****LONG CHAPTER EVERYONE! I know it's super late, but I took extra time so it would be super good! Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 28
-Chat Noir-
It had been a trap. With a glance to Ladybug, he knew that Mayura had slipped her mind too as they'd planned this out. But as they looked back to the peacock woman, she rose from Gabriel Agreste's chair, fixing her eyes on them. Her eyes were a vivid purple and her graceful outfit and walk showed that she'd had practice with her posture. But as she turned and walked by the picture of his mother, and the longing glance he noticed, a thought crept into his mind as he watched her step closer to them. Could this be his mother? Thankfully, Ladybug pulled him out of that thought with her directness.
"Where is Hawkmoth?"
Mayura's lip curled into a smile from what Adrien could see from behind her fan.
"Pleased to see you too heroes," she smirked, "But I am simply the greeting party here."
"What do you mean by that?" Chat asked. Mayura's smile intrigued him, but it was more of a snarl than his mother's gentle face.
"Hawkmoth is as you are to Ladybug, my partner, my help. We serve each other, save each other."
"Then where have you been these last couple of years?" Ladybug asked.
"Waiting for him to truly need my help. I've just been waiting a while." She laughed, and her smile only grew larger, and with that, an akuma fluttered in through one of the walls and hovered around Mayura as she didn't even look surprised.
"See?" She told the heroes, "We're always helping each other."
Ladybug's yo-yo whipped out trying to capture the akuma, but Mayura sheltered it with her fan, and it absorbed into her miraculous behind her protection. Hawkmoth's symbol appeared over her eyes and they had a conversation that Chat nor Ladybug could hear. As it faded, the darkness of an akumatization came over her, and she re-emerged looking very nearly the same, with just a touch of green mixed in with the blue and black of her outfit.
"No," Ladybug whispered beside him. He turned to her, worry in his eyes and for once, she didn't seem to have a reassuring thing to say.
"Well, heroes." Mayura turned to them, "I'm ready. Are you?"
"I think you might be out of practice," Chat found himself saying, earning a weird look from Ladybug, "Because usually there isn't this much talking in a battle."
He extended his baton as Mayura snarled and Ladybug laughed and the two sides clashed in the center of the room.
-Ladybug-
Mayura was slashing at both of them with what seemed like some sort of spike from her fan. Ladybug spun her yo-yo and Chat deflected the blows with his staff. Despite being 'out of practice' as Chat had claimed, Mayura was still fast, but she kept glancing around her, like she was waiting for something. But it was still two-on-one. Ladybug pushed from the left and Chat from the right, so she was forced to defend and attack at once. The two heroes had driven her with her back to the wall by Emilie's painting when she swept her fan in a large shield over her face and front- like a peacock throwing up its tail. It was impossible for either of them to slash through- they were still saving Chat's cataclysm for later. Ladybug was running out of ideas when she didn't have time to anymore, an opening in the floor gave way to the arrival of a familiar tall man in a purple suit brandishing his staff and grinning as Mayura stepped beside him with her fan still protecting her. Hawkmoth had arrived.
"Ladybug and Chat Noir." He said with his cold voice, and Ladybug glanced to Chat Noir's defensive position, and saw his posture tense a little. This couldn't be easy for him to face his father like this.
"I see we are meeting for our final battle." He laughed, "I hope I'm not late."
"Oh no," Ladybug taunted, "you're exactly on time."
And with that sentence, all hell broke loose.
Ladybug had wondered what Mayura's new powers from Hawkmoth's akumatization were, but the masked peacock woman wasted no more time in using them. Chat dove for Mayura first, hoping to score a hit while Ladybug was matched hit for hit against Hawkmoth, but Mayura knocked him aside and pulled a feather from her fan, filling it with power and letting it drift toward Hawkmoth. Trying to keep him at his current level, Ladybug tried to shove him aside so she could capture the feather, but instead only made herself vulnerable to his staff. He struck her right in the ribs with his staff, knocking the wind out of her as she landed in front of the painting of his wife.
For a minute, her vision was too blurry for her to really see. She blinked furiously through the pain to see Chat standing in front of her as the two villains stood facing Chat, both with triumphant faces.
"You okay, m'lady?" She heard Chat say.
"Yeah, I'll be all right." she managed to say, stumbling to her feet. She turned to Hawkmoth, whose scepter had absorbed Mayura's feather, so now at his back he had a pair of great purple wings like a butterfly, which honestly made him look a crazy tooth fairy, but Ladybug didn't doubt that they were functional. Ladybug spun her yo-yo into a shield for a minute.
"Do we have a plan?" Chat as the two villains began to advance.
"I'm out of ideas," she whispered back, "I think it's time for a spot of luck."
She flung her yo-yo up with Chat covering her and what fell into her hands was not what she really expected: a staple gun.
She glanced around, and a few things lit up: Hawkmoth's new wings, Mayura's fan, but as she turned in a full circle, so did Emilie's painting. The first two she got, but she couldn't be sure what the third could possibly do.
"Cover me again," She whispered to Chat, "But be ready for your cataclysm." Chat nodded and spun his baton to defend them both from Mayura's attacks, and Ladybug rounded on Hawkmoth, and pushed him back with a few well-placed yo-yo strikes. As he stood just a few steps in front of the wall, she hefted the staple gun and fired a few staples at each wing, attaching him to the wall. He stood there, stuck, tugging and cursing- not willing to tear his new wings. Chat stepped back in front of her as Mayura saw her partner's situation and rushed forward to free him, but Chat knocked her back and Ladybug shot the staple gun at her and knocked her fan out of her hands, tearing her weapon away. Chat lunged forward and called for his cataclysm, then pressed his finger to the peacock pin and grabbed it as it crumbled, giving way to the akuma, and forcing Mayura's detransformation into none other than. . . Natalie.
