Chapter Text
“Okay,” Adrien said, leaning his head back against the wall. “Here’s what—”
“You’re not using that!” Plagg hovered over Adrien’s hand, arms held out. “You saw what happened.”
“I know, Plagg. I don’t want to use it, but I think we can trick him.” His overshirt was still in the middle of the room, where he’d tried to help Kid Thunder through his seizure. Adrien slowly crawled over to it—if he kept moving he was okay, but if he stopped his muscles started tightening up. He was just so tired.
He sat cross-legged and dragged the shirt into his lap to dig through the hidden pocket he kept Plagg’s cheese in. Plagg swooped in and snatched up a wedge of camembert with a happy purr, despite their circumstances, and Ginjii flew down closer to stare at the cheese. The yellow kwami was still sparking, and Adrien fervently hoped that was just a side effect of his Miraculous being damaged.
“Here it is,” he said, pulling out a slightly squashed purple wedge. “Plagg?”
The black kwami stared at it, crumbs of camembert decorating his whiskers. “But I just ate!”
“You know you can eat more,” Adrien retorted, waving the cheese at the kwami. Plagg finally took it with a grumble, eating the purple camembert with a heavy sigh and theatrical gags that Adrien ignored. “When you found that towel, did you find any way out of here?”
Plagg swallowed the last bite, a shiver running through his tiny body as he transformed. The changes would hopefully be subtle enough that Kid Thunder wouldn’t notice…Adrien’s entire plan was depending on that. “We’re in the basement of some kind of house,” he said. “I just saw the ground floor, looked like the windows were boarded up.”
“Good,” Adrien nodded. “We can break through, then. Ginjii?”
The yellow kwami zoomed up to eye level to meet Adrien’s gaze. “Frien-drien?”
Adrien smiled, letting out a laugh that was cut short as his chest spasmed with pain. Ginjii’s seemed to have some trouble focusing, probably thanks to the damage to the Miraculous. He was stuttering and mixing up words when he spoke—maybe repairing the bracelet would help with that. “When the man comes back—”
“M-master?”
He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Does he make you call him that?”
“Yes.”
His father had done the same with Nooroo and Duusu. “He shouldn’t,” he said. “You’re not…he’s not better than you. You’re his equal.”
“You’re his superior,” Plagg interjected scornfully, floating in a lazy ring around Adrien. “We kwamis are the superior form of life. All humans are beneath us—present company excluded, of course.”
Adrien rolled his eyes. “Anyway. When he comes back, I’m going to pretend to transform with you. When that happens, you need to hide and try to follow us without being seen, okay?”
Ginjii’s dark eyes flitted between Adrien and Plagg as he slowly nodded.
“I get it!” Plagg floated up in front of Adrien. “Astrocat!”
He nodded. His Astrocat transformation was a dark suit with yellow accents. Hopefully that would be enough to fool their captor.
“Now what?” the kwami demanded.
“We wait,” Adrien replied. He was tempted to lie down and close his eyes, just to get a moment’s rest, but there was a chance he wouldn’t wake up before Kid Thunder returned.
A door slammed, heavy footprints stomping across the floor in the next room. Adrien exchanged a glance with Plagg, then Ginjii.
“Guess we don’t wait for long,” Plagg muttered, positioning himself in front of Adrien as those heavy footsteps grew closer. A hand rattled the doorknob, and the door was flung open. Adrien shoved the bracelet onto his wrist, steeling himself against the surge of electricity that burned his aching body, and pushed himself up to his feet just as Kid Thunder strode in.
The man had removed his manacles and was wearing a pair of heavy gloves over both hands. He glowered at Adrien; eyes focused on his right arm. “That’s mine,” he announced.
Adrien took a step back. Plagg was still in front of him, and Ginjii was so close he could feel the hair on his arms standing on-end. “What’s yours?” he asked, trying to inject some of Chat Noir’s bravado into his voice. It was harder without the suit.
“My bracelet,” Kid Thunder growled. He took another step forward and reached out. “Give it back.”
He didn’t keep his eyes off the man as he tried to judge the distance to the door. A few more steps would do it. He held his arm up, displaying the bracelet. “It belongs in a museum.”
Kid Thunder bared his teeth and lunged forward. Adrien dodged to the side.
“Gijnii! Plagg!”
“No!” the man grabbed for him, fingers just brushing the fabric of his t-shirt.
“Claws out!”
Ginjii darted away and up through the ceiling as the burst of Miraculous energy wrapped Astrocat’s transformation around Adrien.
He could fly in this suit. He let himself fall forward, limbs still heavy with exhaustion, and activated the wings without a second thought. Astrocat was around Kid Thunder and through the door in a moment as the villain raged behind him.
There were stairs at the end of the dingy hall. He flew towards them, kicking off the ground when needed to maintain his speed, and had just started racing up the stairs when a bolt of lightning struck the wall beside his head.
