It's here...

PROLOGUE

I BELIEVE IN THE FROG!

{He... He saved up his flies to afford to go to space school...?}

...TO BE CONTINUED…

Miraculous Migraine
Episode 21: Stormy Weather 2: Electric Boogaloo
By: I Write Big

This chapter requires a keen eye. I'll try to spell it out for you, dear readers, but you need to pay attention. This is about to get weird.

Sorry, weirder than usual.

The sun shines brightly, the birds tweet melodically as Marinette, Alya, and Nino exit their school. Everything is as it should be.

"Something feels… off," Marinette says.

"What do you mean?" Nino asks.

"I'm not sure." Marinette taps her chin, scrunches her brow, and searches around her for the source of this 'off' she senses. She finds nothing. "It's hard to describe," she says. "The world suddenly sounds more… present…?"

"Present? How does that work, dude?"

"I don't know!" Marinette insists. "You… me… how we're talking… everything just seems here and now."

"As opposed to then and there?" Alya clarifies. She raises an eyebrow.

"Exactly!"

Neither Nino nor Alya get what she means. "Okay," Alya says. "Have fun with your break from reality, Marinette. Nino and I are gonna have a study date."

"Huh? What?" Nino sputters.

"I said, let's have a platonic, non-date, study sesh, Nino. As friends."

"Oh, I swore I heard something else. Sorry, Alya, can't. I gotta drop off the notes and assignments Adrien missed because of his shoot today."

"I'LL DELIVER THEM!" Marinette screeches and rips the schoolwork out of Nino's hands. But even this perfectly normal excuse to be near her Adrien feels 'off' to her. She has the strongest suspicion that there is something about the 'tense' of it all that is wrong.

She doesn't know what that means, but she does know the world is not the way it should be.

"That's terrible!" she hears someone say nearby. Marinette turns and sees it's Sabrina speaking with Chloe and... Aurore?

One of these things is not like the other.

"Did you hear that, Chloe? Aurore's GPA dropped a whole point on her last report card."

Marinette's sixth sense flares but she still doesn't know why. She listens intently for the wrong thing she can't put her finger on.

"Well of course it dropped, Mistress," Chloe scoffs. "It's a huge workload to attend class while working part-time at the weather station. She's probably under a lot of stress."

"What's that, Chloe?" Aurore snarls, her hair frays. "You saying that I can't handle it? You saying that I'm just one bad day away from being re-akumatized back into Stormy Weather? You saying that I can't change? You saying that I'll always be a villain? Is that what you're saying?!"

"Uh, no," Chloe replies earnestly without an ounce of malice. "I'm saying you have a lot on your plate and it's completely understandable for your GPA to slip a little, especially with your poor lower-middle-class upbringing."

"Oh! I get it!" Aurore snarks. "You're saying I'm too stupid! That I'm never going to make it as a weather person! That I'll just be another one of Hawkmoth's victims again with the utterly ridiculous power to make it rain!"

"Jeez, Chloe, lay off Aurore, will ya," Alya scolds with firm disapproval.

"Yeah, dude," Nino agrees. "Hasn't she had enough?"

Chloe looks lost. "But, I—I didn't—That's not what I—"

"Oh, you just don't let up! I'll show you!" Aurore roars. "I'm going straight to my weather job and stressing myself out until I start crying blood!"

Aurore stomps to her car and is driven away.

Chloe glances with worry at Sabrina. "Am I doing this nice thing wrong?"

"No, no, you're doing great," Sabrina assures. "People just need to get used to the new you."

As Sabrina consoles Chloe, Marinette suddenly realizes what's wrong.

"Aurore doesn't go to this school," she says.

Later, at Marinette's room:

Marinette flips through several school yearbooks. Tikki watches with disinterest. "Why is this so important?" the kwami sighs.

"Here!" Marinette points to one book. On the page is an old class photo from several years ago. Aurore sits amongst the students.

"Holy fuck..." Tikki whispers in awe. "Max used to rock an afro?"

"That's not it! Look!" Marinette waves to the rest of the yearbooks. All of them, including the most recent one with all the photoshopped Adriens, don't have a single photo of Aurore. "I knew it! Aurore did use to go to our school, but she transferred years ago to study meteorology. How is she suddenly here again and doing bad on tests?"

Tikki frowns at her. "Marinette, you're just trying to avoid delivering Adrien's schoolwork, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not! This is serious!"

"And you're going to spend hours in front of the mirror, rehearsing what should be a simple, 'hi, here's your crap.' I thought you were past this, Marinette," Tikki grumbles. "This is just like all those other times when you were too tongue-tied to talk to Adrien. Remember?"

Remember?:

"Ooh, charades!" exclaimed Adrien. "I love this game."

Marinette spasmed. She wasn't in her room anymore. She was back in front of her school, suddenly feeling a severe lack of a wrench wound in her head. She held a familiar present that she recognized as the scarf she had knitted for Adrien for his last birthday.

"Let's see… Five words. First word sounds like… stitch!"

"Out of the way," a bitch named Chloe shoved Marinette off her feet.

Remember?:

Marinette tumbled face-first into the... trash can? She all at once found herself not in wet cement but neck-deep in a small plastic pail. She ripped it apart and discovered she was in her classroom.

One of the crumpled papers from the trash landed on her face and she recognized it.

