What do you have when you have a socially awkward young girl given a system that has stumbled upon a secret of the world that wasn't meant to be discovered by someone like her? A recipe for disaster, that's what. Just how will Zoey Winters be able to survive in a world that seemed to have gotten much bigger than she already thought it was? Maybe learning boxing could help.
Life isn’t so Simple Anymore!
- Thread starter Namgo
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 59
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 221
-
Statistics (219 threadmarks, 410k words)
User Total Namgo 219 -
Loading…
Chapter 1: Life Is Complicated.
Life isn't so Simple Anymore!
Chapter 1:
"And this class is how you find the missing degree of a right angle. Is there anyone who needs a second example?" Miss Flanagan asked.
"Can you do a different problem like this one? I don't think I get it yet." A student said.
"No problem, Kimberly. As long as you follow the formula I gave you, there is no reason why any of you should get these wrong unless you punch the wrong numbers in your calculator." Miss Flanagan began showing the formula and working through each step in the formula as she solved a similar problem.
Zoey wasn't really paying much attention to all this, though. Something far more interesting and weird was taking up all her attention. Right in front of her was a floating box telling her some cool things about herself and the existence of a fictional force that might be present in her world. Was she in a video game or something now? From what she could tell, no one else could see this thing.
At first, she thought it was part of her dream as she woke up in the morning. Like what if life on Earth suddenly became like an RPG? She was initially going to try and become a combative healer-type class. A combination of dishing out huge damage and healing from any wounds would be just too strong. But then the dream shattered when her little brother burst into her room telling her to get ready for school without mentioning anything at all.
The status screen went away, but she could still bring it back up. It was still here, just floating in front of her face. Zoey didn't know if her stats were good or horrible, considering that she had never worked out or exercised a day in her life. The only time she ever willingly did physical activity was for P.E. At home; she did anything but things that were healthy for her.
It was hard to think of numbers that went into the decimals as good. No matter how ignorant someone was, if they were told they had a 0.3 body, they wouldn't assume it was good. The only way that could be twisted positively was if they said, "At least it isn't a 0.0! Am I right?!" Zoey had a dislike for people like that.
It wasn't as if optimistic people did anything wrong to her. It just made her sick and a little bit jealous that they could look at this shitty world and just see the good parts of it.
'Having a positive attitude when the planet is slowing dying by our own hands, when the people in power are only becoming more corrupt and greedier, and when I haven't even had a single boyfriend all my life when I'm a fucking high schooler!' She inwardly shouted, getting to the crux of her anger.
'I know that I'm not like putting myself out there by acting slutty or whatever, but still! Guys should be interested in girls who don't act like thots!'
"Zoey? Do you mind paying attention to class instead of trying to break that pen in half?" Miss Flanagan asked in a voice that swiftly brought Zoey back to reality.
"I'm sorry," Zoey responded with a faint blush on her cheeks as everyone looked at her.
"Thank you. Now how would we find the missing degree of this obtuse angle?"
"Uhh..."
It wasn't hard to see that Zoey wasn't an A or B student either. Seeing how Zoey wasn't able to answer any questions based on what they were learning today earned her detention after class today. Making today one of the worst days ever. She's never been more embarrassed in school than she was today. Miss Flanagan made her look stupid in front of the entire class! And in front of Ethan, of all people too! The cutest boy in her class, with just the most adorable personality she's ever seen in a guy.
'The things I would do to him...' Her mind wandered into all sorts of fantasies while she was in detention with the Disciplinary Teach, Brock.
Detention at her school was pretty much torture for people who couldn't handle sitting still for hours doing nothing. What detention came down to at Sun Valley High School was basically this: Sit down at a desk, do homework or do nothing, and wait till your time was up. You couldn't sleep, rest your head down, use anything that resembled an electronic, or chew gum. Zoey didn't have a problem with this as she basically spent the time trying to figure out what else her status could do besides showing her what it had already told her.
The zero skills part was what was bothering her. It bothered her more than her weak body and obviously low mental stat. The magic was understandable as humans haven't yet found that magic particle in the universe and haven't figured out how to harness that particle for our own uses. But she had to have at least a single skill in her life! Like, who goes 17 years of their life without having one skill? Even something meaningless like juggling, whistling, or hell, twirling a pencil through your fingers!?
Zoey grabbed her pencil lying on her desk and, in her anger, tried to gain a skill by twirling it in between her fingers. She made sure to prop up her math book in front of her desk before attempting this stunt. If that hard-ass Brock saw her having the tiniest bit of fun, he'd surely order her to stop. When she successfully placed her only means of defense up, she began spinning. Immediately, the 0.3 in body and 0.5 in mental shown from her status showed their fighting spirit.
Zoey dropped the pencil on her first attempt and proceeded to curse several deities for giving her such a useless body.
"Zoey Winters! Place that book flat on your desk, and do not let me hear another sound from you!" Brock yammered loudly.
'Ugh! Asshole!' She cursed inwardly.
"I won't do it again..." She promised outwardly.
The next two hours were spent actually doing her homework. Since she didn't learn anything in the classroom, she had to figure out how to do it through the actual math book. Which didn't help her at all because she couldn't find a single damn formula listed in the book! Zoey distinctly remembered Flanagan talking about a formula that would help solve every problem.
'Then why the fuck isn't that formula in the goddamn book!?' She raced to the front of the book to see when her shitty math book was published and felt like ripping it to pieces.
2000 was when it was published. It was the year 2020, and this cheap ass school still hasn't gotten better books?! No wonder her school was always ranked so low online. Zoey didn't know if it was because they had no money at all or just had no idea what the fuck to do with the money they were getting.
'Well, if I fail, at least I know it wasn't my fault. It was the school's fault for being so cheap and not giving us the most recent academic books."
The last bell of the day rang, and they were ordered out of detention. Brock called them out in alphabetic order before releasing them, which meant that she was the last to leave. Zoey argued that it would've made more sense to release them based on the offense of their crime but knew her words would only fall on deaf ears. Brock definitely wouldn't listen to a trouble student like her. He considers every kid that gets detention as a delinquent.
'Such a fucking loser.' She swore while leaving the classroom.
Zoey made her way toward her locker. Most of the hallway was empty by this point, as it was 2 hours after school normally ends. The only people still here are teachers, janitors, coaches, and the kids that actually do stuff at school. Clubs, sports, and other stuff like that. Zoey didn't really have any interest in any of the clubs at school.
Well, no, that was a lie. She was interested in joining the Video Game Club, but that was because she heard that they don't do anything but play games all day. Zoey wasn't like some hardcore gamer or anything like that. She just played from time to time because of her dad. Now he was the biggest gaming nerd ever. He even goes to gaming conventions and stuff like that with her little brother, who is becoming just like their dad with his obsession with games.
While sifting through her locker, Zoey realized that she had forgotten something in Miss Flanagan's classroom. She could just leave and come get it tomorrow, but she might as well do it now. Miss Flanagan's class is her third period, and anyone could steal her stuff before she gets it tomorrow. It wasn't worth being lazy right now.
On her way to Miss Flanagan's room, she heard two voices inside. A boy and a girl. This stopped Zoey straight in her tracks. A faint blush formed on her face as she heard what they were whispering about.
'Has school morals seriously fallen to this point?!' Zoey exclaimed while pressing her ear against the door.
"Are you sure no one is going to come in?" The girl asked. She had to be a slut if she was willing to do this at school.
"Of course, I'm sure. I even have measures in place for if someone does try to come in." The boy reassured.
'Oh, he must do this often. Was there a desk against the door or something?' Zoey thought.
"Well, okay... I trust you." She sounded pretty innocent.
Maybe this was her first time doing nasty stuff in public.
"You have nothing to worry about. I've done this loads of times. Just make sure to relax, and it'll make everything easier." The casanova told the girl.
'Holy shit. They really are about to have sex! I wonder who they are... They must be one of the popular kids if they have the confidence to do something like this. But I need to get my stuff! Should I knock before they begin? That would be so awkward, though. What if they get mad at me for ruining their perfect opportunity? I should take a quick peek.' Zoey slowly peeked through the crack in the door and saw two figures close together.
Their faces were inches apart, and from this angle, Zoey couldn't glean anything except that their skin was white. But then, all of a sudden, they got even closer, and a bright light was visible inside. Zoey wondered what that light was, and just as she did, even more lights began to shine around them. The beat of her heart started to pump within her chest rapidly. These two weren't about to have sex! They were doing magical shit!
Zoey accidentally exhaled the air she didn't know she was holding in, and the two stared in her direction.
"Who's there?!" The boy yelled in a voice that sent shivers through her body.
"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING!" She yelled.
Zoey instantly regretted saying anything, but that didn't stop her from running down the hall at her fastest speed. She could hear the door to the classroom bursting open as she turned the hall. Her legs didn't stop moving until she was successfully out of the school building and a distance away from the school down the street. Hopefully, they didn't see her while she was running.
Zoey dropped on her butt completely out of breath. She never ran as hard as that ever in her life. She could've sworn she saw like 2 teachers chasing her when she was running through the building. The fast beating of her heart matched perfectly with her emotional state right now. Magic was actually real, and there were people who could use it! And they probably were going to kill her for seeing them use it!
"I need to find a way to defend myself!" Zoey exclaimed.
Once she made her way home, Zoey began doing everything she could to try and use magic. Chanting long magical spells to cast fireballs, magic missiles, and teleporting. But obviously, nothing worked, as her magic stat was literally at 0. So, she did the next best thing and started looking online for self-defense classes. Since she couldn't bring weapons to school, she had to learn a way to defend herself with just her body alone. Magicians were usually weak in close combat, right?
The only self-defense classes near her for women were things for like rapists and defending herself from people trying to assault her. That wouldn't be too helpful against people who could use fucking magic! So instead, she started looking for self-defense classes that weren't targeted at women. In her local area, there was a boxing gym that had a four-star rating, a taekwondo class with three stars, a karate dojo with four stars, and several fitness classes.
As an American, Zoey only had one strong impression of any of the classes listed. And that was boxing. There were no famous taekwondo fighters that she could name and only a few karate fighters that she could. The famous karate fighters didn't count, though, because they were movie actors, and Zoey didn't know enough about those actors to tell if they really had a background in karate. But with famous boxers, she could name a few. Nike Lyson and Buhammad Kali were some. Zoey prepared herself to visit the boxing gym tomorrow. The chilling tone from that casanova's words earlier still ran through her mind. He definitely planned to do something bad to her if he managed to get ahold of her.
'Wait, is he a Casanvoa? He was just doing magic stuff with that girl. There was no proof that they were going to do any naughty stuff but then again... There is nothing saying that they weren't going to go at it like animals after doing secret magic stuff.' She got distracted.
Zoey focused back on her computer and got back to shopping for boxing equipment. Their family shared a Lamazon Prime account, so she could put whatever she wanted into her dad's shopping cart, and when he went on Lamazon, he could buy them for her if he had the money this week. He worked as a video game designer. She already looked up what equipment she would need for boxing classes and added several things to his cart. Hand wraps, dark purple boxing gloves, a heavy bag to carry her stuff with, and boxing shoes.
Tomorrow when her dad asks why she needs all this boxing stuff, she'll tell him she wants to learn boxing to protect herself. It wouldn't be a lie either because that magic guy was for sure going to try and find out who she was and silence her. Boxing was just the best alternative that wouldn't make her look like a nutcase for the next few days. She could try and conceal a weapon on her at all times, but getting in trouble for something like that would be annoying. Zoey also doubted she'd be able to persuade any teachers that she was keeping a razor or knife on herself for protection.
Zoey didn't have a suspicious look to her or anything. Just your normal 17-year-old girl. She had dark brown skin, a short and thin frame, with straight black hair that went past her neck slightly. Sadly, she wasn't gifted with large tits, but her ass was nice. In her opinion, anyway. She'd screw her. If she started working out, she'd probably be able to get her ass to pop too.
Chapter 1:
"And this class is how you find the missing degree of a right angle. Is there anyone who needs a second example?" Miss Flanagan asked.
"Can you do a different problem like this one? I don't think I get it yet." A student said.
"No problem, Kimberly. As long as you follow the formula I gave you, there is no reason why any of you should get these wrong unless you punch the wrong numbers in your calculator." Miss Flanagan began showing the formula and working through each step in the formula as she solved a similar problem.
Zoey wasn't really paying much attention to all this, though. Something far more interesting and weird was taking up all her attention. Right in front of her was a floating box telling her some cool things about herself and the existence of a fictional force that might be present in her world. Was she in a video game or something now? From what she could tell, no one else could see this thing.
At first, she thought it was part of her dream as she woke up in the morning. Like what if life on Earth suddenly became like an RPG? She was initially going to try and become a combative healer-type class. A combination of dishing out huge damage and healing from any wounds would be just too strong. But then the dream shattered when her little brother burst into her room telling her to get ready for school without mentioning anything at all.
The status screen went away, but she could still bring it back up. It was still here, just floating in front of her face. Zoey didn't know if her stats were good or horrible, considering that she had never worked out or exercised a day in her life. The only time she ever willingly did physical activity was for P.E. At home; she did anything but things that were healthy for her.
[Status]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 0.3]
[Mental: 0.5]
[Magic: 0.0]
[Skills: 0]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 0.3]
[Mental: 0.5]
[Magic: 0.0]
[Skills: 0]
It was hard to think of numbers that went into the decimals as good. No matter how ignorant someone was, if they were told they had a 0.3 body, they wouldn't assume it was good. The only way that could be twisted positively was if they said, "At least it isn't a 0.0! Am I right?!" Zoey had a dislike for people like that.
It wasn't as if optimistic people did anything wrong to her. It just made her sick and a little bit jealous that they could look at this shitty world and just see the good parts of it.
'Having a positive attitude when the planet is slowing dying by our own hands, when the people in power are only becoming more corrupt and greedier, and when I haven't even had a single boyfriend all my life when I'm a fucking high schooler!' She inwardly shouted, getting to the crux of her anger.
'I know that I'm not like putting myself out there by acting slutty or whatever, but still! Guys should be interested in girls who don't act like thots!'
"Zoey? Do you mind paying attention to class instead of trying to break that pen in half?" Miss Flanagan asked in a voice that swiftly brought Zoey back to reality.
"I'm sorry," Zoey responded with a faint blush on her cheeks as everyone looked at her.
"Thank you. Now how would we find the missing degree of this obtuse angle?"
"Uhh..."
It wasn't hard to see that Zoey wasn't an A or B student either. Seeing how Zoey wasn't able to answer any questions based on what they were learning today earned her detention after class today. Making today one of the worst days ever. She's never been more embarrassed in school than she was today. Miss Flanagan made her look stupid in front of the entire class! And in front of Ethan, of all people too! The cutest boy in her class, with just the most adorable personality she's ever seen in a guy.
'The things I would do to him...' Her mind wandered into all sorts of fantasies while she was in detention with the Disciplinary Teach, Brock.
Detention at her school was pretty much torture for people who couldn't handle sitting still for hours doing nothing. What detention came down to at Sun Valley High School was basically this: Sit down at a desk, do homework or do nothing, and wait till your time was up. You couldn't sleep, rest your head down, use anything that resembled an electronic, or chew gum. Zoey didn't have a problem with this as she basically spent the time trying to figure out what else her status could do besides showing her what it had already told her.
The zero skills part was what was bothering her. It bothered her more than her weak body and obviously low mental stat. The magic was understandable as humans haven't yet found that magic particle in the universe and haven't figured out how to harness that particle for our own uses. But she had to have at least a single skill in her life! Like, who goes 17 years of their life without having one skill? Even something meaningless like juggling, whistling, or hell, twirling a pencil through your fingers!?
Zoey grabbed her pencil lying on her desk and, in her anger, tried to gain a skill by twirling it in between her fingers. She made sure to prop up her math book in front of her desk before attempting this stunt. If that hard-ass Brock saw her having the tiniest bit of fun, he'd surely order her to stop. When she successfully placed her only means of defense up, she began spinning. Immediately, the 0.3 in body and 0.5 in mental shown from her status showed their fighting spirit.
Zoey dropped the pencil on her first attempt and proceeded to curse several deities for giving her such a useless body.
"Zoey Winters! Place that book flat on your desk, and do not let me hear another sound from you!" Brock yammered loudly.
'Ugh! Asshole!' She cursed inwardly.
"I won't do it again..." She promised outwardly.
The next two hours were spent actually doing her homework. Since she didn't learn anything in the classroom, she had to figure out how to do it through the actual math book. Which didn't help her at all because she couldn't find a single damn formula listed in the book! Zoey distinctly remembered Flanagan talking about a formula that would help solve every problem.
'Then why the fuck isn't that formula in the goddamn book!?' She raced to the front of the book to see when her shitty math book was published and felt like ripping it to pieces.
2000 was when it was published. It was the year 2020, and this cheap ass school still hasn't gotten better books?! No wonder her school was always ranked so low online. Zoey didn't know if it was because they had no money at all or just had no idea what the fuck to do with the money they were getting.
'Well, if I fail, at least I know it wasn't my fault. It was the school's fault for being so cheap and not giving us the most recent academic books."
The last bell of the day rang, and they were ordered out of detention. Brock called them out in alphabetic order before releasing them, which meant that she was the last to leave. Zoey argued that it would've made more sense to release them based on the offense of their crime but knew her words would only fall on deaf ears. Brock definitely wouldn't listen to a trouble student like her. He considers every kid that gets detention as a delinquent.
'Such a fucking loser.' She swore while leaving the classroom.
Zoey made her way toward her locker. Most of the hallway was empty by this point, as it was 2 hours after school normally ends. The only people still here are teachers, janitors, coaches, and the kids that actually do stuff at school. Clubs, sports, and other stuff like that. Zoey didn't really have any interest in any of the clubs at school.
Well, no, that was a lie. She was interested in joining the Video Game Club, but that was because she heard that they don't do anything but play games all day. Zoey wasn't like some hardcore gamer or anything like that. She just played from time to time because of her dad. Now he was the biggest gaming nerd ever. He even goes to gaming conventions and stuff like that with her little brother, who is becoming just like their dad with his obsession with games.
While sifting through her locker, Zoey realized that she had forgotten something in Miss Flanagan's classroom. She could just leave and come get it tomorrow, but she might as well do it now. Miss Flanagan's class is her third period, and anyone could steal her stuff before she gets it tomorrow. It wasn't worth being lazy right now.
On her way to Miss Flanagan's room, she heard two voices inside. A boy and a girl. This stopped Zoey straight in her tracks. A faint blush formed on her face as she heard what they were whispering about.
'Has school morals seriously fallen to this point?!' Zoey exclaimed while pressing her ear against the door.
"Are you sure no one is going to come in?" The girl asked. She had to be a slut if she was willing to do this at school.
"Of course, I'm sure. I even have measures in place for if someone does try to come in." The boy reassured.
'Oh, he must do this often. Was there a desk against the door or something?' Zoey thought.
"Well, okay... I trust you." She sounded pretty innocent.
Maybe this was her first time doing nasty stuff in public.
"You have nothing to worry about. I've done this loads of times. Just make sure to relax, and it'll make everything easier." The casanova told the girl.
'Holy shit. They really are about to have sex! I wonder who they are... They must be one of the popular kids if they have the confidence to do something like this. But I need to get my stuff! Should I knock before they begin? That would be so awkward, though. What if they get mad at me for ruining their perfect opportunity? I should take a quick peek.' Zoey slowly peeked through the crack in the door and saw two figures close together.
Their faces were inches apart, and from this angle, Zoey couldn't glean anything except that their skin was white. But then, all of a sudden, they got even closer, and a bright light was visible inside. Zoey wondered what that light was, and just as she did, even more lights began to shine around them. The beat of her heart started to pump within her chest rapidly. These two weren't about to have sex! They were doing magical shit!
Zoey accidentally exhaled the air she didn't know she was holding in, and the two stared in her direction.
"Who's there?!" The boy yelled in a voice that sent shivers through her body.
"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING!" She yelled.
Zoey instantly regretted saying anything, but that didn't stop her from running down the hall at her fastest speed. She could hear the door to the classroom bursting open as she turned the hall. Her legs didn't stop moving until she was successfully out of the school building and a distance away from the school down the street. Hopefully, they didn't see her while she was running.
Zoey dropped on her butt completely out of breath. She never ran as hard as that ever in her life. She could've sworn she saw like 2 teachers chasing her when she was running through the building. The fast beating of her heart matched perfectly with her emotional state right now. Magic was actually real, and there were people who could use it! And they probably were going to kill her for seeing them use it!
"I need to find a way to defend myself!" Zoey exclaimed.
Once she made her way home, Zoey began doing everything she could to try and use magic. Chanting long magical spells to cast fireballs, magic missiles, and teleporting. But obviously, nothing worked, as her magic stat was literally at 0. So, she did the next best thing and started looking online for self-defense classes. Since she couldn't bring weapons to school, she had to learn a way to defend herself with just her body alone. Magicians were usually weak in close combat, right?
The only self-defense classes near her for women were things for like rapists and defending herself from people trying to assault her. That wouldn't be too helpful against people who could use fucking magic! So instead, she started looking for self-defense classes that weren't targeted at women. In her local area, there was a boxing gym that had a four-star rating, a taekwondo class with three stars, a karate dojo with four stars, and several fitness classes.
As an American, Zoey only had one strong impression of any of the classes listed. And that was boxing. There were no famous taekwondo fighters that she could name and only a few karate fighters that she could. The famous karate fighters didn't count, though, because they were movie actors, and Zoey didn't know enough about those actors to tell if they really had a background in karate. But with famous boxers, she could name a few. Nike Lyson and Buhammad Kali were some. Zoey prepared herself to visit the boxing gym tomorrow. The chilling tone from that casanova's words earlier still ran through her mind. He definitely planned to do something bad to her if he managed to get ahold of her.
'Wait, is he a Casanvoa? He was just doing magic stuff with that girl. There was no proof that they were going to do any naughty stuff but then again... There is nothing saying that they weren't going to go at it like animals after doing secret magic stuff.' She got distracted.
Zoey focused back on her computer and got back to shopping for boxing equipment. Their family shared a Lamazon Prime account, so she could put whatever she wanted into her dad's shopping cart, and when he went on Lamazon, he could buy them for her if he had the money this week. He worked as a video game designer. She already looked up what equipment she would need for boxing classes and added several things to his cart. Hand wraps, dark purple boxing gloves, a heavy bag to carry her stuff with, and boxing shoes.
Tomorrow when her dad asks why she needs all this boxing stuff, she'll tell him she wants to learn boxing to protect herself. It wouldn't be a lie either because that magic guy was for sure going to try and find out who she was and silence her. Boxing was just the best alternative that wouldn't make her look like a nutcase for the next few days. She could try and conceal a weapon on her at all times, but getting in trouble for something like that would be annoying. Zoey also doubted she'd be able to persuade any teachers that she was keeping a razor or knife on herself for protection.
Zoey didn't have a suspicious look to her or anything. Just your normal 17-year-old girl. She had dark brown skin, a short and thin frame, with straight black hair that went past her neck slightly. Sadly, she wasn't gifted with large tits, but her ass was nice. In her opinion, anyway. She'd screw her. If she started working out, she'd probably be able to get her ass to pop too.
Chapter 2: Boxing Lessons.
It wasn't until Wednesday that Zoey received her boxing equipment from Lamazon. Her dad had Prime, so she got her stuff faster than normal. So, she planned to go to the boxing gym today with her dad. From what she read online, he may have to sign a waiver for her or something so that she could train here. If she gets any injuries, the gym wouldn't be held liable for it. Standard business stuff.
Tuesday was actually the scariest day of her life. She kept picturing those two suddenly finding out it was her and confronting her during school. Zoey knew plenty about magic from video games, but this was real life! What spells could people with magic do in real life?! Was something like a simple fireball actually a high-level spell in real life? What about mind-reading? Is that possible!? In some games, it is!
Zoey was on edge the whole day and couldn't focus on any of her classes. Thankfully, she wasn't sent to detention this time. If she was, she might've just ditched and got a three-day suspension. She was just that terrified of the power possibly held by that boy and girl.
"Are you being bullied at school?" Zoey's dad asked.
"Uhh, I don't know," Zoey said, not sure how to explain it.
"Should I come up there and have a talk with the teachers?"
"No. That wouldn't help anyone." Zoey didn't even know the faces of the two, just their voices.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Learning how to box will be better for me." Maybe with this, she'll finally gain a skill with this status. It couldn't be that useless that it wouldn't even count boxing as a skill now, would it?
Zoey and her dad entered the boxing gym, and the smell of the sweaty men immediately hit her nose. She was glad she wasn't hit with any heat. The place had several fans blowing throughout. There were 2 big boxing rings in the middle of the gym, with only one of them being used right now. On the northern side, there were rolled-up mats, punching bags hanging up, and several weights. On the left side was just a large mat with guys doing sit-ups and stuff like that. Over to her right, there were chairs for people to sit in while waiting for the counter to be free. At least, that's what Zoey thought they were for.
Nobody paid any attention to her and her dad as they walked to the counter. He explained her situation and paid her monthly deposit before sticking around to see her training. Zoey almost blushed, just looking at her trainer. Did they really just give her a hunk like this as her trainer?
'I'm sorry, Ethan. I still love you, but this man is the man that girls dream about having as a sidepiece.' She gushed.
"Hey there, Zoey. I'm Zack. I'm going to be your trainer for this month, and I'm excited to have you." He asked politely.
