Chapter 16: A Strange Encounter At The Library.

"I don't know much about fighting tournaments as my focus has been on only boxing but Coach believes I should be able to think of something for you. He told me the types of fighting styles, you'll probably encounter in the tournament and I can help you with some of them." Zack scratched his head. Somewhat sorry he couldn't be of more help.

"Is it like MMA? Where a bunch of people with different fighting styles fight in one ring?"

"Kind of but even more exaggerated than that. I heard there's a girl that will be allowed to use kenjutsu. There's a wrestler, a street fighter, a taekwondo user, and more. This tournament is actually a little bit crazy in my opinion." Zack shared, unaware of how excited Zoey was getting.

"Alright. I'm ready to learn what I need to." Zoey responded.

"The only thing I can teach you is how to avoid getting grabbed and hit. I have no knowledge of ground fighting. I don't know how to fight opponents with weapons. And I don't know how to handle grapplers. I'm sorry I can't help you any more than this." Zack honestly told her.

"Looks like I got my work cut out for me, huh?" She softly chuckled.

"Alright. Let's get to work on your defense." He placed on his gloves.

"I'm ready." She got in her boxing stance.

  Zack was right about them doing nothing but working on her defense. She got some much needed exp for her defensive skills but nothing drastic because of how inexperienced of a teacher Zack was. After training with Zack, she stayed a little bit after with Steve and Tony to coach one of the newbies that recently just joined. Alexander and Lindsay texted her earlier about catching a demon with them at the library. Zoey said she'll meet up with them around 5 or 6. She had something she wanted to prove to Steve and Tony. Those assholes thought her offer from before was something to laugh at when she offered to teach them some things.

"Hey. You're new here, right?" Zoey walked over to him.

  He was a frail skinny boy who wore glasses. Neat black hair, all skin and bones on his body, and no signs of confidence anywhere. But this was just Zoey's first impression of him. She could be wrong and he could be a gushing geyser of confidence. The wannabe boxer stopped his practice and turned around to face her.

"Keep on with your conditioning, you don't have to stop for me." She told him.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"Zoey. I'm almost a regular at this gym. If you need any help or advice, feel free to ask me. I'm open to help anybody out if they need it." She kindly smiled, acting completely unlike her usual self.

"Can you tell me what I'm supposed to be doing?" He whispered.

  Zoey was immediately confused. "What do you mean?" She tilted her head while asking.

He stopped punching the punching bag and looked at her with some embarrassment, "I paid to come to this gym and learn boxing but no one has told me to do anything. Should I talk to someone or am I supposed to learn as I go?" He explained.

This made Zoey have to scratch her head at this one, her step-dad didn't skimp out when he paid for her membership. Maybe her membership was deluxe or something and that was why she got a personal mentor.

"I'll teach you." Zoey was more than happy to raise her teaching skill with this complete newbie.

"You?" He asked shocked and almost in an offensive manner. Like she couldn't teach him because she was a girl or something. The little fucking sexist prick.

"Yeah, me. Unless you have anyone else in mind." She wanted to roll her eyes.

"Please teach me how to box." He bowed his head.

"I'll take care of you when I can. I have a match coming up on Monday so, I have a lot of training to do in preparation for it but don't feel scared to ask me for anything. For now, I have to see what you can handle. I have a few hours before I have to meet up with some friends so, I'll be here with you until then."

  Zoey then spent the next few hours teaching the guy and learning how out-of-shape he was. She actually believed he was even worse than her when she started. But she had the Box so, maybe that wasn't a fair comparison. Over the course of their time together, Zoey learned that his name was Dylan. Her teaching for him was the exact same as it was for her brother. Which was also the exact same way she was taught by Zack and Coach. By the end of their lesson, Zoey gained an extra level for her teaching skill.

[Status]

[Name: Zoey]

[Sex: Female]

[Body: 1.5]

[Mental: 0.8]

[Magic: 0.2]

[Skills: 8]

[Skills]

[Punching Lv15]

[Footwork Lv10]

[Slipping Lv6]

[Blocking Lv5]

[Parry Lv6]

[Focus Lv3]

[Counter Lv5]

[Teaching Lv5]

"Bye Dylan."

