Author's Notes:
Sorry for the long delay in posting this!
First, some review replies:
Lillith The Nocturnal: Yeah, I'm aware of every intricate nitpicky little detail. :) Canonically, the Kwami can only be sealed away like this when the Miraculous user "renounces" the Miraculous. But plot needs override details sometimes.
BunnyJCai22: (insert Ortega "Why not both?" girl here) Multiple endings means I can have Chat Noir draw different conclusions. ^_-
GuardianAngel1234567: Erm...Gabriel is Hawk Moth. If you've seen every episode of season one, there's not really any way he isn't Hawk Moth. The book, the safe, the Peacock Miraculous, the locket, certain things he's said, the attention he paid to Ladybug's earrings and Adrien's ring...accept reality. ^^;; He's Hawk Moth.
KaliAnn: Ear injuries/infections are such inconvenient things when your power comes from magical earrings, no? ^_-
MiraculousTrash: Senpai notices. ^_-
SummerDancer: Haloooooooosche! ^_^
To everyone else who reviewed: Thanks for reading, and glad you enjoyed part one!
Enjoy!
MIRACULOUS LADYBUG: "BLACK WIDOW"
by Mythril Moth
PART TWO
Chat Noir watched, eyes wide with disbelief and horror, as two ladybug-spotted earrings clattered across the cold floor.
"No..."
Time seemed to stop...
With each clatter of the Ladybug Miraculous on the ground, a memory knifed through his brain.
Marinette's ferocious rebuke of him on that disastrous first day of school.
Ladybug, showing up unexpectedly at Collège Françoise Dupont time and again.
Ladybug's beautiful blue eyes.
Marinette's beautiful blue eyes.
Ladybug blushing and stammering during the Jackady incident. The way Marinette often seemed to around him.
A Valentine card with no signature, answering a poem he'd thrown away...
...in the trash can in his classroom at school...
...and finally, Marinette, her ear bandaged, missing her earrings.
With a snap and a roar of rushing wind past his ears, time returned to normal.
Rolling ahead of another of Black Widow's spiderwebs, Chat Noir snatched up the Ladybug Miraculous and tucked them into one of his zipper pockets, then sprinted for the nearest exit.
"GET BACK HERE!" Black Widow screeched behind him. "GET BACK HERE!"
He spared a glance back over his shoulder. "Marinette..." He clenched a fist, then charged black energy in his hand. "CATACLYSM!"
Leaping up, he tagged the ceiling of the Métro exit, which crumbled and started to cave in just as Black Widow's flail screamed toward him. It collided with collapsing Parisian architecture as Chat Noir vaulted up into the streets above, launching himself onto the nearest rooftop and running. His Miraculous beeped.
Clenching his jaw, Chat Noir took a low angle and ran through several back alleys, taking the Ladybug Miraculous out of his pocket as he ran. His eyes searched for any place he could hide and change back. He skidded to a halt as he saw a squat, stout, hard-faced chef stepping out of the back of a restaurant, a cigarette in hand.
The chef squinted at him. "Chat Noir?" he asked.
Chat Noir braced his hands on his knees. "I need...a place...to hide and rest for just five minutes...maybe ten!" He panted, then added, "Someplace private, I'm going to be unmasked for a few minutes and I don't want anybody knowing who I really am."
The chef scrubbed a hand over his chin. "We are still cleaning and preparing the kitchen," he said. "I can give you I think...ten minutes in the vegetable cooler."
Chat Noir smiled gratefully. "Thanks," he said. "Oh! I'm also going to need some Camembert. Just one piece."
The chef nodded. "Oui, just ask the sommelier, he's complaining at the sous chef about something or other."
"Thanks again!" Chat Noir bolted through the back door of the restaurant as his Miraculous let off a third beep. After his appearance caused a bit of a stir, he found the sommelier, asked for and received some Camembert, then bolted into the vegetable cooler just as his Miraculous let out a final beep. As his transformation burned away in green light, he slumped down against the heavy steel door to the cooler, staring at the earrings in his hand.
Plagg looked up at him somberly, not even demanding the pungent cheese. "Well, this is bad," he said quietly.
Adrien glared at him. "Bad? BAD?! Marinette is Ladybug, only she's not Ladybug right now because THIS IS LADYBUG!" he snarled, holding out the earrings he clutched in his hand.
