Lee walked to the warehouse. "Hey, Lee. You know you don't have to train anymore, we got another female." Johnny told her when he saw her in exercise clothes.
"Well, what if I just want to learn karate?" She dropped her duffle bag.
He stared at her in disbelief. "That's great." A big smile broke out on his face. She let out a breath of relief. She was worried that he would say it was a waste of his time so close to the tournament. "I have to warn you, you can't be Moneypenny while training."
"That's fine." She nods.
"Alright, let's begin." He decided to start without waiting for the other girl. "Listen up, nerds. Today is going to be a world of pain. Now everyone falls in." He looked over his shoulder when he saw the new girl come in. "We have a new member joining us today. This is Devon Lee. She's going to be the new female champion."
Lee wasn't bothered by that. She wanted to kick the crap out of Piper. Devon waved. "Hi, my pronouns are she/her." She tilts her head wondering why she announced it when it was the traditional pronouns.
"The only pronouns we accept in this dojo are sensei and student." Johnny turned to her sharply.
"Those are nouns." She corrects.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She nods, thinking he was apologizing. "I think what I meant to say was QUIET!" He made her jump when he screamed out the last word.
"That was imperative." She leaned away from him.
"Get in line." He orders. She ran to stand beside Lee. "Today's lesson is about cheating. At Eagle Fang karate we don't believe in fighting dirty. Cobra Kai doesn't follow the same rules. So, we have to be ready for any dirty tricks they throw at us." Johnny paced in front of them.
"Like when Chong Li threw dirt into Van Damme's eyes in Bloodsport." She gave an example.
"Exactly, looks like someone did their prep work." He nods impressed.
"And I saw the squeals too. Not to mention Delta Force, Billy Jack, the Octagon, and Lady Dragon." She watched every karate movie she could find. "Cynthia Rothrock is a beast."
"Hell yeah, she is." He smiled.
"I saw Last Dragon," Mitch spoke up.
"Shut the hell up, Penis Breath." Johnny rolled his eyes. "Everyone, get ready, I'm gonna put you through the wringer. Except for you Diaz, you're up here with me."
"What?" He was confused like everyone else.
"The tournament is right around the corner, I can't afford you getting hurt. This is going to get a little dangerous. You can be co-sensei for the day, sound good?" He pats his back when he stands next to him.
"How dangerous is it going to be? Lee's here." Mitch asked. Johnny never let her take part if she could get hurt.
"Moneypenny isn't the one I'm worried about." He glares at him. "Now, let's begin." He throws ropes at them."Tie your primary arm up." Miguel went around to help them.
"If Cobra Kai pops out your shoulder, be ready to fight with one arm." He had Devon and Bert sparring.
"Just like in Best of the Best." Her high kick was impressive but Bert didn't have to move. It never reached him.
"That's too far out and you're overextending your kick. Tr…" She corrected her kick before Johnny could finish. Bert groans in pain. "Not bad." Johnny nods.
"I pride myself in never making the same mistake twice." She brags.
"This is starting to hurt, can I go next?" The rope was digging into Lee's ribs.
"Alright, Penis Breath came up with her." Johnny orders. Mitch stared at her breasts that were being pushed up by her arm being tied under them. She was able to deliver a kick to his stomach and a left hook to his face. "That's what you get for being a perv." He stood over his student to sneer.
The practice was over. Everyone was sore. The guys were icing their groins after getting kicked by either Devon or Lee. "Good job today. Everyone iced up. We're back at it tomorrow." Sensei spoke to them. He whispers something to Miguel before winking at him.
"Must be nice being the teacher's pet." Mitch shovels his ice pack into Miguel's chest.
"Yeah, is he going to tuck you in?" Bert followed.
"Come on, Miguel." Lee pats his shoulder. He dropped the ziplock bags of ice on the ground to follow her to the car. They were going to bathe and change at Lee's house before picking up Eli and Sam for a double date.
"So, why are you moping? You had a good practice." Miguel thought she did well.
"Why are you moping? You can't tell me you wanted to get kicked in the balls." She shot the question back at him.
"I asked you first." He leaned back in the passenger seat.
"Sensei made it a point to say that he wasn't going to treat me like a princess but he is. He was giving me softballs all day. I didn't learn anything today. I want to kick Piper's ass on the mat." She grips the steering wheel.
"She has been giving you a hard time, huh?" Miguel looks at her with sympathy.
"She wanted to blame me for the break up when it was her temper." She heard from Moon why she broke up with her.
"Do you think it could have been you?" He asked as gently as he could.
"What?" She turned to look at him.
"The road, the light is red." He shouted. She had to slam on the breaks. He took a few deep breaths before going on. "All I'm saying is that Moon had real feelings for you. She got with Piper soon after while still being close friends with you, so maybe it was a problem."
