To The Keeper of Worlds: I don't want to spoil anything, but there is some combining of miraculous powers in this story…
Ladybug stood on the Metro platform with Cat Noir on one side of her and King Monkey on the other. Impératrice Pourpre stood behind her next to a man in green that she had transformed into "Enhancer" to boost her power, and Pegasus and Queen Bee stood together in front, facing them and the crowd of volunteers who were joining them for the fight. All of the volunteers had already received an Akuma from Impératrice Pourpre, granting them the abilities they would need to hold Cat Bug Noir's shock troopers at bay long enough for Ladybug and Cat Noir to find Cat Bug Noir and end his reign of terror.
"I'm still not sure about the multiple Akumas thing," Ladybug whispered to Cat Noir.
"It does bring back memories, doesn't it?" he whispered back. "But we're the ones who gave Sabrina the miraculous in the first place. We still trust her, right?"
Queen Bee interrupted Ladybug's reply, stepping forward and calling out, "Right. In a few moments, Pegasus will open a portal outside Agreste's front gate. And then the battle will begin. This isn't about rescuing a prisoner. It's not about reclaiming his stolen miraculous. This is about the fate of our universe. If we fail, that's it; there's nothing left: he will win.
"So we absolutely cannot fail! We have Ladybug and Cat Noir! We have each other! We will fight for each other! We will fight for those we've lost! We will fight for those we love! We will fight, and we will win!"
Queen Bee stepped back and nodded to Pegasus. Pegasus said, "Kaalki, Wayzz, Unify!" Wayzz was sucked into the damaged Turtle Miraculous on his wrist as bright green light covered him. When it faded, his dark brown suit had a turned mottled green and a shield had appeared on his back. He turned toward the abandoned rails and shouted, "Voyage – Shell-ter!"
A portal opened in front of him through which Ladybug recognized the front gate of the Agreste mansion. The gate itself, however, was tinted green by a straight Shell-ter-wall which had formed several meters in front of the portal. A pair of Chloe's volunteers who had received wings flew through the portal and shot upward into the sky. Queen Bee and King Monkey followed them through, with the rest of the volunteers hot on their heels. Even before she stepped through the portal, Ladybug could see the black-clad forms of Cat Bug Noir's shock troopers racing toward the gate. The first wave raised their weapons, but before they could fire, a stream of photonic energy lanced out from one side of the Shell-ter, started on one side of the formation, and arced across the lawn. The first wave of shock troopers fell.
As she leapt through the portal, Cat Noir at her side, Ladybug hid her eyes from a bright, greenish-brown light in the lawn. When she looked back, one of the shock troopers had transformed. Instead of the black-and-red, he wore a suit of mottled brown and green with a row of spikes running down the back. His helmet was adorned with a pair of angry-looking red eyes. He shouted something indistinct and stomped his foot. The ground beneath Ladybug's feet began to rumble. The lawn in front of the new miraculous user was pushed up into a berm at the same time that a crack in the ground shot toward the gate and the Shell-ter beyond it.
"That's the Dinosaur Miraculous!" Queen Bee called out. "King Monkey, you're up!"
Impératrice Pourpre released an Akuma toward King Monkey, who sprouted wings and leapt into the air. "Uproar!" he shouted, and released the pineapple that appeared above him toward the Dinosaur Miraculous holder the moment it was within reach. The pineapple splattered across his helmet as the crack reached the gate. The gate shattered and fell to the ground, and the crack stopped expanding.
"It's a Flying Monkey King!" Cat Noir yelled next to Ladybug. He twirled his staff to deflect an energy blast, as Ladybug spun her yo-yo to deflect one from the opposite direction.
"Yeah, yeah, you can take a picture for Kim later, Kitty," she retorted. "Now let's move!"
Ladybug followed Cat Noir around the edge of the Shell-ter, taking cover behind his constantly-spinning staff. Cat Noir led the way through the shattered gate before turning to face the first group of shock troopers. Ladybug turned the opposite direction and felt him take a step backward so they were standing back-to-back. From the corner of her eye, Ladybug saw one of the troopers lowering his plasma gun to fire, and moved to deflect it, as Cat Noir did the same in the other direction. They spun around, blocking and attacking in a complicated dance. Ladybug swung her yo-yo and caught the closest pair of troopers. She yanked them toward her and ducked as Cat swung his staff and hit both in the head with a sickening crunch. They collapsed in a heap as Ladybug released them and caught her yo-yo.
