11 August 2019

Prompt: Whump (Trope)

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Character/Pairing: Fu Wang, Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste, Nino Lahiffe, Alya Césaire, Chloé Bourgeois, Kagami Tsurugi, Mylène Haprèle, Ivan Bruel, Lê Chiến Kim, Max Kanté, Juleka Couffaine, Luka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Emilie Agreste

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Notes: Hardcore character death (that's a hit list up there). Happy endings are for cowards.

step by step, heart to heart

left, right, left – we all fall down

like toy soldiers

bit by bit, torn apart

we never win, but the battle wages on

for toy soldiers

. . : : toy soldiers – martika : : . .

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

Poor little Fu.

Back then, when he first noticed them, first saw their capacity for goodness, before any of this even started, when all of it was just the prickling of a feeling – the Butterfly stirring again…

Poor little Fu, always making such big mistakes.

Back when red was the color of hope, when everything could be fixed with the triumphant cry of "Lucky Charm!"

Poor little Fu, the scared old man sending in children to fight his battles.

When he had first given the Ladybug Miraculous to Marinette, when he had first seen the makings of greatness in her, when he had known she would be the one to take up the mantle of Guardian when his time had passed…

Poor, poor little Fu.

Back when he had known she would do it better, when he had known she would never run like he had.

The coward.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

– V –

The Turtle is the first to fall, and that…that's on him. Fu knows this even as he watches it all unfold: the breaking of his back, the pooling of his blood. Ladybug is supposed to be able to fix anything, but the charm has already been cast when Mayura makes her move. When she grabs the young hero and throws him from the roof. When she taunts the heroes watching in horror below.

You're running out of time, little Bug.

And it's his fault, because he should have been on the battlefield. Even knowing he is too old to bear the mantle of the Jade Turtle anymore, he watches the Fox screaming as she cradles Carapace's body in her arms, and he regrets everything. This is all too much for them. They're still children. How could he have asked them to fight his war? To fix his mistakes?

And Mayura's laugh echoes above it all, and then Rena Rouge is charging towards her even as Chat Noir tries to hold her back. Viperion stands uselessly to the side, his hand hovering uncertainly over his own Miraculous, but they all know better: there was no point set to return to, and Carapace will have no Second Chance.

Mayura is already gone, and Hawkmoth's message is clear: they're all running out of time. He's getting stronger. Bolder.

The Turtle is the first to fall.

And that's on him.

– V –

It rains the day they put Nino Lahiffe in the ground. It's the height of summer, and Paris is boiling, and they're in the middle of a record drought, but it rains that day. The city weeps as heavily as the gathering of teenagers in the cemetery, and the parched ground can't take it.

Hawkmoth takes full advantage of the floods to claim his next victim.

Alya Césaire stands on the Pont des Arts and watches the Seine rise. She holds the Turtle Miraculous in her hand, bears the Fox around her neck. She knows the rules, knows they are both to be returned to Ladybug at the end of their use, and yet…

"Wayzz is hurt, Alya," Ladybug says behind her. She had allowed her to keep them for the funeral, to let the kwamis say goodbye. "I have to return him to the Guardian so he can heal."

"Nino can't be healed," Alya says, her voice flat. Ladybug can't look at her.

"I brought you both into this," she says. Her arms come up to hug herself, as if she'll fall apart under Alya's unspoken accusation. "From now on…whatever happens is on me. What happened to Carapace…to Nino is on me. I have to find a way to live with that."

"I don't want to live with it," Alya says. She runs her thumb against the green Miraculous, her heart clenching in her chest. "I want him back."

"I know," Ladybug says.

"We were starting university next month," Alya continues, her gaze still locked on the Turtle Miraculous. She can feel Wayzz inside, though weakened. Sleeping.

"…I know," Ladybug says. Alya's gaze snaps up to her at that. Ladybug looks away.

"He wanted to marry me," Alya continues. "Not…not yet, I wouldn't let him ask yet, but…he wanted to marry me."

"I'm sorry," Ladybug says. Alya's hand clenches into a fist.

"God damn it, Ladybug, I don't want your sorry! I want Ni-!"

Neither of them saw the black butterfly land on the Miraculous, but Ladybug hears Alya's sudden gasp. She looks up and sees the glowing butterfly mask around her bruised eyes. She hears Alya's strangled no as she throws the Turtle Miraculous on the bridge, and she watches in horrified confusion as Alya tears the Fox's necklace off and tosses it beside the bracelet.

"Alya?" she asks, her voice weak, but Alya shakes her head as the butterfly mask flickers. She steps back, presses against the railing. Hears the roaring of the Seine below.

