To Butterfly: The Sword isn't the first example in the "Mind Games"-verse of technology incorporating/channeling miraculous magic. And who said the Sword was intended as an anti-miraculous weapon? Was that person actually a reliable source? :D

The first sensation Emilie felt was that of an oppressive weight covering her entire body. Everything felt sluggish. And yet, her body was floating, almost as though someone had submerged her in water. Her arms and legs refused to respond to any commands. And she was cold – so cold. A blinding light was burning through her closed eyelids. She felt hands on her forehead, and there was a light pressure on her nose.

The last thing she remembered was running away from the mysterious black beast with Gabriel. The beast had struck her, and she had known no more.

She had to open her eyes. She had to know where she was, that Gabriel was safe. With a herculean effort she forced her eyes open and found herself staring up into an all-too-familiar blue face with enormous red eyes. The fearful look on the Kwami's face dissolved instantly into rapturous joy as Duusu hugged her nose and squealed, "Miss Emilie!"

"D–Duusu?" she whispered hoarsely. Her hands would not respond to her command to reach up and touch the Kwami. She started to cough weakly, and a straw was shoved into her mouth. She drew in a sip of cool water and swished it around before swallowing and taking another long gulp. "What happened? Where's Gabriel?"

The hands on her forehead were withdrawn and an unfamiliar voice said, "That is a difficult question to answer, Madame, and best saved for a later time."

Emilie furrowed her brows in suspicion and looked past Duusu to see two strange men leaning over her on either side of her head, slowly backing away from her. One was a smallish Chinese man with a mustache and pointed beard, his hair almost more grey than black. The other was a younger man with black hair and a Latin look to his face. She felt a stab of fear at the close proximity of these strangers and almost transformed to summon a sentimonster protector. But then she reached out to them empathically and sensed… fear and concern. Why were these strangers so worried about her?

Finally she became aware of the chamber in which she reclined. She lay on a soft pad inside a cylindrical container lined with gold. She was fully dressed, but someone had placed a blanket over her against the chill in the air. The glass cover of the chamber was open.

In a semicircle around the chamber were another five figures, only two of whom she could say she recognized. One was their bodyguard, the man Adrien had dubbed "the Gorilla" at their first meeting for his size, whose hair was streaked with more grey than she remembered before their trip to Tibet. And the other looked almost identical to Adrien though older. And yet he carried himself differently. But how he could have aged so greatly was beyond her understanding.

The last three figures were clearly miraculous users, looking as though they had stepped right out of the pages of her Grimoire. One was a young woman with the Butterfly Miraculous pinned to the center of her light purple dress and a white butterfly perched on her finger. How had this stranger gotten her hands on the miraculous that Emilie was charged to guard? A flash of confusion and anger flickered through her heart, and the Butterfly girl's eyes narrowed. Emilie exhaled in embarrassment. She gave the girl a sheepish smile, and felt a wave of relief from her in return.

The last two she recognized immediately from the pictures of their predecessors: the Ladybug and the Cat Noir. Strange: Nana Beth's journal recorded that the two primary miraculous had been lost along with the others in the destruction of their temple. How had these miraculous survived the temple's destruction? What did it mean for them to have been recovered after so much time? She took a closer look at the Cat and furrowed her brows in confusion. Something in the wild, untamed hair stirred a long-buried memory.

"It worked," whispered Cat Noir. Ladybug wrapped her arm around him in a hug, and Emilie sensed an overwhelming surge of emotions from them: relief and joy from him; love and affection from her, mingled with a slight twinge of anxiety. "Thank you, Master Fu," he told the short Chinese man. "What will you do now?"

The two men who had had been near the chamber exchanged a look – Emilie felt a sense of mingled affirmation and resignation from both of them – before Master Fu nodded and replied, "I think Pedro and I ought to return to the Temple today to ensure that the Maw remains imprisoned. Miraculous Ladybug returned it to its prison and secured it inside, but we must bolster the wards with meditation before it regains its strength."

"Will you be gone a long time?" asked Ladybug worriedly.

Master Fu shook his head and smiled. "I believe it is safe for Pegasus to portal us directly to the Temple plateau and back, now that the mosaic is repaired. We will be able to come and go at will."

"What is going on?" Emilie finally managed, her eyes darting back and forth between the seven people arrayed in front of her. "Where am I? Who are you? And why is Felix here when Adrien is not?"

Felix let out a laugh. "You always could tell us apart, Tante Emilie," he observed. "You and mother…"

Emilie smiled. "Years of practice, dear," she told him. "But you look so much older."

