Volpino hopped inside of his window. "Kittsu, tail in," he muttered. His mind was racing. Another new miraculous wielder? He was kinda hoping to impress all of the others by being a new miraculous wielder. Would this 'Queen Bee' character steal his thunder? He had to go and wake Marinette regardless. Queen Bee knew that she was Ladybug. So she could be a threat as well.

Nathan opened the bedroom door a crack and saw Adrien and Marinette snuggled together on Marinette's bed. It still bothered him a bit, but he ignored it and walked over to shake her awake. "Marinette!" he hissed, touching her shoulder. Her eyes snapped open and she leapt out of bed, putting him in a headlock.

"Oh, it's you," she said, releasing him. He backed up a step.

"I'm sorry to wake you, but I have two things that need your immediate attention," he said, brushing his bangs out of his eyes for the millionth time. Marinette yawned.

"Okay, but it better be important!" A tired Marinette was a grumpy Marinette.

"It is. The first one is, well, this." He gestured to Kittsu, who flew out from behind him and nodded politely. Marinette's eyes widened. She looked from Nathaneal to Kittsu and then back to Nathaneal. "The second is that there is another new miraculous wielder on your roof," Nathaneal continued before she could say anything. "Her name is Queen Bee, and apparently her kwami told her that you're Ladybug."

"You're the fox miraculous wielder now? Well then, welcome to life as a superhero," Marinette chuckled. "It's not always that great. And I was expecting Queen Bee to show up. Tikki warned me. I just didn't think it would be so soon."

"Well, she's here," Nathan said with a groan. Marinette looked at him pointedly.

"She can't be too bad. Sure, we don't know her, but that doesn't mean anything. If Master Fu chose her, then that's who she is," Marinette said. "I'll go on up to the roof."

"Mari, don't leave me!" a sleepy Adrien murmured at her. He rolled out of bed and tried to follow her, but immediately winced and couldn't hold in a groan. Alya materialized out of nowhere and grabbed his arm.

"Nope! Not happening. You over-taxed yourself and now it'll take even longer for you to heal. There is no way I'm letting you go on a midnight stroll!" Alya insisted. Adrien was in so much pain that he actually agreed with her and sat back down on the bed, but said that they couldn't turn the lights back off until Marinette came back. Nino snored through all of this.

Marinette, Nathaneal, and Alya went up onto the rooftop through the trap door. Queen Bee stood upon the sight of them, nodding in Marinette's direction. "Ladybug," she acknowledged simply.

"Welcome, Queen Bee," Marinette responded. "This is Alya, aka Papillon, and this is Nathaneal, aka Volpino." Alya and Nathan also nodded their heads in greeting. Queen Bee's eyes widened a bit, but she recovered her composure.

"I want to help you fight whoever Hawkmoth is," Queen Bee said. Marinette nodded. "My kwami told me all about it and I want to help keep Paris safe from him."

"Tikki warned me of your arrival," Marinette said. Tikki, Kittsu, and Nooroo (who had been rudely awoken) perched themselves on top of a table to watch. "I assume you have parents to get back to. If you have school tomorrow, we'll wait for you tomorrow afternoon to start planning our attack."

"Nobody at home will really notice me gone. Not if I tell them I don't want to be noticed. And I can skip school tomorrow. Saving the world is more important," Queen Bee said. She wanted to just ask Marinette if she could stay, but she felt a very humbling amount of respect for the girl, and she was getting shy.

Thankfully, Marinette knew where she was going with it. "You could stay here if you like," the girl offered. "We have room on the course, you'd have to reveal your identity to us. But that would honestly be a lot easier if you are comfortable with doing that."

Queen Bee swallowed nervously. "That's the thing... I know you outside of the mask. And, well, I was never really nice to you. Let's face it, I was kind of a jerk. I'm trying to do better. I vowed I would turn my life around. My kwami said that wielding the bee miraculous could even help me to do that. But I don't know if you'd accept my apology."

Marinette ran all of the girls she could think of through he head, espescially the ones who weren't very nice to her. Alix could be mean sometimes, Sabrina was cruel a lot too. And there was also Chloe. Marinette wanted to laugh. Chloe, receive a miraculous? The idea of it was ludicrous. So she was pretty sure she could accept any apology.

