Chapter Four
On a rooftop half the length of Paris from Francois-Dupont, the heroic duo of Paris crouched beneath the ridge to catch their breath. Chat hissed, much like a his namesake, as he flexed his biceps. His suit had protected him from the worst injuries in his clashes with Marea and her clearly-superior strength, but he knew that he would be sore the next day. A glance at Ladybug showed that she was little better.
"How do we fight this thing?" Chat asked. Ladybug was silent, her gaze hard and focused in the distance. Chat could almost picture the gears turning in her head as she considered that very problem.
"Master Fu said she would get stronger as her negative emotions grew," she remembered, her skin paling. "That means the more we fight her, the angrier she'll get."
"And the angrier she gets, the stronger she gets," Chat responded. Unlike any other time, such a comparison did not help his mood. "So should we wait for her to calm down before we fight her again? If she cools off, she might be weaker. Or at least not as strong." Ladybug was already shaking her head by the time he finished.
"Her immediate anger may fade, but her hate will only grow. We need to finish this as quickly as we can." Ladybug lapsed into silence as she kept thinking. Chat took a deep breath, in and out, and in and out. His karate instructor had taught him meditation, a skill that he took part in as Adrien to keep his mind clear (or to pass the time during photo shoots).
One of the problems, among many others, was that they had absolutely no experience in dealing with a Heian. While that wasn't strictly true now because of their previous encounter, they were still all but fighting blind. It was like Stoneheart all over again; they were floundering to get their feet under them so that they could deal with it. But this was no akuma; they needed to take a different tactic for this threat.
The thought of tactics drew Chat thoughts to one of the first books that his chinese instructor had had him read once he had mastered the language enough to understand it. Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Apparently, his father himself had requested the book. Adrien had paid more attention to understanding the script itself than the lessons at the time, but he had a very good memory. One piece of advice stood out.
Never let your opponent pick the field of battle.
"We need to-" Chat was interrupted by both of their weapons emitting warning beeps. In unison, they activated the phone-like features (strange that something seemingly so high-tech would be in mystical weapons thousands of years old) and homed in on the alert. Both had set their weapons to monitor television and internet news during their patrols so that they could respond.
What they saw made them both start to tremble.
Reporters were frantically capturing the image of the Eiffel Tower. Hanging from the iron scaffolding were thick strands of black ooze, like the fluid darkness that had comprised Marea's weapon. And hanging from those strands were students of Francois-Dupont. One reporter in particular had focused on the shape of Marea casually strolling along the tier where the strands were anchored, her gladius sparking as she lightly drew it across the iron with a fearsome grin across her lips.
Suddenly, a whorl of darkness eclipsed the top of the tower and faded away to reveal Hawk Moth. A familiar mass of black butterflies converged above the tower and writhed until it formed a much larger silhouette, a perfect shape of the supervillain. "People of Paris, deliver this message: Ladybug, Chat Noir. For every quarter hour that you do not face me and my apprentice, we will drop one of the children. Your time begins … now!"
Both flicked their tools closed and traded a mirrored glance. It seemed they had lost the power to choose their battlefield.
After a good twenty minutes of roof-hopping, Fu leapt and rolled across the gravel-covered roof of an out-of-the-way warehouse with a grace that belied his age. Taking a breath and fading into a meditative trace with practiced ease, Fu extended his perception. He nodded to himself as he sensed that unnatural aura within the structure.
After snapping the lock on the door, Fu leapt through the rafters of the warehouse. He was grateful for the dim lighting; it made searching for auras that much easier among the old shipping crates stacked within. Eventually, the Guardian halted with his eyes fixed on a much newer-looking shipping crate. Or more accurately, on the pure-white glow that seemed to emanate from it.
As Fu leapt down and began prying the crate open, he reflected on the unsettling nature of that glow. In all of his years as Wayzz's partner, he had come to learn that everyone, no matter how bland or one-dimensional, had color in their aura. Raging every color of the rainbow and everything in between, everyone had color. To have a purely black (as a Heian did) or purely white was … disturbing.
