Nobody was following me as I moved through the building, sending my insects to ensure I'm alone. I set up some black widows in an empty room and got some of the wasps to start laying more eggs. The city was clean—not as many insects as I expect.

I'd have to change that. I'd find other places in the city where I can set up breeding centers.

Which meant that I needed to be able to walk around in public.

I had got a solution for that. Even the best city had a criminal underworld. I kept to the alleys and sent my bugs out. It didn't take me long to find a mugger bracing a young woman up against the wall.

"Don't give me that—you have more money!" he snarled. In English. The woman must be a tourist.

It was then that I formed a bug clone behind him. Her eyes went wide, rolled up in their sockets and she passed out.

"You little-"

Stop.

He turned and looked at me, his mouth open to threaten me. Then it got bigger as his knife fell from nerveless hands. I raised my "hand" and he stared at the spiders dangling from it and the note they were holding. The spiders were being held aloft by some of my bees, the strands connected to the insects, but he couldn't see that. In unison, the spiders raised their forelegs.

There's a woman's store a block away. Go there. Buy the following clothes. I flicked my "hand" and a dozen spiders landed him, burrowing under his clothes. He whimpered as he reached down for the note. Don't piss yourself. If you do what I say, you won't be hurt. Disobey… Another whimper. When you come back, give me all of your money you have left. You can leave the city or turn yourself in after that. Your choice.

He scrambled off, already failing to follow one of my orders. I hoped nobody noticed the scent of urine. Moment's later, he was back, putting down a bag of clothes in front of me and practically throwing the wallet down. Then he was gone, and I came out of the hiding place I'd secured.

The clothes were high quality, my size, and it didn't take long for me to put them on. The grime from the fight was a bit harder, but now that I had cash—a fair amount in fact—I could find myself a cheap hostel. I kept some of my bugs watching the woman, but she was gradually waking up.

Fine. I don't need to do anything. Now to find a place to hide, and then find out what the hell is going on.

The nurse didn't pause when Chat came in holding Ladybug. She tossed the other students out, closed the door. "Akuma?"

"I don't know!" Chat said. "It wasn't like any Akuma we've seen—"

"What happened to her face?" Ladybug was starting to wheeze, her face puffing up.

"The akuma used bugs, bees…"

"Oh. Shit." The nurse ran to a cabinet, pulling out an injector. "She's either allergic or had an overdose. We have to get her to the hospital!" She jammed the injector into the shuddering girl's body, and started trying to extract the remains of the Akuma's attack from her mouth. Chat held her mouth open, but looked up at the Nurse.

"We can't. The Akuma—"

"An allergic reaction is life threatening, Chat Noir. We have to get…"

"Mr…" Ladybug coughed, the crushed remnants of spiders, moths, and bees, coming out of her mouth. She gripped her yo-yo, and then finally spoke again. "Miraculous—ladybug!"

The throw was more like a weak toss, but the spray of ladybugs appeared, this time only covering their master. Moments later, Ladybug looked… normal, even if her face was pale. "Chat…" She said, getting off the gurney and looking at herself. Her legs went out from under her and Chat barely got her before she hit the ground.

"Milady! I thought the cure would—"

"I'll leave the office and lock the door," the nurse said.

Moments later, they were alone, Ladybug's earrings starting their countdown. "I'm sorry, Chat," she said. "I'm just… shook up."

"What… what was that?" Chat finally asked.

"I…" Ladybug coughed. "I don't know. It wasn't… Like an Akuma. I looked into its eyes and there wasn't… any emotion there." She put her hands around her body. "I've never felt anything like it."

"We'll get it."

"I hope so," Ladybug said. "But we'll need to get filter masks."

"Milady?"

"The bugs got me when I tried to call for my lucky charm. We have to talk to use our abilities and if we open our mouths…"

"Yeah. I have some."

"So do I." The earrings beeped again. "Let's go," she said. "We have to leave the school before I detransform."

Moments later, Chat watched as Ladybug swung away. He found a nook on a roof and detransformed himself.

"Hey Plagg." Chat said. "Cheese later, but I gotta question for you. Is there a way to cataclysm a bunch of little things at once?"

Finding a place to eat had been easy and Paris had a million Internet cafes that catered to clueless American tourists and students. As I sat at one, I marveled at how different this world was. No gangs. No places where buildings had been reduced to rubble by brawling parahumans. No Endbringer shelters.

If anything, Paris seemed to be known as one of the only cities where parahumans were a thing.

And the browser showed me just what the city was facing. Akumas, people who were possessed by Hawkmoth. Some kind of very powerful Trump/Master. There was a lot of information, including information on how to avoid being "akumaized."

He'd have to be powerful, because his minions were nightmares. I called up a video of "Darkblade," a person filming a rolling wall of darkness that converted everyone—everyone into knights, complete with armor and weapons and utterly at his service.

Paris had millions of people in it. No other parahumans but…

Even if it only impacts regular people, that's a Class S all by itself. If it could control parahumans…

Alexandria, Eidolon, Lung… That was an endbringer level threat right there, and he wasn't the only one.

The only weakness was that the Akumas seemed to keep their own irrational drives-Hawkmoth couldn't puppet them, even if he could influence them. They also all had some object where the symbol of his power, the butterfly stayed. Break it, and they lost their power and Ladybug had some trump ability to purify it—and repair the damage done.

