Chapter Seventeen: Twenty Years
…
I think having Tory Nichols as my girlfriend again was incredible.
She was very pleasant to be around in general, she got over her general grumpiness when she was with me. She had a gorgeous smile, and always was happy to be with me.
Then there were the hormones.
Tory was probably the hottest girl at West Valley High, which was saying something since she had some very strong competition.
During the week of school we still had off when we got back from Nationals, we spent it getting to get back together properly.
And by that, we had sex probably for two hours every day for an entire week constantly at my grandparent's house.
It was actually pretty fun to sneak Tory into my place to have fun with her.
Tory, as she was at Nationals in our hotel room, was impressed by how much experience I had gained since we last were together. And she was damn near passing out in my arms after the first few times were made love.
I don't think I ever loved anyone or anything more than I loved this girl.
While I feel like Tory and I respected each other on a very deep level, I think Tory was the hottest girl in the entire world.
Forget the fact that she was a National karate champion, Tory had gorgeous hair, and a ten out of ten body.
Tory was like how I liked girls in general, with the three Bs, busty, blonde, and beautiful.
I could spend hours in bed with her, just tracing her face and kissing her, passing my hand along the perfect warmth and smoothness of her long back and legs.
When we got back to regular training, Senseis Kreese and Silver reunited the dojos, so we were back to training together.
We'd get sore and tired, Tory and I would shower together when we got home, and afterward, clad in nothing but a towel, Tory laid on my bed and I rested upon her.
It was actually rather nice to use Tory's big beautiful breasts as pillows, she allowed it before when we were dating prior.
Before getting reacquainted with each other sexually, we actually spent a decent bit of time talking and going on dates.
I learned which community college Tory planned to go, what she wanted to do after we graduated in just four short months.
Ironically, with all the karate and craziness of this past year, it was something I barely considered, and Tory was very supportive of what I wanted to do.
Tory was really starting to neglect her studies with this being our last semester of high school, so I'd try to get her to focus in the times we'd hang out after our hours together at West Valley.
I'd try to get Tory to practice some stuff for her Econ class, maybe some math, but like she did last year, Tory would climb into my lap and make suggestive jokes to try to get me off course.
One afternoon, Tory was up to her usual shenanigans.
She flung her Econ textbook out of my hands and then sat into my lap.
"I think I have something more fun in mind." Tory bit my bottom lip lightly.
We kissed for a moment and I sighed. "Sex won't get you to pass your classes. It's literally one last semester of high school. One last semester Tor, it's not that hard."
"Hm." Tory smirked, intentionally smushing her breasts through her sports bra onto my chest. "It's very hard."
I think Tory was the horniest girl I've spent time with. Which was saying a lot, Moon was quite a handful sometimes too.
I really appreciated it though.
I leaned back and kissed Tory tightly, it was a sentiment she returned instantly.
I reached down and gripped Tory's ass through her black tights, something that made her moan and gasp, using her own hand to make me squeeze harder.
Tory had such an amazing body.
Her breasts were so large and naturally plentiful, her hips were extremely round yet not making her body too curvaceous, and this ass was easily the largest I'd ever seen anywhere.
"Fuck." Tory hissed. "Luke, I want you." she whispered, starting to peel my shirt off.
It was an odd sentiment to have at only seventeen, but I had a primal urge to want Tory to mother my children. I wanted this girl to have my babies, it was very strange to feel but I couldn't explain it, I was this in love with her.
We started taking our clothes off and I whispered back to Tory. "I love you Tory."
She moaned softly.
"Luuu!"
She cried out, starting to pant near my ear. "Luke, I love you!"
Afterward, I wondered if this magic would ever end.
…
Lucas Schwarber remembered his teenage years fondly when pulling into a place he knew all too well.
"Where the hell is this? It looks abandoned."
Lucas closed the door to his Mercedes, speaking quietly. "Just come along."
Doug, the thin and dark haired eighteen year old Lucas had rescued from his fellow frat boy buddies at the strip mall looked past a cars from over a century prior.
A yellow Ford Super deLuxe, with a black canvas covering it.
Lucas used a special pair of matches and lit some incense near the house's living room.
It was a table almost at floor level. There were no chairs, only pillows on the floor which Doug awkwardly sat upon.
The only light in the house was a pair of candles he lit near a picture of an old Okinawan man.
"Whose house is this?"
"A man named Mr. Miyagi's." Lucas muttered, blowing out the incense starting match and throwing it away.
"Why isn't there any power here?"
