AN: This is a continuation of "Heroes of Paris: Patrol Logs" which will run for the duration of "The Colossus Saga."
To Butterfly: Ivan and Kim work really well together!
To armadas: That's a nice thing about going back to the main universe – everyone's back alive again! Kim and Ondine are pretty cute, aren't they? I like having a hero/civilian couple to write.
To yellow 14: Yep! Sometimes it's not aliens; it's just paranoid schizophrenia.
Alya picked out a day-old éclair from the plate on Marinette's desk and popped it in her mouth, the vanilla cream filling bursting out. This was probably the second-best part of hanging out at Marinette's… after getting to hang out with the girl herself. Even if that girl happened to be in ultra-serious video game mode at the moment. At the desk chair, Marinette wore an expression of extreme concentration, all her focus on the Akuma battle in front of her. A moment later, the "Victory" screen appeared and Marinette pumped her fist in triumph.
"Three in a row!" she whooped, jumping to her feet and turning to Alya with a huge grin. "Just two more and I unlock Multiplice!" She tossed the controller to Alya. "Your turn."
Alya rolled her eyes affectionately as she caught the controller and switched the display over to Player Two. Max had spent the last year coding a new multiplayer cooperative format for his "Super Akuma Battle" game, incorporating the Heores of Paris and allowing players to form teams. However, he had gotten stuck on the best version, so Marinette had suggested that he make a couple of demos for them to test out. So far, Marinette had already unlocked half the hero characters, and Alya had only managed to add herself. She selected Rena Rouge from the menu and hit "Start." Soon she was immersed in the game, dodging around Stormy Weather's lightning strikes and stabbing her flute into the pavement to keep from being blown off the map. Then Stormy Weather threw a blizzard at her, and she was covered in snow up to her fox ears.
"I'm pretty sure the idea of the game is to win," Marinette pointed out wryly, biting into a petit four.
Alya glared at her halfheartedly. "I can still make it work…" She hit the button to use Mirage, made her selection, and a Mirage-Rena Rouge appeared on top of the snow. While the Mirage drew repeated blasts of lightning from Stormy Weather, Rena Rouge snuck through the snow and tackled Stormy Weather to the ground. "See? Easy!" Alya stuck her tongue out at Marinette, who grinned.
"I would have finished it in half the time," Marinette informed her.
"I'm sure." Alya shook her head in amusement. "This is what you need more of, girl," she commented. "Doing the things that you like to do." Marinette raised an eyebrow at her dubiously. "Doing things you like to do without needing Adrien around," Alya amended.
Marinette scoffed. "I don't spend all my time with my fiancé," she retorted. Her eyes softened as she gazed down at the ring on her finger, the stones catching the light.
Alya snorted. "That look tells a different story." She sighed. "Look, girl, you know no one's happier for you than me, right? But I'm a little worried for you: you threw yourself into the relationship, then you threw yourself into becoming 'Mme Agreste,' and with all your usual level of intensity and dedication. And that's great! After all the crap of the last three-plus years, you both deserve to be happy. But are you still Marinette? Before tonight, when's the last time you played video games without Adrien?"
"I do…" Marinette began, though her voice trailed off. She frowned, her shoulders slumping. "Mama warned me about the same thing," she admitted. She gave Alya a worried look. "Do you think we're rushing it?"
Alya arched an eyebrow. "Considering that you've been engaged longer than you were dating, and you still haven't reached that one-year anniversary yet…"
"Should we slow down?" Marinette's lip trembled and she looked down at her ring, twisting it around her finger.
"Hell no, girl!" Alya wrapped an arm around Marinette's shoulder. "With the two of you, we both know exactly where this is going. You need each other, you belong together, so why prolong the inevitable? Especially when there are always going to be the nutcases like Night Bat out there trying to take away your happily ever after, you two deserve to have as much time together as possible! But," she added nervously, "maybe you also need to take some time to just hang with the girls sometimes? That way you can take time to be Marinette without getting consumed with being Mme Agreste."
Marinette nodded slowly in acknowledgement, letting out a heavy breath. Alya hugged her tightly, and she sighed. "Thanks," Marinette finally told her, returning the embrace. "You'll be here for me, right?"
"What're friends for?" Alya replied, grinning.
"Are friends for reminding each other about patrols?" interjected Trixx, gesturing toward the clock on the wall and raising an eyebrow at them.
Marinette jumped. "We're late!" she yelped, scrambling to save the game and find her purse.
Tikki cleared her throat and flitted across the room to hover in front of her. "You're the ones who set the patrol times, aren't you?' she pointed out. "So how can you be late to something you scheduled?"
Marinette's mouth opened and closed dumbly. Alya raised an eyebrow at her and calmly transformed, quickly followed by Marinette. A couple minutes later, Rena Rouge and Ladybug slipped through the skylight and out into the dark. Rena Rouge trailed after Ladybug as they raced across the city, eyes scanning with practiced ease for signs of danger.
"You know," Ladybug observed presently, swinging across a wide street on her yo-yo, "it's not like Adrien's the only one eating up my 'Marinette time.'"
