Damian Al Ghul Wayne had minutes.

Minutes he didn’t have the luxury of spending on travel.

He didn’t have time to recharge the Speed Force battery; the suit could only offer him its baseline capabilities: super strength and flight. It wouldn’t be the same as the exhilarating power of super-speed.

Think, Damian, think!

His focus snapped to the HUD, which showed his chosen sister, Maya, fighting for her life as the Leviathan soldiers.

The cloned Adrien Agrestes attacked her relentlessly.

The comms crackled.

“Damian,” Maya’s strained voice cut through the chaos. “I had so many things to say to you.”

She leaped away from an attacker, but the onslaught was too much; she was taking damage.

“Nooru was recharging too, but Nathalie is fierce.” As she spoke, the HUD showed a dreadful status update:

Nathalie Sancoeur had seized the Butterfly Miraculous brooch and the exhausted kwami, Nooru, in the process.

Maya was bloodied.

Nathalie shot her in the stomach.

She lurched, collapsing against the damp stone wall.

Damian screamed her name in his mind. He had already called Goliath for her rescue, but it was too late.

Maya’s voice was weak, but held a raw clarity. “You know, Dames. Goliath, Jon, Kathy, Suren and you………….

You’re my chosen family, right?

From the year of atonement and the Dinosaur Island.

Your old man, even your mother, Talia... God, Talia, a slave worker. She’s like a mother to me.

I love all of you, but this is the end for me.

After all I did... being a villain... Nobody... to being Chrysalis. Please forgive me.

For all the people of Paris.

But this is the only way.

See you in the endless void, Dames. I... love... you.”

“Maya! NOOOOOOOOO!“

The comms abruptly snapped silent. The feed from the Catacombs went black as the bomb exploded, the ceiling crashing down.

The remaining Leviathan soldiers, along with Nathalie Sancoeur, were trapped in a fresh grave of rubble.

Damian’s legs faltered. He sank to his knees in the Louvre. “No, this is not supposed to go this way... This is not supposed to be this way!”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s bloodshot, teary eyes were wide, and snot ran down her face as she cradled the beaten, wounded body of the clone she knew as Adrien Agreste.

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the original, or that he was a clone; he was Adrien to her, and hurting him wasn’t going to happen on her watch.

His bloodied, broken body was heavy in her arms. She caressed his cheek, humming a soft, familiar lullaby to ease his pain, her focus entirely on him, blocking out the sound of Damian’s frantic efforts nearby.

Adrien’s eyes fluttered open.

“Marinette, I’m sorry, I tried. I’m not the original. Nathalie has my amok, the object with the power to control me

Us

But we still keep the memories of the original Adrien, and now...”

His voice faded as he looked directly at her.

Marinette’s gentle smile displayed both relief and deep sadness, but it vanished when she witnessed a terrifying transformation:

Adrien’s body was breaking apart, gradually turning into a fine, golden dust.

“What’s happening? Adrien!”

“It’s too late,” he whispered, lifting a hand to touch her face.

“I’m going to vanish soon.”

He took her hand, his eyes filled with a desperate confession.

“The original, together with Ladybug, had defeated Hawkmoth—my father.

In doing so, he sacrificed himself to save Paris and Ladybug.

I’m sorry for how I treated you back then; I was hurting.

Your genuine connection, your obsessive love... it mirrored my father’s grief too much, so I ignored you.

I’m sorry that I cannot reciprocate that kind of love.

The original was gone, but Nathalie, in her grief-stricken, twisted love, revived an army of us.

Nathalie is hurting too.

Leviathan is using us.

And the people behind this conspiracy, they’re bigger than Paris.

The phone... keep it away from them.

I’m sorry, Marinette.”

He cupped her face and gave her one last, gentle kiss on the lips.

As the kiss ended, the last bit of golden dust fell from his hand.

He disappeared without a trace, just like the other clone soldiers spread out on the museum floor.

Marinette didn’t scream.

She didn’t cry.

She sat on the cold stone floor, unmoving, her grief apparent only in the vacant space in her arms and the delicate, lingering scent of cinnamon left behind by the clones that had vanished.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Damian Al Ghul Wayne steeled himself. He stood and looked at the grieving Dupain-Cheng, the fine gold dust.

The forsaken remnants of the clone

Scattered nearby. He heard the clone’s confession and quietly gave a signature “tt.”

“Dupain-Cheng, there is no time to mull. We need to move.”

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s bloodshot, teary eyes snapped up to his.

He saw a chilling, blazing rage in her blue eyes, a terrifying mimicry of his own familiar fury.

She had the look of someone who had lost something fundamental tonight, not just love. Just like his, she’d lost something irreplaceable.

He wouldn’t demean her grief, but he wouldn’t let it stop them.

“We need to leave Paris. It’s not safe for you, or anyone. They know you were working with Maya, and to them, you’re a target now.”

“I know.” Marinette stood up, clutching the phone from her pouch.

The one the clone had warned her to keep away from them.

As they ascended the stairs toward the glass of the Louvre Pyramid, a powerful shadow landed outside: Goliath.

The gigantic bat-winged creature landed with a guttural roar of grief.

Damian went to him, hugging his fur. “I know, Goliath. Maya... she’s gone.”

He let his own sadness be channeled into silence; he couldn’t grieve now.

They needed to get to safety.

He turned back to Marinette. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“I’ll go. Alya, Ladybug... she’s still missing.

I don’t know what Null Monarch is planning, but he lost his pawns today.

I will make him pay.” She clutched the phone tighter.

“Could you train me? Help me get my revenge?“

Damian looked at her.

Her face was fierce, a vision of vengeance incarnate.

“You will leave your life behind. You will go to the depths of hell,” he stated plainly.

“I will help you, Dupain-Cheng, but are you ready to forsake your humanity?

I, the Heir to the Demon, Damian Alexander Al Ghul Wayne, will help you get your revenge.”

The broken child was gone. The sleepless, grief-deprived girl dreaming of a better tomorrow was gone.

Only a young woman driven by vengeance remained.

Damian secured Marinette to Goliath’s saddle.

As they flew into the Parisian skyline, the heroes diffused the last of the city’s bombs, but the Lazarus Catacombs had disappeared, along with Maya and Nathalie.

Leviathan, his mother’s mistake, had haunted him and taken one of his siblings.

His mother’s adopted daughter. He gripped his fist until his knuckles turned white.

“They made a grave mistake. These Leviathan remnants will pay.”

He hoped his father would forgive him for the blood he was about to spill.

He had to forego his oath for his father’s crusade.

No, he had to reclaim the Demon’s Heir mantle once again.

This Null Monarch had no idea what was coming.

The might of the League of Shadow, a thousand assassins, the Demon’s Army

He would unleash them to end this.

In Maya’s last words, his chosen sister: They will all pay.

Goliath’s silhouette became a tiny speck on the Parisian skyline.

The Demon Heir and a lost girl, plotting their revenge.