-Chat Noir-
He'd been wrong. It was a relief and a pain. This woman had collaborated with his father even more than he'd expected. But, still. He'd wanted to see his mother so bad. But as Natalie came to, and took in the scene around her.
"NO!" She screamed, running toward the still captured Hawkmoth, but Chat stood in her way and held her back. She fought him, trying to punch through him, but after Ladybug had captured the akuma, she tied up Nathalie in her yo-yo. But she still held the staple gun in her hand and stared again at the painting of Adrien's mother.
"I don't understand." She said, looking up at Chat.
"What is it, bugaboo?" he asked.
"I don't get it- my lucky charm is basically telling me to shoot the staple gun at the painting, but I can't understand why that is supposed to work. What is that going to do for the situation?"
"I dunno," Chat answered, looking up at the artwork of his lost mother, "But the lucky charm has never been wrong before. I think you should try it."
"Okay. . ." Ladybug said reluctantly, and took a few steps back before she aimed the staple gun at a random spot on the painting.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Agreste." She said gently.
Then she fired.
Chat didn't know what he was looking at. Ladybug had fired several times at the painting at just random places. But she must have hit some sort of buttons on it. Because a hatch opened in the floor, just like Hawkmoth had arisen.
"I think we go down." She said softly, and as she and Chat stepped forward to go down, she stopped and turned back to Hawkmoth.
"You gonna let us know what's down there or do we get to find out ourselves?" She asked.
He did the last thing she expected.
"I'll go with you," He sighed sadly, "Because it requires an explanation."
Ladybug turned to Chat.
"Should we trust him?" She asked. Chat nodded once.
"We only have a few more minutes, so I don't think it would hurt him to tell us all his secrets now." Chat answered, so Ladybug nodded in agreement.
Hawkmoth led them down the hatch down to a long walkway with a lit glass thing that Chat couldn't discern at the end.
"What is that?" Ladybug asked.
"You'll see soon enough," Hawkmoth said sadly, "But it is my biggest regret."
They walked in silence about ten more paces before Chat's eyes began to discern the scene.
"It's. . .her." was all he could say, and with one look to Ladybug, he couldn't hold himself back. He ran to her, just like he'd done as a child, and the distance took him only a few seconds, until he found himself at her feet.
"Mother. . ." he choked, crumbling to his knees with his hands on the glass, as though his cataclysm would return so he could break through to her. But it didn't take long for Ladybug with Hawkmoth to catch up to him. And he found himself rounding on Hawkmoth as the man tried to speak as well.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?" Chat screamed. At the same time, Hawkmoth spoke softly.
"So it's true," Hawkmoth mused, "it turns out that I was right."
"That doesn't matter," Ladybug said sternly, "But what does matter is that we get an explanation. NOW."
-Ladybug-
Both hers and Chat's transformations were wearing out, and with no more extended powers from Mayura/Natalie, Hawkmoth was virtually powerless without the staff which Ladybug had confiscated.
"I-I don't know what happened," He stammered trying to explain to the two heroes.
"But she was using her miraculous- she used to use the peacock miraculous as Le Paon, but the powers became damaged. She started to get weaker, and I wasn't sure if it was the miraculous or not, but one day. . . she just slipped away."
"She went into a coma?" Ladybug asked, trying to be the calm one in the room, because it was obvious that Adrien was this close to killing his father where he stood.
"Yes, and rather than share the danger of the news of the two miraculous we had, I tried to save her. I did, but in my desire to save her, I turned to the allure of the cat and ladybug miraculous. That wish from the conjoined miraculous might be the only thing that can save her now." He finished sadly.
Adrien finally spoke, "Why didn't you tell me?" Hawkmoth sighed, and as he tried to answer, his transformation wore off, and Nooroo emerged. Unbothered by his kwami's appearance, he turned to his son.
"I didn't want to give you false hope if I couldn't save her. It was hard enough on both of us losing her once. I-I couldn't put you through that twice." He stammered, and Chat Noir's look softened. Ladybug cleared her throat to change the subject.
"Mr. Agreste, if you'd kindly hand over your miraculous." She said, holding out her hand. Nooroo looked up at his master, but no hardened scowl answered the heroine's command.
"Nooroo, I renounce you." He said softly and handed over the butterfly pin to Ladybug.
"Thank you." Ladybug said, "We should go," She said, turning to look at the sleeping Mrs. Agreste one last time.
"There may be a way to fix this."
"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug called, throwing the staple gun into the air, and in her hands, the broken pieces of the peacock miraculous were mended in her hand. She slipped the two miraculous into her yo-yo's 'pocket' and closed it.
"I have to deliver this to the Guardian," She said firmly, looking to Natalie and Mr. Agreste facing her and Chat Noir.
"We'll be back shortly to discuss the punishments, as well as how we plan to help."
"Help with what?" Mr. Agreste asked, with still the look of defeat lingering on his face.
"I think there may be an alternate way to save Mrs. Agreste."
*****MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry that was a mean cliffhanger.
But I'll fix it soon. Don't worry. Please leave comments or suggestions. I have some idea how I want to finish this up, but I'm open to fresh ideas! Thanks for reading!
