My secret? I have no shame.

PROLOGUE

BOO! NO PUNS!

{The frog found the space school... ribbiting...?}

...TO BE CONTINUED…

Miraculous Migraine
Episode 23: Astruc Fucking Dammit!
By: I Write Big

"What is a god?" the deep, gruff voice of a narrator asked as an anime Ladybug and Chat Noir raced across the animated rooftops of Paris.

"What the fuck is this trailer?" Tikki asked back as she and Marinette watched.

"Is a god an animal-human hybrid with dominion over various sets of metaphysical concepts such as communication, travel, and bad hair days?" the narrator continued as the dynamic duo kept on running and running and running. "Is a god an old man who flies around on his big bushy beard that's so long and thick that the god's disciples mistook it for a cloud? Is god a title we stick to whatever incomprehensible force created our existence and cross our fingers in hope that they got a plan?"

They were still running.

"If a god is that last one, wouldn't that make every author the god of the characters in their books? Are stories just stories or are they worlds that adhere to the Schrödinger's Cat Principle and only exist when read? If you craft a realistic enough world and get enough people to witness it, will that world become a new reality?"

Still running.

"If a reader knows a character they love is about to die, can they save them by simply shutting the book and continuing the story down a different path in their head? Has that reader become the new god of these characters?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir paused in their endless running to smoke a cigarette in disgust. A building exploded in the distance and Ladybug and Chat Noir dove into the flames.

"Coming soon to theaters… Ladybug and Chat Noir: The Movie!"

Marinette nodded in admiration at her tablet. "Not bad," she said.

"Not bad?" Tikki sputtered, dumbfounded, "The fuck did I just watch? What was with all that god-talk? What kind of crappy movie is this?"

"It's called French Cinema, Tikki," Marinette snooted as if the trailer had been an example of the highest form of art. "You wouldn't get it."

Tikki glared at her. "Philosophical bullcrap and cigarettes don't make movies smart!"

BLAM!

The Pink Devil and Timetagger tumbled into Marinette's room through a blue mini-nuclear explosion. The former swept her bunny ears out of her face and asked, "Hey, guys, this fight has been dragging for a while. Do I actually win?"

Marinette and Tikki shrugged.

"Oh my fucking Big Red X, c'mon!" she griped.

Timetagger tackled her and they both vanished in another blue mini-nuclear explosion.

"Did she say… Big Red X?" Marinette asked.

French Ryan Seacrest interrupted from the tablet. "At today's premiere, we'll be seeing many celebrities, including teen idol Adrien Agreste, who lent his voice to the character of Chat Noir and modeled all of the hero's motion capture."

Marinette gasped. "Adrien is Chat Noir?!"

Her pupils shrank and dilated back and forth. Her body spasmed. Foam poured out of her mouth. The girl barely managed to shake off the seizure caused by the disturbing string of words that had spilled from her throat.

"Whoa! That came out wrong. Why did I focus on that? Adrien is going to be at the premiere!" Marinette chucked her tablet aside and scrambled downstairs. "Mom! Dad!"

Tikki rolled her bulbous eyes and begrudgingly followed her. In their absence, French Ryan Seacrest's spotlight continued unwatched. On the screen now was a familiar bearded man in a simple grey hoodie.

"We're here with the director of the film and our god who now walks among us: Thomas Astruc," announced French Ryan Seacrest. "Astruc, why have You decided in Your benevolent wisdom to use Your Second Coming to produce a film about our heroes?"

"Oh, I have my reasons," Thomas Astruc said mysteriously. "And that reason is certainly not an attempt to create a new world I can escape to and become the god of, nope, not the reason at all."

Downstairs:

Tom and Sabine were going down the long list of tasks for the premiere they were catering.

"Thomas Astruc Is Great balloons? Check," Sabine read out loud. "Life-Sized cake of our god in all his godly splendor? Check. Eight-hundred gold-leaf macarons, personally engraved with Thomas Astruc's likeness? Check."

"This is all too much work, Sabine," Tom said. "We can't handle a job this important on our own. We should've hired extra hands."

The kitchen door flew off its hinges and in barreled their daughter. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng, extra hands at your service," she saluted.

They stared at her in disbelief.

"You want to be a server at the movie premiere?" Tom asked.

"Yes!"

"The premiere that Adrien will be attending?" Sabine asked knowingly.

"Is he? I had no clue," she giggled uncontrollably.

"Marinette, we appreciate the offer, we really do," Tom said sweetly. "It's just..." He put a stack of three empty plates in her hands. They immediately imploded. "That."

"I'll be extra careful!" she promised. "I'll wear a helmet and padded armor and everything! Please!"

Her parents exchanged loving looks. They couldn't say no to their little girl. She squealed and hugged them both tightly before dashing back upstairs.

"Our insurance is paid up, right, Sabine?" Tom asked.

"Y'up."

In Marinette's Room:

Tikki watched Marinette with worry as the girl kept on giggling, "Adrien," to herself like someone who should be locked up in an asylum.

"Hey!" she smacked Marinette's face. "I thought we were past this whole obsessive borderline serial killer phase."

"I am!" Marinette shouted back and took a moment to control her giggles. "I'm like this because I'm not letting anything stop me today. Least of all me!" She went to her dresser and opened the secret drawer that she kept Chat Noir's letters in. Tucked into the back corner was a single, hand-made macaron wrapped in a ribbon.

"It is time," Marinette whispered in reverence. She carefully extracted the macaron and held the treat over her head as if it were blessed. "With this macaron, I will win Adrien's heart!"

"You're gonna roofie him?" Tikki guessed.

"No!"

Tikki wasn't convinced.

"I'M NOT!" Marinette insisted. "I baked this macaron with all my love for Adrien and filled it with his favorite flavor: passion fruit! He'll be so surprised when he tastes it."

