Cobra Kai Oneshots

Aftermath (2)

2. Not wanting to train.

/ /

After the fall of Cobra Kai, Tory was invited to join Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang (they were still working out a name) but she adamantly refused everyone who asked her to join. Even Sam had been sent to ask her as they thought that was the reason why Tory didn't want to join. One night she explained it to Robby after he asked again. "I'm done. I'm just so done. I'm done with fighting. I'm done with being in charge."
"Okay." He accepted kissing her temple. "But if you change your mind, just know you are welcome."

/ /

Amanda LaRusso checked in on Tory every so often. "You know Miyagi-Do can help you control your emotions." She suggested trying to be subtle about it.
"Seriously, even you?" Tory complained.
"Hey, I never thought I'd be advocating for karate either." Amanda defended holding her hands up.
"Yeah, well, I'm never gonna advocate for karate again."
"You wanna tell me what happened?" Amanda asked concerned at her response.
Tory shook her head "I can't." Even if she felt like she could, she promised Robby she would tell him multiple times and Tory would feel bad if she told someone else other than him after how worried he had been.
"It was bad, wasn't it? Whatever it was. You know Daniel and my cousin, Jessica, knew Silver in the 80s and they both still have nightmares about him now."
"Oh great." Tory commented worried she still be having nightmares 30 years from now.
"I wouldn't worry. They said they only have nightmares because they were tortured so..." Amanda sipped her coffee trying to get Tory to admit it.
"You're evil, you know that." Tory said knowing what she was doing.
"I walked, so you could run." She retorted. "Maybe we should get you a therapist who specialises in trauma. Dr. Hiller was able to help you with controlling your anger, and you can't deny it works."
"Yeah maybe a little too well." Tory commented.
"What do you mean?"
"I think my anger made me a better fighter. I lost my edge. They weren't afraid of me, I couldn't get Kyler and Kenny and everyone else to listen to me. And then, against Silver and Kim... I was powerless. I couldn't fight them, I couldn't make them scared of me. I couldn't do anything." Tory didn't even realise she was crying by the end of it until she felt her face wet.
"Tory... They tortured you. I get that it must be scary to deal with the reality of that but you need to or you'll never move on from it. I see you flinch when there's a bang or look over your shoulder when someone walks in unexpectedly; and I know Robby does too." Tory grimaced at that. "I'm not an expert on how emotions help you to fight but I don't think you need your anger to be a good fighter. Just try, please, for me. For Robby." Tory looked at Amanda at the mention of her boyfriend's name. "He feels guilty. I told him not to... but that didn't stop him." Tory chuckled through her tears.

/ /

Without betraying Tory's confidence, Amanda revealed to the senseis of Miyagi Fang that Tory would definitely not be coming back to karate for a long time, and one of them was a lot more upset about it than the others.

So, Johnny decided to try his own way.

One day when Tory was coming to see Robby at his dad's apartment she saw Johnny just up ahead of her.

"Hey, Nichols!" He called.
"Hey, Johnny." She refused to call him or anyone sensei now due to the bad reminders.
"You going to see Robby?"
"Yeah." She said going to continue to walk.
"Wait, the road's shut. We gotta go round the back."
"That's annoying."
"I know. Figured I'd just walk to the shop instead. Come on, I'll show you where to go."

As they walked down the alley behind the apartment complex to get to the entrance on the other side, five ex-cobra kai students surrounded them.

"What the..." Tory didn't have time to finish her sentence before they attacked her.

Tory punched one straight in the nose with her good hand but received a punch to her cheek that she couldn't block because of her broken hand. She caught the next punch and used her old kickboxing training to kick out at multiple attackers multiple times. When she had just one left in front of her, Tory hit him with a vicious left hook. A fourth Cobra moved forward but Tory used one of Johnny's signature crescent kicks to knock him back before using one of the guys that she had already knocked down as a springboard to jump on the fourth cobra's back making sure he was totally down and out of the fight. Tory spun around quickly kicking two cobras with a spilt jump kick. One recovered faster than the other and tried to attack the former queen cobra with offence but Tory used the little defence knowledge Robby had taught her to block every strike until she found an opening and punched him in the sternum winding him. One of the more skilled cobras jumped over Tory's head and caught her by the jaw with a back kick, knocking her down. Tory did a free hand kid up, then immediately bent back down to avoid a crescent kick before launching her whole body at him to take him down just like she had done to Miguel when she first auditioned to join Cobra Kai.

Tory looked up expecting to see Johnny attacking minors again but found him leaning against the wall smirking. "You set me up! You son of a bitch!"
"You're welcome." Was all Johnny said.
"Ugh!" Tory screamed in frustration storming off around the rest of the apartment complex.

"Robby!!!" She screamed as soon as she reached the courtyard not caring who heard her.

Inside the Diaz's apartment, Miguel froze and asked his brother "What did you do?" They had been watching TV with Sam as they waited for Tory to arrive.
"I have no idea." Robby said honestly.

Tory checked Johnny's apartment first then came over to the Diaz's. "There you are." She said upon spying Robby who had already gotten up ready to try and calm her down. "Do you have any idea what your dad just did to me?"
"No. What happened? Are you okay?"
"He set me up to get jumped."
"He what!?" They all shouted but Robby was the loudest.
"Relax, I was there the whole time for supervision." They heard Johnny say from the doorway. "They were ex-cobras, it wasn't that difficult. I was only trying to get her back into fighting - I thought being under duress would make her instincts kick in." Miguel and Sam sighed putting their heads in their hands whilst Robby became more enraged with every word and threw the nearest object at his father.

Robby took Tory out for a nice, peaceful date away from his father who he was pretty sure he would kill if he stayed in the same room as him any longer.

/ /

A few days later, once Tory and Robby were calm enough to be around Johnny again. The patriarch tried the simple method and just asked Tory "So what would motivate you to fight again?"
"I have no idea."
"What motivated you in the first place?"
"It wasn't exactly optional but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Mostly."
"What do you mean?"
Tory sighed "You up for a trip to somewhere Robby would never approve of?"
"Sure." His son could shout at him later, right now they needed to get Tory back into karate for her sake and the dojo's for the Sekai Tekei. "Where are we going?"
"A town called Sunnydale, it's about an hour south of here. It's where I used to live, and where I learned to fight."

/ /

Once they arrived and walk into the familiar building, Johnny realised where they were "This is fight club." He stated. "With a bar." He added gleefully heading straight there.
"I know. This is where I learned to fight. Kickboxing, if you remember correctly." Tory reminded him.
"Johnny!" A vaguely familiar voice called out.
"Mike? What are you doing here?"
"Uh, I used to come here a lot when I was younger. After everything with Silver, I kind of got my appetite back for fighting so I've been checking out my old haunts. What are you doing here?"
"Uh, tryna get this one's motivation for fighting back." Johnny pointed his thumb over his shoulder to Tory. She and Mike are looking at each other for a few minutes "Victoria?"
"Hi Daddy." Johnny spat out the beer he was drinking. "What!" Tory grabbed his arm "Change of plan. We're leaving."
"What the fuck?"
"Trust me, it's a sign. No more fighting. I will happily just be a WAG supporting Robby at the Sekai Teikai."