Marinette really wished she incorporated more carrots into her diet. She had hoped that, after ten or so minutes of mindlessly feeling out walls in the dark, her eyes would have adjusted. Instead, her only guide on this journey was the occasional spark bleeding from broken light fixtures and a thick wire that weaved around the walls.
She'd admit, she hadn't exactly come down here with much of a plan. The furthest her thinking had gotten in terms of solid steps was that, since the power upstairs was still working, there was a chance of fixing the power down here.
Marinette had found what she was relatively sure was the power line that fed into the underground lair section. She was banking on it leading her to some sort of faulty wiring or malfunctioning fuse box she could repair.
When she was a child, her father had never been too keen on paying for an electrician, so he took it upon himself to do the maintenance work, and little Marinette his professional assistant who handed him the tools.
Which meant that she'd never repaired anything like that in her life. But her dad made it look real easy from where she would watch!
Grabbing at the darkness in an unfamiliar set of halls was scary enough. Marinette was a planner, she liked having clear cut variables. She didn't like the dark. She didn't like something she couldn't map out. She didn't like a space where she couldn't see the exits.
Take all that and add two more variables; a heavy, ancient weapon pressing down on her shoulder, and a monster skulking about in the dark. She was lost in a raging storm and the only thing she could rely on is that the shark was close by.
She moved slow, every step spanning maybe an inch or more, turning every room into a titanic hall she journeyed through. It had to be this way. She couldn't rush forward, letting her clumsy footwork announce her location in screeching echoes. Nor could she crouch down to creep at brisk, but slower pace, desperately gripping the naginata as either ends of it threaten to scrape against the wall.
She needed to be quite and slow enough to afford paying attention to the world around her, to hear every clink of something falling, every reverb of the wind burrowing in, every little noise she had to stop and ask herself if it was metal screeching or a creature prowling.
At the first turn in her little adventure, taking her into a small connecting room only slightly bigger than a closet, she heard a quiet skittering noise play across the floor panels. A close rapid patter of tiny footsteps dancing across the floor? Or the distant noise of something much larger wrapping it's claws against the ground?
Whatever it was, it passed within the same breath it was summoned into existence, leaving only silence. Marinette found herself slipping into the next room, only able to awkwardly shuffle around the corner with her back so tightly pressed into the wall, with the wires digging into her lower back.
Another room. And then a hallway. A familiar room that made her realize the hallway took her right back around. At some point the darkness seemed to have pity on her, allowing her to stumble into another hallway, though this one was capped off with a staircase that all manner of wires descended upon.
A thin lightbulb hung above it, having just enough power to flicker a small platter of emergency red over a sign reading 'Generator Room'.
That's my ticket, she thought. Marinette didn't dare speak out loud, barely allowing herself to breath lest she make too much noise or allow the irony Gods to know she was starting to feel secure.
The stairs led her down into what looked like a small garage. With the vision offered solely by the dying red light and a few blinking pin-sized specs blaring from the various boxes and machinery attached to the wall, she could make out more wire, some tables topped with boxes of nuts and bolts, and a closed shutter on the right side of the room.
Following the blinking lights, Marinette found herself standing in front of where all the wires joined as one, a box protruding from the wall that was squeezed in-between two gargantuan pale blue cylinders that connected the ground and ceiling. The box was hanging open, with great big letters on the inside announcing that it was the emergency power switch, and that, at the moment, it was set to off.
Marinette was almost scared to touch it. It couldn't be that easy, could it? She had to be reading it wrong or missing some big technical context. There was no way that life would ever settle for her plan being resolved with just flipping a switch.
She took a deep breath and reached for the lever. And she instantly hissed out at how cold it felt to grasp, the metal practically sticking to her fingers, locking her into her decision.
She breathed again. There was no reason to be scared. If it didn't work, it wasn't the end of the world, it was just inconvenient. What's the worst that could happen, anyway?
Well, it could explode in her face. That's what faulty electrical equipment could do.
It could explode.
