Chapter Text
The day of Risk and Strike back’s attack Chat Noir heard the slip of the tongue of Ladybug when she praised Flairmidable. “Awesome! Well done! You did what's needed to be done on your first try. I knew you were the one I needed! You really are the best, Adri— I mean...”
Hearing her call the new hero by his name, he immediately knew this was his cousin. Chat Noir moved from behind the chimney and showed himself.
“Hey, I couldn’t help myself but hear what you just said. Hi Adrien.” He greeted enthusiastically.
“Tell me, what inspire you the number 25913?” He questioned.
“Huh… the number of people you saved.” Flairmidable tried after a small hesitation.
“I would’ve accepted time loops, snake or even failure.” Chat Noir said rubbing his chin. “But well tried!” He said to the dog with a smirk.
“Ladybug, the next time you want to give a miraculous to someone who has a twin, cousin or what not, that looks like them, think of verifying their identity.” Chat Noir pointed, turning towards Ladybug.
“What, but if you’re not Adrien, you can only be Felix. Of course, everyone in Paris was affected by the akuma except you, because you’re Felix so you weren’t in Paris but in London when the akuma started!” The heroine said to the dog holder.
“What’s the matter, I helped you defeat the akuma, all the same.” Said Flairmidable, imperceptibly backing away.
“Yes, and this is a good point on your side, but your past behaviour and the fact that you didn’t correct Ladybug when she misinterpreted your identity don’t encourage us to trust you.” Answered Chat Noir.
“Felix, give back the dog miraculous without opposing resistance, and maybe you will be chosen another day to wield a miraculous as yourself.” Ladybug asked extending her palm. Flairmidable reluctantly accepted to give back his miraculous.
They defeated Strike Back by throwing them into the sun with the power of voyage. After recharging, Ladybug and Chat Noir met back on a roof to have a talk at her demand.
“How do you know about the 25913 loops of Adrien?” She asked accusatory.
“Ow, well because I talked with him.” Chat Noir answered uncomfortably.
“Is that what you do? Every time you discover a hero identity you go talk to them and ask questions behind my back?!” She asked. “What!?” He asked in response, pained that his lady could think so low of him.
“Of course not. You told me you wanted Adrien as the snake user, so when I realized that Viperion wasn’t Adrien, I wondered why it was the case, so I went to ask him and he explained me what happened with him as Aspik.” Chat Noir defended himself. That seemed to calm Ladybug but the harm was already done.
Without the absolutely devastating shock of the defeat and the loss of the miraculous that night, Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship continued to evolve on the same trajectory as in season 4, worsening more and more.
One or 2 weeks later, Chat Noir discovered Chat Blanc’s existence during the second apparition of Sandboy. (Surprisingly this fight had been incredibly easy and fast, as Sandboy’s repetitive singsong catch phrase ended getting on the nerves of Chat Blanc’s deranged mind. Chat Blanc swiftly cataclysmed him, making the corpse of the little boy crash into ashes on the ground. With the akuma annihilated, Ladybug just called her “Miraculous Ladybug!” to repair everything and make the Chat Blanc nightmare disappear.)
Like a lot of things and secret from season 4, taken individually, if Ladybug told him, it wouldn’t be much, but the problem was everything adding up and that nothing was ever told to him, every time he had discovered things on his own.
In another fight later, the akuma victim deflected a jubilation gift that Pigella fired at them, directly into Chat Noir’s face. In this dream, Chat Noir lived an entire life of happiness, Ladybug and him becoming closer and closer, her returning his romantic feelings, them dating, their marriage after Shadow Moth defeat, them having their first kid, and then children. Everything Adrien had ever wished for, happiness, love, a family and a life to call his own. When the dream ended, and he was back to square one with nothing… His 3 children that he watched grow and cherished with all his heart instantly gone. This hurt almost as much and as deeply as when his mother “disappeared”.
For few weeks, things continued the same, Ladybug being oblivious to or dismissive of his pain, and their trust/communication issues not improving.
Then Chat Noir was blasted by an akuma that made him witness the sewer scene of Ephemeral and learn what Ladybug was planning to do that night. Chat Noir felt so hurt at this utter betrayal and breach of trust. When Chat Noir recovered consciousness he fled the fight before the “pound it”. He decided to talk to her on patrol but she didn’t showed up, so he waited for the next akuma battle. He tried to talk to her but she snaped at him (she can’t really talk while fighting, and after the fight she is pressured between her timer and retrieving all the miraculous). It was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
This time, Chat Noir didn’t do it on impulse, he came back home and took the time to say goodbye to Plagg. Ladybug didn’t trust him and he became useless if not a burden. It was time to cut the losses.
