He broke into a sprint, hoofing it down the street with just a yellow blur at the edge of his vision guiding him. Fortunately for him, the sentimonster had abandoned any notion of subtlety, leaving a trail of destroyed shopping carts, confused people and cracked pavement in her wake.
At the tail end of the street, she dived into an alleyway, Adrien turning the corner just to watch her use a dumpster to launch herself up to the rooftops. Adrien took one glance behind him, noting all eyes being on the confused passers by trying to tell their story in the street, before throwing himself at the wall. Kicking off the surface, he jumped between the two sides of the alleyway, ascending higher each time.
"Plagg! Claws out!" He called out mid-jump, Chat Noir's power surging through him and carrying him high enough to grab the edge of the roof.
As he pulled himself up, he brandished his baton with one hand, calling into the communicator at the top. "This is Chat to Team Miraculous; we have a sentimonster on the loose. She's pretending to be Zoe Bourgeois!"
It wasn't long until he heard Carapace touch down behind him, still nursing the bruised throat. "Hey, funny meeting you here, Puss." He huffed, "I take it you already know what we're chasing?"
Chat gestures him to follow, resuming their sprint across the rooftops, spotting Not!Zoe only a few buildings ahead. Her route there was evident in the broken remains of everything she'd come into contact with – smashed chimneys, scuffed roof tiles and scattered brickwork. She may have been fast and tough, but she didn't seem that well-coordinated.
"A sentimonster pretending to be Zoe, I know." He called back, stabbing his baton into the ground and extending it to launch himself across the next gap, the concrete jungle unravelling below. "I was in the neighbourhood, sleeping on someone's car; saw the whole thing go down."
Carapace followed suit, running up the wall stretching over the gap instead of making the jump himself. "Ah, good. Never was any good at exposition." There was an extra, quiet, wheeze to every word – this was the absolute worst time for breathing problems.
All the more reason to end this quick and end it hard. If they let this play out too long, the sentimonster could escape, or worse, Hawkmoth 2.0 could decide that it's too much hassle and snap her away. In either case, their only lead on the real Zoe – if she was even alive was a question Chat wasn't willing to entertain – would be gone.
"So, what, you're just going to blindly charge the enemy again?" Ladybug's voice scoffed in his ear. "How'd that turn out last time?"
That was different. He argued back, Disruptor surprised me.
"And she can't?" He imagined his perception of her would be more aggressive, more insulting, that it would hit him over the head with his doubts and fears. Like his own mental voice was.
But his lady's voice was one of familiar concern wafting a light warmth over his ears. Perhaps even his insecurities couldn't stain Marinette's memory. So, he listened.
"You know even less about her than Disruptor." He could imagine her crossing her arms, pouting. "She has no regard to anything that gets in her way, and Tikki is all the way back at your house. Any damage she inflicts is sticking around."
"I'm not saying to stop chasing her, but you need to think about more than getting to her. Assess the situation, Chaton."
I don't know if I can. I'm not as smart as you.
"You've always been smart, Kitty. You just need to apply yourself."
The jump over the next gap seemed to stretch on for minutes, leaving Chat frozen in mid-air, Senti-Zoe caught ducking through a balcony, and Carapace lagging a few feet behind him. Chat took a breath, steadying his heart and his mind. By the time he reached the ground, he needed a plan.
Adrien walked around Chat, his eyes closed and fingers busying themselves tapping his forehead. "What do we know?" He asked.
They know that Zoe is a sentimonster. That meant she had a potential power they needed to look out for.
They know that this wasn't a planned attack. She's fleeing because she was exposed, meaning there's a high chance that Hawkmoth 2.0 isn't anywhere near to interfere. Hell, if Chloe didn't tell anybody, there's a good chance the crowd Zoe barged through were too confused to even realize she wasn't human. If they keep the fight from spilling out into the streets, Hawkmoth 2.0 might not even be alerted.
They know she's scared and clumsy. Rooftops and alleyways put her at a disadvantage. If they could corner her somewhere confined, somewhere she could be trapped, they'd have an easier time fighting her.
They know they have a team member who's particularly good at trapping people.
Adrien disappeared just as Chat Noir hit the ground rolling, turning his body at the arc of his spin to skid to a halt at crouching level. "I have a plan."
"Her agility is enhanced, but her reflexes are shot." He held up his baton to gesture for Carapace to stop, a new, confident smile lifting his features. "I'm gonna get a bird's eye view, try to see if we can herd her. In the meantime, I need you on the ground cutting off exits. As long as she's in this district, we have the advantage."
