CHAPTER 3

"You… you want to join Eagle-Fang?" Johnny stammered, disbelievingly. His jaw hit the ground in shock. Despite things being much better between him and Robby than they had ever been, he was surprised that his son would want to join his dojo.

Tory and Robby nodded.

"Yeah, without Kreese there, with Silver having full control on the dojo, and without the 'no fighting until the tournament rule', Cobra Kai is bound to go off the rails. We don't intend to be there when it all explodes and land ourselves in juvie." Tory said.

"Yeah, that new Sensei in Cobra Kai, Silver, is actually batshit crazy. Piece of shit tried to kill me two weeks ago." Johnny stated. Robby and Tory's eyes widened.

"Wait… what?!" Tory exclaimed.

"Yup. That night of your prom, he lured me to my old Cobra Kai dojo location and ambushed me. Probably would have killed me if Kreese hadn't stopped him."

Robby exhaled sharply.

"Jesus." He murmured, under his breath. "Yeah, so moral of the story, we're out of Cobra Kai. That being said, with Cobra Kai running rampant, we're gonna need you to train us. With Miguel, without Miguel if he's in Mexico, we don't even care. We just need out of Cobra Kai and don't want Miyagi-Do either. So what do you say, dad? Can you train us?"

Johnny's heart, for a moment rose. He felt a sense of pride, euphoria and satisfaction that he hadn't felt in a while, but it all quickly came crashing down moments later when he remembered something…

"Look, you two are going to have to believe me when I say this I want nothing more than to train you two, Miguel and the rest of Eagle-Fang together. But…"

"But. Of course there's a but." Robby sighed, despondent. "What is it? You don't know how Miguel will react to the change and you're afraid of upsetting him."

Johnny glared at him and shook his head.

"No. BUT… I made a bet with Kreese and Silver that if Cobra Kai beat us fairly at the tournament, Larusso and I would shut down our dojos. For good. You did that and I'm a man of my word, so I'm going to follow up on my end of the deal."

When Johnny said this, Tory looked down at the ground in shame. 'If Cobra Kai beat us fairly at the tournament.' That was what Johnny had said. Well little did he know that they actually hadn't beaten them fairly, courtesy of Silver's little rendezvous with the referee. Her win over Sam had been rigged, a cheap way of winning a fight that she was already going to win. But now, she had no loyalty to her former dojo anymore. She knew exactly what warpath Silver would be on with his students, and she knew that with taking care of her mom and finally getting her life back in order, getting locked into juvie was the very last thing she needed.

"Tory, what is it?" Robby asked, noticing the peculiar expression on her face. For a few moments, she was unsure whether to confess or not. While on one hand it would benefit the dojo, it would also prove to everyone, and herself, that her long-awaited gold-medal moment was a hoax, still a fantasy she was chasing. Eventually, she reluctantly sighed and nodded.

"Okay, there's something you guys need to know." She mumbled, and she then proceeded to tell them the whole story, from beginning to end. When she went back into the arena. When she saw Silver and the ref talking, saw him putting money right in the referee's hand, and heard the ref thanking him afterwards. At the end, both Johnny and Robby were silent in shock and fury.

"Son of a bitch cheated, did he? Of course he did. Because he knew he wasn't fucking winning without his wallet being flashed around."

"I don't know about that. I think you would have beaten Sam anymore." Robby said, more reassuring to Tory than trying to calm his father.

"Look, I don't give a shit who could've won. Nobody expected Hawk to even beat Miguel, let alone you, Robby. Surprises happen. Whatever. What I care about is that man-woman asshole rigging it so it would be impossible for us to win."

"So what do we do about it?" Robby asked, wanting to change the subject from who would've won without it being rigged, as he could tell Tory was getting silently agitated.

"Well, I'm actually about to leave to the Larussos' place in a few minutes. Larusso called me to ask for me to come so we could talk about what's going to happen now with our dojos. I'm sure he's going to be pretty interested to hear about this new development."

"Hey, can we come with?" Tory suddenly asked. Johnny raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.

"You want to come to the Larusso house? What is this, a vigilante part 2 of your last invasion?"

"Shut up, Johnny." Tory snarled. "I hit Sam pretty hard with that accidental elbow in the finals and I didn't get a chance to see her after the fight to ask if she was okay."

Johnny really did have to do a double take at this point upon hearing this.

"The ruthless Tory Nichols worried about Samantha Larusso being okay? Damn, I guess when you live long enough, you really do see everything!" Johnny laughed. Tory scowled at his massive enjoyment of her change of heart.

"No, Tory's right." Robby chimed in, interrupting her before she could come up with a spiteful comeback to Johnny's comment. "If we're going to be with your side in the future, we at least get to know what's going on exactly."

