Lal thoroughly enjoyed the shocked...and highly annoyed looks... of her old friends and family when they found out that Colonello had actually been proposing to her when he openly declared himself her husband. Molly was at least 'mollified' the moment she found out that they hadn't actually slept together just yet. Lal had been working up the courage to that point, right before they were cursed. And while she frowned at the fact that the two had been sharing the same bed for almost two full years before this point, she kept her silence when she found out why.

Colonello was the only reason Lal got any real sleep at night. Between her memories of the war and her very crappy childhood, she had far too much material for the nightmares that fueled her insomnia. The fact Colonello had sapphire soul fire meant he was uniquely suited to calming her down once she got used to being around someone active.

However it was only a brief bright spot to the headache that was still waiting.

"God this is such a mess," groaned Lal.

She was going through the accounts and was already having a massive migraine just looking at the sheets. Viper wasn't much better.

Colonello jumped up to the chair next to Lal with an odd expression.

"What?"

"Ehehe... this is going to be really awkward."

Lal glared at him and he wilted.

"What is it?" she asked slowly.

"My brother wants to meet you," said Colonello.

"You have a brother?" was the duo response to that.

"His name is Adrien and he lives in Paris. We haven't really talked much since the fight with our dad. Ever since our mother disappeared he was really distant to us, and then suddenly there was this big blow out between him and Adrien."

Mostly over Adrien choosing to marry a girl who had a major crush on him, but not because of his fame or looks.

He never really did get the full story behind how they fell for each other, but his sister-in-law Marinette was an awesome baker.

At least now he had someone to help dilute the sheer "love-love" aura those two got whenever he visited. He went into COMSUBIN to get away from that crap as much as to piss off his old man!

Lal looked at her account books.

"Go. Consider it the start of your honeymoon," said Viper. "But take one of the others with you, just in case."

"I'll bring Fon, we can always visit his relatives in China after," said Lal grinning.

It didn't take long for Fleur to hear they were heading to France.

"Would you mind checking in on my sister Gabrielle? I have not seen her in months and I worry," she asked.

"Not at all. She is family, after all," said Lal easily.

Gabrielle would be thrilled to see Lal again. She practically worshiped the woman.


Adrien looked like a slightly messier haired Colonello...who's real name was apparently Christopher. He had green eyes so very similar to Lal's own, while his wife Marinette had raven-blue hair almost the same shade as Lal herself with blue eyes.

It was almost as if someone had reversed the hair and eye color of Colonello and Lal.

Needless to say Adrien laughed his ass off when he found out what happened to his younger brother.

"Laugh it up, Alley Cat! Lal's got a dog I'm sure would love to meet your ass!" said Colonello, tackling his brother.

Lal on the other hand was discussing cooking with an amused Marinette.

"This happen often?"

"Only when he comes back from Italy," said Marinette, amused. It was rather amusing to watch, actually.

Adrien always acted more alive when his brother was home.

"So, who wears the pants in your relationship? I don't see Christopher just falling for anyone," said Adrien, eyes gleaming. Like he hadn't just been pinned by his little brother who was in toddler form looking far too smug.

"She does/I do," came the duo responses from the two newlyweds.

Adrien and Marinette stared for a second before bursting out in laughter.

"So how did you two meet?" asked Marinette, once she got over her amusement.

Colonello grinned.

"She was my instructor in COMSUBIN. An angel in disguise," he said sappily.

Lal happily kicked him off Adrien.

"Shut up you idiot! You're the only one who was brainless enough to stay in my personal unit when everyone else transferred and the number of slaps I gave you!"

"But they were filled with love!" said Colonello sappily.

"Shut up!" she said blushing.

Adrien was cracking up.

"Oh god, you married a total Tsundere!" he said laughing. Marinette was giggling.

"But in all seriousness, I totally fell for her at first sight. And then I went with the instructors on a 'training' trip and realized she was more vulnerable than she let her students know. She needed someone there for her, and no one else was willing to get past her thorns to help her, so I stepped up."

