THE FIVE MIRACULOUS STARS

Prologue

This, Marinette decided, was most definitely one of those days.

"On your right!" she shouted at her partner, Cat Noir. The warning came just in time: the black-clad boy had just enough time to hurl himself out of the way of the attack, a blast of pure red light striking exactly where he had been a half-second earlier. The blast left a small crater in the cement; the entire street was pockmarked by such craters, created during the prior battle.

"Nice one, milady!" exclaimed Cat Noir.

Overhead, today's supervillain gave off a noise that could reasonably be approximated to be an evil laugh; it was hard to tell, under the circumstances. From what they'd been able to ascertain, the man in question was a mirror salesman who'd lost out on a highly profitable potential sale after local drama queen Chloé started telling everyone that his products were bad luck. This, apparently, had been all it took for him to be akumatized, transforming him into something resembling a living glass sculpture. His body was composed of innumerable crystal facets, light refracting bright enough to make looking directly at him painful. The new supervillain referred to himself as the Prism...or at least, that's what Marinette (currently in full Ladybug mode) thought his name was; turns out it was hard to make out a voice which consists entirely of glass planes rubbing against each other. His powers included the ability to focus light into devastating lasers (fairly understandable) and a rainbow beam which split objects into multiple differently-colored copies of themselves (rather less understandable); the issue, as the two heroes had quickly discovered, was that he could fire these beams from any part of his body, thereby giving him 360 degrees of coverage.

So the problem became: how do you sneak up on someone who can apparently see in every direction at once? Answer: ...well, they were still working on that part.

Another bolt of light shot passed Ladybug, narrowly missing her right ear. She instinctively lunged the opposite direction, but apparently Prism been expecting this; he followed up with a rainbow beam, which she only narrowly avoided by ducking.

"KCCCHKKHHHHHHCSSSSSSSS!" exclaimed Prism.

"What did he say?" asked Ladybug.

Cat Noir frowned. "Well, the first part was definitely 'Your struggle is futile,' and the second part was either 'Paris shall know my vengeance' or something about Disneyland tickets."

"Let's assume it's the former for the moment!"

Prism let out an angry roar that was unmistakable even in his current form and fired three beams in quick succession. Ladybug dove out of the way, but the attacks apparently weren't aimed at her, but rather at the parked car behind her. The first two beams were normal laser blasts which flipped the car into the air with expert precision; the second, aimed higher, was a rainbow beam which struck the car in midair. Instantly the silver vehicle split into six identical cars, each a different color of the rainbow; the cascade of steel rained down on the Paris street, forcing Ladybug and Cat Noir to run for cover.

"Hey, Ladybug?" asked Cat Noir, now crouched in the doorway of a nearby shop. "Hypothetical question: what exactly would happen if one of those beams hit a person?"

"Let's just try to make sure that stays a hypothetical question!" replied Ladybug from a position on the opposite sidewalk.

In front of them, the Prism stalked down the sidewalk, his entire body blazing like a miniature sun with reflected light. His mouth made another indecipherable grinding noise, and this time Ladybug didn't exactly need a translator to figure out what it said.

This, she assessed, would probably take a while.

Meanwhile, in a darkened loft several miles away, a circular window gazed out upon the city of Paris. The blue glass of the window gave the interior of the room a cold, harsh interior. Not that this was the subject of many complaints; only one person ever visited this room, and he rather appreciated the lighting.

Hawk Moth, master of the Butterfly Miraculous and Paris's greatest supervillain, watched the battle with Prism with pleasure. Though the battle itself was miles away, he could clearly see events unfolding through his connection with the akuma which gave Prism his powers. He watched the falling cars with satisfaction, Ladybug and Cat Noir leaping out of the way of Prism's attacks.

"Yes, excellent!" he exclaimed. "Everything is going according to plan. Continue your attacks, Prism; sooner or later you will wear them down, and then there will be nothing stopping you from taking their Miraculouses and exacting your revenge!"

