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One minute she was holding the torn notebook, tears streaming from her eyes and dripping down onto the shredded pages, and the next there was a voice in her head and her vision had tunneled until all she could see was the purple mask hovering in front of her eyes.
“Lady Justice,” the smooth voice said. “I am Hawkmoth. That girl has gotten away with her lies and manipulation long enough. I am giving you the chance to bring justice back and prove your innocence. In return, I only ask for-”
“Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous,” she interrupted with a growl.
The voice seemed pleased. “Very good. I knew you were a smart girl. Do we have a deal, Lady Justice?”
She closed her eyes, feeling the strum of magic sitting just under her ribcage. Somehow she knew exactly what power he was offering. There was a part of her, locked way back in her subconscious, that was screaming… something. Something she wasn’t supposed to do. Something she was supposed to remember.
But Hawkmoth was right. The injustice had gone on long enough. Not just for her, but for Adrien, and the rest of her classmates, and…
And all of Paris.
Her lips curved up in a smile.
“Yes, Hawkmoth. We have a deal.”
“Good,” he said, voice dripping in sick satisfaction, and the magic spread from the book in her hands, connecting with the pool of power inside her before coating the rest of her body. She wiggled in delight. It felt good. Even before, when she’d- she stopped the thought before it could cross the mental connection to her benefactor. There was something she wasn’t supposed to share, something he wasn’t supposed to know…
No matter. The magic finished its job and she stood, stretching out her neck. Time for justice.
Lady Justice listened, spreading her magic out through the streets of Paris. Waves of pain, waves of injustice immediately crashed into her, almost sending her stumbling to her knees. She tightened her grip on the tablet in her hand, gritting her teeth, and raised her other hand. The snap of her fingers was deafening.
When the thunderous echo cleared, she was no longer in the school locker room, but on top of L’Arc de Triomphe. Shouts rose around her as the streets filled with people. Even blindfolded, she could picture it clearly.
The plaza was divided in two. One section crowded the majority of the space, jammed full of bodies all pushing and shoving and fighting to see what was happening. These were the victims, brought to testify against their oppressors. Even though her heart ached at the number, it was no surprise. Paris was full of the wounded, and the reason sat in the other section.
“Lady Justice,” Hawkmoth’s voice hissed in her mind. “What are you doing?”
“Bringing justice back to Paris,” she replied simply. She snapped again, smiling in satisfaction as the man grunted.
“Release me at once!” he yelled.
“Why, Hawkmoth,” she said smoothly, turning her head in what she knew was the direction of the chained supervillain. “Is that a whimper of fear I hear? You should be afraid,” she added , ignoring his blustery shouts. “Of all the villains in Paris, your hands are the filthiest. You won’t be able to recall my akuma with your hands bound, so I suggest you sit back and wait patiently for your turn. A certain liar is first.”
She turned away as he began to argue, ignoring his increasingly angry yells. “People of Paris,” she called, and her voice naturally rose above the anxious crowd. “I am Lady Justice. You have been wronged for long enough. We are here today to judge the innocence of those who seek to take advantage of those they deem lesser than themselves. We’ll begin with Lila Rossi.”
An indignant shriek rose from the stand of the guilty. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Adrien Agreste,” Lady Justice said, ignoring the girl and sending a wave of magic into the crowd. “If you would come to the stand.”
The whispers of the crowd fell silent as a lone figure approached the bench she knew was before her.
“Adrien Agreste,” she repeated, tilting her head down in his direction. “Speak.”
“Um…” The boy paused, then cleared his throat. “Lila has been bullying my classmate, Marinette, for a couple months now, even getting her expelled by pretending that Marinette pushed her down a flight of stairs. She’s lied about a lot of things, like being friends with Ladybug, Jagged Stone, Prince Ali, and some other people, I think. She’s also faked a lot of injuries to get out of doing her homework and to get the other students to sympathise with her.”
When the blonde stopped, Lady Justice tilted her head. “And?”
His next words came out as a cough. “She’s also, uh, pushed me around at work. She likes to touch me and get really close to me and it makes me uncomfortable but no one listens. And I think she’s been plotting something with my dad, but I don’t really know what it is, so…” he trailed off, clearing his throat again.
“Thank you.” She held up her tablet, ignoring the hysterical shrieking coming from the filthy liar herself as golden letters tumbled off of it. “Lila Rossi, you are found guilty. Your punishment is the loss of the ability to lie- and the loss of your voice.”
She smirked as the shrill cries stopped. Her tablet returned to normal and Adrien Agreste walked back down to the crowd, leaving the stand open for her next witness. “Now. Hawkmoth. The time has come for your reckoning.”
