AN: There is one chapter left after this one. After "Along Came Anansi" is fully published tomorrow, I will publish a couple more One-Shots in "An Adrienette Anthology" before starting to publish the sequel to this story, "A Jagged Ride with the Owl."
To anonymousfriend27: Naturally; Anansi is most definitely that kind of vigilante/hero!
To The Keeper of Worlds: Pretty much. We shall see how things progress between the Heroes and Lynchpin moving forward…
"I'm telling you, Nino, this is getting to be huge! The vigilante has been investigating this for months, and she's found connections everywhere in organized crime. And now we know that they have at least one mole in the police department… And they've got the Mkufu wa Wanyama. What's next? Are they going to be poisoning the water supply to make the city devolve into absolute chaos? And the vigilante 'doesn't want my help' with any of this!"
Nino squeezed Alya's hand, silencing her rambling fears. They were walking around an outdoor music festival by the Louvre, admiring the booths of band merchandise while listening to the current act's performance. Nino smiled and waved over to Marinette, who was sitting at a booth displaying a wide selection of her Kitty Section shirts.
"Relax, babe," he told her. "We have no idea if what they actually got really is that Mookoo-thing or if it even does anything special even if it is the real one. Besides, it sounds like this vigilante dude is on top of things with what happened yesterday. If she needs help, she'll let us know. But until that happens, there's no point worrying. Maybe the necklace at the police station being a fake is a good thing." Seeing her disbelieving look he quickly added, "Hey, I hate that they got what they wanted, too, but maybe since they did, they'll leave us all alone now, right?"
Alya sighed. "There's just something about this thing that doesn't feel right, you know? They stole a magic necklace. Why? And why send in that druggie who would either hurt a lot of people or fail spectacularly? Why not just claim to be the owner and take it from the zoo's lost and found, with no one the wiser? And who was behind it all? There are just too many unanswered questions."
"Maybe the answers will come eventually," Nino suggested. "For tonight, let's just have fun and listen to the music." He dragged her over to the second stage, where Kitty Section was setting up for their set. Adrien waved down to them from the stage and Nino catcalled back. As Luka and Juleka tuned, Nino pulled Alya close and they started dancing slowly to the music of the current band, which was just finishing their last song. They joined the audience in applauding when that song ended.
As Rose was getting ready to introduce Kitty Section to the crowd, Alya suddenly whipped her phone out, unlocked it, and stared at something on the screen. Nino glanced over to see her expression shift from interest to concern.
"What's wrong, babe?" he asked, leaning in closer.
She didn't say anything but simply angled the phone for him to see it better over her shoulder. It was an alert from the Ladyblog: a guest was streaming a video of a warehouse on the other side of the city. The video was being shot from one side of the warehouse. Through the warehouse windows they could see a group of men fighting a masked figure. Between the poor lighting and angle, however, they only caught a couple glimpses of the figure: just enough to make out a dark yellow full-body suit. "Is this the vigilante?" he asked her. "It kinda looks like her, but I can't quite tell from this distance. I didn't get much of a look last night, either."
"It's definitely her," Alya confirmed. "And look what's waiting for her outside the building."
Nino looked back and couldn't tell what Alya was seeing at first. Then he noticed a flash of light pan across the wall, followed immediately by another one. The lights stopped, and shadows cut across the building in front of the headlights.
"Wait, those are headlights, right?" Nino observed. "Reinforcements?"
"Yeah," Alya agreed. "And that's at least the third car to arrive. With the ones that just showed up, they've got to be planning a serious ambush."
Nino let out a low curse. "Should we call this in? King Monkey and Queen Bee are patrolling tonight, right?"
Alya nodded. "Yes, but… I can't just sit here and watch and do nothing! I have to do something!"
Nino put his hands on her shoulders and guided her out of the crowd to a more secluded area. She was shaking, her breathing fast, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. He pulled her in close. "Shh," he whispered, rubbing her back. "I'm sure this vigilante knows what she's doing. I want to help, too, but it's not all on us."
"But she's there because of us! She's trying to track down the people who tried to hurt our sisters!"
"That's her choice," Nino told her. "You didn't tell her to go there. Why are you so…" Nino fell silent as her words finally sunk in. He took a closer look at Alya's tearstained face and thought back to the scene the previous night, the conversation that morning. Suddenly it all made so much more sense. He hugged her tight, put and arm around her shoulders, and steered her away from the stages and booths to find a spot where they could transform. "Ah. Right, let's go save your sister."
