Chapter 43: Finding Out More About Their Friend.

"Why didn't you let me ask Zoey what she was busy with?" Alexander questioned.

  They were waiting on Zoey inside the student council room. Lindsay pulled out her phone and put on a video playlist saved onto it. The playlist was called Zoey Winter's Legendary Debut! She did not make the playlist but only found it titled this way. Apparently, the creator of the playlist called herself the biggest Zoey Winter's fan in the comments of each video.

"What is this...?" Alexander's eyes widened as he watched the videos along with Lindsay.

"My answer to your question." The two of them silently watched all of Zoey's fights since her debut fight all the way to her latest fight.

  An undefeated bojutsu user, a ripped sumo wrestler, a cautious karate practitioner, an aggressive grappler, and a feisty kickboxer. The only one who came close to victory was the grappler but even then, he still couldn't pull out the win against her. Maybe if he was a bit faster in securing his hold around her neck or maybe if he had better control over the hold, he could've got her. But regardless, all of those strong fighters couldn't stand against Zoey.

  Lindsay only found this information about Zoey by chance. She was researching fighting styles that either she or Alexander could possibly learn to complement their current strength. After clicking on a video about the strongest martial arts, she saw a boxing recommendation in the video suggestions. That reminded her of their close friend that used boxing as a fighting style and through clicking on a rabbit hole of boxing videos, she somehow found out about Zoey's existence in the fighting community.

"At 5 today, Zoey is going to fight in a 12-man tournament bracket throughout the next few weeks. Today, Monday of next week, and Monday after that, and the Monday after that before she's done if she makes it to the finale." Lindsay explained.

"If she was busy with this, why did she agree to come to our AMYM? (Annual Meeting of Young Magjistars) She could've just said she was busy and couldn't come." Alexander didn't understand.

"What if she wanted to participate in the tournament and the meeting?" Lindsay's eyes gave off a small glint.

"What do you mean?" Why would she want to do that?

  Wasn't participating in one fighting tournament stressful enough? Alexander was doing everything to prepare his mind, body, and soul for this upcoming AMYM. It would be his chance to show all of his peers and those from the magjistar community everything's he's learned and experienced so far after becoming a trainee. He planned to shock the pants off of everyone at the meeting and hopefully impress the judges and veteran magjistars.

  If he had to participate in another tournament while prepping himself for that too, he didn't know how he would split his time preparing for both at all. Plus, with a tournament like Zoey's, she had to study and prepare countermeasures for her opponents while with the AMYM, he didn't have the opportunity to do that. All he could go off of was the memories he had of their techniques at school for the magjistars at his school and rumors from magjistars from their rival school. But none of that was concrete or useful enough to help him prepare beforehand.

"Zoey likes fighting." Lindsay gave it to him in the simplest manner she could.

"Zoey likes fighting..." Several memories started to flash by inside his head.

"Zoey likes fighting!" Alexander shouted.

"That's right. If there is an opportunity to fight, Zoey wants to be a part of it." Lindsay nodded.

"But doesn't she..." Alexander's words were caught in his throat.

  Daemons, experienced martial artists, magjistars, men, women, Zoey didn't care who or what she had to fight. All she wanted was to fight, and fight, and fight some more. Lindsay couldn't be happier to see that Alexander finally understood a core part of Zoey's being. But how he would use this information was not something she could predict.

"She would be upset if we didn't let her participate in the AMYM." Alexander came to a realization. That was why she didn't tell them about her being in the Youth Fighting Tournament League.

"Or something like that." Lindsay agreed.

"Should we tell her we know about her fighting career?" Alexander suddenly asked.

"She'll tell us when she's ready." Lindsay shook her head. Zoey had her own reasons to why she didn't tell them. It wasn't their place to intrude if she didn't want to share it with them. After all, it was only a coincidence that Lindsay found out about this information regarding Zoey.

"I guess we'll just give her some basic magji knowledge before letting her leave." Alexander shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't have to worry about that. I've already readied something for her." Lindsay took out a small notebook from her bookbag.

