Chapter Text
The carpet looked puke green in the darkness. That was Kokichi's first thought as he shimmied through the window and landed softly on the floor. His second thought was that it was also ugly. The walls looked like they were a rotten yellow and even in the daylight he couldn't imagine it being anything but ugly. "Money is wasted on the rich," he muttered to himself.
"How does it look in there?" one of his minions questioned, the voice coming quietly from his earpiece.
"Hideous," Kokichi replied as he stood up and looked around. "And are you whispering, Mist?"
"I've never been on comms before, I didn't want to get you caught," Mist replied in a rushed whispered. Kokichi couldn't help snickering at his panic. "Chill out. You can talk normally, just try not to yell."
"O-okay," he replied. Kokichi could practically see his nervous minion fidgeting in his chair. The mental image actually put him at ease. Someone needed to lead around here and it might as well be him.
"You worry too much, Mist. How are the others doing?"
"Team 1 is at the back door, Team 2 is on the west side and..." There was a pause before Mist sighed. "Team 3 is going through the front door."
Kokichi rolled his eyes at the reckless behavior, but he was completely unsurprised. "Just make sure those idiots don't get caught and give us the warning if it looks like anyone is coming."
"You got it, boss."
The line went quiet. Kokichi looked up and down the hall, trying to orient himself to the map in his head before picking a direction to walk in. He tilted the paintings on the wall as he passed him and lifted a bust off its pedestal at the end of the hall before putting it on the floor. He made his way through the rooms he thought would be empty first. A guest room with nothing interesting, a bathroom where he nicked a few bottles of cold medicine and hid the remaining pill bottles under the sink, another guest room. Pretty boring so far, he hoped the others found more interesting things.
Then he got to the study, which was interesting. There were a few jewelry pieces on the table that Kokchi swept onto the table, along with an open book that had matching pictures of the jewels. Might as well keep them together, never knew what you might find. He opened the drawers where he found a few more things to stuff into his bag, costume jewelry and gaudy things all mixed together for some reason. Kokichi didn't question it, just gathered up what he could for later. Once that was done, he made his way to the main bedroom.
It was thankfully empty and Kokichi let out a breath of relief as he began to ransake the room. He pulled cash out of a wallet and out of draws, stuffed a jewelry box into his bag, a handful of expensive watches, and took all the paintings off the wall looking for anything that might be hidden. There were no safes in the wall and digging through the closet only netted him a box of old pictures. Useless. He moved the box under the bed and put all the pictures back on the wall upside down. He took everything else out of the wallet and stuffed it under the mattress. His bag was pretty heavy at this point, so he figured it was time to go.
"I'm about done here," he said into his earpiece. "Is everyone ready to go?"
"I'll tell them to hurry it up, boss," Mist answered.
"Good." Kokichi made his way back to the window before hearing footsteps coming down the hall and changing his route to slip into the bathroom. He locked the door quickly behind him. "Uh oh, looks like whoever was here is up and about. They'll probably sound the alarm soon, so tell everyone to get out, now!"
"Got it!" Mist exclaimed nervously.
The window was smaller here than the one in the hall, but there was less chance of getting caught here than there was out there, so he simply sighed and pulled a hamper over to the window. He had already climbed onto it and shoved his bag out of the window by the time he heard the alarm going off. He hurried to pull himself through the small opening and rolled as he hit the ground. "Ow. Not the most graceful exit I've ever had."
"Are you okay?" Mist asked. He was whispering again, the nervousness back in his voice.
"Yeah, I'm good," Kokichi said as he swung his bag onto his back and broke into a sprint. "You don't have to whisper, Mist."
"I know." He sounded like he would cry.
"Keep it together, Mist, we're at the home stretch."
"I am!" He definitely wasn't, but that was okay. There was a reason Mist was on comms instead of inside like the rest of them.
An alarm started blaring from the house. They'd probably noticed all the redecorating he'd done. He snickered at the thought, hauling himself over the fence that surrounded the property. The van was parked half a block away from the house and he could see Bishop hauling Brush, as well as Fury and Joy running toward the bus as well. Joy waved at him and he waved back. He could see the bright smile on her face beneath her mask which only covered the top half of her face. Fury's mask covered her whole face, but the angry expression on it probably conveyed her feelings well enough.
The door to the passenger seat popped open and Kokichi swung his bag off his back before throwing himself into it. He pulled the door closed and looked at Lantern in the driver's seat. "Gun it!"
"Can Joy and Fury get all the way in first?" Lantern asked with a put upon sigh.
"Gun it!" He repeated insistently.
Lantern sighed, eyes flicking up to the mirror so he could check on their members in the back before finally following Kokichi's orders and pulling off.
"Whoa!" Joy cried as she fell to the floor, Bishop reaching over her to pull the doors closed. "Trying to lose me, boss?"
"I keep trying, but it just doesn't stick," he said with a sigh, sinking into his seat.
Joy pushed herself up and crawled over the others, raising a chorus of objections, until she could hang off the back of his seat. "No way! You love me. Say that you love me!"
Kokichi pointed to his mouth and made a gagging noise. "Gross. No love for minions. You work for peanuts and you're happy about it."
