Hey! Welcome to my first Miraculous fanfic! I got sucked into this fandom so fast, you would think that it's like a drug! You are correct! Please send help, I'm addicted!
In all honesty, I hope you like this. It was meant to be shorter, but I couldn't find a place to end it. You get the whole thing. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. (get it right) I wish I did, however.
Alya
I'm so, so, so sorry.
Just so everyone knows, I didn't consider the consequences. It's a super lame thing to do, and I know that, but I was just, like, caught up in the moment. I mean, Nino was all "hey face recognition apps could make your LIQ so much easier" and I was like YES and, well, kinda forgot to consider it from all the angles.
'Cause, you know when you get that feeling when you know that everything in your life has led up to this moment, you can't just say, "hmmm... NOPE I'm just gonna like WAIT for tomorrow to roll around and then be awesome," 'cause you just... no, it's your thing. It's your thing. It's what you were supposed to do, it's your... calling, I guess. It's never wrong, right?
Well, I guess mine was. My thing, as you know, was to give you guys the... the scoop, all the stuff on Paris's superheroes. And in that moment, I knew that this was my moment... I would give everyone the best of the best, 'cause I'm the girl who does the Ladyblog. I knew right then, right before I pressed the button, that I could change Paris.
And I went, and I changed Paris, and I screwed up and I'm so sorry.
{|+-+|}
A tear dripped down Marinette's face as Alya's latest blog post ended. More tears came, but not quite because she was sad. They were nervous, apprehensive tears. Tears because you were in trouble, the kind that would take not one, but two miracles to fix.
{|+-DAY OF ATTACK-+|}
Adrien
"So," Nino said in an attempt to lighten the mood, "crap hit the fan, am I right?" Nino half smiled, trying to cheer me up.
"No, actually, crap did not hit the proverbial fan, as you suggested," I shot back, "It's just that, well, I just got revealed to be Cat Noir by your girlfriend, and then Hawkmoth who, surprise, is my dad, gets in my room and tries to take my Miraculous. So now I'm on the run from one of the most powerful men in Paris. Actually, scratch that, Mister Bourgeois doesn't do jack squat. Hooray. Oh, not to mention the freaking love of my life sits behind me in school, only I won't be able to see her again as she probably got her Miraculous taken away and Hawkmoth made her a Radar. Wait, did you mean something else?" I glared at Nino, daring him to speak.
We were currently in the basement of Nino's house. Though he doesn't look it, his family is pretty rich. They basically had a bunker under their house. Nino and I were there, along with Alya, Mylene, Ivan, and Nathaniel. Once the Radars started coming, Nino had panicked and called the first few people he thought of.
I sighed. "Sorry for snapping at you, Nino. I just - I've had a bad day. You did nothing. In fact, thanks for letting me hide out at your house for now. You've been a great friend to me after, as you so eloquently put it, 'crap hit the fan.'" I chuckled.
"It's all good, man," Nino replied. I was currently letting out my frustration and anger on Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Luckily, I had forgotten to bring the game back home from the last time I was at my friend's house. Mylene and Ivan were currently checking the bunker's supplies, Alya was trying to get in touch with anyone (although it was in vain; the Radars disrupted the WiFi and cell service,) and Nathaniel was currently upstairs, locking all of the doors and driving out the few Radars that had gotten in. Adrien had insisted he do it, but Nathaniel said that he was an expert at this sort of thing; he had not just two or three, not even four, but five siblings that he was constantly trying to avoid. At learning this, Adrien's face went slack in shock.
"Really, you get used to it after a while," Nathaniel nervously said. "And you're still, um, coping, and you should have time to just relax and..." Nathaniel trailed off, not sure what to say. "Well, I'm off!" With that, Nathaniel jogged up the stairs and into the rest of the house.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, accompanied only by the sounds of the Hero of Time's on-screen movement. Just then, Nino's pocket vibrated. He casually pulled out his phone, checked it, and then stood up. "Alya wants me," Nino explained. I listened to his footsteps slowly fade into the background noises.
Only, they didn't. Frowning, I paused the game and turned around. Nino had taken out his phone and was madly typing away, presumably texting. But that won't work, I thought. There's no cell ser-
But if there was no cell service, how did Alya text Nino?
