She couldn't help her curiosity. Not even ten seconds had passed, but Marinette walked through the door.
She was expecting a room of white. Instead she saw a ladies' restroom with Adrien standing in the middle of it, legs apart, fists clenched in fists. Adrien saw her in the doorway.
"How long does it take?" he asked, his eyes scanning the bathroom. "Do I have to press a button or something? Flush a toilet?"
"No," she said. "No, no, no, no, no." She looked around in disbelief. She wasn't sure whether to be horrified or relieved. "It's gone."
"What?" Adrien dropped his 'ready' stance and headed for the door. "Maybe you got it mixed up."
"I don't think so," she said testily, following him out. He opened the neighboring door that said Men and stuck his head in.
"No sharks in there either?" she asked when he turned around.
"Not unless they're in the sink." He let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. "No sharks. Now what?"
"There must be another way to get you back. Try your return code again."
"You know it doesn't work."
"Try it anyway."
He rolled his eyes, but recited the code loudly into the PHENOM. Nothing happened.
"Satisfied?" he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Wait a minute. How do you normally get to the Lost City? Not through the restroom, I presume."
Adrien shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. "You're not listening, are you? They've blocked all exits, Marinette. There's no way out."
"There must be," she said. "Take me to your Lost City portal."
"Fine," Adrien said. "Come on."
They went back into the streets of Paris and walked for about five minutes before turning down what looked like an older residential avenue. The two- and three-story buildings were all pressed together along the street, their balconies draped with flowers, the streetlights showing off their rainbow of colors. It was pretty there, even in the dark.
"Where are we?" she asked, as Adrien led her inside one of the homes.
He didn't answer. She followed him through the front room of the dark house and up a wide staircase with a sleek wooden handrail. As they ascended the stairs, he lit the electric sconces hung along the staircase wall. The inside of the house was as pretty as the outside. The walls of the stairwell were painted a pale blue and hung with dozens of framed portraits and landscapes. In the front room below there were small potted trees and urns of cut flowers sprinkled among the furniture, filling the house with color and more sweet smells. Adrien had been busy with the aroma modules here, too.
They walked up two flights of steps until they got to the third floor, then entered the darkened room at the front of the house, the one facing the street. The balconied floor-to-ceiling windows stood open, letting in a cool breeze and the sounds of the city below. Adrien flicked on an overhead chandelier.
They were in a bedroom, obviously, given the white-painted four poster bed that dominated the room. The rest of the furniture matched the bed—a dressing table, nightstand, wardrobe—all in white with dainty hand-painted pink floral designs decorating their corners. The pale yellow coverlet on the bed matched the walls, and little embroidered pillows sat in a tidy row across the top of the bed. A small white cast-iron bistro table and chair sat on the balcony, which was laced with some kind of deep purple flowers.
"So is the portal somewhere nearby or are we just resting?" Marinette asked, inspecting the photos and postcards tucked inside the frame of the dressing table's big oval mirror. The photos looked like old movie star glamour shots, good-looking people from decades ago, their scrawled signatures across the bottom. The illustrated postcards said things like "Bonjour from France!" and featured smiling couples. A hand mirror, a brush, and several little pots of makeup sat on the dressing table along with a few of those old glass perfume bottles with the attached spritzers.
In the mirror she could see Adrien standing rather awkwardly, his hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans, a somewhat sheepish look on his face. That's when it dawned on her. This must be his girlfriend's room . . . his virtual girlfriend's room. Usually she would find this funny, but for some reason, she felt irritated. Really, really irritated.
"So . . . the portal?" she said, unable to keep the peevishness from her voice.
Adrien cleared his throat. "It's through there," he said quietly, pointing his thumb toward the wardrobe.
"You're kidding me, right?"
Adrien shakes his head.
She laughed, enjoying the embarrassed smile that played across his lips.
"Your portal is through the wardrobe. You've created your own little Narnia," she said, walking toward the large cupboard. "Does it come with a talking lion, too?" She pulled open the wardrobe doors with both hands.
There was nothing there. No portal, no Lost City, no fur coats leading to a snowy forest. Inside the wardrobe there was just a pulsing, roiling cavernous void. Yet it seemed to want to reach out. It seemed . . . alive.