"For now, we're not directly engaging her if we don't have to. This is a senti we're dealing with here, we don't know what sort of abilities she could have in her back pocket." He spoke fast, easily stumbling over words, but Carapace seemed to understand fine. Neither Chat Noir, nor Adrien, had ever spoken with authority before. "Use your barrier to stop her from getting too close."
"Got it!" Carapace gave a mock salute before diving past Chat, quickly being swallowed by the dark shade of the alleyway.
For the next few minutes, the two followed the plan to the letter. Chat launched himself high above the sweeping view of rooftops sloping into each other, giving himself the best view of the battlefield, and allowing him to glide just ahead of Senti-Zoe.
Carapace prowled through the depths of the ground level, piling up junk to block every entrance he came across and always in the way when she tried to double back. Whether up high or down below, Zoe was headed off by the duo, forced to dive between the thin amount of usable ground that lay in between them.
Slowly, according to the map in Chat's head at least, Zoe's area of opportunity was shrinking. Everything behind her had Carapace erecting make-shift blockades that would leave her vulnerable trying to break through, and any attempt to get a clearer view of her surroundings would get Chat Noir smacking her down, there was only the way forward; and forward was starting to converge on King Co's Shipping Warehouses.
Chat settled on a sign hanging by the area's entrance at the edge of their little maze, his eyes sweeping over the thankfully empty-looking area. I'm sure Bertrand King wouldn't mind us commandeering one of his warehouses for official hero business.
"You got eyes on our runaway, Puss?" Carapace huffs in Chat's ear, the speaker picking up the sound of Carapace's boots scraping against the ground as he dropped down to pick his shield back up. "Just saw her going up to you."
As if summoned, a yellow blur zipped across Chat's field of vision, diving into a window just across from Chat's position, overlooking the warehouses. Probably some sort of manager's office.
Chat took the slow approach this time, hopping off his perch and crawling between pipes and windows to reach the other side. The closer he got, the clearer the view inside became. It looked like Senti-Zoe had settled in behind the manager's desk, just her hair poking out of the edge.
With any luck, she'd tired herself out and believed she'd managed to shake Chat off enough to rest. The perfect opportunity to strike.
"I'm on her tail, make your way west; I think she's heading to-"
In an instant, the window exploded, showering Chat in razor sharp glass shards. Just before Vesperia's body, wrapped in crackling gold energy, slammed into Chat at unfathomable speeds and force – Chat Noir realised that he had no such luck.
"Look what the Cat dragged in."
Chat didn't have time to register his journey to the ground. It was like two frames of animation: one with him up high and the next slouched in a cat shaped hole, sharpened rubble digging into his back.
He quickly pushed himself to his feet. His body groaned in protest, but he didn't have time to dwell on every new way he was aching right now. Instead, he focused on the girl dropping down right in front of him, the outline of a stripped spinning top superimposed over her right arm.
His eyes weren't mistaken before, it really was Vesperia. And he didn't think there was a good chance that the Sentimonster was just a miraculous power mimic. "Oh great, now everything's buzzing."
Senti-Zoe didn't give him any more time to breathe, lunging forward with enough force to close the distance in seconds. It was only Plagg's feline instincts that allowed Chat to react in time, the stinger of 'subjugation' coming within a hair's width of his head as he ducked under it.
As he scrambled away, Senti-Zoe giving chase and swinging wildly, Chat fumbled for his communicator "It's… She's Vesperia!"
"She can shapeshift?" Carapace asked.
Another near miss. This time Senti-Zoe was most certainly going for an impalement, her stinger cutting through the air where Chat Noir had been a second prior and spearing through the solid concrete, breaking it apart like it was a cracked egg shell.
"No, she's using the Bee Miraculous."
"That can't be right." Carapace mused, his casual demeanour in annoyingly stark contrast to Chat Noir's rasping grunts of effort as he danced around each of Senti-Zoe's swings. "Sentimonsters can't use a miraculous!"
He caught the end of her attack with his baton, tucking his staff under her forearm and batting it away. Before she could fall into her next attempt, he turned the baton flat – it's base pressed against her chest – before extending it as far as he could, smashing her into the nearest wall.
"The bumble bee trying to turn me into a pin cushion would disagree!" He hissed into the communicator.
