Husband and ex-husband
Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous Ladybug, neither Love o2o and the novel.
N/A: To clarify:
Guild: Official groups made up of different players with a leader. You can only be in one guild, but you can be simultaneously in clans.
Clan: groups that consist of players with friendly ties, the closest thing to a family, usually formed by a group of friends. You can be in more than one clan and you do not need a leader.
EXP: experience points to level up. They can be increased or decreased depending on the situation.
In a forest at noon, there's a couple surrounded by people dressed all in black. The girl named StormyWeather wears purple and blue tones, with jeweled ornaments in her hair; the boy, under the name of CenturyWarrior, wears a white robe and holds a sword with golden ornaments. Both are in position, back to back, to defend themselves from those around them. A few seconds later, the people in black begin to attack them and the couple jump on the attack.
Marinette is watching the video. It doesn't seem very interesting: the video doesn't focus much on the fight, rather, they only attack every time to time and focus more on the dialogue of the lovers. The conversation doesn't attract much attention either. The two exchange phrases taken from romantic books or phrases so sweet that they become uncomfortable and embarrassing, for example: "Never be afraid, I am always with you." Or a "We will never lose because we have true love". If that was not enough, in the middle of the "fight" the two begin to float and the boy puts his hand on her waist and start a small dance. When they land again, the fight seems to be over and the two pose victoriously.
With all that, Marinette gets bored and thinks why the video has so many views. When she's about to the video, a new character enters the scene: a girl dressed in red with her hair tied in a ponytail. She recognizes the avatar they are using, the same one she uses in Miraculous; but it's not the type of avatar that catches her attention, but the name that is placed on its head: "LadybugTheLoser". What are they thinking? Are they really trying to make fun of her this way? If it wasn't enough, the girl in red seems to be crying and begins to pathetically exclaim funny phrases to the couple.
[LadybugTheLoser]: stay there!
[LadybugTheLoser]: why do you choose her?! (says pointing to the girl)
[LadybugTheLoser]: don't you understand that it hurts me to see you together?
[LadybugTheLoser]: Does she have something that I don't?
[LadybugTheLoser]: come back with me please!
When the girl in red tries to throw herself at them, they dodge her without problem. When LadybugTheLoser falls to the floor, she begins to cry inconsolably.
[LadybugTheLoser]: Don't leave me!
[LadybugTheLoser]: I can't let you go!
[LadybugTheLoser]: my life without you would no longer make sense!
The couple holds hands and ignores the girl in red. Turning around, the two leave the place and leave the girl crying on the ground while she scrambles on the ground.
Marinette remains watching the screen even though the video has already finished. Did they create an avatar with that name just for this? It's not the first time they speak ill of her or spread false rumors, but publish a video in the forum to make her look bad? Marinette can see it coming from Rainy, but Century? She had not spoken to him for a while, but she thought they had stayed on good terms. Was it because of what happened at his wedding? She told him she only went to see! In any case, they do not have the right to do this; can someone impersonate another person and humiliate her?
With a thousand questions in her head, Marinette stands up from her seat and pours herself a glass of water. Her three friends have been watching her for a few minutes and decide to talk to her.
"Hey, are you okay Mari?" Alya asks him something worried. "You've been frowning for a while now."
Marinette looks at her for a few seconds until she manages to calm down. "Yes, yes, I'm fine... I only lost against a monster in a battle."
Despite how upset she is, she is no longer a fifteen-year-old teenager to make a fuss over an unimportant video. She is already of legal age, she can solve conflicts in a civilized way. She enters to the game, opens the private chat with Century and sends him: "Do you enjoy doing this? I didn't think you were like that." Once she sent the message, she closed the game without waiting for an answer and went to sleep.
It's already late when Adrien leaves after his last classes, but all he thinks about is the cyber-cafe girl, or the department beauty as everyone knows her. Marinette Dupain Cheng, it's not like he has never seen or heard of her. She is one of the best students of the faculty and gained that fame since her first year, not to mention that the number of girls in science careers is less than the boys. In fact, he is almost certain that they have a class together, but because of his work and low social attitude, he can't attend always to the theory classes or sit in the back seats so he won't interrupt the class when he is late or need to leave early. Next week he doesn't have as much work, maybe he can get to the class a little earlier? Adrien is still in his thoughts as he leaves the faculty building, and before he starts heading to the main door to go to his apartment, he gets a call from Nino.
"Yes? Did something happened?"
"Oh? You haven't entered to the game forum? What am I saying, you almost never enter..."
The blonde raises an eyebrow and asks, "Did you get more information about the couples competition?"
"No, no. It's about the video contest. RainyWeather has uploaded a video where Century and Stormy make fun of your wife. The video came out an hour ago but it already has thousands of views!"
Did they make a video just to make fun of Ladybug? Don't they have better things to do? Adrien remains calm and talks to his friend again.