Tikki waited for the girl to continue.

She didn't.

"And then you tell him you like him…?" the kwami suggested.

"Nope! Then Adrien is overwhelmed by the knowledge that I know so much about him despite him being so secretive and then I'm officially stuck in his head. He'll ponder for days, weeks, months, trying to figure out just how I knew he loves passion fruit. I will consume his every waking thought until I seep into his dreams as well. Adrien won't be able to go three seconds without me popping into his head! And when he can think of nothing else, he will crawl to me and beg me to be his girlfriend! And I'll look down upon him and say like I couldn't care less, 'Okay.'"

Tikki stared at the mad toothy grin on Marinette's face. She'd thought she'd seen the last of it. "You're trying really hard to forget that you kissed Luka, aren't you?"

The mad toothy grin shattered.

"My Adrien will be mine!" Marinette screamed desperately and sped downstairs.

Later, at the premiere:

The red carpet was packed. Celebrities arrived one by one to see the movie. Flashes of the paparazzi cameras went off constantly as famous faces filed into the theater. Then all the cameras stopped.

"He's here!" one shouted.

"Our Lord!" another cried and fell to his knees.

"Thomas Astruc!"

At the name, everybody in the street prostrated themselves. The man, the myth, the legend, the god Thomas Astruc sauntered up the red carpet, a procession of hooded monks followed behind him, flogging themselves with whips made from colored pencils.

"Thomas Astruc," the guard at the door made the Sign Of Astruc and kept his head bowed. "I am not worthy."

"Rise, my son, all are worthy in my eyes," his god responded.

Humbled, the guard kissed Astruc's shoes and pleaded, "If it pleases You, Astruc, I must know… why did You see fit to make mosquitos?"

Astruc's kind smile dropped and he began to panic. "Um, uh, um, mysterious ways and all that. I have a plan, I promise. It'll all make sense in the end. Gotta get inside, can't miss the movie. Peace be with you and all that crap, bye!" He scuttled into the theater.

The guard wiped away tears of joy. "Such grace," he sobbed.

Once inside, Astruc carefully scanned the crowd for the one person who would dare want him dead.

"Where are you, Marinette?" he gulped nervously.

On the other side of the room:

Marinette was behind the snack table, dressed in a rather cute maid outfit. At least, it would've been cute if the dress hadn't been covered with multiple layers of protective pillows.

"You hold the dessert platter from the bottom, Marinette, supporting the weight by hooking your thumb around the edge," Tom expertly instructed.

"Dad," she said, her words muffled by over three feet of goose feathers, "I can't move."

"We tried letting you move, honey, remember?" Sabine reassured. "We had to re-bake everything."

"This is much safer," Tom agreed as he taped a platter of Ladybug and Chat Noir themed macarons to where he thought Marinette's hand was and gently pushed her toward the crowd. "Just shuffle your feet and work your way through the room until you run out."

"I can't see where I'm going," the Marinette-pillow-pillar called back.

"That's the spirit, you're doing great, we love you."

In the crowd:

Astruc ordered his monks to spread out and search for the girl. She had to be here… hunting him. He could feel it.

"Thomas Astruc, Ya bloody bastard!"

"Don't hurt me!" Astruc dropped into a fetal position. He peeked between his fingers and saw it wasn't Marinette standing over him with a knife but Jagged Stone. No knife. He jumped back to his feet and assumed his pious nature, "Ahem, greetings, le rosbif*, what brings you here?"

"I'm sure Ya already knew about this, but I'm sorta stranded here, Mate. No matter what I do I can't get me ass back to bloody England. What's with that?"

"Mmmm," Astruc nodded along with great wisdom as he'd been doing since he got banished to this plane of existence. As long as he kept pretending to be omnipotent and omniscient, people always eventually spilled an answer he could take credit for.

"And another thing," Jagged continued. "What's the deal with Santa Claus? Is he Your really rich brother or something?

"Mmmmmm."

"Platypuses. Why?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmm."

"Are You going to answer any of me questions? What kinda bloody god are you?"

Astruc started to sweat. His cover was nearly blown.

"GAAAAH!" screamed a clumsy pillow-pile as it fell against Jagged Stone with a poomf! It nearly dropped its platter of macarons.

"Oh! Marinette!" Jagged said to the pillows. "I didn't know you'd be here!"

Thomas Astruc went pale at the name. Before he had a chance to grab one of those scrumptious treats, he silently excused himself.

"Who's there? Jagged Stone, is that you?" the pillows asked.

"You bet it's me, Marinette. You're just in time to meet Tho—" Jagged turned to introduce her, but Astruc was long gone. "Huh? Where the bloody hell did He go?"

"Where'd who go?" Marinette flailed at the layers until she made a crack barely big enough to squint through. What she saw… was Adrien.

Back at the snack table:

Tom and Sabine saw the boy enter the room and their daughter freeze.

"Gán!" Sabine swore.

"More pillows! We need more pillows!" Tom cried.

Back at Ground Zero:

Marinette braced herself and reached through the layers to place the passion fruit macaron on the platter. "Adrien, I made this just for you," she rehearsed. "Eat it and you will be mine— I mean, I will own you— I mean, there will be no escape— I mean, you know what, I'm sticking with you will be mine."

As confident as a girl wrapped in pillows could be, Marinette took one step toward Adrien and immediately dropped the special macaron.

"FUCK!"

Marinette tried to bend down to grab it but lost her balance. She went from a pillow-pillar to a pillow-worm. Undeterred, she crawled after the key to her Adrien's heart, always just barely missing it before someone accidentally kicked it further away. So focused was she that Marinette didn't notice she was inch-worming her way around the legs of Thomas Astruc and Chloe Bourgeois.

