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Zoé has been living in Paris for going on two weeks, and admittedly she’s still finding her footing.
The supervillain attacks are certainly nothing new, especially considering that she grew up in New York City. But, unlike in New York, the procedures made to avoid attacks were light, and there was a terrifying amount of recklessness from both people and the heroes, thanks to Ladybug’s miracle cure erasing all the harm. People can, and have, kept on working in the red zone for akumas without a care in the world.
It’s on the afternoon of one of these such akumas when she’s let out of school and into the streets of Paris, only to startle as the villain of the last two hours suddenly flies over her head, chasing over a frantically swinging Ladybug and Queen Bee, with the rest of the hero team nowhere to be found.
Unfortunately, they’re leading the villain back in the direction of the hotel.
Zoé weighs the pro’s and con’s of going back to the hotel anyways, or heading off in the safer, other direction, and figures that the people of Paris care so little for the attacks that neither her mother or step-father would consider it a reasonable obstacle, and she can’t afford to get on their bad sides yet.
And so she elects to become the exact sort of reckless that she’s promised herself she’ll never become, and walks down the sidewalk, towards the danger.
The closer that she gets to the hotel, the more destroyed the city becomes. Large footprints have been pressed into the streets, and pieces of buildings seem to have been scraped off, or in some cases fully removed. Some rubble can be seen inside the remains of other buildings, but Zoé can’t allow her attention to stray towards it for too long, because then she’d have to address the shine of red underneath almost all of it.
The hotel, when she finally makes it there, has been completely collapsed. Zoé gasps, rushing forward, stumbling through it aimlessly in search of injured travellers. Her brain falls into a complete haze as she starts lifting people out from underneath chunks of concrete, scratching her palms on the remains of her home while she scrambles to save as many people as she can from the terror-inducing memories of their temporary demise. Some people she saves nod at her thankfully, some stay and help, and a select few dash out of the way of the attack as fast as their bruising body can carry them.
Eventually, the haze of repetition is broken by the sound of shattering glass, and Zoé jumps as she realise that the person that she’s helping to their feet is in a crop top, a large and still bleeding gash on their side. The person yelps in return, toppling back down against the rubble.
“I’m sorry,” Zoé says, extending her scratched up hand for the person. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats, and then she might repeat it again, she genuinely can’t tell. “I’m gonna go check that out. In the meantime, I’d bet that someone’s found a first aid kit by now. Stay safe.”
She quickly follows the opposite of her advice, running in the direction of the shattered glass.
There’s a restaurant on the corner with a shattered front window, and inside seems to be entirely empty, aside from a shock of bright yellow.
Zoé rushes over, neglecting the door in favour of jumping in through the destroyed window. She catches her breath once she’s inside, clutching her stomach as she pants only to pull away when she remembers her now scraped-up hands.
Queen Bee turns out to be the shock of yellow. The girl has been thrown all the way against the back wall, her back leaned against the seat of a booth and her legs sat on the table. She’s bleeding from a cut on her temple, which Zoé didn’t even know the Paris heroes could get.
There's a sudden, bright flash of light, leaving behind spots in Zoé's vision which she frantically blinks away. She looks back at Queen Bee, but it's not the heroine's body lying there any longer. Instead, Zoé is looking down at―
“CHLOÉ?” She shrieks, realising her mistake a moment too late and freezing. She glances back out on the street, but luckily she can’t spot anyone else around.
Chloé (who is Queen Bee, apparently, which Zoé will absolutely be addressing later) looks even worse for wear without the hero costume on. The cut on her face is starting to bleed, and there’s some more staining her shirt, which is already covered in an alarming amount of dust.
“Shit,” she allows herself to say once again, and she really means it. “Goddammit, Chloé, what the hell…”
She’s talking to an unconscious body right now. That’s probably a concern.
Suddenly, there’s another, smaller flash of yellow, and an odd creature appears, looking nervous and caring a hair come between its… hands? Paws?
“What the shit,” Zoé demands, and someone should seriously reward her for adding a whole two extra words to the statement. It’s not in French anymore, but still
“It is nice to meet you, I am Pollen,” the creature says in English, and Zoé tries (and fails) to comprehend that, apparently, it can also talk. “I am the kwami of the miraculous of the bee. And I have to ask you for your assistance in this fight, Zoé, as without a Bee, I fear that Ladybug will fail.”