She had never seen anything like it before. She didn't even believe it existed.
Marinette glanced at Adrien, but he didn't need to said anything. Didn't bother to explain. They both know exactly what she was staring into.
The Black.
There was nothing to be afraid of. All those stories Alya told about the Black were just that. Stories.
She thought about opening the doors again. Just to prove it was no big deal, but her pulse hammered in her neck. Frustration bubbled up inside her, a sudden surge of anger, and she tried to push it back down.
"What?" Adrien asked.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Marinette asked.
"I told you. They took away the portal. There's no way out."
"And by they, you mean . . . ?" she asked, shaking the wardrobe. Maybe it was just a glitch, some kind of malfunction. Maybe if she disrupted the code, the portal would snap back into place.
"I don't know, but someone's behind this, someone is deliberately trying to keep me from going home," he said, running a hand through his hair again. "Wait, what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Marinette pulled the heavy wardrobe away from the wall to examine the back of it. Nothing there. She pounded on the wall where the wardrobe was, then gave it a good strong kick.
"Stop that," Adrien said, pulling on her arm. "You're ruining it."
The pale blue wall now had a hole in it the size of her foot. She peered through, but there was nothing but Black on the other side. She jerked away from it, and swore again.
"Come on, we're leaving," Adrien said, pulling on her arm. She could tell he was upset that she was messing with his girlfriend's prissy little room. "Your mind is on overload right now; you don't know what you're doing."
His words made her madder than ever. She yanked her arm back. "I'm not done yet," she said. She stood behind the wardrobe and leaned into it.
"Stop!" Adrien yelled, but it was too late. The wardrobe teetered for a moment, then crashed into the four-poster bed. Both pieces of furniture collapsed and splintered.
"Pretty shoddy workmanship," she quipped to Adrien as she kicked through the rubble.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Adrien asked, his eyes filled with anger, his voice rising.
"I'm trying to get us out of here, you spoiled brat," she said, irritated by his bossiness. She was still the one in charge. She was the person his father hired to find a way out of here, and she was determined to do so.
"Don't worry," she continued, "I'm sure your virtual girlfriend won't mind a little redecorating." With that, she picked up the cast-iron chair from the balcony and started swinging it into the walls. Smashing things felt good, like she was somehow getting back at the PHENOM for what it put her through. She let loose with the chair and ripped the entire room to shreds. For a final touch, she threw the chair straight at the dressing table. It shattered the vanity mirror, and the photos and postcards disappeared under a mound of broken glass.
Adrien had been yelling at her to stop this whole time, but she ignored him. It was just a stupid room, nothing he couldn't rebuild once they got out.
Adrien was standing in the doorway, his fists clenched, his eyes blazing. "This is MY world, not yours. You have no right to destroy my creation."
"I'll do whatever I want," she said, the words shooting from her mouth like darts. "Your daddy's my boss, not you, remember?"
He looked furious, but she didn't care. It was like another Marinette had taken over her body, and she was okay with that. The real Marinette couldn't handle any more.
"Just leave," he said, his voice low and growly. "The only way you can help me is to go back and explain what's happened to my father."
Marinette examined another hole in the wall. Black. They're all filled with it. It undulates, shifts. Its darkness is total and complete.
"All you're doing now is making it worse," Adrien said. "Go home, Marinette."
She kicked another hole in the wall. "You know what? Fine," she said, blinking as she pulled up her inventory where her escape code was located."I'll go back home and draw a map for your daddy and his minions so they can come and find you. And then you can bitch to them about their rescue methods."
His face flashed something else now, something more sad than angry, and he opened his mouth as if to said something.
And then there was a sound. Or rather, a change in the sound. A dampening of it, like ears popping on an airplane.
The wall behind Marinette began to fuzz and break into fractals, like static on a TV. The surface bent crazily—the image of it stretching, twisting. The Black pulsed out of the holes she made. It swallowed the wall in great, large sections.
It was mesmerizing. They could do nothing but stand and stare at the wall as this presence—this thing—devoured it.
"Go," Adrien said.
She blinked at him. The Black moved onto the floor, oozing, turning the surface they were standing on into . . . nothing.
"GO!" he barked. He grabbed her shoulder and steers me toward the door. Outside the room, he closed the door behind them, and locked it tight with a key from his pocket.