Despite her form being obscured by a thick plunge of dust, Chat tried to keep her pinned there, thrusting the pole forward with his palm, relying only on the vibrations of her fidgeting to adjust it. So, when his pole suddenly went slack, he knew to brace for impact.
She seemed to materialize right beside him, parting the dust with one wave of her hand, letting him see clearly how little room he had to work with. She was up in his face, and she bore a grin that destroyed any remaining notion that she was human – lips peeling back, like fishhooks tugging on the corners, to reveal purple gums and an empty void where her throat should be.
"Venom!" She called out, summoning the fierce, paralyzing power to the tip of her stinger and thrusting it outward.
Chat stumbled back, hitting the ground before he could even register the fall. There was no room to dodge, at best Chat could change where she'd hit him.
Fortunately, he didn't need to.
"Cowabunga!" The battle cry washed over Chat like the most electrifying guitar riff, knocking Senti-Zoe off balance with it's sheer suddenness and locking the fearful sentimonster in place. Only for a moment, but a moment was all that was needed.
Carapace's shield cut through the air, an emerald knife splitting the sky in two and burying itself in Senti-Zoe's stinger. She was knocked aside, the spinning top clattering to the ground, a deep gash in her arm ripped open and the shield bouncing back at just the right angle for it's owner to catch it just as he landed.
There was no time to waste, a surge of adrenaline launching Chat Noir to his feet, slamming his heel into the ground to anchor him before shooting his shoulder forward and breaking his knuckles across Senti-Zoe's jaw.
As if her day couldn't get any worse, Carapace pushed down on Chat's shoulder, throwing himself over the hero in a display that was for pure style alone, spinning his body until his own heel connected with Senti-Zoe's head.
Senti-Zoe's body stumbled back, gripping her wounded face and screaming bloody murder into her hands. Chat had never seen a sentimonster bleed before, but he always assumed they had something inside their bodies, especially the more humanoid ones. But, looking at Zoe in her wounded state, it was clear that their bodies only went skin deep. Behind it? Through the open wound on her forearm, there was no muscle tissue, there was no blood, no bone; just blackness.
"Holy crap, I can't believe that worked." Carapace spat out halfway between coughing and laughing.
Chat grinned, patting Carapace on the shoulder. "Nice save, Mikey."
Carapace's smile fell as he observed the same wounds Chat did, grimacing. "Somehow that's more uncomfortable than gore."
"Y-You can't do this to me!" She snapped at them, snatching the spinning top off the ground. "I'm real, damn it!"
Chat didn't miss how Carapace's gaze finally settled on that spinning top, the Bee miraculous' weapon. He couldn't help but ask "Believe me now?"
Though the obvious resemblance didn't last for long. Senti-Zoe dug her nails into her head. At first, Chat just assumed it to be her trying to numb the pain, but no, she was breaking the skin, digging deep enough to peel it back. The emptiness inside, coupled with the sharp wheezing sound that escaped each new hole made in her skin, made it all akin to a balloon being punctured, only her body wasn't deflating; it was growing.
The purple undersides rose to the surface, human skin mixing with the purple until it became a peacock blue. Her pupils grew and grew until they completely overtook her eyes. Bones snapped into different positions, growing out her arms, thinning her fingers, stiffening her hair. By the end of it, she looked more a toy you'd find in a child's chest, with it's features smudged by paint and joints separated into segments.
Well, if you've already been exposed as inhuman, you might as well go all out…
"Lady," Chat muttered, "You got real ugly, real fast."
"No sense in holding back anymore, right?" The new creature spat out mockingly, flexing her fingers. "You can call me 'Accelerator' now, 'cus I can promise you that this will be over quickly."
A swear passed under Carapace's breath as the two raised their respective weapons. "How long did we have a senti on our team?"
That was a question that seemed so obvious to ask, but hadn't even entered Chat's mind. This wasn't just some random civilian, this was one of them; a sentimonster had managed to infiltrate their group without even a hint of suspicion.
The signs seemed more prominent in hindsight, how Vesperia had seemed so affected by Disruptor's fate. He might have been her comrade if Chat thought sentimonsters were capable of having such connections. She must have been realizing how easily Hawkmoth 2.0 could do that to her.
How long had she been with them? How many times had she stood beside them, laughed with them, all while planning how best to help the next akuma dispose of them? Did she know how they were going to kill Marinette in advance? Was she there that day?
No. No… She wasn't there the day of Marinette's death, was she?