Zoé takes this in… poorly. “What the shit do you mean Ladybug will fail?” Zoé demands, her sass coming up before she can try to suppress it. “That’s not possible, the heroes always win. I’m just… crazy from blood loss, or something. Like, what the hell is a kwami anyways, a lunch meat!?”
“Kwamis are the physical manifestations of the concepts that each miraculous represents,” Pollen states, and even though she’s speaking Zoé’s first language, it doesn’t start making any more sense. “I am the kwami of subjugation. But, right now, I am not important, you are, Zoé.”
“This is insane,” Zoé responds.
“I thought you were from New York,” Pollen teases. “And, while I know that you may be overwhelmed, we do not have any time to waste! To transform, you simply have to say Pollen, Buzz on! And I presume you know how to use the power of the Bee?”
“Yeah,” Zoé responds. “But this is… a lot. I don’t think that, right now, I’m prepared for this.”
“My queen wasn’t either,” Pollen responds, and it takes a long moment to link the title back to Chloé. But when it clicks, it’s fairly easy to reconcile, because that is such a Chloé thing to want to be called. “But she stepped up when the world needed her, and I believe that you can do the same.”
Zoé sucks in a long, deep breath. Pollen flies closer, before placing the hair comb in Zoé’s blood-stained fingers. “I believe in you, Zoé.”
She nods.
With a few seconds of fiddling, the miraculous is in her hair. She shakes her head just for good measure, making sure that it’s secure.
Then, she locks eyes with the kwami, and says, “Pollen, buzz on.”
When the magic washes over, she flinches, squinting for a moment against the golden light. She feels the weight of her jacket disappear, and her hair move, and startles when two black strands of hair fall in front of her hair, so different from the blonde that she’s used to.
So that’s how that works, she supposes.
The spinning top is the last thing to appear, tied to her hip using its own cord. When she reaches for it, the cord releases itself, quickly wrapping back up inside the weapon.
Somehow, there’s even more magic at play with the Parisian heroes than she’d thought.
She rushes back out of the restaurant, hesitating when she makes it to the street. She shuffles slightly doing her best to amp herself up, before starting to wind up the top, twirling it like she’s seen both Ladybug and Queen Bee do dozens of times on the news.
The top lets out two little chimes, and before she knows what’s happening it’s shooting forward, wrapping around some faraway point she can’t see before yanking her up into the air.
She shrieks, fumbling so hard that she nearly lets go of the string. The point that it’s wrapped around quickly arrives, and with a bit of frantic tugging she manages to release it just in time, before dropping onto the rooftop unsteadily. She nearly falls to her knees, but just manages to catch her balance.
“What the heck…?” She mutters.
This time, when she winds up, the spinning top doesn’t do anything weird. Instead, when she’s ready she throws it out, and after a moment of waiting, she feels the wire go taut.
Here goes… something.
She’s flung into the air, swinging above the streets of Paris. She realises a moment too late that she probably needed a bit more practice, as when she loses this hook, she’s doomed to tumble at least ten feet down to the street.
Luckily, she’s caught at the very last second. Someone grabs her from the side, launching them both back into the air, but not lurching like she had when she sent out the spinning top.
When she looks to her side, she finds herself uncomfortably close to Chat Noir.
“You’re not Queen Bee,” he notes, his tone giving nothing away, nor does his expression.
“No, I’m not,” she responds nervously. “I’m her… sister, actually.”
“That sounded like a lie,” Chat Noir observes.
She sighs. “It’s complicated, okay? But the bee thing was yelling at me to transform, so I guess that I’m here to help.”
Chat Noir seems to consider her for a long moment, before giving a nod. “We need to freeze this akuma, he’s too focused on destruction, and that’s coming from me. It seems like you’re not ready to use the top yet, so I’ll get you close to the akuma, and you can venom. Does that work?”
It takes a few seconds for her to process what he’s saying, then she nods. “Got it.”
“And… what should I call you?”
She hesitates.
“I have… no idea,” she admits.
Chat Noir huffs. “Fair enough.”