Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir:

Stranger in Town, Chapter 22

The Fire, Part 1

….

Kagami keeps getting surprise after surprise from her creature and Damien's crew. But a great danger has come to Paris, to Earth, in general, and there is no guarantee any of them will survive.

Indeed, they probably won't.

….

I don't own, etc.

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Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir: The Fire, Part 1

The fire was out of control, but it had been out of control since before the Fire Department had arrived. It was only getting worse.

Nothing worked. None of the fire-retardant chemicals normally employed had any effect on the strangely coloured flame. Even simple water, trucked in at special (and increasingly desperate) request was of no use.

The captain conferred with his men at the designated area supposed to be safely beyond the perimeter of the flame, although they'd all seen indication that nowhere was really safe from this fire. What was that strange colour it had? What was it feeding on? What could it be feeding on? There was nothing flammable left.

The captain had to shout to make himself heard over the dragon's roar of the fire. Whatever had happened here, had only affected this small collection of hamlets far outside the city of Paris. Weirdly enough, it didn't seem interested in spreading to the surrounding underbrush. Just the houses. Why was that? But thank God for that, he thought. He could only imagine the havoc it could unleash if it spread to the city, with them unable to stop it.

But he realized his terror-fogged imagination might yet come true. "What've you got?" he shouted over the flame's roar.

"Nothing, Cap!" his adjunct shouted back. "There don't seem to be any survivors, and no tracks leading away! I, I think it got 'em all!"

"Shit. Maybe all we'll be able to do is retrieve what's left of any bodies…their families will wanna give 'em a decent burial-what, what is it?!" His lieutenant was gesturing frantically.

"Sir, there aren't any bodies! We checked, as best we could! I…" he hesitated; his superior did not interrupt him, sensing what he was about to say was important, "I saw a baby carriage in one of the houses! It looked like I could get to it…Captain, it was empty! I mean, it was still rocking, like the baby was in it, but it was empty. No body, no body parts, even, nothing…and the bedding wasn't even singed! Cap, what could do tha-*!"

"Shuddup! You're getting hysterical!" He thought fast. "The baby had never been in there! Somebody must'a got it out… What you saw was the wind rocking the cradle, or, or convection currents from the fire!" He grasped the other man's arm. "It had to be!" The other man gulped and nodded, but…

…was clearly unconvinced.

Both of them, along with the rest of the fire control team ("Ha!" the thought went through the Captain mind, somewhere in back of his brain, "we ain't controllin' shit!") stood back behind the perimeter and just stared. There was nothing more they could do. They'd long exhausted their supply of extinguishing materials, to no effect whatsoever.

"We gotta cut a firewall around this thing! Make sure it doesn't reach the city! If it does…you say there's no survivors? Okay! Le's do it-*" Then his mouth fell open as something, something so much the same color as the fire trucks that his peripheral vision had at first discounted it, thinking it was another truck, arrived. Flowing with the speed of a garden lizard, it was just, all of a sudden, there, in their midst.

A dinosaur?

….

Kagami's creature's jaws closed around her, gently enough, but enclosing every part of her. "What! Let me out! Yuijin!" But she could tell, from feel alone (which, in the monster's dark maw, was the only sensation she had), that it had turned and suddenly accelerated towards-*

Crash! There; that must have been the monster's impact with one of the walls of its containment area. Judging from what she could feel, it had smashed through the wall and was continuing its headlong rush into the outside.

How was she breathing? The creature's mouth, while large, wasn't large enough to accommodate this much air. Oh, right: she saw a slightly brighter lighted area curving around the mouth. It must have cracked its jaws open just enough to allow air in. Strangely, the inside of the creature's mouth was not wet or slimy, as she would have thought it should be, but seemed perfectly dry. She was sitting on (holding on, more accurately) to a somewhat softer area in the mouth. This must be the creature's tongue. She wrapped her arms and legs around it to be kept from being violently jostled. It was obviously taking her somewhere, and rather than pick her up in its arms, as it had in Hell, had decided this must be the better option, possibly because it had to go through a wall in the process. So it had put her in its own inbuilt "cockpit" for added protection. "But," she shouted, from within the monster's mouth, "when we get to wherever it is we're going, you and I are going to have such a talk!" A small, pitiable moan emanated from the back of the creature's throat.

