The city had been on lockdown for over three hours by the time Chat Noir (recharged, after a particularly dangerous sprint through the streets to find a secure enough hiding spot) managed to work his way into the particularly dense section of butterflies surrounding the Le Monarque. He had to be on incredibly high alert now, since there was such a high chance that he would be spotted. Now more than ever he missed his partner. Having someone to watch his back was really nice.

Speaking of which, there was still no sign of Ladybug. Chat Noir had de-butterflied what felt like dozens of red butterflies by that point. He had been particularly excited to find a Painted Lady because, well, Ladybug was his Lady and it made sense, but it ended up being some minor royalty from England who was none too thrilled to have been turned into a giant flying insect.

Chat Noir was pretty certain that her screams were still ringing in his ears.

While most of the butterflies that he stumbled upon were random citizens caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, others were people he recognized. Chloe, Rose, Nino and Nathaniel had all been turned back early on. He found Sabrina and Juleka midway through the day, a Milbert's Tortoiseshell and a Anise Swallowtail respectively. His other classmates remained stubbornly missing, though that perhaps wasn't surprising given the sheer number of butterflies there had been.

Had been and still were, if he was being entirely honest with himself. Or maybe it just seemed that way since he was getting closer to Le Monarque and the butterflies were just naturally denser near the supervillain. He was getting exhausted, more mentally than physically. It was rare for a fight with an akuma to drag on like this, though it had happened a few times before.

He'd always had Ladybug next to him to make the downtime more interesting, though.

Still, it wasn't like he had any other options besides pressing on. The city wouldn't be able to run normally while the Le Monarque still roamed free.

A flurry of butterflies streaming upwards caught Chat Noir's attention. He plastered himself against the wall of the alley he had hidden himself in as he kept a careful eye on the butterflies. Something had disturbed them. Hopefully it was the Le Monarque getting impatient and not a civilian wandering out into the streets or worse, an attack squad sent to sniff him out and bring him back to the akuma.

Even though the butterflies were unnerving him (he was going to punch Hawkmoth right in his stupid face when they finally met for thinking that it was a good idea to have human sized insects that was so creepy), Chat Noir found himself creeping forward. He felt better being on the offensive anyway, and if any butterflies had spotted him then it was better to just keep on moving. He found himself drawn forward, darting towards the cloud of butterflies instead of away, careful to stay hidden the whole time. Chat Noir stayed on high alert, all of his nerves positively buzzing as he got closer.

He was wound tighter than a tightrope at the circus when a bone-chilling cackle lit up his nerves like lightning.

"You can run and hide but you can't win, kitten," Le Monarque sing-songed, spinning in the middle of the Champs-Elysees in front of the Arc de Triomphe. His cape fluttered behind him in the wind, orange and black catching the sun's light as the fabric twisted. White dots stood out against the thick black lines edging the pattern.

Chat Noir squinted. That pattern on his cape seemed awfully familiar, almost like it was mimicking a butterfly's wing pattern. There was an orange butterfly like that, he was sure of it...

Suddenly it clicked. Le Monarque. The Monarch butterfly. Duh.

"Are you looking for your partner?" Le Monarque called out again, stopping Chat Noir dead in his tracks. "Good luck finding her! She's in my butterfly collection now!"

Surely the akuma didn't know he was close by? Chat Noir checked around himself. There weren't any butterflies nearby that could see him. He and Le Monarque hadn't been close together for ages. He didn't have a tracker on him (he had checked).

If the akuma had super-smelling senses, he was going on strike.

His shoulders slumped in relief when the supervillain made a disgusted noise and spat on the ground. "Still not anywhere close, scaredy-cat? You'll have to come here eventually. And Le Monarque will be waiting for you when you do!"

...apparently it wasn't just in movies and cartoons where supervillains liked to monologue to thin air. Le Monarque must just really like the sound of his own voice.

While the supervillain was distracted, Chat Noir took the opportunity to peer around the open square. There were fewer butterflies than he had expected (granted, he had expected every square meter of the ground to be covered in giant butterflies so there was a lot of room for improvement), but dashing out to attack Le Monarque would still be suicide.

As crazy as Ladybug insisted he was sometimes, there was no way Chat Noir was even going to try a run like that.

