To yellow 14: Good question. I didn't write everything that happened during the battle; they may have been there but not been seen by any of the POV characters. Or at least that's what I'm going with!

"What do we do now?"

Chloe looked across the table at Marinette on hearing the forlorn tone of her question. She sighed heavily. Far from the cool, confident, in-control Ladybug, Marinette appeared… unmoored. Had Chloe ever heard Marinette sound so… depressed before? In school, in the past, she had made Marinette angry on many occasions. Marinette had even yelled at her several times when she had taken her bullying too far. The memory burned in Chloe's mind, of just how poorly she had treated the girl who had over the last two years become one of her closest friends – and almost as much her sister as Sabrina was.

Sabrina…

Sitting next to Chloe, Sabrina had her head down on the conference table, barely moving, barely responding to anything that the others said. She had been in that position for the last hour, ever since Mihaela had found them outside and offered them the use of this conference room to discuss their plans. Chloe had steered Sabrina inside, where she had de-transformed. Nooroo had spoken to Kaalki in hushed tones, and the two Kwamis had barely touched the dried fruit that one of the Angolan Guardian Initiates had found for the six Kwamis to share. Chloe glanced surreptitiously over at Sabrina. She wasn't crying at the moment; she had cried herself out in the first hour they had been in Angola.

Three hours. Three hours since they had retreated from Paris in disgrace, leaving the city to the Tarasque. Three hours since they had stumbled through a portal into Angola. Three hours since they had watched Max's death.

What were they supposed to do now indeed?

When they had followed Aline into the temple, down a couple passageways, and into this conference room, most of the survivors had still been in shock. The African Miraculous Team had begun trying to organize the refugees into groups, working to connect families that had been separated in the evacuation. Some of the other heroes had roused themselves enough from their stupor to assist in the process… but far more had been crowded together near where the portal had closed, waiting for medical attention. So much needed to be done, but where were they supposed to start? The seven – Chloe's stomach clenched – reduced to six leaders of the Heroes of Paris had come in here to discuss plans… but they could hardly speak at the moment. Looking around at the others, Chloe had the most to be thankful for: her family had made it to Angola. Adrien, Marinette, Alya, Nino… Sabrina – Chloe swallowed – all of them had left someone behind. Stranded… or maybe even dead.

Everyone was waiting for the Heroes of Paris to come up with a plan… but after today…

Chloe sighed heavily. "What can we do?"

Adrien shrugged his shoulders helplessly and shook his head. "We–we did everything we could back there, but it hardly seemed to notice. It was just… it tossed aside everything we threw at it. Like we weren't even there. Like it didn't even care. I hit it with two Cataclysms, and it barely reacted! What's left?"

"There–there has to be something…" whispered Marinette. She sniffled, staring down at Tikki, who looked balefully back up at her.

Alya had a haunted look in her eyes, staring sightlessly down at the table, hardly even acknowledging Trixx, sitting near the middle of the table with Wayzz and the other Kwamis. Nino wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. Alya blinked, clenching and unclenching her hands. "I can't believe he's gone…"

Sabrina tensed, a hitch in her breathing, though she didn't lift her head off the table. Chloe glanced down to see her eyes clenched tightly shut, and put a hand on Sabrina's shoulder. Sabrina, however, jerked away from Chloe and sat bolt upright. Chloe instantly released her shoulder, and Sabrina folded her arms on the table, leaning forward heavily. Nooroo fluttered away from the cluster of Kwamis to land on her shoulder, his wings beating rapidly against her neck. Sabrina sniffled. "We have to get back there."

"And do what?" Nino wondered, his voice lacking any force, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "That thing kicked our butts across Paris once; what are we supposed to do this time? We already lost so many…"

Marinette's lower lip trembled, unshed tears in her eyes, and turned toward Chloe. "Do–do we have a tally?"

Chloe shook her head regretfully. "No. I…" Her stomach clenched. "I don't think we'll know the civilian toll until we get back to Paris – and maybe not even then. As far as the heroes, there are a lot that I haven't seen since arriving – I haven't seen Capricorn, Anansi, Goosilla… just to name a few. How many of them are here, how many are hurt or killed…" she threw her hands up in the air. "I have no idea. I asked the leaders I saw to take a roll call of their own people; I'll check with them later. I know Pablo's… dead. Miss Pinky saw what happened to Tyran-X. Um…" She glanced sidelong at Sabrina and winced. "Max." Sabrina whimpered.

Adrien stared down at his hands. "All of those people dead… and for nothing?"

Marinette put her hand on his. "Kitty…"

Adrien slammed his fist down on the table with a bang. Chloe jumped, staring at him in shock. "We lost! We ran away! We got our friends killed! How do we fix all of this?"

"You're the ones who're supposed to know that, dude!" retorted Nino. "We followed you into battle! We bet everything on you!"

"Well maybe you shouldn't have!" Marinette shrieked. Chloe started, wincing. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now! I never asked to become Ladybug! I never wanted this responsibility!"

Nervously, Chloe glanced over at Sabrina. Normally, this was when Sabrina would step in, would defuse the situation and calm everyone down. But now Sabrina continued to sit still, Nooroo on her shoulder, staring into the distance with that same look of confusion and horror plastered across her face.

Chloe gritted her teeth. "No one is saying it's all your fault, Marinette," she informed her curtly.

Marinette scoffed. "They probably should," she shot back.

"All of us agreed to it, though," Alya pointed out, giving Nino a look. "We were doing the best we could with the information we had."

Reluctantly, Nino nodded, his shoulders slumping. "I guess it's not like we could have known that it wouldn't be hurt by anything we could throw at it… even if all five component parts were also immune to practically anything we tried doing to them."