"Wh-what?" she sputtered out. "How? Are we—?"
Adrien pressed his lips together. "I think it will stay contained inside the room," he told her. "It never did . . . that before."
They stared at the wood frame. It held fast—stable, solid.
Adrien turned to her. "I think . . . Marinette, I think you should go."
She felt like she could barely think, much less save anybody. "Look, maybe the programmers can find a way to create a new portal for you, once I explain the problem."
He tried to smile at her, though he looked anything but happy. "Please tell my grandmother that I miss her and I'll be home as soon as I can."
She felt a twinge of guilt thinking of Adrien's family and friends. How disappointed they would be when she returned empty-handed. But it couldn't be helped. Adrien was right. There was no easy way out of there and she had done her best.
She found Adrien. Now someone else needed to get him the hell out of there.
She nodded a quick good-bye, then recited her exit code into the PHENOM, waiting for the familiar beeping sound to take her back to reality.
She waited a little longer. No beeps. She was still in the hallway of Adrien's imagined house, and Adrien was starting to look worried.
Marinette blinked and looked up the code again. Maybe she mixed it up the numbers. She recited them again, this time louder.
Nothing. Across from her she saw Adrien's shoulders fall, his head drop. He raised his hands and massaged his forehead with his fingertips.
She ran down the stairs and out onto the cobbled street, yelling the numbers into the night sky.
Beside her a car honked.
A small group of people hailed a cab.
The code. It didn't work.
She was trapped there . . . with Adrien.
Her head was pounding, like a cymbal-banging monkey was going to town inside her brain. She considered knocking herself out with her yo-yo—that ought to shut it up—but something about that plan seemed wrong. She was too tired to figure out what though.
Why couldn't she think? She leaned against the house's exterior wall, then closed her eyes and slid down it into a heap.
The monkey doesn't stop. BANG BANG BANG BANG. She tucked her head down and put her hands over her ears, which was useless, but she couldn't seem to do anything else.
After a few moments she registered a hand on her knee and a soft voice said, "Hey there."
The monkey did its best to drown out the voice. BANG BANG BANG.
"Marinette, can you hear me?" the voice said, louder this time.
She blinked and tried to pull herself together. She nodded, and then winced. Bad idea. Moving her head made her dizzy.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Adrien said. He gently helped her to her feet. "You need to rest."
He took her hand like she was a five-year-old and led her around the back of the house, where a motorcycle was parked in the alley. He climbed on, then told her to get on the back and hold on. As they rode through the city, in and out of cars, they didn't talk—Marinette couldn't talk—and she was glad Adrien didn't asked any questions. She had no answers. She could barely remember her own name. She rested her head on his back and let him drive. The monkey cymbals were not as loud.
They finally reached a huge, stately hotel. The sign on the door reads Le Grand Paris Hôtel. Adrien left the motorcycle with a uniformed valet, and they walked through a lush lobby, where more beautiful people stood about talking and laughing and clinking little ice cubes in their drink glasses.
Adrien squeezed her hand. "Don't worry, we're almost there." He led her to an elevator, where another hotel attendant said, "Good evening, Mr. Agreste," and pressed a button. The elevator went to the top of the hotel and let them out into a luxurious hallway. A small voice in her head was trying to tell her something—warning her—something about strange boys and hotel rooms being a bad idea, but her hand, the one that was holding Adrien's, ignored that voice, and it soon went way.
They went through a service door, up a flight of stairs, and Adrien opened a door into the night sky. They were on the roof of the hotel. He led Marinette to a small garden and pushed her gently into a wicker recliner. "Wait here," he said.
In the distance, she could make out a river. The sound was restful, hypnotic, and soon the cymbals in her head went away entirely. A handful of stars twinkled above her, like fairies. She felt as if she could fall asleep, which was ridiculous. In the PHENOM, avatars don't sleep.
"Here you go," whispered Adrien. His arms were full of linens and pillows. He tucked a pillow under her head and covered her with a silky lightweight blanket. As her eyelids fluttered down for the last time, Marinette saw him settle into the recliner next to hers. He was staring up at the stars.
