Ladybug never wanted to open her eyes. She couldn't. Her body wouldn't let her. She couldn't, wouldn't and she didn't want to. She trusted someone with her life and he risked it for whatever reason he had. He risked her trust.
A noise was heard in the darkness of her eyelids and she could feel the movement of being turned to be on top of a body. Her eyelids opened quickly to be met with neon green ones.. Her breath hitched. 'So he's back?'
She rushed to get up and didn't think about what she was doing. She grabbed Chat's hand, pulled out her yo-yo and swang away, hopefully, from her problems. But how could that happen if she was still holding onto them?
There, on top of a building, Chat stood facing Ladybug's back. Her fist clenched at her sides and head low to the ground. He stood there, ready. They've already been up there for two minutes.
"She'll be looking for me." Ladybug finally spoke still not facing Chat.
"I don't know how she knew you were there when her back was turned and I was looking straight at you, and I couldn't see you." She turned around, her face a bit red with anger. "So, I want to ask you a question and you have to tell the truth." She squinted at Chat. Her vision turning black and white. "Are you, and Player 1, working together?" Chat took a steady breath.
"No." Her vision of Chat turned red with black dots. A thankful upgrade to her powers. Making her see whatever she wanted to see. It was her first time trying it but she tried really hard. To see the truth. And she did more than that. She heard it.
Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around whatever it grabbed and left the top of the building. This time she left Chat. She looked, again, for the akuma, Player 1. It was easier this time. She was standing in the middle of an empty parking lot, a game controller in one hand the other on her hip.
Ladybug landed in front of Player 1 and walked a little till Player 1 stopped her by putting up her hand.
"What do you want?" Ladybug asked. Player 1 waved her controller in the air.
"A game. Will you play?"
Ladybug thought for a moment and nodded. Player 1 threw the controller she had to Ladybug and she caught it. Ladybug's eyes widened. 'What? I thought this was the akuma? Oh no.' She swallowed and looked up. A hologram popped up in front of them showing them two different screens. Ladybug's showed Player 1's character and Player 1's showed Ladybug's.
"How will you play?" Ladybug asked. Player 1 smiled wickedly.
"Don't worry." Player 1's hands rose up, just in front. When Ladybug looked around the hologram she saw Player 1's hands look like she was holding an invisible controller. Ladybug's eyebrows scrunched and she faced the hologram again. Words popped up on the pixelated screen.
Ready!- Set!- Fight!
Player 1's character struck first but Ladybug blocked it. A sword fight. She was in no way ready. She was willing to play anything Player 1 made her play as long as she saved Paris. 'Guess she picked a sword fight.'
Player 1's character swept Ladybug's feet and slit her characters throat when she hit the ground. Blood splattered across Player 1's character's face and the scenery in the game.
Ladybug choked. Not her character, her. She dropped the controller and it hit the ground. Ladybug wrapped her hands around her throat gasping for air. It felt like she had a cold, scratchy throat. A really scratchy throat, it felt like someone literally scratched her throat.
"What...What-What,did-di...you? I-i...my!"
"Your throat? I sliced your throat." Player 1 said flatly.
"In... game." Her throat was slowly feeling better, giving her the opportunity to breathe.
"The character and you are connected, but you feel the effects of your character... Until it loses all three lives." Ladybug gasped and her character popped up on screen and then showed Player 1's.
"How about you? What about your character?"
"Same effects. If you can affect me." The three words popped up on the screen again.
-Fight!
Ladybug's character struck first this time. Her character zoomed with their sword in front. Her sword went through Player 1's character. The whole screen first person point of view.
Player 1 fell to her knees and held her stomach. Bright light against her hands beaming through the space of her fingers. Ladybug swallowed and winced her throat still sore. Player 1's head low, chin to her chest. Ladybug could see the distinct colour difference in her hair. There was a black bobby pin with a green game controller. 'The akuma?'
Player 1's character was on the screen and Player 1 let go of her stomach looking at it just to be sure. She took a deep breath and stood up, holding her invisible controller.
"Are you okay?" Ladybug asked looking at the screen.
"I just wanted to play one more time." Player 1 whispered.
"What?"
Ladybug looked around the screen but the sound of the game starting made her return her attention. Player 1's character swung their sword at Ladybug's head but Ladybug ducked and Player 1 thrashed their sword downward but Ladybug swung their sword at Player 1's feet. Making Player 1 sidestep. Blood trickled down Player 1's character's leg from below her knee. Player 1 hissed and put more weight on her opposite leg.
Ladybug's character got up and held her sword pointing towards the ground. Player 1's character went for a hit, but Ladybug blocked it and stepback slicing Player 1's hip.
