Chapter 25: Return of the predecessor
Sion wore an orange waist-length jacket with a high collar, the jacket was open to show a white shirt and the Fox Miraculous underneath, clawed black gloves went over the jacket sleeves that ended in points at the sides, she wore orange pants with an orange and black belt that a fake fox tail was attached to by a hoop at the back, and black knee-length boots that ended in points at the front and were capped with metal claws at the toes. Her white hair went down to her waist and covered the left side of her face, and hiding the top-half of her face was a fox mask with ears, the visible eye covered by glass.
She twirled her flute like a baton.
"Well, then, shall we dance." She asked.
Sion placed the flute at her lips, letting out a shrill note like Renard had before, though more defined. Swarm immediately collapsed into a pile of directionless bugs again.
Creature moved to attack, but its movements were very slow and it couldn't lift either of its arms, Sion's sabotage had obviously done damage to it.
Dice screeched in distress at the loss of her companions, dashing forward and attacking Sion savagely.
Sion blocked her attacks with her flute, but a few from her remaining clawed hand managed to get through and she grunted under the assault.
"What's wrong, Sneak Thief, can't fight without your tricks?" Dice taunted. "Or those sisters of yours?"
"They may not be here, but I'm never out of tricks." Sion smirked despite her struggle against Dice.
She quickly dropped, making Dice's attack sail harmlessly over her and making the villain lose balance, which she took advantage of by kicking the insane woman away.
While Dice recovered, Sion ran over to where Chat and Oiselle were trying to recover.
"Trust me." She told them before turning around to face the villains.
Swarm was recovering again, Creature was snarling at them despite its injured state and Dice was picking herself up, looking ready to attack again.
"You remember this trick." Sion told them.
Sion put her flute to her lips and played a tune, it was soft and gentle, almost like a lullaby, light spilled from the end of the flute and wrapped around the three Miraculous wielders.
"Now you see us," Sion said, finishing the tune. "Now you don't."
Then the three of them disappeared from sight.
Dice screeched again and charged forward, swiping at where they had just been, to no avail.
"No!" She sobbed. "We had them."
Swarm had reconstituted enough to go over to her.
"We need to leave." He said.
"No, we need to find them. They were almost dead." Dice denied.
"With Sion, I doubt our chances, we need to retreat and heal before we can face them." Swarm told her. "Besides, we've done what we've come to do, make a statement. They are not our intended targets."
Dice sighed. "Fine!" She cried.
Dice ran off, the other two villains following after.
Back in the empty street, someone whistled.
The three Miraculous holders then suddenly appeared, not far from where they had disappeared.
"You know, they never think to look where you were." Sion commented.
"Who are you?" Oiselle asked, helping Chat to stand.
"Where's Renard?" Chat asked, trying to force away the pain of his broken arm.
"Safe." Sion replied. "You needn't worry. As for who I am, that's better left to be answered some place safer. Come on."
Sion began walking off, forcing Chat and Oiselle to follow suit, the temporarily Peacock taking off her cape to fashion into a sling for Chat's broken arm.
"Ah!" Chat complained.
"I think it's a clean break." Oiselle told him after examining his arm.
"You think?" Chat bit back, the pain making him snappish.
"Do I look like a doctor to you." Oiselle shot back.
Sion guided the two of them through the streets, staying on ground level as Chat was in no state to be leaping across the rooftops, until they reached a building.
"Through here." Sion told them.
They entered into what looked like a training room with all sorts of sports and fighting equipment, but they didn't stop there. Sion walked over to what looked like a utility closet and grabbed at the light switch on the wall, sliding it across to reveal a keypad, she analysed the keypad closely before putting in a code, smirking as the light above it turned green.
"Ah, so predictable." She said.
Sion then opened the door to reveal a passage way, entering into it with the heroes following. It was a short walk before they reached another door at the end, Sion opened it and hopped through with the heroes copying her.
