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The scene was set in Parc Montsouris in the evening. They wanted to use the classic boiler room setup but being between years and with two of their members not even being from the right school, that was sadly unavailable. Thus, they were left with the impromptu picnic-slash-powerpoint presentation in the park.
“Thank you all for coming.”Alya began as she stood next to the projection screen she had set up. “It is important to gather every possible bit of info that could help us solve the Marinette situation so really, thank you. Now, would anyone like to begin with their report?”
“Question!” Ondine’s -Kim’s girlfriend’s- hand shot up.
“Yes?”
“Did you really lug out an entire projection set up into the middle of a public park?”
“Visual aid is important. Besides, it’s about helping my best friend, any inconvenience like that is absolutely worth it!”
“‘S not too weird for us,” Juleka added.
Ondine decided to drop the topic “Why don’t you begin then? Since you organised this thing and all.” The group nodded at the suggestion, so Alya cleared her throat and began her report.
“So, the time is 10 pm, two days ago. According to Adrien’s testimony Marinette should have already gone to bed -they video call each other before bed- and yet…” she motioned to the screen which switched to a picture of Marinette exiting her parent’s bakery at night, taken from a nearby rooftop “Here she is, sneaking out of her own home. Of course, at the time this seemed incredibly strange so I decided to trail her." The photo changed to a picture of a random street, with a slightly blurry form seemingly being Marinette riding her scooter, once again taken from a roof.
“Question.” A hand shot up again.
“Yes, Felix?”
“What were you doing on the rooftops?” Calling out that detail got Alya to scramble a bit to protect her identity.
“After my first tip off about the situation I tried contacting some pro heroes to help, and Miss Hound volunteered to help get me around.” That got a weird look from Sabrina of all people but still. Nailed it. Now to keep going.
“So I ahem the two of us tried tailing her and after a while she came to a stop-” the image changed to the front of Théâtre du Châtelet with the mini scooter parked in front of it. “And entered the theatre. Sadly that is where my research ends” The image changed again to a blurry photo of concrete and Alya’s passed out face.
“Wait, Théâtre du Châtelet? I think I might have something about that.” Sabrina piped up.
“Good, then you can do the next segment!” Alya said, and motioned for Sabrina to come on over to the screen. The two swiftly traded places, followed by Sabrina doing some deep breaths to steel herself for her presentation.
“So, ahem three days ago, at about fourteen o’clock, I was checking out a lot of activities around town since I kinda have a lot of free time now and I ran into the acting club from Le Bolide and… uhm hold on…” she fumbled a bit to get her phone while the screen next to her switched to an image of a group of strangers, along with someone who looked like Marinette wearing a weird outfit she hadn’t before, taken while peeking behind a wall.
Sabrina pressed something on her phone, and it started playing an audio recording. For a moment it was mostly just the noises of the city but a conversation soon joined it.
“...-at’s got you so giggly about Châtelet anyway?”
“You know those meetups I told you about, Olive? I finally got to pick the meetup spot hehehe”
“God, you sound like a dork.”
“A dork that you had to kiss on stage!” The audio cut out. They had never heard this Olive person before but that second person was unmistakably Marinette. But how?
“I had more recorded but none of it was useful to the case so I edited that part out. But I have more to show, actually.”
The image switched to the entrance of some place called Coccinella, with a stranger, presumably the bouncer, dramatically posing for the picture.
“Apparently this club opened up fairly recently, it’s close to Châtelet and according to the lovely man pictured here, Marinette has booked reservations there before, multiple times, at once. What this means I do not know but it is certainly a development.” Everyone was thrown for a loop at this revelation and several agonizing seconds of silence ensued as everyone tried to wrack their brains about that last part.
“Uhh i have two questions?” Mireille asked hesitantly.
“Oh uh, sure.”
“Well, firstly why did you go to a club?”
“Oh, I checked out everything that allowed group entry near the theatre. I didn’t really have much else to do and it felt useful.”
“Oh, oh yeah that makes sense. Second of all, what the heck do you mean ‘At once’?”
“That I do not know sadly. I guess the obvious implication is-”
“There are multiple Marinettes?!” Alya suddenly burst out.