At that moment Ladybug caught a flash of red-brown hair in her peripheral vision as Ana ran past her, dropped into a forward roll, and grabbed a fallen trooper's plasma gun. In the same motion she rose to one knee, aiming over the bodies of the fallen troopers. The front rank of oncoming shock troopers fell back under her fire. Ladybug saw a helmet lift to Ana's left as a gun barrel came up, and jumped forward. She deflected the plasma blast with her yo-yo at the last moment.
"Ana! I told you to stay home!" Queen Bee shrieked. Ladybug glanced where the shout had come from to see Queen Bee with a half-dozen troopers trussed up in her top string. Impératrice Pourpre put a hand on Queen Bee's shoulder and shook her head before releasing an Akuma in their direction.
Ladybug continued to spin her yo-yo on one side of Ana, as Cat Noir move to cover their other flank. The Akuma melted into Ana's charm bracelet and she gave a quick nod before disappearing in lavender smoke. When the smoke cleared, Ladybug was surprised to see that Ana's transformation had taken a radically-different form to that of Chloe's other volunteers, most of whom had received relatively-simple abilities. Instead, Ana's suit appeared to be an amalgamation of Ladybug, Cat Noir, Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee, with all of their colors blending together in a patchwork pattern. On her back was a green shield, a red-and-yellow yo-yo with a tiny point on one side was wrapped around her waist above a black-and-orange tail, and she held a black staff with an orange mouthpiece on one end.
"Ana?" Ladybug asked hesitantly, deflecting a plasma blast back toward the crowd of troopers.
"'Miracle Girl,'" she corrected, sliding the shield onto her arm and ducking behind it to avoid a barrage of plasma blasts. "Remember I said Aunt Sabrina's been training me? Now you see how."
"Your mother would be proud; she was always charging into the thick of things, even without a miraculous," Ladybug told her. "Are you merging all 5 of our miraculous powers?"
"Not exactly. None of what I can do is as powerful as the real deal. But watch this!" Before Ladybug could react, Miracle Girl used her flute-staff to vault into the heart of the cluster of troopers and shouted, "Venom-ter!" the moment before she landed. A green sphere expanded in all directions from her shield, changing to yellow as it touched her yo-yo-top. As she landed among the troopers and they came into contact with the sphere, they fell to the ground, frozen. Miracle Girl ran inside the sphere, using it like a hamster ball and rolling it further into the crowd of troopers.
Cat Noir grabbed Ladybug around the waist and used his own staff to vault the two of them toward Miracle Girl. Before they landed, however, a pair of the troopers on the ground suddenly leapt into the air, activating jetpacks on their backs. The two jet troopers snatched Ladybug and Cat Noir in midair and rocketed upward into the sky.
Ladybug's eyes watered as the wind whipped around her. She tried to call out for Cat Noir, but the wind tore the words out of her mouth. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him struggling with his captor. She caught his eye and nodded, a moment before he extended the staff, striking both jetpacks simultaneously and deflecting them off course. The eyes of the jet trooper holding Ladybug flickered from focus to surprise, a moment before she punched him as hard as she could with an uppercut to the jaw. His head fell backward, he released her, and he tumbled over to fall to earth. A grunt told her that Cat Noir had likewise finished off his captor. Without thinking, she threw her yo-yo to him, which he caught in one hand while the other hand held onto his staff, which he had extended far enough to reach the ground.
They balanced precariously on the staff for a moment, her hanging below him, until an Akuma reached Ladybug and melted into her hair tie. "This doesn't seem like such a good idea," she said as the telepathic connection formed.
"Trust me," Impératrice Pourpre assured her. "I did this a million times with the older you and we never managed to destroy the world. This is one of the butterfly's other uses. I'm giving you the ability to control the air currents around you to fly. But don't stay up there too long. We need you down here."
"Got it. Thanks, Sabrina." Ladybug felt the air around her body and forced it to push her up toward Cat Noir, reeling in her yo-yo as she did so. She grabbed the back of his suit as he retracted his staff to a manageable size. Ladybug extended the air currents holding her up to cover him also, and they started descending in a tight spiral. Below them a pair of jet troopers were fighting with King Monkey. Cat Noir threw his baton at one of the jet troopers, hitting the jetpack, which shorted out. The baton ricocheted into the other trooper's head, sending him careening into the ground. King Monkey caught the baton and tossed it back to Cat Noir as they reached his altitude.
"Thanks for the assist!" he called, giving Cat Noir a high-five.
