Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 “No practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”

--Terry Pratchett (“Going Postal”)

Miracle Queen laughed in the faces of the fallen heroes before her.  

Distantly, she knew it wasn’t proper to guffaw like that. Princesses like her were supposed to be refined; it was the peasants and commoners who brayed like donkeys at every piddling trifle. But she couldn’t help it, and besides, didn’t she deserve it? Hadn’t she finally proven just how superior she was?

Her laugh trailed off into a gloating sneer that she fixed upon the heroes. Dupain-Cheng didn’t react at all, having been paralyzed by Miracle Queen’s army of magical wasps, but Adrikens was struggling even as he glowered back at her. A few minutes prior the duo had been Ladybug and Chat Noir, two overrated losers who had lucked into getting some magical jewelry, scraped through a few fights, and tricked all of Paris into thinking they were superior to her. They’d even confiscated her Bee Miraculous out of sheer spite, envy, and petty hatred. As if she hadn’t saved them from their own stupidity time and time again!

But now they were defeated. So were Hawkmoth and Mayura, who had realized too late that Miracle Queen had no intention of handing over the magic jewelry they’d wanted her to retrieve. All had fallen beneath her wasps and now both the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculouses were in her hand. There was nobody left to stop her.

She had won.

Adrikens screamed something, but Miracle Queen just snapped her fingers and one of her wasps paralyzed him too. Then she opened her mouth to make the Wish that would finally get her the reward she’d earned, the one she deserved for being the greatest and most wonderful person in all of Paris. “I Wish--”

“To be an impoverished baker girl!”

Miracle Queen’s words caught in her throat and her eyes darted around until she saw a smug cat-like thing rising out of the ring on her finger. “Shut up, stray! I Wish--"

“To be hated by all your classmates!” the creature went on. “To be the city’s most notorious brat! To lose everything you love!”’

“No! Stop!” And then Miracle Queen’s voice caught as a distant, impossible thought flitted into her head. “This isn’t how it happened!”

“Isn’t it?”

Miracle Queen gaped as the monster grew larger and larger, swelling up until the akumatized girl had to crane her head up just to see its face. It swatted away her swarms of wasps almost effortlessly, and when she tried to back up, the beast took one languid step forwards and was almost on top of her. When it smiled, she could see flashing fangs as long as her arm, and when it swept a paw back to point at the paralyzed heroes, the breeze from its motion almost knocked her down. “This is exactly what you did to Wish away an entire world and have us kwamis build one more to your liking, human,” the monster boomed. “Are you not enjoying your new life?”

More memories of the new world were creeping into Miracle Queen’s head, memories of probations and detentions, ridicule and scorn, and--worst of all--a grueling and desperate poverty never to be escaped.  She shut her eyes as if to block out the monster and the thoughts both, and then she howled, “It’s not the world I wanted! You screwed up my Wish; you made it all wrong!”

But the kwami just laughed contemptuously, as if at a bad lie, and Miracle Queen felt her hands clenching. “I won’t let you win, whoever you are!” she screamed.

“I’m Plagg. Kwami of destruction.” The beast beamed. “Specifically, your destruction.”

“I don’t care what your name is! I’ll get it all back: my money, my power, the Miraculouses I was supposed to have! I’ll change everything until it’s right!”

“You can’t change anything without first changing yourself.” Plagg’s red eyes bored into Miracle Queen’s. “And you will never change yourself.”

“You don’t know that!” Miracle Queen insisted as she tried to back away again. “I’ll do whatever it takes! I’d rather die than stay in this world!”

“It’s easier to die than to change, human.” The monster’s lips pulled back even further, and Miracle Queen had a second to wonder what kind of cat had so many rows of teeth. “And you, Chloe, have always taken the easy way. You used your money. You used your father’s power. You even used the Miraculouses you stole to end a world, to obliterate my holder and everyone else, because it was easier than earning what you wanted.”

Before Miracle Queen could protest that she wasn’t called Chloe at the moment, the monster pounced forward and slammed her to the ground with a single paw. Then Plagg’s head tilted. “Or do you think you’re too young to die? Too rich? That Ladybug will save you from being put down like the rabid dog you are? Then let me teach you, human, before I send you back to your own personal Hell.”

Miracle Queen screamed something incoherent as the cat’s mouth closed around her throat. She felt fangs stabbing into her neck--

And Chloe Bourgeois awoke with a cry.

#

Andre lumbered up the stairs a few seconds later and Chloe let him stand by her trapdoor while he yammered on about whether she was okay. She wasn’t, of course, but she also knew the useless oaf wouldn’t be any help. He couldn’t even make her a mug of that tea she liked, the expensive stuff from that one Japanese monastery. Even a single mug of good tea costing no more than a few thousand euros was beyond her broke father’s means now. And all thanks to those evil kwami things who had screwed up her Wish!

It hadn’t always been like this. Chloe had gotten whatever she wanted in the other world, from designer clothes to expensive vacations to, of course, proper food. She’d even had her father take her to that monastery once just so she could try the tea when it was as fresh as possible, and also livestream herself enjoying a cup that none of her classmates could possibly afford. The monks had complained, like all the people who couldn’t appreciate her had complained, but in that world Andre had been able to provide for her in at least a halfway-decent manner. All he’d had to do was threaten to cancel a certain grant Paris was scheduled to give to the temple as part of some stupid interfaith outreach thing, and the monks’ whining had simply melted away.

But Andre Bourgeois was no longer a rich hotelier and mayor. Now he just ran a bakery, a piddly little one at that, and he couldn’t pull any strings. He couldn’t even get her good tea! She’d looked in the cabinet earlier, and she’d only seen generic brand stuff from the grocery store!

Still, since Andre couldn’t do anything Chloe needed, that at least meant Chloe didn’t need to waste time listening to him. She just nodded at what seemed like appropriate intervals until he gave her a reassuring smile and went downstairs. Then she scowled and rolled over in bed, but before she could shut her eyes, she saw the first few rays of dawn starting to stream through her window. And that meant it was almost time for another day of school.

“No,” she whispered to herself. “I can’t go back there. Not like this.” An angry scowl swept over her face. “Not after those kwamis ruined my life!”

She punched her pillows as her mind whirled with how unjustly she’d been treated. After outsmarting everyone else and seizing all the Miraculouses, she’d figured out the perfect Wish to make: taking Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s life. That way she could be the girl whom everyone adored and supported, she could be the person whose designs received rave reviews from Aubrey Bourgeois and other great fashion critics, and most of all, she could become the famous hero Ladybug. Then she’d get all the praise and attention she deserved and would never again have to deal with idiots who hated her just because they were jealous of her wealth. In fact, she’d never have to deal with hatred at all. Everyone would love her, they’d worship her, and she’d finally take her rightful place in the world.

But that hadn’t happened. Even though Dupain-Cheng now had all the wealth and power that Chloe had once possessed, nobody resented her or was jealous of her like they’d been with Chloe. And even though Chloe was just as poor and downtrodden as Dupain-Cheng had once been, nobody seemed to feel even a shred of empathy for her, much less fawn over her like they had her hated rival. It was as if the kwamis’ spite for her had led them to change this new world so that everyone liked rich people instead of poor! How could she possibly have anticipated that?

And those little beasts had sabotaged her in plenty of other ways as well. Her new life somehow included a long history of ‘bullying’ others, so even though she’d only entered this world yesterday—even though it had only existed since yesterday—she was in trouble for stuff the kwamis had made everyone think she’d been doing for years. Like this thing with being caught breaking into Dupain-Cheng’s locker last year; she hadn’t done that in this timeline, so it was completely ridiculous that she was being punished for it. And besides, if she had done it here, she’d surely have gotten away with it; after all, she’d broken into Mareintte's locker in the last world right before the Zombizou mess and nobody had caught her then. So, again, the kwamis had put her in a completely unfair position!

“And they didn’t even make me Ladybug!” Chloe hissed to herself. “The one thing Dupain-Cheng had that was worthwhile. The one thing I needed to go right from the Wish. They screwed that up too and gave the Miraculous to this ‘Red Queen’ idiot! And I can’t do anything about it; I can’t even get my useless idiot father to help because he can’t do anything anymore, and...”

She trailed off as a wave of despair mingled with her rage. Part of her wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew she was too worked up, and besides, the father she’d just mentioned no longer had the clout to call the school and force them to overlook Chloe’s absences. She’d have to drag herself there no matter how she felt, like she was just another common peon. And then she’d have to endure being hated by all her moron classmates too. How was someone as refined as her supposed to handle their insults or stupid comments?

Or their betrayals?

Chloe’s gaze flickered to the photograph of her and Adrikens. She’d come upon him in the hall and overheard him telling some friend how great it would be if she just moved away, and that had hurt worse than everything else except not getting the Ladybug Miraculous. Her Adrikens was supposed to be her best friend, the one person who would support her no matter what. And he should like her even more now that she was ‘just’ a baker’s daughter; he’d certainly loved lowering himself down to Marinette’s level back when the other girl been nothing more than a flour-stained brat! But that had gone wrong too. Now it was like he didn’t care about her at all.

Fury at how Adrikens had abandoned her in her moment of need filled her mind, and before Chloe knew it, she’d sprung to her feet again. Then she paced around the room, arms shaking in repressed anger and teeth grinding together, as she stewed. She didn’t have any way to fight the traitors in her class and those depraved kwamis, she thought, because they’d taken everything from her. Her power, her money, her connections, even her hope of becoming a superhero. And probably more; she had no idea what other problems the kwamis might have stored up for her, because they’d dropped her into this horrible world without telling her anything. Except for Ivan getting turned into the stone monster the previous day, she had no clue what was coming--

She froze for a long moment. And then she muttered, “That rocker idiot was akumatized last time too. It was exactly the same!” A frown flickered over her face as she thought. “Maybe they’re all the same, so if I remember them, I’ll know they’re coming before anyone else. There’s got to be some way to use that. I could... I could...”

A flash of insight hit her, and then her mouth curved into a cruel, languid smile. “I could go to the fights in advance, hide, and spy on the heroes,” she mused. “Learn who they really are. And then, when they aren’t expecting it, I’ll go after them in their civilian forms and take back my Miraculouses!”

Chloe's eyes gleamed. “And once I have the Miraculouses again, I'll make a new Wish--a better one--so I finally get what I deserve!”

It was a comforting thought, and Chloe let herself spend a few pleasant moments imagining how she’d remake the world after getting the jewelry again. She’d specify that she’d be rich and powerful, of course, and also that she be loved and Marinette be hated. But she could ask for other things too. To be Adrikens’s boyfriend, perhaps. Or, since he’d shown that he didn’t deserve her, maybe she could instead date Prince Ali? Or perhaps she’d even have a whole harem of rich, handsome boys. For that matter, maybe she could even be proper royalty! Why not alter her Wish to include make France a monarchy again with her as its crown princess? It was her Wish! She could set up the perfect life!

Unless, she thought, I make myself a princess and then the kwamis have me guillotined…

A scowl flitted across her face and she pushed that thought away. She’d just have to Wish more carefully and ensure the kwamis didn’t have any openings to hurt her, she thought. But in the meantime, she had to get to akuma fights and identify the heroes. “Okay,” she said as she sat at her desk and grabbed a notebook to write in. “After the rocker became the stone thing, then... I think Nino was next, at Adrikens’s birthday party. He became Captain Bubbles or something. Then there was that mime lunatic, and that disgusting Mr. Pigeon...”

“Dear?” Chloe jolted at the sound of her father’s voice, then looked around to see that the sun was up and her room was brightly lit. She’d been working for a while, and her notebook page was more than half filled. “Are you up? It’s almost time for school.”

Chloe looked over her list and tried to commit it to memory before jamming it into the drawer of her cheap desk, “Coming, Daddy!” she made herself chirp. “Be right down!”

Yes, she thought as she shoved books into her backpack. She could do this. She’d identify the heroes, steal their Miraculouses, and fix the world so she didn’t have to suffer so unjustly. And she’d laugh in the face of any kwamis who dared to stand against her.

Later, when she was gone, a tiny head poked out from behind Chloe’s bed. A little creature then rose up and looked around the room before giving a soft, disappointed sigh. And then, after one moment more, the kwami zipped towards the window and flew away. 

Chapter Text

“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

--George Santayana

When Chloe walked into her classroom that morning, she radiated a confidence that had been utterly absent the preceding day. Yes, she thought to herself, the kwamis had tried to ruin her, but now she had a plan. She knew what she had to do. And she was still a Bourgeois, even if this stupid world didn’t understand what that meant. She could do anything!

Then Mme. Bustier said she was going to ‘quickly make sure everyone did the summer reading’ with an oral history pop quiz, and everything fell apart.

“I’m sorry, Chloe, but the founder of the Fifth Republic was not ‘the first King Louis guy.’ Oh, yes, Marinette, that’s right: it was Charles de Gaulle.”

“No, Chloe, the first king of France also wasn’t ‘the first Louis guy.’ Does anyone know? Yes, Alix, Charles II is the right answer.”

“Chloe, do you know what year the French monarchy ended? No? Alright, Max?”

By the end, Chloe wanted to sink into the floor, and it was all she could do to keep her clenched fists below her desk and not shout that it wasn’t fair. She’d never even heard of most of this material! At most, she vaguely recalled passing off assignments about French kings and ancient wars to Sabrina, who had done them in her handwriting so Chloe had been able to hand them in without even having to look at them.  Now she was going in cold, day two of an entire new reality, and they weren’t even giving her a chance to learn things?

It was utterly ridiculous!

No sooner had the bell rung for the next class when Chloe sprang to her feet, but she couldn’t get out of the room before Bustier asked her to stay back. Once the others were gone she asked, “Chloe, did you do the reading?”

“Yes!” But Bustier just kept looking at Chloe, who blushed before trying again. “I mean, I tried. It was hard. But you said everyone learns at their own pace, right?”

“Of course.” Bustier’s voice was gentle and Chloe relaxed a little. “I’ve always believed that. And I understand the material can be challenging. But the school board did rule that you can’t be extended any more leniency.” Chloe hesitated as the warmth faded from her teacher’s words. “And they’ve already said that you might be held back, or even moved down a grade, if you don’t demonstrate proficiency.”

Chloe’s mouth dropped. Holding her back? Like she was an idiot? “That’s not fair!” she cried. “I don’t deserve that! You’re supposed to be supporting me and helping me learn, not kicking me back a year!”

“I agree! That’s why I fought to have the school set up those extra study halls for you during your free periods, so you can complete all your makeup work from last year and show that you deserve to advance with the others.” Bustier brightened. “In fact, I think I know what we can do. I’ll just type up the quiz on the summer reading tonight and then add it to your study hall curriculum. If you complete it there, you’ll convince the board that you know this bit of the material!”

A red tinge formed on Chloe’s face. She didn’t have time for makeup study halls; she had heroes to unmask and Miraculouses to steal. And even if she hadn’t, trapping her in some boring classroom just because she was a little bit behind was also ridiculous! But before she could say anything, Bustier told her, “Alright, Chloe. You should go your next class now.” And that was it.

Chemistry, math, and English were equally disastrous, with Chloe staring blankly at the blackboards and her textbooks as everyone else went over concepts that might as well have been ancient Greek. It was almost a relief to get to lunch, even if nobody sat with her and all she could eat was the crummy food her father had packed her. “I bet these vegetables aren’t even organic,” she muttered as she poked at her salad. “Useless idiot. I’ll show him.”

Then her gaze flicked to her classmates. There was Nino listening to music, Mylene and Ivan cuddling, Dupain-Cheng chatting with Cesaire, Kim, and Alix, and everyone else, all acting as if they didn’t even care how lonely she was. She waited dutifully, but even though all her classmates had comforted each other through their stupid troubles in the other world, not a single one of them came over to check on her and make her feel better. The only one who even looked at her was Alix, and that was just to glare as if Chloe had kicked her puppy or something. And the others didn’t seem to see her at all.

Even Adrikens. If nothing else, he should be by her side, telling her how she was better than the school credited her for. But instead he was just laughing as the new girl, Cesaire, told some dumb story or other. Like she didn’t exist.

“I’ll show them all,” she muttered at last as she turned back to her food. “When I make my next world they’ll be my chambermaids and stable boys. Or worse, if I can think of something worse.”

Only when Chloe was finishing the pathetic excuse for a muffin that her father had given her did Sabrina came over. “Finally,” Chloe snapped. “I need you to—”

“It’s time for your study hall.” Sabrina’s voice was polite, courteous, and utterly lacking in the care and devotion Chloe had trained into her in the last world. “In Mendeleiev’s lab, in case you forgot.”

Chloe bit back a growl. “Actually, instead of the study hall, maybe you could help me—”

“If you’re not in the study hall on time, Mendeleiev will mark you tardy and you’ll get a detention for tonight.” Sabrina frowned at Chloe. “You should go.”

A few seconds passed before Chloe made herself stand. She couldn’t get a detention, she thought. She needed to protect her free time so she could escape this stupid world. “Fine,” she snapped. “Later.”

#

“Sit in the front of the room. Be quiet. Do your makeup assignments.”

Chloe frowned at Mendeleiev, who had already returned her attention to some papers in front of her. Then she glanced at the desk in the front with a massive stack of assignments on them. “Are those all mine?” she demanded.

“Yes.” Mendeleiev didn’t even look up. “Now sit down. Be quiet. And do your work.”

Chloe frowned. Mendeleiev had always been stern, but there was something cold and unnerving in her voice. She sounded like she personally despised Chloe for some reason. “But I--”

“Be quiet.” Mendeleiev turned a page. “No talking in study hall. If you break the rules again, I’ll have to tell the school board that you weren’t compliant today.”

Chloe wanted to protest. She wanted to demand the loving and nurturing environment the school was supposed to provide, the one she was entitled to. But Mendeleiev had always been ridiculously strict, and again, she couldn’t risk getting detention and missing the Bubbler akuma. So she sat down and reached for the first assignment.

#

Choloe tried. She really did. But by the end of her study hall, she was close to panic.

None of the work made sense. Even the earliest and simplest of the remedial assignments, like Bustier’s history reading, were a chore because she didn’t have the context to understand why the facts and dates mattered. Not only could she not finish the worksheets, but she didn’t even know where to begin! And with Mendeleiev responding to everything Chloe said, even legitimate questions, by telling her to be quiet and get back to work, it meant Chloe was totally unable to make progress.

She needed a break, Chloe thought as she stumbled back to her classroom. She needed a spa day, a shopping trip, and maybe a vacation to Aruba. She needed—

An envelope was on her desk. Her name was written in Adrikens’s distinctive cursive. And when she tore it open, she was it was an invitation for his birthday party, to be held an hour after school at the Agreste mansion.

She needed an akuma, Chloe thought to herself as a smile came over her face. She needed a monster to show up and draw out the heroes so Chloe could spy on them to learn their identities. And since Adrikens's party was where Nino had been akumatized last time, it looked like she was about to get her chance.

Chloe felt a surge of glee as she looked down at the invitation. Then she turned to the other kids, who were chatting in groups since Bustier wasn’t back yet. “Can’t wait for the party,” Kim was telling Adrikens while Dupain-Cheng, Alix, Nathaniel, and Cesaire watched. “Your dad’s got a sweet mansion.”

“Adrikens!” Chloe announced as she walked up to him. “I’m coming to your birthday!”

“Great.” But Adrikens shot her a look of warning. “Just remember to behave yourself, Chloe. Or else my father might kick you out.”

“Of course!” But then Chloe paused as she realized what that meant. “Wait. Your father knows about it?”

“...of course. It’s his house.” Adrikens gave the others a blank look. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“He never lets you have parties!”

Dupain-Cheng grinned. “Ah, but I was able to persuade him.”

“You mean,” Nathaniel chimed in, “you rattled off a bunch of child labor laws and threatened to have an injunction against Adrien modeling anymore unless Mr. Agreste gave in.”

Dupain-Cheng just smiled knowingly, and Adrikens gave her a warm look that made Chloe want to vomit. Then Cesaire was asking if any of them had seen her latest blog post on the heroes Red Queen and Cheshire, and the others began talking about the previous day’s fight, and Chloe could only stand there as she tried to figure out what to do. Because Nino was supposed to get akumatized over Gabriel Agreste refusing to let Adrien have a party, but if Gabriel was fine with the party then Nino had no reason to get akumatized, and she’d be stuck in this horrid world for...

Chloe abruptly shook her head and spun on her heel toward the door. No, she thought. Nino was getting akumatized today. She’d make sure of it. She just had to find some way to hurt him without her getting in even more trouble. But the problem was, he was such a worthless and pathetic dweeb she’d never bothered to learn much of anything about him. Even now he was just sitting in a corner, listening to something on his headphones and writing in a notebook. He was the only person not chatting with someone else besides Chloe herself, and—

Then Chloe’s eyes flicked to the headphones. He really cared about his music, she thought. She couldn’t recall seeing him without his headphones on even in this world. And that meant she could hurt him with it.

Or at least help Gabriel Agreste hurt him.

“Nino!” Chloe said as she sat next to him. Then she repeated it a couple times until he finally looked up at her. “You’re playing your music at Adrikens’s party, right?’

“What?” Nino frowned as if he had no idea why Chloe was talking to him. “Uh, no. His pops is flying in some fancy string quartet from Geneva.”

Chloe wrinkled her nose. “Does Adrikens really like that stuff?”

“Well, no, but his dad picked out the music before anyone could say anything.”

“Ah.” Chloe leaned in closer. “But quartets have to take breaks now and then, right? He’ll need something to fill up the space. Couldn’t you play your music during those breaks?” And when Nino gave her a suspicious look, she said, “I just want my Adrikens to be happy! It’s his birthday!”

A faint snort escaped Nino’s lips, like he couldn’t believe Chloe of all people would say that. But then his face turned pensive. “I mean... if there’s breaks, I could...” And then he smiled a little. “Couldn’t hurt to ask, right?”

Chloe grinned. It could hurt, she thought. If Gabriel’s tastes were even close to how they’d been in the other world, it could hurt a lot to ask him to have gross DJ music in his house instead of refined classical stuff. But it wouldn’t hurt her. And since she was the one who was trapped her in such an undeserving way, that was what mattered.

#

The rest of school was awful, of course, but Chloe found she didn’t really care as she dashed home. “Daddy, I’m going to Adrikens’s birthday!” she called. “I need a present!”

“Uh, of course, dear!” Andre quickly threw several pastries into a colorful box. “Have fun!”

“I—” But Chloe caught herself. No, this wasn’t a good present. It was frankly embarrassing that all her father could give her was a few crummy cookies. But it would have to do, and once she fixed things, she’d never have to worry about looking cheap again.

Then she rushed to the Agreste mansion. She was there in time to see Nino enter with his speakers and other DJ stuff, and a few minutes later—as Chloe peaked out from around a corner to watch—he was chased out again by a hulking bodyguard and Gabriel himself. “I’m sorry,” Gabriel said with a sneer, “but this party requires refined entertainment. This ‘EDM...’ material... does not qualify. ”

Nino scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but Gabriel just smirked and went back through the gates with his bodyguard. “Yes,” whispered Chloe as Nino stormed to a bench and flung himself down, then sat there with his fists balled up and a scowl on his face. “Yes, yes, yes!”

And sure enough, in just a few minutes, the purple butterfly she’d been awaiting flew in from overhead and landed on Nino. Dark magic enveloped him, and then he was once again Bubbler. “Alright!” he cheered as he bounced away. “Time to put the adults out to pasture while us kids have a great time with some great tunes!”

Chloe let herself beam and loitered there as bubbles containing adults started to float up into the air. Then Bubbler returned with a couple of Chloe’s classmates. “Please, are my parents okay?” Rose begged as Bubbler directed her and Juleka toward the mansion. “Don’t hurt them!”

“Relax, Rose babe. They’re fine. I’ll bring them back good as new once Adrien has his party—with real music--and I get those magic jewelry things for the Hawkster.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, but then Bubbler kicked the gates open so Juleka and Rose could enter, and Chloe hurried toward them. Once she got inside she just had to hide where she’d be able to spy on the fight. The heroes were new so they’d be likely to screw up and say something useful, like a hobby they had or some other event they had to get to afterward. Maybe she’d get really lucky and see one detransform! Then—

Bubbler turned and stared at Chloe for a moment before shaking his head. “No way, dudette. You’re not invited.”

For a moment, Chloe could only stare at the akumal. “What?” she managed at last. “No, you don’t understand. I was invited. I got an invitation!”

“Only because Marinette asked Adrien not to leave you out, and she just did that to be nice.” Bubbler chuckled. “Nobody actually wants you there. You’ll be a total buzzkill.”

This wasn’t how it happened! Chloe thought to herself. Then she said. “Adrikens will be scared of you! He needs me!”

“Why would he be scared of me? I’m just helping kids everywhere get away from dumb adults who wouldn’t know good music if it bit them in the ears.” Bubbler’s eyes narrowed. “And why would he need you? He’s only nice to you at all because your mom works with his dad and he doesn’t want to hurt their business!”

“But--but--” Chloe realized she was jabbing the box of pastries forwards. “I brought a gift, though!”

The Bubbler opened the box and perused it, then shrugged. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll give these to him. And you can take a little trip while the rest of us have fun!” He grabbed the box, and before Chloe knew what was happening, he was waving his wand at her. “Later, dudette!”

And then she was in a bubble, and she screeched in horror as the ground dropped away around her. The cars, the trees, and even the skyscrapers faded away as she rocketed up and up, and her stomach clenched as she tried and failed to avoid looking at the distant earth below her. “No!” she sobbed into the increasingly chilly air. “No, stop, please!”

But nobody was there to hear her, and she could only scream as she soared higher and higher straight towards space.

Until a wave of ladybugs surrounded her and she was on the ground again.

#

When Chloe made herself rise from the spot by the Agreste mansion where the bugs had returned her, she happened to see a clock in a shop window, and she realized only a few minutes had passed since she’d been attacked. The heroes, she thought, must have showed up and defeated Bubbler. Faster than she would have thought too. And then--

Her thoughts froze, and the terror from what she’d just endured was replaced by another kind of horror. She’d missed the party. She’d been trapped in a bubble while the heroes had fought. Now they’d surely left already and she’d learned nothing about them!

Even as she raced back, she knew it was too late, and when she finally staggered gasping through the Agreste mansion's gate and saw her cheering classmates but no Miraculous holders, she couldn’t do anything else but just slump to the ground. The heroes were gone. She’d lost.

“Alya!” Chloe blinked as she realized Dupain-Cheng was calling to someone behind her, and when she turned she saw Cesaire rushing to them from across the street. The new girl’s face was red with strain and she was sweating, but she also had a big grin on her face. Chloe frowned as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“I got the interview!” Cesaire gasped. “Had to run my heart out, but I caught Red Queen just before she ducked into an alley!” She dug her phone out of her pocket and hit a button. “Listen!”

Red Queen’s face appeared on the phone’s screen and Chloe dropped her fist behind her back so nobody saw her clenching it. “I assure you,” Red Queen said on the phone, “Cheshire and I will always be there to stop Hawkmoth. The citizens of Paris need not fear.”

“And Hawkmoth’s helpers, the people who turn into akumas? Are you going to take them down too?”

Red Queen adopted a sterner look and held up her hand to quiet Alya. Then she said, “It is not someone’s fault if a supervillain hijacks their body. They should not be blamed. The people that Hawkmoth akumatizes should thus be treated as innocent victims unless proven otherwise.”

Everyone looked at Nino, who was standing awkwardly in a corner with an embarrassed flush on his face. He tried for a weak smile before dropping his head, but then Dupain-Cheng walked right up to him. “We know it wasn’t your fault,” she said in a calm, kind voice that seemed to match the way she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t we, everyone?”

There were some murmurs of agreement.

“Good.” Dupain-Cheng looked at the others with confident assurance. “Because I’ll be deeply disappointed in anyone who doesn’t accept that.”

The class again said they agreed with her, and their voices were firmer and more confident than before. Then Dupain-Cheng clapped her hands. “Well, everyone, it looks like the heroes set everything back to normal, so let’s get on with the party!” She swept her hands at the buffet table and Nino’s DJ booth. “Mr. Agreste’s musicians don’t seem to be here yet, so Nino, maybe you could play us a couple songs while we snack on the treats and dance?”

“You got it!” A smile filled Nino’s face as if the pain of akumatization had already left him, and in a flash he was darting over to his DJ equipment.

Nobody spoke a word to Chloe, and she noted that even Nino seemed to be reintegrating with the group better than her; now Adrikens was walking up to him and smiling while chatting about something inconsequential, and Sabrina was also rushing to his side and asking if he needed a stress ball or anything else to eliminate the last of his negative feelings. And Ivan already seemed to be totally forgiven too, she thought. Meanwhile, they all hated her.

Then she paused.

They didn’t all hate her. Alya had only known Chloe for a few days, and while she might have gotten a bad impression from Chloe’s perfectly reasonable reactions to the horrible way she had been mistreated, Chloe could probably fix that. Moreover, Alya was aggressively finding out everything she could about the heroes. They were even giving her interviews!

And that meant Chloe’s plan was still sound as long as she made one change. Instead of finding the secrets of the heroes herself, she just had to make Alya her new best friend and get the secrets from her instead. That would still get her the identities of Red Queen and Cheshire, and from there she could easily steal back the Miraculouses and set up a new world.

At which point she would finally get what she deserved.

Chapter Text

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

--Epictetus

“Daddy, I need some donuts for school!” Chloe called when she got downstairs the next morning. She’d spent much of the night going over how she’d gotten Sabrina under her sway in the previous world, and while she didn’t have the resources to give away spare spa passes or to lend out designer clothes anymore, at least she could still bribe potential friends with fancy foods. “The best ones you have! Now!”

 But when she entered the bakery, her father wasn’t bustling to fulfil her order. Instead he was talking with a stout police officer who looked vaguely familiar. “...I really don’t know anything, Officer Raincomprix,” he was saying. “I’m sorry.”

“Mr. Bourgeois.” Raincomprix tapped his notebook. “We know you were very close to Emilie Agreste. She starred in your movie Solitude and you appeared on red carpet events during its award tour. Are you sure you don’t know where she disappeared to?”

Chloe frowned. Why was Emilie Agreste missing? Granted, Chloe couldn’t remember seeing her for a long while in the other world, but she’d assumed the actress was off on a movie shoot or was pregnant or something. But now it seemed like she was actually gone.

Which was too bad. Unlike her husband Gabriel, a cold and cruel man who had always treated Chloe like some overprivileged brat, Emilie had been very kind to her when she’d gone to the Agrestes for playdates. She’d even spent some time entertaining her and Adrikens with stories of her own acting career, explaining how she’d mastered various roles and laughing about silly situations on set. And if she had politely but firmly refused Chloe’s requests to get her into the movies as well, Chloe had figured that was more due to Gabriel’s influence than any hatred on Emilie’s part.

But that was another world ago, and even if it hadn’t been, it wasn’t like some vanished actress mattered compared to Chloe’s grand ambitions. “I need some donuts, daddy!” Chloe insisted. “Now!”

Andre gave Raincomprix an apologetic look before collecting a dozen donuts and boxing them up. Chloe snatched the box out of his hands without another word, made a ‘hmphing’ noise as she turned her back on the adults, and left to find her soon-to-be BFF.

#

No sooner had Chloe gotten to school and taken up a post by the front doors than a sleek van pulled up. When Cesaire jumped out of it, Chloe smiled a little; if she was going to be hanging out with the reporter dork, it was good to know that the other girl at least had some money. That would make things so much—

Then Dupain-Cheng got out of the van too, and Chloe’s smile vanished.

The two girls waved goodbye to their driver and walked to the front door. Dupain-Cheng saw Chloe first and quickly hid a small grimace, but Chloe had no intention of letting her get away with it. “What are you doing with her, Cesaire?”

The two girls exchanged glances before Cesaire said, “I said I wanted to see Mom’s new job, and Marinette's dad agreed to let me help out today with the breakfast shift.” She gave Dupain-Cheng a warm look and it was all Chloe could do not to scowl. “And Marinette was working in the hotel’s bakery, which is right next to the kitchen, so we had lots of fun working together! When we were done, Marinette's dad had one of his shuttles bring us here so we wouldn’t be late.”

For a moment, Chloe could only stare. “Help with breakfast?” she said at last. “Breakfast is just cereal and eggs! It’s easy! How does that need help?”

Dupain-Cheng frowned. “It still has to be done right, Chloe. And cooking for lots of people at once is really hard.”

“Right,” added Cesaire. “At first they just had me fold napkins and bus tables, but when Marinette’s dad saw I could follow orders, he let Mom have me squeeze oranges for juice and do other things like that.” Then she frowned too. “Your dad’s a baker, right? Don’t you ever help him?”

Chloe almost said that she would rather die than spend any time at all in some sweltering kitchen to feed the oafs that came by the bakery, but she caught herself. “Sure,” she lied. “In fact I baked some donuts for you!” She held out the box and fixed a smile on her face. “To welcome you. Since you’re new.”

The other two girls looked at each other again and Chloe wanted to scream. It was obvious that Dupain-Cheng was trying to turn Cesaire against her; why else would she hang out with someone so far beneath her as to be the child of one of her family’s employees? Cesaire had nothing whatsoever to often Dupain-Cheng. And that meant the only reason for the two to associate was Dupain-Cheng’s insane determination to turn everyone against Chloe for no reason.

“We don’t have time,” said Dupain-Cheng after a moment. “We have first period science today, and Mendeleiev doesn’t let us bring food into the lab.”

“Let’s do lunch, then,” Chloe pressed. “Or the free period after.”

Cesaire shook her head. “Max is showing me some new video game he coded at lunch.”

“And you have study halls during your free periods.” Dupain-Cheng shrugged. “We wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for missing them.”

Chloe couldn’t hide her scowl at the obvious lie. “Then after school!”

“Can’t,” said Cesaire. “I’m meeting someone to learn more about Red Queen’s history for my blog.” She gave Chloe a look that did seem faintly sympathetic but was also wary. “Another time, I guess.”

And the two left Chloe on the steps.

#

Chloe’s classes were just as horrible as it had been the previous day. Lunch was, if anything, even worse. And Mendeleiev’s study hall was a total nightmare.

Bustier had indeed written up the summer reading quiz and put it atop Chloe’s massive pile of makeup work. That meant Chloe had to struggle through it, and while she had forced herself to go through the books (or at least their Wikipedia pages) the previous night, she still understood almost none of it. Every single line seemed to require an entire book’s worth of prior knowledge, none of which she had.

But Chloe still grit her teeth and struggled through the quiz, fighting desperately to remember which names were associated with which dates, places, and events. “Here,” she said to Mendeleiev at last. “It’s done.”

Mendeleiev picked up a red pen and went over the exam. “Thirteen out of twenty,” she said at last. “Sixty-five percent. You fail.”

For a moment, Chloe didn’t think she’d heard the woman correctly. “How is that failing?” she demanded a last. “It’s a ‘D!’ Failing is below sixty!”

“The school board determined you were so far behind that simply attaining marginal proficiency would not be sufficient to catch you up with your classmates,” Mendeleiev intoned in the same frosty voice as the previous day. “You will only pass assignments on which you score a ‘B’ or higher. So, you’ll have to retake this quiz tomorrow.”

Chloe gritted her teeth. “Then can I get a tutor or something?”

Mendeleiev shook her head. “You can’t use the school’s tutoring service because last year you threatened the tutors after they refused to do your work for you, and so you were banned."

For a moment, Chloe wanted to scream, but instead she just made herself ask, “When does this stupid thing end?”

“When you achieve mastery, or when the board gives up and pushes you back a year.” Mendeleiev had already gone back to some scientific journal she was reading. “Now get back to work on your other assignments.”

And Chloe had no choice but to obey.

#

By the end of the day, Chloe was storming through the school with enough visible anger that people were keeping away from her. “Stupid Mendeleiev” she growled to herself. “It’s not my fault I don’t test well! The school should be helping me, not just making me fail over and over again! And I don’t have time for this anyway because I have to stop Dupain-Cheng from turning Cesaire against me, and now she's off on some stupid...”

Then she paused as a thought hit her. Cesaire had said she was going to learn about Red Queen, but while Ladybug had been around for months in the last timeline, that hero was new in this one. There wasn’t anyone who knew anything about her. For that matter, Cesaire was new in town, so even if someone did know about Red Queen, Cesaire wouldn’t know who that person was. So how had she found someone to talk to?

When Chloe had needed help understanding her school material the previous night, she’d turned to Wikipedia and Google. So, she thought, maybe Cesaire had done the same. She took out her phone, googled ‘Red Queen history,’ and then smiled as a few links popped up. “Louvre putting together exhibit on the Miraculous heroes,” she read after opening the first link. “Curator Alim Kubdel is presenting a collection of ancient Egyptian artwork which appears to feature the hero. Alim, shown here with his children Jalil and Alix...”

And then she had it. There was a Louvre exhibit on the heroes, and Cesaire’s classmate Alix was the Louvre curator’s daughter, so Alix had probably asked her father to talk to Cesaire about them. All Chloe had to do was go to the museum and find Cesaire before or after she spoke with Alim.

Two people were standing down the hall, and Chloe brightened as she realized they were Kim and Alix. “Hey, Alix!” she snapped. “How much is admission to the Louvre?”

Alix paused for a moment. Then a strange smile slipped over her face and she said, “Twenty-two euros for most people, but it’s free with a student ID. Just show yours to the ticket guy.”

Then Kim frowned. “Wait, Alix, I thought your dad banned her from—”

“Shut up!” Alix shot a glare at Kim and dropped her voice to a whisper. Chloe had to strain to overhear Alix say, “C’mon, don’t you think it’d be funny if she got arrested for trespassing?” And then she turned back to Chloe and called, “Yeah, you can get in free if you show your ID!” But this time Chloe could see the malevolence in Alix’s smile.

Chloe frowned. She’d barely known Alix in the prior world, but now it seemed like the other girl had some kind of personal animus toward her. Had the kwamis set things up so that ‘she’ had done something to Alix before the world had begun? But then again, it didn’t really matter, did it? Whatever had happened wasn’t her fault, and Alix had no money or power, so it wasn’t her problem either. As long as she didn’t get arrested, Alix couldn’t do anything to her.

And soon, once Chloe had her Miraculouses back, nobody else would be able to do anything to her either.

#

Running home after school to get a fresh box of donuts only took a few minutes. Wheedling her father into giving her the Louvre admission fee took a few minutes more. But no more than half an hour passed between Chloe leaving the school and reaching the Louvre, which meant Alya was surely still in her meeting.

Chloe smirked to herself after paying full price for her ticket and entering. As she’d guessed, while the staff may have been told to detain anyone who flashed a student ID reading “Chloe Bourgeois,” the random ticket inspectors didn’t know her well enough to pick out her face from among the thousands they saw every day. Then she hurried through the halls, followed the signs reading “RED QUEEN EXHIBIT (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)”, and found Alya waiting just outside the hallway. “Cesaire!” she said in mock surprise. “Hi!”

Cesaire swiveled and frowned at Chloe’s. “Are you stalking me?”

“What? No! I was just coming to see the exhibit, and I saw you, and I just happened to still have the donuts from before, so...” Chloe presented the box. “Want one?”

But Cesaire just raised an eyebrow. “The exhibit that isn’t open yet? The one I’m only at because the curator’s going to meet me here soon?”

Chloe hesitated. "...yes?"

Then Cesaire stepped forward, flipped open the box of donuts, and touched one. “Still warm,” she said. “If they were from this morning, they’d be cold, unless you microwaved them—and the glaze isn’t melted, so you didn’t do that either. These must be fresh ones you just got from home.” Her frown deepened. “Which I’m guessing you brought specifically for me, even though you just said you were here for the exhibit.”

Chloe grimaced. Why, she demanded to herself, couldn’t Cesaire just trust her? She hadn’t even done anything to her in this world! This was ridiculous!

“Look, Marinette warned me about you,” Cesaire went on. “She told me you bullied people and that I should be careful. I don’t like bullies.”

“I’m not trying to bully you!” Chloe snapped. “I was interested in your blog, okay?”

Cesaire frowned. “Then why don’t you just read it like everyone else? The Red Queen Report’s open to the public. You don’t need to see me in person.”

“Not just reading it.” Chloe felt herself flailing and tried to recover. “I mean, I wanted to help with it.”

Now Cesaire looked deeply skeptical. “Help? Why?”

Chloe opened her mouth to say that she just liked Cesaire so much that she wanted to hang out with her, but based on the look the girl was giving her, Dupain-Cheng had already twisted her too much for her to believe that. She probably wouldn’t believe any ‘nice’ reason Chloe came up with, in fact. Now she seemed to think that Chloe was just some bully that everyone knew to avoid.

But if Cesaire wouldn't accept a 'nice' motivation, then Chloe could still give her others, and the blonde had to hide a smile as an idea occurred to her. “Because I want people to stop hating me!” she said. “Look, I’m not a bully, okay? I just had some, uh, misunderstandings with Dupain-Cheng and the others. They won’t listen to me now, but if I do something good then maybe they’ll see I’m not just some jerk.”

“So everyone was lying when they said you were bullying them?” Cesaire asked.

“Aren’t journalists supposed to check their sources and get both sides of the story?” Chloe shot back. “Well, you haven’t gotten mine yet! Just because I don’t get along with Dupain-Cheng doesn’t make me a bully!”

Cesaire chewed that over for a few moments. “Maybe,” she said at last. “I mean, that’s possible, but even so, my blog isn’t a charity project, you know? Set aside that I can’t work with bullies or with people who lie to me,” and she met Chloe's gaze with her own, “what I do is serious journalism. Not everyone has the skills to keep up.”

Chloe stood up a little straighter. “Well, I can. I’m a great journalist!”

“What else have you done stories on?” And when Chloe didn’t answer, Cesaire sighed. “Look, Chloe, I get it, but—”

Then someone screamed from inside the closed Red Queen exhibit. Moments later, more voices joined them. And then Choe heard someone laugh maniacally before yelling, “I am Pharaoh! You all acted like my studies were a waste of time, but I’ll show you! I’ll use the power of the Egyptian gods and my knowledge of the Miraculouses to resurrect my mother!”

Cesaire took off like a rocket into the exhibit, whipping out her phone from her pocket as she did so, and Chloe hesitated for a moment before giving chase. She barely remembered this akuma, but it looked like she’d finally scored a break in that she’d be able to reach the fight before the heroes. Then all she had to do was hide and wait for them to give something away. And if she could do something to convince Cesaire of her journalism skills, so much the better.

The akuma, who was standing by several murals with hieroglyphs on them, liked like a man with the head of an eagle who was holding a large staff. Cesaire had reached him ahead of Chloe and ducked behind a few crates as she filmed. Chloe also saw a thin man backing away from the monster and saying, “Jalil, please, this isn’t right. Stop this!”

“I’m not Jalil anymore, father! I’m Pharaoh! And I’m going to sacrifice a pure soul to resurrect Mom, just as the ritual demands! Now: Anubis, give me an army!” The akuma’s head shifted into that of a jackal, and then he fired eye beams at Alim as well as several other staffers who hadn’t fled yet. The people screamed before their bodies abruptly turned into those of mummies and Chloe gagged as she ducked behind some large urns labeled ‘canopic jars.’

Pharaoh sniffed the air, then smiled. “I smell a pure soul,” he growled. “Minions: bring her to me!” And then he pointed at Cesaire’s hiding spot, and before she could move, the mummies had swarmed her, tossed her phone away, and begun dragging her over.

Chloe bit her lip. Now what did she do? She couldn’t rescue Cesaire and didn’t really care to try, but then again, did she need to? That was what the heroes were for. And besides, Cesaire just wanted a good story. She wouldn’t get one this time because the akuma’s minions had taken her phone, but—

Then Chloe had it. She took out her own phone and filmed as the mummies dropped Cesaire at Pharaoh’s feet. “I will sacrifice your beating heart!” Pharaoh cried.

Cesaire gulped before catching herself. “Why do you want to kill me?” she asked as if giving a normal interview. “Isn’t that kind of harsh?”

Pharaoh seemed to hesitate, but then the purple outline of a butterfly appeared around his face and he grimaced before saying, “You’re right, Hawkmoth. People die every day. At least this way I’ll recover an equally pure soul from the Realm of Osiris!”

Then a smashing noise sounded from the front of the hall, and Chloe swiveled with her phone to see the heroes charging in.

Cheshire led the way in his stupid costume, and as Pharaoh blasted spells at him to turn him into a mummy, he slipped to one side and drew off his aim. Then Red Queen swung in behind him with a boombox on her back. The boombox was red with black spots, and while Pharaoh tried to shoot at her, he’d been turned in the wrong direction by Cheshire and didn’t have time to wheel around.

Red Queen pressed a button on the boombox. And no sound came out, but Pharaoh howled and covered his ears anyway as he dropped to his knees.

Chloe frowned in bafflement while Red Queen approached Pharaoh, took his staff, and snapped it. The monster’s body warped and melted away until only Jalil was there, and Red Queen cleansed the akuma seconds later. “Are you alright?” she asked Alya and Jalil after using the Miraculous Cure.

Alya nodded, then fumbled for her phone as Jalil turned away in embarrassment. “Don’t worry,” Red Queen told him. “It’s not your fault. But if you’re still having negative emotions, Cheshire and I just finished speaking to the mayor, and she’s setting up a therapy program to help people process them. I can connect you with them.”

“I think that would be advisable,” managed Alim Kubdel. He’d reappeared along with everyone else that had been mummies. “Very much so.”

Jalil sighed and slumped. “Sure. And sorry. I just miss Mom, man.”

Alim ran to hug his son and Red Queen turned to Cesaire, who was beaming at her. “Red Queen, that was amazing! How did you do that? Was the boombox magical?”

“It came from the Lucky Charm, but there was nothing special about the sound itself,” Red Queen noted merrily. “Except, of course, that it was too high-pitched for human ears.”

Cesaire's eyes widened. “I get it! Dogs--and jackals--have better hearing than us, so they can hear high-pitched sounds we can’t! Jalil’s akuma form had a jackal head and so you were able to deafen and disorient him without hurting us!” She hurriedly made a few notes on her phone. “You two are brilliant!”

Cheshire, who was now lying on top of a large box covered in Egyptian motifs, grinned. “We appreciate your compliments, oh noble scribe.” And Alya blushed scarlet at that.

Red Queen looked bemused as she said, “We’ll need to leave in a minute. Do you have any other questions?”

“Sure,” Alya said. “How did you know in advance that he’d be a jackal at just that moment? Or at all? Do you have some way of predicting akumas?”

The two heroes exchanged glances and then Red Queen said, “We saw it on your livestream, of course. That was how we knew what Pharaoh was up to.”

Alya gasped. “You read my blog?”

“Why not? It’s very accurate, especially the part where you quote all those cute girls talking about how handsome I am.” Cheshire winked and Alya giggled. “That said, we really do need to head home. See you later!”

The heroes fled and Alya stared after them for a moment with a gleeful look on her face. “They read my blog,” she whispered. But then her smile faded and she paused as if something had occurred to her. “Chloe? Are you still here?”

Chloe poked her head out from above the urns with a triumphant smile. “I’m here!” she crowed as she passed Cesaire her phone. “And I got footage of the fight. See? I’m great at this!”

Alya looked through the footage. “This is perfect!” she said after a long moment. “Seriously, Chloe, good job.”

“Told you I could help.”

Cesaire nodded, then hesitated. “If you can film like this, I could use you, but I meant what I said earlier. No bullying, Chloe, and you need to be completely honest with me. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” Chloe lied.

“Then welcome to the Red Queen Report.” Cesaire grinned. “I need to write this up, but we’ll meet again tomorrow after school to discuss our investigation. See you then.”

She ran off, and Chloe hurried away too so she could escape before Alim recovered enough to realize she shouldn’t be here. “Perfect,” she said to herself with a big smile. “I got Cesaire. I beat Dupain-Cheng. And soon I’ll get the heroes too.”

And as she left, she didn’t notice the little head poking out of the canopic jar behind her and listening to her every word.

Chapter Text

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

--Mike Tyson

 Chloe had barely stepped through the school doors the next day when her phone buzzed. “Girl!” Cesaire chirped into her ear. “Get to a television or a computer right away. I’m on the air!”

“Is it about Hawkmoth?” Chloe asked.

“Even better. It’s about the heroes! And—” But Chloe had already hung up and was rushing to the computer lab.

It wasn’t hard to find what was going on, as every single news site was displaying the same press conference. Mayor Sabine stood at a podium with Cheshire and Red Queen by her sides, and Sabine’s lunkhead husband as well as Dupain-Cheng herself were in the background. When the feeds switched to crowd shots, Chloe saw Cesaire in the press scrum along with other reporters she recognized like Nadja Chamack. Then Sabine said, “Thank you all for coming. I’m here with Paris’s heroes Red Queen and Cheshire to announce how all of us citizens can help to defeat Hawkmoth.”

Chloe snorted. Her father had never been able to do anything about Hawkmoth other than let the heroes beat the akumas. In fact, that was what the heroes were for. Sabine had to be grandstanding.

Sabine waved Red Queen and Cheshire forward. “First, as we're sure you all know, Hawkmoth is a supervillain who controls people by means of their negative emotions,” Red Queen began. “So, it’s important to try to control your negative feelings. If you become angry, or depressed, or scared, work to process those emotions in a healthy way rather than storing them up and giving Hawkmoth a chance to control you.”

“To that end,” Sabine added, “My office is announcing a new free therapy program. Citizens who have trouble controlling their emotions may talk to our trained therapists and learn coping techniques. We’ll also be sending therapists to major competitions in order to make sure those who lose don’t get so upset that Hawkmoth could akumatize them.”

Then it was Cheshire’s turn. “Second, during akuma attacks, it’s best for civilians to stay out of our way.” He grinned. “I mean, I love you guys, but when I’m running around dodging mummies or bubbles or whatever, it’s a real bad time for someone to ask for a selfie!” A few people laughed and he waited a few seconds before finishing. “So I’m happy to be able to say that your mayor is also setting up an alarm system to warn everyone of akuma attacks, plus designated akuma shelters for people to hide in so they can stay out of the crossfire.”

Nadja Chamack raised her hand. “Excuse me. A couple pundits have suggested that some civic functions, such as arresting minor criminals, be suspended because they could antagonize people and result in them being akumatized. Is that under consideration?”

“No.” Sabine’s voice wasn’t sharp, exactly, but it was certainly firm. “My administration has total confidence in the heroes. As such, we will not be letting people get away with things solely for fear that they might be akumatized. If they are, the heroes will deal with it.”

“Red Queen said in an interview on the Red Queen Report that akumatized people are victims,” another reporter said. A quick crowd shot showed Cesaire beaming at the reference to her blog, and Chloe snorted. Then Nadja asked, “Is that your policy?”

“Presumptively.” Sabine glanced at the heroes, then said, “Our assumption is that akumatized people are indeed Hawkmoth’s victims just as much as the people they may attack, and so they will not be charged for any crimes they commit while under his control. That said...” Her voice grew hard. “If we find that anyone has helped Hawkmoth voluntarily, whether by volunteering to be akumatized or in any other way, they will be treated as an accomplice to his terrorism, they will be charged appropriately, and they will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Cheshire called, “Including listening to my puns twenty-four hours a day!”

After the laughter died down, someone else asked, “Why is Hawkmoth doing this? What does he want?”

“He wants to combine my Miraculous with Cheshire’s,” Red Queen answered. “That would enable him to make a Wish that would rewrite reality to suit him.”

“Wait a minute,” Nadja said. “Why don’t you two just Wish for him to be stopped, then? For that matter, why not wish to end war, or cure cancer, or set up whatever utopia you want?”

“Because making a Wish ends the world and restarts it from the beginning.” Red Queen shook her head. “That power is only to be used to prevent apocalypses, like meteors or plagues that would otherwise destroy the planet. If everyone is seconds from dying anyway, restarting the world could be justified. But to use that power for any other reason, to wipe out every single living person just for the sake of convenience, would be...”

Cheshire took the microphone. “Something only a monster would do.”

Chloe managed, with some difficulty, not to punch the screen.

Then Cheshire brightened up. “Besides, we don’t have to! Hawkmoth’s not even that tough; Red Queen and I’ll grind him into kitty litter in no time. So relax! And remember, if you want to help us, the best thing you can do is control your negative emotions. Talk to friends! Meditate! Hug your loved ones! And if all else fails, have a big glass of cream and take a nap in a sunbeam—that always cheers me up!”

He turned to go as people laughed and clapped, but Red Queen coughed. “The last thing, Mayor?”

“Of course.” Sabine looked back at the crowd, but Chloe thought her gaze flicked to Cesaire in particular. “If Hawkmoth learned the heroes’ real names, it could be disastrous, since he would know that he could win by simply focusing all his efforts on akumatizing them and making them hand over their Miraculouses. My office is therefore proposing legislation that will criminalize any efforts to identify or expose them.”

Chloe’s eyes flashed at that. “You can’t!” she hissed.

“You can’t!” screamed Cesaire at the same time. Everyone turned to stare at her and she blushed, then said, “I mean, it’s a legitimate story! And—and what if they’re accused of something bad? I’m not saying they’d hurt anyone, they’re great, but shouldn’t we have some idea who they are just in case?”

“We’ve thought of that,” Sabine answered. “The heroes revealed themselves to a few carefully chosen government officials who immediately left Paris—and, in fact, France altogether—and will stay far away until the crisis is over. If one of the heroes is credibly accused of a crime, those officials will be able to direct a special branch of the police to investigate, thus ensuring that even Red Queen and Cheshire are not above the law. Otherwise, though, their identities must remain secret.”

Cheshire raised a hand. “You mean I can’t extort you into giving me the world’s largest scratching post and all the catnip I could ever want?”

“I’m afraid not.” Sabine’s mouth quirked into a smile before she turned back to Cesaire. “I’m sorry, Miss Cesaire, but this is a national security issue. If you learned who they were and then were akumatized, we would all be at risk. So: I’ve made my final word.”

“But we can talk about other things!” Red Queen hastened to add. “We’re happy to do interviews. Just don’t ask us our names and we can discuss pretty much anything else.”

Chloe grimaced. This was going to make her work harder, but she couldn’t let that deter her. Besides, once she got the Miraculouses, it wouldn’t matter if the police were right behind her. She could just Wish them away. And from the way Cesaire was glaring at Sabine on screen, it didn’t look to Chloe like the journalist particularly cared about Sabine’s threats either.

The press conference wound up with a few questions, none of which interested Chloe except for the last one. “Is it true the Italian ambassador was recorded saying he wanted to make a deal with Hawkmoth to destroy some rival diplomat?” Nadja asked. “And that he’s being sent back to Italy to face terrorism charges?”

Sabine managed a tight smile. “I can’t comment on that. But it’s true that the Italian ambassador has been recalled. His replacement will be arriving next week with her family. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I bid a warm French welcome to Italy’s incoming ambassador Chiara Rossi... and, of course, her daughter Lila.”

#

Chloe was pretty sure Lila hadn’t shown up as early in the other world, but that wasn’t important at the moment. What mattered was getting ready for the next akuma. And as luck would have it, no sooner had Chloe left the computer lab and entered her homeroom than she heard Kim boasting, “...any sport you name, Kubdel. I’m better in all of them!”

“Oh yeah?” Alix shot back. She had a confident, competitive grin on her face as she began ticking off sports on her fingers. “Soccer? Roller blading? Track? Basketball? Shooting?”

“Wait, shooting?” asked Mylene, who was near them. “Shooting what?”

“Guns.” Alix chuckled at Mylene’s gasp. “What? It’s a sport, isn’t it? I do biathlon in the winter, and I’m not bad at shooting targets and clay pigeons either.”

Nathaniel, who was sitting by Mylene, gave Alix a wry smile. “Not bad? I heard you’ve got a shelf full of trophies and you’re a shoo-in to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games's gun competitions.”

Alix blushed. “Well, okay. Maybe a little better than not bad.”

Chloe was in the process of tuning out the idiots when she froze. Hadn’t Alix gotten akumatized because of some sporting competition with Kim? Yes, she’d turned into some rollerblade freak. And it had happened at the Trocadero! Chloe had been there, she remembered!

Nobody asked why Chloe suddenly began grinning. Nobody even seemed to notice, which infuriated Chloe even though she knew their ignorance was good for her. But she stayed quiet as Kim said, “Fine. I’ll take you on in a shooting competition! This afternoon, anywhere you want!”

“You’ll need a license to even touch a gun inside city limits,” said Marinette as she walked past with an amused look on her face. “They’re really hard to get. And I don’t think ‘wanting to show up a classmate’ will be considered a good enough reason to get you one.”

“And it wouldn’t help you if you did,” Alix added. “I’d smoke you, Kim.”

“Says who?” called out Chloe, figuring it might help to get Alix a bit angry even before she started racing. “If nobody else is licensed, nobody else can challenge you, so you can just say you’re the best without having to prove it!”

Alix's face flushed red at Chloe’s words. “Then how about you drop by the range sometime, Chloe? I’ll show you how good I am. We can even put an apple on your head so everyone can watch me shoot it off!”

A few kids laughed, though Chloe thought she heard an undercurrent of real venom in Alix’s voice. Then Kim said, “Well, if I can’t take you on in shooting, how about a race? I’ll go on foot and you can run, or skate, or whatever.”

“Fine!” Alix turned back to him and grinned, as if her feud with Chloe was no longer important. “Meet me at the Trocadero after school. If you win, I’ll even give you my skates. But if I win, you stop with your stupid dares!”

The two shook hands and Marinette asked, “Why don’t we all head over and watch? Maybe we could get ice cream later. And...” She hesitated, then said, “And Alya or I can film it so Chloe can see it too if she wants.”

Chloe opened her mouth to snap that she wouldn’t need it filmed because she’d just go there herself, but then she paused. She hadn’t been able to get into Bubbler’s party, and she’d been banned from the Louvre too, which would have stopped her from seeing Pharaoh if she hadn’t snuck in. Now she couldn’t see Alix either. This was getting weird.

But then Chloe reminded herself that it didn’t matter. She had an ally now, so she didn’t have to see the fights herself. Still, people might get suspicious if she didn’t complain, so she asked, “Why can’t I just go and see it?”

“You have your appointment with Dr. Bridgette today,” Sabrina chimed in. Chloe scowled at Sabrina, who had apparently slipped into the room in the last few minutes without Chloe noticing, but Sabrina just shrugged and went on. “As class rep, one of my jobs is keeping track of student infractions and punishments, so I can report to the student council if any teachers are being too tough, or too lenient, or are applying double standards. So when you accepted your probation, I was told what you would have to do.”

Chloe still couldn’t hide her scowl. Sabrina was supposed to be her minion, her helper, the person whose sacred duty was to serve her in exchange for Chloe generously letting her stay in her presence. Now she was acting like Chloe’s warden or something. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!

But Chloe just made herself turn away without further complaint. She would find the heroes soon, no matter what stupid hoops she had to jump through or what Sabine said. And then all of this would be irrelevant.

#

The rest of school was horrible, as usual. Mendeleiev didn’t think anything Choe did showed ‘sufficient mastery’ to be worth a pass. The lessons made no sense. Nobody talked to her except when they had to. And to top it all off, she had to end her day by sitting in the counselor’s office and blathering on about her feelings.

But at least, she kept telling herself, there’d be another akuma and thus another chance to learn about the heroes. And when Bridgette finally dismissed her, Chloe got on the phone to Cesaire before she’d even gotten off school grounds. “Did you see the race?” she asked.

“Between Kim and Alix? Yeah, Marinette invited me to watch. It was sweet!” Cesaire’s voice was bright and joyous. “Alix won, of course. I mean, she was on rollerblades. But now Kim won’t be giving out dares, which I guess is a big deal?”

“Yeah, he does a lot of those,” Chloe muttered. “Anyway, how was the akuma?”

“What akuma?” Cesaire’s voice sounded skeptical. “I mean, Red Queen swung over to check on us because she heard we were having a competition, but nobody got akumatized.”

Chloe froze. “You mean, Alix didn’t get upset and become an akuma?”

“Why would she get upset when she won?”

A fresh headache began building in Chloe’s head as she tried to remember if anything else had happened to get Alix akumatized. Hadn’t there been some tacky watch, or something? But Chloe hadn’t really been paying attention back then; she’d cared more about standing by Adrikens and flirting with him.

“Anyway, Marinette, Alix, and I are headed back to the Louvre. Why don’t you meet me there? I’ve got to talk to you about...” Her voice dropped. “You know.”

For a moment, Chloe debated saying she was banned from the Louvre, but then she paused. What if she went, did nothing wrong, and got kicked out anyway? Cesaire would be sure to take her side then and protest such an immense injustice. And if she played her cards right, she might even be able to akumatize Alix after all; the girl had made it clear that she hated Chloe anyway.

Granted, it might be a problem if the akumatized Alix attacked her like Nino had done, but Chloe already knew Alix’s akumatized form was a roller blader. That meant she could take some precautions to ensure Alix couldn’t touch her even as an akuma. In fact, she was pretty sure she knew exactly how.

“I’ll be right over,” she told Cesaire, and then hurried away.

#

Chloe hadn’t had much money in her pocket, but her spare change had been just enough to buy a big bag of cheap marbles at a nearby toy store. Then she ran toward the Louvre, wishing fervently her daddy still had a limo that would just take her wherever she needed to go. “Running everywhere sucks,” she growled. “I hate being poor!”

It was almost bad enough to make her consider the subway. But the thought of being pressed up against dozens of peasants, all of them no doubt smelling and stinking and belching and so on, was enough to make her just grit her teeth and keep running.

Dupain-Cheng, Cesaire, and Alix were walking across the Louvre’s courtyard when Chloe arrived. “...that’s another reason why I filmed your race,” Cesaire was saying. “I wanted to make sure your father and brother could see once they finished their work.”

Alix’s eyes flicked to Chloe and she paused for a moment before a mean little smile hit her face. Presumably, Chloe guessed, she was hoping that Chloe blundered into the Louvre and got arrested. But then Dupain-Cheng saw Chloe too and frowned. “Chloe,” she said. “What are you doing here? You know you can’t come onto the Louvre’s property.”

Chloe noted the disappointed look on Alix’s face. Then she said, “I’m not going inside, Dupain-Cheng. I’m just meeting Cesaire. You can’t hog her!”

Cesaire blinked in confusion while Dupain-Cheng sighed. “I’m not hogging anyone, and you can talk to who you want, but you can’t be here. You don’t want to get in trouble again, do you?”

“It shouldn’t be up to her,” Alix muttered. Now that her deception had failed, she was scowling. “Go away, Chloe. Nobody here likes you.”

“Woah!” Cesaire moved to step between them. “Come on, let’s keep it friendly.”

“She’s not a friend.” Alix glared at Chloe. “Leave, Bourgeois. Get out of here now.”

Chloe looked down to make sure she was technically still on the public sidewalk. “I can stand here if I want. Now let me talk to my friend!”

“You don’t have any friends.” Alix approached Chloe and jabbed a finger at her chest. “One last time. Get lost, Chloe.”

Chloe met her gaze. Then she flashed a smug smile and crossed her arms. “I’m staying right here, and you can’t stop me,” she hissed in a quiet enough voice that she doubted Cesaire or Dupain-Cheng could hear her. “So go back to your mud wrestling or your toy guns or whatever other lunkhead sports peasants like you waste your time on, and leave me alone!”

Alix's cheeks flushed a bright scarlet before she jabbed her finger again—but now Dupain-Cheng and Cesaire had reached them, and Dupain-Cheng stepped between them. “Leave her, Alix. She hasn’t actually done anything wrong this time. And you don’t want to get in trouble.”

“She’s taunting us!” Alix snapped.

Cesaire, meanwhile, had slipped to Chloe’s side. “What exactly does she think you did to her?” she whispered.

Chloe frowned, because she truly had no idea. She hadn’t even broken the little brat’s watch this time! “No idea.”

“It’s just—” Then Cesaire stiffened and pointed. “Akuma!”

Before anyone could do anything, the butterfly floated down and landed on Alix’s jacket. Alix stiffened, then grinned. “You got it, Hawkmoth. Two Miraculouses, coming up.”

“Alix, no!” Dupain-Cheng shoved Cesaire and Chloe away as magic engulfed Alix. “You two, run and call the heroes! I’ll hold her off!”

Cesaire hesitated before running, and Chloe was not at all surprised when Cesaire’s path curved and took them behind some planters instead of far away. “Okay,” Cesaire whispered. “Go to that pile of bricks there. We’ll both film. And if anyone asks, we got turned around and that’s why we couldn’t flee.”

“Anyone asks?” Chloe repeated.

“Yeah.” Cesaire grimaced. “My mom wasn’t thrilled with me chasing down Pharaoh, but, well, I’ll tell you later. Just get there and film!”

Chloe ran to the bricks and started filming with one hand as she drew the bag of marbles from her pocket with her other. Once Alix came at her, she thought, she just had to fling the marbles at Alix's skates. Then Alix would trip and fall, giving Chloe some deeply amusing footage and also disabling her until the heroes could swoop in. After that—

But when she looked back, her eyes widened, because Alix wasn’t on rollerblades. Nor did she have any trace of her futuristic outfit from her previous akumatization. Instead, she was wearing a sports jacket that had an array of medals pinned to it. And as she watched, Alix tapped one of the medals and a sleek black rifle appeared in her hands.

  Chloe’s mouth dropped and she almost screamed. How could Alix suddenly become some different akuma that Chloe couldn’t possibly have prepared for! It was ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!

“Alix, stop!” Dupain-Cheng called. “Let’s just—"

“I’m not Alix!” the akuma roared. “I’m the Superior Athlete now!”

“Okay, fine,” Dupain-Cheng said. “But we can—"

“Show off my sports skills? Great idea!” Superior Athlete grinned, then shoved Dupain-Cheng aside. “Hey, Chloe! You wanted to see how good I was with a gun, right? Here’s a demo!”

Chloe’s eyes widened, Alix pulled the trigger, and then Chloe’s knee exploded into pain. The blonde screamed as she sagged against the bricks. How, she wondered even as the pain seeped through her body, had Alix even hit her? The bricks should have covered her!

And then, through the blazing pain, she saw the tiny crack between two of the adjacent stacks of bricks. It was maybe two inches wide. And Alix had shot through that gap from across the courtyard.

Then her leg gave out, she fell, and all thoughts vanished. Filming the akuma or even watching for the heroes didn’t matter. She just had to get away. The Louvre was maybe a hundred yards away and she hauled her bleeding body inch by inch over the cobblestones. The world had been reduced to the stones in front of her.

Several minutes and an eternity later, Chloe ‘s hand brushed against the glass pyramid that led into the Louvre. She managed a weak smile and then turned. Dupain-Cheng was still arguing with Superior Athlete, who didn’t seem to have shot anyone else. And there, in the far distance, the heroes were finally racing toward them. If she could just hold out until the Miraculous cure, she’d live.

But Superior Athlete glanced at the heroes, snapped, “You were stalling!” at Dupain-Cheng and knocked her aside. Then she glanced over and a mean glint formed in her eyes as she looked at Chloe. This time Chloe tried to roll out of the way, but the rifle barked anyway, and Chloe felt a horrific pain drilling into her eye.

The agony drilling through her cut off all coherent thought, and what she managed was little more than an inarticulate wail. It wasn’t fair, she tried to howl to herself. She couldn’t die now! She hadn’t changed things yet!

It’s easier to die than to change, someone had said.

Then her last thought faded and she knew nothing at all.

#

“...is she okay?” It was Cesaire’s voice, sounding scared. “Miraculous Cure can undo death, right?”

“Yes.” Red Queen sounded calm and compassionate, but her voice had an undercurrent of tension too. “She should get up in a moment now that the akuma’s been cleansed.”

Chloe didn’t move. Alix had shot her. She had died!

“By the way, Alya.” Dupain-Cheng was speaking in a soft voice. “I’m not saying don’t be friends with her, but be careful, okay?”

“She hasn’t bullied me. I think you might have gotten her wrong.”

“I didn’t. And if she’s being nice to you, it’s because she wants something. It’s like in that Sherlock Holmes story we read your little sisters last night, where the dog not barking was a clue because it always barked before. Chloe always bullied before and—”

“I’m not a dog!”

Everyone turned to look at Chloe, who had forced her eyes open and sat up so suddenly that she felt dizzy. She clutched her head and tried to figure out why that line, of all the things Dupain-Cheng had said, had bothered her. But then she remembered her nightmare and the cat monster calling her a rabid dog, and she shuddered before saying, “Don’t you ever call me that, Dupain-Cheng!”

Red Queen coughed. “Chloe, are you okay?”

“Of course not! What took you so long?” Chloe tried to stand, wobbled, and gritted her teeth as Cresaire and Dupain-Cheng helped her up. Then she glanced at the sky and noticed how much later it was. “You beat the other akumas in a few minutes, so why did this one last so much longer? Did you stall because I was the victim?”

Red Queen sighed. “We did our best, Chloe. And if you’re upset, we can connect you with that new therapy service Mayor Sabine set up.”

Chloe grunted and looked around. “Where’s Alix? I want to give her a piece of my mind!”

“No.” Red Queen shook her head. “She’s not responsible, Chloe. And if you get mad at her, you could be akumatized next.”

That line made Chloe pause for a second as she thought. She’d been furious ever since arriving in this world, so why hadn’t she been akumatized, exactly? Was Hawkmoth just going easy on her for some reason?

“Alix already left,” Dupain-Cheng chimed in. “Cheshire took her home.”

Chloe opened her mouth, but Cesaire quickly said, “Why don’t I walk you home too? I streamed the fight, so your parents might have watched it. I’m sure they’ll want to see that you’re alright.”

“Hmph.” But Chloe couldn’t think of anything else to do right there, so she let Alya take her away. As she walked, she wondered again why Hawkmoth hadn’t gone after her. And something else about the fight was weird too. If she could just figure out what it was...

“I don’t know how much it matters,” Cesaire ventured after a few blocks, “but the footage you took before getting shot was great.” When Chloe didn’t react, Cesaire pressed, “Is it alright if I ask you what it was like to, uh, die? You know, for my blog.”

Chloe scowled. “Well, first my knee really hurt. Then my eye really hurt. Then everything went dark until I woke up. That help you, Cesaire?”

“Okay, okay.” Cesaire shook her head. “Sorry I asked.”

Something else continued to nag at Chloe’s mind for a moment before she figured it out. “Didn’t you want to talk to me about you-know-who?” She dropped her voice. “Our heroes?”

“It can wait, Chloe. I’m sure you just want to get home right now.”

Chloe paused. There was real compassion in Cesaire’s voice, and despite everything, it felt good. Even if just for a few minutes, it was nice someone finally appreciated her enough to focus on what she needed instead of some other petty concerns.

When Cesaire got her home, she promised to talk to Chloe the next school day and then left. Chloe looked up at the sky again and frowned at how now it was almost dark. It figured that the heroes would be slow to fight the one akuma who had hurt her personally, and—

Then her eyes narrowed. “Not just the one who hurt me,” she whispered. “The one who was different. That’s what was weird: Stoneheart, Bubbler, and Pharaoh were all the same, and they all lost really quickly, but Alix was a different akuma and the heroes took forever to win. But why would that matter?”

And then it hit her.

“What if the kwamis told them?” Chloe whispered to herself, a cold fear filling her and drowning out her remaining anger at having been shot and killed. “Warned them about the old akumas so they’d be ready for those specific ones? If they did, they might also have told their holders that I made a Wish in the last world! And what if Hawkmoth’s kwami told him about me too? That might be why he didn’t akumatize me; he knows what I could do to him!”

And if they all knew who she was and what she had done, then...

Chloe thought back to the monster in her nightmare, the one that had been in the process of killing her before she awoke, and her mouth went dry.

Chapter Text

 “It is necessary to get behind someone in order to stab him in the back.”

--Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn (“Yes, Minister”)

When Chloe reentered the bakery, she wanted nothing more than to rush to her room and scream her terror, frustration, and exhaustion into her pillow. Then she wanted to figure out what, if anything, she could do about the heroes knowing who she was, and also hopefully make Cesaire talk as soon as possible so she could get back to finding out who they were. But her father grabbed her in a massive hug before she’d gotten even a few steps inside and proceeded to scupper those plans.

“I’m so relieved you’re alright!” he babbled as Chloe bristled in his arms. “I saw what happened on the news a minute ago; I was just heading out to pick you up!”

“I’m fine!” Chloe muttered as she tried to wriggle away from him. “Red Queen brought me back, okay? Just leave me alone.”

Bourgeois didn’t seem to hear her. “I can’t believe that horrible akuma hurt you, Chloe. Why don’t you sit down? Forget your chores for the night, just sit here, and I’ll make your favorite dinner.”

What Andre served a few minutes later wasn’t Chloe’s favorite dinner. It was at best a poor imitation of it, with cheap grocery salmon and generic white rice instead of the fancy sushi Chloe loved, and a bargain-brand green tea instead of the good herbal kind. But after the day Chloe had endured, she didn’t even have the strength to complain. And so she ate, and she let her dad prattle at her, and after a little bit she could even acknowledge that it was nice to just sit still and let herself be looked after for a while.

The weekend was next and Andre insisted on closing his bakery for a bit so he could continue to help his daughter recuperate. They visited a local mall, where Andre couldn’t afford anything Chloe really wanted but did get her a cheap hat that she didn’t find too intolerable. They had a picnic lunch in the Place des Vosges followed by ice cream from the other Andre’s cart. When it got too cold to stay outside anymore, Andre helped Chloe study a few of the concepts for her makeup work—which Chloe found profoundly frustrating, but was again too tired to give more than a desultory protest—and on Sunday night, Andre even showed Chloe Solitude. “It’s a beautiful movie,” he said when it was over. “Ah, sometimes I wish I’d stayed a director...”

Chloe remained uncharacteristically silent. She was no fan of the movie, preferring romance soaps with hot leads and big production budgets, but the relaxing weekend had rendered her unusually tolerant of her father’s eccentricities. “I’m going to go to bed,” she told him at last. “Thanks for showing me the film, I guess.” And, almost despite herself, she hugged him.

Andre froze at the unexpected gesture, then embraced Chloe too. “Of course, dear. Anytime.”

When Chloe collapsed on her bed, she glanced around her room at the new things her father had gotten her: the hat from the mall, some nail polish from an art store, a little dog doll which he’d presumably bought in secret and then snuck onto her shelf as a present. A slight smile came to her face despite the cheapness of the gifts. “Sometimes,” she muttered, “he’s alright.”

Only when she was about to fall asleep did she remember her fears that the heroes might know who she was, but this time she found her thoughts were less panicked. After all, now that she was rested and able to think, she could remind herself that she’d already been in this world for about a week without the heroes (or Hawkmoth) kicking her door in. So maybe they really didn’t know who she was, and there were other reasons why Hawkmoth hadn’t akumatized her and why the heroes seemed prepared for some of the akuma fights. In fact, Hawkmoth using mostly the same akumas that had lost last time was probably a good indication that he, at least, didn’t know what had happened in the other world.

Besides. Chloe remembered ordering Pollen to tell her Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s identities, so she could vet them and see if their civilian selves were up to her standards, but Pollen had insisted that it was impossible for her to name or describe another Miraculous holder. And hadn’t Chloe held the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculouses for a few minutes before making a Wish? Maybe the kwamis could discuss old akumas but couldn’t talk about her because she'd had those Miraculouses for a short time. In which case, she was fine.

Something about that still seemed wrong to Chloe, but the theory still sounded plausible, and that was enough to keep her calm. Within seconds she had fallen asleep.

#

“He’s coming here! He’s actually coming to Paris!”

Chloe winced at Rose’s squeaky cries as the short blonde entered their homeroom. Rose was clutching a flyer in her hand and actually skipped up to her desk, displaying a level of enthusiasm which Chloe found incomprehensible given that it was Monday morning and class was about to start. Several other students were staring at her in confusion too, and Juleka in particular looked unhappy and annoyed, but it was Kim who finally asked, “Who?”

“Prince Ali! He’s this super-nice monarch from the Kingdom of Achu and he’s coming to town for a charity event! I’ve always wanted to meet a prince!”

“Why would he meet you?” Chloe snarked, though her voice was drained of its usual venom. “Are you the charity?”

“No, silly.” Rose giggled. “But he’s staying at Le Grand Paris, and he told the hotel he wanted to meet with ordinary people and not just the really rich, so they worked out a deal where the hotel will raffle off tickets to see him!”

Dupain-Cheng, sitting at her desk, nodded. “Yep. Tickets are only five euros, by the way, and any proceeds above the hotel’s costs will be donated to Ali’s charity. Feel free to buy one!”

Rose said, “I’ve already got mine and I’m sure I’ll win!” She spun around on her tiptoes. “I hope he likes me. Ooh, maybe he’ll even love me! I’ve always wanted to date a prince...”

Juleka turned away with a deeply gloomy expression, but Chloe was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to do more than make a note of it. Why would the Dupain-Chengs raffle cheap tickets to anyone who wanted one? It would make so much more sense to just charge high ticket prices. Chloe had watched her father hold events just like these and he’d taught her that pricy tickets didn’t just bring in more money but also provided a better class of guest; their very nature excluded gauche peasants who might track mud in or belch when a camera was on them and completely ruin the hotel’s reputation. Didn’t the Dupain-Chengs know anything about running hotels?

Before Chloe could object, though, Alix walked in. She had a stormy expression and made as if to go for her seat but Dupain-Cheng caught her glance and jerked her head at Chloe. Alix paused, sighed, and turned to the blonde. “Sorry I became an akuma and shot you,” she muttered in the most resentful tone Chloe had ever heard. “No hard feelings.” And then she shoved a scrap of paper into Chloe’s hands and went to her seat.

Chloe grimaced. Then Kim called, “Oh, yeah, Chloe, what was getting shot like? Did it hurt?”

“Of course it hurt, dummy,” Nathaniel joked. “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know, that’s why I asked!” Kim flashed a big grin at Chloe. “So, how did it feel?”

“Keep it up and I’ll show you exactly how dying feels,” Chloe shot back.

Kim just chuckled. Then a few other kids—Rose, Nathaniel, Mylene, and Ivan—made cautious noises of sympathy. Chloe waved them off, looked at the paper Alix had handed her, and her mouth dropped.

The text on the note said, HOW WAS HELL?

For a moment, Chloe wanted to jump up and strangle Alix, and when she looked back and saw a mean glint in the jock’s eyes, she almost did it. But that would just get her in trouble again and make it even harder to regain her Miraculouses. So she took a deep breath, crumpled up the note, and gave Alix a saccharine smile before turning back to the front.

Cesaire scrambled in a minute or so before the bell and sat next to Chloe. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Chloe made herself nod. “What did you want to talk about? Something related to...” She dropped her voice. “You know?”

“Oh, right!” Cesaire grinned and opened her book bag to take out a copy of the school history book. “Red Queen dropped this while she was swinging away from the Louvre after the Pharaoh fight. It’s not signed, but I spent all weekend checking, and it turns out there’s only about a half-dozen schools in Paris that use this particular version of the textbook!”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “So Red Queen’s probably a student at one of those schools!” she hissed.

“Yes!” Cesaire opened the book and flipped through the first two sections. “See? It’s all annotated in the same handwriting, the annotations go right up to where we were before Pharaoh’s attack, and the highlighter still smells fresh, so it’s not just a copy borrowed from someone else or a used copy someone picked up. It’s definitely a student at one of those schools.”

Something about Cesaire’s words stuck in Chloe’s head, and after a moment, a slow smile crossed her face. “Wait a minute. This is annotated up through where we were around the time of Pharaoh’s attack, but we’re behind everyone else. We missed history on the first day because of Stoneheart, and Bustier’s been going slow because of the other attacks too. If all the other schools are ahead of us—”

“And Red Queen only got through the sections we did, not the ones the others did, Red Queen probably attends Francois Dupont specifically!” Cesaire’s eyes gleamed. “Chloe, you’re brilliant!”

