Chapter 4; OH-No!

'Wow! Adrien's pretty good at this, and it's only his first run!' Grim thought as she watched the Hunters rob an expensive looking clothing store. Her best friend, Shadow, gave her this code name. Grim Reaper is what her team wanted to call her because that was what she was. She watched as her friends ran out of the store with jewelry and clothing, then jump from roof to roof as if it was second nature, which it was by now.

"So, how was your first run man?" Flame asked their newest teammate as they found a roof where the police wouldn't find them.

"I-it was…. I don't," The boy tried to find the right words. The rush of adrenaline was crazy, it was fun to break the rules! But then the guilt came. Should he have done it?

"Hey K, I know what's going down in that head of yours. Your feeling guilty, well don't. You did the dirt and didn't get caught, keep doing that and this with be like part of your everyday life." Spook told 'K' as he threw his arm over the boy's shoulders. Karma was his code name now. After all, he was a black cat before this and they're bad luck.

"Alright guys, you know the deal. Group the goods together then split it evenly." Shadow said as she placed her share of goods in the middle of their group of friends. Everyone else followed suit and after about 10 minutes, everyone got their fair share.

"Ok! Everyone get home safe now! Bye bye!" Shadow said goodbye in her cheery voice then used her dark magic to soar through the sky back to her house.

"Yeah. See ya'll tomorrow." Spook said his goodbyes as Flame just waved then they started to head to the hideout. Spook and Flame didn't have a home, but that was a story for another time.

"See ya. Great job today, for your first run Karma. Keep it up and you'll be just as good as us!" Glitch told Karma then started to make her way to the hideout.

"Alright then! I'll take you home to make sure you don't get caught. Cool?" Grim Reaper told Karma.

"Yeah." With that, they headed to Karma's house. As they made their way to the mansion he began to think. What would have happened if he had turned their offer down permanently? When Nico had asked him if he wanted to be a Hunter, his first answer was no. She asked why not and, of course, he said because it was wrong. Then the others stepped in. They said things like,

"Why not try it? When was the last time you had real fun?"

"Come on! This can be a way to get back at your old man!"

"Yeah! He locked you up for most of your life. Get out and break some rules!"

When they brought up his father, Adrein didn't even hesitate to say yes. It was true, all of it. His father had locked him away from the world, from friends, from fun. What would be so wrong with breaking some rules? Kids at school did it all the time, so he agreed. They gave him his code name, Karma, because that's what he was.

"Well, we're here." The Reaper said as they jumped on the window seal of Adrein's bedroom window. Shadow had fixed it with her magic after they broke it by busting in. She also had to put a magic seal on the door so that stupid, nosey assistant couldn't get in. As they pushed the window open, Karma jumped in. Just as Grim was about to leave, she felt a tug on her trench coat.

"Hey," Karma began, "thanks for this, Nico"

"No problem! Don't worry, this my friend, is the first of your many runs to come." Nico said as she made her eyes flash that inhuman neon blue. It was one thing when she did it without her hood on, but with it, all you saw was two blue flickers of light. Nico summoned some sort of knife weapon that was tied to a thin rope, spun in like Ladybug would with her yoyo, then swung her arm which made the weapon latch onto a near by building.

"See you tomorrow." With that, Nico swung away into the night. Adrien watched as she flew through the night sky. He always thought Ladybug looked pretty when she did it, but Nico was beautiful. He closed the window then went to change out of his new clothes. When Shadow heard that he said yes to be a Hunter she was so happy. Adrien smiled to himself as he remembered the look of pure joy on her face. She personally decided that she wanted to make his outfit. His outfit was black leather boots, black jeans that fit perfectly around his waist then got baggy as they went done to his ankles, a black 'wife beater', and a black leather jacket. Of course, Shadow gave him her 'magic touch' and gave him extras to his outfit. She added a black beanie hat with cat ears and green stripes, two rings with cats made of diamonds on them, and some black and green string bracelets that she made herself. Then last but not least, one of the rings allowed his eyes and hair to change color.

