Pedro leaned over the table, his eyes narrowed, eyeing the woman in front of him carefully. She stared back with a blank expression, breathing slowly and deeply, the only indication of her anxiety and frustration the slight flaring of her nostrils and tension lines around her mouth. The handcuffs on her wrists jingled as she shifted her hands on the table. His mouth set in a thin line. "You know what we are here for."
Marta scoffed, glaring back up at him. After a long moment, she turned away, screeching her uncomfortable chair back slightly away from the interrogation room's single metal table and looking around the room. Her gaze paused for only a second on one of the two cameras mounted in the corners of the room before she turned back around, staring intently at the table.
After staring down at her in silence for two minutes, Pedro finally let out a breath and shook his head. "I don't understand why you refuse to speak," he finally told her, dropping into the chair across from her. "You are sworn to stop the abuse of miraculous, are you not?"
"The same as you," she retorted curtly, finally raising her eyes back to his face.
He nodded in agreement. "That is absolutely correct. And you have information on a group of miraculous abusers who must be stopped from misusing their miraculous and throwing the world out of balance. With your information, we can stop those miraculous abusers, once and for all."
Her mouth set in a thin line, and she stared him in the eye. Pedro stared back, not moving. This was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? This was always the point they reached where she refused to answer his questions. Where her Dark Acolyte training took over and blocked her from being able to do the right thing. He needed to get through to her, to convince her to tell them what they needed to know. Even now, he could imagine Rena Rouge and Pegasus standing in the control room with the Disciple, watching them on the monitors. Rena Rouge and Sent-Bee had tried to get through to Marta; Ladybug had grilled her for an hour. None of them had gotten through to her. None of them really understood the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane – not the way that Pedro and John understood them. The Disciple had offered to join him for this interrogation, but Pedro had rejected the offer.
He was the one with experience talking the Dark Acolytes back, after all.
Marta stared back at Pedro in silence for what felt like a long five minutes, her mouth remaining almost completely still, though a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth betrayed her inner conflict. Pedro schooled his expression, betraying nothing. Finally, Marta shook her head and looked away. "I will not betray the Dark Acolytes."
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that you opposed those who abuse miraculous, regardless of whether they held or stole them." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "After all, while we were in Angola, you fought against certain of the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane, did you not? The Hierodeacon and his zealots stole miraculous – according to my sources, they even considered giving the Swan Miraculous to one of their own in order to infiltrate the Heroes of Paris and other miraculous users! But you opposed them. You helped us to stop the Hierodeacon and his zealots from stealing and abusing the miraculous. We fought side by side to reclaim the Jellyfish Miraculous and return it to the Heroes of Paris. We rescued the Jellyfish user and the Swan user – thanks, in part, to you. Then, you recognized that the Dark Acolytes were in the wrong, that their method of 'maintaining balance' and 'stopping miraculous abuse' was wrongheaded. But now, you continue to fight against those who would use miraculous properly, and you fight alongside those who continue to abuse them! Do you not see the hypocrisy!?"
Marta stared down at the table, her mouth clamped tightly shut. "I have nothing to say to you, Heretic," she muttered.
Pedro frowned. It had been almost three weeks since Ladybug and the others had captured Marta and thrown her in Nouvelle Bastille Prison to wait for her trial and sentencing. Three weeks of daily interrogations. She had refused to speak to anyone – even to her lawyer. Instead, she had only sat quietly in her cell for hours at a time, her eyes closed in meditation. He gritted his teeth. How could he get through to her? Finally, he sighed. "Call me 'Heretic' all you want; it doesn't change the truth." She scoffed. He cleared his throat. "They are treating you well here?"
"What do you care?" she retorted, giving him an annoyed look.
He raised an eyebrow, maintaining a calm expression. "I care, because I would have been you, had I not seen with my own eyes the Dark Acolytes' hypocrisy, that they themselves are the heretics!" He groaned, shaking his head in frustration. "Do you remember growing up, when we were studying together at the Temple?"
She turned her gaze on him, her eyes furrowed suspiciously. "Of course. How could I forget?"
"And do you remember what the Novice Master taught us about the miraculous?"
"'All miraculous use is abuse'."