Chat then gasped as he recognised the sight of his father's office.
Gabriel was at his desk, Marinette leaning over it with her hand in the air as if she'd been arguing, both had turned to look at their entrance.
"Adrien!" Gabriel exclaimed, in his usual reserved way, when he took notice of Chat's arm in the sling.
Gabriel quickly got up and went over to his son, checking his arm.
"What happened?" He demanded.
"We were attacked by the Experiments after the Akuma attack." Oiselle explained. "We could barely manage, they sent Renard flying and managed to break Chat's arm."
"Where is Renard, and who's she?" Marinette asked, pointing at Sion. "Why do you have his Miraculous?"
"Calm down." Sion said calmly, holding up her hands in surrender. "He's fine. I'll explain everything."
Gabriel finally took full notice of Sion, having previously been focused on his injured son, and gasped slightly.
"Sion?" He asked.
"In the flesh, surprisingly enough." Sion joked.
"How are you here?" Gabriel asked. "Where are the others? Where is my wife?"
Marinette, Chat and Oiselle looked at him in confusion.
"Sorry to disappoint, but I have no clue." Sion answered. "I don't even know where my true self is, because I'm not the real Sion."
"What?" Gabriel asked.
Sion sighed.
"I'm what you could call an echo of the real Sion. Each Miraculous user leaves an imprint of themselves on their Miraculous to help guide future users, and this imprint somehow managed to take the place of Renard." She pointed at herself.
Gabriel closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, attempting to gather himself.
"How is that even possible?" Oiselle asked.
Sion shrugged. "I don't know." She said.
"Can Renard come back?" Marinette asked in concern.
"What, sick of me already?" Sion smirked.
"Well, uh…" Marinette mumbled.
"I'm kidding yah." Sion continued to smirk, she seemed to do that a lot. "We should switch back eventually, I'm not meant to exist outside the Miraculous, this body and the Miraculous just need time to recuperate from the first transformation before we can exchange places again."
"So, does that mean he's in there?" Chat asked, pointing at her Miraculous.
"Yeah, he might not be aware though, I'm not sure. Myself and the other imprints are rarely aware inside the Miraculous, but I suddenly became aware of everything today, like I was a ghost following the kid around. I wonder if that's how Soul felt before we found that rune."
The three friends sighed in relief that their other friend would be coming back.
"Even if you aren't the real Sion, there are still some questions you may be able to answer." Gabriel said.
"Maybe." Sion said. "But you'll probably want to get your son to the hospital first."
She pointed at Chat's broken arm.
"Wait, you know who I am?" Chat asked.
"I know everything Nathanael knows, including your identities." Sion explained with a shrug.
"That's reassuring." Adrien said, not meaning it.
"Regardless, we need to get your arm fixed." Gabriel said.
"Yes, father." Adrien sighed. "Claws In."
Chat was then replaced with Adrien, whose arm was still in Oiselle's cape sling.
"Oh, yeah." Marinette suddenly realised. "You'll want these back."
Marinette took out the Ladybug earrings and handed them over to Oiselle.
"Yeah." Oiselle agreed.
Her hand went to the Peacock Miraculous, but then hesitated, looking over at Gabriel.
"Uh..." She looked for something to say.
"You don't need to worry about my father, he can keep it secret." Adrien told her.
Oiselle still looked unsure.
"You should." Marinette agreed. "It'd be good to have someone else who knows all our identities in case of a repeat of today."
Oiselle sighed in defeat. "Fine." She groaned. "Feathers Withdrawn."
With a flash of blue light, Oiselle was replaced with Casey, who still regarded Gabriel unsurely.
Gabriel's eyes widened slightly as he took in Casey's appearance, but he schooled his expression before anyone could notice. Sion had a similar reaction, though her face settled back into her usual smirk.
Casey removed the Peacock Miraculous from her jacket and handed it to Marinette, the two girls then placed their Miraculous' on. Their Kwamis popped into existence and the girls hugged them.