"Even if that was true, that's not my fault." She insisted. "That's not the point. I want Sensei to see and treat me as an equal. I don't want special treatment. Now, why are you moping?" She was done talking about this. Piper was going around telling everyone she was a homewrecker. Being that she was bisexual, she had girls and boys acting like she was the enemy.
"I don't want special treatment from Sensei either." He told her.
"At least yours is earned, mine is just because I'm a girl who likes to be girly." She sighed.
"I think it's because of something I found out this morning." He wasn't eager for anyone to know.
"What did you find out?" She was curious now.
"My mom and Sensei are going out." He told her.
"Abuelita was right." She gasps.
"She knew." He yelled. "She never told me anything."
"She suspected from the beginning that there was a spark, but she thought things might have taken a turn a month ago." She explains.
"Why?" He asked.
"She saw your mom sneaking into Johnny's apartment late at night and then doing the walk of shame in the morning." She went into detail.
"Oh my god, I didn't need to know that." He rubs his eyes to try and get rid of the mental image.
"You asked." She was trying to keep it vague.
"Next time say, you don't want to know, Miguel." He rubs his temple. "You got all that from Abuelita. You guys have worked out your Spanglish."
"Yeah, we do what we need to, to gossip." She nods.
"How much does she know about me?" Miguel wonders. There were certain things that he didn't want his grandma to know.
"Not much." She pulled into her driveway.
"Presley." He said sternly.
"It's not like she'd tell your mom and get you in trouble. She is a cool grandma." She got out of the car.
"I'm going to tell your grandma things." He follows her into the house.
"No, mine is strict." Her grandma had to take on the role of a mother. With her father not liking to be the bad guy, it all falls on her grandma.
"Alright, what's going on?" Sam looks at a pouting Miguel and Lee.
"Yeah, what happened? Did Sensei Lawerence reject you?" Eli didn't see that happening, but he didn't know why else she would be this down.
"No, he is patronizing me. He said he'd treat me like anyone else but he's still handling me with kid gloves." She pushed her noodles around. "He pairs me with Mitch, the hard-up perv, so it was easy for me to take him down because he was staring at my chest. I get all the easy jobs like throwing dirt in people's eyes or kicking them in the privates."
"Throwing dirt… kicking people in the privates… are you okay?" Sam turns to Miguel.
"Yup, Sensei sidelines me because he doesn't want me getting hurt and risking having my mom mad at him." He looks down at the bowl of ramen.
"If you make you feel better my dad ditched us, so we didn't learn anything new today," Sam told him.
"Why would that make us feel better? We all need to get better to beat Cobra Kai." Lee gave her an unimpressed look. She hated when someone tried to make something about them when she was opening up.
"Just trying to find common ground." She side-eyes Miguel.
Being that he wasn't done ranting, he wasn't coming to her defense. "Wait… why does Sensei want to keep your mom happy?" Eli asked. He never cared before about that.
"Because they're dating now." He was trying to be happy for them, but Johnny was making it weird by treating him like he was made of glass.
"Dude, that rocks. Sensei as a stepdad would be so cool." He thought of all the fun things Sensei would do. "He will probably take you to a strip club when you're 18."
"Not when he is trying to be the perfect boyfriend." He scoffs. He was acting like his mom's lame exes.
"He's new to the role so I'm sure if you talk with him, he'll come around and see that things don't have to change because he was already doing that role with you." She thought it was sweet that Sensei was being extra careful to not screw it up with his mom.
Miguel nods as he takes in what she said. "Sensei is new to being your sensei. He's old school. Yeah, he knows that girls can kick ass but you are the little princess he never had. Once he realizes that you can defend yourself, he'll go all in with you." He realized that it was the same thing for her. Johnny wasn't good with change and they were both throwing new roles at him.
They smiled at each other. Happy that they were able to help each other and get help with their problems. Their other halves shifted uncomfortably, feeling like they were the third wheel. "So, why did your dad ditch you guys?" Miguel turns to his girlfriend.
"Because all of a sudden Anthony wants to learn karate." She scoffs. He had a whole dojo to teach and he went off to focus on one person. There was no way her little brother would be champion by the next All Valley, so why was he focused on him? She was the one that had the best chance at beating Tory.
"That's good. You're always saying all he does is play video games." He thought it was a good thing.
"It's one day. I'm sure Anthony will join the class next time." Lee nods.
"Besides, you'll be able to kick your little brother around." Eli put an arm on the back of Lee's chair.
"How do you like being in Miyagi-Do?" She asked her boyfriend.
