Work Text:
Shit.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Zoey’s phone was dead.
Zoey’s phone was dead and her alarm didn’t go off, and she was supposed to have been at the practice yard five minutes ago but her stupid charger didn’t work because she borrowed her cousin’s regional power adapter but Kevin is such a dick and probably didn’t even remember to tell her that the charger was totally broken and now she’s stuck with a phone that might as well be a paperweight right now.
It’s their first day of training and Zoey woke up forty minutes after she had intended to, still a little jetlagged even though she’d been in Korea for a week already with her mom, but really probably mostly overwhelmed - in a good way! But also definitely very much maybe also in an anxious way because - hello, Sunlight Sisters Celine? The mysterious, gorgeous Rumi? The also-mysterious-and-gorgeous-but-in-a-scary-way Mira? There’s a tiny blood blister on Zoey’s arm from where she’d repeatedly pinched herself so hard yesterday to make sure she was indeed awake and this wasn’t a dream.
She was really here.
Well, she was supposed to be out at the practice yard at 7am sharp. Which is why she’s throwing clothes on as fast as humanly possible and scarfing down a granola bar at the same time. One arm is threaded through the sleeve of her zip-up and she’s pulling on one shoe while hopping at the same time, swinging her arm in a jerking motion as she attempts to get her other arm through the other sleeve while wiggling her foot into the other shoe. Zoey’s…mostly successful, somehow, and shoves the rest of the granola bar in her mouth, cheeks straining like a chipmunk to make it fit as she scurries.
Pulling on the doorjamb for leverage to propel herself out in the hallway faster, Zoey trips, feet slipping out from under her - one traitorous shoelace dangling loose in the air as it flies, mocking her before her head hits the corner of the doorway with impressive force and she blacks out.
She’s only out for a few seconds before she wakes up to a bright sharp pain. “Ouch,” she winces and tenderly touches her head. Then the rest of her brain kicks into gear and in another flurry of limbs, she scrambles to her feet and continues where she left off, running down the hallway as fast as her legs can carry her.
Mira, Zoey, and Celine are standing around the training yard - Celine with her arms crossed, “Sorry! Sorry I’m late!” Zoey slides the last few feet in the dirt. “My phone - alarm didn’t -” she tries to explain between sucking in air desperately, “hoo boy-” she gives up and braces her hands on her knees, doubled over while she catches her breath.
Zoey clocked Rumi as sweet as apple pie in the first thirty seconds of meeting her, but it’s still touching how concerned she sounds as Rumi gently lays a hand on Zoey’s shoulder and says, “It’s okay, take your time. Are you okay?”
Zoey nods a few times, straightens up, and ignores the way Mira’s single eyebrow is quirked alarmingly high on her forehead.
And then, because the universe hates her, Zoey takes a step forward into the ring and immediately falls flat on her face.
It must have been an impressive fall because even Celine moves toward her in concern, but Zoey’s pretty sure her embarrassment is more painful than any of the traumatic head injuries she’s sustained today.
“Zoey!” Several voices overlap in alarm.
“I’m okay!” she chirps from the ground brighter than she feels. “I’m okay,” a small cloud of dirt poofs off her pants as she dusts herself off after standing. “Didn’t even black out that time.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Hmm?”
Mira, whose arms have crossed in a manner remarkably similar to Celine’s, narrows her eyes and says in a voice that definitely sounds like Zoey’s in trouble, “What do you mean by 'that time'?”
“Um.” Zoey swallows, withering, “I didn’t hit my head that hard?”
“Try again.”
Zoey honest-to-god squeaks.
“Zoey,” Rumi says with a warm voice and earnest, caring eyes, “I think what Mira means to say is - when did you black out?”
“Oh,” Zoey says dumbly, “I accidentally hit my head on the doorway earlier when I was running late and got knocked out.” Rumi’s eyes go wide with concern. Zoey decides she can’t emotionally handle being looked at that way by Rumi, absolutely not. Those eyes are more deadly than anything she could learn in demon slayer training. “But don’t worry!” Zoey rushes to explain, “It was only a few seconds! Barely even counts.”
“That definitely counts,” Mira disagrees.
“Zoey,” Celine says in an even, authoritative voice that encourages everyone to stop talking, “Next time you’re running late, walk. While promptness is appreciated, your well-being is appreciated more. Please don’t arrive injured next time.”
Zoey frowns. “But I’m not injured.”
