Chapter Text
Ladybug trod carefully on the metal floors. It was a habit, even though it wasn’t a necessary one: she knew nobody here could lay a finger on her. But she preferred to do as little as possible, and so she had to make as little noise as possible.
Her earpiece had been quiet for a while. Perhaps that was a good thing. Having even more voices in her head would only have served to distract her. She already knew her mission, and she knew she was going to pull it off. Although… she did have a nasty habit of forgetting numbers…
What floor was he supposed to be on? she thought, primary level.
Six, replied Adrien, primary level. But he could be anywhere on the base. That’s just his office.
Right, she thought, primary level. Thank you.
No problem. I can’t wait for you to get back.
She smiled, but only halfway. Once she got back, she would smile the whole way, right at his face. Then again, she wouldn’t be smiling at him the same way he smiled at her, but he was already aware of that. It was just a layer of awkwardness that she always had to deal with.
His tertiary level thoughts were the same as always: excitement; nervousness; a bombardment of random background ideas that ranged between food and his upcoming haircut, to his opinions on their various instructors, to idly wondering what was happening to his body, to random memories from the past few days.
But accompanying them, as always, was that little pink sensation that never went away. Every time she Held him it was there, although it was less pink and less glowing now than it used to. It meant he was still in love with her.
She wished she could have given him what he wanted. It was terrible to know all his thoughts, to have them jumble their way into hers, and yet have to deny him on such a fundamental level. But their relationship had to stay purely professional.
A set of stairs. She looked around carefully, but saw nobody. Yet another reason why it was unnecessary to sneak around, she supposed… but it only frustrated her. Why was she sent here, if the place was going to be so empty? Was T.05 even here? Surely T.05 wouldn’t be left alone when he was so important. Would he be surrounded by guards? Was his intel that bad, that he thought she would be stopped by some goons with guns? He did have an anomaly, but from QG’s intel it was a minor one, not a threat to her at all. Something, some way, had to be up.
The only guards she had encountered so far were the two posted outside. Her combat training had been enough to deal with them — not a suspicious thing in itself, because Adrien’s anomaly was just like that. But for everywhere else to be completely empty was a large, red, flashing light with an accompanying blaring alarm.
Still… she could handle it. She was, for all intents and purposes, invincible. There wasn’t a single thing that anyone here could do to her, even if they had rocket launchers. Something had to be up, but it had to be something stupid and badly-thought-out. It was just… frustrating.
Worrying.
Why didn’t they send Adrien here? T.05’s anomaly couldn’t have done anything to him. Her powers weren’t really needed at all. If she had been in charge of planning she would have sent him and been absolutely confident of his return, but QG had said it had to be her. Like always. She was the field operative, and he was the home defence, and she was normally fine with it and she had even been fine with it up until a few minutes ago, when she noticed how little activity there was at this supposedly important base. Now it was fuelling her thoughts and her thoughts were not happy, as they raced down the tracks of possibilities.
Adrien didn’t seem to think much about it at all. His tertiary thoughts said nothing, except they occasionally noted [boredom]. What a boring mission, he seemed to be saying, except it didn’t actually come out in his primary level thoughts, the things he wanted to communicate to her directly. Obviously — he was trying to be considerate of her.
Not that it helped. Not that it ever had, or ever would. She probably knew his mind better than he did, and that… was a sobering thought.
Ugh. She was getting distracted. Time to focus.
T.05. Target 05, better known as Marc Anciel. A leader of the Akumas. Not the primary leader, but an important figure who had commanded multiple assaults on targets of national importance. An Anom. His anomaly was supposedly the ability to contort his body like putty, which meant he could go anywhere he wanted by pushing himself through keyholes, or mould his arms into weapons. He wouldn’t pose a problem for her.
The Akumas. One of the terrorist blocs that sprang up during the civil war, named for… honestly, she didn’t remember, because she didn’t need to. Their origin could be traced earlier than most of the other blocs, and they were well equipped, even though intel estimated them to also be the smallest. It was rumoured that they were receiving monetary support from wealthy benefactors in government, and that was how they managed to be such a problem.