'That girl has a heart of pure gold.' Adrien thought as he laid down to go to bed, but right before he was about to fall asleep he felt something touch his face.

"How could you!? You know it was wrong! Adrien, why!?" Plagg yelled at him as he bounced on the boy's face.

"Because I felt like it Plagg. Now go away!" Adrien swatted the little cat away.

"Adrien. You can't do this anymore." Plagg said with sorrow in his voice.

"Goodnight Plagg!" Adrien ended their little fight. He was tired and he had a busy night tomorrow night.

As Nico jumped from building to building something caught her eye. She stopped and looked around for anything or anyone that may be following her. She was about to continue her journey home when something wrapped around her legs and knocked her off balance.

"Well, I didn't catch you in the act but I have you now!" Ladybug howled as she pulled her yoyo back to her which had the Grim Reaper still on the end of it.

"Let go of me you stupid, little bug!" Grim demanded as she began to untie the string from her legs. Once the string was off, Grim back flipped a good 10 feet away from the superhero.

"What is your problem?" The Reaper asked as she summoned a ST6 survival knife and prepared to defend herself.

"You're my problem! You're a criminal, and criminals belong in jail!" Ladybug shouted as she charged at the other girl and swung her yoyo at her. As the yoyo came at her face, Grim raised her knife and blocked it. Ladybug was going to try another attack until she felt a sharp pain in her side. Her eyes widened when she looked down and saw an extra shade of red added to her suit. The wound was deep and aimed just the right way, so that she wouldn't bleed out but it would cause her much pain.

"Everyone says you look good in red!" The Grim Reaper screamed in a sickly cheery voice. The way the light of the moon shone under her hood as she sprinted forward to attack- fangs. She had fangs on her top and bottom rows of teeth. Ladybug managed to avoid the girl's next deadly move, but at a price. The pain that shot through her side was so unbearable that it brought her to her knees with a cry of pain. It shouldn't hurt that much!

"I see that the 'Black Needle' is kicking in nicely." Ladybug looked up to see the Grim Reaper sitting cross-legged on top of a chimney.

"W-what's that mean?" Ladybug tried hard to not let her fear be heard in her voice, but she failed.

"When I stabbed you, my knife was coated with a thin layer of my soul. A normal soul wouldn't hurt you very much, you would just have a flesh wound. A magic soul can do serious damage though, like mess with your head, or even poison your soul." Grim ended her little lesson with a twisted smile on her face.

"Don't worry your pretty little head though. I just put just the right amount of my dark soul to only make the wound sting and burn. Anyway, I have to get going. See ya!" With a wave of her hand, the Grim Reaper was running from roof to roof with inhuman speed then she was gone. Ladybug fought her hardest to pick herself off the ground and get home. She stopped a few times because of the wound but did make it home. Once she entered her room she transformed back to normal and fell to the ground.

"Marinette! Are you okay!?" Tikki panicked as she zipped around the room looking for some way to help the poor girl. Once she found the first aid kit, she tried her hardest to drag it over to Marinette.

"I-I'll be okay T-tikki." Mari tried to calm her little friend down. As she took the aid kit she began to dress the wound. It wasn't that hard to do, she had taken care of big wounds before but this hurt more. Every time she had to bend or turn she got a rush of pain. Once it was all taken care of she didn't even try to climb the stairs to her bed, instead she limbed over to her couch.

"Are you sure that you're ok Marinette?" Tikki asked as she snuggled up next to her human.

"Yeah. I'll be ok." Mari told her. She just needed some sleep.

The next day at school Alya watched as Mari struggled to do a few things.

"You ok girl? You look like you're having some trouble." Alya said as they sat in their seats.

"I'm okay. I tripped over some rocks yesterday and scrapped up my side pretty bad. I got it looked at and taken care of though." Mari lied with a smile on her face.

