All rights to Miraculous Ladybug belong to Zagtoon, Method Animation, Thomas Astruc, and Disney. All rights to Persona 5 go to Atlus and Sega. This is my own creative work.
Every movement the woman who wore Pernet's face made was a blast of chill down Ladybug's body.
She slid from her seat, looking down continuously with those eerie eyes. Her steps with those golden heels clacked like thunder upon the floor. With the whip of a hand, her fan flipped open and the men at her seat snapped into bows while her sneer was covered with the feathered rims.
"Well, well… turn your back on these heroes for a second and look what comes…" The woman's distorted voice was the hiss of a serpent and the song of a bird all at once.
"Mademoiselle… Pernet?" Ladybug whispered, eyes wide. "What are you… why do you look like that?"
"You barge in, with these thieves, thinking you can take what you please? Do you infidels have no respect for the divine?"
"Pretty big britches for a first boss." Oracle noted.
Behind her, the Phantom Thieves stood in battle stance. Their weapons were raised, the metals glinting with anticipation. They looked ready to strike the woman down for the sake of whatever they were here for.
As if she could even make heads or tails of where 'here' was.
"What's going on here, Pernet?" The cat creature spoke, the tip of his cutlass pointed towards her throat. "Why is Silva's Shadow in that cage? Are we supposed to take this as a sign that he's the source of your desires?"
Pernet strode to the cage, glancing at them in mockery. She brushed the bottom of the cage, sliding her fingers in between the bars. The being that looked like Silva reached to brush her fingers as if it were some impossibly valuable gem. Their golden eyes almost resonated in their glows. "Yes… he is indeed my… 'Treasure.'
"But that's not possible! A person's Shadow can't be a Treasure!"
Again with the weird terms. It was getting aggravating, in the heroine's opinion.
"Who even cares!?" Skull cried, swinging his metal bat. "Person or thing, we're still gonna take your Treasure! You're not gettin' away with what you're doing to all those girls!"
Pernet snapped her head up and swatted her fan, tossing the very notion aside in disgust. "Please, there is no room in my divine realm for imperfections." Flicking her fan she gestured to the gorillas as they cowered and groveled, daring to stare only at her feet. "Look at these sullied peons, flawed. Foolish. Pathetic! Do you honestly think they have a place among the heavens alongside me!?"
"So everyone is imperfect compared to you?" Joker asked.
"Not so. It is true that perfection can only be recognized by perfection. Perfection is what is needed to survive in this industry. The divine can only be perfect. Thus, all that I recognize must surely be…"
"Perfect. Right…"
"So, what?" Skull growled. His grip on his bat's handle turned deadly. "You think you can go spreading junk and crushing dreams just pickin' who's perfect and who ain't? Goddess, my ass! You're just some spoiled rotten snob!"
"A snob!?" Pernet snapped at the thug-like rogue. "Insolent fool! I will teach you what it means to defy perfection!"
"Mademoiselle Pernet, please wait!" Ladybug, feeling sidelined, jumped back into the scene. She held her hands out as a bead of sweat crawled down her face. "This isn't right. You have to be under Hawk Moth's control. Just let me capture the Akuma and restore you to normal."
"Those who do not worship my divine perfection have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven!"
"Ms. Pernet!"
"Guess we're doing this…" Joker bared his knife once more.
The other thieves readied their weapons once more as well. As if naked in the room, Ladybug brandished her yoyo and twirled until the toy went glowing red with heat.
The woman's fan dissolved into golden dust, swirling into wisps and clouds in flashes of twinkling mist and elongating into a golden spear. Curling her fingers, she gripped the weapon and gave a lashing swing. The men at her sides were swallowed by rays of light, their polished skins shedding feathers and spiling beams from every inch of their bodies. Ladybug and the Phantom Thieves squinted as they watched their human shapes melt away.
Still in the same ethereal glow, the men now floated inches from the ground by angelic wings as large as their own frames. Golden helmets obscured their faces as if denying any will or thought other than the enemy before them they now bore gleaming gold swords at. Smite who their goddess commands and they shall remain amongst the heavens.
"What is this." Ladybug stared around at the suddenly evened odds. The boys turned soldiers now surrounded them.