“I suppose yes,” Sabrina replied. “So, anybody wanna go next?” The rest were understandably a bit anxious to follow up that piece of whiplash until Mireille’s hand shot up again.
“So, I think that would actually make some stuff make more sense to me? Like, I know that sounds weird but I think my report can explain.” With nobody protesting and Sabrina moving back over to the audience, she took that as an affirmative.
“Okay so, uhm… how do I set up this thing?” Mireille asked, motioning to the projector.
“Oh just keep talking, it should get the right image on its own.” Alya answered, then added in response to the confused look on the other girl’s face, “Max, our classmate, modified it. I’m not sure how it works either.”
“Alright I guess? So I met up with some of my old classmates for a bit on the morning of when Alya did her investigation and I ran into who I thought was just Marinette going through a radical fashion change.” The image switched to a selfie of Mireille with who appears to be Marinette with a reddish streak in her hair, her bangs covering her eye and with some makeup on that just screamed ‘alt’. Juleka gave a quiet “Cool.” as a seal of approval.
“Apparently she was a fan of mine and we ended up talking about some stuff since I thought I was talking with uhh…what do we even call the Marinette that’s your classmate now? ‘Cause calling everyone ‘Marinette’ will get troubling fast.”
“I feel like treating her as ‘Marinette prime’ would make the most sense.” Ondine answered, and most people seemed to agree.
“Alright. So we ended up talking a little and she ended up mentioning something about hanging out at the club and going on a bike ride afterwards. I don’t remember much of it because I wasn’t aware of the investigation at the time, but that night I did end up contacting some rental bike places just in case and apparently Marinette’s been going to Paris Á Vélo every week for a while, with four friends.”
“Were those friends other Marinettes?” Alya asked.
“That was not specified.”
“So we can assume that there might not be multiple Marinette’s after all?” Felix finally spoke up.
“I mean even if it’s absurd the evidence seems to be pointing to it being true.” Sabrina jumped in.
“But there’s a chance.”
“You’re just here to be a contrarian, aren’t you.” Alya said while shooting a sharp look at Felix.
“I prefer thinking of it as a tether to reality, so to speak.”
“Dork.” Was Juleka’s contribution to the argument which seemed to have shut it off for now.
“I actually remember the Emonette I met mentioning something about a muscular friend but I don’t have anything else so who’s next?”
Juleka steeled herself a bit, then stood up and started walking over to the screen. Mireille hastily made her exit as the other girl took her place.
“O-okay so, after hearing that Marinette was sneaking out I decided to check around their house and I…” she trailed off as the screen switched, showing a mildly blurry picture of two girls on a bike, a taller more muscular one with a black tank top actually riding the pedals and a relatively smaller one with a lot of hair accessories and a pink sweater. And by the looks of it…
“So two more Marinettes. Joy.” Felix added his colour commentary on the revelation they were all having.
“Okay can we stop for a moment and ask how the hell this even happened? Because I know I haven’t hung out with you all too much but this is incredibly weird to you too, right?!” Ondine was breathing heavily, head in her hands.
“No, this is very weird but…” Sabrina walked over to Ondine and put a hand on her shoulder. “I suppose it’s just that we have been dealing with a lot of magical stuff already so for us it’s a bit easier to accept that something impossible happened in general, even if we don’t know what is actually happening.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll- I’ll try to keep calm. Please keep going.”
“W-well I decided to try following them-” she paused for a moment, waiting for an interruption that never came. “And I could just about see the Marinette on the back dropping off at a school but I didn’t want to creep around there and the tall one was driving too fast to keep up with. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright Juleka. Anyone else have anything?” Alya asked, preparing to stand up.
“Mine was mostly finding out that hair clips girl is a thing, but evidently that’s not needed,” Felix said, Ondine nodding along.
“Similar story here. Found Emonette at the pool but she was just leaving and didn’t get a picture.”
“That’s fine,” Alya declared, once again near the screen. “With that, we shall move onto stage two of the investigation. So here’s the plan…”
|~~~|~~~|~~~|~~~|~~~|
Marinette wanted to go to bed early today, she really did. It’s just that talking to her boyfriend (God it still feels so good thinking that) happens to be a bit more entertaining than getting an extra one and a half hours of sleep. She was a bit worried that if she kept up like this Alya would actually blow her cover (no not that one, Alya would never) but her alarm went off uncaringly at exactly 10 pm so it was time to get up and get into action.
