Chapter Text
“One of Gabriel’s earlier gambles was the time he allowed Simon Says to attack his home to lure Ladybug and Chat Noir inside to… get information on them, I guess. I never really caught what he hoped to gain from that.”
“Anyway, it almost backfired when Simon Says successfully captured him and hypnotised him to jump off the building. Fortunately for him, Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated Simon Says before that happened.”
“But what if they took a few moments longer…”
Gabriel ran out to the roof, “Wheeee! Phhhhhhhhhhhh!”
He ran to the edge of the roof…
And kept going.
He fell through the air, “Phhhhhhhhhhhh–”
Splat!”
“Hahahaha!” Bunnyx’s face became serious. “I should not laugh,” she said, lasting a few seconds before a smile returned. “Hahahaha!”
But at Gabriel’s body, a tiny head poked out of Gabriel’s pocket.
“Oh my!” Despite everything Gabriel did, Nooroo felt sympathy for him.
But he knew he had only seconds.
He flew to Gabriel’s ascot and removed it, grabbing his Miraculous.
At that moment, the ladybug swarm emerged from the TVi building.
“Aaaahhhh!”
Panicking, Nooroo flew in a random direction.
Seconds later, Gabriel was returned to life.
“What?! Where am I? What happened, Nooroo?”
No answer.
“Nooroo?”
He felt for his Miraculous and gasped when he found it was gone.
“NOOROO!”
Nooroo was in such a panic that he kept flying for over an hour.
It was only after he stopped that he realised he should have gone to Ladybug and Chat Noir, but they would have gone home by now.
And without his Miraculous, Gabriel wouldn’t be able to create more akumas, and thus there would be a lot less reason for them to appear.
How ironic, his freedom made it harder to find true safety.
But Nooroo knew that akumas were not the only times the heroes showed up. Sometimes they went to events like the unveiling of their statue, or they dealt with non-akuma emergencies like when Ladybug saved that helicopter the other day.
He would just have to keep his head down and be patient.
He flew off to find somewhere to hide in the meantime.
“Sir!” Chat Noir jumped down with Ladybug to Gabriel, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Gabriel told him curtly.
Chat looked like a kicked kitten as he walked off.
“He did just die,” Ladybug comforted him, “that would make anyone grumpy.”
“Yeah… sure,” Chat said.
Chapter Text
“And so, without the Butterfly Miraculous to create akumas…”
Mayor Bourgeois fired Rodger Raincomprix, but soon faced legal trouble when it came out that he didn’t have legal authority over the Paris police force.
Max was disappointed that Marinette beat him and knocked him out of the gaming competition, but the next day, Adrien stepped down, and Max played alongside Marinette, so all turned out well.
Otis was getting frustrated with Kim disturbing his panther.
“Hey!” Alya shouted, “Stop heckling my dad!”
“Your dad?!” Marinette, Adrien and Nino asked.
“Oh, did I forget to mention?”
Marinette, Adrien, Alya and Nino were having their lunch in the school cafeteria.
“What gives?” Alya asked, “There hasn’t been an akuma for weeks!”
“Isn't that a good thing?” Nino pointed out.
“Sure, but why? Is Hawk Moth trying to lure us into a false sense of security? Or has he given up?”
“This soon?” Marinette asked, “That seems unlikely.”
Alya nodded, “The only other possibility is that something happened that is preventing him from creating new akumas.”
“Like what?” Adrien asked.
“I don’t know,” Alya admitted, “but I’m going to find out.”
“How?” Nino questioned.
“For a start, by looking into the last akuma incident we had. Simon Says.”
Gabriel snarled as he scanned the tabloid news.
If anyone were going to report a sighting of a small purple genie, it would be the tabloids, but there was nothing.
What could he do? He couldn’t trust anyone to look for him, and if his allies found out he had lost the Miraculous…
The consequences would be severe.
He got up; it was time to take drastic measures.
The sun shone through the window onto the sleeping Kwami.
Nooroo yawned as he woke up.
He was lying in a makeshift nest on a wooden beam at the top of the inside of a church he had found.
He looked at his Miraculous that he had been hugging to his body.
It had been weeks, and Ladybug and Chat Noir still hadn’t shown up anywhere close enough for him to get to in time.
He feared what would happen if Gabriel found him before he found the heroes. He shivered; it didn’t bear thinking about.
“Nothing,” Alya complained as she and Nino walked along the street, “there’s nothing unusual about Simon Grimault.”
The two of them had become closer since the zoo incident, but they were not a couple, despite what Marinette believed. Definitely… one hundred percent.
“Maybe it has nothing to do with Hawk Moth’s disappearance,” Nino suggested, “maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
Alya thought for a moment, “Maybe–”
SMASH!
A nearby building had been knocked down by a giant lizard.
“Is it an akuma?” Nino asked.
“Let’s find out,” Alya said and ran toward the building.
Nino sighed and followed her.
The heroic duo quickly arrived and defeated the creature.
“Ladybug, Chat Noir!” Alya shouted, “What was that thing?”
“I’m not sure,” Ladybug said, “but it wasn’t an akuma.”
“How can you be certain?” Alya asked.
“Because instead of a butterfly, a feather came out of the object, and it disappeared afterwards.”
“A feather?” Alya got an alert on her phone: “You’re going to want to see this; it’s everywhere.”
They looked at her in confusion until she showed them her phone.
THERE WILL BE MORE SENTIMONSTERS UNTIL YOU RETURN TO MY SIDE.
Panic and confusion spread through Paris, as did speculation about who the message was for.
One Kwami knew exactly who it was for.