Plagg sighed. "No need to yell at me, Adrien," he said softly. He floated over to the earrings and tilted his head. "Tikki? Wake up, Tikki. Come on, you need to wake up!"
The earrings didn't respond.
With an annoyed grunt, Plagg grabbed the cheese from Adrien's other hand, tore off a chunk, and wolfed it down. Then, with a tiny growl, he did...something to the earrings. Adrien couldn't say for sure exactly what Plagg did. Whatever it was, it produced results: a reddish-pink Kwami with distinctly buggy features popped out of the earrings with a bright pink flash and bounced around the room for a minute, finally coming to a stop upside-down with her head buried in a cabbage.
Adrien stared. "Umm..."
Plagg took another huge bite of his cheese. "Hello Tikki," he said calmly.
The other Kwami extracted herself from the cabbage, then turned around to face them. Her eyes widened. "Wh-what?! Plagg...?! ...ADRIEN?! Wha—what's going on?!"
"Marinette's been Akumatized," Adrien said brusquely. "Which is a major problem because apparently she's also Ladybug."
Tikki gasped. "Marinette's...?!" She sank to the floor, moaning. "Oh no, oh no...how?!"
Adrien sighed. "I think it's my fault somehow," he said. He looked at Tikki, then swallowed. "Does...does she have a...a crush on me?"
Tikki winced. "Yeah, she...she does."
Adrien cursed under his breath. "Then she must've overheard me telling those other two that we're just friends."
"And probably didn't stick around for the part about you being in love with Ladybug," Plagg added as he finished his cheese. "If she'd heard that part, we probably wouldn't be in this mess." He frowned at Tikki. "How could you just fall asleep on the job like that?"
"That's rich coming from you," Adrien muttered.
Tikki sat down and folded her arms. "Look, don't blame this on me," she said. "I mean, what was I supposed to do? She couldn't put on the earrings with her ear all messed up like that!"
"Guys, focus here," Adrien said. "We've got a serious problem. There are three villains on the loose and one of them is Ladybug. You know my track record when it comes to fighting Ladybug when I'm mind-controlled or something! I barely managed to get away from her!"
"True, she is way better than you," Tikki said, nodding sagely. She blinked. "Wait. Wait. You're Chat Noir?!"
Adrien groaned. "Really? You're just now getting there?"
"Sorry, it's just...I wasn't expecting that," Tikki said. "I guess I didn't let it sink in. Oh wow, Marinette's gonna flip over this!"
"If she doesn't manage to pull my heart out and eat it first, maybe," Adrien said. At Tikki's confused and horrified expression, Adrien said, "That's what she says she wants to do to me. To me, Adrien, not Chat Noir." He laughed. "She actually doesn't want to hurt Chat Noir at all other than taking my Miraculous."
Tikki's jaw dropped. "What the heck did you say to her?"
"I didn't say anything to her!" Adrien said testily. "I was talking to Chloé and Lila in the library, trying to get them to stop fighting over me, and Chloé asked if I was in love with Marinette, and..."
"And you said no," Tikki said with a sigh.
"Yeah," Adrien said. "I had no idea she was anywhere near there."
Tikki moaned. "This is bad, Adrien," she said. "Ladybug turned evil is more dangerous than anything you've faced before."
"No shit," Adrien snorted. "I had to bring a Métro entrance down on her head just to get away!"
"Yeah, don't expect that to hold her for long," Tikki said, floating back and forth across the room. "But if Marinette's making threats like that, then she's really upset and angry, and that's worse than just Ladybug turned evil." Her antennae drooped. "The sweetest girls always turn into the nastiest monsters..."
"Yeah, well, Black Widow isn't the only problem," Adrien said. "Antibug and Volpina are both out there too."
Tikki stared at him incredulously. "Wow, Adrien. When you get girls ticked off at you, you don't mess around," she breathed in an almost impressed tone.
"Tell me about it," Adrien snorted.
Hawk Moth's eyes widened in cruel delight and wonder.
His Black Widow had not even encountered Ladybug yet...yet already had her Miraculous.
"But could this be...?" he wondered softly. His lip curled into an unpleasant sneer. "How ironic," he said with a dark chuckle. "Without even realizing it, I have Akumatized that accursed Ladybug..." He frowned. "Which means...I now know Ladybug's identity." He shook his head. "Not that it matters. Chat Noir is incapable of defeating Ladybug, and with Antibug and Volpina still on the prowl, his Miraculous and hers are as good as mine..."