Astrocat yelped and dodged back, twisting over his shoulder to see Kid Thunder holding out a fist toward him.
“Get back here!” the man yelled. As Astrocat watched, another charge lit up the knuckles on the back of the glove before a second blast of lightning streaked toward him.
He threw himself forward, landing prone on the stairs while the bolt hit the wall above him. Then he was on his feet, scrambling up, finding the ground floor of the building. The windows had been boarded up with heavy plywood, and he knew he didn’t have the strength to punch through them.
But he still had his cataclysm.
…
“Nothing?” Ladybug asked, hand pressed to her earpiece. “Are you sure?”
“He’s not here, dude.” Carapace’s voice sounded as despondent as hers. “I gotta…what’s next?”
She pulled her map out, crossing off the areas they had just searched. People had seen Kid Thunder, but no one could tell her where he’d gone. “Okay, two blocks north of you there’s—”
“Ladybug!” his voice broke over hers, loud with excitement. “We’ve got lightning!”
She stuffed the map back into her pouch. “Where are you?” she demanded, leaping off the rooftop and catching a protruding chimney with her yo-yo to haul herself up as Carapace relayed his location. It wasn’t too far away—he’d been at the edge of their search circle, and she was about halfway across it. “I’m on my way, just—”
“I see him!”
Relief flooded Ladybug’s body, washing away some of her earlier anxiety—and adrenaline flooded in to replace it. “I’m on my way,” she repeated, hitting the roofs at a run.
She heard them before she saw them.
The crackle of lightning, the thunder of a shockwave. She rounded a corner, dodging a panicked mother and baby, and raced into an open field between residential buildings. This had been the next place on her list—someone was trying to turn a few of the older homes into student apartments, but their funding had fallen through so the houses had been empty for a few years now.
Chat Noir—Astrocat—was in the sky, flying in tight circles to hold Kid Thunder’s attention. Ladybug couldn’t see much from the ground, but she could tell he was a little worse for wear. His movements lacked their usual grace, and he was dodging the lightning blasts a little too sluggishly. Carapace was on the ground, using his shield to draw Kid Thunder’s attention where he could, though his focus was split between the villain and the civilians who hadn’t evacuated.
“Need a hand?” Ladybug asked, swinging down beside Carapace.
“Chat’s not looking too good,” he panted. “Down!” He shoved her down and away as a bolt of lightning speared between the two of them.
“Of course he has lightning gloves,” she grumbled. There had been no sign of that massive destructive power he’d shown while transformed—and no sign of the yellow kwami. “Keep him busy for a second?”
“What do you think we’re doing?” Carapace yelled after her as she ducked behind a car.
She twirled her yo-yo and spun it up into the air above her head. “Lucky Charm!”
The magic collected, condensed, and….
“A trampoline?” Ladybug cried when the heavy object landed in her hands. It wasn’t even rubber—Kid Thunder was on the ground, shooting lightning everywhere! She didn’t need a…a….
“Ladybug!” Carapace rolled behind the car. “Did you—is that a trampoline?”
“We need a new plan,” she grumbled, shoving the thing out of the way.
“I got one, but I gotta get a line of sight on him, and he’s gotta be still for like three seconds.”
Right. She could do that. “He’ll have to hold still to aim,” she said, heaving up the trampoline to throw out into the street. With a running jump, she landed in the middle of it and launched herself up in a graceful arc, flinging her yo-yo down to knock Kid Thunder’s hand away when he tried to aim at her.
“Milady?” Astrocat caught her wrist, but even her weight seemed too much for him right now and he faltered. “What’s the plan?”
This close, she could see how bad he looked. The burns on his face were still bright red, and the hand holding her wrist was trembling. “We need to make him stay still for a couple of seconds.”
“Easier said than done,” Astrocat mumbled, releasing her as she swung her legs forward to land on a nearby light pole.
“Go high,” she called. “We’ll split his attention.”
Astrocat nodded. Was he shaking, as he pushed more power into his wings? He shouldn’t have had to fight like this, but they really had no other choice.
She scanned the area quickly while Astrocat had Kid Thunder’s attention. There was an overturned van a few yards away from the villain…if they could drive him that way they’d limit his movements. She relayed the thought to the others, though Astrocat didn’t reply.
Ladybug braced herself and ran out of cover. Carapace’s shield bounced off the wall in front of her and ricocheted toward the villain, who took a step back to avoid. Kid Thunder stepped right into her path and she barreled into him, barely ducking the electrified punch she threw his way.
She managed to catch his shoulder, twist at the hips, and flip him onto his back before running toward the overturned van. She jumped onto and over the van as Kid Thunder let out a bellow of rage, dodging a bolt of lightning that left the van’s frame humming with electricity.