"I'm sure I can forgive you for whatever you've done," she said. "The important thing is that you're trying to be a better person. You can trust me, I won't be angry."

"Okay," Queen Bee reluctantly agreed. "You want to do it here and now?"

"No, no. Come down and meet the other two!" Marinette said. "Although if you know me out of costume, you probably know them too."

Marinette led Queen Bee down to her room, with Nathaneal and Alya following them. Adrien and Nino were sitting on Marinette's bed, a peacock feather pin sitting in between them. They looked up as she entered.

"This is Adrien, the real Chat Noir, and this is Nino, aka Jade Turtle," Marinette said. "And that's Wayzz, Tikki, Nooroo, and..." She looked at Nathaneal.

"Kittsu," he said. Marinette nodded.

"Kittsu. Plagg is Adrien's kwami, but Hawkmoth has him right now. He'll probably force Plagg to fight us. But we totally outnumber him."

"Right," Queen Bee answered.

"So, you ready to reveal yourself? Because I'm really curious now!" Alya said.

"No," Queen Bee answered softly. "But I'll do it anyway. Just please don't hate me." She looked at all of their faces before softly saying, "Buzza, stripes off."

Her transformation released in a soft flash of yellow. And standing in front of them, nervously messing her with her hands, was Chloe Bourgeois.

"WHAT?" they all shouted in sync.

"Who gave you a miraculous?" Alya demanded.

"Yeah, there's no way someone would give one to you! You must have stolen it, or, or asked you dad to get it for you!" Nino said. Nathaneal just glared at her. Adrien stared, shocked. Marinette didn't say a word.

"I didn't take it or buy it, I promise! I found it on my vanity!" Chloe insisted. Alya snorted.

"Your promises don't hold any weight, Chloe. How could somebody as cruel as you ever receive a miraculous?"

"Maybe it was another mistake, like when Master Fu gave Gabriel the butterfly miraculous!" Nino suggested. Instantly everyone in the room froze. Adrien made a strange strangled noise. Nino slowly swiveled to face his best friend. "Oops," he whispered. "You didn't know, did you?"

It was hard to describe the emotions flashing across Adrien face. Rage, hurt, sadness, fear. It slowly cycled around as his eyes filled with both tears and determination. He took a deep shuddering breath and looked straight at Marinette.

"Did you know that?" he asked in an icy whisper. Marinette felt her heart tighten.

"Adrien, I just didn't want to hurt you! You went through so much and-"

"YOU DIDN'T THINK I'D BE TEN TIMES AS HURT WHEN I FINALLY FOUND OUT?" Adrien yelled at her.

"Adrien, this reaction is why she didn't tell you, maybe it was for the best," Alya said.

"Oh, so you knew too? You, Nino, and Marinette. Did Nathaneal know too? Did CHLOE know? Were you guys just gonna waltz around, pretending like you didn't? Were you going to sit there and PLAN the demise of Hawkmoth WITH ME, KNOWING HE WAS MY FATHER! Were you EVER going to tell me?"

"We were waiting for the right time..." Alya said weakly.

"THREE DAYS AGO WAS THE RIGHT TIME!" Adrien said angrily. He turned to Marinette. "Is this what you were planning when you asked if we could be partners again? To lie to me? PARTNERS DON'T LIE TO ONE ANOTHER! You said I could trust you! YOU LIED TWICE!" Despite the shooting pain, he got up and limped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Marinette wiped a tear away from her face.

"He's right," she said quietly. Barely a whisper, but loud enough for everyone to hear."I should have told him. I lied to him. I don't deserve him as a partner. And I don't deserve to be Ladybug." She walked slowly out of the room, shutting the door more softly behind her. Tikki looked at the door and shook her head. Marinette needed some space.

Alya, Nino, Chloe, and Nathaneal just stood there awkwardly. Finally, Alya whirled around and poked Nino in the chest. "Why did you tell him?" she hissed. "How did you even know?"

"It was a mistake Alya. I didn't know not to tell him, and it was a slip of the tongue. I saw his dad transform at the Agreste mansion when I got Wayzz and this peacock pin. I didn't mean for that to happen."

"In my opinion, he needed to know! Were you seriously gonna have him sitting around planning how to defeat his own father without his knowledge?" Chloe piped up. Alya whirled around to face the girl.

