CHAPTER 117
"Mr. Oliveira… how are you doing today?"
"Fine." Felipe Oliveira, Marcos' father, replied as the prison nurse looked him up and down that morning. Day 15 of his incarceration, and the hardest part was that every day was the same day. Prison labor. Yard time. Meals. That was the entire day in the life of an inmate at the prison. That was the day that would be lived tens of thousands of times before the sweet relief of death overtook them.
Like every other morning, Marcos' father was in the prison's infirmary, being given his mandatory daily dose of his medication for Intermittent Explosive Disorder. This was one of the hardest adjustments for the man upon being thrown behind bars. His entire adult life, he had had an intermittent, ambivalent relationship with the medication. When he had first found out about the disease, all those years ago in Brazil, out of fear of what he had just been diagnosed with, he had diligently gone on the medication for a while. However, shortly after, disgusted by the side-affects he was feeling because of them, he went off it. It was only after his wife's death, when he had felt an immense guilt for driving the love of his life to suicide because of his monstrous disease, that he had gone back on the medication. And he had stayed on it for 4 whole years. Until one day, exactly 5 years to the day since his wife's death, he forgot to take it. And then he just slipped. He remembered how free his body felt unencumbered by the medication, and he refused to take it again.
Prison wasn't exactly okay with that though. When he was first put in the prison, he was subject to an entire medical examination, during which he had been forced to reveal his disorder. He had prompted been put back on the medication, forced to report to the infirmary every morning and take the pills under the nurse's watchful eye.
That was where he was now. The nurse walked away for a moment to retrieve the meds from a locked cabinet, before returning with the pills and a small cup of water.
"Here." She told him. Felipe reached out to take them and as he did, the nurse raised an eyebrow, tapping him on his knuckles.
"Bruised. You getting into trouble in there?" She asked him. Marcos' father shook his head and sighed.
"I'm trying not to, I just do my own thing, but it seems to be finding me anyhow." He replied.
"Anything I need to report to the warden?" She asked him, knowing how prevalent gangs were in the prison. Marcos' father chuckled.
"Trust me, it's not me you have to worry about." He replied.
He took the medication before leaving the infirmary and walking back out into the medic wing waiting area. There was only one other inmate present, with a guard waiting right outside the door to escort him back to his cell. The inmate seated in the waiting room was an elderly man. Felipe had seen him around sometimes in the yard or the cafeteria, always alone, always silent. He hadn't even heard the man say a word. Until now.
"So… what are you in for?" The man suddenly asked him. Marcos' father was taken aback for a moment before responding.
"Oh, uh… nothing. Just some stupid thing the doctors want to keep updated about." Felipe gruffly responded. He didn't know this man. In what world was he going to tell him about his disease?
However, it turned out that Felipe had misinterpreted the question entirely, as the elderly man shook his head.
"That's not what I meant. I mean what are you here in jail for?"
"Robbery." Marcos' father replied, before beginning to turn and walk away. He knew how many of the prisoners felt about crimes towards children. So far none of them had found out about his crimes, and Felipe wanted to keep it this way. However, as he was walking away, the man called after him.
"That's a shame." The man called after him, and Marcos' dad slowed to a halt to listen, his back still turned. "Here I was thinking we could actually make an effective partnership. But I don't work with people who lie to me."
Marcos' father slowly turned around to face the man once again, staring at him, perplexed.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"My name is Terry Silver." Silver informed him. "I know who you are, Mr. Oliveira. Or more specifically, I know of your son. His path and the path of an enemy of mine have spent the past 6 months intertwined."
Realization slowly dawned on Felipe's face as he processed what Silver had told him.
"Ohhh. You're part of that whole karate shit, aren't you?" Felipe remarked.
Silver nodded. He told him everything. Told him about his role in Cobra Kai. Told him about the fall from grace at the hands of Larusso and Miyagi-Do. Told him about how while he had been locked up, Kreese had walked in and wrecked everything that Silver had attempted to build that whole summer. It was a genuinely true account, but it finished with Felipe wondering one large question.
