Revelations Ch 17

Chapter 17 – Hawkmoth's Lair

The two of them were still gripping each other's hand tightly, Adrien and Marinette had to split up so they could transform, but they wanted to make sure that the other person was out of harm's way first. They ran out the school and down the streets towards the park, it reminded Marinette of when this similar situation occurred where Adrien was holding her hand and running away from the gamer.

Marinette could feel her heart flutter with excitement but at the same time she was in a deep pit of worry and confusion as to what was going on with all these akumas. Adrien had the same thought with the akumas, but his top priority for the moment was to make sure his friend was safe. They made their way through the park before Marinette pointed over to her house.

Around the pair were normal people wondering exactly what was going on until a swarm of purple butterflies followed behind and akumatised anyone that was there. Adrien and Marinette turned, seeing that the fight wasn't going to be easy. Adrien dropped Marinette off at home and then dashed for the nearest hiding spot to transform. Plagg zipped out in a huge panic.

"What's going on with all these akumas?" Adrien cried, looking out slightly to see more people being akumatised. "I've never seen so many villains at once! Where does Hawkmoth get all these akumas from?"

Plagg couldn't respond, he was more willing to fight these akumas off because it was far too big of a deal for him not to care. "That doesn't matter, what we need now is Cat Noir and Ladybug to stop them!" He exclaimed.

The blonde teen nodded in determination, whipping his hand up as Plagg was sucked in and transformed Adrien into Cat Noir. From where he was, he leapt towards the nearest roof, which also happened to be the balcony of Marinette's house. He landed on the railing and looked at the terrible scene unfold in front of him. Chat was glad that now he wouldn't be akumatised due to his miraculous being active, he sincerely hoped Ladybug would show up, he didn't want to fight this alone.

That's when the thoughts of the kiss returned, within an instant his cheeks turned bright red as he thought about how he's going to act around Ladybug now that he kissed her, but as Adrien. All he knew was that Ladybug didn't know she kissed Cat Noir; he had to remain as he always would. So he took in a deep breath to calm him down, which was up until Ladybug appeared on the balcony beside him, ready to battle.

"Where did they all come from?" Was Ladybug's immediate question.

Chat felt the blush return as he took a small glimpse at Ladybug's glossy lips, he remembered the warm feeling of those lips pressed against his. He wanted to kiss them so badly, but knew that now was definitely not a good time. His thoughts returned to the situation at hand when an explosion was heard from down the street.

From their point of view, almost everyone in Paris was affected by Hawkmoth's akumas. The problem was that they had no idea what was Hawkmoth's game plan, and they wanted to know exactly what was going on. There was no way that they could fight all of these akumatised people without a good plan.

"What should we do?" Chat asked, looking towards Ladybug, his blushed cheeks still present, but thankfully Ladybug didn't take notice.

Ladybug decided not to talk about the kiss around Cat Noir, she figured he would be jealous of it and get caught up in his emotions and then the fight would be mostly one sided. She didn't want to lose Cat Noir as a friend; she needed his help as much as he needed hers. They were a team.

She took in a deep breath as she pressed a finger against her lips in thought before an idea came to mind. "I got it. We find where the akumas came from." She stated with a firm fist and determined expression.

"Huh?" Chat echoed, very confused by Ladybug's idea. "How can we find where they came from when they're everywhere?" He exclaimed, his arms gestured outwards to the ginormous scene of almost everyone in Paris akumatised.

Ladybug didn't reply, instead she looked at Chat with a determined smile and inched closer towards him, making Chat's heart race and his cheeks heat up before she reached for his staff. He quickly followed the idea and Ladybug wrapped her arm around Chat while he extended his baton all the way up into the sky until they had a good view of the city.

"We need to look for a place where more of the akumas are present, that way we'll get to-"

Before Ladybug could finish her sentence, someone from the ground had knocked Chat's staff and made the two topple backwards onto the roof of a building. Cat Noir grabbed his staff furiously as he saw two akumatised villains in front of him.

"You get away you wild cat! Ladybug is the one and only for me!" An identical looking Cat Noir said to Cat Noir.

Chat growled at the look alike and began to fight him with his baton, both of them using them as swords to fight. Meanwhile the other villain whipped her yoyo straight at Ladybug but she was able to dodge it in time and grab the string of Antibug's yoyo.

"There can be only one Ladybug, and that Ladybug is Antibug!" An akumatised Chloe announced, before she was flung off the roof by Ladybug.

Chat had done a similar move to the akumatised Theo, making him fly off the roof and down to the ground before he began to fight another akumatised victim he had fallen on top of.

