Chapter One

It was a beautiful, sunny morning in Paris. Summer sun glinted off of open windows, birds chirped, people smiled at each other in the streets, and Ladybug was trying not to tear her hair out in frustration.

"That one was awful!"

"I think you meant paw-ful."

"No! I meant awful!"

In truth, the banter between the two superheroes had been the only thing interesting about this particular akuma attack. The woman was dressed in all black and hadn't spoken a word. She would jump forward, try to grab their miraculous, fail, then jump away before they could pin her down. She had kept it up for almost an hour, not trying to exact revenge on whoever had upset her or even destroy anything. This, of course, made it very difficult to try to figure out where the akuma was hiding, but it also meant the civilians weren't panicking, which was a bonus.

"Should we try to split up?" Ladybug asked. She had landed on top of a building to catch her breath, and her partner landed lightly beside her. "Try to catch her in between us?" Across the street, the akumatized victim sat on a ledge, watching them. She was head to toe in black. Her hair was black, though Ladybug wasn't sure if it was naturally that color or not, and it hung loosely down to her shoulders. Cat Noir had informed her that her irises were black as well. She studied the duo impassively, waiting. It was unnerving.

Cat Noir thought about her suggestion. "I'd rather not," he finally said. "We really don't know if she's capable of anything else yet."

Ladybug wanted to sit down. Even with the extra stamina that the suits gave them, this was exhausting, but even though people weren't panicking, she didn't want them to see her taking a break. They needed to finish this before either of them or their miraculous ran out of energy. "Should we try Lucky Charm?"

Cat Noir shrugged. "I was thinking maybe fake splitting up."

"How's that different than actual splitting up?"

The akuma victim hopped off the ledge and landed among the crowd on the street. People skittered away, but the woman in black just stood there, looking up at them.

"So you go pretend you're leaving and then actually go hide, and maybe she'll try a different tactic when it's one-on-one, and then you come out and grab her when her back is turned."

Ladybug huffed. "I'm not running."

"Well, I'm not using you as bait, My Lady."

The woman in black crouched, ready to spring. Ladybug started spinning her yo-yo as Cat Noir readied his baton, leveling it like a staff.

"I don't see a difference between your fake splitting up and real splitting up." She was about to say something about his comment about bait, but the woman leapt up. If there was one thing they had learned about her, it was that she could jump. They stepped in closer, shoulder to shoulder to catch her as she landed, but she twisted in midair, landing squarely in front of Cat Noir, swiping at him. He stepped back, trying to keep his balance. Her fingertips almost touched his face, and Ladybug felt her stomach lurch.

"Duck!" she yelled to him as she whipped her yoyo around. He did, but unfortunately, the akuma woman did, too. Ladybug suddenly had no target to latch onto and lost her balance. Her stomach twisted again as she pitched forward. Black hands darted forward to catch her, but too late she realized it wasn't her partner. Cold gloves caught her shoulder and neck, then slid up her face, brushing past her earrings. Cold. The woman's touch froze Ladybug's breath in her throat.

Then there was something warm around her middle. Cat Noir's shout sounded distant as he pulled her away. As the woman's black gloves left her face, Ladybug felt even more heat being pulled her, along with... something else.

"Are you all right?"

Ladybug didn't answer. She pushed her partner away and started reeling in her yoyo, preparing to throw it again, but the woman had already jumped away and was running across the next rooftop.

"I'm not letting her get away again," she said.

Cat Noir caught her wrist. "Are you okay?" Ladybug tried to shake him off, but he held her firm. "What's wrong?"

Ladybug touched her free hand to her face, relieved that her mask was still in place, then rubbed her palm over where the woman had touched her, trying to get rid of the memory of the cold fingers. She had taken something. What was it?

"I don't know," she finally said, turning to face him. He wasn't looking at her, instead keeping an eye on the woman, who was getting farther and farther away. "Something doesn't feel right. Do I look different?"

He spared her a glance. "I think you look great."