The stairwell suddenly seemed interesting, though I didn't know why. Then, almost as if my thought about cell service had summoned him, Nathaniel peeked his head downstairs. "Hey, we have internet, and the Radars are gone!" he said with a confused smile. He noticed Nino and Alya texting (or at least doing something on their phones) and his smile morphed into a scowl. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm only the person who gave you access to the rest of the world." He stomped off.
Nathaniel has been acting rather strange lately. I wonder why, I thought, watching the red-haired boy stalk off.
{|+-TWENTY ONE DAYS BEFORE ATTACK-+|}
Nathaniel
"Aaugh!" I threw my stylus to the floor. "Why is light so friggin hard to draw?!" I had woken up and decided to put the finishing touches on the comic I dubbed 'Miraculous: Behind the Mask', but I couldn't get the transformation bit right. The Ladyblog was pulled up on my computer, with a picture of Ladybug falling displayed on the screen. I was using it to portray a certain citizen turning into Ladybug after being blown off of a building by an akumatized villain, "Hedgemaster". However, whenever I tried to draw an orb of light circling her, it always turned out wrong- too uniform, too random, too sharp, not sharp enough, and so on. A four-note jingle took me out of my frustration, showing that Alya had posted something new on the Ladyblog. I clicked on it, and it took me to a string of numbers. The only explanation was four words and a fox emoji. "Here is the code," it stated. What followed utterly confused the heck out of me.
18-4-26-4-1-1-26-7-0-14-23-18-26-8-21-0-22-1-23-3-2-16
Well, do I have anything better to do? I thought, looking at the comic (which I was kind of frustrated at).
"Nathaniel! Come down for breakfast," my mom called up to me.
I paused, thinking. "Just a second!" I yelled back down to her. She knew that sometimes I would disappear in my room for hours on end on Saturdays, and I was pretty sure she didn't blame me, what with my five siblings and all. Right then, I had made up my mind.
Fifteen minutes and several discarded ideas later, I resorted to looking up "code breaker how to" and sifting through the results. I was currently learning about Caesar ciphers and how to crack them. I looked back at the numbers, in awe at how unbreakable this string of numbers seemed. Granted, I never had to do any code breaking myself, but whatever.
"A common occurence in most simple ciphers is to have numbers stand for leters," I read, not really paying attention to what it said. "For example, A is 1, B is 2, and so on." Wait! That was it! I quickly transcribed the numbers, singing the alphabet as I did so.
"Aha!" I shouted in delight when I had written down the letters. "R...erds..what?" I stared in confusion at what I had written down.
RDZDAAZG NWRZHU VAWCBP
"Gee, thanks a lot, Alya," The letters made no more sense than if they would've been in Greek. I sighed and started to reread the Caesar Cipher section.
"To decode the Caesar cipher, start by finding the letter that occurs the most." Okay, I thought, that would be... either A or Z. I kept reading. "Next, shift all the letters forward or backward so that letter is E." I spent a minute doing that, but with no success. I grumbled under my breath. Luckily, the website offered more advice. "If this doesn't work, use a method called the brute force method. Shift all of the letters by one until you get your answer.
About twenty minutes and 21 failed attempts later, I was ready to give up. "This better work," I said to myself. Almost unconsciously, I looked at the time. 10:32. About one and a half hours had passed since I had woken up. I shifted all of the characters 23 letters backward.
OWAWXXWD KTOWER XSTZYO
I sighed and put my head on the desk. "Why?" I asked the desk. "Why would she do this?" Blowing out a deep breath, I sat up. As I did so, part of it caught my eye.
uowawxxwd kTOWER xstzyo
My eyes lit up. Maybe this was what she meant! Wait. But why is the other stuff there? I peered at it. Maybe each word needed to be decoded differently? I sighed. I should eat something, I decided as my belly grumbled at me for being neglected, getting up and going downstairs.
When I came back up an hour later, ready to work on the code, I saw a sticky note on my comic.
When I transform, it's more like a wave of light slowly traveling up me. -Ladybug
My eyes widened. Ladybug was in here? The room smelled faintly of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles, which was ddly familiar, but I couldn't place it.. As I went to sit down, armed with new knowledge, a neon orange flashed from my trashcan. Frowning, I picked it out. It was the same message, only Ladybug's name was crossed out. I squinted at it. Was that an M? There was definitely a 'te' at the end there. Wait...
