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“What’s this doing here?”
A small, dark wooden box that Adrien definitely did not recognize rested conspicuously on the coffee table. He picked it up curiously and opened it.
Whatever he expected would be inside, a ball of plasma bursting forth and nearly blinding him with pink light wasn’t it. He instinctively shielded his eyes. When the light died down, the miniature sun was replaced with a tiny creature with a head about twice the size of its body. It was raspberry-colored with three large black spots on its head, and revealed gigantic blue eyes when it opened them. Adrien reached out excitedly and booped its tiny nose.
“No way! Like the genie in the lamp!”
The floating creature giggled. Oh my god, it’s so adorable. “Hello, Adrien. I’m Tikki and it’s so nice to meet you!”
“Hey, Tikki.” Adrien examined the now-open wooden box. Without the blinding pink light, he could see a pair of shiny, silver earrings nestled inside. “Did you come out of these earrings? Why are you here? And hold on, how did you know my name?”
Tikki zoomed toward the jewelry. “In a way. These are called a miraculous. It’s magical jewelry that’s bonded to a kwami like me. I’m the ladybug kwami, and I grant the powers of creation and luck. You with me so far?”
Adrien gaped at her. “Uhhhh…I think so.”
“And I’m here because you have been chosen to be a superhero! You’re going to have a partner, another hero who has the black cat miraculous, to fight evil by your side. Now there’s not much time to explain, Paris needs you to stop Stoneheart!”
Adrien deflated. He slumped over on his couch. “Tikki, I can’t. My father never lets me leave the house unless I’m working. I’m not even allowed to go to school! I’m sorry, you’ll need to get somebody who can actually help the black cat.” Adrien stood up, fully intending to faceplant in his pillows for another couple hours.
Tikki zipped to float in front of his face again and stopped him in his tracks. “You’re the chosen one, Adrien. You can do this. With superpowers, your dad never has to know. You need to trust me.”
She had him trapped in the most emotionally supportive staring contest in history. Not that Adrien had actually done many of those in the past. Something about Tikki’s gigantic cerulean eyes was so earnest, he couldn’t help but feel hopeful. Hopeful for power, for freedom.
Making a decision, Adrien picked up the miraculous again. The earrings really were beautiful. The silver surfaces had an opalescent shine to them. “Okay, one problem. I don’t have my ears pierced.”
“They’re magic. You don’t need pierced ears.”
“So I put these on and you give me superpowers? What exactly are my powers?” Adrien secured the earrings and sure enough, they went through the flesh without any bother. He still should probably pierce his ears for posterity.
“You’ll have super strength and agility. And then there’s the lucky charm, your secret superpower. When you need it most, call forth the lucky charm. The miraculous will create something that can help you win your battles, if you use it right.”
“Okay, I’m wearing the earrings. But I don’t feel any different?”
“You can wear them untransformed. To activate your powers, you just have to say ‘spots on’ and I’ll merge with the miraculous and you’ll transform into Ladybug.”
“Awesome. Tikki, spots on!”
“Wait, wait, I still need to tell you…” Tikki vanished into the earrings with a swirl and a pink flash ensconced him from head to toe. He felt a mask materialize on his face. He looked down at his hands gloved in bright red and black polka dots. He swore he could feel the magic thrumming across his skin.
“Bit ostentatious, but so cool.” Adrien noticed something around his waist. It released automatically when he pulled at it. A yo-yo? He gave it a try only for it to shoot across the room and latch onto the railing of his indoor balcony. When he tried to tug it loose he got yanked violently into the air, and before he knew it he’d flipped and landed in front of his bookcase.
“Whoa. It’s like Spider-Man.” Adrien launched the yo-yo through his open window, felt it latch onto a building, and tugged.
I was right, he thought, as he shot out of the house. This does feel like freedom.
Something burst forth and filled the room with blinding green light. Marinette yelped and dropped the box to cover her eyes. Once whatever was making that spotlight turned off, she hesitantly peeked through her fingers. She was frozen at what she saw until the thing in front of her stretched open a purple mouth with sharp-looking teeth.
She jumped, shrieking. “Help! It’s a giant bug – a – a mouse – a bug-mouse!”
The bug-mouse just floated there. God, was it even flying? Where were its wings? She heard a snotty voice say, “Rude. I’m obviously a cat, do I look like a mouse to you?”
Whhaaat? Marinette flung grabbed the closest stuff on her desk and threw them in self-defense. “THE BUG-MOUSE TALKS!”
The bug-mouse expertly dodged everything she threw at it, and oh god, it’s coming closer. “Look kid, you gotta calm down like right now. I’m not vermin, I’m a kwami, you’re gonna be a superhero, and also you need to chill.”
It kept flying up to her face no matter how much she retreated. Marinette bumped up against her vanity, grabbed the water glass sitting there and trapped it.
Now that she had it in the glass, Marinette tried to steady her breath and took a closer look at the – what did it call itself, a kwami? It did indeed look more like a cat than anything, right down to its giant, slitted green eyes. Her heartbeat slowed. Her rational brain rebooted. The kwami crossed its arms and plopped down onto the floor.
“Again, rude. Does this mean you’ll quit screaming and get me some food?”
“What are you doing here? And what the heck’s a kwami?” Marinette demanded.
“It means I grant superpowers. I, Plagg, can give you the power of destruction.”
Either there was a magical intruder in Marinette’s bedroom or she’d hit her head one too many times and started hallucinating. Either way, this was way above her pay grade.
She slowly cracked open her trapdoor leading to the rest of the house. “Mom! Dad!”
“Hey, hey! None of that.” Plagg flew through the glass to Marinette’s face and forcefully closed her mouth. “Superhero means secret identity, fillette. Nobody can ever know that I exist and that includes your parents!”
