To Be a Hero | MLB

24: The Trap

I soar higher into the air, then gaze down at my army, which is already well into the river. From above, I see Ladybug and Chat Noir swooping down to take the people in the water to safety, and I start back toward them. But then I smirk, noticing the people they saved moving back toward the river. So long as I still have control over their minds, Paris' heroes can't save them.

Chat Noir and Ladybug come to the realization at the same time and turn their gazes on me. Then they launch themselves in the air toward me, and I steady myself in the air, pulling my racket from my back. Once they get close enough, I launch a swarm of parrots at them, all screeching the same message: Give me your Miraculous.

The birds follow the heroes back to a rooftop, pecking at their arms and faces the whole way. I fly over to them as they try to swat my birds away. "Stop trying to resist them," I call. "Just accept their words, and everything will be so much easier."

"Yeah, for you, maybe!" Chat Noir yells back, using his stick to repel the parrots.

I grin and fly closer to them, wondering how no villain has ever beaten them before. I lift my racket again and blast even more birds at the heroes, but when the swarm of parrots disperses, Ladybug and Chat Noir are nowhere in sight.

They got away.

"You can't hide forever!" I shout into the distance. "There's no one else to save your people!" Reminded of the Parisians I'm controlling, I turn around to see over half of my army swimming or treading in the Seine. Though, when I look closely, some of them aren't treading. They're sinking.

I summon the parrots around me back into my racket and fly down to the river. From here, I can clearly see some of my soldiers floundering in the water, and I command them back to shore. They doggy paddle to meet me, and I let them catch their breath for a minute before I tell them to locate Ladybug and Chat Noir and bring them to me. They take off at a jog.

I can see Antoine and my younger brothers standing about a hundred yards away from me, and I have them join the search team. Now I'm all alone on the bank of the Seine, watching hundreds of Parisians tread water in front of me.

"Is this really what you want?"

I turn, and Chat Noir is standing to my right, watching the river as well. I pull out my racket, unsure of what to do. "What... what do you mean?"

"You said your powers give you everything you want. So, is your dream really to mind-control hundreds of people and take away their free will? If it is, I definitely don't want to know what your nightmares are."

"I... I just want to be seen, for once. And if mind control is the only way to get the attention I deserve, then... so be it."

"He's right there. Seize his Miraculous!" Hawk Moth shouts in my head, and I turn to Chat Noir, raising my racket.

"Enough talk. You've made this all so easy for me, you know that?"

Chat Noir raises his hands and steps back. "Wait, wait, wait. I just want to talk."

I pause, but I don't lower my weapon.

"Milady—Ladybug—told me you were akumatized right after she chased you, and you got away. And she told me to tell you that... uh, if you got akumatized because of her, she's sorry."

"She is, is she?" I say, my eyes narrowing. "If she is, then why doesn't she come tell me herself?"

"She may be great at a lot of things, but apologizing isn't one of them."

But then, just as I begin to believe Chat Noir and lower my racket, I hear in my mind, "This is a trap."