Finally, Fu forced the locks and pulled the doors open. He flinched back and covered his eyes against the blinding glow before releasing the transformation. The crate was draped with velvet around the walls, giving the inside a soft appearance. On a cot in the center of the crate sat a hospital bed. And laying restrained on that bed, an IV in her arm, a young woman twitched and moaned.
Fu steeled himself against what he knew he would see and approached for a clinical analysis. The girl, Lila he believed was her name, was utterly naked aside from the crumpled silk sheets that covered her lower body. Most of her skin was red with a blush as her body attempted to cool itself, her skin shining with sweat. Tears streamed from her eyes and her body trembled erratically, occasionally growing into full-fledged seizures that lasted a few moments before settling again.
And through it all she wore that haunting, open-mouthed smile of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
Fu swallowed thickly at the horror before him, knowing full-well what was causing it. Without the Darkness that would naturally balance her soul, this girl was consumed with purely positive emotions. While many would consider that a blessing, as she certainly did in the deeply-buried confines of her mind, it was anything but. Her mind would begin to deteriorate, if it hadn't already, and she would eventually suffer permanent damage. As the chinese proverb went, "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing." And this was far more than "too much".
Taking a deep breath, Fu clasped his hands together and gently lowered them to just above his impromptu patient, getting a feel for her chi. This was something he himself had been taught by his own master, the previous Guardian. Fu had always had a talent for reading and harnessing chi, one of the reasons he had been picked. As he gracefully wove his hands over the girl, he could feel the effects of the split. He could feel the intoxicating euphoria that wracked her body with genuinely painful intensity, feel the burning heat of her fever that defied her body's attempts to cool it, feel the imbalanced Light that threatened to burn away her mind. He drew himself out of the trance and began to work.
Fu removed the sheets from the girl with the clinical distance of a trained physician and began wrapping them around the girl, tying it off under her armpits and across her chest and hips in a makeshift dress. If he was going to carry her through the city, he would ensure she was as decent as possible in the circumstances.
Next he removed the restraints on her arms, Wayzz helping to keep her from hurting herself with the surprising strength that all kwamis possessed. He removed a length of soft cord from his pocket and gently tied her wrists together before repeating the process with her ankles. Finally, he tied the two bonds together; both to further restrain her thrashing and to make her easier to carry without dropping.
After checking each knot for security, Fu called his transformation and lifted Lila over his shoulder to begin the long journey back to the Eiffel Tower. The Tower sat on a nexus point of the Earth's lifeforce, acting as a beacon for the collective subconscious of humanity. Recent evidence was the high number of akuma battles that had been fought in and around the tower, a manifestation of that instinctive pull.
And that very drive would bring the coming battle to that ancient location.
Hawk Moth stood still as a statue with his eyes peacefully closed, as if napping, as he mentally counted down the seconds before he would "release" one of his hostages. Fifteen minutes; a full nine-hundred seconds. He knew they would come. He had pegged both of them, especially Ladybug, as full-fledged, sacrificial-lamb heroes from their first encounter. They would come.
Finally, he reached zero and a sadistic grin stretched across his lips. His light-mask formed as he connected with his apprentice. "Marea," he urged, knowing full well that she knew exactly what to do.
Said apprentice gave a grin to mirror her master's and stepped over the edge of the rafter, defying gravity as she stood next to her chosen victim. She was thankful to her master for letting her take her pick and had put a lot of thought into who she would release first. Marea grinned savagely at Rose Lavillant, the sweetest girl in their class. A light to everyone's life. But marea had no purpose for light. She savored the petite blonde's pathetic sobbing for just a moment more.
"Bye, bye, little flower," she sing-songed before slashing through the strands of darkness that held her up. Rose shrieked as she fell. The girl closed her eyes and waited for the impact. It came, but was different than she expected. Rose opened her eyes to find herself in the arms of Chat Noir, safe and sound on the grounds surrounding the tower.
