Once again, for what little sanity I have left, this takes place between Miraculous Migraine and whatever the fuck I decide to call the next season.
PROLOGUE
"Stay!"
Long ago in the primordial pre-twitter era of 2005, a mighty Guardian stood in a sacred cave, ready to fight. Before him was the prison of one of the most destructive evils known to mankind. This evil was called the Prodigious and it was sealed behind an enchanted door that could only be opened in the light of the magical eclipse.
"Staaaaay… Stay!" Wu Shifu scolded the mystical portal again.
The demonic lion-man in the rainbow cake whimpered, rolled on its spiked back, and wagged its many barbed tails.
"No walkies. No! Stay!"
This epic duel of masters carried on for hours until the last sliver of blood-red light of the magical eclipse vanished. The demon lion-man gave one last whine before it was trapped back in the spongy dessert of the Earth's crust. The world was safe once again. Wu Shifu retrieved his jade bracelet from the wall and stroked the jewel with reverence.
"And that, class," he said, "is the true purpose of kung-fu."
Behind him, his potential students exchanged dumbfounded looks. "So, it's not about inner peace, kickass moves, or whatever?" one asked. "It's ancient Chinese cat-sitting?"
"Precisely!" Wu Shifu answered proudly. "Now, who is ready to live in squalor and give up their social lives and the internet in order to dedicate the rest of their years to guarding this wall?"
He faced them, eager to teach all he knew.
Everybody was gone.
"Oh… gán."
The lion-man stuck his head out of the cake-wall. "Whoops, did I come on a little strong?" it asked. "Does this mean I don't get my snacks?"
"No, no, Mei-Shi, you were great." Wu Shifu tossed the beast the usual bribe of Reese's peanut-butter cups. "Today's youth are just blinded by the false need for technology and friends. I have to take a different approach. I'm sure I can find at least one student."
Wu Shifu couldn't find even one student and his school of kung-fu fell on hard times. Word spread quickly about the true purpose of kung-fu and nobody was willing to give up indoor plumbing for that crap. Months were spent on the street by Wu Shifu, trying to entice the young and stupid into throwing their lives away. There were no takers.
Until one night…
"Baby here! Get your free baby here!"
Wu Shifu dropped his dinner and roundhouse kicked open the door. "Free baby? I'll take him!" he quickly said and nabbed the swaddle of blankets out the stranger's hands.
"Ha! Joke's on you, dumbass!" the stranger cackled as they ran away. "He's a girl! No take-backs! One kid per family, sucker!"
But Wu Shifu didn't care that the baby was a girl. He was no longer alone. He finally had someone he could train in the arts of kung-fu. The man smiled lovingly at his new daughter and said, "I shall call you… Fei."
YEAR ONE:
"Ah! I just changed your diaper! How is it full again?!" Wu Shifu wailed.
Baby Fei only giggled at the torment she caused.
Wu Shifu gagged with admiration. "Such sadism will give you an advantage over the Prodigious."
YEAR THREE:
"Fei! Stop! Get down from there!" Wu Shifu cried as Fei waddled across the school's rooftop. "Kung-Fu Art! Legs of a Billion Frogs!" The man kung-fu-flipped up the building to save her, but by the time he landed the munchkin had already done a cannonball into the piranha pond. Wu Shifu screeched and dove in after her. He instantly became a chew toy while Fei kung-fu-flew out of the water.
Her dad nodded with pride at her feat. "Such athleticism will be key in fighting the Prodigious."
A piranha bit his dick.
YEAR SEVEN:
"Good, Fei, good," Wu Shifu commended as his daughter kung-fu-twirled and kung-fu-jabbed a bo staff. "Soon you will be strong enough to battle the Prodigious." Without realizing it, Fei accidentally thwacked her dad across the head and gave him a concussion.
YEAR NINE:
"This is necessary to fight the Prodigious and part of becoming a woman. It is called a training bra," Wu Shifu gently explained.
Fei winced as she adjusted the uncomfortable clothing. "Training bra? Like resistance training?" she asked, then suddenly glowed with excitement. "Does that mean my chest muscles are gonna get bigger than yours, dad?"
It was only thanks to decades of intense meditation that Wu Shifu was able to withhold his snicker. "...Yes, they will."
YEAR ELEVEN:
With solemn restraint and honor, Wu Shifu presented his sacred jade bracelet to Fei. "There will come a day, Fei," he said, "when you must face the Prodigious. This bracelet will be the key. When that day comes, I know you will be victorious."
"Whoa..." Fei gazed in awe at the green jewel that was carved into the face of a demonic lion. Then she said, "Dad, can I have friends?"
"NO!" Wu Shifu snapped the bracelet around the girl's wrist and shook her shoulders. "You can't have any fun! There is danger all around us! You must always train! Always be alert! Trust no one! The Prodigious could come at any time!"
"Any time?!" Fei gasped.
"Any time!"
"ANY TIME!"
YEAR TWELVE:
"Assassin!" Fei screamed into the night.
Wu Shifu kung-fu-barged through the door and saw his precious girl drenched in blood!
"Dad! Somebody tried to disembowel me in my sleep!" Fei pointed at the sticky red puddle on her bed.
Wu Shifu took a second and realized that only Fei's legs were bloody. He sighed in relief. There was no assassin, it was just time to start investing in tampons. Before he could hug his daughter and calmly give her the talk about Aunt Flo, the birds and the bees, and why girls should never put out on the first date, she ripped a guandao from the wall and waved it erratically.
"The Prodigious you've warned me about my entire life are here! We must kill them before they kill us!" she roared and kung-fu-charged out of the room. An errant swipe of her weapon conked her dad on the head and he collapsed. Another swipe smashed a lantern.
As the lantern's flame quickly spread, Wu Shifu rolled his eyes and managed to say, "I knew parenthood would be the death of me," before he passed out.
The building was engulfed but Fei didn't notice. She kept searching for Prodigious in the streets as the school burned down behind her.
The next day:
"I will find your killers and avenge our school, dad," Fei swore, the sadness in her heart weighed heavily. There was nothing left of the temple except for a few scarred walls. She lit some incense sticks before her dad's photo and began to pray to Karl Marx.
Behind her, the cops and their Communist-party-approved police geese (this is real, google it) cautiously approached through the ashen remains of what was left of her home. "We're very sorry for your loss, young comrade," the closest one said. One of the geese laid an egg in sympathy. "We can take you to a new home with food and shelter and love and—"
"PRODIGIOUS!" Fei screamed and opened a can of kung-fu-whoop-ass. When the rage subsided, she blinked down at the bodies. "Whoops, you're not Prodigious. Sorry."
The cops whose legs weren't broken fled and never came back.
YEAR SIXTEEN:
"Lalala, I love living on my own, lalala!" Fei sang as she swept a pile of ashes from Thursday's bucket into Friday's corner. "Tomorrow starts the weekend, dad," she said to the charred remains she'd shaped into a human— her only friend. "Perfect pickpocketing time. I'm so close. Soon I'll be able to afford to buy the identity of your killer. That's way more important than buying myself running water or a proper education or clean clothes."
The rancid homeless girl who reeked worse than the funk musk of two skunks in heat snuggled under her blanket of old newspapers and fell asleep. Moments later, a wild dog wandered by and gave her a sniff. Deciding she was not dead, despite the smell, the dog didn't eat her but instead took the jade bracelet from her wrist and waddled away.
Almost immediately Fei awoke with a kung-fu-gasp! She saw her barren wrist and cried, "My dad's gift! No! Where did it go?!" She frantically searched but found nothing.
BOOOM!
Suddenly, a deep rumble shook the ground, the night became day for a second, and Fei had to shield her eyes. When the brightness faded, Fei saw through the gaping hole that served as her bedroom window that the starlit sky was now a sickly shade of green. Green like her missing jade bracelet. Fei gasped in horror. "The Prodigious have struck again! They've not only stolen my only weapon, but they've tainted the world! You've gone too far! I will find you, Prodigious! Do you hear me?! I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
Behind the waterfall in the backyard, the Prodigious silently watched the crazy girl rant. Such a meager human was all that stood between them and the world. Pathetic. From their prison, the Prodigious grinned maliciously at the moon. They had no idea why the sky was now green, but that didn't matter. The magical eclipse would be here soon, and with it would come… The Cleansing.
MIRACULOUS CONCUSSION CINEMATIC UNIVERSE!
Movie 2: You Know What, Fuck China!
By: I Write Big
ACT ONE
MARINETTE CHEATS ON HER BOYFRIEND
Summer break!
Almost everywhere across the world, summer break is an amazing time for students. A time of joy, a time of celebration, a time of endless fun with friends that's greater than every birthday combined.
For Marinette, summer break was so much more…
The bluenette bounced her foot under her desk like a madwoman as she stared eternally at the clock. Less than thirty seconds to go.
"I hope you enjoy your summer break, class. I'll miss you all," Miss Bustier said, then sexily stroked her baby bump. "For one of you, it's your last summer before fatherhood. And remember, if anyone wants some summer tutoring, Lila and I will be here."
"I don't wanna stay!" Lila yelled and tried to wrench open the locked door. "I keep telling you that I don't want summer tutoring! I'm not lying! I'm not!" A whip snared the girl from head to toe. Miss Bustier dragged her back to her desk.
"My, my, Lila, I've never seen a student so eager to..." Miss Bustier licked her lips, "...learn."
BRIIIING! The schoolbell echoed through the building and Marinette leaped onto her chair.
"It's over!" she declared.
Confetti cannons fired! Glitter bombs exploded! "School's Out" by Alice Cooper began playing full blast over the intercom! The class threw their desks out the windows and dove through the shattered glass to freedom!
Marinette kissed the pigeon-shit-stained cobblestone, tears of joy trailing down her cheeks. "I'm out!" she sobbed. "I'm finally out!"
"I know, girl!" Alya clapped her on the back. "We got the whole summer to do whatever we want. Go to the movies, stay out late, drugs. What do you want to do first?"
"Stay far away from you maniacs," Marinette answered.
"...Say what?"
"Most of the Akumas attacks are because you idiots can't deal with high school drama. Now that there's no school there's no excuse for any of you ticking timebombs to be near each other. See you never, assholes!" Marinette flipped off her entire class and skipped away.
The class she'd left behind exchanged looks.
"We're not that emotionally unstable, right?" Nathaniel asked.
Nobody answered.
"We're… not that emotionally unstable… right?"
Nathaniel's possessed hand began to choke him.
Weeks later:
It was just as Marinette had predicted. Without school, and Lila trapped in that school, nobody had any excuses to get pissed off at each other, which meant zero Akumas. There was actual peace in Paris for the first time in a very long while. She only ever transformed into Ladybug to get around the city faster and enjoy the beautiful skyline. Marinette was happy, she really was.
"Ahhhh, it's so relaxing to just sit here and listen to the Seine gurgle," Chat Noir said as he ate his ice cream.
Next to him, Ladybug nodded with pure tranquility.
"So, what should we do tomorrow, M'Lady? We've already gone to the park together, rode the Ferris wheel, went dancing, gazed at the stars in the green sky as we drifted down the river..."
Ladybug's tongue froze mid-lick as Chat Noir continued to list the many many things they'd already done.
"...went to the fair and did the bumper cars..."
Together.
"...spent an entire day at the spa..."
With nobody else around.
"...explored the Louvre from top to bottom..."
Almost as if they were… Her eyes exploded open. "GAAAAAH!"
"LB? What's wr—" Ladybug shoved her ice cream in his face.
"We're not hanging out!" she screeched frantically. "I have a boyfriend! I should be doing this with him! YOU TRICKED ME!"
Chat Noir wiped the dessert off with confusion. "Tricked you?" he said. "But, Bugaboo, you invited me."
The fist that was meant for his groin halted. Ladybug's eye twitched.
Chat Noir blinked in astonishment as everything they'd done together these past several weeks suddenly struck him as significant. "Wait, M'Lady… were these… dates?"
"You're damn right—" Lady Noire began to purr, but Ladybug slapped herself until the temptress retreated, then she shouted, "This was a mistake!" She lassoed away as quickly as she could.
Chat Noir watched her go, still lost. "Dang, I guess they weren't dates." His staff rumbled.
"Son!" he heard his Father say on the other end of the call. "Guess who's going to China!"
"WHAAAA?!"
At Marinette's bedroom:
Ladybug crashed through the roof and de-transformed back into Marinette. "Breathe, Marinette," she told herself. She didn't listen and continued to spiral out of control. "So what if you've spent the last several weeks with the boy you can't stand instead of the boy you're dating? Hahaha! You just got caught up in the summer break fever and didn't realize what you were doing! Hahaha! Just an accident! HAHAHA! Right, Tikki?"
The Kwami smiled a sinister smile. "Accident? I don't know. Is snuggling into Chat Noir's arms while you watch the fireworks an accident, you two-timing whore?"
"It was cold that night! I'm not cheating on my boyfriend!" Marinette shouted. Then, suddenly unsure, she squeaked, "Am I?" Marinette raced down to the kitchen.
There was a moment of silence in the empty bedroom. Then…
"Hello?" a raspy voice called from the Miraculous Box. The mystical container was currently crammed inside Marinette's panty drawer. "Issss anyone gonna give ussss our monthly ssssacrifice? Anybody? Hello?"
No response.
"Why doesss it ssssmell like lavender?"
In the kitchen:
Marinette found her mom taping a package shut. "Mom! It's not cheating on your boyfriend if you hang out with another boy, right?"
"Of course not, honey," Sabine replied tenderly. "Just because you're dating someone doesn't mean you can't have friends."
Marinette sighed in relief.
"Unless you're doing intimate things with this other boy like holding hands, flirting, dancing, snuggling, getting ice cream together while you just listen to the Seine gurgle, all while spending almost no time with your boyfriend. Then you would absolutely be cheating."
Marinette's throat went dry.
"Anyway, could you take this to the post office for me, honey?" Sabine finished taping and handed the large heavy package to the girl. "I'm sure I cracked the code to break his conditioning. It needs to go today or it won't reach your grunkle Wang before his birthday."
In a trance, Marinette hefted the box outside. "It's true," she moaned. "I'm a cheater. I'm cheating on Luka with-with-with—NO, I'M NOT!" Marinette headbutted the box before the truth could escape. "I did nothing wrong and I am outraged by anyone who would say anything different." This desperate lie convinced Marinette for all of two eye twitches. "FUCK!" She opened her phone and dialed. Luka immediately picked up.
"Salutations, Miss Dupain-Cheng! I haven't heard from you since your trip to America. How did that go?"
"GreatgreatgreatgreatHEY! Let's meet up, hang out, you know, do some boyfriend-girlfriend stuff that will make me forget about Chat Noir. Like flirting! We should flirt!"
"Nothing would make me happier, Miss, but—"
"Me too! I'll go first." Marinette cleared her throat and tried to imitate Lady Noire's silky purr. "Hey there, hot stuff, is that blue in your hair or are you just happy to see me?"
There was a long embarrassing pause.
Marinette's face burned. "GAAAH! That was awful! How does Chat make this look so easy?!"
"Apologies, Miss," Luka kindly interrupted, "as I was saying, nothing would make me happier, but I can't, I'm currently out of town. Mama has sailed us out to the Mediterannean. We're robbing tourists."
Captain Couffaine boomed in the background. "Yarhar! Another cruise ship ripe for the plucking. Lower the sails and hoist the flag!"
Marinette felt the world collapse around her. "You're… not here?" Lady Noire instantly made her think of all the unsupervised, consequence-free, boyfriend-less summer fun she could have… with Chat Noir. "When are you getting back?!" she screeched.
"Sometime next month, I believe," Luka replied. "This entire summer break concept is enthralling, Miss. So much free time to just go out and explore the world. I heard the Young Master himself is taking a trip to China. Isn't that exciting?"
"Adrien is in… China?"
Marinette glanced down at the package meant for her grunkle Wang. This revelation sparked something in Marinette's mind. It sparked a mental trail of gunpowder that burned at top speed through her Common Sense Department and ignited the mental barrels of TNT Lady Noire had planted under the part of her brain that was responsible for Logic. The damage was catastrophic.