"You'll never win," she whispers, and with a final shudder the mask fades. The akuma leaves the Miraculous and flies away. Ladybug is too busy trying to catch it, doesn't see her best friend take the step until she's over the railing and it's too late.

"ALYA!"

– V –

Ladybug doesn't want to give out any more Miraculous stones after that. It's her fault, she says, and she refuses to let anyone else die because she pulled them into a war she's supposed to fight.

Fu won't let her believe that. In the end, it's his fault. He was the one who gave her and Chat Noir their Miraculous stones all those years ago. He's the one who lost the Peacock and Butterfly Miraculous stones to begin with. He's the one who caused the destruction of the other Guardians. If anyone's to blame, it's him.

Chat Noir refuses to let him say that. This is Hawkmoth's fault, he insists. Mayura's. No one else's. When the next akuma attacks and proves stronger than they can handle, he's determined to prove them wrong. They can handle this. What happened to Nino and Alya was a tragic accident, but they can be better. Stronger.

So Fu doesn't argue when he takes the Bee Miraculous and tracks down Chloé Bourgeois. And it all seems fine, at first, because Queen Bee knows what she's doing. She's strong. She's resourceful.

...but Mayura is more so, and she's done with Queen Bee's buzzing. She won't have her interfere again, and in one instant she has Queen Bee in a chokehold. She's ripped the comb from her hair. She's crushed it beneath her fingers.

Ladybug knew a Miraculous stone could be damaged. She hadn't known what would happen if the stone was damaged while in use.

André Bourgeois shuts down the city the day he buries his daughter.

– V –

Ladybug wants to lay low after that.

Hawkmoth doesn't give them the choice.

But she won't fight. Not anymore. She comes to his shop in the dead of night, and she doesn't give him a chance to talk her out of it before she's pressing the box containing her earrings into his hand. She had to make sure he got them, she says. Not Hawkmoth. But she's done.

Chat refuses to believe him, but they're three akumas in and Ladybug has yet to show. The purple butterflies flutter in a container in his shop with no Ladybug to purify them. They can't work like this. They were on the defensive before. They're losing now.

So Chat takes the earrings and seeks out Kagami Tsurugi. She can't be Ryuko, for her own safety, but she can be Ladybug. For now, not for good, because Chat still believes his Lady will return. And it works, for a time. Kagami is a skilled fighter, and her heart is good. She wants to save the city that's become her home, to protect the friends she's made throughout the years. She's more than a match for Mayura, and the Peacock villain can't get close enough to try and steal her earrings. She partners with Chat Noir as easily as the real Ladybug, their fighting styles complimenting each other perfectly.

Maybe that's how Kagami figures out Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste.

Ten akumas in, and despite every attempt to contact her Fu still hasn't seen Marinette. Hawkmoth stages another mass attack, once more utilizing Mayura's power to boost his own, and Fu is desperate. Still she won't answer her phone.

It's a bloodbath.

Neither Hawkmoth nor Mayura seem to have any qualms with taking lives anymore. Fu supposes it's easier, once that first one has been claimed.

Chat Noir calls in their reserve heroes, the ones who've seen action less than the rest but he knows they'll fail without. Kim and Max. Ivan and Mylène. Fu is almost foolish enough to hope as he watches the news coverage unfold. Pegasus transports the team across the Trocadéro, pulling them from killing blows in the nick of time. Multimouse's duplications cause a much-needed distraction, while Minotaur wrestles the larger akumas. Roi Singe is everywhere, his jovial fighting style encouraging the team.

Until his laugh is cut off abruptly, and the heroes turn to find he's frozen in place, his eyes wide and the laugh stuttering in his throat. He gropes at his chest, looking at it blindly to see the tip of a sword sticking through. He looks up at Chat Noir, locks eyes, and then he's disintegrating as the sword glows white-hot. Pegasus screams, creating another portal just to reach him, just so his friend won't die alone, but he's barely stepped through when the akuma pivots. Pegasus has barely screamed Roi Singe's name when the blade cuts him in half. Chat Noir is screaming as he races towards them, but the akuma has snatched up the fallen Miraculous stones and is running away. Multimouse and Minotaur are cut down moments later, and the akuma is left laughing in the middle of the plaza. It keeps laughing as Ladybug rushes in behind her, using her yoyo like a sword to fight back. But the akuma knocks her back, and it removes its hood, and Ladybug gasps as Lila Rossi stands before her.

"You'll never win," she says, and Chat screams as she drives her sword through Ladybug's chest. Ladybug – Kagami – looks at him, disbelief shining in her glassy eyes, before she disintegrates.

