Cataclysm

Rescue

Antoine woke up in darkness. The first thing he felt was not the pain on his bruised ribs or his probably broken nose. No, the first thing the seasoned agent felt was all the despair surrounding him, all the people around and their confusion, their panic and their pain. It stunned him for the first few seconds, rendering him unable to think and distinguish between his own problems and those outside of his head. But Antoine was a professional, he'd been dealing with these kind of emotions all his life, whether it was feeling them himself, or inflicting them on others. So he lifted up his head and, as his sight adjusted, managed to look around.

The first thing his eyes were drawn to were the butterflies, the only source of light in the otherwise black space that miraculously didn't collapse on him further. The second thing he noticed was that he was not alone. He could distinguish the cat hears and the shape of his hair lying on the floor a couple steps from him.

''Kid, hey, you awake?'' Asked the man, still not daring to move much for fear of making whatever wounds he had worse.

The only response he got for now was a pained moan, but it was enough to elicit a sigh of relief from the man. At least he wasn't dead. The next most pressing issue was the monster he had created, Antoine could hear its cry and the mini earthquakes his movements outside the collapsed building were provoking. This pocket of air that kept Antoine and Adrien alive would not last much longer if the giant Akuma outside wasn't stopped. And then he sensed her.

He used his barely practiced communication power to see what Gorizilla was seeing, just in time to realize that Ladybug was rushing towards the plushie that was the anchor for the butterfly. Except Antoine was aware that the plushie didn't just hold the Akuma that kept the transformation up, it was also the container of something else. With the clamor of the fight he hadn't realized that the object was already taken, but now he could feel the immense struggle coming from it.

Now, Antoine was not an expert in anything miraculous, but he somehow knew that the plushie must not be destroyed. So he did what he should have done anyways, he called back his Akuma. Except, instead of coming back to him as it should have done, the tiny butterfly crumbled and vanished into the winds, its vitality and energy disappearing from his perception.

''Wha-'' His confusion got interrupted by the coughs coming from the boy lying a few meters from him. ''Kid?'' He asked, finally truly seeing the condition the hero was in, now that there was not as much dust dropping on them from their fragile ceiling.

It was not good. He should have payed more attention, Antoine mentally scolded himself as he did his best to approach the boy without damaging himself or the flailing structures around them. He could hear the metal and stone of the building grinding against each other around him, gravity continuing what Gorizilla started. Somehow, he and Adrien had ended up under two big pillars that collapsed into each other, forming a flimsy tent of safety where they barely had enough space to crawl and breathe. He was grateful nonetheless.

By the time Antoine reached the boy, his eyes finally got used to the dim light the butterflies produced around them, and he could now distinguish what was human being and what was hard material. In the case of Adrien, both things were mixed in a pile of blood and rock.

''Oh kid...'' He lamented as he carefully posed one shaky hand on the piece of pure rock that covered the lower part of the boy's body, not sure if he should really test his strength against it for fear of hurting the boy further.

It soon became obvious that unless he found the way to move this boulder and hold the delicate materials above them both at the same time, there was no way for him to save the kid. The worst thing was that he was probably half crushed under the rock, even considering the resistance the suit gave him. Antoine's chances were not that much better either. Yeah, he was not as hurt, but he had no way of getting himself out even if he didn't care about saving the kid. There was also no sign of his partner.