So! I have been obsessing over Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noir for a while now. Watching all their episodes (oh my life! Mr. Bug!) and reading comics and fanfiction and fan made musical scenes, y'know, the works. I came across a video that used a song from Prince of Egypt called "The Plagues" by Animatic on Youtube. It presented an interesting AU which of course I had to explore. I pretty much assume that people who will read this know a lot about the show so i don't explain many things...sorry, not sorry :3
Credit for the idea to Animatic and the Miraculous character are, of course, not mine and I'm not making a profit from this or claiming that this is my idea.
Paris was burning.
The night sky was filled with smoke, blocking out the moon. Flames ate hungrily at all it touched. Licking up the Notre Dame. Trees in the streets burned like torches. Flames sprang out of houses, reaching into the night with desperate fingers.
Within the chaos, shadows flitted across rooftops, Anansi crawled up a building climbing through a window. Screams of terror. Deafening silence. More shadows crawled out of the house after her. Stormy Weather flew above, directing the breeze to feed the flames. The wind shifted. Sparks shot into the air, burning it.
Walking, untouched by the monsters around her, was Ladybug.
Akumas floated on the oppressing wind, capturing victims caught in the street around her. More shadows were created. The shadows morphed into vaguely humanoid figures. The villains all looked at Ladybug, eyes glowing with Hawk Moth's purple light, and moved on.
Their task was simple: akumatise all of Paris and leave Ladybug alone.
Ladybug closed her eyes when a window shattered not too far from her. The occupant's screams didn't last long. The shadows crawled out the window, sprinting to a new source of negative emotion.
"MAMA!" a child cried.
Ladybug's eyes shot open, she stopped, turned to the noise instinctively, but she couldn't do anything. The child and mother were taken within seconds. Half or Paris must be taken already. She couldn't stop. She needed to reach her destination. She needed to free her friends.
Ladybug released her yo-yo, threw it to coil around a nearby roof, and shot into the air. She could see her destination clearly when she landed on the roof. It was the only house untouched by the destruction around it. Adrien's house.
Ladybugs heart cramped painfully.
"Please…" she whispered a prayer into the burning sky. "Please, Chat…"
Her arms were led as she threw her yo-yo. She was running out of time. She sped through the night, heart weighing her down with every swing closer to his house. She knew where her friends were. Knew which window to go through. Chat Noir had been painfully specific. Ladybug's heart cramped again. She couldn't afford to hesitate. Couldn't afford to be weak.
She threw her yo-yo and jumped.
The wind blew her hair back as she sped towards the window. Adrenaline shot through her just as she broke through the glass. The shards rained down around her with its fractured melody when she landed.
"Chat…" she whispered looking up from her crouched position.
Chat Noir looked up from the screens where all of Paris was displayed. Burning. Still burning. His eyes were hard when he saw her stand up into a defensive position. They were facing each other, opposing each other in Gabriel Agrest's office. Her friends were nowhere to be seen; it was only Chat.
"Please…" she raised her trembling hands in front of her, balled them into fists, "don't make me do this…"
His face morphed into one of pure rage, his own hands balled into fists. He screamed.
Ladybug flinched at the sound. He jumped over the desk and couches with the speed and grace of a jungle cat, and she knew then. She knew that she would not be able to fight him.
He was before her within seconds, his right hand clawed – a warning. He grabbed her with his left, enclosing her throat in his grip. His teeth were savagely bared.
"So predictable," he hissed, face inches from her own, "Come to save your friends?"
Ladybug gasped, holding his wrist, trying in vain to free herself. She struggled, wriggling as his grip tightened.
He released her abruptly, turning away without a word.
Ladybug slumped to the floor, coughing whenever she tried to breathe deeply.
"Or have you come to save me?"
Ladybug looked at him, eyes and throat burning. "I – "she coughed.
"Lied to me." He faced her, accusatory.
"Chat…" she croaked, "Adrien…please listen to me."
"You know what?" he laughed, a short bitter laugh, glaring down at her, "It alllll makes sense now."
Ladybug steeled herself, forcing her body to stand up.
"You. Always keeping me at arms-length."
Ladybug got her knees under her, tried to push herself up.
"You. Always insisting we keep our secret identities."
She looked up, "Adrien –"
"You. Playing me as Marinette," he hissed through clenched teeth, "Making me trust you. Making me believe you were my friend."
"I am!" she coughed.
"No," Chat Noir straightened his spine, "You're not."
