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“ I guess…this is it then.” Ladybug breathed out, barely able to do anything else. She had been lying here, in this cold and wet alley for the past 2 minutes, supporting her back on the concrete wall of a familiar building. Her eyes looking across the street met her parent’s bakery. She was unable to move, the wound on her lower abdomen too great.
The latest akuma had been so much stronger than the usual. Hawkmoth probably found out somehow that Chat Noir was out of town and sent a champion in her way. The Constructor. The worst of them all. He didn’t have a sword like Darkblade or a perfume gun like Princess Fragrance, no, he held a nail gun. Heh...nail gun. That was an understatement. The size of that thing was triple the normal size. Who knew what his deal was? She didn’t bother to find out. She couldn’t. She had been impaled mere seconds before she broke that cursed object. Why… why did it have to be the protection helmet instead of the gun? She could have been saved the pain.. maybe…possibly….she hoped.
Maybe Chat could have prevented this. No, if it was him, he would have jumped right in front of her. That silly kitten. Her silly kitten. She knew he would wait for her to show up day and night but he would never know what happened to her. He would be so heartbroken when he realizes she won’t ever show up.
“He won’t know. He won’t know!” she exclaimed tears pooling her pale cheeks. She sniffed and hiccupped uncontrollably. No one would find her here. Not with this rainy weather, not this night.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She thought. Whom she had apologized, she didn’t know. Was it her parents? Her friends? Tikki? Chat Noir? Paris itself?
She heard 3 beeps. ‘Ahhh’. She will revert back soon. She knew Tikki was the one that kept her alive so far. The miraculous were such powerful items but there was only so much even magic can do. But somehow, she was content with the life she led. She wasn’t a top grade student, but she did nicely. She wasn’t an overpowered hero but she liked to think she did pretty well. She did not learn what true romance is but even so Marinette did know what true friendship was.
Alya would cry. She knew. It was ok, Nino would be by her side. And Adrien… well, she didn’t know what he would do. He would be sad. He would lose a friend. For this only she didn’t regret never telling him about her love for him. He would be spared the extra suffering.
The ones she really worried were her parents. They would be devastated. They would break down in front of the cop who would bring the news. They would never know why she died. She didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing, really. For a parent, their child would remain dead no matter what the reason for the decease was. She couldn’t avoid it. She wished she did.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
‘One minute left’ she thought. She looked down and suddenly closed her eyes. She shouldn’t have looked. She didn’t want to go with that image in her head.
What she saw was her own blood, or what she presumed it was blood. It was black and pooling out of her, reaching the ground and mixing with the wet dirt, making it look as if the whole area was stained with her blood. It was the darkness. The darkness did that.
She breathed in, hard. Exhaled slow. And again. She was slowly loosing conscience.
She thought she heard a noise, but she was too tired, too spent to do anything else except breathing. It was probably an alley cat. No sane person would be here at this hour, on this weather.
‘ Focus on breathing’ she told herself. And breathing she did.
As the last beeps started to announce her inevitable detransformation, Marinette was prepared to finally feel the true extent of pain of her damage. Tikki, bless her kind heart, managed to make the pain bearable for her, but now… now it was all up to Marinette to face it’s full extent.
With a high pitched scream she dropped down, now completely lying in the mud, breathing fast, in short breaths. Her body convulsed and …
“-yLady!!” a familiar voice said.
“Marinette!!” was the last thing she registered before succumbing into darkness.
_______________
She was Ladybug again.
She swung through the city again, feeling the cold breeze rush trough her whole body. She was free like the wind and uncaring about possible accidents. She was the symbol of confidence. She was Ladybug. But even more than being Ladybug, she was Chat Noir’s partner. She knew that no matter what, he will be there to catch her falls.
She looked to her side only to see what she expected. Her Chat, running on all fours, looking at her and holding up a wide grin so specific to him. She knows that grin. She could draw that grin from memory at any time of the day. She sees that grin in every one of her dreams.
Beep!
Ladybug frowned. She didn’t use her Lucky charm, so she shouldn’t detransform.
She stopped and looked at Chat. His paw prints were all there. It wasn’t him either.
She must have imagined it.
“Is something the matter?” Chat asked “You looked pawsitevely happy just a minute ago.”
“Ugh. I was just fine until you said that awful pun” she rolled her eyes playfully.
It was a game of theirs. He would say a bad pun, she would roll her eyes exasperated. They both knew that she didn’t really mind his puns.
Beep!
“ You heard that?!” she asked.
“ Hear what milady?” he replied confused.
“ The beeping.” She answered while straining her ears to catch the sound again.
“Milady. The only beeping I ever hear is my heart calling for yours.” He answered smoothly.
“ Stop it for a moment with the lame pick up lines and listen! There’s something wrong.”
Beep!
“ There it is again! You must have heard it now!” she said turning around but finding an empty spot in the place Chat once was.
“Chat..?” she asked uncertain, looking around for her missing partner.
“Chat! This ain’t funny! Come out! There’s something going on and I don’t like it!” she yelled looking everywhere but only just now she noticed what was wrong. Her city. It was quiet. No cars, no people, not even insects. It was so empty…so quiet.
Beep!
‘That damn sound!’ it drove her nuts.
She started running without any destination in mind. She searched and searched trying to find someone, anyone in that dead city.
Somehow she arrived across the street from her house. It was night again.
“When did it get so dark? And why is it raining?” she asked herself. She was unable to approach her home for some reason. She was confused. Her legs were still as a block of concrete. She felt so helpless, so unlike the time when she swung around the city. It was unnerving how a moment you are free as a bird and the next you are blocked by your own body.
Beep!
“That beep is-“was all she managed to say when something interrupted her thoughts.
A rustling sound was heard behind her and she immediately turned to look.
The first thing she saw was a dumpster, but more importantly on the dumpster there laid a pitch black cat with vibrant green eyes. It looked at her so profoundly; she swore the cat looked straight into her soul.
Marinette tried approaching; forgetting everything about her unmoving legs, but the cat got up and lazily started moving toward the deeper part of the alley.
As she tried approaching, the feline somehow always got ahead of her.
All of a sudden the cat stopped and looked back. She tried to pick it up but something caught her eye.
Before her eyes laid her alter ego, Ladybug. All bloodied up and ragged, hardly breathing was her own body.
Beep!
Her world stopped. Suddenly she wasn’t standing up like before. No. She was back there again- Lying on the ground, her back supported by the building, breathing hard, trying to be alive when her earrings announced her doom. Once again she started falling down preparing to feel the excruciating pain of having a hole in her body. Everything was so quiet, soundless. She saw herself falling with an agonizing slowness, waiting for the impact with the ground.
The moment she touched the ground was the moment everything changed.
Like a wave of pure force, the ground shook in a powerful earthquake. Her world shook so hard changing her reality permanently.
She woke up with a yelp, startled, in a foreign room and feeling very heavy and weak.
She looked around frantically for something, anything that looked remotely familiar: a heart rate monitor, vase of flowers….’ A hospital’. She was in a hospital, in the ICU. She survived.
The first thing she saw that calmed her down was a pair of green eyes, she would recognize anywhere. After all, whose eyes shone neon green in pitch black darkness?
She smiled.
“Hi, kitten.”