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Chrysalis
A Fall
Dusk smudged Paris' rooftops in charcoal, rendering everything lazy oranges and indigos. As the sun tucked into bed, shadows reached up and enveloped Chat Noir's armor as he leaped across gables and shingling.
Just up ahead, a white butterfly drew a haphazard path, swirling like a bit of ash. It crossed an alleyway.
A few seconds later, Chat leaped the distance. Hardly out of breath, despite having chased this butterfly across the multiple arrondissements, he pressed his back against a warm chimney and marked his target.
The white speck lurched forward, gaining momentum, as if it was close to its destination. Its path took it straight into a dark wall.
Squinting, Chat felt his mask give a tiny buzz as his night vision kicked in. Paris bled monochromatic. The stone wall across the street sharpened and he could make out a narrow stained glass window which, with nothing to illuminate it, looked more like dark water. It was ajar a few millimeters. The butterfly slipped inside.
Chat let out a long, slow, breath. "Finally," he whispered. At the edge of the roof, he crouched and looked down.
A moped maneuvered across the cobblestone of a tiny alley, the deep bass of a hip-hop song rattling it's mirrors. This was a really old part of Paris. Chat took in the window again and realized it was part of a tower, which was one of two stone towers making up a modestly-sized Gothic church.
Ages ago, it might have inspired awe. Stuck in the twenty-first century, it jutted up out of the surrounding rooftops in an forgotten, melancholy, kind of way.
Chat frowned. This church was familiar. Had he been here before? The feeling wasn't uncommon. Despite having grown up in this city, he had only been allowed to explore a fraction of it. When he met Plagg his world had expanded, but, between akumas, he found himself lacking time to soak it in.
Still, for whatever reason, this church in struck him as significant in a deep, unnerving kind of way. Had he seen these towers in a nightmare? Or was this feeling just the idea that Hawkmoth could be waiting on the other side of that stained glass?
That thought got Chat ducking down, blending into the pitched roof as much as possible.
He had been the one to suggest following the butterfly. Like most of his plans, he had never really expected it to work. Ladybug was more of the tactician.
Ladybug. She would know what to do. Mind racing, he unclipped his baton and slid it open with one taloned thumb. It rang. No answer. He pulled it away from his ear with a troubled frown.
Ladybug's avatar was dimmed offline. She was probably still recharging.
Even though he knew it couldn't be helped, Chat felt a wave of disappointment. This was some extreme supervillain-stopping information. After a year of being one step behind, they may have just landed an opportunity to out who Hawkmoth really is. It sunk in slowly, making Chat a little dizzy. Ladybug and Chat Noir had an actual lead.
He leaned around and peered at the tower, at the teasing slit in the open window. His gaze went back to her avatar. She would want him to circle back. Regroup. Certainly not go in there alone.
But what if Hawkmoth changed locations with each akuma? What if, when they came back later to investigate, the church wound up empty and they were back to square one?
To let Hawkmoth slip through his fingers… after a year of fighting akumas... No way.
Chat extended his baton out across the gulley and notched the far end into the window ledge. With Plagg's cattish agility, walking across was easy. He pressed a palm to the stained glass window, expecting resistance, and almost tumbled right through when it flew open at the barest touch.
Chat dropped onto a wood floor, baton retracting with a whirring sound. The noise ricochet off stone walls like a ping pong ball, before fading down what sounded like a long corridor. He winced. Although, a cursory glance around the room turned up no butterflies and his swiveling cat ears heard no sign of a supervillain.
He was standing on a wooden platform. An enormous bell loomed above his head, suspended by thick rope which faded up into the wooden beams of the tower's ceiling. It's rusted dome felt like a cage, crouched, ready to drop at any moment. Chat shook the chill out of his limbs. Stupid. There was no need to psyche himself out. Nothing had happened yet.
There were two exits to the tower. One— a narrow wooden staircase which wound down around the outside of the platform. The second— a straight corridor made entirely of stone, which stretched away from the bell. Knowing the basic architecture of Notre Dame, and knowing that Paris had plenty of pre-Notre Dame prototypes, Chat figured the corridor connected one bell tower to the other.
The scales in his armor prickled, shifting from the base of his neck down his spine. The weird spine tingling had only happened on a few other occasions and Chat always took it as Plagg's way of complaining, even from inside the ring, but this time it felt like his armor was hunkering down. He turned his hand over, watching the tiny hexagons snap into place like thousands of screws. The flex in the webbing tightened a fraction. It gave Adrien the same feeling as a brace. It also reminded him he was never alone.