After what seemed like a long time, but was probably only a few minutes, the creature stopped, and opened its jaws for her to get out. Kagami rolled out, thankful that the thing apparently had no saliva. This was her favorite outfit; getting it, not to mention herself, covered in monster spit wasn't the sort of thing she really craved to do right then.

It had brought her to a hill overlooking the lights of the city. Ignoring her commands that it sit down and face her, it kept circling around and around her, always casting a nervous glance back at the city. Finally, it stopped its perambulations, and settled down, curling around her, putting itself between her and anything to be seen of the city. She had seen it exhibit this sort of behavior down in Hell, as a protective measure, when it thought her to be in danger. But what-*

Then another thought occurred to her. "Mother!" She clasped her hands to either side of her face. "She'll be hysterical! I've got to call her-" But at the mention of her mother, the creature's head flipped around. "Okasama?" And suddenly, it was gone, moving with the speed of a lightning bolt, slipping through the vegetation like water through a sieve.

"We're still going to have that talk!" Kagami shouted after it. There was not one shred of doubt in her mind who the creature would soon be bringing back.

Sure enough, in a ridiculously small amount of time, it crashed back through the underbrush and deposited another form by a crosslegged Kagami: Tomoe Tsurugi, still in her nightclothes.

Her mother was sobbing. Kagami stared; she hadn't even known her mother knew how to cry. "Kagami," the older woman sobbed, "I'm sorry. I wasn't strong enough…"

Oh, so that was it. Kagami got down on her knees and helped her mother up. "I'm not dead, mother, and neither are you. Yuijin, here, apparently decided we were in danger, and so, well, transported us, in his own way, out to…well, wherever we are."

Her mother regained her composure. "Oh? And just where are we?" She didn't have her VR glasses. "And, Yuijin? You named it, 'Friend'?"

"I prefer to think of it that way. As for where we are, I'm not completely sure. Some hillside outside of Paris. Yuijin keeps circling around and around us, glancing back downhill. I think something about the city, or perhaps in the city, must have scared it."

"Scared it? Scared that thing? What could possibly scare your, er, Friend?"

"I've no idea." She turned her attention back to the creature, which was continuing to circle round and round them, glancing, every so often, back down the hillside towards the city. "Yuijin! Settle down! This isn't helping!" She turned her attention to her phone, which was, miraculously, undamaged, and which, even more miraculously, she'd decided to take with her down to the creature's lair when she'd gotten up during the night. Wish I had Ladybug's phone number.

Then she stopped. I do have Damien's. And…whatever was happening was enough to scare a creature like Yuijin, who, himself, came from Hell… "Mother, I'm calling Damien." Her creature shifted its gaze from Kagami back to Tomoe, then back to Kagami.

She could literally feel her mother stiffen, there in the dark. "I thought you said he was injured."

"He is. I'm presuming his sister will answer." Or maybe she won't. She doesn't seem to like me very much, I don't know why.

The sister in question did think, long and hard, about not answering the call. She was strongly tempted to punch the "block" button; Damien had enough problems right now. But…the girl was a friend of Damien's…maybe a friend he didn't need, but… Oh, well. "Yes?"

"Deanna, this is Kagami. I heard that Damien was…not well, so I was actually hoping to reach you. We-my mother and I-seem to have a bit of a situation here, and need your advice." The whole time, Yuijin had been eyeing the phone, then casting his gaze back down to Paris, then back to the phone. "I was hoping you could-whoop!"

"Kagami?"

