Two out of three!
And my finals are finally done! Yay! It's officially summer!
The free time on my hands means I'll probably write more often and go back to Tuesdays and Fridays, although there is a possibility of me taking a vacation out of state to visit my family. If I do, then I might not update during the visit but resume once I come back home.
Chances are I'll still update, though. I almost never travel without bringing my computer with me.
I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter Twenty-Four:
He saw the lean, blue-suited male figure before he heard his deep voice murmuring something to the slim Ladybug sitting down on the edge of the building.
Landing, both of them turned to him, and Ladybug instantly perked up.
"Chat! I thought you would take longer."
"The audacity you have thinking such things, milady."
Viperion looked amused at the way the red heroine beamed at her darker counterpart. "I must admit that I'm curious to the difference in your relationship. Ladybug barely gave you the time of day before."
She huffed, standing up and flicking the snake's shoulder gently before going over to her partner. "Not true. I paid attention to him. I just rejected most of his advances. . ."
Chat Noir snickered. "She just couldn't admit she loved me. You know how it is."
He nearly fell over with the force of the whack to his head delivered by his girlfriend.
Those blue eyes glowered at him, but he was surprised to find them genuinely bright and not dull as they had been the night before.
Was Felix the difference to her attitude? Did he help her where I couldn't?
"Shut it, you stupid cat," she hissed.
Viperion laughed loudly. "Ah, I guess some things haven't changed." Then his face turned serious. "But I do want to know. Why did you ask me here? There aren't any akumas or sentimonsters out."
The partners sobered up.
"I found something out," Ladybug said, her voice now solemn. "Well, three things. One was last night, the other two were today."
"You found something else out today?" Chat blinked at her in surprise.
She nodded. "Yes, I did. Rena Rouge had some interesting information to part with."
Viperion cocked his head. "Rena Rouge? You do mean Alya, right?"
Both heroes jolted, gaping at him. "What- how do you know!?"
He grinned at the shocked pair. "She acts exactly the way she does in real life. Plus, I heard you call her by her name on one of the occasions that I had to reverse time so you weren't able to remember it."
Ladybug shook her head incredulously. "Okay, well, yes, Alya. I know her in my civilian form, and she knows who I am. She told me something once, but I had mistook it for a different thing she had found out. Now, I know what she meant all that time ago."
Both men turned to fully face her. "What is it?"
She hesitated for only a split second, her gaze locking with Chat's for a moment before turning back to Viperion. "Felix is in the possession of a Miraculous. One that alters memory."
Chat went rigid at the same moment that Viperion did. Blue and green eyes glowed as they stared at her in silence, gleaming and waiting for her to elaborate.
Ladybug took a deep breath. "And I know that because Alya found out, and he also tried using it on me this afternoon."
A snarl ripped through Chat's lips at the same time Viperion hissed.
Sapphire ice cracked while emerald flames flickered. "Felix has a Memory Miraculous?"
"He tried using it on you?"
The girl sighed. "Yes - but let me explain everything that happened before either of you say anything." At her raised eyebrow, they both nodded.
"Right - so - I asked Alya today about what she knew and why it was so dangerous to know. She told me that Felix had a Miraculous. One that could control memory.
"Apparently she saw him one day and followed because he looked 'shifty' and saw him use it on someone, and a whole ordeal and threats and blackmail happened, and then Reverse Truth, and things just generally went off the rails.
"Anyway, she told me about that today. I realized that I had to figure out what jewel the Miraculous was and how he used it and all that. So, when Felix incidentally called to have lunch with me, I jumped at the chance to feel him out and find out what I needed to know.
"We had a pleasant lunch, and ordered a juice for a walk around the city. After that, though, he told me about a shortcut to get somewhere he wanted to show me. And that's when he attempted to use the Miraculous."
She paused, and a breathy laugh escaped her as she looked up at the stars and shook her head. "I recognized it the moment I saw it. A ring, just like yours, Chat. But it was a wedding ring."
Chat stilled.
"I know now why it didn't work on me. Well, not exactly why, but I can garner a guess."
