Chapter Text
“After her, you fools!”
The young lass, clad in red and black and standing atop a building roof, turned and saluted the purple uniformed man screeching toward her. Her grin was wide, fingers on her brow confident and mocking, and she curtsied for good measure. “A pleasure, Captain. Until next time.” Her words were strong, confident as her pose, as she stepped backward off the roof and disappeared behind it.
When the swarm of guards made it into the cobbled alley behind the tavern an instant later, she was already leagues ahead of them, taking a moment to turn back and blow a kiss at them. They gave chase, trying to take advantage of her cockiness, but she slipped behind the next corner like smoke. The tails of her long coat streamed behind her as she ran, her boots practically dancing silently across the cobbles as the soldiers’ boots were an ungraceful thudding by comparison.
She burst into the town square, narrowly avoiding running face first into an unwitting citizen, and sidestep-running around them with an apologetic, dazzling smile. The guards followed suit a split second later, and she looked back ahead again as she ran, wincing at the crashing clamour that no doubt was one of them crashing into that same poor citizen. At least that would have removed one from her tail, anyway.
More people scrambled out of the way of the chase as she dashed through the town. A few actually tried to tackle her, probably a meaningless attempt at getting in good favor with the town Captain, but she ducked under them and effortlessly avoided their grasping hands all the same, leaving behind nothing but would-be so-called do-gooders dazed and confused at her escape.
She was nearly at the edge of the city when her confidence nearly did her in, looking back to see how many guards were left, and having only moments to react to the cart in her path when she did look ahead again. All the same, she took it in stride, and let her momentum take her feet from under her, sliding right underneath it to the other side. There, she scrambled back upright as fast as possible, cackling at the sound of guards crashing into the cart behind her. The smarter, or faster ones, made their way around it and she took off again with them nearly close enough to nick at her tails with their cutlasses.
But it wasn’t enough, she was still too slick for their grasp. With a mighty leap, she hopped onto a stack of barrels, and danced up and up with wide steps. At the top, she jumped onto another roof and ran smoothly over its uneven surface. Even as the guards poured over the edge to follow along, a few losing their footing and stumbling to the streets below, she made her way as if it were any normal path.
They were finally at the city walls now, and all she had to do was take a leap of faith. Her luck yet to fail her in all these years, she didn’t hesitate as she pushed herself into the air and tucked her legs under her. The guards skidded to a stop at the edge of the roof, before being pushed off anyway as the ones behind them crashed into them, leaving the entire city guard collapsed in a dazed heap on the ground. Above them, she sailed through the air like a bird, clearing the wall with inches to spare.
Outside the city, she hit the grassy ground in a roll, and tumbled right back into a speedy dash, there were angry shouts and swears from within the walls behind her, but the guards would have to make it through the gate and catch back up to her now. As it stood, she was practically home free.
All she had to do now was make it back to her ship.
Open field stretched out before her, the ground tilting up toward the rising cliffs above the ocean. The tall grass tried to snag on her feet, but she pushed through it, even as she stumbled a bit. She still had a hell of a lead, and anything that tripped her up would also trip up her pursuers, making the chase fair game still. The shouts were growing closer, the swarm having made it out of the confines of the city walls, but she wasn’t concerned. The edge of the cliff grew ever nearer, and suddenly, the grass gave way to open blue skies and equally blue ocean, stretching the length of the horizon for as far as the eye could see.
Her eyes grew wide as her grin, and she took a deep breath, reveling in the freshness of the sea that was so undoubtedly hers. The waves were her forever home, her ship her safety net. She was a creature of the ocean, never to stay on land for long.
And now, she would return, successful as always and free as a bird.
Then, with a loud bang, her world spun from beneath her.
The fresh air of the sea turned to pain, the horizon a blur. Her body met the grass, and her blue eyes met the cold, victorious stare of her nemesis.
“Not today, Ladybug. Your luck has finally run out.”
At first she couldn’t tell where she was at all, her head pounding and her vision swam as she tried to focus it. Nonetheless, eventually, the boards under her body came into view, and the lurching of the ship became distinguished from the spinning feeling inside her own sense of balance.