"The day of Defect's attack, Vesperia came to help, but never made it to the fight." Chat spat out through gritted teeth. Judging by how Accelerator's folded lips curved into that sinister grin again, he didn't have to wait long for confirmation of his theory. They'd been so focused on everything else that day that Vesperia disappearing during the battle never even crossed their mind.
"We… We let her get snatched?" Carapace's shoulders fell limp, the revelation overpowering his survival instincts. For a moment, it looked like he was ready to fall down. Chat couldn't blame him – they'd failed Zoe.
Still, Chat gently placed his palm against Carapace's shoulder, supporting him with a slow nod. "We can dwell later, right now we need to keep her contained."
Carapace let out a heavy sigh. Steadying himself, he started rasping his knuckles against his shield, hyping himself back up again. "How are we gonna do that?"
Chat gestured his baton towards the building that towered over them, the docking bay for trucks wide open and right behind Accelerator. "We'll knock her into that warehouse. Only has two entrances. We block her in, we force her to face us head on."
Carapace nodded. The two exchanged a supportive fist bump. Chat sank into a low crouch. Carapace held his shield up, tightening the arm strap as he did. Accelerator stared them down, only her uneven breath betraying the panic she was hiding.
Chat dropped down, roaring out 'Cataclysm!' with such ferocity it felt like it ripped his vocal cords apart. He dug his destruction-powered claws into the ground, the cataclysm taking immediate effect and shattering the stone foundation around them.
Accelerator had no time to react before the ground beneath her feet broke apart, sweeping her legs out from under her and sending her stumbling forward.
Right into Carapace's shield as he tackled her, catching her by the midsection so he could fall back on his knees and hoist her disorientated body up over his shield and shoulders and continue his charge.
With more strength than Nino probably ever thought he had, Carapace easily played the role of a rugby super star, carrying his human-sized ball across the length of the courtyard and dunking her through the warehouse doors for his victory lap.
Neither of the two stayed to watch her smash through the unpacked crates scattered around the inside. Carapace kept his pace up, rushing to the other side of the room while Chat slid inside. At almost the same time, they hit their respective buttons and brought the shutters down before ripping out the door panels. The only way out was through them now.
Accelerator didn't seem to see it the same way, standing tall at a lopsided angle, her expression unchanged. She chuckled, though her chuckle sounded more like a cough. "Trapping me in here with you bozos isn't gonna help you."
The golden electricity that had shoulder checked Chat into the ground mere minutes ago charged up once more, lashing out at her form, replacing the black pools of her eyes with a bright spark. "Chrysalis may have designed me in the image of that Zoe girl, but I still have a power to call upon."
Not keen to see history repeat itself, Chat lunged forward with his baton, extending it to full length and sweeping it across the length of the room in one swing. "Got her!" But his only victim was a stack of crates and a forklift.
Her form fluctuated, as if it were a projection dancing on smoke, and shot her upwards in one blinding flash of light a split second before his baton could connect.
"Oops, try again, little kitty!"
Chat only had enough time to snap his head up to watch before her energy sparked a second time, allowing her to kick off the air like it was a solid wall and drop into a crash course.
Chat and Carapace split apart, desperately throwing themselves in opposite directions just as Accelerator slammed into the floor between them. Even if they narrowly dodged the brunt of the attack, the shockwave that escaped her crash landing was more than enough force to smack them across the room.
"So, she has super speed and a stun button?" Carapace heaved into the communicator.
"This is taking 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' to a whole new level." Chat, whose voice could only be described as gargling concrete in that moment, hissed back between coughs.
Using his baton as a brace, he urged himself back up, just in time to spot Accelerator turning to Carapace at the other end of the room. Within the time it took her to let out an ear-piercing cackle the golden blur charged into Carapace, only forced back by a timely use of his shield. But even with his shield, Chat could see the effort it took just to keep her back seep through Carapace's grimace.
"Oh, come on. You were all talking such a big game earlier!" She hissed, and by that Chat meant that he could practically hear a snake-like lisp on the end there, as well as swearing he could see her tongue stretch just an inch too far. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that the turtle is hiding in his shell and the cat's turning tail."
Carapace tried to take this moment, banking on her focus being on her insults, to lunge forward swipe at her with his shield. She jumped back, spinning around to bruise his nose with her spinning top, without even breaking her cruel laugh. "I was so caught up in panic mode. I've never had to spread my wings since my birth, you know? I didn't know what I was really capable of. Not really. Had to keep my cover strong, so I only knew about it on paper."