Marea was stunned for a split second before she looked to her master. Hawk Moth, eyes narrowed in contemplation, gave the slightest of nods. Marea grinned and leapt off the Tower, ready to beat and break this alley cat and bring his ring to Hawk Moth.
As he watched his apprentice fall, Hawk Moth himself couldn't help but feel the tingle of suspicion in the back of his mind. Chat Noir was here - where was Ladybug?
As the citizens of Paris waited with bated breath for the fight between their beloved hero and this creature of darkness to commence, no one noticed a young girl board the elevator, a dark hood shading her fair skin and hiding her trademark pigtails. Marinette tried to center herself, to use the few lessons Master Fu had given her as of yet.
It was time to bring these monsters down.
Master Fu rushed across the rooftops as fast as his old legs could carry him. He had sensed the massive congregation of life forces around the nexus that sat under the Eiffel Tower and he knew exactly what it meant. Luckily, there had been no massive wave of sorrow, so nothing tragic had happened. Not as of yet.
Fu landed on a building at the edge of the clear ground around the Tower with a clear view. He centered himself and stretched his awareness to the Tower, focusing on the immediate area. He flinched at the presence of the Heian, her pitch-black aura just as unsettling as the pure-white one over his shoulder. And he felt the deep, dark purple aura shot through with jagged lines of blackened hatred and red-orange anger. Hawk Moth.
But he also sensed the soft pale auras of his Chosen heroes, their auras inked with red courage and silver determination, with green of life and gold of the sun. Their auras were opposites of each other, but they complemented each other in a way that few had or ever would. True partners chosen by Destiny.
Fu put down Lila and spread her across the rooftop, dropping his transformation. He frowned grimly at the paleness of her skin under the blush, her skin dry as a bone despite the fever; a sheer sign of dehydration. The girl was dying, and fast.
Fu took a deep breath, steadying his nerves and clearing his mind. He cracked his neck and his knuckles before spreading his fingers and once agains gently roaming his hands a hair's breadth above the girl's skin, reading and attuning himself to her chi. Despite his age, Fu had an acute memory, both naturally and due to the influence of the Turtle Miraculous. He synced himself with her unique flow very quickly, the cries of the crowd falling on deafened ears.
Finally, he felt it. The slightest flare in her chi, an echo of her Shadow as she attacked. Fu swayed with it, helping his patient follow the flow, to line up with the creature born of her Darkness. The corner of Fu's lip twitched as he felt her, them, begin to harmonize.
He hadn't been quite honest when he had said there was no way he could help. He couldn't help in the battle itself, that much had been true; he was too old to fight something as strong and fierce as a Heian head on. Besides, he needed Ladybug and Chat Noir to give it their all, to not expect help. But there was more than one way he could help.
He could, say, take a piece off the board.
A few notes:::
A like the idea of Adrien's various "hobbies" (read: forced activities) coming in handy in his career as Chat Noir. [Some theorize that Gabriel (or perhaps his mother) influenced Adrein's extracurriculars to prepare him for heroics.] If you are interested in war or combat history, The Art of War is a must-read. It's so well-written for tacticans and generals that it is still studied in military academies today! And I like the concept (and it is totally believeable) that Adrien has been exposed to a lot of Chinese culture during his lessons. Yes, Ladybug is generally the one who comes up with plans, but I think Adrien could do that just as well.
Even if he is the guardian, Fu is still a Miraculous user. I feel it is just as much his job as it is the others' to fight as a hero; he may have even been a full-fledged hero in his younger days, like during his apprenticeship (or whatever) to become the Guardian. And no one could grow that old without learning a few tricks!
Last note, I love world-building! It has to be my favorite part of writing, on this site and otherwise. And Master Fu and the kwamis give me an awesome opportunity to do some serious (and quite varied) world-building. It's one reason I love the series!
Leave a review, guys! Seriously, they are one of the reasons I get up in the morning! Is there anything you particularly like, anything you aren't so fond of (no flames please!)? The story will probably be wrapped up in one or two chapters, so give me some feedback! Anyway, stay awesome, everyone!