"I'm glad you're okay." Tikki said, nuzzling Casey's cheek.
"I'm glad to see you too." Casey told the Kwami.
"Well, I may as well let this thing recharge too." Sion said. "Fangs covered."
Sion de-transformed and then gasped dramatically, as if she was struggling to breath, which she most likely was considering the tightness of her clothes. Sion had de-transformed into Nathanael's clothes, which were constricting on her larger chest and wider hips. Her fox mask was also gone, though the white hair remained and still covered the right side of her face, her uncovered eye was a bright blue that almost seemed to glow.
"Geeze, I knew the kid was scrawny, but I didn't realise how much." Sion commented.
Gabriel sighed in frustration.
"I'm taking Adrien to the hospital. You girls find Sion something more fitting and decent. And I expect you to be here for answers when I get back." He pointed at Sion.
Sion held up her hands in surrender as Gabriel put a hand on Adrien's back, gently guiding him out of the room while calling for his assistant.
"So, what now?" Casey questioned.
"You heard the man, get me some clothes, preferably including a bra." Sion said, grasping her breasts through the tight shirt shamelessly.
"You're too big to fit any of my clothes, but you might fit something of Casey's." Marinette suggested.
Sion used her hands to compare Casey's size to hers.
"Yeah, I think I might." She admitted.
"Well, you can stay here while I get the clothes, I'm not taking you to mine." Casey said, not quite trusting the woman who had taken the place of her friend.
"Fine with me." Sion said, sitting down in Gabriel's chair, she then winced. "But hurry back, these clothes are unbearably tight."
"Sure." Casey said, leaving through the secret door.
"So," Sion said once Casey was gone and she and Marinette were on their own. "What were you and Gabriel arguing about?"
"What?" Marinette questioned.
"You two looked like you were mid-argument when we arrived, and I could hear your raised voices when we were coming through the tunnel." Sion said.
"Oh, Mr Agreste didn't want me leaving to help fight the new villains after I told him what was going on. He said they were too dangerous for him to let me go fight them, but that was all the more reason since my friends were fighting them without me." Marinette explained.
"As much as I agree that they needed help, Gabriel has good reason to try and protect you." Pavo "The Experiments are too dangerous for you all to face at your current level. Casey and Chat were lucky that Sion managed to take Nathanael's place, she has more experience in fighting larger threats and has dealt with them before."
"Who are the Experiments, anyway?" Marinette asked.
A different hero may have tried to water down to truth, so the young hero didn't have to yet know the horrors that the Quantic team had faced. Sion, however, held no such belief that the younger generation needed to be shielded from anything.
"Abominations that sin against nature itself." She explained, obviously quoting someone. "The basics of it is that this utterly insane guy wanted to play god through horrifying experimentations, no real reason behind it, and he did whatever he wanted to achieve his goals, including kidnapping and experimenting on people until they couldn't even be called human anymore."
"That's horrible." Marinette said.
Sion hummed in agreement. "The guy was eventually killed by his own creations, though. A group of his prisoners managed to escape, and we found them, they led us back to his lab and we snuck in and managed to turn off the mind control on the rest of his experiments, they quickly turned on the guy and his men, taring them apart for what they did to them."
Marinette looked pale.
"Unfortunately, some of the experiments weren't loyal through mind control and really were insane and deadly, and we accidently released them alongside the other prisoners. Uh, whoops." Sion joked with a laugh. "So, the Quantic team had to hunt them down, we thought we'd got them all, but evidently those three managed to slip under the radar."
"Why'd they attack us now?" Marinette questioned. "Why not when Ladybird and Chat first appeared?"
Sion shrugged. "They're insane, I can't pretend to know they're thought process." She said. "But I also only became aware of things before trading places this morning."
Marinette thought hard.
"Who was part of the group that freed the experiments?" She asked in thought.