"I need another Hall Pass!" she begged.
"Pardon?"
"A Hall Pass! Listen, Luka, I can't explain why but you and I are having a relationship crisis!"
"A crisis? Us? Oh dear."
"Yes! And the only solution is for me to get far away from Chat Noir and join Adrien in China with a brand-spanking-new Hall Pass!"
"Uh, you could join me here instead, Miss. Or I could leave early and join you. The Hall Pass was supposed to be more of a one time thin—"
"Please, Luka! I need this! We need this!"
She listened to her boyfriend sigh heavily as cannons fired and swords clanged in the distance. "My only wish is for you to be happy, Miss," he finally said. "If this is what you need—"
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She hung up.
All the way down on the Mediterannean, Luka listened to the dial tone with a bright strained smile. "Enjoy, Miss."
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away:
Up high in the green sky, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, kneeled before his spaceship's window and stared in awe. He'd blasted off the planet as a 'fuck you' to Elon Musk but now that he was up here, he was speechless. The sheer majesty of outer space… the endless grandeur of the cosmos… the absolute supremacy of the universe…
It made Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, feel so… so… small.
Why should he be able to afford a private island for every day of the year? How come he gets to buy over 64,000 Bugatti Chirons purely for a demolition derby? Who was he to hoard so much money that he could end all hunger in the United States seven times?
Nobody.
He was nobody.
In this vast, glorious, beautiful existence, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, was nobody. And he certainly didn't deserve the power he possessed.
It was in this moment of self-realization that Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, decided that he would liquidate his monstrous company. He would release his stranglehold on online shopping and use his immense fortune to help others instead of wasting it all on space-race dick-measuring contests. Yes, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, was going to save the world.
Then the Agreste penis-shaped private spaceship, which was lovingly dubbed the Holy Fuck We're Rich, smashed through Bezos' ship and squashed the man like a bug. The pilot turned on the windshield wipers and the Agrestes continued rocketing across the planet.
Inside the spacecraft, Ape-Man was texting his new girlfriend Miss Mendeleiev under a chocolate fountain that was made of pure diamond. The priceless treasure was just the centerpiece of wealth. Around him was a private movie theater, a heated Olympic-sized pool, and a spa staffed entirely by a race of Hawk-People. However, none of it was more exciting to Adrien than the man who sat next to him.
"You're here, Father? You're actually here?" Adrien gawked, on the verge of an ugly-cry. "You're really coming to China? With me? For real? No tablet?"
"Of course I am, Adrien." Gabriel Agreste put a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder. The simple touch made the affection-starved boy weep like a baby. "There's no way I'm going to miss the grand opening of the first Gabriel store in China. We'll, at last, have a location within walking distance of the Gabriel sweatshop. This will surely protect us when the Chinese finally start The Cleansing."
Adrien chuckled along awkwardly. "Right, sure, but the two of us are going to spend time together too, right? I have so much fun hanging out with my friends back home, I thought we could try it. Didn't you enjoy hanging out with your friends when you were my age?"
The question struck Gabriel. A shadow fell over him and his gaze became haunted as the long-buried sneers of the past flooded in.
Look, four-eyed Gabriel is drawing clothes again. Blegh! Get a normal hobby, you weirdo.
Yeah, like doing drugs or getting laid.
What, not going to say anything, you white-haired scaredy-cat?
It's no wonder you don't have any friends.
You have no friends! You have no friends! You have no friends!
Adrien watched as a single tear rolled down the man's cheek. "Uh… Father?"
"Friends! Gabriel abruptly said. "Of course I had friends! Who doesn't have friends? Losers, that's who. I'm certainly not a loser who's never had a friend before and has zero clue how to be a friend!"
There was a long agonizing pause.
"I'll be in my office!" Gabriel wheezed. With a snap of his fingers, one of the Hawk-Butlers soared over and carried him to a private backroom. When Gabriel was alone, he pressed his thumb to a fingerprint scanner on a briefcase. A series of lasers scanned across the man, verifying his identity. A live holographic image of Nathalie still in her bed in Paris appeared.
"Everything is going as predicted, sir," she said. "It's time to use what we learned in America and expand into teaming up with foreign villains. According to our satellites, the magical eclipse will occur tomorrow night during which you'll be able to unlock and take control of the Prodigious. With their power Ladybug and Chat Noir will no longer be able to stand in your way."
"Yeah, hooray..." Gabriel sighed. "Nathalie, do you think the Prodigious will be my friends?"
The sound of Nathalie's typing stopped. "Uhhh, what?"
"It's just… Adrien wants to hang out and I don't know how to do that because I never had friends when I was his age and, well..."
"Chin up, buttercup!" Duusu said, bursting onto the screen, brighter than sunshine. "Who wouldn't want to be friends with you? You're a swell fella."
"Really?" Gabriel asked, eyes twinkling.
On his shoulder, Nooroo gagged in disgust. "Ugh, Duusu, what has become of you?"
"You betcha!" Duusu continued with enough sweetness to give the world diabetes. "And even if those Prodigious don't wanna be friends, you still got us. And if you don't mind me saying," Duusu leaned closer mischievously, "I think the lady has a thing for you."
Gabriel and Nathalie accidentally caught each other's eyes and blushed.
"SHIIIIIIP!" Duusu bellowed, radiating with Ultimate Power.
"Fuck! FUCK!" Nathalie screamed and cut the call.
Despite how it ended, the conversation invigorated Gabriel. Filled with confidence, he opened the briefcase and retrieved the jade bracelet. Its demonic lion carving gave him hope.
"So, wait, I'm confused," Nooroo said, "are we doing this to make friends or to get powerful enough to defeat Ladybug and Chat Noir?"
"Why not both?" Gabriel smiled. "Yes, soon I'll finish what I started fifteen years ago."
"Fifteen years ago?" Nooroo asked, suddenly intrigued. "What happened fifteen years ago?"
"Not important."
"How old is Adrien again?"
"Not important!"
Back in Paris:
Marinette burst back into the family bakery. "Mom! Dad! I have exciting news! I want to go to China!"
The bakery became more silent than a graveyard. Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng dropped the platters of croissants they were making.
"Wowie-wow-wow!" Bridgette, their resident Sentimonster-turned-baker, exclaimed in awe. "What's China?"
Marinette blinked at her near-identical twin. "Do you live here now?"
The parents screamed in terror.
"I thought you said this wouldn't happen, Sabine!" Tom cried.
"It shouldn't! The indoctrination is only supposed to affect pure-bloods!" Sabine shook her daughter like a rag-doll. "Listen to me, honey, you don't need to go to China. Don't listen to the happy dragon. That's just the Chinese government stealing your free will. We'll make them go away. Tom, knife!"
Her husband pulled out a big scary meat cleaver.
"GAAAAH! Stop! STOP!" Marinette flailed as Bridgette held her down.
"Wowie-wow-wow!" chirped the innocent Sentimonster. "This is my new favorite part of baking!"
Tom aimed the ax for Marinette's skull. "There's no dragon in my head!" the girl yelled. "I just wanted to-to-to connect with my roots! Yeah, connect with my roots! Learn Chinese, explore where I came from, visit grunkle Wang, that crap!"
Her parents exchanged suspicious glances.
"Say you don't care about the greater advancement of the Communist State," Sabine instructed.
"I don't!" Marinette screamed. "I don't care about the greater advancement of the Communist State!"
Sabine signaled Bridgette to release her. "Phew, that was a close one, honey. We almost carved out a chunk of your brain."
"Our bad." Tom sheathed his blade with a jovial laugh. "As long as you're not being mind-controlled then of course you can go to China."
"Just don't listen to any magical dragons that tell you to give all your possessions to the Chinese government and no matter how thirsty you get…" Sabine got in Marinette's face and whispered fearfully, "don't drink the water. Or else you'll never be able to leave." Sabine hugged her daughter with arms that shivered with horror.
"Yippee..." Marinette whimpered. "I'm going to go change my pants."
ACT TWO
MARINETTE AND THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON BIKER JACKET
Marinette's flawless plan to rescue her relationship with Luka by staying as far away as possible from Chat Noir and coincidentally as close as possible to Adrien was going smoothly. She had no doubt that this trip would bring her and Luka closer together. There was just one small detail she'd forgotten about.
"[Thank you for bringing me my birthday present, half-breed grandniece,]" her grunkle Wang said as he drove them through Shanghai. "[I am so glad you have finally chosen to forsake the lands of the capitalist pigs and join the greatest country in the world.]"
"Oh. Right. You don't speak Frenglish," Marinette mumbled, not having the slightest clue what the man was saying. "Fuck."
"[All Chinese can actually speak Frenglish, but we pretend not to in order to maintain an advantage. It is the Communist way.]"
"Mmm-hmm, yeah, I'm just going to keep nodding and pretend that I understand you." Marinette took a moment to appreciate the elegant city around them. The glistening towers and eastern architecture they passed made her feel like she was truly stepping into another world. "Whoa, grunkle Wang, this place is so beautiful and modern. I always thought China would be… I don't know, backwards? I wonder why mom left."
Their car skidded to an abrupt halt. A rumble came from Wang's pocket and he pulled out a small jade dragon. "[Comrade Wang, your annual hour with a 21st-century vehicle has elapsed,]" the dragon said, eyes glowing. "[Your normal everyday party-approved vehicle is arriving now.]"
A gong went BWOMMMM somewhere and a rickety carriage made from recycled chewed gum and dentures cantered up beside them, drawn by a single sickly horse.
"[For the greater advancement of Communist State!]" the dragon cheered.
"[For the greater advancement of Communist State!]" Wang replied just as cheerfully and started loading their luggage onto the splintery buggy.
"Wait, what the hell is going on?" Marinette started to say. But the moment she stepped out of the car a thick wall of smog rolled over them and she began to choke.
"[Oh boy, looks like the iPhone factory dumped their toxic waste early. Those rascals.]" Wang chuckled through his burning eyes and asphyxiation.
"Help," Marinette wheezed and started to turn blue. "Can't. Breathe."
"[Here, use this, half-breed grandniece.]" Wang cracked open what looked like a can of soda and gave it to her. It was filled with nothing but pure peking-duck-flavored oxygen. Marinette inhaled it all.
"I think I know why mom left."
Meanwhile, at a six-star hotel:
In the Emperor's Suite, the Agrestes were getting settled in their new digs. Adrien was practically vibrating with excitement on the patio that was carved from solid ruby.
"Are you ready to hang out together, Father?" the boy asked. "You've been to Shanghai before, what do you think we should do first?"
Gabriel sweated buckets as he desperately tried to think of something that friends do together. "Uh… sure… yes, I, um… how about we… double-check the inventory for tonight's grand opening?"
Adrien's smile dropped. Gabriel took that as a bad sign.
"Or! Or! Or! Or you can go out into Shanghai on your own and explore while I go ask the Prodigious how to hang out—I MEAN, find us something fun to do this afternoon."
His son's hopeful smile returned. "You mean it?"
"Absolutely."
The two shared a warm father-son moment, the first in a very long time… until a wall of smog from the nearby Ford factory blasted into the room. Both Agrestes retched their guts out.
Meanwhile at the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center #390021/Cheng Residence:
The horse finally arrived at a gorgeous building that looked like a palace straight out of another age. It wasn't an Agreste mansion, but it was getting there. Thick red oriental arches decorated the massive roof over a broad moat filled with koi. A truck-sized round gate studded with golden dragons swung open to let Marinette inside.
"Oh my Big Red X," the girl said in wonder. "This place is amazing! It's so huge! Is this a mini-castle? Is this the Cheng ancestral home? Are we secretly royalty or something? Am I a long-lost Chinese princess?"
"SQUAWK!" Suddenly, an ugly giant gray parrot was in her face. "Foolish capitalist pig," the bird hooted. "The glorious Communist party owns all lands in China. It is by their mercy that the Chengs do not sleep in the streets. SQUAWK!"
"GAAH! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" Marinette screamed and attempted to punch the horrid creature. But the bird gracefully dodged and fluttered onto Wang's shoulder just as the man opened another door that was made from an old slab of driftwood. Inside was a much more cramped room. Well, it was more of a hole than a room, and drearier than a tombstone. The ceiling was too low for someone even as short as Marinette to stand up straight and most of the floor was taken by two single-sized beds made of recycled Chinese takeout boxes. To Marinette's horror, Wang plopped her suitcase on one of those beds.
"Please tell me that's just the storage closet," Marinette begged.
"SQUAWK! Show respect, capitalist pig. In there is where the Chengs live and where you shall sleep, the rest of the building belongs to the party," the bird whistled. "I am Bastille and I report all I see to the party. Step out of line and you'll meet the same fate as your grandparents. SQUAWK!"
"My grandparents? What are you—"
The bird jerked its beak at a photo on the wall. It showed a Chinese couple being thrown by government police geese into a Nike shoe-making machine!
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Marinette screeched. "THEY WERE MURDERED?! AND TURNED INTO SHOES?! WHY WOULD YOU FRAME THAT?!"
"[Ah, yes, the Great Leather Shortage of '77,]" Wang smiled proudly at the photo. "[Your grandfather Yan and grandmother Mei Cheng's sacrifice for the greater advancement of the Communist party was what brought your mother Xia-Bing to my home. How I miss having her around.]"
"SQUAWK! The defector took a new name and had her chip removed to hide from us," Bastille added with an angry feather ruffle. "Dishonor! Dishonor on all of your ancestors! SQUAWK!" The bird narrowed its undemocratic eyes at Marinette, "But now her half-breed daughter has returned, balance may be restored. WATER!" Bastille squawked at Wang.
"[For the greater advancement of Communist State,]" Wang replied. He filled a glass from the sink and offered it to Marinette. "[Here, half-breed grandniece, the long flight must have left you thirsty.]"
The dire warnings about not drinking any water in China echoed in Marinette's mind. It immediately made her uneasy. Plus, the liquid was glowing. That couldn't be healthy.
"You know what, I'mma go on a walk," Marinette said, backing toward the door.
"[Drink,]" Wang insisted, following.
"I'm not spending as much time as I'd like with my boyfriend. Which is why I came to China, so I could spend time with this other boy who isn't my boyfriend."
"[That makes no sense. Drink.]"
"I'll be back later for dinner, 'kay, bye!" Marinette bolted out the door.
Bastille growled. "She will not escape. The Communist State will have the Cheng girl! SQUAWK!"
Outside:
Tikki watched the passing Chinese people smile through their smog and misery as they dragged their meager government-approved rations in old potato sacks. A horse-drawn military truck drove by, blasting patriotic music over megaphones as an accompaniment to a recording of a harsh voice shouting about the virtues of Communism, the blessings of living in China, and to respect and obey the police geese.
"Poverty living conditions? Slave labor? Blind obedience? Systematic ethnic cleansing? This is my kind of place!" Tikki cackled. "When us Kwamis take over, this is exactly how we'll run the planet."
"Yeah, sure, you'll be a tyrant, whatever," Marinette agreed absently as she creeped through Adrien's online posts. The most recent photo he'd uploaded showed the famed Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower behind him. A few moments of extremely illegal and unethical hacking later, she had his location and started a GPS route to him. "There! Now to go hang out with Adrien in order to make up for not hanging out with Luka."
Marinette took a moment to strike a triumphant pose. It was in this moment that her Logic department was finally repaired and turned back on. Her smirk dropped to a gape.
"You're just now realizing this doesn't make any sense, aren't you?" Tikki asked.
"GAAAH! What am I doing here?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!"
Across the city:
Like a jungle explorer, Adrien scampered through the streets of Shanghai, taking in every wondrous detail, Ape-Man always two steps behind him. Though he was mesmerized, his trained ears easily caught his own name.
"[Look! That's Adrien Agreste, the super-rich teen model. His wealth would greatly benefit the greater advancement of the Communist State.]"
Adrien turned to the trio of young Chinese men he'd overheard and enthusiastically said, "Hello, it's always nice to meet fans."
"You must help!" the closest cried in fakely broken Frenglish. He collapsed to the ground, suddenly weak and dying. "I cannot go on. Surely this is the end. I perish!"
