CHAPTER 119

More of the same followed, especially in the California State Penitentiary. Prisoners were forced to live the exact same daily schedule, day in and day out, with little to know end. Well, for most people there at least. Not for Terry Silver. That man's days were all unique, all filled with meticulous planning sessions, and calls and meetings with contacts, putting together his master plan. It was coming along extremely well, the painting was beginning to come to life. Various steps of the extremely complicated plan were clicking together like jigsaw pieces, destined to fall into place beside one another.

What's more was that he had a new friend in jail too. Him and Marcos' father spent a lot of time together, Silver explaining to him in full his part in the plan - how it would occur, what he'd do, who he'd target. However, there was one large problem that needed to address first. Although Silver's sentence had him set to be released at the end of April/beginning of May, Felipe's sentence was for life. As of now, he had no way of being let out of jail in any way other than a coffin. Silver had contemplated setting him up with an escape plan. Kreese had done it and it was really not that hard to achieve. However, he figured that there was an easy way to go about it, at least as a plan A. As soon as the man broke out, Silver knew that the cops would come straight to him, as they now had been known to spend time together in jail. Thankfully though, the alternative was seemingly an even better option.

"I don't know about this." Felipe murmured as Silver told him all about the idea. It sounded almost absurd to think about. Silver planned to get all charges dropped against him, and make him an innocent man.

"Relax. It's going to be a cake walk." Silver replied. "Your case appeal starts next month. I've got the very best lawyers in the country, nay the world, working the case. They will not rest until they prove that you weren't in a sound mind when you hurt Marcos because you weren't on medication. And you weren't on the medication only because you couldn't afford it with your income. Playing the mental health card, with the lawyers I have… there's no way that this doesn't work. As long as you show good behavior here in prison now that you're on the meds, it should be open and shut. You should be out of prison by June."

"I don't want to be out by June though. I want to be out now. Why aren't we starting the appeal earlier?" Felipe asked him.

"Patience." Silver told him. "If we want to do this thing, we need to do it right. You need to give my lawyers time to work their case, so there's a literal 0 chance it fails when it comes time. Rushing in now could cause it to backfire. Besides, if we set up your appeal to be tomorrow, Marcos' remaining friends in the Valley, our enemies, would know you've escaped. The unknown factor that you bring would be spoiled if they all find out about it now."

"They'll find out whenever I get released anyways though, no?" Felipe asked. Silver shook his head.

"Not necessarily." Silver said. "There are a few windows that we have. A few small windows of opportunity that if we time things to perfection, would allow you to be let out of jail without any of them knowing. Moments where none of them would be in the Valley. Luckily enough, they're all on a trip to Japan in the beginning of June, so it's the perfect time to be let out."

"Still though. It seems massively inconvenient to spend months sitting around doing nothing, just to wait for a small window of opportunity in June." Felipe remarked.

"We're not doing nothing. My contacts are still organizing everything for the plan, outside these walls." Silver reminded him. "Contacts in both America and abroad. Because the ones abroad might just be the most important."

"How so?" Felipe asked. Silver nodded.

"Well right now, I narrow the problems we have left to address in this plan as two-fold. The first one is the numbers disadvantage we'd hold when things come to blows between us and the entire Valley of Karate. We need our own team. Our own reinforcements."

"You want to hire a bunch of kids to fight for us?" Felipe muttered, not convinced. Silver laughed and shook his head.

"No. They can teach their kids and their middle-aged teachers. We'll have brutally trained fighters. Actual threats, unlike theirs."

"How do we get that though?" Felipe asked.

"Ecuadorian Drug Cartel." Silver replied simply. Felipe almost laughed in disbelief at the absurd response, but it was the stoic expression on Silver's face that led him to refrain and think that he might actually be serious.

"Excuse me?" Felipe remarked. Silver chuckled at the man's incredulity.

"An old friend of mine, many years ago, was extremely high up in the Ecuadorian Drug Cartel. He had connections like even I've never seen. He was eventually forced to go under because he began to get investigated by the government. He still works in the shadows now though, out of Mexico City." Silver explained. "He's a genius at it. Fakes a relationship with a 'wife' and a 'step-child' to make his image look cleaner to those investigating. He only ever communicates directly with those he trusts the most. And… he happens to owe him a favor."

"That's a useful I-O-U to have." Felipe commented. Silver shrugged.

"I gave him some information that he was extremely… interested to hear. In return, he agreed to do whatever we needed for the plan. He'll provide the man-power. And he'll also solve the second problem, the only other problem left the solve: our escape."

"Escape?" Felipe asked. Silver shrugged.

"Come on. We're planning on vaporizing tens of teenagers and adults. I don't know about you but I don't plan on sticking around for the cops afterwards. We need an escape plan." Silver stated. "This Ecuadorian man's resources will give us a way out of the country, and we'll go down to somewhere in South America to hide out for a while, and then start new beginnings for ourselves."

Felipe nodded.

"Sounds like a solid plan." He replied. "So… this Ecuadorian man. Tell me more about him."

"I don't know what to tell you." Silver said. "All I can say is that he's the key to the entire plan. And as soon as he makes it to the Valley in June, around the same time you'll be out of prison, it'll be go-time. Things will run like a well-oiled machine, and there will be nothing or no one that has the ability to stop us. I guarantee it."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"98!"

THUD!

"99!"

THUD!

"LAST ONE! COME ON! 100!

