Chapter 17: Bella Corruption
They had a week to train. And train they did.
Adrien and Marinette worked hard to make sure that Nino, Alya, and Chloé were up to par and ready to fight. They were all doing well, each connecting with their kwamis and able to use their powers with ease. They would go to school during the day and train well into the evening before each having to return to their parents, well, Adrien returning with Nino to his parents.
As well as training, there was trying to console Nathalie.
She was pushing them harder and harder in an attempt to get Adrien (or any of the others as they weren't good a hiding the fact that they were all in on this) to open up to her about what was really going on. She threatened to call the police and report Gabriel as a missing person on multiple occasions, but Adrien always managed to convince her not to, that he was handling it, and that they knew where his father was.
And they did know where he was, in theory at least.
Tikki was how they would find him, she could sense where her other miraculous was in general and when Marinette was transformed as Ladybug she could track it down to a precise pin point through her yo-yo. But for a week, Papillon kept the Ladybug Miraculous in his own electrum box, where Tikki couldn't sense it, where he couldn't be found. It left Adrien on edge the entire time. And at the end of the week, conveniently on the weekend when they had just gathered to start another round of training, Papillon revealed himself.
"He's taken the miraculous out of the electrum box, I can feel it," Tikki informed them as they got ready for more training.
There was an uncomfortable silence as they all took in the information.
"Alright everyone, this is it," Marinette quickly broke the silence, "He's waiting for us so we'll need to proceed with caution. Transform."
They all transformed in a chaos of yelling and flashing lights, huddling up when they were done.
"Our plan?" Chloé asked, looking at Marinette with worry.
Adrien and Marinette had been discussing the plan on and off throughout the week, admittedly it was mean not to include the others in on the planning, but he and Marinette had the most experience in this. They had agreed to keep it simple.
"Alright," Chat said, pulling the attention to him. Ladybug nodding in approval for him to layout the plan, "Papillon doesn't know about you three, so its best if we hold onto that element of surprise for a long as we can. Ladybug and I will go out to distract him. Chloé, Nino, you two will sneak around and try to pin him down. Alya, since you're the one least likely to freeze or get distracted," There was a shared look between Nino and Chloé at that, they didn't say anything, "So you're going to be the one to grab his Miraculous and put in the electrum box."
Ladybug pulled out the box she had been holding onto for the week and handed it to Alya, who looked at it worriedly in her hand.
"Are you sure?" She asked, nervous about the sudden responsibility.
"Yes," Ladybug confirmed, "You've got this."
"Ok… ok, yeah, I can do that," She responded with more confidence as she took the box. She glanced between the five of them, "Now, names."
"Names?" They all asked her.
"We can't just go calling you two Ladybug and Chat Noir while we use our regular names, we need to keep our identities as anonymous as we can from Papillon. We don't even know it he knows Marinette's identity and that's dangerous."
They all nodded and muttered in agreement, Ladybug being particularly quiet, she must have been worried all week about whether or not she or her family were actually safe.
"I'll go by "Rena Rouge"," Alya said, using the same naming style Chat did for his superhero name. A gleam in her eyes told him that she had been thinking about this since she got the Miraculous.
Chloé and Nino where quiet, thinking about it.
"Queen Bee," Chloé said, in English, Chat didn't know much English but he guessed it was some word or variation of the word "bee" like Ladybug did with hers.
Nino thought about it a little longer before he finally said "Carapace."
"Carapace?" Everyone looked at him, confused, "What's that?"
"Is it like "turtle" in another language or something?" Chat mused, it didn't sound like it was English at the very least.
Nino's eyes nervously darted to the side, "It's…" He trailed, "It's the technical term for the shell of a turtle, the hard top part, or like, the back of a lobster or other crustaceans."
They all blinked at him, not expecting that answer, though Chat chuckled.
"That is the nerdiest thing you could have chosen for a name!" Chat laughed out, the others chuckled as well, loosening up their nerves.
"Oh shut up "Black cat"," Nin-Carapace shot back, his tone of voice silly, "Just- "What color is that cat?" "It's black" "What shall we name it?" "Black Cat"."
