Chapter Text
The nightmares started in the catacombs, with skulls crumbling free from the walls and spiders slipping from shadowed crevices to grow to the size of dinner plates.
As people ran and spilled out into the streets, some stayed frozen where they were, petrified by fear, and so saw the woman that looked like death.
She was dressed in grave shrouds and her skin seemed to be rotted away in places, so that her bones could be seen, and the gleaming imprint of a skull mask was upon her sallow skin.
She paid those frozen with fear no passing glance as she made her almost leisurely way out of the catacombs and into a bright Parisian summer day.
A feeling of unease swept over those nearby, which only intensified as the spiders and skulls came out and changed into blurring shapes, a darkening and ominous cloud almost like a miasma that began to spread out across the rooftops of Paris.
The faint outline of a butterfly shone over her eyes.
“Yes, yes,” the akuma said, in lightly accented and halting French, waving a dismissive hand. “They will come, so I hear. They always come.” She turned, and focused on a person who hadn’t backed far enough away. “I wonder if they will hear the screams.” Her voice descended into shades of dream, seeping through the mind with chills and unease.
A blurring shape descended on the person and became thicker, ropes and chains to hold them down. They folded into fetal position as they hit the ground and began to scream, twisting violently as if to shake free of something that no one else could quite properly see.
The akuma smiled as the person was wrapped in solidifying miasma like a cocoon, and the blurring of skulls and spiders and malignant forms became a whip made of fine strands in her hand.
Ladybug flung herself into the air and over rooftops, to where the screams rang loudest. She’d almost thought it was going to be a quiet day, but no. Hopefully they could deal with this quickly, and–
She landed on a roof overlooking the entrance to the catacombs, and her breath caught in her throat.
She’d had an uneasy feeling since before transforming – it and Tikki had alerted her to the fact that something was wrong in the city – and it had only grown as she’d got closer. Now, crouched where she was, it was stronger and ever, and every hair was prickling, fear beginning a light race through her senses.
This was ridiculous. There was–
Oh god, there were spiders.
As a rule, Marinette liked to say that she was not afraid of spiders, thank you very much. They had a few too many legs to be really comfortable with, but… nothing that set her heart racing like this.
Then again, she didn’t normally run across spiders that were easily spotted on the ground from a roof top. These were big, and spreading out from the entrance to the catacombs, and wherever they found a person (she couldn’t blame them for being frozen with fear, she suspected her suit shielded her from the worst of the effect, but still-) they seemed to… pull them in on themselves. Down to the ground, where they were covered in webbing until they were cocooned in it.
Now that she realised what those odd casings were, she could see them everywhere. And the chilling, sobbing moans were eerie in the air, dying back from broken screams and harsh crying.
Ladybug shivered and looked for the akuma.
There was a woman standing in the entrance to the catacombs, and her features and form were shrouded in shadows and… cobwebs. She was wrapped up in cobwebs, as neatly as one of the cocoons on the ground.
Ladybug started spinning her yoyo until it was a humming blur beside her. Was that another victim? A guard, a decoy, hiding the akuma? She truly hoped she didn’t have to go down into the catacombs themselves, that would not be easy. “Where are you, Chat?” she murmured, but he hadn’t shown so much as a whisker yet.
He’d turn up when he was needed.
Ladybug leapt down into the square, landing on a streetlamp for a nearer vantage point as her yoyo sliced through the web holding the person in place.
It fell away into streams of gold dust that faded into nothingness, seeming to lead back up to a building before they disappeared from sight. Ladybug tensed as she saw that the shadows hadn’t disappeared with the cobwebs, and –
The akuma blinked, shaking her head and yawning as if she had just woken from a dream.
Ladybug saw the skull imprint of a mask over her eyes and cursed. Catching her yoyo, she spun it at her side and stayed where she was perched. The pulsing rhythm of fear and needling unease had only intensified once the web was gone, and she could feel her heart beating faster as she fought to keep her breathing steady.