And despite everything, Chloe couldn’t help smiling at that.

“I’ll look into it,” Cesaire vowed. “I had to do it in secret at home because Mom’s still worried about me doing akuma stuff. And Sabine’s stupid ‘don’t investigate the heroes’ thing.’”

“Oh, right.” Chloe let her voice slow down to fake concern. “Are you worried about being arrested?”

“Nah. Sabine said she’s proposing to make it illegal to look into them. That means it isn’t yet. If I’m fast, I can find out who they are before she gets that law passed.” Cesaire shrugged. “I know Mayor Sabine’s been really nice to my family, but she’s wrong on this one. I mean, I’m not going to publish their names! I just want to do my investigative journalism and learn about them in case we need to know later. Like, what if they go missing and we need their civilian identities to find them? Or what if one of them really does get accused of a crime?”

Chloe nodded. “I agree. You’re absolutely right.”

“So I’ll look into where the other schools are in their history lessons later today,” Cesaire whispered as Bustier came in. “And then we’ll meet up later.”

Bustier reached the front and smiled at her class. “Good morning, everyone. I hope you had a good weekend, and—oh, Chloe! I wasn’t sure you’d be in today. Are you certain you’re alright? I’m confident the school would let you stay home another day, considering what happened.”

Chloe considered for a moment, then shook her head. She was getting too close to the heroes’ identities to take time off. “No, Ms. Bustier. I’m okay.”

Bustier gave her a warm smile, and then the lesson began.

#

Cesaire slipped away to do her investigation as soon as class let out for lunch. And by the time Chloe was going to her study hall, she got a text. “I think I know who it is!” she read off her phone. “I’ll get proof now. Meet me after your study thing so I can show you!”

The smile that formed on Chloe’s face stayed on it even when she got into the study hall and began her makeup work again. It even grew a little when she used the stuff her father had tutored her in to finish the summer history quiz and finally get an eighty-five percent. “You pass,” said Mendeleiev in a cold voice that nonetheless sounded slightly disappointed. “Get on to the next one.”

“Shouldn’t you be congratulating me?”

“Passing one single assignment doesn’t merit congratulations.” Mendeleiev was already returning to the other papers she was grading. “Get back to work.”

Chloe scowled but was reaching for another assignment when a piercing alarm stabbed through her ears. She yelped and covered them, and Mendeleiev jumped up with a start. “What is going on?” the teacher demanded. “This is a school!”

Footsteps sounded outside and then Damocles pushed the door open with Bustier behind him. Bustier looked into the room and then said, “I told you, Denis. Chloe didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Chloe yelled. “I don’t do everything wrong around here!”

“Denis,” Mendeleiev growled. “Explain. Now.”

The alarm finally quieted and Damocles sighed. “After Marinette’s locker was broken into, she build a kind of alarm that would trigger if anyone tried to get in without disarming it first,” he told Mendeleiev. “It just went off. And of course, since Chloe admitted to breaking into the locker last year as part of her probation allocution, we naturally thought...”

“That I’m guilty.” Chloe crossed her arms. “You thought it was me even though there was no evidence! That’s unfair! In fact, that’s ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!”

“I agree,” Bustier chimed in.

Mendeleiev pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, as you can see, Chloe didn’t do it. This time. Please leave so she can return to her work.”

But before they did, more footsteps sounded and Damocles glanced down the hall. “Ah, Fred, you caught our culprit,” he said. “It’s... Alya? You broke into Marinette’s locker?”

“You don’t understand!” Cesaire’s voice snapped. “I thought she was Red Queen!”

Chloe covered her head in her hands. Cesaire, she thought. You idiot.

#

Intellectually, Chloe knew that she couldn’t really blame Cesaire for not knowing that Dupain-Cheng couldn’t be Red Queen because Dupain-Cheng’s alter ego was Ladybug instead. But at the same time, the idea that Dupain-Cheng was still seen as a hero was deeply annoying.

After all, it was thanks to Dupain-Cheng that Chloe was on probation! Her life would have been ruined if she wasn’t already closing in on getting the Miraculouses back! And Dupain-Cheng didn’t even seem to care how much Chloe was suffering! A brat like her couldn’t possibly be a hero!

As soon as Chloe’s study hall was over, she scampered over to Damocles’s office and put her ear to the door. “...I told you, I found evidence that Red Queen goes to this school,” Cesaire was insisting. “And Marinette’s the perfect candidate. She loves everyone, she’s always helping people, she’s clever and creative and resourceful...”

“As much as I appreciate the compliments,” chimed in Dupain-Cheng, “did you forget I was right there when Red Queen showed up to fight Superior Athlete? And that I was also at Maman’s press conference where Red Queen made another appearance? I’m pretty sure Red Queen can’t clone herself.”

“Maybe it was an illusion, or some other kind of magic!”

“Alya!” Marinette finally sounded stressed. “I’m not Red Queen. And you aren’t supposed to be trying to find her anyway.”

Damocles cleared his throat. “It doesn’t really matter why you did it, Alya. Breaking into lockers is a very serious policy violation. I’m going to have to suspend you for one week.”

“A week?” Cesaire’s voice was almost a scream. “That’s totally unfair!”

“I agree,” said Dupain-Cheng almost at once. “I’d settle for an apology.”

“Ah, but Marinette, after your locker was broken into, your mother insisted we make new rules strictly punishing people who do that sort of thing. We have to follow the policy.”

Dupain-Cheng sighed. “That policy allows for leniency, and I think it’s warranted here. It’s her first offense and she wasn’t trying to hurt me. Don’t suspend her, Mr. Damocles. Please.”

Chloe felt herself reddening. So she got put on the worst probation ever while Dupain-Cheng pulled strings to get her friend off the hook? It figured. There was no justice in this world.

“...fine. Alya, apologize, and I’ll call your parents, and that will be that,” Damocles was saying. “Just don’t do it again, because you won't be shown this leniency a second time.”

“My parents?” Cesaire’s voice sounded horrified. “No, you can’t. They can’t know!”

Damocles said, “Alya, what you did could be constituted as attempted theft. We need to tell them. It’s the rule.”

Something heavy, like a chair, slammed against a wall. “You can’t tell them!” Cesaire screamed. “You just can’t!”

“Alya.” Dupain-Cheng’s voice was clearly trying to be soothing. “It’s not a big deal. They’ve even called my parents over stuff. Just take a breath and—no!” There was a crashing sound. “Alya, don’t let the akuma touch you! Stop!”

Dead silence filled the air. And then, when Cesaire’s voice returned, it was loud and imperious. “I’m not Alya anymore. Call me Lady Wifi!”

Chloe risked cracking the door open. She saw Damocles in frozen silence with a large purple ‘pause’ sign on his head; Cesaire, now dressed in a black bodysuit, was grabbing Dupain-Cheng’s arm. “I know you’re Red Queen, and I’ll find the proof. Since your earrings aren’t here they must be at your home. Let’s go!’

“Alya, wait!” Dupain-Cheng begged, before they both vanished into Cesaire’s phone and were gone.

Chloe stared at the room for a moment longer and then took off. ‘Home’ for Dupain-Cheng meant Le Grand Paris. The place that should have been Chloe’s home.

And it looked like it was time to go back there.

#

It was easy to get school cancelled. Chloe just ran around screaming that she’d seen an akuma paralyze Damocles and abduct Dupain-Cheng. Once a few other people checked and saw the frozen principal, they panicked too, and the whole building emptied out. That gave Chloe the opportunity she needed to run to her old stomping grounds.

Chloe was halfway to Le Grand Paris when Cheshire leapt over and stopped her. “Someone said you claimed you saw Marinette get abducted,” he told her. “Any idea where they went?”

If she told him, Chloe thought, then he and Red Queen would beat her to the hotel and defeat Lady Wifi before she could get there and spy on the fight to learn about the heroes. “No idea,” she snapped. “Finding them is your job!”

Cheshire frowned but just said, “Then get under cover. We’ll handle this.” And then he jumped away.

When Chloe reached Le Grand Paris she was unsurprised that the doorman refused to let her in. Apparently she was banned there too for another stupid reason. But by now the new citywide ‘akuma alert’ was blaring on people’s phones, so it was easy for Chloe to run over to a side entrance, pound it until some guest opened it up, and shout “Hiding from an akuma!” before darting inside. Then she charged up the stairs to the top floor which had once housed her rooms and now presumably housed Dupain-Cheng’s.

But when she got there, she saw the floor was all wrong.

The top floor of Le Grand Paris was supposed to be Chloe’s suite. It had been her suite, before the kwamis had screwed up her Wish. But now most of the rooms weren’t even residential. One door led to a video arcade which also contained some pinball and foosball machines. Another led to a small but well-appointed spa. A third, where Chloe had once had her living room, was now a library. There was even a little indoor playground with a jungle gym.

“Where do they live?” Chloe demanded after shutting the playground door. “They don’t just shut themselves up in a single suite, like peasants, do they? And how bad does their hotel have to be if they need these stupid gimmicks to make their guests happy? Just bring in a couple of rich guests so people stay here hoping to bump into famous people in the halls! That’s what Daddy did and it worked great!”

But apparently the Dupain-Chengs did things differently, because there were only two rooms labeled ‘Private residence’ at the end of the hall. One, which had been Chloe’s old den, was shut and locked. But the one that led to what had been Chloe’s bedroom was cracked open. When Chloe pushed it open, she saw sewing machines, piles of fabric, and photos of her Adrikens which all made it clear that was Dupain-Cheng’s room. And she also saw smashed furniture and emptied closets which indicated that Lady Wifi had already been through the place.

“Argh!” Chloe forced herself to dismiss thoughts of how Dupain-Cheng was contaminating her old bedroom by her very presence and instead tried to think of where Lady Wifi would have taken the other girl next. “Okay where else would Cesaire think Dupain-Cheng might hide things? Not her room, not her locker...” She trailed off as she realized something. “But Cesaire said she saw Dupain-Cheng helping her dad in their gross bakery. Maybe she has a locker down there!”

So Chloe forced herself to run back down the stairs and then dart into the hotel bakery before anyone could recognize or stop her. And sure enough, through an open door leading into the bakery’s storage area, she saw Lady Wifi shoving Dupain-Cheng into a walk-in refrigerator. “I’ll keep you here until you detransform!” Lady Wifi crowed. “And prove to the whole world who you are!”

“Alya, please!” But Lady Wifi had already shut the door. Then the akuma turned and jumped upon seeing Chloe. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Chloe hesitated. The last thing she needed was to get taken out of action again. “...interviewing you,” she managed at last. “For your blog. Don’t you want to tell people what it’s like to be an akuma?”

Lady Wifi was silent for a moment, and then she grinned. “Of course! Chloe, that’s a fantastic idea!” She led Chloe to a table in the now-deserted bakery and sat down. “First, I feel stronger than ever! And not just physically. Mentally, I’m going at a million miles an hour!”

Chloe forced a smile and began to film.

#

Twenty minutes into the interview, during which Lady Wifi had explained how Hawkmoth had won her over by insisting he cared about freedom of the press, how after this she planned to break into secure networks and leak all kinds of business and government secrets, and other stupid things Hawkmoth had apparently brainwashed her into believing he would support, the heroes showed up.

Chloe hid her grin as she hid behind a table and began to film them, but instead of revealing anything useful, Red Queen just took out a red-and-black spotted machine and hit a button. Then Chloe’s phone lost Internet, and when Lady Wifi looked at her own, she gasped. “What did you do?”

“Signal jammer!” answered Cheshire. “Pretty good, huh?”

Lady Wifi growled and leapt at them, but the duo were by far the superior fighters and they had her on the ground in seconds. Then Red Queen smashed Lady Wifi’s phone and cleansed the akuma, and soon enough Cesaire was lying there looking very confused. “What happened?”

“You got akumatized after someone caught you breaking into Marinette’s locker.” Red Queen’s voice was kind, and she helped Cesaire to her feet without trouble, but then her voice grew a little stern. “Because you thought she’s me.”

“She is you! I mean, you are her! Or—"

Dupain-Cheng walked out of the kitchen.

As Cesaire stared in astonishment, Dupain-Cheng shrugged and added, “Papa put a safety catch inside the refrigerators so you can get out from the inside. It was during his first round of safety upgrades after he bought the place.”

Cesaire blinked. “Safety upgrades?”

“Sure!” Dupain-Cheng chirped. “New fire escapes, new alarms, a new sprinkler system with three times as many sprinklers, and releases to make sure nobody gets stuck inside the refrigerators! I was just waiting until the akuma fight was over to get out.”

Cesaire gulped. “This is a trick! You’re an illusion. Or someone wearing a Marinette costume!”

Dupain-Cheng giggled at that, then walked up to Cesaire and took her hand. “Do I feel like an illusion?” And when Cesaire had to shake her head, Dupain-Cheng added, “Okay. Ask me something about you that I would know.”

“What’s my favorite ice cream flavor?” Alya asked.

“Peaches and cream. You told me that when we first met.”

“What’s my favorite food?’

Dupain-Cheng grinned. “Your Mom’s poulet boucane. She made some for us when we ate together that first night.”

“My middle name?”

“Trick question, you don’t have one, which you complained to me about because your bank’s registration webpage wouldn’t let you set up an account without one unless you went to talk to them in person.” Duapin-Cheng glanced at Red Queen. “Satisfied I’m not someone in a costume? That I’m me, and that Red Queen isn’t?”

Cesaire was still for a moment before hanging her head. “Alright,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Chloe realized she was still filming. Then she remembered something else and she texted Cesaire, “I need to go. I’m not supposed to be here.” And then she darted out of the bakery and fled the hotel before anyone saw her.

Later, Chloe got a call from Cesaire. “So, I saw the footage you sent me. You kept me talking for twenty minutes instead of letting me go do something horrible to Marinette or anyone else.” Her voice sounded grateful, and Chloe couldn’t help smiling. “Thank you so much, Chloe. You’re a good friend.”

Chloe’s smile became a grin. “No problem,” she said. “What are friends for?”

When the call was over, Chloe flopped back on her bed and chuckled. Not only was Cesaire more convinced of her friendship than ever, but before the Lady Wifi nonsense, the journalist had given her a very important clue: Red Queen was indeed part of their school. In fact, she had to be part of their year, since the other years used a different history book. That left only a couple dozen suspects, especially after ruling out all the boys, Dupain-Cheng, everyone who had been akumatized or been seen with a hero so far, and Chloe herself.

Soon, she thought, she’d regain what she’d lost. And nobody, neither heroes, nor villains, nor the kwamis themselves, would be able to stop her.

#

Marinette sat at her desk and stared at her homework without seeing it.

Her distraction wasn’t due to her little argument with Alya; the two had already patched things up, and Marinette had let the journalist treat her to pizza as an apology for the events of the day. No, the problem was Chloe. That she was planning something was obvious to anyone who knew her. But Alya didn’t know her, which was probably why Chloe had glommed onto her. And if it was something bad, Marinette had the obligation to save Alya from it.

Fortunately, Marinette already had a lead. The footage from the Lady Wifi interview and fight had just been published on the Red Queen Report. It was simply sourced to ‘a supporter’ and the interviewer’s questions were dubbed over so nobody could identify the speaker’s voice, but Marinette was sure it was Chloe. Which was strange, because Lady Wifi had been eavesdropping on the heroes through the phones in their weapons, and she’d complained about Chloe telling Cheshire she didn’t know where Marinette was. “They’re supposed to come here so I can steal their Miraculouses for Hawkmoth!” she’d said. “Now I’ll have to lure them here another way!” Alya might not remember that, since nobody seemed to remember what they’d done while akumatized, but Marinette did.

And while she didn’t know what Chloe had in mind, she was not going to let the blonde hurt her new friend the way Chloe had already hurt so many other people.

Marinette thought for a moment. Then she nodded to herself, took out a fresh sheet of paper, and began writing down her own plan.

Chapter Text

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

--Samuel Johnson

“...Alya Cesaire, who writes for the local news blog ‘Red Queen Report,’ spoke with an anonymous interviewer while akumatized. This extraordinary footage allowed a greater glimpse into Hawkmoth’s machinations than was previously possible...”

The news broadcast was coming out of Max’s computer, though Chloe couldn’t get more than a couple glimpses of it due to how most of the class was crowded around it. “This is amazing, Alya!” Kim said. “Your post about being Lady Wifi already got, what, a million views?”

“Ten million, at least when I checked it last!” Cesaire’s voice was beyond excited. “And I’m getting interview requests from real news agencies too! Nadja Chamack even wants me to go on her new show when it launches in a few weeks!” She made a squeeing noise which caused Chloe to wince. “This is my big break!”

“I hope you remember us when you’re a famous reporter off covering wars and governments and things,” Rose mused.

Cesaire chuckled at that. “Don’t worry, Rose. I’ll always have time for my friends.” And when Rose hugged her, Cesaire just laughed again and returned it.

Chloe rolled her eyes and made her way to her seat, but Cesaire spotted her and quickly pulled her aside. “Thank you so much!” she whispered, face practically glowing with happiness. “You did a great interview, Chloe. Really.”

“Of course I did.” Chloe felt herself smiling a little. Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw Dupain-Cheng giving her a flat look, and suddenly Chloe felt even better. Cesaire would be sure to be her friend now, not Dupain-Cheng’s! “And I was also thinking, uh...”

Cesaire cocked her head as Chloe tried to come up with something else she could do to cement Cesaire’s loyalty. “...your outfit, for when you talk to Nadja. You’ve never been on TV before, right?” Cesaire shook her head and Chloe nodded. “My mom’s the Style Queen, the superstar fashion reporter. I could ask her to help you pick out an outfit.”

“Really?” Cesaire hugged Chloe, who froze for a moment before gingerly putting her arms around Cesaire. “That would be great!”

Chloe opened her mouth to respond, but a new voice cut in. “Actually,” Dupain-Cheng said from her desk, where her notebook was out in front of her and was open to what looked like sketches of a shirt. “Audrey Bourgeois’s outfits usually cost around twenty thousand euros each. But if you’d like, I could help you find something to wear on TV. I could even make you something.”

“She didn’t ask you, Dupain-Cheng!” Chloe snapped. “Butt out!”

Cesaire held up a hand to stop Chloe, then told Dupain-Cheng, “I wouldn’t feel right asking you to make me new clothing. That sounds like a lot of work.”

“Just think of it as an early birthday present.” Dupain-Cheng grinned. “And I’d be getting something out of it too. I need someone to try out my newest outfits to make sure they feel as good as I think they will!”

Cesaire asked, “What kind of stuff are you working on now?”

“Well, for example, there’s this.” Dupain-Cheng held up her notebook. “My parents got me a few yards of rayon as a back-to-school present, and—”

“Rayon?” Chloe snorted as a memory of one of her mother’s articles came to mind. “You mean, fake silk? Not good enough to work with the real stuff?”

Dupain-Cheng gave Chloe a bland smile. “There are a lot of people who can’t afford real silk but still like how it feels, and those people should be able to get clothes they like too. So I’ve been working on designs which use rayon and are just as stylish and comfortable as real silk.”

Chloe grimaced. Then she recalled another line from the article and shot back, “It’s still crap, Dupain-Cheng. Everyone knows rayon falls apart if it gets too wet. What if it rains while Cesaire’s going to her interview? You want her to go on TV naked?”

“Plenty of wealthy people have indoor clothes which they don’t take outside,” Dupain-Cheng answered. “Why should having a nice robe, or silky pajamas, be only for the rich? And besides, that was just an example of something I’m working on, not what I was planning to make Alya.” She let a slight smile come to her lips. “Because my parents also got me some vicuna wool, and I was thinking of turning it into a jacket that would be perfect for Nadja’s show.”

Vicuna wool was one of the most expensive and most comfortable fabrics on the market. Audrey had once published an entire essay about how you couldn’t be considered a real fashionista unless you had a few vicuna items. How, Chloe demanded to herself, was she supposed to compete with that? It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!

“Well—I—I could bring donuts!” Chloe snapped at last. Then she blushed, aware of how poor and pathetic she sounded. What were her father’s crummy donuts compared to top-quality fashion?

But Cesaire just smiled. “Thanks,” she told both of them. “Marinette, that sounds wonderful. If you want to make me a vicuna jacket, I’d love it. And Chloe?” She gave the blonde a warm look. “I’d love to find out what your pastries taste like. Pharaoh interrupted our last donut party, after all.”

Chloe blinked, and it took her a moment to realize Cesaire hadn’t abandoned her in favor of the richer Dupain-Cheng. “Sure,” she managed as she awkwardly sat down. “I’ll bring them tomorrow."

Bustier came in a few minutes later with a bright smile on her face. “Good morning, class! I just spoke with the school board and have something wonderful to share!”

“Is it about the new student?” Nathaniel asked. “I heard Damocles tell someone that some diplomat’s kid was coming here?”

Bustier nodded. “The daughter of the new Italian diplomat, Lila Rossi, will indeed be joining our class later this week. And I know I can count on you all to welcome her. But I was actually talking about something else.” She gestured at Nino, who was working in a notebook with his headphones on. “The board has given permission for Nino to use the school tonight so he can shoot a movie that he wants to use to showcase his sound mixes, and you’re all invited to help!”

Thoughts of Horrificator swirled in Chloe’s mind, and she pushed away her anger at Dupain-Cheng and her confusion with Cesaire. It was time to get back to work.

#

To Chloe’s utter lack of surprise, her probation turned out to include a prohibition blocking her from any extracurriculars until her makeup work was complete, meaning she couldn’t help with the movie. And though Bustier herself seemed unhappy about that and Cesaire also protested, there was apparently nothing that could be done. But that was fine with Chloe. She’d already figured out another method to get herself on campus after school was over, and this way she wouldn’t even be distracted with Nino's stupid movie.

When it came time for lunch, Chloe slipped away to eat in a quiet nook where Sabrina wouldn’t be able to find her. Then she waited until lunch had been over for a little bit before sauntering over to Mendeleiev’s classroom. “Ready for my makeup study hall,” she called.

Mendeleiev looked at her with her usual icy contempt. “You’re late, Chloe.”

“Am I?” Chloe gasped. “Oh, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? What’s...” She glanced at the clock. “Fifteen minutes?”

“As per the terms of your probation, it’s a detention.” Mendeleiev dropped her head back to her paperwork. “You will do another study hall tonight, here, after class. Now sit down and start working.”

Chloe gave a few desultory whines, even though Sabrina had told her days ago what would happen if she was late for her study halls, before sitting down and starting another excruciating assignment. Red Queen, she reminded herself, was in her school and her year, so she might very well be in her class. And while there were eight girls in that class, Chloe knew it wasn’t her, Cesaire and Alix had been akumatized, and Dupain-Cheng was ruled out. So if Horrificator indeed blocked off the school—which would rule out Mylene too--she just had to keep a very close eye on Rose, Juleka, and Sabrina to see if any of them slipped away from the others. If none of them left the group, that could mean Red Queen was in Mendeleiev’s class instead. But if one of them did hide herself away?

Then she just might learn Red Queen’s identity at last.

#

About half an hour into Chloe’s afterschool detention, which was proceeding in cold silence as Chloe had expected, she heard tromping footsteps in the halls which probably meant her class had returned to work on the movie.

Then, about fifteen minutes later, Mendeleiev got a call.

Chloe glanced up from her math worksheet, which she was finally starting to make a bit of progress on, as Mendeleiev answered her beeping phone, “I’m at work, Mr. Agreste,” she hissed into it. “Call me later.” Then, after a pause, “Of course I didn’t forget. I talked to the warden earlier to confirm the correct date. You don’t need to remind me how important this is.”

Mendeleiev glanced back at Chloe, who dropped her gaze to her worksheet as she tried to think. Since when did the science teacher know Adrikens’s father? Was this some other change caused by her Wish?

“I’m aware of the mayor’s reputation. And of the legislature’s new ‘decarceral’ policies.” Mendeleiev’s voice darkened. “I’m dealing with another product of those policies right now. But I’m going to try anyway, and I suggest you do the same.”

When Mendeleiev hung up, Chloe raised her hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

“You were supposed to do that before you got here.”

“Please?” Chloe begged. “I’ll just be five minutes!”

Mendeleiev gave a bitter sigh. “Fine. Go. And come right back.”

Chloe scampered out into the hall and darted toward the bathroom, but stopped before she arrived and took out her phone. Googling “Mendeleiev+Agreste” didn’t help; the Agreste brand was so popular that she got all kinds of spurious links which also happened to mention random people named Mendeleiev. But then she thought back to Mendeleiev using the word ‘warden’ and googled “Mendeleiev+Agreste+jail.” And then, when just one article came up, she had her answer.

“Police arrest famous socialite Felice Fournier, who they claim is also the legendary jewelry bandit known as the ‘Queen of Thieves,’” Chloe read from the news article on her phone. “Fournier was captured attempting to steal jewels from France’s treasury... yadda yadda... ah. Police had previously arrested another suspect, a Dr. Olga Mendeleiev, but the Queen of Thieves was seen stealing treasury plates from the mint while Mendeleiev was in jail, conclusively proving the scientist could not be the culprit and causing Mendeleiev to be released.” Chloe’s eyes skipped ahead until she found the other thing she’d been looking for. “After her arrest, police recorded Fournier calling fashion icon Gabriel Agreste and demanding help, claiming that he ‘owed’ her for being the ‘protector’ of his family. Gabriel denied any knowledge of such a relationship.”

Chloe snorted. “That explains it. Mendeleiev got blamed for this Fournier woman’s crimes and Fournier also hurt Agreste’s brand, so they both hate her. And maybe that’s why Mendeleiev hates me, if she thinks I’m like Fournier.” Chloe shrugged. “Idiots.”

As a general rule, Chloe did not like thieves, especially not the ‘Robin Hood’ types who acted like they were doing a good thing by robbing decent rich people such as her in order to share the wealth with gauche poors who wouldn’t even know what to do with designer clothes or real jewels. But after Chloe checked over Fournier’s Wikipedia article and read her criminal charges, she noted that many of those charges were for robbing people who had dismissed and disdained Chloe in the other reality. One was an aristocrat who had called her a spoiled brat, another she had overheard saying she was a worthless leech, and some had even claimed she was unsophisticated! Combined with the stylish and fashionable looks Fournier showed off in her pre-arrest photographs, Chloe found she couldn’t help but root for her.

 “Besides,” Chloe muttered. “If Gabriel Agreste and Dr. Mendeleiev hate her, she can’t be all bad.”

She decided to check on the movie, and as she neared the classroom where her classmates were shooting, she heard Mylene crying and smiled. But then Dupain-Cheng’s voice cut through the air. “Don’t worry, Mylene. It’s okay. We all get scared sometimes.”

“But I’m holding up the movie...”

“No you aren’t. We’re about due for a break anyway, right?” Everyone else gave a chorus of assents. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and freshen up, and we’ll work with Nino to maybe tone down the scary elements a bit?”

Chloe clenched a fist. Dupain-Cheng had almost derailed the Bubbler akuma, and now she was about to ruin another! This wasn’t fair!

But Dupain-Cheng didn’t know that she, Chloe, was around, Chloe told herself. So maybe she could still salvage this.

Chloe darted to the bathroom in order to get there ahead of Mylene. Then, when she heard Mylene’s footsteps approaching, she began speaking loudly. “Of course I’d be happy to take Mylene’s place!” she told nobody in particular. “I’m a much better actress than her, anyway!”

Mylene’s footsteps stopped. Chloe pretended to think for a moment, then said, “No, once they ask me, I should say something more humble. Ahem. Yes, it’s too bad Mylene almost ruined the movie, but don’t worry. I’m here now. You don’t need to worry about her anymore.” She paused again. “Yes, that’s good. I’ll tell them that. And I’m sure they won’t be too mad at Mylene. I mean, it’s not like she’s a total crybaby...”

A strangled sob erupted from outside the bathroom door and Chloe grinned to hear Mylene running off. Seconds later, the school shook, and Chloe snuck out so she could return to her class. Horrificator had probably already coated the school in slime, so she just had to watch for the other three girls she hadn’t ruled out yet; if one of them vanished and then Red Queen turned up, Chloe would be able to identify one of the heroes at last.

But there wasn’t any slime on the windows. Instead, there was what looked like an endless savannah. And when Chloe turned, baffled, she saw a massive lion prowling toward her.

“You think I’m a crybaby, Chloe?” the lion growled at her. “I’ll show you which of us is scared. I’m the Cowardly Lion, and I’m going to bring your fears to life!”

Chloe gulped as she tried to figure out what was going on. “Uh, hang on, you’re not supposed to be—”

Cowardly Lion cut her off with a roar. Chloe rushed to back up, but she bumped into something big and furry. And when she forced herself to turn back around, she saw the monster from her dreams.

“Hi, human!” growled the gigantic cat thing called Plagg. The monster opened its mouth to reveal endless teeth, then almost casually backhanded her across the hallway with a swipe from a paw. “Remember me?”

A scream tore from Chloe’s lips, and then she ran for her life.

#

The monster hit Chloe twice more as she tried to escape. The first time claws raked her back, and the second slap almost sent her sprawling down a flight of stairs. But the battered and bruised Chloe managed to pick herself up and flee for the nearest classroom where she heard noises. “Akuma!” she cried. “Run!”

But the room was mostly empty, except for Juleka and Rose huddled against each other in a corner. They were being menaced by a boy who looked vaguely Arabic; it took Chloe a moment to realize that was supposed to be Prince Ali. And beside him was what appeared to be a hospital bed.

“Get away!” Juleka cried to the fake prince as she hugged against Rose. “Don’t take her from me!” And Rose, whose eyes were shut, just screamed.

Chloe picked up a desk and flung it at ‘Ali.’ It hit him and knocked him aside, and Juleka took the chance to haul Rose up and run for the door. “Hey!” Chloe called. “Where is everyone?”

“We all split up!” Juleka gasped as she ran with Rose. “Kim says there’s no outside though; it’s just grassland. We’re stuck here!”

Chloe opened her mouth to ask another question, but then the cat monster seemed to step out of the shadows and Chloe screamed in terror before fleeing again.

The trio made it to the courtyard and Chloe looked down at total chaos. Max was running some kind of killer robot, Kim was being chased by a gigantic spider, and most of the other kids were fending off monsters too. Dupain-Cheng was at the front doors and had gotten them open, but they just led to a featureless grassland with no cover and no hope of escape. And Sabrina...

Was not there, Chloe realized. The redhead was gone.

Then the cat pounced onto the railing beside her and Chloe tripped as she tried to get away. The world rotated around her as she tumbled down the stairs, and when she landed, she howled as something in her arm snapped. But the cat kept coming and Chloe had to get up and stagger toward the locker room. When she made it inside, she shut the door behind her and looked around for something to barricade it with, but when she grabbed at a bench, she couldn’t move it with just one arm. Then something stepped toward her out of the darkness and she screamed another time before catching herself. “Cesaire? Is that you?”

The figure stepped closer, but while it had Cesaire’s features, it was old, wrinkly, and in rags. It was like Cesaire had aged sixty years and also been living under a bridge. It gave Chloe a toothless, sadistic grin and lunged at her, Chloe dodged around, and then she saw the real Cesaire huddled in a corner. “Stay away!” the real Cesaire was babbling. “Go away!”

Chloe decided to figure out what was up with Cesaire’s fear later. Instead she shoved the figure away with her good arm, sending the monster falling to the ground. Then she went to Cesaire, who clutched at her bad arm and made Chloe cry in pain. “Sorry!” Cesaire cried as she grabbed Chloe’s other hand and then hugged against her. “Please, just get me out of here!”

Before Chloe could say there was nowhere to run, a smashing sound came from outside, and the locker room wall bent before collapsing inwards. Both girls cried out as the cat monster strode in. “Ready to die, human?”

“I’m not afraid of you!” Chloe lied, ignoring the terrified tears forming in her eyes. “Go away!”

“I already told you, Chloe! Rabid dogs get put down!” The monster boomed out a horrible laugh. “Just think of me as your vet!”

Then the monster pounced at them, and Chloe barely managed to duck and drag Cesaire below the attack. The thing’s paw still grazed her head and raked a bloody furrow in her scalp, making her howl, but she stayed on her feet and led Cesaire back to the open area in the center of the school. “Come on!”

They reached the other kids, who were all pressed against each other in the middle of the room, just as the monsters closed in around them. All the terrors were there, including the fake Ali, the hospital bed, the robot, the spider, the cat monster, and old Cesaire; several of Chloe’s classmates also looked about ready to drop, including Juleka, who was curled up in a little ball, and Alix, who was shivering and whose skin had gone blotchy as if she was frostbitten. The real Chloe had a moment to wonder what Alix's fear was before the ground shook and Cowardly Lion stomped out of the shadows. “You all thought I was the coward!’ she cried. “Now you—”

A yo-yo whipped around her legs to tie them up, and Cowardly Lion toppled over. “Impossible!” she roared. “You should still be facing your fear!”

“Actually,” said Red Queen as she swung down from her hidden position on the school’s upper level, “I faced Cheshire’s fear, and he faced mine. That made it easy. And speaking of my partner?”

Everyone looked up in time to see Cheshire drop down from the ceiling to land on Cowardly Lion’s back. He cried, “Cataclysm!" brushed his hand against a little button in Cowardly Lion’s mane, and then a flurry of ladybugs returned the world to normal.

#

“I’m sure we’d all like to thank the heroes of Paris for saving us,” said Marinette as the rest of the class gathered around Red Queen a few minutes after the fight was over. Ivan had wrapped Mylene into a gigantic hug, Rose and Juleka were holding each other too, and everyone else also looked worn and exhausted, Nobody was injured anymore, however, and Chloe also noticed that Sabrina was the only member of the class who wasn’t there. “Thank you, Red Queen.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Adrikens called out. “That could have been messy.”

“Happy to help.” Red Queen smiled. “And I’m glad you’re alright.”

Then Cheshire’s voice came out of Red Queen’s yo-yo and she tilted it so they could see a built-in communicator which was showing Cheshire’s beaming face. “So am I!” he said. “Sorry, had to run for another engagement, but I knew all of you—especially the girls—would be heartbroken if I left without saying goodbye. So I had Red Queen put me on the comm!”

There were a few weak laughs from the crowd before Cesaire raised her hand. Her hair was still frazzled, and her usual vigor wasn’t there, but she managed to ask, “What were your fears?”

“Yeah,” Adrikens said. “I'm curious about that too.”

Red Queen frowned. “I’m afraid we can’t tell you. We might give away our identities.”

“Right,” said Cheshire on the communicator. He grinned and added, “Like, if I told you my worst fear was someone coming to 221B Baker Street and saying I’d gotten the wrong answer in the Case of the Curious Cat, you’d know I was Sherlock Holmes.” There was more laughter from the class, especially Adrikens, and Cheshire chuckled. “Or something like that, anyways.”

“Where’s Sabrina Raincomprix?” Marinette asked. “Did you find her?”

“Yes,” Red Queen confirmed. “She went to the lab to warn Chloe and Dr. Mendeleiev about the akuma. I’ve already checked and confirmed she’s okay.” Then her Miraculous beeped and she added, “I have to go now. But just remember: if you need counseling, Mayor Sabine’s hotline is now active. It’s totally anonymous.”

Adrikens asked, “Are you sure that’s okay? I thought that hotline was for people who were, like, suicidal or something. Not just people who are a little bit scared or stressed."

“If you think you need it, please use the hotline,” Cheshire, still on Red Queen’s communicator, answered. “Don’t worry about using up the resources; Mayor Sabine hired tons of therapists for it, and that’s what they’re there for. And besides, I kind of like you guys! I’d rather you not turn into akumas and make me punch you.”

The laughter was even louder this time, and the class’s tension was almost gone by the time Red Queen left. Chloe then turned to Cesaire, who blushed. “I’m sure you want to ask me about my fear,” she muttered. “Can we discuss it later? I’m wiped out.”

“That’s fine with me.” Chloe needed some time to herself to plan her next step now that she suspected Sabrina, her former minion, had somehow become a hero in this reality. Obviously that just showed the kwamis’ stupidity—the pathetic squish Sabrina was hardly hero material—but stealing the earrings from a policeman’s daughter might still take some thought. However, she had to act like she was interested in Cesaire and her work, so she added, “Do you want us to interview Mylene instead?” even as she hoped that the answer would be ‘no.’

“Not now; she’s wiped out too. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, over those donuts you promised me.” Chloe remembered their earlier conversation and nodded, and Cesaire managed a smile. “And thanks for helping me in the locker room. I really appreciate it.”

Staying in this world for a couple extra days to refine her plans, Chloe thought as Cesaire walked away, might not be so bad, especially if she could spend more time with the journalist. At least she seemed to appreciate how great Chloe was and treated her with close to the amount of respect she deserved. Maybe Chloe would even repay her when she rebuilt the world. After all, if Chloe herself was going to be an empress, why not make Cesaire a subordinate duchess or countess or something? A suitable reward for her loyalty and devotion.

Chloe turned to go, but then she saw Dupain-Cheng watching her. A scowl flickered over her face before she caught it. She’d already identified Red Queen after a little more than a week, she thought. And she’d be sure to get Cheshire soon too. If anything, he seemed even dumber than Red Queen. Then, once she had the Miraculouses, she could make the world so that Dupain-Cheng was finally in her proper place. As a garbagewoman, or someone whose job it was to clean out stables, or something like that. It didn’t really matter.

Because no matter what, once Chloe had finally built a proper world, Dupain-Cheng wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

Chapter Text

“False witness not to bear be strict.

(And cautious, ere you contradict).”

--Arthur Hugh Clough (“The Latest Decalogue”)

“Chloe! Over here!”

Chloe turned away from the boutique window where the latest Agreste fashions were on display. In just a few days, she told herself, she’d get the Miraculouses, make her new Wish, and have the money to get beautiful clothes just like those. Then she shoved the thoughts away and made herself look at the approaching Cesaire. “Hi.”

Cesaire, who was holding a wrapped bundle of her own, glanced expectantly at the box of donuts Chloe was holding. Chloe opened the box and offered Cesaire one, and Cesaire smiled as she took a chocolate donut and began to eat it. “Hey, this is pretty good!” she said. “Did you help make it?”

“Sure,” Chloe lied, and somehow she felt a little happier when Cesaire smiled at that. “Of course.”

Cesaire quickly finished her donut and then unwrapped her own package to reveal a tin containing several pieces of smoked chicken. “I brought something for you too. Mom made her specialty for my lunch today and I wanted you to have some. Please, try it.”

Chloe blinked. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had brought her food, or really anything, without her having to demand it. And when she took a drumstick and bit into the meat, her eyes widened at the taste. It was sweet, smoky, and incredibly savory at the same time and she couldn’t help devouring the rest of the drumstick in just a few more bites.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Cesaire asked. “Mom’s a great cook.”

“Yes, it’s, uh, good.” Chloe looked at the bone in mild shock she’d eaten the drumstick so fast. She usually wasn’t even a big fan of chicken, since it was such a cheap and common meat. But this was excellent, and after a moment’s thought, she remembered the other girl naming the dish just after turning back from being Lady Wifi. “Poulet boucane, right?”

Cesaire nodded as she rewrapped the package. “Yep! Alright, let’s go before we’re late.”

The two began walking to school as Cesaire went on. “So, about last night: my fear wasn’t of me being old or poor. I don’t, like, hate poor people or seniors or anything like that. It was something else.”

Chloe frowned. “Like what?”

“I’d rather not get into it.” Cesaire looked away. “But I just wanted to make sure you knew that I don’t look down on normal people. You get it, right?”

Chloe thought it was a bit ridiculous for Cesaire to want to keep her own secrets when she spent all her time trying to expose those of the heroes, but she decided not to mention it. “Yeah, sure,” she said. And then, as she tried to remember what else she could say, she asked, “Are you still scared?”

“Oh, no. Afterward Marinette invited everyone over to Le Grand Paris. They’ve got a library which also has a really good sound system and can be used as a media room, so we watched this great comedy Airplane, and Mayor Sabine came in with hot chocolate and cookies too. By the end of it I don’t think anyone was scared.” Cesaire grinned at the memory. “Marinette’s really a great friend. Although, I was wondering why you weren't there. Didn't she invite you?”

“She did?” Chloe checked her phone and saw that she had a message from a blocked number. She hadn’t blocked it herself, meaning the kwamis must have set that up for her just like they’d set her up as a bully on probation. Still, she honestly didn’t mind having an excuse to avoid the obnoxious Dupain-Cheng. “Well, we’re not friends.”

Cesaire sighed. “I wish I could get you two to make up. You’ve both been great friends and it sucks that you hate each other.” Then she paused. “I know you told me that your feud was just some misunderstanding, but are you sure that’s all it was? If you did something to her, even a little thing, and you apologized for it, maybe you could be friends.”

For a moment, Chloe debated telling Cesaire the truth, but then she stopped herself. The journalist might be fun to hang out with, and she might make Chloe feel better just by being there, but ultimately she was just a tool. Someone to help her get the Miraculouses so she could build a better world. And if Chloe admitted what she’d done, Cesaire might not let her work with the blog anymore, which would make it harder to identify Cheshire and move on to the next phase of her plan.

So Chloe just said, “That’s all it was. Some stupid misunderstanding and now she hates me. But that’s fine. I don’t need her anyway.” She paused, then offered the box. “Want another donut?”

Cesaire thought for a moment before nodding and taking one, and Chloe relaxed. It was good to have someone on her side.

The two reached their school without further delay. When they got there, though, Chloe saw an unpleasantly familiar figure standing in the courtyard surrounded by several of their classmates. “I’m so glad to be here!” Lila Rossi was exclaiming to the people around her; all were listening to her except for Nino, who had his headphones on and didn’t seem to notice anything going on around him. “I’ve always wanted to visit France!”

Chloe frowned. Lila had showed up later in the original timeline, and she’d also vanished after a while. Chloe hadn’t really paid attention to where she’d gone, but she’d assumed the other girl had left town or died or something. Now she had to deal with the Italian jerk again, and she couldn’t help wondering why Lila was here so much earlier than she should have been.

“Your mom was in charge of Italy’s consulate in Texas, wasn’t she?” Dupain-Cheng asked her. “Did you like living there?”

“I loved it,” Lila answered. “I met so many lovely people in Houston! In fact, you know how the American President used to be the governor of Texas? I met him back then! I was rushing home from school during a rainstorm when I saw this poor man trying to get his wheelchair up a few stairs so he could enter some building. I helped him up, he gave me his card, and it turned out he was the governor!” She beamed. “He was so grateful he invited me and my mother to his mansion for a little party; we popped over that afternoon and then came back just in time for me to help feed the homeless.”

Rose beamed. “That’s so sweet! You’re a lovely person, Lila!”

“Aw, thanks!”

Chloe managed not to roll her eyes. Everyone else seemed intrigued, though, except for a skeptical-looking Dupain-Cheng. “Are you sure?” the other girl asked after a moment.

“Of course I’m sure. He even invited my mother and I to the White House too after he won the presidency, but we were on state business so we couldn’t go.”

Mylene asked, “Does America have as many guns as people say?”

“Oh, my, yes. Guns were everywhere. We even had shooting classes in school! I got really good at it by the end.” Then Lila sighed melodramatically. “I wish I could show you, but I know gun laws are really strict here, so I probably won’t be able to.”

Alix shrugged. “You’re a diplomat, so being approved might be easier for you, and I could help with the paperwork. What kind of gun are you best with? Rifle, shotgun, pistol? Or did you use something like an air gun?”

“Uh.” Lila paused, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to ask the question. “I usually just borrowed someone else’s, actually. Mom didn’t want them in the embassy. I’m not quite sure what type it was.”

Nathaniel asked Alix, “Why does it matter?”

“Because different guns need different licenses,” Alix answered.  “France has four classes of guns: regular guns, which are ‘B’ class; military and heavy police guns, which are ‘A’ class, sporting guns for shooting targets and clay pigeons, which are ‘C’ class, and then things like air guns, BB guns, paintball guns, and antiques, which are ‘D’ class. Of course, since we’re under eighteen we can’t get ‘A’ class licenses anyway, but we can get licenses for ‘C’ and ‘D’ class ones, and some ‘B’ class ones too as long as they’re rimfire and not centerfire.”

Everyone gave her a blank stare.

Alix blushed. “What? Shooting’s a sport, and sport’s the one thing I know! In fact, I need to know that stuff so I don’t get arrested for handling the wrong gun!” She crossed her arms. “Sometimes the Louvre does demos of its exhibits, and when it’s time to demo stuff from the 'guns owned by famous dead guys like King So-And-So' collections, I help Dad get everything ready. But since some of the Louvre’s guns are ornate modern ones that aren’t technically antiques, I need to know which ones I’m allowed to touch so I don’t get in trouble for holding or using a gun I’m not licensed for!”

Kim chuckled. “Alix is the class sniper,” he told Lila. “She’s going for the Youth Olympic Games and everyone's sure she'll make the French team.”

“...I see,” Lila managed. “Well, uh, I... oh!” Her gaze had switched to the approaching Chloe and Alya. “I’ve seen you before!”

Chloe managed a smile. “Of course. I’m Chloe Bourgeois and this is Alya.” It took her a few seconds to realize that she’d referred to Alya by her first name, and at first she wished she hadn’t, but then she paused. What was wrong with being a little friendlier with the journalist?

But then Lila stepped between them and turned to Alya as if dismissing Chloe entirely. “Alya Cesaire, right?” Lila said. “I read about your mother on the way over. It must be great to have such an accomplished chef for a parent!”

“It’s, uh, cool,” Alya managed.

“I’d love to talk to her sometime about all those awards she won,” Lila went on. “You know, in addition to guns, Texas also has a lot of barbecue. The home ec guy at my school said I’m a natural at it and he taught me a lot of amazing stuff. He said that, compared to me, the next best student had just made a bunch of burnt ends!”

Alya frowned for a moment before saying, “You must be very good.”

“I wish I could share my best recipe with you, but the chef who taught me swore me to secrecy,” Lila added. “But I might be able to bring a few samples into school anyway. Just don’t try to find out what’s in it!”

“Ooh,” said Kim. “A secret recipe. That sounds good!”

The school's front door banged open and Adrikens walked through it, his nose deep in an ancient-looking book. A few of the symbols on the cover looked familiar to Chloe but she wasn’t sure where they came from, and then Lila surged away from the others and to his side. “Adrien Agreste!” she said as she led him away. “I’ve seen your ads! I’m Lila Rossi; my mom’s the Italian ambassador, and I’m in your class!”

 “Kind of forward, isn’t she?” Alya murmured in Chloe’s ear.

Chloe snorted. “Yeah.” But then she paused, because something about this seemed weird. “Give me a minute.”

She followed Adrikens as Lila led him into a corner; as she walked, she noted a few other students including Kim, Rose, and Ivan were also following. Then Lila stood up a little straighter, like she was preening, and asked Adrikens, “You can show me around later, can’t you? Please? I don’t know the city at all and I’d really love if someone could just help me get familiar with it!”

Adrikens looked reluctant, but he finally nodded. “Sure, but why me?” A faintly teasing tone came to his voice. “Is it because I’m a famous model?”

“Oh, no. You see, I met your relative at a party with the royal family and he said you were really friendly and always helped out new people in town. He spoke so highly of you!”

“What relative?” Adrikens asked.

At the same time, Chloe remembered a name and asked Lila, “Do you seriously expect us to believe that you talked to Felix? He’d never associate with you.” After all, Felix had barely deigned to associate with Chloe, who was obviously far above peasants like Lila. Felix wouldn’t have given her the time of day.

“Felix?” Adrikens blinked. “Who’s Felix?”

Chloe frowned. Had she gotten the name of Adrikens’s cousin wrong? But Lila was already recovering. “Well, his name was.. ooh!” She had slipped next to Adrikens and flipped the book open before he could stop her. “Are those the Miraculous heroes?”

Adrikens hesitated. “Just designs,” he said at last. “I think this is one of my father’s sketchbooks; he mentioned wanting to do a hero-theme line of clothing.”

Lila was quiet for a moment before saying, “Do you like the heroes, Adrien?”

“Sure. They’ve saved Paris a bunch of times. Why?”

“Well...” Lila looked around as if checking for people, though Chloe noted several people were in eavesdropping range and she didn’t seem to actually care. “Don’t tell anyone, but the real reason my mom and I were sent to Paris is that I’m friends with Red Queen!”

“What?” Kim gasped before Adrikens could say anything. “No way!”

Lila nodded. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but I can’t keep secrets from my classmates and new friends. But you have to promise not to tell anyone!”

“Can you tell us anything about her?” Chloe turned to see that Alya had followed them too and she was looking at Lila with a big smile.

Adrikens hesitated. “Wait," he said. "We aren’t supposed to discuss their identities.”

“Oh, we’re all friends here,” said Lila lightly. “Now I can’t give you her name, but I can tell you that she’s a distant descendant of the House of Bourbon and her family still owns a fancy palace in the countryside, where she’s got some people helping her build anti-akuma weapons. She brought me there a few days ago, just after I arrived here, and it’s beautiful!.”

“Wow!” Ivan gasped. The others seemed amazed too, except for a suddenly frowning Adrikens, and then Chloe frowned too. She was pretty sure Sabrina was Red Queen, and that girl was as common as they came. She didn’t have a trace of royal blood!

Which meant, Chloe realized, Lila was lying. Just like Dupain-Cheng had claimed in the other world, though Chloe had never cared enough to actually check for herself back then. But at least in this world, Lila was making things up.

“I’m actually helping Red Queen with her civilian responsibilities. You know, covering for her when she’s out being a hero,” Lila went on to say. “So sometimes I may suddenly have to leave or cancel something. I just want you to know I’ll only do that if the heroes really need me.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “We believe you.”

Chloe glanced behind her to see that Alya was filming. She opened her mouth to tell Alya to stop, then paused. Maybe, she thought, she could use this to get absolute proof Sabrina was Red Queen. After all, the hero wouldn’t want this to get out. Chloe could use that.

“Why would Red Queen trust you?” Adrikens asked at last.

“My grandmother was a Miraculous hero. It runs in the family.” Lila flipped a single chunk of pages in Adrikens’s book to reveal a new picture. “She looked just like this one here, the fox hero, and she went by Volpina. Someday, when I’m ready, I’m going to use this pendant,” she gestured at a foxtail trinket dangling around her neck, “to be a fox hero too!”

Alya asked, “Did your grandmother tell you any stories? I’d love to get them for my blog.”

“Of course, Alya! I’d be happy to share them!”

Adrikens rubbed his nose in frustration before glancing at Lila, seeing she was still looking at Alya, and slipping away. Chloe left too and then took off for their classroom at a run. Sabrina wasn't downstairs, so she was probably in the classroom, and Chloe had to meet her there before anyone else arrived.

For once, luck seemed to be with her, because Sabrina was alone in the room when Chloe arrived. “Hey, class rep!” Chloe called. “I have an idea!”

Sabrina gave a faint grimace before turning from her schoolwork to Chloe. “What is it?”

“We should have a party for the new student!” Chloe managed a thin grin. “Since she knows Red Queen and all.”

Sabrina froze. “What?”

“Oh, yeah, she was telling everyone downstairs!” Chloe said. “She’s Red Queen’s best friend, and Red Queen showed her some secret base, and apparently they know each other so well that Red Queen is having her cover for her as a civilian!” She turned to leave the room. “It’s great the class has someone else who actually matters, isn’t it!”

Then she left, but before wandering down the hall, she subtly left her phone leaning against the wall and set it to record as it pointed at the classroom door. She told herself this plan wouldn’t take long because Sabrina, for all her skill at following orders, wasn’t very good at dealing with the unexpected; her misadventures stealing Dupain-Cheng’s diary during the Darkblade akuma was proof of that. So Sabrina would panic and go charging at the problem—

The door banged open from behind Chloe. By the time Chloe turned, the hallway was empty again, but when Chloe retrieved her phone and checked the recording, it showed the door opening and Red Queen rushing out of a room which had only contained Sabrina Raincomprix a few seconds before. That proved it. Sabrina was the hero.

Chloe hugged her phone to her chest and grinned. Everything was working out for her at last.

#

Chloe sauntered back to the courtyard in time to see Red Queen dressing down Lila. “...we’ve never met. We are not friends. And your lies could have led Hawkmoth to attack you, or to attack someone who happened to fit your description of me.” Sabrina’s voice was stern and unyielding, stronger than Chloe had ever heard her speak. “Please don’t ever do anything like this again.”

The Italian girl was scowling, and even as she muttered some kind of apology and then turned away from the questions her classmates were now bombarding her with, Chloe guessed she knew what would come next. And sure enough, a minute or so later a dark butterfly flew down and landed on Lila’s pendant. “Akuma!” Rose cried. “Run!”

Lila's akuma turned out to be a weird fox thing who also called herself Volpina and who immediately cast some kind of illusion which made the school seem like a smoky and post-apocalyptic wasteland. Chloe hurried down to try to find the akuma so she could watch the fight, but as she neared its position she almost tripped over something, and when she looked down she saw the big book Adrikens had brought in. He must have dropped it while fleeing, Chloe thought as she tried to remember if she’d seen it before and why it seemed so important. Then she shrugged and slipped it into her bag before continuing the search.

She ultimately didn’t find Volpina before the akuma was defeated and the school was reset to normal, but that was okay. Seeing Lila run away crying was also great, and Chloe smiled to herself as Alya peppered Red Queen and Cheshire with questions. Nothing, she thought, could ruin her good mood.

Then Alya approached her. “Hey, after school today, can you meet me in the AV room?”

“Uh, sure,” Chloe said. “Why?”

But Alya was already turning away, and Chloe felt a flicker of unease that she couldn’t quite dispel.

#

“...why did you lie, Lila?”

Chloe’s steps slowed almost to a halt as she reached the door of the AV room. The voice behind the door was Dupain-Cheng’s, and after a second, she heard Lila speak too. “I just wanted you all to like me! So I told a little fib about knowing Red Queen. It’s not a big deal!”

“Is that the only thing you lied about?” Sabrina's voice asked.

“Yes! I swear!”

Dupain-Cheng sighed. “Lila. Your story about meeting the Texas governor was made up. I know this because I, unlike you, have actually been to Texas; my mother went there on a couple of political junkets and she brought me with her. The governor’s mansion in Austin is a five hour round trip drive from Houston. There’s no way you could have started there after school and gotten back in time for some charity thing. Not to mention, the governor would have staffers to help him with his wheelchai. And Houston has civil codes requiring ramps anyway.”

“Also, burnt ends aren’t a mistake, they’re a real dish.” That was Alya’s voice. “I thought maybe you’d just mixed up your French or something, but you were lying about the barbecue too, weren’t you? You don’t know anything about it.”

“And I spoke to Alix. She talked with you about guns for five minutes at lunch, and she told me it’s obvious you’ve never even held one.” Dupain-Cheng’s voice was low. “Why did you make up your entire past?”

“I—uh—” Lila took a breath, and when she resumed speaking, her voice was lower. “Oh, who cares? I’m just trying to look out for myself. No different than you. And if you don’t tell anybody, maybe I can help you too.”

Dupain-Cheng said, “Lila, we’re not going to cover for you.”

“Hang on, Dupain-Cheng. Look, you all hate Chloe, right? I read some of the articles about all those horrible things she did, and how your soft-on-crime mother let her off with probation. Well, what if I get people thinking she’s broken her probation? Then she’ll get expelled and you won’t have to deal with her anymore!” Lila chuckled. “And all I ask in return is you three not say anything when I, ah, exaggerate.”

“No deal,” Sabrina answered at once.

“Why not? You’re not worried about Chloe, are you? She’s an idiot. She’ll never even know!”

Chloe slammed the door open and smirked at Lila’s horrified face. “Hi, Lila.”

Before either of them could speak, Dupain-Cheng said, “Lila. We have an obligation to our friends to let them know you’re lying to them, so you can’t hurt them. If you come clean, they might forgive you, but we won't help you lie.”

Lila snorted “Please. You don’t care about any of that. You just want Adrien for yourself. I asked a few people and everyone knows you’ve got a crush on him. But...” Her eyes twinkled. “You’re just the kid of some boring mayor, and I’m a diplomat’s daughter with a fascinating past. He’ll want to believe me. So he will believe me. And he’ll pick me in the end.” And with that she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

Chloe watched Lila go and hoped that she would move away, or die, or whatever she’d done in the previous world that had gotten her out of the class. Then she looked at the others and said, “What a loser.” But Dupain-Cheng just gave her an odd look, and Alya’s face was inscrutable. “What?”

Dupain-Cheng turned to Sabrina. “Can we have the room?”

The class rep nodded. “I’ll go tell the other reps what Lila is like, in case she tries switching to their classes.” Then she also left.

 Chloe looked back at Dupain-Cheng, but it was Alya who spoke. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I did not!” Chloe snapped. “About what?”

“You said you didn’t do anything to Marinette. That it was all a misunderstanding.” Alya nodded at the screen. “She showed me the security footage, Chloe.”

Dupain-Cheng touched a projector and an image flashed to life on a screen. It was Chloe, breaking into Dupain-Cheng’s locker.

Chloe suddenly felt very cold.

“After Marinette showed me that, I used my free period to sneak into the records room and look at your file,” Alya went on in a toneless voice. “I read your signed confession. And the testimony of everyone who said you’d been bullying them for years.”

“But that wasn’t me!” Chloe insisted even as she tried to figure out how to explain the kwamis had just made it look like she’d done all that stuff. Or, at least, that she’d gotten away with it when she’d done it in the prior world. “I swear!”

Alya sighed. “You’ve been lying to me all along, and I think I know why. You still hate Marinette, you know she’s my friend, but you can’t go after her because of her mother being the mayor. So you went after me instead.”

“I never went after you! I never hurt you!”

Dupain-Cheng said, “You steered Cheshire in the wrong direction when she was Lady Wifi.”

“I made a mistake!” Chloe lied. “I was frightened by the akuma!”

Dupain-Cheng kept talking as if Chloe hadn’t said anything. “Also, you helped her investigate the heroes, knowing that’s about to be criminalized. Which it was, actually, this morning: Red Queen and Maman had a press conference before school to announce the passage of legislation declaring that any efforts to unmask the heroes are now considered major felonies. I think it’s obvious you were trying to push her along until she could be arrested.”

For a moment, Chloe couldn’t believe it. “But I didn’t want her to be arrested!” she said, realizing that this time she was actually being truthful. “I just wanted to help!”

“It doesn’t matter.” Alya walked right up to Chloe. “I told you that I couldn’t work with you if you were a bully, or if you weren’t honest with me. And you’ve been lying to me from the very beginning. I don’t care why you did it, Chloe. We’re not friends.”

And she walked out of the room.

Chloe stared, speechless for a long moment, before wheeling around on Dupain-Cheng. “You,” she growled as she stalked forward. “You just couldn’t stand that I had a friend, that she was going to pick me!"

“If you hit me, Chloe,” said Dupain-Cheng, and Chloe realized she’d swung her fist back. “That will violate your probation. You’ll be expelled, and sent to juvie too.”

Chloe froze. She desperately wanted to beat Dupain-Cheng’s head in, but if she went to jail she’d never escape this Hell. And so she stood there, frozen.

“I already told you,” Dupain-Cheng said. “I won’t let you hurt me or my friends anymore. It doesn’t matter how many tantrums you throw."

“Don’t act all righteous,” Chloe snapped. “You just hate me!"

Dupain-Cheng’s eyes flashed. “If I hated you,” she said quietly, “I’d have also told Alya that I talked to Nino and Mylene and I learned you were the one who got Nino to demand Gabriel let him play music—which got Nino akumatized—and you were also the one who made Mylene upset, getting her akumatized. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure you did that deliberately. And that’s a felony now too, Chloe. So I would be very careful what you do next.”

Chloe felt herself paling. “That—that was before that law passed. It doesn’t count.”

“They brought back the old ‘national unworthiness’ law,” Dupain-Cheng said. “The one from the 40s. It allows for ex post facto crimes and doesn't have any exception for juveniles. If you help Hawkmoth again, you could be jailed for life.”

She turned to go. Chloe watched her for a moment as she struggled for words, then screamed, “You won’t get away with this, Dupain-Cheng! I won’t let you steal my friend!” The other girl didn’t even turn at that and Chloe wailed, “You won’t win! You’re my worst enemy, and I’m going to destroy you!”

But Dupain-Cheng just said, “No, Chloe. You won’t win. So, for the last time: stop. Before it’s too late.” And then she left too.

Chloe let out an almost animalistic shriek of rage. Dupain-Cheng had ruined her life again, this time for absolutely no reason. What did it matter to her if she was trying to befriend Alya? Dupain-Cheng had dozens of friends, somehow, even though she was now rich and the whole class should hate her just like they’d hated Chloe. Why would she begrudge Chloe a single one?

“This isn’t happening,” she growled. “I’m not letting it end here. I’m going to win!”

A cabinet sprung open.

Chloe stared at it for a long moment before moving closer. Inside was a stuffed dog—in fact, the same stuffed dog she'd found on her shelf, the one she'd figured her father had gotten her. And there was also a wrapped box which, when she opened it, turned out to contain a piece of cheese. She frowned and poked at the food.

And it burst apart as writhing maggots tore out of it.

Chloe screamed and flung the rotten cheese away, and then familiar laughter echoed through the room as the cat monster Plagg—now the little black blob that had come out of the ring, not the giant beast from her nightmares—floated through the wall. “Hey, human! Just checking in again. You like casu martzu, right?”

“You!” Chloe pointed her finger at the creature. “You did this to me!”

“You did it to yourself.” The monster shrugged. “Enjoying your new Hell?”

“This changes nothing! I will fix this! I will change this!”

But the monster only chuckled. “How’s that going so far?”

Chloe struggled to respond, but Plagg just said, “Listen, human, we’re not going to let you wriggle out of your consequences. You’re stuck in this world. Stuck in a city that hates you, among classmates that know you’re a monster, and without any of the tools you need to escape the consequences.” The beast grinned. “I’ve got a bet going on with the other kwamis about when you’ll just give up. Think you can make it a month? If you do, I get a pallet of cheese.”

“Give up?” Chloe repeated. “I’m never going to give up. I will beat this! I’ll show you!”

“Ah.” Plagg spun in the air. “This’ll be fun.”

Then the creature turned and flew toward a window. Chloe cried, “Why are you doing this to me? I never did anything to you!”

“You ended a world. You misused my power.” Then Plagg glanced back so that Chloe could see glistening fangs in the creature’s mouth. “You hurt my holder.”

Then the monster left. Chloe waited for a moment before hissing, “I don’t care! You haven’t been watching me, you don’t know what I’ve been doing! I’ll win anyway!”

“I know what you’ve been doing, Chloe.”

Chloe stiffened and swirled back to the cabinet. The stuffed dog was rising out of the desk, and Chloe realized to her horror that she recognized the creature from before. “You’re one of the kwamis in the Miracle Box,” she whispered.

“Yes.” The dog looked at Chloe levelly, almost dispassionately. “I’m Barkk.”

“You—you’ve been on my shelf.” Chloe’s eyes widened. “You’ve been watching me for days.”

“Since you arrived in this world.” Barkk flew around Chloe’s head. “I saw you writing down names of akumas you remembered, and then not help those people resist akumatization. I saw you manipulate Nino, and Alix, and Alya, and Mylene. I saw you spying on Red Queen earlier today.”

Chloe realized her mouth was dry. “Then you... look, if you things didn’t want me to make the Wish, why did you even let me do it? You could have grabbed the Miraculouses out of my hands! Or zapped me with whatever your stupid power is!”

Barkk shrugged. “We kwamis can’t use our powers on our own without those powers running wild and destroying the world. Nor are we allowed--or able--to physically touch any Miraculous besides our own if it’s being used by a human, or a human who is wielding a Miraculous. That’s why Hawkmoth needs akumas to assault the heroes and to try to steal their Miraculouses instead of sending the kwami Nooroo to do so. But just because we couldn’t stop your actions then, doesn’t mean we can’t make you pay for those actions now.”

Something about that seemed odd to Chloe, but she didn’t have time to figure out what. “Look, just tell me what you’re doing here and what you want!” After a moment of silence, she added, “I order you to tell me what you want!”

“You’re not my holder and you don’t have my Miraculous. You can’t give me orders.” Barkk’s eyes bored into Chloe’s own. “But I’ll tell you anyway: I’m a watchdog. I’m watching you so I can see what you deserve. And I will make sure you get what you deserve.”

“I deserve to be back in my world! To have the life I’m entitled to! To have people who appreciate me!” Chloe clenched her fists and her voice rose. “I’m Chloe Bourgeois! I’m the heroine Queen Bee! I deserve a good life!”

But Barkk just answered, “You ended a world.”

The sentence hung between them, heavy and flat, and Chloe suddenly wanted to put some distance between her and the dog kwami. She backed up, but the creature floated closer to her. “Go away!” she cried.

“Not until you get what you deserve.” Barkk flew in a lazy circle. “But I’m still not sure what that is yet. Tikki said she thinks there might still be the heart of a decent girl inside you, buried way down, and if you can bring it out, then you might deserve good things. But Plagg thinks you’re just a rotten, rabid dog.  And—”

Chloe scowled. “Rabid dogs get put down, yes, I know. But I’m not a dog and I’m not rabid! Like I said, I’m fixing this. I’m going to change!”

“You will,” said Barkk.

Chloe blinked. Why was the kwami suddenly agreeing with her? “I—”

“—or you’ll die.” The kwami flew right up to Chloe’s head. “Those are your only choices. But you haven’t changed yet, Chloe. Not really."

More silence filled the room. Finally, Chloe managed, “You don’t know me. You don’t know I haven’t changed!”

“I’m a watchdog. I’m always watching you, Chloe. I will know if you ever change, or if you remain as rotten and rabid as you are.” Barkk settled down on a desk. “And then, like I said: I will ensure you get exactly what you deserve.”

Chloe stared at the kwami for a moment longer as its words sank in. And then she took off at a dead run, screaming and fleeing for her life. She had to get out of the school, she thought. She had to get away from this thing.

But the kwami kept pace.

No matter where Chloe ran, in the school or the streets of Paris, it was always ahead of her. She saw it peeking out of buildings or up from the sidewalk, from behind windows, once from a pocket of her coat when she felt something moving and looked down. She ran until her legs felt like theyh were burning and her lungs pounded in her chest, but the monster was always there. Not speaking. Just watching.

And later, when she dragged herself through her front door and hauled herself up to her room only to see Barkk back on the shelf, all she could do was huddle under the blankets and try not to cry. She couldn’t get away, she thought. She couldn’t leave, she couldn’t get back to her world, not with this thing watching. All she could was stay here—in a city where she was hated, powerless, tormented by the authorities who should have been watching out for her like Mendeleiev, and at the mercy of any liar like Lila or vengeful lunatic like Alix who might try to get her thrown out of school or jailed,—and cower while little monsters followed her everywhere and planned to kill her.

“I can change,” she whispered. “I can change this, I can change the world, I can change...”

(She’d been trying to change her world since she’d gotten here, and all she’d done was make everyone hate her.)

(“It was easier to die than to change,” the monster had told her).

“No,” she whispered. “I can fix this, I’m not in Hell and I’m not a rabid dog, they won’t kill me, I’ll change!”

But in her heart, she did not believe it.

END OF PART 1

Chapter Text

 “Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down.”

--Gilbert Keith Chesterton (“The Flying Stars”)

Chloe’s next few weeks passed in a haze of paranoia and misery.

Barkk wouldn’t leave her alone. Sometimes the beast would just sit on her shelf, watching her, but others time she saw the monster in her locker, in the bakery, or poking out of her purse. Once she even saw the kwami phasing through her shoulder so as to get behind her without having to take unnecessary detours, an action which caused her to scream and flail and ultimately wind up banging her arm on the wall before she could stop herself.

Nobody at school would have anything to do with her. Her desperate efforts to regain Alya’s friendship had been rebuffed; the journalist moved whenever Chloe sat near her, she refused to be drawn into conversation, and she ignored the donuts and other sweets Chloe brought her until someone else—usually Kim—wandered over and gobbled them down in her steed. Little presents had always sanded down Sabrina’s occasional outbursts of resentment in the other world but they seemed to have no effect on Alya.

Mendeleiev continued to treat Chloe with icy contempt during her study halls, even though she was starting to make actual progress. Alix still hated Chloe with a burning passion and made that clear on the few occasions when the two had to interact in class. Sabrina seemed to be keeping more of an eye on Chloe too, making Chloe wonder if her kwami had finally tipped her off about what Chloe had done. The only bright side was that Lila had indeed transferred to Mendeleiev’s class, but even still, she kept loitering around Bustier’s homeroom to throw herself at Adrikens and push for dates, and Chloe found she could barely be in the same room as the psychotic liar without getting a headache.

And then there were the akumas. Or, more precisely, the lack of akumas. And that lack could be attributed to the one person Chloe hated more than anyone else in the world.

#

“No, Chloe, Max wasn’t upset about losing the Ultimate Mecha Strike tournament.” Bustier had given Chloe a warm smile. “Marinette talked with him and emphasized how he did very well too, and she even asked him to help teach her and Adrien a few techniques they weren’t as good at. But I’ll pass along your concern.”

#

“Why would I be asking you on a date?” Kim had scratched his head and given Chloe a puzzled look. “I mean, yeah, I thought you were funny and cute a few years ago, but you said I was a common oaf and that you’d vomit if I so much as brushed against you. I’m just here because Marinette’s passing this way and I thought I’d ask her out. She’s the nicest girl in school, and she’s also super pretty. Hey, you ever think of asking her for fashion advice? She’s really good at it!”

#

“You’re right, Marinette!” the photographer Vincent had cried. “That strange little goth girl isn’t here! Let’s pause for a minute until she comes back. We wouldn’t want to leave anyone out, would we?”

#

“Of course I’d be happy to ensure Prince Ali gets your letter even if you don’t win the raffle and can’t hand it to him in person!” Dupain-Cheng had told Rose. “What else are friends for?”

#

Dupain-Cheng’s interventions didn’t prevent Hawkmoth from creating akumas altogether, of course, But she had been fiendishly good at blocking the akumatizations that Chloe personally remembered. Which meant Chloe couldn’t anticipate them and reach them before the heroes arrived, or protect herself once she got there.

Still, there was nothing else Chloe could do but try, and so she once again found herself stumbling around town on the basis of a half-remembered akuma. She’d seen that gorilla-esque bodyguard wandering around with no Adrikens and a distressed look on his face, and she’d vaguely recalled reading a Ladyblog entry about that guy turning into Gorizilla after losing Adrikens, so she did her best to give chase. But in the end she only tailed him back to the Agreste manor where Adrikens and Dupain-Cheng were waiting outside.

“I’m sorry I got separated,” Adrikens said with a bright smile. “My friends were just trying to do something nice for me.”

“You don’t really need to tell Mr. Agreste, do you?” Dupain-Cheng gave the bodyguard a winning smile, and after a moment he sighed and nodded. Dupain-Cheng then flashed Adrikens a grin before leaving.

Chloe bit back her rage and rushed over to Adrikens almost before she knew what she was doing. Adrikens looked at her and frowned. “Chloe?”

“Adrikens!” Chloe managed to get the word out through gritted teeth. “Having fun with Dupain-Cheng?”

“Yeah. She’s amazing.” A soft smile came to Adrikens’s face and Chloe had to bite back a growl. Why couldn’t Adrikens ever look that way when thinking about her? They were old friends! She’d always been there for him! “She just does so much for people. She even helped me stay in school after my dad’s sketchbook went missing during the Volpina attack.”

“Missing?” Chloe thought back to the ‘sketchbook’, which she’d remembered about a week ago and looked at only to realize it was written in some kind of foreign script. Even taking pictures of the pages and asking Google to translate them hadn’t helped; the book seemed to be written in some obscure language that even Google didn’t know. All she’d been able to do was to look at Gabriel’s ideas for Miraculous jewelry and hero costumes, which weren't terribly interesting, and she’d hidden the book under her bed after less than half an hour of studying it. “Oh, right. Your book.”

“Yeah. Father was mad I lost it and he was going to pull me out of school until Marinette got involved.”

Chloe’s mouth curled into a little smile. So Dupain-Cheng was corrupt after all, just as Chloe had expected. “She pulled some strings and had the city threaten Mr. Agreste into giving in?”

“Oh, no. She’s said her mom would never abuse her power like that. But she did mention some child labor laws.”

“Please.” Chloe scoffed. “Your dad’s rich enough to get out of anything. There’s no way he’d be afraid of Dupain-Cheng asking the police to charge him.”

“Maybe not, but it’d still be horrible for the brand once Marinette leaked that he was breaking those laws, so father just let me go back to school. He’s still garnishing my modeling wages to pay for the book, but that doesn’t matter.” Adrikens shrugged. “I’ve got enough money anyway.”

Chloe could only boggle at that, and Adrikens sighed. “You know, Chloe, if you want to make more friends at school, you should try doing things for people like Marinette does.”

“I do plenty! I brought donuts the other day! It’s not my fault Kim ate them all!’

“I mean, doing things just to help people, not because you’re trying to bribe them into being nice to you. People can tell.”

“It’s all the same thing!” Chloe snapped. “Why do you think Dupain-Cheng does what she does? It’s so you’ll all like her! So you’ll do things for her too!”

Adrikens gave Chloe a sad look, and Chloe realized to her horror that he actually pitied her. “Nevermind,” he said at last. “You’ll never get it, Chloe. You’ll never change.”

Barkk’s and Plagg’s similar comments echoed in Chloe’s head. Chloe’s jaw clenched and she snapped, “That’s not true!”

“So prove it, then. Do something for someone without demanding something in return.” But Adrikens’s voice was flat and Chloe could tell he didn’t really think she’d manage it.

“I will!” She felt herself grasping for a good example. “Like—uh—what are you doing now?”

Adrikens checked his watch. “Getting ready for some big party my father is throwing. He’s gathered up a bunch of fancy artifacts and pieces of artwork that inspired him, and he wants me to help show them off to some celebrities so they invest in his company.”

“Okay! I’ll help with that!” Adrikens frowned and Chloe said, “I’m good at talking about fashion! My mom’s the Style Queen!”

“Your mom is, not you.” But after a moment, Adrikens sighed and took out his phone. “Hi, Nathalie? Chloe wants to help with the show tonight. Can you ask father if he’s alright with that?”

Chloe said nothing. Truthfully, she knew Gabriel Agreste would almost certainly turn her down. He’d always hated her. And he, like his son, no doubt thought Chloe couldn’t do anything good for anyone. That she couldn’t change. Everyone thought that.

But then a surprised expression came over Adrikens’s face. And when he hung up and told Chloe, “He’s okay with it,” she found it hard not to cheer.

#

Granted, Chloe thought as she looked at her stupid maid outfit, she might not have been so excited had she known what Gabriel considered to be ‘help.’

He categorically refused to let her touch anything valuable, but it turned out that the presentation of fancy artifacts required a lot of backdrops, podiums, placards, and other museum-type things which needed to be moved around. Chloe was thus assigned to help lug crates of materials from the mansion’s innumerable storage areas to the main reception hall, to unpack them and set them up, and then—a distressing number of times—to tear them down and start over because the ditzy blonde who was also apparently the head maid in charge of this party (and who stank of some flowery perfume that made Chloe’s eyes water) had decided on a better way of arranging the artifacts.

Crates were carted into and out of the room. Artifacts were unloaded, put on display, shifted one or two podiums over, covered with opaque domes to hide them from view until just the right moment, and then taken away again after the head maid decided it wasn’t worth displaying and something else should be shown instead. Even the boxes of wine, which Chloe was also tasked with carrying up from the cellar, went back and forth a dozen times until the exact right set of vintages was decided on.

“Crazy control freak,” Chloe muttered to herself once the guests had finally started to arrive. The other maids had been told to leave once their work was done, and the only remaining staffers in the room were the string musicians playing in one corner and the waiters carrying trays of appetizers and glasses of wine, but Gabriel had smugly told Chloe to stay around ‘in case any heavy objects had to be moved last minute.’ That had only deepened her antipathy, as had her discovery that the off-duty police acting as Gabriel’s security team—including one Roger Raincomprix—all seemed to know who she was and kept shooting suspicious glances at her.

“Who cares if some podium is half an inch off-center?” Chloe went on. Then she looked down and saw Barkk’s head peeking out of the pocket of her maid uniform. “And what do you want?”

“To watch you.”

Chloe grimaced at the non-answer as she stepped into an alcove where the guests, all wearing the latest and most expensive fashions, wouldn’t see her in the stupid plain maid uniform Gabriel had made her wear. She recognized a few of the visitors as being among society’s elite, including the garish record producer Bob Roth, the pop star Clara Nightingale, and a woman who looked like an older version of Lila and was on the arm of a guy in an expensive and ugly pink suit. “Ambassador Rossi and Mr. King!” a waiter said as those last two accepted champagne glasses. “It’s lovely to see you again. How is the plastics industry these days, Mr. King?”

"Excellent, particularly in Italy," said King. "After talking with the ambassador, I've decided it makes a great deal of sense to open a big new factory there!"

Chloe pulled her eyes away from the elites, the people she deserved to walk among and be considered one of, and told Barkk, “If you’re watching me, then you saw me helping Adrikens and his father. And they aren’t even paying me. I can do this just like Dupain-Cheng!”

Barkk said, “You did to show up Adrien, Plagg, and me. You didn’t do it because you wanted to help them.”

“I—” Chloe flushed. “Well, I’m sure Dupain-Cheng likes it when people like her for the good things she does too!”

“She does good things even when the people won’t like her.” Barkk twisted around to stare at Chloe. “Like when she fought for you to get probation instead of being expelled.”

“That was your fault! Not mine! I didn’t do that stuff in this world!”

Before Barkk could answer, the sound of clapping made Chloe turn toward the stairs. Gabriel was descending with Adrikens, both clad in the very latest fashion, and the fashion icon beamed as he swept his arm over the covered podiums which now held the Agreste treasures. “Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’m deeply honored to showcase some of my artistic inspirations. These treasures have been painstakingly gathered from all over the world, and over fifty ancient kingdoms are represented among the collection before you.” He nodded at a waiter, who signaled the others, and then each waiter moved to a podium. “Behold!”

The waiters each gripped an opaque cover and lifted.

To reveal dozens of empty podiums, and one that bore an old-fashioned calling card on heavy cream stock.

Everyone gasped, and even Gabriel looked astonished. Then Roger ran to the card and gaped at it for a moment. “It’s signed ‘Felice Fournier!”

“The jewel thief?” someone asked. “The one they just paroled?”

“Yes.” Gabriel flushed red and he wheeled on Roger. “Because the police only ever bothered to convict her of a single crime! Those incompetents never proved she did any of the rest of it or even bothered to find her loot!”

Roger gulped. “We tried our best!”

“And yet she was still only convicted of a single grand theft charge! Then she got a sentence far more lenient than she truly deserved! And what with those ridiculous bleeding hearts our esteemed mayor put on the parole board...” Gabriel took a shaky breath. “Now she’s out on the street and robbing innocent victims like myself!”

“We’ll do our best to find her and recover your property,” Roger insisted. Then he turned to his troops and said, “You four, stay here to watch the guests; everyone else, get on the street. Canvas and check cameras. I saw the artifacts myself at noon before they were set up, so look for any signs that any property was removed from here this afternoon! And Mr. Agreste, I should interview you now--”

“I think that would be advisable.” Gabriel stalked into his designer studio with a sweating Roger following him. The police officer shut the door behind him and the guests began murmuring to each other.

Chloe could only stare for a long moment before drifting over to the studio door. It was thick, but she could just barely hear Gabriel shouting at Roger. “I told you that the security budget was unlimited, that you could bring on as many people as you felt necessary,” Gabriel screamed. “And then you let a felon who’s been back on the street for a mere handful of days break in here and steal twenty million euros’ worth of artifacts! You idiots aren’t qualified to check for shoplifters at an outlet mall!”