“Guys?” she panted. She could hear the villain just on the other side of the van, and didn’t dare touch the vehicle in case he electrified it again.
“Got it.” Astrocat sounded exhausted. Ladybug craned her head around, just in time to see him dive in to land a kick in between the man’s shoulder blades.
Kid Thunder spun around with a shout and caught Astrocat’s ankle before he could fly away. Ladybug rolled to her feet, around the van and running toward them, catching Kid Thunder’s hand with her yo-yo and wrenching him away from Astrocat before he could hurt him again.
The man snarled and caught her yo-yo string to send an electric current through it, but she planted her feet and hauled on it to send him staggering toward her, then dropped the yo-yo to dart forward and slide between his legs. She swiveled onto her back, planted both feet in his backside, and shoved him hard enough to knock him off-balance.
“Carapace!”
“Shelter!”
Ladybug rolled back, using her momentum to flip onto her feet, getting out of the range just as the orange shield appeared around Kid Thunder.
They were too late. He’d already sent one final blast of lightning out, and Astrocat’s cry of pain split the air as he took the hit.
She leaped on top of the dome capturing Kid Thunder. Astrocat was too high for her to catch, falling too fast. Unless….
“Trampoline!” she shouted to Carapace. He nodded, kicking it over to her. She jumped off the dome, as high as she could, and struck the middle of the trampoline. The force rebounded her into the air, and she whirled her yo-yo above her head praying this would be enough. Just a little higher. A little closer.
Ladybug threw the yo-yo at the height of her jump, snagging Astrocat and pulling him to her before she started to fall. She had no hope of a graceful landing, but she tucked his head into the crook of her neck and cradled his body with her arms.
Carapace was there. He caught them both, though it was closer to say he broke their fall. The three of them sprawled out on the ground in a graceless heap, Astrocat still held in Ladybug’s arms.
There was a familiar bracelet on Astrocat’s wrist, and as Ladybug stared at it the yellow kwami zoomed into view. Electricity was still arcing off its little body, matching the sparks coming off the bracelet. Ladybug quickly tugged it off Astrocat, noticing the way his body seemed to relax as soon as she removed it.
“Um…hello?” she said cautiously.
The kwami blinked at her. It twitched a little before focusing its eyes on Astrocat. “He said…friends?”
“Yes,” Ladybug nodded. “Yes, we’re your friends.”
It nodded, its gaze moving to the bracelet in her hand. “Fix?”
“We’ll fix it,” she promised. She flipped open her compact, trusting the Miracle Box to keep the bracelet safe until they could decipher the book. “I think you should be somewhere safe in the meantime.
It hesitated. “H-he said…is the sn-snake there?”
“Sass? Yes, he’s there.”
A small smile flitted across the kwami’s face. “Ginjii,” he said, touching his chest, before following his bracelet into her compact.
…
“But you can fix it?” Adrien asked, settling into the beanbag on Marinette’s floor. The ladybugs had fixed most of the damage done by Kid Thunder, but some wounds still remained. Lichtenberg figures still trailed up Adrien’s arms and neck, and he was so tired he could barely hold his head up. His entire body ached, and his muscles felt sore and tight.
“I’m working on the translation now,” Alya said. She’d set up a pinboard next to Marinette’s computer, and it was filled with a dozen notes about the Miraculous restoration spell. “I think I’ve figured out a few things—look, ‘essence of kapur’…kapur is another name for camphor, so this could mean camphor oil.”
“I think my mom has some of that,” Marinette volunteered. “Dad has a bad knee, and she makes liniment for him when the weather gets bad.”
Alya nodded, scribbling something on one of the pages on the pinboard.
Adrien let himself relax into the beanbag as Nino appeared through the trapdoor with his arms full of snacks. Tom and Sabine had been frantic with worry when they saw him, and they’d insisted on taking him to the hospital to have his injuries evaluated.
At least Marinette had given him a cover store. She’d already told her parents he was visiting an old friend earlier, so it was easy to say he’d been caught in Kid Thunder’s attack and unable to call for help until after his capture. The doctor had cleared him to come home as long as he rested over the next few days and return to the hospital immediately if he had any further side effects, like trouble breathing or seizures.
“So, camphor oil,” Alya read off. “Any clues on lightning glass? Powerdered Chandana? The ‘divine creation component’ is probably the material Miraculous is made of, so that’s silver, right? And these might be herbs, but their names are unfamiliar….”
Nino settled into the beanbag beside Adrien, and he leaned against his friend as the girls’ voices washed over them. He was still exhausted, and his eyes were sliding shut as Nino wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
“Get some rest, dude,” Nino whispered. “We’ll figure it out.”
He nodded. The last thing he felt was Plagg snuggling up under his chin, purring loud enough to rattle his chest, as Adrien finally drifted off to sleep.