"Don't you DARE come marching in here and tell us what to do, YOU STUCK UP LITTLE BITCH! You created a good HALF OF THE AKUMA ATTACKS that wore Marinette and Adrien DOWN TO THE GROUND! You're probably just a complete FAKE here to TRICK us and help GABRIEL!" Alya screamed at her. Chloe froze, her mouth open and tears welling up in her eyes.

"Fine!" Chloe snapped. "But let me warn you, Adrien NEVER gets angry like this. So good luck talking him out of leaving you guys for good! I'm going to go try for you and PROVE that I'm here to help!"

Alya snorted. "Good luck with that. He hates you too, you know. Everybody hates you." Chloe stormed out of the room, followed by Buzza. Before she left, however, she grabbed the peacock pin off of the bed. Alya, Nino, and Nathaneal didn't even notice.

"Somebody should go after Marinette," Nino said lamely. Alya growled.

"Don't let me go, I'll end up snapping at her too," Alya instructed. Nathan stood up and headed silently out the door to find Marinette.

############################################################################################################################################################

Gabriel Agreste sat in his office, his cage with a very defiant Plagg in front of him. "Now tell me, Plagg. I could alter Nooro's powers with the evil part of my soul. But Nooroo was a weak kwami. What could I do with the power of destruction?"

"Destroy yourself," Plag said lazily, flopping down on his belly and licking his paw. Gabriel growled.

"I need to get my son back, take Ladybug's miraculous, bring back my Emily, and destroy anyone who stands in my way!" he listed. Plagg rolled his eyes.

"That's quite a bucket list," he commented. Gabriel shook his head.

"There must be something I can do! Something that will make me more powerful! If the other miraculous managed to get to the new wielders, then I'll be outnumbered and overpowered!"

"You think I'm just going to tell you?" Plagg asked, quite irritated.

"No, I'm going to read the ancient book and get the answers out of that," Gabriel replied, pulling up a secret file on his computer. He smiled as Plagg sputtered.

"What? Adrien took that from the safe!"

"Ah, so it was him. Don't worry, I took precautionary measures. I scanned the whole thing and hid it in a secret folder on my computer. I'll just go back and re-read what I managed to decode from the page on Chat Noir."

After fifteen minutes, Gabriel left his computer screen and walked over to Plagg. "I never imagined that you could be so powerful," he murmured. "Death and destruction paired with evil? The possibilities are endless! There's no way that they will defeat me! Plagg, claws out!"

Gabriel opened the cage and Plagg was sucked into his ring, howling all the way. Gabriel cackled as he felt the power wash over him again. "Now, let's see if this will really work," he muttered.

Under the cloak of darkness, Gabriel Agreste (as Chat Noir), stole through the city until he got to the largest cemetery in all of Paris. It was dark and shadowy at this time of night, and something about the silent tombstones made him shiver. Bt he couldn't turn back now. He had a job to do.

"Cataclysm!" he called, summoning his power. He placed his hand onto the grassy ground that was around the hundreds of graves. The effect as instantaneous. With a horrible shrieking sound, boned hands covered with rotting flesh broke through the dirt on top of the graves. The corpses hauled themselves up, howling all the while.

Gabriel felt a dark chill creep down his spine as his army of dead assembled beneath him. Out of curiosity, he whipped out his baton and sliced one in half. It simply reassembled its bones, cracking them and rolling them around experiemntally before it returned to the sea of dead people. Hawkmoth laughed with glee. He had an army! An indestructible army!

Death and evil! What a wonderful duo! So much could be accomplished! There was a price to pay, but it was small. Gabriel considered it worth it. He grinned as he watched over a hundred dead people assemble before him and then fall silent.

"My army!" Gabriel called to them. "Go into the city! Wreak havoc! I have but two instructions: Make sure that Adrien Agreste is not harmed in anyway and brought to me safely, and capture all of the miraculous or miraculous wielders you can. Make a mess of the city, and they will come. Now go forth!"

He watched with bubbling anticipation as the corpses slowly made their way towards the city, shuffling their feet and knocking over trees in their way. "Let's see you win this fight, Ladybug," he whispered to himself. The breeze snatched his words away and tossed them into the air. "You'll rue the day you first heard my name."