Author's Notes:

Bit of a dark one this time...

What would happen if Ladybug and Chat Noir were too late to save an Akumatized's victim?

Enjoy...

MIRACULOUS LADYBUG: "COIN FLIP"

by Mythril Moth

Kung Food

They were too late.

The ensorcelled Alec and Chef Césaire had held them up too long. They arrived on the roof to find Kung Food alone with a bubbling, steaming pool of soup.

Chat Noir looked around wildly. "Where...where's Chloé?"

Kung Food threw back his head and laughed. "The main ingredient of my Brat Soup, she is cooking splendidly!"

Ladybug stared in horror at a snapped rope that dangled above the soup. Her eyes widened. "No..."

Chat Noir's jaw tightened. "We have to save her..."

"IT IS TOO LATE!" Kung Food bellowed triumphantly. He thrust a meaty hand into the soup and grabbed hold of a long blond ponytail.

The girl he pulled out of the boiling soup was clearly already dead.

Ladybug and Chat Noir paled, glancing at each other. "We...we failed," Ladybug said in a quavering voice.

"We couldn't have..."

Kung Food let Chloé fall back into the soup with a loud splash, then pulled a giant pizza sword from his bag. "And now for you two..."

Lucky Charm could fix destroyed buildings, hypnotized people, severe injuries, and even an Eiffel Tower that had been sliced in half.

It could not, as it turned out, bring back the dead.

Rain fell in a gentle curtain over Paris. Beneath black umbrellas, mourners gathered around as a priest delivered a eulogy over a closed casket.

"Chloé...she was a terrible person, but she didn't deserve this," Alya said. Her mother was among those present, along with everyone who had been present on the day of Chloé's death—except for Cheng Sifu, who had fallen ill and returned to China.

Adrien Agreste stood with his father, who looked grave as he studied the casket. "Such tragedies would not happen if Ladybug and Chat Noir would simply surrender to their foe," Gabriel said softly.

Adrien gaped at him. "Father, how can you say that? Ladybug and Chat Noir are heroes!"

"And yet they failed to save this girl's life," Gabriel said.

"Excuse me, but this is not the time or place for this argument," a gruff voice said to their side.

Mayor Bourgeois had seen better days. He was haggard; his clothes were unkempt and he wasn't wearing his sash. Much of his hair had turned even more grey since Chloé's death, and his face was sharply lined and sunken.

At the back of the crowd, Marinette stood with a bitterly weeping Sabrina, trying her best to console the distraught girl, a task made difficult by the guilt she felt.

Her first true failure as Ladybug...

True, she had stumbled with Stoneheart, but she'd made it right in the end.

This...

There was no making amends for this.

Chloé Bourgeois was dead because Ladybug hadn't been fast enough.

No...Chloé Bourgeois was dead because Marinette had provoked her into throwing a tantrum that caused Cheng Sifu to be Akumatized.

As Ladybug and as Marinette, she had failed...

Her nails dug into her palm as she clenched a fist at her side.

I'm sorry, Chloé. Hawk Moth will pay for this...and then I'll take off the Miraculous and never put it on again.

Miraculous Ladybug is the intellectual property of Zagtoon, Method Animation, Toei Animation, and Thomas ASTRUC. This intellectual property is used without permission with no intent to profit from said use. The unique content contained on this page is the property of Mythril Moth, and redistribution of this content without express permission is strongly discouraged.