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“You know Plagg, I think what makes this super scary— okay, no, hold on, it’s not actually that scary; I’d say that you're 'pretty scary'— why am I bothering to use quotation marks there? It’s not like you can even see me—“
“—I can see you.”
Huh. Okay. “You can?”
“Well, yeah.” Same old Plagg, even if this isn't his same old form. “That's the whole point of this. It’s just that you can’t see me.”
Yeah, no kidding! Instead of a ceiling in her room, there's a giant black void, and in this void comes out fog. It’s the world's most strangest augmented reality, perfectly suited for the exact space of her room— the void is flush, right up to where the ceiling meets the walls, black-ink fog slowly drifting down and meeting her peachy-pink walls like there is cotton falling from the sky. Light refuses to permeate from there, black and dark and horrid, and if it weren’t for her hanging plants still hanging from where she’d hooked a long rope from, she’d assumed that her roof had completely been torn off by a black hole.
“Actually, what is the point of this?”
“Take a guess.”
“Halloween decoration.”
“I predate Hallow’s Eve.”
“Free fog machine.”
“You’re doing this on purpose,” he laughs.
“Believable haunted mansion prop.”
“I thought the French didn’t celebrate Halloween?” Well, what else is the scary black hole in her ceiling for? “To help you in fights,” Plagg offers into the silence, as if she had actually asked.
She squints. “Uh… up there?”
“I’m containing myself in your room so that I don’t scare the citizens of Paris. But yes. Above you.”
“Huh,” she says, rather simply, climbing onto her chaise and looking up, up, up. “So you’re seeing a birds-eye view? Or is this like Bunnyx’s burrow where you can see me on a regular eye-level?”
“I can see you from birds-eye view, Princess.” His voice is the deepest thing known to mankind. It rumbles like a cinema theatre would, fitting for what must be the biggest entity in the entire universe, hiding on the other side of the portal, but she doesn't expect to hear a: “you forgot to make your bed today,” out of him when she continues to pace around the room, trying to spot anything in the void. He sounds like an old man. Deep chested. But also very loud. And… british?
“It’s like the sims,” she tells him, ignoring the quip about her bed. He can see that? But that’s above her... so he’s telling the truth. “Or like a dollhouse.”
“Essentially.”
“How is this supposed to help me in a fight other than scare someone shitless?” She brings a finger up to her chin. “You can see me, so you have a physical form, I’m assuming. Unless you are just, like, this ceiling rug.”
“I can always trust you to call my original form something like a rug,” he laughs, clearly amused. “Regardless, are you scared shitless?”
Wow, it’s really funny to hear that voice say a curse word. It’s got her giggling. In fact, it breaks tension; she can tell, because she knows Plagg really well, that he’s nervous— he’d mentioned something about this numerous times throughout her life, saying things about protecting her at whatever cost, including using his form that he doesn’t enjoy using— so here they are now, acclimating her to this, so that if there’s ever a need for it, she won't panic. But tension still bleeds into the room, because Plagg is no longer a cute little tiny kitten that fits in both of her palms, but rather something else entirely. Something that says ‘regardless’. And sounds british. And Plagg, poor Plagg, has lost his own mind by how terrified he is… probably because he’s scared of her reaction? That seems the most logical explanation.
“Not really,” she replies, rather simply. “It’s you, Plagg. You’ve seen me when I’m PMSing. That’s pretty scary. I’m an eldritch monster in the body of a girl.”
He laughs again. “I guess you’re right.”
“You sound older in this form.”
“My voice bank is larger than a matchbox in this form.”
“No kidding. You sound like you’re huge.”
“I am.”
“You sound like an old man.”
“You’re teasing a very, very old god at the moment, you know that, right?”
“So you agree that you sound like you should have great, great, great grandchildren?” she giggles. “Add a few thousand ‘greats’ to that, though. You sound like an ancestor.”
“I’ve been with the Cheng family since the inception of it. Me and Tikki. But we’re much older.”
Oh, wait! “Does Tikki—”
“Yes.”
“Is she as big as you?”
“Surprisingly, no. I’m bigger.”
Whoa. Whoa. “Okay, that’s cool. Now, explain to me what I’ll be looking at? What are we looking for? You’ve got three heads like Cerberus?”
“Absolutely not; anyway, I’m not going to show you my face, or any of that stuff.” A very old god using modern speech is so funny. “Let’s take this slow.”