Today, he reflected, was going exceptionally well for Hawk Moth. Surprisingly well, in fact: though he had found early in his campaign of villainy that he could count on Chloé Bourgeois to produce a steady supply of despairing individuals, this had been a particularly chance encounter. Even he had not expected Prism to be such a capable fighter, preventing Ladybug or Cat Noir from getting in a counterattack. Admittedly, this was not how he had envisioned his grand victory, but it would do for...

Something shifted.

He wasn't sure how else to describe it: something in the air shifted. It was a sensation like a distant earthquake, except it didn't seem to be passing through the buildings; it was like a shift in power, a disturbance only detectable through his Miraculous. He had never felt anything like it before; even in the most heated battles, he had always felt the powers of the akuma victims as being something far away, sensed only through the bond he shared with them. This was something different, something which had rippled through all of Paris.

In the back of Hawk Moth's mind, something told him that things had just gone terribly wrong.

"I think we need a new strategy!" called Cat Noir, joining Ladybug on her side of the road. "I think at this point he's countered everything we've got!"

"Not quite everything," replied Ladybug with a smile. "We do still have our ace in the hole. You distract him for a few seconds while I figure out the plan!"

"No problem!" exclaimed Cat Noir with a wink. In a black blur he zipped out of cover, making sure to swipe his claws against a nearby car in order to ensure Prism saw and heard him.

Ladybug also stepped out in the open; she needed plenty of space for this. Taking a deep breath, she drew her yo-yo back and tossed it into the air. As it did so it began to emit a deep red glow.

"Lucky-" she began.

"Uh...actually, I don't think that'll be necessary, milady," called Cat Noir from the street.

Ladybug stopped, allowing the yo-yo to fall back into her hand. Turning, she saw that her partner was right: Prism was still standing in the exact same spot he had been a few moments earlier. Even with Cat in plain sight, he didn't appear to be taking any notice of the superheroes.

"Uh...what's going on?" asked Ladybug curiously. "Is it some kind of trap?"

"Only one way to find out," said Cat Noir with a shrug; he began walking closer to the apparently distracted supervillain. After a cautious moment, Ladybug followed him.

As they walked closer, they saw that the villain wasn't actually standing perfectly still; instead he appeared to be vibrating in place- not much, but at a high enough speed that his edges became an indefinable blur. Furthermore, the light emanating from his body was no longer simply reflected sunlight; instead, a strange shifting multi-colored glow was mixed in, tinting the light strange, unnatural colors.

"I don't like the look of this," remarked Ladybug, placing one hand on her yo-yo cautiously. "It feels like he's building up some kind of attack."

"I don't think it's an attack," said Cat Noir. "I mean, what kind of attack would require him to stand totally still for about a minute while he charged it up? Sounds completely impractical. Either way, though, this seems like a prime time to run in there and nab the akuma!"

Ladybug considered the shimmering figure; the vibration seemed to be becoming more intense. "I still feel kind of suspicious about this," she remarked. "Besides, where would the akuma even be on this guy? His whole body is crystal!"

"Didn't he have some kind of mirror on a necklace before?" asked Cat Noir. "I bet that could probably hold an-"

With absolutely no warning, the universe was ripped in half.

The sensation was completely indescribable and impossibly horrifying. It was as if every single atom in Ladybug's body was being shredded simultaneously. All around her, where there had once been the streets of Paris, there was now what could only be described as blazingly bright darkness. Through the non-space around her swirled the fragments of things she recognized. Some felt like people or objects; some like entire places, or like sensations; and some seemed to embody entire concepts, like warmth or distance. There was nothing left of the scene which had been before her: no sidewalk to stand on, no space in which a sidewalk to exist- even the concept of space had been torn away by the cataclysm.

Ladybug tried to scream, but her mind seemed to have been severed from control of her body. She tried to look at Cat Noir in her peripheral vision, but he no longer seemed to be in that direction; or rather, it was as if that direction was no longer a part of her reality. She had no concept of where Cat Noir was, or if he was still alive, or even if ideas of life and death were still relevant in this hellscape of a shattered universe. And, she realized with horror, even the idea of Cat Noir was becoming lost to her, her images and memories of him slipping away.

I have to focus! Marinette thought desperately to herself. I need to reach Cat Noir! I can't forget him; we need to work together to fix this! But...I can't quite think... how exactly we would do that. I mean, even if I knew exactly who he was...I don't seem to think he could heal entire realities like this!

