Author's Note: This story is dedicated to the PS5 I still don't own.

Hawkmoth's Ultimate Quest for a PS5

It was a beautiful day in the city of Paris. The sun shined down on the French capital as countless citizens went about their lives. As a new day dawned, thousands tuned in to watch reporter Nadja Chamack on television.

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news!" Chamack announced. "It's a wonderful day for gamers as Sony's Playstation 5 finally hits stores! According to studies, it's already becoming the top selling console and stores are already running out!"

Resting atop a highly-expensive sofa, a middle-aged hand angrily clenched a glass of seven-year-old Sauvignon Blanc. Gabriel Agreste, fashion designer extraordinaire, was downright grumpy. He gritted his teeth and watched as PS5 sales skyrocketed off the charts. "Unbelievable," he grumbled. "Unacceptable." He held up a copy of E.T. the Extraterrestrial for the Atari console. "UNPLAYABLE!" he yelled and flung the cassette at the TV.

The ruckus caused the doors to open behind him as a worried woman entered. "Mr. Agreste?" she inquired. "Are you alright?"

"No, Nathalie." Gabriel murmured. "The PS5 is selling out everywhere. I'll never get my hands on one. I'll never feel its smooth, delicate interface. Glimpse its stunning, 4K visuals and revel in its backwards compatibility."

"I didn't know you wanted a PS5, sir." Nathalie admitted.

Gabriel's eyes widened and he awkwardly cleared his throat. "Oh. It's...not for me. It's for Adrien." Nathalie raised a suspicious brow as he continued. "Adrien deserves the best that the gaming world has to offer. Plus, once he has the Playstation 5, he'll never want to go back to school and disobey me again. It's perfect."

"I see," Nathalie concurred. "But how do you plan on securing a console?"

Gabriel rubbed his hands together and smirked all wicked like. "Leave that to me," he chuckled.

Françoise Dupont High School was known for so many spectacular feats. It had astounding architecture, advanced learning facilities, and record-breaking amounts of Akumatized children.

The kind and gentle teacher, Ms. Bustier presided over her class. "Alright now," she pleasantly announced. "Who can tell me who France's first king was?" Her question was quickly met by a hand towards the front of her class. The bright blue eyes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng fluttered rapidly as she appeared to be in some sort of trance. It was as if she didn't even realize that she was answering the teacher's question. "Yes, Marinette?" Ms. Bustier asked.

"Playstation the Fifth," Marinette muttered and the class burst into laughter.

"I know what you're thinking about," Ms. Bustier teased as Marinette winced.

"I'm so sorry," she replied. "It's just been all over the news and-"

"Trust me, Marinette." Nino said from the desk ahead of her. "I totally feel you. I've been dreaming of PS5's with how bad I want one."

"But you can't find them anywhere," Alya griped. "They're already sold out."

"You nerds and your consoles are ridiculous," Chloé Bourgeois. "Utterly ridiculous! If I wanted one, my daddy would buy me a whole warehouse full."

"I would build one for you, Chloé." Sabrina suggested.

"I actually built one," Max said from the back of the class.

"I am a Playstation 5," Lila said. "I am literally the console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment."

"Dude," Nino said and nudged Adrien. "Aren't you super bummers about not getting that PS5-izzle in your life-izzle?"

Adrien smiled so adorably that MARINETTE EXE STOPPED WORKING. "Oh no I'm fine," he admitted. "I don't need it because I'm a Nintendo kid anyway. I have the Switch!"

Back in Gabriel Agreste's office, he went to his secret mural and did the tappy-tap on some secret buttons. Once the coast was clear, he descended into his diabolical and rather dusty lair. A tiny, purple creature hovered around him. "Do I look like a Death Star, Nooroo?" Gabriel asked. The little kwami was genuinely confused.

"Um...no?" Nooroo said.

"Then stop swirling around me like you're about to make the trench run," Gabriel scolded. "We have work to do."

"But Master," Nooroo pleaded. "There isn't a PS5 anywhere! They're sold out!"

"That's what they want you to think," Gabriel grunted. "You have to keep trying."

"But you called the same store eleven times and they called you a Karen, Master."