“I’m afraid a head trauma that results in unconsciousness - even for a few seconds - does indeed count as an injury.”
And that is how Zoey gets benched the first three days before even setting foot in the training yard.
Coincidentally, it's also the last time she wears shoes with traditional shoelaces, opting instead for the no-tying elastic laces because while Zoey might have been dumb enough to admit she knocked herself out entirely on her own, she’ll be damned if she makes the same mistake twice.
The second time Zoey manages to surprise all of them, it's a much more positive experience and involves significantly less embarrassment.
This time there are two mouths open in shock, and if Rumi’s head weren’t trapped in a headlock, she likely would have a jaw dropped as well. As it is, her eyes grow wide in disbelief that Zoey sadly can’t see at this angle.
“How did you…?”
“I used to wrestle with my cousins back in California. They were all in martial arts classes.” Zoey explains casually. There’s a gentle but frantic tapping on her thigh. “Oh shoot, sorry Rumi!” Untying her limbs, Zoey releases Rumi from the headlock.
“Sick.” Mira declares.
“Indeed,” Celine agrees, rubbing her chin with an appraising look in her eye. “Do that again, please, Zoey, if you don’t mind.”
And because Mira refused to tap out, that’s how Zoey accidentally knocks her out for the first time.
After initially underestimating Zoey’s skills - which, she’d be the first to begrudgingly admit, was kinda fair after that disastrous first day - they’ve been careful to adjust their expectations.
Three months into training, Zoey makes them all sit and watch Mulan where she proceeds to sing along to every single song. It’s practically impossible not to, so she doesn’t even bother trying otherwise.
The next day, Zoey practically begs Celine to let them have an ‘I'll Make a Man Out of You’ training montage. At the blank look, Zoey institutes another Mulan watch, this time making Celine join them. She does so begrudgingly at first but Zoey definitely sees her touch her face after Mulan runs off in the night and quietly wipe at her face, looking over at Rumi through the corner of her eye at the final tree scene.
Two days after that, they’re running drills with jars of water on practice quarter-staffs balanced on their shoulders. It’s…significantly harder than Zoey expected, but she’ll be damned if she gives in, and deals with wet socks all afternoon after water sloshed out the first twenty minutes as she adjusted to the weight distribution.
A short walk outside of the property yields an old out of commission telephone pole that Celine lets them use to practice climbing.
Celine absolutely refuses to even entertain a conversation about dodging projectiles. (“It doesn’t have to be flaming arrows or cannons!” “No, Zoey.”)
Zoey is under no pretenses that they’ll be able to reach into a stream and magically catch fish with their reflexes, but she does make both Rumi and Mira pose for a picture after a trip to the fishmonger for dinner ingredients.
“Almost, a little higher,” Zoey directs from behind her phone. “Lift your right arm just a bit to be even with – yes! Perfect, that’s it.”
It might have only been a few months in, but Zoey knows this - this thing between the three of them - is forever. Hunters or idols aside, what the three of them have is ride-or-die. What else could explain Mira and Rumi posing with two dead fish with their arms outstretched just to appease Zoey’s enthusiasm? Knowing they’re doing it with a smile because it makes her happy fills Zoey to bursting, making those cramped hours stuffed in a locker seem like nothing more than a bad dream. This is friendship. This is love. This is everything.
And maybe it’s just that overwhelming sense of joy and belonging that makes Zoey run forward and jump onto Rumi’s outstretched arms.
What she expected was to fall and pull Rumi in for a hug. Instead, she’s left hanging on Rumi’s arm like a chimpanzee.
What.
“What.” Zoey stated, gaping.
“No way,” Mira echoes in disbelief.
“How are you so freakishly strong?” Zoey wonders, testing her grip on Rumi’s arm.
“Um…” Rumi looks just as surprised, which Zoey guesses is fair. She doubts this exact move had come across in her training before. Celine doesn’t seem like the type to practice curl ups on a pull-up bar, let alone her basically-daughter’s outstretched arm. “The Honmoon?”
“Will I be able to do that?” Zoey switches it up, lifting her legs up and hooks her knees over Rumi’s arm instead and lets go, hanging upside down.
“....Maybe?”
“Zoey, you’re basically ground height.”
Undeterred, Zoey urges, “Mira, hurry up and get Honmoon strong so I can hang off of you like the tree you already are.”
Rumi goes a particularly vibrant shade of red and lowers her arm, dropping Zoey to the ground. Mira snorts.
