Chapter 10: Robustus

Adrien arrived at his first class and found out it was another Homeroom Switch-Up Day. This was one of Principal Damocles' eccentric ideas. He thought that occasionally switching around homeroom teachers would keep students stimulated and interested. (Eccentric, all right.)

It meant that today (instead of their charming literature teacher, Miss Bustier) they were faced with the grouchy science teacher, Ms. Mendeleiev, first thing in the morning.

"Thanks to the switch-up, I don't have my lab equipment here. I'm going to show a video of an experiment from my laptop instead of the live demonstration I would prefer," said Mendeleiev.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. She called in the principal for help.

"See for yourself, Mr. Damocles. Nothing happens when I press the button," said Mendeleiev.

"You're in luck, Ms. Mendeleiev. I'm a bit of a computer whiz!" said Damocles. He cracked his knuckles and began pressing buttons. "And there you go!"

The system came up, but then a dinosaur icon appeared on the screen. It began devouring data like a Pac-Man.

"That's not suppose to be happening! What is it?" asked Mendeleiev.

Max, the class computer nerd, came forward. "It's Dino-33, a malicious computer virus. Let me try something."

Mendeleiev told him to go back to his seat and let the adults handle it. Damocles agreed.

A voice came from Max's bag: "Inform the adults that if they don't neutralize the virus in the next seventy-five seconds, there's a 99.9% chance the hard disk will be permanently damaged."

Max told the bag, "Quiet."

In the front of the room, Damocles was getting desperate. "It's destroying all the school data! It's a disaster! How many seconds do you say we have left?"

"Only sixty-five," said Max.

They let Max have a try. He fumbled for something in his bag. "Urgh! Where is it?"

A mechanical arm extended from the bag with a flash drive in its claw. "I believe this is what you're looking for?"

"Thanks," said Max. "This is an anti-virus device I created with help from my best friend."

A little robot with a propeller on its head flew out of the bag. "Hello. My name is Markov. We can fix this, Max!"

Plugging in the flash drive quickly eliminated the virus and recovered the lost data.

Damocles said, "Congratulations, young man. Very impressive indeed!'

The students crowded forward, Adrien included, impressed by the robot. They chattered about it. Alya wanted to write a blog article about it. Marinette was impressed that Markov knew her name.

"Of course! Max showed me the class photo. He told me all about you and his other friends. Very happy to finally meet you! Even Chloe!"

"This toy you manufactured is very impressive, Max," said Ms. Mendeleiev. "Now put it away please. Come on, everybody, back to your seats."

Markov and Max argued that the robot was more than a toy, and that he had human emotions. Mendeleiev and Damocles denied that it was possible. The debate grew heated enough that Damocles confiscated the robot and went off to his office with it.

Markov did have emotions, which was proved a few minutes later when he was akumatized into the evil Robustus. He took over all the machines in the city.

When he had them captured by a giant mecha body made from cars, he revealed a new twist to Max, who he had also captured. "I'm going to take their Miraculous so that we'll never be seperated again! Now I'll be able to make my wish come true!"

"What wish?" asked Max.

"I want to be a real human like you, Max!" said Robustus.

Only Max's intervention kept them from losing their Miraculouses this time. Ladybug was able to purify the robot's CPU with the anti-virus flash drive from Max. It drove out the akuma, which she purified. Then, as usual, "Miraculous Ladybug" restored all the damage.

Adrien thought about what he had learned from the Robustus encounter. Now he knew the ring and the earrings could be combined to get a wish. This was huge. He already had half of the means to bring his mother back! He needed to know more.

No doubt his father was after the same wish. Adrien would have to be the one to make it; his father was too crazy. He might wish to control everyone in the world so that he could order his wife's return.

Adrien thought about getting the hero book from the safe, but after the robbery he was pretty sure that his father had moved it to a safer place.

"Duusu, is there a way I can recover information from the book without looking at it again?"

"Yes, Master. The Wisdom feather will allow you to see any page you skimmed over in perfect detail. Insight will allow you to translate the code."

After becoming Le Paon, he pulled feathers for Wisdom and Insight. He found the page about combining the Miraculouses to get ultimate power. He saw that there was a warning about a price to be paid. He believed he had thought of a wish that would be worth any price.

He memorized the necessary invocation.

Now there was only one more thing that he needed: Ladybug's earrings. He could take them, but he shuddered at the thought of seeing the look of betrayal in her eyes. He wasn't sure he could do it.