Story Arc: Welcome to Paris
Episode 1: What is a Akuma (V)
Chapter 5: Threats in the restaurant
Plot: As always, Chloé can't help but annoy and provoke the people she meets.
At the first meeting near the elevator, Chloé gets away scot-free.
But at the second meeting, inside the restaurant, Chloé is about to experience the consequences of her actions.
A Boston detective doesn't take it well when he's threatened with being thrown out on the street along with his family.
XXX
POV Narratore
The kiss between Bruce and Altera was ruined by Chloé Bourgeois and her diva attitude.
"Disgusting, if you don't want to be thrown out of my father's hotel, stop being so disgusting!" Chloé exclaims, clearly in a terrible mood, unaware of who she's talking to.
The Master-Servant couple stood still in the elevator, processing what happened.
Bruce is unmoved by Chloé's attitude, a small, unknown voice in his head suggests he punch the spoiled girl, then continue his business with Altera.
However, conscience and logic say that Bruce must admit that kissing in an elevator is not the most private and intimate place you can find in the world.
Haughty, despite having a seemingly stoic and indifferent expression, Bruce can understand that she is slightly angry.
"Damn you, tourists, don't you understand what I'm saying or what!?
Get out of my elevator, I have an important plan and it can't be ruined by you." Chloé said with a passive aggressive, exuding excessive confidence and self-esteem.
Altera steps out of the elevator, her face unreadable, but her body language says something along the lines of: I'm going to break this girl's jaw.
Bruce grabs Altera's hand, causing her to stop.
The girl with white hair and red eyes turns towards her Master with a questioning look.
Bruce's look told him everything he needed to know: This girl isn't worth the trouble.
"Sorry to bother you. My girlfriend and I will go to our room, have a nice day." Bruce said in a polite voice.
Bruce walks out of the elevator and drags Altera away from the spoiled blonde.
"Tourists." Chloé mutters in a derogatory tone.
Chloé Bourgeois unaware that she has avoided a beating from Altera, she enters the elevator with a triumphant attitude.
The elevator doors close, leaving the Master-Servant couple without a witness.
"Rich, spoiled teenagers, a global headache. But they can be ignored and easily forgotten." Bruce mutters, mature and logical enough not to care about the rich idiots he meets with more important things to do.
"I don't support when people disrespect you, especially from arrogant people who haven't accomplished anything." Altera states with a slightly more emotional tone than usual.
Bruce seeing that Altera is angry, decides to pull her close to him and intertwine his fingers with hers, a gesture of intimacy that they both like.
"Altera, I appreciate that you care about me and that you want to destroy every small and large threat you find. But wasting time and energy on insects is a bad attitude." Bruce said, trying to reason with Altera and her overprotective attitude.
"If you stay close to me, I promise not to destroy any annoying insects." Altera said, putting the spoiled blonde out of her thoughts, focusing only on her Master.
"I'll try. Now, let's go to our hotel room." Bruce said, having to get his and Altera's purchases to a safe place.
XXX
Meanwhile, while Bruce and Altera are doing their thing, Marinette and Amity have arrived at the restaurant and successfully booked a table.
The restaurant and kitchen are located on the sixth floor of the hotel with large windows overlooking the city.
The restaurant has red wallpaper with floral patterns, a white decorative square tiled floor, several vases with red flowers, and many circular and square white tables with red chairs.
The main staircase and elevator are located in a corner near a spiral staircase leading to the roof and another elevator leading to the lower floor or roof.
Next to this is a bar with several yellow and red lanterns behind it on the wall and at the other corner is the double door entrance to the kitchen.
The kitchen floor has simple black and white square tiles, the sides have a work surface with various pots, pans and other utensils and in the center is the main section of gas kitchen stoves and ovens.
A service lift connects the kitchen with all floors of the hotel bar on the ground floor.
Marinette and Amity sat at a four-person table.
Marinette commanded a fruit juice.