"Such is the power of my blessing… Now, in your goddess's name!" Pernet snapped her fingers.
"Makin' your boy-toys fight just so they can stay in your good graces." Skull growled. "You're rotten to the core!"
"Careful! It's not just special effects!" Oracle called from the back. "Those goys just got some major buffs!"
"Alright, then. It's showtime!" Joker cried.
"Start up! NECRONOMICON!"
To her hyper tuned senses, the air around Ladybug, once dense and thick like swamp water, froze and shattered. A flash of light and flame came from behind her. Turning, she saw the tech girl's face burning in a blue blaze, rising and pooling into a shape above that circled and snaked back to grab her in turn. Tentacles emerged, taking her arms, and pulling her in with a green glow into what appeared to be a UFO.
"Wha…!?" Her face froze in a jaw-dropped, wide-eyed, implosion.
This was all some hallucination. If had to be.
Some paranoid fantasy spurred by a bubbling mixture of overanxiety and one too many late-night patrols. Angels, flying saucers, talking cats, and the like. Even Hawk Moth's demented imagination couldn't churn out this hot mess.
The first angel charged. His sword tip jabbed into the shaft of Skull's bat. The force had sent a crack traveling into the metal. With a grunt and a stomp. Skull shoved the guard back into place.
It arced and looped back for a second strike, baring its sword arm. The cat creature Mona leapt atop Skull's shoulder and crossed blades with it. His own face burned blue the same as Oracle's.
"ZORRO!"
The shadow of a brawny male figure coated in blue flames swung and zig-zagged his rapier. A whirlwind with green gusts enveloped the two. The angelic fighter teetered until forced back. They traded blows, cracking the air with the sound of clashing blades and sparks flying. Mona and the being thrust their swords, evoking a gust that pushed the enemy away.
"Not enough! Not nearly enough! Strike them down in one blow!" Pernet waved her staff again.
The angels raised their swords glowing a deep red. An echoing groan resounded, which might have been a call of strength. Gusts flew along with a rush of heat, like fire to the face.
The staff… that had to be the key.
"She makes her boy-toys do all the actual fighting while she multi-plays support and command!" Oracle called.
Ladybug shot her yoyo, hooking it around a column. She leapt and allowed the string to pull her, swinging her around and kicking an angel in the side of their face. Another launched their sword point, which landed a graze just as she leapt out of harm's way, stepping to his face, then the ground. Launching the toy again, it hooked onto the shaft of Pernet's weapon.
"Time to de-evil… huh!?" The heroine had managed to pluck the staff from Pernet and take it to her knee. It snapped like a twig upon her magically armored knee, but no black butterfly emerged.
She was left to stare at the broken pieces… even as the remaining angels honed their swords to her neck.
"SILKY! BUFU!"
A cannon shot of snowy air exploded by her feet. In the blink of an eye, a wall of ice had formed. The enemy swords were inches from her eyes, with fractured images of their wielders staring at her through it.
Behind them was Joker, with the fiery image of a woman in a tattered servant's gown. "Don't lose focus!"
Ladybug gave a croak in acknowledgement. There was more than just the slow chill of the ice at her shoulder running down her spine leaving a sour taste in her mouth. She swung back with her yoyo.
Looking back, her efforts were clearly for naught as Pernet summoned a new staff to take the place of the first one.
A replaceable weapon likely wouldn't be the target. So what else? What aspect of her could Hawk Moth have inserted the Akuma? Nothing on her looked to be personal enough – no trinkets, no technology, and she wasn't even touching Pernet's robes. That left… the tiara. A crown infused with dark thoughts and sending them to her head seemed poetic.
"Yo, Oracle, for real! We got any plans!? We're still on the clock here!" Skull cried.
"Give me a sec!" She cried. "Go for some debuffs! Can't hunt to make it hurt less!"
"You call that a plan!?" Mona shouted near-comically.
"It's our best bet! BICORN!" Joker swiped away his mask into flames, calling the image of a horse with massive spiraling horns. "TARUNDA!"
The spiritual steed neighed and reared its front legs. Heat seemed from everywhere at once as the angels' wings drooped like cheap knockoffs and their knees buckled slightly. The horse charged and even rammed one in the chest for good measure.