"I don't get what I'm doing wrong," Chloe admitted with a sniffle. "I don't call the lessers mean names even when they deserve it, I don't treat the trash like trash even though they are, and I even grace the poor with a smile once a week. I'm nice, dammit! Why the fuck do I now need pay-chance? I want to be Queen Bee!"

"Mmmm," Astruc nodded along wisely, trying not to be heard by the pillows circling his feet. He accidentally kicked the macaron deeper into the crowd and watched his would-be murderer roll away.

Marinette grew more frantic, opting to bash people and tables and chairs aside with her fluffy girth. Adrien saw his friend's struggle was just about to go and help her when Nathalie tapped his shoulder.

"Adrien," she said, taking a moment to spit into her blood bucket. "The Tsurugis are here."

There was the loud BWOMMM of a gong and both Mrs. Tsurugi and Kagami entered the theater.

Chloe whipped around and Marinette got up with her recovered macaron and peeled back her pillows. Their eyes shot open at the sight of Kagami.

"Oh no! Not her!" they both said at the same time.

Marinette pried back a few more pillows and glared at Chloe. "Wait, you know her?"

"Know her?" Chloe scoffed. "I despise her. Let me tell you how I met that coldhearted bitch."

Weeks ago, in the Mayor's office:

Chloe entered the meeting, fashionably late as always, and made her way to the golden throne she always sat in next to Adri-kins. She was horrified to find a lesser occupying the seat already! Old Chloe would've pulled out her remote and dropped the intruder into the fire pit directly underneath that throne and be done with the trollop, but this was new nice Chloe.

"Excuse me," Chloe said in a strained kind voice. "You probably didn't know this because you never get invited to these high-class functions due to your poor foreigner breeding, but that's my seat. Could you mo..."

Chloe petered out as the trollop's head slowly faced her. She'd anticipated confusion, shock, an apology, maybe even a little anger, but this odd girl stared at Chloe with a face so blank and devoid of anything it was like she was gazing into a black hole that threatened to pull her in and tear her apart.

"You are not a threat," she said.

Here and now:

Marinette waited awkwardly for the suddenly silent Chloe to continue. "And then what happened?"

"I didn't cry if that's what you were thinking!" Chloe sniffled and huddled away. "I wasn't intimidated! She didn't win! I quitted!"

"Holy fuck!" Marinette said, gaping at the whipped puppy that used to be the toughest bitch in her school. "Kagami broke her." She glared across the theater at the new top bitch in Paris.

In that group, the Agrestes and the Tsurugis bowed to each other.

"So glad you could make it, Tsurugi-san," Gabriel said from the tablet Nathalie carried.

"You have a sick sense of humor, Gabriel-san," Mrs. Tsurugi said to Nathalie and gave the assistant a thwack with her sword. "Inviting a blind woman to a movie? That takes balls. I respect that. To reward such balls, I have brought the paperwork to finalize our deal."

The adults stepped away to further bolster the Gabriel brand, leaving their children alone.

"Maybe-More-Than-A-Friend Adrien, am I friending wrong?" Kagami asked in her flat monotone. "I do not challenge anyone outside our fencing class to duels and I make certain not to attack anyone who isn't a threat, however..." She glanced past Adrien where she saw a pile of pillows baring their teeth at her and Chloe crying in a corner. "No one wishes to be my friend."

"Don't worry, Kagami." Adrien gently offered his arm to her. "They just need a while to see the real you."

Kagami stared at his arm for a second and then gave it a karate chop.

"Yee-Ouch!" Adrien flinched but smiled through the pain. "No, like this." He wrapped her hands around his arm and led her into the crowd.

A few tables away, Marinette was blowing a gasket. "Did you see that?!" she seethed. "That crafty whore has got her greasy hands all over Adrien! I'll kill her!" Marinette lunged after the couple but Chloe quickly held her back.

"Wait! Stop, Dupain-Cheng! That's not nice!" she scolded.

The sheer absurdity of the fact that Chloe had just been the voice of reason stopped Marinette in her tracks. "You're right. Attacking Kagami head-on is too obvious, we need to be sneaky."

"Is… Is sneaky nice?"

Marinette nabbed a seating chart from an usher and scoured the page. "GAAH! Adrien and Kagami are going to be sitting right next to each other."

"So?"

"So?!" Marinette shook Chloe. "They are going to be inches away from each other, in the dark, with nobody to stop them from holding hands! They could lean on each other's shoulders or even..." Marinette gasped in terror. "They could even do what Chat Noir and I do on our movie nights and whisper jokes to each other about the movie! WE HAVE TO STOP THIS!"

"B-But that would ruin Kagami's day and that's not nice," Chloe said weakly.

Again, Marinette stopped to gawk at Chloe's newfound meekness. "Holy fuck, you are taking this nice thing way too seriously. Chloe, listen to me," she said with mounting frustration. "Sometimes the nicest thing you can do is be really mean."

"It is?"

"Yes! Do you want Adrien to move to Japan and get married to Kagami and never see you again? Because that's exactly what's gonna happen if we stand here with our thumbs up our asses!"

"Move to Japan?" Chloe gasped. "He wouldn't do that!"

"What do you think the contracts their parents are signing are about then?"

Marinette pointed a pillow at the table Mrs. Tsurugi, Nathalie, and Gabriel's tablet were sitting at. Mrs. Tsurugi pressed a pen to the table, missing the contract by a yard. "Here?" she asked.

"A little to the left," Gabriel replied.

Mrs. Tsurugi pressed the pen against her napkin. "Did I get it?"

"Down."

"How about now?" Mrs. Tsurugi asked, shifting her pen to her teacup.

Nathalie groaned and moved the contract itself so the blind woman's hand was on the dotted line.

"There we go," Mrs. Tsurugi said as she signed. "Your modeling contract with Godzilla is complete, long may He reign."

