The gathering darkness above their heads was worrisome, but Chat kept his focus on Volpina. Even as red streaks of lighting sparked and darted through the artificial black clouds, he had his eyes on her. She'd staggered up, chest laboring as she did, and stood, hunched, on the other side of the rooftop. To say there was something off about her would be a bit of an understatement, but Chat supposed he'd seen this coming. Not the instability itself, or the result, but the building variability in her behavior toward him and others.
Perhaps that was a side effect of being akumatized so long. She was so submerged in negative emotions—it'd make sense that she'd become unhinged. Unable to carry the burden without breaking.
It didn't excuse what she'd done, however.
"You're so predictable," she spat, licking her lips. "Come to save the day, of course. So heroic." Some of her loosened hair was plastered down her cheek, stuck there by sweat. The volatile lightning above their heads was hot enough to drop a heat wave over the city, so abrupt and so heavy that it was like walking into an oven.
"You say that as if your actions don't justify my own," he replied simply. One staff in hand and the other replaced on his hip, he pulled his wings in until they were folded along his back. The golden feathers—like hair on a cat's back—felt light and alert with every static spark of lightning that burst overhead. Though they were seemingly silky, there was an iridescent sheen to their surface that reflected the red streaks, casting a warm, rainbow wave of colors across the gold. It shifted back and forth, rippling with each bit of light caught.
Like his suit, he couldn't be sure what the feathers themselves were made from. While they were malleable and fanned like feathers, their shimmering, metallic appearance echoed more of stretched, paper-thin scales stacked one on top of another, shining and melding together until it was a wavering swell of gold.
Another harsh crack of red lightning flashed overhead, causing his wings, tail, and ears to twitch.
"If you'd simply handed over the miraculouses from the beginning, much of this could have been avoided," Volpina reasoned. "You and Ladybug are the ones responsible."
"Is that your opinion, or Hawkmoth's?" Chat asked.
She narrowed her gaze, the white of her irises seeming to intensify. "Is there a difference?"
Chat supposed that was answer enough.
He could feel Mari's focus buzzing in the back of his mind. She was fighting Queen Bee, he knew that perfectly well—even if he hadn't turned to see the conflict for himself. There was a steady confidence reflecting off her consciousness, as well as determination to retrieve the stolen miraculous.
He supposed it was time he took steps toward the same end.
"I don't want to fight you, Volpina," he said simply. "Hawkmoth has polluted you. Give up your own miraculous and salvage what you can of your life." Nobody knew Master Fu as they had. No one knew it'd been murder or who'd done it. It burned him up, thinking that Lila would get away with it if she chose the high road. She'd simply walk away to deal with her actions on her own.
But he also knew that wasn't the path she'd pick. He'd have to force the miraculous from her, he was sure. But he'd offered. He'd tried to give her a chance.
There was no telling how their conflict would end. No matter, Adrien wasn't backing down this time. Volpina and Queen Bee weren't getting away. Not so long as he still had the means with which to chase them down.
"Ha!" She laughed, sounding nearly hysterical. "You can't turn the tables on me, Chat Noir. I am the hero here and you'll have to take the miraculous from my dead body if you want it!"
