CHAPTER 150

"What do you want?" Marcos snapped, aggressive from the get-go, despite the nature of the fact that he was lying in a hospital bed, barely able to move. Suddenly, a dim light flickered on, not enough to illuminate the whole room, but enough that Marcos could see the tall, pony-tailed Karate Sensei in the corner of the room, staring at him.

"I just heard about what happened. Can't a Karate Sensei want to check up on his student, make sure he's okay?" Silver remarked.

"You're not a Sensei. And I'm not your student. I'm Sensei Kreese's student." Marcos found the strength to growl at him. Silver sighed and nodded, remaining completely calm despite the teenager's hostile attitude.

"That's fair. I know you have no reason to trust me. I was never your sensei. You only know me as the man who screwed over Kreese." Silver admitted. "That was, as I'm sure you've heard me say countless times by now, the biggest mistake I've ever made in my entire life."

"Right. One slight problem though… I don't believe a word of that and neither does Kreese." Marcos muttered. Silver nodded.

"Why would he? What I did to him… it was despicable. That one move wrecked a half-century long friendship. One moment of insecurity and I pushed away the only person who for my entire life, always had my back. He has no reason to forgive me, nor believe me."

"Then neither do I." Marcos shot back. "Now if you could please leave me alone."

"You don't need to worry about that. About fighting." Silver said. Marcos' eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What? Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to fight tomorrow! No chance I'm quitting!" Marcos exclaimed. Silver sighed.

"You've been out for quite a while, Mr. Oliveira. You've missed quite a bit since you've been out." Silver said. Marcos looked at him, puzzled.

"Huh?" Marcos grunted. "What do you mean? What did I miss?"

"It's almost 8 am, Mr. Oliveira. After you were admitted to the Medical Wing at 2, the nurses automatically inform us, your senseis, and they inform the Taikai Committee. Early this morning, there was an emergency meeting with the Taikai Committee, Kreese, myself and the senseis of the perpetrators' dojo to discuss what happens now."

"And what's that?" Marcos asked.

"Well, what the moronic people who hurt you neglected to remember was that there are security cameras all over this place. The meeting only lasted a few minutes because all it took was them seeing the footage of what happened for the Committee to make a decision."

"Yeah, I get it." Marcos snapped. "What's the decision?"

"Well, it's entirely up to you actually. You have two options." Silver stated. "Option 1 is that the dojo who did this to you is automatically disqualified from all divisions of the tournament. Because of this, you'll be given a free extra day to rest and recover as your fight will be canceled and you'll automatically be booked a place in the semi finals."

"That sounds pretty good." Marcos remarked. "So what's the other option?"

Silver took a deep breath. This was it.

"The other option is that you allow the fight to continue. You fight Diego Rodriguez tonight. The perpetrators are all given a severe warning but no more disciplinary action is taken than that."

"So they walk off scot-free?" Marcos asked, confused. "Why the hell would I want that?"

"Well, not really." Silver said. "The way I see it, with the first option, it's the Taikai who are disciplining the offending dojo. They're the ones in charge of the retaliation. But with the second option, it's up to you to retaliate how you see fit. After all, when it comes down to the night of the fight, there's going to be nobody on that mat but you and him."

"And the referee. Who has the power to disqualify me." Marcos pointed out. Silver shrugged.

"Not if you're smart about it. At this late stage of the competition, they're not going to disqualify someone for 'accidentally' missing with their punch and hitting their opponent to the back. They're not going to disqualify someone for 'initially not hearing the ref calling for a stoppage'. Remember, this competition, above all else, is a business. They rely on sponsors, they rely on viewership to survive. And right now… they have the potential for a record-breaking number of views for a quarter final fight. They're not going to throw that away so quickly."

"What do you mean?" Marcos asked. Silver was definitely a lot more in tune with this side of things than Marcos. For Marcos, it was mainly about the fight and that was it.

