#hacksan

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Alya, naturally, is confident it won’t have to come to that, encouraging her to relax and enjoy her much-needed vacation.  It’ll be fiiiiiine.  She’s got this~!

Cut to Hack-San’s mass hypnosis attack. Thanks to Kaalki, Marinette is able to escape her parents, transforming while in hiding and teleporting back to Paris.  While searching for answers, the new Horse Hero gets a distress call from Alya, who reveals that Chat Noir just attacked her as Scarabella.

Understandably horrified, Marinette meets up with her.  The two heroes compare notes, and the more Marinette hears, the more furious she becomes. 

Rather than taking back the Earrings, she chooses to confront Chat Noir as ‘just’ the Horse Hero… she doesn’t need to be Ladybug to deal with him, and won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing 'his lady’ again.  Given his generally bratty behavior and how twisted his leaps of 'logic’ can be, he’d likely see that as some kind of reward for assaulting Scarabella.

No.  She’s done with this.  Beyond done.  She has tried to make this partnership work for far too long, struggling to do all the heavy lifting while Chat Noir entertained himself at her expense.  Hers, and all of Paris.

Where was this wariness when they were dealing with Volpina?  With Sentibug?  Why was he suddenly on guard now, and why did he practically default to murder, knowing that akumas are victimized humans, and what kind of effect his Cataclysm has on sentimonsters…?

Adrien has a choice.  When the Horse Hero shows up alongside Scarabella, calling him out for what he’s done, he can listen to her.  Recognize that this must be his partner, even if she’s not currently wearing the Earrings, and hear her out.  Work with her and Scarabella to take down this latest akuma, and show that he’s not completely up his own butt.

Or he can keep throwing a hissy fit over her daring to work with and trust others more than she does him, her serial harasser who constantly refuses to take his heroic duties seriously.  He can whine about how 'spots suit her much better’ and try to justify his misbehavior all he likes.

Either way, he’s done.  It’s more a matter of whether or not Marinette and Alya deal with him before or after dealing with Hack-San – and frankly, they’re going in expecting the worst.  Because he’s firmly established his character by now, hasn’t he…?