The night was not over. Ember rallied them and Ladybug roused a grumpy Kalaki for a new portal. This time they were headed to what Kalaki referred to as the "Big Easy," with a toss of her head. Ember rolled his eyes at the horse kwami, and clarified. Their destination was none other than New Orleans, Louisiana.
Even though they arrived at night, the city was awake and their senses were confronted with bright lights. There was Cajun spice flowing from surrounding restaurants, and sounds of bands playing at multiple venues. They skirted around the French Quarter of Bourbon Street. A band on the corner was getting ready for the famous jazz festival in a couple weeks. They played a string of notes, which the other with jump in on, and then accentuate. One of the musicians playing a trumpet gave them a wink and a nod as they passed under a streetlight, but the others were too wrapped up in their evolving song.
"I always thought it would be fun to play in a jazz band," Chat Noir mused crossing over into the shadows, while the strains of music to followed them further down the street. "To be able to create music on the spot, in the moment. To play in unison with someone and build something together."
"Piano again?" Ladybug inquired.
"Naw…with Jazz it would have to be drumming for me," Chat Noir smiled imagining it. Then he leaned his arm over Ladybug's shoulder, "although I'm already a 'cool cat,' even without the drum sticks."
"Ahhh..." Ladybug groaned exasperatedly. "And now I have to endure Jazz puns! By the end of tonight I might just have to smack you with one of those guitars."
"Is that a fret?" Chat couldn't help but ask, with a gleeful smirk on his face. Then quickly dodged playfully, as Ladybug swatted at him. "But seriously!" Chat Noir grinned, "How can I resist! We are at the center of where Jazz was born and took off. The home of the greats!" Chat Noir waved his hand, motioning to the city around them.
They passed shops, open to the night air selling knickknacks, beads, t-shirts, and elaborately decorated masks. "Does it seem weird that I feel like we almost fit in here?" Ladybug asked gesturing to the walls lined with masks.
"You'll fit in more than you know," a cheerful voice drawled at their feet, "Where y'at?"
Both the heroes jumped back in surprise, as small cold light zoomed up to them. The creature was of course a firefly…or rather a wild firefly kwami.
"You'll be needing a couple of those, and another…outfit, the firefly nodded his head toward the masks they had been admiring. "Once you purchase them, change into your new 'costume,' and meet me at the end of the street. Your kwami's will get a break for this trial…I'm sure Plagg with be pleased. You are bound to pass a good time!" Then he smiled and padded along ahead.
Chat Noir quickly plucked a black fabric mask, which of most resembled a cat, off the top of the wall with his baton. Then he threw some dark jeans and leather jacket over his arm. The cashier barely raised an eyebrow at the young man in a mask. Ladybug too selected a mask, along with a small pile of clothes.
In the change room at the back of the shop Chat Noir dropped his transformation, and disguised himself in his new attire. Plagg kept Adrien long enough to dig out a generous portion of cheese to tide him over. Then 'Chat Noir' ducked out of the change room, turning around, and adjusting the collar of his black jacket in a mirror. That was when he caught sight of 'Ladybug' in the reflection.
She emerged from the change room with a long vivid red t-shirt that fell over one shoulder, belted around the waist, and paired with black tights. Her mask was an exquisite red lace creation framing her eyes. It had black feathers radiating from the left corner. Her blue-tinted raven hair was not tied back like usual, but fell softly over her shoulders. Her Ladybug costume had always accentuated all of her curves, but to see her in this outfit…and know she was not hidden by her miraculous transformation…it somehow made her all the more irresistible.
She caught his eye, and pulled at the corner of her shirt self-consciously. "This is all I could find that fits in… Ladybug red," she shrugged. Then she gingerly touched the corner of her mask. "Is it weird that I'm covered, but feel a bit exposed. It is so strange not being transformed in front of you," she admitted.
Chat Noir gently took her hand that fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "You look more radiant than ever Mi'lady," he said raising her hand to his lips to brush with a kiss.
