Author's Notes:

Thanks to Enberlight for a beta read on this chapter!

Alya Césaire was no fool.

But hanging upside down in a spider web of her Akumatized sister's own making...that was giving her pause.

It hadn't taken her long to piece together who had been akumatized.

She knew how Nora acted. Alya herself had learned half her own tricks from her. She always was inclined to play with her food, she chuckled darkly.

But some part of herself must have persisted for Alya herself to be looming still aware and captured in her web, instead of fully cocooned in spider silk as she had seen as she and Nino had scrambled through the city.

Struggling against the sticky web, Alya was half lost in thought, desperately trying to puzzle a best way out. She and Nino had gotten split up, but there was no way to tell whether he had already been captured himself.

She wasn't exactly sure what it was that had set Nora off, but there was no doubt in her mind it was some mixture of anger and fear - possibly for Alya's own safety.

Nora had been so convinced that she was running in thoughtlessly, chasing after superheroes without a care for her own safety.

That was perhaps the very reason that Anansi seemed to be biding her time, stalking back and forth across the silken strands.

Trying - and failing - to rile her up.

"Ah, ah, ah, Little Sister," Nora's voice chided, a hissed strain that was barely recognizable behind a terrifying mask that slowly morphed into a close facsimile of her sisters. "You mustn't struggle too much. Not before your little friends arrive."

Alya grit her teeth, even more intent to tug herself free. "What makes you so sure they'll come for me?"

Anansi tensed up at that.

Alya smirked at her reaction.

At least until Anansi's sharper voice cut like a knife. "I don't know, little sister…have your heroes ever failed to come after an Akuma?"

Flinching, Alya let her eyes narrow, covering the fact that she'd managed to free her phone camera enough to show her sister's temporary monstrous form..

"Do not fool yourself, Alya." Anansi grin grew menacing. "You are little more than a very convenient distraction."

She knew she might be a little rash, always ready to tail after Akuma to get the best source for her blog, but that had been twofold. She had a personal dedication to the truth. The reality of that made her blog one of the main sources of information on Paris's superheroes...and it made her own name that much stronger.

Nora might never understand, but this was her chance to step out of the long shadow her big sister had cast. With Nora's athletic accomplishments and the never ending chore of reigning in the twins, it hadn't really been easy for Alya to grab the spotlight for herself. For years, the most she could claim was that she was actually really good with kids and a decent student. And the most that ever got her was a special dinner now and again...and extra time tasked with babysitting duty.

Now, she'd been on national TV more than once now, demonstrating her own expertise. A budding career in investigative journalism was hers for the taking, provided she continued to run down the leads as they came up.

A big scoop, short of revealing Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities, could do that for her.

After she had been Akumatized months ago, she knew she couldn't blast that information out into the world. Of course, she still wanted it for herself.

Having been inside of a transformation of her own had given her a fresh perspective on the matter of secret identities. But if the information was there, clear enough for her to find - with as much as she paid attention to the pair of them - she could at least put out information that would send all but only the most determined reporters fleeing in the opposite direction.

She was hoping for more: to puzzle out more about the big butterfly himself.

Her own akumatized form had shown a preference for being well connected to put Ladybug's identity out - all because she had been convinced the hateful Chloé Bourgeois had been hiding behind Ladybug's mask at the time.

But all of her sisters going for the myths they had all been told as children?

She expected it from Ella and Etta, especially after they had just been talking about the puckish Sapotis.

But Nora? Somehow she had expected more from the big sister she looked up to for so long. Her innate sense of strategy was much better than that. She was more clever than that.

"Speaking of distractions," Anansi's grin grew dark and malicious, hovering ever closer to furtively peer through the web. "It seems you brought along a little friend."