It was a night that he could never forget for as long as he lived, and it was one that ended a week of nothing but disappointments. Another bank loan for his dream denied; another research project that turned up nothing and left him looking the fool; another tiresome dinner with his wife's family that was nothing but an excuse for the inlaws to make paper thinly-veiled remarks about the failure their daughter had married. Bless her heart, she tried her hardest to deflect and reframe him as someone successful, but her best efforts just made things worse, as far as he was concerned. The simple fact of the matter was that the world was divided between those who had power and those who didn't; the category that mattered was plain as day, and so long as he failed to claw his way out of the one that didn't matter, any attempts to make him out to be more than what he was brought him nothing but agony.

"The ignorance of man is truly dizzying, is it not?" That was when he met him. He had retired to his study with a drink after needing a break from his inlaws and the wider world around him, and instead of solitude he thought was beckoning him, a man was sitting on his windowsill, his face enveloped in shadows. In one hand was a sketchbook filled with his latest designs, and in the other was a stone arrow that was pointing in his direction. "The average and the have-nots, they're so afraid of anyone rising above them that they do everything in their power to keep their betters down at their level. Imagine how much progress society could have made by now if everyone who deserved power was allowed to achieve it, and not just the few who manage to slip through the cracks, on occasion."

"You're not wrong." He shouldn't have been saying anything to the intruder, he should have been racing out to call the police, but he couldn't help it. Everything he was saying was what he had thought for so many years, and beyond that, even though he could barely make out his features through the shadows, there was something about the intruder that drew his attention to him, an animal magnetism, of some sort.

If there was ever a good time for his drink, it was then and there, but before he knew it, some sort of invisible force had ripped his Merlot out of his hands and over to the intruder's side.

"I had come here because of a certain something that had attracted me to you," the stone arrow in his hand twitched, "but I've found myself admiring so much more. Your head for design is quite impressive to the point that I find myself wanting to commission some outfits for me and my compatriots. Not only that, but these other things you've put your heart and soul into, these mystical creatures and oddities. As someone who's been dabbling in that, myself, your own endeavors quite intrigue me."

The clouds in the night sky began to part to allow moonlight to fill the room. The intruder's full features finally became visible to him: his flowing blonde hair, his alabaster teeth with especially shining canines, the star-shaped birthmark at the base of his rippling neck. One look at him made it clear that this man was exactly the kind of person who could fill his head—his heart—with such bizarre and intoxicating thoughts.

"I don't think you're in much of a hurry to return downstairs, so would you like to talk with me for a bit, Gabriel Agreste?"

It was the first time in Gabriel Agreste's life that he could take pride in allowing a man to stand above him in the world, and that feeling would drive the destiny of himself and others for twenty years, long after the man's death.


Summer vacation was Marinette Dupain-Cheng's favorite time of year. It was only a few weeks' worth of reprieve, but there was no Chloe to pick on her, no classmates to ignore her outside of casual greetings and farewells, no large crowds of people who could get caught up in the calamity of her curse, there were rarely any other times of the year when she felt as relaxed.

"Things will be so much better this year, Marinette. You just have to believe in yourself, and maybe make a little more of an effort to speak your mind." Marinette's mother gave her the same advice that morning that she had been giving her for years. She appreciated the effort on her part, but she knew that she would never be able to put it to good use when she knew the embarrassment of trying to change herself far surpassed the embarrassment of her status quo. Her mother might have been able to give her some new advice if she knew about her curse, but she knew better than to try and talk about that with people again, so this was all she had to contend with.

"I'll see what I can do, Mom." Naturally, Marinette did what she could to go along with it, but any amount of effort she put into faking compliance faded away when, while making a bowl of cereal for herself, her spoon knocked the sugar container over and created a domino effect that led to everything on the kitchen table spilling over. Another day in the life, she supposed.

After cleaning everything up and finishing what was left of her breakfast, Marinette made her way downstairs to the family bakery. She was ready to greet her father before heading off to school, but he was busy dealing with a customer, so she would have to wait. Marinette stood by the counter and watched the exchange; it wasn't particularly out of the ordinary, but it was a little rare for them to get a customer so early in the morning. It made her want to observe things, try to get an idea of what sort of man the customer was, if for no reason other than idle curiosity.

The man to whom her father was handing a box of cookies to sat in the latest model of wheelchair from the Speedwagon Foundation. He didn't look that old, probably somewhere in his early forties, and he had a tall flattop of silver hair with a mullet flowing down his neck. There was a translucent, purple eyepatch over a right eye that looked like it had gone blind, his right arm, his legs were replaced with metal prosthetics, and if Marinette looked close enough, she could see that the same was true of his right arm, albeit with a more realistic prosthetic there. He spoke to her father with a kind smile, but there was a sternness to his voice that added to the picture of him having been through a great deal of hardship.

Before Marinette knew it, she found herself staring at him. Not because of his injuries, though; it would have been easy enough to make a spectacle of that, but she was better than that. More specifically, she was staring at what was behind the man, for behind him was a tall, ghostly figure in silver armor with sharp pegs in place of its legs and right arm. The ghost looked like it could attack at any moment, but it did nothing as Marinette stared at it, mouth agape at the bizarre sight of it.

"Marinette, it's rude to stare like that. This man's no different than any other customer who comes in here," her father said.

"What?" Marinette asked. "No, I was just—"

"It's quite all right; I'm more than used to getting looks from people. It'd only be a problem if this was something I wanted to hide, after all," the man in the wheelchair said.

"I didn't—I was—I'm sorry." It was clear that her father and the man in the wheelchair couldn't see the ghost, so no reason for her to keep making a fool of herself over what was probably a stress-induced hallucination.

"As I said, it's not a problem. I'll be on my way, then." The man in the wheelchair smiled at them, but Marinette was sure it was directed specifically at her, and then the ghost grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and wheeled him out of the bakery. The ghost was definitely not a stress-induced hallucination, and Marinette found herself staring again.

"That guy—His wheelchair—"

"Yeah, I've never seen a motorized chair like that one. Must be a new model or something," her father said. He really didn't see it; he really didn't see the ghost that was moving the wheelchair. "Marinette, are you feeling okay? I've never seen you look so pale."

"I'm fine, I'm fine! I must have, um, eaten some bad Chinese, or something! It'll pass in a few hours!" Marinette said.

"But we had Italian for dinner last night."

"Which must be why their Chinese was so bad! Well, I gotta go now, see you after school!" Marinette jumped up to kiss her father's cheek and dashed out of the bakery.

"Wait! I made macarons for you to give out to your class!" Marinette ran back inside to grab the macarons and give her father another kiss before dashing out once again. The macarons would serve as a good reward for when she caught up to the man in the wheelchair and said her piece, no matter how long that might take.

"What's the rush, little girl?" It ended up taking no time at all, for the man in the wheelchair and his ghostly companion were waiting around the corner; Marinette was taken so off guard that she nearly fell flat on her face.