Another trill sounded. It was the Ladyblog again. I opened it, hoping that it was a hint to the code. Alas, it was just a blurry picture of Ladybug swinging around Paris with Cat Noir at her side. The caption read, "Sorry for the picture's bad quality, but is Cat's arm around our Lady's waist?" I squinted at the picture. It did seem like there was a black stripe on Ladybug's hips. However, this distraction freed my brain to think about what I had been trying to avoid.
HOLD UP, my brain yelled at me.
's name starts with an "M" and ends with "te" and has like a six or seven letter space in between
2. She smells like cookies
3. She actually was in the area
THIS EQUALS MARI-FREAKING-NETTE IS LADYBUG
As I silently made this connection, my face turned red. I started pacing around the room as me and my subconscious started arguing about the truth of my realization.
"But...she's so clumsy!"
Boy, do you realize how good of a cover story that is?
"Um...well-"
FOR GOODNESS SAKE! YOU HAVEN'T EVER SEEN THE TWO TOGETHER!
"Well, yeah, she's in the bathroom, or lost in the chaos of the attack..."
Mm hm. They even look alike. Just accept it. Who knows, maybe it'll help you get over your nerves and talk to her. Just don't tell anyone, I
I sighed. I just lost an argument with myself, I thought. Maybe I could keep working on the code. Internally I was freaking out, but I pushed it aside and resolved to have that freak-out later.
After staring at the code for a couple of minutes trying to figure out what it meant, I decided that I needed some help.
"Hello? Juleka?" A week ago I had been doing a sudoku from the newspaper as a wake-up for my brain. However, as luck would have it, it was the hardest difficulty the newspaper had. No problem, I had thought. Turns out that even though I was good at sudokus, I was no match for this one. I brought it to school, not planning to give up that easily. Juleka had seen me even more distracted during our classes, and went to talk to me about it right as lunch started. I learned that day never to underestimate the brainpower of Juleka, and walked away with a finished sudoku.
"Yes, Nath? What is it?" I had called Juleka to help me with the code, since I was so obviously stumped.
"Um, there was this Ladyblog post that made no sense to me, and I was hoping that you could help me figure it out. It's the code one," I added helpfully.
I heard clicking sounds from her side of the call. "When was it posted?" she asked.
"Just this morning," I replied.
"That's odd. The only post from today was just a picture of the superhero duo and a blurb about them. Are you sure it was today?"
Sometimes, when Juleka showed her inner genius, I felt like Juleka had two personalities. One for at school, when she's just the average student, and one for around her friends where she's the genius she really is. I should ask her why she does this, I thought.
"Yeah," I responded, "I'm sure. Maybe if I just-" I clicked the reload button to see if anything had changed.
Sorry, but the page you were looking for doesn't exist. Click here to go home.
What!? "Um, Juleka, I guess maybe Alya took it down? I reloaded the page and I got an error."
"Hmmm..." I could almost hear the cogs working in her head through the phone. "Maybe it's a super secret code!" she said excitedly. "Ooh, now I really wanna help."
An hour later, Juleka was making great progress. "Okay, so we've established that each letter chunk has to be shifted some amount and they form a word. The three words are 'Eiffel Tower West'. Now, I know that you want to go check out the west leg of the Eiffel Tower, but I promise it'll only take me a few more minutes for me to crack this."
I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You said that twenty minutes ago," I told the phone. I had put it on speaker because I was getting tired of holding it. "C'mon, can I just go?"
"...ugh, fine. Just go fast. I'll be working on this." A beep sounded from my phone, signaling that Juleka had hung up. Yes! I mentally cheered, jumping up and running out of my room. I almost tripped down the stairs; I only caught myself because I jumped to prevent myself from falling. Too late, I realized that this was not a good idea. I landed on my feet, turning my momentum into a roll. Whoa, where did that come from? My eyebrows turned up in surprise at my unexpected acrobatics, but I kept running.