If the crowd had been loud before, now they were deafening. She ignored them. “Will Ivan Bruel please come to the stand?”
And so Hawkmoth’s trial began. The victims detailed stories of sadness, anger, woe, and always a voice in their head, ready and willing to take advantage of them for his own gain. Each victim just added more and more fuel to the fire that was her rage.
Finally her list dwindled down to the last person to testify. “Chat Noir,” she said, and the crowd’s voices cut off like a flame under water. “If you would please come to the stand.”
Oh. This one was a fighter. She tugged on the magic, forcing the superhero forward. He struggled, fighting harder than anyone had so far, but he was no match for Lady Justice.
But- this victim had already testified. She recognised the sound of his pain. This was Adrien Agreste.
On the other side of the connection, Hawkmoth’s angry shouting stopped. She could feel horror crash over him.
Interesting.
“Can I assume that you are Chat Noir?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
There was a pause as he fought against her magic, but in the end she won. “Yes,” he said reluctantly.
“You may begin.”
The boy took a deep breath. “Me and my partner, Ladybug, have been fighting Hawkmoth’s akumatized victims for over a year now. There’s one almost every single day, and sometimes he sends out two or three.”
“And how has this affected you?”
“Um-” the boy paused again, but this time she didn’t need her magic to compel him to speak. He seemed to take a moment to prepare himself before beginning.
“Well, it made it hard to get enough sleep. Hawkmoth sends out a lot of akumas at night. That, and…” His voice grew soft. “I have a lot of nightmares. It’s hard to have to fight a supervillain every day. Especially when my friends are akumatized and I have to fight them. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good night’s rest. Oh, and I’m always having to leave in the middle of class. I tell a lot of lies and it-” He paused again. Lady Justice sent a flick of magic his way, forcing his mouth to open once again. “It affects my relationships,” the boy said, and his voice was so soft that if she wasn’t currently superpowered, there was no way she’d have been able to hear him. “It’s hard to have to lie to my friends all the time.”
“And?” she had to prompt. “Tell me about the fights.”
She could feel his struggle, but his mouth opened again. “I get hurt a lot,” he said. “More than I tell people. I’ve died a lot, too.”
Hawkmoth made a wounded noise.
“Me and my partner have had to sacrifice a lot for Paris,” the boy continued. “It’s not easy being a superhero. You… you kind of lose yourself sometimes. And that’s hard. I know I’m definitely affected by it, and I know that Ladybug is too, even though she tries to pretend she isn’t.”
Ladybug. Ladybug. Why did that ring a bell? The name sounded important, like she was supposed to care.
Lady Justice shook her head. “Thank you, Chat Noir. That is all.”
As the boy left the stand, she snapped her finger once more. The golden letters fluttered off her tablet, crossing the street and piling over Hawkmoth’s head.
“Hawkmoth, I pronounce you guilty. Your punishment is the loss of your miraculous.”
And with another snap of her fingers, the butterfly miraculous was in her hands.
She fell to her knees as the magic left her body in a rush. Lady Justice- no, Marinette, looked up, rubbing her temples as her head began to ache.
The crowd burst into screams. Right. Marinette closed her hand around the miraculous of the butterfly. Had she just-
Had she just defeated Hawkmoth?
“Marinette!”
She looked up at the familiar sound of her partner’s baton hitting the roof. Chat Noir- Adrien, she remembered with a start, had transformed and was darting towards her. “Are you alright?”
“Um… I think?” To her surprise, she started giggling. “I think I just defeated Hawkmoth.”
Adrien stared at the brooch in her hand, wide-eyed. “Yeah, I think you did. I’m pretty sure Kim just tackled him.”
Marinette snorted.
“Uh-” The hero reached forward, holding out a hand. “Here, I’ll take that. I need to get it to Ladybug.”
Ladybug. Right. She was Ladybug. She pushed herself to her feet, tucking the brooch into her purse. “I think I’ve got it, partner,” she said with a smile, standing on her tiptoes and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.
Chat looked at her in surprise. Then confusion. Then his eyes grew wide with recognition. Marinette giggled again.
“You- her- Ladybug?!”
Marinette tapped her earlobes. “I should’ve gotten akumatized way earlier,” she said wryly. “Oh, and sorry for accidentally revealing your identity to all of Paris.”
Chat looked like he couldn’t decide whether to melt or implode. “Uh-huh,” he said eventually. He’d apparently settled on a third option, bluescreening. “It’s- it’s cool. No problem.”
“Oh, and I think your dad is Hawkmoth.”
In hindsight, she probably should’ve just given him the brooch.