Amity has commanded for herself and for Bruce and Altera who are due to arrive shortly: A decaf coffee, a glass of milk with honey and a chamomile tea.
The two girls continued to converse with each other.
Amity talked about Boston and Marinette talked about Paris.
" Amity from what you say Boston is a city full of life and interesting places to visit. Maybe I should visit the city one day." Marinette said, thinking about a possible vacation to Boston after defeating Papillon.
"Recently, the construction of the world's largest skyscraper belonging to Camelot Industries was completed.
The entire city and company has received a lot of attention from this architectural feat." Amity recounts the recent event that is on everyone's lips, especially those living in America.
"I heard this news on the news a week ago.
The Camelot Tower, a 1000 meter high skyscraper, with 200 floors, surpassing the previous tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, with 170 meters." Marinette said, having heard the news over and over on TV.
"And they built Camelot Tower in two years instead of five like Burj Khalifa." Amity added a detail that many forget.
"Speaking of skyscrapers and cake, I heard Tony Stark sold Avengers Tower." Marinette said, contributing to the conversation.
"You have no idea how well I know this news." Amity mutters, knowing more than she should about the sale of Avengers Tower and who bought it.
Speaking of Avengers Tower, Marinette's memory was jogged and she remembered something she saw/read on the internet or in a magazine.
"Amity, is Bruce a model or an actor or something? Because I think I saw his face somewhere?" Marinette said not too sure of herself.
The French-Chinese girl with her full of watching (stalking) Adrien, school, her numerous chores, Ladybug duties, her memory is too overloaded to remember a magazine article she read weeks ago.
"If it's a fashion or gossip magazine, you've most likely seen Belmont's twin sister, who is a rising Hollywood star." Amity said, taking a latest generation Camelot Industries Smartphone out of her pocket.
By pressing a button, the C-Phone created a rectangular holographic screen the size of a small notebook page.
Marinette's eyes widen in surprise, having never seen a holographic interface up close.
The technology based on interactive holograms has existed for a decade, but only recently has it become available to the general public at an affordable, albeit still expensive, price.
The only two companies that have produced Smartphones with these capabilities are Stark Industries and Camelot Industries, which are somewhat of a rival in the electronic equipment department, especially Smartphones.
Marinette remembers how one of her classmates had a lively discussion about which latest generation smartphone is better, the Stark-Phone or the C-Phone.
Basically the Playstation vs Xbox war in the phone sector.
'I'm not an expert girl, but I'm sure Amity has the fourth generation gold module C-Phone which is expected to hit the market in three months. How did she get it?' Marinette thinks, feeling a mix of curiosity and surprise.
The holographic screen shows different folders and stuck.
But the bottom of the holographic screen shows a photograph of 14-year-old Amity with dyed green hair in the company of a brown-haired Latina girl.
'Luz was so cute in that moment.' Amity thinks with a sweet smile and a loving look, remembering the details of when that photograph was taken.
Concentrating, Amity pressed a few buttons on the holographic screen, a web page appearing, typing in a few keywords, causing the cover of a Los Angeles fashion magazine to appear.
The image depicts a girl who looks very much like Bruce, having the same age, height, ethnicity, facial structure.
The only noticeable differences are that the girl has long blonde hair, her eye is golden yellow, her skin is slightly more sun-kissed, and her body has attractive feminine curves.
The girl's physique is highlighted by the tight white and blue swimsuit.
'Have foreign girls always been so cute and attractive?' Marinette thinks, sure that she has lost a lot of self-esteem points regarding her physical appearance.
" Here you are, Adeline Jones, younger twin sister of Bruce Belmont, model and singer from Los Angeles.
Recently, she got a job as a supporting character actress in a movie with
Selena Gomez as protagonist."
Amity said, giving a quick introduction to Adeline.
Marinette stares at the image of this beautiful model from Los Angeles, Marinette's mind produces no results.
"I've definitely never seen this Adeline Jones, it would be hard to forget her." Marinette said with some blush on her cheeks.