“Please, Mr. Agreste, we’re already making progress. One of my men just radioed in that a traffic camera shows a truck pulled up about an hour before the party started and then left just a few minutes later. It was painted like the catering trucks, but Fournier might have used it to load the artifacts—”

“Then get out there and FIND THAT TRUCK!” Gabriel roared. “And if you don’t, I fully intend to disclose to the public how useless and incompetent Mayor Sabine’s police are! She might be a bleeding heart, but I’m confident she’ll sack you and every one of your idiot sidekicks as scapegoats instead of letting this scandal drag down the entire police force!”

An inner door slammed and Chloe began to turn away before a thought struck her. The artifacts couldn’t be in the truck that had left an hour ago; Chloe had seen some of them just moments before the party started when Gabriel’s head maid had ordered them to be returned to storage and replaced with better ones. But when had Gabriel Agreste, the notorious control freak, delegate something like that to a maid?

The next thing Chloe knew, she was rushing toward the storage room where Gabriel’s alleged servant had ordered her and the other maids to put artifacts. “What if that maid was Fournier?” Chloe hissed to herself. “She got onto the staff somehow; maybe she was last minute like me, and she used the chaos to ensure that she could tell the rest of the staff to put all the stuff she wanted in some random storage room. Now everyone’s looking in the wrong place!”

“Maybe,” Barkk mused from Chloe's pocket, making Chloe jump. “What are you going to do about it?”

Chloe paused as she realized she didn’t know. “Tell someone, maybe?” she ventured. “I mean, once I confirm the goods are where I think, I’ll tell someone! The other maids who might have seen Fournier do this went home, and by the time anyone contacts them Fournier might have gotten away with the stuff for real, so I’m the only one who can do it--and I will! I told you that I’m trying to be helpful!”

Barkk said nothing, and Chloe scowled and ran on.

When she got to the storage room she saw a figure sitting on one of several crates and looking at a walkie talkie. “...truck services en route to Agreste manor,” came a voice over the radio. “Agreste wants all his remaining treasures loaded up and moved to a bank vault.”

“Perfect,” whispered the woman. Then Chloe’s shoe scuffed the floor and the woman swiveled. “Oh!” she barked out in British-accented French as she hopped to her feet. “Who’s there?”

Chloe gulped. The woman before her was tall, almost statuesque, with a lean and wiry build as well as blonde hair that was tied back in a long ponytail. She wore a sleek black catsuit that almost blended in with the shadows. But despite her attire, she lacked the grim focus Chloe would have expected. Instead she was scowling as if Chloe’s arrival had really upset her. “Going to rat on me?” the woman demanded.

“Uh...” Chloe began.

“Because that’s not a good idea.” The woman’s eyes flashed. “Gabriel’s paychecks aren’t worth making an enemy of me.”

Distantly, Chloe realized that the woman—Fournier, presumably—must have seen her maid uniform and think she was part of Gabriel’s staff. And given how domineering Gabriel was and how notoriously exacting his standards were, she was probably testing to see if Chloe could be induced to betray him. She should scream for help, she thought.

But at the same time, part of her didn’t want to betray Fournier. Especially not with her showing up some jerk like Gabriel. “I don’t want to be enemies,” she protested. “I think you’re cool, Miss Fournier!”

And just like that, Fournier smiled. Chloe briefly wondered why the woman seemed so fickle, almost like a child would be, but then Fournier said, “Of course you don’t! Why should people like Gabriel get to have all the nice things anyway? Why shouldn’t people who appreciate those things, and look good in them, help themselves to a few trinkets if they want them? People like me?” And she looked squarely at Chloe. “And maybe you.”

The thought of getting to wear something nice again, even if stolen, made Chloe smile. She recalled reading that Fournier had been one of the most fashionable celebrities in the world and had spent her life flitting from one luxury to another as she pleased, spending a week on her yacht followed by a month in a palace resort or a few days at some swanky event. Setting aside the burglary parts, it was the kind of life that had been promised Chloe before the kwamis had screwed up her Wish. And Chloe wondered if Fournier might be the closest thing to a kindred spirit that she’d yet found in this world.

“So,” Fournier said. “Let me go, and...” She reached into a crate, rooted around, and eventually took out a glimmering necklace. “I’ll cut you in.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. She recognized the necklace; it was one she had owned in the other world, an Agreste piece worth approximately a hundred thousand euros. She remembered how much fun it had been to buy it and wear it to school so everyone knew what she had that they couldn’t get. But it hadn’t been possible to get one once her father was just some broke baker. Or at least, it hadn’t been possible until now.

Were things finally going her way? Was she finally starting to get back what she deserved?

“I’ve already smashed the security cameras,” Fournier drawled. She extended the necklace toward Chloe in a way that looked almost familiar; it took Chloe a moment to remember when she’d offered Sabrina a beret in just such a manner. “Nobody will ever suspect you.”

“Uh.” Chloe hesitated. “I...”

Something wriggled in her pocket.

It had to be Barkk, Chloe thought, and then she remembered why she’d come here in the first place. She’d been trying to prove them all wrong, that she could change and do something for other people even though Adrikens and Alya and Dupain-Cheng and all the kwamis said she couldn’t. That she wasn’t the evil monster everyone seemed to think she was.

Fournier walked up to Chloe, who winced as she again smelled the sharp floral perfume wafting off of the thief. “Well?”

“I...” Chloe gritted her teeth. She wanted the necklace. She wanted not to anger Fournier; even though the thief probably wouldn’t hurt her—she only ripped off rich jerks, Chloe wasn’t one of those—but she still might be the only person in this world who actually appreciated her. But if she accepted then she’d just be proving everyone who hated her right. “I...”

And, at long last, she made herself shake her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Miss Fournier.”

Fournier’s eyes blazed and Chloe, startled, stumbled backward. Then the back wall collapsed and both Chloe and Fournier wheeled around to see what looked like a cyborg approaching them. “ROGERCOP IS HERE TO ARREST THE THIEF,” he intoned. “YOU WILL SURRENDER, FELICE FOURNIER.”

The thief gaped. “What in the world?”

Chloe stared at her. “Didn’t they tell you people in jail about akumas?”

“About what?” Fournier’s eyes were darting around and she backed up. Chloe found herself backing away with her too, because Rogercop’s arm cannons kept swinging in her directions. “What is this thing? What does it want?”

“To arrest you!”

Fournier grabbed what looked like a smoke bomb from her belt and threw it at Rogercop, but it just exploded into a puff of smoke and then dissipated without seeming to affect the akuma. Then the thief drew a taser and zapped him but also had no effect. “YOU WILL BE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY,” Rogercop went on. “BY FORCE, IF NECESSARY.”

“No!” Fournier cried. “You won’t stop me! I’m taking these treasures!”

Rogercop’s only answer was to say, “COMMENCING FIRING.” Then he aimed a cannon squarely at Fournier. The thief was still for a single second, frozen as if panicked.

And then she seized Chloe by the collar of her maid outfit and thrust her forward as a human shield.

Chloe had a split second to recover from the shock and wail to herself how unfair this was, how Fournier’s reputation was of a nonviolent thief and how it made no sense for her to suddenly be willing to hurt Chloe, and the Rogercop fired a blast of energy into Chloe’s gut hard enough to make her howl in agony. Then the impact tore her out of Fournier’s grip and sent her crashing into one of the crates. It took her a long and painful moment before she could roll over to see Fournier dropping more smoke bombs as Rogercop approached her; a few seconds after that, the outer door slammed open and Red Queen and Cheshire burst into the room to fight Rogercop.

Energy blasts and the Miraculous heroes raced around the room for maybe two minutes. Something eventually moved in the corner of Chloe’s eye and she rolled over just in time to see Fournier grab two of the crates, lift them with surprising ease given how heavy they had to be, and run off while the others were fighting. But before she could say anything, Cheshire just cheered as he Cataclysmed Roger’s whistle, Red Queen swung her yo-yo and trapped the butterfly which flew out of it, and a quick “Miraculous Cure!” restored the world to normal.

#

“So you heroes can stop akumas but not thieves?”

Red Queen grimaced as Gabriel Agreste faced her and Cheshire down. “My Miraculous Cure fixes all the damage caused by an akuma. This thief wasn’t an akuma, so it didn’t bring back the things she took. I’m sorry, Gabriel.”

Chloe thought, distantly, that this also explained why Red Queen using Miraculous Cure after Volpina's defeat hadn't take Adriken's sketchbook out of her possession and put it back in his hands; he'd discarded it before the fight, so Chloe stealing it wasn't caused by the akuma and thus wouldn't be changed by the cure. Meanwhile, Agreste continued to frown for a moment longer before sighing and saying, “Well, you did stop Rogercop. You have my thanks.” Then he took a noticeable breath and turned to Roger, who was standing shame-faced to the heroes’ right. “And I suppose I owe you an apology, Officer Raincomprix, for yelling at you and calling you incompetent. I’m sure under most circumstances, you’re quite adequate.”

Chloe watched from upstairs as Roger turned away and slunk off through the crowd. The guests were largely still there, having been detained by Rogercop, but Adrikens was gone and Chloe guessed Gabriel had used some secret exit to flee with him during the akuma attack. Then she put that out of her mind and sighed to herself. “Stupid Fournier. I can’t believe her. What, because I don’t take her offer she gets me blasted? She’s just a thief, not a terrorist who likes hurting people, so why start with me? It’s utterly ridiculous!”

Barkk’s head poked up again. “How did you treat Sabrina when she refused your bribes and didn’t do what you wanted?”

“Oh, shut up,” Chloe growled. “I never assaulted her. I just...” But then she remembered the things she had done to drive Sabrina to tears until she abandoned some foolish recalcitrance, and she cut herself off. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m done. I’m going home.”

“Are you sure you’re done here?”

Chloe scowled. “What else do you want from me? I turned down a necklace I really liked! Just because it was the ‘right thing to do!’ Even Dupain-Cheng and the others would stop now!”

“I don’t think so.” Barkk’s nose wrinkled. “I think Dupain-Cheng would keep trying to find other ways to help, even if she was tired and wanted to leave.”

Chloe scowled “Well, there isn’t any way to help! Am I supposed to find some clue to help them catch Fournier or something? I’m not a police officer! And even if I were, how would you know if there was even a clue to find? You were hiding in my pocket the whole time and didn’t see anything!”

“True,” Barkk noted. “But we dogs don’t just find things with our eyes.” The kwami shrugged. “We also have very good noses.”

Chloe opened her mouth to insult Barkk again before catching herself. Fournier had stunk of that flower perfume of hers. Now that Chloe thought about it, it was weird that the thief would have worn something which had such a noticeable smell when she was trying to blend in. But maybe that was the wrong way to look at it. Fournier had worn a strong perfume, for whatever reason. Given that, mightn’t some of the perfume have remained on the maid uniform she must have discarded when she put on her catsuit?

And if Chloe found the old uniform, could she use the perfume as a clue?

Chloe’s body ached with exhaustion and she whined to herself that she needed to go home, but instead of leaving, she got up and forced herself to check through the various rooms between the reception area and Fournier’s staging point. In the chaos of the theft investigation, nobody stopped her. And after more than an hour she found Fournier’s head maid outfit crammed behind a shelf.  

“Wow,” Chloe managed after sniffing it and wincing at the piercing floral scent. It was even stronger than the perfume Rose had used in the other world, the stuff Mendeleiev had once burned as an experiment to show how flammable perfumes could be, and Chloe wrinkled her nose. “That’s her, alright.”

Then she hurried back to Gabriel, who was holed up in his design studio with Nathalie and a few of the crates Fournier hadn’t managed to steal. He frowned at Chloe when she entered but Chloe said, “I think I found a clue!”

“Ah.” Gabriel glowered. “This should be scintillating.”

“Fournier held me close enough that I smelled her perfume. It was the same as the stuff on this outfit.” Chloe handed it over. “Maybe you could, I don’t know, have a lab look into it or something?”

Gabriel glanced at the outfit, then sniffed it himself, and his eyes widened. “Orris butter,” he mused. “A very distinctive perfume. Very expensive, too. But out of style; I can’t think of more than two or three stores that carry it.” Then he gave Chloe a look of grudging approval. “I’m impressed.”

Chloe blinked, having never heard Gabriel compliment her before. Then Gabriel turned to rummage through one of the crates before taking out a simple pair of earrings with orange stones. “I’m not going to be displaying my treasures anytime soon, and this one doesn’t match any of my current fashion lines. Why don’t you take it, Chloe? As a token of thanks.”

The earrings were well made, though not nearly as fancy as the necklace Fournier had offered Chloe, and Chloe’s hands shook a little as she took the first items she’d held in weeks that reminded her of the luxurious life she’d once led. Then Gabriel hinted that she ought to leave and Chloe found herself hurrying away.

“You see?” she demanded of Barkk when she got back to her room. “I did something good! And I didn’t ask for payment or anything!”

“It was good,” Barkk acknowledged. But then, as Chloe smiled, the dog went on. “Still, if a dog goes just one day without biting someone, does that make it a good dog?”

A scowl flitted over Chloe’s face before she caught herself. She’d proven the kwamis and everyone else wrong, she thought, and she was in fact changing. And once she told her classmates all about it, then maybe she’d finally have the friends and support she deserved.

Chapter Text

 “Hate. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word ‘hate’ was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for you.”

--Harlan Ellison (“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”)

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Chloe walked into class the next day, saw Alya throwing her arms around Dupain-Cheng while shouting her thanks, and had to act quickly to hide her scowl. “You’re the best friend ever, Marinette!” Alya crowed. “How can I make it up to you?”

“I don’t need anything,” Dupain-Cheng noted. “But, of course, if Nadja asks about your jacket and you happen to drop my name...”

Alya nodded. “I promise I’ll work that in somehow. You can count on me!”

Chloe’s eyes flicked to Alya’s seat and then narrowed at seeing the fancy vicuna wool jacket there. It looked sleek, soft, and warm, exactly the kind of jacket Chloe could no longer afford. And when Dupain-Cheng said, “If the measurements aren’t perfect, just let me know and I’ll do the tailoring too,” Chloe felt her fists clenching.

“I’m going to look so great on Nadja’s show!” Alya finally released Dupain-Cheng and stepped back. “You’re all going to watch me, right?”

“You got it,” Adrikens promised. “Unless my dad has me modeling or something during the interview.”

Dupain-Cheng gave a slight smile. “Well, if he tries, let me know. I’ll talk to him about the child labor laws again. Or have Maman do it.” A grin crept over her face. “Can’t let Paris’s golden boy get so exhausted from modeling that he can’t watch his friends make their debuts, after all.”

“Thanks, Marinette.” Adrikens’s voice was warm and Chloe blushed with jealousy. “You’re amazing.”

Chloe again worked to hide her scowl and then cleared her throat. “Just so you all know,” she boasted, “I did something great last night too. I was at the little gala that Adrikens and his dad hosted, and I helped them find a clue to track down that thief Felice Fournier!”

Everyone stared at her.

Then Ivan murmured, “Sure, Chloe,” in a skeptical tone, and they all turned away.

Chloe flushed. What was their deal? She’d done exactly what Dupain-Cheng was always doing, some stupid and allegedly selfless gesture, but they wouldn’t even give her credit for that! She was actually telling the truth on this one; why couldn’t they believe her?

“Thanks for sending me feedback on my mixes, dudette” Nino was telling Dupain-Cheng. He even took the rare step of lowering his headphones so he could hear her response. “It’s always great when someone actually listens to them.”

“People should listen to your music!” Dupain-Cheng chirped. “And that reminds me: I talked with Maman and she thinks she can get the council to increase funding so we can have more music electives next year!”

“Awesome!”

Meanwhile, Alya was talking with Nathaniel and Ivan. “...looked into that online person claiming to know all about Miraculouses yesterday, but it was just Lila under a fake name.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t envy Mendeleiev’s class having to put up with her.”

“I heard Lila tried to tell her class that she has arthritis and so she needs homework help,” Ivan chimed in. “But Sabrina tipped off Aurore, their class rep, about Lila’s lies. So Aurore stepped in before anyone agreed and reminded everyone that Lila needs to run accommodations through the nurse’s office first.”

Chloe glanced at Sabrina but forced her eyes away from her dark little earrings which looked so much cheaper and less impressive than the ones Gabriel had given Chloe. Then she again wondered if the other girl knew what Chloe had done or that Chloe had discovered she was Red Queen. Barkk certainly knew that Chloe knew, but had the kwami told anyone?

 It was a good question. Even Plagg had only taunted Chloe but hadn’t actually ratted on her to the mayor despite despising her. So maybe that meant the monster didn’t actually know what she’d been up to since Chloe had Wished the world into existence. And if Plagg didn’t know, perhaps the heroes didn’t know either; they might not even know Chloe had created the world to begin with. But on the other hand, if Barkk knew, why keep it a secret?

She was still trying to figure out the mysterious kwami when Alya’s voice cut into her thoughts again. “...need sources for my next blogpost,” she was saying. “My readers want to know everything about the heroes! And since Mom got freaked out by Lady Wifi and Pharaoh attacking me and said I can’t investigate them directly,” she grimaced, “looking up their historical counterparts is the next best thing.”

“Why not go to the Louvre?” Nathaniel asked. “They have an exhibit on the Miraculouses.”

“I’ve been to that exhibit three times since they opened it two weeks ago. I’ve practically memorized it. And I’m sure they have more stuff in the backstage areas, but it’s blocked off.” She frowned and then called over to Alix, who was showing Kim some kind of stretching exercise. “Hey, Alix, are you sure you can’t get me into the research areas in the Louvre?”

“Yeah. My dad has me help him sometimes, but he doesn’t want me to bring guests. Sorry.”

Chloe turned away, then paused. If Alix was helping Alim, then Jalil probably was too; based on his akumatization, he seemed to have done lots of research on the Miraculouses and their magic. And he’d also seemed like someone who was desperate to be taken seriously. Maybe Chloe could exploit that to do another good deed, one the idiots in her class—or Alya, at least—wouldn’t miss.

And once Chloe got Alya the research she desperately needed, she’d have to be Chloe’s friend and ally again at last.

#

Chloe was halfway to the Louvre when Barkk murmured from Chloe’s pocket, “What are you doing?”

“Helping a friend,” Chloe snapped as she ducked into an alley to talk. “Look, can you—agh!” Barkk had just flown up to her eye level but had phased through her outstretched arm while doing so. “I told you not to do that! In fact, I told you to go away! I’m not going to do anything bad; I’m just getting Alya her research!”

“I can’t go away.” Barkk’s voice was implacable. “It’s my job to be the watchdog and to watch you.”

“Well, get someone else to take over for a while! Someone less annoying!”

Barkk asked, “Who would you prefer? Pollen?”

Chloe froze. In truth, she hadn’t thought at all about her little bee friend since coming into this world; the chaos of discovering that she’d been reduced to poverty and was despised by everyone for no good reason had occupied her thoughts. But now that Barkk had mentioned her, she realized how good it would be to curl up with her kwami, share her miseries, listen to the bee tell her what a wonderful queen she was, and share some honeyed tea. Even the cheap green tea her father got from the corner store would be good with a little honey.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want Pollen.”

“Why?”

“Because I like her!” Chloe scowled. “Pollen was a great friend, much better than you! She loved me! She cared for me!”

Barkk asked, “So why didn’t you Wish for her to be your friend in this world too?”

Chloe’s voice caught. She hadn’t thought of Pollen, obviously, when she’d sought to steal Dupain-Cheng’s life, but she could never admit that. “I thought it was implied,” she managed lamely. “But who cares? I want to see Pollen! I have a right to have my friend back!”

“You don’t.” Barkk floated up a couple of inches and then sat down on Chloe’s nose, and she winced as her eyes almost crossed trying to look at the dog. “You’re not the holder of the Bee Miraculous anymore. You can’t summon Pollen.”

“I’m not the holder of your Miraculous either and you won’t leave me alone!”

Barkk actually chuckled at that. “That’s because it’s my job to watch you.”

“Well, make it Pollen’s job!”

“The person who assigns jobs to kwamis is the Guardian of the Miraculous, and he agreed with me that Pollen would not be suitable for this mission.” Barkk’s voice grew stern. “Pollen likes you, Chloe. And so Pollen might be tempted to help you reach a fate that’s better than you deserve.”

Chloe’s eyes flashed. “I can’t see Pollen because Pollen’s too nice?”

“Not exactly.” The kwami was silent for a few moments before speaking again. “Did you ever ask Pollen what it means to be a kwami?”

“No...”

“We’re personifications of different concepts.” Barkk stared into Chloe’s eyes. “Tikki is the kwami of creation, for instance, Plagg is the kwami of destruction, and Pollen is the kwami of subjection. Subjection means submitting oneself before another, deferring to that person, and serving him or her. We could not risk Pollen deciding to serve you.”

Chloe felt her fists clenching again. “So, what, you’re keeping me from Pollen so Pollen stays safe from me? I’d never hurt my kwami!”

“We’re keeping Pollen away so the world stays safe.”

“I—” Chloe bit back a growl. “And what’s your 'concept,' then? What makes you so special that you get the job of bothering me?”

“The Guardian says I’m the kwami of adoration, but adoration is really just another name for loyalty,” Barkk answered. “To adore something so much that you always pursue it and keep it foremost in mind is to be loyal to it. So I consider myself to be the kwami of loyalty”

Chloe said, “If you’re loyal to me, then—”

“I’m loyal to my mission. Which is being the watchdog and watching you.” Barkk then swooped down and sunk into Chloe’s purse before she could object. “And I’ll keep watching you until I’ve determined what you deserve.”

“So if you decide I haven’t changed like you all keep insisting, and that I deserve to die or something, you’ll just let me die?!”

“Yes.” Barkk’s voice was a low growl. “Absolutely.”

Chloe’s mouth dropped. “That wasn’t funny,” she managed at last. And when Barkk didn’t answer, she said, “Barkk! That wasn’t funny!”

But the kwami remained silent. And after a few more shouts failed to make the dog speak, all Chloe could do was resuming walking to the Louvre. “Barkk can’t mean that,” she muttered to herself. “The kwami are nice—well, most of them. The ones that aren’t Plagg. Barkk’s just trying to scare me.”

And after a few blocks, she was almost able to believe it.

#

Chloe’s plan started off perfectly. She called Jalil and claimed to be deeply intrigued by his obscure research, the pathetic loser was indeed overjoyed that someone—especially a cute-sounding girl—might respect him and take an interest in his work, and so he agreed to let her into the Louvre’s back entrance and show her his research area. That turned out to be the Curator’s Office, where Alim had a big desk and Jalil and Alix had smaller ones, and Jalil eagerly waved Chloe over to the massive piles of notebooks on his desk. “I’ve got everything the Egyptians ever learned about Miraculouses. Please, look for yourself, and if you have any questions...”

“I’ll be sure to ask the expert!” Chloe flashed Jalil an insincere smile and reached for his notebooks before pausing. She had noticed that the other desk held a few more notebooks along with a group photograph of Alix, Alim, Jalil, and an older woman Chloe didn’t recognize; there was also an old-looking book that had a title written in Arabic script and an ornate butterfly on its cover. Then Chloe remembered where she’d seen that same butterfly before: as a brooch on Hawkmoth’s chest when she'd been Miracle Queen, a lifetime and a world ago.

“That’s my little sister’s desk,” called Jalil as Chloe kept looking at it. “Dad tried to get her involved in researching the Miraculouses too, but she doesn’t have a real scholarly mind and cares more about her dumb sports things. So she hasn’t made much progress.” He chuckled. “I mean, she doesn’t know the history, her Chinese is rusty and her Egyptian’s non-existent...”

Chloe frowned as Jalil prattled on. She supposed it made sense that Alix might be interested in the Miraculouses too, but then why hadn’t she shared what she’d learned with Alya? They were friends, after all. Or, could it be that Alix was Hawkmoth and wanted to learn more about her powers? But that couldn’t be it either; not only had Alix been akumatized, but she’d also suffered horrible frostbite from Cowardly Lion, and Chloe couldn’t believe the real Hawkmoth would willingly endure that. So what was going on?

After another moment, Chloe opened one of Alix’s notebooks and stared at the dense, dark script. Then she flipped through the book at random until she found a highlighted paragraph. “Sultan Mohammad V of Morocco proclaimed that akumas could be resisted,” she murmured as she read. “He dismissed the ‘Mira-Kung Fu’ taught by foreign instructors and instead counseled mastery of one’s emotions. One could find inner peace to turn back akumas, or alternately, one could focus on one's negative emotions and—”

 “I can’t believe you’re skipping it again!”

Chloe gasped, because that was Alix’s voice. Then she heard footsteps approaching the office door and realized her plan had come apart. She darted for the door but it banged open just before she got there. “Dear, I’ve told you, I have to work,” Alim was saying as Alix stormed in. “My duties are incredibly important.”

“They’re always important!” Alix snapped. “But my team made regionals, and this game on Saturday is huge! I just wanted—” And then her gaze locked onto Chloe. “What are you doing here?”

Chloe gulped and wished she’d anticipated this. “Um.”

“Relax, Alix. She’s just some scholar who respects my work.” Jalil turned toward Alix. “Unlike some people.”

Alim was frowning at Chloe, and Alix’s face was reddening. “First of all, your work is idiotic,” she spat at Jalil. “You thought your hieroglyphs taught you a spell to bring Mom back.”

“They would have if I’d been allowed to use the staff!”

“And second,” Alix snapped, “this isn’t a scholar. It’s Chloe Bourgeois!”

Jalil stiffened. Then Alim said, “Chloe. You’ve been banned. You breaking in isn’t acceptable.”

“Jalil let me in!” Chloe protested. “He’s your son, I thought if he said it was okay, then it was okay!”

“You let her in?” Alix almost screeched. “You know what she did to me! What is wrong with you?”

Chloe frowned. She’d known Alix hated her, but this seemed excessive even for her. Alix seemed so furious that Chloe wondered if she somehow knew about her actions as Miracle Queen—but then again, her comment had been personal, with Alix complaining about what Chloe had done to her specifically, and not to the world at large. Besides, if Alix did know that, she’d surely have told the heroes and then they’d be breathing down the neck. But if not that, why did Alix hate her so much?

But there was no time to worry about it with Alix right there. So, once again wishing she knew what those kwamis had made people think she’d done, Chloe told the Kubdels, “I’ll just leave.”

“No.” Alim shook his head. “Chloe, you’re trespassing. I’m reporting you.”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous!” Chloe whined. “I don’t deserve that!”

“After what you did to me, you think you deserve mercy?” Alix’s hands were balled up into fists and she took a heavy step toward Chloe. “You vile—”

“Alix!” Alim snapped. “Don’t. Let’s just let the police handle her.”

Alix shot him a glare. “Like they handled her last time, with a sweetheart probation deal?”

“Hey! My deal sucks!” Chloe protested. “It’s super unfair!”

But Alix just glared at her before turning on her heel and stalking away. Chloe hesitated, unsure of whether to flee, but Alim shut the door behind him and moved to his desk. “I’ll call security,” he told Jalil. “You call the police.”

“No!” Chloe begged. “Please!” But Alim just gave Chloe an unhappy look before looking back at his phone. And when Chloe turned to Jalil, he was already dialing on his phone.

Then the door crashed open and an avalanche of snow spilled into the room, with Alix riding atop it on a pair of skis. She looked as she had when she’d been Superior Athlete, except this time her medals were bigger. “Alix!” Alim gasped. “Stop!”

“I’m the Olympian now,” the akuma growled. “And I’m done with all of you.”

#

Chloe ducked behind Alix’s desk as Olympian waved a hand and another massive wave of snow swept through the room. Alim and Jalil yelled, and when Chloe dared poking her head above the desks she saw two snowmen where they had been standing. Olympian, meanwhile, was glowering at them. “Snowmen? That’s it?” she groused. “That’s all the power you gave me?”

A faint purple outline appeared above her head and she cringed in pain but kept arguing.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think turning Chloe into a snowman’s enough!” she spat at last. “My idiot brother and dad, sure, but she needs to suffer!” Then her eyes flickered and she turned to Chloe with a sadistic smile on her lips. “But I’ve got a better idea. Wait right here, Bourgeois. And don’t bother running--you'll just die tired.” And she skied out the door and was gone.

Chloe grabbed a backpack from Jalil’s work area and shoveled as many of the Kubdel siblings’ notebooks into it as would fit. Then she staggered through the knee-deep snow into the hallway, only to see that one end was completely walled off with ice. She groaned before forcing herself to slog through the snow in the only direction available to her, fighting for every step until she reached a door leading to the public exhibits. That got her into a winter wonderland full of snowdrifts and snowmen in front of frozen-over paintings, and she managed a grim smile as she saw a sign labeled ‘EXIT’ pointing down a long hallway.

Then she heard a swooshing sound and turned in time to see Olympian skiing back. The akuma had a mean smile on her face and a satchel which was leaking some kind of black powder. And, slung over her back...

She had a rifle.

The gun looked ancient and was covered in gold enamel, and even as Chloe realized the weapon had to be from the Louvre’s exhibits, Alix was already bringing it around and firing. Chloe yelped as something hot scraped against her right earlobe. Then she was screaming and running as fast as she could while Olympian knelt and reloaded.

“Come on!” Chloe babbled as she fought through the snow.  She managed to get her phone out and fumbled to unlock it before realizing she didn’t actually know the number of the akuma tip line. Her eyes widened as another idea hit her, then she rapidly dialed Alya. “Please, please, please pick up...”

The phone clicked. “I don’t want to talk to you, Chloe,” Alya said. “I’m blocking—"

“There’s an akuma in the Louvre!” Chloe gasped. “Call Red Queen and Cheshire!”

Alya was silent for a moment. Then: “This isn’t another lie, is it?”

“No! Alya, get help! Alix—Olympian—is trying to kill me!” Chloe took a fast breath. “She’s got skis, she made it snowy and turned people into snowman, and she has a—”

The rifle fired and Chloe’s gun exploded in her hand.

Chloe screamed as shards of glass and plastic slashed into her ear and fingers. Then she made herself drop the remains of her phone and keep staggering on, leaving a bloody trail in the snow behind her.  Olympian’s gun fired twice more and drilled neat little holes in the tip of her right shoulder and on her left thigh. Neither disabled her, but both hurt and she was choking back pained tears as she pushed on.

When she made it to the sculpture garden, which was near the exit, Chloe let out a faint, bitter smile—then realized the entire room was covered in ice and cried out as she slipped and crashed into some ancient statue. Olympian fired again and chips of stone blasted off the carved marble Chloe had hit, and then Chloe’s eyes widened as the statue fell toward her. She barely managed to throw herself out of the way and still cried out in pain as she slammed down into the ice.

Then she was scootching back as Olympian leisurely skated toward her. At least, Chloe thought, the akuma wasn’t as good a shot as she seemed to think. Or else she’d be dead—

Olympian stiffened and then swiveled toward a door leading to gallery on the far other side of the garden. Chloe had just enough time to hear footsteps and realize Cheshire and Red Queen must have arrived when Olympian fired. The bullet blasted out and hit a tiny security box just inside the gallery, and a grate dropped down. And even as Chloe heard Red Queen say, “We’ll need your Cataclysm later, don’t use it on the gate, just come with me to another entrance!” she realized that the shot Olympian had just made was over a much greater distance and at a much smaller target than she was.

Olympian hadn’t been missing.

She had been toying with her.

Chloe began crawling away as the purple outline reappeared over Olympian’s face. “Shooting them won’t help, Hawkmoth. If your other akumas couldn’t injure them, this thing won’t either.” A pause. “It’s an antique! It was King Louis XIII’s! I—yes, I know how much damage it does! One of us has fired this gun before, idiot, and it wasn’t you!”

“Please,” Chloe whispered as she got closer to the door. “Please, let those two keep fighting...”

But then Olympian skated past Chloe and turned to her with a psychotic grin. “Leaving so soon?” she asked. “You should stay awhile, Chloe. We can talk about old times.”

“I’m sorry!” Chloe begged. Distantly, she wondered whether Miraculous Cure would even bring her back if Olympian killed her with a mundane weapon and not something magical. It hadn’t brought back Fournier’s stolen goods, after all. “For anything I did!”

But Olympian just snorted. “You don’t know what sorrow is,” she growled. “You’re a monster. You don’t deserve to be forgiven!"

“No!” Chloe bumped against another statue and cringed against it. “Alix—”

“IT'S OLYMPIAN!” the akuma screamed as she raised her gun again.

And that was when Alya charged into the room. She didn’t say anything, which Chloe guessed was so she could later pretend to her mom that the video had been sent in by a fan and not filmed by her directly, but her phone was up and pointing squarely at the akuma to record.

And then she slipped.

Alya yelped and went sprawling forward, Olympian snapped her gun in the other girl’s direction, and Chloe’s eyes widened. And before she even knew what she was doing, she yelled, “Hey, Kubdel! Whatever I did to you, you had it coming!”

Rage filled Olympian’s face as she swung her gun back around. It fired, and Chloe felt a piercing pain right above her eyes. Distant voices sounded, including one that sounded like Cheshire, and after a few seconds she heard sounds of fighting. But it was all a long way away.

And then everything went black.

#

“MIRACULOUS CURE!”

Chloe awoke again and winced as she picked herself up off the non-frozen floor. Alix was there, along with Alya, the heroes, the other Kubdels, and some of the museum guests, and Chloe couldn’t help glaring as Alim embraced his daughter. Even Jalil gave her a little hug.

“Thank you for saving my daughter again,” Alim told the heroes. “We’re in your debt.”

“I accept tuna fish, sardines, and yarn balls in payment,” Cheshire joked. And just like that, people laughed and the tension dissipated.

Chloe pointed at Alix. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “You shot me!”

“We don’t blame people for what they do while akumatized,” Red Queen interjected.

“We can blame her! She had full control of herself!” Chloe screamed. “She got a gun! She—”

Alix’s face twisted into a mask of hatred for a moment before she shook herself and turned away. “Nope. Hawkmoth manipulated me. Don’t remember a thing.”

“Be that as it may...” Alim looked between the two, then sighed. “Chloe, in light of... what happened to you just now... I won’t call the police about your probation. This time. But if you ever show up here again—”

“Of course she gets away with it,” Alix spat. “Forget this.” And she stormed off.

Alim chased after his daughter and the heroes soon left too, leaving Chloe to watch Alya, who was uploading the video on her phone. When she was done, Chloe approached her. “You’re welcome,” she said.

Alya glanced at her. “For what?”

“For—for distracting her! For getting shot to stop her from aiming at you!” She spread her arms. “That’s what you wanted, right? Me to do something nice, like Dupain-Cheng?”

“It’s not ‘nice’ if you knew Red Queen would bring you back and decided to do a fake sacrifice to manipulate me again.”

“Alya, I got shot! I died! Again!” Chloe tried to keep her voice level. “I sacrificed myself for you! And I didn’t know I’d be brought back if she shot me with a normal gun and not some magic akuma thing. I really thought I might die, but I protected you anyway!”

The journalist’s face seemed to catch for a moment. “I want to believe that,” she admitted. “But right now, I can’t.”

“Just give me another chance! I can make it up to you; I got you all kinds of research on the...”

Chloe trailed off as she looked around and realized her stolen satchel was gone. The Miraculous Cure must have returned it and her stolen notebooks, she thought. Even though it hadn’t reset Fournier’s stolen goods. But then again, Fournier had taken her stuff before Roger was akumatized, while Chloe had only stolen the notebooks after the akuma attack and wouldn't have been able to do so had Alix not taken out the other Kubdels as Olympian. Maybe that was why.

After mentally wailing about how unfair that was, she looked back at Alya. And then, between her exhaustion and her weeks of loneliness, she felt herself sagging to the ground. “Let me try again,” she begged. “Please, Alya.”

The reporter waited a moment before walking over to her. “You lied to me,” she said quietly. “You manipulated me. What if I’d put those lies on my blog and ruined my reputation? How could you make up for that?”

It was just a stupid high school blog, Chloe thought, but she knew not to say it. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Look, I’m sorry. But I knew you’d hate me if I told you what I’d done to Dupain-Cheng and the others. I didn’t want that. Please, give me another chance!”

The words felt toxic in her mouth. She was a Bourgeois and Bourgeoises did not beg. They were the ones who were begged to, in fact. But she was tired and lonely, and she kept dying, and Alya was the only person across two worlds who might possibly care for her, and while she still wanted to bail out of this horrible world as soon as possible she needed just a single person on her side until then...

Alya was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “I can’t be friends with you if you’re hurting other people in class.”

“I’ll stop. I’ll make it up to them. I swear!”

“And how do I know you’re being honest with me?” Alya asked. “Unlike last time?”

Chloe felt her mind reeling as she tried to think of what to say. “If you're so worried I'll lie, then I just won't say anything at all! I’ll just stand where you tell me and point the camera if you want.”

The two girls looked at each other for several seconds. And then Alya said, “I’ll think about it,” before going off to interview some of the former snowmen.

It wasn’t a yes. But there was a chance, and that was enough.

#

Chloe’s father pampered her again that night, having heard about his daughter’s second death and resurrection on the Red Queen Reporter, and Chloe let him without complaint. It was only once she was tucked into her bed that her thoughts turned toward Alya and her other classmates.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, though she was too tired to work up real anger about it. Not only had the kwamis given her a horrible reputation, they also hadn’t given her any skills she could use to impress her classmates. That was obviously why she was having so much trouble with getting back into their good graces. She wasn’t like Dupain-Cheng, who had been gifted with fashion talent and who also had friends like Alya that would do things like model her clothes on TV--

Chloe’s eyes widened. Her classmates would model Dupain-Cheng’s clothes. She needed a way to get the earrings off Sabrina, didn’t she? Maybe she could talk her mother or Gabriel into showcasing Dupain-Cheng’s fashion line and using the class as models; after all, Dupain-Cheng didn’t have a factory, couldn’t make outfits in a million sizes, and would need to use what she had--such as gifts already tailored for her classmates. If Sabrina agreed to serve as a model, and if she took the earrings off to wear some other ensemble...

It was a good idea. But the thought of getting up and doing anything about it, of calling Gabriel and her mother and Dupain-Cheng and putting them all on the same page, felt like too much. She’d been through so much already. Couldn’t she wait for a little bit, rest, and try to win Alya back? Didn’t she deserve that? After all, she could always go for the Miraculouses later.

Chloe’s phone buzzed, and when Chloe looked at it, she saw the text she’d been hoping for: a message from Alya reading “KIDZ+ STUDIO, SATURDAY, 1 PM.” And it said nothing else, but it didn’t need to. It still conveyed the message that Chloe had one chance left.

A smile crossed Chloe’s lips and all thoughts of the Miraculouses seemed to fall away. She fell asleep seconds later. And while that night she had the vague impression of something warm and fuzzy nuzzling against her hand, she had forgotten the feeing by the next morning.

Chapter Text

“Don’t blame the mirror if your face is faulty.”

--Nikolai Gogol (“The Inspector-General”)

The euphoria of realizing that she might be able to salvage her friendship with Alya buoyed Chloe until she returned to school the next day. But then she had to sit alone, and eat alone, and study alone too, and she couldn’t help feeling like nobody but Alya would ever take her back no matter what she did. That it didn’t matter how many times she got killed by akumas or tried to do something nice for someone, they’d just nod and maybe say some small pleasantry before moving on. And that, in turn, meant getting Alya back was her only chance of getting a friend at all.

And once that thought was lodged in her mind, the upcoming meeting at KIDZ+ began to feel more and more like something that had to go absolutely perfectly or she’d lose Alya for good--which meant she'd be shunned and hated by all, absolutely anyone and everyone, forever.

Chloe thus couldn’t stop herself from tensing as the KIDZ+ receptionist waved her through and directed her to the conference room Alya had told her to go to. She felt sweat beading on her head and almost dabbed at it with the sleeve of the outlet mall blazer she was wearing before catching herself. “Come on,” she hissed to herself. “You’re a Bourgeois. You’ve got this! You live in the spotlight!” But then all she could think of was her various pratfalls whenever some scheme or outing had blown up in her face—being disqualified from the fashion contest, losing the class representative election, being humiliated by Clara Nightingale—and she only felt herself stressing more.

When she got to the conference room she managed a jerky nod at Alya, who was sitting in front of a desk, before moving to stand behind her. Bob Roth and XY were on the other side of the desk and Chloe’s stress was such that she barely noticed the legendary pop star. “Where’s Nadja?” she managed to ask. “I thought you were going on her show, Alya.”

“Yeah, in an hour, but I don’t need you for that.” Alya glanced over at Chloe, who realized the journalist was wearing the vicuna wool jacket Dupain-Cheng had made her. It fit perfectly and looked wonderfully comfortable, and Chloe looked down at her own pathetic clothes and blushed. “But Mr. Roth messaged me saying he had important information about a corporate backer who wants to help the Miraculous heroes. I just need you to hold the camera while I interview him.”

Chloe managed a shaky nod and Alya frowned, apparently noticing her distress, but then Roth interrupted. “Actually, I was hoping this first part would be off the record.” He smiled. “I think you’ll find it’s worth your while.”

Alya thought for a moment before nodding. “Chloe, camera down.” And after Chloe had pocketed her phone, Alya turned back to the record executive. “What do you have to say?”

“That I, chairman and CEO of Bob Roth Records, am indeed willing to support the heroes.” He grinned. “I’ll be having my musicians endorse them, and cheer them in on their music too. “

“Lots of musicians and celebrities have already done that,” Alya noted. “What makes you different?”

Roth grinned. “That’s where you come in. You see, it’s true that many people have endorsed the heroes, but the heroes haven’t responded. What I’m proposing is that the heroes officially declare my record label and musicians to be their celebrity ambassadors! That way more people will listen to them, so their endorsements will go extra far.”

Chloe just tried to stand still and not look stupid. She noticed that XY, already looking bored, had put his phone on a selfie stick and was shooting photographs of himself and the girls. Then Alya said, “Okay, but I don’t see where I come in. You’d need to reach out to the heroes about that. Although, honestly, I don’t think they’ll endorse you. I talked to Red Queen last week and she said they’ve agreed not to accept any sponsorships; they don’t want people thinking that someone has to pay them in order to be saved by them.”

“But you speak for the heroes!” Roth flung his arms wide. “So you just need to say in your blog that the heroes have endorsed me. I’ll do the rest. And I assure you, this will make us so much money—I mean, uh, work so well—the heroes won’t complain!”

It took Alya a moment to respond, during which XY began meandering across the room taking more photos. He almost bonked Chloe with his stick and then chuckled when Chloe jerked away in a rushed, sharp motion. Then Alya said, “Mr. Roth, I can’t do that. I’m not sure why you thought I would accept, but I won’t.”

Chloe gulped. This was going badly, and even though it obviously wasn’t her fault, that hadn’t stopped anyone from blaming her for random things going wrong before. What if this meeting fell apart and Alya never gave Chloe another chance? But even so, what could Chloe do about it? She couldn’t make Alya take the offer or make Roth retract it. What did that leave?

Then something writhed in her pocket, and she winced as what felt like very sharp teeth nipped against her thigh. She glanced down to see the outline of Barkk settling back in her pocket and leaning against her phone. Then, as she looked at the phone, she remembered, and she dropped her hand to press the ‘audio record’ button through the fabric of her pants. Moments later, Barkk nuzzled against her and she began to relax slightly.

But Chloe’s calmness vanished when Roth continued with, “Then how about a sweetener: for every extra record or ticket we sell thanks to the ‘heroes’ endorsing us, I’ll give you a full five percent of the proceeds! Net proceeds, of course, not gross, but that’s still likely to run into the millions!”

“I’m not doing it,” Alya snapped. She stood up and almost tripped over XY as he swung his stick low near her legs. “Will you stop doing that?”

“Sorry.” XY chuckled and backed away.

Roth held out his hands placatingly. “Well, if you don’t like that idea, I did have another. It’d be a sort of therapy podcast to prevent people from becoming akumatized. People could buy a seat on the show—and I suppose we could raffle off a few tickets too so the lower classes don’t feel left out—and share whatever was stressing them. Then the audience could help them solve those problems!”

“Solve them how?” Alya demanded. “The mayor already has free therapists.”

“This would be about solving underlying problems instead of just learning to cope with them.” Roth chuckled. “For instance, let’s say my boy XY here really liked a girl and was upset she wouldn’t date him. We wouldn’t want him to be akumatized over that, right? So he could go on the podcast and tell people, and then the podcast audience could pressure the girl to go on that date. Presto, one akuma that never happens! And you’d get a cut of the podcast’s proceeds too, of course, in exchange for convincing your readers to tune in.”

Chloe and Alya exchanged astonished looks, and Chloe felt herself sweating again. Alya was getting furious, this was a mess, Chloe’s last chance was falling apart because of this idiot—

“This conversation is over,” Alya snapped. “We’re done. Come on, Chloe.”

Roth just sighed. “If the carrot’s not enough for you, Alya, I can always try the stick.” Alya froze and Roth’s grin became cruel. “For instance, I could file copyright claims on all your videos.”

“I took those videos! You don’t have the copyright!”

“Ah, but in many of your videos there’s background noises which I think might be people playing my label's songs!” Roth’s grin grew. “And even if I happen to be mistaken, my lawyers can argue about it for ages and cost you millions in legal fees.” He settled back in his chair. “Can you pay them?”

Chloe, who knew full well how someone of Roth’s resources could drag out the case for years even if he was totally in the wrong, could only glare at him. Alya gripped the desk as if restraining herself from jumping over it to slap Roth and began to say, “No deal--” but then she gasped and looked at a grinning XY, who had moved close to her. “Did you just grab my butt?” she breathed.

This was the end, Chloe thought numbly. These two monsters were hurting Alya, and Alya would know Chloe had done nothing to stop them. That was all the reason she’d need to agree with everyone else that Chloe was a horrible friend. And then Chloe would be alone and unloved forever.

“XY, we talked about this,” sighed Roth with no real venom in his voice. “This is a business meeting. You have to be professional. Save the date stuff for your downtime.”

“Sorry, dad.” XY shrugged. “But c’mon, we both know she’ll be working for us, so why wait until we actually dangle the internship or whatever other silly thing she wants like we did with the others?” He grinned. “They all give in anyway.”

Alya scowled at XY. “I’ll tell the police you grabbed my butt! You can’t just do that!”

“If you were to tell the police something so libelous, we’d have to come after you personally,” Roth drawled. “Forget your website; that sort of case could bankrupt your entire family. It’s happened to other girls who tried to harm XY’s reputation. So I think it’d be best if you let it go.”

“Yeah,” XY taunted. “But hey, if you give me a date, not only will we give you an internship, but I’ll also forget you made your threat and my dad won’t put your family out on the street.” Alya froze as if trapped and the musician’s smile grew. “And by the end of the date you’ll be madly in love with me anyway, so we can head back to—"

Chloe was at XY’s side and her fingers were wrapping around his head before she knew what she was doing. He barely had time to cry out before she’d shoved him down and slammed his head against the desk.

Roth and Alya both screamed, and XY cried out as his phone went spinning away. But Chloe just hefted him back up and then slammed him down again. And in her mind she was only thinking that she couldn’t let this monster hurt Alya, that she couldn’t blow her very last chance. She had to stop this guy. She had to protect the only person who would ever care for her.

Finally, she felt strong arms grabbing at her, and then Bob Roth forced Chloe away. XY was bleeding form his bruised face and sobbing like a baby, and Alya had backed up and was picking something off the ground. “You little brat!” Roth screamed at Chloe. “I’ll see you in jail for what you did to my son! And your parents, well, they’ll be paying us until they’re in the grave! XY, call the police!”

“Yes,” said Alya. “Call them.”

Chloe hung her head, not even having the strength left to whine about that. But then Alya held up XY’s phone, which had apparently broken free of his selfie stick when Chloe had attacked him, and said, “And I’ll show them this. Because I certainly didn’t give consent for XY to take the creepshot of me he’s got on here, and I think they’d be interested to know that.”

XY hesitated as Roth asked, “Creepshot?”

Chloe saw a door to the conference room open and Nadja Chamack peeked in along with a few other people. They’d obviously been drawn from elsewhere in the studio by the commotion and Chloe wondered if she should say something. Alya, however, didn’t seem to notice them and kept going. “Yeah, creepshot. He used that selfie stick to swing his phone under my legs when I wasn’t looking and took an upskirt shot.” Then she began to scroll and her eyes widened. “And not just me. There have to be twenty—thirty—more than forty girls? What’s wrong with you?”

“No! Stop!” XY gasped. “That’s mine! Dad, make her stop!”

Roth coughed. “Ah, Alya. I’m sure we don’t want this little misunderstanding to become unpleasant. Why don’t you hand that back to me?”

“No way! I’m not letting you cover up what you did!” Alya spat. “I’m telling everyone!”

“No!” XY howled. He lunged at Alya, but she easily dodged, and as he stumbled his gaze flicked over Nadja. “How long have you been there?” he demanded.

“Long enough.” Nadja turned to Bob Roth. “Is your son really taking creepshots, and are you really covering for him?”

“Er...” Now it was Roth’s turn to sweat. “Of course not. Our journalist friend here got a little excited, that’s all.” He moved closer to Nadja, drawing Alya and Chloe after him. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to air such a potentially libelous story without very good evidence.”

Alya snarled, “I’ve got his phone. Everything is on it.”

“The only things on it are obviously deepfakes planted to harm my poor son’s reputation,” Roth said. “Obviously he would never really do anything like that. He’s a very compassionate young man.”

“I see.” Nadja gave Roth a thin smile. “And will the metadata bear out your claim?”

Roth chuckled. “Oh, I think my experts—”

“Yes, Hawkmoth!”

Everyone swiveled as a purple butterfly landed on XY’s selfie stick, and then XY’s body was covered in dark magic. When it faded Chloe saw an oversized lizard that dangled his tongue from his mouth while slime oozed over his body and trapped the selfie stick against his belly. .“I’m Cover Up!” he howled as he finished growing and his head brushed against the ceiling. “Give me all your recordings and phones, now, or I won’t just cover this stupid mess up; I’ll cover up your whole existence! Nobody will ever remember you!”

Nadja was raising her camera when Cover Up’s tongue slapped across her body. And then she was gone, and Chloe realized she had no idea who had been standing there a moment ago. Like that person—whoever she was—was less than a memory and had never existed at all.

Alya stared, but then Chloe grabbed her hand and hustled her out the door.

#

“I’m fine!” Alya was insisting as Chloe got her to a storage closet and shut the door behind them. The look in her eyes—which Chloe had seen in her own, in the mirror, when she’d really wanted something and was willing to tear down Paris to get it—told her the reporter would not be deterred. “I need to get back out there and film XY! What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I have been shot dead by akumas,” Chloe answered. “Twice.”

Alya blushed. “Okay, um, dumb question. But you know what I mean.”

“XY just groped you! That's more important--"

“We can talk about what XY did to me later, Chloe. I have to film this attack!” Alya shook her head. “I’m the journalist, it’s my job to warn people about what Roth and XY—and Cover Up—are doing. What if some of my readers are coming into the studio for something else? I have to warn them!”

There was something implacable, and arguably mad, in her voice, and Chloe had a brief moment to wonder if she’d sounded like that when she’d vowed to do whatever it took to make another Wish and end the world again. Then she wondered why Alya was so fanatically obsessed with her blog in the first place that she was willing to put everything else aside, even what had just happened to her, just to get another post for it. But when she saw the journalist going for the door, she put all that out of her mind and said, “Okay, look, I can take the footage. Call the heroes and then guide them when they’re here.”

“Why don't you call them while I go and film?” Alya demanded.

“One, you’re the one with the heroes’ numbers. They trust you. And two...” Chloe thought back to XY, then nodded. “I know how to hurt him. And that means I can stall him until the heroes arrive. Okay?"

 Alya’s eyes narrowed. “Fine, but I’m counting you Chloe. I need this footage. So promise me you’ll get it.”

Chloe grimaced but said, “I promise. See you soon.”

And that was how Chloe found herself creeping through the now eerily deserted KIDZ+ station. All the offices she passed looked long empty, with dust over everything and the desks cleared of personal objects, and she wondered what it would be like to just vanish from existence like Cover Up had threatened to do. To be removed so utterly that nothing you had ever said or done or possessed remained.

But she already knew, she realized. She’d done it to herself. She’d ended her whole world and whatever she’d managed to build there was gone. So were whatever relationships she’d managed to build with her father, Sabrina, her kwami—”

Tears beaded in her eyes as she thought of Pollen, but she shook her head and pushed her memories away. She had to get through this before she was erased, she thought. Because if Hawkmoth won then he’d make his Wish and stop Chloe from doing so. And because Alya, her only possible friend, needed her.

There were a couple close calls where Chloe almost ran into XY as the akuma tore through the studio hunting down anyone he hadn’t licked yet, but she was much smaller than the massive lizard and was able to slip behind him before reaching the broadcast room. The cavernous room was empty but the cameras were on, and Chloe managed a smile as she sat down behind the desk. “This is Chloe Bourgeois here with a special bulletin!” she called. And then, remembering what Dupain-Cheng had told Alya about the importance of namedropping ventures on camera, she added, “Speaking on behalf of the Red Queen Report!”

She then gave a rundown of XY, leaving out the bits where he’d attacked Alya specifically but detailing the other damning contents of his phone as well as the statements he’d made about forcing girls who wanted internships to date him first. And sure enough, in just a few minutes, a hissing roar pounded through the building before footsteps approached her as she’d known they would. Creeps like XY cared about their reputation, she knew, so the easiest way to hurt them or bully them was to attack it. That would always draw them out.

She had gotten off a text to Alya just before Cover Up burst into the room. “Stop!” he ordered. “Now! I won’t let you make me look bad!”

“Don’t blame me just for telling everyone what you did, jerk.”

The giant lizard akuma lumbered into the view of the cameras and shouted. “Everything she said is a lie! I didn’t do any of it!”

“Then how do you explain all those payoffs your dad made to the other girls?” Chloe pressed, thinking back to what the Roths had said. Distantly, she noted this was her second akuma interview, but she put that out of her mind. “Well?”

Cover Up launched into a long explanation for how he was in fact completely innocent. But as the minutes passed and he reached the end of his speech, Chloe began to sweat. Where were the heroes? Had Alya not gotten in touch with them?

“So!” Cover Up snapped at last. “Like I just showed, I’m innocent! Retract your story!”

If she did that, Chloe knew, Cover Up would probably just get back to hunting down Alya. But if she did nothing, he’d likely leave anyway. And so she said, “One more thing, Cover Up. I recorded your confession from earlier! Why don’t I play it for all these people?”

Cover Up gasped and then pounced toward Chloe. She cringed back, but just before the monster reached her, horrified gasps echoed from somewhere behind the studio’s left wall. Cover Up skidded to a halt and ran for the noises, screaming that people needed to stop watching ‘libelous’ footage that would ‘ruin his reputation,’ but no sooner had he begun to dig into the wall than the same noises repeated from behind the right wall. And so Cover Up ran back and forth toward the shifting sounds. “Stop laughing at me!” he screamed. “Stop listening to them!”

One of his legs caught in the rows of chairs that were used for the studio audience. Cover Up tumbled over and exposed his belly, and then Cheshire jumped through one of the new holes in the wall as if out of nowhere. He Cataclysmed the now-vulnerable selfie stick, Red Queen dropped in to purify the akuma, and the fight was over.

#

“...Lucky Charm was a speaker system,” Red Queen told Alya as the journalist filmed the hero. “It took me a little bit to work out what to do with it, but when we saw the broadcast it was obvious: make XY think there were people here watching the show and hearing his crimes, so he would run around trying to stop them and leave himself open!”

The heroine’s earrings beeped and she excused herself, as did Cheshire, who had been checking over the other victims that had now reappeared. The two heroes left and everyone turned to stare at XY, who was huddled up behind his father. “None of that was legally actionable,” Roth snapped to the room at large. “We don’t blame people for what they do as akumas. And, you know, I suspect my son was akumatized long before he actually looked like a lizard. Anything he may or may not have confessed to is obviously part of Hawkmoth’s machinations.”

Nadja Chamack, who was now sitting on the news desk, gave him a look. “Really.”

Chloe and Alya exchanged glances as Roth smiled. “Why, yes. In fact, I think anything which may have happened to the girls he knew was a result of him being akumatized; Hawkmoth was clearly using him to stir up bad feelings and negative emotions! My poor boy is really a victim in all of this!”

That was when the door banged open and Chloe saw Roger lead a couple dozen officers into the room. “Xavier-Ives and Bob Roth, we have warrants for your arrest,” he said. “And I’m afraid we’ll need statements for everyone else too.”

Chloe looked down at her hands and belatedly remembered that, before the akumatization, she’d bashed XY’s head into a desk. That surely violated her probation and might even be enough to send her to jail. Given her record, and the fact that the mayor surely despised her for her bad relations with Dupain-Cheng, she might not get out for a very long time.

But as she moved to follow the nearest officer, her gaze met Alya’s and the journalist gave her a quick, warm smile. Then Barkk stirred in her pocket and she could feel him giving her leg a hug. And despite her uncertain future, she couldn’t help feeling like maybe everything was going to be okay.

Chapter Text

“You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.”

--Flannery O’Conner (“The Violent Bear It Away”)

“What do you mean, you won’t charge her?” Bob Roth’s scream echoed through the police station’s conference room. “She assaulted my poor little boy!”

Chloe’s mouth quirked up into a relieved smile but she otherwise remained still. Roger had asked her for her statement an hour or so ago, and she’d frankly admitted what she’d done to XY and why she’d done it; since giving her statement, she hadn't said a word. Many fears had run through her head about whether she would be expelled, arrested, or even sued by Roth and XY, but those concepts had seemed so distant and unimportant that she couldn’t focus on them. Instead, her thoughts of Alya and the hope that she might have finally done something to win back the other girl gave her the strength to carry on.

“It sounds to me like your son deserved it!” Andre gripped Chloe’s shoulder with one of his large hands and squeezed. He’d come to the station too as soon as the police had summoned him, and while he hadn’t been permitted to speak during her statement, he’d hugged her as soon as it was over. “He should be in jail. And so should you!”

“One more word and I’ll sue you both into the ground!” Roth’s voice was an actual scream, and though both Officer Roger and the city prosecutor opened their mouths, he steamrolled on. “What kind of city is this? Where’s the justice?”

“I promise you, Mr. Roth: there will be justice.”

Everyone turned to the sixth and last figure in the room. Mayor Sabine hadn’t spoken a word during the proceedings thus far, not even when Bob Roth had been brought in after his own statement had been taken, but she’d given the impression of observing everything. Chloe had no idea why she was even here except that maybe she had wanted to see if Chloe had violated her probation and could finally be expelled or otherwise removed from her daughter’s life. But she was here nonetheless, and her voice lashed Roth like a whip as she continued.

“Based on all the evidence, including your son’s own confession, it’s apparent that he assaulted Alya and also took nonconsensual lewd images of her. It’s also clear that you lied about there being no hope of redressing his actions through legal means. Only then did Chloe assault your son.”

“You can’t use his confession! He was akumatized; that doesn’t count!”

“I fail to see why Hawkmoth would have Xavier-Ives admit to crimes he did not do,” Sabine went on. “Or why Xavier-Ives, who was akumatized in order to prevent people from knowing of his misconduct, would then confess to fake charges on television. But even if we ignore that, we also have the recording Chloe made.”

Roth pointed a finger at Chloe. “She wasn’t allowed to make it! Federal law requires all parties to consent before being recorded. I didn’t consent, and my son didn’t either! And that’s not even counting the assault!”

Sabine shook her head. “It is true that Chloe technically broke the law when she recorded you. However, given that her recording has helped us catch a predator, I am inclined to be lenient.” Sabine’s eyes flashed. “As for the assault, it’s clear she was only defending Alya from the depredations of your son.”

Chloe stared for a moment in amazement at Sabine, who was using her office to defend her despite all the bad blood between them, something Chloe had to admit she would never have done (or let her father do) in the previous world. Then Sabine added, “We also have your son’s phone and the ‘creepshots’ on it. The police have already started using the metadata to identify when and where the photos were taken, and I understand they’ve identified a few of the girls already.”

“Seven of them,” Roger noted. “All of whom told officers they did not consent to what XY did.”

Roth was grinding his teeth. “Look,” he said after a moment. “I suppose it’s possible my son might have... overstepped a bit. But I think we can all agree this doesn’t need to be a police matter. I’ll be happy to get him sensitivity training and make a suitable donation to some appropriate charity.” Sabine glowered at him but Roth just shrugged. “Or else we settle in for a multiyear trial that would cost the city millions of euros to prosecute and would require all those alleged ‘victims’ to get on the stand and tell the world what they claimed happened to them. And of course my lawyer would then be obligated to attack their credibility and character so we could disprove their scurrilous lies. Do you really want that?”

Chloe felt her fists bunch up, but then Sabine said, “There won’t be a trial, Roth. Your son is going to plead guilty. And as part of his plea, you will also agree not to sue Chloe or Alya for their parts in exposing you.”

Roth snorted. “And why would I do that?”

Sabine glanced at Roger, who nodded and said, “Because we searched your home, Mr. Roth. We found the files on your computer where you and your son planned to get someone akumatized at one of his concerts. You said it would be easy enough for him to lure some girl onstage and then break her heart, and you also noted a live akumatization would be,” he checked his notepad, “’spectacular TV.’”

Roth’s face went a sickly shade of white. “That was just a joke,” he said. “It wasn’t serious.”

“If your son doesn’t plead guilty, we’ll take both of you to trial as Hawkmoth’s accomplices and find out if the jury believes you,” Sabine held Roth’s gaze. “And if you’re convicted, you’ll both be imprisoned for life. Or, he can plead guilty to all the sex crimes, you waive the right to sue, and you both make substantial restitution to all the girls he hurt.” Roth gulped and backed away but Sabine walked around the table and closed in on him. “What’s it going to be?”

The two stared at each other for an endless moment before Roth said, “I... I’ll talk to my son. Make him see a plea deal’s best.”

“Good.” Sabine glanced at the lawyer and said, “Draw up the paperwork.” Then she looked at Chloe with a slight frown, as if she regretted she couldn’t punish her too, but she didn’t turn back to demand Roger find something to charge her with. She just swept out of the room.

Chloe’s father led her out to the street a few minutes later. He wanted to take her home right away, of course, but she managed to convince him that she should stay and make sure Alya was alright. “Just be careful,” Andre said as he hugged her. “I worry about you, especially these days.”

“I’m fine,” Chloe protested. “I’m not even the one who got beat up. Just let me see Alya, okay?”

She finally managed to convince him to hug her a few more times and then go away just before Alya stepped out of the police station. Marlena wasn’t there, and Alya looked lost and alone as she stumbled toward the sidewalk. Chloe trotted over to her and asked, “Where’s your mom?”

“I told them not to call her,” Alya muttered. “Said I was fine.” When Chloe stared at her, Alya snapped, “Look, I don’t want to bother her with this, okay? I already told the police what happened, and I told Red Queen and Cheshire too when they asked me why XY was akumatized. That’s enough people. Mom doesn’t need to know.”

“Her boss knows,” Chloe shot back. “Mayor Sabine was there. You don’t think she’ll tell your mom?”

Alya almost seemed to shrink. “She can’t,” the journalist whispered. “That’s not...”

Chloe frowned and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do. Whenever Sabrina had suffered some stupid problem in the other world, Chloe had just ignored her until the other girl took care of it herself; after all, elites like her had more important things to do than to fret about the peasants. But now that she wanted to actually do something useful, she had nothing.

She wished someone would tell her what to do, but nobody else was around except for Barkk in her pocket, and the kwami wasn't saying anything. Finally, she just asked Alya, “I could walk you home?”

Alya opened her mouth and glared like she wanted to retort, but after a moment the fire faded in her eyes. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They walked in silence, with Chloe walking nearer to the street and Alya staying between her and the buildings. Only when they reached a familiar location did Chloe pause. “You still live in Le Grand Paris?” she asked as she looked up at the glorious hotel which had once been hers. “I thought that was just until your mom got you guys a real house.”

“We don’t have one yet, and Mr. Dupain-Cheng said we could stay as long as we want.” Alya managed a faint smile. “Which might have something to do with him occasionally having to miss a meal doing hotel stuff and then showing up between services, or after dinner, looking for a snack. Mom makes sure to always keep a few ingredients handy just in case. And apparently he hasn’t had a meal yet that was anything less than five stars.”

There was real admiration in Alya’s voice, but Chloe thought she heard a hint of tension too. “I’ll try her restaurant sometime,” she managed, though she knew she couldn’t afford Le Grand Paris’s prices in her current impoverished state. “See you tomorrow.”

Alya nodded, hesitated, then asked, “Actually, can you come upstairs? I want to talk to you about something.”

Chloe opened her mouth to protest that she was banned, but Alya was already using a keycard to unlock a staff door. She stepped inside and held the door for Chloe, who ultimately followed. Alya then led Chloe down a short passage and then up to one of the suites in the hotel’s rear. “This is my home,” Alya said while opening the suite door. “My room’s the last door on the right.”

The suite was moderately sized but comfortably furnished. Chloe saw a big TV in one corner along with a bunch of toys that looked like they belonged to little girls, and in another corner was a set of dumbbells. There was also a kitchenette crammed full of ingredients where a pot was simmering on the stove. The food smelled fantastic, but Alya led Chloe past it and into her room, which had a few pieces of furniture and a computer crammed in amongst several bookshelves. Chloe looked over the books and quickly noticed a pattern. “Are these all true crime?” 

“Yeah. Gotta do research if I’m going to be a great investigative reporter someday.” Alya’s voice slowed, and then she abruptly sat on the floor against her bed, as if she was too tired to stand. “Chloe?”

“What?” Chloe shut the door for privacy and sat next to Alya. The reporter leaned against her and Chloe flinched, then forced herself to stay still. After a moment it even felt nice and Chloe wondered how long it had been since she’d just been close to someone. Or since there had been anyone who wanted to be close to her, for that matter. “What is it?”

Alya asked, “Why are you doing all this for me? I mean, Marinette and some of the others noticed you following me around back when you were just giving me donuts, but now you’re beating people up and going to get akuma footage instead of staying safe. You even got shot by Alix so she wouldn’t shoot me, and I don’t get why.” She paused. “Are you crushing on me or something?”

“What? Ugh! No way!” Chloe snapped. Then she realized how that sounded and blushed. “I mean, uh, not that you’re ugly or anything. But it’s not that.”

Alya managed a faint smile. “Then why?”

For a moment, Chloe considered lying again. She could just say that she liked Alya’s journalism or something like that. But that had gotten her into tons of trouble last time. And besides, she found she didn’t want to lie about this.

So she said, “At first I just wanted to learn more about the akumas and the heroes. You know more than anyone about them—I mean, the Kubdels might know the history, but your blog knows everything they’re doing today—so I wanted to get access to your blog. And also, you...”

The words seemed to stick in her throat, but she finally managed to say, “You were the only person willing to give me a chance school started. And I was lonely, and I really wanted a friend, and when you showed you’d give me a chance I didn’t want to screw it up and lose you. But it’s not just that anymore, or the hero stuff. I like hanging out with you. I feel better when you’re around. Less like,” she cut herself off before saying, ‘a pathetic, ridiculous, friendless loser.’ “And I want you to keep wanting me to be around.”

She finally made herself stop and blushed. Her mother would have pitched a fit if she’d heard that, a Bourgeois did not make herself vulnerable to someone of Alya’s social standing. But she found she didn’t care, and when Alya gave her another smile, Chloe automatically smiled in return.

After a moment, Alya asked, “Am I your first friend?”

The answer should have been ‘no.’ There was Adrien, and Sabrina, and the kids of the servants that she’d made play with her when she was five, and things like that. But now she knew what they all really thought of her. “Yes,” Chloe admitted.

“Then I’m glad I’m able to be your friend.” Alya leaned a little closer against Chloe. “It’s horrible not to have any.”

All Chloe could say to that was, “I know.” And then, her face still red, she asked, “So, uh, about you and the akumas. Why are you so...”

“Crazy about them?” Alya sighed. “If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone? And I mean it, Chloe. You cannot tell a soul.”

Chloe nodded and Alya took a deep breath before continuing. “I know every kid says their mom is amazing, but mine really is. When she was growing up in some Martinique slum she was so poor that there were times when she literally had to dig through landfills so she could find cans and sell them for scrap. Do you understand how hard she had to work to become as great a chef as she is?”

Alya’s eyes grew misty as she looked up, like she was seeing some great legend of old. “She couldn't go to school because she had to support the family. Instead she worked as a pot washer, a waitress, a short order cook in the filthiest restaurants imaginable. Even when she managed to teach herself enough that she was able to earn a scholarship to this fancy cooking school in Martinique's capitol city, she still had a tough time because everyone else had formal training and experience she didn’t have, but she kept with it. And she beat everyone anyway. Top of the class, valedictorian, every honor imaginable. There’s a reason why Mayor Sabine went all the way to Martinique to find a new head chef even though France is known for its cuisine. My mom really is that good.”

Chloe said nothing as Alya wiped at her eyes. “She came from nothing, Chloe. And now she’s the lead chef at Le Grand Paris, the most famous hotel in the culinary capital of the world. I have to live up to that.”

“But you don’t cook,” said Chloe, baffled.

“I don’t mean at cooking, but I have to be as good at her at something. What else am I supposed to do? Say ‘sorry, Mom, I know you worked incredibly hard to get us where we are and give me all these opportunities, but I’m a lazy slacker and I’m just going to coast?’” Alya shook her head. “I have to be great. And when Hawkmoth first showed up I kind of hoped I’d get to be one of the heroes so I could be, you know, heroic. I even asked Red Queen if I could join up when I talked to her after Bubbler.”

But she had been heroic, Chloe thought. She had once been the heroine Rena Rouge, and she’d been spectacular, at least until Chloe had used her magic wasps to compel her to fight her friends before wiping out the entire world on top of that. And then Chloe looked down because she couldn’t bear to meet the other girl’s eyes.

Fortunately, Alya didn’t ask why Chloe suddenly looked so sad. “But Red Queen said no. So that leaves my journalism. And if I’m going to be a reporter, I can’t be a mediocre reporter. I have to be the best.”

Chloe was still stewing over her own failures when a connection snapped into place in her mind. “So that was your fear during the Cowardly Lion akuma,” she murmured. “It wasn’t you being old or poor. It was you getting old without accomplishing anything. Without having, I don’t know, awards or something.”

“Yeah.” Alya took a breath. “I know it sounds silly, but I can’t let my family down like that.”

“Does your mom agree with that?” Chloe knew her own mom would; Audrey Bourgeois complained on a regular basis about how her daughter was ordinary and unworthy of love. “Did you ask her?”

“She says she’ll be happy as long as I’m happy, but moms have to say that.” Alya managed a chuckle. “I know the truth, though.”

 “Well, what about the rest of your family?” Chloe pressed, thinking back to the stuff she’d seen in the living area. “Are they ‘the best’ too?”

Alya nodded. “Nora, my big sister, is already winning martial arts tournaments and awards. Some big fitness brand just offered to hire her as a trainer and influencer, and she’s not even done with college yet. My little sisters Etta and Ella aren’t anything, but they’re just kids. Even Dad... I don’t really get his zookeeper work, but I know he’s written papers on carrying for animals and has a bunch of impressive publications.”

Chloe opened her mouth to respond but Alya sagged against her as if wiped out and said, “That’s why I need to keep reporting on akumas and the heroes. It doesn't matter what the mayor says about not giving Hawkmoth extra targets. It doesn't matter that Mom keeps saying it’s unsafe.”

After a moment’s consideration, Chloe decided not to note that Alya’s mother had a point.

“It doesn’t even matter what those akumas—or jerks like XY—do to me!” Alya went on. “The battle between Paris’s champions and Hawkmoth is the biggest story around. I have to do a good job, Chloe. I can’t be the only Cesaire who’s a failure. And that’s why I’m kind of glad you’re here, and that I think I can trust you again.”

“Glad?” Chloe managed. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Alya turned her head and gave her another small smile. “I’m not an idiot. I know how dangerous the akumas are, and that if I go running off to film them I might get put in a bubble or turned into a mummy, or, well, shot. But now I feel like you’ll protect me even when I run into danger.”

Chloe couldn’t help but chuckling. “Well, yeah. Because I’ve been doing that.”

“So I hope you keep helping me report on the akumas. I hope you keep watching out for me. I like it.” Her smile grew. “I like how I feel safer when you’re around. Just... you can’t lie to me again.”

“I won’t,” Chloe promised.

“And you can’t bully the others either.” Alya’s voice was starting to fade. “I mean it. I like my other friends too and I don’t want you to hurt them.”

Chloe grimaced. “I’m trying not to bully them, but they’re still mad at me. I don’t know how to fix that.”

“I might be able to help.” Alya grinned. “Using my brilliant reporter instincts. But you have to try, okay? Even though it might be really hard, you have to try.”

And Chloe said, “I will.”

Alya gave a bigger smile at that. Then she slumped down on Chloe’s lap, as if finally exhausted. Chloe wrapped her arms around the other girl almost on instinct and Alya made a pleased noise as she snuggled closer. In a few seconds Chloe could tell she was asleep.

Chloe almost tried picking her up and getting her into bed before realizing that might wake her, and so she just sat there like a guardian statue, letting Alya rest peacefully in her lap. And even though she wasn’t learning about Cheshire, and wasn’t progressing with her plans to get the Miraculouses back, she realized she was content. It was like Alya’s mere presence were enough to soothe her even after the day she’d had.

“I’m going to protect you,” she whispered to Alya. “I promise.”

#

Chloe had been sitting there and watching over Alya for close to an hour when footsteps sounded from outside. Then, as Chloe debated what to say to Marlena, the door opened and Marlena walked in. But she was immediately followed by Sabine, and Chloe’s heart sank as the mayor looked at her with surprise and then a flash of anger.

“You need to leave,” Sabine said after a moment. “Now. Get up.”

“No!” The word tumbled out of Chloe’s mouth almost before she knew what she was saying. “Alya’s sleeping; I can’t wake her!”

Sabine gave Chloe a bewildered look, then turned to Marlena, whose shock was melting into a smile that looked almost charmed. “I’ve got this,” she told Sabine before gently crouching by Chloe. “Watch closely, Chloe. You’ll need to know how to do this if you have kids.”

Chloe, who wasn’t sure why Marlena seemed so amused, watched as Marlena carefully scooped Alya out of her lap without tilting or jostling her in the slightest. Then she laid Alya down in bed and tucked her in. Chloe waited until she’d stepped back before grabbing a chair, hauling it over, and sitting down in it so she could stay there. Marlena actually chuckled at that and Sabine said, “Out, Chloe.”

“But—”

Marlena held up a hand. “I promise, I’ll tell Alya that you kept a very good vigil.” Then she was easing Chloe up and out of the chair. “But you do need to leave.”

Chloe found herself ejected from the room and forced to follow Sabine as she went toward the door. “That’s unfair!” she complained as Sabine led her on. “I wasn’t doing anything bad!”

“You’re not allowed in here, Chloe.”

“I was being nice to Alya! I was helping a friend! I’m doing exactly what all you people say I’m supposed to do!”

“I said you were supposed to stay out of the hotel.”

Chloe bit back a growl. “You supported me earlier today! It’s utterly ridiculous that you’re attacking me now!”

Sabine reached an elevator and jabbed its button with her thumb before turning back to Chloe. “I supported you at the police station because—despite all your misconduct—you hadn’t done anything wrong in that one instance. My personal feelings didn’t come into it. And just because you exposed XY doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you for the harm you did to my daughter.”

Chloe was silent as Sabine got her into the elevator and sent them to the ground floor. When they arrived and Sabine began taking her across the lobby, though, she finally made herself say, “But I’m doing what you all want! I’m not bullying people anymore! That’s what you want, isn’t it? You’re supposed to want me to be better, and I’m being better!”

“Chloe.” The word slashed through the air like a guillotine and Chloe fell silent as Sabine turned back to her. “If you aren’t bullying people anymore, that’s wonderful, and I sincerely mean that. The entire purpose of your probation was to push you to improve yourself without going so far as to expel you or send you to jail. But the reward for not doing future harm is not incurring any additional punishments. It has nothing to do with the punishments you’ve already earned from the harm you already did.”

“But what if Alya hears that you banned me and decides that I’m worse than she thought?” Chloe demanded. “What if she thinks you banning me means I haven’t changed and so she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore?”

“Then that too is a consequence you’ll have to bear for what you did.” Sabine shook her head. “Or are you only ‘reforming’ because you think that entitles you to Alya’s friendship, and that if she doesn’t give it you might as well hurt people again? If that’s the case, Chloe, then you haven’t changed as much as you’re claiming.”

Chloe remembered Plagg whispering, ‘It’s easier to die than to change’ and she cringed. ”Please! I—"

“You tormented my daughter for years.”  Sabine’s voice was like steel. “There are consequences to that, and one of those consequences is that you are not welcome in my home.” They had reached the front door and Sabine waved for the doorman to open it. “For any reason.”

“But Alya!” Chloe begged.

Sabine said, “If Alya wants to be friends with you, that’s her choice. And you two may of course meet in your home or in any public place in the city. But not here. And while I won’t report this violation of your probation restrictions this one time, if you ever return I will call the police. Do you understand?”

Chloe stared into the mayor’s pitiless eyes and finally made herself nod. “Good,” Sabine told her. And then she kept watching until Chloe turned and walked out the door.

She was maybe a block away when she sagged onto a bench. It was early evening, but nobody was around, and after a moment Barkk flew out of her pocket and perched on her nose. “Well done,” said the kwami. “With XY. And with Alya.”

Chloe winced as her eyes crossed trying to track the dog. “Do you think Alya will abandon me once she learns I’m banned from Le Grand Paris?”

“She already knew you had bad blood with Marinette and she liked you anyway. I doubt this will change anything.”

A wave of relief swept over Chloe. “Do you think I did good today?”

“Yes.”

“So, then, do you think I’m changing?” Chloe pushed. “That Plagg and Mayor Sabine are wrong about me?”

Barkk was silent for a few seconds before answering, “It’s too soon to say.”

“How could it be too soon?” Chloe protested. “I got shot for a friend! I risked going to jail for her!”

“Because it was the right thing to do, or because you want to possess her friendship?” Barkk asked. “You’ve always been willing to go to extremes to get whatever you want. There’s no change there.”

Chloe frowned. “Extremes is one thing; getting shot and almost arrested is another!”

“Maybe. But answer me this.” Barkk’s voice grew stern. “Suppose Cheshire were to drop his ring in front of you. Would you return it and continue building your friendships in this world, or would you keep it so you could make another Wish?”

Chloe’s mouth opened for a few seconds as she tried to find an answer. Of course she wanted to make her Wish. She still missed her perks from the old world, the palatial rooms she’d lived in, the delicious food, the power to influence anything that happened in the city. But something felt wrong about making it now. Like she’d be betraying Alya, at the very least. Still, she could just take Alya with her and make her a princess or something in the new world, and what was one friend against Chloe’s birthright, anyway? But what if Alya didn’t see it that way?

“I don’t know,” Chloe admitted at last.

“Hmm.” Barkk considered that for a moment before dropping off Chloe’s nose and landing in her hand. Chloe instinctively began to scritch Barkk’s head and the dog’s tail wagged with obvious pleasure. “Well, what will you do now?”

“Go home, I guess.” Chloe knew she had another hour or so until her curfew but felt no desire to wander the town. “Prepare for Mendeleiev’s stupid study halls. I don’t know.”

