12Marinette's day started off with disaster, as was perfectly normal for her. She managed to knock just about everything off the counter while making cereal for breakfast, and had spilled half the cookies her father made for class all over the dirty sidewalk before she even made it off the corner where she lived. At least that poor old man hadn't gotten smushed by the car.
After arriving in class in the nick of time, she was resigned to see Chloe already there, looming over a new girl with auburn hair. Chloe was demanding that the girl give up her seat, and the new girl was holding her own with a bravery that Marinette admired greatly; most people buckled under the weight of Chloe's bitchy attitude, but the redhead was giving as good as she got. Marinette liked her immediately.
"Why don't you come sit by me? You don't want to be next to these two anyway." Marinette offered, glancing meaningfully at Sabrina, who was sycophantically echoing Chloe's every word.
Fire hair glared at Chloe, and seeing that Chloe was pissed that Marinette had turned the situation to make it seem like the spot was a bad option, graciously accepted her offer.
Marinette soon learned that her name was Alya, that she had a major thing for superheroes, and that she defined the word 'evil' with Chloe's name. An instant friendship was formed and formally sealed with cookies from her slightly crumpled box.
The teacher had just called the class to attention when the door opened, and Marinette looked up at who had entered. And up, and up… This girl was tall. Tall, with golden blond hair, perfectly styled clothes, and a face that looked like it'd just sailed off of a magazine cover.
Seemingly unaffected by the murmurs that had broken out at her appearance she walked up to the teacher and handed her a note.
"There was a photoshoot at the park that was timed for sunrise, it took longer to wrap up than it should have. Then there was a little old man who fell in the street and… anyway, sorry to be tardy on my first day."
Marinette sincerely hoped it wasn't the same little old man she'd manhandled while pulling out of the street just a few minutes ago. Had she rattled his brain yanking him like she had? And the girl had said she'd been at a photoshoot – she must be a model, which made sense when you looked at her.
Miss tall blond and gorgeous had settled into the seat directly in front of her, and Nino who was sitting beside her looked like he was beginning to sweat. Marinette wondered if the sound she was hearing from behind her was drool hitting the desks of all the boys in class, and sniggered quietly into her hands at the thought.
The teacher got the class to settle down, and Marinette passed her box of cookies to Nino, who took one with a thumbs up to Marinette, and passed the box to the girl whose name she now knew was Adrienne Agreste, thanks to roll call. Marinette knew that last name; Gabriel Agreste was one of her very favorite designers.
Adrienne's perfect face scrunched up into a look of what might have been disgust, and she passed the box without talking one to the person across the aisle. Chloe waved to her, and Adrienne smiled slightly and waved back as Ivan had an outburst from behind them and was sent to cool down in the principle's office.
Well then. Marinette thought with a sinking sensation in her stomach, no cookies for you then, see if I care. And she was friends with Chloe? Lovely. Marinette didn't know what she'd do if there were two Chloe's to contend with, but it would probably involve dying in a humiliating manner. She'd just steer clear of Adrienne Agreste and Chloe alike.
Steering clear of them wasn't hard that day, because Homeroom had been broken up for barely five minutes before the school was evacuated due to one of her classmates turning into a giant stone monster and beginning to rain chaos down on Paris.
Wait – WHAT?
Adrienne's body guard and driver was at the school steps immediately after an evacuation had been called, which made Adrienne believe that he'd never really left the neighborhood after dropping her off. What had he been doing, guarding the entrance to the school? She hoped her father paid him a good salary.
Also… There was a monster tearing apart Paris.
What the fuck was happening? Her world had gone from worrying that she'd offended the girl behind her by declining her delicious looking cookies (how many calories did those cream stuffed beauties have in them), to processing the fact that monsters did in fact exist. And went to her new school, apparently.
She rushed through the front doors of her house, and paused at the foot of the huge staircase, half expecting her father to be waiting for her there to make sure she had made it home safe. The portrait of her and her mother and father stared down at her instead, and she went to her room without further delay, flipping her rarely used TV on and over to the news.
She dropped her backpack onto the couch and flopped down next to it, staring in wonder at the terrifying scenes being broadcast live. The wreckage was happening not too far away, and Adrienne was wondering if she should gather all the staff into the building and activate the security system when she noticed the strange little box sitting on the table in front of her.
It was heavy for its size, and she turned it over in her hands, trying to read the strange markings on the outside. It looked like Chinese, but it was an older dialect than the one she was learning.
With a mental shrug she opened it, and promptly fell backwards off the couch as a bright green ball of light coalesced in front of her. She may have even screamed, but there was no one close enough to hear it.
Her panic faded as the light flashed away, leaving in its place an adorable… something. With bright green eyes, coal black fur, tiny little fangs, and ears that looked like a kittens, it was easily the cutest thing she'd ever seen. It was also flying with no support of any kind of wings, and yawing so wide it looked like it might split in two.
"What in the world are you?" She managed to say from her position on the floor.
