Kagami walked into the apartment, noticing how… spartan it was. Ladybug was already starting to shiver as they maneuvered her to the bathroom. "I… I'm okay," she said. "Just let me…"

"You are not okay." Kagami said. "You can barely stand up. One of us will stay with you."

"My—"

"Won't help you if you're in need of assistance," Kagami said. "I will stay with you, nobody else."

"We've got Chat," Rena said, as they moved him into what looked to be a empty bedroom.

"I should have found a better way," he murmured. His ring beeped, a last warning.

"You did fine," she told him. "Just sit down and feed your kwami and we'll be fine. We can talk about this." Whatever else she might have said was lost as Kagami closed the door to the bathroom.

Kagami waited, and Ladybug didn't say a thing, just sitting on the toilet, shivering. That convinced her more than anything else. Ladybug wouldn't have allowed her to stay if she was… Okay. There was a shimmer and moments later…

Marinette? Marinette is Ladybug!? For a moment, she wanted to say something, but Marinette groaned and fell to the side. Kagami grabbed her. She's freezing!

"Put her in the shower!" a flying creature said.

"Tikki?"

"Yes. I took most of the shock but a warm shower should help her."

Kagami nodded, and turned the little shower on, waiting until the water was warm before she put Marinette into it.

"Why was she harmed?" Kagami asked.

"Most miraculous cures she has unleashed were to reverse the acts of Akumas. That's easy." Tikki was spinning around Marinette's body. Marinette had her head down, barely noticing them. "Healing other damage, especially damage with intent, can be harder. It's something older Ladybugs are better at." Tikki paused. "But we may be able to…" Her face fell.

"What?"

"Master Fu's book. I think Marinette kept a copy on her phone, but she doesn't know the code."

"Ah." Marinette shivered. "I do have the pictures…"

Suddenly, Tikki looked at her. "But even with that, pushing yourself beyond your age can be dangerous."

"I have some cookies in my purse…" Marinette said. "Tikki, you can…"

"No. You will stay like this." The Kwami put her hands on her hips. "You have a chance to rest and you will need it."

"But the others…"

"Hawkmoth is no more," Kagami said. "And by sending us to her apartment, Skitter has no doubt revealed her real identity. Besides," she smiled. "Marinette. We're six new people in a city, how hard would it be… and I think we will need to be able to depend on each other."

"You will." Tikki paused. "You said how hard it has been, at home."

"Yes, but…" Marinette was starting to slur her words.

"Is she?"

"She is tired and the heat of the shower is helping to relax her so she can't fight it." The kwami looked up at Kagami and smiled. "I may have forgotten to mention that bit, because my Ladybugs are never good at standing still."

"Ah." A few minutes later, and Kagami had Marinette out of the shower, helping the smaller girl undress. There were towels she used to dry her off, but nothing for her clothes.

I hope we have a laundry. Kagami shook her head. Right now, nobody would be coming into the attached bedroom. She helped Marinette to the bed, the girl drowsily protesting, before Kagami lay her form down, pulling the covers over her. Marinette shivered and pulled them tight before she relaxed with a sigh.

"I will stay with her." Tikki smiled. "Thank you. You are a true dragon."

Kagami blushed. "Thank you."

When she walked into the small living room, the others, save for Chat were sitting. "Chat and his Kwami are talking," Carapace said. "He's not happy."

"Do you blame him?" That came, surprisingly, from Chloe. "Let him rest. Now what do we do?"

Kagami looked at them, then nodded. "I know what I will do. Open Sky."

Chloe stared at Kagami. "You?"

"Me."

"I—"

"Hold on," Rena said. "You expect us all to show off our identities."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I…" Kagami frowned. "I think it would be good for Ladybug. I can't tell you her identity, but if we all…"

There was a knock at the door.

"Did—"

"It's Skitter. Is everyone masked?"

"Kagami, go—"

"No." She stared at the door. "Of everyone in this world, Skitter is the only one we know. Skitter has proven good at her word—and what would you do? Hide in an apartment whenever we're not transformed? We have no public identities here, and we would need help to make them."

"I—You," Rena said. "You first. I want to wait until…"

"I understand," Kagami said. "You may come in."

Skitter walked in and then stopped, still wearing the Akuma's uniform. "Didn't you he—"

"I did," Kagami said.

"Ah." Skitter didn't move. "If it hadn't been for you, I never would have returned and you didn't have to come here. Just understand, that unmasking… is a pretty big deal. But my name is Taylor Hebert." There was a pause and suddenly Skitter looked less menacing and more nervous. "But I can't exactly unmask because…How do we get rid of the Akuma if it's friendly?"

"Everything is going to hell in a handbasket," James Tagg muttered as they watched the replay. "We could have had a god-damned war break out."

"Instead, we have the Protectorate fracturing." Chevalier shook his head. "Weld agreed to stay for a few days, to get his successor up to speed but he's gone. So are most of the other Case 53s, and of course the Triumvirate and the head of the PRT, at least once the paperwork is set up. And as of a few hours ago, we have a portal leading to a new world, all nicely under the control of the Undersiders, one of which is currently upgraded to potential Class-S threat, and oh, is friend with a band of extra-dimensional heroes with powers that have our thinkers screaming bullshit."