Maybe their small size could explain why she was seeing few of them, but not this few. She had infiltrated hideouts of theirs before, and they were always well guarded. Something was wrong, and she was going to find out what before she left.
She tapped her earpiece. “There’s nobody here,” she said, looking around a corner to still see nobody — though she did see the stairs to the sixth floor. “It’s like a trap.”
“Roger,” said Traquemoiselle’s tinny, sparky voice. “Keep going.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird there’s nobody here?” she continued, half exasperated.
“Yes. It is. Keep going. This mission is of critical importance, and you are untouchable.”
“Okay. Copy.” Ladybug sighed and moved forward, still with light feet, still looking around, because she could never be careful enough. It wasn’t that Traquemoiselle was wrong, it was just that… something felt wrong. Something that wasn’t here.
Don’t worry, said Adrien’s primary level thoughts. Sabrina’s right. You have my anomaly. You’re completely safe.
I know, she thought back, primary level. But I’m starting to wonder if I should be worried about someone else’s safety.
What do you mean?
Do we have anybody else out in the field? Is this a misdirection?
He paused a little before he answered, though his tertiary level thoughts were hurrying down sprawling paths. Eventually, his primary level said, Look. You’re just one person, despite your anomaly. It’s not like you could protect everyone. There are dozens of Anoms, and hundreds of agents. A misdirection would mean… sending all of us somewhere, and then attacking the base. Not sending you alone.
Even so… — she started thinking that, but trailed away.
I believe in you, he finished. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.
She didn’t reply. All her thoughts remained on lower levels. She reached the stairs, climbed them slowly, almost felt like she wanted to try and run up that flight — because if she did, she would be finished sooner. If they had a trap waiting for her, they were going to be sorely disappointed, but if they had a trap waiting for somebody else…
She shook her head as she reached the sixth floor, trying to blow the worry away. It didn’t disappear, though, but lay there like a pool of quicksilver in her stomach. The sixth floor was a corridor, with two doors on either side and one door at the far end — it seemed almost too obvious. But she wanted to get done with this and put her mind to rest.
Her feet remained quiet as she approached that last door. But she pushed it open with a single motion, and stood in the open doorway, face to face with…
… a man. A man all by his lonesome, with a goatee and beard stubble, standing as though he had been waiting for her. And he was not T.05.
“Hello, Ladybug,” he said. “What a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“What’s going on?” she said, unwilling to deal with small talk right now. She stepped inside, one two three steps, just to get an overview of the room. She couldn’t see anybody else there. “Where is T.05?”
“T.05? Is that what you call him over there? Marc isn’t here right now, I’m afraid.”
“Our intel said —”
“Your intel thinks I’m him. It’s my superpower. Or… you call them anomalies, don’t you… my name’s Théo Barbot, and I can pretend to be anyone, to the point where even technology is fooled. My driver’s licence currently says I’m Marc Anciel, and your spy cameras think the same thing.”
She frowned at him. “What’s that got to do with anything? Why are you here, and not him?”
“We know everything about your little assassination attempt. And I’m afraid it’s not going to work.”
You can still kill him, thought Adrien. He’s T.12. Don’t let him discourage you. If you take him out it’s still a win.
“You sound very confident for someone who’s about to die,” said Ladybug. “What’s your plan, pretending to be me? That won’t help you.”
“Actually…” He pulled out a gun from a holster at his side. She hadn’t paid it any attention before, because she didn’t need to. “I was planning to shoot you.”
He fired. He was a decent shot, despite its futility. The bullet glanced off her chest, near the heart; she felt it like the flick of a finger.
See? Nothing to worry about, thought Adrien.
“Seriously?” she said, almost snarling. “You know who I am. You should know that won’t work on me.”
“Just testing, just testing,” he said, smirking confidently. His gun was still raised. “I hadn’t seen your anomaly in action yet. It’s remarkable.”
“It’s not my anomaly.”
“Oh, I know that. It’s Chat Noir’s, isn’t it? I’ve seen his power, from a distance. And you just… took it from him. You took all of him, didn’t you? His mind, his memories, his abilities. A perfect imitation.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t see a need to. Her words were better used for people whose voices weren’t dripping with smug self-satisfaction.
