Chapter Text
David popped open a can of cat food and poured the contents into the lid of an old take-out dish. He didn’t have any real animal bowls so this would have to do, it wasn’t as if the cat would care.
A couple days ago, a stray cat had taken up residence in the alleyway behind his bookstore. It was a pure black cat with a single yellow eye. A pink scar ran from the cat’s nose, over where its right eye should be, and to its ear. It looked young, maybe a year old. David had first spotted the cat hanging upside down from the fire escape while he was taking out the trash. The cat had hissed at him just before its claws lost their grip on the strips of metal making up the bottom of the fire escape, falling directly into a pile of trash. The cat had hissed at him again before running off and hiding under a dumpster on the other end of the alley.
Due to this, he had unofficially named the cat Batman.
He had always been told not to mess with stray animals, that they could pass diseases onto him. They could have rabies or ebola or something so he should keep his distance. Then again, his 10th-grade health teacher had said the same thing about homeless people, so he had his doubts about the logic.
When he moved to Paris, David had wanted to adopt a cat, but his apartment back then didn't allow pets. Now that he owned his own store, and the apartment above it, he figured it was time to get a pet. He could have gone to the pet store like anyone else might do, but David decided that he would adopt a stray, take it off the streets and give it a good life,
Honestly, David didn’t know too much about cats, especially stray ones. His mom loved cats and he couldn’t remember a time when there weren’t at least 3 in the house. Most of the cats he’d grown up with were either picked up from an adoption shelter or taken in when a family friend moved to a pet-free apartment. They only ever had one stray and everyone figured he had a home before that since he was so friendly.
So David had essentially no idea how he would get this cat to be friendly toward him, but he figured food was a good start.
He carried the ‘plate’ of food out to the alley and looked around, He didn’t see Batman anywhere, he was probably hiding. David set the plate onto the floor of the alley and walked away. As he began to head back inside, his thoughts drifted to the miracle box currently locked up under the register at the bookstore.
The last time he had messed with the box he had pulled out a mask before immediately getting distracted by a customer. Hoott later told him that he probably shouldn’t mess with the mask again since the kwami tied to the miraculous really disliked humans. David never learned what the mask actually did so his curiosity was never satiated. He managed to keep from messing with the box for a few days after that, but his curiosity was building once more.
David entered the bookstore through the side door and went to his office, which sat in a small room behind the register counter. He flipped on the 6 light switches that turned on the lights throughout the store before picking up the piece of paper that had been placed on top of his keyboard. David always made himself a to-do list for tasks he needed to do the next day. If he didn’t write things like this down he tended to forget, his memory wasn’t the best.
He didn’t have all that much to do today. He needed to restock a few shelves, wipe down the shelves in the language section, order a few boxes of new books, and take down a few books that weren't selling too well. The note about ordering new books had gained a small drawing of an owl face since he last saw it, a reminder that that was Hoott’s job now. So David didn’t have a whole lot to do.
Knowing that he had time to slack off today definitely swayed his decision. David moved to the counter and leaned down to unlock the cabinet where he kept the box. He pulled it out and set it next to the register. He had already taken out two miraculous, the owl miraculous in the first drawer and the mask in the last drawer. Going by that order it only made sense to grab the middle miraculous next. Of course, the arrangement of the drawers made it so there was no drawer in the middle of the box. The box had 13 miraculous though meaning the 7th miraculous would be the ‘middle’ miraculous.
Or at least, that's what made sense to David.
He grabbed the third drawer in the second row, the 7th drawer, and pulled it open. Inside the drawer sat, expectedly, a multitude of dust that concealed whatever magical piece of jewelry sat inside. David once again went to get the dustpan, removed the drawer from the box, and dumped it into the dustpan. What fell out of the drawer, other than the dust, was what looked to be a bracelet.
“Hu, neat,” David said as he shook off the remaining dust on the bracelet. He dumped the dust into the trashbin and put the drawer back into the box.
He examined the bracelet. It looked like a bunch of platypus holding on to each other. The bracelet was made of several alternating parts that combined to look like many platypi holding the next platypus’s tail in its bill. One part looked like the body and the other looked like a bill holding a tail in its mouth, the two pieces were connected by small metal joints that joined the parts together smoothly and allowed the bracelet enough movement to move freely.
Testing the joints, David found that quite a few of them were stiff and felt like something had gotten inside them, probably dust. Figuring that the kwami inside wouldn’t be happy if its miraculous was jammed with dust, David moved to the sink to try and wash the dust out.
