The Foundation

SEVEN

A few days later things started to change. Our sensei came into class pissed off, and normally he's not usually this mad.

"What did Kreese do this time?"

"It's not him. It's LaRusso."

He holds up his smartphone for us all to see. On the screen we see Daniel LaRusso in his karate gi doing some sort of commercial.

"Because at Miyagi-Do Karate, it isn't about the money. It's about karate."

"Check this out. They're calling him LaRacist on here!"

"This isn't right. We can't let this go. Snake in the grass?"

A few minutes later Johnny's positioned in front of a training dummy. One of the students has their phone out ready to record.

"There's a lot of talk going around the Valley about free karate. But everyone knows that in life, you get what you pay for. You wanna really kick the competition?"

Johnny kicks a bonsai tree as if to prove his point.

"Then you need to get your ass over to Cobra Kai. Screw that lame meditation bullcrap. What you need is bone-crunching, face-smashing, good old American karate."

Then he punches and body slams the dummy in front of him.

"Enough about self-defense. Learn self-offense. Don't be a pussy. Join Cobra Kai, and let me teach you the way of the fist."

"And... cut."

"Alright, did we get it?"

"I think so."

"And that's how you don't get monetized," I muttered under my breath.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing."

"All right, great. Just make sure the Cobra Kai snake comes in at the end, all right? I want it to really pop. Make it chrome. And throw "Thunderstruck" under it."

"I'm pretty sure the rights for that song will cost too much."

"No, I already own it. Cassettes in the car. Oh, and put one of those hash browns at the end. You know, like, "Hash brown, team Cobra Kai," or something. And then send it to the Internet!"

***

A few hours later the whole valley gathered at Miyagi-Do's demonstration. It wasn't too eventful—all they were really doing was using bo staff and doing kata. Soon the demo was finally over and everyone was waiting for the grand finale.

Daniel goes backstage to get what was going to be his grand finale, but that was soon about to change. After the mic squeals from excessive feedback, all of us Cobra Kai students arrive. The crowd makes way for us to get past them. I do a backflip, then a side flip onto the stage, landing in front of all of the other members.'

"Cobras, show them what real karate looks like!"

The demo starts out with us sparring one another, then Aisha smashes boards blindfolded. Unfortunately for my portion of the demo, I wasn't allowed a real sword on stage, so I settled for a wooden bokken and expertly dodged and cut through oncoming objects being shot at me. 

Reaching into the audience I find Ellie, who'd turned up mostly to watch her family's demo, and pulled her into a fifteen-second kiss, causing more cheers, particularly from the young teenage male audience. I didn't care that I did it in front of Daniel, it didn't matter at the time. 

"Jack, you savage," Hawk says after I finish the kiss.

I turned to see Daniel's disgruntled look and had to keep myself from laughing.

"He's the luckiest guy in the world." One of the teenage boys says to his friend.

"I know, man. She's hot."

 Hawk's act is next and for his, he pulls Demetri on stage and breaks a board. 

To top it all off our sensei breaks three flaming bricks with his bare fist. 

I'm sure the smirk on LaRusso's face was gone after that one.

"Sensei, you did it."

"No, we did it."

Someone started a chant over the roaring crowd and soon everyone was chanting the name of our dojo. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Daniel LaRusso leaving in obvious discontent.

"Hey look, his ice is melting."