He threw back his head and laughed.
"AT LAST! AT LONG LAST, I HAVE WON, AND MY ENEMY SHALL BE MY DELIVERANCE!"
"So what do we do?" Adrien asked. "I can't fight three Akumatized at once. Especially not when one of them is Ladybug."
"And even if you did manage to free them, without Ladybug's power, things would only get worse," Plagg pointed out.
Tikki sighed. "There's only one thing you can do," she said. "You're going to need to find a temporary Ladybug."
Adrien's face fell. "A replacement..." He shook his head. "Nobody can be Ladybug except Ladybug."
"Temporary replacement," Tikki emphasized. "You need to have someone use my Miraculous to fix Marinette and the others. And to keep them out of Hawk Moth's hands, and I'm sorry Adrien, but I don't see you holding out against three super ticked off Akumatized girls."
Adrien snorted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"She's right, though," Plagg said with a shrug. "Right now, our only option is to give the earrings to somebody for this one fight, then give them back to Ladybug when it's over."
Adrien chewed his lip. "I don't like it, but...you're right. So, uhh...I'm open to suggestions."
"Alya," Tikki said without hesitation. "Heck, back when she first became Ladybug, Marinette tried to give the Miraculous to Alya because she didn't have any confidence in her own abilities. If anybody's qualified to be a temporary Ladybug, it's Alya."
Adrien held up a finger. "I have...a lot of objections to that plan," he said. "Alya finding out who Ladybug is? Serious disaster."
"We'll have to deal with that when the time comes," Tikki said. She paused, tilting her head. "Do you hear...?"
The door to the vegetable cooler began to open. Adrien let out a curse. "Plagg, claws out!"
By the time the door opened, Chat Noir stood in the middle of the cooler, the Ladybug Miraculous in his pocket and Tikki hiding in his hair. He waved jauntily at the chef. "Hello! So sorry for the intrusion, thank you very much!"
The chef nodded. "But of course. Now if you'll excuse me, we need the vegetables."
"Right. I've got someplace to be too." Chat Noir bolted out of the cooler, ran through the kitchen hi-fiving the staff as he went, then bolted out the back door.
A flail slammed into the brick wall above his head.
"About time you came out, Minou," Black Widow purred.
Chat Noir went pale with dread. "L-look, Marinette...what you heard, I mean what you thought you heard...it was a misunderstanding, alright?"
"Oh, I understood perfectly," Black Widow said in a poisonous tone. "Adrien broke my heart. I won't rest until I break his." She fired off a spider web which pinned Chat Noir's leg to the wall. "Now, from you, Chaton, I need two things." She stalked forward, tilting his chin up with the butt of her flail. "I need to know where you're hiding Adrien, and I want my Miraculous back."
"Wh-what Miraculous?" Chat Noir stammered, stalling as he separated his baton behind his back.
"Oh, I think you know," Black Widow said.
"Yeah...yeah, I do," Chat Noir admitted. "But I also know something else."
"Oh? And what might that be?"
"I know THIS!" Chat Noir swiftly struck Black Widow in the side of the head with one of his batons while using the other to pry his leg free. Putting them back together as Black Widow staggered, he launched himself over the rooftops. "Sorry, My Lady," he whispered forlornly.
Behind him, Black Widow shrieked in rage.
As he ran across the rooftops, Chat Noir slid open the smartphone panel of his baton and rapidly dialed Alya's number. After two rings, Alya answered. "Hello? Who is this?"
"Alya! This is Chat Noir. I need your help!"
"Chat Noir? Seriously?! No way! Umm...okay, sure, what do you need?"
Chat Noir scanned the Paris skyline with his eyes. "I'm sending you a location to meet," he said. "Be there as soon as you can. I'll be waiting under the overpass."
"A-alright..."
Chat Noir disconnected the call and began weaving a wild, circuitous path across the city. Every so often he thought he saw a black or tan shadow in his periphery; he dropped to the streets, dove into Métro stations, came back out, jumped to the roofs again, desperate to do anything and everything to throw off his dangerous pursuers long enough to get help.
*Please let this work...*
Twenty heart-stopping minutes later, he made it to his selected overpass and ducked low under it, pressing himself up against the supports.
"Chat Noir? Hello?" Alya stepped out from behind another support, hair wild and eyes wide, panting for breath. "I got here as fast as I could..."
