Miraculous Fluff Month 2017 – Aug 17
Prompt: AU
(( Bear with me here, haha. You'll see. ))
Darkblade was winning. The four heroes were losing.
The dark, magical wall around the castle was closing in, making its way to meet Darkblade's flag, multiplying the undead knights every second.
YOUR TIME IS GROWING SHORT, a voice rang in the collective heroes' minds.
Alya turned her orcish eyes away from the encircling gloom and continued to push forward through the large army at the foot of the castle. She wielded her dual axes with precision, slicing through the enemy forces with ease. The strength of their team was sufficient – that wasn't the issue. The sheer number of forces they were facing was the real problem.
Behind Alya, Chloe flittered between Alya and Darkblade's minions near the assaulting catapults. The two females, though they worked well together, were as physically different as they were physically strong. While Alya, tall, green, with her orcish ears and flaming red hair stood stocky and muscling, Chloe was thin and pale, a long ponytail of blond her only feature that would make her stand out from any other human in a crowd; well, her hair, and her giant war-hammer. She had already tried her spell to control the undead twice, but luck didn't seem to be on her side.
"If you're done trying to do whatever the crap you're doing over there," yelled Alya to the yellow-clad blond. "I could really use a healing spell!"
Chloe gritted her teeth, outrageously annoyed with the half-orc fighter's taking advantage of her cleric abilities. Yes, she knew that it was her job to heal the massive, tank-like force that was Alya, but Chloe didn't appreciate being ordered to do so.
"Not that luck has been on my side tonight…" she muttered. Might as well take another roll of the die.
As a bright yellow light shot out of her war-hammer, Chloe couldn't help but grin; finally, she had rolled true.
Higher up on the castle walls, Nino, massive shield in one hand and crook in the other, made his way up the sides. It was slow going; his dwarven body, though strong, was not graced with nimbleness…nor lightness. With a great shout, he raised his crook above his head, watching the bright green light burst through the end and cascade over the heroes like a giant umbrella. Immediately, he felt his courage rise. This was doable. Shaking his shaggy, black, dreadlocked beard, a glint of fury belying his standing as a Holy Knight, Nino proceeded upward. He stuck the shield into the side of the wall and continued to haul himself upward. He had to get to the rendezvous point.
WAVE FOUR HAS COMMENCED. The same malicious voice boomed in their ears again. Nino winced as the sentence was followed by evil laugher. Despite the Aura of Courage he had cast moments before, Nino's confidence in the success of this crusade began to falter.
"Dude…" mumbled Nino. "Tone it down a bit, will ya?"
As Nino neared the battlements near the top of the castle, a sudden onslaught of undead helmets peered over at him. Nino braced himself…would he be able to defend himself?
A saving grace appeared in the form of the elvish rogue with whom he had been planning the meetup. With a swing of her sling, she took out one of the knights. The body fell past Nino and the rest were distracted by the cloaked female. She led them away, leaving just a few stragglers, pulling out her dagger after loading her sling once more. After taking out four more, and seeing another wave coming toward her, Marinette pulled her red hood over her blue hair and ducked away into the shadows. Luck always seemed to be on her side. That was why the rest of the team had trusted her with the specific mission of removing the flag.
A scream flowed through the air from below. Nino, having taken out the rest of the minions by him when he vaulted the wall, looked at the scene playing out below.
The scream had been in triumph.
Chloe stood below with Alya, yellow light fluttering around them, a new army of undead at their command. Her spell had finally worked.
DARKBLADE HAS RISEN.
All celebrating died as all the heroes faces shot upward. Another evil laugh rang painfully in their minds. Darkblade had been hiding, biding his time, trying to keep the heroes busy while he built up his own strength.
"Aaahhhh yeah!" Nino shouted, his dreadlocks both on his beard and on his scalp waving around this time. "Boss battle time."
There was a flurry of movement. Darkblade shot into the air, coming down hard, his sword right by Nino. Out of nowhere, Marinette shot out of the shadows and landed her dagger into his side before making her escape. Nino put up his shield. Marinette had bought him enough time to pull up his shield, and distracted Darkblade enough to make him miss his first target: his head. From below, Chloe suddenly shot up, apparently having been hefted by Alya. With a swing of her war-hammer, she made to knock Darkblade over. Her luck had apparently run out, though. Not only did she miss, but she was swatted away from Darkblade, smashing into the side of the castle wall. With a great bounding leap, the three heroes were met with the last member of their team. Alya brought up her full, grea, green height and swirled her battle axes around once before landing them into Darkblade.
The next half an hour was the tensest yet. Chloe and Nino shot spells, some more successfully than others. Alya pounded and sliced, trying to literally throw her weight around. Marinette snuck in and out of shadows, planting sharp dagger points into every chink of Darkblade's armor. When the heroes became too tired, and their luck started to run out, the black wall of magic growing ever nearer, Chloe snapped. With a shout that made everyone's hairs stand on end (though, to be fair, Alya's were already swarming around her), Chloe cast her last spell, a perfect 20. The flames shot out of her war-hammer, a mix of bright and neon yellows. Everyone turned away at the brightness of the light. Everyone except for an extremely adamant Chloe, who continued to shout in triumphant…lunacy. When the light died away, the allied heroes turned, blinking at the spot where Darkblade should be…only to see a pair of steaming boots.