THUD!

As Marcos felt the last punch slam against his ribs, nearly shattering them for the hundredth time, he let out a massive groan, feeling both relief and nausea powerfully washing over him, to the point where he rushed over to a nearby bin and began to retch and gag into it. It was another day at the fight club, the place where for the past month Marcos had been spending almost every second.

Marcos had quickly found out, training amongst these absolute behemoths, that practicing getting hit was just as important as practicing hitting. Fighting strong opponents, he couldn't afford to be beaten or winded after just a few punches. He needed to be able to take many, many strikes throughout the course of a fight and still be able to keep going. He had decent strength in this regard already for a teenager, however training with adults was a whole other ballgame. He quickly found himself needing to improve, and so some of the other fighters there had been more than willing to 'help' him. None of them trained teachers themselves obviously, their 'genius' method of trying to toughen him up was to have him take 100 body shots, as hard as the fighters could throw, straight at his undefended abdomen.

While at first it had been absolute torture (it still kind of was), after a few weeks of doing this, the funniest thing happened. It got easier. Not a lot easier. It was still hellishly painful. But it became just the slightest bit less painful, and that made a world of difference. It showed him that he was progressing, that things were working, even if he was no longer in a dojo anymore.

Not only this, but his actual fighting skills had clearly improved too. Fighting with these men, all of whom were MMA fighters, it had greatly evolved his game. Given the size difference, trying to grapple with them was a non-starter for him, which meant that he was forced to rely on striking even more. His style became more like that of a boxer, light on his feet, deadly with his hands, however with the intermingling of kicks. And his defense… well that was forced to rapidly improve too, or else by now he'd probably either be in the hospital or dead. He learned how to be more mobile with his defense, how to be aware of his surroundings and keep moving, even while he was on the back foot. He was never stuck in one spot taking hits.

The only problem was that Marcos wasn't earning any money. He was still yet to beat a single other fighter at the club, all of them just too big or too skilled. Until one day, his ultimate test came…

"I'm here to join."

Marcos heard those words from across the room in the fight club, and he looked up to see a white man, seemingly foreign by descent, standing by the organizer. For once, this guy didn't look miles bigger than him. Maybe it was a combination of this man being smaller than Marcos' other opponents and the fact that Marcos had definitely put on quite a bit of muscle in the past month, but for once this person was about Marcos' size. An actual fair fight weight-wise, and everyone in the fight club knew it.

Already, without another word being said yet, eyes began to flicker towards Marcos, knowing what was going to happen next.

"Well, to join, you need to beat one of our existing members. That's the rule." The organizer explained to him. The man nodded confidently.

"Easy." He replied. "I'll even put 200 on it. Who am I fighting?"

There was no question about this one. Marcos had already even stepped into the ring, eager to take the fight against a rare similarly-sized opponent. The other fighters present all watched on, curious to see how the young teenager who had been training with them for the past month would fair against this person.

"Him." The organizer replied, pointing to Marcos, who was stretching and warming up in the ring. Seeing how young his opponent looked, the man laughed loudly, his confidence evident.

"Him?! You know what? Screw 200. I'll put 500 on it." The man stated. This certainly piqued Marcos' interest. 500 Brazilian reals was what he had at the very beginning, but had lost it to Hulk. If he could earn that money back, it would definitely be a starting point in eventually affording a flight back to L.A after his 18th birthday.

"Alright. Let's do this." Marcos murmured. It was time to fight…

Although Marcos had sparred almost every day in the past month, sparred until his body was so sore and aching he had collapsed before even leaving the ring, this was the first proper fight that Marcos had been in in the past month that he knew he physically had the capability to win. There was no size difference to blame, nothing to separate the two men except skill, and Marcos wasn't going to let the other man get the better of him in that regard.

The fight started, and as the first minute ticked by, Marcos was interested to see how differently he fought as opposed to when he first arrived in Brazil. He still relied on power, speed, stamina and IQ to out-hit, out-work and out-think his opponent. However, his actual fighting style was more matured.

Nowadays, Marcos was less of a Martial Artist and more of a fighter. That was probably the best way to describe it. While before, he had relied on styles such as Capoeira, styles such as Karate, now he went with whatever he knew would inflict the most punishment on his opponent. There was a lot more boxing to his game than ever before, his brutal hands coming while he slipped in, out and around his opponent's strikes, dodging and dancing like he had done so many times before. Dodging his opponent's strikes had been something he had gotten a lot better at, as the guys he was fighting now were more likely to try to attack him than Miyagi-Do ever were. Marcos also used kicks as a way of forcing his opponent backwards, but also gauging the distance between them for him to keep. It was a tactical move, one used by the vast majority of experienced fighters, as it allowed him to always have his opponent at the perfect distance without even having to think about it.

Sure enough, everything that Marcos had been working so hard in for the past month eventually came to fruition. The man turned out reasonably skilled and decently strong, but not good enough. It took a slight drop of his hands for Marcos to punish him, landing a few punishing punches to the head while the man's hands were down, then when he went to cover up, Marcos attacked his kidneys. He kept alternating, the man thoroughly on the ropes, until eventually he fell to the ground, unable to fight any longer. Marcos had done it! He had won!

Here it was. A new-era of Marcos as a fighter. One determined, brutal and ready to get the job done. He just needed a way back to the Valley because when he did, he was going to be a massive problem for all of Miyagi-Do and their chance of winning the Taikai…