Chapter One
Flambé
From the top of the Panthéon, Ladybug watched a good portion of Paris shimmer with heat and smoke. Flames were spattered everywhere. People screamed, clutching their loved ones while avoiding the streets. Most hid from the fires and the strange woman that had caused them, but some, and Ladybug was certain Ayla was among them, stayed for the action. Normally Ladybug wouldn't mind so much, but this villain seemed more dangerous than the others and Chat Noir was taking a long time to provide some much needed assistance.
Every time Ladybug went to help, the smoke or the temperature forced her back. The best she could do was force Flambé to follow her somewhere she couldn't hurt anyone. The Panthéon seemed like the best bet - nothing really flammable here.
From the smoke below the Eiffel Tower Ladybug's newest opponent emerged. She was dressed in a skintight suit with a gradient of red and orange. Her hair flickered like fire, creating a deadly halo around her head. The only accessories visible were an apron and a saucepan - the latter producing fireballs Ladybug had yet to deal with. It was likely where the akuma was, so Ladybug had been eyeing it all fight. Her lucky charm gifted her with a set of matches, however Ladybug had yet to find any use for such a ironic item.
Flambé looked up, spotting her target in the distance. She leapt towards the Pantheon with superhuman speed. Ladybug yelled and scrambled to get some distance by climbing to the uppermost portion the the spire. Up higher, she to get less backlash from any missed fireballs.
"Ladybug ladybug, fly away home…" Flambé cackled as she threw out her arms and caused a chain of fire to twist about in the air. It encircled the spire Ladybug clung to, trapping her within. "Your house is on fire and your children are alone…!"
From the sidelines a familiar figure arrived, his voice attracting Ladybug's attention. "Well, that's the stuff of nightmares." Chat Noir pounced up, landing neatly outside of the circle of flame. "Creepy nursery rhymes? This one really is a villain!"
Ladybug let out a sigh of relief and smiled at her partner. Without hesitation she jumped straight up, as high as she could go. Chat Noir took the cue. His own leap was in tandem with hers. He leapt diagonally, and since he could get more power out of his jumps, their combined momentum barely carried them clear of the fire. They landed neatly on the edge of the roof, Ladybug safe in his arms.
"Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" Chat Noir teased, grinning ear to ear since he grabbed Ladybug bridal style and she had yet to move. She had been thinking hard about how to use the matches, but nothing was coming to mind. Now that Chat Noir was being flirty, Ladybug snapped out of it and rolled her eyes. A hint of a smile tugged at her lips despite the circumstance. If her partner could still crack jokes, then perhaps their situation was not as dire as she thought.
Ladybug pushed the Chat Noir's face with her hand before getting to her feet. She decided to think out loud so that Chat Noir could start helping her out. "I can't capture Flambé. I tried, she just burned through my wire…"
The cat nodded, crossing his arms to assess the situation.
"Lucky charm?" he suggested. Though out of the corner of his eye, Chat Noir noticed the blip of one of Ladybug's dots fading on her earrings. She must have already used a lot of her energy. They didn't have long to take this villain out.
Ladybug held up her pack of polka-dotted matches. "They say fight fire with fire, but I have no idea how." She said glumly.
The Chat Noir smiled optimistically, "You'll think of something." He patted her on the back just as another stream of fire came their way. Chat Noir saw it coming and used his current grip on Ladybug's shoulder to throw her off the roof in time to dodge. He then went to follow, but the flame caught him in the chest, sending him into an uncontrolled free fall.
Ladybug saw him topple just as she rolled to recover from her own hard landing. With reflexes borne from fear of losing her friend, she shot out her yo-yo to send his body flying into hers. She hoped to soften the impact, but really just transferred the force of it to herself. Both of them skidded on the paved stone and stopped only when hitting an adjacent wall. Wincing, Ladybug shook her head and let out a groan. Then she felt the weight of Chat Noir and remembered the fire hitting him. Frantically she turned her partner over to look at the damage despite the pain in her own back and backside. He looked dazed, his eyes slowly opening and looking around till they met hers. "Meouch."
He was okay! Their suits must be fire proof, thank goodness. Though his face and neck looked red and sooty. He was heavy on her legs and Flambé wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to kick them while they were down.
"Get-up! She's coming back this way!" She started to drum on his chest in panic.
The cat rolled off Ladybug and spryly got to his feet. He casually extended a hand to help her up while staring the the saucepan readying another round of fire. "Out of the frying pan and into the- WHOA!" His quip was cut short as a spiral of particularly nasty looking fire launched at them. So instead of waiting for Ladybug to grab his hand, he chose to snatch her by the wrist and take off running. Ladybug was dragged a few paces before she steadied herself and shook off his hand. They jogged side by side, desperate for some sort of plan.
"We can't lead her where there are people!" The heroine reminded the cat as they looked for someplace to hide. Another dot on Ladybug's earrings disappeared and she was starting to get hysterical. They ran down a street of blown up cars, glad to see no burnt-up husks of people. There were a line of police cars about three blocks down.
