BAD GUY, tory nichols

chapter one.

Mercy

  THE LINES BETWEEN MERCY AND NO MERCY WERE constantly blurred with Cleo Harper. She could never tell when the line began or ended. Did the terms extend to friends? Could she show them mercy? With her father's plans, that didn't exactly seem possible.

Take down Johnny Lawrence.

Take over Cobra Kai.

Take over the valley.

Each possible scenario of how the next few months would go weighed in her mind but honestly, you can never truly know what the future will hold and neither did the kids of Cobra Kai as they waited for their sensei to come in to the room.

"I see we've got some new recruits." Johnny said loudly, making the new people quickly stand up to their feet. "Everybody fall in."

Cleo glanced at Kreese, who had already been doing an impressive job at pretending to want to help Johnny, or maybe he did and her whole life was just an act. Sometimes she wondered if she was a pawn, a piece in a game that Kreese had wanted to win for decades.

"In neat lines and rows." Groups of people all started to shuffle around, everyone moving to their rightful place in the room. "Time to see what you're made of."

Cleo stood tall and proud, karate was her life and there wasn't much else to it. At least she had one passion, the girl always thought, because there wasn't much else going for her. To be quite frank, the Harper family was nothing without karate.

"I thought my last group of recruits was pathetic but, if you do what I tell you to do, you'll at least have a chance at becoming a fighter." The Harper girl tried her best not to scoff at his words, she had to pretend for months she knew nothing about karate, which was an extremely hard thing to do. "Is something funny, queen cobra?"

Queen cobra, man, that name really stuck, didn't it? Hawk had started the name, making fun of her weird dedication to the dojo and it just stayed.

"No, sensei." Cleo shook her head, staring straight in front of her as she heard the Hawked boy chuckle from beside her.

"Since you think things are funny, you'll be a part of the first match up." Johnny looked around the room. "Who wants to take on queen cobra? She might be a jokester but she can kick some ass."

There was a hint of him being proud in that sentence, making Cleo smile as everyone looked around the room, nobody daring to challenge her.

"I'll take her on." A girl commented seriously, making the whole group of people turn to face her. Of course, with her luck, it was the cute blonde from the roller rink.