Kat was sick in bed, feeling like the worst, most disgusting creature ever. Her thick hair was slick with sweat, her eyes were unfocused, she was full of mucus, and she was having hot and cold flashes.
She was lucid enough to watch the Ladyblog. "Oh…" she said to herself as she finished the video for the tenth time.
Not only did they finish off the Akuma, they seemed to have an EASIER time than usual.
It hit her how useless she was, but she forced her mind to clear. No! She wasn't useless, she was just not necessary THIS TIME and that was a good thing. Kat didn't NEED to have to feel guilty because she couldn't help.
She took her night medicine and fell into a really bizarre dream. In her strange, somewhat froidean dream, there was an Akuma who is based on Fairy Tales. And they get sucked into a made up short mini-series of the Aladdin TV show. They will remember everything that happens, and though the forget their powers and actual lives, they recall everything they think of eachother.
The Cheshire Chat is Iago, but she was a harpy instead of just a bird..
Chat Noir is the Genie.
Chat Blanc is Jasmine. Much brattier and childish than the original model.
Ladybug is Aladdin. Nobody really could dispute her heart of gold.
The mini-series was just centered on "Iago" pseudo-betraying her friends in order to get a magical artifact that will give her basically ultimate power. The artifact is one in 3 of existence and the other 2 are pretty much impossible to find. She would do anything to get it.
Iago can't STAND this guy, but he has what she wants most, so she follows him. He has designs on her, clearly, but her mind is full of… the genie? And this redhead whose image isn't 100% clear. (He kinda reminds her of their flying carpet honestly).
When it gets down to it, the other three fight the bad guy. Iago spends the time inching closer and closer to that artifact.
When she has it, she has a choice, use it to rule and remain powerful? Or destroy it to save her friends? (Ironically the second choice would send everyone back to reality.)
Chat Noir loves her, with his deepest affection, but not even he trusts Kat to make the right decision. They all leave her, except the flying carpet (who is now red instead of purple FOR SOME STRANGE REASON).
The Cheshire Chat makes the right choice and destroys it. She covers her eyes as she does so, not wanting to watch herself destroy the thing she would kill and maim herself for. The building they're in starts to shake and quiver.
Cheshire Chat turns to warn the others and say they best leave as soon as possible. They have already left.
Kat's tear filled eyes darken and she cowers as the ceiling begins crumble and shrapnel begins to fall atop her. The flying carpet protects her and when they have all escaped the Akuma's clever ploy, Kat is broken hearted. None of her friends expected her to choose them over her own gain. No one trusted her. They say the love her, but they don't trust her…
She awoke from her torturous dream in a cold sweat, tear tracks on her cheeks as her body shook. Oh, right. She had almost forgotten how weak she was. How incredibly selfish she was. How her flaws were so easy to be seen by everyone else.
Marinette would allow herself to not have what she wants, because she just wants others to be happy. Like when she didn't tell Felix that SHE made the scarf he loves. Adrien, Nathanaël, and Chat Noir are all selfless enough to try and make peace with the fact she likes them all. Chat Noir and Felix/Chat Blanc risk their lives on a daily basis, purposefully putting themselves in harms way to help.
Kat wishes she was strong. Wishes she was kind and powerful and lovely and people thought she was amazing and beautiful…but she just wasn't all of those things. She was selfish, and rude, and downright mean sometimes. She wanted everything and even when she HAD everything, she wasn't satisfied and seemed to want more. As the Cheshire Chat, Kat was the closest thing to satisfied. The rush of adrenaline was almost something she needed to keep her going by now. Because she was so weak that the slightest bit of strength was important to her.
She reached for her pink lantern ring. It was a shameful thing. It seemed that she didn't really grow up. She just went through different security blankets. Her blankie, replaced by her purple teddy named Bearry, which was itself replaced by her tablet, which is now made obsolete by her ring. It made her feel safe and secure to hold it, and she was too busy thinking about her own sadness to notice the black butterfly land gracefully upon the ring and be absorbed into it.
A deep voice started crooning in her ear. Promises of strength and power and everything she could've ever wanted. In any normal moment, Kat would've had so many questions. How does this work, communications wise? What on earth is actually going on? If you have the power to make so many monsters, why not just go yourself? Or since so many get defeated, why not send more than one at once?
This wasn't a normal time though. This was a deep hurt in which all her insecurities were working her into a tizzy. It wasn't a regular insecurity. She didn't fail, her father wasn't just too busy for her, she was just all around never good enough. She didn't even feel like she had the right to be upset right now. It wasn't like someone destroyed what she cared about. Or broke her heart.
On the other hand, the idea of power and strength was something she had not encountered in a while. She could vividly recall being Ladybug. The rush of excitement, energy, and power coursing through her veins, a familiar and encouraging voice seeming to play in the back of her head and this oozing of confidence. If the Akuma could even provide a fraction of those emotions, it was more than worth it. So she felt herself agree to it, it was almost an out of body experience as she became "The Queen" a royal purple cat, with power in her veins and a smirk on her face.
Her hair changed very little, but her eyes changed completely. They glowed a dark purple and her glasses were dropped to the floor, completely useless now. The dark circles under her eyes were even more pronounced without the thick rimmed spectacles keeping them more or less hidden.
She left her house with a maniacal laugh, She only wanted to make everyone else feel as useless as she did, and remain as powerful as she is. If it took her having to pit in the face of her best friends and wrench the rings and earrings from their cold, unconscious bodies to do it, that is what she would have to do.
Kat's entire body hummed with excitement, but that was the last thing she could recall at all as she was Akumatized and her mind drew a blank.
She would never know her own bloodthirsty shrill snarl. Or the second of sadness that crossed her features before she flung Ladybug off the Eiffel Tower. She would never feel the pain Chat Blanc went through when he had to attack his closest friend in the world. The way Chat Noir froze up and looked away from Kat, unable to look at the woman he loved as he was forced to fight her.
She did know other things that she already wished to blank from her mind. (She would've made a pun, but it wouldn't have cheered her up right now.) The way, for example, that Paris looked when she awakes in the center of destruction and fire, the moment before Ladybug fixed everything. The look of utter betrayal of the people she loved most as they looked down at her. The look of fear on the little children's faces as their savoir had become their monster.
She heard Felix try to say something to calm her down. It couldn't work, no matter what it was. The sound of her blood pumping in her ears was louder than thunder. How would she even be able to hear him?
She wasn't numb enough to ignore the sight of Chat Noir, trying to decide how to cheer her up. Because she was always aware of Chat Noir. She couldn't deal with his good intentions right now though. She couldn't deal with him.
She ended up where Nathanael was. That poor artist. She was in his room, and she knew he had figured it out a week or so ago. He was drawing a comic book series of her for Christ's sake.
She thew her arms around the handsome redhead and began to blubber. She dropped her transformation and all that was left was a teary eyed little girl who needed someone to hold her and tell her he understands. Marinette couldn't even understand this.
Marinette was special. She was chosen to be the Ladybug and she was beloved by all.
She couldn't really feel what it was like to fail so often. To try her very best to impress her father and have him be too busy to stay. To have a responsibility to her best friend and simply fail at that too, giving away her secret identity. To not be able to choose between three guys because her head and her heart were each twisted and tugged in a million directions at once.
Nathanael was one person who understood becoming an Akuma and doing terrible things but not being terrible yet also not being special magical albeit imperfect person with a Quantic God (that's what she thought they were) spending time with her and encouraging her.