"Ladybug already saw it?"
"I really do not know, she's not connected but it's very likely that she already seen it. All this is so silly, but Kim is already defending our sister-in-law in the public chat and I saw Plagg recently throwing some comments towards Century. What are you going to do?"
"Don't worry, I'll stay in the bedrooms tonight, it's closer than my house. I'll arrive in a few with my computer." With that said, Adrien hangs up the phone, turns around and goes to the boys' dormitories.
"What? You are coming? Hello?" Nino is perplexed when Adrien ends the call and then sees the rest of the bedroom from the top of his bed. This is bad. "ADRIEN IS COMING!" The brunette screams at the top of his lungs as he quickly climbs down the stairs.
"What?! Why?!" Kim and Luka quickly look up from what they are doing.
"Just hurry up and start picking up all the clothes and clean the room! I don't want him to throw everything away again!" With the minutes they have left, the three boys start running around the room cleaning everything they can.
"...why are you out of breath? Have you been running or something?" Adrien asks as he sees the three boys standing by the bedroom door breathing heavily.
"R-running? Oh yes, ha ha..." Nino responds by breathing hard, agreeing with Adrien.
"If not where do you think these muscles come from? Ha ha ha..." Kim starts to laugh uncomfortably.
Leaving that matter aside, Adrien enters the room and starts watching the video with the rest. Once it is over, he remains somewhat pensive, trying to find a solution.
"This is so low." Luka comments. "Not even the avatar looks so much like Ladybug's, it's more because the ID name, LadybugTheLoser; how can they be so unoriginal?"
"This is the result of the work of second generation rich narcissistic children (the parents are the ones who earn the money). They think they are better than the rest and can do what they want." Kim follows. "Adrien, what do we do? They have started rumors that Century left Ladybug and that she is harassing Stormy, the one that supposedly left you and stole the groom from Ladybug."
"We're going to do this in a sophisticated way." Adrien answers calmly.
"Sophisticated? Well, that sounds more like Adrien than ChatNoir, but I like it. What do you want to do?" Luka smiles interested in the plan.
"For now don't say anything else in the game. We're going to wait until Century connects tomorrow morning."
The next day, Marinette is busy all morning in classes and doesn't have time to enter the game until lunchtime. By then, the discomfort she felt towards the video of the previous day had diminished, it didn´t worry her too much anymore. When Marinette returns to the dorm and logs in the game, she is surprised by the number of private chat notifications. Before being able to read them, another new message appears from Tikki.
[CookieTikki]: Ladybug!
[CookieTikki]: finally you are connected!
[CookieTikki]: I was so entertained that I forgot to record :(
[CookieTikki]: at least I was able to take some screenshots to my computer :) :)
[CookieTikki]: Century must be going crazy with the EXP loss...
Record? What was she talking about? Did something else happen again while she wasn't connected?
[Ladybug]: record what thing?
[Ladybug]: I'm lost...
[CookieTikki]: ohhh!
[CookieTikki]: I thought you were in this too!
[CookieTikki]: I mean the battle between CenturyWarrior and ChatNoir!
[Ladybug]: Century... And CHATNOIR?!
Ladybug quickly excuses herself to talk to ChatNoir who also seemed to be connected.
[Group Chat] [ClanNoir: ChatNoir, Ladybug, DJCarapace, Plagg&Cheese, TheSilencer, DarkCupid]
[Ladybug]: ChatNoir?
[Ladybug]: What happened to you and CenturyWarrior?
[ChatNoir]: I couldn't sit around watching how they made fun of my wife.
[Plagg&Cheese]: we can explain it to you, sister!
Marinette turns red. No matter how many times she reads it, ChatNoir calling her wife would make her blush for several seconds. If Chat knew the power he has over her!
The rest of the clan ends up explaining what happened. Apparently, ChatNoir connected today in the morning and sent a fight request to CenturyWarrior from the public chat. Approximately one hour later, the entire server had already heard that n° 1 player had challenged Ladybug's ex-husband and they had reunited in The Tower of the Pillars to witness the battle. In all that time, CenturyWarrior showed no life signs until he came along with the WeatherForce clan. He didn't have many options, the conditions that ChatNoir had proposed for the fight were so good that it was impossible to decline.
ChatNoir had set the following conditions:
- The duel would consist of two rounds.
- CenturyWarrior would win if he defeated ChatNoir at least in one round.
- ChatNoir was not allowed to use spiritual pets, magical accessories (accessories that raise the player's level, armor) and couldn't use his most powerful technique with his main weapon.
With all those advantages, CenturyWarrior could not refuse to fight even if he wanted to: either he refused and he stayed like a coward, or he accepted and tried not to die trying. Although Chat had all those disadvantages, he was still the first on the male list...
[Ladybug]: so he accepted.
[Ladybug]: but there's one thing that is not clear to me.