She got dressed in her usual, silently went down to the ground floor then quickly checked outside the bakery’s windows. The roofs were Renaless this time, but there was a tall girl -Juleka, judging by the outfit- on the other side of the road reading the newspaper. At night. How inconspicuous.
Regardless, Marinette decided to wait it out. They arranged that a friend of ‘Galinette’ would drive them around in a car this go around so she was free to just wait for them to arrive and not give any worthwhile footage to Juleka, and presumably Alya.
It only took a few minutes for the car to pull up but it felt like a small eternity, or at least long enough for Marinette to almost fall asleep again. Marinette swiftly got in, trying to make sure she won’t be seen by Juleka in the process, though she couldn’t check with ‘Emonette’ sitting beside her and blocking her vision there.
“What is it this time?” The aforementioned girl asked flatly, blowing on her bangs at such an expert angle that it landed exactly where it was a moment ago.
“I think some of my friends from school are stalking me.” Marinette gave her equally blunt reply.
“Cool.”
“Whaaaat? That’s like, totes craaaaay.” ‘Galinette’ joined in from the front seat.
“Enough about me, who’s the friend you got there?” Mari said, perhaps a little too hastily. Luckily, the others took the bait.
“Oh, her? She’s like, also a Marinette and stuff! My parents met her when they were kids and they like, named me after her ‘cuz we looked so similar. Totally cray right?”
“Yeah, kinda! Honestly I’m not sure how this keeps happening. The whole duplicate thing I mean,” Not that Marinette minded, these hangouts were really fun, even if it keeps getting weirder and weirder with each new inexplicable Marinette joining.
“Why are you even questioning it at this point?” Emonette said while digging around in her blazer “By the way, can I smoke in here?”
“I prefer you don’t smoke at all. It wrecks hour lungs” Their driver finally spoke up and sure enough, sounded almost like Marinette, though evidently her voice changed a fair bit in her age.
“Okay, mom.” Emonette replied sarcastically.
They came to a stop once again, as they arrived at the place ‘Tallinette’ wanted to be picked up from. The girl herself seemed to not be there for a moment but she soon jogged out from behind the corner with Ondine in tow.
“Take care, girl!” She said to Ondine before getting into the car. Marinette scooted over to the middle seat but it still left her pressed up against the dragon tattoo on the large girl’s arm.
“Sorry for being late. She asked me for a run around the block and I couldn’t resist.”
“Oh, you know Ondine too?”
“Oh that’s her name? She never told me she just kinda showed up, asked for a run and started breaking down halfway cuz I’m not her usual speed. You know her, Nerves?”
“She’s the girlfriend of a f- a classmate of mine. She also might be stalking me.” She didn’t want to let that last bit slip but it was too late now. Not like Talli believed her about this kinda stuff.
“Why would she do that? Or your friend for that matter?” The driver, in dire need of a nickname, asked her. Sadly, by Marinette’s estimate the last destination was far enough that she actually had to answer.
“My best friend is concerned that I’ve been sneaking out and I think she’s been hanging out with these two, and some others. She’s the type of girl who would get them to try something like this.”
“Of course you’re the type to be besties with a stalker.” ‘Emonette spoke again, watching the silhouette follow them across the rooftops.
“You tried dating Drama, I don’t want to hear any of it!”
“Alright girls, we arrived at your meeting spot. Have fun.” The driver said, a bit dead pan. ‘Galinette’ though, had a different idea.
“Why don’t you like, come with us Mari Senior?! This is like, a Mari party and you’ll fit riiiiiight in.” The hereby christened ‘Mari Sr.’ did not budge, causing the other girl in the front to add a very elongated “Pleaaaaaaaaaseeeeeee?” to her bargain. That seemed to at least do the trick.
As they got out, they finally spotted ‘Dramanette’ arriving with some new friends of her own and wearing an inexplicable spanish ‘Day of the Dead’ getup. Marinette could tell these ‘Marinette hangouts’ were only going to get more fun, she just had to make sure to be careful when sneaking out.