The Masked Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir

by Light Seeker 001

Based more on the Dark Horse comic series rather than the movie. The Mask is tossed into the Atlantic and floats all the way to Paris. Now Ladybug and Chat Noir must not only deal with Hawk Moth's Akumas but also a psycho named the Big-Head Killer. Constructive criticism would be nice. No flames. Rudi Schaefer and his family are my OC's. DON'T STEAL THEM!

2. Chapter 2

Somewhere in the heart of Paris, it was an ordinary day. Well, ordinary if you're a superhero. Ladybug and Chat Noir were doing what they do best: fighting an Akumatized victim, only this one was a tad creepy for Chat Noir's taste. A raggedy tramp clown ran in the middle of the street throwing pies that turned anyone they hit into evil clowns like him. "You all laughed at me! Not my jokes!" he yelled in hate. "Now let's see how you like it when I, Pierrot, make you the punchline!" He laughed maniacally, throwing more pies at people and turning them into evil clowns. Nearby, a pair of teenagers: a green eyed blonde boy in a black cat costume and domino mask and a blue pigtailed girl with blue eyes and wearing a ladybug spotted jumpsuit and domino mask watched the chaos in concern.

"Darn it, Chloe," muttered Ladybug to herself. "Did you really have to make fun of this poor guy's act? He was still practicing!"

"Can we make this quick, m'lady?" asked Chat Noir. "Clowns give me the willies."

Ladybug laughed. "The brave Chat Noir, the Black Cat, afraid of clowns?"

"Hey! I'm not afraid! They just make me uncomfortable with all that makeup on!"

"Whatever, come on, let's go!"

The pair jumped off the building they were standing on and landed in the middle of the street with Ladybug taking out her yoyo, and Chat Noir taking out his retractable staff. When Pierrot saw them, a butterfly pattern appeared across his face. "That's it, Pierrot!" said a deep, menacing voice in his head. "Just grab their Miraculous and the whole world will laugh along with you at their defeat!"

"Yes, Hawk Moth," said the clown to the voice. "Time to make you laugh!" He said to Ladybug and Chat Noir and pulled out a huge gatling with pink and blue polka dots all over it. "Wether you want to or not!" He laughed crazily, firing wild shots at everything in sight, forcing the duo to duck behind a parked car.

"Man, we can't get close to him without turning into a clown!" Ladybug knew what to do. "Lucky Charm!" she called out. Her yoyo twirled in the air, then transformed into...

"A fishing net? Man, this transforming thing is so random at times. What am I going to do with this?" She looked around. Her powers highlighted potential spots to use the net: the trees Pierrot was positioned, the gatling gun, and the rows of parked cars. Then she formulated her plan. "Chat Noir, serpentine to and fro through the cars and take out that gatling gun with your Cataclysm! I'll sneak up behind him!"

Chat Noir smirked. "Serpentine? I'm not a snake. I'm a cat. We slink, not slither."

"Ugh. Less puns, more maneuvering!"

Chat Noir did what she ordered and started maneuvering as quick as a cheetah two and fro the rows of cars.

"Oh, no you don't!" shouted the clown, trying to get a precise aim at the cat themed hero.

Just as he was a few feet from him, Chat Noir let out a yell, "Cataclysm!" Smoke billowed from the ring with the green cat paw design on it and he made a very risky jump high into the air. Just before the clown could get a good aim on him, he slapped his hand on the gatling gun and it rusted into a pile of dust.

"Well, that's that!" said Chat Noir.

"Y-y-you, you stay back!" the clown whimpered, backing away from him, not even noticing the ladybug patterned fishing net right behind him until he was wrapped up in it. Ladybug jumped from one of the trees and landed on his stomach, knocking him out.

"And now to finish the job," said Ladybug, plucking the clown's nose off and squishing it, making it honk. After the honk, a black butterfly with purple lightning designs on it started to fly away from the nose. However, the fishing net changed back into a yoyo and zipped back into Ladybug's hand. "No more evildoing for you little Akuma." With another twirl, the yoyo opened up and caught the butterfly. "Time to de-evilize! Gotcha!" She pressed the yoyo and the butterfly flew away, now transformed white. "Bye-bye, petite butterfly!" she said cheerfully. Then she gave the yoyo a great spin and shouted, "Miraculous Ladybug!"