"Oh no!" Adrien gasped and came to the guy's side. "How can I help? Tell me?"
"Only way… you must give all money… to the party..."
Next to them, the other two Chinese guys snickered in Mandarin, "[Yes, give all your money, you stupid gweilo. Once you have nothing, the Communist party will provide you with everything you need. Hehehehe…]"
"[Everything I need? Including time to spend with Father?]" Adrien asked in perfect Mandarin.
All three Chinese guys went pale. "[Gán! He can understand us!]" one shrieked.
Adrien then pulled out a checkbook. "[I can't give you everything my family has. Father only allows me a five million a month allowance. Hope that's enough. Now do I make this check out to The People's Republic of China or just China?]"
The guys sighed in relief. "[Oh thank Lenin, he's an idiot.]"
Meanwhile, at the Wu School of Kung-Fu:
With his infinite vaults of cash, Gabriel was able to afford the capitalist pig carriage, which was like the average party-approved single-horse carriage but it came with nifty cupholders. Totally worth it. The ride came to a stop in front of the burnt ruins of what was once a grand temple.
"You have reached your destination," chirped the onboard jade dragon. "Before you go, would you care for a complimentary bottle of Chinese water?"
Gabriel swatted the offered glowing poison away and asked, "Are you sure the Prodigious are here, Nooroo?"
"I am," the Kwami answered.
"And you're sure they'll be my friends?"
"Will you focus! Watch your step. The Prodigious have long been guarded by a line of masterfully trained warriors. We cannot expect to simply walk in and—"
They both saw the pink flowery sign in the middle of ruins.
Owht rgobbling pse9ople.
Bee bcak bi dninre.
Plasee doon't shtael aeynthang. ;D
"Wow, whoever wrote that can't read," Gabriel noted.
"How have we not conquered your species yet?!" Nooroo demanded.
"I'm not complaining." Gabriel pranced through the ashes to the backyard.
"Fine, there's no Guardian," Nooroo admitted. "But finding the secret mystical cave that contains the Prodigious will not be so easy—"
"Found it!" At Gabriel's touch, a great slab of stone behind the waterfall rose, revealing the entrance to the secret mystical cave.
Nooroo face-nubbed. "Okay, it is easy. But watch your words, the Prodigious are amongst the evilest forces in the known Universe. Even Duusu and I tremble at the tales of their cruelty—"
"Company!" nearly a dozen child-like voices called out in unison the second Gabriel entered.
"Come on in!" one voice said.
"Take off your shoes and have a beer," another encouraged.
"Will you be our friend?" a third asked.
"WE'RE SO LONELY!"
"Oh, you must all be the Prodigious!" Gabriel said and happily skipped up some stone steps to a decorated wall where the voices seemed to be coming from.
"Renlings actually, but basically the same thing."
"You're in luck. I have the key to unlocking your prison and I'm currently in the market for some friends."
"Yay!" the many voices of the Prodigious cheered.
"But I'm not exactly sure what friends do together. Could you teach me?"
"Sure! Our favorite thing to do with our friends is sing." The Prodigious cleared their multiple throats and joined in chorus, "One hundred bottles of beer on the wall! One hundred bottles of beer! You take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!"
"Everything I know is a lie," Nooroo croaked at the sight of Gabriel singing along with what was supposed to be the foulest unholy entity in the Universe. "Where is the evil? Where is the power? Where the hell is the Guardian?!"
Meanwhile:
"Here I am!" Fei Wu, Guardian of the Prodigious, proclaimed as she caught a falling car with an expert half-moon kick seconds before it crushed an innocent man. She kung-fu-flexed in her kickass dragon-print leather jacket that she'd found in the city dump. "I'm here to save the day!"
"By Lenin! You've saved my life, thank you, comrade." The flabbergasted man stepped out of harm's way, only for Fei to kung-fu-shove him back under the car.
"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. That depends," Fei said, squinting at the man with great suspicion. She aimed a lethal kung-fu-chop at his throat. "Are you the Prodigious?"
The vile stench exuding off the homeless girl nearly made the man faint. His gassed mind had zero clue what she was talking about, nor did he know which answer would spare him. "Uh… yyyees—"
Fei let go of the car.
"NO! I'M NOT!"
Fei kung-fu-caught the car. "Okay, you're free to go, comrade." Fei happily pushed him along, swiping his wallet in the process. The kung-fu-master-in-training moved onto a child who was crying over a dropped shish kabob. "No, no, there's no need to cry. Here." Fei offered the child a fresh new skewer… and with the precision of a praying mantis immediately kung-fu-pressed the blade of that skewer to the kid's jugular. "Are you the Prodigious?"
The child shook his head and wet his pants.
"Just checking," Fei sang. She stole the kid's pocket change and moved on.
On a nearby street corner, a little old lady was too little and too old to realize she was about to walk into traffic. With the swiftness of a snake, Fei kung-fu-stopped the lady before she was run over.
"Oh my Chairman Mao, that was close. Thank you, young—AAAAH!" The little old lady screamed as Fei kung-fu-lifted her over her head with the strength of a bear.
"Are you the Prodigious?" Fei demanded.
"That was my hooker name back in the day, but I don't hustle anymore! I swear!" the little old lady wailed.
"Yikes, too much information." Fei gently put the little old lady down, stole her jewelry, and continued her search. The Prodigious had to be here somewhere in Shanghai. Why in all the years of training had her dad never told her what the Prodigious looked like or where they hid? It didn't matter, she would locate them eventually. And in the meantime… Fei's sights landed on the valuable-looking ring on the finger of a blonde boy. "Gweilo," she whispered to herself and switched to Mandarin, "[Too easy.]"
Fei kung-fu-approached with the grace of an eagle. And smacked face-first into the concrete abs of Ape-Man. The titan glowered down at her. Undeterred, Fei got kung-fu-ready. Ape-Man, in turn, stood on his toes and touched his fingers over his head, adopting his Swan Lake style stance.
Fei sneered. "[Are you the Prod—]"
In a show of intimidation, Ape-Man knocked out a passing horse with a single jeté.
Fei turned pale. Too powerful. She'd never win. ["Kung-Fu Art! Camouflage of a Thousand Nobodies!"] Channeling all of her chi, Fei donned a baseball cap.
Unamused, Ape-Man ripped the hat off.
Fei slapped on a blonde wig.
Ape-Man took that too.
She masked herself with a headshot of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Instantly, Ape-Man mistook her for Winnie the Pooh and gave her a hug. Fei then naruto-ran into an alley and searched for a new target.
"Go through! I need to speak to Luka! Go through!" she heard someone yell in Frenglish. A distressed blue-haired half-breed stormed past her, frantically dialing and re-dialing on her cellphone. Fei smirked at the many treasures. "What do you mean 'Communist phones only?!' I hate this country!" the half-breed screamed at her useless capitalist phone. She'd never get a signal without a jade dragon. Or unless she was really really rich.
Then she froze. Fei had no clue why but the half-breed had suddenly become a statue, staring googly-eyed at something across the street, but it didn't matter. This was the perfect moment to strike. With the dexterity of a monkey, Fei kung-fu-snatched the half-breed's purse, necklace, phone, cans of breathable air, passport—
"Adrien..." the half-breed suddenly purred.
Fei flinched, ready to run, but the other girl kept drooling, never taking her sights away from the other side of the street. Curious, Fei snapped her fingers and waved her hand in front of the half-breed's face. No reaction. Not even her putrid stench that reminded people of a barrel of rotten fish heads being microwaved made her blink.
What could possibly be so interesting?
Across the street:
Adrien waved goodbye to the helpful Chinese trio he'd just given all his money to. "[Thanks again. I can't wait to see my Father.]" His phone rumbled. He immediately answered it. "Father?"
"Heyyyyy..." he heard his Father say in that guilty tone he knew meant bad news. "So, I sort of got myself trapped in a secret mystical cave behind a waterfall."
"Is that a Chinese saying for getting held up with work?" Adrien asked miserably.
On the other side of the city, Gabriel stared at the stone wall that had literally sealed him in the mystical cave behind the waterfall. According to the Prodigious, who were currently doing their rap-version of "One Hundred Beers on the Wall," it could only be opened from the outside. "...Yes."
"Alright, Father, we'll try to hang out at a different time." Adrien hung up and heaved a weary sigh. From inside his shirt, Plagg tried to comfort him.
"That sucks, man. I don't know what you were expecting from your dad, but I'm here for ya. You know what'll cheer you up? Checking out Shanghai's red-light district. I heard this city's massage parlors are famous for their happy endings."
"Red-light district? Is that where they keep the best restaurants?" Adrien innocently asked. Then he got a bright idea. "That's it! Marinette's great uncle has a famous restaurant here in Shanghai. We should go there." Adrien set off.
"I'm beginning to think you're gonna die a virgin," Plagg said.
Back at the robbery:
Fei shrugged and took the half-breed's shoes, pants, top, bra, panties, and replaced them all with Chinese knock-offs. The half-breed never noticed. Her theft a complete success, Fei walked away and opened her new purse. Tikki glared back up at her.
"Ooh, what a cute doll!" Fei giggled and gave Tikki's tail a tug.
"AGH! Not this bullcrap again!" the doll shouted.
Despite how amusing the toy's catchphrase was, Fei couldn't help hesitating. She faced the half-breed again, still unaware she'd been stripped of all her valuables. When reality eventually did catch up to her, she'd be in for a rude awakening. Fei couldn't leave her like this. She couldn't just walk away.
"Not without stealing those earrings first," Fei concluded and swiped them too.
"Holy fuck!" Tikki gawked. "You just did what Hawkmoth's been trying to do for over a year!"
Satisfied that she'd gotten the most out of her target, Fei turned toward Cash's pawn shop. She barely got three steps before an angry voice ripped through the air.
"[Hey, stinky kung-fu girl!]" A trio of young men blocked her path. The biggest jabbed a finger at her and said, "[This is our turf. Only we have party-approval to rob gweilos here. Hand over the goods.]"
"Kung-Fu Art! Wrath of a Million Gods!" Fei shouted and kicked the nearest one in the groin. She ran, the young men hot on her heels. The pursuit zipped past Marinette, finally snapping her out of her daydream.
"Whoa, what?" she said at the sight. "Oh no, that poor defenseless girl is going to be assaulted by those ugly mean boys. No, wait, that's a sexist assumption. She could easily be the bad guy in this situation. And I couldn't give less of a fuck, right, Tikki?"
There was no response.
"Tikki?"
Silence.
Marinette suddenly felt a breeze blow through her earlobes. With trembling fingers, she touched them. Her heart rate spiked as the truth abruptly dawned on her.
The Miraculous were gone.
"I'm… free?" she whispered. "I'm free," she said. "I'M FREEEEEEEE!" she sang at the top of her lungs, hitting a high C. All the Chinese around her stopped and whirled around in search of the invisible orchestra that was suddenly playing the grand opening chords of a song of victory. "After all this time, I'm finally free!" Marinette sang along with the music, feeling the rhythm in her soul. A brand new one-woman French musical was about to be performed right there on the streets. "Thank you, Big Red X! THANK YOU! Hahahahaa! Wait til I tell Luka." Marinette raised her phone, intending to make this a duet, only to discover it had been replaced with a small dragon made of jade.
"Greetings, half-breed," the dragon said. "Your material possessions have been taken for the greater advancement of the Communist State. We thank you for your contribution. Goodbye." The dragon self-destructed.
"MY WHAT?!" Marinette screeched.
The orchestra stopped.
She searched herself. Her purse was gone! Her wallet! And somehow all of her clothes had been replaced with cheap itchy cardboard that said Made in USA! She had no way to communicate! No way to find her way back to grunkle Wang!
"Oh crap… oh fuck… OH CRAP! OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
Dun, dun, DUUUUUUUN! went the orchestra.
ACT THREE
MARINETTE BECOMES A COMMUNIST
Later, at the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center #390021/Cheng Residence:
"Marinette is here in Shanghai?" Adrien gushed.
"SQUAWK! That's right. If you stick around, I'm sure she'll return soon," Bastille quorked. Then he rubbed his wings together sinisterly. "And then we'll have two fresh bodies for the Communist party. SQUAWK!"
"A party? Oh boy, that sounds fun! I'll help." Adrien rushed into the kitchen to aid Wang with making dinner.
"Excellent, excellent," Bastille trilled. "SQUAWK!"
Somewhere in Shanghai:
Marinette was lost. She had no clue where she was or how to get back home. She was in a strange land filled with strange people who spoke an even stranger language. She reacted the only way she knew how. "HELP! DOES ANYBODY SPEAK FRENGLISH?! ANYBODY?!" Marinette screamed as she barreled through the streets.
The Chinese people she passed, every single one of whom was secretly fluent in Frenglish, exchanged knowing glances.
"[Hahaha, yet another stupid capitalist pig lost in the city,]" one old man mused.
"[Looks like somebody beat us in robbing her for the greater advancement of the Communist State,]" his partner replied. "[We should help her get home. I'll pretend to understand her.]"
Marinette's already panicking mind misinterpreted this gibberish Mandarin as something more threatening. "What are you saying?!" she demanded. The girl armed herself with a barstool and aimed it at the two. "You gonna harvest my organs for the black market? Sell me into prostitution? Force me to work in an unbreathable factory that makes the toys for McDonald's Happy Meals? I'M ONTO YOU!"
Before either could stop her, Marinette knocked the two out and proceeded to destroy every store on the street.
Back at the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center #390021/Cheng Residence:
Adrien and Wang hummed together as they made delicious bao. Adrien filled the buns and Wang pinched them shut with expertise, while secretly poisoning each and every one of them with a drop of Chinese water.
"[Mmmm, this smells delicious, Wang Shifu,]" Adrien commended. "[What traditional Chinese filling is this? Pork? Duck? Chicken?]"
"[Dog,]" Wang said happily.
The cheery mood shattered. Adrien only then noticed the collar in the bowl. Its nametag said Fido. He dropped the bao he was filling and slowly backed away.
"[Well done, capitalist pig,]" Wang said, admiring that last bao. "[You're a natural.]"
Adrien froze, the troubling meat completely forgotten. "[Huh,]" he said as unexpected tears began to flow down his face. "[Why is my chest suddenly warm and fuzzy? It feels… good. Can you say that again?]"
"[Uh… okay.]" A little weirded out, Wang cleared his throat and carefully said, "[You are very good at this. You remind me of myself when I was starting to learn how to cook.]"
"[Really?]" Adrien's waterworks ramped up. Every single feel spilled out at the same time. "[Would you say you're… proud of me, Father?]"
"[What is happening?]" Wang started to back away.
"[Am I like the son you never had?]"
"[Actually, I'd prefer to have a daughter again over a son. Also, are you okay?]"
"[Say you're proud of me, Father! SAY IT!]"
"SQUAWK!" Bastille thankfully cut whatever the hell this was short and narrowed his parrot eyes at the clock. It was starting to get late. Sundown was approaching. "Are we sure the half-breed did not flee the country like her defecting mother? SQUAWK!"
"There's no need to worry. Marinette is always late," Adrien chuckled, completely forgetting about his freakout now that his favorite topic had been brought up. "It's adorable when she bursts into the room with some crazy excuse for why she wasn't on time. The way her nose wiggles when she's stressed, the way she shakes her fists when she's rambling, the way her eyes look like they're about to pop out of their sockets when she's on the verge of a mental breakdown." Adrien sighed with longing. "Marinette is just so cute."
Bastille and Wang looked at each other.
They looked across the room at Ape-Man, who was making his Chinese knock-off Eagle and Uncanny Valley action figures kiss. The bodyguard shrugged back at them.
"Are you two dating?" Bastille asked with malicious intent.
"Me and Marinette? What? No, we're just friends." Marinette's distant cry of pain echoed somewhere far away. Adrien waved off the idea and resumed filling the bao. "She's dating Luka and I'm dating Kagami and we're all very happy."
Adrien crushed several bao in his hand.
"Oopsie. Butterfingers. My bad. As I was saying, I'm happy for Marinette and Luka."
Adrien chucked the bowl of dog filling out the window.
