CHAPTER 198

As the teenagers began to fight what was most the biggest and most important fight of their entire lives, what immediately began to occur was that the fight split in two. The younger 5 Miyagi-Dos took on Kyler and his gang of Cobra Kais, while the older students turned their attention to the bigger fish - the 4 adults.

Thank God for the presence of the younger students. If they hadn't been there, there was a very good chance that the 7 older students would have been overwhelmed instantly. After all, the 7 were having enough trouble trying to dispatch the 4 henchmen as it was. The teenagers weren't aware of this, but the 4 adults they were fighting were 4 of Hector's henchmen. They were trained guards for the cartel, born and ready to fight, but more used to doing so with guns than with their bare hands. If anything, the students might have had more experience training in hand to hand combat than their opponents. The reason why the guards were able to stay in the fight was due to a sheer strength difference between them.

They weren't fighting against teenagers anymore, that was for sure. Each one of the punches and kicks that the adults threw would have been more than enough to knock the Miyagi-Dos to the ground, and that proved to be very much the case in the first phase of the fight. The Miyagi-Dos struggled to adjust to the difficulties of fighting against adults rather than teenagers, unable to take hits and keep going without being knocked backwards to the ground. Those with more defensive styles of fighting like Sam and Robby fared a little bit better than those with more attacking styles as they ended up taking less hits, but by nature of how chaotic the fight was, they still were hit with plenty of brutally powerful shots themselves.

It was 4 on 7, so you'd think that Miyagi-Do would have possessed quite a large advantage, almost able to fight the henchmen 2 vs. 1. But that wasn't the case at all. In fact, rarely ever were all of the Miyagi-Dos on their feet at the same time. Rather one of them would get hit and would be sent crashing backwards, and then as that person was recovering, another Miyagi-Do would step in and stop the henchman from finishing their downed teammate. This led to a series of abrupt 1 on 1 fights, none of which the Miyagi-Dos were able to even come close to winning. They needed a change of strategy…

"PROTECT THE EGG!"

Miguel's loud yell filled the air, entering the ears of all 7 of the people fighting on his side, but seriously confusing one of them. As Marcos turned slightly towards him, ready to question the rather ridiculous words coming from the Miyagi-Do leader's mouth, he was very nearly caught with a vicious hook to the temple that would have ended his fight right there. He ducked away from it in the last second, before taking a moment to survey the scene.

"What the fuck…" Marcos murmured under his breath. To his shock, all 6 of Miyagi-Dos had huddled in a tight circle, facing outwards at their opponents, all in fierce fighting stances. Robby gestured for him to come over so Marcos did, though he was still utterly perplexed about what strategy Miyagi-Do were attempting to employ. "What is this?"

"Protect the egg." Robby told him. "A training exercise we do. All of us form a circle and try to prevent anyone from getting through us. They can't penetrate the circle and attack us from behind, so we only have to worry about one angle of attack."

"This isn't going to work. They're just going to punch a hole through the circle." Marcos murmured warningly. Unlike them, he actually had quite a lot of experience fighting against those a lot bigger and stronger than him - both at the hands of his father and during the months he had spent deported. He knew that all it was going to take was one well-placed punch to smash their circle to pieces. All they were doing right now was standing there, like lambs ready to be slaughtered.

"It will. We fended off like 30 Cobra Kais like this." Robby replied. Marcos raised an eyebrow.

"You mean those Cobra Kais over there?" Marcos shot back, gesturing his head towards where the younger teenagers were fighting against the Cobra Kais. Despite nearly being outnumbered 2 to 1, Miyagi-Do were cleaning up against the Cobras, fighting hard and having the clear upper hand against people who were both older and bigger than them.

Now that the Miyagi-Dos had gathered in the circle, the 4 henchmen had complete control over the fight. If any of the Miyagi-Dos broke the circle, then the henchmen would be able to capitalize, so the adults could wait as long as they wanted to plan their next move. Another problem with fighting against trained professionals… their intelligent planning, even in the heat of battle. This didn't turn into a brainless brawl like so many of their other fights had. The adults were calm, calculated and unfazed by the threat they were up against.

The henchmen knew exactly what they were about to do: they needed to blast a hole in this circle and separate the Miyagi-Dos again, and the way they thought to do this was by all banding together and targeting the weak spot in the circle. They prowled around the circle like sharks, scanning each of their opponents and looking to see which of them was the weakest and therefore the ideal target for them to use to break into the circle. It didn't take them long to lock onto their target, all 4 henchmen facing him and causing the boy's face to drop as he realized what was about to happen.

"Oh, shit!" Demetri exclaimed, as he watched all 4 henchmen smile sadistically at him and raise their fists at him, preparing to unleash a flurry of clobbering blows in his direction. With all four enemies locked on him, he found himself paralyzed, immobile in shock. There were only split seconds until the blows landed, until he surely found himself face-down on the ground.

But the punches never came. Instead, at the last moment, Demetri heard someone yelling "DEMETRI, MOVE" before the tall teenager felt himself being shoved roughly out of the firing line, one of his teammates sacrificing himself and taking the hits for him.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

All four henchmen connected sickeningly with the head and stomach of a Miyagi-Do. But who had been hit? Demetri had been pushed out the way at the last second, so as he went stumbling backwards, he wasn't able to see who had pushed him away. As soon as he caught his balance, Demetri spun around and saw none other than Robby lying on the ground, barely conscious, groaning and convulsing in agony after taking all 4 shots.