"No problem," Cat Noir replied. "If we didn't help, that would be a cat-astrophe worse than flying monkeys!"
Ladybug was distracted from their banter when a golden streak shot up at them. She quickly realized it was a man with brown wings holding a golden mace. He wound up with the mace and swung, right at Ladybug. Ladybug dropped 3 meters, putting her below him. She felt the edge of the mace brush her hair. Cat Noir spun his staff to deflect the mace which the new flying man swung at them.
"Any idea who or what this is, Milady?" Cat Noir shouted over the wind.
"Not a clue!" she shouted back, twisting to spin around and kick the flying man in the face.
"I am the Shrieking Eagle!" he announced. "Wielder of the Eagle Miraculous!"
"Of course you are," Cat Noir retorted. "I would be surprised if you weren't calling yourself something like 'Shrieking Eagle'!" He swung his staff at Shrieking Eagle's head, flipping it around as Shrieking Eagle moved to block with his mace. "The thing is–" Cat Noir jabbed his staff past Shrieking Eagle's defense and hooked it on a necklace he wore bearing a single white feather with golden strands. "–you messed with the wrong feline today!" He jerked his staff upward, and the necklace clasp broke. In an instant, Shrieking Eagle was bathed in golden light, de-transformed, and fell. Cat Noir reached out and grabbed the miraculous before it dropped out of his reach. A golden-brown Kwami with bird wings flew out of the feather in a flash of light.
"Ah! A Cat Noir! I haven't met one of you in ages," the Kwami squawked. "I trust you want to restore balance, unlike my former… master?"
"That sounds about right," Cat Noir replied, eyeing the Kwami curiously.
At that moment, Ladybug looked down to see a green speck fall to the ground 20 meters below them.
"No!" screamed Impératrice Pourpre through their telepathic connection. Out of the corner of her eye, Ladybug saw King Monkey wince as well. "Get to ground now! Enhancer is down and all my Akumas are about to de-charge."
Ladybug shared a look with Cat Noir as her control over the air currents disappeared and they began to fall. Without hesitating, Cat Noir put the eagle miraculous around his own neck. He turned to the Kwami and urgently asked, "What's your name and how can I use your ability?"
"My name is Atsaa," he replied, "and it's 'Fly High.'"
"Right," Cat Noir said. "Atsaa, Plagg, Unify!" As soon as the eagle miraculous had activated, giving his suit a golden tinge along the sides, Eagle Noir shouted, "Fly High." Wings sprouted from his shoulders and he pumped once, tightening his grip on Ladybug's arm as he did so. Their fall immediately stopped. Eagle Noir extended his staff toward King Monkey, who grabbed it as he fell past. Extending his staff in the other direction, he was also able to catch one of Chloe's volunteers. Another was just out of reach.
Ladybug looked up to see the tension in Eagle Noir's face. A vein in his neck bulged out from the strain. She threw her yo-yo in the air above them and shouted, "Lucky Charm!" She reached out and grabbed the red polka-dotted jetpack that appeared beside her yo-yo. Eagle Noir nodded and released her arm. As she fell, Ladybug slipped her arms through the straps and activated the jetpack, slowing her descent instantly. She did a midair somersault to face the ground and keyed the jetpack as fast as it would go. Ten meters from the ground she reached out and grabbed the volunteer's shoulder, turning to point the jets downward at the same time. Their descent slowed just enough, and they tumbled together to the ground. Ladybug sprawled in the grass of the mansion lawn, surrounded by the bodies of fallen fighters.
Eagle Noir landed next to Ladybug a moment later, rolled her over, and lifted her up to lean against his chest. He cradled her gently and asked, "Milady, are you okay?"
"Hmm… I'm always okay when you're with me, Kitty," she murmured, closing her eyes.
"Slow down there, Bugaboo. We're not done yet."
Ladybug shook her head to get rid of the cobwebs, pulled her legs under herself, and stood up. Eagle Noir rose with her. Queen Bee ran up to them at that moment, chased by a sentimonster bear. Eagle Noir extended his staff and braced it against the ground before throwing his mace. The mace took the bear's head off a moment before its torso was impaled on the staff. The sentimonster exploded in a shower of dust.
"We have got to stop that stupid Peacock already," Queen Bee groaned, massaging a stitch in her side. She put a hand on Ladybug's shoulder and said, "I'm glad you're alright."
"Sorry about your losses," Ladybug replied, looking around them. "Where is Ana?"
Queen Bee shrugged. "Everyone knew the risks coming in. As for Ana, she's over there; Impératrice Pourpre managed to re-Akumatize her before anything bad could happen."