"Hello! I, um, hello!" Marinette quickly lost whatever train of thought she had thought about getting across.

"So nice you had to say it twice, eh?" the man in the wheelchair asked. "Well, you probably need to be getting to school now, so I'll be off." Marinette couldn't let that happen. Not when there was so much he could tell her, not when there was so much she needed to understand.

"That thing! What is that?" Marinette asked, pointing at the ghost.

"It's a wheelchair." Her aim was off, and she failed once more to get her point across. "Look, I gotta—"

With no other ideas coming to mind, Marinette did the one thing she could think of: grab hold of one of the ghost's arms. The man in the wheelchair's mouth went shut as his one good eye locked up with Marinette's.

"This thing! This is the thing I mean when I say that there's a thing near you! Wow, I'm saying 'thing' way too much—Anyway, just tell me what it is and why I'm the only one who can see it!" Marinette hoped that she wasn't crossing a line, especially not to the degree that would lead to a ghost stabbing her repeatedly, and when the man in the wheelchair started laughing, she still had no idea what she was in for.

"Well, it looks like my hunch was right," the man in the wheelchair said. "I had a feeling that the way you were looking my way was because you could see my Silver Chariot as opposed to being a rude little shit. It's not every day I come across someone who lives in my world who isn't trying to kill someone, usually me, so I decided to wait here a bit and see if you wanted to talk about it."

"I did—I do! It's just—Wait, people try to kill you? Is that what you're supposed to do with curses? Like I didn't have enough reasons to hate mine." Marinette couldn't help but feel as if she shouldn't have said anything at all.

"A curse, eh? I guess some people would call it that in certain circumstances." Before Marinette could get him to elaborate, he asked, "What's your name, kid?"

"Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng." The man in the wheelchair's expression lost a lot of its sternness and replaced it with unwarranted tenderness. His one good eye went up and down as if he were analyzing her, for some reason. He was quick to stop, but rather than say anything to explain himself, he just threw out a small, hollow laugh that Marinette couldn't bring herself to ask about.

"Sorry, my mind went places I didn't want it to," the man in the wheelchair said. "That school you go to, they give you a lunch break?" Marinette nodded and told him they had a break at noon. "Good. There's a cafe on the corner here. Meet me there if you want to know more about all of this."

"I do! I will! I do will—Will do, I mean. I will do!" Marinette said; she was nodding her head so rapidly that she was sure her head looked like a blur to any onlookers. "I'll meet you there right when lunch starts—Ah, I need to actually get to class! Don't want to be late on the first day of school for the sixth year in a row!" Marinette took off across the street, but she stopped in the middle of the crosswalk to turn back to the man in the wheelchair and ask, "By the way, what's your name?"

"Polnareff. Jean Pierre Polnareff." Polnareff gave her a salute before his curse, Silver Chariot, wheeled him down the street. Marinette watched him roll off, lost in thought of what this meeting of theirs had in store for her.

Marinette was brought back to reality when three cars started honking at her to get out of the street.


Classrooms in France were built pretty differently compared to how they were built in America. In America, there were always these tiny, metal desks that gave you no leg room to work with, so you'd spend upwards of an hour feeling cramped and uncomfortable; part of that could be from her being tall for her age, but the point still stood in her mind. By comparison, Jolyne's classroom in this French high school—collège or lycée, she couldn't remember which one was the right word—had much larger desks for her to sit in, like a lecture hall at a university. If there was anything positive to be gained from her father forcing her to move halfway across the world, it was that she could sleep in class without having to work to feel comfortable.

"Whoo, made it!" Just as Jolyne was beginning to get comfortable, a blue-haired girl in pigtails plopped down in the seat next to her. "I can't believe I actually got here before the bell rang! I'm always late on the first day of school, and with all of that other stuff that happened, I thought for sure I would be—" The pigtailed girl turned in her direction and, with an embarrassed look on her face, said, "I'm bugging you with all my rambling, aren't I?" She nodded her head. "Sorry, I have a bad habit of talking out loud so there'll be at least one person who'll want to listen to me."

"As sad as that is, knock it off, regardless," Jolyne said. She didn't make much of an effort to look at the pigtailed girl, but she did look up at her when she put a green macaron in front of her. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Part apology macaron, part celebration of the first day of school macaron, part welcome to Francoise Dupont macaron, all rolled into one confectionary creation!" A part of her wished that she had tried harder to exude an energy of "Don't bother me if you don't want a black eye," but then she ate the macaron and decided that it tasted good enough for her to be fine with it all; it was an understatement of how tasty it was, but it was good enough for what was transpiring. "So your French has a bit of an accent to it. I'm guessing you moved here from somewhere?"

"Yeah. The ol' US of A."

"Wow, that's so cool! I've always wanted to go to America and check out the fashion scene there!" In a less excited tone, the pigtailed girl pointed at her and asked, "Speaking of, do all kids in America tattoo their face like that?"

"Hm?" It took Jolyne a second to realize that the pigtailed girl was talking about the pink star over her left eye. "This is just facepaint; I'm not so bold that I'd want to tattoo my face, you know. My arm, though, that's a different story." Going right along with that, she rolled up her jacket sleeve and put her arm on the desk so the pigtailed girl could get a full look at her tattoo of a butterfly with a dagger in place of the body. The sound of her arm slamming against the desk had made the pigtailed girl jump, and trying to look at her tattoo made her shake like a leaf. "What? A little body art too much for you? Are all French girls like that, or is it just you?"

"I-I don't feel like either answer makes anyone look good," the pigtailed girl stammered out. If her tattoo and facepaint were that powerful, she could only imagine what would happen if she saw her belly button ring; the girl would probably have a heart attack on the spot. Something to think about for the future, she supposed. "By the way, it's pretty late to say it now, but I'm—"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng." The pigtailed girl—Marinette Dupain-Cheng, evidently—jumped again as a girl slammed her hand down in front of her. She made zero effort to hide the snobbishness of her tone, and Jolyne could practically feel her eyes burning from all the yellow on her clothes and her nose melting from the copious amounts of spray tan she was wearing. "You're in my seat, you know."

"What? Chloe, this has always been my seat," Marinette said.

"Not anymore! New year, new seats, so move!" The one who said that was an orange-haired girl with thick glasses and a frumpy sweater vest; if there ever needed to be a frame of reference for a nerdy follower, one need look no further than that girl.

"Listen," Chloe said, "Adrien's coming today, and since he's sitting in the front row, that means I'm sitting right behind him. Your name's not on here, anyway, so stop feeling so attached to a block of wood, already."

"It's more than—Wait, who's Adrien?" Marinette asked. Chloe and her little hanger-on both laughed at her.

