**A/N: Contains minor spoilers for PT.**
Michel Poirier couldn't believe his luck. Flying like a meteor out of the Place des Vosges was the leather-clad superhero of Paris. Michel had no clue why he was out and about, or where he was headed, but there didn't seem to be any akuma attacks happening.
Maybe he has a moment, Michel thought.
"Chat Noir! Hey, Chat Noir, over here!" He waved his hands high above his head as he called out to the superhero, trying to garner his attention.
Mid-swing on his tall, stilts-length stick, Chat Noir froze and rebalanced himself. Instead of continuing his momentum to the roof of the house across the street from Michel, Chat Noir collapsed his stick, slowly bringing himself down to street-level.
Dumbfounded that he actually got Chat Noir to stop, Michel continued to stupidly wave behind his little makeshift, pop-up kiosk: basically, a long collapsible table covered in a decorated cloth and information packets, along with a parasol attached to a lawn chair to protect Michel from the sun.
"Wow!" Michel beamed as the superhero walked over. "It's you. It's actually you."
Realizing he was a bit disheveled, Michel ran his fingers through his mop of brunette hair, pulling it out of his eyes, and detangling it a smidge. He couldn't believe that he didn't think to pin it down with a hat or something to prevent the wind from tossing it so much. He hoped he didn't look as terrible as he thought he did as Chat Noir stopped in front of the kiosk.
"Um, hi, I'm Michel." He thrust his arm out so quickly he felt a small pinch in his shoulder. He fought back the wince as he smiled at Chat Noir.
"Hey, Michel. Nice to meet you. Anything you need help with?" Chat Noir took Michel's hand and gave it a hardy shake before breaking away. He then stood in a very comic-standard superhero pose of resting his fists on his hips, his chest puffed out.
Michel was surprised to note that Chat Noir was so small. He always thought himself a fairly average height for a twenty-two year old, and yet he was probably thirty centimeters taller than one of Paris' saviors. Still, the superhero took time out of his day to stop by and greet a random citizen. Not just greet, ask if said citizen needed help, and that was pretty neat for Michel.
"Wow." He drew out the word and smiled wider. "Uh, yeah! I'm trying to petition Mayor Bourgeois to start placing recycling receptacles in public locations beside the trash cans. I'm also hoping to get a motion going to plant more trees, and maybe start a few community gardens. Would you sign? I'm sure the mayor would start to listen to me if I had a superhero's signature backing me!"
Michel scrambled to pick up his clipboard with the barely signed petition attached. He then held both it and a pen up like a game show model trying to display a grand prize.
"Gladly," Chat Noir gave him a friendly wink before taking the clipboard and pen from him. He then took a long time to sign, as if he were concentrating hard on the signature. After he finished, he handed both back to Michel. "Good luck. Those all sound like great ideas."
In a daze about actually getting both a superhero's signature and his encouragement, Michel gave Chat Noir the only symbol of thanks he could think of: the pin-back buttons he had done up to help promote his cause. They were small, about the size of a two-euro coin, and had a white background. The center of the pin had a stylized tree in hunter-green, which happened to be the same shade as Michel's shirt. Circling around the tree was the phrase: Treat Mother Earth Like You Would Your Own Mother.
"Here," Michel held his open palm out to Chat Noir, the pin resting on top of it, "have one of our organization's pins as a thank you for signing."
Chat Noir graciously accepted the gift with a half-smile, and took care to look at every detail of the design.
"I do hope I can get the mayor to listen," Michel mindlessly said as he straightened the rest of the items on his kiosk table top.
"Keep at it." Chat Noir unzipped a pocket on his costume and tucked the pin inside. "He'll listen eventually."
Michel beamed, and got a bit more courageous with the encouragement.
"Chat Noir?" Michel was nervous about asking, but the hero had been so helpful that he figured he'd give it a try. "You wouldn't happen to know where Ladybug is, would you? Having both of your signatures should just about guarantee the mayor will take me seriously."
Chat Noir's smile vanished. His eyebrows furrowed, and he dropped eye contact. Abruptly, he spun away from Michel. With a soft chirp, his stick extended to be roughly the same height as him. He turned his head to speak over his shoulder, back at Michel, but he didn't look at him.
"No. Sorry. I can't help you with that one."
