CHAPTER 46
"You have GOT to be kidding me!" Sam cried.
"Yeah, Mr. Larusso, you can't possibly think teaming up with these lunatics is a smart idea!" Demetri exclaimed.
"Don't even try and hide it, man. You need us." George remarked, smirking at Demetri, who scowled daggers at the Eagle-Fangs.
"No, we don't." Demetri snapped.
"Well, um… clearly you do." Miguel joked, pointing around the Larusso house at the ruins from Cobra Kai's ambush. Johnny had told them about the attack in the car on the way over, but Miguel was still honestly pretty shocked at the scene before him. He couldn't believe the Cobras had gone that far.
"Hey, you know, I have a bone to pick with you." Demetri snarled, prowling towards Miguel, the latino boy not at all fazed or worried as he knew that he could knock out the scrawny bitch in the blink of an eye. He was more interested as to what Demetri had to say. "Does anyone else find this a massive coincidence? Cobra Kai had been under the radar and hadn't attacked us since early October, nearly 3 months ago. But then, on the ONE weekend you and your sidekick go out of town…"
"Hey, who you calling a sidekick? I could still whoop your ass!" George growled, starting to charge towards him but quickly being held back by Johnny.
"What's your point, Demetri?" Miguel asked tiredly.
"My point is, the one weekend in 3 months that you are out of town, Cobra Kai suddenly strike. It's almost like you knew the attack was coming. Like you had planned it out with them so you wouldn't be accused of not helping us, but also wouldn't be suspected of still having allegiance to Cobra Kai."
"Hey, hey, hey, watch it." Miguel growled, incensed at these ridiculous accusations. "Who the fuck do you think you are…"
"Why you getting so mad, Miguel? Scared that the truth is finally coming out? Scared that people are realising that you've been duping them since you "quit" Cobra Kai, and are actually still the leader of Kreese's army of assholes?"
Miguel was about to blow his fuse and attack Demetri, but for some reason, his words from the night before when he met Emily ran through his head. I'm trying to become a better man, he had told her. And that was the truth. He was, and attacking Demetri would only show him that he had made no progress since that Applebees fight. So instead, Miguel merely looked at Demetri and chuckled.
"Look, you can think what you want. I'm going to be anywhere Sensei Lawrence is and if you have a problem with that, Demetri… well then you can be the one to leave I guess."
"Woah, woah, woah, nobody is leaving!" Daniel said. "Cobra Kai are at their most psychotic, so we need to make sure each person here has the protection of the whole group to be safe from Cobra Kai. That's one of the reasons we need to team up."
"Yeah, Demetri, that basically means he's scared you're going to run your mouth with Cobra Kai and piss them off to the extent they absolutely slaughter you." George remarked, causing Miguel to snicker quietly.
"Alright enough!" Daniel shouted, a harsh tone catching everyone off-guard and rendering them all to silence. "Look, Cobra Kai are a threat to all of us! Each day, they are getting stronger and stronger so even if you are stronger enough to fend them off today, I guarantee you at some point between now and the All-Valley, you won't be. And as almost half of this room, myself included, have been in Cobra Kai at some point, I think we all know Cobra Kai pick their attacks extremely wisely and always target when their enemy is weakest."
"That's true." Demetri said, causing George to look at him with a shocked expression on his face.
"Wait… you were in Cobra Kai?" George asked. When Demetri nodded, George had to work extremely hard to hold back a chuckle. "How'd that work out?"
"He joined for an afternoon, tried to grope Kreese, got punched once in the nose by the man, and then quit." Miguel remarked. George couldn't hold in his laughter any longer, bursting out laughing so hard he was practically rolling around on the ground and Miguel couldn't help join with him. Even Johnny started laughing, which caused Daniel to glare at him.
"What? It's funny!" Johnny commented.
"Johnny!" Daniel snapped. Johnny sighed in defeat.
