Chapter 8
Later in the evening, the heroes had reunited in the houseboat of Luka. The group sat in the kitchen in front of the counter and Luka stood on the edge next to the sitting Marinette, which shared with Luka the book she got from Fu's old massage shop. Both had a different block and were deciphering both two pages from the grimoire. Jin was using his smartphone instead to translate his page and Nathaniel shared together with Yi his drawing tablet with the alphabet to both separately translate each page that, they had received.
"Jin, I'm sorry. You already have control over your cataclysm. According to your translation, a cat miraculous holder can indicate how high your damage on something is. The only thing, that's new, at least to me is, that your cataclysm is connected to emotion," Marinette said watching Jin nod.
"Emotion like anger?" Questioned Jin making Marinette nod. "So, this means if I would get angry and about to cataclysm the….Arc de Triumph, I could literally destroy the whole monument, rather than a specific part of it,"
"Yep," Responded Marinette moving further on the translation. "And if you cataclysm a real person by accident, you will cause her to get a burnt mark on the body. Probably a 3rd grade one. It's not explained exactly, only as terribly painfully," Noted Marinette making Jin warp his face hurt by the imagination.
"Ouch, that really would need professional help to get fixed," Commented Jin making Luka nod, which showed his own translation, which was from the ladybug miraculous and Marinette kept working on her translation along with Nathaniel and Yi.
"Ladybug has the miraculous of the creation. She's able to create, what she wants. She had for the next mission the idea to create a sort of mini-charms to give it each person, that got de-akumatized in the end of the mission. The charm the person will have to keep it on itself to prevent Hawk Moth to akumatize them again. It's supposed to work as a protection shield. According to Marinette, she can directly use the amok or the akuma she purifies to convert it into a charm. That will be a good thing for us all, cause if we manage to give ones to villains like Stretch we can make sure, they're not going to be a problem again," Luka explained making Jin smile and exchange looks with Yi, which glimpsed up to nod.
"Is there a chance, that not all superheroes have anything special on them?" Questioned Yi. "I have translated mines and so far, it doesn't seem like there's anything special. Just, that I can be in one of those forms as long as I want,"
"That's a good question," Answered Luka looking at Marinette, which rolled her eyes up at the blue eyes of her boyfriend.
"Perhaps it's only that. Technically, in my opinion with those powers you can be really dangerous towards villains," Spoke Marinette watching Yi shrug her shoulders, then Jin caressed her on her shoulder making her smile and lean her forehead against his.
"Nath, are you done with your translation?" Questioned Luka making Nathaniel nod.
"I'm already on another page," Commented Nathaniel making Luka snicker.
"You're fast. I thought you were troubled with it,"
"Nope. I finished the one about the snake miraculous and I'm almost done with the one of the Queen Bee," Commented the redhead making Luka smile.
"Great, Marinette had started the fox one," Commented Luka. "Will you read, what you could translate?" Asked the French boy making Nathaniel nod and move up the sheet to read, what he wrote.
"The snake miraculous has the power of In….uition. The user can use his superpower second chance to set a point in the timeline and has the chance to go back in time as many times desired. The lyre is his main weapon, functions like a boomerang, and consists of a timer and a phone function. The lyre can be used as a string instrument as well. Playing a specific set melody can create sound waves strong enough to make objects float in the air. It serves perfectly as a way of transportation as long as you're able to play non-stop…...Luka, you're the former snake holder, what does that mean?" Questioned Nathaniel watching Luka smile amused at the translation.
"I had no idea, that was possible," Commented Luka watching Nathaniel from, then Luka faked a cough to explain the situation. "Basically, it means you have to play the lyre as long as you want to fly on any object like a table for example. You could play the song Hero for example and do the entire thing until you reach the place you want," Mentioned Luka watching Nathaniel wide his eyes in shock.
"But….I can't even play an instrument. I'm an artist, not a musician,"
"Looks like you have to learn it now," Commented Luka watching Nathaniel drop his head on the table with a sigh.
"Please no," Nathaniel spoke making Yi chuckle and put her hand over his back.
"See it from the bright side, at least you will get some chicks after you," Teased Yi playfully making Nathaniel growl.
"You're just lucky you were gifted with musically talent," Mumbled Nathaniel watching Yi smile at him.
"Come on, you're a great artist. You can use that talent in the future someday and make money out of it too,"
"Yeah, that's what my grandma said too. But unfortunately, artists are the last garbage in this world and people would rather have AI's paint their wishes for free," Nathaniel complained making Yi shake her head.
"You know, Nathaniel. You're young. You might figure out something else you can do, where you can use your art skills, like…...becoming an architect," Suggested Jin watching Nathaniel raise his head.