"Alright, we got this!" Skull shouted. Now his mask burned away. "CAPTAIN KIDD! ZIO!"
The shadowy pirate appeared skimming a sea of flame on his pirate ship skateboard. It spun and glided, blasting bolts of electricity with a thundering roar. Explosions trailed the line of its shot and smoke obscured the path. But the atmosphere felt hardened, crystallized, as the angels emerged glowing blue.
Pernet was laughing as she lazily floated between them, smirking at the Thieves shocked faces. "Why so shocked? I demand utter perfection from those I deem worthy. Mere plebians like you could never hope to damage them!"
Well, not like she was about to trust thieves with crazy, weird, unknown powers anyway.
The woman swiped her staff again. This time, they glowed a vivid green, and everything moved at hyperspeed.
Ladybug's senses went more acute than before, catching the ripples and shards in the air as if seeing the cells in her own body at work. Her body moved at a turtle's pace in response, but the yoyo did the job of her own legs and pulled her away from an angel's swipe. The Phantom Thieves joined her dodging the slashes of the angels, glowing red anew.
"JACK O'LANTERN!" Joker called a pumpkin-headed robed specter. Its lantern's flame changed to a violet blue. "RAKUNDA!"
It shook the angel charging from above, but not enough to thwart the strike that shattered the ground where they stood.
"This is oh, so, enjoyable!" Pernet looked divine even cackling like a devil. "I daresay any further maneuver will be just as useless as your earlier efforts!"
"Ms. Pernet! I don't understand any of this, but you need to stop now!" Ladybug shouted. "I can help you!"
Ladybug couldn't help the stab that came even as Pernet cackled again, though a villain mocking her shouldn't have been so effective. "You? The failed heroine? Need I remind you I only acknowledge perfection or the potential of it in others? You have to be the farthest thing from perfect imaginable!"
"I admit, I'm not perfect! But still-"
"Understand this." Pernet flew into her face. Her hand caressed the heroine's cheek, feeling cold and smoky to the skin, almost as if it weren't there. "Where do you think the concept of heaven originates? The all-knowing, all-seeing, those flawless in entirety. The heavens exist so mortals can worship them. Pedestals exist merely to make people look upward. In this world, in the whole of society, everyone seeks to attain perfection, and adore those who embody it."
"I-"
"People adore you, and only do so, because they embody you as perfection." Pernet's smirk crawled upon her face, cracking the very edges into a look of pure malice. "You, the blundering fool who allows Paris to be ravaged time and again, who can only clean up the mess but never find the source. If only we all knew what sort of jumbled mess lied beneath this silly mask…"
The rims of her eyes formed specks of tears. Air hardened in her throat just as she wanted to scream back out, yet not knowing what. None of this was anything she hadn't heard from her worst critic, ever available in the mirror. Her earlier scream suddenly didn't sound like the reassurance she'd hoped it'd be, but more of a crack in her armor.
Because the 'jumbled mess beneath the silly mask'… had already learned so harshly she wasn't perfect…
…So imperfect she couldn't even see sword aimed right at her throat.
"ZORRO, GARU!" Mona cried.
"CAIT SITH! AGI!" Joker followed.
Plumes of flame and a wall of wind drove a thick line between her and the enemy.
Her mind came back from whatever dark closet it had been in and caught the gleam of the tiara.
"You've got an opening!" Oracle shouted. Joker had called a child-like figure with a blossom atop its head to weaken the angels once more. "While her soldiers are separated!"
"Kay! Let's get-" Skull started.
Ladybug had stomped on his face and shot through the gathered Thieves. The angels charged her one by one as she caught her reflection through each of their blades. She spun past one, leapt atop the second and dove beneath the next two. She rolled and cartwheeled, every thought beyond her own movement blurred.
She gave a grand leap, yoyo in hand, and shot at the woman. The tiara was knocked off and fell with a small clang. Ladybug landed beside it a moment later and took it in her hand.
"Time to de-evil…" She slammed the tiara down. It broke… but again, no Akuma.
"W-What…?" Ladybug gasped. "Where… where is it, then? I… I don't know what to do!"
She was out of her element from the beginning. This was some paranormal territory only the Phantom Thieves knew while she tried to slap some sticker of familiarity on it. What was left if there was no Akuma?
