Chapter Text
Two years ago, Marinette lost it all. Her rather extreme lapse in judgment let Félix overtake her in a battle of the mind. She should have recognized that the boy before her wasn’t who he said he was, but she didn’t.
His eyes shone the same way Adrien’s did. His voice lulled her ears. She trusted him and paid the price for it in the end. She blamed him for his vile actions and blamed herself even more for falling victim to them.
The truth of the matter was that Marinette didn’t see past the facade someone had shown her and she gave away every Miraculous except the Ladybug and the Cat.
It resulted in so much suffering among her and the Parisian population. Monarch did no less than terrorize the city with his extra-powered megakumas. Somehow even worse, after Monarch’s defeat, not every Miraculous jewel was allied with her. The Butterfly stayed out of her reach even though Gabriel Agreste was no longer in the condition to keep it.
Marinette would stay up at night recounting their final battle, looking for ways someone could have slipped in and taken the jewel from the dark waters below, but it had no use. What was done was done. Even though the Miraculous of the Rabbit could go back and fix it all, she knew she shouldn't use it.
This new Butterfly holder, well, they were a doozy. Marinette found herself used to Gabriel’s methodology. Complacent with him. He would stay hidden, send out akumatized villains, and wait for the day one of them finally overcame his enemies.
She knew the new holder would be a problem from the first akuma they sent out, and Marinette was terrified she would have to wrap her mind around a new system of villains dead set to strip her of her power. But it turned out this new villain was even more of a shut-in than the last.
Akuma attacks used to ruin her days more than once a week. Marinette remembered a three-day streak in which she spent more time on rooftops than she did in her classes. The excuses she gave Alya as she rushed to her seat were obtuse at best, and the ones she gave her parents at home after school were mortifying at worst.
This new holder, though. They gave her two weeks of unadulterated free time. They didn’t absolve her of the overwhelming fear that they could strike at any moment, of course, but wow. She must have slept better than she had since before Master Fu set his mind on her.
Marinette spent her time between the new Butterfly’s first akuma until now waiting for the day they would slip up and give her something. Anything. A boon to lead her toward finding them. What she wouldn’t give for a lead. She was grateful to not have to fight an enemy all the time, and it helped the community as well. If they weren’t getting akumatized as often, they could be more at peace.
But, Marinette was starting to face a state of mind she hadn’t been in since she realized Hawk Moth akumatized the same man into a pigeon themed villain over seventy times; boredom.
And she was starting to consider that the Butterfly holder was feeling the same way. Their victims became sluggish and were defeated with ease. Their designs lacked in color and the fashionable appeal they previously excelled in, and they had the exact same power limitations.
It gave Marinette a more positive outlook on her future. She smiled without thinking about it more. Her teacher didn’t give her as many weird looks due to her tardiness. Her parents would non-stop tell her how proud they were with her. Maybe she wouldn’t keep fighting into her adulthood. She could grow up without the weight of the world on her back. Sleep came to her easier at night again, because being awoken by nightmares that had come to life wasn’t a fear that plagued her mind anymore.
So, it was an utter shock when Marinette received a message from Alya near the end of a day that was to be like any other. She looked at Tikki, then her phone, and back to Tikki.
THE NEW BUTTERFLY HOLDER IS HERE IN PERSON.
Marinette must have transformed into Ladybug in record time, but there was no use in recording it. She immediately dialed Rena Rouge and held her yo-yo up to her ear as she jumped to her balcony.
“What does she mean here in person?” Ladybug struggled to control her volume. She only managed to calm her breathing when she heard Rena Rouge answer the phone. “Where are they, Rena?”
“At the summit of the Eiffel tower. Get here quick, Ladybug.” Rena said.
Ladybug gawked as the line went cold. How could Alya drop such a heavy bomb on her through text and then hang up the phone when she asked for an explanation? She lowered her yo-yo from her ear and threw it toward the tower.
From her early swinging, nothing alarming found its way into her line of sight. Tourists upon tourists crowded the area as usual, but as she neared, she noticed the lack of people actually at the base of the tower. Instead, they had pooled themselves around it and were being herded further away by law enforcement.
