rodrigo to stop, and the man let go of him shortly after. Miguel vaguely felt himself being picked up and carried out of the cage by Kreese and Barnes, and laid in the back of the room as the senseis used a battered old first aid kit to wipe up Miguel's various scrapes and cuts.

"Ah fuck that was painful." Miguel murmured as he groaned in pain as his shoulder flared in agony.

"See, the problem is that you're coming too close. Rodrigo's a grappler. You don't want to be in close contact with him for long or he'll pounce on you like a grizzly." Barnes explained. "When you fight him this time, try and keep a distance away from him. You've got longer reach. Use that."

The scalding pain all over Miguel's limbs suddenly vanished as his blood ran cold upon listening to something Barnes had said.

"I'm sorry, this time I fight him?" Miguel stammered.

"Yeah, you fight him again in 10 minutes." Kreese stated.

"WHAT?!" Miguel shouted. Kreese chuckled.

"Welcome to hardcore training…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And for the next two months, Miguel spent every night without fail at the club with either Barnes, Kreese or Silver at the club. At the start, it was an absolute nightmare for Miguel. He would have the living daylights beaten out of him, pushing him to the brink of exhaustion and serious injury every night. He would get beat up one night, recover a little the next day, and then have the crap beaten out of him that next night. It was a seemingly never ending cycle and around a week into it Miguel was about to quit. But then, a miracle happened…

The cycle broke. Rather than having his ass handed to him, he was actually able to fight back. He earned the respect of the other men there, and in turn, they taught him their own respective fighting styles. From this, Miguel quickly became an expert in other Martial Arts such as boxing, Sambo, Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, as well as many more. His striking became as fast as lightning and just as lethal. Grappling with him was like wrestling a grizzly bear. A kick to the head from Miguel was now like a brick being smashed against the opponent. Miguel was by far in the best physical condition of his life - hell, he was probably the fittest, strongest kid in the Valley at this point - and he absolutely loved it. He felt limitless, unbound, constantly pushing his physical ceiling higher and higher. The training had also clearly affected his looks too. He had begun to look like the men training in that club with him. Muscles rippled and practically popped through every one of his shirts. He had shaved his head into a buzz cut as it made him look a lot more threatening for some reason. He had even gotten a tattoo of a Cobra right over his heart, signifying his allegiance to the dojo and how grateful he was for everything Cobra Kai had done for him.

However, invisible to him, the others around him were noticing some worrying things about him. While normally he was the cool head who didn't like things to escalate to fights unless they had to, now he had become a lot more aggressive. Because he spent so much time in environments like Cobra Kai and his fight club where all conflicts were solved with fists, it had started to rub off on other parts of his life. He had become very short when arguing with his friends and family, and wasn't afraid to exchange fists with random strangers who pissed him off on the streets, consequences be damned. In particular, George, his mom and his yaya were getting worried about him, as they were the only people truly in his corner right now. Tensions in Cobra Kai were still extremely high between Miguel and Hawk. Although Hawk didn't think Miguel was weak anymore and knew that with Miguel's new training he would absolutely demolish him, Hawk's anger towards his former friend hadn't waned, and instead had only increased. He was sick and tired of the special treatment Miguel had been getting from the senseis, and the two had come extremely close to exchanging blows several times throughout November, but all of their spats had been broken up before they could escalate to physical.

Across the Valley, there were mixed feelings in Miyagi-Do as to how their dojo was going. They had of course seen and heard about Miguel's massive transformation as they saw him at school every day, but things weren't going too badly for them. Upon hearing about Miguel's transformation, Daniel realised how much they really needed Robby after he got out of juvie so he visited the teenager every other day after work. After a rough start, Robby had settled down and the relationship between him and Daniel had grown back to how it was before, strong as ever. However, without Robby currently in the dojo, Miyagi-Do were lucky they hadn't had a confrontation with Cobra Kai yet.

On the Monday in the last week of November, Miguel walked out of the fight club after a long, exhausting session, his limbs aching with pain. Although he was an infinitely better fighter than he was two months ago, he still had a slight size disadvantage over most of the men there and definitely lost more fights than he won. However, he hadn't been destroyed by anyone since that first week, and all of his fights since then had been very two-sided. As he stepped onto the street, he opened his phone and saw a message from George, knowing that George played hockey nearby and his training had just ended…

Hey dude. Wanna grab a bite at Applebees?

Miguel quickly shot off a response, got on his bike, and headed towards the restaurant. He got there 10 minutes later, and just as he arrived, he saw George parking his car. Miguel locked his bike up and the two boys met at the front of the restaurant.

"Hey. Good timing." George remarked, as the two arrived at the exact same time.

"Yeah." Miguel grunted in reply, before walking into the restaurant together. As they walked in, George eyed Miguel's back and his eyes were filled with worry. He could see his best friend slipping away once again, just like he had back in August at the rehab facility. However, this was completely different to then. Back then, Miguel was struggling with the lack of control he had over everything. Now, he had lost control due the massive amount of power he had suddenly come into. It was slightly frightening to see the day by day change that was happening to Miguel. Right now, he was one of the only people Miguel hadn't turned on, and George was scared that it was only a matter of time before he too was added to the list of his foes.

The two walked through the restaurant towards a table in the back, however as they were on their way, they looked at one of the tables ahead and stopped in their tracks. Sitting all around the table were none other than Miyagi-Do!