AN: This chapter comes with a trigger warning for character death, in case the ending of the last chapter didn't warn you what was coming… There are more deaths spread throughout the rest of this story, but this is by far the one described in the greatest detail.
To GuenZhenXuan2020: I don't start posting multi-chapter stories until they are entirely written (even though I continue tweaking until the minute they post). New chapters will post around the same time of day as this one, every day until the story is finished. "Running out of Time" is 15 chapters total plus Epilogue. The day after this story is finished I'm going to start a One-Shot anthology, the first story of which picks up a couple hours after "Running out of Time" ends. So… ten more days of this story! And then the story after this one is already written, so I'll be posting regularly through (most of) February.
To The Keeper of Worlds: You don't have long to wait on seeing what that bomb means…
Eight years in the future
"So what are our plans for the rest of the day?" Adrien asked, sipping his coffee and wiggling his toes inside the new slippers Marinette had knitted for him. He loved all of her handmade gifts; he didn't have a creative bone in his body, even if she still insisted that the best gift he ever gave her was that lucky charm. He smiled across the table at her. She seemed… different this morning: more radiant, almost like she was glowing. Or maybe she had always looked that way, and it had taken her announcement before he finally realized. Marinette blushed under his gaze, fingering her new necklace tenderly.
"Well," she finally offered, looking at him hopefully, "we both have the day off, so maybe we can just… stay in? Pop some popcorn and watch old movies?"
"That sounds amazing, Princess."
The speaker hovering over the table came to life at that moment. "Guys, I hate to bother you, but we have a developing situation," came Max's voice.
"You know that speaker's the first thing that's going after the baby gets here, right?" Adrien retorted, glaring at the device.
"A baby?" Max's voice asked in surprise. "Congratulations! But right now we have more pressing matters. I received a distress call from Lisbon."
"Luka?" Marinette asked.
"Rose, actually, but yes. They were under attack. Unknown assailants, unknown purpose. When she called, Viperion and She-Goat were already engaged. Then the transmission cut out."
"Do we have anyone close?" Adrien demanded, jumping up and leading the way to the office. "Madrid? London? We're on our way down."
"Madrid is off-line and I can't raise Guerrino," Max replied as the speaker hovered along behind them. Over the speaker they could hear him typing away on his computer in the headquarters under their feet. "Alya and Nino are in London, but Nino's working and Alya's hands are full. Tigress said her response team will take at least an hour to mobilize. We're the next-closest."
"Iron Maiden and Volpinax?" Marinette asked, stopping just inside the office, in front of the portrait of Adrien's mother.
"Just came off duty. Queen Bee, King Monkey, and De Gaulle are up, but they're ten minutes out."
"Open the portal," Marinette ordered, transforming as Adrien followed.
"Looks like that movie's on hold, Bugaboo," Cat Noir said, as the air in front of them swirled momentarily before resolving into a portal.
"Sorry, Kitty, guess we're going out for our anniversary this year!" Ladybug replied, stepping through the portal with a grin.
Cat Noir followed her through before removing the earwig from his staff and jamming it home. It crackled to life as Pegasus said, "Comm. check."
"Where did you send us, Pegasus?" Cat Noir asked, looking around warily. The sky above was cloudy, and a thick blanket of fog covered everything in front of him. The ground moved slightly under his feet.
"You should be on the top deck of the Free Spirit," came the answer. "That was the last location of their distress call."
"We're on the boat," Ladybug reported. "But it's really hazy and dark. Something feels wrong here. Do you feel it, Cat?"
"Yeah," Cat Noir replied, suppressing a shiver. "The boat looks deserted. No sign of the others. But the floorboards are slick with – wait – is that blood?"
"Queen Bee is ready, but we're waiting until the others are together to open another portal," Pegasus informed them.
Cat Noir scanned the boat carefully, heightened ears attuned for the tiniest hint of movement. Consequently, he had exactly one second's warning before the hatch flew open and a half-dozen men with shaved heads and black robes charged out of the hold below-deck. He leapt in front of Ladybug and raised his staff to parry the sword strike that the leader had directed at her chest. The sword glanced off the staff, releasing a cascade of sparks as it did so. Cat Noir followed up by dropping to a crouch and sweeping the leader's legs out from under him. He crashed to the floorboards with a grunt, blocking the way for the rest of his men and bottling them up on the ladder. Cat Noir swung his staff overhead and brought it down hard across the man's chest, eliciting a pained grunt.
"Who are you?" Ladybug demanded, glaring at him, yo-yo in hand. "What did you do with our friends?"
"No more than what needed to be done," the leader replied. He slid his sword under the staff pinning him to the floorboards and pushed the staff up and away from his chest. Then he kicked his legs up and swung to his feet, holding the sword in front of himself with both hands. "Balance must be preserved."
"Balance?" she repeated. "But–"
"We are the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane," the leader intoned, raising his sword once more. "We exist to bring balance to the Guardians of the Miraculous. When the Miraculous and their wielders become too powerful, there must be a culling!"
"A culling," echoed other voices, surrounding Cat Noir and Ladybug.
Cat Noir tensed as he looked around at the crowd that had just appeared, hemming them in. The Acolytes on the ship had been joined by allies who had been waiting on the docks. Cat Noir spared a glance for Ladybug, who was spinning her yo-yo to one side, a calculating look in her eyes.
