The moon shines upon the dark alley, engulfing the darkness in a sharp ray of moonlight. Gunshots can be heard ringing from the corner of the quiet city, killing the silence of the night. ‘‘ . Okay.. Let’s ing do this.’ A dark shadow leaps from the roof of the motel building, landing with a loud thud. ‘OKAY EVERYBODY HANDS UP WHERE I CAN SEE THEM BEFORE I BREAK YOUR ING…’ she bites her tongue. ‘OW BALLSACKS’ she yells as she tries to catch her breath, feeling the stinging sensation of pain. She’s nervous after all, it’s her first day (or night) on the job. ‘OKAY THIS I’M BREAKING YALL’S KNEECAPS’ she continues, flinging her trusty sidestick up in a swift powerful motion, holding the black intimidating weapon above her head. Clad in a black cloak, quite similar to a cape, but not quite as corny, black ripped jeans and a pair of steel toed military boots decorated her lower body. That was her outfit of choice, it conceals enough of her identity with a black eye mask covering half her facial features and still looks stylish. A superhero costume. ‘Wait, there’s nobody here?!’ She rushes to the end of the dark ghostly alley, scanning the area. ‘, I lost them.’ she begrudgingly mutters under her breath. She could have sworn she got here on time, it’s been barely ten seconds since the last gunshot. ‘They couldn’t have gotten away that fast.’‘help… help me…’ she hears a whimper from behind her. From the corner of her eye she could see a dark figure laying on the ground, looking frightened and immobile. Rushing towards the figure, she tries her best to put on a heroic voice. ‘Hey hey hey i’m here, i’m… i’m….’ ah, in her hurry to begin her hero patrols, she’d forgotten to adopt an alias, what kind of hero goes without a superhero name? She stares up in the sky at the full bright moon hanging overhead, seeming to pull inspiration from the full moon that dropped its shower of golden rays upon the alley. ‘I’m Moondrop. A superhero.’ She ultimately huffs. Moondrop looked at the girl lying in front of her, her purse and it’s contents strewn across the floor. A pistol laid by her side, fresh smoke still oozing from its barrel. Gold coins were scattered all over the floor, not coins issued by the government but instead coins with an insignia. ‘My… my friend, they shot her’ the unknown girl stutters, voice trembling with obvious fear and shock. The young girl had been returning home with her colleague after work when they were stopped and robbed by a group of criminals, threatening them with their pistol. When the girls attempted to make a run for it, the criminals reportedly lost their bearings and let a couple of bullets fly, before dropping the pistol and coins and fleeing the scene as Moondrop would find out later. Sirens could be heard from a distance, approaching the alley at a fast pace. ‘I’m so so sorry, I have to go, the police will assist you from here’ Moondrop hurries to pick up a coin as she leaves the scene, firing her grappling hook towards the roof of the building and ziplining her way up. The young girl looks on as the moonlight reflects off Moondrop’s cloak, with her lips curling up into maybe a laughter or maybe a sob.

During the day, Moondrop was a regular civilian, 22 year old Choi Yena, who works at the city’s biggest martials arts school, tutoring young kids in self defense, a much needed skill in this crime ridden city. From a young age, she had been trained under the strict tutelage of her father, one of the most experienced fighters of the city. Just like her father, Yena was growing up to be an impeccable martial artist, owning several titles in the youth fighting circuit. Their relationship was nothing short of perfect, having raised Yena all on his own after her mother passed away during childbirth, Yena’s father brought her up with love and care, being with her in all her ups and downs throughout her life, even into adulthood. Two months ago, however, he had a run in with the biggest crime syndicate of the city, commonly known as The Coin. Members of the syndicate approached Yena’s father in an attempt to get him on their side which ultimately ended with his passing. Since then, Yena has been living every waking moment with grief and anger, wishing for nothing but to put an end to The Coin’s influence over the city. This is what eventually drove her to pick up her new side job. Yena was distracted, fighting her nerves the entire day. She couldn’t calm down, not after her first rodeo as Moondrop, hell she even saw an article regarding the incident. ‘The Coin strikes once more.’ The article mentioned the robbery, the shooting of an innocent civilian, the involvement of The Coin. Every sentence brought a raging heat to the blood running through her veins, making her usual tender aura menacingly sharp. Her colleagues could tell but chose to stay away. They knew the internal struggle she was facing and chose not to pry too deep. Well, most of her colleagues anyway. ‘Unnie! You look tired! I could cover your evening class if you’d like, my dinner plans fell through the roof and I’m struggling to find something to occupy my time.’ ‘Yujinnie, I’ll take you up on that offer. Thanks.’ Yena replies the beagle like younger girl with gratitude. With the help, she could begin her patrols just that bit earlier and maybe she could prevent any deaths tonight. She messages her sponsor as she makes her way to her second job.