"I don't even think I can go through university on my own like that. I think I would be better of as a comic or manga designer," Stated Nathaniel giving Yi a different idea.
"I don't know, how you can get to that sort of job, but you can become a storyboard designer or anywhere in the animation industry. Most of the people there have to draw well. You ARE good at drawing,"
"Yes and with a bit of luck, you could make your comic books into a TV series or movie franchise. Wouldn't that be cool?"
"Perhaps, but most of the time adaptions turn out bad…..at least recent ones," Commented Nathaniel making Yi nod and look back at the rest of the group to see Jin grin and Luka shake his head.
"Negative-Nathaniel is the most natural thing we know here," Spoke Luka making Marinette nod. "Move your head up sourpuss, what did you see about the bee miraculous?"
"One second," Spoke Nathaniel moving his head up and taking out the sheet of the bee miraculous to resume the translation. "The bee miraculous is the miraculous of subjection, whatever that means…."
"You definitely are bad at history," Mentioned Jin watching Nathaniel throw his pencil against Jin, which dodged it watching it hit Luka's chest, which just stood there neutrally listening to the redhead.
"The bee's special power is called venom, which you can use to paralyze your enemy temporarily…...Notice…..the notice part seems to be a different handwriting when compared to the rest of the text on the original picture. I have no idea if anyone noticed it. Does anyone else, want to check it out?" Questioned Nathaniel shoving his tablet closer to Jin, which moved it to Marinette who zoomed into the image to look at it along with Jin. Luka glimpsed from above his girlfriend's shoulder to see both analyze it. Jin pointed at the two lines, then zoomed closer.
"Nathaniel is right. The one seems darker written as the other and slightly curvy. That must be something the previous wielder must have figured out," Commented Jin making Luka and Marinette nod. Marinette had eye contact with her classmate, then smiled at him reassuring him to continue.
"Okay…...notice. If you feed the kwami honey or any pollen-containing flowers as a superhero you will be capable to use pollen-like dust as a way to gain control of random people or animals as your minions. When you pollinate your goal of people, you simply tell them, what you want and they'll do it,"
"Wow, I had no idea, the bee miraculous could do that," Confessed Marinette looking at Luka, which smiled at her. Marinette embraced Luka tightly, making him chuckle at her reaction. "We can be more powerful than we thought we could,"
"Yeah, except you've got this one miraculous holder, that can't even play an instrument," The redhead complained making Yi chuckle and point at Luka's guitar, which was on the couch.
"There you got a guitar. You just need to ask Luka for a few lessons," Suggested Yi watching Nathaniel puff, causing his bang to lift up revealing his both ice-blue eyes shortly.
"I'm almost done with the fox miraculous. Luka's currently working on the page of the turtle miraculous. So far, about the fox miraculous I haven't figured out anything new, and Luka at the moment too," Commented Marinette making the team nod. Yi moved her hand up, then got picked by the half-French girl. "Go on,"
"You know, I, Nathaniel, Jin, and you are only four members as superheroes…..have you or the others considered adopting a new recruit or two?" Questioned Yi watching Marinette exchange looks with Luka.
"Well, Luka offered to keep with him the turtle miraculous and come out, in an emergency. He won't do that that much or we didn't plan him to leave that often. Our plan was to get two more superheroes to take the bee and the fox miraculous. I haven't thought about, who to pick so I thought about picking out of you all the ones, who know Paris' school better, which are Luka and Nathaniel at the moment," Introduced Marinette making Nathaniel wide his eyes surprised.
"Where should I know, who's ideal for that?" Questioned Nathaniel unsure about accepting that task.
"Think about your classmates, friends or anyone else you admire. Who do you think is capable of wielding a miraculous and working with us," Marinette explained making Nathaniel nod, then Marinette threw the fox miraculous at the redhead, which caught it.
"Is Marc an option?" Questioned Super Snake's alter ego. "I know he wouldn't rat on us if we had something like this,"
"It's up to you," Responded Marinette making Nathaniel nod and put the miraculous into his jacket's pocket. "Be careful, if you drop it, you'll put us in danger," Warned Marinette sternly making the redhead nod.
"I will keep my hand in there 24/7, until I….,"
"And don't reveal your face at first. Just do the task as Super Snake. At another point, you can reveal it to your friend…...or maybe wait until I have a good feeling about it….althought, what if it is a bad idea to reveal our identities to that person?"
"Marinette…..."Luka spoke, then Marinette packed him on his arms making him wide his eyes surprised.
"What if doing that is the worst mistake ever?"
"Calm down. We got this. We can keep our identities a secret to them as long as we need to. We can even keep it a secret until we defeat Hawk Moth," Suggested Luka making Marinette nod and look at Nathaniel, which gave them a thumb up. Marinette smiled, then embraced Luka, who lied his chin over her head, caressing her back for comfort with the trio sitting on their seat looking at the young couple.
