CHAPTER 32
"So how are we going to play this, sensei?" Marcos asked Sensei Kreese as him, Sarah and Kreese sat in the Cobra Kai back office that evening. After the couple had left the country club that afternoon, Marcos had immediately called his sensei to let him know what had happened, and within a couple of minutes, Kreese had instructed them to come by the dojo to discuss what had happened, and discuss what their next move would be.
"Hold on… who says we even have to show up?" Sarah remarked. Marcos sighed.
"You heard Mrs. Larusso. She said that…"
"I know what she said." Sarah interrupted him. "I also realized last night that threatening to press charges against you will turn out worse for them than it will for you. Because whatever resources the Larussos have, I'm sure that my family has more. We don't have to play along with them, let them bully us into doing what they want."
"True. But why make that extra trouble if we don't have to?" Marcos asked. "Worse case scenario, even if we go and things turn to shit, at least we'll have gotten a free dinner out of the deal."
Sarah glared at him.
"Look, I'll buy you all the free food you want, okay?! But I'm not gonna let that be the reason why we walk into an obvious trap and we all get our asses beat!" Sarah exclaimed.
"You're not walking into a trap." Kreese replied, quietly, speaking up for the first time.
"How can you be sure?" Sarah snapped. Kreese sighed as he took a long puff of his cigar.
"Because if there's one thing Larusso cares about, it's his family. And not all of his family know how to fight. His wife… his younger son… even his daughter who knows how to fight, he won't risk her getting hurt. As long as you're around the other kids, there's no chance that any of them will try anything physical."
"Maybe so. But that still doesn't mean we should go." Sarah shot back. "It's a simple cost-benefit analysis. While the potential cost is really high, there are still literally no benefits to us going."
"That might not be true." Kreese murmured. "This actually might be an opportunity for us."
"To do…?" Marcos asked, confused. Kreese took a deep breath.
"I trained with Terry Silver for much of my adult life. Both in the Military, and in a Karate environment. And in that time, he taught me two main things. The first was that everyone has a weakness. Everyone. Doesn't matter who it is. It can be a physical weakness, an emotional one, that doesn't matter. There's no one in this world that doesn't have this achilles heel. And you know what Johnny Lawrence's achilles heel is…"
"What?"
"His pride." Kreese replied. "That man cannot stand to lose, come second place. He just can't stand it. I would know; I trained him for 5 years. Daniel Larusso is the same. That's why their rivalry lasted for close to 4 decades. Both are too stubborn to ever want to back down from a fight, and both are so desperate to prove that they and their students are the best."
"What does that mean for us though?" Marcos asked.
"It means for us that the stubbornness and pride they have rubbed off on their students. Their students don't back down from fights."
"So you want us to go in there and challenge them to a fight? And you think they'll say yes?"
Kreese shook his head.
"They won't. Because in that case, the fight would be on your terms. Miyagi-Do realizes that fighting us is a tall enough order already, so having them fight us on our terms… they're definitely not going to say yes to that. No… what needs to happen is that the fight needs to be on their terms. They need to approach us, not the other way around."
Kreese took a deep breath.
"That brings me to the second thing Silver taught me: always see a few moves ahead of your opponent. It allows you to play with them, pull them right into your clutches without them even knowing. And before they know it, they're at your mercy, and there's nothing they can do about it. I can assure you that if we play our cards right, in less than 24 hours from now, Larusso and Lawrence will have approached us with a challenge. They'll think it's their idea. They'll think they have the upper hand. And that's when we come out swinging."
Marcos and Sarah both nodded, beginning to understand what Kreese was saying.
"So how do we do that? How do we push them into challenging us without making it seem like we're challenging them?" Marcos asked. Kreese smiled.
"You two go over to their house, engage in conversation. Answer every question they ask about you with total honesty."
"Huh?" Sarah grunted. Kreese chuckled.
"Look at you two. The pair of you have a combined 18 years of Martial Arts experience under your belt. That's longer than most of your opponents have been alive for. And certainly longer than all of their champions have been training for. I know for a fact that they're going to want to know more about you, about your Martial Arts backgrounds. Tell them honesty. Ms. Gledhill, tell them about how you trained for 8 years in one of the premier kickboxing gyms in the city. Mr. Oliveira, tell them about how you trained every waking moment for 10 years in the slums of Brazil. You can even talk about your dream of fighting for the UFC, that winning the Taikai is your way of getting there, and you'll stop at nothing to do it. Hearing that is bound to get Larusso, Lawrence and the rest of Miyagi-Do off their game."
