1718/Illegal Serve

Illegal Serve
Date of Scene:	03 July 2024
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Ladybug and Cat Noir stop a Layabout and rescue Hinoiri despite the youma's blatant foul play.
Cast of Characters:	Laura La Mer, Hinoiri Kirara, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste

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Laura La Mer has posed:
Chongire was once again selected for a mission in Tokyo, to the chef's annoyance. He really had no interest to do this, but Butler had insisted particularly that he be the one to go on land and gather motivation for the Witch. Disgruntled for the forced task, he had taken his flying boat and made his appearance, where his attention was caught by two tennis players particularly engrossed in their game.

Fast forward to a minute later, Chongire the tennis net and the rackets had been turned into a Layabout, that at the crab man's behest, it had started draining the motivation out of everyone present. Everyone except a certain unicorn, who had the presence of mind (and awareness) to dodge what was coming. Though, when she actually decided to attack the Layabout with a tennis racket, that had gotten fruitlessly broken, and for her trouble the Layabout had decided to make a grab at her, and hold her still before trying to drain the motivation again.

But with the time it wasted, it likely won't be able to do that, as surely the heroes will have noticed the huge purple dome covering a part of the city that was previously normal right?

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara had... been trying tennis. Was she good? No. Did she HAVE to be good? Nope. And so she'd decided to try giving it a try.

And now? Now she regretted it. Because now she was trapped in the grip of the giant youma, a broken racket her only defense and...

Well, she hadn't even gotten in her game of tennis. Instead, she was stuck looking up at its big, stupid frowny face. "L-let me go... y-you... oversized... playground... equipment... reject! If I could... use... my powers... I'd turn you into d-dust, you know that?!" she snapped at it, ineffectually beating it with the handle of the racket.

... Still, better than being chased through a burning building by an angry, flaming moth.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng has posed:
Knock-knock.

What was that?

It happens again, a knocking on the youma's head, or whatever passes for it. Not hard, just clearly a tapping of something on its noggin. A glance up would show a yo-yo dangling from above, the long string attached to someone crouched upon a wire up overhead. The yo-yo retracts once it's got the youma's attention, and the girl in red with black spots gives a little wave.

"Hi there!" Ladybug calls from above. "Think I could just distract you for a moment? I just wanted to get you to look up here. You know, while my partner came in from another angle."

She grins, waggling her fingers, then her eyes slide to...

Adrien Agreste has posed:
While Ladybug was being a very cheerful distraction up high, there comes a dark clad cat sweeping in down low. Cat Noir races out from the side with staff in hand. At the last possible second before he might actually run *into* the Layabout he sweeps a leg out low and brings his staff around to use it's longer reach to sweep for the legs of the creature.

"I don't think that she's into playing doubles with you. Let's drop her already, why don't we?" Cat Noir grins broadly as he finishes his sneak attack. An eye is kept on Hinoiri so that he can grab her if necessary should she fall from the Layabout's grasp, but for now he's just trying to take the bigger creature down.

Laura La Mer has posed:
"Feel fee to try then", Chongire waves his claw dismissively at Hinoiri. "Right, you already did", he taunts her, before Ladybug comes in with the yo-yo strike.

"Out of the way now!" Chongire yells at the meddlesome heroine when her attack had distracted his youma. "Layabout, get her!" he then orders to the Youma, who in response had started to swing his racket at her.

That was when the dark cat hero had come swinging in with a powerful staff strike at the youma's leg, causing it to embarassingly fall towards the ground, luckily for Hinoiri falling with its arms upwards. Also, unluckily, because it meant she was still in its hold!

Taking advantage of the youma's moment of weakness, Laura also comes in, popping out of the Mermaid Aqua Pot, which she had traveled into at speed as soon as she had herself noticed the purple dome that signaled a Layabout. And the Layabout soon got deprived of the stolen motivation, the rainbow energy flying inside the Aqua Pot when Laura had executed its search and retrieve magic.

"You again", Chongire sighs as soon as she sees Laura. "Layabout, take care of the annoyances that can fight first! The motivation comes once there are no attackers!"

And having fallen like that still meant nothing for the youma, who got up again at Chongire's orders. "Layabout!", it shouts as it finally executed strike with its huge racket towards Ladybug with the hand that was holding Hinoiri. Cat Noir instead was targeted by two giant tennis balls, aimed at him with a precise use of the racket in its other hand.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara glanced up the length of the yoyo and...

Oh my gosh. It was... it was the girl in her pajamas. Had... had she not gone to Marinette? Well... Hinoiri knew better than to look a gift skirt in the sparkles, so she wasn't going to complain.

AND NOW SHE WAS... not free. Instead, she was being held up by the giant youma, trying to push out of its grip. "Let! Me! Go!" she snapped.