"A 'culling,' you say?" Cat Noir asked, keeping his tone light and conversational, his posture relaxed, despite the dread beginning to settle in his stomach. "Cull this!" He tensed and sprang at the same moment as Ladybug in opposite directions. Cat Noir swung his staff above his head like a helicopter blade and brought it down, hard, in a scythe motion, sweeping through the Acolytes encircling them to his side. He could sense Ladybug behind him looping her yo-yo around an Acolyte's ankle, sweeping him off his feet, and using him as a flail against the enemies on her side. Cat Noir swung upward into a back flip as Ladybug's "flail" flew under him and through the crowd. He twisted his body in midair and extended his staff, poking an Acolyte behind Ladybug in the head. That Acolyte dropped with a sickening crunch a moment before Ladybug's "flail" landed on top of him.
"You know," Cat Noir commented, dropping to the ground to crouch in front of the Acolytes' leader, "for a group with an impressive name like the 'Dark Acolytes of the Mundane,' I was expecting your guys to be a little more dark and a little less mundane!"
The leader scoffed. "I would expect nothing less from a miraculous holder," he spat, raising his sword. "You hide behind unnatural Kwami magic while we follow the true path of the Mage!"
"Kwamis? Unnatural?" Cat Noir retorted, shortening his staff to sword length and raising it to parry the sword swinging for his head. Another shower of sparks flew over them both. "Shows how much you know. The Kwamis come into existence from nature. The Kwamis embody natural concepts; you don't get more natural than that!"
"Bah," replied the leader, stabbing at Cat Noir's chest, a move which he effortlessly dodged before striking the leader in the side. "The Kwamis claim to serve the balance of the universe, but they meddle more than anyone! The First Mage formed the Dark Acolytes of the Mundane to ensure that the Kwamis and those who would use their power are reined in, to preserve the balance of the universe!"
"Preserving the balance of the universe is what the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous do," Cat Noir retorted. "So tell you what," he added, spinning around and striking the leader on the opposite side, "how about if I balance out your bruises!"
"Strike me all you wish, Cat," the leader cried, crouching and holding his sword with the point downward to block Cat Noir's next slash. "I shall nevertheless cull the miraculous! And their holders! Just as I culled the three on this boat, so shall I cull you!"
Cat Noir almost missed the movement as the leader twisted his sword, stabbing upward at his thigh. However, he was knocked to the side, narrowly avoiding the blade, when Ladybug threw her yo-yo and smacked him in the hip, pushing him out of the way. Cat Noir's eyes followed the yo-yo and then went wide as the sword blade struck the yo-yo string and sliced clean through it. He followed the string back to Ladybug's hand and up to her face, where he saw the same shock mirrored on her face as on his own.
"Let the culling commence!" cried the leader of the Acolytes, springing to his feet and turning on Ladybug, sword held high.
Cat Noir dove toward Ladybug and raised his staff, extending it to interpose between her and the Acolyte leader. But before Cat Noir could block it, the leader lunged forward, sword held in front of himself, and stabbed Ladybug in the chest. Ladybug's face went slack, her eyes wide, as he plunged the sword deeper into her body to emerge from her back, and twisted violently. He jerked the sword out suddenly, and Ladybug's knees gave out as she fell forward to collapse on the deck. The leader swung around and caught Cat Noir's leg with the tip of his sword as he dove past.
"NO!" Cat Noir screamed, falling to his knees in front of Ladybug. This couldn't be happening. Their suits were supposed to be impervious to all but miraculous weapons. Ladybug – his friend, partner, lover, wife – couldn't be lying there in an expanding pool of her own blood. He rolled her over onto her back, cradling her to his chest. His hands trembled as he cupped her cheek in one hand, gently wiping the tears from her eye with his thumb.
"A-Adrien?" Ladybug whispered, her mouth filling with blood. She tried raising a hand to his cheek, but the hand fell. Cat Noir wrapped both arms around her, cradling her body and kissing her forehead as his tears threatened to fall. His breathing came in ragged gasps. The mother of his unborn child couldn't be dead. She couldn't. This had to be a nightmare. Any moment he would wake up in their bed again, snuggled up against the love of his life, as if none of this had happened.
"You mourn the Ladybug, Cat?" the leader taunted. "Her life has been culled by the Dark Sword of the Mundane, which was forged by the Mage in secret from the combined magic of Creation and Destruction as the ultimate balance against the unchecked might of the miraculous and their holders." He turned to the crowd and raised his voice. "The Ladybug has been culled!" he shouted, standing above Cat Noir and holding the bloody sword aloft in triumph. "Now shall the Cat be culled!"
The pounding of his blood in Cat Noir's ears nearly drowned out the voices of the acolytes as they began to chant: "The culling! The culling! The culling!"
The body in his arms did not lie. The pain in his leg was all too real; he could feel the trickle of blood escaping where the sword had pierced his suit and stabbed the flesh of his leg. There would be no waking from this nightmare.
"You made a mistake," Cat Noir ground out, burying his grief deep as he released Ladybug's body to fall limply to the ground and used his staff for push himself to his feet. The pain in his leg receded to the background as adrenalin kicked in.
"Because the Bug is no longer here to save you?" mocked the leader, brandishing the sword in front of himself.
Cat Noir let out a humorless laugh. "You think I needed her to save me?" he growled. His eyes narrowed and he gripped his staff as hard as if he was going to snap it in half in his rage. The acolytes took a hesitant step back as Cat Noir's vision hazed over with black smoke. "You needed her to RESTRAIN ME!" he roared. He eyed the Dark Acolytes appraisingly and gave his staff a testing spin. "You want a culling? I'll give you a culling: CATACLYSM!"