Miracle Box - an MLB rewrite

New York - The Stinger Becomes Poisonous

"I can sense fear and desire," Sandboy explained. He was now in his kid form. "For a villain like Hawkmoth to exist, he's gotta have a ton of both."

"So you can feel him?" Kaalki asked.

Sandboy nodded. "He wants to bring his near dead wife back to life, but he's afraid of the peacock miraculous. He's also afraid of the master of the chinese box, as well as... His son? I could be getting this wrong, but it's how my powers work."

"So can we use this as a radar to find him?"

"He's in a hotel," Sandboy said, closing his eyes, "fifth story... Room 568... Suite style... Conrad New York Downtown. He's here for the tortoise miraculous, and does not yet know Ladybug and Chat Noir are also here."

"That's incredible!" Chloe exclaimed, and for a moment, Sandboy smiled.

"We need to keep his attention away from Ladybug and Chat Noir for as long as we can," Kaalki said, "which means if the United Heroes can handle Mr. Damocles, Chloe and Claudie will have to swoop in."

"Hawkmoth is smart though," said Pollen, thinking deeply, "he can't take on all of the United Heroes, but he would also have to know that the tortoise user never openly comes out during a fight. He must have a plan to decimate all of them to get Thorn to come out. This is serious."

"So we should take care of Mr. Damocles before we go after Hawkmoth," Chloe said and the others agreed.

"And what about you?" Kaalki asked Sandboy, a deep frown scarring her face.

"I'll wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir to show their faces because they inevitably will," Sandboy said, sounding a bit threatening. Kaalki furrowed her brows. "No, I'll be here, waiting for when you need me to find Hawkmoth. But after that, we are no longer friends."

"We never were," Pollen said under her breath.

"We should get going quickly," Chloe said, and Pollen allowed her to transform. Claudie did the same.

***

Mr. Damocles, now known as the Dark Owl, was akumatized. He managed to catch the attention of the United Heroes by literally surrounding the entire Brooklynn bridge with containers of nitrogen, threatening to make it crumble. And on top of that, he had a canon supposedly aimed at the Empire State. Where he had gotten all of this was beyond belief.

It was clear he was putting up more than just a good fight against the Heroes already there. Several of them had been tossed into the river or knocked out cold, and those who remained were staying back, trying to come up with a plan.

Queen Bee and Neptune kept to the shadows, not allowing any of the heroes nor Dark Owl to catch a glimpse of them. Observing Dark Owl, they were surprised to find they couldn't identify any one specific power attached to him. He appeared to only be using weapons, and they had to guess he could summon them from anywhere. But that was a terrible assumption to make.

"I think I know what to do," Queen Bee whispered to Neptune. "You'll have to portal me directly behind him."

"That's dangerous," Neptune warned, "we have no idea what he's capable of. And I think he's got cameras everywhere. He'll see you before you can paralyze him."

"This is my principal. He may be a goofy, unreliable man sometimes, and he did put me in a room with that stupid Dupan-Cheng girl, but he cares about his students more than anything. With the amount of respect he gives us, I think it's time I show him my respect as well."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Alright then. Once you've succeeded, I'll have to quickly go back to Paris to make sure Carapace and Tigre Rouge are okay. If the sentimonster is still a problem, I will be back for Ladybug and Chat Noir. But we probably won't see each other again for a while. This is my goodbye."