Now that he had left Ladybug in the street, Chat Noir kept his bright green cat eyes squinted in search of the source of the smoke. Its gray dusty carbon-dioxide was already starting to cloud up the air, almost taking away Chat's ability to breathe instantly. It forced him to stop using his baton upon the discovery that he could create a gas mask out of it.
Once he got it attached to his mouth, a sudden gust of wind punched him forcefully in the stomach and pushed him off the rooftop he was on and right into Ladybug who had just barely gotten herself into the air.
"Whoaaa-!"
"Wha-!"
The two crashed into each other with pained groans and rolled onto the concrete, knocking the wind out of both of them and making them shiver a little bit. Ladybug whined quietly in her struggle to stand up after not being able to breathe properly from the smoke affecting her lungs. Chat managed to recover himself sooner and scrambled over to hoist Ladybug onto her feet.
"Here ya go. Sorry I crashed into you." He laughed sheepishly while assisting in quickly dusting her suit off from the impact. Ladybug groaned to herself and shook her head at his apology, trying not to appear too upset with him over an accident. "It's fine. I just...can't really breathe with all that smoke in the air." She almost panted, showing clear signs of not being able to catch her breath like she was able to before.
In a lightbulb moment for Chat, his velvet cat ears perked up and he pointed to Ladybugs yoyo that was hanging loosely from her finger. "M'Lady, try your yoyo. Maybe if it works the same like my staff, you can make a breathing-thing for yourself."
Ladybugs eyebrows visibly rose from underneath her spandex mask, obviously skeptical about Chat's "revelation" that he knew for certain that she had a solution to her breathing problems. But, when she did see that he had surely made a gas mask for himself out of his baton, she took the chance and went to fiddle with her yoyo.
"Chat Noir, I don't think this thing even does anything-"
Not knowing how she did it, Ladybug gasped in surprise when her yoyo split in half to reveal a little pocket for her nose and mouth to fit in, allowing her to breathe oxygen without any struggle. The magic from the suit clearly didn't just come with invulnerability or a shiny costume. She knew that now, which definitely left her with a bunch of questions for her kwami once all this was over.
Chat smirked and crossed his arms, a proud expression on his face and a little cocky smile visible from under his baton attached to his mouth as he narrowed his eyes at his bug-themed partner. "Told you."
Ladybug rolled her eyes and attached her yoyo-gas mask to her mouth, the magic keeping it there without a restraint, and huffed through it to make sure it worked. "Save it, kitty cat."
Now that they were back on their feet, the two heroes climbed up the walls of the same building that Chat Noir had been knocked off of previously, using their arms to shield themselves from the strong winds that was coming along with the smoke. The two narrowed their eyes, looking closely as the smoke in the air had shifted into the shape of a demented but still-standing twister with a mind of its own.
"What is that thing??" Ladybug shouted nervously to Chat through the gusts of loud wind that was blowing in their eardrums and whipping their hair in and out of their faces. Chat's immediately gaze went between her and the twister that started picking up its pace, seemingly just as clueless as the bug was in this scenario. Part of him wanted to run away to safety and hope this problem would solve itself on its own. But the other, more dominant part of him, told him that he and the ravenette needed to figure out a solution and figure it out quick.
"Um...I don't know! Maybe it's uh-"
His voice was cut off when he noticed something in the middle of the twister. He pointed a leather-clad clawed finger at the storm, making Ladybug look in the same direction to see if she saw was he was seeing. Her eyes widened and her face paled with absolute terror. Inside the twister, a really small and grayed out black silhouette was hidden in the middle of it. Warped and seemingly trapped inside. That's when it clicked in Ladybug's head, her expression shifting to one of realization.
"It's not a natural storm." She declared, a more sure yet still terrified smile forming on her face. "Chat! Maybe this is why we were given these powers! We need to stop that thing from reigning terror in Paris!"
Chat's eyes creased with genuine confusion. What the hell is she on about?
"Think about it! Do you think it's a coincidence that we were given these abilities and then this thing appears? No! That's why we have them! We need to work together!" She kept going, hoping that Chat would understand where she's coming from and not just go rouge and leave her by herself to deal with this. When he thought about it, it did make sense. It was a little weird that the kwamis appeared and then there's a giant twister in front of the Eiffel Tower.
