Chapter Text
"Good morning." Lara raised her eyebrows and smiled as her wife danced around the hotel room. Sam didn't seem to notice her, too lost in whatever music she was listening to. Leaning against the wall and folding her arms, Lara simply observed her.
Sam had let her hair grow out past her shoulders and pulled it into a messy pony tail, and was already dressed for the day; fashionable if rugged, worn in boots, jeans, and a new grey top that was only half tucked in. Dressed perfectly for their expedition.
She cleared her throat, but Sam didn't respond. Lara wasn't about to sneak up on her —after everything they've been through sneaking up on either of them was a quick way to hospital— so she fished out her phone and called Sam.
As she'd expected, the ring interrupted the music and Sam nearly lost her balance, "Gah!"
Pulling out her earbuds, she shot a look at Lara, then smiled sheepishly, "Sorry. Huntr/x's new single dropped and it's fire."
Right, Kpop nonsense. Lara shook her head, pushing off from the wall and walking to Sam, running her hand up her arm, "You can subject me to it in the car. Dolma's waiting."
"I always do." Sam pecked her cheek, then lifted up her camera bag and another pack, "I've got everything I need."
Lara nodded, sliding a pistol into her shoulder holster, then shrugging on a leather jacket. Checking to make sure she had the essentials (climbing axe, notepad, water purification tablets, first aid kit, machete), she swung her own backpack over her shoulder, "So do I."
As they walked out of the hotel room, Sam asked, "Hey sweetie, what do you think we'll find this time?"
"I don't know. That's the adventure isn't it?" Lara said. Even after the island, after the Himalayas, Amanda, she still kept going out there, and Sam … Sam usually came with her, "But if we're not lucky, I don't know. Demons? More possessed artifacts?"
"We've already fought demons," Sam reminded her. "And please no more possessed artifacts. Sometimes I still hear Himiko's voice when I sleep."
Lara touched her cheek, "I don't think the Stormguard counted, Sam."
"Immortal soldiers and oni? The Stormguard definitely counted as demons."
Mira leaned back in the chair, folding her arms and watching as Zoey and Rumi practiced. There wasn't exactly much room on the plane so they were mostly wrestling and it was mostly an unserious product of boredom.
But her mind was definitely going nice places when Rumi groaned and scrambled back from Zoey.
"You groped me!"
"It worked didn't it?"
"I'm pretty sure groping isn't a valid wrestling move," Mira said, struggling to contain a smile.
"That one doesn't count." Rumi covered her chest with one hand, her glower at Zoey all bark and no bite, "So we're still tied one for one."
Zoey rolled her eyes and flopped into another chair, "This plane sucks."
"We crashed the last one." Rumi dropped into the chair between them, "And this was the best we could do on short notice."
"We don't even have in-air wi-fi." Zoey grabbed Rumi's jacket, "Did Bobby find this plane from the nineties?"
Mira snorted, "Apparently trying to meet our exacting standards takes time."
Rumi suddenly stiffened, holding her hand out, the patterns on her face and legs shimmering, and not in the way they usually did when she was aroused. More like she was alert.
Zoey summoned her shinkal as the Honmoon rippled through the jet.
"Really?" Mira got to her feet and drew her own weapon, annoyed at the interruption but also kind of happy. This could be entertaining.
Slowly, Rumi approached a window on the right and looked out. Mira and Zoey joined her.
Flying alongside and keeping speed was the largest flying demon Mira had ever seen. A monstrous head, wingspan of at least 15 meters with huge hooked claws for feet.
"That's new," Rumi said, just before the monster tore off the starboard wing. The plane spun out, throwing Mira through the cabin. She caught herself on a seat, calmly searching for Rumi and Zoey and spying them near one of the d oors. Rumi struggled to open it, Zoey trying to help her pull the emergency lever.
Mira kicked off of the seat and climbed her way towards them, the plane's spiral the hardest part to deal with. Zoey reached down when she got close and pulled her the rest of the way.
Rumi's muscles tensed, her eyes flashing gold as her patterns shone. With a shout that was almost a roar, she kicked the door, blasting it away from the plane like she'd used explosives.
"Take me I'm yours," Mira intoned, then dutifully followed her girlfriends out of the spinning plane. The sun blinded her for a moment before she was able to orient herself. Below stretched a vast forest, traces of ancient roads and what appeared to be old ruins.
Turning in the air, she caught sight of the demon as it swept around, Rumi's voice suddenly filling her ears and her chest, ringing in her soul and as always Mira responded in kind, without thinking without needing to think, forming the music they all knew so well that it was etched into their bones.
Rumi dove onto the demon, sword digging into it's back. She caught herself with it, gripping tightly as she rode the demon. Yanking on her sword, she forced it to bank left, towards Zoey and Mira.
Mira spun her Gok-Do, pointing it forward and making herself as thin and aerodynamic as possible. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Zoey doing the same, her shinkal gleaming silver-blue. They hit the demon at the same time, carving through it's wings as Rumi flipped up and back, falling into formation between them as the demon dissolved.
The ground rushed up towards them and the Honmoon cushioned their landing as their last notes rang out.
Zoey cackled, "That was fun!"
"We lose more planes this way," Mira said.
Rumi rubbed her face, "Bobby's going to have a heart attack." Then her head whipped around, "I hear more."
