Chapter 7: Multiplication
The hero team gathered on an isolated rooftop. (They had figured out how to set their Miraculous communicators so the stolen items were excluded, so they were able to plan and organize the meeting safely.)
"Greetings, everyone!" said the leader. "It's great to see you all together again."
"Yay, Ladybug!" the team cheered.
"Formerly Ladybug. Now I go by La Renarde."
The name meant "The Vixen." She had a silver-gray fox costume, similar to the one worn by Rena Furtive. The main difference was it had round camouflage spots.
"I've had to make some changes in our lineup. Everyone whose identity was exposed to Monarch is off the team. It's for their own and their family's safety. Monarch's way more dangerous now."
"That's too bad," said Polymouse. "I'm sure they wanted to stay in the fight."
The others nodded.
"All of you who were never unmasked get to keep your same hero identities."
Chat Noir, Vesperia, Purple Tigress, Polymouse, Rooster Bold, and Minotaurox all cheered.
"We may do some switch-ups later to confuse Monarch. We'll see how it goes."
The team members looked at each other, thinking about what other powers they might like to try. Two newcomers stood out.
"The two heroes I'm going to introduce have already been on the team. First is the former Pigella."
A girl in a cute green turtle costume with frills around the edges of her shell raised her hand shyly.
"Hi, I'm Barrimaid," she said. "I'll do my best to be the new Carapace."
"Second is the former Caprikid."
"Call me Draco Malboy now," said the boy in a dark red costume, with black and red "dragon spike" hair ornaments.
La Renarde said, "Since both of you had your Miraculous stolen while you were you were inactive, it's only fair that you have another chance."
"What about King Monkey?" asked Chat Noir.
"There are no more free Miraculous," said La Renarde.
(Marinette had another reason not to involve King Monkey. Her betrayal by Adrien had brought back her traumatic memories of Kim and the spiders.)
"We're all going to have to train hard," said La Renarde. "Even some of the people who are off the team told me that they're going to be doing martial arts training just in case. We're going to beat Monarch."
"You're so right!" said Chat.
"He doesn't have that great of an advantage. He's learned that using lots of Miraculous together is just damaging to himself. So he'll probably give them to akuma victims. But if he does that, we'll get the Miraculous back when we beat them. Does anyone have any suggestions?"
"We need to learn to coordinate our powers, and have team plans so we can call out moves by code names," said Rooster Bold.
"Good idea," said Draco Malboy.
"We need a team name," said Barrimaid. "Like Unicorns for Justice."
"Too much like a song by Kitty Section," said Chat. "What about the Paris Protectors?"
"That works," said La Renarde.
The next day in class, Alix's father said, "My daughter, your friend, Alix, will be away for some time. The hero team leader has authorized me to tell you that Alix was chosen to be a superhero, Bunnyx."
He projected an image on the classroom screen of future Bunnyx in future Paris.
"She will travel through time so he cannot take her Miraculous. Once he's been overpowered, she can return."
The class discussed what they could do to support the former Ladybug and her team.
Only Chloé objected, "Why don't we give Monarch what he's after, Chat Noir's ring? It's because Ladybug was incompetent and lost her Miraculous and half the others that we're all in danger. This would never have happened with Queen Bee!"
Lila chimed in, "Ladybug is young, Chloé. With all those responsibilities and powers, she was bound to make a few mistakes. We have to find the strength to forgive her. It shouldn't be a child's duty to fight Monarch."
Marinette felt infuriated at this backhanded "support."
"It's true! " said Sabrina. "it's usually my dad's duty to fight bad guys."
"You're right, Lila. We can't let Ladybug down!" said Alya.
As they left the classroom, Marinette saw Lila stop and whisper something to Adrien. They left the room holding hands.
"Somebody needs to warn Lila about Adrien," said Alya to Marinette. "She could get hurt."
"She can have him," said Marinette coldly. "They deserve each other."