"Bye Zoey. Thanks for everything. I mean it." A grateful cute little smile was on his nerdy face.

  She left the gym and made her way to the library with her new phone. Zoey finally took the time to use the money she got from being the Bringer for Alexander and Lindsay. It was the most expensive and highly rated phone out right now, costing over a thousand bucks with a $100+ monthly payment for the phone bill. So, maybe it wasn't a great choice considering how often she gets to hunt down daemons but how could she pass up the chance to get the best phone on the market? It was downright amazing how perfect this phone was.

  Facial ID protection, absolutely perfect sound quality, flawless camera with tons of different filters, a battery that doesn't suck and won't die in 20 minutes of constant use, super-fast speeds, a great size that fits in her hand without feeling too big or too small, and enough storage to store thousands of pictures and songs.

  After getting this phone, Zoey has done nothing else but use it during her free time. Watching videos online, social media, video games, movies, cartoons, anime, there was basically nothing she couldn't do with her phone! It ate up all of her time and besides her daily morning practice, she rarely did anything else. So, even with the hefty purchase of spending most of her cash from the demon case, she didn't regret it in the slightest!

'I wonder what kind of demon hides out at a library. Is it a demon that wants to suck knowledge out of people's brains or something? It'd probably be faster than reading all the books I guess.' Zoey shrugged.

  Zoey texted Alexander that she was here and, in a couple of seconds, he called her.

"Where are you?" She asked.

"Zoey! Come to the back! We need your help!" Zoey could hear several sounds coming from the background.

"Ice Volume I: Explosion of Ice!" She heard Lindsay yell.

  Zoey quickly put on her cursed boxing gloves and rushed to the back. When she made it back there, she saw some hooded guy kicking Alexander across the face and Lindsay trying to freeze some chick with a wooden sword. Behind them was a green-haired glasses-wearing demon lady trying to escape out the back window. Forcing her to make a choice on whether she should save the two or chase after the heavily injured demon to finish off and trust that these two could handle themselves. But it wasn't that hard to decide.

'What the fuck is even going on?!' Zoey didn't know people hunted magicians just like they hunted daemons.

  Seeing that Alexander was getting the ass kicked out of him, she decided to go help him first. Zoey dashed in at a low angle as Alexander was sent flying past her. Hoodie arrogantly smirked at her with his leg raised high. She clapped her boxing gloves together as her fist was sent soaring towards his face. His leg was surprisingly strong as it managed to hold up against the might of her fist. They were about equal in strength from what Zoey could tell from that first clash. This shocked her greatly. It was stunning to know that someone around her age could keep up with her physically.

  Maybe that 1.5 body stat didn't mean 1.5x stronger than the normal human and something else. Or this guy really was 1.5 times stronger than the average person. Zoey couldn't tell but considering that they were fighting magicians, maybe it was magic making their bodies stronger. She didn't know anything.

"And who are you supposed to be?" He questioned, their clash had yet to break.

"Fight. No talk." She responded like a retard. Zoey wasn't good at talking and fighting at the same time. If she slipped up and said something stupid or lame, she'd feel like dying of embarrassment. Just like she just did now. Boy was she glad that it was hard to notice when black people blush.

  Zoey unclutched her fist and grabbed the hoodie dude's leg as she brought her other fist back to strike him directly in the face. Hoodie was forced to block with his arm and felt the horrible power that was one of Zoey's punches. Realizing that taking another one of those would nearly disable his arm for the rest of the fight, he brought his other leg up to kick her across the face. Zoey raised her glove to take the blow for her and a loud impact sounded out as his foot made contact with her gloves. His kick sent her slightly sliding to the right. She lost her grip on his leg, allowing him to get free and gain some distance from her.

  He prepared for her to come at him but instead, she ran towards the sword user.

"Connie! Behind you!" Hoodie shouted just in time as Zoey tried to strike the sword girl in the back of her head.