Chloe, of course, didn't know this contract had been signed in order to introduce a new line of kaiju-sized Gabriel brand clothes and assumed the worst. "You're right, Dupain-Cheng!" she said. "For Adri-kin's sake, we have to be mean to Kagami! It's the nice thing to do!"

Later:

Marinette dug through the catering supplies under the snack table in search of a blunt weapon. Tikki watched, her curiosity growing by the second.

"Chloe's morals were already pretty warped to begin with, Marinette, but I think you're somehow making them worse," the kwami said.

"What are you talking about? I'm teaching her to stand up for what she believes in and to not stand around and wait for the world to fix itself. There's no way that Chloe will take that the wrong way." Marinette chuckled off Tikki's words.

"Marinette, are you turning evil on me?" Tikki asked. "Because if you are, I'm all for it. It's about time I got stuck with a human who actually gets things done."

"Aha! Perfect!" Marinette shouted, pulling a ladle from the supplies. She dashed out of there.

Back in the theater lobby:

The tools that would lead to Kagami's demise jingled in the trash bag. Marinette could feel it, Kagami would soon be a forgotten ant in Adrien's mind.

"I don't know about this, Dupain-Cheng," Chloe mumbled as she chewed her gum. "The further we go with this plan the more my stomach feels the way Sabrina's face looks when I don't whip her hard enough, which usually means my conscience is trying to tell me to stop. Are you sure this being-mean-in-order-to-be-nice thing is nice?"

"Positive, Chloe," Marinette growled as she spied on Adrien and Kagami enjoying each other's company. "I've been nice much longer than you, I know what I'm talking about. You got the rope?"

Still unsure, Chloe snapped her fingers and her butler Jean-Something appeared with a length of hand-braided golden rope.

"Excellent." Marinette shoveled a platter of macarons into the trash bag and began to smash them to crumbs with her ladle.

Later:

Thomas Astruc was hiding behind a plant. He'd nearly gotten to the premiere without being spotted by Marinette. It would only be a bit longer before the portal opened and he could escape this wretched world.

"Yay! Thomas Astruc! Hooray!" cheered over a dozen tiny voices as the man was tackled by an entire class of toddlers.

"Behave yourself, kids!" Their teacher frantically pulled her students off him. "Forgive them, My Lord, they are but children! See it in Your heart not to smite them!"

"Be at peace, my daughter," Astruc chuckled benevolently. "I am always here for the young ones."

"Did You weally make da whole world by Yourself, Astruc?" asked a wide-eyed boy.

"That I did."

"And You know all da answers?"

"I do."

"Den You can tell me who my parents are and why dey abandoned me when I was a baby?"

Astruc stared at the child and slowly backed away.

Meanwhile:

Operation Kill Kagami was a go!

Phase One!

Marinette, the living pile of pillows, waddled through the crowd, two whole platters of macarons precariously balanced on her fluffiness. She faced Adrien and Kagami and aimed for the latter.

"Oh noooo!" she cried out and started spinning in place. "I'm slipping! Falling! Coming undone! Clumsy ME!" Marinette hurled the platters like a pair of frisbees. The metal discs lost all of their desserts but they kept going, sailing directly toward the back of Kagami's head.

At the last second, Kagami spun around and knocked the death sentences out of the air with an impressive roundhouse kick. The platters spun back across the lobby, sliced Astruc's beard in half, and embedded themselves in a wall.

Marinette made the classic I Fucked Up face and quickly said, "Plan B!" She dolphin-flopped onto the floor between the couple. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" she gasped, carefully planting Chloe's wad of gum on the carpet near Kagami's wooden shoes. "Won't a dashing and selfless someone come to my rescue?"

Before she could count to three, a pair of strong arms lifted Marinette up. She basked in the hold of her one and only, always warm and welcoming. It wasn't so long ago that this kind of touch would've made her drop dead but now she could relish every moment. Marinette steadied her breath, pulled out the passion fruit macaron, and peeled back the pillows.

"Thank you, Adr—"

She was in the arms of Kagami.

"Are you injured, Potential-Friend Marinette?" she asked in her flat monotone. Behind Marinette's petrified O-face, Adrien was giving Kagami a very supportive double thumbs-up.

Marinette mutely nodded at the girl she'd just tried to decapitate and slammed the pillows shut. She turned around and pried open the pillows again.

"Thank you for helping me up, Adrien," she said.

"Um, it was Kagami who—"

"I made this for you!" Marinette shoved the macaron in his face. "It's passion fruit flavored! Your favorite! How do I know? Lucky guess! Hidden meaning? Who can say? TAKE IT SO ME KISSING LUKA WILL MEAN NOTHING!" Another shove and the precious macaron slipped from her fingers. Down the present tumbled in slow motion toward the harsh unforgiving ground…

Until Kagami caught it.

"Here, Maybe-More-Than-A-Friend Adrien," she said and gave it to the boy.

"Why do you keep helping me?!" Marinette demanded.

"Because you are not a threat," Kagami replied simply.

Once more Marinette felt the fangs and claws begin to sprout so she darted back to the home base behind a movie poster where Chloe waited.

"I think I'm beginning to like this being-mean-to-be-nice plan, Dupain-Cheng," Chloe cackled, sounding more and more like her old bitchy self by the second. If Marinette had been paying attention to her, she might have seen the signs and called it quits then and there, but she was too preoccupied with rage.

"That sushi-loving skank thinks we aren't a threat to her?" Marinette hissed. "We'll show her how threatening we can be! Chloe, we're combining Plans C and B!"

Chloe squeezed her golden rope. "I'm ready."

Nearby, Kagami felt a soft squish under her foot and checked the bottom of her shoe. A ball of pink was stuck there.

"Uh oh, these belonged to my obaa-chan," she said without a hint of worry.

"What bad luck," Adrien said. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can clean it off."

