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Chapter 64 – Bloodsuckers and Bad Decisions
After classes, I made it home, dumped my bag, and figured I'd actually do something productive for once.
So: training again.
Three hours of chi exercises, forms, and sparring against a holographic projection that's annoyingly good at predicting my moves now. Natalie programmed it. I'm starting to think she did that on purpose just to mess with me.
By the time I finished, my shirt was soaked through and my arms felt like overcooked noodles. Worth it, probably.
"You good?" Plagg asked from his spot on the windowsill, mid-cheese.
*I'm fine, but I need to find a hobby besides training. Even after the New York war, I'm still training like crazy — maybe I should do something else for once. Maybe I should play Pokémon or something,* I thought, showering, changing, and checking the time. Six-thirty. Marinette said come over whenever, so I figured *now* counted as whenever.
---
The Dupain-Cheng bakery smelled like heaven, as usual. Tom waved at me from behind the counter with flour-covered hands.
"Adrian! Marinette's upstairs. Here, have some macarons — and take some for Marinette too."
"Will do. These are delicious. Care to share the recipe?"
"It's a family secret. I'll pack some for you instead." He was already loading a bag.
I climbed the stairs balancing a plate of pastries that probably weighed more than my backpack.
Marinette's room looked like a fabric explosion had occurred sometime in the last hour. Pins, scraps, sketches, and at least one mannequin wearing half a sleeve.
"You're here!" She looked up, pencil between her teeth, then spotted the plate. "Did your dad give you that?"
"He insisted."
"Give me one." She took a macaron and ate it in one bite, which told me she hadn't eaten yet because she'd been too absorbed in this project. "Okay, so — tailcoat. I need you to try it on so I can check the fit before I finish the lining."
"Sure. Where do I—"
"Bathroom's down the hall. Here." She handed me a half-finished black tailcoat, still pinned in places.
---
I came back out a few minutes later, feeling extremely overdressed for a Tuesday evening.
Marinette looked up from her sketchbook and just... stopped.
"Okay? You definitely got my size wrong. It's really tight," I said.
"Yeah. Yeah, you must've grown. I'll adjust it." She cleared her throat, suddenly very focused on her pencil. "Turn around? I need to check the back seam."
I turned. I heard her stand up and walk closer.
"The shoulders are good," she said, voice a little higher than usual. "Maybe take the sleeves in a — a little." Her fingers brushed my arm as she adjusted the pin, and she went quiet for a second too long.
"You okay?" I asked, glancing back.
"Fine! Great. Just — wow, okay, you actually have muscle under there." She said it while touching my bicep, and her face went very red. "I mean, your muscles have grown since last time, and your arms got thicker," she exclaimed, clearly embarrassed.
"Why so red? Like what you see?" I said, smirking.
"That's — I wasn't looking. Hey, don't smirk like that."
"You can't see my face."
"I can feel it."
I looked at myself in her mirror. Black tailcoat, sharp lines, way too formal for anything I actually do.
"I look like a butler," I said.
"You look nice."
"I look like a handsome butler a noble lady would flaunt at parties."
"Adrian. It's not that bad."
"Like I should be holding a silver tray. 'Madam, your carriage awaits.'"
She threw a fabric scrap at my head. "It's a *design*, not a costume, and it's supposed to look formal!"
"I'm just saying, if Alfred ever needs a vacation, I've got a backup career."
"You're impossible." But she was laughing now, which was the goal.
---
By the time I left, it was properly dark out, and I was back in my normal clothes with the tailcoat carefully folded in a bag — apparently this one was just a practice version, since Marinette was going to make a new one from scratch, and I got to keep this one. Her words, not mine.
I took the usual route home — past the bakery, down two blocks, cut through the alley by the laundromat because it shaves off five minutes and I'm lazy.
That's when I heard it.
A woman's voice, sharp with fear. "Get away from me—"
Three guys had her backed against the wall. Standard scumbag formation — one in front doing the talking, two flanking for intimidation.
Look, normally I don't go looking for trouble and I try to mind my own business. But fate clearly wasn't on this lady's side, which meant I wasn't just going to walk past this.
"Hey," I said, stepping into the alley. "This really the hill you guys want to die on?"
The leader turned, sneering. "Mind your business, kid."
"I would, but you're being loud about it."
He swung first. Sloppy, predictable, the kind of punch that telegraphs itself three seconds in advance. I sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and used his own momentum to introduce his face to the brick wall.
The other two hesitated. Smart, for once.
"Look," I said, raising my hands, "you can leave now, or you can leave in twenty seconds with significantly more bruises. Your call."
They left. Fast. Dragging their friend, who was making a noise like a deflating balloon.
I turned to the woman. "You okay?"
She straightened up, brushed off her jacket, and smiled at me.
Sharp. *Very* sharp. Like, dental-work-gone-wrong sharp.
"You're very brave," she said, her voice suddenly smoother than it had been thirty seconds ago. "Or very stupid."
Before I could process that sentence, Plagg's voice hissed in my ear from inside my jacket.
"Kid. *Kid.* That's not a person. That's a bloodsucker."
"...A what?" I whispered.
"Vampire. As in, drinks blood, hates sunlight, probably older than this entire city. Run the math."
The woman's smile widened, and yeah, okay, those were definitely fangs. "Perceptive, aren't you."
"Oh, come on," I said. "I just *helped* you."
"Yeah, but they were my dinner. And you smell delicious," she said, which is, genuinely, one of the worst things anyone has ever said to me.