Adrien explained to Plagg that Ladybug deserved a better partner, one she could trust, one that he obviously wasn’t. Since he wasn’t making any difference by coming to fight or not, Adrien wanted so much to just keep the ring anyway, to keep Plagg, but Ladybug deserved to have every miraculous available to fight against Shadow Moth, keeping one to keep his best friend would be selfish of Adrien. Adrien offered Plagg a last cheese feast and a hug before telling him to return the ring to Ladybug and allowing him to tell her that he had been Catwalker too in the case she would want that cat back. Adrien waited for his kwami to leave his sight before crying.
Adrien wasn’t doing well, he was drowning in plain sight. To add insult to injury it took a week for the reporter to notice his absence and question Ladybug about it. Weeks passed like a blur and painfully slowly at the same time. His friends at school didn’t catch up immediately but after a few days Nino and Marinette realized something was wrong and started worrying for him. After 2 weeks everyone in class was giving him concerned glances. But it wasn’t like there was anything they could do to help him. Adrien continuing sluggishly moving forward through the fog of pain and grief clouding his mind. Adrien often wondered about Chat Blanc and co, and why he wasn’t akumatized now. Was Shadow Moth purposefully ignoring him, or was it that the butterfly miraculous doesn’t detect negative emotions but increase in negative emotions, and that this head-crushing hurt and sadness was Adrien’s default state so Shadow Morh wasn’t even seeing him. Adrien smirked humorlessly at the idea. More than a month had passed and still no replacement for Chat Noir. Adrien could feel some anger growing inside the numbing ocean of pain, sadness and grief, by not giving the ring to anyone she was making his sacrifice of Plagg pointless.
One day after band practice, Luka approached Adrien, revealed he knew his identity since Wishmaker and asked him how he was feeling. The concern could have been appreciated but Adrien was not in the mood. Not only has Luka lied to him and hid things from him for so much time, it took him a whole month witnessing Adrien’s depression to finally manage the courage to be honest with him, but he helped Ladybug in her betrayal while knowing Chat Noir was Adrien. Adrien may be sheltered and isolated but even him knows, that’s not what friends do. So he told him off. “You didn’t even tried to dissuade her, you didn’t even tried to convince her to talk to me.”
“That’s not true, I…” The musician countered before being cut off. “Save it. Don’t even try, I know everything you said and didn’t that day. Your only problem with the plan, was its overcomplicated nature, not the moral. And you made only one proposition and immediately dropped it when she didn’t agreed. Then you went on with that plan without any care.” Seethed the model. “I was disappointed in you before, but knowing that you did all that while knowing who I was, you disgust me.” Luka tried to sooth him with a musical metaphor, but Adrien was so done with those. (A small part of Adrien was sometimes annoyed at those metaphor because seriously did Luka have any character trait other than these musical comparisons, but the fondness he felt towards his friend usually eclipsed that. Not this time though, as Adrien wasn’t in the mood.) He left.
Seeping through your day and skipping meals must sound so unappealing but it’s different when it became your norm. With his already strict diet, by eating according to his reduced appetite he was barely eating enough food to functionate properly, but that’s not like the sensation was any different from when he was eating full meals and burned extra energy as Chat Noir.
Today wasn’t the anniversary of hero’s day, but with how the day was going, one could think it was. It had all started because Harry Clown’s show had went bad (whether it was normal or if it had been sabotaged by Shadow Moth, Adrien couldn’t tell) and Shadow Moth had sent him a scarlet akuma, transforming him into Psycomedian once more.
With his power to impose negative emotions on everyone who see the flash of light he produces from his eyes, Psycomedian had went on a rampage from crowd to crowd and places to places, creating hundreds and hundreds of victims at the mercy of Scarlet Shadow Moth’s scarlet akumas.
That was the reason why Adrien was now, two hours later, in the courtyard of the school, a mere civilian without miraculous, as scarlet akumas filled the air, Carapace there fighting alone two scarlet akuma victim, and Ladybug somewhere else.
“Don’t worry dude, you have nothing to fear, I will protect you.” Carapace reassured confidently, placing himself between the metallic stairs Adrien was on, and the two villains in the courtyard. Despite the other panicking student in the courtyard.
Adrien could feel something point through the numbness and sadness. He could feel anger growing in him. Anger at his own powerlessness, at Ladybug for her actions, at Master Fu who was at fault for all this, at Nino and everyone for the way they treated him, at the world, and most importantly at Hawkmoth, Scarlet Moth, Shadow Moth, Scarlet Shadow Moth, whatever the name he would go by, for everything he did.
