EDITED 1/7/20

️MAAAAAAJOR WARNING! This chapter includes extremely graphic and disturbing depictions of blood and gore. It gets gross guys. Read with caution.

Chapter 8: Crunch

Chloé did NOT akumatize Falling Star.

There wasn't any way she could have. At the time the school got attacked, she had been sitting in her limo with Sabrina, heading back from Le Grand Paris to the school before lunch ended. She hadn't terrorized a single astronomy major—or any université students, for that matter—during her outing, and her best friend had been with her the entire time, so she could truthfully vouch for her as a witness.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to care what Chloé Bourgeois and her lackey thought. No one had outright accused her of causing the akuma, but she knew a judgemental crowd when she saw one. Halfway through the school day, she had already gotten sick of the dirty looks and offhand shunning on behalf of the entire student body. Nobody but Sabrina was willing to speak to her, and her best friend's upbeat encouragement alone could only provide her with so much consolation.

It wasn't fair. So what if she had a less-than-stellar reputation for causing akumas? That didn't immediately certify her as the go-to scapegoat for every single one. Besides, it's not like she tried to akumatize as many people as she did. She only dished out to people what she believed they deserved, and sometimes that meant they became victims to Hawk Moth. Tough luck. In a way, she was practically doing them all a favor; if she hadn't been the one to akumatize all those people, someone else was bound to do it to them in the future. She was ripping off the metaphorical bandaid.

Chloé absentmindedly scrolled through her phone, looking up every once in a while to watch the rain run down the window of the car. She was sitting in the rear of her limo, heading back from the school to her father's hotel, and she didn't think she had ever felt so relieved to be going home. The day had been utterly exhausting from start to finish, and it wasn't because of her boring classes. It had been the aura in the room—so suffocatingly despondent that she'd wished it could smother her and put her out of her secondhand misery. Between everyone's moodiness, Alya's sniffling, Adrien's peculiar absence, the disappearance of their infamous classmate, and the overall stoic ambiance of the rest of the school—she ended up paying less attention to the teachers' lectures than usual in favor of trying to block out the depressing world around her.

Though, as much as it was bothersome, it wasn't like she didn't understand why they were so upset. She understood, and she . . . she cared. She may not have liked Marinette very much (or at all), but the girl was still her classmate of several years. She didn't want her dead, or in danger. Besides, beneath all of that . . . Marinette-iness, she was still Ladybug. She was still strong and brave and someone Chloé looked up to deeply, no matter how much she now loathed to admit it.

(Ladybug also happened to be Chloé's, ahem, lesbian awakening . . . which was a fact she would be Taking To the Grave.)

Still, Chloé was willing to do her part. She went straight to her father and made him order the police to look for the missing girl, and she made him explicitly order them not to stop until Ladybug was safe. And later that night, she ordered the staff not to enter her room unless somebody had died, and sat alone in front of her television, obsessively waiting for good news to come.

It never did.

(In a way, it reminded her of the night Adrien's mother disappeared, and how she and Adrien had cuddled in front of the television with angry hearts and hopeful eyes, begging for the news channels to deliver something, anything, akin to positive news, and never receiving it.)

Despite what many people seemed to think, Chloé wasn't heartless. Perhaps she tried to be, because that was how she was raised: to rise above others, not by taking the moral high ground, but rather by shoving them out of her way. It might have seemed that cruelty was the foundation of her entire being, but Chloé was still human, with human needs and emotions and empathy. No matter what, no amount of conditioning or self-sabotage could entirely erase that.

So, she deserved some credit. She was still worried for Ladybug, right alongside the rest of Paris.

She was still worried for Marinette.

All of a sudden, the driver slammed on the brakes, and Chloé lurched forward only to be held back by her seat belt. She wheezed as the restraint momentarily crushed her insides before slackening again.

She glared at the driver. "Hey, what do you think you're do—" That's when she saw what he had stopped for. "—ing . . ."

There was a girl, somewhere around Chloé's age, standing still in the middle of the road. The rain was too heavy for her to be seen very clearly, but everything about her was uncannily ominous—her clothing was black and covered in white spots, and on her face sat a matching mask. Her body was rigid, and even when the driver sat on the horn, she only stared back at them, unmoving. For a second, Chloé wondered why on earth she seemed so familiar, until she spotted the girl's matching black pigtails.