Near the night at the front of the manor of the Agrestes, which had been renovated upon the building getting sold to a real estate upon Gabriel's disappearance. Now it was under the name of the Burnish industries, which had recently moved to Paris and made the manor the place for the staff to rest. By the entrance into the lot, a dark-dressed man stood by the entrance and opened the gate as he saw the black SUV had arrived. Upon opening the automated door, he stepped aside to watch the vehicle enter into the vehicle and the man waved at the two inmates, which were a woman with curly, red hair and a short, gray-haired, older man. Upon the vehicle stopping in front of the stairs, the man pressed the button to close the door and made his way to the car to see the man open the door to get out.
"Mr. Burnish, we haven't been able to lock in the cellar all the animals, at least two have been put in an actual bedroom. The large, green creature has been stored in the bathroom next to a bedroom. This bedroom is also the one taken by Dr. Zara. She's analyzing closer the reptile's behavior. She assumes that the creature is pregnant, by certain symptoms," Explained the man making the redhead nod, which came from behind the car.
"And the yeti was located in that large bedroom, right?" Questioned Dr. Zara making the man nod.
"Yeah. A few of my men didn't feel quite happy about that topic, but I couldn't help them," Stated the man.
"What's so special about that bedroom?" Questioned the short man looking up at the redhead.
"You know the bedroom belonged to that one teeny model called Adrien Agreste. He had a foosball table, a large library, a place similar to an arcade…...typical things kids around his age would play with," Zara explained making Mr. Burnish nod, thereafter they heard a man's voice and looked at the stairs a man with beard come down with a sad face, followed by another staff member.
"Why does that yeti get that room? He doesn't even know, how to use anything in there!" Complained the man with beard tragic making Zara roll her eyes.
"Dave! Put yourself together. We're not on vacation here," Warned the redhead making Dave sigh and nod.
"Well, looks like this trip didn't turned into, what I expected it would," Commented Dave, then his comrade went downstairs to encounter the head leaders of the Burnish industries. "Dr. Zara, Mr. Burnish. I have as you seen, locked the windows around the area of where the yeti is located to prevent him from escaping. The mechanism of the building is still as good as known from the real estage site. All we need to know is how to activate the surveillance cameras for the outside if you think it's needed,"
"Figure it out, quickly. I want it to work faultless," Commanded Mr. Burnish making the man nod and return into the house, then Dave stopped by the team as well.
"Mr. Burnish, there are a lot of pictures of the former family. Shall we destroy it?" Questioned Dave watching his boss shake his head.
"No. Our stay is just for a year. I'm pretty sure the previous holders want to have their house back, soon or later…...what happened to them anyway?" Mr. Burnish asked looking at Dr. Zara, which adjusted her glasses before giving her boss the answer.
"Well sir, from what I could hear in the past few days, the owner of this house Gabriel Agreste seemed to have been terrorizing the city for about a year. Paris has these superheroes, I don't remember all their names, which fought against him and his minions he could create somehow, based on their emotions….it's hard to explain something, we couldn't see there, but…..he was a villain…..like a supervillain. The superheroes did find him hiding here and fought him, but this didn't end up the way the heroes wanted and Gabriel escaped. He's still wanted by the Interpol, but there hasn't been any clue ever since,"
"Well, this man sounds really dangerous…..oh do you think he knows, how to get in here when it's all locked up?" Questioned Mr. Burnish making Zara shake her head.
"Leave it to me, I will make sure, there's no way he could unlock the home from the outside nor come any closer to any of our creatures,"
"That would be terrifying. I've been waiting my entire life for this moment and if anything ruins this for me, I'd be a big joke once again,"
"We won't let that happen, Mr. Burnish. We will make sure to keep everything and everyone safe here from any kind of danger. This means a lot to us all too," Dr. Zara commented making Mr. Burnish sigh in relief.
"Thank you, Dr. Zara. You always know, how to make me feel better," Spoke Mr. Burnish making the woman smile, then Zara looked at Dave. "Will you lead Mr. Burnish into his suite? The one at the end of the hall,"
"Yes," Responded Dave, then left along with Burnish leaving Dr. Zara back with the STV of the staff.
"Didn't that man have a son as well?" Questioned the man looking at the redhead.
"I think he's with other relatives. I don't know, where exactly. He won't be a problem to us. That's what matters," Stated Zara making the man nod. "Do the rooms, where the creatures are have any surveillance cameras or similar?"
"Nope, but we could install some in there. I need to look tomorrow at the electronic store for them. At this point, the stores are closed anyway,"
"Right, after breakfast go look for the first store and buy, what you need for it. Get back into the house, I will park the car by the front," Stated Zara and both made their way in different directions to take care of their businesses.
