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“Do you see that dog over there? It’s humping a pole…”
“Really, in all honesty, there should be a new pythagorean theorem…”
“Of all the hills for you to die on, we’re really going to end up doing this whole debacle over chapstick quality?...”
Jesus Christ.
“It’s an old fortune-teller story, too…”
“And another internet search would’ve told you that…”
“Would we be able to enter the pharmacy before going home? I think I forgot to…”
Holy shit.
She’s about quarter of the way groaning into her hands, pinching her eyes shut, desperate to work out a plan to avoid an incoming migraine. To her benefit, at least, it seems that Multimouse is having the same issue— long, painful sweeps of the heel of her palms into her eyesockets to wipe away stress, a dumb little tic that Lady Noire is helpless to mirror herself, makes those gentle lines on Multimouse’s face grow so severe.
“Can you focus?” Multimouse asks. Though it sounds like it should be snapped at her or even barked at— the intonation feels off— Multimouse seems almost… helpless. The question comes out soft, not snappy; it’s gentle, too, like she’s actually worried about her unprecedented ally, and not at all irritated and anxious like Lady Noire feels.
She’s whispering. Meekly. A suggestion of noise.
But even this is just so painful.
“Not really,” Lady Noire responds with a whisper herself. Though frustration leaks through her spine and carries through the length of her tail downwards into a wide sweep, she doesn’t feel the need to lash out at Multimouse for being so quiet. It’s for both of their benefit. Her ears are burning, fizzling into some sort of white noise that makes her feel numb. “You?” Noire pants out. “Feeling good? Feeling okay?”
“Could be better,” Multimouse admits, but a smile small enough to suggest otherwise bleeds onto the corner of her lips.
“Do you hear our voices, too?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“What is this?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like us… yelling? Babbling?”
Yeah. She’d noticed that, too. But then again, it would’ve been stupid of her to not take note of it, considering that Multimouse did. “Yeah.”
“But they’re loud,” Multimouse tacks on, nodding to herself. “I don’t think that’s normal for either of us. We’re speaking at normal volumes from so far away but the two of us can hear it like they’re screams.”
Conversations from kilometers away are right next to her ears. Though she keeps turning to catch the sight of herself passing by, Lady Noire is always shocked when she looks over her shoulder and finds an empty street. A symphony of conversation on this barren sidewalk leads her to insanity.
Fuck. What do they do? “Should we risk detransforming? Since it’s the suits that are giving us the super-hearing in the first place?”
“And have two of us running around in a universe we don’t know about?”
“There’s already so many of us.”
“Sure. But luck”—that side-eye that she gives makes Noire’s heart drop—“would dictate that we could be in a universe where the only person we meet will be… dangerous.”
“Maybe you’re thinking too hard about this.”
“Movies about alternate universes exist in your world, don’t they? You meet your superhero self that’s super competent, super friendly and super kind, and you’re always lured to a false sense of security just for them to snatch up the main character’s super powers.”
“They’re movies.”
“They hold some kind of truth to them. The moral always is: ‘don’t get complacent’.”
It seems that this version of her has this nervous tic whenever she’s anxious. Though her fingers are covered by hexleather, she still flicks at her nails over and over. It makes no noise. All it does is blur in the way Noire blurs her fingers when twirling her baton, so reminiscent, so her, that if her ears weren’t so aggravated, it would be making her seethe.
Looking at Multimouse is like looking at a mirror.
A funhouse mirror.
Her hair is more blue in this version, not quite actually black, and Noire chalks it up to the Miraculous giving her hair a different tint. It’s a… choice, though she’s not one to talk considering she herself decided to change her eyes to a different color when in the suit as well. With blue hair replacing what should be black, it’s not a surprise that the braid is gone too. Multimouse sports her hair in a niújiǎotóu style, similar to what she used to wear when she was little and her mom would dress her up for family gatherings. Childlike. Friendly. Approachable. The green ribbon that Adrien had given her is nowhere to be found on Multimouse, with the double buns wrapped with a dark pink ribbon instead.
She has no fangs.
Every time Multimouse grimaces, flat teeth show underneath pink lips. It makes Noire antsy, seeing someone who’s her but not have the same tics but not exactly.