Out the door, down the many streets, I ran like my life depended on it. On the way, I saw Marinette outside her family's bakery, talking to Alya. I lightly blushed, and then turned as red as my hair when I remembered her secret. I waved hi, and ran up to her. Man, where did the old Nathaniel go? "Uh, Marinette," I said as I jogged up to her, "I know your," I searched for a way to say this without giving it away, "spotted secret. But I have somewhere to be, so I'll talk to you later." I winked and ran off again.
Hello? Nathaniel? Where the FRIGGITY FRACK did you go!? But seriously! You went from the shyest boy in your class (well, maybe aside from Juleka) to winking at your crush without breaking a sweat! You treated her like you two were related, for goodness sake! I ignored the voice in my head and kept running. I could only imagine what I looked like: bright red hair plastered to my head as I tiredly but excitedly ran to who-knows-where.
Paying for my ticket and going to the stairs probably took me about thirty seconds. I slapped down a 10€ bill, breathlessly told him to keep the change, and grabbed the ticket he gave me and resumed running. When I finally got to the stairs, I started scouring them for any clues Alya might've left behind. However, I didn't have to go far. On the fourth step, I found a red, folded paper with five black spots on it. I carefully unfolded it, holding my breath in anticipation.
JOVOFKDYB
"Argh! Why did you have to put another code for me to decipher!?" Rolling my eyes, I dug in my pockets for my phone to call Juleka.
And came up with nothing.
I grumbled, knowing that I would have to go back home and call her. Luckily, the tickets to the Eiffel Tower were good for the whole day, so it would only cost me time. I stalked out, figuring that walking wouldn't really make a difference now.
I had probably been walking on the streets for seven minutes when I spotted Marinette again. I cheerfully waved and kept walking past when Marinette waved me over and greeted me. "Hey, Natha-"
"You've got to tell me the secret you know about Marinette, Nathaniel! What is it?" Alya's eyes were half-threatening, half-pleading as she looked at me. "I get secrets out of Marinette like that," she snapped her fingers, "but she's been holding out for ten minutes against me!" Alya shifted to focus on Marinette. "Girl, unless you tell me that you're secretly Hawkmoth, I won't judge you at all. What could possibly be so bad about this secret of yours?"
There was a silence as everyone waited for Alya to continue. When she didn't, Marinette spoke up. "I need to talk to Nathaniel, alone." With that, she walked inside the bakery, holding the door and looking expectantly at me.
"Well," I apologetically started, "I'm in the middle of something right now, so..." I pointed down the road. "Can I talk about this with you later?"
Marinette raised her eyebrows at me. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way." Sensing that I had been defeated, I walked in with Alya trailing behind me. Marinette waved me up the stairs to what I presumed was her room. Alya tried to enter too, but Marinette told her that this was only between her and me.
The trapdoor to her room shut, trapping her and me in her room. Normally, I would be freaking out. Holy frigg, me and my crush are essentially locked in her bedroom! But now I was kind of scared, since I had never seen this side of Marinette before.
"So what exactly do you mean by my 'spotted secret'?" she asked threateningly. She was uncomfortably close to me. So much so, in fact, that if I wasn't currently being drilled down by Marinette's glare I probably would've leaned in and kissed her.
What!? No! In a normal situation, I probably would have passed out! What has gotten into you lately, Nathaniel!? I furiously blushed, and then Marinette's raised eyebrow reminded me that I was supposed be answering a question. "Uh - you - red - transform -" I took a deep breath to cure my nervousness. "I know that you're Ladybug." Her shocked, almost offended expression confirmed it. "Sorry; sorry," I quickly amended. Ha ha; told you! I taunted the voice in my head. "I was just jumping to conclusions," I continued, "and I thought that it might be you but you smell like vanilla and -" My cheeks turned crimson as I realized what I had said. "Uh," I finally stammered, "could we just forget that this ever happened?"
At that precise moment Alya busted in, phone in hand, laughing like Nathaniel had just told the funniest joke ever. "You thought that Marinette could be Ladybug!? Nathaniel, you're the one who's supposed to notice the details!" She paused, winding down, tears in her eyes. Then, as she caught my eye again, she started laughing once more, this time even louder. Crestfallen and hurt, I ran out of Marinette's room and down the stairs, tears trailing behind me.
"Nathaniel, wait!" Alya's voice came down to me. Making no difference.