When she next opened her eyes, there was a beautiful pink-and-orange haze surrounding her. She blinked once, then burrowed her head back into the pillow and reached for her stuffed cat, who liked to sleep inside the nest of her curled body each night. Only he was not there. She registered that as strange, but was not ready to fully wake up yet to investigate further. The pillow was so soft, the sound of the river so soothing, the birds cooing . . .
River...birds? Something was wrong with that. Her brain was trying to pull itself out of slumber, but it was as if it was fighting itself. Half of it was saying "Birds. . . mmm." The other half was saying "Birds. . . wha?"
The "wha" side won.
She opened her eyes. A gorgeous boy sat across from her, watching her. He smiled. "Go ahead and take a minute," he said.
She didn't need the full minute. Within seconds it all came back to her like a full-scale tsunami: the sharks, the scorpions, the pterodactyls, the banshee, and of course, Adrien. She was still in the PHENOM. Not only that, but she was a prisoner there.
Marinette sat up slowly, combing her fingers through her hair and running her tongue over her teeth. She had never slept in the PHENOM before; she should have rumpled clothes and morning breath. But her avatar looked as fresh as ever. That was a bonus.
"I don't get it," she said to Adrien, who was still watching her. "Why was I so tired? Avatars don't need to sleep."
"Avatars don't, but our brains do," said Adrien. He picked up the blanket on his chair and began to fold it. "What's the longest you've ever played in the PHENOM?"
Marinette hesitated. She signed a PHENOM contract promising she would always abide by the "5 hours per every 24 hours" maximum.
Adrien grinned at her hesitation. "Be honest. I swear I won't tell my dad's legal department."
She grinned back and shrugged. "I don't know. . . maybe eight hours?"
"So compare that to the twenty-four hours you've been in the PHENOM this time around."
"What?" she said, standing. "I've been gone a whole day?"
"I think so, from what you've told me. That's why you were so exhausted last night. Even though your body is at rest at home, your brain keeps working here. And after all you'd been through yesterday—the maze challenges, and well, finding me—"
He paused for a second, and Marinette recalled the raging hissy fit she threw yesterday, like she was somehow channeling King Kong. A wave of embarrassment ran all the way through her and she looked away.
"Your brain was on overload," he continued. "It needed to shut down for a while—in the real world."
It made sense. "I hadn't really thought of that before," she confessed.
Adrien took the blanket from her recliner and she grabbed the other end to help him fold it.
"I hadn't either," he said, "until I totally crashed on the sidewalk one night and woke up the next morning eyeball-to-eyeball with a large pigeon."
Marinette laughed as he took the folded blanket from her and scooped up the pillows.
They left the roof and went back into the hotel, stopping by one of the rooms to return the linens he'd pilfered the night before. The hotel room was decked out in swanky furniture and boasted a panoramic view of the city. "Did you really go to the trouble of building and furnishing every single room in this hotel?"
Adrien gave a small laugh. "It wasn't as hard as it sounds," he said, as he began to make up the bed. Marinette leaned over to help him. She wasn't sure whether to find it charming or crazy that he was so intent on keeping their PHENOM prison nice and tidy. "All the rooms are identical, a simple copy and paste job," he continued. "Eventually I might recreate some of the penthouse suites, but it's not my top priority."
"I assume you mean the Let's-get-the-hell-out-of-here thing takes precedence?"
Adrien looked out the window and sighed. "Of course."
"I'm going to need to know everything," she said. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"
He nodded. "Right. Let's go somewhere else so we can talk."
As they walked along the streets, they saw fishermen, townspeople, fruit vendors, and lovers holding hands. Marinette suddenly remembered Adrien holding her hand last night and she bit her lip in embarrassment, but Adrien didn't seem to notice. He had turned inward, trying to figure out where to start his story.
"I've been working on this world for two years now," he said, looking at the buildings as they walked. "I guess you could said it's my hobby, the one place I spend most of my time when I'm not at school."
"Two years." Marinette nodded in understanding. "When your dad invents the greatest video game of all time, you don't have to wait for the official release like the rest of us."
Adrien looked almost apologetic. "I know that seems unfair—" he starts, but she cut him off.
"I would have done the same thing. My dad's a developmental artist on the PHENOM team. He lets me try new stuff all the time. Just not on a . . . scope of . . . this magnitude," she said, waving an arm at the long stretch of Paris.