The akuma looked about and pinpointed Ladybug. “Well. You aren’t quite the insect I was looking for, but–” She cut off, the familiar butterfly mask glowing before her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know.” She extended a hand, and a whip spooled out of the shadows that surrounded her, long and shifting and finely many-stranded. If Ladybug looked too closely at it (and she did, at first, drawn in by the lure, the promise of something she couldn’t quite grasp), she could see it was made of hair and longings and that slight tang of something wrong. “Your miraculous, if you please.” She spoke in broken French, but the intent was clear. They all wanted the same thing.
Ladybug leapt free of the lamppost as the whip lashed out for her, swinging from a strut and landing on the thin railing of a balcony three flights up. She needed Chat Noir now, to run distraction while she – while she–
Someone drew in a shuddering gasp from the balcony behind her, and Ladybug flinched, the fear spiking through her because she hadn’t noticed anyone there and what if this akuma did have people controlled and waiting, and what if this was it and she’d finally failed-
Behind her, folded into a shady corner where they were out of view, crouched a person with glowing thread woven about his fingers.
Ladybug pressed back against the railings, trying to keep out of sight of the akuma and out of reach of – whoever this was, yoyo in her hand as she called Chat.
He looked up. A tight hood covered his face, from the bridge of his nose up, and – and those were eyes, extra eyes about where she assumed his real ones were, all shimmering black and different sizes.
Ladybug stared at them, eyes wide. His suit was tight fitting, like her own, but a deep purple so dark it was almost black, and patterned as if it were segmented. In his hands spooled golden thread, golden… web. Like that which had covered the akuma.
“Who are you?” she hissed, chancing a brief look to see what the akuma was doing, dropping down below the level of the balcony as the akuma lashed out with her whip.
The thread spooled between his hands and – and other… appendages, not quite hands but segmented legs, on his sides. Two extra sets, untangling thread that didn’t quite seem real. “What happened? I had her, I was getting through to her.” His French was – better than the akuma’s, but still noticeably not his first language. Maybe the suits made it easier.
“That was – you cocooned everyone?”
“No! No, just my – just her.” He looked up at her, and Ladybug could finally see the difference between his real eyes and those that were just a part of the mask.
Ladybug stifled a shriek. “Who are you?” she repeated. He couldn’t be part of the akuma, but she wasn’t sure what else–
“My Lady, where are you?” Chat Noir spoke from her yoyo.
“Chat!” She snapped the yoyo up so she could see him. “By the catacombs.” She flicked a glance beyond the yoyo, to the person in front of her.
“The catacombs, hey? I didn’t realise it was grooming day.”
Ladybug rolled her eyes. “Be quick, Chat.”
“As I can.” He grinned, and the call cut out.
“I know you’re up there, little bug.”
She was peculiarly passive for an akuma. No destroying anything, no chasing people down. Maybe everyone in the vicinity was already cocooned at her feet.
The moaning groans hadn’t got any louder, but they were persistent and pervasive.
“I can help,” the other person said. “She’s my – I know her.” He offered a hand, his real hand, the one not holding the spool of thread. “Weaver.”
A woven bracelet glinted on his wrist; plaited into segments, it held a venomous bright pattern of an hourglass, separated into segments. Another miraculous, perhaps? Not one she’d heard of.
“Ladybug.” She made the decision and took his hand. “Have you seen where–”
Shadows blocked out the midday sun, and they both looked up to see a tangled web of hair stretching up to the rooftop above them.
They leapt, one to either side before the whip came smashing down where they had been. In its wake scurried smaller spiders, the whisper of doubt and a chill wind.
Chat Noir arrived, spinning his baton to whack the whip away before it retracted back to the akuma, and landed on the edge of the balcony. “What’s got your hair in a knot?”
The akuma bared her teeth, eyes tracking the hero’s movements as he sprang away towards where Ladybug crouched behind a car. “You have so much fear,” she whispered. “Does it plague your nights?”
Was it just Ladybug’s imagination, or was the day growing darker? She cast a glance at Chat, whose eyes were glowing luminous green.
“This is new.”
“Horrificator,” she reminded him. This one seemed to be playing on fears too, albeit in a slightly different way.
He frowned, considering that. Then he shook his head before his eyes widened, and he lunged past her to smash something with his baton.