"I know!" Gabriel roared. "And they will pay for their insolence. They will all pay. But I will stop at nothing to secure a PS5 for my son. How else will he be able to enjoy new hit titles like Spider-man: Miles Morales and the inevitable release of Horizon Zero Dawn 2? Those are Playstation exclusives, you know. They've added this really cool dynamic which allows you to-"

"Master?" Nooroo queried. "Are you sure the PS5 isn't actually...for you?"

"IT'S FOR ADRIEN!" Gabriel yelled.

"But your son has a Nintendo Switch."

"Enough!" Gabriel snapped. "Nooroo, dark wings...RISE!" The Kwami had no choice but to obey. Nooroo swirled and swiveled into Gabriel's butterfly miraculous and let the power surge through him. His milk-white jacket turned Eduardo from Foster's Home purple. A metal helmet thing formed on his face and he did that stupid head tilt before the logo shows up behind him.

With his transformation complete, Hawkmoth had risen. "Now," he said. "Time to get a Playstation 5. But I'll need a minion to carry out my bidding first."

At the Pas Creatif Apartment Complex, Tom Holland was just finishing up a call with his besty Robert Downey Jr. "I gotta go," Tom said. "I'm about to checkout and snag myself a sweet sweet PS5!" He hung up the call and clicked the checkout button. Tom Holland's eyes widened when the purchase didn't follow through. "What in the web-slinging heck is going on?" he worried and tried refreshing the page. Horror overwhelmed him when he saw that his precious PS5 was no longer in the cart. "No! That's impossible!" he screamed. Grief set in as Tom turned on the news.

Nadja Chamack was eager to share the latest briefing. "I"m live with rock sensation Jagged Stone, who has something to tell the world!"

"ROCK N' ROLL, BABY!" Jagged cheered. "I just grabbed the last PS5 in Paris!"

Devastated, Tom Holland took his wifi router and threw it at the TV. "Now how am I gonna play the new Spider-man game?" he lamented.

Far off in the distance, Hawkmoth's observatory opened because that's just what it does. "Mmmmm yes," Hawkmoth hummed like Guy Fieri tasting cheese fries at a diner you really want to try. "To feel the pain of losing a PS5 is all too real. That grief, pain, and anguish...That….griefpanguish. It's perfect for my Akuma." Hawkmoth caught one of his butterflies and somehow didn't squish it to death. "Fly away my little Akuma!" he commanded. "And evilize Tom Holland!"

Hawkmoth's Akuma fluttered across town, obeying the rules of the road and such until it reached Tom's apartment. He was frustratedly banging his head on his computer monitor when the Akuma got absorbed in it. Like a possessed demon running on five-hour energy, Tom's head bolted up.

"Scalper-man," Hawkmoth named him. "You didn't get a PS5? Well it sucks to suck. With these new powers, you can bring me a PS5. I mean….my son a PS5. In return, I won't tell Sony or Disney that you were Akumatized."

"It's a deal," Tom said and started to transform.

School had just let out as Ms. Bustier's class gathered around Max. "This I've got to see!" Alix cheered and eagerly waited.

"As I was saying," Max demonstrated. "Markov and I built our own PS5!" He unzipped his backpack and started to pull out a shimmering console. Before he could reveal it, the console suddenly poofed into a digitalized cloud. The class gasped as a mass of wires swung down the street. A computerized, mechanical version of Spider-man landed atop a window and shined his emerald eyes from a computer-like head.

"Muahahaha!" the villain said and held up Max's PS5. "I am Scalper-man! And your PS5s are Mine! All Mine!" He shot digitized webs into people's homes and captured all of their consoles. "If I can't have one, no one can!"

"An Akumatized villain!" Sabrina yelled. "Someone call for help!"

"No worries," Nino said. "It looks like Marinette and Adrien already ran off in conveniently separate directions to obviously call the police from secluded locations."

Marinette slid into an alley and opened her purse. A scarlet, black-spotted kwami flew up to her as she said, "We need to stop that web-slinging console stealer before it's game over for everyone. Tikki, spots on! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

As Tikki and Marinette became one, upbeat tunes signified the ultimate transformation. She spun around right round, right round, like a record until a suit formed on her body. She looked like a ladybug and therefore called herself Ladybug.

