CHAPTER 1

"Welcome to Juarez, my friend."

Miguel looked up, blinking exhaustion out of his eyes, as his taxi screeched to a stop. It had been an achingly long 5 days of travel, both physically and emotionally, but he had finally arrived. It had started with a bus from L.A all the way to Mexico City. From there, he had managed to do a deeper dive on where he could potentially find his father. He knew very little of the man, and one of the only snippets of information he had managed to pry from his mom was that his father was in a gang, more specifically the Los X's gang that were, according to several somewhat shady sources on the internet, heavily linked to a city named Juarez. It was a massive u-turn Miguel had to take all the way back to the city near to the U.S border, but Miguel thoroughly enjoyed the journey. He was striking out on his own. Never before had he done anything like this before, so he was filled with nervous anticipation. In addition, the long journey gave him a lot of time to think. He was filled with a cacophony of emotions. He had failed. He had lost the tournament. Tory had won. Hawk had won. Hell, even Sam and Robby had made the finals. All of them had achieved what they had set out to do, all of them but him. And quite frankly, looking back on it, he wasn't at all surprised. He was honestly shocked he had even been able to compete in the first round with his back issues. He never should have fought, he should've sat it out and supported his friends, for the sake of his own health and well-being. A large part of that blame lay squarely on his shoulders, as he had pushed himself beyond the limits of safety. But part of that blame, deep down, Miguel placed on his Sensei. Even just thinking about Sensei Lawrence caused waves of anger to ripple through him. It had become increasingly evident to Miguel as the year had progressed, that Johnny cared more about his rivalry with Daniel Larusso than he did about him. If Johnny hadn't been so pre-occupied with his stupid rivalry with Miyagi-Do and how he needed to beat them at all costs, maybe he would have seen that Miguel was far from in the right condition to fight. He hadn't had Miguel's best interests at heart, at least for the past few months. And not only that, the prom night had made it evidently clear that Johnny, despite how complicated the relationship was, cared more about Robby than he did about him. Quite frankly, he didn't blame him. Robby was his son after all. A biological son with his biological father. It was a concept that Miguel couldn't relate to, and that was exactly why he was on this trip. He needed answers. He needed to meet his father. But at the same time, he felt guilt. He was leaving his family, leaving his friends, leaving Sam, for an indeterminate amount of time, going AWOL without tell them when he'd be back, if he'd be back…

"Thanks, man." Miguel said, paying the taxi driver and grabbing his bag, preparing to leave the taxi.

"American." The man commented on his accent.

"Ecuadorian." Miguel corrected him shortly. The man scoffed disbelievingly as he looked at Miguel's clothes, accent and bag.

"Okay, sure." He chuckled. "First time in Juarez?"

Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, why?" He asked.

"Word of advice, kid… keep your wallet in your front pocket, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks." Miguel replied politely, resenting the child treatment from the middle-aged driver, but keeping his calm and exiting the cab moments later. When he did, he stood on the sidewalk, dead still, and took in his surroundings. With buildings in ruins, gangs of menacing people standing around in back alleys and the overpowering stench of misery and despair filling the air, he sure as hell wasn't in the City of Dreams anymore…

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As Robby awoke in his mom's apartment the next day, he wasn't sure exactly how he was feeling. He had been the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament. The only two-time prior-finalist, having trained karate for the longest, having been leaders for both dojos so gotten the best of both worlds, he was going in with a lot of pressure on his shoulders and he knew it. And he had fluffed it. At the crucial moment, he had failed but honestly, he was kind of happy he had. During his fight, seeing how maniacal his teammates and senseis had become, and seeing how ruthlessly Kenny had beaten up Anthony Larusso… he realised that Cobra Kai was not where he wanted to be. He loved being aggressive in fights, but he also knew that there was a difference between tactical aggression and being blinded by rage. He had spent so much of his life being blinded by his fury towards Johnny that he hadn't been able to see how hard the man was trying. They were both heavily flawed people, but last night, Johnny had shown that he was there for him. Truly there for him, in a way that Kreese, Silver and even Daniel Larusso had never. The tournament was over. Johnny's side had already lost, dumped out of the tournament by none other than Robby and his girlfriend. But Johnny didn't care about that. He had still been there for Robby, showing him that his relationship with his son meant more than the tournament, than the rivalry. It had really been a breaking point in their relationship.