"Because I haven't paid the electricity bills for this place in almost a decade."
"Then. Who owns this house?"
Lucas shrugged. "I do."
Doug was confused. "So, why are we here?"
"You're going to need a place to stay. It's my fault you don't have a home anymore unless you can move back in with your parents right?"
Doug frowned.
"I got into UC Irvine with a special scholarship. A foster care scholarship."
Lucas nodded slightly. "So then, I guess. That's that. I'll wire the electrical company in the morning and you'll have power here. Anything else you need, you have my phone number. Just don't go over to those doors alright?"
"Um. Sure. Uh, Mr. Schwar- Doctor. Doctor Schwarber?"
Lucas nodded. "Mhm?"
"Nevermind."
Lucas began to leave.
In the front yard of a Miyagi-Do Dojo that hadn't been touched in almost twenty years, Doug walked out and spoke to Lucas.
"Doctor Schwarber wait."
Lucas turned.
"How did you. What did you. How did you kick Tyler's ass and beat up all my buds?"
Lucas scoffed. "It's karate. Very old karate, practically doesn't exist anymore."
"Do you think you could teach me?"
"What for? You won't have to live with those assholes anymore. And if this Tyler guy bothers you anymore you can just call the police."
Doug sighed. "Yeah but."
Lucas could hear the crickets in the trees near the Miyagi-Dojo sing quietly.
"Doctor I never really had a family my entire life. At my frat for the first time ever, I honestly felt like I belonged."
"Those people threatened to kick your ass if you stopped writing papers for them. That's no kind of family."
"But sir I-"
Lucas raised his voice slightly. "Speak up alright. Say what you need to."
"I want to settle things with Tyler on my own terms." Doug balled his fists, looking directly into Lucas' eyes. "I want to make things right. A real man wouldn't hide behind someone else's mistakes."
Lucas felt touched, but he didn't show it.
"Fine then. I don't know about teaching you karate. But I'll sure help you figure this all out."
"Thank you."
Lucas spoke. "You need money for an Uber or something to get to your school in the morning?"
"Nah I can just take the bus." Doug shook his head. "Doctor, are you feeling alright? You don't look well."
"It's nothing I just." Lucas frowned. "Let's just say I've been down this path before, even if I get what you're feeling. It um, it doesn't end well."
With that, Lucas got back into his car, and drove back home to his wife and son.
…
Tory Nichols was completely shocked to hear what had prevented Lucas from getting baby formula.
"This is the first time I've heard you say the word karate in nearly twenty years Luke."
John Michael Schwarber fussed loudly, crying a little bit before Tory bounced her one year old son up and down in an effort to calm him down.
"Tory look I'll figure it out in the morning. I'll work a deal out with the other kid's Sensei, and that'll be that."
"That's how it starts. This isn't highschool Lucas, you could go to jail for what you did. It looks bad."
Lucas sighed. "I could claim self defense. There's no way I could be seen as the aggressor facing five men half my age with twice my size."
"That doesn't matter. It looks bad to me is what I meant."
"Tory-"
"Wake up Lucas!"
Tory laid John down in his crib in the living room and the Schwarbers began to argue very loudly.
"You beat up teenagers in some random run down strip mall over college bullying. Do you even hear yourself right now? What for?"
"To do what was right?"
"Any rational person would've let this kid spend the rest of his days being bullied into doing whatever for his friends as long as they needed to. It was none of your business and you risked everything for nothing."
Lucas shook his head. "Quite frankly I didn't. You're being absurd Tory, no one got hurt too badly and I-"
"And that makes everything fine doesn't it!?"
"For crying out loud calm down!"
John began to bawl at the top of his lungs in fright and then Tory lifted him up out of his crib.
"It's okay cm'here. Cm'here."
Tory glared at Lucas angrily while bouncing their baby son up and down again on her shoulder.
Lucas leaned forward and pecked John on the cheek before Tory stormed off to their bedroom and closed the door loudly behind her.
Lucas already knew he'd be spending the next few nights on the couch.
Tory had all but abandoned martial arts for years just like Lucas, but if she really got mad Lucas would be physically restrained from having any say in the matter at hand.
Sighing loudly, Doctor Lucas Gregory Mills Schwarber got a beer and some steak from the fridge, watched some TV until he fell asleep before he prepared for another ten hour shift at the hospital the next day.
…
Ali Mills had retired for years, mostly friends of her old friends were colleagues of Lucas at work at the hospital.
Unlike what he was expecting, there was no mention of the beating Lucas unleashed on the unsuspecting college boys the night prior.
