Chapter 7:

Ladybug leapt into the fight, hurling her yo-yo at the akumatized woman. To her surprise, one of the zombie-like legion smacked the yo-yo out of the way with a piece of broken table. Not to be deterred, Ladybug flipped her yo-yo toward the monster again and again. The entranced men grabbed the string, threw themselves in the way, or otherwise countered the attacks every time, with no regard for harming themselves in the process. There were simply too many of them; she couldn't get a clear shot. Meanwhile, Chat was using his staff to fight off the onslaught that had reached them, as the hypnotized attackers grabbed for their miraculouses.

"Chat, be careful!" Ladybug called, hearing his staff connect with one of the zombified prom-goers with a sickening thud. "They're innocent, they don't know what they're doing!"

"Then we'd better come up with a strategy soon, cuz it looks like they're moving on to plan B!" Chat groaned as an attacker jumped on his back and drove a shard of broken glass into his shoulder with his bare hands. Chat threw the attacker to the ground and hissed in pain.

He's right, we can't keep fighting them like this. We can't fend them off without hurting them, and I can't get a good shot at the akuma with the students defending her. Plus, it seems they've decided it would be easier to take our miraculouses if we couldn't fight back.

Ladybug used her yo-yo to wrap up a few of the mesmerized students, effectively trapping them, but also preventing her from using her yo-yo to fight the others. "The akuma must be in one of the brooches on her hips!" she called to Chat. She's not really wearing much else! "See if you can get to it!"

Chat used his staff like a pole vaulter, launching himself toward Aphrodite, but her horde of enthralled slaves easily knocked it out from under him, sending him reeling. Landing on his feet in a crouch and bracing himself with his uninjured arm, Chat sprang back into the air, leapt off the wall, and hurled his staff at the creature. Again, the large projectile was easily deflected by the enchanted prom-goers.

"No good! There are too many of them!" he replied, trying to ignore the burning pain emanating from his shoulder.

Ladybug pulled hard on the yo-yo string, knocking her captives off their feet and retrieving her weapon.

"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug called, throwing her yo-yo into the air.

A heavy fireman's ax, adorned with black ladybug spots, materialized and fell into her hands.

"What the?!" Ladybug was confused. She had never received a weapon before. Surely she wasn't supposed to start hacking away at innocent victims? "Oomph!"

The wind was knocked out of her as Chat tackled her to the ground, out of the way of one of the attackers who had swung a heavy metal amp stand at her head. "Careful, Lovebug," he purred with a seductive smile, having pinned her to the ground underneath him, his glowing green eyes sparkling only inches from her own.

That's it.

She looked around the room, her eyes noticing new significance in Chat's luminescent eyes, her yo-yo, and the diamond-shaped panes of glass that covered the light sources of the room.

Aphrodite cackled again. "You know why I'm going to win, Ladybug?" she taunted. "It's because you have to rely on a man to stand by you. Don't you see, he's only toying with you! He acts like he's dedicated to you, but he'll drop you in a minute as soon as someone else comes along. He probably feeds the same cheesy lines to all his little toys!"

Ladybug pretended like she didn't' hear the akuma's taunts, although her words struck a little too close to home. "Chat, are you ready for some batting practice?" she grinned, taking the ax in both hands and running toward the closest light source.

Picking up on her hint, he retracted his staff to the approximate length of a baseball bat as she dashed and leapt around the room, dodging attackers while smashing the light sources with the fireman's ax. Within seconds, the room went dark… to everyone except Chat, whose night-vision kicked in instantly.

"Ready when you are, LB!" he called out, signaling his position.

Impaired by the sudden darkness and only able to detect vague shapes in the faint light trickling in through the gaping hole in the ceiling from the street lamps above, some of the akuma-zombies positioned themselves between Ladybug and their master to block any yo-yo attacks while others launched themselves in the direction of Chat Noir's voice. His metal staff caught the light from above, making him the easier target.

With a whir of string, the yo-yo shot out, not toward the Aphrodite and her wall of waiting minions, but toward Chat. Ignoring the tearing pain in his shoulder, he swung his staff as hard as he could, and – Crack! The yo-yo, almost invisible in the darkness due to its small size, headed straight for one of the clasps, shattering it to pieces. No akuma.