Ladybug tensed and stayed as still as she could, feeling the heat of his body from where they were almost touching.
“Spiders?” He drew back to his crouch, and his staff was slick with dark, viscous fluids. “Spiders and – hair?”
“Nightmares,” said the other hero, the new hero, as he landed in beside them, coiling in his golden thread. “That’s her deal.” The shadows of other legs on his sides was strengthened in the gathering gloom, and they almost seemed to have gained more substance, balancing him against the car. They weren’t human legs, they were too… segmented. And those extra eyes…
“You know her?” Chat’s ears flattened, his eyes narrowing to slits, perhaps coming to the conclusion that Ladybug had almost made herself.
“Don’t let her whip entangle you,” Weaver replied, and bounded off again.
Chat glanced at Ladybug.
“He was here when I arrived.” Ladybug shrugged. “He… seems to be helping.” She peeked over the car.
Weaver was most noticeable by his golden thread, which whipped about behind him, lengthening and falling in patterns from the spool in his hand. Where it touched the cocoons, it seemed to dissolve into them and the whimpering grew quieter.
The akuma lashed out at him with her whip and he leapt, catching at a post with two of his extra legs and swinging away.
Ladybug and Chat Noir shared a glance and dived around opposing ends of the car, weapons at the ready.
“Hey, Nightmare!” Chat yelled, running towards her. “Hold your horses!”
“What?” She turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes. She didn't raise her voice, but they could all hear her. She was the whisper in the back of their minds, seeding doubt. Telling them they couldn't do this.
“Let’s not race ahead of ourselves!” He grinned and leapt sideways, avoiding a flick from a thin strand of her whip. He couldn’t see what Ladybug was doing, but that was fine. She’d be working on a plan.
That this akuma hadn’t gone after anyone in particular was odd. But at least she was staying put, that made it easier.
“Cai–” The other hero, calling the akuma’s attention to himself.
“I am not Cai,” she retorted, swinging to face the other hero. “Call me Moroi, for such that I am.”
Chat frowned. That was… not as to the point as some of the others. “Hey! Hey, spider… dude? Are you spider-man?” It sort of made sense, with his suit and whatever he was doing with that spool of thread.
“Weaver.” The other hero laughed and ducked away from the whip as it lashed his way. “But yes, a spider.”
“Where’s the akuma?” Ladybug landed in beside them, coiled in her yoyo and flung it out again to intercept the whip, pulling it off course. “Weaver, any–”
Her yoyo tangled in the strands, and she was pulled off her feet, yanked towards the akuma.
“Ladybug!” Chat leapt forward, reaching out a hand to grab at hers. He dug in his feet and pulled back.
Weaver swung his thread out and bound it about the whip ahead of Ladybug’s yoyo, and the strands holding it dissolved to fine purple mist.
With the tension gone, both Ladybug and Chat went tumbling back, landing in a heap against a car.
“Are you alright?” Weaver landed lightly beside them.
Ladybug pulled herself free and offered Chat a hand as she got to her feet. “Can you neutralise the whip? And then we can get closer, and maybe work out what her item is.”
“Her item?”
“Where the akuma is, it must be the source of her power.” Ladybug coiled in her yoyo. “Maybe her whip?”
Weaver frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
“Something precious to her,” Chat said.
“Perhaps her... scarf?” Weaver tilted his head. “I don’t know, I’m-”
Chat flicked his head around and knocked her out of the way.
"Chat!" Ladybug tumbled through the air and bounced against an awning before catching a lamppost and halting herself. She spun out her yoyo and leapt up to a higher vantage point, circling the square and looking for a new angle. "Chat?" She looked back for him, to see if he'd got himself free.
As the whip receded, she saw a new cocoon on the ground. She could see the impression of his ears against it, just before it thickened and hardened.
Ladybug narrowed her eyes and tightened her jaw. "Weaver?"
The new miraculous holder landed beside her. “I can release him.”
“Now?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “All the victims, but I won’t be able to help after that.” He rubbed at his bracelet.
Ladybug nodded. “Do that, help them.”
"And you'll go after her?"
