Chapter 7
Jin lied over the cover of his bed sleeping with Plagg lying beside his pillow napping as well. Plagg moved one of his ears up as he recognized the chirping of birds and moved his head up to look at the closed blinds of the bedroom with sunlight shining through the rills. Plagg looked at Jin, which was asleep, and moved his head around to look for the smartphone, and took off in the air to fly toward the device on the desk of the boy to check the time. Plagg dropped his mouth as he saw it was almost 10 in the morning and classes had already started for Jin.
"Oh crap!" Complained the kwami, then flew towards Jin landing on top of the holder's forehead, then tapped slowly like a bunny on him. "Wake up! We're late for school," Plagg alarmed watching Jin open his eyes confused. "Come on! It's 10 O'clock!"
"What!?" Shouted Jin surprised and got up to see the sun pass through the closed blinds. "I…...I think I forgot to put my alarm," Stated Jin getting up to take his smartphone to see no notification of the alarm, but a few messages from his friends. Jin looked at his school work mixed up with his block, which he used to take notes from the grimoire, and sighed as he needed to order them, before packing them in his school bag. "Okay, putting that in order won't be that difficult. I know, it's not right to misuse the miraculous, but I gotta get fast as possible to school,"
"Just be aware, where you transform back," Warned Plagg landing on Jin's shoulder to watch the human sort quickly his homework.
At the stairs at the entrance of the Françoise Dupont, Marinette sat in the break together with Alya and Nino. Nino was texting someone on his smartphone, while Alya had her smartphone in her hands to show Marinette a video on Facestargram.
"I could not believe it. I saw the supervillain fly above the city and assumed it was someone I wouldn't know. This morning, when I came walking here and watched the online news I saw them talking about, that River Langerak got akumatized yesterday,"
"I heard ramble during the night and when I looked out I saw Super Snake running on the streets. I didn't spot the villain at that moment, but understood something was up," Marinette made up to fit the conversation of her friend, which nodded.
"About an hour ago, at least according to the timeline here, she made a video, where she apologizes and thanks the superheroes," Alya commented clicking on play to show her best friend the video.
"…..I'm eternally grateful to the superheroes Ladybug, Onyx, and Hydra for having freed me from Hawk Moth's hands. This has been an odd experience for me. I haven't heard, that anyone remembered exactly what they had done during the akumatization, some even forget how they got to this point as well….What matters is, that everything ended well. I'm reunited with the two loves of my life. I want to be focused on this for now, until I'll be back to the public,"
"She….didn't tell, why she got akumatized as I heard," Commented Marinette making Alya nod.
"Perhaps it's the parenting, that might be giving her a hard time or it's related to, what happened with Catrina from Marc's class. You know she and River's husband are siblings,"
"Really?" Questioned Marinette. "How tall is their age gap? I didn't know her brother was way older than her,"
"Catrina is 16 and her brother is as far as I know 25. I think they have at least 8 to 9 years of difference,"
"Isn't he the same as as his wife?" Questioned Marinette making Alya shrug her shoulders.
"I'm not sure, if River's a year younger or not. I remember Nora telling something, that he had to repeat 9th grade,"
"Okay…...oh that's how the story started about she offering him help, right?" Questioned Marinette sensing her smartphone vibrate in her jeans, then she took it out, while Alya responded the friend's question.
"He asked as I remember his old classmates for the old exams to learn with them and all denied it. River did the same, but ended up feeling bad for him and offered to help him out. The rest you can imagine," Alya stated watching Marinette chuckle by looking at the display. "What's the matter, girl. Did Luka send you something funny?"
"I had sent him this morning a meme and I received his response. He also mentioned, that Jin somehow forgot yesterday to put his alarm on," Marinette explained looking at her actual message, which was Luka additionally informing about the deciphered letters from Jin.
"They did get along pretty quick. Furthermore….,"
"Both fell in love…,"
"There's more, but yes, basically, that's what happened. Not overly dramatic,"
"If I witnessed or experienced in real life crazy love situation, I would go nuts,"Commented Marinette making Alya chuckle and spot on the road a large SUV pass on the road slow earning the Martinic girl's attention.
"Hey isn't that the car from Lila's mom?" Questioned Alya watching Marinette glimpse at the vehicle and squint her eyes to see the car had on the side of the door a slogan of a company.
"I think not. It says Burnish Industries, "Commented Marinette, then Alya used her smartphone to search for that name and Marinette dropped her mouth as she watched from the side of where her parent's bakery was a large transporter turn around to catch up with the other car. Marinette spotted inside the SUV a man with a 3-day-beard taking the lead and on the transporter sat a taller, raven-haired man steering the vehicle while beside him sat a redhead, curly woman and a shorter, elderly man, which compared to the younger passengers seemed moody.
"They don't seem to be from here," Mentioned Marinette, then heard Alya gasp.