A wave of ladybug circles swept through all of Paris, undoing all the damage the clown had done. The clown meanwhile, was enveloped in a purple smoke that evaporated instantly, leaving behind an ordinary street performer lying on the ground. He regained consciousness and said, "What happened? I was so angry at that girl and..."

"It's alright," Ladybug assured him. "Just go home and lie down for a while. And for what it's worth, you are amazing."

The street performer smiled, nodded and walked away, leaving Chat Noir and Lady Bug to themselves.

"So erstaunlich." The accented voice made the duo turn around. There was a blonde boy around Ladybug and Chat Noir's age, garbed in a gray hoody jacket, blue baggy jeans, and a pair of Gorillaz converse sneakers. "Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass ich diese Aktion so nah sehen würde."

"Uh...pardon moi?" asked Ladybug.

"Oh," said Chat Noir in a matter of fact tone. "He's German." Then he said, "Vielen Dank."

"You speak German?" asked the boy and Ladybug, confused. Then both Ladybug and Chat Noir said to the boy, "You speak English?"

"Isn't that a required language to learn these days?" the boy said. "I've been taking lessons since I was little." The boy's English was accented a tad. "Anyway, it's nice to hear someone I can speak with in my native language."

Before the pair could say anything else, Chat Noir's ring and Ladybug's earrings started to beep. "Uh, oh," gasped Ladybug. "We're about to change back! Let's vamoose!"

"Same here," said Chat Noir. "Auf Wiedersehen!" he shouted to the boy as his staff launched him into the air and onto the building top.

"What he said!" shouted Ladybug, swinging the street lights with her yoyo.

The boy smiled. "I think my family made the right choice coming here."

(!)
In an alley, Ladybug transformed back to her civilian self, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, while a little ladybug-like pixie popped out of one of her earrings. "So glad we finally got rid of those clowns," she said. "They were really scary!"

Marinette scoffed. "You're worse than Chat Noir, Tikki." She let the Kwami hide in her purse as she set off for her home, the bakery run by her family.

(!)
At his lavish mansion, Chat Noir changed back into Adrien Agreste as he watched a black cat-like pixie pop out of his ring and land on his bed with a plop, groaning. "Don't make fun of me about the clown thing, alright, Plagg?"

The Kwami groaned and said, "I won't. As long as you give me a wheel of camembert. The biggest one you can find!"

Adrien groaned.

(!)
Somewhere in Paris, a man garbed in a purple suit and a silver mask stamped his cane onto the ground, scattering his butterflies everywhere. "No!" he yelled. "That fool failed me!" He was the one that was responsible for the clown's corruption, just like many others before him. And like all the others before him, they all failed and were changed back by Ladybug and Chat Noir. "This isn't over yet, Ladybug and Chat Noir," he swore as the circular butterfly-shaped window closed. "A sucker is born every minute after all, and that sucker will be my next Akuma victim!"

(!)
Somewhere in the canals of Paris, the Mask finally made its stop at the docks. There, it waited until it was put on by someone. A sucker is born every minute. It had enough time to wait.

(!)
At Collège Françoise Dupont, Ms. Caline Bustier was making an announcement. "A new student from Germany will be attending our class starting this semester, so let's give him a warm welcome when he arrives."

"Germany, huh?" Alya Césaire was intrigued. "I've heard a lot of things about Germany, aside from what we're told in history books."

"You're telling me," said Adrien. "I was once on a business trip at Germany with my dad. They're actually pretty nice, much like us Paris folk."

"Ooh," said Alya. "I bet you met a lot of people there."

"Well, I was required to learn the language, just some here and there."

"I'm sure we would like to know more, right Marinette? Marinette?" Marinette wasn't listening to her dark-skinned, red-haired, bespectacled friend and was busy looking at some pictures of Adrien's modeling pictures on her phone. That is until Alya tapped her head. "Ahem, earth to Marinette?"

"Oh, oh! Uh...Hi, Alya," squeaked Marinette, frantically closing the website.

Alya shook her head and said, "Go on! If you want to know more about Adrien so you can, uh, what was it? Go out, trade secrets, get married..." Her blue haired friend shushed her. "You know what I mean. Ask him about his experience in Germany."

"Like what? I don't know German!"

"Ask him! He said so himself, he knows some German!"