"Okay, yeah fine. Miguel, George, shut up." He instructed, and the two quietened down, still giggling to themselves as they saw Demetri scowling at them.
"Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'm down for this teamup." Miguel shockingly announced.
"You… you are?" Daniel stammered, surprised. Miguel nodded.
"Yeah. My defense could use a bit of work and I know Miyagi-Do specialise in that. Besides, it'll be fun to have more people in the dojo because we can do more fun activities like Coyote Creek, right?"
"Well, I don't know what Coyote Creek is, but Miguel perfectly summed up why we need to merge dojos." Daniel stated. "Miyagi-Do are great at defense, but we're lacking an offense. Eagle-Fang are great at offense, but are lacking defense. By combining dojos, we'll get the best of both worlds."
"Alright, so Miguel's in? Who else?" Johnny asked, but he really didn't have to. He knew how influential Miguel was amongst the karate students, so as soon as he voiced his support for the merge, everyone else did so too shortly after. Even Demetri, although rather reluctantly, accepted the fact that he would need to learn how to coexist harmoniously with the Eagle-Fangs he disliked so much.
"Awesome, so you guys are all in?" Daniel said, eagerly. The group all nodded. "Let's get started then."
"Yeah, so how's this going to work? Who's going to be teaching us?" Sam asked.
"Well, what Johnny and I were thinking is that I lead one day, he leads one day and we alternate, but the other is always there to support."
"Cool, so who's starting?" Chris asked.
"I am." Daniel replied, before leading the group into the wrecked living room, where buckets of paint and brushes, brooms, mops and every other cleaning tool known to man was lying in the center of the room. "Any guesses as to what we are doing?"
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"This is such bullshit." Miguel remarked. Daniel had handed all of the Miyagi-Dos and Eagle-Fangs tools and equipment, and had given them all tasks in restoring their house back to normal after Cobra Kai wrecked it. He had given Miguel and George the task of repainting the walls after Cobra Kai had pretty much destroyed the white paint that was previously on them, and Miguel and George were NOT having a good time doing this.
"I know, right?! This motherfucker thinks he can get us to do all of his house chores! Like it's not our fault Miyagi-Do are too weak to defend themselves against Cobra Kai and got themselves in this situation in the first place." George added. Demetri, who was across the room doing the other wall with Sam, heard them and glared at them.
"Hey, who are you calling weak?" Demetri snapped, storming over to them. As he came closer, George automatically squared up to him, and George - who was even bigger than Miguel - towered over the skinny boy.
"Hey, hey, George, step back." Miguel remarked. "You wouldn't want to breathe out too hard and blow that man over like a twig."
"Man? That's kind of a generous term for him. Demetri's somewhere in between a man and woman in my opinion." George commented, causing Demetri to flush further in anger. Miguel knew exactly what his friend was doing. Both him and George had done it hundreds and hundreds of times. They would lay sly insults at their opponent until the opponent got so mad they started the fight. But when they would fight, they would fight with so much anger that it would cloud their judgement and tactics, and Miguel and George could easily take victory.
Walking into the room, Daniel immediately noticed tensions rising, and he raced over to them, standing in between them so Sam and Demetri were separated from Miguel and George.
"Woah, woah, woah, guys, what's going on?!" Daniel exclaimed.
"What's going on? You tell us, Sensei Larusso. Because what it looks like is we've spent the past two hours doing your housework and not learned a thing." George stated. Daniel chuckled.
"Is that so? Because last I checked, that movement of painting up and down, and the movement going side to side can block any punch or kick thrown at you." Daniel said.
"Well that can't be right." Miguel remarked. Daniel raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yeah? Let's try it." He said, taking Miguel to the center of the room and facing him. "Attack me."
"Excuse me?" Miguel asked, confused.
"Attack me. Any kick or punch you choose. I'm only going to use motions from the chores I've given everyone to block them."