Before Michel could respond, Chat Noir hit a button on his stick, and it shot straight up; vaulting the superhero back up onto the rooftops. Michel looked back at the signature on his petition, and brushed his fingers across it appreciatively. He felt guilty. He probably made Chat Noir think he wasn't important enough; that the only signature that mattered was Ladybug's. Yet, Chat Noir had taken the time to chat with and help out a citizen. That made him an awesome superhero is Michel's eyes.
He shouldn't have been so bold. He should have stayed humble. He hoped he didn't upset Chat Noir too much; insult him too greatly.
Trying to push his guilt out of his mind, Michel went back to work. He called out to passers by, held up his petition, offered pins and informative pamphlets. Some stopped. Most didn't. The hours ticked by.
Most people were back to either work or school after lunch, or back inside after having a play date in the park. The traffic around the Place des Vosges was borderline non-existent. Michel started gathering up his items, trying to figure out where he could move his kiosk next to try to find more Parisians who would sign.
"Hey! You there!"
Michel turned to see a rotund redheaded police officer strutting up to him. The man looked to be on a mission, and Michel wasn't liking what that mission could be as the officer pulled a pad and pen from his pocket.
"What is all this, son?" The officer used the pen to gesture to the pop-up kiosk as the thumb on his other hand flipped his citation book open.
"I'm trying to get signatures together so I might ask Mayor Bourgeois to enact a few environmental suggestions I have." Michel whipped around to grab his clipboard in order to show the officer.
"Oh yeah? And where is your permit for this... whatever it is?" The officer again gestured to the kiosk.
"Permit?"
"No permit, huh?" The officer wrote out his citation, and ripped it out of his booklet with a loud tear. He shoved it against Michel's clipboard. The student stared at his citation with disbelief.
"I'm also not liking the fact that you have a lawn chair. I'm guessing that means you've been here for quite a while." The officer ripped another citation out of his booklet and slapped that on the clipboard as well. "Here's one for loitering."
"Wait- I-" Michel didn't look up at the officer. He stared at the two citations, reading them over and over. Calculating the fines and trying to figure out how to pay them.
"And people go to the park to relax, not to be harassed by some tree-hugger, so here's another one for Disturbing the Peace." Another rip. Another slap. Another citation. Another fine.
"There's no locked storage for your pins, and the table is the perfect height for even a toddler to reach. Any child could just grab one and injure themselves, so I'll have to give you another for Reckless Child Endangerment."
Michel began to zone out in disbelief as the officer piled yellow citations on his clipboard. Each one more ridiculous than the last: threatening to harass the mayor, littering (when the wind blew Michel's pamphlets off the table), making the officer write too many tickets, not wearing proper footwear, etc.
Michel knew instantly who the officer was. He was typically praised by his strict adhesion to the law and intense dedication. He was also well known throughout Paris for his excessive ticket writing. Officer Roger Raincomprix.
"And let this all be a valuable life lesson," Roger finished off as he clicked his pen closed and flipped the cover back on his citation booklet. "Stick to the laws from now on, young man. I'll be back in twenty minutes. By then you should be packed up and on your way."
Officer Roger continued his walk around the terrace houses that lined the Place des Vosges. Michel glared at him as the officer left. Once the officer was out of sight, Michel collapsed into his lawn chair. He looked over every last citation and the amount of fines he was charged. There was no way he could pay them off. It wasn't even fair that he had them.
Michel's eyes welled up as he packed up his kiosk. Every few seconds he looked back over at the citations, getting more and more angry each time. He tapped his pamphlets into neat stacks and rubberbanded them. Then he funneled his pins into a bag. All the while, the citations mocked him for even trying. He picked up his clipboard and counted only thirty signatures. Sure, one was Chat Noir's, but who would believe he got the actual Chat Noir to sign? The whole thing was a waste. A waste of time. A waste of energy. A waste of money. A waste of hope. No one cared.
He threw his clipboard on top of the bag, gathered up the table cloth into a ball and shoved that on top as well. Still, the citations sat on the now-bare collapsible table. There were enough of them to cover the top again.
Heaving a sigh and choking down a whimper, Michel fell to his knees; defeated. He rummaged through his bag until he found his pins. He pulled one out and stared at it, slowly reading the motto he came up with.
Treat Mother Earth Like You Would Your Own Mother.
"Ha!" Michel mockingly laughed, his shoulders dramatically raising and falling. "No one cares! No one is going to do anything." He began to sob and slumped against the wall of the closest terrace house.
