Chapter Ten
Chat Noir spluttered as a cloud of fine grit pressed itself against his face. He instantly tried to blow it away by twirling his staff like the blades of a fan, but that did little to disperse the white fog that had enveloped him. Raising his hand, he watched as fine particles wafted past his dark glove.
Some kind of powder...?
Much as he was trying not to, he could practically taste it. He could swear he recognized that dry, musty scent from somewhere... but that could remain a mystery for now. He needed to locate his partner, preferably before Schoolmistress found either of them first.
He took a breath, immediately regretting it as a powdery film clung to his lips. Giving only a shallow gasp this time, he called as loudly as he dared: "Ladybug...?"
There was a cough from somewhere near, followed by: "Chat Noir?"
Yep, that was definitely Marinette's voice. Hearing her without seeing that iconic red suit only confirmed it; he could easily picture her usual ensemble of black jacket, floral-print shirt and pink jeans in its place. Putting such comparisons aside for now, he asked: "Where are you?"
Somewhere off to his left, she made an exasperated sound. "If I say 'I'm over here,' is it really going to help?!"
He chuckled, then hastily stopped as he breathed in a lungful of dust. He remembered what had happened last time he inhaled something created by an akuma - or didn't remember, which made the lesson all the more pointed.
"Any sign of Schoolmistress?" she asked him, as both his laughter and the resultant coughing-fit petered out.
"None," he replied, hastily focusing on the situation at hand. Just because they couldn't see her didn't mean the villainess wasn't around - likely armed with more library cards. At the moment they were sitting ducks, separated by the fog and operating blind. They needed to regroup, then beat a strategic retreat.
"Are you near any kind of landmark?" she inquired from somewhere behind the pall of white. "A wall or a window, perhaps?"
"If I am, I can't see it," he muttered back, desperately fighting the urge to sneeze. He hoped the dust wasn't about to set off his allergies - that was the last thing they needed! "Hang on, perhaps I can find you. You sound like you're close."
"Do I?" She spoke for the sake of giving him something to locate her by. She knew his hearing was more sensitive than hers, thanks to his costume's enhancements. Though she couldn't see it, she could imagine his black kitty-ears swivelling in her direction.
"I'm pretty sure you are." He still held his staff in hand; he lengthened it, hoping as he did that she wasn't directly in its path. "I've extended my baton in the direction I think you are. Feel around for it, see if you can find it."
She was silent for a moment, seemingly carrying out his instructions. "Don't swing it blindly, will you? I'm not a piñata! I don't want you to find me by knocking me flat on my face."
He laughed again, hastily clamping a hand over his mouth to filter out the dust. Despite everything that had happened today - or perhaps because of it - she was in fine form! "I'll spare the rod, I promise. I'm merely going fishing; it's up to you to take the bait!"
"I don't like being compared to a fish by a cat!" she retorted. As he began to chuckle again, something bumped into the opposite end of his staff, making it jolt in his hand. "Wait, I found it!"
"Hooked on me at last!" he declared, before he could stop himself. Amid the tension surrounding an akuma-attack, it was apparently second-nature for him to flirt with her. He hadn't done it consciously, would have avoided doing it if he'd been thinking clearly; it would only serve to further muddle his feelings over who he flirted with. At least, that was what he expected; to his own surprise, the idea didn't bother him half as much as it had a few minutes ago. In fact, he regretted his remark far less than he probably should.
"Ha ha," she muttered in reply. His baton shifted again, the other end giving a slight jerk; she was letting him know that she was there. "Which direction are you? I don't want to follow the staff away from you."
"Hang on, I'll retract it towards me."
He did so, slowly, giving her time to figure out which way it was going. Just as he began to run out of baton, a red glove emerged from the white expanse, followed by a pair of brilliant blue eyes. She squinted through the fog, smiling as he came into view. He savoured the sight, grinning delightedly back at her.
She was two of his favourite girls, and he was so glad to see her!
"Look what the cat dragged in!" he drawled, winking gratuitously at her."I 'mist' you, Buginette!"
As usual, she rolled her eyes at his quip. "This isn't 'mist', Chat Noir. What is it? I'm sure I've come across it before... It almost tastes like..."
He dragged his gaze away from her to consider the fine white powder drifting around them, as she was doing. It was familiar; a plume of white dust, somewhere in the school...