A very tired but calm and professional Lucas Schwarber ran his oncology practice like a true medical professional. And with barely any sleep or contact with his wife and son, Lucas clocked out at six fifteen PM and drove to Miyagi-Do to pick up Doug.
…
"Pain does not exist in this dojo! Does it!"
"NO SENSEI!"
"Defeat does not exist in this dojo. Does it!?"
"NO SENSEI!"
"Fear does not exist in this dojo! Does it!?"
"NO SENSEI!"
Lucas and Doug walked into Shojo-Kai karate dojo on a Thursday nearing seven O'clock at night.
Inside several banners hung on the walls, and glass window panes lining the sides near the street.
One of the banners was written 'DANE WILSON MARTIAL ARTS'
Lucas was instantly surprised when he saw a banner of John Kreese.
It was a picture of him in the army as a young man, wearing his green beret uniform.
The interior of the dojo was incredibly well kept, there was a long wooden beam attached to the wall like those used for ballet stretching, except instead they were clearly used for stretching legs and practicing kicks.
There were several resistance bands attached to the wooden bar, and the class was massive.
Almost twenty young men aged roughly between the ages of fifteen and twenty five were practicing the reverse punch.
All of them had either red or blue gloves on their fists, and were using the resistance bands to practice their reverse punch.
Their Sensei was a man in a white karate uniform and a black belt. The man was African American, of average height and a very strong build. His hair was cropped short and his voice was strong and booming.
"Yoi!" the Sensei barked.
All twenty boys in white karategis all dropped their resistance bands and stood in ready stance, into long straight lines across the two jet black and red full size tournament regulation mats.
"Mercy is for the weak! We do not train to be merciful here! Here, in the street in competition, a man confronts you-"
The Sensei stopped dead in his tracks. One of his students was looking off towards the ostentatious waiting area, which included a pair of parents and Lucas and Doug.
"Am I boring you?"
"No Sensei."
He looked over at Lucas and Doug sitting calmly in the waiting area.
Doug looked ready to run right out of the dojo and Lucas stood his ground.
The Sensei walked right over to the waiting area. "Do you have business with me?"
"It can wait until after class. No need to interrupt anything." Lucas said calmly.
The Sensei looked ready to drag Lucas by his shirt onto the mat. "Why don't you and your boy step onto the mat and we can discuss things calmly?" he gave a very forced smile.
Lucas nodded silently, and with a silent look of reassurance, he and Doug took their shoes off and bowed onto the mat.
Lucas and Doug stood in front of twenty karatekas and the Sensei, all arrayed perfectly in Yoi or ready stance.
"I understand you assaulted Tyler here for no reason last night." the Sensei waved a hand to his blue belt, one of the only students over the age of eighteen who was not a black belt in his dojo.
"He tried to punch me," Lucas muttered calmly, looking between the bruised boy and his Sensei.
"So he's lying then?"
"Just about."
The Sensei chuckled. "You have some nerve. Who exactly are you?"
"No one of importance really. A guy in the wrong place at the wrong time I suppose. And who might you be?"
"My name is Daniel White-Wilson. I'm part of SRI and IKA, and you have made a mistake my friend. Nobody." Dane Wilson began to approach Lucas with his eyebrows raised. "And I mean nobody lays a hand on my students. Be they adults yet, or not."
Lucas exhaled loudly. "I was settling a dispute between Doug here and your student."
"That wasn't your place to do so my friend."
Lucas shrugged. "Then how about they settle it themselves?"
"I couldn't agree more. Kumite. Ais!"
The boys arrayed themselves in a large square with four corner judges being black belts, all of them holding a blue and red flag in each hand.
Tyler almost seemed to smirk, walking to his mark popping his gloved wrist.
"Whoa Doctor Schwarber, am I supposed to fight now?"
"There's been too much fighting going on."
Lucas began to leave but Dane stuck his hand out, forcing Lucas back.
"Sensei Wilson look-"
One of the parents gasped, almost raising their phone to record but her husband told her otherwise quietly.
Lucas was still calm despite the fact that Dane refused to let go of his shirt. "They can still fight. Just not here."
Dane looked like he was on the verge of wanting to hurl Lucas through a window, nearly shaking in anger.
"Where?" he growled out quietly, turning his head slightly.
Lucas turned to a small flyer that had been pinned to a large wooden board near the dojo edge beside the mat.
It was titled 'Santa Ana Karate Classic' it looked to be an official USA National Karate Federation event held in just five months from the day Lucas was requesting to challenge the dojo.
