Even though Marinette had let go of the fact that Chat didn't answer her question, she was still rather unsettled. He hadn't left footprints the two times she'd checked, and when she finally confronted him about it, it seemed almost as if he left footprints on purpose.
She cast a sideways look at him, trying not to let him know that she was looking at him. He walked sort of gracefully, striding along like he was going down a runway, and his expression was open and giving. So what wasn't he telling her?
Her thoughts were interrupted when he noticed she was staring, and she quickly looked away.
When she had avoided his eyes, she saw that they had almost walked by a save point with a table and a microwave a couple of feet away, a mouse hole in the wall behind the setup. Thankful for the distraction (because she knew Chat would no doubt try and ask what she was staring at and she didn't really feel like lying), Marinette grabbed his arm, stopping his stride.
"Look," she said, pointing to the table. Chat stopped walking and looked at the table, a soft smile spreading across his face.
"You know-" Marinette touched her finger to the save, and the world went still.
Chat was looking back at her, his lips parted and turned up in a smile. His eyes, which had lost their color, still glowed at her invitingly, and his position was relaxed and at ease. She felt herself swallow hard.
"You're the worst," she whispered to him before looking at the message that had popped up in front of her.
Knowing the mouse might find a way to heat up the spaghetti…
It fills you with determination.
Would you like to save?
Before pressing yes, Marinette stared at Chat, a heavy feeling settling in her chest. He reminded her somewhat of someone she used to know, but she couldn't let her thoughts wander to such places.
So she looked at Chat like he was an entertaining stranger and pressed the 'yes' button.
"-Nino actually…" Chat trailed off, and his posture stiffened. His ears, which Marinette had thought were just props, twitched. He stared at her.
"What?" she asked, a tingling sensation crawling up her back. "What's wrong?"
"I thought I…" He trailed off again, and for a couple of moments, they just stared at each other, a million thoughts going unsaid between them. And then he relaxed, running a hand through his hair. "Never mind."
"You… You were saying something about Nino?" Marinette asked, trying to keep her voice steady. She didn't know how, but she knew that Chat had somehow sensed that something was up with the save points.
"Right. Yeah." His ears twitched again, and she could tell it took him a massive amount of effort to resume what he was saying. "Nino actually loves cooking," he said, gesturing to a table with a plate of spaghetti on it, though he still seemed a bit distracted.
"Really?"
"Yeah. He's been gaining a bit more confidence in putting himself out there. Which is, you know, why he's so…"
"Enthusiastic?"
"Yeah." He was shifting from foot to foot, his eyes moving constantly to look at the area surrounding them. There was obviously something on his mind, and Marinette guessed it was something he didn't want to tell her.
"Do you have something important to do?" she asked somewhat hesitantly, and his gaze snapped back to her. At first, he looked like he was about to deny it, but as she continued looking at him with waiting eyes, he seemed to cave in.
"Actually, I… Yes, I do." He paused, giving her a pleading look. "Is it okay if I leave you for a bit?"
"I don't see why it wouldn't be," she said with a shrug, as if the thought of going through the Underground alone didn't give her chills. "And I don't mind as long as you let me know. Because last time you left without a word. Or a trace."
He winced. "I'm very sorry about that."
"Yeah."
A pause. He continued to shift uncomfortably.
"Well? If this thing is so important, why let me stop you?"
"Buginette-"
"Chat," Marinette interrupted, giving him a soft smile. "Go." He let out a breath, and the grateful look he gave her made her heart thump. And then he nodded to her, sprinting off to the next area, leaving a trail of footprints.
For some reason, she doubted that footprints would be seen in the next area.
Pushing Chat out of her mind, Marinette turned to the table with the plate of spaghetti on it. There was a note beside the plate written in a familiar all-caps script.
Human!
PLEASE ENJOY THIS SPAGHETTI!
(THIS SPAGHETTI IS ACTUALLY A TRAP… DESIGNED TO ENTICE YOU!
YOU'LL BE SO BUSY EATING IT, YOU WON'T REALIZE YOU AREN'T PROGRESSING!
HOW SMART OF ME!)
-NINO, THE BUBBLER
Marinette smiled to herself, feeling a bit like Chat. Sure, she didn't know Nino that well, and he was set on capturing her, but she felt an overwhelming sense that he was harmless and kind.
Now that she was closer to the plate of spaghetti, she saw that it looked a bit on the frozen side. She picked up the fork next to the plate and tried prying some of the noodles off the plate but found that she couldn't. At all.
Next to the plate was a microwave with all the buttons covered with sticky notes that said 'spaghetti.'