“Don’t treat me like a fragile and incompetent thing you have to protect.” Adrien spat, garbing a scarlet akuma fluttering in the air next to him, and putting it inside his lucky charm bracelet. Redish bubbling miasma washed over him. “I am scorned soul.” He said and the reddish darkness dissipated revealing his new form. The tips of his golden wild hair were fading into red like flames. His suit was a harmonious mix of black orange and red. He had yellow gloves and boots whose tips were almost white. He had a mask identical to Chat Noir’s except it was orange instead of black. Scorned Soul’s irises made gradient from blood red around the pupils to orange, and his sclera quickly faded from yellow to normal human white. His skin was a little more tan than normal and was covered in glowing cracks like embers. To complete his costume, Scorned Soul had the tip of dagger sticking out of where his heart should be, as if he had been stabbed in the back, and fire was surrounding what should be a wound.
“It seems my guess was correct. With thousands of scarlet akumas around, the process had to be automatized. People who’ve been akumatized before get their old forms and the others get some generic form identical for all people tied to the same negative emotion. The butterfly man has to actualy concentrate and seek certain an individual in particular to be able to give them a personalized akuma and he currently clearly can’t do that to someone who is akumatized willingly and has all control over themselves. And he doesn’t have the concentration necessary to scan the emotion of every single pawn and remark if their anger is directed at him.” Scorned Soul thought as he extended his hand and unleashed a barrage of flames on the two scarlet villains until it melted their akumatized objects. He ended his flames so the retransforming civilians wouldn’t get burn. He jumped from the metal stairs and grabbed the two scarlet akumas in one hand before they could escape and multiply and set his fist ablaze, reducing the two insects to ashes.
The two confused civilians fled when their gazes landed on him. Scorned Soul turned towards Carapace. “Go find the other heroes and regroup. Fighting separately is pointless.” Scorned Soul ordered.
“Dude you’ve been akumatized. Shellter.” Carapace said, trapping Adrien’s akumatized form in a dome of green energy.
Scorned Soul roared and burst with so much fire that it filled the inside of the sphere making it look like a small sun. For a few seconds the flames doubled in intensity as they turned blue, a wave of heat hitting Carapace only due to the small amount of infra-red light passing through the translucid shield. Then just as quickly all flames disappeared and Scorned Soul was standing, both hands clenched around his throat, eyes wide and mouth opened. Scorned Soul extended his hand towards Carapace as if asking for help, his other hand still on his throat, mouth wide as if he was suffocating. Then he collapsed to the ground, eyes shut.
“Dude! Adrien are you ok?” Carapace dispelled his shield and rushed to his lying friend.
Scorned Soul opened his eyes and pinned him to the ground under him. “Contrary to humans, akumas don’t need air to breath, Nino.” Scorned Soul scolded before letting go of his friend and standing up.
“You used your power so you’re on a timer. Go destransform, feed Wayzz and retransform. Use the earbuds to stay in contact and regroup with the other heroes. You will need Ryuko’s wind dragon to contain the scarlet akumas of all the villains you defeat if you don’t want them to multiply, until you meet back with Ladybug.” Scorned Soul ordered, his eyes now engulfed in flames.
“How…?” Carapace asked, wondering how Adrien could know his kwami’s name when he had never told him.
“I’m going to deal with Gamer, then I will incinerate every scarlet akumas on my way to Ladybug.” Scorned Soul informed. “Find and stop Timebreaker as soon as you can, I don’t need an army of her time traveling self on top of the akumas we already have.” He added dryly before leaving the school with a superhuman jump.
With a few jumps leaving trails of fire in the air, Scorned Soul reached the Gamer’s giant robot. He climbed on the robot head, his hands emitted heat that made the black metal under his hands red hot and started to melt it. He breathed torrent of flames on the windshield of the robot until it shattered.
“What are you doing?” Gamer asked, seeing the other akuma break in into his mecha.
“Game over, Gamer.” Scroned Soul simply said unleashing a fiery hell in the robot control cockpit, destroying, burning and melting the machines that made the robot work. The robot collapsed to the ground in a doomsday cracking sound, then vaporised in codes letting only a giant orb of EXP.
Scorned Soul snatched Gamer’s glasses before he could load the previous level of his robot and touched the orb of EXP, a giant replica of the Chat Noir inspired robot from Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 appeared behind him.
