Nemesis

Written by: JuliaFC

Concept Beta: Rose Manley

Language Beta: Ekzame and Ava

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Happy Christmas, MiraculousUser! I hope you will like this story.

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Chapter one: Sabine

It was a matter of seconds. Just seconds...and Ladybug's world turned upside down. Just seconds and the calmness and delight of having defeated another akuma became the rage and desperateness of a person who's got nothing to lose.

"Miraculous Ladybug!" shouted Ladybug throwing the mirror she had got as a lucky charm in the air. The storm of Ladybugs flew around and recovered all the damage caused by today's akuma. Lila. As always, a tough one, but they had managed to have the upper hand, and now the Italian girl had been released from her akuma form and was glaring at the superheroine, who had stretched a hand to help her up. Lila refused the help pushing her hand away.

And that's when it happened. Ladybug should have noticed the smirk that popped on Lila's lips all of sudden, but she was too exhausted to be more alert. She had had to spend many sleepless nights finishing a commission, and she was too tired for her brain to function properly.

"I'll s-cat meow," had said her partner seconds before, as he had taken his baton from behind his back and used it to propel himself away. She was looking at him jumping off and not at her surroundings, when she suddenly noticed his eyes widening in shock. But he was too far.

"Watch out, Ladybug!" shouted a voice she knew way too well, and the heroine turned around to see a short figure jumping on her and ended up rolling on the dirty tarmac, wrapped in the embrace of someone that wasn't her partner's, but her own mother's.

Like in slow motion, she saw the elderly Chinese woman jumping on her and rolling with her on the ground. She heard the gunshot. And she heard her mother's gasp and cry of pain. Next thing she knew, her mother was limp on her arms, her back wet of something sleek and dark, her breathing laboured. Ladybug lost the awareness of where—or who—she was.

"MAMAAAAAAAAAAN!" she screamed with everything she had in her, tears streaming out of her eyes wetting her cheeks and falling freely from her chin to the ground. "NOOOOOO!"

She sat on her heels, the coughing figure of her mother laying on the ground next to her, surrounded by a pool of her own blood. Ladybug wanted to do something, anything, to stop the haemorrhage, or help her mother feel more comfortable. With shaky fingers she pulled her mother up and rested her head on her thighs, immediately crouching down to her in an attempt to wrap her in a hug. She didn't even notice Chat Noir landing next to her with a soft thump.

"Oh my God," breathed the black clad superhero, falling on his knees next to the two women.

"That's…" he started, but his heart skipped a beat and his words died in his throat when Ladybug lifted her head to look at him. She was red in the face, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes, her lower lip quivering, her small frame shaken by deep sobs.

"My mother…she's my mother. She's dying. She needs help. I need…" She started stroking Sabine's head softly, and kept on repeating that she needed help.

Chat Noir's heart broke for her. This wasn't the way he would have wanted to find out that his Lady was Marinette. It should have been something that they both had decided on, not because she had gone out of her head looking at her mother dying to save her life. This wasn't right, it wasn't fair…

"Mar…Marinette," came the weak whisper of Sabine's voice, "is that you?"

The woman lifted her arm, with evident strain, and stroked gently the cheek of the masked girl, who nodded erratically.

"Maman," she said in a broken voice, "you will be okay, I'll take you to the hospital. I can move quickly with my suit on. You will be okay."

But Sabine shook her head and grimaced before attempting to talk again, every word coming out of her mouth costing her evident pain. "No, dear, don't jeopardise your identity more than you have already done. I'm—" She started to cough, and ended up spitting blood. "I'm so proud of you. My little girl is the hero who has been saving Paris all this time. I love you so much."

More coughs shook her frame and she lowered her hand, trying to cover her mouth with it. Then she looked at Chat Noir, who was almost unable to see her face anymore for all the tears that were pooling in his eyes.

"You will look after her for me, won't you?" she asked him.

The boy nodded several times. His tears falling down his cheeks at the movement of his head. "If she lets me," he whispered as he wiped his tears with his gloved hand. He shot a quick glance at Ladybug—Marinette. She looked so small, so vulnerable in her complete and utter terror.

"Maman?" whispered the polka dotted superheroine after a few seconds that the woman had been silent. But Sabine didn't answer. She didn't even move. "Maman? MAMAN?"

The girl kept shaking the woman's frame, trying to get a reaction of any kind, but Sabine's body was now still, her eyes open staring at Chat Noir.

Ladybug screamed as she took hold of the dead body of her mother again, rocking back and forth looking for a strength that she didn't know if she any longer had.

Nobody saw the dark butterfly flap its wings towards the crying figure of the superheroine. Nobody saw it entering her yoyo and turning it black. But Chat Noir watched with his heart in his throat Ladybug jerk her head up suddenly, the ethereal mask of Papillombre appearing on her face.

"NO! Ladybug!" he grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. "Please Ladybug, don't listen to him, stay with us! Stay with me…"

Nemesis. I'm Papillombre. You've been fighting to save this city for nearly one full year. You've given up so much for these people, I can read it in your heart. You've given up your youth, your love, your chance of being a normal teenager. And what have these people done to you? They've killed your own mother, the person you love and cherish more than anyone else in the world. Join me, Nemesis. I shall give you the power to take revenge over the people who destroyed your family and together, we can bring your mother and my wife back and be happy again.

Chat Noir's heart sank when Ladybug opened her bloodshot eyes, her eyes that had lost all the tenderness and care and were now full of anger and hatred, glaring at a place behind his back.

"You have a deal, Papillombre," she hissed under her breath wiggling out of Chat Noir's hold as the purple magic wrapped around her.

They were all in deep trouble, thought Chat Noir, his hand jerking to his baton to grab it and use it to propel himself out of the way. He had to recharge immediately and then…think of something. Because Marinette, his Lady, had been akumatised. And he had no idea what to do now.

To be continued…


Author's Note:


This is my last Secret Santa. The last couple of weeks have been very tough for me because my mother was sent to the hospital to have a heart surgery and ended up having a brain hemorrhage and having a brain surgery and finishing the year in the ICU.

I live in Ireland and my mother and father are in Italy, so you can imagine the feeling of uselessness and the terror I felt at the thought I may never see her again. At the same time, I got the prompt for this story for the Akuma purification team server, and the prompt was Marinette's akumatisation. So I decided to write this, as a way to jot down my feelings but also fulfill the prompt and write something original, instead of the usual 'Adrien rejects Marinette so she gets akumatised' trope.

So I'm sorry, I know it's painful, and it's probably the worst kind of reveal that Chat Noir could ever get. But hopefully the story will unfold as I'm planning (you may never know, these characters could take over…) and the ending will be good.

Don't know when I will update (for obvious reasons that you can read above, I'm now in Italy with my mum and I rather spend more time with her than at the computer!) but I'll be back home on the 8th of January so I'll try to update after then.

Happy Christmas MiraculousUser, I know it's Ladybug akumatised and not Marinette, but they're the same person so I hope it's okay!

As usual, if you read this and you're not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks (for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks).