“Thank you! Thank you so much!” The woman’s words fell on deaf ears as she limped her way out of the alleyway.

Neither Zoey nor the daemon paid much attention to the woman. They both sized each other up in the shadowy alleyway. The sun’s rays didn’t reach anywhere back in this alley but the human and magical creature had no problem seeing the other. Zoey lightened up her feet and smashed her boxing gloves together. The daemon raked his claws together with a small show of sparks.

“Who are you?” It asked.

The demon flicked its super long tongue at her and she rolled her eyes. It was freaky and gross but that wasn’t enough to scare her. Now if it had some genitals while looking like that then Zoey would be afraid. This demon had like a ken doll body. Perfectly tone and cut body but completely blank down there. Its face was a lot longer than a normal person’s face was, kind of droopy like it was melting but at the same time not.

“I’m a Bringer.” Zoey answered.

“A lowly Bringer dares to try and fight against a daemon?” It laughed.

“Please stop talking. I’m not good at witty quips and comebacks even though I'm black. I can’t think of decent insults and replies off the top of my head.” Zoey told him.

Back when she was little in school, she noticed how all the other girls would be able to respond to any mean thing said to them. The boys could come up with anything and they’d be able to flip it just like that and go toe to toe with the boys in a battle of childish insults and wit. Zoey never understood how it could come to them so naturally like that. It never worked that way for her! She’d definitely stutter and trip over her own words before something came out. And if you stuttered while trying to say something back to someone who dissed you, you already lost. So, Zoey never said anything to anyone, that way she wouldn’t be made fun of and nobody would notice how horrible she was at insulting people.

“Where are the Magjistars with you? I don’t sense any nearby. What trick are you trying to pull human?” It constantly asked questions after questions.

Zoey tiredly rolled her eyes and just dashed towards the demon without further comment. Her eyes focused directly on Long Face and he stopped her with just a slash of his claw. She stopped before his large hand could cleave her into pieces and then leaped back into his space. He rose his other hand to swipe down at her. Zoey grinned and showed off all of her pearly whites as she slipped past the claw and grabbed the demon’s arm with her boxing glove.

With a strong tug, the demon was forced off-balance from her 1.4 body stat. Zoey’s free arm was already in motion to drill itself into the demon’s face. The laws of motion could not be defied at this moment, the creature of magic and evil had no choice but to obey it. Zoey’s fist crushed the demon’s head into the pavement. Blood shot out from its mouth and face onto Zoey.

The up-and-coming boxing enthusiast didn't believe a demon would fall so easily to a fragile girl like herself. She forced her knees onto its wrists, preventing it from clawing at her while she sat on top of it. Realizing that its options to fight back were limited, it started bucking its hips in hopes of knocking her off of him. Zoey decked him in the face once but doing this only made him move his hips even wilder. So, she hit him again and again and again. Then suddenly its tongue shot out and wrapped around her neck, tightening around her throat.

The wet slimy warm meat rope attempting to crush her throat spooked her so badly, she rose off of the demon’s body. Zoey grabbed at her throat and frantically pulled but her strength wasn’t enough. Her mind was starting to go blank from a lack of oxygen, everything was turning blurry. The Focus skill activated and Zoey realized that she didn’t have much time left. She needed to do something and do it now or else...

The fear and panic of death slowly started to seep into her brain. Panic filled her body with adrenaline as she closed in close to the daemon wildly grinning at her with its eyes. Zoey slugged the demon across the face, knocking his head to the left. Her other boxing glove caught it before it could go too far to the left and struck it straight back to where it came from. At this point, Zoey could barely even see the figure of the demon anymore, but her fists knew where to go. She practiced her boxing combinations every single day. By now, it was muscle memory for her.

Zoey uppercutted the demon’s chin with the last of her strength. Its sharp teeth separated its tongue from its mouth and Zoey could feel the pressure on her neck lessen. Now that she could breathe again, Zoey did it with fucking gusto! She sucked up the air like pufferfish and didn’t exhale until she knew she brought all that air into her fucking lungs. The daemon was the last thing on her mind until she could breathe again.

Zoey unwrapped the tongue from around her neck and tossed it on the ground.

“You’re fucking dead you piece of shit! You almost fucking killed me!” Pure rage took hold of her mind. She no longer held back her true thoughts and feelings.

Zoey's fist swung with terrifying anger into the daemon’s gut. It was as if an explosion took place inside its stomach. But the teenaged high schooler wasn’t done just yet, her other fist slammed into its gut as well. Cannon ball-like blows repeatedly shot straight into the daemon’s abdomen. The blood spurting out from its mouth onto her hair, clothes, and body didn’t phase her in the slightest. Nothing but paying back the asshole that nearly killed her lingered in her thoughts.

The pavement, walls, dumpster bags, dumpster, all turned purple from the daemon’s blood. If a person were the pass by this alleyway all they would hear was the sound of a person’s groaning and a weird thumping noise that came in rhythm with the moans. It would make some blush and a few speed past the alleyway in disbelief and shock. Only the two people in the dark alleyway would know what was truly taking place inside.

Zoey stood over the barely living demon and pulled out her phone after taking off one of her boxing gloves. Only to curse under her breath after realizing she didn’t have Alexander’s or Lindsay’s phone numbers. She definitely should’ve asked after becoming their Bringer. Now what the hell was she supposed to do with this demon? There wasn’t some convenient daemon disposal chute anywhere nearby.

