To Butterfly: Thanks!
To StarDaPanda225: I don't see Gorilla as being mute so much as "tightlipped." He can speak, but he chooses not to, and people can figure out what he means just from a look. For example, he gives Dorreen The Look™, and she knows to get herself inside that barrette! I didn't exactly have Koh the Face-Stealer in mind for the Maw, but I suppose I can see it – though Koh is more centipede-like than the Maw is. The Maw is a giant black… maw!
Staring up into the enormous black monstrosity looming over them atop the mountain which had once housed the Asian Miraculous Temple, almost as tall as a mountain itself, Felix Graham de Vanily finally questioned the wisdom of insisting on joining Adrien and Marinette for this trip.
The Maw's enormous clenched fists bounce off the shimmery white barrier above them again and again as it roared its displeasure. Cat Noir and Goosilla leapt across the chasm through which the Maw had appeared, landed on either side of it, and struck it in the back of both legs simultaneously. Losing interest in Felix and the others temporarily, it turned toward Cat Noir, raising its foot and bringing it down on top of him. Cat Noir dove away from its foot with seconds to spare, his tail just barely slipping out of the way in time.
For as much as Felix was a competent fighter, having won several martial arts tournaments over the years, he could freely acknowledge that he was woefully out of his depth against this particular opponent. Cat Noir dodged and sidestepped around every one of the Maw's attacks, his years of experience with the miraculous evident in his movements, despite the level of effort and exertion displayed in his face. As he watched, Felix realized he had no idea how he would even consider attempting to fight something like this. The Maw swept an arm as thick as a tree trunk through the space that his cousin had occupied seconds before, and Cat Noir propelled himself into the air on the end of his staff and leapt over the arm backward in a move Felix recognized from the last Olympics. He landed on his back, rolled over to his feet in the same motion, extended his staff, and smacked the Maw across the backs of both legs, the sound of the blow a sonic boom that shook the mountains surrounding them.
For all the good it had done, Cat Noir might as well have hit a giant sequoia with a Twizzler.
The Maw turned back to where Felix huddled with Fu and Ladybug, behind whatever invisible, magical barrier Pedro had generated. And yet again the Maw brought both boulder-sized black fists down on the barrier, which shimmered white where it was struck. Pedro gasped and shuddered, his face contorted into a grimace, the veins of his forehead bulging out and beads of sweat forming above his eyes from the strain of whatever he was doing. But for that barrier, it didn't take much imagination for Felix to visualize what would have happened to him had one of those fists struck home.
Running through his judo forms Felix was pretty sure he didn't have anything in his arsenal for fighting what seemed to be a force of nature! He had watched – both up close and from a distance – as Ladybug and Cat Noir fought every Akuma that Uncle Gabriel had thrown at them for two years. He had refreshed himself on the heroes by reading the Ladyblog late into the night after finding out their identities, and watched all their highlights. They had fought forces of nature before! But if fencing-champion-Adrien, fueled by a miraculous, capable of defeating miraculous users, sorcerers, weather manipulators, sirens, and everything in between, couldn't make so much as a dent on this thing, what on earth could he do? His eyes widened as the Maw struck their barrier again and Pedro let out an involuntary grunt. Felix didn't belong here! He didn't have a miraculous, or magic, or whatever it was that Pedro was doing… All he had was his wits, and this thing didn't seem like the kind of adversary that could be outwitted!
"This isn't doing anything," Felix groaned, glaring at Ladybug. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of tactical genius? The brains behind Adrien's 'brawn'?"
"Don't even think of insulting him!" Ladybug retorted, snapping out of her reverie and fixing Felix with a withering glare, poking him hard in the chest. "If it weren't for him, we'd all be dead probably! I would be dead definitely!"
"Fine," Felix shouted back. "But still, you're goddam superheroes! You're supposed to handle these things! And between the two of you, you're the one with the plans all the time! So, make with the planning already, woman!"
