You're The Music That's Been Playing In My Head: Book 2

The Collector: Part 2

After class, we headed down to the gym to talk to Adrien but there was no sign of him anywhere. "Something's up, Adrien never misses his fencing lessons," We start looking around for him as we head to Ms. Bustier's class only to find Chloé crying with the class surrounding her with frowns. What was going on? "What's up with her?" Mari asks but before he can respond, Chloé explains what happened.

"Adrien's father is never letting him come back to school. Ever!" "What? Why?" I ask, confusion washing over my face and Kim answers me. "His dad grounded him for life." "Grounded for what?" Marinette asks. "Something about losing a book that belongs to his dad," Nino tells her and she sighs in relief. "His dad...? Phew!" "Phew?!" Chloé asks and everyone looks at Mari and I say "Phew as in at least he's not hurt or worse. This sounds like something we could fix. We just gotta find that book," Marinette drags me out of the classroom into the bathroom and smiles. "So it wasn't Adrien's book, it's his father's! Adrien isn't Hawkmoth! I knew Adrien didn't have an evil bone in his body," Marinette in a sense swoons, and I cross my arms and point out:

"But the book belongs to his father which means there's a high chance that his dad is Hawkmoth," Marinette's eyes widen at the theory, soon tapping her chin in thought. "It couldn't be...An eccentric artist who never leaves his home. He's mysterious and intelligent but cold even to his own son...This could be a very strong lead!"

"Just be careful you two," Tikki warns us, Flaake soon chiming in. "Please. It's not like we can order a replacement Ladybug and (s/n) at the store," I roll my eyes at the sarcastic remark with a smile before watching in amazement at Marinette's transformation into Ladybug. "Tikki Spots On!" Tikki flies into her earrings which flash pink before developing the ladybug style, Marinette covers her face as her mask appears and outstretches her arm to let the magic create the rest of her suit and yoyo. She lifts up her leg and stretches her arm down as if to stretch before spinning like a ballerina and ending in a confident pose.

I stare at her in shock and she rubs her arm awkwardly. "What?" "It's just finally hitting me that you're Ladybug...Anyway, Flaake Freeze!" I transform and she gives me the same stare going "I see what you mean," With that, we take off to the roof where Ladybug tries to call Chat Noir, and it goes to voicemail. "Has the cat got your tongue? Leave a message." "Chat Noir! I think I know who Hawkmoth is, get your whiskers over here fast," Ladybug rolls her eyes at the voicemail greeting and we start waiting for Chat to arrive.

It's been about thirty minutes since Ladybug left her message and we were starting to get impatient, LB pulls out her phone about to call him again when he lands right in front of us. "Chat Noir about time, did you get my messages?" She asks a bit annoyed and I don't blame her our phones don't send messages to our kwamiis so we would have to transform for any messages.

"Yep and I can't wait to learn more my Lady-tective so who's the suspect?" "Gabriel Agreste," She answers, and Chat who had been leaning on his stick loses his balance as he stares at Ladybug in shock. "You know who he is, don't you? The famous fashion designer." "Do you have proof?" He asks and Ladybug jumps unsure of how to explain the book. "Uh...There's an ancient spellbook that holds all of the secrets of the miraculous that I found and it there was a note that said it belonged to Gabriel Agreste," She explains and I kiss my teeth, might not be the whole truth but don't want to accidentally expose yourself." "Where's the book now? I wanna see it." "Not here. It turns out there's a guardian who protects all of the miraculous jewels. He has it and is deciphering the codes so if we're wrong about him being Hawkmoth we can return the book. But that's not all it makes sense Gabriel Agreste is a secretive man who never leaves his house and while searching for more proof look what we found."

I make my phone and pull up photos of Mr. Agreste's works, pointing at his brand's logo. "Look at his brand's logo, it's a butterfly," Chat Noir's eyes widen before looks down with a saddened look, Ladybug grabbing his shoulder and asking him "You ok?" "Let's get to the bottom of this," Was all he said before taking off and we follow him to the Agreste residence.

We enter Mr. Agreste's office to find the place totally trashed. "What happened here? It looks like someone had a tantrum," LB comments as we looked at the broken mannequins and the shattered photos everywhere. Chat Noir picks up a broken frame and stares at it with that saddened look again. It was a hand-drawn family photo done by Adrien back when he was a little kid.

"Are you sure you're ok?" I ask him, worry written on my face, the fact that Gabriel Agreste might be Hawkmoth seemed to bother him a lot. "Yeah. Let's keep going," He quietly responds only worrying me more when Ladybug sees the photo and starts to freak out. "Right! He's got a son, we need to make sure nothing has happened to him!" We rush into the main hall to find a man in a dark purple suit with light purple streaks, purple skin, and red sunglasses he was holding a book in his hands, Chat soon demanding the whereabouts of Gabriel Agreste.

"There is no more Gabriel Agreste. There is only The Collector!" He tosses his book at Ladybug who backflips out of the way and we watch the door disappear when the book touches it before flying back to The Collector, Ladybug tackling me and Chat to the ground to avoid being touched by the book.

The three of us jump back to keep some distance from The Collector as he tells us "You won't be able to escape!" He throws his book again before charging at us and we exchange a few blows while moving around the room to dodge his book. Running into the dining room I throw my knives in hope they would tear through his book, Ladybug yelling at me to wait. The book eats my knives and we watch as they appear as a sketch in the book. "Nice piece wouldn't you agree?" The Collector mocks before throwing his book again. Chat Noir throws a chair so we could escape. 

"The akuma's gotta be in that book." "But if we touch it we'll disappear," I point out and LB nods, soon summoning her lucky charm and a pedal falls into her hands. "A pedal?" She looks around before staring back at the pedal in confusion. "I dunno what to do with this. We need to stall him."