In the n-dimensional waveform which represented the concept of her body, she felt her yo-yo dislodge itself from its slot on her waist. That gave her an idea: Maybe I can use the Miraculous to fix this! I...think it was supposed to be able to fix things that were broken, right? I just wish I remembered how it worked...or were able to move my body right now...I had to move my body for it, right?

There was something moving in the oblivion. It was something massive, something unimaginably vast in presence and concept (the only two things which could arguably still be said to exist). It was like a wave sweeping through, chaos aligning itself into order...but somehow Marinette could tell it was the wrong order, that there was something impossibly different about the new world emerging from the shadows.

I need to use... my Miraculous! she thought to herself desperately. I...'m not entirely sure what tha...t means, but...I need to fix this. I'm Ladyb...ug, I'm suppos...ed to pro...tect pe...ople... exc...ept

who... exa...ctly... is... Ladybug?

The wave caught her...and suddenly everything was exactly the way it should be.

Marinette looked around. She was exactly where she had been before… whatever it was had just happened. She was in her bedroom on the top floor of her family's bakery; she was seated in front of her computer, her Internet browser open to a news report about Jagged Stone's upcoming concert. Downstairs she heard the sounds of the Monday afternoon regulars browsing her parents' selection of baked goods for sale. Nothing in particular was out of the ordinary, so far as she could tell.

For a moment she found herself instinctively reaching for her ears, feeling her earlobes as if searching for something. She wasn't entirely certain what she would have been searching for. It wasn't like she ever wore earrings; she'd only gotten her ears pierced a few months ago, and even that had been part of an ill-fated attempt to impress a boy who had subsequently changed schools between years. She slowly lowered her hands.

What had happened a moment ago? Had she dozed off? She had a vague impression of being very, very scared of something; maybe she'd been having a nightmare? She supposed that the first day of school had stressed her out more than she'd thought; she was lucky not to have suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Having to interact with Chloé always tended to induce that reaction in Marinette; there were way too many dark memories on that front. Although that new girl- Alya, wasn't that her name?- had almost immediately gotten on Marinette's personal nice list by standing up to the brat in front of everyone; she was most definitely someone Marinette would be staying on contact with.

She leaned back in her chair. If only she could remember what she'd been dreaming about! She had a vague recollection that it had been such a good dream before everything went sour. There had been a boy in a black suit who seemed vaguely familiar; perhaps she'd seen his face in a magazine or something? She and the boy had been under attack by some kind of glass statue; or maybe it was a person made of glass? The details had faded from her mind; even the terrified panic she'd felt near the end was now a rapidly receding impression. Hadn't there been something about her being a superhero? Yeah, like that would ever happen; Alya's talk about comics must have gone to her head. Marinette knew she was the last person who'd be chosen to be a superhero.

Chosen. That was an odd word choice, wasn't it? Were superheroes just chosen one day? She didn't know enough comics to say for sure.

She sighed and sat back up at her computer. All in all it had been a pretty crappy day- like most of her days at school- but at least she'd potentially met a new friend. Any day when that happened couldn't be all bad, could it? She looked down at her desk; she'd better start moving stuff off so she'd have room to do her homework. She brushed aside her diary and the small box perched in the middle of the desk as she...

...had that box always been there?

She looked down curiously. Sure enough, there was a small box sitting on her desk. It was roughly circular in shape, with a domed lid that made it look like the front of a sphere; it appeared to be made of smooth metal, and its surface was decorated with a red-and-white pattern she didn't recognize. Just looking at the box gave Marinette a strange sense of internal conflict. The box seemed to emanate a sense of familiarity, as if it was- or perhaps contained- something she had known for a long time and was fond of; at the same time, just looking at the box seemed to evoke a sense of complete and utter wrongness in her, as if the very sight of it was proof that there was something broken in her mental picture. She felt something stir in the back of her mind- perhaps a remnant of the dream fighting its way into conscious thought.

