The park had been surrounded on all sides by wide stone buildings that had dominated the skyline, until they'd disappeared. Well, not exactly disappeared. They'd been shrunk.
When Chat rushed over, he found that the peaked roofs barely made it past his knees. The buildings sat in the middle of empty lots, all of them sheared off at their foundations.
Ladybug was already gently scooping up miniaturized people and herding them into the safety of the tiny buildings. "Do you see it?"
"Not yet." The skies were empty, but this akuma had probably been around for a few minutes, shrinking things in the distance. That was the flicker of movement he'd seen, he was sure. Everything had looked normal when he'd turned because he didn't realize he was supposed to be looking for something that was no longer there.
There were a few ways this could go. His first thought was a child wanting action figures. It would be easier than an adult wanting control over others, and it seemed plausible.
He caught the flicker of movement and the sinking roof one street over that meant the akuma had struck again. "There!"
Ladybug's head snapped up and followed his pointing finger. "Let's go."
In less than 30 seconds, they had eyes on the akuma. Not a child, like he'd hoped. A fully grown adult. In a really bad bug costume. Bright red, with a round head and antennae, two bulbous sections for the thorax and abdomen encasing his torso and hips, and an extra set of arms. He stood in the middle of the street with his back to them, stomping around and yelling about his paper being rejected by peer reviewers.
"A bug scientist," Ladybug said. She hung off the side of the building, like she'd stop repelling halfway down.
"An entomologist," he corrected, from his perch in the tree next to her.
"Chat Noir, you big nerd. How do you know that?"
He bowed as much as the branches surrounding him would allow. "My massive brain contains a lot of intelligence."
The akuma turned and saw them. The ranting changed from the deception and corruption of the scientific establishment and took on a wearingly familiar tone.
"Why don't you two come down here and give me your miraculous!"
Ladybug sighed. "That's our cue." She dropped and kicked off from the side of the building, pushing herself into a graceful arc and landing on the sidewalk with the poise an Olympic gymnast would envy.
Chat Noir couldn't help but whistle softly before he clambered out of the tree. Before his feet touched the pavement, Ladybug had been hit with a beam of power from one of the extra arms. Instead of shrinking–
"Ew!" she shrieked, sweeping a writhing layer of black off her chest and arms. "Ants!"
"Hey, Ant-tomologist!" he called. The akumatized man glared at him. Good. "Ready to be beaten by another little bug?"
Ladybug glared at him, too.
Which was fine with him, because the akuma had changed targets and was now waddling toward him, all four fists raised in what was probably supposed to be a menacing way. That costume. Really. Were those extra arms plastic?
His plan was simple. Throw out terrible lines, dodge equally terrible attacks, and keep him distracted while LB snuck around from behind and disarmed him.
Heh. Dis-arm.
At first, everything seemed to go to plan. Chat Noir kept his lunges short and his steps backward long, so it looked like he was on the defensive. Antomologist took the bait, skittering forward, not watching his own back, opening himself up to whatever Ladybug was cooking up behind him. At this rate, they wouldn't need either of their powers.
And if they didn't need to split before timers rang out, maybe the two of them could hang out a bit?
He took another step back and tripped on the curb, just as a blast of white hot light was leveled directly into his face.
A red force of nature slammed into him at the same time the beam did, and Chat Noir was sent sideways and back, grabbing onto Ladybug for support as he was jerked off his feet. She was swinging them away, and the air rushed around them, and everything around them grew, reaching toward the morning sun, until Chat Noir was straining his neck to see the tops of the buildings.
They landed inside a dark, abandoned tree hollow. Hidden in the shadows, they could hear Antomologist laughing at them.
Author's note: I literally had no name for the akuma until Chat Noir blurted that one out. I had nothing to do with it.