15 October 2020

Prompt: Myth

Character/Pairing: Dingo King (OC)

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Notes: This is 100% Quick's fault because she showed me THIS video & said "Dingo". xD watch?v=BHiWygziyso&feature=emb_logo (Also, this kinda made me miss the fountain behind DeMoss. And the bubbles. And even the goldfish. God the goldfish were awful. xD)

Luka should have known. From the very beginning, when Dingo first asked, Luka should have known.

"It's our last week," Dingo says, tapping his fingers against his knees. "We have to do something."

"We're actually graduating on time with no hang-ups because of our records," Luka says. "You really want to jeopardize that?"

"I want to make sure Mlle. Damocles never forgets Dingo King," Dingo says with a derisive little snort, and Luka actually laughs.

"You really think anyone at this school is going to forget you?" he asks, but Dingo just grins. No, but the point stands. "You're a living legend by this point."

Dingo King is leaving Sant-Saëns, and he fully intends to go out with a bang.

It starts innocently enough. A YouTube video that all of Paris would come to regret Dingo finding. The experiment seems easy enough, and initially…there's a fountain in the courtyard of the school. Initially, when Dingo proposes his plan, it's small-scale. Just the fountain. Harmless enough, and it's just foam.

Luka should have known it wouldn't stay that way.

Because Dingo doesn't do things by halves, and Sant-Saëns quickly becomes Paris, and Mlle. Damocles quickly becomes Mayor Bourgeois, and at the end of the day Luka's suddenly very concerned they're going to miss their graduation because they're in jail.

"What," Luka asks slowly, "is elephant toothpaste?"

"Well," Dingo says just as slowly, "simply put…it's foam."

"Foam."

"Foam," Dingo says, nodding. "Reactive foam. It's yeast and hydrogen peroxide? And soap. I think it said soap, too. And food coloring – Mari can get that, right? And the yeast?"

"Mari still has three years at this school," Luka says, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "We're not dragging her into this. I'm still not sure we're dragging me into this."

"We're dragging you into this," Dingo says dismissively, as if it was ever even up for debate (Luka's adamant it still is), "and Mari's a big girl. She can help if she wants."

"You're not making my girlfriend your accomplice," Luka warns. "She's my accomplice. She's not bailing your ass out of jail."

"We're a package deal," Dingo reminds him. He waves him off and hits play on the video he'd pulled up on his phone. "Anyway, it's just foam. Harmless. People swim in it – see? It'll be great. We can add the peroxide and soap to the fountain. And the dye. Then we can drop balloons with the yeast in it in and –"

"Can't you just add the soap like the class two years back?" Luka sighs, and Dingo's scoffing again.

"But that's so pedestrian," he says, sounding more like Brielle than Luka's necessarily comfortable with. "Soap is boring. But elephant's toothpaste? Now we're cooking."

That's honestly what Luka's afraid of: getting cooked.

(He even goes so far as suggesting goldfish, though that particular stunt had almost gotten the fountain removed entirely. Mlle. Damocles had the thing shut off for almost the entire year after the custodians had spent the better part of three weeks clearing little tattered fish bodies out of the courtyard.)

But he hesitantly agrees, except the next thing he knows Dingo's found a video not about elephant toothpaste but devil's toothpaste, and even though the maker's lawyer had redacted the recipe Dingo is determined. And Luka tries to back out – he honestly does, because he wants to graduate and not spend the summer in jail when he's looking forward to lazy sunny snuggles with his new-ish girlfriend – but Dingo…Dingo can't be trusted on his own. And Luka will never hang him out to dry, even though it might actually be good for him.

He's too noble – too loyal – for that. (Juleka will always say stupid.)

Luka's still not sure how Dingo figured out the recipe. He's still not sure how Dingo pulled it off. But the next thing he knows, Dingo is pressing a button, and the portion of the Seine surrounding the Liberty is exploding and burning and oh, that's why Dingo had forced him into the hazmat suit…

When Officer Roger rolls up to find the two boys standing in the middle of the multicolored, smoking foam – and the middle being a twelve-block radius stretching along either side of the boat – he doesn't quite know what to do. Dingo is cackling, prancing about the deck and tossing clouds of steaming foam everywhere. Luka just heaves a heavy, dramatic sigh and walks up to Officer Roger, his hands raised and ready to be cuffed.

"Can I at least make graduation first?" Luka asks, but for once Officer Roger is left speechless. He doesn't even want to think about the cleanup on this mess, what this mess actually is, what it's doing to the city's water, and oh God the paperwork…

And that's probably the only thing that saves them. Charges aren't actually pressed because Roger doesn't know what to press (all the charges, every charge, there has to be something – really he should just throw the entire fucking book at these dumbass kids), and Luka and Dingo somehow actually get all the foam – Devil's Toothpaste, where the hell do these kids come up with this shit? – cleared away. It doesn't help that Ladybug and Pegasus show up, and there's a handy Lucky Charm and portal that send most of the foam into the sun, so Officer Roger still doesn't quite know how to file this latest report.

Luka makes his graduation.

But he's also labeled as a Public Menace for a good while after.

As for Dingo, he bypasses Living Legend entirely and goes straight into Myth.

(It will bite him in the ass one day. Eventually. Luka hopes.)