Johnny nodded.

"Larusso's not going to want you within a 500 mile radius of his house." Johnny remarked to Tory. "But on the other hand, the man's an absolute bitch. Okay, let's go…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"To hear unread messages from Sensei Lawrence, click 1."

"To hear unread messages from Mom, click 2."

"To hear unread messages from Samantha Larusso, click 3."

That was a choice. Which voicemail should he listen to first? Who did he care about most? Well if he was being honest, right now, he had major issues with all three of them. His fingers hovered over all three names for so long that his phone almost went dark, but eventually he clicked on and put the phone up to his ear, listening intently.

"Hey, Miguel, it's me." Sam's devastated voice greeted him, roughly yanking at his heartbreak with just the four words. "So I lost. She beat me. I'm really, really sorry. I failed. Cobra Kai beat us. I noticed you weren't there for the final. I guess you're at the hospital or something because of your back. Don't worry, my family and I just arrived home so I have my car now and I'm on my way. See you in like 30 minutes. If you get this message before I arrive, call me back. I love you."

Miguel put the phone down for a moment, sighing. Of course Sam had gone straight from the tournament to the hospital to see if he was okay, her own emotion from the tournament be damned. A pang of guilt stabbed at his chest, only amplified when his phone did turn off and he turned it back on to see a picture of him and Sam, gloriously happy, taken right before prom, stared back at him. But hearing her voice… in terrifying, foreign surroundings, hearing her voice managed to make him feel like he was back home for a moment, warming his entire body like he had just drank liquid gold. Before he could stop himself, he clicked on the second message from her and began to listen.

"So… I just went by the hospital and found that you weren't there. I'm on my way over to your place now. Are you there? Is everything okay? Anyways, see you in a bit. Call me back if you get this. Bye."

In this next message, Sam sounded noticeably more tense, more anxious. She had no idea where Miguel was and although they were seeming like they were beginning to patch up their issues at the prom during the tournament, Miguel leaving before her final without saying anything to her wasn't a good sign, for either Miguel's health or their relationship.

All Miguel wanted to do was call her, let her know he was okay. But he knew he couldn't. Because leaving like this was the hardest thing he had ever had to do in his entire life. He knew that if he called Sam and they talked, even for just a minute, she would find a way to talk him out of it and come home. He needed all of the strength he had to remain where he was, and that was why he had put a ban on himself communicating with his friends back home.

There were a few more messages from her, so Miguel decided to click the next one and listen to it, tears prickling at the back of his eyes. He knew that hearing this would only make him more depressed but he couldn't do anything to stop himself. He NEEDED to hear her voice, in the same way half the people in this city NEEDED cocaine or heroin.

"Okay so you're not at your house. Not at Johnny's. Not at the hospital. Where are you? I'm starting to get a bit scared, Miguel. If you're getting this message and you're not answering because you're still angry about what's happened with us recently, that's okay. Just please call me, text me, anything. Let me know that you're okay and safe."

While this message had been sent still on the night of the tournament, the next one had been sent two days later, aka yesterday. Miguel was almost scared to listen to it, as by this point, even if Sam hadn't found out where he was and why, he would have been gone for long enough for his absence to be more than just him sulking or something. How would Sam be feeling? Depressed? Furious? Wanting him to come back? Wanting him gone for good? Miguel's predictions constantly swung from one end of the spectrum to the other like a pendulum, and his hyper-active overthinking only halted as he gathered the courage to play the message…

"Look, I know that things haven't been the best between us lately. I'm really sorry about that. But you don't have to ghost me like this! I love you so much and this is breaking my heart! Why won't you even tell me where you are, or what's wrong?! Could we please, please meet up sometime in the next few days and talk about everything? We haven't really had a chance to reconnect and be with each other in a while with all of this Cobra Kai, tournament crap. Please call me back. I'm getting really worried about you. I love you so much."

This one very, very nearly broke him. He could hear from Sam's tone that she was in tears and every word that she uttered in this state slammed against his ribcage, shattering any restraint he had inside him in an instant. Without even looking at the phone anymore as he had to close his eyes to stop his tears from escaping, his fingers instinctively found the Phone app and dialed Sam's number. He was just about to hit call when all of the sudden, he heard a voice above him.

"Miguel Diaz?"

Miguel quickly looked up to see a latin man, who looked remarkably like himself, staring at him.

"Who's asking?" Miguel asked.

"I'm Manuel. Elaina tells me that you came here to talk to me about urgent business. Well you'd better make it good because I'm a busy man and I do not like to be disturbed. Now, who are you exactly and what is it you wanted to talk about?"