"The fuck?" she said. "This is the love poem Adrien wrote to She-Who-Must—"

Now:

"—Die," Marinette finishes and sees she now sits on her bed, the poem still in her hands. "WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!" she screams in terror.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Tikki screams back in equal terror. "WE WERE HERE AND THEN WE WERE THERE AND NOW WE'RE BACK HERE!"

"DID WE JUST TIME TRAVEL? WHEN ARE WE?!" Marinette pulls out her phone. The screen says not a minute has passed, but this brings her no comfort. "Tikki, is this some crazy side-effect of the Miraculous like Mr. Narrator?"

"No!" the kwami shouts but then looks unsure. "...I don't think so."

After her eye twitches at the silence, Marinette yells, "YOU DON'T THINK SO!"

"Hold on, let me double-check." Tikki clears her throat and calls out to the empty room, "Fluff? Is that you? Are you messing with us?"

BLAM!

A blue mini-nuclear explosion erupts near Marinette's TV. Out of the fallout tumbles the Pink Devil and Timetagger, choking each other out.

"This… isn't… me…" the Pink Devil manages to rasp between gags before the two vanish in another blue mini-nuclear explosion.

"That settles it, I have no idea what the fuck is going on," Tikki says.

Marinette faces this unfathomable problem as she usually faces things she doesn't understand. She screams. "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

"Stop!" Tikki demands.

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

"We'll figure this out! Just stop!"

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

"Let's think this through!"

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

"What happened that led up to… that? You were looking at yearbooks and I was pointing out the millions of times you were a blubbering mess in front of Adrien."

Remember?:

Marinette stabbed the spoon shank into Adrien's chest.

"GAAAH!" she screamed.

"Gah! Agh! Lot more painful than I imagined! Think you punctured my lung!" Adrien gripped at the growing red spot on his chest and laughed at the agony.

"Adrien! No! I'm so sorry!" Marinette cried and tried to cradle the boy.

Remember?:

"Somebody call an ambulance!" she sobbed.

"An ambulance?" Adrien asked. "Why? Aren't we going to play the game?"

Marinette saw she was back in her bedroom with Adrien, stab-free, and sitting in the front of the start screen of Ultimate Mecha Strike III. "Adrien, you're alive?"

"I won't be for long against you. C'mon, let's train for the video game tournament."

Without meaning to, they reached for the same controller at the same time. Their hands touched. Marinette let out a girlish squeal that was so high pitched that it could make a dog go deaf and she slumped back, GLAAAAAWLALAAAALLed to death.

Remember?:

Marinette gasped back to life as a pair of the most perfect hands slipped a dry shirt over her wet see-through pajama top.

"Here. Sorry that I didn't notice earlier," Adrien said as he gently buttoned her up. "Don't cry. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Marinette. You're beautiful."

"Astruc tapdancing Christ, can I stay in one place, please?!" Marinette begged.

Remember?:

"Happy birthday, Marinette," Adrien sweetly said, handing her the small jewel box.

Marinette looked around her. She was in a park, during some kind of party with her class. She saw her grandma flirting with Andre Glacier the Ice Cream Man next to a large cake. The words Happy Birthday Marinette hung above them on a colorful banner. Her hands opened the box and pulled out a string of beads and trinkets.

"It's a lucky charm, just for you," Adrien explained. He pulled Marinette's unlucky charm from his pocket. "I always have the one you gave me. Carry it around wherever I go."

Marinette stared. "I don't remember this..." she said.

Now:

"I don't remember any of this..." she says.

"It happened again!" Tikki cries and begins to hyperventilate.

Marinette is back in her bedroom. No Ultimate Mecha Strike III, no Adrien. There was, however, the lucky charm Adrien gave her. It sits in her hands, not fitting any memory. "What is this?" she asks, mystified.

But Tikki is too far into freak out mode to respond. "What is this?! How is this?! Why is this?! Who is doing this?! Who?! WHO?!"

Meanwhile:

"Good afternoon, Nathalie," Gabriel says, failing to not look guilty as fuck.

Nathalie stares at that guilty grin for two seconds, pukes some blood into her blood bucket, and groans. "What did you do, sir?"

"Do?" The guilty grin somehow gets even guiltier. "I didn't do anything? What are you talking about? I am standing here in my office, now, here, today, at this moment, presently, doing nothing of significance other than talking to you. How could you think that I have done something?"

Nathalie groans again, spits up a little more blood, and turns to the exit. "I'm locking myself in the panic room."

"No, don't leave me alone!" Gabriel tackles Nathalie to the ground. "Fine, fine, you got me. Something did happen, Nathalie. An Akuma called Recap-er got off its leash and turned on me, okay? He uses people's memories to throw them back in time but only if they think about the past. Whatever you do, stay in the present. Talk, Nathalie, talk to me about what's happening here and now! Don't try to remember things!"

But his words fall on deaf blushing ears. The feel of Gabriel Agreste's body pressing against her has the exact opposite reaction. Her face flushes red as she remembers the dozens of small intimate moments she's had with Gabriel.

Remember?:

The ax slipped from Nathalie's hold, the blade cutting the luxurious rug behind her.

"How the—Where the—HUH?!" Nathalie eloquently put.

"Calm, stay calm," Gabriel said soothingly. "Let this play out and—" Without wanting to, Nathalie pulled Gabriel into a tight embrace. "Oh. Oh… I forgot how nice this was."

"Sir," Nathalie gulped, "are we in the past?"

