Shadowmoth has been exposed, and something tells me this isn't going to end well for anyone.
Narrowing her eyes, the teenage superhero looked up at the pair of Kwami that appeared above her head. "Who are you?"
"I'm Nooroo, and this is Duusu." the little peahen flew around the pair before hugging all three of them while the butterfly floated in front of her. "What is going to happen now?"
"You will rejoin the others in the Miracle Box temporarily, at least until I can talk to you at length. For now, I need to do something with him." That last word was laced with so much animosity, it caused the purple Kwami to look at the teenage girl with shock.
"Please," Nooroo pleaded, "he has a reason for why he's done all of this. All I ask, is that you talk with him, find out his reason, and do whatever you can to help."
Looking at the Kwami, she saw the pleas in his eyes, so she nodded "I will." she then dropped both brooches into her yo-yo, the two creatures disappearing inside at the same time. When she heard the tell-tale ring of her Miraculous, she looked at Cat Noir. "Can you meet me at the Agreste Mansion? I want to get to the bottom of this, and – I really want the information before we decide what to do with him."
Turning away from the pair had Cat Noir shaking his head. "I'm sorry, my lady, but I really should get home. Family business, but let me know what is going on when you can."
"Okay, kitty." Ladybug was about to ask if everything was alright, but he vaulted away without looking back.
Scooping up the aging designer made her attempt at leaving to be ungainly, but after a while she was practically flying across the city, her eyes hard, and her mind going a million miles per hour. "You had better have some really good answers for me, Mr. Agreste."
Upon landing in front of the mansion a minute or two later, the superhero carried the paralyzed designer up to the double doors. Knocking, she watched as the door opened to reveal Adrien Agreste. "Ladybug?" he asked before seeing Gabriel "F-Father?!"
"Just returning something that was lost to the Agreste family." she remarked casually.
Everyone watched as Adrien's bodyguard gently picked up his employer, carrying the man into his atelier. "If you want, I can give you a private place to transform back, and rest." Adrien suggested escorting Ladybug upstairs to a spare bedroom. "Do you require anything?"
"No, thank you. I always carry a snack for my Kwami." Once inside, she saw a spacious room tastefully done in earthy colors with cherry wood chests of drawers, an amoire, a door to a private bathroom, and a walk-in closet. The door closed behind her, and she smiled, knowing that Adrien most likely went to talk with his father. "Kalki, dismount. Pollen, buzz off." the pair flew out, only for her to return their Miraculous to her yo-yo as well. "I'll feed you when I get back home." A final beep and her transformation failed, leaving Marinette standing in the bedroom.
"You finally did it, Marinette!" Tikki cheered "Nooroo and Duusu are free!"
Marinette sat on the edge of the bed, pulling a cookie from her clutch. "Yeah, we've done it, Tikki." Her voice softened to near a whisper. "Shadowmoth is unmasked and Paris is safe," she reached up to find tears sliding down the sides of her face, "so why doesn't this feel like a victory?"
Silence stretched for a few seconds before Tikki asked "Is it because you fear the Celestial Guardian is going to demand the Miraculous back?"
"Partially," she shivered at the thought of losing her memories of the past year, "but I also feel for what this will mean for Adrien. Hawkmoth," she shook her head, "Shadowmoth, terrorized Paris and nearly started a third world war, but is still the father of someone I care deeply about, and I have to go down there to tell him that." Tikki glanced away at that statement knowing that Adrien was already privy to that information.
"What am I going to do, Tikki?"
A serene smile spread the little Kwami's lips. "The only thing you can do, the same thing you have done since you first put on the Miraculous; put one foot in front of another to help all of Paris's citizens – even Gabriel Agreste."
Marinette nodded, smiling softly "You're right, but this is going to be painful. Ready?" At the nod from her Kwami, she breathed "Spots on."