'Oh god. You don't know how excited I am to have you as my trainer.' She had trouble keeping her eyes on his face instead of the muscles barely contained by that tight white tee. His face wasn't bad, but his body was just ummph!
"Nice to meet you..." She shook his hand.
"Good. You can go get changed in the women's locker room on the right past the counter. And we can get started right after."
Zoey got changed into her workout clothes and found Zack on the north side of the gym. She walked over in her shorts, shoes, and fitted black sports bra with her boxing gloves and hand wrapped in her hands. Zoey still had no idea how to wrap her hands properly, so she hoped Zack would be willing to teach her. There were a bunch of things she hoped Zack would be teaching her.
"Oh. You have your own equipment." He said, surprised.
"Yeah. I didn't plan for this to be short term, and I didn't want to borrow the gym's stuff all the time." Plus, she didn't know how often they washed their stuff.
"Before we begin, let's start off with a few basic warmups. Today will pretty much be me finding out exactly where you are and what you need to work on."
'Probably everything.'
"Okay." Zoey nodded.
The next 20 minutes were spent doing jumping jacks, squats, stretches, and stuff like that. It warmed her up, and thankfully, this amount of exercise didn't cause her to start sweating yet. Based on what she could see the other people doing, what she just did was practically nothing in comparison. After finishing up her warmups, now she could finally learn boxing.
Or at least she thought she was. Zack made her start jumping rope for 5 minutes, actually making her sweat this time. She took a look at her status, expecting some kind of change, but of course, this much wouldn't be enough to improve her body or get her any skills. To distract herself while jumping rope, she ogled at Zack. It took her mind off the eventual embarrassment she'll feel when she was dripping with sweat and tired beyond belief with Zack looking at her.
And no, it wouldn't be exciting to have him look at her like that. She wasn't one of those perverts that got off to stuff like that. She had some self-respect. Just because she spends more than half of her day thinking about dirty stuff doesn't mean she doesn't give a damn about herself. It was just other people she didn't give a damn about.
"How much do you know about boxing, Zoey?" He asked.
"Not much." She answered. The only thing she knew about boxing was how cool it looked when guys punched the hell out of each other.
"We're going to do something called shadowboxing, but before we do that, do you know how to put on your hand wraps?"
"I don't."
"Let me teach you that first, then."
Zack teaching her how to wrap her hands was way less sensual and romantic than she thought it would be. It didn't take too long, and he barely touched her at all. Maybe she's getting too into this whole trainer-student fantasy playing out in her mind. Because clearly, Zack wasn't interested in her or something. Or maybe he was really good at hiding it. She was good at that. He could be too. It could be something they both had in common.
"If you do some practice at home, you'll be able to do it by yourself in no time." He smiled with his blinding pearly white teeth.
She nodded her head as he tried to explain what shadowboxing was to her. And this was where they came into their first real problem of the day. Zoey didn't know the basics. Like earlier, she told him she knew practically nothing. He must be new to teaching if he was expecting her how to know how properly throw a punch and know of the basic boxing stance. A hunk with a lack of brains still has its appeal.
The most exciting part of this boxing lesson didn't begin until Zack got her started on the punching bags. He had to fix her stance and punches a third time here, but once she was finished and sweaty as all hell, she finally got a skill! Two skills, actually!
She got Punching and Footwork. Two level 1 skills that added a nice sexy number 2 next to her skills in status. Zoey also felt her punches, and moving around while punching felt more comfortable. It was like she wasn't learning how to do it for the first time and could easily do it. Like walking or breathing. It was a feeling like that.
"You're showing some nice moves now. Keep it up, Zoey!" He complimented.
He must have been able to see the effects of her skills too. Gaining these two skills energized her a lot more than she thought they would. Before putting on her dark purple boxing gloves, Zoey was tired as shit. She just wanted to take a rest, drink her water bottle, and wipe away all her sweat. But once she gained those two skills, it was like she was struck with lightning.
Her punches were no longer sloppy, they connected properly, and Zack didn't need to give her advice every few minutes correcting her. Instead of standing still and awkwardly throwing her fists, she could move with her fists now. It was like her body was disconnected before gaining the two skills, and now it was all one working machine. Zoey thought she was exaggerating for the most part, but seeing Zack's reaction at her sudden improvement made her think maybe she wasn't.
"Are you sure you have never done this before?" He asked skeptically.
"She's never done a lick of exercises before." Her dad spoke up, also looking as shocked as Zack was.
Zoey kept quiet because she could feel her cheeks warming up. If she tried to tell her dad to shut up, she'd probably stutter or bite her tongue. So, she focused on hitting the bag. Doing nothing but focusing on how to punch better and keep her legs moving. The pain in her legs and the drain on her energy eventually caught up with her. An ache in her lower body slowed her speed while her punches became far slower.
"That's enough, Zoey. We'll do some quick conditioning, and that'll be all for today." Zack said.
Zack seemed pretty young. She wondered how old he was to be a trainer at a boxing gym. Was he an amateur boxer or a professional? Did he have a girlfriend? Would he mind a girl younger than him?
"Hey Zoey, you there? You seemed a little out of it at the end there." Her dad asked while they were in the car.
"Huh?" The rest of the lesson must have passed right by her.
She must have got too caught up thinking about Zack and those glistening muscles of his. Zoey had never been happier about her dad's lack of awareness. He would definitely try and have a "mature" talk with her that would make them both incredibly uncomfortable. There was enough information on the internet about this stuff. Her dad didn't need to teach her much.
"How was it, Zoey? Did you have fun? Do you want to come back?"
"Yes." She replied simply.
"Great. You never really showed an interest in sports or anything besides being on your computer, so I never really knew what you were interested in." He chatted.
"Oh." Zoey didn't know how to respond to this.
"I'm happy that you asked me to bring you up there. I feel like I can actually get involved in your life without seeming like a nuisance, you know? I don't want to take you places and have you not be interested at all and just not having fun. I want us to be closer as father and daughter. So, if you ever want to go somewhere and Alicia is busy, just ask me. I work the night shift, so I'll be able to take you anytime during the day." He shared with her.
"Thanks, Dad... You can talk to me about stuff. I'm not going to get mad at you or ignore you for wanting to talk to me."
"Oh. That's good. With how teenage girls are these days, you never really know how they feel. I'm glad you told me that."
"I'm not really like other girls..."
"What do you mean, Zoey?" He asked as if he wasn't aware that she was an awkward mess of a girl who couldn't even express herself without getting nervous about making the wrong impression upon people.
"I mean, I'm not interested in most things other girls are. I don't go out to parties with friends. I never ask for money for clothes, jewelry, and other stuff like that. Don't you think that's a little weird?"
"I don't think it's weird at all. Sounds like you're already on your way to becoming your own person to me."
"What?"
"Your dad may not have been the coolest kid in school, but if there is one thing he does know is that you don't need to follow what everyone else is doing to be normal. Zoey, you're fine the way you are. As long as you aren't doing drugs or anything illegal, then you're fine."
"Pfft. Where would I even get drugs from?" Zoey laughed.
"That's a piece of knowledge you'll never unravel if it's up to me!"
"You don't have to worry about me doing any drugs, Dad. I'm not interested in the stuff anyway."
"Great! As long as the oldest stays on the straight and narrow, your brother shouldn't stray off the path either."
"I don't think Everett is going to do anything but play games when he grows up."
"Even better!" He was really happy with this answer.
"Dad, do you think magic is real?" Zoey suddenly asked.
"If it was real, I would already be a 10th circle sorcerer with a mastery of all elements, including space and time." He chuckled.
"What would you do if a sorcerer was after you?"
"I'd beg them to teach me their ways at almost any cost."
"What if they wanted to get rid of you?"
"I would submit to my fate to the masters of the arcane."
Zoey wasn't satisfied with that answer. If she asked again, telling him to be serious, it would only make things awkward when they just got a good mood going. Well, whatever. Zoey wasn't planning to let some magic perverts kill her. Zoey was one of the most rebellious people on the planet! If she wasn't such a huge fucking coward who's scared of negative consequences, she would be living her best life! But her current life wasn't so bad either. Now that she has this status box, maybe she'll be able to become a really good boxer who can punch fireballs into nothingness.
Well, wait, Boxing is just a sport, right? How good would it be in a life-or-death battle? Dealing with a non-magical person surely has to be easy as pie for a magician. Maybe she will have to learn how to box in the streets as well as in the ring...
Tuesday was actually the scariest day of her life. She kept picturing those two suddenly finding out it was her and confronting her during school. Zoey knew plenty about magic from video games, but this was real life! What spells could people with magic do in real life?! Was something like a simple fireball actually a high-level spell in real life? What about mind-reading? Is that possible!? In some games, it is!
Zoey was on edge the whole day and couldn't focus on any of her classes. Thankfully, she wasn't sent to detention this time. If she was, she might've just ditched and got a three-day suspension. She was just that terrified of the power possibly held by that boy and girl.
"Are you being bullied at school?" Zoey's dad asked.
"Uhh, I don't know," Zoey said, not sure how to explain it.
"Should I come up there and have a talk with the teachers?"
"No. That wouldn't help anyone." Zoey didn't even know the faces of the two, just their voices.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Learning how to box will be better for me." Maybe with this, she'll finally gain a skill with this status. It couldn't be that useless that it wouldn't even count boxing as a skill now, would it?
Zoey and her dad entered the boxing gym, and the smell of the sweaty men immediately hit her nose. She was glad she wasn't hit with any heat. The place had several fans blowing throughout. There were 2 big boxing rings in the middle of the gym, with only one of them being used right now. On the northern side, there were rolled-up mats, punching bags hanging up, and several weights. On the left side was just a large mat with guys doing sit-ups and stuff like that. Over to her right, there were chairs for people to sit in while waiting for the counter to be free. At least, that's what Zoey thought they were for.
Nobody paid any attention to her and her dad as they walked to the counter. He explained her situation and paid her monthly deposit before sticking around to see her training. Zoey almost blushed, just looking at her trainer. Did they really just give her a hunk like this as her trainer?
'I'm sorry, Ethan. I still love you, but this man is the man that girls dream about having as a sidepiece.' She gushed.
"Hey there, Zoey. I'm Zack. I'm going to be your trainer for this month, and I'm excited to have you." He asked politely.
'Oh god. You don't know how excited I am to have you as my trainer.' She had trouble keeping her eyes on his face instead of the muscles barely contained by that tight white tee. His face wasn't bad, but his body was just ummph!
"Nice to meet you..." She shook his hand.
"Good. You can go get changed in the women's locker room on the right past the counter. And we can get started right after."
Zoey got changed into her workout clothes and found Zack on the north side of the gym. She walked over in her shorts, shoes, and fitted black sports bra with her boxing gloves and hand wrapped in her hands. Zoey still had no idea how to wrap her hands properly, so she hoped Zack would be willing to teach her. There were a bunch of things she hoped Zack would be teaching her.
"Oh. You have your own equipment." He said, surprised.
"Yeah. I didn't plan for this to be short term, and I didn't want to borrow the gym's stuff all the time." Plus, she didn't know how often they washed their stuff.
"Before we begin, let's start off with a few basic warmups. Today will pretty much be me finding out exactly where you are and what you need to work on."
'Probably everything.'
"Okay." Zoey nodded.
The next 20 minutes were spent doing jumping jacks, squats, stretches, and stuff like that. It warmed her up, and thankfully, this amount of exercise didn't cause her to start sweating yet. Based on what she could see the other people doing, what she just did was practically nothing in comparison. After finishing up her warmups, now she could finally learn boxing.
Or at least she thought she was. Zack made her start jumping rope for 5 minutes, actually making her sweat this time. She took a look at her status, expecting some kind of change, but of course, this much wouldn't be enough to improve her body or get her any skills. To distract herself while jumping rope, she ogled at Zack. It took her mind off the eventual embarrassment she'll feel when she was dripping with sweat and tired beyond belief with Zack looking at her.
And no, it wouldn't be exciting to have him look at her like that. She wasn't one of those perverts that got off to stuff like that. She had some self-respect. Just because she spends more than half of her day thinking about dirty stuff doesn't mean she doesn't give a damn about herself. It was just other people she didn't give a damn about.
"How much do you know about boxing, Zoey?" He asked.
"Not much." She answered. The only thing she knew about boxing was how cool it looked when guys punched the hell out of each other.
"We're going to do something called shadowboxing, but before we do that, do you know how to put on your hand wraps?"
"I don't."
"Let me teach you that first, then."
Zack teaching her how to wrap her hands was way less sensual and romantic than she thought it would be. It didn't take too long, and he barely touched her at all. Maybe she's getting too into this whole trainer-student fantasy playing out in her mind. Because clearly, Zack wasn't interested in her or something. Or maybe he was really good at hiding it. She was good at that. He could be too. It could be something they both had in common.
"If you do some practice at home, you'll be able to do it by yourself in no time." He smiled with his blinding pearly white teeth.
She nodded her head as he tried to explain what shadowboxing was to her. And this was where they came into their first real problem of the day. Zoey didn't know the basics. Like earlier, she told him she knew practically nothing. He must be new to teaching if he was expecting her how to know how properly throw a punch and know of the basic boxing stance. A hunk with a lack of brains still has its appeal.
The most exciting part of this boxing lesson didn't begin until Zack got her started on the punching bags. He had to fix her stance and punches a third time here, but once she was finished and sweaty as all hell, she finally got a skill! Two skills, actually!
She got Punching and Footwork. Two level 1 skills that added a nice sexy number 2 next to her skills in status. Zoey also felt her punches, and moving around while punching felt more comfortable. It was like she wasn't learning how to do it for the first time and could easily do it. Like walking or breathing. It was a feeling like that.
"You're showing some nice moves now. Keep it up, Zoey!" He complimented.
He must have been able to see the effects of her skills too. Gaining these two skills energized her a lot more than she thought they would. Before putting on her dark purple boxing gloves, Zoey was tired as shit. She just wanted to take a rest, drink her water bottle, and wipe away all her sweat. But once she gained those two skills, it was like she was struck with lightning.
Her punches were no longer sloppy, they connected properly, and Zack didn't need to give her advice every few minutes correcting her. Instead of standing still and awkwardly throwing her fists, she could move with her fists now. It was like her body was disconnected before gaining the two skills, and now it was all one working machine. Zoey thought she was exaggerating for the most part, but seeing Zack's reaction at her sudden improvement made her think maybe she wasn't.
"Are you sure you have never done this before?" He asked skeptically.
"She's never done a lick of exercises before." Her dad spoke up, also looking as shocked as Zack was.
Zoey kept quiet because she could feel her cheeks warming up. If she tried to tell her dad to shut up, she'd probably stutter or bite her tongue. So, she focused on hitting the bag. Doing nothing but focusing on how to punch better and keep her legs moving. The pain in her legs and the drain on her energy eventually caught up with her. An ache in her lower body slowed her speed while her punches became far slower.
"That's enough, Zoey. We'll do some quick conditioning, and that'll be all for today." Zack said.
Zack seemed pretty young. She wondered how old he was to be a trainer at a boxing gym. Was he an amateur boxer or a professional? Did he have a girlfriend? Would he mind a girl younger than him?
"Hey Zoey, you there? You seemed a little out of it at the end there." Her dad asked while they were in the car.
"Huh?" The rest of the lesson must have passed right by her.
She must have got too caught up thinking about Zack and those glistening muscles of his. Zoey had never been happier about her dad's lack of awareness. He would definitely try and have a "mature" talk with her that would make them both incredibly uncomfortable. There was enough information on the internet about this stuff. Her dad didn't need to teach her much.
"How was it, Zoey? Did you have fun? Do you want to come back?"
"Yes." She replied simply.
"Great. You never really showed an interest in sports or anything besides being on your computer, so I never really knew what you were interested in." He chatted.
"Oh." Zoey didn't know how to respond to this.
"I'm happy that you asked me to bring you up there. I feel like I can actually get involved in your life without seeming like a nuisance, you know? I don't want to take you places and have you not be interested at all and just not having fun. I want us to be closer as father and daughter. So, if you ever want to go somewhere and Alicia is busy, just ask me. I work the night shift, so I'll be able to take you anytime during the day." He shared with her.
"Thanks, Dad... You can talk to me about stuff. I'm not going to get mad at you or ignore you for wanting to talk to me."
"Oh. That's good. With how teenage girls are these days, you never really know how they feel. I'm glad you told me that."
"I'm not really like other girls..."
"What do you mean, Zoey?" He asked as if he wasn't aware that she was an awkward mess of a girl who couldn't even express herself without getting nervous about making the wrong impression upon people.
"I mean, I'm not interested in most things other girls are. I don't go out to parties with friends. I never ask for money for clothes, jewelry, and other stuff like that. Don't you think that's a little weird?"
"I don't think it's weird at all. Sounds like you're already on your way to becoming your own person to me."
"What?"
"Your dad may not have been the coolest kid in school, but if there is one thing he does know is that you don't need to follow what everyone else is doing to be normal. Zoey, you're fine the way you are. As long as you aren't doing drugs or anything illegal, then you're fine."
"Pfft. Where would I even get drugs from?" Zoey laughed.
"That's a piece of knowledge you'll never unravel if it's up to me!"
"You don't have to worry about me doing any drugs, Dad. I'm not interested in the stuff anyway."
"Great! As long as the oldest stays on the straight and narrow, your brother shouldn't stray off the path either."
"I don't think Everett is going to do anything but play games when he grows up."
"Even better!" He was really happy with this answer.
"Dad, do you think magic is real?" Zoey suddenly asked.
"If it was real, I would already be a 10th circle sorcerer with a mastery of all elements, including space and time." He chuckled.
"What would you do if a sorcerer was after you?"
"I'd beg them to teach me their ways at almost any cost."
"What if they wanted to get rid of you?"
"I would submit to my fate to the masters of the arcane."
Zoey wasn't satisfied with that answer. If she asked again, telling him to be serious, it would only make things awkward when they just got a good mood going. Well, whatever. Zoey wasn't planning to let some magic perverts kill her. Zoey was one of the most rebellious people on the planet! If she wasn't such a huge fucking coward who's scared of negative consequences, she would be living her best life! But her current life wasn't so bad either. Now that she has this status box, maybe she'll be able to become a really good boxer who can punch fireballs into nothingness.
Well, wait, Boxing is just a sport, right? How good would it be in a life-or-death battle? Dealing with a non-magical person surely has to be easy as pie for a magician. Maybe she will have to learn how to box in the streets as well as in the ring...
Chapter 3: Progress and Some Plans.
It's been a few weeks now since going to the boxing gym, and Zoey was surprised at the progress she's made. While she was staring at the mirror admiring her body, it was like looking at a completely different person! She had abs now instead of flab! When she flexed her arms, there was real muscle there and not just a mess of squishy flesh! Zoey also learned a few more skills in the boxing gym during her time there.
Slipping, Blocking, Parry, and Focus. Zack said soon she'd be able to learn how to perform counters as well with her talent. The head coach even lamented about how sad he was that she was born a girl. If she was a boy, he'd make her his star pupil on the spot! This was after seeing her able to spar against some of the newest guys in the gym, even though she was a girl.
"It's all thanks to you, you sexy little box you..." Zoey teasingly rubbed her status box.
At school, Zoey managed to find out who the magicians were at her school from the sound of their voices. It was the school council president and his vice president. Luckily for her, it looked like they didn't have any way of finding her with magic. Or they were just acting as if they didn't know it was her, hoping to have her lower her guard and get her when she was alone. Zoey still didn't feel confident enough in her boxing skills to be able to deal with the two yet.
She was making good progress with Zack at the gym, but there was a feeling within her chest saying that she could do more. It was a stuffy feeling that made her annoyed and bothered. A challenge was what she was looking for. Something to test her skills to the fullest. Lately, her skills were barely making any progress in levels. Zoey figured that they must only increase when used in real situations. That was probably why most of them were stagnating around level 5. The only skill higher than level 5 was Slipping at level 6.
"We're reporting an increase in supposed gang activity in the local area. The police chief promised to deal with any troublemakers and advised that members of the public should remain calm." The news lady announced.
"Trust in your local police officers. We're here to protect the people. Feel free to call us and inform us about any gang activity in your area." The news station clipped to a video of the police chief.
"Mom, did you throw away my mask for Halloween?" Zoey asked with a strange look in her eyes.
"No, I put it at the top of the closet near the stairs. Why are you asking?"
"Just wondering... Hey Mom, I'm going to go outside. I'll probably be back before it's dark." Zoey got up and headed to the closet.
"Where are you going?"
"Just taking a jog around the neighborhood. I'll probably go see a movie or something while I'm out too." She couldn't honestly tell her what she was about to do. Her mom would stop her at all costs.
"You're taking a jog looking like that...?"
"What's wrong with it?"
Most of Zoey's skin was covered by her outfit. She had an oversized hoodie that obviously didn't fit a girl of her size and black yoga pants that tightly stretched around her lower body. This wasn't too strange on its own, but the fact that she was wearing blue boxing gloves on her hands along with a scary clown mask was. It looked like she was headed to the freak show or something!
"Be honest. Where the hell are you going?" Her mom wasn't as easy as her dad.
"If I told you I was going out to fight gangsters, would you believe me?" She smiled.
"Listen, if you're going to lie to me, at least don't make it so obvious. So, where are you really going?" She asked again.
Zoey sighed and turned right around, throwing the mask back in the closet and tying the boxing gloves on her waist. She reappeared back in front of her mom, looking less like a crazy person and more like a girl who was about to exercise.
"Is this fine?"
"Why can't you answer a simple question? I didn't say go and change. I asked you where are you going?" She really wasn't making this easy on her.
"You ask too many questions!" Zoey dropped her plans for today. She returned to her room without answering her mom.
After school tomorrow, she'll start cleaning up her neighborhood. Her mom works during the day, so she won't be able to question or stop her from doing this community service. Zoey already knew in her heart why she was planning to do this very dangerous activity. She wanted to see the numbers in her status go up higher. She liked the feeling of punching things and fighting. She liked seeing herself improve at a visible pace.
Zoey had never fought a day in her life before her first sparring lesson in the boxing gym. The hardest thing was keeping her eyes open as a fist came straight toward her face. After that was getting over the feeling of wanting to run away after being punched in the face. Then came the pleasure. Sparring did wonders for her skills. It did so much for her that any negative feelings associated with sparring were erased and replaced once she was actually able to start fighting back.
Now she wanted that feeling of danger, unease, and confusion back. There was also another feeling of wanting to let loose for once. Zoey held back in every single spar she's participated in so far. She restrained the shaking feeling in her fists that just wanted to run wild inside the ring. None of the guys in the gym seemed to really want to fight against her seriously because she was a girl. Zoey knew that the gangsters on the street wouldn't hold back at all against her. Plus, there would be value in learning how to fight on the street that she wouldn't get by fighting in the ring.
At its core, Boxing is a sport through and through. It was meant purely for the ring and nowhere else. That was why mainly the fist in used in boxing. There was no fighting style in the world that could be great just by using a person's fists. Zoey planned to advance boxing as a fighting style that can be used in any situation. On the ground, in the air, against multiple opponents, against deadly weapons, and especially against magic.
Of course, this was far into the future. Zoey had yet to master the basics yet. How could she think about making any changes when she's yet to do even that? If there was one thing that Zoey knew, it was that you couldn't run before you walked. And don't even think about walking if you haven't started crawling.
So, for her run tomorrow, she'll just stick with the basics. If everything goes to plan, she won't get stabbed, raped, or beaten half to death! The safest and smartest choice for her would be to continue her training at the gym, but this path wouldn't help her improve. The status box needed her to be challenged and placed in new situations for her skills to level and her stats to rise. The realism hasn't quite set in for her about the insane shit she plans to do. No doubt tomorrow will fix that for her. Maybe it isn't too much to say that it might make or break her when she encounters her first gangsters.
"I could probably take on an amateur male boxer and win right about now..." She figured from what she saw of the amateur boxers at her gym.
"So, taking on a couple of untrained thugs shouldn't be too hard in comparison, right?" It sounded easier in her head, but saying it out loud made it kind of scarier.
Zoey couldn't help the excitement sparking in her heart along with that fear. She wasn't exaggerating earlier when she said she liked punching things. Fighting felt good despite the pain and anxiety going through her nerves.
"I would definitely be a dom if I get excited thinking about hurting people." She laughed.
"What's a dom?" Everette suddenly popped up in her room, scaring her to the edge of her bed.
"What are you doing in my room!?"
"I wanted to borrow your punching thing for my channel."
"You have a channel?" Was he planning on becoming a streamer or something?
"Yea! Every time I get killed in Dead Man's Battlegrounds, I'll punch it until the respawn timer is done."
"Next time, knock on my door and wait for me to give you permission to come in."
"Why?"
"It's rude to barge into someone's room unannounced."
"Oh. But mom does it."
"Mom doesn't know what manners are."
"So, can I borrow your punching thing?"
"Take it."
"Can you help me bring it into my room? It's too heavy to move it by myself."
"Alright."
Zoey helped Everette and went back to her room. She didn't know he wanted to be a famous streamer in the future. Fuck, she didn't even know what she wanted to be when she grew up! Maybe if this boxing thing works out, she could become a famous woman boxer or something. There has to be a thing like that, right? It's 2020; there's no way there isn't like an official female boxing organization. Hopefully, she'll be able to get rich too.
