CHAPTER 12

"Okay, you ready?"

Miguel looked up and smiled as his father entered the living room the following afternoon, preparing to begin teaching his son his combat secrets. Both were over the moon excited about the experience. This was the first true father-son bonding type of thing either had ever been a part of, so a combination of apprehension, excitement and nerves coursed through both of their veins. Obviously, they weren't training in a dojo or anything, but they had managed to put together the next best thing. They had piled mats and carpets from around the house into the middle of the living room to create enough padding for a fall not to seriously injure them, but it would probably still hurt a fair bit. They didn't care though. They were too hyped up for the afternoon.

"You bet I am." Miguel replied, smiling widely and standing up to face his father. Manuel nodded.

"Alright. Well I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm doing. I'm not a… what do you call it?"

"A sensei?" Miguel said. Manuel nodded.

"Yeah. I don't know to formally teach you so it probably won't be the best teaching in the world." Manuel said. Miguel shook his head, a large grin still plastered on his face.

"That's fine. You can just show me some techniques or something. That would be awesome." Miguel suggested. Manuel smiled and nodded at his son.

"Sure, let's do it." He said. "Okay. Let's begin. Bow…"

Miguel leaned forward slightly, his back bending forward in the traditional method of salute before a fight. It was a universally known gesture in pretty much every form of Martial Arts. Well not in Manuel's. For as soon as Miguel bowed his head, he saw his father raise a leg and Miguel couldn't react before a vicious axe kick to the back of Miguel's head. Manuel had lightened the contact so that it wouldn't knock Miguel out, but it was still hard enough to release a sickening CRACK into the air and send Miguel crashing face first onto the ground. Miguel grimace in pain as he hit the ground and rolled onto his back, panting heavily to recover and he had to bite back a quiet groan.

"Lesson number 1… when you're fighting these people in Juarez, there's no bowing. There's no respect. There's no honor. When fighting for your life, you do whatever you need to do to survive. Sorry about the hard hit. You just… you need to learn that if you want to survive here, or in anywhere that you have to fight for your life in general."

Miguel nodded and winced in pain again at his throbbing head, but his now raging headache didn't prevent his mind from briefly wandering, pondering his father's words. When fighting for your life, there's no honor. Despite what Miguel wanted to believe, he knew from the few times that he had to fight for his life that that was true. Firstly, in the school fight. Miguel had shown respect by not breaking Robby's arm and apologising and ending the fight; Robby hadn't granted the same and instead attacked him when Miguel's back was turned, kicking him over the railing. Then, the next time he genuinely felt endangered was against Kyler, the boy who had attacked him despite Miguel's back injury. He had tried to hit Miguel with every trick in the book by throwing him back-first against walls, smashing him against tables. Absolutely no honor whatsoever.

So Miguel clenched his jaw and slowly sat up, the ringing in his ears starting to diminish slightly. He was used to this kind of rough teaching from Johnny and knew that it was exactly what worked for him, so he forced a faint smile onto his face.

"No, it's good. Keep doing that. It works." Miguel murmured. Manuel nodded and held out a hand to help Miguel up. Miguel took it, but instantly regretted it as he felt himself getting slammed back down onto the ground and rolled onto his stomach, his arm being locked in a figure 4 lock and Manuel's legs snaking around Miguel's neck in a choke. After Manuel squeezed Miguel's neck for a few seconds, he immediately let go and hauled Miguel to his feet.

"Lesson 2. Do not trust anyone. Everyone around you can turn on you in a moment, and expect just that. Anyone will betray anyone for the right price, whether it be money, friendship, relationships, anything. Don't make the mistake of turning your back to an 'ally' and have them be your downfall."

Miguel nodded and Manuel took a step back from him.

"Now… we've gotten the foundations out of the way. Let's teach you how to actually fight…"

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By the evening, Sam had finally arrived in Juarez, her first time in Mexico not visiting a resort. As she looked around, she couldn't help but feel a shiver run up and down her spine. She always had felt like people in Reseda had it rough, but this put it in a whole different perspective. It was an unexpected sight as Sam drove down the road to see a house that wasn't crumbling to pieces. A combination of garbage, blankets and scraps of food were littered all over the sidewalks, with countless homeless people swooping down and pecking on it like vultures. She parked the car moments later and when she opened her door, she immediately nearly threw up. The gagging, putrid stench of garbage and sewer waste shot up her uninviting nostrils before she could stop it, and she found herself practically retching on the side of the street.

"What the fuck?" Sam heard from the passenger side of her car as the person sitting beside her slammed the car door shut, their reaction no different to hers. Sam turned towards them and nodded gratefully at them.

