No More Mr. Nice Guy [Completed]

Chapter 22: Standing My Ground

~~Recap~~

"The real fight is just getting started." She concluded with determination.

~~Recap Over~~

"You look ridiculous." Vexer tried to bring her down with her rude comment. But Marinette only smiled as she felt a source of unlimited power flow through her whole body.

"Ever looked in a mirror?" She replied back.

Vexer grinded her teeth in disbelief. Normally, her insults would trigger people. As a result, they loose their cool and act in uncontrollable rage. When their energy is eventually drained out, she uses that to her advantage to eliminate them. Perhaps the two merged miraculouses provide a better defense against her tricks.

From her facial expression, Marinette (err... Bugnoir?) realized that her response caught her target off-guard. Without wasting a second, she quickly unclipped her yoyo and swung it at her. The string twisted and turned from the end, wrapping itself around her opponent . As she struggled to break free, Marinette pulled the string forcing the villain to fall face front. With her hands still gripping the yoyo, she lifted her head to face her best friend.

"Get the boys and yourself out of here." She requested in a demanding tone.

"What about you?" Her best friend questioned.

"Forget about me."

"That's never gonna happen." Carapace answered.

"Listen to me... The birth of Vexer, the perish of Paris, Adrien's death... It's all my fault. I let my emotions get the best of me, and that caused pain to the people I care about. If something happened to you guys too, I wouldn't have anything left. It's my responsibility to save you from this... Monster." She cried while tugging the string tighter to prevent Vexer from struggling any more.

"Yeah but-" before Rena could argue, Marinette screamed in agony. She gripped her head in between her hands and knelt down. She remained in that position until Alya came towards her

"Marinette!" She cried as she held onto her bff's shoulders. Marinette shrug off the pain as if it was nothing and smiled weakly at her.

"What the hell just happened to-" the girl was cut off when she heard a loud thud. The girls turned around to find Vexer choking Luka. Carapace came to his rescue in the nick of time. Delivering a punch followed by a kick, he was able to make her take a few steps back.

Now with Luka on the ground, Carapace took his arm and put it around his neck and supported him to stand up again. As he did, Marinette squinted and noticed blood on Luka's leg. His knee was harshly wounded if not, stabbed. Without warning, Nino escorted the young rockstar out of the building to keep him safe.

"Take Adrien and go with him." Marinette instructed.
"I'm not leaving you here." Alya protested once more.

Then she heard the sickening laugh again. Her eyes trailed off of Alya's worried expression and onto Vexer's demonic smirk. She quickly got up on her legs. Clipping her yoyo on her shoulder, she reached for the baton and swung it several times before tightly gripping onto it. Vexer's smirk disappeared into a frown.

For a split second there was silence in the room. But then, the two rushed towards each other. Marinette swung her baton towards Vexer's face (sideways) who simply dodged it tilting her upper body to the backward direction. As the baton cleared from her way, she quickly came back to her usual stance and tried to throw a punch at Marinette who blocked it using her baton. But that didn't stop her from trying to hit her again. She switched between her kicks and punches while also changing her aim from her face to her arms to her hip to her legs to her stomach. But Marinette's sharp reflexes allowed her to fend off any attack that was forced onto her. Using her baton to block all her moves, she was clearly gaining the upper hand of this battle. That is, until Vexer finally had enough.