Chat laughed a bit harder as that leaned out of the huddle. He shook his head in amusement, "Alright, alright," He pointed to each of them as he said their names, "Rena Rouge, Queen Bee, and Carapace."
"Are you ready?" Ladybug asked all of them.
"Ready!" They confirmed, standing straighter. Chat focused on his mirth as much as he could to hide how not ready he really was; a million years couldn't make him ready enough.
Ladybug pulled out her yo-yo and look at it, a pink dot blinked on the edge of the map on her screen. In the center were five other colored dots, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Black, each correlating to the gathered superheroes. The pink dot only told what direction Papillon was in, they weren't close enough to know the exact location yet. With a snap, Ladybug closed her yo-yo and went shooting out in the direction the dot showed her, everyone else following closely behind. Every couple of blocks, she would stop, checking the pink dot again until it moved away from the edge, they were close.
"You three, stay back," Ladybug informed Rena, Bee, and Carapace. They didn't know what was waiting for them at this pink dot, though Chat noticed that they were uncomfortably close to his house, "When Chat buzzes your weapons, you can come find us, be wary."
They all nodded and crouched down on the roof as Ladybug and Chat Noir went leaping ahead. They crossed two more rooftops before Ladybug stopped and pulled out her yo-yo again.
"He's here, right across the street," She said, confirming Chat's worst suspicions.
It was his house.
They circled the area, the rooftops were empty and the mansion looking plain and unguarded, though Chat knew of the heavy security system the building contained. He mentally planned for what path he needed to take to shut off the security, pulling out his baton and sending a buzz to Rena, Bee, and Carapace so they could come closer. He cursed when he looked in one of the windows though.
"Nathalie's there," He said as the others landed besides him and Ladybug. Nathalie was typing away at her computer as if nothing was wrong, but Chat could see by the way she slouched and squinted at the screen before her that something was wrong. The same thing that had been wrong for the past week, "Hang on."
He pulled out his baton and called Nathalie, lowering himself behind the slanted rooftop more so as to not be seen, the others did the same.
His baton buzzed and buzzed until finally Nathalie finally picked up, "Hello?"
"Nathalie, its Chat."
"Adrien," He watched as she suddenly stood up and looked out the window, trying to find him. Chat barely had a moment to be bothered about the name before she shot into a string of questions, "What's going on? Have you found your father? Or, at the very least are you going to tell where you've been hiding him?"
"You need to get out of there," He warned he ominously, ignoring her questions. She looked at the phone like it was crazy.
"What? Adrien, are you okay? What's going on?"
"It's not safe in the house Nathalie, you and the gorilla need to get out of there," He repeated.
"What do you mean?" Nathalie pressed, but grabbed her jacket none the less, looking out the window once again to try and find him, "Have you found your father?"
"Yes," Chat answered, honestly for the first time, "But you two need to get out of the house, it's dangerous inside. Ladybug and I are going to take care of it," Chat purposefully left out the others in case Papillon was somehow listening to the conversation.
"And go where?" Nathalie asked, no longer by the window, he could hear her heels click against the marble floors of the hallways through the baton.
"I dunno," Chat replied indignantly, "Just somewhere safe, away from the house. Somewhere crowded."
Nathalie huffed and Chat could hear shuffling on the other end and mumbled words as she talked to the gorilla.
"Okay, we're leaving," Nathalie finally told him.
"Stay safe."
"Adrien, that doesn't relieve any of my conc-"
He hung up before she could finish, watching as the town car rolled out of the underground driveway and down the street, away from the house. Adrien let out a little breath before returning his attention back to the uncomfortably silent house again, his nerves having increased throughout the whole conversation until he was highly strung.
"Wait for our signal again," Ladybug told the others, they nodded in confirmation. She turned to him with soft eyes, hiding her own fear much better then he was, "You ready?"
"I am," He gulped, then turned slightly to address the others, "Don't be afraid to break a window if the doors lock, and if the security activates, try to get in quick. Its hard to get through once it's up." Another breath, his voice lower, "Don't be afraid to hit him."