"So that's why you're so good at this," Adrien said with a grin. "You inherited the video game gene from your father."
"Both my parents, really," she said, and all of a sudden she missed them horribly. "My mom, Sabine, is a scriptwriter."
"Sabine?" Adrien asked, stopping them in their tracks. "Sabine Cheng?"
"You know her?" she asked, though she was sure that couldn't be right. Sabine would have told Marinette if she'd ever met Gabriel Agreste's son.
"Well, I know of her. I use her scripts all the time. More than half the NPCs here speak Sabine Cheng-ese," he said, laughing. "She's funny as hell, your mom. Always throws in some little fun surprise. Makes the PHENOM more interesting."
Marinette was a little taken aback, and also a little ashamed of herself. She always thought of her dad's work on the PHENOM as super creative and exciting, and her mom's work as . . .well, boring.
"So both your parents are in the biz," Adrien continued. "Is that why they named you Marinette, for the water sprite boss in Sirens of the Sinister Sea?"
"God, no!" she said, giving him a small swat on the arm. "But the truth is almost as fruity. My full name is Marinette Simone Dupain-Cheng. Marinette for the city in Wisconsin I was conceived, and Simone for the famous author Simone de Beauvoir ."
"Sounds like our moms are . . .were . . . the same kind of crazy. My full name is Adrien Douady Agreste."
"No idea who Adrien Douady is," she said with a shrug. "Sorry."
Adrien laughed. "Don't worry, no one does. He was an old mathematician."
Marinette laughed. "That is almost as embarrassing as my name."
"Well, my mom's maiden name was Adrien, so I give her a pass on that one. But the 'Douady' was certainly cruel and unusual punishment." he grumbled, though he was smiling.
"Maybe Adrien is a little old-fashioned," she said, "but I give your mom an A+ for originality. Besides, Adrien's a cool name. It's yours."
They walked in silence together for a few more moments, as if they were both trying to stretch their brief carefree interlude as long as they could.
"So when did things turn bad?" Marinette asked. As much she was enjoying their walk, she knew her parents must be truly worried. She had never taken this long on the job. "Here in the PHENOM, I mean."
"Thanksgiving Day," he said. "I could tell right away that something was wrong. My usual code sounded different, a pattern I didn't recognize. When I arrived at the Lost City, I thought about stopping at the main control panel to make sure everything was all right, but the damn Christmas in the PHENOM promotion started that day, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there."
Marinette snorted at that, and Adrien raised his eyebrows at her.
"My dad was lead developer on Christmas in the PHENOM," she explained.
"No offense to your dad," he hurried to explain. "It's my dad I was annoyed with. Christmas in the PHENOM and this one-year anniversary has consumed him for months. I've hardly seen him. And once again, he bailed on me for Thanksgiving."
"I get it, believe me," she said, pushing her hair behind her ears as a breeze swept over them. "You should know though, your dad feels bad about that."
Adrien shrugged and his face turned unreadable. "So anyway, I left the Lost City in a hurry and walked through the portal. I came through the wardrobe, then immediately left the bedroom. I was heading down the stairs when I heard a noise."
He paused and Marinette raised her eyebrows at him in question.
"An impossible noise," he said, looking out at the city again.
Marinette continued to stare at him, trying to be patient. "What do you mean an impossible noise?" she finally said, unable to wait any longer.
He turned to face her again. "I heard someone open and shut the wardrobe door."
Overhead the sky cracked loudly and a bolt of lightning shot down directly in front of them. Marinette screamed and jumped backwards, colliding with Adrien. The static in the air made their arm hair stand on end.
In the spot where the lightning struck, instead of scorched earth, there was a person that looked less than human. There were sparks coming off of the person and they seemed to glow. "I am Voltage!" shouted the form.
"Uh...is this guy something you programmed?" Marinette asked warily, staring at the villain.
Adrien slowly shook his head no. "Let's...run?" he suggested.
They both turned to leave, but found themselves frozen in place. A loud voice over sounded. "Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Hawkmoth. I have created a series of villains that I will release into the PHENOM against only the most worthy of players. Once defeated, the enemies will only get harder. I will be the first player to complete the PHENOM game, and I will go down in history as the best player of all time. Good luck."