Images of Ivan and Alix on clean-up duty, choking themselves and everyone around them in a thick white cloud, flitted across his mind. Every time they were both assigned to tidy the classroom during free period, they wound up racing through the halls, pelting each other and any passers-by with...
"Chalk dust," he said. "This tastes like chalk dust. Which means what she threw-"
"-was a blackboard eraser," Ladybug finished for him.
Adrien suddenly felt a little ashamed of himself. Who knew that throwing an eraser at Plagg the previous day would put him on the same level as a supervillain? Not that it was the first time he had sunk as low as an akuma...
"She can weaponize any school item she lays hands on," Ladybug theorized, with a frown. "Our next move should be t-"
Before she could finish, a slight swish to his right alerted Chat Noir. Acting purely on instinct, he shoved Ladybug aside and jumped back. They saw a silvery flash as several library cards whizzed between them; the streaks of movement disappeared into the mist the moment they passed, thudding into an unseen wall half a second later.
"The dust might not blind her," Ladybug murmured, stepping closer to him again and keeping her voice low. "Since it's under her control, she could be able to see through it. How about you? Does your night-vision work at all?"
He half-heartedly tried to peer through the white shroud, shaking his head almost immediately. "No, it doesn't. Night-vision only works in a black-out, not a white-out; this stuff blocks my sight just as much as it does yours."
She had expected as much. "It sounded like there was a wall over there," she said instead, turning in the direction the library cards had gone.
Chat Noir did the same. "Do you think it's the same wall with the vent where we came in? It didn't sound like those cards struck any windows."
"Could be. Can you find it with the same trick you used to find me?"
He waggled his eyebrows at her. "I'm more than a one-trick cat, you know, but for you I'm happy to oblige!"
She shook her head wryly. "Talk about the blind leading the blind."
He smirked back at her, green eyes gleaming. He loved these exchanges. This was what took him away from the lonely expanse of his room, what made having to return to it bearable, what the repressed and deprived part of him so badly craved. This casual closeness, this effortless connection, this comfort and camaraderie that no one else could give him, no one but her. This was what he liked better than anything, what he liked best about her...
What you like best about Marinette, his mind corrected him. That's right... about Marinette...
As he turned away from her, in the possible direction of the nearest wall, he took her hand in his - ostensibly so that they wouldn't lose each other in the fog. To his utter delight, she didn't pull away.
He was holding her hand. Marinette's hand.
Trying to push thoughts of her dual-identity out of his head for what felt like the hundredth time that day, he extended his staff. It only took a second before he felt it strike something solid. "Found the wall!" he informed her, giving her hand a triumphant squeeze. "Now for the vent-"
She watched him with a sidelong glance. Through his glove, his hand felt warm. His grasp was firm, but not overly tight; he was mindful not to dig claw-tipped fingers into her palm. He looked so excited as he probed the depths of the mist, the pink tip of his tongue just barely poking out in concentration. The sight was so reminiscent of an actual feline, she laughed inwardly; she would have been tempted to draw whiskers on his face if she'd had a marker handy.
How did I take this for granted? she asked herself, as he diligently worked alongside her, following the orders she had given him without a word of question. How did I not appreciate having such a wonderful friend - not until now, when it might all come to an end?
"Almost got it," he murmured, more to himself than to her.
She hastily bit back a giggle. It was a ridiculous thing to say - how could he possibly know that! - but it was so him, he was sort of ridiculous. She had always scoffed at his silly antics, but... really, she wouldn't trade him for any other partner in the world. Not even for Adrien, which was saying something! He was 'purr-fect' just as he was... and she had never realized it, let alone ever told him, not once since the beginning...
Her mind swiftly ran over it all, like the proverbial life flashing before her eyes: the life of Ladybug. No, that wasn't it. It was the life of Chat Noir - of her Chaton, as she had always known him. Looking back, she was amazed by how much they had managed to share between them, in such a relatively short space of time. All the battles in which they had been united against a common foe; all the dangers they had faced together side by side; all the risks they had taken for each other's sakes. All the tedious patrols they had done, chatting and kidding to pass the time as they leapt over rooftops together. All the groan-inducing jokes he had told her; all the countless times she'd had to fix an bemused half-smile on her face in order to hide her laughter from him. All the hits he had taken for her; all the times he had pulled her out of harm's way; all the pep-talks he had given her when her self-assurance flagged. All the concern he had shown for her, even unknowingly, when he had encountered her as Marinette. If he only knew- no, more like when he knew, because surely he would eventually find out; and then... then...