"He's only one of the most famous models in Paris who just so happens to be my best friend," Chloe said. She then turned away from Marinette to look at Jolyne, much to her annoyance, and said, "New Girl #2, if I were you, I'd move, too. I'm not just saying that so Sabrina can sit next to me because I honestly don't care where she sits." Sabrina frowned for about a millisecond. "This girl here is a walking disaster zone. Spend too much time around her, and you'll constantly have to put up with her breaking all of your stuff and getting crap all over your clothes, not to mention all the crazy excuses she'll have for it all! You'd be better off cavorting with New Girl #1 up front and leaving Dupain-Cheng to rot all alone where she can't hurt anyone with her own stupidity!"

Chloe and Sabrina were laughing like a couple of hyenas, and Marinette was doing a good job of making herself look like the rotting carcass they were about to devour. It was the second time today that someone was about to be killed right in front of Jolyne's eyes. First, it was the old man in the Hawaiian shirt who would have gotten run over by a bus had Jolyne not pulled him out of the way in time, and now it was this girl about to be killed on a spiritual level by a couple of annoying brats.

Jolyne didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for her father to drag her off to France, and she definitely didn't ask for people to constantly be in danger in front of her. French people needed to get better at defending themselves so Jolyne wouldn't be forced to do it for them. It happened when she pulled that old man out of traffic, and it happened again right then and there with Jolyne pulling a sharpie out of her bag and writing Marinette's name on the backrest of her seat.

"Well, there you go. Her name's on it, so I guess you can't say anything, right?" Jolyne asked. Marinette, Sabrina, and various onlookers stared at her with mouths agape while Chloe looked like she had just stepped in a freshly made dog turd; it was the best she had looked in the forty-seven seconds Jolyne had known her.

"You have some—Do you know who my daddy is?" Chloe asked.

"The unluckiest bastard in the world for having the misfortune of siring you?" Chloe pouted and went red like a tomato, which got progressively bigger as Marinette and other kids started laughing at her.

"Okay, would anyone mind telling me what's going on?" The one who asked that was her teacher whose name she couldn't exactly place, a redheaded woman in a blue pantsuit, who had walked up from the front of the class when the laughter had reached its peak.

"Ms. Bustier, Marinette and the new girl are being rude, utterly rude! First Marinette refuses to change seats with me, even though all I wanted to do was make sure my best friend wouldn't have a hard time getting used to going to school for the first time in his life, and then! And then the new girl started making fun of me and my dad, the mayor of Paris, you know, and she even defaced school property!" Chloe pointed at Jolyne's writing through her crocodile tears.

"Jolyne, did you do this?" Ms. Bustier asked.

"Technically, yes, but literally everything else she said is nothing but a pack of lies!" Jolyne said. She turned to Marinette and said, "Come on, back me up!"

"W-Well, most of it's an exaggeration, anyway," Marinette said, making zero effort to look Ms. Bustier in the eye. Jolyne had forgotten who she was dealing with, and now she was paying the price.

"I don't know everything about what's been going on with you three, but it's not continuing like this," Ms. Bustier. "Marinette, please find another seat, at least until Chloe's friend arrives and can give his own opinion about the seating arrangements, and Jolyne, report to the principal's office, immediately. I don't know how things are done in America, but I don't believe for a second that they let people deface school property like you did."

"Are you serious?" Jolyne asked. "This bleach-blonde brat's the one who started it, and we're the ones in trouble for not taking her crap?"

"Jolyne Cujoh, instead of worrying about Chloe, you should be worrying about doing what I told you before you make things even worse for yourself."

Ms. Bustier walked back to the front of the class. Marinette went back to looking sorry for herself, Chloe and Sabrina went back to looking like they were on top of the world, and while Jolyne couldn't see herself, she knew that she looked ready to punch someone.

"Well, guess you know how things work now, Cujoh," Chloe said. "I'm the one calling the shots around here, so don't even think about crossing me again if you want to—"

Jolyne stood up from her seat, and Chloe's ranting was replaced wat unintelligent stammering. Jolyne had a high sitting posture, so Chloe had to have known that she was tall, but she probably didn't expect her to have a good foot of height over her, and that was enough to make her forget whatever stupid remark she was going to spit out.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll be up here whenever you decide to think of something." Jolyne left after that. On the surface, it appeared that she had withdrawn cooly, but inside, she was fuming. One of the rare moments in Jolyne's life where she actually tried to help someone other than herself or her mom, and it was somehow so easy for it to be twisted around to make her the bad guy. It was infuriating; it got more and more infuriating with every step she took across the school, and it all boiled over when she flung open the door to the principal's office so hard that the doorknob nearly cracked the wall.

"What in the—Miss, didn't anyone ever teach you how to knock?" In front of Jolyne was principal Damocles, a portly old man with a thick beard who was hastily putting away a volume of Pink Dark Boy. "Go back out and do it again. Prove to me that you have some manners."

"No," Jolyne said.

"Why I nev—You're the transfer student from America, aren't you? I didn't want to believe the stereotypes about rude Americans, but you're not exactly helping your case, young lady. I'm calling your father, right now!" So they were at that point in the routine, it seemed. Jolyne rolled her eyes as Principal Damocles pulled out her file and dialed her father's number. He sat there for a few seconds drumming his fingers on his desk before spending a minute talking about how her father needed to do something about her "unruly delinquent" of a daughter. He hung up the phone and said, "I had to leave a message, but when your father hears it—"

"He won't, you know," Jolyne interjected. "That shitty excuse for a father, he dragged me all the way to Paris away from my friends and my mom because he said he wanted us to get closer, but the second we got here, he dropped me off at some apartment all by myself to go look at seahorses in Germany, or some shit, and I've barely heard from him since. If he can't take the time to pay attention to his own daughter, then why the hell would he give you the time of day?"

Jolyne was given an in-school suspension for the rest of the day. It wasn't as if she was stupid enough to have expected any different, of course.


The first day of school had a lot of things that Marinette had expected it to have. As per usual, Chloe had gone out of her way to pick on her while everyone just stood back and watched which, naturally, led to a situation where she was somehow the one getting in trouble with Ms. Bustier instead of Chloe. It had become routine after so many years, and while routines sometimes reached a point where a person could enjoy them, if only reluctantly, she had a hard time imagining that her particular routine would ever plateau in such a way.

There was a rare bright spot in her day, however: Marinette, for the first time in her life, might have made genuine friends. One of them was Alya Cesaire, one of the transfer students who she ended up sitting next to after her morning encounter with Chloe. Marinette barely knew Alya, but she had wasted no time in asking Marinette about what Chloe's problem was, and the second they had a break between classes, she stomped over to Chloe's desk and told her that she wasn't going to push people around anymore while she was around. Chloe barely registered her, but Marinette couldn't believe that someone who had been in her class for an hour was doing more than people who had been in her class for years.