Slipping, Blocking, Parry, and Focus. Zack said soon she'd be able to learn how to perform counters as well with her talent. The head coach even lamented about how sad he was that she was born a girl. If she was a boy, he'd make her his star pupil on the spot! This was after seeing her able to spar against some of the newest guys in the gym, even though she was a girl.
"It's all thanks to you, you sexy little box you..." Zoey teasingly rubbed her status box.
[Status]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 1]
[Mental: 0.6]
[Magic: 0.0]
[Skills: 6]
[Punching Lv5]
[Footwork Lv5]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv4]
[Parry Lv5]
[Focus Lv1]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 1]
[Mental: 0.6]
[Magic: 0.0]
[Skills: 6]
[Punching Lv5]
[Footwork Lv5]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv4]
[Parry Lv5]
[Focus Lv1]
At school, Zoey managed to find out who the magicians were at her school from the sound of their voices. It was the school council president and his vice president. Luckily for her, it looked like they didn't have any way of finding her with magic. Or they were just acting as if they didn't know it was her, hoping to have her lower her guard and get her when she was alone. Zoey still didn't feel confident enough in her boxing skills to be able to deal with the two yet.
She was making good progress with Zack at the gym, but there was a feeling within her chest saying that she could do more. It was a stuffy feeling that made her annoyed and bothered. A challenge was what she was looking for. Something to test her skills to the fullest. Lately, her skills were barely making any progress in levels. Zoey figured that they must only increase when used in real situations. That was probably why most of them were stagnating around level 5. The only skill higher than level 5 was Slipping at level 6.
"We're reporting an increase in supposed gang activity in the local area. The police chief promised to deal with any troublemakers and advised that members of the public should remain calm." The news lady announced.
"Trust in your local police officers. We're here to protect the people. Feel free to call us and inform us about any gang activity in your area." The news station clipped to a video of the police chief.
"Mom, did you throw away my mask for Halloween?" Zoey asked with a strange look in her eyes.
"No, I put it at the top of the closet near the stairs. Why are you asking?"
"Just wondering... Hey Mom, I'm going to go outside. I'll probably be back before it's dark." Zoey got up and headed to the closet.
"Where are you going?"
"Just taking a jog around the neighborhood. I'll probably go see a movie or something while I'm out too." She couldn't honestly tell her what she was about to do. Her mom would stop her at all costs.
"You're taking a jog looking like that...?"
"What's wrong with it?"
Most of Zoey's skin was covered by her outfit. She had an oversized hoodie that obviously didn't fit a girl of her size and black yoga pants that tightly stretched around her lower body. This wasn't too strange on its own, but the fact that she was wearing blue boxing gloves on her hands along with a scary clown mask was. It looked like she was headed to the freak show or something!
"Be honest. Where the hell are you going?" Her mom wasn't as easy as her dad.
"If I told you I was going out to fight gangsters, would you believe me?" She smiled.
"Listen, if you're going to lie to me, at least don't make it so obvious. So, where are you really going?" She asked again.
Zoey sighed and turned right around, throwing the mask back in the closet and tying the boxing gloves on her waist. She reappeared back in front of her mom, looking less like a crazy person and more like a girl who was about to exercise.
"Is this fine?"
"Why can't you answer a simple question? I didn't say go and change. I asked you where are you going?" She really wasn't making this easy on her.
"You ask too many questions!" Zoey dropped her plans for today. She returned to her room without answering her mom.
After school tomorrow, she'll start cleaning up her neighborhood. Her mom works during the day, so she won't be able to question or stop her from doing this community service. Zoey already knew in her heart why she was planning to do this very dangerous activity. She wanted to see the numbers in her status go up higher. She liked the feeling of punching things and fighting. She liked seeing herself improve at a visible pace.
Zoey had never fought a day in her life before her first sparring lesson in the boxing gym. The hardest thing was keeping her eyes open as a fist came straight toward her face. After that was getting over the feeling of wanting to run away after being punched in the face. Then came the pleasure. Sparring did wonders for her skills. It did so much for her that any negative feelings associated with sparring were erased and replaced once she was actually able to start fighting back.
Now she wanted that feeling of danger, unease, and confusion back. There was also another feeling of wanting to let loose for once. Zoey held back in every single spar she's participated in so far. She restrained the shaking feeling in her fists that just wanted to run wild inside the ring. None of the guys in the gym seemed to really want to fight against her seriously because she was a girl. Zoey knew that the gangsters on the street wouldn't hold back at all against her. Plus, there would be value in learning how to fight on the street that she wouldn't get by fighting in the ring.
At its core, Boxing is a sport through and through. It was meant purely for the ring and nowhere else. That was why mainly the fist in used in boxing. There was no fighting style in the world that could be great just by using a person's fists. Zoey planned to advance boxing as a fighting style that can be used in any situation. On the ground, in the air, against multiple opponents, against deadly weapons, and especially against magic.
Of course, this was far into the future. Zoey had yet to master the basics yet. How could she think about making any changes when she's yet to do even that? If there was one thing that Zoey knew, it was that you couldn't run before you walked. And don't even think about walking if you haven't started crawling.
So, for her run tomorrow, she'll just stick with the basics. If everything goes to plan, she won't get stabbed, raped, or beaten half to death! The safest and smartest choice for her would be to continue her training at the gym, but this path wouldn't help her improve. The status box needed her to be challenged and placed in new situations for her skills to level and her stats to rise. The realism hasn't quite set in for her about the insane shit she plans to do. No doubt tomorrow will fix that for her. Maybe it isn't too much to say that it might make or break her when she encounters her first gangsters.
"I could probably take on an amateur male boxer and win right about now..." She figured from what she saw of the amateur boxers at her gym.
"So, taking on a couple of untrained thugs shouldn't be too hard in comparison, right?" It sounded easier in her head, but saying it out loud made it kind of scarier.
Zoey couldn't help the excitement sparking in her heart along with that fear. She wasn't exaggerating earlier when she said she liked punching things. Fighting felt good despite the pain and anxiety going through her nerves.
"I would definitely be a dom if I get excited thinking about hurting people." She laughed.
"What's a dom?" Everette suddenly popped up in her room, scaring her to the edge of her bed.
"What are you doing in my room!?"
"I wanted to borrow your punching thing for my channel."
"You have a channel?" Was he planning on becoming a streamer or something?
"Yea! Every time I get killed in Dead Man's Battlegrounds, I'll punch it until the respawn timer is done."
"Next time, knock on my door and wait for me to give you permission to come in."
"Why?"
"It's rude to barge into someone's room unannounced."
"Oh. But mom does it."
"Mom doesn't know what manners are."
"So, can I borrow your punching thing?"
"Take it."
"Can you help me bring it into my room? It's too heavy to move it by myself."
"Alright."
Zoey helped Everette and went back to her room. She didn't know he wanted to be a famous streamer in the future. Fuck, she didn't even know what she wanted to be when she grew up! Maybe if this boxing thing works out, she could become a famous woman boxer or something. There has to be a thing like that, right? It's 2020; there's no way there isn't like an official female boxing organization. Hopefully, she'll be able to get rich too.
Chapter 4: A Nice Relaxing Walk.
School had just let out, and Zoey was now jogging her way to the main part of town. No Mom to question her about her motives and objectives. Just a girl with a plan to do something incredibly dangerous without wanting to feel guilty about making people worry about her physical or mental health. There was one point in her life when her parents thought she had Asperger's or autism because of her behavior. At the time, she thought it was funnier than anything because Zoey knew that she didn't have a mental condition. It was just that she sucked so much ass at talking to people that her parents thought she had a mental condition. That was the funny part to her. The sad part was desperately convincing them that she didn't need to be tested if she had either of the two disorders. Because once she got tested and the kids from her school learned about it, she would've been treated as if she had it no matter what result she got.
"I guess I should actually start making some friends, huh..." Zoey muttered.
The easiest way she could do that was by joining one of the girl's sports teams. Zoey just realized that she had just jogged all the way from school to the main part of downtown and was barely tired at all. Like she just did a few warmup exercises. Feeling the new changes in her body filled her with a confidence she had never really had before. Maybe joining the track team would be good.
'It's like I'm on top of the world, and everyone is my bitch! Hehehe...'
Zoey didn't know how bad the situation was in the city with gang-related activity. So, while she was looking for trouble, she was also just looking through the town on her own. Since she came with the intention of fighting, Zoey didn't bring her wallet or anything else that could identify herself. Just her backup pair of boxing gloves that were dark blue in color and standard workout clothes.
Knowing that she would look like a freak or a psycho wearing a mask or costume in broad daylight, Zoey just didn't bother. She lived pretty far away from this part of the city, so if anyone found her. They shouldn't be able to find out where she lived unless they were really desperate. And as long as she doesn't go around giving people her personal details, they can't get to her family. Any cars or people following her back home would easily be seen by her. This wasn't a social trip but one of pure selfish gain. If Zoey wanted to spin it on a more positive note, she could say that she was cleaning up the city.
"Have you heard about what they did to that fool, Markus?"
"Yeah, man. Shit's fucked up nowadays. A man can't even take a piss without getting jumped."
"I heard it was because he was saying all that shit about Dino online."
"Messing with that crazy fucker Dino?! He had to be wasted. Everyone knows Dino don't play around. If you get on his bad side, you're dead or fucked. Sometimes it's both."
"It isn't like Dino is the only one to worry about. There is still Tears and Lamar with their people in the city. Shit's just getting more dangerous every day."
"There should be a huge war sometime soon. I think we should get out of this before things really start to escalate."
"It's already gone to fuck, bro. Either we survive and pray to get out by the end of it or die trying."
"Man, I was just trying to make some money for my mom and sisters. I wasn't out here trying to kill nobody! I'm only fucking seventeen, man! There is some shit I shouldn't have to deal with right now."
"I feel you, bro. I really do. School sucks ass but constantly fearing for my own life and the life of my peoples is what really sucks ass. If I knew that this is what gang life would really be like, I would've never joined no matter how much money I could make."
The two guys soon left out of earshot. Her legs shook, and her face flushed after hearing their words. An uncontrollable feeling of excitement danced through her body. She was about to get into something really, really dangerous, and here she was, feeling thrilled about it. Gaining this status box has really changed her, and she didn't know if it was a good thing or not. It was hard to believe that it was a bad thing because of how much she smiled lately and how much her heart fluttered when it came to fighting or improving herself. Before gaining the box, she rarely expressed herself this much or tried hard at anything.
Walking through the city filled with only a few people walking here and there made Zoey feel like she was in some sort of ghost town. Gang members were posted around liquor stores, in alleyways, and walking about, like herself. None of them were causing trouble or anything like that, though. So, she couldn't just run up to them and start beating the shit out of them for literally nothing. Zoey would only deal with those disturbing the peace or causing crime. She would feel less like a psycho if she did that.
As she was about to pass by a small café, Zoey saw a group of boys near her age coming out of it, laughing with each other. Seeing how happy and light their mood was, she walked past them without a second thought. They couldn't be gang members looking like that. They looked like a bunch of pretty boys.
"Oi. Shorty with a booty. Come back here and holla at me for a moment." She was the only shorty around unless he was talking about his short friend next to him.
A faint blush appeared on her face after being complimented on her behind. She was pretty proud of it. Getting her ass to pop like this wasn't easy. She looked up plenty of butt exercises online to do at home. And it looks like that shit was working. Zoey turned around but didn't go near them.
"Didn't you hear me? Come here! And what the fuck is with those boxing gloves? You crazy or something?"
Zoey shook her head and was laughing on the inside at the pretty white boy trying to intimidate her. He was dressed like a wannabe gangster. Sagging his pants, chains around his neck, and too many shiny rings on his fingers, it was hilarious. She had enough sense not to laugh in his face, though, no matter how much she really wanted to.
"Did this bitch just tell me no? Does she not know who I am?"
Zoey shook her head again.
"To think there was someone who didn't know Miles's name in this part of the city..."
"She must not be from around here."
"Especially looking like that."
'Hey, fuckface! I still have ears, you know! What the fuck is wrong with how I look?!' Zoey was getting upset.
"I'll be leaving now." Zoey turned and walked away.
"Get her." Hearing this sent goosebumps up Zoey's arms. A nervous smile slowly formed on her face.
Get her? What was his plan here? Just because she didn't know him, he had to get her? This had to fall within self-defense laws, right? So, it shouldn't be a problem to let scumbags like this feel the results of her practicing in the name of self-defense. But if Zoey was being honest, she was more than happy to escalate this. Even if these little wannabes were not really her target for today.
Zoey turned around and saw the 5 boys coming after her. She got into her boxing stance and readied herself for a fight. Her heart started beating like a furious drum in her nervousness and excitement. The first one tried to grab her with his arms outstretched. A quick jab to the face, and he stumbled backward in confusion with blood leaking from his nose. Zoey knew she didn't have much time since the other 4 could soon surround her. Feeling her fist sink into the first guy's face like that was enough to rev up her engines.
She followed up her jab with a quick step-in and a nasty right hook to the left side of his face that sent his eyes spiraling in their sockets. He fell down, and the second one came, shocked at the sudden defeat of his friend. Zoey moved in and struck him in his fat gut. This was the one who had dissed her earlier. The wind was blown out of him from that punch, forcing him to hold his stomach from the pain and drop to the ground, also allowing her an easy target to reach. Her fist soared straight into his fat chubby jaw, knocking him into the goon behind him and falling over.
At this point, the 2 still standing realized that she wouldn't be as easy as they thought she would be. Those boxing gloves weren't just for show. They circled around her like a pair of wolves. One on her left and the other on her right. She saw them look at each other with a nod before moving in together. The boy on her left threw a sloppy punch that could easily have been dealt with, but at the same time, the boy on the right was running in to grab her. This wouldn't be easy to avoid.
'Why wait for them to come to me?' She questioned herself
Zoey used her small size to her advantage and slipped past the less dangerous boy on the left. As she got behind him, she struck him in the liver twice with her gloves, causing him to scream out in pain. Seeing that her tiny fists were actually working, she continued to let into him while his back was turned to her before the other one could arrive. By the time the boy on the right came, the boy who was on her left was already on the ground clutching his side while crying out in pain.
"Can't you fucking idiots take care of one fucking girl? Those gloves can't possibly fucking hurt as much as you're making them out to be. Look at the size of her! She's half your fucking size, and you can't even touch her!" Miles cursed.
These words filled the boy in front of her with panic. She used that panic to her advantage and moved in real close. With how close she was to him, the only way he could deal with her was by grabbing her. Too bad for him. She was already in motion to punch him. Or at least that was the only way she thought that he could deal with her was by grabbing her.
He actually kneed her away in fright. Luckily, she managed to block with her arms. If he was able to knee her with full force, her arms probably would've gone numb.
"Shit..." She muttered. The legs.
She forgot people could use those in real fights. To quickly make up for her mistake, she dashed towards him again. He was ready this time, but it made no difference for Zoey. This guy wasn't Zack or one of the other boxers from her gym who had plenty of fights under them. Just a guy who threw simple punches that could be seen a mile away.
Zoey parried his punch with her glove and fixed him up with a blow to the side of the face as he was thrown off balance from her parry. He fell down with an undignified fall, and Zoey still had 2 more guys to deal with. The guy who was taken down with the fat ass earlier and the ringleader, Miles. It looked like the blondie on the ground didn't want anything to do with her after seeing her take out the other guys. So, she made her way toward Miles.
The arrogant smirk on his face from earlier was completely gone and now was replaced with anxiety and fear. Zoey didn't pity him. He was too old not to know that his actions had consequences. Especially when trying to assault an innocent young lady with a nice booty.
"Stay back!" He brandished a knife from his pocket and pointed it in her direction.
Zoey's eyes zeroed in on that knife like a hawk. Seeing her suddenly stop must have made him think that she was regretting her decisions now. He started laughing and waving it in her direction.
"What, scared now bitch!? You shouldn't have messed with me! Now it looks like I gotta fucking cut you up!" It was obvious he had no idea how to use a knife.
This didn't make him any less dangerous. A knife is dangerous no matter who holds it. The safest option would be just to run away and deal with him another day. But then again, he definitely wouldn't be the only gangster to pull a knife out on her in the future. Dealing with someone like this might be considered training for the future.
"Oi, bitch!? Are you fucking deaf?! I said get on your knees and start fucking bowing to me!" Zoey unintentionally let out a chortle. He just looked so non-threatening.
He didn't like that one bit. The wannabe gangster ran at her with the knife to cut her. Zoey was terrified, but outwardly it didn't show much. In her mind, she was reasoning just how scary a knife could be in the face of actual magic. That helped her calm down just a little. Her skill, Focus, activated in times of peril. A moment like this certainly counted.
Miles was in slow motion for her as he slashed at her face. Zoey swayed her upper body to the left and, at that unnatural angle, delivered a powerful punch to Miles's wrist. Forcing him to drop the knife and nearly burst into tears. But Zoey wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.
The young black girl knocked Miles to the ground with her shoulder and mounted him. His face was ugly, and he was crying by this point, but Zoey didn't care. He could've blinded her, scarred her face, or killed her! If she didn't unleash this fear in her heart at having a knife used against her, she felt like she would explode. Zoey brutally pounded Miles's face in with her boxing gloves. He begged for mercy. He begged for forgiveness. He tried enticing her with money. None of those things could make up for the fear of death she felt facing that knife.
Punch after punch after punch. She didn't hold back any of her strength which was now superior to any normal woman's. Zoey's fists could contend with male amateur boxers after getting her body stat to 1.0. In her mind, she imagined it to be equal to the same as a normal adult man's strength because women are naturally weaker than men. And she used to be even weaker than the normal girl due to not ever exercising except when forced to at school, along with her unhealthy eating habits.
Blood flew onto her face from one particularly devasting punch, and she only smiled, seeing the strength she now held in her body. Was she always such a blood-crazed lunatic? They say that power corrupts, and Zoey was starting to think that maybe she was getting corrupted into something she would've never had without the Status Box. But in her heart, she didn't feel that this was a bad thing at all. She liked this new Zoey she was slowly becoming.
By the time she was done giving him his due punishment, his face was black, blue, swollen, and bloody. Zoey got up off the unconscious Miles and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a bright smile on her face. She was tired as shit and couldn't wait to get home! The remaining survivor watched as she happily jogged her way down the street and out of sight.
'Today was a pretty productive day.' Zoey beamed.
Everything but her blocking skill went up a level, along with her body stat going up some! A squeal escaped her mouth once she realized she was right. This was the proper way of advancing with the Status! And those guys were basically nothing compared to real gangsters who know how to fight somewhat.
'Maybe if I farm up those guys till I can't get any more exp from them, I should move on to the real gangsters!' But then something crossed her mind.
'But finding guys like that would be hard. There couldn't be a bunch of groups like Miles running around, could there? I wonder what school he goes to. Maybe I can find more groups like his there.'
"I guess I should actually start making some friends, huh..." Zoey muttered.
The easiest way she could do that was by joining one of the girl's sports teams. Zoey just realized that she had just jogged all the way from school to the main part of downtown and was barely tired at all. Like she just did a few warmup exercises. Feeling the new changes in her body filled her with a confidence she had never really had before. Maybe joining the track team would be good.
'It's like I'm on top of the world, and everyone is my bitch! Hehehe...'
Zoey didn't know how bad the situation was in the city with gang-related activity. So, while she was looking for trouble, she was also just looking through the town on her own. Since she came with the intention of fighting, Zoey didn't bring her wallet or anything else that could identify herself. Just her backup pair of boxing gloves that were dark blue in color and standard workout clothes.
Knowing that she would look like a freak or a psycho wearing a mask or costume in broad daylight, Zoey just didn't bother. She lived pretty far away from this part of the city, so if anyone found her. They shouldn't be able to find out where she lived unless they were really desperate. And as long as she doesn't go around giving people her personal details, they can't get to her family. Any cars or people following her back home would easily be seen by her. This wasn't a social trip but one of pure selfish gain. If Zoey wanted to spin it on a more positive note, she could say that she was cleaning up the city.
"Have you heard about what they did to that fool, Markus?"
"Yeah, man. Shit's fucked up nowadays. A man can't even take a piss without getting jumped."
"I heard it was because he was saying all that shit about Dino online."
"Messing with that crazy fucker Dino?! He had to be wasted. Everyone knows Dino don't play around. If you get on his bad side, you're dead or fucked. Sometimes it's both."
"It isn't like Dino is the only one to worry about. There is still Tears and Lamar with their people in the city. Shit's just getting more dangerous every day."
"There should be a huge war sometime soon. I think we should get out of this before things really start to escalate."
"It's already gone to fuck, bro. Either we survive and pray to get out by the end of it or die trying."
"Man, I was just trying to make some money for my mom and sisters. I wasn't out here trying to kill nobody! I'm only fucking seventeen, man! There is some shit I shouldn't have to deal with right now."
"I feel you, bro. I really do. School sucks ass but constantly fearing for my own life and the life of my peoples is what really sucks ass. If I knew that this is what gang life would really be like, I would've never joined no matter how much money I could make."
The two guys soon left out of earshot. Her legs shook, and her face flushed after hearing their words. An uncontrollable feeling of excitement danced through her body. She was about to get into something really, really dangerous, and here she was, feeling thrilled about it. Gaining this status box has really changed her, and she didn't know if it was a good thing or not. It was hard to believe that it was a bad thing because of how much she smiled lately and how much her heart fluttered when it came to fighting or improving herself. Before gaining the box, she rarely expressed herself this much or tried hard at anything.
Walking through the city filled with only a few people walking here and there made Zoey feel like she was in some sort of ghost town. Gang members were posted around liquor stores, in alleyways, and walking about, like herself. None of them were causing trouble or anything like that, though. So, she couldn't just run up to them and start beating the shit out of them for literally nothing. Zoey would only deal with those disturbing the peace or causing crime. She would feel less like a psycho if she did that.
As she was about to pass by a small café, Zoey saw a group of boys near her age coming out of it, laughing with each other. Seeing how happy and light their mood was, she walked past them without a second thought. They couldn't be gang members looking like that. They looked like a bunch of pretty boys.
"Oi. Shorty with a booty. Come back here and holla at me for a moment." She was the only shorty around unless he was talking about his short friend next to him.
A faint blush appeared on her face after being complimented on her behind. She was pretty proud of it. Getting her ass to pop like this wasn't easy. She looked up plenty of butt exercises online to do at home. And it looks like that shit was working. Zoey turned around but didn't go near them.
"Didn't you hear me? Come here! And what the fuck is with those boxing gloves? You crazy or something?"
Zoey shook her head and was laughing on the inside at the pretty white boy trying to intimidate her. He was dressed like a wannabe gangster. Sagging his pants, chains around his neck, and too many shiny rings on his fingers, it was hilarious. She had enough sense not to laugh in his face, though, no matter how much she really wanted to.
"Did this bitch just tell me no? Does she not know who I am?"
Zoey shook her head again.
"To think there was someone who didn't know Miles's name in this part of the city..."
"She must not be from around here."
"Especially looking like that."
'Hey, fuckface! I still have ears, you know! What the fuck is wrong with how I look?!' Zoey was getting upset.
"I'll be leaving now." Zoey turned and walked away.
"Get her." Hearing this sent goosebumps up Zoey's arms. A nervous smile slowly formed on her face.
Get her? What was his plan here? Just because she didn't know him, he had to get her? This had to fall within self-defense laws, right? So, it shouldn't be a problem to let scumbags like this feel the results of her practicing in the name of self-defense. But if Zoey was being honest, she was more than happy to escalate this. Even if these little wannabes were not really her target for today.
Zoey turned around and saw the 5 boys coming after her. She got into her boxing stance and readied herself for a fight. Her heart started beating like a furious drum in her nervousness and excitement. The first one tried to grab her with his arms outstretched. A quick jab to the face, and he stumbled backward in confusion with blood leaking from his nose. Zoey knew she didn't have much time since the other 4 could soon surround her. Feeling her fist sink into the first guy's face like that was enough to rev up her engines.
She followed up her jab with a quick step-in and a nasty right hook to the left side of his face that sent his eyes spiraling in their sockets. He fell down, and the second one came, shocked at the sudden defeat of his friend. Zoey moved in and struck him in his fat gut. This was the one who had dissed her earlier. The wind was blown out of him from that punch, forcing him to hold his stomach from the pain and drop to the ground, also allowing her an easy target to reach. Her fist soared straight into his fat chubby jaw, knocking him into the goon behind him and falling over.
At this point, the 2 still standing realized that she wouldn't be as easy as they thought she would be. Those boxing gloves weren't just for show. They circled around her like a pair of wolves. One on her left and the other on her right. She saw them look at each other with a nod before moving in together. The boy on her left threw a sloppy punch that could easily have been dealt with, but at the same time, the boy on the right was running in to grab her. This wouldn't be easy to avoid.
'Why wait for them to come to me?' She questioned herself
Zoey used her small size to her advantage and slipped past the less dangerous boy on the left. As she got behind him, she struck him in the liver twice with her gloves, causing him to scream out in pain. Seeing that her tiny fists were actually working, she continued to let into him while his back was turned to her before the other one could arrive. By the time the boy on the right came, the boy who was on her left was already on the ground clutching his side while crying out in pain.
"Can't you fucking idiots take care of one fucking girl? Those gloves can't possibly fucking hurt as much as you're making them out to be. Look at the size of her! She's half your fucking size, and you can't even touch her!" Miles cursed.
