Marinette

Marinette looked around nervously as Alya led her up to the forest green house. "Are you sure it's going to be okay? What if they don't want me here?"

Alya raised her eyebrow at her, an amused expression on her face. "Girl, are you for real? Everyone loves you, why wouldn't they want you here?"

"I have never been to a party before," Marinette admitted. "At least not a high school party. I went to a few birthday parties, but that was years ago." She sighed, looking down at the ground as she added, "They were pranks though, but I fell for it for too long until I learned the truth."

Alya put her arm around Marinette and pulled her close comfortingly. "Girl, I'm so sorry that those things happened to you. But that was then and they can't hurt you anymore. Everyone here is on your side and wants to be your friend." She grinned brightly at Marinette, adding, "Chloe even attacked one of your old bullies if I recall correctly, something she never has done for any one of us."

Marinette let out a small smile, "I guess you have a point there." Alya continued to beam as she lead Marinette around the house and into the backyard. Marinette gave her a confused look as she realized they weren't headed inside of the house. "Where are we going? Isn't the party in the house?"

Alya laughed gently at her clueless friend. "Girl, you clearly never heard of the parties Max hosts. They are way too loud for the house, so his mom makes us use their garage for our gaming nights."

"Gaming nights?" Marinette asked, still confused. Alya simply smirked as she opened the door to the garage, motioning for Marinette to head inside. Marinette walked through the door into a large dark room lit only by a projector and the computer it was hooked up to it. Marinette could hear cheering as she walked in the dark room. Then she saw her entire homeroom gathered on a set of couches, cheering on two people sitting in bean bags in front of them closest to the screen.

Adrien was in the left bean bag, Kim opposite of him leaning forwards as he smashed random buttons on his controller. Looking at the screen, Marinette recognized the game as Ultra Mecha Strike 3, a robot fighting game that was extremely popular but she hadn't been able to try it out at all yet. She watched the cat and monkey robots fighting on the screen. Well fighting was putting it nicely; the monkey robot was flailing around wildly while the cat robot stayed back and only attacked when there was an opening. Barely two minutes after Marinette arrived, the screen announced Adrien as the winner. He grinned as everyone cheered, shaking Kim's hand in celebration. To Marinette's surprise, Kim didn't seem frustrated or angry that he lost so badly in front of everyone, loudly proclaiming that he will get Adrien next time.

Adrien laughed and turned around, his grin only growing when he saw Marinette standing by the door. His face seemed to turn a strange shade of red as he waved over to her. "Hey, Mari! You made it!" Immediately, everyone turned their attention to her, Marinette bracing herself for the incoming ridicules.

But they never came at her. "Hey dudette!" Nino called out, giving her a grin as he pointed at the screen. "Wanna play a round?" Everyone else immediately started to call out to her, offering greetings and challenging her to a match.

Marinette stood there speechless, completely frozen by their open displays of friendship. She wasn't used to any of this level of kindness. Thankfully, Alya stepped in, raising her hands in the air to take their attention away from Marinette. "How about instead of crowding the poor girl, one of you challenges me instead?" She strode confidently over to where Adrien was sitting and held her hand out for his controller. He eagerly handed it over and all but bolted over to where Marinette was at the back of the room.

Alya resisted the urge to shake her head at the two lovable pair, waiting for a challenger to approach her. One did, taking Kim's controller from him and shooing him out of the bean bag. Alya raised an eyebrow at Chloe, who simply selected the bee robot without even glancing at Alya. "Never took you for the gaming type, Chloe," Alya noted, curious as to why the blonde stepped forward.

The blonde shrugged as she slouched back into the bean bag. "You guys never invited me to a game night before," Chloe pointed out, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for Alya to select her robot.

Alya smirked and selected the fox robot, replying, "It's on then, queenie." Chloe ignored the old nickname the class used whenever she got too big for her britches, narrowing her eyes at the screen.

"On like Donkey Kong!" Nino piped in, eager to cheer his girlfriend on.

