It was peaceful below the deck of the Liberty. The mansion had been cold and empty, Paris' horizon had been corrupted and everything she remembered of her home had been stripped of any warmth, any colour, any familiarity. But the Liberty felt just the same, it was the first time in this nightmare that Marinette's heart could settle.
It was somewhere familiar, where she was welcome, and got to enjoy the company of a friend instead of tolerating the suffocating presence of her worst enemy. She spent a good minute or two stuck in her hug with Juleka, basking in the revelry of a fleeting calm moment, putting off the inevitable point where she would have to pull away and address the elephant in the room.
For the first time in a long time, she was allowed to just breathe.
It took a good few minutes more to lay down the details of her current situation. Juleka had sat her down at a kitchen table and thrusted some herbal tea into her hands.
"So, you just… Woke up?" Juleka concluded, smoothing out her hairline as she tried to wrap her head around Marinette's story.
Marinette noted how Juleka had changed over the years, gaining an inch or two in height and her skin stretching a tad tighter on her cheek bones. Her previously one-sided hair had grown even, forming a deep fringe that hung as curtains over the upper half of her eyes, leaving every shift of her stare to appear half-lidded and woozy.
"Yup."
"Under the Agreste Mansion?" Juleka tilted her head sceptically, "With a ghost guy?"
Her murmurs had faded, but the rasp of her unintelligible whispers remained with the scratchy texture of her voice. She always sounded hushed, as if she feared alerting someone to their conversation.
"Uhuh."
Juleka shifted uncomfortably in her seat. A foul question sat on her tongue; one she feared the answer to. And, following her gaze back up the steps into the general direction of their table, Marinette had a good guess of what that question was. "And that man out there, that's really…?"
Marinette hung her head low, the sting of that uncomfortable truth still as fresh on her mind as when she first made her deal with Gabriel. "Unfortunately." She admitted softly.
She couldn't see Juleka's face anymore, the girl had turned her head away. Yet, Marinette could feel the shift in Juleka's demeanour, how her body language tightened, yet faltered, weighed down by a sudden pressure. The familiar warmth was threatened by an unwelcoming cold.
"Do you really think it's a good idea, bringing him here?" It was said plainly, yet Marinette couldn't help but hear a sharp, accusatory edge to the question.
"I didn't really have a choice." Marinette pleaded, though whether her defence was trying to convince Juleka or herself, she couldn't tell. "What else could I do? Leave him to die?"
The air became thick with something sinister that wriggled and writhed between the two girls. Juleka got to her feet, pulled herself to the other side of the room, put distance between her and Marinette. And, try as she might, Juleka wasn't able to hide her face this time, and Marinette couldn't mistake the thin veneer of disgust and betrayal Juleka failed to conceal.
"Would that be such a bad idea?" Juleka's voice cracked under the strain, leaning down against the kitchen sink for support.
"Juleka!" Marinette surprised herself with how quickly she shot up, snapping at Juleka and fixing her with a disappointed scowl.
Why pretend to be offended? A small voice hissed in the back of her mind, she's only saying what you've already said to yourself. No one would shed any tears over him, and he'd be getting what he deserves.
"That's…" She shook her head, bile rising in her throat. "That's not who I am. No matter how much I hate him."
Marinette stepped forward, only for Juleka to reel back in fear, as if she were afraid of being struck. They stood there for a moment, frozen in flashes of fear and surprise. Juleka turned away, Marinette catching a flicker of uncomfortable hesitation playing on Juleka's lips, struggling with a difficult question.
Juleka hugged herself tightly, her voice so quiet that Marinette could barely catch the words. "Were you... Were you working with him, before?"
It took a second for Marinette to realize what she was asking, before she was overtaken by an instinctive, disgusted gasp. "What?! No." She shook her head, the very idea of being Gabriel's partner in crime filling her throat with bile. "What would give you that idea?"
"It's just…" Juleka's shoulder shuddered, "It's nothing, I'm not in a good place right now."
Marinette retreated to her seat, unsure of trying to comfort Juleka physically again. Sat down, her eyes quickly found her hands lying in her lap, fingers tightly intertwined and pulling on one another. "I saw the bounty board."
Her voice wavered as she spoke, carrying a lack of confidence, as if her brain was still trying to wrap itself around the idea of anything on the board being the reality. "I'm sorry about Luka."
Juleka's voice hitched on a sigh, a soft, trembling release that struggled to hold back the flood of tears. "It was only a couple of weeks back." She admitted, her voice shaking.