Although it was a familiar gesture for Chat Noir, this time it was different. His lips found the bare skin of her soft hands, rather than ones covered in red gloves. Her eyes widened as an unanticipated shiver ran through her. It might have been this reaction that caused Ladybug to pause, rather than pull away. Chat Noir straightened, a little surprised himself.
"We should uh…probably get going," Ladybug rushed, and spun quickly on her heel, leaving Tiki to trail over her shoulder.
With a sigh Chat Noir and Plagg followed them darting across the shadows between the street lights.
It didn't take long for them to find the firefly kwami as his presence was illuminated with a soft ghostly blue glow. "Mais, cher! I'm so glad to see you!" the firefly called, not to the humans, but to Tiki who floated out and fist bumped the firefly with a giggle.
"You always know how to light up my life," Tiki chirped to the firefly in a playful voice.
Chat Noir stifled a laugh, hearing Plagg making a gagging sound at their interaction. "Oh come on!" Plagg put his paws on his hips with a jealous eye roll at Tiki. "A light pun with a lightning bug…come on Sugar Cube, you can't be serious…with this glowworm?!"
"Not to worry my friend," the firefly winked at Plagg. "It has just been so long since I've beheld the beautiful Lady Creation!"
Tiki blushed, and gave the firefly a little shove, "aww…It has been a while, hasn't it!" she smiled.
"Humph," Plagg replied with a growl. Then muttered a stream of insults or threats under his breath ("Showoff glowworm Casanova…trying to put moves on my Sugarcube since the beginning of time…just because they worked together creating a few nature projects…he thinks he can just fly in and…")…all of which was ended with a hiss.
The firefly seemed to take all of this in stride, and just winked at Tiki (which just Plagg get huffy again).
"The challenge is all about improvising," the firefly smiled impishly at the weilders.
"Here that is great!" Chat Noir interrupted. "We do that all the time when we are saving Paris. Especially my lady here! She always thinks up ways to use the most bizarre items for her lucky charm…tape, oven mitt, car jack, spoon, fork…never a knife though…"
"Chat….I think he gets the point," Ladybug elbowed Chat Noir.
"…coin, sketchbook, comic book, spray paint…"
"Chat!" Ladybug groaned.
"…Then there was that one time with the handcuffs…I thought it was my lucky day…"
"Chat!" Ladybug swatted him on the shoulder, shooting a glare his way, which he returned with a smile like the Cheshire Cat.
"What fun you two will be," the firefly chuckled. The he continued, "You will be required to come up with creative ideas on the spot, bouncing ideas off your partner. The key is to not shut down the flow of ideas. Say 'yes'…and then add to the stream of creativity. You never know what will be created. That is all up to you."
"But what do we need to do?" asked Ladybug.
"Your kwamis will hold onto your miraculous. All you have to do is reach out and touch them," the firefly grinned.
Ladybug and Chat Noir looked confused since Tiki and Plagg floated only a few feet away with their miraculous' in their paws.
"Let us begin!" the firefly announced gleefully. He drew out some green sparkly dust, and blew it at the wilders. It absorbed itself into their Marti Gras masks, making them have a slightly pale blue flicker when the moonlight hit them.
"What was that?!" Chat Noir coughed.
Ladybug rubbed her eyes.
The firefly took his Kwami form laughing. "We are in the bayou!" he chortled.
And suddenly they were! They were actually standing in a bayou. They were waist deep in the murky swamp water.
"Your kwami are guarded by a swamp monster!" the firefly added to the illusion. At his words a reed covered creature rose out of the water, yards away from them, and Tiki and Plagg squeaked as the creature enclosed them within itself."
"Oh I get it," Chat Noir brushed a stray piece of soggy grass from his shoulder. "Improv game…whatever our imagination creates materializes! We are riding a fanboat towards the monster!" A flat boat emerged beneath their feet, and propelled them forward with an enormous whirring fan behind them.
