My Little Miraculous Ladybug

by MetaLord395

Midnight Snacks

It was the early evening. Master Fu and his kwami, Wayzz, had just about closed up shop for the day. As both of them watched the old master’s patient walk out of his place for the day, Wayzz turned to him.

“Master,” he started, “do you believe that her fortunes will reverse for the better?”

Master Fu paused, deep in thinking. At last, he turned to the open chest of Miraculouses.

“Perhaps they will,” he answered vaguely.

“Another thing,” Wayzz continued. “I felt something deathly, chillingly cold come over me a while ago, as she was leaving. I don’t know why, but it felt so  . . . familiar. What do you think it means?”

Master Fu said nothing, but rather approached the Miraculous chest and studied the small oval-shaped purple brooch that he had successfully recaptured and kept safe for the past two months, rubbing it delicately. At last, he turned back to his kwami.

“I don’t know, Wayzz,” he said, a bit solemn. “But I have a feeling that pretty soon, our heroes will be forced back out into the open.”

Wednesday afternoon rolled around to find that the students were still either getting the gym set up for the dance or generally milling about with nothing to do. With the official end of school coming in a few weeks, most of the teachers had relaxed the homework load on the students. This gave the students plenty of time to talk to their dates and get to know them better. For example, Kim could be seen talking to Juleka, his dance partner, very rapidly talking about getting a corsage to match her dress.  Juleka smiled and blushed very bashfully; she never knew that Kim was starting having a thing for her. Max, meanwhile, asked Rose what time he should pick her up, to which she blushed, giggled, and responded, “The earlier, the better”; Ivan was seen that day practicing his dance moves on Mylene; and Nino and Alya chuckled together in good company. It was in this atmosphere of blossoming love that Marinette went up to Adrien and Plagg.

 “Adrien, Plagg,” she started , “would you be interested in coming over to my house for a sleepover?”

“We’d love to join,” Plagg started earnestly. “But unfortunately, Adrien has other engagements to take care of.”

“I do,” Adrien agreed. “I have a piano lesson in thirty minutes and a Chinese lesson afterwards. Maybe if there’s time, I can ask my father if I can.”

“Okay,” Marinette said. “Looking forward to seeing you there.” And with that, she went up to Alya after seeing that Nino had disappeared, and asked her if she wanted to join in on the sleepover, to which she accepted.

“Hey,” Tikki chirped, “maybe we should ask Twilight and her friends if they want to come over. You know?”

“You’re right, TIkki,” Marinette agreed. “We should give that a try.” And with that, with Alya following them, they walked up to the girls, who, for some reason, were huddled together in a circle. Marinette cleared her throat, and everyone turned to pay attention to her.

“Twilight, girls,” she started, “Tikki and I have been discussing this, and we want to invite you to a sleepover tonight at our house.”

Twilight and the girls looked at each other. All of a sudden, Discord teleported next to the group.

“A sleepover?” he asked, obviously excited with delight. “At your place?”

“Sure,” Marinette said. “I just hope you’re okay with the games we have in store for the entertainment.”

“I’m way ahead of you,” the draconequus grinned. “I’m down for anything you have going on. The only question is whether they are.” He motioned his paw toward the girls.

Instantly, the seven girls got into a huddle and started to debate furiously under their breaths. Just when it felt like they couldn’t reach an agreement, they turned to face Marinette and Alya.

“We’ll come,” Sunset said at last. “On the condition that you invite Chloe as well. I know what you’re thinking, and I know you still have unresolved issues with her, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk them out with her.”

Marinette and Alya looked at each other. It was clear that they were thinking, This is gonna suck big-time. At last, they turned back to face them.

“All right,” Marinette said. “We’ll do it. But we won’t like it.”

That evening, the girls, Discord, and Spike were all at Marinette’s place, happily (for the most part) hanging out. Rainbow Dash and Applejack each challenged Marinette to a game of Ultimate Mecha Strike III, Rarity was taking selfies with Sunset Shimmer and Chloe while Fluttershy played with Spike and Tikki, Twilight and Alya exchanged stories on the adventures that they had until that point, and Pinkie just lay around on Marinette’s bed. Discord was nice enough to change everyone into their pajamas. Twilight wore yellow long pants and a long sleeved button shirt with pink hearts. Sunset wore magenta shirt and long pants with her cutie mark on the shirt. Pinkie Pie wore a long blue sleeveless shirt with yellow balloons and matching shorts. The shirt had purple straps and a pink bow above the chest. Applejack wore blue pajamas with pale blue apple prints. Rainbow had a white shirt with red sleeves with her cutie mark and blue pants. Fluttershy wore pajamas similar to Twilight; only hers were green with butterflies. Marinette wore a pink shirt with matching long pants. Alya was wearing a tank top with long grey pajama pants. As for Chloe, she was wearing yellow-and-black striped pajamas.