"Whoa, I have no idea why I did that. I am so sorry. I'll pay for the damages. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I believe Marinette and Luka are perfect for each other and couldn't think of a better match for her."
Adrien grabbed a carving knife off the wall and aimed the pointy end at the stove. Wang tackled him before he got hurt.
"[You know what, I'm gonna call Marinette, just to be safe,]" the man said, pulling out his jade dragon.
In the seedy part of town:
Fei jerked as the spine-chilling screech of a terrified girl came out of nowhere. She got kung-fu-ready to fight, only for the screech to ice her veins again. Strangely, this second screech sounded exactly the same as the first. It was only after the third identical screech that Fei realized the noise was coming from the purse she'd stolen from the half-breed. Inside, she found the rumbling capitalist phone next to the doll.
"Yeah, can you believe Marinette actually made Lila's scream her ringtone?" Tikki scoffed at the phone and smoothed out her antennae in an attempt to appear cool. "By the way, s'up, I'm Tikki, Kwami, not a doll. Kind of a big deal. I usually go for the Play Possum route but you strike me as a badass and I'm hoping there's some way I can trade up to you. I want in on this Chinese slavery business."
Fei plucked the SIM card out of the phone and with the grace of a galloping horse kung-fu-crushed it between her fingers. The phone fell silent, now nothing but a brick of silicon.
"Yo, that is cold," Tikki said with admiration. "I think I'm gonna like working with you."
Fei squinted at the Kwami before giving her a few pokes and squeezes. "How do I turn you off?"
"For the last time, I am not a doll!" Tikki rose out of the purse and declared with demonic bloodlust, "I am the metaphysical concept of Creation made incarnate! I AM AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF UNLIMITED POWER WHOSE ONLY DESIRE IS THE ENSLAVEMENT OF ALL MANKIND!"
"These catchphrases are very elaborate." Fei caught the floating doll in the purse and snapped it shut.
Back in the city:
"This country still uses messenger pigeons?" Marinette said and put down the barstool. The crumbling remains of the street behind her marked her path of destruction, which she had mid-panic-attack justified as a breadcrumb trail to mark where she'd been. "What am I complaining about? One letter, my good sir."
The scared shitless mailman slipped her a notepad and pencil. Within seconds, Marinette had scribbled out a message detailing how she'd been robbed and where she was.
"Could you send this to Wang Cheng of the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center number 390021, please? Cash on delivery."
"[It would be my pleasure, half-breed,]" the mailman said with a bow. "[But first I must censor the more sensitive details for the protection of the Communist State.]" He uncapped a black marker. Within seconds, the entire cry for rescue was nothing but thick black stripes.
Marinette didn't say a word. She only picked up her barstool and resumed her rampage.
Back with Fei:
In a foggy den of Shanghai stood a pawn shop, tucked away where the Communist party never looked. This was Fei's destination. In the back of the shop, behind all the knickknacks and thingamabobs and doodads, waited a thin man, cooling himself with a paper fan.
"Cash!" Fei called.
"Ah, Fei!" Cash replied with a conniving grin. "How's my favorite street-rat doing? Still haven't figured out how to work a shower I smell."
"There's no time for showers when you're protecting the world from the Prodigious." She emptied her backpack on the counter. All the valuables she'd stolen, including Tikki, were laid before Cash. "How much will you give me for this junk?"
"Junk?" Tikki roared. "I'll have you know that I could slaughter this entire city if I wanted to."
"Hmm, the doll is clearly broken." Cash prodded the Kwami a few times with his fan. Tikki took a bite out of it. "But all this other stuff you got is in very good condition. Tell you what, I'll buy everything… for one yuan."
"One yuan?" Fei squinted at him. "Is that a lot?"
"Can you count past one?"
"Nope, never went to school."
"Then one is a lot."
"Woohooo!" Fei whooped as she took her single measly yuan and proceeded to breakdance with it.
Tikki couldn't believe what she was witnessing. "I never thought I'd meet someone who was dumber than Marinette. Hey, jerkwads, I am an invaluable weapon of magical mass destruction! You can't sell me like this!" But she continued to go ignored.
"I can't believe what a lucky haul I got," Fei said, kissing the bill. It was more money than she'd ever had in her entire life. "I knew that half-breed capitalist pig would have treasures."
"Capitalist pig?" Cash butted in with a greedy smile. He hungrily examined the French ID that showed Marinette's face. "Why didn't you say so? Such a person would pay top dollar to get their worthless trinkets back. If you bring her here, I'd make a killing."
"Enough to finally buy the identity of the one who murdered my dad and burned down my home?" Fei asked, suddenly serious.
"I already told you that was you, Fei," Cash replied with a flat look. "I still have a copy of the police report if you want to read it."
"Who has time to learn how to read when they have to protect the world from the Prodigious?" Fei proclaimed. She grabbed Marinette's ID. "I will find this half-breed and have the truth out of you, Cash, no matter the cost." With the fierceness of a tiger, Fei kung-fu-dashed out the door.
"Wait… a badass and she killed her dad?" Tikki asked. "That's way cooler than Marinette and her stupid love problems. I want her!"
Instead of acknowledging the Kwami, Cash chucked her into a claw machine that was already filled with hundreds of freaky half-animal dolls. The way the cotton-stuffed monstrosities stared at Tikki made her uneasy.
"What? What the hell are you looking at?" she growled.
"Hi there, will you be my friend?" one stuffed chibi snake-san asked.
"NEVER!" Tikki ripped the doll in half.
Out in the city:
A State of Emergency had been declared! Buildings had collapsed! Fires had started! Gas lines had been ruptured! Police and their squadrons of police geese were scrambling! A good chunk of the city looked like it had been decimated by a devastating earthquake!
But actually it was just Marinette.
"FRENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!" Marinette aimed her barstool at the man. She could've sworn she'd overheard him talking in perfect Frenglish but now it was nothing but Mandarin.
"[Don't break character, comrade!]" someone from the watching crowd said. "[We must protect the greater advancement of the Communist State!]"
"[But she's so scary!]" wailed Marinette's prisoner.
"I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE OF YOU FUCKS DOESN'T HAVE A TRANSLATOR APP ON THEIR FUCKING PHONE OR JADE DRAGONS OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU PEOPLE USE! SOMEBODY HAD BETTER START SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE OR THIS GUY IS DEAD! ONE!"
"[Ahh! I'm gonna do it!]"
"[No, comrade! Think of the State!]"
"TWO!"
"[By Karl Marx, someone stop her!]"
"THR—Is that a goose wearing a police hat?"
Officer Feathers waddled to Marinette and offered her a glass of water adorably balanced on its bill.
"Uhhh, thanks? All this overreacting has left me parched. This country is so weird." She chugged the whole thing. "Woof, that's got bite. What was in that water? Vodkaaaa…"
Marinette's voice trailed off as she realized the utterly stupid thing she'd just done. Her pupils shrunk to microscopic specks, her hair stood on end until every strand was a deadly needle, so many goosebumps sprouted across her body that the police goose suspected it was cultural appropriation. Arms shivering, she looked at the glass and saw the last few drops were… glowing.
"No… No! NOOOOOOO—BLEGH!" Marinette suddenly began to choke, but it wasn't because of the water or yet another wall of factory smog. It was because of the most revolting, putrid, indescribable stench that had ever assaulted her nose. A smoke bomb erupted before her and a Chinese girl about her age appeared from the clouds.
"Kung-Fu Art! Child Snatching of Endless Human Traffickers!" the smelly stranger declared and dragged Marinette away.
A few blocks away:
Fei yanked the target down a narrow alley too small for most adults to squeeze through until they reached a hidden empty lot. Once they were alone, she put on her happiest, friendliest face and said, "Greetings, half-breed capitalist pig! I bet you're relieved to finally find someone in this city who speaks Frenglish. No need to worry, I'm here to help."
But Marinette was worried. She was very worried. She saw the Chinese girl's kind smile and the dragon printed on her biker jacket. The bad water in her stomach began to churn. Everything started to connect. "Y-you're the happy dragon," Marinette j'accused.
"Huh?"
"You're the happy dragon mom warned me about! GAAAH! I've drunk the water and now the Chinese government is in my head! NO! I DON'T WANNA BE A COMMUNIST! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"
"If you drank the water, you don't really have a choice anymore." Fei kung-fu-gasped as fakely as kung-fu-possible. "By all that is Lenin, were you robbed? How horrible. I'll help you find your overpriced meaningless trinkets of excessive wealth."
Marinette hid behind a dumpster, which actually smelled better than Fei. "Help me or brainwash me with a catchy musical number about the rise of the proletariat?" Marinette turned pale. "Oh no, it's starting! I'm using Marxist words like proletariat! Bourgeoisie! Universal healthcare! GAAAH!"
Fei watched the half-breed collapse into a ball of conspiracy theories and decided it would be faster to just drag her to Cash's shop.
Back at the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center #390021/Cheng Residence:
Wang fidgeted with worry at the letter that had just arrived via messenger pigeon. Every word had been censored for the greater advancement of the Communist State, but that could only mean it had been written in Frenglish. There was only one person in Shanghai who dared to write in Frenglish.
"[I think my half-breed grandniece might be lost,]" he said.
CRACK!
Wang turned to find Adrien standing over the table he'd been wiping down, the wood now snapped in half like a Kit-Kat bar. The boy's arms quivered as he began to wring the washcloth. "[I'm sorry.]" Adrien tried to smile pleasantly but the corners of his mouth didn't quite make it. His lips stopped in a prim line. "[I could've sworn you said Marinette was… ]"
Wang swallowed. "[Lost.]"
Barely was the word out before Adrien dove through the window. "MARINETTE! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Wang sighed. "[And now two capitalist pigs are lost.]"
Outside:
Adrien tore door after door off their hinges, tipped over car after car, all while yelling at the top of his lungs, "MARINETTE! CAN YOU HEAR ME? FOLLOW THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!"
No answer.
"My man, broseph, compadre, breathe," Plagg said. "You know Marinette, she can handle herself. And in the meantime, if you're really worried, you should just pay someone to fix this like you usually—"
Adrien snatched the Kwami out of the air and squeezed. "I gave all my allowance to China! Plagg, claws out!" In a blast of black, he transformed into Chat Noir.
"MARINETTE, I'LL SAVE YOU!" the hero bellowed and charged straight through a building.
Meanwhile:
Wang had called the cops and Marinette's face was now in every police car in Shanghai.
One officer squinted at the half-breed's picture projected from their jade dragon and growled, "Another lost kid. You ready, partner?"
His party-approved police goose loaded his pistol and gave a honk.
Marinette even appeared on the news, where the party-approved anchor Nia-Xia Zhang-Bock asked the citizens to help the half-breed but also cautioned them to under no circumstance speak Frenglish to the capitalist pig. Said capitalist pig was being pulled along by Fei while convinced her mind was slowly being taken over.
"I can feel it," Marinette moaned. "The Communist poison has reached my brain. I'm beginning to question why we allow billionaires to exist. Who needs all that money? They are the true parasites. That wealth should be given back to the less fortunate. Yes, yes, and all education should be free. GAAH! Make it stop, happy dragon!"
"I keep telling you my name is Fei," Fei remarked. Then she saw they were passing a Communist party-approved TV distribution center and jerked. Every screen showed the news with Marinette's face.
"What? What's on TV?" Marinette started to turn, only for Fei to grab her cheeks.
"Nothing! Don't look!"
"I obey, happy dragon Fei," Marinette drawled back like a zombie. "Media is the opium of the masses."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Fei yanked the girl around the corner and ripped open her backpack. A visible cloud of stink erupted out of the bag. Several dead birds and one unfortunate chimney sweep hit the ground around them. From the disgusting depths, Fei produced a hat and glasses and gave them to Marinette. "Here, we must disguise ourselves."
"I obey, happy dragon Fei. Marinette is no more. I am now Mei-Lien Cheng." Mei-Lien donned her new identity and saluted in the direction of Chairman Mao's grave, "For the greater advancement of the Communist State."
"Wow, you're now like one of those Gen-Z types who worship the ground Communism pisses on."
Meanwhile:
"[WHERE IS SHE?!]" Chat Noir growled in his best Batman voice.
The man he was holding over the roof's edge screamed his head off. "[AAAH! What is happening?! Why are you dressed like a dominatrix?! Who are you talking about?!]"
Chat Noir slid open his battlestaff and shoved his personal photo of Marinette in the man's face. "[Marinette Dupain-Cheng! She's a French citizen who went missing in Shanghai tonight. TALK!]"
The man blinked at the photo, the lethal ten-story drop below him completely forgotten. "[Uhhh… why is she circled with a heart made of kissy marks? She your girlfriend or something?]"
"[SHE IS MY NUMBER ONE FAN AND I WILL PROTECT HER, EVEN IF IT MEANS DESTROYING THIS ENTIRE CITY!]" He shook the man senseless. "[TALK!]"
"[I don't know! I've never seen her before! I swear to Karl Marx!]"
"[Then you're useless to me,]" Chat Noir hissed and tossed the man to the roof across the street. "[Next!]" Chat called and hooked another random pedestrian off the sidewalk with his staff. "[WHERE IS SHE?!]"
Meanwhile:
"Comrade happy dragon Fei," Marinette (Mei-Lien) said, her accent sounding more Frussian by the minute. "I have an idea. Why not use your party-approved jade dragon to call my grunkle and he can come pick me up?"
"Oh I totally would, but I'm out of minutes," Fei apologized as she used half of her one yuan to buy them a six-pack of canned air.
"But you can buy more, you have money. You are renting a horse as we speak."
"Your needs are less important than mine, half-breed." Fei gave the last of her yuan to the rental stable and strapped Marinette (Mei-Lien) onto the horse's saddle. "Every cent I earn must be spent on the eternal fight against the Prodigious."
"I understand, comrade happy dragon Fei. Then we shall file a petition for more minutes to be provided by the glorious Communist State. All needs of the people are met in Communism."
"They sure are." Fei patted the idiot's head as if she were an innocent puppy and began to kung-fu-gallop them towards Cash's place.
"Indeed!" Mei-Lien beat her chest with pride and the spirit of Communism filled her. "None suffer in the People's Republic of China, the greatest country in the world. This land is filled with people like you who helped me expecting nothing in return as a true Communist should."
Fei hesitated. Only for a moment. But it was enough for the hooks of guilt to latch onto her. "Right… nothing in return."
"No doubt the party-approved forced re-education labor camps instilled you with such morals."
"Actually I never went to school. Dad taught me." A sad shadow fell over Fei. "Before I lost him, he taught me how to fight and he taught me that there's no time for anything else or else the world would be in grave danger. No friends. No fun. Only fighting."
For a while, the conversation stopped there. Mostly because they rode through several blocks of acidic smog from the Duracell battery factory. Multiple air-cans later, they were on the other side.
"And yet," Mei-Lien finally said, "you proved him wrong. You saved me and the world has not ended, thanks of course to the glorious Communist party. And you know what else you did tonight, comrade happy dragon Fei?" Mei-Lien put a warm hand on Fei's shoulder. "You made a friend."
"F-friend?!" Fei stammered.
The horse skidded to a halt, waiting for more yuan to be slipped into the box around its neck before going further. Thankfully, they were right by their destination. Fei kung-fu-scrambled away from Mei-Lien's hand like it was on fire.
"I can't have friends!"
"Come here, new friend comrade, give me a hug." Mei-Lien scooted after her, arms wide.
"Nononono! If I have a friend, the Prodigious will get me! Dad said so!"
"All are equal and friends in Communism."
Shaking like a leaf, Fei was on the verge of fainting as Mei-Lien's arms wrapped around her body. Every kung-fu urge in Fei's body told her this was an attack and she should kung-fu-break her assaulter. It had happened. She'd broken her dad's strictest rule. The Prodigious were sure to pounce in her moment of weakness. She waited for the end.
And waited…
And waited…
Nothing happened. No one attacked. The world kept turning. The sky remained green.
