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Marinette let out a long tired sigh and slumped down into her computer chair. She leaned back and glanced up at the ceiling. Why was she so goddamn tired? Maybe it was some of the anxiety from this morning that lingered that was causing it, or because she barely slept.
She sighed again, looking down at her backpack. Ms. Mendeleiev had already given them a science worksheet, not taking any mercy on it being their first day back from summer break. Better get it done before I forget about it entirely , she told herself, digging through her backpack.
Instead of pulling out her homework, she pulled out something that wasn’t hers. Marinette frowned as she held up the nicely carved box.
“Did I steal this without noticing?” She mumbled out loud, twisting the box around in her hands. It somehow felt familiar.
With her curiosity peaked, she opened it. There was a silver ring laying on the soft looking cushion, it was quite beautiful. Why was it familiar though? She hadn’t ever seen this before. That’s when she was met with a bright green light.
When it faded, Marinette’s eyes fluttered open and was met with the sight of a giant bug, cat, alien thing . It opened its eyes and yawned.
“Hi, I’m Pl-”
Marinette fainted on the spot.
Seconds later she woke up by soft patting against her cheek, someone trying to wake her up. Marinette’s eyes fluttered open and were immediately met with the blurry figure of the same strange alien cat thing from before.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong reaction as this one before” The alien thing said, a grin creeping up on its face, “Oh hey can you eat this? I’m staaaarving”
She stared at it as it began to fly around in her room trying to eat stuff with an open mouth. When the thing tried to eat her computer mouse she finally snapped out of her stupor.
“Don’t eat that!” Marinette yelped and lunged forward to grab the thing. It didn’t work, she face planted on the floor. “Fuck!”
“Hey you okay?” the alien asked as it poked her arm.
“Yes” She arose from the floor. “Okay, you better start explaining before I call some conspiracy theory people here” “Conspiracy theory people…” The thing looked at her with much skepticism, “Anyways, I’m Plagg”
---
That was half a year ago. Much had changed since then. She no longer fainted whenever she saw Plagg, and Plagg in turn didn’t try to eat her computer mouse (that often at least). She was a full-fledged superheroine now. A normal teenager at day, and a superheroine at night… And day too.
She wasn’t out at night as much, partly because of school and the fact that a big part of the media was convinced that she was evil. It was strange. Why would she be evil if she saved Paris like two times a week?
Ladynoire was pulled out of her thoughts by the sounds of explosions a couple blocks away. She immediately arose from her sitting position on some random roof, and took off towards the sound. Another Akuma.
She hoped it wasn’t Mr Pidgeon again. Or another Christmas themed akuma, just because Christmas was just around the corner didn’t mean Hawkmoth needed to release countless of Christmas akumas. She was honestly tired of getting hit in the face with gifts, because being viewed as a vigilante by the public made her evil enough to end up on the naughty list.
“Krampus themed? Screw you Hawkmoth” She muttered to herself when she finally got a view of the Akuma. Krampus, she assumed he was named, was terrifying in the dark, only lit up by a street lamp.
Letting out a sigh she jumped down in front of discount Krampus, spinning her staff in front of her as a shield. Krampus was even more terrifying up close.
“Ladynoire, finally here, come to meet your doom?”
Okay yeah Krampus voice was a lot less scary than his appearance.
“Bring it” She scowled at the akuma.
“With pleasure” He smiled, too wide and unhinged.
They lunged at each other, her staff clashing with Krampus fists. She thought it was going pretty good for her, since this dude was like twice her height or something and had extremely powerful punches. She was sure he was gonna leave more than a couple of bruises.
She lunged again but Krampus jumped backwards and up, ruffling through his bag and threw a piece of coal at her. As the coal hit the ground in front of her it exploded.
Yay explosives , she thought as she flew backwards into a building because of the force.
She groaned out loud, that hurt like a motherfucker. And it was definitely going to make it hard for her to sleep on her back for at least a month. Her arm felt as if it were on flames too. Krampus fist was searing towards her face and she barely managed to dodge out of the way.
“You bitchstick!!” Ladynoire yelled at Krampus after dodgin another punch, stumbling to her feet, grabbing her staff like a lifeline. Her arm was aching, she was pretty sure it was broken.
Krampus looked even more angered, maybe name calling was a bad idea. He reeled back and charged at her, horns first. She waited until the last moment and jumped out of his way, making Krampus crash face first into the building that she had been thrown into. Karma, bitch.
She snuck up behind him and struck him hard in the back of his head, promptly making him pass out. Staring at the corpse totally alive body, probably, she realized that she didn’t know what was the akumatized object.
“Fucking shit” She cussed, looking at the Akuma and poking him, trying to find the akumatized object. “It’s the bag, isn’t it?”
She picked up the bag and tried to rip it, but due to her probably broken arm it wasn’t going so well. But when she had managed to do it, a black butterfly flew out of it.
“Booyah! Cataclysm” Ladynoire reached for the butterfly and turned it into dust. The dude that she had been fighting turned into an old looking man. Oh no, a grandpa broke her arm? Damn, that’s embarrassing for her.
She stumbled over to him, and kicked him with her boot. Wait, not kicking! That’s not nice. She poked him, with her boot, in a hard way.