Marinette felt herself lung squeeze themselves taught and her heart hammering against her ribcage. It could… I could… W-What's happening to me? She felt her palms run slick with sweat, reminding her of how she practically melted under the sweltering heat of- That day. She was there again, stuck in that split-second that was dragged out for eternity.
The darkness was gone, and she so dearly missed it when she realized it had been replaced with the blinding flash of the explosion. She could feel it take her again, drowning her in fire, boiling her flesh. Until her muscles popped through, until everything solid was a bubbling, molten mass of dead tissue dripping off charred bone.
She didn't know when she flipped the switch, just that she was squeezing her eyes shut when she did it, and the thunderous clap of metal hitting metal only served to make her skin crawl.
When her eyes opened, she was greeted by light, a mix of blue and white hues chasing away the darkness. The generators had some worrying-sounding clattering for a few seconds, like an old car spluttering to life, but soon enough they found their footing with a soft, constant purr.
A pleasant contrast to the lifeless ruins she was trudging through before, it was as if the entire building was waking up.
With the room lit up, Marinette found her eyes roaming the walls which were brimming with hundreds of different posters, blueprints and notes stuck together. She didn't understand most of them, but she did recognise the signature of Max Kanté in the corner of them.
She gingerly hoisted the naginata back up onto her shoulder, the weapon suddenly feeling lighter as her posture became more confident. It was a simple task in the end, but it was something, it was progress. And in that moment, a step forward, and something to rub in Gabriel's stupid, ugly face, however minute, was something she could celebrate.
Marinette moved over to the shutters, flicking the control button at their side. She couldn't help but whistle, "That was surprisingly convenient."
The shutters opened with little to no effort.
And without the shutters in the way, Marinette had the perfect, up-close view of the pissed off sentimonster that was sitting just behind it, growling at her.
"…Why did I have to open my big fat mouth?"
Tables were cast aside, boxes-worth of mechanical clutter tosses into the air, as Senti-Sentry charged through them all. Marinette narrowly avoided the snapping of its jaws around her hips by diving to the floor, letting the beast's momentum throw itself against the wall. The naginata easily slipping from her fingers, sent skidding to the other side of the room.
However, this didn't give her much breathing room. She could hear the commotion behind her as she scrambled to her feet, Senti-Sentry's claws tearing the floor apart as its entire body spun around trying to regain its balance in a whirlwind of movement.
Worst of all she heard the rhythmic clinging of its tail beating against the wall. The waves hit her in short bursts, Lila's mad laughter and razor-sharp comments nipping at her heels as she scurried past flipped over tables and destroyed machinery. Chat Noir's fear that she thought of him as any less than her equal cut across her shoulder. Memories chased her to the other side of the room, hunting her down, pinning her down so the sentimonster could have its feast.
The adrenaline allowing her body to stay just an inch away from danger didn't allow her to slow down, so she only stopped when she shoulder-checked herself into the opposing wall, smacking her nose on the shutter control panel.
At her feet, she felt her toe slip under the bladed edge of the naginata just as the beast's foul roar tore into her eardrums. It wasn't exactly a ladybug plan, but 'stick the pointy thing into the bad thing' was a cult classic for a reason.
Senti-Sentry's steps were loud, rushed and closing in on her with every thundering clap. Marinette knew she didn't have the speed to crouch down, so instead she hooked her foot under the tip of the blade, kicking it upwards into her hand.
Her body was on pure autopilot by the time her fingers settled around the middle of the weapon, the panic gripping her not helped by sweaty palms and the ragged, hot breath of her attacker bearing down on her.
She spun around on her heel, no plan, no technique involved, just pure instinct and dumb luck. Her back instantly found itself pinned to the wall, her vision entirely claimed by the pale blue mass of scales and rubble decorating the beast's body.
Its jaws didn't open so much as peel back like a fleshy flower with only two petals, revealing twin rows of teeth that looked more like jagged spikes stretching far back into the creature's snout. However, instead of a throat at the end of the flesh canal, there was a single eye, bloated up and throbbing like a pimple.