The words flashed purple across the sky and their avatars stood still until his monologue finished.
Adrien glanced quickly at Voltage, advancing slowly on their avatars. "Marinette...your gamer tag is something with Ladybug, right?"
Marinette nodded. "Yeah. MiraculousLadybug, that's me. Why?"
Adrien smiled. "I don't suppose you're familiar with the old tales of the Miraculous Ladybug and her dashing partner, Chat Noir, are you?"
She frowned slightly. "The old crime-fighting pair from the 1920s? They're just some legend. But, it's a super cool legend. Which is where I got my name from. What does that have to do with anything, Adrien? We're being hunted by some lightning slinging lunatic right now. I don't think it's time for a history lesson!"
He shook his head. "It's your lucky day. My tag happens to be Chat Noir. And because I coded this whole town to be just like France was back then, I may have implemented a Ladybug and Chat Noir protocol so I can pretend to crime fight. And I think we're going to need to power up now. So, to do that, you need to yell the voice command, "Spots on!"
Marinette was hesitant to yell the command, but trusting Adrien seemed like the smartest thing to do in the moment. It was his world, after all, and she was only being held captive in it.
"Spots on!" she shouted. Immediately her body was engulfed in a rain of pink sparkles, and she looked down to find herself clothed in a red bodysuit with black spots, reminiscent of a ladybug. Her trusty yo-yo was at her hip, also decked out in the red and black.
Adrien let out a low whistle. "Man, whoever programmed that did a great job." His eyes followed up her body to her eyes. Their eyes made contact. He winked.
Voltage was slinking closer, mirth in his eyes as he watched the singular superhero.
Marinette glanced at Adrien. "Well, partner, it's time for you to suit up."
Letting out a commanding "Claws out!" a fluorescent green lit Adrien from head to toe, engulfing his casual jeans and a t-shirt outfit and transforming him into a sleek black cat suit. Ears appeared on his head, and a black domino mask covered nearly half of his face. From behind his back, he pulled out a baton.
"Are you ready to fight some crime, my lady?" he asked cheekily.
Marinette grimaced, recalling her time in the maze. "Not particularly, but I don't think we get a choice."
And with that, the pair took off sprinting toward Voltage.
Immediately, he took aim at the pair and blasted them back with a jolt of lightning. They flew through the air, bodies twitching from the blast.
"Well...that was shocking."
"Shut up, you mangy cat!"
"Meow-ch. Just trying to lighten up the situation."
Adrien as Chat Noir ran forward, dodging lightning strikes left and right. Reaching Voltage, he threw punch after punch. The villain met each strike with his own hands.
Marinette was able to see what he was doing. By keeping his hands occupied, Ladybug would be able to advance without the thunderbolts being thrown her way. iVery smart, Chaton./i
She was still unsure of what to do. "Hey! Yell out Lucky Charm!"
"Like the cereal?"
"Just do it!"
She shouted the command and out of the sky dropped a pair of rubber kitchen gloves. How would they benefit her? Her vision went grayscale, except for her hands, her yo-yo, and the villain. A-ha!
Marinette placed the gloves on her hands to absorb the electrical shocks she was sure to encounter. She wound up her now magical yo-yo, getting force behind her swing. Adrien had managed to turn Voltage around in their skirmish, darting from blows and landing quite a few of his own.
Quickly running up to the pair, Ladybug lassoed Voltage in the string. He struggled and tried to escape, his arms pinned to his sides. Once it became clear he was trapped, the game froze again. Voltage exploded in a mass of butterflies- no, moths- and a yell of rage was heard, presumably of this Hawkmoth man. His villain had been defeated.
From Marinette, even in her frozen state, her super suit began dispensing hundreds of little red lights- ladybugs!- that immediately reset the town to the way it was before the attack. "Woah," she breathed out in awe. "It's amazing! No, it's-"
"Miraculous," Chat Noir offered with a small smile. Marinette saw the bruises forming on his cheeks suddenly disappear as he was wrapped in the red lights.
"Yeah."
Adrien held out a closed fist in her direction. "Pound it?"
She smirked and bumped his knuckles.
"Y'know, making the guy explode like that was mean. You're evil," Adrien said, jokingly.
Marinette grinned and shook her head. "Chaotic Neutral, sugar."