"Wow, you really don't like Lila, do you? I used to think it was just jealousy but now I know it can't be that."
"Absolutely not. I just don't trust her."
"She always acts nice to people."
"Acts is right. I don't think she really cares about anything but herself."
"Okay. Since you're so sure, I'm going to start looking at her in a new light."
Marinette sighed. Finally she was starting to get through to Alya.
People started out full of good intentions to prepare for the attacks of Monarch. The hero team trained together. A small group practiced yoga, even though Ivan and Mylène for some reason didn't participate. Alya and Nino learned hand-to-hand combat from her sister Nora. Chat Noir and La Renarde spent a lot of time watching from the Eiffel Tower
Weeks dragged by without an attack. The yoga class gradually diminished until nobody was left. Alya and Nino started playing video games together while Nora watched. The Paris Protectors trained less and less, though the two lead heroes kept watching from the Eiffel Tower (even though they were mostly playing Gin Rummy).
The attack finally came when the students were meeting at the start of the school day.
"These old buildings are from a bygone era! It's time to smash the old Paris to the ground and turn it into a modern city!" Ikari Gozen shouted, smashing into the front of Collège Françoise Dupont with her sword.
Ikari Gozen leaped away.
"Lucky for us, Chat Noir and the Paris Protectors are gonna come and save us, right?" asked Alya. "They're going to come and save us!" she repeated, pulling Marinette away.
Adrien said something about hiding, and ran off himself.
The Paris Protectors assembled surprisingly quickly in front of the ruined school. (Surprisingly for everyone except Marinette, who knew they were all students there).
"So, we finally hear from Monarch, and the best he can do is a rerun of Ikari Gozen?" asked Chat Noir.
"Except I can't repair damage," said La Renarde. "We have to take her down quickly before she creates mass destruction. I'm going to get to high ground and help direct the team over our communicators."
"Can't you distract her with your illusions?" asked Barrimaid.
"I don't think so," said La Renarde. "Tomoe Tsurugi is blind. Her robotic body probably gives her some sort of radar vision, but I don't know how it looks to her, so I can't fake it."
La Renarde got to the top of Notre Dame with a series of leaps and concealed herself, while Chat Noir pole-vaulted ahead to draw the villain's attention. The others ran and leaped across rooftops to catch up.
"Ha, ha! Another Parisian antique. Chat Noir, it's time for you to be grounded! " said Ikari Gozen, slashing at him with her sword.
Chat Noir parried with his staff. "I'm not that worn out. I'll prove it!"
"Paris needs more modern heroes."
"Like me!" said Purple Tigress, who had caught up. She leaped up at Ikari Gozen, whipping out her bolas to try to snag the sword, but the villain easily evaded it and snapped her fingers to send the heroine flying away.
"I'll go make sure Purple Tigress is all right," Barrimaid volunteered.
"I'll do it," said Minotaurox. "We may need your force shield." He charged off.
"All right," said Renarde over the comm in Chat's baton. "Try to overwhelm her. Chat Noir, try to Cataclysm her sword. That's where the akuma was last time."
The others spread out on surrounding rooftops, trying to encircle the villain,
"I see you're ganging up on me," said Ikari Gozen. "I can do that too: Multitude!"
There was a flash of light and humming sound in the air, and in an instant there were multiple smaller copies of Ikari Gozen, twelve of them.
"Multitude?" said Chat Noir said with a gasp.
"How did she do that?" asked Polymouse. "Can she copy powers like Strikeback? I didn't even use it yet!"
"Let's get this antique city smashed once and for all!" said one of the Ikari clones. They rushed off in different directions, smashing at buildings and monuments as they went.
"Now she's Ikari-DOzen," said Chat. "Are we going to have to destroy all twelve swords?"
"No. It should only take one," said Renarde. "She made identical copies of herself."
"I can freeze one of them!" said Vesperia. "Venom!"
"Careful!" warned Renarde. "There's something off about this."