Alya wasn't the first to do that, though, and that brought her to her other possible friend: the other transfer student, Jolyne Cujoh. Like Alya, Jolyne wasn't afraid to stand up to Chloe, and she even stood up to Ms. Bustier when one of her peacekeeping attempts devolved into another instance of Chloe getting her way. It was the same as what Alya would do, but unlike her, Jolyne didn't even act like she was trying to do something nice, and that was part of what made her so cool to Marinette. She was also really tall, beating out all the girls by thirty to forty centimeters, her hair was exotic with how it had a braid and was styled with buns and green bangs, her facepaint and tattoo frightened her in sort of a good way, and she even wore a big blue jacket with spiderwebs on it that melded well with her muscular build.

Now on her lunch break, Marinette did her best to not get caught up in thinking about potential first-time friends or the hows and whys of certain details about Jolyne she kept circling back to. Certainly, definite items on her to-do list were to do what she could to solidify a friendship with them before they realized how much of a loser she was and to properly thank Jolyne for being the first person to ever help her, but she had a far more pressing matter to deal with that had brought her to the cafe down the street from her home.

"Good to see you didn't get cold feet." Jean Pierre Polnareff sat at a table in the back sipping a cup of coffee.

"Same; I thought for sure I would, but I guess the part of me that understands how important this is was able to push out the part of me that was too scared to follow through," Marinette said. "I think school helped, too. There was this new girl in my class who was big and kind of scary, but in a good way, whatever that means, and she was so nice to me and that's made me feel the happiest about school in forever and—" Marinette took one look at Polnareff and saw him furrow his brow. "I'm talking too much, aren't I? I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Usually, the people I work with aren't much for conversation, so I was caught a little off guard, is all. Now sit, sit," Polnareff said. Marinette did as he requested and sat down. There was a chicken sandwich in front of her. Polnareff must have ordered it for her, and it made her realize that she hadn't brought anything for lunch nor had she brought money to buy something at school, so she happily took a few bites in the hopes of calming herself a little more. "So, are you ready to talk?"

"Yes! I'm ready to—" Marinette brushed off bits of chicken stuck to her face. "I'm ready to talk. Please tell me everything you can about curses." As if on a cue, Silver Chariot manifested behind Polnareff. Marinette felt herself losing some of her confidence, but she knew it was too late for her to leave. She needed to know about curses, and she couldn't imagine another chance for it to happen than now.

"Well, for starters, this isn't a curse." Not the start she had expected. "It's common for some people to see it as such, but if we're being technical, this is called a Stand."

"A Stand? Because it, I don't know, stands next to you?" Marinette asked.

"Exactly. A Stand is a manifestation of a person's spiritual energy, their will, their soul. How a person obtains a Stand and the powers they possess are varied, but they can always be considered an extension of your inner psyche."

"So you're a weird-looking knight, deep down?"

"It's a little more complicated than that, but I was quite the dashing fencer back in the day." Marinette had a bit of a laugh. She was in the middle of learning vital, life-changing information, so it was good that she was able to balance that with even a little bit of levity. "What does yours say about you, then?" With that, all of the levity was gone.

"What do you mean?" Marinette asked.

"Don't play dumb, Marinette. Touching Silver Chariot was one thing, but the things you've been saying and the fact that you could see it at all means one thing and one thing only: you're a Stand user, too."

Marinette stared at Silver Chariot for a few seconds before going back to her sandwich. A part of her knew that the conversation would get to that point sooner or later, but another, less rational part had hoped that something would happen to keep them from talking about it, at all. A fire breaking out in the cafe, a giant monster forcing them all to go back to their homes, Jagged Stone and Trish and the Wannabees doing a spontaneous joint concert that she would be invited to, anything at all that could put something like this off for ideally forever.

"Come on, bring it out."

"I-I can't," Marinette said. She finished her sandwich, so there wasn't anything left to reasonably distract her from talking and the situation at hand.

"Look, this is awkward for me, too. Stand users, even those who are friends, don't just whip 'em out at the drop of a hat. After all, a Stand is like your asshole; you don't just go around showing it off to people." As Marinette pondered how she was meant to process that, Polnareff said, "Still, the whole point of this is to help you, and I can't do that if I don't know what I'm working with, so go ahead and show me."

"I just said I can't!" Marinette said. In a quieter voice, she said, "Do you know why I thought that thing was a curse? Because for my whole life, all it's ever done is cause me and everyone around me trouble. I-I can stop it from coming out if I focus hard enough, but I can't do anything once it's out, and I'm done letting it hurt people, okay?"

Polnareff sat there, staring at Marinette with the same stoicism he had been using since she first met him, though with a hint of something else. Disappointment, perhaps? She understood that he had his own way of dealing with things, but she had her own way, as well, and that was avoiding the issue for as long as possible. Just knowing a little more about what was going on with her life should have been enough, and she hoped that he could accept that.

"Well, if that's how you're going to be, then I guess I have to kill you." Polnareff was calm as he made his statement and took a slow sip of his coffee. There was a genuine air of serenity coming off of him, which was why it took Marinette so long to register what he said.

"Did—Did you just say you have to kill me?"

"I belong to a secret organization dedicated to neutralizing Stand users and other supernatural phenomena. When we meet new Stand users, we either conscript them into our ranks or eliminate them as soon as possible."

"What?"

"I was trying to do the former, but if you're so cowardly that you won't even summon your Stand, then you're of no use to us."

"What?"

"Don't feel too bad, kid. If your Stand is as dangerous as you say, then you're doing the world a favor by letting me get rid of it. Feel content knowing that you can die something of a hero."

"H-Hey, hold on! Y-You're not serious, right? All this stuff about killing me—I mean, even if you're telling the truth about being some kind of magic assassin, you don't have to kill me, right? Everything should be fine so long as I never use my Stand, right?" At that point, every fiber of Marinette's being was telling her to run away, but the terror surging through her system was so great that she couldn't find it in her to do anything but plead her case.

Her pleads fell on deaf ears as Silver Chariot slammed her head against the table and tilted it up so that she could see its blade being placed mere centimeters away from her eye.

"I just want you to know that I don't take any joy from this," Polnareff said. "Killing people is a dirty business, and it's not something that any decent person should take pleasure in. Still, it's something that has to be done from time to time, and now's one of those times. Well, c'est la vie."

Silver Chariot pulled its sword arm back as Polnareff spat out that lie and jutted it towards her eye. That was not life. It couldn't be. Life couldn't be her dying just because she didn't want to use a crazy superpower she didn't even want. Life couldn't be her dying without even knowing what sort of lie her killer would spin for her parents to cover it up, if any at all. Life couldn't be her dying without her getting even one friend and not having a chance to properly thank one of the only people to ever help her in her life. Her life didn't amount to much, but it had to amount to more than that, at least.

One rejection of reality after another piled up inside of Marinette's head, and all of a sudden, there was a spark of energy surging through every corner of her body. It rose without abandon, and before Silver Chariot could stab her, it burst out of her in the form of a red fist deflecting the attack and pinning it against the wall.