"Not enough so to get a bunch of 50 something year olds challenging us to a fight though, will it?" Sarah remarked. Kreese nodded.
"Sure, but it will be enough to get the teenagers riled up." He responded. "Keene, Moskowitz, Diaz, Nichols, Larusso… they won't be able to stand seeing the two of you perceived as better than them. If you push the right buttons, I guarantee they'll be ready for a fight…"
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"Remind me again… why are we doing this?" Johnny murmured to Daniel, as the two of them stood in the living room of the Larusso house, reading themselves for the evening to come. Marcos and Sarah hadn't arrived yet, but it was 5 minutes to 6 so they were due to arrive soon. Seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly as the Miyagi-Dos all paced around the room. It wasn't going to be a fun, casual dinner that night, they were all certain of that. Robby, Miguel, Sam, Johnny, Daniel, Anthony… they were all manning battle stations, bracing themselves for the night to come. Well, all of them except Amanda, Carmen and Rosa, the three people there who weren't actively involved in the Karate War, and thought this dinner was a brilliant idea. The three ladies had spent the afternoon cooking and preparing for that evening, while the rest of them plotted, planned all situations that could occur that night and how they would defend against them.
None of them said a word in the eerily silent living room, but as they heard the unmistakable, piercing ring of the doorbell, they all exchanged nervous glances. It was time. None of them moved to open the door, all of them silently preparing for what was to come. They looked like they were awaiting a death sentence or something, thus was the solemn mood in the room. From the kitchen, Amanda rolled her eyes at them and sighed, wiping her hands with a towel.
"Fine. I'll get it." She remarked, turning to walk towards the door. "Wasn't like I was actually doing something like cooking this whole meal anyways."
Amanda walked over to the front door and opened it, revealing the King and Queen Cobra. Both Sarah and Marcos were well-dressed, Marcos wearing a flannel button-up shirt and jeans, and Sarah wearing a pretty white top with dark pants. In Marcos' hands was also a large container of food that he had made earlier that afternoon.
"Hey, sorry we're late." Sarah said as Amanda invited them into the house. "There was a bit of traffic."
"Don't worry about it. You're right on time." Amanda replied, kindly. "I'm glad you two could make it. I'm sure you guys had other things you'd rather be doing on a Sunday evening, but I hope you can see why I wanted us all to have this."
"Totally." Marcos replied, before holding out the container that he had brought with him. "This is for you guys, by the way. Back home we had a tradition: if someone invites you over for dinner, you bring a dish with you. I hope it's not rude."
"Not rude at all. Thank you so much, Marcos." Amanda replied, having learned the boy's name from Sam earlier that day. She took the dish from him and smiled widely. Already, she was being proven right. Extending a hand out and engaging with the Cobra Kais rather than immediately vilifying them was already lowering the tension between the two sides. "It smells delicious."
"Thank you. It's called Feijoada. It's pretty simple; basically a staple food in Brazil. It's just a bean stew with pork and a few other things."
"Wow. Please thank your mom from all of us, because it looks and smells incredible." Amanda replied.
"Marcos made it himself actually." Sarah chimed in. "He's a really good cook."
"Really?" Amanda asked, taken aback. Marcos nodded.
"Yeah, uh… my mom's not around and my dad works all day. So when you like eating as much as I do, you learn one or two things about cooking." He responded almost shyly. He wouldn't say that he was an introverted person, but at a dinner party that spoke only in his second language, he definitely felt out of place, so he remained mostly quiet and let Sarah do most of the talking for him.
"I think that's amazing, Marcos. I don't think our kids even know where the stove is!" Amanda remarked. She then invited Sarah and Marcos further into the house, towards the living room, where they came across the rest of the people at the party. It was everyone they had expected to be there. Both of the Miyagi-Do senseis, along with 3 of the Miyagi-Do lead students, plus one of the younger guys. 6 Miyagi-Dos, 2 Cobra Kais… not the ratio they would've wanted. They really were in the belly of the beast now. But now that they were there, they knew that they had a mission to do. The mission that Kreese had clearly set out for them. If all went well, within 24 hours time, there would be an official challenge, an official fight. They just needed to complete the mission, and the first stage of that would be surviving tonight's dinner…