All The Way

A Nightmare and A Surprising Ally

"You're amazing Marinette," Adrien whispered, holding on to her. "I love you so much."

"I love you too." She pulled away and looked over at Tikki and Plagg, who were floating next to them. "I'm so sorry that I let this happen. But I promise, we're going to save Nooroo and the other kwamis."

They both flew over and hugged her cheeks. "We know you will," Tikki said.

************************************

Gabriel pulled up the GPS signal on his phone. After seeing that Marinette was back home, he looked up the history.

Before the apartment she was at the metro station, which was expected. And before that, the scene of the akuma attack.

She didn't go anywhere near Lila's place. So she didn't have any suspicions about her.

Perfect.

Then out of curiosity, Gabriel kept going back. Before the akuma attack, she was at home. Saturday night she was at home as well. Then the signal came from his wedding gallery. But before that, Marinette was at the other address on his notepad; the address for the apartment building on Avenue du Colonel Bonnet that he had visited the other day.

That was the second time she had gone there that week. What was she doing?

Lila said that there were four Miraculouses missing from the Miracle Box. Maybe Marinette had hidden those other four at the apartment building. It could have been done as an extra level of security.

Gabriel didn't care about getting the missing Miraculouses, but at the same time, he wanted Lila to have the best possible chance at succeeding. Things would be a lot easier if Ladybug didn't have any extra help from other superheroes. So maybe it was worthwhile to figure out if the Miraculouses were really there.

He closed out of the program. His work still wasn't done.

************************************

Black and purple akumas were flying in all directions through the air. There were hundreds of them. Ladybug was desperately trying to capture them all to purify them, but there were simply too many.

Then suddenly she heard a chilling voice behind her.

"M'lady, I've been looking all over for you!"

She turned around to find Chat Blanc approaching her. As she froze in fear, he walked right up and put his hand to her cheek. "I missed you," he purred at her. "Did you miss me?"

Ladybug tried to speak, but couldn't. She couldn't move either, trapped in the stare of those ice-blue eyes.

Very slowly he leaned towards her. She was screaming in her mind but she couldn't stop him. As soon as his lips pressed into hers, she turned to stone.

Chat Blanc leaned back and smiled at her. "Now you're purrfect," he whispered, rubbing his thumb across her cheek. Then suddenly his expression changed from happiness to anger. "Marinette!" he screeched at her.

She was pushing him back.

"Marinette!" he yelled again.

She kept fighting, her eyes full of tears. Squeezing them shut, she cried out.

"Marinette, wake up!" Adrien pleaded.

And she opened her eyes.

It was dark. Marinette was in her bed with Adrien holding on to her. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, she stared at him as she tried to steady her breathing.