Instead of going for Carapace a second time, she doubled back, zipping towards Chat. She didn't reach Chat, in fact, she only moved a couple of meters closer. But at her speed, it allowed her sudden stop to be enough for her kick to slice through the air with a powerful shockwave, nailing Chat in the stomach without even touching him.
"But now that you pushed me to it, I realize just how good I have it." Another burst and she was out of sight, disappearing into the upper levels of the warehouse – now a predator on her perch, snarling down at her trapped prey. "This is how much damage I can do to you with your miraculous protection. Just imagine what's gonna happen when you blow through all your energy reserves and become a regular, weak, boring old human again."
Her laugh only became more irritating, more painful the longer she went on, now backed up by the acoustics of the wide empty space. "When I present Chrysalis with your bloody corpses, I'm sure she'll forget about me failing my mission."
Chat caught the important word this time. Chrysalis, so that's what she's going by, huh?
In reality, what the new Hawkmoth called herself was a meaningless tidbit. But with his plan going to hell and his lungs screaming for mercy, Chat was eager to welcome anything that he could grasp as progress.
If Ladybug were here, she'd pat him on the back and say, "The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack, remember?" but that didn't make the situation any better.
Carapace soon managed to scramble over to Chat, the two instinctively huddled together, back-to-back, as they wearily watched the rafters for any sign of the next attack.
"Great, now she's boxing us in." Chat spat through gritted teeth, "We can't split, otherwise she'll have a clean shot. And we ain't fast enough to touch her."
Suddenly, Carapace reached back, forming a tight grip on Chat's shoulder. In that moment, Adrien remembered Nino's face, recalling an uncharacteristically hardened expression taking over his best friend's eyes. A sense of raw determination, and assurance, that Nino only ever let show when Adrien needed to know that there was nothing to worry about.
"But she isn't good enough to hit us." He said simply, as if it were the most obvious answer in the universe.
Adrien appreciated the attempt, but Chat was starting to think Accelerator hit Carapace harder than he thought. "No offense, Bro, but Flash powers guarantee a hit even if she's bad at aiming."
Nino fully broke through the Carapace mask to scoff, the comic guru raging against Chat Noir's blatant disrespect of the source material. "Nah, this ain't Flash powers. The Flash is fast, she isn't – only her body is."
Carapace paused. Letting the 'knowledge' sink in without any further explanation.
Chat rolled his eyes, "Not seeing the difference there."
There was quiet, wet thwacking sound as Nino's tongue beat against the inside of his cheeks. Oh, Chat had really fanned the comic book guru flames now. "Flash doesn't just run fast, he thinks fast."
He said it so confidently, with such unwavering importance given to each word, as if he were dispensing some long lost wisdom and not speedster trivia. "Her body is moving faster than her brain. That's why she's almost always charging us straight, she can't control herself or steer. When she starts going, she has to commit."
Adrien was smugly telling Chat that he never should try to step up to Nino when it came to comic book knowledge.
"So, we can't beat her speed…" It took a moment, but the point, their key advantage here, finally sunk in. "But we don't need to."
The plan hadn't changed, only the scope. She was still clumsy and uncoordinated, but the warehouse gave her enough of a wide berth that missing her target didn't carry any risk. If they forced her into a position where the path to them wasn't as straightforward, if they kept the pressure on, it'd only be a matter of time before she tripped over herself at insane speeds.
They needed things to get in her way, but where could they get that? Looking around the warehouse there was nothing usable. Everything was either weak enough for her to smash through, or too large for the two to have any hope of moving them into position before she came down on them.
"You're so close to the solution I know it." Ladybug whispered, "You have everything you need right now, you just need to change how you think about the tools you have at your disposal."
She was right. He could feel it deep in his core, maybe in some latent foresight left by his last use of Tikki, but he knew he had what he needed to end this.
Something nagged in the back of his head. Something Su-Han had said during their meeting. Adrien had been looking over the image of a Cat Miraculous wielder that was seemingly using the power of destruction to heal. Su-Han had explain that their powers were only as simple as the wielder made them.
Chat snapped his fingers as the pieces fell into place, his ferocious grin returning in full force as he rounded on Carapace. "How flexible is your shelter?"
Carapace stood there blinking for a moment, the realization probably dawning on him that he'd never really thought much about his power past making a big dome. "Uh, I don't know? I've been experimenting with it, but there's only so much you can do with 'make a dome', you know?"
