Under Oath | Ladynoir ✓

22 | la santé

GUARDS ROAMED ALL OVER LA Santé Prison.

Chat Noir stalked through the alleyway like a phantom—silent, invisible, and feeling half-dead. "Claws in."

As soon as the magic of the Miraculous returned Plagg into the world, his kwami started pleading rapid-fire. "Adrien, I'm so sorry. Please, let's just go back to the hotel—"

Adrien shoved a chunk of Camembert into Plagg's open jaw, mid-sentence, ignoring the way his hand trembled as it reached out.

"Let me do this. You don't know love," he whispered.

Plagg had never met Emelie. He didn't know what this meant, couldn't feel how much it hurt. Their kind were not raised in a family, then thrust into the world to experience its cruelties. Everything nature intended for them, they were born knowing.

It was dangerous and unwise, the thing Adrien was about to do, but he had to.

"So you will never know heartbreak."

"Hey—"

"Plagg, claws out."

Adrien remembered the training Plagg had given him before his brief stint as Cat Walker. How the quantum masking of the Miraculous could be manipulated by personality and emotion. If you focus hard, you can be a completely different Chat Noir.

This time it was that acidic feeling—heartbreak—that Adrien concentrated on, locating it in his heart like a star's iron core and letting it supernova through his arms and legs, ripple across his face, tingle in the length of his spine.

When the green whirls of magic faded, his enhanced physicality felt the same way it always did. But, in the front camera of his Cat Phone—which was now shiny obsidian instead of silver—he did not look the same.

His hair was black, and shaggy, falling in tousled strands over glowing emerald eyes. His pupils were heavily slitted, no matter which way he turned to the light.

The black cat tucked his staff away and glanced down at his body.

Instead of a golden bell at his collar, there was a belt that snaked down his leather-clad torso, splitting at the sternum and curling around his ribs. The largest difference were the spiked cuffs around his wrists, echoing the gleaming line of metal that punctured through the back of his combat boots.

With his staff, he launched himself over the high stone wall and strode up to the administrative block. The guards were stunned at his appearance. The warden was called, and unsurprisingly, she stopped him and asked for his business before he could even enter the building.

"Hessenpy sent me. I work with Ladybug and serve the city of Paris. I need to speak with Gabriel Agreste."

"Hessenpy usually warns me in advance if she's sending an investigator," the warden frowned, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening. "I didn't know Chat Noir needed a replacement, either."

Chat Noir was cheeky and aloof; Cat Walker was poised and repressed; this version of him could be anything he wanted. And what he wanted right now was an audience with his father, no matter what it took.

He squared his jaw and met her cautious gaze with confidence and slight impatience. The smile he offered was tight.

"Something unexpected came up today." He spun his staff and caught it smoothly. The outermost panel curved away to reveal the dial pad. "Classified information, but this interrogation could provide urgent information. I can call Hessenpy or Ladybug to verify the case if you like, though they are both currently busy dealing with—"