The butterflies here were drab, like Le Monarque didn't want them overshadowing him and his colorful cape. There were white butterflies and pale yellow ones, a couple in washed-out blue and a handful of drab brown butterflies.

A flash of color caught Chat Noir's eye as he leaned a little further out. One of the butterflies on the Arc de Triomphe itself was a brilliant red, eons more vibrant than any of the butterflies surrounding it. If he ignored the face (that was not getting any less creepy), the butterfly was actually pretty gorgeous.

That was his Lady, he was sure of it. Why else would Le Monarque keep her so close?

The biggest problem was that there was no possible way he would be able to see the pattern on her wings well enough from his position to identify her species. He would have to circle around and climb up a building, all without being seen, to get into a good enough position to see her.

Praying that she wouldn't move, Chat Noir turned and sprinted off as stealthily as he could. He took the back alleys as much as he could as he moved, just so he could stay out of sight. He was so close to getting Ladybug back (and hopefully wrapping this entire fight up) that there was no way that he was going to risk a misstep now.

Claiming his spot took some time as well. Several butterflies perched on the rooftop Chat Noir wanted to claim as his own, so he had to identify all of them first. Two ended up being random civilians who were startled to be suddenly de-butterflied but who kept calm, and the other was the mayor.

To absolutely no one's surprise, he did not keep calm. Chat Noir had to beat a hasty (temporary) retreat while the butterflies came to investigate. They didn't stay long, much to his surprise. The mayor was shuttled back off to become a butterfly yet again (much to the Mayor's horror, if the yells and threats were anything to go by), and the area fell quiet once again.

It felt like a trap, but there was no other way he could get Ladybug back. Chat Noir would just have to have all of his senses on high alert.

Getting back to his spot took much longer than Chat Noir would have liked-what if Le Monarque moved her- but finally he managed to wedge himself into a suitable hiding spot behind a chimney and look down at the square. Ladybug had only drifted a couple meters to the left during the chaos, making Chat Noir breathe a sigh of relief. He wasn't in any hurry to repeat that entire performance again.

"All right, time to identify you," Chat Noir murmured, pulling the by now-ratty book out from under his belt. He really hoped that Ladybug's Miraculous Cleaning Light would fix it, because there was no way he wanted to hand a book in this condition back to Mr. Johnson. "Please let there only be one butterfly like this. I don't want to be this close to Butterfly Central any longer than necessary."

There was not only one butterfly species that matched Ladybug. There were several.

Worse yet, when Chat Noir looked up, he saw Ladybug-butterfly fluttering up into the air, drifting in his direction.

No time to figure out which one she is. Just guess and hope to be right.

"It's a Euphydryas editha," Chat Noir guessed blindly, pointing to Ladybug-butterfly. "Please, please be right."

There was no poof of red smoke. Instead, the butterfly, attracted by the movement of his arm, started to move in Chat Noir's direction. He only just resisted the urge to swear.

"No? It's a Euphydryas chalcedona, then!" Chat Noir guessed again, looking at the next species in the book. "No? Really? Oh, come on! How am I supposed to know if I'm getting the species wrong or if I'm pronouncing the scientific name wrong? There's no way to tell the difference!"

No one answered him. He had expected that.

"How are all of these different species?" he continued in panicked frustration when he came upon the third page of seemingly identical butterflies. "What, is one red spot different? Why not just combine the stupid things? They all look the same anyways." He frantically paged back and forth as the butterfly he suspected might be his Lady drifted towards him. The descriptions below the photographs were no help; after all, English wasn't his strongest subject and for the love of all things holy he did not have time to translate right now.

"This is ridiculous," Chat Noir muttered, scowling. "Can't it just be one species? It's not like anyone can tell the difference except maybe the butterflies and no one is asking them." Taking a deep breath (the butterfly was getting really close), he pointed again and announced, "It's a Euphydryas gillettii!"

For a long second there was nothing. The butterfly swooped closer, almost on top of Chat Noir's head. He closed his eyes, ready for the worst.

A puff of smoke and the thud of a body landing on top of his forced Chat Noir's eyes back open. He blinked down at himself and met Ladybug's wide, confused eyes.

"Chat Noir? What happened?" Ladybug pushed herself up off of him and looked around, completely disoriented. "Where are we? How did I get here?"