Darkblade was gone.
Except the black curtain of undead magic, for some reason, continued to encroach ever nearer. Without any more hesitation, Nino ran to Marinette. The time for their original plan had come. Marinette matched Nino's pace as she hurried toward him. With a loud "HUH!" Nino hefted Marinette into the air with his shield. In the same moment, Alya threw one of her axes into the air. Marinette caught the heavy object and gave it a mighty swing. She had flown up to the flagpole, and in one great movement, she sliced it into two. A beam of white light shot out, the blackness that had been surrounding them fizzled away, sucked into what immediately became a sunny sky.
A collective sigh through the four friends gave way into loud whooping. They had done it!
CONGRATULATIONS, HEROES….
BUT THE FIGHT HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.
Marinette alighted back into the group. Alya picked up her axe that had clattered to the ground. They all looked around. The bodies of the undead knights – except for the ones still under Chloe's control – started to shake. They were…reanimating.
A laugh broke through the silence. The four friends turned slowly to a figure perched upon one of the castle's nearby turrets.
"Funny thing, about the undead…" the voice purred, dripping with acid. He lifted his head, cat ears and tail twitching excitedly. "They can't actually be killed."
"Oh my gosh, Adrien." Chloe's voice rang out, staring across the table at the Cheshire-cat grin on the model's face. "Did you seriously make yourself into the next villain?"
The boy at the head of the table of friends merely flicked a smug look to each of his friends in turn.
"The Dungeon Master gets to do whatever he wants. And it feels…paw-some"
A collective groan rang through the costumed friends as they looked around at each other.
"Alright, I'm out," snapped Chloe, picking up her figure, her character sheet, and a sleepy Pollen. "Later, losers."
A communal, "Bye, Chlo," rang out.
"Gall, how long were we sitting there?" Alya moaned, standing up and rubbing her backside before pulling off her fake orc ears and shaking out her overly stiff hair.
"Oh…only about four hours this time," replied Nino with a yawn. Alya grunted in reply.
The couple left a few minutes later, figures in Alya's bag, Trixx and Wayzz chittering happily behind them.
Marinette was helping Adrien clean up from their latest campaign. After the fourth yawn, Adrien laughed.
"You don't have to help you know. You can go home. It is…well, I guess it is only 3:00 a.m."
Marinette giggled tiredly. She stretched her arms up, eyes closed, and Adrien, unable to help himself, grabbed her and started tickling her.
"Oh, my gosh! HAHA Adrien, STOP! HAhahahaha STAAWWWWWWWP –"
Her pleas stopped when her instincts suddenly kicked in. Without really meaning to, Marinette grabbed one of Adrien's hands and flipped him over unto his back. He laughed through a groan.
"GAH! Adrien, I'm so sorry!"
Marinette bent over him and touched his face gingerly.
"Geez," he slightly wheezed out. "How many times are you going to make me fall for you?" She giggled. "I only have nine lives."
"Hmmm…" Marinette looked thoughtful. "Well, I'd say you'd only have able seven left now."
Adrien huffed, then smiled, reaching up to push a loose hair away from Marinette's face, tucking it behind one of her cute, fake elf ears. "You'd known I'd spend every single one with you."
"You are so cheesy," she whispered, bending down and brushing his nose with her own.
"You love it."
"I do."
Marinette closed the small gap between their faces and placed a soft kiss on Adrien's forehead.
"I should really get going, Dungeon Master."
"I know, Lady Scarlet."
She giggled again at her Character's name.
Minutes later, Adrien watched from his window as Ladybug swung through the skies.
"You two make me sick, you know that, right?"
Adrien just shook his head at Plagg's words, only offering, besides a fresh cheese wedge, two words in response:
"Shut up."
Fin!
(( Laugh, roll your eyes, or mock me all you want, but this was my favorite thing that popped into my mind when I thought about Alternate Universes. I seriously could not stop laughing through the whole thing. I know it was dumb, haha! But here's the summary that I would have put at the beginning, but I didn't want to divulge anything: This is a year or so later, when Chloe and Alya have their miraculouses, and in a world where we are going to assume or pretend that Nino gets the turtle. I almost added Nathanael here with the peacock, but I really can't seem him here. Also, Chloe was continually rolling poorly. And this all started as a "strategy meeting" for discussing ways to defeat Hawk Moth. Nice, Adrien. And slowly it progressed to a weekly/monthly late-night sneaking out with full costumes and figures made by Marinette. The Kwamis love the gettogethers. Hahaha this took way too much research to make it NOT ridiculous. But I hope you enjoyed it regardless. Hehe. (8 Also, I usually read through these like, 3 times to proofread and still miss a ton of stuff, but I am not doing it tonight! So sorry if it has a ton of errors. Anyway, keep smiling, and don't get Akumatized! )) ((OH! And their Character names: Nino: Sir Tortue (turtle in French), Dwarf Paladin. Chloe: Madame Mellona (Mellona was the Roman goddess of the bees), Human Cleric. Alya: Sinopa Yegoth (Sinopa means fox, and Yegoth is just a generated orc name), Half-Orc Fighter. Marinette: Lady Scarlet (obvious reasons), Elf Rogue. Because I knew you were wondering. HAHAHA Okay time for sleep. ))