Chapter 10: Gabriel Agreste

Zoé was attending a meeting at the art room at Françoise DuPont Middle School. She didn't know exactly what it was about, except that it was to help Marinette. It was probably another scheme to get her to confess to Adrien Agreste.

Zoé wasn't so sure about that. She liked Marinette, and Marinette had gotten her included in a large group of friends, but when it came to romance Marinette was hopeless. Zoé had heard about all the schemes that had all gone wrong. Marinette had gotten tongue-tied so many times. Zoé suspected that Marinette didn't really want to confess, but that she liked the romantic fantasy of having someone to crush on without taking the risk of being rejected.

Her half-sister Chloé and her friend Sabrina weren't supposed to know about the meeting, but Zoé had told them. She was starting to connect with her sister and wanted to draw her closer. Zoé rationalized that the scheme was bound to go wrong anyway and it wouldn't matter much if it was Chloé who messed it up.

Nathaniel and Marc were at the front of the room with a stack of art that they had created. Marinette was sitting in a chair surrounded by her friends: Alya, Juleka, Rose, Alix, Mylène, and Zoé.

Alya spoke up. "Nath and Marc, I know you're trying to help, but Marinette told us she's not a in a good place to start a relationship, even if your confession plans work."

The other girls looked at Alya in surprise. They seemed to have forgotten about this.

"That's true, isn't it, Marinette?" Alya asked. "You haven't changed your mind about anything, have you?"

There was a tinge of bitterness in Alya's voice. Something seemed to have come between the two BFFs.

"Well... I don't know," said Marinette. "Nathaniel and Marc have put in a lot of work, and I'd like to see their ideas."

"Marc is a great writer, and Nath is a fantastic artist," said Mylène.

Rose said, "After their first comic with the love story between Ladybug and Chat Noir, they will put their talent to work on the romance between you and Adrien."

Marc said, "From the outside, your story seems complicated. But really, it's simple."

Nathaniel sat in a chair and began showing his stack of pictures as Marc narrated. They presented the story as a fairy tale with illustrations similar to Disney's "Sleeping Beauty", with a princess locked in a castle by a wicked witch, guarded by a dragon. A knight is on a quest to rescue the princess.

"The knight is you, Marinette. The princess is Adrien. The witch is his father," said Marc. "The castle is the mansion."

"Shouldn't Gabriel Agreste be a wicked king?" asked Rose.

"The dragon is his bodyguard," said Zoé. "He looks like it."

"He looks like a gorilla," said Alya, making them all laugh.

"The obstacle is the dragon," said Nathaniel.

"Or the witch," said Marc. "In this story, it's Gabriel Agreste."

"But the witch made one mistake," said Nathaniel. "He let his son go outside the castle."

"Giving his fairy guardians a chance to help him," said Marc. "That's us!"

"Every week we will have a new plan for the knight to kiss the princess," said Nathaniel. "So that they will live happily ever after with hamsters."

Marc said, "The plan can only unfold where the witch doesn't have access."

"Our middle school!" said Marinette.

With a cackle of laughter, Chloé came down on a bungee cord onto a table, through a hole in the ceiling where she had removed a tile. Sabrina came down beside her, but her cord was too long and she flopped down at her feet.

"Help, it's the ogress!" said Rose.

"The wicked wolf," said Mylène.

"The ugly toad," said Alix.

"And your worst nightmare," said Chloé.

She showed off a video that she had taken with her phone from her high vantage point.

The video played: "... the witch made one mistake. He let his son go outside the castle."

Chloé said, "Thanks to this video, I'm going to ruin Dupain-Cheng's fairy tale. I will show this video to his father, and he will understand that you are trying to take his son away from him! He will lock him in his room and forbid him to return. The fairy tale is trashed. Adrien will never see you again, and so much the better!"

Marinette said, "You were happy that he came to school!"

"He'll be better off alone at home than in the company of a bunch of dummies," said Chloé. "He will have a chance to become my Prince Charming again, the one I have always loved!"

"He was never your prince!" said Marinette.

"We'll see, Dupain-Cheng!" said Chloé. "Sabrina, ninja smokescreen!"

Sabrina threw down a small sack of baby powder, which produced a little puff that barely rose to their knees. Then they were pulled up on the bungee cords, except that Chloé hit the edge of the ceiling tile hole before getting through. "Ouch!"

Marinette said confidently, "She talks big, but she can't do anything. The witch, Gabriel Agreste, doesn't let just anybody in."

