Halley LaRusso was now angry, probably the angriest she's ever been, Demetri got his arms broken by her ex-boyfriend, who also used to be their best friend, and on top of everything Angela had managed to once again beat her in a fight.
After dropping Demetri at the Hospital and making sure he was okay, Halley sat beside Sam and tried to comfort her as best as she could until Amanda came, she was also angry but it faded away once she saw the distressed state of her daughter. And for safety the older woman decided to send not only both of them but also Anthony to their grandma's house for the weekend, which Halley didn't think made a lot of sense as they would have to go back eventually for school, but she decided to not say anything as Amanda already looked angry enough
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The whole weekend Sam had been pretty quiet and to be fair so had been Halley. Both for very different reasons, Sam was still processing everything and she was starting to drown in fear, Halley on the other side was fuming, drowning in rage.
The fight repeated itself in her brain all the time, she couldn't sleep because she kept thinking about it, she kept revising for every mistake that she made during the fight and she came to the conclusion that she just wasn't good enough. And that's obvious, she had been coming out of an injury and hadn't trained in a good while, she was clearly a little rusty and also distracted, the weeks prior to the fight had been hard and her mind was in a completely different place, she had given up on Karate and on pretty much everything and that is what made her lose.
But she was determined to get better, she knew that wasn't about to be the last fight that would happen, in fact, she thought they would get more common from then on, she knew that wasn't the last time her and Angela would be against each other, and Halley LaRusso was stubborn, she wasn't gonna stop until Angela regretted ever crossing her.
♢♢♢
After the weekend was over it was time to go back to their lives. Both Amanda and Daniel had been acting weird and it became eve weirder when she and Sam walked into the dining room at her house they were both sitting in there as if waiting for the girls to walk in
"Morning girls" Amanda said with a kind smile
"Why don't you have a seat?" Daniel pointed to the cairs across from them"I brewed some of that tea I brought back from Okinawa" He started pouring a cup for each one of them
"You guys are being weird. What's going on?" Sam eyed them suspiciously
"Why does this feel like and intervention?" Halley raised and eyebrow at them
"Well, Amanda and I have been talking about how to deal with Cobra Kai"
"You have?" Sam immediately got uncomfortable and started fidgeting in her seat, Halley on the other side had all her attention placed on them
"I'm sorry I got so upset with you for training the kids" Amanda apologized directly to her daughter "I didn't realize what you were dealing with. Your dad and I are trying to handle it, but-"
"With all you're going through at school with those bullies" Daniel continued "We want to make sure you know how to defend yourselves"
"So, what are you saying?" Sam asked and she looked everything but happy
"Your dad's gonna re-open Miyagi-do" Amanda nodded and Halley smiled lightly, everything about the current rivalry still frightened her, it terrified her but she was angry now and that overpowered the fear that still lingered "And I'm 100% on board"
"So, what do you say? Ready to get back into action?" they could tell Daniel was excited, and with a reason, Karate was one of the things he loved the most in his life
"Absolutely" Halley nodded because she had already made up her mind, it was stated that you couldn't hide from the rivalry, you couldn't just ignore it and go on with your life, the fight at the arcade had shown her that, as much as she refused to fight she still ended up in the middle of it and if she was gonna end up fighting anyway then she might as well be ready to fight back
"No." Sam said and immediately got up and walked away. Daniel tried to follow after her but Sam simply didn't want to talk
"I'll check up on her" Halley walked quickly after Sam "Sam! Wait!" Now they were both outside of the house, Sam stopped walking and Halley ran to catch up with her "What's going on with you?" she asked softly
"No. What's going on with you?" Sam's tone was rougher "You were the one against training Karate again" she frowned
"Yeah, and then I got my ass beat again" Halley nodded her head "Even when I wanted no part of I still ended in the middle of it, I realized I might as well not be caught off guard" She shrugged "You were the one insisting on showing Cobra kai we can also fight and not let them walk all over us, what happened with that?"
"I don't want to fight anymore" Sam's eyes watered "I'm tired of getting my ass beat" she looked away as she couldn't keep eye contact because Sam now felt guilty, she knew the way she was feeling right now was the way Halley was feeling before and she pushed her into doing things she didn't want to do and wasn't ready to do, she took advantage of the fact that Halley would do anything not only to protect her but also Demetri. When Sam texted Halley to go to the arcade she knew her cousin would be there, because she always was. And what made everything worse is that she knew Halley wouldn't do something like that to her, that made her feel like the worst person on earth
"Okay" Halley nodded and extended her arms to take Sam in for a hug, and her cousin immediately went for it, the both kind of needed that hug.
Halley knew things were gonna get harder, the fight at the arcade was probably the easiest of all of the challenges ahead of her, facing Angela was easy, fighting her didn't affect her but there was one person she still hasn't faced and she was scared she wouldn't be strong enough to. Eric West was the object of every single nightmare she had. She still hadn't seen him and she was grateful for that, but she her time was running off and she knew she would have to face him sooner or later and she'd rather it would be later
⚘
Hello, hello
Now Halley and Sam swapped their views on the Karate rivalry. That's something I was planning to do since the beginning because it shows two very different trauma responses of two people who went through similar things. If you can't tell I'm very into psychology and the way human brain works so that reflects a lot in my writing, I think