Miraculous Team: Origins

Chapter 1: The Awakening of Evil

It was a warm summer night in Paris. The sun had just set in the horizon, and the black cloak of night would soon plunge the whole city in darkness; a darkness which would be countered by the lights of every street lamp and landmark in that city. One of such landmarks was the Louvre, where this story begins.

Built in the 12th century to serve as a fortress, the building suffered consecutive changes over the centuries, having served as the residence of the King of France until 1682, when Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles as his household. It was its destiny to open as a museum in 1793, housing one of the largest collections of art in the world. Among that collection was a statue that had been recently acquired. The museum's curator had obtained it from a private collector, who left it in his will to the museum. Usually a piece would not be placed for display before being reviewed by a series of specialists, not to mention the museum's board of administrators, but the collector in question had been a wealthy patron of the museum for nearly four decades. In his will, he had asked for the statue to be on display to the public. Given the importance of the man in question, it was decided that the statue would be unveiled on the day that some of the rooms from the 2nd floor of that part of the Sully Pavilion, which had been closed to the public for renovations the past few months, would reopen.

As the statue was taken out of the wooden crate where it had been encased, the curator, Mr. Kubdel, observed it and was astounded by its sheer magnificence. He had only seen pictures of it, and this was the first time his eyes saw the real thing. The photos he had seen did not hold a candle to the true statue. Standing 9 feet tall on top of a pedestal, carved out of pitch-black marble, the statue was of a tall man dressed in a dress shirt with a butterfly-shaped lapel brooch on the centre of the collar and dress pants. In his hands, he was holding a cane. But what made it rather unique was the fact that most of his face and neck was cloaked by some sort of mask.

"This is a remarkable statue. I've never seen anything like it before. The marble from which has been carved is uncanny." -Mr. Kubdel thought to himself, as the moving guys finished taking it out of its crate. –"Be careful with it. We wouldn't want our newest piece to get damaged."

"It is a fabulous piece, but who exactly is the man in the statue?" -asked a voice, behind Mr. Kubdel. It was his older son, Jalil. He had finished college that summer, and was now working for his father, as his assistant, as well as working on his doctorate. Like his father, he was passionate about History and its mysteries, although sometimes he would let his taste for crazy and insane theories cloud his judgement; something of which his father did not approve, mostly because he believed that as historians, it was their job to present History as it was, and not as it should have or could have been.

"To tell you the truth, even I don't know. My expertise is Ancient Egyptian artefacts. The owner of the statue did not leave any kind of documentation regarding it, except for the statue's name.... Hawk Moth." -Mr. Kubdel said.

"Hawk Moth? What kind of a name is that for a statue?" -Jalil asked his father, thinking that the name sounded ridiculous.

"I don't know, Jalil, I wasn't the one who sculpted it. But, perhaps, it has something to do with that butterfly-shaped brooch that has been sculpted on the lapel." -Mr. Kubdel pointed to the detail in question.

"You mean, you don't know?" -Jalil asked.

"Unfortunately, yes, and like I said, the owner that left us this art piece did not leave us with any kind of documents regarding its origin, date or even the identity of its sculptor." -Mr. Kubdiel insisted on the matter. –"Please, be careful with those crowbars." -he warned the moving guys.

"And you're putting it on display, without knowing anything about it?" -Jalil asked his father. He was lightly shocked to hear this, because his father was not the kind of man who would do such a thing. –"It's not like you to do such a thing."