Ladybug jumped forward as Emilie tried to push herself forward to step out of the chamber. "Here, let me help you, Mme Agreste," she said nervously, taking Emilie's hand and guiding her foot to a small stepstool placed right in front of the chamber. "We really should have thought about this before we woke you up. But we were so worried that it wouldn't work, even after everything we went through – finding the rings, finding the temple, fighting the Maw, fixing the miraculous, re-imprisoning the Maw – Master Fu had no idea what would happen, or if the repaired miraculous would do anything for you, or–" Emilie stumbled on the stepstool, and Ladybug gasped and swept her up into her arms bridal-style. Emilie sensed the waves of anxiety pouring off the girl. "I am so sorry! I'm making such a fool of myself already!"

The Butterfly girl stepped forward and squeezed Ladybug's shoulder gently, even as Ladybug set Emilie in a wheelchair beside the chamber.

Felix turned to Cat Noir and whispered, "When Chloe said your girl could spiral with the best of them, I really didn't believe her."

Cat Noir gave Felix an unimpressed look even as he moved to stand next to Ladybug, placing a hand on her shoulder protectively. "In her position, would you do any better?"

Ladybug turned away from Emilie and scoffed at Felix. "Be nice, or I'll rethink our decision to give you a miraculous!"

Felix stared at her blankly. "What?"

"Felix Graham de Vanily," Ladybug announced, stepping in front of him and producing a small black box, "this is the Miraculous of the Dog. Will you promise to use it for good?"

Felix shrugged. "Sure."

"It's the Miraculous of Loyalty," Ladybug explained, smirking. "We figured maybe Barkk could help you in that area…"

Emilie found a water glass being placed into her hand by the Butterfly girl, along with a painkiller. She swallowed mechanically, still overwhelmed by everything happening around her. Duusu had taken up his accustomed position on her shoulder, his tail fan trailing down her shoulder blade. He nuzzled her neck, and she absently stroked his head with one finger. She looked up to find Cat Noir looking down at her, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. She could sense the relief he had felt moments before shifting to disbelief mingled with hope.

Cat Noir knelt in front of her. "Mother?" he whispered, reaching one hand toward her face.

Emilie's jaw dropped. "Wait… Adrien!?" She grabbed him and pulled him into a tight embrace, even as his transformation evaporated. She held him tightly as he sobbed into her shoulder and clutched her like a lifeline. When his tears had subsided, she held him back and gasped. "You're–you're so grown up!" She ran a hand through his longer-than-she-remembered hair and examined his face, which had sharpened. She could see strong, toned muscles under his t-shirt – no more child modeling for him. "You've gotten so big! What are they feeding you?"

Adrien rolled his eyes. "I'm seventeen, Mother," he told her.

Her eyes widened in shock. Adrien seemed to realize his mistake at once and paled; Ladybug had de-transformed and fallen to her knees next to them in an instant. "Seventeen?" Emilie gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "But… you had only just turned thirteen when we left!"

Adrien placed his hand on Emilie's, and the Ladybug girl put her hand over both of theirs. Emilie glanced down to see a pretty ring – a diamond set between a ruby and an onyx – on her finger and looked up at Adrien in surprise. He squeezed her hand and explained, as slowly and calmly as he could, "Mother… you were in a coma for four years. So much has happened in that time, but now probably isn't the best time to explain it all. But I really want you to meet Marinette." She felt a swell of affection from him as he spoke her name, matched by Marinette's own affection. Adrien blushed. "She's my fiancée."

Emilie smiled warmly. There would be time to get to know the girl who had clearly captured her son's heart later. But for now… "It is wonderful to meet you, Marinette."

AN: This concludes "A Miraculous Adventure in Tibet." However, I have three one-shot anthologies to start, as well as the next multi-chapter story, "It Came from Outer Space." This afternoon I'm going to publish the first installment of "The Heroes of Paris: Patrol Logs," a new weekly anthology with two heroes going on patrol together. Friday I will publish the first one-shot in "The Life and Times of the Heroes of Europe." And tomorrow I will publish the first chapter in a one-shot anthology focused on Emilie, titled "The Woman out of the Fridge":

A "Mind Games"-verse Anthology: Emilie Agreste spent four years in a coma, but the world kept going without her. She slept through her son's teen years and her husband's crimes. Now she is awake, but so much has changed: her husband in prison, her son engaged. What is her place in this new world, now that she's out of the fridge?