"I hate peanuts," she said with a pout.
He shrugged. "It's none of my business what you do with them."
Brush grabbed her hand and pulled her into Bishop's lap. He couldn't tell whether that was an accidental landing or a planned one, but either way Joy pouted and leaned back against him. Bishop was large and very comfortable to lay on, so Kokichi didn't blame her. "Now, now, settle down," Brush said. "You can jump our boss later."
"Hey!" he cried, turning around fully in his seat so that he could point at her. "That's mutiny."
"Nya ha ha!"
"I ought to have you thrown in the brig!"
"Oh ho! Boss wants to have me all to himself? How divine!"
Kokichi sighed. Arguing with Brush was like yelling at a brick wall sometimes. It was fun when he did it, but when she did it, it was definitely unfair. The two of them never knew when to back down and after they had played chicken with each other until they'd ended up kissing, Kokichi had decided it was better not to push against her too far. At least, now that he had a girlfriend. You can only explain that you made out with your second in command because of an argument so many times before people started to question it and Kokichi was trying not to get to whatever threshold that was.
"So where to, Boss?" Lantern asked. "Base or Home?"
Kokichi hummed loudly as he thought, leaning back in his chair. He very much wanted to go over the spoils tonight, but whenever he was with Dice after a mission they went from inventory to party before he knew it and then he ended up staying out until morning. Kaede would definitely have something to say to him if he stayed out until morning. Worse, she might mention it to her lame friends and that could end up causing problems in the future.
With a dramatic sight, Kokichi commanded, "Home. No one touches anything until Trigger does inventory."
There were immediate objections and cries of disappointment. Mostly from Fury and Joy, but he thought he might have heard Mist make some disappointed grumbles as well.
"Silence minions!" They quieted down quickly and he smiled at the obedience. "Trigger does inventory and the rest of you sleep. That's an order. I'll be back in the morning."
"Yes, sir," they all agreed in unison. It was a bit tired or reluctant from some, but it was a uniform agreement. "Good. Lantern, you're in charge."
Latern's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Boss, I don't know that Brush will agree to that."
Kokichi took off his mask to smile deviously at him. "you're the one that keeps saying that you should be second in command. Now's your chance to prove it!"
Kokichi could practically see him sweating. Lantern wanted to be in control, but when it came to Brush, he had a hard time running over her like he did with some of the others. Kokichi thought it was funny and a good exercise in reminding him why he didn't have nearly the amount of power he kept trying to reach for without Kokichi needing to spell it out for him. "I, um, I'll do my best, Boss."
"See that you do," Kokichi told him.
The rest of the ride was quieter, but not quiet. It was rarely quiet for long in his little group, even now when only half their members were present.
Dice headquarters was a building on the outskirts of the city. It was an abandoned building when they had found it and from the outside it still looked the part, the inside however, had been cleaned and furnished over the years until it made a suitable evil lair. It was inconspicuous and easily ignored, which had served them well over the years.
"I'm home!" Kokichi called as he kicked the door open first thing in the morning.
Trigger was laid out on the table in the middle of the room, pink hair spilling out over the papers on the desk, legs kicked in the air, with an array of pens and markers spread out around her. She waved lazily at him without lifting her head from where it was resting on her arms. "Hey, Kiki."
He frowned as he looked at her, but this wasn't an unusual sight. Trigger liked to lounge, liked to draw, was lazy, didn't mind a mess, and was the person most likely to serve as secretary when needed. Seeing books or papers piled around her was a pretty normal occurrence and Kokichi was pretty sure she would bury herself in a mountain of paper if she wasn't stopped. "Did you sleep here?"
"Did you want inventory done?" she countered.
Kokichi looked over the table again, trying to read what was on the loose papers and open notebooks that were covered by her hair or body. He pulled the corner of one from under her arm until he could pick it up. "Was this mine?"
"No." She flipped her hair to the other side, the strands wavy and naturally framing her face. "Well, kinda. It was in your bag, but I copied it. You found something cool."
"So cool that you decided to copy the entire book?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, looking up from the pages at her.
Trigger shrugged. "It's pretty cool and everyone's going to want to see it and get their gross hands all over it and probably tear it." She rolled her eyes. As messy as she was, she hated the idea of things being torn or smudged, and no matter what else Kokichi might say about her, none of the papers that ended up beneath her sprawl were ever so much as wrinkled. She seemed careless most of the time, but she was actually quite meticulous when she wanted to be. "Well, if you want to show them, that is."
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking back down at the book. There were a lot of drawings, some of people in costumes, some that he recognized as the jewelry he stole last night, and others that didn't look familiar at all. There was text at the bottoms of the pages or point to things in particular in a different language, but Trigger had helpfully provided translations. She had done a lot of traveling with her family and had a knack for languages, which had come in handy many times. Though no matter how many of them he learned or what he got her to teach them, she still managed to find one secret enough to write in when she didn't want them to know something. "Why do these look like heroes?"
"Because as far as I can tell, they are," she told him. "Seems like you lucked out and managed to steal magic items."
"Bullshit," he said immediately.
