08/13/23
8 Reviews, 1 Fav, 4 Follows
Adrien can't even bite or scratch but the only thing he can do is growl hungrily at the blue bird. He remembers his cousin and he sure wants to eat the bird like a cat. Scarabella can tell that he's looking at Argos instead of her.
"Oh, boy. I think he sees you as his turkey meal" Scarabella gripping the yo-yo on the zombie.
"Maybe I could try to get into his mind" Argos has an idea.
"Adrien, think of the time we pranked our parents pretending to be each other for a week"
Adrien was this close to biting him, of course, he remembers his childhood with him but he still remembers the betrayal for what he did to cause Ladybug to go through so much fear of losing all the miraculous.
"Please, Adrien. Kagami helped me see through the errors in my ways. I'm sorry for everything, from the dance to identity theft, ruining friendships, everything. I just want my cousin back, you're more than a cousin, you're a brother I never had. You're all of Paris's heroes. You have the biggest heart of anyone" Argos kept going.
Scarabella saw how much he missed Adrien. Adrien still has a little conscience but he was too hungry for flesh. He struggled too much to get free.
"He has a bit of conscience. Maybe this can trigger his mind" Scarabella held her phone for a picture of Marinette and Adrien together, "Adrien, remember her, please. She misses you so much" She showed him the picture.
"Mar-eh...Mar-ren" Adrien couldn't speak properly.
"Did he just talk?" Argos asked but then backed off from him that he's snarling angrily.
"Raaaaagh!" Adrien snarled more.
"He's not completely himself right now. And he's pissed that he's tied up" Scarabella said.
Suddenly Detector ran in with Kagami after him, "RUFF! RUFF!" Detector barked.
"Kagami!" Argos said.
"Your dog had a lot to explain to me. Is that Adrien?" Kagami saw Adrien.
Adrien raised a brow curiously at the strange Japanese girl, "Hrrrrrgh" He reached for her.
"Adrien, can you hear me?" Kagami approached.
Scarabella loosens the yo-yo a little but still held him in case he tries to bite. Adrien then remembers when he and Kagami were together but broke up to remain friends.
"Adrien, are you in there?" Kagami asked.
"Raaaaagh!" Adrien snaps his teeth at trying to bite her.
"Lucky charm!" Scarabella calls on the lucky charm and out came a cloth rag, "A cloth rag?" She got confused but then figured out, "Ah yes" She ties it around his mouth.
"So you decided to get a dog now?" Scarabella looks at Detector.
"Yep. I figured I needed a senti-pet that might help" Argos said.
"And one useful for once. Detector, show me what you and your owner discovered" Kagami said.
Detector shows a hologram of the time event when Lila removed her wig and threw it in the trash and those in front of her addressed her as Cerise.
"So Lila wasn't even her real name?! Damn it she's more of a menace than I thought!" Scarabella was shocked by the reveal.
"Yes. It means she's still around in Paris" Kagami said.
"She manipulated all of you just so you can get rid of Marinette for her," Argos said.
Adrien saw everything and was beyond angry that Lila was a fraud the whole time; there was never a Lila Rossi, "GRRRRR!" He growls at the paused image.
"He's really angry. Give him something to calm him down!" Kagami said.
"Macaroons. He likes macaroons!" Scarabella held out a few macaroons and snapped her fingers to get Adrien's attention, "Here handsome. Look at this. Your favorite treats that Marinette gives you"
Adrien grabs them and munched on them savagely. So hungry for flesh but instead, the sweets were calming his cravings.
"Marinette is probably too vulnerable to see Adrien as a zombie," Scarabella said.
"I agree. It's best if we take Adrien before she sees him" Argos said, "Release him. I think the macaroons are helping to reduce his hunger"
Scarabella nods and releases Adrien, "But where are we gonna keep him?" She asked.
Adrien was satisfied but he simply walks past them, unable to go back to his previous life.
