ISSUES [discontinued]

10 ➞ laser tag arena

ten laser tag arena

THE COBRA KAI MEMBERS snickered when they saw us. I searched around them and found a familiar face: Kenny. Beside him was Kyler. They walked up to us. "This can't be good," I whispered.

There was a smirk plastered on Kenny's face. When he came face-to-face with us he narrowed his eyes. Everyone else was trailing him. He didn't say anything for a couple moments, observing us.

"What?" Robby finally said. "What is it this time?"

"Why are you here?" Kenny replied instantly. He was still studying us.

"To play arcade games, hang out, what else could we be doing?" I asked.

Kenny snickered. "Why is it that every time we're somewhere, a couple of you idiots come and ruin it for us?" I glared at him, my frustration building up. Keep your cool, Eudoria.

"You don't own this place," Robby answered. "It's public."

Kyler stepped in. "It doesn't matter. This is our turf." He glared at both of us, and then his lips curled into a smug smile. "Unless you wanna get jumped, I'd recommend you get out. Now."

Robby and I both exchanged a quick glance, but we stayed put. I swallowed hard. I had to admit, I was extremely nervous. I doubted we'd be able to take them all. There were at least seven of them there.

Kyler suddenly was enraged. "Did you hear me? I said get out!" I tried to give my best death stare and commented, "No. You don't own this place. If you leave us alone, we won't bother you." They all looked at each other, murmuring amongst themselves. Kenny was the first to speak up.

"No. We're Cobra Kai. We strike first, and we strike hard." I stepped back by a fraction, ready to defend myself. He turned to the other Cobra Kai members. "Right?"

They all cheered in response. In that moment, I prepared myself to fight. There was no turning back, now. I looked at Robby. He looked extremely nervous as well, ready to defend. Hopefully, we can handle this.

Kenny turned back to us, ready to throw a punch. "Don't forget when I took you all!" Robby blurted out. "You're a lot weaker than you think." I decided to piggyback on what he said; "You wouldn't want to take us without your squad, Kenny. If you're so sure that you can beat us why not do it on your own?" He ignored our remarks and bolted forward. Cobra Kai followed.

After all of that it was just a blur. I dodged as many hits as I could; I noticed Robby was doing a lot better than I was, considering he got way more training than me.

It ended up moving to the Laser Tag Arena. "This is giving me major deja vu," I yelled while landing a punch on a boy. There was blood trickling down my nose and everything hurt. My legs ached. I was out of breath. We were able to take down most of the Cobra Kai members, but there was only a couple left.

I frantically looked around. Robby was taking care of the last of them, and I rushed to help. I landed a kick on one of their sides and she fell to the ground in a heap. Robby punched the last one and gestured for me to run out.

We ran, but I didn't forget to save my cat plush.

Once we were finally a safe distance outside of the arcade we planted and took a moment to catch our breath.

We suddenly looked at each other and started to laugh uncontrollably. It got so bad I had to hold my stomach.

"That was..." Robby said in-between laughs. "Next time, let's get him alone!"

"How did we even do that, though?" I asked when we both calmed down. "Adrenaline," Robby answered. "It can push us to do amazing things, really."

I giggled. "We'd better get home. Tonight was fun, apart from, well, this." He nodded and cleared his throat. "Let's go."

We walked mostly in silence, talking about a few things here and there. I guess I didn't realize until I finally arrived home that my sisters would see. Hopefully I could sway them not to tell.

I guess that didn't matter because when I entered the house, both my parents were on the couch watching a sitcom. Well shit. My mom noticed me first, and became horrified when she saw my face. "What—Eudoria, what in God's name?" She came running up to me. I shook her off.

My dad came running up to inspect my face. "Who did this to you?" he said angrily. "I want names."

"Don't worry, I was just out with Robby at the arcade, and we got into a fight with Cobra Kai. Don't make this a huge deal." I started to leave but my mom blocked my oath. I looked at her annoyed.

"How did this happen? What—I thought Miyagi-Do closed down?"

I shrugged. "Cobra Kai never holds back. I guess they chose violence, as always. I won't say it again, don't worry about me, I'll go get cleaned up." I pushed past her. I didn't want to make this a whole big thing and start more drama. I wanted to relax.

I stormed upstairs and entered the bathroom with a sigh. Finally. Peace.

I inspected my wounds. A couple banged up areas, some bruises, my nose was bleeding; nothing too severe. It's not like I'd never been in a fight before.

Once I cleaned up my wounds and bandaged up, I got ready for bed. It was pretty early, about eight, but I was exhausted.

That day was something. Hopefully this would all just blow over; it's not like fights are uncommon between the karate dojos. Nobody would take this seriously.

But I was so wrong.