The yoyo was a vicious hum at Ladybug's side as she watched the akuma.
She'd coiled back in her whip, still standing in the entrance to the catacombs. Who was she looking for? Hawkmoth didn't seem to be intervening much, but then she hadn't got close enough yet, had she?
"The one who did this to her is after mine and Chat's miraculous." Ladybug glanced back at the cocoon that held Chat. At least the akuma hadn't gone for him, yet. Maybe just holding him safe until she had both of them and her own target.
Whatever that was. She'd been... quiet on the subject. Barely said a word at all, apart from to reply to the taunts, to tell them her name.
"So I'll get her akuma. Scarf?"
Weaver hesitated before he nodded. "That's most likely."
"When you free Chat, send him after me."
Weaver nodded and leapt away, using his faint extra legs for bounce.
As Moroi saw him, she snapped out her whip, stepping away from the entrance to the catacombs.
Ladybug crouched low to the roof, watching. If they went below, she wouldn't be able to use her yoyo, but Moroi wouldn't be able to use her whip, which seemed to be the main source of her power.
Faint police sirens in the distance- or were they close by, but the akuma's power was muting them, somehow? -signalled that a cordon had been set. Good. No one else would be trapped in it, and maybe that would hold Alya-
She groaned. No sooner had she thought it than she spotted Alya around the corner of a building, phone out and filming the area.
"Little spider," crooned Moroi, turning as Weaver avoided her attacks, spinning between them and flashing out his own thread, cutting away at her whip. "Why do you fight me?"
Ladybug swung down and pushed Alya back around the corner. "Stay back, would you?" she hissed, keeping her voice low.
"Ladybug! Who's the new hero?" Alya grinned, redirecting her phone. Her voice was loud in the stillness of the square, and Moroi looked their way.
Ladybug grabbed Alya around the waist and leapt, swinging them up and out of the way as Moroi swung her whip at them.
Alya filmed over her shoulder, irrepressible. "Where's Chat?"
"Working a new angle," Ladybug replied, setting Alya down and pushing her head below the railing. "Stay here. Stay out of sight."
Ladybug swung away, catching sight of Weaver.
He'd stepped down from the walls, standing before Moroi. "Please, Cai." He twisted the thread in his hands, making it into a web. "You don't have to-"
"My name is not Cai, little spider," she snapped, the loudest her voice had been.
Ladybug kept low, out of sight, as she crept around behind Moroi, to the entrance of the catacombs.
"Moroi, then." Weaver barely flinched as she snapped her whip at him; a flash of his golden thread and it fell away to dust. "You aren't this, you don't need to prove anything, there isn't-"
"Who said I am proving anything?" Moroi laughed, and the sound was a chilling wind that shivered down everyone's spine. "I am... returning a favour." She turned her head, and Ladybug caught sight of the butterfly mask over her eyes just before Moroi focused on her.
Ladybug spun out her yoyo and caught Moroi by the waist before Moroi could attack her. Setting her feet against the cobbles, she yanked hard and brought the akuma flying towards her.
Sidestepping at the last moment, she made a snatch for the dusty scarf at Moroi's neck. It at odds with the rest of her outfit, the akuma had to be in there, Weaver's guess had to be right.
Moroi caught her hands and dragged Ladybug tumbling down into the catacombs with her.
Ladybug broke free and rolled, scrambling to her feet and whipping her yoyo back.
"Whatever will you do without your partner?" Moroi got to her feet, elegant and laughing. "Can you succeed without him?"
The air was thick with fear, cloying at Ladybug's throat. She gulped, spinning her yoyo at her side.
"I see who you are, Ladybug... you're a scared little girl, desperate to do the right thing but so afraid that you'll mess up and disappoint everyone." Moroi sauntered towards her, skull mask seeming to glow in the dark of the catacombs.
Ladybug took an involuntary step back and came up against the wall. Her yoyo clattered against it and fell to the ground.
"Under that mask, you're just a girl. Just a scared little girl who can't do anything right." Moroi came up close, looming over her, reaching out her free, skeletal hand for Ladybug's earrings.
"But that doesn't stop me trying," Ladybug retorted, and slapped Moroi's hand away, pushing her back.