Then her phone buzzed. Chloe glanced down at it just as Nadja’s face appeared on the city’s akuma monitoring app. “It seems Hawkmoth is sending out two akumas in one day, viewers!” the reporter said. “I’m reporting live from the Rodin Museum where Mireille Caquet, who had been acting as a junior host for an art show, had paint spilled on her by classmate Jean Duparc as a prank! Mireille was then akumatized into an akuma calling herself The Unseen, and she released a thick cloud of fog so nobody could see her in her embarrassment. The Rodin Museum now looks like a Louisiana swamp and most of the art show’s guests are unable to find their way out. We need the heroes!”

Chloe glanced at the hotel, but Alya didn’t come running down, and she guessed the journalist was still asleep. And if she woke up later and found her blog had completely missed an akuma, then she’d get upset that her journalism wasn’t meeting her ludicrously high standards. Which meant there was one thing to do.

“We’re going to the new akuma, Barkk,” Chloe told the dog. “I’ll get the footage for Alya so she can rest.”

The dog barked in what sounded like a pleased tone, and Chloe scratched the kwami’s neck a couple times. Then she smiled to herself and took off at a run for the Rodin Museum.

Chapter Text

“Dogs are good people; humans are bad dogs.”

--Fakeer Ishavardas

“Well?” said an exhausted Chloe to Barkk a few weeks later. “Do you think I’ve changed yet?”

But Barkk just said, as Chloe had predicted, “It’s still too early to say.”

As Chloe discovered when she returned to school on Monday, Alya hadn't been kidding about helping her get back into the good graces of her classmates. She also hadn’t been kidding about how much work it would take. Her first ‘redemption task,’ as Alya put it, was to go to Mylene and offer to help prepare props for a play that was apparently behind schedule. That in turn had led to almost a solid week of spending her evenings fighting off paint fumes and making dozens of stupid little knickknacks look colorful. And whenever she was done with one batch, Mylene always had another.

And that wasn’t her only chore, of course. Kim needed someone to time him while he swam laps, Max needed someone to hunt for bugs in his latest video game, Rose needed someone to listen while she recited the love poems she’d written about Prince Ali so she could say them perfectly once he came to town, and so on. Even Nino got involved and had her check his newest mixes for clipping.

It was a lot of work. And combined with Chloe’s makeup assignments, her regular classwork, and the various akumas that she ran after in the hopes of stopping Alya from getting attacked again, she found she had almost no free time. But the work was different than her desperate efforts to unmask the heroes, and also from her endless struggles in the last world to show up her classmates and demonstrate her superiority. It was strangely soothing, and almost relaxing once she got into it. In places it was even fun.

But apparently a lifetime of being a bully couldn’t be erased with a few weeks of chores. Her classmates still seemed skeptical of her. Alix still openly despised her. And Barkk...

Barkk never changed.

 “How can you still think I might be a rabid dog?” Chloe protested to Barkk. “And how is that an insult anyway? You’re a dog. You shouldn’t think being called a dog is bad!”

“It’s good for a dog to be a dog, but it’s bad for a human to be a dog,” Barkk answered. “We dogs obey our human masters, but humans have to choose for themselves what to do."

Chloe grunted and tried not to think about some of her prior choices. “If you’re only supposed to obey, then why are you giving me advice?”

“Because I’m not just a dog.”

“Right, you’re a kwami—”

“I’m a good dog.” Barkk sniffed and Chloe heard pride in the little creature’s voice. “Good dogs also help their humans make the right choices. They teach them love, and compassion, and responsibility. But the ultimate choice still lies with the humans.”

Chloe couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, you’re a good dog alright,” she said as she ruffled Barkk’s fur. The kwami squeaked in pleasure and Chloe sighed. “You know, Pollen once told me she liked to eat candied flower petals.”

“Did you ever make them for her?”

“...no.” Chloe looked at the window as if Pollen might even now be there, waiting for Chloe to make up for lost time. But of course the bee kwami was nowhere in sight. “But what I meant was, what food do you like best?”

“Sausage bites.” Barkk’s response was automatic. “The spicy ones.”

Chloe remembered her father keeping bits of sausage on hand for his sausage roll recipe, and she pushed herself up to get some from the bakery refrigerator. When she went back upstairs she almost poured a few on a plate, then had another idea and smiled. “Dogs like to play fetch, don’t they?”

“The good ones do.”

“Well, then, fetch!” And she tossed one of the sausage bites out the window into the darkness of the Paris evening.

Barkk zipped out the window and was back in a flash, munching the sausage ball with a big smile. Chloe hurled a couple more out the window as far as she could and laughed as Barkk happily retrieved them. Then she climbed up onto her rooftop balcony, ignoring the chill in the late fall air, and threw a few more. Barkk caught every one before settling back into her hands so she could scratch the little kwami’s head.

“You have been doing better lately,” Barkk admitted a few minutes later when they were back inside Chloe’s bedroom proper. “Your work with your friends is good. So is your support of Alya. But none of it matters if you end the world again.”

And Chloe said nothing, because there was nothing she could say.

In the few moments she’d had to herself over the past two weeks, she’d worked on setting up the fashion show she'd thought of after Alix's second akumatization, the one she knew could get her Sabrina’s Miraculous. She’d contacted her mother and Gabriel to send them pictures of Dupain-Cheng's clothes, including the vicuna jacket and the rayon stuff Dupain-Cheng had just posted on her own website. Both had been overawed by the designs just as they had in the past world—Chloe still remembered Gabriel awarding Marinette the win at his fashion design contest and Audrey openly claiming Marinette’s superiority at her own show—and it had been easy to convince them to host a fashion show to ‘recognize’ a ‘stellar young designer.’ They’d both look great for having ‘discovered’ her, after all.

Once Agreste and Audrey contacted Dupain-Cheng to let her know they’d be willing to host her first fashion show, it would all be set. Even the last step of convincing Dupain-Cheng to use her classmates as models was unlikely to pose any difficulty. If nothing else, the fact that the show was scheduled for early December and was thus no more than a couple weeks away would prevent Marinette from making new outfits to fit Gabriel’s and Audrey’s professional models, so she’d really have no choice but to use whatever she’d already made for her classmates. That was why Chloe could easily see herself pulling off the show and then sneaking away with Sabrina’s Miraculous. But when she tried to imagine the next step, her somehow getting Cheshire’s Miraculous too and then making her Wish, something inside her felt heavy and reluctant.

“You haven’t told Alya what you’re doing with the show,” Barkk went on. The kwami’s voice was calm and almost kind, but there was a sternness in it that forced Chloe to listen. “Because you know she wouldn’t approve. And that doing what you’re planning would be worse than anything anyone in this world blames you for.”

Chloe was silent for a long moment. “I haven’t decided yet, okay?” she managed at last. “Maybe I’ll just do the show like normal. But I can’t just give up my old life!”

“You already did when you made your Wish.” Barkk floated down to Chloe’s chest and Chloe hugged the kwami tight. “And if you give up this new one, you’ll also give up everyone else here. Including Alya.”

“I know.” Chloe shut her eyes to try to stop feeling like she was being pulled in two different directions. “And I told you, I haven’t decided yet. The show’s not for a few weeks. I have time.”

“You do,” Barkk acknowledged. “But time runs out.”

Chloe frowned, but the kwami wouldn’t answer any of the questions she asked in response to that, and so all Chloe could was roll over and try to go to sleep.

#

When Chloe went to school the next day, she was still in a rough mood, and it didn’t approve when she headed to the lunchroom and stumbled upon someone she had fervently hoped never to see again.

“Adrien, can’t you just show me around town for a little bit this weekend?” simpered Lila toward Adrikens. She was dressed in clubbing clothes that looked out of place on school grounds and was practically preening as she leaned over to show off her expensive jewelry. Chloe still had the orange earrings Gabriel had given her and wore them to school every day, but even though they were from one of the Agreste fashion line’s major brands, Lila’s jewels were still larger and flashier. In fact, Lila and her ornaments reminded her of ostentatious birds that she’d seen in zoos flashing their feathers to attract mates. 

Chloe sighed to herself as Lila prattled on. Couldn’t she just hurry up and move away, or die, or do whatever else she’d done the first time around and leave Francoise Dupont for good?

“I’ve got a break from my charity work and movies,” Lila said in a tone indicating she was finally wrapping up her speech, “And I want to spend it with a friend! So how about it?”

“I told you, I’m busy,” Adrikens protested. A few other students had gathered around them and Chloe saw Alya, Dupain-Cheng, and Sabrina all frowning at Lila. “My father has me doing modeling shoots.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can slip away for a little bit.” Lila moved next to him and tried to wrap an arm around him, only for him to pull away. “I could tell you so many stories about being a diplomat!”

Chloe frowned. Lila was clearly trying to be seductive, but her tone sounded tense and uneasy too. Before she could comment, though, Dupain-Cheng said, “He already said 'no.' Stop bothering him.”

Lila sniffed at Dupain-Cheng. “I don’t see why it’s any of your business if Adrien wants to hang out with me.”

“Because he doesn’t,” Dupain-Cheng snapped.

Lila opened her mouth to say something else but Alya pulled out her phone. “Hey Lila, do you really want me to record you harassing Adrien? Because if Gabriel Agreste sees this, he’s probably going to file a diplomatic complaint against your mom. Aren’t you in enough trouble for trying to convince Mendeleiev that your homework should be excused because of all your unverifiable charity work?”

The Italian’s eyes flashed and Chloe saw one of her hands twitching as if about to form a fist. Then, when Lila moved toward Alya, Chloe shoved her way through the crowd and put herself between the two. Lila paused and stared at Chloe as the blonde glared at her. Finally, she turned on her heel and stormed off.

“Thanks,” said Alya as a few people began to murmur.

Chloe nodded. Behind her she heard Adrikens thanking Dupain-Cheng and Alya for backing him up, but she was used to being ignored by her oldest friend by now and dismissed it. “Sure.”

Dupain-Cheng and Adrikens walked toward a table and Chloe followed them. Before she got there, though, Rose ran to Dupain-Cheng and squealed, “Thank you so much! I still can’t believe Prince Ali wrote back!”

“I guess he must really like you!” Dupain-Cheng gave Rose one of her warm smiles and Chloe put her hand to her head in order to forestall a headache. Times like this, when Dupain-Cheng was showing off how popular and beloved she was, made her want to hurry up and Wish this world away all the more. But everything Barkk had said was still right. What was she supposed to do?

Rose thanked Dupain-Cheng for apparently relaying letters between her and Ali, went on about how she was certain she’d win the lottery to see him in person, and then went back to sit with a now despondent-looking Juleka. Chloe just rolled her eyes and checked her watch; her mother had mentioned that she’d be calling Dupain-Cheng at about this time. And sure enough, the other girl’s phone rang and she took the call. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, this is she. I... what? What? Seriously?”

Chloe bit back a low chuckle as Dupain-Cheng worked through the call. Then, as soon as the other girl hung up, she rushed to Chloe. “That was your mom and Gabriel Agreste,” she said. “They want to sponsor my first fashion show. And your mom said it was your idea.”

“Right.” Chloe smiled. “You’re welcome, Dupain-Cheng.” And she waited for the other girl to finally admit that she deserved some respect and appreciation too.

But what Dupain-Cheng said was, “Chloe, I’m sorry, but I need to make this clear: this won’t have any effect on your probation. You can’t bribe—”

“I’m not trying to bribe you!” Chloe snapped. “I just wanted to do something nice!” And when she saw everyone’s skeptical looks, she added, “And show my mom I can do what she does and spot upcoming designers too!”

“Ah.” Dupain-Cheng was still for a moment. “Well, in that case, thank you.” And she actually gave Chloe a smile. “I appreciate it.”

Dupain-Cheng went to sit down as everyone else converged on her. “Yes, the show’s very soon, but I can get some new clothes made,” she was soon saying. “I’ll just have to skip... oh, no, I promised my parents I’d do that, and I also promised you guys...”

“I could wear that scarf you made me,” Ivan offered.

“Yeah!” said Nathaniel. “And I’ve still got that really nice dress shirt.”

A grin crossed Dupain-Cheng's face. “Perfect! If we reuse the stuff I’ve already made for you, I won’t need to sew nearly as many new things for this show! Just give me a minute...”

Alya went over to Chloe and said, “That was really nice of you.”

Chloe blushed, but when she opened her mouth to say that of course she’d done it because she was such a nice person, she thought of Barkk warning her about what she was doing, and the words dried up. All she could do was remind herself that she still had a little time to decide whether to steal Sabrina’s earrings at the show or not, and she turned away. And after a moment, Alya returned to Dupain-Cheng.

Lunch was half over by the time anyone began eating. Chloe sat by herself, as usual, but was near enough the rest of the class that she could eavesdrop. “Let me just finish writing up this article on XY’s guilty plea,” Alya was saying to the others. “I’ve been following it online. He’ll be in jail for at least a decade.”

“Good,” muttered Mylene. “He deserves it.”

“It’s awful what he did to you, Alya,” Adrikens added. “I’ve had some creeps try to take photos of me without permission too, usually crazy fans or people who think that my modeling shoots mean I’m public property and can get photographed whenever. But nothing like what he did. I’m glad you were able to help bring him down.”

“Same here.” Then Alya paused. “You know, Chloe helped too. She was the one who lured XY to the studio cameras, and who recorded his confession.”

Mylene coughed. “I had a question about that. How did you make Chloe be so... not like herself?”

“Yeah,” Ivan added. “These past couple weeks she’s been really nice. It’s kind of weird.”

Alix snorted. “Guys, Chloe’s just faking” she said. “Come on. We know her. If she’s acting nice it’s for some stupid plan.”

But Adrikens said, “I’ve heard her fake before and she’s a horrible liar. This is different. Alya, did you do something?”

“No,” Alya insisted. “I didn’t. And it’s not a plan either, Alix. She just told me she wanted to make up with you guys when she stayed over at my place, so I thought I’d point her in the right direction. That’s it.”

“Wait, she slept over?” Kim chuckled. “Are you two, you know, a thing?”

“Maybe that’s it,” Nathaniel mused. “Maybe Chloe’s in love with Alya and she’s doing all these nice things because Alya asked her.”

“We’re not in love!” Alya protested. “We’re just friends, okay? Sure, she tries to protect me when I’m investigating akumas. When I got really upset after the XY thing, she helped me calm down. And yes, she’s done a couple of things that I asked her to do to make up with the rest of you guys. But that doesn’t mean we’re dating.”

Chloe nodded. Them not being a couple was definitely true; it wasn’t like she wanted to kiss the other girl or anything. They were friends, nothing more.

But Kim began ticking things off on his fingers. “So she obeys your orders, she follows you into danger, she shows up when you’re sad to make you feel better, and she fights people like Lila or even akumas if she thinks they’ll hurt you. I’d say you’re definitely dating her, Alya, but honestly, it sounds more like you’re dating a golden retriever.”

Alix burst into laughter as Chloe blushed scarlet. “Sure, but why a nice dog like a golden retriever?” asked the jock. “Chloe’s more like a big ugly pitbull!”

Kim added, “Or a yappy little poodle—”

Alya slammed her fist on the table. “She’s not a dog!” she insisted. “I might not know all the details of what happened before I got here. And yes, my friendship with Chloe got off to a rocky start when she lied to me about some stuff. But she apologized, and she’s acting better, and you shouldn’t be mean to her about it!”

Dupain-Cheng looked very skeptical, but she did tell Kim and Alix, “Alya’s right. We shouldn’t bully Chloe or anyone else, especially with Hawkmoth around.”

“Alright, alright.” Alix leaned forward with a quizzical look. “Just one more question, Alya.”

“Yeah?”

And Alix’s mouth curled up into a sneer. “Does Chloe come when called?”

Kim howled hysterical laughter and Alya jumped to her feet with a red face. “You know what?” she snapped at the grinning Alix. “I’d rather eat alone.” And she rushed off.

“Alix!” Dupain-Cheng snapped even as Chloe got up to chase the journalist. “You need to apologize.”

“Why?” Alix shot back. “Chloe deserves it, Marinette. If you weren’t such a softie you’d get that too!”

Chloe ignored the argument and hurried toward the exit, but just as she got there, Dupain-Cheng yelled, “Chloe, wait!” Chloe forced herself to glance back as Dupain-Cheng led—or, really, almost dragged—Alix over to her. “Alix wants to apologize.”

Alix stared at her. “No. I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” Dupain-Cheng said in a stern voice. “This is important. Just like it was wrong for Chloe to bully you, it’s wrong for you to harass her. Especially since this time she didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

Dupain-Cheng led Alix the last few steps to Chloe. The blonde noticed how Alix’s body was giving tiny twitches, like it was taking all her strength to hold herself back and not to attack Chloe. “Now,” Dupain-Cheng prompted. “I’m going to leave you two alone for a moment. I’m sure you know what to say.”

Alix took a breath and met Chloe’s gaze as Dupain-Cheng turned back to the others. Chloe felt her breath seem to catch in her throat, because the hatred burning in Alix’s eyes was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She felt as if Alix despised her even more than Plagg did. 

And then Alix slammed her heel down on Chloe’s foot.

Chloe howled in pain as Alix pushed past her and stormed away. Everyone swiveled and stared, stupefied, for a moment as Chloe tried to choke off her cry. “What happened?” Dupain-Cheng demanded.

“She stomped my foot!” Chloe limped to a table as she once again wished she knew what she’d done to make Alix so deranged. Then she wondered if she maybe needed to leave town for a while until the gun-wielding lunatic calmed down. But she couldn’t leave, of course; all she could do was protest “That lunatic tried to break my foot!”

Dupain-Cheng looked unusually flummoxed. “Okay. Uh, I can talk to Damocles and Bustier, or—"

“Talk?” Chloe gasped. Her foot was burning and she wondered if she needed the nurse. “Damocles and Bustier? You almost had me expelled, Dupain-Cheng; you can at least go the board or something and get her suspended!” And then, upon seeing Dupain-Cheng’s skeptical look, Chloe snapped, “She plays with guns, Dupain-Cheng! She’s shot me twice as an akuma, the second time using some gun that Hawkmoth didn’t even give her but that she just stole from a Louvre exhibit! What if she takes another gun to school and shoots me, huh?”

Even as she spoke, though, she felt that it was useless. Dupain-Cheng was her worst enemy and had just said that she wouldn’t let the fashion show change her hatred of the other girl. So Dupain-Cheng would obviously just ensure Alix suffered no consequences no matter what she did.

But Dupain-Cheng said, “Okay.”

Chloe stared for a long moment. “What?” she asked at last.

“I said, okay. You’re right. If Alix just attacked you for no reason, we can’t accept that.” Dupain-Cheng glanced up as if trying to remember something. “Firearm licenses in France have a ‘good character’ requirement. I can talk to my mom about suspending hers until she makes peace with you, or completes an anger management class, or otherwise proves she’s not a danger to you or anyone else.” She nodded. “So don’t worry, Chloe. You’re a citizen of this city like everyone else and the government’s going to look out for you.”

With that she left, leaving Chloe staring after her and trying to figure out why Dupain-Cheng would do that if not for the fashion show. She hated Chloe. Why not let her suffer? It was what Chloe would have done.

But then Chloe grimaced. It was what she would have done, another world and another lifetime ago, but Dupain-Cheng was apparently different. She and Alya—

Her eyes widened. She’d almost forgotten Alya. She had to go in case the other girl got akumatized.

Even as she turned toward the exit, though, she heard shouts and cries from outside, and akuma alerts blasted from everyone’s phones.

#

Alya’s second akuma form could almost have passed for human. She had gained a couple feet in height--putting her at about the level of a basketball player--her hair was neatly tied back in a ponytail like she was going for a run, and she was wearing an all-black fall outfit which was broken up by the picture of a fluffy dog on her jacket. Even the little imperfections which were so often wiped out by an akumatization, such as the mole on her forehead, were still there.

But she was also caring about a dozen leashes extending in front of her, each of which writhed and moved about as if she was walking a set of invisible dogs.

Chloe reached a window and started filming in time to see Red Queen and Cheshire jump at Houndmistress from over the school, but most of the leashes pointed at them like the invisible dogs were charging and soon the heroes were being pushing back. Then another leash strained toward the school. The akuma chuckled and snapped that leash forward, it hit the wall hard enough to smash through it, and she just flicked two more leashes to drag Kim and Alix out by their necks. “You thought it was funny to call Chloe a dog!” she said. “Let’s see how you like it!”

“Come on, Alya, we’re just joking!” Kim plead.

“I’m Houndmistress now.” The akuma grinned. “And you’re my hounds!”

The leashes around Alix’s and Kim’s necks glowed, and dark magic flowed over them before their bodies warped into those of dogs. Kim looked almost like a dalmatian while Alix became one of those yappy French poodles that Kim had mentioned. And despite everything, Chloe had to fight very hard to hide her gleeful smile and her laughter.

Then Barkk floated up from her pocket. “You should talk her down.”

“What? How?” Chloe demanded. “When has that ever worked? And the heroes are already here!”

“This is a novel akuma; the heroes will need longer to defeat her if they don't get support,” Barkk noted. “And you did promise to protect Alya.”

Chloe bit her lip. Outside, Houndmistress had leashed Ivan and shifted him into a massive dog that looked like a Great Pyrenees, which she only recognized from that Japanese cartoon Sabrina had briefly been obsessed with in the other world. Her dogs also continued to battle the heroes and keep them away from her. “I want to, but...”

Barkk said nothing, but the kwami’s eyes looked disappointed, and Chloe couldn’t stop herself from thinking of what Alya would say if she knew Chloe were hesitating like this. “Fine,” she groused at last before balancing her phone on the windowsill so it could still record the scene. Then she leaned out the window. “Hey! Over here!”

Houndmistress’s head turned toward her. “Chloe!” she said with genuine joy. “Don’t worry. Hawkmoth’s helping me get Alix and Kim back for you.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Chloe hesitated. “Not that I’m not grateful, but... you should stop.” She tried to think of a good reason why. “You’ll be upset later.”

“Why would I be upset? They called you a dog, so I turned them into dogs. That’s fair.” Houndmistress glanced at Ivan. “And he laughed when they called you a dog too. I saw him.”

“Still.” Chloe grimaced. “This isn’t you, Alya. If you wanted to go after them you’d just, I don’t know, write an article saying they were jerks. Come on.” She tried to paste a smile onto her face. “Throw away the akuma and let’s just eat lunch, okay? We can talk about your blog.”

Houndmistress hesitated for a long moment and Chloe wondered if she’d really do it. But then she said, “You’re being too nice, Chloe. But they deserve this. You probably just think this is worse than it is, but there’s nothing wrong with being a dog.” Then Hawkmoth’s butterfly outline appeared over her face and she grinned. “You’re right, Hawkmoth. If I just show Chloe what it’s like, then she’ll know it’s fine.”

And before Chloe could object, a leash wrapped around her throat.

#

When Chloe regained consciousness she saw that over an hour had passed and many other people were lying in the street, having presumably been turned into dogs as well. Most of her classmates were gathered by the school with Cheshire and she made her way over to them without talking to anyone. If he was going to blame her for failing to save Alya, she decided, she might as well learn now, and then she could cut class or something and deal with the consequences later.

“...thanks again to Marinette, who snuck so many of you out the back door and made the fight a lot easier for us,” Cheshire was saying. “Seriously, Marinette, you’re awesome.”

Dupain-Cheng blushed and the others hugged her. Chloe, however, just scowled and stayed back.

But then Cheshire seemed to notice her. He took a breath and then said, “And... I should thank Chloe too. Not only did she try to talk the akuma down, but after Red Queen used her Lucky Charm scissors to cut the leashes in the fight and free all the ‘dogs’ she’d captured from Houndmistress’s control, wolf-Chloe didn’t run away with the others. She stayed to help us bring Alya down and stop her from hurting anyone.” He gave Chloe a slight smile. “I know it couldn’t have been easy to help two classmates who had just insulted you, but you did it anyway, and you helped us stop a dangerous akuma. Well done.”

Chloe blinked, and even as Alya moved to her side, she admitted, “I don’t remember doing that.”

“You did,” Dupain-Cheng told her. “I saw it. Dog-you... well, wolf-you, I guess, since you were basically a big wolf... tackled her just before she would have gotten a leash around Cheshire.”

“I could have been turned into a scruffy dog!” bemoaned Cheshire, earning a few laughs and breaking some of the tension. “The worst possible fate for a cute kitty cat like me... except of course, the fate of being trapped with a very loud vacuum cleaner.” His ring beeped as most of the class laughed again. “Alright, I’ve got to jet. Later!”

When he was gone, Alya embraced Chloe. “Thank you,” she said. “For trying to stop me again. And for helping the heroes. Even when you were a dog.”

Then Chloe felt someone else embracing her. She tilted her head and saw to her shock it was Mylene. Then came the others, and she heard the cavalcade of comments thanking her for her help. Even Kim said something like, “Sorry about being a jerk.”

But the biggest surprise was Dupain-Cheng. “Thank you, Chloe,” she said when the hug broke up. “That was really good of you.”

Chloe blushed. “I was just trying to save...”

“Alya?” Kim pushed. “I knew it! You guys are dating!”

“No we are not, Le Chien!” she snapped without much venom.

And then Alya was by her side, and almost everyone was looking at her the way they looked at Dupain-Cheng, and if Alix was still scowling, at least she was the only one. Everyone else seemed to like her at last.

Maybe, Chloe thought, this world wasn’t so bad after all.

#

It was late that night, after a study hall with Mendeleiev, a long and happy interview with Alya, and a big dinner with her father, that Chloe climbed into bed. Maybe it was for the best she’d never found out who Cheshire was, she thought. Now she had no way to get his Miraculous, so she didn’t need to try. She could just stay here, protect Alya, and enjoy her life.

“And even if I’m not the only one protecting Alya, that’s okay,” she murmured. “It doesn’t have to all be me. Adrikens and Mylene got really upset over what XY did to her, so they...”

Then she paused. Mylene hadn’t actually said she knew what XY had done to Alya; she’d only said XY was horrible. But Adrikens had explicitly said that XY had gone after Alya. And the thing was, he shouldn’t know that. Alya hadn’t written that part up in her blog, the police hadn’t mentioned it either, and even XY’s plea deal had redactions so as to avoid putting a spotlight on victims who just wanted to stay anonymous. The only people who knew were the police themselves.

And the heroes. Alya had mentioned telling them. So either they had told someone else in turn, or...

Or Adrikens was Cheshire.

Panic flooded through Chloe but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking back to the akuma battle. Cheshire had mentioned Alix and Kim bullying Chloe, but how had he known that? Why would anyone have brought it up in a fight? No, it was more likely he knew because he’d been there.

“No way,” she hissed. “He's Chat Noir, not Cheshire! And I was there during Cowardly Lion, I saw him with us while Cheshire was on the phone answering questions from—”

Her voice caught as she remembered that Cheshire had only answered questions from Adrikens. Red Queen had handled all the others. So, what if he’d had decided what he’d ask himself in advance, recorded his answers, and then snuck back into the group so people wouldn’t suspect him?

And for that matter, why had she assumed that if Adrien had powers he'd have the exact same superhero moniker as in the last timeline? He could have decided to do something different because of some random difference in this world. Or Plagg could just have warned him not to be Chat Noir since then Chloe could identify him too easily.

“Adrikens is Cheshire,” she mouthed to herself. “And Sabrina is Red Queen. I know them both and they’ll both be at Dupain-Cheng’s show. She’ll have them both wear her outfits. They’ll both have to take off their jewelry. I could...”

Yes, she thought. She could. After all this work, after months of struggle and pain and multiple deaths, she had the chance she had wanted. Possibly the only such chance she’d ever have. And she’d finally gotten it... right when she wasn’t sure she wanted it anymore.

It was a very long time before she fell asleep.

Chapter Text

“Hell is forever, whether you like it or not.”

--Vivienne Medrano (“Hazbin Hotel”)

“Chloe!”

The voice was Lila’s, and Chloe tried to hide her tired grimace as she looked at the other girl. It was a few days after Alya had become Houndmistress and Chloe hadn’t had one good night’s sleep since then, instead spending hours each night fretting about what to do at the fashion show. She was therefore exhausted and wanted nothing more than to get to her seat in homeroom so she could rest before classes began for the day. But Lila, it seemed, had other plans.

“I saw the footage of you being a wolf during the Houndmistress fight,” Lila simpered. “KIDZ+ rebroadcast that last bit where you helped the heroes defeat Alya and then licked her bruises and wounds until she was actually deakumatized.” She smiled with bright, menacing mockery. “The anchors agreed it was very touching!”

Chloe, who had also seen the footage and then wanted to crawl under a bed and hide for about twenty years in embarrassment, scowled. “Go die, Lila.”

“And since you’re such a caring person, I wanted to ask you about something,” continued Lila, slipping to Chloe’s side and guiding her into the locker rooms. Chloe noted that the Italian was again wearing clubbing clothes and briefly wondered why the other girl’s mother was okay with that. Andre was fine with Chloe wearing the nice earrings Gabriel had given her, just as she was at the moment, but he’d never have let her go to school dressed like Lila even if she’d owned such an outfit. Even the other world’s Andre would have objected had Chloe tried to go to school in a slinky dress. “You’re good friends with Adrien, right? From way back?”

“We knew each other.” Chloe shut her eyes for a moment as she remembered her first day in this new world, when she’d heard Adrien tell his friend how he hated Chloe and hoped she would be removed from school. “Why?”

“Because that means you could help me!”

Chloe frowned and took another look at Lila, this time examining her face and not her dress. Lila had a plastic smile on but there were circles under her eyes and her hands were trembling slightly as if she too was under immense pressure. Even her eyes had a vaguely manic look as she advanced on Chloe. “I’ve been trying to ask Adrien out ever since I got here, but he’s just so shy!" Lila complained. "Nothing I’ve tried worked. But I was thinking: maybe you could tell me what would convince him! Or, even better, you could go to him yourself and explain to him that—as his oldest friend—you know I’d make him happy!”

Chloe stared at the Italian for a long moment. “Why would I do that?”

“I could help you in return! My mother’s job is to build tighter ties between Italy and France, so I could have her tell the French authorities that she thinks Mayor Sabine’s punitive laws are an impediment to that. After all, we Italians don’t like it when children are subjected to harsh, horrible punishments!” Lila grinned. “A little pressure and I’m sure my mom could get your probation annulled.”

For a moment, Chloe felt a flash of hope. Her stupid probation had caused her countless problems ever since she’d gotten here, from wasting her time with study halls and counseling sessions to putting her at constant risk of violating it and being expelled or sent to prison. But then she thought that her classmates would be disgusted if she coerced Adrikens, who was still supposed to sort of be her friend, to date a lunatic like Lila. Alya in particular would hate her. And, frankly, Chloe would feel disgusted with herself too.

“He won’t listen to me,” Chloe told Lila at last. “Leave me alone.”

She turned, but Lila moved in front of her with a huge, almost psychotic, smile. “Are you sure, Chloe? I’m offering you a chance to be my friend! You wouldn’t want to be my enemy instead, would you? I’d hate to have to destroy you.”

Chloe blinked. Lila’s words were venomous, but she also heard desperation in them. “There’s something wrong with you,” she said at last. “Leave me alone, Rossi.”

A few sets of footsteps sounded as some other kids approached the gym. Lila gave a melodramatic sigh, then told Chloe, “Last chance, Bourgeois.” But Chloe just turned away and Lila sniffed. “Fine. I’m sure you’ll reconsider.”

“Not likely,” Chloe muttered. The door behind them opened and other students came in, chattering about some recent Jagged Stone concert Chloe had missed. Then Chloe opened her locker.

And Lila screamed, “My necklace!” and pointed at an open jewelry box inside Chloe’s locker. “It went missing last week! I knew someone took it!”

Chloe boggled at the necklace. It was a set of rubies held together by a gold chain, just the sort of expensive accoutrement that she’d loved in the previous world, but she’d never seen this particular necklace before. “I don’t know how it got there!”

“Oh, yeah?” It was Alix’s voice, and Chloe turned to see the little jock sneering at her. “It just walked into your locker, huh?”

“I didn’t put it there!” Chloe yelled.

“You already broke into Marinette’s locker last year.” Alix crossed her arms. Mylene, Rose, and Juleka were standing behind her with frowns on their faces; Alya was also there but looked more skeptical. “Why not Lila’s?”

Alya coughed. “Why don’t we check the cameras? They’re what caught Chloe last year, so they should have caught whoever did this too. I bet we’ll find Chloe didn’t do it.”

“Why, because you’re dating her?” Alix snapped.

“No.” Alya shook her head. “I mean, I do know she wouldn’t do that, but that’s not the only reason. If she really stole Lila’s necklace last week, why would she put it in her locker instead of taking it home? Especially since she knows better than anyone that there's cameras in here?”

Chloe gave Alya a grateful look, but then Rose pointed toward the camera aimed at the lockers. “The light on top of the lens isn’t blinking! Somebody turned the camera off!”

Alix smirked. “Guess Chloe did learn something from her last little break in. Bet you anything she broke the camera.”

“It wasn’t me, Kubdel!”

“Wait.” Everyone turned to look at Lila, who had a reluctant expression. “Chloe might be right. Nobody saw who put the necklace in her locker, so it’s possible she was framed.”

“Oh, please,” Alix groaned. “Not you too.”

Lila said, “Alix, I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t be right to accuse her without more evidence.” She pocketed the necklace. “I’ll tell the staff. I’m sure they can figure this out. In the meantime, please don’t go after Chloe because of this. It would break my heart if an innocent person got smeared because of me.”

“You’re so nice, Lila!” Rose said. Juleka nodded as well, and even Mylene looked a little convinced. Chloe wanted to shake them, but she caught herself. Anything she did would just look suspicious.

So instead she grabbed her things and stormed away, outpacing even Alya as she rushed into the hall. When she was halfway to homeroom her phone pinged with a message from an unknown number. “Help me by lunch,” read the text which was surely from Lila. “Or else.”

Chloe just jammed the phone into her pocket and hurried away, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to get very bad.

#

Third period was supposed to be free on account of D’Argencourt being sick and cancelling gym. But Chloe didn’t have free periods, not until her makeup work was done, and so she found herself in Mendeleiev’s lab once more.

At first Chloe satisfied herself by attacking the worksheets. She really was doing better lately, both between her own efforts and her father tutoring her every Sunday, and she was able to clear a decent number of them before the period was over. When she triumphantly set them on Mendeleiev’s desk she waited for the icy teacher to finally acknowledge that she was doing better. But Mendeleiev just looked them over and said, “Pass. Start the next ones.”

Chloe felt something cracking inside her. “Don’t you want to say anything else?”

“Sit down and get back to work.”

“But I’m doing better! You’re supposed to notice that!” Thoughts of her classmates, especially Mylene, mindlessly believing Lila’s story about her being a thief ran through Chloe’s head. “You’re supposed to see that I’ve changed and support me!”

Mendeleiev said nothing and Chloe pressed on, unable to stop the stress-induced torrent of words from tumbling out of her mouth. “I’m your student! You’re supposed to want me to improve, to care about whether or not I learn things, to care that I’m doing better!” Her voice was rising and she only barely managed to stop it from becoming a scream as she cried, “You’re supposed to want me to be better!”

“I’m your science teacher, Chloe.” Mendeleiev’s voice could have chilled steel. “The only thing I want is for you to learn science and to stop bullying the other students.”

“But—”

Mendeleiev stood and glowered down at Chloe from her full height. “You are not entitled to anyone’s empathy, mine included, and you especially aren’t entitled to anything just because you stopped bullying people for a few weeks.”

“Please—”

“You want me to be invested in you so that I’ll feel bad about punishing you and allow you to get away with skirting the rules," Mendeleiev went on. "My empathy is reserved for students with problems that are not self-inflicted, the students who are having trouble because they have genuine learning disabilities, or come from abusive or impoverished homes, or are simply having trouble with material. I have none for students whose only problem is that they are finally being called to account for years of misconduct."

Chloe winced. "I don't want to do misconduct anymore! I've changed!"

"I’ve met people like you before, and I know that you don’t change." Mendeleiev's voice was like frozen steel. "You might get more clever or more subtle, but you’ll never stop trying to hurt others just because you think you’re entitled to do so.”

Chloe tried to figure out what to say to that as Mendeleiev sat back down. “I tried to save someone like you once. A friend since childhood; a wealthy and privileged girl whom I thought I owed because she deigned to associate with me despite my own poverty. We did everything together. And so, when she got onto a bad path, I tried to help her; I even saved her life once. After which she repaid me by framing me for a horrible crime just so she wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

“You mean Felice Fournier,” Chloe murmured. “The jewel thief. Look, I know she’s awful; I tried to stand up to her and she used me as a human shield. So I get why you testified—”

“As a witness to her character, or lack thereof. The police chose to ignore me and release her. After which she robbed the Agrestes and, I believe, six or seven other places since.” Mendeleiev took a breath. “But I’ve learned from that mistake.”

“But what if I really want to be better?” Chloe’s voice was almost begging. “Shouldn’t you want to help me?”

Mendeleiev said, “You don’t want that. And the proof is, if you truly wanted to improve, you’d just do it instead of demanding that I care about you. That’s your next move, isn’t it? To tell me that if I don’t support you and affirm you, that you’ll slide back into your old ways?”

Chloe, who had in fact been about to suggest that improving herself was extremely hard and she was desperately hoping for support to help her keep going, could only stammer, “I...”

“I will not coddle you. I will not pretend you are anything other than what you are, and I will not waste more effort on you when there are so many other students who are more deserving of my help.” Mendeleiev’s voice seemed to cut into Chloe like a dagger made of ice. “I will continue to proctor your study halls and grade your worksheets until you inevitably break the rules again and are expelled. So. Get back to work, now, or I’ll mark you as noncompliant and give you detention.”

Chloe remained standing a moment longer, trying to find something that would get through to the science teacher. But nothing came to mind, and after a moment, she sank down in defeat.

#

“Chloe!” Lila said as the blonde crested a flight of stairs. Lila then walked over to Chloe with a menacing grin on her face. “Reconsider yet?”

“Go away,” Chloe growled. She needed to find Alya. Or take a few minutes alone with Barkk. Or anyone, really, who would talk to her without condemning her.

“No? Ah, well.” Lila grinned. “Let’s see you get out of this one.”

And she dropped to the ground and rolled right down the stairs.

Chloe stared for a moment in shock. By the time she recovered, Lila was at the bottom of the stairs, and though nothing seemed broken she did look dirty and bruised from the fall. “Ow!” she cried. “Help! Someone pushed me down the stairs!’

People came running before Chloe could leave, and of course it was Alix who pushed to the front of the crowd. “Chloe did it! She’s right here!”

“I’m innocent!” Chloe screamed. But except for Alya and maybe one or two other people she’d helped over the past couple weeks, nobody seemed to believe her.

“Did you see what happened, Lila?” asked Mendeleiev as she made her way through the crowd. “Who pushed you?”

“Chloe was right here,” Alix drawled. “And nobody else was.”

If she told everyone Lila had done this to herself, Chloe knew, she’d just look like a crazy liar. “It wasn’t me!” she protested. “You have to believe me!’

Mendeleiev shot Chloe a scornful look before turning to Lila, who made a big show of saying, “I didn’t see it. Please, everyone, let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“Hmph.” Mendeleiev looked at the nearest camera, but it was also off. “I’ll tell Principal Damocles,” she said. “Lila, do you need the nurse?”

“I think so.” Lila got up and gave a melodramatic wince before starting to limp. “And I’ll need help in class too. Oh, the pain! It hurts!”

Mendeleiev turned and gestured at Aurore. “Miss Beaureal, go help Lila—”

Lila grinned. “You can take my notes and keep me company while I sit out gym, okay?”

“—to the nurse, who will assess Lila and determine if she needs accommodations.” Mendeleiev turned to the others. “Back to class, the rest of you.”

Lila looked put out but Chloe barely noticed. This wasn’t fair, she thought; she had really been trying to do better and now everyone seemed determined to destroy her despite her progress! It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!

“Chloe.”

“What?” Chloe almost screamed as she wheeled around to see Dupain-Cheng, who was frowning at her. “I mean, what? What is it now?”

Dupain-Cheng gave her a look before saying, “I talked to Maman and Damocles about Alix. They’re having a meeting now, and they want you and Alix there too.”

Chloe let out a breath. Mayor Sabine had been fair to her after she’d beaten up XY, and for that matter, she’d even shown her a little mercy in not having her arrested for sneaking into Le Grand Paris. And she was the mayor, which meant that if Alix snapped and gunned Chloe down, it would reflect badly on her. So she might even take Chloe’s side here.

Maybe.

#

Chloe’s tentative hope lasted until Dupain-Cheng led her into Damocles’s office and she saw who else was there. There were Damocles and Mayor Sabine, of course, and Damocles’s computer was displaying a Zoom call with Alim Kubdel. Those all made sense. But there was also a man in a suit whom Chloe had never met before, and when Sabine turned to him and said, “I’m still not sure why the Minister for Sports is here,” Chloe’s heart sank.

Distantly, she remembered all those times in the other world when someone had called her to account and she’d dragged her father into it. She remembered how fun it had been to have him use the full power of his office to trample over anyone who got in her way. It had happened so many times she’d lost count, often in meetings just like this one, and she’d never thought it would end. But it had. And now it was her to turn to be trampled by some government official with his thumb on the scale.

She was sorry, she thought. She was sorry for all the wrong she had done. But it didn’t matter, because she was no longer in a world where anyone would help her get back on her feet. She was in a new world which nightmare-Plagg had called her Hell. And this Hell wouldn’t end no matter how much she tried to improve. It just went on forever...

“I heard there might be an issue regarding one of our star junior athletes,” the Minister said in a slick voice. Dupain-Cheng brought Alix in, the jock slouched in a chair without saying anything while Dupain-Cheng too sat down, and then the Minister continued. “I’m just looking out for her. She’s slated to be on the nation’s Youth Olympic Games teams for at least four shooting events, you know.”

“And,” Mendeleiev noted, “the terms of Chloe’s probation allow for ‘stakeholders’ to attend meetings such as these and give input.”

“Surely the Ministry thinks protecting the citizenry matters more than a sporting award,” Mayor Sabine said with a frown.

“Indeed we do!” The Minister grinned. “I assure you, if we thought Alix was an actual danger to anyone, we’d be the first to pull her licenses. But my understanding is the complaints against her were made by a student who is notorious for making things up to harm her peers.” He took out a folder from his briefcase and opened it. “As per her probation plea agreement—”

Dupain-Cheng, whom Chloe guessed was also a 'stakeholder' since she'd been bullied by Chloe too, said, “That was supposed to be sealed.”

“It was. But it can be unsealed if needed for an important government purpose.”

“Winning a medal?” Chloe hissed. “That’s important?”

The Minister flashed Chloe a bland smile and then flipped through the file. “Last year, Chloe admitted to threatening to lie about her classmates if they didn’t do her homework, hand over lunch money and other possessions, and otherwise give her preferential treatment.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m sure we can all agree not to spike a promising athlete’s career on the word of a confessed liar?”

“She stomped on my foot!” Chloe snapped. “I was limping for an hour!”

Everyone looked at Alix, who turned to glare at the computer. “Hey, Dad, you gonna chime in here and defend me?”

“Dear...” Alim sounded pained. “Of course I support your hobbies, but if the state thinks you’re a danger, then...”

“Forget it.” Alix’s face was stormy. “Look, I didn’t stomp on her foot. I tripped, okay? Not my fault she jumped in front of me.” Then she turned to Dupain-Cheng. “And you taking her side and setting this meeting up after everything she did is nuts. Do you hate me or something?”

“No!” Dupain-Cheng insisted. “I don’t hate anyone. I’m just trying to keep everyone safe.”

Alix grimaced, but the Minister said, “Without a recording or other proof, I’m afraid the Ministry is not convinced that Alix is a danger. However, we do have a compromise. We checked and found that Alix’s gun range allows for on-site storage.”

“Sure,” Alix said. “Some people like to shoot but don’t want guns in their homes, so they leave them there. But I don’t use it. I keep my guns in our safe when I’m not using them.”

The Minster said, “Well, we propose that Alix agree to leave her guns at the gun range from now on and to check them back in whenever she’s done shooting for the day. That way she can keep up her training without causing worry for Chloe here.”

Sabine suddenly looked thoughtful, and Chloe felt herself trembling with fear and rage. “Not good enough!” she yelled. “The Louvre has antique guns that they use in demos, and I know Alix can get at them! She used one of them to shoot me when she was last akumatized!”

“We don’t go after people for what they do while akumatized,” drawled the Minister.

Dupain-Cheng raised her hand. “Perhaps Alix could just surrender her license for D-class guns, which include the Louvre’s antiques?” she asked. “Those aren’t used in competitions anyway.”

“The license doesn’t matter!” Chloe shouted. “She wasn’t licensed to shoot me as Olympian and she still did! She could do it again!”

The Minister turned to the computer. “Alim, do you think you could make sure your daughter doesn’t touch the antique weapons for a little bit? Until we sort out whether or not this complaint of Chloe’s is true?”

“Yes,” said Alim. “Alix, I’ll put you on archival research only for now. Jalil can help prepare guns for our demos instead.”

Alix scowled. “Jalil doesn’t know anything about them! The last time he held a gun he almost blew his foot off!”

“Please, Alix,” Alim almost begged. “Just accept it.”

Chloe shot a look at Sabine, and to her horror, the mayor was nodding. “If Alix’s modern guns are locked up at the range and her antique guns are locked away in the displays, that should protect Chloe until we can investigate her complaint,” she said. “And it will also protect Alix’s sporting eligibility if the complaint is indeed unfounded.” She gave Chloe a look that made it clear she wasn’t entirely convinced of Chloe’s honesty either. “I think that’s fair.”

And that, to Chloe’s horror, was that.

#

By the time Chloe dragged herself back to Bustier’s classroom, she felt like she was going to explode. All she could think about was how unfair everything was, but none of her complaints mattered. She was going to be destroyed by people who didn’t care about her, didn’t give her an ounce of empathy, treated her...

Like she’d treated others, she thought.

But, she wailed in her mind, she was trying to be better! She’d worked so hard to change and improve! Why didn’t that count for anything?

Someone moved in the corner of Chloe’s eye and then Chloe saw Alya running up to her. “Hey,” the journalist said. “I found something. The reason why the cameras are all off? Turns out someone at the Italian embassy sent Damocles an email saying the ambassador might be coming by today to discuss pedagogy, and the cameras need to be off all day to avoid broadcasting a sensitive meeting.”

That didn’t make much sense, although Chloe knew from long experience that Damocles would do basically anything if someone ‘official’ demanded it. “So what?” she muttered. “Lila probably sent that email, but I'm sure she'll make up some lie and get out of it. Everyone thinks I did everything.”

Alya shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Okay, everyone but you.”

“And soon others.” Alya gave Chloe a warm smile. “I’ve got a couple leads already and I’m going to figure this out. Don’t lose hope, alright?” And then she dashed out the door.

Chloe watched her go but felt no hope. Alya might like her, but she was alone in that view. The others would never believe she’d changed.

“...that’s so lovely!” Chloe scowled to hear Lila’s voice. “Did you all have a modeling shoot or something?”

Chloe turned to see Lila looking over Dupain-Cheng’s shoulder at her phone. Dupain-Cheng frowned at her, but said, “Yes. I’m having a fashion show in a couple of weeks. Yesterday I invited some people over to try out the clothes.”

“Aren’t you in the wrong room, Lila,” Chloe snapped.

Lila shrugged. “Mendeleiev’s late, so I wanted to pop back over here and catch up with my friends!” Not even Dupain-Cheng looked happy about that, but Lila just said, “Ooh, that jacket on Ivan looks so fancy!”

“I really liked it,” Ivan admitted to her. “It’s great having one that actually fits, and that stuff she used--buckled tweed, or whatever it was--feels amazing. Marinette’s the best designer ever!”

Chloe reluctantly drifted over to look at Dupain-Cheng’s phone screen. On it was a picture of most of the class standing in beautiful outfits. No two were alike and the clothes didn't match the current lines of any major designer brands, but they also were of such quality that they easily could have been. Alya’s vicuna wool jacket was now augmented with spectacular gloves and a scarf, for instance, and Rose and Juleka were wearing gorgeous silky robes. “Nice,” she made herself admit.

“Those robes you made me and Juleka were so comfy!” Rose enthused. “And mine was just the right shade of pink! Was it real silk?”

Dupain-Cheng smiled. “It was rayon, actually. Half the price of silk but just as comfy. As long as you don’t go outside and get rained on, it’s just as good.”

Adrikens grinned. “Marinette, your clothes are just as good as the ones my dad makes. You really are incredible.”

A blush ran over Dupain-Cheng’s cheeks. “Oh, it’s not that good.”

“No, it is. I’ve seen my dad’s stuff and I know how much work it takes to make stuff like this.” Adrikens’s smile grew as Dupain-Cheng’s blush deepened. “If you show these outfits at the fashion show, you’re going to blow away anything else Paris’s fashion designers have planned for the year.”

“Designers?” Lila cut in. “You know, my great aunt was a famous fashion designer! She taught me...”

Chloe rolled her eyes and turned away from the stupid story. But as she sat back down, she felt a rustle in her pocket, and then Barkk whispered, “Someone put something in your bag.”

“What?” Chloe whispered back. “How?”

“I went back to your locker to watch it,” Barkk said. “When I checked inside I saw your bag had been moved to the other shelf. And when I looked in your bag I saw papers you didn’t put there. One was labeled ‘Test Answer Sheet.’”

Chloe’s face went white. That had to be Lila, who would no doubt Lila claim to somehow ‘discover’ the test if Chloe didn't agree to help her with Adrikens in short order. And she’d probably have some kind of fake evidence to prove Chloe was responsible for stealing the test too. It wasn’t fair! She hadn’t even done any of this stuff!

“Chloe,” Barkk whispered. “Stay calm. Let Alya help you. Don’t do anything rash.”

“Alya can’t help me,” Chloe hissed back. “Everyone hates me. Nobody cares about anything I’ve done to be better to them! Didn’t you notice that when you ‘watched’ them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Barkk went on. “You’re not supposed to be a good person just for the purpose of people noticing. If you’ve really changed, don’t lash out. Work with Alya but—”

Chloe was already ignoring the stupid kwami. She knew Alya couldn’t win and that she was doomed. She’d be expelled, arrested, and totally destroyed while Lila got away with everything... unless Chloe stopped her.

Chloe’s eyes narrowed as she sat in her seat. Surely Lila deserved to be knocked down a peg or two, she thought. Surely the Italian deserved to be exposed as a liar and fraud all over again, and to be crushed for what she was trying to do to Chloe! Why should she, Chloe, be the only one who suffered for her sins? Why should Lila get away with everything?

“Chloe.” Barkk’s voice held a note of warning. “Don’t.”

“Leave it, Barkk,” Chloe hissed. Why should she just let Lila ruin her? Sure, if she was too mean Alya might be disappointed, but Chloe’s life was on the line. The girl would surely understand if Chloe had to hurt Lila a little to get her to stop attacking her.

And when Chloe looked back at Lila and once again saw her preening like a peacock by an uncomfortable-looking Adrikens, she knew exactly how to hurt the other girl.

 Barkk whispered something else but Chloe ignored the kwami as she rose. “You’re lying, Rossi,” she called.

Lila, who had just been claiming to have inspired something Donatella Versace had done, frowned and turned to Chloe. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m not!”

“You did make up all that stuff earlier this year,” Dupain-Cheng noted.

“Those were innocent mistakes! And I wasn’t lying about this.” Lila gave Chloe a sad look. “Why would you say these things, Chloe? Do you just hate me because I found my necklace in your locker? I tried to be fair to you—"

Chloe snapped, “I know what it looks like when someone is just acting and when someone is actually telling the truth.” She stepped back a little so she could address the room at large. “Do you know who my daddy is, Lila?”

“...a baker?” Lila asked.

“He’s not just a baker. He also directed a film, Solitude, and the lead actress Emilie is a longtime family friend. I was over at her house a lot when I was a kid.”

Adrikens hesitated, like he hadn’t expected Chloe to save that, but Lila just said, “So?”

“So, when she talked with me, she told me all about her acting career. She was really good at emoting, which is why my daddy cast her, and she taught me how she did roles where had to pretend to be excited or depressed or whatever. I learned all kinds of tricks and tells actors use to show emotions they don’t feel.” Chloe crossed her arms. “I can see you using those tricks, Lila. That’s how I know you’re lying.”

Aside from Adrikens, who was giving Chloe a surprised look like he couldn’t imagine Chloe actually remembering her time with his mom, everyone was looking thoughtful or skeptical as opposed to just blindly believing one side or the other. But that was fine with Chloe, who hid her smile as she set Lila up for the fall. “If Emilie ever comes back and returns to film, she’ll be sure to win all the awards. She was just that good, Lila. One of the best actresses out there. Compared to her, you’re nothing.”

Lila’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment, she said, “Oh! You mean Emilie of the French movie Solitude? I met her, you know.”

Adrikens shot Lila an astonished look. Chloe pretended not to notice and just asked. “Oh? Let me guess, at some fancy party your mom hosted?”

“Well, ambassadors are supposed to make their nations popular by hosting receptions with local leaders and celebrities, including actresses.” Lila shot a grin at Adrikens as if to emphasize how she’d met so many famous people at those parties, and then she went on. “When we were in Texas, my mother had a bunch of Hollywood actors over.”

“What was Emilie like?” Mylene asked.

Chloe tensed. Lila had two approaches to that question besides just admitting she’d never met Emilie, which the chronic liar would of course never do. One option was to say that she also knew Emilie and learned even more about acting than Chloe had, but Chloe was also sure Lila wouldn’t do that. The best Lila could hope for in that situation would be a tie with them each accusing each other of getting Emilie’s teachings wrong. It wouldn’t attack Chloe’s character and make everyone hate her, which Lila had been trying to do all day. That meant Lila would probably take the other route.

And completely destroy her own reputation in the process. Because while Lila might be clever, Chloe was willing to bet the Italian hadn't watched the obscure art movie Solitude. She wouldn't know that its lead actress Emilie had the last name of 'Agreste.' And she wouldn't consider that, if she lied about Emilie, she might be slandering a family member of the boy she was trying to date.

Which was just fine with Chloe.

“Well, that’s the thing.” Lila adopted a pained expression and Chloe fought to hide her grin. “Emilie was kind of snobby, you know? Like she thought she was better than everyone.”

Adrikens looked like he’d been slapped. Chloe, however, pushed on. “Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! I knew her. My family is friends with hers! She was always nice to me when I was at her house!”

“Well, that just further shows she sucks,” Alix called out from the back of the room.

Lila shook her head. “I talked to some of the other actors later and they told me not to take it personally. They said Emilie was always a prima donna, showing up late and demanding people stay to accommodate her, or insisting that she get a bigger role and more lines.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Chloe repeated. Behind them, Adrikens was starting to rise, but Dupain-Cheng reached out to grab his shoulder and he managed to stay seated. “Emilie was nothing like that. I wouldn’t have been friends with her otherwise.”

“Well...” Kim drawled. “I mean, if she really were a bully it’d make sense you liked her. Birds of a feather, right?”

“She was not a bully,” Chloe insisted. “She didn’t even have any of the usual Hollywood vices. She didn’t drink or smoke or anything.”

Lila shook her head. “Chloe, she drank like a fish. There were days she actually showed up to shoots completely drunk! And when she introduced some child actors to those crazy parties... oh, it’s awful how she ruined their lives. Chloe, I can’t believe you’d be friends with such a person.” She moved closer to Chloe so that nobody else could see her face and then gave Chloe a tiny, smug smile. “It really makes me question your character.”

A few other students murmured as if they too were questioning Chloe’s character, but Chloe didn’t care. She just needed Lila to say at least one more horrible thing, so that when Adrikens finally objected, Lila would realize she’d blown up her own credibility and also lost any chance of seducing him. That would hopefully hurt Lila enough for her to understand she couldn’t push Chloe around. And, since everyone else seemed to think she was a rabid dog, it might not be a bad thing for them to learn what happened when she went for someone’s throat.

“She would never!” Chloe protested. “I mean, she was happily married. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere that other people might have hit on her.”

Lila’s eyes flashed. “Chloe... didn’t you hear? Emilie abandoned her family. And she was constantly cheating on her husband; she was basically a whore.”

“What.” Adriken’s voice was cold and dead. “Did you say.”

But Lila was still focusing on Chloe. “That’s why she left Hollywood, Chloe. She forced a director to sleep with her so that she’d take a part in his movie—it wouldn’t get made otherwise—and when it came out, other directors and actresses said she’d done the same to them. I even heard her tell someone that she was glad she’d abandoned her family because they weren’t famous and were only holding her back.” She turned to the others. “If those are the kind of friends you have, then you're a worse bully than I'd thought, and you also—”

Adrikens punched Lila in her nose.

Lila let out a howl of pain and tumbled backwards. Then everyone was screaming and yelling, Dupain-Cheng and Ivan rushed to grab Adrikens before he vaulted the desk to get at Lila, and Sabrina took off at a run into the hall. Meanwhile, Chloe went to the fallen Lila and leaned down as if to help her up. “I can’t believe you’d say something like that,” she chirped merrily. “About Emilie Agreste.”

The Italian’s eyes widened and she looked at Chloe in horror. Chloe, however, just smirked at her. There was no way anybody would believe her efforts to frame Chloe now. “Well?” she hissed. “What now, Rossi?”

Pounding footsteps sounded and then Mendeleiev tore into the classroom with Sabrina right behind her. “What happened?”

Everyone looked at Adrikens, who took a breath. “Lila called my mother a whore,” he said through gritted teeth. “So I punched her.”

Mendeleiev gaped. Then the class exploded into conversation again, and nobody noticed when Chloe got up and slipped away.

#

“Hah!” Chloe laughed to herself as she watched Damocles’s office from a position one floor up. Mendeleiev had taken Adrikens and Lila into it several minutes ago along with Sabrina (whom Chloe guessed was there as a witness). Just recently, Gabriel Agreste had arrived as well, and a few seconds later Lila ran out of the office with tears streaming down her face.

“So you didn’t change after all.”

Chloe shot an annoyed look at Barkk, who was glaring at her, before she returned to watching Lila run into the bathroom. “Hey, she was attacking me. I just gave her a taste of her own medicine for what she did to me!’

“What did Adrien do to you?”

“Uh.” Chloe hesitated. Down below, she saw Gabriel also leaving the office with a furious expression. He stormed into an empty classroom so he too could presumably cool down and slammed the door behind him. “Look, I didn’t know he’d go that far. I just thought he’d get up and call her out, you know? But it’s not a big deal. He won’t even get in trouble; Gabriel Agreste will make sure of that. And besides...”

She thought back to Adrikens telling his friend how he was kind of hoping she got expelled, how he was just done with her and wanted to be rid of her, and she felt a dark current of satisfaction. She had showed him right along with Lila.

“And if he gets akumatized?” Barkk’s voice was tight and tense. “What then?”

“He won’t. He’s got great control of his emotions.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “He was never even akumatized in the first world. Why would this be any different?”

Barkk’s eyes bored into Chloe’s own.

“What?” she demanded. “I would have noticed if he’d been akumatized!” But Barkk still said nothing and Chloe felt a prickle of fear. “He wasn’t akumatized in the other world, right?”

Someone cried out from down below, and Chloe barely looked back at the office before a massive explosion shook the school. Chloe screamed as she was flung backward into a wall. Then another explosion blasted out, a cracking sound came from above her, and something heavy slammed into Chloe’s head.

The last thing she saw before passing out was Barkk’s baleful eyes.

Chapter Text

“None of this would have happened if you’d just stopped. But on you marched. And for what?”

--Richard Pearsey and Walt Williams (“Spec Ops: The Line”)

When Chloe woke up, it took her a while to understand what she was seeing.

Much of the school was simply gone. Damocles’s office, the classroom Gabriel had entered, and the floor above it had been obliterated. Down below there were piles of twisted metal and other rubble.

And blood. There was a lot of blood.

Beyond the now-shattered wall of the school was the city of Paris, and Chloe could see multiple buildings with massive chunks taken out of their sides. Two skyscrapers had collapsed, dozens of cars were abandoned in the road, and sirens mixed with omnipresent screams. Chloe clutched the back of her head, felt sticky blood on her fingers where something had hit her, and forced herself to stand. “What happened?”

“You got Adrien akumatized,” came Barkk’s voice from her side.

Chloe froze as memories of the last couple hours came back to her. “This isn’t my fault,” she hissed. “I didn’t do this! Hawkmoth did!”

Barkk said nothing.

“And besides, the heroes will fix it anyway!” Chloe took a step forward and almost fell over as the world shook around her. Something slipped under her feet and she looked down to see that the whole hallway was wobbling like it too might collapse. She gulped and stumbled as fast as she could to a stairwell that looked sturdier. “I got killed twice by akumas and I’m fine. The heroes will make this right.”

“The heroes aren’t coming.” Barkk’s voice was low. “Red Queen and Cheshire aren’t available.”

Chloe froze at that as she understood. “Wait. Sabrina didn’t get out of the office before it exploded? But she’s Red Queen!” She realized how pathetic her words sounded but couldn’t find anything stronger to say. “She has to survive. She has to save us!”

“She won’t.”

Another explosion sounded from somewhere in the city and more alarms joined the cacophony outside. “Okay,” Chloe managed. “Maybe Sabrina’s gone, and Cheshire...” Was the akuma now, Chloe reminded herself. He wouldn’t be helping either. “Well, the other heroes are still out there. They’ll save us! Isn’t there, I don’t know, a Miraculous holder who can go back in time and prevent this from happening or something?”

“There is. And that holder was active in your world. But that same holder is... not suitable... in this one and so has not been given a Miraculous.”

Chloe could tell Barkk thought that was her fault too, though she had no idea how. “Fine, don’t use that holder. Use another!” Chloe demanded. “Come on!”

Barkk’s head shook sadly. “None of the others have been activated either. And for all we know, the Guardian too is dead and can’t release any kwamis to other holders now.”

“Well...” Chloe gestured uselessly at the ruined office. “Then just float over there and phase through the rubble so you can grab Red Queen’s Miraculous! We’ll give it to someone in the class!” Barkk glowered and Chloe snapped, “Yes, I know, you don’t trust me with it! We’ll give it to Alya or Dupain-Cheng or something. Just do it!”

“I can’t touch it.” Barkk sighed. “I already told you. Kwamis cannot touch any Miraculous besides their own if a human is wielding it. The human would have to renounce it first. And Red Queen never had the chance.”

 “Sabrina’s dead! She’s not wielding it! Or if someone dies of a heart attack with a Miraculous do you idiots just never use it again?”

Barkk answered, “If a holder dies, the Guardian must first recover that holder's Miraculous and revoke the decedent’s position as holder. Only then can we kwamis touch it. Of course, another human could simply pick up a Miraculous and use it, if he or she could get to them.” The dog flew up to hover right in front of Chloe’s face. “However, digging through the rubble will take hours. And the akuma will not leave you in peace to do so.”

“Well, what should we do, then?” Chloe’s voice was almost a scream. “If you’re so smart, you tell me!”

“I’m just a dog. It’s humans who have to make choices.” Barkk’s tone was like granite. “Such as the ones you made.”

Chloe roared, “This isn’t my fault! And if you’re not going to help me, fine! I’ll find my class and we’ll do this without you!”

But despite her words, Chloe couldn’t avoid the increasing pangs of guilt as she worked her way through the trembling hallway and made it to her classroom. Her head turned every window and she couldn’t help staring at the increasing devastation beyond the school walls. “It wasn’t my fault,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t do this.” And then, remembering her joining with Hawkmoth in the previous world, she hissed, “Not anymore. I changed. I changed...”

(It was easier to die than to change.)

When she managed to return to her classroom she saw everyone pressed up against the windows. A few kids had phones in their hands but it was clear nobody had been able to get through to anyone. Alya, with a poultice on her head, was working on her phone and she let out a pained sigh. “Internet’s down, data’s down, and the emergency alerts just cut off,” she said. “The akuma must be tearing up the infrastructure.”

“This is insane,” Kim groused. “Where are the heroes?”

Chloe grimaced. “They aren’t coming,” she said in a low tone. “I saw Red Queen and Cheshire enter the office just before the explosion. They’re dead.”

Rose and Mylene screamed, and Max collapsed back in his seat. Even Alya was starting to sweat. Then the door slammed open and Chloe whirled to see Lila, who apparently had been making her own way back to the classroom. “Are you sure?” she demanded. “Absolutely sure?”

“Yeah, Lila,” Chloe growled. “We’re on our own.”

“We’re going to die,” Kim whispered. “That akuma’s going to kill us all and then Hawkmoth’ll make his Wish and break the world. Man, I can’t die now! I have so much to do!”

“I never met my true love!” Rose wailed.

Alya said, “Guys, calm down. Other heroes exist. With this much damage, I’m sure Majestia or someone’s on their way.”

“But they won’t know how to use the MIraculouses to bring back whoever this akuma kills,” Chloe said. “Even if they stop the akuma, the city’s still dead.”

“No.”

Everyone turned to see Dupain-Cheng. There was sweat on her brow and Chloe thought she heard a tremor in her voice, but the mayor’s daughter was still standing straighter than everyone else. “The city will not fall. Maman and the rest of the government will save it. And as for us...” She took a breath. “We need to evacuate until we can come up with a plan to stop the akuma. Follow me.”

“Follow you where?” Chloe could not help but demand.

“First, out of this building.” The school shook and Dupain-Cheng gestured for everyone to cluster around her. “We need to get to an open are where we don’t need to worry about buildings collapsing on us. Then we’ll figure it out how to get in touch with our families and escape the city.” She turned to the window. “There should be a couple long ropes in the art room; the theatre club was painting them for a play. Let’s get those and use them to climb down.”

And so Chloe found herself walking behind the others as everyone hurried after Dupain-Cheng. It was ridiculous, she thought bitterly; Dupain-Cheng wasn’t even supposed to be a hero in this world. She had no powers and no clue. Why was she like this?

And why hadn’t Chloe herself been like this when she had been the mayor’s daughter?

Chloe tried to push the thought away, but combined with her other thoughts about causing the akuma, she couldn’t quite dismiss all her guilt before they got to the art room. Then Dupain-Cheng picked up and expertly tied the ropes. “Kim, Alix, go down first. You’re the strongest so you can help catch anyone else who falls.”

“Ivan, if you squish me, I’m coming back as a ghost to haunt you,” Alix cracked. It was a pathetic joke, but half the class managed chuckles anyway, and even Ivan gave a nervous giggle. “Alright. I’m ready.”

They descended the rope without incident and began working their way through the rubble and clogged roads. Chloe shot a look at the bakery but she could see that its front was caved in; even if her father was still in there, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get in and reach him. She wished she could tell her father how sorry she was, and when she tried to remind herself that this wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t believe it. Nor could she stop the words ‘I’m sorry’ from pounding through her head.

Alya was almost spinning around as she tried to film everything at once. Chloe saw her meandering close to a downed power line and surged forward to grab her away from it. Alya blinked and then shot her a faint grin, but Chloe couldn’t make herself respond. Not after what had happened.

As they walked on, the screams and sirens began to fade. The explosions stayed however and the roaring rumbles of collapsing buildings filled the air every few minutes. Dupain-Cheng had her head down and Chloe could see tears forming in her eyes. “It’s not my fault,” Chloe whispered to herself. Not my...”

Something flickered in the corner of her vision and Chloe turned in time to see Lila fall behind and then slip into a building. Chloe frowned, then darted after her and peaked into the lobby. Lila was kneeling behind a receptionist desk and taking out what looked like a fancy phone from her pocket. Chloe didn’t know what exactly it was, but she’d heard that there existed satellite phones which could maintain connection even in an apocalypse, and she was willing to guess Lila had one too.

Lila dialed a number and said something in Italian. Barkk growled. “She’s looking for another escape route. Without you.”

“You speak Italian?” Chloe whispered.

“I’m a kwami. I speak every language.”

Chloe rolled her eyes as she tried to figure out how to use this, especially since she couldn’t exactly tell everyone she had a kwami in her pocket, but then she remembered Dupain-Cheng having some lunatic aunt from Italy that had been a completely ridiculous akuma, so she took out her own phone and hit ‘record’ as Lila rattled off more Italian. Then, when Lila finally gave a confident smile and hung up, Chloe yelled, “Hey! Everyone back here! Lila’s got something for us!”

Lila whirled around and looked at Chloe with a panicky expression. Then the rest of the class appeared at the door. “Lila was talking about escaping without us!” Chloe accused.

“Do you have any proof of that?” Lila snapped.

Chloe smiled, then hit the playback button on her phone. Lila’s Italian came out of it. “Well?”

“Oh, that was just me calling my mom to see if she could help us!” Lila insisted. “I—”

“My grandmother’s Italian,” Dupain-Cheng said. Her voice was a low growl and Lila stepped back. “I speak Italian. You were telling your mom that you ‘know where the helicopter is’ and you’re ‘ready to ditch your stupid classmates.’”

“Uh.” Lila stepped back, and Chloe noted how everyone was now glaring at her. “Well, uh... I mean, yeah, the embassy has evacuation plans, but the helicopter can't take people who aren't citizens of Italy! That’s not my fault!”

Dupain-Cheng, sounding angrier than Chloe could remember her, snapped, "It wasn't the embassy. You told your mom you knew her 'business partners' and would recognize their logos on the helicopter. This isn't a government helicopter, it's personal, and even if it was from the embassy, I don't see why that would matter... and we're not just going to take your word that it would."

Alya hissed, “I can’t believe you’d leave us to die. You’re a monster, Lila.”

“We’ll go to the helicopter,” Dupain-Cheng said. “And if there’s not enough room for us all, we’ll draw lots.” She glared at Lila. “Lead the way.”

“Well, uh, we can’t just draw lots, right?” Lila held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Like, Ivan weighs as much as three people! If we took him then the rest of us couldn't go. We should find a smarter—”

Dupain-Cheng walked forward, picked up Lila by her collar, and slammed her against a wall. “We,” she growled. “Will. Draw. Lots. We will not condemn someone to die just for being inconvenient. Get it?”

Lila gave a frantic nod.

“Good.” Dupain-Cheng dropped Lila. Chloe noted the way the class was staring at Dupain-Cheng was admiration, just the way they had never looked at her, and she felt even worse than she already had. “Take us there.”

Lila led the class down a series of streets. Chloe had to save Alya twice more from stumbling into open holes in the road or off sharp drops while she filmed, but otherwise, nothing of note happened until they reached a small park. There was indeed a very large helicopter there with a logo on its side reading 'TSURUGI CORP.' Nobody was at the controls and Chloe thought she remembered reading that the Tsurugis were known for autonomous vehicles, like driverless cars and planes. "There!" she cried. 

"Look!" Mylene pointed at three figures leaning against the helicopter. One was an older Japanese woman with a wooden staff, the second looked like she might be the older woman's daughter, and the third was a muscular guy who looked like he was probably a security guard and who had a big pistol in a side holster. "Please get up!" Dupain-Cheng called as she darted to them. "We have to evacuate! We--"

She nudged the woman on the shoulder, but the woman just slumped over, and as Chloe got closer she saw pools of blood beneath all three of them.

A few of the students screamed. Dupain-Cheng checked all three bodies, then shook her head. "Woah," said Kim. "Someone killed them!"

“The akuma?” Rose whispered.

“This akuma doesn’t leave bodies,” Chloe muttered. A familiar smell was annoying her, and she sniffed to get a better impression of it. Through the sweat, the terror, and the grime of the streets she detected the sharp floral notes of orris butter, and she froze because she knew what that meant. “We need to hide!”

“Hey, kid!”

Everyone swiveled to see Fournier walking toward them from around the helicopter. She was using one arm to carry a crate topped with golden and jeweled figurines; in her other, she held a gun. “This is my helicopter!” the thief taunted. “You all back away!”

“What?” Dupain-Cheng demanded as the class stumbled backward. “We need to evacuate too!”

“You won’t fit with all my stuff!”

“Just ditch your loot!” Alya snapped. “You're Felice Fournier, right? I've read your Wikipedia article. You're already rich!”

Fournier snorted.  Then her gaze landed on Chloe and a scowl raced over the thief’s features. “And you! I want those earrings back!”

The comment was so bizarre given the circumstances that Chloe wasn’t sure she’d heard the thief correctly. “An akuma’s wiping out the city and you want my earrings?" she demanded. "They aren’t even worth anything compared to most Gabriel brand stuff! He only gave them to me because he wouldn’t miss them! You're being ridiculous!”

“So? I want them.” Fournier’s grin grew feral. “I want to wear them with my sapphire dress tonight. And it’s not as if a maid like you could appreciate them. So hand them over.”

Distantly, Chloe realized that Fournier still had no idea who she was and thought she was just some staffer of Gabriel’s. Before she could think of how to use that, though, Fournier pointed her gun directly at her. “Don’t get in my way, maid!”

Alya murmured, “She sounds like a brat. How’d she ever become a great thief?”

“Just because someone’s a jerk doesn’t mean they can’t also be a good criminal,” Dupain-Cheng whispered back.

“A jerk, sure, but she sounds like she’s eight years old!”

Fournier waved the gun at Chloe, who scowled and flung the earrings at the thief. “Mendeleiev was right about you,” she spat as Fournier caught the earrings in the crate she was holding. “You’re awful!”

“Mendeleiev?” Fournier snarled. “She’s an ungrateful jerk. I did something really nice for her, the nicest thing I ever did, and she couldn’t even appreciate it. She’s insane, utterly insane.”

Chloe opened her mouth to insult Fournier again, but Lila was first. “You can fit one more person in there, right?” she begged as she rushed toward Fournier. “Well, take me! My Mom’s the Italian ambassador. We’re very rich! We can pay you!”

The class could only stare, Chloe included, but Fournier just laughed. “Anything that I want from your folks, I’ll just take, brat.” Then Fournier pointed the gun at Lila. “So get away from me.”

Lila slumped back, and the rest of the class scootched away from her as if she was a leper. Then Alya demanded, “You’d really let us die rather than leaving behind a box of loot and helping us escape? How selfish and greedy can you be?”

“We’re all selfish and greedy. I’m just better at getting what I want than you.” Fournier stepped around them and loaded the crate into the helicopter. “See you never.”

 “No.”

Dupain-Cheng rose despite Fournier jerking the gun in her direction, and when she spoke, her voice was steady. “No, you don’t do this. You do not leave innocent people to die. I won’t let you.”

“You don’t decide what I do! Nobody controls me!”

“The Miraculous heroes will stop the akuma,” Dupain-Cheng said calmly as Fournier aimed the gun at her. “It might take a day, or a week, or even a year, but they’ll do it and everything the akuma’s done will be undone. That means everyone who dies here will come back to life and know what you did.” She took a breath. “Unless.”

“Yeah?”

Dupain-Cheng glanced at the others before continuing. “I’ll make you a deal. I’m the mayor’s daughter, so we can film a video with me ‘giving’ you permission to take this helicopter. You’ll get away free and clear and nobody will be able to prove you stole it from its rightful owners.” She gulped. “But I’ll only do it if you take as many of us on the helicopter as possible. Given how heavy that crate of gold had to be, I’m sure almost all of us will fit if we leave it behind. And if someone has to stay behind anyway, it’s me.”

“What? No!” Alya shouted. Several other classmates joined in as Alya continued. “What about you?”

Dupain-Cheng shook her head. “I represent the city and its government. I’m responsible. I have to get you guys out. If there’s room I can go too, but...” She trailed off. “I can’t sacrifice you for me.”

“We’re not leaving you!” Rose shouted.

Then Fournier surged forward, grabbed Dupain-Cheng by her hair, and yanked her backward. “Better idea,” she said with a malicious grin. “You make that video, now, or I shoot your stupid classmates. How about that?” She yanked on Dupain-Cheng’s hair again and the girl screamed, her voice slashing into the dusty air of the dying city. Most of the other noises were gone by now and the sound seemed to echo around them. “Well?”

“You’re hurting me!” Dupain-Cheng cried.

Alya began to approach Fournier but the thief pointed the gun at her. “Stop,” she growled. “And you, mayor girl. Film yourself ‘giving’ me the helicopter. Or else I’ll start...”

Someone landed near them, they all turned, and Chloe gasped as she realized who it was.

Adrikens’s akuma form was almost a parody of his Cheshire outfit. He was still wearing the catsuit, but it looked old and worn now, as if he’d been stuck in the jungle with it for a few years. His hair stuck out and had gotten much bushier too, and his tail whipped and cracked like it had actual weight behind it. There were bloodstains on his outfit and Chloe couldn’t tell if they were part of the body Hawkmoth had given him or if Cheshire had picked them up in the city. “You don’t hurt her,” he said in a broken voice.

“Who’re you supposed to be?” Fournier pointed the gun at him.

“I’m Mad Catter. You don’t hurt her.” The akuma approached Fournier. “Let her go.”

Fournier looked at the akuma for a long moment. Then she grinned and fired. The bullet struck Mad Catter in the face.

And Mad Catter charged forward, uninjured in the slightest, and his voice burst forth like an alarm. “CATACLYSM!” he cried as he ducked around Dupain-Cheng, whom Fournier tried to use as a human shield, and slammed his glowing fist into the thief’s face. “DIE!”

Fournier howled in pain and dropped Dupain-Cheng away as the energy hit her, but to Chloe’s amazement, the thief didn’t just vaporize. Instead her body surged and flailed around like she was having a seizure. One of her arms struck the helicopter and smashed a huge hole in its side and she kept screaming as her body continued to thrash. “What’s going on?” Juleka demanded. “How is that possible!”

“Maybe it’s an akuma thing?” Ivan gasped.

“Since when do akumas make people act like that?”

Chloe was wondering that too, but the question fell out of her mind when Fournier flailed in Mad Catter’s direction and Mad Catter kicked her. The blow was hard enough to blast Fournier all the way across the park and into a plate glass window in one of the neighboring buildings. Mad Catter looked in her direction while Alya, Alix, and Kim darted forward to grab the fallen Dupain-Cheng, Chloe chased after Alya and covered her from behind, and then the entire class retreated to a nearby cluster of trees. “What now?” Alya demanded.

Dupain-Cheng took an unsteady breath as she watched Mad Catter ripping the helicopter and its loot to shreds “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know how we’ll get out of here.”

“Great,” Lila said. “So we’re doomed. We—”

“Shut up.” Dupain-Cheng turned away from Lila and put her hands to her head. “Alright. We know the heroes aren’t coming.”

Chloe said, “Yeah. They were buried in the part of the school that collapsed. If we try to dig them up, Mad Catter’ll show before we get there.”

“So we need to stop Mad Catter first.” Dupain-Cheng looked at the others and Chloe had to marvel at how calm she was acting. “I know some of you have been researching akumas. Are there any way to cure them other than what Red Queen does?”

Nobody spoke, but Chloe frowned as a memory came back to her. “Alix, you were researching that,” she said. “I saw your notebooks when Jalil let me into the Louvre. Did you find anything?”

Alix frowned. “Nothing useful.”

“You wrote that some sultan guy wrote about how to beat akumas!”

“Sultan guy?” Alix shook her head. “That was about fighting them off before they infest you. And what were you doing in my notes, Chloe?”

“Alix!” Dupain-Cheng’s voice was sharp. “Not now. Please, whatever you know, tell us.”

The jock looked at the others, her gaze lingering on Chloe for a moment before speaking. “The sultan said that some people try to beat akumas by just bottling up their emotions really well, but he didn’t think that would work. He said it would just mean you have more negative emotions stored when you snap, so you would make a stronger akuma.”

Chloe thought that explained Mad Catter pretty well, but didn’t say anything.

“So instead,” Alix went on, “he said that because akumas are so heavily based on emotion, it might be possible to seize control of them by having stronger emotions than whoever has the Butterfly Miraculous. Like, if Hawkmoth wants you to get Red Queen’s Miraculous but you really want to kill some guy you hate, then if you focus on your hatred so hard you can drown out Hawkmoth’s commands, you might be able to override his control of the akuma.”