Multimouse is just… small. Instead of brash, there seems to be thought in her actions that is so much more approachable. With Noire, anyone can reason that her actions are calculated and thought-through to be as efficient and deadly as possible, but with Multimouse, she just exudes gentle reproach. Friendly. Approachable. There’s no doubt in Noire’s mind that this version of herself is a popular one.
Looking at Multimouse is like looking at a mirror.
A perfect, best-version, idealistic reflection.
How she desperately wants to shatter it.
“Are you serious?” Her smile gets a bit dark when Multimouse nods to herself. “Sure. That’s fine. But I guarantee they don’t want a Mouse Miraculous.”
That crease between her grey mask gets darker. “Sure,” she replies, in the same intonation and the same inflection as Noire’s. “But then that means that they’ll want yours, since you’re a part of the matched set.”
“‘Matched set’?”
“Your Miraculous and the Ladybug are the highest-ranking. ‘Top dogs’, if you will.”
“Actually, I’m a cat, thank you very much.”
“Now you’re picking a fight for no reason,” Multimouse tries for a laugh, though still weak. “Come on. Let’s try to get out of public and have this conversation where there are walls.”
Neither of them bring up the voices again.
The two of them end up finally cracking, arguing with one another right in front of a third.
Her name is Ladybug, with two long pigtails tied with red ribbons with a no-nonsense attitude that makes irritation crawl down Lady Noire’s spine like ants after she comes up with a plan to help them go back home. Of course there’s a Ladybug. Of course there’s a Ladybug. It seems that Lady Noire is the only Marinette in existence to be the only failed one.
Looks like Ladybug’s uncle trusted her enough with Tikki, though that seasoned expression in her eyes tells her that maybe Master Fu didn’t have much of a choice.
What a joke.
But she’s not the only one who’s frustrated, hysteric or even anguished at the idea. Multimouse looks just as much out of her element, though in a way that Noire really can’t quite place, something shocked stamped onto her features. She looks slapped, looking between Ladybug and Lady Noire, stimming with her blurry fingersnaps… and though inadequacy stains those blue eyes of hers, it’s nowhere near the irritation that Lady Noire feels being in the presence of a Ladybug who shows off her Miraculous with pride.
Fuck. Fuck.
Her gums are humming with anticipation to bite through flesh and hexleather. Pristine windows suffer from the onslaught of Lady Noire’s miasma, with spiderweb cracks perforating the surface like she’s physically scoring it all with her hexsteel claws. It’ll only get worse the more Lady Noire stands here with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed into points at the docile and darling and beloved Multimouse.
“Noire, we need to do this right,” Multimouse huffs out. Battle plans scattered across Ladybug’s desk like they’re trying to win a war; there are little wooden pegs on an open metro-map of Paris, where Ladybug and Multimouse have spent the past three hours attempting to piece together something that satisfies their incessant itch to have everything in its place.
“No,” Noire bites out, helpless to the way her lips peel back to show fangs. “We need to do this right now.”
“Not all of us can just jump into action like you,” Multimouse snaps back. Fingerless gloves fisted as she leans over the table, desperate for a fight. “Not all of us can be as careless as you.”
“Careless, huh?”
Ladybug looks up to the both of them. “Settle down, both of you.”
This is exactly what Ladybug had described. This universe feeds on negative thoughts until they’re swirling. Pulling down each other, every iteration of Marinette tears each other down into the trenches until every Marinette that comes across this universe is stuck forever and ever.
How long has this Ladybug been here? How many Marinettes has this Ladybug seen, trying to get out of here, before succumbing to blind rage?
It’s a miracle that Lady Noire herself hasn’t gone ballistic yet. Getting close. There’s TV static crawling up her arms. Unfortunately for her, she’s already had her fair share of true, destructive rage that had her sobbing and tearing her own suit apart stitch by stitch. Grabbing for Mister Bug and begging for reprieve. Everything turning white right before her very eyes.
Her suit staying black and green is such a good sign.
Her tail swings hard from left to right. That hexsteel tip cracks against the floor in a way that leaves a permanent dent on the wood, just to ease her bloodlust. “No. Go on, Mousey. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“You need to control your temper,” Multimouse replies. “You’re not the only Marinette who’s suffering the effects of this universe, but at least I know how to handle it. Pay attention to our plans so we can get out of this place faster!”
