CHAPTER 31

Screw Samantha Larusso. What a selfish, manipulative piece of shit. That's what Tory thought to herself as she stormed away from the Miyagi-Dos and down the pathway in the beach club. Tory had done some fucked up shit to Sam in the past. She knew that. And although she hadn't officially apologized to Sam yet, she felt remorse for her actions at the school, for her actions in breaking into the Larusso house. But Sam… Sam clearly didn't feel any regrets for what she had done. She was actually trying to justify what she had done to her at the country club last year, after just having met her. Trying to play the victim, absolve herself of all blame. It was typical Sam Larusso, and after around a month of training with her in Miyagi-Do, Tory had just about had enough of it.

Tory knew she needed to get out of this place before she did something she would later regret. However, she didn't get very far as after taking just a few more steps, she found herself walking straight into someone. And as she did so, it was mere split seconds later that Tory felt food splatter all over her.

That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. All of her simmering resentment and anger that had been building up reached a boiling point. It didn't matter who was in front of her. She didn't care. She wanted revenge for the person's stupidity for walking into her. It was just a happy coincidence that the person who she wanted revenge on was the same person she had been squaring up to not even 15 minutes ago.

"You…" Tory growled. Sarah, sensing the rage on the face of the girl opposite her, raised her hands in surrender, making it clear that she didn't want to fight.

"I'm really sorry. It was a complete accident." Sarah immediately told her.

"Bullshit." Tory snarled, shoving Sarah a few feet backwards. Sarah, who had been in the midst of apologizing again and offering to go find her a towel and a spare set of clothing, stopped the moment she felt the two hands on her, and she too was beginning to feel anger of her own.

"Hey!" Sarah snapped. She had gone stumbling backwards after the shove, but as she caught her balance, she didn't hesitate to take a few steps forward towards the other teenager. "What's wrong with you?! That was an accident! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Liar." Tory snapped back. Immediately, Tory was overcome with dislike for the girl opposite her, and it didn't take her that long to connect the dots and realize why… this girl was Samantha Larusso! Sure she might be a Cobra Kai. And sure she might look completely different to Sam. But other than that, Tory was convinced that she was looking at Samantha Larusso 2.0. A rich brat who refused to take responsibility for her actions and was dead-set on ducking from blame… this could only be one person. Well, apparently it could be more than one person, as Tory found herself standing in front of a second person who matched that description as well. This realization caused Tory to go from mildly disliking the new Cobra Kai female champion to actively despising her, and every bone in her body urged her to lunge at her.

Tory's gut instincts spoke louder than her mind, and that led to her shoving Sarah again. By this point, the Cobra Kai champion had also completely lost her temper with the girl who had come before her in the dojo. Shoving her once could've been put down to a misunderstanding. Shoving her twice was an act of war, and she wasn't going to take that. Not from anyone. And especially not from this Miyagi-Do.

"Touch me one more time!" Sarah shouted at her, charging forwards and attempting to lunge at Tory. However, before she could lay hands on her rival, Sarah saw someone step between her and Tory, and then roughly push her backwards as she tried to get past them. This time, Sarah lost her balance and fell to the ground on her bottom. Whoever this was… they could definitely push harder than Tory. As Sarah looked up, she saw the face of Robby, Tory's boyfriend, and another Miyagi-Do student, standing over her. But contrary to Tory's, Robby's face was filled with concern rather than anger.

"Shit! I'm sorry! Are you okay?!" Robby asked, holding out a hand to try and help her up.

He didn't mean to push her that hard at all. Too bad that in his haste to get between Tory and Sarah and prevent their pushing from escalating into a full-on fight, he had just accidentally made it ten times worse. Not in the mood, Sarah slapped Robby's outstretched hand away, and she stumbled to her feet, staring daggers at both Robby and Tory.

"Look, I'm sure we can figure this ou…"

It was not the first time Robby had said these words. The first time he had said them, it had been in the school, when he had stepped in between Sam and Tory, and he had barely finished his sentence before Miguel had tackled him. Little did he realize that history really was repeating itself. Because he hadn't even finished his sentence this time before he heard heavy footsteps coming from behind him. Turning to see where they were coming from, Robby barely had a second to react before he found himself tackled to the ground, by Marcos this time. He had been getting him and Sarah drinks when he had turned and seen what was happening. He saw Sarah and Tory in a shoving match, which caused him to begin to hurry over. But it was when Robby intervened and shoved his girlfriend to the ground that Marcos increased to a full-speed sprint, and he didn't hesitate to take the brunette down to the ground.

Robby hit the ground with a massive THUD, Marcos still on top of him after the tackle, and for a second, Robby saw the unbridled rage on the Brazilian teenager's face as he sat over him and raised a fist, preparing to strike him again. Robby raised his own hands to block, but he didn't need to. Because as Marcos began to bring his fist downwards towards Robby's face, the hand was caught out of midair by someone behind him, their own arm locking around Marcos' and dragging him up to his feet. Marcos watched as another figure did similarly to Robby.

As Marcos and Robby looked up, they saw that it was the two senseis of Miyagi-Do who had intervened, the blonde grabbing his son and the dark-haired one holding onto Marcos. At this moment, both Robby and Marcos knew that things were over. There would be no fight between them right now. Not while the adults were between them and actively trying to diffuse the conflict. Seeing all of this commotion, it wasn't long before the other Miyagi-Dos had made it over, and Amanda too.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked, still holding onto Marcos to make sure the boy didn't lunge at Robby, Tory or any of the other 4 Miyagi-Dos who had just arrived.

