Twenty-Nine: Snow Drifts

Author's Note: When we last saw our heroes, they'd survived breakfast with Gabriel only to have been set upon by an akuma intent on turning Paris into a winter wonderland – and its citizens into denizens of ice. Given it's barely the beginning of the new school year, it's not an optimal time for a snow day; but will it prove deceptively challenging for Chat and Ladybug?


The temperature had dropped precipitously in the few minutes it had been snowing. My costume normally protected me from extremes, so the mere fact that I feltcold told me we were much further below freezing than should be possible for snow to form. As I watched the snow pile up against the men's room door, my breath frosted out in front of me; the air was so cold, in fact, little pinpricks of icy pain hit my nose with each inhalation.

There wasn't enough ice to warrant going into Ice Mode, though that costume would have felt mighty cozy about then. Teeth chattering, I twisted my baton to pop my earwig out of the base, and steadied my shivering long enough to get it into my human ear.

Ladybug was already online. "I don't know about you," she said as I heard her chattering as well, "but I'm dreaming of Spring Break already. Someplace like Majorca. Or Tahiti."

"No argument from me there, Milady," I replied, eyeing the drift. It was now even with the handle, and I had to step back a bit to avoid coming in contact with what was blowing through the door. The door itself had frozen on its hinges, so closing it wasn't an option any longer. Nor was opening it, for that matter.

"I can't go out through the main door," I said as I trotted back to the window. Carefully, I stepped to the side and looked out; while the window was open, exiting that way wasn't going to be an option either. The snow was falling heavily around the perimeter of the school. "My window isn't viable any longer. What are you looking at?"

"Same," she said. "And we already know that even touching the stuff is bad news."

I watched in fascination as the mirrors over the sink started to frost over. "This is worse than what that Frozer did to the city," I observed. "I could Cataclysm over to you, but then what? And is it worth going into Ice Mode?"

"I don't know, Chat," Ladybug said. "Have you even seen the akuma?"

My eyes widened a bit in shock. "No, now that you mention it," I replied. I hurried back to the door, rubbing my gloved hands together to generate some warmth while wishing I'd had a pair or two of those mittens Marinette was constantly knitting. Maybe she could do a pair that were open at the top for my claws…

"I'm gonna call for my Lucky Charm," Ladybug said. "Maybe it will give me an idea."

"Hang on," I said, a bit worried. "Do you have enough food on hand to recharge Tikki if you do?"

There was a long pause. "No," she said after a long moment. "I gave her my last cookie at breakfast and didn't grab anything from the buffet for her."

"Will she eat cheese in a pinch?" I asked. I knew I had at least one slice on me – not nearly enough for my bottomless pit of a kwami. But I was sure he'd split it with Tikki if needed.

"If she has to," Ladybug laughed. "Better get over here, then."

I held up my hand and was about to call up my secret super power when I paused, then dashed to my locker. It took some effort to pry the frozen door open, but I found my backup canister of camembert beneath my gym clothes. (The placement was by request of a certain Kwami of Destruction, I should point out.)

Hurrying back to the shared wall between the two spaces, I decided to go old school. Taking out my baton, I rode it up to a small air grate embedded near the ceiling; angling myself slightly, I kicked it out and noted with some small satisfaction the air duct had a similar grate facing the other space.

"Hello, gorgeous," I said, as I twisted again and launched myself through the tight space, crashing through the grate and landing in a crouch next to a smirking Ladybug.

"Hello yourself," she said as she helped me up. "I expected rubble, not finesse."

"I'm a Chat of many talents, Milady," I said, as I bowed and handed her my small tin. "I remembered I had this in my locker."

"Why thank you," she said, and kissed me. "Now, to business. Lucky Charm!" she cried, and the room filled with her special red and white light.

A red-and-black polka-dotted bag fell heavily to the locker room floor and split open, spilling part of its contents. My nose immediately wrinkled at the smell. "Calcium Chloride," I said. "Cute."

"What am I supposed to do-"

"It melts snow, Milady. Even at really low temperatures." I knelt to the bag and grabbed a handful, rolled to the door, and flung it out into the courtyard. A pathway immediately appeared, though the melting snow turned to ice relatively quickly. At the speed the snow was currently falling, it refilled with snow fast.

I somersaulted back to her – more an attempt to stay warm than anything else. "I don't think we have enough to get out of here, though. And I'm not sure where we want to go yet, anyway."

Ladybug was looking thoughtful, which sometimes scared me. "Do you think you can rotate your baton fast enough to act like a fan?"

"Maybe?" I said. "Let me try."

I pulled out my baton as I trotted to the door, and yanked it as far open as I could manage. Even with my enhanced strength, it was frozen pretty solidly so I only gained a few inches; it was enough, though, to give me space for whatever breeze I came up with. I extended the baton slightly and went into shield mode, then tried my best to spin it even faster.

Ladybug had come up behind me, and despite her chattering teeth, smiled at my results. For I'd managed to blow back the falling snow significantly. "If I sow the Calcium Chloride, you might be able to protect us from the snowflakes long enough for us to cross the courtyard."

I stopped twirling and eyed the space beyond. "But why cross? What is your Lucky Vision telling you?" I turned back toward her for her response and felt my masked eyes widen – her lips were blue.

In an instant, I stood back up and wrapped myself around her protectively, imparting what little warmth I could. "Maybe we should go into Ice Mode," I said, chattering a bit myself now. "At least we'd be warmer."

"Agreed," she said. "That and the way the Calcium Chloride is melting, we'll have a few moments of ice." She snuggled into me. "You'll have to do the transformation," she said. "If I detransform now, I'll lose the Lucky Charm." As if to emphasize the point, her earrings chirped their four-minute warning.

