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Part 6 — The Room of Mirrors

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Marinette sighed. "The only way out that we have from the sewers is through… Montparnasse Tower."

"But even there," Adrien mused, "if I use my power to destroy the wall, she will find us. Although the Cataclysm worked against the floor to let us down here, we know that the barrier wasn't sealing it. So…will my power break the barrier? It didn't seem to move the wall at all earlier, even though many cracks ran underneath the wall."

"Can we take the risk?" Marinette mused.

"If it doesn't work and she finds us again after that, I won't last long before needing to recharge."

Marinette sighed again. "We can't take the risk, obviously. I wish there was a place we could hide in and where she wouldn't find us!" She groaned, closed her eyes and put her hands in her hair.

"Also, we need to lure the real Volpina into the tower, or we'd never be able to purify the Akuma," Adrien reminded.

"But if she can see with the eye of her illusions, what reason would she have to come to the tower herself? I mean, when I used the Fox, I could see anything that my illusions would see." Alya narrowed her gaze and focused on the water right in front of them. "The only time my illusions wouldn't work was when water was involved, because it would touch the illusions and they would vanish."

"We can't stay in that kind of water when we're not transformed." Marinette made a disgusted face.

Alya grimaced. "Ew, I wouldn't expect you to…" Then, she grabbed a few cookies and slices of Emmental cheese from her shopping bag and passed them on to Marinette and Adrien. "But just in case you have to, and we separate, here. Take these, it should be enough to recharge a few times. I just…wish there was a blind spot where she wouldn't be able to detect a Cataclysm."

"She didn't detect my Cataclysms when I destroyed the lift's door…" pondered Adrien.

Marinette gasped. "Wh-what did you say?"

"She didn't detect my Cat—"

"Sorry, minou, I know what you said," she interrupted him. "But she was able to run along the walls, and all the doors were sealed, so they were part of her barrier. Why didn't she get to us when you used the Cataclysm against the lift's door? Did you notice anything odd?"

Adrien flashed his eyebrows. "Notice? I couldn't see a thing without my night vision, Marinette, and even when I could see, there was nothing to see, it was pitch black."

"DARKNESS!" Alya shouted, and then covered her mouth, looked around and whoops-ed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be this loud. Darkness is another thing that blocks illusions. Illusions need light to exist."

A large smile curled Marinette's lips. "I think we have it!"

Nino blinked. "Have what?"

"Babe, illusions need light to work. So if we find a place in darkness…"

Marinette started messing with her phone, her gaze narrow as she focused on the task. She spent a few minutes searching, and eventually she 'aha-ed' and turned her phone around. "There are 25 customer lifts in Montparnasse Tower. And since the electricity is off, none of them has any more than a tiny emergency light in them, like the one we were stuck in. If we find a lift with its door open…"

The four spent a few minutes discussing. Alya and Nino wanted to help, but Marinette thought it was too dangerous since they were civilians.

"But I know a lot about the Fox Miraculous, and if Lila is using it—" started Alya, but Marinette cut her off.

"I don't think she's using the Fox this time. She used it when we faced her earlier, but not this time round. That's why her power's so different now. Volpina is her akumatised form. She's using another Miraculous combined with her Akuma powers, but I'm undecided which one." Marinette frowned. "Ziggy or Orikko?" She closed her eyes shut and scratched the back of her neck. "I think it could be Ziggy; she must have designed an indestructible barrier wrapped around the walls of all the buildings in the city. Maybe even Cataclysm proof. But since she's using the goat in conjunction with her Akuma power, she has blind spots where the light doesn't shine."

Alya's eyes widened. "So this means that she can use as many illusions as she wants."

"Yeah, she's not restricted to one illusion at a time and she can create whatever illusion she wants. That's how her power worked when she was Volpina last time. On the other hand, she can only use Genesis once, but she already has what she needs from it. And because she's akumatised, she's not having a timer."

"So how are we going to bring her out in the open?" Adrien asked.

Marinette smirked. "First things first. Tikki spots on!" She transformed in front of the amazed gaze of both Adrien and Nino.

"Wow!" the latter gasped, eyes wide.

"I know, it doesn't get any less spectacular after you've seen it a few times." Alya smiled, but even her lips opened in a small 'o' when Adrien followed his Lady's lead and also transformed.

"That's so cool, mon pote!" Nino whispered, but Marinette didn't let him continue because she shushed him and called for the Lucky Charm. Which was a pair of sunglasses.

"Ugh, they give me bad memories…" She couldn't help but cringe at the sight. The sunglasses were the perfect replica of those they used against Strike Back, the last time she'd had all the Miraculous in her control. She sighed and Chat Noir put a gloved hand on her shoulder and squeezed, earning himself a grateful look.

"You can't change the past, Milady, you can only move forward. We'll get them back."