These words filled the boy in front of her with panic. She used that panic to her advantage and moved in real close. With how close she was to him, the only way he could deal with her was by grabbing her. Too bad for him. She was already in motion to punch him. Or at least that was the only way she thought that he could deal with her was by grabbing her.
He actually kneed her away in fright. Luckily, she managed to block with her arms. If he was able to knee her with full force, her arms probably would've gone numb.
"Shit..." She muttered. The legs.
She forgot people could use those in real fights. To quickly make up for her mistake, she dashed towards him again. He was ready this time, but it made no difference for Zoey. This guy wasn't Zack or one of the other boxers from her gym who had plenty of fights under them. Just a guy who threw simple punches that could be seen a mile away.
Zoey parried his punch with her glove and fixed him up with a blow to the side of the face as he was thrown off balance from her parry. He fell down with an undignified fall, and Zoey still had 2 more guys to deal with. The guy who was taken down with the fat ass earlier and the ringleader, Miles. It looked like the blondie on the ground didn't want anything to do with her after seeing her take out the other guys. So, she made her way toward Miles.
The arrogant smirk on his face from earlier was completely gone and now was replaced with anxiety and fear. Zoey didn't pity him. He was too old not to know that his actions had consequences. Especially when trying to assault an innocent young lady with a nice booty.
"Stay back!" He brandished a knife from his pocket and pointed it in her direction.
Zoey's eyes zeroed in on that knife like a hawk. Seeing her suddenly stop must have made him think that she was regretting her decisions now. He started laughing and waving it in her direction.
"What, scared now bitch!? You shouldn't have messed with me! Now it looks like I gotta fucking cut you up!" It was obvious he had no idea how to use a knife.
This didn't make him any less dangerous. A knife is dangerous no matter who holds it. The safest option would be just to run away and deal with him another day. But then again, he definitely wouldn't be the only gangster to pull a knife out on her in the future. Dealing with someone like this might be considered training for the future.
"Oi, bitch!? Are you fucking deaf?! I said get on your knees and start fucking bowing to me!" Zoey unintentionally let out a chortle. He just looked so non-threatening.
He didn't like that one bit. The wannabe gangster ran at her with the knife to cut her. Zoey was terrified, but outwardly it didn't show much. In her mind, she was reasoning just how scary a knife could be in the face of actual magic. That helped her calm down just a little. Her skill, Focus, activated in times of peril. A moment like this certainly counted.
Miles was in slow motion for her as he slashed at her face. Zoey swayed her upper body to the left and, at that unnatural angle, delivered a powerful punch to Miles's wrist. Forcing him to drop the knife and nearly burst into tears. But Zoey wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.
The young black girl knocked Miles to the ground with her shoulder and mounted him. His face was ugly, and he was crying by this point, but Zoey didn't care. He could've blinded her, scarred her face, or killed her! If she didn't unleash this fear in her heart at having a knife used against her, she felt like she would explode. Zoey brutally pounded Miles's face in with her boxing gloves. He begged for mercy. He begged for forgiveness. He tried enticing her with money. None of those things could make up for the fear of death she felt facing that knife.
Punch after punch after punch. She didn't hold back any of her strength which was now superior to any normal woman's. Zoey's fists could contend with male amateur boxers after getting her body stat to 1.0. In her mind, she imagined it to be equal to the same as a normal adult man's strength because women are naturally weaker than men. And she used to be even weaker than the normal girl due to not ever exercising except when forced to at school, along with her unhealthy eating habits.
Blood flew onto her face from one particularly devasting punch, and she only smiled, seeing the strength she now held in her body. Was she always such a blood-crazed lunatic? They say that power corrupts, and Zoey was starting to think that maybe she was getting corrupted into something she would've never had without the Status Box. But in her heart, she didn't feel that this was a bad thing at all. She liked this new Zoey she was slowly becoming.
By the time she was done giving him his due punishment, his face was black, blue, swollen, and bloody. Zoey got up off the unconscious Miles and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a bright smile on her face. She was tired as shit and couldn't wait to get home! The remaining survivor watched as she happily jogged her way down the street and out of sight.
'Today was a pretty productive day.' Zoey beamed.
Everything but her blocking skill went up a level, along with her body stat going up some! A squeal escaped her mouth once she realized she was right. This was the proper way of advancing with the Status! And those guys were basically nothing compared to real gangsters who know how to fight somewhat.
'Maybe if I farm up those guys till I can't get any more exp from them, I should move on to the real gangsters!' But then something crossed her mind.
'But finding guys like that would be hard. There couldn't be a bunch of groups like Miles running around, could there? I wonder what school he goes to. Maybe I can find more groups like his there.'
Chapter 5: A Nice Spar.
"Where is the girl!?" The head coach yelled out.
Zoey looked over at the bald round-bellied middle-aged man and wondered what he wanted with her yelling like that. Usually, he was fawning over his star pupil Ben, the boxing prodigy of this generation, in his words. A load of shit, in Zoey's opinion, but Ben was pretty talented. Zoey couldn't deny that. She'd probably get worked by his arrogant ass right now, even with her Status Box. But she was confident in being able to give him a challenge, at least.
"She's in the ring, coach!" Someone called out.
Zoey and Zack were doing some mitt work to improve her accuracy and develop some good punch combinations with some defensive maneuvers. Zack, at random times, would throw out sharp punches while she was hitting the mitts. This would help her keep her mind focused on both offense and defense in the middle of a fight. One couldn't be thrown out for the other, and both should be kept in mind during a fight. Zoey usually responded with whichever defensive skill of hers needed the experience more. If she needed to raise her Slipping skill, she would slip past that punch, bobbing and weaving her head to avoid it. Zack's punches were too heavy for her to try and parry. She'd only get punished for trying to deflect his heavy-ass hands. Blocking was similar because of his gorilla-like strength. She'd only hurt herself trying to block them.
"Zach! Stop your mitt work! I got something important for the girl!" He yelled as he always does.
Zach dropped his mitts for her to stop, and she listened. They went to the ropes and leaned over them to hear him out. Coach Scott only seemed to ever be in a good mood when Ben was nearby. He was pretty much an asshole, but his teaching skills were great. There was one time he even gave her some advice on her footwork while she was doing a heavy bag round, which was basically doing combos after combos on a punching bag for 3-10 minutes. That one-time advice he gave her almost instantly leveled up her footwork skill to the next level. Seeing how that small teaching lesson he gave her did that, she had to look at Zach with a certain look. His lacking teaching experience was probably the reason why her skills leveled so slowly when training with him.
"Yes, Coach?" Zoey took out her mouthguard.
"Get out the ring and take a 5-to-10-minute break. I need you for something important." He looked at her as if he hated to do this.
Zoey didn't understand why the Head Coach didn't like her. Even when she did something good or impressive, he still looked at her with those same eyes. Is he upset because she wasn't his daughter or something? The future boxing prodigy Zoey Winters isn't his to show off like a trophy? A smile showed up on her face thinking about this. Holding a big ass trophy for winning a boxing tournament or something. That was nice to imagine.
"Ben was just challenged to a spar by our rival gym down the street. You know them, right?" Coach Scott said, standing over her.
She took a drink of her water bottle.
"Yes. Those guys had a 3.7 rating online. This gym had a 4.0." Saying that seemed to make him upset. She didn't give a shit, though.
"I'm not going to send Ben over there because the boy has some important training to do. Plus, that little bastard of theirs isn't as bad as I thought he would be." That meant that little Ben could possibly lose or be injured before his upcoming match.
So, she was his guinea pig, huh? Throwing her out to the wolves and seeing exactly how he'll bite her apart. Pretty fucked up but Zoey didn't mind all that much. She was excited to fight against this talented fighter. Coach Scott never lets her anywhere near Ben in the ring or while he's training. He says the boy has nothing but sex on the brain, and she'll be a distraction, but Zoey thinks that's just an excuse so she doesn't embarrass his star boxer.
This fight could give her some good experience. Both with her Status Box skills and as a boxer. If this guy was as talented as Coach was making him out to be, it would definitely be a great fight for her. Zoey hoped that he was an out-boxer, swarmer, or a counterpuncher. Fighting against an out-boxer would help her gain some practice with long-ranged quick fighters. With swarmers, she could learn how to deal with people who want to get up in her face and stay there. If she fought against a counterpuncher, there was a chance she could finally learn how to counter and get the counter skill in the Status Box. For some reason, Zack was hesitant to teach her about counters, and Coach Scott was always too busy to teach her anything.
"Okay. I'll go. But do you think they'll accept even though I'm a girl?" Zoey asked. Most of the guys in their gym didn't want to fight her because she was a girl. Why would the situation be different in another gym?
"Don't worry about that, alright? Leave it to me. All you need to do is stay quiet and beat some ass for me, alright?"
'You're lucky I have something to gain out of this fat ass...' Zoey rolled her eyes behind his back.
"Okay, Coach. I'm ready to leave when you are." She told him.
Her and Zack's mitt work wasn't all that extensive today. He probably had more for her to do afterward. She finished her water bottle and threw it in the recycling bin on their way out. As they made it out, a nice sexy looking expensive black car was waiting outside. Was Coach Scott rich or something? A car like that could not be cheap. Did boxing trainers make good money?
"Jog your way down there, and I'll meet you there." Rich and a fat piece of shit.
"Okay, Coach." She nodded.
Coach Scott even had a driver and everything for himself! Ben, Zack, and the others must be making him a huge load of money. No wonder he was always so high-strung about them. She wasn't making him as much money as they were, so that's probably why she fell lower on the scale in comparison to them.
"I should finally go to Miles's school tomorrow..." Zoey muttered.
It's been a few days since she went into the main part of town and had that experience with Miles, the wannabe gangster. She hasn't had the opportunity to go back to the city since that day because of family and school stuff taking up her time. Tomorrow was a free day from school because somebody died, and the school thought it would be respectful to close down for the day. Which Zoey thought was weird because she didn't think schools would close down just because of the death of a single student. She guessed that the student had to be someone special or related to the principal because of that.
"Get your fucking ass out here, Mikey!" Coach Scott yelled from inside the building.
Everyone looked at them, wondering what the hell they were doing here. The inside of this gym was pretty nice. Not one bit lesser than their gym, in her opinion. Guess it made sense for them to be called rival gyms then. Even the dudes inside were just as hot as theirs.
"Is that fucking fat fuck at my door!?" Another voice called out.
"You know it bitch! Where is that fucking prodigy of yours at?! I wanna see if he's worth sparring against my genius boxer!"
'These two just love yelling, huh?' Zoey picked at her ear.
"What the fuck is this!? Did you bring your adopted daughter here to get sympathy or something!? I'm telling everyone you pussied out and were too scared to bring your fighter to fight mine!"
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Shut your fucking mouth, Mikey! Like you have the right to ask anything of me! Do you know how many wins my fighter got under his belt when he just started out!? Get at least half of my fighter's wins, and then we can fucking talk about a spar!" Coach Scott gloated.
"Did you bring your fat ugly stupid ass down here to talk shit or actually to get something done?!"
"Hell yeah! Bring down your little prodigy and face off against this girl of mine! If he wins, I'll get you the spar you want. If he loses, well... I don't need to tell you how that's gonna turn out." Coach Scott chuckled.
Coach Mike glared at her, looking her up and down to see what the hell was so special about her.
"Is this a fucking joke? Who is this? Why did you bring this little girl down here?"
"She's here to kick your boxer's ass! Now get him out here already! I don't got all fucking day to stand in your shitty ass gym! It smells like shit in here!"
He continued to stare at Zoey. Obviously, he could see something about this situation was off. If he didn't, Zoey would've believed he had brain damage. She just hoped that she could fight anyone at all. They probably wouldn't hold back against her because she was from a rival gym, and her coach wanted her to embarrass one of their fighters. Zoey's blood secretly started boiling in anticipation of a good fight.
"Cody. Get in the ring. See what she's made of." Coach Mike was not stupid, confirmed.
"Awh, Coach, I don't wanna fight a girl. Send Billy up there! He isn't doing anything!"
"Cody, get your ass in the ring!" He groaned loudly as he made his way up to the ring.
"This is good. That kid up there isn't some no-name either. Kick his ass for me, and I'll make sure to give you some more tips every now and then." He whispered into her ear with his hot ass breath.
"You think I can win, Coach?" Zoey asked.
"If I thought you would lose, I wouldn't be putting you up there. Now go on up there and spar like you usually do." Zoey didn't realize the coach had any faith in her. Or watched her at all.
"Okay." She put on some headgear and placed her mouthguard in her mouth.
Her opponent wasn't wearing headgear or a mouthguard. He looked hesitant, but Zoey could tell how confident he was about winning this. Probably thought he could beat her without even trying. This wasn't going to turn out good for him unless he was a talent on the level of one of the world champions.
"Where's your headgear, boy?! And get that fucking mouthguard in your mouth!" Coach Mike shouted.
"Chill out, Coach. I forgot, alright?" He shrugged. Someone handed him the items, and soon they could begin.
Zoey saw through his bullshit. He wasn't taking this seriously, and she wouldn't give him enough time to regret it in the ring. At first, she just wanted a good fight, but seeing his attitude pissed her off. Zoey got into a proper boxing stance. Her feet were shoulder-width apart, with one foot slightly in front of the other. Her front foot was turned slightly inward, while the back foot was turned outward at a 45-degree angle. Zoey's weight would be evenly distributed between both feet, with her knees slightly bent. This stance gave Zoey balance and stability, which allowed for easy movement and quick pivots. At least, according to Zack, it did.
"Lefty, huh? That's pretty cute." He whistled.
"Start!" Coach Mike yelled.
Zoey slowly moved in, waiting for Cody to get in some sort of stance at all. Her head instinctively moved to the side as his fist came whizzing past her out of nowhere. Zoey couldn't stay surprised as he threw another punch from a weird angle, forcing her to block. The force behind his punches wasn't light either. Was he a no-stance fighter, or was he just fucking with her?
"He's playing with you, girl! Get in there and show your stuff!" Coach Scott shouted at her.
Okay, so it wasn't a super genius she was fighting against. Zoey moved in while bobbing her head from side to side to dodge his strikes. It wasn't until she got in range to hit him that he finally put up a proper stance. But by that point, it was too late for him.
Zoey gave him a good punch to the abdomen, nearly causing him to spit out his mouthguard. She didn't give him time to start taking this spar seriously, either. Her fists struck his stomach a second time and then a third time, and then a fourth time. All of these hits landed before he could drop to the ground. Once Cody dropped to his knees, holding his stomach and grasping at the air with his glove, Zoey went over to the corner to give him space. She saw other boxers do this while sparring, so she figured it was common courtesy.
"What the hell are you doing, Cody?! Get the fuck up right now!" Coach Mike was turning red like a tomato.
"Gimme a sec Coach... She hits pretty damn hard and fast for a girl..." He slowly made his way up off the floor with drool leaking from his mouth.
Letting off those shots in his gut felt pretty nice, but the way he punched was interesting. She could learn something from this guy if she gave him a chance. Most of her anger from earlier was taken care of by seeing him fall like that. Zoey figured she could take it a bit easier now.
Once he made it off the ground, the match restarted, with him taking it more seriously now. He was an out-boxer that focused on jabs and straights. Zoey wasn't too good at taking hits, so she couldn't just charge right in and ignore his punches. She had to focus, and watch his fists, his arms, and his legs. Not the skill, Focus, because a fight on this level didn't require that and would only be a waste. She intended to learn about this opponent, not destroy him. That was eliminated from her system after dropping him to the mat.
'Why won't you just stay still?! My entire reputation is on the line here!' Cody cried out in his heart.
Trying to hit this girl was like trying to punch a fly! He's already accepted in his heart that he's going to be made fun of for slipping like that earlier. But if he loses, he'll never be able to raise his head in this gym again. Just what the hell is with this chick!? It's like she was toying with him instead of trying to fight him! Coach Scott always complimented him about his punches that could be fired from unusual angles, but this chick could see them! She could deal with them no matter what angle he came in at! She could parry them off to the side and land a jab or a punch on him. She had the skill to slip past them with a bob of her tiny ass head! What the fuck was going on!?
Since his usual gimmick wasn't working, he decided to throw a cross to see how she would react. Cody saw her pupils dilate and her body lean back as if she was bending under a limbo bar. He couldn't do anything as she was somehow able to land a blow straight toward his heart while bent over like that. His eyes recorded everything as he realized he wasn't the only one able to throw punches at unusual angles. The punch from her seemed like it stopped his heart from the amount of force he felt in his body. Those thin arms of hers were a damn lie! This had to be a guy dressed up as a chick. There was just no way it could be a girl... Cody refused to believe he lost to a chick, god damn it.
'It was a smart choice keeping this little monster away from Ben.' Scott thought.
His huge fucking ego wouldn't be able to handle someone like her. A silent hard worker who doesn't ask for much or say anything at all. Brings no attention to herself despite being able to pull off shit like this. Where the hell did this girl come from!?
'If only she was born as a boy... I could take her to the world championship stage!' Scott sighed.
She would be the perfect sparring partner for Ben to keep his skills sharp. They're both close in age. Ben is more talented, but Zoey isn't that far behind. Her foundation is fantastic. With a little more finetuning and fixing up, she'll be perfect. Ben is great at everything, but his mind is not where it should be. He doesn't give a damn about the basics and has his mind elsewhere.
'That boy wouldn't mentally survive losing against this girl, and I know it. Just one of the other guys who sparred against her ending up fucking leaving the gym because he lost to her and was made fun of about it!'
Zoey had this match in the bag. After knocking him down in the first bout, she started to learn the way he fought. Sucking everything about him out for herself to learn. Scott could see how she was just messing around with that kid up there. She took this spar seriously but wasn't being disrespectful, either. Not using 100% of her strength, being respectful to her opponent, and not being a fucking dick like Ben would be. Gloating and taunting his opponent while in a fight. The brat was a genius, but god damn, his personality was shit.
'You gotta be toying with me, God. Giving me two great boxers in my gym but making the one I wish I had a girl and the one I couldn't afford to lose a boy.' Scott sighed deeply while shaking his head.
Causing Mike to look at him as if he was insane. He wasn't satisfied with this?! One of his boxers was being publicly humiliated by one of his fighters. That was a girl! And not one of them Amazonian giant muscled freak girls, either! She was an itty bitty little thing that looked like she hadn't lifted a weight in her life! There was no way in hell he was having his prized fighter go against that thing in the ring. Even if he won, it definitely would come at a loss!
"Alright! Stop the spar!" Mike yelled. At this point, everyone in his gym was looking at the spar between the girl and Cody instead of training.
"I can keep going, Coach!" Cody yelled out.
Zoey returned to her corner and waited for the final decision.
"Shut the hell up, boy and get out of that ring before you embarrass me further." Coach Mike couldn't even look his fighter in the face.
Zoey took off her headgear and held out her fist. In his eyes was nothing but humiliation, anger, and anxiety, but he returned her gesture and tapped her fist with his glove. They both exited the ring, and Zoey left with Coach Scott laughing his ass off. She expected him to tell her to jog back.
"Where the hell are you going, Zoey?! Get in. I'll take ya back." He yelled from the passenger seat.
'Maybe he isn't as much of an asshole as I thought...'
"Take this towel and wipe yourself. I don't want any of your sweat dripping on my seats, though, alright?" He threw a towel at her.
"Alright." She responded.
'Still an asshole. Just a bit less of one now.' Zoey thought.
Zoey looked over at the bald round-bellied middle-aged man and wondered what he wanted with her yelling like that. Usually, he was fawning over his star pupil Ben, the boxing prodigy of this generation, in his words. A load of shit, in Zoey's opinion, but Ben was pretty talented. Zoey couldn't deny that. She'd probably get worked by his arrogant ass right now, even with her Status Box. But she was confident in being able to give him a challenge, at least.
"She's in the ring, coach!" Someone called out.
Zoey and Zack were doing some mitt work to improve her accuracy and develop some good punch combinations with some defensive maneuvers. Zack, at random times, would throw out sharp punches while she was hitting the mitts. This would help her keep her mind focused on both offense and defense in the middle of a fight. One couldn't be thrown out for the other, and both should be kept in mind during a fight. Zoey usually responded with whichever defensive skill of hers needed the experience more. If she needed to raise her Slipping skill, she would slip past that punch, bobbing and weaving her head to avoid it. Zack's punches were too heavy for her to try and parry. She'd only get punished for trying to deflect his heavy-ass hands. Blocking was similar because of his gorilla-like strength. She'd only hurt herself trying to block them.
"Zach! Stop your mitt work! I got something important for the girl!" He yelled as he always does.
Zach dropped his mitts for her to stop, and she listened. They went to the ropes and leaned over them to hear him out. Coach Scott only seemed to ever be in a good mood when Ben was nearby. He was pretty much an asshole, but his teaching skills were great. There was one time he even gave her some advice on her footwork while she was doing a heavy bag round, which was basically doing combos after combos on a punching bag for 3-10 minutes. That one-time advice he gave her almost instantly leveled up her footwork skill to the next level. Seeing how that small teaching lesson he gave her did that, she had to look at Zach with a certain look. His lacking teaching experience was probably the reason why her skills leveled so slowly when training with him.
"Yes, Coach?" Zoey took out her mouthguard.
"Get out the ring and take a 5-to-10-minute break. I need you for something important." He looked at her as if he hated to do this.
Zoey didn't understand why the Head Coach didn't like her. Even when she did something good or impressive, he still looked at her with those same eyes. Is he upset because she wasn't his daughter or something? The future boxing prodigy Zoey Winters isn't his to show off like a trophy? A smile showed up on her face thinking about this. Holding a big ass trophy for winning a boxing tournament or something. That was nice to imagine.
"Ben was just challenged to a spar by our rival gym down the street. You know them, right?" Coach Scott said, standing over her.
She took a drink of her water bottle.
"Yes. Those guys had a 3.7 rating online. This gym had a 4.0." Saying that seemed to make him upset. She didn't give a shit, though.
"I'm not going to send Ben over there because the boy has some important training to do. Plus, that little bastard of theirs isn't as bad as I thought he would be." That meant that little Ben could possibly lose or be injured before his upcoming match.
So, she was his guinea pig, huh? Throwing her out to the wolves and seeing exactly how he'll bite her apart. Pretty fucked up but Zoey didn't mind all that much. She was excited to fight against this talented fighter. Coach Scott never lets her anywhere near Ben in the ring or while he's training. He says the boy has nothing but sex on the brain, and she'll be a distraction, but Zoey thinks that's just an excuse so she doesn't embarrass his star boxer.
This fight could give her some good experience. Both with her Status Box skills and as a boxer. If this guy was as talented as Coach was making him out to be, it would definitely be a great fight for her. Zoey hoped that he was an out-boxer, swarmer, or a counterpuncher. Fighting against an out-boxer would help her gain some practice with long-ranged quick fighters. With swarmers, she could learn how to deal with people who want to get up in her face and stay there. If she fought against a counterpuncher, there was a chance she could finally learn how to counter and get the counter skill in the Status Box. For some reason, Zack was hesitant to teach her about counters, and Coach Scott was always too busy to teach her anything.
"Okay. I'll go. But do you think they'll accept even though I'm a girl?" Zoey asked. Most of the guys in their gym didn't want to fight her because she was a girl. Why would the situation be different in another gym?
"Don't worry about that, alright? Leave it to me. All you need to do is stay quiet and beat some ass for me, alright?"
'You're lucky I have something to gain out of this fat ass...' Zoey rolled her eyes behind his back.
"Okay, Coach. I'm ready to leave when you are." She told him.
Her and Zack's mitt work wasn't all that extensive today. He probably had more for her to do afterward. She finished her water bottle and threw it in the recycling bin on their way out. As they made it out, a nice sexy looking expensive black car was waiting outside. Was Coach Scott rich or something? A car like that could not be cheap. Did boxing trainers make good money?
"Jog your way down there, and I'll meet you there." Rich and a fat piece of shit.
"Okay, Coach." She nodded.
Coach Scott even had a driver and everything for himself! Ben, Zack, and the others must be making him a huge load of money. No wonder he was always so high-strung about them. She wasn't making him as much money as they were, so that's probably why she fell lower on the scale in comparison to them.
"I should finally go to Miles's school tomorrow..." Zoey muttered.
It's been a few days since she went into the main part of town and had that experience with Miles, the wannabe gangster. She hasn't had the opportunity to go back to the city since that day because of family and school stuff taking up her time. Tomorrow was a free day from school because somebody died, and the school thought it would be respectful to close down for the day. Which Zoey thought was weird because she didn't think schools would close down just because of the death of a single student. She guessed that the student had to be someone special or related to the principal because of that.
"Get your fucking ass out here, Mikey!" Coach Scott yelled from inside the building.
Everyone looked at them, wondering what the hell they were doing here. The inside of this gym was pretty nice. Not one bit lesser than their gym, in her opinion. Guess it made sense for them to be called rival gyms then. Even the dudes inside were just as hot as theirs.
"Is that fucking fat fuck at my door!?" Another voice called out.
"You know it bitch! Where is that fucking prodigy of yours at?! I wanna see if he's worth sparring against my genius boxer!"
'These two just love yelling, huh?' Zoey picked at her ear.
"What the fuck is this!? Did you bring your adopted daughter here to get sympathy or something!? I'm telling everyone you pussied out and were too scared to bring your fighter to fight mine!"