Soon the time came when everyone had to go to bed. Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng went upstairs and entered the room.

“All right, girls,” Mr. Dupain announced. “Time to go to bed.” With that, Marinette, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity gathered up their belongings and started to move to the spare bedroom on the floor below them. It seems that Marinette had found a way to put the room that Star and Marco had previously used when they were here to good use.

“See you in the morning,” she said to Alya, smiling a little.

“You too,” Alya replied, grinning. “You sure you’ll be able to handle sharing a room with her?” She jerked her thumb over to Chloe, who was getting her sleeping bag ready.

“Trust me,” Marinette dismissed. “That’s not gonna be a problem.”

Marinette could not sleep. She kept tossing and turning in the bed, her head spinning with nightmares. She dreamt that she was Ladybug, and she was running under a dark, thundery sky on a rocky terrain from something. In the background, a man’s voice was laughing coldly, and another voice, a girl’s, say, “That’s one of the famed defenders of Paris? Fleeing like the insect she is? I’m not impressed at all!”

Ladybug screeched to a halt and turned around; there was something familiar about the voice, and yet she couldn’t pinpoint why it was so. In the distance was a purple outline, a figure with its head on fire and purple wings grew out of its back. A long horn, not unlike that of a unicorn’s, grew out of its forehead, and its eyes were solid white. Ladybug gripped her yoyo; she did not know whether this was another akuma or simply a monster like the ones from Mewni that she had encountered, but she was not going down without a fight.

The figure raised its right hand, and shot forth a stream of purple fire. Ladybug spun her yoyo rapidly to deflect the blast, but the tip of the figure’s horn glowed a dangerous white, and a powerful laser blast hit her, sending her sprawling onto the rocky terrain. The figure bent down and reached down to pick up something she had . . . .

Marinette woke with a jolt. Breathing heavily, she glanced around to find that she was still in the downstairs room. She sighed with relief, then crossed the room tiptoeing. The wooden floor creaked as she made her way across, waking up Tikki, who tiredly flew over to her.

“Marinette?” she groaned quietly. “Where are you going?”

“To the kitchen,” Marinette answered simply. “I had a nightmare and I need something to eat.” She quietly made her way down the stairs to the kitchen, looking for something delicious to take her mind off the disturbing dream she had, her kwami slowly floating behind her. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they were surprised to find that the light was already on. A figure was already sitting at the table, its head facedown and looking at something. Marinette squinted her eyes, peering. It was . . .

“Twilight?” she asked, her eyes bleary. “What’re you doing up so late?”

Twilight was caught off guard with this statement. “Marinette, Tikki,” she said, almost surprised. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went up to get some midnight snacks.” She offered them two vanilla creams. “Want some?”

Marinette and Tikki paused, then looked at each other. At last, Marinette said, “Sure. Why not?” They took the cookies from Twilight’s hand and began munching on them. Out of the corner of her eye, Marinette noticed that Twilight was reading a large book with several sheets of parchment in it, and there were three dolls in front of her. One was black and red with a quiver of arrows attached to it and had dark-colored wings coming out of it; another was green-skinned and pink-haired and wore a black costume; and the last had blue-and-black armor all over it. She recognized those dolls at once, for they were representations of three akumatized victims she had fought so long ago: Dark Cupid, Princess Fragrance, and Rogercop.

“I see you found three of the dolls I’ve been working on,” she started.

Twilight jolted a little, evidently a bit surprised that she noticed that she had taken them.

“Sorry,” she chuckled weakly, smiling a little. “I found these in your room as I came down here. I guess curiosity got the better of me.”

“That’s all right,” Marinette dismissed. “I have no complaint against that.”

“Who are these guys, anyway?” Twilight asked, motioning to the dolls.

Marinette sat down next to Twilight. “You know how Adrien and I told you and your friends that we’ve fought akumatized victims in the past?” Twilight nodded.  “Well, these are three of them, Dark Cupid”-she pointed to the black-and-red doll with wings-“Princess Fragrance”-she pointed to the green-skinned doll in black-“and Rogercop.” She motioned to the blue-and black doll.

“You mind telling me more about them?” Twilight asked.

“Well,” Marinette said uncertainly, pointing toward the black-and-red doll, “Dark Cupid wanted to get revenge on a girl for rejecting and humiliating him on Valentine’s Day, and Princess Fragrance”-she pointed to the green-skinned, pink-haired doll in black-“went scrazy over a visiting prince from another country. Then there was Rogercop”-she pointed to the blue doll-“who wanted to overthrow the city’s legal system and replace it with his own brand of justice.”