She tried to let out a bitter laugh, but all she could muster was a sharp, high pitched wheeze. "They'd been trying to get Luka since this all started, they had to get lucky eventually."
Marinette pressed her knees together, desperately trying to push pressure on the rising tension wracking her body. "Are your parents safe?" She asked.
"Mom's around here somewhere, probably getting some stuff from storage." Juleka nodded slowly, throwing her hand over her shoulder to push her thumb in the direction of the stairs. "It killed her inside to kowtow to Roth turning our home into a fast food joint, but she's managed to keep him at bay with her profits."
Juleka finally turned around, nervously tucking clumps of hair behind her ear, letting her bloodshot eyes meet Marinette's. "Dad's gone full anarchist since Luka got taken." A small chuckle escaped her as she said it, a small smile breaking out on her lips. "Runs around the area like a mad man and riles up trouble for Mad Moth wherever he can."
Marinette managed a smile as well, easily picturing the reckless rockstar making himself the ultimate nuisance. "Heh. Rock on, Jagged."
Juleka slid down against the kitchen counter, her arms together and pushing her hands up to snake around her cheeks. "Last I checked he was trying to convince the resistance to help break him into Roth's broadcasting station so he can host anti-Moth music to the rest of Paris."
Marinette let that smidgen of good feelings hold for just a little longer, calming her beating heart with metal images of Lila balking in confusion as a drunken, ranting rockstar hits her sentiknights upside the head with a guitar.
But eventually, she knew she had to break it.
"I saw Nino on the board too." She continued after a drawn-out sigh. "Is it true?"
There was something just so wrong about Nino being the only one to have a confirmed death. Nino was always a 'go with the flow' type spirit, a guy who always landed on his feet wherever life took him, and always managed to find his way eventually.
And he was the first one to fall.
"I heard about it." Juleka nodded, "They say Nino and Chloe were helping deliver supplies for the resistance, walked right into an ambush."
Chloe's name coming up again should have been the subject of much confusion, it should have felt bizarre, but Marinette didn't bat an eye at the mention. It just highlighted how much she missed, how much she allowed to happen. She dropped the ball, and the only people left to lead the charge were Nino and Chloe.
"They went up against an akuma who could turn into vehicles, I think." As Marinette lost herself in thought, Juleka had shifted towards the other end of the room, sifting through a stack of newspapers. "Apparently he brought down a whole building on 'em. I mean, communication is spotty, so nothing's confirmed, but… But there isn't much Nino could do against an akumatized tank."
Marinette felt herself sink further into her seat, softly massage her temples. "Damn it…" Was all she could say.
Nino could be dead. The very idea sounded like an affront to nature, a complete betrayal of the world she lived in. She'd never experienced loss like that before, no sick relatives or departed friends, she was surrounded by nothing but people who reminded her how much there was to life.
The closest moment she could recall was a day so many years back it might as well have been another life. She'd returned from school to find her father slumped in the apartment sofa, his eyes blank and his body limp. A letter informed him that an old friend had lost the battle to some unknown disease.
She hadn't understood loss at the time. All she knew was that she hated what it did to her father, that it hollowed him out, made him look empty, like a piece of what made him her father had been stolen from him.
Now, she felt it. The absence. There was a part of her where Nino occupied, where his charm, stubbornness and ambition leaked into her heart. He was the one who started the resistance, who strove to help the fight against Hawkmoth and would run into a warzone to fight an akuma, all without the power of his miraculous.
And it was gone. That piece was gone. Nino was gone.
But she couldn't mourn him. Not yet, not until she found Alya, found his family. Not until she could do it properly and give him the respect he deserves.
Marinette sighed, swiftly moving on to a slightly more optimistic take away. "So, there's still a resistance group?"
Juleka shrugged, "It's more just pockets of scattered cells, but yeah, we're still alive."
It was a small thing, but it was enough to allow Marinette to breathe a little easier. And she needed every little bit she could find. If there were still people willing to fight, then the fight wasn't over, she could still make a difference.
When her eyes returned to Juleka, she found the girl staring gloomily down at her feet. "Luka would have been so happy to see you again."
Against her better judgement, Marinette got back up and closed the distance between them, softly grasping Juleka by the shoulders. She did flinch at Marinette's touch, but she didn't try to break away from it.
"He will be happy to see me again," Marinette said firmly, "Especially when I bust him and the others out from whatever wacked out prison Mad Moth is keeping them in."
As much as it pained her to admit, Gabriel's own words were what helped bolster her here. Mad Moth didn't want the miraculous holders dead quite yet, outside of Max for some reason, she wanted them under her heel and on display. Even when all else is lost, you can always count on a villain's need to gloat to provide an opening to capitalize on.