Alya gasped. “Which Adrien might have done! Think about it: the heroes aren’t doing anything. Hawkmoth should be forcing Adrien to go find them, but he’s just letting Adrien destroy the city. Maybe Adrien already broke free!”

“Or maybe Hawkmoth already died,” Chloe muttered. “What if Mad Catter blew him up or knocked a building on him or something?”

“Either way, then maybe we can talk Adrien into releasing the akuma!” Dupain-Cheng managed a little smile. “Okay. I’m going to talk him down.”

“We’ll go with you!” Alya said at once.

Dupain-Cheng shook her head. “We don’t want to scare him. If I go alone, he’ll be more likely to listen.”

“It won’t help,” Alix protested. “If you break an akuma without cleansing or destroying it, then the next time whoever it infested gets mad, he or she’ll become the akuma again and this time there’ll be more of them.”

“So we need to destroy the butterfly, or catch it, once it breaks free.” Dupain-Cheng thought again. “That security guy had a pistol in his holster. Alix, could you use it to shoot the butterfly at this range?”

Chloe tensed at the mention of arming Alix, but the other girl seemed to have forgotten that she existed for the moment. “Yeah,” Alix said at last. “I can shoot anything at any range.” And she flashed a tiny grin. “That butterfly won’t even be a challenge.”

 Juleka murmured, “Mad Catter’s right there. What if he doesn’t let us take the pilot’s gun back to Alix?”

Kim said, “I can sprint over and get it if someone distracts him, and then I’ll toss Alix the gun. Even if he Cataclysms me, once we get the Miraculous we can bring everything back.” He gave an easy grin. “Just make sure to tell Ondine how brave I am.”

The rest of the class began chiming in how they could help, such as by distracting Mad Catter, by standing guard to keep civilians away, and by running out to drag anyone who got hurt to safety. But Chloe noted that none of them had volunteered until Dupain-Cheng had kicked things off. She was the one who led them, the one who made them brave by example, the one who came up with the plans to save them all. It was like she was still Ladybug.

And Chloe, who couldn’t think of any way to contribute, was still as useless as she’d been in the previous world.

“I’ll film,” Alya was saying. “If we can get proof akumas can be talked down by ordinary people, then others might do it too and that’ll really mess up Hawkmoth. And Chloe can protect me while I’m focusing on that.”

Chloe had no idea what she’d be able to do if Mad Catter attacked them, but Dupain-Cheng just smiled and said, “Great. Let’s do this, and thank you.” She met their gaze for one moment more before squaring her shoulders and leaving the safety of the trees.

It seemed like ages but was only a minute or so before Dupain-Cheng reached Mad Catter. He raised a hand at her, and she flinched, but then she caught herself and began to talk. And after a few minutes, he began to lower his hand. “I don’t believe this,” Alya hissed. “She might do it! She’s amazing!”

She was, Chloe thought. Dupain-Cheng was amazing. And Chloe was just worthless trash who was probably going to die here. Her thoughts returned to nightmare Plagg saying it was easier to die than to change, and to Barkk accusing her of not changing, and to what she'd done to cause this horrible disaster. And though she stayed where she was, eyes locked on Alya in case the journalist was threatened, her mind was a million miles away.

Time passed, though Chloe couldn’t tell how much. She eventually saw Kim slipping out, dodging around everyone, and grabbing the gun from the deceased guard before he hurled it about two-thirds of the way to the group and then ducked behind the mangled helicopter when Mad Catter started to glance in his direction. Rose ran out to get the gun and brought it back to Alix, who carefully checked it over. Elsewhere, Mylene, Ivan, Nathaniel, and Max were guarding the four sides of the park and keeping the few civilians who stumbled by away.

Then it happened. Mad Catter stared at Dupain-Cheng, who had opened her arms to embrace him, and he gave a loud sob before falling into them. The two embraced and Mad Catter nuzzled against her like an actual cat. Dupain-Cheng said something and Mad Catter inclined his head. Then he pulled his ring off his finger, looked at it, and pressed a tiny Cataclysm into it.

The ring shattered. A black butterfly flew free—and a single shot from Alix’s appropriated pistol, at a range of halfway across the park, tore it into pieces. Dupain-Cheng gently scooped the little pieces into her purse as Mad Catter reverted to normal.

It took a couple hours for the group to get back, round up civilian helpers, and dig up Red Queen’s Miraculous from where it lay. Chloe again lost track of time long before then. But eventually she heard the crowd cheer, saw Alya grin, and turned just in time to see a wave of ladybugs fix the world.

#

The rule was that school was not cancelled for akuma attacks. Nobody thought that rule made sense after Mad Catter, but until Damocles actually announced he was overriding it, school was technically in session. And so, while some students did leave early, others stumbled back to class and called their parents to get them or watched the news. Even Mendeleiev, Chloe noted distantly, didn’t seem to be controlling her students.

Chloe tiredly brushed the earrings which had reappeared in her ears after the Miraculous Cure and glanced at Aurore and Mireille watching some press conference on their phones. The people Fournier had shot, which the news identified as Tomoe and Kagami Tsurugi as well as some bodyguard guy whose name Chloe missed, had been brought back to life and were announcing they were returning to Japan for a while. Chloe thought a vacation sounded great and desperately wished she could go somewhere nice and then sleep for a million years. However, she knew she had one thing left to do before school let out, and so she just kept sitting there until Lila slunk back into school. "Hey," she snapped at the Italian. "Let's talk."

Lila grimaced but let Chloe lead her into the bathroom. “I can recover,” she hissed to Chloe, though her voice was shaken and worn. “I’ll get Adrien back. I’ll get them all back! You can’t stop me!”

Chloe gave her a long look. “Yes, I can.”

“You’re just an idiot bully!”

“I’m Adrien’s friend,” Chloe said, using his given name for the first time in ages. “We grew up together. I know everything about him.”

Lila sneered. “So?”

“So, I know what makes him angry. I know what makes him sad. I can akumatize him anytime I want.” Part of her thought that she was just digging herself deeper, but the exhaustion of the brutal day pushed her forward as if on autopilot. “And I can akumatize him to hate you specifically. Did you enjoy today, Lila? I can make that happen every day.”

The Italian’s smug expression faded. “You’re bluffing.”

“Why? I’m the deranged bully everyone thinks I am, right? Just a rabid dog?” Chloe moved right up to Lila. “I can turn him into a monster whenever I want and have him chase you down. I can have him killing you two or three times a day. Ever been killed by an akuma, Lila? I have. It’s not fun.”

Lila was trying to back away but Chloe had pinned her against the sink. “You’re insane,” she whispered. “You’re worse than before.”

“Oh, you read my file too?” Chloe hissed. “Thought that just because I plead guilty to a few taunts and lies before you got here, that I couldn’t do anything else? News flash, Lila, you have no idea what I was like before, and that file doesn’t have any of my really bad stuff.” That was certainly true; it didn’t say that she’d ended a world, for instance. “But I can show you what bad is--if you want.”

“Wait, no—”

“I can hurt you in ways you can never imagine. I’ll make ruining your life a personal project.” Chloe flashed a feral grin. “Every single day you’ll know, coming into school, that I’m gonna make Adrien do something monstrous to you. I’ll make Paris your own personal Hell!”

Lila was sobbing now and Chloe let her cry for a minute. Then she moved her head very close to Lila and said, “Unless.”

“Unless... unless what?” Lila whispered. “What do you want from me?”

And Chloe told her.

#

“I have to admit,” Lila told the class, “Chloe didn’t take my necklace or throw me down the stairs. I faked all that. And the reason why is...”

She gave Chloe a desperate glance, but Chloe just looked back blankly, offering no help. Then Lila gulped and said, “I’m a pathological liar. I can’t help myself; sometimes I just tell horrible lies about people for no reason.”

“Yeah, that tracks,” called Kim. “Seeing as how you tried selling us out just so you could escape Paris.”

“I don’t want to be in a school with you anymore,” whispered Mylene.

Chloe glanced at Adrien and Sabrina. Both had seemed shaken upon returning to school, and Sabrina in particular had seemed very troubled, but Dupain-Cheng had sat to Adrien’s side and just in front of Sabrina, and she kept murmuring little things to them with a slight smile. And Chloe had noticed that both students already seemed somewhat calmer than when class had resumed.

“I’m going to tell my mom to pull me out of school and have me homeschooled at the embassy,” Lila went on. “I’ll probably never see you again. Uh... that’s all.”

Chloe glared.

“Except, uh, just to be sure you understand: Chloe’s innocent.” Lila flashed a sickly grin, then literally ran out the door. And Chloe tried to tell herself that at least she’d done one thing right and stopped a bad person from hurting more people, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. She kept seeing the chaos of Mad Catter’s attack, the crashed cars, the dead people, everything she’d done. Even when she closed her eyes, she saw the horrors in her imagination.

Later, when Damocles finally announced school was cancelled for the day, Chloe staggered out and went on a random walk around town to try to escape her own thoughts. Mantras repeated in her head: that she was okay, that she hadn’t known what would happen, that she might have backslid a little but was still doing good, that everyone could have one bad day, and so on. But she couldn’t make herself believe it.

“Please,” she murmured to nobody.  “I just need to know that I can do this, that I can be someone Alya likes, that others like. I need a sign or something.” She glanced down at her pocket, but Barkk said nothing. “Just a word, a...”

A few blocks away, in a spot just barely visible from her position, someone familiar moved.

Chloe frowned and squinted, then grabbed her phone and used the zoom to see that Dupain-Cheng was darting into an alley. Chloe frowned and then raced after her. She had no idea what the girl was doing, but something drove her to keep going, so when she got to Dupain-Cheng's alley she peaked inside.

To see Red Queen and Cheshire handing Dupain-Cheng a box.

And when the designer opened the box, a familiar comb was inside.

Chloe’s mouth dropped. No, she thought. No, no, no, they couldn’t give her Miraculous away. It was hers, even if she didn’t have it back yet. They had to give her a chance to regain it, to earn it again, to—

Dupain-Cheng put the comb in her hair and Pollen appeared. “Pollen!” Dupain-Cheng cried. “Buzz on!” And the magic washing over her drowned out Chloe’s cry.

“What should we call you, milady?” Cheshire asked.

“Duchess, I think.” Dupain-Cheng grinned. “Got to keep the Wonderland theme going, right? But, honestly, I’m not sure I should have this. There have to be so many more worthy people out there.”

Red Queen said, “You protected your classmates from multiple monsters. You saved a city when we couldn’t. And when you had my Miraculous in your hand, you cleansed the akuma, and then immediately renounced it so Tikki could return it to me. You’ve shown that you’re heroic and trustworthy, Marinette. We want you fighting by our side.”

Chloe felt tears filling her eyes as Dupain-Cheng jumped away with her Miraculous. And then she was back in her room, with no recollection of returning there, and she felt something crumbling inside her again. “Fine,” she whispered. “Fine.”

Nobody answered.

“I did everything I could,” she went on, her voice rising. “I did my best. I tried to be nice to everyone. To help everyone. To be like Dupain-Cheng. But apparently it wasn’t good enough!”

“Chloe,” Barkk began.

“I tried!” Chloe cried. “I really tried! Nobody helped or supported me, they all hated me, but I tried! And now they all still hate me, and your friends just gave my Miraculous away!”

Barkk said, “Chloe, your choices are your own. You can’t do bad things and blame others for not giving you a chance.”

“Every single one of you decided from the outset that I was hopelessly evil and couldn’t change! Every time I tried to do something, you were the first to say it didn’t count, wasn’t good enough, that I was still evil at heart! And I tried to prove you wrong, but...” Chloe flung up her hands. “Guess you were right! Guess I’m just bad!”

Chloe was starting to sob and she angrily wiped her tears away. “Guess I’m just a rabid dog after all!” she screamed at Barkk. “That’s what you wanted, right? For me to admit it? For me to accept that I can’t change, that I’ll always be the monster you think I am? Fine! I admit that nothing I do will ever be good enough to get my Miraculous back. I’ll never deserve a friend. I’ll never get anything because I’m just that evil!”

“You’ve made up your mind,” Barkk said quietly. “About the fashion show.”

Chloe glared at the kwami. “Yeah. Are you going to warn the others? Tell the kwamis, or Sabrina, or even Dupain-Cheng?”

Barkk was silent for a moment before admitting, “No, Chloe. I won’t. That’s not my job. I’m just supposed to watch you, and to see you get what you deserve.”

Chloe opened her mouth to ask what that all meant, then paused. Barkk knew she’d identified Red Queen, but she’d never admitted to knowing who Cheshire was. She’d only figured him out after Adrien had made a couple of odd statements and she’d worked out what they meant; if Barkk still thought she was a stupid bully, then the kwami wouldn’t know Chloe knew who he was. So Barkk probably thought Chloe’s plan was just to grab Sabrina’s Miraculous and then fight Cheshire for his, at which point Cheshire would likely use his experience—and his new ally Dupain-Cheng—to thrash her. That was probably what Barkk had meant by giving her ‘what she deserved.’

But Chloe did know. That meant she could take Cheshire’s Miracuous at the same time as Red Queen’s, and then nobody could stop her. Not Barkk; the kwami had made it clear that she couldn’t be touched by any kwami once she was a holder. And not Red Queen or Cheshire; they’d be powerless.

Meaning she would win.

An evil smile filled her face. “Good,” she said. “Because if you do, I’ll wreck you too. Now leave me alone. I have a Wish to work out.”

And this time, she thought as she sat at her desk, she wouldn’t leave anything to chance. She would make her Wish perfect. Ironclad. With no false humility or pretense that she was trying to do anything but build a world that would give her a wonderful life. And with so much precision that not even kwamis could mess it up.

This time she would finally get what she deserved.

Chapter Text

“You can fly to the other side of the world; you know you’ll only find /

That I’ve reserved the seat beside you. We can talk about old times!”

--Marillion (“The Uninvited Guest”)

It was incredible, Chloe thought, to move through the world as if floating above it, like all the concerns of the little people around her were just so much fluff and dross. To greet her classmates with big smiles and pretend to take interest in them all while knowing they truly did not matter. That nothing mattered except for her Wish, and thus her upcoming coronation as queen of the world.

Alya was busily typing away on her laptop when Chloe got to their classroom, but she stopped once Chloe arrived. “Did you see my latest posts?” Alya asked. “I’ve got one up on Mad Catter, one on that new heroine Duchess who debuted fighting Mime the other day, and one on Felice Fournier.”

“Fournier?” Chloe asked, as if the thief was important. “Why?”

“The way she took that Cataclysm. She’s obviously got some kind of magic of her own, which would also explain how she got so good at stealing stuff. I mean, she apparently started out as just some rich heiress with no real skills and then became one of the most infamous jewel thieves in the world. If I can figure out how she did it, that would be a huge scoop!”

Chloe smiled, and nodded, and made appropriate contributions to the conversation while she fantasized about what her new world would be like. Should she be a queen, or an empress, or maybe an actual goddess? There were so many choices!

And then it was time for the final confirmation. “Hey, Marinette!” Alya called after Dupain-Cheng entered into the room. “Ready for the show? It’s all set?”

“Yeah!” Dupain-Cheng called over. “All my clothes are ready. I’m ready. Everything’s ready. This is going to be amazing!”

Everyone cheered and Chloe smiled to herself as she tuned out the nonsense around her. Soon this horrible world would be history, and she could barely wait.

#

Chloe stepped out of her father’s car that evening and smiled at the Agreste’s manor. Snow had been falling for several hours and everything looked fresh and new. It was fitting, she thought, given her forthcoming ascension.

“Dear, wait a moment,” Andre called. Chloe turned to see him clamber out of the car and then give her a hug. “I’m so happy for you!”

“For being Gabriel’s maid?” Chloe drawled. She had asked Gabriel to help and had once again been given a minor staffing role. But given what she needed to do, that was absolutely fine with her.

“For all your new friends.” Andre squeezed Chloe a little tighter. “I’ve seen you with that new girl, Alya, and I know you’ve been over at your classmates’ houses helping them with all their projects. I’m so glad that you finally made some friends. And now you’re even helping Marinette with her fashion show!” He beamed. “I bet you never imagined how close you would get to your classmates!”

Chloe’s smile flickered for a moment, but then she caught herself. She would not be dissuaded at this late date into staying in this world, futilely begging for forgiveness and respect from people who would never give it to her, even if they deigned to let her help them with little things. She just said, “Of course, daddy,” kissed him on the cheek, and then turned her back on her father as well as the world behind him.

The inside of the Agreste manor was all lit up and a marble catwalk had been built through the center of the lobby. Dupain-Cheng was laughing and chatting with Adrien, a few other classmates mingled with wealthy guests, Ambassador Rossi and some guy whose arm she held—the famous movie director Thomas Astruc, if Chloe wasn’t mistaken—were expounding on the wonders of Milan’s fashion scene, and Gabriel Agreste watched it all from the staircase. Chloe’s mother Audrey came by and happily told a few guests that Chloe had actually impressed her for once. “At this rate she might develop into someone worthy of the Bourgeois name,” she said.

Chloe kept her smile on her face. Nothing could phase her, not her mother’s usual contempt, the love being heaped on Dupain-Cheng, or the way Alix (in a sharp looking athletic outfit with an ‘MDC’ logo etched on one side) kept shooting glares at her. This was her night, and soon, it would be her reality.

The blonde let herself take in the party atmosphere for a few more minutes before going to the rest of the maids who were lined up along a wall. Nathalie carefully checked their IDS—evidently Gabriel was still smarting from Fournier’s robbery—and took them upstairs. “You’ll take the models’ street clothes into the storage room,” Nathalie told them. “Then you will come back here for further instructions.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the maids said in unison. Chloe did too, though she could barely stop her grinning. Just a few minutes more, she reminded herself. Just a few minutes more!

The models went upstairs and were sent into individual rooms which served as dressing rooms. Chloe loitered against the one Sabrina had gone into and eavesdropped. “We’ll be fine, Tikki,” she heard the redhead say. “I can go without you for a few minutes. And Marinette has done so much for me--she even saved the world when I couldn't and then returned the Earrings afterward instead of trying to keep them--and I can’t let her down. So I need to put on the earrings she wants me to wear for the show, but I promise, I’ll get yours back as soon as I can.”

Sabrina and the others exited a few minutes later, but Chloe had already ducked into the mass of maids by then and nobody saw her. She busied herself going into the rooms and gathering up boxes of clothes before following the other maids to the storage area. Her gaze flicked up and she verified there were no cameras there; presumably Gabriel had figured Dupain-Cheng’s classmates wouldn’t have anything nice enough to be worth stealing. Then the other maids left, but Chloe fell behind, ducked down below a storage chest, and was still there when the head maid shut the door.

Then she was rooting through the boxes until she came up with the earrings Sabrina had been wearing and Adrikens’s ring. They looked normal, of course. They were in camouflage mode. But when she put them on they shimmered and she found herself looking at the actual Miraculouses... and two kwamis again.

“Shut up!” Chloe ordered them. “Stay still. Don’t move. Don’t use your powers. Just float there and do nothing else.”

Tikki glowered at her while Plagg just smirked, but Chloe was past feeling afraid of them. “You thought you’d won, didn’t you?” she demanded. “You thought you’d trapped me in some Hell where everyone hated me, where I was broke and powerless, where I could get sent to jail if I did anything wrong at all, and where my worst enemy Dupain-Cheng got to run things! But I beat you. I beat all of you!”

The kwamis just looked at her and Chloe’s grin grew. “I wrote up a new Wish,” she growled, pulling it up on her phone. It was long and she scrolled through it for several seconds before looking back at the kwamis. “I worked out every detail. Even you can’t mess this up!”

Plagg’s head tilted as if to say ‘I doubt that,’ and Chloe bit out a harsh chuckle. “First of all, my Wish’ll say that I start with all the Miraculouses this time! So if you do mess me up I can just make another Wish! Second, it’ll say that all kwamis have to obey me at all times so you can’t try to ruin my life like you did in this timeline! Then I’ll also have billions of dollars, lots of power, and everyone will be happy with my rule! Nobody will think I ever did anything wrong and I’ll never have been in trouble with the law!”

The kwamis still did nothing and Chloe’s smile grew downright malevolent. “And guess what else? Everyone who hurt me, all the jerks you used against me, they’ll pay for it. Adrien will be stuck in some loveless marriage and he’ll spend every day wishing he had me instead. Sabrina will be living in poverty after I fire her for screwing something up and she’ll know she could have had it all had she just served me a little better. Alix’ll be a quadriplegic; she’ll never play sports again. Mendeleiev’ll be in jail and this time she won’t get out. Felice Fournier won’t even exist.  And Dupain-Cheng? Oh, I’ve got plans for Dupain-Cheng! Her every waking moment will be pure misery! She’ll be my servant, she’ll have no money, the whole world will hate her, and I’ll make sure she knows that it’s all her own fault for hurting me!”

Chloe realized she was panting, and she blushed before clearing her throat. The fashion show wouldn’t last forever and her Wish would take long enough that she’d need to get going if she wanted to finish it before anyone might catch her. “Okay!” she said. “Tikki! Plagg! Uni—”

The door creaked. Chloe flinched and snapped to the kwamis, “Hide in that box over there and stay silent!” They obeyed—and then Alya Cesaire walked in.

The two girls stared at each other for a long moment before Alya asked, “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” Chloe snapped. Alya was still wearing the getup Dupain-Cheng had made for her, including her vicuna wolf jacket that looked better than anything Chloe owned, but the show shouldn’t be even close to over yet. “You’re supposed to be on the catwalk!”

“You’re supposed to be with the other maids!” Alya shot back.

“I can’t believe you followed me!” Chloe insisted. “We’re supposed to be friends!”

Alya grimaced. “I noticed how upset you were that nobody seemed to care the last time you helped Gabriel Agreste do one of these shows. You really wanted people to notice you were being helpful and nobody did. So I figured you’d be sure to record yourself this time or something, to prove you were doing useful things while everyone else was focusing on the show. But when I saw you downstairs you weren’t filming anything, and you weren’t having your dad or anyone else film you, so I got suspicious.”

“And so you tracked me down?”

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t get into trouble. That you weren’t planning on doing something to Marinette because of your feud! And now...” Her eyes returned to Chloe. “Those aren’t the orange earrings Gabriel gave you after that exhibition you helped out at. They’re..." Alya paled. "Chloe, those are Red Queen’s earrings.”

Chloe stepped back. “Uh.”

“What,” Alya repeated. “Are. You. Doing?”

Silence stretched between the two girls. And then Chloe took a breath and said, “I figured out who Red Queen and Cheshire are. I got their Miraculouses. And now I’m making a Wish.”

“A Wish that will destroy the world?”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it too!” Chloe glared at Alya. “I’m sure you’ve thought about what you’d Wish for if you could!”

“Yeah, sure, I thought about it. I’m sure everyone in Paris fantasized about Wishing themselves some great new life once Red Queen and Cheshire said what the Miraculouses could do.” Alya shook her head. “But most of us wouldn’t actually blow up the world to do it, Chloe. It’s just a fantasy, not something to do for real.”

Chloe scowled. “This world isn’t even supposed to exist! It’s not a real world, it doesn’t count!”

Alya frowned. “Explain.”

“Fine, if you shut the door.” Alya did and Chloe went on. “There was another world before this one. Everyone was cruel to me there too, just awful, especially Dupain-Cheng. So I made a Wish and built this one, but the kwamis screwed everything up. They made it so people hate me even more. Why should I stand for that? I don’t deserve that, Alya!”

“The people in this world don’t deserve to get destroyed either!”

Chloe scowled. “I can’t help that. I’m building the world I deserve, one where people finally appreciate me and respect me. One where I’m loved like I should be. One where I have friends!”

“What about me?” Alya demanded.

“You’re great, but I should have more than one friend! Dupain-Cheng has a million of them and—”

Alya shook her head. “I meant, what about me, this me? When you make your Wish I won’t exist anymore. You’re going to kill me!”

Chloe blinked, then smiled as she got it. “Oh! Oh, no, I thought of that. I’m going to bring you with me! I’ll take you to the new world too and give you whatever you want. Like, want to be a princess? Or a queen? Or to have whatever those journalism awards are, Pullitzers or whatever? I’ll give you a million of them!” And Chloe’s smile grew as she waited for Alya to thank her, and praise her, and look at her just like everyone always looked at Dupain-Cheng whenever she did something nice for them.

But Alya just said, “So I’ll be there, but my family will be dead?”

“Uh.” Chloe made herself shrug. “I’ll bring them too then. Your parents, your big sister, and the little kids.”

“And what about my other friends?” Alya pressed. “I can’t leave them all behind!’

“...fine.” Chloe’s voice was grouchier now. “I’ll take your friends.”

“And my parents and sisters all have friends, and we’ve also got extended family, and I really like the teachers at College Francoise Dupont, and there’s this Martinique bakery a few blocks from Le Grand Paris that I love—”

Chloe snapped, “Alya! I can’t save everyone!”

“You can if you don’t destroy the world!”

The two stared at each other for another long moment. Then Chloe said, “You don’t understand. I can’t live like this. The class will never forgive me!”

“They might. And even if they don’t, you can try to make other friends! In other classes, around town, when you move...” Alya flung up her hands. “You have choices, Chloe! You don’t get to blow up the world just because a couple dozen specific people don’t want to be around you!”

“Oh, come on! Would you want to live in a world where tons of people hated you and would always hate you, no matter what you did?”

“No,” answered Alya. “But I also wouldn’t end it! And besides, a moment ago you said the last world was like that too. Why do you even think this new one would be any different?”

“Like I said, the kwamis broke my Wish.”

Alya tilted her head. “What exactly did you Wish for?”

“I...” Chloe opened her mouth, and then realized for the first time how incredibly petty it would sound. “I Wished for Dupain-Cheng’s life,” she admitted. “Even though I had money and my dad was the mayor, and she was just a baker girl who couldn’t afford anything at all, everyone liked her. They wanted to be her friend. They wanted to hang out with her. Half of them were crushing on her. And she got a Miraculous! So I Wished to switch places, so I’d get all those friends and that Miraculous instead.”

“Then it sounds like the kwamis didn’t screw up anything. Except for the Miraculous, you got what you asked for, didn’t you?”

“But everyone still hates me!” Chloe insisted. “In the last world they all loved Dupain-Cheng for being poor and plucky and an underdog and so on. Now I’m those things, but here they like rich people instead!”

Alya sighed. “Nobody cares whether or not Marinette has money. They just like that she looks out for them.”

“I tried to look out for people! But nobody here gave me a chance. I did all this just to make friends and--”

“You’re lying.”

Chloe froze and then glowered at Alya. “Oh yeah? You have no idea who I was before. How could you know if I’m lying about why I did what I did?”

“Because if you wanted to make friends, you could have just Wished to have friends.” Alya took a few steps closer to Chloe. “You could have Wished for everyone to love you. Why didn’t you?”

Chloe paused as she realized she didn’t know. Then Alya went on. “Instead, you Wished to be in a situation where you thought the class would choose to be your friend. Where they would decide that you were worthy of being a friend. So it’s not that you wanted friends, it’s that you wanted people to want to be your friend. Or maybe you wanted to deserve to have friends... and you want the class specifically to say so because they know you best, so if they liked you then you could believe you really deserved to be liked.”

“Right. And they hate me so much that they don’t think I deserve that.” Chloe shrugged. “There you go.”

“But Wishing for another world won’t help you!” Alya insisted. “It won’t matter if you have more or less money, power, or magic. You’re still the same person and people still won’t like you if you treat them like you treated everyone before we met! You’ll never make a real friend like that!”

Chloe felt her head starting to pound. “You don’t know what the Miraculouses can do,” she growled. “I can Wish for the class and everyone else to love me exactly as I am. Then everyone will look at me the way you all look at Dupain-Cheng!” The name spat out of Chloe’s mouth. “She’s my worst enemy and you all love her! I want that for myself!”

“You won’t have it,” Alya answered, her voice low. “Using magic to brainwash the world into loving you won’t give you what you want. And you’ll know it isn’t what you want. You’ll sit on your throne, or your office, or your pile of money, and all your mindless sycophants will scream they love you, and it will mean nothing.”

Chloe backed up a step, but Alya advanced on her. “You can end the world as many times as you want. You can do this forever. But you will never, ever make a real friend if that’s how you treat people. The only way to make people actually like you is to change yourself, to become kinder, more generous, all those traits Marinette has that people love her for. But you decided change was too hard and you want a shortcut. Well, if you take this shortcut? If you kill everyone over and over again to try to force them to love you?” She jabbed a finger at Chloe. “You will never be happy!”

And then Chloe wasn’t seeing Alya. She was seeing, in her mind’s eye, herself on a throne with officials and flunkies prostrating themselves before her. Every one of them rattled off how much they loved her and how flawless she was. And she was sitting there, bored out of her mind and knowing none of it mattered.

Then she was imagining other worlds, countless ones, worlds where she ran things or didn’t, where she had vast magical power or none whatsoever, worlds where she mattered or didn’t matter or only mattered sometimes. She could see countless permutations of worlds. And in all of them was her, doing the same thing, living the same way, and rejected by anyone who had a real choice in the matter.

Alya had said that she’d never be happy unless she changed. But she couldn’t change. She’d tried, she’d given it her all, but it hadn’t worked. And wasn’t that what the nightmare monster had said?

It was easier to die than to change.

 And Chloe had always taken the easy way.

She couldn’t fix herself. Even a Wish wouldn’t give her a world where people liked her. She would be hated and despised everywhere, by anyone who wasn’t brainwashed, from the day she was born to the day she died. Through all worlds, all universes, and all her Hellish eternity. Forever.

A strangled noise tore itself from her throat and she looked at Alya as if seeing her for the first time. “Give up the Miraculouses,” Alya said slowly. “Chloe, we will fix this. If you really want friends I can help you. I can work with you. But I need you to put down the Miraculouses first.”

Chloe said nothing. It was pointless; she couldn’t change into someone who could fix her friendships or find even a hint of redemption. The kwamis had said so themselves. And Alya had too, half a minute ago.

Nothing could save her.

Chloe let out a sob and ripped the earrings out of her ears, ignoring the pricks of pain in the process. She flung them at Alya along with the ring. And then she raced past the girl out into the mansion's hallways, and from there, out into the cold and snowy night.

#

Alya was still for a long moment. She still had so many questions, including what had happened to that weird dog she’d seen, the one that she’d glimpsed in front of this door when she’d started looking for Chloe and then hadn’t seen again when she’d taken a second look. That dog had seemed abnormal, somehow, and even vaguely menacing; the word prehistoric had sounded in her mind as she’d looked at its shaggy fur and muscular body, and so had the word cornerhound from that book of horror stories which had given her terrible nightmares when she was eight.

But the Miraculouses were just lying there on the ground, and when she knelt to pick them up, all other questions fled her mind. And she tensed, because despite all her words and the knowledge that she would be a colossal hypocrite if she used them, she couldn’t deny that she was tempted too. She’d wanted to be a great journalist. Now that was hers for the taking; She could put the jewelry on and demand to know who Hawkmoth was, or for that matter, who all the criminals were. She could solve every case and clear every mystery from DB Cooper to Amelia Earhart. She could finally build a reputation in journalism that would meet or excel her mother’s reputation in the kitchen.

It was tempting. It was so tempting it reminded her of other cautionary tales she’d read; Tolkein’s Ring of Power, for instance, or the Magician’s Spellbook in the Chronicles of Narnia, which compelled readers to cast even the most monstrous of spells. But then she shut her eyes and reminded herself of how Chloe—who for all her faults had impressed her so much with her toughness, her resilience, her refusal to stay down no matter how many problems the world flung at her—had just fled the room a broken wreck after being reminded of the time she had used the Miraculouses. And she told herself that, if she made the Wish and ended the world for her own selfish gain, not only would she likely end up in shambles just like Chloe, but she’d deserve it.

“Kwamis, right?” she asked at last, her mind flicking back to the Louvre exhibit. “Are you around?”

Two little creatures floated up from a box. “Yes?” asked one that looked like a tiny black cat.

“Can you get these back to whoever’s supposed to have them?”

The kwamis looked at each other. Then the red one smiled. “Of course. We just need you to renounce them. Then we can bring them back to their rightful holders.”

“Fine.” Alya took a breath and steeled herself. “I renounce these Miraculouses.” And she set them on the ground.

The black cat zipped over to the ring and said, “Smart choice” before floating away. Then the other one moved for the earrings.

“Do you like Chloe?” the red creature asked.

The question was so odd that it took Alya a moment to understand it. “I mean, as a friend, yeah. I can’t really blame her for being tempted; I was too. And she didn’t actually do it this time. So—”

Suddenly the creature was in her face. “Then you need to find her and help her. Now.”

Alya blinked. “She’s in danger?”

“Terrible danger. And you’re the only one who can help her.” The creature’s voice became stressed. “Before it’s too late.”

For a moment more, Alya stared at the little creature, and then she swiveled and raced out the door.

Far ahead of her, on a snowy block in downtown Paris, Chloe was still running. In her head she heard the scorn of the people and the monsters who had known her best. You will never make a real friend. It’s easier to die than to change, and you always take the easy way. You will never be happy.

No matter how fast she ran, she could not outrun their judgement.

END OF PART 2

Chapter Text

“I really should have thought about the view from halfway down.

I wish I could have known about the view from halfway down.”

--Raphael Bob-Waksberg (“Bojack Horseman”)

Chloe Bourgeois ran blindly through the city she had once ruled.

She did not see the expensive boutiques she had once patronized, with their bright signs casting cheer into the snowy night and the first Christmas carols of the year playing from their speakers. She did not notice the luxury spas, the movie theaters, or the chic restaurants where she’d drank and eaten and taken selfies to mock all those who could not afford them. She did not even notice the people she pushed past or the cars that slammed on their brakes when she darted across yet another intersection. Her eyes remained low, fixated on the ground beneath her, and even then they were so blurred with tears she could barely see that.

There was nowhere to run, of course. Be it a luxury hotel or a hideout on the edge of town or another world, no matter where she went, she would never be happy. She had destroyed one world and almost ended a second; she had alienated everyone around her, and she had just lost her very last friend through her own selfishness and depravity. Who would love her now?

A car honked and someone snarled as Chloe pushed past him, but both sounds faded from her consciousness almost before she had heard them. Nothing ran through her mind but the certainty that nothing mattered, that she could neither build a better world for herself nor obtain the forgiveness and redemption she needed to make this one livable. Her life would be a series of nightmares, of her either hurting those around her and being justly reviled, or trying to be better and failing as she had when she’d gotten Adrien akumatized after a few hours of annoyances from Lila, Mendeleiev, and Alix. She had nothing ahead of her but decades and decades of pain.

And there was nothing she could do about it. She was too broken, and too wicked, to change her life.

The sound of rushing water slipped into her ears as so many others had, but this one stuck, and she made herself look up for just a moment to figure out where she was. She’d left the Agreste manor long ago and was now exiting a quiet neighborhood with few lights and fewer pedestrians. Ahead of her was a tiny park, and beyond it the Seine, now swollen with days of snow.

She looked at the distant river for a long moment and then she made herself keep going.

The park was cold and silent, its snow undisturbed by footsteps, and the pine trees laden with snowy branches blocked the nearby streets from sights. Chloe worked her way through a few sets of trees until she got to the river itself. There was only a little waist-high brick wall between the park and the Seine, and she didn’t even brush the snow off it before climbing up and swinging her legs over. “They’ll be happy,” she whispered to herself as she looked into the darkness of the rushing river. “That I’m not around to hurt them anymore. They’ll probably throw a parade.”

Then, louder, she said, “Well, Barkk, I guess Plagg was right. I’m too bad to change, so I’m going to die.” A bruised, hurt smile came to her lips. “That’ll make you kwamis happy, anyway. You’re the one who wanted me to get what I deserved.”

There was no response from her pocket. Instead, Chloe felt a cold wind blow past her and she finally became aware of the biting chill digging into her from every side. She even had a faint, distant thought of how silly she must have looked running through the streets dressed in nothing but the frilly maid outfit Gabriel Agreste had given her. But the thoughts were dull in her mind, remnants of an era when she’d had people to talk to, people who had been willing to talk to her. They had no relevance now.

Chloe looked down at the river again and gave a quiet nod. All she had to do was push off the platform and the freezing river would do the rest. Then she’d escape this nightmare at last, and ensure that she never hurt Alya, or anyone else, ever again. “One,” she whispered to herself. Someone was yelling somewhere far behind her, and she thought she heard footsteps, but it didn’t matter. “Two.”

It seemed harder than it should have been to start leaning forward, but Chloe made herself do so anyway until she was just barely perched on the brick wall. Then the footsteps behind her grew louder and she said, “Thr—”

Someone grabbed her and flung her backwards off the wall.

Chloe slammed onto the ground, but it was so thickly covered with snow that it didn’t hurt, and for a moment she wondered if she’d gone into the river after all and was just having some insane deathbed hallucination. But then she saw the trees above her as well as the figure leaning over her. “Alya?” she gasped. “What are you—”

“What are you doing?!” Alya demanded, helping Chloe sit up and also hugging her tight. “Why?”

“Why—how did you find me?” Chloe felt like her mind was freezing over. She was supposed to be dead by now. How was she still trapped here?

Alya pulled back just enough to look into the other girl’s eyes. “I followed your dog,” she said. “Or the dog, anyway. The big, weird one. But that doesn’t matter. Chloe, were you going to jump into the river?” And when Chloe said nothing, Alya gripped her tightly. “I won’t let you!”

“You’re the one who told me I would never be happy!” Chloe cried.

“I meant, if you keep trying to make friends by destroying worlds and building new ones!” Alya snapped back. “You can be happy in this world!”

“No, I can’t!” Chloe tried to pull away but Alya wouldn’t let her go. “Everyone hates me! And—and that’s because I deserve to be hated! I’m a terrible person; the adults think so, the class thinks so, even the kwamis think so!”

Alya was silent for a moment before answering, “Well, I don’t think so.”

“I ended a world! I almost ended another!”

“Yeah, and I was tempted too,” Alya admitted. “But neither of us actually ended this one. And as for the other world... I don’t think you’re the same person anymore, Chloe. If you were, then you’d have blown up the world again, but you didn’t. You’ve changed.”

“I hurt everyone in our class! Not just in this world but in the other one too!” And before Alya could speak, Chloe cried out, “I can’t change! I tried, I really tried, but as soon as Lila showed up again I screwed everything up! The world is better off without me!”

Alya shook her head. “My world isn’t. You’re my friend, Chloe. I’d be upset if you weren’t here! And so would your parents, your—”

“That’s because you don’t know me.” Chloe’s voice was almost spitting in rage, and she saw Alya blink in obvious hurt, but she kept going. “I ruined you too! You were awesome in the other world. You had a boyfriend; you were a superhero! What are you now?”

Alya let a tiny smile come to her lips. “I happen to think I’m still pretty awesome, Chloe.”

The blonde hesitated, unable to accept that response, and Alya chuckled. “Do you trust my judgement?”

Chloe nodded.

“Then trust that you’re not going to convince me you’re irredeemable. Or that I—and others—won’t be really upset if you die.” Alya considered for a moment, then stood. “And I don’t think you want to hurt me.”

“I can’t help it,” Chloe whimpered. “I hurt everyone.”

“That isn’t what I said. You don’t want to, do you?” And when Chloe shook her head ‘no,’ Alya added, “Well, you jumping into the Seine will hurt me. So don’t do it.”

Chloe was silent for a moment as she tried to think of a way around that, but when Alya reached down to her, Chloe took the other girl’s hand and let her pull her up. “I’m taking you back to your home,” Alya said quietly. “We’ll get inside and get warm, and then we’ll figure this out.”

“You have a fashion show,” Chloe murmured. “You’re supposed to be on stage and everything.”

“I don’t care.”

Alya led Chloe out of the park and to the street. As they got there, a car pulled up and an old Asian man lowered the driver’s window. “Are you two lost?” he asked.

Chloe glanced down at herself and again realized she was just wearing a little maid’s outfit in a snowstorm, and also that she was colder than she’d ever imagined. Alya was still wearing her vicuna wolf jacket, and her pants seemed thick too, but she had no hat or gloves. “We could use directions to the Place des Vosges,” Alya told the man. “That’s where you live, right, Chloe?”

“Yeah, in a bakery there,” Chloe managed.

The man smiled. “What a coincidence! I’m going that way myself. I’d be happy to give you a ride.”

Chloe opened her mouth to refuse, to protest that she was once again causing problems and making people go out of their way for her, but Alya bundled her into the car before she could say another world.

The car wasn’t warm, exactly, but it was better than the outside and Chloe felt a little feeling start to return to her limbs. Her teeth were also chattering and it took a couple minutes to make then stop. Then Alya asked, “So... what kind of hero was I?”

“What?” It took Chloe a few moments to bring herself back to the conversation. “Uh, the fox. You called yourself Rena Rouge, you helped stop akumas, you cast illusions.” And then, almost as if trying to hurt the other girl, she snapped, “Until I made a deal with Hawkmoth and used akuma powers to make you fight the heroes.”

But the words didn’t seem to affect Alya. “Huh,” she murmured. “I’ll have to check out the Louvre again, see what they know about the fox hero. And who was my boyfriend?”

“Nino.”

“Nino?” Alya frowned. “The music guy? I mean, he’s nice and all, but I don’t think he’s shown any interest in me, or other girls, or really anything besides his music since the year started. Was I into music too in the other world?”

“No.” Chloe looked down. “Nino still did music there, but he also did other stuff. He became Adrien’s best friend right after Adrien finally started attending classes. And then you and he got locked in a panther cage during an akuma fight and you started dating.”

Alya snorted and gave Chloe a slight smile, but then she looked up at the car’s ceiling in thought. “In this world, Adrien’s been attending school for a few years, right? Marinette mentioned she spoke to Gabriel Agreste about that a few years back.”

“Yeah, but in the other world, he only started this year.”

“Ah. Because in this world, Marinette has your old life, which means this time around she had the power to get Adrien into school earlier. So she did, so Nino didn’t need to come out of his shell to welcome Adrien because Adrien had already been welcomed a few years ago, so Nino stayed focused on music. And since he’s putting all his energy into his DJing stuff, he hasn’t noticed me. Or, uh, hopped into a panther cage with me.”

The ghost of a smile touched Chloe’s lips before she said, “See? I ruined your life.”

“Chloe, I don’t consider my life ruined just because I’m not dating Nino. I’m sure the other me was happy with him, but this me’s happy too. And I don’t think Nino’s life is ruined either. As far as I can tell, he‘s happy with his music.”

“That doesn’t mean what I did—”

“No,” Alya cut in. “It’s not okay. But... look. I can’t forgive you on behalf of the other Alya. I’m not her. And where there’s people who really are worse off in this new world—like if Alix wasn’t as, uh, unhinged in that one—yeah, you do need to find some way to help them. But I can say that I like this world enough that I don’t want you to destroy it, and that I don’t think you’re the same person as the one who ended the other world. You have changed, Chloe, whether you admit it or not.”

Chloe turned to look at the window; it was too hard for her to meet the other girl’s gaze. “You’re wrong about me.”

“Well, as long as you don’t do anything crazy, we’ll have lots of time to argue about it.”

Chloe had nothing to say to that.

When they pulled up to the bakery, the old man gave them a cheerful goodnight before letting them out. Chloe’s father was just finishing up and he rushed to Chloe the moment she stepped through the door. “Are you alright?” he gasped. “You look so cold! What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Chloe lied. “The show was fine. Everything’s fine. I just need to lie down.”

Andre bustled Chloe upstairs, wrapped her in as many blankets as he could find, put a mug of steaming hot chocolate in her hands, and continued to fret until Chloe finally sent him back downstairs. Alya, who had gotten a mug of hot chocolate of her own, gave Chloe a meaningful look. “I don’t think he’d be happy if you never came home,” she said softly.

“He was better in the other world too. He was a mayor, he had power, he...” But Alya showed no signs of agreement, and Chloe trailed off. “Oh, nevermind.”

The two finished their chocolate, and then Chloe went into the bathroom to change into her pajamas while Alya waited outside the door. “You can’t stay with me all night,” Chloe protested. “You need to get back.”

Alya shook her head. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I’ll watch her.”

Both girls swiveled to see Barkk floating through the wall. The kwami gave a slight shiver as if cold but then flew over and perched on Chloe’s nose. Alya looked astonished for a moment, but then she just giggled as Barkk reclined on Chloe’s face. “Are you the dog I followed?”

“Yes.” Barkk hesitated for a moment. “In a form that will not drive you mad.”

“So that’s why I got a headache when I tried to get a better look at you earlier...” Alya mused. “Are you one of those kwamis, like the ladybug and black cat I met earlier?”

Barkk said, “Yes. My name is Barkk. I am the kwami of adoration—or loyalty, if you prefer.”

“Well, thanks for leading me to Chloe.” Then Alya paused. “Are you sure you can watch her all night? If you get tired—”

“I am a watchdog.” Barkk gave Alya a level glance. “My job is to watch her. I won’t fail my mission.”

Alya flicked her glance to Chloe, who sighed. “Alya, it’s fine. You win, okay? I’m not going to kill myself tonight. Go back and see if you can still get onstage for the show.” She glanced at the clock and saw that barely more than an hour had passed since she’d fled the Agreste’s manor. “If Marinette put you last or something, you can probably still make it.”

“I don’t care about the show.” But when Barkk nodded at Alya, the other girl seemed to make up her mind. “Alright. If anything comes up, Barkk, come get me.”

“Of course.” The kwami settled back against Chloe’s nose. “I can text you. I have been watching Chloe for weeks and I saw the passwords she uses to unlock her phone.”

Chloe frowned at that, and Alya let out a faint chuckle. Then she turned to the trapdoor to leave, paused, rushed over to give Chloe one last hug, and finally departed.

A few minutes later, when Chloe was in bed, she asked, “How did you lead her to me?”

“I tracked you.”

“How?”

Barkk gave a quiet yip before saying, “Dogs have good noses, Chloe.”

“Then... why? You hate me, don’t you? You said you want me to get what I deserve. I ended a world; what I deserve is—”

“I said I didn’t know what you deserve. If you had gone through with making your Wish, I would know, but you didn't and so I still don’t.” Barkk’s voice was stern but Chloe thought she heard a trace of compassion in it. “When I decide, you’ll know.”

Chloe was silent for a long moment. Then, her voice faint and trembling, she asked, “What do you want?” 

“For you to get what...” Barkk trailed off, as if considering, and then said, “For you to change. To become a better person. To become someone who deserves better than what you have now. And then for you to get what you deserve.”

Chloe didn’t ask whether Barkk meant trying to end the world or throwing herself in the river. “How can I deserve anything good? I ruined everyone. Even if Alya doesn’t see it, she used to be a hero, she—”

“She gave up something she wanted very much tonight in order to save you,” Barkk noted. “Don’t you think that’s heroic?”

The question made Chloe frown. She could see Alya abandoning the fashion show, grabbing her off the wall overlooking the Seine, and pulling her to safety, just as the Rena Rouge Alya would have done. She didn’t need a Miraculous to be a hero.

And then Chloe understood. “She’s still a hero even though she’s not Rena Rouge. And you’re hinting I could be one even though I can’t be Queen Bee.”

“Can’t you be?”

Chloe opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t. That she was too far gone. Too corrupt. Too depraved. But when she thought of how Alya had treated her, she couldn’t get the words out.

And in the end, she just cuddled her kwami closer and sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

“You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know.”

--Sheridan Le Fanu (“Carmilla”)

When Chloe’s alarm went off the next morning, she woke but did not rise, and her father had to hustle her out of bed. She moved where he told her and ate the plate of food he lay in front of her, volunteering no other motion or emotion, no matter how much her father fussed over her or asked why she’d been out in the cold without her winter clothes the previous night. Even when he said that Audrey was heading back to America but had called on her plane and left a message praising her, she had no reaction.

“I must admit I’m surprised, Clarice,” said Audrey’s voice when Andre put the voicemail on speakerphone. “I thought you were going to throw another of your temper tantrums to make us include you as one of the models. But you did your job well and then didn’t make a scene while that extraordinary Marinette girl displayed her wares. In fact, once your job was done, it was like you weren’t there at all. Well done.”

Even a few days ago, praise like that from her mother would have thrilled Chloe for days. Now she just let the message pass her by and then returned to slowly eating the scrambled eggs and French toast her father had cooked for her. When she finished, she accepted the backpack and lunchbox he gave her and then let him lead her to the door. And all the while one question ran through her head: Why am I still alive?

Chloe made it to school without looking at or talking to anybody and headed to homeroom, but before she could get there, she was intercepted. “Chloe!” Marinette called from an upper level. “Hang on. I want to talk to you.”

The blonde stopped so Marinette could reach her. Maybe she’d done something else wrong and would finally get expelled, she thought. Then at least she’d be away from everyone else. “Sorry,” she said as Marinette reached her. “For taking Alya out of your show.”

“Alya?” Marinette frowned. “She was there. I mean, I heard Ms. Sancoeur had go to looking for her, but I had her scheduled to go on last anyway because I’d made my best stuff for her and I like to finish strong. She was there in time.”

Chloe frowned, but before she could insist that she really had screwed up Marinette’s show somehow, the other girl fixed a big smile on her. “The show went perfectly. Gabriel and Audrey loved my clothes, and so did the fashion reporters and the brand representatives who were there. Jagged Stone commissioned me to make him a holiday outfit. Thomas Astruc did too. A group from Milan even offered me a summer internship!” She let out a small squeeing noise before catching herself. “Thank you, Chloe, for putting that together.”

The blonde made a grunt which could have been an acknowledgement, but Marinette didn’t go away. Instead, she took Chloe’s hand and said, “I know your probation review is coming up. Like I said, I can’t interfere with it; that wouldn’t be ethical. But it's obvious you've changed and I’ll definitely be rooting for you... and I’ll also be happy to be your friend.”

If Chloe had been more talkative, she would have told Marinette that the other girl had been right about her the first time. Instead she just stood there as Marinette gave her a hug. Then Mylene called to Marinette from across the room and the designer scampered in that direction. Chloe watched her go before turning back toward her homeroom.

At which point Alya almost tackled into her.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Alya babbled as she almost shoved a box into Chloe’s hands. “I texted Barkk a few times, and he texted back that you were fine, but I’m so glad anyway!” She led Chloe to a couple of chairs. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Chloe muttered. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Alya frowned at her. “Chloe,” she murmured. “You tried to drown yourself.”

“And?”

There was no sound of defiance in her voice, no angry insinuation that Alya had no right to meddle in her affairs. There was nothing at all except for a hint of honest confusion, like Chloe truly did not understand what the problem with that was. Alya gave her a concerned look before hugging her and Chloe blushed. “I’m fine,” she repeated as she shook Alya off. Then she looked at the box. “What’s this?”

“Oh, uh, I asked Mom if I could bring some of the extra poulet boucane she made last night to school. You liked it, right?”

Chloe opened the box to see a tray of the fragrant chicken over rice. She ate a few bites and couldn’t deny that it felt good, even if she was still struggling to see why Alya was giving it to her. Then, vaguely remembering something, she fumbled in her bag for her own lunchbox and opened it to reveals a few mini-croissants. “Here,” she said, offering them to Alya.

The other girl took one before saying, “What are you going to do now?”

“Haven’t decided.” Chloe saw Alya’s fearful expression and grimaced. “Relax. Barkk won’t let me do... that. If I try I’m sure he’ll get you or stop me himself. But... I don't know what to do now."

Alya gave Chloe’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’ll help you figure it out.”

“No. I don’t want you wasting your time on me.” Chloe looked down. “I told you last night that I’ve ruined everyone I’ve touched. My last world, and people in this one like Alix; she wasn’t this crazy before. You’re the only person I haven’t made worse and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” Alya paused. “Except sometimes when chasing akumas. I still need you to watch my back then. And hey, you said you needed a purpose, right? ‘Keeping Alya Cesaire safe from akumas so she can film them and learn clues about Hawkmoth’ is a really good purpose!”

A very tiny laugh made its way out of Chloe’s mouth, and Alya smiled. “I’ll help you come up with a new plan, okay? We’ll figure this out together.”

And after a long moment, Chloe managed a nod.

#

Almost everyone else was in class before Sabrina came in. She looked around and then moved past Marinette, who had pulled Rose aside, and Alix, who was sitting by herself and had turned away from the various conversations in the classroom, to reach Chloe’s desk. “Two things,” Sabrina said in her usual crisp and organized voice. “First, Chloe, your probation review is tomorrow in Damocles’s office at lunch. You’re allowed up to two advocates who can speak on your behalf. And second, Adrien and I need to talk to you.” Her voice grew even firmer. “As soon as possible.”

“It can wait,” Alya shot back before Chloe could say anything. “For a day or two at least.”

“Alya, I’m sorry, but you don’t know what this is about. This is just between me, Adrien, and Chloe. And it’s extremely important.”

“I don’t care what it’s about. Chloe’s been through a lot over the past couple days. She needs to rest.” Alya’s eyes flashed. “Let’s see how she’s feeling tomorrow, okay?”

Chloe grimaced. “Alya, you don’t need to fight about me,” she muttered.

But Alya just kept glaring at Sabrina, who stood her ground. Finally, Alya said, “How about this: I’m going to be with Chloe at lunch and after school today, and tomorrow too, so if it’s really just between you three, you won’t be able to talk about it with me there.” Sabrina opened her mouth but Alya added, “However, once Chloe is feeling better and is ready, then I’ll leave you three alone. Got it?”

Sabrina gave Alya a long look. “You don’t understand—”

A piercing, joyous squeal cut through the room. All three girls covered their ears and turned to see Rose, who was grinning at Marinette. “I won the lottery to see Ali speak?” she managed after a long moment. “Really?”

“Yep!” Marinette beamed. “They did the drawing this morning. The announcements are going out this afternoon, but I thought you’d want to hear it from me first. And there’s more!” She handed Rose a letter. “From Ali. It arrived late last night!”

Rose tore the letter open and her eyes raced over it. “He loves my environmentalist spirit,” she said as she read. “He’s impressed by all the good work I’ve done! He—” Her eyes widened. “He’s coming a day early so I can show him around Paris and introduce him to some local environmental groups he could fund!”

“Woah!” Kim said. “Date time with a bigshot prince!”

“It’s not a date!” Juleka’s fists were clenched and her voice was almost begging. “It’s just a meeting!”

“I mean, it sounds a lot like a date,” Nathaniel said. “Way to go, Rose.”

Rose beamed. “I’m so excited! What if he really likes me? What if he says that, even though I’m just a commoner and he’s a rich prince, he wants me to be his girlfriend? What if he wants to marry me?” She twirled on her feet. “This could be the best day of my life!”

A strangled sob tore from Juleka’s throat and then she dashed out of the room. Everyone stared at her, and then Chloe turned to Sabrina. The other girl met Chloe’s gaze and gave a faint grimace. “We’ll talk later,” she promised before chasing after Juleka.

But Sabrina had barely left the room before the entire school shook. Then Max gasped and pointed to a window where the sun was rapidly dropping; within a few seconds night had fallen and a beautiful full moon was in the air. Then a distant building rose into the sky and was covered with black magic before it became a medieval-esque castle floating at about the height of the Eiffel Tower's top. “Woah,” Nathaniel whispered. “Haven’t seen an akuma like this before.”

“I hope this one isn’t anything like Mad Catter,” Mylene whispered. Ivan hugged her while Adrien, who had gotten up just as Sabrina had charged out of the room, looked uncomfortable. “He was so scary!”

Then the classroom doors banged open and Sabrina stumbled back in followed by Juleka, but now the goth’s face was even paler than usual, she wore black lace and a flowing cape, and she floated a few inches above the ground. “You will all attend my wedding,” she said. Her voice was low and sorrowful, like she knew this was a tragedy but didn’t have the strength or the will to resist it. “In my castle.”

“Wait a minute!” Marinette protested. “This isn’t right! Juleka, let us talk to you!”

“I’m Carmilla now.” The akuma frowned at Marinette. “And all who resist me will—”

Kim jumped up and lunged at Carmilla, but the akuma twisted away, opened her mouth wide, and sank two massive fangs into his neck. The class cried out in unison as Kim paled and then went still before turning to them. “Will become her thrall,” Kim said in a blank and toneless voice. “As I did.”

Rose’s wide eyes were watering. “Please, this is all a misunderstanding. Juleka, stop!”

“I can’t.” Carmilla looked away. “I can’t let you go, Rose. I’m sorry.”

Then she waved an arm, and a massive wave of bats flew in from every window. Chloe had just enough time to cry out before they carried her and the rest of the class away.

#

“You will all ensure the wedding goes perfectly,” Carmilla told the group she had assembled. “When it does, I will release you. If it does not, you will all be my thralls. Forever.”

Chloe said nothing. A few dozen people were huddled up in a massive stone room which seemed almost like the castle’s lobby; the torches on the walls didn’t produce a lot of light, but Chloe saw about forty students as several adults like Mylene’s father and Gabriel Agreste. “This is an outrage!” Gabriel snapped. “I have work to do. I’m far too busy to—”

“Shut up,” Carmilla said.

Then Marinette stepped forward. “Juleka,” she said evenly. “Where is Rose?”

Chloe looked around and noted, distantly, that Rose was indeed absent. Then Carmilla said, “It is bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. My bats have brought her to the master bedroom, where she will wait until the ceremony.”

Marinette opened her mouth to say something else but Carmilla turned away. “You will now prepare the ceremony. Marinette and Mr. Agreste will make the wedding dresses, Nino will play the music, the Hapreles will provide entertainment, and so on. My bats will lead you to your stations. The ceremony will occur before the moon sets.” And with that, she floated away.

Chloe rushed to Alya’s side, her blazing desire to protect the journalist cutting through the haze which had fogged her mind ever since she’d fled the Agreste manor the night before. Then a solid mass of bats led them away from the others and into a large kitchen. It had modern equipment, though the walls were still stone and it wasn’t clear how anything was hooked up. Most of the bats then moved to block the door while one neared Alya and spoke with Carmilla’s voice. “You two will cook the food and bake the desserts for the wedding.”

“I don’t know how to cook for a wedding!” Alya protested. “Sometimes I help my mom, but that’s not the same thing!’

“If you do not provide food, you will be turned into a thrall.”

Chloe froze for a split-second as Alya opened her mouth to protest again. Then she surged forward, covered Alya’s mouth with one hand, and pulled out her own phone with her other so she could dial  a number she’d memorized from another world. “Le Grand Paris, room service,” was the response.

“We need to talk to Chef Cesaire.” Chloe finally felt slightly alive again, though it was only the rush of danger and the need to protect the only person in the world who could tolerate her. “Urgently.”

Marlena Cesaire picked up a few seconds later and Chloe said, “We’ve been captured by an akuma who wants us to cook for her. Alya needs you to give us a recipe.” She waited for Marlena’s response, then said, “A wedding. Maybe 50 people.”

The talking bat, which had been hovering closer and closer to Alya’s neck, backed away and she let out a sigh of relief. Then Chloe turned on the speakerphone and Marlena’s voice came through. “I can scale up my poulet boucane recipe for fifty. Usually it needs to marinate overnight but there’s a few tricks to get it done in a couple hours if you really have to. Alya, are you there? I’ll walk you through it.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Alya said with obvious relief in her voice. “You’re a lifesaver.” Then she took out her own phone and tossed it to Chloe. “Get your dad on the line and have him give you a cookie recipe or something,” she hissed.

Chloe blinked. “I was just going to help you with yours.”

“No you aren’t! You’ll get bit like Kim!” Alya hissed. When Chloe only shrugged, Alya sighed, then paused as a glint appeared in her eyes. “You want to keep me safe from akumas, right?”

“Of course!” Chloe said. “Alya that’s the only thing I’ve done that I don’t—”

“And you can’t do that if you’re a thrall,” Alya went on. “Or, you know, dead. So you’re going to bake something and protect yourself. Ok?”

Chloe paused as she tried to find a way out of that logic. Then she frowned at Alya, who just smiled, before Chloe gave up and dialed her father. “Hey, Dad? I need help with this akuma...”

#

When Carmilla returned in two hours to tell them time was up, Alya had produced a few trays full of poulet boucane and rice, and while it wasn’t at Marlena’s level, Chloe still thought it was good. As for herself, Chloe had managed to produce fifty cookies that were, technically, edible. “You don’t really help your father bake, did you?” Alya had asked her.

“No,” Chloe had admitted. “I was just trying to impress you when I said that.”

But Alya didn’t seem disappointed by the mediocre cookies, and she was visibly relieved when Carmilla pronounced them acceptable. Then some of the bats flew the trays of food away while others led Chloe and Alya down a stone hallway.

“Alright,” Alya whispered as the two of them walked. She was discretely filming and Chloe wondered if Carmilla would force Alya to videotape the wedding too. “Any idea where Red Queen and Cheshire are? It’s been forever. And I would have thought they’d be... close.”

Chloe grimaced. It figured that Alya had worked out, probably based on the previous night, that the heroes were in their class. “They probably can’t get away,” she whispered. “The bats watched us the whole time. They probably watched them too. And if the bats are watching, the heroes can’t transform without the akuma and Hawkmoth learning who they are.”

Alya’s eyes narrowed. “True, but that shouldn’t apply to Hawkmoth, should it? I’m sure he’s not in our school, so he’s probably not here, but he still hasn’t forced Carmilla to do anything different to lure out the heroes.”

Chloe frowned as she felt something almost connect in her mind, but she let it pass. It probably didn’t matter, and if it did, she could think about it later. Then Alya said, “If the heroes can’t help us, we have to handle this like we did Mad Catter. We need to talk the akuma down.”

“How?” Chloe hissed. “Juleka wants Rose to love her and Rose doesn’t. She wants this Ali guy. And she’s a terrible liar, so we can’t just have her pretend—”

Alya held up a hand as her eyes narrowed. “Juleka couldn’t meet Rose’s eyes before, did you notice that?”

Chloe had, though she hadn’t seen why she should care. “So?”

“So, I think I know how to talk to her. Or at least, how to try. Listen to me and follow my lead. And, if you can, film us too.”

They entered a large room which looked like a chapel. Carmilla was standing by the altar wearing in an all-black wedding dress, and Jagged Stone was by her too, looking supremely awkward in an ill-fitting tuxedo. Marinette was standing with Gabriel Agreste and subtly rolling her eyes while Gabriel griped about ‘absurd working conditions’ and ‘torchlight that’s barely bright enough for sewing a patch on an old pair of pants.’ The rest of the class was there too, each with their own specialties: Nino was setting up some kind of speaker system, Mylene and her father were now dressed as mimes and were apparently going to provide entertainment, and Nathaniel was busily sketching Carmilla.

As soon as they had gotten inside, Alya rushed to Sabrina and began whispering to her. Then she began slipping around to the others. She’d just completed her circuit of the room when another door opened and Rose was brought in.

Rose looked stunning, Chloe thought. The short blonde was wearing a beautiful pink wedding dress, her hair had been styled in ringlets, her fingers and neck gleamed with gorgeous jewelry, and she even smelled of some sugary-sweet perfume. And Rose didn’t look scared either. Concerned, perhaps, but Chloe saw no fear in the other girl’s eyes.

“Bring her here,” Carmilla said, though her eyes slid away from Rose’s. “We’ll be wed. Now.” She glanced at Jagged. “You’ll give me away. And—”

Alya raised a hand. “I object to this wedding.”

Carmilla stared at her. So did the adults whom Alya hadn’t talked to; Chloe noted Gabriel glaring. Then Carmilla said, “Be quiet."

“At weddings, you’re supposed to tell people to speak if they have objections or to hold their peace. I’m speaking.” Alya crossed her arms. “This isn’t right, Juleka.”

“Oh?” Carmilla’s voice cracked as she gestured at Alya and a few bats started flying toward her. Chloe darted to Alya’s side to block them as Carmilla added, “You don’t think I’m good enough for her, do you? You think she deserves better. You all think—”

“No,” Alya said. “I think you deserve better too, Juleka.”

The vampire akuma’s eyes flashed. “It’s Carmilla.”

“Juleka,” Alya stressed. “You can’t even meet Rose’s eyes. You’re ashamed of what you’re doing. You can’t build a marriage on that.”

“She’s right,” Marinette urged. “Renounce the akuma and let us go, Juleka.”

“I can’t!” Carmilla’s cry tore out of her throat. “I can’t give her up! She’s the only person who could ever love me!”

Chloe flinched at the familiar words. Then Carmilla went on. “I’m just the pale little goth freak. Everybody knows that. Nobody thinks I’m pretty or interesting or even notices me except for Rose. She’s my only chance at happiness and I can’t let her run off with some prince!”

“She hasn’t even met him yet,” Alya urged. “Maybe she won’t like him.”

“Of course she’ll like him!” Carmilla snapped. “He’s a prince! He’s rich and handsome and likeable and everything I’m not!”

Alya frowned. “How can that be? We all like you fine. I mean, I still remember when I was new here and looking for stories, and you took me on a walking tour of Paris’s best haunted places. I knew right then and there that you were a great person!”

Carmilla stared like she couldn’t believe Alya had remembered that. Then Marinette added, “And you’re one of my best models. I mean, I know you’re shy, but you pushed that aside and did great on stage last night. Honestly, I know I said I’d make you a new jacket to repay you, but you did so much for me I’m not sure one will be enough!”

“Whenever I needed to sketch someone, you posed for me,” Nathaniel noted. “You really helped me become a better artist. Of course I like you, Juleka.”

“And when I needed someone to fill in because another actor was sick,” Mylene called, “you helped out!”

Then the whole class, and even a few of the people outside of it, were recalling all the nice things Juleka had done and how much they liked her. Except for Chloe. Because she’d never asked Juleka for a favor and had never done anything but bully her. All she could do was film.

“But that doesn’t matter!” Carmilla cried at last. “I still can’t lose Rose! She’s my best friend!”

“You won’t, Juleka.”

Carmilla stared at Rose as she took the stage. Now the blonde did seem nervous, but her voice was steady as she met Carmilla’s gaze. “We are best friends,” she said. “And that won’t change. Even if I do marry Ali someday I’ll still be your friend. You know that, don’t you?”

“But...” Carmilla looked away. “What if you meet him and realize how bad I am by comparison?”

“I won’t, because I already know how wonderful you are.” Rose gingerly hugged her. “I know you’re compassionate. I know you’re generous. And I know you deserve to marry someone who loves you just as much as you love them, not someone you had to trap into it.” Her voice grew a little more serious. “And this also isn’t fair to me. You’re my friend, you should want me to be with someone I choose, not someone you forced me to choose.”

Carmilla dropped her gaze and Rose hugged her closer. “I might not have feelings for you in that way,” she said. “But I still care for you so much. And I want to be your friend forever if you’ll let me.”

The two were silent for a long moment. Then Carmilla let out a sob, clutched Rose with one hand, and ripped a piece of her dress sleeve off with the other. An akuma flew out of it and the bats dispersed.

Half a minute later, after Sabrina had discretely ducked out, Red Queen came in too and restored the world to normal.

#

“Great footage,” Alya told Chloe after school let out. True to her word, she walked Chloe home so the heroes couldn’t get Chloe alone. “Thanks again. And also thanks for stopping me from arguing with the bats. I’d probably have kept going until they bit me.”

Chloe nodded. She felt numb and frozen again. It hadn’t escaped her notice she’d been the only one in the class who had been useless against the akuma.

“I’ll call you later,” Alya promised. “I’ve got some articles I’m working on, including that piece on Felice Fournier I told you about, but I want to write down and post everything I remember from this akuma first. Maybe my readers will have some ideas for why Hawkmoth didn’t show up. See you!” And then she ran off, leaving Chloe to make her way back up to her room.

It was weird, Chloe admitted to herself, that Hawkmoth had been absent. The only time he hadn’t worried about the heroes showing up before was with Mad Catter, and that was either due to Adrien breaking free of his control or him just dying. But this time nobody had died. Juleka had just stuck a few people in the castle, including the class, Mr. Haprele, Gabriel Agreste—

But Gabriel, Chloe realized, had been at ground zero of the Mad Catter attack too. He’d been right next door to Damocles’s office. He could have been killed then. And, since apparently he’d been stuck with Marinette making fancy wedding clothes this time, he wouldn’t have been able to get away and order Carmilla around either.

Then Chloe remembered something else and she reached behind her bed to yank out the strange book she’d stolen from Adrien. He’d said it was just a sketch book, but if she was right, then maybe it was something more.

She flipped open the book and her eyes narrowed. The text was still unreadable but she could see the illustrations of possible heroes and their Miraculouses. And, as she gave the images a closer look than she had before, she inspected what those Miraculouses looked like. There were earrings for the Ladybug. A ring for the Black Cat. A comb for the Bee.

And also others: glasses for the Horse, a foxtail pendant for the Fox, a circlet for the Monkey. She’d seen them back when she’d captured the temporary heroes as Miracle Queen and gave them their Miraculouses so they could help her defeat Ladybug and Chat Noir. Her memory of that fight, which she’d planned to cherish forever, now felt sour and curdled in her mind, but she still remembered it. That was how she knew the illustrations in Gabriel’s sketchbook were perfectly accurate.

But the problem was, Gabriel shouldn’t have seen those Miraculouses. Nobody had yet, because nobody had used the Fox, Horse, or Monkey ones in this timeline. So he couldn’t have known to put them in his book, and nor could he have just guessed what they all looked like. There was no way he’d get them all right.

Which left one possibility. That the book wasn’t just a sketchbook but was some kind of manual or guidebook to the Miraculouses, one which Gabriel Agreste had possessed but hadn’t turned over to the heroes even when it became obvious they needed all the help they could get. And the only reason for Gabriel not to help the heroes stop the akumas which were destroying the city and had attacked him and his son multiple times...

Was if he was Hawkmoth.

Just like the only reason Hawkmoth would have for not intervening during Carmilla and Mad Catter was if he was Gabriel Agreste.

Chloe sat down on her bed with a heavy thump. She had to tell someone, she thought. Alya, or the heroes, or both. But then something occurred to her. “Barkk?”

“Yes?” The dog’s head poked up from Chloe’s desk. “What is it?”

“You said you wanted me to become better,” she told the kwami in a similarly quiet voice. “But I can’t. Even today, when the whole class worked to deakumatize Juleka, I was useless. And especially after what I’ve done...” She took a breath. “I’m irredeemable.”

Barkk said nothing.

“I’m going to try to help the heroes stop Hawkmoth,” Chloe went on. “Because it’s the only way left I can contribute and not just be a total waste. And if I find something else to do along the way that’s decent, I’ll do that. But if I don’t, then once... once Hawkmoth’s gone and I don’t need to protect Alya from akumas anymore... I’m going back to the river.” She met the dog’s gaze. “What will you do if I go there?”

The two looked at each other for a long moment. Then Barkk turned away without speaking. Chloe grimaced, wishing the kwami had promised not to interfere, but then again, the kwami also hadn't gone on some tangent about her getting what she deserved. Maybe Barkk had given up on her deserving anything other than a well-deserved death.

Chloe sighed, then took out her phone to text Sabrina and tell her they needed to meet soon. After that she lay down on her bed and waited to hear back so she could get on with what might well be the last thing she ever did. And as she lay back, she thought she saw Barkk looking at her with a mournful expression, like the kwami wished Chloe would reconsider. But Chloe knew that was impossible; by now Barkk had to know that she would never change. And so she just rolled over.

It would just be a little longer, she thought. And then she’d either find a purpose... or join the world she’d ended.

Chapter Text

 “You can run from your demons until you are exhausted.

Someday you will have to stop and find out what they wanted.”

--That Handsome Devil (“Charlie’s Inferno”)

“Another extraordinary shot by Alix Kubdel!”

Chloe glanced up at the projection screen with a tired expression. It was the next day, and they were supposed to be having a history lesson, but Bustier had decided to cancel that on account of Alix’s competition. So instead they were watching a sports broadcast on the classroom’s big projector.

The broadcast showed Alix putting down the pistol she’d used and picking up an identical one before turning back to the range; behind her, on the equipment table, her rifle and shotgun had already been cleaned and unloaded following her trials in those competitions. Chloe and the others watched as Alix extended her gun hand straight ahead of her while she stuck the other one in her pocket and eyed the target; she looked impossibly calm, except for her eyes, which were blazing with an unearthly intensity. Then Alix squeezed the trigger and the exact center of the target disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“That’s five perfect shots in a row!” the announcer crowed into the microphone. “She’s easily ahead of the next contestant. And combined with her prior performances in the three-position rifle competition and the skeet and trap shooting competitions, it looks like Paris's own Alix Kubdel will be competing in all of the major shooting events in the Youth Olympic Games! I’m given to understand she’ll be trying out for biathlon too, which is generally considered a skiing activity but also includes a shooting component. Could Alix Kubdel be the first French youth to win five gold medals in a single YOG? We’ll be sure to find out soon!”

The class clapped, and Chloe did too when Alya nudged her. But when the winning competitors were called to the podium to receive their awards and formal invitations to compete in the Youth Olympic Games, the clapping trailed off, and Chloe knew she wasn’t the only one who noticed that every shooter seemed to have family present except for Alix. The short jock stood alone as some official draped medals over her head, and Chloe could see her hands balling into fists.

“How come her dad didn’t come?” Nathaniel mused as the broadcast ended. “He had to care, right?”

Alya did a quick search on her phone. Her eyes widened, and then she called to Bustier, “Can you change to Channel 7 really quick?”

Bustier frowned but did so and Chloe saw a news report appear on the projection. “...daring burglary at the Louvre, believed to be the work of Felice Fournier,” Nadja Chamack was saying. “I’m on site with Alim Kubdel, the Louvre’s curator. Alim, can you tell us what was taken?”

Alim gave a strained look at the camera. “Several pieces of jewelry dating back to Napoleon’s time. Also a tiara belonging to the Romanov dynasty, three crowns worn by members of the Bourbon Dynasty, and several books.”

“Books?” Chamack tilted her head. “Isn’t that a little outside her usual targets?”

“I really can’t get into that in public.” Alim glanced to one side, where Jalil was talking with several officers. “But I assure you, we’re doing everything we can to make the police understand exactly what was stolen.”

Alya grimaced as Bustier turned off that broadcast too. “Jalil’s been researching the Miraculouses,” the journalist said. “I saw his work at the Louvre. If he’s helping the police, that probably means Fournier stole the stuff he’s using for his research.”

“You think Fournier’s teaming up with Hawkmoth?” Mylene whispered. “How awful!”

“I doubt they’d team up. If Hawkmoth akumatized her to get the Miraculouses and she got them, she’d just mutiny and keep them for herself, and he would know that.” Alya shrugged. “Even he can’t be dumb enough to screw up like that.”

A bitter smile came to Chloe’s lips, but she said nothing.

“But she might be trying to get them for herself,” Alya went on. “I mean, she’s been beaten by akumas twice now, with Rogercop derailing her robbery at the Agrestes and Mad Catter making her body go crazy or something before she could escape Paris with her loot. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to get that kind of power for herself.”

A bell rang somewhere and Bustier dismissed the class to lunch. As Chloe got up, Alya told her, “You’re meeting Red Queen and Cheshire after school, right?”

“Yeah.” Sabrina had responded to Chloe’s text late the previous night; apparently she and Adrien had been distracted by a second akuma deep in the Paris Catacombs that had taken them a few hours to beat. “We—wait. How did you know that?”

“Because I talked to Sabrina and Adrien, and they want me to be there too.” Alya chuckled as Chloe gave her a surprised look. “What? You knew I wasn’t stopping my investigation of the heroes just because Mayor Sabine said so, and after the fashion show, it was obvious they had to be people in our class; we were the only models there, so we were the only ones who had taken jewelry off for you to steal. Then I just thought back to who was always missing during akuma fights and came up with their names. When I confronted them before class today, they admitted it.”

Chloe said nothing as she left the room and Alya hurried after her. “I don’t think they’re going to arrest you or anything,” Alya went on. “I didn’t get that vibe from them. And apparently Sabrina said you might know who Hawkmoth is?” A wheedling look appeared on Alya’s face. “Although I figure that can’t be right, because if you knew you’d surely give me the exclusive, right?”

“I want to make sure I’m right before I tell anyone,” Chloe said. She’d had an idea about that, and Barkk had actually agreed to help her with it. In fact, Barkk had seemed excited, which had surprised Chloe since she’d figured the dog wouldn’t want to do anything at her request. But Barkk had agreed and would be back later. “When I have proof, I’ll tell the heroes—and you.”

Alya hugged Chloe, making a few other students look at them and giggle. Chloe managed a small smile to before saying, “I need to go to my probation meeting.”

“Let’s go, then,” Alya said, though Chloe wasn’t quite sure why Alya seemed to think she was invited. “Oh, and I can fill you in on my research about Felice Fournier. This expose I’m doing of her is going to be amazing! She started out as some rich kid who got away with petty thefts because her parents were old nobility and pulled strings. Kind of a bully, basically.”

Chloe carefully did not allow herself to respond to that.

“But when she was in university, she vanished for a couple weeks, and after she came back all these incredible robberies happened. Later they were attributed to her.” Alya’s eyes gleamed. “Of course, the big question then is what happened when she vanished, but I think I might have found a lead.”

“What is it?” Chloe asked.

“An old paparazzi report of someone who looked just like her being brought by police to a private hospital,” Alya said. “In the exact timeframe when she vanished. And the person who owned that hospital was this crazy rich guy, even richer than Fournier’s family, and apparently a relation of the Agrestes too. He was a weapons manufacturer named Colt Fathom, a real recluse--no friends, no kids, no public appearances for him and his wife in years--and he died right after Fournier returned.”

#

Chloe was listening to Alya rattle off the misdeeds of Fournier’s that she had uncovered, ranging from daring jewel heists to raids on ancient archeological sites, when Damocles opened his door and told Chloe to come in for her meeting. “I’m coming too,” Alya informed him. “As one of her advocates.”

“What? Alya, you don’t need to—”

“I’m coming, Chloe,” said Alya, and that was that.

Chloe’s father arrived a couple minutes later and sat at Chloe’s other side. Damocles, Bustier, Mendeleiev, and a few officials whom Chloe guessed were the school board sat across from them. “We’re here to discuss the probationary status of Chloe Bourgeois,” said Damocles in a formal voice once everyone was seated. “And to determine whether any of her conditions need to be amended or lifted, or if new ones need to be added.”

“Or,” said Mendeleiev with an icy glance, “if it’s become clear that there’s no longer any point and she should be removed to juvenile detention.”

“Ah—yes, technically, we could find that,” Damocles stuttered. “But I don’t think that’s... well, ah... perhaps we could open the meeting?” He glanced around. “Mr. Bourgeois?”

Andre gave the committee a somewhat nervous smile. “My daughter hasn’t violated any of her probation requirements,” Andre said. “She’s catching up on her work. She’s also been integrating better with her classmates, by helping them with their work and participating in their activities.” He nodded. “I think it’s clear that she’s learned her lesson and that it would be fair and right for her restrictions to be lifted.”

“Yeah!” Alya said. “She’s been a great friend. Sure, she’s had some slipups, but everyone makes mistakes.” Then she whipped out her laptop. “I’ve been chronicling a list of how Chloe’s been helping her classmates and making up for her mistakes. First, she—”

“That won’t be necessary,” intoned Mendeleiev. “You can submit it for the record, Alya, but we don’t need to hear it right now.”

“I think you do!” Alya insisted. “Because it shows how Chloe deserves to be treated like any other student, not like she’s some criminal! She’s really sorry for the stuff she did last year, and she’s making up for it as best she can. While she does, she shouldn’t be further punished!”

Bustier grinned. “I agree with Alya.”