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Shut your fucking mouth, Mikey! Like you have the right to ask anything of me! Do you know how many wins my fighter got under his belt when he just started out!? Get at least half of my fighter's wins, and then we can fucking talk about a spar!" Coach Scott gloated.
"Did you bring your fat ugly stupid ass down here to talk shit or actually to get something done?!"
"Hell yeah! Bring down your little prodigy and face off against this girl of mine! If he wins, I'll get you the spar you want. If he loses, well... I don't need to tell you how that's gonna turn out." Coach Scott chuckled.
Coach Mike glared at her, looking her up and down to see what the hell was so special about her.
"Is this a fucking joke? Who is this? Why did you bring this little girl down here?"
"She's here to kick your boxer's ass! Now get him out here already! I don't got all fucking day to stand in your shitty ass gym! It smells like shit in here!"
He continued to stare at Zoey. Obviously, he could see something about this situation was off. If he didn't, Zoey would've believed he had brain damage. She just hoped that she could fight anyone at all. They probably wouldn't hold back against her because she was from a rival gym, and her coach wanted her to embarrass one of their fighters. Zoey's blood secretly started boiling in anticipation of a good fight.
"Cody. Get in the ring. See what she's made of." Coach Mike was not stupid, confirmed.
"Awh, Coach, I don't wanna fight a girl. Send Billy up there! He isn't doing anything!"
"Cody, get your ass in the ring!" He groaned loudly as he made his way up to the ring.
"This is good. That kid up there isn't some no-name either. Kick his ass for me, and I'll make sure to give you some more tips every now and then." He whispered into her ear with his hot ass breath.
"You think I can win, Coach?" Zoey asked.
"If I thought you would lose, I wouldn't be putting you up there. Now go on up there and spar like you usually do." Zoey didn't realize the coach had any faith in her. Or watched her at all.
"Okay." She put on some headgear and placed her mouthguard in her mouth.
Her opponent wasn't wearing headgear or a mouthguard. He looked hesitant, but Zoey could tell how confident he was about winning this. Probably thought he could beat her without even trying. This wasn't going to turn out good for him unless he was a talent on the level of one of the world champions.
"Where's your headgear, boy?! And get that fucking mouthguard in your mouth!" Coach Mike shouted.
"Chill out, Coach. I forgot, alright?" He shrugged. Someone handed him the items, and soon they could begin.
Zoey saw through his bullshit. He wasn't taking this seriously, and she wouldn't give him enough time to regret it in the ring. At first, she just wanted a good fight, but seeing his attitude pissed her off. Zoey got into a proper boxing stance. Her feet were shoulder-width apart, with one foot slightly in front of the other. Her front foot was turned slightly inward, while the back foot was turned outward at a 45-degree angle. Zoey's weight would be evenly distributed between both feet, with her knees slightly bent. This stance gave Zoey balance and stability, which allowed for easy movement and quick pivots. At least, according to Zack, it did.
"Lefty, huh? That's pretty cute." He whistled.
"Start!" Coach Mike yelled.
Zoey slowly moved in, waiting for Cody to get in some sort of stance at all. Her head instinctively moved to the side as his fist came whizzing past her out of nowhere. Zoey couldn't stay surprised as he threw another punch from a weird angle, forcing her to block. The force behind his punches wasn't light either. Was he a no-stance fighter, or was he just fucking with her?
"He's playing with you, girl! Get in there and show your stuff!" Coach Scott shouted at her.
Okay, so it wasn't a super genius she was fighting against. Zoey moved in while bobbing her head from side to side to dodge his strikes. It wasn't until she got in range to hit him that he finally put up a proper stance. But by that point, it was too late for him.
Zoey gave him a good punch to the abdomen, nearly causing him to spit out his mouthguard. She didn't give him time to start taking this spar seriously, either. Her fists struck his stomach a second time and then a third time, and then a fourth time. All of these hits landed before he could drop to the ground. Once Cody dropped to his knees, holding his stomach and grasping at the air with his glove, Zoey went over to the corner to give him space. She saw other boxers do this while sparring, so she figured it was common courtesy.
"What the hell are you doing, Cody?! Get the fuck up right now!" Coach Mike was turning red like a tomato.
"Gimme a sec Coach... She hits pretty damn hard and fast for a girl..." He slowly made his way up off the floor with drool leaking from his mouth.
Letting off those shots in his gut felt pretty nice, but the way he punched was interesting. She could learn something from this guy if she gave him a chance. Most of her anger from earlier was taken care of by seeing him fall like that. Zoey figured she could take it a bit easier now.
Once he made it off the ground, the match restarted, with him taking it more seriously now. He was an out-boxer that focused on jabs and straights. Zoey wasn't too good at taking hits, so she couldn't just charge right in and ignore his punches. She had to focus, and watch his fists, his arms, and his legs. Not the skill, Focus, because a fight on this level didn't require that and would only be a waste. She intended to learn about this opponent, not destroy him. That was eliminated from her system after dropping him to the mat.
'Why won't you just stay still?! My entire reputation is on the line here!' Cody cried out in his heart.
Trying to hit this girl was like trying to punch a fly! He's already accepted in his heart that he's going to be made fun of for slipping like that earlier. But if he loses, he'll never be able to raise his head in this gym again. Just what the hell is with this chick!? It's like she was toying with him instead of trying to fight him! Coach Scott always complimented him about his punches that could be fired from unusual angles, but this chick could see them! She could deal with them no matter what angle he came in at! She could parry them off to the side and land a jab or a punch on him. She had the skill to slip past them with a bob of her tiny ass head! What the fuck was going on!?
Since his usual gimmick wasn't working, he decided to throw a cross to see how she would react. Cody saw her pupils dilate and her body lean back as if she was bending under a limbo bar. He couldn't do anything as she was somehow able to land a blow straight toward his heart while bent over like that. His eyes recorded everything as he realized he wasn't the only one able to throw punches at unusual angles. The punch from her seemed like it stopped his heart from the amount of force he felt in his body. Those thin arms of hers were a damn lie! This had to be a guy dressed up as a chick. There was just no way it could be a girl... Cody refused to believe he lost to a chick, god damn it.
'It was a smart choice keeping this little monster away from Ben.' Scott thought.
His huge fucking ego wouldn't be able to handle someone like her. A silent hard worker who doesn't ask for much or say anything at all. Brings no attention to herself despite being able to pull off shit like this. Where the hell did this girl come from!?
'If only she was born as a boy... I could take her to the world championship stage!' Scott sighed.
She would be the perfect sparring partner for Ben to keep his skills sharp. They're both close in age. Ben is more talented, but Zoey isn't that far behind. Her foundation is fantastic. With a little more finetuning and fixing up, she'll be perfect. Ben is great at everything, but his mind is not where it should be. He doesn't give a damn about the basics and has his mind elsewhere.
'That boy wouldn't mentally survive losing against this girl, and I know it. Just one of the other guys who sparred against her ending up fucking leaving the gym because he lost to her and was made fun of about it!'
Zoey had this match in the bag. After knocking him down in the first bout, she started to learn the way he fought. Sucking everything about him out for herself to learn. Scott could see how she was just messing around with that kid up there. She took this spar seriously but wasn't being disrespectful, either. Not using 100% of her strength, being respectful to her opponent, and not being a fucking dick like Ben would be. Gloating and taunting his opponent while in a fight. The brat was a genius, but god damn, his personality was shit.
'You gotta be toying with me, God. Giving me two great boxers in my gym but making the one I wish I had a girl and the one I couldn't afford to lose a boy.' Scott sighed deeply while shaking his head.
Causing Mike to look at him as if he was insane. He wasn't satisfied with this?! One of his boxers was being publicly humiliated by one of his fighters. That was a girl! And not one of them Amazonian giant muscled freak girls, either! She was an itty bitty little thing that looked like she hadn't lifted a weight in her life! There was no way in hell he was having his prized fighter go against that thing in the ring. Even if he won, it definitely would come at a loss!
"Alright! Stop the spar!" Mike yelled. At this point, everyone in his gym was looking at the spar between the girl and Cody instead of training.
"I can keep going, Coach!" Cody yelled out.
Zoey returned to her corner and waited for the final decision.
"Shut the hell up, boy and get out of that ring before you embarrass me further." Coach Mike couldn't even look his fighter in the face.
Zoey took off her headgear and held out her fist. In his eyes was nothing but humiliation, anger, and anxiety, but he returned her gesture and tapped her fist with his glove. They both exited the ring, and Zoey left with Coach Scott laughing his ass off. She expected him to tell her to jog back.
"Where the hell are you going, Zoey?! Get in. I'll take ya back." He yelled from the passenger seat.
'Maybe he isn't as much of an asshole as I thought...'
"Take this towel and wipe yourself. I don't want any of your sweat dripping on my seats, though, alright?" He threw a towel at her.
"Alright." She responded.
'Still an asshole. Just a bit less of one now.' Zoey thought.
Chapter 6: Looking For Miles.
'Now this is a rich boy school...' Zoey marveled at the sight in front of her.
Large black gates to keep any poor riffraff out, a huge school building with an outside pool, a track, and a field that could be used for football and soccer. Probably had a lot more shit inside too. Miles definitely got it good here.
'I wonder why he wants to be a gangster if he could get an education from a place like this.' Zoey thought.
Maybe things aren't all good at home. But Zoey couldn't really judge other people's life choices too much. Considering her goal in coming in and coming to this part of the city. She wasn't blind to the danger and insanity of it. Just excited. It was an abnormal feeling that she shouldn't feel, but it was one of the perks that came with getting the Status Box. Along with learning that magic and magicians were real. This was all to protect herself in the long run. Not just for the sick feeling of satisfaction of beating the face in of criminals and gangsters. That was a bonus, along with leveling her skills.
Right now, Zoey was waiting for their school to end and for Miles to come out. He seemed like the type to hold a grudge even when he was in the wrong. Zoey hoped that once he saw her, he would get help from one of his other friends. Then if she was lucky, a few of her skills and stats could rise today.
"What the fuck are we fucking doing today, fuckers?!" A spiky black-haired teen asked as he took a smoke of a cigarette.
"We could do some karaoke with some babes."
"I want to play pool."
"You always want to play pool."
"Hey, you guys see that down there?"
"I can't see shit."
"That fucking girl by the gates."
"What about her?"
"Boxing gloves, black skin. Isn't that the crazy bitch that put Miles in the hospital?"
"Is her ass nice? He said she had a nice ass."
"How many fucking black girls are running around the city with boxing gloves?! Of course, it's her!"
"Should we give Miles a call and tell her she's here for him?"
"He definitely isn't going to be happy if we told him we saw her and didn't tell him about it."
"I'll call him. Give me a second."
The three delinquents sat on the rooftop, smoking on their lunch break. They were "friends" with Miles, but they weren't one of his followers. He could bark, yell, and scream all he wanted at them, but unless he flashed some cash, they weren't doing shit for him. The only reason why they were calling him now was because they were interested in seeing this boxing girl for themselves. Miles would no doubt call up his friends to take care of her for him. They wanted to see the show.
If she could beat up Miles and his boys without being hurt, then she had to be capable somewhat. She also put Miles, of all people, in the hospital, which meant she was new around here. Nobody would touch Miles without good reason or preparation. His pockets run too deep, and his connections aren't weak at all.
"Why do you guys think she's here?"
"For Miles, why else?"
"Yeah, but Miles is in the hospital, not at school. Do you think she even knows he's in the hospital?"
"Maybe she got beef with someone else at our school."
"Oi, who is that walking towards the gate?"
"Is that Duncan?"
"Captain of the wrestling team Duncan?"
"Oh, he's going to crush that chick."
"Let's go down and get a better look!"
They rushed down the stairs to make it to the gate.
"You're a big guy..." Zoey muttered as she saw the beefy uniformed boy coming towards the gate.
"Miles sent me. Meet me at the park, and I will destroy you there."
"What park?" Zoey asked before he turned around and was about to leave. She didn't know the area all that well.
"... Liberty Park." He said after a moment of silence.
"I'll be waiting," Zoey told him.
Instead of asking for directions to the park, Zoey decided to handle other stuff first. She went to a small café for snacks, a drink, and a bathroom break. The next time she came to the city, she had to bring a charger with her or something. Playing on her phone drained her battery fast.
After spending some time to herself, Zoey finally walked to the park. School probably just let out for them unless rich schools had different times to get out. Once she made it to the park, she saw a crowd of people hanging around the area. Were all these people here for her? And how did they get out of school so fast? It should have just ended!
Zoey was confident in her skills, but she wasn't confident in taking on more than 20 people yet. Should she just run before they notice her? Would they be able to catch her? Her body stat was at a nice 1.1, which she guessed was 1.1x stronger than the average person.
"There she is! Come over here, Boxing Chick!" Someone called her out.
Everyone started to crowd around her, trapping her in a circular formation. The beefy boy from earlier glared at her while they were in the circle. This made her feel pretty relieved. It looked like she wasn't going to get jumped by all these people. They were just here to watch. Hopefully...
"Who are you?" He demanded.
"Uhh... A fighter?" She wasn't expecting such a simple question and answered like a retard.
She thought they were just going to fight, not talk. Zoey didn't prepare any answers for questions like that. At first, she was going to say something lame like a Fighter of Justice or something like that. But that would be too embarrassing.
"Duncan." He revealed his name. She only nodded, still refusing to give her name.
Zoey's legs got lighter as she got into her boxing stance. She stood on her toes and kept her weight equal on both feet.
"Why did you hurt Miles? Are you serious about wanting to fight me?"
"Save questions for later... Fight first." Zoey said, nearly unable to contain her fighting spirit. Also irritated with all the questions.
"She's ready to go, Duncan! You heard her!"
"Don't keep a lady waiting! She's ready to kick your ass! Haha!"
"Quit stalling you pussy! Aren't you the wrestling team captain?! Fight!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Everyone shouted together.
'A wrestler, huh?' Zoey took note.
He let out a roar as he dropped down low and ran towards her with his arms open wide. A bad match-up for a standing fighter like her. But this will be a necessary and very fruitful learning experience in helping her learn how to deal with grapplers both standing and on the ground. As long as she was careful, she shouldn't take too much damage. He was slow, but once he snatched her, it could be over in seconds.
Zoey did the complete opposite of what everyone thought she was going to do. Instead of trying to dodge his charge and get out of the way of his arms, she instead dashed forward. She'll only get a chance like this once while he was still unaware of how she fought. If she ran away like a little mouse while tapping him every now and then, it could work. But she wanted to save something like that for when she had no other options.
"Oh my god! Is she crazy?!"
"The balls on this girl!"
"She's coming for you, Duncan! Hahahahaha!"
Zoey struck down from above and landed a blow to the side of Duncan's face, stunning him. Seeing him stumble after taking her punch, Zoey's arm reared back and landed another hit in the same spot, causing him to fall over on the ground. His fallen and dazed state was just ripe for taking advantage of. The boxing teen dropped to her knees and began letting off punch after punch on Duncan's head while he was down, surprising everyone watching.
She didn't even give him the chance to get up! Normally for these delinquents, after you knock someone down, you at least give them a chance to stand and try again, but this chick didn't care about that at all! She punched and punched and punched while Duncan was trying to rise back up. The many blows to his head were affecting him badly, and everyone could see it.
Duncan managed to push Zoey away with his hand, allowing him to stand once again. He was pissed, in pain, and could barely take in what was happening around him. The loud voices of the crowd shouting didn't help him in his attempt to focus. But there was one thing he could focus on, that short black figure in front of him running towards him.
Zoey leaped off the ground and aimed a strike straight towards Duncan's face while he was still recovering. All those hits from earlier had to have had an effect on him. Getting your head knocked around should do that to you. But sadly, it might not have been enough as Duncan took her punch head-on with his forehead and just grabbed her wrist.
"This is going to hurt a lot for you..." He growled.
Duncan was shocked once he felt the strength of the girl trying to pry her arm away from him. Why was this girl so strong? No wonder Miles got his ass beat by her. Her punches were enough to make him want to never take another one again. But he wasn't the captain of the wrestling team for nothing. If he couldn't hold down a girl as small as this, all of his weightlifting would be for nothing.
Large black gates to keep any poor riffraff out, a huge school building with an outside pool, a track, and a field that could be used for football and soccer. Probably had a lot more shit inside too. Miles definitely got it good here.
'I wonder why he wants to be a gangster if he could get an education from a place like this.' Zoey thought.
Maybe things aren't all good at home. But Zoey couldn't really judge other people's life choices too much. Considering her goal in coming in and coming to this part of the city. She wasn't blind to the danger and insanity of it. Just excited. It was an abnormal feeling that she shouldn't feel, but it was one of the perks that came with getting the Status Box. Along with learning that magic and magicians were real. This was all to protect herself in the long run. Not just for the sick feeling of satisfaction of beating the face in of criminals and gangsters. That was a bonus, along with leveling her skills.
Right now, Zoey was waiting for their school to end and for Miles to come out. He seemed like the type to hold a grudge even when he was in the wrong. Zoey hoped that once he saw her, he would get help from one of his other friends. Then if she was lucky, a few of her skills and stats could rise today.
"What the fuck are we fucking doing today, fuckers?!" A spiky black-haired teen asked as he took a smoke of a cigarette.
"We could do some karaoke with some babes."
"I want to play pool."
"You always want to play pool."
"Hey, you guys see that down there?"
"I can't see shit."
"That fucking girl by the gates."
"What about her?"
"Boxing gloves, black skin. Isn't that the crazy bitch that put Miles in the hospital?"
"Is her ass nice? He said she had a nice ass."
"How many fucking black girls are running around the city with boxing gloves?! Of course, it's her!"
"Should we give Miles a call and tell her she's here for him?"
"He definitely isn't going to be happy if we told him we saw her and didn't tell him about it."
"I'll call him. Give me a second."
The three delinquents sat on the rooftop, smoking on their lunch break. They were "friends" with Miles, but they weren't one of his followers. He could bark, yell, and scream all he wanted at them, but unless he flashed some cash, they weren't doing shit for him. The only reason why they were calling him now was because they were interested in seeing this boxing girl for themselves. Miles would no doubt call up his friends to take care of her for him. They wanted to see the show.
If she could beat up Miles and his boys without being hurt, then she had to be capable somewhat. She also put Miles, of all people, in the hospital, which meant she was new around here. Nobody would touch Miles without good reason or preparation. His pockets run too deep, and his connections aren't weak at all.
"Why do you guys think she's here?"
"For Miles, why else?"
"Yeah, but Miles is in the hospital, not at school. Do you think she even knows he's in the hospital?"
"Maybe she got beef with someone else at our school."
"Oi, who is that walking towards the gate?"
"Is that Duncan?"
"Captain of the wrestling team Duncan?"
"Oh, he's going to crush that chick."
"Let's go down and get a better look!"
They rushed down the stairs to make it to the gate.
"You're a big guy..." Zoey muttered as she saw the beefy uniformed boy coming towards the gate.
"Miles sent me. Meet me at the park, and I will destroy you there."
"What park?" Zoey asked before he turned around and was about to leave. She didn't know the area all that well.
"... Liberty Park." He said after a moment of silence.
"I'll be waiting," Zoey told him.
Instead of asking for directions to the park, Zoey decided to handle other stuff first. She went to a small café for snacks, a drink, and a bathroom break. The next time she came to the city, she had to bring a charger with her or something. Playing on her phone drained her battery fast.
After spending some time to herself, Zoey finally walked to the park. School probably just let out for them unless rich schools had different times to get out. Once she made it to the park, she saw a crowd of people hanging around the area. Were all these people here for her? And how did they get out of school so fast? It should have just ended!
Zoey was confident in her skills, but she wasn't confident in taking on more than 20 people yet. Should she just run before they notice her? Would they be able to catch her? Her body stat was at a nice 1.1, which she guessed was 1.1x stronger than the average person.
"There she is! Come over here, Boxing Chick!" Someone called her out.
Everyone started to crowd around her, trapping her in a circular formation. The beefy boy from earlier glared at her while they were in the circle. This made her feel pretty relieved. It looked like she wasn't going to get jumped by all these people. They were just here to watch. Hopefully...
"Who are you?" He demanded.
"Uhh... A fighter?" She wasn't expecting such a simple question and answered like a retard.
She thought they were just going to fight, not talk. Zoey didn't prepare any answers for questions like that. At first, she was going to say something lame like a Fighter of Justice or something like that. But that would be too embarrassing.
"Duncan." He revealed his name. She only nodded, still refusing to give her name.
Zoey's legs got lighter as she got into her boxing stance. She stood on her toes and kept her weight equal on both feet.
"Why did you hurt Miles? Are you serious about wanting to fight me?"
"Save questions for later... Fight first." Zoey said, nearly unable to contain her fighting spirit. Also irritated with all the questions.
"She's ready to go, Duncan! You heard her!"
"Don't keep a lady waiting! She's ready to kick your ass! Haha!"
"Quit stalling you pussy! Aren't you the wrestling team captain?! Fight!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Everyone shouted together.
'A wrestler, huh?' Zoey took note.
He let out a roar as he dropped down low and ran towards her with his arms open wide. A bad match-up for a standing fighter like her. But this will be a necessary and very fruitful learning experience in helping her learn how to deal with grapplers both standing and on the ground. As long as she was careful, she shouldn't take too much damage. He was slow, but once he snatched her, it could be over in seconds.
Zoey did the complete opposite of what everyone thought she was going to do. Instead of trying to dodge his charge and get out of the way of his arms, she instead dashed forward. She'll only get a chance like this once while he was still unaware of how she fought. If she ran away like a little mouse while tapping him every now and then, it could work. But she wanted to save something like that for when she had no other options.
"Oh my god! Is she crazy?!"
"The balls on this girl!"
"She's coming for you, Duncan! Hahahahaha!"
Zoey struck down from above and landed a blow to the side of Duncan's face, stunning him. Seeing him stumble after taking her punch, Zoey's arm reared back and landed another hit in the same spot, causing him to fall over on the ground. His fallen and dazed state was just ripe for taking advantage of. The boxing teen dropped to her knees and began letting off punch after punch on Duncan's head while he was down, surprising everyone watching.
She didn't even give him the chance to get up! Normally for these delinquents, after you knock someone down, you at least give them a chance to stand and try again, but this chick didn't care about that at all! She punched and punched and punched while Duncan was trying to rise back up. The many blows to his head were affecting him badly, and everyone could see it.
Duncan managed to push Zoey away with his hand, allowing him to stand once again. He was pissed, in pain, and could barely take in what was happening around him. The loud voices of the crowd shouting didn't help him in his attempt to focus. But there was one thing he could focus on, that short black figure in front of him running towards him.
Zoey leaped off the ground and aimed a strike straight towards Duncan's face while he was still recovering. All those hits from earlier had to have had an effect on him. Getting your head knocked around should do that to you. But sadly, it might not have been enough as Duncan took her punch head-on with his forehead and just grabbed her wrist.
"This is going to hurt a lot for you..." He growled.
Duncan was shocked once he felt the strength of the girl trying to pry her arm away from him. Why was this girl so strong? No wonder Miles got his ass beat by her. Her punches were enough to make him want to never take another one again. But he wasn't the captain of the wrestling team for nothing. If he couldn't hold down a girl as small as this, all of his weightlifting would be for nothing.
Chapter 7: Uh Oh.
Zoey used her other hand and smashed the side of Duncan's face, not letting the panic of getting grabbed get to her head. Seeing that he was still holding her, she reared her arm back for another attempt and slugged him in the same spot, nearly causing him to fall over. Duncan shouted through the pain and lifted Zoey off the ground with one hand. Zoey didn't stop punching him in the face. Correct punching posture, be damned! She only needed to punch him till he dropped! Her eyes focused only on his face and head as she was held above the ground.
"Enough!" Duncan reached for her other wrist to grab and stop her from pummeling his face anymore.
"Damn, she fucked him up!"
"Duncan, your face isn't looking so good, bro!"
"Slam her ass into the pavement!"
"Haha, body slam her tiny ass!"
Seeing his attempt to grab her other arm, she pulled her fist back and landed a hard punch to his throat. Duncan immediately released her and cuffed his throat with his hands, trying to bring air into his lungs. Now that both of her fists were free, she rushed towards Duncan to finish him off. His eyes panicked when he saw her coming at him, but he was still suffering from the hit to his windpipe. He tried to put up his hand to block while keeping the other on his neck, but this didn't help him at all.
'That weak ass hand can't stop my punches! Your ass is mine, Duncan!' Zoey thought.
Zoey slammed her boxing glove into the side of his jaw, knocking his face to the right. Her right glove caught Duncan before he could fall and slugged his face to the left. An unsuppressed smile rose on Zoey's face as she combo'd the wrestler with her fists. Her fists sent his head up, down, left, right, and all around. The lights in his eyes were already gone, but she didn't stop! She could do more! She wasn't finished yet! Zoey could feel the progress of her skills rising the more she hit him.
"Whoa, there, Boxer Chick. If you go any further than that, you'll kill him." Someone grabbed her from behind, stopping her mid-combo.
Her eyes glared at the pretty boy with a lip ring stopping her, but he only calmly smiled at her. Duncan crumpled into a heap on the ground, unconscious. His face was barely recognizable, and his breathing was faint. Some of the delinquents watching made sure to take pictures of the defeated wrestler to post on social media. Zoey immediately hightailed it out of there once she saw the pictures and videos coming out. She wasn't dressed to hide her face. Her hoodie that could hide her face was at home!