"No, Maybe-More-Than-A-Friend Adrien, you do not understand."

Before Kagami could explain, a ghostly wail rang out from the shoes, and from of their wood flowed an ethereal green smog.

"Kagami!" the smog wailed. "You have desecrated your ancestor's shoes! You bring great dishonor to your obaa-chan!"

BWOMMMM! Lightning crashed through the ceiling, winds of doom blew through the halls, and the pounding hoofbeats of warhorses echoed in every corner!

"Wow, Japanese culture is so rich and interesting," Adrien admired.

Kagami leaned against the boy to keep the desecrated shoe from touching the floor further. "Hurry, Maybe-More-Than-A-Friend Adrien, we must complete the cleansing ritual before my okaa-san notices or I shall be buried to my chin in dirt," she said, still in her monotone.

"You mean grounded?"

"That too. Quickly, we need a clean chair."

"On it." Adrien put Marinette's macaron on the nearest table and grabbed a chair but was surprised to find the seat littered with macaron crumbs. Every chair he came across was soiled!

Marinette watched the spectral invasion with mixed emotions. "Uh… I think we may have taken this too far," she called over the phantasmic samurais who were rattling their katanas.

"Should we stop?" Chloe asked, flinching away from an undead dragon.

"I didn't say that! Ready the cake!"

Chloe saluted and grabbed a slice of triple-layer extra-messy chocolate cake from the snack table and forced the dish into Jagged Stone's hands. Seconds later, Marinette came to the rockstar with a Jagged Stone poster she'd ripped off the wall.

"Mr. Stone, could I get an autograph?" she asked innocently.

"Sure thing, luv," Jagged Stone agreed, a bit wary of the see-through oni waggling its thick eyebrows suggestively at him. He set the cake down on a nearby chair and pulled out a pen. Marinette glanced to the left and saw Chloe tie the golden rope to the cake-chair and get into position. All the dominoes were in place.

Adrien finally found a clean chair and brought it to Kagami.

Time slowed to a crawl as the girl leaned back to sit and Chloe yanked the rope, pulling the cake-chair across the room where it replaced the clean chair. Neither Adrien nor Kagami noticed the switcheroo and the poor girl's butt kept moving on a collision course with chocolatey VENGEANCE!

The fruition of her efforts brought a soul-chilling evil laugh from deep within Marinette. "MuahahahHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA—"

"Kagami!" Mrs. Tsurugi shouted from across the lobby, freezing the girl mid-sit. The blind woman sniffed the air. "I smell ghosts. Did you desecrate your ancestor's belongings again? Get over here this instant, young lady."

"Hai, okaa-san," Kagami mumbled and limped with Adrien's help to her mom for an exorcism.

"No! Fuck! Dammit! FUCK!" Marinette swore, shredding the Jagged Stone poster to ribbons. In her anger, she missed Astruc still slowly backing away from the toddlers.

"Why did You take my puppy to heaven?" asked one.

"Is it okay if my mommy calls me an accident?" asked another.

"What does, 'that hoe be thirsty,' mean?" asked a third.

"Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm," Astruc hummed over and over, praying to whatever had taken the Big guy's place to get him out of this. His answer was a lone macaron on a table, wrapped with love in a pretty ribbon. "Excuse me, children, but I need to eat this. Very godly thing to do, may take hours. You should move along and give your unanswerable questions to one of my monks." He popped the treat into his mouth and chewed super slowly at the kids.

Instead of them becoming bored and moving on, they gasped and went, "EWWWWW!"

Astruc's face suddenly felt very itchy.

The toddler's teacher shrieked and pointed at his nose, "My Lord, what curse has befallen Thee?!"

Astruc pulled out his phone and checked his reflection. His face was riddled with splotchy red hives! "What the—" He sniffed the macaron's ribbon. "Almonds?!" He stormed over to the snack table and roared at the Dupain-Chengs, "You put almonds in this?!"

The couple cowered. "We would never use the forbidden ingredient in Your presence," Sabine claimed. "We are devout followers of the Book of Astruc."

"I'M ALLERGIC TO ALMONDS!" Astruc bellowed, his declaration shaking the walls.

The theater became deadly silent. All eyes were on the man. Even the ghosts stopped and stared.

"Hold on," one of Astruc's monks said, "our infallible god has… allergies?"

"Heresy!" someone spat at them.

"But look at Him! He's breaking out as if He really is allergic!"

"Astruc can't be allergic to anything, He's all-powerful and all-knowing!"

"For a god who is all-knowing He sure hasn't answered any of my questions."

Again, the room got very quiet. Astruc started to sweat.

"Who here has had their questions about the Universe answered by Astruc?" asked the ghost of a powerful daimyo.

Nobody raised their hand.

"Ha! Sounds like you baka gaijin** got conned," the daimyo said smugly before his spirit was laid to rest.

Anarchy broke out! Cries for justice, answers, and crucifixion filled the air!

"No! No! Wait!" Astruc pleaded, backing away from the torch-wielding mob. "This is all a divine test! Uh, I mean, a-a-a parable? This is all part of my cosmic plan, I swear! I-I-I—" All comprehensible thoughts left his mind as he glanced at the nearest exit and saw a pair of bluebell eyes burning with hellfire through a pile of pillows.

"Jesus Christ," Astruc whimpered and ran into the bathroom.

Meanwhile, in a hidden tower somewhere:

A great spiral window opened, illuminating the haunting silhouette of a man going through a crisis of faith.

"So… wait… Astruc isn't a god…?" Hawkmoth asked. "Where the hell did my thirty-plus years of donations to the Church of Astruc go then? Did Astruc not get any of my letters? Have I been putting my faith in a lie my whole life?"

Duusu poked its bulbous head through the floor and said, "Yes." It left.