To: Eunbi

Hey, I’ll be starting early tonight, I don’t want to end up showing late to the scene again. I left the coin I picked up back at our hideout, let me know if you find anything. 

Yena hurriedly puts on her outfit, arming herself to a tee with her sponsored gear. This time, she was ready. Moondrop tunes into her police radio, provided by none other than her sponsor and proceeds to leap and zip from roof to roof once more. The moon is not quite as full tonight, but certainly still dazzlingly bright. If not for the crime infestation in this city Moondrop would almost think of it as a beautiful place. *krrtz-bzzzt* ‘This is control center calling out to all patrol officers in district D. A 10-65 has just been reported at the bank of the Swan, urgent response needed. The swat team has been deployed and will join shortly’ Perfect, Moondrop was already in the area and she just knows it’s The Coin. She wasn’t ready to let them get away this time.

‘PUT THE ING CASH IN THE BAGS AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT. DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT RETALIATING OR I’LL PUT A ING BULLET THROUGH YOUR HEAD.’ Moondrop could feel the adrenaline rushing through her body, mixed with a dark murky red of rage. She zips straight towards the tinted glass pane on the roof of the building, somersaulting into a downward kicking position and smashing her way in. The moonlight shining a bright white behind her, entering the building in tandem, penetrating through to bathe the interior in its shine. It almost looks like Moondrop had come straight from the moon itself, huh, Moondrop was an apt name after all. Before the gunners could even spit a reaction, she zips from corner to corner, with each burst of movement taking out one gunner. ‘Three down, four to go’ She makes her landing with exaggerated movement, flipping from her high vantage point and planting her feet with a loud thud. The gunners are visibly shocked, struggling to understand the scene they were witnessing, however, one of them quickly takes aim. Before he could let his bullets fly, Moondrop flung a smoke bomb forwards, detonating it and filling the luxurious interior in a thick grey cloud of smoke. Taking advantage of the veil of grey, she leaps towards her first target. ‘High kick to the temple, knee to the chest followed by a roundhouse kick to send him flying’ Moondrop repeats in her head like a mantra as she perfectly executes each move. It was her father’s favorite combination, never fails to do the job he says. She moves on to the next, this time whipping out her sidestick and landing multiple blows to the crook’s legs, causing him to stumble. She lifts her right foot in front of her, and launches it into his chin with lethal force, sending him flying into one of his buddies. ‘Last one’ She rushes him, fist in tow, prepared to knock the living daylights out of him, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. The smoke had mostly cleared up at that point and Moondrop halted with a screech. The bastard had a civilian hostage, holding her to gunpoint. ‘I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL PUNCTURE HER BRAINS IF YOU TAKE ONE ING STEP CLOSER’ he yells in desperation. This is by no means Moondrop’s first time in a fight, she knows what people can do when they get that desperate. Cautious of the situation, she drops her sidestick and puts her hands up in the air, surrendering. Just as she was prepared to back off fully, a voice rings through the communicators in her ears. ‘Yena, I’ve got the drones honed in on him, don’t waste a second.’ ‘Thank god for Eunbi’ The drones appear from the moonlight, firing a couple of rubber bullets into the back of the robbers head. Shocked and in pain, his grip loosens on his hostage. Not missing a beat, Moondrop fires her grappling hook straight towards him, planting its claws into his neck, before flinging him hard towards the wall. ‘You took about four minutes, the police will be entering any minute now, out. Now. ’ Eunbi informs her. Moondrop however was distracted, looking towards the young girl who was held hostage. Her silhouette looked familiar to the vigilante, in fact, she could see it was the girl from the night before, the girl she couldn’t help. But this time, the girl was bathed in the moonlight, unlike before when Moondrop could barely make out her silhouette, she could now see her in full. Her heart skips a beat, or two, or that maybe five. Maybe it was the adrenaline in her system, maybe it was the badass crime stopping she just pulled off but damn. She was ing picture perfect. Moondrop really only has two real weaknesses, first being her ty impulsive nature, second being this. Beautiful girls. She barely manages to regain her breath as she approaches the girl. ‘I’m glad I could save you this time.’ She huffs out. Right as she fires her grappling hook to zip away from the rays of moonlight and back into the shroud of darkness enveloping the city, she hears a whimper, ‘I’m Jo Yuri, I don’t know how to thank you enough. Thank you so so much.’ She could feel her cheeks heating up, a wide smile breaking onto her face as she flies off in the night. ‘Tonight was successful’ she thought to herself. Successful it was.