The skink was in a small room opposite the service counter, the break room. Other than the sink the room held the counter the sink was on, a few cabinets, and the stairs to the apartment on the third floor. On the counter sat a coffee machine, a box of creamer, and a dirty mug. As David turned on the water and stuck the miraculous under it, Hoott floated in the room through one of the walls.
“Good morning Dav- oh, I see you’ve taken out the platypus miraculous.” The kwami said.
“Ya, but it seems like there's dust in the joints, so I’m washing it out.” David explained.
“Oh,” Hoott flew over and turned off the water, “I wouldn’t do that. Yrrep dislikes anyone but her trying to clean out her miraculous. You should just release her and allow her to do it.” Hoott suggested.
“Oh alright.” David could believe that the kwami inside the bracelet knew more about cleaning it out than he did. He slipped the wet bracelet onto his wrist. As soon as he did, the bracelet began glowing with a teal light which then collected into a small ball of light. The light flew around his wrist a few times before solidifying into a kwami.
The kwami, unsurprisingly, looked like a platypus. It was covered in brown fur and it had a black platypus bill on its face and a flat tail hanging from its backside. Its appearance was what he expected from a platypus kwami.
“You tried to clean out my miraculous, didn’t you?” The kwami asked, sounding angry.
“Oh, I- um-” David responded.
“All you did was throw water onto it! You didn’t even begin to do it right!” The kwami, David remembered Hoott call her Yrrep, lectured him, “If you use water it gets into the joints and can mix with the dirt and dust to- URg- Y’know what, just give me the bracelet.” Yrrep held out her hand-paw-thing out to him.
David looked over to Hoott, who nodded. He took off the bracelet and handed it to the kwami in front of him. Yrrep took the miraculous and floated down to the countertop next to the sink. As David watched, the kwami passed her hand through one of the metal joints of the miraculous and a small black pin fell onto the counter and the connection came undone. Yrrep wiped the inside of the joint with her paw and then held her hand out away from the miraculous. A second later the dust and water she had collected on her hand from the joint fell off and onto the counter.
“Yrrep takes full advantage of us kwami’s power of intangibility to thoroughly and efficiently clean her miraculous.” Hoott explained, landing on David’s shoulder, “She was the one who came up with this method and taught it to the kwami with more complex miraculous. Even the ouroboros kwami, Sass, uses this method. It’s quite effective.”
Yrrep turned towards them with a glare, “I also don’t enjoy having an audience, don’t you two have better things to do?” She snapped at them.
“Oh, alright. I’ll go restock shelves then.” David replied, “Let me know when you’re done.”
“Ok, whatever man.” Yrrep responded as he walked out of the room.
David moved to his office and booted up his computer. He needed to print out a sheet that told him what books had been purchased in the past week, which would also tell him what he needed to restock. Most of the more difficult parts of running a bookstore David had automated with software, it was both cost and time effective. When the paper finished printing, he moved to the backroom with a cart to collect the needed books from storage.
— — —
Half an hour later, David was moving on to the last section of the store that needed restocking, the fiction section on the second floor. As he was pushing his cart of books into the small elevator in the corner of the store, Yrrep floated up to him.
“Oh hey, you done?” He asked.
“Do you have coffee?” The kwami asked intently.
“Ya, the machine was on the counter right next to you.” David made a gesture in the direction of the sink room.
“That thing was for coffee? You must show me how it works!.”
“Alright, let me just get these books upsta-” David began.
“NOW!” Yrrep shouted, cutting him off.
David blinked at the kwami. It had a look in his eye that he recognized as the look of an addict, the crazy kind on top of that. It scared him.
“Alright, I’ll make you a pot.” David left the book cart in the elevator and went to the sink room with the platypus kwami, “So, how do you like it?”
“Bitter and strong!” The kwami exclaimed, her bill curling up into a smile. David grabbed the coffee ground and poured in a generous amount, he didn’t have any black but he hoped regular would do. David himself hardly ever used the machine, he didn’t drink coffee, it was mainly for one of his part-time employees, Nathaniel, who seemed to be constantly fatigued. David thought that the coffee was probably the root cause of said fatigue, but who was he to judge a teenager’s life choices. He wasn’t the kid’s parent.
“It’ll take about 10 minutes to brew.” he told Yrrep. As he did, he looked down at the counter. The pieces of the platypus bracelet were laid out across the counter, likely to dry.
“That fast?” She asked, apparently surprised.
