Miraculous: Tales of Shadowstar

Part 8: Virtuous Seven

"The man responsible for the destruction last night was none other than the once great hero Vortex who made a strong presence in London. What's more is that there appears to be some connection between Vortex and the Virtuous Seven. A small team of heroes who protected the nation. Which brings the biggest question. Why did Vortex go rogue? And how many more heroes will turn evil?" Marinette couldn't remove her eyes from the screen as the news reporter made her assessment. She couldn't believe that a Hero was so murderous and hellbent on destruction. It shook Marinette to her core, and as she peered over to the board that had multiple notes and photos with a red thread connected by push pins. It was just her trying to make sense of what happened, but in the end Marinette ended with more questions than answers.

One subject that she's hesitant to even consider was that somehow, in some way, Shadowstar was involved in all of this. His picture on the board with many threads pointing at his frame as Marinette scooted her wheelchair over to the board and placed a hand over his picture. "Does this mean... you were one of them?" She muttered to herself before springing from behind her was a pale blue kwami that looked vaguely like a shark with a big grin on his face.

"Ah wouldn't worry about that chump kid! He might be uh... not easy to talk to sometimes, but he's de only one who didn't fall for Merlin's schemes." Marinette looked over her shoulder at the floating kwami as the other kwamis were curious. "Merlin?" She asked curiously, and at that moment the shark kwami started to shift his eyes to the side. Almost as if he realized that he shouldn't have said that. "Uh... what ah meant was uh... Ye have to talk with de kid. He's better at explaining things than aye." Yet another thing that only Shadowstar could answer. It made the dark haired girl sigh exaggeratingly.

"Thanks Haleuuwi, I just wish I knew more before I did." The kwamis looked at each other for a moment before the one named Mullo looked over at Haleuuwi out of curiosity. "Ah wouldn't take it personally kid, the chump was always careful to keep his information hushed just like his mentor taught him. Keep the public from being chaotic or something."

"Marinette! When are you gonna come out of your room?!" Came a voice from underneath the trap door that Marinette knew all too well. Swinging the door open as the kwami immediately hid out of view as a brunette girl emerged. She only smiled as she saw Marinette staring at the board in front of her. Alya closed the door behind her before she draped one arm over Marinette's shoulder. Her expression soured once she saw what Marinette was working on.

"Last night was... pretty rough from what I heard." Granted, Alya was with her family when it had all gone down. The memory brought Marinette's eyes down to her hands on her lap. Even after it had been hours since the battle had concluded, she would be lying if it didn't scare her still. Marinette could still see her hands trembling. Something that Alya took notice of as well as she placed an assuring hand on Marinette's shoulder.

"I... I lost the fight." Marinette confessed in a whisper. That part had escaped Alya, but it suddenly made sense why Cat Noir got akumatized in the first place. Still it surprised the brunette as Marinette had never lost a fight before since she became Ladybug. "What? What do you mean lost?"

"He... I don't know, we were fighting and I had blacked out. Next thing I knew I woke up in Lucien's house and then his parents were doing these weird-" Alya couldn't believe her ears when she heard Lucien's house. "Wait, how did you go from fighting this evil villain to waking up in your classmate's house??"

"He wasn't there, or at least I didn't think he was. I wasn't really paying attention, but Star brought me there." Marinette explained as the whole event was still fuzzy in some areas. She pulled another board that had more notes and thumb tacks on it. Displayed on the board was photos of Marcus, Anna, Adam, Lucien, and a woman that Marinette didn't see. "These people... they work with Star I think, but he never mentioned them once before." Alya looked them over as if they might have some kind of clue to them.