The smell of salty kelp coming off the crispness of the east coast air was the first thing Ladybug noticed as they stepped through the portal. The second was the crystal clear blue of the wide ocean spanning as far as she could see.
As they turned around they were confronted by four imposing lions guarding the seaside temple, under a ornate three story pagoda.
"Don't worry, they won't bite," a cool voice assured them. Beneath the feet of one of the lions sat a cat hardly larger than a average house cat, but it had longer legs. It was stunningly beautiful. It's coat was patterned with rows of elongated black spots set on its tawny golden fur. Its rounded ears twitched toward them. Its golden eyes, accentuated with two prominent black stripes, studied them.
"Leopard Cat," Ember addressed, and the dignified creature stepped forward onto the rocks before them.
Chat Noir and Ladybug gave the cat a bow, which he acknowledged with a nod to each of them.
"I feared for a long time that the miraculous trials were forgotten by weilders," the Leopard cat said, and then stretched into a bow. "I am glad to see the cycle continues with a new generation.
"This temple was originally called Bomun and was dedicated to Gwanseum-bosal, the Goddess of Compassion," Ember explained.
"It has a new name since Ember's last visit," the cat informed them. "The head monk, some time ago, had a vision of the Goddess of Mercy riding a dragon. Now the humans call it Haedong Yonggungsa, which means "Korean Dragon Palace."
"Was there ever a dragon here?" Chat Noir asked cautiously.
"Absolutely," the pupils of the cats eyes dilated. "Stay long enough and there may be a dragon here again."
"Is that part of the trial?" Ladybug asked suspiciously.
"They are always so jaded by the time you bring them to me," the Leopard cat said smugly to Ember.
"I may have thrown them a few surprises over the last few trials," Ember admitted.
"Not to worry weilders in the house of mercy and compassion you'll find just that," the cat blinked its wide eyes up at both of them. "The first test is a study in emotion. Each of the lions behind me symbolize happiness, sadness, anger, and joy."
"Please come sit facing each other before the first lion. Dig deep within yourself and express one memory that brought you happiness. Ember and I will meet you at the gates when you have completed your reflection before each of the lions," the kwami instructed.
Ladybug and Chat Noir sat cross legged, knee to knee at the feet of the lion of happiness. They thought for a while, and Ladybug blurted out, "Playing Megastrike three with my Dad!"
She said it so enthusiastically Chat Noir couldn't help but chuckle, and she laughed herself. "Sorry, that's kind of silly isn't it!" she said bashfully, "I've got others, I don't know why that was the first one I thought of."
"No, no, it's really cool actually," Chat Noir reassured her. "I can't even picture my Dad being willing to do something like that. You thought of it because family is your happiness!"
"Yeah, I guess that's true," Ladybug smiled. "How about you?"
"For me..." Chat Noir paused, "the first time I transformed with my miraculous," he said, then smiled widely just thinking about that moment.
"For you being a hero makes you the happiest," Ladybug nodded, "that's you for sure!"
"Well, I like helping people, but in that moment it was the chance for freedom that made me the happiest. It had..um...been a long time since I'd really been happy back then," Chat Noir admitted.
Ladybug put her arm across their knees to squeeze Chat Noir's shoulder. "I'm sorry that you went so long without anything to make you happy," she comforted. "I always looked at wearing the miraculous as a big responsibility...more like a honored burden. I didn't realize you seemed lighthearted about it all because for you it had lifted a burden off you."
Chat Noir shifted over to the space under the next lion. "I had been happy before, but when I lost my Mother, things became pretty grim in our house."
Ladybug scooted next to him slipping her arm around him. He pulled his knees up to his nose and sunk his chin down on top of them. Ladybug just held him.
"She would have really liked you," Chat Noir mumbled. " I always admired how kind and strong she was. She wouldn't back down from anything, and always knew what to say."
"There are lots of times I don't know what to say," Ladybug said quietly.
Chat Noir watched her carefully, then asked gently, "what was a moment of sadness for you?"
"Loosing your mom is so much more devastating than what I've experienced. It doesn't seem right to even bring up anything I lost," she avoided the question.
"I don't think it's a competition," Chat Noir smiled kindly, "Go on..."
"It was silly...more of disappointment than anything," she stalled, but Chat Noir waited patiently. "The one I was in love with told me he was starting to have feelings..."
Chat Noir raised an eyebrow.
"...for someone else," she finished.
"Oh..." Chat Noir's shoulders dropped.
"...And I offered to go with them on their first date," Ladybug added, hiding her face embarrassingly in her hands.