Before Chloé could say her name, Marinette aimed her gloved palm at the windshield.

A second later, the bullet-proof glass shattered, and the car filled with black bugs like a flood of gushing water.

Chloé screamed. Before she could even reach for her door handle, the bugs were crawling up her legs in masses. For the first second, she was overwhelmed by fear and disgust, but when the bugs started biting, every distressed emotion was masked by anguish.

It wasn't like a mosquito bite, or a bee sting, or even a snake. It felt like a stab, like someone was digging a knife into her skin and pulling a chunk of flesh out with the blade. And it was happening everywhere.

She began to cry. She frantically kicked her legs and hit her arms, trying desperately to brush the bugs away, but nothing she did was able to remove them. They mindlessly crawled and bit and made their way up her body, and by the time they made it to her neck Chloé was in too much pain and shock to scream anymore.

Without warning, the car door opened, and Chloé couldn't stop herself from slumping out of the limo and onto the wet pavement. Her head slammed harshly onto the ground, but it unfortunately wasn't enough to knock her out. The bugs were crawling on her face now, and she could feel herself beginning to suffocate.

The akuma loomed over her in silence, passive but menacing. She didn't do anything except stare as the mayor's daughter was tortured by her own bugs. Chloé wanted to curse her out until her lungs were raw, but when she tried to open her mouth, she found herself choking on her own blood.

There was too much. Too much biting, too much blood, too much pain. Every inch of her body screamed in agony. She was being eaten alive.

With a final choked gasp, Chloé's eyes rolled into the back of her head.

...

...

Chat slammed open the bedroom door and skidded into the living room, Tikki in his hand and the swarm at his heels. The beating of their wings made a deafening buzzing sound, so loud it almost sounded like a chorus of screams. Chat's heart slammed in his chest and his body worked on autopilot—he pulled out his staff and spun it to shield him from the ladybugs as best as he could. They were only a little larger than normal ladybugs, but they were fast, and there were hundreds. He didn't want to know what they would do if they managed to reach him.

Chat's eyes darted towards the kitchen, just in time to see Alya and Nino running towards him, their own mob of ladybugs chasing after them. "Over here!" he called.

The pair ducked behind Chat and the shield. Chat handed Tikki to Alya so he could better handle his staff, and Alya placed Tikki in her pocket with one hand and latched onto Nino's forearm with the other. The three teenagers backed up until they were cornered against the wall, the bugs towering over them like a tidal wave. Chat made his shield a little larger.

(Deep down, he knew who was behind this. He knew the akuma's identity before he even saw her, but, oh, how he wished it wasn't true.)

He floundered to think of a plan, any plan, that could get all four of them to safety, but his brain was having a hard time thinking on its own under this much pressure. There were just so many of them, and even if he did manage to fight off one section of insects, another would have already reached his powerless friends. For now, all he could do was work defensively and pray for a way out.

The ladybugs began to find their way beyond his shield, handful by handful. The ones that reached Chat didn't do anything except latch onto his impenetrable suit, which briefly confused him until one landed on his extremely penetrable cheek and sunk its knife-like teeth deep into his skin. He quickly swatted it off, and he heard Alya and Nino cry out behind him as their completely exposed flesh became a feasting ground. Chat grit his teeth and spun his staff more quickly.

"We need to get out of here!" Tikki cried over the loud buzzing. "Chat, do you see an opening?"

Chat tried to survey the room for any potential exits, but the ladybugs were closed in on them. The only opening was way above their heads, and it was too close to the ceiling to be a viable escape. If they tried to move forward, the bugs would get them from behind. Cataclysm would only destroy a few bugs that could easily be replaced. And without his partner to help, all four of their lives were in his hands alone.

Suddenly, Chat heard Nino let out a particularly loud cry, and when he looked back to see the matter, he watched in alarm as Nino collapsed. Taking advantage, the ladybugs redirected all of their focus off of Chat and Alya and waved towards the fallen teenager. Alya quickly tried to grasp onto her boyfriend, but it was already too late—the ladybugs, now caked onto Nino's entire lower half, began to drag him out from beneath the shield.