The burning sensation of the bullet wound somewhere in her chest was surprisingly dull, drowned out mostly by the overwhelming nausea rising somewhere under it. Her hands and feet felt numb, and cold. The longer she pulled into consciousness, the more she wished to not be awake at all. With each new sensation she noticed, the more she realized just how badly her luck had abandoned her.
Trying to lift her head did nothing but bring another rush of pain and nausea, and it disturbed the guard somewhere behind her, if the firm boot that appeared in her back meant anything. It pressed down, hard, forcing her beaten body back into a contorted shape on the floor.
“She’s up.” The voice was gruff, straight to the point. Somewhere further away, there was scuffling, and footsteps that drew nearer.
“Good.” That was the Captain, without a doubt. She could recognize his Better Than You tone even if she was actively dying, although that thought might not be too far from the truth considering the situation she was currently in, and how she was feeling worse by the second. “You’ve given us quite the trouble in your time, haven’t you, Ladybug?”
“Hawkmoth.” She just spat back, saying no more. Her tone dripped acid.
“Someone sounds a little bit like a sore loser.”
If she’d been anywhere else, in any better condition, and preferably with the upper hand like normal, she’d have made a quip about an accidental pun just to make him angry. Now, though, she just growled, only to have it descend into a horrifically painful coughing fit. While she convulsed around her injuries, he just laughed.
No sooner had her fit ended did his hand find its way into her hair, dragging her roughly to her feet. Or at least he tried to, her legs wouldn’t support her weight and Hawkmoth ended up just holding her up entirely by her hair, making her already pounding headache burn in agony. Her vision blurred worse than before, but she could still see the dark ocean she was facing.
“Do you know this place, Ladybug?” The Captain growled, and she bit back a remark about not being able to tell up from down right now, much less where in the entire goddamn ocean she happens to have been kidnapped to. “It has a few different names, but I think you’ll know it by its most common. Welcome to The Cataclysm.”
Ladybug’s blood ran cold. Yes, she did know this place. Everyone knew this place. Large ships didn’t leave here without scratches, smaller ships left in pieces, fishing boats didn’t leave at all. If someone was lost overboard here, their crewmates told stories of how they’d be fine one moment, treading water, and the next be violently yanked underneath and never seen again. Some told stories of the water running red after ships being torn apart particularly savagely within its waters. No one even knew what did it, what caused the area to be so dangerous, because even on the sunniest days the water could be black as night. No one knew what lay below the surface.
“Of course you know it, Ladybug.” He chuckled. He must’ve seen the hallowed expression on her face. “So you know no one has ever returned from a dip in these waters alive. Sounds like the perfect place to dispose of a pest, don’t you think?”
Oh, this man was evil. If she died here she was going to return as a ghost and haunt his vindictive ass, mark her words.
“Well, I suppose that’s it then. All’s well that ends well. Greet the monster of the depths for us, won’t you, Ladybug?”
With that, she was tossed ungracefully overboard, her limp body breaking the surface and sinking far, far faster than it should have. Her instinct was to swim up and stay with the air, even disoriented and injured as she was, but she instantly found that impossible. Her arms wouldn’t obey her movement whatsoever, and it took far too long for her sluggish brain to comprehend that her wrists were bound behind her back - by chains.
Trying to kick upwards had the same effect. Her feet were tied too, chained together… and weighted by something heavy. It was dragging her impossibly deep into the pitch black water, her fate looking more and more sealed with each passing second.
She couldn’t breathe, her head was pounding, her chest was burning. The salt water stung her eyes as she opened them and looked desperately around for something, anything, to save herself with. But the water was too dark to see through, the surface was long gone, swallowed up and leaving her in a pure pitch void all around. She couldn’t wiggle out of the chains, she couldn’t swim, she could see her blood leaving a red trail above her for just a second before it diluted and vanished into the dark.
If the water wasn’t already so dark, she’d see the edges of her vision closing in as her body gave up without air. Her head was already too jumbled, too stuffy, and her chest already hurting too badly, for her to notice the other effects of drowning. From her perspective, it was all just an agonizingly long wait for everything to go blank, unable to tell how much longer she would suffer for.
The last thing she saw was green eyes, cat eyes, glowing from the darkness.