Remember?:

"Temporarily, yes," Hawkmoth said, silhouetted by his great spiral window. "Don't touch anything or try to undo your past actions, otherwise you'll change the present. I already somehow got best girl transferred to another school. No clue how adding extra Nutella to my sandwich did that."

He promptly stomped on Nathalie's toes.

"OW! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"

The black butterfly in Hawkmoth's hands sensed her anger and shattered on her tablet.

Remember?:

Gabriel gingerly set Nathalie down on the couch and stroked her hand.

"Sir," she glared at him before hacking up a chunk of lung, "make it stop."

"I can't simply take Recap-er's powers away anymore, Nathalie. He's grown too powerful. We need Ladybug and Chat Noir to defeat him." Gabriel looked away, uneasy. "But they may have some trouble not getting stuck in the past themselves. Who can I pay to fix this—"

Nathalie slapped him. "Stop trying to fix things with money! Just akumatize someone else! That'll keep them focused."

Now:

The sting of that slap brings them back to the present, as far as they can tell. Gabriel gasps.

"Of course! Another Akuma! Nathalie, you genius, you've done it again!" He reaches out for a hug, but Nathalie quickly aims a chair at him. "Sorry, stay in the now, right. To the hidden tower!"

Gabriel pushes the series of secret buttons on Emilie's portrait and—

"Father!" Adrien bursts into the office. "You won't believe what happened today! Let me tell you all about how I remember it."

Both Nathalie and Gabriel cover their ears and repeatedly say, "NO!" as loud as they can. Nathalie quickly pushes the boy out of the office while Gabriel rides his mini-elevator out of there.

"Phew!" Gabriel says when he is before the giant spiral window. "That was a close one. Almost got Adrien pulled into the past back there."

"Yeah," agrees Nooroo. "But that wouldn't be the first time you put him in danger."

Both freeze as the memories flood in.

"Fuck!"

Remember?:

"AAAAAAAH!" Hawkmoth screamed as Adrien slipped from Gorizilla's hand and tumbled off the skyscraper.

Remember?:

"AAAAAAAH!" Hawkmoth screamed as Adrien was glitterfied by Fashion Queen.

Remember?:

"AAAAAAAH!" Hawkmoth screamed as Adrien's sarcophagus was skewered by Riposte's blade.

Remember?:

"AAAAAAAH!" Hawkmoth screamed as Adrien told him he didn't love him during Dark Cupid's rampage.

Remember?:

"AAAAAAAH!" Hawkmoth screamed as Adrien was forcefully kissed by Chameleon.

Now:

Gabriel hugs himself to stop the trembling and whimpers, "Am I a bad dad?"

"I am shocked you would ask that. Shocked! Shocked, I say," Nooroo replies. "Well, not that shocked. And the answer is yes."

"Lalala! I can't hear you! Lalala! Nooroo, dark wings rise!" In a powerful pulse of purple, he transforms into Hawkmoth. "Okay, Gabriel," he says carefully. "You are here, you are now. Don't think about the past, don't think about your mistakes. Just focus on fixing them." He fills one of his butterflies with darkness and sends it off.

Across Paris, the dark messenger flies until it—

Remember?:

"Yes, my little ones, feast! Cocoon yourselves and add to my army!" the little caterpillar's new daddy laughed as he fed him fresh leaves.

Remember?:

The little caterpillar wrapped himself in silk, eager to make daddy proud. He was going to be the best butterfly ever!

Remember?:

Yet another butterfly beat him to daddy's hand. Ever since the loan sharks had broken his legs after he'd lost all his nectar in a bad poker game, he hadn't been able to fly as fast.

Remember?:

He held his wife and watched their baby caterpillar's crawl for the first time. He may not have been able to make daddy proud, but he'd be a proud daddy.

Now:

—finds Aurore, angry and growling, as she gets in an elevator. The butterfly shatters on her parasol. A pair of fashionably neon-pink butterfly-themed sunglasses appear on her face and she sees the visage of a silver-masked man.

"How you doing, best girl, can't really change the details of your powers, kind of in a hurry," he says quickly. "I'mma make you Stormy Weather again and you're going to lead Ladybug and Chat Noir straight to Recap-er, got it?"

"Whatever you say, Hawkmoth," Aurore chuckles as bubbling darkness swallows her.

Meanwhile, in Adrien's room:

Adrien flops onto his gold-silk bed and sighs. "It's official, my Father will never change."

"I like people who never change," Plagg says. "Look at me, man, I love cheese and have no other significant qualities of note. I haven't changed for as long as I can remember."

Remember?:

Plagg took a big old bite of some cheese on a bridge.

Remember?:

On a plane.

Remember?:

In the Battle of the Bulge.

Remember?:

In the Fall of Pompeii.

Remember?:

In the castle of Lord Tucker Creamed Chicken on Spaghetti of Milk and Donuts.

Remember?:

In an ancient cave where the first homosapiens gathered around their bonfire. Many ooked and eeked in worship of the life-giving and sometimes life-ending blaze.

"The fuck?" Plagg said with his mouth full.

"Tell it that it can't control Adrien Agreste," Fluff replied, taking a nibble from her wedge. "It's the only way you have a fighting chance. Hi, Duusu, I like what you did with your human." And the time-traveling kwami vanished in a blue mini-nuclear explosion.