"Hey, thanks again for coming with me." She told them. Last night, when she made the decision to sneak out and flee to Juarez to find Miguel, she had been in an extremely worked up state. All of the anxiety, terror and uneasiness that she had been feeling about Miguel being away in the hands of his dangerous father had built up, and upon hearing that Robby and Johnny were pretty much done trying to convince him to come back, Sam knew that she needed to take matters into her own hands. Screw what her parents had said about her going to Juarez. She wanted to go, she needed to go, if she wanted any hopes of having any sanity return to her body. Because if something happened to Miguel by his father, Sam wouldn't be able to live with herself knowing that she could've been the person to convince him to come home, but had been sitting in her room doing nothing and wallowing in her sadness. Johnny had been right all those months ago. She had been too much of a daddy's girl, doing whatever, whenever her parents told her to do anything, and sometimes she needed to stand up for what she believed was right, even if that meant going against them. That being said though, she did know that it would probably be a lot safer if she went with at least 1 other person. Robby and Johnny were already gone. She couldn't ask her parents obviously. So she had been left with one more option…

Her friend slowly walked over onto the sidewalk, running his hand through his formerly mohawked hair as he stared at the horrible surroundings. The whole place reeked of despair, and looked like he had been crushed into a bloody pulp by an angry God who had seen all of the bad things going on there.

"Holy shit…"

The night before…

Hawk was on top of the world. He had finally done it! Finally won. So long of being number 2 to Miguel, then number 2 to Tory, then number 2 briefly to Robby, then number 2 to Sam, and now he had finally staked his claim as number 1. The top dog. The alpha. Cobra Kai had thrown everything at him, with the whole Mohawk savagery, and they thought they had beaten him. Rendered him unable to compete before the tournament even started. But little did they know that all it had done was light a fire, a small flame inside him that by the time the sudden death of the final came around, was burning through him like an inferno.

Hawk looked over at his dresser, and he smiled to himself as he saw three items placed on there: his new All-Valley trophy, a framed photo of all of Miyagi-Do after his win, and a gorgeous picture of Moon that he had kept while they had been dating but then threw it to the back of his closet when they had broken up. All three things meant so much to him, but as he rolled off his bed and walked over, the item that he picked up was the picture of Miyagi-Do. They were all there: Sensei Larusso, him, Sam, Demetri, Chris, Nate. These people, Demetri in particular, had helped him up when he was at his lowest, despite all of the terrible shit he had done to them in the past, so he was forever grateful to them for that. However, as he stared at the photo again for about the millionth time, a familiar feeling of sadness rippled through him. He knew that there was someone missing from this photo. Someone he cared about just as much as Miyagi-Do. Someone who had helped save him from the bullies when he wasn't yet strong enough to fight back, but Hawk had in turn screwed over by waging war on him at the Larusso house.

It was really weird. Hawk hadn't heard from Miguel ever since the semi final, a semi final that he had honestly been a little bit shocked that he had gotten through. Along with Robby, Miguel was definitely one of, if not the hardest, opponent Hawk could have drawn as a semi final opponent, especially given how Robby got to fight Demetri in his semi final. Miguel seemed to be in pretty good shape in the previous rounds and had definitely put Hawk on his heels for a large part of the fight. That was until his injury of course. And that was the really weird part to Hawk. He had watched that timer tick down from 10 seconds left, expecting Miguel to make his triumphant, dramatic return at any moment, new life and fire in his eyes, and a burning ambition to compete and win. That was the Miguel he knew at least. But when the buzzer sounded and the match was officially forfeited, Hawk had to stop for a moment and think… what the hell happened to Miguel? It was clearly more than just an injury as Hawk knew that Miguel would've fought the day after he could walk again, if he needed to. He struggled to think of anyone with the same drive and determination Miguel had, so seeing him just forfeit and walk away like that perplexed Hawk. And it only got worse when he didn't hear anything from Miguel or even from Mr. Larusso and Miyagi-Do after the tournament. They had all gone radio silent, and it was extremely eerie. There was clearly something bigger, something more going on. But what?

Hawk was pulled out of his train of thought when he heard a sudden KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on the door. Looking at his watch and seeing that it was 10 pm at night, he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Who was at his place at this time at night? He quickly walked downstairs and opened the door, only to see Samantha Larusso staring at him, a packed suitcase in her hand and a nervous look on her face.

"Uh… Sam? What are you doing here?" Hawk asked. Sam took a nervous breath before responding.

"Hey, Hawk. I, um… I'm sorry to come by so late."

"Yeah, no problem. What's up?" Hawk asked.

"I… I need your help…"