"And what? Ask him how to make a strudel, or what their sauerkraut taste like, or if he was with..." Her eyes widened. "If he knows some girl from there! Oh, no! I'm doomed! What if they're web chatting to each other, laughing, getting to know each other, asking one another to get married!"

"Okay, I think you're overreacting."

Suddenly, the teacher said in excitement, "He's here! Everyone, please give a warm welcome to...er..." She stopped and looked uncertain. "How do you say it?" she asked to someone outside the class.

"Rudolf Schaefer."

That voice sounds familiar, thought Adrien and Marinette.

"What he said!" said the teacher.

When the boy stepped in, Marinette and Adrien gasped inwardly. It's that boy from yesterday, they yelled mentally.

"Er...it's nice to meet everyone," Rudolf said awkwardly. "Just call me Rudi. And I'm here because my dad got a promotion and is working here in Paris."

"He sure is cute," a snooty voice said. A voice belonging to the Wicked Witch of Paris, the blonde haired, blue eyed daughter of the Mayor of Paris, Chloe Bourgeois. "The accent is weird but every thing else is fine." She wasn't the only one thinking that. Her friend, or should I say, assistant, Sabrina Raincomprix, was gawking him as well. "Hey, look elsewhere!" Chloe twisted her head around and made her look at a wall.

"Sorry!" Sabrina groaned.

"So can you tell us what happens in your school in Germany?" asked Ms. Bustier.

"Well, not so much. We have a brilliant football team or as Americans call it, soccer. Not that I'm in it mind you. I mean, you expect me to be in one with this physique?" He gestured to his average body. "But on the plus side, I am an art program where we have beautiful girls, I mean you French are beautiful by your own standards..." A few girls including Marinette, Chloe and Alya frowned at this.

While the German boy prattled on, Chloe growled to herself, "By my own standards huh? That's another way to say I'm ugly!"

"He called you ugly?" gasped Sabrina. "I guess Germans have a poor taste in women."

"Very poor taste," said Chloe.

"And what is it that you do?" asked Adrien's friend, Nino.

Rudi said to the dark-skinned, baseball cap wearing boy, "Well, I do help out in my dad's autoshop. He's got a new one in Paris." He smiled. "I actually have good story. There was this customer who said he ripped him off and gave him a high price for fixing his motor. And my dad says, 'I don't know what you're talking about, I haven't seen you before.' And the customer goes on this long rant, cursing and screaming and saying words that I know he made up. Until he realized he was in the wrong shop!"

"So you're just a grease monkey?" asked Chloe. "Should have figured. It's no wonder you have that ungentlemanly aura."

"Chloe!" scolded Marinette.

"What? He's just another commoner. I'm actually surprised he's even part of this exchange program. Usually only the

Rudi didn't say anything at first, but then smiled and said, "Did you hear something? All I heard was," And he started making a pig squealing. "Hey, someone call the butcher! There's a swine loose in school!"

Everyone except Chloe and Sabrina laughed. The two girls were just gaped at him.

"All right, that's enough!" Ms. Bustier said. "Rudi, please take your seat. You can talk to the rest of the students after school."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind having a tour around this school. I am going to be here after all."

"I can help out with that," said Adrien. "I know this school like the back of my hand. I'll show you around after class."

"Can I accompany you?!" piped up Marinette. Everyone looked at her. "Er...you know, to make sure the boy doesn't get lost." She was red in the face as she said that.

Rudi didn't seem to mind. "Vielen Dank," he said to Adrien.

"Keine Ursache."

Rudi paused as he sat down next to Adrien. "Funny. Chat Noir knows German too."

"Er...he does?" Adrien tried to change the subject. "Wait you know Chat Noir?"

"Jahol," said Rudi. "And Ladybug."

"You met Ladybug and Chat Noir?" asked Alya, excited. "What was it like? What happened?"

"Well, it was only yesterday. I was walking back to the hotel where my parents are staying at when I saw this big clown fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir!"

Apparently, Ladybug and Chat Noir are the talk of the town a lot more than the thought, and soon everyone was asking about his encounter with the two local superheroes of Paris.

(!)
"And this is your locker right here," said Adrien, who was just finishing the tour with Rudi after class was over.

"This school is a lot smaller than the one back in Deutschland.

"Deutschland?" asked Marinette, accompanied by Alya. "I thought you were from Germany."