Chat Noir sputtered, and then started to laugh.
"Hey!" She protested with a smile, peaking through her hands at him, "don't laugh!"
"I'm sorry!" He said wiping tears from his eyes, "but that really is sad!"
Ladybug playfully punched him in the arm, and Chat Noir collect himself enough to roll out of the way beneath the third lion.
"I'm seriously joking though," he assured her, turning serious. "I know better than anyone what it is like to love someone who doesn't feel the same."
"Chat I do care about you, I..." Ladybug tried to interrupt, but Chat kept going.
"This isn't a guilt trip or something. You always tried to let me down easy, but it still hurts when you want to be with that person so badly. I guess it is just hard to imagine a guy out there so clueless to make you a third wheel!"
"Yeah, well, I've been pretty clueless myself when it come to noticing what's right in front of me," she looked over at Chat Noir and their eyes met for a fraction of a second before he dropped her gaze.
"So what makes you mad then?" He asked passing to the next lion. "You know besides your jealousy over my masterfully crafted puns?!"
"Although Occasionally annoying..."
"Meowch!" Chat Noir gripped his chest with a wink.
"..Those don't make me angry," she continued. "Actually what makes me truly angry is people lying to me or my friends...which I guess could be ironic seeing as I've been lying and making of lame excuses to hide my identity from the ones I care about."
"But that is to protect them," Chat Noir defended.
"That's what I tell myself," Ladybug nodded glumly, "but sometimes it makes things difficult. One time Leila...you know the girl that was Volpina..."
Chat Noir pretended to suddenly recall the name, "oh yeah, I remember that one."
"Well I got so mad because she was going around telling everyone she and Ladybug were best friends...it was like every word out of her mouth was lies...and somehow I was the only one that saw it. Anyway, I confronted her as Ladybug and screwed up everything even worse by getting her akumatized. After that she seemed to have it in for both Ladybug and Mar...err...me!" Ladybug's eyes flickered up to Chat Noirs. "She threatened to turn my friends against me...and ruin my life...There were a couple times I was almost akumatized she pushed me so far!"
Chat Noir looked shocked. "You never told me that part before! Ladybug that's horrible!" Then he took her hand, and said passionately, "You're not the only one her lies hurt. One of my friends nearly got expelled because of Leila's tricks. She backed off a bit and confessed to making the whole scenario up after I confronted her."
"That was you?! I mean you got Leila to fess up to her lies to help your..um...friend get back into school! How?! What did you do?" Ladybug gasped.
"Oh just a Oh so friendly Chat...purrhaps with a hint of a threat thrown in," Chat shrugged.
Ladybug suddenly leaned over and gave Chat Noir a light kiss on his cheek.
Looking surprised, but pleased, Chat Noir touched the spot she had kissed. "What was that for?" he asked.
"Just for being the best," Ladybug smiled. "So I told you mine, now tell me yours. What gets under the laid-back Chat Noir's skin?"
"I guess that would be lies for me too," Chat Noir responded. "I didn't even realize it before a few months ago, but I found out even my own family have been keeping secrets from me." Then Chat Noir got a far away look on his face.
Ladybug bit her lip. Her wonderful partner had been through so much. He deserved so much better. But she also felt a sting of guilt, after all, she had been hiding a lot from him too. If he found out would he be happy to finally learn the truth...or would he feel she had betrayed his trust, just like all the others he was close to.
"I hate secrets," he continued to himself more than to her, but then in typical Chat Noir fashion, rallied himself and plastered on a smile, "but I guess that is what we signed on for when we became Superhero's, hey Ladybug?!"
"I want there to be fewer secrets between us too," she said softly, knowing him too well to let the fake bravado fool her into thinking he was past the sadness and anger of the last two lions.
"Then tell me about a time you experienced joy," Chat Noir shifted beneath the final lion.
"Hmmm..." Ladybug thought through amazing moments in her life. The word 'joyful' seemed to go so much deeper. "Some of my most joyful moments have been dancing actually," she finally concluded.
"You do have some great moves," Chat Noir smiled.
"You're not bad yourself," she gave him a nudge with her shoulder. "You might be pleased to know more than one of those joy-filled dances were with you."
"With me..." Chat Noir repeated, barely breathing.
His mind raced. He and Ladybug had danced a few times over the years. Even recently they had danced to the street performer music in Seattle, on the black volcanic fields of Hawaii, and at the wedding in India. The closeness they shared had meant a lot to him too, but to know that she had shared that joy was more than he could ever have hoped for.