Damocles also seemed moved, but then Mendeleiev cleared her throat and everyone turned to her. “In the first place,” she intoned, “Chloe has not, in fact, been abiding by her probation restrictions. She was caught trespassing in the Louvre during the Olympian akuma despite having been banned from the property. She was also seen trespassing in Le Grand Paris just after the Cover Up akuma.”

Bustier frowned. “I looked at the file before this meeting, Olga. Alix did say Chloe broke into the Louvre, but we discounted that because of the antipathy between them. And there weren’t any records of her trespassing at Le Grand Paris.”

Mendeleiev shrugged. “I talked with the hotel doorman and he told me he saw Mayor Sabine escorting Chloe out.”

“Why were you talking with him?” Alya demanded.

“I make a point of visiting everywhere Chloe is banned from at least once a week to see if she tried to get back in.”

“That—” Bustier stared at Mendeleiev. “Don’t you think that’s a little too much? If not even the people who barred Chloe from Le Grand Paris wanted to report this incident, surely we can let it go. After all, we should be loving, forgiving—"

“Somebody,” Mendeleiev said in a flat, chilled tone, “has to keep an eye on delinquents. Otherwise they reoffend. If the police won’t do it, I will.” She gave Bustier a tiny smile. “And there is nothing illegal about me going around town and talking to employees who happen to work in locations where Chloe caused trouble.”

The two women eyed each other for a long moment while everyone else stared at them. Then Mendeleiev said, “Furthermore, I find no evidence that Chloe has actually reformed. My analysis is that she is simply trying to get out of punishment. If we loosen the restrictions, she’ll likely lapse back into her old habits.”

“You can’t know that!” Alya protested. “She’s changed, even if you don’t see it!”

“People,” Mendeleiev snapped, “do not change.”

“Er...” Damocles hesitated. “Well... I mean, we can’t just ignore that Chloe is doing better in class...”

Mendeleiev said, “If you release Chloe from her probation and she commits more crimes as a result, you could be held liable, as could the school.” Her voice slashed into the principal like shards of ice and he seemed to crumble under her gaze. “The fines her father has incurred on her behalf are substantial. The fines you could endure if you’re found guilty of being her accomplice and letting her loose on the city despite full knowledge of her misdeeds could be devastating.”

Alya almost jumped to her feet but Chloe grabbed her and held her down. “Stop,” she hissed. “It’s not worth it.”

“But you—” Alya flushed, though she did ultimately slump back in her chair. “It’s not fair...”

Chloe said nothing. Alya might be right in the abstract, but given what Chloe had done, could any punishment really be said to be unfair?

And so, when Damocles and the board ruled that Chloe’s probation was to continue, Chloe did not protest.

#

 “I’m sorry that didn’t go the way we wanted, dear,” Andre told Chloe as he hugged her just outside Damocles’s office. “But at least they didn’t make the probation worse. And I think Bustier and even Damocles are starting to side with you! I’m sure we’ll convince the rest at your next probation review.”

Chloe just returned the hug until Andre pulled away. “I’ll go back to the bakery,” he said. Then he turned to Alya. “Thank you for defending my daughter, Alya. You’ve really become a very good friend to her.”

Alya smiled at that as Andre left. Then she turned to Chloe and began to say something, but her voice trailed off as her gaze flicked over Chloe’s shoulder. Chloe turned and saw Alix staring at them from down the hall with burning rage in her eyes. “Were you spying on us?” Alya demanded. “Shouldn’t you be at that party they’re throwing for the people who got medals in that shooting competition?”

“Skipped it,” Alix said in a low, hateful voice. “Wanted to come back and see if they’re finally done letting you get away with things.” She jabbed a finger at Chloe. “Guess you fooled them again, huh?”

“She didn’t fool anyone!” Alya protested before Chloe could speak. “Alix, seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’re acting crazy!”

Alix curled her lip. “I’m done with this,” she said at last. “I’m done with waiting for the idiots on the school board or in the government to stand up to you. I’m going to destroy you, Chloe. I’m going to stop you for good.” And with that she turned and darted away.

“Where is she going?” Alya wondered as they watched Alix descend the stairs and race out the front door. “School isn’t over! And how did she even get here so fast? Did she run all the way back after her competition?” She paused, then turned to Chloe. “Look, I’m sorry to bring this up again, but what did you do to her?”

“I have no idea,” Chloe muttered as she sank down against the wall. “Something horrible, I’m sure. But I’ve looked everywhere I could think of online and couldn’t find anything.”

Alya frowned. “If it really is something bad, you need to apologize. But she probably won’t accept it if you aren’t specific about what you’re apologizing for.” She snapped her fingers. “What about your probation file? That’s supposed to have everything people got mad at you about, right? It sounds like Mendeleiev got really hardcore about making sure everything was in there, so whatever you did to Alix should be too.”

“It’s private. I couldn’t find it online.”

“Yeah, but it’s your file, so I’m sure you could get a hardcopy somewhere. Just say you want to go through the list of people you’ve hurt and make things right with them.” Alya pulled out her own phone and typed a search into Google. “Yep. People on probation have the right to see their own criminal files. You could just go to the nearest police station—they keep your file on hand in case you get picked up and they have to decide if you violated your probation--and ask them to print you out a copy.”

Chloe paused. On one hand, it seemed so pointless given her other problems. She had to help defeat Hawkmoth, and then maybe she had to die, so what did salving Alix’s feelings matter compared to that? But on the other, if she really might end it all soon,...

Maybe she should try to make things right.

#

“You want your probation file?” Roger asked Chloe. “Alright, I’ll print out a copy for you. The printer’s down the hall and to the right.”

Chloe slouched to the room and stared at the printer as it spat out pages. Then she heard a noise behind her and turned, only to gape as Alix walked into the room. But Alix was wearing the magic sports jacket that had come with both her prior akumatizations, and the medals on the jacket were now so large that they dangled almost to her waist. “Got’cha,” Alix hissed.

“How did you find me?” Chloe gasped.

“Got akumatized. Hawkmoth could feel your emotions and he told me where you were.” Alix put her hand in a pocket which was bulging as if it had a gun in it. “Let's go, Bourgeois. And if you yell, I’m shooting you.”

Surprise more than fear caused Chloe to stumble in front of Alix as the other girl forced her down another hallway. They passed a few police officers but Alix’s gun was concealed and nobody glanced twice at them; Chloe thought, with a sort of distant bitterness, that they were probably used to Chloe being dragged into the police station for some reason or other. Then they reached a heavy door which Alix kicked open, pulled Chloe through, and then shut and locked behind them.

It was the police station’s firing range.

Chloe thought to herself that she should be more afraid than she was. Of course, she’d already tried to kill herself and would probably try again if she beat Hawkmoth. And whatever she’d done to Alix, based on her track record, she knew that she more than deserved whatever Alix had planned for her. But she did still need to beat Hawkmoth first, so as Alix broke open a locker and hauled out several guns, Chloe said, “Alix, please, stop. I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to be,” Alix hissed. “And Hawkmoth is calling me Champion Athlete now.”

“Don’t listen to Hawkmoth.” Chloe cast her mind about for anything that might deakumatize the other girl. “Just—”

But then Alix flashed Chloe a psychotic grin. “I wasn’t going to.”

Chloe stared as an outline of a purple butterfly appeared over Alix’s face. “Yeah, shut it,” Alix snapped at Hawkmoth. “I’ve got my own ideas of how to make Chloe pay. And I don’t really care about your stupid Miraculouses.” Then her face screwed up in pain, and she gasped, but she didn’t fall. “I said go away, Hawkmoth!”

The heavy door wasn’t that far away, Chloe thought. She began to edge toward it while Alix shuddered and hissed in pain. But then Alix growled, “Yeah, you really want those Miraculouses. I get it. But however badly you want them, I want to wreck Chloe even more.” Her face reddened and Chloe heard little crackles as Hawkmoth’s dark magic ran over her body, but though Alix had to grab a table for support, she kept standing. “I hate her more than you can imagine, Hawkmoth. I’m going to destroy her! And I don’t care what you have to say about it!”

The purple outline shattered, Alix’s jacket dissolved, and moments later a dark butterfly flew out of her pocket—but she swung one of the guns out and hit the butterfly even as her maniacal grin returned. Then the gun absorbed the akuma and magic covered Alix once more. When it faded, she was wearing a featureless black outfit. A duelist’s outfit, Chloe recalled from one of her make-up assignments. Something with no features so an enemy wouldn’t have anything to aim at while Alix could fire at whatever she wished.

Alix snapped her fingers and the room around them vibrated. “My akuma now, so I get to choose my powers,” Alix said. “And my first power is to put this room in its own pocket dimension. Nobody can get in here, Chloe, not even the heroes, and nobody can leave either until I’m done.” She raised a pistol from the table and adopted the shooting stance she’d had earlier at the competition. “Call me Killer. Now you’ll finally get what you deserve!”

Chloe opened her mouth to protest, but Alix’s bullet took her right in the eye, and she felt a horrific pain in her head before blacking out.

#

When Chloe’s eyes opened, she found herself standing by a target on the firing range. Alix was still aiming her pistol at her. A single bullet casing was lying by her feet. And when Chloe tried to back up, she tripped on something, and she turned only to scream at the sight of her own corpse.

“You think one death is enough?” Alix taunted. “My second akuma power: you don't die for good until I say so. And you’ve got more than that coming. Lots more!”

Her bullet his Chloe under her throat. The blonde coughed and gagged on her own blood, and as the world faded around her, she heard Alix laughing.

#

The next bullet took Chloe in the heart. Then her other eye. The one at the base of her spine, severing it and leaving Chloe lying helplessly on the small pile of her own dead bodies before Alix walked over her and shot her squarely in the head.

More gunfire blasted across the range, Alix switching between a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun as she pleased. The floor of the training range became bloodier and bloodier, such that Chloe sometimes slipped and fell as soon as she came back, not that this stopped Alix from killing her anyway. Nor did her intermittent attempts to run for the door which always ended with her getting gunned down before she’d made it more than six paces. Her ears were ringing with the sound of gunshots and her nose stank from Alix’s gunpowder. And still she died again.

And again.

And again.

#

“...monster!” Alix was screaming. Chloe realized she’d lost track of everything besides the bullets peppering her body. “You deserve this!”

“I know!”

Alix paused for a moment and Chloe let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. For a moment she wondered if Alix had gotten larger somehow, but then she realized she was just closer to Alix’s position. Maybe the other girl had decided to reward herself with some closer and easier thoughts, she figured.

“I know I’m a monster,” she told Alix. “Whatever I did to you, I’m sure it was horrible.”

“’Whatever you did?’” Alix spat. Then she shot Chloe again, half a dozen times, only pausing to rant at the same time she ran out of bullets and had to reload. “How can you forget? You’re the worst person ever!”

Chloe wiped blood out of her eyes—some had splattered high enough that she’d already come back by the time it came back down—and said, “If it makes you feel better, Alix, you can tell me why you hate me.”

That got her another few bullets, some of which hit her in the gut and hurt worse than any of the others. But when she died and came back, Alix spat, “I have no idea how you could forget. It was years ago, on Christmas Eve, a few months after my mom went missing on that Egyptian expedition! You’d teased me about it for weeks in school, but that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You dressed up in that cloak and hood and stuff, and you caught me going home from school, and you said my mom thought we’d forgotten about her because we hadn’t looked hard enough—but that she was in town that night and if I waited at this one spot, this stupid park on the Seine, I could catch her as she passed by and convince her to come home!”

Alix was crying now, not this stopped her next shots from expertly puncturing Chloe’s lungs. When Chloe respawned again, she was still ranting. “I was just some dumb little kid, so I believed you, and they found me at like 6 AM! They said I almost got frostbite and I could have died, but I didn’t even care, because I thought I’d collapsed before Mom got there and missed my chance to bring her home! Do you have any idea what that felt like, Chloe?” Her gun blasted again and again and again. “Do you?!”

Along with the bullet shots, Chloe felt a familiar indignation that she was being blamed for something the kwamis had simply written into her past—but then she remembered that she’d done this in the first world too. Alix had been annoying her, and the special treatment the teachers had given Alix for late work and overlooked tardies on account of her missing mother had been especially infuriating, so Chloe had dressed up like some mysterious Egyptian person from a cartoon and taken advantage of how Alix had already been half-broken by grief. It had been easy to talk her into thinking that her mom really might come back if only Alix showed her love by waiting up for her on a freezing night.

Chloe hadn’t intended for the girl to collapse and almost die, of course; she’d just planned to mock her the next day for her stupidity. But she hadn’t exactly minded that Alix had been hospitalized. And when someone began asking who, precisely, had talked Alix into staying out late, Chloe had just gotten her father to say that she’d been home with him. Nobody had been able to prove anything and ultimately Chloe didn’t think the former world’s Alix ever knew that it was Chloe who had hurt her. After a while, Alix had gotten out of the hospital, and Chloe had forgotten all about it when she was distracted by some other fun little cruelty.

But in this world, her father couldn’t pull strings like that, so Alix did know. And apparently she’d still dodged the consequences—she’d been younger, maybe she’d convinced everyone that she’d just made a bad joke and hadn’t thought Alix would take it seriously—but Alix knew better.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe managed. “I was evil, Alix. I know it.”

“You almost killed me!” Alix was screaming. “And nobody cared! And everyone supports you anyway! You’re the worst person in town, including Hawkmoth, and you’ve got some perfect charmed life anyway!”

That, more than anything else Alix had done, made Chloe stare at her in shock. “What?!” she demanded. “How do I have a perfect life?”

“Your idiot father still supports you! He comes to all your probation meetings, he defends you, he—I saw him hugging you earlier! Your mother flew in all the way from America for some stupid fashion show! Even the people in the class, the ones who know how horrible you are, are forgiving you!”

Alix’s voice cracked as she unloaded her shotgun into Chloe again and again. “My brother buries himself in Egyptian magic books so he can do some insane scheme to resurrect Mom! Dad spends all his time working! My own family doesn’t know I’m alive, while yours cares about you even though you’ve done so many horrible things!” She slammed a fist into the side of the equipment table as she began to cry. “You don’t have a right to have such a perfect life!”

And Chloe saw, in Alix’s weeping eyes, the envy behind the wrath. Yes, Alix hated her. Despised her. Would happily shoot her again and again until one of them dropped from pure exhaustion. But behind that was the bitter, seething hatred that someone as horrible as Chloe should still have a loving family and people who cared about her while Alix didn’t think she had either.

She had them, of course. Even Chloe could tell that Alix’s classmates cared about her, and personally Chloe guessed that Alim at least cared more for Alix than she seemed to understand. But she was too lost in rage and envy to see that.

Just as Chloe herself had been so lost in rage and envy that she’d made a Wish and ended a world.

Alix was bawling, but she didn’t stop firing. She kept going and Chloe fell time and time again. She didn’t know how long at past. She’d long since lost count of how many times she’d died. And there wasn’t anything to say either; she had no way to argue that she wasn’t a monster. So she just stood there and died.

And died.

And died.

#

Alix was screaming something incoherent, somewhere under her sobs and cries, as she loaded another shotgun shell. Then she raised the gun—but the barrel thudded into Chloe’s stomach. And the two girls looked at each other as if realizing for the first time they were no more than a few inches apart.

Then they both looked back, and Chloe gaped, because behind her was a mountain of her corpses pushing her forward. They filled every inch of space in the firing range. She couldn’t have backed up if she tried.

Alix’s mouth worked soundlessly and she stumbled backward. “Not enough,” she muttered as she fumbled to bring the gun back up. “It’s not enough, you have to suffer!”

And Chloe understood what she could say. “Alix,” she answered. “It will never be enough.”

The other girl stared as Chloe sat down, cross-legged, to emphasize that she wasn’t going to try to escape. “You can lash out all you want,” she said. “You can hurt me or kill me until the world ends. No matter how much you do it, you aren’t going to feel better.” She gestured at the bodies behind her. “Or you would have by now.”

“You don’t know anything,” Alix growled.

“I know what it’s like to hate. You’re right about me, Alix: I am a monster. I’ve done worse than you can imagine.” Chloe looked down. “And if nothing stake were at stake, I’d just sit here and let you do this as long as you wanted. But it’s not just about me.” She met Alix’s eyes. “Even though I deserve all this and more, you deserve better than to be stuck here for eternity.”

Alix’s face twisted into a snarl. “You don’t get to pity me!” she hissed.

“You deserve to go out and make new friends,” Chloe went on. “Rebuild your relationship with your family. And to mourn your mother, which you can’t do if you spend the next century shooting me in here.” The blonde shook her head. “That’s the difference between you and me. You can still be redeemed, Alix. The only person you shot is me; you didn’t do worse to anyone else than be rude to them, and they can forgive you that. So take that opportunity. If I could be forgiven, I would too.”

“I...” Alix jerked her arms and tried to shoot Chloe again with her pistol, but even though the other girl was about six inches from the end of the barrel, Alix’s arms moved jankily and the bullet passed over Chloe’s shoulder. Then she looked at the gun as if finally realizing it wouldn’t give her the catharsis she’d sought. “I don’t...”

Chloe met Alix’s gaze. “You deserve to have friends and family,” she said quietly. “You deserve friendship and love. But you won’t find them in here.”

Alix was still for one last moment. Her head dropped to her gun and she stared at it, as if finally realizing it wouldn’t give her the catharsis she wanted. And then she let the pistol slip from her fingers before she fell down on her backside moments later.

“I want my dad,” she was whimpering when Chloe leaned in close to her. “I want my family.”

“I’ll get them,” Chloe promised. “You said you can let people into here, right? Open the door and I’ll call whoever you want.”

Alix was crying again, but she gestured vaguely at the door and Chloe saw the air around it shift a little. Then she took out her phone and texted the heroes, Alya, and the Kubdels to come at once. And then she told Alix, “By the way, you won't need to worry about me much longer.”

“Huh?”

“I already tried to kill myself. Alya stopped me, and now I have one more thing I need to do. But when that’s done, unless I find another purpose...” Chloe sighed. “I’m going to make sure nobody has to suffer from me ever again.”

Alix gave Chloe an awkward look. “I don’t understand,” she said. But Chloe didn’t respond, and after a few moments Alix just looked away, lost in thoughts of her own.

The heroes came a few minutes later, and though at first they just stared at the pile of dead Chloe’s, Red Queen dutifully broke Alix’s pistol and cleansed the akuma after Chloe pointed it out to her. One Miraculous Cure later and the room was as good or new.

“What happened?” Cheshire asked.

Chloe said, “It doesn’t matter. We don’t go after people for what they do while they’re akumatized.” Alix gave her a shocked look at that, and opened her mouth to presumably protest that this was different because she herself had been in charge of the akuma, but Chloe just said, “So forget it. When and where are we meeting?”

“Um.” Red Queen exchanged a strained look with Cheshire. “We’ll take you to the meeting after school, but first, could we have a few minutes with Alix alone?”

“Whatever.”

Chloe left the firing range and went into the hall. Alim and Jalil were walking up and Chloe grabbed Alim by his suit as they passed. “Take the day off and go hug your daughter,” she snapped, then kept walking as Alim shot a baffled look back at her. Chloe didn’t stop until she reached a little waiting room and collapsed in a chair.

“Chloe.”

The blonde glanced down at Barkk, who was floating up out of the floor. “You’re back fast,” Chloe noted.

“I finished the mission you gave me,” Barkk said. “Because I’m a good dog. And then I came back and watched while Alix killed you over and over again.” The dog nestled against Chloe. “Why didn’t you defend yourself more? You could have argued that you didn’t deserve to be killed all those times. That what Alix was doing was wrong.”

“Because it wasn’t wrong. I deserved it. You know that, Barkk. Your whole thing is watching me to see what I deserve, remember?"

"And I haven't decided if you deserve to die yet," Barkk insisted. "You didn't make the second Wish. You could change. You--"

Chloe cut Barkk off with a wave of her hand. "Then you don't know me as well as you think, Barkk. And it doesn't matter anyway."

And then she walked away, to a school day that didn’t matter and a meeting that very much did.

Chapter Text

“If you offend Heaven, to whom can you pray for forgiveness?”

--Confucius (“The Analects”)

The neighborhood that Sabrina and Adrien led Chloe and Alya to after school looked familiar, and Chloe felt a chill which had nothing to do with the winter air when they passed the park where she’d almost drowned herself, but the tea shop that they eventually reached felt warm and cozy. Nevertheless, Chloe almost jumped when she recognized the old man serving tea. “You’re that guy who picked me and Alya up after the fashion show,” she said. “How could you know we’d be there?”

The man smiled and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the warm lights of the shop. “Perhaps it was just a lucky coincidence, Chloe. Please, sit. This tea is best served hot.”

Chloe dutifully took a sip of the tea. It was delicious, even better than the stuff she’d had from that monastery in the other world, but she still put the cup down after a moment. Sabrina and Adrien also only took light sips before lowering their cups. Only Alya drained hers, which got her a smile from Fu. “I see you have good taste.”

“Thanks. My mom’s a chef.” Then Alya hesitated. “So, uh... what now?”

“I think,” Fu told the room at large, “we should begin by putting all our cards at the table. I trust you all already know each other’s secret identities and kwamis?”

Everyone nodded, though Sabrina and Adrien looked unhappy. It was Alya who said, “Yeah: Sabrina’s Red Queen and has the bug kwami, Adrien’s Cheshire and has the cat kwami, and Chloe has the dog kwami.”

“Dog kwami?” Adrien asked at the same time Sabrina gasped, “You’re a holder?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Fu grinned. “Chloe does not have a Miraculous. She simply has a friend. Perhaps that friend would like to say hello to us.”

Before Chloe could say anything, Barkk floated up from Chloe's purse and sat on the table. Tikki and Plagg rose up from Sabrina’s and Adrien’s pockets and settled down too. Finally, a little green turtle kwami popped out from an old record player. Fu introduced the kwami as ‘Wayzz’ and then said, “I am Wayzz’s partner, as well as the Guardian of the Paris Miraculouses.”

Chloe’s eyes widened a little bit. “So you’re the one who gave Barkk orders.”

“I approved the orders Barkk wanted, yes.” Fu settled back in his chair. “Now—”

“Hang on,” Alya said. “Chloe told me that I had a kwami in the other world too. Can I say hi?”

The heroes exchanged glances, and then Plagg said, “No way. You’re friends with Chloe, and she’s awful. What if Chloe convinced you to use Trixx’s powers for something evil? We’re keeping the Fox safe and sound, away from you.” The cat glanced at Chloe. “And don’t even ask about Pollen.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Chloe muttered. She felt her cheeks burning and wonder if Alya would blame her for costing her Trixx. If so, what could Chloe say against that? “I know I don’t deserve Pollen.”

But Alya didn't say anything. Instead, Fu said, “Anyway. We know that we must defeat Hawkmoth, but to see our path to that end, we must first understand the path we took from the beginning. Chloe, perhaps you could start.”

Chloe was silent for a moment. Alya’s presence next to her suddenly felt more like a heavy weight, and she realized that while she’d admitted the general overview of what she’d done to Alya, she’d never gone into specifics. Now she was being asked to reveal every detail. And as insane as it sounded to care about having Alya’s friendship when she was still actively considering suicide after Hawkmoth’s defeat, she found that she was even more frightened of losing her last friend than of dying.

But Alya squeezed her hand, and Chloe reminded herself that she had to get these people on her side if she was going to help stop Hawkmoth and do at least one good thing with her life. She’d spent the last couple nights coming up with a plan, and she thought it would work, but she needed the help of the others in the room—and they would only give it if she could prove, at long last, that she was capable of being honest.

And so she began her confession.

She spoke of her wealth and power in the other world and how she’d abused them, of her stint as Queen Bee and how she’d been fired for her countless failings, of the terrible things she’d done to Marinette in particular and everyone who bothered her in general. She even spoke of her time as Miracle Queen. All the kwamis but Plagg cringed when she spoke of paralyzing her world’s Marinette and Adrien before stealing their Miraculouses to make a Wish, but she kept going. And she didn’t leave out a single detail.

Then she talked of what she’d done in this new world. How she’d started out scheming to regain her Miraculouses and Wish again, how she’d gotten Nino and Alix and Mylene akumatized, and how she’d first worked on manipulating Alya until Marinette had exposed her. Then she went into how she’d slowly, reluctantly, painfully tried to change—first as a tactic to win back her only source for information on the heroes, then later because she found she desperately wanted the people around her not to hate her—and how that had come crashing down after Lila had threatened her. She admitted that she’d caused Adrien to get akumatized and kill Sabrina, which made both of them inch away from her a little bit. And she confessed to stealing their Miraculouses at the fashion show and almost making her Wish until Alya stopped her.

Over an hour passed before she fell silent. She had held only two things back. One, she had skipped over the specifics of what XY had done to Alya; Chloe had talked about Roth’s corruption and XY’s creepshots in general, but not that he’d taken one of Alya, nor that he’d groped her. And she had also cut out her own suicide attempt, because she knew if she brought it up then they would pity her. They were better than her and would feel empathy even though they knew she was a monster. And they’d send her to doctors, or psychiatrists, and they’d take her away from all this and then she’d never be able to stop Hawkmoth and achieve, if not redemption, then at least one good deed in her sordid life.

Fu pressed another cup of tea into her hands when she stopped talking and she realized her throat was sore. She drank as Fu glanced at Barkk. “Was that indeed everything?”

Barkk considered. “It’s the report I would have given,” the dog said at last.

Chloe tried to hide her surprise that Barkk hadn’t ratted on her suicide attempt, and she wondered if anyone would object to the dog’s evasive answer. But nobody did. Instead, Sabrina looked at her. “Chloe,” she said quietly. “Do you understand what you confessed to? Even if we don’t count you ending the last world, you’ve just admitted to at least four counts of treason. You could be jailed for life.”

“That’s not fair!” Alya protested. “I know Chloe did some really bad things, but she’s better now! And she’s helped people too! She saved me from getting killed by Alix’s second akumatization, that should count for something!”

“Were you not listening to the parts where she admitted to using and manipulating you?” Adrien shot back. “Just because she hasn’t committed any felonies in the last week or so doesn’t mean she gets a pass on what she’s done!”

“I’m not asking for a pass.” Chloe bowed her head. “I understand that I don’t deserve one. I understand that I’m a rabid dog, just like Barkk says. All I’m asking is that you let me help beat Hawkmoth and do something good.”

Adrien crossed his arms. “You can’t possibly think we’ll give you a Miraculous, Chloe. Or are you going to just throw a tantrum until you get one?”

“No.” Chloe took a breath. “But I already found out who Hawkmoth is and I have an idea on how to defeat him.” She met Adrien’s eyes. “It’s your dad.”

Adrien stared at her for a moment before flushing in anger and standing, and Alya opened her mouth to ask what would no doubt be about a million questions, but Fu raised a hand. “Perhaps Chloe could explain why she believes that,” he said.

Chloe laid out what she’d realized about how Hawkmoth had been strangely absent during Mad Catter, when Gabriel had been dead, and Carmilla, when Gabriel had been captured in the floating castle. She also took out Gabriel’s book from the spot in her backpack where she’d packed it that morning, and when Fu reached for it, she handed it over. “This has drawings of Miraculouses which were used in my world but not in this one. Gabriel couldn’t have known about them. The book has to be a real history of the Miraculouses, or something like that.”

“It is,” Fu mused while Alya frantically scribbled notes in a notebook. “This is a Grimoire of the Order of the Miraculous, a very powerful spellbook. It is interesting Gabriel Agreste possessed it.”

“That doesn’t prove anything!” Adrien insisted. “My dad probably just got that book in an old bookstore or something! He goes antiquing to get inspiration for his clothing lines!”

Sabrina asked, quietly, “But then why didn’t he come forward with it? As soon as the Miraculous heroes showed up, he should have recognized what he had and offered it to us so we could use it.”

“For all we know he never got around to reading it!” Adrien clenched a fist. “Look, I know my father can be... cold... but he’s not evil!”

Chloe said, “I wanted more evidence too. So I asked Barkk to sneak into Gabriel’s manor and wait for there to be an akuma attack to see if Gabriel was behind it.”

“And I did,” Barkk said. “I was hiding there today and I saw Gabriel go down to a hidden room below the mansion. He transformed into Hawkmoth and sent an akuma out; later I learned that Alix Kubdel was akumatized again.”

Adrien shot a frantic look at the other kwamis. Tikki spoke first. “Master Fu has instructed all of us to tell the truth,” the little bug said in a gentle tone. “And Master Fu is technically Barkk's holder, so Barkk has to obey him. If Barkk claims to have seen Gabriel Agreste becoming Hawkmoth... then Gabriel Agreste became Hawkmoth.”

“I...” Adrien wobbled a little before sitting back down with a thump, and Fu hastened to press a fresh cup of tea into his hands. “I... how could Father do this?”

Sabrina cleared her throat as Plagg popped up to cuddle the downcast Adrien. “And even if that’s true, Chloe, you telling us doesn’t make up for everything you’ve done. Or entitle you to help us fight Hawkmoth just so you can get leniency later, or even just feel better about yourself.” Sabrina paused, then muttered, “I’m sorry,” before looking away.

“I know it doesn’t,” Chloe told them. “But you need my help.”

“No we don’t,” Plagg drawled. “Sabrina and Adrien are doing a great job so far.”

“They haven’t made any progress in finding Hawkmoth, have they?” Alya asked. “Just in defeating his akumas.”

Sabrina said, “But now we know who he is. We can just have Tikki, or Plagg, or even Barkk fetch his Miraculous while he’s asleep. And then we can arrest him.”

“Kwamis cannot touch a Miraculous which is being used by a holder, or a holder who possesses a Miraculous,” Fu said. “I’m sorry, but that won’t work.”

“Yeah.” Chloe shrugged. “That’s why Barkk couldn’t grab your Miraculous after Mad Catter killed you and we had to dig it up ourselves.”

“Well, then at least we can arrest him!” Sabrina said. “My father isn’t afraid of arresting a supervillain! And Adrien and I will back him up!”

“It’ll never happen.”

Everyone turned to Alya, who was looking at Sabrina with an intense gaze. “I’ve studied tons of true crime stories for my blog, and ultra-rich guys like Gabriel almost always get away with everything. He can afford any defense. He’ll pay people to say they saw him during other akuma attacks and he wasn’t doing Hawkmoth things then either. He’ll bribe some bookseller to claim that they had only just sent him the book an hour before he lost it and he never even had a chance to see that it could have helped us. And I don’t think our talking dog witness is going to be persuasive; Gabriel could just claim we’re ordering the kwami to lie and we’d have no way to disprove it.” She paused, then glanced at Barkk. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Chloe nodded. “Alya’s right. Gabriel will throw around enough money that the police will never be able to arrest him; if they somehow do, he’ll be out in an hour.”

“How do you know?” Sabrina challenged. “My dad’s a police officer. I know how he works.”

“I know because it’s what I used to do,” Chloe said. “In the other world. I know how money works.”

Silence filled the room, and it wasn’t until Alya again squeezed Chloe’s hand that she was able to go on. “The only way Gabriel could possibly be arrested is if he’s exposed in public, to the whole world, in such a way that even he can’t buy his way out of it. That’s it.”

“But we still don’t need you,” Sabrina protested. “Let’s say that’s true. Then we just need to wait until he does something like the Miracle Queen akuma from your world; you mentioned he came out into the open for that one.”

“He did, and he also came out during the Heroes Day mass akumatization, but we can’t wait for that because he might win in the meantime.” Chloe took a breath and then made herself say, “You aren’t as good at this as my world’s Marinette, Sabrina.”

“Hey!” Sabrina flushed. “I’m doing very well! Tikki told me how you treated the other me, Chloe, but I’m not going to let you beat me down like that!”

Chloe shook her head. “I’m not saying you’re a bad hero. You’re a great one, better than I ever was. But you aren’t Marinette. She was brave and strong and quick, sure, but she was also creative. She could look at some novel akuma, get a bicycle pump or a rubber eraser from her Lucky Charm, and figure out how to destroy the akuma in about thirty seconds. That isn’t you.”

Sabrina opened her mouth to speak but Chloe kept going. “You’re more organized than she is. Better at following rules. With akumas that you already know about, because Tikki told you about them or because you fought them before, you’re better. But for new ones, you’re worse. You take longer. There’s more collateral damage. And because you’re not as good of a leader, Adrien can’t help you as effectively as the other Adrien helped Marinette.”

The redhead frowned before looking at Tikki, who admitted, “Sabrina, you are a wonderful holder, but it’s true that Marinette was a little better. Especially with Hawkmoth’s toughest akumas.”

“Even setting aside Mad Catter, you couldn’t beat Carmilla and the class had to talk her down,” Chloe said. “You didn’t even know Alix got akumatized yesterday and I had to talk her down. Hawkmoth is getting better faster than you and if we let him go for too much longer, he’s going to win. Then he’ll make a Wish and we’re all dead.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room before Sabrina said, “I... if I’m really not good enough, I can give Marinette my Miraculous. Even if I have to lose my memory or something. I’ll miss Tikki horribly, but the world’s more important.”

Fu leaned back in his chair. “That is noble and generous of you, Sabrina, but remember: the other world’s Marinette had much experience before she fought Hawkmoth’s toughest warriors. In this world, Marinette has never wielded the Ladybug Miraculous. Even if she took up the Earrings now, she wouldn’t have Hawkmoth’s easier akumas to practice on. She might not be as good as she was back then.”

Sabrina dropped her head. “So this is my fault.”

“No,” Chloe said. “It’s mine. I made a bad world. You’ve done better with it than I could have imagined, but it’s still my fault the wrong people have the wrong Miraculouses. And that’s another reason why I have to fix this. This is my mess.”

Fu asked, “What do you think should be done?”

Chloe took a breath. This was going to be the hard part. “We need to catch Gabriel being Hawkmoth in public,” she said. “So we need to lure him somewhere and give him a target he can’t resist. Then, when he akumatizes the target, the heroes can go after Gabriel rather than the akuma and unmask him.”

“Except the akuma might flatten the city,” Adrien muttered, though his mind was still a million miles away.

“I’ll be the one to make the person so angry that she gets akumatized,” Chloe said. “And I’ll make sure she’s only angry at me. Then she’ll target me and leave everyone else alone.”

Sabrina said, “Wait. We can’t deliberately akumatize someone. That’s not only illegal, it’s wrong!”

“I agree,” said Alya. “Chloe, I get where you’re coming from, but I’ve been akumatized twice and it’s awful. I had nightmares for a week after each one thinking about all the people I hurt.”

“Unless,” Barkk chimed in, “the person agreed to it.”

“Nobody would agree to that!” Sabrina protested.

Chloe said, “Really? If you knew that getting akumatized would let us finally beat Hawkmoth, you wouldn’t do it?”

Sabrina paused, but then Tikki said, “Wait a minute. Hawkmoth can read people’s emotions. If someone agrees to be akumatized and wants it to happen, he’ll be able to tell they aren’t really angry, or at least that they’re prepared for the akumatization. Then he won’t do it.”

“Indeed,” Fu said. “Which, by the way, is likely why you yourself haven’t been akumatized in this world, Chloe. Hawkmoth knows people’s darkest desires, what their anger or their despair drives them to want at all costs. You’ve spent most of your time here wanting the Miraculouses. He might not know what you did—I doubt Nooroo would choose to tell him, or that someone as arrogant as Hawkmoth would have thought to ask if someone else had made a Wish before he had—but he knew you wanted them and thus didn’t dare ask you to retrieve them.”

Chloe shrugged. “That’s not a problem. We just tell this person that we need to hurt her to defeat Hawkmoth. I’m sure we can find a way to phrase it so she can agree without...” she glanced at the Miracluous heroes, “... knowing that we’re specifically going to akumatize her.”

Sabrina grimaced. Then Adrien said, “It’s Marinette, isn’t it. You’re talking about akumatizing Marinette.”

“Yes,” Chloe admitted.

Alya gasped as Adrien added, “So this is just about your ridiculous grudge against her—”

“No!” Chloe protested, with pained sincerity in her voice. “I don’t want to do it. She’s treated me better than I deserved, and I’m probably even worse of a person than you all thought since this is the only way I can think of to beat Hawkmoth. But it really is. We need to akumatize someone, and it has to be her.”

Alya quietly asked, “Why?”

“Alix’s research showed that people who can contain their emotions really well make the strongest akumas when they finally snap, because they have so many more negative feelings stored up. That’s why Mad Catter was so powerful and why the people who get akumatized a lot aren’t.” Chloe shrugged. “Take Alix: she has the most akumatizations so far, but her akuma forms are all basically just a girl with some sports equipment. The only person she’s been able to hurt is me, and I didn’t have any powers. Mad Catter, though, blew up the city.

“So we need someone like Mad Catter, someone who could create such a powerful akuma Gabriel would take the risk of akumatizing that person even if he was away from his manor,” Chloe continued. “And since it can’t be Adrien himself—he already knows the full plan—that leaves Marinette. She’s the best of any of us at handling her emotions. She never got mad at me despite all the horrible things I did.”

“Which raises the question,” Fu noted, “of whether you could indeed make Marinette angry enough to be akumatized. Assuming, of course, we decide your plan is acceptable.”

“I can if I try.” Chloe ran through the plan she’d worked out again and a bitter smile came to her lips. “Bullying people is the one thing I’m good at. I won’t even need to lay a finger on her; I can hit her reputation, her fashion career, and the other stuff she cares about enough that she’ll be begging Hawkmoth to help her kill me.”

“And then have Sabrina use Miraculous Cure in case she hurts you or gets hurt during the fight?” Alya hesitated. “I don’t know, Chloe. We can’t just hurt Marinette like that.”

Chloe shook her head. “No Cure. It resets everything, or at least, everything physical. I got my earrings back after Fournier mugged me for them during Mad Catter. We can’t risk doing this and having the Cure drop Hawkmoth’s Miraculous back into his hands after we take it from him.” She met Sabrina’s eyes. “So I need you to promise me that, if we do this and it works but I’m a casualty... well, if I’m the only casualty... you don’t use the Cure. I stay dead.”

Sabrina jumped up from her seat in shock, as did Alya. “No way!” Sabrina protested. “I refuse!”

“Then Hawkmoth will keep throwing akumas at you until one gets through, he’ll make his Wish, and we’re all dead anyway!” Chloe shot back. “It sucks, but that’s because I made a bad world, and this is the only way to fix it.” Her voice cracked and Sabrina hesitated as Chloe went on. “I know you won’t do this if Marinette doesn’t agree. Fine. But if she does, don’t worry about me. I don’t matter.”

Alya hugged Chloe, who bowed her head, and a moment later Barkk floated up to cuddle against her. Then Plagg said, “I don’t like that we might hurt pigtails, but if this plan could get Chloe killed, it might be worth considering.” The cat chuckled. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Plagg!” Adrien protested. “That’s not funny!”

Then Alya said, “Hang on. I think Plagg’s serious. I mean, this world the kwamis built: even if they had to follow Chloe’s order to give her Marinette’s life, they didn’t have to give her so many enemies. Like, Alix didn’t need to be as crazy as she is. Why did you make the world like this?”

Plagg shrugged. “Our job wasn’t to watch out for people like Alix. It was only to remake the world according to Chloe’s words.” Then the cat smiled. “And also to ensure that Chloe wouldn’t get away with what she’d done, of course.”

“How,” said Alya before Chloe could answer, “did you ensure that?”

“Well, by setting up a few people that would give her some ironic punishments.” Plagg’s fangs flashed as the cat grinned. “Chloe terrorized people at school, so we made someone who would really terrify her there” Chloe recalled the fear she’d felt upon realizing Alix might show up one day and shoot her, and she blanched. Then Plagg added, “Chloe twisted the authorities to destroy the people she didn’t like, so we made an authority figure who would always rule against her. Chloe took what she wanted from businesses around town, so we brought in a thief who also takes what she wants—and will take from Chloe soon, if she hasn’t already. And in doing so we destroyed a genocidal maniac too. Not bad, huh?”

Mendeleiev and Fournier, Chloe thought. And she didn’t know who the genocidal maniac was, unless it might be the absent Felix, but she couldn’t remember him committing genocide. Maybe Plagg just meant it was the sort of thing Felix might have tried later on.

“Okay, but she’s been punished!” Alya protested. “Yes, she did bad things, but you can’t be hoping she gets killed by Marinette or something, right? I mean, when does it end?”

“Well,” Plagg drawled. “She could die.”

Everyone stared at the kwami, who stared back unabashedly. “She ended a world,” Plagg said in a clear, precise tone. “She killed my last holder. Speaking as the kwami of destruction, I say she deserves to be destroyed.”

“But she also deserves a chance to create a new life,” Tikki chimed in softly. “To fix herself and become a better person.”

“And so we made this world.” Plagg floated in a lazy circle. “It’s got all the elements needed to create that fresh start for Chloe if she finally decides to be less horrible.” Then the cat gave Chloe a cruel grin. “Or to remain her Hell and destroy her if she doesn’t.”

 Sabrina gulped. “Wait a minute. Plagg, I think we all agree Chloe needs to be punished, but we’re just talking about arresting her or something, not killing her!”

“You might not be talking about that. I am.”

Adrien gulped. “Um. I don’t want her to die either—”

And then Plagg was gigantic.

Chloe gasped and stumbled backwards as a cat which looked like half a sabertoothed tiger and half a Lovecraftian monster stood on the little tea table. The beast was the monster from her nightmare, except now it was real and there was no unreality or dream logic to get in its way. “And if I decide she’s failed her last chance,” the cat-thing yowled, “and that she must be destroyed, what will you humans do about it?”

Alya was clutching Chloe, who was holding her in return, and even Fu seemed uneasy. But then Sabrina, sweating and trembling but with resolution in her eyes, stood up and walked between Chloe and Plagg. “Stop you,” she said in a firm tone. “I promise.”

Then Alya gulped and released Chloe to go stand next to Sabrina, and Adrien did too a moment later. “We’ll all stop you,” Alya said. “Somehow.”

Chloe wanted to curl up and hide. She wanted to scream that she wasn’t worth fighting this impossible monster. But she just lay there and watched her classmates protect her with their bodies.

Then Plagg snorted. “Well, at least you’ve got spirit. Much better than those holders that just do anything we say because we’re little gods. The master picked some good ones this time.”

“I agree,” Barkk added. “They might not be dogs, but for humans, they’re alright.”

Chloe grunted in exhausted amusement as Plagg shrank back down. Sabrina looked like she was going to protest again, but then Fu said, “You must understand, the kwamis are not like us. They are embodiments of abstract concepts like creation, destruction, and, yes, loyalty. As the kwami of destruction, Plagg can only destroy. Creation, redemption, second chances, those things are for other kwamis. Not for Plagg.”

“But Plagg’s helped me become better,” Adrien protested. “By helping me learn to push back against my father and stuff. He didn’t just destroy things!”

“I helped destroy your father’s hold on you,” Plagg corrected. “And your blind obedience to him. And, occasionally, your cheese supply. But Fu’s right. Destruction’s my only move, kid. So when I see a bad human like Chloe, all I can do is destroy her.”

Fu said, “Which is why human holders are needed in the first place. I’m sure you’ve all wondered why the kwamis don’t just solve problems themselves, but they can’t. They can only act according to their nature. Tikki can only create, even when something must be destroyed, and Plagg can only destroy, even when something must be created. Even Barkk can only act loyally, and cannot rebel if given a bad order. But unlike kwamis, humans can choose. To create, or to destroy. To be loyal, or to rebel.”

“Humans can also change,” Tikki added. “Based on experience. We can’t. We’ll always be like this.”

“So we humans must choose how to deal with Hawkmoth,” Fu told them. “Whether by using Chloe’s plan or another. And Chloe, you must choose what to do with this second chance you’ve been given. If you create a new and better life for yourself, I think you will find happiness.” He smiled, but then the levity left his voice as he added, “but if you choose not to change, I think you will only find destruction.”

“There’s nothing we can do?” Alya pressed. “To maybe dial down the ‘destruction’ part?”

Adrien added, “Or to help people like Alix and Mendeleiev who got... warped, I guess... by the kwami to punish Chloe?”

Tikki looked abashed. “I’m sorry,” the little bug said. “I was just trying to create a way for Chloe to live. I thought maybe if Chloe endured what she’d done to others, she could see why it was wrong and change. It’s not in my nature to think of things like that.”

“And I just wanted people that would push Chloe to destroy herself if she didn’t shape up,” Plagg added. “Which we all know she won’t. Right, Barkk?”

Barkk shrugged. “She’s not there yet, but she has a chance.”

“Pshaw. You were always too soft on the humans.”

Chloe said nothing but thought to herself that the errors in this world were hers and not the kwamis’; they literally didn’t know any better, with Tikki only able to conceive of creation and Plagg of destruction. They couldn’t tell why it was wrong to make Alix made with rage or fill Mendeleiev with freezing contempt. The blame was still Chloe’s, because she had unleashed the kwamis on the world.

And Fu shook his head as if to underscore Chloe’s thoughts. “You can help Chloe and the others to make the right choices... though I think you have been doing that already. Especially you, Alya.” He gave her a warm look before turning back to the heroes. “But ultimately, all people must decide for themselves whether or not to grow, to change, to become better. Or to die.”

And that was that.

#

Nobody had any better ideas for stopping Hawkmoth, so Sabrina and Adrien went to see if Marinette was willing while Chloe and Alya stayed in the tea house. Fu put on jazzy music which Chloe found she liked, and the tea was good too. And for a little bit she could just relax, talk with Alya about trivialities, and be happy.

But then the heroes returned and Sabrina played a video recording on her yo-yo communicator. The video showed Marinette flanked by the heroes, and though she looked nervous, her voice was clear and calm as she spoke. “I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I am of sound mind and body, and I am in no way being coerced,” she spoke. “The heroes have informed me that they have a plan to defeat Hawkmoth but it will require me being hurt in some way. And I... I’m nervous... but I’m also the mayor’s daughter and I know my responsibilities. The people of this city have given me much and I have an obligation to help them if I can, no matter the cost to me. So: I consent to whatever plan the heroes have. In fact, I request they do their plan.”

Chloe was silent for a moment as she listened to the words she knew she would never have the character to utter. “Good,” she forced herself to say at last. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready. It shouldn’t be more than a week or two.”

“We’ll stay in touch,” Adrien answered as Sabrina emailed copies of Marinette’s video to him, Alya, and Chloe. Adrien still seemed surprised by many things, including by the revelations about his father, but he was clearly starting to function again.

“Wait,” Sabrina called as Chloe turned to go. “Two things. First, we meant what we said: if Plagg or some other kwami tries to hurt you, we’ll intervene.”

“Thanks,” Chloe managed.

Sabrina said, “Don’t thank me yet. Because the second point is, while we’ll hold off on telling the authorities what you admitted for now, we will be telling them after we try your plan. I’m sorry, but we can’t give you a free pass just because you’re helping us with this.” She let out a sigh. “It’s very possible you’ll go to jail, Chloe. You should think about preparing.”

Alya opened her mouth to protest, but Chloe just said, “It’s fine, Sabrina. I get it.”

Chloe left the tea shop with Alya and they got a few blocks away before Alya turned and gave Chloe a big hug. “I’m sorry,” Alya said. “I keep feeling like I should do more to help you.”

“You’ve done more than I could ever deserve.”

They walked in silence for a few moments before Alya asked, “There’s one thing I don’t get. The idea is to make Marinette so angry that she’s vulnerable to Gabriel Agreste, so he akumatizes her right away and then we can catch him, right? What if you do something bad to Marinette but she doesn’t get angry anyway?”

“Then I probably get arrested for violating my probation, and everyone thinks I’m evil again,” Chloe said. “Which, fine. I’ll risk it.”

Alya was silent for a long moment before saying, “I know you don’t think you’ve changed, but I don’t think the Chloe who was Miracle Queen would be willing to risk going to jail and being hated by everyone just to save the world.”

Chloe hesitated, because she couldn’t disprove the words. Eventually she decided to just move on. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, Marinette will never forgive me for this even if we do stop Hawkmoth, but then again, she was never going to forgive me anyway.”

Alya looked like she wanted to argue but instead just asked, “What are you going to do to her?”

Chloe gave Alya a tired smile as she thought back to that part of her plan. “Something unforgiveable.”

Chapter Text

“Anywhere you hang yourself is home.”

--The Slackers (“Mr. Tragedy”)

To break Marinette, to hurt her so badly that she’d give in and accept Hawkmoth’s twisted powers, Chloe knew she’d need to first build the other girl up. It was like when she’d traumatized her by tricking Kim into giving her a box of spiders in the other world. That wouldn’t have worked, insofar as a cruelty like that could be said to ‘work,’ if Chloe had just thrown the spiders at her; it had worked because Kim had first made Marinette feel especially cared for and loved before Chloe had gotten him to stick the knife in. 

Unfortunately, Chloe didn’t have the resources needed to build Marinette up enough. She couldn’t lavish the other girl with money or force local fashion boutiques to sell her brands. And she’d already used the few connections she’d had, her mother and Gabriel Agreste, for the fashion show. Having already succeeded with that opportunity, Marinette wouldn’t get that upset if a similar one fell apart or went wrong, so Chloe would need to raise Marinette even higher and offer her what would seem to be a once in a lifetime chance before Marinette would be ripe for destruction.

But while Chloe herself didn’t have any other suitable connections, one of her associates did.

And that was what brought her to the Italian embassy.

#

“What are you doing here?” Lila hissed from behind her cracked door. Her face had paled as soon as she’d seen the other girl and Chloe noted distantly that this would be easy if Lila was indeed still terrified of her. “Go away!”

Chloe just said, “Let me in, Lila. I need to talk to your mom.”

“What could you possibly have to talk to her about?”

“You said diplomats spend a lot of their time throwing parties and meeting celebrities, didn’t you? I need her to throw a party.” And Chloe pushed the door hard enough to knock Lila back.

The embassy’s personal quarters were cluttered with luxury objects. Chloe saw jewelry carelessly left on a counter, ornate carpets on the ground, and even a gleaming golden statuette by the door, along with a key rack that held more car keys than she would have thought a diplomat might possess. Rather than demand a present as she once would have, though, Chloe just strode into the living room, turned away from the coatrack—she had no jacket, just a thick hoodie with the hood itself raised over her head—and said, “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s with an important visitor! A local artist that she wants to tour in Italy!” Lila’s hands were shaking. “Chloe, you can’t be here!”

A loud laugh sounded from behind a closed door. Then the door opened and Chiara Rossi strode out in a dress made of the finest silk. Behind her, looking suave and vaguely lecherous, was the musician Jagged Stone.

“I think I can make that Italian tour work, luv,” Jagged was telling Chiara. “I’ll just drop my assistant a note to slide it into the schedule. See you on the yacht tonight, and don’t forget to wear that dress again!” He sauntered to the door, gave Lila a casual nod, a slightly more confused glance to Chloe, and then left.

Chloe recalled Chiara turning up at Gabriel's party with the plastics magnate Bertrand King and at Marinette's fashion show with the movie director Thomas Astruc, and she thought to herself that the ambassador went through guys fast. Then Chiara looked at Lila and said something in Italian, after which Lila gave a reply. “Barkk?” Chloe whispered, almost to herself, after the two had talked for a few moments. “A little help?”

And Barkk, hiding in her hoodie (and possibly partially phased into Chloe’s head; Chloe had been too freaked out to check after putting the hoodie on earlier), began to translate just as he had during the Mad Catter mess. “She asked Lila who you are," Barkk whispered. "Lila said you’re her friend Chloe, the baker’s daughter, from school. Chiara asked if you speak Italian, Lila said no, and then Lila also said that you’ve come over for her help because you don’t know what to do without her and you rely on Lila for everything.”

Chloe managed to resist rolling her eyes. Then, louder, she said, “Lila, tell your mom I need to—”

“I speak French,” Chiara chimed in. She smiled, but her eyes were strangely flat and gave Chloe the impression of an overgrown reptile. “Chloe, right? Lila mentioned you were in her class. What do you want?”

“Do you have a few minutes?” Chloe asked. She noted to herself that Lila evidently hadn’t admitted to her mother what Chloe had done to her, but that was probably for the best, so she wasn’t going to complain. “I was hoping to talk to you about a chance to strengthen Italian and French bonds.”

Chiara frowned, as if she hadn’t wanted to deal with a child like Chloe, but then she shrugged and said, “It’s time for my lunch break, but if you don’t mind a working meal, I think I can fit you in.” She flashed a grin. “I trust veal’s alright?”

She texted someone and an embassy cook came in a few minutes later with several trays as well as an expensive bottle of wine. Chiara waited silently until the man had unloaded the dishes and departed before seating herself. Lila gingerly sat down too, looking a little green around the gills, and Chloe frowned. Lila seemed even more nervous now that her mother was here. What was going on?

But Chloe had a job to do, so she said, “You attended Marinette’s fashion show at Gabriel’s manor, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes I did. That girl has remarkable talent.” Chiara poured a healthy glass of wine and sipped it before digging into a plate of what looked like very fancy veal parmesan. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a major brand of her own someday.”

 “Well, Marinette made some more designs, and I was thinking: Milan’s known for its fashion.” Chloe made herself smile. “So perhaps your embassy could co-sponsor her next show along with some representatives of the French government!”

“Hmm.” Chiara glanced upward in thought. “That’s an interesting idea. A talented designer like her would be a great find... and if we could persuade Marinette to sell some of her wares in Italy, that would be useful too. But who would the French representative be?”

“Her mother, the mayor of Paris.”

Chiara’s eyes lit up a little at that. “That’s right, Marinette is the mayor’s daughter, isn’t she?”

Then Lila spoke in rapid Italian, which Barkk translated: “Mama, don’t. Chloe doesn’t really have any connections.”

“But Marinette’s mother is the mayor, and the mayor of Paris is very powerful. I haven’t been able to get close to her yet, but supporting her daughter’s fashion career could be the ticket.” Chiara smiled. “And just in case she still won’t help me, well, I can also use the show to get to work on her husband. He might not have any power himself, but he’s fabulously wealthy thanks to that hotel of his.”

“Uh, mama—”

“Dear,” said Chiara in a dry tone. “Her husband’s a fat oaf who’s been left behind and emasculated by his wife. I can guarantee you he’s frustrated that Mayor Sabine goes out on the world stage and makes all the important decisions while he’s left behind to deal with whiny guests and ensure his hotel’s plumbing works. So he’ll be a good backup plan if Sabine herself won’t work with me. After all, Tom’s sure to be receptive to a woman who shows she... appreciates him.”

Chloe fought to stop herself from blushing, and managed to do so mostly by imagining what Sabine would do if she walked in on Chiara trying to seduce Tom. If there was one thing Chloe knew about the mayor, it was that she was fiercely protective of her family. Meanwhile, Lila protested, “But what about Jagged? You seemed to really like him! Or the others—”

“Please. Jagged’s small fry. And he’s agreed to the Italy tour, and to have that private concert with the Minister of Industry’s daughter—as she’s apparently a crazed fangirl of his—to convince her to get her dad to give Italian firms that tax break. That’s all he can offer me to please my superiors. And as for pleasing me on a more personal level,” she glanced at her fancy robe, “he’s already given me the clothes and things he can afford. It’s time to move on.” Then she paused before turning to Chloe and asking, in French, “Will Gabriel Agreste be there?”

Chloe made herself say, “Yes. His son Adrien’s in our class. I can make sure he’s there too.”

That seemed to please Chiara even more and she settled back in her chair with a contented sigh. “I couldn’t get a minute alone with Gabriel at the last show,” she told her daughter in Italian. “But if I’m hosting this show, I can pull him aside.”

“Mama,” Lila began. Her Italian was rushed, almost slurred, and she looked nauseous as she plead at her mother. “Please—”

“Dear, the Agrestes are one of the wealthiest families in Paris. If I can string Gabriel along for six months, or even three, I can set us up for life. Especially if I can land Tom too.” Then Chiara frowned, and when she resumed, her Italian was clipped and firmly enunciated. “And seeing as how you completely failed to land Gabriel’s son, I don’t see how you can complain about me fixing your mistake.”

“I really tried, Mama! But he wasn’t interested! He liked—"

Chiara shook her head. “Dear,” she told Lila in a tired voice, “I don’t ask much from you. I buy you whatever brands or trinkets you ask for. Your weekly allowance is probably more than this baker girl gets in a year. You have complete freedom to stay out late, or sleep in, or do whatever you want. I even back up your silly little stories for your teachers when you don’t want to go to school. And all I ask is that you occasionally contribute to this family.”

Lila looked down. “I’ll do better, Mama. I’ll... I’ll find some other way to make Adrien like me. Or another boy who can help us.”

“Good.” Chiara settled back contentedly in her chair before turning back to Chloe. “You’ve convinced me. The Italian embassy will be happy to co-sponsor this fashion show. How about two weeks from today? Can Marinette have her show ready in time?”

“She will,” Chloe said.

“Excellent.” Chiara finished her food and stood. “I have another appointment, but if you want to stay over and play with Lila, that’s fine. She can give you the contact information for my scheduler so you can pass it on to the mayor’s representative and they can work out the logistics.” Then she turned to Lila and said, “I won’t be home tonight. You have the numbers for the embassy caterer and all the take-out places, so get whatever you want.”

Lila’s mouth moved soundlessly for a little bit before she managed to say, “What about this weekend? You said we might be able to visit Versailles. Or we could see some museums, or go down to Marseilles, or—”

“I’ll be out this weekend with someone who’s about two dates away from giving me a yacht,” Chiara said. “But I’m sure you can entertain yourself. And how about this? My date this weekend owns a racehorse team, so if all goes well, I’ll also get you a pony. You like ponies, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mama,” said Lila in a miserable tone. “Thank you, Mama.”

“I knew it.” Chiara moved to the door, glanced back at Lila, and gave her a knowing smile as she shook her head. “You’re so lucky, Lila. Some kids would do anything to have a ‘cool’ mother like me.”

And with that, she was out the door.

#

Lila rose a few moments later and said, “I’ll give you the scheduler’s number. And then you need to leave, okay?” And she rushed off to another room.

Chloe frowned, then gave chase, and when she got to the other room she paused. It was clearly Lila’s bedroom—her clothes were draped over a bed—but it was a mess. Everything in the room was just as fancy as in the living room, but the clothes were piled in heaps on the floor, fancy plates with the remnants of take-out boxes were shoved into a corner, and expensive jewelry was tangled up in an old rope that was lying next to a silvery mirror. There was also a stale and sweaty smell to the room, like Lila spent a great deal of time inside with the door closed and the shades drawn.

So,” said Chloe as Lila dug out her phone and began pulling up a number. “Your mom and Jagged—”

“My mother isn’t a whore!” Lila almost yelped. “She likes Jagged a lot!”

Chloe blinked. Then she remembered that Lila had no way of knowing Chloe had understood the Italian; all Lila knew was that Chloe had seen her mother and Jagged leaving the same bedroom. “Okay, Lila,” she said.

“She isn’t!” Lila protested. Now the girl definitely looked sick, and when she rose from the table, she had to steady herself on it. “She works very hard to support our family!”

“I don’t care about your mother, Lila.”

 “She isn’t a whore!” Lila scribbled down the number on a slip of stained paper and crammed it into Chloe’s hands. “Mama’s just smart! She knows how to secure our family, and she does it. There’s nothing wrong with that!”

Chloe frowned. “I didn’t say anything, Lila.”

“Nobody’s going to get in trouble for it either!” Lila went on as if Chloe had said otherwise. “Mama’s the highest representative of the Italian government here, so local complaints have to go through her, and she doesn’t pass them on! And if anyone complains in Italy about her boyfriends, they don’t care about ‘gossip’ because Mama’s really good at getting powerful men to do favors for the Italian government, so they just lose the complaints!”

“You don’t need to defend her to me,” Chloe began, but then she paused. There was a desperate and almost manic look in Lila’s eyes, which didn’t make sense. The two girls barely knew each other and didn’t get along, to say the least, so why was Lila so intent on justifying her screwed up family? “What do you want, me to say she’s okay? Even if she’s nuts it’s not your fault, so why would you...”

And then she paused as something Lila had said several weeks ago flashed back into her mind. Except, this time, Chloe understood it. And after a long moment, she asked, “Lila?"

"What?"

"When you made your Wish, what did you ask the kwamis to give you?”

Lila stood still and silent, as if paralyzed, for a moment--and then she jumped at Chloe with an unearthly screech.

“How could you know?” Lila screamed as she tackled Chloe onto her bed. Chloe yelped as she fell back onto something hard which smashed under her—maybe more of those dinner plates—and then she was struggling to knock the other girl off. “Did those stupid kwamis tell you?”

“No!” Chloe almost screamed. “They didn’t! I made a Wish too, that’s--”

“I don’t regret it!” Lila spat in Chloe’s face. Chloe managed to grab one of Lila’s arms and start to wrestle the other girl off her. “I’m not sorry!”

“I didn’t—”

Lila roared, “I deserved it! Why shouldn’t I have a life of luxury! Why should some kwamis get to decide that I should stay stuck as some random, unimportant peon forever?”

Chloe finally managed to throw Lila to one side and got up. “What did you Wish for?”

“This!” Lila swept her arms wide, and then she grinned, but her eyes looked almost hollow and Chloe could tell the other girl was desperately lying. “I told the kwamis I wanted to be Gabriel Agreste’s heir, so I could have all his money and power—but Adrien kept babbling about how his father was a control freak, so I said, fine, I want as much money and power as if I was Gabriel’s heir!”

Chloe said nothing as Lila ranted on. “And I got it! Mama lets me do whatever I want, buy whatever I want—the latest fashions, jewelry, a sports car when I’m sixteen, anything! And she always backs me up! She wants me to have lots of rich boyfriends, to get out of schoolwork so I don’t have to waste my time on it, to have lots of fun! I didn’t ruin her! She’s fine the way she is now! And if Papa didn’t understand that—”

She cut herself off as Chloe’s eyes narrowed. Then Chloe looked around the room and noted there were no photographs of Lila’s family. Even Alix, as crazy as she was, had kept a photo of her lost mom on her work desk. But Lila’s room had none. “What did you Wish for your dad to be?” Chloe asked.

“I didn’t Wish anything about him! It’s just, Mama—my new Mama—was right, he was holding us back, he wouldn’t pay the bribes or do what it took to advance. He was going to just run his stupid little shoe business until he died of old age in some drab house somewhere. But Mama knew what to tell the judge, and to have me tell the judge, to get a ruling that he was emotionally abusing us and we could leave him. And now the world’s our oyster! The kwamis even messed you up on my behalf by making you some broke baker’s daughter instead of the mayor’s, just because they knew I hated you!”

“That wasn’t your Wish, Lila, that was mine,” Chloe said. “The kwamis wouldn’t have helped you. They hate both of us!”

“Not me!” Lila ranted. “They gave me everything, and it all worked out! I’m happy, Chloe! I’m happy!”

The two girls stared at each other for a long moment, and then Chloe said, “Lila. You are not happy.”

The other girl’s smile vanished, replaced by an expression of immense horror, as if demons she’d been fleeing from forever had finally caught up to her. “I’m happy,” she whimpered as she sank down on her bed. “I got... I got just what I wanted...”

Chloe looked at Lila for one moment more. “We got what we asked for,” she corrected. “What we deserved.”

Then she turned to go, but Lila spoke behind her. “Why are you asking me all this? Are you—are you trying to save us? To save me?”

“Save you?” A tired laugh came to Chloe’s throat. “Lila, I can’t even save myself. I just wanted to know.”

Lila said nothing, but a few small sobs escaped her, and Chloe knew there was nothing else to say. She left without looking back.

#

“How did you figure it out?” Barkk asked Chloe as they walked back to the bakery.

Chloe shrugged. “She acted like she was personally responsible for her mother being nuts. The only way I could see for that to happen was if she’d Wished her that way. And once I thought of that, other things made sense. Like how she turned right to Volpina’s page in the Grimoire even though the book’s in some weird language and she couldn’t have understood the index or anything; she must have seen the book before. Or how she told me I was ‘worse than before’ when we’d barely talked before. She didn’t mean she’d read my file; she meant that I was worse than in the other world.”

She fell silent until Barkk said, “You have questions.”

“A few.” Chloe paused as she tried to sort through them. “Okay, first: if she made a Wish too, shouldn’t she have known I made one too? Or at least that someone made one? She had to see this isn’t the world she made—my Wish changed it!”

“She doesn’t remember your world anymore than you remember hers. As far as she knows, this world is the one her Wish created for her. And I doubt she spent enough time thinking about the changes to realize they couldn’t all have come from her Wish.”

“But how could both Lila and I make a Wish at all, then? She wasn’t even around when I was Miracle Queen!”

Barkk said, “In the original world, you lost as Miracle Queen, Chloe. The heroes defeated you and kept their Miraculouses. They continued to battle Hawkmoth until he was defeated... but after that, Lila was able to get his Miraculous and steal theirs, then make her Wish. The world restarted several years prior, with Lila’s mother as she is now. And you knew none of that, so when Hawkmoth appeared in the second world, and when he made you into Miracle Queen in that same second world, you didn’t Wish to reset things to the original world. You just took the changed world and changed it further to make this third world which you're trapped in now.”

Chloe frowned. “But why did I do better as Miracle Queen in the world Lila made?”

“In the original world, Lila had just helped Hawkmoth with a complicated plan involving getting Marinette expelled and setting up a fake Ladybug. Ladybug and Chat Noir were forced to push themselves to new heights in order to foil that plan, and having gotten stronger in the process, they were able to defeat you. But in the world Lila made, the one you remember, that scheme of Lila’s never happened. The heroes did not get stronger, and you were able to defeat them.”

“Okay, but then why did Lila show up here later in my old world, the one Lila Wished for, than in this one? If Lila made her mom into a more ruthless diplomat that should have taken place in my world too."

“That was probably you. When your father was the mayor, he had more flexible ethics than Sabine does. I suspect the difference is your father was willing to overlook the previous Italian ambassador’s misconduct, but Sabine wasn’t, so the last ambassador was fired quicker and Chiara was brought in faster.”

Chloe grunted. That made an unfortunate amount of sense. “It seems really unfair to Lila’s mother, though. She’s even worse than Alix and Mendeleiev. I mean, it sounds like she’s totally neglecting her daughter, except when she’s forcing her to seduce rich boys so she can leech off them. She’s nuts!”

“Perhaps. But Chiara Rossi, as I understand it, was always a workaholic who neglected her daughter in order to curry favor with her superiors. That neglect allowed Lila to lash out and harm others with her lies, and to harass boys such as Adrien. I suspect the kwamis may have felt Chiara deserved punishment too. Just like Alix, and Mendeleiev, and Felix Fathom.”

“Felix?” Chloe hesitated. “You said he was genocidal, but I don’t remember that. Was that in the original timeline, before Lila’s Wish?”

“Yes. Sometime after Miracle Queen he attempted to wipe out all humans. And he successfully killed Marinette in particular, which also traumatized Adrien. The kwamis couldn’t get rid of him in the last timeline, since Felix had nothing to do with Lila, but I suspect Plagg personally ensured he wasn’t in this one.”

Chloe paused, debating asking what Felix had been if not a human, but then something else occurred to her. She murmured, “In the world I remember, Alix was Marinette’s friend, but she was always kind of disdainful about Marinette’s crush on Adrien. She even teased her about it. And Mendeleiev was always strict; she penalized Marinette whenever she was late. So maybe the kwamis hated them, along with Felix and Chiara. But—Barkk, it’s too much! Maybe Felix was dangerous, but the others don’t deserve what you guys did to them!”

Barkk shrugged. “The important thing was ensuring you and Lila were punished for what you did and would never end the world again. So Tikki and Plagg built worlds in which you two would suffer as you made others suffer, so that you either see your mistakes and change... or be driven to your deaths. Collateral damage to your punishers was a lesser concern. Those individuals were probably chosen because the kwamis had to pick someone to force you to change and already disliked those people, but if it wasn’t them, it would have been others.”

Chloe gave Barkk a horrified look but Barkk only shrugged. “If you don’t like the worlds we build, Chloe, you shouldn’t have ended your world and forced us to make a new one.”

“I...” Chloe bowed her head, unable to respond to that. “But what happened to Lila in the other worlds, anyway? All I remember is that she just vanished from school after a while.”

“In the original world, before anyone made a Wish, she pretended to be studying abroad so she could get out of classes,” Barkk said. “Until she came back to try to go after Marinette and Ladybug again. But you don’t remember that one.”

“So what happened in my world?”

“She killed herself, Chloe.”

The blonde stopped. She’d made it to a little park, deserted thank to the winter chill, and then she sat down heavily on a snow-blanketed bench. Barkk floated in front of her and said, “At first she tried to please her mother and seduce Adrien. Then she tried to find some way to get the Miraculouses and make a new Wish. But she couldn’t do either, and she also couldn’t bear knowing what she’d done to her family. So she hung herself. It was on the news the morning you became Miracle Queen.”

Chloe vaguely recalled seeing some headline or other about Lila but not really paying attention to it. So that, she thought, was why she’d thought Lila had died. But then her mind switched to a different train of thought. “She hung herself,” she murmured, her mind flashing back to that old rope which had seemed so out of place in Lila’s room. “And now she’s back thanks to me, but she’s going to do it again.”

“She deserves all her deaths and more, Chloe. For ending a world just to achieve her own selfish gains.”

The message was obvious, and Chloe could only lower her head as tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she hugged the kwami close. “Barkk, I’m so sorry. I know I was wrong. I’d give anything to undo it!’

“You can’t.” Barkk’s voice sounded compassionate, but Chloe barely heard it. “There is no way to take it back.”

“I’m sorry!” was all Chloe could say to that. “I should never have been born...”

She cried, quietly and alone, on the bench until she finally fell silent in exhaustion. Then Barkk said, “There’s one question you haven’t asked.”

“What?” Chloe managed.

“Why am I watching you and not Lila?”

Chloe blinked. How could she know that? The two were both damned and in Hells of their own choosing; there was no distinction between them anymore. And if there was, Barkk couldn’t know it. They’d barely interacted with kwamis—

No. There was a kwami Chloe had known. “Did Pollen send you?” Chloe whispered.

Barkk nodded. “Pollen insisted you had a chance, however difficult, to change and escape your doom. And so I was sent to watch and see if you would take that chance.”

A hint of happiness, almost like a memory of it, flashed through Chloe’s mind as she thought about Pollen still believing there was good in her. “Does Pollen still believe I can do it?” she whispered.

“Pollen and I spoke while you and Alya were waiting for Sabrina and Adrien to return. And—yes. Pollen still thinks that.”

Chloe didn’t know how Pollen could believe such a thing. Someone who could change would have done so by now. For that matter, someone who could change would have come up with an anti-Hawkmoth plan that didn’t require bullying Marinette worse than ever before. That was why, unless she found something else to do with her life, she would likely kill herself once Hawkmoth was defeated: at least then she’d finally stop hurting everyone around her.

But Pollen seemed to think otherwise. And, Chloe realized, the fact that Barkk was still here and hadn’t given up yet meant the little dog thought Chloe wasn’t doomed either.

Chloe wasn’t sure if they were right. She wasn’t sure if she’d live long after Hawkmoth’s defeat, or for that matter, if she’d live through her plan. But for the first time in ages, she felt like what could almost be described as hope.

Chapter Text

“A fool is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

--Oscar Wilde

“Mom said the Italian embassy wants to co-sponsor my next show on behalf of the Italian government,” Marinette had said. Her voice had been just slightly trembling, as if she wasn’t quite able to contain her sheer excitement at the news, nor her desperate hope that it was real. “That there’ll be representatives from famous Italian firms there. That some French firms will have reps too, so they aren’t left out. And—and she said you helped set it up.”

Chloe had tossed her hair, fixed a smile on her face, and tried very hard not to think of what was going to happen at this show. “I’m the Style Queen’s daughter. She’s made her fortune finding brilliant undiscovered designers and introducing them to the world. I’ve got to show that I can handle the family business just like she can!”

Marinette had hesitated for a moment longer before surging forward and hugging Chloe. “Then thank you,” she said. “This could make my career. It could get me everything I ever wanted. I appreciate it, Chloe.”

“Great.” Chloe had turned to go. “Glad you don’t hate me anymore, anyway.”

“I never hated you Chloe.” The calm sincerity in Marinette’s voice had made Chloe turn back, and see saw the girl was giving her a gentle grin. “I won’t deny you could be... annoying sometimes. And I couldn’t let you hurt our classmates, which is why I had to push for that probation. But I never hated you. And I think it’s great—I really do—that you’ve become so kind and helpful.” Then Marinette had darted for the exit, presumably to get started on her next set of designs. “It’s a good change, Chloe,” she’d called behind her. “Keep it up!”

And so she’d left, after which Chloe looked down and saw that her hands were squeezing each other so tightly she could barely feel them.

That had been two weeks prior. Now it was the day before the show, and half the class was excitedly chattering over getting to model again. The news was full of stories about the grand ‘cultural event’ which would take place in Le Grand Paris, the most famous luxury hotel in the city. The event had expanded considerably, with everyone in town eager to take advantage of all the prominent businesses, government officials, and rich celebrities who would be attending, and dozens of art galleries and fashion brands were putting up their own displays in adjoining rooms so they could showcase their wares as well. Even the Louvre was setting up a selection of its greatest artifacts in a side ballroom so reporters could film it and tell people how wonderful that museum was.

That wasn’t to say the atmosphere was totally positive, though. Alix hadn’t returned to class since her last akumatization and there were a few rumors about what might have happened to her. Lila was also gone, probably not dead—the desultory ‘don’t kill yourself’ text Chloe had sent her might have bounced back on account of Lila blocking her number, but Chloe was sure it would have made the news if Lila really had hung herself—but also not responding to any communications. And even setting them aside, the other people who had some inkling of what the show would entail weren’t exactly hiding it well.

“Is something up with Alya?” Marinette had asked as she’d sat down next to Chloe in the cafeteria. A few people had given them astonished looks, but only a few. Marinette’s reconciliation with Chloe was old news now.

“Like what?” Chloe had asked, struggling to keep her voice level.

“She’s started acting like she’s worried about me or something. You know, she asks me if I’m okay, she insists I can tell her if anything’s wrong... it’s odd. I keep telling her I’ve never been better and she says she believes me, but I can tell she doesn’t.” Marinette had chewed a macaroon from her lunch thoughtfully. “Adrien’s been kind of quiet too, and Sabrina’s been ducking into her books every time I say ‘hi’ to her. You’re friends with Adrien and dating Alya—”

“We’re not dating!” Chloe’s protest had been instinctive, and when Marinette had smiled, Chloe had said, “You’re being ridiculous! I don’t want to kiss her or anything; we just hang out together!”

Marinette had chuckled. “Alright, alright. You’re friends with Adrien and Alya. So: is something going on?”

Chloe had made herself shrug. “I couldn’t say.”

“It’s just weird.” Marinette had shaken her head. “Very weird.”

“Well, you’ve been weird too,” Chloe had said. “I’ve seen you get nervous when the heroes swing by.”

Marinette had paused. “I guess,” she had said. “They, uh, gave me some bad news a few days ago. But I’m just trying to focus on the show.”

Chloe had inclined her head. It was clear Marinette didn’t think Chloe was involved with the heroes’ plan to ‘hurt’ her and thus catch Hawkmoth; no doubt Marinette assumed the heroes would have nothing to do with a bully like Chloe, even if she wasn't bullying as much recently. So she’d never see the oncoming catastrophe in time to dodge it.

“Oh, well,” Marinette had then said. “I’m sure I’ll find a way to help them. Hey, do you want to try one of Maman’s macaroons? They’re awesome!”

But nobody had told Marinette what was happening. For that matter, nobody but Chloe knew what was happening; Chloe still hadn’t told anyone what precisely she was going to do to Marinette. Part of it was that she was ashamed. The rest was her fear that, if she spoke the words aloud, she’d be so horrified she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

The work required to set up her trap had taken some time, especially given Chloe’s many other responsibilities: her makeup schoolwork, protecting Alya during akuma fights, even baking with her father. The last one seemed unimportant compared to the rest but Chloe felt she couldn’t deny him that, especially since she would very likely be killed by the akumatized Marinette. And though she wasn’t a good baker, she found it felt almost peaceful to spend a couple hours every few nights working on cookies and cakes with him, just trying to forget everything she’d done wrong and show him that she had some redeeming qualities after all.

But she had done the work. In fact, she’d completed the last step that very morning. Marinette had been sketching in her book, as she was always doing these days in her quest to produce the best possible designs for her show, and she’d left her sketchbook in the library for a few minutes while she used the restroom. Chloe had quietly slipped into her seat, taken out her phone, and systematically photographed every single page of it. “Are you going to destroy her book?” Barkk had whispered to her. “So she won’t be ready for the show?”

“No. Marinette’s smart; she’ll have made scans or backups or something. And she could just use her old clothes if she had to. To get her akumatized, this’ll have to hurt worse than that.” Chloe had turned a page. “A lot worse.”

She had finished and turned the book back to its original page before Marinette returned. Then came classes, lunch, her extra study hall, and other activities that Chloe found herself wishing would last forever so the next day would never come. But they didn’t. And so Chloe found herself sitting at home that evening, staring at the wall, watching each minute tick by on the clock. “Are you ready?” Barkk asked.

“Yeah.” Chloe gulped. “Everything’s ready.”

“You’re sure Sabine will let you into the show? She said she didn’t want you in the hotel.”

“She doesn’t, but I put the show together. Chiara Rossi’s expecting me to be there, and so’s my mom and Gabriel Agreste.” Chloe had checked three times to verify that Gabriel had committed to attending in person; as reclusive as he’d become, even he couldn’t hide away from a massive fashion gala in his backyard without raising awkward questions. “So Sabine couldn’t keep me out. She’s not going to let me on the catwalk, but I’ll be there.”

Barkk made a huffing noise. Then Chloe dropped a hand and began providing head scritches, and Barkk’s tail wagged happily. “I wonder if Ambassador Rossi will try to seduce Tom Dupain-Cheng.”

Chloe snorted. “It’d be easier for me if Marinette just got akumatized from Sabine screwing up her world debut by beating the Italian ambassador’s head in with a rolling pin. Then I wouldn't have to go through with this. But I don’t think that’s likely.” She paused. “I don’t want to hurt her, Barkk.”

“You always did before.”

“Yeah, but now I’d give anything to find some other way to stop Hawkmoth.”  Chloe hung her head. “She never deserved anything that I did to her. Even if this works, I might hate myself forever for this. I know you think that means I’m a hypocrite or something—”

“I think,” Barkk said, “that it means you’re changing.” And the dog favored Chloe with a slight smile.

Chloe managed to return it. Barkk had been poking at this point for weeks, hinting she wasn’t as far gone as she thought. And at times Chloe could almost believe it. But then she remembered what she was planning and was filled with such self-loathing she could barely look at herself. “I just think—”

Her phone buzzed.

“Chloe?” came a vaguely familiar voice when Chloe picked up. “This is Marlena Cesaire. Is Alya with you? She didn’t come home from school and she isn’t returning my messages.”

“Uh, no,” Chloe said. “I haven’t seen her since school. Did you check her blog? Sometimes she says when she’s off reporting.”

“Her computer’s just open to her last blog post. It’s the one she put up a few hours ago about that jewel thief, Felice Fournier.”

Chloe felt her blood run cold. “Mrs. Cesaire?” she asked in a voice that cracked with tension. “Does her room smell like there’s a really strong perfume in there? A flowery one?”

“Yes, how did you know?” Marlena said. And then she said other things, but Chloe didn’t hear them, because she was already hanging up the phone to call for help.

#

“Come on!” Chloe screamed as she collapsed back on her bed. “How can nobody be able to help? This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

Red Queen and Cheshire were fighting an akuma in the suburbs and showed no signs of being able to win or even get away anytime soon. The police were useless; Chloe had called Roger but he’d bluntly explained that he couldn’t put out a missing person report just because someone missed curfew and had a strong perfume in her room. Telling Marlena wouldn’t do anything but panic her. And Barkk had said the old man in the tea shop was in England at the moment and wouldn’t be back for several hours.

