`Chapter 3
Marinette let out a big yawn, her eyes barely able to focus on the books that were scattered on the desk in front of her. Her thoughts were but a jumble of rocks she knew that she had to research something but nothing was coming to mind.
"You're drifting off to sleep again." Tikki said with a sigh "Didn't you sleep last night after we got home?"
"For like thirty minutes." Marinette tried to recall the nights events. After she had fought the fish monster, Ladybug and Félix walked for hours back into the city. They talked the whole wild but it she couldn't bring herself to remember anything important about the conversation. She squeezed her eyes tight recalling an image of Félix jumping and hurdling himself over the wall of the Agreste manor. She let out a groan unsure if that had not just been a dream; because she could barely recall how she got back into her own room. "Do you have a clue what I fought last night? Or what exactly did to defeat it?"
"I don't ever remember an enemy like you describe." The Kwami tilted her head her big eyes wide "well not exactly, I remember that there was a threat that lured its victims in by projecting nightmares."
"Did it happen to be a giant goo fish?" Marinette asked.
Tikki shook her head in denial "No, plus Miraculous holders were immune to that one." The Kwami's face scrunched in disappointment.
Marinette blew out a loose strand of hair out of her face and said "well. I can't exactly explain this to Cat if I can't think straight" she closed up the books and making sure that everything was where she found it before heading towards the door. She looked around her school's library for a brief moment and was tempted on taking a nap there and decided against it. 'I've made it this far without passing out.' She thought heading home. Her body went on autopilot as she made out of the school and by the park that she would've spent some time hanging out with Alya if she was feeling better.
A slick chilling sensation rolled down Marinette spine like she was splashed with water.
Certainly not feeling so tired, Marinette instinctively jumped only to trip and lose her balance.
"Whoa careful there." The voice of Adrien chimed in her ears. The blonde-haired teen grabbing her shoulder ensuring that she didn't fall.
Face red Marinette pulled away "Adrien! I'm so sorry." She let out a nervous laugh.
"No biggie." He let out a smile before his features turned to one of concern "You look tired is everything okay?"
"They didn't get the best rest last night, nothing to worry about She gave a half-truth, not wanting her crush to worry about her.
"That's good." Adrien gave a relieved sigh and smiled.
Marinette stared at him for a brief moment, wondering if it was polite to ask Adrien about Félix. As she opened her mouth to ask a question that didn't seem so for word a loud crash erupted across the street as sirens began to blare. "What's going on?" She turned to look around for the source of the noise her question forgotten.
"My store! Those things came out of my store!" In elderly man shouted as a cloud of dust and debris filled the street.
Then slowly one by one shadows began to emerge from the cloud of dust. One was a hulking beast with a new washer machine lodged in his abdomen, while another trotted about with a horse its neck and head flopping about from the weight of an active lawnmower hanging from it. Another had no legs at all hanging from a light post with a hook to rake at the end of its arm. The only similarity the monsters had to one another was that each of them were losing out in amorphous black substance.
'That goo!' Marinette thought remembering the grotesque fish from the night before, and turned quickly to look at Adrien only to see he had disappeared. Worried slightly of where he might've gone off to, she saw an opportunity and seized it, she too ran off to find a place where she could transform into ladybug without getting caught.
Meanwhile the old shop keeper huffed and we used as he watched the dust cleared to reveal the crater that had once been his storefront.
"Get out of the way old man!" Cat Noir push aside the old man using his staff to block a fist from the washer machine monster.
The elderly man stumbled before falling to his knees "Those things destroyed the store, how my going to help my grandchildren now." He said hopelessly.
"I think your grandkids would just be happy to know that you're alive." Ladybug said briefly appearing beside him before running off to help her partner.
"My store…" Was all the man could say in response.
Ladybug and watched Cat Noir rollout from the monster he was defending himself against, before her attention was diverted it to the rake armed creature that was hurtling towards her from the sky. Spinning her yo-yo around effortlessly she lassoed the creature's singular appendage. Still holding on to the string she rolled us away as fast as she could using the creature's dissenting momentum to remove the rake from its arm.
The creature let out an angry shriek as his body began to fall away leaving a puddle of amorphous goo. The substance shining like an oil spill in the sunlight as it wiggled and stretched mindlessly.
"Gross, what is that!" Cat Noir jumped over his opponent to land beside the puddle.
"Careful! I fought something like this last night." Ladybug warned him, a part of her wondering why her yo-yo wasn't pulsing like the night before.
