With a surprising silence for a gathering of their entire class, they landed at the gate of the Agreste mansion. The air outside was still and calm. Much too peaceful considering the people they left here.
"They might not be here anymore," Chat Noir whispered, only loud enough for Ladybug to his left and Queen Bee to his right to hear him.
"What should we do?" Queen Bee asked, swinging her top around to her side.
Chat Noir turned to the group, clearing his throat. "Ladybug and I are going to head inside and scope out the scene, because they might not be here anymore. If we need you, we'll send a signal to Queen Bee. Until then, stay silent and stay out of view of that dome up there," he directed, gesturing towards the dome that housed Hawkmoth's lair.
He gave a thumbs up and was met with a sea of them in return before he and Ladybug turned around, jumped the gate, and disappeared into the mansion. They were greeted with the same unsettling silence that was outside when they walked in. They cautiously approached Gabriel Agreste's study. Furniture was overturned, paintings were torn and hanging lopsided on the wall. Adrien's gaze was locked on the mutilated portrait of his mother on the wall. He felt nausea bubble up in his throat and felt his knees go weak. The two people he looked up to most in the world had so suddenly betrayed him in what must have been the worst way. Ladybug gripped his shoulder and gave him a small shake.
"It's okay, kitty. You're going to get them back, okay? They are your parents. They still love you. I know they do."
Chat Noir wasn't sure how or why Ladybug was so sure of that. But he shook his head to clear it of all those intrusive thoughts.
"Alright, milady. Let's keep moving."
They wandered over towards the portrait and Chat Noir pushed away some of the tattered fabric. He found the buttons and pressed the code, prompting the lift to take them back to Hawkmoth's lair. Just as he suspected, it was completely empty. There were clear signs of struggle; tattered bits of costume left here and there, and the glass dome was cracked in several places. There wasn't a single butterfly left in the room.
"Damn… I should have stayed. Where could they have gone?"
Ladybug approached the open window and peered outside to see if she could spot anything unusual. Her attention was brought to the Eiffel Tower, where a large plume of white slowly darkened to black.
"Akumas!" she shouted, before swinging her yoyo out the window and swinging back down to where all their friends were waiting. Chat Noir was quick at her heels, vaulting past her to take the lead ahead of the rest of them.
"They're at the Eiffel Tower! Come on!" she shouted, turning around and heading off towards battle.
Tears dried as quickly as they fell against Chat Noir's face. He wasn't sure how his body was still moving; he wasn't in control. At least, he didn't feel like he was in control. He knew what he had to do but he had absolutely no will to do any of it.
How am I supposed to fight my parents? he thought to himself. How am I supposed to do any of this?
But he never stopped. His brain screamed at him to stop, to take a breath, to please, for the love of God, think!
No time for thinking, only action.
He flew through the cloud of akumas and landed with a thud at the platform below the curve of the tower's base. He saw his parents stood at attention, hands held up at the ready. He thought his heart had already broken enough, but this proved otherwise.
"What happened to you two?" he asked, mostly to himself. But they heard him. They stood there, the three of them, none of them daring to make the first move.
"Do you know who I am, Hawkmoth? She already knows who I am. Do you?"
Hawkmoth's scrutinizing gaze thinned as he regarded the hero in front of him.
"I don't understand why you'd hide this from me, son. I could have seriously hurt you."
"You don't care about that!" Chat Noir cried, his resolve breaking down. He clenched his fists tighter and pulled them up higher. "You never cared about any of that! You never cared about me or mom… you just wanted power. You wanted to be on top of everything."
He took a step forward, pulling his baton from his back and holding it in front of him. "Are you happy now? Is this everything you've ever wanted?!"
In a moment Hawkmoth was pinned to the concrete below him, Chat Noir pushing the heel of his foot into his chest. "Tell me! Are you happy now, father?!"
Hawkmoth wheezed against the pressure on his chest. "Adrien, son… you wouldn't understand…"
Chat Noir scoffed, extending the baton so it struck the ground threateningly next to Hawkmoth's head. "You're right. I'll never understand how you let your own selfish needs come before your family. I could never understand how a heart gets so darkened like that."
Without warning, Mayura was upon them and she had them both on the ground. She ripped Chat Noir's baton from his grip and used it to pin him down while pinning Hawkmoth down the same way Chat Noir had done.
"As much as I don't want to interrupt the family drama, I have to take care of you two. Don't need you getting in the way of my plans."
Chat Noir struggled, but his baton dug into his chest, most certainly cracking a rib or two. He cried out in pain and went limp against the restraint.
He looked around to see several of his friends already down for the count. They must have flown in to try to hold Mayura back while he was distracted. Kim, Max, Alix, Nathanael… they were all huddled behind a column, holding each other in an attempt to comfort the others. They were clearly severely injured.
