I have a what?
Gabriel stared at the tablet he held in his hands. There were many documents and directories with videos and photographs. But it was well organized (thank you Nathalie, probably, she was the one who organized everything for him) and he started with the readme file. Apparently he had some kind of magical jewel that allowed him to transform into a creature with superhuman powers. He called himself Hawk Moth when he was transformed and kept his identity a secret. He looked around the cell where he was held. That could be useful if it allowed him to break out from this jail, he was considering if he should do that instantly. He found a picture of himself while transformed. The mask was elegant, the suit fitted him, he might have chosen a different colour scheme to fit his eyes and complexion and why was the mask covering his hair?
'So I have a miraculous.' Gabriel grinned wickedly.
Perhaps he should transform instantly and just leave using his enhanced powers, but he did not understand entirely what they were. He needed a butterfly of all things to achieve control of someone else, and that person had to be in a bad mood. That seemed rather complicated and difficult to achieve, especially since he noticed he had no butterflies at hand in the cell. But he was a businessman, after all, he believed in (tampering with) the governmental institutions and above all he believed his money could buy him a lawyer that would get him out from anything. On the other hand, he might just save time and money (for the lawyers and bribe) and use the magical stones.
"Nooroo, dark wings rise." Gabriel said the words that were supposed to activate his transformation, but nothing happened. Frustrated, he groaned and his face fell few shades darker, but he grabbed the tablet and read on. He was supposed to wear his miraculous. He looked for it. He did not find it on his clothes, in his pockets, in the items that were returned to him.
'Of course' he thought 'the miraculous looks like a piece of jewellery, someone must have snatched it off me while I was out of it.' His thoughts evolved around how was he to return his precious jewel back. He read further and further.
Apparently, there were two annoying kids with superpowers too, they called themselves Ladybug and Chat Noir. He wanted their miraculous so he created many akumas and those two kids always beaten him. There were many notes on the identities of those two kids. He checked the clues. He also had notes on someone who used to be the guardian of the miraculous. That was some old man, he looked Chinese, he read more and more information about the man, only to realize he was unimportant and that that old man had passed the miracle box to the girl who wielded the Ladybug miraculous. That was complicated and a lot to take in.
He flipped back and forth through his notes. They were very detailed and long. Someone brought him food, but he pushed it away with disgust. He remembered he never ate anything out of the recommendation from his dietitian and he intended to check his notes on that before he ate. He was about to search for those notes when he saw it. Nathalie was Mayura. Nathalie, his assistant, who always organized everything for him, she always listened, she also used a miraculous jewel and could transform and have superpowers. He looked at the photo and smirked. Nathalie looked really good in her super powered suit. He opened pictures of Hawk Moth and Mayura and looked at them in parallel. They looked good together. They looked like a couple. They were a power couple. They worked together while transformed. Just like they did in their real life. Just like he expected, Nathalie was excellent assistant with and without superpowers.
Gabriel was lost in his thoughts. It was him and Nathalie who fought together, they were sort of brothers in arms, that meant they were connected and must have been very close. That was why he was found together with Nathalie. They must have been together, they were probably a couple. Would he chose Nathalie as his wife? He remembered her commitment to work, the long hours she spent at her job, her devotion to having everything done, her organisational abilities. It was definitely useful to have someone like her around. If he married someone else, he would still keep Nathalie around. But would he marry Nathalie? Would he make her his wife?
He looked at the photos of Nathalie when she was transformed into Mayura. She looked magical and enchanting. She looked dazzling, magical, and he could only imagine how strong and enchanting she would look once she was in action and used her magical powers. He imagined Mayura creating other magical creatures that had superpowers of their own and smiled. Mayura was some kind of ethereal being that would enchant everyone who met her. Probably everyone who met her fell in love with him, including him, Gabriel Agreste, and he was the one who won her. He smiled victoriously.
He remembered how he considered Emilie for a relationship and marriage. She was his inspiration and muse, his designs were all for her of lately, and she was aspiring actress. So marrying her would definitely be good for business. And he was already enchanted by her. But the photo of Mayura told him that there was something more magical that attracted him even more.
Then he went through a file where he described all the akuma he created, their powers and how they got defeated in the end. He looked at the pictures, the designs of his akuma suits looked imaginative, but hideous, and unpractical. If an akuma was supposed to retrieve a tiny piece of jewellery from a teenager, then why did he ever create a ten tom baby or that huge Gorzilla guy?
He played one video of a fight and decided to leave the videos for later.
He returned to Mayura. Nathalie was arrested with him, she was kept somewhere in this building, in another cell, and he wanted to contact her. But he wanted to know more about what happened in the last fifteen years before he spoke to her. Did she loose her memory too? It certainly seemed so. Did she forget about fifteen years as he did or less? Or more? He had not idea. But, he was certain that the information he was looking at was probably organized by her and she had the access to the same information.
There was one question nagging him. Why was he doing all that? He liked power, he liked having power and being in power. He was a famous designer with his own brand, he already had some power. But you can always have more, there were persons that powered over him, like that obnoxious Audrey, the fashion critic and trendsetter who run her own fashion magazine. She could trash his brand with only a handful of texts, if properly placed. Perhaps he wanted more power to keep people like Audrey in control, or at least at a safe distance. But then he shook his head, he did not need to know why he was doing that in general, right now he needed to escape the police custody and he believed he could do that quickly and easily if he had superpowers. So he needed to get his superpowers back, fast.