"They're kind of adorable, aren't they, Plagg?" Confused and a little scared, Plagg turned and saw he was talking to Duusu. His oldest frenemy watched the prehistoric humans as a hungry tiger might watch gazelle. "In an almost so-ugly-they're-cute sort of way. I just wanna smoosh their wrinkly faces until I hear a crack!"

Plagg swallowed his cheese. "Whoa… I kinda forgot about your interest in the humans."

"Hooo-maaans?" Duusu sounded out the new word. "I like that. Yes, it fits them nicely. Hoomen. I wonder if the hoomens are as fun to play with as they look." The kwami faced Plagg with a mad glint in its eyes. "Plagg, didn't you mention something about making a bet?"

Now:

Plagg is back in Adrien's room. He looks suspiciously at the wedge of camembert in his arm nubs and puts it down.

"You okay?" Adrien asks.

"Uh-huh, I, uh… I think there's some mold in that cheese. We were talking about people changing?"

"Yeah," Adrien nods along, "Now that I think about it, I've changed a lot this year and made a lot of friends."

Remember?:

Adrien pranced down the sidewalk, taking in the outside world. "Amazing! The street air is so comfortable! The city's air conditioner must be top-notch."

He blinked.

"Hey, wait a second! I remember this!" he excitedly said.

Remember?:

Adrien shanked Marinette in the gut over a hundred times until she collapsed to the classroom floor in a pool of her own blood.

"I remember this too!" he chuckled.

Remember?:

Adrien stood in the center of a group hug with all his classmates.

"We're so happy to have you here!" cooed Rose.

"You'll always be our friend," Kim added.

"Ivan like hugs!"

"This is awesome!" Adrien cheered. "WOO—"

Now:

"HOOOooo...?" Adrien sits up on his bed and looks around. "Where did everybody go?"

"Cool, so it's not the cheese," Plagg says and finishes the wedge.

"Oh my Astruc!" Adrien gasps and he sparkles with joy. "Plagg, I have a new superpower! I can go back to my fondest memories and re-experience them as many times as I want!"

"Y'up! Superpower! I'm sure that's what's happening here," Plagg says like he has something to hide and fortifies himself in his camembert castle. "Let's focus completely on your memories and not mine. They have nothing but cheese in them. Yessiree, nothing but cheese and certainly not the biggest regret of my life."

"I can spend as much time as I want with Father this way!" Adrien says, too happy to notice Plagg's obviously shifty behavior.

Remember?:

Adrien and his Father played the piano together, crafting beautiful music.

"Yay!" Adrien cheered.

Remember?:

His Father's arms wrapped around Adrien in their first-ever hug as Ladydoll recorded.

"Yay!" Adrien cheered.

Remember?:

The sexy sax music kicked into overdrive as Caline "Cucumber Sandwich" Bustier massaged Emilie "Whore D'oeuvre" Agreste's shoulders during the second half of SOLITUDE's umbrella scene. Bustier's hands drifted lower.

"Not yay! NOT YAY!"

Now:

Adrien shakes off that particular memory and runs to Plagg's castle. "This is amazing!" he says. "I wonder if I can see other people's memories."

"I-I-Interesting question," Plagg stutters and burrows deeper into his cheese. "Let's not find out and never mention the word bet again."

"Bet?"

Remember?:

"Yes, a bet," Duusu repeated, its sharp grin twisting.

"Fuck!" Plagg squeaked.

"The first time you saw these hoomens, you said you wanted to make a bet. Tell me what it is, pretty please? I do so love your games."

"No!" Plagg cried and zipped past the bonfire and into the primordial jungle. He didn't get far before Duusu popped in front of him.

"No? You're the one who brought it up. Plagg, ol' buddy, ol' pal, don't blue ball me like that. I'm the one who's supposed to be handling the blues. Heeheeeheeeee!"

"Forget what I said, man!" Plagg shot back. "I didn't mean it, I was talking outta my ass! There is no bet!"

Now:

BOOM!

Plagg is brought back to the present by the room rattling. His camembert castle jiggles and collapses.

"Oh man," he hears Adrien say in slight annoyance. "Mount Paris is erupting again."

"Mount what?" Plagg flies out of the cheese and looks out the window. A massive volcano has replaced the skyline. From its top spews glowing hot magma and ash so thick it blots out the sun! "Where did that come from?" the kwami asks.

"What do you mean, Plagg?" Adrien makes a perplexed face. "Paris has always been built at the base of an active volcano. All major capitals of the world are."

"What?!"

"Yeah, all in accordance with the Doctrine of Lord Duusu, long may It reign."

Plagg goes pale, which for him is a dark grey. The kwami looks down at the streets and sees Duusu's face on every corner, humans run through alleys like wild animals and laugh like maniacs, many of their eyes are demonic shades of red and blue.

"I fucked up," Plagg mutters.

A familiar figure wielding a parasol flies by on a windy gale. Stormy Weather!

"Uh oh, looks like we also got an Akuma on our hands. Lord Duusu must be bored again," Adrien says. "Plagg, claws out!" In a blast of black, he transforms into Chat Noir.

Later:

Ladybug and Chat Noir meet on a rooftop as Stormy Weather monologues to the city.

"I will use Mount Paris to propel the planet away from the sun!" the villain proclaims. "Soon the Earth will freeze over and all of humanity will be nothing but popsicles! MUAHAHAHAHA!"

Back in the hidden tower:

Hawkmoth kneels before his true Master. "Does this anarchy please you, Lord Duusu?" he asks.