Juleka peered down at her, a watery rim developing around her eyes as she hesitantly asked "You really think that?"
"I know it!" Marinette stated proudly and with no such hesitation. She chuckled, "I'm a little rusty, and I've still got to get the lay of the land, but I know we can pull this off."
She lightly smacked Juleka's shoulder, as if trying to jolt Juleka into matching the hopeful energy building in her bones. "Come on, Comrade Grand Veneur; the resistance didn't bow to Monarch, and they won't be beaten by this new creep."
Still, Juleka's voice couldn't help but falter. "A lot has changed since we were classmates, Marinette."
"Then you're gonna have to get me up to speed." Marinette smiled warmly gesturing to the ship, the world. "Starting with all this."
It took a moment, but eventually, Juleka smiled back.
She took a deep breath before giving a sharp nod. "Sentimonsters." She stated plainly, "So many sentimonsters made to look just like us. Made everybody scared, everybody paranoid."
Marinette's eyes narrowed, finding her free hand instinctively reaching for the thin, vein-like scar cutting across her chest. The only proof that the explosion had been real. "Like the one that 'killed' me."
Juleka turned back to her stack of newspapers, pulling out a few front page shots dated two years back. They showed different headlines expressing shock and horror over different big names being exposed and inhuman. "God, it felt like every other week someone you knew was getting unmasked as not being human."
Marinette stroked her chin, taking it all in. She knew the universe had a habit of interrupting important moments, so she also knew that she needed to make sure to get all the big questions out of the way before the universe decided she was getting too comfortable.
"When did the akumatized sky come in?" She asked.
"No one knows quite what happened." Juleka brings out another newspaper, sporting the headline 'Trouble in Paradise' over a destroyed building. "Just one day everything changed."
It took her a moment to recognise the building in question, for her words to get caught in her throat. The front of her parent's bakery had been blown wide open, like something had been thrown through it. The inside was riddled with holes, displays were smashed and wall paper had been slashed to ribbons. A fight, a struggle, between god knows who.
Juleka shot her a sympathetic look, but had no comforting context to give her. Instead, she pushed on. "Chaos broke out in the city. An akuma battle, I think, had every miraculous user and Tsugi's task force turning the city into a warzone."
Marinette couldn't respond. She couldn't allow herself to say anything, or to ask anything; she couldn't risk following her current train of thought, of making something so horrid a reality. Her parents were fine. They had to be fine.
"Then, suddenly, this big burst of light comes from Tsugi tower, rips the sky apart and floods it with the akuma." Juleka paused to swallow her drink, gasping out the information like it was a particularly nasty cough. "These massive roots sprang out from nowhere, breaking the city into pieces and… Warping everything they touched."
Marinette nodded. So it wasn't just her imagination, everything really was warped and strangely proportioned.
"I saw so many people too close to escape the roots, they were eaten whole and then spat out…"
Juleka trailed off, a distant, disparaging darkness overtaking her eyes for a moment. "As something different." She finished in a hushed whisper.
Suddenly, shame found it's place on her lips, dragging her face down to glare at the floor. "I couldn't save any of them before my transformation ran out."
Marinette shook her head, "You did the best you could, I know it."
"I-I…" Juleka covered her mouth, pushing back the urge to vomit while she unsteadily shuffled over to the sink. She leaned over the sink, a soft sob escaping her. "I would have been eaten too if Alya and Luka didn't save me."
"Alya was the first hero to go down." She continued quietly after a minute of silence, "She got swallowed pushing me out of the way."
Maybe it was just a desperation to find a silver lining, but Marinette found comfort in that revelation. That despite how it ended, Alya, and Nino, and Luka; they all went down as heroes to the end.
Still, she fought bile of her own as she forced out the obvious question. "What… What did she become?"
Rena Renegade, that was what the bounty board had called Alya's akumatized form.
"We didn't stick around to watch." Juleka admitted with a sigh, "We ran as far as we could, until everything stopped shaking."
That could have been where it ended, leaving room for Marinette' imagination to paint a better picture, but the wince on Juleka's face told Marinette there was worse to come.
"About a couple of months later we started hearing horror stories about Rena Renegade. She takes people, drags them into her own little corner of Paris, and you don't see them again until… Until…" Juleka paused, struggling to mouth the words as a shiver wracked her body. She could barely whisper the conclusion. "Until she'd broken them."