Marinette gave him a hard stare but closed the trapdoor. He retreated with tiny crossed arms. “Paris needs you to defeat Stoneheart. And I mean you. But we can’t do anything until I get something to eat. Now where do you keep your cheese?” Plagg started flying around the room and poking through her stuff. Marinette groaned when he tried to chomp on her sewing machine. Clearly, he wasn’t going anywhere and wouldn’t say anything more until he got some freaking cheese.
“Fine, wait here.” She climbed down the ladder to the kitchen to dig out a small block of cheddar she doubted her parents would miss.
Plagg ate it all in two bites. He perched himself primly on top of the upturned glass and she sat across from him on the floor. “Now what’s this about being a superhero? You can’t mean me?”
“You’re Marinette, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but, you have to have gotten the wrong girl." Marinette tugged anxiously at her pigtails and stared helplessly at the ceiling. "I can’t do anything brave or cool – hey, you should go ask my friend Alya, she knows everything about superheroes and villains, she’d be a much better choice. The only power I could have is super-awkwardness. I'm the last person who should do this, I break everything I touch!”
“That’s purr-fect!” Plagg called out from – somewhere. Marinette had gotten so caught up in babbling that she hadn’t noticed him wander away. “With these superpowers you get to actually destroy whatever you touch! It’s called the cataclysm. Only get to use it once, though!”
“That sounds disastrous. Plagg, where are you?” Marinette searched frantically until she spotted him running about on a ball of electric-blue yarn like a backwards treadmill, unraveling it all over the floor as he went. “Hey, don’t do that! You’re making a mess!”
Marinette dove for the kwami but he flew out of her reach. She began rolling the yarn back up, then scurried to her desk when she spotted him underneath it. He cried out, “Ooooh, what does this do?” before pushing on the sewing machine pedal. The loud, clacking whir startled him so bad he squealed, launched upward, and slammed his head on the underside of the desk. Marinette snatched him in his daze. He released a pathetic moan.
“Serves you right. Don’t mess with my stuff like that. Especially the sewing machine, unless you want to end up with your tail stitched up to your ears.”
“We gonna get this show on the road? Your partner’s probably waiting for you.”
“My – my partner?”
“Whatever you have to break, they can fix. It’s a balancing act, fruit pie. We are destruction and the Ladybug is creation.” Plagg phased through Marinette’s hands and went back to the box she’d dropped. He returned with a black ring in his tiny paws, which he dropped into her hands. The moment it touched her skin it turned a beautiful shade of rose gold. “Now put this damn thing on! You got picked for a reason fillette, trust me.”
Marinette examined the ring. It was a simple signet, somehow bold and elegant at the same time. She took a deep breath and slipped it on. “Okay, Plagg. What do I do?”
“After you transform, you’ll get a staff that extends and shrinks. Use it to bounce around the city like a pole vault. It also makes a great quarterstaff. If you gotta disintegrate something, shout ‘cataclysm!’ and that little hand of yours will completely destroy the next thing you touch. Poof! But you only get five minutes before you automatically transform back and you need to feed me, so use it wisely!
“Any last questions?”
“Actually, yeah. What made that Stoneheart monster?”
Plagg smacked his forehead. “Oh, I can’t believe I forgot! That’s a person that got upset. A supervillain sent an akuma to make him into a villainous slave. It’s hiding in an object the akumatized bloke has on his person. Break the object, and Ladybug will purify the akuma before it flies away. Right, right, it’ll look like a little butterfly.”
“Ugh,” Marinette groaned. “That’s too much at once Plagg. I destroy the thing the evil butterfly hides in and the person is free?”
“Yep. Then Ladybug uses their lucky charm to fix all the damage. So really, it’s okay to break stuff out there.”
“Okay. Okay, I think I’ve got it. Staff, weapon and pole vaulting, Cinderella cataclysm, and break the akuma’s hiding spot.” Marinette braced herself. “Let’s go help the ladybug, Plagg.”
“Finally! But first, you got anymore cheese?”
“You just devoured a whole block!”
“Fine, fine. Say ‘claws out,’ and your powers activate.”
She looked at the ring. It seemed so innocuous. “Claws out.”
Immediately Plagg swirled like a mini hurricane and vanished into the ring, which turned black and sported a glowing lime colored paw print. A green flash slid down Marinette’s body. Her clothes seemed to get replaced by skin-tight leather.
She checked out her new outfit in her vanity mirror. “Whoa. My eyes are completely blue! What the – ears? Okay, that’s weird.” She had to admit the black bodysuit looked pretty cool. Bright green accents complimented her shape and gave the black some contrast. The material breathed and stretched well and it even had pockets! Marinette touched her face where it was half concealed by a mask, and noticed with a start that her gloves came with claws.
Other than her completely blue cat eyes, the most alarming thing was definitely her hair. Marinette had always kept it pretty short. But now a long black braid hung down her back and all the way to her feet. A braid that was apparently semi prehensile.
“Plagg? If you’re there, what’s the point of the ears?” Then she realized she could hear the bell from the bakery downstairs. And cars driving by outside even though the windows were shut. She could even make out her parents’ distinct footsteps with three floors of separation. “Guess the leather ears actually help with the hearing.”
Marinette certainly felt stronger now. She leapt onto her loft bed in one jump and climbed through the trap door above onto her balcony. She grabbed the collapsed staff from behind her back, extending it with a thought. Experimentally, she twirled it.
Holy shit. I didn’t drop it! She looked out at the street. Plagg had better be right. Marinette jumped, bounced, and screamed. Whether that scream was borne of fear or delight remained to be determined.