Feeling indestructible, Chat crept down the corridor, the padding on the soles of his boots stifling footsteps. A moonlit glow grew out of the shadows. The corridor branched. To the right, a large room stuffed full of crates and extra pews.
A car roared from right outside. It sounded sharp. Like Chat was close to an open window or a doorway outside.
Chat slipped between the crates, which stacked high above his head. The effect was a little nauseating. Like being lost inside a labyrinth.
Turning a corner, he came face-to-face with a veiled woman, face contorted in grief, one hand clawing at her chest, robes crumpling beneath her fingernails. In her other arm she cradled a baby. Her huge, empty eyes stared straight into Chat's.
Every muscle in Chat's body jolted backwards. His back thumped off a crate. Just a statue. She was just a statue. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. He didn't like not being able to see. It made sneaking a lot riskier. Reopening his eyes, he glanced up, and, digging his claws into the wood crate, climbed up the side.
His head popped above the clutter.
He was in a circular room. The end closest to the corridor was stuffed with a maze of crates, chairs, gargoyles and statues, but quickly, the room emptied out into a large expanse. A circular glass window rose up like the moon. Faceted in an octagonal way, it resembled a giant eye. The glass was dusty and marbled. A ray of bright light painted across his cheek, catching the green of his goggles. His night vision kicked off. Color came back, shockingly vivid. Neon signage from across the street flickered pink and purple, catching flecks of white dust— no. Not dust, Chat realized. Butterflies.
One chose that moment to fly right past his head.
Someone moved from the shadows, stepping into the light. The stained glass etched a bright pink halo around the figure's silhouette. A too-long shadow stretched across the floor.
In Chat's imagination, Hawkmoth had always been a hulking brute. This person was tall and lithe; footsteps graceful. He had the same horrible-beautiful confidence of a panther.
Chat didn't move. It didn't seem as though Hawkmoth had noticed him yet, and Chat was suddenly questioning if he wanted Hawkmoth to notice him at all.
A gloved hand reached out, palm up. The white butterfly floated down, balancing on the very tip of his pointer finger. Hawkmoth drew it close, watching as it's wings bat in an adoring, lazy, kind of way. With his other hand, he drew up a cane, swinging it up to point directly at where Chat Noir was hidden.
Chat's heart crashed in his chest. His ears swiveled back. He was suddenly overcome with the instinct to run.
"Here, kitty kitty kitty," a low, velvety voice rumbled, sounding both surprised and amused.
That brief flicker of fear crystallized into hate. Chat's eyes drew into jade slits and he stood, defiantly, until his entire body glowed in the light. He resisted the urge to hiss. Instead, he shot Hawkmoth an easy grin. "Fancy meeting you here. Didn't know you were a religious man."
Hawkmoth's mask stretched as he raised an eyebrow. "Even the most desperate of sinners seek Truth."
The sarcasm knocked Adrien off guard. He froze, trying to reconcile who he thought Hawkmoth was— angry, uncomplicated, and zero sense of humor— with who he was turning out to be. Green eyes met a glittering gray-blue and Adrien saw an actual person.
Hawkmoth's cane drew a circle through the air. "Ying, yang… In harmony, too strong to defeat. Torn apart, however..."
A cat ear batted. Doubt squirmed.
Butterflies floated up around Hawkmoth's head. "Tell me, Chat Noir. Where is Ladybug? Or were you really foolish enough to face me on your own?"
Chat dropped to the floor. The wood let out a hushed creak and his tail brushed over the surface in counterbalance, kicking up a spray of dust. From this distance, he could make out that Hawkmoth was a lot taller than him, which was a strange sensation, as Chat was pretty tall for his age. "Who are you?" he wondered.
Butterflies clung to Hawkmoth as if he was made of nectar. After a beat, the man retracted his cane to rest over one shoulder; a move which had Chat Noir lowering his baton. His nerves vibrated, on the edge of expecting an attack.
"Are you prepared to stop me?" Hawkmoth challenged.
"Yes," Chat said, too quickly, too surely.
Hawkmoth smiled patronizingly. "I don't believe you."
Chat's tail whipped. He leaped, a dark streak, zig-zagging once, twice, before pouncing, claw outstretched for Hawkmoth's face. Suspended in the air, green eyes flicked to the strange brooch clipped at the base of his neck. The butterfly Miraculous. If he could just get ahold of it...