"That's true," Rena Rouge conceded. "If there's more that the rest of us can do with the Heroes of Paris, Miraculous stuff, Heroes of Europe…"
Ladybug hummed. "I suppose you could tell the others to stop making friends!" she joked. "With all the other hero groups out there, I can hardly keep the names and powers straight! And now we have a team in Japan to worry about…"
Rena Rouge shrugged. "It's not like it's their fault," she argued. "You and Cat have inspired a lot of people. And not just those in Lisbon or Berlin or Tokyo: our friends, too. So, really, it's your fault that we have all these allies around the world!"
Ladybug made a pouting face and grumbled something that sounded like, "Stupid facts." Suddenly her eyes went wide and she dove to one side, contorting around into a spinning back-flip. She landed on the balls of her toes for a fraction of a second and jumped away, catching her yo-yo around the stonework of the building on which they stood and pulling to give herself greater momentum.
Rena Rouge dropped beneath the raised wall along the side of the roof to avoid being seen, watching Ladybug elude the barrage of chi-putty being thrown at them from below. Cautiously she leaned over the edge and just got a tiny glimpse of the Deacon standing on the fire escape directly below them before she had to pull her head back in order to avoid a glob of chi-putty. "What's the plan, girl?" she hissed to Ladybug, who was still dancing around the roof.
"Not get hit!" she retorted shortly, springing away from Rena Rouge to the opposite side of the roof. She dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, and rubbed her forehead. "At least he's only one," she grumbled, crawling across the roof to sit next to Rena Rouge. Rena Rouge hummed contemplatively. "What are you thinking?" Ladybug asked.
"We're sitting ducks up here if he comes up," she pointed out. "We need to get him down to the ground."
Ladybug nodded. "Follow my lead." She rose from her position resting against the roof's guard wall and immediately dodged to one side before diving off the roof in the opposite direction. Rena Rouge sprinted after her, using her flute to catch herself and slow her descent. The two heroes slowly made their way down the side of the building, juking and dodging to avoid chi-putty from the Deacon, luring him into following them. They reached the ground in a matter of moments, and turned back to watch the Deacon race down after them, taking the ladders at a breakneck pace, flicking chi-putty at them as he went. Finally he reached the street level, and Ladybug smirked. "Time for a little payback."
Rena Rouge raced after Ladybug as she halved the distance between them and the Deacon in seconds, swinging her yo-yo up and around in a wide loop, hacking down at his head. The Deacon brought up his staff to block, and Ladybug drew the yo-yo back and swept his feet out from under him. He jumped over her leg, and Rena Rouge slashed at his waist with her flute. He blocked in midair, and the force of her strike knocked him back several feet, stumbling as he landed. Ladybug raced in from the right, and he jumped back, away from them. Ladybug dodged the bolas the he sent skipping at her ankles, but jumped right into the way of another piece of chi-putty.
"Don't you dare touch her!" Rena Rouge snarled at him, racing toward them. But how was she supposed to fight him and protect Ladybug without getting hit herself? His hand was dangerously close to Ladybug's head. Rena Rouge dove between them and swatted the Deacon away from Ladybug. He raised his staff to block her, and she pushed him back. "Turing?" she called urgently. "We have a Dark Acolyte situation here."
"None of the non-miraculous heroes are close by," he reported immediately.
Rena Rouge muttered a curse. "The Deacon hit Ladybug with chi-putty. There isn't any–" Her jaw dropped, finally taking in the building behind them. "Son of a bitch. Call the SLD," she instructed him. "Whoever they can send."
Three minutes later, the city hall door opened and a lanky man in wrinkled pants and a blue polo ran down the steps two at a time. The Deacon caught sight of Bloch and charged in that direction, only for Rena Rouge to hurl her flute just in front of him. The Deacon skidded to a stop, narrowly avoiding the flute, and it ricocheted off the light pole behind him, back to Rena Rouge. Rena Rouge chased the Deacon away. Walking right up to Ladybug, Bloch grimaced, hesitating. "I'm sorry for this" he told her, before removing the piece of chi-putty from her stomach.
Ladybug slumped as she regained the ability to move. "For something like that, it's okay," she told him. "Just… not any other time."
Rena Rouge let out a breath, blocking the Deacon's staff with her flute and dropping the opposite end to sweep his legs. "Thanks, Bloch."
"Happy to help!" he assured them, pocketing the chi-putty and turning to face the fight, backing up toward the bottom of the city hall steps. He put out his hand to grab onto the railing, not taking his eyes off the Deacon.
Rena Rouge pressed her advantage against the Deacon, who began backing away from them, eyeing an exit. "Not so tough when you're facing people you can't freeze, are you?" she taunted him, her grip on her flute tightening. Ladybug appeared at her side and spun her yo-yo in a tight loop to one side; Rena Rouge could see her eyes darting up and down the street, formulating a plan. Rena Rouge tensed as Ladybug's eyes settled on the parked car directly behind the Deacon. Suddenly, just as Rena Rouge was about to call her Mirage to mask Ladybug's attack, the Deacon sprinted away from them, ducked into a back alley, and disappeared. Rena Rouge straightened up, her shoulders relaxing, and glanced back at Bloch. "Thanks; I think we'll be okay on our own now," she told him. "But I'll be sure to call if we run into trouble again."
Bloch gave her a quick salute as he jogged back up the stairs. "Call any time; the SLD is always ready to back up the Heroes of Paris!"
Rena Rouge nodded to Ladybug as they slowly continued down the street along their patrol route. "Well that was fun…"
Ladybug giggled. "Yeah… the kind of fun I'd rather never do again!"