She nodded, took a big breath, and stood to look around. "I can't see anything to use this with around here. The answer must be in Montparnasse tower. But we need to lure the real Volpina in first."

Eventually, Ladybug agreed that Alya and Nino could help. They all went inside the Tower, Chat Noir calling his Cataclysm to set the trap. Volpina's wall face appeared behind Ladybug, but the villain couldn't savour the taste of her victory, because before the cloud of debris had dissipated, Ladybug and Chat Noir had disappeared.

The faces on the wall increased in number again and Volpina's illusions started searching everywhere. Alya and Nino contributed to the confusion by throwing small bits of food to make noise at random places and distract the Akuma. Ladybug and Chat Noir, in the meantime, had hidden inside one of the elevators and Chat Noir had recharged, just in case. It took absolutely no time for Volpina to get annoyed at her illusions because they couldn't find the heroes; so she decided to come to the tower herself.

"Bingo," Ladybug whispered.

But when she had a glimpse of Volpina, she noticed that it wouldn't be that easy—the fox Akuma was contoured by copies of herself like she did the time they had faced her first.

"The first time we faced her, you reflected the light in her eyes to find out who was the right one," Chat Noir whispered. "I wonder if it's the same this time."

Ladybug's earrings beeped, the heroine noticing with concern that, after a loud sound, the electricity in the building had come back on and now their hiding place wasn't in darkness anymore. Volpina probably made the electricity return to find them. She sighed—they had to be quick. "Not the same maybe, but similar. I need to find a way to shine a light so bright to blind her, but we're inside and it's starting to get late."

"Blind her?" Chat Noir asked. When Ladybug nodded, he pressed his index finger to his lips and looked up. "Before the Akuma alert, I was with Nathalie here in Montparnasse Tower discussing the filming of a movie with Bob Roth and…of course! Come with me, Buginette!"

Seeing the Room of Mirrors and coming up with the right plan was so instantaneous that Chat Noir didn't even manage to blink before a sly smile curled Ladybug's lips.

She looked at him and he nodded. Then, Chat Noir used his Cataclysm again on an external wall near the room—which showed them clearly that they had been right. Not even the Cataclysm could break the barrier created by the power of the Goat. But as they tried to get out of the building and were pushed back in by an invisible force, they heard the evil laughter of Volpina and her many illusions, who had wasted no time reaching their location as soon as the Cataclysm gave them away.

They pretended to be surprised. "You won't get us so easily!" They ran down the corridor until they reached the Room of Mirrors where they suddenly stopped, opened the door, and ran inside.

"You fools. There's no way you can escape me!" Volpina shouted and followed them inside the room without thinking twice.

Only to find herself in complete blackness, and realise that the door had been locked from the outside—Alya and Nino must've followed the illusions and found the room. Volpina attempted opening the door a few times and then kicked it with a growl, proceeding to pat the wall around, unsuccessfully trying to find a light switch. She tried to use her flute to create an illusion of light, but she was soon faced with the realisation that that was the very illusion she wasn't able to create.

"I must admit that you're clever, Ladybug. Only a witty little wench like yourself would have thought that my illusions wouldn't work in the dark." She chuckled to herself. "But worry not. I know you're here, you won't last much longer. I can hear your earrings beeping. Soon your time will run out and the light of your detransformation will give you away."

She made her way inside the room, unable to see but determined to get in a position from which she could see the light of their detransformation. She didn't expect the sudden flash of light lighting the room so bright to blind her. Moving her arms to cover her face, she expected even less that the zip of a yoyo would sound next to her neck and that suddenly, her fake fox necklace would be ripped from her.

She could only hear Ladybug telling the Akuma butterfly that it wouldn't do any more evil because all she could see was white in front of her. She barely managed to see the shape of Ladybug, wearing a pair of red and black polka-dotted sunglasses and waving goodbye to the supposedly purified insect, and Chat Noir standing with his eyes shut, smiling smugly on the other side of the room near what must have been the light switch. Then Ladybug threw her sunglasses in the air and the storm of Ladybugs restored everything, including her blinded eyesight.

She saw Ladybug and Chat Noir pounding it and then, Ladybug moved closer and stretched a hand to her, to help her get up from the ground, but she pushed it away.

"As you wish," the superheroine said, but Lila stood up with all the dignity she could summon, patted her clothes clean, hmf-ed and walked away.

"It doesn't end here," she hissed before getting out of the room.

"I've no doubts," Ladybug muttered to herself in reply, a hand facepalming to her forehead as she sighed and her transformation washed off.

"She wasn't wearing the hair clips." Chat Noir hadn't said it as a question—it was a statement. It had happened already when they faced again Ikari Gozen; somehow the Akuma was empowered with the power of Multiplication but Mme Tsurugi didn't have the Mouse necklace on her.