It turns out magically pulling weapons from thin air doesn’t necessarily make one immediately adept at using them, to Zoey’s chagrin.
“Ugh, you guyyyyyss,” she whines as the centers of the targets dividing the treeline from the training yard remain sadly unmarred. “No fair, you guys have weapons that actually work.”
“Pretty sure yours work, Zoey, they just have to hit something first,” Mira drawls, focusing on her forms.
“You’re already so much better than last week!” Rumi encourages. Zoey merely frowns and waves her arms, gesturing frustratingly at the targets. “Exactly!” Rumi nods brightly, “Last week you weren’t even hitting them!”
Zoey puts her face in her hands and groans. “The point is to hit the bullseye, Rumi.”
“You’ll get there,” she promises, a warm hand on Zoey’s shoulder. And if Rumi wasn’t already a second-generation chosen one, Zoey would have sworn she was made of magic because at the touch alone, Zoey feels immediately better despite her frustrations.
“You will get there, Zoey,” Celine reassures evenly with a tone of such confidence, Zoey actually finds herself believing it.
If both Celine and Rumi think she can do it, well….then Zoey might as well keep trying.
But when a shin-kal embeds itself in Celine’s shoulder not six minutes later, Zoey thinks she’d rather the Honmoon swallow her whole and let Gwi-ma have his chance with her.
Mira freezes.
Zoey freezes.
She’d like to stay frozen forever and maybe if she doesn’t move no one can see her and she can disappear entirely. “Oh my God, Celine, I am so sorry!” Zoey blurts, unsure what exactly to do first, whether to run for the first aid kit or run away, or-
“Um.” Okay, Zoey knew Celine was, like, super cool, but she’s literally not reacting at all after being stabbed and - “You’re not freaking out, why aren’t you freaking out? Because I’m totally freaking out.”
Celine actually brings an arm up to brush her shoulder twice, dusting off absolutely nothing. What is this woman made out of? In a dozen lifetimes, Zoey could never be so cool.
“I suppose,” Celine practically drawls, “this is as good a time as any to mention that Honmoon weapons can’t hurt humans.”
Mira’s entire torso turns to face Celine. The incredulous look on her face screams ‘Now you tell us?’
Zoey exhales in abject relief, her shoulders practically melting into the ground. “Oh,” she breathes, “Okay. That’s…good. Good to know.”
“Again.” Celine instructs, already moving on. What else can Zoey do but follow? So she goes again. And again. And again.
Another week passes and the targets are littered with closely clustered punctures.
Two weeks after that and there’s a smiley face made out of holes on every single target.
And then, as if pulling magical weapons from literal air wasn’t cool enough, they could, apparently, get cooler.
Zoey’s no stranger to improvising. She’d won at least one rap battle because of it (granted, it was a handful of middle-schoolers and her cousins in a parking lot behind an In-and-Out after school, but still), and sometimes when you’re in the flow, you’re in it, and things just happen. One moment she’s practicing spinning-launching forms with the rhythm to the song they’ve been working on running through her head. The next, her movements flow into the music and her body spins in tandem with the beat and everything just flows. She throws her arm out with the music and a flock of knives fly out as her arm swings and sinks into a tree with a satisfying thunk.
The music comes to a jarring halt in her head, she can practically hear the record player scratching, and Zoey stares at the tree, then down at her hands, and back again. Another beat and then her eyes grow wide and she calls out, “Um. Hey, guys?” in increasing pitch.
Attention piqued, Mira and Rumi pause their own forms and look over at Zoey who frantically ushers them closer.
“Check-’ Zoey pauses and takes a few steps backwards for attention, “-this out.” Repeating her movement from earlier, she moves through the form. As her arm once again reaches up, shin-kals form at her fingertips but remain in place as she keeps her hands stretched open. The knives seemingly float in mid-air and as Zoey swings her arm forward, the blades follow as if she had been holding them in her grasp. They fly past her fingers, which remain splayed open, pointing toward the direction they should go in. The blades zoom through the air, continuing in the throw’s arc until the knives get lost somewhere in the trees.
Rumi and Mira stares out at the trees, then down at Zoey’s hands, and back again. Zoey’s head is nodding so hard back at them that she looks like a bobble-head.
“No way,” Mira says, envy and admiration glowing in equal measure in her eyes. “Do it again,” she urges, and Zoey is happy to oblige.
She hops back a few more feet to give a nice distance for a full-view of the show, and lines up the form again.