Aphordite gasped as the horde snapped their heads to the direction of the strange sound.

"GET THEM!" Aphrodite shrieked, the cloth falling away to expose a bare hip.

Chat dodged right, then leapt backward into an agonizing handspring as the akuma-zombies attacked, their aim improving as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. One large man must have caught sight of Ladybug moving in the dark, because he was barreling head-first straight toward her.

"LB, move! Toward me, one more go!" he called out to her again as he dashed to the left, and she obeyed instantly, leaping into the blackness and throwing her yo-yo toward the sound of his voice.

The throw went wide, but Chat was ready for it. Separating his staff into two and using the right stick to deflect a prom-goer diving for his throat, he used the stick in his left hand to deflect the yo-yo back toward the one remaining brooch.

TINK! The smaller stick connected with the yo-yo, sending it spinning. CRICK! The yo-yo connected, cracking the remaining brooch in two and releasing the dark-winged butterfly that had been contained within.

The akumatized woman screamed as she felt her clothing fall away, but Chat paid no attention to the stunning and now fully nude creature before him. With the small, black creature effectively invisible to Ladybug in the darkness, it was up to him to catch the akuma.

Reconnecting his staff and launching himself skyward again, he let go of the staff midair to free both his hands, catching the small winged demon in a cupped grasp. Tumbling to the ground in an awkward somersault and landing a few feet in front of her, he called out to Ladybug: "I got it! Do your thing!"

Working completely on muscle memory, Ladybug traced a line down the center of her yo-yo, causing it to open and lighting up the area in which she stood. Spinning in a wide circle, the glow emanating from the yo-yo prevented her from seeing farther than her immediate surroundings. "Time to de-evilize!" She proclaimed, launching the yo-yo in front of her blindly.

Chat released the akuma at the last moment into the path of the yo-yo. Before clamping shut on its prey, the light of the yo-yo revealed the scene like a camera flash: the spellbound prom-goers truly looked like zombies, their arms out in front of them to try to discern their position, Aphrodite with a face expressing equal parts disbelief and horror, Chat crouched on one knee toward the center of the room, and Ladybug off to one side, arm extended, with a confident smile, as if relying on Chat's eyes to catch invisible butterflies with a magic yo-yo was nothing out of the ordinary.

As the yo-yo thwp'd back into her palm, Ladybug tapped the face of it, releasing the cleansed butterfly back into the world.

Chat, having retrieved the ax from the floor, was now at her side. Placing a hand gently on her shoulder to indicate his presence, he handed her the discarded tool.

She accepted it and, after giving him a second to step back, tossed it high into the air. She called "Miraculous Ladybug!" and, in a swirl of red and black, the room brightened again to reveal no evidence of the destruction from moments before. The pyramid had been restored, and the students who had been trapped or injured were disoriented but unharmed.

"Nice job M'lady! That was incredible!" He enveloped her in a hug, lifting her off the ground and spinning her in a circle. "YOU are incredible! Not that I expected anything less!" an ecstatic Chat raised a gloved fist into the air for a victory "pound it," the shard of glass that had been embedded in his shoulder thankfully vanished with the rest of the destruction.

His expression of joy faltered when she did not return the gesture.

The threat of danger annulled, Marinette's doubts resurfaced full-force. She wasn't sure what to think. Before the battle, she was certain that she and Adrien had something special. He had told her she was the only one who truly knew him, and that he didn't regret kissing her. Hell, he had almost kissed her again, and she would have welcomed it. But then, here he is, showering Ladybug with praises, flirting with her, calling her by pet-names. Maybe Aphrodite had been right, and she was just fooling herself. Could it be that Chat was just a flirt, coming on to two different girls hoping to get lucky with one of them? Maybe, but she had a hard time believing Adrien would behave that way. Her earrings beeped a warning. Not much time left. But she had to know.

To Chat's surprise, Ladybug's expression was solemn, without a trace of her usual post-victory merriment. Without a word, she took his hand and guided him out an emergency exit, into a darkened alley where they could be alone.

"LB, are you OK? Is something wrong?" he looked at her with concern.