"I'm liking it. I'll always be grateful to Sensei Lawrence for teaching me everything. But, it has been calming to learn from Sensei LaRusso. Demetri and I have been working on our friendship." He liked having normal lessons that didn't involve him doing anything crazy.
"You'll get both styles by All Valley." Lee nods. Miguel and Sam look at him when they realize that was true. "Right now the only other person who can say that is Robby."
"Look like I got a leg up on you," Eli smirks at Miguel.
He laughed, "Whatever man, I'm going to talk to Sensei and get back to training. I'll be beating you on the mat soon."
Lee had been thinking about what Miguel said to her about Moon. "Do you think it was selfish of me to stay close friends with Moon after the breakup? Do you think I should have backed away so she could have gotten over me?" She looks at Eli. They were sitting under the staircase before school.
"Is Piper getting to you?" He asked.
"No… maybe a little. I don't want to think I'm hurting Moon." She picked at the hole in her jeans.
"Moon would have been hurt if you didn't stay friends with her. She was the one that texted you first, right?" He remembers Moon texting her random memes and inviting her to hang out.
"Yeah, I don't care what Piper thinks. I know I didn't do anything purposely to break them up. If I did I'm okay with it because she's a bitch. But, I wouldn't want Moon to be stuck in some kind of romantic limbo because of me." She didn't want to distance herself from her friend but she couldn't be selfish.
"So, why don't you ask her? Aren't you guys into communication?" Eli had heard that word a lot after getting back together with her.
"How do I approach that without sounding conceited?" She put her knees up to her chest.
"I don't know, honestly I should apologize to her for how things went down. I treated her like trash." He realized he never said sorry to her.
"I thought I smelled skank." Piper stopped in front of them. She had Tory with her.
"Get over it, Piper. I thought you were a feminist but you've been doing everything to tear me down." She stood up. Eli stood behind her, keeping an eye on Tory.
"Just because you're a woman doesn't mean I have to support you. Bisexual girls like you are the worst. You play with girls' hearts when you're only committed to men." She crossed her arms.
"Stop it, Piper." They look to the side to see Moon. "This is getting out of hand. You are bullying Lee and making up wild rumors about her when we've been broken up for months. Honestly, everything you're doing is proving to me that I made the right choice." She got in between the two girls. "Did I have romantic feelings for her at one point? Yes. Did I go out with you when I wasn't completely over her? Yes. But, that's on me, not her. Us not working falls on both of us. Your temper was too much. I got out of a previous relationship because of that."
"You're still standing up for her when she strings you along." She looks from Moon to look at Eli. "You fell for her act too. She dumped you then reeled you back in when she saw you happy with someone else."
"I wasn't happy with any of those other girls. You don't know shit about me or our story. I get you want an enemy to focus all your anger on but find another target because you sound crazy trying to make up shit." He throws his arm over her shoulders. "Come on, we're not wasting our time on this." He nods for Moon to come with them.
She did, not wanting to be left alone with the other two. "I'm sorry about her." She apologizes.
"It's not your fault. I'm sorry too. I wanted to keep you as a friend so that I didn't think about you needing time to move on." Lee didn't think the feelings were that intimate. Maybe because she had a relationship going on at the time, she was able to remember that Moon and she were only experimenting.
"It took me a little longer to get over you but I don't regret it. I like that we are good friends. I would like that with you too, Eli." She looks at him.
"I would like that too. I treated you like you were a stranger when it was over. I'm sorry for that. I'm the one that set bringing you into the relationship in motion. I was in a dark place and you were right to walk away." He was a jerk towards the end of his Cobra Kai era.
"We as people are meant to grow and evolve." Moon smiled.
"What's going on?" She looks at Demetri and Eli who came over to her house and made her put on exercise clothes. They went to the backyard.
"We want to learn both styles. We thought maybe we could teach each other what we learned in our lessons." Demetri explains.
"Okay, sometimes the best way to learn is to teach." She nods. "In our last lesson, we tied up our dominant arms and spars."
"Why?" He asked.
"In case Cobra Kai dislocates our shoulder, we will be prepared to fight with one arm." She explains.
"That sounds like Sensei." Eli nods. "We were learning the skill challenges like handling weapons." He held up nunchucks. Demetri had a pair of sais.
"At least that makes sense, we had to overcome every dirty trick that Sensei saw in karate movies." She told them.
"Cobra Kai does like playing dirty." Demetri shrugs.
"I threw dirt in their eyes and kicked them in the balls." She listed the two most painful things.
"How about we do that arm thing?" He picked the first one.
She opened the duffle bag they brought with them. "Shurikens." She picked up the ninja throwing stars.
"Let's get to it, Sensei and pupil." Demetri bows to them.