"I'm… I'm not dead?" She looked at the half-breed with twinkling incredulous eyes. "I can… I can have friends?" Overcome with every emotion on the spectrum, Fei gave into her childhood desires and wrapped her first true friend in a kung-fu-deathgrip but used a fraction of her kung-fu strength so it resembled a hug. "I-I-I always -hic- I always wanted a fri-he-he-he-eeeeeeeend!" Fei kung-fu-bawled her eyes out.
"And Communism provides," Mei-Lien replied with a party-approved platonic embrace while leaving room for Chairman Mao. "Now, friend comrade happy dragon Fei, let us retrieve my meaningless capitalist trinkets." With the confidence of the Red Army, Mei-Lien got off the horse and goose-stepped down the nearby stairs, straight toward Cash's pawn shop.
Dread of the truth that waited within those walls shook Fei to the core. "Wait!" She kung-fu-dove in Mei-Lien's way. "You don't want to check there. They got nothing in there. Just a bunch of broken trash—"
"Greetings, half-breed!" Cash suddenly burst out the door, twirling his fan like a used car salesman. "My, my, you look just like the half-breed whose passport was pawned here earlier."
"We found it!" Mei-Lien cheered and ran inside. "Glory to the Communist State!"
"Hooray..." Fei grumbled and followed.
Later, inside:
Cash piled all of Marinette's stolen clothes and belongings on the counter, the Miraculous earrings sat atop the cups of her bra like a pair of black nipples.
"You are veeeery lucky, half-breed," Cash said with an exaggerated swoon. "Anyone could've come in here and bought these. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good look at the thief who sold them to me," he winked heavily at Fei who was sweating oceans and gripping her chest like she was about to have a heart attack, "but I'll be more careful about who I do business with from now on. Tell you what, I will give you the gweilo discount. One thousand yuan for everything."
"A THOUSAND!" Fei shouted. "Are you serious? That's way more than one." She looked at Mei-Lien for confirmation. "Right? A thousand is at least twice as much as one, right?"
"More," Mei-Lien answered.
"Triple?! Cash, you scam-artist!"
"Supply and demand, baby," Cash chuckled malevolently behind his fan.
"It's alright, friend comrade happy dragon Fei," Mei-Lien cut in calmly. "I will not be purchasing these meaningless tokens of material wealth."
Cash's chuckle died in his throat. "Come again?"
"These are the capitalist shackles of Marinette Dupain-Cheng who no longer exists." Mei-Lien gazed off into the distance, standing tall in her recycled cardboard. "A true Communist does not need insulated clothes or shoes or gaudy jewelry."
"Gaudy? Oh fuck you, bitch!" Tikki snarled from the claw machine.
"They are kept warm by an economic system so perfect it needs no modern-day correction, made beautiful by the sweat on their brow from a long day's underpaid work, protected by their fellow comrades and friends who only have their best interests at heart."
Fei winced.
"A true Communist needs nothing because they already have everything." Mei-Lien raised her fist in triumph. Her cardboard sleeve ripped in half. "I will buy back the underwear though. A true Communist does not go commando."
"Oh goody!" Cash smiled. "Two thousand yuan."
"You bastard!" Fei cried. Then she asked Mei-Lien, "Is two more than one?"
"Yes."
"You bastard!" Fei couldn't kung-fu take it anymore. With the might of a dragon, Fei kung-fu flipped the counter and kicked it at Cash.
"Gán," he barely managed to say before he was pancaked against the far wall.
Nabbing Marinette's stuff, Fei grabbed her friend and carried them all out of the store. Tikki flew after them, enjoying the violence.
"Friend comrade happy dragon Fei, what are you doing?" Mei-Lien scolded. "We cannot steal from our fellow comrade. We are not the capitalist pig bourgeoisie." Mei-Lien paused. "Holy gán, Chloe's last name is a pun!"
"Trust me," Fei said as she stripped the cardboard off and redressed the girl at pickpocket speed. "Cash is not as Communist as you think."
"Then it is our duty to report him to the secret police so he can be kidnapped in the middle of the night and get the forced re-education that he needs. But first, we pay him." Mei-Lien turned and came face to face with a trio of musclebound thugs. The biggest said hello by crushing a fire hydrant against his skull like a beer can.
"Greetings, comrades," Mei-Lien said, starting to feel a teeny bit nervous.
"Stay behind me," Fei ordered and positioned herself between Mei-Lien and the thugs. Her arms and legs flowed through the air in a blur of kung-fu. Every move carried with it strength fueled not only by discipline and training but also a newfound passion to protect her friend. None would get past Fei.
The thugs pulled out their guns.
"RUN!" Fei screamed and kung-fu-chucked their horse at them.
Into the twisting alleys the girls sprinted, Fei kung-fu-knocking-over as many obstacles in their pursuers' way as she could. Bullets and shrapnel ricocheted around them. As they tried to make their escape, Tikki lounged in the air by Mei-Lien.
"Hey, could you do me a favor?" Tikki said. "Could you try to catch one of those bullets with your teeth? We've had a good run, but I think it's time I moved onto better things, Marinette. By better, I mean Fei."
"Marinette is no more," the girl replied stiffly. "I am Mei-Lien Cheng, loyalist to the Communist party."
"Mei-what?" Tikki rolled her eyes. "Oh joy, you've gone native."
"And once we have gotten away, comrade, I will be turning you over to the military."
Tikki gasped like it was Christmas morning. "I'm gonna have an army?"
"No, you will be locked away in a secret lab where painful inhumane experiments will be conducted on you in order to find ways to distribute your power to every Chinese soldier, all for the greater advancement of the Communist State. Do not worry, comrade, after your re-education you will discover that giving your freedom to Communism is the best way to live."
Tikki stared at Mei-Lien. It was with cold nausea that she concluded that she preferred Marinette. "Luka!" the Kwami blurted.
Mei-Lien stumbled. "W-what? What are you—"
"Kagami!"
Mei-Lien began to shake. "Wait, don't—"
"Adrien Agreste!"
Mei-Lien's face burned red. "You-you can't trick me with—"
"Luka! Kagami! Adrien Agreste! You're cheating on your boyfriend with Chat Noir!"
"And I'm loving every leathery second," Lady Noire purred before— "GAAAAAAH!" Marinette burst to the surface. "I'M NOT! I'M NOT! I'M NOOOOOT!"
"Welcome back, asshole," Tikki grumbled with instant regret.
"Oh my Big Red X, this is the worst day ever!" Marinette wailed, managing to keep running while puking out the Chinese water. "I hate this place! BLEEGH! Fuck connecting with my roots! BLEEGH! Fuck Communism! BLEEGH! Fuck China!"
Marinette crashed into a wall. It was a dead end.
"FUCK!"
She peeled herself off the brick and turned. The armed thugs were there. So was Fei, but could she really take them all on by herself? Marinette slipped on the Miraculous and considered transforming while Fei had them distracted. Then a new voice cried out.
"Hey! The hell do you think you're doing here?"
A group of young men stepped into the alley. They looked… familiar.
Their leader, a skinny fellow, sneered at everyone. "This is our turf. What did we tell you about stealing on our turf, kung-fu girl?"
Marinette realized he was talking to Fei, who was suddenly making a super-guilty face. "Stealing?" Fei asked, kung-fu-astonished. "I have no idea what he's talking about."
A few pieces started to connect in Marinette's head. Marinette remembered where she'd seen these guys before. This was the same group of young men Marinette had seen chasing Fei earlier today.
"Get lost, kids," one of the armed thugs ordered. "We got business with these thieves."
"Thief?" Fei gasped. "Who's a thief? I'm not a thief. I've never stolen anything in my life."
Another piece clicked into place. That moment when Fei had run past her was also the same moment she had been… robbed!
"Hey, wait a second!" Marinette said.
Fei flinched.
"You all can speak Frenglish?"
It suddenly got very quiet.
"[Frenglish? Sorry, no, my Frenglish not good,]" the skinny leader excused in Mandarin, drenched with sweat.
"[Yeah, me neither. Too complicated,]" the armed thug agreed too quickly.
The last puzzle piece snapped into its slot. Marinette's eye twitched. "Are you… faking? You can speak Frenglish and you're faking? Is this a Chinese thing? Has every person I've begged for help tonight pretended to not understand me?! Why? Why would you do that?"
"[You idiot!]" the armed thug shouted at the skinny leader. "[You've compromised the advancement of the Communist State!]"
The thugs opened fire on the young men. With everybody now distracted, Fei dragged Marinette down a side alley and got away.
ACT FOUR
THE CLEANSING
In the heart of Shanghai:
Chat Noir waited patiently for Marinette to come to him. He had interrogated as many people as he could before they wizened up and hid in their homes. Now his only course of action was to sit there on a roof and hope Marinette saw the hundred-foot-tall MARINETTE COME HERE sign made of burning letters. So far nothing. He considered adding several flaming exclamation points to really hammer the message home.
Exclamation points… he thought. Points… dots… polka-dots! Then aloud, "Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?" Chat Noir opened his staff and dialed the one person he knew could help.
"Chat, I know it's you," Ladybug's pre-recorded annoyed voice said. "Stop leaving me phone sex messages. I didn't ask for them, I don't listen to them, we're not doing that."
Beep.
"M'Lady, get your sweet ass to Shanghai. My number one fan is lost in the city and I will not rest until she is found," he said with fierce determination. "That being said, here's this week's sexy fantasy to help you sleep. I'm wearing leather," he growled playfully, "tight leather, that clings to every single one of my rippling muscles as I slink into your bed and whisper in your ear… meow."
Meanwhile, in the mystical cave:
"Twenty-nine bottles of beer on the wall!" Gabriel and the Prodigious sang together. "Twenty-nine bottles of beer! You take one down, pass it around, twenty-eight bottles of beer on the wall! Twenty-eight bottles of be—"
"Enough!" Nooroo roared. "We have been stuck in this cave for over five-thousand bottles of beer! Just let us out!"
"Nooroo, don't be rude," Gabriel chided.
"Take it easy, little guy," the Prodigious' many voices said in unison. "It's almost time. See?" A boulder shifted slightly and they could see the green night sky. A crescent of darkness was just beginning to envelop the full moon. "The magical eclipse is here. Soon we will be free!"
"Oh boy!" Gabriel bounced on his heels. "And then we'll hit the streets and you'll show me all the friendship activities I can do with Adrien, right?"
"Sure we will…" The Prodigious belted out eight different evil demonic laughs simultaneously that when combined made Gabriel's skin crawl and Nooroo's wings shrivel.
"Uh oh," the Kwami gulped. "They might've been pretending to be nice."
"Yeah," Gabriel agreed. "I should find someone else to do the forbidden ceremony, just in case."
"Whoa, what a dump!" a new voice exclaimed. Gabriel scrambled up the boulder and peered through the tiny hole. It was…
"Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"
"How do you know her name but not your son's bodyguard's name?" Nooroo asked.
Outside:
"Talk about biohazards," Marinette rambled on, covering her mouth and nose. "The firemen haven't cleared any of the debris or ash, this place is more unbreathable than the factories. And that smell! Ugh! It's like someone has been shitting here for years."
"I have," Fei replied excitedly. "Would you like to see the pile? It's super tall. I use the dried-out chunks as firewood."
Marinette paused. "Oh. This is where you live?" She forced a polite smile. "It's very… quaint."
Fei had never learned that word but assumed quaint was good. "Thanks! Want to meet my dad?"
"Your dad? I thought you said he was—"
"Say hi, dad!" Fei joyfully presented the mannequin made of ash. Her only photo of her dad was taped to the head. "This is Marinette. She's a half-breed capitalist pig, but she's actually pretty cool. We're friends, so is it okay if she stays a bit?"
Her dad's arm crumbled off.
"He said yes!"
Marinette sighed heavily. "Just once I'd like to meet a normal person."
"Now that we're friends, we should do all the friend stuff that I never got to do when I was younger. Sleepover!" Eager as a kung-fu beaver, Fei pulled Marinette with her onto a pile of moldy newspapers.
"Ahhh…" Marinette tried her best to maintain her smile despite the wetness she could feel seeping into her pants. "Is this your… bed?"
"Made it myself!" Fei said proudly. Then she hesitated and gave the pile a sniff. "No, wait, this is the bathroom." She picked up Marinette and shifted them to a slightly less moldy pile of newspapers. "I always get those mixed up."
"Why is this wetter?" Marinette wheezed.
"Ooh! You know what I always wanted to do with a friend? Mud masks!" Fei slathered brown goop all over both of their faces. The distinct feeling of a worm wriggling its way across her cheek made itself known to Marinette.
"This is real mud, isn't it?" Marinette asked with a petrified look of disgust.
"Yeah, what else would mud masks be made of?" Fei chuckled. A beetle crawled up her nose.
"GAAAAAAH!" Marinette dunked her entire head into a nearby bucket of water.
"Uh, Marinette, that's the spit bucket."
In the mystical cave, Gabriel took detailed notes on how friendship worked.
When Marinette came to terms with her trauma, she tried her best to gently say, "Fei, I get that you want to make up for lost time and all, but I'm sorta still trying to get home here. We can hang out later somewhere else. You know, a place where there's an actual toilet."
"No!" Fei clutched Marinette. This close, her stench nearly made Marinette's hair fall out. "We have to do this now before you discover the truth!"
"Uh… what truth?"
"Nothing! There's no truth! Who said truth? Let's do each other's nails!" Fei pulled out a crusty bottle of Wite-Out.
"The truth?" someone mocked from the ruins. Into the dim moonlight sauntered Cash, waving his fan. "Why, the truth that Fei and I work together, half-breed."
"What?" Marinette gasped.
"No, don't tell her!" Fei begged. "We haven't even had a scary movie night yet!" She pointed at the cardboard box that had a TV drawn on it with crayons. On the screen, Jason Voorhees was stabbing a canoe.
"That's right, half-breed. Fei was the one who robbed you," Cash sneered. "She sold your belongings to me and then brought you over to buy them back in order to double the profits!"
In the mystical cave, Gabriel grinned. "Ah, the betrayal of trust. No doubt Marinette is about to break into tears. She will be perfect for my Akumas."
Back outside, "NO!" Fei kung-fu-collapsed to the ground and groveled at her former friend's feet. "I'm sorry, Marinette. It was before I got to know you. I was trying to buy the identity of my dad's killer. I'm sorry!"
Marinette flinched away from the pathetic girl and demanded, "You left me stranded and penniless so I would be brainwashed by the Communists?!"
"Huh? Brainwashed?" Fei stopped crying, dumbfounded. "No."
"Then you were definitely gonna steal my identity and take my place in France as a sleeper agent!" Marinette j'accused.
"What are you talking about?"
"Uh… " Marinette hesitated, the anger in her sails abruptly gone. Grasping at straws, she guessed, "Feed me to China's secret army of war dragons?"
"Dragons are vegan."
"So, wait… is that it?" Marinette asked, unimpressed.
Nobody answered.
Her face completely devoid of tears or any hurt, Marinette repeated, "Is that it? Is robbing me all the—" she snickered and rolled her eyes, "—unforgivable things you've done to me, or is there more?"
Fei looked at Cash. He shrugged, just as lost. "Uh, I also kept you away from the police when they were trying to find you and take you home," Fei confessed.
Marinette laughed. "BAHAHAAHAHAAAAAA! Wow, you think that's bad? You're adorable, Fei. Plain adorable." She squatted to Fei's level and patted her greasy, highly flammable, lice-ridden head. "Listen, I've had a really fucked up life. I've been betrayed more times than I can count and sexually harassed even more. I've been framed for crimes, erased from the timeline, possessed by the demonic incarnation of Love, and almost eaten alive by a giant talking frog. I nearly die every day, Fei. Every. Day. It happens so much that I…" A disturbed look of epiphany crossed Marinette's face, "I sort of look forward to it now, to the day death finally releases me." She let the concerning revelation hang in the air for a bit. "Anyway! Tonight was nothing."
"It was?"
"Compared to Lila, you're a saint," Marinette said with a kind smile. "Are you sorry?"
Fei nodded.
"Are you still going to help me get home?"
Fei nodded.
"Then we're good." And without another word, Marinette held her breath like she was about to dive underwater and pulled Fei into a hug. The warmth and sincerity of that hug melted away every one of Fei's fears. After years of being on the run and kung-fu fighting, she'd found someone who accepted her, stank and all.
