Alya ran, ducking and weaving out of Monarch's way as best she could. She'd have to thank Nora for giving her some boxing training, those evasion skills were proving crucial right now.

Still, she wouldn't last long, and she didn't want to think about what Monarch might do to her this time, now that she'd proven that just trapping her in a cage wasn't enough to stop her. She didn't think he'd actually kill her, but she didn't want to count on it. Hopefully Adrien could get to Ladybug and Chat Noir quickly–

CRASH*

…

Well, she certainly wasn't complaining about being able to catch her breath, she just wasn't expecting it to be due to a fifty kilogram catboy landing on her pursuer's head.

She winced. Second time in one day. He'd need to see a doctor, he had to have a concussion by now.

"You! What?! How?!" Monarch roared, throwing Chat off of him.

Right. Probably no concussion then. A pity, that.

"Alya!"

Suddenly she was bundled up in some spotted arms – Ladybug's arms. "Alya, you're– you're alright!" she stammered, tears in her eyes.

This seemed like a bit of an overreaction for merely going missing for an hour or so. "I'm guessing Monarch really did fake my death?" she wondered out loud.

Ladybug nodded, tears dropping down her face. "I really thought you were gone!" she blurted out as she leaped out of the broken window, still carrying Alya. "That– that I'd never see you again. That I failed you."

They came to a stop on the grounds outside the mansion, Ladybug letting Alya down. "Stay out here, where it's safe," she ordered. "You don't have a Miraculous anymore, so don't do anything reckless. I– I couldn't bear losing you again."

She saluted. "You know me, always cautious!"

Ladybug eyed her warily, but turned away. "I've got to go help Chat. I mean it, Alya, STAY SAFE." She threw out her yo-yo, sending her sailing back into Monarch's lair.

"Are we really going to stay out of this fight?" Trixx asked her skeptically, looking back at her from the sphere on the ground.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," she declared, scooping Trixx's sphere up. "Or Max or Markov, for that matter." She winked at her kwami. "I think Ladybug and Chat Noir could use some back-up, wouldn't you say?"

"There's no way she's dead!" Alya heard as she walked into the boiler room. Her phone was kaput, so sadly she'd had no way of contacting anyone else. She really needed to start memorizing phone numbers, she did NOT like being unable to get ahold of people. She'd ended up hitchhiking. Not necessarily the safest thing to do, but certainly not more dangerous than what she'd been going through for the last few hours. Thankfully, being a dead girl had advantages. People were willing to stop and help a supposedly tragically murdered girl more quickly than they would some random kid, once they got over their shock.

But she'd assumed that in a crisis situation like this, Nino would have called a Resistance meeting together. Evidently, she'd been correct.

"Nino…" she heard Mylene's voice say, "we all saw Alya die. I know it's hard to accept but–"

"SHE. IS. NOT. DEAD!" Nino pounded the table. "There's no way she'd give in that easily! It's a trick or a ruse or– or something! We can still save her, I know we can!"

"That's sweet," she strolled into the room. "But you're a little late to the party."

"ALYA!" The entire room mobbed her, hugging her as tightly as they could - which was difficult with so many of her friends around her, and only so much of her to go around.

"I knew you weren't dead! I knew it!" Nino sobbed.

Her expression softened. Nino had always stuck by her side, even in the worst of circumstances. It would have nearly killed him to think she was gone, and he'd been unable to do a thing about it. He really was the best.

Slowly, she extracted herself from the cuddle pile, becoming more serious. "How would everyone like to help Ladybug and Chat Noir take down Monarch, once and for all?"

Everyone cheered, before the sound quickly died out. "How can we do that?" Ivan asked. "We don't know where he is, and we don't have superpowers."

"You don't YET," a small voice said.

"Wait, that ball you're holding, what is that?" Nathaniel asked.

She uncrossed her arms, revealing the ball fully - with Trixx inside. "This is Trixx, my kwami. And I suspect that with Max's and Markov's help, we may be able to all transform again."

"I'm not–" "You think I'm–" "Why are you asking me?" several of her friends protested. She just rolled her eyes. After finding out several identities, those protests were painfully obvious lies.