Player 1 bent over a bit, clenching her teeth together to hold in whatever pain she felt.
Ladybug kept going at Player 1, some hits she landed, others backfired. A scratch on ladybugs character's bare shoulder and cheek. Ladybug couldn't really feel it, just a sting.
Ladybug swung her sword repeating the same move Player 1 once did. But this time Ladybug succeded. She stopped her sword slightly impaled in the muscle of Player 1's character. Player 1 had her neck extended to the side.
"What are you waiting for?" Ladybug thought her options. If she killed Player 1's character she would only have one chance of living. 'I have to protect the citizens.' It wasn't their fault for getting akumatized. People can have emotions and just feel without feeling guilty afterwards with only that feeling because they didn't know what happened to them and if they did something wrong.
"No." The character retreated her sword and put it back in its case.
"What do you mean, 'no'? You don't have a choice." Player 1's character struck her sword forward and Ladybug caught it between her palms. Player 1's eyes widened.
"Cheater!" Player 1 runs into the hologram it pixelating around her. She tackles Ladybug to the ground and hovers over her. She punches Ladybug in the face. Again, again and again.
"I just wanted to play. One. Last. Time!"
Player 1 said in between punches, breathed in after each word, grunted each time skin met skin, her knuckles bruised. Ladybug's face had splotches of purple and blue some part of her skin around the bruises yellow. Her face covered a new layer of clean and healthy skin after a few seconds. Ladybug kept coming in and out of consciousness, healing. Even though she could heal quickly from little things like a punch, repeatedly healing could have a physical toll or worse, mental.
The throwing of fists to Ladybug's face stopped and she could feel windblown over her face. She opened her eyes to see Player 1's body being thrown over her. A pole stayed in front of her in mid-air. She slowly lifted her head to see Chat Noir. She dropped her head and closed her eyes. This time she let herself lose consciousness. Ladybug awoke a few seconds later to someone calling her name.
"-ybug!" Ladybug rushed to her feet and looked around she saw Chat duelling bowser and Link running to her. Quickly, ran forward to Link, put her hands on his shoulders and jumped over him pushing him forward and making him stumble. She looked around. 'Where is she?!'
"Looking for me?" Link said. The words came out of his mouth but it wasn't any voice she'd heard of his.
"Player 1?" Link ran forward sword ready. Ladybug round-housed the sword out of his hands and pushed kicked him with the opposite leg. Link disappeared pixels floating throughout the air fading into nothingness.
Ladybug looked for Player 1 again. She swung her yo-yo and jumped to a higher place. On a pole of an apartment balcony, she still couldn't see her. She jumped down to the parking lot.
Chat finished Bowser, pixels fading into the sky. He turned to see Ladybug land and stood, facing him. Their eyes locked and Ladybug seemed to become more tensed and more aware. Her teeth visibly clenched and her stare turned stern.
"Help me find Player 1." And she jumped into the city of Paris leaving Chat to follow.
They've been looking for almost an hour and still couldn't find her. They stood on a corporate building facing the hospital.
"Can you use your lucky charm?" Chat asked taking a step to stand side by side with Ladybug. That was the first thing Chat Noir has said since they started the search. Ladybug was thankful he respected her decision on not talking. The suggestion was helpful and although she could no longer use her lucky charm she could use something else.
Ladybug shook her head but walked to the edge of the building. Her vision once again turned black and white. Sometimes she was stuck with this type of vision until she was back in her civilian form, she doesn't really have her new powers under control.
Chat stood there, too much on his mind to talk. Thinking of certain ways of when they do talk of how it could go down. He looked at Ladybug inspecting her body language and could finally see the changes over the past year.
Chat looked at Ladybug up and down. He then realized her suit had changed. She now had boots that went up to her knees and her mid things were exposed as well as her shoulders. She had one big oval hole from her shoulder to the tip of her elbow, she had finger-less gloves that stopped at her knuckles. And instead of long tights, she had shorts that stop just above her things. Her mask was the same and so was her hair, except it grew from her shoulders to the tip of shoulder blades.
'A lot changes over a year.' He thought. Chat placed his baton on his shoulders and lazily rested his wrists on it on either side.
Ladybug jumped to the next building without warning.
"Ladybug!"
Ladybug followed the trail of pixels she could see in a polka dot pattern. She could hear Chat calling her from behind but she didn't care.
Ladybug landed on top of the hospital building. The door to the stairwell in front of her. The pixels went down the side of the building but she had no idea where that led. She ran to the door and pulled the door open, well tried. The door was locked. Ladybug pulled harder and the screws on the door handle came off. The door swung open and Ladybug ran down the staircase.