Mere moments later, everyone stared in shock as Chloe's bee robot stood undamaged while Alya's lay smoking and broken into little pieces on the battleground. Chloe simply stood up and faced the shocked crowd of spectators. "Who's next?" she asked, seemingly unphased as if nothing out of the ordinary has just happened.

Multiple match ups went by before it came down to Adrien and Max going head to head. The class suddenly seemed to move around as if everyone was cheering on a certain player, taking up a spot on either side of the room behind their chosen champion. Nathaniel, Alix and Kim stood right behind Max, each of them eagerly gripping the back of Max's chair. Marinette smiled in amusement as she moved to sit right behind Adrien, next to Alya and Nino on a couch.

The fight was the longest of the night, starting with Adrien and Max feigning attacks to try and bait the other. Finally the bots clashed, unleashing combos on each other as they danced around the game. Marinette watched every move, each press of a button intently. The battle was dragged out until finally, Max grinned and unleashed a wicked combo on Adrien's bot, destroying it.

People let out a cheer as Max jumped up and threw his hands in the air, grinning widely. Adrien shook his head grinning as he got up and reached his hand out to shake Max's. "Congrats, that was a wicked combo at the end there."

Max shrugged carelessly, "A simple combo really, not that someone like you would understand it." A ripple of amusement shifted through the crowd, everyone curious to see who made the next move. When someone did, it was the last person they expected.

"Why are you being so rude to him? Its just a game." Everyone turned their attention to Marinette, who was glaring at Max, furious. No one had ever seen her like this before, staring in awe as an enraged Marinette stalked ove to Max and stared him down. "You think you're so good? Let's see you take me on then!" She turned around and reached out for Adrien's controller.

Adrien was barely able to hand over the controller, turning into a stuttering blushing mess as he moved out of the bean bag for her. He sat down in Marinette's spot next to Alya and Nino, who gave him knowing smirks. They nudged him teasingly, but Adrien ignored them as he watched Marinette intently.

Marinette made her way through all the bots until she found the one on the bottom of the list: the Ladybug robot. Max simply smirked as he selected the Ultra Mecha he had been using, doing a few poses to show off in an attempt to make her nervous. "Don't think I'll go easy on you since you are new."

But Marinette was too occupied with something else, understanding the game. Even though she never played the game before, she was seeing all the possible moves she could make. It was just like when she tried out for fencing, first watching Adrien do the moves, then repeating them nearly perfectly. In just two seconds, Marinette hit seven buttons with precision, her Ladybug bot executing a similar flashy move. Everyone edged closer as Max for a moment seemed to be nervous.

Both of them immediately focused their concentration on the game as the final countdown sounded, the call to battle silencing the room. Max immediately moved to attack, hoping for a quick victory. But Marinette was ready for him, dodging Max and hitting him back with a near perfect combo. As their classmates cheered Marinette on, Max managed to pull his bot back, avoiding another attack from Marinette. He adopted a defensive stance, hoping to get her to attack him again.

But she calmly waited on her side of the arena, not even moving to a blocking position. Max took the chance and lunged forwards with a heavy attack. As the bot moved across the screen, Max's expression changed from one of triumph to one of shock as Marinette blocked his attack perfectly. She promptly hit him with combo after combo, not giving Max a moment to recover.

The class cheered as for the first time in the history of game nights, Max has been defeated. Marinette found herself lifted in the air by Kim as everyone else congratulated her. Well almost everyone else.

"Get out." Everyone went quiet at the sharp angry tone of Max's voice. He was still facing the screen, his controller clutched tightly in his hand as his body shook with rage.

Alix started towards him, "Max, its just a game."

"I SAID EVERYONE GET OUT!" Max shouted, throwing the controller at them. With a few grumbles, everyone left the garage and headed home.

Marinette found herself guided by Alya over to Adrien's car, where Adrien and Nino were waiting for them. "What was that all about?" she asked them as they climbed inside the car.

