"Goodbye! Come again!"

Marinette waved to her fourth customer of the day as he left the bakery. She smiled to herself as she packed away the tray; apparently he was off to give his grandmother a surprise visit at the hospital, now complete with a few freshly baked almond croissants to cheer her up. It was a refreshing sentiment, especially after the stress of the past day or so.

Dusting the flour off of her apron, Mari risked a glance at the clock on the wall. She groaned: dead on 8:00 o'clock. There was still another three and a half hours to go before she was allowed to leave.

Marinette sighed. At this rate she was never going to find Tikki.

Seeing as there were no customers in the shop, Marinette decided she deserved a short break and walked into the back in search of her phone, giving her Dad a quick hug as she passed by. She grabbed it from the charger and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for it to turn back on, absentmindedly fiddling with the charger chord.

In the meantime, she tried to think of some kind of concrete plan to find Tikki. Her first idea, to look in places the Kwami was familiar in the hopes that Tikki would somehow be there, hadn't worked out so well the day before, but it didn't hurt to try again. This time, however, she'd hide little notes with directions on how to get home, just in case Tikki did find her way there. Any random passerby would just assume they were bakery advertisements; it was genius, if she did say so herself.

There was always the chance that Tikki was safe and she had just gotten lost. Marinette couldn't give up on that. Paris was a big confusing city after all, it was very easy for someone to lose their way.

Her likely-to-be-less-successful back up plans were a Hansel and Gretel cookie trail, a bunch of homemade 'Missing Pet' posters, and a Batman-style stop light shaped like a Ladybug. If those failed, she'd have no choice but to go to Chat, try and come up with some convoluted reason as to why she needed his help and go from there. It was risky, and she could end up revealing herself if she wasn't careful. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that, but it was good to know she had a last resort available... just in case.

A little jingle played as the phone screen lit up and Mari turned back to it in response. Almost instantly she was bombarded with messages from Alya.

(07:03) From Alya ✨✨

morning 'Nette! Hope you had good nights sleeeeeeeppppppp

(07:03) From Alya ✨✨

i got up early to do the science project due tomorrow, have you started it? it's gonna take forever it's like 7 pages

(07:09) From Alya ✨✨

im going to take the silence as a resounding no

(07:09) From Alya ✨✨

if it makes u feel better, im barely past page 1 this thing is hard

(07:10) From Alya ✨✨

like idk what a covalent bond is and i honestly don't care

(07:10) From Alya ✨✨

unless it gives me super powers

(07:10) From Alya ✨✨

which according to this txtbook it doesn't so im back to not giving a damn

(07:11) From Alya ✨✨

in the meantime, wanna tell me about this mysterious hamster of yours yet? hmmmmmmm?

(07:17) From Alya ✨✨

mARRINNETTEE

(07:17) From Alya ✨✨

FORGET THE PROJECT

(07:17) From Alya ✨✨

FORGET THE HHAMSTER

(07:17) From Alya ✨✨

FORGET THE CONCAVE BONDS

(07:18) From Alya ✨✨

THERES AN AKUMA ANDDITS HUGE AND ITS TURNING OPEOPLE INTO CHLOEE

(07:18) From Alya ✨✨

I THINK IT MIGHT B BE THE SCARIEST ONE YET JUST BECAUSE OF THAT

(07:19) From Alya ✨✨

Image:

(07:19) From Alya ✨✨

I THINK ITS HHEADING TOWARDS THE TELEVISION STUDIOS IMN GOING AFTER IT

(07:21) From Alya ✨✨

Image:

(07:21) From Alya ✨✨

ILL KEEP MY BLOGG FPOSTED STAY TUNED GURL

Marinette stared at her phone, eyes wide. An Akuma? Now?

The attack couldn't have happened at a worse time. Ladybug was, for the most part, out of commission, so there was no one to purify the Akuma, no one to fix everything at the end... but no one would know that. People could get hurt without their hero to protect them; Chat Noir could only do so much on his own. Images flashed through her head: screaming citizens as they ran from the victim-turned-villain, her partner backed into a corner with no one to help him, Hawk Moth cackling as his Akuma reached for Chat's ring—

Marinette slapped a hand across her mouth to hold back a horrified sob. The people would think she'd abandoned them.

She couldn't— no she wouldn't— let anyone suffer because of her mistake. She had to go, risky or not.

