Sixty-One: Confirmation

Author's Note: Following up on his hunch, Chat and Ladybug discover the source of Manon's transformation earlier in the year.

The day's brilliant sunshine that had so recently seen me inclined toward lazily napping on a comfortable rooftop had, to my surprise, given way to dark clouds building over the city as I worked my way toward the station where Alya worked and the Metro station opposite. While I was normally a connoisseur of the newspaper, my sleepless night with Marinette had left me with little time to scan more than the headlines on my way out the window for work; as it was perfectly logical thunderstorms had been in the forecast, I still couldn't help but feel they were an awful portend of what was yet to come.

Vaulting up into the slowly increasing gusts of wind to cross an alleyway, the scent of faraway rain hit my feline nose and I grimaced. My costume was, of course, water repellant, but yet another feline trait that had become more pronounced as I grew older was the decided distaste for being soggy while transformed. I frowned further as my feline sense of hearing picked up the subtle change in sounds as a result of the dropping air pressure; unless I took cover and waited it out, I'd likely be wringing my wild mane within the hour.

Landing in a crouch (and, maybe, just a bit of a classic dab pose), I looked up as I caught the sound of my approaching partner on the wind. Staying in my cat stance, my masked eyes quickly picked out her colorful form against the gathering overcast. Mere moments after that, she smoothly landed beside me with the grace of a ballerina and smiled at me as she wound her yo-yo.

"If we didn't have pawressing business, I'd take time to fly a kite," I smiled.

"Any other day," Ladybug mused as she knelt down to scratch behind an ear. "Good kitty," she teased as I involuntarily leaned into her touch and started to purr.

"Whatever you want," I managed to say, "I'll do it."

"I know," she laughed as she leaned down further to kiss me.

A gust of wind whipped my mane around a bit as I stood and then did my traditional bow-and-a-kiss on her knuckles, despite having already procured something better from her lips. "We may want to hurry slightly, Milady," I said as we started walking toward the edge of the rooftop we were on. "This storm isn't going to wait for us."

"Where did it come from?" she asked as we leapt, side-by-side, over an alleyway and fell into an easy rhythm running together along the spine of the next building. "I admit I wasn't paying attention to the news today."

"That makes two of us," I said as I sniffed the air again. "It's a strong one. Not entirely surprising given the time of year, but it's building fast."

"With luck we'll be inside when the worst hits," she replied. "Speaking of – where are we going, exactly? We've turned over everything in that station at least once. You aren't thinking of searching it again, are you?"

I shook my mane as I leapt up and pogo-vaulted over a wider road, landing beside Ladybug on the far side with practiced ease. "Maybe last," I said. "But I think whatever we want – while hiding in plain sight – will be wherever that elevator took Manon to."

Pausing long enough to take my bearings, I smiled a bit wider. "I took a look at the city map again. It's not terribly easy to triangulate where that mystery abandoned station is – it's not on any transportation schematic of Paris I could access from the baton – but using a bit of feline intuition, I think that—" I nodded at a stately multi-storied building from another time that had nonetheless aged fairly gracefully, "—is what we are looking for."

Ladybug followed my gaze, though it took visible effort for her to brace against the freshening gale. "That looks like a more majestic version of Le Grande Hotel Paris," she said, raising her voice against the wind.

"It used to be," I nodded. "From what I could see online, an enterprising developer converted the upper portion to single-family apartments in the late eighties, with dining and retail at the street level." I smiled slightly. "Oddly, the facts fit – it would have been quite the marketing point to be a hotel with direct access to the Metro. I suspect the station was closed after it went completely residential."

Ladybug nodded thoughtfully. "Now I understand why the station was so ornate," she mused. Her observation reminded me of the grand architecture of the now disused platform far below us. "Where do you want to start?"

I used the baton to point to a peaked structure on the roof. "Top down?" I replied. "And that is about as far as I've thought this out. I have zero idea what the box will be masquerading as."

My partner looked the building up and down again. "That is a lot of space to cover, too."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I guess I didn't really think through this all the way."

"No," Ladybug said, raising her voice again against the much louder wind. "You got us further than ever – looking in a new spot is nothing to sneeze at."

"Still," I sighed deeper. "We could probably use a bit of your luck. I really don't want to have to go room by room in that thing. Can you imagine what the neighbors would say to each other?"

"I can…" Ladybug trailed off, and I could see her eyes had gone distant.

Arching an eyebrow, I simply waited, for I was well aware what that look meant.

After a few moments, her gaze snapped back to me and her smile went wider. "Luck," she nodded again. "That might just be the answer, Chat. You are two for two today."

"I… am?"

"Yes," she replied. "Let's get to that rooftop and I'll show you."