"That's how they say it in Germany," Adrien explained.

"Oh. You learn a lot of new things," Marinette giggled, but inwardly she was saying, "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! And right in front of Adrien!"

"Well, I better get going," said Rudi as the four exited the building. "My dad is going to expect me to help him out at the shop. I do hope you drop by. Not just for a broken car, mind you. But for anything, we can hang out, we can chat online, we can do...what do you Paris folk do anyway?"

Suddenly, the next thing he knew, Rudi was tumbling down the stairs and landed on his face. Adrien and Marinette rushed to help the new kid up only to gasp when they saw blood oozing out his nostrils. They both looked up to see Chloe typing away at her phone like nothing was wrong. When she saw their angry looks she said, "What? It was an accident I swear! I didn't know the grease monkey was ahead of you!"

"That was no accident, Chloe!" shouted Alya, but Rudi stopped her. She was surprised to see him smile even after getting a bloody nose.

"It's alright! I had worse. This one time I was helping dad place a new motor in this jalopy, and I accidentally let it slip and it landed on my toes! I had to wear a cast for two months!"

"Ooh!" the kids said.

"Yeah, I could use a napkin though."

"Here," said Alya, taking a tissue from her purse.

"Danke," he said. "Well, I'm off. Hope to see you soon. The swine not so much."

"I heard that!" Chloe shouted as he walked away. "Do you know who I am?! I am the Mayor of Paris' daughter!"

"Don't care!"

Chloe growled darkly. "I'll make you care tomorrow," she swore under her breath.

(!)
Inside his head, Rudi was thinking of performing all kinds of medieval torture techniques he read on the internet on that blonde haired bitch. Perhaps a session in the iron maiden, or perhaps a seat on the Judas cradle, or maybe he can tear her apart with the iron spider, or...

His dark thoughts were interrupted when a car driving by him sloshed a puddle at his new shoes. "Sehen Sie, wohin Sie fahren, Sie Stücke Scheiße!" He immediately regretted what he said when the car drove back and stopped in front of him. Three tough looking boys, probably college youths, stepped out.

"What did you say?" one of them asked.

The second asked, "Care to repeat what you said in English?"

"Uh..." Rudi shrunk.

"Hold on, I got a translator app," a third said. He tapped his phone a few times and sneered. "Apparently, he called us pieces of shit."

"Uh..."

(!)
Rudi ducked and hid behind a bench while the three boys chased after him. "Where's that Kraut?! I want him to suffer more than a black eye!"

He was glad those three thugs didn't find him, but now he was farther away from the shop, and his dad was probably wondering where he was. He slid out from under the bench and typed a few coordinates in the GPS app in his phone. That's when he saw it: a peculiar looking green thing floating in the water. At first he thought it was drift wood, but on closer inspection he realized it was a mask with a blank expression. It looked like it was made in Africa or some other part of the world that had tribal history. He reached for it and picked it up. What was it doing over here in Paris? Shouldn't it be in a museum? Oh, well. It might be a good souvenir. Yeah, a reminder of his first week in Paris. And a reminder of his first day at school with a witch. Ooh! He knew a good one for that Chloe! Thumb screws! Let's see her try to tap her phone with those!

Rudi smiled evilly as he placed the Mask in his backpack.

(!)
"Ah, your home!" Mrs Schaefer said. She immediately noticed the injuries on her son. "Goodness! What happened to your eye? Your nose?"

"It's nothing. The nose was from some bully at school."

"A bully?"

"It's alright. I doubt I will be seeing her," said Rudi, trying to calm his mother. "I think it was just a one time thing. She just tripped me."

"She?" said a deep voice. "A girl tripped you?"

"Dear..."

"It's alright!" insisted Rudi. "I don't want you to get in trouble with the mayor, Dad."

The dark haired, crooked-nosed man in overalls and work boots looked him over. "That was the mayor's daughter?"

"So she says," said Rudi. "No wonder she acts like a pig. She probably gets it from her father."

"Oh, that pompous..."

"Max," said Mrs. Schaefer. "It was the first day at school. And it was a one time incident. It's not like they'll meet each other all the time."

"Besides, I did make some new friends," said Rudi, trying to calm down his father. "There's this cute but clumsy girl Marinette, this tech wiz Alya, a model named Adrien and his friend Nino..."