She turned towards the tech duo. "Max, Markov, this sphere is used to transport kwamis through the alliance network and into alliance rings, effectively turning them into Miraculous temporarily. Do you think you two could hijack the network using this machine?" She held up the ball.

Max adjusted his glasses, giving a smirk. "We will certainly try."

Ladybug barely dodged a Clout-empowered punch.

Monarch had gotten much better at wielding the various Miraculous over the past few weeks it seemed. She and Chat weren't getting beaten nearly as badly as they were on Heroes Day, but she didn't think they could keep this up for long. Monarch had nearly taken both of them out after turning invisible a few minutes ago. If Chat's hearing had been less sharp…

"WHY?!" Chat shouted as he threw himself at Monarch. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

She winced. Chat– Adrien– wasn't taking the news of his father's involvement well. Not that she could blame him. She couldn't imagine how she'd react if she found out her own dad was Monarch. This should be something that he got to sit down and digest, to mull over for hours, to seek comfort for if needed, and then to get to choose whether or not to ever speak to Gabriel again.

Instead he was immediately thrown into battle against his father, without even being able to let him know why he was so angry without endangering his secret identity. She doubted he wanted to show him such a huge potential weak spot, but the way things were going, she could see him letting the truth spill by accident.

Just the fact that Chat Noir was Adrien–

NO. Nope. Not the time to go down that road. She could process what that meant LATER. You know, when Monarch wasn't trying to–

"MOVE!" Chat yelled, pushing her out of the way of Monarch's Sting.

Right. She couldn't afford to lose her concentration, even for a moment. It was just her and Chat, the two of them against a man with over a dozen superpowers. She kept considering whether to summon her Lucky Charm. The moment she did, she'd be on a timer. If they didn't finish the fight in five minutes, it was game over.

But the way things were going, she might not have a choice. The two of them found themselves constantly on the defensive, despite Chat's aggression towards his father. They might not be able to last another five minutes, with or without her Lucky Charm.

"You asked why I was doing this?" Monarch strode towards them imperiously. "What could be so important? Tell me this, Ladybug, Chat Noir – would you deny a husband his wife back? A son, his mother back?"

"That's– that's why," Chat gasped, his hold on his staff loosening in shock. "You want to use the Wish to revive M- Emilie."

Monarch smirked, taking advantage of his moment of distraction to slam him into the wall.

"CHAT, NO!" she screamed, as Chat struggled to stand, the rubble of the mansion's wall all around him. "Lucky Charm!"

A red and black spotted car materialized, complete with a light on top.

And then it started blaring.

Very loudly.

And brightly.

She clutched her ears, distantly observing both Monarch and Chat doing the same.

"STOP THAT WRETCHED NOISE!" Monarch screamed, before hitting the car with his still-active Sting.

"You really thought that would do something, Ladybug?" he taunted, turning to face her. "Your partner can barely stand. You have less than five minutes before you're rendered powerless. You–"

The car started blaring again.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Monarch rolled, moving to hit it with Sting again.

Only to find that he couldn't.

The stinger had disappeared.

"Pollen, UNIFY!" he commanded.

Nothing happened.

"Impossible!" he declared. "Longg, Kaalki, Stomp, UNIFY!"

Again, nothing happened.

"What did you do?" he demanded, glaring at her.

"Sounds like they got tired of listening to you," Chat said weakly, leaning on his staff as he pulled himself up. "Same as everyone else."

Or at least, she thought that was what he said. It was kind of hard to tell with how loudly the siren was still blaring, and how quiet Chat's voice was.

"I don't need them!" Monarch declared, raising his cane. "I beat you before with just the Butterfly, and you have no back-up!"

"UPROAR!" A small plushie hit the car. Its loud blaring siren started making squeaky toy noises instead – still annoying, but not as deafening.

Wait.

That wasn't Monarch's voice.

"King Monkey, save your superpower for the actual enemy," an exasperated voice called out as Rena Rouge landed next to the aforementioned superhero. "We're not here to take out the cop car."

"But it was too loud!" King Monkey protested.

She silently agreed with him. Especially when thinking about poor Chat Noir. His hearing was more sensitive than either hers or Monarch's.