Yena could barely believe how mundane the life of her alter ego was. After the thrill of the success (and partially because Jo Yuri was lingering in her mind practically 24/7) she could barely pull herself together to focus at work. She would be on her phone most hours, scrolling through the articles put out regarding her first real debut. Much to her surprise, the alias Moondrop wasn’t name dropped in any of them. Sure she wasn’t doing this for the fame and popularity, but she did think it would be nice to have a name for criminals to fear. Most importantly, she knows she told Jo Yuri her alias on the first night, did she think it was lame and chose to exclude it from her witness testimony? or did she already manage to forget their first encounter. ‘It’s probably the government’s intervention, wouldn’t want a law breaking vigilante to gain a cult following in this ed up city.’ Yena ultimately decides. 

The rest of the week went the same as the second night. A crime happens, usually a robbery (it’s basically The Coin’s Modus Operandi ) Yena shows up as Moondrop, kicks some , saves the day and then revels in her success through articles released the next day. But, something was off, something was very off. At each of the crime scene, a particularly beautiful young girl would somehow someway always stumble her way onto the crime scene. Yena couldn’t decide if she just downright had the luck of the devil or if she was somehow following Moondrop’s activities. Whichever one it was, it didn’t deter Yena from flirting with her every opportunity she could. ‘Hey Princess Peach, your Mario is here.’ ‘Wouldn’t want the tiniest scratch on that pretty face of yours, that’s why I’m doing this night after night.’ ‘What would I do without my very own damsel in distress Yuri? I thank the heavens for you every day.’ Different lines each night, Yena never seemed to run out of words to bring a rosy hue to Yuri’s face, which neither of them seemed to mind. Yena loved seeing the look on Yuri’s face every time she swooped in and saved the day, it was enough to motivate her to keep going. 

What seemed like years passed (really it was only 2 months, but Yena can be a drama queen at times), endless nights of patrols, endless nights of city saving and although the frequency of hostage situations Yuri found herself in decreased, endless nights of saving the damsel in distress. At this point, it was far too unnatural for Yena to ignore. Eunbi had been keeping track of her activities and of the fifty seven crime scenes Yena had intervened in as Moondrop, Yuri was present for a whopping forty two of them. The sponsor was much too suspicious of the occurrence, afterall, Eunbi was one to crunch numbers. She even had Yena try and approach Yuri in civilian attire but they could somehow never find her despite Eunbi’s extensive network laid across the city. At some point, Eunbi even theorised that Yuri was in cahoots with The Coin, claiming she had been involved since the start. Yena just laughed it off, something along the lines of ‘that sweet little pumpkin peachy pie would never!’ Then it happened.