"Alright. Tell me if you need some help." Alya replied.

"Hi Alya! Hi Mari!" Both girls turned to see Scarlet waving as she walked over to them. As Scarlet took her seat by the girls Adrien and Nino walked in and took their seats.

"Hey man, you look happier than normal." Nino said as he saw that his best bud was in a brighter mood than most days.

"Yeah. Hey, remind me to thank Nico later." Adrien said.

"Oh! Finally hitting it off with her?" Nino teased with a smile.

"Whatever man." Adrien rolled his eyes and chuckled. As class started Nico didn't show up.

'She must be skipping. Did she make it home okay last night?" Adrien began to panic a little bit. Once class ended he went out in the hall to find Spook and pulled him aside.

"Hey, do you know if Nico made it home last night?" he asked.

"Hmm? Oh yeah! She called me when she got home. She also said that she ran into Ladybug though so she said she was going to skip the first class or two." Spook told him.

"Ok. Thank you." Adrien said, then they went their serpent ways down the hall. As Marinette was walking to her locker, Alya said she had to talk to Scarlet about something then went to find her. Mari was turning the dial until she heard-

"So how's that stab wound doing?" Mari froze. She could pretty much hear the smirk on Nico face.

"How did you know that it was a stab wound?" Marinette asked as she whipped her head to the side to see Nico leaning on the lockers.

"I have my ways," Nico replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "had to have gotten it last night or somethin'. So who stabbed ya?"

"That's not for you to know." Mari said as she narrowed her eyes at the girl.

"Oh! So you were stabbed by someone!" Nico jumped up with a smile when she got the answer. "I heard on the news that the Hunters robbed a store last night. Also, someone saw the Grim Reaper and Ladybug go at it. They say Ladybug took a nasty hit in the…. side." The neon blue eyed girl finished with a look of amusement on her face.

"What? I-I don't! Y-you…" Marinette was in full on panic mode. What Nico said next made her heart stop. She leaned in and said it in a low voice.

"Hello Ladybug. I'm so happy that I get to see you without your mask! So, unless you want your little secret out you have to do some things for me and my clique. Got it puppet?" Mari didn't know what to say or do. Just as she thought that it couldn't get any worse Nico reached into her bag.

"Oh, you got one of these things to?" Nico said as she held Tikki by the leg and flicked her in the head.

"Give her back!" Marinette shouted as she took her little friend back and put her back into her bag.

"Anyway! Tsubaki and I have to go meet up with Tomato and Cinnamon Roll." Nico said with a smile on her face.

"Who? Tomato and Cinnamon Roll?" Mari asked.

" Oh that's right! Adrien and Nathaniel didn't tell you about the nicknames! Yeah, Tsubaki nicknamed Nathaniel 'Tomato' and I nicknamed Adrien 'Cinnamon Roll!" Nico told Mari. Just as Mari was about to ask why Adrien would let Nico of all people give him a nickname, Tsubaki, Nathaniel, and Adrien walked up.

"Hey Nico, ready to go?" Nathaniel asked.

"Sure thing," Nico began to walk with the three but then turned around to look at Marinette, "By the way Mari, don't forget what we talked about." She smiled a smile of what seemed like pure evil to Marinette. Once they were gone Mari ran to the nearest bathroom and into the first stall she saw.

"Oh God! What am I going to do Tikki?" Mari panicked as she opened her bag to talk to Tikki.

"I-I don't know Marinette. You may just have to do what she says. I'm sorry." Tikki said with sorrow in her voice. She really didn't know what to do, this had happened only once or twice before to any of the Ladybugs that she had seen. Marinette's brain was so overloaded that she thought it would explode! Not feeling like she could make it through the rest of the day, Mari ran out of the school and strait home. Once she got to her room, she broke down.

"What am I going to do!?' Mari thought as the tears rolled down her face.

Please review! I need ideas, please!