"Heh...you actually beat me here, nice," Chat Noir said as he caught his own breath. "We don't have much time. I think I lost them, but..."
"Lost who?" Alya asked. "Where's Ladybug?"
Chat Noir sighed and unzipped his pocket, pulling out the presently black earrings. "Ladybug's been Akumatized," he said.
Alya gasped. "No way! How?"
"Nevermind that," Chat Noir said. "I have her Miraculous and her Kwami. And...and it's not just her. Antibug and Volpina are back too."
Alya's eyes tripled in size. "Th-three Akumatized? At the same time? That's never happened before! This is big news!"
"Focus, Alya. I need you to stay with me. I need a huge favor."
Alya gulped and nodded at the seriousness in Chat Noir's voice. "A-alright. What is it?"
Chat Noir took a deep breath. "Come out, Tikki."
Tikki emerged from Chat Noir's hair, looking a bit battered. "I wish I'd gone back into the earrings," she muttered woozily.
Alya blinked, pointing a finger at Tikki. "Whaaaaaat...is that?"
"Ladybug's Kwami," Chat Noir said. "Look, here's the deal. You know what happens if Ladybug doesn't purify the Akuma, right?" At Alya's nod, he continued, "I've got three majorly pissed off villainesses hot on my heels and one of them is Ladybug. I can't release their Akuma because you know what happens if I do that."
Alya gulped. "The Stoneheart incident," she said, face going pale.
"Right. So here's the deal." Chat Noir took a deep breath, then held the Miraculous out in a shaking hand. "I need you to be Ladybug. Just for this one fight."
Alya gasped. "M-me? Ladybug? Oh no no no," she said, shaking her head and waving a finger. "I can't possibly, I mean—"
"Alya," Tikki said seriously, "Ladybug needs your help. This is the biggest crisis Paris has faced since Hawk Moth appeared. I can honestly say there's nobody I trust more to take up the mantle of Ladybug than you."
Alya frowned. "Why me, though? I mean, how do y—" Her eyes widened. "No." She looked at the earrings again, her brow furrowing. She looked at Chat Noir, then at Tikki, a question in her eyes.
Chat Noir sighed, then fixed Alya with the most serious, searching stare he could. "Your best friend needs you," he said. "She needs you to free her from this Akuma so she can be the Ladybug I—the Ladybug we all love."
Alya seemed like she wanted to explode with a million questions. The sound of wanton property destruction approaching at a rapid pace jerked her out of it. She hesitantly reached for the earrings. "Are you sure she—"
"I'm sure," Tikki said. "Trust me."
"A-alright," Alya said. She braced herself, then put the earrings on. "Umm...so what do I do?"
"Just say 'Spots On'," Tikki said."
"Spots on?" Alya echoed. And then she was Ladybug. She looked down at herself as the spotted costume formed in place of her clothes. "Whoa."
"Here they come," Chat Noir said. "I'll try to go for the Akuma. You trap them and purify them. Don't do anything reckless."
"I'll...I'll try," Alya said, gulping nervously. She paused, frowning. "Wait, if Marinette's Ladybug, does that mean you're A—"
She didn't have time to finish the sentence, as Volpina body-checked her into the Seine.
Antibug and Black Widow landed at the same time, flanking Chat Noir. "Bad kitty," Black Widow seethed. "You shouldn't let people play with toys that don't belong to you."
"Funny, Ladybug looked...different," Volpina said.
Ladybug's yo-yo shot up out of the water, snagging the steelwork of the bridge overhead. Alya haltingly dragged herself out of the water; once she was on dry land, she reeled the yo-yo in, then spun it menacingly at her side. "Okay now I'm in the mood to kick your phony ass," she snarled at Volpina.
"Look who's calling who a phony," Black Widow taunted.
Alya stared at her, pointing a gloved finger. "So that's what happens when Marinette breaks bad?" she stage-whispered to Chat Noir.
"I know, scary, right?" Chat Noir said lightly.
"Enough talk," Black Widow snapped. "The Miraculous. NOW! And then I want Adrien."
À SUIVRE...
Miraculous Ladybug is the intellectual property of Zagtoon, Method Animation, Toei Animation, and Thomas ASTRUC. This intellectual property is used without permission with no intent to profit from said use. The unique content contained on this page is the property of Mythril Moth, and redistribution of this content without express permission is strongly discouraged.