In the opposite alley, Adrien opened his jacket like a smuggler about to sell some broken watches. Instead, his dark kwami hovered out. "Did you hear upbeat transformation tunes nearby, Plagg?" Adrien asked. He and his kwami exchanged shrugs. "I might be a Nintendo kid," Adrien said. "But we can't let Playstation kids suffer while I gather Nook Miles! Plagg, claws out!" Adrien hammed up his transformation as he became vengeance. He became the night. He became Kirito in a cat costume.

"Yes, Yes, YES." Hawkmoth rejoiced. "One PS5 was all I wanted, but you're capturing every PS5 in Paris! Thank you, Scalper-man!"

"I am at your command, Hawkmoth," Scalper-man said.

As he said that, he was suddenly struck with a physics-defying stick. "Ouch. That must've hurt," Cat Noir quipped while retracting his stick. "We should console him about that injury."

Ladybug facepalmed about his joke and withdrew her yo-yo. "Give back the PS5s!" she demanded. How else is Amazon supposed to get any in stock?"

Scalper-man paused and shook his head. "Oh Ladybug...how could you say such a thing? Don't you understand? What good are the products if Jeff Bezos is still overworking his employees?"

Ladybug froze. "Wait...are you saying that the real Akumatized villain...is corporate greed?"

"OH MY GOD!" Hawkmoth screeched from his observatory. "Stop debating with her and bring me a damn PS5, Scalper-man! I need to experience true high definition graphics and ray-tracing capabilities…for my son."

"And don't forget a second controller," a familiar voice said.

Hawkmoth gasped as a woman stepped into his chamber. "Nathalie?" he murmured. "What are you-"

"I know you want the PS5," she said. "And the truth is, so do I. I'll play with you, Hawkmoth. Together we can play Call of Duty to your heart's content or relive the glory days in our old Minecraft world."

A single, solemn tear dripped from Hawkmoth's eye as he hung his head in shame. "How I long to see my Minecraft dog again. He's still waiting for me, you know."

"I'll make sure you see him again, but we'll need stronger allies."

"You're right," Hawkmoth concurred. "Tom Holland isn't working. We need to MORE!"

Nathalie smirked. "Let me transform and then I have a surprise for you. Duusu...Spread my feathers!" Her hair swayed majestically in the wind as John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra played a dramatic transformation tune. She stomped her epic heel and transformed while Hawkmoth wondered how a critically-acclaimed composer got into his house. Nathalie was no more as Mayura took her place.

"Let's go to work," she said and unsheathed a powerful contraption.

"M-Mayura," Hawkmoth stuttered. "What is that?"

"This is an Akumokagun. It charges your Akumas and my Amoks, combining them together like your favorite frozen yogurts at a Menchie's. It has auto-aim and will blast away in rapid fire mode. I made it just for you."

"Thanks, Mayura." Hawkmoth admired. "With this weapon, the PS5 shall be ours!" He drop-kicked the window open to his observatory and fired thousands of projectiles over Paris. The vibrant-colored Akumamoks darted for countless citizens and turned them into powerful villains.

Meanwhile, Ladybug and Cat Noir were still talking to Scalper-man. "So...how do we combat corporate greed?" Cat Noir asked.

"Call it out when you see it," Scalper-man said. "Stand with unions and-"

All of a sudden, the trio heard the screams of Parisians everywhere. They were all being turned into mindless, villainous beasts chanting "PS5! PS5! PS5!"

"This fight just got a whole lot harder," Ladybug said and tied up Scalper-man with her yo-yo. "One villain down, but way too many to go. Keep them busy while I get backup."

"I'll do my best, M'lady." Cat Noir said before yeeting himself into a crowd of enemies.

Once out of sight, Marinette de-transformed and entered a very sacred place. "Master Fu!" she called. "Master! I need help!" She gasped upon seeing the elder master glaring at a computer screen. "Oh no…"

"I'm alright," Master Fu said. "I'm just...on...the waitlist." Marinette glanced over his shoulder and watched as he repeatedly tapped the refresh button. "A PS5 could open up as available at any given time. I must be quick!"

"Not you too!" Marinette groaned.

"Need some miraculous?" Fu mumbled without taking his eyes off the screen. "Take whatever you need. Choose an ally something something something. PS5."

"Oookay," Marinette said and grabbed the miracle box. She was also able to take off Fu's bracelet because he was so distracted with PS5 sales.

"PS5!" the villains shouted while tossing Cat Noir around.

He smacked into an Adrien billboard and groaned, "Hello irony, my name's Cat Noir."