"In here!" Chat Noir broke off from their duo and ran into an office building. The doors were blackened from an earlier skirmish. Ladybug followed, looking over her shoulder at Flambé gliding at terrifying speeds behind them. Chat Noir slammed the doors buying themselves some time. He smiled nervously at Ladybug, then and raced to the emergency staircase.
"I don't think fighting her in an enclosed space is a good idea!" Ladybug said as she chased his tail up the stairs, panting with the effort. Another dot disappeared from her earrings and she stopped in the stairwell. Her breath coming in sharp gasps from all the smoke she inhaled during the initial bouts with Flambé. "Go on without me! I need to change back…" she looked to the door on her right. Through the frosted glass it looked like some sort of office.
Chat Noir stopped a flight of stairs up from her and looked down across the set of railings. "You're not fire proof without your costume! I can't just leave you. You need protection you while you're vulnerable." He ran back down to meet her but she shook her head and took a step back clutching the matches.
"I'll be fine. I have a plan… but I need you to distract her." She pleaded, her eyes reflecting her sudden confidence. Despite her assuredness she could tell that her partner was struggling with the decision to leave her. It was almost endearing.
"I won't even look, you could hide in a box or something… just don't go off on your-"
The door below them burst open, a hellish whirl of fire climbed up the stairs cutting the decision short. Their eyes met and he nodded reluctantly, allowing Ladybug to throw herself at the nearest door while he yelled down at Flambé.
"Hey! Didn't anyone tell you not to play with fire?" He flapped his hands around his face, wiggled suggestively in an attempt to taunt her. It seemed to work since the cat had to leap up several sets of stairs to avoid becoming roasted.
Meanwhile, Marinette put as much distance between herself and the stairwell as she could by running through the office she found herself in. It was a maze of cubicles. She chose to huddle under a desk nearest the windows and closed her eyes to think. Tikki hovered, her energy nearly depleted. "What was the plan you had?"
Marinette snapped her eyes open and looked to the matches in her hand, only they were no longer there. She flapped her fingers dumbly as if the motion could bring them back. "Oh no! I forgot…!" She was such an idiot. Of course the charm would disappear when she changed back if she didn't use it. Clumsily, Marinette crawled out from under the desk and started to rifle through any unlocked drawers. She found a chocolate bar in one of them and threw it over for Tikki. After a couple more minutes of desperate searching, she found what she was looking for - a lighter. Perfect. She clambered on top of a messy desk, scattering paper and pens everywhere. Once steady, she flung back the lid of the zippo she found and heard it spark. The tiny flame licked at the sprinkler she held it to. At first Marinette didn't think it was going to work. But after a few moments an alarm rang out and the sprinklers activated, dousing everything in the room with stagnant water.
Chat Noir was almost at the roof when the alarm sounded. He had destroyed two sets of stairways on the climb towards the roof, but nothing slowed Flambé down for long. Stopping to look over his shoulder, he saw that Flambé was right behind him. There was a fireball in her pan and a malicious glint in her eye. Looks like he was going to see just how fire-proof he really was. He made to leap at her, claws raised for dealing some damage while taking the hit.
A sprinkler was practically in Flambé's face when it started blasting her with water. The cat dropped mid-leap and laughed in relief at how perfect the timing was. It must have been his lucky Ladybug, where ever she was.
Flambé screeched in horror and put the pan up to protect her face but the water was getting everywhere, dousing her hair and making her huddle to avoid the most of the synthetic rain. Chat Noir grabbed the sauce pan while she was distracted and ran back down the stairs to find Ladybug. He had yet to find a method to purify the akuma without her.
The door his partner went through was unscathed, but the moment he burst into the office was the same moment a newly transformed Ladybug was trying to leave. The door flung her back into a cubicle wall where she fell on her already sore backside.
"Aah! Sorry!" The cat awkwardly babbled, "I have the saucepan! Flambé is upstairs, we better hurry." He handed it to her while she picked herself up from the floor. There was a small note of disappoint in his voice. He still didn't know who Ladybug really was. Part of him hoped he might have found out by bursting in on her when she wasn't prepared.
Ladybug dusted the soot off her butt and took the pan. Her hair was soaking wet. Before anything else terrible could happen she broke the pan over her knee. The akuma fluttered out of it trying to escape, but not before Ladybug pulled out her yo-yo and purified it with a swing. She watched the crisp white butterfly retreat out of an open window before frowning at her sudden dilemma. "My lucky charm disappeared. How do I reverse all of this damage?"
"Maybe you can just throw your yo-yo upwards and shout like you usually do?" Chat Noir suggested, with a teasing imitation of her usual final pose.
Well, it was worth a try.