Except this time as her arm arcs downward, the blades in her right hand seem to let loose a little too early and fly toward Rumi. Rumi’s eyes grow wide in alarm and she twists her torso quickly to dodge the blades, which speed by her, narrowly missing.
Zoey winces. “Hoo, boy, that was close. Sorry, Rumi! Guess I’m still getting the hang of it.”
Rumi clamps a hand over her left bicep, wincing back in sympathy. “Yeah, I guess so,” she laughs nervously. “You’ll get it eventually,” she encourages, flashing a weak thumbs up.
Rumi’s eyes flicker beneath her hand for a quick peek, but she keeps her hand where it is, covering the arm. Zoey moves to apologize again for scaring Rumi (even if harmless, it was probably still frightening to see blades flying at your face) but Mira nudges Zoey’s shoulder gently in congrats and bestows the verdict, “Sick,” that makes Zoey preen.
Neither notice Rumi had even left until she comes trotting back a few minutes later wearing an entirely different shirt. “You okay?” Mira asks with a singular raised brow.
“Yeah,” Rumi answers quickly, brightly, tugging on a sleeve. “Just got sweaty and wanted a fresh top.”
“Sorry again, Rumi,” Zoey apologizes.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rumi’s smile is so bright that Zoey can’t see anything else. “No harm done, right?”
(It would be years before Zoey thinks of this moment again, lifting a hand in horror at the memory, at those words that passed through Rumi’s lips like careless poison.)
Zoey might have gotten the hang of magical knives and is really good at evasive techniques, but it turns out neither of those things actually help when it comes to actually winning fights against Mira and Rumi. She might be able to dodge like a chased rabbit, but ‘not losing’ doesn’t necessarily equate ‘win’.
The most she’s usually able to do is tire them out, and she uses that to her advantage when she can, but it’s still really hard to take down one person who moves like water and uses a distance weapon and another who was raised to fight before learning how to read. So. Y’know. Despite the improvements and acquired skill sets, Zoey is still at a disadvantage.
So she decides to improvise.
Which means in the middle of a fight, clothes sticking to Zoey’s skin in wet patches of sweat, muscles straining with exhaustion, her brain tries to think of something to get one over on Rumi. Something so completely ridic-
Okay so sometimes things happen that completely bypass her brain. Like the time that she nailed her first pop shove it and landed it without even realizing her feet had left the board. She’d been trying for weeks and had the bruises all over to prove it but for whatever reason, one afternoon, her mind just goes kind of blank and before she knows it, cousin Kevin is whooping from the sidewalk, Doritos flying out of the bag as he shoots up in glee.
Anyway, it turns out kissing Rumi, even just a quick little peck, can provide just the right amount of leverage - both physical and mental - to distract her long enough to get a leg up and win a fight.
And by leg, it’s a literal leg. Rumi freezes and using the momentary window of opportunity, Zoey hooks a leg around Rumi’s waist and pulls her off balance enough to use that momentum to crouch down before popping back up and rolling Rumi over her shoulder.
The last thing Zoey sees before Rumi hits the ground are her eyes going so wide in shock, Zoey’s pretty sure she could make out her own reflection in them.
“Dude!” Mira crows.
Rumi lays on the ground, stunned, while Zoey whoops and cheers. “Wh-” Rumi blinks stupidly before seemingly coming back to herself as the last thirty seconds replays in her head. “Hey!” She pouts indignantly, “That was cheating!”
Zoey merely continues celebrating, wiggling her torso and popping her elbows from side to side by her head in a triumphant dance. “Zoey, what - what are you doing?”
“The dance of capitalist superiority!”
“The… what?”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. Anyway it doesn’t matter, I still won.”
“It does matter, you cheated!”
“All’s fair…”
“No it isn’t!” Rumi’s flustered disgruntlement is honestly so adorable, Zoey wonders what would happen if it was an actual ki- nope! Nope nope nope.
“Demons aren’t going to kiss you in a fight!”
Zoey cackles then hums, “I dunno, I’m pretty cute. I feel like I could bag a demon if I wanted to.”
Rumi’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click, turning such a bright shade of red and gets so flustered that even as Mira huffs in low laughter, she’s watching Rumi in a way that makes Zoey wonder if she’s planning on stealing the idea. Something slithers in Zoey’s stomach at the thought. She decides it’s jealousy because she thought of the idea first and Mira should really try thinking of her own takedown.