In that split second there was no time to think, her panic urging her arms upwards, drawing the tip of the blade up and blindly slashing it through the air. She felt her swing come to a sudden halt, something hard but malleable stopping the blade's arc. She couldn't see what she hit over the creature's optical oesophagus, but she didn't need to. The painful scream that escaped the beast before it ripped itself away from her was more than enough confirmation.
However, what stuck with her and left a creeping chill at the back of her mind as she ducked through the open shutter, was that the scream, or screams, weren't that of a beast. They were human. They were multiple humans, voices she was terrified to recognise; Alya, her mother, Adrien, Tikki – people ripped straight from her heart to orchestrate an echoing harmony of agony.
The shutter's opening plopped her in a more familiar environment, a wide expanse where metal railings stretched onward until they met the cold stone platform where Emilie Agreste's coffin once sat. Where now the shattered remains of Marinette's crystal prison lay in Emilie's place. It was filled with wires, consoles and technology she knew nothing about, but she recognised this specific spot so well.
How fitting the cries of her loved ones would follow her back to the place where she betrayed them in the first place.
Another roar brought her back into the moment, picking up speed to move to the centre of the platform, surrounding herself with anything that looked sturdy enough to get in the sentimonster's way. Turning in place, she got a full view of the garage's place in all this, now spotting that the elevator entrance, and the rooms attached, had been moved up to a second floor that overlooked the main area.
Off to the side, there remained the drop down into the sewer network below, though now the previously thin and unsteady railings had been replaced with thicker, reinforced barriers. However, her eyes homed in on one spot where the barriers had broken off, along with a huge chunk of the platform missing with a dark, rusty colouring around the edges of the missing piece.
Second verse, same as the first, I suppose. Marinette took a deep breath, watching Senti-Sentry creeping out from the shadows of the shutter, teeth bared and ready to rip her apart. What are the chances he learned how to avoid holes in the floor while I was out exploring, right?
Marinette took one step to her right, towards the hole. That's as far as she got before Sentry wrapped it's tail around a crushed computer console and lobbed it at her, forcing her to dive in the opposite direction just to dodge it.
"I guess even sentimonsters can learn new tricks. That's just fantastic!" She growled, dashing forward as a few more objects came hurdling towards her like they were being fired out of a canon.
It was getting harder and harder to stay calm, every missed shot getting an inch closer to hitting its mark, and the constant barrage making it impossible for Marinette to have any hope of reaching the hole. Before she knew it, she was pinned behind an upturned chair, her small stature barely allowing her to take cover behind it as metal shards rained down from above as deadly as any bullet.
What am I supposed to do? She bit down on her lip, resisting the urge to voice that thought as a cry. All she could hear now was the overwhelming thumping of her heart, but no amount of adrenaline was going to get her out of this. I've gotten out of worst situations than this, right? I've… I've always found a way.
Tikki always found a way, a snide little voice in the back of her head (that sounded an awful lot like Hawkmoth) chided her. And on a bitter note, she couldn't help but agree. Tikki was always the brain and the power of Ladybug, wasn't she? Marinette was just the tool Tikki channelled her wisdom through. When Marinette was in doubt, she called on Tikki for the solution, she called on Tikki to enable her. Without the powers of the ladybug, what good could Marinette do?
Sure, she had a good thing going for a while, Adrien even called her his everyday Ladybug. She smiled at the memory for a moment, but that cloud of crippling doubt came quick and hard. Before the ladybug miraculous, Marinette was nobody, she was a shut in who hid from Chloe and depended on Socqueline to fight her battles for her. She didn't fight her own battles, she didn't confront the obstacles in life, she didn't get involved with anyone or anything.
All the good she'd done, all the people she befriends or helped, all the things she achieved; that was because of the miraculous, wasn't it? Even when not fighting akumas as Ladybug, it was only the knowledge that she had that power on standby any time she needed it that allowed her to thrive.
All she was good at was running away and hiding, and she had nowhere left to run.