She ran down the staircase her vision still black and white focusing on only seeing pixels in her vision. As she jumped a few steps she looked around the building. A door was at the end of one of the stairs and she went in. The door led to an empty hallway with only other doors, chairs and magazines on little coffee tables. She looked both ways and down one way of the hallway is a turn and the pixels go down there. She squinted and walked down the hallway and turning at the corner. The pixels lead to a door on the left side into a hospital room.
Ladybug walked there and stopped in front of the door. The curtain was pulled down and she couldn't see through the window. She opened the door and closed it shut, her back turned to whatever was in the room. She turned her yo-yo in hand. Ladybug tilted her head at what was in front of her.
A girl with very light hair laid on the bed in a hospital gown. She was on life support and the only sound in the room was the machines and the beeps of her heart monitor. Ladybug was seriously confused. If this was one of Player 1's characters Ladybug has never played the game.
"Her name's Phoebe and she's dying." Pixels formed in the chair next to the bed and Player 1 sat there with her legs crossed. Ladybug stepped back surprised by Player 1's appearance, her vision normal.
"What happened to her?" Ladybug walked to the side of the bed and rested her free hand on the railing of the bed. Player 1 stood and stayed on the opposite side.
"She was diagnosed with brain cancer at the end of last year."
"She didn't receive treatment?" Ladybug's eyebrows screwed together.
"She can't." A wicked smiled graced Player 1's lips. She slowly walked to the end of the bed sliding her fingertips on the railing.
"The hospital took her family's money, bankrupt them. They paid for the treatments, all of them, as much as they could afford. And the hospital still refused to treat her." She rocked her head side to side and back and forth. She stopped and gripped the rail on the end of the bed.
"Now, she's gonna die within the week. The hospital knows this and what do they do..." She leans forward looking Ladybug in the eyes. Those eyes were covered by a wall of ice but flames of pain behind them. "Nothing." She whispers. Ladybug licks her lips and looks at Phoebe.
"What does this have to do with her?" Ladybug asked softly.
"Can't you see. It's something wrong! It illegal, aren't you suppose to stop this!" Player 1 walked back throwing her hands in the air and gesturing to Phoebe.
"It is illegal, but I'm not the right person to come to. I keep people safe. People like you, I keep you safe." Ladybug walked towards Player 1 nodding slowly now and again after each sentence, trying to calm her down. Player 1 scoffed.
"Then keep her safe." She held her head high and pixelated.
Pixels flying around the room, around Ladybug. Ladybug turned her body and head looking and following Player 1. Player 1 made way for the life support, the oxygen tank. Probably 75% of what's keeping Pheobe alive. Ladybug's eyes widened and she jumped to the body that was forming near the oxygen pipe. A hand forming around the plug but was pulled away from the force of Ladybug's push.
The jump Ladybug took was bigger than what she needed. Her and Player 1 went flying out the window, Ladybug gripping Player 1's shoulders. Player 1 wrapped her fingers around Ladybug's wrists and tried to pry her hands off but didn't succeed. Ladybug grabbed Player 1's forearm and swung her yo-yo back into the window. Both of them were pulled up and jumped through the window, back into the room.
Player 1 laid on the floor facing the ceiling and Ladybug tumbled in sliding across the floor and her back hitting the door. Her head hit last making her hiss in pain. She shakenly stood and huffed. Chat Noir landed in the room through the window and looked around.
"Ladybug!" He started running towards her but she put a hand up stopping him and stalked over to Player 1. Player 1 could see her but didn't acknowledge her. Ladybug looked at her with a sad expression. Player 1 shook her head.
"Don't look at me like that. I just wanted to play with her one more time, just one more time with my..." She trailed off. Ladybug crouched down next to her and rested her wrists on her knees.
"You're what? Who is she? Who is she to you?" Once again pixels flew towards the room and a body formed next to Phoebe a hand threading through her platinum hair. Chat stood behind Player 1 suspicious of what she would do, cause he had no idea. Ladybug glanced at Chat but took a step forward looking back at Player 1.
"We used to play games all the time. Most of them were video games, those were her favourite. She's still so young. She hasn't graduated. Dad made sure to bring her books so she could study. She loved kids and all she wanted to do was be a teacher." Player 1 said moving her hands up and down Pheobe's hair, her voice cracking.
"She's your sister isn't she?" Chat asked his eyes softening. Player 1 turned around to face him with tears stinging her eyes and a sad smile on her lips. She nodded her head and took her hand out of Pheobe's hair and into her own. She took the pin out of her hair and looked at Ladybug.