It was as though the hand that held hers anchored her to so much more - to the best part of herself, to the best things about him. To the partnership they'd had. A partnership that would probably dissolve into past tense, after today. Once this was over, once the truth got out, once he became aware... it would all go away. It would never be quite the same again, not after this.
She realized, with a lump in her throat, that she never wanted to let go.
She was going to get all teary again if she kept on having such thoughts. He seemed to be aware that she was watching him; he didn't appear self-conscious - she doubted he was even capable of it - but his eyes surreptitiously darted towards her at odd intervals. They couldn't afford to get distracted now. For all they knew, Schoolmistress was about to snipe them out of the fog; they needed to remain on their guard.
"Maybe angle it a bit more," she suggested, leaning forward in an attempt to follow his staff with her gaze; most of it was obscured by dust. "I think the vent was at least a foot higher in the wall."
He instantly made the adjustment. "Yeah, I think you might b-"
He suddenly lurched forward, dragging her with him. It was just as well: a split-second later, several cards sunk into the floor, where they would have pinned her foot to the ground if it had still been there. "Found it!" he said, regaining his balance. He had stumbled as the end of his staff suddenly skittered forward into the opening - and not a moment too soon. "Come on!"
He sprinted into the fog, leading her by the hand. He retracted his baton as he went, following its path through the writhing mist. She went with him trustingly, letting him pull her along in his wake. He soon glimpsed a dark rectangle amidst the white: the opening in the wall. Latching an arm around her, he dropped the end of the staff that he held, re-gripped it higher, and pushed off from the floor, propelling them both towards the vent. It was a good thing they moved so swiftly; they heard library cards zipping through the air around them, hitting the wall with ominous-sounding thuds. But they were close to cover, they were almost clear-
They leapt into the vent, landing in a tangled jumble of limbs. He didn't have time to process the fact that she was sprawled on top of him; before his startled brain could register how close she was, she had already scrambled off him, stooping in the narrow space. They couldn't afford to stop now - not with more library cards thundering against the outside wall.
The vents branched off in multiple directions around them. A nearby tunnel led vertically up through the ceiling. Ladybug eyed it speculatively, the barest of tactics already starting to form in her mind. "We should head for the roof. Her chalk-screen won't be as effective in an open space."
Chat Noir managed to get his breath back. Following her gaze, he grasped what she meant immediately. "Good idea."
This time, they didn't bother with stealth. Ladybug snagged a crossbeam with her yoyo and reeled herself up, while Chat Noir rode his telescoping baton alongside her. They rose to meet the square of light that filtered through the grille above them, then shoved their way through it, flinging themselves out onto the rooftop.
They were still blinking in the sudden sunlight when, a heartbeat later, the vent at the opposite end of the roof also burst open. Schoolmistress emerged from it, skirt billowing and scarf streaming in her wake, stray papers fluttering around her. She wasted no time: before her feet had even touched ground, she had already thrown a set of cards at them.
Luckily, they were just as quick to react, darting to either side as the projectiles sunk into the roof tiles between them. Having dodged, they kept moving. They ran around the roof on either side of the courtyard, coming at the villainess from opposite directions. Schoolmistress watched their synchronized approach with a wariness that bordered on alarm. They had already exploited this weakness once; when they came at her from either side, she couldn't accurately aim her cards at them both, leaving her open to at least one attack.
However, erasers didn't need to be aimed with any kind of accuracy, in order to be effective.
Both heroes spluttered as clouds of chalk dust erupted around them at the exact same time, despite the distance between them. Chat Noir couldn't see his partner through the fog. He saw no sign of Schoolmistress either, though he was sure he would spy an incoming batch of library cards soon enough. He leapt into a backward-somersault, hearing the chink of blades hitting the spot where he had been a split-second later. He hoped that if Ladybug had been similarly targeted, she had also managed to evade the attack. He needn't have worried; landing almost exactly where he had been when they first reached the roof, he saw a scarlet figure drop beside him out of the corner of his eye. Though Ladybug said nothing, he read the thoughts behind her apprehensive glance loud and clear.
