CHAPTER 64

Silver and Barnes sat in the Cobra Kai dojo together that night, celebrating. They were in absolutely brilliant spirits, as in about 48 hours, Cobra Kai had gone from a shadow of its former self to the most fearsome dojo in the Valley. They had the best senseis, the best equipment and as of now, the best students too. Barnes' recruits from his underground fight club, with Kenny's older brother Shawn there too… they would be unstoppable.

However, their celebrations were muted the second the phone rang in the Cobra Kai office. The two put down their scotches and cigars and looked at each other, confused. Who was calling them at 9 o'clock at night, to their dojo's number no less? Silver picked up the phone.

"Hello?" Silver said.

"Hi. Mr. Silver?" The voice on the other end said to him. The voice was very familiar but Silver didn't know from there.

"Do I know you?" Silver asked, confused.

"Yeah, um… My name is Brad Bellick. I work as a guard at the…"

"Prison." Silver finished, as he remembered where he knew the man. One of the very first things he had done when Kreese had been imprisoned was take a little visit to the facility himself. He, businessman that he was, managed to make a business deal with one of the guards. A pretty simple deal at that: he would pay the guard a fair sum of money every month, and in return the guard would let him know if anyone was visiting John Kreese while he was locked up. It was mainly a way to keep his ear on the ground, make sure noses weren't poking around where they didn't belong with the Kreese case. And so far, there had been nothing too out of the ordinary, which was why he was surprised to get the call. "Can I help you with something?"

"In case you don't remember, you told me to let you know when someone visits Mr. John Kreese." The guard said. Silver nodded impatiently.

"Yes, yes, I know who you are. But why are you calling me? Did someone go visit Kreese today?"

"Two people actually. This afternoon/evening." The guard replied. Silver's eyes widened a bit in curiosity.

"Well, who were they?" Silver demanded.

"Um… says here the two men's names are Lawrence, John and Larusso, Daniel."

Johnny Lawrence and Daniel Larusso!

Silver got off the phone, in shock, and he turned to Barnes. Silver had had the phone on speakerphone, so Barnes had also heard everything that the corrupt prison guard had said. He grinned at Silver.

"Something tells me we're about to be paying Danny Boy a visit." He remarked. Silver nodded, and the two of them headed for the door…

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"So… you guys come up with anything yet?" Amanda asked as she walked into the living room. Daniel and Johnny were both standing together in the living room, staring at a mindmap that Daniel had made on a whiteboard he had borrowed from the dealership. The two of them were listing all of their options of plans to proceed with their investigation of Kreese. They had visited the elderly sensei in prison earlier that evening, and as he implored them to believe that he was innocent, a part of them began to believe that maybe he was telling the truth. As much trauma as Kreese had put Daniel through, he could see in the man's eyes that he wasn't lying. That as much as Daniel wished he was guilty and could rot away behind bars for eternity, he was innocent. The guilty party was the even more dangerous man who was currently Cobra Kai's sensei. They couldn't let that continue. They needed to finish this once and for all, however they were struggling for ideas as to how.

"Not really." Daniel replied.

"Yeah, you'd think a fucking car salesman would be better at coming up with ideas." Johnny snapped, glaring at Daniel, who scowled back at him. Despite their alliance, neither one of them were friends by any definition of the word.

"You weren't exactly that helpful either with your blaring Alex Snider music while we were trying to work!" Daniel shot back.

"Okay, first of all it's Dee fucking Snider. Not Alex. Dee's a badass name. Alex's a lesbian name."

Daniel turned from Johnny to his wife and pointed at Johnny.

"You see?! You see what I've been dealing with all day?!" He exclaimed. Amanda sighed.

"Look, you guys come up with any actual legitimate ideas we can go off of?" She asked. This time, both Daniel and Johnny were in unison as they shook their heads.

"No." Johnny grunted in reply.

"Well, we did come up with one idea, which was to record Stingray or Silver on a hidden microphone explaining what actually happened." Daniel said. "Problem with that though is that whichever one, they can always say they were coerced or threatened into saying these things. It'll never hold up in court and all it'll do is let Silver know what we're doing."

"Yeah, that's not great." Amanda remarked.

"We did have another idea but Larusso here is too pussy to get behind it." Johnny grumbled. Daniel scowled at him.

"It's torture, Johnny! What you're suggesting is literally torture!" Daniel exclaimed. Johnny vehemently shook his head.

"It's not torture!" Johnny snapped. "I'm just saying we give that fat, grubby piece of shit what he truly desires, to be just another karate student, and we do a little sparring until he coughs up the name."

"So you basically want to beat the crap out of him until he confesses? Torture…" Daniel replied. Amanda held up a hand to cut them both off.

"Hold on. Hold on. Johnny might have a point." She murmured quietly. Daniel and even Johnny looked extremely shocked to hear this.

"Seriously? You're on board with his beating up Stingray plan?" Daniel asked, surprised. Amanda shook her head.

"No, don't get me wrong, that's psychotic and no way in hell either of you are doing it." She said. "But Johnny did have a point in giving Stingray what he wants: being a karate student in the Valley."

"Um… he is a karate student in the Valley right now. He's with Cobra Kai." Daniel pointed out. Amanda nodded.