  She placed it on the large desk in front of Alexander. It was titled Math Tips and Tricks. Alexander was confused why she placed this in front of him. While he knew Zoey struggled in math, how was this going to help her learn about magji? It wasn't until Lindsay opened the notebook up that Alexander understood.

  Inside the book were all of Lindsay's copied notes while they were at Magjistar Tech learning about the responsibilities of magjistars, basics of mahna, history of mahna, magji, magjistars, daemons, and mortals, and more. The entire notebook was filled to the brim with knowledge that Lindsay has heard, saw, or experienced in school and extra during her time as a trainee magjistar. It was so filled with knowledge that Lindsay pulled out three extra notebooks as a complete four-set book.

"How long do you think it'll take her to learn all this exactly...?" Alexander knew how strong Zoey was when it came to studies.

  He was sure Lindsay knew as well but with her giving all these notes to Zoey, his belief was challenged. Both of them frequently helped Zoey with her homework whenever she had trouble because of the deal they made with her for becoming their Bringer. They knew that she was barely a C-student. Unintentionally, they realized one of the weaknesses of Zoey that she couldn't cover up with her inhuman fighting prowess. She didn't have a monster-like brain, only a monster-like body. It was rather fair in their opinion. If she was both unstoppable physically and mentally, how would other people stand a chance against her? By then even the Balance of the World would have to step in at that point.

"If she's dedicated to learning, a couple of years." Lindsay answered.

"How is she going to prepare for the AMYM if it takes years to learn for her!?"

"There's no need to panic. I've accounted for this as well. I've highlighted the most important points that Zoey needed to know about magjistars and magji before the meeting next Monday. The only thing we can do is hope she retains enough knowledge by the time of the meeting." Lindsay answered.

"Oh." Alexander was surprised. "How'd you prepare all this so quickly?" He was amazed.

"I've started preparing ever since I found out about Zoey's fighting career." She felt some pride in Alexander's astonishment.

"That's amazing! So, instead of teaching Zoey, we can just focus on our own training and if she ever has any questions about the notebooks, she can just call us and ask!"

"That's correct. We also won't be getting in the way of Zoey's tournament by taking up her time directly."

"Lindsay, have I ever told you how amazing you are?" Alexander doubted he could've done anything like this.

"..." A faint red blush appeared on Lindsay's face as she simply adjusted her glasses and said thanks.

  Eventually, Zoey showed up to the student council room with a calm look on her face. It didn't look like she was going to have a big fight today at all with how emotionless she looked. Alexander couldn't keep himself from smiling though. He knew a secret about Zoey that she didn't know that they knew. Lindsay did most of the talking for them as she gave her the notebooks and explained their purpose.

  A brief crack in Zoey's calm façade was broken as she was handed the books and allowed to leave. She gave a relieved smile as she was about to hurry out of the student council room.

"Good luck Zoey. Free feel to call us if you have any questions in the notebooks!" Alexander said as she was leaving.

'Good luck?' Zoey was confused. "Okay, thanks!" She hurried out of the room and almost couldn't stop herself from running in the halls even though it might get her in trouble.

  Zoey left school and saw that her dad was waiting outside in his car. She hopped in and he drove her towards the gym. He couldn't help but laugh as he saw his stepdaughter fidgeting in the passenger seat in excitement. Maybe he did make the right decision in signing her up for boxing. It was probably the first time he's ever seen her this excited before.

"Looks like someone's ready for the big fight." He chuckled.

"What?" Zoey wasn't expecting her dad to notice how excited she was.

"Haha, you can barely sit still. If I knew boxing made you this happy, I would've signed you up years ago." Bruce smiled.

"I probably wouldn't have liked it back then..." Zoey was embarrassed that her dad saw through her for once. Usually, it was her mother despite their contrasting personalities. She observed her like a hawk since she was a baby and picked up on all the little habits she had growing up. Now that her dad was finding them too, it made Zoey feel like she couldn't hide anything at all! Could it be that she was the type of person who revealed everything through her expressions? There's no way.