“I have to stop her,” Chloe hissed. “If nobody else will, I will! Fournier abducted Alya and I have to stop her!”

“Fournier is very dangerous, Chloe,” Barkk warned. “She could kill you.”

“I don’t care! She only exists because I needed to be punished, and even if she wasn’t my fault, I won’t let her hurt Alya! Nobody hurts Alya! She was the only person who was nice to me, and I don’t want anyone to hurt her!”

Chloe realized she sounded very stupid, but when she looked at Barkk, the dog actually gave her an approving smile. “What do you want to do?”

What Chloe wanted to do was have her daddy order a government task force to sweep the city, rescue Alya, and throw Fournier in a deep hole somewhere. But she no longer had that power, and a chill ran through her as she realized for one of the first times just what she’d given up in her Wish. It wasn't only her petty indulgences and her ability to throw tantrums. Her ability to use all that power to help people, which she’d never once invoked, was gone just when she desperately needed it.

“I...” Chloe took a strangled breath and tried to push back her self-loathing enough to focus. “Okay. We need to find Fournier. But she’s a great thief, she can beat the police. She knows all their tricks. She—wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t know magic. Both times I met her, she lost at least some of what she wanted because of akumas. Rogercop made her flee without half her loot and Mad Catter smacked her into a helicopter. And you’re magic too. If you can help, she won’t know how to block you!”

Barkk nodded and had an eager look, as if excited to see Chloe’s progress. “Do you have a plan?”

“You told me you have a good nose. Go to Alya’s room in Le Grand Paris and pick up the scent of Fournier’s perfume.” Then Chloe hesitated, remembering she didn’t have Barkk’s Miraculous and couldn’t really order the dog around. “Please, Barkk. I know you don’t have to listen to me, but—”

“Of course I’ll help,” said Barkk. And, as a wave of relief flooded through Chloe, the dog actually gave a slight smile. “Do you know what you’ll do if we find her? She’s stronger than you are, and even if you could get the police to come, she could defeat them. Easily.”

That was true, Chloe thought. Fournier was much stronger than a normal person. She’d practically shredded her helicopter, and would probably have ripped Chloe’s head clean off if she hadn’t handed over the earrings Gabriel had given her. If Chloe was going to fight her, she’d need to figure out how to hurt her as badly as possible, because no other tactic was going to work. But all she knew about Fournier was that she was a crazy criminal who liked fancy things such as orris butter and only cared about grabbing whatever suited her fancy.

Then her eyes narrowed as she realized what she could do. “Go to Le Grand Paris and find the scent of her perfume. I need to grab a couple things from here. Then come back, get me, and lead me to her.”

Barkk nodded, flew through Chloe’s window, and vanished into the evening.

Chloe got the two things she needed from around her home and then paced anxiously until Barkk came back and she ran down to the street. Then she walked for a long while, taking a complicated path that doubled back several times, and Barkk even disappeared into the sewers at one point before popping up and bringing Chloe to another point. But eventually they wound up at a mansion just a couple blocks away from the park they’d gone to during the Mad Catter akuma. “She’s in here,” Barkk said.

Chloe nodded as she looked at the manor. It was gaudy and ostentatious, and it showed no signs of life whatsoever. Then she jammed her finger into a button on an intercom near the gate. “Let me in, Fournier.”

Nobody responded.

“Let me in and I’ll give you what you want.” Chloe held up one of the two things she’d taken in her house: the pair of earrings Gabriel had given her. “You still want these, don’t you? But you couldn’t find them because you thought I was just some maid and didn’t know my real identity. They’re yours, if you let me see Alya.”

And just like that, the gate swung open.

Chloe walked through the quiet grounds and through the manor’s front door, which was unlocked. When she entered she was struck for a moment at the sheer riches on display: ornate furniture was crammed in everywhere, designer clothes spilled out from most of the drawers, and everything from exquisite jewelry to paintings to actual statues were shoved haphazardly everywhere. And then there was the food: a box of truffles, two bottles of expensive wine, takeout boxes with half-eaten delicacies from the priciest restaurants in the area. The objects had only one thing in common: they were the most expensive that money could buy.

It was like the playground of a king, Chloe thought. But then she looked closer and saw that one of the bottles of wine was dribbling onto a priceless damask shirt, that two of the statues were smeared with some kind of sauce, that one of the dresses had been left by a radiator and was shriveling up. Then she thought it was like the playground of a child king, one who had never needed to pick up after himself and who didn’t even really care about his treasures he had but only cared about having things for the sake of having them. And if they fell to pieces because he didn’t spend thirty seconds cleaning up, well, he could just throw a fit, blame someone else for the screw up, and buy more.

Chloe thought back to her own rooms in the other world and shut her eyes for a moment. Then Fournier called, “Get in here!” from a room on Chloe’s left. The thief’s voice held childish glee, but Chloe could also hear an undercurrent of menace in her words. “Let’s talk, maid!”

Chloe entered and her eyes ran over the room's contents—a shelf of golden ornaments, a jeweled dagger which might have been taken from some archeological dig, more priceless wine, crystal goblets and perfume bottles, jewels as big as Chloe’s fist—until she saw the people she’d been looking for. Fournier was leaning against a wall dressed in a shirt and pants from a brand whose outfits cost fifty thousand euros apiece. And Alya, still dressed in her school clothes, was tied to a chair that looked like it had belonged to a French king. “Chloe?” Alya gasped. “How are you here?”

Fournier held up her hand. “Earrings first.” A scowl flitted over her face. “You shouldn’t even have them anymore. I took them; it’s not my fault some stupid magic ladybugs returned them. So give them to me now!”

Chloe shrugged. The earrings were worthless compared to anything else in here, she knew, but it was clear Fournier wanted them anyway. And she was again reminded of herself and how she’d wanted things which were redundant with, or worse than, her other things just so she could have them and someone else couldn’t. “Here,” she said as she made herself take them off and drop them on a dresser. “Happy?”

“Yeah.” Fournier grinned. “I’ve got this one blouse they’ll look perfect with.”

Alya demanded, “Why do you even care? You have so much junk already!”

“It’s not junk!” Fournier’s voice sounded distinctly childish and Chloe cringed. “Peasants like you shouldn’t speak over your betters, especially when you know nothing.”

“You’re not a better! You’re just a thief taking things that aren’t yours!”

Fournier whipped a gun out from her belt and aimed it at Alya, who blanched. “These things are mine!” she snapped. “All of them! I deserve them, so I took them, and now they’re mine!” She glanced at Chloe. “After all, why shouldn’t I have what I want? What’s the point of living if I can’t have what I want?”

It wasn’t Chloe’s voice, not exactly. Fournier’s voice was a bit deeper due to her being around Mendeleiev’s age, and her words also had a classy English accent Chloe had never mastered. But Chloe had still lived by those words even if she hadn’t said them quite like this. And she understood that the monster in front of her, the one who took whatever she wanted from whoever those things belonged to and then used her skills to make sure she never suffered any consequences, was what had wanted to be for most of her life.

Fournier was stronger than Chloe. She was probably smarter too. She was better with people, judging by how she’d infiltrated the Agreste manor, and a better thief. But at heart, Chloe knew, they were the same.

And when she saw her spiritual sister holding a gun to her best friend’s head, she wanted to lie down and weep at what she’d been... and who, if Plagg and Mendeleiev were correct about her, she would always be.

But she couldn’t lie down and cry. She had work to do. “Alya,” Chloe muttered. “Let me talk to her.” And when Alya fell silent, Chloe turned to the thief. “I’d ask for a reward for giving you those earrings, but Mendeleiev told me how you repay your friends.”

“I already told you,” Fournier said as her voice went sulky, “I did something extremely nice for her. Embarrassing too. But she never appreciated me.”

For a moment, Chloe wondered what could have embarrassed the thief, but then she had it. “You let yourself get caught at the mint,” she mused. “Deliberately. So the police would know Mendeleiev was innocent.”

“Exactly!” Fournier spread her hands. “Just because I tricked her into going to that bank so the guards would be watching her while I hit it, she acted like it was my fault she got arrested. How was I supposed to know the guards would be so stupid they’d actually arrest her instead of realizing I’d fooled them all?” She crossed her arms. “They were insane. Completely insane! And then, when the guards did arrest Mendeleiev and she got all upset, I let myself get seen at the mint and they let her go—but she still through a fit over it and said we weren’t friends anymore!”

Chloe said nothing as Fournier shook her head. “She was nothing, you know, before we met. Just some little peasant who lived in the cottage at our manor because my parents had hired her parents to tutor me. I taught her to be fancy. I made her important. I even lent her a few of my things! And all I asked was a couple of favors. But I’m sure peasants like you wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand,” said Chloe, who wasn’t able to stop herself from thinking of when she’d offered Sabrina a ‘few things’ in exchange for the other girl doing her dirty work. “I understand everything about you. And I might be able to offer you a trade.”

Fournier burst into laughter. “You’re a maid for the Agrestes. What could you have that I want?”

“I can find out what you really are.” Fournier stopped laughing at that and Chloe smiled a little. “When Mad Catter hit you and your body went crazy. You didn’t expect that, right? You don’t know anything about akumas or magic. But you want to learn; that’s why you abducted the Red Queen Reporter and took those books from the Louvre.”

“I took her because she wrote horrible insults about me and needed to be punished,” Fournier corrected, though her tone was intrigued as she spoke. “And yeah, I took the Louvre’s books, but they were boring and a pain to read so I junked them. Still, if I have some kind of powers... sure, it’d be nice to know about them.” She snorted. “If I’d known I was magic before, I could have just walked out of that prison instead of waiting for parole. Or just never been caught! So tell me!”

“Chloe!” Alya hissed. “No! We can’t tell her anything that would help her get the Miraculouses!”

But Chloe waved her off and just said, “On two conditions. One: you don’t hurt either of us. And two...” Chloe forced a greedy smile onto her face. She’d worn it so often in the other world, usually while decreeing that her father would buy this or expropriate that or demand that someone give her what she wanted before she ruined their lives. Now it felt fake and ugly, like she was covering her face with a slimy mold of some cheap theater mask. But she managed the smile anyway. “You give me a few things from your collection.”

Fournier gave Chloe a calculating, contemptuous, but ever so faintly bemused look. Chloe knew that one too, as she’d given it to Sabrina many times before offering to lend her a beret or a necklace or some other trinket in exchange for being her slave for another few weeks. “Deal. So tell me. Why am I like this?”

Chloe took a breath. “It happened the night you went to Colt Fathom’s hospital. You were hurt, I’m guessing badly. And Colt Fathom made you a deal.”

Fournier considered and Chloe held her breath to see if her educated guess was right. She was pretty sure Fournier wasn’t an akuma, since Gabriel / Hawkmoth hadn’t used his powers to stop her from robbing him. But akumas weren’t the only magic creatures around. That meant Felice was something else, and since she’d transformed from an inept burglar into the Queen of Thieves after staying in Colt Fathom’s hospital, it was clear her transformation had happened then.

That still wasn’t enough to be certain Colt was responsible—Felice could have been changed by a doctor, another patient, found a Miraculous or some other magic trinket while staying there, whatever—but Chloe knew something Felice didn’t. In the other world, the one Chloe had grown up in, Felix Fathom—Colt’s son—had also been inhuman. He had to be if Barkk’s comment about him wiping out all humans was correct; Chloe was pretty sure Felix hadn't been suicidal, so he wouldn’t have done something that would have killed him too. So Colt was now linked to two non-human creatures, and seeing as how the kwamis had no reason to alter Colt and Chloe couldn’t think of how either her Wish or Lila’s could have changed the man, she was willing to bet he was basically the same in both worlds: someone who was linked to, and probably made, monsters like Felix and Felice.

“He offered to fix you up and make you into the world’s greatest thief if you protected him and his family,” Chloe went on, thinking back to the article where Fournier had protested that the Agrestes owed her for ‘protecting’ their family. “And you took it.”

“Took it?” Fournier sniffed. “You make it sound as if that jerk did me a favor.”

Chloe said nothing as Fournier began to pace. “He was insane, totally insane. I was only there in the first place because the job went wrong. That warehouse wasn’t supposed to be guarded, and besides, I was just taking a few necklaces—that guard didn’t need to shoot me! And after I was dragged out, and I was just hoping for a little sympathy...”

Dragged? And then Chloe wondered if it had been Mendeleiev who had dragged her. Hadn’t Mendeleiev claimed to have saved Fournier’s life once? But Fournier was already moving on. “...doctors said it would take me a year to fully recover. A year of operations, and physical therapy, and drugs that gave me migraines and messed up my sleep, and not doing anything fun ever!” Fournier’s face reddened. “That was insane, completely insane! I had a life! I was yachting that summer, and going to Madrid and Singapore in the fall—I couldn’t spend a year in the hospital! Oh, and Colt knew it too, because when he had me transferred to his private little place, he made it clear he thought he had me over a barrel. That I had to serve and protect his family, the Fathoms and the Agrestes too, if I wanted to skip all that physical therapy and surgery so I could just get back to my life!”

Fournier’s face twisted into a smile. “But he was too stupid to realize I knew I didn’t need to do anything he said. So I promised whatever he wanted, of course, and then I woke up with this great new body. It wasn’t just healthy, it was strong, fast, the perfect body for having fun. And it didn’t need any more doctors messing around with it!”

Then a tiny voice whispered into Chloe’s ear, “That explains it,” and Chloe flinched before realizing it was Barkk and that the dog must have again phased mostly into her head so as not to be seen. “Human noses wouldn’t notice, but beneath all that orris butter, she smells like rot.”

Which explained the strong perfume, Chloe thought. It might be distinctive, hardly desirable for a thief, but not as distinctive as smelling like a walking corpse. And then her eyes widened as she realized what that likely meant: Felice didn’t actually have a new body, she just had a shell of flesh around her old, broken one that she’d never bothered to fix up. The shell moved for her, its heart pumped, its lungs breathed, it did everything she needed... while her original rotted away somewhere beneath the other woman’s skin. It was monstrous. It was depraved. It was a horrific shortcut, not at all worth the benefit of being able to skip a little physical therapy.

And if someone had offered Chloe a shortcut like that a few months ago, then Chloe—who had also preferred to throw tantrums and lie, cheat, and steal things she wanted instead of actually working to get them—knew she would have taken it and not thought twice.

Revulsion swam through Chloe and she wondered how much worse she and Fournier could get. Indeed, they weren’t even that different mentally, because Colt’s gift explained how Fournier could be such a great thief while remaining such an immature child: Felice Fournier had never had to grow up. She’d never needed to learn to be nice or clever or friendly because she was strong enough to just take whatever she wanted anyway. She’d never had to mature past the stage of being like her, Chloe Bourgeois, the vilest and most selfish girl in Paris.

Chloe belatedly realized Fournier was still talking. “...so he went to shake my hand like he thought I owed him my life—and I slipped his ring right off his finger when I shook it. He didn’t even notice!” Fournier giggled. “It was worthless silver crap, of course, and I threw it out the next day, but that wasn’t the point. By the time he found out I wasn’t obeying him, I’d already emptied out his bank vault. I sure showed him!”

Alya asked, “Why in the world did you think the Agrestes would help you after that? You didn’t actually protect them!”

“Well, I would’ve gotten around to protecting them eventually.” Fournier waved a hand dismissively. “When I was done having fun. Anyway, I was always curious what Colt actually did to me. Wasn’t sure what kind of surgery could give me...”

“A full body transplant?” Chloe murmured as she tried to think of what kind of magic could have done this to Fournier. None of the kwamis she knew could handle it, nor could Hawkmoth. So maybe one of the Guardian’s other Miraculouses? Or that figure whom she’d seen near Hawkmoth when she’d been Miracle Queen, Mayura or something. Hadn’t Ladybug once mentioned something about her being able to create monsters?

Fournier smirked. “Yeah. That. But he got sick and died just a few months later, so I didn’t have any leads and stopped worrying about it. But I’d still like to know how Mad Catter made my body go crazy. I mean, nobody makes me do things I don’t want to do. Nobody controls me.” She gave a toothy, ferocious grin. “And I’ll destroy anyone who tries.”

Then Fournier clapped her hands. “So! If you know so much, tell me, maid: how can I stop that from happening again, and while we're at it, how can I make myself even stronger? I mean, Colt probably didn’t give me all the power right away. How do I get the rest?”

Chloe held up a hand. “Hang on. Now it’s your turn.” She gestured at the clothes and other finery around them. “If you want more information, then I want an outfit.”

“Well...” And Fournier gave Chloe a look she knew very well from her time with Sabrina. “Alright. One outfit. And then you tell me everything, including how I can use Colt's power to make myself even better. After all, it’s not a bad body, but I’ve been thinking of improvements.”

Alya gave Chloe a questioning look but said nothing, and Chloe turned away to go through the room as well as its side chambers. Everything around her looked beautiful, lovely, and incredibly expensive. And she knew there had been a time when this would have been her paradise. When she’d have made that deal with Fournier, and happily so, and wouldn’t have given it another thought until Fournier inevitably killed her so she couldn’t report on the thief’s real identity. And, honestly, a small part of her still wanted to wrap herself in golden gowns, put a tiara on her head and a diamond necklace around her neck, and flaunt that wealth to all those who saw her.

But there was something more important at stake, something much greater than her greed, or her regrets, or even her hate for Fournier. And so she hunted around until she found what she wanted. “This stuff,” Chloe said as she went into a side chamber and picked up a big glass jar of orris butter. “It’s expensive, isn’t it?”

“The most expensive.” Fournier grinned.

“And strong.”

“The strongest.”

Chloe tapped the jar for one moment more. “And you know what else?” she said, thinking back to a science lesson from long ago, one given by a strict teacher she hadn’t appreciated. “It’s a perfume. And perfume’s flammable.”

She spun, then hurled the jar against a large gold statue of a lion. The jar shattered and the overpowering scent of orris butter filled the room. And then, even as Fournier started toward her, Chloe reached into her pocket for the other item she’d taken from home. It was a cheap little lighter, one her father used to relight his oven when it went out. He’d given it to her when she’d asked him for it, saying she needed it for a school project, just before Barkk had returned to take her to Fournier’s.

Of all the many things Chloe had demanded her father give her, it was the only one she’d ever truly needed.

The lighter burst into flame as Chloe flicked it open and she flashed Fournier a mean grin before throwing it against the statue. Then the perfume ignited, flames burst up all over the chamber, paintings and clothes and other flammable treasures began to burn, and Fournier howled like she’d been struck. “MY THINGS!” she screamed as she raced over to rescue the treasures. “I’LL KILL YOU!”

Chloe was already running back to Alya. She grabbed the jeweled dagger off its rack and sawed at Alya’s bonds, it did little, but then Barkk was biting through the ropes and they fell apart like soggy paper towels between the dog’s teeth. Chloe grabbed Alya and dragged her out of the room just before the flames approached them. And from behind them, Fournier continued to rant.

The two girls burst out of the manor, dashed through the grounds, and made It to the street before looking back. Their wing of the manor was now burning brightly and sirens sounded from somewhere. Then Fournier appeared on the roof and shot Chloe a venomous, unhinged glare before she turned and jumped to a neighboring building. In seconds she was gone.

#

Chloe felt Alya grip her in a tight hug, and she had to struggle to move them a few more blocks so they wouldn’t be seen. Then she said, “Alya, it’s okay. You’re safe.” And as she realized she’d actually saved her friend, a little smile came to her lips. “I told you I’d protect you.”

Alya managed a nod, but she didn’t let up on the hug. “Thank you. She was crazy, said I’d tell her everything I knew and say sorry a million times for posting that blog or else she’d kill my family. She...” Then Alya paused for a moment before breaking down into tears. “She almost killed us. She almost killed you, because I wrote about her for my stupid blog...”

“It’s not your fault!” Chloe cried out. “You have to be a great journalist, right? Because of your mom?”

“Mom warned me about writing about her after I told her how she killed the Tsurugis and their bodyguard. I promised I’d check with the police and heroes to make sure I was being safe, but I didn’t because I had to get the scoop, and...” Alya was sobbing now. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No, you aren’t!” Chloe protested. “Stop!”

Alya cried for a few more minutes before looking back at Chloe. “Thank you,” she repeated. “I’m sure that must have been hard.”

“Finding you?”

“No.” Alya gave her a look that was still nervous but now held a trace of amusement. “Turning down her offer for all that stuff.”

“Stuff?” Chloe asked blankly. “Who cares about the stuff? All I wanted in there was you.”

Alya stared at Chloe for a long moment, then lunged forward and kissed her on the lips. And as Chloe leaned into it, and as she embraced the girl before her tighter than she ever had before, she thought, Okay. Maybe I do want to kiss her.

The city was still in peril. Hawkmoth was still out there, and Chloe’s desperate plan to stop him was still looming in the future. But for that precious moment, Chloe felt—for the first time since entering her new world—a sense of peace.

Chapter Text

“...Have I died? And is being this”—I motioned, judiciously, with the cup toward Self—“my punishment? To be this trifling silly ass forever? To never—never touch anyone again?”

--William Mingin (“Greaves, This Is Serious”)

“...I’m fine, Mom. Really.” Alya grimaced and pressed her phone tighter against her ear. “Chloe told me you wanted me to check in, so I’m calling, that’s all. Uh, why are you asking if anything happened? Why would anything happen?”

Chloe raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak as Alya continued telling her mother that she was fine. It was just a few minutes after they’d finished kissing and the two had sat down on a snowy bench, feeling contented and warm despite the frigid weather, until Chloe had mentioned that Marlena was worried. Now, as Alya tried to convince her mom not to order her home at once, Chloe dropped an arm over her and hugged her close. It didn’t seem likely that an akuma or Fournier would attack Alya here on this little bench, but Chloe wasn’t going to take any chances.

Alya finally managed to get off the phone and turned back to Chloe, then buried her face against her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t be mad.”

“About what?” Chloe said, genuinely baffled.

“At me getting abducted,” Alya said. “My mom said she didn’t want me writing about Fournier because she’s a real criminal. I mean, Hawkmoth is too, but you know what I mean. But I thought it’d be a great scoop, so I did it anyway, and then she snuck into my room and hit me over the head or something.” She sniffed. “I woke up in her mansion and she was whining about me being 'mean' to her. She was going to kill me just for writing on my blog that she sucked!"

“Fournier’s a jerk,” Chloe said. “It’s not your fault.”

Alya insisted, “But you had to rescue me! Again! And I’ve been telling myself it’s okay that I’m go into danger, and that you do too, because it’s for my stories. But Fournier could have killed you.” She could also have killed Alya, Chloe noted, but the journalist didn’t seem to think that was relevant. “I’ve been really selfish, haven’t I?”

Chloe managed a wry smile. “Pretty sure I’ve done worse.”

That managed to tear a slight laugh out of Alya. “You know what I mean.”

“I...” Chloe hesitated. “I want to protect you, Alya. And if you want to run into danger again and again, I’ll be there.” She paused. “But if you want to figure out safer ways to get your stories so we don’t get attacked by so many thieves or akumas, I guess I wouldn’t mind.”

Alya chuckled louder at that and the two embraced for a long moment before she pulled away. “What now?”

“We go home, I guess. And then tomorrow’s the show where we maybe stop Hawkmoth. Or maybe—” Chloe cut herself off. She didn’t need to worry Alya by telling her that she wasn’t at all convinced she’d survive tomorrow. If Marinette didn’t kill her—and given how bloody the Mad Catter akuma had been, Chloe was willing to bet an akumatized Marinette would be able to slaughter the city without breaking a sweat—there was still the aftermath. If Chloe polished off Hawkmoth but then determined she was still too evil to exist, that she would still hurt those around her, that redemption was impossible after all...

She tried to cut the thoughts off before they overwhelmed her. “Um,” she managed. “Do you, uh, want to stay over tonight? And have a sleepover?” She distantly realized she hadn’t had a real sleepover in ages, except for the old world when she’d locked Sabrina in a closet to do her homework, and that didn’t count. “If you want to. I—”

Alya was already dialing her mother. “Hey, Mom? Actually, can I stay at Chloe’s?”

Chloe felt a smile come to her lips, and she hugged Alya again while waiting for her answer.

#

Alya’s mother wasn’t thrilled about it, but she gave in after a while—especially when Alya said she was also going to set her posts on Felice Fournier to ‘private’ and not write anything else about her until and unless she was actually jailed--and Chloe spent what she increasingly thought of as the last evening of her life in a state that somehow approached happiness.

The two went up to Chloe’s room and talked about school, the Red Queen Report, the last world’s Alya (“Wait, I seriously got akumatized when someone caught me and Nino playing a videogame together?”) and things of no importance at all. Andre cooked them a dinner that Chloe thought was great, even if it was just pasta and fruit, and then he and Chloe baked scones for dessert and Alya said she actually really liked them. After that Chloe let Alya borrow some pajamas and the two watched a goofy adventure anime called Beast Tamer that the journalist recommended.

Then, when it was almost time for bed, Alya asked to go out on the balcony and see the city as Chloe did. And so the two stepped out there and huddled between the back wall and the low wall on the balcony’s left side; the cold wind wasn’t too bad there and the two were able to watch as snow began to fall through the moonlit night. After a few moments Chloe had another idea and went downstairs just long enough to get some sausage bits from her father’s refrigerator; once she came back up, she tossed one and called, “Hey, Barkk: fetch!”

Alya’s eyes widened in pure delight as Barkk zoomed out into the night and came back moments later with a sausage bit. The bite of food was even larger than the kwami’s head and both girls laughed as Barkk munched it. Then the two took turns throwing the snack bites as Barkk zipped through the air; by the time they ran out, Barkk was laughing too, and Chloe and Alya took turns scratching the little dog’s head, belly, and wagging tail.

“So what do you think, Barkk?” Alya asked after a while. “Chloe’s changed, right? She’s not a rabid dog anymore.”

“Yeah, maybe I’m a good dog now,” Chloe managed to joke. “Or at least a sort-of-good dog.”

“Please.” Barkk’s voice was prim and proud. “You wouldn’t make even a mediocre dog, Chloe.” But before Chloe’s face could fall, Barkk then added, “But you might be a pretty good human.”

Chloe smiled at that, even as Alya asked, “Might be? She saved my life! And she’s risking everything tomorrow, including getting killed by the akuma, or just going to jail if the plan doesn’t work! Isn’t that enough?”

“I’m sorry.” And Barkk sounded truly sincere about that. “But no, it’s not enough. Not after what Chloe did.”

“You need to see if I go through with it,” Chloe murmured as she continued scratching the dog’s furry stomach. “That I don’t get there and then chicken out, or try to make a deal with Gabriel or something.”

“Among other things.” Barkk considered. “Well, one other thing. But Chloe, if you make the right choices tomorrow...” The dog took a breath and then looked up at Chloe with a slight smile. “You’ll deserve your second chance.”

Chloe nodded, though her stomach twisted a little. Not at the idea of her making a deal with Gabriel; she’d never do that. But at her fear of what she would have to endure—what she would have to do—the next day. “Alright,” she said quietly. “I’ll do my best.”

“And I’ll help,” Alya promised. “However I can. I’ll fight the akuma, or Plagg if I need to, or anyone. You can count on me.”

Barkk’s mouth opened, presumably to tell Alya that Chloe had to pass this test alone, but Chloe spoke first. “Actually,” she said quietly, “I need to ask you a favor, Alya.”

“Anything.”

“I need you not to fight for me tomorrow.” And when Alya gasped in shocked protest, Chloe held up a hand. “Alya. This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Not just surviving the akuma, but with Marinette...”

And her voice hitched, so that when she said, “I don’t want to hurt her, Alya,” it was little more than a whisper.

Alya hugged Chloe as the other girl worked to recover her voice. “I know it’s utterly ridiculous that I spent my whole life bullying her and now I just want her to have a good show, but it’s true. I’d give anything for there to be another way to stop Hawkmoth, but I can’t find one. So I have to ruin her show, but it’s going to be Hell, and if I’m also worried that I’m ruining you too, I don’t know that I’ll be able to do it.”

Chloe tilted Alya’s head up to meet the other girl’s eyes. “So please. Don’t sacrifice yourself for me. If I’m going down, let it happen. Let me just...” Her voice caught again. “Do what I have to do without hurting you too.”

Alya opened her mouth, then paused and glanced at Barkk. “What do you think?”

“I think you should be loyal. But I’m the kwami of loyalty, so I always think that.” Barkk looked at the girls. “You’re the humans, while I’m just the dog. It’s your job to choose.”

Alya considered that for a long moment, then looked at Chloe. “It’ll really be harder if you think I might get hurt too?”

“Yes.”

“Then...” Alya let out a breath. “Okay, Chloe. I won’t defend you tomorrow. On one condition.” Her gaze grew stern. “If I’m not fighting for you, then you have to fight for yourself. Okay?”

“I’m not just going to let Marinette kill me—”

Alya interjected, “That’s not just what I mean. You fight for yourself through the whole thing. Against Marinette's akuma, and Gabriel, and the kwami, and even Sabine if she tries to arrest you. I’m not saying do anything evil or try to run away from the police or something, but you don’t lie down and let them hurt you or jail you just because you think you deserved to be punished. Okay?”

Chloe wanted to protest that she did, in fact, deserve to be punished. But when she looked at Alya and saw the fierce passion, even love, in the other girl’s face, she couldn’t form the words. “Alright,” she said. “I promise.”

The two looked into each other’s eyes, hugged, and Chloe wished the moment would last forever.

#

But it didn’t.

Chloe’s warm and contented feelings evaporated the moment she approached Le Grand Paris the next morning. There were masses of reporters and paparazzi there to film the guests as they arrived, but Chloe barely noticed as she worked her way through them. Then Alya bid her goodbye so she could get prepped with the other models from Chloe’s class, and Chloe did notice Alya leaving, but of course she could do nothing about it. And so she found herself completely alone.

The grand ballroom of Le Grand Paris, in the center of the second floor, had been filled with a series of tables and two press pens surrounding a glittering marble catwalk. Reporters, businessmen, celebrities, and government officials were already sitting at the tables and chattering as waiters served them glasses of champagne. Smaller event halls and conference rooms held exhibits from other businesses and artisans; Chloe saw technology stands, clothiers, and even an old French baker Chloe had never heard of who someone said was related to the Dupain-Chengs. Every major French brand in Paris seemed to be represented, as well as several prominent Italian companies with stores in the city, and the whole place had the feel of a grand bazaar.

Idly, as Chloe walked, she wondered if anyone besides Alya would miss her if Marinette killed her. She’d written a note to her father which she’d slipped under her pillow, apologizing for everything she had put him through and saying she loved him, but even given that she wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t be secretly relieved were his horrible daughter to die. Her mother probably wouldn’t even notice she was dead. And as for her classmates, she felt they were more likely to throw a party over her death than to mourn it.

Chloe kept musing on the subject as she made her way through the event area, which spread over all the big rooms on the hotel’s second floor—including the ones which, in Chloe’s old world, had been used to hold the countless knickknacks she’d demanded and promptly forgotten about—until she came across a large room containing textiles from the Louvre. Alim was leading his own staff in setting the exhibit up and Alix was also helping.

Chloe hadn’t seen Alix since her last akumatization and she watched the other girl for a moment, noting how Alix’s motions were listless and she only moved when she was told to do something. It reminded her of her own zombie-like state the day after her suicide attempt and she winced. But she couldn’t think of anything to say to Alix, nor any reason for the other girl to care if Chloe was worried about her. So she just slipped out one of the doors and went straight down a long hallway until she reached the hotel’s secondary ballroom, this one with a large stairway in its back that went up to the third floor, and from there she was able to find another hallway to take her back to the first ballroom with Marinette and all the guests.

“At least there weren’t any guns,” Chloe murmured to herself with the ghost of a smile on her lips as she walked. Even an armed and dangerous Alix would have been nothing compared to what Chloe was about to bring upon herself. But she supposed she should be grateful for small favors.

Chloe had spent enough time wandering the exhibits that the ballroom was now close to full. Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale were at one table, regaling reporters and their cameramen with stories of live performances. The Dupain-Chengs were bustling around in exquisite outfits and telling everyone who would listen how proud they were of Marinette. Gabriel Agreste was moving through the room with purpose while maintaining a scrupulously inscrutable expression on his face. The table nearest the catwalk held Chiara Rossi, who was laughing gaily and smiling at some guy in a fancy suit, and Lila, who was staring at nothing with a wan face and a thoroughly miserable expression. 

But the person who was really noticeable, who made head turns when she walked by, was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Even the Chloe of three months ago could not have denied the other girl’s outfit was beautiful. She wore a sleek red dress which shimmered and sparkled in the room’s brilliant lighting, and her hair was done up in some fancy style Chloe had once seen on a Chinese drama. She wore two ruby earrings and a thin bracelet which served mostly to show that she was so pretty she needed no other adornment. And tucked into her hair was a familiar comb that Chloe still could not bear to look at even as Marinette approached her table.

“Marinette!” Rose ran into the room and toward Marinette while dragging someone behind her. The guy with Rose had dark skin and Chloe guessed this was Prince Ali; behind Ali was someone who looked like a harried secretary. “Marinette! Thank you so much for connecting me and Ali! He asked me out and I’m so happy and this is the best day of my life!”

She hugged Marinette, and Ali bowed to her and went into a short speech about how her fashion was lovely and how he hoped to forge strong ties between Paris and Achu. Marinette smiled at them and spoke joyously about how happy she knew they would be. And then she excused herself to go talk to Juleka, who had just approached her along with a girl who looked a little like her. “Juleka!” Marinette said. “Socqueline! I see the date went well?”

“Yeah,” Juleka said in a voice so quiet Chloe had to strain to hear it. “Yeah, it went well. Thanks for setting us up.”

“You should have told me you knew a pretty girl who loves scary movies!” The other girl, Socqueline, said. “Juleka’s awesome! Were you keeping her all for yourself or something?”

Marinette laughed and Chloe shut her eyes so as not to cry. “Of course not," Marinette said. "I’m just so glad you two are happy. Hey, do you know where Kim is? I was able to swing that extra ticket for his girlfriend Ondine but his phone was off, so I need to tell him he should get her over here.”

“He’s in the changing room. I’m going back there now, so I’ll tell him,” said Juleka. “Thanks again, Marinette. For everything.”

Chloe rose to go and almost bumped into someone. It was Nino, and to Chloe’s mild amazement, his headphones were off. He seemed a bit unsure of what to do but Marinette gently took his arm, nodded at Chloe and mouthed ‘one minute,’ then told him, “Enjoying yourself?”

“Uh...” Nino gulped, then nodded. “Yeah, I think so. This place is pretty cool. And you were right: sometimes it’s good to put the headphones down and meet people.”

“I know!” Marinette grinned. “And speaking of people, I saw the developers of Ultimate Mecha Strike right over there. Want me to introduce you!”

Nino brightened. “Yeah, thanks!”

Marinette had gotten Nino no more than a few steps before someone else stopped her, an old man who immediately thanked Marinette again and again for making a special exception to allow his little fabric store a booth in the show. He had just begun going on about how he’d already met some potential clients and how Marinette might have given him the break he desperately needed when Chloe rose. “I need air,” she said to nobody, and then she was hurrying for the door.

She didn’t stop until she reached a quiet nook at one side of the hallway leading up to the ballroom. And, though she tried, she couldn’t push the image of Marinette out of her head. The girl acted like she was leading each and every person around her to a better future, helping this one find love, another conquer loneliness, a third to break out of his shell, a fourth to build his business, and so on. She was always creative, always brilliant, all-loving, she was...

Ladybug.

Chloe might have taken her Miraculous, but Marinette was still the wonderful hero who protected people, guided them, and made their lives better. She would always be Ladybug no matter what Chloe or anyone else did. All that an enemy could do to her—all Chloe had ever done—was just highlight how superior Marinette was.

Marinette’s life could have been her own, Chloe realized. She could have given away gifts like Marinette, used her power and influence to solve people’s problems like Marinette, look after them like Marinette. But she’d thrown it all away, and despite everything she’d endured, all the pain she’d suffered and the knowledge she’d gained regarding her own depravity, she finally felt like she understood just what it was she had lost.

She wanted to run. Or at least to scream. But all she could do was lament how foolish she had been, how badly she had failed, and how she was so monstrous that even now—with the world at stake—she couldn’t come up with a plan that didn’t involve bullying an innocent person like Marinette. A real hero, she thought, could have made some better plan which wouldn’t hurt anyone. But Chloe couldn’t, because she had damned herself with a horrible Wish and could never, ever change.

Even if she beat Hawkmoth, Chloe knew, nothing she did could ever make up for what she’d already done. She could have been Paris’s hero once, but she’d destroyed her city and her world for nothing more than her own wicked glee. No Hell that the kwamis built for her could match the one she deserved.

“Are you okay?”

Chloe shook herself and turned to Marinette. The other girl was giving her an odd look and Chloe wondered why, but then she knew: her face must have looked just as Lila’s had after the other girl had admitted what she’d done to her father. Then Marinette stepped closer, her face full of pity, concern, and a desperate need to help, and Chloe wished she could just lie down and die so she wouldn’t have to do what she was about to do.

But she had to do it. If she did nothing else, she could at least stop Hawkmoth. She could at least protect the city, or failing that, Alya. The only person she had ever done right by, the only person who wasn’t worse for having met her.

And so Chloe checked the hall. Just as she’d figured, one of the hotel staff—Jean-something, she’d thought, though she thought one of the other guests here had called him ‘Armand’ before—was discretely watching them. He had no radio and was about halfway between them and the ballroom door. Chloe mentally timed out how long he’d need to get back to the ballroom and the Dupain-Chengs within it, took a breath, and then gave Marinette her meanest sneer. “Dupain-Cheng! About time!”

Marinette paused. “For what?”

“To give me my reward!”  Chloe crossed her arms. “I’ve made your career twice now! You owe me!”

The other girl gave her a sad look. “Chloe,” she said quietly. “Please don’t ask what you’re going to ask. You’ve done me a great favor. Just let it—”

“I won’t let it go!” Chloe protested, forcing herself not to wince at the hurt and pain in Marinette’s eyes. “You’ll be rich thanks to me, Dupain-Cheng. Even richer than your family. You should tell the stupid police to lift my probation!”

Marinette was silent for a moment before she gave a quiet shake of her head. Then she said, in a formal voice that retained a trace of sadness, “I already told you that it doesn’t work like that Chloe. You have my personal thanks. But I’m not going to interfere with the justice system.”

“But you have to!” Chloe whined. “You owe me! And I want it!” Armand turned to get the Dupain-Chengs—he had to be, there was nothing else he could be doing—and Chloe pressed on. “Or I’ll—I’ll cancel the show!”

Marinette slowly shook her head again. “I don’t think the French and Italian governments will cancel something just because you ask for it.”

“I’ll pull a fire alarm!” Armand had vanished into the ballroom now. Chloe wished she could check one of the reporters’ feeds to see exactly where he was, but there was no way to do that without Marinette seeing. “So there!”

“Then you’ll go to jail, and the firemen will turn off the alarm in fifteen minutes. The show will go on.” Marinette sighed. “Chloe, this is pathetic. Just go home. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“No!” Chloe snapped as Marinette began to turn away. “Don’t you turn your back on me, Dupain-Cheng! Or I’ll destroy you!”

Marinette gave Chloe a sad look and then pointedly turned around.

“Fine!” Chloe took out her phone and beeped random buttons. Then she turned her phone around, showing the page of a popular torrent site she had looked up earlier. “See anything you recognize?”

“What?” Marinette glanced back at Chloe’s phone and froze when she saw the images on the site. “Hey, those are my fashions! How did—”

“I took photos of your sketch book,” Chloe preened. Marinette gasped and Chloe felt something inside her writhe, but she pressed on. “I got all your designs and dumped them on a half dozen filesharing sites. By the time anyone even thinks about signing you, copycats will have taken these designs and flooded the market with the exact same clothes, except they’ll charge a lot less because you care about making sure your factories don’t hurt the environment and stuff while those copycats couldn’t care less.” Chloe grinned. “Why would anyone buy from you when they can get an identical knockoff at half the price? And why would anyone sign you when they learned you were so sloppy you let thieves steal your designs?”

Marinette’s fingers clenched. It was just a little, not even into full fists, but Chloe saw it. “Your career’s over, Dupain-Cheng. Nobody’ll even let you design hand towels for them now. Guess you should have been nicer to me!”

She stopped talking and forced a cruel smile as Marinette trembled. The other girl was clearly desperate to control herself, but she was losing, as Chloe knew she would. Because there were ways to hurt people that didn’t require money, or power, or magic, and Chloe knew each and every one of them. People like Marinette knew other things: how to love, how to give, how to make the world a better place. But when it came to being able to hurt, not even Hawkmoth could rival Chloe.

And, as Chloe had known she would, Marinette snapped.

“What. Is. Wrong with you?” Marinette advanced on Chloe, who backed up a little, but Marinette just pursued her. “I gave you so many chances! I fought for you! When my own mother wanted to have you arrested, I was the one who convinced her to just put you on probation!”

Chloe grinned. “You’re kind of stupid that way.”

“Apparently I am!” Marinette’s voice was rising. “Because no matter how many chances you’re given, you never change! You just keep hurting people like you think it’s fun!” Her voice cracked a little. “I never did anything at all to you! I tried to be your friend! And you never stopped attacking me!”

“Yeah, yeah, Dupain-Cheng. I’m mean, I’m bad, I’m a rabid dog. I’ve heard it before.”

“You’re not a rabid dog! A rabid dog can’t help hurting people, it just does! Every day you wake up and choose to make Paris a worse place!” Marinette was almost screaming and there were tears in her eyes. “I should have stopped you years ago!”

Chloe leaned in close to Marinette. She heard footsteps approaching and so quickly murmured, “But you won’t stop me. You’re going to keep giving me more chances, because that’s who you are. And I’m going to keep making you miserable, because that’s who I am. And because...” She shot Marinette a savage grin. “It’s just so much fun to make you cry.”

Marinette slapped her.

It wasn’t a hard slap, and Marinette herself looked shocked a moment later, like she hadn’t realized she was doing it. But it was enough, and even as Chloe winced at her stinging cheek, she glanced behind the other girl. “Mayor Sabine,” she said.

Marinette froze, then slowly turned, to see Sabine and Tom there. They were staring at the duo. And behind them were a few of the cleverer reporters who had been keeping an eye on the mayor. All were watching Marinette, and it was obvious they’d all seen her lash out.

And that was all that was needed.

Chloe Bourgeois knew how to hurt people. She knew how to target their most vulnerable point and stab there until the other person was a screaming mess. And Marinette’s biggest vulnerability wasn’t her wealth or her popularity or anything like that. It wasn’t Adrien, as much as she clearly crushed on him, and it wasn’t even her fashion, though that was almost enough on its own. But Marinette's real weak spot was her sense of duty. This was the same girl who had volunteered to be Felice Fournier’s hostage in the hopes of saving her classmates. The girl who had agreed to let the heroes hurt her if it meant stopping Hawkmoth. The girl who had taken up a Miraculous in two different worlds and gone out to fight evil just because it needed to be done.

Marinette did the noble thing. The self-sacrificing thing. The right thing. Except now she hadn’t, because she’d just assaulted Chloe in front of the global media. There would be headlines in less than five minutes: DAUGHTER OF PARISIAN MAYOR ASSAULTS CIVILIAN. Her family and her city would be humiliated. Relations with Italy and other nations represented here, such as Achu, might take a hit; the foreign diplomats would be able to truthfully argue the French government couldn’t even host a party without some politician’s terrible child causing disruption. Sabine would be beset by massive scandal. Tom’s business might suffer.

And there was no way she could fix it.

Marinette gave a strangled sob as she looked at her stunned parents and the whispering reporters. Then a wail tore from her throat and she turned, crying, to run down the hallway and vanish.

Tom raced after her. Sabine started to go too, then paused and gave Armand a look. “I’ll escort Miss Bourgeois back to the ballroom and see that she has an icepack for her cheek,” she said. “You check the neighboring rooms for witnesses. I think some of the exhibitors who were still setting up may have overheard whatever went on, and I want to know exactly what happened here.”

Chloe said nothing. She felt numb and dead. Her mind just kept repeating one thought: that if this worked, if Hawkmoth was stopped and couldn’t akumatize Alya or anyone else anymore, then maybe this would somehow be worth it.

Sabine walked Chloe to the ballroom. As they moved they passed a side room with an open door where Chloe’s classmates (except for Alix) were waiting; Sabrina and Adrien were uneasily huddled up against the back wall and Alya gave Chloe a puzzled look. Chloe could tell Alya wanted to ask what had happened, but Chloe said nothing. In a few minutes the specifics wouldn’t matter.

The ballroom guests were whispering as Sabine guided Chloe to a seat. She couldn’t bear to look around to see if Gabriel had taken the bait or not. Instead she just stared down at the tablecloth in front of her. “Please,” she whispered so silently she couldn’t even hear herself. “Please. Please let this be worth it. Please...”

Then a faint cry came from elsewhere in the hotel. The room went silent, and everyone turned as one when the ballroom’s main door burst open and Armand stumbled in.

“Mayor Sabine,” he said. “We—we have a problem with the little miss.”

“What?” Sabine demanded. “What’s wrong with my girl?”

“It’s Hawkmoth!” The scream came from outside the room as alarms began blaring. “She’s been akumatized!”

Heavy, inhuman footsteps sounded in the carpeted hall outside, but Chloe was already running.

Chapter Text

“The directors caught themselves in peculiar thoughts: some thought of British tailors, others—of the House of Lords—of the Tower of London—of the executed English King—or was it a Chancellor?—who had died so well.”

--Ayn Rand (“The Fountainhead”)

The ballroom’s side door banged shut behind Chloe and she charged down the halls at random, seeking nothing but to reach an emergency exit and then get as far away from the akuma as possible. Marinette wasn’t the sort of person who would ravage the city trying to find her. She’d just hunt her down, and every minute it took her was another minute the heroes could use to catch and expose Gabriel.

But when Chloe reached an emergency stairwell, she saw that the door was blocked off by what looked like a mesh of threads that came up from the stairwell. The strands of fabric slithered and bobbed in the air as if they were slightly alive and were woven closely enough that Chloe couldn’t wriggle through the gaps. And when Chloe glanced around herself, she saw more threads starting to crawl over the floor and slip down from the ceiling, all writhing and flicking about as if hunting for her.

Chloe gritted her teeth and jumped over two of the threads to run into another hall. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it to see the akuma alert, then checked the screen for details. She saw footage of Nadja standing in the ballroom and giving a rapid report; the reporter appeared to be loosely tied to her table by a few threads of what looked like silk, and the other guests in view were also tied down. Another giant mesh of fabric, containing what looked like everything from wool to chiffon and damask to that fake silk stuff Marinette used, had blocked off the door Chloe had fled through.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, now akumatized and calling herself Atropos, has told us that she will not stop until she has captured and killed Chloe Bourgeois,” Nadja was saying. “Atropos, of course, being the figure from Greek mythology who famously determined when people would die by cutting their ‘thread of life.’” Nadja then pointed at the other side of the mesh barrier, “Chloe was last seen jumping the catwalk and vanishing through that door, and once someone told Atropos that, she created that wall of fabric from the clothes she’d planned on presenting and went to hunt Chloe down. As you can see, she restrained most of the rest of us before leaving.”

A long strand of thread pried itself off from the mesh barrier and slithered toward Nadja, who shuddered and leaned away as it wriggled out of the room. “So far,” Nadja added, “there is no sign of the heroes in here, and my colleagues outside the hotel haven’t seen them either. Given Atropos's obvious power, if the heroes don’t get here soon, it’s very likely she’ll kill Chloe Bourgeois.”

Gabriel wasn’t in the shot, Chloe noticed, and nor were Sabrina or Adrien. The remaining models were clumped together behind the now-fallen screen and Alya—who didn’t seem to have been tied down—was filming but also shooting longing glances at the mesh wall, like she hoped to wriggle through it so she could chase down and film the akuma. Chloe tensed, since she had no idea how she would save the journalist if Alya did something that stupid, but after a moment Alya quietly shook her head and just stayed put. Chloe let out a relieved breath before pocketing her phone again and running on.

More and more doors were blocked off by threads as Chloe continued working her way through the hotel’s many corridors. There were a couple times when she had to wriggle past or jump over fabric strands that were blocking her way, and one time a few strands dropped out of a ceiling duct right in front of her and she bit back a scream as she hurled herself to the carpet and rolled away. They just missed touching her, but when Chloe looked behind her and saw that half the hallway she’d just crossed was covered in thread, she knew she was in trouble. “Come on,” she hissed as she scootched against a wall to pass more threads that were now thrashing around from under another stairwell door. “Come on!”

A horrible cry came from around the corner.

Chloe’s head jerked at the sound, which seemed very familiar, and then she ran around the corner to reach a small nook with a few armchairs and a couple of bookshelves. Lila was babbling and sobbing into a phone even as she pulled futilely at a threaded-over window. “Mama!” whisper-translated Barkk from somewhere just inside Chloe's ear, presumably staying there so the akumatized Marinette wouldn’t see anything amiss if she happened to come by. “Do something! Help me!”

“I can’t get to you,” translated Barkk as Chiara’s voice sounded from the phone. When Chloe got closer she saw it was a videocall and Chiara appeared to be barricaded inside a nice suite with a couple security guys and also a bewildered-looking Tom Dupain-Cheng. There weren’t any threads inside the suite and even the window was only crossed by a couple of them. “I only just got away when Marinette burst into the ballroom, and I hurt my ankle running. I can’t walk.”

“You didn't hurt anything! I can tell! You’re faking so Tom feels bad for you and cheats on—”

Tom turned at that, but Chiara just said, “Dear, I don’t have time for your little stories and embellishments right now. I can’t leave this room. But don’t worry,” she shot a quick glance at Tom before turning back to the phone and smiling slightly, “I’ll be fine. And since the akuma only wants Chloe, you should be fine too.”

Chiara hung up and Lila gave a strangled sob. Then she looked up, her eyes fell on Chloe, and a desperate expression crossed her face. “You have to help me!”

“You don’t need help,” Chloe snapped. “Marinette hates me, not you!”

“No! She hates me too!” Lila hesitated. “She and Adrien had some little argument and I may have, uh, offered to help her get back at him by telling people he groped me and tried to extort me into being his girlfriend.”

Chloe gave her a mystified look. “I thought you wanted to date him. Why would you spread rumors about him?”

“I wasn’t going to actually accuse him! I just wanted to record Marinette saying I should accuse him so I could take the recording to Adrien and drive them apart! Mama did that with some guy she wanted in America to get him away from his girlfriend, and it worked perfectly! But this time it didn’t; Marinette just said I was horrible and that she didn’t want to talk to me ever again!” Lila yelped as a few of the threads outside the building began prying their way under the window. “Now she’s going to kill me!”

For a fleeting moment, Chloe was tempted to leave Lila. But given what she’d already done and had tried to seek redemption for, Chloe knew she had no grounds whatsoever to judge. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Go where? The news just had some reporter saying nobody’s left the hotel since those weird threads slithered out and covered all the doors! We’re trapped!”

At least, Chloe thought, that meant Gabriel and the heroes were probably still here too. “Somewhere without those threads. Your mom’s room seemed safe, if we can get there...” Then Chloe paused as she understood. “Oh. Marinette didn’t fill the whole hotel with threads. She covered the exits just in case, but mostly she just blocked off the half of the ballroom that I was last seen in, and she’s been filling up this section since then. So she thinks I’m in this part of the hotel and is searching it. If we can get to the rest of the hotel without her seeing us, then we should be safe for a while.”

“But how?” Lila demanded.

“Still working on it!” Chloe growled as she grabbed Lila’s hand and began to drag her along. “Now keep up!”

The two girls left the nook and went back into the hallway, only to find that the floor was now at least two-thirds covered in threads and more hung from the ceiling. Lila gripped Chloe’s hand so hard that it hurt as Chloe picked a path through for them. “Where are we?” Lila asked after a while.

Chloe tried to remember how the hotel had been laid out in her world. “I think we’re close to the second ballroom,” she said, thinking of the stairs in the back of that ballroom. They’d been intended for letting guests make dramatic entrances by descending them, and Chloe bit back a snort as she remembered the last time she’d been supposed to use them at some party, only to throw a fit and refuse to show up because of some stupid issue with the decorations that her father hadn’t fixed quickly enough for her liking. “If we can get there we can go up to the third floor.”

The ballroom was indeed just a few doors down, but when Chloe pushed the door open she couldn’t bite back a groan. Tiny silk-like threads were strewn all over the floor and while it looked like there were a few open spaces just large enough for her or Lila to stand, she wasn’t at all sure they could hop between them and get to the stairs that way. It looked potentially possible, but insanely dangerous, and Chloe frowned. “Or not,” she muttered. “Follow me, Lila. Let’s try to find another way out first.”

Lila continued to cry as Chloe tugged her back down the hallway while wracking her brain to think of other possible escape routes. When they reached a familiar door, though, Chloe heard noises inside and paused. “This is the Louvre exhibit,” she murmured. “The Louvre staff might still be here.”

“Who cares?” Lila demanded. “Let’s just find somewhere to go already!”

Chloe ignored her and pushed the door open to see Alix, whose ankle was tied by chiffon thread to an urn in the center of the room and who gave Chloe an astonished look. “What are you doing?”

“Trying not to get killed by Marinette.” Chloe hustled Lila into the room and shut the door just in case Marinette came down the hall.

Alix said, “I didn’t mean that. Why didn’t you tell the cops about what I did to you?” Her tone sounded anguished and Chloe wondered how much the other girl had been fretting about that. “I mean, I controlled that akuma, not Hawkmot. You could have told them I was in control of myself when I shot you as Killer. You could have had me arrested!”

“I could have done a lot of things,” Chloe muttered. She thought back to her knowledge of the hotel layout again but couldn’t remember a way out of this section that she hadn’t already seen blocked off, except of course for going up through the secondary ballroom. But now that she thought about it, Marinette was clever enough to have anticipated that. If she’d left one possible escape route opened, that probably just meant it was a trap. Was there a way to avoid it?

“Seriously!” Alix demanded. “Why didn’t you turn me in?”

Chloe wanted to protest that this wasn’t the time, but of course, at this rate, Marinette would kill her soon and there never would be a time. “I told you,” she said quietly, “that the difference between us is that you aren’t beyond redemption. I’m the only person you’ve hurt, and I’m still alive to forgive you, so I am. Forget it.”

“But—” Alix looked pained, as if Chloe’s forgiveness was hurting her worse than any actual attack would have been. “I don’t—”

And Chloe got it. “If you’re sorry, Alix, you can just say so.”

Alix hesitated. “I still don’t like you, “she said at last. “You did something awful to me. But...” She took a breath, dropped her gaze, and muttered, “I shouldn’t have shot you thousands of times.”

Lila gave a gasp. “You what?”

“I got better,” Chloe told her absently.

Alix said, “It’s just... I miss Mom, Chloe. I want her back, and she’s never coming back and it’s not fair, and I...” She looked at her hands. “But shooting you didn’t help. It just made me feel worse. Like, that night I had nightmares thinking about what Mom would have said.”

The jock sank down. “I hate feeling like this. I’m all empty, and angry, and sad, and nothing I do makes it better. I don’t even like shooting anymore, because whenever I pick up a gun I just think of you!” Alix gave Chloe a pained look. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Still feel good about yourself, after doing all those things you did.” Alix waved a hand feebly. “I’ve seen you in class when you’re happy, especially when you’re with Alya. How did you convince yourself you’re a good person? That you should be happy?”

Chloe gave Alix a sad smile. “I didn’t.”

“Then how—”

“I learned that it didn’t matter.” Chloe looked down at her hands. “I can’t be redeemed, Alix. But I’m still here, and I have work to do. There are things I have to fix and people I need to protect. When I’m doing that, or when I’m with the people I’ve helped, like Alya... then nothing else seems to matter so much. Especially when I’m with Alya, actually.” Chloe’s voice grew wistful. “She might be the only person who could still love me after learning everything I did, but she does love me, and when I’m with her I almost feel like I deserve it.”

Alix was silent for a long moment, and Chloe said nothing either. Then Lila snapped, “When are we getting out of here?”

Chloe winced as she remembered what they had to do. “I think the smaller ballroom’s the only way. But knowing Marinette, there’s a trap in there.”

“Yeah,” Alix said absently. “Marinette’s sharp. When she’s ever missed a trick?”

“Just when she’s trying to confess to Adrien,” Chloe muttered. “Or when I got her sketchbook and...” Then she paused as her mind flashed back to Marinette’s various schemes for confessing to Adrien, all of which had gone comically wrong because Marinette hadn’t noticed some obvious thing. “Hang on. Marinette’s smart, but when it’s about her passions, sometimes she misses details.” 

Lila frowned. “Well, she’s not missing any now!”

“No, she is,” Chloe said as her mind raced. “Those threads. Hawkmoth’s magic; he could have just given her magic rope or something, but Nadja said she made her threads by unweaving the stuff she was going to show off today.”

“Except now all the threads are super long and super strong,” said Alix. She gestured down at her trapped ankle, which Chloe saw had been bound to the urn with what looked like chiffon. “I couldn’t pull away from this one.”

Chloe said, “Even if that thread’s enchanted to be tougher, it’s still chiffon. If we had something that could eat through chiffon, we could probably use it to free you.”

“Well, we don’t!” Lila snapped. “So why are we talking about it?”

“Marinette’s not just using chiffon,” Chloe said. “Some of her outfits were made of rayon, remember? And the threads in the ballroom looked like silk, so I’m guessing at least some of those in particular are rayon.”

“So?” Alix asked. “Mind explaining for those of us who aren’t fashion-obsessed?”

Chloe thought back to what Marinette had said about rayon, and also what she’d said to Lady Wifi about the hotel’s fire safety features. “I have an idea,” she said at last before turning to Alix. “And I’ll need you too.”

“Me? Doing what?” Alix hesitated. “I’m stuck here. What could I do?”

Chloe managed a tired smile. “There aren’t any guns on display, and I know you aren’t supposed to handle them anymore, but I’m guessing you brought at least one,” she said. “I mean, come on. Even if you didn’t want to, that Minister for Sport guy surely expects you to show off at events like this—I know his type—and you know it too. So tell me where you hid your gun, and I’ll show you how you can help.”

#

“This is insane!” Lila hissed as Chloe prepared to run. “You said Alix shot you a bunch of times! Why did you arm her?”

“I’m pretty sure she won’t shoot me now,” Chloe said. Behind her Alix was looking over the pistol from the little storage crate she’d pointed out in the far side of the room, the one Chloe had opened up and rooted through until she found the weapon. “Alix, will that work?”

Alix was looking the gun over. “This is a Benelli MP3S 9-millimeter,” she noted. “They only made a few of these. We brought it to impress the Italians; it’s made by one of their best--” She paused as Lila gave her an odd look. “Shooting’s a sport and I know sports!” she protested. “And it’s a very distinctive gun!”

“Will it work?” Chloe pressed. “For what we need?”

“Uh.” Alix hefted it. “I mean, it’s definitely a gun you get to show off instead of shoot, but it is technically a target shooting gun. And the Louvre takes good care of all its artifacts, including its guns. So it should work.”

“Great.” Chloe moved to the door. “We’ll go down the hallway and then as far into the ballroom as we can. Once the threads catch us, shoot out the sprinkler closest to us. The water should dissolve the threads and we’ll get up to the third floor.”

Lila grabbed Chloe’s sleeve. “Even Alix can’t shoot a little sprinkler at this range!”

“I can shoot anything at any range,” Alix shot back, her voice not even proud, just matter of fact. “But once I fire, Marinette’ll probably come running, so I might not get a second shot.”

“We’ll make it count,” Chloe said. “And thanks, Alix.”

Alix snorted, but she seemed faintly relieved, and Chloe wondered if Alix was grateful at having this chance of redemption. Then Lila hissed in Chloe’s ear, “What if she just shoots you again?”

“That’ll probably still hurt less than whatever Marinette’s going to do to me,” Chloe snapped. “Are you coming or not?”

Lila glanced around nervously as Chloe opened the door to the hallway outside. More threads than ever were writhing on the carpet and there was only a narrow path leading to the secondary ballroom. “I’ll come,” she said at last.

“Good.” Chloe took a breath, then glanced back at Alix, who had already lowered herself into a prone position and stretched out as far as she could with her ankle still tied to the urn. Alix was staring down her gun and then at the ballroom beyond them, already in a world of her own, and Chloe smiled slightly. Then she grabbed Lila and dragged her down the hall.

They made it to the ballroom without incident, and Chloe jumped to the first open spot and then the second. Lila pursued her and Chloe let herself feel a moment’s relief as they got to the halfway point. Then she tensed and leapt forward.

And her body crashed into an invisible mesh.

Chloe had just enough time to realize that there were tiny threads, so small they were practically invisible, strung across the room when Lila crashed into her back. Then threads all over the room writhed and started lunging for her. Chloe yelled, then the threads around her parted—she thought she had a brief glimpse of Barkk’s head sticking up from her arm and biting into them—and Chloe grabbed Lila’s hand again. “Run!”

They charged through the room as more fabric grabbed at their feet and ankles. Chloe almost fell but managed to pull away before the threads got a complete grip on her, and her eyes fixed on the stairwell ahead of them. They pulled within a few feet—Lila screamed as a solid wave of fabric plunged down from a vent in the ceiling—footsteps sounded behind them and Chloe turned to see Marinette step into the ballroom, her body now made of fine thread and her eyes little more than ruby buttons which blazed with a terrible purpose. There was a scissors in her hand, and when Marinette opened and closed it, the sound was that of a guillotine dropping.

“You,” Marinette hissed, her voice sounding as muffled as if she was shouting through a cloth gag. “You both are finally going to get what you deserve.”

Chloe took a breath. “Yeah,” she said. “But not from you.”

And Alix fired.

Chloe hadn’t been entirely confident that even Alix could make the shot; frankly, given the distance and the awkward angle caused by Alix lying prone and the sprinkler being stuck high on the ceiling, Chloe hadn’t been sure Alix could even see what she was shooting at. But the little bullet struck the sprinkler head and blasted it off, sending galleons of water spewing out over Chloe and Lila. The fabric twisted back as if hurt, and when Chloe grabbed it and pulled, it tore apart like soggy tissue. “RUN!” she screamed at Lila.

The stairs flew by beneath her as she dragged Lila after her. Marinette gave chase, but another gunshot sounded and a second sprinkler head blew off. Galleons more water thundered down onto Marinette and slammed her against a wall. That reminded Chloe of something and she called back, “Keep shooting, Kubdel, or I’ll make you pay just like I said!” Then she reached the third floor and hauled Lila through a door, putting them in a hallway and leaving the ballroom behind them.

“You didn’t say anything to Alix!” Lila gasped.

“Yeah, but if Marinette thinks I did she’ll be less likely to kill her,” said Chloe. “Now hurry up, Rossi!”

There weren’t as many threads on the third floor but there were still some, and Chloe found herself having to jump over or wriggle under them more often than she’d have liked. She also heard a slithering sound behind her and guessed Marinette was sending more threads after them, but she didn’t dare look back. “Keep running,” she said when Lila began to flag. “We can’t let her get us yet!”

“Yet?” Lila gasped. “I thought we were just coming up here to find another way down!”

“There isn’t another way down. Marinette’s smart enough to block all the real exits. But the longer until she catches us, the longer the heroes have.”

Lila tried to pull away. “Who cares about the heroes? I just don’t want Marinette to catch me!”

“Lila!” Chloe snapped. They reached a hallway that was barred by threads and Chloe instead pulled Lila into another corridor. There was a stairwell there, and it looked open, though when Chloe glanced through it she could see the lower levels were totally blocked by fabric. “I don’t matter, okay? I meant what I told Alix: I can’t be forgiven, meaning I do deserve to get ripped apart by Marinette. Frankly, so do you. But every minute Marinette chases us is another minute Hawkmoth is helping her do it and focusing on her, meaning it’s another minute for the heroes to catch him.”

The Italian hesitated. “The heroes are going after Hawkmoth?”

“Yeah.” Chloe glanced behind Lila and saw more threads chasing them, so she hauled Lila into the stairwell and slammed the door shut. “They are. That’s what all this is about. And I’m going to give them the best chance they have. I’m going to do something good before I die. Are you coming?”

When she began moving again, Lila eventually followed her.

Chloe led Lila up a flight of stairs. Then the next level up was blocked, so they ran out onto the hotel’s fourth floor and kept hunting for another place to go. Threads chased them, they fled, they found another passage...

Some time later, though Chloe didn’t know how long, she found herself in a tiny maintenance stairwell leading up to the roof. Threads had snaked through the path behind them and there was only one place to go, so Chloe reached forward and pushed open the rooftop door. And then they were outside, atop the hotel Chloe had once owned, standing six stories high above the streets far below.

Chloe didn’t even notice as Lila shoved the door shut behind them and piled a couple pieces of furniture in front of it. “Where do we go now?” Lila demanded, her voice already starting to crack from the wintery cold. “Is there a way down?”

“I doubt it.” Chloe looked at the fire escape ladder; it was already blocked off. “This is it. We just wait here to see if the heroes can stop Hawkmoth in time.”

Lila was silent for a long moment, her expression flickering between terror, anguish, and a faint hint of relief, as if now that it was almost here, her imminent death was almost welcomed. Chloe knew the feeling well and didn’t say anything. She just gave Lila a knowing look, then moved to a little wall at the edge of the hotel roof.

She’d told Alix that she’d had work to do, and that had been true, but now it was done. Chloe had given the heroes their best chance yet to defeat Hawkmoth. Now the rest was up to them and she therefore had a decision to make. She could stay here, hope the heroes stopped Hawkmoth, and then keep living... but if she was beyond forgiveness or redemption, if she couldn’t change, then she’d surely just keep hurting people and ruining lives as she’d always done. So, instead, she could simply jump and guarantee that she’d never hurt anyone ever again.

There was nobody around to help her decide whether to lie or die. Alya and all her classmates were still inside. The heroes were nowhere in sight. Barkk was silent. Lila had drifted to the other side of the building and was looking over the edge, probably contemplating her own escape from the Hell she’d built for herself.

And so Chloe was alone, with nothing to do but grapple with the only choice she had left.

Chapter Text

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

--Albert Camus

“It’s what I deserve, isn’t it?”

Nobody answered Chloe’s murmured question and she winced as a cold breeze ruffled against her skin, but she didn’t leave the wall. “I ended a world. I killed everyone. All my friends... the heroes... Mom, Dad, and Zoe.” Chloe’s gaze again dropped to the street far below. “I’m a monster.”

There was no response.

“Anyone would convict me. Even the nicest people on Earth would say I need to be punished. And even if we don’t count anything from the last world, all the stuff I did when I got here would get me thrown in jail forever too.” Chloe felt a few tears coming to her eyes. “Mad Catter was my fault.  Sabrina’s death during Mad Catter was my fault. So were Cowardly Lion, and Bubbler, and Superior Athlete. I can't come back from that. Even the kwamis know I can't come back from that.”

She glanced down again and saw her pocket twitching before Barkk’s head poked out. Moments later the kwami floated to the wall, but unlike so many times before, the dog said nothing. Instead, Barkk just gave Chloe an annoyed look, like it had been offensive for Chloe to say that.

“Well, you do!” Chloe protested. “You’re the one who kept telling me that I needed to get what I deserved, and that I didn’t deserve anything good yet. When I was trying to better and working to make friends you told me it wasn’t enough, didn’t you? I didn’t get it then but I do now. It will never be enough. I can never make up for what I did. I can’t even change myself to do better.”

Barkk looked skeptical at that, and Chloe frowned. “You should know that better than anyone! I tried to change and it didn’t work. I just akumatized Adrien, and then I tried to make another Wish and end another world. I can’t be fixed. All I’ll ever do is hurt people and ruin things.” And when Barkk still looked skeptical, Chloe snapped, “It’s true! I haven’t done good for one single person!”

The dog gave her an incredulous look at that and Chloe scowled, then paused as she realized who the dog might mean. “Alya?” she asked. “Yeah, I saved her from Fournier. But that was all my...”

She paused. Alya being captured by Fournier wasn’t her fault; Fournier had abducted Alya in anger over Alya’s blog posts, and Chloe had never told Alya to write about Fournier or helped her with those entries. And, technically, she supposed it had been a good deed to rescue Alya. One she probably wouldn’t have done before, if she were being honest with herself. She’d probably have taken Fournier’s bribes and let Alya burn.

“Okay, fine, I helped one person,” Chloe admitted. “But Alya doesn’t count. I just wanted her for myself; she was the only person who could ever like me and I wanted there to be someone who liked me. So that was still me being selfish. It’s not like I helped anyone I didn’t like.”

Barkk glanced across the roof at Lila, and Chloe thought back to how she’d gotten the other girl out of that little nook and up through the hotel before Marinette could find her and kill her. And then she thought of Alix and how she’d taken the blame for Alix shooting out the sprinklers in a desperate attempt to protect the other girl—who had killed her thousands of times—from the akuma’s wrath. “Okay, maybe I had a good day,” she said, before catching herself. “Wait, no, I didn’t! I akumatized Marinette, and yeah, it was to catch Hawkmoth, but a better person could probably have figured out a way to stop Hawkmoth that didn’t involve hurting her! Just because Alya and Sabrina and Adrien and that tea shop guy couldn’t come up with one either doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t. I mean, what I did was so bad I’ll probably still be arrested for it even if they stop Hawkmoth.”

The kwami’s gaze grew more focused at that last sentence and Chloe tried to think of why the dog would care about that. “Can’t you say something?” she asked at last. “Come on, Barkk! What, do I have to figure this out on my own for some stupid reason?”

But Barkk only nodded. Chloe grimaced and debated telling the dog that she didn’t have to do anything, because she was probably going to jump off the building in a minute or two and so it wouldn’t really matter if she’d annoyed Barkk in the interim, but she caught herself. “Okay. Fine. I know you knew I could be arrested, because you were there when Alya and I talked about it after leaving the tea shop. And... wait.” She paused. “Did you mean that was a change?”

Because, now that Chloe thought about it, Alya had been right: her previous self wouldn’t have risked her reputation or her freedom just to stop Hawkmoth. In fact, her previous self had joined with Hawkmoth. But now she was setting up a scenario where she could lose everything, including the respect from pretty much everyone she knew and possibly the chance of ever setting foot outside of a prison again, just on the off-chance she could help stop Hawkmoth and save the city.

And then Chloe was remembering other things she’d done. Beating up XY, comforting Alya while the other girl went to sleep after the Cover Up akuma, and even arguing with Sabine and Marlena in an attempt to stay and protect the girl longer. Buckling down and actually doing her stupid makeup work. Being kinder, or at least less abusive, to her father. Trying to stop Fournier to recover Gabriel’s stuff. Trying to stop Alya from akumatizing her classmates. Refusing to turn in Alix for her last akumatization.

Yes, many of those actions had started off as selfish. But not all of them. She’d never had a selfish reason to protect Alix, to slog through her assignments, or to fight with Sabine when Alya was asleep and would never know she’d done it. And even the selfish ones weren’t the kind of thing she’d have done before. Chloe had always taken the easy way in the other world; she had refused to do good deeds even to get things she wanted and instead schemed to obtain them corruptly. In this world, though, she had done good things.

But no sooner had she thought that then her gaze dropped, like she didn’t have the right to pursue that line of thought. “Maybe I did some good,” she admitted. “And maybe I changed a little. But it’s not enough, is it, Barkk? I still can’t be redeemed.” The dog gazed at her impassively and Chloe went on. “I mean, it’s not enough that I can say, ‘ok, I did some bad things, but now the good stuff I did outweighs it and I don’t have to think about the bad stuff anymore.’”

And Barkk’s head shook ‘no.’ Which Chloe had already known. It was not enough.

Nothing would ever be enough.

“Well, there you go,” said Chloe. She hopped up to sit on the ledge and swung her legs over; Barkk flew in front of her face and continued to watch her silently. “Maybe I changed. Maybe I’m a little better. But what’s the point if I can’t ever cancel out what I did? What else is there to live for? I could deal with everything else—the people that will always hate me, my probation, everything—if there was a chance at redemption, because that’s the only thing I want anymore. And I know Alya and Daddy will be sad if I die, and I don’t want that. But even so, what’s the point of not dying, of enduring every horrible thing this world has for me, if I can’t get what I—”

And then she froze, because although she was speaking, she was hearing Felice Fournier’s words. What’s the point of living if I can’t have what I want?

She was silent for a long moment. “Barkk?” she whispered. “Is this my... test, I guess?” Barkk said nothing and Chloe pushed on. “I did a bunch of bad things because I was selfish and only cared about what I want. And sometimes what I wanted was money and power, and sometimes it was me wanting my classmates to like me, and now I just want redemption more than I’ve ever wanted anything—but I don’t deserve that and I never well.”

Her gaze drifted away from Barkk as her mind pursued the thought. “I can’t get what I want. I will never get what I want. And so maybe you’re testing whether I can accept that, and go on anyway, or whether I just... throw another tantrum about not getting what I want, I guess.” She looked down. “A more permanent tantrum.”

More wind howled over the roof but Chloe barely felt it as she tried to think. “This is what you meant, isn’t it?” Chloe asked at last. “That I have to stop being selfish or die. That I have to be a better person or die. That I have to... to change.”

“Or die,” Barkk said at last. "And it's easier to die than to change. But ultimately... it's up to you, Chloe."

Chloe shut her eyes. Could she change? Or would she be doomed to more futile struggles which culminated in moments like when she’d gotten Adrien akumatized? She’d tried to change then and it hadn’t worked at all. What was she supposed to do, just try harder? Everything was hard in this world. It was so hard, and she was so tired, and she just wanted to stop and escape from the world which would never give her the forgiveness she wanted. Why keep fighting her own nature? 

But the answer was obvious at once. Alya was one such point; if Chloe was dead then she couldn’t protect her friend... or just make her happy, as they’d been during the sleepover the last night. And there were other people she could help too. Her father, if she ever learned how to bake. Alix, if the other girl needed Chloe to say again that she didn’t hold a grudge over her akumatizations. Her classmates; Mylene had a spring play, and Nino had more mixes to test, and Max needed a game tester, and so on. Granted, Chloe didn’t know if she’d even be able to help any of them; she might be thrown in jail for what she did to Marinette. But there was a chance.

And compared to that, what advantages did death have? Just that it was easier to die than to slog through the effort required to improve herself and resist backsliding the first time someone like Lila caused her problems. And that it was also easier to die than to live knowing she’d never get the redemption she wanted, that she’d always have more to do in order to atone. Yes, Barkk was right, and death was the easy option. But...

"Have you made your decision?" Barkk's voice cut through Chloe's thoughts. "Well?"

It took a moment before Chloe could say, "Yes."

"Then what do you wish to do?"

A few more seconds of silence stretched between them. And then Chloe said, at last, "I wish to live. "

And Chloe swung her legs back over to the roof side of the wall.

Barkk was staring at Chloe as she managed a faint smile. "I know, I know. It's hard to change. I know it'll be really tough. But I'm tired of taking the easy way for everything, and I'm not going to hurt Alya and my daddy and everyone else by killing myself instead of trying to be better and--woah!" Barkk had jumped into her hands and was hugging against them. Chloe cuddled Barkk back and asked, “Did I pass your test?” 

“Yes,” said Barkk, whose tail was wagging fiercely. “I couldn’t tell you. You had to figure it out for yourself and then and decide to change for the better without anyone helping you. But you did, and I'm so glad you made the right choice!” And for a long moment the two just cuddled.

Then cries drifted up from below and Chloe frowned. “I know you know where she is!” Marinette was shouting. “So tell me, Alya! I don’t want to hurt you!”

“Girl, please—”

“Don’t ‘girl’ me!” Marinette bellowed. “She ruined my career! You can’t cover for her anymore!”

Chloe glanced at Barkk, who zipped off and returned a few seconds later. “They’re in Marinette’s bedroom,” the kwami said.

“Right.” Chloe was already moving toward the part of the wall above her old room. “Lila, stay put for a few minutes, okay?”

“What?” The Italian was also seated on the wall. Her face was both terrified and determined, and she looked sick. “I don’t—”

“Don’t jump,” Chloe ordered. “We’ll talk later, okay? For now I need to help my friend.”

Lila stared, mystified, but after a moment she got up and stepped back onto the roof, as if Chloe’s choice were somehow inspiring her—or making her believe that living was possible. And Chloe smiled. “Barkk, can you watch her and make sure she’s safe?”

“Yes,” Barkk said at once. “Of course.”

Chloe nodded and then reached the spot on the roof just over her old room. Her balcony was below, and she climbed over, dropped down toward the balcony, and dropped out of sight.

#

Marinette, who still looked like a life-size cloth doll with ruby eyes, had backed Alya up against her bed. The other girl had been tightly bound with thread and was straining to breathe. “Last chance!” Marinette was shouting. “Tell me where she is!”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did!” Alya gasped. “Girl, this isn’t you! If you do this you’ll hate yourself later!”

“No, I won’t!” Marinette snapped. “Chloe deserves this! So tell me: where did you send her to film? I checked all the best vantage points and she wasn’t in any of them!”

“I didn’t send her to film,” Alya insisted. “I wasn’t filming. I mean, I left my camera running in the ballroom so I’d have something for the blog, but I was just trying to gather up everyone you didn’t tie down and sneak them out.” Then she blushed. “She’s got enough going on. I didn’t need to get myself in trouble filming and make her save me.”

Marinette let out a low growl. “Your mom’s been telling you to stay away from akuma fights for months, and Chloe is the one you listen to?”

“Chloe’s risked her life to protect me from them! I didn’t want her to get hurt doing that again! Some stupid footage wouldn’t be worth that!”

“I don’t know why you like her so much,” Marinette spat, “but she’s evil, and I’m stopping her. So either tell me where Chloe is or—”

Chloe opened the balcony door and said, “I’m right here, Marinette.”

Both girls swiveled as Chloe walked into the room. Alya gave Chloe a look of terror but Chloe just responded with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Then Marinette said, “Ran out of space to run, did you?” She raised her scissors. “Time to die, Chloe.”

Chloe took a breath. “Alya’s right, Marinette. This isn’t you.”

“You don’t know anything about me. You’re just my bully.”

“I know you do everything you can to uphold your responsibilities,” Chloe said. “I know you became Duchess so you could help fight Hawkmoth. I know you’re the nicest person in school and you do everything for everyone and everyone loves you for it.”

Marinette spat, “You think flattery will help? How could you know anything real about me, Chloe?”

“I know you because...” Chloe took a breath. “Because I wanted to be you my whole life.”

Marinette froze. So did Alya. The two stared at Chloe, who blushed. “What,” Marinette said at last. “Did you say?”

“I wanted to be you my whole life.” Chloe had never admitted this before, not even to herself, but just as she’d broken through her own deceptions and figured out what she'd wanted since her first suicide attempt, she could now admit—to herself and to others--what she’d really wanted before then too. “I wanted people to look at me the way they looked at you. To love me like they loved you. Everyone thinks you’re wonderful, they want to be your friend, they do whatever you say just because you ask them to. I wanted that for myself.

“And so I did awful things. I tried to demand they love me. I used my daddy’s money and power to make them obey me. I worked to manipulate them and make them think I was someone I wasn’t. I even stole your life when I made this world. And I failed every time because I didn’t care about people the way you did. Everyone saw through me and hated me like I deserved.”

