Chapter Twenty-two

"Luckily, no one was hurt during today's attack. It seems that the office building across the street from the Grand Paris had been rented out two days prior by a mysterious backer. There is an ongoing investigation by the Paris police department into the identity of this backer that has so far yielded no results. The only people close enough to the blast were those attending the wedding of Alya Cesaire and Nino Lahiffe, and the surprise wedding of Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste. That was not the only surprise of the day, though; during the attack, the identities of the other three heroes of Paris were revealed in a last-minute save from the beast that wreaked havoc. It seems that the Ladyblogger's interview with Ladybug and Chat Noir was not entirely truthful. Just look at this footage sent in anonymously to our station," The blonde new anchor looked over her shoulder, and a clear image appeared. It looked as though it were shot from the ground, looking up at the victims of the attack as the wedding guests all huddled together. Ladybug's warning could be heard, and there were three brilliant colored lights as Nino became Shield, Alya became Vixen, and Chloe became Honey. The frame rewound and froze on them half-transformed, their faces clearly visible. "There has been no word from the heroes since rushing off after clearing the damage, but it does appear that another Miraculous Holder has resurfaced, one with intentions even more sinister, apparently, than Hawk Moth's."

Marinette hit the power button on the remote, then threw the offending device across the room to shatter into pieces against the far wall. "Damn it!" She cursed. She began pacing.

"What the hell was that?" Adrien asked, sounding every bit as angry and frustrated as his new bride.

Master Fu sat forward on the couch, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He looked older and more worn than any of the others had ever seen. Giving up the Miraculous was taking its toll swiftly on the old man. "Ladybug's restorative powers worked against the damage caused, which means this was a Miraculous wielder responsible." He looked to the Kwamii who all huddled together on the ottoman in the living room. "I have not seen this power specifically; however, perhaps…"

"Your hunch was correct, Master." Tikki said solemnly. "He has returned, this time more powerful than before."

"Who has returned?" Alya asked, cradling an exhausted Nino against her side. "I don't remember the subject of a dragon ever coming up in our chats before."

"Your…your hunch? You knew this would happen?" Chloe asked weakly. She lay curled on her side on the end of the couch, a cool damp cloth on her forehead. "Why didn't you warn us?"

Master Fu sighed deeply and rubbed his temples. "I did not know exactly what was coming, only that a darkness approached. It is why I made the decision to choose a new Keeper in the first place."

"That was months ago." Marinette growled. She tried to reign in her temper, but it wasn't her anger getting the best of her. It was fear. And fear was harder to reign in fear. "Did you plan on warning us?"

"I could not." Master Fu held up a hand for silence as the other heroes began speaking at once. "Again, I did not know what threat we faced. I feared his return, but did no expect it. And I did not know when whatever this darkness was would surface. Besides, I prepared you all as best I could. You took your physical training more seriously that any other team has before, and I did try to make sure you met regularly to handle mental training and emotional damage. Besides, you could not have stopped this."

"We could have been aware of the danger. Our families, friends, everyone we care about, were all there today, in the crosshairs. We were seconds away from having them all burned away from us." Marinette paced before the fireplace. Adrien turned and pulled her into him as she passed him again. This time she let him hold her. She took a deep breath to center herself, pushing emotion out of the way. "Now you have seen the threat. You know what we're up against. Please, Master Fu, tell us everything."

"Very well. However, this is not my story to tell." He nodded solemnly.

To everyone's surprise, Tikki and Plagg moved to sit on his shoulders, heads bowed. "D'Rake is our burden to bear." Tikki said quietly.

"It isn't yours alone," Trixx said sympathetically.

"He is," Tikki replied with a venom in her tone the others had not heard before. Marinette and Adrien sat on the loveseat, dread leaking into both of them. Tikki looked at them sadly. "D'Rake is our fault. All of this is our fault."

Plagg picked up. "This goes all the way back to the beginning, when we first created the Miraculous." He began. The humans in the room shifted a tiny bit closer, aptly listening as he began to weave his tale. "You know that the seven of us, including Argo, who inhabits the missing Peacock Miraculous, were the first, but that we are not the only ones who created Miraculous."

"Right," Nino answered. "You told me in my history lessons that there were others who followed after your example, creating their own charms, but that they were not as powerful, as the Kwami who created them were not as powerful themselves."

"This is mostly true. We did leave out one…extremely important detail." Plagg rubbed his head behind his ear. "We weren't the only ones in the first group." There was a beat of silence.

"There was another of us. His name was D'Rake, and he was a friend." Tikki continued. "He was my friend. The person I cared most about, until Plagg and I became close. We had grown up together, been inseparable for over a century, before our group found each other. I was the one who welcomed him in, despite Wayzz's objections."

