CHAPTER 46

Johnny parked his car at the Eagle-Fang dojo - well, Eagle-Fang warehouse - and he sat in his car for a few moments, just thinking to himself. Life was going so well in so many ways right now. Things couldn't have been better for him with the dojo, with Robby, with Carmen, with the kid on the way. It was like God was finally allowing him to be happy after so much hardship, putting together the pieces of his life that had never clicked together before, and was making them all able to fit in harmony with each other. There was just one part, one major part of his life that hadn't fallen into place like the others: Miguel. Things had been rocky for a while between them, long before the tournament to be honest. They hadn't been on the same page like they used to be, and as Johnny's relationship with Robby had improved, his relationship with Miguel had gone to shit. Any effort Johnny had made Miguel had shot down in an instant. Something had clearly happened to Miguel in Mexico; the image of Miguel standing shirtless in front of him, his neck and chest covered in bruises and scars was permanently burned into his mind. But Miguel had refused to talk about it to anyone. He kept it to himself, another sign that his trust in Johnny was fading. And then that family dinner fiasco two nights ago… he hadn't even seen Miguel after it, despite coming over to their place multiple times looking for him but not finding him. He wanted to talk now that the dust had settled. Try to convince Miguel somehow that just because he was starting to make up with Robby, that didn't mean he no longer had Miguel's back. He would always have Miguel's back, and would always have his best interests at heart, no different to how he felt about Robby. Miguel was like a son to him. He just didn't know how to show the teenager that.

With that, Johnny stepped out of his van and walked into the warehouse. As soon as he opened the door, he heard the faint sound of someone punching and kicking the punching bag. Johnny looked at his watch, confused. He was nearly 20 minutes early himself, so who had come even before him? He had his answer soon enough, as he walked further into the dojo and saw Robby ferociously whaling on the worn old punching bag Johnny had managed to get for the dojo. He had gotten it from some random yard sale and it was a real bag of crap, but it was good enough.

"Damn, Robby, remind me not to piss you off." Johnny remarked as he walked over to his son, who had his back to Miguel.

Upon hearing Johnny's voice, Robby's hands fell and he stopped hitting the bag. He had been there for nearly 40 minutes already, just punching and punching and punching the stupid target, unleashing all of his frustration from the night before. He slowly turned around to face his father and when he did, Johnny stopped dead in his tracks. On Robby's face were not one but two black eyes, a clear indication that he had been a fight, one so ruthless that his son, one of the best fighters in the Valley, had lost.

"Who did this to you?" Johnny growled in a low voice dripping with menace. Robby scowled.

"Who do you think?" Robby snapped back. Johnny's eyes widened in alarm.

"Cobra Kai did this to you?!" He asked, shocked. What the hell? How had Cobra Kai physically managed to do this?! Without Robby and Tory, they had nobody fighting for their dojo even remotely strong enough to do this to Robby. "What happened?! Was it Silver?!"

Robby shook his head, almost embarrassed. Well, not almost. He was embarrassed, humiliated at how the fight had gone. He had lost to Miguel, again, and there was no asterisk beside this one. He wasn't injured. Neither one of them cheated. Miguel had just outclassed him from start to finish on all fronts, and Robby had arrived to training as soon as possible as he knew that he needed to close that gap ASAP. Because now with Miguel and Cobra Kai having the ability to run riot with nobody to challenge them… well, Robby didn't even want to think of the potential results of that.

"No…" Robby eventually responded. "No, it wasn't Silver. It was Silver's newest student actually."

"Robby, you tell me who it was and I swear to God I'm gonna go right now and…"

"It's Miguel."

Robby's revelation caused Johnny's sentence to get caught in his throat, and his voice trailed away as he comprehended what Robby had just told him. Miguel had done this? No… It couldn't have been Miguel.

"No. No fucking way." Johnny stammered. Robby shrugged, his face still knitted in a frown.

"Believe me, don't believe me, I don't care. Won't change the fact that he's back in Cobra Kai." Robby remarked. Johnny still shook his head vehemently.

"No. Miguel wouldn't do this. He wouldn't join Cobra Kai." Johnny stated adamantly. Robby laughed mirthlessly.

"You mean the guy who attacked my shoulder at the tournament? Then attacked me again at the school fight? Then turned a water hose against me and my friends after challenging us to a fight? Then left his team halfway through the tournament?"

Johnny sighed, once again uncomfortably thrown in the middle of the feud between his son and his mentee.