[ChatNoir]: what thing?
[Ladybug]: Tikki told me something about his EXP, but in a battle his EXP shouldn't be affected...
[ChatNoir]: it wasn't a battle
[ChatNoir]: it was a duel.
A duel. Now it makes sense. The battles are friendly fights where the energy is lost only during the fight, once finished, both players continue playing as if the fight hadn't happened. In battles the only thing that can be lost is an object that has been wagered, but doesn't affect the level of the player. A duel, on the other hand, is capable of not only lowering the loser level, but also lowering the rank in the female or male ranking. For players who are just starting to play, losing a couple of levels is not a big deal, as they can recover it in a few hours or a couple of days of playing. On the other hand, for players who exceed the advanced level (approximately level 50), losing a couple of levels would be like losing two months of playing. At the end of last week, Ladybug had already passed level 80, just like ChatNoir, and if she remembers correctly, CenturyWarrior was at level 68...
[Ladybug]: how many levels did it go down?
[TheSilencer]: only 4
[The Silencer]: but with his money he could recover it in half a year...
Half a year. Chat really doesn't have any mercy.
Apparently, during the first round Century didn't accept that the only unarmed was ChatNoir, so he decided to leave his weapons as well. After being defeated in a few minutes, in the second round he decided to be fully armed, which apparently didn't help either, as ChatNoir finished the match in less time than in the first round.
[Ladybug]: they bet something?
[ChatNoir]: I told him to remove the video from the forum and that the WeatherForce clan give a public apology.
[ChatNoir]: I checked and the video has already been deleted.
[Ladybug]: oh...
[DarkCupid]: hey, but what if the power went off or something?
[DarkCupid]: were you going to let that guy get away with it?
[ChatNoir]: Even if I had lost, I still have my wife.
If Marinette was red a few minutes ago, now smoke was coming out of her head.
[DarkCupid]: wow
[DarkCupid]: you really like to show off
[Plagg&Cheese]: Ugh
[Plagg&Cheese]: You're making me want to vomit with the amount of sweetness
[DJCarapace]: so…
[DJCarapace]: What he means is that it didn't matter if he won or lost
[DJCarapace]: at the end we had our sister-in-law.
[TheSilencer]: hahaha yes
[The Silencer]: I think our sister in law is stronger than our brother
[TheSilencer]: she is always the first to attack when there are monsters...
[DarkCupid]: yes yes
[DarkCupid]: our sister is amazing!
[Ladybug]: hehe I think you are flattering me too much :)
[DarkCupid]: but I'm disapointed that Century was so obedient in removing the video...
[Ladybug]: ...
[Ladybug]: you are disappointed?
[DarkCupid]: yeah!
[Plagg&Cheese]: If he had not, we could...
[TheSilencer]: hack his computer!
[DJCarapace]: and hack his game account!
[DarkCupid]: and then clean it completely!
[Ladybug]: huh...
[Ladybug]: you guys are bad kids
[Plagg&Cheese]: thank you very much for the compliment.
This time ChatNoir turns to only see her.
[ChatNoir]: let's go, my lady.
[Ladybug]: oh?
[Ladybug]: where?
[ChatNoir]: to some place they are not.
Marinette smiles and follows ChatNoir's avatar happy as they descend from the tower.
[DJCarapace]: oh wow
[Plagg&Cheese]: this kid...
[The Silence]: the truth is that this doesn't surprise me...
[DarkCupid]: aish... why can't he stop bragging?!
[ChatNoir]: I'm sorry
[Ladybug]: oh?
[Ladybug]: What's wrong?
The couple is quietly walking through one of the nearby meadows of the tower when ChatNoir suddenly starts the conversation.
[ChatNoir]: I know you don't like others trying to solve your problems.
[ChatNoir]: and the truth is that I didn't think that so many people were going to talk about the duel.
[ChatNoir]: So I thought it was better to end it as quickly as possible.
Was he trying to explain? It didn't seem necessary to her. In the end, the video was taken down and they didn't keep fighting. Usually she would be annoyed with those kinds of decisions, where she couldn't comment, but they have reached to a certain point in which the two trust each other and could make some decisions on their own. During some combats against monsters she had been the one in charge of deciding the strategy and he accepts it without hesitation. He also doesn't need her to be there for all decisions, especially in small problems like this.
Once out of the game, Marinette can't help but think of the character dressed in black for the rest of the day...
Author's notes
Yes, I'm alive. I apologize for the long hiatus and leave you all like this. My physical and mental condition reached the limit and I didn't feel like writing something good. But after seeing a tremendous chapter (Party Crusher)... how can I not update? I have only a couple of finals to finish the semester and I feel much better, so I hope to update soon. Thank you for not throwing hate (until now at least) and thank you very much to all those who are still following the story. Thanks for reading!
Twitter: Little_Rain0048
-LR