She makes a face. “That’s boring.”
“It’s best if I don’t scare you.”
“I know you won’t hurt me, what does it matter?”
“I’m a god of entropy,” he explains, voice flat like it always is whenever he’s dealing with her pouting. “You may know that I won’t hurt you, but that doesn’t mean much when basic instincts— not to mention your brain— just short circuits.”
“I’m a dare-devil,” she lobbies. “You know I watch scary movies with the lights off in the middle of the night. Do you know how many Akumas I’ve fought that are the ugliest things imaginable?”
“All the more reason for me to not indulge you.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is I instill fear in anyone who looks at me.” For a bodiless voice, she can kind of imagine that his ears are pinned down, upset and disappointed. “No matter how much I wish for you to see me, you would scream. I like it when you’re not afraid, I know, how benign. I value you too much for you to be afraid of me like that.”
“I value you a lot, too. Which is why I—”
“—Which is why you want to see my face—”
“—want to see your— ah, yes, exactly!” She nearly stubs her toe on the end of her desk chair, pacing about the room. “It’s you, isn’t it? Sue me for being so curious about the little old man that sleeps in my peace lilies like he owns the place. I just want to know everything there is about you, Plagg.”
“Baby steps. Slowly acclimating. We’ll get there, so long as you’re patient.”
“Fine. Like a new fish acclimating to a new tank?”
“Your metaphors need some serious work,” he drawls, a smile curved into his voice. This is progress. She’s doing good. An upset and disappointed Plagg is never something she wants— not because it’s dangerous, but because that’s her best friend, and she doesn’t like it when he’s sad.
“Okay… that just leaves me with one question: what are you?”
“The bare bones is that I’m a giant cat god. My actual title is the god of misfortune; that carries a lot of weight to it, as you can surely guess. That’s part of the reason why I don’t want to alarm you with my face, or body.”
“A giant cat god? Giant, like the great sphinx?”
“Not exactly. There are some… things missing… but I’m pretty big, just like it.”
“Do you have a tail?”
“I do.”
Oh, it must be adorable.
“Awh. And cat ears, too?”
“And cat eyes.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound scary, you sound like you’re just a big, giant cat? Why is that so scary?”
“Because when I want to, I’ve got six paws.”
“Wh—”
“Furthermore when I don’t want to, I’ve got six eyes.”
Oh, one for each leg. “Wait—”
“Even further, just my teeth alone are taller than you.”
“Well, lots of things are taller than me, so I’m not too impressed. Besides, what do you need all those paws for?” she teases, even though her heart is racing and she’s doing her best not to make a face. A face that is very much spooked at the description, visibly shaken. Wholly shaken. Very much shaken.
“To deal with you,” he replies, right back, and she imagines that he’s leaning on his folded palms with his chin, just like he always does, whenever he’s fascinated with something. A cat with a toy. How apt! “You’re quite a handful.”
“Don’t be mean!”
“There are always those who are burnt by the truth.”
“Okay, Shakespeare, no need to talk in poetry,” she gripes. “You’re showing your age! Tell me more about you instead of making fun of me!”
“Can I reach out with one of my hands? I’m gonna reach out with one of my hands. Don’t freak out. I’ll go slow.”
“Okay. Okay, sounds fair. You got it, little chef.” Then, she stops, before finding herself blurting out: “Wait!”
She can feel how that ceiling fog freezes from her words.
“Yeah?” the god of entropy blurts back.
“I wanna see your left hand.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“I want to have at least some choice.”
He snorts. “Ah, I see. Will that actually make you feel safer? Or are you just pulling my ear?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to make you feel better.”
“Okay. Left one it is, then. Let me scoot a bit because I’ve been leaning this entire time on it.”
The two of them go quiet; her, waiting, anticipation stringing her up like a puppet, baited breath stuck in her throat. Him, apprehensive, no doubt worried about her reaction because she knows that he has a soft spot for her, try as he might even attempt to deny it, grumbling to himself like he always does whenever she teases him about it. The two of them love each other for a reason. And maybe she feels a bit of pride every time she recalls that he’s told the other Kwamis that she’s the best holder he’s ever had, no questions asked.
The void starts to move.