Ladybug whipped her yo-yo up in an arc and shouted, "Miraculous Ladybug!" It sparkled in the air for a long minute while the city was swept clean of the flames and soot that plagued it. Once that was over Chat Noir declared, "Mission accomplished!" and went to fist bump Ladybug, smiling fondly as she returned the action. They really did make a great team.
"Looks like it's time for your exit." She grinned, noticing the missing dots on his ring. Flambé was surprisingly difficult to control without the cat's help. She didn't want to admit it, but she was incredibly grateful for his back-up time and time again.
Chat Noir winked at Ladybug, "I could go, unless you want to see the man behind the mask."
She smirked, "The boy behind the mask you mean." She put her yo-yo back on her hip and looked around at the now dry office, only facing her partner when he opted to continue talking rather than take his leave. As usual.
"I bet I'm older than you are." He leaned in, just a little closer than he knew was comfortable for her. She stared him down, the smirk still on her lips. "I'm older, and definitely more mature."
His grin widened, "Want to put it to the test?"
She pushed her palm against his chest to make him back up, then walked past him. "And ruin this perfect partnership? Nah. I think I'll give you your privacy - since you seem so reluctant to take it." With that she ran down the stairs, waving behind her as she went. The cat watched her disappear and frowned. It was all fun and games holding these secrets from each other… but did they really need to? Would they ever really know each other? He loved her. Trusted her. He knew she trusted him equally, so why couldn't they take the next step? Love aside, it might even be better for them during long fights not to have to worry about keeping their identities secret.
His alter ego fell, revealing his regular self again. Plagg rested on his shoulder preening his tail. "You try so hard, and still get nowhere. I wonder if that is what Hawk moth feels?" Adrian ignored his friend's teasing and slowly walked down the steps, wondering about Ladybug.
In the darkness Hawk moth shook with rage. This was yet another failure among so many others. It didn't even feel close this time. At this rate he would never get his hands on their Miraculous. His moths lowered to the ground, sensing their master's mood.
Like warm molasses, the shadows behind Hawk moth shifted, and a chill ran up the villain's spine. Suddenly he knew he wasn't alone - and he was always alone. This was his private place. No one asides himself knew about it.
A voice came from the shadows all around him.
"I don't think your heart is really in this." It was a feminine tone. It wasn't as scary as he expected; more like a rebellious child - worry and condescension all mixed together. The most disconcerting part about this was the fact it sounded familiar to him. He linked the voice with a slight figure that stepped out from the edges of Hawk moth's private chamber. She wore a skin-suit of white with a shaped eye-mask obscuring her identity. Hovering by her shoulder was a tiny striped yellow miraculous with its eyes closed. It made his heart pound looking at it. The girl noticed his interest, light brown hair falling over her shoulders as she glanced at her miraculous.
"You're trying to collect them. I know why. Do you know how I know?" She circled him, like a school teacher waiting for an answer.
Hawk moth narrowed his eyes. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
She smirked, it wasn't an expression that fitted her cherubic face. "I'm a sort of an architect. Though lately more of a judge I suppose." She put a finger to her contemplative lips and looked to her miraculous. "What would you say I am Sunaa?"
The miraculous didn't open its eyes. "Dreamweaver."
She smiled cruelly. "You don't remember yours do you? The dreams? But I was there. I see your desires. They're sort of sweet in a desperate willing-to-do-anything sort of way. Yet, you need ALL the miraculous to realize your dream. Including mine." She sighed, "That's a problem really. I don't like to give up my power so easily… and as you've seen it's difficult to take a miraculous."
Hawk moth watched the girl, not sure of what to do. His own power might be enough to overwhelm this newcomer, but she was there for a purpose, and it didn't seem like it was for his destruction.
He didn't like to waste time, so he got to the point. "Why are you here?"
"I'm going to help you." She tilted her head to better see his reaction.
"Why?" It was more of a statement than a question. Despite the situation Hawk moth refused to remove the hardness of his tone. He was the one in control here no matter what this little girl thought.
She smiled widely, though there was an innocence there that made Hawk moth more uncomfortable than reassured. "Because I want to see if your dream is even possible. Because if it is, I have a similar one… and it would be easier to take it from you than Ladybug and Chat Noir."
The man gritted his teeth. "Are you so sure?" The moths beneath them stirred. The collective fluttering of their wings made a threatening hum.
The girl closed her eyes, the smile slowing fading from her lips. "Yes. You understand me better than anyone. You know what one is willing to do to get back something that was taken from them." Her face tilted away, casting shadows across half of it. "There are others who feel this way too."
There was a pregnant pause before realization dawned and Hawk Moth relaxed. The moths hushed their movements.
"You and I are the same." His words sounded uncertain, but willing to contemplate an alliance.
She inclined her head, confirming the statement. "Though from today we use my methods."
"Which are?" He looked interested, though somewhat guarded.
"We are not the only ones who would do anything for the ones we love." A bitterness twisted into the girl's words. "Let me show you how to get a miraculous."