"I'm sorry!" No, you aren't! I wanted to scream back up at her. I realized that I was letting my rage feed itself, but I didn't care. I pushed open the bakery door, the cheerful ding-ding insulting me.
You're supposed to notice the details! Alya's voice echoed in my head. I wasn't sure when I stopped, but I was currently sitting under the statue of Paris' superheroes.
Notice the details! Notice the details! Notice the details!
Chameleon, I am Hawkmoth.
{|+-+|}
"Cat! We can't sneak up on him!" Ladybug yelled to her partner. They were currently dodging my ginormous tongue and trying to get into one of the nearby buildings and away from me. Combined with my powerful vision, I was nearly impossible to evade. Honestly, I was pretty awesome. I looked like a humanoid chameleon, hence the name, but with a tuft of red hair. I was currently hanging on to the wall of a building with both arms and legs, leaving my amazing tongue as my only availible appendage. Truthfully, I didn't want to fight the two superheroes. However, Hawkmoth causing me physical pain because I refused to do what he said was not something I would have liked to have happen again.
"I can't hold out much longer, m'lady! We have to SEE a solution, and fast!"
"That was a stretch, even for you, kitty," Ladybug replied to Cat Noir. She paused, looking around, and then yelled, "Cat, cover me!" She swung up to the ledge, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I shot out my tongue and almost caught her, but Cat's baton got in the way. No matter, I thought, he'll work just as well. I quickly reeled him in wrapping him up so much it looked like he was in a sleeping bag made of a giant, pink eel.
Just then, Ladybug yelled, "Lucky Charm!" She threw her yoyo into the air. She thinks she's soooo clever, I thought with a smirk. But can she handle this? From the yoyo, a large mixing bowl materialized, and I instantly shot out the remaining length of my tongue out to grab it.
"Ha ha! Waweewu, I ha oh ou huh aahahaha. Wha aa ya haha hoo haa, Waweewu?" I tried to say triumphantly. Both superheroes looked at me like I was crazy. I frowned as best as I could, then wrote a message on a paper with my tongue. I then held it in front of Cat Noir so he could read it to Ladybug.
"Um, I read this?" Cat Noir asked. After a nod from me, he continued. "Laokyberg, I... true doth of the... what is this?" He looked at me, and I gave him a pointed look at my hands and feet. "Um..." He squintd hard. "Holrastav '06? What does that even mean?" I rolled my eyes. Surely my tongue-writing wasn't that bad?
At that precise moment, Ladybug decided to throw some lab supplies at me, since she apparently thought that would do any good. While I easily dodged or deflected most, two solutions made their way into the bowl. I decided not to worry about it too much, and focused on trying to take off Cat Noir's ring while he was still tied up.
And then something disgusting hit my tongue.
I gagged, then retracted my tongue. As it was retracting, I managed to snag Cat Noir's ring, so that was a plus. Because of it, I got to see Cat Noir, dumbstruck, as he watched his suit bubble away. Good job, Hawkmoth whispered inside my head. I grimaced, his "encouragement" reminding me of my bad situation.
"Cat! Run!" Ladybug yelled to him, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get his ring back before his identity would be revealed. Seeing the meaning behind her words, he ran behind the nearest building. I was about to go after him when Ladybug wrapped her yoyo around me and dragged me, tied up, over to her.
"You have two options, Nathaniel," She closed the distance between us. "You can give me the ring the easy way, or I can take it from you the hard way." I threaded the ring onto my tongue, fearing the worst.
"Do you really think I would just give it up?" I laughed in spite of my predicament.
She rolled my eyes, like this was only an annoyance. "Fine," she replied, blushing slightly.
Then, leaning down to come face to face with me, she kissed me.
My face went slack in surprise. Her lips pressed against mine, forcing them open. Her tongue explored every inch of my mouth, stopping on the ring. I took in her scent: chocolate cookies and snickerdoodles. Hey, I thought, Hawkmoth can't see inside my mouth! So I could help Ladybug get back the ring, defeat Hawkmoth somehow while still making it seem like I was trying to protect him, and then convince Ladybug to let me keep my powers! It was a little farfetched, but I was pretty sure it would work. I set my tongue to work on getting the ring off, when the reality of what had happened hit me.
Ladybug was kissing me.