"I don't see you giving any brilliant ideas!" she ground out, raising her clenched fist in front of his face. Felix took a hesitant step back, eyes widening involuntarily in fear. Sweet and innocent Marinette may present herself as to the world, but this girl hid a fiery personality – whether in or out of her miraculous suit. Felix suddenly wondered if this was what Hawk Moth had felt the moment he was finally defeated. Ladybug leaned in closer, her eyes wide in near-hysterics. "This thing cut through my suit! It ripped my yo-yo out of my hands like it was nothing! Do you have any idea how few things can actually do that!? The suit can't be cut by anything except miraculous weapons! The yo-yo is basically impervious to all but other miraculous weapons! And this thing still somehow affected them!" She turned on Fu, fire burning in her eyes. "Did those old texts you found say anything about how we're supposed to fight this monster?"
"Unfortunately, that section of the text was missing," Fu explained, a troubled look in his eyes.
"Of course it was missing," Felix scoffed, rubbing his forehead. "Because heaven help us all if we could have actually known what the bloody hell we were supposed to do here!" As he watched, Goosilla rubbed the Maw's legs with his feather duster moments before Cat Noir vaulted feet-first into the Maw's back. The Maw stumbled forward off balance and planted one enormous fist on the ground meters in front of the mystical barrier, blackness oozing from its eyes as it stared at the four hiding behind it.
"The only symbol we could make out was the old Atlantean symbol for 'air,'" Fu told them, not taking his eyes off the Maw.
The Maw brought its fists down on the barrier yet again, eliciting a rumble from the ground beneath them. Felix and Ladybug both stumbled, Felix dropping to one knee. Pedro let out a gasp as he fell forward and the barrier dropped, the Maw's fist passing through the space the barrier had previously occupied. As the Maw loomed over them, Pedro pulled something from the sleeve of his robes and threw it desperately at the Maw's hand. The grey object struck the monster's fist and detonated in a clap of white light and thunder. The Maw stumbled backward, one of its talons missing, and Cat Noir interposed himself between the Maw and the others, pushing it back with repeated overhand two-handed blows to its body from his staff. Goosilla joined him, still rubbing the Maw's legs with his feather duster, weaving to either side to avoid the black tarlike substance oozing from the place where the Maw's missing talon should have been. Where the substance struck the ground, it hissed and burned.
Felix stared at Pedro slack-jawed. "What the deuce was that?" he demanded.
Pedro looked up in surprise even as he took a breath and clenched his fist around the stone in his hand once more. "It was just normal chi-putty," he wheezed. "The Dark Acolytes use it to immobilize Miraculous users. But… it's never had that effect on a miraculous user!"
Felix looked back down at Pedro to see that the symbol etched into the stone in his palm was glowing. Felix furrowed his brows in concentration. "What is this barrier thing?" he asked, waving a hand vaguely through the space which the invisible barrier occupied. "How does it work?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but it works on a variation of a Dark Acolyte technique," explained Pedro tersely, between quick, deep breaths. His breathing slowed and he continued, "It's the symbol: it transforms this stone into a very specific chi conduit. I channel my chi through this stone, and the stone produces a very specific ward shield. I've never seen one like this before, but as far as I can tell, this shield is specifically designed to work against the Maw."
Ladybug's jaw dropped. "'Chi'," she repeated. Her eyes lit up in sudden realization. "It's not 'air'! The only other thing that affects miraculous weapons and users is the Dark Acolytes' stuff! Which is fueled by chi! That's the piece we're missing!"
Outside the barrier, Goosilla's ability had finally had some effect on the Maw, which stumbled away from him in the direction of the barn, its legs shying away from Goosilla's repeated tickling.
Felix met Ladybug's eyes. "So we're fighting something resistant to miraculous, and the only thing that has harmed it yet is one of Pedro's specialized anti-miraculous weapons." His eyes drifted to the sheathed sword Pedro wore across his back. He smirked. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Ladybug?"
AN: The Chinese symbol "Qi" literally means "air" and figuratively refers to what we think of as "chi" (life energy, life force, etc.).
The Goose Miraculous ability is "Hilarity" and it makes the target laugh… as if the image of Gorilla in an indigo-and-orange suit waving around a feather duster wasn't silly enough.