He leapt down without a moments notice, Ladybug quickly following after him as they…
As they just walked through the front door.
It was unlocked.
That was too suspicious. Chat held his staff tightly as they took slow steps inside. Ladybug zoomed into the map on her yo-yo so she had a better look at the details of the mansions wall plans, Chat looked over her shoulder.
"He's in the gallery," Chat said. They had checked the windows to that room when they circled the mansion, but didn't see anything inside, it bothered him.
Ladybug followed Chat through the mansion, their steps silent. The security had yet to be activated, despite Chat knowing there was a direct control panel in that room. Ladybug sucked in a breath.
"What?" Chat whispered to her.
"There's a purple dot on my radar now," She informed him, looking at her yo-yo.
He peeked over her shoulder and sure enough, there was a purple dot right next to the pink one, both waiting in the middle of the room. This was not going to be easy.
They finally made their way to the room. The doors were slightly ajar, just enough so that Chat could see the bright light coming through them. The curtains were open for anyone to see, something about that felt wrong. Chat pushed his body against the wall with Ladybug and used his staff to slowly push the door open wider, expecting some kind of projectile to come out and hit the staff. Nothing happened, when the door was completely open, they were met with an uncomfortable stillness. Ladybug shuffled forward, carefully peeking her head around the corner.
Again, nothing happened, so they entered.
From the bright light of outside, Chat could see that his father wasn't there.
"Where is he?" Ladybug murmured Chat's thoughts.
She looked at her yo-yo again. It said Papillon and Ladybug's other earring was here, standing in the conversation pit in the middle of the room, but they saw nothing sitting there. Not a person, not the jewelry. They took more careful steps inside, Chat kept glancing back to the door, expecting it to suddenly slam shut and trap them inside. The lack of action made his hands vibrate.
He shook his head to try and regain some focus and slipped over to where he knew the security panel was. He opened it, and with a careful carelessness, slammed his staff into its center, effectively short circuiting it. The security didn't activate luckily, but Chat and Ladybug jumped when suddenly half of the conversation pit suddenly buzzed and jerked down into the floor by a foot.
They stared, amazed by the sudden exposure of the hidden area.
"Did you… Did you really just break that?" He heard a voice, his father's voice, suddenly come from the opening in the floor, scolding them.
The fact that his father was scolding him seemed more funny than frightening to Adrien, it was a familiar tone, one that Adrien had heard all too many times to count but now could brush it off without so much as a blink.
"For stars' sake!" He heard the gasp in frustration and footsteps. Ladybug checked her yo-yo to see the pink and purple dots move towards the wall, the same place that Chat was, near the security panel. But just a bit past as he was underneath them in some kind of secret room that they couldn't see.
There was the faint sound of buttons being aggressively pushed, and the floor jerked up and down before getting stuck another few inches below where it was before. A growl of anger came from below.
"It's stuck, just…" A bothered sigh, "Just jump down."
Ladybug quickly typed out a message informing Rena, Bee, and Carapace how to get to the room, to be careful and try not to be noticed before buzzing them, letting them know to come down.
She gave a nod to Chat and they went over to the lowered floor panel, twisting and slipping through the opening before jumping down the rest of the way. They landed on the concrete floor with a resounding thud and looked up to see Papillon standing at a security panel just like the room above, a little red "error" signal blinked at him. He paid it no mind, instead watching his two new guests closely.
The room was a significant few degrees colder, made up of concrete walls and a concrete floor. Its round shape held no windows, their only light was a handful of harsh florescent lights scattered throughout the ceiling and the light pouring from the space between the floors. An iron gated balcony lined the walls, allowing for someone to sneak around from above them should they need, Chat hoped the others would notice and use it before jumping down. Papillon took a step away from the panel and Ladybug and Chat crouched in to a defensive, fighting position, holding their weapons tightly.
"No need to be so defensive," Papillon said, "I don't want to hurt you."
"Again, it's too late for that, you've already hurt both of us," Chat hissed back.
"Surely we can talk about this," Papillon almost purred, making Chat's neck crawl.