"Look, I know you and him have your issues, but trust me, he wouldn't do this." Johnny said. Robby once again laughed in disbelief at his father's denial.

"Dad, last night, as he wore a Cobra Kai jacket, he nearly killed me. He held me in a choke until I almost lost consciousness. So when I say that Miguel joined Cobra Kai, I think I might know what I'm talking about." Robby spat. "Look, I'm sorry you don't know your student as well as you think you do, but it's true. And based on what happened last night, he seems to be not close to stopping. This fight between me and Miguel is far from over. And I need to step up my game if I want to be able to defend myself and my friends from this new, more dangerous Cobra Kai."

"Oh, my God." Johnny murmured quietly, looking down in a mixture of shock and disbelief. "I can't believe Miguel would do something like that."

"You realise you're going to have to pick a side in all this?" Robby remarked, drily to his father. Johnny glared at him.

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you a few nights ago after dinner with Carmen and Miguel… picking a side will only make things worse. I'm not picking a side."

"And I'll tell you the same thing I told you last night… you're eventually going to have to." Robby responded. "Miguel and I are never going to see eye to eye. You and Mr. Larusso couldn't after 35 years, and our fight far surpasses the intensity of yours. This illusion you have of all of us being one big happy family one day… they're impossible, and the sooner you accept that, the better it is for all of us."

"Robby…" Johnny started, but Robby cut him off.

"No, listen!" Robby snapped. "So you have two options, dad. Option one is you pick Miguel's side, and I walk out and leave and any remnant of a relationship we've built this past month goes down the drain. And option two is you pick me over him, and you let Miguel do what he wants to do with Cobra Kai or whatever other dojo he chooses to join in the future."

Johnny's face flashed with anger and frustration as he stepped closer to his son.

"And I'm telling you… I'm taking neither side." Johnny growled. "And if you truly need to pick one, then you can turn around and walk out these doors right now and we can wait another 17 years. Maybe you'll be mature enough then for you and I to finally have a conversation like adults."

Robby's expression emulated Johnny's, fury emanating from within, and he stepped even closer so the two were face to face, tension palpable in the large abandoned warehouse.

"I knew it." Robby growled. "You know you can try and say all you want that you want to be a part of my life but at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, you've always chosen him over me, and you always will."

However, their confrontation was suddenly interrupted when the doors to the dojo swung open and someone stepped inside. Johnny and Robby both spun around to face the doors, both now weary of a threat behind every corner so half expecting an attacker entering the dojo, but they saw that it was just Tory who had entered.

"Oh, it's just you." Johnny murmured, relaxing slightly. But as she came closer to them, Robby and Johnny realised that Tory wasn't alright at all. Despite wearing a jacket in the non-air conditioned, sweltering heat of sunny Los Angeles, Tory was shivering, and Robby noticed and ran over to her.

"Hey. Hey, you okay?" He asked, extremely concerned. And for a couple of seconds, Tory had lost the ability to speak in her shock. Her heart was still pounding and her mind still spinning at the massive discovery she had just made.

"Um… uh… I, uh… I…" Tory just couldn't seem to get the words out, as she continued to splutter and stammer hopefully for a while. It took her nearly a minute to get over her shock enough to be able to get a whole sentence out. "I, uh… I just came from the prison. I was talking to Sensei Kreese."

"Oh yeah? The shithead tried to call me to reach out to be a while ago. Had some insane theory that he'd been framed. Probably dementia or some of that mental health shit your generation is obsessed with." Johnny remarked. "Far as I'm concerned… that man can die of old age in prison."

Tory slowly shook her head.

"He's right. He was framed." Tory murmured, in a voice not much louder than a whisper. Robby and Johnny looked at her like she had gone insane.

"What?" Robby asked, completely confused. Tory nodded, her strength returning as she began to recount everything she knew about the man and his imprisonment.

"Well, I went to visit him a while back and he said the same thing. That Silver had framed him to take control of the dojo. And while I thought it was strange that of all people, it was Stingray that he chose to beat up, I didn't believe that it was anything more than him getting drunk and unloading on the guy."

"Yeah, that's what we all figured it was." Robby remarked. Tory nodded.

"Exactly. So that was the end of it until last night. Last night at the party, Stingray was back in Cobra Kai. But why? Robby, you remember what happened when he came into the dojo that day before prom? Silver and Kreese kicked him out, right?"

"They told him he wasn't Cobra Kai material and basically told him to get the fuck out." Robby explained to Johnny. Tory nodded.