"Sure. But I'd bet money that that's not exactly where he wants to be right now." Amanda replied, before turning to Johnny. "You were his sensei before. You brought him into all of this. Made him as passionate towards Karate as he is. I'm sure, with the right sales pitch, you could convince him to come back to your dojo."

Johnny shuddered slightly.

"I don't want that shithead in my dojo!" Johnny snapped. Amanda shrugged.

"So? He doesn't have to join you if you don't want him to. Just show him that it isn't Cobra Kai that he's loyal to. It's you, Kreese and the old students in Cobra Kai, almost all of whom, apart from Miguel, are now with Eagle-Fang or Miyagi-Do."

Johnny slowly nodded. Amanda had a point. That was actually looking like a half decent idea. There was just one problem though.

"So you want me to convince a man I absolutely hate that I want nothing more than him in my dojo?" Johnny murmured. "How the fuck am I supposed to do that?"

Daniel and Amanda looked at each other and smiled.

"Well lucky for you, Johnny, selling to people we don't give a shit about is about 90% of our job description." Daniel replied. However, before they could say anything else, the doorbell suddenly rang.

"Must be dinner. We ordered Chinese food." Daniel said. Johnny shook his head.

"Well, he ordered Chinese food. I got a pizza. Good old American food because I actually respect the ancestors." Johnny stated confidently. Daniel rolled his eyes.

"You do realise that pizza is Ital… you know what? I give up. I give up." Daniel sighed as the two of them walked over to the front door.

However, the sight they were greeted by was not the food delivery guy. No, it definitely wasn't, as they found themselves face to face with none other than Terry fucking Silver standing on their doorstep.

"Hello, Danny Boy." Silver grinned at him, before noticing Johnny right behind him and smiling wider. "And Mr. Lawrence too! What a perfect coincidence!"

"You son of a bitch, you come to my house?!" Daniel yelled at him, ready for a fight. Silver chuckled.

"Easy there, Daniel. I'm just here to talk." Silver remarked.

"You have 5 seconds to get off my driveway or I'm calling the cops." Daniel growled. Silver didn't move an inch though, nor did his smile get any smaller.

"Now, now, retract the claws, little kitten. I'm sure you're going to want to hear what I have to say." Silver remarked. "The first thing I have to say is I heard about what your students did to my boy last night."

"The hell are you talking about?" Daniel snapped, but Johnny looked down at the floor knowingly. Silver noticed and turned to him.

"Mr. Lawrence, would you like to enlighten him on what happened or should I?" Silver asked. Johnny sighed.

"Um… apparently Robby and Hawk got into a bit of a scrap with Miguel last night at Golf-n-Stuff." Johnny mumbled. Silver chuckled.

"Bit of a scrap? That's putting it mildly, eh? No… it was more like this. Your two leaders decided to track the location of mine. Follow him to the arcade. And then gang up on him and attack him in the public restroom."

Daniel's eyes widened as he heard this. He shook his head.

"No… no… that can't be true." He stammered. Silver sighed.

"Look, I'm a busy man, Larusso, so I'm not going to stand here and try and convince you of what happened." Silver said. "All I'm going to say is that this time, Miguel has decided to be the bigger man. Rise above it. Not retaliate. However, I can guarantee you that next time, if any of your students lay a hand on anyone, my students will be less giving."

Daniel and Johnny's blood crawled at the threat, but Silver was far from done talking there.

"But that's not actually the reason I came here tonight." Silver continued. "I came here tonight because I heard that you two have been sniffing around in John Kreese's case."

Daniel and Johnny were forced to stifle their shock, but internally, their hearts were both pounding in shock. What the fuck?! How had Silver found out about that?!

"I don't know what you're talking about." Johnny mustered up the courage to say, though he lacked a lot of conviction as he said it. Silver sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Once again. Busy man. No time for this." Silver murmured. "What I'm here to say is that I'm here to ask you both, face to face, man to man… back off from the case."

"Excuse me?" Daniel snapped.

"You know, for a dojo that demanded that we keep our distance, you sure are meddling in a lot of things that don't concern you." Silver commented.

"We're just trying to find out the truth." Daniel snapped. Silver shook his head.

"And I'm just trying to warn you that right now, you're playing with fire. You're like two kids with a box of matches. And you know what happens when you play with matches? You get burned."

Silver paused for a moment, relishing the fear that was in both Daniel and Johnny's eyes.

"Have a good night, gentlemen. I hope, for your sakes, that I don't have to see you guys again soon."

With that, Silver turned away from the door and walked back down the driveway, and into his car. But he didn't get into the driver's seat. Instead, he got into the passenger's seat, as the driver's seat was already occupied by his friend.

"You really think they're going to back off?" Barnes asked Silver as the man got into the car. He had remained in the car as they both agreed that they didn't want to reveal him to Danny boy just yet. They wanted to wait until the perfect moment for him to clamber out of the shadows and make the boy piss himself once again. However, Barnes had kept the window cracked open so he had heard the entire conversation between Silver and the two other senseis.

Silver shook his head.

"No. No I don't." Silver replied. "Which is why we need to come up with a plan for revenge in case they actually do get Kreese out."

Barnes smirked sadistically and nodded.

"What did you have in mind?"