Ladybug stood close to the edge of the acrid green cloud, surrounded by the other Heroes of Paris, with all of their allies gathered behind them. In front of them, barely visible while it was obscured within the poison gas, stood the Tarasque. The poison had been a nasty surprise when the Tarasque first exhaled it, straight into Night Bat's face. The police and military lines had been utterly bathed in poison within minutes. Tanks sat empty and idle less than a kilometer south of the Tarasque's current position, their crews having abandoned them to retreat in disorder, though several soldiers had fallen to the poison. The police had had a few additional moments to react and had managed to drive south ahead of the poison cloud. In the interim, the police had established two new cordons – one closer to the river, and the other only a couple blocks south of the heroes themselves.
The Tarasque had finally begun to move, a little more than an hour after it had formed. At first it had only been bellowing and roaring, the sounds reverberating throughout Paris and plainly audible from the Agreste Mansion. But then it had shaken its mane, roared, and raised one paw off the ground. Then the cloud of poison gas had kicked up into the air and obscured it from sight, and only the rumbling and shaking of the ground had indicated its progress south. A swarm of drones continued to fly overhead, catching snatches of the Tarasque's outline as it began to progress southward.
Ladybug's jaw clenched, her breath catching in her throat as the poisoned air crept closer, green tendrils reaching out along the ground to grab at her feet. Ahead of her, she could see trees and bushes that had been caught up in the poison, all beginning to wilt, turn brown, and crumble away into dust. Before her very eyes, the grass at her feet shriveled up and died. She swallowed back bile, peering into the haze at the massive form of the Tarasque looming out of it, the long Scorpion tail hovering over its back poised to strike. How could they have let this happen? How could she have failed her friends and her city so catastrophically that a monstrous mythological horror like this could have come to threaten the people she loved? She was Ladybug! The people of Paris expected her to stop things like this from happening! But everything had gone wrong on her. They hadn't stopped any of the individual Beasts. She had fought with Joey and rejected any help from New Atlantis. Master Fu and Marianne had– She choked back a sob.
A firm hand gripped her shoulder, guiding her back against a too-familiar chest. "It's okay, Milady," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear as he ran his hand down her arm. "You don't have to do this on your own."
"Kitty," she murmured softly, letting out a breath. As always, he was her rock. He could keep her grounded, even in the worst of circumstances. When they had found themselves locked in war against Hawk Moth, he had been the only reason she kept going. When they had gone to the other reality, he had saved her life. Whenever she needed him, he was always there for her. With Cat Noir behind her, she could face anything – even a Tarasque.
Even if she wished they could've had a few more minutes to prepare before coming to face it.
When it had started to move, they had been forced to accelerate their plans and move into position earlier than expected. Ladybug and Cat Noir had been on the phone with her parents and Emilie when the call had arrived; they had all barely had enough time to say goodbye before she and Cat Noir had transformed and stepped out of the office to meet the rest of their team in the front entryway. Pegasus had opened a portal from the entryway to bring all of the heroes out here, just in front of the police line, while Doorman had done the same in the downstairs Headquarters for their American allies. Now Pegasus, Impératrice Pourpre, and Doorman were set up at Headquarters with monitors and drones to coordinate everything.
A shadow passed over Ladybug's head, and she turned to look back at the assembled heroes. Goosilla stood directly behind Cat Noir, dwarfing almost everyone else in the group, though Taureau Dechaine stood almost as tall as him. Looking into the faces of her friends, Ladybug tried to take confidence from the resolution in their expressions. Overhead, Águila Altíssimo, Majestia, Hato Gozen, Iron Maiden, and the rest of the flying heroes flew in a lazy racetrack pattern, skirting the edge of the poison cloud. Between the heroes and the police line, the Owl and a dozen others were busy running from building to building, banging on doors and warning people to evacuate before the impending battle. Even though no one knew what was going to happen, they all had their assignments, and they were all going to carry them out.
A jetpack whined from within the poison gas, and Ladybug turned around just as Turing shot out of the green cloud, tipped up, and descended to land in front of her. "The Tarasque is nearing the edge of the cloud," he reported. His eyes narrowed and mouth shifted into a thin line. "It has accelerated; I estimate it will arrive in less than five minutes."
Ladybug nodded in acknowledgment. "Thanks," she told him curtly as he shot back into the air to take station just above the leading edge of the cloud.
"Any idea when the bad guys are planning to show up?" muttered Sent-Bee into Ladybug's ear. The ground trembled, and Sent-Bee grabbed Ladybug's arm involuntarily to hold herself up.
Ladybug tensed her legs and slid her feet apart for stability as another tremor shook the earth beneath her. The Tarasque's head emerged out of the cloud, green poison still spewing from its mouth and collecting on the ground, blanketing everything to a depth of a meter. She clenched her jaw. "Nope. But I'm not sure whether I'm more hopeful that they will come or that they won't come…"
Cat Noir hummed. "Can't say I disagree," he noted darkly, twirling his staff to one side. "But I wouldn't mind having a few more on our side at the moment, considering how large that thing is."