Zoey ran all the way home without stopping once. On her way home, she checked her skills and felt like jumping through the air! Her punching skill rose two whole levels, and her body stat rose to 1.2. Now her Punching skill was at Lv8, far ahead of her other skills. Only the skill Footwork was near it at Lv7. She wasn't surprised about that being so high-leveled, as Footwork was involved in every aspect of her fighting style. There was rarely a day when she didn't use any footwork at the boxing gym. Just simply punching the bag, doing mitt work, or shadowboxing all included using the skill Footwork.
This was what her Status Box looked like as of now. It looks like she didn't need to study to raise her mental stat. She only got it to 0.6 before because she wanted to test if actually studying would raise it, and it did. But this time, she hasn't studied really much at all, and it still rose to 0.7. This made her realize that studying wasn't the only way to raise that stat. She still didn't know the other ways of raising it, but at least she knew there wasn't only one way of making it go up.
Still no progress with her magic stat. If Zoey wasn't having so much fun with her Body stat, she'd definitely be going crazy over trying to change her magic stat into anything but 0.0. On her computer, she had already bookmarked a few websites that could help her channel her inner magic. They were probably bullshit scams, but there was a chance that one of them could be real. Zoey doubted that wizards were patrolling the internet too. But that didn't stop her from being cautious. Zoey refused to search up online about magic and magicians being real because it would be insane to think she would get any legitimate results, and what if they did some magic shit and found where she lived!?
"No, thank you!" Zoey exclaimed as she made it home.
Zoey believed that she could probably stand a chance against teenage magicians like the student council president and vice president at her school. All she'd have to do was run in and knock them out before they could say anything. But if it was a fully grown magician, she'd probably be as helpless as a baby in front of them. She wasn't strong enough to face against an adult yet, probably. Well, actually, if the 1.2 on her body stat meant that she was 1.2x stronger than the average person, then she should be able to deal with a grown man. Zoey should be at least a little bit stronger than one.
After making it home, Zoey immediately went upstairs and took a shower so that she didn't stink of sweat and outside smell anymore. Once she got out, she went into her room and jumped on her bed.
"Zoey." Her brother knocked on her door.
"Yes?" She asked.
"Mom said your food is in the microwave."
"Uh... Okay." Why did she get Everette to tell her that?
"Okay. I'll be in my room." He left her alone.
Zoey wanted nothing more than just to lay her ass on the bed and just sleep the rest of the day away, but all of her teachers decided to give homework yesterday. Not like a student died or anything! Couldn't give them a break to grieve and shit! Zoey soon burst out laughing.
'It wasn't like I knew the person or anything.' She just wanted a reason to complain about the homework.
In the age of the internet and easily accessible information, Zoey got a little "help" for most of her work. And as a C and sometimes D student, she made sure to properly switch up a few answers that she directly copied off the internet. Instead of writing it word for word, she swapped some of the words around or just used a synonym off the internet. So far, none of her teachers have ever picked up on this and marked her wrong for doing this.
'What they don't know won't hurt them and all that shit.' She chuckled.
The next day at school, Zoey made it into the hallway on the third floor. Her locker was on the third floor since she was a junior. Today she expected it to be a completely normal day after their day off, but what awaited her was anything but normal. In front of her locker was the student council president and his vice president. In other words, the magicians knew of her and were waiting for her to come to her locker.
'How could they have found me out? I made sure to stay out of sight ever since that day. Was it that their searching magic took this long to finally find me? What should I do? Should I skip school? Should I beat them to a pulp before they can do some freaky magic on me? I'd probably be super suspended, but I'd be safe for the meantime...' Zoey shook her head. 'No, getting suspended isn't an option. With my grades, I definitely won't be able to bring them up unless I go into super study mode, Zoey. If I do that, I won't have any time for the Status Box, the gym, or the gangsters. Which is completely unacceptable.'
Zoey took a deep breath and balled up her fists as she walked to her locker. Her heart was beating rapidly, and her throat felt like it was being choked by an invisible hand. Was this a spell? Were they trying to choke her right now with an invisible magic hand or something? She wanted just to turn and run away, but her legs continued moving forward. No matter how badly she wanted to do the opposite.
"Zoey Winters." Alexander looked at her up and down.
"Hello. This is our first time meeting face-to-face, isn't it?" Lindsay slyly smiled at her.
These fuckers definitely know it was her.
"I don't know anything about magic. Magic isn't real, and magicians aren't real." Zoey's mouth moved on her own.
Both of their eyes widened at her statement. She felt like punching herself in the mouth after that outburst...
"So you did see..." Alexander's voice quieted into a whisper.
"I saw nothing." Zoey corrected him.
"Listen, Zoey. What you saw cannot be shared with anyone." Lindsay told her.
"I saw nothing, so how could I share what I didn't see with anyone?"
"After school today, meet us in the student council room. Since you already saw us, we might as well deal with it properly." Alexander told her.
Was he threatening her? Was this a threat? Were they planning to silence her after the school bell? Scheduling an execution as casually as that?
"We'll see." Zoey had her boxing gloves in her bookbag as a safety precaution.
"Speak to you later then, Zoey. Farewell." Alexander and Lindsay walked away from her locker.
"Enough!" Duncan reached for her other wrist to grab and stop her from pummeling his face anymore.
"Damn, she fucked him up!"
"Duncan, your face isn't looking so good, bro!"
"Slam her ass into the pavement!"
"Haha, body slam her tiny ass!"
Seeing his attempt to grab her other arm, she pulled her fist back and landed a hard punch to his throat. Duncan immediately released her and cuffed his throat with his hands, trying to bring air into his lungs. Now that both of her fists were free, she rushed towards Duncan to finish him off. His eyes panicked when he saw her coming at him, but he was still suffering from the hit to his windpipe. He tried to put up his hand to block while keeping the other on his neck, but this didn't help him at all.
'That weak ass hand can't stop my punches! Your ass is mine, Duncan!' Zoey thought.
Zoey slammed her boxing glove into the side of his jaw, knocking his face to the right. Her right glove caught Duncan before he could fall and slugged his face to the left. An unsuppressed smile rose on Zoey's face as she combo'd the wrestler with her fists. Her fists sent his head up, down, left, right, and all around. The lights in his eyes were already gone, but she didn't stop! She could do more! She wasn't finished yet! Zoey could feel the progress of her skills rising the more she hit him.
"Whoa, there, Boxer Chick. If you go any further than that, you'll kill him." Someone grabbed her from behind, stopping her mid-combo.
Her eyes glared at the pretty boy with a lip ring stopping her, but he only calmly smiled at her. Duncan crumpled into a heap on the ground, unconscious. His face was barely recognizable, and his breathing was faint. Some of the delinquents watching made sure to take pictures of the defeated wrestler to post on social media. Zoey immediately hightailed it out of there once she saw the pictures and videos coming out. She wasn't dressed to hide her face. Her hoodie that could hide her face was at home!
Zoey ran all the way home without stopping once. On her way home, she checked her skills and felt like jumping through the air! Her punching skill rose two whole levels, and her body stat rose to 1.2. Now her Punching skill was at Lv8, far ahead of her other skills. Only the skill Footwork was near it at Lv7. She wasn't surprised about that being so high-leveled, as Footwork was involved in every aspect of her fighting style. There was rarely a day when she didn't use any footwork at the boxing gym. Just simply punching the bag, doing mitt work, or shadowboxing all included using the skill Footwork.
[Status]
Name: Zoey
Sex: Female
Body: 1.2
Mental: 0.7
Magic: 0.0
Skills: 6
[Skills]
[Punching Lv8]
[Footwork Lv7]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv5]
[Parry Lv6]
[Focus Lv2]
Name: Zoey
Sex: Female
Body: 1.2
Mental: 0.7
Magic: 0.0
Skills: 6
[Skills]
[Punching Lv8]
[Footwork Lv7]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv5]
[Parry Lv6]
[Focus Lv2]
This was what her Status Box looked like as of now. It looks like she didn't need to study to raise her mental stat. She only got it to 0.6 before because she wanted to test if actually studying would raise it, and it did. But this time, she hasn't studied really much at all, and it still rose to 0.7. This made her realize that studying wasn't the only way to raise that stat. She still didn't know the other ways of raising it, but at least she knew there wasn't only one way of making it go up.
Still no progress with her magic stat. If Zoey wasn't having so much fun with her Body stat, she'd definitely be going crazy over trying to change her magic stat into anything but 0.0. On her computer, she had already bookmarked a few websites that could help her channel her inner magic. They were probably bullshit scams, but there was a chance that one of them could be real. Zoey doubted that wizards were patrolling the internet too. But that didn't stop her from being cautious. Zoey refused to search up online about magic and magicians being real because it would be insane to think she would get any legitimate results, and what if they did some magic shit and found where she lived!?
"No, thank you!" Zoey exclaimed as she made it home.
Zoey believed that she could probably stand a chance against teenage magicians like the student council president and vice president at her school. All she'd have to do was run in and knock them out before they could say anything. But if it was a fully grown magician, she'd probably be as helpless as a baby in front of them. She wasn't strong enough to face against an adult yet, probably. Well, actually, if the 1.2 on her body stat meant that she was 1.2x stronger than the average person, then she should be able to deal with a grown man. Zoey should be at least a little bit stronger than one.
After making it home, Zoey immediately went upstairs and took a shower so that she didn't stink of sweat and outside smell anymore. Once she got out, she went into her room and jumped on her bed.
"Zoey." Her brother knocked on her door.
"Yes?" She asked.
"Mom said your food is in the microwave."
"Uh... Okay." Why did she get Everette to tell her that?
"Okay. I'll be in my room." He left her alone.
Zoey wanted nothing more than just to lay her ass on the bed and just sleep the rest of the day away, but all of her teachers decided to give homework yesterday. Not like a student died or anything! Couldn't give them a break to grieve and shit! Zoey soon burst out laughing.
'It wasn't like I knew the person or anything.' She just wanted a reason to complain about the homework.
In the age of the internet and easily accessible information, Zoey got a little "help" for most of her work. And as a C and sometimes D student, she made sure to properly switch up a few answers that she directly copied off the internet. Instead of writing it word for word, she swapped some of the words around or just used a synonym off the internet. So far, none of her teachers have ever picked up on this and marked her wrong for doing this.
'What they don't know won't hurt them and all that shit.' She chuckled.
The next day at school, Zoey made it into the hallway on the third floor. Her locker was on the third floor since she was a junior. Today she expected it to be a completely normal day after their day off, but what awaited her was anything but normal. In front of her locker was the student council president and his vice president. In other words, the magicians knew of her and were waiting for her to come to her locker.
'How could they have found me out? I made sure to stay out of sight ever since that day. Was it that their searching magic took this long to finally find me? What should I do? Should I skip school? Should I beat them to a pulp before they can do some freaky magic on me? I'd probably be super suspended, but I'd be safe for the meantime...' Zoey shook her head. 'No, getting suspended isn't an option. With my grades, I definitely won't be able to bring them up unless I go into super study mode, Zoey. If I do that, I won't have any time for the Status Box, the gym, or the gangsters. Which is completely unacceptable.'
Zoey took a deep breath and balled up her fists as she walked to her locker. Her heart was beating rapidly, and her throat felt like it was being choked by an invisible hand. Was this a spell? Were they trying to choke her right now with an invisible magic hand or something? She wanted just to turn and run away, but her legs continued moving forward. No matter how badly she wanted to do the opposite.
"Zoey Winters." Alexander looked at her up and down.
"Hello. This is our first time meeting face-to-face, isn't it?" Lindsay slyly smiled at her.
These fuckers definitely know it was her.
"I don't know anything about magic. Magic isn't real, and magicians aren't real." Zoey's mouth moved on her own.
Both of their eyes widened at her statement. She felt like punching herself in the mouth after that outburst...
"So you did see..." Alexander's voice quieted into a whisper.
"I saw nothing." Zoey corrected him.
"Listen, Zoey. What you saw cannot be shared with anyone." Lindsay told her.
"I saw nothing, so how could I share what I didn't see with anyone?"
"After school today, meet us in the student council room. Since you already saw us, we might as well deal with it properly." Alexander told her.
Was he threatening her? Was this a threat? Were they planning to silence her after the school bell? Scheduling an execution as casually as that?
"We'll see." Zoey had her boxing gloves in her bookbag as a safety precaution.
"Speak to you later then, Zoey. Farewell." Alexander and Lindsay walked away from her locker.
Chapter 8: Confrontation.
Zoey stood outside the student council room with her bookbag open. She was in the process of wrapping her hands and putting on her boxing gloves. There was no way in hell she was going to willingly let herself be executed after all the shit she put herself through. The entire purpose of joining the boxing gym was to prevent something like this from happening. And she was going to make sure she got her money and time worth.
Zoey softly opened the door to the room and saw Alexander and Lindsay in the middle of talking about something.
"Glad you could make it so soon, Zoey." He said before noticing her gloves. "What are those for?"
Zoey made sure to close the door behind her before rushing forward. Alexander freaked out after seeing the look in her eyes as he tried to get up from his seat. Zoey's boxing glove smashed into his face before that could happen and sent the student president to the floor, bashing the back of his skull against the floor. Zoey couldn't tell if he was unconscious or not, but she still had one more magician to deal with before she could feel relieved. Her eyes squinted over to Lindsay.
"What are you doing!?" She screamed.
"Protecting myself," Zoey answered calmly with a dangerous tint in her eyes as she slowly cornered Lindsay.
"We weren't planning to hurt you! Why in the world would you think that!? We just wanted to make sure you kept our secret safe! In a non-violent manner!" She made sure to clarify.
"You weren't?" Zoey was taken aback.
"I don't think I've ever been hit that hard in my life..." Blood leaked from the student president's nose, and his lip was busted.
'Magicians are tougher than I thought... I put everything into that punch.' Zoey thought to herself.
"Zoey, we don't plan to hurt you in any way... We just wanted to ask for your help." He revealed.
"How could I help you?" Zoey asked. What could a bunch of magicians not do that she could?
Except for punching things pretty hard. She had confidence in punching things. But surely magicians would have a better way to deal with problems than punching them. A magic missile or a classic fireball could deal with most problems probably.
"It seems you are aware that we are Magjistars and can use magji."
"I don't know what that is, and no, I don't." Zoey continued to refuse the existence of the supernatural.
""Non-Majjistas would normjjally call us magicians, wizzards, sorcerrers, and stujff like that. And the sourjce of enejrgy we use to perform majji is called mahna, which is commonly referred to as mana, while majji is majjic." Alexander tried to explain with his busted nose.
"Magjistars are magicians, and magji is magic?" Zoey asked for clarification.
"That's right." Lindsay nodded as she went to one of the lockers and brought out a medical kit to patch up Alexander.
"So, what is it you need my help for again?" Zoey asked.
"As Magjistars, we can't recklessly get involved with normal humans, but we have no choice but to get involved with them if we wish to help them." He began explaining.
'Help from what?' Are we in some sort of danger?' Zoey wondered.
"We've actually been looking for someone like you for a while now... But who would believe us if we told them we were magjistars and could do magji?"
"If you showed them what you did in that room, they would," Zoey told them. If someone did magic in front of you, you'd have to believe it.
"We are forbidden from revealing our true selves in front of normal humans. The normal punishment for revealing in front of a human is being stripped of our ranks and having our magji sealed, but... if you help us solve a case here at school, we won't have to go through that." Alexander said.
Zoey took a moment to think before responding. They needed her help, and from how they described their situation, they needed it badly. But what could she get from helping them out? It was their own fault they screwed up. Zoey had no real reason to help these two for free. She wasn't some noble, heroic person who was willing to help anyone in a bad situation. Zoey was completely selfish and only cared about herself and her own interests!
"I'm not agreeing to help you, but what is the case?" Zoey asked.
"You know about Jeffrey William? The student who died the other day?" Zoey nodded.
"This case deals with the daemonic being that killed him."
"So, I could lose my life?" Even more of a reason for her to refuse.
"Well, yes, but if we go about it smartly, no." Alexander tried to reassure her.
"What he's trying to say is, if you can be bait for it, we can easily take care of it," Lindsay explained more directly.
'Now I'm bait?' Zoey's willingness to help reached an all-time low.
"What will I get for helping you?" Zoey asked before she turned around and started walking away.
Her asking this question seemingly caused Alexander's eyes to widen in surprise. As if her not immediately choosing to help them was something unexpected and shocking. Does this little handsome idiot not realize that her life was at stake and she was being bait for a demonic creature that had already killed someone?! Her trust in them wasn't all that high either! Their magic origins got revealed by her, of all people! A fucking socially awkward retard! Plus, Alexander and Lindsay couldn't defend themselves against her earlier. She could've had her way with them and pummeled them into a coma! How could these two even think about dealing with demons?
"Ifff you help us, you can feel releeved knowin' that you helped avenge the death of an innocent boy and stopped the chance of another murderous daemon from attackin' another student at the school," Alexander said.
"Not interested." She replied instantly, surprising him again. Zoey Winters was not a hero and never would be. Doing dangerous work without any benefits wasn't something for her.
"If you help us, we can help boost your grades for the rest of the year by doing your homework and providing you a split of the reward for the case after we turn it in," Lindsay said, speaking more to her liking.
"What is the reward for a case like this?" Zoey wanted to know.
"We Magjistars are gifted cavons for a case like this. Cavons can be exchanged for USD. After giving you your share for helping us, you can exchange it to USD for yourself."
"How much?"
"For a low-level daemon like this, you should expect 1 grand at the least. Three thousand, if you're lucky."
"I'm in." Zoey immediately agreed.
Alexander didn't understand how Lindsay was able to easily understand Zoey and convince her while he couldn't. He planned to ask her at a later date but, for now, was relieved they finally found help to deal with this daemon. Should be a simple open-and-shut case with Zoey here. Maybe if they're lucky, she'll hit the daemon twice as hard as she hit him!
"Let's go deal with the daemon then," Alexander spoke.
"Right now?" Zoey questioned.
"When else?" Lindsay retorted.
"He's at the gym in the storage room. Follow us." Alexander led the way to the gym.
The teachers gave them strange looks, but none of them stopped them or questioned them about what they were doing. Zoey guessed that was one of the benefits of being student council president and vice president. All the adults trusted you. Even that hard-ass Brock smiled at them with a wave. His gaze on her was softer after seeing her with the two. What a fake piece of shit.
"Wait, so you knew where the demon was but didn't deal with it until you had bait? Why do you need me?" Zoey wasn't sure why she was needed at all.
"Daemons don't show themselves to Magjistars. Only normal people because most of the time they can't defend themselves."
"Why does that matter? Can't you use like magic and sense them or something and then kill them dead with a spell?"
"I wish." Lindsay sighed.
"We are only trainee Magjistars. The magji we can perform is limited to only exterminating daemons. Once we solve enough cases, we'll be allowed to learn more magji as the Organization of Magjistars will feel that we are reliable enough to spend resources on." Alexander explained.
"So, how did you figure out it was a demon if you can't even sense it or whatever? And what was that magic you were doing in the classroom then?"
"We investigated the details around Jeffrey's death and also frequently heard rumors about strange things happening in the gym's storage room," Lindsay spoke this time, ignoring the question about what they were doing in the classroom.
"There are plenty of strange rumors in the school. They can't all be demons, can they?" Zoey said.
"Maybe?" Alexander answered, not completely sure. He couldn't sense daemons. Just kill them.
"We'll need you to tell us about those rumors in the future," Lindsay said.
They soon arrived outside the gym storage room.
"So, what's the plan here?" Zoey wanted to know. She probably should've asked on the way.
"You go in, and when you see the daemon, scream. Then we bust in and kill him." Lindsay explained simply.
"This plan seems too simple to work."
"Well, all we needed was a normal person to bait the daemon out so we could deal with him. We didn't have that before today, so he usually did whatever he wanted." Lindsay told her.
"Why didn't the magic organization just send someone to help you with this, then?"
"Ask Alex." She rolled her eyes.
Zoey saw a small blush on his stupidly cute face. It wasn't Ethan's level of cuteness but still hard to ignore.
"I'll explain later... Let's focus on dealing with this case for now."
"3k, here I come..." Zoey took a deep breath as she entered the dark storage room with her boxing gloves. She got into her usual stance and kept her senses up. From what Alexander and Lindsay described, this demon seemed more like a ghost that needed to be exorcised than a supernatural demon needing to be killed.
Alexander and Lindsay closed the door behind her. They stood outside the door and waited for Zoey's scream. She wasn't going to scream like they wanted, though. Even if she got jump scared, she would stay as silent as a mouse and only horribly jump in fright. Her heart would race, and she would start sweating but no scream. Zoey chalked it up to people handling fear differently. She didn't see the way she reacted to scares as strange or anything.
"Another tasty human sent for me to play wi---" The voice's words were cut off as Zoey's boxing glove whacked into something's face to the side of her.
It looks like the fear that struck her heart after hearing a voice suddenly whispering in her ear manifested in the form of a powerful left uppercut. The demon growled in irritation, but Zoey's fear at facing the supernatural exploded. She let the demon take the brunt of these terrifying feelings coming out of her by dishing out punch after punch on its face. A face that had two overgrown canines from the bottom jaw and red skin. It tried resisting by reaching for her fists, but this only frightened Zoey more, activating her Focus skill.
Its claws moved in slow motion in Zoey's eyes, no, not just its claws. Everything seemed to have slowed down for her. The blue blood leaking from out of its face, the impacts of her gloves denting in the face of this unholy creature, and its cries of anger and pain. Zoey rarely was able to activate Focus because of the requirements for using it. She needed to feel as if her life was in danger or her body was being pushed to its absolute limits.
Zoey's fists moved without her input as she continued to bash the demon's face in. Once it fell to the ground, she got on top of it and continued smashing its face with all of her strength. Soon, her fear from earlier turned into something resembling excitement. The demon could barely resist anymore, and the only signs of it being alive was the small whimpers coming from its mouth. The student president and vice president were going to kill this thing anyway, right? They shouldn't mind if she took care of this nasty little thing for them instead.
Zoey's body felt as if it was already spent from the adrenaline used earlier, but this didn't stop her from containing the dopamine flaring off in her brain into dispersing. She didn't stop her assault on the demon even after she barely heard any sounds coming from it. Her mind was blanked with ecstasy and joy from defeating the supernatural. Zoey's skills were rising with every punch she gave to this evil creature. The feeling of herself improving at a visible rate so easily clouded her mind that she didn't even realize that she was killing a living creature. It might be something that killed an innocent young boy, but it was still a living being. Most humans have a sort of innate hesitation and refusal to end another's life. Especially when it resembles them in physiology and intelligence.
It wasn't until she delivered the final blow that Alexander and Lindsay forced the door open. They haven't heard any sounds inside for at least three minutes! The plan was for Zoey to scream when she encountered the daemon, but there wasn't a peep out of her! Eventually, the two started to get worried that maybe something had happened to her before she could scream.
And what they saw when they walked in was something that made both of them nauseous. Their stomachs doubled over inside their gut, and they both had to turn away and vomit from the sight. Alexander had to empty his insides longer than Lindsay, but she still couldn't bear the sight of looking at Zoey and the aftermath of her actions. Zoey's body and face were splattered with blue blood all over. Her dark purple boxing gloves were now colored completely dark blue and she held a strange dark red shard in her glove's hand.
"That shard! Please give it to me!" Lindsay asked, still unable to directly look at her.
Zoey got up from the corpse, feeling like she just had the greatest orgasm ever. Hell, her legs were wobbly too! The death of the demon still hasn't really sunken in for her yet. As she was about to toss over the gem to Lindsay, the shard decided it didn't want to go to Lindsay. And instead, it shattered into pieces and went inside her boxing gloves.
"Uh...? I didn't do it?" Zoey proclaimed.
"Just our freaking luck..." Lindsay muttered under her breath with a facepalm.
"What happened? Did the magji shard break? I heard something shatter." Vomiting his guts up really took a lot out of him. He looked withered and drained. Not nearly as cute anymore.
"It merged with her boxing gloves," Lindsay told him.
"Oh, so she killed it. A normal human killed a daemon with boxing gloves... A girl around our age killed a daemon without even using magji. Haha... We're totally screwed, Lindsay... Hahahahahaha! We can say goodbye to our magji for good!" Alexander cackled.
"What's going on? Isn't it good that the demon is dead?" Zoey asked, completely lost.
"That shard was the only proof we had of turning this case in at the organization..." Lindsay informed.
"I could go with you guys and show them my boxing gloves. They should be able to sense it inside of them, right?" From what Zoey could tell, if she couldn't give them the shard, she wouldn't be getting her three thousand dollars.
"Are you sure you want to do that? Because the only way we cannot get stripped of our rank and have our magji sealed is if you agree to partner with us and reveal yourself as a human who knows about the magji side of the world hidden from the public. Letting the Magjistars at the organization examine your boxing gloves will only allow us to claim the rewards for the case." Alexander said.
"So, I'll have to do this type of stuff more often if I partner with you two?" Zoey tried to understand.
"Yes, and other stuff," Lindsay spoke up.
"I'll do that then." Zoey couldn't stop the shiver of excitement going through her body.
She could experience something like this more than once? Just seeing the changes to her Status Box was more than enough to want a repeat of this situation. The things she felt during this little demon hunt were something she never thought she'd ever feel before. Dealing with the delinquents in the main city or sparring with some of the beefcakes at the gym couldn't compare to dealing with that creature. She'd be crazy to refuse!