"Bon sang," Marinette spat as she jumped out of her seat. "You wanted to see it for yourself? Well, here it is. Happy?" Floating in the air next to Marinette was a muscular, red-skinned woman with a stern expression on her face. Blue hair flowed down her back and her eyes were obscured by a coolie hat with colors and accessories resembling a ladybug. Her body was additionally adorned by shoulder pads made of bamboo, four-leaf clovers on the back of each hand that each glowed a bright green, a slot machine across her chest, and a tattoo of a black rooster-like creature with a flaming tail breathing fire on her back.

This was what Polnareff was trying so hard to bring out. This was the curse—the Stand—of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

"Not bad," Polnareff said, "but not good enough!" Silver Chariot swung its sword arm and cut across her Stand's stomach. All of a sudden, Marinette felt like someone just drew a knife across her stomach and fell back a bit, her Stand doing the same. "Forgot to mention it, but any pain a Stand feels is reflected on the user, and vice-versa. It looks like your Stand is a power-type, so it's stronger than my Chariot, but with speed and experience on my side, I don't plan on losing here!"

"Yeah? Well, neither do I!" Marinette's Stand clapped her hands, and one by one, the leaf on each clover dimmed in color and stopped glowing. Polnareff had no reaction as Silver Chariot lunged at Marinette's Stand for another attack, and she didn't move to dodge or counter. Not because she was scared, which even caught her off guard a bit, but because she had everything she needed to win already set up for her, and it started with her Stand clapping her hands and the waiter bringing out a hot fudge sundae for someone up front.

All of a sudden, the waiter tripped on an untied shoelace, and the sundae flew out of his hands and into Polnareff's face. Polnareff started spitting out ice cream and rubbing his eye as the hot fudge burned him slightly, and in his confusion, he toppled out of his chair and onto the floor. The impact of his shoulder against the hardwood floor was replicated in Silver Chariot and pushed its lunge off course. Its attack missed Marinette's Stand by a hair, and Marinette's Stand used that opportunity to punch Silver Chariot hard in the face and send it careening into the floor.

Any feeling of elation Marinette might have allowed herself to experience was nipped in the bud by Silver Chariot quickly jumping off the floor and putting its sword to her Stand's neck. It wasn't pressing into anything, but Marinette could feel the pressure of the weapon against her skin, one good thrust being all it needed to tear through her windpipe. She had thought her last move was a good one, but now all of the good fortune she had built up had gone back into Polnareff, and there wasn't an opportunity to build it back up, not even from using herself. Marinette was at Polnareff's mercy as he pushed his hands against the floor and vaulted himself into the air and quickly picked his wheelchair back up before landing in it. She needed to be prepared for his next move, whatever it may be.

"Bravo! Oh, bravo!" Polnareff said in English while clapping his hands. Marinette couldn't imagine ever being prepared for that, and she definitely wasn't prepared for Silver Chariot suddenly fading away.

"What? What? I mean, what?" There were probably more things that Marinette could say, but nothing was coming to mind.

"Excuse me, sir, if you're feeling fine after that fall you just took, then I would suggest that you pay the check and leave." That was what one of the waiters said as he entered the scene before Marinette could ask Polnareff for an explanation. "You and the young miss are bothering the other customers with all of the noise you're making, and there's been a lot of chatter and suspicion about what's going on here ever since you started talking about assholes. While I'm sure you had a perfectly good reason to bring up assholes with a fourteen-year-old—"

"Fifteen," Marinette interjected.

"—fifteen-year-old girl, it's not a good look, in any situation, so you should probably leave before someone decides to call the police."

"Huh. Yeah, that makes sense," Polnareff said. "Well, let's go before things get bad." Silver Chariot reappeared to wheel Polnareff out of the cafe, and Marinette, still not understanding what was happening, followed him outside and tracked him to the far end of the street.

"Hey! You! What are you—Why aren't you trying to kill me, anymore?" Marinette asked the second she caught up with Polnareff.

"Do you want me to?" Polnareff asked. Marinette didn't know what she stammered out in response to that, but it hardly counted as words. "I got what I wanted out of you, so now we're done fighting."

"What do you—" Suddenly, it all clicked for Marinette. "Was this all some kind of crazy test?"

"A friend of mine went through a similar situation as you when he was around your age," Polnareff said. "He had a hard time controlling his Stand to the point that he got himself arrested so he wouldn't hurt anyone, so another friend of mine attacked him in order to make him bring out his Stand and get a handle on it. That's what I was doing here, and it worked, didn't it? You thought that your Stand was some uncontrollable curse, but you were so focused on protecting yourself that you didn't even realize you had taken control of it."

Marinette turned her head to her left and her Stand appeared before her. The words Polnareff was saying had put the thought in her head, but looking at her Stand had actualized it and made it something she could think in earnest: she was in control. She was in control of her Stand, and therefore, she was in control of herself.

"Ever since I was a kid, this thing had been causing me trouble," Marinette said. "Anyone who was around me would always have something bad happen to them, and all the other kids would look at me like I was a jinx. I tried to tell them that it wasn't my fault, that there was some weird monster making bad luck happen to them, but that just made them think I was crazy. Chloe even tried to get her dad to—" Marinette shook her head; she didn't want to remember that, right now. "But it was never a curse; it was something I had power over the entire time. To think that if I had been even a little stronger, I could have—"

Before she knew it, Marinette had started crying. This was something she wanted to be happy about, it made sense to be happy about it, but it didn't feel like tears of joy. Rather, it was as if the tears had sprung up in response to how disappointed she felt in herself for not being able to figure it out before now.

As if responding to her emotions, her Stand patted her on the head. There were no words from her, but Marinette could understand the messages it was trying to convey: "I didn't mean to hurt you;" "I just wanted to help you;" "You didn't do anything wrong; you're a good girl." They were all things of that nature, and they did do a lot to calm her heart.

"See? If even your Stand is telling you to go easy on yourself, then a part of you has to get it, right?" There was nothing that needed to be said in response to Polnareff.


Jolyne's first day of school in Paris had gotten off to an odd start. It wasn't odd because she got in trouble before class had even started; it would have been weirder if she hadn't, especially when it happened because she had the audacity to help someone. It also wasn't odd that she was able to get along with someone, although she had to admit that she didn't expect to talk to someone as upbeat and nice as Marinette; the Hell Riders would probably laugh at her if they ever found out, so it was good that they were thousands of miles away.

What had made it odd was that the day was cut short because of a monster suddenly attacking the school. One minute, Jolyne was trying to pass the time in suspension by thinking of different things she could shove Chloe's head into, and the next, Principal Damocles in on the intercom telling everyone to go home because a giant stone monster was on a rampage. For the life of her, Jolyne couldn't remember ever hearing anything about Paris having problems with supervillains, but she knew that there weren't any superheroes like the United HeroeZ or the Ninja in Oklahoma, so she had no idea how anyone was going to deal with it.

It was a good thing that it wasn't her problem, then. Random monsters attacking a city she didn't even want to be in didn't mean anything to her; school was closed because of it, so if anything, she was thankful for the monster showing up. She didn't have to worry about passing time in the library anymore because now she could worry about passing time in the comfort of her new home. Her big, empty apartment that, to the surprise of no one, was completely empty when she returned to it that afternoon.