Scorned Soul broke the akumatized object and grabbed the scarlet akuma that tried to escape. When the oozing reddish darkness washed off Max, he saw Scorned Soul’s fist ablaze destroying his scarlet akuma.
“Adrien?” Max asked taken by surprise.
“I don’t have your miraculous Max, and you’re the best at Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 among the person I know the location of. Use the mecha to help the heroes.” Scorned Soul said grabbing Max by the waist and giving him a ride to the cockpit of the robot.
“Chat Noir?” Max asked noting the black cat themed mecha and that Adrien knew his secret identity.
“Hah!” Scorned Soul scoffed at the notion, tongues of fire escaping his mouth. He jumped away from Max to a rooftop.
Scorned Soul turned his eyes filled with burning hatred and cold fury to where the battle between Ladybug and the scarlet butterfly wielder was apparently taking place. He looked at the hundreds of akumas on the way between him and his goal. Miraculous holders were indestructible but needed to breath whereas akumas didn’t need to breath but had for sole weakness their akumatized object that could for example be melted with hight temperature. Fire was a simple power, but no one could escape his wrath without magical powers specially designed for fire.
Scorned Soul charged through the crowd of akuma victims unleashing cyclones of flames engulfing everything. He was careful to retrieve his fire as soon as the villains akumatized objects started to melt as to not incinerate their civilians’ selves. He couldn’t be as precise as when he was only against two akumas at school, but the civilians minor burns would be healed by Ladybug’s magic, and even if they weren’t it would still be a more preferable state for everyone than letting akumas roam the streets free.
Scorned Soul was laughing as spread devastation to his opponents. The rage in his core acting as a new fuel for moving after feeling empty for so long. He wasn’t okay, far from it, but god he was happy to have motivation again.
Cats, snakes and swarm of amorphous dots all shaped out of flames incinerated the butterflies along his path. Some akumas tried to fight him, either with their powers or in hand to hand combat, but he had more experience and this red inferno he had smothered them into was his domain, he easily despatched of them.
Scorned Soul arrived on the place where Scarlet Shadow Moth and ten of his scarlet akumas were surrounding Ladybug looking in very bad shape.
“No back up, No chance for support.” Scorned Soul growled, flames escaping his mouth, he was glaring at the magical terrorist, eyes literally burning.
“This fight ends here and now!” He roared and fire roared with him. His burning eyes glaring at the evil holder with the cold intensity of blue stars.
“You must be the reason so many of my akumas disappeared.” Scarlet Shadow Moth said displeased but not afraid.
“Two million lives at stake! And when we beat you, then our war’s over. Defeat is not allowed. You want to fight for your wish, then oh, bring it on!” Flames erupted from Scorned Soul frail body. Fire around and behind him took the shapes of a crowd of unidentified persons. The roaring of fire empowering his voice with dozens of hellish imitations of his words. Scroned Soul started advancing toward the magical terrorist.
“Enough.” The butterfly and peacock user said in a low voice as he snaped his finger in direction of the rebellious scarlet akuma.
The flames stopped and Scorned Soul’s body was washed with reddish bubbling darkness revealing his civilian form as a white butterfly escaped from him. “You’ve cost me enough… Adrien!” The evil miraculous holder started darkly before being surprised by the identity of the troublemaker.
“Never forget who you owe everything, child.” He spat at the angry boy. Adrien took the remark as a warning to remember from who his powers had came from and who could take them back. “Make sure he won’t cause us problems again.” Scarlet Shadow Moth said to his minions.
3 scarlet villains went to take care of Adrien. He tried fight but even with his skills, as a mere civilian alone against 3 superpowered opponent he didn’t stood a chance. He received a vicious blow to the head. “So where were we? Oh, yes. Where is the black cat miraculous.” Was the last thing Adrien heard as he fell unconscious.
When he opened his eyes, Adrien could see the empowered butterfly and peacock user, now unified with the ladybug miraculous. There was no one left except the two of them on the rooftop. Despite his throbbing head, Adrien still managed to hear the man gloating. “… and now that I know where it is, all I have to do is take the black cat miraculous and the ultimate power will be mine!” He laughed.
The anger still shining through the fog of physical and emotional pain, Adrien difficulty stood up and lunged at Lord Carmine Moth. “I’m not dying here! I’m still fighting here! I’m holding on till I see it through, till I’ve beaten you!” Adrien seethed, wrestling with the man, aiming for its miraculous. The model managed to close his hand on the peacock miraculous when the so much stronger man, struck him in the arm with his cane, breaking his arm and throwing him a few meters back.