A black butterfly with purple veins running through its wings fluttered down to the pin. When it landed it turned into a puff of bubbling purple and black smoke that seeped into the pin. As the smoke disappeared into the pin Michel was holding his despair deepened. His hatred for humanity intensified. His craving for his own justice consumed him.
"Terravenger." A deep and elegant voice rang out inside Michel's head, and the student instantly acknowledged that his name was now Terravenger. "I am Hawk Moth. I can give you the power to take this planet back for Mother Earth. Show humanity that flora is in charge, not them. In exchange, I need you to get me Ladybug's and Chat Noir's Miraculouses."
Michel looked up at nothing in particular. The glowing magenta outline of a butterfly wrapped around his eyes like a mask; hovering a couple of centimeters off his skin. Michel's eyes were harsh with a malicious joy. His lips curled into a soft smirk.
"You've proven yourself an ally of the earth. I will get you your reward for your help, Hawk Moth."
With the verbal contract signed, the glowing butterfly outline faded away, and the bubbling smoke erupted from Michel's blackened pin, encasing him in a cocoon of black and purple. Inside, Michel felt himself transform. He instantly knew his powers and how to use them to reach his goal. His skin hardened into bark, and it never felt more natural to him.
When the smoke dissolved Michel stood tall in his new form. His shaggy brunette hair was now a cluster of fern fronds spiked straight back and held in place by a moss headband wrap. His skin was bendable bark, like that on a sapling. His clothes were replaced by a bodysuit the same hunter-green as his shirt once was. The stylized tree from his pins was embossed as an emblem across his chest. Wrapped around his waist was a belt of ivy. Running down the outside of his arms and thighs were long thorns. Strapped to his back was a large, clear canister with a divider down the center. The right half was filled with small, green, pea-like seeds. Down the left half of the canister were larger, brown, almond-like seeds. Two tubes ran from the top of the canister and down each of his arms, ending in little shooters mounted the tops of his hands. The pin he was holding was now a button just below his left collarbone. He instinctively knew pressing the button would switch which seeds he'd shoot.
The button was also his most precious item. It housed his akuma: the black butterfly that gave him the powers bestowed upon him by Hawk Moth. He'd just be pathetic Michel without the akuma. With it, he was so much more. He knew he couldn't let anything happen to it.
He was itching to try out his new powers, and to start returning nature to the planet. Abandoning the remaining bits of his kiosk he had left to clean up, Paris' newest supervillain casually strolled into the Place des Vosges.
He said nothing to the few stragglers that were in the park. He simply shot his small green seeds. Upon impact, tendrils of roots burst from the seeds and instantly hunted for a place to embed. Citizens screamed and ran away. The well-groomed lawn of the park became overrun with bushes and thick trees rapidly growing to convert the square into a dense forest.
"Halt!"
He turned to find Officer Roger standing firm with his hand out as if he could telekinetically stop an akumatized supervillain. It was kind of adorable that the policeman had such dumb, arrogant confidence.
"I'm sorry officer, but you told me that I needed to evacuate the premise." He laughed as he shot more green seeds and the roots wrapped tightly around Roger.
"Son, you need to stop this behavior, in the name of the law!" Roger stubbornly shouted as he wrestled with the roots ensnaring him.
"Son? I'm not your son. I am the avatar for Mother Earth. I am Terravenger, and Paris now belongs to nature once more."
Roger tried to cry out again, but was muffled inside his plant sarcophagus. Terravenger laughed as he sprayed every inch around him with green seeds. The sky quickly got blotted out by the thick canopy. Now he only needed to wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir.
**A/N: I've been working on this story off-and-on for a week now. I needed to figure out Terravenger for my main story, and this was sort of a character study, much like "The Birth of the Mimicker."
I had unofficially started posting story shorts on Tumblr (I'm LycoRogue there too if you want to follow me) every three days, and so this was originally going to be my post on Wednesday. Except I realized I still needed to actually write THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR PEEPING TOMCAT that Terravenger appeared in. Sooooo that took priority.
Since I had this mostly written anyway, I was going to post this as a bonus story after updating "Peeping Tomcat" Friday morning, but with Memorial Day weekend, work has been crazy, and after-work more-so. But I was determined to have this up before the weekend was done. Now to get to work on the next chapter of PT...
Also, for any concerned, upon Terravenger's defeat Officer Roger did re-evaluate the citations he gave Michel and decided to drop all of them. He even gave Michel a list of things - like permits - that he'd need from now on and how to fast-track getting them.**