Moroi let out a sibilant hiss, and the exits were cloaked in thick webs and cloaks of shadows.
Ladybug spun her yoyo into one and it bounced back into her hand.
The light was fading fast, and Moroi seemed to grow with the darkness and the cloying terror that grew thick about them.
The cold bit, too, and she could almost see it, like crypt mist about their ankles, fogging her breath.
Ladybug set her stance and threw her yoyo up. "Lucky Charm!"
The burst of light sent Moroi reeling back, turning away.
Ladybug caught the charm and stumbled under its weight. "A - gravestone?" She ran her hands over it to make out its shape. "What..."
What use was this? There was nothing... Ladybug glanced about the small cave, trying to work out what she could do with a gravestone.
"Whose name does it have on it, little bug?" Moroi stalked towards her. "Yours? Or does your companion waste away in his nightmare for eternity, you trapped here and unable to help him?"
Ladybug tottered a step back and dropped the tombstone between them.
It hit the ground with a dull thud, and Moroi hesitated at it, at the tremor that seemed to ripple at her and her alone. She almost dropped her whip as she reached out her hand to the tombstone, reading its inscription.
“That’s not-”
"Cataclysm!" There was a muffled cry from outside, beyond the blocked entrance, and it blew to dust and let the light in, and then Chat was there, a silhouette bathed in light.
"Chat!" Ladybug grinned.
"I hope it wasn't too nightmare-ish without me." He grinned, leaping at Moroi's back.
Moroi turned, too slowly, and raised her whip in a loose hand. Chat tangled it about his staff and pulled it away.
Ladybug leapt the tombstone and pulled the scarf free, tearing it apart in her hands.
"No!" Moroi grasped at her neck, turning, eyes wide.
"Goodbye, little akuma!" Ladybug sent her yoyo spinning after the akuma as it fluttered away.
Moroi fell to her knees as Hawkmoth's power left her.
Ladybug hefted the tombstone. "Miraculous – Ladybug!" It was a weight, but she managed the charm, and ladybugs exploded outward, clearing up the miasma of fear and death, the blocked tunnels that the akuma had caused.
"Was… was that a tombstone?" Chat tilted his head, a slight smirk playing his face. "Was it that grave without me?"
Ladybug snorted. “Don’t you know it, kitty.” She turned to the akuma victim, crouching down and holding out the scarf.
The woman had her eyes shut, shaking her head as if to scatter water. She dug her nails into the ground and let out a shuddering breath.
"Cai!" A teenaged boy, not much older than Ladybug herself, came running down the steps. "Cai, are you alright?"
"Oscar-" She looked up, didn't get out much before he cannoned into her, bowling her backwards.
“I’m sorry, maybe this was a bad idea to come down here.”
“I didn’t-” She tightened her grip on him. “Fuck.”
Chat and Ladybug shared a glance, their miraculous beeping in sync with each other. "Pound it." They tapped fists and left the two to their reunion.
"Where's Weaver?" Ladybug held her hand up against the sun as they left, squinting around.
The square was empty of the ruckus of their fight; cars back in place, no webs or thread left. Some people, disoriented still, and Alya moving amongst them for interviews.
"I think he used his power to free us," Chat said, studying his hands. "So he must have split."
Ladybug frowned. “I’d like more of a chat with him.”
“Another miraculous user.” Chat hummed in agreement. “And not one we’re aware of.”
"Ladybug, Chat Noir!"
They turned as Oscar caught up with them. "Thank you. My sister, she-"
"It's alright." Ladybug held up a hand to forestall. "Just... make sure she's alright?" Her earrings beeped again.
Oscar flashed a gaze to one of them, pulling his sleeve about his wrist.
"Enjoy the rest of your stay in fair Paris," Chat Noir said, bowing first to Oscar and then to Ladybug. "My lady." He extended his staff and pushed himself away over the rooftops.
"Quickly, an interview?" Alya called, hurrying over. “Who was that new hero? Will they be joining you again?”
"I really have to go," Ladybug said, and swung out her yoyo in the opposite direction to Chat Noir. "Sorry!"