Lady bug landed on the ground and looked up to see a middle-aged man in a green suit, a golden clock on his chest, he grabbed the hand of a girl nearby and she watched as she shrivelled and shrank into an elderly woman. The clock on the man's chest span backward as he looked up at her, the wrinkles around his eyes lessening, the grey flecks in his beard turning brown.
"Ah, Ladybug, how nice of you to visit, please allow me to introduce myself", he said, straightening up and smiling, "I am Life-Taker and as you can see, with just a touch I have the power to make your acrobatic, super skills, quite useless. You could always trade me however, your life for your Miraculous!"
"It's a tempting offer, I think she'll go with option three and take your Akuma instead", cut in Chat Noir, landing at Ladybug's side.
"I think the Akuma must be the watch", Ladybug whispered to Chat, "distract him and I'll try to smash it".
Chat gave Ladybug a gracious bow and began spinning his stick again, heading toward Life-taker.
"Foolish boy, you'd sooner be old and weak than give up your powers? Fine, I'll teach you a lesson about respecting your elders!" Life-Taker snapped, charging toward Chat and missing him with his outstretched hand by millimetres as Chat turned, with agility, on his heel and hit Life-Taker in the back with his stick, knocking him off balance and onto the ground.
"Careful now", grinned Chat, "you don't want to break a hip",
Life-Taker growled and turned himself over, jumping up just in time to avoid Ladybug's yoyo, that flew toward his chest with such force that it cracked the stone floor where he'd been laid.
Ladybug cursed at her miss as Life-Taker clicked his fingers, sections of a something flat and green began to fan out beneath his feet until he was standing on a skateboard that lit up at the back with fire and propelled him forward, toward Ladybug where he knocked her to the ground.
"Ladybug!" Cried out Chat, throwing his stick which span through the air, connecting with Life-Taker's head and then boomeranged back to its owner.
"You'll regret that!" Roared Life-Taker, turning his attention to Chat and rocketing toward him, his hands reaching outward to steal Chat's life force, "LET'S HOLD HAND'S!" He cried,
"Okay", replied Chat, looking focused, "CATACLYSM!"
Life-Taker barely hand time to pull his hands to safety and avoid grabbing Chat's destruction-super powered hand but didn't avoid Chat grabbing a hold of the golden clock on his chest, turning it to dust and releasing the Akuma.
"No more evil doing for you little Akuma, it's time to de-evilise!", came the voice of Ladybug, who used her yoyo to entrap the evil and release the cleansed creature, "bye, bye little butterfly".
Then she used her lucky-charm power to return the stolen years to the victims and reverse the effects of Hawkmoths powers.
"Pound it!" The pair fist bumped, Marinette smiled at Chat who smiled back but then reality flooded back and she felt panicked.
"Well, that's my cue", she disappeared so quickly that Chat barely had time to think.
"Damn… I hope she isn't mad with me for something", he mumbled to himself.
As soon as Marinette was out of sight she returned to her normal form, she wanted to get home and away from having to face either Adrien or Chat for as long as possible.
"I'll feed you as soon as we're home, Tiki", she promised to the sleeping Kwami in her bag.
Chat Noir had moved to a roof top, it was easier to go home at super speed and just transform there, but he did love sitting above everything so he could think.
"Ladybug doesn't want to see me and neither does Marinette, looks like black cats really are unlucky", he huffed, feeling thoroughly sorry for himself, "I should just ring Marinette, I should call her and ask her for a second date, maybe I can fix things".
Before he could change his mind, he pulled out his phone and dialled the number, he was so sure she wouldn't want to talk to him that he almost dropped the phone over the ledge when he heard her voice.
"Adrien?" She said,
"Marinette! Wow, hi… I know this is… probably not what I should be asking, I mean-"
"Adrien, I'm sorry I've been being weird and… I'm just generally sorry but I'm walking home and only half way down Rue de l'Abreuvoir so it's gonna take me a while, would it be okay if I called you back?"
"Yeah, of course, I just wanted to say I know you made it clear you didn't want to date me right now or anything but… I was hoping-" suddenly Chat's words were cut off by a scream, "Marinette?" He shouted but there was no answer, luckily he knew where to find her.
Moving quicker than he knew he could, he flew across the slates of the Paris buildings, the wind at his back and his muscles aching from the ferocity of his cat like sprint. He came to Rue de l'Abreuvoir faster than he'd dared to hope and his eyes panned around with desperation, seeking out any sign of Marinette. His cat ears suddenly swivelled slightly, homing in on the sound of screaming, setting him off again, the sound of his panting only broken by the ominous beeping of his miraculous ring.
"Not yet!" He roared.
Marinette twisted and turned against the chains that Evilustrator had drawn around her but as he continued to drag her through the darkening streets she realised it was useless.
"How are you Akumatized? Ladybug and Chat Noir just defeated an Akumatized victim!" She demanded,
"It seems Hawkmoth has more power than you realised", replied Nathaniel, pulling her into the broken door of an abandoned warehouse.