"I can't… I can't…" She heard her weapon clatter to the floor, freeing her hands to reach up and desperately grab at her hair. "I have to do something. Everyone's counting on me. But I just… I just-"
Suddenly, a loud gargle of swears and strangled cries shattered her mental prison. Marinette's head snapped up, peeking over her shelter just in time to witness a giant table, with an absolutely terrified-looking Gabiel Agreste attached to it, plummeting from the second floor overlook and crashing into the confused sentimonster under it.
The table smashed to pieces on impact, but provided enough force to leave the creature stumbling back and forth, roaring in pain. Gabriel was thrown back on his ass, mostly intact aside from the wooden splinters left in his forehead, with his head hitting the base of Sentry's tail.
"This was a terrible idea." He groaned, struggling to keep himself from being thrown off the beast as it slowly regained it's senses. "Stupid. Stupid! Stupid! Oh, if Nathalie were here, she'd have talked me out of it."
Marinette could not find the will to move, watching the scene unfold through wide, disbelieving eyes and her mouth hanging open like a goldfish. Gabriel clearly considered just jumping off for the moment, but something caught his eye enough to convince him to stay atop his unstable make-shift platform.
He pushed himself to his feet, one hand firmly wrapped around one of the needle-looking metal pieces jammed into the creature's head to steady himself. Soon enough, Sentry's body started to buck, swinging back-and-forth in an attempt to shake the man off, but he kept his grip firm.
The tail came down once more, this time trying to slap Gabriel upside the head with the tuning fork, but this was just what Gabriel needed. He stumbled back warily, desperately clinging to his only anchoring point to stop himself from tumbling off the side, but managed to shoot out his arm at just enough time to catch the offending tail head.
Gabriel slipped further down the beast's back to the increased cries from Sentry's snapping jaws, sinking until he was practically hanging off the side while dragging the tail down with him. It was at this point, as Sentry whirled around, desperately trying to bend it's head back far enough to snap at Gabriel, that Marinette found what Gabriel had been focusing on.
Just beyond the creature's head, at the point where the neck and back met, was a broken scale that bent inward to reveal a deep gash. Her attack had done some damage after all and, seemingly in Gabriel's eyes, had created an opening as well.
Gabriel yanked the tail head down, the rest of the tail fighting the movement every step of the way. It took a few good pulls, especially when he was doing this entirely one handed, before he got the tuning-fork close enough to the prize.
With one final yank, and a shrill battle cry, Gabriel stabbed the tail head into the open wound deep enough that it got proper stuck under the scales, proudly proclaiming something that was utterly lost to the painful howl of the sentimonster.
The pain was a good enough fuel for the monster to fling Gabriel from his perch, practically slamming him into the ground entirely on his own momentum and sending him tumbling towards Marinette.
From his place on the floor he looked up, his exasperated gaze meeting hers, "Don't just stand there, get moving!" He snapped.
He was having a brief loss of sanity; it was the only way to explain why he was down here with his shoulder about the snap instead of lounging around upstairs gorging himself on pancakes. Damn Ladybug, he hissed to himself, this is all her fault! Getting into my head, making me project some melodramatic nonsense onto a butterfly phantom; that girl is going to be the death of me. Again!
He heaved himself up to his feet, nursing his bruised arm as the wide-eyed former hero, who still hadn't managed to close her mouth, scampered up to him. Her entire face seemed frozen in a gaping mess, the corner of her lips twitching like she desperately wanted to speak but couldn't help but be choked up.
Suddenly, she yanked him to the side, just in time for the beast to come charging past and trip over the chair she was using for cover. That's when she blurted out "There's an eye in its mouth."
He tried to respond, but the ache of his shoulder overpowered his mouth before he could formulate the words. Okay, that part wasn't Ladybug's fault – not completely anyway. When he had arrived at the now well-lit complex and saw the small girl being chased across the platform, the first thing he noticed was that the Senti-Sentry was about to be in perfect dropping position.
His eyes had immediately sought out the closest heavy-looking object he could find, a large oak table that, on any other day, would have induced a heart attack for even thinking about breaking it. He was just supposed to push it over the edge and let it crush the damn beast. He didn't think charging into the table when he realized just how heavy it was would lead to it dragging him off the edge alongside it.