In just the few short minutes we'd been chatting, the wind had grown fierce and darkness had begun to envelope the city. Streetlights far below us burst into life, and umbrellas began to appear as the first drops of rain pelted the pedestrians. Soaring across the avenue to the former hotel felt like I was diving headlong into a hailstorm; water was dripping off of my mask as I did a perfunctory two-foot landing beside what appeared to have once been a rooftop garden. Very little green was left other than the random diehard weed, but a winding flagstone pathway bespoke of a better time.

Bent against the wind, I followed Ladybug to the structure I'd pointed out. To my surprise, it wasn't simply the entrance to a rooftop stairwell, but was, in fact, some sort of penthouse suite. Turning, I realized the garden was actually the backyard of the suite, as if a single-family home had somehow been hoisted to the roof of the building. As with the rest of the exterior of the building, the penthouse had seen better days; the slider to the garden was missing it's requisite pane of glass, making a potential ingress into the space fairly straightforward.

"Convenient," I murmured, still somewhat on edge without truly knowing why. In my early days as Chat Noir, I would have ignored the tiny warnings in the back of my feline head; I'd learned the wisdom of trusting my instincts – and those of Ladybug's – and turned toward her. "What do you think?"

Snapping open her yo-yo, she activated her flashlight function and held it high, sweeping the now darkened space slowly. "I don't know about you, but this is giving me goosebumps. And that is saying something, given that we're standing in the rain."

I nodded, trying to shake the same feeling and a few ounces of water from my now-soggy mane.

Carefully, Ladybug eased her way through the broken glass, and I quickly followed, the residue crunching beneath my boots. Instinctively, I moved to put her behind me as I deferred to my non-night vision partner and activated the light on the baton. Bathing the area in our twin beams of soft light revealed a two-tiered space; possibly a living room, a sunken area in the center had a small circular spot that might have been a fire pit or a fountain in a past life. The top of what might have once been a grand stairwell was visible at the far end, as was a set of metallic elevator doors that sparkled as our beams passed over it.

The space was large, far larger on the inside than I'd expected. Wallpaper was peeling from the edges around the ceiling, and the wall sconces evoked the lighting we'd seen in the Metro station. Slowly, I started to nod. "I think this was part of the original hotel," I said, my voice echoing in the space slightly. The wind was whistling through the gap in the door, creating a high-pitched wail that added to the creepiness factor. "It's similar to what Chloe had at Le Grand."

Flicking her light at the elevator, Ladybug also nodded. "With its own dedicated elevator? That would fit for a high roller." She looked back to me. "Or the owner, maybe?"

"Yeah. What an odd place for Manon to have stumbled upon," I murmured. "The warehouse I get – it's on the far side of the city, isolated. But here?"

"You forget what we're close to," Ladybug reminded me as she tugged at my arm. "Look."

Staring through the grimy window she'd pulled me to, I could see the penthouse had a direct line of sight to the building where Alya worked, as well as the Metro station opposite; while it was still a few blocks away, with suitable binoculars, it would make an excellent observation post. "This was well planned," I mused, the fur on the back of my neck suddenly standing straight up. "Why does that worry me?"

We turned and worked our way around the edge of the sunken center and paused against the once-gilded banister of the stairwell; my feline eyes pierced the darkness and saw it turned at a landing six steps down, and appeared to exit into some sort of foyer. Turning back to Ladybug, I could see she'd gone thoughtful again.

"This is a lot of effort for a teenager," she said softly. "Manon is many things, believe me, but doesn't feel like the kind of kid that would go to this level to, what, exactly?"

I thought for a moment. "It was revenge of a sense, right?" I said, recalling what Manon had told us in those final moments at the warehouse. "Getting back at us for keeping her mother preoccupied with the exploits of the Heroes of Paris."

"Yeah," she nodded slowly. "Still, that she would be tracking Alya so closely… just to unmask us? Alya was already doing a fair job of that before Manon came into the picture." Ladybug looked away. "Reading the Ladyblog itself would likely have given her far more information about us than following Alya all over the city."

"It was more to ruin our reputation," I reminded her. "You saw her – she was blinded enough by her rage to forcibly merge two Miraculous incorrectly."

"True," she said after a moment. "Still… I feel like we're missing something."

"Story of my life," I smiled as I gently reached out and cupped her face with my paw. "At least, until you became a part of it."

Ladybug smiled. "You old softie," she whispered before she gave me a quick peck on the cheek. As she started to pull away, a massive clap of thunder rolled over the building, then another; brief, brilliant flashes of lightening helped punctuate the wrath overhead. "Let's see if our treasure chest is really here; then we can go somewhere cozy to ride out this storm."

"I have a few ideas on that front," I quipped, waggling my masked eyebrows as my tail snaked around her thigh.

"One track mind," Ladybug smirked as she pulled out her yo-yo and deftly slipped from the grasp of my tail.

"With a girlfriend as hot—"

"Stand back," Ladybug chuckled, interrupting me.