Adrien frowned. "We did everything in our power," he informed Nino, his eyes narrowing. "Marinette didn't know what was going to happen."

Nino folded his arms, "Yeah? Well you should've–"

"Enough, babe," Alya interrupted him, placing a hand on his arm. "Leave them alone; it's been a long day for all of us. After everything else that's happened, we don't need to be at each other's throats."

"Especially not of our best friends," added Chloe, giving Nino a pointed look. "We need to work together, not blame each other."

Alya looked around helplessly. "All of this magic, and we can't do anything about any of this? What about Miraculous Ladybug? Could you try that?"

Helplessly, Marinette threw her hands up in the air. "It sounds like that should work, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "But would it work when the Tarasque is still on the loose? Its poison has persisted even with Miraculous Ladybug. And I've used Miraculous Ladybug a dozen times since the Beasts first appeared, even since the sickness first started. It hasn't done anything to the poison's effectiveness, or to the course of the illness, or…"

"How can something be more powerful than Miraculous Ladybug?" demanded Alya, her eyes wide in disbelief. She turned to stare at Tikki. "I thought you were the most powerful Kwami!"

Tikki spat out her dried berry and opened her mouth to respond, but Plagg cut her off. "I thought your kid was supposed to be smart, Trixxy," he scoffed, shaking his head. Turning to Alya, he told her, "Both of us are the most powerful Kwamis. Creation and Destruction: two sides of the same coin, always completely in balance. Other miraculous come close – or represent specific aspects of Creation or Destruction, but they don't have our power."

"'Creation and Destruction' together…" Adrien repeated slowly before groaning. "Oh, dammit. There is something more powerful than Miraculous Ladybug."

Chloe cocked her head, raising an eyebrow.

"Wait… what?" Alya stared at him in surprise, her eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar.

Nino pumped his fist. "That's what I'm talking about! Let's do it! If we have a way to fix everything, we need to give it a shot!" Nino leaned forward. "So what is it, dude?"

Chloe examined Adrien's face carefully, though she remained quiet. Adrien swallowed hard, working his mouth without any sound coming out.

Marinette's eyebrows rose, and she shared a look with Adrien. "You can't mean…?"

He nodded, troubled. "The Wish." To the others he explained, "If the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous are used together – Creation and Destruction operating together – they grant the user a single wish. Anything they want." His shoulders slumped. "That's why Father wanted our miraculous: so he could wish Mom back."

"And that would actually have worked?" Sabrina started, staring at Adrien in shock. "You mean we could just wish the Tarasque away?" Her eyes widened, leaning forward eagerly. "We could wish everything was back to normal? We–we could wish Max back?" She whispered the last sentence, a pleading look in her eyes.

"So why didn't you tell us about this sooner?" Alya demanded, eyeing them suspiciously. "I could think of a dozen times before now that this Wish-thing would have been super useful…"

"Because it's not that simple," Marinette told them. She swallowed. "There is an equal exchange. If you wish someone back, the wish will cost someone else. If M. Agreste had made the wish, it would have been Adrien. If it had been Adrien to make the wish…"

Alya's eyes widened, and she stared at Marinette. "You."

Marinette nodded. "So if we wish for the Tarasque to go away, what would it cost?"

Adrien snorted humorlessly. "And would it even work? We only know of one time that someone used it, and it didn't turn out so well for them…"

Chloe blinked, eyeing him suspiciously. What did he mean by that? When had someone attempted this before? She had already known that there were things Adrien and Marinette knew about the miraculous which they hadn't shared – there were experiences they had had together without the rest of them. Tante Emilie being awake again now – without the use of this Wish – was proof enough of that. But this – on top of everything else…

"So… what? Would we just wish the Tarasque gone right now?" Nino wondered. "What would happen then?"

Marinette's eyes widened in horror. "That's what I'm saying! Who knows what would happen then!"

Sabrina folded her arms. "That wouldn't be enough!" she interjected at the same time. "Wish it gone now and everyone who died is still dead. But if we wish that it had never appeared, then everyone would still be alive!"

"Sure, but if we do that, then what could it do to the timeline – to everything that has happened since the Lion first appeared?" asked Nino. "Would we lose out on having found Mira's mom? Would we have to meet some of our new friends again?"

"You can't seriously be considering this!" Alya objected. "What would happen to the world if we just wish that the Tarasque had never appeared?" She raised an eyebrow meaningfully. "Would that break our universe?"

Marinette hummed. "It might just create another branched reality where we hadn't done that, to go with the new one where we had," she suggested, a look of distaste on her face.

Chloe blinked. "And you would know that that's a possibility… how?"

Adrien shrugged, raising an eyebrow at her in amusement.

"Okay… so we do that," Sabrina urged.

Chloe pursed her lips. "And if we do it, what then? What will it cost us?"

"Does that matter?" Sabrina demanded, slamming her fist on the table. "Whatever the cost, if it brings back Max and Pablo and everyone else, wouldn't it be worth it?"

"The problem is that the exchange may not be fair," Adrien pointed out.

Marinette frowned. "Even if it weren't, if we make the Wish just to benefit us, without any thought for the consequences of our messing with reality, how does that make us any better than Hawk Moth?"

Adrien nodded heavily in agreement. "We can't do it."

Sabrina slammed her fists on the table. "If we can make all of this go away, why wouldn't we?" she demanded, jumping to her feet. Hiccupping, she turned and ran out of the room.

Marinette started to stand up, but Chloe shook her head. "Let me talk to her."