This approach wasn't going to work for them. So long as Schoolmistress could keep raising a smokescreen, they were stuck on the defensive, with no means of closing in on her.
"What's the plan?" Chat Noir asked, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, as much to avoid breathing dust as to keep from being overheard. Though he knew that Ladybug was probably feeling just as hopeless as himself right now, it wasn't likely to last. Whenever they were in a pinch like this, she always found a way out of it. Was it any wonder she had been unanimously voted class president - after keeping the students safe during an akuma attack both in and out of costume, no less?
Ladybug scanned the pall of white before her. Their options were limited; however, given how dividing Schoolmistress' attention had already proven beneficial to them, their best bet was-
"Divide and conquer," she told him.
Chat grinned wryly. Though he had been waiting for her to instruct him, he wasn't at all surprised by the course of action she had picked. "I suppose I'm the distraction, as per usual?" It was more like familiar banter than a genuine complaint. He'd been half-heartedly protesting about it ever since their battle against Pharaoh.
Just as she had done back then, she attempted to placate him with flattery. Smiling sweetly, she said: "You know I entrust you with this task because I have faith in your abilities, right? You have such talent as a distraction, that's what comes with frequent practice! Try to hold her attention long enough for me to snatch her scarf." So saying, she slipped away behind the curtain of white, camouflaging herself amid the thickest part of the fog.
Chat Noir watched her go. Though her red suit had only just faded into the mist two seconds ago, he was already thinking wistfully of her. Right now, you're the better distraction by far, he told her in his thoughts.
Then he extended his baton directly upwards, taking him above the cloud of chalk. Schoolmistress was presiding over it; when she saw him, she glowered up at him. He beamed broadly back at her. "Hey, Teach!" he called, throwing her an over-enthusiastic wave that did nothing to disrupt his balance. "Are you sure you're properly qualified as an instructor?"
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Of course I am - how dare you insinuate otherwise!"
He gave a careless shrug. "I always thought that you needed a teaching certificate in order to teach; as far as I can tell, you are merely certifiable."
He was already in motion before her angry shriek reached him, closely followed by a cluster of blades. He purposefully over-balanced and let himself fall; he retracted his staff mid-way to the ground, turning his descent into a controlled tumble, so that she couldn't easily track his path. Dodging borrowers' cards was becoming second-nature to him. He was even almost starting to enjoy the little 'fwoosh' they made as they passed close to his hair. The breeze was kind of nice; it was a sunny day, a bit hot to be out in black leather (or whatever the heck his suit was made of).
The flight of her cards had the added side-effect of dispersing the mist she herself had raised. While Chat Noir sped around the perimeter of the roof, laughing and jeering as she threw one ineffectual barrage after another at him, nearly all the chalk-dust soon cleared - except for a dense patch that hovered behind her. Ladybug stalked through this thick cloud of white, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other clutching her yoyo in readiness. Chat Noir was doing a brilliant job of provoking and preoccupying the enemy, as always. With the akuma focused on him, she was able to wait for her opening, prepared to exploit it when it came...
As Chat Noir cart-wheeled playfully across the gables opposite, Ladybug saw Schoolmistress turn her back towards her position. Now-!
Swinging her yoyo in a series of quick arcs that swept aside the rest of the mist and gave her clear sights, she took a moment to find her mark, then aimed and threw. As the yoyo streaked through the air, its string coiled behind it, forming a deliberate loop. It struck Schoolmistress on the shoulder and caught there, dangling alongside the lapel of her coat; just as Ladybug had calculated, the end of the scarf dropped neatly into the improvised lasso. With a victorious smirk, she pulled-
Perhaps she had underestimated their opponent. Perhaps Schoolmistress was merely quicker in defense, knowing that her defeat would be imminent if she were to lose her talisman. With a shriek of indignation, she stumbled sideways; she only moved fractionally, but it was enough to pull the scarf out of Ladybug's grasp, her yoyo-cord closing on empty air. She hastily began reeling it in with a frustrated huff.