"Mama!" She called as she ran up the stairs, quickly shoving her phone in her pocket, "Mama!"

There was a shout from somewhere above her, but she couldn't make out what was being said, so she ran faster. Grabbing the banister to pull herself around, she shot forward, taking each step three at time. She sprinted through the door, catching Sabine by surprise.

"Marinette? Shouldn't you be downstairs, honey? What's wrong?"

Marinette took a breath, quickly rushing through her words, "Alya! Alya needs me there's an Ak— emergency! There's an emergency! I need to go help right now, right away!"

Sabine gasped, "Oh dear, okay, you go, go now, do you need anything to take with you? Some medicine or some school notes? What kind of emergency is this? Take some pastries from downstairs as well, just in case." She rushed about the kitchen, grabbing some first aid supplies and snacks, habitually putting them in her daughter's backpack as the daughter in question caught her breath.

"It's an emergency-emergency!" Marinette said, gratefully taking her stocked up bag from her mother, "Thank you, Mama! I'll be back as quick as I can!"

"OK, sweetie! I'll tell your father where you've gone, stay safe!"

Marinette slung her backpack over over shoulder and slid down the bannisters, ignoring the spark of guilt and shoving her way through the door as soon as she reached the bottom. She checked her phone as she started to run. Alya's blog had a video of the Akuma already posted and Marinette clicked it in her haste, fingers shaking.

"Don't click away, cos we are live from Paris! Alya here, bringing you the one and only Ladyblog! I'm live-blogging from the ground, giving you exclusive footage of Hawk Moth's latest supervillain! No Ladybug on the scene yet, and early reports confirm only glimpses of Chat Noir, but I do have an exclusive visual on this week's Akuma. This one calls itself Perfect Candidate, I think. Naturally, I deduced this using my amazing and awe inspiring journalistic talents... and also because it says so on one of those massive badges up there. As far as I can tell, it's on its way to the television studi— oooh my god! Woah! It's super strong! I hope Ladybug gets here quick, that building needs to be fixed really soon and oh— right! Back to the Akuma. As you can see, Chloe Bourgeois appears to be a focus of this Akuma, judging by the clones all over the city, so best guess the victim is our Mayor of Paris, Mr Andre Bourgeois, but is there more to this Akuma than meets the eye? What does it really want? I'm going to find out! Huge scoop to come!"

The video cut off there, freezing on a picture of Alya's excited face.

Marinette felt her blood run cold. The Akuma had torn through that building like it was tissue paper, like it was only air. There could've been people in there, people she hadn't saved in time. Marinette didn't know anyone who lived there personally, but that didn't mean anything in the moment. Those houses were homes, and homes held people, her city's people.

The people she was letting down. The thought made her want to throw up.

Mari wouldn't let herself panic, though she could tell she was nearing on a nervous break down. It took a long of her strength to force herself to clench her fists, steel her resolve and start running towards the studios. She tried not to think on how scared she was without her suit. Instead, she concentrated on a coming up with a plan.

The people needed her. Alya needed her. Chat needed her. She wouldn't just give up. Tikki had taught her better than that, and with any luck, she'd be able to find Tikki before she got to the Akuma.

Marinette held back her tears. No crying on the battlefield.

"Hey, Tikki?"

"Yes?"

"Did you spot her yet?"

"No, not yet, I'm sorry."

"Okay, keep looking. I could really do with her heeeeEEEEEeeelp right about now!"

Chat said as he dodged another massive arm swing, using his baton to quickly pivot around a building and tuck himself behind a chimney. Hidden from sight, he looked around for a better place to think of a plan, suddenly very aware he was practically on his own without a red spotted lady beside him. He had to be careful, watch his own back. Ladybug wouldn't be there to knock him out of the way if he got too close to a stray fist: focus was key.

It was more than a little unnerving being without his partner, but he'd made an effort to stay on task. For the most part, he'd managed crowd control: grabbing civilians before they could be shot with the badge-ray, knocking cars and buses out of the Akuma's path, trying to divert it to the least populated areas, all while trying to keep in contact with the police. He'd avoided as many questions about Ladybug's absence as he could, but he could tell that people were tense. Only one of two superheroes turning up to fight such a big Akuma wasn't a great boost to morale, and people had definitely noticed she was missing. It wasn't helping Chat's focus.