It's not such a big surprise, Marinette has limited time to keep up with the latest news.
Besides her favorite stars, she doesn't follow other people's careers, especially emerging models from Los Angeles, which is on the other side of the world.
"So, you might have seen one of the many articles about Belmont. He's quite a famous person in Boston and many other circles." Amity said, pressing a few buttons on the holographic interface.
In an instant, Adeline's sexy image was replaced with a Boston newspaper article from a few weeks ago.
Marinette is no English genius, but she can easily read and understand the front page headline: Boston Wishes Its Detective Occult Welcome Back
Below the title is an image of Bruce, dressed in a school uniform.
Bruce is accompanied by a gothic girl, pale as a corpse, jet black hair held in two braids, wearing a female version of Bruce's uniform, but black and white.
This scary girl holds in her hands a large crossbow which is aimed at Bruce.
Marinette opens her mouth and prepares to ask a lot of questions, especially about the crossbow.
"Please don't ask about Wednesday tomorrow, you don't want to know what happens between the two." Amity said, delivering a warning.
Wisely for once in her life, Marinette decided not to meddle in other people's lives any further.
Pretending not to see a scary girl holding a medieval weapon in her hands, Marinette focuses on everything else.
"In a way, Bruce is Boston's Adrien?" Marinette mutters, not knowing how to feel about finding out that she ended up getting involved with a second rich and famous guy.
"I don't know who Adrien is. But I seriously doubt there could be another boy as problematic as Belmont in the universe." Amity mutters, turning off her C-Phone, having nothing else to show Marinette.
"If I don't dare too much, how come brother and sister have different surnames and live in cities on opposite sides of the country?" Marinette asks, hoping she's not asking something inappropriate.
"We were separated at birth, adopted and raised in different environments and very different mothers. She and I discovered each other's existence a couple of years ago." An androgynous voice said coming from behind Marinette.
Marinette turns to see Altera and Bruce, who have just arrived unnoticed.
"Does he do that often, look like a ninja?" Marinette mutters softly to Amity.
"Yes, it's one of the annoying things he does." Amity said, finding this characteristic of Belmont very frustrating.
"It's not my fault that people don't have good environmental awareness." Bruce said as he sits down at the table.
Naturally, Altera sits next to Bruce.
As soon as the group was complete, the waiter came bringing the drinks: a fruit juice for Marinette, a decaf coffee for Amity, a chamomile tea for Bruce, and a cup of milk with honey for Altera.
"Do you want anything else?" The waiter asks politely, doing his job.
"I want the whole page of desserts on the menu." Bruce said in a serious voice, pointing to the dessert section of the menu.
Everyone at the table gave Bruce a look, some in disbelief and some with concern.
"Belmont, as long as I've known you, I've known that you like sweets, but aren't you overindulging lately?" Amity said, showing slight concern towards her rival/frenemy.
"No, let's just eat as much as I need." Bruce said, seeming unaware that he has increased his intake of sweets.
"Ever since you visited Adeline in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, you've been eating sweets all the time." Amity said, not knowing what started this eating disorder.
"The entire desert page?" The waiter asks, raising an eyebrow, having never heard such a request from him in his life.
"Yes, I want a piece of every dessert written on the menu and for my companion a slice of lemon cake." Bruce said, looking towards Altera, waiting for confirmation or denial.
" A slice of lemon cake sounds good." Altera said, nodding at Bruce's idea.
"Do the other ladies want anything?" She asks the waiter, pretending you're taking a normal order.
"I just need coffee." Amity said, no longer having an appetite at the moment.
"Me too." Marinette said, not wanting to make her new acquaintances/friends (?) spend it.
"Here's a little attention that can get bigger at the end of the meal, if you move quickly and don't ask questions." Bruce said, taking out about ten €100 notes from his pockets, and handing them to the waiter.
"As you wish sir!" He exclaims the waiter loudly, looking invigorated and putting aside any critical thoughts about the customers.
