Chat Noir
Chat could feel Plagg struggling at the back of his consciousness.
I can't keep this up much longer, kid, the cat-god moaned. I'm sorry.
Chat winced. Plagg never said he was sorry. "It's alright, Plagg," the hero rasped. "I know it's really bad this time. I don't expect you to... fix it."
Chat knew he should probably be more worried. There was a wet, clogged feeling in his lungs if he tried to breathe too deeply, and his arms and legs were numb. He kept fading in and out of awareness, but this last time, he had managed to stay awake for several minutes.
"Looks like this cat is on his last claw," he murmured wryly.
Ladybug is coming, Plagg told him. Hawkmoth called her over while you were unconscious.
Chat's ears flickered at this news, and he tried to push himself up, but his limbs would not respond. "No, no, no. He can't... He's going to threaten her. No. She's going to be... in danger... ah!" The struggle to move quickly exhausted him, and Chat pressed his face to the dusty wooden floor, panting.
Hey, hey, calm down. I wouldn't try to do anything right now if I were you, Plagg advised. Ladybug can handle this.
Chat felt himself drifting again. "Where's... Fe?"
He didn't hear Plagg's answer as the darkness stole him away.
Felix
Felix paced in his confinement, restless and worried. He could see in the dark, but it wasn't helping him much. He was locked in a square, compact room with no windows... no weak points in the walls either; he had tried that.
He could still taste blood in his mouth... he was unsure if that taste would ever go away.
He had to find Adrien.
Knowing full well that it was futile, the akumatized detective threw himself repeatedly against the padlocked door. Currently, Hawkmoth's hold on his consciousness had retreated. It puzzled him. Normally, Hawkmoth's victims remained conscious throughout the ordeal, with their actions heavily influenced by the villain. During their entire transformation, the victims would remain in that same, powerful spell. However, when Hawkmoth took over Felix, he took his mind completely. Hawkmoth would act through him, and Felix would be mostly blacked out through the duration. Perhaps these moments of reprieve—these times when the villain would retreat from Felix's mind—were times that Hawkmoth needed a break. After all, maintaining two consciousnesses had to be a strain.
After countless failed attempts at breaking the door, Felix slumped to the ground. He let his head fall onto his forepaws in defeat.
Adrien was out there somewhere—possibly in this very same building—injured, alone, at the mercy of Hawkmoth. Felix had to get to him, had to help him. But, as he was, he was powerless.
A stirring rose up in the back of his mind, different from the stirring he had felt when Hawkmoth was taking over. It was as if something was growing there, sprouting limbs and pushing up through the soil.
Hope?
No. Not possible in this situation.
But that growing, stirring, fledgling thing was something that gave Felix hope, although he couldn't fathom why.
He stood again, digging his powerful claws into the floorboards in determination.
I'm coming, Adrien, he thought, and then threw himself against the door.
Ladybug
Ladybug made her way down the Rue de Fictional with an air of caution. The street was strangely empty, void of traffic. It had somehow slipped the radar of the Parisian officials, and had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Crumbling sidewalks and potted streets cut a foreboding scene, keeping pedestrians and drivers at bay. Many of the shops and houses along the streetfront had been abandoned, and even the slight breeze could be heard whistling through a cracked window of one of the darkened third-floor apartments.
Ladybug reached the midway-point of the street, yo-yo at the ready. She angled her head towards the building to her right: a hollowed-out theater, resplendent with a butterfly window. The design rivaled the Notre Dame, sparkling a thousand shades of purple in the sunlight. It drew her in, flooding her senses with the sound of fluttering wings.
And then her world exploded in golden light. After a confusing, spinning swirl of sensations, Ladybug found herself in her parents' bakery. The warm smell of baking bread spiraled around her. And then she heard the sobs... her mother was crying.
Tom looked over at his daughter from the corner where he held her grieving mother. "How could you, Marinette?" he admonished. "We thought we could count on you."
"Wh-what?" she stuttered.
The freshly baked bread soon turned sour, burning and filling the house with smoke.
"How could you?" her parents asked again, voices distorting and fading away.
Ladybug fell back into the void, curling in on herself. What was happening? She had been outside of Hawkmoth's lair... some spell had hit her. She almost had the answer, but she was too dazed to put the pieces together. All she knew was that a new image was solidifying before her, a vision—or a nightmare.