"Wow, a lot of friends on your first day," interrupted his father. "I'm impressed. Usually it would only take a couple of days to make that many friends."

"Well, they did like to hear your stories in the garage back in Deutschland." Max smiled proudly. "And...maybe it had something to do with my encounter with Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Max sighed. "That's my biggest concern."

"What, Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

"But they're beloved here!" said Rudi's mother. "You don't think they're a threat do you?"

"Never, Henrietta!" insisted Rudi's father. "I would love to get an autograph of Ladybug, personally. Don't tell anyone." He coughed and said. "But the villains are a trouble. What if you were caught in the middle of a fight like yesterday? I don't want to see you hurt."

"Dad, do you expect me to just walk in the middle of a fight? What am I? Suicidal?"

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid," Max said sternly. "And don't agitate this girl any further. Those kinds of people like to hold a grudge."

Rudi sighed and nodded, "Ja Vater."

"Now, let's get you cleaned up," said Henrietta. "I'll get the hydrogen peroxide." She said to Max, "And you should clean up too! You're leaving a trail of oil in the house!"

Max flinched and said fearfully, "Yes dear."

"Mom! That stuff hurts!"

(!)
After dinner, Rudi went to bed, watching the small TV in his bedroom. He still was having dark thoughts, but now he had a mental list. Chloe was on the top of it along with those thugs. He wrote down the license plate of the car belonging to one of those thugs that gave him a black eye. It's a good thing he didn't mention them, otherwise he would have REALLY got a lecture on not picking fights with strangers from his father and mother. His mother mostly. She scared him more than his tough mechanic father. She was always the one who wore the pants of the family.

Wait, what was he doing? Those guys were probably long gone by now. And besides, what was he going to do? He wasn't that skinny but he was a toothpick compared to those meatheads! And besides, he knew better. Guys like those were not worth it!

Maybe they can be.

Rudi looked around when he heard that voice. "Who said that?" He looked around again, but saw nothing. Then he looked at the green mask sitting on his shelve of his knick-knacks. He hadn't shown it to his parents yet. He was planning on scaring them tomorrow before school. For some reason, every time he looked at it, the dark thoughts amplified. He turned away from it, but he looked at it again. Some sort of temptation filled him as he walked towards the mask. That same temptation told him to put it on.

Suddenly, the moment, the nose touched the inside, the mask's edges wrapped around his whole head. He yelled and tried to rip it off in a panic but it wouldn't come off! He yelled more as some strange feeling flowed in and out of him making him spin and spin until he looked like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes. Then it stopped as fast as it began.

"Whoo! That was weird. Now if only I can get this thing off..." Hey, what happened to my voice?! It didn't sound right, much like how his head shouldn't feel right. He needed a mirror. He rushed to the bathroom and gasped at his face. No, this wasn't his face! It had a bulging, bald head. Its skin was a putrid yellow-green. Its enormous, sunken eyes were red and seemed to glow. It had a broad, flat nose, smashed in like a skeleton's nose. He opened the dark-lipped mouth to let out a scream, revealing teeth too long for its mouth. This wasn't his face! This wasn't his face!

"Get it off! Get it off! Get it - AAAAAAHHH!" In his panicked struggle to rip this horrid thing off his face, he fell out the bathroom window and onto the street. His bedroom was on the second story, so he braced for impact and a huge world of pain. But when he felt the landing, he felt no pain. He got up, dusted himself and checked himself for any injury. "Nothing. I'm good!" Then he realized, "Did you do this?" He scratched his new, bald head as he asked this. It felt like rubber.

"Rudolf?" he heard his father's voice. "What's going on in there?"

"Nothing dad! Just popping a zit! Don't worry about it!"

When he was sure his father went back to bed, Rudi checked himself out. "What else can you do?" he asked to no one in particular.

"Thief! Thief!" He watched as some man ran off with some woman's purse. "Well, what better way to experiment my new powers?"

(!)
The thief slipped behind a alley and hid behind a dumpster. "Let's see what we got here."

"Halt right there!" said a dramatic, yet scratchy voice. "You better return that purse right back to it's owner..." A figure stepped out of the shadows, or face the wrath of..." The figure came into the light and the thief's eyes bugged out at the strange clothes he was wearing and the strange, big, bald green head. "...of...of..." The stranger tapped his chin. "Damn, I didn't come up with a hero name! What should I call myself? Olive Man? No, that's stupid. Pickle Head? I don't even like pickles. Frank?" He was stumped. "Hey, mister, what should I call myself?"