"Wonderful," she said, twisting her wrist out of Cat Noir's grip. "Then let's finally catch her."

"I'm getting pretty tired of his game of cat and mouse myself," he said, eyes back on the akuma victim.

Something was wrong. Where the woman had before tried to grab their miraculous, now she only ran. They were losing ground. Wind whipped around Ladybug as she swung, her hair tickling her face. She got a temporary break from Cat Noir's flirting as he focused on matching her pace, but they never caught back up. Ladybug focused on moving forward, trying to drown out the hollow feeling that something was missing.

"We're going to lose her," Ladybug said. They had stopped on a high rise, and she could barely make out the speck that was their target in the slanting afternoon sun. How long had this been going on for? And what had the woman taken from her?

"Well, I'm kind of glad that it's too late for us to split up," Cat Noir said, breathing heavily. "I'd hate to be separated from a lady as lovely as yourself."

Tired of keeping up appearances for the civilians and just plain tired, Ladybug sat down on the ledge of the roof. She pointedly ignored Cat Noir's comment. "What should we do then? Someone must have noticed we're missing by now." Cat Noir turned his face away from her and shrugged. "And I have things I have to do," she continued. Like study for her math final. Help in the bakery. Work on that design that had been bothering her. Daydream about Adrien.

Traffic had picked up below them. Cars coughed in the streets and there was an occasional honk. Rush hour.

"There's nowhere I'd rather be than here with you, LB," Cat Noir said. "But you're right. This obviously isn't working. We can't catch someone who's faster than us."

"We might have to regroup to set some sort of trap for her." She grimaced. "That'll be difficult, not knowing what she wants."

"I have an answer to that." Cat Noir snapped his fingers. "The internet! It's a magical place that has the answer to everything."

Ladybug stood up. She had completely lost sight of the black speck. "Right. I'm sure YouTube has a how-to on setting up a trap to catch your magical enemies."

"It does? I hope Hawk Moth doesn't watch that one. But I was actually thinking about the Ladyblog."

Of course. How could she have forgotten? "Trust Alya to already have an exclusive with the victim's family." It really was the best idea. The akuma didn't seem intent on hurting anyone. They could come back later, fully refreshed and with a solid plan. But...

"Are you okay with just leaving her loose?" he asked.

"Not really," she said. "We don't know..." she gestured widely.

He caught her drift. "Anything," he said. "Where she's going to go."

"Or if she's just waiting for us to detransform." Ladybug shrunk in on herself at the thought. Did the woman have a plan? She had so many advantages over them. Ladybug felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

She nodded. "There's nothing else we can do right now, just wait for her next move and be ready. We'll both keep an eye on the news and check back in tomorrow. Sound good, kitty?"

"Sounds purrfect. You know, it would be really helpful if we had an easy way to contact each other."

"I agree," she said, holding up her yoyo and smirking at him. "Good thing we have these."

"Oh, come on!"

But she had already thrown the weapon and was swinging away. "No phone numbers!"

"How about your email?" he called back. She was already too far away to answer.

As soon as she had swung behind a building, the smile slipped off her face. By the time she had found a deserted alley to destransform unseen, her skin was crawling.

"Any idea what she did?" Marinette asked as Tikki floated toward her purse.

"I didn't notice anything," the kwami said. "Maybe it was just a feeling?" She slipped into the purse, no doubt looking for the cookies Marinette had stashed in there. It had been an exhausting day for both of them.

She should have been pulling out her phone to check the blog. She should be doing research. She should get back home before she had even more questions to answer. But all she was able to do was put her arms around herself and shiver in the building's dark shadow.

What had that woman taken?

Author note: Hi? I'm hoping to update this thing every few days, but I'm a huge procrastinator. Ha ha. I actually have a bunch of ideas that will probably be irrelevant as soon as season two comes out, so I do need to get a move on with writing my stories before it's too late. Uhh... does anything else need to go in these author note thingies?