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“AAAAAAND in the red corner we have Hyeong Sungbin, representing one of Korea’s fastest-rising idol groups, CAJEET! Make some noise, Seoul!”
The noise in the room was deafening, a combination of cheers, shouting, and feet stamping rhythmically on the concrete floor. The metallic clang of a bell cut through the chaos, quieting the crowd for an instant before the cheering surged. Two men, shirtless and glistening delicately, circled each other inside a raised cage, fists raised into defensive stances as they eyed each other. A beat passed, then another, before both men surged into action at the same time. One started throwing punches while the other dodged and lashed out with a foot, landing a solid kick into the first man’s defined stomach. The crowd let out a collective ‘ooh’, wincing in solidarity.
Rumi smiled faintly and turned away from the violence in front of her, looking at Mira to her right. The other woman was leaned forward in her seat, dark eyes trained on the fighters like a bird of prey as she watched them go back and forth. Rumi could see the calculations running behind her impassive face, as well as the hint of derision that was only visible to her and one other person on the planet.
Leaning back in her frankly uncomfortable seat, Rumi stretched and let one of her hands fall on Mira’s lower back, slipping under her loose jacket to trace patterns on the small of her back. “You should relax and enjoy the night, babe. These boys aren’t worth your attention.”
Mira snorted, pointedly not relaxing at all. “If it were up to me we wouldn’t be at this clown show at all, but-” She twitched, eyebrows pinching together subtly in a show of what Rumi knew was deep displeasure. “Did you see that? I think that idiot just tried to do a flying spin kick. Who does he think he is, Bruce Lee?”
Glancing back at the cage, Rumi winced. It was quite apparent that the idiot in question was not, in fact, Bruce Lee.
Mira groaned. “Ugh, this is so boooooooring.” She flung herself back in her seat, grumpily wiggling until Rumi shifted from tracing circles to firmly scratching her back. “Why are we even here again? We could be on the couch watching that giant squid documentary Zoey’s been so excited about with a metric fuckton of carbs.” Her lower lip jutted out just a hair. “We fight literal demons every single night, this is like watching babies slap fighting. Stupid babies.”
The crowd oohed again, but Rumi was too entranced by the pout Mira was wearing to look back at the fight. She leaned in closer, casually bringing her other hand to rest on Mira’s thigh. “It’s for charity, baby, you know how much this means to Zoey.” Her voice dropped, low and intimate, just for Mira’s ears. “You know how… grateful she’s going to be for your support, don’t you?”
The other woman was a master at controlling her expression, but Rumi could see the hint of a flush at the tips of her ears.
A man screeched, the crowd roared, a bell rung, but Rumi only had eyes for the woman next to her. She was right, the idiot babies were incredibly boring to watch when she had other entertainment available to her. The hand on Mira’s thigh crept higher, gently curving inward as it went, and Rumi watched with delight as her famously stoic girlfriend shuddered and blushed.
“Rumi we are in the front row-”
The announcer, some first-gen idol who had garnered a frankly concerning level of publicity for the event when he signed on, roared out the only thing that was capable of breaking her current focus: “Next up, folks, please welcome to the cage our third and final exhibition match of the night! In the blue corner, hailing from Busan, we’ve got a legend on the Asian MMA circuit! Iiiiiiit’s Yeong Arin!”
Mira straightened from her slouch abruptly, resuming her bird-of-prey focus as her eyes narrowed in on the woman entering the ring.
The announcer continued. “And in the red corner, all the way from California, USA, we’ve got- Hang on, is this right?” He turned to look at a tournament official standing next to the cage, and Rumi felt a smirk work its way across her face as she leaned forward. There was an awkward pause as the announcer and the official whispered back and forth, before the announcer shrugged and returned to the mic. “Sorry about that, folks. In the red corner, hailing from across the Pacific, we’ve got one of the most acclaimed lyricists South Korea has ever seen and a genuine musical icon! Put your hands together for Choi Zoey from HUNTR/X!”
Rumi surged to her feet and screamed, feeling Mira do the same next to her in an unintentional harmony. The Honmoon rippled like she had struck it, low bass notes humming through her bones as Zoey stepped into the cage.
Their girlfriend was all smiles, waving to the crowd and blowing kisses as she skipped - skipped, Rumi loved her so much - into the cage, completely ignoring the legendary fighter staring at her in what could only be interpreted as abject horror.
Yeong Arin turned to the announcer, throwing a hand out to point at Zoey. “Are you kidding me? I thought this was supposed to be an exhibition, not an execution. I’ll break her in half by accident.”