"Might as well have stayed at school, even if it'd get me squashed by a giant monster," Jolyne said to no one. With a sigh, she threw her bag against the kitchen island with no plans in mind for the rest of the day; she could see herself settling down with one of her baseball games, but she wanted to believe that she could do better than that.

Jolyne was taken out of her head as she heard a thud in the kitchen. She hadn't been paying much attention, but she was sure that there was nothing on the kitchen island when she left for school that day, so she shouldn't have knocked anything over. It was probably nothing, maybe a fork or one of her dad's plastic dolphins, but she should still pick it up, either way.

"What the hell?" Imagine Jolyne's surprise, then, when she discovered a small black box with an intricate red design on the top. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the box to find a pair of earrings patterned like a ladybug. She knew that the earrings didn't belong to her or her dad, since they were nowhere near flashy enough for either one of them, but before she could wonder who they belonged to and where they came from, a pink ball of light shot out of the earrings that nearly blinded her and made her drop the box.

"Hail 2 U! That is, to say, it's nice to meet you, Jolyne Cujoh." The ball of light had turned into a tiny creature with the colors and patterns of a ladybug and a bulbous head that was speaking to Jolyne as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "My name is Tikki, and I—"

Of course, Jolyne didn't hesitate to swat the thing to the ground.

"Hey! Don't do that!" Tikki said as it floated back up into the air.

"Ah, it's still alive! This gross thing is still alive!" Jolyne said.

"I'm not—Please, just—" Before Tikki could finish, Jolyne grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and smacked it again, but it was completely fine, once again. "Listen to me, I—" Jolyne then wrapped Tikki up in the magazine.

"Okay, I'm gonna flush this thing down the toilet, and that'll be the end of it."

"That's enough!" Tikki somehow phased through the magazine and got up in Jolyne's face, looking like she was ready to explode. "I know that you're confused by all of this, but you need to calm down and listen to what I have to say! Right! Now!"

Jolyne had no interest in doing that, but since Tikki could phase through things and was possibly immortal, there didn't seem to be anything she could do about it, so she leaned against the kitchen island and told Tikki to talk while still keeping the magazine in her hands.

"As I was trying to say, my name is Tikki, and I am a Kwami, a being of phenomenal cosmic power who embodies a concept of the universe. My specific concept is creation, and you, Jolyne Cujoh, have been chosen to wield my power and protect the city of Paris from danger."

"Uh-huh. So you want me to be a superhero, or something? Why?" Jolyne asked.

"Honestly, I'm asking that, myself." Jolyne raised the magazine, and Tikki quickly said, "But if you were chosen to be my master, then that must mean you have the virtues of a true hero! Yes, I'll just keep believing that, for now."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should find someone else to work with, then. I'm not exactly here in Paris because I was a good samaritan back home."

"There's no time for that, not when evil is already afoot! One of my fellow Kwami, Nooroo, has been captured by an evil figure and is being forced to use his power of transmission to corrupt the hearts of innocents!"

"That has nothing to do with—" Jolyne paused, thinking about what Tikki just said, and then said, "Is that the kind of thing that could make a giant monster appear out of nowhere?"

"Yes! If it's already started, then we need to get moving!"

"Forget it. Someone else can take care of this, it doesn't have to be me. Not like I'd even be good enough to be a superhero, anyway." Jolyne made the second statement as quietly as she could.

"Please, Jolyne, there's no one else who can do it! My opposite, the Kwami of destruction, Plagg, was also given a master to deal with this, but they won't be able to fight alone!"

"They could try."

"Would you just—Even if you don't care about this city or Nooroo or your partner, think about all the people who could get hurt by you doing nothing! Doesn't that mean anything?"

No, no it doesn't, Jolyne thought. It was the truth. She had been in Paris for barely a week, after all. She hardly knew anyone in Paris aside from two people, both of whom could take care of themselves, and one of them wasn't anywhere near her, as usual. Her half-day at school didn't add anything to that, either, only giving her more people for her to dislike and not care that much about whether or not a monster squashed them flat. The only exception to that had been Marinette, the one person who had been nice to her since she had come to Paris, maybe even since the screw-up that got her dragged off to Paris in the first place.

"Yare yare dawa. I guess that's enough for me, then? Sure, she wasn't just a pretty face, but still."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I take it you're in?" Tikki asked. Jolyne nodded her head and Tikki said, "Great! Grab my Miraculous off the floor and we can get to work!"

"Miraculous? Oh, the earrings, duh," Jolyne said. "Say, would whatever it is I'm about to do work if I put these things in my belly button?"

"Do not put them there! Do not!" Jolyne was only half-serious, but either way, she picked up the earrings—which had now changed colors to be a light green—and put them in her ears. "Now then, the monster you talked about was akumatized by Nooroo's power. It'll have something on or near its person that controls its power. You need to destroy it and release a black butterfly called an akuma, and then you need to capture it with your weapon to purify it."

"Weapon? Like a gun or a sword or something?"

"Yeah, sure, something like that. You can also cast your Lucky Charm to summon something that will help you in the fight, but be careful with that, because you'll run out of power and detransform after five minutes. Finally, when the fight is done, use Miraculous Ladybug to sacrifice the item summoned by your Lucky Charm to fix all the damage caused in the fight. Do you got all that?"

"I think so? Seems like the kind of thing I'll have to figure out in the moment."

"Good enough. Now, just say, 'Tikki, spots on' to activate the power of the Miraculous, and say, 'Spots off' to deactivate it. Good luck, Jolyne."

"Probably gonna need it. Tikki, spots on." As soon as the words left her mouth, Tikki flew into one of Jolyne's earrings, and Jolyne was enveloped in bright pink light. It faded after a few seconds, and Jolyne could feel that something was different about her, so she ran to a window to view her reflection and see what had changed.

For starters, her braid had come undone to let her hair flow down her back, with the inside of it, along with her bangs, now colored pink. Her belly button ring had vanished, as did the birthmark on her shoulder, and pink hearts now sat in the areas both of them once were, one on her stomach and a trail circling her neck. Her shirt had changed into a midriff top with five points stretching around her upper body—one around her neck, two around her shoulders, and two around her stomach—that converged onto a golden butterfly emblem in the center of her back, and a glove had appeared on her arm that went up to where her tattoo was. Her pants had turned into skintight tights with holes on the hips, and a thick belt hung diagonally on her hips with a star-shaped buckle and a yo-yo, of all things, hanging on the end of it. The one common link between her clothes was that they were all red with black dots like a ladybug, the same as the domino mask on her face.

"Well, damn. This is something else," Jolyne said as she looked over herself with a smile. "Okay, time to do superhero shit, I guess. I should probably know where to go, first."

