The moment the guard left her alone in the empty conference room, Marta immediately walked over to the far corner, sat down out of sight from the door behind two chairs, and folded her legs. Back up against the corner so no one could sneak up behind her. Ears attuned to the low hum of the lights, the faint beeping of a monitor somewhere in the hallway. Eyes closed, hands resting on her knees, she concentrated on her breathing: in, hold, out. Wait fifteen seconds, in, hold a minute, out. Just as she had been trained – one of the few things left to her of her training. Her breathing evened out as she focused on it, until she no longer had to concentrate on her breathing to maintain the same steady rhythm. Slowly, she could feel her heartrate dropping, her anxieties fading away as she regained her inner peace.
It had been a long three months in Nouvelle Bastille.
She had known that arrest was a possibility for as long as she had been in Paris, of course. As the group had gathered in the great meeting hall for their commissioning – well over a year ago – the Archimandrite had warned them that their mission would be thankless and difficult. The people of Paris had become so enamored by the allure of miraculous powers after the years of Hawk Moth's reign and the subsequent rise of the miraculous-using "heroes." With the so-called "Heroes of Paris" as their exemplars, they couldn't be trusted to think straight about the cost of the miraculous' use. For the Dark Acolytes to stand against the impending darkness, to preserve the balance of the universe by righting this grave wrong, they would have to fight and stop – perhaps even kill – those considered by the ordinary Parisians to be "heroes." They would be vilified. But only through their sacrifice and effort could balance be restored.
Marta had accepted that risk willingly: she had been trained all her life to serve, to prevent the miraculous from falling into the wrong hands. Her greatest desire had been to reclaim the miraculous from their abusers and stop them from ever being used again. Only that would save the universe from being rent asunder by the forces the miraculous controlled. That had been her mission when she arrived in Paris, and it was a mission she had sought to carry out…
A hitch in her breathing. Had she remained true to that mission?
She had fought the Heroes of Paris – dozens of times at least. That was how she had come to be locked in this prison. And now that the Heroes of Paris had captured her and thrown in prison, what else was left to her but that mission? All she could do now was endeavor to follow her training, to practice her meditation and hone her chi for when she might be given the opportunity to fight. All she could do to seek to preserve balance now was to hold to the same vows she had taken when she first completed her vigil and became a Dark Acolyte of the Mundane. That was all she had left.
Not that it had done her any good. She sighed heavily.
Since being in here, she had done precious little beyond meditation. In the exercise yard, she kept to herself. In the lunchroom she sat alone – apart even from the other Dark Acolytes locked in here. The looks they gave her left her uneasy. She was alone. Hardly in a position to act against the miraculous abusers. Since the trial, she had left the prison exactly once. But even that one mission she had undertaken for the shifty-eyed Agent Cocteau had done nothing to further her mission. By all accounts, she was a failure – they all were. There were still as many miraculous in the hands of miraculous abusers now as there had been when she first arrived in Paris.
Marta frowned, furrowing her brows while trying to keep her eyes closed, trying to regain her inner peace. Was "miraculous abuser" the right phrase? After all, the people who had taught her that phrase had never met a so-called "miraculous abuser." She had worked with no less than six "miraculous abusers" during her time in Paris. She had even become friends with Tanja, despite her insistence on continuing to use the Reindeer Miraculous – despite Marta's warnings against it. And while Killer Bee and Night Bat had lived up to every terrible thing the Novice-Master and the Archimandrite had warned her about, there had been something different about Cerna. Tanja may have been abusing a miraculous by holding and using it. But, far from abusing him, she had treated the Kwami well.
The door opened, and heavy footfalls entered the room as the gruff voice of a guard called, "You play nice in there, Jacquemin."
"You have nothing to worry about from me, sir," responded Jacquemin, his voice a deep rumble. "I have no desire to cause myself further trouble."
"And yet, you're in here with me." Marta could hear the sneer in the guard's tone, before the door shut.
"That may be so," Jacquemin murmured quietly, "but it need not always be so."
Marta frowned, maintaining her focus on her meditation as best she could despite the new distraction. Meanwhile, Jacquemin settled into a chair on the other side of the room, tapping his fingers on the table and quietly humming to himself. Marta cocked her head to one side, listening to the unfamiliar tune. She hadn't had much opportunity to interact with him on their previous mission together; he had kept to himself, as she had. Now, with him seemingly oblivious to her presence, Marta finally opened her eyes to observe him quietly. Sitting with his head tilted back, he stared up at the ceiling, breathing deeply. Rather different from most of those locked in this prison. How had he come to be here, anyways? He rarely spoke of his history, only that he had been arrested during the Chaos following the Tarasque's destruction of Paris. The thought gave her a slight twinge of guilt. Had they succeeded in defeating the Tarasque, would he be here? Perhaps not.
