Chapter Text
The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky. Nathaniel Kurzberg was sitting quietly on a bench in the corner of the park, practicing his drawing skills, entirely unsuspecting as people suddenly started screaming.
Maybe he wasn’t entirely unsuspecting. After all, a lot of unforeseeable things tended to happen in a city that was haunted by a supervillain. Such was the case for Nathaniel’s home town, the beautiful city of Paris.
The baddie in question called himself Hawkmoth, having been so kind to introduce himself after starting to wreak havoc in their town by turning it’s citizens into his evil servants.
Squinting up into the sky, Nathaniel regarded the villain’s latest victim. It was a girl. She was wearing a dark purple, almost navy dress and tights in the same colour, changing into a lighter shade of purple at the bottom towards her feet. Her hair was striped in two shades of purple, a lighter and a darker and tied up in two stiff pigtails. Her eyes were framed in the same dark purple from her dress and she was carrying a parasol.
Did he already mention that the girl was floating?
And she looked really angry, too.
From the parasol, a beam shot out and down towards the merry-go-round. A strong gust of wind whipped all around the park and the next thing Nathaniel saw was that the merry-go-round had been encased in a very thick block of ice.
Fearfully the people in the park started scrambling away from the scene.
It seemed like this situation needed a super hero.
Cutting his practice session short, the artist stuffed the sketch book into his bag quickly and speed-walked off. The area was close to his school, so Nathaniel knew it pretty well, but especially lately he had gotten fantastic at finding the closest place sheltered from the public eye.
For Nathaniel had a secret to keep.
Near the park, there was a narrow alleyway. Unseen, Nathaniel ducked into the shadows between the buildings.
With a practiced efficiancy, the artist fished a black sketch book from his bag. It might have looked exactly like the one he had been using earlier, but it felt completely different. Under his fingertips, Nathaniel could sense the magic pulsing on the inside of the small book.
Wasting no more of his precious time, the artist snapped the book open. At once there was a flash of light and then Nathaniel was gone.
In his place stood Mightylustrator, the hero of Paris.
He had blue eyes, just like Nathaniel, though his seemed just a bit clearer and brighter. His hair was red, too, but completely unlike Nathaniel’s all the same. The shade of red was deeper and it was much more voluminous, laying in thick, gravity defying strands that went purple at the tips.
The rather slim figure might have reminded of Nathaniel as well, but Mightylustrator was much stronger than the redheaded teen. Besides that, the hero had lavender skin, his eyes were surrounded by dark colour, framing them like a mask.
Skin-tight and elastic, the superhero’s suit was easy to move in and very comfortable. It was striped white and black, the colour scheme fading into black and then red at the legs.
Strapped to Mightylustrator’s right arm was his weapon, a sketchpad, the matching pen stuck to the top of it.
Carefully, the hero peeked out of the alley. He could see the villainess exiting the park through the main gates, floating about a meter above ground.
Admittedly, her posture was great. Her back was completely straight and she had her head held high. She almost looked like one of those silhouette drawing models in the sketch books.
Grabbing the pen, Mightylustrator drew himself a jetpack. As soon as he was done, it appeared just in front of him, gently falling into his outstretched hands. With a floating villain, he would probably need it.
Such was the hero’s power. Mightylustrator could draw into reality any object he liked. Whether these objects actually existed or not didn’t matter, neither did it matter if he understood the inner workings of them or not. They just always worked how he wanted them to.
First, the redhead had to rescue the trapped civilians. He quickly leapt out of the shadows, returning to the park and with a few precise stroke of his pen in eraser mode, the ice block around the merry-go-round disappeared.
That was Mightylustrator’s secondary power. He could erase any existing object if he erased it on his drawing tablet.
Before Mightylustrator could check if the people previously trapped inside the ice were unharmed, a strong gust of wind swept him off his feet and he was thrown against a thick tree.