"Let's see." Sion said, trying to remember. "My sisters Silent and Soul, and I were the ones to sneak in, and some members of the Queen's Legion like Tech and Glitch, Imp, Pulse and Avantia were there to go in to fight the mad men, though the experiments took care of those guys for them."
"Oh." Marinette said.
"What?" Sion questioned.
"I thought it was maybe because of the French Quantic heroes helping us a week ago." Marinette suggested.
"Actually, it probably is." Sion agreed. "The rouge experiments escaped to France where the heroes here dealt with them, those three probably weren't happy about it. From what we over-heard them say, it sounds like they attacked you to draw them out."
"What do we do about them, then?" Marinette asked.
"I don't know, Gabriel can be the one to decide that, they're his group's villains." Sion said. "We'll just have to wait until he gets back before we plan anything."
"I guess." Marinette agreed.
"So, tell me about your friend, Casey?" Sion suddenly changed the subject.
"Why?" Marinette asked suspiciously.
"Just curious?" Sion grinned.
"Well, I don't know her much, yet." Marinette responded, cautiously. "We only just learned each other's identities, and we got along as heroes well enough."
"So, nothing about before you met her?" Sion asked.
"No. Why do you want to know." Marinette asked again.
"No reason." Sion answered with a grin.
Casey finished packing a set of her clothes into her bag to give to Sion, making sure to include a sports bra, as she didn't know if the woman fit her exact measurements.
She gave a heavy sigh.
"Are you alright, Casey?" Tikki asked in concern, munching on a cookie to recharge.
"Yeah." Casey answered the Kwami, rubbing her eyes. "Just exhausted after today's events."
Pippin, who had followed her into her room, whined and rubbed against her leg, looking up at her with big eyes.
Casey laughed and knelt down to pet him, the dog pushing against her for a cuddle instead.
"Thanks, boy." She said to her dog. "I love you too."
The dog barked happily, believing that he'd managed to cheer her up.
Casey eventually pushed the lump of love and fur off of her and stood up, brushing herself off to get rid of the fur that stuck to her.
"Well, let's get these clothes to Sion." She said, picking up her bag.
Going down stairs, she past the living room where her dad was watching TV, the rest of their dogs cuddled around him.
"Going out again already?" He asked.
"Just need to drop something off at a friend's house." Casey answered.
"Okay."
Casey closed the front door behind her as she left and began walking back towards Agreste manor, passing the destruction left by the battle as she did. The damaged area was sectioned off by tape with people gathered around it.
"I thought Ladybird always fixed the damage after battles." She overheard.
"I heard that someone else is swinging around with Ladybird's costume." Another said. "Maybe she can't repair the damage like Ladybird can."
"If she can't repair damage, what's the point of this new hero swinging around, and what happened to our Ladybird?"
"Stupid rumour mills." Casey muttered to herself as she walked.
"Casey!" She heard her name being called.
Turning around, she suddenly found herself in a tight hug, she was quickly released and saw it was Sabrina.
"I'm so relieved you're alright." Sabrina said. "When I saw all the damage I was worried you got hurt."
"I'm alive and nothing's broken." Casey reported to her. "At least for me."
"Oh no, what happened?" Sabrina worried. "Did something happen to one of the other heroes?"
"We're all fine, Chat just got a little more damaged than the rest of us." Casey answered. "His arm's broken but he should be okay other than that."
"That's a relief, I guess. But doesn't that mean Chat can't fight?"
"I hadn't thought about that, but I guess he will be out of the fight while he recovers." Casey groaned. "Just another thing to worry about."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to give you more stress." Sabrina apologised.
"No, it's fine." Casey said. "Anyway, what about you and the girls, did you all make it away safely?"
"We managed to hide out at the college like you told us too. But…" Sabrina trailed off.
"But?" Casey prompted.
"When the staff came to tell it was safe to come out, they also told the girls that they wouldn't be returning to the college for a while after we left, they didn't forget the whole stealing thing and the girls are suspended until the police can fully investigate." Sabrina rushed out.