Sadly, I stepped back a bit more and watched as she called on her Lucky Charm; the room was lit briefly by the glow from her red helpers, and as it faded, a small box with a classically-shaped lightbulb dropped into her hands. Looking down on it, I initially frowned at the simple looking rectangular box before seeing it had a single red button. "I feel like you're pressing your luck," I said as I looked to her. "What on Earth did you get?"

"It was your idea, really," she smiled as she pressed the button. The lightbulb glowed to life, and a cheery chirp-chirp-chirp issued from an unseen speaker.

"My idea?"

"Yes, silly kitty," she replied as she slowly turned with the device, pausing when the light grew slightly brighter and the chirp-chirp-chirp noise picked up in speed. "If I recall correctly, you suggested we would need a bit of luck to find the box."

My masked eyes shot to the small device. "You're using luck… literally… to find the missing box?"

"Yep," she smiled wider. "Not bad, eh?"

"That… that is a new one," I replied as we started down the staircase. "I had no idea your Charms could be so literal."

"Me either," Ladybug said, "which makes me wonder if I'm starting to change, too."

I abruptly stopped on the landing. "Maybe you'll be able to have as fine-grained control over your secret power as I seem to have now," I said slowly. "Holy kwami. That opens an entire can of sardines."

"Isn't the expression 'can of worms?'" she asked as we continued.

I grimaced. "Maybe for non-felines. Who wants to eat worms?"

I didn't need her to turn around to know she was rolling her eyes.

The small foyer at the bottom filled in more of the footprint of the penthouse, for the main door was at one end; a hallway stretched away from us, with doors at a few points. Ladybug continued down the hallway, following the growing glow from the bulb and the more insistent chirping; at a closed oak double door at the end, the lightbulb was so bright, I had to hold a paw up to shield my masked eyes. "Here?" I asked unnecessarily.

"I think so."

Pressing the button to deactivate the small device, she slipped it under her yo-yo and then slid the door open. The space beyond appeared to have been a library of sorts, with three walls of empty bookshelves facing tall windows looking out across the city. Sheets of rain washed across the beveled glass as buildings in the distance were repeatedly brought into focus with bursts of light from the storm; the same increasingly frequent illumination caught a small, nondescript suitcase sitting off to the side of the room.

My ears flattened as the unusual odor hit my feline nose; whatever it was, the notes of frankincense, myrrh and maybe a touch of jasmine bespoke of antiquity, and the inherent mythical danger that often accompanied it. Unbidden, a low growl bubbled up from me as I placed myself firmly in front of Ladybug.

"Chat?"

"I think we've found it," I said, though it was a moment before I realized I'd tensed into my crouch, baton swirling in one paw. "It is very old. And very powerful. And it smells nothing like the one Master Fu has."

Looking for all the world as though it were something a tourist had forgotten after their holiday, it was hard to reconcile the nearly physical waves of danger radiating away from it. Creeping closer, with Ladybug close behind, I could see it seemed in every way to be a very ordinary piece of luggage, though as I examined it further, it blended with what I assumed had been the original style of the building. Almost an Art Deco, mid nineteen-twenties vibe, straight from the era when all things Egyptian were in vogue.

I nodded slowly. "This belonged to the owner of the hotel," I said as I knelt beside it. The detail on the suitcase was amazing. Looking back at Ladybug, I frowned. "I don't exactly know how I know. But I think it managed to remain hidden here – in this space – until Manon somehow found it." I sniffed again. "I can pick up some residual scent of Manon, but that's it, Milady."

"Who overlooks a suitcase in an empty penthouse?" Ladybug asked, somewhat skeptical.

I shrugged. "Maybe the box didn't want to be found. Not until recently."

"Is that even possible?"

"There's so little we actually know about the Miraculous," I sighed. "Maybe we can get something out of Plagg and Tikki tonight. Or Master Fu." My masked feline eyes went to the latch. "Do we open it?"

"I'm sure it's not that easy," she replied as she slid around me and drew out her device once more, using the brilliant light to confirm what we thought. "Well," she said just as her earrings began to chirp on their own. "Even if I knew how to open this, I wouldn't want to do it without Master Fu. If we're right, though, there could be some very lonely kwamis stuck inside that will be extremely happy to get out."

"I'm worried about moving it," I said, unable to shake the sense that this Miracle Box was unlike anything we'd encountered before, even Master Fu's. "But if there is even a chance that Hawkmoth has or could find it, we need to relocate it."

"Agreed," she said as she snapped open her yo-yo. "Let me tell the Guardian we are on our way; I'll recharge and then we'll use the cover of this storm to get it to him."

"Excellent plan," I said, though something about the box still set my teeth on edge. "Although to be honest, Milady, I'd rather put a few hundred thousand kilometers between this and Paris."

Ladybug nodded as she dialed. "Oddly, I couldn't agree with you more…"