Luka and Marinette sat together on the corner of the counter in the kitchen to have dinner together. On the other side of the corner, Luka's smartphone had a music playlist set to play music, which belonged to their favorite singer Jagged Stone. The two had in front of their dinner plate a box filled with dumplings. Both were using together chopsticks to pick their dumplings and dunk them into a small bowl with a sauce in it.
"I had no idea Jin taught you how to use chopsticks," Confessed Luka picking up one dumpling to dip it inside the sauce. "I ate a few times with him at a Chinese restaurant and that's how I learned it,"
"He taught me twice when as superheroes we had to do a few rescues later into the evening. We stopped by a takeaway restaurant and ate at the roof," Explained Marinette. "That one time Nathaniel and Yi came along and we taught Nathaniel as well, but he didn't quite handle it well. At that point, I did well, cause it was like my third time, maybe,"
"I don't think learning how to use chopsticks isn't as hard as learning to play guitar without any experience with notes or other instruments. Nathaniel is going to need some lessons to be able to play at least one song or….understand the instrument,"
"I don't play the guitar or any other instrument, but I feel like he's going to struggle with the basics,"
"He will get the hang of it. All I need is to know his favorite songs and teach him how to play them. This will facilitate for both of us the task hopefully," Commented Luka picking up a dumpling to take a bite of it. "You know, if Hawk Moth didn't know I was Viperion before, I could have really appreciated the fact I could use the lyre in a form of transportation,"
"I could see that," Admitted Marinette biting almost the entire dumpling, then shrieked as the meat fell off the dough down at her plate. Marinette chuckled along with her boyfriend and used the sticks to shove the dough together with the meat, then directed it back into her mouth. "You know, eventually Nathaniel could only practice using the lyre only? He doesn't really need to play any sort of guitar. What do you think?"
"It's an option. I believe it might be even less problematic for him," Mentioned Luka.
"You're a patient and good teacher. Nathaniel will definitely be fine to learn with you. You're both friends after all," Marinette stated watching Luka nod. "But you have to be careful. No one can't see you hanging around with a superhero so close,"
"If you're okay with it, I just hang out as a turtle holder…...Your new teammate Camouflage is ready to follow your future orders," Announced Luka proud making Marinette cackle.
"Camouflage? That's a quite creative name. How did you get to that name?"
"You know our teacher has in his classroom an aquarium with two small, green turtles. The aquarium has plenty of green around it, that most of the times we look in, we don't catch them at first, cause they're similar colored,"
"Oh and that's how you come to camouflage…..pretty good history for it. Did you know Nathaniel took his alter ego name out from a random car?" Questioned Marinette making Luka nod.
"Oh you were the last one arriving on that evening. Yi had out of curiosity asked Nathaniel, where he got his name from, cause it seemed too simple. Then we learned also Onyx's and Hydra's origins,"
"Well I picked Ladybug. It is a simple one, but I felt at that moment, that it was the perfect one. I could have gone with Lady Fortune, Lady Red or even something funny like Captain Ladybug!" Explained Marinette making a reference to a superhero movie.
"I could imagine the last one, if I or another guy would have worn the ladybug miraculous instead,"
"Yeah…..Well, Cat Noir…..I mean…...Adrien did that once and called himself Mister Bug…...was a good option as well," Commented the blue-haired girl making Luka nod.
"UH…..I'm not sure, if I should ask this. Have you heard anything about Adrien since….this issue with Hawk Moth's escape?"
"The last time I heard from him was, that his mother seemed to react to people's voices, but still would be in coma. I don't know, what that means. This is what Alya told me when Nino was talking to him,"
"Hmm who knows, maybe there's a chance, that his mother might wake up from the coma. Those cases do exist in real life," Commented Luka making Marinette nod.
"After all, what happened in the past, he could really use to have her around. I'm pretty sure, she was a great woman," Commented Marinette moving with her chopsticks onto the last dumpling followed by Luka and both crossed each other's chopsticks on each other. "Ops,"
"You can take it,"
"No, you can take it," Marinette rejected making Luka smile, then look at the dumpling and meet Marinette's eyes again before moving his chopsticks again.
"Is it okay to share the last dumpling with another person or is it not respectful?" Questioned Luka making Marinette shrug her shoulders.
"That's a good question. I would need to ask Jin or Yi about it," Commented Marinette making Luka nod.
"Well…...in case, this would be wrong, no one's here to see that," Stated Luka pick the dumpling and hold it in front of Marinette's face making her smile and bite off half of the dumpling away, afterward Luka shove the rest of the dumpling into his mouth, enjoying along with his girlfriend the last piece of their dinner they shared together.