Little did Chat Noir know that the dance that stood out the most in Ladybug's mind was not traced back to any exotic location, but a simple night alone with her Kitty, dancing on her balcony under the stars.
Silence lay heavily between them, until Ladybug cleared her throat, and asked, "How about you? What has brought joy into your life?"
"You," he said simply, and got up off the ground, and turning towards the ocean waves crashing up against the wall of rock the temple perched on.
Ladybug sat beneath the feet of the stone lion of joy wordlessly. She watched her partner standing with his back to her, and she was more torn than she had ever been before. How hard was it just to grab someone who meant so much to you and kiss them till there were no secrets left?! What if she could just forget everything else...everyone else...
The silence between them was too long...she stood...the moment had passed..Ladybug started and stopped...trying with frustration to form some kind of sentence...to let him know he was more than just a partner...
But when she took a breath in he swung around and grabbed her up tightly in his arms. Startled, but comforted by his sudden closeness after the breach between them, she sunk into him, and wrapped her arms around his back. "Thank you," he whispered full of emotion. "Thank you for bringing joy back into my life."
"I've never had anyone love me the way you do," she whispered back, squeezing him close.
"I hope the one you love gives you even more," Chat Noir gave her one last embrace before breaking away towards the path, "You deserve much more." Then he turned and walked along the coastal trail littered with hundreds of eerily stacked rocks pilgrims had left to mark the temple trail.
Ladybug was once again cursing her tied tongue and divided heart, trailing after the one she had denied too many times before.
They past statues, carvings, and stone lanterns through a small bamboo forest, before ascending the 108 silent stairs to the temple's entrance.
Ladybug finally came alongside Chat Noir again once they reached the 12 humanized animal statues guarding the front gate, all standing at attention. They were even taller than Chat Noir, and looked out at them with stone eyes.
"What is this?" Ladybug asked sensing the arrival of Ember and the Leopard Cat rejoining them.
"It is the 12 kwami of the third miraculous tier," Chat Noir answered, counting up the assembly of zodiac creatures.
"There is a special ceremony these kwami created for weilders who had come of age and demonstrated true compassion. It was their tradition to give each weilder a gift based on the year of their birth."
"One year Tikki gave me a Kwagatama for my Birthday," Ladybug said.
"A very personal and treasured gift to be sure," the Leopard Cat acknowledged, "but this is different. It is an additional power that will magically bind itself to your miraculous while you remain it's weilder."
"Chat Noir, you may go first. Step up to the statue of your zodiac birth kwami and say its kwami name."
Chat Noir looked up the line of animals until he found the stone dragon. Stepping in front of it he said "Longg!" The stone started to glow, and the statue became animated, moving with ease like it had suddenly become a living creature. It wound its tail around itself and seemed to evaluate the weilder before him. "You are worthy of the strength of Longg. As the black cat you weild destruction. You can choose air, fire, or water to merge with your cataclysm power. What is your choice?"
In awe of the grand stone dragon before him, Chat Noir considered the possibilities. He had seen Ladybug and Kagami weild the dragon miraculous before, and each element came with its own advantage. Finally he determinedly set his jaw, and declared "I chose water."
The dragon turned its head to one side as if slightly amused. "A bit unusual for a cat weilder to chose water, but a good choice non the less. Water can be destructive, but it can also bring life and healing." The dragon then reached forward, grasping Chat Noir's hand that wore the miraculous, and the dragon bowed. The glowing energy concentrated itself into the ring, fusing the dragons power with the power of the black cat. The dragon then released him, and stepped back, once again returning to lifeless stone.
"I know we've encountered wild things on these trials," Chat Noir said turning to The others, "but that was Really Wild!"
"The Ladybug is next. Find your zodiac creature," Ember guided her.
Ladybug had already picked out the statue in the lineup, and walked straight over to the snake statue. "Sass," she said a bit hesitantly. Just like the statue of the dragon, the snake statue started to glow, and then uncoiled into life.
"You are worthy of the power of Sass. As the Ladybug you weild creation. With this power you will create time. For five minutes of your time, you will be able to slow the rest of the world down."
"That is awesome! I'm always short on time!" Ladybug smiled excitedly.
The stone snake smiled back looming towards her face. "No matter how much extra time mortals have, it always slips through their fingers. Then it touched its nose to one earring, and the tip of its tail to the other. The glowing energy wound its way through the snake, and bound itself to the miraculous she wore. The he hung back, and the snake reverted back to cold stone.
