Caged

Just a Friend

Marinette kicked the air as hard as she could. If she could get the cable to budge just a little higher on one of her sides, she could get out.

But alas, she was not successful.

"Marinette!" Chat Noir managed to call, before he had to leap away from the green beam coming from Damage Control. In the process, he grabbed his baton from the ground, extending it once again to block the new incoming attacks.

"This is all your fault, foolish cat," the akuma accused.

"My fault?" Chat responded, incredulous. "Newsflash, Miss Control, you invited me to your show, withholding information. Isn't that what they call fabricating a story?"

"You know very well what you did," she insisted, stepping closer to the cat-themed hero. This forced him to take steps back towards the exit of the room. Chat glanced at the pig-tailed girl hanging from the metal beam of the ceiling with a pained expression.

"I'll come back for you, Princess!" he called out to her.

"Wait, what?!" Marinette kicked nothingness a few times.

"Ladybug will come soon!" And with those last words, Chat Noir blocked a few more beams from the akumatized reporter and ran out, Damage Control on his heels.

"Chat Noir, come back here!" But it was no use. He was gone. He moved the fight to where she wouldn't get accidently hurt. She knew that was the reason he did it. Yet it still didn't change the fact that she was left alone, a cable tied around her arms and stomach, unable to escape to transform.

Well this is just great, she inwardly groaned. She was about to call out her tiny magical partner for help, when quiet steps coming from where Chat had just left resounded. The girl narrowed her eyes towards the sound, until at last, her mother scurried inside the room.

"Maman!" Marinette called, her legs kicking the air again. Sabine looked around until she found her daughter hanging of a metal beam.

"Sweetie!" she exclaimed, already looking for the other end of the cable.

"Where's Alya?" Marinette's gaze kept shifting around the room, looking for her redheaded friend. Sabine stopped in front of a large black box and grimaced, slowly turning to her off-spring.

"Well..."

"Mrs. Cheng, where did you go?!" a strange modulated voice came from a nearby hallway.

Marinette gasped.

With her hands outstretched and a heavily pixelated face came Alya, tripping on every cable scattered around the floor.

"Alya, I told you to wait for me," Sabine scolded the teen as she reached out to her and led them to the large equipment box.

"Marinette's in trouble, I can't just wait around," Alya flailed her arms around, hitting her hand on the large box in the process. She hissed and started rubbing it. Sabine rolled her eyes before focusing her attention on the box's handle, to which the cable was attached to. After a hard look, she grabbed Alya's hands and placed them around the rubber rope.

"Alya, I'm gonna need you to hold that very tight," she instructed. The redhead hummed and nodded in agreement, as Sabine started undoing the knot. Once free, the weight fell on Alya's hands, making her stumble, to the point that Sabine had to grab her by the waist and Marinette yelped, now several feet lower.

Please don't drop me, please don't drop me, please don't drop me, Marinette prayed, already having enough of falling-on-her-butt the last few days. Prayers that were answered as Alya and Sabine slowly descended her from the ceiling.