“We don’t have time for these careful details you two are insistent over. If we don’t do something right fucking now, we’ll be stuck here forever.”
“Well, if you caramelize everything up then the situation will get even worse! Stop making everything worse, Lady Noire!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about when I told you to tell me what’s on your mind, and you know it.” She has half a mind to throw the table out of the way; smash it against Ladybug’s closet door frame and let these stupid little clothes pins scatter just to see if Multimouse’s eyes will blow open. Will she keep staring at her with that frown if they actually start getting physical? “You have something against me personally? Speak up.”
With the courage Noire didn’t imagine her having, Multimouse slams her hands back on the table, loud enough to cause Noire to instinctively jerk back in surprise. Irritation and anguish written all over her face, she’s tense enough to actually throw the first punch. “How could you have the nerve to get yourself Akumatized, knowing that your Miraculous is so sensitive? Is so dangerous, being in the wrong hands? And you let yourself get Akumatized?”
The fact that Multimouse knows this without her saying anything is irrelevant. “That’s what’s pissing you off?”
“I can’t believe you,” she gasps out. “You’re not even denying it. You have nothing to say?”
“Oh, I do. I just don’t have to answer to you.”
“I may not be the owner of one of the most important Miraculouses, but at least I know I wouldn’t be as stupid as you to let myself get Akumatized.”
“We get that you’re perfect, Mousey—”
“—Don’t call me that!—”
“—But you want to know a secret? Something that you’re never told until it’s too late?” She will never forget that tenseness that settles on Multimouse’s shoulders when she leans over the table. Hexsteel claws digging into the table, piercing the lacquered marbling. “You never know just how much pain and anguish you have to feel in order to get Akumatized in a Miraculous suit. Don’t you dare pretend like it was my own fault. You will never know what horrors I’ve gone through keeping this Miraculous safe, but then again, it’s hard to be as perfect and adored as you.”
“Enough, both of you!” Ladybug yells. Peeling them apart from one another with arms pressed against their chests, Ladybug allbut pushes them away from each other with a frown. “The more you two stay here, the more aggressive you both will be with each other; inevitably you both will end up succumbing to this universe and stay here permanently. You have lives back home. Loved ones. People who care about you and want you back home, and this universe forces you to forget about them. Neither of you have time to argue about this!”
“Stay out of this,” Lady Noire snaps. “Leave me alone, Ladybug. Showing off what should’ve been mine if our uncle hadn’t decided to ruin my life with this stupid Miraculous—”
“—Luka,” Ladybug tries, pleading, standing up from her chair. Something punches through Lady Noire at that name. “Viperion,” Ladybug says, desperation crackling at the edges of her voice. “Viperion. You’re forgetting about Viperion. Please… please don’t forget about the people who love you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Blinking makes Lady Noire focus again.
Anger starts receding. With every breath, her fingers loosen up, following the rest of the arm. Elbows slack; shoulders rest in their natural position; her fangs don’t ache to tear through flesh. That wild, animalistic feeling loses its grip of her entirely when she sucks in a breath down to the stomach. Isn’t that something he’d taught her?
“You’re right,” Multimouse gasps. Something panicked blurs right on her face, hidden with the way she clasps her hands over her mouth to hide her stricken face. “Gooseberries… what am I doing? I’m… I’m so sorry, Noire. Holy… oh sugarsnaps. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Viperion…?” Noire murmurs.
“You have a chance to go back to people who love you,” Ladybug whispers. “A chance to leave this place. Please, take it. Don’t stay. Don’t stay any longer than you have to. Escape before it’s too late.” Trepidation etched onto her face aside, she doesn’t struggle when reaching for Noire’s braid to spin the tassel ribbon between her fingers. “You have someone waiting for you back home.”
She’s exhausted. The Black Cat Miraculous always takes too much energy to keep stabile, and she’d nearly lost it all for a reason she can’t even place. Why was she so upset at Multimouse? Those wide, fearful eyes? That’s herself. That’s herself. Scared, worried, fearful about not going home. Noire just wants to cry at what she’s done. “What… is this place?”
“It’s hell,” Ladybug muses, though the humor doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Our own hell. The good news is, neither of you will stay here for much longer. I promise.”