But he wouldn't be here in the first place if it wasn't for Ladybug, so it's still partly her fault.
"It sees through an open mouth, Alright." Gabriel breathed in deep, taking in their surroundings.
Surprisingly, their little Sentry wasn't charging them this time, and it's best move was disabled so long as that tuning fork remained lodged in the creature's own body. Instead, the beast sank low on its hind legs, slowly creeping around them in a circle. It seemed to be waiting for them to make the first move.
"So, if we found some way to keep its mouth shut…" Gabriel said slowly, pausing to bite back on the urge to groan. "Then we can blind it."
"Sure that's a good idea?" Ladybug asked, "That sounds like it's just gonna piss him off even more."
Gabriel was ready to argue that taking away it's sight was a benefit worth the risk. It was the obvious point. But another, more irrational thought pried at him, one that came not from his mind but something else. Something outside of him.
It started as a feeling, a prickling at his heart from a cold, fuzzy-tipped touch. A hand reaching out to him- No, not a hand, a heart, like his and Ladybug's, a heart brushing up against his own with an echo of its inner tune.
There was discord, there was confusion, there was anger – but drowning out all else there was a resounding note of primal fear. Gabriel looked at the Sentry, at this sentimonster with few aspects that his mind could imagine as emotive facial features, and he could see fear. A fear, flavoured with worry, spiked with pain and spoke to a desire to run.
"He's afraid. If we keep the pressure on, he'll flee." He said with a firmness he felt, but couldn't believe.
His confidence caught Ladybug off balance, her eyes growing incredulous and, more prominently, suspicious. "How do you know that?"
He knew because he could feel it in his bone. He knew because he could practically see the strings unfurling from the beast, the wails of it's heart vibrating like chords on an instrument. He knew because if he squinted, if he tried to imagine it, his world would shift to reflect the filter of the creature's perspective.
He knew because, before his death, he'd submerge himself in such sensations almost weekly. The binding ties that guided his akumas to his champion of discord and chaos.
But he also knew that this couldn't be possible, that this had to be a delusion. Yet this delusion was so damn solid that Gabriel had to helplessly grab at the empty space under his neck just to prove to himself it couldn't be real.
Without Nooroo, his explanation made no sense, so instead his brain fumbled for something more believable. "…Well, I know my sentimonsters. I was Shadowmoth for a while, remember?"
There was a tense pause that, by all rights, shouldn't have been tense. What would it matter if she didn't believe him? What would it matter if she knew the extent of his delusions? Pride. It was always pride with Gabriel. He wouldn't dare let his enemy know just how broken he was on the inside. The very thought of exposing her to the fragility of his mind, his most vital and dearest tool, made the bile rise in his throat.
And perhaps a part of him still held hope that it wasn't a delusion, a smidgen of joyful denial that wanted to believe Hawkmoth could still be within him. A part of him that feared that the words of Ladybug – the woman that so easily talked him into ruin in their final confrontation – would well and truly squash that delusion.
Ladybug shrugged, so casually that Gabriel's pride felt mocked, before turning back to the sentimonster. "Fine, but if we die, I'm so haunting you."
Gabriel grimaced, but Hawkmoth scoffed. "You mean you're not already?"
She made a most un-lady like gesture in return. "Stuff it, Hawky."
Even as she expressed her doubt, he could see her eyes wondering and the gears in her head turning to pick out the points of interest in their surroundings. He'd only ever seen Ladybug's thought process through the lens of his akumas, akumas who more often than not didn't pay any mind the heroic schemer at work no matter how much he warned them otherwise.
He was surprised by how many micro-expressions she was able to go through in such short time. Suggestions spat out at random, calculations fed through multiple scenarios, instinctive frustration when the suggestion is denied before charging headfirst into the next one.
If Gabriel were a humble man, he might have thought of how it was similar to expressions he'd make, whether on the battlefield or at the drawing board.