"There's a dinner tonight," said Zoé. "Where his close friends and their children are invited. Chole will be there."

"So will her mother, who is the same as yours," said Marinette. "You're invited."

"That's true," said Zoé. (Thanks to her new sisterly bond, Chloé had not excluded her.)

"You can stop her, right?" asked Marinette. "We're counting on you."

Zoé made up her mind. She hadn't expected Chloé to do anything that would hurt Adrien. Because Zoé had betrayed them, she felt responsible to make things right.

"I'll do what I can," said Zoé.

Zoé arrived at the dinner party with her half-sister, her mother, and André.

Zoé had an earpiece with a microphone, concealed under her long hair, that she could use to communicate with her friends who were gathered together in Alya's room. Marinette was coordinating the action.

Gabriel was in a formal black suit, but Adrien was dressed in casual everyday clothes. (He was going to entertain the guest's children in his room, and not attend the main party).

"Welcome to the dinner," said Adrien.

It appeared that each adult guest was expected to put their index finger onto a scanner and then take a mask from the table.

A servant came through, carrying boxes of dishes. With her was John Pierre from the hotel, carrying a larger box. They also touched the scanner.

"How is it possible that you only hired a couple of servants, Gabriel?" asked Audrey. "If you lack staff, I could lend you some, you know."

(Zoé realized her self-centered mother had failed to recognize Jean Pierre, who actually was on loan from the hotel staff.)

Gabriel ignored Audrey's rude remark. "Welcoming you is a pleasure, my dear Audrey," he said, kissing her hand.

Chloé spoke up. "Mr. Agreste, You absolutely need to see this video!"

"You have to stop her!" said Marinette over the earpiece.

Zoé pretended to stumble, sending Chloé forward into Gabriel. Her phone and his tablet fell to the floor.

"Sorry, Chloé," said Zoé as her half-sister glared at her.

As he bent to pick up his tablet, Gabriel's cravat became a little askew. Zoé caught a glimpse of a golden piece of jewelry before he straightened it. The peacock broach was an odd choice to wear with black, especially under a cravat.

Chloé tried to get the video back up on her phone, but her mother ushered both daughters out of the way of the next pair of arriving guests, a woman with long blond hair and a boy who had a strong resemblance to Adrien.

Chloé tried to get attention again. "Hey! Take a look at my video!"

Zoé was worried. She wasn't in position to pull off another stumble.

Gabriel looked stern. "This is not the time, young lady."

"That's enough, dear... it's obvious that Gabriel is busy," said André, pulling Chloé away.

Zoé gave a little sigh of relief.

"Gab-ri-el! I can finally thank you in person," said the woman who was next in line, giving him a dramatic hug. "You have made my son Félix very happy. Because of our family's ring."

Félix waved his left hand, which had a silver ring on it.

"It was unthinkable to do otherwise, Amelie," said Gabriel.

"It was very generous on your part, Father," said Adrien.

Zoé had heard from her friends about Félix, Adrien's cousin, who had caused a lot of trouble on his last visit. He was so identical to Adrien that he could impersonate his cousin by changing his clothes and hairstyle. He had used that resemblance to send a mean video message to Adrien's friends, getting some of them akumatized.

Chloé was sitting and sulking on the stairs. Zoé walked over, and Félix followed.

"It's fake Adrien!" said Chloé when she saw Félix. "If I was anyone other than Chloé Bourgeois, I would at least try to stand out a bit!"

"But... you're wrong! I am Adrien."

"Oh! I'm sorry, Adrikins!"

Félix chuckled. "Your stupidity never ceases to amaze me, Chloé Bourgeois."

He turned to Zoé. "You must be her half-sister Zoé Lee, just a little younger, am I right?"

"Yes," said Zoé.

"André and Audrey recently celebrated their twentieth wedding aniversary, didn't they?"

"If you're trying to make something out of me being a love child, don't bother. It barely mean anything any more," said Zoé.

"I see," said Félix with a smirk.

"You might ask yourself why you and Adrien are so identical," said Zoé. "Did anything happen there with Gabriel?"

"Oh, I know my origin very well," said Félix. "It's Adrien who doesn't."

He nodded towards the door, where Adrien was still standing, welcoming in Kagami and her mother.

As Gabriel used a remote control to lock the front door, Chloé got to her feet and rushed over to him.

"Mr. Agreste, do you have the time to look at this?" said Chloé, waving her phone.

"All phones must be secured," said Gabriel. "Privacy is essential when discussing business."