"I'm Plagg, I'm a Kwami, do you…" He (and it was a he), spoke very fast and then stopped abruptly as he got a good look at her, flying over to hover in front of her nose. "HA! You're a girl."
"Aptly spotted" she said dryly, "what the hell is a kwami?"
The little cat-thing cackled wickedly, obviously un-offended by her tone.
"I'm something who is going to grant you the power of destruction. Do you have any food? I'm starving."
He began to zip around her room, experimentally nibbling on various objects as he went. Adrienne dug in her backpack and emerged with the sandwich she had packed so that she wouldn't have to come home for lunch. She waved it in the air, and Plagg zoomed into it and tore it apart, tossing aside the bread and meat and gobbling up the slice of cheese with loud smacking noises.
"The power of destruction you said?"
He nodded vigorously as he ate, and a very bad thought occurred to her.
"Wait, is that what happened to that kid in my class? Did a kwami turn him into that?!" She gestured to the TV just as the stone monster tossed a cop car into the news cameras.
"No!" Plagg snapped defensively, the last of the cheese gone. "Well, not directly anyway… He's being controlled by a human and forced to turn people into super villains, so it's humans at fault, not us!"
"Okay, okay, sorry." She said, holding up her hands. "Why are you in my room then, if you're not going to turn me into some monster?"
"Because you've been chosen, Adrienne Agreste, to be the holder of my Miraculous; you'll merge with my power and become the Black Cat, a super hero. Another person has been chosen and is likely meeting with my counterpart, who grants the power of creation. Together, you two will fight those who have been taken over by evil, and return them to their normal state."
He didn't sound too enthusiastic about it, more like he was reading her an instruction manual.
"Once you transform, you'll have super strength and agility, heightened senses, and in a final burst of power you can wreck a large amount of destruction with a swipe of your claws."
Claws? She thought, looking down at her hands.
"But it's better to wait until you're desperate to do that, because you'll change back to your normal self and then everyone would discover who you are. Which reminds me," he zoomed back up to her face, "no telling anyone about this! Your super identity is your secret identity, got it?"
"Yeah, sure, I got it! Not like anyone around here is paying enough attention to notice anyway." She muttered, "So that's it then? I should just transform and go beat up a monster right now?"
"Yeah, that's basically it… Ladybug will have the job of capturing and cleansing the Akuma after the fight; you and I just beat a lot of shit up, historically speaking."
"Alright, sounds good to me! Let's do this!"
Adrienne jumped up, adrenaline already pumping and – nothing happened. There was a very awkward silence, broken when Plagg started snickering at her.
"You need to wear the ring that's in the box, and give me some sort of command to transform you." He finally managed to instruct her.
She quickly scooped up the silver ring that she had overlooked in all the excitement, and slipped it on.
"Plagg, transform me!"
The world spun, and she saw Plagg disappearing into her ring as her vision darkened. When she had recovered her balance, she found herself wrapped in a tight black material that felt both incredibly durable and incredibly flexible.
She flexed her black clad hands, and claws shot out from above her first knuckle bone as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She could smell and identify hundreds of scents, and something on top of her head twitched as a maid scurried down a hallway two corridors over from her room.
Adrienne retracted her claws and felt the top of her head, fingers brushing pointed cat ears that had sprouted out. They felt like they were the same material as her suit, but she could feel them. It was bizarre. She also had a tail made of the suit material, and she could move it at will.
The biggest difference was how she felt physically – she was practically vibrating with energy. She was always fit from her strenuous dance and martial arts practices, but now she felt as if she could run a marathon without breaking a sweat. Every cell in her body begged to be moving, leaping, running, fighting.
Without wasting time inspecting herself in a mirror, she opened the window she normally used for smoke breaks and crawled out onto the ledge. She thought she could probably jump down to the ground and scale the outer wall, but something urged her to reach for the baton like weapon that had appeared at her waist.
Plagg hadn't mentioned it, and she inspected it closely. It looked like it was sunk into itself like a telescope, and she gave it a shake to see if it would expand. It shot out an incredible distance, making her jump and hiss in surprise.
Embarrassed, she tilted it up, and it shot back into its former shape. She instinctively knew it was responding more to her intent and wishes than to any physical motion.
Trusting her instinct and urged on by the power surging through her veins, Adrienne leaped suddenly from the ledge, and used the extended staff to vault over the outside wall in one giant leap. She should have been terrified, but instead felt exuberant. The staff contracted behind her, and she positioned it again as she began to hurtle toward the street below – it sprang out again, and she held on for dear life as she shot off into the air, soaring over the deserted Paris streets.
She headed toward where the news report had indicated, covering ground at a terrifying pace. She was really getting the hang of it, propelling herself from rooftop to rooftop, when a bright red figure came hurtling into her peripheral vision, bellowing in apparent terror.
There was nothing Adrienne could do; she was just peaking in an arch between two large commercial buildings when the flying person smashed her out of the air.