He glanced back into Ladybug's bright diamond eyes, them pleading for him to understand. She knew she had to have been right, because if she wasn't...then she'd be lost about this. "Are you with me...partner?"
She held her hand out for him to take. He looked between her and the twister again, adrenaline and fear running through his veins with strong pumps with his racing heart. With a little huff, he took her hand tightly and shook it. "I'm with you."
With his green cat eyes fighting the wind and his hair blowing behind his ears, Chat ran alongside his bug-themed partner across the building rooftops that kept the storm in a bricked cage, while keeping his sights set on the growing cyclone darkening the skies setting over Paris. Ladybug's eyes stayed on the storm as well, her eyes nearing tears from the wind blurring her vision. I hope we can fix this.
She and Chat utilized their equipment to lung themselves to the top of the Eiffel Tower, right behind the cyclone and therefore out of anyones view. Including whatever could've been piloting the storm. Chat perched on the guard-rail while Ladybug looked around to see if the answer to their problem was anywhere nearby. His eyes moving up and down the storm, Chat tilted his head and smacked Ladybugs shoulder beside him to get her attention while not pulling his eyes away.
"Look! I think there's someone stuck inside the storm!" He shouted over the strong winds blowing in their ears while pointing a clawed finger to the storm itself. Ladybug guided her eyes to where he was pointing, and sure enough, the fuzzy silhouette of what looked like a teenage girl writhing in pain right in the middle of the ball of wind. Ladybug and Chat exchanged confused glances, Ladybug squinting her eyes to try to get a closer look from where they were.
"A person...? But that doesn't make any sense! How could a person be in the middle of-"
Suddenly, dark gray clouds smoked up and inhaled the blue skies, permanently hiding the sun away and shadowing the city like a blanket covering a warm lamp. The air grew alarmingly chilled as the winds of the cyclone threatened to toss Chat and Ladybug off the Tower and into the ground, inevitably mounding them to dust. They were knocked off balance slightly, using their arms to cover their faces and fighting against the angered winds that heightened with speed every second.
Down below, their ears caught hint of the concerned and scared voices of civilians on the ground. Men and women, adults and even children, possibly in the path of the storm and easy to get picked up and sucked into it.
"What is that thing?!"
"Are we all gonna die??"
"Someone help! Help us!"
Ladybug gasped in fear when she heard everyone. She grabbed Chat's shoulders and shook him just out of the fear and adrenaline flowing through her veins. "Chat, what do we do?! There's no way we can just- I made a mistake! I can't do this! No way am I gonna enough do to this! I can't-"
Ladybugs breathing escalates as her panic fully sets itself in, her fingers digging into Chat's arms as her usually so bright eyes welled up with thick tears. She was incredibly overwhelmed now that she knew that there were people genuinely in danger down there and she had no idea how to help any of them.
What if I tried to save them and I mess up? What if I end up taking more lives than I save?! It would be all my fault that families would be broken! All because I'm incompetent and I can't pull this off! This is the biggest mistake I've ever made!
Breaking her anxious train of thought, Chat gently placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at him. Even with the black mask covering his face, she could still see the soft and reassuring expression and the gentle glow in that piercing cat gaze.
"Hey, listen. I'm scared too, y'know. You think I know what I'm doing at all?? The reason I'm trying to help those people with the confidence I'll be able to succeed is because I have you helping me. We're partners now, right? We can figure it out. It's just you and me right now, M'Lady. And I have hope in you that together, we can do it!"
Her eyes going from the storm and back up to Chat, her shaking arms slowly starting to relax and her hands falling from his arms. She looked at him with a newfound hope, his smile burning into her brain and telling her: "You can do it."
"Okay...you're right. You're right! We can do it! As long as we work together!"
She took a deep breath, straightened her posture, and shook her arms to get herself back in the right state of mind to follow through. He saw hope in her, and she wanted to live up to it. To live up to the hope that she now had from dozens of people on the ground that needed her. She could do it. With one final deep breath, Ladybug wiped her damp eyes and cheeks and now had a look of confidence.
Time to be a hero.
Chat smiled brightly at her newfound confidence, feeling the same confidence within him like contagious glee. "Alright, so what do we do, M'Lady?"