"Somewhat," Mayura replies with a yawn. "She's got a good plan, but it's kinda weird we're reusing villains now. Kinda lacking in the imagination department, if you know what I mean. It's times like these that I wonder what could have been if ol' Plagg told me about his bet. His game would've probably been a hundred times more original than this. Oh well, proceed."

"Fight for our Lord's amusement!" Hawkmoth orders.

Back in the city:

Stormy Weather, Ladybug, and Chat Noir all salute in the direction of the hidden tower. "For the entertainment of Lord Duusu!" they chant and charge at each other.

Meanwhile:

Nino finds the sizzling Seine River of Lava too distracting today. He draws the curtains and returns to his study sesh with Alya.

"'Kay, so, after the conquering of Rome in the Twenty-Minute War," he reads out loud, "Lord Duusu made weekly slipping on banana peels mandatory for the entire human race."

"I could go for a banana right about now," Alya purs into his ear.

Without lowering his history textbook, he hands her a banana.

"Ugh! You're no fun anymore!"

"We broke up, Alya, get used to it."

"But, Nino, think about all the good times we had!"

Remember?:

"Put on the dress!" Alya shouted, shoving the pink lacey outfit against Nino's face.

"No, I don't wanna!" he blubbered back.

"Put it on! It will please me!"

Now:

Both Alya and Nino stare into the distance.

"The fuck was that?" Nino whispers.

"Good times." Alya smiles. "Hey, remember when Lord Duusu deemed us worthy to fight for his amusement?"

Remember?:

Nino and Alya kneeled before Ladybug, who announced with great pomp and circumstance, "From this day forth, you shall be Rena Rouge and Carapace. When our Lord Duusu grows tired of my and Chat Noir's exploits, he will call upon you to mix things up a bit. What say you to this great calling?"

"We are but humble jesters for our Lord Duusu!" the pair replied in unison. In a razzle of orange and a glow of green, they transformed into Rena Rouge and Carapace.

Ladybug knighted them with a rubber chicken and gave them a stack of cream pies. "Go forth and amuse!"

"Hail Lord Duusu!"

Now:

The bedroom door flies off its hinges and Nora storms in. "We have an Akuma Alert! We are on lockdown, flyweights!" She grabs both teens and straps them into a baby carrier on her extra-wide chest. "I packed hot milk and fruit snacks. To the bunker!"

Meanwhile:

The Bee Signal shines clearly against the volcanic ash.

"Mmmph," Chloe whines and stomps her foot. "When is Lord Duusu going to give me a chance? I can be just as entertaining to watch fight as Ladybug and Chat Noir."

"Of course you are, Chloe," Sabrina praises. "You are the funniest jester of them all and could easily outfunny any Akuma that Lord Duusu sent against you. Our Lord is probably akumatizing the perfect opponent for you as we speak. You just need to have patience."

"Pa-Paaa… Paay-Chance?" Chloe stares at Sabrina as if she was talking in riddles. "What is that, some kind of hand cream? Is there a needlessly more expensive platinum version I can buy and show off with?"

"No, no, patience is when you wait your turn without getting angry."

Chloe draws back in disgust. "Are you fucking kidding me? First I had to be nice and now pay-chance? How many layers are there?! This whole being a good person thing is one of those pyramid schemes, isn't it?"

"That's not it at all, Chloe. Here, I'll show you." Sabrina pulls Chloe to a nearby sunbathing chair and sits with her.

They wait for a long time in complete silence.

"This sucks," Chloe says.

"You know what else sucks?" Stormy Weather cackles as she floats into their conversation. "You!"

"Ugh! I wasn't being mean, Aurore!" Chloe yells at the villain. "I was trying to be nice! But you and your not-rich brain couldn't get that—"

A blast from Stormy Weather's parasol freezes both Chloe and Sabrina in a block of ice! Ladybug and Chat Noir land nearby and applaud.

Back in the hidden tower:

Hawkmoth laughs at the antics. "Hahaha! Hysterical, yes, My Lord?"

"I guess," Mayura groans.

Hawkmoth frowns at his Lord's lack of merriment. "More slapstick!" he orders.

Back in the fight:

Ladybug and Chat Noir obediently lay out a trail of banana peels behind them.

"Oh my, where did all these bananas come from?" Ladybug asks nobody.

"I haven't the slightest clue, LB," Chat Noir replies, "but we better go around them."

"Hurricane!" Stormy Weather bellows and torrenting gusts of wind blast out of her parasol, launching the heroes into the peels. The duo slip and slide across Paris, accidentally stepping on rakes and walking face-first into pies along the way.

Hawkmoth eagerly turns to Mayura, but his Lord shows not even a hint of a smile.

"Perhaps an outsider's perspective would add an extra layer of comedy, My Lord," Hawkmoth suggests and wheels in a TV. Nadia Chamak appears on the screen behind her news desk in a ski hat.

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news. Hail Lord Duusu. If you're wondering why it's so cold next to an erupting volcano right now, that's because Lord Duusu's latest show is pushing the planet away from the sun." A live satellite feed from the International Space Station shows an astronaut shaking a fist at the now distant Earth. "Will we live or slowly die in an everlasting winter? Only our Lord Duusu knows the answers. Hail Lord Duusu. We now go to Clara who is live on the street with the fight. Clara?"