"No!" Hawkmoth stomped his foot and shook his fist at the sky. "I refuse to accept this! I still believe in Astruc!" He filled one of his butterflies with darkness and sent it off. "I believe!"

In the bathroom:

Astruc hugged his legs atop the toilet. The bloodthirsty riot outside was growing more and more violent as the pounding on the bathroom door and the demands for his head grew louder. He was never going to get out this alive. Then a little black butterfly shattered on his event-pass lanyard. A pair of fashionably neon-pink butterfly-themed sunglasses appeared on his face and he saw the visage of a silver-masked man.

"Astruc," Hawkmoth said with reverence. "You still have one person who believes in You."

"I do? I mean, of course I do, I knew that. I know everything."

"Yes, My Lord, I will never doubt You, no matter what anyone says. Tell me how I may help restore the people's faith in You."

Astruc smiled. "Oh, I have an idea." The man was swallowed by bubbling darkness.

Meanwhile in the lobby:

Marinette kept her deadly stare on the crowd that was bashing the bathroom door with the Astruc cake they had repurposed into a battering ram. After nearly a year of searching, she had finally found him. There were no windows in that bathroom, no side doors. Astruc would eventually come out. And when he did, Marinette would make him pay.

MMMMOWB!

Marinette turned toward the reverse-gong sound and saw the last of the ethereal green smog get siphoned back into Kagami's shoe. Once the smog was gone, Adrien easily pried the gum off the wood.

"The exorcism is complete," Mrs. Tsurugi proclaimed. "Thank you for your help, young man," she said to a nearby plant. As the woman continued complimenting the shrubbery on its hard work, Adrien and Kagami shared a quiet smile during which the boy slipped her shoe back on in an almost picturebook-Cinderella-glass-slipper moment.

Marinette's eye twitched. "NO! Operation Kill Kagami backfired! They've gotten even closer! GAA—"

"Dupain-Cheng," Chloe interrupted, suddenly at her side. "What was with that macaron you gave Adrien? It wasn't part of the plan."

"It was a special passion fruit macaron I made but fucking Astruc had to go and eat it! The bastard!" she cried.

"Passion fruit? But that's Adrien's favorite..." Chloe froze on the spot. Her sights flicked back and forth between Marinette and Adrien. "Wait… hold on… NO!" Her face lit up with an epiphany. "Do you… Dupain-Cheng, do you have a… crush on Adrien?"

The entire angry mob turned and stared at Chloe. "This is news to you?" they all asked before resuming their god-hunting.

Every ounce of Marinette's anger and rage vanished and was replaced with stinging embarrassment. She hid her guilty face from the one bitch who should've never found out. There was nothing to look forward to now but insults and mocking laughter and her love being called utterly ridiculous.

Chloe gasped. "Holy crap! This is it!" The girl started to bounce on her feet. "I get it now!"

Marinette dared to peek. "Get what?"

"Being mean to be nice!" Chloe clapped enthusiastically. "You've been struggling to find a way to tell Adrien how you feel, obviously because of the massive class difference and the fact that you're a nobody who has zero chance with him. The nicest thing I can do is to tell Adrien for you. It feels mean but it'll finally get the truth out which is nice! I finally get it!" She hugged the stupefied girl tightly. "Don't worry, Dupain-Cheng, I'll make this right."

Then she spun around and ran full speed for Adrien.

"Chloe! No! STOP!" Marinette wailed.

"I'm being nice!" Chloe cheered and reached a snitching hand for the boy.

SMAAAAAASH!

The bathroom exploded open, throwing the angry mob back. From the dust appeared Astruc, only his body was colored in with shifting pencil scratches and his eyes were covered with a Ladybug-themed domino mask! He had become Animaestro!

"You think I'm not a god anymore?" he sneered. "Well how about this for a god?!" Blinding white light filled the room and Animaestro expanded and morphed into a thirty-story, animated, 2-D, green kaiju monster!

"I AM YOUR GOD NOW! BRING ME YOUR VIRGINS!" he bellowed and blasted several buildings to smithereens with his animated fire breath!

As the city was decimated, Marinette climbed to the theater's roof, raring for some action. "You think Hawkmoth can protect you from me, Astruc? I'm gonna break your legs! Your arms! Every fucking bone in your body for every fucking Akuma I've had to deal with! Tikki, spots fucking on!" In a flourish of red, she transformed into Ladybug.

She wrapped her yo-yo string around two chimneys and made a giant slingshot. She got in, aimed at the kaiju's stupid face, and fired. The heroine shot through the air like a missile, over the rooftops, over the people, over Chat Noir who had just arrived, right for Animaestro's jaw. She cocked her polka-dotted fist back.

WHAAAAM!

The animated kaiju was launched halfway across Paris, until he landed with an Earth-shattering crash. Notre Dame was obliterated. Ladybug huffed and puffed at the unmoving body from atop a skyscraper. "THAT WAS FOR STONEHEART!" she screamed.

Chat Noir joined her and let out an impressed whistle. "You never get that cat-ty with me, M'Lady." He smirked at her. "I knew it. You hold back because you secretly love my puns."

"I UNLEASHED HELL BECAUSE ASTRUC DESERVES IT!"

There was another blinding flash of white light. When the heroes' vision cleared, Animaestro was before them again, flying on a pair of massive rocket boosters. He had morphed into a giant transformer!

Ladybug's knees wobbled and she drooled a little. "...Giant… robot..." she whispered in awe.

"You think you can outpunch me, Ladybug?" Animaestro cackled in a mighty electronic voice that shook the clouds. "I have ascended to true god status. You cannot hurt me anymore!" Animaestra laughed maniacally as the metal horn on its head began to glow with more and more power. The light became too painful to look at as the villain aimed its horn at the heroes and fired an unstoppable la—

WHAAAAM!