"Promise me you'll give it back to her when she wakes up." Ladybug inhaled sharply. 'That doesn't sound like a surrender, that sounds like a...' Ladybug's thoughts were cut off by the pin flying out the window. Ladybug snapped her head to it and looked back at Player 1 to see only fading pixels.
"Where did she go!?" Ladybug yelled at Chat.
"I don't know!" He yelled back looking around the room. Ladybug made her way to the window and jumped out.
"Look for her!" Chat heard her words with his cat ears, her voice echoing out into the air. Chat nodded and left the room through the door starting a search in the hospital. He looked both ways of the hallway. He went one way sprinting on all fours, his baton in his hand no more and in the strap on his back.
Ladybug landed on a building's roof looking everywhere for the akuma. The pin most likely already hit the ground and the akuma would've flown out. She had to find it before it akumatized anyone else. Swinging through the city on poles and jumping on rails and building tops she looked everywhere for the akuma. Returning to the hospital she found it flying back into the window of Phoebe's room. Her face twisted in confusion but did what she had planned. Swinging towards the window she released her yo-yo and threw it at the akuma as it was entering the room. Jumping mid-air she caught the akuma and tumbled into the room, rolling on her back and rising into a kneeling position. She stood up straight and de-evilized the akuma. The angelic white butterfly flapped out of the room.
An alarm was heard throughout the room and probably the hallway. Phoebe stirred in her bed no longer asleep. She easily got up and looked around.
"Ladybug?"
"Phoebe! I thought you were um, well..." Ladybug trailed off trying not to be rude.
"Yeah, I have brain cancer. I'm not in a coma." She giggled.
"Than what's with the alarm?" Ladybug asked, suspicious. Doctors burst through the door and behind was Chat Noir.
"What going on?" He asked.
"I don't know." They both watched the doctors check the machines, tick things off their boards and flash lights in Phoebe's eyes.
"We need a cat scan and have to do a few procedures." The doctors unlocked the wheels on the bed and wheeled it out of the room.
"Where are you taking her? What are you doing?" Ladybug followed but a nurse stopped her.
"Ladybug you can't follow them." The nurse said calmly.
"What are they doing?!"
"It seems that her condition has um, changed."
"How?" Chat joined the conversation. He gently rested his hand on Ladybug's shoulder. She shrugged off his hand rather harshly and looked at him like he had no right to be within a metre of her. The nurse looked at the both of them and sighed hanging her head.
"Honestly I don't know what has happened. Only that it's a good thing. You have nothing to worry about." She looked at them and smiled gently at them.
"Thank you, ma'am." Ladybug nodded and the nurse left them. Ladybug stood there watching the lady leave and entered the room again. Chat walked in and closed the door behind him. Ladybug had her arms folded leaning on the window, glass shards framing it.
"So, what happens now?" Chat asked walking up behind her. She looked over her shoulder her eyes half-lidded. She stood straight looking out the window.
"Miraculous." She closed her eyes and whispered.
When she opened them pink wisps were circling her eyes, framing them. Like smoke pouring out. From the edges of her eyes, the pink smoke extended, stretching and expanding flowing into the air. It surrounded the city like fog and in a blink of an eye all the damage was gone, cleaned up. The pink fog slowly cleared out. Chat stood there amazed. What he saw was like no other. His mouth hung open, jaw dropped and his eyes wide.
"How...?"
"A lot has changed since you've been gone." She started.
"I can see that." He remarked still breathless. Ladybug let out a bitter laugh and turned to look at him.
"I bet you can. I bet you can see that I am just fine without your help, without you!" Chat was startled. He understood where she was coming from, he understands that it wouldn't have been easy to save the city on her own.
"Ladybug I understand-" He tried but that attempt backlashed.
"No, you don't understand! You don't know what it's like for someone you depend on to leave you. You don't understand how stupid I was spending nights looking for you. You don't know how worried I was. You don't know what it's like for someone you trust to leave you when someone you care about to treat you like you don't exist!" She thrust her arms back, hands balled into fists and stood in front of him. Once again he was speechless and had no idea what to do.
"I trusted you. You left me for a year! No good-bye, no nothing! That year was the toughest year of my life. You were my partner Chat... I'm not sure anymore." Ladybug looked at him, her arms limp and shoulders slump. She ran out the window, swinging her yo-yo and hanging onto it tightly as she left Chat to think.
Ladybug swang to her apartment, landing on the balcony. Ladybug de-transformed turning into Marinette. She took a seat in her rocking chair and sighed planting her face in her hands.
"Are you okay, Marinette?" Tikki asked in front of Marinette, looking at her hair.