She blinks up at her ceiling golden pothos, the vining thing that shifts on her ceiling every time there’s a slight breeze from her humidifier. From the darkness, something emerges; black, darker than black, darker than that one black that scientists created that practically inhales all light. This black is definitely like a black hole. Life ceases to exist with this color. It is the most nothing she’s ever seen, and if she focuses her eyes just a little bit more she can see glimmers of stars on the skin. The black and glitters stay reasonably far away from her and where she stays next to her desk, falling from the void like a puff of the fog.
It’s massive.
It’s massive.
The thing is, it’s not even a paw. The more she looks at it, the more the black turns slightly transparent, just enough for her to see the faint outline of the chaise where it rests against, this foggy thing that is completely out of this world. It’s a hand. A hand. A cat god with a hand? The arm is thicker than a tree. Almost as wide as a car. It— him— he wouldn’t be able to fit through her door. He dwarfs the poor chaise like he’s playing with a miniature dollhouse. Oh, oh oh oh— and the fingers— the fingers are human fingers, broad-palmed and kinda proportionately thick? At the ends are claws. Just like hers whenever she’s in her hexleather, protecting Paris from Akumas as Lady Noire, Plagg has talons that are so familiar. Talons.
“Holy!—” she eeps, jumping in surprise. Giddiness bubbles out of her like carbonation, eyes wide and lips peeled in a grin. “Whoa!” she exclaims. And then: “Whoa. Whoa, whoa whoa!”
“You’re freaking out.”
“You are so much bigger than I thought!”
“Princess, you’re freaking out.”
“Why do you have human hands?” she blurts out. “You’re a cat god. You said that. Multiple times. You called them paws. Why human hands? What is the human part for?”
“Human hands? As far as I know, I’ve had them longer than humans have.”
“But not in your Kwami form? You have lil nubby paws.”
“I don’t really need fingers at that size.”
“I thought I was going to see a giant cat paw.” Even though instinct is telling her to flee, flee, flee, she’s hotwired her brain to deal with whatever is giving her heart palpitations head on. The beauty of fighting Akumas every week for the past ten years, of course, and yet even Plagg himself seems tense— or as tense she can possibly tell based on a single left hand and strong forearm— when she walks close. “I was ready to see some cute toe beans! Toe beans of a cat god! How cute would that have been? But you’re telling me you actually have a hand?”
“You’re that disappointed?”
“Confused.”
His thumb is bigger than her.
Just his thumb.
It’s about the same size and stature of Mister Bug— Christ, no, she’s completely wrong, Mister Bug is the size of Plagg’s pinky finger, claw not included— she touches him on instinct, and Plagg doesn’t tell her no, so it must be safe. She knows it is. Plagg loves her. Plagg cares about her. He’d never hurt her. She can feel it.
She faceplants into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger before she starts screaming bloody murder.
“I mean, wow. You’re really a god,” she mumbles. His skin is cold. Physically there, even though he’s slightly transparent. She can sort of see the chaise. The floor. The other side of her room from this angle. She screws her eyes shut before she panics about seeing right through his skin.
“Yeah. A bit.”
“Oh my god,” she wheezes. “This is… wow. Plagg, you’re incredible! I always forget that you’re not actually my cat kitten thing but an actual god!”
“I can show up like this even when I’m inside the ring,” he murmurs, or at least tries to, because he’s a massive cat god hiding inside a portal that occupies the entire real estate of her ceiling. He sounds smug. He must like the praise. “If there’s a sentimonster giving you an actual issue, we can open this gate.”
He says nothing about how she’s purring, nuzzling into his finger, replying with a: “It’s a gate?”
“It’s a portal. Gate. Whatever. I’m just saying that I’m here for you, okay? Always. Even during a fight. Hey, are you even listening?” he lifts her chin up with the very middle of his finger pad, knowing better than to use the actual talon that adorns the tip. She has the ridiculous sensation of being a polly pocket. “Hey. Pay attention. The ring takes me to another dimension whenever you power up— it’s a long story, it’s not necessary to explain that— but that means I’m able to come into this dimension whenever there’s a fight, too. I’m pretty fast at grabbing things. Maybe I can grab a sentimonster and hold him for you, or something.”
“We’ll work something out, I’ve definitely got some ideas. Hey, are you hungry? Do you wanna, uh, shrink back a bit to come eat food? I don’t know if you’ll get through the trapdoor like that. I don’t think you even want to get through the trapdoor like that.”
“Okay. Sure.” and then, just as his hand slowly retreats, still scared to make her scared, she hears him say: “Thanks for not relinquishing the ring right then and there, Princess. I was… pretty nervous.”