Instead, he observed how her eyes narrowed with a soft glow to them as they homed in on the metal cable that was currently holding a fallen light fixture over the railing. There wasn't a moment to further solidify the plan, she was locked in and, in an instant, vanished in a blur of movement, shooting off towards her target.
Which, Gabriel supposed, left him playing bait; again.
She's probably revelling in every minute of this.
It was very important for Marinette to remind herself that she didn't trust Gabriel. She couldn't let herself settle into that mistake again. No, she trusted that she knew Gabriel's priorities, trusted that Gabriel's long tenure as the bane of Paris solidified that he was capable and cunning.
She trusted her own intuition that Gabriel's plan had merit.
She trusted that she didn't have a better plan.
She repeated these facts in her mind, screamed them out to an audience of judgemental faces she invented, hoping that she'd find a point that would ease the wave of nausea this entire situation stuck her with. She imagined the stands filled with familiar faces, her friends, her family, her partner, all stumbling in to save her only to catch this scandalous alliance and assuming the worst.
It wasn't that long before she was at the edge of the platform, peering over the railing to see her steeled eyes reflected in the raging rapids below. At the very least, her inner turmoil wasn't as visually obvious as she feared.
A slight, nervous, hiss escaped her when she spotted the end of the light fixture. The wires that powered it had long since been ripped out, but remained hanging over a perilous drop from a metal cable hooked on the middle of it, the other end snagged on the railing.
If Marinette wanted to the cable, she'd need to disconnect it. And she didn't need to stretch her arms out to know that her hands weren't going to reach that far down.
The railing decided to punctuate the uneasy drop of her stomach with a loud metal groan. It allowed her mind to perfectly capture the image of the cable's only anchor being ripped out of the ground, leaving the cable to drag everything connected down into the abyss.
Her toe kicked a stray piece of rubble over the edge. She could only see the drop for a couple of seconds before the darkness swallowed it. She could imagine something bigger, more human-sized, would be lost even quicker. If she fell, the only acknowledgement of her fall would be the sound of her body hitting the water.
Get over yourself, Marinette. She drew in a shaky breath, shuffling over to the edge and taking hold of the railing. It's all in your head. You do stuff like this all the time with a yo-yo!
Slowly, she pulled herself up and over the railing, planting her feet uneasily on the other side. The metal poles felt so feeble in her hands against the weight of her body hanging over the fatal drop, gravity's insatiable fingers pulling desperately on her legs, scrambling for that one tug that would drag her over the edge.
Another deep breath to steady her nerves. Every second felt like an eternity as she followed the path of the cable with only one hand keeping the next breath from being her last. She slid down to her knees, every inch travelled making the metal foundation feel looser, like it could break free at any moment.
Gritting her teeth, Marinette reached for the cable in one swift and decisive motion. The strain on her muscles as she pulled away from the railing was immediately apparent, feeling like knives digging into her joints.
With each inch she moved, Marinette could feel the precariousness of her situation intensify. Beads of sweat gathered on her brow, mixing with the cold air that surrounded her and prickling at her skin. It made her skin itch something fierce, but it was getting her there.
First it was her fingers scraping against the surface, chipping her fingernails as they raked over the harsh surface. Then, finally, her fingers clenched tightly around the cable, squeezing so desperately that her knuckles turned white. The metal felt heavy against her palm, reminding her of how easily she could be pulled down with it, how it would only take one unfortunate mistake.
The sound of her own breathing, and her heart racing to the rhythm of her movements as she worked her way down to the cable's hook, filled her ears. It was one of those snap on hooks with a small, bulbous lever on its side that open the 'lock'. It would be a simple matter if the hook wasn't fighting against the weight of an entire ceiling light pulling it down.
The lever was tiny, too tiny for Marinette to attempt grabbing at it with her whole hand. The best she could manage was turning her palm up against it, placing all her force behind the underside of her thumb to try and pull it back.
She pulled with all her might, muscles straining against the resistance of the cable. It felt like an eternity passed in that moment, the world reduced to the struggle between her and the stubborn metal.