She smiled, reaching into his bag under the table and pulling out a ring, which she tossed to him. "They're called Miraculous, apparently. Put it on."
"What does it do?" he asked, holding up the black ring with a green paw print on the front, studying it from every side. It looked completely ordinary to him.
Trigger shrugged. "Break stuff, mostly."
Kokichi grinned at her as he slipped the ring onto his finger. "I'm in."
The ring flashed, changing into a plain silver band on his finger. Then a light flashed from it and a weird black thing emerged. It was vaguely cat shaped, but in a stuffed charm sort of way, with a large head and big eyes. "Aww, man, I've been asleep for way too long. Got any cheese?"
"See," Trigger said. "Magic."
"Huh," Kokichi hummed in agreement. "And you said they're called Miraculous?"
"Don't ignore me," the thing said. "I'm starving over here! I could keel over at any moment."
"Dramatic," Kokichi said with a smile. "I like it. Minion, fetch the cheese!"
"What if we don't have any cheese?" she asked.
"The store does."
"I am not going to the store to buy cheese for a magic cat," she replied.
"Well someone has to and who's the boss around here?" Kokichi questioned.
Trigger huffed before pushing herself off the table, grumbling as she went toward the kitchen.
"So what are you?" Kokichi asked, reaching out to grab the cat, but it flew around his hand.
"Hey, don't be grabby," it said. "The name's Plagg and I'm a kwami. A sort of guardian spirit for the ring, you could say." The cat flew up to his face, inspecting him and avoiding Kokichi's attempts to grab him. "And what are you? Some kind of hotshot?"
"You could say that," Kokichi answered.
"Do you call all of your friends minions or just really useful ones?" Plagg asked.
"Yes," he answered.
Plagg studied him more before shrugging. "Whatever, just get me my cheese and we can get this show on the road."
"What show?" Kokichi asked.
"She said it already, didn't she?" Plagg asked with a bored drawl. "I'm magic! So are we gonna tear up the town or aren't we?"
"Absolutely," he answered. "So what do you do and how do you do it?"
"Cheese first," Plagg demanded. "Questions can come after. I'm skin and bones over here."
"You look fine to me."
"And you look like a heartless bastard to deprive me of my one and only food source," Plagg said, flopping on his back on the table like he was dying.
"Is that true?"
"Won't know until you feed me."
On cue, a pack of Kraft singles hit the side of Kokichi's head. "Ow! Hey!" he cried out.
"We have cheese!" Trigger yelled from the kitchen doorway.
"Gee, thanks." Kokichi rubbed his head as he placed the cheese on the table.
"Ugh, really? This awful processed mess is all you have to offer me?" Plagg complained. "You just can't get good service nowadays."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Kokichi told him
"You'll find that I can be very choosy," Plagg replied. "Buuut, I guess this will do for now. But only because I'm starving. Next time you'd better get the good stuff." Plagg stuffed three slices into his mouth and given that his whole body was small enough to fit into the palm of Kokichi's hand, it looked like quite a lot of cheese. "If you don't keep me well fed, I won't be able to transform you, you know."
"I didn't."
"Well now you do! Keep up, kid."
Kokichi rolled his eyes. "Come on, get to the good stuff already. What can you do?"
Plagg shoved another sheet of cheese into his mouth. For all his complaints, he was certainly devouring the stuff fast enough. He made a note to put cheese on the shopping list, since they were apparently going to need a lot of it. "What can I do, aside from give you enhanced strength, speed, durability, and make you better than any human could ever hope to be on their own?"
"Yeah, aside from that," Kokichi said with a grin.
Plagg rolled his eyes. "Kids these days are so ungrateful."
Kokichi looked at his nails. "It takes a lot to impress me, what can I say?"
"You could start with thank you, Plagg. I'm really happy to have you, Plagg. Here's some more cheese, Plagg. You know, the normal things you say when you're offered supernatural powers."
"Yeah, yeah. Get on with it, cat."
Plagg huffed and stuffed more cheese into his mouth before sighing in contentment and flopping on the table. Kokichi hoped that he didn't eat that much cheese every time. "I am the kwami of destruction. With one word, you can destroy anything you touch. Bam, instantly to dust. So you'd better be careful with it."
"What's the word?"
"Cataclysm," Plagg told him. "Obviously it only works when you're transformed. And also you won't have me around to guide you when you do transform, so you'd best listen up now or else be up a creek later."
"Wait, why won't I?" Kokichi questioned.
"If I'm transforming you, I can't also be out here talking now can I?" Plagg asked.
"Yeah, that makes sense, I guess."
"Now, to transform all you need to say is 'Claws Out' and to turn back 'Claws in' It's all pretty simple."
"Then let's test it!"
Plagg floated up off the table. "Ready when you are, kid."
"Claws out!" Plagg was sucked into the ring and a flash of green light rushed over him before he found himself completely transformed. He ran over to the nearest mirror to look at himself. He had black leather jacket over a purple shirt, two tails, a black cat with cat ears on it, as well as googles, black pain formed a mask over his eyes which had been large and catlike, and black pants. He looked like a perfect cross between a hero and a thief. "Perfect," he said to himself. "Things are about to get a lot more interesting."