The heroic duo watched from above, seeing that they needed to be far from this mess as possible so they could find the core of the problem and solve it from there. It was almost impossible to stop so many akumatised villains all at once. They were beginning to get an idea of what Hawkmoth's plan was, and they didn't like it one bit.

"Do you think this is Hawkmoth's final round?" Chat asked, holding his baton firmly in one hand.

"I think it is, but we need to find his lair and defeat Hawkmoth. That's the only way we can save Paris from all this destruction." She explained, looking down at her parents who were now akumatised, a worried expression printed across her face. "We need to act fast before all of Paris is destroyed." She stated firmly, before she swung to another roof with Chat following closely behind.

They continued to jump from roof to roof, and eventually they found their way to the top of the Eiffel tower where they could see everything without the aided assistance of Chat's staff. Chat looked on one side of the city while Ladybug looked on the other; it all looked almost the same. Akumas flying everywhere and infecting the first person they saw. They didn't know where all of the akumas could be coming from, but they both knew that if they didn't find the root of the problem, they would have to work their way down by fighting every single akumatised victim.

Neither of them was looking forward to that scenario unfolding, that's why the two of them avoided all the villains and only looked for the location of Hawkmoth's lair. The two met up in the middle of the top of the Eiffel tower, shrugging in certainty that neither of them could spot a place where the akumas could have all come from.

"Where do you think they'd be?" Chat asked, scratching his head, feeling lost but angered by all these akumas being released all at once.

Ladybug frowned in worry as she thought back to her classes in science where they studied animals. "Well, if I think back to..." She began to say before remembering she was Ladybug in front of Cat Noir. "They live in small groups, but by the looks of it Hawkmoth had them all stored somewhere with plenty of room and air. So we need to find a place that would be sealed off from anyone except Hawkmoth..." She explained while in deep thought.

Chat too thought deeply of where that kind of place could be, it was impossible to search from building to building to find a big room like that. He had to eliminate any ordinary looking places as he knew all too well that those rooms would be too small to fit in a large quantity of butterflies.

"It would have to be a giant room then, and it wouldn't be underground since butterflies need sunlight." Chat added, remembering his research from science on butterflies.

Ladybug nodded, glad to see that Chat knew something other than fighting, flirting and making puns, it made her smile subtly before she continued to think as she looked around all of Paris. She couldn't think of any place that would fit into that category. All around them were buildings that all looked the same, the two of them have travelled enough around Paris to know that almost all of these buildings don't have any sort of large room that could hold such a large quantity of butterflies.

"Wait a minute..." Ladybug trailed off, thinking back to their last fight.

She remembered it was at Adrien's house in Gabriel's office, she had no idea why Hawkmoth would be in such a place like that. "Hawkmoth was at the Agreste mansion last time we saw him, but why was he there?" She asked to Chat in a suspicious tone.

Cat Noir could tell that Ladybug was getting somewhere, but Chat hated to think that Hawkmoth's lair was near his own home, or worse inside his home. But he had to think like Ladybug in this situation, he didn't want his personal life interfering at a time like this. Unfortunately that's when it was made worse when Chat realised his mother could be akumatised again. He gasped at the thought, causing Ladybug to get distracted from her concentrated thinking.

"Chat? Do you have an idea?" She asked, hoping the gasp was in response to a place where the akumas could be.

"No..." He replied, looking down towards the mansion, sincerely worried that his mother was going to hurt his father. "We need to get down there!" He exclaimed, quickly grabbing Ladybug's hand before he jumped off the building, making his staff land the two of them safely on the ground, making Ladybug feel annoyed and insulted.

After all this time, Chat could land safely to the ground all on his own. What was his deal when it came to Ladybug safely landing the two of them down together? Ladybug thought. A pout of her lips formed while her arms crossed against her chest in annoyance.

"You could land yourself with your staff all this time? Was that an excuse to flirt?" She asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

Chat was caught off guard with that sudden bring up of that topic, he felt the blush return slightly as he quickly thought of a response, biting his lower lip in the process before he turned to Ladybug. "N-no..." He stuttered, before returning his focus to why he made the two of them land in the front yard of the Agreste Mansion. "C'mon!" He said, before grabbing Ladybug's hand and hiding amongst the bushes.

Ladybug didn't have a single clue with what Chat's game was at, either he saw a fly on the wall or he was actually helping with what they were meant to be doing. However since Ladybug wasn't receiving a proper response from Chat she could only assume that it didn't have to do with finding Hawkmoth's Lair.

"I have to check on something, come with me." He requested, running over to his window while still holding onto Ladybug's wrist.