"Hang in there, Kitty!" Ladybug hollered and Cat Noir's eyes widened.

"M'lady? Where are you? I don't see you!"

"On your left," Ladybug affirmed and swung in on her yo-yo. Epic music played as Cat Noir gazed up in awe. Behind her marched Carapace, Rena Rouge, and Queen Bee. The Akumokatized forces of darkness looked up and hissed as the heroes formed up on a rooftop. "Heroes of the Miraculous-" Ladybug said as mjolnir, sacred hammer of Asgard, came to her hand. "-pound it."

Carapace yelled in response and her team descended on Hawkmoth's army. There was much kicking...so very punching...and oh so many grunts. Cars flew through the air and buildings exploded. The entire city was on fire like Jagged Stone's hottest album had dropped. Speaking of the musical stud, Jagged was hiding in his mansion trying to keep his PS5 safe.

"There's too many of them!" Rena Rouge said after roundhouse-kicking a bus into the Eiffel Tower.

Understanding their predicament, Ladybug knew what had to be done. "LUCKY CHARM!" she yelled and got her own special cutscene. Sparklies spewed everywhere until a spotted device landed in her hands. "An Xbox?" she wondered. "What the heck am I supposed to do with this?"

"This is so stupid," Queen Bee griped. "Can't my daddy just buy everyone a PS5 and get this over with?"

"There aren't any PS5's left, dude." Carapace replied.

"Then why don't these fools just buy a different console?"

"You can't betray brands like that, Queen Bee. That's like...mad treachery."

Ladybug's eyes widened with realization. "That's it," she gasped and quintuple front-flipped towards a rooftop. "Hey everyone!" she yelled. "Who wants an Xbox?"

"XBOX?" the mob chanted in unison. "SACRILEGE. DESTROY. DESTROY."

"Come get me!" Ladybug shouted as the mob gave chase. Once she had them in pursuit, she tossed the Xbox over to Cat Noir, then to Carapace and so on. They kept alternating like a wild game of hot potato. This forced the mob to keep changing directions and unknowingly shook the Akumamoks within in them. Like mentos and soda, the result caused the evil butter-feathers to spew out of each affected person.

"Now!" Cat Noir yelled.

"Time to de-evilize!" Ladybug shouted and spun her magical yo-yo. While her friends took turns throwing her like the game-winning toss at the Superbowl, Ladybug spiraled through the air. She spun around and snatched up the escaping Akumamoks like the hardcore boss she was.

"Gotcha!" she panted after grabbing the last one. "Bye bye little butterflies and feathers!" With a mighty toss, she threw the Xbox into the air and shouted, "Miraculous Ladybug!"

Within moments, her magical ladybugs fixed all of the damage in Paris. They turned the angry PS5 mob into a disappointed PS5 mob. Tom Holland returned to trying his best not to spoil future Marvel productions and balance was restored.

"NO!" Hawkmoth said calmly. "I hate this! I literally...I can't. I can't even. Nooroo, dark wings fall." He de-transformed into Gabriel and angrily kicked a chair. "I'll never get a PS5 now."

Mayura de-transformed back into Nathalie and hugged him. "It's okay, Mr. Agreste. We can always play on your PS4."

Gabriel clenched a fist and murmured, "...never."

Nathalie gasped as he continued.

"I'll never soil my eyes and downgrade to a lower console. I have sworn allegiance to PS5 and PS5 alone. I'll never go back. I can't go back." He caressed Nathalie's cheek and whispered, "Play has no limits."

She caressed his cheek back and whispered, "Hail Hydra."

De-transformed and exhausted, Marinette returned home. "Are you sure you don't want to come see the PS5 at Max's house, girl?" Alya called on her phone.

"Oh I'm good," Marinette said. "But you have fun!" As she hung up, she sighed and said, "Oh Tikki, after all of this...I hope I never see another PS5 again."

As soon as she walked through the door, she found her parents awaiting her arrival. "Surprise!" they cheered.

"It wasn't easy hiding the pre-order," her father said. "But we managed to pull it off for the best daughter in the world!"

"We got you a PS5!" her mother exclaimed and gestured to the shiny gaming console.

Tikki giggled while Marinette's eye twitched. She hung her head, put on her best smile, and said, "Oh yay! Thanks!"