He closed his eyes and willed the tears to stay where they were.
All my fault…
He hadn't seen Ladybug or any of the other main five. He didn't see any of his other friends. He didn't hear anything aside from his own jagged breathing. He hoped wherever everyone else was, they were safe.
"I've been watching over this city… it holds so much potential," Mayura started, her voice so cold. So unlike what Chat Noir remembered. "So many people feel so many negative feelings. Surprising, considering how much we as a society condemn those emotions… oh, the things we could do with them!"
"What do you want, Mayura?" Hawkmoth cried out, struggling against his own restraint. "My miraculous? Adrien's?"
"Oh, perhaps," Mayura said thoughtfully. "But those are just stepping stones, not end goals. The end goal… extinction."
She gestured to the cloud of akumas that hadn't stopped circling around the platform where they stood.
"These lovely akumas that your father so kindly let me borrow are going to come very much in handy. I never knew there was so much to be done with the manipulation of negative emotions. I won't have to lift a finger as I watch all of Paris wipe themselves out."
She let out a deep chuckle, absolutely venomous.
"Then… the whole world."
Chat Noir's blood ran cold. This woman was speaking with his mother's voice and she had his mother's face… but it wasn't her. It couldn't be.
"Plagg, claws in," Chat Noir whispered. He detransformed into Adrien in front of his parents. Mayura seemed unphased. But he heard Hawkmoth's breath catch next to him. He'd known, but perhaps a small part of him didn't want to believe that he'd been trying to hurt, or perhaps even kill his one and only son.
With his costume, his baton disappeared, and he was freed from his mother's grip. He slowly stood up, clutching his chest. His ribs screamed in pain, but he tried not to let it show in his face. He looked up at Mayura, boring holes into her being the same way she'd done to him.
"Mom… this isn't you. You know it isn't. Don't you remember? All the things we'd do when I was younger. Before you disappeared…"
She hissed, using Adrien's pain to manifest a creature to attack him.
"Deal with him. Take the miraculous when you're finished."
"Mom!" Adrien cried, but it was too late. He was unable to move fast enough with the amount of pain he was in, and before he knew it he'd been cast off the edge of the Eiffel Tower. Defenseless.
"No!" Hawkmoth cried, trying desperately to pull himself from Mayura's grip to grab his son. It was no use. He watched in horror as Adrien's nearly limp body disappeared from sight, nothing to keep him from hitting the ground.
Just before he hit the ground, Ladybug swooped in, grabbing him and holding him tight as she swung back around to a platform somewhere above where Mayura and Hawkmoth were. She gently laid Adrien down, who still clenched his ribs.
"Chaton, what happened?" she asked, concern written across her face. "What did they do to you?"
Adrien sucked in a breath. "They… haven't really done anything. I don't know what they're waiting for."
Just then, the entire city shook with a power that felt all too familiar to Adrien and Ladybug.
"Cataclysm?" she asked quietly. Adrien checked his shirt pocket. Plagg was nowhere to be found.
Their group of friends quickly fled from the Eiffel Tower. Rena Rouge and Carapace found Kim, Max, Alix, and Nathanael and helped guide them to safety. Ladybug grabbed Adrien once more and swung after them so they could regroup while Plagg did… whatever he was doing.
"We can't attack them one at a time… We really need all of us to defeat them. Those akumas are acting as a barrier right now while Mayura is taking care of Hawkmoth… if we can take down that barrier, she won't be as strong as she is now. It'll be easier for us to take the both of them out."
Ladybug turned to her four injured friends. She kneeled down and reached out a hand.
"How are you four holding up? Do we need to take you to the emergency room?"
Nathanael shook his head. "No, you need us. We'll be fine."
The other three nodded in agreement. Marinette turned to where Adrien sat a few feet away from them, Rena Rouge and Queen Bee at his side. He gave a small thumbs up and his signature Agreste smile. They looked worse for wear, but their brave faces never faltered. Ladybug smiled and together she and Chat Noir helped the four of them to their feet.
"So, there's something we can do. We can combine all our miraculous together to cast some sort of spell, I suppose."
Ladybug waved her hands about and paced in front of her friends as they all listened attentively to the plan. "That's supposed to cleanse all of the akumas and dispel all traces of bad magic around us. That should leave Mayura and Hawkmoth powerless enough to take their miraculous from them."
She stopped pacing and turned to look at the people beside her.
They were bruised.
Scratched.
Bloody.
But she'd never seen a group of people so ready to take on the world in her life. She felt her own bruises and scrapes ache on her body. But she put that pain aside so all that she could feel was the determination all of her friends were putting out. For her.
"Are we ready?" She asked, throwing a fist in the air. She was met with cries of affirmation. She turned to Adrien, who gave a nod and transformed back into Chat Noir. Then, they all turned and set out towards the Eiffel Tower one more time. They landed on the ground, staring up at the cloud of akumas above them.