“Sounds like you and Cat Noir have been leading awesome double lives,” Twilight noted.

Marinette sighed. “Yeah, you can say that,” she admitted. “But sometimes, I wish there was more for me to look forward to.”

As the song drew to a close, Twilight put a reassuring hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Marinette,” she assured her. “You have a lot to look forward to. More than me, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?” Tikki questioned curiously.

“Well, there’s something that has been bothering me for quite a while,” Twilight started, an air of reluctance around her, “and I don’t know if I want to disclose it with anyone else.”

“Just tell us,” Marinette responded earnestly. “You’ll feel a lot better about it afterwards.”

Twilight sighed. “Okay,” she started. “Here goes: A few months ago, my brother invited me and my friends to his wedding to my old foalsitter, Princess Cadence.  But when we arrived that Canterlot, I noticed that Cadence was not acting like herself at all. She forgot the secret handshake that we used to do when I was a filly, and she hardly recognized me, which shouldn’t have been possible because we’ve known each other for so long. What’s worse is that she started behaving like a rude, selfish, obnoxious brat to everyone she met, which was completely unlike the Cadence I knew. It wasn’t until much, much later that I learned that she was an impostor named Queen Chrysalis.

“Anyways, back to the story. I decided to keep some tabs on the impostor and my brother. Not long after, that evening, I saw the impostor cast some sort of brainwashing spell on my brother, and that’s when I realized, She’s not just unpleasant and rude, she’s downright evil! So I raced back to warn my friends about the danger lurking right under their noses, only to find out that the impostor had already made them her new bridesmaids!

“Well, that was the last straw for me, so I decided to expose the impostor for who she really was during the rehearsal. That day, I ran into the hall and started shouting, ‘She’s evil! She’s evil! And if I don’t stop her she’s gonna ruin my brother’s life!’ That was enough to get the fake Cadence to run out of the hall, crying. I just wished that somepony else picked up on what I was trying to tell them and not look at me as if I had gone crazy.”

Marinette and Tikki looked at each other questioningly. They wondered what they should tell Twilight. At last, Marinette started, very slowly, “Well, I don’t want to sound like I’m against you, Twilight, but you didn’t exactly do a good job of giving anyone a good reason to believe you. In fact, if I were there, I’d have probably thought you’d gone bananas, too.”
“I already told you, I get that I wasn’t exactly making myself look less insane but...” Twilight began, but was cut off by Tikki.

“But they way you’re putting it, it kinda sounds like you feel as though your friends already knew she was a fake but turned on you anyway.” She stated, getting a look of shock from Twilight. “But you said that Chrysalis fooled them, so is it really their fault? Especially your brothers since he was brainwashed the whole time? That would be like if we blamed our friends for what they did while they were akumatized, they couldn't control what they were doing, so why blame them?”

Twilight sighed, remembering how her friends acted like complete jerks thanks to Discord’s manipulations, or how her… close friend Flash Sentry treated her like dirt under the Dazzlings control. “OK, you have a point there, but my friends… they were supposed to be there for me, heck no too long ago they promised to take my concerns more seriously after the Smartypants incident...”

“Oh yeah, Applejack told me about that...” Marinette stated, getting Twilight’s attention. “But in that case, you need to remember that they had context to go off of. You went to them and laid out exactly what was wrong and why you were so stressed out, and they just laughed it off. So shame on them there-”

Before she could continue, Tikki flew in between them. “And you aren’t exactly innocent in that scenario either Twily, considering you didn’t listen to Spike and basically cast mindwarp spell on your friends siblings… I don’t see them holding a grudge against you for that…”

Twilight looked away in embarrassment, remembering how humiliating the event was.

Marinette grabbed Tikki by the head and pulled her back. “OK, dial it back Tikki.” She reprimanded her friend, who giggled in embarrassment. “While I wouldn’t word it that way, she kinda has a point, in that scenario you came to them and you were direct and honest. But at the wedding you immediately started hurling accusations and ranting and raving without giving everyone any context whatsoever. How were they supposed to take your concerns seriously if she chased someone-royalty, might I add-out of a room based on a hunch? A hunch that before all intents and purposes was false? Are you saying that they should’ve simply applauded your behavior? ”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something…. but when she couldn’t think of anything, Marinette  continued. “And yes Twilight, Celestia is your mentor and she was a little too harsh... but in her eyes that was her niece you sent crying out of the room. If someone had pulled the same stunt on say, your brother or Spike, who would have gone to comfort first?”