Marinette sighed as Chat Noir's transformation washed off as well, leaving a concerned Adrien next to her. "Monarch must have found a way to give the power of the Miraculous to the Akuma without handling the actual jewel. But how did he?" Her voice cracked, her eyes filling with tears, her arms folding over her chest as her hands rubbed her arms up and down. "We'll never get the Miraculous back." Tears spilt from her eyes and fell down her cheeks, her breathing getting erratic.

Adrien pursed his lips and grabbed her by the shoulders, causing Marinette to nearly jump out of her skin, a deep blush dusting the bridge of her nose, making her freckles even more evident. She shot a glance at him and lowered her gaze, the red on her face getting darker by the second.

"It doesn't matter how long it takes, Milady. We'll get them back, I know we will. We just need to find the right strategy." His heart burst in his chest with the love he felt for her; when he saw that more tears were falling down her cheeks, he just hugged her tight. She stiffened in his hold, but didn't complain and almost immediately he felt her relaxing and leaning into him.

"I feel so stupid right now," she whispered as he hugged her tighter.

"Why? You're anything but stupid, Marinette. You're one of the cleverest people I know."

She hiccupped. "Master Su-Han was right. You were right all along. We should have shared our identities. Had we shared our identities, I wouldn't have thought that Félix was Adrien."

He pursed his lips but forced himself to smile as he broke the hug and tilted her chin up to force eye contact. "Hey," he whispered, "don't bash yourself for something you couldn't have known. You were keeping our identities a secret because Master Fu told you to. It's not your fault."

"It is." She lowered her gaze and broke the hug, resuming her previous position, arms folded over her chest. "Master Fu isn't the only reason why I didn't want to share identities, Adrien, and it wasn't the reason why I was keeping you at arm's length for a while."

"You don't have to, but if you want to tell me…" he started, but a series of buzzes from his phone startled him.

He picked it up and frowned at the many missed calls that were appearing in fast sequence, alternating with many message alerts. He opened one and it was Nathalie's number, then Gorilla's, the messages asking repeatedly where he was and what he was doing.

Marinette's hand squeezed his arm and he moved his gaze from his phone to look at her. "I'll tell you, I promise. I don't want to have any more secrets with you, Chaton."

Was he imagining the pink dusting her cheeks as she called him her usual nickname for Chat Noir?

"I have to go now." He pouted as one more message beeped from his phone. The Gorilla was starting to panic because Adrien wasn't answering and he didn't know whether the boy was safe or not. He looked at Marinette again. "Patrol tonight?"

A soft smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Tonight. At patrol." She hugged her arms as she looked down.

Adrien sent a quick message to the Gorilla, telling him that he had found shelter during the Akuma attack and hadn't been able to get out until now, and asking him the location of the sedan. Then, he reached out to her again and squeezed her arm once more. She looked at him a little puzzled.

"Then, there's only one last thing left to establish," he said, an amused grin curling his lips as he took in her frown.

"Hm?"

"Can I kiss you again and call you my girlfriend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

Her eyes grew wide at his words, and the red that had spread on the bridge of her nose took a deeper, almost crimson tinge. Adrien cupped both hands at the side of her face, noticing how her mouth slightly opened as her chest stilled. She seemed to have problems breathing.

"Meeeeh, will you kiss already?" said Plagg from behind his back.

"Shush you, let them have their moment!" hissed Tikki's voice coming from the same place.

"Moment? They will need an hour if they don't hurry up. I want to go home to my Gooeyness!" As he said that, Plagg grabbed a lock of his hair and pulled him closer to Marinette, and then zipped to Marinette and did the same with her, positioning them at mere millimetres from each other. "Now, kiss!"

The awkwardness of the moment completely lost, Adrien burst into a chuckle and, under his amused gaze, Marinette did the same.

"Shall we?" he asked eventually.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and, in answer, just pressed her lips to his.

But as their lips met, Marinette decided that there would be another time and place to have the conversation she feared the most. She was going to tell him about Chat Blanc, about the end of the world she had seen, about all her fears that were holding her back. There was no coming back—no more secrets; she was sure it was the right decision.

But not now.

Now it wasn't about the end of the world, it wasn't about the Miraculous, it wasn't about the Guardianship. Nope. Now it was only him and her, Adrien and Marinette, two souls who needed each other, who loved each other and who had finally found each other.

Fin


Author's Note:


Hello there! Here's the final chapter. Sorry about the delay, but I didn't feel right posting the story before my friend had read it. She finished reading the chapter last week, so here you go, you get the last chapter, and I hope you'll like it!

Please let me know what you thought of this chapter in a comment! Remember that I'm always open to dialogue, I don't mind ANY type of feedback, so don't feel shy in leaving me a note. Even a one-word comment is better than silence, but of course, I love to read all your thoughts and long comments are the best. Even a ":)" is better than nothing though and it cheers me up big time! Thank you so, so much to all of you who wrote, or will write, a review or a comment on this story! You always make my day!

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