It was a usual dreary night in the city, shadows looming all over the city architecture. Moondrop was out on the prowl for some crime to stop as per usual. It started with a gunshot, then another, then a couple more sounding off one after the other, piercing into the silence of the night like a knife through flesh. Sharp, yet ever so dull. In her haze to pinpoint the sources of the sounds, she momentarily let her guard down. It all happened so fast, a man jumped onto Moondrop from behind, causing them both to plummet to the hard concrete ground beneath them. Thankfully, Moondrop managed to shake herself loose during the fall, proceeding to roll onto the ground to reduce the impact. ‘ , now I’m really ed.’ She had landed straight into the middle of a huge gang of suited thugs. Each carrying some form of lethal weapon yet surprisingly no guns. Moondrop heaved a sigh of relief at the lack of firearms, at least she could put up a fight in this situation. One after the other she was rushed at in quick succession, knifes and bats and wooden sticks swinging at full force in her direction, she tried her best to manoeuvre through the raining blows but it was too much to keep up with. She was quickly taken down and the next thing she knew, she was panned on the ground, slipping in and out of consciousness. She could hear Eunbi yelling in her ear, screaming for her to get herself together and that the drones weren’t doing much to whittle down their numbers. But she couldn’t do it, she was far too beat up, both physically and mentally. Memories ofher father was flowing through her head, like a panorama, a highlight reel of all the joy he brought into her life. She cursed herself for her own weakness, she couldn’t even take care of herself much less exact her act of vengeance against The Coin. That’s when she heard a voice break through the buzzing in her ears, shaking her awake from deep within. The voice was husky, a tone slathered in honey, powerful and strong enough that it could wake a sleeping panda, yet calm and soothing enough to put a raging bull to sleep. Moondrop could recognise the voice, it was Yuri. Her heart shuddered at the first thought that came into her mind. ‘ . Was Eunbi right?’ ‘MOONDROP! GET AWAY FROM HER YOU LOWLIFES!’ shots were sprayed from the rifle Yuri had in her arms. The crooks were shaken, with no firearms to retaliate, all they could do was turn tail and run, leaving the two girls behind. Yuri dropped the gun at her feet and ran towards the now nearly unconscious Moondrop. ‘Hey hey hey I’m here, it’s Yuri. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t die.’ She heard Yuri break out into a sob. A huge wave of relief ran its course through Yena, perhaps she had gotten much too attached to believe that her damsel in distress wasn’t quite what she made herself out to be. Sirens could be heard from the distance, closing in on the alley the two were at. ‘We’ve gotta go.’ She hears Yuri mutter just before she falls unconscious.

When she awoke, Moondrop found herself in an old dusty abandoned warehouse, Yuri tending to her wounds while sobbing uncontrollably. It was a first for her, at least since her father had passed that she was seeing someone cry for her, feel for her. Despite the messed up situation she was in, she could feel her heart racing at a thousand miles an hour, thundering through her chest. She took her mask off, locking eyes with Yuri. Yuri was in visible shock, she sure as hell wasn’t expecting to see Moondrop’s identity right here and now and she sure wasn’t expecting her to be that damn beautiful. Yena smoothed her fingers through Yuri’s dark brown hair, pulling the girl closer, close enough that their nose were this close to touching, and let out a chuckle. ‘Looks like I’m Princess Peach today, Mario.’ She gently grabbed the other by her nape, pulling her in closer, eyes not faltering, gazes locked. Yuri was the first to slowly bring her eyelids to a close, embracing Yena’s grip, a silent sign of affirmation. First, their upper lips made contact, tracing and feeling one another out. Then, the lower lips too, their lips melting into one another’s in a kiss. It wasn’t fireworks and rainbows nor was it the taste of sweet fruity lip gloss. It was raw, they could taste the iron in the blood, the flesh of an open cut. But they clung onto one another, helplessly losing themselves in their embrace. After what Yena would argue was way too short a time (they were at it for fifteen whole ing minutes without break), the two broke away from one another, huffing and puffing, lips numb from play biting, tongues lost and unable to find their original spots. Catching her breath, Yena looked straight in Yuri’s eyes and simply says ‘I’m Choi Yena. And I think… I’m in love… with you.’ before turning around and making her way towards the entrance of the warehouse. As she walks out to bask in the light of the full moon falling straight to earth, she hears the voice behind her, putting her heart and mind into overdrive. ‘Me too.’ Yuri mutters as a playful grin breaks out onto her face. With Yena’s back facing her, Yuri twirls a familiar coin in her hand, flipping it into the air before palming it onto the back of her hand. The cold breeze of the night flooded the warehouse, she lifts her palm and peeks in between. What she saw was neither heads nor tails, all she saw was, The Coin.