David nodded, “Half of functional society nowadays is reliant on coffee to get moving. If someone didn’t simplify the process, society would have collapsed.”
Yrrep’s eyes widened, “Really?”
“Nope, it's a hyperbole.” Hoott said as he floated into the room, holding a stack of papers in his hand. He flew over and handed the papers to David, “I finished ordering the needed books. I also took the liberty of ordering a few books from up-and-coming authors that I think have potential to sell.” Hoott explained as David read over the papers, which were the printed receipt for the purchase.
“This looks good to me.” He handed the papers back to Hoott. The kwami took them and flew out of the room once more, going to place the papers into the filing cabinet.
“You have Hoott working for you?” Yrrep asked, glaring at him.
David shrugged, “He just kind of started doing this, I didn’t ask him to.”
The platypus kwami raised a hand and opened her bill like she was about to say something else, but paused before saying anything. A second later a sigh escaped from her bill, “Ya, that is something Hoott would do.”
“Well, how about you? What do you do?” David asked.
“Huh? What?” The kwami replied.
“Your powers. Hoott is the kwami of knowledge, what about you? Are you the kwami of cleanliness? Coffee? Kwami of semi-aquatic, egg-laying mammals of action?”
“None of those. I’m the kwami of intelligence. With my power, you can increase the intellect of any animal you chose so that they can think in the same complex manners as humans, sometimes even better than humans can.”
“Ooooh, that's cool. So you can make a cat sentient?” He asked.
Yrrep’s face turned to confusion, “What? Cats are already- Sentience isn’t-” The kwami sighed, “Mother of creation, I need coffee.”
So apparently David didn’t know what sentient meant. He would look it up later.
“Alright, sorry. Different question. Say your power was used on a dog, could that now intelligent dog use human speech, or is he stuck barking?”
“My power doesn’t alter vocal cords, only intelligence. If the said dog would use my miraculous and transformed, then I could alter their barks into words humans can understand, but outside of that the best you’re getting is barks that vaguely sound like words.” Yrrep explained.
“Sick.” David said in response.
After that, the conversation died and the room fell silent as the coffee brewed. With no conversation to distract him, David drifted into his mind. He began to think about Yrrep’s power and what animal he should use it on. He didn’t have any pets and he doubted any of his friends wanted their animals to become intelligent. He could go to the zoo and hit an animal there, but giving a caged animal the intelligence to understand why they were caged sounded kind of morally reprehensible.
Then the thought came to him. What if he used the power on Batman, the cat in the alleyway. Batman was probably just a scared animal acting on instinct and hiding from creatures bigger than him. If he made the cat intelligent, David could explain to the cat that he meant no harm and only wanted to domesticate him. It was surely the easiest way to rehabilitate a cat and had no risk of going wrong.
As David was coming up with his brilliant plan, the coffee machine finished brewing. He turned around and took the pot of hot coffee out of the machine. “Alright, let me pour you a- Woah!” As David reached up for a cup, Yrrep flew over and snatched the coffee pot from his hand. He watched as the kwami lifted the pot to her bill and began to drink. He watched in shock and awe as this tiny platypus the size of his middle finger gulped down the entire pot of coffee.
“Wow, that hits the spot!” The kwami said with a satisfied sigh as it placed the now-empty pot onto the counter. Yrrep made eye contact with David and sighed, “Listen, man, I ran out of coffee 34 years ago and haven’t had a drop since. I needed this.”
“Hey, no judgment from me. You can make yourself another pot if you like. I have work to do. Bring me the bracelet once you’ve reassembled it.”
“Alright.” Yrrep responded, already opening back up the cabinet where he kept the coffee grounds.
David left the kwami to her addictions and went back to the book cart in the elevator. He had to open the store in 20 minutes so he would have to hurry to restock the upstairs shelves.
— — —
Around 2 pm, David went back to the sink room to check on Yrrep, who had yet to leave. He found the platypus bracelet reassembled on the counter and the kwami asleep next to the coffeepot. The container of coffee grounds was noticeably emptier, about a third of the grounds were missing. Yrrep had made and drank a ton of coffee.
David slipped the bracelet onto his wrist and took out the paper towels to wipe down the counter, which had quite a good amount of coffee grounds spilled on it. After that, he picked up the small platypus creature and carried her over to his office, where he placed her on one of the chairs with cushioned seats. He shut the office door behind him so that Yrrep could sleep uninterrupted.