Of all things Ladybug was the one to lunge first, her yo-yo grabbing the iron balcony and lifting her towards him at a fantastic speed, "We're past words!" She shouted, ready to kick him.
Papillon was quick to act, swinging his cane over his head and blocking her foot. But Ladybug was just as quick, twisting herself around and grabbing the cane with her ankle. She messily jerked the cane out of his hands and let it fly up and land the iron balcony out of reach. She swung around and landed a good few feet away, but Papillon wasn't looking at her.
He was staring at Chat.
His eyes wild and dark as he took a heavy step towards Chat. Chat felt himself tense, despite the weirds leather mask covering Papillion's entire face, Chat knew it was his father now. All he could see was his father as Papillon surged towards him. He couldn't move! He couldn't move!
Out of his peripherals he caught a flickering of light, shadows moving through the space in the ceiling. Papillon barely noticed it too before he was right in front of Chat and reached out. Ladybug yelled and her yo-yo wrapped around Papillon's middle right as he grabbed Chat's hand, he was jerked back, and Chats' ring was pulled off his finger in an instant.
"Carapace, wait!" He barely heard Bee hiss out over the sound of his transformation being released before Carapace came in from the side and slammed into Papillon with his shield.
So much for the element of surprise Adrien briefly thought in his moment of shock as he watched both the ring and Ladybug's other earring go flying out of Papillon's hand and coat at Carapace's impact. Papillon swung out in and arch pulled by Ladybug's yo-yo until he slammed into the wall. Plagg was immediately at the back of Adrien's neck and stayed close as Adrien managed to bring himself to a moment of clarity and jump forward, rolling over the Miraculous and grabbing them. He held them close to his chest and watched Papillon from a distance.
Ladybug held her yo-yo tight as Carapace ran over to Papillon's crumpled, tied up form while Bee jumped down from the iron balcony next to him. Adrien tried not to feel anything as he watched Papillon roughed up and lying still on the ground, tried not to feel anything as Carapace and Bee pulled him to his knees without struggle. He just slumped in their arms, barely lifting his head enough so Adrien could catch his tired eyes. Adrien knew he was the one who said don't be afraid to hit his father, but it was so much harder to stand by that sentiment when his father just accepted it so early in the fight. Why didn't he struggle? Did he really want this?
"Wait," Adrien said, pulling himself up and taking heavy steps towards his father.
The others looked at him, Rena hadn't come out from her own hiding spot, but he could hear the creak of the iron balcony as she suddenly stopped moving.
"Kid what are you doing?" He heard Plagg mumble in his hair.
He approached Papillon, who brought himself to look a little higher at his own son a few feet away. Adrien kneeled down so he was eye level with the man, holding the Miraculous close to his body should he try anything.
But he didn't.
No instead he stared at Adrien with exhausted, curious eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" Adrien asked the simple question that had been eating at him for too long.
The sideways grin his father returned made Adrien's skin crawl.
"Perhaps she should answer this one," He said ominously.
Without a moment's notice, a bright purple light washed over him, leaving Gabriel, plain and true. The butterfly kwami swirled out of it and flew up to Adrien's face in an instant.
"You have to give us the Chat and Coccinelle Miraculous, Adrien," Nooroo immediately began pleading with him, but something in her eyes and in the way Plagg pressed closer made it seem none too kind, "Together, they can be used to bring back your mother."
Adrien couldn't help the sharp inhale of breath as he fell back at the information. Bring back his mother? As in… back from the dead?
"Don't lie to him," Plagg hissed, flying out from behind Adrien to face Nooroo, she backed up and scowled at him.
"Lie to him?" She asked, offended, "You're the one who's lying to him if you haven't told him!"
"We can't bring people back from the dead like that," Plagg said.
"Yes you can!" She yelled back, they circled around each other, "I've seen you do it!"
Suddenly Ladybug's transformation was released, the yo-yo disappearing from around Gabriel and Carapace and Bee quickly catching themselves so they had a tight hold Gabriel. Tikki went shooting out towards Nooroo and crashed into her, pinning her down with the help of Plagg.