"What? Really?!" Alexander looked at her in excitement before quickly turning back around and retching nothing out.
"Yeah. I'll be down for some more demon hunting." Zoey agreed.
"Meet us in the student council room tomorrow. We'll take you there to get registered and get your share of the case."
"Okay."
"We'll be leaving now... The Magji Cleaners will deal with the daemon's body." Lindsay said.
"Can't I get a towel or something? I can't go home drenched in blue." Zoey asked.
'Inconsiderate pricks...'
"Oh, uhm... There should be a towel in there, right?" Alexander still couldn't look in her direction.
"I'm not seeing anything..." Zoey searched inside the storage room. "Oh! I found some. You two can go now." Zoey told them as she started wiping herself clean.
They were glad to hear those words and left without any hesitation. Zoey didn't know how those two were ever going to rank up if they couldn't even stand a dead body. Their job was to kill the demon! Whatever magic they were going to perform to kill the demon couldn't have been clean and easy, right? A question she had for herself was why was she handling it so well? Zoey watched a lot of movies and read some books where a person's first reaction to a dead body was like Alexander's and Lindsay's, but she handled it kind of well. Maybe it was because of the Status Box's effect on her... Or maybe she was always fucked up, and the world never had the chance to pull it out of her until now.
Zoey softly opened the door to the room and saw Alexander and Lindsay in the middle of talking about something.
"Glad you could make it so soon, Zoey." He said before noticing her gloves. "What are those for?"
Zoey made sure to close the door behind her before rushing forward. Alexander freaked out after seeing the look in her eyes as he tried to get up from his seat. Zoey's boxing glove smashed into his face before that could happen and sent the student president to the floor, bashing the back of his skull against the floor. Zoey couldn't tell if he was unconscious or not, but she still had one more magician to deal with before she could feel relieved. Her eyes squinted over to Lindsay.
"What are you doing!?" She screamed.
"Protecting myself," Zoey answered calmly with a dangerous tint in her eyes as she slowly cornered Lindsay.
"We weren't planning to hurt you! Why in the world would you think that!? We just wanted to make sure you kept our secret safe! In a non-violent manner!" She made sure to clarify.
"You weren't?" Zoey was taken aback.
"I don't think I've ever been hit that hard in my life..." Blood leaked from the student president's nose, and his lip was busted.
'Magicians are tougher than I thought... I put everything into that punch.' Zoey thought to herself.
"Zoey, we don't plan to hurt you in any way... We just wanted to ask for your help." He revealed.
"How could I help you?" Zoey asked. What could a bunch of magicians not do that she could?
Except for punching things pretty hard. She had confidence in punching things. But surely magicians would have a better way to deal with problems than punching them. A magic missile or a classic fireball could deal with most problems probably.
"It seems you are aware that we are Magjistars and can use magji."
"I don't know what that is, and no, I don't." Zoey continued to refuse the existence of the supernatural.
""Non-Majjistas would normjjally call us magicians, wizzards, sorcerrers, and stujff like that. And the sourjce of enejrgy we use to perform majji is called mahna, which is commonly referred to as mana, while majji is majjic." Alexander tried to explain with his busted nose.
"Magjistars are magicians, and magji is magic?" Zoey asked for clarification.
"That's right." Lindsay nodded as she went to one of the lockers and brought out a medical kit to patch up Alexander.
"So, what is it you need my help for again?" Zoey asked.
"As Magjistars, we can't recklessly get involved with normal humans, but we have no choice but to get involved with them if we wish to help them." He began explaining.
'Help from what?' Are we in some sort of danger?' Zoey wondered.
"We've actually been looking for someone like you for a while now... But who would believe us if we told them we were magjistars and could do magji?"
"If you showed them what you did in that room, they would," Zoey told them. If someone did magic in front of you, you'd have to believe it.
"We are forbidden from revealing our true selves in front of normal humans. The normal punishment for revealing in front of a human is being stripped of our ranks and having our magji sealed, but... if you help us solve a case here at school, we won't have to go through that." Alexander said.
Zoey took a moment to think before responding. They needed her help, and from how they described their situation, they needed it badly. But what could she get from helping them out? It was their own fault they screwed up. Zoey had no real reason to help these two for free. She wasn't some noble, heroic person who was willing to help anyone in a bad situation. Zoey was completely selfish and only cared about herself and her own interests!
"I'm not agreeing to help you, but what is the case?" Zoey asked.
"You know about Jeffrey William? The student who died the other day?" Zoey nodded.
"This case deals with the daemonic being that killed him."
"So, I could lose my life?" Even more of a reason for her to refuse.
"Well, yes, but if we go about it smartly, no." Alexander tried to reassure her.
"What he's trying to say is, if you can be bait for it, we can easily take care of it," Lindsay explained more directly.
'Now I'm bait?' Zoey's willingness to help reached an all-time low.
"What will I get for helping you?" Zoey asked before she turned around and started walking away.
Her asking this question seemingly caused Alexander's eyes to widen in surprise. As if her not immediately choosing to help them was something unexpected and shocking. Does this little handsome idiot not realize that her life was at stake and she was being bait for a demonic creature that had already killed someone?! Her trust in them wasn't all that high either! Their magic origins got revealed by her, of all people! A fucking socially awkward retard! Plus, Alexander and Lindsay couldn't defend themselves against her earlier. She could've had her way with them and pummeled them into a coma! How could these two even think about dealing with demons?
"Ifff you help us, you can feel releeved knowin' that you helped avenge the death of an innocent boy and stopped the chance of another murderous daemon from attackin' another student at the school," Alexander said.
"Not interested." She replied instantly, surprising him again. Zoey Winters was not a hero and never would be. Doing dangerous work without any benefits wasn't something for her.
"If you help us, we can help boost your grades for the rest of the year by doing your homework and providing you a split of the reward for the case after we turn it in," Lindsay said, speaking more to her liking.
"What is the reward for a case like this?" Zoey wanted to know.
"We Magjistars are gifted cavons for a case like this. Cavons can be exchanged for USD. After giving you your share for helping us, you can exchange it to USD for yourself."
"How much?"
"For a low-level daemon like this, you should expect 1 grand at the least. Three thousand, if you're lucky."
"I'm in." Zoey immediately agreed.
Alexander didn't understand how Lindsay was able to easily understand Zoey and convince her while he couldn't. He planned to ask her at a later date but, for now, was relieved they finally found help to deal with this daemon. Should be a simple open-and-shut case with Zoey here. Maybe if they're lucky, she'll hit the daemon twice as hard as she hit him!
"Let's go deal with the daemon then," Alexander spoke.
"Right now?" Zoey questioned.
"When else?" Lindsay retorted.
"He's at the gym in the storage room. Follow us." Alexander led the way to the gym.
The teachers gave them strange looks, but none of them stopped them or questioned them about what they were doing. Zoey guessed that was one of the benefits of being student council president and vice president. All the adults trusted you. Even that hard-ass Brock smiled at them with a wave. His gaze on her was softer after seeing her with the two. What a fake piece of shit.
"Wait, so you knew where the demon was but didn't deal with it until you had bait? Why do you need me?" Zoey wasn't sure why she was needed at all.
"Daemons don't show themselves to Magjistars. Only normal people because most of the time they can't defend themselves."
"Why does that matter? Can't you use like magic and sense them or something and then kill them dead with a spell?"
"I wish." Lindsay sighed.
"We are only trainee Magjistars. The magji we can perform is limited to only exterminating daemons. Once we solve enough cases, we'll be allowed to learn more magji as the Organization of Magjistars will feel that we are reliable enough to spend resources on." Alexander explained.
"So, how did you figure out it was a demon if you can't even sense it or whatever? And what was that magic you were doing in the classroom then?"
"We investigated the details around Jeffrey's death and also frequently heard rumors about strange things happening in the gym's storage room," Lindsay spoke this time, ignoring the question about what they were doing in the classroom.
"There are plenty of strange rumors in the school. They can't all be demons, can they?" Zoey said.
"Maybe?" Alexander answered, not completely sure. He couldn't sense daemons. Just kill them.
"We'll need you to tell us about those rumors in the future," Lindsay said.
They soon arrived outside the gym storage room.
"So, what's the plan here?" Zoey wanted to know. She probably should've asked on the way.
"You go in, and when you see the daemon, scream. Then we bust in and kill him." Lindsay explained simply.
"This plan seems too simple to work."
"Well, all we needed was a normal person to bait the daemon out so we could deal with him. We didn't have that before today, so he usually did whatever he wanted." Lindsay told her.
"Why didn't the magic organization just send someone to help you with this, then?"
"Ask Alex." She rolled her eyes.
Zoey saw a small blush on his stupidly cute face. It wasn't Ethan's level of cuteness but still hard to ignore.
"I'll explain later... Let's focus on dealing with this case for now."
"3k, here I come..." Zoey took a deep breath as she entered the dark storage room with her boxing gloves. She got into her usual stance and kept her senses up. From what Alexander and Lindsay described, this demon seemed more like a ghost that needed to be exorcised than a supernatural demon needing to be killed.
Alexander and Lindsay closed the door behind her. They stood outside the door and waited for Zoey's scream. She wasn't going to scream like they wanted, though. Even if she got jump scared, she would stay as silent as a mouse and only horribly jump in fright. Her heart would race, and she would start sweating but no scream. Zoey chalked it up to people handling fear differently. She didn't see the way she reacted to scares as strange or anything.
"Another tasty human sent for me to play wi---" The voice's words were cut off as Zoey's boxing glove whacked into something's face to the side of her.
It looks like the fear that struck her heart after hearing a voice suddenly whispering in her ear manifested in the form of a powerful left uppercut. The demon growled in irritation, but Zoey's fear at facing the supernatural exploded. She let the demon take the brunt of these terrifying feelings coming out of her by dishing out punch after punch on its face. A face that had two overgrown canines from the bottom jaw and red skin. It tried resisting by reaching for her fists, but this only frightened Zoey more, activating her Focus skill.
Its claws moved in slow motion in Zoey's eyes, no, not just its claws. Everything seemed to have slowed down for her. The blue blood leaking from out of its face, the impacts of her gloves denting in the face of this unholy creature, and its cries of anger and pain. Zoey rarely was able to activate Focus because of the requirements for using it. She needed to feel as if her life was in danger or her body was being pushed to its absolute limits.
Zoey's fists moved without her input as she continued to bash the demon's face in. Once it fell to the ground, she got on top of it and continued smashing its face with all of her strength. Soon, her fear from earlier turned into something resembling excitement. The demon could barely resist anymore, and the only signs of it being alive was the small whimpers coming from its mouth. The student president and vice president were going to kill this thing anyway, right? They shouldn't mind if she took care of this nasty little thing for them instead.
Zoey's body felt as if it was already spent from the adrenaline used earlier, but this didn't stop her from containing the dopamine flaring off in her brain into dispersing. She didn't stop her assault on the demon even after she barely heard any sounds coming from it. Her mind was blanked with ecstasy and joy from defeating the supernatural. Zoey's skills were rising with every punch she gave to this evil creature. The feeling of herself improving at a visible rate so easily clouded her mind that she didn't even realize that she was killing a living creature. It might be something that killed an innocent young boy, but it was still a living being. Most humans have a sort of innate hesitation and refusal to end another's life. Especially when it resembles them in physiology and intelligence.
It wasn't until she delivered the final blow that Alexander and Lindsay forced the door open. They haven't heard any sounds inside for at least three minutes! The plan was for Zoey to scream when she encountered the daemon, but there wasn't a peep out of her! Eventually, the two started to get worried that maybe something had happened to her before she could scream.
And what they saw when they walked in was something that made both of them nauseous. Their stomachs doubled over inside their gut, and they both had to turn away and vomit from the sight. Alexander had to empty his insides longer than Lindsay, but she still couldn't bear the sight of looking at Zoey and the aftermath of her actions. Zoey's body and face were splattered with blue blood all over. Her dark purple boxing gloves were now colored completely dark blue and she held a strange dark red shard in her glove's hand.
"That shard! Please give it to me!" Lindsay asked, still unable to directly look at her.
Zoey got up from the corpse, feeling like she just had the greatest orgasm ever. Hell, her legs were wobbly too! The death of the demon still hasn't really sunken in for her yet. As she was about to toss over the gem to Lindsay, the shard decided it didn't want to go to Lindsay. And instead, it shattered into pieces and went inside her boxing gloves.
"Uh...? I didn't do it?" Zoey proclaimed.
"Just our freaking luck..." Lindsay muttered under her breath with a facepalm.
"What happened? Did the magji shard break? I heard something shatter." Vomiting his guts up really took a lot out of him. He looked withered and drained. Not nearly as cute anymore.
"It merged with her boxing gloves," Lindsay told him.
"Oh, so she killed it. A normal human killed a daemon with boxing gloves... A girl around our age killed a daemon without even using magji. Haha... We're totally screwed, Lindsay... Hahahahahaha! We can say goodbye to our magji for good!" Alexander cackled.
"What's going on? Isn't it good that the demon is dead?" Zoey asked, completely lost.
"That shard was the only proof we had of turning this case in at the organization..." Lindsay informed.
"I could go with you guys and show them my boxing gloves. They should be able to sense it inside of them, right?" From what Zoey could tell, if she couldn't give them the shard, she wouldn't be getting her three thousand dollars.
"Are you sure you want to do that? Because the only way we cannot get stripped of our rank and have our magji sealed is if you agree to partner with us and reveal yourself as a human who knows about the magji side of the world hidden from the public. Letting the Magjistars at the organization examine your boxing gloves will only allow us to claim the rewards for the case." Alexander said.
"So, I'll have to do this type of stuff more often if I partner with you two?" Zoey tried to understand.
"Yes, and other stuff," Lindsay spoke up.
"I'll do that then." Zoey couldn't stop the shiver of excitement going through her body.
She could experience something like this more than once? Just seeing the changes to her Status Box was more than enough to want a repeat of this situation. The things she felt during this little demon hunt were something she never thought she'd ever feel before. Dealing with the delinquents in the main city or sparring with some of the beefcakes at the gym couldn't compare to dealing with that creature. She'd be crazy to refuse!
"What? Really?!" Alexander looked at her in excitement before quickly turning back around and retching nothing out.
"Yeah. I'll be down for some more demon hunting." Zoey agreed.
"Meet us in the student council room tomorrow. We'll take you there to get registered and get your share of the case."
"Okay."
"We'll be leaving now... The Magji Cleaners will deal with the daemon's body." Lindsay said.
"Can't I get a towel or something? I can't go home drenched in blue." Zoey asked.
'Inconsiderate pricks...'
"Oh, uhm... There should be a towel in there, right?" Alexander still couldn't look in her direction.
"I'm not seeing anything..." Zoey searched inside the storage room. "Oh! I found some. You two can go now." Zoey told them as she started wiping herself clean.
They were glad to hear those words and left without any hesitation. Zoey didn't know how those two were ever going to rank up if they couldn't even stand a dead body. Their job was to kill the demon! Whatever magic they were going to perform to kill the demon couldn't have been clean and easy, right? A question she had for herself was why was she handling it so well? Zoey watched a lot of movies and read some books where a person's first reaction to a dead body was like Alexander's and Lindsay's, but she handled it kind of well. Maybe it was because of the Status Box's effect on her... Or maybe she was always fucked up, and the world never had the chance to pull it out of her until now.
Chapter 9: Becoming A Bringer.
"So, it's in here?" Zoey asked, looking up at the incredibly tall and remarkable skyscraper in front of her.
"Yep. Pretty amazing, isn't it?" Alexander smiled proudly. As if he owned the building or something.
"Follow us and try not to get lost," Lindsay told her.
She still hasn't been able to lock eyes with her ever since yesterday. Alexander had trouble, too, but he made an effort at least to try and look at her. Lindsay tried to avoid her stare at every moment. Is it possible that she scarred her or something? Most teens their age wouldn't ever run into a situation like that. Zoey also didn't believe that these two had ever killed a 'daemon' yet, either. Yes, she pronounced it daemon like they wanted because apparently the magjistar's version of daemon came first, but demon became more popular in the West. She was still going to call them demons in her head, though. She was petty like that.
Zoey followed Alexander and Lindsay inside the building. The three of them look super out of place inside this fancy ass building. Men and women dressed in business suits looked busy as hell going in and out of the building. Important people making phone calls while walking. Zoey even overheard someone getting fired over the phone because of how loudly the person on the other end screamed it. The student council president and the vice president walked to the counter and asked for a meeting with the Janitor.
'Totally not fucking suspicious at all.' Zoey rolled her eyes as the three of them were directed to an elevator.
Lindsay pushed the button to call the elevator down. Or up. It didn't matter. Zoey knew some magic shit was going to happen soon, and she still couldn't get over that code phrase. Seriously? A meeting with the Janitor? If anyone with half a brain heard that, they'd knew something fishy was going on. Especially when it's a bunch of teenagers like themselves asking to meet with a damn janitor. The CEO or president of the company would make more sense than the janitor because they could say that one of them was related to the boss or something.
"We're almost there," Alexander said to perhaps comfort her, but she wasn't nervous at all.
"How did you two find out it was me who saw you in the classroom?" Zoey asked when they entered the elevator.
"We asked the teachers if they saw anyone running by in the halls." Lindsay calmly replied.
'Those snitching pieces of shit!' Zoey cursed.
And she was freaking out that they had some secret magic hidden away that they decided not to tell her about, but nope. It was something as simple as that. Yesterday they said they only knew spells that could kill demons, and Zoey thought they were lying because why would they tell her everything? She wouldn't share all her tricks with someone she barely knew.
"Oh." She replied simply.
When the elevator dinged, and the doors opened, the scenery was completely different from what it was on the first floor. It was like a ghost town on this floor. In terms of layout, it perfectly copied the layout of the normal side. A large reception counter with beautiful women manning it, to the right of that were three bathrooms for the two sexes and an extra one that had a question mark symbol etched onto the door, and to the left of the counter was a large case of stairs that looked like they went up endlessly.
Alexander and Lindsay strolled over to the counter and she followed behind them.
"We need to talk with an available Grade B or higher Magjistar." Alexander asked the pretty woman with a cute little frog on her head.
"Is the issue urgent?" The frog croaked.
"No. We can wait." He responded totally normally while Zoey was freaking out over the frog using a human meat puppet.
"I'll get with you in a moment, sir." She began rapidly typing on her computer.
"I guess magicians are more modern than I thought..." Zoey said under her breath. 'And freaky as hell too!
"How did you think of us?" Lindsay asked.
"Uh... Nothing like this." Zoey said. 'They adapted to modern times very well. I expected them to be stuck in their old ways and refuse modernness completely.'
"Contrary to popular belief, we Magjistars are more open-minded than people believe. We are always open to learning new knowledge and putting it to practical use." Alexander informed.
"A Grade-A Magjistar will be with you shortly."
'Her definition of shortly must be different from mines.' Zoey thought as an old man popped up in front of them immediately.
"Zieg!" Alexander exclaimed.
"Alex, my boy! Lindsay, my girl!" This Zieg happily responded back. "Come on, follow me with your new friend!"
'Friend? That's a strong word, old man...' Zoey thought to herself as she was magically whisked away into a large office space.
"What the fuck?!" Zoey accidentally exclaimed, much to the surprise of the Magjistars around her.
Feeling herself being forcibly taken through space and maybe time without her control or input was enough to send her brain into a spin. She fell on her butt immediately after being spatially displaced and relocated. Zoey's body went into fight or flight mode in this strange and unnatural situation. She had to do deep breathing exercises to force her heart to calm itself as she wasn't in any danger. Soon she found herself glaring at the old man.
"A little warning next time would be nice..." She asked.
"My deepest apologies, young lady. I didn't realize you were a..."
"She's going to be our new Bringer." Lindsay quickly said with a smile.
"Yeah, actually... If it wasn't for her, me and Lindsay would actually be getting our magic gates sealed right about now." Alexander told him.
"Your gates sealed?! You let a Gully find out your secret!?" He exclaimed before looking at Zoey with a dangerous look in his eyes.
Zoey nervously balled her fists. That look in his eyes was enough to cause all the hair on her body to rise up like a frightened cat. Her instincts almost urged her to rush forward and smash her fist into this old man's face. It reminded her of the same feeling that she got from the demon at school but a hundred times more! Would she stand a chance against a mage like this with just her skills now? No, questioning her capabilities isn't important. What's important is the courage needed to throw the first punch to protect herself and keep punching until she felt completely safe. If she needed to beat the shit out of an old man, she would. She'd do almost anything to protect her own life. Being a coward is something that Zoey would never be ashamed to admit. It's cowardice that keeps one alive and on their toes. So, at the first sign of magic, she'll move in deep inside his personal space and pummel him from close range to prevent him from chanting a spell.
'Wait, do magjistars need to chant for their spells?' She suddenly questioned.
"It's okay, Zieg! She agreed to be our Bringer, but what we needed your help with was a cursed object. When we took care of the daemon, its magji shard went into Zoey's boxing gloves. We just need you to prove that they are cursed so that we can get the rewards for the case." Alexander explained.
"Oh, is that all?" He let out a relieved breath. Probably happy he didn't have to cover up for his apprentices' mistake and kill a Gully, Zoey figured.
Zoey had no doubt that a Gully was an insensitive term or racist remark against normal humans like herself. This asshole probably thought he was on a different existence from humans because he could do magic shit. She could already see that racism or that superior-than-thou attitude slowly rubbing off on Alexander. The innocent little kind idiot didn't notice it, but she could. Lindsay was probably aware of it.
"Yep. That's all we needed." Lindsay clarified.
"Sorry about that outburst from earlier, Zoey. Do you mind letting me see the gloves?" He asked with a kind old man smile.
But Zoey wouldn't forget how quick he was to turn against her in his eyes. How quick he was to call her a Gully and think about dealing with her without anyone ever knowing. She handed him her spare boxing gloves, and he pulled out a cat from out of his drawer. And no, she didn't suddenly go crazy and start seeing things. He pulled out an honest-to-god cat out of his drawer and placed it on top of her boxing gloves.
Zoey couldn't even think 'what the fuck' at something like this after the frog receptionist from earlier. The cat started clawing her gloves and loudly purring. It was actually making her a bit uncomfortable at how sexual it looked. Her of all people, was getting uncomfortable at something vaguely sexual meant that it had to be some seriously freaky shit. And Zoey has glanced at most of the worst fetishes online. Her eyes have seen some things that bleach could never clean out.
"Yep. These things are cursed for sure." Zieg declared as he placed the cat back in his mahogany office desk.
Her boxing gloves which were ripped to shit by the cat, were slowly repairing themselves. Zieg handed her the gloves back, and she felt a need to place them on. To try them out and see what they could do now. But she restrained that feeling inside of herself. She was good at restraining herself.
The gloves went inside her bookbag that she had brought, and she had to ask.
"You say it's cursed, but what does this curse do exactly?" Zoey wanted to know. She was planning to use these to bust up some more demons. If she had to suffer a lifetime of baldness from the curse, then there was no way she was ever putting them on again. Not that she couldn't pull off a sexy bald chick. It was just that she liked her hair very much.
"Since the daemon you all took out was only a Grade D, it isn't a harsh curse. Just a curse of mending. As long as you feed it blood it will repair any damages sustained to the gloves. This is somewhat valuable for trainee magjistars." Zieg explained.
"Valuable? Can you sell curses or something?"
"No, but you can sell cursed objects. Normally cursed objects have some sort of drawback for the user that stops one from wanting to use it too often. I suppose you are rather lucky as those gloves of yours only need blood. They don't take your blood or force you to feed on blood. That isn't too bad of a curse at all. A rarity when discussing cursed objects." He answered.
"Most Magjistars sell cursed objects because they are more of a hassle to use. If the special ability of the cursed object is especially useful though, a Magjistar can try to have it purified or tamed by a Magjistar skilled in dealing with cursed objects." Lindsay explained.
"I'll keep them." Zoey decided.
"Okay then. Let's return back to the front desk and get you set up officially as our Bringer." Alexander said.
"Thanks, Ziegs!" The two called out as we left the office room.
"See ya around, kids! Nice meeting you, Zoey!" He smiled and waved.
Zoey still thought he was a piece of shit, though.
"Yep. Pretty amazing, isn't it?" Alexander smiled proudly. As if he owned the building or something.
"Follow us and try not to get lost," Lindsay told her.
She still hasn't been able to lock eyes with her ever since yesterday. Alexander had trouble, too, but he made an effort at least to try and look at her. Lindsay tried to avoid her stare at every moment. Is it possible that she scarred her or something? Most teens their age wouldn't ever run into a situation like that. Zoey also didn't believe that these two had ever killed a 'daemon' yet, either. Yes, she pronounced it daemon like they wanted because apparently the magjistar's version of daemon came first, but demon became more popular in the West. She was still going to call them demons in her head, though. She was petty like that.
Zoey followed Alexander and Lindsay inside the building. The three of them look super out of place inside this fancy ass building. Men and women dressed in business suits looked busy as hell going in and out of the building. Important people making phone calls while walking. Zoey even overheard someone getting fired over the phone because of how loudly the person on the other end screamed it. The student council president and the vice president walked to the counter and asked for a meeting with the Janitor.
'Totally not fucking suspicious at all.' Zoey rolled her eyes as the three of them were directed to an elevator.