“Did I actually kill someone? Mom is going to ground me if she ever fin-” A groan from the old man interrupted her. Oh, he's not dead. Yay.
“What happened?” He grumbled when he finally had enough consciousness.
“You got possessed by an evil butterfly and broke m-” She got interrupted again, this time by her ring beeping. Fucking shit on a stick. “I need to go, you good? Okay bye” Not even waiting for an answer she abandoned the old man.
Ladynoire parkoured as best and as fast as she could with her arm towards the closest hospital. How the fuck was she supposed to explain this to her parents? An idea struck her, literally, as she landed on the ground and slipped on black ice.
“Black ice huh? I can work with this” She murmured, hiding in an alleyway right beside the Hospital, letting her transformation drop. With Plagg not taking up a good amount of the damage she had taken, and the adrenaline fading, her arm felt as if it were on flames, a dull ache in it.
“Kid? Are you okay?” Plagg asked, worried like a mother hen. He had grown soft, he could admit.
“Just a broken arm, nothing a little hospital trip can fix” She told him, opening up her bag, “Jump in”
“We’re gonna have a serious talk about this later young lady”
Rolling her eyes at Plagg’s immaturity, she walked towards the door. The sharp smell of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol assaulted all of her senses when she walked through the second set of sliding doors. The lobby was mostly empty at this time of night.
The grumpy looking lady by the front desk looked up from her book. Marinette didn’t blame her, it was midnight. She probably wanted to be there even less than Marinette did.
“Um, I’m pretty sure I broke my arm, can you uh… check me in?” She asked, anxiety settling deep in her gut.
“Name?” Coralie drawled out, or that was her name, based on the nametag.
“Marinette Dupain-Cheng”
The lady nodded, clacking on her computer for a few seconds, and then reaching for a clipboard with a stack of forms on it and sliding across the desk and setting a pen down on top.
“Thanks” Marinette mumbled and sat down on one of those squeaky blue plastic chairs, beginning to fill out the form.
This would be hard to explain, she realized as she was parkouring back to her house. Whatever, she’ll come up with something in the morning.
And it had in fact been hard to explain to her parents. But using Alya as an alibi worked pretty well, saying that she had been there and then walked home, that she slipped on black ice.
“Hawkmoth hasn’t caused any akumas yet, I wonder why” Marinette mused after a week, Plagg gave her a look. “What?”
“You just jinxed u-” Plagg was interrupted by an explosion.
“Fuuuuuuck” She groaned, “Come on Plagg, claws out”
---
When Ladynoire arrived at the scene she saw a ladybug themed blonde boy about to get crushed by the Akuma. Not another fanboy trying to help her out. It was a bit of a relief to see that it was only Stoneheart, sure he was tricky but she could handle him. Even with her arm in a cast.
She elongated her staff, successfully moving Stoneheart’s foot before the ladybug boy was squished like an actual bug. Stoneheart turned to face her, angry as usual.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” the akuma yelled at the same time as the bug boy yelled “Oh my God, you’re alive!”
“Why would I be fucking dead!? And how do you know that!” She yelled at them, before launching at Stoneheart.
“Media” Ladybug boy said.
Oh no, the media had seen her get beaten up by an old man? And then her kick him?
Ladybug boy tried to help her several times but he was just getting in her way, she was growing more and more annoyed by this.
“Get the fuck out of here already bug boy, you’re going to get yourself killed” She growled at him, fending off another strike from the stone golem akuma.
“It’s Mister Bug” Mister Bug huffed out, “And I’m your new partner”
“I work alone” Ladynoire hissed at him, prying open the fist that usually had the akumatized item. Stoneheart was trying to fend her off, but did a poor job of it. “So just leave”
“No! You almost died a week ago, I’m not leaving you”
“Oh my God” She drawled, finally grabbing the purple paper and ripping it in two pieces, “ Cataclysm , It is just a broken arm!”
Before she could touch the “evil butterfly of doom” a ladybug themed jojo snapped out and swallowed it. Turning around slowly, she tried to seethe her anger, what the fuck was this guy’s problem?
Mister Bug’s jojo opened again, and this time a white butterfly flew out of it. Neat . He then grabbed a ladybug themed spork from his belt and threw it in the air. What was he doing with a spork in a fight? Idiot.
“Miraculous Ladybug!” He yelled, striking a pose like some kind of magical anime girl. Ladynoire cringed, why did the universe throw a weeb at her?
A light swept over the entire city, she was pretty sure they were ladybugs. Her jaw dropped open a bit at the sight. She felt her bruises fade away and her arm go back to normal, cast disappearing. She saw entire buildings reappear as well as her countless of cataclysms that had affected buildings crumbling away, but in a backwards way. If that made sense.
“It’s beautiful” She mumbled.
“Y-yeah” Mister Bug stuttered, staring at her instead of the lights in the sky, “It’s amazing. It’s uh… Miraculous”
The ladybugs disappeared and Paris looked like it did half a year ago.
“So uhm” Mister Bug held out his hand for a handshake, “Partners?”
“Fine, you could be of use” Ladynoire answered, an almost teasing tone to her voice, shaking his hand and sealing the deal.
And that’s how she met her partner, who would stand with her against all hellfire.