He nodded. "'All miraculous use is abuse'," he recited. "That is the Dark Acolytes' mantra, the statement on which their entire philosophy is based. We can talk all we want about just how untrue and nonsensical that statement is. But I grew up fully believing and accepting it. You did, too. All Dark Acolytes hold to that statement, right?" Marta nodded slowly. He pursed his lips. "So, then, what does it say that the Archimandrite and the Prior and the Hierodeacon are all perfectly willing to countenance the use of miraculous, when they themselves teach that they should not be used?"
She scoffed. "It is because of the actions of miraculous abusers like your friends in the Heroes of Paris that it is necessary! We need the assistance of people like Cerna to stop the more powerful miraculous abusers."
He hummed, raising an eyebrow. "I have observed that you seem to be very close friends with Cerna." Marta clamped her mouth shut, folding her arms and turning away from him. "Tell me," he continued. "Why are you friends with a 'miraculous abuser', as you call it? Is that not a contradiction? After all, what she is doing with the Reindeer Miraculous is an affront to the Dark Acolytes' teachings about maintaining balance."
She shook her head. "No! It's–it's not–" She groaned. "We're just… friends. That she holds and uses a miraculous has no bearing on that. I can be her friend in spite of the fact that she uses a miraculous."
"Oh? Then how do you reconcile that with what the Dark Acolytes teach about those who abuse miraculous? The Dark Acolytes would with to 'cull' her, to punish her for her abuse of the Reindeer Miraculous. Hell, if you gave them half a chance, I'm sure they would do it now, if they didn't think that she was at least marginally useful to them." His eyes narrowed. "Even though they are the ones who gave the Bear Miraculous to the Bearator, and the Beaver Miraculous to Castutrice. Even though they countenanced the previous Second's use of the Alpaca Miraculous and would have given the Swan Miraculous to a Dark Acolyte!"
Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at him furiously. "I see what you're doing: you want me to turn on my friend! But she isn't like other miraculous abusers – Castutrice and Killer Bee and the Bearator. She is kind. She is helping me to try and reclaim the miraculous from the other miraculous abusers."
"And after that, what happens?" Pedro gave her a pitying look. "Have you considered what happens once the two of you have taken the miraculous away from all the other 'miraculous abusers' in the world, when there is only one miraculous left in the hands of a 'miraculous abuser'… and that 'miraculous abuser is your friend, Cerna? What will you do then?"
Marta swallowed, a hint of doubt flickering in her eyes. "I… That's so far away," she began hesitantly. "By the time it happens, I'll–I'll have convinced her that she doesn't need it anymore. The only reason she started using her miraculous was because she didn't have a choice."
Pedro raised an eyebrow. "And you think Ladybug and Cat Noir had a choice in using their miraculous?" he asked. "You've been in Paris for almost a year and a half; surely by now you've heard the story of Hawk Moth. Had Ladybug and Cat Noir not accepted their miraculous and used them to fight back against that vile miraculous abuser, he certainly would have plunged the whole world into chaos and darkness. Had he been successful in his goals, the world would absolutely have been thrown out of balance." He leaned forward. "Doesn't that sound exactly like what the Dark Acolytes claim to desire?"
She furrowed her brows in thought. "Well…" Her gaze hardened, and she glared up at him. "If that's the case, then why have they continued to use the miraculous, even after defeating the miraculous abusers?" she demanded.
"You know exactly why they must continue using their miraculous," he replied, his mouth set in a thin line. "Because of the criminals who seek to hurt innocent people. Because of the super-criminals – many of them themselves abusing miraculous – who use their greater power and abilities to hurt others and imbalance the world. Frankly, they must continue using their miraculous, in part because the Dark Acolytes have allowed miraculous to fall into the wrong hands. That is why they continue to use their miraculous: to ensure that the world remains in balance, and to reclaim the miraculous from those who misuse them." Laughing, he mused, "To be honest, the Guardians and miraculous holders have been more successful in taking miraculous away from those who would abuse them than the Dark Acolytes themselves have been!"
Marta frowned. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that none of the Heroes of Paris, none of the miraculous holders, have ever or will ever misuse their miraculous?"
"I don't expect you to believe anything of the sort," he replied calmly. "You and I both know that miraculous holders make mistakes, and that on occasion they misuse their power."
"And that is something that could never happen if we removed the miraculous from the equation entirely," she insisted.
"Deaconess," he told her, stifling a laugh, "you and I both know that there are far more abilities and powers out there, not all of which can be opposed or stopped simply with our Dark Acolyte training and chi abilities. Sometimes the only way to balance the universe is by allowing their proper holders to use the miraculous."