Viperion narrowed his eyes, disrupting the silence he had been in. "How?"
"Two things, really. And both were more luck than actual knowledge and being prepared."
"How?" Viperion repeated.
"I knew about it. Knew that it would mess with my memory, I mean. And the other reason is that it was incomplete."
"Incomplete?"
Chat's voice was the one that spoke out, and that voice was raw with different emotions.
This, Ladybug wanted to tell him. This is the reason I can't tell you about Hawk Moth. Your reaction to your cousin using this power on me is bad enough that knowing your father does even worse would cause a horrific accident.
"Yes," she said quietly. "Incomplete. There are two wedding rings, one for each spouse. Combined, there is a similarity to what would happen if mine and Chat's Miraculous were combined. A sudden influx of power, and the ability to truly change a person's memory."
"But mine was wiped," Viperion pointed out. "And he only had one. How do you explain that?"
"You didn't know about it. And he probably didn't actually wipe your memories, but just hid them from you. With the right trigger, I bet you'd be able to remember what happened."
The snake hero hummed, thinking deeply about what she had said while Chat's eyes stared into the distance, unfocussed and lost in his mind.
Ladybug wasn't sure if she should say anything.
Luckily, she didn't have to. Viperion's sharp eyes focussed back on her seriously. "I appreciate you telling me this, Ladybug. I'm glad you thought to give me peace of mind for what happened with Felix, but I assume that you had another reason for calling me here."
She nodded. "I did, actually. Remember I told you how I learned of three things? The Memory Miraculous and it's drawbacks were one of those things."
"What is the last?"
"I know who Hawk Moth is."
The heroes grew incredibly, incredibly still, a black tail twitching at her words.
"I know who he is," she repeated. "But we can't fight him."
"What?!"
The snarls came from both of them.
"We've been fighting him for years," Chat hissed.
"My sister has been hurt and taken advantage of by him more than one," Viperion growled. "So have many of Paris' citizens."
"You don't think I know that?" She snapped right back. "You don't think that I've been trying to find out who he is for years?! And that the fact that I can't even fight him immediately hasn't been driving me insane? Because it has. And the only reason I say this is because it is the best and only possible solution to truly take him down."
They were tense, clearly upset, so Ladybug continued, her tone unyielding. "Your reaction is the exact reason why I won't tell anyone who he is. I can be the only one who knows-"
"The only one who is given the privilege to know, again," Chat said bitterly. "Just like before."
Her eyes flashed dangerously as he turned to look at her. "I didn't want to be given this responsibility, kitty. Chat Noir may have been your freedom, but Ladybug is my cage. So you'll do well to remember what I've had to do over the years to keep Paris safe."
The boys went silent.
"Who he is - we can't fight him, or even accuse him of his persona without genuine evidence. He's that powerful.
"Besides that, there is also the mystery of who Mayura is. She might have disappeared a while ago, but I doubt it's because the woman under the mask did as well. She's probably someone close to him, and we need to find out who before anything happens.
"I know who he is. Not even just as a name, but also because my civilian persona knows his. I can get close to him, pretend to help, and go undercover for us until we have everything we need to take him down completely."
"That's not safe," Viperion objected. "He could do anything to you, especially if he found out who you were -"
"He knows part of who I am," Ladybug countered. "I was another hero, once. He knows that. Knows who I am and who I support, but I learned his identity anyway. And that says something, doesn't it?"
"What about the third thing?"
Both Ladybug and Viperion turned to Chat Noir. "What?"
"You learned three things, didn't you? And assuming that Hawk Moth's identity is the second one, what is the third?"
She pressed her lips together. "That one, I can't quite say. Otherwise I fear you might act on your anger, and that could be disastrous.
"I can say, however, that Hawk Moth is not the only person I'll be going undercover with."
Viperion shook his head, running a hand through his blue hair. "You are absolutely insane, Ladybug. But I'm glad you're here to lead us. Are we going to tell the others?"
She nodded, lips finally curling into a faint smile. "Yup. Let's just hope they have a better reaction than you two did."
.
