The Serpent Queen

Molting | Part Two

After the scrapyard training, Miguel punched poor Steve, the human looking training dummy, so hard that he was heavily breathing while doing it. The dojo happened to be completely empty except for the Sensei and the original two students. It looked and felt like old times, before the surge of new students.

"Okay, okay, that's enough. Save some for the tournament." Johnny told them both.

"Why are we the only ones here, Sensei?" Phoebe asked from the mat, sparring an invisible opponent in the middle of it.

"'Cause let's face it, you're the only chances I got at winning this thing."

"So what? Like we're your best students." Miguel smirked at Phoebe, who then smiled. She knew it.

"Don't flatter yourselves." That wiped the smirks and smiles off their faces. "Have you seen the others?"

The teens then picked up their phones. While Miguel giggled at his screen, Phoebe grimaced at hers.

Johnny noticed Phoebe's expression first, "What's up with you?"

"Eli, he's getting-"

"Who's Eli?"

"Hawk. As I was saying, he's in the hospital getting his arm seen to. Jesus, the dog bit down on his arm quite bad by the looks of it. I didn't how bad until now. You want to see the picture?"

"Uh, no." The Sensei turned to Miguel, "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, just this funny picture my girlfriend posted." The boy showed him the screen.

"Wait a second." Johnny snatched the phone from his hand. "Is that Daniel LaRusso's daughter?"

"Yeah, you know Samantha?"

"You're dating a LaRusso?"

"What's wrong with Sam?" Phoebe asked not looking up from her phone screen.

"Wait." Johnny spun around to face her. "You know her too?"

"Yeah, we're friends."

Miguel looked at the man concerned now. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"We need to talk." Was all Johnny said which made the two teenagers peer to each other with confusion and concern over Sam.

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After getting changed out of their white gi's, Miguel and Phoebe met their Sensei outside the dojo, where he sat on the curb with a can of beer. The two sat next to him with their cans of Coke, listening to Johnny as he talked.

Sensei looked to them, more Phoebe in particular, "I know George told you some things. But I don't know if he told you everything. We were friends back then. In Cobra Kai and outside of it, along with me and my other friends."

"Okay." Phoebe nodded.

"It was the summer of '82. 'Rocky III' had just come out. My buddy Dutch was a huge Mr. T fan, so we went to the local theater to check it out. Sitting in front of us was this group of cute chicks, eating popcorn. Dutch started throwing Milk Duds at them."

"What? Why would he do that?" Miguel asked.

"Because it's an alpha move, man. Babes love when you treat them like crap."

"Uh....no, we don't." Phoebe remarked. "We hate that."

"Anyway, eventually, the girls got so pissed off, one of them stood up and started yelling at us. That's when I saw her for the first time."

Miguel took a mouthful of his drink, "Saw who?"

"Ali. She dumped popcorn all over Dutch, got butter all over him. I could tell right away, man, this chick was a firecracker."