Marinette opened her mouth, presumably to ask what Chloe meant about making the world, but Chloe just stepped forward and pointed at her. “Every single time I screwed up and made people hate me more than ever, the first thing I thought was that you’d have gotten it right. I could just imagine how you’d have done something different, called on a friend, inspired people to help you, and then succeeded in whatever I’d tried. And that’s why I thought you were my worst enemy. But you were never my enemy, Marinette.” A rueful smile crossed her face. “I was always my own worst enemy. And since I know you better than you know yourself—”

“Shut up!” Marinette hissed, though she seemed less steady than before. “You know nothing about me if you think I’m always friendly to everyone and won’t raise a hand even to people who hurt me! .

"I didn’t say you would never hurt anyone," Chloe said as she walked right up to Marinette. "But I know you would never do it like this. If you wanted to hurt me, you wouldn’t trap hundreds of innocents. You wouldn’t mess up a big political event like this one. And you definitely wouldn’t rely on Hawkmoth.” Then she paused before adding, “And you also wouldn’t try to trap me with rayon, of all things. I’m guessing that was Hawkmoth’s idea?”

The threads comprising Marinette’s cheeks took on a ruddy tinge. “I told him not to use that fabric,” she muttered. “But he was all, ‘oh, you’re strong enough, so shut up, stop whining, and get me the Miraculouses already!’”

Then Marinette let out a faint laugh which Chloe mirrored. “See? You wouldn’t have made that mistake. You wouldn’t be the lackey of some idiot with butterfly powers who’s trying to end the world and Wish himself a better one. You’d just come after me yourself.”

The two girls looked squarely at each other before Marinette inclined her head. “Yes. I would.”

“So ditch the stupid butterfly,” Chloe said. “Stop this. And then, if you want to come after me when you’re normal again, fine. I know I deserve it. But keep it between us, and leave the innocent people out of it.”

Marinette was still for another moment. A butterfly outline appeared on her face, and she grimaced in pain. “You said you wanted to help me, so butt out!” she snapped. Then, “I don’t care if the heroes are attacking you now! I’ve got my own thing going on—” she cried out at more pain, but then growled, “No. We’re done, Hawkmoth!”

And with that, she yanked her comb out of her yarn-like hair, dropped it, and stomped on it until an akuma flew out.

The threads around Alya slackened and she pulled them away in relief even as black magic bubbled off of Marinette and left her looking like her normal self. Chloe turned to Alya, but then Marinette called, “Chloe,” and she turned back.

Just in time for Marinette to punch her in the face.

Chloe yelped as she toppled over backward and smashed her head against a fancy mirror on Marinette’s desk, breaking it. Pain flooded through her head and when she reached up she felt blood on the back of her scalp. But when Alya yelped and ran toward Marinette, Chloe said, “Alya, stop! It’s okay!”

Both other girls gave Chloe astonished looks. “But—” Alya began.

“I said it’s fine.” Chloe shook her head and winced. “I ruined her show, and I’ve done horrible things to her for years. I deserved that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Marinette said. But there was little venom in her voice, and when Chloe tried to get up, Marinette—seemingly despite herself, and looking surprised at her own action—helped her rise. “We should go downstairs,” she said at last.

And that was that.

#

When the group returned to the ballroom, now with Lila in toe, they found the fashion show guests milling around and the reporters giving desultory updates that they didn’t know what was happening. Everyone seemed nervous and Sabine and Tom in particular seemed unhappy. So did Chiara Rossi, for that matter, and she also had a rolling-pin shaped bruise on her cheek that Chloe was pretty sure hadn’t been there before. “The akuma’s defeated,” Chloe called to the crowd.

Everyone turned to look at her and the others with her. Then Sabine gasped, “My little girl!” and ran to Marinette with Tom just behind her. Marinette accepted and returned the hugs, blushing madly. Chloe also saw Alya dash to her own mother, who also embraced her, and Lila moved to her mom, who ignored her.

That left Chloe. She was just about to sink down at a table when Sabine called, “Just a minute. Chloe. You need to leave. You—”

“Woah,” Kim said. The rest of Chloe’s class were all clumped together by the stage. “What happened to her head? She’s bleeding!”

“Then she can see a doctor,” Sabine snapped. “Somewhere else.”

Alya turned toward her. “That isn’t fair! Marinette’s the one who hit her, and we—”

“—don’t go after people for what they do while akumatized,” Chloe called out.

Alya shot her a surprised look, and Marinette looked absolutely astonished. Then Nadja said, “Hang on, mayor. The paparazzi outside said Hawkmoth and the heroes are battling in the lobby. It may not be safe to leave right now.”

Sabine grimaced but turned away, and Chloe sank down into a chair with relief. Then someone else approached her and said, “What, did you fall backward onto glass or something?”

Chloe glanced at Alix, who looked uncomfortable, and said, “Or something. Why?"

Alix hesitated for a long moment. Then she turned and called to the nearest staffer, who happened to be Armand, “Hey, you, can you get some disinfectant and tweezers, and also a clean towel? I need to get this glass out of Chloe’s head before it scars.”

“Are you a doctor now?” Chloe asked.

“You wish.” Alix managed a faint smile. “But I’ve wiped out while roller-skating on gravel enough to know how to pick rubble out of my body.”

Armand returned with the supplies and Alix immediately went to work picking out the glass. “By the way,” she said quietly, “thanks for telling Marinette you were coercing me to help you. She yelled at me a little but didn’t hurt me.”

“Thanks for saving my life,” Chloe said. “And Lila’s.”

“Guess I’ve just got a few thousand to go, huh?”

Chloe shook her head, spattering a couple drops of blood behind her. “I already said, you’re forgiven,” she said. “I meant it.”

Alix hesitated, and then a smile crept over her face as she went back to work.

She was almost done when cries came out from just outside the room. People scattered away from the door just before Hawkmoth flew through it and crashed to a heap on the ground. He tried to get up, but Cheshire followed him through the door and tackled him, and then Red Queen came in last to toss a red-and-black net over him. “Got you!” she said in triumph. “You lose!”

“No!” Hawkmoth cried as he thrashed against the net. “No, stop!”

Cheshire managed to grab Hawkmoth’s arms and pin them behind his back. Then Red Queen approached him and grabbed his brooch. “Let’s see who you really are!” she cried as she yanked it away. Hawkmoth roared as a flash of magic covered him.

And then he was simply Gabriel Agreste.

The crowd burst into murmurs and Mayor Sabine gasped. “Gabriel?” she demanded. “You were Hawkmoth?”

Gabriel looked around. “You don’t understand,” he hissed. “I had a reason. My wife is dying and I—”

“Nothing could justify what you did to my city!” Sabine cried. “Tom, call the police. We’re arresting him right now.”

Gabriel sneered for a moment, but then his gaze flicked over the crowd—and the television cameras—and he paused. Then Nadja said, "We’re here live in Le Grand Paris, where Gabriel Agreste has just been unmasked as the supervillain Hawkmoth," and his face went chalk white. 

“I—I’ve been framed," Gabriel stuttered at last. "This isn’t happening. I’ll be found innocent.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Chloe muttered. Even Gabriel Agreste couldn’t bribe everyone who’d watched the broadcast into pretending not to have seen what they’d seen. Or escape the wrath of both the French and Italian governments for attacking their officials.

Police officers arrived a few minutes later and Gabriel was taken into custody. “One more thing,” Sabine called. “Arrest Chloe too. She violated her probation today and committed grand theft.”

“Grand theft?” Alya demanded. “When?”

Sabine frowned at Alya. “Just before my daughter was akumatized, Chloe confessed to stealing her designs and posting them online. There were people in a room just off the hallway where they spoke who heard her. And Marinette’s subsequent akumatization in no way gets Chloe off the hook for her crimes.”

Alya shot Chloe a frantic look, but Chloe just sighed. She’d known something like this was probably coming. Frankly, Alya should have known too, so why was she—

But then Chloe remembered. She had promised Alya to fight for herself. And so, even though she wanted to collapse and sleep for about a decade, she made herself say, “Wait. Marinette agreed to that.”

“I did not!” Marinette protested.

“Not that specifically, but you agreed in general to let us hurt you,” Chloe said. She fumbled for her own phone and eventually brought up the recording of Marinette telling the heroes and Alya she would let them go after her to stop Hawkmoth. “Here.” And she played the video.

By the time the video reached the part where Marinette said, “...I consent to whatever plan the heroes have,” people were murmuring again. Sabine looked both astonished and outraged, Tom just looked stunned, and Marinette’s eyes were flicking around as if she were thinking very fast. “I don’t... “she began. “But then... I...” And she shook her head. “Alya, I need to talk to you.”

She grabbed Alya by the hand and dragged her off to a side room. Nobody dared follow, and when Chloe tried to get up, Alix shoved her back down and resumed picking bits of glass out of the back of her head. It wasn’t until several minutes had passed that Marinette returned.

“Everyone,” she told the room at large, “that video is real. The heroes and Alya told me a few weeks ago that they needed to use me as bait to catch Hawkmoth. That meant they’d have to hurt me enough to make me upset. I agreed, of course, but I didn’t know what they were going to do. And when the attack came from Chloe I didn’t connect it to them since she’s not one of the heroes.”

“You agreed to that?” Sabine demanded.

“Of course!” Marinette frowned at her. “Maman, you always told me it’s my responsibility to protect people in this city. That Paris gives us so much and we have to give back whenever we can. So when the heroes told me that I could help end Hawkmoth just by suffering a little bit, of course I said yes! I mean—you’d have said yes too!”

Chloe smiled to herself. Even now, even knowing what had happened, of course Marinette didn’t regret trying to help the city. That was just who she was.

 “Well, yes, but you should have told me!” Sabine was telling the heroes. “And Tom!”

“We couldn’t take the risk of either of you getting akumatized and telling Hawkmoth,” Red Queen said. “We’re sorry, Mayor Sabine. We wish there was another way. But we couldn’t find one.”

The room burst into chatter again. Chloe heard Nadja telling her audience that Chloe Bourgeois, of all people, seemed to have helped the heroes defeat Hawkmoth. She also heard Chiara brushing off Lila and making an excuse to leave early. And across the room, she distinctly heard Sabine tell Marinette she was grounded if she ever did anything like this again, and then the entire Dupain-Cheng family was hugging each other tight.

For her part, Chloe just got up and waved goodbye to Alix before heading for the door. As she stepped through it, though, Alya ran up behind her and grabbed her in a huge hug. Chloe turned to stare into Alya’s eyes and she saw the worry and the love in them. And Chloe knew that her own eyes looked pretty similar at the moment. “We did it,” she said.

“You did more of it than me,” Alya said. “You—you’re amazing, Chloe.” And when Chloe opened her mouth to protest, Alya kissed her, and soon Chloe found herself kissing back.

It wasn’t redemption. But for not, for that moment, it was enough.

END OF PART 3

Chapter Text

“The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.”

--Jonas Salk

A few hours later, Chloe found herself walking through Paris and reveling in how wonderful it was to be alive.

Alya had stayed behind in Le Grand Paris. Even though Sabrina hadn’t cast Miraculous Cure, Marinette turned out to have done almost no damage to the hotel itself during her akumatized rampage. Her threads hadn’t broken through anything but had simply slipped under doors and through open windows, so the building was still structurally sound and-- with the exception of a certain flooded ballroom--remained suitable for human habitation. Sabine and Tom had thus declared a citywide holiday to celebrate the heroes’ defeat and were now hosting the hotel guests in a spectacular celebration. Even Marinette had gotten some of the older clothes she’d designed and set up a makeshift fashion show to replace the one Chloe had ruined.

Chloe hadn’t stuck around for the party, of course. Sabine had made it clear that she wasn’t welcome. But she knew Alya and the rest of her class were having fun, and she could still feel good about that.

“Are you going to keep watching me, Barkk?” Chloe asked as she got to a park. The sun was starting to lower and she knew she’d have to get home soon, but she didn’t want to go back yet. There was still maybe an hour or so where she could walk around in the fresh air and look at the city she’d helped save and would continue to fight for. “I mean, your job is over, right?”

“Yes,” Barkk acknowledged. “Soon one of the other kwamis will tell me it’s time to return to the Miracle Box.”

“If you know that, why haven’t you already gone?”

Barkk hesitated. “Because I’ll miss you, Chloe. You’re pretty good. For a human, at least.”

Chloe giggled at that. “I suppose I can’t stack up to a dog.”

“Of course not,” came Barkk’s response. “You don’t even have a tail! But you’ve changed enough that you're a good human now. And I’m happy I was able to watch over you.”

Chloe nestled the dog’s furry head. “Well, if they ever let you out again and you want some sausage bites, just stop by.” And then she had an idea. “Actually, if I head home now, maybe I can get you another meal before your kwami friends get you.”

Barkk’s tail wagged happily. “You've changed into a very good human.”

With a smile on her face, Chloe turned at the next intersection and began the walk back to the bakery. As she approached it, though, she frowned. There was a very fancy car parked outside the bakery and she thought she recognized it from one of her trips to the Agreste manor. “Isn’t that Adrien’s car?”

“I think so.”

“But Adrien’s still at the party. And his dad’s arrested, and his mom went missing.” Chloe hurried to the car and found it was empty. “So who...?”

She turned to her home and realized something else was odd: the windows revealed that the bakery was completely empty. But it couldn’t be. Her father should have been there, and so should at least a few customers.

Then she heard a faint cry from inside the bakery and rushed to the door. It was locked, but she had the key, and once she got inside she darted upstairs toward the living room where she thought the shout had come from. And when she got inside—

She froze.

Four people were in the living room. Her father was sitting pressed against the back wall, eyes wide, almost trembling. Next to him was an adult woman who had been tied up and was shaking; she looked vaguely familiar and Chloe eventually placed her as Gabriel’s secretary Nathalie. In front of both of them was Felice Fournier with a horrible snarl on her face. She stank of orris butter; in fact, the whole room did, but it was fainter than before and Chloe thought she smelled rot beneath it as Barkk had said.

But even that revelation was drowned out by her shock at seeing the fourth figure. On the other side of the room, staring at the three captives with unimaginable scorn and contempt, was Dr. Olga Mendeleiev. Except now Mendeleiev had purple skin, she wore a violet lab coat which billowed out behind her despite there being no wind, she held a hand fan, and on her chest she had a new brooch which Chloe recognized as the one Mayura had used in her own timeline. “You’re Hawkmoth’s assistant?” Chloe gasped.

Mendeleiev turned to her. For a moment Chloe thought she saw a flicker of surprise on the scientist’s face, but it was quickly drowned out by endless scorn and contempt. Then Barkk popped out of Chloe’s pocket—drawing astonished looks from everyone present—and flew to the Peacock brooch before sniffing it. “Her scent’s barely on this,” the dog announced. “She only just got it. But hers,” and Barkk pointed right at Nathalie, “is all over it.”

Everyone turned to Nathalie, who sagged as if she’d finally realized she was defeated. “I had the Peacock Miracluous,” she admitted at last, her voice broken of all defiance. “And because I served Gabriel, after he was arrested, I wanted to free him. So I brought the brooch to Olga.”

“What?” Chloe asked. “Why her?”

“To make a deal. She and Gabriel worked together to try to block Fournier’s parole, and I knew she hated how the law couldn’t touch the thief. I offered to give her the Miraculous and let her use it to hurt Fournier if she also freed Gabriel. It was the only way she could possibly stop the thief, so I thought she’d take it.”

Nobody spoke, and after a moment, Nathalie went on. “The Peacock Miraculous has the power to create sentimonsters, constructs that serve whoever made them. All Olga would have to do is make a sentimonster Gabriel, or multiple such sentimonsters, and have them be seen. Once it was obvious that Gabriel was being impersonated by magical creatures, then we could argue the Gabriel who had confessed was also an impersonation, one created by his enemies to harm him. His lawyers could have gotten him off based on that.”

Chloe blinked. “Then why didn’t you just make a fake Gabriel?”

“The Peacock Miraculous is damaged,” Barkk said. “Every time it is used, it risks sickening the holder. It can even be fatal.”

Chloe shot a frightened look at Mendeleiev, who snorted. “I spoke with the kwami Duusu after accepting the brooch,” she droned in her frosty tone. “I know the risks and I don’t care. I am going to correct the mistake I made long ago.”

“Why are you in my bakery?” Andre demanded. “You have no right to drag me or my daughter into your feud!”

“Your daughter started it!” Fournier spat. “She took the earrings I wanted! And then she destroyed all my things!”

“You were about to kill Alya!” Chloe roared in response.

Fournier shot back, “She was writing horrible things about me! Why can’t all you people just stay out of my way? I wouldn’t hurt anyone if you all just let me do what I want!” She swiveled to Mendeleiev. “And how did you know I’d be here, anyway?”

Mendeleiev scowled. “You’re predictable, Felice. Chloe mentioned having interfered with you, and you never let a slight go. I knew you’d be here for revenge eventually and I watched so I would be ready.”

It still seemed weird to Chloe that Fournier would have come by now of all times, just after Hawkmoth’s defeat, but then she thought back to the news report Nadja had made from Le Grand Paris and understood. “You wanted to come earlier and steal my earrings but didn’t know who I was,” she told Fournier. “You thought I was just the Agreste’s maid until Nadja Chamack did a broadcast telling the world that I helped stop Hawkmoth. You saw it, you recognized me, and then you had my name. That’s why you came here now--to attack me.”

“You deserve it!” Fournier spat. “You destroyed my things!”

“Be quiet,” Mendeleiev ordered.

Chloe fell silent as her thoughts raced. It sounded like Mendeleiev had been keeping an eye on the bakery so she'd know when Fournier arrived; simultaneously, Nathalie had found Mendeleiev and offered her the brooch. Mendeleiev had taken the Miraculous, interrogated its kwami, betrayed Nathalie, and then seen Fournier entering the bakery and dragged Nathalie here too so she could punish them both at once. But none of that explained why everyone was still here. Mendeleiev had a Miraculous and could crush the others anytime she wanted.

Unless, of course, they weren’t the only ones Mendeleiev wanted to hurt. “You were waiting for me,” she told Mendeleiev. “To hurt me.”

Mendeleiev gave her a scornful look. “To stop you. Nothing else will do.”

“You don’t know that,” Chloe protested. “I just helped stop Hawkmoth. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“It means you have a scheme. Or that you thought you might get your probation lifted so you could hurt people more easily.” Mendeleiev shook her head. “People don’t change, Chloe. They never change. I spent years trying to change her,” she gestured at Mendeleiev, “and failed. But I’m a scientist and I learn from my failures. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough?” Andre ventured timidly.

Mendeleiev clenched a fist. “I did everything I could to fix her! I talked to her endlessly! I offered to help her buy the stupid trinkets she was trying to steal! I even spoiled one of her jobs and--” Her voice cracked and she cut herself off. “I brought her to the point where any sane person would have realized the futility of her path. And yet she did not change.”

Chloe’s mind raced, because that didn’t match with what she knew of Fournier. Supposedly all of the thief’s jobs before her accident were spoiled because she just sucked as a thief. And all the ones afterward went fine until she let herself be seen at the mint, which was deliberate, and then was arrested at the treasury, which would have been after the mint and thus after the two had a falling out. So how could Mendeleiev have ruined Fournier’s treasury job when there was no way Fournier would have told her about it?

But then she had it. “You were responsible for the time she got hurt robbing a warehouse,” Chloe told Mendeleiev. “You called ahead and warned the guards or something. So they were ready, and Fournier wasn’t, and she got injured.”

“The guards saw her and chased her to a weak point on the warehouse roof, where she fell through and suffered severe injury,” Mendeleiev admitted. “At the time I was sorry. Now I know better.”

Fournier gaped at Mendeleiev. “That was you? You rotten, vile—I did everything for you! I let you borrow all my things! I brought you into high society!”

“You used me as your unpaid servant,” Mendeleiev shot back. “Doing your chores, writing out your homework, serving your every whim. I thought it was friendship at the time. That’s why I tried so hard to change you when I saw you were turning to crime. But I know better now.” She straightened her shoulders. “And as I said, I’m correcting my mistake.”

“Look, Olga—”

“Call me Second Chance,” said Mendeleiev, her labcoat swirling around her. “Because this is my second chance to do what I should have done long ago.

Fournier stared at Mendeleiev for a long moment. Then she lunged forward, but Mendeleiev moved with impossible speed and backhanded the thief into a wall. Fournier cried out in pain and slumped low as Mendeleiev went on. “When Nathalie gave me this brooch, I recognized it from the man who came to the little local hospital and took you away to that private clinic. Even then I thought the brooch looked distinctive, and once Nathalie gave it to me, Duusu admitted it was the same one. I know what Colt Fathom did to you. And now I’m going to undo it.”

“Wait,” said Chloe. “Fournier’s terrible, but didn’t Colt give her a new body? If you take that away, she’ll die!”

“She should have died years ago,” said Mendeleiev in a tone that could have frozen helium. “It would have spared all her future victims.”

Barkk said, “You don’t need to do that. Her amok can control her, so if you have it, you can make sure she never hurts anyone.”

“I don’t have it. Duusu said the amok was Colt’s wedding ring and it went missing after he met with Fournier. Given who she is, I’m sure she stole it just to spite him, then discarded it upon thinking it was just an ordinary ring with no value.” Fournier gasped and Mendeleiev shook her head before continuing. “I suppose if someone ever found that ring they could have controlled her. But I think that unlikely, and it will not matter in a few minutes anyway.”

Fournier looked horrified at that. Chloe also gave the scientist a wide-eyed stare, but Mendeleiev just snorted. “Relax. I’m not going to kill you, Chloe; you aren’t as bad as Fournier or Hawkmoth’s assistant. I will, however, create a sentimonster Chloe to go around town and do exactly the sort of misconduct we both know you'll commit if your probation is ever lifted. Once Fournier is dead and you are locked up for your duplicate's crimes, the city will be at peace.”

“No!” Chloe protested. “You can’t do this!”

“I can and I will. I will protect the city from you all. I will ensure that you monsters will not harm anyone again.” Mendeleiev gestured toward Fournier. “I will end this.”

She snapped her fingers, and Fournier’s body dissolved.

Chloe gasped as the thief flesh and skin fell away, leaving a second, shriveled body under it. But this body was misshapen and broken, bereft of the sentimonster shell which Fournier had taken in place of the surgeries and therapy she would have otherwise have had to do. Both of Fournier’s real legs were twisted and she had bad wounds all over her left side. Over her body she wore a rotting, tattered surgical gown which had dark bloodstains on it. And the smell of orris butter vanished, replaced with the overpowering stink of rot.

When Fournier opened her mouth, she immediately groaned in agony. “No,” she croaked. “Help me... I can’t die! I have to live!”

“You don’t,” Barkk said quietly.

Everyone looked at the dog, who said, “In another world, Felice Fournier, you did not exist. Instead there was a powerful man who wanted to create a bodyguard for his son, so he installed a corrupt mayor on the condition that the mayor would make his only child into the son’s protector. As the mayor was weak and spoiled the child, rendering her unsuitable for the job, the rich man later had another figure--a nephew--created to protect his son instead. But in this world the mayor was honest. The rich man knew from the beginning that the mayor would not let her child be used as such, and so he had another protector created many years in advance: you. But you did not follow your mission and did not live rightly, so now perhaps you will no longer live... just as you did not live in that previous world.”

“But—no!” Fournier gasped. “Shut up! Olga, please, don’t let me die!”

Mendeleiev just stared at her, austere and imposing, the look of a scientist pronouncing a result with absolute certainty. Nathalie and Andre stared at the scene with terror in their eyes. And Barkk just seemed calm and implacable. That made sense, Chloe thought; the kwamis had said repeatedly they didn’t really understand human morality. Barkk might not see why it was a problem that a monster like Fournier died.

But Chloe wasn’t a kwami. She understood. And so she said, “Stop this,” and moved between Mendeleiev and Fournier. “Now.”

“Get out of my way, Chloe.”

“No.” Chloe clenched a fist. “You’re throwing a tantrum, Dr. Mendeleiev. You need to stop.”

“I hardly think punishing a monstrous criminal is a tantrum.”

Chloe shook her head. “This isn’t having her arrested. You’re trying to kill her because you’re still mad about what happened decades ago.”

“Personal emotion doesn’t enter into this. Not that you would understand anything about that.”

“I understand plenty!” Chloe shot back. “I get it, Dr. Mendeleiev. You wanted her to change because you thought she was your friend. So you tried everything you could think of to make her change. But you didn’t get what you wanted because you weren’t good at it or because she’s just that bad, I don’t know.”

“I did everything anyone could do,” Mendeleiev hissed. “You have no idea how hard I worked to save her.”

Chloe shrugged. “Maybe you did. I wasn’t there. But I know you didn’t want to even consider that you might have been responsible. Trust me, I know how much it hurts to admit that you screwed up a chance to get what you want. So I know how you were feeling. And I also know that, rather than admit that possibility, you told yourself that success had been impossible. That nobody can change and so it wasn’t your fault Fournier didn’t either.”

Mendeleiev said nothing, but her eyes bored in on Chloe with a feverish intensity. Chloe also heard Fournier choking behind her but ignored the thief as she stared back at Mendeleiev. “And you don’t want to admit it now either, because if you admitted people could change, you’d have to admit you failed to help everyone else you met since Fournier. How many students like her did you have? Students who fell behind, who needed support or had some problem, whom you refused to help because you told yourself they were as fixed as the stuff in your test tubes? How many kids did you abandon because helping them would mean admitting people could grow and do better even if you hadn’t gotten Fournier to do so?”

“I...” Mendeleiev stepped back, but then she caught herself and said, “I—”

“How many students?” And Mendeleiev looked away. “Lots of them, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t understand—”

“Yes, I do. I understand how much it hurts to admit that you might have screwed up. But I also understand that you have to admit it, because if you don’t, then you’re the one who can’t change.” Chloe stepped closer to Mendeleiev. “But you have to, Dr. Mendeleiev. You have to change or die.”

Mendeleiev stammered, “I am not dead.”

“You go through life refusing to touch anyone, to do anything to help anyone, because you’re too proud to admit that helping people is possible,” said Chloe. “You might as well be dead.”

“But—I’m right,” Mendeleiev insisted. “It doesn’t matter if it’s not desirable. I’m still right. Nobody changes, name one person who changed!”

Chloe thought. And then she said, “You know that I’m selfish? That I’m a bully? That I never do anything except for my own gain?”

“Yes!”

“Then why am I standing between you and your victim?”

The question seemed to strike Mendeleiev with physical force and she backed up until she was pressed against the wall. Chloe followed and said, “You’re being ridiculous, Dr. Mendeleiev. So stop it. You want to have Fournier and Nathalie arrested, great, they more than deserve it. So do I. But don’t kill them just because of your own pride.”

Mendeleiev hesitated for one moment longer. Fournier said something, and so did Andre, but the scientist didn’t look at them. She just stared at Chloe, who stared back.

And Mendeleiev looked away first.

Then she grabbed the nearest object from a counter, a cheap little silver chain Chloe vaguely recalled her father getting her during one of their shopping trips, and jammed a feather from her hand fan into it. The chain glowed and then Fournier gasped as a new body appeared around her. This body looked the same as the one Mendeleiev had destroyed, and after it reappeared, Fournier chuckled and stood. “You think this’ll change me?” she cajoled. “It just shows me you’re too soft to stop me!” She reached for a random ornament on a counter as if to throw it at the others. “I’ll—”

And the ornament slipped out of her hands.

“I made you a new body,” said Mendeleiev in a tired voice as Fournier boggled at the dropped ornament. “But without the strength, speed, and agility that Colt gave you. It’s just a normal body now, Felice. And without your powers...”

Andre said, “...she’s not a very good thief, is she?”

“No,” Mendeleiev said “She is not.”

Fournier jumped for Mendeleiev but banged against a table and yelped as she tripped. Chloe, reminded of some of her own more embarrassing pratfalls and errors, could do nothing but shake her head. Then Andre was rushing to the phone and calling the police, and Fournier jumped at him only to stop short when Mendeleiev clenched the necklace. And she stayed there, frozen but staring hatefully at those around her, until the police arrived.

They couldn’t catch Mendeleiev, of course. She dashed out of the building and leapt over a few rooftops to escape as soon as they’d put handcuffs on Nathalie and Fournier. But a small envelope arrived for Chloe the next day, containing nothing more than a peacock-shaped brooch, and Chloe just smiled to herself. “I think Mendeleiev’s changing,” she told Barkk that evening. “She’ll be better now.”

“Thanks to you.” Barkk snuggled under Chloe’s hand to allow for easier petting. “You did good, Chloe. Congratulations.” Chloe smiled at that and Barkk asked, “Did you like getting to help her and save the others?”

“Yes,” Chloe said. “I did.” She paused. “Do you think I’ll be able to keep doing that? I mean, I kind of figured after Hawkmoth I’d be done with Miraculous stuff, but apparently not.”

“It’s very possible. The heroes know they can count on you. And there are threats beyond those of the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses. So if you want to keep doing good, I’m sure you will have plenty of chances.”

Chloe’s smile grew at that. “I hope so,” she told Barkk as she began petting the dog. “I really hope so.”

Chapter Text

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

--George Eliot

“I still have one question.”

Barkk gave Chloe a curious glance. The two of them were sitting at a little table in Chloe’s living room, working through lunch. Chloe had pancakes that were freshly cooked by her father and Barkk, of course, had a bowl of sausage bites. There were also a small platter of cookies by them, Chloe’s latest attempt at baking something with her father. They weren’t as good as his, but they weren’t bad, and Barkk seemed to like them.

As did Duusu.

Chloe had been surprised when Barkk advised her to hold onto the Peacock Miraculous for a day or two. The kwami wouldn’t say why, just claiming to have a ‘hunch,’ and Chloe had learned by now to trust the dog’s wisdom. So Duusu had spent the night flitting around Chloe’s apartment and was now happily snacking on the cookies as Barkk asked, “What?”

“If I’d tried to make that Wish...” Chloe frowned. “I mean, I almost did. If not for Alya, I would have. What would have happened then? You guys wouldn’t have let me, right? But how would you have stopped me?”

Barkk thought for a moment. “You know we built this world to force you to either change or to die.”

“Right. Because you couldn’t let me make a second Wish, so you had to know I’d become a better person who wouldn’t try. But then—”

Barkk held up a paw. “And you know that’s why we made Alix, Mendeleiev, and Fournier the way we did.”

“Yeah. So I’d be treated like I had treated others, which would punish me and also push me to stop acting like that since I’d know how it felt to be on the other end of it.” Chloe paused. “Okay, so I have two questions. If I hadn’t gotten better, would one of them, you know... have killed me?”

“Yes,” Barkk said. “If you had remained as you were at the beginning, a bully who felt entitled to hurt others and destroy people just because you wanted to get back at them, they would have stopped you. Mendeleiev may have caught you violating your probation and had you sent to jail, where Fournier would find out you knew about Miraculouses—you’d surely have told people in the hopes of buying protection from the other inmates—and interrogated you before killing you so you couldn’t tell anyone else. If she hadn’t, you would eventually have hurt Alix again and she would surely have shot you.”

Chloe grimaced. It was still odd to hear Barkk talk so nonchalantly about her own death, but she was getting used to it. “So you’re saying if I remained like that, I wouldn’t even have had the chance to make a Wish. I’d have been stopped before I even came close.”

“Correct. You only got as far as you did in your last world because your father covered for you. Without him, had you acted the same way, you would have been no threat.”

“But then I improved,” Chloe noted. “I stopped wanting to hurt people and started wanting friends.”

“Or, you stopped feeling entitled to harm people you wanted to hurt and started feeling entitled to friendship from people you wanted to like you,” Barkk noted. “Which culminated in you threatening to end this world and Wish for a new one just so you could have some friends. And when you learned from that and stopped feeling entitled to friendships too, you still felt entitled to redemption just because you wanted to feel better, and you threatened to kill yourself if the universe wouldn’t give you the redemption you wanted.” The dog met Chloe’s eyes. “Only when you learned you aren’t entitled to the things you want, even things as important as redemption, could we conclude you were safe and that you wouldn’t try to end the world again.”

Chloe said, “No, I get that. And I also get that if I’d failed at the last step I would have killed myself in despair over knowing I would never be forgiven, and then I couldn't have made a Wish either because I'd be dead. But I’m asking what would have happened if I failed in the middle, where I was trying to get friends while also trying to get the Miraculouses so I could make my Wish just in case. I mean, I almost did that. I could have done that if I hadn’t cared so much about what Alya said. But you kwamis had to have some way to block that, right?”

Barkk’s head inclined. “I already told you that kwamis like me cannot touch Miraculous holders.”

“Right. And to make a Wish, I would have to be holding the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculouses.”

“Not quite,” Barkk said. “To make the Wish, the Miraculouses are merged and a new kwami, Gimmi, is summoned. You likely do not remember Gimmi. Unlike the rest of us, Gimmi does not have a form humans can understand, so you probably blanked it out after making your Wish. And also unlike the rest of us, Gimmi has no Miraculous.”

Chloe chewed slowly on her pancake as she worked that out. “So once I began making my Wish, I wouldn’t have had any Miraculouses. I wouldn’t have been a holder.” She paused. “Barkk... what would have happened if I’d tried?”

Barkk was silent for a moment, and then a gigantic dog filled the room.

Chloe had never seen Barkk’s ‘eldritch’ form before, and she couldn’t help shuddering. The creature still looked faintly like Barkk but was bigger and more muscular than any dog could ever be. She saw gleaming fangs jutting out of an elongated mouth, baleful eyes that seemed to stab into her soul, and a body that shuddered and moved just slightly wrong while approaching her. Chloe tensed as its head reached out and its mouth opened wide enough to crush her head.

But then Barkk was just Barkk again. “You wouldn’t have gotten the first word out, Chloe,” the dog said gently. “And if I’d been a little closer to you the first time, you wouldn’t have managed it then, either.”

Chloe let out a long breath before reaching out and petting the dog kwami again. Then Duusu said, “Barkk, that’s so mean! We can’t just kill humans because they’ve been bad!”

“We can’t do anything else,” Barkk said. “It’s humans that can consider multiple factors when judging a criminal. They can look at context, and nuance, and determine that someone should be given a greater or lesser sentence. We can only follow our nature. Tikki creates, and thus created a world which would allow Chloe to possibly change for the better. Plagg destroys, and thus created a world where Chloe would be destroyed if she remained a threat. And I act loyally, and thus I set out to loyally follow our law and punish Chloe—the only way I could—if she tried to make a Wish again.”

“I realize I’m kind of biased here,” said Chloe, “but the way you all pushed me still seems kind of... I don’t know. Harsh. I guess I just wish there was another way.”

Barkk said, “There is. You humans can help each other grow and change, so we kwamis don’t have to come into it. Just like you helped Alix. And Mendeleiev. And Alya.” The dog smiled. “Or did you not notice that, rather than plunge foolishly into danger and cause others to risk being hurt protecting her, Alya instead acted much more wisely during the Atropos attack?”

Chloe smiled a little at that. “I did.”

“And perhaps you can help still more people.” Barkk smiled again. “I have a hunch.”

“Can I have a hint or—”

And then someone knocked on the door. “Chloe?” came the familiar voice of Lila Rossi. “Your dad said you were here. Can I see you? Please?”

Chloe exchanged glances at the kwamis. And then she said, “Sure, Lila. Come on in.”

#

Lila sat, primly and painfully, across from Chloe. Her gaze occasionally flicked to Barkk or Duusu but she mostly kept watching the blonde. “I’m leaving Paris,” she said at last.

“Your Mom’s being transferred?”

“Yeah. She managed to convince her bosses that she deserves credit for catching Hawkmoth, since she helped set up the show where he was trapped.” Lila grimaced. “She didn’t say so directly but she hinted she knew the show would be dangerous and went anyway just to avoid tipping Hawkmoth off. And she got a couple of her boyfriends in the French government to back her up and say she helped the heroes catch Hawkmoth. So they think she’s a hero who ended a major threat and also made France love us for saving the country.”

Chloe asked, “But doesn’t Sabine hate her?”

“Sure, but she’s just a local mayor. She isn’t in the national government. So she couldn’t stop the others from praising my mom, and now Mom’s been given a big promotion and a new assignment.” Lila looked away. “We’re going to Washington DC. Italy's biggest and most prestigious embassy, near tons of rich suckers who Mom’ll know how to ensnare. It’s everything Mom ever wanted. She’ll probably spend weeks at a time with them while I’m... alone at the embassy, and...”

She dropped her head. Chloe hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry.”

Lila was silent for a moment before adding, “Her ignoring me isn’t new, actually. She never paid attention to me in my original world either. Sometimes I went so long without seeing her I actually tricked other women into thinking they were ‘adopting’ me.” Then she gave Chloe a sad look. “One day I realized that I’d spent more time with my other two ‘moms’ than with my actual one for the past month, and yet my real mom hadn’t even noticed.”

“If she’s mostly the same, though, you wouldn’t be so upset about what happened,” Chloe said. “About Wishing her to be different.”

Lila waved a hand dismissively. “Her being boy-crazy is new, but if she weren’t also pushing me to seduce and leech off of every rich boy I bump into, I wouldn’t care that much about it. Not as much as I care about her barely noticing I exist. But it’s...”

She couldn’t finish, but after a moment, Chloe got it. “Your dad,” she said. “That’s why you’re sad about being alone. It’s not that you don’t have a good mom anymore; you never did, even if Chiara’s crazier now than she was before. It’s that, in this world, your mom talked you into pushing your dad away.”

“He was the perfect dad,” Lila admitted. “He wasn’t in the civil service like Mom; he just ran this little shoe factory at the base of the Alps. And it was complicated enough he had to stay there to manage it while Mom and I were traveling around the world. But he called me twice a week like clockwork, and no matter how busy he got, he always had time to talk to me. And when I could visit home, he threw the best parties, prepared my favorite food and came home early from the factory so he could be there to hug me...” She looked back up at Chloe. “You know, I never lied to him. I made up all sorts of things for my classmates and my teachers and mom, but I could never lie to him.”

Chloe murmured, “Until this world. When your new mom got you to frame your dad so you two could abandon him.”

“Yeah.” Lila gulped. “I’ve hated myself ever since I told the police and the judge that Dad was emotionally abusing us. And I thought after a while I’d forget, or I’d be able to tell myself that it was worth it because Mom and I are rich and have great stuff now, but I haven’t. So I wanted to ask...” She met Chloe’s gaze. “You were as bad as me, but now you’re helping the heroes save the world. You have a girlfriend. And you’re... happy, I guess. How did you do it? How did you become better, so that you wouldn’t have to hate yourself anymore?”

“I had a little help.” Chloe nodded at Barkk. “This is Barkk, a kwami. He nudged me in the right direction.”

“Can I get one?” Lila asked too quickly.

Chloe hesitated, then glanced at Barkk. “Is that allowed?”

Barkk was silent for a moment. “It wouldn’t be impossible,” the dog said at last. “But I’d have to ask permission from the Guardian. And you’d have to ask the question: is that really what you want?”

Lila said, “Of course!” But then she hesitated upon seeing Chloe’s frown. “What? What’s wrong?”

Chloe said nothing. She was thinking of how her path to being a better person, the path Barkk had guided her along, had been so torturous that she’d almost killed herself. Barkk had just told her that it’d be preferable for humans to help other humans rather than let kwamis do it, since the humans were capable of nuance and wouldn’t do things like try to drive Chloe to suicide if she didn’t improve. But who could help Lila? Who, besides Chloe, could even understand what Lila had done?

Then Lila sighed. “It’s not going to happen, is it,” she muttered. Then she stood and looked away. “Okay. Just had to ask.”

“Lila—”

“No, it’s fine.” Lila forced fake merriment into her voice. “I’ll be fine,” she lied. “I’m really resilient. You know, one time I helped console this suicidal actor, and when I talked him off the ledge he dedicated a movie—”

“You aren’t telling it right.”

Everyone turned to look at Duusu, who was frowning. “What?” Lila asked.

“When you make up a story, you should tell it better,” Duusu advised. “With dramatic voices, and big gestures, and everything else!”

Lila gave a blank look to Barkk, who said, “Duusu is the kwami of emotion, and is very good at telling when people’s true emotions don’t match their stories.” A little smile spread over the dog’s face. “Or, in other words, Duusu is very good at spotting liars.”

Chloe was still thinking about how to help Lila. She was the only person who understood the girl, but what could she do? She didn’t have money or influence anymore. Nor did she have the Bee Miraculous. Maybe Hawkmoth could have akumatized her to let her save her dad somehow, but the heroes had the Butterfly Miraculous under lock and key. Chloe didn’t—

Her gaze flicked to Duusu and the beginnings of an idea formed in her head. “Duusu,” she said. “Your Miraculous being broken: what does that mean? How sick do people get if they use it once?”

“They could be fine,” Duusu said. “Or they could get very sick. They could even die.”

“Okay, what are the chances of that?” Chloe pressed.

Duusu thought for a long moment. “Fifty-fifty,” she said at last. “Fifty percent chance that you’ll be fine, like my last holder in this world.” That was presumably Mendeleiev. “And fifty percent that you’ll get sick and eventually die, like Mayura, my last holder in the two previous worlds."

Chloe hesitated, but then she looked at the pale, withdrawn face of Lila and knew that the other girl would probably hang herself in a few days if someone didn’t do something. “Okay,” she said at last. “I think I can help you, Lila.”

Barkk and Duusu were both giving Chloe intense looks, while Lila just seemed bewildered. “How?”

“I’ll need...” Chloe tried to think through exactly how this would work. “Okay. Do you have an old email account, one you’ve had for years but haven’t checked in forever?”

“Sure. Why?”

“And do you remember the exact date your mom convinced you to turn on your dad?” Chloe pressed.

Lila hesitated. “Yes, but—”

“Get about a thousand euros in cash, all dated before that date,” Chloe said. “Then come back here.” She paused, then said, “And Duusu, go with her and keep her company.” That would hopefully ensure Lila didn’t do anything crazy while she was out.

Lila gave Chloe a puzzled look, but when Chloe just said, “I might be able to help you,” the other girl nodded and hurried away with Duusu fluttering behind her.

#

“This is dangerous,” Barkk noted a little bit later. “The Peacock Miraculous could kill you.”

Chloe spread the things she’d gotten from the junk store down the street across her table: a few old calendars, an atlas of Italy, and a stopped watch. “I want to help her, without traumatizing her like you kwamis would do if you tried to help.” There was no venom in her voice. She knew the kwamis were limited by their natures. But at the same time, if she could help Lila in a gentler way—a way that would be less likely to scar her, as they’d both already been scarred—she had to take it. “This is the best way.”

“We could talk to the Guardian and see if he can fix Duusu’s Miraculous,” Barkk ventured.

Chloe sighed. “I’m sure we could, but we might not have time. If she’s as bad off as I was then she could snap and kill herself at any moment. If someone’s going to save her, then even if it’s dangerous for me, it has to happen now.”

Barkk was silent for a moment before nuzzling against her. “You have changed,” the kwami said.

Chloe managed a smile. “Thanks, Barkk.”

Lila and Duusu returned a couple minutes later. Lila was covered in snow, as a storm had just started, and Duusu said, “That was fun! There are so many nice shops in Paris! And Lila tells great stories!” The kwami paused, then added, “when she remembers to tell them right.”

“I do tell them right!” Lila actually had a very faint smile on her face as she reached into her pocket and took out several wads of change, all in old bills she’d presumably gotten by breaking larger bills across town. “Like, did I ever tell you about my great aunt who was a famous pirate?” Her voice grew boisterous, as if to emphasize she was deliberately making up a ridiculous story. “She was the greatest scourge the high seas had ever known! One time, she sailed right up to Philadelphia and stole the American Declaration of Independence!”

Duusu actually clapped. “I love pirate stories!”

“Okay, okay,” said Chloe. She’d noticed how Duusu seemed to have cheered Lila up and wondered if maybe this kwami could just be the other girl’s companion, but that was obviously impossible; the heroes wouldn’t let the Peacock Miraculous leave Paris and go to Washington DC along with Lila. Then she gathered up the money and handed it back to the Italian. “Alright. Lila: point out the exact date your mom told you to turn on your dad.”

Lila hesitated but then flipped to one of the calendar pages and did so. Chloe tore the page out and then crossed out the other dates on that page with a marker so only the one Lila had pointed to was left. “The time?”

“Just after dinner. Um, maybe six PM.”

Chloe set the watch to five thirty, figuring they could use a little time to prepare. “And the place?”

Lila turned to the appropriate page in the atlas. “It’s the village up top there. Chloe, what is this about?”

Chloe tore the atlas page out before turning to Duusu and said, “How do I use your powers?”

“Are you sure? If you get sick—”

“I’m sure.” Chloe took a breath and pinned the brooch to her shirt. “Just tell me.” And when Duusu gave her the phrase, Chloe said, “Alright. Duusu: spread my feathers!”

A flash of power swept over her, one she hadn’t felt in months, not since she’d failed as Queen Bee and been fired. Within it was something cold and twisted, and she gasped as she felt the flaw in the Miraculous pressing against her. But it didn’t stop her, and when she looked down and saw she was now wearing purple versions of her regular clothes and holding a hand fan, she nodded.

Power swirled in her right hand as she focused, and she gripped the two torn out pages and the watch tightly in that hand while she laid a feather from the fan on top of them with her other. Then she felt a piercing sensation inside her and shut her eyes as if that would help her fight the pain. For a moment she felt that she was doomed, that the damaged Miraculous was going to break her and kill her—and then the pain passed as if it hadn’t been there, and when Chloe looked down, she saw the objects were all glowing. She waved and a purple void appeared in the center of the room. “That’s my sentimonster,” Chloe said.

Lila blinked. “Um, what does it do?”

“It’s going to take you home,” Chloe said. She took Lila’s arm and gently led her forward. “Come on.”

The other girl looked scared for a moment, but she gulped and nodded, and then both girls and Barkk slipped into the void.

#

Italy was nice, Chloe thought as she peaked out from the shadowy alley where the sentimonster had deposited them, but they didn’t have time to sightsee. “Lila. Take that money and buy a phone or a camera, something that can record. Okay?”

Lila was still staring dumbly at the scene. “This is just like it was back then,” she whispered. “They hadn’t built the new road yet and—”

“We are back then,” Chloe said.

Lila froze. “Wait, did you bring me back so I can stop myself from hurting Daddy? Because I asked Duusu about that while I was getting the money and Duusu said that would make a paradox and break the world or something.”

“We aren’t doing that,” Chloe said. “I had a different idea. Can you buy something that can record video, please? We don’t have much time.””

Lila nodded and ran to what looked like a small electronics shop. Chloe waited until the other girl came back with a new phone, and they quickly tested out its recording ability before Chloe said, “Okay. Show me where you live.”

“Wait.” Lila paled. “Chloe, I don’t want to—I’m ashamed—”

“Trust me.” Chloe gave Lila the kindest smile she could. “Please.”

Lila was still for a moment before she agreed and led Chloe down a winding path. Eventually they came upon a little cottage set a few hundred meters back from the rest of the village. Lights were on and the building looked cheery, especially in contrast to the dark woods behind it. “Where did your mom have that talk with you?” Chloe asked.

“My bedroom. It’s the room on the other side of the cottage. Chloe, what—” But Chloe was already leading Lila on.

They got around back and crept to a window, where a younger Lila was sitting listlessly on her bed. The window was open and when the younger Lila kicked at her bedframe, the sound was clearly audible in the quiet evening. Chloe nodded and led Lila into the woods before holding up the phone. Then the younger Lila’s door opened to reveal Chiara Rossi and Chloe nodded. It was time.

Barkk whispered translations and Chloe filmed as Chiara began speaking to the younger Lila. “My little girl!” Chiara said. “Why so sad?”

“Daddy says we can’t get that new game,” the younger Lila said. “Or go horseback riding this Saturday.”

There was an odd, wary note in the younger Lila’s tone, and after a moment Chloe guessed that it was because this Lila had already made her Wish and come back to this world. No doubt she’d been expecting the fame and fortune she’d asked for and wasn’t at all sure why her world hadn’t changed yet.

“Again?” Chiara shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I wish your father weren’t so stingy.”

“He says we can’t afford it.”

Chiara sighed melodramatically. “We could, if he were a little more flexible.”

“Then why won’t he be flexible?” the younger Lila demanded. “He’s never flexible!”

“I don’t know,” Chiara said. “I’ve talked to him, but he won’t budge. If only...” And then her eyes twinkled. “Oh.”

Little Lila asked, “What is it?”

“Well... what if instead of him, we could get you a better daddy?” Chiara said. “One who had lots of money and always bought you the things you wanted!”

The younger Lila giggled. “I can’t get a new daddy!” But then she paused, something hard and sharp appearing in her eyes, and Chloe nodded. This was where Lila had realized she was about to go on a different path. The one she’d Wished to be made available to her.

Lila, the older one, was whispering something in Italian at Chloe’s side. Chloe glanced at her and didn’t need Barkk to tell her that she was saying something like “Please, no, don’t do it.” She took the other girl’s hand and squeezed, resulting in Lila sagging against her. Chloe gave her another look and then turned back to keep recording.

“Sure you can!” Chiara was saying. “In fact, we can get you lots of daddies, with lots of money! We could travel the world and have all kinds of nice things! We just need to... deal with this one first.”

After a moment, the younger Lila asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, dear, mommies and daddies are allowed to split up if one of them has been bad,” Chiara said.

“But daddy hasn’t been bad. I mean, he hasn’t been buying me things, but—”

“But we could say he’s been bad,” Chiara said slyly. “I could tell a judge how he’s never home and he’s neglecting us and all these bad things. And you could tell the judge too! Then the judge would say we don’t need to be with daddy anymore and we can get a better one!”

Lila’s eyes had gleamed, but then she’d hesitated, and Chloe wondered if even then the girl had been having second thoughts. “I don’t know...”

“What’s not to know? You want to move out of this pokey house, don’t you?” Chiara swept her arm wide. “Wouldn’t you like to live in a big mansion? With servants, and fancy cars to take you places, and all the toys and games you could ever want?”

“I guess.” But Lila still seemed hesitant. “It’s just, it’s not true—”

“Dear,” Chiara said. “Is that really as important as us getting the lives we deserve?”

The two looked at each other for a long moment. Then Chiara sighed. “Oh, well. If you want to be honest then I suppose that’s your right. I’ll head along to cook dinner, dear. And I’ll miss you.”

“Miss me?” Lila shot back at once. “Miss me why? I’m not going anywhere.”

Chiara, who had turned away from the younger Lila, let an evil smile flicker over her face. Chloe and the older Lila could both see it from their hiding spots in the trees, and Chloe blanched before Chiara turned back to her daughter. “Well... your father and I didn’t want to worry you, but your father’s business isn’t doing very well. We don’t just not have enough money to take you horseback riding or buy those cute shoes you liked. We might not have enough money to keep you.”

Lila gasped. “You can’t not keep me!”

“I’m afraid we might not have a choice.”

Chloe wondered briefly whether the horror on the younger Lila’s face was that of her fourteen-year-old self, who had made her Wish and gone back in time, now worrying that all her effort was to be wasted if her parents really did dump her in some orphanage where she’d be even poorer than before—or if it was an eight-year-old’s panic that she might truly be abandoned by her mother. Chloe didn’t know whether the younger Lila still had the same personality as when she’d made her Wish, or if she just had her memories stapled onto the maturity of an eight-year-old child. But either way, the anguish in the little Lila’s face was real. “No!” she gasped. “I don’t want to not be kept!”

Chiara just waited expectantly, and eventually Lila said, “If I say those things about daddy, then I won’t have to go away from you, will I?”

“Of course not, dear. We’ll be able to stay together forever.” Chiara gave Lila the most insincere hug Chloe had ever seen, though the younger Lila didn’t seem to notice. “Now, I’m going to give you some lines. Memorize them and then we’ll go see the police. Okay?”

Chiara led Lila out of her room and Chloe stopped filming. Then she turned to see that Lila had slumped to the ground. “I’m a monster,” she whispered.

“We both were,” Chloe said. “But we don’t have to stay that way. I changed and you can too.”

“How?” Lila whispered. “You helped stop Hawkmoth. There’s no other big villains for me to fight. I can’t make up for this.”

“I couldn’t make up for it either,” Chloe corrected. “That’s not how it works. We can’t undo what we did. But we can do better. You can’t take back what you said about your dad in the past—but you can prove his innocence in the present.”

Lila looked at Chloe, baffled, and Chloe held out the phone. “Email that video to your old email account, the one you never use.”

“Why?” Lila did as instructed, then asked, “What’s the point?”

“The point is, when we go back to the present, you’ll have a video of your mother admitting that her abuse claims are faked,” Chloe said. “You can take it to the police and clear your father.”

Lila’s mouth dropped. “But... but I’m in it too,” she whispered at last. “Agreeing to it.”

“I had to admit the bad things I did too,” Chloe said. “It sucks. But it’s the only way.” She paused, then added, “I can’t make you turn this into the police. And they wouldn’t listen to me if I showed up with it. But if you really want to change, clearing your father is the best first step I can think of.”

Silence stretched between the two girls for a long moment, and then Chloe said, “We need to get home. Follow me.”

It was some time before they’d hiked back to the portal and jumped back to the present day. Chloe then immediately dismissed the sentimonster and tore the brooch off herself. When she was done, she turned to see Lila pulling up the old email account. “It’s here,” she said. “The metadata’s right and everything. I...”

Chloe waited. Barkk had told her that she had to figure a lot of things out for herself, and she was starting to understand that. She could advise Lila, she could cajole her, she could even threaten her, but ultimately Lila had to be the one to decide. Was she going to change, admit her errors, and vindicate the innocent man she’d wronged? Or would she remain still, stagnant, and in essence, dead?

Lila was silent for a moment longer and then she bowed her head. “I’m going to do it,” she whispered. “I’ll show the police this video.” Then she paused. “Chloe? Can you walk with me to the police station? I’m... I’m scared.”

Chloe smiled. “Of course, Lila.”

Chapter Text

“Ultimately, there is the freedom to take the consequences.”

--Terry Pratchett (“Going Postal”)

A few days later, as Chloe was trying to help her father bake some brownies for a Christmas market, her phone buzzed. “Chloe!” Lila said in a voice that sounded nervous but also excited. “Can you meet me outside, in the Place des Vosges? Please?”

Chloe glanced at her dad, who smiled. “I think I can take it from here,” he said. “Go and see your friend. And don’t forget these.” He packed several cookies into a little box and gave it to her. “In case you run into Alya while you’re out.”

“Daddy, I wasn’t...” But even as Chloe spoke, she knew she’d probably at least try to meet up with Alya, and she blushed as her father chuckled. “Alright. Thanks, Daddy.”

She let Andre hug her goodbye and put on her coat before heading out into the street. Lila was there and she almost jumped toward Chloe as soon as she appeared. “I had to tell you the news,” she said. “I—wait, is Barkk here? Duusu said I should tell Barkk too.”

Barkk’s head poked out of Chloe’s jacket pocket as Chloe said, “Duusu’s still with you? I returned the Peacock Miraculous to the tea shop guy; I’d figured Duusu would still be in the box.”

“Well, Barkk’s Miraculous is in the box and Barkk hangs out with you, right?” Lila shrugged. “Duusu comes over a lot. Apparently my stories are great, when I ‘tell them right.’” She wrinkled her nose. “Seriously. If I make up anything Duusu tells me I should have used a silly voice or done something else to show it wasn’t real.”

Chloe smiled. “Sounds like Duusu might be good for you.”

“Yeah, I like the little bird. And I guess it’s easier not to make stuff up when I know Duusu’ll call me on it anyway.” Lila shook her head, then said, “Oh, I meant to ask: you’re not sick, are you?”

“No, and before I returned the Peacock Miraculous, Duusu told me I was fine. Apparently a kwami can tell if someone gets sick from that kwami's Miraculous. That's also how Duusu knew Mendeleiev will be okay, assuming we ever see her again.” Mendeleiev hadn’t shown up in school during the last few days of the winter term.

The two girls looked at each other for a moment before Chloe prompted, “What did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, right.” Lila’s grin grew slightly shaky. “The police processed my report. My mom said the tape wasn’t real, of course, but the metadata was all correct since we really filmed it in the past and the police proved it wasn’t a deepfake. So it was credible enough Mayor Sabine could use it as the basis for a formal diplomatic protest.” She paused. “The mayor really hates Mom.”

“I can imagine,” Chloe noted, thinking of that rolling pin indentation on Chiara’s face.

Lila nodded. “Mom wanted to fight it in court, but since the stuff in the tape is real, I think she realized it’d be too risky. So she agreed to settle. She’s retracted all her claims against my father, she’s going to pay him reparations, and...” Her voice caught. “She’s not contesting custody either.”

It took Chloe a moment to understand. “Your father—”

“Wants me back. He actually wants me back!” Lila blinked away tears and gave Chloe a watery smile. “Even though I said all those horrible things about him, he... he’s a great dad.”

Lila wrapped her arms around Chloe in a sudden hug and Chloe stiffened before returning it. “So you’re moving back to Italy?”

“No, actually. I didn’t know it, but after we left him, Dad wanted a fresh start and he moved to Paris to start a new shoe business. He actually tried writing me a couple of times once I came here, but Mom intercepted the letters. Now that she’s away I’ve gotten in touch with him and I’m actually meeting him in a little bit. Then I’ll stay with him while Mom is recalled to Italy.”

Chloe paused. “I thought your mom’s superiors didn’t care about complaints.”

“Sure, but this is a major scandal. Sabine made it clear she could release that tape to the press if she wanted. She also got the heroes to submit formal affidavits that Mom did not help defeat Hawkmoth, which shows she was lying to her bosses, and she had some investigators look into the French officials who backed Mom up until their stories all fell apart and it came out they were just lying because they were sleeping with her. Apparently the French government was really angry Mom ‘suborned’ the officials like that, and they’re willing to declare her persona non grata if she doesn’t leave.”

Lila sighed. “So that’s it for Mom’s career. She’s still not fired, because that would require an inquiry and the government doesn’t want the scandal, but they’ve reassigned her to proofread forms in an old warehouse somewhere. No fancy posting, no changes to meet celebrities and foreign officials, not even much to do in the little village they sent her to. Just paperwork until she retires.”

Chloe thought back to the ambassador’s various depravities, as well as what Barkk and Lila had said about how neglectful the woman had been even before Lila had made her Wish. “I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“Yeah...” Lila looked like she was going to say something else, but then her eyes widened. “Wait. There. That’s him!”

Chloe turned to see an older gentleman with an Italian jacket turning a corner. He glanced down at a sheet of paper as if to make sure he was in the right place, then looked up and saw Lila, who had gone very still. “Lila?” he asked in a voice with a thick Italian accent. “Is that you?”

Lila nodded. Then she ran at her father and flung her arms around him, her voice babbling away as she pressed against her dad. Lila’sr father seemed stunned, but after a moment he began to cry a little too and embraced Lila as he spoke to her.

“Do you want me to translate?” Barkk whispered to Chloe.

“I think I get it.”

After a few minutes, Lila slowly pulled away. “Dad, this is my best friend Chloe,” she said. “Chloe helped me be... strong enough... to admit what Mom and I did to you.”

Mr. Rossi gave Chloe an appraising look. “Thank you,” he said. “For helping me get my daughter back. If you ever need good Italian shoes, just let me know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Chloe said.

Lila returned to Chloe and said, “I’m going to be good,” she promised. “Or at least, I’m going to try. To not lie, and not manipulate, and not do... you know. What we thought about doing during the Atropos attack.

Chloe nodded. “You got rid of that old rope in your room?” she asked quietly.

“As soon as my dad said he’d take me back.” Lila smiled. “I’m going to live and be a better person. Someone my dad can be proud of. And so... thank you.” She hugged Chloe again. “Thank you, Chloe. For showing me it’s possible.”

Lila and her father left soon after that and Chloe smiled to herself. Then she turned to go—and almost walked into another figure who stepped out from under a nearby shop awning. “Marinette?” Chloe asked in shock. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” Marinette gave Chloe a little smile. “That was a very nice thing you did for Lila.”

“How do you know what I did for Lila?”

“The kwamis talk, Chloe. At least the ones who aren’t being held hostage by supervillains.” Marinette grimaced. “Barkk and Duusu told Master Fu what you’d done, and Pollen told me what Fu said about it. And he says, first, that was a very kind and noble thing you did... and second, if you ever try to use a broken Miraculous again without going to him to fix it first, he’ll have Barkk hit over the head with his teapot.”

Chloe snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The two girls looked at each other for a long moment before Marinette said, “By the way, Tikki dropped by my room last night and told me what I was like in the first two worlds—the ones you and Lila ended.”

“Oh.” Chloe looked down. “So you hate me even more now.”

“Why would I hate you more?”

Chloe blinked. “Because you used to be Ladybug? The great hero of Paris, one of the most famous heroes in the world? And I took that from you along with your fashion career?”

Marinette giggled.

Chloe stared, surprised by the pure glee and amusement in Marinette’s voice. Then the other girl spoke. “Tikki did tell me about that. And she mentioned how much I enjoyed saving people, being the hero, and using my powers for good. But she also mentioned how overworked I was, how I kept having to miss civilian obligations, cancel dates, skip out on gaming with my parents, and everything else. She also told me about some things that happened in the original world that the Lila-Wish world you remember never reached, like when Hawkmoth stole all the other Miraculouses from that world’s me, and how I felt when that happened.”

Marinette was silent for a minute before continuing. “I can’t forgive you for what you did to your world’s Marinette. And I’m not going to try. But what I can say is, I—this world’s Marinette—am happy. I’m happy that I’m in a position to use my money and power to help the people and city I care about. I’m happy that I’ve got such great friends and classmates. I’m happy that, as Duchess, I can help out the heroes sometimes... and I’m happy that I’m not one of the full-time heroes who can’t have a personal life because of her job. So no, Chloe. I don’t hate you for that.”

“What about what I did to you at your show?” Chloe pressed.

Marinette was silent for a moment. “I was really upset,” she admitted. “But then I thought to myself, do I wish you and the heroes hadn't done the plan just so I could get a better reputation as a fashion designer? And the answer is no. Defeating Hawkmoth is more important. And if the price I had to pay is losing one show, and a few of my designs getting leaked, then I’ll pay it.”

Chloe blushed. “You’re a better person than I am,” she muttered. “I’d still be upset.”

“Maybe, but you were willing to risk your freedom if the plan didn’t work, and your life if it did and I killed you, to stop Hawkmoth,” Marinette said. “That matters too.”

The two girls looked at each other before Chloe asked, “Marinette, be honest: do you think I’ve changed?”

“Yes,” said Marinette simply. “You have.”

Chloe felt a smile coming over her face. “Thank you, Marinette,” she said. “And I—I’m sorry. For everything I did to you, across this world and the last one.”

“Like I said, I can’t forgive you for what you did to the other me,” Marinette noted. “But in terms of what you did to this me... yes. I forgive you.”

And Chloe felt a moment of pure joy.

Then Marinette was chuckling. “Besides, even the show didn’t hurt me that badly in the end. The Italian government already reached out to propose another show with a non-crazy ambassador in order to make up for what Chiara did. And the guy that took over the Agreste brand after Gabriel was jailed wants to support me too, to show how the company is totally on the side of heroes now. Plus, celebrities over the world reached out: they all want clothes from the ‘hero’ fashion designer. My career will be fine.”

“You always land on your feet,” Chloe said ruefully. “In this world and all the others. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Marinette’s face shifted into a sly smile. “And speaking of landing on one’s feet and moving up in the world, I had two things I needed to tell you. First, I’ve written a letter to the board reviewing your probation next week.”

Chloe had gotten a letter saying that Sabine had formally requested her probation status be reviewed again. “What does it say?”

“What I just told you. That you’re still a work in progress, but you really have changed... and so I think it might be time to lessen your probation. Or even end it.” Chloe’s mouth dropped as Marinette grinned. “I understand Alya wrote a letter too. As did the heroes. Now, they are telling the probation committee everything you did in this world, including what I understand are some efforts to get people akumatized in the first couple weeks of the term. But they’re also mentioning how you changed and risked your life to defeat Hawkmoth.” She shrugged. “Given those letters, it’s possible your probation could be ended entirely. Or switched to just making reparations toward the specific people you hurt.”

Chloe gulped. “I don’t know what to say.”

“A ‘thank you’ is enough,” Marinette joked. “And second: Alya mentioned you were baking with your dad now. She also said you’re getting pretty good.”

“Sure...”

“Well, my Papa found our hotel bakery is so busy that he needs to bring on a new person to give some part-time help in the afternoons and evenings. He likes hiring entry-level people to give them some work experience and help get them started, and I happen to know he hasn’t got lots of applicants. If you applied I think you’d be a shoo-in.”

“Wait, what?” Chloe said. “I can’t—I’m banned from the hotel, and your parents hate me!”

Marinette said, “Technically, the hotel is Papa’s, not Maman’s. And he wasn’t thrilled at first, but when I told him I’d forgiven you, he agreed to let it end there. You can come back to Le Grand Paris as long as you behave yourself.”

“Okay, but—why would they want me?”

“I didn’t say they did.” Marinette gave a cheeky grin. “Just that they’d take you if you applied. It was someone else that wanted you.”

And Chloe got it. “Alya?”

“She’s asked to do some part-time work in our restaurant and her mom said it was okay,” Marinette explained. “Just a few afternoons a week, so she still has time for her journalism stuff too. Now, I know she’d be happy if you were able to work there at the same time so you two could see each other, and I’m sure you’d be happy too. So: how about it?”

Chloe thought for a moment of how wonderful it would be to be able to work with Alya a few afternoons every week. No akumas or criminals trying to kill them, just peacefully being by each other. “I...” Chloe began. “That’s great, I—”

And then she was hugging Marinette. “You’re still our Everyday Ladybug,” Chloe told her. “Even if you aren’t the actual Ladybug. Don’t ever change, Marinette.”

Marinette laughed, and then Chloe started following her to Le Grand Paris. Things, she thought, were finally looking up.

#

Months later...

Tom picked up one of the macaroons on the tray Chloe had offered him and swallowed it. “Ooh, that’s good!” he said. “Very well done, Chloe. You’re picking up on your training fast.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said. “You guys are really good at making your lessons memorable.” And she thought back to her first lesson in the Le Grand Paris bakery.

“To finish the croissant dough, you add sugar like this,” Sabine had told her. “You sprinkle in cinnamon like this. If you ever hurt my daughter again, they will never find your body. And make sure to preheat the oven like so.”

“Uh, what?” Chloe tried to figure out if she’d heard right. “What did you say?”

Sabine had fixed a brilliant smile on her. “I said, now I’ll show you how to fold the dough!”

Tom’s voice brought her back to the real world. “I think it’s just about time for your break. Why don’t you wash up and go rest for a few minutes?” He chuckled. “Alya’s break is about now too, you know.”

Chloe blushed. She’d noticed how her breaks and Alya’s always seemed to line up, but she hadn’t said anything. “Sure. Thanks.”

As she put her apron in her storage locker and headed over to the hotel restaurant, Chloe glanced out a window at the nice spring day outside, then smiled to herself. Life had been good recently. In fact, it had been really, really good.

To start with, her probation had ended. The probation board had accepted Marinette’s argument that, since the whole point of probation was for Chloe to change her ways, and since she’d obviously changed, they didn’t need to keep her under various restrictions anymore. There had been a couple of protests but no major ones; Mayor Sabine had stayed silent, presumably at her daughter’s request, and Mendeleiev hadn’t sent in anything either. So the probation was lifted.

That wasn’t to say she’d gotten off scot-free. She’d admitting to investigating the heroes, getting people akumatized, and everything else she’d done since waking up in the new world, and while she hadn’t been arrested—her risking her own life to stop Hawkmoth had made the government inclined to forgive her earlier misconduct—she still had to make restitution to the specific people she’d gotten akumatized. Adrien hadn’t asked for anything, saying her work stopping Hawkmoth made up for it, but she’d dutifully painted more props for Mylene (who also had seemed like she wanted to forgive Chloe but then gave her some work when Ivan insisted), helped Nino lug his equipment around, and spent a few very boring afternoons assisting Alix with paperwork in the Louvre. But none of that had been too bad, she’d liked helping her classmates, and even though it was over, she wouldn’t say no to helping out that way in the future if needed.

She’d also still had to do her makeup work, but between the gentler Fred Haprele replacing the absent Mendeleiev as Chloe’s proctor, and Chloe’s restrictions on using the tutoring services being lifted as part of her probation ending, Chloe had been able to get through her work much faster. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, she’d finished the final assignments. She was officially caught up, and she was also absolutely determined not to fall behind again.

Her class seemed to have forgiven her. Even Alix—who had returned to school after the winter break--was being friendlier, and the two girls had surprised themselves when they’d been paired up in gym for some one-on-one the other day and had actually played a friendly game. Alix had won, of course, but Chloe had enjoyed herself. It had gotten to the point where she could go to a party or a game with the others and just have fun. No arguments, no fighting, no struggling with resentment or guilt. Just having a good time like she was supposed to.

Lila still kept in contact and the two girls saw each other at least once every two weeks. The Italian girl wore cheaper clothes now, and she didn’t embellish her stories, but she seemed much happier than before. Chloe was also spending more time baking or just having fun with her father. Alya had been right: it was fulfilling to help him with his work, and to learn from him.

The one person she missed was Barkk. The little kwami had left the day after Lila had returned to her father, simply telling Chloe that the mission was over. Chloe had been upset at that and had hugged the dog fiercely, but Barkk had said there was no way out of it, and had also promised to visit when possible. And Chloe supposed that, all things considered, she’d still done well to have the kwami as a friend for a few months.

But, while Barkk’s absence did make her sad, there was one person who could always brighten her day. And as Chloe walked into the restaurant and saw a certain girl sitting in a back booth, her heart sang. “Alya!” she called as she hurried over. “Hi!”

“Chloe!” The two hugged before Alya pointed at her open laptop screen. “Look at what I found! I’ve been going through the city hall records, and one of those officials Chiara Rossi seduced has apparently been corrupt for years. Look, he’s got properties all over the country; no way his income’s enough for that. I think there’s a major scandal here.”

“Alya Cesaire, paperwork investigator,” Chloe joked as she scootched next to Alya in the back booth. She took the outside, as usual, to protect the other girl from any threats who might crop up. “Wouldn’t the government have caught him if he filed everything with them?”

“Ah, but he used aliases. It took me a while to track them all down and get proof, but I’ve got them now.” Alya smiled as she tapped away at her laptop. “Next I need to confront him. He’s giving a small press conference this weekend to complain about being eased out of the government over the Rossi thing. I think I’ll get him there. I mean, there’ll be cameras, so he won’t be likely to just shoot me.”

Chloe nodded. Alya was still fiercely devoted to her blog, but she was now putting real thought into how to keep herself safe while getting stories. Which at least meant Chloe wasn’t getting hurt so often rescuing her, which she appreciated. “Sounds like a great story.”

“It will be,” said Alya. She snuggled against Chloe as she kept typing. “How’ve you been? Any problems in the bakery?”

“No. Nothing new.” Chloe managed a smile. “I think Sabine’s surprised I’m not getting in more trouble.”

Chloe had only gotten in trouble twice since starting in the hotel. The first time had been when she’d gone to the restaurant and saw a jerk tourist hassling Alya (who had been filling in as a waitress that day), swearing at her for making some minor mistake with his order and threatening to get her fired. Chloe didn’t remember much about that one; she’d just suddenly found herself next to the guy, calmly instructing him that he was going to leave the business immediately or else regret it. Marlena and Tom had pulled aside later and told her that, while they appreciated her defending another employee, the right thing to do in that situation was to call one of them instead of threatening the guest. (Marlena had actually seemed rather pleased by how Chloe had rushed to defend Alya, though she hadn’t said anything).

The other time had been a bit sillier. Alya and Chloe had been taking advantage of their breaks to cuddle while Alya worked on her blog, but because they’d been hugging and leaning on each other in random hallways, the staff had been tripping over them. Suggestions that they do that sort of thing in Alya’s room had proven problematic because it took time to get to it and neither Alya nor Chloe wanted to squander their time together. So Marlena, who again seemed very happy with how devoted Chloe was to Alya, had settled things by giving them a back booth in the restaurant. As long as the restaurant wasn’t totally full, that booth would be kept clear, and Alya and Chloe could have their breaks there. Of course, there were rules—no PDAs, hands above the table and so on—but Chloe and Alya were just fine with that.

“Once I get that done, I’ve got a few more stories lined up,” Alya went on. “I’m still writing up that history of the Miraculouses, and maybe also an update on Mendeleiev. There’s a rumor she was seen in Uzbekistan, providing some chemical formula to fix a problem with a village’s soil. But then she vanished before the villagers could thank her.”

Chloe nodded. With Alix and Lila being friendlier to her, Chiara in Italy, and Gabriel, Nathalie, and Fournier all in prison—they’d each been convicted of enough crimes to ensure they would never see the light of day again--Mendeleiev was the one person who had hated her that hadn’t been accounted for. But from what Chloe had heard, she was wandering the world trying to help people. It sounded like she was changing for the better too, and Chloe liked to think her speech to the scientist may have played a part in that. “Sounds really neat,” she said.

“You say everything I write is neat,” Alya teased.

“Well, it is!”

Alya opened her mouth to say something else when other conversations in the restaurant suddenly hushed. Alya and Chloe both turned to the entrance, and they saw Red Queen, Cheshire, and Duchess come in. Then the trio glanced at the back booth and approached the duo.

Alya and Chloe exchanged glances. “I didn’t do anything,” Chloe protested as the heroes reached them. “Really.”

“We know.” Red Queen smiled. “I’ll make this fast: we learned from the United Heroez that a coalition of American supervillains led by the Technopirate are planning to attack Paris. We’re putting together a team to help the American heroes stop them.”

“A team?” Alya’s eyes widened. “Wait. You mean us?”

Cheshire grinned. “Alya Cesaire, your intelligence, wisdom, and devotion to upholding the truth and exposing lies have impressed us. You’ve shown that you can not only expose secrets to the nation at large, but can help your closest friend see truths about herself and thus change for the better.” He presented Alya with a box. “Please accept the Fox Miraculous.”

Alya gingerly opened the box to reveal a familiar-looking pendant. It shimmered and a little fox popped out of it. “Woah!” said Alya as the fox floated up to her eye level. “You’re cute! Are you Trixx?”

“I am!” Trixx boasted. “I’m the kwami of illusions! It’s good to see you again, Alya.” The fox grinned. “I knew you’d prove worthy of getting me back. And I’m happy too. In the last world, we had so much fun talking about journalism, and I'm sure we'll have fun here too!”

“My journalism?” Alya asked. “You helped with that?”

“Well, I am the kwami of illusions. When people try to conceal things, or to make facts look like fiction and vice versa, I’m very good at finding it out.” Trixx’s chest puffed out. “You could even say I’m a kwami journalist.”

Alya stared for a moment before hugging Trixx close. “You’re the best kwami ever,” she said. “Oh! Do you have an eldritch form too, like Barkk and Plagg? And if you do, can I see it?”

“I do have a true form,” Trixx said. “But most humans find it frightening.”

“I don’t care! I want to learn everything about you!” Alya grinned. “And everything you can possibly teach me!”

Trixx took a moment and then smiled. “Of course. I’m always happy to teach a new fox kit the ways of the world.” Alya squeed and hugged Trixx close, and the fox laughed in delight.

Chloe turned to Duchess, who offered her a box. When Chloe opened it, she was unsurprised to see a dog collar-style necklace, but she still smiled when she put it on—and grinned when Barkk popped out of it. “I missed you,” Barkk said.

“I missed you.” Chloe cuddled the dog close. “I’m so glad you’re back. But are you sure you want to give me power? I mean, you know all the bad stuff I did. And won’t Plagg object?”

“Plagg finally accepted you’ve changed,” Cheshire said. “Or that your ‘bad parts are destroyed,’ which is the way Plagg put it. That won’t be a problem.”

“And I’m happy to lend you my power,” Barkk said. “You’re a good human now, Chloe Bourgeois. And I hope I can help you become an even better one.”

Chloe pet Barkk a few times before looking at Duchess. “It’s okay,” she said in response to the comment she knew Marinette was thinking. “I know why I can’t see Pollen again.”

Marinette hesitated, then said, “Actually...”

Cheshire cut in and said, “We’re thinking of doing more cross-training, you know, learning to use each other’s kwamis.”

“It was my idea,” Sabrina said. “We don’t want a situation where we need to use, say, Trixx, but Alya is sick or on vacation so we’re stuck. We should all be at least familiar with each other’s kwamis.”

Chloe felt her eyes start to tear up. “Can I see her now, then?” she asked. “Just to say hello?”

Duchess gave Chloe a slight smile and then—with a glance to make sure nobody was watching--took off her comb. Suddenly, she was Marinette again, and Pollen was buzzing before her. “My first queen!” Pollen said as she flew to embrace Chloe, who gave a small squeal and hugged the bee. “I’m so happy you’re better and I can see you again!”

“I’m happy to be better,” Chloe whispered. “And when we cross-train, or just when we see each other, I’m going to be a good friend this time. I promise.”

Pollen made a contented sigh. Then Cheshire said, “We should get going. The Prime Minister wants us to give a press conference promising to protect France from the villain alliance, and he wants everyone there, including all the new heroes. Don’t worry about checking with your bosses--we've already cleared it with them."

“All the new heroes?” Alya repeated as they all rose and Marinette dashed off to become Duchess again. “Are there more than just us?”

Cheshire smiled. “Two more. You might recognize them.”

As they reached the door, Chloe saw two figures waiting outside. One was wearing a blue and white uniform and had a bunny motif, and the other was wearing the Peacock Miraculous and was dressed in purple. “Hey,” the purple one said. “That’s March Hare, and I’m Jubjub. Master Fu fixed my Miraculous, so it’s safe for me to use now.”

Then Barkk murmured, "Doesn't she have a bit of an Italian accent?” in Chloe’s ear, and her eyes widened as she realized she knew who this hero was. Then she saw how March Hare’s uniform had a gun holster and guessed she knew that one was too.

“The kwamis and the Guardian said we’ve changed and gotten so much better that they think we can be heroes now,” March Hare said quietly. “Thanks, Chloe.”

Jubjub gave Chloe a shining look too and Chloe smiled. “Don’t thank me. Just... let’s all just be as good as we can,” she said. “We’ve got our second chances. Let’s use them.”

The three exchanged warm looks, and then Cheshire told Chloe and Alya, “Find somewhere to hide and transform. Then join us back here in two minutes. We’ve got a press conference to get to.”

And so Chloe found herself running into a little nook with a gleeful expression on her face. Barkk told her what to say, and Chloe proclaimed, “Barkk: on the hunt!” Magic washed over her, she grinned as she felt its strength, and then she laughed as she imagined the good things she’d be able to do with that power.

She returned to the hallway just as Alya, in her old Rena Rouge uniform, and Marinette, now Duchess once again, did. “I'm liking this Wonderland theme you've got,” Alya told the others. “So call me by the name of the fastest and cleverest hunter that Carroll wrote about in his books: Bandersnatch!”

The others laughed and then Duchess asked Chloe, “What about you? What should we call you?”

"Yeah, I think we're out of Wonderland names that might fit," Cheshire said regretfully.

Chloe thought for a moment and then said, “New Tricks.”

“Why?” Red Queen asked.

Chloe smiled. “It’s because new tricks are the things that old, rabid dogs can’t learn, but a living girl can.” She met the others’ gazes. “I’m not a rabid dog. I’m a person, one who can grow and change. And I’m going to keep growing and learning new tricks for as long as I can.”

Cheshire and Red Queen glanced at each other, and then Cheshire said, “Sounds good to me. Let’s go!”

And then they were running through the hotel until they reached the outside and jumped into the sky. Chloe leapt with them, feeling pure joy as she landed next to her girlfriend and shot her a grin. Alya gave her a matching one, and then they leapt after the others again.

Yes, Chloe thought. She was a living, growing, changing person. And she was going to use that life to protect this new world.

As well as all the people she loved within it.