They did not have a better reaction.
Rena Rouge and Ryuuko, mainly. They objected completely to Ladybug's undercover mission, and consistently tried to change her mind and suggest other things.
Pegasus saw the logic in it, of course, but wasn't sure of the probability of it actually working.
The rest had varying levels of resistance to the idea, but Queen Bee had been silent the whole time.
Chat Noir was, too, and Ladybug intended to talk to him about it later.
When Rena gave up convincing her with only Ryuuko on her side, she turned to Queen Bee.
And the blonde, shockingly enough, thought that it was a good idea. Risky, but she trusted Ladybug to make her own decisions and agreed with her thinking.
That, perhaps, shocked everyone.
By the end of the night, they had all reluctantly accepted what was to come, and promised to be ready to fight when the time inevitably came.
Because there would be a fight. They all felt it.
And Ladybug swore to herself that she wouldn't let anyone get hurt when it finally occurred.
.
After dropping everyone at their homes and taking their Miraculous back, Ladybug and Chat Noir ended up on the Eiffel Tower, where they had ended up so many times before.
She didn't have a chance to speak before he did.
"Did you mean what you said?"
His voice startled her, and those blue eyes glanced at him. "What?"
"Did you mean what you said about Ladybug? About her being your cage?"
A sad smile flickered over her lips. "I did."
"Why?"
He would never understand, she realized. Never understand the burdens she was forced to take on the moment she decided to put those earrings on.
"Your life is a cage," she said quietly. "Your real life, I mean. Your house, while grand, is a trap for you.
"But my life. . . I've been free throughout it all. I was never in a cage I couldn't escape from. And the second I opened that box and Tikki floated out from those earrings, I felt the open cage snap shut. Trapped in my own responsibilities for years."
He stared at her, lost. "I don't-"
"I know you don't," she interrupted softly. "Chat, you have to try and realize what it meant to be Ladybug. It means that any emotions I had had to be happy and good. I couldn't feel bad about any circumstance I was in, couldn't feel the heartbreak every single time my crush looked at another girl with softer eyes than he looked at me. I couldn't scream or cry or get angry every time my friends sided with Lila without even a thought that she might be lying. Everything I had been free to do before, was now restricted."
Chat stared at her, eyes wide as she spoke to him.
Years of suppressed emotions. When will it all explode? And why were my emotions never targeted?
"I didn't know," was all he could say. "I didn't know how much you were suffering for all that time."
She smiled, and it took his breath away with the beauty of it. "I wasn't always. You were my reprieve, despite how often I reprimanded you when we were younger."
He shook his head, snorting and sitting down with his legs swinging over the side of the little roof they were on. "We really did fall in love with the masks first, didn't we?"
That mischievous smile he loved to see on Marinette appeared on Ladybug's face when she sat down next to him. "Yeah, we did. And then we fell in love with the people under them."
Green eyes met blue. "I really do love you, ya know?"
"I know."
His jaw dropped in shock at the response, which sent her into a fit of giggles. "I'm kidding! I love you too, silly kitty."
She fit her head against his shoulder with a gentle hum, and the happy sound had him thinking.
"You're much more chipper than you were last night," he said quietly. "I'm not upset about it, of course, but what changed?"
She stayed silent for a moment before responding. "After finding out what I did, I thought I was going insane. I didn't know how to deal with the information, and nearly dropped to my knees for Alya to beg her to tell me about Felix.
"When she did, it was like something sharpened. I suddenly knew what I had to do, and Felix calling me doubled the feelings. My mind formed a plan, and that helped steady me."
"You're the girl who always has a plan, milady," Chat said softly. "But it's okay to not know what to do. Not everything has to be planned."
The heroine scoffed. "As if you would have lasted more than a few days without my plans."
He pinched her side, making her squeal in surprise. "No need to call me out on it, meanie."
Her soft laughs warmed his heart, and he looked up at the sky, at the full moon, with tired eyes.
There was no way to know what these undercover missions his lady would begin would bring, but he had faith in her.
Even if he didn't entirely trust the people she would be working with.