"A snake zodiac hmm," Chat Noir observed, and then winked. "Seems like I'm the older and wiser one after all."
"Maybe just older," Ladybug teased back, "...by a little."
"Now I'm excited to try these new powers!" Chat Noir exclaimed, and Ladybug nodded in agreement.
"Ladybug can say "Miraculous Time"and everything beyond what she touches will be frozen for five minutes," the wild kwami explained. "For Chat Noir, he just needs to say 'Aqua Cataclysm,'when he wants to summon his gift," the cat Leopard instructed.
"Aqua Cataclysm?" Chat Noir asked, but in proclaiming it, he released a surge of power that made the water on the ocean serge, and rise up like a rouge tsunami wave.
The Leopard cat acted fast and took its kwami form to Chat Noir's left hand, and Ember his right, trying to drag his hands down. Ladybug, sensing their struggle realized even the kwami would not be enough to subdue the raging torrents created by Chat Noir's raw power.
"Miraculous time," she called out loudly, and instantly the world froze. The rising wall of water hung in a balance. Chat Noir stood with outstretched hands, burdened little by the kwami's attempt to restrain him. Ladybug ran in front of Chat Noir, and tenderly placed her hands on either side of his face searching his eyes filled with horror at the destruction he was about to inflict.
"You..."she said slowly and confidently "can master destruction, you are not a slave to it!"
Slowly his eyes flickered to hers. "Run!" he mouthed with panic in his eyes.
"I believe in you! You've got this!" she urged, then paused, "...just like you've got me! I'm not leaving your side...not ever!" Then she drew her face in slowly to meet his, until her lips met his. His eyes widened a moment, then closed at the feel of her mouth matched with his own. His hands dropped to his sides, releasing the water into tiny droplets of water like a fine mist that surged against the side of the rock.
She kissed him without fear of the future or whether she should. As she pressed up against him, and tilted her head to meet his lips again it was only him. He was everything to her. For Ladybug she slowly savored each sensation of their kiss, but even with her additional 'created time' it didn't seem nearly long enough. Time had already caught up to them when she reluctantly broke away from the kiss.
As she stumbled back a step and opened her eyes. Chat Noir's mouth was slightly parted, and he blinked as if awakening from a dream. He was left partially stunned and partially wrapped up in the passion of the moment they had finally shared. 'Mi'Lady?" he asked searching her eyes for answers, while part of himself didn't want anything but to kiss her again.
They stayed frozen looking at each other. "You kissed me...we kissed..." Chat Noir said in a dazed voice, then suddenly glanced around. The water had retreated back to the sea, as if nothing had disturbed it. The two kwami sat back a ways away on the ground, where they had been thrown when Chat Noir had released his power. They looked as surprised as the weilders at the events that unfolded.
"Ladybug, I thought I was going to...I couldn't control it...I thought I was going to loose you!" Chat Noir rambled in relief, gathering her up in his arms.
Then the next moment of realization hit him, as his mind cleared, and he slowly released her, stepping back to look at her face. "You...you just kissed me to stop me," he said quietly (more as a statement than a question).
"No, that's not why!" Ladybug said defensively.
"It's not?" Chat Noir asked in disbelief.
"No it's not!" Ladybug insisted. "I just...I just wanted to kiss you."
"So it wasn't like the time you kissed me during Dark Cupid?" Chat Noir watched her intently. "It wasn't that you had to kiss me, you actually wanted to kiss me?"
"Of course I wanted to kiss you, you stupid cat!" Ladybug said frustratedly. "And it was amazing! Is that what you want to hear?!"
Chat Noir blinked in surprise, and then a signature Chat grin crept across his face. "Actually that is exactly what I've been dreaming of for years."
"Chat the kiss...I just acted...It was real...I know it was...but I don't know where it will lead...what it means!" Ladybug stuttered with her voice raising higher and higher.
Chat Noir took her hand and held it to his heart. "Mi'Lady...it was real for me too."
The kwamis floated up before them. The Leopard cat looked relieved, and touched at the sight of a miraculous weilders so clearly taken with each other. Ember on the other hand looked ruffled and miffed about the situation caused by the introduction of new powers.
"Now that another disaster has been avoided, I just need to say..." Ember squawked, "You (pointing a flaming wing at the Jaguar cat) should have warned him about training first before using a aqua cataclysm, and you (he pointed a wing at Chat Noir) should know better than to unleash a cataclysm, and you (he pointed his wing at Ladybug)...you should have kissed that boy like that ages ago!" With an indignant huff he floated away down the path, leaving the scolded weilders to follow.