"We need to regain control," Tagg said. He gestured to the paper. "There are already gangs all over the US trying to repeat the Undersider's feats."

"Kidnapping PRT Directors?"

"Directly facing off against the authorities, not as criminals, but as rival powers," Tagg muttered. "Two attacks in California, another one in Utah—this is only going to get worse with the damage to the PRT and Protectorate. If it gets too bad…" Collapse. The only reason rural towns were still around at all was that you knew that the Protectorate would keep would be warlords down and rural towns were less likely to be attacked by Endbringers or other Class S threats. But if the government got any more stretched…

Catastrophe.

"Maybe we should see if we can get some Cauldron Vials," Miss Militia said.

"Not funny," Tagg growled. He looked over at the hero. Miss Militia looked exhausted and angry.

There was a lot of that going around.

"We can't directly attack them—it would be a disaster on every level, and I'm not even getting into the danger of triggering another Class-S threat," Rennick said.

"We can't let them continue—a direct attack on the PRT has to be answered." Tagg gestured. "The hell of it is, as things go? They're not that bad. They don't have rape farms, they're not Nazi's, they're not kidnapping parahumans to brainwash and induct into their cult…" He blew out air in an angry motion. "But they're teens, and they did the one fucking thing that all those other groups were smart enough not to do, issue a direct, practically formal declaration to the government that they run things here, not us."

"Well, let's not add to the problem," a garishly dressed man said as he walked in the door. "Glenn Chambers, and everyone here should know me. Sorry I'm late, but I was just looking at the final casts for our new "Weld strangling Alexandria" figures. "

"Well, I can understand your pain," Tagg said. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Keeping you from making a huge mistake. This isn't a physical fight." Glenn sat down, puffing. "Every bit of leaked footage makes Skitter look like a hero or a horsewoman of the Apocalypse. Neither makes a fight look good. Not to mention the orders that I expect you've received about playing very nice with our offworld heroes, who are friends with Skitter." He tossed down some papers with printed helmet imagery of Rena Rouge and Ladybug. "I couldn't have done better myself. But they're friends with Skitter, which means we have a problem."

"And you'll… What, advertise them into compliance?" Tagg asked.

"No. Like you said, they're teens and from what I know—"

"And what do you know?" Tagg asked. "I'm not aware of your Clearance—"

"Higher than yours, at least as psychological profiles go. A little bit less than the Chief Director," Glenn said. "I have to know how best to present a mass of super powered, often unstable individuals, while reassuring the world that we have everything under control and they can go to the bank instead of hiding their money under their bed so some powered crazy can't steal it." He gestured at Miss Militia. "And not everyone is as stable as Miss Militia is."

He paused for a moment, then gestured at the screen showing the images of the Undersiders.

"They've confronted the PRT," Glenn said. "But they want to protect this city and they're doing it in a… Well, let's be honest, between the Nine, Leviathan, Bakuda and the Tooth Fairy, they've been doing as well as they can in a city at war. You want to bring them down, or bring them under control. I want that too." Then he smiled. "But the way to do that isn't to start another war, it's to end the war, and move to a battlefield they're not ready for. If you use force against them, they'll escalate and no matter who wins, the Protectorate and PRT lose. They're defining things by who they can beat. It's nice, it's easy, it doesn't give you problems like how to set up the mail service again, which is why they're cooperating with city services. But the longer that goes on, the more the residents are going to ask why are they listening to teenaged warlords?"

Tagg leaned back. "What do you want us to do?"

"Give them an exit ramp. A way to gracefully back down, with honor served on all sides. Hell, we've done it for people much worse than they are. We gather information, and make certain we never back them into a corner."

"We're on a time limit," Tagg said. "The rest of the nation won't—"

"The rest of the nation isn't Brockton Bay," Chevalier said. "Forgive me Director, but the incidents you mentioned were quickly smashed. And to be blunt, those groups didn't benefit from someone like Coil."

"Fine," Tagg said, blowing air out through his nose. "What's your first suggestion?"

"My first? We're going to negotiate and introduce Tattletale and her control over the portal to a new term that is harder to punch out than the biggest brute…" Glenn smiled. "Eminent Domain."

"You've done well." The PRT secretary didn't flinch at the words. Or that hand that lightly caressed his face. "Now, go home, turn off your oven's pilot lights and turn the gas on full. Then go to sleep." Valefor stared at the little image on his phone. A battle, a battle ending in a spray of butterflies that changed everything.

They would use her against the gods. But if the families had her, if her friends were anything like she was, while also being ignorant about the world…

"What are we doing to do?" Eligos asked.

Valefor smiled. "Get in contact with Mama. Think maybe it's time for her to visit, get some new members for the family." He stared at the one image of the girl swinging with a yoyo. "Mama will love them."