"Okay." Mira stared at her, not able to hear anything but trusting Rumi's enhanced senses, "That's kind of sus, isn't it?"
"I mean, maybe some got stuck on this side?" Zoey twirled her weapons, "Or there's more to the Honmoon than we actually know?"
Before either Mira or Rumi could respond, gunshots rang out. Rumi was already moving before Mira had blinked, and then she was moving too. The gunshots were in the direction of the ruins that Mira had seen on the way down and as they got closer she heard more sounds of fighting.
They burst out of the forest. Cornered by dozens of demons were three women. The taller woman was white, with brown hair pulled into a pony tail and wearing a leather jacket. Probably in her thirties, she was wielding some kind of climbing axe as a weapon in her right hand and a pistol in her left and she was vicious as she fought.
The woman twisted, dodging an attack from a demon, arcing the pointy part of the axe up and into its jaw. Her leg swept out, tripping another that she shot in the head on the way down. Rolling forward she cut through a third demon, shooting two more as she jumped to her feet. One of the other women—Japanese with long black hair in a similar style and about the same age—had a camera in one hand, her other holding a pistol in a steady grip as she stood between the third and the demons.
Tense, but calm, like this wasn't an unusual occurrence in the slightest.
"She's good," Rumi breathed. "But there's way too many. Mira, start us up."
Grinning, Mira started to sing, the Honmoon humming around her as she charged forward. Leaping up, she cut down a half dozen demons with a wide sweep as Zoey's rap echoed through the ruins, her shinkal dispatching demons with the same staccato rhythm. The gunshots almost seemed to match, which —sick.
Rumi landed on the flat of Mira's Gok-Do and Mira launched her, admiring her girl as she sliced a line through the demon ranks before she charged forward and leapt. Rumi bounced off of Zoey and into the air, and together they all hit the ground, a shockwave of sound and energy exploding outward and obliterating the remaining demons.
The dust slowly settled as Rumi straightened, Mira on her right and Zoey on her left. She couldn't hear or see any more demons, nor sense any further disturbances in the Honmoon. Even though the part of her that was demon lay dormant now that the crisis had passed, she could still feel it under the surface.
"Thank you," the taller woman said. Her english didn't sound American like Zoey's, and she was standing relaxed but on guard, her grip on her climbing ask firm, ready. There was a scar across her nose, another on her chin and her eyes— her eyes were slightly terrifying, a hardened glint in them that reminded Rumi of something feral. A survivor.
"Sam, Dolma, are you all right?" Her head turned towards her companions, a smile starting to cross her face, her eyes softening and that glint fading as the immediate danger had passed, "I'd say those counted as demons, don't you? Did you get any photos? I wish they'd left bodies, I'd love to compare them to regional myth—"
"Holy shit!" The other woman —Sam evidently—stepped out from behind her, gun put away and camera lowered, "Lara, that's fucking Huntrix!"
Mira's voice sounded behind her, "I like how we somehow get clocked in the middle of four hundred year old ruins."
"Older, actually," Lara replied in near perfect Korean, hooking her axe into her belt and holstering her gun. "By at least two centuries." She pointed towards a wall, "You can tell by the—"
"Lara, sweetie," Sam put her hand on her arm, "Adorable as always but not the time."
"You'll have to forgive my sister, get her on a topic she's into and we'll be here for hours." The third woman folded her arms as she moved to Sam's other side. She looked Chinese, maybe early twenties if Rumi had to guess. Close to Zoey's age or a little younger.
Rumi's lips twitched into a smile. That comment about Lara sounded a lot like Zoey.
"I'm Lara. This is my wife Sam, and my sister Dolma."
"Wife," Zoey whispered, immediately perking up. "I want a wife."
"You've got two," Mira whispered back. "Sort of."
"Not legally."
"Nice to meet you, despite the circumstances." Rumi gestured, "I'm Rumi, this is Zoey and Mira."
Sam bounced on her heels, "So this is clearly answered by the glowing sword but this isn't the first time you dusted a whole bunch of otherworldly creatures is it."
"You're taking this really well," Mira replied.
"Years ago I was possessed by the spirit of my ancestor, an ancient weather controlling Queen and Lara practically like, burned down an entire island of cultists to save me," Sam said, her entire body relaxed and casual and her voice possessing the same tone usually reserved for talking about golf. "Only Himiko kind of hung around in my head for awhile. But I'm better now, the only voice in my head is my own."
Returning her weapon to the Honmoon, Rumi tried to process all of that, got the impression it was the kind of story better saved for over a campfire, and filed it away for later. Her eyes flicked to Lara, who was shaking her head and rubbing her face in adoration and exasperation with her wife. Rumi felt that entire mood in her soul.
"Rumi, would you burn an island of cultists to the ground to save us?" Zoey asked, the picture of innocence.
Rumi almost mirrored Lara's action, "You don't even need to ask that."
Her eyes met Lara's, understanding. Wondering how red the waters of that island had run.
Hunters did not harm humans. But God, she would. She would. Rumi felt Mira near her, hand brushing her back as if trying to bring her back to the now. In her soul, she knew Mira and Zoey would do the same.
"I would kill god for you both," Mira announced.
Also that.
"These demons are gone," Rumi said. "But there really shouldn't be that many … anywhere."