By the time Ladybug returned to the atelier, Gabriel had already admitted his sins to his son, his head bowed in shame at all that he'd done. "~ the temple was destroyed, so there was no way we could speak with the Guardians. No one even suspected the Peacock Miraculous had been damaged after being in such a rugged terrain, and the Grimoire was impossible to read. When your mother started to get sick there was nothing I could do but watch as she started to deteriorate." The designer was sitting with his back to the door, his shoulders and head slumped. "She never stopped trying to get you just right, adding every aspect of a human into you that she could."
"What?" Ladybug asked.
Adrien looked up at her with tears in his eyes, "I'm not real." he then dropped his head into his hands. "I'm a Senti-monster my mother created because she couldn't have children."
"The damage to the Miraculous is what caused her magical coma, and it's what has caused my assistant Nathalie to become bed-ridden."
"Mayura?! She was Mayura!" Ladybug breathed. "How many more know about this?!"
"Three others; my sister-in-law~"
"Aunt Amelie?!" Adrien blinked.
"~ her Senti-monster, Felix," that caused Ladybug and Adrien to look at each other, "and Tomoe Tsurugi."
"Ms. Tsurugi?!" the two teens asked in unison.
"Her daughter is a Senti-monster too." At that, Ladybug had to sit down next to Adrien. "We wanted to find out if two Senti-mon-"
"Senti-Beings!" Ladybug interrupted. "Having met more than my fair share of them, I can tell you that the only thing monstrous about them, is if they're being controlled by someone amoral."
Gabriel relented on that aspect. "I don't know the entire story, I just know that during a fencing bout, an overzealous opponent, and a misdirected parry – injured Tomoe to the point where she could not bear children. Your mother felt sorry for her, so when Emilie offered her a chance to have a child, she jumped at the chance."
"~ and Kagami was born." Ladybug remarked.
"Literally." Gabriel pulled off his glasses, and rubbed the tears from his eyes. "Unlike we did with Adrien and Felix, Tomoe actually took the Senti-mo – being, into her body, growing it until she could finally give birth. Kagami is as much a human as you or I, Ladybug." He then shook his head. "You and Felix were, essentially prototypes for what Kagami would become, but your mother made a serious mistake."
"What was that?"
Replacing his glasses, he looked up at Ladybug. "Emilie never took the step to actually give birth to Adrien, and because of that, she had to constantly work on his emotional, psychological and physiological development." Sitting up, he looked at the blonde across from him "She forgot that as we grow, males sweat, have bad foot odor, bad breath, and need to use the bathroom. Until a year ago, our son didn't have the necessary equipment for such a thing because his body absorbed every nutrient it was given. She wanted him to be as real as any of us, so she made a few more changes." Sitting back, he didn't stop the tears flowing down his face. "I found her collapsed in Adrien's room while he slept."
He watched as Ladybug wrapped an arm around Adrien's shaking shoulders, whispering words of comfort into his ears. "Pardon me for even needing to ask, but what does any of this have to do with you becoming Shadowmoth?"
"I wanted to undo the magic that sent Emilie into a coma, to bring her back to her Adrien, but in order to tell him why I did what I did, I first had to tell him why it was necessary." Gabriel closed his eyes. "Now, I put myself at your mercy, Ladybug, although I have no right to ask for it."
Neither of the two males seemed able to look at each other. Adrien sat with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he sobbed, while Gabriel sat with his head bowed and his eyes closed. Ladybug spoke softly "I will speak with the Celestial Guardian. Perhaps he knows a way to reverse the damage, but I may need the Grimoire."
Gabriel stood up from his seat and walked over to the painting of his wife. Opening the safe, he picked up the book and handed it to Ladybug. "Take it. I will have no more secrets from now on."
Accepting the book, she looked up at Gabriel Agreste. "Consider yourself under house arrest, Mr. Agreste, until I return with either news from the Celestial Guardian – or the Guardian himself." She then looked at Adrien "I know that you're dealing with a lot, but your friends – your true friends – are out there for you if you need to talk to them." Giving him a wan smile, she then added "Hopefully, I will have good news, and soon you'll have your mother back."
"Thank you, Ladybug." Adrien breathed out, his shoulders dropping ever so slightly.