"I guess. It's just too much, Tikki. Adrien's back and now Chat's back. And that's not the only thinf. Akuma's are appearing more than often. Maybe Hawkmoth is planning something." She thought out loud. "Ugh! I don't of time for this I have my designs to finish." She covered her face with her hands, the hills of her palm rubbing at her eyes. Marinette peeked through her fingers to see Tikki amused with a tiny smile on her face. Marinette copied the expression. The moment was ruined by the realization that she had to start her good copies for her designs. She jumped out of her seat and opened the glass doors.
"What's wrong!?" Tikki panicked.
"Oh my god! I just remembered the designs. I have to get started." Tikki laughed at Marinette's panic.
"I'm sure the designs are gonna turn out great Marinette." Marinette looked over her shoulder taking a seat at her desk.
"Thanks, Tikki."
Marinette zipped away at her sketches. Looking at her drafts and making her final copy. She made sure she had all her designs for all her themes. She got up every now and then to check if she had the supplies needed to make the designs and if she didn't she would make a list to get them. She had two themes done and when she took a break she started thinking. Her face was screwed tight and you could visibly see that she was confused.
"What's wrong?" Tikki asked. Marinette looked at Tikki her arms folded tight.
"How did the akuma know that Chat Noir was going to show up? I didn't even see him until last minute."
"Maybe she knew that he never left." Tikki suggested. Marinette looked into the distance contemplating it.
"No. I know Chat. If he was, here, in Paris he would've come whenever I needed him."
"I don't know. Maybe we can look into it another day."
"Okay." Marinette agreed. She opened her laptop and searched up things and measurements for her designs, trying to finish them up.
Chat Noir jumped through the open window and de-transformed. A concern expression on Adrien's face as he walked more into his room, towards the mini fridge. Plagg followed behind silently with an excited expression. Adrien gave him a wheel of camembert, not minding the amount. Plagg took it gratefully and moaned into the creamy bitterness of the cheese. Adrien walked over to his bed and sat on the edge.
"When did she get those powers? " He muttered. Only hearing grumbling and chewing in response. He looked up to see Plagg on his desk with his face in the smelly cheese. "Plagg?" He asked gently. He arched his brow and extended his neck.
"Plagg!"
"W-wh-at?" Plagg looked up finally showing some interest in the boy.
"Do you know how she got so strong?" Adrien asked, seeing he got his kwami's attention. Plagg deflated actually thinking it was important. He sat back down on the desk and picked a piece of camembert and slowly nibbled on it.
"It's her actions, kid. She did something that unlocked the next stage in her miraculous. It's either that or she was desperate for help, so her kwami thought doing so would help." He finished the cheese in his tiny paws and looked back up at Adrien with a bored expression. But the look on Adrien's face was the opposite. The expression was what Plagg thought.
Adrien's lips were slightly parted and his eyes weren't wide but you could see the astonishment in them. Who knew Plagg could be helpful. Not only that but if she needed help what was so big that... that happened. She gained new powers and if she didn't unlock them that means she was in trouble. How much trouble did she have to be in for her to unlock something so incredible? He wasn't surprised that she did if he knew there was a stage to unlock he had full faith that she could but it scared him that if it didn't happen willingly why would it happen and how much 'help' did she need?
It must've been a lot if he wasn't there. While he was staring at a camera she was staring at a city that could've been destroyed. She was saving lives while he was the front cover of a magazine.
Adrien smirked.
"Huh, who knew you knew stuff, Plagg." He flopped backwards on his bed his arms out making a line. His face falling and turning into a neutral expression, blank.
"Do you need some cheese? I get sad when I don't get my cheese." Plagg tried, he smiled and held some cheese. Adrien could sense Plagg offering and smiled as he imagined the tiny black cat. He slightly lifted his head, just until he saw Plagg's ears and made eye contact.
"No, I'm good." Adrien's head hit the soft quilt and that blank face returned. Plagg sighed and left his cheese. He softly plopped himself on Adrien's chest, like a normal cat.
"I'm going to regret this- what's wrong?" Adrien looked down at his chest.
"She has new powers." There was a pause and neither of them spoke, so Adrien continued. "I don't want to think about how she got them but that's all I'm able to do. What if she was seriously hurt?"
"She didn't have to be hurt to need help. And needing help isn't the only thing, kid. Maybe neither of the two happened and her kwami thought she was ready." Adrien looked at Plagg and smiled.
"Don't you think I'm ready?" He joked. Plagg shook his head.
"You're the most flirty Chat Noir I've ever had." Adrien smiled wider and chuckled resting his head again and closed his eyes.