It’s only normal for them to have intel on their worst enemy, thought Adrien. There’s no need to be alarmed. He’s just buying time.
“You do it with a touch, don’t you?” T.12 continued. “Your bare skin against somebody else’s. You touched him and took him into you. That’s why you wear those gloves.”
She lifted her left hand and looked at it. The gloves were thin, form-fitting, red with black spots. Taking hold of the tip of the middle finger with her other hand, she pulled the glove off. “You’re right,” she said — except he wasn’t completely right. It only needed to be her bare skin, not theirs. “It’s my curse.”
“I dare say it’s our curse, given how you’ve used it against us for years. We’ve lost many good soldiers to your anomaly, Ladybug. But all that… ends today.”
“What do you mean?” she said. He was only ten feet away. She could walk over to him and end it so quickly — but his confidence was unnerving. There was definitely a trap somewhere.
“Where did you leave his body?” he said. “In the usual spot? When you touch someone, that’s what happens to them, right? They’re just there, a useless heap of meat.”
“What’s it to you?” she said. Except he had said… ‘the usual spot’...
“Well, it’s an interesting anomaly, isn’t it? You steal the entire person. Everything except their body. The body must be very vulnerable like that, don’t you think? If someone got access to the room his body’s in… that would be very bad for both of you, wouldn’t it?”
She froze completely. “What are you…”
Something’s wrong, thought Adrien. Primary level, but his quaternary thoughts were also going into action now. His trouble thoughts. Something was wrong, something was incredibly wrong.
“Let’s say,” said T.12, “that an Akuma agent had infiltrated into his hiding space. I wonder what would happen if they… say… slit his throat? Shot him through the heart? Could he live without his body?” His smirk was an evil grin now. “I doubt it. I think if that were to happen… he would be gone forever, and you would be helpless without him.”
I feel cold, thought Adrien. His quaternary thoughts screamed, but the screams were getting weaker. His tertiary thoughts, too, were fading. I feel… I feel…
Her own thoughts were also fading. But they were fading behind something red, growing, boiling. “You — what did you do —”
“I believe I’ve already explained everything I need to.”
Marinette… get out of there…
“Unless I’m mistaken… he should already be dead. You can feel him disappearing, can’t you?”
Marinette… help… me…
Her hands were already fists. Her nails were already digging into her palms, maybe even deep enough to draw blood. Her anger was already aflame, before she even noticed it emerging from the mists of her worry. “You…”
“Ah… what a wonderful expression to see on the face of our greatest enemy,” said T.12. “And now… let’s see what happens if I —”
Everything inside her went into a frenzy. His words stopped registering in her ears. Adrien was gone — the space in her mind where he had waited was empty. He was gone, he was dead, he was murdered: nothing else mattered. She wanted revenge. She wanted to snap the neck of the person who had killed him. But they weren’t here, and the only person she could take revenge on was an impostor, a smarmy fraud, a hateful little vermin.
She charged forward. T.12’s expression morphed from sadistic pleasure to fear. He raised his gun and shot twice, she felt the bullets hit her, but she didn’t care. She closed the distance before he could shoot again, before he could drop the weapon and turn to run, and she grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and felt him go limp; she threw his body to the floor.
Ah, I see, he thought, primary level. So this is how it works… interesting.
“Shut up,” she barked out loud. “Shut up. Shut up.”
I would have preferred not to die… but I fulfilled my purpose. I held you here long enough for our guy to take out Chat Noir. I shot you. I’d say that’s worth dying for.
“Shut up, you bastard,” she said. She noticed she was crying. Large, rolling tears that tumbled down her cheeks. The way Adrien had faded… it was the exact same way that she’d felt a hundred others die before. She had Held them, she had stabbed them through the heart, and she had felt them wither away; she had heard their dying thoughts, and dying thoughts always felt the same. Adrien was dead, and T.12 had helped kill him. She bent down to pick up the gun from the floor.