It occurred to Marinette in a cold, bleak moment of thought that Chat Blanc was the only akuma she'd faced that had been an akuma for more than a few days. As much as she'd thought about her encounter with him, she'd never considered what scars such exposure to akumatization could leave. Chat Blanc had been broken by the time she'd faced him, a husk amongst the ruins of a world he destroyed, desperately clinging to the last flickers of hope he could find.
If his timeline hadn't been erased, if he had been left to roam free after Ladybug purified his akuma, how long would he go on? Had he had enough autonomy as an akuma to accept what he'd been made to do in his months of isolation? Or would it hit him all at once just how many lives he took because of Hawkmoth?
Alya had been akumatized for over a year. A year secluded with the power of isolation and all the worst thoughts in her head pushing her forward. When Marinette eventually saved Alya from her akuma, would she have to be the one to tell Alya what she'd done as Rena Renegade? Would she have to be the one to tell Alya about Nino?
"Chrysalis became Mad Moth in the wake of it all." Juleka continued, "She erected the cocoon, took sections of the city for herself and sent out her armies to hunt down the heroes."
Juleka pulled her hands together, wringing them like a damp cloth, hoping her own unease would be rinsed out. "She gave us a choice between being subjugated or giving up our miraculous."
Suddenly, Juleka found it difficult to look Marinette in the eye. "I'm sorry, Marinette. You trusted me with Roaar." She sniffed, "I was too weak, I… I gave her up."
Marinette shook her head, "I should have been there."
She should have been there. She should have been better. She should have stopped all of this from happening. But she didn't, and now everyone else was suffering for it. "None of this should have happened."
A part of her hoped that Juleka would have some words of comfort, something to ease this nagging guilt, but there was nothing offered.
Instead, Juleka pushed past the subject, bringing Marinette's attention to a map of Miraculous Paris, with each major landmark seemingly turned into it's own section separated by miles of chasms and purple borders. "The akuma storms do a good job of keeping everybody confined. Get caught up in one, you'll get…"
"Akumatized?"
"It's… It's not the same." Juleka scratched her head. "It's not a transformation that disappears eventually, it's a violent mutation of your body, turning you into this horrible creature."
She fixed her thumb against her chin, echoing a pose that their science teacher would often assume when explaining the human body. "Most people become mindless beasts, but plenty of people kept their mind and turned to becoming raiders roaming the roads between communities."
Her free hand drew a finger from DuPont, which had been stuffed into some far off corner, and dragged it over to 'New Roth'. "Most resistance members came here to form a safe community, where we could plan our next move and shelter people from the akuma storms and Mad Moth." Juleka's voice gained a venomous edge, "And it was until Roth sold us out to Mad Moth."
Marinette winced, hating how much sense that made to her. Just when you thought you couldn't hate anyone anymore. "That's how he got control of this section, huh? Figures."
Soon enough, Marinette found herself pouring herself some juice, her dry throat relishing in the simple delight of something cold and pure clearing a path through the bad taste this day had left behind. She briefly wondered how Gabriel was doing, if he'd even noticed that she'd been gone a long time, but that thought just made her shake her head and wonder why she cared.
It also brought two faces to the forefront of her mind. Her boyfriend, and her partner. Both so important to her life, both she'd left behind without confessing the ways she'd hurt them, both at the centre of all this whether they like it or not.
"Do you-" She stumbled over her words, unsure of who do ask about first. "Do you know what happened to Chat?"
She paused, turned her head up, the thought suddenly hitting her that Chat's fate was far more likely to be bad news. Chat's face switched out with Adrien's, almost looking the same. "Is Adrien safe?" She blurted out.
"No one knows what happened to him." Juleka frowned, "The last anyone saw of Chat Noir was him charging the tower's entrance like a wrecking ball."
"So, he could have made it?" Marinette countered instantly.
"I'm sorry, Marinette, but I think…" Juleka flinched, stung by her own words. "Well, if he survived, I don't think Chrysalis would have won."
"I refuse to give up hope." Marinette slammed her cup down, resolute on this point. Despite how hopeless the situation seemed, she refused to give up on her partner. Her kitty was the greatest hero she knew, and he wouldn't go down with an ambiguous whimper, he'd go down making sure everybody knew it. "It's all we have in times like this."
She downed the rest of her drink, washing away all her hesitation before she returned to the original question. "What about Adri-"
The universe mocked her with the sudden appearance of the advertising girl, Cindy, sprinting down the stairs, her face pale as snow.
"That's gonna have to wait, girls." She said in a breathless huff, "We have trouble."
It was only now that Gabriel truly felt the absence of his miraculous.
