The lone ghost.
Hunger, that's what Marinette felt before she got out of bed. Today was Sunday and she wanted to stay in bed as long as possible, but her stomach had other plans because she kept grunting and wanted to eat. She was angry that she couldn't sleep yet, but she still got up and got out of bed to get something to eat. She saw that Tiki was still asleep and decided not to wake her. She didn't know what to do, she had fashion projects coming to an end, and she knew she had to come up with something to create, but she didn't know what.
Marinette went down to the kitchen and picked up some croissants for her and cookies for Tiki. She went back to her room and then sat down at her desk and took her sketchbook to draw a new project. But nothing came to her mind. She was constantly trying to draw something, but none of her work matched her vision, so she just tore off the page and crushed it into a ball and threw it in the trash. With no idea what to draw, she felt desperate and put her head on her desk and groaned in helplessness.
"Marinette, are you okay?" Tiki asked anxiously.
"I'm fine. I just have a creative blockage." Merinet said without lifting her head from the desk.
"Is this some kind of disease?" Tiki asked curiously.
Merinet laughed lightly at her kwami. "Not Tiki. Creative blockage means I can't come up with any ideas for new outfits. But I'm not going to give up. I just have to be persistent and I will have something nice that I've drawn."
Marinette began to paint and saw that something interesting was appearing, but when she finished drawing she was not happy with what she saw. The picture was of a ghostly pale-skinned woman wearing a long, faded torn skirt that had several black spots. The other thing he saw was that she had drew brown rusty chains that chained the woman to the end of all those chains, and there were safes and chests. Marinette wondered how she had come up with something like this. The drawing looked like a ghost dressed in Victorian clothes. Marinette had never painted Victorian clothes before, but although she didn't understand what was going on, she didn't pay much attention, and like the other drawings she'd done, she took it, smashed it, and threw it in the trash.
"I don't understand why I don't have inspiration. Maybe I should go out and find inspiration outside. A little walk always helped me when I had a creative blockage. Come on Tiki, let's get out of this room and see what happens outside." Marinette said enthusiastically.
Marinette prepared to walk the streets of Paris to find something to inspire her to paint. Marinette took off her pajamas and put on her normal clothes. She picked up her small bag and motioned for Tiki to hide in the bag, and when she was ready she left her bakery and began strolling through some of the most inspiring streets in the world.
While Marinette, the guardian of the miracle box and the owner of kwami of the creation, was on a walk so that she could remove her creative blockage and find something to inspire her and draw something amazing.
In another part of Paris, there was another owner of a miraculous. That was Zack. He got up at 6:00 and we know there will be no one to bother him while he conducts a small experiment in his room. He pulled back the curtains on the window so no one could see him in his room. He woke Halub and Labag, and although they were a little tired, they agreed to unite, and he transformed into a white owl. Zack felt weird when he had a double combination. He felt stronger and braver. Zack received the dove miraculous only yesterday, when he was accidentally sent back in time during World War II. There he found the miraculous and with his help he managed to return to his time. Zack was very interested in what other power the miraculous could give him besides opening portals. He pulled out the deck of pure white playing cards he had received when he had transformed and noticed that had done something that took years of practice.
He could easily do tricks with these cards. He had only seen such tricks done by wizards who made the cards dance and fly in their hands. Zack could shuffle the deck in many ways, without even thinking about how he did it, as if he had a built-in muscular memory that the miraculous had given him. He knew that just acrobatic spinning cards and shuffling the deck would be of little use other than entertaining the villains and showing tricks to the audience who gathered to watch the battle.
He remembered seeing people toss cards with such technique and power that they could break a wine glass, and wondered if he could use such a technique in the event of an akuma attack. He tossed the card and noticed that he could control it in flight. The card spun at very high speed, and Zack put one hand on the bottom and the other on top of the card and tightened his muscles. The card reacted to this by turning even faster and burning with a blazing blue fire. He was surprised by this, and he knew it might be useful to make his card burn with that strange fire.
Zack wanted to continue to explore his new strength, but suddenly his stomach growled with hunger. He knew he had to stop his research and go to the kitchen to eat, and the kwami had to be fed to have energy if danger arose, so he went back to his civilian version.
He left his room and saw his mother watching thing on TV, then turned her gaze from the TV to Zack.
"Hello Zack. How did you sleep?" His mother asked.
"I got up early so I could test Labag's strength." Said Zack.
"Zack. We told you not to test your strength when you're home." His mother said, raising her eyebrows and looking at him reproachfully.
