CHAPTER 31

"Alright. It's late. We've got training first thing tomorrow morning. We should probably get going now." Sam said to her friends as they sat at their table, all pretty quiet since the massive confrontation with Miguel. They had been in pretty somber moods, and none of them had spoken much. They were all silently stewing in anger at Cobra Kai, and the monsters the dojo in Reseda had become.

The group all stood up and paid, before heading for the exit of the restaurant. As they walked through the restaurant on their way out, Sam looked around the restaurant and saw that Miguel had left, but his friend was still at the bar, buying a drink. Sam nodded, assuming that Miguel had left to go cool off after the heated encounter. She was also extremely pissed at him, more so than she had been in a long time. After the arcade fight, Sam had vouched for him in front of the other Miyagi-Dos, argued that he still had good inside of him, but two months later, Sam was having trouble seeing that in him anymore. He had gone maniacally insane, sucked into the same vortex as the rest of Cobra Kai.

Just as the Miyagi-Dos were leaving the restaurant, Sam turned around and saw Miguel's friend at the bar, holding two beers in his hands. TWO beers. That meant Miguel wasn't far away. But he wasn't at his table, and wasn't in the bathroom as the bathroom door was wide open. She remembered how heated Miguel had gotten, and how he had vowed to 'teach Demetri a lesson.' But that meant…

Suddenly, everything clicked into place, and Sam's eyes widened in horror as she saw Demetri and the rest of Miyagi-Do step through the exit doors.

"DEMETRI! WAIT! IT'S A…"

Before Sam could complete her sentence, she saw a shadow appear out of nowhere, and Demetri suddenly get grabbed, picked up and thrown into a neighboring alley like he was a sack of garbage, causing him to go flying and hit the ground with a sickening thump. The Miyagi-Dos sprinted after them into the alley, and saw Miguel standing over an only partly conscious Demetri. Miguel turned around to face them, and watched as all 6 of the other Miyagi-Dos got into fighting stances. He smirked and mimicked the stance, clenching his jaw in determination.

"Okay. Game on…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Miyagi-Do were expecting Miguel to be good. No doubt about that. He had grown visibly stronger and bigger since the last time they saw him, so an improvement in skill was also expected. But what they couldn't have possibly imagined in a million years was how good he had become. With the element of surprise about his abilities on his side too, Miyagi-Do stood no chance. They weren't at all in sync with their attacks, so they weren't able to lay a hand on Miguel. The cobra could slither around their strikes with ease, and he picked off each of them one by one.

First, he charged at Chris, ducking the boy's heavy hook attempt and front kicking him straight in the stomach with all of his might. Absolutely winded, Chris flew back and hit the back wall of the alley, momentum causing him to bounce back off the wall and stumble forward. Just as he was back in Miguel's range again, Miguel caught him at the perfectly timed spin heel kick to Chris' jaw. The boy went down like a light after that, knocked out cold and hitting the ground with a loud THUD.

The next few Miyagi-Dos were extremely easy to wipe out. NONE of them were near to the standard of fighters Miguel was used to going up against in his fight club, so all it took him was a single kick to knock them out cold. A short while later, he had 5 more Miyagi-Dos knocked out on the ground, lying in a sickening pile in the dark, abandoned alley. There was now only one Miyagi-Do left standing, and Miguel quickly locked onto his target, strolling towards her.

Sam stumbled backwards in fear as Miguel slowly prowled towards her like a Great White Shark casually swimming towards its next meal, and Sam nearly tripped on the body of one of her vanquished friends.

"Miguel… Miguel, please. You don't have to do this. It doesn't have to end this way." She stammered. Miguel chuckled mirthlessly as he stared into the terrified ocean eyes of his ex-girlfriend, only coldness and mercilessness in his own unblinking chestnut ones. Sam was now the only person in Miyagi-Do Miguel hadn't fought and conquered in the past two years. Hell, she was the only person in the whole Valley who had not lost a single fight since joining the dojo war. But that was all about to change…

"Come on, Sam. It was always going to end this way." Miguel replied, and he lunged at her…

To her credit, Sam lasted A LOT longer than her Miyagi-Do teammates did. She was able to block Miguel's first couple of strikes and stay on her feet. However, in doing so, the force he had used to throw those strikes was absorbed by her blocking arms, causing her unspeakable pain. Eventually, Miguel managed to catch Sam with a vicious right hook that sent her staggering backwards and clutching her jaw. As she recovered, she looked at Miguel with a combination of newfound astonishment and horror on her face.

"You would… you would really hit me?" Sam stammered. She had always thought that no matter how dark Miguel got, there was always a line. She had always thought she was the line. And arcade fight, she genuinely let herself hope that there was a chance he would quit Cobra Kai and join Miyagi-Do. However, all of that hope drained away in an instant as Miguel looked at her remorselessly and shrugged.

"Why are you so surprised? Equal rights, equal fights, isn't it?" Miguel smirked at her, before going in for his second wave of offense.

Upon fighting an actually worthy opponent, Miguel knew he couldn't just go into beatdown mode and use full-aggression. He knew that if he did that, Sam would find a way to counter it and win. No, instead he had to use strategy. Lucky for him, his brain was practically oozing with battle plans from all of his fights at the fight club. He internally scrolled through his list of various tactics and decided on grappling. It might have been a dumb choice due to his reach and height advantage, but he knew it would extremely potent due to his epic size and strength. Grappling was now what Miguel was best at - even better than striking - and it helped that most karate students were completely unprepared for a grappling and wrestling attack.