The feed switches to a field reporter wrapped from head to toe in winter gear. A mixture of slushy snow and steaming ash rain around her. "Thanks, Nadia," Clara says. "Things out here are really heating up. Hahaha!"

"Hahahah!" Nadia laughs with her.

"Hahahah!" Hawkmoth laughs too.

Mayura doesn't laugh. Her red eyes flash for a second and Clara's hair bursts into flames.

"AAAH! I'm sorry, Lord Duusu! Forgive me!" she wails before the picture is lost.

Mayura turns off the TV and sulks out of the hidden tower.

"M-My Lord!" Hawkmoth calls. "Don't you want to see how the battle ends?"

"Not really," Mayura groans.

Worried, Hawkmoth reaches out to Stormy Weather. "Wrap it up!" he orders.

In the fight:

Stormy Weather undoes her lightning-powered-hurricane-sharknado and tosses her parasol to Ladybug. "Oh no, you've defeated me," she cries.

Ladybug gets the signal and quickly de-evilizes the black butterfly. Stormy Weather transforms back to Aurore and she wholeheartedly thanks Lord Duusu for giving her the chance to entertain It.

"You gonna use Miraculous Ladybug?" Chat Noir asks.

"I didn't get the go-ahead from Hawkmoth," she shrugs. "I guess Lord Duusu prefers the world this way."

"Who are we to question It's all-knowing might," Chat Noir says with a nod as a nearby building simultaneously freezes and melts. "Until next time, Bugaboo." He sets off for home to rest up for the next battle. Before he gets far, a nearby jumbotron comes to life with Lord Duusu's lifeless face.

"Attention, humanity," It says wearily. "I'm bored. You're boring. You're boring me."

Everything got super quiet on planet Earth.

"It's been a fun couple thousands of centuries, the Spanish Inquisition alone had me laughing for months, but I've gotten all I can out of your species. Every day is the same thing, same fights, same talks about World War III but it never comes. So, I'm canceling Earth and heading out to find a new planet to play with. I'm taking all of Netflix with me. Yes, I can do that. Enjoy getting frozen to death." The screen goes dark.

"Oh no!" Chat Noir gasped. "Claws in!" In a blast of black, he transforms back into Adrien. "Plagg, please, you can convince Lord Duusu to take us with It, right?"

"Whoa..." Plagg mutters at the destruction of Paris. People panic and flee as if escaping the city would save them. "And here I thought my bet with Duusu was a mistake."

"Just my friends and family," Adrien begs. "I swear we'll be funny enough for Lord Duusu."

Plagg sighs. "Relax, man. I'll fix this." The kwami hugs the much bigger human as tightly as he can. "Just don't hold it against me, okay, man?" he pleads. "I was dumber back then. I made a lot of stupid decisions. I never thought it would go this far."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure," Adrien nods along. "We'll do anything, I'll even be Lord Duusu's personal punching bag, I have plenty of experience with LB."

Plagg smiles and gives him one more hug. "Did I ever tell you about my bet with Duusu?"

"Bet?"

Remember?:

"Yes, a bet." Duusu smiled at Plagg, the bonfire glistened against its many pointed teeth. "The first time you saw these hoomens, you said you wanted to make a bet. Tell me what it is, pretty please? I do so love your games."

This time Plagg didn't flee. He didn't try to return the cards he'd been dealt. He looked at the humans huddling by their fire and laid out the terms. "Let's see who can enslave these humans first, Duusu. None of the other kwamis are powerful enough to stop us. We're the only ones who could possibly get in each other's way, so why not make a game out of it?"

Duusu's impossibly wide sharp grin somehow got even wider and sharper. "Oooh! I like that! I like that a lot! Let's do it, buddy!"

"We can sabotage one another as much as we like," Plagg continued, "but absolutely no revealing each other's identities, no ratting each other out."

"Fine, fine, whatever!" Duusu agreed, eager to start. "What are we playing for? Winner gets to shove the planet into the sun?"

"Bragging rights."

"Even better! Hahahaahah! Plagg, this is going to be so much fun! Shake on it?"

Duusu offered its arm nub, a tongue of hellfire engulfed the mad kwami's palm.

Plagg hesitated. There was a nagging feeling that he'd forgotten a detail.

BLAM!

Fluff appeared between them in a blue mini-nuclear explosion and said, "I know, good, right? It's called cheese. They won't discover it for another couple thousand years and you are going to love it. See ya." She left just as quickly as she came in another blue mini-nuclear explosion.

"Adrien Agreste," Plagg said.

"What's that?" Duusu asked. "What's an ad-reeen ug-wrist? Is it that thing Fluff told you about when she brought you that gooey sheez stuff?"

"You'll know him when you meet him, Duusu. You can't control Adrien Agreste. That's part of the bet."

"Seriously? That's not fair! Why do only you get hints from the future?" Duusu scowled. It harrumphed like Plagg remembered it would. He waited for Duusu to have its fit and to agree like he also remembered. Duusu suddenly clapped. "I get to add my own crazy condition to the bet."

Plagg's heart stopped.

"I can't control Ad-reeen Ug-wrist, fine! How about their loved ones?"

Plagg all at once recalled this last part as it unfolded before him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that!" Duusu went on, gathering more and more mania. "How about every time Ad-reeen Ug-wrist touches their one true love, they die! Not just anyone they love, their one true love. There's a difference."

"Oh my Astruc..." Plagg muttered in horror.