Pernet's angels gathered, pooing sparks into the tips of their spears. Specks gathered into a growing amalgamation of searing light. It fired with a deafening boom, and all she saw was the light… Until something knocked her aside. Her surroundings returned to her as she turned to where the sky itself had been burned where she stood.
Skull was atop her, panting. This guy, a Phantom Thief, had… saved her.
"The hell are you doing!?" He shouted in her face. "Ain't you s'posed to be a superhero!? Get it together!"
"I-I…"
The rest of the Thieves joined the two of them. Joker's shadow loomed over her, almost chiding her for vulnerability. Their gazes locked from his eye's corner, yet he remained silent.
Mona was nowhere as such. "Will you focus? This isn't an Akuma! That's a Shadow!"
"A… Shadow?" She numbly asked.
"We've wasted enough time! We need to end this and take the Treasure before we're ejected!"
She shut her eyes tight and willed her tears away. Weakness, ignorance, incompetence, the whole lot of them had their turns punching at her gut. She wasn't about to give them an inch anymore. Rising on shaky legs, her fingers gripped her yoyo to the point she could break even the magic that shaped it. If she had to work with criminals to get a job done, so be it.
"I've got it!" A ping came from the UFO orbiting above and Oracle's voice followed. "The pawns are impervious to most attacks and Pernet keeps buffing them! You gotta go after her to finish them all off."
"I have an idea…" She muttered. Coiling her wrist she shot the toy upward. "LUCKY CHARM!"
The hearts swirled and gathered into its spin. A flash came, and out of it revealed…
"A… microphone?" She stared blankly at the small device in her hands.
"For real?" Skull asked. "This is, uh, your thing?"
This quirk built into her power could make her facepalm but never more so after the last few hours. For once she almost wanted some giant bazooka or anime-styled sword to just bead down the villain. Perhaps it was those few hours and all the emotional whiplash that came with them that was sending her wits on the fritz.
"I really don't think now's the time for an interview with this lady," Oracle called. "We'll be here all day."
Wait… an interview.
The heroine blinked out the exhaustion from her eyes. She shot them open and everything came into focus. The orbs of light that remained hovering over their heads. Pernet. The microphone. The pale-face apes continuing to watch behind the gate. Oracle's flying saucer.
"Hey!" Ladybug called to Oracle. "You can view images with that thing, right?"
"Uh… yeah?"
Joker turned to her. "You have a plan?"
Ladybug gave a knowing smirk. "Pernet's so hung up on perfection? We're going to give her the most imperfect up-close-and personal of her career!"
"I like where this is going." Mona smiled. Skull, meanwhile, remained scratching his head.
Rays of light burned the ground surrounding them. Quick footwork was all that saved them from Pernet's angels' heavenly judgment. Joker leapt forward, thin and silent as a shadow himself, and burst into action as another illusory being formed by his side. This time, a fairy with fluttering wings that blew a kiss. "PIXIE! ZIO!"
Skull hopped into being himself, tearing off blood and skin that blazed away. "Got your back! CAPTAIN KIDD!"
The two fired twin lightning bolts that tore cracks into the ground. They struck the points of the lasers and exploded. She could see the angels' bodies shake and grip their spears tighter as the blowback rattled them.
"And… rolling!"
From the wave of smoke came Ladybug with the microphone in hand. She channeled her best Nadja Chamack impression, breathed in and flipped the switch on her mic. "Don't be bemused, it's just the news! This is Ladybug coming to you live from some weird heavenly kingdom with the goddess of perfection herself, Camille Pernet!"
Pernet pointed her spear within an inch of her throat. "What is this, Ladybug?"
"Mademoiselle Pernet, the fans want to know. What is the secret behind your keen eye for the latest model talent? What is it that is at the core of your search for perfection? Any special stories that have help mold you into the fashion superstar of the modern world?" With every question she walked forward, driving Pernet back with a blaze of journalistic questions. Her spear tip wobbled, unable to hone with its wielder's mind spinning in all directions.
"Enough! I won't have any of this!"
"Inquiring minds want to know! An icon such as yourself must have stories to share." She channeled every scrap of blunt tabloid charisma and persistence she'd been it with in her own 'revealing' interview.