"Adrien, please," she stood up on wobbly feet, "he's lying to you!"
"My father would never lie to me."
"Adrien, he's Hawk Moth!" she cried, incredulous, "He's been trying to get our Miraculous for five years now! He's been lying ALL THAT TIME!" She coughed again, hand to her tender throat.
"He only did it to protect me."
"He only did it to trick you!" she croaked, "Use your head Chatton."
"Stop it." He glared at her so intensely Marinette took a step back. But she couldn't back down now.
"Think Adrien, please," she begged for him to see reason, pleaded for him to listen, "Unlike your father, I never lied to you."
"Stop it."
"I was always there for you. You know I was."
"Stop…" Adrien turned away from her.
"He only cares about himself. I've only ever had your best interests at heart. I love you!"
"ENOUGH!" Chat Noir turned on her; the room shaking with his barely restrained power. "Enough," he said in a voice so low and filled with venom Ladybug closed her eyes against the pain she heard beneath it.
"If you really want what's best for me," He waited until Ladybug looked him in the eyes before he continued, "You'll give me your Miraculous."
"Chatton –"
"Don't. Call me that," he warned, eyes narrowing.
"Adrien," she took a step towards him, "please, this isn't like you. What's gotten into you!"
"Reason." He hissed, "the truth."
"That came from a liar's mouth!"
"You don't know what you're talking about." Chat turned away from her, walking back to the monitor where Paris burned. His eyes flitted across the screens. Burning. Still burning.
"Then explain it to me. Help me understand."
Chat Noir rested both his hands on the desk, bending over them.
Ladybug took a few tentative steps towards him, eyes flitting around her in search for any clues that would help explain what happened to her friend, her partner.
"He wants to bring my mother back."
She stopped; brows knit in confusion.
"He showed her to me, you know," His voice was soft, trembling "She's still alive. She's been alive all this time," He breathed deeply, turned to face her, face pleading, "Marinette, please you have to help us. You have to help me. If my mother comes back into our lives, then everything will go back to the way it was! We will be a happy family again."
"How will he bring her back?"
"He wants to use our Miraculous to wish her back to full health."
Marinette was quiet for a while, thinking, weighing her options.
Adrien waited with bated breath. Maybe now she'll see. Maybe now she won't fight them anymore. Maybe…
"It won't work," she whispered sadly.
Those three words struck his stomach harder than any physical blow ever could. He sucked in a breath, anger against her rekindling within him. "How would you know?"
Ladybug's mouth worked, searching for an appropriate response. "I… You have to trust me."
"No. Never again," He scowled at her, "You will tell me what you know!"
"Adrien, please understand! if Hawk Moth makes that wish then the world will be out of balance. It will do anything to bring that balance back! Either by giving someone else whatever sickness your mom has now or by killing them."
Adrien frowned.
"Would that be worth it?" she asked seeing a crack in his confidence. "Giving some innocent person somewhere an unexplained sickness? Think about this properly. I can help you, but not in the way you think. We can go to Master Fu, we can do ANYTHING else, but I can't give you my Miraculous. Please, Chat…"
His hand reached up to retrieve a necklace hidden around his neck.
Ladybug's eyes narrowed suspiciously, she watched as he took if off and opened the locket.
"Adrien, where did you get that necklace?"
She took a step towards him; she sensed that the necklace –
A sudden sharp and searing pain struck her middle. Marinette gasped. She looked down and saw what she could only assume as the tip of a sword sticking through her stomach. Her head snapped up to look at Chat Noir, betrayal etched into her shocked face. When the sword was yanked out viciously, she passed out.
Ladybug sunk to the floor in a boneless heap.
Adrien teared his wide eyes away from her still form to Hawk Moth who stood holding the short sword with a malicious sneer.
"Father…" Adrien couldn't move, couldn't think. The locket he was holding burned his hand.
"It's ok, son," Hawk Moth stepped over Ladybug's body and stood next to Chat Noir, "the blade does not leave a mark, she is still alive."
As if on cue, Ladybug convulsed.
"The sword is made from the same ancient material as the Miraculous," he explained, watching her body spasm erratically, "It was designed as a fail-safe by the Guardians eons ago, in case a Miraculous holder turned evil."
"What's happening to her?" Adrien asked, torn between helping her and staying at his father's side.
"Her kwami is being ripped from her body. Molecule by painful molecule."
Adrien's head snapped to his father. He took a slight step away from him.