The announcer shrugged, entirely unsympathetic as he covered the mic with one hand. Rumi focused, hummed a note, and saw a single strand of the Honmoon ripple, carrying the man’s words to her and Mira. “The lineup’s the lineup. Try not to break her face too bad, I guess, apparently her team was super insistent on getting her into an exhibition match and not one of the celeb ones.” He shrugged again and brought the mic back to his face, ignoring Arin’s deep frown. “Who’s ready for the match of the night? Two legends in their own right, ready to duke it out and see who comes out on top!”
The crowd roared. Rumi and Mira roared louder.
Zoey grinned, shedding her pink and purple silk robe to reveal dark blue HUNTR/X-branded shorts and a matching sports bra. Muscles rippled under porcelain skin, the Honmoon keeping them entirely flawless despite the best efforts of countless demons. Rumi exchanged a deeply smug glance with Mira, hearing the shocked murmurs from the crowd.
No one was ready for what was about to happen.
Zoey bounced around, pumping up the crowd and dramatically shadowboxing as she grinned. After a minute she found Rumi and Mira at the front of the crowd and blew them a kiss, winking as they both returned the gesture. Rumi felt Mira grab her arm excitedly and leaned into her, anticipation humming through her bones as the fighters turned to each other and bowed.
“Alright Seoul, we’ve got a treat for you tonight! For this last exhibition we’ll be seeing the best of the best when it comes to mixed martial arts - any and all disciplines are allowed, as long as the unified rules are followed!” The announcer gave a stern look to both Zoey and Arin, before his grin popped back into place. “Fighters!” He paused, drawing out the suspense.
Rumi leaned forward, feeling her smile start to turn savage.
“Fight!”
It was a slaughter. Yeong Arin may have been a champion fighter, but even without the Honmoon’s assistance Zoey had been hunting demons and waking up for rehearsal the next morning for years. With the Honmoon?
Well.
Arin was fast, strong, and incredibly well trained. Her blows were precise, powerful, and aimed precisely to exploit her opponents’ weak points and disable them with minimal fuss. Unlike some other fighters, Arin had cultivated a style with a minimum of flash or flair. It was brutally effective and had left multiple of her past opponents in the hospital.
It was not designed to be used against a supernaturally enhanced idol.
Zoey had always had a style that Rumi described as ‘acrobatic’ and Mira described as ‘a squirrel on cocaine’. Her shin-kal were precision weapons that were best at range, but since demons as a rule would rush too close into melee to use their claws, she had been forced to develop a style that allowed her to dodge and disengage freely.
To Arin’s credit, she did not make the mistake of underestimating Zoey. She opened the fight with a brutal combination of kicks meant to force Zoey back against the cage, any of which could have broken bone if they connected in the wrong place. Zoey wove around them like water and slid forward, twisting around a reflexive palm strike to pop up inside Arin’s guard. Rumi saw her twitch forward as if to headbutt the other fighter before she remembered the rules and fell backward into a perfect walkover, clipping Arin’s jaw with her foot as she went.
The Honmoon was rippling around them, a cloak of pure power that draped itself over Rumi and Mira in the crowd and blossomed out from Zoey like a flower in bloom. They didn’t need its full power for this - a single human wasn’t nearly enough of a challenge for that, professional or not - but Rumi had always felt that it loved the fighting as much as they did. She could feel it pressing down on them, heavy like a storm in the air. She started humming almost without meaning to and felt Mira’s fingers twitching to summon her gok-do next to her as she joined in. Rumi caught her hand, entwining their fingers and holding tight as the harmony caught and the beat dropped.
Honestly, it really was a shame that humans couldn’t hear the Honmoon the way they could.
In the cage, Zoey was a vision. She was visibly faster than Arin, weaving around her strikes with ease. Her return blows were also visibly rocking the other woman even when she blocked them, shock and aggravation on her face. At one point Zoey turned fully around, hyping the crowd up even higher and dodging a strike from a frustrated Arin without even looking. She put a hand to her ear and yelled, “HUNTR/X?”
“Don’t miss!”
The reply from the crowd was deafening. Rumi shuddered, feeling the Honmoon pull the adulation from them and funnel it into her and her girlfriends. It felt like liquid gold in her veins and she knew without needing a mirror that her eyes were glowing the same color. She heard Mira laugh next to her, breathless. “She’s playing with her.”
“Yep.”
“That’s so hot.”
“Yep.”
Zoey twisted past a brutal high kick, bounced over a leg sweep, and did a flip to avoid a particularly aggravated series of punches. The crowd was still roaring, but Arin’s yell of frustration was audible even through the noise. Rumi rolled her eyes fondly, wrestling the surge of power under control until it wasn’t overtly intoxicating, just heady. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, “Zoey, we have dinner reservations, wrap it up!” A man in the row behind them audibly choked at her words, but Zoey perked up, manic grin gentling into something softer.