Why would I shut up? I’m your enemy. Now I’m in your head, I can torment you until you kill me. I don’t have anything else to do, do I? Not like I could get up again and punch you in the face, right?
“Shut — shut up!”
Remember when you took out Vincent? That was only two weeks ago. We couldn’t hold a funeral, because you tyrants appropriated his body for your ‘research’. I wonder if they’ll do the same to Chat Noir? If they’ll cut open his body and —
She fired the gun. Into his forehead, into his heart, two more times into his heart, into his throat. Her gun hand was steady, but every other part of her was trembling. As the blood spread out across his clothes, the colour growing brighter and pinker towards the outer edges, even that hand started to shake — and she dropped the gun.
So this is what it’s like to die…
She wanted to shout at him again. But… what would be the point of that? He was dead. He was fading away, his primary and his tertiary and his quaternary thoughts all together, his fear of death and his rage at life and most of all, his wrath at her. She let it all seep out the way his blood seeped out — or perhaps she didn’t let it, perhaps it was the only thing she was capable of doing. She felt numb. She felt like she wanted to fall over. She felt like she wanted to scream at her superiors. She wanted to scream at herself. She wanted to see Adrien’s body, to hug it, to pray over it so that he could start his next life in safety and calm.
Then she heard it. A voice, from out in the hallway — a girl’s voice, muffled by distance and a door. Maybe one of the doors she passed by. “Hello?” it said. “Is he gone?”
Someone else. There was someone else; an enemy? A prisoner? She wasn’t Holding anyone. She was vulnerable. If this voice was a backup terrorist meant to finish the job if T.12 couldn’t… she would be in big trouble.
But what did it matter? Her best friend was dead. If she couldn’t face her own death, what good was she? What use was she to anyone?
She steadied herself, bunched together her fists again. Walked out into the hallway again. “Hello?” she called out. Her hip felt stiff. Her leg stung, like she had stepped on it wrong. She ignored it; she had too much going on to worry about that. There was a mission to wrap up, and a body to bury. There was a voice to identify.
“Hello,” the voice said again — from the first door to her right. Ladybug turned immediately to open it, and saw…
… a girl. Maybe her age, maybe a little bit younger, with short-cut black hair and amber eyes. She was alone, sitting on a wooden four-legged chair in a room that barely seemed larger than a broom closet; the door almost hit her knees as it swung in. Her face wasn’t impassive, but it also didn’t reveal anything — surprise, relief, any kind of feeling.
More importantly, though, she was tied up. Her wrists and her ankles were both bound with thick rope, locking her into her position on the chair with an extra rope tied between the bindings.
“… Who are you?” said Ladybug.
The girl looked down at Ladybug’s waist. “You’re injured,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding. You have been shot.”
Right. T.12, just before she Held him. The gun had fired… two shots? She looked down herself and saw… a large patch of blood on her right hip, and another shot that had hit her over her right knee. They looked bad. She hadn’t noticed the trail of blood that now led back into the room with T.12’s corpse. But as her brain slowly caught up with what she was seeing, she felt the wounds like two sharp jabs — no, worse, like she had red-hot pokers jammed into her side. She whimpered in pain.
“Who are you?” the girl asked.
“Lh… nnh… Ladybug.” She moved all her weight off the shot foot. “Why are you here? Did the Akumas take you prisoner?”
“I’m tied up to a chair,” came the reply.
“P-point taken… ngh,” said Ladybug. “We’ll rescue you. Don’t worry.” Fighting against the pain, which was building stronger with every second, she touched her earpiece again. “Traquemoiselle? I need… to get back. Immediately. The akumas also had… a prisoner who needs… to be examined.”
“Roger. I’ll be there straight away.”
She didn’t say anything about Adrien being dead. She wanted to be the first to see him. Raising an alarm would only get him taken away before she could get to his room. Instead, she turned to the girl again and tried to smile for her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll have you out of here very soon. Ngh…”
“You don’t look fit to take me anywhere,” said the girl.
There was a flash in the hallway. Traquemoiselle had arrived.
“Maybe not,” said Ladybug.
Then the lights went out, and she tumbled into unconsciousness.