Tell Me What?

Adrien didn't expect things to go too smoothly the first day back at school. Lila and a student in another class were both dead, along with eight others throughout the city. He had been able to cure the sick since they were given their illness through magic, but for some reason the dead stayed that way, and he didn't know how to handle it. Even his father was obviously shaken by it.

And then there was Marinette. She was still weak and recovering like the other victims, but she wasn't in any records as such since it was Ladybug who had the virus, not her.

Oh, and then there was the fact that she passed out in his arms.

He hadn't expected it, so their descent to the floor was more of a controlled fall than anything else. He maneuvered himself out from under her and laid her down properly, then removed his outer shirt and balled it up, placing it under her head to act as a pillow.

"I'm going to call 1-1-2" Mme. Bustier declared, pulling out her cell phone.

"They won't be able to do anything with an army in the streets," Adrien objected. "Besides, I think it's a seijin."

"A what?"

Adrien froze for a split second, but recovered in record time. "I made it up," he lied. "They're like akumas but good guys. I mean, akuma means demon, seijin means saint- it makes sense."

"Whoa."

Adrien turned to Alya, her eyes glued to her phone. She looked over to Marinette for a second, then back down. "Someone claiming to be Hawkmoth just dm'd me on the Ladyblog." She scrolled through the message, then looked back to Marinette. "He said Marinette's okay, just that her consciousness is in the 1200s, when the woman who is responsible for the army was alive?" She shook her head, confused. "He also said that the army's going to be looking for her, and we can't let them see."

His eyebrows furrowed together, and he looked back down at Marinette. "Well then we've gotta hide her." He scooped her up in his arms with ease, mind racing with a million options.

For a flash, he saw Marinette lying on top of the lockers in the locker room, a blanket covering her body.

"Dude, you okay?" Nino asked.

"Yeah, Adrien, your eyes were blue again," Chloé added in a whisper.

Adrien just shook his head. "I'm fine," he assured them. "Kim, Ivan, I need your help. We're going to put Marinette on top of the lockers and cover her."

Kim and Ivan both nodded, following him out and down the stairs to the locker room. His mind raced, trying to come up with a plan to stall the army, to stop them from finding Marinette.

He passed Marinette's unconscious body to Kim and Ivan, and they easily hoisted her atop the lockers.

"You think this is gonna work?" Kim asked. "I mean, if there's a magical army hunting for her, shouldn't they be able to find her even if she isn't in class?"

"It's the best we've got right now," Adrien declared, dashing over to the emergency fire blanket and opening the box. He pulled the blanket out and unfolded it before tossing it over the lockers and Marinette. "You guys go back to class. I'm gonna stand guard."

Kim shot him a dubious look. "You sure?"

"Positive," Adrien replied. "As long as I stay hidden, no one's going to notice me, and if anyone comes looking too close, I'll fight 'em off. You guys get back to class."

Ivan nodded and gave Kim a little jerk, and the two walked off.

Once Adrien was sure they were far enough away, he cast another cursory glance around the room. Then—

"Plagg, claws out!"

As he ran out of the locker room, the front doors broke down to reveal medieval knights. Chat Noir pulled out his baton, spinning it around and creating a makeshift shield in front of him.

"Alright," he breathed. "Who's ready to get their ass kicked?"

The knights charged, and while Adrien fought off as many as he could, he quickly found himself overwhelmed by the sheer number. He ducked a sword only to run headfirst into a chest plate. He kicked that soldier back only to get grabbed from behind.

Suddenly, a boomerang cut over him, beheading all of the knights and turning them into blue smoke, including the one holding him.

Chat Noir dropped, looking over his shoulder to see a brunette woman catch the boomerang. She twirled it in her hand and it vanished, and she ran up to Chat.

"Are you okay?" she asked, eyes filled with worry.

Chat nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine… who are you?"

She shot him a kind smile, the kind his mother used to give him. "A friend." She glanced to the door, where more soldiers started to march in. "You ready for round two?"

"Always."

The battle started to go a little smoother after that, but they were still losing. Two against a hundred was hardly a fair match.

Suddenly, the locker room doors flew open, and Ladybug swung out on her yoyo, landing on the upstairs banister.

Chat beamed up at her. "Have a nice nap?" she quipped

"I've had better," she called back down to him. Her eyes darted to the mysterious woman. "New friend?"

The woman spared a look up at Ladybug, then spun back around and slammed her fist into one of the soldiers' chest, denting the metal and knocking him on his back. It vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

"You could say that!" Chat swung his baton like a baseball bat, hitting one soldier and throwing him into another, turning them both to blue smoke like the last one.

Everything was going to be okay now. Ladybug was here; she always pulled through, no matter what.

"Lucky charm!"

Chat grinned. The fight was as good as done now. He glanced back to see what Ladybug had conjured, only to be stunned by what he saw. Instead of a mirror or stuffed animal in her hands, her right hand only was consumed by black, crackling energy. It looked identical to his cataclysm.