He pressed himself flat against the divider of his booth, sweat dripping from the end of his nose and breath hitched on the back of his throat. His eyes, along with those of everyone else aboard the Liberty, had been dragged to the entranceway.
All at once, the atmosphere of the ship had shifted, a thick tension tearing through the air, silencing all customers and bringing with it an oppressive heat.
Without his miraculous, Gabriel was just a man, made of flesh that tore and bones that broke. He was vulnerable. And between him and the plank that connected the ship to the shoreline was a creature that was not so vulnerable; an unmistakable akuma.
The akuma cut a sharp figure. Not as in well built or athletic frame, as in the akuma literally looked as if he were made entirely of edges sharp enough to double as knives. He was spindly and hunched over, covered head to toe in a yellow ensemble that reminded Gabriel of a radiation suit. Though Gabriel doubted the suit was doing it's job well enough as trails of steam rolled off the joint areas, followed by a low hissing sound as something was burned.
It prowled into the room in a slow, jerky motion. Elongated arms where both segments of the arms were equal in length hung loose by it's side, long enough to be dragged along the floor as it slivered forward.
Customers balked at the akuma, shrinking under it's gaze as it turned its entire body to look around the room. Gabriel had the sinking feeling that it was looking for somebody specific, and that somebody was going to be either him or Marinette.
A portly woman Gabriel recognised as the Couffaine's matriarch materialised at the top of the stairs. Rather than flee from the akuma, Miss Couffaine instead saw fit to advance upon it, brandishing a spatula that she thrusted into its face like a weapon.
"Now, Weevil-"
"Meltdown!" The figure spat out, "It's Meltdown!"
"Meltdown, Mr. Roth has been very clear on this." She hissed, gesturing around her. "Akumas aren't welcome 'round here."
Meltdown, as she'd called him, took a sharp inhale. It sounded like a pipe bursting with hot air. "I think the baron will make an exception for a good bounty." He said, his voice slippery with a snake-like hiss.
Miss Couffaine's gaze shifted around the room and, for a split second, her eyes met Gabriel's before she looked back to Meltdown. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"G-Give me the Bug and the Butterfly. Now." He growled, every word breathless and on the verge of spluttering. "I know they're here. And after what happened to your son? Naughty, naughty."
The spatula smacked Meltdown across the forehead, but the strike drew no reaction from the akuma. "Is your brain as runny as the rest of you? We don't got nobody here after you scared all our customers off."
Meltdown leaned closer, his entire body curving at an unnatural angle to place his head and shoulders above her ear. "Deceit is its own brand of toxin, you know. It pollutes the soul."
"I don't think you need any help polluting anything."
"Careful with your words, Couffaine." His shoulder rolled forward, the momentum throwing his forearm up and catching the spatula between his fingers. The hissing sound grew louder as something sprung forth from his thumb, a trail of boiling green dripping down onto the spatula and, within seconds, melting it down to the hilt.
Meltdown leered over Miss Couffaine as the spatula slipped from her grip and clattered against the floorboards. "If they're sharp enough to wound me, I might just spring a leak."
Meltdown advanced upon her in slow, awkward steps, swinging his entire body behind every move. As if at any moment he would transition into a definitive lunge. Miss Couffaine held a brave face, but her body naturally backed away from the approaching terror and his touch of death, backed away until she was pressed against the railing on the other side of the ship.
In a moment that left a bitter taste on Gabriel's lips, he watched as the customers took the opportunity to rush past Meltdown, leaving Miss Couffaine to her fate as they threw themselves out of the ship.
He didn't quite understand why it embittered him so. After all, Gabriel would be inclined to abandon a stranger to such a threat, he wouldn't dare throw himself into the path of a monster to protect someone who wasn't even family. Gabriel had no delusions about being a heroic sort.
And yet, he remained there, rooted to the spot. Not taking action, but not fleeing either. He didn't allow himself to ponder why. Marinette was deeper into the ship, she was equally in danger and, naturally, he needed her alive for now. That was all.
Still, he found his hand dropping below the table, fingers wrapping around the leg of one of the stools. He pulled the wooden chair up to his chest, wielding it like a shield while he prepared to use it like a battering ram.
It would be reduced to nothing the moment this Meltdown got his hands on it, so as far as Gabriel was concerned, this was a one-time use. He'd just need to make that one use count. That is, if he were planning to use it at all, which he wasn't.
"One last chance. T-T-T-Tell me where they are." Meltdown stretched past the shuddering woman, pressing his hand against the wall. Soon after, smoke escaped his palms is short bursts of heat.