Robby was down. And to say that after that point the circle blew up would not at all have been an understatement. With Robby down, it had now been reduced to a 6 on 4, even better odds for the already dominating henchmen, reducing Miyagi-Do's chances of winning from slim to almost impossible.

To their credit though, Miyagi-Do weren't backing down one bit. After the circle blew up, Marcos immediately lunged at the biggest henchmen, tackling him and beginning to wrestle and grapple with him on the ground, to very little success. Hawk and Miguel went for another one of the henchmen, equally successful as he found himself on the back foot almost immediately. Sam and Tory went for the third henchmen, finding themselves just as overpowered by them as everyone else. Demetri was still recovering from what had just happened to him, but wait… where was the 4th henchmen.

As they were getting beaten up by their respective opponents, all of the Miyagi-Dos realized this at the same time, and their heads spun around as they searched desperately for the fourth opponent. It didn't take them too long to find them, and their hearts all dropped like a stone. The fourth henchman, not being challenged by any of the Miyagi-Dos, slowly walked towards Robby. The brunette was still on the ground, trying to drag himself to his feet but the searing pain rattling through his skull prevented him from doing so.

"ROBBY!" Tory's voice sliced through the air like a knife as the girl desperately tried to make it to her boyfriend before the henchman did, determined to protect the person she loved most in the world. It was hopeless though. The man was a lot closer to Robby than she was, and a kick from the henchman she was supposed to be fighting right now sent the blonde crashing back down to the ground.

As Robby heard Tory's voice, immediately hearing the urgency and terror in her voice, Robby forced himself to bite back the rising pain racing through his body and look up. Big mistake. All Robby saw as he looked up was quite possibly the last sight he would ever see. He saw the henchman standing over him, bloodlust and ruthlessness radiating from him as he prepared to finish off the teenager once and for all. Without the strength to even raise his head, let alone his body to fight, Robby tensed up as he waited for the end. As he waited for the finishing blow.

He would live to fight another day though. Just before the henchman raised his foot to stomp on Robby's head and single handedly send him into the next life, Robby almost thought he was hallucinating as he saw a blur hurtling towards them, colliding with the henchman and sending him stumbling backwards. Another blur followed close behind, knocking the henchman to the ground, taking the enemy completely unawares.

Blinking a few times as he tried to understand what was going on, Robby soon found his answers when he saw Kenny and Shawn Payne standing over him, relieved smiles on all three of the boys' faces that the brothers had arrived when they did. A second later and… well, they didn't want to think about that. Shawn grabbed Robby and helped him to his feet, the three boys standing face to face.

"Thank you." Robby murmured, feeling the pain starting to subside from his body and feeling himself slowly returning to normal.

"I'm sorry." Kenny apologized. "I should've listened to you about Silver. You were right. He called us and offered us to…"

"I know." Robby nodded sympathetically, knowing the affection that Kenny had for Silver, feelings that simply didn't disappear in a day.

"We told Silver no and we were on our way to tell you about it but you weren't at your dojo. Silver never told us the location so we had to track Kyler's phone here." Shawn explained.

"Thank you. Seriously. Thank you." Robby couldn't express just how thankful he was, unable to fathom what could've happened to him if they hadn't come when they did.

"No problem." Kenny nodded. Shawn cracked his knuckles as he glanced at the fight unfolding before him, smiling widely as he did.

"Oooh, I haven't had a brawl like this since juvie." Shawn grinned. "Let's get to fighting."

Shawn and Kenny had breathed new life into the fight, and the momentum of the fight finally began to swing in their direction. It was now a 9 on 4 in favor of Miyagi-Do, but that didn't matter in the least. It could've been 50 on 4 and the 4 would've won if the 50 were inferior fighters.

Miyagi-Do had a proper team now. Robby and Miguel were the leaders, directing their team and motivating them as they fought side by side. Hawk and Shawn were the bruisers, smashing their opponents with a combination of brute strength and ruthlessness. Sam and Tory were the architects, using two polar opposite styles to keep their opponent confused and unable to defend their powerful punches and kicks. Demetri and Kenny were the killer wasps, not fighting an opponent of their own, but instead weaving in and out of the various other fights that were occurring and catching the henchmen unawares, stinging them with vehemence that neither boy had shown before. And Marcos… Marcos was the chaos.

It couldn't be understated just how beneficial it was to have a wildcard like Marcos in the fight. Of all of them, he was definitely their best fighter on the night so far. The thought of Sarah in the custody of these monsters was still burning a hole in his mind, driving him to send wave after wave of unpredictable offense crashing onto the heads of his opponents. He refused to stumble, even after taking countless big hits as the henchmen began to target him, all of his experience taking skull-denting blows while fighting in Brazil proving to be useful.

There was no stopping the Miyagi-Dos. They were one cohesive unit, 9 of the best young fighters in the Valley, all of them more motivated than ever to beat their opponents. Any bad blood between them, even spats as recent as Tory and Marcos' less than an hour ago, had been long since resolved. Fighting alongside one another in such a dire situation… it bred trust in a unique way. They were a team, no matter which dojo they had been part of before tonight, and sure enough, less than a few minutes later, they reigned victorious.

With all 4 henchmen laying completely unconscious, knocked out cold, on the ground, the Miyagi-Dos had successfully defeated Silver's first line of assault against them. Unfortunately though, given that they were still yet to see the hostages or any of the enemies they knew were lurking within the park, they knew that this wouldn't be the last…