Chat Noir was lying on the ground, clutching his chest and coughing up blood.
"My Lady," he gasped. "Why didn't you come...? Why couldn't you save me?"
Ladybug backed away, pressing her palms to her ears and shaking her head. "No, no. I came to save you. You're going to make it. This isn't real!" she shouted, voice rising in a crescendo.
And reality returned.
Ladybug waited for the world to stop spinning around her and then pushed herself up. She was lying on an uncomfortable bed of coated wires... a dog cage?!
Gathering her senses in alarm, Ladybug scrambled around, feeling her confines. It was indeed a large cage meant for a dog. The opening was padlocked shut, and the joints were reinforced... it was not something she could undo from the inside.
Her yo-yo was gone.
Trying to calm her breathing, the red-clad girl took in the room around her and her cage. It was a large atrium of crumbling, dusty wood; rafters threatened to splinter and crash through the floor. And there, across the room, was that butterfly window. It was surreal to be seeing it now from the inside.
How had she gotten here? She remembered the golden light, the sudden flood of negative emotions—she had failed her family, she had failed Chat—and then, suddenly, she was here. She must have blacked out. And she suspected that it was Queen Bee's doing.
Something caught her eye in the light of the large window: a dark, huddled shape, quiet and unmoving.
Chat.
"No, no, no, no," Ladybug stuttered as she scrambled against the bars of the cage, trying to get as close as she could to her partner. "Kitty, I'm here. Come on, get up. I'm here to get you. You're going to be okay."
The cat-like hero didn't so much as twitch.
Voice raised with panic, Ladybug spoke again: "Chat! Get up, now! Okay? At least say something. Let me know... I need to know that you're..." She couldn't finish her sentence as a sob escaped her lips. "Please..."
He wouldn't answer her.
She spent the next several minutes staring unblinkingly at the motionless form, trying to catch on to some sign that he was breathing. But her tears soon shook her vision, and she learned nothing at all. Defeated, the heroine slumped down in her cage. Tikki soothed her from the back of her mind.
Plagg is still with him. Look, you still have his bell, the kwami reminded her. That means he's alive.
Ladybug nodded, but her heart was still breaking. Every minute that ticked by was another that Chat was injured and in pain. She just wanted to take him away from here and make him all better.
Papa, please come fast, she pleaded.
Brigitte
Brigitte followed Tom Dupain out of the car, hopping carefully over cracked sidewalk as he lumbered ahead. She was trying not to let anxiety overcome her. The plan was simple, she reminded herself: find Felix, slap some sense into him, get Adrien out of here, and hopefully kick Hawkmoth's butt in the process.
They had tracked Ladybug here via her cell phone, waiting around the corner from the Rue de Fictional in case the heroine needed backup. The girl had entered a building midway down the street, but, soon after, had stopped moving somewhere inside. Either she had dropped her cell phone—or something had happened to her.
Brigitte braced herself as they turned down the alleyway, hoping to enter by a side door; the front door was, after all, blocked by debris and fallen beams. The mess of crates and rubbish seemed vacant at first, and Tom ducked his head through the narrow doorway on the left.
Just as they were about to enter, a spot of orange fur caught Brigitte's eye, and she heard a whimper like that of a kitten. Never one to leave a suffering animal alone, the veterinarian motioned for Tom to go ahead.
Creeping towards the source of the noise, Brigitte crouched down by a pile of crates that seemed recently dislodged. She now saw that the orange fur was indeed a large, fluffy tail—but, beside the tail were... two human legs.
Trying not to panic, Brigitte pulled away the wood and trash that covered the rest of the body.
It was the new superhero... What were they calling him...? Bunny Boo?
Whatever he was called, he was out cold, bruised and ruffled, but didn't seem too severely injured.
"Hey, Bunny Boy," Brigitte called, tapping his cheeks. "Wakey wakey. I think we kind of need you."
The red-head turned his face away, features scrunched up. "Chloe," he breathed.
"What? Nah—no. Brigitte here. Anyways, come on, kid, you've got to get up."
Turquoise eyes cracked open, and Brigitte sighed in relief. She waved a hand to make sure he was really seeing her.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere," the boy whined, struggling to sit up, with Brigitte's help.
She watched him move, keeping an eye out for any impairment that could signify serious damage. "Alright," she soothed. "It'll be okay. You don't have to get up. But can you tell me if you saw Ladybug?"