"No, wait, that's too quick if they just die. Where's the twist? The pizzazz?" Duusu pondered. "OOOH! I know! Their one true love comes back to life after Ad-reeen Ug-wrist touches them again. As long as you're by Ad-reeen Ug-wrist's side, Plagg, the next touch kills them again! Over and over and over! And it'll only stop when—"

"They confess their love to each other," Plagg finished with dread.

"Haha! Yes! You know me so well, Plagg. I'm a sucker for romance." Duusu licked its fangs and offered Plagg its burning palm again. "Deal?"

Again Plagg hesitated. He'd forgotten all about Duusu's addendum to the bet. It had meant nothing when he'd first made the bet, just random names Fluff mentioned, but now... The urge to change it was strong, but the memories of what the world had become when he messed with time were stronger.

"Deal," he said.

"No takesies-backsies!" Duusu shook Plagg's arm nub and both kwamis were enveloped in flames.

The past was restored.

"I hope this Ad-reeen Ug-wrist loves dead bodies," Duusu snickered. "I know I do. HAHAHAAHAHA!"

"I'll enslave humanity before you, Duusu," Plagg said. "Just wait and see."

Now:

"Wow, what a battle!" Adrien cheers as he enters his bedroom. "The way M'Lady used that pencil to defeat Stormy Weather was a true stroke of genius, wasn't it, Plagg?"

There's no answer. Adrien turns to his kwami and finds the little guy gazing off into the distance with a look the boy had never seen him make before. For the first time since they met, Plagg looks serious.

"I'll be right back, man," he says and floats through the ceiling.

A few blocks away:

"I am Recap-er, the ultimate Akuma of all time! None of you will escape my wrath!" Recap-er brags on the Eiffel Tower while waving his glittery incorrectly filed tax returns. Without a word, Plagg grabs those tax returns and tears them apart. A little black butterfly flutters out.

"Cataclysm," Plagg mutters. A pea-sized ball of destruction appears on his arm nub and he carefully pokes the butterfly with it.

The insect explodes with enough ferocity to carve a hole in the atmosphere and send several airplanes off course. Thankfully, no one was hurt, unless you count Pluto which was obliterated.

"There," Plagg said. "Back to normal."

Meanwhile:

Hawkmoth could sense it too. Recap-er was gone. The threat was over. The world was as it should be.

"Thank Astruc," he wheezed. "Nathalie, it's over, we're good."

Nathalie gave a shaky thumbs-up from her nearly full blood bucket.

Later:

Marinette walked down the street. The wrongness of the world that was somehow causing that memory jumping had gone away on its own and was now a distant bad dream. She may never understand what had happened today but that didn't matter to the girl as she approached the Agreste Mansion gates, Adrien's schoolwork in her arms. Normally, this sort of trip would send her heart fluttering with every step closer to her Adrien, but today was different. Today, in her palm, she held the lucky charm Adrien had given to her for her birthday.

"He really made this for me, Tikki?" she asked.

"For the trillionth time, yes!" the kwami grumbled from her purse. "How is this hard to grasp?"

It was hard because Marinette had never considered it possible. She had always thought her feelings would've been one-sided. She never conceived that her Adrien would return any of her affection and yet here was physical proof that he cared. This one trinket represented how far she'd come. With a heartfelt sigh, Marinette put Adrien's lucky charm in her pocket where it would stay for years to come.

She rang the doorbell. The robo-eye popped out and glared at her. "What is it?" Nathalie's voice asked.

"H-Hello!" Marinette stuttered. "I have Adrien's notes and homework that he missed today. If you'd open the gate, I'll come in and—"

The mail chute below the robo-eye opened.

"Oh." Marinette realized this was as close to her Adrien as she was going to get. "Just a second." Marinette stuck a blank sticky-note to the schoolwork and pulled out a pencil. "'See you tomorrow at school,'" she wrote out loud. "'Love, your friend, Marinette.'"

She re-read the message and frowned. She twirled the pencil around and firmly erased something.

Satisfied, Marinette began to put the package in the chute. But then she stopped. She glanced up at the robo-eye with firm resolution. "Can you tell Adrien something? Tell him that it's from Marinette, his friend, from school, and… and… and… and tell him thank you for the charm. It helps. It really does. Just having it close makes it feel like he's here with me."

The little robo-eye didn't move for a moment. Marinette believed she hadn't been heard. Little did she know, Nathalie had more than heard her. The woman had been moved to unexpected tears. In Marinette's words, she had heard an ever so familiar pining, sincere longing, an unfulfilled desire she also held for a different Agreste. There truly was nothing more precious than young love.

"I… I will. I will tell him," Nathalie finally replied with a just barely contained sniffle.

"Thank you." Marinette finally put the schoolwork in the chute and turned to leave but then suddenly whipped back around. "Oh! Wait! One last thing!"

"Yes?"

Marinette's innocent nervous smile dropped to a dark ferocious grimace. She grabbed the robo-eye's robo-arm and wrenched the machine close. "I know you re-gifted my fucking scarf, you bitch," she said in a voice so cold that the mechanical eye's circuitry froze over. Through that ice, Marinette's claws pierced and shattered many wires. Heavy breathing fogged the glass but her fangs were clear for anyone to see. "Old me let it slide, but I've changed since then. I'm a new Marinette Fucking Dupain-Cheng and the Universe isn't around anymore to cover your ass. You have the tits pull that merde again, (and I will fuck you up. We understand each other?")