“I want your miraculous!” The purple girl from before screamed. She was now floating in the air above the park, probably having spotted Might from a distance.
Her magical parasol was glowing again and Mightylustrator scrambled to get back onto his feet, managing to draw a wall in the nick of time to shield him from the blow.
Frantically, the hero looked around the park. Most people had already deserted the area. This suited him quite well. He didn’t want them to get hurt in the crossfire.
“I won’t just give you my Miraculous!” The hero shouted back, drawing a lasso so he could get her out of the sky.
Mightylustrator guessed that his miraculous was the book that transformed him into his hero-form. It would only make sense that Hawkmoth wanted the magical item.
However, the artist didn’t know for certain. Apparently, this superhero didn’t have a wise master, who would tell him anything he needed to know for the job. It had been trial and error learning from the beginning.
To say things had started out a little chaotic was an understatement.
Fortunately for Might, Hawkmoth and his servants seemed to know just as little as him. The akumatized villains always went for the pen, which was just a regular stylus Mightylustrator had created, because drawing with just his fingers was a pain.
Swinging the lasso above his head, Mightylustrator hurled it at the girl. She flew a pace backwards, avoiding the attack with ease.
There was another flash of light and the parasol was shooting ice at the hero on the ground. Mightylustrator jumped to the side. He didn’t want to be an ice statue.
Once more, the hero tried to get his foe with the rope, but before it could get anywhere near her, the wind from her magical parasol blew it away and our artist was sent slithering across the iced-over park.
This was not working. The girl with her long-range attacks was definitely at an advantage, being high-up in the air and if Mightylustrator wanted a chance at defeating her, he would need to get closer.
Determined, Might finally started his jetpack, launching him into the air and towards his floating enemy.
The girl sent another gust of wind in the hero’s direction, but he avoided it, swerving out of the way. Flying a loop around his opponent, Mightylustrator assessed the girl carefully.
As far as the hero could see -and he had always prided himself in having an eye for the details- the villainess had no weapons on her except the parasol. She also didn’t appear to be carrying any other objects or accessories.
Nothing new caught the hero’s attention as he regarded her from all sides.
Good. It was very likely that the akumatized object was the magical parasol she so obviously carried with her.
An akumatized object was the item Hawkmoth used to control the people underneath the transformation. It contained a magical black butterfly that connected the holder of the item with the villain himself and that transformed them and gave them their powers.
Mightylustrator had found out this bit of information through a lucky accident.
As soon as a person was transformed, their personality changed also. They always seemed to be quite a bit deranged. An akumatized villain usually had very little care for the safety of civilians.
Although they were usually after a single personal goal and Mightylustrators miraculous for Hawkmoth on top of that, they often ended up endangering or enslaving a good many innocent bystanders.
It was up to Mightylustrator to protect the citizens of Paris from this danger and to save the akumatized victim from Hawkmoth’s control.
The latter task was acomplished by breaking the object that the Akuma was in. That would cause the transformation to fall and the people would turn back to their usual self.
So, Mightylustrator just had to break that parasol to defeat the girl. Well, first he’d have to get his hands on it.
Immediately, the hero began thinking of ideas. The first thing that came to mind was playing on the girl’s vanity.
Maybe, Mightylustrator could create a different parasol, claim it was prettier than hers and then bargain to exchange the two. That probably wouldn’t work, though. Most akumatized villains weren’t stupid enough to actually give their object away.
That moment, the redhead’s thought process was interrupted as the clouds turned to black above. He felt the air crackle about him and a wave of panic surface. With his heart beating on overdrive, the hero scribbled faster than he’d ever before.
The sky roared in fury as the world lit up in a flash and electricity descended down.
Then everything was quiet for a moment.
Giving a sigh of relief, Mightylustrator mentally high-fived himself. He’d managed to create a lightning rod just before the bolt had come down and thereby prevented anyone, including himself and the villainess, from getting hurt.