"Cool story. One question though… how does this concern me and why the fuck am I supposed to care about any of this?" Felipe remarked.
Silver took a deep breath, anger flashing in his eyes before he spoke again, his tone now dripping with wrath.
"Because they need to pay… all of them. Miyagi-Do. Cobra Kai. Senseis. Students. I'm going to tear to shreds everything they're doing in the Valley and wipe them out once and for all." Silver stated, cold yet determined. "And I believe that there are two people responsible for your imprisonment: Marcos Oliveira and John Kreese. Them, along with everyone else, will be nothing but memories by the time I'm through with them."
Anger flashed through Felipe as he took in what Silver was saying. The man was right. Marcos was the main reason he was in prison, but Kreese had delivered the nail in the coffin. Both of them deserved pain, deserved suffering, deserved worse for what they had done.
"I've been working on the intricate details of this plan from the moment I got locked up behind bars 6 months ago." Silver explained. "I've been planning for every conceivable obstacle so that it's impossible to prevent it. I've analyzed all people involved, read their characters like a book, seen the way they could react to any given situation. I've all but foreseen the future, and then worked out an absolutely foolproof plan."
"And in this future, you think I could get to Marcos?" Felipe asked. Silver chuckled and nodded.
"This plan… it all culminates in war. In a colossal, all-out battle. I can guarantee that your son will be fighting. In the heat of everything going on, I'm sure nobody would notice if you slipped away for some alone time with your son. Nobody would notice if he never returned alive."
"Tell me more about this plan." Felipe said, intrigued. "You say it's a fight. Between who? The two karate dojos? Because I have no interest fighting on the side of some stupid karate dojo I don't give a flying fuck about."
Silver shook his head.
"No. Having them fight against one another would mean that one of them would emerge victorious. I want a way to wipe both of them off the map, once and for all, and the only way to do that would be to have them fighting on the same side. All of their somewhat decent students and senseis at least. All of them would be fighting against us. And we'll absolutely obliterate them."
"Is it just me and you?" Felipe asked. Silver laughed loudly for a moment before shaking his head.
"Sorry. I forgot you don't know who I am." He cackled. "I would never waste my time and resources on a two man plan. I would never think that short-sightedly, that small-scaled. I have people both in this country, and even outside the country already working away at making this plan come to fruition. It's being timed to perfection."
"If all of this is planned, then how'd you know I'd even be here in prison with you?"
"I didn't. Happy accident." Silver admitted. "But I can appreciate the fact that you and I are both two men who have been severely wronged by these people, so it's in our best interests to look our for each other. Like I said, I've already planned for every possible variable, so you joining us really doesn't change that much. All it does is allow you the opportunity to get your revenge and further harm the people I want to obliterate from existence. So… what do you say?"
"I'm in. Let's do this." Felipe eventually replied, shaking the hand that Silver had held out to him. "But I have just one more question though. Why? What's the end goal of this?"
Silver raised an eyebrow.
"Didn't you hear? Revenge on all of our enemies." Silver responded. Marcos' father shook his head.
"Come on. What is this really about? Nobody is this invested about destroying karate students and their senseis. Especially the students and senseis of the dojo you supposedly were a part of."
Silver took a deep breath before nodding.
"You're right." He admitted. "I don't have much longer on this earth. I'm sure of it. I've been hanging on for a while now but I'm certain that I'm reaching the end pretty soon. So this entire plan… it's my final act. A big enough spectacle to mimic the life I've lived. A final fuck you to all of those who have ever tried to defeat me. To show them that I can't be beaten. That I'm inevitable. Undefeatable. I alone have the power to decide when not only I, but anyone in this Valley lives or dies. In terms of the Miyagi-Dos… they're the reason I'm locked in jail in the first place. And in terms of Cobra Kai… that dojo was born with me, and it dies with me too."