Ladybug's foot connected with Animaestro's chin, knocking his head back and re-aiming the laser at the sky. The powerbeam fired into space where it harmlessly punched a hole through the moon. "THAT WAS FOR THE BUBBLER!" the heroine proclaimed and quickly lassoed the mecha's neck. "AND THIS IS FOR STORMY WEATHER!"

With all her miraculous might, Ladybug whipped the million-times bigger Animaestro over her shoulder and smashed him face-first through the street. The impact uprooted every building in Paris and the shockwave was felt all the way in Kansas.

Hawkmoth stared as his god got his ass handed to him. "I… I believe?"

Animaestro's robo-limbs spasmed a few times before he was enveloped in blinding light and morphed into a human-sized, black-and-white, legally not Mickey Mouse, bunny-dog abomination. He sprang out of Ladybug's lasso and pulled out what looked like a blob of black putty.

"You can't stop a god!" Animaestro raised his arm to throw the putty and—

WHAAAAM!

Ladybug smashed into him like a speeding train and kept on going, dragging his face against the asphalt. A black-and-white trail of animated scraped-off skin and bone marked their path. "AND THIS IS FOR FUCKING PHARAOH!" She chucked his limp body through a building. There was another flash of white light from inside. The 2-D animated head of Majestia, Alya's favorite hero, nervously poked her head out.

"Um… fear me?" Animaestro whimpered.

Ladybug lassoed him and pulled him so close that their noses touched. "And this is for Timebreaker," she seethed.

WHAAAAM! Ladybug headbutted Animaestro so hard that she created a crater under them that reached the sewers.

"Hi there," said the undead horde.

"Lady Wifi," Ladybug continued.

WHAAAAM! Another headbutt and Animaestro saw dinosaur bones around them. He morphed into a cartoony unicorn and prepared a rainbow blast of doom.

"Evillustrator."

WHAAAAM! The headbutt made him choke on his rainbow and morph into an anime-style Astruc-Goku. He tried to ready a kame-hame-ha but—

"Rogercop."

WHAAAAM! The surface was getting pretty far away and Ladybug didn't look anywhere near done.

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Astruc, sir?" someone chimed in.

"Dark Cupid."

WHAAAAM!

Through the headache, Animaestro turned and saw Chat Noir was kneeling nearby, looking rather serious. "I don't know what your history is with Bugaboo but you've clearly done something to make her angry. You need to apologize."

"Santa Claws."

WHAAAAM!

"Apologize?!" Animaestro scoffed. He morphed into a vibrant queen overflowing with magical energy. "I am your god! I created you!"

"Darkblade."

WHAAAAM!

The queen's sparkling dress was ruined by the miles of multi-layered rainbow cake that made up the Earth's crust. Daylight was a distant speck. "You should be thanking me! You should be worshipping me!" Animaestro spat.

"It's your funeral," Chat Noir shrugged.

"The Mime."

WHAAAAM!

Animaestro morphed back into his pencil-sketch Astruc form. Despite all the hits, there wasn't a scratch on him. "You can't touch me! You can't harm me! I am a god! I am a cartoon! I! AM! INVINCIBLE!"

Ladybug glared at him. "I'm just gonna skip down to Lila," she said and reeled back her head extra far.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!

Down the trio tunneled into the creamy, sugary, spongy depths of the Earth. The surface, the sky, and daylight became long-forgotten memories.

And it also got very hot very quick.

Animaestro's eyes widened as he realized where that heat was coming from.

Suddenly there was no more cake. Animaestro's back hair sizzled in the scalding air. He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder and was instantly filled with regret.

"Do you think a cartoon can survive being dropped into the Earth's molten core?" Ladybug dared.

Animaestro honestly didn't know.

Neither did Hawkmoth, who was having doubts about Astruc's godhood again.

Animaestro cleared his throat. "I think we got off on the wrong foot—AAAH!" The Akuma screamed bloody murder as Ladybug let him go. His mortal plummet was halted at the last second by quickly morphing his arms into animated tentacles which grabbed the icing-covered ledge. "Let's talk about this, c'mon!"

Ladybug stomped on one of his tentacles until it slipped off. She aimed for the other one.

"Wait! WAIT! I'M SORRY!"

Ladybug stopped.

"I'M SORRY FOR EVERYTHING!" Animaestro wailed. "I'M SORRY ABOUT HAWKMOTH, THE AKUMAS, THE BAD LUCK, THE MIRACULOUS, THE CONSTANT FIGHTS! I'M SORRY! THERE WAS NO REASON! NO DIVINE PLAN! I WAS JUST PULLING CRAP OUT OF MY ASS AS I WENT AND TRYING TO HAVE SOME FUN!"

His voice pathetically cracked and echoed around the planet's perpetually broiling Baked Alaska Flambé core. Rivers of snot and tears dribbled down his desperate face. Ladybug's dead stare didn't break for a single second and Astruc feared she hadn't been swayed at all.

"I'M SORRY—I'M SORRY—I'M SORRY—"

Animaestro and Ladybug turned to the looping apology-confession video on the little screen of Chat Noir's battle-staff.

"Send a copy to you and everyone on Earth if you let him live," Chat Noir offered.

Ladybug smiled. "Deal!" She pulled Astruc to safety and plucked off his domino mask. "Wow, that was a lot of restraint you just showed, Chat. I would've easily kissed you or even slept with you for that video." She crushed the mask and started the de-evilizing process.

Chat Noir stared at the Send button he'd just pressed for nothing. "...Fuck."

Later, at the premiere:

"This is truly a historic day," Nadia Chamak said to the news camera. In the background, there were massive burnings of the Book of Astruc. The monks snapped their colored pencils and fed them to the flames. "In what can only be described as an international movement, the Church of Astruc has been dismantled after Astruc's confession of filling our world with torment and chaos for his own amusement. The Pope has stripped Astruc of his holy status, saying, 'I never believed in that jerk anyway. He never responded to any of my tweets.' This has many people wondering how will we swear now?"