"So, what? You're going to kill me?", she asked, stepping over the rotten beams that had fallen to the ground as the building had decayed.
"Kill you?" Asked Evilustrator, turning to look at her, "Of course not, Marinette, I don't plan to hurt you, I love you".
"Yeah? Well chains don't make good for a first date", she bit back,
"But this isn't our first date", he grinned, "sadly that was ruined by Chat Noir but I plan on getting him back for that!"
"What are you going to do to Chat?" She looked worried and it wasn't lost on Evilustrator.
"Why the concern?" He raised an eyebrow,
"Because… he's one of Paris's heroes", she answered, "he keeps us safe".
"Well he'll be road kill when I'm done with him", laughed Evilustrator, "him and that Ladybug!"
He pulled her to the ground in the middle of a large room where shafts of dim light punctured the roof and made dappled patterns on the floor, there was a large, metal beam that had dropped and rusted in place where he wrapped the chain and left Marinette bound.
"Chat's harder to beat than you might think", Marinette said, struggling against her chains in a futile manner,
"Chat Noir has already used his Cataclysm and has minutes left of his transformation", beamed Evilustrator, "I only have to outlast him for a few seconds, then I will take his Miraculous and you will be mine forever".
"What about Ladybug?" Marinette tried,
"She'll be easy prey without Chat Noir to back her up, I've never seen either one of them win a fight alone", Evilustrator said in an offhand tone.
Marinette wasn't sure what to say, she knew Ladybug wasn't coming and had nothing to feed Tiki, she could only hope that Chat wouldn't come or that he'd at least be intelligent enough to power up his Kwami first and come later.
Almost on cue, there was a crash as splintered rubble and masonry fell from the ceiling and Chat Noir landed, crouched low to absorb the impact. Both Marinette and Evilustrator had leapt, not expecting the explosive entrance and Evilustrator barely had time to make a clever comment before Chat's stick hit him square between the eyes, sending him flying backward, into the wall.
"Chat!" Cried Marinette, "how did you know I was here?"
But Chat wasn't listening, he'd already begun a second assault on Nathaniel who was scribbling on his pad desperately.
A gigantic hammer, suspended by the handle, swung across the room at Chat but he bounded over it like it was the easiest thing in the world, still staring at Evilustrator with murder in his eyes. The hammer hit the wall and the entire building rumbled ominously, Marinette looked around at the weakened structure and pulled at her chains again, leaning back so hard she couldn't help but to cry out in pain.
"How dare you put your hands on her!" Chat roared as he struck Evilustrator, sending him hurtling through the air once more, crashing into one of the beams, the building shook again and Evilustrator's stylus cracked against the beam, releasing the Akuma.
Nathaniel looked around, his body ached and he was lying in filth, he looked up at the creaking walls around him and gasped,
"What's going on?" He asked but standing over him was a furious looking Chat Noir, "What's happening?" He asked again, panic in his voice.
"Chat!" Cried Marinette, "the building's coming down!"
Chat shook his head as if waking from a dream and looked around, there was mortar crumbling from the walls and falling in chunks from the roof.
"Nathaniel, get out now!" He ordered, Nathaniel turned and ran toward the door, Chat ran toward Marinette, the chain was still there.
"Without Ladybug to use her lucky charm to undo Evilustrator's powers, I can't make the chains disappear!" He looked into Marinette's terrified eyes.
"You need to get out Chat", she said in a small voice, "you won't survive if you stay with me",
"I'm not leaving you!" He shouted,
"there's not time to argue", she sighed, closing her eyes and dropping her head.
She heard a creak and looked up, Chat was beneath the metal beam, his shoulders and upturned hands pressed hard against its underside, his face red with effort.
"Chat, it's too big, just get out!" She yelled, "there's no sense in both of us dying in here!" There were tears in her eyes now, it was surely only a matter of seconds before they were both crushed to death but suddenly, to her amazement, she felt the beam move.
"Oh my god, Chat, you're doing it!" The end of the great, iron girder, screeching as the metal grated against the stone work, lifted off of the ground, it wasn't much but Marinette didn't need any encouragement to throw herself down and hastily slip her chains over the end.
Chat let out an animalistic cry of effort and pain as he dropped the girder and without a second to lose, wrapped his arms about Marinette and went barrelling toward the door.
As if on cue the entire building give a final groan and collapsed in on it's self, bricks and rubble pouring down like hail, smashing into the earth and billowing a cloud of dust and decay into the atmosphere.
At first Marinette thought she was dead, she'd felt something heavy slam into her as her back had connected with the ground but as she groggily opened her eyes and blinked at the last flicker of day light she realised they'd made it. She turned her head to look up at her saviour, her vision a little blurred from hitting her head.
"Are you okay?" Came Chat's voice,
"I think so", she blinked up at him, still lying on top of her with his arms wrapped around her from diving out of the door but the scratched and bruised face looking down at her was no longer Chat Noir… it was Adrien Agreste.