Wayzz nodded, but not in a gloating, told-you-so, way. "I saw a darkness in him." He said simply.

"I thought Wayzz was just being overly cautious," Tikki went on. "I couldn't see past our friendship. I thought D'Rake felt the same things we did—the need to create light, destroy evil, help balance out the injustices in the world. The eight of us made our pact, and set about preparing our Miraculous. It was during this time that Plagg and I became romantically involved." Tikki paused, still not looking up to meet anyone's gaze. Her antennae hung limply. "Creating the Miraculous wasn't a quick, easy task. It took over a decade to prepare the charms for our power. We didn't see what was happening to D'Rake. He was deteriorating. He was jealous; he wanted me to himself. He had never seen the injustice that we did, nor did he ever want to fix things. He had just wanted to be with me. I was so blind." She covered her face with her hands, and Plagg took over the story.

"We didn't see him falling apart, deeper and deeper into madness. I saw his jealousy, but I did nothing to stop it. I staked my claim on Tikki's heart, and made sure he knew it. It was our fault things got as bad as they did. The day came for us to join with our Miraculous. The seven of us were waiting for him to appear, so that we could begin the ceremony. Hours passed, and he still did not show, so we went looking for him. We were too late to stop what was happening. With another Kwami's help, he had captured and killed a…well…we called them fire sprites. They were gods who inhabited fire and flame within our world. They were sacred, and they were innocent, like children. They were neutral and sweet, and it was a grave crime to harm one." The other Kwami nodded for emphasis. He had spent that decade pouring his power into a needle that he had stabbed into the chest of this creature, inflicting a decade of torture, unimaginable pain. He had begun his own ceremony, using every drop of blood within the sprite and the needle that ad been its torture for years, to tattoo flames across his body, embedding that power within himself." The others in the room were focused intensely with growing horror as the story progressed. "The blood of a fire sprite was like liquid fire. It burns and melts our flesh. He put himself through hours of pure agony for these tattoos. It drove him over the precipice of madness he had been nearing. We only found him at the end of the ceremony. The tattoos were glowing the cherry red of true flames and appeared to be moving over is body as he thrashed in pain. The needle turned to ash, and the second man fled in terror. The Miraculous had become not the needle, but the blood of the fire sprite itself. He was the first to bond to his Miraculous, unintentionally, as it became a part of him. However, a Miraculous cannot be destroyed, which means that, although he could not handle the Bond, neither could it destroy him. He began to burn, actual flames crawling over his skin. We could do nothing as he himself became ash. We fled, and the building he had taken up went down in flames as well, all evidence of his crimes gone."

"We mourned for three days before continuing with our own ceremony." Tikki's voice was so quiet, they had to strain to hear. "We merged our powers with our Miraculous with a show of joy and light. There was so much…pure, good energy, that all darkness was washed from us, and we forgot the world for a moment. But only for a moment. We were celebrating our success, amid our village, when a ring of fire appeared around the entire village. The other Kwami began to panic, and they begged us to save them. No matter what we did, though, the fire burned. For days, then weeks. It became a bubble of flame, trapping everyone within. We could do nothing. Slowly, we watched those around us starve to death. With our Miraculous, we were stronger. We lasted. There were few left when the flames vanished at last. We began to cheer, until an explosion in the center of the town left a ball of flame that twisted and churned and began to form into a Kwami. D'Rake stood there, shaking, eyeing us with fear. Plagg and I came forward. We wanted to help him; he was our friend. But he saw the two of us, and we were close enough to see his fear turn to rage. He was not the D'Rake we remembered. This D'Rake was a demon, a beast consumed by flame and hate and darkness. He destroyed everything around him, and we…we were forced to flee. We were the only survivors."

"How did you defeat him?" Marinette asked after a long silence.

"We fought battle after battle. He followed us to the ends of the world, and destroyed anything we loved. We tried reasoning with him. We tried to quench the fire. We tried to wrangle the help of the fire sprites, but he was too powerful. Finally, we cornered him. It had been another century with this scourge after us. He didn't seem to bring misery to the world for the sake of evil, only to spite us, which we took as a small blessing. We surrounded him, far away from civilization, and used every bit of our powers to purify him. When we were finished, his body, no longer made of flames, lay lifeless on the ground. We…we assumed that the only thing keeping him alive had been the blood of the fire sprite. We assumed that wen we purified out that blood, all that was left was his lifeless form. We gave him proper funeral rights, on a pyre, as was tradition, and we continued. We bonded to our Miraculous. We found new holders, and through them, we were reborn. We helped our Holders form the Keepers. We helped them create a legend, preserve the Miraculous. But we did not tell them of our darkest secret. We did not tell them of D'Rake."

