Chapter Five
The moment she got Marinette's message, Alya's heart started to race. Trixx poked his head out of her messenger bag, his lavender eyes sparkling with mischief. "Is it time?" he asked eagerly.
"Yeah. You sure about going in alone?"
"Mmhm! Only Wayzz has the ability to sense the auras of other kwamis, so Nooroo shouldn't be able to tell I'm active, and I have greater stamina alone than when I'm working with my Chosen, even if the illusion isn't as perfect."
"You're sure no one will see you?"
"Who do you take me for?" Trixx rolled his eyes, trying to look affronted, but he couldn't quite pull it off with that adorable little tail wiggle of his; he was too excited.
In spite of her nerves, Alya managed to smile. It was hard not to; Trixx's energy was just too infectious. She glanced around the little park, ensuring that nobody was around, then nodded to her little kwami friend, holding her hands out like a screen as he floated into the open and twirled into her curly ombre hair. When she passed him her phone, she could actually feel the soft ripple of power that swirled around her fingertips. His weight left her shoulder, and a moment later she could see the slightest shimmer of light, like a kwami sized-mirage, float past her.
"Good luck," she whispered as she reached into her bag and pulled out her tablet.
"That's Tikki's job," replied the disembodied whisper, and she had to stifle a giggle.
A few minutes later, they were ready. Her tablet was pulled up to the new private blog she had created specifically for this mission, her wireless earbuds were in, and the live-stream was ready. Then all she could do was wait, her fingers rapping against her bouncing knee, until the moment her screen suddenly lit up. She jumped and quickly pushed play, watching the scene from her phone's camera unfold.
It would seem that Trixx had managed to slip inside Adrien's bedroom, probably through the window. Made sense that it would be unlocked if that had been his entry point as Chat Noir. Pretty sloppy of Hawkmoth not to think of that, though. Then again, considering the actions some of his akumatized villains had taken, Alyawas willing to bet that such overlooked details reflected that fashion tycoons probably didn't get trained on how to be a good supervillain when they went through design school.
Judging by the angle, the little fox kwami was hidden in one of the corners by the ceiling. There were two figures in the room: a giant of a man in a formal coat, standing in front of the bathroom door, and a stick of a woman with a red stripe in her hair facing him.
The Gorilla and Nathalie.
Nathalie was speaking. Of course she was, the Gorilla never spoke. Alya quickly turned up the volume, listening intently.
"…ke sure he's eating his meals. And remember that he's not allowed out, under any circumstances."
The Gorilla nodded ponderously, but to Alya's reporter-trained eyes, it seemed obvious that he had reservations. His brows were too furrowed, his lips pressed too thinly together. Obviously he thought that Adrien being locked in the bathroom was too extreme a punishment for whatever Gabriel had claimed he'd done. Nathalie, on the other hand, looked just as unperturbed as ever. Her expression practically blank, her eyes dark. Alya's heart leapt as Trixx crept closer, anxiety for her friend flying through her, but she couldn't deny that Trixx's choice was informative. Because in truth, there may have been just the faintest thread of anger behind those eyes, but also something strangely akin to pleasure.
Nathalie knows, she realized, a sick dread curling in her stomach. She knows about Hawkmoth, and she's helping him! She doesn't care about Adrien, she's just doing whatever Gabriel tells her! Or… or could she be in on it even deeper? We still don't know who Mayura is, just that she's a woman. Could it be… could she be Nathalie? She filed away that thought for later; it was too much to ponder for now.
"If that is all, then I'll be on my way," Nathalie continued, spinning on her high heels and marching towards the bedroom door. There was slightly vertigo-inducing lurch as Trixx hurried after her, zipping across the room and hovering close to the jamb to slip through after her.
He got a lucky break when the Gorilla grunted unexpectedly just as Nathalie was opening the door. She turned back with one eyebrow quirked, holding the door open just wide enough for Trixx to slip through. Of course that meant that Alya couldn't see Gorilla's expression, but she heard Nathalie's clipped response.
