"Stay still!" growled Chat, right before faceplanting into the ink.
"I swear, this like playing Whack-A-Mole," Ladybug growled, picking herself up. "It went back up the passageway!"
"On it!" Chat acknowledged, running off. But before he could get too far, Ladybug grabbed his tail, stopping him.
"Let's think on this, Kitty," she said. "This obviously isn't working."
"Well, do you have a better idea?"
"Let me think." Ladybug started pacing. "Fast reaction time," she murmured. "But kinda slow. Has a pretty tight grip, gonna have to get him to loosen-"
"Hey LB, look at this!"
Ladybug turned around to see Chat activate a lever, sending a platform plummeting to the ground. The catboy then activated another lever, raising it up.
She stared at the platform. "Are we supposed to crush it?"
"Why not? We smashed a bunch of them already."
"But they were attacking us. This one… it's just standing around."
"Well, unless you have a better idea…"
Ladybug hummed as she looked at the raised platform, then at the wall. "Sing with me," she read thoughtfully. She then smirked. "I have an idea."
-MToLaCNBatIM-
The Searcher that had once been known as Jack Fain popped out of the ink again. What did they have to keep bothering him? All he wanted to do was stay inside his nice, quiet, tun-
Where was that music coming from?
Turning to the side, he saw a small circle, swinging from a string. Now that he had noticed it, he could hear words as well.
"When evil comes,
"I find a way,
"To use my force,
"To save the day."
It was two replays later that he noticed that his valve was missing.
-MToLaCNBatIM-
"Looks like it likes Clara Nightingale," Chat said, watching the ink creature sway in time to the music.
Ladybug jumped from the hoisted pallet, handing Chat back his tail which she had used to hook the valve from the creature. "It was either her or Jagged Stone, and I didn't want to scare him away." She turned back to the creature which was still enraptured by the hanging yo-yo. "Now I feel bad that I'm going to have to take his music away."
Chat thought for moment, then he pulled his phone out of his staff. Creeping up to the creature, he turned on his music and placed it on the ground where the creature could hear it.
"Chaton…" Ladybug said.
Chat shrugged. "It's not very useful at the moment, and it's not like I can't buy another phone."
With that, they left the Searcher to his music.
-MToLaCNBatIM-
"Finally!" Ladybug cried upon seeing the door finally clear of ink. Opening it, she walked over to the switch and pulled it. "Alright, now let's get out of-Chat, what are you doing?"
"Check this out, M'Lady," Chat answered. "It's blueprints for the Ink Machine!"
Intrigued, Ladybug joined him over at the desk. "We better take these with us," she said, stuffing the papers into her yo-yo. "We can look it over for clues when we take the machine down. For now, let's get out of here."
"So what do you mean by taking the machine down?" Chat asked. "Why aren't we doing it now?"
"We are deep in enemy territory, chaton," Ladybug answered. "Plus, Master Fu would have more information on blood magic, and he would know what to do about this. Plus, we could get more Miraculous to deal with this ink-carnation."
"M'Lady! You punned!"
"Well, I suppose that your sense of humor is cat-ching."
Chat turned around, grin on his face, which he dropped and paled. "Ladybug, behind you!"
She immediately rolled forward, feeling a swish of something brushing her pigtails. She stood up in a crouch, yo-yo at ready facing what had been behind her.
It looked like a man made of ink, dressed in nothing but a pair of pants held up by suspenders and a Bendy mask covering his face. He was holding a metal dustpan in his hand.
He was also speaking. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, it's time for sleep…"
"Who are you?" Ladybug asked, tensing for a fight.
The man kept talking, ignoring Ladybug's question. "It's not often that I get visitors," he said swinging his weapon. "It makes what I am about to do seem… cruel."
"Cruel?" she echoed, not liking the implications of that.
"But the time of sacrifice is at hand!" he continued. "I must have him notice me! And then I will finally be free! Free of this inky abyss I call a body!"
"You want to sacrifice us?" Chat nearly screeched.
"Of course," the man said. "After all, the believers must honor their savior."
And then he rushed them.
