Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir: "Better"
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Perhaps the beginnings of the end for our heroes. Perhaps the beginning of something new. Perhaps both.
There are forces in the universe so powerful, so mighty, that a whole galaxy aflame would only be as a tiny spark if compared. And they may be only a heartbeat away...
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Chapter 1: "Everything's Ducky"
It was actually Chloe who first noticed Kagami's extremely odd behavior. Or at least, did so without rationalizing it away.
By sheer accident, Marinette and Ayla had allowed themselves to be cornered at their favorite bistro by Chloe and Sabrina. With the skill of the apex social predator that she was, Chloe had managed to insinuate their company into Marinette's and Alya's, and had kept up a constant stream of chatter, from which it would have been rude to simply walk away. That, of course, was the whole point. The purpose of her interest in the pair might have been a mystery, seeing as how Chloe normally despised them both, were it not for the fact that Chloe had propped her feet up on the table and was, at this very moment, waving the soles of a pair of diamond studded designer shoes in Marinette's and Ayla's faces. Shoes that no doubt cost more than their combined households could make in a year's time.
Then, to make matters worse, here came Adrien and Nino, fresh off the basketball court. Aw, no!-thought Marinette. Not that she minded meeting Adrien (accidentally or otherwise)-in fact, she lived for it-but not with Chloe as a hanger-on.
"Oh, hey, you guys! Fancy meeting you here! Mind if we join you?"
Before Chloe could say a word, Alya jumped in. "Sure, Adrien! Here's a seat!" She could tell, from their positioning, that Nino would slide in next to Chloe-and put Marinette more or less next to Adrien.
She couldn't wait to see Marinette's face when that happened. After all, entertainment is entertainment.
Marinette didn't disappoint her. First her face turned pale, then red, then pale again, and she began her usual sputtering and stammering, arms waving first one way then the other. "Yes! I mean, no! I mean, yes! Join us together, You I please! I mean…oh, god…" She hung her head in her hand.
"Oh, Adri-kens!" Chloe had put her feet down and was waving at Adrien. "Right over here!" She butt-bumped Sabrina and hissed, "Move over!"
"Oh, I'm fine," said Adrien, sliding in beside Nino. "Nino and I can't stay long, anyway." He turned to Marinette, sitting close enough to her to scramble her speech even more. "I've got Chinese class in thirty minutes. In fact," he looked around, "I'm surprised my bodyguard isn't already here. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised." He laughed.
"Oh, Adri-kens!" Chloe had put her shoes back up on the table. "Look what Daddy just bought for me!" She waggled her shod feet.
"Nice. Those are Procrusteans, aren't they? They make a men's line, too. Without the cubic zirconiums, of course."
"Oh, uhm…" Chloe's enthusiasm for the conversation faltered. Alya hid her chortle behind her hand. Talk about a take-down.
"Oh, hey!" Nino half-stood, waving towards the door. Marinette saw Damien coming in. Nino was waving to him. "Hey, Damien! Over here, m'man!"
As always, Damien looked embarrassed to be singled out as he was, but moved over to the group. "Hello." He looked around, his gaze settling on Chloe, who still had her feet propped on the table. "Chloe, do your feet hurt?"
"No, I-" But she'd lost her momentum. The notion that her precious shoes might not be worth as much as she'd originally thought turned her helium balloon into a lead anchor.
But while she sputtered to reply, Marinette noticed Damien swiveling around, back towards the entrance, something akin to a combination of curiosity and trepidation in his expression. She noticed he'd been acting somewhat nervous lately, checking around him, almost as though he was expecting someone to come up on him from behind. But the swivel turned into a full-fledged lunge, as the white-garbed figure Marinette barely had time to see out of her peripheral vision suddenly fell, right in front of him. He darted towards the figure and…
…caught her just in time to keep her off the floor. "Oh! Th-thank you!" said Kagami Tsurugi, breathlessly.
…..
Back at Tomoe Tsurugi's townhouse: "Ren, have you seen my daughter?" she asked one of the servants.
"No, Ms. Tsurugi, I have not," he said with a slight bow. "Is she not in her room?"
"I checked there on my way down, myself. Apparently not. Even though it is Saturday, and she has always been an early riser, still sometimes she likes to sleep in. That is why I asked. I thought she may have preceded me."
"Well, perhaps she is…indisposed," the slight pause between the words indicating that he meant, "in the restroom," but did not wish to appear indelicate by coming out and saying it. "You know lunch is her favorite meal of the day. She will surely be down for that."
"Hm," muttered Tomoe Tsurugi, "Mm, yes, surely." But her voice betrayed her.
Something was wrong.
…
The bistro: Kagami had wrapped her arms around Damien and was jumping up and down like a child who's just been told she's going to get pony rides at her birthday party. She wasn't quite squealing, but it was evident it wouldn't have taken much to produce multiple squeals. "Damien! It's so good to find you!"