In the meantime, while he was moving members of the public, Chat waited for Tikki to find her charge, which was proving more difficult than the two of them had originally thought. Apparently, his Lady was no where to be seen, which worried him more than he cared to admit. He couldn't even imagine what Tikki must be feeling.

They'd been up against the Akuma for over fifteen minutes, nearing on twenty. If she didn't arrive soon (though Tikki was absolutely certain she would), then something bad might have happened to her. She never took longer than ten minutes to start saving the day, though Chat factored in some extra time knowing she'd be arriving as a civilian.

He didn't say it out loud, but the sudden thought that she could be injured or Chloe-fied made him feel more than a little panicked, borderline hysterical. He couldn't do this without her, and he didn't want to do this without her either.

They were partners.

Chat shook his head, blinking hard. No time for that now. He had to concentrate.

With Tikki acting as look-out, the two of them had followed the Akuma through Paris' streets, trying to avoid direct confrontation so that he had time to work out what the Akuma wanted. Tikki had already identified the victim as the Mayor; that much was clear by the dozens of Chloe look-a-likes milling about the streets, but he still wasn't sure what the Akuma was actually trying to accomplish. So far, all it had done was shoot bystanders and move through Paris very, very slowly, occasionally knocking down a building or two.

From his experience with The Pharoah and Darkblade, he could only assume that Chloe-fying the population wasn't the only goal Perfect Candidate had in mind, so all he had to do was figure that out, stop the Akuma before it could go through with it, and then he was golden. The only problem was what to do afterwards. He couldn't purify the butterfly with Cataclysm and without Ladybug's miraculous on hand the purifying power of the Ladybug yo-yo was just as unusable, so unless Tikki could do something about it by herself, he had to find some way to catch the thing.

He went to ask Tikki for ideas when he heard a faint crumbling noise from behind the chimney. He froze, his cat ears twitching towards the sound.

A split second before the chimney shattered into dust, Chat jumped out of the way, Tikki's high-pitched shrieking echoing in his ear. He landed roughly on a roof across the road, scraping his boots against the tiles, cursing under his breath.

"So—" Chat muttered under his breath, "—you can move fast when you want to, huh? Good to know."

The Akuma didn't seem to hear him. It was looking at its palm in confusion, as if it had expected to see a crumpled kitten laying there instead of shattered brickwork. It clenched and unclenched it's fist, turning the rubble into sand.

Taking the opportunity to flip himself over the victim without being seen, Chat landed in an alley nearby (the fourth one in two days). He pressed his back against the wall of a news agents, peering around the corner to keep an eye on Perfect Candidate's movements.

When the Akuma seemed calm for a moment, still confused over the magically disappearing Chat Noir, Chat took a second to consider his options. He could try to lead the victim away from the centre of Paris, but if he wasn't careful that could just cause more damage to the surrounding buildings, and without knowing whether or not there were people inside, it was an unnecessary risk to take. Plus, the added no-Ladybug problem meant there was no guarantee he'd be able fix the damage anyway, so more broken infrastructure wouldn't do anyone any good. The local council would have a fit.

His second option would be to continue what he was already doing and follow the Akuma to wherever it was going, but that was taking too long. Besides, ideally, he would have to get there before the victim to prevent whatever unfortunate thing they were planning. Without the prior knowledge of where it was going however, this wasn't exactly a viable choice either. If someone got hurt because of that decision, and he couldn't reverse it, well, he'd never forgive himself.

His other option would be to ignore the Akuma completely and focus entirely on the search for Ladybug. Part of him wanted to jump straight into looking, a desperate hope that he'd meet her as a civilian still present in the back of his mind, but rationally he knew that it would take the longest out of all the options.

Not only did he not know what Ladybug looked like without her mask, Tikki refused to give him any definitive details. She was determined to protect her charge's identity, which, though sweet, was making it really difficult to pinpoint a place or person to look for. To top that all off, he didn't even know if the things he knew about his Lady's appearance, her blue eyes and dark hair for example, were even the same as they were when she was Ladybug. His eyes as Chat certainly didn't look the same; how was he supposed to know if her eyes were really that gorgeous shade of cerulean blue?

He could only hope.