Robby was pulled from his train of thought when all of a sudden, the door to his apartment burst open and Tory came storming in. Robby's head shot up and he smiled as he saw her, but he quickly realized that this wasn't a happy visit. Small details… the slight smudge of her mascara, bloodshot eyes.

"You've been crying." Robby deduced, worried. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine." She quickly and gruffly shrugged off his concern. "Did you hear about Sensei Kreese?"

Robby shook his head.

"No, what about him…"

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It had been five days of absolute hell for Samantha Larusso. Everything in her life had suddenly fallen against her. In the space of about a week, her relationship with Miguel had gone to shambles. Starting with the prom… Sam couldn't believe what had gone down that night! Things had gone absolutely horrendously from the moment Robby and Tory set foot in the school. Miguel had undeniably gotten distracted by the sight of his ex-girlfriend in such a revealing dress, and then he had had the nerve to accuse her of making the night not about them anymore! Had she gotten a bit distracted by the sight of her ex with her arch-enemy? Maybe. But he had done exactly the same, and then accused her! Then came the events of the tournament. Sam felt like she had been absolutely robbed. The win was hers, clear and simple. She had scored a point on Tory BEFORE Tory had stepped out of bounds. Not the other way around. But of course the ref had to completely mess it up not once, but twice, when Tory had straight-up elbowed her in the face! It had been 'unintentional' so resulted in just a warning, but that only added to the injustice of the tournament. Not only that, but her relationship with Miguel had fallen further when he had promised her that he'd be there to watch her fight, and then he bailed. Literally bailed. Just got in a taxi and drove home, now off the grid. She had tried texting him, calling him, she had even gone by his house but no one was there.

Sam had never felt like such a failure. She lay in her bed in the middle of the day, unable to gather the strength to leave it, unable to gather the courage to walk out the front door. By losing the tournament, she had granted Cobra Kai immunity forevermore. Psychos like Tory now had the permission to do whatever the hell they wanted, terrorise whoever they wanted, without any fear. It was a truly low moment for the Valley, lower than even after the school fight. Things were bleak, with absolutely no rays of sunlight peeking through a wall of stormy clouds.

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A couple of minutes later, Miguel walked into an extremely rough dive bar, about a 5 minute walk away from where the cab had dropped him off. The whole time he walked, the hair at the back of his neck pricked. It was like he was being watched, because truthfully, he was. All eyes were on the unfamiliar foreigner as he watched them, a mixture of hunger, greed and pity in their eyes. Some hungry at the sight of fresh prey for them to pick off. Others looked on in pity, knowing what was going to happen next. Miguel could sense all of this, but he didn't let it get in his head. He knew from countless stories that if you let fear take over in a place like this, you were already dead.

So Miguel managed to make it into the bar, which was only just opening for its afternoon/night shift as it was 4 in the afternoon. As Miguel walked inside, immediately, a cloud of dust billowed into his uninviting nostrils, and he let out a loud hacking cough. Although it cleared his throat okay, it also alerted the entire bar of his presence. To be fair, there weren't many people drinking at such a seedy place in the middle of the afternoon, but it was enough to attract the attention of the bartender as Miguel sat opposite her at the bar.

"Hey." He flashed a faint smile at her. A strategy that had been working with reasonable success for him so far to glean information had been to try and charm people into helping him. A small part of him felt guilty as he was still technically dating Sam, but he also knew that what he was doing was pretty harmless and helped much more than it hurt. And this woman didn't seem to be older than him, so she was the perfect person to try and get his information out of.

"Hi." She smiled at him. "Aren't you a little young to be drinking?"

"Aren't you a little young to be serving?" Miguel replied, cooly. The lady chuckled.

"I am going to need to see some I.D. And I'll warn you, I'm like those dogs at the border. I can sniff out a fake I.D from a mile away." She stated.

"Well, I guess then lucky for me I'm not drinking." He replied, winking at her. The lady was thoroughly entertained by this American stranger sitting in front of her so she decided to play along.

"An American says that he's here in Mexico not to drink?" She laughed. "What, already drown yourself on too much tequila in Baja and Cancun? Or maybe you're a recent graduate, looking to anger mom and dad so decided to come to one of the most dangerous bars, in one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico?"

"Okay, enough with the small talk. I need you to send a message to someone."

"Oh yeah? And who's that?" She asked. Without skipping a beat, Miguel looked her in the eye and responded…

"Manuel Diaz."