‘Or was there?’ Zoey suddenly saw something that could help her current problem.

Zoey was about to lift the demon’s body up but noticed that her gloves were moving on their own. This scared her until she saw a familiar gem rising outside of the demon’s mouth.

“Another magji shard?” Zoey muttered.

Her gloves were all too happy to grasp the gem without her input and crush it into pieces, devouring the fragments whole. A strange feeling welled up inside her boxing gloves but she didn’t have time to investigate it. She tossed the demon’s body into the dumpster and closed the lids before jogging her way home as fast as possible to clean this purple blood off of herself. She met her mom on her way inside who had nothing but questions but she forced herself past her and made it inside her bedroom.

“Zoey Winters! If you do not bring your purple little ass downstairs right now you are not leaving this house until you are 18 years old!” Her mother yelled.

Zoey’s soul shivered when her mom used that tone of voice. That voice meant she did exactly what she said or there was an ass whooping in the very near future. She might have threatened her by saying she wouldn’t leave the house until she was 18 but the beating on her ass was something already included, no discussion. Zoey wanted to scream out her lungs because of how nosey and annoying her mom was but knew that wouldn’t help her if she somehow heard.

Zoey calmly made her way back downstairs without any show of attitude on her face or in her actions. She refused to give her mother any excuse to say anything more to her. In the past when Zoey stomped, screamed, or talked back to her mother when she was like this, it never ended well for her. So, she learned and adapted. Shutting her mouth and just saying whatever her mother wanted to hear until she was free to leave. Like a good little slave would.

“What is going on with you, Zoey?” Her mother had her hands on her hips staring straight into her eyes.

Zoey didn’t do well with eye contact because of this. Her mother loved staring people directly in the eye, Zoey hated eye contact. When talking to people she focused on other parts of their face, specifically avoiding the eyes. And since she’s done this for so long, it has become second nature to not look people in the eyes for her. She doesn’t even realize it for the most part because the general outline of the face is good enough for her.

“I jog now.” Zoey answered, trying her hardest to not show the irritation on her face.

“Jogging huh? And tell me how jogging has my baby coming home covered in purple whatever this shit is with a mark all the way around her neck!?” She yelled.

Zoey also didn’t like yelling or being loud except on special occasions. Some jokes can’t be said softly and require a certain volume to really achieve peak comedy. But back to her mother who couldn’t keep her voice down for anything. She was one of those people that loved the sound of her own voice and couldn’t bear to keep it lower than 70 decibels. Proud of the fact too. And if you didn’t know, 60 decibels was the normal volume for conversation.

‘Telling her the truth is only going to make her mad but whatever. My brain is too small to think of a convincing excuse to explain the purple blood and tongue hickey.’

“Uh... I...” Zoey couldn’t even be honest.

Telling her mom that she just got done fighting a demon in a life-or-death battle with just the boxing lessons she learned at the gym would make her think she was crazy or lying. Both options wouldn’t have pleasant endings. She had no idea how to explain the Status Box or the fact that magic was real. Zoey saw no way of getting out of this without being punished or being looked at as insane and needing to have her brain checked at the hospital.

“I’m waiting Zoey.” Her foot angrily tapped against the kitchen’s wooden floor.

“Just ground me, whoop me, I don’t care!” Zoey gave up. It was getting harder for Zoey to think of reasons to like her mother.

Her mother didn’t like this answer. She frowned

“Why can’t you just talk to me?” She asked tiredly.

‘Because it's hard to talk to you!’ Zoey wanted to scream.

“You know I love you, right? You don’t know how much it hurts me seeing my own daughter close me out of her life. I worry and worry but you never tell me anything.” Tears pooled around her eyes.

‘Maybe you should’ve thought about that before deciding that I needed to be raised with whoopings, forced showings of respect and manners, and interrogations about every aspect of my life.’ It hurt her to see that she was making her mother cry but what else could she do?

Tell the truth and then not be believed. It wasn’t like she had any proof to back up her claims. And she 100% doubted her mother would believe her words. Black people don’t fuck with supernatural shit like this. They stay far away from it and chalk it all up to nonsense and make-believe. Zoey knew that her mother would schedule an appointment with the hospital if she tried to earnestly tell her everything. Tell her about the Status Box, what it could do for her, about Magjistars and magji, about daemons, everything. She knew her so well that there was little doubt in her heart that she could never truly connect with her. As mother and daughter, as women, as people. The only resemblance between the two was their chocolate-brown skin, hair, and similar faces. They had little to no interests and hobbies that intersected, Zoey understood her mother’s personality and knew it was nothing similar to hers, and lastly, for a large majority of her childhood, Zoey hated her mother. She hated her.

There were times when she went to sleep just repeating how much she hated her mother. How badly she wished she had a different mom. A mom that didn’t give her whoopings because her mouth was smart. A mother who could talk, reason, and communicate with her daughter at a calm volume without yelling at her and giving her orders.

“Just anything? Anything at all?” Her mother was tired at this point but Zoey didn’t care. Thinking back on the past kind of upset her.

“Go to your room. No gym. No jogging. No phone. And no computer.” She sighed before stomping off into the living room. Tears clearly stained on her face by now.

‘If I started stomping, I bet you would have something to say...’ Zoey thought to herself as she softly and quietly walked upstairs into her room.

It looks like her plans for the next few weeks are canceled.

‘How fucking annoying...’ Zoey grabbed some clothes to change into before heading into the shower.