Once more, the woman's eyes found Gabriel. She stared at him in disbelief, as if she too were wondering why he still remained.
It would be so easy for her to point him out. No one would blame her for saving herself. No one would scorn her for selling out a monster to another monster. No one would expect her to shield Hawkmoth of all people.
"I… Don't know anything." She spat out defiantly, "I already told you that."
Something inside Gabriel, a flicker of something annoying that Gabriel couldn't place, flared inside him. His arms raised the chair up, twisting it so that the legs pointed away from him and the curve of the seating end firmly pressed against his shoulders.
If he did this, which he wouldn't, and if he wanted to get rid of Meltdown, which he had no temptation to attempt, his best bet would be to catch the akuma by surprise. Ram him with the chair and shove him overboard. Gabriel had no idea how acid interacted with water, especially magically polluted water, he hoped it would be enough to buy time.
However, before Gabriel could go forth with this strange desire for reasons he couldn't express, two familiar figures emerged from the boat's entrance.
"What's going on here then?" 96 lurched forward onto the deck, unsheathing his arm from his side and brandishing it towards Meltdown. His fingers bubbled and twisted, moulded by an invisible artist into the tip of an off-colour rapier.
95 wondered in after him, sweeping his faceless gaze around the now deserted restaurant. Soon enough, he faced Meltdown, tilting his head forward to follow the acidic drips rushing down Meltdown's finger tips.
He leaned forward, whispering loudly into where 96's ear would have been. "Looks like an akuma, 96."
96 lowered his weaponized arm, whipping his head back to growl at his companion. "I know that!"
"Oh great. These two assholes." Meltdown let out a gruelling, annoyed sigh. He waved his hand at them, idly flicking specs of acid across the desk trying to shoo them away. "Mind your own business, you sentidummies."
95 scratched his head. "Uh… I thought Boss Roth said protecting his restaurants was our business?"
96 scoffed, knocking his knuckles against 95's forehead. "The akuma's just trying to get inside our heads, you lout. He knows he doesn't stand a chance against us."
"I'm a-a-already sick of you idiots." Meltdown treated them as one would treat a bug repeatedly slamming itself against the window. Annoying, detestable, but also somewhat pitiable. "Get lost, or else. I may be here on Roth's payroll, but p-push me and, I swear to god, nobody's gonna miss a bunch of glorified dolls."
One lucky splash of acid managed to close the distance, splattering across 96's forearm and a burning a clean hole straight through. 96 didn't make any obvious expression of pain. In fact, his only reaction to the attack was to curiously hold the newly made hole up to 95, who appraised it with slight, curious awe.
A smidgen of fear seemed to leak into 95's voice as he reeled away from the wound. "Ooo, he's scary." He moaned.
96 thrusted his non-morphed hand forward, wagging his finger back and forth like he was addressing an unruly chid. "Stop being scary!"
"Yeah, stop it." 95 called from over 96's shoulder, "You're scaring the humans, and that's no good."
"He's even scaring the nice little human's grandpa from earlier."
Gabriel didn't know what exactly he hissed under his breath. All he knew was that, when 96 turned his shoulder to gesture directly to Gabriel's hiding spot, several different languages escaped him; and all of them were incorporating swear words.
Meltdown eagerly threw Couffain to the side, immediately forgetting her as he rounded on Gabriel.
"Hello there, little Gabbi." He hissed, accompanied by a guttural rasping laugh and his fist punching into his palm. "We have so much catching up to do."
Gabriel froze. He hated the casual emphasis Meltdown put on the end of Gabriel's name, almost sounding like he was calling upon Gabriel's original name, the one he'd long since discarded. 'Catching up'? What, does he think we're old pals?
Unless Meltdown turned out to be Harry or Andre, which he instinctively didn't feel were a match for this form, the expression made little sense to him.
"Have we met?"
The form shook, letting out an array of gurgling noises Gabriel assumed were meant to be a laugh. "Oh, of course, my new form must make this so confusing." Meltdown drew his gloved fingers over his face plate. "But under all this muck, it's still me; Weevil Irving."
There was a dramatic pause. Gabriel could just imagine the man's face behind it all, grinning fiercely as he intently studied Gabriel's expression, waiting for that gasp of shock and horror.
"…Should I know that name?"
Sadly for him, all Gabriel got from that was asking himself what dumbass named their kid 'Weevil'.
"W-What?" Meltdown sounded like he was choking, hand limply reaching out. "You're s-s-serious?!"
At Gabriel's continued ignorant stare, the man threw his hands up, repeatedly pointing to himself. "We used to work to-to-to-together? Under S-S-S-S-Salvadore? With Colt? Before you chu-chu-changed you name?"