XXX
About ten minutes later, the waiter brought an entire trolley full of desserts of all kinds.
Altera received her piece of cake and Bruce began eating dessert after dessert.
At a constant pace, through fast, elegant and precise movements, Bruce finished one plate of desert, then began another.
Altera and Amity don't blink at the sight, they're used to this sight.
"How can you eat so much and be so skinny?" Marinette asks, impressed in a negative sense by what she is seeing.
"Having a great metabolism, a stomach of a dragon and the appetite of a chivalric order is a pretty common family thing." Bruce said, continuing to eat without stopping, but with the elegance and speed of a dancer.
'One way of saying that the Magic Core inside you forces you to eat in large quantities and allows you to burn fat in record time.' Amity thinks, feeling a small amount of envy for her rival/frenemy's Magic Core.
At that moment, Chloé Bourgeois and her father, André Bourgeois, entered the hotel restaurant.
The daughter seems particularly angry and the father looks like a downcast dog following his master.
André is a tall, fat man with slicked-back gray hair and clear, bright cobalt blue eyes.
He wears a dark gray jacket with three large black buttons over a white shirt.
He has a strong red tie and there is a matching folded red handkerchief in the top left pocket of his jacket.
He also has dark gray pants and black shoes. She wears a blue, white, and red striped sash over her right shoulder, and the ends of the sash are tied together near her hips with thick gold tassels.
'Because everywhere I go, I end up meeting Chloé!' Marinette thinks, starting to question her luck as a ladybug.
Hoping she hadn't been seen Marinette raises the menu left on the table and tries to hide her face.
"Why are you hiding?" Amity asks, noticing Marinette's strange behavior.
"Dupain-Cheng, what are you doing here!" Chloé exclaims loudly, noticing Marinette.
Which is pretty easy because there are no other people in the restaurant at the moment.
"I just got my reply." Amity mutters, understanding how my Marinette wants to avoid this loud screaming girl.
"I'm making some new friends and drinking some fruit juice." Marinette responds, starting by wishing she had chosen the other reward Bruce offered.
"It's already enough that I see you every day at school, now I have to see you outside of school and in my house too." Chloé said, clenching her hands into fists, feeling invaded by Marinette.
"You two are here too, the tourists in the lift!" Chloé exclaims, pointing her finger at Bruce and Altera, realizing their presence.
"You know it's rude to point the finger at someone." Bruce said in a monotone, stopping to eat.
Altera stiffens, ready to move at the slightest signal from her Master.
"Is that you?" Amity asks, standing up from the table, looking Chloé up and down.
Without anyone noticing, Bruce blinked his right eye three times very quickly, for a single moment, the good eye showed a certain twinkle.
'The first time, I turned a blind eye out of politeness, but the second time I don't, especially when you interrupt my meal.' Bruce thinks, they frame the daughter and father couple with his good eye which contains a surprise.
"I am Chloé Bourgeois, the daughter of the hotel owner and mayor of Paris." Chloé said, as if they were her successes and not those of her father.
The father finally approached his daughter, hoping that his outburst had calmed her down a little.
"Chloé, we could go eat somewhere else." André suggests, not wanting to annoy the customers of his hotel.
"No, today we will eat here, but without sharing the air with these poor people." Chloé said, being bossy as usual. Convinced that no one will take action against her.
" Chloé, you can't send us away, you have no right." Marinette said raising her voice, not wanting her new acquaintances/friends(?) to get into trouble because of her.
"Does your daughter always behave like this?" Amity asks, addressing the mayor of Paris, who clearly can't handle her daughter.
" Yes." André confesses, lowering his head with a defeated look.
'This André reminds me of my father before the divorce and not in a good way.' Amity thinks, remembering how her father for almost 15 years was a passive man, always agreeing with his wife without saying anything but yes.
"Get out of my restaurant before your situation gets worse." Chloé said, looking mostly at Marinette.
"Chloé, right?" Amity said, minimally impressed by the spoiled blonde's screams.