"He's a well-known businessman, born and raised in the United Kingdom. Known for creating modern technology in the past years he made himself a name for several countries and got offered by Shanghai to move his fabric there, where he then grew and built his own spot in the middle of the metropolis. Around the 30s, he claimed to have seen a yeti on his first hike to the Mount Everest and due to missing proofs, people have rejected him. Over the years, he bought a failing laboratory and collected rare animal species over the years. These species are being taken care off and made sure they don't go extinct. Rumours have been telling, that there is poaching and illegal negotiations behind this issue according to former employees of the labor, which vanished days later,"
"Well, that sounds kind of….. frightening," Commented Marinette slowly moving her smartphone up to take a vertical picture of the moving vehicles. "I wonder if they will be any trouble to the superheroes," Mentioned Marinette watching Alya nod, wondering about the encyclopedia notice as well.
At lunch break, Jin and Luka shared a table at a park at the Champs de Mars to eat together. Jin had between their meals his block, which he had used to translate the one page of the grimoire and Luka was taking a look at it as well.
"I never used the ladybug miraculous, but from what I understood here, is that the only limitation a ladybug miraculous holder has is the person itself," Mentioned Luka.
"And how should this help us out?" Questioned Jin. "Is this some sort of personality thing about having to be ourselves?"
"It's a possibility. We can discuss it with Marinette later, anyway. She knows her miraculous better. Perhaps she hasn't tried everything yet with the miraculous or some things weren't figured out by the writer of the book. That's why the last pages might be empty,"
"I believe so. From seeing the calligraphy of the grimoire, I had the impression it was handmade," Mentioned Jin. "I hope last night's late-night study was worth it. I forgot to put my alarm, fell asleep on my table, woke up with a new mission, and the only thing I had in my head, when returning home was to get to my bed,"
"Was yesterday's villain any hard to fight with?" Questioned Luka watching Jin shrug his shoulders.
"I felt like the villain wasn't that good of a fighter, more into flying. Fighting in the middle of the air hasn't really been an option for any of us, so I think this is why it was easy. When I received Marinette's message I thought we had to be in the air fighting a villain,"
"You guys were lucky it wasn't Stretch again. I'm sure, if you will meet her again it might not be that easy to defeat her,"
"Yeah. We should consider asking Marinette to recruit two more heroes," Mentioned Jin. "You did suggest you could lean a hand, when needed,"
"Yes. We can discuss this with Marinette and if we got time each of us work together on one of the grimoire's pages to translate it. We might get faster with that, what do you think?" Questioned the musician making Jin nod.
"It sounds good. So I can focus later at home fully at my studies. I definitely failed the one this morning. Out of 10 pages, I only made it to finish 6,"
"Well, if you're lucky and got almost everything right, it shouldn't be a problem,"
"Now maybe, but in the future it will. If I want to be a doctor, I will need to have at least 96% of the tests right!" Complained Jin making Luka nod.
"We'll get through this. You're not the only one under pressure," Commented Luka making Jin nod.
"Talking about under pressure….I just had a random idea. If we are using from the book the alphabet to translate the grimoire…...couldn't we ask Yi and Nathaniel for help?" Questioned Jin watching Luka look down at the block and nod.
"I don't see anything bad on it. We could all meet up somewhere and work together on it. I don't know how Nathaniel will feel about it, he hates to do writing without it being mandatory, Yi I think tags along if she knows we're all in it,"
"If she has got nothing else in mind, she would join," Commented Jin. "She likes history, so I think this will be a pretty interesting topic for her,"
"Perfect. You know, I could try giving Marinette a call right now and see, what she says," Commented Luka making Onyx's alter ego nod. "You'll hear the solution," Luka picked his smartphone to open the phone address book and pressed the second number with Marinette's name on it to build a connection.
"Hey Luka!" Greeted Marinette making Luka smile.
"Hey Marinette, how are you doing?"
"I'm fine and you?"
"I'm good too, thanks. Look, I've been talking with Jin about the Grimore and we thought that we three should meet after school to check the one sheet he has translated. He also made the suggestion, that Yi and Nathaniel can come along for help,"
"Help in what? Translating the grimoire?" Questioned Ladybug's alter ego making Luka nod.
"Exactly. You know, perhaps it would be a good idea to have, what we need to see deciphered in case of emergency,"
"Yes, we can't afford to have more villains like Stretch. Or if we really have to go that path, we can at least see, what the book has to tell us. It might be really helpful for us,"
"Yeah. We can all in our team talk about this and in the end we decided, which way we go. Planning more is better, than having a wrong decision lead to a fatal issue,"
"We totally can't afford that," Commented Marinette making nod.
"We'll do good Marinette. Don't worry. You have faced a lot of issues as Ladybug and found a way out of it. This won't be any different. Only you have my, Jin and the rest of our team's hand,"
"You're right, Luka. Thank you, so much. I really don't know, how things would have worked out without you,"
"You would have figured this out as well. You already knew the alphabet could be translated with a book. You probably would have needed more time to obtain a similar book with the alphabet or eventually Jin could have figured it out as well,"
"He definitely would! He's really an expert," Admitted Marinette. "Is it okay, if we pass by your home or shall we come to mine?"
"Perhaps mines. Juleka will go out with Rose somewhere and my mother is at work. We just gotta inform the rest of the crew,"
"I'll do that. Thanks for the call, see you later,"
"Bye Marinette, je t'adore," Luka ended the call, then put the phone back into his jacket and looked at Jin, which gave his friend a thumb up.