"Come on. People are already hearing about what happened last night. Right now, you're one of the most famous guys here. But not in a good way. First impressions mean everything and right now, because of what happened last night, yours has made everyone either pity you or assume that you're weak. Especially the dojo that did this to you. Everyone thinks you're weak. They're going to write you off. Pity you. Push you around like a punching bag. And that includes the press."

"What?"

"Come on. It's only a matter of time before they hear about all of this. In fact, I'm sure they already have, and are in the process of writing all about it. Because of this, you have the opportunity to be known in two different ways. You can either take the rest day and have the opposing dojo, and you'll be portrayed for the rest of this tournament as the antelope who got chased down and mauled by lions, and is now taking advantage of cheap opportunities to win. Even if you win the whole thing, beside your name, there will always be a metaphorical asterisk because of the way you got there."

"Or…" Marcos prompted him.

"Or, you can be known as the lion who fought back, managed to take down the leader of the pack, less than 24 hours after being ambushed by them."

"I don't know about this." Marcos murmured, though subtly he could feel himself being swayed more and more towards taking the fight.

"Like I said, it's entirely up to you. You have until midday to make a decision." Silver said. "But I think I know which one you're going to pick."

"How?" Marcos humored him. Silver nodded and smirked faintly.

"Because while I might not know you very well, from what I've heard, you're a hell of a lot like a young John Kreese. And the John Kreese I know wouldn't allow himself to be walked all over by an enemy and not want retaliation. The John Kreese I know wouldn't rely on someone else to be mommy and daddy over a situation and act as the authority, rather than taking matters into his own hands. The John Kreese I know would want revenge. He would want payback. So tell me, Mr. Oliveira… am I right? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you don't want those things?"

Silver was right. Marcos couldn't. Now that he was fully awake, the events of the night before kept flashing back before his eyes. He watched over and over and over again in his head as he was kicked the crap out of by 6 people, led by the boy who had spent the past few days threatening him and being an all-round shithead. He remembered how even after he went down from the force of the blows, they kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him, even stomping on his face at one point so hard that his nose immediately started bleeding. They stomped on him like he was some insect that's only purpose was to be squashed. They punted every inch of the body while he lay in a fetal ball like they were playing the national sport of both Marcos' country and theirs.

Truth be told, all of that made his blood boil. It made him realize that he didn't have 2 options, but instead had only one. There was only 1 next move, and that was to take matters into his own hands. To make that boy and his entire dojo regret messing with him. As always, it was Marcos all alone against the world, but that was all he needed. He was not only going to beat the guy, but absolutely humiliate him with the entire world watching.

"I'm going to fight him." Marcos eventually said. Immediately, a wide smile spread across Terry Silver's face. Mission successful. The whole point of this, the whole point of all of this was to get in Marcos' head. Drill a hole and then fill it with aggression, merciless and fury, all of the things that made Cobra Kai special, the things that Kreese seemed to have gotten soft and forgotten about in his old age. Well Kreese would surely be shell shocked to see the rage-filled Cobra who was about to take to the mat that evening and get the retaliation he craved. And knowing how much Kreese cared about the boy, that was the ultimate fuck you to his former captain, who had thought he would be able to go up against him and survive.

"I'm glad to hear it. I'll let the committee know." Silver replied. "Now… get your ass out of bed. You have a quarter final to win."

Marcos nodded and said two words he never imagined he'd be saying to Silver at any point.

"Yes, Sensei…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A little bit later, Marcos was officially discharged from the hospital and able to rejoin his dojo for the events of the morning, and the quarter finals that evening. Was he physically at 100% again? No, he definitely wasn't. It was physically impossible for him to have recovered that quickly. But he didn't feel even minutely in pain, as he felt nothing but fury coursing through his body. He felt bloodlust, desperately eager to get his revenge on the pieces of shit who had done this to him.

At around 9 am, Marcos was discharged from the hospital wing, which meant that he had around an hour and a half before he was required for pre-fight press conferences. For this reason, he decided to make his way over to the dining hall to grab something to eat. On the way there, Marcos could feel the eyes of every single person he passed lock onto him with intrigue, pity, sympathy and secret pleasure. He knew that deep down, there was a level of satisfaction in almost all of them that a major threat to the boys' division in the Taikai - Marcos - had been eliminated from the equation. Or so they thought. He was going to show them. He was going to show all of them.