The last Chat saw of Nino were his wide golden eyes and his hands clawing at the floor, before he vanished into the swarm.

Alya screamed at the top of her lungs. She tried to get past Chat, past the shield, but in his blind panic, he kept her cornered against the wall. "NO!" she protested. "No no no no, let me go!"

Chat looked helplessly at the horde. The ladybugs flocked to Nino like flies to a dead body. Or like crows to a carcass.

He couldn't breathe.

She rammed her hands against his back. "We have to help him, please, please."

Chat couldn't tear his gaze from Nino. He couldn't see him, but he heard what sounded like soft sobbing coming from beneath the swarm. Rage and fear flooded through his body, similar to the way it did when he first found out Hawk Moth's identity. Only, this time, it wasn't his father slipping away, it was Nino.

(But . . . he couldn't help as Alya begged him to. The bugs were too vicious, and they were far outnumbered, and there wasn't . . . there was no way.)

(There was no use in trying to save him.)

He had to force himself to look away from his suffering friend, and the one action made his heart feel as though it was being engulfed in flames. It was the first time that he ever willingly turned his back on someone in need, and he didn't think he'd ever felt so fucking terrible in his life.

He didn't have any idea how his voice came out so evenly. "We need to get out of here while they're focused on him. Now's our chance."

(Oh god did he hate saying that.)

Chat couldn't see her face, but he could imagine she was staring at the back of his head in horror. "What?! No! W-We can't just leave him here!"

He didn't reply for a moment. Nino had fallen deathly silent.

"Alya," he said carefully, voice shaking. "There's nothing I can do. There's nothing you can do. He's not—" He couldn't finish the sentence.

He could hear tears in Alya's voice. The pounding on his back grew slower and slower. "No . . . no . . . please . . . please . . ."

Chat knew they couldn't wait any longer. Without replying, he gripped Alya's wrist and quickly began to drag her away from the wall, but she was too harrowed to protest. The ladybugs detected they were moving, and suddenly they began to move towards them again in a huge mass. Prepared, Chat quickly shoved Alya out the front door—

—and, just in time, he managed to lock it behind them.

The two of them slowly backed away from the door, until their backs hit the opposite side of the hallway. In sync, the two of them slid down the wall until they landed on the floor. Chat stared at the closed door in disbelief.

Alya broke.

She leaned forward and buried her face deep into her hands. Her messy hair fell over her shoulders, and her body shook as she began to sob.

"Gone," she cried, over and over. "Gone, gone, they're all gone." She trembled. "Gone . . . gone . . . gone . . ."

Chat timidly raised a gloved hand, hoping to somehow find a way to comfort her, but his hand only hovered by her shoulder, never making contact. He was afraid to touch her; she looked so utterly devastated that even a single touch might've been enough to disintegrate her completely.

Alya moaned through her tears, her words barely coherent. "First Marinette was . . . and then Adrien . . . and Nino . . ." She let out another wracking sob. "They're all gone. He was the only one I had left. I-I'm all alone."

'No, you're not,' Chat thought desperately. 'I'm right here. I'm right. here.'

Tikki slowly poked her head out of Alya's pocket, appearing for the first time since they escaped the apartment. Her eyes were full of sorrow, and she wordlessly nuzzled her head against Alya's side in an attempt to provide the poor girl with some solace. Chat finally laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Alya . . ."

Alya sniffled, but carefully raised her head. Her eyes were terribly red and her face was flushed. She looked like she was about to say something, when suddenly, her breath hitched, and her eyes fell down to her legs. Chat followed her gaze.

The wounds that the bugs left behind were deep and gaping. They chewed right through her clothes and into her flesh, leaving bullet-like wounds in their wake. Bites were scattered all over the surface of her body, like potholes on a roadmap, but her legs were by far the most damaged. Blood still oozed through the openings and leaked onto the floor, and the skin surrounding them was throbbing and inflamed.

Alya swallowed thickly. "Fuck."

"It—it'll be okay," Chat stammered, but even he had trouble believing those words. Thanks to his suit, Chat didn't have nearly as many bites. He had three on his face, maybe a fourth bite on the back of his head. Just staring at the multitude on her legs was enough to make him feel sick.