She cautiously picked up the box and examined it. At first she didn't see any apparent method of opening it; however, she quickly realized that the white circle in the center of the domed lid was actually a button. Cautiously she placed her finger on the button and pushed; it slid inward smoothly and locked into place with a quiet click. With a small whirring sound, the box swung open on invisible hinges.

Marinette peered inside. The interior of the box didn't seem much more remarkable than the exterior; the metal on the inside was unpainted silver, with a glassy mirror placed in the center. More interesting were the box's contents: a pair of red earrings. That was odd; hadn't Marinette just been thinking about earrings? She was still a bit fuzzy on those details. This whole scene was slightly surreal, and growing ever more so; where had this box come from, and how had it gotten into her room?

She was about to turn and go ask her parents about the box- perhaps someone from school had given it to her, though she could not imagine who- when suddenly something even stranger than the other events of the day happened: the earrings began to glow.

As Marinette watched in fascination, a ball of pure white light began to form around the earrings. Once it had reached what appeared to be a critical size, a beam of light suddenly arced from the top of the ball into the air in front of Marinette, who took an involuntary step backwards. Before her eyes, the light began to coalesce into a shape suspended in the air; she had to avert her eyes, since the object was becoming too bright to look at comfortably. Finally the light began to die down, and Marinette felt comfortable looking back...and what she saw made her start reconsidering her belief that she wasn't, in fact, having a nervous breakdown.

There was a strange creature hanging in the air in front of her. It looked rather like a ladybug, except much larger; in fact, it was at least five or six inches from one end to the other. As it yawned and opened its eyes, Marinette couldn't help but wonder why she wasn't completely freaking out at this strange creature suddenly appearing in her room. Surely, something like this would be grounds for concern under normal circumstances; and yet there was no panic rising in her chest, no terror racing through her brain... nothing but a mild sense of unease. Even that soon faded as she looked into the creature's eyes for the first time; they were blue, and surprisingly human-like.

"Hi there!" the creature said; its voice was high and feminine, and also- like everything else about it- strangely familiar to Marinette. She couldn't imagine why this would be; after all, this was so far outside anything she'd ever seen before as to be utterly bizarre. And yet somehow just hearing that voice had a strangely calming effect on her, as if the creature were an old friend she hadn't heard from in a long time.

"Um...h-hi?" asked Marinette cautiously. "Uh...this might be a totally crazy question, but... have we met?"

The creature blinked in surprise. It- no, she; Marinette somehow knew it had to be a she- seemed to consider the question. "Not that I can think of," she said finally. "Why?"

"It's just...you seem familiar from somewhere," said Marinette; she leaned in for a closer look at the creature. "Which I realize is weird," she added, "seeing as I've obviously never seen anything like you before, but... Actually, what are you anyway?" This, she realized belatedly, probably should have been her first question.

"My name's Tikki!" the creature said. "I'm a Ledyba!"

"Ooookay," said Marinette. "That… really doesn't do much to answer my question."

"Oh, that's right," said Tikki. "I forgot for a second that you wouldn't know about creatures like me! Alright then: I'm a creature called a Pokémon. I've come here from another world!"

"Wait, I thought you just said you were a Ledyba!" protested Marinette; at this point the creature's explanation was starting to make her head spin more than its actual appearance (something she was still handling strangely well all things considered).

"I am," said Tikki, "but 'Ledyba' is a type of Pokémon. It's like...how should I put it... oh! It's like fish!"

"Fish," repeated Marinette.

"Yeah, fish!" exclaimed Tikki. "There's all kinds of different fish, with all kind of different abilities and appearances, but they're all called 'fish'. It's like how a salmon and a shark are both fish, but you'd never mistake them for each other!"

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," said Marinette thoughtfully. "Now what were you saying about another world? Are you like...an alien or something? Are you from another planet?"

"Actually, I guess you'd probably call it another dimension," said Tikki. "Where I come from, Pokémon are everywhere; lots of them are wild, but some of them are tamed by humans and become their companions."

"What about you?" asked Marinette; she was forcing herself to ask as many questions as possible, in case the weirdness of this whole situation suddenly caught up to her and she was left in a screaming ball on the floor. "Were you someone's companion, or were you wild?"