Celine merely pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs a long, slow exhale that Zoey has heard from numerous teachers in the past.
(Rumi’s pretty mad, after practice. Well, mad for Rumi, which is still all-around polite and nice but in a way that seems slightly more forced. It’s another day before she stops being grumpy, but still gives Zoey these weird looks for another week or so. She apologized like a dozen times, even meant about half of them, and after Zoey leaves a peace offering of a small bundle of wildflowers on Rumi’s bed, things finally go back to normal.)
(((A year later, they’re having a sleepover and amidst piles of snacks and being up stupidly late, the topic of first kisses comes up. At first Rumi pouts, refusing to share. After much cajoling she finally grumbles, “You were both there.” Mira and Zoey trade looks of confusion, because surely they would have remembered seeing Rumi’s first -
“No,” Zoey gasps in shock as it clicks into place, “Don’t tell me-”
Mira’s confusion lasts only a moment longer before her eyes, too, grow wide in disbelief. Rumi groans and buries her entire face in her arms.
“It was Zoey, okay?!” She blurts, muffled, but no less embarrassed.
Mira and Zoey trade a look of supreme fondness and pity alike. “Aww, Rumi!” Zoey rubs her head in sympathy, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of!”
“Yes there is,” grumbles The Sweatshirt from behind crossed elbows. “It doesn’t even count.”
“Rumi,” Mira drawls, stretching out the last syllable. Rumi peeks an eye out. “What,” she mutters. When Mira makes no move to add anything else, Rumi straightens up and gazes with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. “What?” she barks, a hint of frustration in her voice.
Having captured Rumi’s attention, Mira pivots Rumi by the shoulders to face her then leans in. Their lips meet in a gentle kiss. ((Plump, Rumi would think. Soft.)) It’s not meant emptily, but nor is it particularly loaded either. It simply….is. They stay together like that for a moment, breathing the closeness in, letting it stretch like taffy between them. Neither move, until Mira’s jaw moves and gives a single nip to Rumi’s lips before pulling back.
Rumi’s lashes blink open slowly. Sluggishly. Dazed.
Mira’s merely staring back at her, evenly and deliberately, studying carefully without weight. Like a scientist focused on observing what’s in front of them.
“There,” Mira says, finally. “Now it counts.” And silence stretches into the evening once more, something serious but unknown takes root that night.
None of them talk about it again after. But they think about it constantly.
It takes them years to find out Rumi was first upset not because Zoey kissed her, but because she hadn’t meant it.)))
Zoey was under no delusions that she would keep winning fights against Rumi. The headlock had been a lucky blindspot Zoey had happily fallen into by virtue of rowdy play sessions back home.
But what was completely unexpected was to be on the receiving end of some WWE nonsense that had had her head and body spinning.
Even Mira had been shocked.
One minute Zoey had thrown up a forearm block and hopped back from a leg swoop and the next, Rumi had simultaneously grabbed the bottom of her shirt and scruffed her collar, lifts Zoey up over her head and slams her back into the ground. If the physical impact hadn’t already knocked the air right out of her, having a suplex come from Ryu Rumi of all people certainly would have.
“Holy shit,” Mira breathes, completely stunned.
Rumi, seemingly alarmed by Zoey’s silence in the wake of her very intentional move, immediately panics and starts fretting, looking over Zoey for any bodily injury. “Ohmygosh, Zoey, are you okay? Did I hurt you? God, I’m so sorry, I knew I shouldn’t have tried that, please be okay.”
Having caught her breath, Zoey jolts up abruptly, nearly headbutting Rumi in the process. “Holy shit, Rumi, what was that?”
“I, um, may have looked up ‘American Fighting’ after you won that fight,” Rumi admits with a wince of guilt.
Zoey’s eyes grow wide for a moment before she bursts out into laughter. “Oh my god, Rumi, did you learn WWE moves?”
“...Yes?” Rumi says uncertainly.
“I caught my brother watching a wrestling match in the middle of the night, once.” Mira shares. “He jumped fifteen feet in the air when he noticed I was there. Swore he was only watching because he’d bet on the fight, but I could tell he was secretly into it.” She smirks, “Gave me ₩10,000 to not say anything to our parents, though. I blackmailed him for years. Probably won more money keeping his secret than he did betting on the matches.”
Not one to pass an opportunity by, Zoey leaps to her feet in excitement. “Okay, now you gotta hold your belt above your head and yell.”