Focusing her hearing, she listened as Officer Raincomprix yelled through his megaphone, ordering citizens to stay back from the monument. She spotted Rena Rouge close to the ground as well, helping with the sudden evacuation. She held people back from the elevators, especially some rowdy individuals who wanted in on the apparent action.
Many people showed resistance to the evacuation, no doubt curious about what they were being led away from. Why did people love to involve themselves in these things?
Ladybug swung herself up with a grimace. Part of herself truly wanted this to be a fake-out. An akumatized villain tricking her attention away from their chaos somewhere else.
The other part of herself so desperately needed this to be the real holder. So she could defeat them, take back what was rightfully hers as Guardian, and move on from this part of her life.
As she reached the uppermost floor of the tower, Ladybug realized this could be the end.
The second Butterfly holder in her lifetime entered her vision, perched on one of the highest beams. Ladybug watched as she twirled her weapon, a cane. Her skin was toned lilac, with a face covered in a mask of butterfly wings, and her suit was so reminiscent of Gabriel’s that it made Ladybug’s skin crawl. And damn it, she was tall too.
She wanted to run away. Swing her yo-yo the other direction and yank herself to to literally anywhere else. She couldn’t, though. She had to face this, whoever it could be under the wings.
Ladybug cleared her throat and shouted, “Are you here to return the Miraculous to me?”
Because why else would she be here? Ladybug struggled to resolve it in her head. Rena Rouge would have told her if she knew there was an attack happening elsewhere. This new holder was acting completely pacifist at the moment, and it made Ladybug sweat below her mask.
She sent Chat Noir an alert for the situation through her yo-yo as she waited for her adversary to take notice of her location. Where the hell was he?
A moment of silence sat between them.
“Not at all, no.” Her enemy tutted, “I’m here to take yours, actually.”
The gall! After staying in the shadows for almost a year now, to position herself atop the tallest monument of France and proclaim that she would be taking Ladybug’s Miraculous. Ladybug stifled a laugh. She knew she should be taking this seriously, but how could she? The akumas she had been sending out were a joke, and this encounter was quickly becoming the cherry on top.
Her vision focused on the small, winged brooch on the woman’s chest. It should’ve been in her Miracle Box. Ladybug tried to keep from grinding her teeth together. There was no good in expressing weakness through sensitivity.
“How, with another akuma I can take down in minutes?” Ladybug quipped. The joy asking the question brought her made her realize she’d been holding that in for a while.
“Face it, whatever name hasn’t been claimed by your predecessor already,” Oh, Ladybug did have a chuckle at that one. “You’re no match for Chat Noir and I.”
Her being here, out in the open, was more than enough for Ladybug and Chat to take her down, and now all she needed was for him to get his tail over so they could finish off this bore once and for all.
She expected the holder to blow up at her in reaction and take her words entirely to heart. To charge her like Gabriel used to. Rather, Ladybug watched as the tall woman in front of her quirked her purple lips into a smile.
“And where is that wildcat?” She said and plunged her cane down to the wrought iron of the beam she stood on.
Ladybug felt the impact reverberate until it reached her feet. Nothing happened, so she urged her shoulders to relax.
“He’s on his way. It’s not every day the new Butterfly holder shows herself in public.” He really was taking a while. Ladybug stood still, fighting the urge to pull at her suit. It started to feel a bit tight all around.
The woman glanced to her left and then her right. Chat Noir wasn’t anywhere in sight. “If there’s nothing else, shall we begin?”
Ladybug rolled her eyes and spoke, “Begin what, exactly?”
“Our fight, of course.”
Looking back, Ladybug should have seen it coming. There had to have been a reason why the Butterfly holder chose to reveal herself, and it was something she questioned from the moment Alya texted her about it. But, when Ladybug ascended the tower, she didn’t find a threat.
Only, a woman who dressed the part of ‘evil butterfly villain’ yet barely talked the talk nor walked it. Business, as she'd started to put it, was slow and not challenging anymore. Ladybug saw no use in entertaining it.
She let her guard down. Her yo-yo buzzed—probably Chat Noir—and as she moved to grab it from her waist, Ladybug felt an overt sense of dread slam her in the chest. A butterfly of purple light had just connected with her body, shot from the Butterfly’s positioned hand.