Adrienne felt the air leave her lungs, and the staff popped out of her hands on impact. Next thing she knew, she was wrapped up in some kind of cord, her body flush against the other persons, dangling a few feet above the street.
Her mind registered a red and black polka-dotted masked face staring back at her, delicate mouth open in in surprise, and the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen blinking back at her.
"You must be my partner!" Adrienne exclaimed. "Fancy running into you here."
Wow, that was a terrible pun, great job Adrienne, she thought to herself.
The girl squeaked, and they both dropped to the ground with a thud, the cord snapping back into a yoyo the girl was holding, and the rod it had caught on falling into Adrienne's hands as her baton.
"Hi," Adrienne tried again, "I'm… Chat, um, Chat Noir."
Wow, she was just on a role today apparently; where had she pulled that name from?
She felt a little better about her opening lines when the other girl only managed to splutter, "I'm… I'm SO SORRY!" in reply.
Vibrations in the ground and the sounds of screaming that Adrienne's enhanced senses picked up told her that they'd have to do proper introductions later, and she shot off toward the commotion once again. She wasn't sure if the other girl was following.
The fight that ensued inside the sports stadium could be politely referred to as a hot mess.
Adrienne knew how to fight; she'd been trained in brutal close combat methods and had her black belt in martial arts, for fucks sake. It was the one thing she remembered her mother insisting on her doing despite her resistance as a small child, and after she'd been abandoned she'd thrown all her efforts into it, as if to prove to her absent mother that she was worth it after all.
For all the good it did against a twenty foot tall stone giant, she needn't have bothered.
The other girl soared into the arena eventually, coming to rest on the ground next to where Adrienne had just landed from being knocked around by a boulder of a fist.
She spit a clump of blond hair out of her mouth and sprang to her feet.
"I'm going to have to use my destruction power on him, nothing else is working!"
She started to dash back toward the thing, but was brought up short by the other girl yanking her tail, hard.
"No! There's a person in there, you could kill him!"
"You have a better idea, Lady?"
From the look in the girl's eyes after she'd used her lucky charm and gotten a deflated blow-up doll for her efforts, she did have an idea, and Adrienne wasn't going to like it.
Her suspicions were correct, and she gave out an angry yell as the yoyo was wrapped around her ankles and used to send her flying through the air, directly at the monster. For the third or fourth time that day the air was smashed out of her lungs, a giant stone fist catching her midflight. She struggled for breath and felt her ribs creak ominously.
Her rage at her partner disappeared as she watched the girl in action, soaring around the arena and bringing her convoluted mess of a plan into perfect fruition.
That girl was amazing. Fucking crazy as a loon, but absolutely brilliant.
She shredded the bit of paper the monster had been holding onto, and Adrienne found herself on the ground next to a very confused boy her own age, who she vaguely recognized from her class.
Adrienne felt a heavy sinking sensation in her gut. She would have destroyed this boy if her partner hadn't held her back. She could have killed him.
She looked up to see the girl watching a dark butterfly fly away from the shredded paper, and panicked.
"Aren't you forgetting something!?" Adrienne shrieked, pointing at the now distant bug.
Ladybug yelped in horror, and swung off after it on her yoyo. Adrienne grabbed her baton and the dripping wet body suit that was still lying in the field, and lurched off after her, hearing the exclamations of joy from the red-head filming them below.
She caught up to the red figure on a nearby rooftop in time to see her release a now pure white butterfly from her yoyo. Adrienne landed with a wet splat from the soggy doll, causing the other girl to jump.
"Oh, right!" The girl said, and promptly grabbed the wet offering with both hands and heaved it into the air, spraying Adrienne with a large amount of water in the process.
Adrienne hissed like an angry cat, she couldn't help it.
The girl shouted something that Adrienne was too busy shaking water out of her sensitive ears to hear, and a magical burst of red rushed off in every direction, repairing all the damage the chaos had caused to people and possession alike.
Adrienne was still soaking wet and her ribs still ached, but it was still an amazing power.
"I am so, so sorry!" The girl was saying to her, wringing her hands in distress. "I am not good at this, I almost screwed up everything, I don't have a clue why I was chosen…"
"Are you kidding me? You were brilliant! Do you think anyone could have come up with that mad idea and then pulled it off? That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life."
She could see the other girl blushing bright pink under the mask, and looking quite pleased with the complements. A loud beep made them both jump, and a spot on her earrings flashed a warning.
"I've got to go, I'm about to lose my transformation!" She readied her yoyo in preparation to swing off of the roof.
"Wait!" Adrienne called, "What should I call you? When are we going to meet up again?"
The girl paused by the edge of the building, looking back at her over her shoulder.
"Call me… Ladybug. We can meet in this spot tomorrow, after sunset."
And with that she was gone, a red and black spot disappearing into the distance. Adrienne stared after her for a long moment, and odd soaring feeling in her heart.