"No, Monsieur Agreste is not taking visitors. He's still too distraught."
Alya could only assume that he responded in some nonverbal way, because a moment later Nathalie stepped through the door and clicked it closed. Then she took a deep breath, smoothed her hair into her bun, and strode down the hall of the mansion towards Gabriel Agreste's office. Trixx tracked her carefully; to Alya it seemed that he was hardly breathing. This time, slipping through the door was a much closer call than before; Trixx barely made it before the door clicked shut millimeters away from his tail. It took a few seconds for the camera to refocus, but when it did, Alya blinked in surprise.
In all of her fantasies of what Hawkmoth's true identity would be like, Alya had to admit that she'd never imagined Gabriel Agreste sprawled in an office chair, his glasses held in one hand while the other rubbed his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. In that moment, he just looked like a tired old man.
She was snapped out of it when Nathalie stepped around the chair and, bizarrely, slipped her arms over her boss's shoulders, hugging him from the rear. Alya almost gagged. Was this why she was helping him? Did she have some kind of… thing for the guy? Were they like… together?
"Is he comfortable?"
"Fairly, sir."
"Good. Thank you, Nathalie, for dealing with that… unpleasantness," Gabriel sighed, his hand falling away from his eyes.
"Of course. I understand it's hard for you, finding that your son was fighting against you, and your dream, all this time."
They fell silent for a time, and Nathalie gradually pulled away. "What do I do now, Nathalie?"
"You fulfill the promise you made," she replied immediately.
"But can I really do that, if it will tear my family apart even further?"
"Once Adrien has his mother back, he will understand. He will know that you made the right choice."
Gabriel paused, staring upwards, directly into Alya's eyes, and she froze before she remembered that they were separated by a camera lens and there was no way that he could see her. She almost didn't hear his next words through her sigh of relief.
"Yes, of course. You're right, Nathalie, as always."
He rose to his feet and strode out the door, forcing Trixx to rush after him once again, dodging the ponderous swing of the heavy wood.
"What are you planning to do next, sir?"
"I cannot in good conscience -" Alya snorted before she could stop herself "- resort to extreme methods to extract the Ring's location from Adrien, but the boy's emotions have also been shockingly stable over the past twenty-four hours, so I cannot akumatize him and then send him to collect it for me, either. So I will have to resort to the old-fashioned way."
"I see, sir. Do you think that Ladybug has obtained it yet?"
"That's the secondary purpose of this exercise; to find out how much Adrien was able to tell her before his… retrieval."
You mean capture, jerkwad, Alya growled mentally, watching as he strode into the main receiving room of the mansion, past a large desk, to the painting of Madame Agreste hanging on the wall. From there, Alya watched with wide eyes as Gabriel pressed a series of hidden buttons in the painting, opening up a passage in the wall.
She hated to admit that it was cool, but… Well that would be lying, and superheroes weren't supposed to lie.
Trixx filmed them both entering the passageway, all the way until it closed behind them. "Okay, we've confirmed that Hawkmoth's lair is somewhere within the mansion and that Adrien is being held in his bathroom, apparently. I'm gonna come back now so that you can warn Ladybug about the incoming akuma. You should probably warn her to play dumb about Chat, too."
"Right, sure," Alya replied, then blushed as she realized that Trixx couldn't hear her. She watched the dizzying blur of motion as the little fox kwami zipped through the air and made it out of some window or another.
Then he surprised her when, instead of coming straight back, Trixx flew low to the rooftop and darted down to a window that for some reason had bars across it. Alya caught her breath, her heart constricting as the image Trixx wanted her to see came into focus.
Adrien Agreste lay on his side, eyes closed, curled up in the bathtub like a cat in a cardboard box, a length of blue fabric clutched in his hands and pressed to his face. In spite of herself, Alya's heart lifted a little and a faint smile touched her lips as she recognized it. Then the view disappeared as Trixx zipped away, rushing back to her side.