"Could you make multiple little ones? Like a field of little shields."
"Maybe? I've never tried before." Another pause. Then Carapace too understood, his face lighting up. "Oh, I get it. We're gonna take away her dodging room."
The only thing that had consistently been able to stop her, even while she was charging, was Carapace's shield and shelter. And now they were going to be the only thing she was gonna hit.
The two boys jumped at attention when they heard the clatter of her arrival, watching her crash down from the ceiling carrying a pensive sneer. She was still confident in her abilities, of course, but Chat could tell that she knew something had changed. Something had given them hope, and that was a reason to sweat.
"I don't know what you're up to," She spat. "But I'm gonna end it right here! Get ready to be torn into ribbons, Bozos."
She crouched down into a starting position, her heel pressed flat against the support beam behind her. She was locked in and ready to kick off into the final, decisive charge.
"It's now or never." Chat called back to Carapace.
Carapace sucked in his breath, drawing his lungs so tight his expression was that of sucking on a lemon. Fresh sweat trickled down his brow, forged from the sudden pressure that had just been thrusted upon him in the heat of the moment. Chat could see all the questions pass through his eyes, the frustration, the effort, just trying to picture how his power manifested, and how it could split.
"Shelter…" It began quietly, a weak cry overpowered by his laborious breath. A green spark struck Carapace's shield, but nothing else.
A loud crunch signalled Accelerator kicking off the beam, launching herself forward with the force of a missile.
"Sheeeelter…" He repeated again, steadying his voice, crouching down to balance his posture. Standing his ground, against Accelerator, and against himself.
The ground shook as she passed over it, stray energy lashing out as lightning bolts to rip apart small sections of the floor.
"Shelter!" He threw his shield skyward, swinging his entire body to follow it as his cry bellowed across the world. "Shelter Barrage!"
Accelerator arrived, mere meters from Chat, just in time to witness a beam of light explode out of Carapace's shield. The beam burst forth like an erupting geyser, splitting apart once it hit its apex just below the ceiling, and all those little emerald shards raining down on the battlefield, each impact leaving behind a small glowing dome in their place.
Just like Nino said, there was no course correcting for Accelerator, her knee snapping upon impact with the dome so conveniently placed in front of Chat. The force of the blow multiplied by the speed of her entry echoed through the rest of her body, bring her down in a crumple heap on Chat.
Chat Noir readied his baton like a baseball batter readying their record setting swing. It was a simple, forceful, push down his arm as he stepped forward into the swing, putting the rest of his body behind it. The bottom smacked her upside the head with a satisfying, painful crack, that carried her body upwards and dunking her into the next barrier.
For the next thirty seconds, Accelerator was a ping-pong ball bouncing between almost every dome in their little mine field. Occasionally, Chat would catch her trying to redirect herself with another wild blast, but he'd quickly jump in and knock the energy out of her. Eventually, her momentum, and her energy tapped out and her body was left skidding across the asphalt.
Later, a little voice in Adrien's head would bemoan him, would tell him he shouldn't be taking so much pleasure in inflicting pain, that he was better than that. But right now, Chat Noir didn't care. Chat was desperate for a win, for something that could make up for letting the real Zoe down, for a decisive strike against the monsters who took his whole world from him.
For the first time, Chat and Plagg were in total sync, matching their taste for destruction. Victory had never tasted so sweet.
The domes fell, leaving Carapace to gasp for air. When he'd finished, he let his eyes observe his work, seeing the sentimonster keeled over on the ground, her smug, sinister grin wiped clean. At the same time, the two heroes let out exhilarated howls of joy, smacking their hands together in a mutual bond of victory.
"Meowch! That looked like it hurt." Chat said mockingly.
Accelerator glared back up at him, which was an impressive feat now that her face was more holes than skin. "Don't be so quick to celebrate you dumb cat!"
Somehow, in that split-second, she found the very last of her energy reserves for one last jump, blasting herself through them. It didn't hurt them, but it did knock them aside, leaving the bulk of her remaining power to hit the wall behind them, just barely managing to break through it back to the outside world.
"Damn it, that girl's still got some juice left?"
Chat dashed passed Carapace, his eyes seeing red and a growl ready at the base of his throat. "Oh no she doesn't. We're not letting her get away!"
She was on her last leg, quite literally hopping her way to freedom with every superhuman leap looking more and more painful. Even with her enhancements, she could barely outrun your average jogger, much less a superhero.