Not that it was something she could alter.
Before long, the door opened twice more. With a muttered curse, Moulin entered the room and sent a glare at the guard, catching herself on the edge of the table closest to the door and slumping into a chair, muttering curses under her breath. Marta felt a jolt of sympathy on seeing the look of helpless anger in the other woman's face. She had had few encounters with that particular guard, but none of them had been pleasant. But before Marta could say anything, the door opened the final time to admit Chappelle. Giving the other three a disdainful look, Chapelle took a seat on the edge of Moulin's table and raised an eyebrow.
"Do I know you?" Moulin demanded, her eyes narrowed.
Fixing her with a sardonic look without answering the question, Chappelle turned his attention to the rest of the room. "I suppose none of you know why we're here," he drawled.
Jacquemin shrugged. "I simply go where they tell me to go." He frowned. "Until they can't tell me any longer."
Chappelle hummed. "Jean the Jack, right? I remember you from…" he frowned sourly "… your last little misadventure. You acquitted yourself well against my companions."
"Just… doing what I need to do."
"Indeed. As, I suppose, all of us are." Chappelle eyed the door for a long moment. "Still. Is this all? I expected Agent Couilles to have more of you."
As the minutes ticked by without further interruption, Marta pursed her lips. That was the question, wasn't it? Last time, there had been more of them for the mission, though that had been something of a mixed bag. Brute had been brutalized by Chappelle's bodyguards when they had all ganged up on him during the fight, and Fire-Fly had gone completely insane; Marta was relieved not to see either of them. But where was Mecha-Man? He had been instrumental to saving all of them when the mission had gone sideways – and now was he being replaced by le Caporal? Were they really going on another mission without their heaviest hitter? Looking around the room, she didn't mind Jean the Jack, but she wouldn't trust le Caporal. And then there was Mistral. Marta frowned anxiously.
After another 30 minutes of listening to Chappelle and Jacquemin chat about nothing, finally the door opened for the fifth time and Agent Cocteau stepped into the room. At once, the conversation ceased. "Tomorrow night, you will go on a vital mission," he informed them, his mouth set in a thin line. "You absolutely must not be seen, and you must succeed."
"What's this all about?" demanded Moulin, folding her arms. "No one would tell me why I'm here."
Cocteau raised an eyebrow at her. "You have certain skills. I have use for those skills. In exchange for your skills, I can… make your life here a little pleasanter. Or shorter. Your choice."
She nodded slowly in realization. "This is what the warden was talking about the other day? I thought it was all hypothetical." Cocteau examined her silently. Moulin coughed. "Okay, if you're serious, then I guess I'm in. But I'll need time to rebuild my suit – it got wrecked when they arrested me. And it will take some real supplies this time. No more working from scraps."
He snorted. "Do not worry about that; my people have already rebuilt you a suit."
"They did what?" She shook her head. "No way. I don't use other people's tech. I build my own."
"After my people built you a better suit than you could possibly have constructed – under the circumstances – you want to reject it out of hand? Very well." Cocteau's nostrils flared. "If you do not wish to be a part of this mission, then you may stay here. Just be aware: this may be your last opportunity to see the sun for a very long time."
Moulin frowned, her brows knit together, and folded her arms. But after a long moment of consideration, she replied, "Fine. I'll take a look at what your people came up with. But at a minimum I need some time to test it out, work out the bugs, decide if it's up to my standards."
"That is acceptable." Cocteau smiled thinly. "This should not be a particularly involved mission, anyways – for you, at least."
Chappelle eyed Cocteau for a long moment. "What's the mission, sir?"
Cocteau returned his gaze for several minutes without blinking. Finally, he looked around at the other three. "It's another recruiting mission," he informed them. "And it's right under the Heroes of Paris' noses, so you will need to be absolutely undetected. If the Heroes of Paris catch wind of this mission – if they so much as suspect what you did, then the mission will fail. And if the mission fails, then you fail. Understood?"
Marta's eyes widened nervously. "Um… are you sure we are the best ones for this mission?" she asked. "Ladybug and Queen Bee arrested me, remember?"
"It was a bunch of the heroes who caught me, too?" added Moulin dubiously. "There's no way they don't recognize me."
Cocteau's mouth set in a thin line. "Then you had better make sure the Heroes of Paris don't see you on this mission, hadn't you?"