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"Kagami!“ Ladybug’s a little more breathless than she’d like, but while she’s gratified that Kagami’s reaction to seeing her had been to slip away somewhere private immediately, there’s also the fact that chasing after Kagami tends to be difficult even for Ladybug. “Are you free right now? We could use your help with this one.”
“I will always free my schedule for you." Kagami’s eyes flash, and Marinette has a deeply disorienting moment where she’s sure Kagami is about to call her ‘my Lady.”
She’s not sure how she feels about that. Up until the last few seconds she would have said she didn’t want anyone but Chat Noir calling her that at all.
(She probably would have said she didn’t want Chat Noir calling her that either, but she knows deep down that’s a lie).
Marinette shakes off her thoughts and hands the Dragon Miraculous over to Kagami, who wastes no time transforming.
“Show me,” Ryuko says right away, and the eager gleam in her eye is kind of worrying but probably not actually a bad thing, so Ladybug nods and then takes them wide to check on Chat before returning to the battle.
“What is he doing?” Ryuko asks as the two of them hunch down on a roof, surveying the alleyway Ladybug had left Chat Noir in. It’s blocked haphazardly in one direction by an old and broken fence and another by a pile of debris thrown around by Rage and Ladybug herself earlier in the fight.
It hurts something deep in Marinette to see her partner trapped like that, especially knowing that she’s the one that put him there, but it isn’t like he can’t climb right back out as soon as his mind is his own again. At least Chat Noir seems happy enough- in fact, he seems very pleased with himself as he pounces after rats. The low growling she’d heard from him earlier has rumbled louder now, and though it’s still not exactly threatening it’s trying to be.
The rats are running, anyway. She doesn’t think this particular growl is likely to scare off anything larger.
(It’s actually kind of adorable, but she is never telling him that).
Chat Noir’s tail is flicking happily each time his lunges meet with success and his ears are swivelling wildly, so Ladybug lets herself relax. With Ryuko’s help they should be able to take out Rage without anything else happening to Chat Noir.
She really hopes he’s only catching those rats. Miraculous Cure or no, she doesn’t think she wants to tell Chat that he’s been killing rats. It’s too easy to picture how upset he’d be.
“Rage hit him,” Marinette says finally, eyes still locked on her partner. “It’s driving everyone else berserk, but it seems like it just tapped more into Chat Noir’s cat tendencies.” She twists around, meeting Kagami’s gaze before her own flicks back towards where Rage is shouting something she should probably try to listen to. “Ryuko, I can trust you to keep your head under stressful circumstances. If this is the effect she had on Chat Noir, then Rage’s ability must not work the same on everyone. Will you give me a hand?”
Ryuko actually salutes, which takes Marinette aback a moment.
It’s an agreement, though, and although it pulls sharply at her chest to turn away from Chat Noir and turn back to the fight without him she does feel better with Ryuko at her side. Despite their rocky start, she enjoys fighting with Ryuko.
And it doesn’t hurt that Ryuko can turn into mist to dodge Rage’s attack.
Except, of course, that Ryuko doesn’t do that.
Ryuko doesn’t call on any of her elemental powers.
Instead she picks up Chat Noir’s staff, abandoned when he’d first been hit, and charges at Rage with a feral yell to rival the akuma’s own.
“Why,” Marinette whispers faintly, eyes locked on her friend and teammate. She wishes vainly that Tikki were here for her to complain to. Or at. “Why are they like this.”
(It’s completely possible either Carapace or Viperion would have been a better choice as far as keeping their head goes. Luckily the only one she has to deal with questioning exactly how strategic her choice was is Chat Noir, and he likes Ryuko too much himself to protest very much.
Though Tikki is probably going to have words with her later).
Marinette doesn’t actually see Rage’s attack hit Ryuko, but she knows it has when Ryuko drops her borrowed staff and starts to lay into Rage with her fists.
That’s. That’s definitely more fascinating to watch than it should be. She knows how good Kagami is with a sword, but she’d had no idea that Kagami was this good unarmed.
Marinette forces herself to quit watching Ryuko and calls her Lucky Charm while her opponent- and her teammate- are both distracted.
Her Lucky Charm’s a shawl.
Marinette stares at it for a moment, feeling the same faint sense of betrayal she had when Chat Noir’s first Lucky Charm had been so seemingly straightforward. She doesn’t know what to do with this. She’s worried enough for Chat Noir, and now Ryuko as well, that her frustration keeps her from putting together her Charm as fast as usual.
At least Ryuko appears to be winning. It’s kind of hard to tell, with the way she and Rage have devolved into a brawl by now.
Marinette spends a lot longer than she should admiring the force Ryuko puts behind each of her punches. If she learns nothing else from this fight, she’s learning that she really needs to invite Ryuko to start sparring with them. That wouldn’t be a bad idea in the first place, given how easily she’d taken to Chat’s staff and her skill at fencing, but now Marinette is starting to have a powerful desire to see what Ryuko knows about hand-to-hand as well.
Marinette doesn’t realise how exactly much attention she’s been giving Ryuko’s end of the fight until she nearly trips on Chat Noir’s discarded staff.
Feeling like an idiot, Marinette wraps the spotted shawl around the end of Chat Noir’s staff and waves it like a flag.
It works, because of course it does. Kagami and the akuma both leave off punching each other to turn and bellow at Marinette’s makeshift flag.
“That’s a myth,” Marinette mutters to herself even as she waves the flag harder, shouting once to attract both Rager and Ryuko’s attention. “That’s a myth, it’s not the colour, bulls don’t see the colour, it’s the motion-” She sighs as Ryuko and Rage both focus their attention on her. Ryuko’s eyes have definitely gone red the way Chat Noir’s had before her, and on top of that Marinette can hear Chat scrabbling out of his alleyway.
Must have run out of rats, Marinette thinks, and winces. She really hopes he doesn’t ask her about that, because she does not want to explain.
At least he’ll probably be relieved enough that he never attacked her that she doubts asking will occur to him.
She wishes she didn’t have to worry about it.
Chat Noir definitely makes it up onto the same roof with her, judging by the scrambling she can hear from behind her, but Marinette isn’t willing to take her eyes off Rage and Ryuko. That proves to be the right choice, since Chat Noir only charges past her towards Ryuko, and Marinette manages not to flinch as Rage’s charge continues on its path towards her.
One, two, three… now.
She steps to the side in just enough time for Rage’s swipe to turn into a stumble, allowing Marinette to reach out and tear off the pin Chat Noir had been sure the akuma was in. (Marinette had been sure it was in Rage’s keychain, hanging from her belt, but- but there’s a reason she can still hear Chat growling).
She crushes the pin in one hand and an akuma struggles free.
Marinette has to cleanse it much faster than usual, because Chat Noir immediately switches focus from Ryuko to the butterfly and starts to chase after the akuma. It’s only a hasty grab at his tail that keeps him from lunging for it, and then it’s only Ryuko taking a swing for Chat Noir that keeps him from turning back on Marinette.
She’s not fond of this akuma.
Chat Noir shakes off the after-effects of Rage’s berserk attack quicker than Ryuko does, but only by bare seconds- just long enough for him to look completely baffled as he brings up both arms to block a wild punch from Ryuko. “What- whoa! What did I miss?”
Ryuko stops and shakes her head, looking dazed for the barest moment, before turning a grin to them both that Marinette never sees outside of their transformations. It hurts that she only sees it with Ryuko and not Kagami. “We’ve won, then?"
Marinette could tell them both off for charging into danger. She probably should.
Instead, she says, "We won. Hey, Ryuko- would you be interested in sparring with us sometime?"