"I don't share anything with the press!" She shouted. "Now begone!"
"Come on, Pernet…" Joker spoke walking towards her, taking her hand to his lips. "Won't you share? Perhaps you might be willing to help a young hopeful like myself get his foot in the door."
"Ah… well…" Pernet was blushing. She was actually blushing.
"Please, mademoiselle. How can I impress you?" Joker's voice dropping to whispers. "Tell me what I need to do…"
Something told Ladybug the Phantom Thief normally had this kind of effect on women.
Seizing her chance, she thrust the microphone into the angelic woman's face. She was like a child fighting back against vegetables on their dinner plate. As the fuzz of the mic tapped her cheek she doubled in her backwards drive. From her eye the angel soldiers floated idly by with no will of their own to act upon. They stood with the thieves watching Pernet back further and further away into the nearing debris pile.
The woman's leg caught the edge of a piece of rubble. Her gasp morphed into a full-on shriek as she tripped over a broken slab while her other leg caught onto a fallen column. Her spear clattered as she raised her arms to purchase balance, but still ended up rolling into the thick and landing flat on her face with dirt instantly patched all over her outfit.
"Ooh, that was quite the fall. Guess the queen of perfection isn't so perfect when it comes to keeping her balance." Ladybug laughed looking up to the UFO with Oracle inside. "Or keeping her clothes clean! Got all that?"
"Every precious moment! This is hitting social media for sure!" Oracle spoke in between her own uncontrolled laughs.
"What!?" Pernet gasped! "N-no! No! This can't be!"
Her angels sagged in posture, dropping their spears with their wings wilting. Their armors began to pale and their bodies lost that glow of myriad colors and soon the armor itself. They fell to their knees, going pale with faces blank as if rejecting any sign that their fallen goddess still sat there, shamed. Ladybug knit her brows feeling for them, whether they were real or not.
But looking back to Pernet, going pale with rage, she smiled. "These guys got their power from you, right? It was pretty obvious you could only hold your 'blessings' as long as you kept up your whole perfect goddess routine."
"With that gone, you're as good as nothing." Joker finished.
"Gotta say, this girl catches on fast." Mona mused to himself.
"Now's your chance!" Oracle cried. "All-out attack!"
The remaining three Phantom Thieves were out like gunshots, darting and ricocheting between the enemies. Ladybug only saw flashes of shadows and glints of their blades as they slashed Pernet and her angels too quickly for her to follow. Black mist shot and arced out from their bodies. They ended their assault with their backs turned, as the beings burst into mist and black sludge before fading completely.
"Whoa…"
Pernet was the only one that remained. She fell to her knees, her golden garments dripping and leaking with black. She saw the tarnished clothes and shrieked, hiding her face and turning away. It wasn't long before the makeshift team surrounded her.
"No. Nonononono… This can't be…" She muttered near-hysterically. "This can't be happening. I can't have flaws…"
"It's over. We're taking your Treasure." Joker stated.
"I can't have a flaw. I can't. I'm supposed to be flawless… I am perfection…!"
"Hey, moron! You hearin' us?" Skull crouched down. He leaned into her face so she couldn't escape the reality of it all. Reality being the key word. "It's over. Fork over your Treasure!"
"Uh, you are not taking anything from this woman!" Ladybug jumped in between her and the Thieves who were closing in like wolves on a wounded deer. The tension of the moment jump started her brain and reminded her who was the hero, and who were criminals out to rob someone blind. "Try anything and I'll lock you in the slammer myself!"
That's what she was saying, but the beeping coming from her earrings might have pulled weight from her threat.
"You're on her side!? In case you forgot, she tried to kill us just now!"
"I have no idea what happened here, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you harm a citizen!"
"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what kind of 'citizen' she really was." Mona huffed.
"Wha…"
"Someone's been pretty quiet." Oracle noted nonchalantly, tapping her feet. "Isn't this where you give us your whole 'defeated villain' monologue?"
Pernet had been silent, save for the ramblings that bordered on insanity. She peered at them from her now unkempt locks, her golden pupils darting between them. "Do you understand what you've done? What it means to shoulder perfection!?"
"Mademoiselle Pernet…" Ladybug started. A hand grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back. Joker never took her eyes off the warped woman.