Carapace crouched a couple meters away from the roof's edge, staying low to keep his profile as small as possible. Rena Rouge lay on the roof next to him, watching the fight. So far Anansi seemed to be holding her own, despite the odds stacked against her. However, she still didn't appear to recognize the ambush they were maneuvering her into on the other side of the building in the warehouse's shipping yard. In the time it had taken for them to arrive and situate themselves on the warehouse roof, another couple SUVs of reinforcements had arrived, swelling the numbers in front of the warehouse.
"Please keep her safe," Rena Rouge begged, not taking her eyes off the scene below them.
Carapace put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "I won't let anything happen to her," he promised. "Besides, if it weren't for her, I never would have gotten the miraculous in the first place. I owe her, and for more than just last night."
At that moment, a couple of the thugs fighting Anansi right at the corner of the building fled around the corner, and she charged around the corner after them, only to stop short at the sight of the ranks of men with rifles facing her.
"I think that's my cue, babe," Carapace muttered, racing forward and leaping from the roof in a single motion.
Carapace landed right in front of Anansi and brought his shield up simultaneously, an instant before the thugs opened fire. "Stay behind me," he shouted over the noice, bracing his shoulder against the shield. He felt Anansi's hand on his shoulder as she crouched behind him.
At such close range the barrage of gunfire threatened to deafen and disorient him, but Carapace gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and held the shield as steady as he could. He felt the shooters' aim adjust downward, below the shield and at his legs; not for the first time was he grateful that Wayzz had given his entire suit extra padding and armor. Even though regular bullets could not penetrate the miraculous suit, the padding still helped to dissipate the impact force. Just when Carapace thought he couldn't take any more of the gunfire, it stopped, replaced by the clicking of empty chambers.
Carapace roared and charged into the crowd of thugs, holding his shield in front of himself like a battering ram. An instant later, he heard Anansi follow behind him. As he reached the leading edge of the group, Carapace dropped low, braced, and pushed up as hard as he could. The shield caught the first couple thugs in front of him hard in the gut, knocking them off their feet and backward into the second row. He followed them into the crowd and swung his shield horizontally as hard as he could, striking another couple with the shield's edge. Anansi punched the first thug to the opposite side and they found themselves back to back, surrounded by the thugs.
"I don't suppose you have a plan now, do you, Shelly?" Anansi growled.
"Don't worry," he retorted, surreptitiously glancing at the warehouse roof. The figure standing atop the roof nodded and raised her flute to her lips. "We've got everything's under control."
As if on cue, they were surrounded by flashing red and blue lights as a dozen police cars appeared to converge on the warehouse from all directions. Officers started jumping out of cars and lining up around the periphery of the fight.
Anansi gave him a look. "That's convenient. What happens now?"
Rena Rouge dropped down and landed softly between them. "Now?" she muttered. "We take them out before they figure out that's just a Mirage."
Rena Rouge dove into the crowd of distracted thugs, swinging her flute like a club. Simultaneously, Carapace raced into the group himself. He swung around and punched the thug to his left before ducking under a punch from another. His shield caught a swinging rifle, which he redirected to the side before sidestepping inside that man's guard and elbowing him hard in the gut. He used that man as a shield to protect his back from another blow before spinning around and throwing his limp form into another pair of thugs, knocking all three to the ground in a jumbled heap. Across the melee he could make out Anansi fighting three of the thugs by herself.
A couple of the attackers had managed to reload their rifles; Carapace saw them raising their arms and aiming at Rena Rouge's back. Without thinking, he slid his shield off his arm and threw it at them like a discus. The rim of the shield caught both thugs squarely in the back and knocked them face first into the ground. The shield itself deflected to land at Rena Rouge's feet. She glanced up at him in surprise as it landed.
Carapace turned back to the group surrounding him and raised his arms to protect his face. I really owe Adrien one for making me take those karate lessons, he thought, ducking under one attack, bobbing to the side, and striking the thug with his palm. He felt a breeze over his head as that thug fell down, and shifted directions quickly, catching the next thug with a chop and popping his knee out of joint. He caught a green blur in his peripheral vision and reached out to catch the shield that Rena Rouge had hurled back to him, jamming it home on his arm and raising it to block a blow in the same motion. Then he straightened up and looked around the warehouse yard.
The Mirage had finally been disrupted and vanished. However, those thugs who were still on their feet had started fleeing also. One by one the SUVs were pulling away from the warehouse, leaving a handful of their injured and unconscious companions behind.
"We did it!" Carapace whooped, looking around to find Rena Rouge and Anansi. He caught a quick glimpse of Anansi on the far side of the yard nudging an unconscious thug with her foot before his vision was completely blocked out by a head of red-brown hair and Rena Rouge was throwing herself into his arms.
"Thank you," she whispered, squeezing him tightly and leaning in for a kiss.