"Our superiors figured out he was able to calm me down and made him my permanent partner," said Lal.

"Calm you down?" asked Marinette.

"PTSD, a severe case of it. She'd wake up in the middle of the night have panic attacks," explained Colonello. "I made sure she saw what I was doing and held her through her panic attacks and it helped a lot."

The older two winced.

"She is such a cuddle monster though!" he laughed.

"Colonello..." she growled.

Colonello cheerfully played keep away while Lal tried to hex him.

He had already admitted that both him and his brother had attended magical schooling, though Adrien had been stuck in homeschool because their dad made him model for his clothing line.

Colonello had been too rebellious, apparently.

Adrien laughed. He could tell Lal Mirch was very good for his brother... even if she was a tsundere. She might 'attack' him with head slaps or a few kicks to the gut, but there was no anger behind it and she was obviously pulling her punches by a lot.

It was during their rather amusing chat that Colonello let something slip that had the two others choking on their drinks in shock. Lal gave him a dirty look.

"You have got to be joking!" said Adrien, staring at Lal in absolute shock.

"Like you wouldn't change your name and ditch your home country just to escape the headaches of being 'famous'," she said flatly.

She had seen the magazines around the house. She knew he was familiar with her own personal hell, even if on a smaller scale.

Adrien grimaced. He had never been driven to that extreme just to get away from his 'fans'.

One of which was his wife.

"Hah! Like this alley cat would have the brains to pull it off!" snorted Colonello.

"I hate to tell you this but your brother doesn't scream 'cat' to me."

"You haven't met his partner. Stupid stinky cheese eating pest..." muttered Colonello.

"I heard that you brat! At least I'm not some gun junkie!" shouted a tiny voice from one of the drawers.

"Plagg!" scolded Adrien.

Lal put two and two together very quickly the second he said that name.

She smirked.

"So we end up cursed as toddlers and I'm guessing you two got stuck as the current incarnation of Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

Marinette flinched.

"In that case I have only one thing to say... Mind if I have your autograph?" said Lal to Marinette. Then she saw the boys staring at her. "What?"

"Didn't peg you as a fan of Ladybug," said Colonello in amusement.

"I like the fact she doesn't overplay the whole magical girl cliché and shuts down Chat Noir's really horrible cat puns. He's a good distraction and a better partner than most you'd find in the magical girl genre, but she's the boss," said Lal flatly.

Adrien blushed.

"They're not all bad."

"I lost all amusement for puns after hearing one too many Sirius/serious jokes," she informed him.

Because those got old real fast.

Marinette humored her new sister-in-law and gave her an autograph.

"Too bad we still can't get any sponsors from the magical community. We've been trying to update their horrible fashion sense for years," said Marinette.

The French magical fashion scene was only slightly less appalling than the English.

"...I could always introduce you to the Delacours," said Lal. "I'm heading there anyway to visit Gabrielle since Fleur asked me before we left. I'm sure she'd enjoy looking at your work, and from what I recall they're pretty close to the high society crowd."

Marinette's eyes glimmered with delight. If she could get them hooked on her designs, then she could open up a shop in the magical sector and make a lot of money.

Two days later...

Gabrielle was beyond happy seeing Lal again and squealed upon finding out she was now "chibified", as was her equally adorable husband. And then she was introduced to Marinette and the unholy alliance was made.

Adrien did not want to know, he just asked that his wife not use him in all of her male clothing designs. He knew what magicals considered fashion, and he wanted no part in it.


Fon apparently was less interested in visiting his home country, and instead redirected them to Japan for a while.

By this point the fact Lal was the new Sky Arcobaleno had made the rounds, as had the fact she had been hiding in COMSUBIN as a Rain primary for almost a decade so effectively no one had suspected anything.

The one time a familigia tried to pull something stupid like kidnapping her, Colonello and Fon barely had anything to do as Lal had cheerfully destroyed the entire mansion in less time than it had taken to actually find out who was responsible and show them the error of their ways.

Unlike most Skies Fon knew, who focused more on leading and relying on their Guardians for their primary protection, Lal Mirch was a survivor.