And then, finally, with a sudden release, the hook came undone for a split second – which was just long enough for the ring binding it to the fixture to slip off, coming loose from the broken fixture.
Marinette's body jerked backward from the sudden force, throwing herself back up against, and subsequently through the railing on her ass. On one hand, the now broken metal became jagged edges that cut open her forearm as she passed. On the other hand, it ended up throwing her back to safer ground with her prize in hand.
Marinette gazed down at the cable head in her hand, taking a moment to tell herself it was the real thing before letting out a sigh of relief. Carefully, she retreated from the edge, tugging the other end of the cable out of the little nook that had trapped it. Soon enough, she turned to the scene of Gabriel's stalling tactics, her hands joined by the cable.
"Alright," She said, watching Gabriel give Senti-Sentry the run-around by a section of consoles. Oh, if she were only a little more sadistic, she could see herself just kicking back and watching that show for a little longer.
But she had a job to do and, reluctantly, moved into action. "Time to give this little guy his new collar."
Marinette might have lost the enhanced abilities of the ladybug miraculous, but she'd still made for quite the skilled gymnast back at Dupont, knowing she couldn't rely on Tikki always guiding her movements.
As such, with the confidence of a solid plan at her heel surging forth, she found herself gracefully leaping up to the second-floor overlook – using tables and fallen consoles as stepping stones. It turned out that she found climbing and bouncing around far easier when she wasn't worried about a deadly fall being behind every potential failure.
When she reached her destination, hanging from the railing of the second floor with one hand and foot on the edge, the beating of her heart was already loud enough to down out all other sounds. However, she wouldn't say she was panicking. Not like when she was being chased or hanging from the light fixture.
No, looking over the battlefield, a simple tool and the plan she needed to put into action at her fingertips; it all felt almost comfortable, familiar. For a moment, she could forget about being weak, pathetic little Marinette and imagine that Tikki's strength and cunning was still coursing through her.
It kept her in a confident enough headspace that, when Gabriel lured Senti-Sentry over to her position (without her even telling him what her game plan was), she didn't hesitate before launching herself off of the overlook.
She landed on the creature's back just as she planned. However, the moment of impact made for one hell of a painful wake up call. A wave of crackling bones and bruised flesh overwhelmed her nerves, reminding her that no amount of adrenaline would ever replace the reinforced, damage absorbing benefits of a miraculous transformation.
The pain stopped her from grabbing anything to use as an anchor, instead leaving her to bounce and flop about towards the edge. The only thing that kept her from immediately being thrown off was the fortunate placement of the thick, pin-like needles sticking out of the creature's back, catching her by her hip mid-roll.
Not my greatest entrance… Ow… She coughed out painful gasps before managing to snag her arm around her timely obstacle. I really hope I didn't break anything.
Gritting her teeth – and telling herself that she had no time to waste – she used her new grip to reorientate herself as Sentry continually tried to buck its body up onto its hind legs and throw her off. Somehow, this filled her with even more sudden vertigo than any of the times Chat had hoisted her up on his back, extending his pole so far they could almost eclipse the Eiffel Tower.
She kept the cable secured around her shoulder, keeping it wrapped tight as she slowly crawled up the creature's body. Her focus was iron tight, blocking out all other sounds, feelings, considerations; nothing existed in her world except her and the beast struggling amongst the void.
Eventually, Marinette found herself perched atop the head, her legs wrapped firmly around the neck and Senti-Sentry none too pleased with the situation. She wasn't confident in the security of her knees' grip, but her she needed her hands free, so she settled on tensing her thigh muscles as much as she could, leaving her balance fighting an unsteady battle against the metaphorical bull violently rearing its head up.
She readied the base of the cable in her hand, curving the other end into a noose shape. Pushing her thumb down on the hook's lock felt like a stiff chunk digging into her skin, the lock resisting her every step of the way.
"Ack!" She hissed in pain, a particularly sharp end of the chunk cutting her thumb open the moment the lock hit the bottom. Son of a- I think I punctured the bone. Is this how you get tetanus?!