"Same as before but with more spite!" responded some rando in the crowd.

"Yeah!" everyone else agreed.

"The Ladybug and Chat Noir movie premiere is still on schedule," Nadia added. "Reviews will be pouring in soon."

Inside:

The time had finally come. People filed into the theater to take their seats. Marinette was positioned by the door with one last platter of macarons, nervously checking every face. The person she was waiting for arrived.

"Chloe!" she said. "You can't tell Adrien that I like him, please, please, PLEASE!"

"I know you're scared, Dupain-Cheng," Chloe nodded with kind understanding. "Sure, Adri-kins will probably laugh at you and say that the very thought of dating you is disgusting and never once crossed his mind, but that's okay. I was scared too when I stood up to my mommikins. You helped me then. The mean-nice thing to do is for me to help you."

Marinette's mind reeled as it tried to make sense of Chloe's twisted logic. "You know what would be even nicer?" she said, grabbing words out of the air. "Not telling him anything and letting the secret fester in me until I get desperate and lash out and hurt someone! That's so mean it's more than nice!"

Chloe paused. "It is?"

"Yes! It's super nice! Ultra nice! Nicest thing you could possibly do! You should keep your mouth shut! DO IT!"

Chloe thought and thought and thought. And then she thought some more. She thought about every nice lesson she had taken, every hypothetical nice scenario Jean-Something had walked her through. And when she was done thinking, she listened to her conscience. She listened carefully. She listened quietly. And without realizing it Chloe listened patiently.

"No, I'm telling him," she said.

"GAAAH!" Marinette thwacked Chloe across the head with the macaron platter. She dropped like a ton of bricks. "GAAAAAH! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Marinette pulled Chloe to her feet and lightly slapped her back to consciousness. "Chloe? Can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Chloe's eyes fluttered open. "Huh? Wha? Dupain-Cheng? How did I get here? What was I doing?"

"Uh, you were about to take your seat to watch the Ladybug and Chat Noir movie and nothing else!" Marinette blabbed with a wide and guilty smile.

"I feel like I needed to tell Adri-kins something significant... something about a... crush?"

Marinette thwacked her head again.

"Nope, it's gone. Oh well, it probably wasn't important anyway." Completely clueless, Chloe headed inside.

"Please don't have brain damage," Marinette begged as she watched Chloe wobble down the aisle.

"Ahem."

Marinette turned around and was shocked to see Thomas Astruc. "The fuck are you doing here?"

"To give you this." To her further surprise, he pressed into her hands his event-pass lanyard. "I fucked up your life, Marinette, and I can never unfuck it up," he said. "That's the long and short of it. And I am honestly, truly sorry."

The anger in Marinette subsided for a moment. He really was sorry. For a second, she didn't hate him.

"The only way to make this right is to tell you that you can stop being Ladybug by saying you quit—"

"Already did that," Marinette said.

"Oh..." Astruc awkwardly shuffled his feet. "Well, don't let it get you down. I'm sure you can beat Duusu and Nooroo."

"Did you plan for me to win in your holy design?" she sassed.

"No," he admitted. "I planned this whole Miraculous thing to be a neverending hell, endless loop, syndication sort of thing. But I also never planned to be headbutted to the center of the Earth. Just because I didn't plan it doesn't mean you can't do it. You can win, Marinette."

There was a twinkle of hope in Marinette's eyes. "You really think so?"

Astruc patted her shoulder. "If anyone can fight her way out of this, it's you, mon petit chou."

There was a quiet moment between the two. A moment of understanding and acceptance. Maybe even a moment of peace.

"Enjoy the movie," Astruc said and left.

Marinette didn't stop him and she didn't say goodbye. Despite everything Astruc had put her through, she was still a little sad to see him go. She had the strongest feeling that their paths would never cross again.

Later:

Marinette took her seat, the event-pass around her neck and a serene smile on her face. She felt like a great weight of hatred had been lifted off her shoulders and replaced with a blanket of closure. She may have still been Ladybug, but a large thorn in her life had been removed and the relief made her misty-eyed.

"Marinette, you made it!"

The girl's head snapped to the side with an audible pop! She was sitting next to her Adrien. The boy of her dreams beamed at her.

"I—I—I—" she wheezed.

"This is so awesome!" Adrien cheered. "The three of us are going to see the movie together."

Kagami leaned out of the other seat next to Adrien. "I am so excited," she said in her monotone, quickly checked her phone, and then molded her face into a horrifically sharp grin that looked like it belonged on a shark.

"You—You—You—"

"Just a heads up, Kagami," Adrien said. "I get scared easily, even in action movies like this. I'll end up grabbing you and holding you for comfort during the intense moments."

"If you do that, Maybe-More-Than-A-Friend Adrien, I may strike you," Kagami replied. "My fighting instincts are engraved too deep."

"YOU CAN HOLD ME!" Marinette blurted.

"I can? Oh thank you, Marinette. You're a true friend."

Marinette stifled her painful shout from the minor heart attack as the house lights dimmed. The movie and the series of Adrien hugs were about to begin.

BOOOM!

A great glowing portal tore open in the screen. Not on the screen. In it! A dimensional rift had come into existence!

"It worked! It worked! Schrödinger, you magnificent bastard, it worked!" Astruc cried, running down the aisle. "So long, suckers!" He flipped off the entire theater and jumped through the portal. The rift closed with another BOOOM!

Two words appeared on the screen: LA FIN. The house lights came on. The movie was over.

"Wow! That was some really good 3-D!" Adrien said. "I really believed Astruc just abandoned us."

END

*According to the internet, this is a rude way French people refer to the British. It literally means roast beef. I don't get it either.

** The le rosbif of Japan. It means stupid foreigners.