A Sky who had gone through hell and back, almost literally because of an older Sky's manipulation and arrogance and SURVIVED. She had fought in the front lines of a war and come out on top, and then gone into hiding to become even more terrifying. With her PTSD, she was an insomniac before Colonello came into her life, leaving her with more than enough incentive to memorize as many martial arts and skills she could get her hands on in an effort to work herself so tired she was able to fall into a dead sleep without dreams to wake her up.

Add into that her naturally large magical core, the fact she couldn't give a damn about the Statute of Secrecy...

She was a one-woman WMD with a vengeful nature when provoked first, and a natural leader second.

Fon smirked. And here he had always assumed that his Sky, if he ever found them, would be boring. Instead he got a warrior on par with some of the most famous women in history.

Though even he had to laugh when he heard Lal's comment after movie night. Why Colonello thought having her watch a zombie apocalypse series was a good idea, he would never understand.

"It's official. Anyone stupid enough to let Verde watch this or anything involving a viral outbreak where he could rid the world of a lot of stupid idiots is going to be shot," she said flatly.

Resident Evil was highly addicting, and Lal fell in love with the main character immediately when she saw what a bad ass the woman was. It was almost impossible for her to avoid sympathizing with Alice, especially since the woman was consistently screwed over by others and still came out on top using skills Lal herself would have employed.

Colonello snickered, while at the same time wondering if he could convince his new wife to wear some of the outfits from the movies.

"What about mecha series?"

"Again, anything that shows most of humanity being wiped off the earth like the Terminator series or the Matrix is off limits to that idiot," said Lal flatly.

She hated Inferi, hence why she had never watched Resident Evil before now.

Her grin was positively evil as she said "Besides, if nothing else we can introduce him to the magical girl series, or even better, the Gundam series."

"I thought you hated magical girl shows," said Colonello confused.

"No, I hate the fact that most of them have whiny, underdeveloped protagonists and some cute insipid side kick that never actually does anything to help save to act as their therapist," said Lal. "Some of them are actually pretty good, and the one I was thinking of would be right up Verde's alley, considering the main characters get their powers from nanomachines and specialized gems that are worn as earrings."

"Are you referring to the Mai Otome series?" asked Fon.

"You've seen it?" said Colonello incredulous.

"It's one of the few decent ones out there, and most of the pairings are yuri," said Fon in a deadpan voice.

He was a guy. Of course he was going to watch a few shows where the main theme was girl on girl pairings, especially when it wasn't something as ridiculous as Sailor Moon.

Skimpy outfits or not, there was no excuse for that much whining and lack of actual skills. Never mind that in the end, it's heavily implied that she got so fed up with the negative elements in society that she damn near brainwashed the entire planet into a fake utopia.

No way in HELL was an entire planet filled with the most vicious, underhanded and greedy creature on the earth going to bow down to some twenty-two year old girl with a magical bauble as their new Queen and ruler unless there was something else going on. With how much fighting there was in the world over the available land space and resources, it was really hard to believe they all accepted her that fast...especially when you also tied in religion and sheer bigotry from idiots who wouldn't accept anyone who didn't fit into their narrow world view.

Colonello watched with some amusement and fascination as his wife and her Storm immediately went into a very long, overly detailed argument of magical girl shows...among other things. Fon seemed highly amused to have a proper debating partner that wouldn't look at him oddly for actually watching those things and could hold a decent point about them from a witch's perspective.

Lal was just glad to have someone to debate with at all. She mostly watched them as a way to remind herself why she walked away from magic in a way that wouldn't bring up her episodes or nightmares. Most of the "spells" or "attacks" on said shows were ridiculous, but some had clearly been inspired by actual magic. Having to watch the heroine go through so much nonsense and still have to deal with real life was a painless reminder of how badly her younger years had gone while at the same time providing entertainment.

Besides, every soldier needed a harmless hobby that didn't involve actual fighting or death...otherwise they'd snap. Even if she was privately surprised Colonello had yet to find her cosplay in the closet.