"Uhm, say what? Have, have we met?" This was an altogether too familiar a greeting to be coming from the notorious "Ice Queen" to someone she barely knew.
"Of course we've met! Just a few days ago you gave me a box of the most delicious food I've ever had!" She suddenly pulled him into an incredibly tight embrace. "Way to a girl's heart, you love thief, you." She looked as though, had she been strong enough, she would've picked him up and swung him around the room. Everybody in the room was staring, some, open-mouthed, in shock.
Especially Chloe, whose gaze was fixed on the pair, her shoes-and apparently Adrien!-forgotten.
Then her expression hardened, and out came her phone. Nobody noticed.
"Uh, Kagami? Do you, uh, feel alright?" Damien was clearly flabbergasted by this attention.
"O' course ! do! Better than ever!" She slid into the seat by him and lay against his shoulder. She couldn't seem to take her eyes or her hands off him, and Marinette could almost see little pink Valentine's hearts floating up from around her. A dreamy smile decorated her face, as she lay against his arm.
Good Lord, thought Marinette, could the girl be more obvious? And why Damien?
The others noticed it too, but came to their own conclusions. Nino gave him a slight elbow-nudge. You sly dog, you. A quick return glance from Damien: What?! I didn't do anything!
Finally sensing something amiss, Nino pulled on Damien's arm, the one currently unclaimed by Kagami. "Ah, I think we have to go to…to soccer practice! Yeah, that's it! Adrien, you said you had Chinese class? Dame here and I will let the coach know..." And he began levering them out of the booth.
"What, you mean have to go?" Kagami pouted. More than one jaw at the table dropped; Marinette wasn't aware Kagami even knew how to pout.
"Ah, unfortunately yes. Damien? Shall we?" And he steered the stunned object of her obvious affections off down the street.
"Well," said Kagami, pirouetting, her face upturned towards the warm rays of the sun, "I'm going to take in the city. It's so wonderful here!" And with that, she practically skipped down the walkway, away from the group.
…
The following Monday, Marinette received a text from the last person she'd expect one from: Chloe Bourgeois herself: We need to talk. Girls' locker room, lunchtime. Be there. Matter of life and death.
At first, Marinette was tempted to disregard the message, except for that last part, Matter of life and death. She knew even Chloe didn't throw terms like that around frivolously. And it was just possible she was on the level; ever since she'd been stung-or perhaps infected, which might be a better term-with the eudaemon, the positive equivalent to an akuma, a number of which had been released by Monarch's reckless use of the negative-emotion-seeking butterflies-she'd changed. Not much, but in some ways for the better.
Marinette still didn't trust her. Or like her. But…
Matter of life and death.
She'd been tempted to take Ayla with her…but for some reason, she could never say why later, this sounded like an invitation to a private conversation.
Sabrina was standing guard outside the girls' locker room, and breathed an obvious sigh of relief when she saw Marinette. "Oh, Marinette! I was afraid you weren't gonna show! She's been up for at least three days now, going over notes, and she won't say why! It's like she's obsessed or something! Maybe you can…" She didn't come right out and say, "talk some sense into her," but that was clearly her unspoken meaning.
Marinette dithered. Neither of the pair had garnered much love from her, but she felt Sabrina was basically an innocent caught up in Chloe's web of intrigue, all the way from a child. "Okay, Sabrina. I'm here. Is Chloe-?" And she pointed.
"Yes, yes! She told me to stand guard out here and signal if anyone but you approached…" She held up her cell.
"Alright. Let me go see what's what." The other girl looked so upset that Marinette felt compelled to reassure her. "It'll be okay, Sabrina. I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle." And she pushed open the door and went into the silent locker room.
That is, almost silent. She could hear muttering from a far corner, and rounded a locker to see Chloe, lying face down on a long wooden seat, pouring over her phone, murmuring words that were unintelligible to Marinette from this distance. "Okay, I'm here. Now what's this urgent matter you mentioned?"
"Oh, good, you're here. I was beginning to think you'd be a no-show." She got up. "Here, sit here, and I'll tell you." Marinette sat, after first making sure there was no thumbtack or battery acid on the place she was being directed to sit. "You remember, the other day, with 'Kagami'?" Marinette could hear the quotes around the Japanese girl's name.
"Ye-ah. She sure made a spectacle of herself."
"Did she?"
"What do you mean?"
"Marinette, look. You're familiar with the old adage, 'If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then it's probably a duck', right?"
"Uhm, yes…"
"But what we're faced with here is," and she held up three fingers, "It looks like a duck." She folded one finger down. "BUT…" And here she indicated the remaining two fingers, still up, "It doesn't TALK like a duck, and it doesn't WALK like a duck. So what does that leave?"