A white, box-like robot (the same brand as the self-driving cars made by Kagami's mother's company), came up to Chloé and opened one of its drawers for her. Under the watchful eyes of Gabriel, she had no choice but to place her phone in the drawer, but Zoé noticed that she ejected the memory card first.

After everyone put their phones away, Gabriel pushed a button on another remote and Zoé's earpiece rang with feedback.

"He must be jamming the signal," Zoé thought, turning off the earpiece.

"Adrien, take your friends to your room," said Gabriel.

"Yes, Father," said Adrien, leading the way.

Zoé followed up the stairs, along with Chloé, Kagami, and Félix. Butler Jean followed with a tray of drinks for them.

"Félix?" Gabriel called. "May I have a word with you?"

Félix turned and went into a side room with him. Meanwhile, Zoé and the others got settled in Adrien's room.

A little while later, Adrien peeked out of his door and invited Félix in.

The conversation languished, with Kagami unwilling to speak with Adrien after their break-up, and both half-sisters annoyed with Félix.

Chloé pulled out her phone memory chip. "I need a phone!"

Adrian said, "Chloé, you heard my father. No phones during the evening."

"He'll thank me after seeing it," Chloé said.

She left the room and Zoé followed. They could hear some dance music playing in the ballroom. The "dragon" was standing by the door.

"I'm going in there to get a phone, and you're going to help me," said Chloé.

"I'd help, but we can't get in there," said Zoé. "The bodyguard won't let us in."

One of the box-like robots came from the kitchen and went into room.

"He will if we're disguised as robots," said Chloé. "I saw the servants bringing in some boxes that would work."

Chloé went back to the kitchen where the hostess hired for the party was working.

"We want a couple of tall boxes!" Chloé demanded.

"What for?" asked the woman.

"How dare you question me?" said Chloé.

"It's for a game we're playing in Adrien's room," said Zoé apologetically.

"All right," said the woman, pointing to a stack of empty boxes.

Chloé and Zoé had poked eye holes in the boxes and headed to the dining room disguised as serving robots.

Zoé noticed several remote controls on a table to one side of the door. One of them might be useful for causing a disturbance and getting Chloé caught, but the remotes weren't labeled and she wasn't sure what did what. She ended up just following Chloé in.

They moved among the masked dancers in the dark room. Chloé moved next to one of the robots, tore a larger hole in her box, and started opening drawers, looking a phone of the right brand to fit her memory card. It took a while, since she had to check each one with little light.

Zoé moved her box around and bumped the dancers so they would look Chloé's way and see what she was doing. People were too intent on their own dancing and ignored the clumsy "robot."

Then it was too late. Chloé found a phone, shed her box, and rushed out with it.

"Hey, that's my phone!" said a man, who Zoé recognized by his voice as Bob Roth, the producer of their movie.

"Mr. Agreste. I really need to show you my video," said Chloé, walking quickly toward Gabriel's atelier with the stolen phone.

Zoé trailed behind, worrying about what to do. The door was blocked by a large overturned chair for some reason, but that wouldn't stop Chloé for long.

WHAM!

The doors to the atelier burst open and the chair went flying. An akuma dressed in black, white and red jumped out and spun dramatically. "I am now the Collector! Those collected by my tablet will deliver their secrets to me."

Chloé was closest as the Collector threw his tablet, sweeping her up in a burst of magenta light and a high-pitched sound.

"My phone!" said Bob Roth.

Chloé's voice could be heard from inside the tablet, "I wanted to show you this video to hurt the baker girl, because I'm evil! Whaa? Why did I say that!?"

With a sweep of his fingers over the tablet, the Collector silenced her voice.

The Collector looked at Zoé next. "What were you doing in the ballroom where only the adult guests should be? What secrets do you hide?"

He threw his tablet again, but Zoé dodged behind Bob Roth, who got collected next.

Roth's voice came from the tablet. "I steal ideas from other people, and then I..."

He also was silenced.

By this time, the commotion attracted the attention of the kids in Adrien's room. Guests ran around in panic, getting captured. Jean Pierre, the Gorilla, and the party hostess tried to fight and got swept up.

Zoé ran for the table with the remotes. She picked up the one with a wifi symbol on in and ran to a corner of the kitchen. She pushed the off button and put on her microphone earpiece. It worked – she had shut off the jammer.

"There's an akuma inside the Agreste Mansion!" Zoé called. "The Collector is catching people in his tablet. We're locked in with him! Have Alya put out an alert for Ladybug."