Then, Ladybug burst into coughs, covering her mouth with her left hand. She folded over, falling off the banister.

Chat started running, desperately trying to make it through the sea of knights to reach her in time.

He swore he could hear the sound of her head hitting the blacktop. "Ladybug!" he cried. He pushed past the final soldier and dropped to his knees in front of her, cradling her limp form in his arms.

The brunette woman appeared in the corner of his eye, swinging a sword through half a dozen soldiers to get to them. "Get her on the roof," she ordered. "They won't be able to reach, and you can get her back when the fight's over."

Chat looked up at her, eyes filled with tears. "We're gonna lose," he whispered.

The brunette woman looked up, eyes landing on something upstairs. "Don't count us out just yet."

Without a second thought, Chat followed her gaze, landing on what had to be Rose as a seijin. She raised her hands, and he felt a warm light wash over him. He looked back, and the soldiers were all gone.

Chat looked back to Ladybug, holding her tight against his body, then to the mystery woman. "Thank you, for… everything. However you did it."

The woman nodded. "Get her to your house. She's about to detransform and a hospital won't do her any good if they know."

Chat nodded obediently, then jumped up into the air, rushing towards his house.

He landed in his room just as his father ran inside, straightening his suit jacket. "What happened? I sent another seijin and they were particularly worried about- oh."

"Yeah," Chat said, voice cracking. He laid Ladybug down on the bed just as she detransformed, but Tikki didn't appear. "What do I do?" he asked, struggling to hold back the sob in the back of his throat.

Gabriel sighed, unable to hide the fear on his own face. "Detransform. Get an ice pack from the kitchen and a glass of water. Is she bleeding?"

"Not anymore."

"Okay, then go."

Adrien made record time. The house felt emptier than usual as he rushed about his tasks, not that he dwelled on the thought with Marinette in danger.

When he got back, he saw Marinette on her side, attended to by his father as he cleaned the wound on the back of her head. "She's clotting properly, but we won't know the full extent of the damage until she regains consciousness," he said without looking up. He set a bloody gauze pad down on the bedside table before finally turning to Adrien. "She'll be okay."

"Promise?"

Gabriel hesitated; all the answer Adrien needed.

Marinette whimpered, and Adrien jerked his attention to her. "Hey, she's waking up."

Marinette blinked a few times, squinting against the light from the windows. She moaned in pain, lifting her hand to cover her face. "WheramI?"

"You're in one of our guest rooms," Gabriel said. He turned to Adrien. "Adrien, shut the blinds; she's bound to have some photosensitivity."

Adrien nodded obediently and ran over to the windows, closing the blinds as quickly as he could. He ran back over to see Marinette slowly adjusting to the room.

"What'd I miss?" Marinette grumbled. "Who's da brunette lady? She'n't look like a ch'mp'on."

Adrien shook his head. "She wasn't," he explained. "She just showed up and started fighting. Dad was able to make Rose a seijin, and she helped after you were knocked out."

Marinette froze for a minute, seemingly lost in thought, then she started coughing. She rolled over onto her other side, as if trying to shield them from herself.

"Is it the plague?" Adrien asked, fear seeping through his voice. He looked up to his dad. "We defeated the Pharaoh, he shouldn't be doing any more damage."

Gabriel shook his head. "No, this wasn't the Pharaoh. It's something else."

"But Madelaine still migh'ave had something to do with it," Marinette breathed.

Adrien's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Madelaine?" he asked, looking back and forth between Marinette and his father. "What's she got to do with this?"

Marinette's eyes went wide with realization, and she looked to Gabriel. "You didn't tell him?" Her voice was astonishingly clear.

"Tell me what?" Again, Adrien looked from Marinette to his father and back. They both had grave looks on their faces.

Finally, Gabriel sighed. "Lie down and don't move your head," he ordered Marinette. "It will aggravate your concussion." He put a hand on Adrien's shoulder and guided him out into the hallway for a bit of privacy.

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "I am so sorry it's come to this."

Adrien's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Dad, you're scaring me."

Gabriel nodded in understanding. "I'm a little scared, too, son," he confessed, tears in his eyes. "Madelaine… she's not a new persona. She was one of your mother's identities during the Crusades. She figured out what she was and started dodging the Guardians. She thought it was unfair that she not only was living under a life that wasn't really hers, but also that she didn't get to make it hers. Which is right, I suppose, but she took it too far. She started… unlocking more and more of your mother's powers until she was able to summon armies out of the past. She rampaged and tortured and did all sorts of unspeakable things. I still don't know how the Guardians tricked her into going through the portal and giving up her identity."

Adrien listened, enraptured and horrified.

"We'll find a way to get her back-"

"Will we?" Adrien asked. "Helena only remembered because she cared about me. If what you say is true, Madelaine doesn't care about anybody. She was just using us."

Gabriel took a shuddering breath and removed his glasses. "Okay, I don't know. But I do know that someone beat her. Somehow. Some way. And if someone else beat her, we can figure out how they did it. And then we can go from there."