The mayor's daughter turned her attention from Marinette to Amity.
"You know that you demonstrate excessive childishness by this action and are unknowingly sabotaging your family's business.
If you don't like Marinette, you could have just taken a table away from her and not needed to make a scene like that." Amity said, criticizing Chloé for being childish and incapable of thinking long-term about the consequences of her actions.
Chloé turned red with anger, in her mind no one can criticize her openly.
"For these words you, purple head, and your friends can say goodbye to your stay in Paris because I will personally have you banned from every hotel, motel and hostel possible!" Chloé states in a very angry voice.
"Do you really believe that your tantrums are law or acceptable?" Amity questions, crossing her arms, minimally impressed with Chloé's antics.
"Dad throw them out of my hotel!" Chloé orders in an authoritative voice, turning to her father.
" Chloé, my darling... perhaps I should reconsider..." The Mayor of Paris mutters in a pitiful voice, showing himself to be a weak-willed man.
"Dad, throw them out of the hotel, now!" Chloé shouts, raising her voice.
The father literally and metaphorically bends to his daughter's will.
"From now on you have 24 hours to evacuate the accommodation." André said, they satisfy yet another of Chloé's whims.
Marinette and Amity prepare to contest ...
CRACK!
But the sound of a breaking cup stopped the exchange of shouts, drawing attention to Bruce, who dropped the cup of tea on purpose.
"The game is on." Bruce said, as if it were a sign of him coming onto the scene.
'These two Bourgeois are about to face the source of many Boiling Isles nightmares.' Amity thinks, sitting in her place, motioning for Marinette to remain silent.
"I don't support being disturbed when I eat, especially when I'm in good company." Bruce said, looking at Altera for a moment.
The lips of the girl with white hair and red eyes move a millimeter, creating a ghost of a smile.
"But I'm in a good mood and I'll be merciful to you two. I'll pretend the last five minutes never existed.
Then, we'll both walk out of this place and never speak to each other again.
A simple agreement that is convenient for both parties." Bruce said, trying to resolve the discussion in a civil and clean manner.
"You should listen to him." Altera said, trying to contribute to the discussion.
"You caught him at a good time. If you refuse you risk ending up in court at best." Amity said, knowing that helping the Bourgeois didn't dig their own grave.
"Court !?" André murmurs, suddenly turning pale. Clearly, the Mayor of Paris is aware that if he ends up in court he will have a lot of problems, not only because of the risk of a scandal.
"Who do you think you are to tell me what to do!?" Chloé shouts, feeling insulted just by hearing this proposal.
"I'm Bruce Belmont, the best detective in Boston." Bruce said, handing over his name and occupation to you two Bourgeois.
"Never heard of you." Chloé said, trying and failing to break Bruce's stoic expression.
'Unfortunately, yes.' André thinks, starting to sweat.
André, having his wife in America, made sure to receive news and magazines about New York and nearby cities.
In addition to news about his wife's successful career, André received tons of information about famous people in the area, such as Wilson Fisk, Tony Stark, Norman Osborn, Schneizel E. House and Bruce Belmont
'If the reports are true, I am faced with a young genius who deals daily with dangerous criminals.' André thinks, hoping that the American newspapers are exaggerating or making things up.
"I have a question, Mayor of Paris, have you ever read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" Bruce questions in a light tone.
"What ?" André asks, rather confused and showing his knowledge of literature.
" is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl.
The story tells the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka." Bruce recounts the plot of the book he mentioned earlier.
" In the book there is a character named, Veruca Salt, she is a greedy, demanding and spoiled brat. She demands everything she wants and wants everything she sees.
Showing her wealthy parents no mercy and no regard for other people's property, Veruca often pesters her parents to purchase whatever catches her fancy." Bruce said, rising from his seat calmly.
" A scenario, with which I found myself before me." Bruce said, taking off his black coat, folding it and placing it on the back of the chair.