"The monster grows up mangroves to tangle your boat," the firefly chimed.
"We dodge them and go off a ramp toward the creature," Ladybug jumped into the game.
"The monster shoots out vines and grabs hold of your fancraft," the firefly rallied.
Chat Noir didn't have his baton without his miraculous, but he snagged a long stick from an overhanging tree to help him balance like a tightrope-walking in a circus. "We run along the vines and reach the creature!" Chat Noir said doing just that, reaching the shoulder of the creature.
But Ladybug hesitated.
Even with the firefly's improve magic over them; she didn't have her ladybug-miraculous magic. She was Marinette under the mask, and although she had leapt from buildings as Ladybug, Marinette still frequently tripped over her own feet.
"Mi'lady?!" Chat Noir asked questionly, looking back toward her, wondering why she wasn't right behind him.
"The monster traps Chat Noir in a spiral of vines and binds him," the firefly shouted triumphantly, ensnaring Chat Noir in a tangle of light green vines.
"I cut my way free!" Chat shouted quickly breaking out of the vines hold as Ladybug panicked, still gripping the edge of the fanboat.
"But the vines catch hold of you even tighter and stronger than before….they are more unbreakable each time you struggle," the firefly called.
"The vines crushed against Chat Noir's arms and chest, winding themselves around him like a cocoon.
"Mi'lady saves me!" Chat Noir called out defiantly, then looked over to Ladybug. "Mi'lady?!"
Ladybug's wide eyes stared helplessly back at Chat Noir's with panic on her paled face.
Chat Noir was about to call out the next play, when the firefly beat him to it. "Then the vines close the cat's mouth!" And that was all that was heard from Chat Noir, who suddenly muffled a shout of protest. "Then," the firefly said, not wasting any time, "the Ladybug is dragged into the water."
Another vine shot out from the creature, tipping the hover craft into the water, and dragging Ladybug in as well. The spines of an alligator grazed over the surface of the water nearby.
"Haha!" the firefly laughed, as Ladybug emerged sputtering from the swamp. "Little lady weilder…I think you have met your match," he gloated.
Ladybug clenched her fists in determination, focusing on Chat Noir, as he was getting rapidly encased by vines. She looked around and noticed the telltail snout of swamp alligator poke out of the water. "An alligator leaps up and grabs Chat Noir!" She shouted.
Another muffled protest came from the vine-encased Chat Noir at this suggestion, and the firefly was thrown off his game when a massive alligator rose straight out of the water, and snatched Chat Noir from the monster. "And then the alligator swam with Chat Noir straight back towards me," Ladybug continued.
The gater' plowed through the water, straight at Ladybug with the bundled Chat Noir held in its jaws. As it swam closer to Ladybug it pulled the vines attached to Chat Noir further and further. The firefly realized all too late that the further the gater' went, the more it unraveled the swamp creature, creating gaps in its form.
Ladybug took off the belt she was wearing on her new costume (having no belt to borrow from Chat like she usually relied on in some of her plans), and latched it onto an end of the vines once they got close enough. "Then I spin wrapping myself up in the very vines that held Chat Noir," she said as the alligator reached her. Sure enough she spun herself wrapping herself up, thereby unraveling the vines from Chat Noire (taking his place within their bonds). Chat Noir's eyes went even wider when he realized Ladybug had traded spots with him, and was not the one wrapped up.
"A piece of lumber lay across the upside down hull of the airboat," Ladybug cried out just as the vines found their way around her mouth.
"Ladybug!" Chat Noir called out desperately as she was silenced, but with her head she nodded to him, and gestured toward the plank of wood teetering over the hull. Chat Noir nodded. She had set everything up. This was their chance. He climbed up onto the lower end of the beam from the water, and called out. "Then the alligator hit the other side of the beam with his tail." As quick as anything the gator' slashed its tail down on the raised board of the teeter totter Chat Noir perched on, and sent Chat Noir flying overhead towards the monster. Then through the gaps in its form that Ladybug had unraveled, snatched Tiki and Plagg from its center, landing with a splash on the other side. The weedy creature dissolved into a flickering of firefly lights, and dispersed into the overhanging branches of the Spanish moss.