"What?" Cat looked up at her shocked his hair seeming to bristle "Why didn't you tell me!"
"It was sudden!" Ladybug shouted back offended before the lawnmower creature began to gallop towards them flinging the its head about like a mace.
Angry and seeing and outlet to vent his frustrations he bashed at the lawnmower. His attacks made the metal casing band making the swirling blades underneath more visible. Seeing his mistake, he quickly dodges the swirling blades as the creature swung at him the attack barely grazing his costumes ears.
The horse like monster's stamped about wobbling off balance as the mechanism of the lawnmower slowly began to fall apart. The monster's body becoming more liquid with each piece of metal that clanked to the ground.
As the creature seemed to dissolve into its own steps the duo turned to the hulking creature as it continued to skulk about lifting up and smashing down cars in a blind search. Cat, noticing the cause-and-effect of his actions ran towards the washer machine monster grinning with an idea. As he bounded towards the monster he noticed that his weapon felt strange in his hands, almost hot, uncomfortably so.
The darkened beast seemed to stop at Cat Noir's approach pounding its fists on the ground like a child having a tantrum. The sound of drumming reverberating out of its mechanical chest as the black clad hero good toe to toe with it.
Shifting his staff in his hand Cat thrust his staff towards the monster's chest. The beast moved to block the blow with his test but when it did it let out a booming noise. Where the tip of the staff had made contact with the creature's flesh it began to bubble and ooze. The creature stumbled back slapping at the bubbling deformity, it doing so made the bubbling issues grow.
"What did you do!" Ladybug ran up beside him her eyes wide under her mask, as the body the creatures seem to dissolve with painful shrieks.
Her partner plaintiff back cringing at his unintended handiwork "I wasn't planning to do that! But it seems to be working." He tried to look to her with a confident smile.
Ladybug gave a reassuring nod even though the hulking monster still thrashed it out in agony. Which still made her very concerned about the safety of anything that got caught in its path.
"Help!"
Ladybug and cat noir swung their heads to the sound of the panic shop keeper. The booze and metal beds that had made up the following to monsters had congealed together into a towering birdlike creature. Stomping around the older man while it's bear trap like beak snapped at something around it.
A chill ran up her spine as she finally saw but the monster was snapping at. A black winged butterfly that glittered with dark purple energy.
"We've got to stop it!" She shouted to cat running at the monster her yo-yo at the ready. Having a sense of looming dread seeing how eager the monster was to devour the Akuma.
She was too late however, between the jagged pieces of metal a black liquid tendril lashed out at the insect pulling it in to its mouth like an eager frog. The middle and use creature then began to shake violently as it made a motion like swallowing. Its neck twisting and bending as it looked miraculous holders.
Before their very eyes the creature began to shift in morph its soft gelatinous body becoming hard and crystalline and his jagged metal mouth becoming more pointed like the cone of an airplane. The monster then squatted down close to the road and charged at the two with a violent ferocity. Barely had time had to jump away when the creature then took to the sky darting around the sky of Paris.
"Where is it going?" Cat Noir looked up at the sky only to see the creature swooping down to divebomb them "Duck!" He shouted pulling Ladybug and himself flat against the street.
The jagged creature zip to low across the street, a breath away from scraping them with its beak.
Cat noir jumped to his feet as the crystalline bird ascended back up into the air "We've got to stop that thing before it skewers us!" He readied his weapon for the creature's next divebomb.
In a blink the monster was already falling towards him, with a swift movement he smacked at its needle tipped beak. The impact sent the monster careening off the path and on to the sidewalk with a sickening crack, the beast twitching and righting itself on to its feet in mere seconds.
"Luck charm!" The red suited heroine calling up an item to help them fight the monster. Then with a burst of pink energy a polka dotted slingshot and a small red and black marble appeared in her hand "uh?" She looked at the items with slight confusion.
Then looking over at the monster readying itself to take flight, she noticed a glowing purple crack on its lower stomach.
"That's it!" Taking aim, she shot the marble at the bird creature. The impact of the tiny sphere causing the cracks to grow the purple light growing violently a crossed the monster's front "Cat!"
"Oh, I see it." He answered her lunging for the monster embedding his staff into the gaping cracks. feeling the familiar strangeness that defeated the previous two monsters, he shoved his weapon past the monster's black armor until he heard the sound of sizzling liquid.