Unfortunately for Chat, these superheroes were running on empty as well. In a war of attrition, the two sides had evened out, now stuck in one last desperate puttering test of endurance.
Every second that passed as they navigated the tightly knitted alleyways wore on Chat, so much so that he could practically feel his bones being sanded down and his muscles rubbed raw with every step. But he kept moving, kept pushing, because he could not allow himself to lose today. Not when he was so close to proving he still had a place in this business without his lady.
Their chase broke back into the streets, the screams of civilians scraping his ear drums as they watched a disfigured demon-looking girl riddled with holes and bruises amble out of the alley.
"I won't let you kill me!" She roared back at him. "I don't care what it takes, I'm real. I deserve to live! I had a life!"
Nothing mattered anymore to her, just escaping him, just getting out alive, getting somewhere where Chrysalis couldn't punish her.
She only heard him.
She only saw him.
She only felt him.
"And if you think you can just-"
She did not hear or see the incoming car, but she sure as hell felt it hit her at ramming speed.
By the time Chat Noir was allowed to breath easy again, her body had ended up crumpled on the hood of a car across the street. Her eyes wide with shock and horror. Her limbs refusing to move.
"So…" Chat leaned against the car, breathing in deep, before grinning down at her. "Now can I celebrate?"
"That looked like it hurt, Bozo." Carapace hollard from the other side of the street.
Chat's enhanced hearing picked up their unexpected alley opening her door and jumping out from the front seat. He didn't even need to look at her to recognise the thundering thumping of Chloe's designer heels carelessly digging into the concrete as she stormed over to them.
Carapace interrupted her mid-stride, throwing an arm around her shoulder with a thumbs up pressing into her cheek. "Nice driving there, Chloe."
She didn't even blink to note her personal space being violated by a peasant. Her body shook vigorously with pure anger that far outstripped any petulant tantrum Adrien had ever seen from the girl. "Did I… Did I get the bitch?" She huffed out.
Chat stepped aside, presenting the body like a magician showing off the disappearing assistant.
She sighed, clutching her beating heart as an uneasy sway was added to her stance. She didn't even look smug, just relieved for a split second before the anger returned in full force, a reminder that they weren't done yet. "Good."
Carapace turned back to her car. A bright red, cheap-looking thing. It didn't exactly scream 'Chloe'. "Chloe, when did you get a car?"
She shrugged, "I don't have a car."
"Ah."
Her lips pursed, an awkward chuckle providing momentary relief to the tension in her shoulders. "Or a driver's license."
Carapace carried this relief for the both of them, suddenly lifting Chloe up with a series of whoops and cheers. "Yeah, but you got spirit, Dudette!"
Accelerator groaned, once more trying to get up, but Chat was on her in an instant. He snatched up the hair pin before she could do anything else, holding it over her like he was brandishing a weapon to her throat. "You're coming with us, and you're gonna tell us everything we want to know."
"I'll see if I can find a cop car." Carapace said.
Chat waved the idea off dismissively. "No, if we take her somewhere public, the Peacock user is just gonna come down and snap her away before we get anything out of her. We need somewhere Chrysalis won't know about."
Chloe fished a set of keys out of her jacket, holding them in front of her face and grinning like a mad man. "The hotel's not far from here, we can lock her in my old room."
Chat hesitantly took the keys, spending far too long staring at Chloe's face. Her expression was tinged with barely restrained frustration, Zoe was still missing after all, but there was a pleading, eager joy there as well. A girl desperate to be told that she helped, that she did something that mattered for once.
Chat matched her grin, nodding. "Thanks for the help, Chloe. Really appreciate the save there."
A blush colours Chloe's cheeks as she realized how much she let the man see, snapping her head back to hide the blush and biting down on her words. "Find my sister and I'll consider us even, Fleabag."
With the amok in hand, it was easy to keep the sentimonster co-operative as they hauled her into the car that Chloe had so graciously commandeered (for official hero business). As they did so, Chat busied himself with typing out a small update to the rest of the team over the communicator.
They did it. This was a victory, it was progress, it was just what Adrien needed today.
In the distance, if he squinted hard enough, if he willed it enough, he could just peer into the sun peaking over the skyline. For a moment, he could twist the various hues of those bright colours into whatever form he wanted. He could imagine dark hair and perfect blue eyes bathed in a heavenly outline, staring back at him, congratulating him.