"That's so beautiful," Gabriel sniffled.
"Okay, that's enough kumbaya," Cash cut in, jabbing his fan at Marinette. "You, half-breed, you owe me two thousand yuan."
"No!" In a blur of limbs, Fei kicked that fan away. "She's suffered enough and I'm done doing your dirty work, Cash. You will leave and never come back but first I will have the truth. Who killed my dad?"
"I already told you!" Cash yelled, his greed and frustration mounting. "You started the fire! You killed your dad! YOU!"
"Whoa, she did what?" Marinette asked, taking a cautious step away from the trained killer.
"No more lies!" Fei kung-fu-snarled and adopted her nutsack-kicking stance. "Only the Prodigious would attack us so violently. Tell me who they are, Cash!"
"It was you!"
"No, I didn't!"
"YOU!"
"NO!"
As the intense debate with reality went back and forth with no end in sight, Marinette and Tikki watched with abstract fascination.
"Huh," said Tikki. "It just hit me. Fei is a lot like you. She clearly did something wrong but doesn't want to admit it, just like how you cheated on Luka with Chat Noir but won't admit it."
Marinette sputtered. "I didn't—I'm not—Shut up!"
"Oh for the love of Mao!" Cash whined. "I just wanna get paid!"
Inside the cave, Gabriel stretched his arms. "Mmm'kay, I was hoping to get a kung-fu Akuma or finally give Marinette a spin, but I'll settle for a greedy bastard. Nooroo, dark wings rise!" In a powerful pulse of purple, he transformed into Hawkmoth and sent a dark butterfly into the ruins. The insect's purple glowing veins shined brilliantly in the night and Marinette saw it coming a mile away.
"GAH! Akuma!" she screamed.
"Aku-wha?" Fei asked.
"It's an evil demon!" She grabbed Fei's deadly arms and tried to make her chop the bug. "Kill it! Kill it with kung-fu action!"
"Marinette, I don't know what butterflies you capitalist pigs have but here in China they are gentle creatures who—" The Akuma shattered on Cash's fan. "What the gán?"
"UGH!" Marinette dashed deeper into the ruins to transform.
A pair of fashionably neon-pink, butterfly-themed sunglasses appeared on Cash's face and he saw the visage of a silver-masked man. "S'up, King Cash," said Hawkmoth. "I'm all about paying the bills as long as those bills allow me to dodge taxes. I've got a priceless treasure below the temple waiting to be dug up. What do you say? Just for tonight, be a capitalist pig."
"It's a deal," Cash grinned and he was swallowed by bubbling darkness. When it cleared he was transformed into a much taller gilded man wrapped in golden armor.
"You are no match for me, kung-fu girl," King Cash cackled, rising to his full height, eager to fight. "The silver blades of my fan can cut through anything, and the golden ones can—" He whipped his fan and turned half of the ruins into solid gold. King Cash gawked at his accomplishment. "Holy Karl Marx, I'm rich!" Then he sped into Shanghai, turning everything he could into gold and pocketing the treasures.
Fei stared.
Hawkmoth stared. "I don't think he's coming back."
The Prodigious stared. "We mean, would you?"
Somehow, Fei heard that and snapped around. Her keen kung-fu eyes immediately spied Hawkmoth in the rock.
The villain nearly pissed himself. "Uh oh."
Nearby:
"Everywhere I go there are fucking Akumas!" Marinette ranted. "It's like I can't get away! If I went all the way down to Antarctica, would I face an akumatized penguin? Is Hawkmoth stalking me?"
"That's… that's actually a good point," Tikki admitted with surprise. "He was in New York and now Shanghai. If we cross-check the flight records of Parisians who flew to both cities in the slim windows when Hawkmoth appeared, we could significantly narrow down our suspects, maybe even figure out who Hawkmoth—"
"Is it too much to ask for one vacation without a battle to the death? Just one?!" Marinette shouted, completely ignoring Tikki.
"Oh, you're not looking for a solution, you just want to complain," Tikki grumbled. "Big Red X, I hate teenage girls."
"Well, I'll show that butterfly freak. Tikki, spots on!" In a flourish of red, she transformed into Ladybug. Immediately, her yo-yo rumbled with over seventy new voice messages. All of them were from Chat Noir. "Oh crap, I abandoned Paris without telling anybody," Ladybug realized. "Chat must be freaking out." She played the first message.
"Evening, LB, don't know if you got my other message but my number one fan Marinette Dupain-Cheng is missing in Shanghai. Could really use your help. Love you!"
Skip.
"H-hey, M'Lady, still haven't heard back from you. Nobody here seems to have seen Marinette. Starting to get nervous—"
Skip.
"I can't find her!" Chat Noir wailed. "I keep looking but I can't! I—"
Skip.
"She's not here either—"
Skip.
"Please!" Chat Noir sobbed. She could hear his tears. "I can't lose Marinette. She's my everything. What kind of hero can't save his number one fan? Without her, I'm nothing! NOTHING—"
The rest of the messages were just various lengths of Chat Noir crying desperate snot-filled gibberish into the phone.
Meanwhile at the Great Hall of the People:
"—so I need the Red Army's help to find this girl. I'm outta money, but I can pay you with all the honey you can eat. What do you say? I know how much you love the stuff," Chat Noir said, offering a giant pot of the sticky delight.
"For the last time, I am not Winnie the Pooh!" President Xi Jinping said and smacked the golden goodness to the floor.
"Wow, you are not the willy, nilly, silly old bear TV told me." Chat Noir's staff rumbled, it was Ladybug. "Bugaboo! Did you get my message? Did you get my second message? What about the seventy other messages? We need to find Marinette!"
"Relax, Chat, I'm in Shanghai and I already found her."
"You did!" Chat Noir's eyes sparkled with glee. "Is she there? Can I talk to her?"
On the other side of the city, Ladybug blinked. "Uh… sure. Hey, Marinette, Chat wants to say hi." She held her yo-yo away from her face, counted to three, then said, "Hi, Chat Noir, it's me Marinette. I'm perfectly fine."
"Princess!" Chat Noir thundered the deepest, bravest, most commanding declaration she'd ever heard. It was the profound kind of voice that instilled awe and wonder, made the listener vividly imagine triumphant horns blasting away, and easily made Hercules sound like a wimp. "There's no need to fear! We have come to rescue you, everything will be all right. I swear on my every pun that we will get you back home. Stay close to Bugaboo, my sidekick will keep you safe until I get there."
Ladybug unexpectedly felt her cheeks grow warm at Chat Noir's bravado. He was actually taking this seriously and acting like a hero… all to save her. "Hey, wait, sidekick?" she hissed. "Who the fuck are you calling a sidekick?!"
Chat Noir's machismo did not falter. "Oh good, LB, you're still listening. I've got your location on my staff. Keep Marinette out of danger until I arrive. I'm counting on you, sidekick."
The line went dead. Ladybug's eye twitched. "I'm gonna kick his ass so hard!"
Meanwhile in the sacred cave:
The stone wall slid open. Framed by the rushing waterfall, Fei entered, her body cast in an intimidating silhouette. Despite being over twice her size, Hawkmoth was absolutely terrified of the girl.
"Uh, c-careful," he nervously said as the stone wall slowly slid shut behind her. "You can't open it from the outside."
Without taking her menacing glare off the man, Fei caught the wall with her foot at the last second and kung-fu-jammed a doorstop into the rock. The wall stayed open.
"Wow, excellent legwork. Very impres—AAAAAAAAA!" Hawkmoth screamed bloody murder as Fei charged at him. In moments, he was on his back, a deadly fist aimed at his nose.
"Hiding in my backyard this whole time?" Fei growled. "Clever. But I've finally found you, the Prodigious."
"Prodigious?! Nononono! That's not me!" Hawkmoth did piss himself this time.
"That would be us," the Prodigious' many voices said together. Fei looked up and gaped at the elegantly decorated wall. "We've been expecting you, Fei. We've watched you grow, training every day to face us. If you think you're ready, then—"
SMASH!
Hawkmoth gawked at the shattered remains of the wall. One second it had been there. The next, pebbles. Fei stood at the center of the desolation and wiped her knuckles. "At last," she said, "my dad has been avenged."
"Uh, no," the Prodigious interrupted. "That was just our front door and it was unlocked. Did you really think we were a wall?"
"Dad never told me what you look like," Fei excused. She pointed at a stalactite, "Is this you?"
"No."
Fei kung-fu-obliterated it just to be safe. She pointed at a glowing cave-shroom, "How about this?"
"No."
A sleeping bat. "Oh, this has gotta be you."
"For the love of—Take the stairs! We're downstairs!"
Delving deeper into the cave hidden behind the broken wall, Fei found the staircase. It spiraled further underground, past the rock layer and into the Earth's rainbow cake crust. The railing glowed with phosphorescent stone, carved to resemble an ancient dragon whose back Fei had to traverse to reach the bottom. Her face was a stern grimace of determination. This was the culmination of her life's training. Tonight, the fate of the world will be decided.
"FUCK!" Hawkmoth cried as he tumbled past her, cursing a storm as he flopped down the stairs.
When Fei reached the dragon's tail, Hawkmoth was a dizzy heap of bruises. She strode past him. A beam of moonlight shined down from a ceiling she couldn't see. It reflected off a gem-encrusted stalagmite and hit the wall on the far side of the cavern. There, hewn into the moist dessert, was the face of a demonic lion.
"Fei Wu," the Prodigious cackled as one. "Welcome… to your final challenge."
"Is that really you?"
"So close. We're just beyond your reach. In here. No kung-fu can unlock this barrier. You need the key. The bug-man carries it."
Hawkmoth popped to his feet. "I do?"
At those words, the magical eclipse became full and the moonbeam turned a shade of blood-red. The section of cake the light touched rolled away, revealing a tiny slot. The perfect size… for a bracelet.
"Oh! I guess I do." Hawkmoth jogged on over and eagerly stuck in the jade bracelet. The jewel glowed, its carvings radiated with power. In response, the cavern began to tremble and shake just as Ladybug arrived and gaped at everything. "Finally!" Hawkmoth evilly chortled. "I can finally finish what I started fifteen years ago!"
"What happened fifteen years ago?" everyone else asked.
"NOT IMPORTANT!"
The rainbow cake shimmered and from the icing stepped out a massive, bipedal, demonic lion-man! With every footfall, the world quivered, the moonlight glinted off the warrior-beast's ancient armor.
"Oh crap..." Hawkmoth squeaked.
"What the fuck is that?" Ladybug whispered.
The lion-man raised up a golden ball in one clawed hand and gushed, "Fei! Oh my gosh, look at you! You're all grown up! I remember when you were just a little tyke. You probably don't recognize me, I am Mei-Shi, the—"
"Kung-Fu Art! Sucker Punch of a Trillion Jackasses!"
The truck-sized Mei-Shi doubled over and puked his Reese's. Fei stood over the defeated creature and readied to kung-fu-chop its head off. "Now, I shall avenge my dad—"
"WAIT!" Mei-Shi wheezed. "I'm not the Prodigious! I'm just the doorman!"
"For the love of Karl Marx!" Fei groaned. "Where are they?!"
Shakily, the lion-man gestured at the wall again. The cake slid open to reveal one last room. Fei stepped inside, kung-fu-prepared to face an opponent far more powerful and deadly than Mei-Shi. What she found was an oriental box sitting on a german-chocolate pedestal.
"What?" she said flatly.
"Hello!" the Prodigious sang from inside.
"What?" she repeated. Her gobsmacked request for the world to make sense was too strong for the beyond-old box to withstand and it crumbled to dust. The Prodigious coughed and choked. All that was left was a pendant, a round red pendant with a black circle in its center surrounded by seven more black circles. Fei picked up the thing by its simple leather strap. She squinted at the jewelry, unable to comprehend.
"You?" she asked, stupefied. "You're the Prodigious?"
"What were you expecting, a fire-breathing dragon?" the Prodigious scoffed. "Long-Long is more of a water dragon."
Ladybug and Hawkmoth snooped over her shoulders, the former confused, the latter excited.
"Okay, I have no idea what's going on here," Ladybug chimed in. "The hell is a Prodigious?"
"Nothing you have to worry about, Ladybug," Hawkmoth smoothly answered. "Just a little souvenir to remember my trip to China. Y'up, completely useless, powerless, magicless junk. I'll take that off your hands and be on my way—"
Like a cobra, the leather strap of the Prodigious struck out and snared around Fei's throat!
"FUCK!" cried Ladybug.
"FUCK!" cried Hawkmoth.
"GÁN!" cried Fei as the pendant glowed and mystical symbols appeared in every one of the black circles. Instantly, she found herself in a glimmering void of red and gold. At first, she thought she was wrapped in the Communist flags of China, but these walls of red waved and undulated unnaturally. The way the red moved was almost… magical. "What's happening? Where am I?" she demanded.
"You're right where you wanted to be," a child-like voice answered.
"You found us, Fei," another child-like voice added.
"After all these years," chuckled a third.
POOF!
Eight tiny grotesque animal-bug hybrid monstrosities appeared before her. Their skin or fur or scales or whatever vile substance covered them was entirely red and their hair was gold, and they were all grinning hungrily at her.
Fei raised her fists. "Is this you? Are you the ones who killed my dad?"
"Us?" the crimes against nature asked as one, appalled. "No, no, no, but we did see who did the deed."
The red gave way and Fei saw the school, her home. It was no longer burnt to ashes, the temple stood tall and proud as it had for centuries. She saw her younger self through her bedroom window, waving the guandao. A gasp escaped her as she saw the weapon accidentally knock her dad unconscious… and then knock over the lantern. Fei wanted to save him, she wanted to dart inside and get him out of there, but this was the past. She could do nothing as the fire spread quickly, swallowing the building in seconds. And along with the temple, the flames burned away any notion of denial. All that was left was the truth.
"It… it was…" a single tear rolled down Fei's cheek, "...me..."
"Surprise!" the Prodigious sang as one.
In reality, a radiation of ruby burned its way over Fei, transforming her clothes into spandex colored red and gold like the Chinese flag. Even Fei's black hair was extended until it reached her waist and turned a fiery red dotted with golden stars. Her black eyes morphed into an inhuman gold and from her lips poured multiple sinister voices.
"What up, bitches and bros and non-binary hoes!" the-thing-that-used-to-be-Fei said. "We are the Renlings, inhabitors of the Prodigious, and the aspects of Communism made incarnate."
Ladybug and Hawkmoth gasped!
"That's right! It was us! We planted the idea of Communism in your feeble human minds as a means to control you! But your ancestors got wise to our plan and locked us away, for all the good that did them. Now that we have a vessel…" with a single kung-fu-chop, the Renlings collapsed half the cavern, "we can spread the good word of Communism!"
"Oh my Big Red X," Ladybug gawped. "Prodigious are Miraculous Chinese knock-offs?!"
"Whaaat?" Hawkmoth gawped along, trying to play innocent. "I had no idea. I'm just as shocked as you."
"Wh-who are you calling knock-off?" the Renlings stammered, suddenly self-conscious. "We are completely original."
"Original?" Ladybug scoffed. "Prodigious: Miraculous. Renlings: Kwamis."
"Well, you got us there, we're definitely commies."
"Kwa-mis! You're super evil spirits of metaphysical concepts contained in magical jewelry whose sole desire is to possess humans and take over the world, except you're made in China. Knock-off!"
"We're red, that makes us totally different."
"I bet you even have another Renling who doesn't hang out in the Prodigious with you because they're too busy staying out here, pretending that they're taking over the world for you."
Mei-Shi the lion-man turned pale and began to sweat. "What? Of c-course not," he said. "I haven't been spending centuries here taking dives in my fights with the Guardian in exchange for video games, comic books, and snacks. Don't be silly."
"Fucking called it!" Ladybug sneered. "Knock-off!"
"Oh yeah?" the Renlings growled and Fei's body began to shimmer. "Can a knock-off do this?" Before Ladybug and Hawkmoth's eyes the girl grew. Her body thickened with muscle and fur. Her skeleton audibly twisted and snapped a disturbing amount until Fei was no longer human. In her place stood a towering red bear.