"Careful, my lady. Don't let Le Monarque see you." As gently as he could, Chat Noir tugged her back up against him, out of sight of the still-present akuma. They would be lucky if Le Monarque hadn't noticed Ladybug's disappearance. "You got turned into a butterfly. I changed you back."

Chat Noir was surprised by the force with which Ladybug hugged him. His partner was practically squeezing the life out of him.

"You were a gorgeous butterfly, if that helps any," Chat Noir volunteered in a strangled voice when Ladybug didn't show any signs of letting go. "Except for the face. Those didn't get any less creepy, even after staring at them for hours."

Ladybug finally let him breath again as she loosened her arms and let out a snort at his words. "Are you going to have nightmares after this is over, kitten?"

"Definitely."

Ladybug giggled at that before getting down to business. "Did you have a plan in place? I don't want to throw you off if you did."

"My only plan was to reduce the butterfly army and find you, my lady." Chat Noir flashed a smile at her. "Beyond that, my only plan was to not get caught."

"Well, you did that." Ladybug glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe we should retreat and regroup and you can catch me up on what you've been doing. I don't know how long the fight has been going on-"

"Hours," Chat Noir supplied helpfully.

"-but we should probably wrap it up soon." Ladybug glanced up at the sun and let out an exasperated sigh. "At least lots of people have been missing all day. I don't think I would have been able to come up with an excuse for missing so long."

Chat Noir nodded in agreement as they started their careful retreat. "Yeah. As much as I hate these kinds of akumas, I like having a premade excuse for missing for long periods of time."

They fell quiet as they crept past a group of resting butterflies before darting down into a metro station. It was cooler down below the ground, which meant that the heat-loving butterflies would be staying away.

"What time is it now?" Ladybug asked, glancing around the station. There weren't any clocks on the walls. "You said it's been hours, but, like, two hours? Three?"

"Four, maybe?" Chat Noir guessed. "It was lunchtime a while ago. My kwami got to eat, but I didn't."

Ladybug ignored his kitten eyes as she gasped. "Four? That's awful! I'll use Lucky Charm as soon as we go back out. How big is the butterfly army?"

Chat Noir grinned and straightened up proudly. "It's mostly just down to the butterflies around Le Monarque. That's what I've been doing all afternoon- freeing butterflies."

"Good job, chaton!" Ladybug praised, reaching over for a coveted chin-scratch. Chat Noir leaned into it happily but as always, it ended far too soon. "Okay, so we have a smaller army to deal with, but one or two butterflies by themselves could seriously get in the way of our fighting."

"We could always try to lure a couple away from Le Monarque at a time," Chat Noir suggested. "Otherwise he could just turn them back into butterflies."

Ladybug was frowning. "We could, but that could take a while. Maybe we should wait on a plan until we see what my Lucky Charm is." Not like they ever really did it any other way.

"Planning on the fly? I like it!" Chat Noir was already on his feet and headed for the stairs. He only paused for a moment when a butterfly's shadow slid over the stairs. "Uh, do you want to maybe head to a different station to head back up? I think maybe Le Monarque's gotten closer."

Ladybug gave a quick nod of agreement as more butterflies flew over the station and together, they tore away down the empty tunnels. Ladybug led the way, since she was more familiar with the metro system than Chat Noir was.

"This has been such a long day," Chat Noir panted as they tore past the next station. Ladybug, ever the cautious one, had apparently decided to go several stations' distance away to make sure they wouldn't be hit by Le Monarque the second they poked their heads above ground. "I'm going to need to eat the second we finish."

"Head in the game, Chat Noir," Ladybug called over her shoulder. She vaulted up onto the platform the second it came into view. "Fight now, food later."

"I've been saying that for over two hours now," he grumbled, but followed regardless. They tore up the metro station's steps, winced as the sun's glare nearly blinded them, and came to a slightly unsteady stop.

"It's all clear," Ladybug said, glancing around. Without hesitating, she grabbed her yo-yo and tossed it up in the air. "Miraculous Ladybug!"

There was a flash of light, and then a large container tumbled down out of the air. Ladybug only just managed to catch it before it hit the ground. Backpack-like straps dangled from one side, and a hose and nozzle came off the other side.

"What is that even?" Chat Noir asked in confusion as Ladybug inspected the tank and the nozzle on it. "What are we supposed to do with it, throw it at the akuma?"