All the damage.

I leaned back. I was actually trembling. The power of Hawkmoth—with a power like that we could fight off the Endbringers—maybe even forestall Dinah's prediction of the end of the world. Maybe that's why I was here…

With the Ladybug Miraculous, we could restore the damage of Endbringer assaults…

With Chat Noir's cataclysm, we might be able to kill the Endbringers.

And they all seemed to be associated with some device or tool, these Miraculouses, or at least that was everyone's guess given how often the Akuma stomped around demanding that Ladybug and Chat Noir "give" them their miraculouses. Given that the other parahumans had appeared later, and were working with the older ones, I assumed that they were probably also using some object.

And I'd attacked Ladybug.

Damn. It.

I had to find a way to get in contact with her, but she'd probably be hostile. And given their powers, I couldn't risk getting into a fight on their terms. Nobody knew how to contact Hawkmoth, and he didn't have any real pattern to his Akuma's save being more common around a high school. If tension and anger were a route to being akumaized that made sense. More importantly, this wasn't the Bay, where E88 and ABB gangers could stroll around Winslow on recruiting gigs. The police here might not be able to handle Hawkmoth, but they'd probably be very aware of people lurking around or investigating a high school. Better hold that for the last resort.

But I had another option…

"Hey everyone! This is Alya with the Ladyblog!" The girl on the screen was smiling. "And I have some news! Ladybug and Chat Noir were seen coming to our very own school. They'd fought a monster that was a different type of Akuma, but as usual, they won! Just in case you were worried, here's a picture of them patrolling Paris the night after!" And true to her word, there they were.

PR. She's their PR woman. I quickly went through her blog and found that she had interviewed Ladybug. It was a choice between her and the only public hero—a girl named Chloe, but I decided on Alya. She wasn't a hero, and so I wouldn't be risking a fight, and better yet, if she contacted Ladybug—well, I would know. Even better, her blog was bilingual, both written and spoken. She spoke English. Fluently.

Perfect.

Alya sighed in bed, turning over, thinking of tomorrow. Her and Nino were going to have a date and then see if Marinette was over that unexpected flu that had forced her to leave school. In fact she could…

"Alya Césaire." She blinked. The voice wasn't her mother, and why would her mother use both of her names. It sounded buzzing and… She opened her eyes, looking out into the room, reaching out with one hand to grab her glasses while she turned the lights on with another. There seemed to be…

Then the lights came on, and Alya squeaked in horror, pushing herself up against the headboard.

The… thing was roughly human sized and shaped, but was… it was made of bugs. Wasps, bees, flies, all flew together in formation, and when it spoke it was in an eerie chorus of buzzing sounds that somehow came together to make words.

Alya had seen Akuma. She'd fought Akumas. This wasn't like any Akuma she'd ever seen before.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

"Like you weren't here to hurt Ladybug?" She snapped.

"So you do have a way to contact her." The buzzing grew slightly louder.

Oh no. "If you try and take me hostage, Ladybug and Chat Noir—"

"I'm not. You're all safe. Your sisters are asleep, and your mother and father are watching TV. I won't hurt any of them. I simply want to pass a message. Set up a meeting."

"So Hawkmoth can set a trap?" Alya said, shivering. It knew where her parents were. Where her sisters were. Had that been a threat? What if she said no?

"No. I am not an Akuma. I'm from somewhere else. But I'd like to apologize to Ladybug. She caught me by surprise. We may have a common enemy—but I need to talk to her. Before things escalate."

"What if I don't?"

"Then I'll have to contact her some other way. Things might go wrong. People could get hurt or killed. I wouldn't want that."

Alya felt herself get colder. Akuma's ranted. Akuma's raved. But this… Thing wasn't. It was talking like they were discussing the weather. And it wouldn't "want" to hurt or kill people. But it didn't say it wouldn't, and suddenly Alya had a terrible feeling that it had killed. That it would kill.

"How could I tell you if I did get in touch."

"Put a message up for Lustrum about the meeting on your comment section. I'll leave a burner phone at a public place for them to pick up. No face to face. No worries about betrayal."

"I—I'll tell them, but nothing else." Alya said. She bit her lip, fighting the tremble in her voice. "Now get out of my house!"

"Very well." And then the form dissolved, streams of bugs flying out her window, into the vents. Alya stayed in bed, shivering, until she was certain it was gone. Then she was leaping out, running to her computer, frantically booting it up and sending an emergency message to Ladybug.

On the other side of the street, I watched through a cluster of bugs hiding in the vent. Alya evidently thought that I had left when my body had. Soon I had her password, and watched as she sent a message to Ladybug's private email. It was in French, but that's what Google translate was for.

Ladybug! The crazy akuma that almost killed you was in my house, only I don't think it's an akuma. It wants to meet you, but I don't trust it. Maybe Nino and I could get our tools and come for backup?

There was no answer, which indicated that Ladybug didn't have a big organization with her. But even more interesting…

They had a number of parahumans, but two, Rena Rouge and Carapace had appeared after Queen Bee—or Chloe. Alya was associated, and asked if she could come for back up, after she got something.

And parahumans needed their miraculouses.

So. Now, as soon as I found out who Nino was, I'd probably know the civilian identities of Rena Rouge and Carapace.

Good.