By doing so, Bruce revealed a leather shoulder holster containing two pistols, a Revolver and a Semi-Automatic Pistol.
The air immediately became tense for the French.
'Those are guns!' Marinette, Chloé and André thought, feeling very uncomfortable.
"Don't worry, these weapons are for my personal defense and I don't use them on civilians, even annoying ones." Bruce said in a stoic voice as he took off his tie.
Marinette feels slightly relieved, but is still worried about what's about to happen.
"I am the best Detective in Boston, I am nicknamed the Occult Detective, due to the fact that I agree to work mainly on strange and macabre cases." Bruce said as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing a tattoo on his right forearm.
'Guns and tattoos, please don't tell me I'm hooking up with an American gangster on holiday.' Marinette thinks, letting her imagination take over.
"I took high-risk cases that brought me into contact with dangerous people. So I lost my left eye." Bruce said, moving his bangs, revealing that in place of his left eye is a ruby in the shape of an eyeball.
"Disgust!" Chloé exclaims, unable to hold back her big mouth.
Bruce silences her with a look.
"Guess, Mayor of Paris, what happened to all the people who tried to intimidate or threaten me?" Bruce asks, as he adjusts his gloves, keeping his eyes fixed on the Mayor of Paris and his daughter.
André can easily imagine a group of criminals ending up in hospital in precarious conditions or worse.
"Is it too late to accept the offer to pretend the last five minutes didn't exist?" André asks with a trembling voice, hoping to avoid being physically harmed.
"It's not too late, you're just in time to turn around and walk away unharmed." Bruce said in a gentle voice, preferring to end things with simple intimidation.
André Bourgeois not wanting to hear anything else.
"Chloé, let's get out of here, we can eat somewhere else." André said, grabbing his daughter's hand and preparing to leave.
"Dad! Will you believe this hoax!? This poor guy is trying to deceive us, surely those guns are fake!" Chloé exclaims, letting her pride take over.
Chloé frees herself from her father's grip and approaches Bruce.
"If you try to touch me, you'll get at the very least a black eye or a broken jaw." Bruce said, delivering one final warning.
Unfortunately, Chloé Bourgeois doesn't believe the words of the Boston Detective, in her head she is untouchable.
"I bet you've never thrown a punch in your life." Chloé said, stopping in front of the Boston Detective.
SMASH!
In an instant, Bruce threw a right punch at Chloé, aiming straight for the face, knocking her over like a puppet without strings.
Chloé's sunglasses fell to the floor not far from her.
Marinette covers her mouth with both hands, shocked at what just happened.
The Mayor of Paris ran to his daughter, kneeling down next to Chloé to see how his daughter was doing.
"Some people have to figure things out the hard way. If you step on the dragon's tail, you'll get burned." Bruce said in a cold, calm voice.
After these words Bruce turns to go back to sit at the table and eat his desserts.
At this time, a certain black butterfly entered the restaurant.
"An Akuma!" Marinette shouts, pointing to the black butterfly.
The Akuma is approaching Chloé who is awake enough to grab her broken sunglasses.
"What an Akuma?" Amity asks in an alarming tone, understanding that something bad is about to happen.
The black butterfly touches the sunglasses and dissolves into a dark energy that infuses the chosen object.
A sort of visor-like glyph appears on Chloé's battered face.
" Interesting." Bruce said, looking very carefully at the scene.
" Amity get Marinette and take her away. Altera you know what to do." Bruce said, handing orders to his rival and his companion.
Amity grabs Marinette's hand, then runs towards the doghouse, used to bringing civilians to safety.
Altera moves quickly, takes knives in both hands, then runs to her Master's side.
André, well, he ran away as soon as he saw the Akuma, already knowing what was going to happen.
Chloé finished talking to someone, then her entire body was enveloped in a kind of cocoon of dark energy.
"That's why I always carry a gun with me, wherever I go, trouble comes after me." Bruce said, grabbing his revolver, sure that he will have to use it very soon.
Continues ...