"Hold onto his tongue, Mother! Ah, Deanna, it seems we've secured another ride, though not exactly one of our choosing." Her voice echoed strangely, as though coming from the inside of an enclosed space. "But would you mind going to the window? I've a strong hunch that, by the time you do, my mother and I will both be just outside."

….

True to Kagami's guesstimation, Deanna had no sooner gone to the window (all the time wondering what the crazy human girl was yammering about this time) when she saw Yuijin's mammoth snout pressed up against the glass. The only reason the window hadn't broken was due to the reinforcing spells. What th' Home? She opened the window, and the creature's huge head poked its way into the living room. It opened its mouth. "Bleagh!" And it deposited Kagami and her mother unceremoniously onto the shag carpet. Deanna just shook her head, hands on her hips. Well, if that's the worst it's gonna do on the carpet, I suppose I can live with it. She held her nose. Have to get out the industrial strength air freshener, though. Trying to at least be civil, she put her fists on her hips and said, "Well, this is a bit of a change from that auto-driving, er, auto of yours."

"Believe me, it wasn't our choice," Kagami said, getting to her feet and helping her mother stand. The elder Tsurugi, while her heightened senses were superb, nonetheless had been shaken up, quite literally, by their wild ride. Kagami turned to the still-open window. "Yuijin! We are definitely going to have that talk-*"

But the window was empty, and there was no sign of Yuijin.

….

The burning hamlets: The fire captain had thought he'd seen everything, but what he now saw expanded that envelope by quite a bit.

The hulking creature, seemingly made of red rock, leaped out of the undergrowth and wriggled its way past the perimeter, into the "danger" zone. He started to call out to it, to warn it, but it was a friggin' dinosaur, fa God's sake!

With incredible speed for something so large, it nosed around several of the burning hamlets, avoiding the worst areas of the strangely coloured flame (but it looked to be made of rock! What kind of rock needs to fear fire? Yet…the brick and mortar of the little houses was burning…how could that be?). It avoided the areas of most intense flame, seemingly looking for something.

At last, at one of the houses on the edge of the conflagration, it seemed to find what it sought. It lay almost flat on its belly, thrusting its snout experimentally into the burning edifice. Once, twice, three times…then it shoved its massive head into the very heart of the weird looking flame, its jaws open as though to grab some tender morsel within. It must have acquired its goal, because it swiftly pulled out, switched ends, and disappeared into the nearby forest.

Hallucinations, thought the captain, as did the others with him. Too much stress, I-* And his very thoughts stopped in amazement.

Because the fire, the strangely-coloured flame that they had been unable to make even so much as a dent in, was dying down. In mere seconds, there was no sign of it. There wasn't even any residual heat. There was nothing.

Except for the ashes of the little township.

….

Damien's and Deanna's apartment: Kagami's creature, Yuijin, reappeared at the window. Now what?-thought Deanna. She'd barely had time to see to her unexpected and entirely unwanted guests when the monster again poked that massive head into her living room. "Bleagh!" Only this time, instead of it disgorging people, it disgorged a great deal of what looked like blackened rock and soot onto the floor. "Yuijin!" said Kagami, horrified. "What have you done?"

Spoke too soon about it doing no worse on the carpet, thought Deanna. Then her senses noticed something. "Wait. I think I sense something…" She knelt down and fished around in the dirt and soot…

Suddenly, from out of the ashes, an orange and white blur leaped forth. A small cat leaped upon a nearby shelf, scrunched back as far against the wall as it could, and crouched there, its hair standing on end, hissing and yowling at the assembled group on the floor.

"I'm beginning to see," mused Deanna.

"Well, I wish you'd tell me," said Kagami, "I don't see. He brought you a cat? Why?"

Deanna stood on a chair and reached for the hissing feline. "Come here, little one." She spoke to Kagami over her shoulder. "Not a cat." Amazingly, as soon as she got close to the scared little animal, rather than getting more scared, it seemed to calm down, settling down in her arms, beginning to purr. "Or, rather, not just a cat.

"He brought me a survivor. And, maybe…a witness, too?"