  She quickly turned to face Zoey and brought her wooden blade down towards her head. Zoey focused her attention entirely on the sword and was promptly punished for it with a kick to the nose.

"Ah, shit... Can't just focus on the weapon because I'm scared. I have to focus on the attacker and the weapon." She muttered as she wiped the blood from her nose.

"Ice Volume!" Lindsay's voice cried out and the swordswoman instantly responded by running away.

  It looks like Lindsay had trouble hitting moving targets with her ice magic. She was fast but not too fast for Zoey. Zoey chased after the girl again and didn't repeat the mistakes she made last time. Knowing that she had to get up close and personal, Zoey avoided and blocked any slashes that came her way while getting closer and closer to the girl.

  Connie struck with all her might and speed to deal with the persistent boxer chick coming after her. She didn't know who the hell this was or why she was interrupting her fight but she wouldn't go easy on her. Especially if she was associated with these two. But for some reason, she couldn't land a good hit on her after she kicked her. The Boxer blocked with her gloves, avoided her slashes, or deflected them by hitting the side of her sword. It was almost as if she was learning as their fight went on and understanding how to fight her!

"You're not the only one who can learn in battle!" Connie switched to a one-handed sword style and brought her blade down with terrible force.

  Once Zoey swayed her head back, Connie brought her fist back and punched in a similar way to how Zoey threw her punches. Connie saw Zoey's pupils dilated as if it was a cat that was about to pounce on its prey. She instantly understood that throwing that punch was a mistake and knew that whatever was coming was going to hurt badly.

"Cory! Help!" She shouted as Zoey grabbed her wrist before her fist could connect with her face.

  Zoey's other fist was already primed and ready to fire like a shotgun. Connie's perception of the world was seemingly slowing down as that dangerous weaponry in the form of a boxing glove was coming towards her face in slow motion. It seemed that her fate was all but determined when she fell into the pace of the Boxer. She should've kept to her roots and stayed true to the swordsmanship she was taught since young. This would be a good lesson for her to remember after she wakes up.

"Already on it!" The world began moving at normal speed again for Connie.

  Zoey's punch was stopped by Hoodie's long ass leg that took the brunt of her punch for the Sword Girl. He fiercely bit his lip to stop himself from shouting then grabbed the confused Sword Girl and leaped away with his one good leg. He turned and looked at her with a scary look in his eyes.

"Whoever you are, gully, you will regret butting your nose in where it didn't belong." They took the same exit the demon from earlier took, leaving Zoey alone with the injured Alexander and Lindsay. Zoey made sure to remember his face for calling her a gully. A word she was 99% sure a slur for humans by magicians.

"Do you two need to go to the hospital?" She asked.

"I'll be fine with a few bandages and band-aids but thanks for asking and thank you for helping us out there." Alexander smiled.

"You saved us..." Lindsay muttered.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" Zoey narrowed her eyes at her.

"Sorry. That's not what I meant. I just didn't think you were this powerful..."

"Yeah! For a normal human, you're really strong! I don't understand it at all but dang am I happy that you are! Those two were trainee magjistar just like us but they wanted to steal the daemon we worked hard to fight. If it wasn't for you, they'd probably would've hospitalized us and exterminated the daemon for themselves." Alexander exclaimed.

"And that's fine at the wizard guild or whatever?" Zoey asked.

"Kind of. There's no real proof that they attacked us and if we accuse them of attacking us and trying to steal our target without any evidence, we'll be the ones punished for wasting the higher-ups' time." He explained.

"Okay." Zoey responded. 'Sounds kind of fucking stupid and retarded in my opinion but what do I know about running a secret magical organization?' She shrugged.

"I guess I'll head home then." There wasn't any demon here for her to exterminate anymore.

"See you at school Monday!" Alexander waved goodbye with his bloody nose.

"Thanks again for the help, Zoey." Lindsay said.

"No problem. Wait for me next time." Fighting those two helped her a little bit in preparation for the tournament.