Keep watching, Marinette. I'm gonna make it all matter, okay?
"So…" He said idly as he and Carapace bundled into the back seats.
Carapace tilted his head to the side to peer back at him curiously. "So?"
With a toothy grin, Chat asked "Shelter Barrage?"
Carapace crossed his arms. "My new super move's gotta have a cool name. I will not apologize."
Next Time - Gabbi Grassette's Bizzare Adventure
Paris, 1991 – 29 Years ago
Colt peered over the rim of his cards, "So, how'd a pan handler end up with a foreign heiress anyhow?"
Gabriel frowned, shuffling through his hand. "I work in a tailor's shop, thank you very much."
"Fancy." Colt chuckled, knocking back his drink.
The advantage of playing against Colt compared to Nathalie is that, where Nathalie was a mask of ice and stone, Colt was as subtle as a bullhorn. He was an honest person, and Gabriel didn't mean that as a compliment. He was honest in that his eyes couldn't help but betray the raw thoughts crossing his mind. Gabriel could practically see Colt's winning or losing hand reflected in his iris'.
Gabriel sighed, laying his cards down on the table. "I knew her back when we were children, if you must know."
A mocking, and childish, 'ooo' escaped Colt. "Aw, love at first sight then?"
"Well, no, I thought she was wretched, spoilt cretin when we first met." Gabriel paused, a light flush reaching his cheeks. "Her friends used to throw things at us, poked at people like me as if we were zoo animals." He decided to leave out the particular memory he had of accidentally hitting her with an egg when a much younger him tried egging her car. That had been back when he still died his hair and wasted his pittance wages on hair gel.
Colt scoffed, "She sounds like a real charmer."
"She wasn't like that!" Gabriel said a little too forcefully, his instincts urging him to defend Emilie. He reeled it back in a little, adding on in a lower tone, "At least, I only thought so at the time."
"What happened?"
"Then one night things changed."
"Ah." Colt nodded sagely, "Puberty."
Gabriel shook his head, "Classy."
Still not showing his cards, Colt was content to pull them back, tapping them against his chin thoughtfully. "What? It's a natural part of human nature. We hate girls until we realize that delicate features ain't that bad."
Gabriel found himself resting his chin on his palm, a slight, sarcastic grin tugging at his lips. "You have the heart of a true romantic, I can tell."
The low, raspy noise that came from Colt's throat could only be described as verbal spitting. Gabriel assumed it was a gesture of disgust. "Romance is for suckers. Whets your appetite, sure, but that well runs dry when it comes time to actually start their life." He waved his hand back and forth, lazily, as if he were struck by a foul odour wafting in. "Proper ladies ain't gonna be able to live their life on sweet words and poetry."
Finally, Colt revealed his hand with a satisfying grunt. Satisfying for Gabriel, not for Colt, as he recognised that he'd won this round.
With a thin sneer mixing in with the sarcasm, Gabriel pulled his winnings over to his side as Colt began reshuffling the cards. "How many rejections was it before you started coping this hard?"
"Mock me now, but I've seen your story in a hundred drunk bums." Colt leaned back in his chair, which looked especially precarious when the man was so broadly built, an elephant balancing on a spindly wooden stool. "Sweet lil' rich girl grows up with the mediocrity of high society, hits her rebellious phase and seeks out a rough, hapless street rat that'll piss off daddy."
He pulls a card from the deck, letting it fall between two fingers. Twirling it around idly, he waved the King of Hearts, shielding his own face from Gabriel's perspective outside of the edge of his grin. "Sure, she'll have her fun for a few years, but sooner or later she realizes she needs a sugar daddy who'll enable the lifestyle she's used to."
Suddenly, that grin tightened. It grew heavier, straining it until it was clearly fake. The card turned it's back to Gabriel, for one split-second he could only see the generic red backside. Somehow, by the time it finished it's turn, the King had become a Joker. "And that poor sap? Chucked out like last week's garbage."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed, "You don't know Emilie." He didn't know Gabriel either, Gabriel noted to himself, but the man sure did like talking like he did. Like he knew anything about what Gabriel and Emilie were willing to sacrifice for their future, about how much Emilie hated her home life.
"I know her family." Colt snapped, his voice betraying a hot, bitter edge. "Pampered Peacocks, the lot of 'em. The elite never stop looking down on you, Gabe. Even when they find you entertaining."
Gabriel grinned, but there was no mirth in full range of teeth he put on display. "Present company included?"