In the split second distraction, Hawkmoth's body, like liquid, adjusted stance, caught Chat by the arm, and redirected all momentum against him. Chat crashed into the wall. His head cracked off stone. Stars exploded behind his eyes.
"Go home," Hawkmoth said from somewhere across the room. "It must be past your curfew."
Dizzy, Chat shook his head and got to his feet. "What are you? My dad?" he spat.
Hawkmoth was still standing in the exact same spot. He had both arms straight out, hands resting atop the jeweled knob of his cane. The glint in from the recesses of his mask turned thoughtful. "Do you even have a father? You always struck me as the orphaned type. Starved for any little bit of attention. Reckless. Patrolling at night, all on your own. Nobody cares when you go missing. Tell me. Are you all alone in this world, Chat Noir?"
Even though it wasn't true, Hawkmoth's words struck a chord. Something tender and hidden panged intensely. Before Chat knew it, he had his baton shooting forward, so quick Hawkmoth barely had time to block. The baton drove through the man's arm and sent him flying, before retracting back into Chat's hand.
Hawkmoth rubbed the arm Chat's baton had struck and gazed at the hero like he had just confirmed something. "So you do know what it's like," he mused.
Chat Noir breathed heavily through his nose. "What? To take advantage of someone's weakness? Can't say I've tried it." He couldn't bring himself to joke around anymore. This wasn't an akuma. This someone who, of his own free will, wanted to hurt Paris, hurt him, hurt Ladybug.
"No," Hawkmoth dismissed. "You know what it's like to watch a loved one die."
Chat swallowed. His mother's face flashed. Just as quickly, he buried her away.
Hawkmoth took a step forward. "There! Right there. That look in your eye. Ladybug doesn't have it, but we do."
"Does it ever go away?" Chat asked.
"No." Hawkmoth took another step forward, one black gloved palm outstretched. "But I can bring them back."
"Bring them back?" Chat echoed. "...You can do that?"
Hawkmoth smiled. "We can do that."
Chat paced. "But what about Ladybug? No. I can't betray her like that." He furrowed his brows, shaking his head. He drew his shoulders up to his ears. "But she doesn't know what it's like. How much it hurts…"
Hawkmoth was closer now, each step lighter and lighter with victory. "That's all people like us want, Chat Noir. To not hurt anymore. To set the world right again."
"Mom… Dad..." Chat's voice warbled and he threw in a few wet sniffles for good measure. "You're… You're right!" Chat exclaimed. "You and I? We're two sides of the same coin. We should join forces." He wiped away a fake tear. "I was getting tired of Ladybug telling me what to do all the time anyway. She's one bossy lady."
Hawkmoth went still. Emotions flicked across what narrow slice of his face Chat could make out in the shadowed light. His lips drew taut.
Leaning onto his staff, Chat rested his chin atop his hands. One green eye winked slowly. "Is this the part where you tell me your evil plan? Or dinner and a movie first?"
A buzz buzz buzz interrupted. His chin vibrated. Light flashed from the end of his baton.
Ladybug was calling him.
His baton was suddenly sailing through the air, skidding into shadow. A cane pummelled Chat in the stomach. All the air whooshed out of his lungs.
"All suited up," Ladybug's voice crackled.
Hawkmoth's cane rained down on him— so hard and fast— Chat couldn't keep up. His neck snapped as it caught him across his chin. His ears rang. Blood welled in his mouth. A fifth strike set fire to his throat and a sixth whipped his temple.
That last blow knocked back some survival instincts, and Chat remembered he had arms. He drew them up around his head as— with a deafening scream— a seventh strike scraped off his shoulder rather than his ear. It took everything in his power not to curl into a ball.
Through the narrow view between his arms, Chat studied Hawkmoth's shoes, and predicted the next few attacks, parrying them aside with his arms. He managed to get his feet and shoulders into a fencer's stance, but he had never fenced against anyone like this. Hawkmoth's attacks were ruthless and calculated to land exactly when Chat was most off balance. Soon, entire body stinging, he found himself backed into a crate.
He was distantly aware of Ladybug still on the call, concerned now.
"Herding arrogant cats isn't so hard," Hawkmoth noted. "One just needs a firm hand."
He was so close that Chat smelled the unmistakable complex husk of a Gabriel cologne and saw a familiar cuff link as it sailed for his face. Chat jumped. His claws sunk into the lid. His tail barely cleared top of the crate, when the wood shuddered underneath his palms.