The hair on the back of her neck raised and immediately fell as her arms dropped down to her sides. They wouldn’t lift, even though she was telling them to. It was as if all the blood drained from her extremities, including her legs. Soon, she was going to collapse.
And collapse she would have, if her enemy hadn’t crashed into her barely a moment after, sending them both flying off the tower.
Ladybug willed herself to scream, but she couldn’t tell if any noise came out over the wind flapping against her ears. The only thing she could do properly enough was see, and she swore the woman who was now—ah—punching her in the face as they plummeted to the ground, had little butterfly wings stained onto her lips. She could barely feel the remaining pained sting on her face before another punch landed.
At least she could look at something pretty during the thrashing. Ladybug attempted to move her arms again. It took even more energy from her, but she managed to get a hand clasped tight on the woman’s shoulder. She pulled, and connected their foreheads in a violent, throbbing headbutt. The pain it caused did not differentiate itself from the pain she already felt from the previous punches.
Due to the wind, Ladybug was unable to hear the Butterfly holder verbally deem her a “nasty bitch!” As she grabbed her battered nose.
Ladybug knew all journeys in the air must end back on the ground, but Ladybug had also never experienced landing on bare stone from over three-hundred meters up after being hit by an antikuma. As such, she screamed at the impact. It pulsated through her spine, and ached dully in her arms and legs. Broken chunks of cobble poked underneath her body, and from above, she felt the electric warmth of her enemy leaning closer to her.
“As I said, I’ll be taking your Miraculous today,” the woman said.
The Butterfly holder looked down at her with such disturbing mirth.
She wanted to speak—to deny that it could ever happen, but the words caught in her throat. Ladybug choked out a quiet, timid refusal as the woman reached her hands to the left of her head. No. There was just no way. Not again. She worked so hard to prevent this, there was no way it was all going to fall apart during their first real encounter.
The woman reveled in her fear. Taking her sweet time, she closed her eyes and ran her thumb along the face of the earring she had chosen to start with. Ladybug shivered at the nails that grazed her cheek. Her breathing hastened. She was about to lose it all, again. This time, her own Miraculous added to the list of permanently squandered magical jewelry.
She felt like she was back under the Agreste mansion, Venom coursing through her veins as Gabriel took the earrings for his wish. Just like then, she couldn’t even bring herself to fight back. Her body just wouldn’t move. The woman opened her eyes, and Ladybug was caught in their dazzling green. They shone, even in the dimming light of day turning to night.
Ladybug didn’t realize what had happened until she looked lower and saw it between the woman’s fingers. Her earring, one of them—dripping a bit of red. The evident blood on the earring was what prompted her body to awake from its stupor.
Then, the pain hit. Her hand slapped to her ear, and the warm, pulsing blood rushing out to coat her fingers informed her that the woman had torn the Miraculous through her earlobe.
She launched her arm out, trying to grab at her assailant, and found nothing but air. The pain pounded her ear and back, but she could clearly see that the woman was no longer anywhere near her. Her arm, still hanging in the air, caught her attention. Ladybug’s gloves were beginning to pull back in a fit of sparkles, revealing her bare, undisguised hands. Her transformation was going to wear off, slowly and painfully. She had never tried to transform with only one earring before—they had always been a pair.
Ladybug would be vanishing and leaving Marinette in her wake. The muscles in her legs burned as she pulled herself to stand. She stumbled, but managed climb out of the crater their impact had reamed into the ground. There wasn’t anyone around, somehow, but Chat Noir could’ve still been en route. She needed to get away. Had her mask already disappeared?
And so, Ladybug dragged herself to the darkest, unpopulated alley she could find, and soon after, Marinette was the one who collapsed against the stone wall of a building. Clutching her ears, feeling her Miraculous on one and not the other, she became acutely aware of the fact Tikki was nowhere to be found.
Half a kilometer away. Chat Noir landed from his staff next to a decently sized crater. He chuckled to himself, wondering when they could have an akuma fight that didn’t damage public property. His curiosity was piqued by the small, almost unnoticeable wet puddle of something around the center of the dip, but he stored the thought for later. It was dark by then, and he couldn’t make out the stark red coloring. He had to find his Lady first and foremost, after all.
He extended his staff to soar away, unaware that he would not be finding Ladybug any time soon.