Ben looked at the floating Kwami, he was clearly holding back his emotions "what...what are you talking about Steer?" Steer looked at the notebook "he died, getting this notebook to you" Ben grabbed Steer "what...happened?" Steer floated out of Ben's grip and felt the notebook "Bunnix sent him on a mission to gather intel on Chronoa and her new host" Ben felt his eyes welling up but shook his head to try and stop but the tears came "why did Bunnix send him? He's not a hero anymore!" Steer responded "he volunteered...and he wouldn't take no for an answer" Ben paced his room, tears streamed down his face "Adrien..." Ben grabbed the notebook and was prepared to open it but stopped short and put it down "where is Bunnix now?" Steer responded "I think its safe to say she's dead aswell" Ben looked at the notebook, he then stormed out of the room and leaned on the countertop of the kitchen, he sniffled with the Kwamis approaching him "Ben...it's okay" Ben responded "no, it's not okay, he's gone, and I wasn't there to save him, like he's done for me so many times!" Sturnn stayed silent while Prowwl hugged Ben's shoulder "there was so much I wanted to say to him, to ask him" Ben finally calmed himself and leaned back onto the counter rubbing his eyes "I wanted to repay him for saving me all of those times, now I won't be able to do that" Ben began to cry again and he just let himself cry "I wanted to tell him that he doesn't need to worry about me anymore, but the last thing he did was save me again!" Ben got off the counter and just stood there before finally returning to his room and grabbing the notebook, he still hesitated to open it.

Ben opened the door to his balcony and leaned against it holding the notebook "Ben...open the book" Steer said with Ben examining it "I think I'm scared, to open this is to read Adrien's last words, this is concrete proof that he's gone and I don't want it to be that way" Sturnn grabbed the book "Ben, you may not want to believe it but it's true, opening this notebook won't change that and neither will keeping it closed but if Adrien got intel on Chronoa, we need to know" Ben grabbed the booknand nodded, he took a deep breath and opened it, he found a recipe for pound cake "what? it's recipes" Ben flipped through the pages to see notes upon notes of recipes for different foods "this can't be right, he wouldn't give me the wrong notebook would he?" Steer looked at the notebook "no, this is the only notebook he had, this has to be the one!" Ben marched into his room and yelled in frustration "dammit! Now the notebook is useless" Ben looked at a page that had artichoke dip "huh..." Ben began to remember

One Month Ago

Beowulf charged Adrien who was reading a book, Adrien then trapped Beowulf's arm in the book and twisted him causing Beowulf to spin then fall to the ground, Beowulf looked at the book he was reading, it was a book on artichoke cultivation.

Back to the Present

Ben got up "That's it! The notebook is written in code!" We need to get to the jewelry store" Ben was about to rush out of his room when he ran into his dad who had entered "oh! Hey dad...you're back" Ben's dad hugged him "welcome home son, c'mon, let's eat!" Ben followed his dad to see his mom setting up the table, she immediately stopped and rushed Ben hugging him as tight as she could "oh my baby boy!" Ben hugged her back "I'm okay mom, I promise" his mom let go of him and kissed him on the cheek "okay, well, dinner is ready" Ben sat down with his family and they ate, his dad had bought chinese food and it was delicious, Ben scarfed it down with his parents quite shocked "wow Ben, you're almost never this hungry" Ben stopped slurping noodles and made a "mhm" sound before continuing "c'mon Nancy, don't heckle him, he's growing" Ben's dad patted him on the shoulder "that's all fine and dandy Greg but he's eating like a feral animal" Ben's dad scoffed "cut him some slack, he can eat however he wants". Ben finished and headed out but his parents protested "where are you planning on going?" His dad asked with Ben responding "I just need to make a quick stop at that Jewelry Store on 5th Street" Ben's dad got up "I'll drive you" Ben smiled "sure dad".

Ben got out of the car to see it was closed "aww, sorry Ben" Ben approached the door and pulled out a key and unlocked the door "hey, where did you get a key?" Ben turned to his dad "I was gonna tell you, I'm starting a mentorship at this place for some work experience" his dad smiled "good job son, now hurry and do what you gotta do, I'll be waiting here". Ben's dad drove off and Ben entered the store, it was dark and the dust floated in the air "okay Adrien...where do you keep your books?" Ben went behind the counter and felt the backwall of jewelry until he saw a ring with an Amethyst stone in it "didn't Adrien once tell me that an Amethyst is the stone of knowledge?" Ben opened the glass case and touched the ring, it was mysteriously stuck in place, which was weird because he would've had to take it out to examine it, unless. Ben twisted the ring and a mechanism underneath it activated, the wall began to separate and an illuminated room appeared "woah, okay Adrien, let's see what you were hiding" Ben entered the room and the walls closed behind him.