"Yikes, yikes, yikes..." Chat chanted, eyes blown in panic, as he scampered over boxes. He had no direction except for away from that awful cane. He could barely see five feet ahead, night vision still not kicked back in. That, along with his pounding heart, and equally pounding head, made him want to throw up.
Baton. He had to get his baton back. There. A blinking light to his left. He dove.
"Hold on, Chat," Ladybug was saying, all breathless and determined. He could hear the roar of wind and the whir-whir-whir of her yo-yo. God he loved her. He loved her so—
A swarm of dark butterflies swelled up ahead.
Chat recoiled mid-jump. "Son of a—" His heel caught on the edge of a crate and he hit the floor flat on his back. Thousands of wings pressed against his face, suffocating him. Along with the insects came a flood of heartbreak, so intense, that Chat was rendered immobile. His body flooded with lead. Hopelessness raked his chest. It felt like all the most miserable, desolate thoughts of Paris had been bottled up and forcibly poured through him. Chat let out a choked sob. It was all he could do.
After what felt like forever, the pressure lessened as the butterflies covering his head left. The sharp blade of Hawkmoth's rapier replaced them, tracing the skin at the edge of Chat's collar.
"...a son around your age," a deep voice was saying, conflicted. The blade moved from his neck down his chest to his hand, scraping along his armor like nails on a chalkboard until the tip hooked right underneath his Miraculous.
Chat blinked back tears. The room galloped and lurched. Static and a shout crackled from of his baton. Ladybug. The thought of her shocked Chat back into action.
"Chrysalis!" Hawkmoth invoked at the same time Chat choked out, "C-Cataclysm!"
The sea of butterflies took off, leaving Chat floaty and light-headed. His right hand lit with black, bubbling fire as two beeps chorused through the air.
Far above his head, the butterflies swarmed into a living storm which blocked all light. Dust kicked through the air and whipped through Adrien's hair. Quickly, the burred mass grew so tight they formed one entity— a huge, fiery moth, which loomed down from the ceiling.
The behemoth's wingspan was as wide as Chat was tall, and it's fuzzy thorax was the same width as Chat's head. Dotting the ends of each jet-black wing were a yellow skulls. It wasn't coming for him silently, either. It was making a spine-tingly rat screech as it nosedived.
Fear hit him like a truck. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. As the moth descended, Chat wrenched his Cataclysm-drenched hand up to protect his face. The moth passed right through. Chat barely recovered from the shock, before it was on top of him. For a horrifying second it's many legs scuttled up his armor. It's enormous faceted eyeballs blurred, then it condensed into a cloud of glimmering purple smoke.
"No," Chat blurted, right as the smoke siphoned between his lips, traveling down his throat. It burned. Chat gagged, feeling it settle into his stomach. Out, his brain wailed. Get it out. He clawed at his throat, at his stomach. Fire gave way to ice as it nested deep in his spine and his back arched, spasming, like it was trying to, somehow, be rid of the thing.
Through his panic, Chat forgot he was writhing around with a loaded gun. His own armor was immune to Cataclysm. The floor, on the other hand, crumbled out from underneath him entirely.
Weightlessness plucked his stomach out his throat.
"NO!" Hawkmoth shouted. With a soft shing, the blade slipped out from under Chat's ring.
The fall took hours.
Crates and pews came with him, thundering through metal scaffolding, rattling Chat's molars. His shoulder clipped a metal beam, sending him spinning. Flashes of ceiling, falling statues, and scaffolding flicked by in quick succession. Wind screamed in his ears. His instincts blared for him to sink his claws into something, or, at very least, find a way out of this tailspin, but there was no fighting gravity. Fabric snagged his buckle and, with a sensation of a bungee jump, snapped taut. A few seconds after, debris hit the ground below, exploding with such force the entire church shuddered. Lights rattled. With a ripping noise, the tapestry gave way, and he was falling again. Chat curled his arms around his head and braced for impact. Still hooked to his belt, the tapestry wound around him like a cocoon, pressing against his face, making it impossible to see how much longer he still had left. He regretted following that butterfly. He should have circled back. He should have done a lot of things— Something sharp bludgeoned his ribcage. Pain lanced like an electric shock. Crates smashed, until, in a tumble of limbs and fabric, he hit cold stone.
Dust settled.
His ring beeped.
Night vision chose that moment to finally kick back in, right as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
a/n: This is a plot I've been toying around with for awhile. :) Let's see if it comes out as fun as it is in my head. I'm trying to stay within the canon universe with this one, but I take creative liberties where I can.