"I'm not sure," admitted Tikki. "A lot of my memories of where I come from are kind of fuzzy; I feel like when I came to this world, I must have lost a lot of my memories of my old world."

Marinette frowned thoughtfully. Now wasn't that appropriate; between the faded dream and her inexplicable tranquility, missing memories seemed to be very much a theme for today.

"But," added Tikki, "I do remember one thing: I came here with a very important mission. And that mission revolves around you, Marinette!"

"Me?!" exclaimed Marinette, something like surprise finally registering with her. "What do you need me for?"

"Something has gone wrong with the world," said Tikki, her voice growing solemn. "That's the one thing I clearly remember from before I was sent here. Something is happening over in my world that's put a lot of people in danger; and I can't explain why, but somehow I know that you're the only one who can help stop it!"

"I'm...pretty sure your memories must be a little more scrambled than you think," said Marinette. "I'm really not the world-saving type."

Tikki seemed about to reply, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by a series of loud ping sounds from Marinette's computer. Glancing at the screen, she saw that several messages from other students had popped up on her computer; most of them appeared to be some variation of the message 'TURN ON THE NEWS'.

Frowning, Marinette did just that: she grabbed the remote off her desk and turned on the TV, quickly navigating to the news channel. She immediately saw that some kind of emergency broadcast was being filmed, showing a heavily damaged city street with a news crew sheltered behind a damaged car.

"...no information has yet surfaced as to demands or motives," said the reporter. "Once again, for those just joining us: downtown Paris is currently under attack from what appears to be a bona fide supervillain! The individual in question has not been identified; they have demonstrated extreme strength and destructive capabilities, and have proven resistant to all forms of conventional weaponry. As of this moment, no information has yet surfaced as to-"

At that moment, the reporter was cut off as the apparent source of the destruction came into view. Marinette physically reeled from the TV screen; unlike Tikki, whose calming presence she still couldn't explain, this figure instantly put her on edge. The figure appeared to be a person, but its entire body was covered entirely in some kind of rock. It was roughly ten feet in height; the uncertainty came from the fact that the figure's legs didn't seem to touch the ground, and in fact dangled apparently uselessly below him. The arms, on the other hand, were no joke; its fists were the size of beach balls and appeared fully capable of pounding a car into a metallic pancake. In the midst of the rock, two large eyes glared out at the world with suspicion. The figure seemed to move with a great deal of momentum; as it started floating forward, it would build up steam and frequently stop only upon smashing into or through a wall.

Marinette turned back towards Tikki, who was watching the broadcast with what appeared to be an expression of great concern (her facial expressions were a bit hard to read, what with her being a giant insect and all). "Let me guess," she said weakly. "That's...something from your world, right?"

"I...think so," said Tikki. "I mean, I've never seen something quite like that before, but it looks similar to another type of Pokémon from my world!"

"And I'm going to go ahead and guess this is the kind of thing I'm supposed to deal with?" continued Marinette.

Tikki nodded, which consisted of her entire body bobbing up and down, her head leading the charge.

Marinette made a noise somewhere between a tired sigh and a fearful moan. This, she suspected, was most definitely going to be one of those days.

A/N: Well, this probably wasn't what most of you were expecting.

First of all, I'm really sorry Kitty and I haven't been more up-to-scratch on updating our existing stories. I promise that a new chapter of ΔX is my next priority; this will quickly be followed by Chapter 2 of Duelist Foundation and an update to It Takes One to Divine One, although not necessarily in that order. College workloads have a habit of getting in the way of writing, and writer's block has been hitting me HARD recently.

But anyway, welcome to the newest installment of the Omniverse Event! Unlike my other stories, which are coauthored with fellow OE regular Meer-Katnip, this one was coauthored by Hyperdragon97! This is their first official contribution to the Event, and it's a story I'm very much excited to see develop. It certainly was a journey getting here; I came up with the original idea shortly after first watching ML, but it was Hyperdragon who figured out how most of it would work and came up with some truly genius ideas for the story. You'll start to see the implementation of those ideas next time, whenever that turns out to be. Until then, enjoy what we've got so far; and if you're new to the Event and like what you see, check out the Master Story List on my profile for more details about current stories, as well as how you yourself can participate! See you next time!