Scene 35 - *Nooroo in Nathalie's Room

Nooroo floated silently behind his master, Dusuu by his side. They followed Gabriel Agrest into the bedroom of his assistant, Ms. Nathalie Sancoeur.

"It's late, Nathalie," Gabriel said, his voice low. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry to wake you, sir, but you'll want to see this," she said urgently.

She passed her tablet to Gabriel, on it was displayed news footage showing dozens of akumatized villains rampaging across Paris. Across the top was a banner bearing the headline "5-Minute Masacre."

Nooroo knew what had caused this. He and Dusuu had felt it, when Sass activated his power. All Nooroo could do was hope that Gabriel didn't ask the kwamii directly about the incident.

"What is this?" Gabriel asked, confusion and anger in his voice.

"I'm not sure," Nathalie answered. "At first, I thought something had caused your previous agents to become re-akumatized, but there were also reports of other anomalies… strange appearances from the past and future, and they all disappeared after five minutes."

Gabriel stared at the tablet thoughtfully, and Nooroo could tell he was connecting the dots. Nooroo might think that Gabriel was foolish when it came to how he chose to wield the miraculous, but he couldn't deny that the man was smart.

"Nooroo," Gabriel spoke, addressing his kwamii directly. "Tell me, could something like this have been caused by one of your fellow kwamiis, say for example, the snake?"

Nooroo could not disobey a direct command, so he answered, trying to remain as vague as he could.

"It is possible, master" Nooroo replied.

"Would you know, if a kwamii used their power like that, without a holder?"

Nooroo swallowed, answering against his own will.

"Yes, I would know"

Gabriel was clearly miffed at Nooroo's willful disobedience.

"Then tell me if it happened," he ordered.

"It did, master," Nooroo replied. "Sass used his power at 01h00 tonight, but there is no way for me to know why, or what happened in the future to cause him to go back."

"I think I can guess," Gabriel said maliciously. "I must have gotten close to taking the miraculous. Ladybug is cautious, she would never deploy such a dangerous strategy unless I was imminently close to victory."

"I've already doubled our digital surveillance," Nathalie said to him. "If anything comes to light regarding this incident, we'll know."

"What this incident has taught me," Gabriel replied, "is that our efforts are fruitless if we do not get our hands on the miracle box again. We won't be able to win until we find out the new guardian's identity."

"Then that's what we'll focus on," Nathalie assured him. "Ladybug is careful, but she can't protect her identity forever. One day she'll slip up."

"That's what I'm counting on," Gabriel muttered.

Nooroo hoped for all their sake that she wouldn't. He was counting on Ladybug.