Within the eye of the storm was a little safe zone where the darkened silhouette resided. It was incredibly quiet in that part of the storm, keeping its pilot in restlessness and rage that was the storm surrounding them. The person was a teenage girl, around 13 years old, her body having been replaced with the shape of a body but made with dark gray puffs of swirling smoke. The girl's eyes shot open with a piercing white glow, making her body bend back midair as if she had been impaled. A faint purple outline of a hollow butterfly hovered over her eyes and the whispery words of a man echoed loudly in her mind.
"Stop being lazy and seize the Miraculous! If you don't, I'll revoke your powers!"
The girls chest heaved up and down heavily as a strange evil power coursed through her limbs, making them twist and tighten with searing pain similar to being stabbed multiple times with needles in all her vital nerves. She screamed with pain, clutching her head while trying to regain control over her body.
"Okay okay okay! Stop it! I'll get the Miraculous!"
Unbeknownst to Chat Noir or Ladybug, the girl within the storm had now arisen with life and had gained full control over the twister she was inhabiting. No longer was she unconscious and unaware of her surroundings. This, however, didn't go unnoticed by the heroes themselves.
"She's awake!" Ladybug exclaimed, pointing in the middle of the twister as the girl finally had started moving around. The storm was slowly starting to take the shape of a floating sphere, the winds stretching upwards to start stealing clouds as its fuel to keep it blowing strongly. Chat's eyes widened as the sky got even darker than it was before, making himself get nervous. He looked back down, and he found a little blind spot in the storm right in the side of the storm. It looked to be the entrance to the safe zone that the girl was protecting herself in.
"I know what to do!" Chat shouted as he suddenly used his baton to lower himself down to a lower level platform on the Tower. Ladybug immediately panicked and chased after him before he was completely off the platform. "Chat Noir! What are you doing?!" She reached out for him before clutching onto the guard-rail and watching him disappear to the lower levels. But she could make out him saying finally: "I'll distract her for you!"
Chat landed on his toes and palms smoothly on the lower platform directly in the middle of the Tower, crawling across the ground and narrowing his eyes to establish his surroundings before continuing. As much as he just wanted to run right in and put a stop to everything in one swift punch, he knew it wouldn't help Ladybug's case with her part of the job.
Slowly, keeping his eyes on the little blind spot that the girl was unaware of, Chat extended his baton slowly and guided it to the blind spot to make sure he could make the entrance without alerting the pilot of the storm.
"Aha!" When Chat's stick was recovered peacefully and the storm not having changed at all, Chat took this as his green light. Standing up onto his feet, trying to pretend he wasn't nervous or scared whatsoever, he took a big breath in and ran up to the edge of the platform and lunged right into the blind spot and absorbing right into the storm with a yell. The blind spot immediately closed upon his entry, leaving him completely shut off from anyone on the outside.
Ladybug, now without Chat, paced back in forth in a panic to try to figure out how she was gonna get to the girl inside the storm without being flung right back out again. She looked back down, the storm suddenly starting to writhe and take a slightly warped shape. A distorted shout of surprise and anger came from the cyclone, making Ladybug realize that this was Chat Noirs distraction. He had managed to capture the attention of the girl piloting the winds, which gave Ladybug the opening she needed. She smiled slightly in relief, sighing and feeling her heart pounding in her chest. "Thanks, Kitty."
Stepping back slightly, she grabbed her magic yoyo from her waist and held it in her palm, looking at the spotted pattern closely. If I remember correctly, Tikki briefly brought up something called a Lucky Charm. She said it's something that'll help me in situations like this, I think?
Giving this small chance a shot, Ladybug tossed her yoyo into the air above her head. "Lucky Charm!?"
Sure enough, within a flock of bright red ladybugs and pink-white light, a spotted object emerged from her yoyo and landed perfectly in front of her feet. Tilting her head with a genuinely confused expression, Ladybug crouched down and picked it up to observe what it was. It was just like any other regular object, except it was bright red and covered with the same black spots that she sported on her own supersuit. She lifted it up slowly and held it in front of her face, turning it around to look at it from all angles to make sure she was correctly assessing what exactly it was supposed to be.
"A...parachute?"