And then she was being flailed around, yelping. A hand covering her mouth and dropping her broken racket. Oh, she realllllly hoped someone saved her soon or this youma was going to need to go to the dry cleaners....

Marinette Dupain-Cheng has posed:
While Laura was draining the motivation, and the youma was getting knocked down, Ladybug was not sitting idle either. She'd dropped down, done some things with loops of her yo-yo string, then jumped back up. What exactly she did will be evident in just a moment.

"I think the answer to this one is Love, Cat Noir," she says, as Chongire orders the youma to get back up. Fight, fight! She grins, watching it fling its balls at her partner, and trusts in him to be able to handle it. Then she drops down, letting Layabout swing at her.

"You know what Love means in tennis, right?" She stands, waiting for him to attack her, then grins. As the loops she's made around its appendages go tight, and the giant racket swing meets the tension of her unbreakable string. Meets, then stops cold, inches from her face.

And Ladybug reaches out, taking Hinoiri from its grasp. "It means you get nothing. Sorry!"

Then she leaps into the air again, hostage in her arms. "I gotcha. Cat Noir, get him!"

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir leaps up back to his feet once the monster starts to topple down into the trap that Ladybug had set before with her string. He might not be the mastermind of such things, but he was great at helping to excute her plans!

Plus he has a few balls to leap and dodge around as best he can now with a little yelp. He's quick on his feet, and acrobatic, so manages to avoid being hit by them but just barely. A twist to the side leaning a bit precariously backwards so that he has to smack his staff back, and use it to push back up to his feet, and he utters, "I'm pretty sure two balls is against the rules!"

As soon as Ladybug calls out her cue though he crouches low with one clawed hand up. "Got it. Cataclysm!"

Energy swirls darkly around his hand signifying his own attack that he was preparing. A quick look over toward the unfamiliar Laura who was also doing something to help, he imagined. At least it was making this other guy angry. That was a good sign.

With no further comedic actions, Cat Noir leaps in toward the Layabout seeking to slash it with his claw primed with the power of Destruction. "I hope they didn't rent this court, because they're about to lose the deposit!"

Laura La Mer has posed:
The Layabout's racket follows Ladybug, trying to squash her like a particularly frustrating mosquito as she was moving anywhere while doing her yo-yo tricks. Laura in the meantime was observing impatiently, staying away from the Youma's range.

What was Black Dots' plan, she looks on in frustration as she watches those frequent jumps and leaps. Her impatience is soon faced with an answer when the tied arms fail at delivering that hit to its recipient, and instead freezes as it has no idea how to deal with the strings, giving Ladybug ample time to say Hinoiri.

"That's it!", Laura cheers when Hinoiri had grabbed and saved. The Layabout is pretty embarassingly unable to defend itself with its arm tied as they are, any agility is doing it no good as it's way too big a target for the youma to dodge the upcoming Cataclysm. With the net shredded to bits, the dark energy keeping the youma together falls apart and the court gets returned to a relative normality, even if in condition to be used for a match.

"I am really not feeling this", Chongire sighs as the Layabout gets destroyed, him and his boat vanishing out of sight. With everyone's safety guaranteed, Laura lets the motivation free, its owners blinking and getting up in confusion as they try to assess the situation.

"Perfect teamwork, you two!", she grins satisfied at the positive result of the day.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara let out a startled gasp when, suddenly, she found herself grabbed and freed from the youma! She then let out a sigh of relief. "I take back every... well... most of what I said about your uniform. Seriously, you really need to see Marinette. Trust me on that," she said, unaware that Lady Bug might not know she was. Also, that Ladybug was Marinette.

She then turned in time to see Cat Noir... rending the youma. And actually *yelped* a little, her eyes going wide. "You know, in all the times he and I fought? I don't think he ever used *that* on me." And after all the times she'd nearly been killed as of late? She was a liiiiiittle anxious about such big, destructive things like that.

"So uhhh... good job. Ummmm... Ladybug, right? Thanks for the, ummm... save. And uhhhh.... yeah. That. Good job. Heh...." she said sheepishly.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng has posed:
Ladybug smiles. She then takes a second, touching fists with Hinoiri, since Cat Noir and Laura aren't in range. "We like to say, pound it, when we win." Then she sets the girl down, and goes to handle what needs handling. Because if you're gonna do a Ladybug fight, you pound it in the end.

And maybe Laura and Cat get one too. ^_^

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Cat Noir hops back from his attack as everything starts to just fall apart. He was used to that. The fact that it all comes back together after was the better of the two parts however. With a chuckle he gives a quick little two-fingered salute. "Love to stay and chat, but got to run. Later, LB!" He calls out only to leap off again. All before his timer can run out.