"I know this, mom, but we only recently moved to Paris, and I still haven't found a secret place where I can get together with Madame Butterfly and practice my skills." Zack said to defend himself.
His mother looked at him with a look that showed she understood the problems he was having. "I understand, Zack, that you miss that secret place."
This was true when he was in London, he managed to find a special place where he could meet Madame Butterfly and hone his skills with the miraculous. So Zack and Madame Butterfly could say they had a little more experience using their miraculous. Although they could not remain permanently transformed after using their special powers, they could extend the time they had before transforming, and this was a huge advantage over the ladybug and the black cat, who did not have the privilege of being able to use their free time to practice and develop their skills to use their miraculous, because this would arouse suspicion in their families.
In this special place he spends a lot of time transformed like a night owl. He did a lot of weird things and constantly experimented and tried new things with his strength to find more ways to use them, and although with these workouts he had managed to get to last much longer after using his special strength. This was great for both of them, because once they use their powers, they can stay in superhero mode for about an hour instead of ten minutes, as with a ladybug and a black cat.
Zack was well aware that if he wanted to hone his skills with dove miraculous, he had to find a secret hiding place like the one in London. He was somewhat sad for London because he had very good memories there, especially in the special place where he often transformed.
The place was not very nice, it was dirty somewhere, despite Madame Butterfly's attempts to clean it, but he knew it was a futile effort and it would get dirty again. However, the place looked much more beautiful and seemed to have been touched by a woman's hand. He once celebrated a special occasion with her. It was the beginning of a new year, and although he had celebrated the New Year with his parents and Scarlett. He managed to find time and go there and saw Madame Butterfly standing and waiting for him and he was angry with himself for not noticing that Madame Butterfly was lonely in her civilian life and family and didn't pay any attention to her, they have abandoned her to the whims of fate and think only of themselves.
So he was determined to find a place where they could gather and practice in Paris, but he knew it would not be easy to find such a hiding place where he could remain transformed. He had to go and find a hidden place where no one would look for him. He had an advantage because his family was helping and they would understand, so he decided to go and find a place to practice with the new miraculous, and he knew that Madame Butterfly would also need that place to see him and to talk about various things and of course he would not give such important information to reveal his identity.
Zack would give answers that were common to everyone she could meet. Despite his best intentions to help her feel better, he knew he had to tell her to make friends in her civilian life, because he would never reveal his identity to her, because it was the duty of every hero. You have to keep your identity a secret, even though he felt a little embarrassed that his parents knew about his secret identity and even helped him continue and develop, if Madame Butterfly knew about it she would despise him to the end of his life and and he didn't want that to happen.
She would probably blame him for not wanting to reveal his secret identity to her for so long, but his family knew about his identity and her family didn't pay any attention to her, she was constantly alone and isolated from the whole world. This thought frightened him to some extent, but he knew he had to shake off all this and think about where to start his search, but first he had to eat something, because you can't do anything on an empty stomach, so he had to fill up.
He took a piece of moussaka from the refrigerator and began to eat. Halub and Labag also took something to eat to restore the energy they used to sustain his transformation after he had used their powers since the morning.
"I know that since we left London, you have left that special place where you used to train and improve your skills with Madame Butterfly. You are just like those comic book superheroes who have a secret base where they make plans to defeat a super villain." His mother said with a smile.
"Enough mom, it wasn't anything special there." He said he was trying to sound like he didn't care, but his mother noticed that he was a little upset because he no longer had a special place to meet Madame Butterfly without having to save the world.
Zack finished his meal and prepared to leave.
"Okay mom, I'm leaving and I'll be back for dinner, you to know." Zack said and hurried to the door so he wouldn't have to answer any more awkward questions. Halub and Labag hid in his pocket before leaving home and closing the door.
Outside, Marinette wandered the streets of Paris in search of something to inspire her for her next projects. The city was not without world landmarks, where many people were inspired to create new things, but nothing happened to Marinette, her creative blockade has not yet been lifted and she does not know what to do.
She had reached the triumphal arch and was looking at the beautiful architecture. She admired the city very much, not only because she saved it almost every day, but also because the city always inspired her to be better with everyone. She watched ordinary people walk and talk, some held hands, others laughed, and when she watched, Marinette felt a strange sensation, and she immediately opened her sketchbook and began to draw. She suddenly realized that she had been inspired to do her next project and her face and gained a happy expression.
After a few minutes of drawing, she finally managed to finish her project, which she will do later, and she was surprised when she managed to draw two more projects because the inspiration she received was so great that it was not enough for just one drawing. Marinette was really happy to be the superhero of this city and helped everyone who needed her, but most of all she was grateful to her partner for helping her, even though she was constantly flirting with her instead of focusing on the battle, it irritated her.