"Dead." The man pulled out a pistol and fired three rounds into the stranger's chest. The stranger looked down at his chest, then hawked a loogie at the man. A loogie that had the three bullets in it! The man dodged the attack and rushed at him, punching him in the chest and out into the street. The stranger didn't even see the truck flatten him like a pancake.

The driver looked back to see what he hit, but instead he ran back to his vehicle in fear when he saw a flat man with a green head stand up and inflate himself like a balloon! "Look, ma! I'm roadkill!" he said, laughing.

When the thief saw this, he took off running, but was stopped by the stranger. "Say, do you know what time it is?" The stranger pulled out a comically giant alarm clock. "Why, it's five seconds before I take that purse back and hang you by your underwear!" He paused. "Fivefourthreetwoone!" And with that, he snatched the purse away and spun the man around and grabbed him by his underwear and gave it a good, hard yank. There was a mirror-breaking scream that echoed throughout Paris.

(!)
In a nearby Chinese tea house, Master Fu suddenly shivered. "What is it, Fu?" asked a little turtle pixie.

"I'm not sure, Wayzz. I feel...a disturbance."

(!)
Two police officers were questioning the woman who just got robbed. "It was a blue purse, it had a little Minnie Mouse head on it and..."

"It's right here! No thanks are necessary!"

The woman turned to see who had just saved her only to let out a scream. Holding her purse was a big, bald, and green headed man with huge teeth and a small nose! She passed out in an instant, leaving two cops with this crazy looking guy! "You're welcome," he muttered, tossing the purse onto the woman.

"Freeze!" Both cops pointed their guns at the big headed man.

"Whoa, whoa, you got the wrong guy! The thief's that way!" he pointed back to where the thief.

"Sorry, but you're obviously trying to do the whole 'vigilante justice' superhero schtick," said one of the officers. "Listen, just come with us to the station and we'll just let you off with a warning okay?"

"But...but..."

"No ands ifs or buts," said another officer, more sternly. "Now get in the car, kid!" The green headed man obeyed and sat in the back. "Stay with the woman until paramedics arrive, I'll take him to the station."

"Take it easy on him, he's obviously just a kid."

"Kids need to learn to respect the law and not do crazy stuff like this!"

(!)
Rudi grumbled as he sat in the back of the squad car. "Thanks a lot," he mentally said to the Mask. "My first hero gig and I get busted. And for what? Because I gave a woman a fainting spell! Ungrateful, miserable, self-centered..." His rant was cut short by what he saw out the window: one of the thugs that accosted him going into a bar! "Er, officer, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Shut it! I'm not falling for that!"

Rudi frowned. "Seriously. I really have to go!"

"Yeah, well you should have thought about it before you decided to play hero! We already got Ladybug and Chat Noir cleaning up this city of freaks like you and we certainly don't need anymore! And if you think of pissing in my car, you'll get one between the legs!"

Freak, was he?

The officer grumbled as he drove his car. Suddenly, he heard a sound of water. "Oh, that's it you're going to...eh?" He suddenly found himself waist deep in yellow water that smelled an awful lot like... "Oh, piss!" He turned back to the rear of the car, only to find a papier-mâché ' dummy of the big-headed guy sticking his tongue out. Distracted, he didn't see the ongoing parked car until it was too late. He crashed the car, knocking himself unconscious. He was lucky a passing couple rescued him from drowning in the yellow water.

(!)
At the bar, Larry drank from the glass wiping his face of the foam mustache. "Leave the beer, I'm getting tanked."

"No, I think you had enough."

"Don't worry about me, I've got someone to pick me up!" Larry hiccuped.

"Hey, take a look at this freak!"

Larry turned and nearly burst out laughing. A green, big headed man wearing a cowboy costume entered the bar dramatically, like something out of a John Wayne or a Clint Eastwood movie. The man pushed the drunken college boy out of his seat and sat on it. "Can I have cranberry vodka?"

The bartender asked, "How old are you?"

"20," the cowboy lied. "'bout to be 21 tomorrow."

"Er...can I see some ID?"

"Don't have one yet."

"Can't serve you, then."

"Fine. I'll just have some water. I'm really parched."