"It leaves me with leaving-*"
"Open your eyes, Marinette. It leaves," and she waved her two still-upraised fingers, "a sixty-seven percent chance that it's not a duck." At Marinette's exasperated expression she continued. "What we saw, the other day, looked like Kagami-but didn't act anything like her."
"Oh, come on. Maybe she got hold of something she shouldn't have-*"
"Kagami? The Kagami? That Kagami? The Ice Queen herself? Miss Perfect? On drugs? Marinette, you're in denial here. Look at this." She pulled up her cell, showing Marinette a picture of a dreamy-eyed Kagami lying against a nervous looking Damien. "She's in her pajamas, Marinette! Did you know Kagami even had pajamas? Do you think Kagami would ever even think of leaving the house not even dressed and meet up with some back-alley drug-dealer? I'd've been less surprised to see her naked. And even if she did-why go after Damien? I mean, well, who's he? His main attribute is to take a bad situation and make it worse. Now, if she'd gone after Adri-kens-but-and this is important-she didn't.
"So let's look at the matter logically. First thing we see of her-and how'd she get in without anyone noticing her, anyway?-she falls. Right there where Damien can catch her, I mean, practically in his lap. Now think: have you ever known Kagami to fall? I mean, like ever?"
"Er…"
"Exactly. Even in gym class, pole vaulting, where you're supposed to fall, she always lands on her feet. The girl must have a gyroscopic stabilizer stuck up her-uhm, back. Now, secondly, look at that expression. Have you ever seen Kagami smile? I mean a genuine I'm-happy-to-see-you type smile. Not one of those creepy fake smiles she gets from a phone app."
"Well, a couple of times…"
"Then you're one of a very small minority. And lastly, what was with this attraction to Damien? I mean, she looked like she wanted to just rip his clothes off and, and have him right there in the bistro! In public! Right there on the ground, yet! Does any of that sound even remotely like the Kagami we know?"
"Chloe, what exactly are you saying?" She was tired of listening to her best enemy.
"This." Chloe's fingers danced across her phone's screen, and the scene shifted to a street corner, showing an upscale townhouse. "Someone, someone with, er, shall we say, ties to law enforcement," she glanced towards the door, where Sabrina was still standing guard, "...may, just may, have accidentally come across the access codes for the street corner traffic cams at the Tsurugi's townhouse. Anyway, that's not important. What is important is that, ever since that incident the other day, I've had a monitoring program running to detect any movement in or around the Tsurugi household. There hasn't been any. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Not even a stray cat. Not even a bird. No one's come or gone."
"You still haven't said what you're trying to say."
Chloe blew out an exasperated breath. "I should think that by now it would be obvious." She leaned back against a locker, running her fingers through her hair. All of a sudden, she looked older than her years, and Marinette wondered what the long-term effects of harboring a eudaemon might have on a human host. "A couple of months back, Sabrina pestered me to watch a marathon of old movies with her. One of them was so old, it was in black and white, fa' god's sake: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not even colorized. It was about these outer space pods-at least, I guess they were from space, it was never really said-that land on Earth and start duplicating people. It was really kinda funny, the way it was so out-dated…but the thing is, the people who got duplicated tended to turn on the ones they were closest to. Like their parents. Or…anybody who knew them best."
"Chloe…that was a movie." She was beginning to be worried about Chloe's mental health.
"Sure it was. But so what? Thing is, if something like that were to happen in real life, what would it look like? What form would it take? And wouldn't the pod people go after those who could 'out' them best? Like family members? Servants, maybe?
"And remember, ever since that incident the other day, we haven't seen any sign of Kagami's family or servants.
"Old boyfriends would be second tier. Who would that be?" And Marinette's breath caught in her throat: Adrien.
"Exactly. And after that…maybe good friends? Or maybe friends of said boyfriends? Like maybe…you and I?
"Maybe now you see why I said, 'Matter of life and death.'"
Still Marinette dithered, not wanting to believe. "Maybe…maybe it was a sentimonster…"
"Have you ever heard of a sentimonster that went that far out of the way to behave so differently? I thought the whole purpose of a sentimonster-at least, those impersonating people-was to blend in, to fool other people. Now, tell me truthfully: do you really believe that was Kagami we met-correction, who found us, who sought us out-the other day at the bistro? Was she-or it-even trying to act in character? Yes or no.
"Red Wasp-" referring to her superhero persona-"has been guarding Adri-kens-I mean, Adrien-all night, ever since. I think he's fairly safe in that fortress his father calls home." She closed her eyes tiredly, rubbing her hand across her face. "But without knowing what's actually going on, I couldn't say. And frankly, I'm exhausted." And Marinette thought Chloe did look to be out on her feet. "I'm at my limit. I've heard you and Ladybug are tight. If there's anything to that, now's the time to call in some favors.
"'Cause once Adrien starts acting strangely…
"...it'll be game over."
To be continued…