Suddenly Marinette heards cameras and looked around to see what was happening. She saw that around the corner from the triumphal arch, Adrian had a photo shoot, her heart immediately pounding like a drum and her face turning red like a tomato. She hadn't expected Adrian to have a photo shoot here, because she always knew his schedule, although for others it was obsessive and crazy, but she thought it was perfectly normal because she was in love with him, but she didn't know how to show it because she often stuttered and sank to the ground in anxiety, her words tangled like a ship's knot and her legs softened like jelly just when she saw him.
Marinette was worried that she was so cowardly and couldn't admit her true feelings to him. Just when he looked at her with those bright green eyes and said something with that melodious mouth, her mind just stopped working and she didn't know what to do next, even though her friends were constantly trying to help her, it was just a hopeless case. Although she was very brave as a superhero, she kept telling herself that she could be like that in life, but the truth was that in her life she was a failure and she kept repeating it, so she couldn't argue even though her best friend kept he told her she was a brave, smart, and fun girl she had ever met, and she could do so much more if she stopped imagining it was worthless.
Marinette wanted to believe Alya because she would never lie to her, but she still wasn't confident and she don't know what she have to do to get rid of that insecurity and be able to move on to reveal her feelingsin front of the boy, who had given him her heart on the first day of school.
Marinette was so engrossed in watching Adrian around the corner that she didn't notice anyone approaching her. Suddenly a hand had touched her shoulder.
"Hello Marinette, what are you doing?" Zack said with his Bulgarian accent.
Marinette was startled and screamed slightly and turned to see who might be after seeing Zack, she calmed down instantly because she wouldn't have thought what would have happened if someone else had come so close to her without even noticing.
"Oh nothing, I was just touring the city to find inspiration and I found it for my projects if you want to see them." Marinette said and showed Zack the pictures of clothes she had drawn. Of course she had done it to distract Zack from watching Adrian. She didn't want the new boy to know she was madly in love with Adrian.
Zack noticed Marinette's strange behavior, then turned his attention to Adrian, who was having a photo shoot. He knew at once that Marinette was trying to divert his attention from him, and on closer examination he realized that she was in love with him. Although he was a novice psychologist and read many books related to psychology and human behavior, he didn't need it because everyone would know that she loved him just by looking at how she behaved when she was around Adrian.
"The drawings are very nice. Marinette, you can really become a fashion designer one day." Zack said he was genuinely delighted with the work and effort she put in to paint this work of art. Although he didn't understand much of the matter, after congratulating her on the sketches, he looked at her with a slightly wider smile that indicated she had been caught doing something embarrassing. "Marinette, when you made these nice sketches, didn't something better come into your view? I mean that cute boy over there. His name was Adrian, wasn't he?"
"What, no way, I'm not in love with him he's just my classmate and friend." She tried to tell without stuttering, but it was in vain because when someone mentioned Adrian, she kept confusing the words and didn't sound very convincing.
"You don't need to be ashamed of that, Marinette." Zack said in a friendly tone and decided to change the subject to reassure her. "Marinette, because you've been touring the city to find inspiration, you obviously know the city, don't you?"
"Yes, I know the city like the palm of my hand." Marinette said.
"Will it be a problem for you to take me around the city, because I'm new and I don't know where I should go and where not and what sights there are, of course I know about the more famous ones, but let me also know about the lesser known ones. Do you want to do it? " Zack asked.
"Of course, there will be no problem to help you. I love to help especially the new ones in this city. I will show you the streets and show you our sights, I will also show you these places that I really like to visit alone or with my friends." Marinette said with a smile and a sigh of reassurance that she shouldn't worry about the awkward questions she might be asked.
Marinette and Zack began to walk the streets of Paris. She showed him the sights while he admired the architecture and design of the buildings. Marinette showed him several places where she spent a lot of time with her friends or alone when she didn't want anyone around her. Zack watched Marinette and began to profile her based on the observation and conversations he had had with her.
As they led him around the city, he looked around to find a suitable place to recreate his secret place where he and Madame Butterfly had met before when I was in London, but no place seemed appropriate because it was too open and anyone could find it and have easy access to it. So he decided that it would not be as easy as he had originally thought, and he had to find some other way to find such a place than just walking the streets with a girl who had lived most of his life in this city. Later he would come up with a better search plan, he might even ask Madame Butterfly for help finding such a place, she would be very happy.