Jolyne turned on the TV in the center of the apartment and flipped through the channels until she got to a news station. Just as she had hoped, the supervillain, apparently named Stoneheart, was being covered, and he had chased someone—a boy from her class, if she was seeing right—into the Parc des Princes. With a destination now known, Jolyne opened up her window, jumped out into the air, and—as if on instinct—pulled off her yo-yo and swung it out like a whip to coil around a flag pole and propel her forward, the action repeated over and over again to let Jolyne swing across the city.

Jolyne couldn't stop herself from laughing. Swinging through the air the way she was, nothing in her way and an entire city underneath her, it all made a wave of euphoria wash over her. Back home in America, Jolyne always got a thrill from riding her motorcycle, especially when she did it right after her father did something to make her mad, but it was nothing compared to this.

It was the happiest Jolyne had been since she had been dragged off to Paris, and unfortunately, it all came to an end the second she touched down on top of the Parc des Princes. She could see Stoneheart chasing around the boy from the news, and there was also another girl whom she vaguely recognized from her class videotaping the whole thing from a distance.

"What the hell? That moron's gonna get herself killed," Jolyne said.

"Then I guess we got here just in time." Jolyne jumped back at the new voice and quickly adopted a defensive stance. "Whoa! I may be the kitty here, but I guess you got claws, too."

"Huh?" Jolyne took a good look at the person in front of her and saw that it was a blonde boy dressed in all black leather holding a silver staff. His green eyes were shaped like a cat's eyes, there was a silver bell at his neck, a black belt around his waist fashioned like a tail, a pair of black cat ears on top of his head, and as if to fully sell the theme, he was smiling just like a cat. "I'm guessing you're my would-be partner, then?"

"Guess the cat's outta the bag," the cat boy said in a tone that made it sound like he thought he said the funniest thing in the world. "You can call me Cat Noir. You got a name, partner?"

"Nope, and I don't think there's time for that, right now."

"Yeah, I guess the giant monster is the more purr-essing matter, so let's put your name on paws, for now."

"Don't think I won't slap you, man." Cat Noir stopped talking, and the two of them jumped down into the stadium to knock the boy aside just as Stoneheart was about to flatten him with his fist.

"Okay, get out of here, already," Jolyne said. The boy quickly thanked her before running for the exit.

"Kim!" Stoneheart shouted. It made chase for Kim, but Cat Noir extended his staff and hit it in the face to stop it from running off.

"What, we're not good enough for you? Stoneheart, I'm hurt," Cat Noir said. At the same time, Stoneheart seemed to increase in size while looking no worse for wear from the attack. "You aren't, though."

"That might be a problem," Jolyne said. Stoneheart roared and started swiping at them with more speed than she had expected. They were both able to dodge its attacks, but staying in close quarters wasn't going to do them any good, so she needed to break free. Jolyne bobbed and weaved between swings to dive between Stoneheart's legs, and it hit itself in the knee trying to grab her. Cat Noir followed, and she then wrapped her yo-yo around its legs to slam it down to the ground; Stoneheart grew in size again, but at the very least, they were able to get away.

"Okay, so let's think about what we can do," Jolyne said as the two of them retired into a goal and Stoneheart picked itself back up. "His right hand has been closed since we got here, so I bet the akumatized object is in there. How do we get it out, though? Hitting him just makes him bigger, and I don't know if it's good to see if this is one of those things where he'll explode if he gets too big."

"Looks like we'll have to start using our powers; I'll go first. Cataclysm!" At Cat Noir's command, his right hand was enveloped in black light. Jolyne assumed that was his power of destruction, but she had no idea what he was going to do with it when Stoneheart was so far away from them.

"Check this out." She didn't expect him to try and needlessly destroy the goal they were standing in, but she managed to grab him before he could.

"What the hell are you doing? Don't just waste your power on something stupid like this!" Jolyne said.

"Just wanted to show you what I can do. Then again, since I'm gonna run out of power in five minutes, I probably do only get one shot at this."

"You didn't even—You are a special kind of dumbass, you know that?"

"I do what I can," Cat Noir said. It was even harder for Jolyne to resist the urge to slap him, but as Stoneheart started sauntering towards them, she needed to put her focus elsewhere.

"Okay, let's see if I'm getting dealt a good hand here. Lucky Charm!" Jolyne tossed her yo-yo into the air and it emitted a bright pink light, just like when she first transformed. Soon enough, the yo-yo came back to her hand, and in tandem with that came a pair of large ropes colored like a ladybug.

"I'm all up for a little double dutch, but I think those might be a little too big," Cat Noir said.

"Shut up and let me think," Jolyne said. Tikki said that Lucky Charm gave her something that would help her with her fight; that meant there had to be something she could do with the ropes, and she just needed to figure out what it was. They were ropes, so she could use them to tie something up, probably Stoneheart, but what could she do to make that happen? There was an inkling of an idea forming in her head, but it wasn't completely there yet.

"Hey, you think you can control how much you destroy with Cataclysm?"

"It's my power, so I don't see why not. You got a plan?" Now that he said that, she very well did have one. She whispered her idea into his ear and he smiled wide as he said, "You're the best kind of crazy, you know that?"

"I do now." Stoneheart had gotten dangerously close to them, but at the same time, Jolyne had finished tying the ropes to be a pair of lassos, so she was ready to put her plan into action. She wrapped her yo-yo around Cat Noir's legs and tossed him forward. She let him go right in front of Stoneheart and ran after him as he released the power of his Cataclysm into the ground. Cracks appeared between him and Stoneheart, and the second Stoneheart stepped forward to punch Cat Noir, the ground shattered like glass and Stoneheart fell into a giant hole that went up to his waist.

"No!" Stoneheart shouted. The impact from the fall made him grow even larger, but that just had the effect of squeezing him in tighter. "I'll pull myself out and squash you like a bug!"

"Sorry, but bugs are her department." Cat Noir took a step to the right and made room for Jolyne to run past him and jump behind Stoneheart with the large ropes in tow. The second Jolyne landed, she tossed the lassos around Stoneheart's wrists. Thanks to that, she was able to restrict enough to keep him from pulling himself out of the hole Cat Noir made, but there was more to her plan than just that.

And it all started when she pulled on one of the ropes to make Stoneheart punch himself in the face.

"I was thinking about it after I saw you hit yourself in the knee, and this confirms it: you won't grow if you hit yourself," Jolyne said. "You know, when I was making my way over here, I saw a hell of a lot of destruction, probably from you."

"Same here. You were a busy boy, weren't you?" Cat Noir asked.

"With those big, powerful arms of yours, I bet it was easy to break all the things—and probably people—that you did, but would it be as easy for them to break you? Let's find out." Stoneheart screamed and tried to force his way out of the hole, but Jolyne silenced him by pulling one of his fists back right into his face. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another.

"Oraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraoraora! Ora!" Jolyne screamed at the top of her lungs as Stoneheart's fists turned into a blur of punches against his face. She stopped when she stopped hearing Stoneheart trying to scream louder than her, and when she felt his arms go limp and his right hand open up to release a purple rock, she knew that it was over. Jolyne never knew that beating up a giant rock monster could feel so cathartic for everything that was happening in her life, but there she was, and she couldn't stop smiling because of it.