"That's — no. Absolutely not. Personal space, please."
She lunged.
---
I'll be honest, fighting a vampire in regular clothes with no transformation is *not* ideal. She was fast — way faster than the human-trafficking goons or even Shocker — and stronger than she looked, which is saying something because she'd just gotten cornered by three guys two minutes ago.
I ducked a swipe that would've taken my head off, rolled, and put some distance between us.
"Okay, this is unfair," I said, blocking another strike with my forearm and feeling it all the way to my shoulder. "I do the *good deed*, and this is the thanks I get?"
"Don't say it like that. A hickey from a girl won't kill you," she said, and lunged again.
I caught her wrist this time, channeled some chi into the block, and shoved her back hard enough that she actually skidded.
She looked at me differently after that. Less "easy meal," more "huh."
"What was that?" she muttered.
"Ancient Tibetan monk techniques," I said. "Mostly."
She hissed, glanced toward the street — and ran. Not walked. Sprinted, with the kind of speed that made it very clear I wasn't going to catch her on foot.
"Really? Running away?"
I mean, I let her *think* she got away.
---
Once she turned the corner, I ducked behind a dumpster — classy, I know — and said the word.
"Plagg, claws out."
Transforming mid-alley behind garbage is not exactly the heroic image I'd choose, but options were limited.
I took to the rooftops, following her from above. She moved fast, but rooftops are faster if you know how to use them, and chi-enhanced jumps mean gaps between buildings stop being a problem.
She led me about six blocks before ducking into a club — one of those places with a line out front and a bouncer who clearly didn't care what walked in as long as it tipped well.
I landed on the building across the street and watched.
And that's when things got intense. Suddenly two guys were thrown out of the building. The bouncer went to help them — and the two guys bit him and drained his blood. Before I could do anything—
Two crescent-shaped projectiles hit both of them in the head, and then four more people came flying out of the club, including the woman who'd attacked me.
Then a man in white walked out of the club with a big wooden club, came up swinging, and started absolutely *demolishing* the vampire I'd been following — plus, apparently, five of her friends, because the place was suddenly full of fangs and bad attitudes.
"Okay," I muttered, watching White Suit Guy backhand a vampire into a pool table. "Good thing there isn't a Black vampire here, otherwise I'd think the KKK was back."
"He's winning four against one," Tikki said, sounding almost impressed. "Bad night to be a vampire, I guess."
White Suit Guy — who I assumed was Moon Knight at this point — was demolishing the vampires when one of them pulled a gun and started firing, forcing him to dodge.
I dropped down behind the vampire with the gun and knocked it out of his hand.
"You know," I said, "pulling out a gun while being a vampire is a disgrace to your kind."
Moon Knight didn't even look at me. He grabbed another vampire by the collar and threw him into a speaker stack, and the fight resumed.
I won't bore you with the play-by-play. Short version: vampires are fast and strong. Wooden stake through the heart, died, simple.
Silence settled over the wrecked club. Broken glass, toppled furniture, unconscious bloodsuckers everywhere.
"So," I said, stepping over a vampire's leg. "You wanna explain the KKK costume, or—"
He turned. Up close, the suit had details — wraps, a hood, some kind of crescent emblem. Then his posture changed entirely.
"Oh, no — I'm Moon Knight, avatar of Khonshu, not a KKK member. I swear," he said, like that explained everything.
"...Okay."
His personality had visibly shifted. I wasn't a huge Moon Knight fan, so I didn't know much about him, but from what I remembered, he had DID — so it was probably best to keep some distance.
"The Moon told me to kill the bloodsuckers and save the people."
"The Moon. Told you."
"Yes."
"Right. Sure. And I'm — look, I'm just going to roll with that, because tonight has already been a lot."
He nodded like this was a perfectly normal conversation, then turned and walked deeper into the club like he owned the place.
I followed, because apparently that's just what I do now.
---
Past the bar, through a door marked STAFF ONLY, the place changed completely. No more club aesthetic — just bare concrete, cages, and people. Actual people, scared, huddled, some unconscious.
"They're kept like cattle here," Moon Knight said, his personality shifted again, gesturing at the cages like he was pointing out a display at a store.
"What's their condition?"
"Many are dead. A few are alive."
Good.
We checked the cages, got people moving toward the exit. I called SHIELD using a phone I found lying around.
At the back of the room, there was a door. Locked. Reinforced. The kind of door that says *we don't want anyone finding what's behind here.*
Moon Knight kicked it open without breaking stride.
Inside: another room, empty except for a desk, some monitors, and — nothing else. No vampires, no prisoners, nothing.
"Dead end?" I said, looking around.
"No." Moon Knight crouched by the wall, running his hand along the baseboard. "There's a draft."
He was right. A section of wall didn't quite sit flush — a hidden seam, barely visible unless you were looking for it.
He found a latch. The wall slid open into a passage, dark and narrow, sloping downward.
"After you," I said.
"After you," he said. "You're the one with the glowing ring."
Fair point number two.
We went down together, my Miraculous glow lighting the way through a passage that smelled like old concrete and something metallic underneath. The path opened into a wider space — and two figures turned toward us, clearly mid-conversation, clearly *not* expecting company.
One in a red suit, batons in hand.
One with a feathered mask and a tablet, blue light flickering across her visor.
Daredevil and Mayura both froze.
I froze too.
"...Hey, Mayura," I said.
Mayura's visor tilted. "You didn't tell me you had plans."
"Funny story."
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End of Chapter 64
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