Suddenly, the hero's eyes opened wide, and he grabbed at Brigitte's forearm with a sense of urgency. "Ladybug!" he gasped.
"Yes, Ladybug. What about Ladybug?"
His eyes darted around, and finding his oversized paintbrush, he wedged himself to his feet. "Ladybug... she's in danger!"
When the superhero staggered after just a couple steps, Brigitte grabbed him by his thin shoulders. "Whoa, whoa, kid. Don't push yourself."
He shook his head. "I'm fine," he assured her. "It's just my leg."
Looking down, the veterinarian saw the source of the boy's unsteadiness. She gasped and helped him sit. His lower leg was skinned from knee to ankle, bleeding freely in some areas, and blossoming in dark purple bruises on the outer rims of the wound. It seemed that his boot had been shredded around the area, which must have taken a great deal of force. Perhaps one of the crates had fallen on him...?
"It's not broken, from what I can tell," Brigitte surmised. "But it could use an x-ray to be on the safe side."
The red-head bit his lip, holding back tears. He was trying to stand again. "I have to help Chat Noir and Ladybug. I can't just sit here...!"
The older girl grasped his shoulders again, this time trying to calm him. "Shh, look. You've got to take care of yourself too, alright?"
He nodded obediently, taking a deep breath.
Brigitte was hardly calm herself. Behind her facade of level-headed reason, her brain was screaming at her to find Felix—help Adrien—get those boys back, safe. But, looking at this poor bunny-hero, she couldn't dismiss her maternal instinct. Anyways, he was on their side, and they needed all the help they could get.
"You said Ladybug is in danger, right?"
He nodded. "Queen Bee attacked her and dragged her inside."
Brigitte winced at the word "dragged", her heart twisting at the idea of sweet, sweet Marinette being manhandled. "Do you know where she is now?"
The hero shook his head, flushing with shame. "Queen Bee threw me into those crates, and it's all fuzzy after that."
The veterinarian eyed her companion with pity, sighing inwardly. Back to square one. "What do they call you?" she questioned the hero.
Already seeming more focused, the boy responded: "Brush Kit."
In any other circumstances, Brigitte would have thrown her head back and laughed until her sides were splitting. But, thankfully, she managed to mask her amusement for admiration. "Brush Kit, huh? So, what do you do?" An idea was slowly building in her mind.
He gripped his oversized brush, eyes lighting up as his own mind worked. "I make illusions."
Brigitte snapped her fingers. "That's it! You stay right here—well, I mean, you can get more comfortable—and just draw an illusion that will lead me to our friends, alright? Can you do that?"
He nodded and got to work, filled with renewed purpose.
Brigitte steeled herself to enter the building.
Ladybug
"So, the show begins," a deep, jeering voice echoed around the antechamber.
Ladybug flinched and looked around desperately, finally peeling her eyes away from her unconscious partner.
Hawkmoth stepped into the light.
The red-clad heroine had considered Nino's words about Hawkmoth and Gabriel Agreste having the same voice. She had considered them... but no part of her wanted to believe it. However, seeing him now, up close, there was no mistaking it. He stood before her, her fashion role-model, Adrien's father—Chat Noir's father—one of the most respected men in Paris.
This had to be some kind of sick nightmare.
Did he know that the crumpled body at his feet was his son? And did he realize, as he pulled Chat up by the collar—
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"
The words were out of Ladybug's mouth before she knew it; a desperate screech that left her throat raw.
Of course, Hawkmoth didn't listen. He chuckled a humorless chuckle. "My, my," he purred. "Are we attached. Now, I can't imagine you'd choose your Miraculous over him, Ladybug."
Tears sprung into the heroine's eyes as Hawkmoth produced a blade from his cane, pressing the sharp edge to Chat's exposed throat.
"Hand it over, or the cat dies."
A/N: Oh, gosh. It gets worse before it gets... even worse.
I'M SO SORRY T_T ! (actually I'm not... I had to do it for the plot)
And, yes, that "satisfying moment" got pushed to next chapter, because Brigitte wasn't originally supposed to encounter Brush Kit, and that pushed the word count up. So it'll come next chapter, which will be posted in the next couple days because it's already half written! Yay!
THank you for reading, and please review! I miss everyone T_T
Chapter title taken from Evanescence, "Bring Me to Life".