"Apparently on his own," Scarabella said.
x
With Marinette, she was on her own in the city, still thinking of Adrien. She checked the photos of them together. She failed to realize Cerise was nearby, watching her.
"My prince" Marinette muttered.
Cerise smirked evilly at how miserable Marinette is feeling right now, "Such a pity, Dupain-Cheng" She said quietly.
Marinette then heads into the library to be alone. Unknown to her, Adrien was following her the whole time, hiding his face with a hoodie to avoid suspicion.
"Mari" He uttered.
Marinette then reached for a book in the library when she suddenly smells like something decaying in here, "Is it a dead cat in here?"
Adrien knew it's himself because he's a corpse but not decaying that rapidly.
"Yuck! I better get out of here!" Marinette heads out.
Adrien knew that he can't interact with her, knowing full well that his dead body is far beyond alive. Plus her broken heart wouldn't handle it yet.
"You remember her?" Plagg asked while hidden in the jacket hoodie.
"Mari...love" Adrien struggled to speak.
"Jeez, kid. You sound like Frankenstein" Plagg said.
"Huh?" Adrien tilted his head.
"It's like you are learning to talk as a 2-year-old all over again," Plagg said.
"You got to transform, the only way you can act normal," Plagg said.
Adrien shook his head, knowing that it's wrong to be Cat Noir to talk but it's still not the same as being Adrien.
"Never mind" Plagg hides in his hoodie.
But soon Adrien noticed someone following Marinette, he snarls seeing it's Cerise. As much as he wants to eat her but he needs answers right now. He's gonna have to knock her unconscious and take her to his friends to interrogate.
"Must...save...Mari" He goes towards Cerise.
"Move faster, man. Your limbs aren't showing much decay" Plagg said.
Adrien then rushes towards Cerise and covers her mouth, dragging her into an alley before she could do anything to Marinette.
"MMMMPH!" Cerise struggled but in vain. Then with a knock to the head, she was knocked out. He dragged her body with him.
x
Much later, Cerise woke up seeing Kagami, Felix, and Alya in front of her. Adrien limply walks and growls lowly, saliva drilling out of his mouth.
"Where am I? Let me go!" Cerise struggled.
"No, we all know who you really are, Cerise!" Alya interrupted.
"What are you talking about? I'm Iris Verdi!" Cerise lied.
"Show her," Felix told Detector.
The senti-dog nodded and showed when Lila is revealed to be Cerise. Cerise gasps at how they managed to record it all.
"That's right, bitch. This zombie that abducted you is really Adrien. If you cooperate, we'll let you live. But if you make a lie to fool us…" Felix gestures to Adrien to get near Cerise, "Adrien will bite and we all know what a zombie bite can really do"
"Hrrrrrrgh!" Adrien growled.
"What do you want from me?!" Cerise asked.
"Since Adrien took forever to speak. He saw you following Marinette and for good reason, you want to get revenge on her" Felix said.
"Marinette was right all along and you manipulated all of us for your lies. I can't believe you and Chloe were beyond monsters to be class representatives to ruin our lives!" Alya glared.
"It wasn't—" Cerise stopped since Adrien was this close to biting her shoulder if she came up with another lie.
"You're right, Adrien. She really is a pathological liar. I can't believe she manipulated me and got me akumatized just to think that Marinette is a liar when technically it's this bitch all along" Kagami said.
"I never should have trusted you, Cerise!" Alya slaps Cerise.
"And because of you, I ruined their beautiful picnic date! You got into my head!" Kagami yelled.
"You were all so foolish," Cerise said.
"You…hurt…..Mari….." Adrien spoke between his groans.
"How is he a zombie?" Cerise shuddered.
"We don't know" Felix lied, not telling her anything, "Maybe he wanted to get revenge on his father and you for tormenting his girlfriend"
"Face it, Cerise. You have lost!" Alya said.