"Don't thank me yet."
Once she was home, and transformed back into Marinette, the teen sent a text out to Su-Han, letting him know that she had retrieved the last two Miraculous, but needed information. There was no telling how long it would be before receiving a response, so she set about locking her hatch, and setting all of the Kwami free from the Miracle Box. "You spoke with him?" Nooroo asked, hopeful, as the light purple creature's wings fluttering behind their back.
"Yes." Marinette answered. She relayed what Gabriel had said to the Kwami, her own eyes misting up at the prospect of what Adrien would be going through now knowing that he "wasn't a real boy". None of the other Kwami seemed overly surprised, having talked with Duusu and Nooroo in their home dimension within the Miracle Box.
"Poor Nathalie." Duusu commented, landing on Marinette's arm. "All she wanted was to help bring back her friend, and protect the young master, and now she's hurting."
"Hopefully, once I talk to the Celestial Guardian, we can change that."
Feeding the various Kwami, she especially thanked Pollen and Kaalki for their wonderful work that day, and started to sketch designs just to pass the time. At the sound of feet impacting her roof, she ascended the stairs and climbed up onto her balcony where Su-Han was already standing in wait for her arrival. "I guess congratulation are in order for your retrieval of the Miraculous." Holding out his hand, he spoke brusquely "Now hand over the Mother Box, and I shall return all of the Miraculous to Tibet, and the Temple of the Guardians."
"Master Su-Han, I didn't call you here to relinquish the Miracle Box, but instead to ask if there is a way to heal someone injured by a broken, or faulty Miraculous?" At her announcement and query, the bushy eyebrows of the Tibetan male narrowed together in anger.
"No! If some fool used a Miraculous while it was damaged, then that is their fault!" Su-Han waved away the question.
"Are you positive?" Marinette asked "I have the Grimoire, but I cannot read it, and Master Fu was only able to partially understand~"
"I said "No!" to your question, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!" Glaring at her, he stepped forward. "You will relinquish the Mother Box, your earrings, and the black cat ring, now!"
Closing her eyes, the teenage girl bowed her head with tears sliding down her cheeks. All of her life, Marinette followed the orders of every authority figure she had ever met, even the ones that spoke rudely to her, but with everything she had learned at the Agreste Mansion, she knew what she needed to do. "No~!" she breathed before lifting her head to glare at the man.
"What did you say?!" Su-Han asked
Stalking forward, she snarled at the man. "I will NOT give you the Miracle Box, Celestial Guardian!"
Having never been approached like this, Su-Han pressed his lower back against the railing. "You will-"
"Shut up!" Marinette shouted as she continued stalking forward. "I came to you with a question concerning the Miraculous, and you not only dismissed it out of hand, you dismissed me!" Pointing at his chest, she glared up at the man as his eyes widened. "I am the Guardian of the Miracle Box, a fact you seem bound and determined to ignore at every meeting!"
Glaring back, Su-Han pointed at her "You have never been trained~!"
"Yes, I haven't been trained in the traditional way everyone in Tibet has, because Master Fu found those ways to be needlessly cruel and counter-productive!" Marinette countered. "Yet, from the moment you arrived in Paris, you have outright refused to train me as a Guardian even though I have been one for months!"
"You don't~"
"It's my memories that are on the line here, Celestial Guardian, not yours!" She stopped her tirade for several seconds before continuing in a softer voice. "I only ask that you look through the Grimoire, or search through your vast knowledge of the Miraculous to answer a few of my questions." She then shook her head, "Afterward, I will relinquish the Mother Box to you, forsaking my name as a Guardian, and my memories of the Miraculous entirely." Su-Han watched the pain in her face morph into resolve "You lose nothing by trying, and you might actually do some good for once in your life."
The wind fluttered her pigtails and his robes as he just stood and stared at the teenage girl that had dared to stand up to him. At being called out for his lack of activity during his time here in Paris, it caused him to think about how everything might be different if he'd only tried harder to help Ladybug and Cat Noir; perhaps training them in Mirakung-fu? Teaching them to read the language of the Guardians, and the simplified code so that they could read the Grimoire? Or even spending a few hours or days just to get to know each of the Parisian heroes?
