Thanks to ArtEngine for betaing!

Alya nervously bit her lip, trying to hold back her anxiety. For the past few weeks, she, Nino, and Animan had bided their time, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. They'd only get one chance at this, so they had to make it count. The consequences of failure would be… unpleasant. Exactly what they would be, she did not know, but judging by the amount of influence Hawkmoth had over akumas - over them - it could get pretty bad. She didn't know whether he could inflict amnesia on them all a second time, and she didn't want to find out.

She glanced over at Animan, trying to keep tabs on him without drawing too much attention to herself. Her, Bubbler, Animan, and Puppeteer being a friend group may be well known at the warehouse, but as far as she knew, Hawkmoth wasn't aware of the details of what went on there. If he did, he may not be so willing to put potential co-conspirators in such close proximity to each other.

Today seemed like a promising opportunity. She, Animan, Bubbler, Stormy Weather, and Stoneheart had all been chosen to wreak havoc together, in the hopes that they FINALLY might be enough to take down Ladybug and Chat Noir. The extra akumas were wild cards, but with that many of them out, Hawkmoth would have a hard time splitting his attention between all of them. They might not get a better opportunity to execute their plan.

She surreptitiously nodded to Nino and Animan, catching their eyes. The plan was vague and hinged on a lot of "maybes" and assumptions, but it was the best they'd been able to come up with, considering the limited info they had.

Thankfully they were already near the school, Francois-Dupont. Hawkmoth seemed to have a sick obsession with the place - which was made even more disturbing by their guess as to his identity. Still, hopefully he cared about his son's safety to SOME extent, or this plan would fail before it even got started.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Animan slink off, hopefully unnoticed. He was the stealthiest and most adaptable of the three of them, best able to sneak up on someone and pounce.

Stormy Weather and Stoneheart went their own, separate directions, smashing buildings with his fists in Stoneheart's case, and blowing them to pieces in Stormy Weather's. The heroes would have to fight them separately if they wanted to keep the collateral damage down. Ladybug could repair everything, of course, but having a building collapse on you was never pleasant, even if you woke up afterwards without injuries.

That left her and Bubbler to take care of the school itself. The two of them rushed in, causing lots of yells and screams as people recognized Hawkmoth's minions.

Or… maybe not just as minions. She felt a faint pang in her chest. This had been their school, after all, before.

How many of the people cringing in fear once ate lunch with her? How many of the people running for shelter had once run beside her during P.E.?

Then again, judging by that news article, Hawkmoth had already sunk his claws into most of her classmates, and probably more, since it was written. Most of the new akumas had been around her age.

She shook her head. No time for dwelling on that now. If all went well, everyone would be freed. Things would go back to how they were - whatever that had been like.

Unless- unless even getting Hawkmoth's Miraculous didn't allow for her to bring back everyone's memories, and return their normal forms. Unless they were truly stuck like this forever. Unless-

No. Enough of that, Alya. Focus on the task at hand. You can cross that bridge when you come to it.

She searched for her target - or rather, Animan's target.

There! Up on the second floor, a blonde boy ran, hand-in-hand with a pig-tailed girl, one she recognized from the class pictures. Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Her stomach gave a lurch. Isolating Adrien may not be as easy as they'd hoped. Hopefully this girl, Marinette, didn't put up too much of a fight.

She looked at a clock, checking the time. Just a few minutes until school let out, or would have, if their presence hadn't caused the school day to get cut short.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Animan herding Adrien and Marinette into a classroom. Good. If he could just keep them preoccupied long enough…

Nino caught her eye. He'd seen them too.

"Attention, faculty of Francois-Dupont!" he announced, swinging his bubble sword around, capturing as many of the fleeing adults as possible.

Two of the bubbles floated into the classroom Animan had cornered Adrien and Marinette in. With luck, they'd capture the two students and keep them out of the way during this. If not… well, Animan should still be able to keep them out of sight long enough for the plan to work.

"I need to speak to a very uncool dude. I think you guys know him. Gabriel Agreste?"

A butterfly mask materialized around Nino's face. He flinched, clenching his teeth, but kept going. "See, I have a score to settle with him. You people are his son's teachers, right? One of you must have his number."

"He's very private," an owlish-looking man piped up nervously. "And even if he wasn't, if you think I'm going to obey an akuma, then you're crazy!"

"Oh, really?" he said, stepping forwards. "Even if Adrien's the one on the line?"