He felt Ladybug snap her wrist away with a scoff of frustration, he turned in confusion, before realising how much of what he was doing was explained to her and what they were actually supposed to be doing. "Chat, this is serious! We can't be snooping around someone else's place when we're supposed to be doing something else!" She exclaimed, gesturing towards the gates to where off in the distance were several akumatised victims and many akumas flying around.

Chat smacked his hand against his forehead before he continued on in, gesturing to Ladybug to come on in. However, while he was gesturing he felt a tight grip on his hand and ultimately assumed it was an akumatised victim because of how strong the grip was. But when he heard a harsh whisper of Ladybug's voice, he relaxed himself slightly.

"Will you quit doing things and tell me what you're doing? Are we actually finding the lair or are we snooping around your friend's house?" Ladybug asked, getting more and more frustrated by the second.

"Just follow me in and I'll explain what I can."

Ladybug's face reddened in anger and frustration, she just wished Chat would tell her exactly what he was doing half the time, it really frustrated her that he would sometimes get like this and not tell her anything about what he was doing until it was too late. She wanted to be there for him, but she didn't know how when he didn't tell her exactly what was going on.

So she followed on in to Adrien's room, and was surprised to see that Adrien wasn't around. This caused her heart to race in a panic as she worried that he may have been akumatised too. She knew there was nothing she could do about it now but the thought of it made her eyelids flood with tears of worry. Chat could see the trembling in Ladybug's expression; her lips trembled while the tears remained around the outline of her blue eyes. He knew exactly why she was worried.

"Don't worry, Adrien's fine. I actually ran into him when I went looking for you. I took him to a safe place." He assured her, resting his hands on her shoulders in assurance as he smiled slightly.

This made Ladybug calm down but then return to exactly what was going on in that moment, and made her shove Chat's arms off and growl at him. "Can you please tell me exactly what we're doing in his room? This better not be a joke, because it is definitely the wrong time to be making jokes round about now!" She warned, pointing a finger at the black cat.

Chat raised his arms in defence, indicating that he was ready to explain. So Ladybug removed her pointed finger away from his face and placed it firmly against her hip the same way the other hand was while she waited for Chat's explanation, tapping her foot impatiently in the process.

"You remember that woman right?" He asked, trying to seem like he didn't know his own mother.

With no verbal response, Ladybug simply nodded in reply, meaning that she wanted the full extent of Chat's explanation.

"Well, she could be akumatised again and possibly after Adrien! We need to stop her." He implied, tightening his fist firmly.

Nothing but an annoyed sigh came out of Ladybug's mouth; she pointed a finger at the cat yet again in annoyance. "Look, we need to find where all these akumas are coming from. And as much as I'd like to protect Adrien, I can't right now because you told me he was safe, and we need to find the root of the problem!" She explained, her words sounding more serious and annoyed as she clenched her fists.

With a saddened sigh, Chat agreed. Then the two of them proceeded to climb back out of the window when suddenly, a swarm of akumas flew from above the roof of the mansion. This caused the pair to quickly leap up to the top of the mansion and look around.

"We must be getting closer; those akumas looked like they had just begun flight." Ladybug stated, with her hand shading the sun from her eyes as she looked around.

Chat nodded in agreement. "Yeah those akumas looked to slow when we first saw them but now they're gaining speed." He added.

Then suddenly, the sky darkened. Storm clouds appeared and lightning began to strike every high point in Paris, starting with the Eiffel tower and then the mansion right next to it. This caused the dup to quickly part at the purple lightning zapped in between where they were just standing. Ladybug landed just outside the gate of the mansion while Chat landed within the gates and was amongst the trees and bushes.

Meanwhile Ladybug was being attacked by a swarm of pigeons and wanted to get rid of them so she could see where she was going and find Hawkmoth's lair. She spun her yoyo around to frighten the birds enough so they would fly around her further and she could see where she was.

Eventually Ladybug was able to break free of the pigeons swirling around her, she flung her yoyo up and landed within the gates of the mansion, landing safely and hearing a certain cat sneeze.

"Why did it have to be feathers that I'm allergic to?" Chat asked, not seeking an answer before he sneezed again.

Above the pair was a large window with a small opening, they looked up and as soon as they looked up some more akumas came flying out.

"No...It can't be..." Chat cried in a whisper, they came from his own house.

The root of all their times fighting akumas was under the roof of his own house. He didn't want to believe it, but when he saw more akumas fly out he had to face the facts. Hawkmoth's lair was in the Agreste mansion.

But who could be in there?