"Living a lie will one day destroy your life. Just like you destroyed ours. How many illnesses do you have? Better yet, that explains why you refuse to do gym class because you're afraid that your wig will fall off" Alya said.
"That's right! I had it all planned until Sabrina and Marinette exposed me! Such a shame Monarch hasn't akumatized Marinette yet in her miserable state now" Cerise sneered.
"Adrien, don't!" Felix stopped him from biting, "We are all pissed at her for being a psycho bitch but we need to know if she has any more fake identities and records of her shit"
"Of course" Kagami nodded.
"You're all fools! No one is gonna believe what my identities did. I'll come up with a lie that you all are criminals" Cerise said.
"We'll see about that! I may have done many bad stuff myself and betrayal but I was able to grow a conscience unlike you!" Felix said.
"Like what? Pretending to be Adrien and go brutally murder people with your betrayal?" Cerise mocked him.
"SILENCE! I undid the latter and I actually did Adrien a favor by taking his place with you on the train!" Felix slaps her.
"You what?!" Alya and Kagami exclaimed.
"That's right, I talked with Adrien and he agreed on switching places on the train," Felix said.
"You really got me there" Cerise scowled.
"Payback is a bitch. Everyone gets fooled whenever Adrien and I switch places and pretend to be each other" Felix said but received a growl from Adrien, reminding him of the third time was evil, "I get it. But now let's focus on getting info from her and find out more" Felix said.
"And for sure, Monarch won't interfere," Alya said.
"Detector, scan her and find all of her fake identities," Felix said.
Detector then sniffs Cerise and several more identities are shown.
"Clever dog," Kagami said.
"Holy shit" Alya saw all the fake names.
"Lila Rossi, Iris Bianca, Sienna Esposito, Bella Bruno, Viviana Moretti. These names are somehow mostly common in Italian" Felix said.
"And from every country she's been in, she worked her way on deceiving everyone to get what she wants," Kagami said.
"Like she did here. But she succeeded in destroying lives there than here" Alya said.
"No social security number, no medical records, no false identities, and no criminal records," Felix said.
"Clearly security and our former principal missed all of them" Alya pointed out, "Marinette needs to know this"
Adrien made a nervous gesture that Marinette would be extremely miserable to see him undead like this. Hell, he can't even move properly or speak.
"I'm so sorry Adrien" Alya said to him.
"A word" Kagami drags the zombie to the other room, "Marinette was not herself for days because of your death. She barely talks to anyone anymore. Even if you did took the hit to save her, it still killed her mental state" She explained to him.
Adrien then sadly looks down, sacrificing his life for his love. He didn't mean to make her go through so much grieving but he couldn't let her die.
"Marinette is not Marinette without you. I tried reaching her but she prefers to be alone. If you're gonna reveal to her, you need to work on yourself. It's like you came out of a tomb" Kagami said.
Adrien nodded, feeling his heartbeat from thinking of Marinette.
x
With Gabriel, he hardly has had the urge to send any akuma, all alone in the mansion. The cataclysm has started to reach his neck.
"What have I done? First Emilie and now Adrien" Gabriel looks at their portrait.
Emilie tried so hard to convince him to stop chasing the miraculous but he never listens and because of that, Nathalie warned him that the miraculous was condemning him and her. And now he has lost everything.
"My time has come" He pulls his glove off, seeing his completely black hand.
Necrosis has no cure for it and neither is the cataclysm. If only he didn't cowardly do that to himself, he would still be alive but his madness corrupted his thinking. Instead of saving his wife with the time miraculous, he chose his obsession over her. Even if he did save his wife in the past, he would lose all the miraculous from his present timeline. Like he never got them nor ever became Monarch. And because of that, the timeline was not altered because he lost his chance. Like Nathalie said, he was the one who acted foolishly, risked everything, and lost everything because his madness makes him not think straight at all.
"And with Cat Noir missing there's no chance for the wish" He then said.