Rumi’s brow folds in confusion as if Zoey had just told her the sun was purple. “My belt is holding my pants up.”
Zoey does a striking impression of Celine as she pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “Rumi, no. It’s - its part of the whole wrestling thing. You gotta-” she raises her arms into the air in a triumphant U-shape as if she were holding the WWE belt, and roars.
Rumi blinks blankly. It seems as if she has no intention of joining in something so ridiculous, but then she raises her arms in a similar position and gives a meek little “Rarr?”
“Little more, really give it an ARRRRRRGH,” Zoey demonstrates again, rotating her arms in a circle to build momentum for a louder shout.
Rumi attempts again. “RARRR!”
Zoey brightens and nods eagerly. “Yeah! Like that!“
Encouraged by her apparent success Rumi pumps her arms into the sky and repeats with infectious enthusiasm, putting some air into the growl. “RARR!”
Only Ryu Rumi would throw her whole ass self into cheering like a WWE wrestler like it was some kind of homework she was hoping to get an A in. Zoey claps and throws her head back in laughter. Mira joins in with a roar of her own, fierce and almost unhinged. Not to be outdone, Zoey gives it her best All American feral roar and all three of them are egging each other on with the most ridiculous faces and yell until their throats are too sore to keep going.
Rumi might be, like, unfairly ahead in terms of ability and skill, but Mira isn’t too far behind. With years of dance and martial arts training (her parents had oddly enough approved of both) and being built like a freaking telephone pole made Mira a challenging opponent in her own right.
But neither had anything on John Cena.
Zoey wouldn’t have thought being an involuntary witness to her cousins’ wrestling obsession after school would have come in handy career-wise, but it turns out she was wrong.
Mira has been doing a bang-up job at holding her at arm’s length, quite literally. Her height gives advantage of reach, and Zoey’s been struggling to find an opening that Mira hasn’t been able to defend against. “Nice try, short stack.”
Luckily, Zoey’s still able to employ her other favorite tactic: shit-talking. And Mira, she’s found, gives as good as she gets. “I don’t need to be tall to take you,” she bounces on her feet, buying rhythm and inspiration as she hops from side to side.
Mira snorts. “I’m sure you’d love to ‘take me’ but you must be this tall to ride,” Mira holds up her hand to the insultingly low level of her chest, a smirk on her face.
Mira wants to play that game? Fine.
Zoey jumps and wraps her legs over Mira’s shoulders. She pauses, just long enough to whisper, “If you want me to ride you, all you have to do is ask.” Zoey can feel the line of Mira’s shoulders tense as she stiffens beneath her. Taking advantage of the moment, Zoey throws her body weight backwards, flipping Mira over her head and pinning her on the ground.
She can feel the air huff out of Mira’s lungs at the impact and uh oh, Zoey’s pretty sure she likes seeing Mira breathless and stunned like that because of her. Untangling her legs, Zoey crawls over to Mira and looks down at her, pleased as punch. “How’s that for short stack?”
As if the words bring Mira back to herself, she blinks and jumps to her feet. “That was sneaky,” she pats her shoulders to knock off dirt.
Zoey raises her brow in a challenge. “Mad I took you down in three seconds flat?”
“In my defense, your vag was in my face.”
Zoey’s eyes squint in delight and doubt alike, “You wish.”
“Girls,” Celine sighs, rubbing her temple.
Rumi, notably, is a bit red in the face and looks like she’s going to burst and oh that’s right, she was in the middle of teaching them a lesson and Zoey and Mira are just messing around.
“Sorry, Celine,” they say in tandem, chagrined.
In the years since the early training days, they’ve fought in a plethora of interesting places - in a convenient store bathroom, Tokyo Tower, the offices of SM Entertainment, the Vatican, as well as an alarming amount of locations in America - but Zoey’s gotta give it to these demons: on their own private plane is a new one.
Once Rumi gives the signal to start the song, Mira and Zoey are off, counting beats in their head and joining in the verse. Mira catches the carafe and uses it to slam a demon so hard into a seat that Gwi-ma’s flames heat up the water. Rameyon is almost within reach and Zoey leaps in excitement, wrapping her legs around the demon nearby, grappling him to the ground.
Oh yeah.
That’s the stuff.
Some things age like fine wine, and by now, Zoey’s MMA skills are honed to brutal perfection and she takes every bit of pleasure making sure demons don’t dare show their true selves anywhere on earth.