Tikki flew out of Alya's pocket and moved closer to her legs to inspect the injuries. Her eyes glazed with concern. "Oh, Alya . . ." she whispered.

Chat heaved himself to his feet, pausing a second to steady his stance. He looked down at his injured friend. "Can you stand?" he asked.

Alya held her arms out for help, and Chat grasped them. Tediously, the two of them worked to get Alya into standing position, but it proved to be very difficult for the girl. Now that the adrenaline had substantially vanished from her system, the pain was a hundred times more prominent, and Alya's wounded legs could barely hold her weight. Eventually, they were able to get her to stand upright, but not without Alya leaning heavily against him for support.

Chat squeezed her arm reassuringly. "If you need, I can carry you."

Breathless, she shook her head. "No, no, I—I need to do this."

He glanced at her reluctantly. "Are you sure?"

She sent him an all-too-familiar glare.

Chat looked forward. "All right, then."

They took it slow. The first steps were the hardest—tears were leaking down her face by the time they passed the door to her neighbor's apartment. Walking didn't appear to get any easier, but Alya seemed to get used to it, and she was able to brave the agony and move forward.

Looking around, Chat could see how people had left in a rush. At least half the doors were blown wide open, leading to empty apartments with broken windows. Shattered glass and splintered wood littered the carpet, and the wallpaper was torn and peeling. A few light fixtures were broken, and one on the right was sparking dangerously. Spotting blood tracks, Chat realized that some people were not as lucky. But it was completely silent, which was as relieving as it was eerie.

The two were somewhat successfully making their way down the abandoned hall, until Alya unexpectedly stopped walking. Chat halted beside her, confused. "Alya?"

"Shh," she hissed. "Listen."

Chat suddenly felt chilled. He shut his mouth and strained his ears to hear. At first, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be listening for, but as the noise grew closer, he heard it.

Buzzing.

Not daring to waste any time, Chat scooped Alya off her feet, and he began running down the hall in the opposite direction. However, the ladybugs seemed to sense their rush, because they careened around the corner and hurtled after the two of them at rocket speed. Chat grit his teeth and pulled out his staff so he could launch him and Alya down the hall, when he realized that there were ladybugs coming towards them from both ends of the hallway.

He skidded to a stop and looked frantically back and forth. Both hordes of ladybugs were about the same distance away from him and Alya, and at the speed they were going, he reckoned he had about ten seconds to find an escape.

He couldn't go forward. He couldn't go back. He couldn't go down . . .

Seconds before the bugs collided, Chat jumped on his staff and shot the two of them towards the ceiling.

The staff rocked as the ladybugs swirled around it, but the weapon was made to endure such disturbances. Alya clung onto the hero in fear, and she buried her face into his neck. "Get us out," she pleaded. He didn't think he'd ever heard her sound so scared. "I—I don't want—"

"It's okay," he tried to assure her, his grip on her tightening. He didn't blame her for being so terrified—they'd both seen just how dangerous these bugs were, and they knew this was nothing like any akuma they'd faced before. These powers were far more violent, and far, far more deadly. And knowing who was behind it . . . he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel the same.

The bugs flew up towards the ceiling. Chat raised the staff as high as he could, until his head was pressed against the plaster, and going any higher would result in a broken neck. The bugs began to latch onto his suit again, and Chat knew he was quickly running out of time to act.

As the bugs piled themselves onto him and Alya, Chat felt himself growing more unsteady. The bugs that bit at his head were painful, but bearable. Alya, on the other hand, was once again subjected to bites on every square inch of her skin. Chat tried to swat them off of her as best as he could, and it did help a little, but not very much. All of this, while teetering on his staff, grasping onto Alya with his life, and being shoved against a ceiling . . . he wasn't sure how much longer they would last.

It wasn't very long at all.

Alya slipped. The weight of the bugs dragged her body from his tired arms, but Chat desperately clung to her. "Alya!" he cried.

She looked up at him, her hazel eyes wide in pain. The bugs scuttled up her back and through her hair. Her legs were no longer visible. Her face was pale, and sweat and blood dripped down her face. "Reach in my pocket," she gasped through the torment. "The miraculous."