It had been a close call, though. Might definitely needed to get that parasol. The second idea that came to mind was creating a dozen more of those parasols and confusing the girl about which one was the true one.
However, this plan also wouldn’t work if the girl continued to hold onto her weapon tight, which Mightylustrator didn’t doubt she would.
In the end, he’d have to pry that parasol out of the villainess’ grasp either way.
Maybe Mightylustrator could draw the parasol away from the girl with a big magnet. Were parasols magnetic?
The purple skinned hero had absolutely no idea. He had never seen a parasol in real life, much less owned one. Even if it would have been magnetic normally, a magnet might not have worked on it. After all, this parasol was magical and one could always trust magic to defy the laws of physics.
Angrily, the weather girl raised her glowing parasol to the sky and whipped it down to point at the hero across from her.
Alarmed, Mightylustrator backed away, but it was no use as the heavens opened their floodgates. The sudden barrage of rain whipped down on the redhead and forced him closer and closer to the ground.
Downwards.
An Idea sparked in Mightylustrator’s head. That could work!
“Hand over your Miraculous or I’ll turn this city into an aquarium!” The vilainess screeched.
“Never!” The hero shouted over the raging rainstorm. He could barely see his opponent through the heavy curtain of water.
That wouldn’t do. With a quick flourish of his eraser, the rainclouds were gone and the rain stopped falling.
Emitting a roar of fury, the weather girl charged at him, but before she could reach him, her parasol was suddenly ripped from her hand by the forces of gravity, the metal ball on a chain Mightylustrator had attached to the parasol too heavy for her grasp.
The villainess made to dive after her precious parasol, but Mightylustrator speedily drew a large cluster of colourful balloons into existence, which, bound to her wrist, kept her afloat.
In the air, the girl struggled with the balloon string around her wrist while Mightylustrator sprinted over to where the parasol had landed, picked it up and bent it over his knee until it snapped in two.
From the broken parasol then emerged a butterfly of an unnaturally deep purple. It looked almost black. The Akuma.
When Mightylustrator had first seen an Akuma, he had been certain that this was a creature of evil. It just looked that way. Besides, whenever the butterflies were released from the objects, the villainized people would turn back to normal. Obviously those butterflies sent by Hawkmoth were root to the spreading evil.
Turning erasing-mode back on, he got rid of the dark being, before it could get away and cause more damage.
Finally, the danger had passed. Relaxing, the redhead flew back to the sky where a very confused looking blonde girl his age was still hanging off the balloons.
“Are you ok?” Mightylustrator asked, trying to sound comforting.
“I think so.” The girl said. “What happened?” She wanted to know, confused. Akumatized victims never remembered their days of villainy. Maybe it was better that way.
“You were akumatized.” The redhead revealed, trying to sound gentle. He wanted his citizens to feel safe. “But don’t worry! Everything is fine now.”
“Oh.” The girl uttered, shamefaced, looking away from the hero.
“Listen, to get you down, I am going to erase the balloons one by one, so you'll float down to the ground slowly.” He explained. “I’ll stay with you the entire time, so you won’t fall!”
“Ok.” The girl agreed. She shifted to look at Might again. “Thank you for saving me.”
The redhead gave a sincere smile. “You’re welcome.”
After making sure the blonde was safely back on the ground, Mightylustrator looked around to check the damage the weather villainess had done. Nothing seemed too out of place this time. Erasing the lightning rod he had drawn earlier, the artist began the post-fight clean-up.
Fixing everything after the fights was usually an exhaustive, lengthy task, but it was just as important as the actual fights. After all, he wanted the people in the city to feel safe and having a not-broken home was essential on that front.
Mightylustrator erased a street light that had been blown over during the battle and redrew a new one in it’s place. He’d have to check in with their local officer, Mr. Raincomprix and maybe the fire department to make sure everything was back in order.
Well, it wasn’t like he had any plans for the afternoon anyways.