Her phone clattered to the ground while Alya tried to process what had just happened in front of her.
She and Marinette had decided to meet up in the park for a day of hanging out with Nino and Adrien, who had finally been given permission to hang out with them. The four of them were going to go see a movie and maybe get Marinette to confess…
Okay, maybe not. But hey, a girl could dream.
But all thoughts of matchmaking had fled Alya's mind. Surprisingly, Marinette had gotten to their designated meeting spot before her and had been sitting next Adrien looking over a book he had been holding…
When the book had unleashed a torrent of black goo and suck the two readers in.
Finally, Alya snapped out of her shock and grabbed her phone, only to let out a muffled curse. Her screen had shattered when it had hit the ground, leaving incapable of getting to the Ladyblog and contacting Ladybug about the latest akuma (because what else could it be?). She started heading out of the park, intent on either reaching home or someone with a phone.
She ran into someone first.
"Hey, miss," she said, addressing the red-haired adult. "Could I borrow your phone?"
The woman turned around and grinned. "Hey, Mini-Rena, where's the fire?"
Alya was confused. "Do I know you?" she asked. "And what's with the FNaF reference?"
"Wait, Sister Location's been released?" the woman asked, pulling out her phone and since when were flip phones so advanced? "Huh, so it was. Well, I be derned."
"Two th- no, three things," Alya said, shaking herself out of her phone stupor. "One, what model of phone is that? Two, where can I get one? Three, can I use it real quick?"
The woman laughed as she held the phone over her head. "One," she replied, "this won't be out for about twenty years. Two, I don't know, a friend of mine got it for me. And three, no, I can't let you do that."
"What?" Ayla nearly screeched. "But my friends have been kidnapped by an akuma, we have to contact Ladybug-"
"First off," the woman interrupted, "That wasn't an akuma. That was an evil that has been growing for the past seventy years or so. Secondly," here the woman grimaced, "Ladybug already knows."
"Then why hasn't she done anything?" Alya asked.
"You just saw her get sucked into a sub-dimension," the woman said abruptly. "Now come, we've got to grab your boyfriend and save our resident superheroes."
Alya didn't hear anything else the woman said, her mind circling around three facts.
Marinette was Ladybug.
Marinette was missing.
Ladybug was missing…
The man picked himself off the floor gingerly, his legs shakier than they had been in years.
What had happened? He had been about to sit down to work on the story, when dark energy had lashed out over the paper, sending him to the ground.
He sat himself down in his chair and straightened his papers. What was that energy? Did it affect any of his work?
And who were these two?
In the park where four friends had planned to meet, a book laid on the ground, partially hidden in the shadow of a bench. A hand grasped it and pulled it out, the hand's owner looking at the cover.
"Cool book," Alix Kubbel said, looking at the grinning face of Bendy on the cover.
…
…
The first Interlude is done.
Ladybug will return…