The robo-eye nodded fearfully.

("Good. I'm taking your robot.") She ripped the eye out of the wall and left.

Nathalie stared at the static on her computer, sweat dripping down her neck. "Duusu," she whispered. "What did you do to her?"

The little blue kwami smirked on her shoulder. "Same thing I'm doing to you," it sang.

Nathalie trembled and puked up more blood.

"I know, I'm excited too. Parallel storylines, yeah!"

Later, in Adrien's room:

Plagg returned and went straight to his camembert castle.

"Where did you go?" Adrien asked. "Something happened to my power, I can't go back anymore. I was just about to remember all the romantic moments I had with Ladybug."

"That sucks, man," Plagg replied, pulling out his Master Plan book. "But, you know, it isn't the end of the world." Plagg erased the Win the bet against Duusu step and flipped to the last page. He solemnly scribbled the final step to his Master Plan. "Not yet anyway."

[_] — Conquer and enslave humanity before Duusu

He shut the tome and whispered sadly to himself, "Mastermind Plotter for the win, baby."

Nathalie entered, rather shaken.

"Uh, you alright, Nathalie?" Adrien asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"More like my future," she murmured to herself. Nathalie shook away the jitters and placed Adrien's schoolwork on his desk. "Your friend Marinette dropped off what you missed today in class."

"Oh cool." Adrien gladly took the stack of papers.

"She copied it by hand and made sure all of the homework was there," Nathalie added.

"That was nice of her."

"She also wanted me to tell you..." Nathalie paused and braced herself for the emotional rollercoaster. A new wave of tears was already threatening to fall but she held them in. "She wanted me to tell you, 'thank you for the charm.' That, 'it really helps her and just having it close makes it feel like you're there with her.'"

"Wow," Adrien remarked, his kind smile never fading. "I'm glad she likes the gift so much. Well, I better get started on my homework. Thanks, Nathalie." He cracked open the schoolwork and got to studying.

Nathalie stood there, stupefied by his nonreaction to what had been one of the greatest love confessions she had ever heard in her entire life. Then she remembered whose kid this was. With a heavy groan, she slammed the schoolwork shut, peeled the sticky note off the cover, and stuck it to his face.

Holding the sticky note there, she looked him straight in the eye. "You should spend time with Marinette as a thank you," she said. Then she added under her breath, "And to slow her possession."

Her mission now complete, Nathalie left.

Adrien pulled off the note and gave it a read. "'See you tomorrow at school. L—'" Adrien's jaw was petrified.

"'L—'"

A pinprick of fire ignited on his cheek where a soft pair of lips had brushed not too long ago.

"'L—'"

The flames spread like a wildfire.

"'Love, Marinette.'"

Plagg exploded through the camembert parapet. "Who wrote what now?" he asked.

Adrien stormed across his room and pulled aside the portrait over the fireplace of him kissing Ladybug. He pressed his hand to the fingerprint scanner in the wall and typed in the super-secret password. The hiss of hydraulic locks unsealing could be heard in the walls and a camouflaged safe clicked open. Strapping on a medical mask and a pair of rubber gloves, Adrien carefully pulled out the lead-lined box. He tried to keep his hands steady enough to twist the box's dial, but it was no use. Plagg had to phase in and unlock it for him. The box opened and, using a pair of tongs, Adrien extracted a simple heart-shaped piece of red paper.

The unsigned Valentine's Day poem.

Like a dog hunting the scent, Adrien examined the handwriting of the poem and the sticky note carefully, specifically the word 'love.' Back and forth his head swiveled and Plagg could see his mind struggling to connect the dots.

"Frieeeennd," Adrien moaned out, jabbing Marinette's sticky note with a finger. "Looooooove," he droned, tearing his hair at the poem. "Frieeeeeeend… Loooooooooove… Frieeeeeeend… Loooooooooove… Frieeeeeeend… Loooooooooove…"

The gears were turning, slowly, but they were turning. Plagg could hear them grinding now, he could see the exhaust spilling out of the boy's ears.

Adrien raised the messages into the air like holy relics. His eyes widened in revelation. He brought the two papers together, overlapping the word 'love.' The way the word was written—the slash of the L, the swoop of the OV, the curve of the E—they were carbon copies.

"Frieeeeeeeeeeeend… Looooooooooooooooove… me?"

Adrien dropped to the floor, out cold.

"Whoa!" Plagg said. He flew down and gave Adrien a few slaps. "Yo, man, you okay?"

Almost immediately Adrien sat back up. "Hey, Plagg," he said casually. He saw the love poem on the floor. "What the— What's this doing out here? Plagg, you know I want to keep this safe," Adrien scolded as he stuffed it back into the lead-lined box.

"But-But—" Plagg stammered as he noticed the sticky note was now stuck to the poem and went into the box with it.

"No buts, Plagg, unless it's a photo of Ladybug's," Adrien continued as he slid the box into the safe and slammed it shut.

"You—th-the note!"

"What note?" Adrien asked as the painting flipped back into place and the hydraulic locks sealed. "Oh look! My homework! I should get started on that." Adrien cracked open the stack of papers and muttered to himself, "I wonder who dropped this off for me."

Plagg watched the human study and for the first time since Pompeii gave a shit.

"You humans are really good at this denial thing."

END

I always liked the idea of a villain who doesn't want to be a villain.