Above him, he could see Perfect Candidate looking around, still trying to figure out where the superhero had gone. Luckily, Chat was just out of his line of sight, so the hero let himself relax a little. He credited his sudden burst of good luck to Tikki. Plagg would've thought it was funny if he'd been smacked all the way to England by some rogue Akuma. Probably would've asked for British cheese too, the little dairy-loving mini demon he was.

Inevitably, there was only one option left: try and defeat the Akuma now, but as a plan it still had issues. How did he figure out which badge was the one with the butterfly in it? What if none of the badges had the butterfly in it? What did he do with the butterfly once he found it? Could he even catch it? Was it safe to touch with his hands or would he be possessed too? Could the butterfly steal his ring by itself? How would he even get close to the Akuma without Lucky Charm? What did he do once he used Cataclysm? There was no back up coming to pick up the slack once his timer ran out, and after that he'd be stuck.

Of course his biggest problem was actually purifying the butterfly. Without his partner, the best he could do would be to contain it, though he wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to do that. Could an Akuma possess a glass jar?

He pondered silently, tapped his foot against the pavement. Luck wasn't going to do him much good without the actual Lady Luck herself around, though he was grateful for Tikki at the very least. He could tell she was trying her best to help, influencing little things here and there, but she couldn't do much by herself; her good fortune wasn't all powerful.

As if on cue, a familiar jingle played, signalling the breaking news. Chat felt himself tense again as Perfect Candidate swung his ballooned body around to stare at the large TV strapped to the front of the news agents. The opening credits ran and Nadja Chamack suddenly appeared on screen, looking concerned as she fiddled with her cue cards.

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news! This is Nadja Chamack reporting. Once again, citizens flee as supervillain Hawk Moth's latest Akuma victim terrorises the city of Paris. The victim's motive is, as of yet, unknown, however civilians are encouraged to stay inside as the Aku—"

Perfect Candidate's plastic smile spun upside down, clicking loudly, the sound eerily like forceful twists of a child-proof cap.

"Adrien! Move!" Tikki squeaked, and Chat ducked and rolled to another alley just in time to watch in horror as a massive blue fist sunk into the little shop, completely demolishing it and it's neighbours. Sparks flew from the smashed television. Shards of glass littered the street and a thick layer of brick dust and shredded newspaper pages covered the ground, flapping feebly. The glitched image of Nadja Chamack managed to repeat a garbled 'stay inside' once more before it was met again by a giant, angry fist.

Once the TV was definitely broken beyond repair, and it had been hit a few more times after for good measure, Perfect Candidate's frown swung back round, slow clicks punctuating the return of the clown-like grin.

Chat stared blankly at the broken news agent, suddenly very aware of the threat Perfect Candidate posed. He had to get to the television studios, immediately.

Nadja Chamack's life was in danger.

Alya was living in a nightmare.

Since she'd left her house, she'd been met by Bourgeois upon Bourgeois upon Bourgeois. All of a sudden, it was a blonde here, a blonde there, hundreds of bitchy remarks everywhere. Streets were filled with yellow jackets, striped tops, sneers and smirks, and Alya had had enough of it.

It was like a plague of designer jeans and abandonment issues.

At one point, she'd run past a very confused and scared Sabrina, who had been surrounded by several Chloes all demanding different things from her. It didn't look friendly, and the poor girl looked like she was going to cry, so desperate to please all of them. Alya had moved to help her, but Sabrina ran before she got a chance, followed by at least twenty copies of her so-called-best-friend still screaming frivolous commands.

Unfortunately, that wasn't even the worst of it. From what she'd seen so far, Chloegeddon was in full swing. Every street was coated with Chloe. Every corner, bridge, every cafe and park was covered with Chloe. Even the route she needed to take to get to the studios was rife with Chloe Bourgeois look-a-likes, each one admiring their reflection or checking their nails.

Alya had to wonder why the Akuma would want to spread Chloe copies around— parent or not, surely even Andre had to admit Chloe was a creature of pure evil.

The Akuma itself was still gleefully causing the Bourgeois epidemic, and was big enough that Alya could still see it from blocks away. However, if she wanted to reach it for an interview, she still had a trail of primadonna daughters to wade through if she wanted her story. Plus, the Akuma was getting further and further away; that thing could move surprisingly fast when it wanted to. She had to get moving, but there was a one big problem that was preventing her.

The Chloes almost seemed to be multiplying. There really were a lot of them, enough to fill an average sized army. They were blocking several main streets and traffic had stopped dead still: tons of abandoned cars littered the streets.