"Perfection is everything, and so perfection demands everything! My mother, my sisters, all paragons of flawlessness!" She gritted her teeth and scraped the floor. "Everything they were was everything that was expected of me! Perfection demanded and perfection took! My siblings chided me for any slight imperfection I had, every speck of a flaw on me! Any dreams I might have had, any relationships I could have made! All pulled away! Until all I had left was… perfection!"
Ladybug looked away. Aside from the familiar echoes, Pernet's bio was one that would leave psychiatrists around Paris more than a little concerned. The textbook example of the strive for perfection: going on strict diets, grueling exercise, waiting hours on end standing for that next modeling gig. Photos of her were like that of many others, haunted, as if the only reality was on their phone. There were rumors that it was the result of familiar pressure from her relatives who had also made it big in the fashion industry. There might have been a grain of truth to it all.
"Was it so wrong to want some kind of meaningful connection!?" She screamed. "Surely there was someone who could understand my need for perfection! Who better than someone… perfect!?"
Joker sighed. "But he isn't… is he?"
"Wha..?"
"Joker's right." Mona said. "The person who's been going mad and attacking people. The man who you claim to be perfect. That's not the real Silva."
"Of course it is!" Pernet shrieked, clawing the floor. "He's just the ideal version! The one who sees the world as I do!"
"Lady, if that's your idea of perfect then you're more warped than we thought." Oracle sighed.
"There's no such thing as perfect. There's only what perfect is to everyone." Joker finished. "Try and be that kind of perfect and you only get further away from it."
"Those girls that you keep hurting who wanna be models? They shouldn't have to suffer just cause you ain't satisfied with you." Skull added. "You don't get to pick who belongs where, lady."
The comment of girls suffering caught Ladybug's ear. She turned to Pernet as if she'd become a monster all over again.
"Heh… those whelps don't understand what it means to survive in this industry. Thousands of eyes ever watching, ever judging. They're nothing more than parasites hoping to feed off the reputation of one who has had to claw her way to the top." Pernet chuckled darkly, if not with a pathetic tinge. "Men… never demanded that perfection."
A swipe of the air came. Then a clink, and a thunderous crash as the cage containing Silva dropped down. Everyone else jumped, save for Joker who had aimed a gun at a link in the suspending chain.
"You won't be demanding perfection from them or anyone anymore." Joker spoke.
"What are you-"
Ladybug croaked watching Silva, a near-zombie risen from the dead, gained that true spark of life. He blinked watching them and turned to Pernet, all in silence. He gained an air of disdain seeing the woman kneeling on the ground and turned away unwilling to even see her face. Ladybug gasped as the man became enveloped in a shower of light and faded from existence.
"Mr. Silva!" She reached out after him. "W-Where did he go!?"
"I imagine he's gone to slap some sense into his real self… as if he'd want an imperfect wretch like myself." Pernet muttered.
"Learn to live with your flaws… We all have to." Joker said.
He made it sound so easy, Ladybug thought wringing her hands. Pernet's strive for perfection was the human experience in a nutshell, a symbol of everyone's quest for the same thing. She could live with her flaws, but could anyone else?
Pernet scoffed.
"Very well. I will return as well… See what your flaws bring you in the end…" She too began to disappear, becoming nothing more than sparkles to drift on the wind.
The moment she did, everything began to shake.
"Guess that's our cue. We're out of here!" Mona bounced shouting.
"Just in time, too." Oracle noted.
Ladybug darted her eyes around watching as the space began to warp and ripple just as it did before. Her head felt heavy as if drowning, though she could just make out the forms of the Phantom Thieves running off, their forms quickly becoming lost in the now runny watercolor mass of colors and shapes. She held out her hand after them, feeling a sharp jolt in her brain as she did so.
"Wait! Come back here!" Her voice was random in pitch, shifting between a shout and whisper with syllables. "What just happened!? What did you do!? Who are you!?"
The clash of staff and wings came like twin swords. With the boost of force from his foe, Cat Noir leapt back in showy fashion. Archangel followed suit the opposite way with the beat of his wings, hovering over the cat hero. At that point, the cat hero appeared more as a cornered mouse in an eagle's sights. It tightened Cat's grip to where the whites of his knuckles could nearly be seen through the leather.