"Mommy," Hawkmoth whimpered.
"Okay..." Ladybug cleared her throat. "I'll admit that's unique."
"I am Xiong-Xiong, Incarnation of the metaphysical concept of Graduated Tax Income," the bear said with only one deep rumbling voice. It stood on its hind legs, flashed its razor-sharp teeth, and raised its even sharper claws. The beast scowled down at the humans and sang, "C is for Comrades who do stuff together."
Ladybug and Hawkmoth barely had time to go, "Wha?" before they were forced to dodge out of the way of the bear's deadly swipe. The claws ripped the cake walls to sugary shreds.
"O is for One-party is all the parties you need," the bear continued its odd song while pressing the attack.
"Why is it singing?" Ladybug demanded. "What is happening?"
"I don't know!" Hawkmoth wailed back.
In a radiation of ruby, the bear shrunk and transformed into a red praying mantis. The tiny bug zipped much faster than the bear and easily caught up with the two. "M is for Mandatory food shortages," it sang in a new voice. "Hi, I'm Tang-Tang by the way, Incarnation of the concept of the Abolishment of Inherited Wealth." It impaled one of its blade-arms into Hawkmoth's foot.
Hawkmoth let loose a pained scream. He kicked the insect away and ducked behind some ice cream cake. Ladybug was soon there beside him.
"Dammit, Chat Noir, where are you?" she swore, searching the cave frantically. There was no sign of her meatshield yet. "Screw this. Lucky Charm!" She tossed her yo-yo into the air and down came a polka-dotted basketball. Hawkmoth held his breath, seeing his adversary's secret weapon up close for the first time. He was about to witness the intricate strategic mind that always defeated him.
Ladybug chucked the basketball at the monster. Nothing happened.
"I'm out of ideas," she said.
Before he could process that, a red snake was on his shoulder. It smiled at him and sang in a rather feminine voice, "M is for Maybe you should work together." Then made a meaningful nod at Ladybug.
Hawkmoth looked back and forth between the animal and Ladybug. "Oh!" he gasped. "Oh my goodness, you're still trying to teach me how to make friends by giving us a common enemy. That is so sweet, thank you, Miss…"
"Shei-Shei, Incarnation of the concept of the Confiscation of Property of all Emigrants and Rebels." The snake winked. Then she proceeded to strangle him with her vice-like body. "U is for Universal Healthcare."
"Ladybug! Help!" Hawkmoth wheezed.
Ladybug stared at the choking man for two full seconds. "Nah," she said and waited for him to die.
In another radiation of ruby, the snake expanded into a red-furred monkey who happened to be the Incarnation of the concept of the Centralization of Communication and Transportation. "N is for News outlets should be regulated and heavily censored." With a screech, the primate tackled Ladybug and went to town on her face. Before any permanent damage could be done, Hawkmoth batted the animal away with his cane.
To say the least, Ladybug was stunned. "You… did you… save me?" she asked.
"Of course, you would've done the same for me."
"I literally just chose not to."
"Because that's what friends do."
"We're not friends!" she yelled, but Hawkmoth was too busy being proud of himself to listen. "Ugh, whatever, fine we'll work together. Can you get your Akuma back here?"
"Uh…Hold on." Hawkmoth reached out with his mind.
In a park:
"And that makes twelve tons of gold," King Cash counted as he turned another tree. "Let's make it fifteen." A pair of neon-pink butterfly-themed sunglasses appeared on his face.
"Hey, King Cash," Hawkmoth said pleasantly. "Think you could swing on by? I mean, if you're not busy—"
King Cash slapped the sunglasses away and resumed amassing his fortune.
Back in the cave:
"Hello?" Hawkmoth tapped his cane. "Hello? I think he hung up on me."
"Then what good are you?!" Ladybug screeched.
A red-feathered eagle swooped down and began clawing at her. "I is for It's fine that you can't breathe the air. Howdy-ho, I'm Ying-Ying, Incarnation of the concept of Free Education for all Children. But I'm sure you could tell."
Hawkmoth thought fast. He considered everything that he had at his disposal. He weighed every option, factored every variable.
"Hit it!" Ladybug pleaded. "Hit it with your cane again!"
No, that's exactly what they'd be expecting. Hawkmoth needed to do something new, something unexpected, something crazy! "I know, I'll akumatize the lion-guy!" he said.
Both Ladybug and the eagle stared at him.
A black butterfly flapped across the cave and shattered on the golden orb in Mei-Shi's paw. A pair of neon-pink butterfly-themed sunglasses appeared on his face.
"Hey, Mayor McCheese or whatever your name is, think you can tag in and help us?"
"Use my mystical power to break my deal with Guardians and finally begin The Cleansing?" Mei-Shi asked. "What a great idea."
"Merde! I made it worse!" Hawkmoth shouted as Mei-Shi was swallowed by bubbling darkness. "I've made it so much worse!"
Mei-Shi grew and grew until the cave could no longer contain him. The cake and rock exploded open and Mei-Shi continued to expand until he was the size of Godzilla! "I am Yan Luo Shi! And I will end all life!" The kaiju unleashed a bellow so mighty it shattered the windows of the entire city!
"What the fuck did you do?!" Ladybug screamed.
"I can fix this!" Hawkmoth jumped up the rubble and chased after the Akuma. "Now you listen to me, mister. Nobody is going to do any—"
"CLEANSE!" Red eye beams fired from Yan Luo Shi and struck Hawkmoth. The supervillain of Paris crumbled into a pile of ash like he'd been Snapped by Thanos.
Ladybug and the eagle's jaw/beak dropped.
"Gán, we actually kinda liked bug-man," the eagle said and flew off.
"We won?" Ladybug whispered, dumbstruck. "We won!"
Chat Noir landed beside her, "M'Lady, I got here as soon as I—"
"WE FUCKING WON!" Ladybug pulled the boy into a hug and twirled. "Hawkmoth is dead! We did it! We've—"
"CLEANSE!" Yan Luo Shi's word shook the Earth as he crossed the bay toward Shanghai.
Ladybug felt Chat Noir tense. "Is that where you hid Marinette?" he asked.
"Uh—"
"MARINETTE!" He charged.
In Shanghai:
The Chinese were celebrating in the streets.
"People of China," President Xi Jinping said to the crowd. "The Cleansing is finally upon us. Our dedication to the Communist way will finally be rewarded. We shall be spared as the rest of the capitalist pigs are struck down. And from the ashes, China shall rise!"
Nearby, Yan Luo Shi waded through the Bund. The water, which was deep enough for cargo ships longer than a football field, only reached his knees. The goliath stopped before the city's coastline and observed the people. "Humans of China," he asked, his question rumbling through the green sky, "do you keep the way of Communism?"
"We do!" the people replied.
"Do you renounce all meaningless material possessions for the greater advancement of the Communist State?"
"We do!"
"Excellent! Now, the final test." Yan Luo Shi loomed ominously over the crowd. "Sub or dub?"
There was a general murmuring of confusion. No one had expected that. President Xi Jinping cleared his throat and answered, "Uh… dub?"
A red beam cut through the people, killing them all!
"I'm more of a manga reader," said the one guy who had been missed. A red mini-beam blasted him too.
"CLEANSE!"
None were spared. No man, woman, child, or goose were allowed to flee as Yan Luo Shi obliterated them all.
"MARINETTE!" Somehow, Chat Noir's cry was louder than the kaiju's, which made the colossus turn and stare at the leather-clad cat-boy advancing on him.
"Chat, stop!" Ladybug ordered, yanking on his tail with all her might. Yet she was no match for Chat Noir's bottomless determination.
"I'LL SAVE YOU, MARINETTE!" he shouted, managing another leap toward the battle.
"She's already safe, I'm telling you! We just have to keep our heads cool and destroy the golden orb. It's the only way to stop him."
"Really?" asked Yan Luo Shi. He looked at his exposed one weakness, shrugged, and swallowed the thing whole.
"Oh fuck," Ladybug said. Her sassy retort of me and my big mouth was interrupted by another Chat Noir leap.
"I WON'T REST UNTIL MARINETTE IS PROTECTED!"
"Dammit, Chat, listen to me! Marinette isn't in danger!"
This time he did listen to her. He halted his battle-crazed march, looked at her, and calmly asked, "Is she watching?"
"Yes!" Ladybug replied without thinking. It was the worst possible thing she could've said.
"THEN I'LL GIVE HER A SHOW!" the dumbass thundered and flexed his body to perfection. In an instant, he grew an extra six inches taller, his chest widened, his abs tightened, his jawline thickened, and his buttcheeks clenched into buns of steel.
"Ahh! My eyes!" Ladybug wailed, blinded by such a flawless, leathery gluteus maximus. Her grip on the belt-tail weakened and Chat Noir ripped free.
"STAY BACK, SIDEKICK! THIS IS A JOB FOR A HERO! CATACLYSM!" Chat Noir roared and launched himself at Yan Luo Shi. The Akuma stared at the flying boy and briefly wondered what the little fella's plan was before Cleansing him mid-air with a bored blast.
"Well… I didn't think this through," Chat Noir admitted to himself and crumbled to ash. His cat ears plopped on top of his dusty remains with a soft whump. Ladybug stared at those ashes, feeling something foreign well up inside her.
"You..." she croaked.
She'd seen Chat Noir be defeated before, almost every day. Mind-controlled, beaten to unconsciousness, even die multiple times in more and more traumatizing ways. And every time, she'd either rolled her eyes in annoyance or laughed her ass off.
But this… was different.
"You..."
She felt her heart tear itself in two and from the shell poured out a pain stronger than any injury from an Akuma, stronger than any lie by Lila, stronger than any spasming of her wrench wound.
"You… BASTARD!"
Yan Luo Shi made the mistake of blinking and Ladybug was suddenly all up in his face, fist locked and loaded.
"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!
Minutes later, in Hawaii:
A couple of surfer dudes were camping out on the beach, dreaming of the gnarly waves they were gonna catch at first light.
SPLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
Surprisingly, nobody was awakened by the volcano-sized lion-man crash landing just offshore.
"...Ow..." Yan Luo Shi groaned.
Back in Shanghai:
Ladybug bellyflopped into the Bund, completely drained… and completely exposed. Why had she put every possible ounce of her Miraculous strength into that one punch? Why hadn't she laughed off Chat's demise like all the other times? She could bring him back, she knew that. Yet she'd lashed out like she… like she… cared.
"Fuck my life," Ladybug burbled sullenly into the water.
She breached the surface and lassoed a chimney. There was somebody she needed to find.
Meanwhile, on burning rooftop:
"S is for the State which is more important than your life," the Renlings sang over the crumbling city, swinging Fei's legs over the roof's edge. "M is for Mao was a god among men. And that's how you spell Communism!"
"Hey."
The Renlings spun Fei's head 540 degrees and saw a half-breed in pink jeans. "Greetings, infidel! Are you here to listen to our Communism song? From the top! C is for Comrades who—"
"I need to speak to Fei," Marinette said.
"Oh, go ahead, she can hear you. She's just a little preoccupied with crying right now. There's this whole personal thing she's dealing with..." the Renlings leaned closer and whispered, "killed her dad."
Marinette took a seat next to the possessed girl, whose head twisted another 270 degrees the wrong way to face her. There was a short moment of silence. Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was uttered. Only the crackling of the fire.
"I cheated on my boyfriend," she confessed quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. And like a band-aid, it left behind a sting. Marinette glanced over and saw the gold eyes had become black. They were puffy and bloodshot from tears but they were there. Fei was listening. "I wasn't trying to, it just happened. When I first realized what I was doing I didn't want to admit it was true. I wanted to pretend that I hadn't done anything wrong, that I didn't even like the other guy…" Marinette hugged her legs in one last attempt to hide, "but I do, I like spending time with him. That's not fair to Luka. He's always been good to me and just wants me to be happy. I'm so lucky to have him as my boyfriend."
"What's a boyfriend?" Fei asked innocently.
Marinette stared at the girl. "Right," she said, smacking herself, "homeless, no school, you probably don't even know what sex is."
"Is sex that butt-rubbing thing dogs do that makes it easier to hunt them for their delicious meat?"
"Staying on track! Accidentally cheating on your boyfriend, Fei, is a crime just as bad as accidentally killing your dad."
Fei gasped. "It is?"
"Some say even worse."
"Oh no, Marinette, wait, you shouldn't beat yourself up, you didn't mean it." Fei hugged her tight. It was rare for someone to be so supportive of Marinette. It felt good. More than good. It felt like, for once, she didn't have to blame herself.
"Neither did you, Fei."
Fei paused and everything started to make sense. "You're right, I didn't mean it. That means it's okay."
"Uhh, no," the Renlings cut in. "That doesn't automatically make what you did right."
"Yes, it does!" Fei declared with rising conviction. "And because I was robbing people to protect the world that means I don't have to feel guilty about being a thief either. Right, Marinette?"
"Sure," Marinette lied through her teeth. "Whatever gets you out of depression."
"No!" the Renlings insisted. "That isn't how morals work."
Fei rose to her feet and boldly said, "It's how Communism works."
The Renlings sputtered, "Wh-wha?!"
"Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing in order to help others. Sometimes the ends justify the means. The Fathers of Communist China knew this. They had to make the tough decisions for the greater advancement of the Communist party. That's why China doesn't handicap itself with capitalist propaganda-machines like Wikipedia or Google. And that's why all of China only has one time zone!"
"No Google? What the fuck is wrong with this country?" Marinette muttered under her breath.
"We don't blame the State because we know it's all for our own good and the only way to fight the capitalist pigs. My dad knew this too, which was why he never allowed me to have friends or go to the movies or learn how to read. He knew it was what I needed to face the Prodigious, to become who I truly am..." Fei hardened her resolve and found herself back in the red and gold realm. The Renlings were gathered before her, enraptured by her speech. With the solemnity of all Communism... Fei offered her hand.
The Renlings eyed that hand warily. "What is this?" they asked. "Some new form of kung-fu?"
"Another way," Fei answered. "Yan Luo Shi is out of control. If he isn't stopped, there won't be any humans left to rule."
The Renlings' confidence abruptly vanished. "Oh… fuck."
"Me fearing and fighting you," Fei continued, hand still offered, "that's what got my dad killed. But it doesn't have to be that way. I don't need to be your enemy. You don't have to be locked away forever."
Looks of consideration were exchanged between the Renlings. "But we already defeated you," they pointed out. "We won! Why would we give you back control and work together? Why not take care of Yan Luo Shi on our own?"
"Because," Fei smirked, "it's what a Communist would do."
The Renlings jerked back as if they'd been slapped. "Damn. Walked right into that one," they said, impressed. It appeared the human was making sense. Maybe there really was another way. They rubbed their chins and asked one last question, "Can you sing?"
Fei blinked. "Uh... I could learn."
"Then, tough girl, you got yourself a deal."
As one, the Renlings took Fei's hand.
In reality, Fei levitated into the air and her body shined such a brilliant gold that Marinette had to turn away. When she turned back, Fei's eyes were golden again but… there was a distinct lack of madness.
"Fei?" she asked cautiously.
"And Long-Long and Hou-Hou and Ma-Ma and all the rest of the Renlings," Fei replied, her voice now joined with the others. "We have put our differences aside and have become the same being. No longer shall we fight each other. We are one. We are the Renren."
"You can do that? That's a thing? That's a thing?!" Marinette snuck a glance at Tikki who glared death back at her. "Could we do that with the Kwamis?"
"Don't. You. Dare," Tikki hissed at her. "You even think about melding me with Sass and I'll kill your entire family."
"Nevermind," Marinette whimpered.
Fei breathed deep, in full control of her body again which coursed with the power of the Prodigious. She turned to the girl who had helped her reach this level. "Thank you, Marinette," she said. "Despite being an inferior half-breed capitalist pig, you are a true friend."
"No problem, Fei," Marinette replied. "Could you possibly quit it with the name-calling?"
"We are simply stating facts."
"NOOOOO!" Yan Luo Shi landed in the water next to their building and aimed a gargantuan fist at them. "You've soiled the Prodigious!"