Zoé might hate Ladybug, but who else could she call?

She heard the Collector demanding from Félix, "Where is my ring?"

Zoé peeked out from the kitchen, and found the Collector had collected the front door. She could escape! She ran out, but found that the Collector was still too close. He collected her, too.

She found herself alone in a small digital space.

"I came here to stop Chloé from showing the video, because I made a mistake and betrayed my friends," she was compelled to say over and over, even though she knew the Collector wasn't listening.

It was worse than being turned into a banana.

With a burst of magical ladybugs, Zoé was free. Gabriel Agreste was nearby, deakumatized.

"I'm really sorry," he said. "The memory of my wife made me very vulnerable. This ring is all that I have left of her. But you can have it, Félix. After all, I gave it to you."

"When did he take it back?" Zoé thought. "Not before he became the Collector, because he still wanted it."

There were mysteries about the evening she wasn't able to fathom yet.

Ladybug gave Gabriel a Magical Charm like the one Zoé had tricked Chloé into taking. Fortunately, even though Chloé had come out of the house and was close by, she was too obsessed with her video to pay much attention.

"Mr. Agreste! Mr. Agreste! Take a look at my video, right now!" cried Chloé.

Bob Roth grabbed the phone and said, "Just a minute! This is my phone."

"But it's my video!"

"Not really. I just erased it!"

"No... NOOOOO!"

"And now, my phone and I wish you a pleasant evening," said Roth.

He walked away, taking with him Chloé's memory chip and every other selfie she had on it.

Chloé sobbed.

Félix was pleased with himself as he rode with his mother back to the station in the limousine. He had verified his suspicions that his uncle was Shadow Moth. He had also protected his ring and his free will from being taken back. The real ring was concealed in a false heel in his right shoe.

Félix was confident that the man who confronted him the second time that evening was a sentimonster impostor. Just to be sure, he had tested him by tearing a pant leg and later saw Gabriel with his pants untorn.

One other give-away was that Félix didn't feel any effect from the imposter's ring, as he had when the real man had spoken to him earlier. Félix had tested the effect of his own ring on Adrien, when they went to the show where the Psychomedian appeared. Even though it wasn't the true ring, there was enough influence to get Adrien to do something silly, like changing clothes for a prank.

The twin rings were really something. There was magic in them that allowed the duplication of other magic. Emily created Adrien as a sentimonster in order to have a "perfect" son that she could control. She had used one of the rings as the amok object. The doubling magic of the rings created a second amok in the other ring, and a second boy. She hadn't expected that - she thought it would just make the Peacock's effect more powerful.

The second child was given to her sister to raise. Félix was told the truth from his earliest youth, that he was a sentimonster and all about the rings. Adrien was kept in ignorance and controlled. The ring that had the most effect on Adrien was his mother's ring, his true amok object. But because of the duplication magic, the other ring had some influence, too. Gabriel must have realized there was power in his own ring, but he didn't realize how much more power Emilie had. Emilie was more subtle in her use of the ring and kept that from him. Eventually, when Felix stole back his own ring, Gabriel had taken the other ring for his own use and he must have discovered how much more powerful it was in influencing his son.

Both families knew of the Peacock, but Gabriel had claimed it was stolen when Emilie disappeared, implying that she had been killed for it by the man who became Shadow Moth. Now Félix knew the truth.

After Emilie was gone, Félix's family had tried to get back both rings. Gabriel had refused. But Félix had gotten his own ring back. Adrien would have to deal with things for himself. Félix had been jealous of Adrien as the favored one, the wanted one. But now he was free and his sentimonster twin was enslaved.

To be fully safe, Félix would have to get the Peacock and Butterfly away from Gabriel. But that was a plan for another day.

Later, Zoé talked to Chloé about the experience of being collected.

"I was forced to repeat the same thing over and over," said Zoé,

"Not me," said Chloé. "I didn't run out of things to confess."

"What do you think about all this today? Was it worth it?" Zoé asked.

"I don't know," said Chloé sadly. "No."

"Were you happier when you were a hero?"

"Yeah, but Ladybug took that from me. It's her fault I'm miserable."

"You don't have to give Ladybug that satisfaction. You can be heroic without her."

"I don't know how."

"You could start by being nicer to Sabrina... let her ride in your limo instead of making her run."

"Eew, and get peasant sweat on the nice seats?"

"How about letting her have a light when she works on your homework in your closet?"

"Well... I guess I could do that..." said Chloé.

"It's a start," said Zoé.