It was all too familiar a story – Silva got mad, the Akuma showed up, he turned into Archangel and started pelting metal feathers everywhere. With a concerning familiarity to procedure, everyone was out of the building, though Ann and her friends offered to help evacuate. Cat had protested but she only responded with a glare and a hand that looked to be restrained by some unnatural force of will. He gave no other word and stuck to the tamer beast that was Archangel.
At the very least, there would be no civilian casualties. Though as always, the surroundings were now shredded with curtains tattered, equipment sliced in half and chunks of debris falling at every random spot. Ladybug was nowhere to be seen, something that evoked a bit of sweat from Cat.
Where was she? There would be now magic patch-up without her, and people were never good at cleaning up after themselves. Mayor Bourgeois' 'Space Dumpster' project was a good reminder of that.
Archangel fired his barrage of feathers. With lightning reflexes, Cat Noir swatted the projectiles away. "Always straight to the point, I see."
Archangel snarled and rose, ready to fire every quill in those menacing wings of his, until… he stopped.
Cat Noir blinked. Archangel had frozen in midair, his enraged features erased and redrawn with an eerie blankness. He fell back to earth, and the moment he touched ground, purple bubbles enveloped him, tearing away at his villainous form. In an instant, Silva was back, buckling and falling to his knees.
He blinked at the hero, a dazed yet calm expression on his face. An unwitting victim in every sense of the term. Cat continued to stare back, silence spilling in a rare instance from his mouth.
"Uh… where… am I?" Silva asked.
"Cat Noir!" Ladybug graced Paris running from a random corridor. "What happened!? Is Archangel-"
"Milady, a pleasure to see you first of all." Cat tried to sound like his charming normal. "Fashionably late, I see."
"Focus, Cat! Where's Silva!? And Pernet as well!"
"Whoa, easy, bugaboo!" He grabbed the frantic Ladybug by the shoulders. "It's okay, everybody's okay! I mean, I'd like to say I've got answers for you, but I got nothing."
All they had was a wrecked building, an amnesiac Akuma victim, and their own wild imaginations to conjure up a reason behind it all. To be honest, they were not doing that great of a job. All the two heroes could do was stare at the aftermath of what was a very, very long battle finally brought to an end.
"Mademoiselle Pernet!"
They both jumped. Cat recognized the call of his father's secretary over in the opposite hall. Her tablet had been tossed aside in an uncharacteristic show as the stoic woman held onto the fashion critic, now collapsed and unconscious.
Marinette sat at her balcony, reclining in her chair, and nursing a massive headache while looking to the stars. Both they and the buildings held silence with the pallor of uncertainty. No one and nothing had any answers to give her. Nothing save for the hot chocolate in her hand she had made herself to soothe her nerves and give the sweet taste of moving on. The blanket wrapped around her telling her the nightmare was over. The lamp saying enjoy the evening.
She wanted to talk to the kwami that might have had a more logical answer.
She looked to the little spirit that floated beside her, looking away every so often. Marinette took a sip of her hot chocolate and felt the wave of heat rush through. She gave no details to her parents or Alya who had about a thousand questions for her. She had just turned off her phone and her mind to anything and everything the second she got home.
As the evening rolled by, she had dared to look at her social media screen and see the chaos that had been wrought. Silva had been returned to his hotel where a million reporters were pounding on his door for answers and no one had seen him since. Pernet had suddenly been admitted to the hospital where the police were competing with the doctors for admittance to her room. No one had any answers for anyone. Not even Pernet, the target of… them.
The Phantom Thieves.
"Tikki, I know what you're gonna say but I am not just going to put all of this behind me." Marinette said staring at her reflection in the brown liquid. "Not after today."
"I understand how you feel, Marinette, but there's not much I can tell you…" Tikki sighed.
"So what happened wasn't the result of a Miraculous?" The girl turned to Tikki. "None of Hawk Moth's tricks?"
"There is no Miraculous I can think of that has any kind of power like this. The Pernet we saw there was certainly some kind of empowered being, but at the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling it was really her."
"But she wasn't even Akumatized! She didn't have a jewel, or any kind of magic object!" She nearly spilled her hot chocolate but grabbed the mug in time. "Normal people can't do things like that. And I use the words 'normal' and 'people' with that lady VERY loosely!"