Lindsay pushed the button to call the elevator down. Or up. It didn't matter. Zoey knew some magic shit was going to happen soon, and she still couldn't get over that code phrase. Seriously? A meeting with the Janitor? If anyone with half a brain heard that, they'd knew something fishy was going on. Especially when it's a bunch of teenagers like themselves asking to meet with a damn janitor. The CEO or president of the company would make more sense than the janitor because they could say that one of them was related to the boss or something.
"We're almost there," Alexander said to perhaps comfort her, but she wasn't nervous at all.
"How did you two find out it was me who saw you in the classroom?" Zoey asked when they entered the elevator.
"We asked the teachers if they saw anyone running by in the halls." Lindsay calmly replied.
'Those snitching pieces of shit!' Zoey cursed.
And she was freaking out that they had some secret magic hidden away that they decided not to tell her about, but nope. It was something as simple as that. Yesterday they said they only knew spells that could kill demons, and Zoey thought they were lying because why would they tell her everything? She wouldn't share all her tricks with someone she barely knew.
"Oh." She replied simply.
When the elevator dinged, and the doors opened, the scenery was completely different from what it was on the first floor. It was like a ghost town on this floor. In terms of layout, it perfectly copied the layout of the normal side. A large reception counter with beautiful women manning it, to the right of that were three bathrooms for the two sexes and an extra one that had a question mark symbol etched onto the door, and to the left of the counter was a large case of stairs that looked like they went up endlessly.
Alexander and Lindsay strolled over to the counter and she followed behind them.
"We need to talk with an available Grade B or higher Magjistar." Alexander asked the pretty woman with a cute little frog on her head.
"Is the issue urgent?" The frog croaked.
"No. We can wait." He responded totally normally while Zoey was freaking out over the frog using a human meat puppet.
"I'll get with you in a moment, sir." She began rapidly typing on her computer.
"I guess magicians are more modern than I thought..." Zoey said under her breath. 'And freaky as hell too!
"How did you think of us?" Lindsay asked.
"Uh... Nothing like this." Zoey said. 'They adapted to modern times very well. I expected them to be stuck in their old ways and refuse modernness completely.'
"Contrary to popular belief, we Magjistars are more open-minded than people believe. We are always open to learning new knowledge and putting it to practical use." Alexander informed.
"A Grade-A Magjistar will be with you shortly."
'Her definition of shortly must be different from mines.' Zoey thought as an old man popped up in front of them immediately.
"Zieg!" Alexander exclaimed.
"Alex, my boy! Lindsay, my girl!" This Zieg happily responded back. "Come on, follow me with your new friend!"
'Friend? That's a strong word, old man...' Zoey thought to herself as she was magically whisked away into a large office space.
"What the fuck?!" Zoey accidentally exclaimed, much to the surprise of the Magjistars around her.
Feeling herself being forcibly taken through space and maybe time without her control or input was enough to send her brain into a spin. She fell on her butt immediately after being spatially displaced and relocated. Zoey's body went into fight or flight mode in this strange and unnatural situation. She had to do deep breathing exercises to force her heart to calm itself as she wasn't in any danger. Soon she found herself glaring at the old man.
"A little warning next time would be nice..." She asked.
"My deepest apologies, young lady. I didn't realize you were a..."
"She's going to be our new Bringer." Lindsay quickly said with a smile.
"Yeah, actually... If it wasn't for her, me and Lindsay would actually be getting our magic gates sealed right about now." Alexander told him.
"Your gates sealed?! You let a Gully find out your secret!?" He exclaimed before looking at Zoey with a dangerous look in his eyes.
Zoey nervously balled her fists. That look in his eyes was enough to cause all the hair on her body to rise up like a frightened cat. Her instincts almost urged her to rush forward and smash her fist into this old man's face. It reminded her of the same feeling that she got from the demon at school but a hundred times more! Would she stand a chance against a mage like this with just her skills now? No, questioning her capabilities isn't important. What's important is the courage needed to throw the first punch to protect herself and keep punching until she felt completely safe. If she needed to beat the shit out of an old man, she would. She'd do almost anything to protect her own life. Being a coward is something that Zoey would never be ashamed to admit. It's cowardice that keeps one alive and on their toes. So, at the first sign of magic, she'll move in deep inside his personal space and pummel him from close range to prevent him from chanting a spell.
'Wait, do magjistars need to chant for their spells?' She suddenly questioned.
"It's okay, Zieg! She agreed to be our Bringer, but what we needed your help with was a cursed object. When we took care of the daemon, its magji shard went into Zoey's boxing gloves. We just need you to prove that they are cursed so that we can get the rewards for the case." Alexander explained.
"Oh, is that all?" He let out a relieved breath. Probably happy he didn't have to cover up for his apprentices' mistake and kill a Gully, Zoey figured.
Zoey had no doubt that a Gully was an insensitive term or racist remark against normal humans like herself. This asshole probably thought he was on a different existence from humans because he could do magic shit. She could already see that racism or that superior-than-thou attitude slowly rubbing off on Alexander. The innocent little kind idiot didn't notice it, but she could. Lindsay was probably aware of it.
"Yep. That's all we needed." Lindsay clarified.
"Sorry about that outburst from earlier, Zoey. Do you mind letting me see the gloves?" He asked with a kind old man smile.
But Zoey wouldn't forget how quick he was to turn against her in his eyes. How quick he was to call her a Gully and think about dealing with her without anyone ever knowing. She handed him her spare boxing gloves, and he pulled out a cat from out of his drawer. And no, she didn't suddenly go crazy and start seeing things. He pulled out an honest-to-god cat out of his drawer and placed it on top of her boxing gloves.
Zoey couldn't even think 'what the fuck' at something like this after the frog receptionist from earlier. The cat started clawing her gloves and loudly purring. It was actually making her a bit uncomfortable at how sexual it looked. Her of all people, was getting uncomfortable at something vaguely sexual meant that it had to be some seriously freaky shit. And Zoey has glanced at most of the worst fetishes online. Her eyes have seen some things that bleach could never clean out.
"Yep. These things are cursed for sure." Zieg declared as he placed the cat back in his mahogany office desk.
Her boxing gloves which were ripped to shit by the cat, were slowly repairing themselves. Zieg handed her the gloves back, and she felt a need to place them on. To try them out and see what they could do now. But she restrained that feeling inside of herself. She was good at restraining herself.
The gloves went inside her bookbag that she had brought, and she had to ask.
"You say it's cursed, but what does this curse do exactly?" Zoey wanted to know. She was planning to use these to bust up some more demons. If she had to suffer a lifetime of baldness from the curse, then there was no way she was ever putting them on again. Not that she couldn't pull off a sexy bald chick. It was just that she liked her hair very much.
"Since the daemon you all took out was only a Grade D, it isn't a harsh curse. Just a curse of mending. As long as you feed it blood it will repair any damages sustained to the gloves. This is somewhat valuable for trainee magjistars." Zieg explained.
"Valuable? Can you sell curses or something?"
"No, but you can sell cursed objects. Normally cursed objects have some sort of drawback for the user that stops one from wanting to use it too often. I suppose you are rather lucky as those gloves of yours only need blood. They don't take your blood or force you to feed on blood. That isn't too bad of a curse at all. A rarity when discussing cursed objects." He answered.
"Most Magjistars sell cursed objects because they are more of a hassle to use. If the special ability of the cursed object is especially useful though, a Magjistar can try to have it purified or tamed by a Magjistar skilled in dealing with cursed objects." Lindsay explained.
"I'll keep them." Zoey decided.
"Okay then. Let's return back to the front desk and get you set up officially as our Bringer." Alexander said.
"Thanks, Ziegs!" The two called out as we left the office room.
"See ya around, kids! Nice meeting you, Zoey!" He smiled and waved.
Zoey still thought he was a piece of shit, though.
Chapter 10: Boxing is Fun!
The chain of the heavy bag jingled from her punches, and the sharp, crisp sounds of her fists smashing against the bag attracted everyone's attention. Zack watched her with a smile on his face. As if everything she's become was because of him. Zoey had to give Zack credit where credit was due. He had been with her since day one and was still with her now.
Zoey threw her fists out with accurate and deadly speed all around the punching bag. She circled it while weaving in and out with her upper body. Continuously throwing her fists out while moving. If this was a person, they'd be unable to do anything but try and block this fast and disorienting assault or get worked by it. Zoey considered calling this move, Ring Around The Rosies, but the only way she could pull this off was if she was fighting against someone much weaker than her that couldn't react to it. It was just a fun little move she thought of.
"Whoever the hell that is, I'm loving the sound of those punches. Which one of you little bastards is trying to make me smile in the afternoon?" Coach Scott asked, coming out from the back.
He looked in Zoey's direction, and she could swear she saw a tear in his eye after noticing it was her. She couldn't find out if it really was a tear or if her eyes were playing tricks on her because immediately after, he turned away and yelled at everyone to get to work. Zoey still couldn't understand Coach Scott's weird ass attitude toward her. Did he like her? Hate her? Didn't care whatsoever? The man was as fickle as a girl, and she was a girl!
"I think it's about time. I will teach you how to counter." Zack suddenly said.
"Really?!" A wide innocent smile painted Zoey's face.
"Oh, geez. I didn't realize how excited you were about this... You have been ready for it. I was just delaying it because I thought you were happy where you were now."
"I want to learn everything," Zoey told him seriously.
"Alright then. Let's get in the ring so I can teach you how to counter then." Zack smiled.
They both put on the standard safety equipment before heading into the ring, headgear, and mouthguards. Zoey was reasonably excited to learn this, as counters were one of the things she was banned from practicing when she was still somewhat new to this. She's still new but not as new.
"I'm going to start off teaching you the riskiest but most effective type of counterpunching."
"Alright."
"It basically boils down to this, when the person you're fighting goes, you go. So, when I throw a jab, I want you to strike me where it will hurt the most. Alright?" Zack had two punch mitts on. Zoey nodded, watching his upper body.
He threw out a slow jab that even a first-timer could catch. Zoey did as she was asked and punched out with a similar speed toward his mitt.
"Good. Just like that. Now we're going to go a bit faster."
They circled around each other as they practiced. If, at first, it looked like an adult teaching a child how to do something, now it looked as if two competent fighters were going at it with everything they had. Zack understood when to stop and when to keep going. Seeing that she understood this part, it was time for them to stop.
"That's enough. Let's go on to the next part now."
The rest of the day was spent learning about counters in its entirety. Zack himself didn't really utilize counters all that much, but when you're a professional boxer, you need to learn everything you can. Even if you don't use it yourself, you don't know who you'll be placed against in a match. He even asked Coach Scott for a few tips on counters that easily gave her the Counter skill for her Status Box. Zoey was pretty sure Zack thought she was a monster when she could correctly perform a counter at the end of their training session.
"Jesus fucking Christ... I have been watching them the whole damn day, and I wouldn't have been able to pick up counterpunching that easily."
"Yeah, Zoey's a freak, ain't she? Can you imagine if she was a boy? The Coach would be sending us up there to spar with her every second. Just to get beat the fuck up like some clowns."
"Don't tell anyone this, but I don't think I could beat girl Zoey even if I tried my hardest."
"You're not the only one feeling that way. Haven't you seen some of the newer guys working hard as hell lately? I heard it was because the coach has been on their ass, comparing them with Zoey."
"He does like to do that when she isn't here. You know, I think Zoey might be better than Ben..."
"Ah, yeah, he's a fucking little prick, ain't he?"
"I didn't just mean his personality..."
"Oi, oi, oi. You aren't saying what I think you're saying, are you?"
"I might just be... You know?"
"Come on, dude. Zoey is great, and all but Ben is a real monster in the ring. The kid doesn't even try, and he still demolishes any opponent he faces. Zoey doesn't seem like she has what it takes to really match up."
"Have any of us even seen what Zoey is capable of? You know she's the reason why those new guys a while back dropped, right?"
"No. My mom was sick in the hospital. I had to take care of my gramps that week."
"Coach Scott decided to put her up against the new guys. You know what he said when he brought it up?" A grin popped up on his face.
"No, what he say?"
"If you can't even beat a girl, what the hell are you doing here? And they did not take losing to her well."
"Did she fucking beat their asses or something? What happened?"
"No. She just toyed with them. It was like seeing a professional go against a complete beginner. But she didn't toy with them like Ben would. That cocky smirk on his face while he's fighting you. Him constantly talking and not punching you when he has the chance. Just a complete game for him. Zoey was nothing like that. She acted like she didn't want to break the poor guys and just went so soft on them. Like she was their teacher or something! Teaching em how to box!"
"Wait, so she was all gentle and nice in their spar?"
"Yeah, like a total fucking girl! Haha! I was laughing my ass off seeing the dudes up there. If I ever had to face Zoey, I'd be glad if she treated me like I was a total pussy!"
Zoey could hear everything Steven and Tony were saying... She tried not focusing on it while learning how to counter, but she couldn't help but be a bit nosey. It was in her nature to be aware of her surroundings and hear everything she could like a fucking weirdo. And the only reason she treated those guys so gently was that if she went all out, they'd definitely leave! Who would've thought trying to spare a guy his feelings would backfire?! Now Coach Scott never lets her spar with any of the guys anymore. Their delicate pride wouldn't be able to handle it no matter how soft or hard she goes. If she didn't have people like Miles or demons, she'd definitely go crazy just practicing all the fucking time.
"See ya later, Zoey!" Zack waved.
"Bye, Zoey!" The other guys called out.
"Bye guys." She responded back.
Zoey started jogging her way home. When she first started, she had her mom pick her up from the gym. That changed ever since her first run into the city. Now she's been running everywhere she went to increase her body stat. Her mental stat is as slow as ever, but there was some good news! After killing that demon, this was what her Status Box looks like now!
Yep! There was a .1 after her magic stat! Zoey guessed it got there because of the demon! She didn't feel any different or felt like she could perform magical spells but seeing that it wasn't a flat 0 anymore was enough to make her happy. Maybe if she beat a couple more demons, her magic stat would rise even higher. Then would she be able to sense or create her own magic once it is high enough?
Zoey wasn't one of those nerds that dreamed of casting fireballs down from the sky on her foes or flooding waves of enemies with water magic. If it was before she got the Status box and started getting into boxing, then maybe she would be more open to the idea of becoming a generic magician class usually seen in an RPG. But now, once she gets her hands on some magic. She's using it to boost her boxing skills to the next level! Fire fists, stone fists, lightning fists, ice fists, the possibilities are endless!
Zoey's moderate-paced jog slowed down to a crawl as a bloodcurdling screech rang out from the alleyway she had just passed. Now there were a couple of options that came to Zoey's mind. She could phone the police and tell them of her location and jog back home, knowing she did what was expected of a normal citizen. Or she could go and investigate what the hell was happening in that dark ass alleyway without any mind to her own safety like a dumb broad from a horror movie. And then there was a third option of acting as if she didn't hear a damn thing and going about her business as usual.
"Please! Help me!!!" A woman's voice cried out from the alleyway.
Zoey's innate ability to be nosey at any opportunity forced her eyes into seeing the state of the woman. She was attempting to crawl out of the back of the alleyway. Her face and upper body were covered in blood, and the look of desperation in her eyes really hit Zoey hard. Their eyes met, and Zoey's insides squirmed. It was stupid. It was very stupid. But Zoey couldn't just act like she didn't see this and walk away. The guilt would follow her forever.
"Mind your own business..." A voice that sent chills through her body warned her.
From the alleyway, Zoey could see a face that was anything but human. A wicked long nose that could pierce through flesh, long claws that dug into the back of the woman, and an obviously sick twisted joy from causing pain and fear. It was a daemon. Just out in the middle of the day!
Normally a person's reaction to seeing something as freaky as this would be to scream and run away to preserve their own life. However, Zoey has just recently crossed the line of normality ever since dealing with her first daemon. Once she saw that it wasn't some rapist, murderer, or gangster doing something terrible to someone. It was like a blazing fire lit up within her body. Goosebumps rose along the sides of her arms.
'Status Box! Skills! Experience! Combo practice! Stat boosts!' These thoughts flowed through her brain like a siren.
Zoey opened up her bag and wrapped her hands as fast as possible before slipping on her demon-hunting gloves. The ones that the demon cursed the other day. After slipping on the gloves, Zoey dashed into the alleyway with a mad look in her eyes and a crazed smile. With an absolute lack of care for her health or safety, Zoey struck the demon's face with a running straight, knocking him off the woman and sending him a surprising distance backward. In her excited state, she didn't even process the look of bewilderment on the demon's face.
Zoey threw her fists out with accurate and deadly speed all around the punching bag. She circled it while weaving in and out with her upper body. Continuously throwing her fists out while moving. If this was a person, they'd be unable to do anything but try and block this fast and disorienting assault or get worked by it. Zoey considered calling this move, Ring Around The Rosies, but the only way she could pull this off was if she was fighting against someone much weaker than her that couldn't react to it. It was just a fun little move she thought of.
"Whoever the hell that is, I'm loving the sound of those punches. Which one of you little bastards is trying to make me smile in the afternoon?" Coach Scott asked, coming out from the back.
He looked in Zoey's direction, and she could swear she saw a tear in his eye after noticing it was her. She couldn't find out if it really was a tear or if her eyes were playing tricks on her because immediately after, he turned away and yelled at everyone to get to work. Zoey still couldn't understand Coach Scott's weird ass attitude toward her. Did he like her? Hate her? Didn't care whatsoever? The man was as fickle as a girl, and she was a girl!
"I think it's about time. I will teach you how to counter." Zack suddenly said.
"Really?!" A wide innocent smile painted Zoey's face.
"Oh, geez. I didn't realize how excited you were about this... You have been ready for it. I was just delaying it because I thought you were happy where you were now."
"I want to learn everything," Zoey told him seriously.
"Alright then. Let's get in the ring so I can teach you how to counter then." Zack smiled.
They both put on the standard safety equipment before heading into the ring, headgear, and mouthguards. Zoey was reasonably excited to learn this, as counters were one of the things she was banned from practicing when she was still somewhat new to this. She's still new but not as new.
"I'm going to start off teaching you the riskiest but most effective type of counterpunching."
"Alright."
"It basically boils down to this, when the person you're fighting goes, you go. So, when I throw a jab, I want you to strike me where it will hurt the most. Alright?" Zack had two punch mitts on. Zoey nodded, watching his upper body.
He threw out a slow jab that even a first-timer could catch. Zoey did as she was asked and punched out with a similar speed toward his mitt.
"Good. Just like that. Now we're going to go a bit faster."
They circled around each other as they practiced. If, at first, it looked like an adult teaching a child how to do something, now it looked as if two competent fighters were going at it with everything they had. Zack understood when to stop and when to keep going. Seeing that she understood this part, it was time for them to stop.
"That's enough. Let's go on to the next part now."
The rest of the day was spent learning about counters in its entirety. Zack himself didn't really utilize counters all that much, but when you're a professional boxer, you need to learn everything you can. Even if you don't use it yourself, you don't know who you'll be placed against in a match. He even asked Coach Scott for a few tips on counters that easily gave her the Counter skill for her Status Box. Zoey was pretty sure Zack thought she was a monster when she could correctly perform a counter at the end of their training session.
"Jesus fucking Christ... I have been watching them the whole damn day, and I wouldn't have been able to pick up counterpunching that easily."
"Yeah, Zoey's a freak, ain't she? Can you imagine if she was a boy? The Coach would be sending us up there to spar with her every second. Just to get beat the fuck up like some clowns."
"Don't tell anyone this, but I don't think I could beat girl Zoey even if I tried my hardest."
"You're not the only one feeling that way. Haven't you seen some of the newer guys working hard as hell lately? I heard it was because the coach has been on their ass, comparing them with Zoey."
"He does like to do that when she isn't here. You know, I think Zoey might be better than Ben..."
"Ah, yeah, he's a fucking little prick, ain't he?"
"I didn't just mean his personality..."
"Oi, oi, oi. You aren't saying what I think you're saying, are you?"
"I might just be... You know?"
"Come on, dude. Zoey is great, and all but Ben is a real monster in the ring. The kid doesn't even try, and he still demolishes any opponent he faces. Zoey doesn't seem like she has what it takes to really match up."
"Have any of us even seen what Zoey is capable of? You know she's the reason why those new guys a while back dropped, right?"
"No. My mom was sick in the hospital. I had to take care of my gramps that week."
"Coach Scott decided to put her up against the new guys. You know what he said when he brought it up?" A grin popped up on his face.
"No, what he say?"
"If you can't even beat a girl, what the hell are you doing here? And they did not take losing to her well."
"Did she fucking beat their asses or something? What happened?"
"No. She just toyed with them. It was like seeing a professional go against a complete beginner. But she didn't toy with them like Ben would. That cocky smirk on his face while he's fighting you. Him constantly talking and not punching you when he has the chance. Just a complete game for him. Zoey was nothing like that. She acted like she didn't want to break the poor guys and just went so soft on them. Like she was their teacher or something! Teaching em how to box!"
"Wait, so she was all gentle and nice in their spar?"
"Yeah, like a total fucking girl! Haha! I was laughing my ass off seeing the dudes up there. If I ever had to face Zoey, I'd be glad if she treated me like I was a total pussy!"
Zoey could hear everything Steven and Tony were saying... She tried not focusing on it while learning how to counter, but she couldn't help but be a bit nosey. It was in her nature to be aware of her surroundings and hear everything she could like a fucking weirdo. And the only reason she treated those guys so gently was that if she went all out, they'd definitely leave! Who would've thought trying to spare a guy his feelings would backfire?! Now Coach Scott never lets her spar with any of the guys anymore. Their delicate pride wouldn't be able to handle it no matter how soft or hard she goes. If she didn't have people like Miles or demons, she'd definitely go crazy just practicing all the fucking time.
"See ya later, Zoey!" Zack waved.
"Bye, Zoey!" The other guys called out.
"Bye guys." She responded back.
Zoey started jogging her way home. When she first started, she had her mom pick her up from the gym. That changed ever since her first run into the city. Now she's been running everywhere she went to increase her body stat. Her mental stat is as slow as ever, but there was some good news! After killing that demon, this was what her Status Box looks like now!
[Status]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 1.4]
[Mental: 0.8]
[Magic: 0.1]
[Skills: 7]
[Skills]
[Punching Lv10]
[Footwork Lv7]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv5]
[Parry Lv6]
[Focus Lv2]
[Counter Lv1]
[Name: Zoey]
[Sex: Female]
[Body: 1.4]
[Mental: 0.8]
[Magic: 0.1]
[Skills: 7]
[Skills]
[Punching Lv10]
[Footwork Lv7]
[Slipping Lv6]
[Blocking Lv5]
[Parry Lv6]
[Focus Lv2]
[Counter Lv1]
Yep! There was a .1 after her magic stat! Zoey guessed it got there because of the demon! She didn't feel any different or felt like she could perform magical spells but seeing that it wasn't a flat 0 anymore was enough to make her happy. Maybe if she beat a couple more demons, her magic stat would rise even higher. Then would she be able to sense or create her own magic once it is high enough?
Zoey wasn't one of those nerds that dreamed of casting fireballs down from the sky on her foes or flooding waves of enemies with water magic. If it was before she got the Status box and started getting into boxing, then maybe she would be more open to the idea of becoming a generic magician class usually seen in an RPG. But now, once she gets her hands on some magic. She's using it to boost her boxing skills to the next level! Fire fists, stone fists, lightning fists, ice fists, the possibilities are endless!
Zoey's moderate-paced jog slowed down to a crawl as a bloodcurdling screech rang out from the alleyway she had just passed. Now there were a couple of options that came to Zoey's mind. She could phone the police and tell them of her location and jog back home, knowing she did what was expected of a normal citizen. Or she could go and investigate what the hell was happening in that dark ass alleyway without any mind to her own safety like a dumb broad from a horror movie. And then there was a third option of acting as if she didn't hear a damn thing and going about her business as usual.
"Please! Help me!!!" A woman's voice cried out from the alleyway.
Zoey's innate ability to be nosey at any opportunity forced her eyes into seeing the state of the woman. She was attempting to crawl out of the back of the alleyway. Her face and upper body were covered in blood, and the look of desperation in her eyes really hit Zoey hard. Their eyes met, and Zoey's insides squirmed. It was stupid. It was very stupid. But Zoey couldn't just act like she didn't see this and walk away. The guilt would follow her forever.
"Mind your own business..." A voice that sent chills through her body warned her.
From the alleyway, Zoey could see a face that was anything but human. A wicked long nose that could pierce through flesh, long claws that dug into the back of the woman, and an obviously sick twisted joy from causing pain and fear. It was a daemon. Just out in the middle of the day!
Normally a person's reaction to seeing something as freaky as this would be to scream and run away to preserve their own life. However, Zoey has just recently crossed the line of normality ever since dealing with her first daemon. Once she saw that it wasn't some rapist, murderer, or gangster doing something terrible to someone. It was like a blazing fire lit up within her body. Goosebumps rose along the sides of her arms.
'Status Box! Skills! Experience! Combo practice! Stat boosts!' These thoughts flowed through her brain like a siren.
Zoey opened up her bag and wrapped her hands as fast as possible before slipping on her demon-hunting gloves. The ones that the demon cursed the other day. After slipping on the gloves, Zoey dashed into the alleyway with a mad look in her eyes and a crazed smile. With an absolute lack of care for her health or safety, Zoey struck the demon's face with a running straight, knocking him off the woman and sending him a surprising distance backward. In her excited state, she didn't even process the look of bewilderment on the demon's face.