"What happened is two of your Miyagi-Dos laid hands on one of us. And now they need to face the consequences for it."

Daniel turned and raised a questioning eyebrow at Tory and Robby.

"She spilled an entire plate of food on me." Tory snapped, pointing at Sarah.

"Accidentally!" Sarah shot back. "And that doesn't warrant the fact that you just started shoving me right after!"

"That's when I came. I got in between them and I was trying to stop the fight when he suddenly came out of nowhere and tackled me." Robby continued, his eyes locked on Marcos'. It wasn't Marcos who spoke next. Nor was it Robby, or Tory, or Daniel, or Johnny, or any of the other Miyagi-Do students. It was someone else, someone who was self declared 'karate adjacent.'

"God, I can't listen to this for a third year!" Amanda suddenly spoke up. "He did this, she did this, I was starting to stop it, and it immediately escalates to a brawl! I'm not doing this again!"

Amanda's outburst took everyone by surprise, and they all turned to her, surprise visible on all of their faces.

"Mom…" Sam murmured, taken aback.

"I'm serious! Do you have any idea how stupid and immature you all sound?!" Amanda exclaimed. "You're all acting like a bunch of little kids!"

"Amanda…" Daniel started, but Amanda shook her head vehemently, shutting him up. All of the Miyagi-Dos stood on one side of the conflict, with Robby and Tory at the front and Johnny in front of them. Marcos and Sarah stood on the other side, with Daniel standing in front of them, the two senseis almost acting like security guards at a sports game, preventing home and away fans from attacking each other. Amanda stood directly in the middle between them, so every eye was on her as she spoke.

"No! You know what?! You guys want to act like children?! Fine! I'll treat you like children!" Amanda stated. "Everyone here who isn't a Larusso or a Lawrence - that includes you too Miguel - get out of here now!"

Reluctantly, Hawk, Demetri and Tory turned on their heels to walk away, leaving just Sam, Miguel and Robby on the Miyagi-Do side of the dojo. Truth be told, neither Hawk nor Demetri nor Tory was going to complain. Amanda was almost like the mom of Miyagi-Do, and so they weren't about to disobey her, especially when she was that pissed off. Tory shot Sarah one more scathing look before she left, and after she was gone, Marcos and Sarah turned around to leave too.

"Not you guys!" Amanda called after them, rooting them to the spot as they turned around to face Daniel, Amanda, Johnny, Robby, Miguel and Sam again.

"We're not your family." Sarah pointed out. Amanda nodded.

"Maybe not, but that doesn't change the fact that you two are also acting like a bunch of babies, along with the rest of them!" Amanda snapped. "Now, I've seen this story before, we all have, and it doesn't end well for anyone. So we're breaking the cycle, changing the pattern. All of you are coming over to my house. Tomorrow night. Family dinner. Miguel, feel free to invite your family too. We're getting all of these issues out now before they fester and cause shit to blow up later!"

Miguel, Robby, Sam, Johnny and Daniel had little choice but to agree to this, as none of them really had the courage to disagree with Amanda right now. Marcos and Sarah looked at this woman, confused. Who did this stranger think she was, telling them what to do?

"I'm sorry. We have plans." Sarah told her. Amanda stared at her evenly.

"Cancel them." She bluntly replied. "Here is our home address…"

"Amanda." Daniel murmured warningly, as Amanda reached into her pocket to pull out her phone to send them the Larusso house's address.

"Oh, relax, Daniel. Do you not remember what happened to our house 10 months ago? Clearly these kids can find our house pretty easily if they want to. I don't think hiding our address would do anything." Amanda remarked. "But what this could do, is that it could actually solve things before they become too complicated to solve. I'm sure you two have heard about what happened in the school last year."

Marcos and Sarah both nodded.

"You know why that happened?" Amanda asked them.

"Dumb and dumber over there not realizing how a street fight works: how you can't just let go of your opponent mid-fight because you feel like it, nor should you really be trying to continue fighting someone who clearly has you beat?" Marcos remarked, instantly causing both Robby and Miguel's faces to flush scarlet. Exactly his plan. Get into the two teenagers' heads so they weren't thinking completely clearly when they fought him, and so he would have an inherent advantage going into a fight.

What Marcos was attempting to do wasn't lost on Amanda, who glared at him.

"Okay, wise ass. Here's how it's going to be." She told him. "You have two options: option 1 is you come for a pleasant meal at my house tomorrow night. Good food, interesting company, completely harmless. Or… option 2, which is I go to the manager right now and I ask him for the CCTV footage of you tackling our guest. I don't care what came before or after it, and I'm sure given that my husband and I are old friends with him, he would be more than happy to just erase the footage of what happened before. With the video footage of you tackling Robby, we can take that to the police, see what they think of it. Does that sound fun?"

Marcos didn't say anything, but it was his turn to scowl and flush crimson as he knew that Amanda had him beat. Checkmate. He really had no choice but to comply.

"I'm waiting… option 1 or option 2?" Amanda pressed him.

"1." Marcos eventually grunted in reply.

"Good!" Amanda smiled. "I thought that would be the better option. Now… you have our address. Please arrive by 6 pm tomorrow evening. And don't be late!"