The bartender placed a bottle in front of him and he paid for his drink. But Larry, drunk on too many shots of gin stood up and glared at the freak. "Who do you think you are, you..." he said something, but was so wasted it came out as slurred gibberish.

"Is that a new way to speak French, because I don't know it. I do know this. Everyone all across the world knows it." He raised his middle finger at the drunk kid. "And by the way, you can't hold your liquor."

What he felt next was a bottle shattering on his head.

"Reggin', friggin', pera cotta, slaughterin', country, plechten..." slurred Larry.

"Right," said the stranger, tearing off his cowboy costume and revealing a pair of boxing gloves, shorts and sneakers underneath. "Them's fightin' words! Put em' up! Put 'em up! Come on! Give me your best shot!" Drunk Larry staggered and swung his arms as he lumbered toward the big-headed freak. "And, coming in from this corner, weighing in at two hundred pounds, most of it alcohol filling his head, it's the Drunken Monkey!" commented the big-headed guy mimicking a sports announcer. "He staggers to the left, to the right, and he swings!" Larry swing a fist, but he hit a table instead. "Swing and a miss! The champion connects with an uppercut!"

Larry found himself lying on a broken table, finally out cold.

"And the crowd goes wild!" screamed the big-headed guy. "Let's hear it for the reigning champion, the...the..." He lost his enthusiasm instantaneously. "Damn. I still don't know what to call myself. Hey, mister," he said to Larry. "Do you have a good superhero name?" He felt a tap on his shoulder, and when he turned, there stood a huge, shaved headed man glaring at him. "Oh, wow! A mountain with hair!"

"Get out of my bar now!"

"Your bar?" asked the big-headed guy. "Is your name written on it somewhere?" He grabbed the man by the head and, to his amazement, stretched his arm out and slammed his face against a wall. "Is your name HERE?! Or is it HERE?!" He smashed his head against a table. "Or maybe HERE?!" He threw him behind the bar and onto the beer shelves. "No? Well, it's not your bar! I can do whatever I want!"

"That's it! I'm calling the cops!" shouted the bartender. "Zed, Zeke! Get him out of here!"

Two regulars of the bar, Zed (an African-French man wearing biker clothes) and Zeke (a caucasian guy dressed like a bodyguard) stalked toward the big-headed guy, slamming their fists into their palms.

"Do you expect to kiss a girl with ugly faces like those?" he asked them. Then he pulled out a pipe wrench out of his pants and tightened it around Zed's nose. "Let me just give you a free makeover!" He gave the wrench a good twist and the bar filled with a loud CRACK! Zed crumpled to the floor, holding his broken nose. "Trust me. Even your mother will love it!" Then he turned to a charging Zeke. One swing of the wrench and the thug's face stoved in. But the only thing on Rudi's mind was, "Where did I get this wrench?"

It took a few seconds for him to realize he was being surrounded by the other drunks ready to pick a fight with this guy.

"What else can I do?" He reached down his shorts and pulled out something that made everyone stop in their tracks. A rocket launcher. "A bit excessive, but it'll do." He took aim at the drunks fleeing in all directions like cockroaches.

(!)
That night, all of Paris was awoken by a loud explosion.

(!)
When Rudi tore the Mask off and threw it on the bed, he was back wearing his pajamas. "Oh man, oh man, oh man! I can't believe I just did that! Some of those guys didn't deserve that! Well, okay, maybe that purse snatcher and maybe that drunk at the bar." Then he laughed, "Which drunk?" He laughed again before getting serious. "All right, listen you," he said to the Mask. "We need to establish some ground rules. We can't go around killing people like that! What are you trying to make me? The most wanted man in all of Paris? That's not how a superhero starts out!" Then he thought, "Well, maybe the Punisher did. And perhaps Deadpool."

He was getting ahead of himself. "The point is, we can't go around killing people. What if the cops find out? What if the friggin' army finds out?!" Then he thought, "What if my parents find out..." Then he thought again, "Wait. What can they do? I can take bullets without dying, I survived an explosion, and I pulled a rocket launcher out of my pants! I can do anything with you!" He calmed himself down. "All right. How about this, we get our revenge on the last two guys and Chloe and then...and then...I can be like Ladybug and Chat Noir! We can be a team! And if they don't like it...I'LL MAKE 'EM!"