If Ladybug had one weakness, it was in her yoyo's mode of function: its trajectory relied on momentum, which often took a few extra seconds to set up. Schoolmistress had no such need for delay. Before Ladybug could recall her yoyo, the villainess unleashed a clutch of cards in her direction. Even with her weapon currently nonoperational, Ladybug did not feel particularly threatened: a series of acrobatic movements, performed as light as a dancer and nimbly as an acrobat, carried her out of the path of each projectile. Nothing to worry ab-
An ominous crack came from behind her. A quick glance over her shoulder instantly told her where it had come from. Focused on the akuma, she had lost track of her surroundings. The large glass windows above the school's entrance were at her back, and Schoolmistress' cards now jutted out of the panes, transfixed by their edges where they had sunk deep into the smooth surface. Her shocked expression was reflected back at her as sheets of glass crackled and sheared, breaking into hundreds of razor-sharp fragments that were about to burst from their frames - and she was directly in their path!
She was fleetingly aware of an avalanche of broken glass tinkling as it tumbled towards her; then a black blur hit her with such force, it nearly knocked the breath out of her.
"Oof!" She latched onto Chat Noir, so that his impact with her couldn't jolt her out of his arms. Bracing his staff against the adjacent slope of the roof and extending it horizontally, he had propelled himself straight at her, tackling her out of harm's way.
"Sorry to sweep you off your feet without warning!" he playfully apologized.
She regarded him seriously, her gratitude for his save tempered by worry. "The glass! Are you-" she craned her neck to peer over his shoulder, checking the back of his suit for protruding shards; to her immense relief, she saw none.
He gave her a reassuring squeeze. It was only then that she realized how he carried her, cradled against his chest. "Don't worry on my account, my Lady. I pounced with plenty of time to spare."
They landed well clear of the window. He quickly set her down on the tiles without further comment. Neither of them mentioned the sensation they had felt in that brief snatch of time: both their hearts had been pounding furiously, and they had held each other close enough to notice it.
Ladybug found her footing, and turned - just in time to see a chalk eraser sailing in their direction. Not again-! She wasn't in the mood to accept any more failures. Swinging her arm, she did what she had originally intended to do: she aimed her yoyo at the incoming duster, neatly snagging it in mid-air. She spun in a circle, like an athlete performing a hammer-throw. Chat Noir thankfully managed to duck the string that whizzed over his head with the force of a garrotte. She didn't halt the momentum of the eraser's flight; she simply reversed it, forcing it into a 180-degree turn. When she loosed the loop of her cord, the duster flew back the way it had come.
It struck Schoolmistress square in the face.
An instant before chalk-dust hid her from view, they saw the villainess splutter and fumble blindly, her glasses knocked askew. They could hear her coughing helplessly somewhere within the cloud. After the number of times they themselves had fallen prey to the same phenomenon, it was satisfying to see her get a taste of her own medicine. She could still dose it out, though: several bursts of card-fire came at them out of the mist. They leapt backwards to avoid it, landing atop the building that stood across the road from the school. Whatever move the akuma decided to pull next, they would be ready-
A strange thing happened. Though they still couldn't see Schoolmistress, she could apparently see them again; she sent another batch of blades after them. The pair had already raised their respective weapons in order to deflect them, but... as they neared, the cards suddenly spun back on their own paths and dropped straight down, as if they had struck against an invisible barrier. It was only then that they noticed the chalk-cloud had formed a straight-edged wall around the perimeter of the college; it seemed to be held back by some unseen force that stopped it from drifting in their direction.
Ladybug stared at it in surprise. "What on earth...?"
Chat Noir was looking down at the street beneath them. He tapped her arm, then pointed at several-dozen library cards that littered the gutter below. "They stopped where the street begins - they can't go beyond school grounds."
"Huh." Ladybug eyed the evidence thoughtfully. "This means she has no power outside the college. If we can lure her over here-"
Her words were interrupted by an angry scream. Schoolmistress had discovered her restrictions, and was howling her frustrations for all of Paris to hear. Through the last wisp of white fog, a violet, butterfly-shaped glow was just visible.
"Damn it, Papillion," Schoolmistress growled, "I am the high-instructor and head disciplinarian of all Paris! Why can't my attacks reach further than-"
Your own nature dictates the limit of your powers, my dear, the authoritarian voice murmured in her mind. Though his tone was silky, she could sense the displeasure beneath them - he did not like being criticized. Rather than rail at me, you can only blame yourself.