The tinkling of the Ladybug Miraculous against the stone of the Trocadéro is the loudest sound Chat Noir has ever heard.

Lila smirks, sneers at him, as she bends to pick up the earrings. Chat isn't quite sure what happens after that. A roar rings out over the plaza, and Lila looks up, startled, as a mass of orange and black slams into her. She screams, and Chat watches mystified as the new hero drags fingers tipped with golden claws – claws attached to an intricate bracelet he's seen in the Miracle Box but never in use – across Lila's stomach, but the attack doesn't harm her. Lila seems to be torn in two – the Lila he knows from school and the Lila possessed by the akuma – before the possessed Lila becomes a butterfly and the butterfly is shredded with the claws. The pouch that had been holding the captured Miraculous stones is reclaimed, and the new hero adds Ladybug's earrings to the mix before running over to Chat.

"Defeat them," she says, her voice low. "I'm taking these back to the Guardian. Win, Chat Noir."

But then she's gone, and Chat stares hopelessly around the Trocadéro, because she's just told him to win but he doesn't know how. The akuma are defeated, but so are his friends. Mayura stands across the plaza, grinning at him, and he doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know how to win.

Ladybug was defeated. There will be no lucky charm, no Miraculous Ladybug, no miracle cure to revive the heroes. To save his friends. Chat Noir is alone.

And Alix watches, horrified, from the sidelines, where she hides behind an overturned car, as her friends fall. As the heroes of Paris lose. But she knows she can stop this, can fix this, if only she can get the time. So she grabs her watch, and she's barely called on Fluff when Mayura appears grinning before her.

"Found you, little rabbit," she whispers. The watch is knocked from her hand, shattered on the ground, as Mayura draws a feather from her fan. The pointed tip is sliced along the girl's neck, and she's left to die in the street, choking on her own blood.

Hawkmoth has one last akuma to spare that day.

And Chat Noir – knowing that he caused this, that everyone he cares about would still be alive if he had only listened to his Lady – loses his mind.

– V –

Hawkmoth and Mayura are bad.

Chat Blanc is worse.

He ignores every command Hawkmoth sends him, because who needs Hawkmoth? The akuma enhances powers that are already gifted by the Cat Miraculous, and Chat Blanc is indiscriminate in his vengeance. He wants the city to burn. He wants it to crumble as his friends crumbled.

He wants…

Seeing Ladybug standing before him is almost enough to give him pause. Seeing the three heroes behind her – Viperion, the girl from the Trocadéro, and another girl dressed in pink (the Pig Miraculous, he knows) – is enough to spark the rage anew.

"Thought you wanted to keep civilians out of this, Bugaboo," he hisses.

"You didn't give us much choice, Hawkmoth," Ladybug says. She walks closer to him. "Release Chat Noir."

"Chat Noir is dead," Chat Blanc sneers. "You should be used to that by now. Like this."

He's never cataclysmed a human before. He remembers Miraculer, remembers the feeling of deterioration as his own body gave way under the attack, but he's never actually done it before. It used to be something he was proud of. Now, he watches with a perverse glee as he leaps over Ladybug and lands a glowing hand on the Pig hero's head. She screams, her blue eyes staring into his own glowing, violet leer.

She's dust before he lands.

"Second Chance!"

Chat Blanc scowls at Viperion's cry. Of course he was learning. But it doesn't matter, because Viperion only has one chance to use his power before needing to recharge, and thanks to the akuma Chat Blanc doesn't have that limitation anymore. The Pig is blinking at them in confusion when he lunges at her again. The Tiger pulls her away and slashes at Chat's back, but he's quicker. He spins mid-air throws his cataclysm against her chest. The air is thrown from her body as he tosses her back to the other heroes. Viperion tries to catch her, but there's nothing left to catch. He screams. Howls.

"JULEKA!"

"Chaton, stop it!" Ladybug shrieks, and her yoyo is pulling him back as he lunges for the heroes again. He's struggling with Ladybug, and he barely catches the beeping, but his lips twist in a manic grin when Luka charges into the fight to land a fist against his jaw. "Luka, no! Run! Hide!"

Chat is cackling. He should have known. He sees the bangle now, hidden among the others on Luka's wrist. He's never seen him so angry before. Never heard him scream so loud. And then he's rushing him again, and it's all a scramble. Luka's good, but in his civilian form he's not that good – and Viperion was never a front-line fighter, anyway. It takes a few tries, but he finally lands a hit – right as Ladybug's trying to pull him away, and Chat Blanc's hand lands squarely on Luka's back.