David sat down behind the register counter and pulled out a book. He had finished his work for the day and was now just waiting for his part=time employees to come in and take over. As he turned the page, the bracelet on his wrist caught his eye.
It was not the same bracelet he had put on a couple minutes ago.
“What the f-” David shut the book and looked at the bracelet. The structure of it was similar to the platypus bracelet, the joints were still there but it looked quite different. Instead of brown platypus holding onto each other's tails, it was bronze-colored opened books linked together by their edges. Every alternating book had his name inscribed into the metal. Had the bracelet changed when he put it on? It was magic, he wouldn’t be too surprised.
He got up, setting the book onto the counter as he did so, and went to find Hoott. He found the kwami on top of the language shelves in the corner of the store. The language section had the highest shelves since David had wanted to minimize the floor space they took up as much as possible. These higher shelves allowed Hoott to sit on top of them without anyone looking at the language books seeing him. The kwami was reading a book that David had recommended to him, an American fantasy novel that hadn’t been translated to french yet so he couldn’t sell it to many people who came in. Luckily Hoott knew all the languages so he could finally recommend the book to someone. David was looking forward to gushing about the book with Hoott later.
“Hey Hoott, sorry to disturb you, but could you tell me what’s going on with this bracelet?” David said. He couldn’t actually see the kwami from where he stood next to the language books, but he could see the top of the book.
A second later, Hoott set the book down and floated down to him, “What do you mean?”
“It changed shape.” He explained, holding up the bracelet so Hoott could see.
“It’s in disguise mode, David.” Hoott said.
“Disguise mode?” David asked.
Hoott blinked at him, “Did I not explain this to you?
“I don’t believe you did, no.”
“When a miraculous is worn by a holder, it disguises itself so that others won’t recognize the miraculous as a miraculous. Its disguised appearance is chosen by reading the surface of the user’s soul and taking a form that they would enjoy.” Hoott explained. David took another look at the bracelet. It did seem like something he would wear. “I’m surprised you’re only asking this now since you’ve been wearing my miraculous for weeks.”
David shrugged. He had just never noticed. He didn’t look in mirrors too often so he had never noticed the disguised form of the earring. David took out his phone and turned on the camera to use as a mirror. He aimed the camera at the earring and took a picture.
The miraculous was no longer a brown and black feather hanging from a brown earring. How it was a white feather quill, like the kind people use to write with, hanging from a black earring. The tip of the feather was black as if it had been dipped in ink, it was pretty cool.
“Woah, that's cool.” David said.
“Indeed,” Hoott agreed, “Now if that is all, I will get back to reading.”
“You enjoying the book?”
“Very much.”
“Yes!” David did a fist pump in celebration. He loved it when people liked his book recommendations.
Hoott flew back up to the top of the bookshelf and David went back to the counter. With that question answered, he went back to reading his book.
— — —
That evening, after closing up the bookstore, David stood in the alleyway behind his apartment building. He saw Batman on the other end of the alleyway, clawing his way into a garbage bag. David had brought Yrrep with him. It was his first time taking a kwami outside the bookstore since Hoott insisted that David had to keep the kwami and the miraculous a secret, even from his roommate. He had promised Hoott that he would keep Yrrep hidden before he took her out of the bookstore.
“Alright David, to transform you say ‘Yrrep, make ripples’ and to detransform you say ‘ripples fade.’ To activate my power, you say ‘Brain boost’ and hold out your hand. A ball of energy will gather in your hand and you have to throw it at your target, don't worry too much about your aim since it homes in on your target.” Yrrep explained, “And I expect more coffee after this.”
“Make as much as you like.” David told the kwami, “Yrrep, make ripples!” After saying this, Yrrep turned into a small mass of light and shot into the miraculous. Then, David was enveloped in a bright flash of light. After that light faded, he was transformed. Suddenly, it occurred to him that, despite having worn a miraculous for a couple weeks now, this was the first time he was actually using one. It felt pretty cool.
He looked down at himself. He was wearing a brown suit with a white dress shirt underneath. He had a teal tie on, black webbed gloves, and black boots. Touching his face revealed he had a mask on, probably brown although he couldn’t see it since it was on his face. His hair was tied back behind him and fell between his shoulder blades and he had on a brown fedora. He felt like some sort of secret agent.
David looked back down the alley. Batman had stopped digging into the trash bag and was now glaring at him, his posture readied for a fight and his tail sticking straight up. David held out his hand. “Brain boost.” He called, causing a teal light to converge into the palm of his hand and form a small sphere of energy.