Arin’s fist caught her at the edge of that gentle smile, head whipping around with a stomach-turning crunch and her entire body toppling to the ground at the force of it. The crowd went quiet, oohs rippling out. Arin hesitated, concern painting her features. Her training should have had her following Zoey onto the ground in a grapple, but it was obvious that she was afraid she’d hurt the smaller woman.
Mira took pity on her. “She’s faking, don’t fall for it.” The crowd was quiet enough that her deadpan tone carried easily, and Rumi laughed at the baffled look Arin shot at her.
The laughter was still audible in Rumi’s voice when she added, “Get up, Zoey, we’ve got places to be.”
Zoey whined. “You guys never let me have any fun.” Rolling dramatically onto her back, she huffed before doing an easy kip-up. “You hit like a truck!” The grin settled back onto her face like it had never left as she complimented Arin, but her eyes were focused and intense. “Not gonna happen again though.”
Arin barely had time to get her hands up before Zoey was on her like a tornado, finally taking the offensive for the first time in the entire fight. She pressed the other fighter steadily back until she was backed up against the cage, still doggedly defending but starting to visibly tire. Zoey caught her in the stomach with a knee and threw a vicious hook that Arin had to fling herself aside to dodge. A loud clang rang out through the room as Zoey’s fist skimmed past Arin’s head and hit the cage instead, the noise drawing everyone’s attention to where it had left an unmistakable dent in the metal.
“Whoops,” Zoey laughed sheepishly.
Arin’s face went white. “Wait, wait, hold on-”
The follow-up strike caught her midsentence, hands out of position, and took her off her feet. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.
A beat passed.
Mira looked around at the stunned crowd, snorted, and deadpanned, “Woo, Zoey.”
The crowd exploded.
Roaring, cheering, clapping, stomping - even for them, used to the adulation of sold-out stadiums, it was a rush. The Honmoon lit up like a firework show, thick ropes of iridescent rainbow buzzing around them and draping around their bodies.
Rumi felt her grin stretch demon-wide and hid her face in the crook of Mira’s neck, peering over her shoulder to take in the sight of Zoey, victorious and glowing. She could taste blood in her mouth where her fangs had dropped, and it tasted so sweet.
Zoey raised her hands up in the air, pumping the crowd up even further as she peacocked around the edge of the cage. The chant started on its own this time, a call and repeat of their most iconic catchphrase reverberating around Rumi’s skull as it bounced from one side of the crowd to the other. Her (stunning, incredible, unbelievable) girlfriend made her way back to facing them and Rumi could see that her (gorgeous, captivating, luminous) eyes were entirely black, pupils blown out and swallowing the irises. Rumi raised her head out of Mira’s neck just enough to catch Zoey’s eye and smile coquettishly, flashing her just a glimpse of fang.
Zoey visibly swallowed, holding eye contact for a moment before turning around hastily and addressing the crowd. “Well that was fun, thank you all for coming, don’t forget to support the turtles!” She bowed quickly and made a beeline for the cage door, bouncing on her toes when the surprised usher took too long to open it.
Mira snickered. “All that media training. Bobby’s gonna cry when he sees this.” She raised a hand and threaded it into Rumi’s hair, tucking her gently but firmly back into the crook of her neck.
Rumi set a hand on the curve of her hip, feeling the other woman shiver slightly as she responded. “Bobby will cry no matter what; you know how he feels about violence.” She chuckled lowly. “But tonight isn’t about Bobby. I think we’ve got someone else to focus on, don’t you think?”
She scanned the room, still feeling the humming of the Honmoon as it poured adulation and power down her spine like water. A flash caught her eye, a man she recognized as a reporter for some trashy Western tabloid looking between her and his camera with a spooked expression. Before she could say anything, another usher caught her eye as he gestured for her and Mira to follow him backstage. She shrugged, standing back to her full height and offering Mira her arm. “Shall we, baby?”
Her girlfriend took her arm gracefully. “Mm. Time for dinner. And then dessert.”
Rumi smirked. “And then dessert.”
Two days later the Daily Mail released an exclusive claiming that the members of acclaimed girl group HUNTR/X were, in fact, genetically engineered supersoldiers. The front page featured both a picture of Rumi tucked comfortably into Mira’s neck, tapetum lucidum shining like a cryptid, and a frankly gorgeous action shot of Arin’s face as Zoey’s fist sank into the steel cage next to her.
Rumi framed it.