It was getting dark, so they decided to stop the walk and go home for dinner. Also, one of Zack's kwami started to get a little nervous, unlike the other kwami who obeyed and rarely disobeyed. Zack had given Halub the freedom to show his emotions, and now he was clearly showing that I didn't want him in his pocket, but he knew he couldn't just force his owner to do what he wanted. He didn't want that and he knew it was unattainable. He just wants to show him that he doesn't standing in his pocket, but very kindly and politely.
"Marinette, thank you for showing me the city, it is truly amazing." Zack said, smiling.
"Do you really think so, I mean you've lived in three different countries, aren't they as good as France?" Marinette asked curiously, but she realized that what she had said might offend Zack, so she was quick to apologize.
"Ha-ha, you don't have to apologize, Marinette. For me, I think every country has its good and bad traits, just like the people." Zdravko said, and his words reassured Marinette, because she seemed worried about what she had said earlier. "I think of countries more as people. Each has its own unique features and that's what makes it special, you can't judge someone at first sight, you have to go deeper and you will understand the differences and similarities with yourself and with everyone else, for example with you. "
"What about me." Marinette asked curiously and her eyes widened in surprise she wanted to know what Zack had learned from her.
"You're a bit like me on two countries. At first glance, I can tell you're half French like me and half Japanese not like me." Zack said, suppose her countries.
"Actually, I'm half Chinese, but it was close, something else you found." Marinette asked.
"You are a very good artist from the sketches which are honestly works of a great fashion designer, although I don't understand much about fashion. You also have an amazing friend who always helps you, especially for that boy, the other thing I saw was that you help people a lot. and you always take care of everyone to such an extent that you neglect yourself, which is an amazing skill that is rare these days. " Zack said, completely sincere in each of his words.
Marinette didn't know what to say. Those words sounded like the sweetest words she had ever heard, and she just tilted her head down out of modesty because she wasn't sure she deserved such attention and praise.
They noticed that they had behaved in the conversation and noticed that the sun was beginning to disappear from the horizon. Zack watched the sunset and enjoyed the bright colors they showed. His eyes began to fill with tears of happiness, but when Marinette looked at him, she thought something was wrong.
"Are you okay, Zack?" Marinette asked quickly, worried that something might have happened to him.
"Yes, I'm fine, Marinette." Zack said, wiping away his tears. "It's just that in the other countries where I lived I had such a special place where I love watching sunsets and now I realize that I haven't found such a special place here where I can watch sunsets. So I cried, I'm sorry I bothered you because I didn't want to I do."
"You have nothing to apologize for, I think it's very nice. I hope you find such a special place here where you can watch the sunsets." Marinette said, her face full of joy.
"Good Marinette, but I think we're very late and distracted by these conversations. So I wish you a pleasant journey until tomorrow." Zack said and walked back home.
Marinette also thanked him and she headed back home.
It was already night, the sky was black and covered with white stars. Everyone in the city fell asleep, some still awake, others feeling the weight of their eyes, which slowly but surely made them close. All the owners of the miraculous were already in bed, and even Paris's worst enemy also decided to go to bed because he was very busy tomorrow and could not send akuma, even though he felt a lot of negative energy. He did not have time to create chaos with his akuma, although he planned an attack in a few days.
But there was something much more complicated and strange that the heroes of Paris had to deal with, something that did not require their strength, something that would require their kindness and generosity. Something strange happened at the school where the owners of the miraculous studied. The room where they studied, Marinette and Adrian Zack and Scarlett, began to glow with a bluish light, then a glowing ball appeared in the center of the room, slowly and gradually taking on a human form.
The end result was that the shape of the glowing ball turned into a woman with pale ghost-like skin, wearing a long white torn skirt with a few black spots. The woman was chained in brown rusty chains, there were safes and chests at the end of those chains. She quickly blinked and looked around to see where she was, and then she realized that she was still chained in the chains she had forged in her lifetime, and she realized that this was her way to redemption and a way to get rid of these terrible chains once and for all. .
"Kwami promised me redemption, but I don't see it. What do I have to do to be able to finally get rid of these terrible chains, not to bear the burden of everything I've done." The ghost woman said in such a strange voice that it could only be likened to the sobbing of a small child, and that voice could cause so much fear in the people who heard it, but fortunately there was no one in the room.
It is not clear why she is here or what she is trying to do, but one thing is clear and that is that tomorrow will not be an easy day for our heroes. The ghost woman knew she still had to wait to receive her redemption, so she simply hid somewhere in the space where no one could see her and began to wait for something to show her what she needed to do so that her soul could finally she rests in peace and breaks those shackles that have exhausted her in every passing second.
to be continued