He found an electronic copy of the Book of Lore (he also noted that it could be referred to as the Grimoire). It was full of pictures of persons with superpowers and plenty of riddles and verses. But there were also notes attached that explained several of the texts. Great. He was going to come back to it. But the biggest revelation he had instantly was that there were potentially many persons with superpowers. He did not remember any of this.
Were there some other employees of his involved in this? How about that model of his, Emilie? The photographer? The make up artist? The stylist? He did not find any information on them.
But then he stumbled upon the information about the temple. There was a whole temple that hosted an order of guardians of the miraculous, it was in Tibet and it got restored after a battle with an ancient sentimonster. Well, at least that was a theory he wanted to explore and that was a reason they went to Tibet again, apparently he went back with Nathalie alone. So it was only her who shared the secret and the superpowers with him. He went back to the photos of him and Nathalie, both as civilians and when transformed and had their superpowers. He admired how good they both looked, their colour schemes matched, their suits were made with compatible styles. They looked good together, it was good for public appearance and it must have been good for the brand. He was becoming more and more certain that him and Nathalie were, in fact, a couple.
With these thoughts Gabriel would sleep and stir awake after an undefined number of hours in an undefined time of the day. He would resume reading the information on his tablet as soon as he would open his eyes. It was captivating, it was enchanting, him and Nathalie had harnessed powers from magical god like creatures who were their humble servants. He liked the idea. He liked the idea a lot.
'I have a miraculous and I call myself Mayura?' Nathalie whispered while she stared at her tablet. She skimmed through the initial information quickly, she was skilled at that.
Nathalie was bewildered. Fifteen years. What had happened in those fifteen years? How did she ever get to be in this mess? She was eager to find out. Why were they doing a photo shoot in Tibet again? They probably used up all other wintery locations for their cold season collection and turned back to the location they used before.
She never doubted they were in Tibet for a photo shoot.
Nathalie looked at the contents of the hidden and protected documents. It became clear to her that Gabriel and her were using superpowers to fight a couple of teenagers who had superpowers too. But the question that consumed her instantly was 'Why would she do that?' Because if she had Gabriel, why would she do anything like that, except if he made her do it. Was she, frankly, ready to do any of that stuff for him? She remembered she liked him, she had a crush on him. Yes, she had a crush on her boss. She probably fell in love with him.
Then she remembered. She always kept a diary. It was not a detailed diary where she would pour all her emotions like a school girl (she never did that), gush about that boy next door or in the other class, write about her frustrations about that obnoxious girl, annoying brat or a push over boy. It was never about emotions for her, she had those in check. But she would write up simple notes, mere observations of the daily events, brief and up to the point. And she always kept a schedule.
She examined the contents of her tablet and she stumbled upon several schedules. One was her own, and of course, it was heavily synchronized with Gabriel's. Another was Gabriel's schedule (that did not contain any details related to her alone, like her dentist appointments. She returned to her schedule and noticed she did not have many items that did not involve Gabriel.
But the third schedule was for someone named Adrien Agreste. It involved photo shoots, fencing, learning Chinese … school? She quickly searched the internet for a picture and was soon looking at a face of a fourteen year old boy. The boy was blonde with green eyes. He looked exactly like Emilie and Amelie. That was it. Gabriel had a son and it was not with her, it was with one of those two models. She made herself come over the pain from not having her crush returned, she was a grown woman, a professional, she could move on, she had to move on. First, she checked more facts and the quick search revealed the basics, Gabriel married Emilie, fifteen years ago after they returned from Tibet, and soon they got a son they named Adrien. So she was right. Adrien was a model for his father's company. Great, but where was she in all that?
Why was she doing all this for Gabriel if she was not his wife? Was she his mistress? Was she that stupid? She looked at her schedule again. She had no free time, she had no time for herself. She checked her diary notes, she was either working for Gabriel or supporting Hawk Moth, which meant working for Gabriel again. Then she noticed several notes she started making months ago. Apparently when she transformed into Mayura it took a toll on her health. And she continued doing that, she kept transforming and going into fights and created monsters although it made her feel dizzy and cough. But then Gabriel first told her not to use it and took the miraculous away from her and then she did use it and she snatched a tablet from a former guardian (she made a mental note to study what was a guardian) and Gabriel fixed her miraculous and she was able to use it without further deterioration of her health.
But even reading about her health made her feel dizzy and she started to cough.
She noticed someone had left food for her. She took the tray and observed the meal she was given. Gabriel was always so strict with his meals, she remembered how he insisted he would never eat anything out of his prescribed schedule. And he encouraged (read it as demanded) his staff to do the same. But she was hungry, the meal looked edible, to her starved body it looked delicious, so she dug in and contemplated while she ate.
It did not make sense. Why was she using the miraculous and why was she helping Gabriel as Hawk Moth? She decided to read her diary and took the tablet again.
Her latest entries stated that she was with Gabriel in Tibet alone, they were going to some temple to retrieve any magical objects they could get their hands on. Great. So it was not a photo shoot. And she was alone with Gabriel. She scrolled the entries up to fifteen years ago. She had a lot of reading to do.