Ladybug began chanting the ancient Chinese cleansing spell. A small splash of light began to form in her hands. And then in everyone's hands. Ladybug lifted her hands up towards the sky, and the rest of her friends followed. She turned to the boy next to her, who despite all of his pain and suffering met her with the brightest smile. She felt tears pool in her eyes as she continued to recite the spell.
Upon completion, a deafening silence fell upon what felt like all of Paris. The light continued to grow around them until it suddenly burst into a full-on explosion. Paris was bathed in a cleansing light that was tons bigger than anything Ladybug could have ever created herself.
The black cloud that hung over the Eiffel Tower was completely erased and left innocent white butterflies fluttering away in its wake. Ladybug cast out her yoyo without thinking, and leapt up to the platform where they'd left Mayura and Hawkmoth. The two of them lay nearly unconscious on the ground, their figures frail. Mayura coughed as she tried desperately to push herself up to greet the onslaught of heroes. But she ultimately failed, her arms giving out under her.
The spell had been more powerful than Ladybug had anticipated. She turned to Chat Noir and immediately knew why. His face read nothing but pain and anger.
He wanted to feel something else upon seeing his parents laying there motionless. Sadness, desperation… hope? But they'd betrayed him… that was all he could feel.
He approached Mayura first, ripping the broach from her costume. Ladybug walked towards Hawkmoth and did the same. Their costumes faded away, leaving behind a weakened Gabriel and Emilie Agreste.
The heroes carried the Agrestes down to the ground and they were met with a waiting Master Fu at the bottom. He beamed at the group of heroes in front of him.
"My expectations for you all were already incredibly high, and yet you've still surpassed them. Paris will be forever grateful to their saviors," he said, his voice soft, yet full of authority.
Ladybug and Chat Noir turned to each other and nodded before detransforming. They handed over their miraculous jewels to Master Fu. They turned to their classmates who stared on in disbelief. Adrien had been revealed briefly, but seeing the two of them stand in front of them as… as heroes. That was…
Well, it explained a lot for starters.
"I can't believe you guys have been superheroes this whole time Nathanael said as he detransformed himself. He gave Marinette a playful shove. "I can't believe you wouldn't tell me this."
Marinette laughed. "What, because you can keep a secret?"
Nathanael stuck his tongue out before turning to give his miraculous jewel back to Master Fu. Slowly but surely, all of their classmates did the same and they stood talking for several minutes, and probably could have stayed there for the next several days if they had the option.
Luka was one of the last to return his miraculous. He stopped in front of Marinette, giving her a gentle smile.
"I'm glad you're both alright," he said, regarding her and Adrien.
Without responding, Marinette pulled Luka into a hug.
"If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have been able to save Adrien in time. Thank you, Luka. Thank you for everything you've always done for me."
Luka returned the hug, resting his chin on Marinette's head. "Anytime you need me I'll be here. The same goes for all of us."
He gestured to the group behind him who stood watching the scene unfold. They all nodded in agreement.
"You're always there to help us when we need you," Max said matter-of-factly. "So, of course we're always here for you two."
Before anyone could say anything else, Master Fu cleared his throat.
"Unfortunately, I must interrupt for a moment. I must cast a very important spell."
Everyone stopped talking and turned their full attention to Master Fu.
"The spell I'm about to cast is very powerful. It will restore any damages done to Paris and its citizens, including yourselves."
Ladybug sighed in relief. She knew some of her friends sustained some serious injuries, so she was glad they wouldn't be in pain much longer.
"It is also going to provide a sort of memory cleanse. All memories of Hawkmoth and Mayura's identities will be removed, but their legacy will remain as a reminder of what happens if power gets into the wrong hands."
His face fell as he regarded the group of children in front of him. They were after all, still children. They weren't ready for this responsibility that came with knowing each other's identities.
"Similarly, your identities will be removed from your respective miraculous as well. You won't remember who was who, but unfortunately, this is for your own safety. It is what is best."
He gave a sad smile. "But you will remember your own role in the saving of Paris, and your legacy will live on."
Everyone mumbled softly under their breaths, but they nodded. Without further discussion, Master Fu muttered something under his breath in Chinese. As he did, a sudden flash engulfed everything around them, shrouding everyone in a bright light.
When the glare subsided, they were all left standing there slightly dazed. Emilie and Gabriel Agreste stirred slightly as well. Master Fu approached Adrien and Marinette.
"I'll be taking these two back to my home across town," he said, gesturing towards Adrien's parents. "Meet me there at your earliest convenience."
Marinette and Adrien nodded before turning back to their friends. They could remember who they'd been and what they'd done, but they'll never know the full story. It seemed only Marinette and Adrien retained the full story about what had happened that day.
…
But why?