Chat briefly reached into her pocket and grabbed the box. Tikki was pulling up at Alya's collar, trying to help him release her from the ladybugs' grasp. But no matter how much they tried, the bugs just kept piling on and rising up her body. They could feel Alya growing limper.

"Ch-Chat," she said, her voice cracking. The pain in her face was still present, but it was accompanied by a mask of begrudged acceptance. He preferred the pain. "Go. Let me go."

His eyes widened. "Wh—no," he refused. "I—Alya, no—"

She didn't give him the chance to object. She gave him one last tearful glance. "Say hi to Mari."

Alya tore her arms from his grasp, and plummeted into the swarm.

"NO!"

Like with Nino, the rest of the ladybugs removed their focus from Chat in favor of attacking the much more easily attainable victim on the ground. Chat could only watch as Alya's body was covered by the bloodthirsty insects, and he could feel an unsurprising sense of déjà vu wash over himself.

After a moment, Tikki's choked voice cut through the silence. Her words were barely audible. "We need to go."

Chat forced himself to tear his eyes away from a helpless friend for the second time that day. He looked hollowly at the kwami. Unable to summon his voice, he could only nod in response.

With no bugs to get in his way, retreating to the stairs proved to be much easier this time around. Chat didn't speak as he extended himself up the staircase, Tikki gently hanging onto him by his collar. He landed on the final landing with a muted 'thump,' in front of the door that led to the roof.

As soon as he opened it, Chat was greeted by a burst of cold air and the sight of heavy rainfall. A boom of loud thunder sounded, followed by a crack of lightning firing across the dark sky. For a moment, he stared contemplatively at the downpour, before he ultimately stepped beyond the threshold.

The shock was beginning to wear off, bit by painful bit. He knew it wouldn't be long before his brain processed the gravity of everything that just happened, and to say the least, he was dreading it. A part of him wished he could stay in this numb-like stasis for the rest of his life.

(What a life that would be, one without any feelings. It sounded like a great alternative to the shitstorm of emotions from this past day alone. He craved simplicity, craved the predictability of every coming day. He wouldn't have to miss his mother or despise his father or feel so absurdly lonely within that too-large house. And he wouldn't feel so guilty for letting so many people slip through his fingers.)

The reality crashed into him like a wrecking ball. He fell to his knees, his body shaking violently, and he put his head in his hands. Chat felt Tikki land on his head, and he heard her whisper to him in an effort to provide comfort, but unfortunately, the kwami's kind words did nothing to hold back the fractured sobs that escaped his mouth.

He couldn't take this. First Marinette, then his father, and now Alya and Nino. He lost them both. He lost them all.

Why, why, out of them all, was he chosen to remain?

Chat uncovered his hands from his face and leaned forward on his hands, trying to catch his breath. He might've stayed there all day, keeled over on the roof while his body was showered by rain, but then he felt a familiar crawling sensation going up his arm. When he looked down, he was greeted by a black ladybug skittering up his bicep. Chat quickly flicked it off and watched it land on the wet asphalt, where it joined a small group of ladybugs creeping their way towards him.

...

He could feel her staring at him.

...

Slowly, Chat raised his head. First he saw her feet, a few meters in front of him, where she wore black ballet flats and knee-socks covered in white spots. She wore a black skin-tight shirt with white spots, whose neckline rose all the way up her neck. Her matching skirt went down to her knees, and her arms were concealed by a pair of spotted gloves. Her body was soaking and her pigtails clung to her shoulders with water, but she appeared to be completely unfazed by the rain.

On her face, there was a black and white-spotted mask, the design unsurprisingly similar to the mask of Ladybug. But the eyes that bore through the holes were dauntingly unfamiliar—cold and hard and blank, as opposed to the bright, warm eyes he remembered. These were hostile and void of life, akin to the eyes of a corpse. Yet he knew they were hers, because they were still the same unreplicable shade of blue that made his heart sing.

Chat was frozen. He couldn't stand or sit up or even wipe the tears from his eyes. All he could do was gape at her, his green eyes wide and his throat closed shut. And through the catastrophe of thoughts spiraling inside his brain, only one word managed to ring clear:

'Marinette.'

...

She didn't blink.

...

She didn't speak.

...

And with a flick of her wrist, she fired a swarm in his direction.