"We had put together a team." Wayzz floated into the air, taking the spotlight. "A perfectly balanced, well-oiled machine that radiated pure light energy, creation, joy, innocence. We created a beacon of good in this world. And, when we thought ourselves invincible, he came for us."

"He…came?" Adrien asked. "You said he died."

"As we were reborn, so too, apparently, was he. Purifying him didn't get rid of the poison of the fire sprite's blood. It only brought his mind back to him. He followed us to this world, and he found his own Holder, passing the tattoo down to him. The tattoo looked different with this new Holder, so we didn't notice what was happening. He maneuvered into the perfect position before striking."

"Position to do what?" Marinette felt she already knew the answer.

"To kill us." Tikki answered, finally looking up at her, tears in her eyes. "He hated us. He hated what we stood for, and he hated what we did to him. He blamed us for what happened to him. He attacked, and our Holders died, all except for the Keeper, who gathered our charms and fled to safety. The light we had created was snuffed out, and D'Rake disappeared. We found new Holders, and he was still gone. We warned these Holders of his threat, to prepare them. Time passed, and this team was a beacon themselves. And he appeared. This time, our Holders banded together, and were able to defeat him as we once had. The cycle continued. Every time we created this light, he appeared. We evolved, we won some, and we lost some. Several of our Holders began to bond, but his appearance was often what set them off, destroying them, as with Griff and Eliza."

"Wait, as in Griff and Eliza the pirates, the ones who gave us that warning?" Marinette asked, sitting bolt upright.

"The very same. It was D'Rake's holder who had them captured, tortured, and killed." Plagg answered.

"Why wouldn't you warn us?" Marinette accused, tears filling her eyes.

"We have learned over the generations when and how to break it to our Holders, when the time was right, how to recognize the signs of his appearance. We were a little late this time, though. And he is more powerful." Tikki answered.

"Besides," Plagg said, "There was little to be done about it. You are bonded to the Miraculous already. You could not have just given them up, as some of our Holders had, before you could become that beacon. We had thought that, once the threat of Hawk Moth was gone, you could go back to normal lives, and we could avoid his arrival this time; there was no need to create panic unnecessarily."

"Is that why you looked so scared when Master Fu said I was bonded to the Miraculous?" Adrien asked. His arms tightened around Marinette.

Plagg nodded. "That was the other half of it. But, kid, come on, I looked scared because it was dangerous. I care about you, as much as I hate to admit it out loud. I told you, most don't survive."

"Is D'Rake the reason most don't survive the process?" Silence met Marinette's question. She grew angry again. "You could have warned us, way back then. We could have prepared. We could have been prepared when something like today happened, instead of putting everything we care about in danger."

"You were as prepared as you could be. You were physically as fit as possible, training daily, mentally preparing yourselves for a life of this. You were as prepared as possible." Tikki argued.

"It isn't just about us now!" Marinette yelled. She was too distracted to hear the front door opening and closing. "This is about protecting our friends and our families, about getting our hopes up for lives we might not get to lead. This is about warning me before I get pregnant!"

There was a gasp at the door to the living room, and Marinette looked up to meet her mother's eyes. She shrank back, then suddenly burst into tears, burying her face in Adrien's shirt. "Shh, shh," He hushed, stroking her hair as she sobbed. "We'll work this out. We always come out on top."

"Adrien," she groaned through her tears. "How? You heard them. This is what has killed past Ladybugs and Chat Noir's." Another gasp from the doorway. "How can we put our baby in that much danger?"

"You're pregnant?" Sabine asked as she quickly made her way over to her daughter. All the heroes parents were there, along with the chief of police.

"We just found out," Adrien answered softly. "We were going to tell you after the wedding."

"Well, congratulations!" Sabine squealed, wrapping them both in a hug. "Honey, we're going to be grandparents!" She called to Tom who answered with another bear hug.

Marinette's sobs grew rougher. "What did you mean…lives you might not get to lead?" Mayor Bourgeoise asked, moving to stand behind his daughter, a hand on her shoulder.

"Is this the threat? The thing we saw today?" Roger Raincomprix asked carefully. "What exactly is it?"

Alya stood, her reporter brain able to summarize it simply. "It is another Miraculous Holder, with an evil, insane Kwami guiding him/her, who's only mission in life is to kill the other Miraculous and Holders. And he is good at it." A horrified hush filled the room, broken only by Marinette's sobs.