Ladybug was kissing me.
Ladybug was kissing me.
Not only that, but she was on her knees above me, her hands gripping my face. To any onlooker, it looked as if Ladybug and I were in the middle of something, if you know what I mean.
I went completely limp at this.
It was quick work for Ladybug to get the ring back from me, and she scampered over to where Cat Noir was hiding. I just laid there, stunned, while the two conversed. I knew that the kiss didn't mean anything, but I was still thrilled that she even considered it. I was so out of it that I didn't even notice when Ladybug poked my eye.
"Ow!" I said, annoyed. "Why did you do that?" I shot out my tongue at her. Or, at least, tried to. Instead, I just stuck my normal, very human tongue out at her. I looked up, seeing thir backs to me as they ran off. Huh, I thought, that was an interesting way to defeat me. I stood up and walked the remaining way home.
{|+-+|}
"Hey, did you see the latest akuma attack?" Juleka asked. "Hawkmoth did a good job with that one, I think. Not that I support him or anything; I just think that that akuma was cool. Do you know who it was? No one saw."
I smiled. I could have some fun with this.
{|+-DAY OF ATTACK+|}
"Hey, mister! You gonna sit there doing nothing until the attack is over, or what?"
I gasped, looking up. What was I supposed to be doing? I looked around. Where am I? I had been daydreaming about the Day again.
I had dubbed the day I had been akumatized, given the Fox Miraculous, and learned Ladybug's identity the Day.
I was currently just inside the door of the basement of Nino's house, and I was supposed to be clearing out the Radars. "How long have I been here?" I asked Trixx.
"Hmm, I'd say about two hours."
My eyes bulged.
"Two hours?! They've probably accepted that I've been turned into a Radar! I need to-" I was interrupted by a snort from Trixx, and then his dam broke and a river of giggles poured out of him. I narrowed my eyes. "Okay, for reals this time: how long?"
"Who's?" Trixx asked without missing a beat, a twinkle in his eyes.
I swatted at him, but she just floated out of the way and phased through the door. "You know I didn't mean it like that!" I yelled after him as I closed the basement door behind me. I dodged and weaved between the Radars, trying to catch up to him. The last straw was when, on the top floor, he phased through the ceiling.
"Alright, you asked for it!" I yelled to the ceiling. "Trixx, let's pounce!" I saw an orange blur swirl into my Miraculous necklace, and the segments on it lit up. "The tables," I said, with a self-satisfied smirk, "have turned." I looked around, realizing that I hadn't thought this far in my plans.
"Ummm..." I started. "I could round up all the Radars?" I said to myself.
Hey, why don't you use your Mirage to get the Radars out? Trixx suggested from the Miraculous. I nodded, thinking that that was a great idea.
I thought for a moment, deciding what to make, then yelled out, "Mirage!" An orange glow shot out of my Miraculous, turning into three copies of Marinette and Adrien. "I want you guys to catch the attention of at least one Radar each, and then lead them outside." I sent them off, and after a few minutes I went around locking doors. I ran into a few Radars on the way, but they were easily taken care of.
Recently, I had tried out using my Mirage to create intangible, sentient beings. It took a bit more effort, and I certainly wasn't perfect at it, but it certainly was useful. For example, one of our recent akumas, Afoaofa, hated deserters. So when I made it seem like my whole class was trying to escape, he was bent on finding all of them and apprehending them.
I opened the door to the basement stairwell and walked down, remembering at the last moment to drop my transformation. I peeked down, seeing if anyone noticed.
All eyes were on me. Crap.
"Hey, we have internt, and the Radars are gone!" I tried, hoping that they hadn't noticed my fox costume.
Then, my attention shifted to Nino, who was typing away on his phone. "Oh, don't mind me," I scowled, "I'm only the person who gave you acces to the rest of the world." I stalked off. Luckily, they hadn't noticed my accidental detransformation, so I was safe for now.
"Hey, guys, we aren't as connected as we thought." Alya's voice rang throughout the cement-walled basement. "We can message the rest of the world, but they can't receive it unless they're connected too. So we're back to square one." I frowned, not really caring. I wonder what everyone else is up to in this heckhole, I absentmindedly thought.
Criticism, please! Don't forget to review and tell me what I did right/wrong!