Alya couldn't go around the Chloe army, and she didn't have a way to go over the Chloe army; so she had no choice but to go through the Chloe army.

Alya really didn't want to go through the Chloe army.

"Ugh." A Chloe to her left said as she ran past, "Those jeans are so ugly. Where did you buy them? Off of a homeless person?"

Several other Chloe's laughed in unison, a high pitched chorus of white privilege and custom lip gloss. Alya held back a bitter retort. She had a scoop to get to and no fake Chloe was going to ruin that for her... even if she wanted to slap a couple of them around the face while she had the chance. She sprinted down the street, ignoring the various snide comments thrown her way.

"Your dye job looks horrendous. Did you dip your hair in the sewers?"

"Oh my god, that phone is so old. Is it a loan? You borrow it from your great-grandparents or something?"

"You know tartan went out of style with the cowboys, right? You got a hoedown later or what?"

"The fifties called, they want their glasses back, you stupid nerd!"

"High tops? I'm sorry, what year is it again? I thought we passed the millennium like, ages ago."

"I hope you realise my Daddy is going to hear about this travesty." With a start, Alya realised the same Chloe from before was following her. Gritting her teeth, she tried to get rid of the clone by cutting down some side alleys and darting through short cuts, but no dice; this Chloe was persistent. "He's going to call the fashion police on you and your ugly jeans."

Alya narrowed her eyes. This Chloe didn't seem any different from the rest. She was dressed in her typical designer clothing, her trademark yellow jacket perfectly tailored as always, nothing particularly striking. She was refusing to leave off with the insults, but she was the only one who had decided to follow. The rest of the clones simply stood in the same place they'd been shot, taking selfies or loudly complaining. Apparently all the running from various Akuma had kept Chloe fit however, as she was keeping up with Alya's pace without much effort. If anything, she was faster.

"There isn't a fashion police." Alya spat through gritted teeth. "That's not a real thing, now leave me alone."

The copy smiled. "Oh, it might not be a real thing right now, but after Daddy sees how tacky your outfit, it will be. It's practically criminal!"

Another uproar of cackling from the surrounding Chloes. The Chloe following Alya grinned, holding a hand to her face haughtily. "See! I agree with me!"

"Hmm. So this is what Hell is like." Alya muttered, grabbing a lamp post to spin herself around the corner. "And there I was, thinking I'd have a good day like a fool."

"Hmm? Doubt it could've been better than this. Spending time with me is more special than any lame thing you could've been doing anyway." The persistent Chloe noted, somehow inspecting her cuticles while running.

Alya rolled her eyes, pressing her palms to her eyes. Just being around Chloe was giving her a headache. "God, it's like regular you bumped up to a hundred. It's horrible." Alya stopped, having lost sight of the Akuma in her haste. She made a 'shoo-shoo' motion at the clone. "Go away already, I've got reporting to do and I'm sure you've got someone else to harass."

The Chloe looked offended that Alya had the audacity to dismiss her. She crossed her arms and stared angrily at Alya, giving her a disgusted once-over. "How dare you! My Daddy is the Mayor! You think you can just—"

Alya stamped her foot, impatient and frustrated, and turned to yell at the look-a-like, "I get it! Your Dad runs Paris! We know! It's all you ever talk about! Can you shut up about it for one minute please!"

"No!" The clone stamped her foot as well, chin raised in defiance, "You will listen to me! You should be more like my Daddy, he listens to everything I say, because he knows I always have really smart and important things to tell him! I'm sorry you only have boring news to talk about, you sorry, fake excuse for a report—"

Alya held up a hand. "Wait, shut up. What did you say?"

"I said that you should listen to me because—"

"No, no after that." She clicked her fingers, trying to remember, "Something... your Dad! He listens to you no matter what, right?"

The fake Chloe looked confused. "Yes, of course, becau—"

"Perfect! If I can find the real Chloe, convince her to talk to the Akuma until Ladybug gets here, then I might be able to buy them some time! Great! Thanks fake-Chloe, bye!"

"I'm not fake! Everything I wear is 100% designer!"

Alya raced away, ignoring the indignant cries of the angered Bourgeois, who huffed and turned away to sulk. The scoop was all coming together now, and a chance to help Ladybug defeat an Akuma? It was like a dream come true.

What could be better than that?