"I don't think so. If it were just for that, it wouldn't have all of this extra stuff on it." Ladybug pushed a button experimentally, releasing a small cloud of gas. She stuck her hand into it and immediately recoiled, nearly dropping the can in the process. "Ugh! It's freezing!"

Chat Noir perked up, interested. "It's freezing? Really?" He waved his hand through the remnants of the cloud. He could just feel the icy bite of the gas through the material of his suit. "Liquid nitrogen! That's super cool!" He grinned. "Quite literally."

"Funny, funny." Ladybug hoisted the container onto her back and adjusted the straps. "I guess we'll have to get closer and figure out how to use it on the fly." She sighed. "As usual."

They had been so focused on the liquid nitrogen that they didn't notice the pale grey butterfly floating slowly closer until it was practically on top of them. Both superheroes yelped and ducked, trying to twist away from the giant insect. Ladybug sprayed the gas at the butterfly blindly, trying to create a bit of a distraction for them to get away.

What they didn't expect was the butterfly's wings locking up and the insect dropping to the ground like a stone. Even as they stared, it didn't move.

"Oh," Ladybug breathed. "Butterflies can't fly when they get too close. We take out Le Monarque's butterfly army like that."

"Purrfect," Chat Noir said cheerfully. "So you'll spray and I'll go after the clipboard? That has to be what the akuma is hiding in."

Ladybug's response was a sharp nod, and then they were off again. It didn't take long for Ladybug to figure out that she could shoot the liquid nitrogen in a narrow, far-reaching stream by adjusting the nozzle, letting her take out butterfly after butterfly in quick succession as they charged forward. Any butterflies that rose up to challenge them were taken down by a quick squeeze of the trigger on the gas tank. Adrien wasn't fully convinced that liquid nitrogen normally behaved that way (his memories of it from a homeschool science unit mostly involved a chilly cloud and Nathalie swearing up a storm when it hit her skin. She took him out for ice cream as a bribe to not tell his dad.), but he supposed that kwami magic probably played a big role in making the gas behave in the way it did.

They didn't know how long it would take for the butterflies to recover. There was no time to look back or waste a second though on it.

"I see Le Monarque up ahead," Chat Noir called as he dodged a falling butterfly. "He looks furious and there aren't any butterflies up there. I think he sent them all this way to try to take us down before we got to him."

As much of a pain as army-making akumas were, they always tended to be significantly weaker in one-on-one fights. Their ability to fight was concentrated in their army, not in them. There were exceptions, of course, but

"We still have to get close to him without getting turned into butterflies," Ladybug pointed out. "Maybe we can use the gas to confuse him. We'll just have to make sure that it doesn't blind us more than him."

Chat Noir winced. Yeah, liquid nitrogen and bare, exposed eyes...yeah, not good. Unless it wasn't them getting it in their eyes.

"Maybe spray it right in his eyes," Chat Noir suggested. It was cruel, but it wasn't like Le Monarque would remember it after Ladybug's Cleaning Light. "That'll blind him long enough for use to get close, but hopefully won't use enough gas to get in our way."

Ladybug gave a sharp nod to show that she had heard, but didn't pause to respond.

"Oh, so the little superheroes have come out of hiding!" Le Monarque taunted, readying his clipboard. His fingers raised, ready to swipe and send the all-too-familiar beams of light at them. "Ready to come and fight me?"

"Ready to stop hiding behind your butterfly army?" Chat Noir called back. "You weren't doing your own fighting before. We were just evening the playing field."

Le Monarque snarled and the heroes charged. They dodged back and forth as he sent flashes of light at them but never hit. With a yell, Ladybug shot a short spray of the liquid nitrogen at him.

Le Monarque flinched just long enough for the heroes to get closer. The second his head came back up, Ladybug darted in and sprayed again, aiming for the eyes. Chat Noir winced in misplaced sympathy- there was a reason people wore protective goggles when working with liquid nitrogen- before he quashed his reaction and joined Ladybug, ready to take any hits if Le Monarque recovered faster than they expected.

Except he wasn't behaving like they expected, not at all.

Instead of doubling over in frozen-eyeball hell, Le Monarque was moving in almost slow motion. His arms were coming up to grasp at his face, but they were moving incredibly slowly through the cloud of gas that surrounded him. The longer he was in contact with the liquid nitrogen, the slower he moved. The purple outline of Hawkmoth's mask flickered in and out of focus over Le Monarque's face, like the connection wasn't quite working.