The vines encompassing Ladybug, the airboat, alligator, and everything their imaginations had conjured disappeared along with it.
Two dripping wet weilders dragged themselves up onto the slippery bank.
"Sorry I hesitated Kitty," Ladybug wheezed, ringing out her soaked t-shirt.
"I can't say I'd ever like to end up in the mouth of a alligator again Bugaboo, (especially after that near miss with the Australian croc kwami), but I know I can always trust you to come through," Chat Noir said shaking water from his blonde mane.
Then he looked at her seriously, and took her hand in his. "I actually was the most worried when you exchanged places with me. What if I hadn't been able to get you back?"
"You're always the one putting yourself in danger for me," Ladybug tried to explain, as he laced his fingers into hers. "I trust you too…I know my game plan without even saying a word, and to be there for me no matter what."
His fingers paused, and he looked straight into her eyes.
The darkness of the night was illuminated for a moment with the gentle glow of fireflies.
"No matter what," he repeated softly, giving her hand a squeeze, and helping her to her feet.
Tiki smiled, and placed the earrings into Ladybug's hand, which she thankfully returned to her ears, and with a nod to Tiki called out "Tiki, Spots on." Chat Noir also took his ring from Plagg and called on his transformation.
The firefly kwami floated over to the two, picking a stray soggy vine off his own head. "Well, I guess you two weilders can improvise together afterall!" he grumbled, and produced two beads. Each weilder took the offering from the firefly. It is not far now, I can take you the rest of the way. The bayou swamp vanished, and they were standing in the middle of a grassy New Orleans park.
Ancient oaks that had guarded this place for centuries draped their huge branches over the path. In the dark, their forms cast shadows across the stars in the sky above.
There was a slab of rock beneath the trees that had two indented spirals that joined in the center.
The firefly nodded towards it and pointed to the beads in their hands. Starting from either end, Ladybug and Chat Noir placed each of the tokens they had collected from the creativity trials into each indent, and ended with the single stone from Hawaii at the center.
A pulse of light emitted from the stones, and from behind each of the surrounding tree trunks stepped a wild kwami; eagle, coyote, bird, cougar, elk, white wolf, owl, and firefly.
Your creativity has been tested, the eagle kwami stated solemnly, but even beyond that, your worthiness as weilders has been proven.
"Their worthiness will be proven over time," the cougar muttered under her breath. "Others before them have completed trials and still been found wanting in the end."
"Who are you to judge their merit," the white wolf snapped in their defense, "these weilders follow the path."
"They are only human after all," the cougar growled.
"And we are only kwami," the elk came between the cougar and the wolf. "Which of us are not also flawed, even with our infinite cycles of power and time. They have earned their place at their kwami's side."
"How can we be sure?" the coyote chimed in slyly.
"The sentinel ape kwami did not divide them…do you think we should?!" the elk challenged them, shaking his branching antlers.
The cougar physically receded and fell back toward the edges of the circle, and the white wolf shuttered slightly.
"Their tokens are all the evidence they need," the eagle finished. The power of kwami creativity is given to you human weilders. Use your power to reveal innovation, inspiration, introspection, ignite passion, and improvisation to the world."
It was then that each wild kwami sang a single note. Each one in a different key, until each added together in beautiful harmony.
With a brush of her wings the mosaic of stones started to glow and rise. They spiraled faster and faster, becoming a wheel of light that gathered on Ladybug and Chat Noir. The surge of power that flowed through them filled them with adrenaline. It was as if they were suddenly hit by a blast of inspiration, and couldn't wait to start their next mission.
When they opened their eyes the stone of the wild kwamis was gone. The light of Ember was all that reflected off the canopy of trees.