He's never heard Ladybug scream like that, either, as Luka disintegrates in her arms.

She's desperate and distracted as she crabs the Pig's hand, and they run. His cataclysm is too thorough. There are no trinkets to collect from the dead heroes. Just ash.

He chases them through the city. Somehow he loses the Pig, but he's closing in on Ladybug. It's a game they've played for years, and he's gotten much better at it. He almost has her a few times, his claws scraping down her back, around her leg, through her shoulder. The last pass has her stumbling on a landing, and he throws her into the wall of an alley. He presses against her, and thinks once upon a time her tears might have stopped him.

"Chat, please…Chaton…come back to me," she gasps. He tightens his grip on her shoulders, his claws digging in.

"You'll never win," he hisses. Her eyes go wide at the words, and she screams as he rips the earrings from her ears. Her transformation drops, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng is standing before him. Some distant part of his mind thinks he should care about that, but he's already whispered the last word she'll ever hear before the light fades.

"Cataclysm."

– V –

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

Because of course Hawkmoth is no longer happy just possessing the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous stones. Of course he wants the entire box.

Rose had barely stumbled into Fu's shop, crying that they'd failed and Chat Blanc was coming, when Chat announced that he was already there with a cataclysm to her back. The bangle of the Pig clattered to the ground at Fu's feet.

"You will never win," Fu had spat at him as he picked it up, but he had only laughed as he fingered the pearls of the bangle.

"He already has," Chat had said. Fu doesn't remember what happened after that, not until he awoke in an underground garden surrounded by white butterflies.

Chat Blanc is screaming, practically feral as Mayura holds him in place. Hawkmoth chuckles and tells him his assistance is no longer needed. He walks across the dais and grabs Chat's hand. The akuma flutters away, but the fight doesn't leave him as his suit stains black again. He's thrashing, screaming, but Hawkmoth merely nods at Mayura. She raises a feather, and it's over.

Another failure for Fu Wang.

Hawkmoth chuckles lowly as he removes the ring from the dead hero's finger, but the chuckle stops abruptly when the transformation falls away and Adrien Agreste is revealed in Mayura's hold.

It was never supposed to end like this.

"A-Adrien…?" Hawkmoth breathes out, his voice barely audible. He has gone still, frozen, but Mayura is shaking. She falls to her knees, Adrien crumbling on her lap, and turns horrified eyes to her partner.

"Sir…" she chokes out, but Hawkmoth can't hear her. He's furious. Manic. He whirls on Fu, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"You! Guardian! Give me the Ladybug Miraculous!" he demands. He races over to him, grabbing and scrabbling at the Miracle Box. "How do you open…? Quickly! It's not too late – we can fix this! We can…where are those damned earrings?!"

"Chat Blanc never returned them to me," Fu says steadily. His gaze is stone as he glares at Hawkmoth. "Check his pockets. You don't seem above looting a dead man."

"Sir!" Mayura calls as Hawkmoth slaps him, and he runs back to her. She's holding Ladybug's earrings in her hand. He snatches them, holds them with the Cat's ring…and nothing happens. He whirls on Fu again.

He never should have brought in children to fix his mistakes.

"How does it work, old man?!" Hawkmoth demands. "The ultimate power! The power to bend reality! How does it work?!"

"A price must be paid," Fu says. Hawkmoth laughs.

"I've already paid it, you fool! But I can fix it – now tell me how!" he shouts.

He's made so many mistakes.

"You will never win," he says firmly, standing despite the shake of his knees. Hawkmoth screams, and he spins again. Stalks over to the glass coffin Fu hadn't noticed before. Shock steals through him as he recognizes Emilie Agreste, the last holder of the Peacock Miraculous. The mother of…

"I will bring her back," Hawkmoth says quietly, his hand pressing against the glass. "I will bring them both back."

Hawkmoth's hand fists over the earrings and ring of his enemies. A glow, faint at first but growing ever stronger, envelopes his hand, then his arm, then everything.

"Si-!" Fu hears Mayura cry, but it's cut off as the light hits her.

It was never supposed to end like this, Fu thinks as his heart seizes in his chest. Emilie Agreste was never supposed to wield the Peacock Miraculous.

The light fades. The comb of the Peacock clatters to the floor as Nathalie Sancoeur collapses atop Adrien Agreste's body. The room is growing darker, Fu's vision blurring as he struggles to catch his breath. The room is spinning, falling, as it slips further and further away.

It was never supposed to end like this.

Emilie Agreste opens her eyes.