Like a meteorite, the kaiju's arm ripped through the structure. Fei and Marinette felt the world fall out from under them and they both went into freefall. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Marinette tumbled. Without the Ultimate Luck of her Miraculous, she wouldn't magically stop mere inches from the harsh unforgiving ground. She would go splat like the rest of humanity.
Then…
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a quick radiation of ruby. The next thing she knew, she was on the back of a motherfucking dragon!
"GAH! Don't eat me!" she screamed and scrambled for an escape.
"Marinette, it's us," the dragon said in a familiar cluster of voices.
"...Fei?"
"Call me Lady Dragon!"
The mythical beast flew them both behind a building, far from Yan Luo Shi's rampage.
"This is amazing!" Lady Dragon gushed. She transformed into a red horse and started doing chops and punches with her hooves. "Not only are we a kung-fu warrior but now we're a magical kung-fu warrior!" She morphed into a red tiger and, without wanting to, tried to squeeze into a tiny cardboard box. She quickly changed back to an eagle and rose into the air. "Note to self: never be a cat. You get far away from here, Marinette. We'll take care of this monster."
Marinette and Tikki watched Lady Dragon fly back into the fight.
"Well," Tikki sighed. "So much for me upgrading to a badass. Guess I'm stuck with you. Again."
"Time to call it a day, Tikki," Marinette said. "China has got a new hero and now all we have to do is sit back, relax, and cast Miraculous Ladybug when Fei's done."
CRASH!
Marinette blinked at the now-destroyed building next to her. Lady Dragon, now sporting a black eye, sprung from the remains and dashed back into the fray. With her lithe, magic-infused dragon-form she… kung-fu-punched and kung-fu-kicked Yan Luo Shi relentlessly. She might as well have been pelting him with marshmallows. The much bigger Akuma stared down at the dragon, unscathed and unimpressed. He flicked her away with his pinky.
"UGH!" Marinette groaned. "Why is she still relying on her fists? Was I this useless in the beginning, Tikki?"
"Worse."
"Fucking spots on!"
Ladybug swung over to the concussed and drooling dragon and slapped her across the face. "WAKE UP!"
"Uhhhh, dad? Is that you?" Lady Dragon woozily asked. "We had this crazy dream that we killed you."
"You did."
"Oh…"
"You're magical now, idiot. Stop hitting everything and use your damn magic!"
"CLEANSE!" Yan Luo Shi bellowed and fired a laser at the duo. The blast impossibly warped around Ladybug, missing them both.
"See? Like that."
Lady Dragon nodded along. "Of course, yes, it all makes sense. Now that we control the Prodigious, we also possess all the magic of Communism!"
"The magic of what?" Ladybug said flatly. "For the love of—I know you commies believe Communism is this be-all-end-all thing, but it's just a political system. There's nothing magical about—"
On a gale of Communist wind, Lady Dragon took flight. She floated out over the Bund and raised her voice. "In the names of Karl Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao, we call upon the spirits of Communism. Hear us!"
As if in response, a massive Communist-red cloud gathered overhead, blotting out the green night sky. Stars of golden light exploded in that cloud, briefly revealing the outlines of thousands of Chinese people along with the recognizable figures of famous Communist leaders.
"Death is the solution to all problems," Stalin announced, chomping on a cigar.
"Hasta la victoria siempre," Che Guevara added, puffing on a Cuban.
"Sharing is caring," said Elmo from Sesame Street and ate a cookie.
"I'll be damned," Ladybug said, stunned. "Communism is magic."
"We beseech thee, ancestors," Lady Dragon continued. "Yan Luo Shi has lost his way. Grant us the power to bring him back into the Communist fold."
"The people ask, Communism provides!" the spirits chanted.
"Yay!" cheered Elmo.
A bolt of red lightning arced down and struck the Bund's water. Electricity skittered through the liquid, leaving behind a glow that Ladybug recognized. Twisting and weaving her long elegant body, Lady Dragon magically raised a great wave of the glowing water. Another twirl of her tail and a wall of smog from every sweatshop/factory in China rolled into the Bund. The resulting chemical reactions from the highly toxic pollutants made the water boil like lava and the frothing caused the wave to enlarge to a tsunami high above the kaiju's head. Lady Dragon grinned at Yan Luo Shi.
"Here, have a drink," she snarked and the wave came down on him. The resulting geyser was so inconceivably tall that it was visible back in Paris just as Luka was getting off a boat.
"Miss?" he said into his phone. "If you get this message, I cut my trip early and just moored. Hopefully, you haven't left yet." He saw the geyser in the direction of China. He sighed. "Oh dear..."
Back in China, Ladybug's jaw hung uselessly. She wasn't sure what she'd just witnessed. "Whaaa…?"
Drenched with glowing water, Yan Luo Shi's countenance was of one at peace. His razor-sharp teeth were contained in a calm smile. "Thank you, comrade Lady Dragon," he said. "The spirits of Communism have soothed my capitalist demons. Glory to the Communist State." He reached down his throat, pulled out the golden orb, and offered it to Ladybug.
"I don't… how did… okay, sure, whatever." Ladybug gave up trying to understand and punched the orb in half. Out fluttered the black butterfly which she de-akumatized before casting Miraculous Ladybug.
Shanghai was rebuilt.
King Cash became regular Cash, and lost all his gold.
The Cleansed people were un-Snapped with a pop.
Hawkmoth popped back into existence and screamed, "AAAHHHH! I DIED! AND THERE WAS NOTHING! NO HEAVEN! NO AFTERLIFE! JUST A DOOR! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Chat Noir too popped to life, his cat-ears on backwards. He looked… haunted. "I went through the door," he whispered. "It was a bedroom. So many anime posters. It smelt awful." His existential crisis on what waits beyond death was interrupted by Ladybug glomping onto him, her arms squeezed him tightly. The heartwarming moment instantly reminded him of the unexpected spine crushing in New York City. "Uh oh," he said. "Does this count as me leaving you again? Are you going to break me?"
Ladybug glared up at him, "Do you want me to break you?"
Unable to help himself, he grinned like a pervert and answered honestly, "Yes, please."
"Then I won't."
"Aw, man," Chat Noir sulked and settled for a regular old hug.
Hidden in that hug… Ladybug smiled.
A few feet away, Lady Dragon in her human form bowed to the spirits of Communism. "Thank you for your aid, ancestors," she said.
"Communism shall always provide for the people," Stalin replied curtly.
"Si, camarada," Che concurred.
"Could you turn that off?" Lady Dragon asked and pointed at the still glowing ocean.
"Nope, that's permanent. Now go forth and do as all Communist leaders do," Elmo instructed. "Go mad with power and install yourself as President for Life! YAY!"
"Yes, ancestors," Lady Dragon said, radiating with the true cosmic power of Communism! She morphed into her dragon form, grabbed President Xi Jinping, and flew away with him. "Time for an election."
Ladybug and Chat Noir watched as the man's cries for mercy grew faint.
"Well that took a turn," Ladybug remarked.
"Should we… stop her?" Chat Noir asked.
"I'm not coming back to this hellhole country, are you?"
"Don't think so."
"Then let her run the place. How much worse could she be?"
Later:
"We have slain Xi Jinping in single combat and consumed his heart," Lady Dragon announced to the crowd gathered before the Great Hall of the People. Fresh blood dribbled from her mouth. "As such, we have absorbed his power and the five-thousand-year rule remains unbroken! We have become the new President! For the greater advancement of the Communist State!"
"For the greater advancement of the Communist State!" the crowd chanted back.
"Our first command as President for Life: everyone must learn kung-fu! My people, follow our lead!" A soldier started some workout music and President Lady Dragon began throwing punches and kicks. The Chinese people happily obeyed.
Astro Chat and Cosmo Bug observed all of this from high in the green night sky.
"Wow, so that's how politics work," Astro Chat remarked. "So, M'Lady, when we meet up back in Paris, shall we pick up where we left off? I was thinking about a day at the beach or maybe we can get pedicures. How do you feel about—"
"Chat." She leveled him with a serious look. "Despite all comprehension, I've enjoyed this summer with you. But I need to spend more time with my boyfriend."
"Y-your boyfriend! Right!" Astro Chat chuckled nervously. "I totally forgot about the mystery guy you're dating who may or may not be me."
"He isn't you."
"I totally get it, one hundred percent, loud and clear. The two of you need some time together. I won't get in the way."
"Thank you," Cosmo Bug said, truly grateful that for once he was being mature.
"And you know what," Astro Chat continued, "this will open up my schedule. I can spend more time with my number one fan Marinette."
Cosmo Bug's eyes shot open.
"That'll be fun! See ya!" He blasted off.
Cosmo Bug twitched. "FfffffuuuuuUUUUUUUUCK!"
Later at the Communist Party-Approved Sustenance Distribution Center #390021/Cheng Residence:
"SQUAWK! But Madame President—" Bastille started to say.
"My country, my rules," President Fei Wu kung-fu-commanded, silently grateful she wasn't forced to speak in the third person when in her civilian form. "The half-breed Marinette Dupain-Cheng is to be allowed free passage home to Paris and the Cheng family removed from the Communist Party's watchlist."
The gray parrot wilted in defeat. "Yes, Madame President…" With a sad squawk he disposed of the food laced with Chinese water.
Once that was settled, Fei sat at the dinner table with Wang, Adrien, and Marinette. The long night had finally come to an end, Fei had fulfilled her promise. After retrieving the jade bracelet from the sacred cave (and swearing the Oath of Office of the President of the People's Republic of China on a copy of The Communist Manifesto) she had found Marinette and brought the girl home at last.
"Thanks for taking care of that bird, Fei," Marinette said. "It's actually a relief not having to worry about getting brainwashed anymore."
"Of course, Marinette, you are my friend." Fei offered a kind smile to her and Adrien, "You and your boyfriend who you cheated on are always welcome in China."
Adrien and Marinette both spasmed like a pair of guilty sons of bitches. The two shined identical strained grins at Fei.
"We're not dating," they both claimed at the same time.
"Oh." Fei blinked. "Is he the one you cheated with?"
"No, haha, don't be silly. Me cheating with Adrien? That'd be… amazing," Marinette laughed like someone in great pain. "I'm dating Luka."
"And I'm dating Kagami," Adrien added. "We're all happy." He unintentionally ripped their table in half. "Oops, sorry."
Thankfully, there was a knock at the front door that put an end to this conversation.
"I'll get it!" Adrien sprang to his feet and dashed to the door. There he found Fu and Marianne, both dressed for a night out on the town and ready to have a feast. The pair froze and went pale at the sight of him.
"[Sorry, the restaurant is closed for a private party tonight,]" Adrien told them. "[Say… you look a lot like my Chinese tutor Mr. Fuu. Do you know him?]"
Fu and Marianne peeked over his shoulder, saw Marinette, and ran for the airport before she spotted them.
"Well, my work here is done," Fei said, heading for the exit. "I'll get out of your hair so you can celebrate your grunkle's birthday. If you need me, I'll be back at the burned-out husk of my childhood home where I still have nightmares about losing a dad who loved me."
"[I know what you mean,]" Wang agreed with a morose sigh. "[I often cry myself to sleep thinking about the magical times of raising Xia-Bing, before she fled to France. Sometimes I wish I had a second chance to have a daughter.]"
"Yeah," Fei sighed, equally morose. "I wish I had a dad too."
There was a pause.
"Okay, bye."
"[Bye,]" Wang replied and started setting the dinner table.
In the ensuing silence, Marinette looked back and forth expectantly between Wang and the door Fei had left through. Whatever she was waiting for didn't happen. Marinette let out an irritated groan and said, "You know, grunkle Wang, Fei is homeless and an orphan." Adrien happily translated for her.
"[Yes, I am aware, half-breed grandniece.]"
"And in a strange way, after she basically saved my life out there, I sort of consider Fei to be family."
"[As do I. Anyone would be lucky to have her for a daughter.]"
This was precisely what Marinette wanted to hear, so again she waited. Wang continued to set the table. The girl swallowed her scream and pressed on. "Great! So maybe you could make the family thing official?" She elbowed him repeatedly at that last word.
Wang finally understood what his half-breed grandniece was getting at and laughed. "[Oh ho ho ho! That's not how it works in China. One must first file for a Family Planning Service Permit and get consent from the State before they are allowed to have children.]"
Marinette blinked in astonishment and turned to Adrien. "That's how it works," he affirmed.
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Marinette grabbed Wang and dragged him outside. She caught Fei on the corner. "Fei, give my grunkle permission to adopt you."
"W-what?!" sputtered Fei.
"You're the President. You are the State. Give him permission."
"Permission to what? What does aw-dot mean?"
Marinette hung her head in frustration. "Sweet Big Red X in heaven, we need to get you into a school. He'll be your new dad, Fei!"
"Dad?" Fei whispered the hallowed word, tears brimming. "I can have another dad? That was an option the whole time?"
"Yes! Do you want him to be your dad?"
"I do!"
"And do you want her to be your daughter?" Marinette asked Wang.
Wang nodded, too stunned for words.
"Congrats. You're family. Hug her!" Marinette shoved them together. The pair stumbled into their embrace, awkward and uncertain. But as they touched Fei remembered the times Wu Shifu had held her and Wang remembered the treasured moments of fathering Xia-Bing. Instincts took over and the new family leaned into each, silently swearing to never let go ever again.
Behind them, Marinette's anger melted away. It was always nice to be reminded that in this insane fucked up world filled with insane fucked up people you could still find happiness and love.
"You truly are amazing, Marinette."
The girl whipped around and forgot how to breathe. Adrien was standing there with the proudest look on his face. And it was directed at her.
"I-beda-la-rka," she blabbered. She cut off the jabber with a slap to her face. "Of course! I mean, it's a little weird that I now have an aunt who is young enough to be my sister but they're happy. That's what matters, right?" Her forced upbeat tone faltered as she heard her own words. "They're happy… and not alone…"
"You okay?" Adrien asked.
Marinette took a deep breath. "Could I borrow your phone?"
Back in Paris:
Luka had just finished re-alphabetizing his rubber band collection when his phone rumbled. The name on the screen surprised him. "Young Master?" he said when he answered.
Instead of Adrien, Marinette's face appeared on the screen. She was seated at an elegant table lit by romantic candles. "Hi, Luka," she said nervously. "I know I've been a bit AWOL lately. I'm really really sorry, things have been their usual level of… uh…"
"Cuckoo?" Luka suggested.
"I was gonna say batshit," Marinette retorted with a snicker. He snickered along with her and that made her anxiety ebb away. At that moment, she knew he didn't hate her. He didn't blame her. Everything was going to be alright. "But it's over now and I'd love to tell you all about it, and I'd love to hear all about your pirate adventures. You know, just the two of us—GAAAAH!" One of the candles had fallen over and set the table on fire. Marinette scrambled offscreen and came back with a bucket of water, dousing the flames. "Phew, ahem, so yeah. Just the two of us. No interruptions. If you're open," she finished.
Luka smiled. "Nothing would make me happier, Miss."
Marinette returned that smile, ready to take this relationship seriously and grow as a—
SMASH! Wang barreled through a nearby door, howling like an animal. Adrien, Fei, and Bastille were trying and failing to restrain him. In Wang's hands was a brand new accordion.
"Marinette!" Adrien shouted. "Your mom's birthday present did something to your grunkle!"
"I am free!" Wang declared in perfect Frenglish. "The accordion's music has broken the spell! Communism's hold on me is gone! REVENGE!" He then proceeded to demolish the restaurant with the instrument. One of his musical swipes knocked over the table and ended the call. Luka stared at his phone's black screen and sighed wearily.
"Oh dear."
END
Ladybug and Chat Noir will return in: You Know What, Fuck Britain!
My writer's instincts tell me that Astruc and the crew want to save the official adoption for a later episode/special. That's good from a storytelling standpoint but that also means officially in the Shanghai Special Wang doesn't adopt Fei. He doesn't even offer to let her stay as a guest. So, canonically, as the credits roll, Fei is still homeless, parentless, and slept that night in the arsoned remains of the building where her dad died.
I love this show.