The resulting fight was quite interesting to say the least. The ink man was fast, but fought as if he had a longer weapon. However, the dustpan had a sting when it connected with one of the heroes, often releasing a spray of ink to splatter on the he struck teen.
Soon though, Ladybug had enough. "LUCKY CHARM!" she called, catching the falling object. Then the masked creature was coming for her, swinging the dustpan at her face. Instinctively, she swung her summoned object at him.
The dustpan caught the lid of the black-spotted paint can, popping it off and splashing red paint all over the ink man.
"I can't see!" he cried, waving his arms everywhere, then running forward. After running into a few walls and yelling out about his lack of sight a few more times, he finally ran into a crack in the wall and vanished from sight.
The two superheroes blinked, caught off guard by the ink man's sudden reaction. "Well, that was unexpected," Chat Noir finally said.
"Think about that later, chaton," Ladybug said. "I'm on a timer now, so let's revisit that later."
The two of them hurried down the cleared hallway, following the convenient signs. However, after wading through a large puddle of ink, Ladybug's timer ran out, and she detransformed.
"Shoot," Marinette said after the light faded. "Now we've got to hurry before that ink monster finds us."
Tikki looked nervously at her, no behind her.
"It's right behind us, isn't it," Marinette said flatly.
"Yep," Tikki answered.
"Okay," Marinette said, before dropping down.
Chat's baton swung over her head, before impacting into 'Bendy's' torso, sending the ink monster flying against the wall. "Run, Mari!" he cried. "I'll hold him off!"
Marinette started running. "Eat quickly, Tikki!" she said, all but shoving the kwami into her purse.
That was when she tripped. As she landed, pain exploded in her leg causing her to cry out.
"Marinette!" cried Chat. This distraction was enough for 'Bendy' to grab him, but the large monster was unable to stop a muffled "Cataclysm" from escaping his mouth. Dark energy erupted from his hand, coming into contact with the oversized white glove.
'Bendy' screamed.
The eight teeth that covered his mouth creaked until all of them snapped, releasing a primal cry of pain. The pained monster howled again and dropped the catboy. Dark energy writhed over its body, burning away the ink. With a final cry of pain, the monster vanished into the ink minus an arm.
"Mari!" Adrien cried, dropping his transformation. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine-aw!" she hissed, trying to get up. "Okay, I'm not fine."
"You probably shouldn't put any pressure on that leg."
"Great. As if we didn't have enough to deal with, I now have a broken leg!"
Tikki popped out of Marinette's leg with a pensive look on her face. "I don't think it's broken," she said. "But Adrien's right. You probably shouldn't put any pressure on it."
Marinette grimaced. "Great," she groused. "This is just great. I'm going to be slowing us down now."
"I can carry you," Adrien offered. "At least until we can get to a safe place."
"That works," she replied. "Let's hurry before something else finds us."
"Well at least we don't have to worry about that thing anymore," Adrien said as Marinette wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
Plagg spoke up then. "It's not dead, kid. Cataclysm works by intent. You don't want to kill, so it doesn't kill. That thing is going to be in a lot of pain until it heals, or Pigtails casts her Cure."
"Still, we should keep moving," Tikki said worryingly. "We don't know what else is in here."
Adrien heeded her advice and started forward, the two kwamis keeping an eye out. Finally, they came to a storage space, which Plagg opened so that the two humans could slip inside.
"I need to rest," Adrien panted, placing Marinette on the floor.
Marinette almost replied, then she paused before a spark of mischief enter her eye. "Are you saying I'm fat, chaton?" she asked teasingly.
Adrien's face turned red. "N-no!" he stuttered, caught off guard. "What-what I meant to say was-"
But what he meant to say was left unsaid, because just then a can of bacon soup rolled out from behind the corner, causing the two teens to tense.
"Anyone back there?" Adrien called. "Because we've got a Plagg, and we're not afraid to use him."
"Hey!" the floating black cat protested.
A beat, and then out from behind the corner walked out…
"Boris?"
…
…
Chapter 2 is complete.
Bendy will return…