It was hard to still the gasps and groans rising in her throat, but she forced herself to remain calm. This part was simple, quick, and easy; all she had to do was stay focused. Hook the cable to itself to form a knot, get it around the snout and then yank that son bitch as hard as she could until the creature stopped wailing.
Her stomach churned uneasily at the sight of her own blood splattering against the beast's back, forcing her to avert her gaze while she secured the hook, turning the cable in on itself for form a closed loop. Not wasting any time, she leaned forward, pressing herself flat against Senti-Sentry's head and dragged the loop over its snout. With enough slack given to the make-shift lasso, she was able to secure it around the snout even while the beast was screaming its high-pitched wail.
Just as she moved to pull the cable tight Senti-Sentry charged forward, its body heaving and twisting in one last furious jolt until her legs were dislodged. Her body fell to the side, slipping down until her world was thrown on its head, leaving her hanging from Senti-Sentry's neck.
What happened was a blur filtered through a dark, bloodied lens.
She felt her heels scraping against fractured scales, drawing out a roar of pain that she couldn't quite make out if it came from her or Senti-Sentry.
The world around her dissolved into rushing streams of colour she couldn't define.
Her body was thrown from side the side, following the thrashing of her anchor.
The cable found itself coiled around her waist, her falling body yanking it down with her.
Fortunately, her brain shut off before it could register the pain of her hitting the ground.
Next Time - The Odd Couple:
It occurred to Chat Noir that battles had always been a straightforward and simple affair for the most part. The akuma, or sentimonster, appeared, they banter, they figure out a loophole for the villain's power, they break the object, Hawkmoth is indignant, and then the battle ends. That was it, all done and neatly wrapped up.
With the powers of the Ladybug cleaning everything up, their battles tended to be self-contained – they didn't leave loose ends to deal with. They only left a victim that needed to be comforted, never a prisoner they needed to contain, nor a suspect that they could pick the brain of.
All of this was to say that standing over a bound sentimonster, staring down at her amok tightly pressed into his palm, with a wealth of possible information at his fingertips was a new, uncomfortable experience for Chat Noir.
"I don't care if we were never married, do I have a case?"
And it was made all the more painful by Audrey Bourgois' shrieks dominating the background.
For someone who barely seemed to remember she had daughters in the first place, Audrey had been dead set on tagging along with the team the moment they happened to cross paths in the lobby.
On the way up through the hotel, she belted out threats of lawsuits and arrests for turning her daughter purple and kidnapping with the same cadence someone would use to threaten a restaurant with a bad review. Something told Chat that none of her offense came from worry for her daughter.
After Chat had explained, for the fifth time, that Accelerator was a sentimonster and a violent criminal, Audrey had found a new spin on the situation. Now she stood in the corner of the room, with her presence somehow encompassing the entirety of the room, practically growling into her phone at, Chat assumed, her lawyer.
Chat had been trying, and failing, to start his interrogation for the past few minutes. But every time he tried for an opening line, it was cut short by-
"Because I didn't know he was a sentimonster when I slept with him!" Audrey cried out, pacing back-and-forth. She vigorously gestured to the amused-looking Senti-Zoey as if the man on the other side of the call would see it. "Now I have a purple daughter, and probably some sentimonster-related disease! That has to get me something."
There was a pause before Audrey's eyes grew wider, letting out an indignant scoff. "Are you implying this was my fault?"
Chat's words failed him, but Chloe, of all people, picked up the slack. She strode up to her mother and pulled the phone away from her ear. "Mom, that's not how any of this works. This isn't Zoey. Sentimonsters aren't born like that." She hissed through gritted teeth and restrained frustration.
Suddenly, Chat found himself being pulled forward by the hand so Chloe could show off the amok sitting on his palm. "She came from this little thing too, which Zoey only got a couple of weeks back."
Audrey shoo'd her daughter's hand away like it was diseased, her lips twisting in disgust. "Hush now, Claudia, technicalities never stop a Bourgois from collecting her check."