"And yet last night, he's suddenly back in Cobra Kai? So I asked Miguel about it…"

"Wait… you talked to Miguel?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah, they were flirting on a bench last night." Robby remarked, spite immediately entering his voice. Tory glared at him. Clearly, the two of them had an argument in the near future, but at this moment, Tory ignored him as she had more pressing things to talk about.

"Well you know Miguel's now in Cobra Kai?" Tory started, to which Johnny's face darkened.

"Don't remind me. That's the next thing on my list to sort out."

"Miguel said that Stingray kept going on about Silver owing him something. That he ought to make Stingray Cobra Kai's champion because Stingray did him a favour."

At this point, both Robby and Johnny caught onto what Tory was implying, and their eyes widened.

"Holy shit…" Johnny murmured, quietly.

"That fat piece of shit clearly told the cops that Kreese had beat him up, in return for being allowed back into Cobra Kai!" Robby exclaimed.

"That's what I think too. So I went to see Kreese again today and told him, and everything he was able to tell me lined up with that theory."

A long silence overtook the group as they all took in the gravity of what Tory was saying. Kreese had meant a lot to all three of them, especially Tory and Johnny as Kreese had been particularly good to them, but after they had gotten over their shock, immediately their minds began to whir to come up with a plan. Johnny knew that as many issues as he had with Kreese, he couldn't let the man sit in jail for Silver's crimes. Especially now, with Miguel in his clutches, the Valley needed Silver off the streets. But Johnny knew that he wouldn't be able to do this alone.

Immediately, he cancelled training and the three went their separate ways. Tory went home to go look after her mother. Robby stayed at the dojo to train some more. And Johnny… well Johnny forced himself to get into his car and drive to the place of the only person he knew might help him get Kreese out from behind bars once and for all. A 15 minute drive brought him to his destination, and swallowing the urge to throw up as he looked at the sign informing him that he'd arrived, he took a deep breath. He needed to do this. He needed help, and there was only person who wanted Silver out of the Valley as much as he did. So Johnny parked his car, the dusty, grimy vehicle sticking out like a sore thumb amongst all of the other brand-new cars at the familiar dealership…

Meanwhile, as Robby continued to train at the dojo, he pushed himself harder and harder as he moved from punching the target to weights training. His mind was dragged back to the night before, when he went toe to toe with his mortal enemy. He thought about how helpless he had felt as Miguel had beaten him so convincingly. He had been at the teenager's mercy, and although this time Miguel had let go of him, with the way their rivalry was going, he wasn't sure that next time Miguel would do the same. Which is why he had to train his ass off so he wouldn't be put in that situation again. Miguel might be ahead now, but he knew that if he worked hard enough, he could push things back to equal pegging. He needed too as well, as he knew that now that Miguel had reawakened the snake within him, he wouldn't just be stopping with the fight the previous night. There would be more confrontations, more fights for sure. Silver would plant the seeds of ruthlessness and vengeance in Miguel's mind and Miguel would for sure take them to heart, not stopping until he had wiped them out once and for all.

Robby was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't notice someone else entering the dojo. An unfamiliar figure. One of the last people he expected to be walking into the Eagle-Fang dojo.

"Hey."

Robby dropped the water jugs he was using as dumbbells in a second, and his head shot up as he recognised the voice. He quickly walked over to them, staring face to face with him, neither boy showing any fear as they looked at one another.

"What are you doing here?" Robby snapped.

"I heard Miguel did a real number on you last night." Hawk remarked, as he stared fearlessly into the eyes of the boy he had vanquished at the tournament.

"That what you were told? You weren't told that it was you who was getting beaten up first, and it was me having to save your ungrateful ass? That you would've been in the exact same position as I am if it wasn't for me?"

Hawk shrugged.

"Maybe. Maybe not. But to be fair, I was drunk when I lost to him. You were fully sober and he still whooped your ass."

Robby felt his hands ball into fists as he glared at Hawk.

"What do you want?" Robby snapped through gritted teeth. Hawk took a deep breath before answering.

"Look, I know you and I are the opposite of friends, but right now there's a bigger threat on our hands and you know exactly who that is."

Robby looked down slightly, silently acknowledging that Hawk was right. Less than a year after breaking his back and Miguel was already better than them again. The guy hadn't even trained karate in like a month! Now that he was in the hands of Silver, they knew that things were only going to get worse for them and their friends.

"You're the leader of Eagle-Fang, right? It's your duty to help defend the others." Hawk remarked. "Well if this threat goes unchecked, he will cause even more havoc and chaos for everyone. We need to stop him. Together. What do you say?"