Lord Scarlet Moth, too obnubilated with his goal finally at hands reach left to take the black cat miraculous, without so much as giving a glance at the boy laying on the ground, or realising that he lost the peacock miraculous.
Adrien managed to sat down, and put on the broach with his non injured arm. An orb of blue light appeared and circled around him a few times before transforming into the kwami of emotions. “Duusu right? What is your transformation phrase?” Adrien asked. Duusu, looking at the boy and knowing that Gabriel would have never told his son about the miraculous indicating that his knowledge of kwamis and transformation phrases came form somewhere else, could sense the most exquisite drama.
“It’s Duusu, spread my feathers!” The kwami of emotion said immediately to not delay the fun and the exhilarating explanation that were sure to come.
“Duusu spread my feathers!” The kwami giggled as it was sucked into the broach and blue light washed over Adrien.
Adrien’s costume was really similar in form and design to Mister Bug’s one, but with blue and dark purple colour. The texture of the suit along the arms below the epaulettes was like velvet to emulate the fuzziness of feathery wings. Contrary to Mayura, he wasn’t wearing a dress but a cloak(?) imitating the tail of a peacock but with something like 50 parts of different length. Like Chat Noir’s belt, the cloak of his peacock costume could move, puff (and even open to make a wheel) with his mood, on top of being removable. Adrien’s new suit had boots with metallic reinforcements like the ones of Chat Noir, but with 3 spikes forward and one backward similar to the toes of a peacock. His mask was looking a little like the one of the plague doctors from the XVIIth century but was in fact composed of two parts. A blue mask with white eyeliner magically glued to his skin, and a silvery mask (those through which one breathes) in the shape of a beak. This last accessory probably had the double interest to fit the animal theme and help with Adrien’s allergy. In this form Adrien’s eyes were now purple pink with blue sclera just like Duusu’s eyes.
Argos managed to get to his feet when suddenly the Parisian sky was filled with blinding pink light coming from the direction Lord Scarlet Moth had went to. At this moment, Argos knew in his gut that it was the light of the wish. Lord Crimson Moth had won, Argos didn’t have the time to stop him.
“Of course, time!” Argos exclaimed. He took and opened his fan with his valid arm before putting it on the ground, hold it in place with his foot and plucked a feather with his good hand.
“But if I travel back in time, I will create paradoxes.” He muttered before remembering that he saw ONE way of time travel which was paradox-free. If someone only has the power to move backward in time like Timebreaker then it obligatory makes the future the person comes from stop existing since the person is stuck in a past altered by its presence. Meaning that contrary to the other forms of time travel that Adrien saw like the one of Bunnyx or Timetagger it has the power to break causality. On top of that, since there is no future to come back to, other forms of more versatile time travel can’t even be used to undo such time travel.
“But because of its causality defying power, it’s the only form of time travel that can’t be done freely but has to be powered by something. And with the amount of time I want to go back…” Argos muttered as he infused the white feather with power transforming it into an amok and putting it into his lucky charm. He looked around him in search of an idea, feeling despair at the growing light of the wish in the sky, when it clicked. Argos knew what to do.
Argos stood up completely, stared at the ominous pink light with pride and opened his tail in all his might. “My beautiful amok, give life to my creation.” He said with a swing of his valid arm that reshaped the ball of blueish bubbling darkness into a long snakelike form.
“Chronodragon, I’m Argos. Feed on the despair and negative emotions of the 2 million people of Paris and use it as fuel to power our journey to the past.” He proclaimed as the oozing bluish miasma dissolved to reveal an Asiatic-looking, 5 meters long, steampunk dragon covered with clocks and hourglasses. Chronodragon also had a long black battery indicator running from his side to almost the end of its tail.
The dragon sentimonster crouched on the rooftop so Argos could ride on its back and opened its maw to start absorbing the negative emotions of the afraid Parisians all around them. The battery indicator starting to light up in red from the end of its tail. When the warning of the peacock miraculous informed Argos that he had only 4 minutes of transformation left, the last green charge on Chronodragon side fully light up.
If the peacock miraculous work like Argos thought, then the full charge of the maximum capacity Chronodragon was born with, would exactly equal the amount of time Argos had estimated to go back to the moment he was aiming for.
Argos clenched to the dragon’s back with all his strength ignoring the pain as the sentimonster soared in the sky, flying away from the expending ball of pink light coming towards them. Chronodragon flew faster and faster, and roared as lighting of raw energy formed all around them until they reached an inconceivable speed and disappeared, braking the time barrier in a burst of light and magic.