The creature then began to shriek and buzz as it stumbled and thrashed around, the armor that had once protected fall the way releasing an angry black smoke. Amidst the dark clouds and crumbling crystal, a small darkened butterfly flitted out completely unharmed.
"Gotcha!" Ladybug is snatched up the insect, using her yo-yo to purify it back to pure white "There you go butterfly." She bid it goodbye as it darted off into the sky. Then she went over to the two objects her luck charm had created "Miraculous Ladybug!" She tossed them into the air.
The eruption of bright pink or along with the swarm of ladybugs made quick work of the street the monsters had rampaged on. Cracked streets, overturned cars, and the store of the old man restored to the way they were as if nothing had ever happened.
"Well, that was an experience." Cat said stretching his muscles out seeing that the fighting was over "That goo stuff was pretty scary when it swallowed that Akuma." He blinked with a nervous laugh "Not saying I was scared, I wasn't!"
Ladybug paid his last statement no mind and said "How is that even possible?" She looked down at her yo-yo and wondered she couldn't do the attack that she had done on the fish the night before.
Her thought was derailed as she noticed her Miraculous signaling that it would deactivate soon, a result of her using her Lucky Charm during the battle.
"Well talk about that later." She stated to Cat Noir before using her miraculous to swing herself as close to home as she could.
At that exact same moment Félix sat straight up his hands shaking what from a nightmare. He looked around at the moderate sized writing table, seeing that he must have dozed off doing an assignment that his tutors had given him. He reached for a bright orange drawing pad, a dream journal that the doctors had tasks him to do in hopes of the decoding memories as he slept. He stopped however, hearing a crash in the sound of labored breathing coming from the hall outside his room.
"Mr. Agreste!" He moves quickly to his host who appeared to be having trouble standing upright.
Gabriel Agreste stared at Félix with a dull expression "You." He stated matter-of-factly standing upright once more.
"Are you okay? Sir?" The blue-eyed teen looked at him with such genuine concern, it took the man by surprise, but only for a second.
"I'm fine, actually I needed to speak with you about something." Gabriel Agreste walked slowly to the guest bed room that Félix had taken up residence in.
"Yes sir."
It was a simple room the smallest out of the possible guestrooms the boy had to choose from, the only thing of note about it was the small balcony that overlooked the garden. It was so small that it hadn't actually been designed for anybody to stand on it for a long period of time.
Moving over to the writing desk Gabriel "What is this?" Seeing the cluster of papers with equations and outlines that looked familiar to him.
Félix's eyes started to the floor when Gabriel held up one of the papers to show him "Well you see, I overheard your phone call you last night and I was just trying to work out the problem on my own." He explained himself in a cell and passive tone.
"You did?" The man overlooked the papers once more within amused to look. "It seems to put quite a deal of effort into it. Sadly, if I were to use this plan, I'd be four months behind schedule and a couple thousand dollars in the red." Yet, he found it somewhat impressive he had the habit of keeping his phone calls brief. Therefore, this boy who had only been under his roof for such a short amount of time to figure out what he had been talking about was borderline remarkable.
"I'm sorry sir." Félix refused to lift his eyes from the ground.
"Don't be, you're just a child after all." Gabriel took the group of papers and deposited them in the nearby trashbin.
Félix watched the act of a blank expression before asking "What did you want to talk to me about Sir?"
"The bodyguard I've assigned to you has been telling me that during your walks you tend to drift towards the canals." Agreste told him with a serious tone "I believe the doctors and I have explained that is a bad idea. Is that true?"
"That is correct." Félix's tone and expression didn't change.
Concerned began to creep into Gabriel's stern expression "Why risk damage that could come from that? Your mind is like any other part of the body, you wouldn't tried to run a mile with a broken leg and until it's healed, would you?" He began to lecture the boy
Félix's passive gaze faltered "No, I just…"
"Just what?"
Félix looked up at his host anger twisting his features as tears welled in his eyes "Feel robbed. Sir. My entire life, everything that I am. It feels like it has been taken from me." His voice cracked as his stormy blue eyes met Gabriel's.
Gabriel then moved to Félix putting a hand on his shoulder giving it a firm squeeze. "I can sympathize with you." He too, understood what it felt like to be robbed. "Even so, don't destroy your future in trying to reclaim the past. Like I mentioned before you are a child with your whole life ahead of you." He let go of him and moved out into the hallway "Let's continue this conversation in my office, I have something that might interest you."
Félix stared ahead into his room for a few seconds, before following him.