"You are right." Marinette seemed almost as shocked as he was for those three words to pass his lips. "Since coming to Paris, I have done nothing to aid you or Cat Noir in your search for the two missing Miraculous. Worse yet, I've done even less to prepare you for the way ahead as both champions of the Miracle Box, and you specifically as Guardian. Wang Fu may have been the reason why the two Miraculous were lost, and why the temple fell to begin with, but that is not your fault, even though I was taking it out on you." Pressing his fist to his open palm, Su-Han bowed to the teenage girl, his eyes closed. "I will aid you in whatever tasks you have, but know that I must return to Tibet with the Mother Box."
"I understand." Going down into her room, the pair searched through the Grimoire, looking for any information on damaged Miraculous, and healing that type of damage, which he cross-referenced in his tiny book of Miraculous knowledge.
Days passed with Marinette needing to go to school, to keep up appearances that nothing new was going on in her life. This left Su-Han to work on the problem alone, but he did make several visits to the Agreste Mansion to check out both Nathalie and Emilie. Adrien had been pulled out of school for "personal days", and true to his word, Gabriel kept nothing back finally allowing his son to see his mother.
Friday afternoon, after school, Marinette arrived to her room to find Su-Han on her chaise lounge looking tired. "Master-?" she started to ask, only for the Celestial Guardian to interrupt.
"I have looked through everything we have here, and I have found a way to heal the one called Nathalie." Su-Han shook his head. "A simple Chi cleansing mixed with a healing potion will do."
"That's good." Marinette set her bag down next to the desk. "What about Mrs. Agreste?"
A pregnant pause grew between the pair. "Her injuries are more severe because her Chi is still being drawn from her."
"What?"
Su-Han looked at the girl. "When she created the Senti-being, she tied it directly to herself." That caused Marinette's eyes to widen. "The longer she's in her coma, the longer he will survive. To wake her up, we have three options." He watched as she sat down. "Know that I wanted to discuss all of them with you before making any moves."
"I appreciate that, Master Su-Han."
"Our first option, is to destroy the Senti-being," Marinette started to say something, but he held up a hand, "once destroyed, her body would start it's own natural healing. At which point, we can use the same technique as with Nathalie to heal Mrs. Agreste, albeit slower."
Marinette shook her head "I don't think either of his parents, or really anyone would want to remove he Senti-being." Placing her elbows on her thighs, she clasped her hands together. "Also, I personally would not be able to do that to Adrien. I-"
"Nothing more needs to be said, Marinette." Su-Han leaned back. "Our second option may be the best, but it will be a very long, and difficult, road for a family that has already endured so much." Steepling his fingers, he looked at her with his eyes hardening. "We use the wish after healing Nathalie, and use her life to resurrect Mrs. Agreste."
Tears welled up in her eyes. "No! That's unacceptable for an option! Cat Noir and I fought for months to keep anyone from using the wish, and now you want to use it when we were told-"
"Unfortunately, you were misinformed about certain things." Su-Han sat back. "If your wish is precisely worded, you can use it without incurring any damage to the world as a whole." He watched Marinette shake her head slowly "If we make the potion and the Chi healing a little stronger, we may even be able to bring her back after a time."
"What is our third option?"
Leaning back allowed Su-Han to cross his arms over his chest. "We allow Mrs. Agreste to rest in peace, finally." His words seemed to slap Marinette in the face while punching her in the stomach. Tears slid down her cheeks at the prospects.
"- but what will happen to Adrien?"
"He has been given his Amok," Su-Han shook his head, "we were all in agreement on that at least. The boy will grow naturally from this point forward, and potentially live a full life. I have also seen a recording by Mrs. Agreste that asks Nathalie to take over the role of his mother, and she agreed to take on the role." There was a pregnant pause before he added. "I know this wasn't the option you wanted, and Adrien was adamant that he wanted to talk with his mother again."