"Chat Noir, knock the clipboard out of his hand!" Ladybug called, dancing around Le Monarque with her gas nozzle clutched tightly in her hands. Her earrings gave a sharp beep- was that the four minute warning, or the three? "I don't want to get too close; ladybugs react the same way to the cold as butterflies do. My hand seized up earlier when I stuck it in the nitrogen."

Chat Noir didn't even wait for her explanation to end. Extending his baton, he swung towards Le Monarque and swatted the clipboard out of his practically-frozen hand. It was practically child's play, with Le Monarque frozen the way he was. The clipboard clattered to the ground and slid, coming to a stop at Ladybug's feet.

Ever so slowly, Le Monarque's hand reversed course, reaching out to grab for his clipboard. Too slow.

Ladybug stomped down on the possessed clipboard, snapping it into pieces. The akuma fluttered upwards for only half a second before Ladybug caught it in her yo-yo.

"Thank everything holy," Chat Noir sighed as Ladybug released the purified butterfly seconds later. He stepped forward to help her get her Lucky Charm off of her back. She tossed it into the air as though it weighed nothing and they fist-bumped as her army of glittering ladybugs swarmed throughout the city, turning butterflies back into people and repairing the damage that Le Monarque had caused. The sound of faint cheering carried through the air, making both heroes grin. It wouldn't take long for Paris to get back to normal.

"I should get back to my class," Chat Noir said as Ladybug's earrings beeped again. He shot her a concerned look. "Will you be able to get back to wherever you came from before your time runs out?"

Ladybug waved off his concern. "No, but people have been misplaced all across the city because they were turned into butterflies. It'll make my story more believable if I turn up all the way over here." She smiled at him. "I'll talk to Mr. John- er, the akuma victim- and then find somewhere to detransform. You go on ahead."

Chat Noir left with a salute and a wave. He wasn't in too much of a rush since he hadn't used Cataclysm and really, did he have to get all the way back out to the butterfly gardens by himself? Like Ladybug had said, her army of ladybugs hadn't brought people back to where they had been (though it seemed to have at least managed to get people off of rooftops, something that Chat Noir was very thankful for). Most everyone who had been a butterfly had ended up far from their original location.

So it would only strengthen his excuse if he were suddenly back in the city, kilometers away from where he was supposed to be.

It didn't take long at all for Chat Noir to detransform back into Adrien, and it only took minutes for the Gorilla to pick up Adrien after being called. Even though he wanted nothing more than to stop by home for something to eat, Adrien resisted the urge to ask. He had his lunch in his bag at the gardens, and it was fully possible that people who had actually been turned into butterflies hadn't even realized that they had missed lunch.

"Wait, pull over for a second," Adrien suddenly blurted as they passed a pedestrian on the sidewalk. "That's one of my classmates."

The Gorilla obediently pulled to a stop and Adrien didn't waste any time rolling down his window and waving to Marinette as she came up the street. She waved back as soon as she noticed him.

"Did you get turned into a butterfly too?" Adrien asked as she approached the car. "Do you want a ride back out to the butterfly gardens? I left my bag out there."

Marinette beamed at him. "Oh, that would be great! My bag is out there too, and maybe we can finish up the worksheet. Can we stop by the bakery first, though? I wanted to make sure my parents are all right."

The Gorilla nodded, and five minutes later they were pulling away from the bakery, each armed with a delicious pastry provided by Marinette's parents. The Gorilla was humming happily as he nibbled away at his raspberry-filled pastry as he drove. Adrien had only just managed to refrain from scarfing his own treat down when he got it.

"Have you seen anyone else from our class?" Adrien asked as the Gorilla pulled onto the highway and sped up. "I'm guessing people ended up all over the place."

"I saw Chloe going into her father's hotel," Marinette said as she licked powdered sugar off the tips of her fingers. "And I passed Rose. She had her bags when she got hit, so she wasn't going to go back. She also said that she and Nino had started with the identification stuff, so they could do the rest at school."

Adrien winced.

Right. That.

At least they only had to do five butterflies. It wouldn't kill him.

The project that Madam Mendeleiev assigned the next day- identifying 100 Eurasian butterflies, due in a week's time-just might.

This story is now complete! I hope you enjoyed it.