In the privacy of his lair, he gripped his staff tightly enough to make his glove squeak; this small action alone betrayed his anger. Though he savoured the power his Miraculous gave him, he also abhorred its limitations. It was all the more frustrating that these weaknesses were no fault of his own: they were foistered on him by his chosen helpmates. The villains he made were granted abilities that they themselves determined, and while that usually came with formidable fire-power, it also came with some inevitable drawbacks. He preyed upon the passionate, the distracted and single-minded; it was only to be expected that a mind that held only a single obsession should lack versatility. That was why otherwise-invincible denizens such as Climatika, Lady Wifi and the Bubbler were rendered ineffectual as soon as their weapons were snatched from their hands; it was also why Evilstrator and Pixellator had been so easily distracted from fulfilling his purpose as soon as their own demands were met.
If he could have designed the perfect champion to battle on his behalf, he would have done so long ago. However, he couldn't create something out of nothing. Only Ladybug could do that.
Instead, he was forced to work with what raw materials he had. Meaning he had to settle for imbeciles and make the best of them, extracting as much of their potential as he could, before his opponents managed to discover their Achilles heel and cripple them accordingly. Schoolmistress was no different. Since her call to arms centred around her role as a teacher, her influence waned as soon as she set foot outside of the school grounds.
He fought the urge to grind his teeth, clenching his jaw beneath his mask. He had run up against situations like this countless times before. The only thing to do was to work around it, guide his charge back onto a path that would render them useful to him still.
You must retreat and plan your coming triumph, Schoolmistress, he told her, effortlessly engaging the persuasive powers that his Miraculous only amplified. You are learned and wise; surely you know that patience and prudence are the most invaluable virtues in any scholar. Your two star-pupils will not roam far, not while you still possess the students of this college as your hostages. Let their curiosity lead them to you; then show them that, as the saying goes, it certainly can kill the cat - and the bug as well.
Schoolmistress leered, heartened by his words. "You speak with such sagacity, Papillion. Class is far from over; before the day is done, the final bell will toll for Ladybug and Chat Noir, by which time I will have their Miraculous in hand. I'll teach them a lesson that they won't survive long enough to forget!"
With a strident swipe of her hands, she hurled several chalk-dusters upon the tiles at her feet.
Ladybug and Chat Noir saw the resulting plume of white obscure the entire top-level of the college. It took almost a whole minute before the breeze blowing off the Seine began to clear it. When they finally spied a patch of milky-blue sky beyond the school's outline, Schoolmistress was nowhere to be seen.
"Great!" Chat Noir muttered, sinking into a crouch. "She has the students of the college in her power, and she knows it. If we're to have any hope of freeing them, we'll need to tackle her directly, but she keeps alluding us!"
Ladybug frowned. Several of Papillion's past akuma-attacks had already focused on targets that were close to home. They were currently standing only a few roofs away from her own terrace atop her family's bakery; and her classmates were trapped at the mercy of Schoolmistress' vengeance. This wasn't exactly a new situation, but she certainly didn't like it any more for all its familiarity. All because of Chloe again - but it wouldn't do her any good to dwell on that.
She glanced sideways, watching Chat Noir idly twist the butt-end of his staff against the tiles at his feet. He didn't appear to like the situation any better than she did. Why was that? Was it his cat-like impatience that made him rail against the villain they hadn't yet defeated? His moral aversion to a monster who used innocent - well, mostly innocent - children as a shield? Or was it something more than that? Was he personally invested in the college somehow, just like she was? She recalled her former suspicions about him being a student like herself. Was it possible? After all, he had managed to get into the classroom shortly after she had transformed; was his promptness due to the fact he had been just next-door? Sure, he'd had the school's ventilation system to help him-
"Hm..." Pushing her own conspiracy theories aside, Ladybug considered the school building carefully. "I doubt we can lure her out. She'd be stupid to head outside the school, where she knows she'd be vulnerable-"
"-and as she's a teacher herself, she's no dunce," Chat Noir succinctly pointed out. The transformation of a host into an akuma always affected their rationality, and sometimes their intellect as well - poor Ivan and Lieutenant Roger had been turned into hulking thugs who battered and raged almost mindlessly - but other villains they had faced had displayed an intimidating level of guile. Schoolmistress clearly belonged in the latter camp.
Ladybug nodded in agreement. "In which case, if we can't make her show herself, the next-best thing is to surprise her in her own territory. Perhaps we can use the school's ducting system to sneak up on her again."