Marinette screamed.
Adrien dropped the locket and ran to her. He scooped her into his arms, head racing in a futile attempt to help her.
"STOP IT!" he screamed at his father, eyes filling with tears at her tortured cries." FATHER, PLEASE!"
Hawk Moth stood his ground. Staring down at his son and enemy devoid of any and all emotion.
"Marinette!" He held her shaking body. Watched as her screams deteriorated.
Her suit flaked off her slowly. Her head thrown back into a soundless cry, wide eyes betraying her pain. Soon her feet…ankles…knees…hips…stomach…shoulders and neck exposed her civilian clothes underneath. When it reached her mask, Marinette started to relax. She blinked slowly, looking up into Chat's stricken face as the last of her powers turned to red ash. She went limp.
The red powder of her suit congealed together above her still body. Hawk Moth and Chat Noir watched in silence as the particles were sucked together to form Ladybug's kwami. In a flash of red light, Tikki hovered above Marinette's still form. The kwami opened her eyes in a grimace of pain and fell.
Hawk Moth stepped forward and in one swooped motion scooped the unconscious kwami out of the air. In his haste he unknowingly stepped on the locket Adrien had dropped. The sound of breaking glass caught Chat's attention.
Adrien could see the picture inside the broken locket when his father stepped away. It was the same family photo displayed in his house downstairs, the one that was taken months before his mother got sick and disappeared. The glass cover over the photo was cracked. He watched numbly as an akuma floated out of the crack that cut his father form him and his mother.
"Finally," Hawk Moth breathed, cradling the unconscious kwami in his hand "I've been waiting for you for so long little bug."
"What will you do now?" Adrien asked softly, head bent forward.
"I'm going to make a wish to bring my Emilie back." Hawk Moth said, "Give me her earrings and –"
"What about Marinette?"
"What about her?" he frowned at his son still bent over her unconscious form.
"Will she be ok?" He looked up at his father, desperation tinting his words, "Will she wake up again?"
"She might," he shrugged, "she might not. All that matters now is getting Emilie back."
"And Paris?"
Hawk Moth scoffed and turned his back on his son, "It can burn to a crisp for all I care. Bring her earrings and your ring to the observatory when you're done here."
Something snapped within Chat Noir. He placed Marinette down gently before her shot up and sprinted to his father. Hawk Moth turned when Chat growled but did not expect his son to be so close to him. Adrien yanked the sword out of Hawk Moth's hand and plunged it deep into his stomach in one smooth motion.
Hawk Moth stared at his son in disbelief, feeling his energy flooding to the sword.
"She was right about you," Chat's eyes blazed with his rage; he yanked the sword out.
With a chocked sound Gabriel fell to his knees.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, still cradling the kwami in his hand while the other clutched his stomach.
"I saw the akuma you used on me…" Chat stepped back, energy suddenly spent, "Mom wouldn't have wanted it this way."
Gabriel passed out before he could answer.
"Plagg, Claws in."
In a flash of green, Plagg appeared next to his holder as Adrien's suit disappeared.
"Whelp, things could've been way worse," the kwami mused looking down at Hawk Moth convulsing, "actually, that's pretty bad…"
Adrien wasn't listening. He picked Tikki up from where his father had dropped her when he passed out.
"How are we going to fix this?" he asked his kwami.
Plagg flew down and came to rest in Adrien's hands next to Tikki. He nudged her gently.
"I'm not sure kid. A kwami is a being of endless power, but that sword does its absolute best to suck all that power up. It basically leaves the kwami and holder with just enough strength to survive the separation."
"Marinette…" Adrien looked at her and felt his heart shatter.
"She's fine, kid," Plagg flew towards her, felt her pulse just to make sure, "but we need to get Master Fu here ASAP."
"Okay," he nodded, "Okay."
Adrien gently turned Marinette so that she way laying on her back. He placed Tikki on her stomach and scooped the two of them up.
"We're gonna need some help."
"I'll say…"
"Plagg, go to my room and get yourself some cheese while I think of a plan."
"Don't have to tell me twice," and with that he dived down into the floor.
Adrien walked towards the painting of his mother just as his father started to scream. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened the elevator to go into the observatory.
There ya have it! Pretty dark heh, sorry? Anyway, t hs is the 1st installment. Might be 1 or 2 more chapters after this.
Please lemme know what you think, if the characters are OOC or if my writing didn't make sense.
Thanks :)
k, bye.