Miguel nodded and bowed at Mr. Larusso, before getting into a fighting stance and preparing to attack. By this point, everyone in the room had gathered, interested to see how this was going to play out. Miguel clenched his fists and threw a swift striking combination at Daniel. Although his punches were laser-accurate, Daniel weirdly found a way to block them using the exact motions Miguel and George had been using to paint the wall.
"See." Daniel smiled as Miguel drew his hands back. "Kicking now."
Miguel nodded and threw a kicking combination at Daniel instead. His kicking was much better than his striking because even the kicks that Daniel blocked were so powerful that the impact rippled through Daniel's body and shocked him. Daniel didn't realise how powerful Miguel had become. Sure Miguel had about 30-40 pounds on him, but he still kicked with such unbelievable power and accuracy. And Daniel was about to feel the true strength of Miguel's power soon enough. As Miguel had yet another kick blocked, he started to get annoyed. Although Daniel was a sensei so definitely had more knowledge than him, Miguel probably weighed about 40 pounds more than him, and combined that with the fact that he was in the best shape of his life whereas Daniel was over 50 so wasn't close to top form… Miguel should've been winning the sparring match, and he was going to make sure that happened. After Miguel threw a blocked roundhouse, heel combination at Daniel's head, he sent a subtle groin kick between Daniel's legs. Daniel, not expecting it, wasn't able to block it in time so was forced to feel the full impact of it. The students gasped as the kick connected, and Daniel let out a small groan as he slid down to the ground.
"Oh, shit!" Miguel exclaimed as he saw the man go down, concern automatically filling him. "Are you okay? I'm so sor…"
Before Miguel could finish his sentence, he felt himself smashed against from the side like he was being stampeded by a rhino, and he went crashing down. Looking up, he saw Chris scowling down at him.
"Should've known you were against us." Chris growled. Before Miguel could say anything back or get up to fight him, he saw George go flying at Kreese, grabbing him from behind in a rear naked choke and sending Chris crashing to the ground as he choked him. Things looked like they were about to escalate, with Miguel, Sam, Demetri and Mitch preparing to join the fight, but just as the fighting was about start, Johnny ran into the room, hearing the commotion from the garden. Seeing what was unfolding, his eyes widened.
"STOP!" Johnny immediately yelled, his insanely loud voice immediately causing everyone to freeze and back away from the person they were fighting or were about to fight. "What the hell is going on here?!"
"Sensei Larusso and Miguel were sparring and Miguel kicked Sensei between the legs by mistake. Chris then being the dumbass that he is, decided to tackle Miguel and George came in to help Miguel." Mitch explained.
"That is NOT true!" Chris exclaimed. "Miguel…"
"Hey, hey, Penis Breath, Tubs, shut up." Johnny snapped, turning towards Miguel, and then to Daniel who was stumbling to his feet, before turning back to Miguel. Johnny's eyes widened. "Miguel, you kicked Larusso in the nards?! Nice."
Miguel blushed.
"It was by accident. When he said any kick or punch, I didn't realise that he didn't mean low kicks!" Miguel said.
"Bullshit! He knew exactly what he was doing!" Demetri stated.
"Mouth, did I ask for your opinion?" Johnny snapped at him. "No? So stay out of this!"
"But, I…" Demetri started, but Sam nudged him roughly in the ribs to silently tell him to shut up. Johnny, turning away from Demetri, turned to face the whole group.
"Alright guys, that was a horrible start! I would've thought at least some of you would have the balls to put aside your differences and just suck it up but no! Not one of you was a big enough person to do that! I honestly can't wait for Cobra Kai to whoop all of your asses because when they do, I'm just going to laugh and say I told you so. Now go home! And hopefully grow a pair by tomorrow!"
Although Johnny had harsh but fair words for the students, he knew that something needed to change. The tension between Demetri, George and Miguel was just too much for them to be able to function as a cohesive team. They just didn't trust the other dojo, and that was the biggest problem. They needed to change that…