After a couple of brutal kicks to the head and body dazing her greatly, Miguel quickly lunged at her, grabbed her leg and tackled her to the ground, the brunette girl hitting the asphalt with a loud THUD. She wasn't quite out-cold, but Miguel didn't finish the job. For something in the corner of his eye had caught his attention more. The boy he had first grabbed and thrown into the alley was finally starting to rise, and was stumbling to his feet at that very moment. Miguel smirked and stood up, walking away from Sam and creeping towards the unaware teenager. A couple of seconds later though, Demetri turned around and saw Miguel walking towards him, and immediately a petrified expression crossed Demetri's face as he looked into Miguel's ruthless, unforgiving eyes.

"Miguel, please. I beg you. Please stop." Demetri cried. Miguel chuckled as he grabbed the skinny teenager and yanked him to his feet, absolutely no mercy on his mind whatsoever.

"Hmmmm… let me think about it." Miguel grinned at him mirthlessly for several moments, before wrapping his arm around Demetri and hip throwing him to the ground. "No…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

As George walked back to the table, beers in his hands, he looked at his table and saw that Miguel was gone. He sighed and rolled his eyes, thinking Miguel had gone home. That had been the extent of their friendship over the past 2 months: Miguel would get into confrontations, George would pull him away, Miguel would go home and sulk. Their friendship was in the pits, and George was pretty close to giving up on it entirely. After all, he had no interest in being friends with the bully jackass Miguel had become.

Looking around the restaurant, George noticed the Miyagi-Do table empty and his heart dropped. He instantly knew exactly where Miguel and Miyagi-Do was, and he raced out of the restaurant as fast as he could and saw the action going on in the nearby alley.

Miguel stood over Demetri, grabbing the semi-conscious boy by his jacket with one hand, and using his right to pound ruthless blows at Demetri's face. Miguel said that he wanted to make Demetri suffer, he wanted to rearrange the other teenager's face, and that was exactly what he was doing now.

"Come on! Talk now, huh?! TALK NOW!" Miguel screamed at him as he bloodied every inch of Demetri's face as the boy coughed and spluttered. Before the fight, Demetri had talked too much. But now, as he smashed his face, gave him elbow after elbow, Demetri had no answer. Miguel tried to make him talk back but Demetri, for possibly the first time in his life, had just shut up. That was exactly why Miguel, when in a fight, liked to not only beat his opponent, but absolutely maul them. True personalities came to light in those situations. The strong survived, but the weak… the weak sank to the bottom of the ocean.

As George rushed over to the scene, he quickly locked an arm around Miguel and threw him away from the now completely unconscious Demetri. Although Miguel might be stronger and a better fighter than his friend, George was still a hockey player so was extremely strong too, strong enough to keep Miguel away from his victim.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" George yelled at Miguel as he shoved Miguel away from the alley. Miguel chuckled and grinned as he finally stepped back and took in the scene of his carnage. Lifeless Miyagi-Dos were scattered all over the alley, Sam lying on one side, Demetri lying on the other, and everyone else in between them.

"What? They started this by trash talking me. They just didn't have the bite to back up the bark. This is justice." Miguel replied coolly. George's eyes widened in disbelief at his friend's words. Although George had seen Miguel fight random people before, this was the first time he had seen him fight his former friends, and definitely the first time Miguel had vanquished his opponents so ruthlessly, so George was still partly in shock.

"THIS IS JUSTICE?! Miguel, fucking look around! You could have killed them!" George exclaimed. Miguel scoffed.

"I was never going to kill them. As weak as these sacks of fat and bone seem to be, they're not about to die from their injuries." Miguel stated.

"That's not the fucking point, Miguel!" George shouted. Miguel shrugged.

"I get your point, George. I'm not a fucking retard." Miguel spat. "But anyone who has the gall to talk shit about me deserves every last bit of that fight and more."

George stared into Miguel's cold, unblinking eyes and he took a shaky breath, tears threatening to come to his normally stoic ones.

"Miguel, you need help." George whispered. "You might think that this new regimen Kreese has you is helping but trust me, as one of the last people who really care about you anymore, I can tell you it isn't."

"Oh yeah! Getting stronger, fitter, better fighter. God forbid, right?" Miguel snapped sarcastically. "Look, just shut the fuck up, man. You don't know what you're talking about so just… just stay out of this, alright?"

Miguel then stormed away from George, leaving the pile of Miyagi-Do semi-conscious bodies in the alley behind him…

As Miguel left, George watched him leave and put his head in his hands. He was honestly clueless, out of ideas on what to do next. He wasn't going to give up on his friend, and was desperate to try and pull Miguel away from the dark path he was currently on before it was too late. Today it was beating people up. What if tomorrow Miguel got his hands on a gun? What would happen then? And what was going to happen when Robby - the person Miguel hated the most in the world - got out of juvie? If this was as far as Miguel was willing to go for people he personally didn't have thaaaat much against, George was scared to see how far Miguel was going to go when he had his inevitable showdown with Robby.

George knew that now, the situation was officially out of his control to do anything. He needed some help. But from whom? He couldn't go to the cops as that would be just plain stupid and a massive betrayal of Miguel's trust, and going to Miguel's mom would not be much better. But he did need someone who genuinely cared about Miguel, and the list of those people was decreasing with every passing day. Eventually, George came up with a plan and he got in his car and headed to Miguel's compound. He already knew that Miguel wouldn't be home as he would probably be back at the fight club, letting out more steam and frustration, so that worked out well for him. He got out of his car and walked up to the extremely familiar house, before knocking on the door. A few moments later, the person he was looking for answered the door. George took a deep breath.

"Hi. Um… I'm sorry to come by like this, but it's just… can we talk? I'm worried about Miguel."

Miguel's yaya stared at her grandson's best friend, a tired expression on her face. She knew as well as anyone that Miguel was not doing so well, and he needed their help. She smiled faintly at the boy standing on the front doorstep and nodded.

"Yes, come in…"