"It's too bad I couldn't use the Miraculous to heal Mrs. Agreste." Marinette wiped the tears from her eyes as she looked down at her knees.
Su-Han rubbed at his chin. "Why can't you?"
Looking at the Celestial Guardian, she blinked "What do you mean?"
"When the Kwami were out earlier, I noticed that Fluff wasn't with them, which means that the rabbit Miraculous is active." Su-Han looked at the teenage girl. "Could you contact the wielder and ask to take you back to the destruction of the temple to defeat Feast?"
"I-" she blinked, "yes, but then everything will change!"
"Not necessarily. Just wait until Fu is far enough away, then tackle the creature when he's not watching for the creature." Su-Han sighed. "I will write you a letter to give to me, informing me of my role in this, complete with the seal of the Guardians so that they can take the appropriate steps. That way when the Agrestes search for the temple, they will not only find it, but be given the cure Mrs. Agreste needs to heal her body. A cure, she can give to her sister, and Lady Tsurugi."
"Master – I-"
"Give me two hours to write the letter, but know that when you return, the you that stands here will disappear for your present self to continue with her life."
"I understand, Master Su-Han."
True to his word, the Celestial Guardian returned after two hours with a parchment rolled up into a scroll, and handed it to Marinette. "Once you defeat Feast, make sure to hand this to me at the temple before you disappear."
Bowing to the larger male, she nodded "Goodbye, Master Su-Han." Looking over at her Kwami, she smiled saying these words for the last time. "Tikki, spots on." Seconds later, a white ovoid appeared in front of her as she slid the letter into her yo-yo. Stepping inside, she saw Bunnyx standing to the side.
"You ready to do this?"
"No, but to help Adrien, I'm willing to do anything."
When the next ovoid opened, she found herself in the snowy mountains of Tibet. Intense winds whipped around her as Ladybug turned to see the temple already engulfed in flames. Looking up, she saw the ten year old Wang Fu turning away while the small blue ball with four legs climbed the craggy slope. Following, she felt the chill biting deep into her, causing numbness in her fingers and toes. It took time for her to reach the summit, but by then Feast was already chasing after the boy. "Lucky charm." she whispered, and again she felt the weight of the metal detector impact her hand.
She watched as Wang Fu leaped over a chasm, followed by Feast, only instead of letting the Senti-monster fall, she launched her yo-yo, catching its cable around the creature's right rear leg. With a powerful yank, she twirled her weapon back. "You want a Miraculous? Then how about mine?"
She watched the creature's tongue lick it's lips "Miraculous!" before lunging at her.
Ladybug watched as Fu recovered what he could of the jewels before she was swallowed up by Feast. Floating through the much smaller interior of the creature from last time, she located the staff as the Senti-monster had taken a half-dozen steps toward Wang Fu, only to pop into bubbles once more. This time it was a single female in red with black spots holding onto the apprentice's staff rather than her and Cat Noir. Running over to the chasm, she landed on the other side, and found the Grimoire in a snowbank along with the peacock and butterfly Miraculous.
"Clearly he was so scared he didn't do a thorough search." Ladybug waited until he was too far away to see before calling out for her miraculous ladybugs. Afterward, she started on her way back to the temple. She only had a few minutes before the timelines realigned. Reaching the temple gates, she knocked on them. Pulling out the scroll, she added it to what she was going to give to the Celestial Guardian before calling for her transformation.
The one to arrive at the gate was Su-Han, and he looked less than pleased. Marinette looked up at him before bowing low. "Celestial Guardian, I have some things for you." Holding up the Grimoire, peacock and butterfly Miraculous, and scroll she handed them to him. "Please read the scroll first."
Reaching out, he took the bundle of items when the strange girl started to disappear, beginning at her feet and going up her legs. "You used the Miraculous of time, didn't you?"
"Yes, and I did this to save the ones I love, Master Su-Han." Just before her head disappeared, she said one final word "Goodbye."
Don't worry, there's going to be a short Epilogue after this.