Ben looked around, it was similar to a library but shrunken down, the walls were lined with pearl white and green wallpaper, a bright chandelier hung from the top, and electric sconces lined the walls, there was a desk in one corner with various supplies on it. Ben felt the hard cover of the books "okay, first let's decipher the first page, it's about Pound Cake" Ben looked at each book but saw nothing on Pound Cake "great...there has to be more" Ben let out all three Kwami and they began to search "maybe it's not about the food" Ben looked at the recipe again "huh, hey guys" the Kwami floated to him "I don't know much about cooking but...I don't think a single Pound Cake takes 25 pounds of sugar, find a book on sugar" the Kwami fanned out and Sturnn found it. Ben put the book on the desk and opened to page 25 where he saw nothing "okay Adrien, I know this isn't a dead end" Ben noticed the lamp on Adrien's desk and turned it on, the light was blue "blacklight, of course" Ben rushed over to a light switch and turned off the lights, he returned to the desk and saw that specific letters were circled in invisible ink.

Ben got to deciphering each page of the notebook, he found out that this was Adrien's personal journal, where he put his thoughts and theories, and his own thoughts and fears, Ben read a page that made him stop reading. Prowwl approached Ben "Ben? What did you find?" Ben got up from the chair and walked around the room "Adrien...he was working on a book" Prowwl read the passage, it said "my biography is coming along nicely, I think people will like the gossipy tale of a former child model who fell from grace but rose to appreciate a new form of beauty. Man, if this does well and I make it big I might have to spill the beans about me being Cat Noir, nah, maybe that secret will get buried with me, hidden in my memories in my golden casket".

Ben kept reading through the journal, an hour had passed and he was only halfway through, Ben yawned and looked at his phone "11:34, I think I've read enough for today" Ben walked over and turned on the lights, he glanced to his left and noticed something on the wall, Ben looked at it, it was a cork board that had pictures on it, Ben spotted the banner on top that said "Hero" Ben saw that they were photos and newspaper clippings of him as Beowulf fighting villains, he spotted his fight with Skorpoxus, his battle at the theatre, and the fight in downtown. Ben's gaze stopped at the one in the center which showed a picture of him training, Adrien had snuck a picture while he was in the middle of a routine. Ben smiled and walked up to the board "Adrien...don't you worry, I'm gonna find out what's going on" Ben sat back down and called his dad "hey dad, I need to stay overnight, yeah, Mr. Donovan set up a cot for me in the breakroom, don't worry I'll be safe, the breakroom is also a panic room, okay dad, bye" Ben hung up "we've got all night to decode this book" Ben got to work decoding every page.

It was around 4:30 when Ben, fatigued and heavy eyed finally got to the last ten pages where he was floored again, these last ten pages were filled with numbers "what the-another cipher?" Ben flipped through the pages and the last page was only five numbers "oh boy, we've got another one boys" Ben flipped back to a page he had read earlier "for now, let's focus on this" Ben read the page out loud "the Miraculous is in the Music" Ben kept pacing but found no books on music. Ben groaned a bit and left the secret room "I think it's time to get some shut eye" Ben went to the upstairs area of the shop and found Adrien's living space, it was modest to day the least, it had a living room right next to the kitchen which only fit the sink and stove, the couch was dark brown and looked lumpy in spots, a reclining chair sat next to it, an old CRT TV sat atop a wooden TV stand, dirty dishes were piled in the sink and there was a singular piece of carpet that could only house the small coffee table. Ben walked further in until he got to Adrien's room, it was shag carpeted and had turquoise painted walls, a singular window was the only way to the outside, Adrien's clothes were strewn about as were magazines, a model airplane hung from the ceiling and there was a bass guitar on a stand next to the bed, the bed had no coverings, only a thin blanket and a nearly empty whiskey bottle stood near the bed. Ben stretched and plopped into the recliner and looked up at the ceiling, the day was finally catching up to him and he began to cry silently, his teacher, his friend, was gone "I need him now more than ever".

Ben opened his eyes to see the ceiling of Adrien's apartment, some part of him was hoping that it was all a dream, Ben got up and went back downstairs when something caught his eye, it was a piano that was in the corner of the shop. Ben inspected piano when Steer came out "ooooh, this old thing, Adrien would play it every night, some people would come in just to listen to him play, he said he never liked playing but he was good so he kept it up, I remember one tune he would never finish" Ben sat down at the piano and Steer instructed him in playing the tune, Steer then instructed him to play the last note "Adrien would never hit the last key" Ben hit the key with no hesitation and a mechanism could be heard from inside the piano, suddenly a tray opened up underneath the piano. Ben looked to see three Miraculous Boxes and a stack of papers "woah, looks like Adrien did have a lot of secrets" Ben grabbed the Miraculoud Boxes and examined them "what Miraculous are in these?" Ben grabbed the stack of paper, it had a title on it "Agreste: The Tale of woes and wins" Ben chuckled "this is his biography" Ben opened the secret room and placed the biography on the desk where he began to think "hmmm, I wonder" Ben opened the journal and the biography where he linked the page number and word number with the numbers on the journal where it formed short sentences "She-After-Shards-Tome" Ben kept reading "Cat Blanc, Ladybug, Nathalie" Ben finished reading the last page "who's Marinette?" Ben asked with Steer answering "Marinette was a girl Adrien was friends with in Paris, he called her 'the one that got away' he said he was too late to realise his feelings" Ben thought about it "she might be able to help us in the fight to come".