She moved on to the next area, and, even though she was trying not to think about anything to do with Chat, she couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a footprint in sight. She bit the inside of her cheek, removing her eyes from the ground and looking at a sign that was next to her.
Warning:
Dog Marriage
Marinette snorted, starting to walk away from the sign. It shouldn't have been funny because most signs she'd seen so far had been true, but what kind of warning is 'dog marriage?'
Speaking of dogs.
The red heart peeled away from her chest, and Marinette looked up from the heart to see a dog in armor standing before her, holding a sword and a shield.
"What."
The name floating above the dog was 'Lesser Dog.'
Does that mean there's a Greater Dog?
Lesser Dog panted happily at her, a small white dog jumping out from behind it. The white dog jumped at Marinette, but, even though she would've liked to pet it, she knew enough about white objects in fights to avoid it. The white dog jumped around, trying to catch the red heart.
In her pocket, the Miraculous beeped, and Marinette pulled it out, only to feel a bit assaulted by the massive amount of paper slips that were spewing out of the slot. Every single one of them said the same thing: 'pet.'
She glanced over at the heart, which was letting the small dog try and chase it around. "I think I should pet it." Marinette lifted her hand, and the Lesser Dog immediately noticed, panting excitedly. The name floating above it's head turned yellow.
"That's all?"
The red heart raced back to her as the white dog dissolved, confirming that yes, that was all. The Lesser Dog bounded away.
Marinette continued on her way, choosing the downward path first. There were spikes blocking the rest of the path and a patch of perfectly white snow covering what looked like a large square platform. She squatted down, clearing some of the snow away, revealing a map.
"'X' marks the spot," she whispered, noticing the 'x' on the map in bright red. She took note of where she should go, then stood up again, going up to the other path she'd seen before taking the downward one.
Before she could get any further, however, the red heart made its appearance once more, along with three akumas: an Icecap, a Snowdrake, and… a Jerry? Both the Icecap and the Snowdrake didn't seem to like the fact that a Jerry was with them.
Icicles and weird crescent shaped ice things materialized around Snowdrake and Icecap, but nothing materialized around Jerry. Marinette, who'd been once again staring at the Icecap's hat, tore her eyes away from it, already knowing that ignoring it was the right choice.
She danced away from the icicles and crescent ice things easily, although a couple of stray ones hit the heart. Marinette felt the pain shoot through her chest but tried her best to ignore it, continuing to avoid the ice attacks while the heart recovered. Jerry scoffed. "Wow. You guys suck at this."
Icecap, who was already mad because Marinette wasn't paying attention to its hat, fumed. The icicles around it faltered.
"Hey, now," the Snowdrake said, and Icecap was already rolling its eyes, "don't flake out on me." It gestured to the snowflakes around them. Marinette made eye contact with the Icecap. Both of them rolled their eyes.
Snowdrake grinned, making finger guns and chuckling to itself. Marinette realized she was looking at Icecap's hat again and quickly looked away, making the Icecap make a frustrated noise in the back of its throat.
"Fine! I'll ignore you, too!" The icicles dissolved and Icecap disappeared. Jerry sighed dramatically.
"Why are we even doing this?" Jerry asked, and Snowdrake pointedly ignored him. "Also, I, like, need a ride, you know?" Snowdrake still ignored him.
"Aw, man… It looks like he flaked out on me," Snowdrake said, gesturing to the snowflakes again and making finger guns at Marinette. She made a face, but then her Miraculous beeped, and she took it out, thankful for the distraction from Snowdrake's unrelenting finger guns and Jerry's annoying sighs.
'Laugh.'
Easy enough.
Marinette looked back up at the Snowdrake, who was still making finger guns at her. "Oh! Ha ha ha! How funny!" She tried her best to not sound sarcastic, but she was kind of afraid it didn't work.
Snowdrake, however, didn't seem to notice. It looked like it was glowing with pride. "See?! Laughs! Dad was wrong!" He bounded away giddily, probably to go share the news with his friends.
"Oh, wow," Marinette said, staring after Snowdrake and thinking that it was sort of sad. Jerry, however, seemed insensitive to such a momentous occasion in Snowdrake's life.
"So, like, my ride just left…" Jerry trailed off, looking expectantly at Marinette. "So can you give me a ride?" It pulled out a package of powdery food and starting eating, licking it's hands loudly.
Marinette shivered. "Yeah, uh, no." As soon as Jerry looked away, Marinette snuck away, quite thoroughly ditching it. She didn't even feel slightly guilty.
As she walked away, she heard Jerry wander away, sighing dramatically and crunching loudly on its food. The red heart sunk back into her chest.