"Milady, my original question stands."

"Sorry," she said. "I'm not seeing anything other than we'll be in a better position to deal with this akuma out there – especially if we can leave the school."

"You think this is localized to the school?" I nodded. "Okay, I can work with that." Carefully, I released her. "Ready?"

"Yep."

"Plagg – claws in!"

My green flash of transformation washed over me and Plagg was there floating by my arm, frowning. "I detest transformations," he complained as I fished out my special tin of camembert. "Are you sure you need it?"

"Yes, my little friend. I'm sorry." I popped open the canister and located the wedge for Ice Mode, and held it out to him. "I'll try to keep it as short as I can."

Grimacing, he took the cheese and gulped it down. "Whenever you're ready," he growled.

"Plagg – claws out!"

The green wave washed over me, and I was left in my more appropriate cold weather version of Chat Noir, which included a costume that was definitelywarmer than my normal attire. The ice skates made me slightly taller, so I had to bend slightly more to pick up Ladybug. "The mechanics are going to be interesting," I observed. "Can you balance on my feel andhold that bag?"

"Maybe. Hold on…" she said as she stepped back off. "Can I borrow your tail for a moment?"

I nodded, seeing where she was going, and unbuckled my belt. Deftly she held the bag to her chest, and I wrapped my belt around her, hooking it to her. Then she stepped back up on my feet, and I used a second wrap of the belt around both of us, buckling it in front of Ladybug. "Smart, Milady," I said appreciatively as I skated to the door. Holding my baton above me, I asked: "Up and out?"

"If you can," she said. "Otherwise, get us as close to the exit or a stairwell. Or, barring that, something covered."

"Got it." I started twirling the baton, keeping the speed above shield mode but below helicopter. "On three…?"

I could feel Ladybug shivering violently now; she simply nodded against my chest and took a handful out of the bag.

"One… two… three!"

Ladybug tossed handful after handful of the Calcium Chloride in front of me as I skated out into the open space, blasting back the falling snow with my swirling baton. The ice formed quickly under us, and I moved as rapidly as I could across the courtyard. Ignoring the cramp forming in my bicep, I made my way toward the massive double doors that led to the street. Fortunately, they were wide open owing to the fact that the school day had barely started when the akuma hit.

"Quarter of a bag gone," Ladybug said as we neared the steps.

I took a chance and hastened my pace slightly, narrowly skating just behind the ice as it formed. I had to hop up the steps, and we made it out the main doors; the ice formed a sheet that I was able to skate on down to street level. I came to a stop on the sidewalk, still furiously twirling the baton.

We were wrong. The entire city was blanketed in a heavy coat of snow that was getting deeper. Where it had caught living souls, there now stood multiple sizes of snow people, frozen in place as they had been going about their day in Paris. "We appear to have a bigger problem, Milady," I said.

As she was buckled in facing away from me, I couldn't see her expression but her voice conveyed her shock. "This is worse than Frozer," she said quietly.

I looked for some sort of cover to get out from beneath the silent but deadly snowflakes. "How much do you have left in that bag?"

"About half," she said.

Looking back up the steps, I could see our original track was already obliterated. But it was either the back to the school, or across the street to the Metro. Anything else might be too far – especially given the chirping of her earrings. I continued to power through the cramp that was threatening to derail the entire operation. "School or Metro?"

"Bakery," she said instantly. "We should have enough to get there. Can you manage it that far? It's closer than the mansion and we can regroup there."

"Yes," I said, with a certainty I didn't feel. Gritting my teeth, I turned and we skated toward the Bakery as quickly as she could throw down the Calcium Chloride. We managed to make the awning of the Bakery just as Ladybug's earrings chirped their final thirty second warning. The door to the shop was open, and I knew instantly the two snow people in front – one tall, one short – were Ladybug's parents, fatally attracted to the unusual late summer snow storm just outside their windows.

I slid to a stop inside the store, just against the counter. The space was empty save for the now flash-frozen baked goods, which in itself was a major travesty. I started to say as much when Ladybug's transformation dropped, allowing Tikki to float away and leaving Marinette strapped to me sans bag of Calcium Chloride.

"That was close," I said, trying to stretch out my complaining muscles.

"Too close," Marinette replied as she unbuckled herself and re-fastened my tail to my costume for me. I appreciated the help: as rubbery as my arms felt, I wasn't sure I could even hold a croissant at that point.

Marinette walked to the window and I skated next to her. Trying not to look at the frozen forms of her parents, she instead gazed across to the frozen park and the now two-foot-high snow drifts. "At the rate it's currently snowing," she observed, "in a few hours, the city will quite literally be buried."

"What do we do?" I asked, finding myself without any appropriate puns. The full impact of this rather soft but intractably dangerous opponent we were facing was just beginning to hit me. "Granted, finding the akuma is our priority, but I don't have a sense of where we should start looking." I looked back toward the fountain in the park, now frozen solid. "And any physical trail we might have had is rapidly becoming hidden."

I could see Marinette was shivering again, and I wrapped myself around her once more. "Honestly, Chat?" she said quietly. "For once, I don't have a clue."

That scared me more than any akuma we had ever faced...


Second Author's Note: The cliffhanger was sort of unintentional; as many of you may know, I've been working with ChubbyUnicornMama and DearestMrIcarus on "special" projects this month and am actually surprised I was able to sneak in another chapter for WCBHKH. And then, like everything I do, it ran long and I ran out of time! But fear not - more snow next week. ;-) -ep