Chat Noir rubbed the back of his neck, weighing her suggestion. "In order to do that, we'd need to know where she is concealing herself. The school grounds are fairly big, and we won't sneak up on her by simply bursting into random classrooms. With the place in lock-down and difficult to enter, we might only get one shot at ambushing her."
Marinette was silent for several moments. She had an insider's knowledge of the college's geography, but she wasn't telling him that just now. If she could have some time to think-
Adrien was silent while he gave her some time to think, mentally going over the terrain himself. He was just as familiar with Francoise-Dupont as she was, but he wasn't going to admit that to her just now!
After a second, Ladybug snapped her fingers, as if in enlightenment. "The chalk-dusters! The classroom we were in - it didn't have a chalk-board!"
Most of the schoolrooms are fitted with high-tech smart-boards that interfaced with the students' own tablets and used touch-sensitive technology or projections, not actual chalk. She was about to tell Chat Noir as much - in an off-hand way, as if she had only fleetingly noticed it - but he was already nodding in agreement.
"That's right, chalk is considered really old-school nowadays!" When she didn't favour this very slight joke with any form of acknowledgement, he continued on, unperturbed. "If she can only use items she's actually picked up around the school, she must have got the chalk from somewhere... like in the library!"
A moment after formulating this brilliant deduction, he realized he wasn't supposed to know that the college's library still had chalk-boards - Marinette herself had been writing their club-theme ideas on one less than 24 hours ago! He hastily contrived to look a little more doubtful. "I-I mean, libraries need a lot of space, so in heritage buildings like this, they're usually housed in the largest parts of the structure, which are often also the oldest. So that a library is the most likely place to find a chalk-board - right?"
"Right," Ladybug assented, trying to remain outwardly nonchalant. He was certainly right - too right, she herself had used one of the library's chalk-boards just yesterday - and she didn't really want to know how he had hit on such an accurate guess. Her classmates already knew who she was; if he did go to her school, she didn't want to deal with any more revelations just now. As it was, she would likely have to go through another one later on...
She turned her attention back to the task ahead of them. "If there's some way to sneak into the library directly from the outside..."
Eager to distract from his faux-pas, Chat Noir had already shrunk his baton down to palm-size and flipped open its screen, bringing up blueprints of the building with a few deft taps of his claws. "There's a shaft that runs straight from the south-east corner of the building to the library's main atrium."
Ladybug peered at the display over his shoulder, humming in satisfaction at what she saw. "Just what we need." She gave him a sidelong, impish smirk. "Shall we see if we can catch Schoolmistress in a moment of ignorance, Chaton?"
With a flick of his wrist he snapped the screen closed, grinning widely back at her. "I'm more than ready to insult her intelligence, my Lady!"
Sharing one more companionable smile, they both leapt off the edge of the building.
Author's note: sorry for taking so long! (I was joking before, I didn't mean to leave you hanging for as long as I did!) I've been really busy, and I'm still really busy, so don't ask when the next chapter will be, I have no idea. My other Miraculous story seems easier to update, since it's a series of one-shots; if you haven't already checked it out, please do, and badger me for more installments over there as well if you want!
I had to consider the geography carefully in order to make this scene work. Technically, Marinette's house *is* the building across from the school, but having her land there in the middle of the akuma battle seemed like too much (anyway, I doubt she would lead their opponent towards her home - if she didn't avoid doing it, Chat Noir would put a stop to it!) Let's assume the rooftop they end up on is one of the nondescript buildings on the school's other sides (not the front, since that seems to be bordered by the Seine). The show's layout of Paris doesn't make much sense anyway, so what the hell!
Smart-board and touch-screen tablet technology only came in after I finished school, so I don't know much about it, other than what I've seen on the show (I'm showing my age!) I hope I managed to get the gist of it for this plot-point.
I meant to explain in the previous chapter, I included Theo among the teachers in the staff room on a hunch. He apparently attends school - you can see him in the Animan bathroom-flashback scene - but since he has several part-time jobs and his own studio, I figured he was too old to be a student. Since he works as a sculptor, I imagine him to be an art teacher; since he was strolling the Champs Elysees during school hours in Pixelator, I figure he is a casual teacher (what Mireille was doing out of school at the time is another story; maybe they were heading to work at the tv studios together?).
We've still got a ways to go, thanks for sticking around for the ride - hopefully we'll get there eventually, so keep hanging on! ~ W.J.