"What? Impossible!" Monarch declared, gaping at the new arrivals. "I have all the Miraculous!"

"Do you now?" Rena smirked. "Go on. Try to use one of our powers. I dare you."

"Trixx, Unify!" he yelled. It was just as ineffectual as the other two times.

"I don't think he appreciated his time with you," Rena noted. Her eyes hardened. "You can think about how badly you treated him and the other kwamis when you're locked in a cage of your own."

He growled, looking around wildly before dashing off.

"You really think you're getting away that easily?" Rena called out.

Minotaurox, appearing from behind a pillar.

Caprikid, walking down the stairs.

Ryuko, coming in from the door to Gabriel's atelier.

Every possible exit was suddenly covered by a superhero.

Monarch backed away from them all, as her team closed in an ever tighter circle around him.

At last, he swiped at Ryuko, as she got particularly close.

His eyes widened. "An illusion! What–?"

And then he froze.

Vesperia emerged from the empty air directly behind Monarch.

"You okay Rena?" she called out. "That was quite the illusion."

"Ye-yeah," an exhausted voice called out –notably, not from where Rena had been a moment ago. "Just– just give me a minute. And maybe a two hour nap."

Ryuko and Viperion vanished from the assembled heroes, with half of the remaining heroes changing locations – none of them were all that deep into the mansion, with all of them instead being clustered near the entrance or making their ways around the edges of the entrance hall.

"You made a massive illusion to make Monarch think he was more surrounded than he actually was," she realized. "There wasn't time for everyone to actually move into position around him, not without him noticing, so you just faked it. Then you covered up the actual heroes with an illusion of empty space, making them invisible. And all it took from there was getting the right opportunity." She frowned. "But how did you guys get the Miraculous back? You couldn't have had time to rescue all the kwamis!"

"I believe I may be able to explain that," Pegasus stepped forwards, adjusting his glasses. "You see, those orbs the kwamis were in were set up so that the kwamis could be 'channeled' through those rings Monarch is wearing, and from there into Alliance rings, effectively turning those rings into temporary Miraculous. Markov and I simply had to overwrite his access, making ourselves into administrators and then channeling the kwamis where we saw fit."

Pegasus gave Monarch a side-long glance. "It was easier than I expected. Someone had already left a backdoor in the code to take control, if need be. I simply had to exploit it."

She frowned. "Do you know who did it?" As bad as Monarch was, she doubted that anyone who tried to usurp him would be much better.

"I have my suspici–"

Vesperia's alliance ring beeped. "I think that means my timer's counting down," she noted.

Ladybug winced as her earrings beeped. "Mine as well. We'll talk about this later. For now–"

She looped her yo-yo around the still-frozen Monarch, before removing the butterfly brooch from around his neck. As expected, he detransformed into exactly the person she thought he'd be: Gabriel Agreste.

Chat stared at him in anger. "How could he think this was alright?" He whispered. "How could he think this was justified? All the pain, all the suffering, and for what?" His voice broke. "Why– why couldn't he just be a father?"

She laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "I don't know. I can't even begin to understand what you're going through. But you're not alone."

"That's right!" Pigella called out peppily. "We're all here with you!"

Did they know that Adrien was Chat Noir? That the man they'd just help take down was his father?

As they crowded around Chat Noir, she decided it didn't matter, not right now at least. They'd seen someone hurting and decided to try and help. She loved that about them. It was one of the reasons why she kept choosing her classmates for Miraculous.

Her earrings beeped again. "I have to bug out!" she called out urgently.

Polymouse nodded at her. "Go. We have this under control. The police are already on their way."

She turned to run and hide in a nearby room. It was over. Well, the first part of it was over, at any rate. There would be news conferences, trials, plenty of things to do between now and Gabriel officially being sentenced. And that wasn't even going into what Adrien would suffer, with both his mother and his father gone, his father's incarceration arguably being worse than his mother's death. At least he had fond memories of his mother, while his memories of his father would be forever tarnished.

But seeing how their classmates crowded around Chat, she was hopeful. He may not have parents, but he wasn't alone. She, and all the rest of their friends, would make sure of that.