He finally made it to the cafeteria, and as soon as he walked inside, he immediately noticed two things: two groups of people. Sitting at one table in the corner of the room closest to him were his friends from Cobra Kai. He could see Sarah, Kenny and Shawn all eating breakfast together, none of them speaking much, none of them having noticed him enter the room yet. And on the other side of the room, at the very front, closest to where all the food was, there remained the 6 fighters from the dojo who had beat the shit out of him the night before. Even just seeing them, Marcos felt waves of anger cascade through his body, igniting him like a forest fire that could only be quenched by destroying their leader, their champion, the mastermind of what had happened to him. Judging by the cheery expressions on all of their faces, not having seen him enter the room either, it was clear that they had been informed of the news that they weren't disqualified, that Marcos had decided to fight after all.

Marcos had two options: greet his friends and pretend that the other dojo weren't there; or he could confront the dojo who had done this to him, potentially get into a fight with them, and then possibly get kicked out of the tournament all together. There was only one answer. Marcos made a beeline towards the Argentinian dojo at the back of the room, but on his way, he was forced to pass through the table Cobra Kai were sitting at.

They all looked up at the sound of footsteps, and their faces immediately lit up when they saw him, a slight limp and a scarred face being the only signs of his beating the night before. They all stood up to greet him, but to their surprise, Marcos did not say a word to the. He simply walked right past them as if they weren't there, walking over to the front of the room, to the dojo that hadn't yet seen him.

He got nearer and nearer to the 'champion' who had led his team during their beatdown of the teenager the night before, until finally he made it within touching distance. Shockingly, at this point, none of their dojo had even seen Marcos, so Marcos was able to do whatever he wanted, take them by surprise. And what he decided to do was shove the champion, Diego Rodriguez, face-first into the bowl of cereal he was eating.

"Oops. Sorry… I tripped." Marcos remarked, extremely insincerely, as Diego's head emerged from the cereal bowl dripping with milk and with pieces of cereal stuck to his forehead. Quickly wiping himself off, the boy shot to his feet, hesitating for a moment when he turned and saw exactly who it was. After the vicious beatdown he had handed Marcos the night before, the boy definitely hadn't expected his foe to have recovered so quickly. Even when he found out that Marcos hadn't wanted him to be disqualified, Diego figured that the boy was still recovering in the hospital, would skip the press conference and would only show up to fight at the last minute. But to see him standing there, physically okay and mentally unfazed… it definitely took the champion aback.

"You little bitch." The Argentinian snarled, milk still dripping from his hair and face. His hands curled into fists and Marcos noticed, smirking coldly as he saw the champion preparing to fight.

"Go on. Do it. Lay a finger on me and I swear to you, they'll be cleaning bits of you out of the tiles on the floor for the next year." Marcos stated, quietly but menacing. His quiet, calm demeanor was quite possibly more terrifying than if he had been yelling. It showed that it was his rational mind, not his irrational, emotional mind speaking. He was deathly calm, dead-certain about this: he was going to tear the boy opposite him limb from limb, whether it was during the quarter final bout or right now.

And at that moment, it really did look like Diego was going to accept the challenge and fight Marcos right then and there. However, a few rapid words in Spanish from one of his teammates caused Diego to instead take half a step back, his detestation of the Cobra increasing by the second, if that was even possible at this point.

"You're right." Diego nodded at his friend, before turning back to Marcos. "I'll finish you on the mat, during the Quarter Finals. In front of the whole world watching, you're going to have to beg me."

Marcos didn't show a shred of emotion on his face as he shrugged.

"Why am I not at all scared? Oh, maybe because it took 6 of you to beat up just 1 of me, and a few hours afterwards I was already all good again." Marcos remarked. "But if you want to settle it on the mat… fine. Your choice. Your loss. Because what I'm about to do to you tonight… you're going to wish you killed me earlier…"