He pulled back his arm to prepare to throw the ball, Batman watching him the entire time. “Get ready Batman, you’re about to get a whole lot smarter and then you’re going to want to be my pet!” David proclaimed before throwing the ball of energy at the black cat. The cat tried to dodge out of the way by jumping off the garbage bag it was sitting on, but the ball adjusted its course as he moved. The ball hit Batman directly in the forehead and sunk into his head.
David watched as the black cat’s expression went limp. He stopped hissing, his tail fell back downward, the pupil of its one eye dilated, and his body flopped into a sitting position on the ground. Good, it had worked. David walked over to the cat, who didn’t move its head to watch him as he approached, instead continuing to stare at a wall. That was odd.
As David reached out to touch the cat’s head, the stray seemed to almost snap back into focus. Its pupil turned to a black line once again, its fur shot up, its tail stuck straight up, and a hiss exited its mouth. The cat also tried to bite him, but the gloves on his hand prevented any pain from getting through. A second later, the cat dashed away and hid under the nearest dumpster.
“Well, dang. Ripples fade.” Another flash of light later and David was back into his normal clothes. Yrrep flew out of the bracelet and flopped into David’s open hand.
“Wow, that was way more exhausting than I remembered.” The kwami said.
“Alright, let’s get you inside and feed you some food and coffee.” David said, he placed Yrrep into his jacket pocket and left the alleyway. He brought the tired kwami back to the counter in the break room. and gave her some crackers to eat while he turned on the coffee machine.
“Hey Yrrep, the magic didn’t seem to do much.” David said as he closed the lid on the machine and pressed start, “The cat was still hissing and running away after it got hit.”
“That's normal. Animals generally need some time to get used to their new intelligence before they can begin to have rational thoughts. It’s a strange feeling to suddenly gain levels of intellect you didn’t have before, it's very disorientating. Give the cat a bit of time to adjust.” Yrrep explained.
“Oh I see, I’ll give it a bit of time then.” David agreed.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
The cat had not had a very good life.
Born to a single mama cat in an alleyway behind a restaurant, a single girl cat with 5 brothers. While the kittens nursed, Mama had eaten from the ample food waste from the restaurant and the occasional mouse. The cat had always had to fight with her 5 brothers to get milk from Mama. The alley had been dirty and smelled awful, but the cat had felt safe with her family.
However, everything changed when the human dressed in red and black pots arrived. The strange human stole the cat’s family away from her, picking up Mama and her 5 brothers before running away. The small cat was only left behind because she had been hiding under a dumpster at the time. She never saw her family again.
She didn’t manage to stay in the alley for long after that. A larger brown cat moved into the alley. The young cat tried to fight off the intruder but only ended up losing an eye for her troubles. After that, the cat bounced around Paris looking for a new home. Every alley seemed occupied either by another cat, a dog, or a dirty human.
Eventually, the cat found an uninhabited alley. It was a cleaner alley than what she had lived in before, which also meant less food, but at least it was safe. Occasionally, a large human would even come by and give her some food. While she didn’t like humans, she appreciated the food.
And then the strange man in brown had appeared.
The cat had been digging for food when he approached and she may not have noticed him if not for the flash of light that he sent out when he arrived.
He wore something over his eyes, just like the red girl who had stolen her family. She didn’t trust him. She was ready to fight. She wasn’t going to leave this alleyway no matter what this man did. This was her territory and she would defend it with her life.
And then the man had thrown something at her.
When the thing hit her, the cat blacked out for a few seconds. When she woke up, the man was closer, so she had fled. She watched the strange man from under the dumpster as the man in brown turned into the same man who had been giving her food.
Damn humans. Just leave me be. The cat thought as the man left.
Over the next few days, the cat realized that there was something different about her. There was something more to her than there was before. She was more aware of things going on around her, and the things in her past. The cat began to think about her life, and how she got to where she was now.
She realized that both the human wearing red and the human wearing brown were abnormal for humans. They wore things on their face, other humans did not. The thing the man in brown had thrown at her must have changed her in some way, changed how her head worked. The man in brown had also made the mask, and his brown clothing, vanish, making him once again look like a normal human,
The cat had also realized her hatred for the human dressed in red and spots. She wanted to hurt that human who took her family from her and caused her all the pain in her life. The cat wanted that human to feel the same pain that she had. The cat wanted revenge.
She also realized that in order to get that revenge, the cat would need a mask as well. She would need a mask and the power it brought with it.
And she figured that getting close to the man who fed her was a good way to get one.