Vesperia leaped after one of the copies and tried to touch its flank with her Venom hand, but it passed right through! She went off-balance and fell to the ground.
That copy of Ikari Gozen disappeared, leaving a small swarm of drones in her place. One of them flew at Vesperia and pulled the comb from her hair. She detransformed into Zoė.
"It's a trap!" Zoė shouted. "They're not copies, they're drones projecting holograms!"
"Lightning Dragon!" said Draco, becoming a being of electrical energy.
Like a bolt of lightning, his electricity shorted out the drones. The one with the Bee dropped it. His bolt arced after the other copies, destroying four more. As they went down, it became apparent that the damage they had done was also a holographic illusion.
Draco reverted to normal hero form. "I don't have enough range in that form to get them all."
Zoė picked up her comb. "I'm going to have to feed Pollen."
"We have to figure out which one is real," said La Renarde. "Let's see... one of them must be the original size, just made to look smaller with holograms. If we can just get a close look without our Miraculous being grabbed..."
"I'll be hard to notice." said Polymouse. "Draco, Scatter! Multitude!"
"Scatter" was a code word for a maneuver that they had practiced.
"Wind Dragon!" Draco swooped up the little poly-mice and carried them off.
Soon Polymouse reported in. "The one heading toward the Eiffel Tower is real. The fake projected background doesn't quite match."
"We can't let her destroy the Eiffel Tower!" said Chat. "How can we get there in time?"
"I give myself the power of high-speed flight carrying others," said Rooster Bold. "Sublimation!"
His power lifted them all and they flew through the air, arriving in a ring around Ikari Gozen.
"Water Dragon," called Draco Malboy. His water form surged and swatted the drones around Ikari Gozen from the air. Her true large size was revealed, and there was a giant paintbrush strapped to her back
"Shell-ter!" said Barrimaid, putting up a force-field bubble around the villain, but leaving the tip of the sword protruding out. Ikari couldn't move the blade.
Chat Noir used his extending pole to reach up and touch the tip with his right hand. "Cataclysm!"
The released akuma butterfly started to fly away.
"Mirage!" La Renarde used an illusion to confuse the butterfly and make it fly into into a glass jar. She sealed the lid. "Gotcha!"
Ikari Gozen faded in a purple cloud into a red self-driving car with Tomoe Tsurugi inside.
The team gathered and bumped fists. "Pound it!"
"What happened?" Tomoe asked, getting out of the car.
"You were akumatized," said Chat Noir.
"How could I help it? They refused to let me demolish the Buttes-Chaumont Park to make way for my techno pool."
"You can build it somewhere else," said La Renarde. "Mrs. Tsurugi, can you check whether you have a Miraculous with you?"
"Monarch must have given it to you after he akumatized you," said Chat.
"What does it look like?"
"It must have been the Goat Miraculous, so it's two hairpins. Monarch probably had you create a large box of drones."
Tomoe felt in her hair. "I don't feel anything like that."
"How did Monarch do it, then?" asked La Renarde.
"That's the surprise he had in store for us after lying low for so long," said Chat.
The Miraculous of the heroes who had used powers were timing out and beeping, so they had to go. La Renarde regretted that she could no longer give out Magic Charms. She would just have to hope that Tomoe was not akumatized again.
After the kwamis were fed, the team gathered for a recap.
"That was good teamwork," said La Renarde.
"It was great!" said Minotaurox. "We won without property damage."
"Except for our... that poor school," said Polymouse.
"I think Monarch expected us to scatter after the copies," said La Renarde. "If we had, many more Miraculous would have been taken, cutting the team down. As it is, we only lost one."
"Hey, I got it back," said Vesperia.
"That drone may have taken a picture of you and sent it back to Monarch," said La Renarde. "According to our security rules, that means that you have to give up your Miraculous."
"No, please no!"
"I'm very sorry. We'll find a replacement for you."
The Paris Protectors retired from the field with mixed feelings. They had won but the price was high.