"Good to know I'm not the only one having fun here, partner," Cat Noir said as he crushed the purple rock with his foot. The black butterfly Tikki was talking about, the akuma, flew out of the rubble, and a wave of black light washed over Stoneheart as he turned into a heavyset boy with a dyed tuft of hair; both Jolyne and the boy fell onto the ground by the hole as a result of the transformation.

"Wait, isn't he—God, that's a lot of contrived crap," Jolyne said. "More importantly, the akuma. Tikki said I use my weapon to purify it, but how do I do it? Damn her for not telling me, and damn me for not asking." Jolyne poked and prodded her yo-yo in various spots and ways, and she finally got a reaction when she ran her finger across it. Doing so caused the top to open up like a pair of insect wings and reveal a glowing center.

With no better ideas, Jolyne swung her yo-yo at the akuma and watched it get sucked into the yo-yo. When the yo-yo flew back into her hands, Jolyne swiped her finger across it again, and when the yo-yo opened up, a pure white butterfly flew out into the air. If that wasn't a purified akuma, then she didn't know what was.

"Okay, now to fix all the stuff this guy broke." Jolyne grabbed her lassos and said, "Tikki said I'm supposed to use Miraculous Ladybug, but I don't know what—" All of a sudden, the ropes exploded into a massive swarm of ladybugs. The ladybugs flew over the hole, and a second later, it was as if there was never a hole, to begin with. They flew around the stadium for a bit before going into the air, presumably to fix any other damage Stoneheart had caused. "Really? It's that sensitive? Huh."

"Job well done, partner," Cat Noir said.

"Not so bad yourself, Cat Noir," Jolyne said. As the euphoria of her victory began to fade, she caught sight of a piece of paper where the purple rock once was. That had to be the original form of the akumatized object, and she picked it up to see a drawing of two cartoonish figures, a tall one and a fat one. The tall one appeared to be laughing at the fat one and saying, "You haven't even got the guts to tell Mylene you love her, wuss." "I'm guessing this is why you were trying to kill that Kim guy?"

"I was?" asked the boy who was once Stoneheart. "I didn't mean to, it's just—Kim's always making fun of people, and when he started going after me for this, I just lost it."

"Is that right? What's your name?"

"Ivan."

"Ivan, I got two words for you: Nut up." Cat Noir nearly fell over as Ivan stared at her with his mouth agape. "Nothing's gonna happen with this girl from you being a total wuss about everything, so grow a pair and make something happen, already. Besides, you just got turned into a giant monster that tried to kill someone, so it's not like anything worse can happen to you."

"I guess that's true?" Ivan didn't sound convinced, but it wasn't Jolyne's job to convince him of anything, so that was fine.

"You certainly have a way with words, milady," Cat Noir said with a smile she didn't much care for.

"If I were you, I'd get out of here before I tried them out on you."

"Yeah, might as well." Cat Noir held up his hand and showed the paw print on his ring vanishing as the ring beeped. "Pound it?" Cat Noir put out his fist and Jolyne met it with a glare. "Okay, maybe next time."

"Don't push your luck." Even with that, Cat Noir smiled as he extended his staff to massive proportions and vaulted himself out of the stadium. He was clearly good with his powers and weapon, so now he just needed to learn to not be so stupid with them.

"That was incredible!" All of a sudden, the girl Jolyne saw videotaping the fight was in front of Jolyne and sticking her camera in her face. "Amazing, spectacular, the ultimate of ultimates!"

"Why the hell are you still here? Did you have a death wish, or something?" Jolyne asked.

"So, are you and your Cat Noir Paris' official new heroes?" the girl asked, completely ignoring Jolyne. "Were you bitten by a radioactive ladybug? I've got so many questions for you, um, what's your name? I heard the boy was Cat Noir, but I didn't catch your name."

"God, you are so—" Jolyne stopped herself. She didn't like hearing the girl talk, but she had a point about how she should have a name; she didn't know how long she'd keep being a superhero, but for however long it lasted, it'd be easier if Cat Noir had something to refer to her by.

Jolyne looked over her body for something to use. Calling herself something related to ladybugs or the color red was right there, but that felt too easy for her, and she didn't think she could find a way to work her abs into a good name. Something that did catch her eye was how her top was sort of shaped like a star; it went along nicely with her belt buckle, and even if it wasn't visible in this form, it also connected to her family birthmark.

"Lucky Star. If you need to call me something, then call me Lucky Star," was the declaration Jolyne made.

"You heard it here first, everyone! Paris has its first superheroes, and their names are Lucky Star and Cat Noir! Cat Noir already flew the coop, but I've still got Lucky Star to answer all my questions for—"

Jolyne ran away from her as fast as she could.


"Huh? What do you do now? Just because you have a Stand doesn't mean that you have to do anything with it. You have it under control now, so just be happy with that." After Marinette had calmed down a little, she had asked Polnareff what she had to do now, and that was the quick response he gave her. It deflated the vast majority of the tension that persisted in the air between them, but it wasn't as if she had a reason to argue with him about it. Even if her Stand was good for something other than causing her stress, that didn't mean it was an automatic call for adventure. She was a normal girl in every other way, so she could just keep living like that, even if there was something about that that felt disappointing.

Regardless, Polnareff and Marinette exchanged numbers in case Marinette needed anything from Polnareff, and Marinette went back to school after Polnareff put an odd amount of emphasis on how she shouldn't try to stress out her mother. That didn't last long, however, as school was abruptly closed thanks to a stone monster suddenly attacking; it was an utterly bizarre turn of events, and it even kept her from finding Jolyne and properly thanking her.

What followed that was an even stranger turn of events. With it being the first supernatural incident in Paris in who knew how long and the first supernatural incident since the mass delusion event in Rome six years ago, all of the major news channels were covering the event, and that was how Marinette saw the debut of two genuine Parisian superheroes: Lucky Star and Cat Noir. The way they moved without fear and fought against the monster without a trace of hesitation had a hypnotic effect on her; they were the coolest, bravest people Marinette had ever seen, and they were in action just a bike ride away from her home.

The way that Marinette liked watching them made her ask herself something: was that what she wanted to do? The second she realized that she could control her Stand, something impulsively told her that she needed to be doing something, anything with it, but she didn't have a clue what that was until she watched Lucky Star make Stoneheart punch the living daylights out of himself. Did she want to use her Stand to be some sort of costumed crime fighter? To use her gifts to give back to the world in some way? To prove to everyone, especially herself, that she was more than just a clumsy jinx?

It was a lot to think about, but for now, Marinette had the urge to do some sewing. On her way to her material, one of her socks became loose and caused her to trip and bang her face against the ladder to her loft bed. That was all she needed to know that, unfortunately, her bad luck wasn't entirely on her Stand.