This was one of the most difficult points. Nino didn't want to actually endanger anyone, so he had to make sure his bubbles stayed low enough that popping them wouldn't cause more than minor injuries to those trapped within them. He had no intention of releasing the bubbles before they were all safely on the ground, but with Hawkmoth pressing for control, he couldn't guarantee that. Which meant he needed a different bluff.

"We can get in contact with Nathalie?" A red-haired woman suggested. "She handles most of Adrien's day-to-day school affairs."

Nino scoffed. "Not good enough."

Privately, Alya agreed. There was no guarantee that Nathalie was right next to Gabriel. And without the element of surprise, she didn't have much hope for her prospects fighting against Hawkmoth.

Alya winced as a butterfly mask formed around her face as well.

Pause the Bubbler.

No.

The Bubbler has turned traitor. Subdue him.

Fat chance.

Even as she thought that, her hands shook. A quick look at Nino confirmed that he wasn't doing much better. His breathing was ragged, coming in short bursts, and his movements were shaky. Both of them had built up a resistance to Hawkmoth's control - especially Nino, whose very akuma essence was based on disobeying adults, and Gabriel specifically, even if he couldn't remember why that was - but that resistance had limits.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a large man she hadn't seen before, looking around wildly. As he answered his phone, a faint male voice reached her ear. She couldn't make out much of the words, but that angry tone, that sound… it seemed familiar.

Well. She knew they'd be taking chances for this plan. And something about this… the way that voice sounded… she had a hunch about who was on the other end.

PAUSE THE-

Before the voice could get any further, she launched herself towards the large man - or more specifically, at his phone. With a flash of pink light, she vanished.

An instant later, she reappeared in a dark dome, surrounded by fluttering white shapes. Wasting no time, she threw a pause icon at the nearby figure.

Breathing heavily, she admired her handiwork. Hawkmoth stood in front of her, cane held in front of him like a shield, his eyes open wide in shock.

It was over.

After all this time - all this grief and worry - the final battle had taken a mere split-second.

A slight tremor built in her belly, turning into a full-throated laugh. Here was the great and powerful Hawkmoth, kidnapper of dozens, tormentor of Paris, frozen, as much at her mercy as she had been at his.

Smiling, she plucked his brooch from his chest. A magical light swept over him, leaving him as the civilian Gabriel Agreste, and-

"Seriously? You made yourself even taller as a supervillain?!" she gasped out. "How insecure can you get?" It's not like he was especially short to begin with.

A light emerged from the jewel.

"AAHH!" she dropped it.

The light formed into a purple butterfly with a human-looking face.

…Okay, this was getting weird. Did she get caught up in some akuma's power? Maybe this was all a dream?

Her heart sunk. She really hoped this wasn't merely her imagination. She didn't want to wake up back in that warehouse, awaiting Hawkmoth's next kidnapped victim, being pulled out every few days just to be mind-controlled into attacking others.

"Master?" the little bug asked.

She grimaced. "I don't think so. I don't know who you are."

The bug blinked, looking behind him. "You got it off of him," he breathed out, wings fluttering excitedly. "You freed me from his grasp."

"Freed you-?" She looked down at the Butterfly Miraculous on the floor, glinting in the faint light from the open window. "Are- are you the Miraculous?"

He bit his… well she assumed he had lips, but it was hard to tell, with how tiny he was. "We kwamis give Miraculous their powers," he said carefully. "I am the Kwami of Transmission, and I empower the Butterfly Miraculous."

Perfect. She'd originally thought she'd have to do this by trial and error - a prospect she wasn't relishing, what with the potential to inflict great harm if something went wrong - but this little fellow seemed likely to be able to help her avoid that. "Do you know how to undo this?" she said, gesturing at herself. "To be able to undo all the akumatizations, to free everyone?"

The little butterfly's eyes lit up. "Yes! Or at least, I know where to find the instructions to undo it. Gabriel performed a ritual in order to enable his akumas to last indefinitely. Normally, he wouldn't be able to keep more than one person akumatized at a time, but with this, he only needed to wait a day for cooldown in-between sending butterflies, and he didn't have to release an akuma from someone first - he could have his own akuma army."

She grimaced. If he'd gotten to continue preying on Paris for much longer, even the warehouse might not have been able to fit all his victims.

A loud crash resounded through the air, the ground shaking. She winced. "Better undo his ritual before the other akumas can cause too much damage."

Of course, it didn't matter a ton since Ladybug could fix the damage-

Ah crap Ladybug could undo the damage. Including her pausing Gabriel.

But she wouldn't do that until all the akumas were defeated, right? She thought that was the case.

All the akumas, including her.

"Show me where the instructions are," Alya told Nooroo. "Before we have company."