"The dude is obsessed with gaming. He is constantly training for gaming competitions and trying out for teams. That's why he hosts these game nights, so he can train against real people," Nino explained as they drove away.

Alya nodded agreement with him, adding in, "No one has ever beaten him before tonight. I'm guessing that he has grown used to winning so much that he can't stand the idea of losing."

Adrien and Nino nodded in agreement, both having seen Max grow more and more cocky with each passing game night. "You w-were awesome in there, Marinette," Adrien said, stammering out the compliment. "I didn't know you played the game."

"That was actually my first time playing," Marinette admitted sheepishly, looking down as she did.

All three of her friends' jaws dropped. "What?" Alya exclaimed, nearly elbowing Nino in the face as she burst forwards to stare Marinette in the eyes. "Girl, are you serious? Don't tell Max that, that would probably make his mood worse. Chances are he will be over it by tomorrow." Marinette nodded, looking out the window as she wondered how she could be so good at the game just by watching it.

Max

Max was definitely not over what happened last night. He had spent the rest of the night looking up cheats that Marinette might have used during the match, but came up with nothing. He couldn't even find a match on record that had a defeat that brutal. The only explanation that was left was that he was a failure.

Max sulked the entire day at school, ignoring his classmates the entire day. Everyone seemed to decide to give him a wide berth, staying away from him, but Max knew they were talking and probably laughing behind his back about last night.

When Max was grabbing his books for the final period, he found a sticky note inside of his locker. Max read the note, If you want to learn the truth about Marinette Dupain-Cheng, meet me at the cafe near the old bookstore. Max frowned, wondering what he doesn't know about Marinette, but decided to check it out after his robotics club. Perhaps it had something to do with her win last night.

Well, club isn't the correct term. The only member was Max and he had the whole lab to himself at all times. Except today, someone else was waiting for him there: Marinette. She raised a hand up nervously. "Hey."

Max grunted, avoiding her as he moved to the bench he was working at last time and pulled out the gripper mechanism. He had been having trouble getting it to work and was planning on figuring out what was wrong with it. Max started to look it over as Marinette walked up behind him, still trying to talk to him. "Look, I'm sorry about last night at your party, I don't know how I beat you, it was just instinct. I never even played before."

Max felt the hairs on the back stand up as he processed what she just said. She never played before? Then how did she beat him with no experience? She had to be using some sort of cheat then. Pissed off even more, Max stormed off across the lab, ignoring Marinette as he went. She didn't try to follow him or say anything to his relief.

After a few minutes of dead silence, Max grew suspicious and turned around. Marinette was hunched over the table he had been originally working at, her hands moving around wildly. He walked over to find that she had the gripper mechanism completely disassembled and was putting it back together with a few changes. Max watched in awe as Marinette finished reassembling the gripper and tested it, the gripper grabbing the pop can firmly.

"How did you do that?" Max asked her, his anger long forgotten.

Marinette looked at him confused, admitting, "I don't know."

Lila

Lila frowned as she read the text from her spy stating that Max didn't show up to their meeting and that they couldn't find him. She groaned putting her phone down as she looked around. Max would have made an interesting addition to her team, but he wasn't an original part of her plan anyways. Lila knew other classmates would drift away sooner or later and she would be able to turn them against Marinette. She was currently out to meet one such classmate.

Lila spotted her quarry and quickly stepped out to intercept them. "Hey, Kagami! Do you have a second? I am a big fan of yours!"

Emilie

She was on her way to another one of her charities she uses to keep her husband from suspecting her special activities when the update came in.

Mendeleiev: The girl is showing the advanced intellect we have been looking for. She just assembled a robotic gripper with no instructions or experience.

Emilie smiled, glad that they were finally going to reach this stage despite the setback Lila Rossi had caused. Perhaps the therapy and student support group they planted the girl in was working better then she expected.

Emilie: Excellent. Keep a close eye on her progress. I'll start preparing the special room for her to help her keep progressing.

Emilie grinned as she put the phone down, feeling excited for the next stage. Now to ensure Lila Rossi doesn't interfere once again.