the next holders//mlb fanfiction

44//the last battle

"Autumn." El stutters in disbelief as she looks down at her friend holding her hand, terrified of falling down. She tries processing whatever is going on right now, how did Autumn get there? She's- no, she can't be- or can she? "You're..." El starts a question, but Autumn interrupts her "Please don't let go." Never in her entire life has El heard Autumn be this scared, so she tightens her grip, holding her hand as tight as possible "I won't."
Plagg and Tikki are recharging as fast as they can, but it's obvious they won't be in time. El's losing her grip on the Eiffel Tower and every hero is too busy fighting to help them. She watches down to see Autumn and an awful lot of metres to the ground. No one can survive a fall this high. Then El looks up again, she's hardly holding on, as soon as she lets go, it's over. She takes one last look at Plagg, hoping he's finished recharging, but he's not. She looks at the second kwami, the one next to Plagg. She didn't realise that kwami wasn't Tikki, which she had thought at first. There might still be a chance to survive this.
El looks down, her eyes looking into Autumn's "Do you trust me?"
Autumn nods, but adds "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to let go, okay?"
Autumn's eyes widen as she shakes her head.
"It's gonna be fine. If you're scared then close your eyes and pretend you're in a roller coaster. I promise it'll be okay. I promise I won't let go of your hand." El says reassuring, which makes Autumn nod and close her eyes. Then, El lets go of the Eiffel Tower, holding both of Autumn's hands.

Marinette, Adrien, Royal Bee, Serpent, Nago, the cops, the media, the news, their classmates, everyone watches as the two students fall down the Eiffel Tower. There's a lot of screaming and warnings and all heroes try reaching for them, but none of them can be in time to prevent them from hitting the ground.

"Kaalki, full gallop." El says. She hasn't realised she still had the horse miraculous due to all the happenings, but it'll be the thing saving them. "Voyage." She says, making sure they fall right through it, into a pool some blocks away. Autumn gets shaken by the sudden water and opens her eyes. She looks at El, who's still holding her hand as promised.
She lay out a sigh and starts laughing, just to release the stress she's been feeling. Not just the stress of the past minute, but the stress she's been feeling for the past months. It had been too much, but this moment seems to take all of it away. And then, without thinking, she presses her lips onto El's. She's startled at first, pulls back for a few seconds, saying "Is this really the right time?" but then kisses her back. When they're done, they're both smiling bright, their foreheads touching each other, and they still haven't let go of each other's hands. "You ready to do this?" Autumn asks, "I'm ready when you are. Big bug."

Both of them transform and join the battle as soon as possible. It seems like everything is worse than before. A swarm of purple butterflies fly over the civilians, having no mercy on who they do and don't akumatize. Everyone is running and screaming while the few heroes are trying to keep everything under control.
"Lucky charm." Ladybug says, a spray can falls down in her hands. She looks around a few times and then realises the way to defeat HawkMoth with it. "Royal Bee, Serpent, Nago, leave the akumatised victims for now and come here. Turtle and Fox, please keep distracting HawkMoth." Ladybug orders, everyone obeys.

After a quick explanation of the plan, everyone takes their positions and the plan starts. Ladybug and Lady Noire start to fight HawkMoth, releasing Adrien and Marinette from that job. "We'll take it from here. Please make sure to keep the akumas away." Ladybug says. Adrien nor Marinette go against her order and jump down to fight the akumas on the ground.
The moment HawkMoth is fully focused on Ladybug and Lady Noire, Nago uses their windpower to come close and spray the paint from Ladybug's lucky charm in HawkMoth's face. She tries getting it out of her eyes, as it stings, making her forget about her surroundings and Royal Bee jumps in and uses his venom to paralyse HawkMoth. Serpent is still hidden, patiently waiting in case something goes wrong. Ladybug carefully walks up to HawkMoth, afraid she might still move, but succeeds in taking her miraculous. She then walks up to Lady Noire and says "Use your cataclysm on it."
"But that's a-"
"I know. But it's most likely where she put the akuma to boost her powers. Besides, my lucky charm will fix it. I hope."
Lady Noire nods and uses the cataclysm as asked. Nago then hands Ladybug the spray can, which she throws up in the air to fix everything. She then opens her yo-yo and catches all the butterflies she can see, there are a lot of them and even after making sure she caught all of them, she's still afraid she missed some.

Lady Noire, Serpent and Nago jump down next to Ladybug, who had joined up with Adrien and Marinette. Lady Noire makes sure Lila can't escape, but Adrien quickly hands Lila to the cops. Ladybug gives Marinette the butterfly miraculous, then stays awkwardly silent. "I should give those back, too, I believe." She says, getting her earrings, but Marinette stops her. "HawkMoth may be defeated, but there're still different types of crime in Paris. You should keep those." Marinette says smiling. Autumn, who's back to her civilian identity, smiles and nods. She gives Tikki a cookie then turns around, seeing her hero friends all together.
"We did it." She says, she still can't believe it. The others nod.
"Also, why didn't you tell us you were Ladybug? That would've explained so much and you just kept it a secret all this time." Roux then says, halfly mad but mostly joking. "And you. I could've expected Autumn, but you. I never saw that coming." Roux then turns to El, then they continue their sentence with a quiet whisper "But thanks for saving Paris."

Then, what they could've expected, the media starts running towards them. Flooding them with questions. "You're Autumn and El, right? How did you start being a hero?" "Did you really defeat Hawkmoth?" "Isn't Lila Rossi your foster mother, Lady Noire?"
Marinette and Adrien have already left, leaving the five students to defend themselves from the media. Royal Bee, Serpent and Nago immediately jump in and try to keep the media away. All of them had noticed this wasn't the time for questions and answers.
Because El had fallen onto her knees, on the verge of completely breaking down, while still trying to keep herself together. The realisation has just now hit her. She lost it. All of it. Just like before. First her biological family, now her legal mom.
Even though they've won the fight, it feels like she's the one that lost.