"Stop it! Stop it!" Nooroo cried out, "She needs to come back! You can bring her back! I've seen you do it before!" She struggled in their hold, yelling out. She looked at Adrien with desperate eyes as he watched in shocked silence, "The Coccinelle and Chat Miraculous can be used together, creating a hero with unimaginable, god-like abilities. If we use them together, we can bring someone back from the dead! We bring back Emilie!"
Adrien's eyes widened at the information, everyone else in the room held a breath before Tikki quickly cut her off.
"That only works for someone who has recently died, and it does not come without severe consequences!" Tikki and Plagg were jerked up as Nooroo struggled before they pushed her back down again.
"Emilie has been dead for years," Plagg shouted. Adrien had told him all about his mother, using Plagg as something to talk to without any pitying response, as a way to vent. In all their time together, Plagg never actually acknowledge that he was listening, "She can't be brought back. She's gone."
Nooroo wasn't consoled by his softened voice, instead she struggled harder, tears streaming out of her eyes at the information that she never wanted to hear.
"No! No, no, no! You're lying! You're lyin-"
"Rena!" Marinette shouted. In an instant, Rena hopped down from the balcony, landing behind Gabriel. She slipped forward, gently grabbed his head with one hand and reached over his shoulder to grab the butterfly pin on his scarf with the other.
Gabriel didn't struggle as she grabbed it, instead staring down at the concrete floor in a horrified concentration. Adrien realized with a mix of hope and concern that Nooroo must have been lying to his father. One last scream was heard from Nooroo before Rena put the pin into the box and snapped it shut, she disappeared in a little flash of purple light.
They were all silent for a moment, no one moved, no one made a sound as they took in what happened.
Finally, Adrien got up. He took a sluggish step towards his father, looming over him in an exhausted curiosity. His father slowly craned his neck up to look at Adrien, squinting at the light shining behind Adrien's head and into his eyes.
"Adrien…" He said quietly, unsure if he should actually speak. The sudden power Adrien had over his father was odd, but he made it a point not to hold it over him.
"What?" He asked softly, prompting his father to continue, he was curious over what he had to say.
"I never meant…" He started, but paused again, only continuing after Adrien narrowed his eyes in question and nodded, "She said… She said we could bring your mother back. She said that we could draw out the Coccinelle and Chat Miraculous with minimal damage, that we could get them and bring your mother back. It wasn't supposed to last this long. I didn't mean to hurt so many people, I didn't mean to hurt you."
"…But-but you did!" Adrien snapped back, feeling his anger rise at his father's attempt to remove any blame from himself, "But you did! You made the choice to endanger the people of Paris the first time, and you made the choice to keep doing it again and again for TWO YEARS!"
Adrien threw his hands up in exasperation, panting heavily and practically seething, the way his father flinched when he yelled ended up leaving a heavy pit in his stomach. No matter how angry he was at his father, he had to be the better person.
"You made the choice to terrorize innocent people, all for one person," He said quieter, having a harder time looking at him, "Their trauma, my blood, is on your hands." He turned away, "Mom wouldn't want this."
He glanced at Marinette, looking worriedly between the two, through his eyes he tried to tell her that he was done. He was tired of this, and no longer wanted to be here. She nodded in understanding.
"Knock him out," She commanded.
There was a pause and Adrien could feel Rena, Bee, and Carapace's eyes on him, waiting for his confirmation. They still needed to bring his father to the healer, and for safety, the Healer's location needed remain anonymous. He nodded his head.
"Wait, wai-"
There was a thud, and the sound of a body collapsing to the floor. Adrien felt himself fall to his knees, exhausted.
However much his father forgot, it didn't matter anymore. For everything, Adrien wished that he could forget it all too.
A/N: Done. Done, done, done! Omg, I hate climaxes, especially if their action-based. Like, emotional-based one I can do no problem, but action ones? Particularly while trying to coordinate 6 characters all at once, I am not good at that. Pbbth, well, time to wrap things up and set up our resolution. We either got one or two more chapters to go oh boy!