"What?" Casey cried out in anger. "But that's not fair. They can't just suspend the girls, they didn't do anything wrong, that evidence was planted on them!"
"I tried to explain that to my dad, but he said that there isn't much he can do other than try and prove that the evidence was planted, which could take a while with everything that's going on. He said that a student told the head master that they weren't comfortable sharing the college with thieves and that multiple students felt the same way, so the headmaster had no choice but to suspend them until the investigation comes to a close."
"Chloe." Casey growled.
"Dad didn't say who the student was." Sabrina said. "But not many students have enough power to influence the headmaster." She added reluctantly.
Casey then remembered what she had intended to do before the Akuma had appeared.
"I've got to go." She told Sabrina. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She quickly ran off with Sabrina calling after her.
Marinette and Sion looked up over to the secret door as it opened, Casey popping out.
"Here's your clothes." She took off her bag and threw it at Sion. "I've got some urgent business to take care of, I'll be back later."
Casey then disappeared back through the door.
"Okay. Marinette said. "I wonder what's got her in a hurry."
"Me too." Sion hummed.
Digging into the bag, Sion took out the clothes and held them against herself.
"Yeah, these'll fit." She said.
Sion then began to pull off Nathanael's clothes, paying no mind to the face that Marinette was in the same room.
"Shouldn't you go into another room or something?" Marinette cried out, covering her eyes.
"Why, I don't mind if you see my body." Sion said, continuing to remove the tight-fitting clothes, leaving her bare skin on display.
"I'm going to check on my family, they're probably worried about me after that last attack." Marinette suddenly announced, taking her chance to escape the same way Casey had.
Sion watched her go with a shrug, pulling on Casey's clothes.
"That's better." She said. "Hey, a hat."
Sion pulled a back beanie out of the bag. She bunched up her long white hair into the hat and pulled it over her hair, hiding most of it from view, leaving the hair in front of her face alone.
"Well, I've got a bit." She said to herself. "Time to go confirm a suspicion."
She then left the same way Marinette and Casey had previously.
Casey charged her way through her front door.
"Dad, where's that dirt you have on the mayor?" She asked, looking through a draw.
"Why do you want to know that?" Her dad asked.
"Because I'm sick of his little brat of a daughter being able to use his title to get away with whatever she wants. She got my entire guide group suspended and under investigation for theft, and she got one of my friends Akumatised because of it. I want to make sure she pays and can't use her father to get out of it." Casey explained.
Her dad sighed and slowly got to his feet, supporting himself with his walking stick, then slowly moved over to the shelf Casey was searching.
"That box up there." He pointed.
Using a stool, Casey quickly scaled the shelf and brought down the box. Inside was a bunch of meaningless papers that were dumped out onto the table, her dad then took the box off her and removed the false bottom inside to reveal a file.
Casey reached out to take it, but her father kept it in a tight grip.
"Casey, are you sure you want to do this?" Her father asked.
"I am." She said. "I'm not going to let her get away with this, but her father needs to be out of the picture to do so."
"Fine." Her father released his hold on the file, allowing her to take it. "But be careful and-"
"Don't get caught." Casey said at the same time as her dad. "I know." She said. "I've got to go. Love you."
Casey gave her dad a quick hug before leaving again.
"What's that?" Tikki asked Casey as soon as they were alone.
"A document of every dirty deed Mayor Bourgeois has done, enough to put him in very hot water if it were to go public." Casey explained, leafing through the document.
"Why does your father have this?" Tikki asked, slightly alarmed.
"Everyone has their secrets, Tikki." Casey told her Kwami.
"Are you going to use this to blackmail the mayor, then?" Tikki asked in concern.
"No. Ladybird's going to use this to blackmail the mayor. Spots On!"
Mayor Bourgeois sat in his office, filling out paper work.