Salvadore? Now that was a name Gabriel remembered. A man he and Colt had spent most of their youth working for, and most of their lives spent fearing, even after the man had been put to rest. He had been a wicked, powerful and ambitious man; traits that Gabriel didn't have the self-awareness to note how easily those same traits applied to him.
"Huh, I could have sworn that me and Colt had been the only members to survive after Salvadore's…" Gabriel adjusted his collar but kept his stone cold face. "Accident."
"Well, I lived too." Meltdown growled, "And got dragged into that Miraculous Task Force nonsense at gun point, if you cared to ask. People there didn't treat me with much respect either! Especially Col-"
Gabriel couldn't help but interrupt, "Sorry, my brain just has too much to think about to remember side characters."
Hissing steam, that was all Gabriel could hear escaping into the air around him. "Oh-Oh-Okay. Maaaaaaybe you don't remember me." A mad laugh overtook Meltdown, raising his fist high. "But you're gonna remember what I d-d-d-d-do to your stupid mug!"
He lunged forward just enough to leer over Gabriel, to force Gabriel to crawl back into the booth, finally finding a reaction he liked. "'Cus an old pal of yours is setting up the mother of all reunions, and I'm gonna make sure you look your best!"
However, there was little time to think on it as 96 slid into view, sheltering Gabriel from Meltdown's eyes.
"Not happening, Sludge Guy." He declared, brandishing his arm sword once more.
Meltdown slapped himself on the head, groaning. "You fuh- fuh- Fools! Can't you see, that's Gabriel Agreste."
The two sentimonsters took a moment to exchange looks. They both shrugged.
"We don't have eyes." 96 pointed out.
"And all you humans' kind of look the same." 95 added.
A moment later, 95 snapped his fingers, as if he had experienced a sudden revelation. "But you can't hurt the humans just because they look boring."
Gabriel made a move to get up, feeling more threatened the more the dynamic duo talked. But 95 tugged him back by the sleeve, eliciting a groan from him.
"Stay right where you are, Human." 95 ordered much to Gabriel's chagrin, "We have the situation under contr-"
Suddenly, 96's body went sailing over the two, crashing into the nearest table and sending Gabriel's half eaten burger into the air.
"Ouch…" 96 mewled.
"This won't take long, Gabbi." Meltdown cracked his knuckles as he approached, belting out the shrill screams of his rubber gloves and splashing more acid at his feet with every click. "I don't know how you managed to bounce back, but I'm gonna make sure there's no body left for you to return to."
A barely audible popping noise broke out, stopping Meltdown in his tracks. It was only when the lights bounced off of small white particles pushing outwards from the back of Meltdown's head, that Gabriel realized that something had been chucked at him.
Over Meltdown's shoulder, where the stairway was perfectly framed in the background, stood an out-of-breath Marinette with a stack of plates tucked under her arm. Next to her, Juleka had pressed herself against the inside of the doorway, trying to make herself look as small as possible.
"Hey, leave him alone!" Marinette cried out.
Gabriel's mouth flopped open like a fish. "Are you insane!?" He hissed loudly.
Marinette shrugged, a sheepish look on her face. "A little?"
Meltdown's body followed his head diving in a sharp arc, swinging itself around to face her. "Oh, the big bad bug." He wheezed, opening his hand out to her while the other covered the gasp of his mouthpiece.
"You wouldn't know this," He said, almost sounding sheepish, "But I'm your biggest fan."
"Oh really?" Marinette laughed awkwardly, suddenly backing away very slowly. "A big enough fan to not attack me, I hope."
"Heh Heh, quite the contrary." Meltdown clasped his hands together, his chuckle ragged and dark. He continued in a low, venomous rasp. "Because I respect you so much, I'm ensuring I have the privilege of melting you down to slag myself instead of letting…" He cast his gaze back to the sentiknights, growling. "Lesser hunters take you down."
Marinette mindlessly nodded, her smile sarcastic and flickering between a frown and a grimace. "Wow, you're so considerate." Her voice was high pitched for a moment, before dropping straight into a low, more serious note. "But that's not how this is gonna play out."
"We'll see about that." Meltdown sneered, "I'll even be a good sport and let you transform."
He flung out his arm in a theatrical beckoning gesture, only to receive Marinette's cringing features in return. It took a minute for all the pieces to fall in place for him, watching Marinette grimace and subtly shirk away from his gaze, catching the absence of certain earrings hanging from her earlobes.