"I know."
"Then there's that heaven looking place with all the angels and gorillas…"
"I know."
"And those Phantom Thief guys! Those weird powers of theirs with the blue fire and the… ghost things!"
"I know!"
Marinette sighed. "Who or what are those people, Tikki? Can they really steal hearts? Is that what… they did?"
Tikki fell to her master's shoulder in gloom. "I don't know."
She huffed through her nose, setting her drink and its useless sweet relief down. Every fiber in her was on edge, wore now that not even the ancient spirit on her shoulder had nothing for her. She settled on the railings and looked to the park grounds across the street. The streetlamps remained flickering while the odd late-night couple was strolling the grounds holding each other close to guard the late autumn chill.
That same chill rushed through her, slapping the blanket away and prickling at her skin. It was nice in a way, to have these little normal problems again. When everything was spiraling out of control.
As if to add to her bad luck, a black cat had stopped by her balcony.
An actual cat.
Black fur, radiant blue eyes, lithe legs that could have made it across the rows of buildings in a couple of bounds alone. It stared at her, flicking its tail to and fro, almost glaring.
The girl only glared back. "Great, the last thing I need is cats. Just go on… go, kitty."
"I AM NOT A CAT!"
…. said the cat.
Marinette screamed. She screamed to the point all of Paris could hear her. Tikki was screaming as well. The girl's back hit the railing and she nearly fell over. She flailed her arms for purchase of balance.
"Will you be quiet!?" The 'cat' spoke again. The cat spoke. The cat was speaking, talking, spewing words from its mouth.
"But-it-you-me-them-cat-talk-what!?"
The cat shook its head and sighed. "To think you actually seemed like you knew what you were doing earlier today. You really are an amateur, aren't you?"
"W-Wha!?
"Still the fact that you can understand me proves what I suspected… Ladybug."
Her jaw hit ground floor. After so long, years of safely guarding her secret and dodging questions from her friends and family, a talking cat was the one to figure her out. A cat caught her. Life just was not fair.
"Marinette, don't worry!" Tikki tried to calm her by running circles in her hair which her fingers were now in the process of ripping out. "It's going to be okay! It's not the end of the world! What's important is not to pa-"
"PANIC! I have to go underground, set up a base in the sewers, cut off all communication from my friends and family! I'll have to live life on the road eating nothing but hot dogs and tacos and change my name to Sharimette Peng and undergo facial surgery and burn all my documents and grow a beard! It's over, Tikki, my life is over!"
"I'd listen to your little floating friend if I were you." The cat's tail flicked irritated.
"Y-You can see her, too!?" Marinette blinked. "Wait… you! You were that cat monster… creature… thing!"
"If you're going to insult me, can you just pick one term?"
"S-Sorry… I mean, no! I am not sorry! I mean, I am sorry but not sorry and you should be-"
"Marinette!" Tikki yelled. "Focus."
"…Sorry."
The cat, Mona, sighed. "Right. Well, it's come to this. Ladybug, we have some things we'd like to discuss with you and Cat Noir. Meet us at the Grand Palais at this time next week." He then hopped off the railing to the nearest building and bounded across the rooftops.
The girl could only stare back at the little black dot, fading into the night. She wanted answers more than ever now. And she was going to get them, one way or another.
Okay, I am sooo sorry this chapter took so long to post. I recently got a tablet and I wanted to get back into digital art. So far it's been going so-so and I'm trying to brush up on my drawing fundamentals. I was actually into digital art before I got into writing. I've basically been trying to balance that with my writing. So, yeah…
Anyway, I know a lot of people were looking forward to Ladybug's Persona Awakening, but I have to say that that now was not the proper time for it. Besides, Ladybug didn't specifically need a Persona to be useful in this fight. I remember reading some interesting theories as to why Silva's Shadow was in Pernet's Palace, but I don't remember if any people hit the nail on the head. Even if you did, I can't really say.
I'll put the review responses on hold since I'm pretty sure I got most of them covered with that previous comment. The next chapter will be the last one before I put this story on hold for my other works. The meeting between our heroes. Will it all go well?
As always, review, favorite, follow! Until next time!