She continued walking, this time uninterrupted by akumas trying to fight her. At the end of the other path was a patch of dark snow. She walked up to it and felt around with her foot until she found a switch the map was definitely referring to. She knelt down to flick the switch it, and, sure enough, there was a loud clicking sound coming from the direction of the other path.
"Nice." She walked back the way she'd come, noticing the Dog Marriage sign. What could that even mean? She jumped over the spike platforms, and then promptly froze in place, the sign suddenly making sense.
Two dog-ish looking akumas lumbered their way over to her, sticking their noses up in the air and giving her the stink eye. Both wore dark cloaks and carried axes, though the axes seemed to made of different material – one of rock and the other weird pink slime.
"What's that smell?" asked one of the akumas, who looked the more feminine of the two, given that it was smaller and had a sort of higher pitched voice.
"Where's that smell?" asked the bigger of the two, who was holding the rock ax.
"If you're a smell…"
"Identify yoursmellf!"
The akuma holding the pink slime ax sniffed at Marinette, and she saw behind it's hood, seeing that it was in fact, a small dog-woman with yellow eyes and pink and blue skin. "Hm," it said, squinting its eyes at Marinette, "here's that smell."
"It makes me want to eliminate." The other one leaned in, revealing it's gray and rock-like skin. "Eliminate you!" The red heart once again made its appearance, and Marinette sighed. I can never get a break, can I?
Mylene and Ivan stood side by side in front of Marinette, quite obviously a sickeningly cute couple. They looked at each other before nodding, turning their attention to Marinette and raising their axes.
Marinette jumped away as their axes swung toward her, but the heart wasn't fast enough.
Both axes hit her red heart, splitting it in half, and then a million pieces. Pain tore through Marinette's chest. She saw the pieces of her heart land in the snow, their glow fading.
The world went black.
I've died.
Marinette opened her eyes. She was floating in an empty space, absolute nothingness surrounding her.
She blinked, rubbing her eyes. Is this what death feels like?
"Look at you, kid," said a voice behind her. She whipped around, not expecting for there to be anyone else to be in this empty space. A familiar blurry and gray person stood behind her, their red glow temporarily blinding her.
"You!" Marinette exclaimed once she regained focus.
"Yes, me," the person said, crossing their red-clad arms. The eye slits in their domino mask narrowed at her, and Marinette gulped. "You died."
"Um, yeah, I guess," Marinette said, scratching the back of her neck. "It doesn't really feel like it though."
The person waved their hand. "It doesn't matter if it felt like it or not, you died."
"No need to rub it in," she grumbled. The person sighed, rubbing their face with their blurry hand.
"I'm sorry, kid, it's just, well, I didn't expect you to die this early."
Marinette looked down at her boots, not saying anything.
"You might remember the last time we talked," the person said, and Marinette looked back up, playing with her fingers. "I told you that you are extremely important in the fate of the akumas. That's still true."
"I'm dead, in case you forgot."
"You can't give up."
"I didn't. I died."
"Giving up and dying is the same thing." Marinette made a noise of protest, but the person held up a blurred hand. "The point is you can't give up just yet."
"Why not?" Marinette asked, looking around at the emptiness around her. "Why should I keep going? I think I've told you this already, but I'm not suited to save the akumas. They don't need someone like me."
"Oh, but they do," the person said, holding up a finger. "You are suited to save the akumas. Because you know what it feels like to be ridiculed for things you can't control." Marinette stepped back, memories she'd tried to suppress flooding to the surface. "You know what it's like to be held captive."
Anger pumped through Marinette's veins. "Don't you dare remind me of that," she growled. "It's not your place to speak of such things." Her throat was closing up, like she was going to cry, but she refused, glaring at the blurry person, who seemed satisfied with her reaction.
"Don't you see? The akumas are going through what you were forced to go through. You can set them free." Marinette deflated, covering her face with her hands.
"I could barely even set myself free. And when I did…" She trailed off, thinking back to the pain of landing ungracefully on hard ground. "I fell here. I can't save them. I couldn't even save myself."
The person placed their blurry hands on Marinette's shoulders, forcing her to look up at them. "You can, and you will. Sure, you couldn't save yourself back then, but you can now."
"What makes you so sure?"
Marinette couldn't see the person's facial expressions clearly, but she could've sworn they were smiling. "Stay determined, Marinette."
She gasped, her eyes shooting open.
The world was gray around her, and there was a message floating in the air above her.
Knowing the mouse might find a way to heat up the spaghetti…
It fills you with determination.
Would you like to save?
Marinette stood up, breathing hard, her heart beating fast. As if it was reminding her that she was alive.
I died.
A bit behind the save message stood Chat, his expression open and kind.
But I'm alive.
She pressed the 'yes' button, and color flooded back into the world.