NOVEL NEXT 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 his 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.
[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]
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 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 anymore. Once she got out, she went into her room and laid 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 to just 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 to just 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.