"I should probably give this to you for safekeeping," Eagle Noir said, fingering the Eagle Miraculous. "Atsaa, Plagg, Divide." Atsaa flew out of the miraculous, and Cat Noir's suit returned to normal. "Thanks for the rescue," he told Atsaa, before he was sucked back into the miraculous when Cat Noir removed it and handed it to Queen Bee, who placed it in a pouch on her belt.
"I've got the Peacock," King Monkey declared, charging across the battlefield, using his Ruyi Jingu Bang to vault over obstacles. He shouted "Uproar," and threw the pair of dice he received towards where Peacock was fighting Miracle Girl. Miracle Girl dove to one side an instant before the dice reached her, allowing them to strike the distracted Peacock square in the forehead. Miracle Girl grabbed the Peacock brooch and yanked it off of Peacock's chest.
"Come on!" Queen Bee shouted, leading the way up the lawn. "We've got a hole in their defenses. We need to get inside before they regroup!"
Ladybug followed Queen Bee toward the house, with Cat Noir and Carasus hot on her heels. They reached the front door just as King Monkey and Miracle Girl arrived from the oppositer side of the battlefield.
"Cataclysm!" Miracle Girl shouted, before throwing her shield at the door like a discus. The green shield glowed black for an instant as it struck the door. The door crumbled to dust, and the shield deflected back to her hand.
"Mirage-Charm!" she called, swinging her staff toward the entryway. An orange ball of light flew out of the staff's end and formed into a rhinoceros, which charged through the doorway in front of them. Ladybug's eyes followed the Mirage-rhino in confusion. "Lucky Charm makes the Mirage solid instead of just an illusion," Miracle Girl explained. "Not quite the same as a sentimonster, but good enough."
Miracle Girl and Carasus held their shields in front as they led the way into the mansion. Looking past them, Ladybug saw the Mirage-rhino rampaging through the group of shock troopers who had been waiting in the foyer. Most were already on the ground; those still on their feet were running for cover behind the furniture. The Mirage-rhino raced after a shock trooper, slamming through the wall separating the foyer and dining room. The wall trembled at the impact, sending framed pictures crashing to the floor, a moment before the Mirage-rhino disappeared in a wave of plasma energy that shot out of the dining room. The barrage of plasma beams struck the compromised walls, shredding them as though they were made of paper. The upper floor of the mansion shook as the supports were cut apart and, with a groan, the walls collapsed.
Before any of them could react, the walls caved in around the heroes. King Monkey dove at Miracle Girl, pushing her out of the way a moment before the wall collapsed on the spot where she had been standing. She cried out in pain as she hit the floor, clutching her wrist. When the dust had cleared, all Ladybug could see of King Monkey was a single hand reaching out from the rubble. Carasus and Queen Bee both managed to avoid most of the falling debris. Carasus lifted his shield above his head and took cover as the wall collapsed around him, trapping him. Queen Bee's legs were caught under the falling ceiling.
Ladybug looked over at Cat Noir. Both of them were uninjured, covered in a fine layer of powdered plaster. The ceiling above the dining room had also collapsed, crushing the shock troopers who had been within.
Ladybug glanced down at the floor, trying to figure out their next move. Her eye landed on a tiny seam in the floor beneath where Cat Noir was standing. As she watched, the seam widened slightly. Time seemed to stand still as the trapdoor opened. Without thinking, Ladybug dove at Cat Noir's waist. He stumbled backward, just as the trapdoor fell away completely. Ladybug's feet landed where the floor should have been, only to fall straight through the trapdoor.
"Adrien!" she screamed, turning to look up at the rapidly-diminishing square of light through which she had fallen. Before she reached the bottom, the light had already disappeared as the trapdoor slammed shut once more.
AN: "Atsaa" comes from a Navajo word for "eagle" ("Atsá"). As a side note, I assume I'm not the first to notice that all the Kwamis have a double letter in their name, right?
Impératrice Pourpre uses 2 different types of Akumas in this chapter. In this universe, the Butterfly can do 2 connected things. First, it can give someone (ordinarily a non-miraculous holder) superpowers to turn them into a "helper hero" (the normal use in the show). Second, it can grant additional powers to a miraculous holder (which she does for King Monkey and Ladybug, neither of whom is Akumatized in the traditional sense). This is alluded to in "Bugs Have to Stick Together" chapter 4 when Nooroo explains the heroic uses of the Butterfly Miraculous.