"...Oh ho ho, you can't transform, can you?" He cackled, smacking his palm against his helmet. "You're not Ladybug anymore."
Gabriel found himself shoved to the side as 96, blinded by rage, bulldozed his way past. If Gabriel had his way, he'd leave the two sides to kill each other. The sentiknights were only allies for as long as it took for Meltdown to convince them to see through his and Marinette's thin disguises, it was in everybody's best interest to use them as a distraction.
Yet he knew Marinette would not see it that way, throwing yet another plate at the advancing Meltdown, completely stealing his attention.
Once he was close enough, 96 launched himself at the unsuspecting Meltdown, stabbing right through the right arm. Using the sword as leverage, he hoisted Meltdown up and slammed him into the ground, scattering the wooden floorboard with a satisfying snap.
"I… I said…" 96 growled, clasping his sword hand, which had now melted down to a purple stub. "Leave the ugly humans alone!"
Marinette let out a mad, confused high pitched laugh, still catching up to the sudden show of power from the previously childish knights. "Way to go 96."
Unfortunately, lost in all the activity of the brawl, Marinette failed to notice a splatter of acid that had been spat out of the wound in Meltdown's arm as he went down.
95 and Gabriel, on the other hand, noticed straight away. In a split-second, 95 was too close for comfort, his forehead practically knocking against hers. His fingers gripped her chin.
Her clean chin.
Marinette only had a second to catch the last few particles of her fake beard being melted at her feet before 95 reeled back in horror.
"The beard was a lie?!" He screeched.
At least I don't need to worry about the glue anymore…
96, his melted stub of an arm completely forgotten as he sprung to his feet, cried out in disgust. "What sick, depraved individual would make such a malignant lie?"
Marinette held her hands up defensively, suddenly feeling like she was on trial for murder and not facial hair catfishing. To make matters worse, she could spot Meltdown struggling to his feet behind them, steam rolling off of him in aggressive plumes.
96 drew closer for a better look, and even if he had no eyes to communicate with, Marinette could still easily imagine a curious expression of realization before her. 96's still intact hand reached into his own chest, pulling out a small pad. "Hey, wait a sec, 95; doesn't she look familiar?"
95 did a double take. "Yeah, she looks just like-"
The pad came down beside her face for comparison, the image of Ladybug's bounty board poster being a dead ringer for Marinette.
"Oh." 96 whistled.
"Oh." Gabriel groaned under his breath.
"Oooooh" Marinette hissed as she got a glimpse of the picture.
In that last split-second, Marinette and Gabriel's eyes locked, and somehow, they knew they had the same thought. Just as suddenly, everything fell to chaos.
Marinette threw her entire body weight forward, sending 95 stumbling into 96 and knocking both on their backs while she fell into an awkward, but still workable roll over them. Gabriel drew the chair up and charged ahead, crashing into the side of the still woozy Meltdown and battering the akuma over the railing of the ship.
"Run!" Juleka cried.
Both parties ended up at the entrance of the restaurant with Juleka bursting between them to lead the way. They naturally fell in lock step with Juleka as she waved for them to follow her, the trio sprinting over the plank and making a b-line for the closest alleyway.
Gabriel looked on warily on the night ahead; this was going to be a long day.
Next Time - Sins of The Butterfly:
He didn't seem to dwell on it, stoking his chin as he asked. "What could Miss Rossi have wished for that would cause all this?"
Marinette stroked her chin thoughtfully, "Maybe she didn't think through how she worded her wish. Always trips people up in the movies."
Gabriel offered no rebuttal or agreement, he just silently narrowed his eyes, private thoughts and theories flickering through his eyes as he stared into space.
A curious look overtook Marinette. Could you screw up the wording? Was Gimmi a mischievous wish granter like the movie genies? She didn't know how the miraculous wish worked, just that when granted it pulled the universe apart to make room for whatever change it had decided on. And that, as far as she could tell, it paused time while the user is making the wish.
"What did you wish for?" She asked, rolling her wrist in a silent gesture. "You know, back then."
A heavy weight pressed down on Gabriel's brow, his voice quiet and unsure. "I think I wished to save Nathalie."
Marinette shot him an incredulous look, "You think?"
"I never spoke my wish." Gabriel admitted with a sigh, "Gimmi read my heart, saw what I wanted and what I was willing to sacrifice."
"And your heart chose Nathalie." Marinette stated with an almost accusatory tone, "Instead of your wife."
Gabriel inclined his head away from Marinette's view. Whether it was guilt at the accusation that he hid from her, or just another effort to seal away any inkling of humanity, Marinette did not know.