"Can I have a moment of your time, Mr Borgeois?"
He looked up in surprise to see Ladybird standing at his office window.
"Ladybird?" He asked. "How can I help you. I though the Akuma was defeated."
"She was, but it's the cause of said Akuma that I'm here to talk about." Ladybird said, walking further into the office, a file clutched in her hand.
"Hawkmoth?" The mayor asked.
"No, your daughter." Ladybird corrected.
"What?" The mayor spluttered. "My daughter didn't cause an Akuma."
Ladybird's stare pierced him.
"You call framing innocent girls for theft not causing an Akuma?" She accused.
"What? She would never do that?" The mayor defended.
"She did." Ladybird said simply. "She framed a group of girls for theft, getting them into trouble with their college and causing one of them to be vulnerable to Hawkmoth, and then to add insult to injury, she had them suspended for the course of the investigation, using your title to force the headmaster into doing so. This isn't the first time your daughter has unapologetically made people vulnerable to Hawkmoth or thrown your title around to get what she wants. And I can no longer let this happen."
"My daughter is just being a teenager, she'll learn for her mistakes." The mayor defended.
"Accidently insulting someone is a mistake, your daughter's actions are malicious. She's not a teenager, she's a monster." Ladybird growled.
"How dare you-"
"I dare because your daughter has run around unchecked for long enough." Ladybird cut the mayor off.
"You can't tell me what to do!" The mayor shouted angrily.
"I think I can, if you want to keep this job of yours." Ladybird said threateningly, throwing the file onto the desk.
"What…?" The mayor opened the file, face going pale as he saw what was inside.
"What do you think the chances are of you staying in politics, let alone staying mayor are if I leak this to the public?" Ladybird asked in false innocence. "You might not even be able to keep that fancy hotel of yours. After all, who'd want to stay at a hotel owned by someone so disgraceful. You'd be without a job, without any money, maybe even without a home. And then where would you and that precious little monster of yours be?"
"I…What do you want?" The mayor asked in defeat.
Ladybird smiled in victory.
"First of all, I want your daughter's confession." She told the mayor. "I want the headmaster and police to know that those girls are innocent and that she's the one to blame. Get her to tell the truth or trick her into confessing, I don't really care. And then I want you to let her face the full consequences, don't let her use your title to get out of trouble like she usual does, if she gets expelled like I'm hoping, then let her get expelled. And, even if she doesn't get expelled, you are to remove her from the college anyway, and send her to a new school far away from her victims."
"You want me to send my daughter away?" The mayor demanded indignantly.
"You will, unless you want your own life to be ruined." Ladybird threatened. "What I want is simple, for that monster of yours to face the consequences."
Ladybird snatched the file out of his hands.
"If those consequences don't happen by tomorrow, this goes public." She said. "Goodbye, Mr Bourgeois."
Ladybird turned and jumped out the window.
Once she got a block away, she bent over and breathed deeply before letting it out.
She was then surprised by a whistle of appreciation.
Jumping to attention, she saw that it was Sion.
"That was badass." Sion commented. "Who knew the heroine of Paris, a symbol of all that is good, would do something as dirty as blackmail."
"Shut up." Ladybird shot back. "I did what I had to, Chloe wouldn't have faced consequences any other way."
"I'm not shaming you." Sion held up her hands placatingly. "Believe me, I've done much worse myself."
"Don't tell the others about this." Ladybird said.
"I won't." Sion promised. "Honour among thieves and all that."
"Thanks." Ladybird said.
"You know, you really take after your parents." Sion commented.
"What?" Ladybird asked in surprise.
"Though I don't know who you're more like, your mother, or your father." Sion continued.
Ladybird continued to look at her in shock.
"Don't worry, I'll keep this secret too." Sion promised. "Honour among thieves."
Sion then disappeared, leaving Ladybird on the rooftop with the file still in her hand.
Author's note: Please leave a comment.