"Chat," she questioned, lifting her eyes to meet his own. "Do you love me?"

He was taken aback by the directness of the question. She couldn't possibly be buying into that bullshit Aphrodite had spouted, could she? Chat grinned. "You know I do, Bugaboo!" The response was reflexive.

He had said it a million times before. He had said as much to himself only a few hours prior. But for some reason, this time, the words felt hollow. He did love Ladybug, he always would. She was his trusted partner and ally, selfless and heroic and brave. But in truth, he was falling in love with someone else. Could someone love two people at once, but in different ways? Her earrings were flashing their last dot; no time for this discussion right now.

"We should probably talk… when you have the time," he said, glancing knowingly toward her earrings.

"No, Adrien, we need to talk now, before this goes any further," Ladybug's voice shook with her quiet reply.

His mouth opened to answer, to warn her of her impending transformation, but no words came. Did she just call me—

In a flash of pink, Ladybug disappeared, leaving Marinette in her place. An exhausted bug-like kwami floated into her waiting hands, which Marinette had cupped in front of her to catch her friend.

"M-Marinette!" Chat stared at her, dumbfounded.

"I…, I can't believe, Y- YOU'RE—" he felt his heart thunder in his chest as his mind struggled to process what he had just seen. The two women he loved were ONE. Of course! He didn't love two women, he loved one woman. One amazing, kind, courageous, beautiful—

"Why did you lead me on like that?" The words came slowly from Marinette, thick with emotion.

Chat didn't know what to say.

"How could you do that, play with someone's heart like that?" her words were quickening as tears pooled in her eyes. "God and I fell for it, every sweet word, because I wanted it to be true. Every smile, every touch. I fell for you twice!" she shook her head violently, sending tears flying. "Hell, I loved you! I loved you as Adrien, I loved you as Chat," she choked back a sob, tears now falling freely down her face.

Chat was in shock. He didn't understand what was wrong, but he knew he didn't want to see her cry. She had just told him she loved him! But… past tense?

"Marinette, please, talk to me," he said gently, reaching out a hand toward her shoulder.

She recoiled from his touch, holding Tikki closer to her chest.

His eyes widened. Why was she angry at him?

"Marinette, please…" Chat released his transformation, hoping she might find it easier to talk to Adrien. Plagg sat on his shoulder, not nearly as tired as Tikki since Chat hadn't used his Cataclysm. The tiny cat kwami wished he could help, but relationships were not his strong suit. He silently urged Tikki to awaken, his eyes angled with worry.

"Why, so I can convince myself that you love me, Chat? Or Adrien, or whoever you are?! I'm so stupid, to think that you could ever-" Marinette sobbed, nearing hysterics, "could ever love…" Her heart was breaking as she convinced herself that her friend and partner had been playing her as Marinette and as Ladybug. Who knows how many other girls he talks to like this? Lila, Chloe? Is that why they were so convinced that they should be his girlfriend?

Marinette's thoughts were careening out of control. Tikki was desperately trying to calm her, but in her weakened state she could only manage a soft mumble.

"You know that's not true Marinette. Don't let your insecurities blind you!" Tikki called out using all of her remaining strength, but the bug kwami's words could not be heard through Marinette's panic.

"But I do love you, Marinette!" Adrien's emerald eyes were filling with tears as he pleaded with her to listen, to understand. He himself had not completely understood his feelings for his heroic crush vs his sweet friend, but now that they turned out to be one, he had never been more certain of anything, ever. He loved her. He loved her more than his own life, more than anything.

"Just leave me alone! I… I can't think right now!" she cried, clutching her kwami against her chest and running toward home.

And with that, Adrien was alone, standing in a dark alley; without a family, without his best friend, without his partner, without his love. Utterly, devastatingly alone. And it was his own fault.

Across town, machinery whirred to life for the second time that night, as an aperture retracted to expose a large, circular observatory window decorated with geometric shapes resembling a four-petaled flower, the intruding moonlight revealing the figure of a tall, masked man surrounded by countless white butterflies.


Author's note: Please don't hate me! Also, to the guest reviewer from Chapter 5: most readers relate to Marinette or Adrien, but you are officially my Master Fu. I hope you come back to see just how right you were! -Floof