Chuckling, Dane let go of Lucas' shirt.
He even brushed Lucas' tie and shoulders quietly.
Dane smiled, nodding to Lucas. "Fine. Tyler here has already taken gold in the beginner division. I'll be nice to you and your boy. I'll meet you in the Novice division with bells on."
Doug looked like Lucas and Dane were speaking Chinese but Lucas was completely calm.
"Alright then. Novice it is, that's settled, we'll be there."
Dane slightly bowed his head, Lucas slightly bowed back.
Doug knew enough about martial arts to know that some sort of deal had been made.
Dane turned around, allowing Lucas to do the same.
Before they stepped off the mat, Dane turned around and spoke. "Oh. One more thing."
"Yes?" Lucas looked over his shoulder instantly, as if he never wished to let Dane face him with Lucas' back turned.
"If you don't show up. I swear, you better get ready to meet me in the ring that day."
"Sure thing."
Lucas watched Dane chuckle again. "Dennis over here won gold at Nationals for the second year in a row." one of his black belts, a young man in his early twenties with sandy brown hair and freckles, nodded at this.
"We've got Team USA very interested in our dojo. Tell me, how can a full time doctor ever hope to train someone to beat a member of my team?"
"Unlike what you say here. Karate isn't only about winning."
"Really?"
Lucas glanced at the picture of John Kreese on the wall. "Quick question. Have you ever met the man?"
"No. He died a few years back I heard. But I trained under one of his students."
"Which one of them?"
"Why does it matter?"
Lucas' tone seemed to change to a different one, despite the words that were shared that day. "It matters greatly."
Dane shrugged. "I'm not going to tell you. I'll see you in a few months."
"Likewise."
…
Doug was completely confused. "The hell happened?" the boy asked.
"Nothing too grave."
Doug was shocked as they walked across the wealthy Irvine parking lot towards Lucas' car. "Nothing too grave? It looks like you signed me up for some sort of karate tournament! How is that not supposed to be grave?"
"I said. It's nothing to worry about, I figured as much before I met the guy this would all happen."
"Explain to me."
"In just a second."
…
In Mr. Miyagi's dilapidated backyard Doug lazily tried to skip rocks in the pond where Lucas explained.
"I used to train in a dojo called Cobra Kai karate when I was younger." he said.
Doug listened quietly. "Uh huh." he murmured.
"Two brothers trained with us. Last name Payne. Kenny was the younger brother, far more talented. He went on to be a USA karate legend. But he retired just a few years ago, he helps sell cars out near Bakersfield now."
Doug nodded. "Okay?"
"His older brother Shawn was a dear friend of mine. He was always physically very large, never too skilled compared to the rest of us but a decent fighter nonetheless. I'm about, ninety percent certain Shawn must've helped run a Shito-Ryu karate school at some point and help teach classes."
"Helped run a what?"
"Shito Ryu school. It's the style this dojo we just challenged uses. You don't know anything about karate do you?"
Doug tossed a rock into a pond that looked like it hadn't been cleaned properly in over twenty years. "No."
"Well the first karate style was called Shorin-Ryu, it was developed in Okinawa. It grew into Shotokan, which developed my style, Tang Soo Do, and Shorin Ryu developed Shito Ryu, as well as Goju-Ryu, and Wado-Ryu. These are the five main styles of karate."
Doug nodded. "So okay. What style was taught here?"
"Goju-Ryu, which is technically Miyagi-Do karate."
"But this looks like someone's house. The dojo we just went to had a mat and equipment and stuff. How can I beat them with-"
"Can I keep explaining?"
"O-kay?" Doug asked in confusion.
Lucas kept explaining. "What happened was simple. My old Sensei was um. I'm not going to get into it right now. But-"
"Wait. You used to be like the guys from the dojo we just went to?"
"It wasn't so black and white but." Lucas sighed. "Okay listen. My point is, this pal of yours. Tyler? He's going to be a purple belt in the most prestigious Shito-Ryu organization in the country by the time you compete against him. Which means that yes. I'll teach you karate."
"But your karate is like. Useful for beating up five guys in a parking lot. Their seems decked out for competition and tournaments and stuff."
Lucas nodded, eyes slightly squinting at Doug. "It's the same stuff, trust me."
"Really?"
"Yup. Time for your first lesson."
…
…
…
A/N:
Happy new years folks. If this chapter raised any questions, stick around for the next chapters where I end this series indefinitely and answer all of them.
Thank you all and have a great day! Stay safe and I'll see you all next time.