Ladybug steadied herself, waving away Cat Noir's grip on her arm as the Tarasque neared them. It was a little more than a block away from them, moving at a slow, steady pace as it covered the distance. Through the haze on the ground, Ladybug could see enormous potholes where it had stepped, the pavement having been crushed and trampled down by its massive size and weight. No more than a dozen meters separated them from the Tarasque now. Turning to Viperion, Ladybug nodded curtly. "Start the Second Chance now!"
Viperion swallowed hard and squeezed Ryoku's hand for strength before twisting his miraculous. "Second Chance!" A moment later, he rocked backward as if in a daze, shaking his head and blinking. Ryoku placed a hand on his back to hold him up, and he quickly righted himself, giving her a quick nod and half-smile.
Ladybug stared at Viperion, in shock at his reaction. His expression almost immediately turned to one of calm dispassion, his mouth set in a thin line the only indicator of his previous discomfort. She could see a hint of trembling in his hands that he quickly hid. What had happened? How many times had he reset the Second Chance? What had he seen? She swallowed hard. What did that mean for the rest of them? But she couldn't think about that too deeply. She couldn't allow herself to be distracted, not when the Tarasque would reach them in a matter of moments. The other Heroes needed her to lead them. "Hold it in place!" she ordered, bellowing over the sound of the Tarasque's roars.
Behind her, Alpac-Man threw his hoop as a Frisbee at the Tarasque's head, aiming it to loop around its neck. The hoop started to expand and increase its size as it flew, until it reached the width of a building. "Al-Pack-ify!" he called. A shimmer of yellow light emanated from the center of the ring as it flew higher. At the same moment, King Monkey snatched a steak out of the air, spun around, and hurled it at the Tarasque's head.
Ladybug hardly dared to breathe.
The Tarasque eyed the hoop as it approached and opened its mouth in a snarl. The Uproar-steak smeared across the Tarasque's cheek and fell to the ground. Catching the hoop between its teeth, it crunched down on it, smacking it into the ground. The hoop bowed slightly without breaking, and the Tarasque straightened up and swung its head around, launching the hoop to the east and sending it crashing into a nearby building, which swayed as the façade crumbled.
"Catch that piece of masonry!" Viperion shouted, pointing. Ladybug hurled her yo-yo at the piece in question, as large around as a person, snagged it in midair, and pulled it toward her, moments before it would have crushed a car. Swinging the masonry around at an angle, narrowly avoiding the cluster of heroes behind her as she did so, she released it in a straight line to smash into the Tarasque's head, even as Perez-Oso's coil shot out and wrapped around the Tarasque's front leg.
"Lethargy!" cried Perez-Oso, pulling the coil taut. The coil glowed, thrumming with magic that collected around the Tarasque's leg and began traveling back toward Perez-Oso's hand. The Tarasque, however, bellowed and continued forward, sending a gout of poison breath straight at the group of heroes. Ladybug tensed, spinning her yo-yo in front of her. But before the sickly green air could reach them, Valkyrie dropped from above to land in front of them and brought her hands together in a clap, shooting a wave of air back at the Tarasque. The poisoned air turned away from them and flew up and away from the heroes, back toward the Tarasque itself, leaving a faint green mist in its wake which settled in the air above them. Valkyrie covered her mouth, coughing wetly into her elbow, and swayed slightly on her feet. And still the Tarasque lumbered forward.
"Stop it!" Ladybug ordered, looping her yo-yo around the Tarasque's front leg. Breaking into a sprint, she raced around the Tarasque to the left alongside Perez-Oso, even before the Hound caught his leash around the Tarasque's other front leg and ran in the opposite direction. Soon they were joined by Spider Monkey, Multiplice, and Sent-Bee. Quickly they worked to entangle the Tarasque's legs, even as it continued its inexorable progression forward. Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo's string around the Tarasque's legs twice before stopping directly behind it, holding the yo-yo in place and digging her heels into the cracked pavement.
"There are people in that building!" Viperion shouted as the Tarasque's tail thrashed to either side, trying to hit Ladybug and instead slamming into the base of a tall apartment building to the west. "Taureau, grab that corner! Geber, Prequinateur, get the people out – second floor back apartment!"
Ladybug tugged on her yo-yo with all her might, straining against the Tarasque's forward momentum. To either side of her, the others did the same. The Knight and Lancer ducked around the Tarasque's tail to land behind Ladybug and grabbed onto her shoulders, trying to help her hold it in place. K-Man and Waktiman soon joined them, lending their own strength to Multiplice and Perez-Oso, holding onto them as they struggled against the Tarasque. It stepped forward with its middle legs and pushed itself forward with them. Ladybug stumbled, trying to find purchase in the ground. Nevertheless, she could feel her grip slipping.
"I–I can't–" Sent-Bee gasped as the toughened fiber string of her yo-yo started to fray. She dug her heels in, activated her jetpack, and fell over backward, tracking deep furrows in the pavement with her heels as she skidded along the ground on her back.
"We can't let up!" urged Ladybug, even as Perez-Oso lost his footing and fell to the ground next to her, pulling K-Man down with him. The Tarasque lurched forward another step, and Sent-Bee's yo-yo string snapped. She yelped in surprise, and her jetpack rocketed her across the ground on her back. She almost careened into the side of a building, only to stop herself at the last minute. Ladybug's grip on her yo-yo slipped further, the string sliding further down the Tarasque's legs. She grimaced.
If they couldn't stop it right now, the Tarasque was going to get away.