Twilight blinked as she let the scene play out in her head, seeing Spike, who was practically her little brother, about to be happily married… only for someone close to her to storm in and accuse him of being evil, chasing him out of the room and he cried in grief. She felt a flare of rage pulse through her body and stood up… only to sit down in shock when she realized how Celestia must have felt seeing her own student verbally attack her own family member…

“I guess you’re right,” Twilight admitted at last. “Looking back on it, I probably should have gathered more evidence, or at the very least voiced my concerns to Celestia. But it doesn’t excuse what my friends, brother, and mentor did afterward.”

“What exactly did they do?” Marinette asked curiously.

Twilight sighed. Here it comes, she thought to herself. “After the impostor ran out of the wedding rehearsal, my brother stripped me of my position as best mare, and told me that I was no longer welcome in the wedding. My friends, who I thought would stand by me, just left me and followed my brother to comfort his fiancée. As if that weren’t enough, my own mentor followed them as well and left me there. I can still remember those words she said to me as she left: ‘You have a lot to think about.’”

“That’s terrible,” Tikki noted.

“Oh, it gets better from there,” Twilight continued. “After the others left, the impostor Cadence came back, and I apologized to her because I thought I screwed up. Next thing I knew, she said, ‘You will be’, and sent me underground to some abandoned caverns. It was only through chance that I found the real Cadence and had managed to escape, otherwise I would died from starvation or dehydration or Equestria-knows-what-else.”

Marinette and Tikki stared back at her, utterly dumbfounded by what they had just heard. They would not have believed that Twilight’s friends, brother, and teacher had almost given her a death sentence by leaving her at the impostor’s mercy. Sure, Marco may have done a similar thing with Star two months ago, but to be fair, at least Star was never in any danger of dying to begin with, because she had been akumatized. Marinette made a mental note to confront Twilight’s friends about this when the time came.

“And it’s been bothering you ever since?” Marinette asked.

Twilight chuckled bitterly. “One does not simply forget a traumatic incident like that, Marinette. To be fair, it has gotten slightly better, but a while back, Queen Chrysalis captured me and my friends, and seeing her was enough to bring the trauma back. ”

“You poor thing,” Marinette said. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

“Eleven-no, scratch that, make it twenty.”

“That bad, huh?” Marinette asked. Twilight nodded.

Marinette paused. At last, she said, “Would it help if I said that I knew someone who might be able to help with your condition?”

“Really?” Twilight asked, now somewhat hopeful.

“Yeah,” Tikki said. “He’s a famous healer who’s been helping people with whatever bodily problems they have.” She flew over to a stand and picked up a small piece of paper. “Here’s his business card.”

Twilight smiled a little. “Thanks, Marinette. Thanks, Tikki.” She started to go up the stairs to her room, then paused and turned around to face them both. “See you girls in the morning.” She turned back and continued walking upstairs until the sound of her footsteps disappeared, leaving Marinette and Tikki all alone in the kitchen.

“We should get going, Tikki,” Marinette started slowly. Tikki nodded, and the two of them moved to go upstairs when they heard a voice interrupt them.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that you were still up.”

Marinette froze, then turned to the source of the voice, which was coming from the bottom of the stairs. There stood Chloe, her hair let loose and partially covering her face.

“I wasn’t aware that you were awake,” Marinette remarked.

“Yeah, well, it’s pretty hard to ignore the song coming from downstairs,” Chloe smiled a little.

“You heard, huh?” Marinette responded, a bit amused. Chloe nodded.

“It must be nice having people always look to you for answers to their problems, instead of waiting for you to cause a problem,” Chloe said, a bit forlorn.

“Yeah? Well, just because everyone expects something from you doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen,” Marinette added.

“But that doesn’t stop them from expecting it,” Chloe continued.

Marinette said, “Which unfortunately makes things harder because the last thing you want to do is-“

“Let anybody down,” they finished in unison. They froze upon realizing this, then chuckled uneasily.

“I’ve always wondered,” Marinette started, sitting on the nearest available seat, “why even though you’ve been picking on me, you never seem to have a problem with me whenever I went alter ego.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chloe replied, taking a seat on the couch. “Ladybug was, and still is, everything I ever wanted to be! She’s loved by the entire city of Paris, respected by everyone, and on top of that, she has a normal family life! Something that I can never seem to have.”

“Well, you are making an effort to change, aren’t you?” Marinette asked her encouragingly.

“Why do you think I’ve been trying to hang out with you for the past two months?” Chloe asked. “With my dad facing trouble at work and my mom probably out of the picture forever, I thought maybe you and Alya would be able to help me.”

Marinette paused. “Of course we are,” she admitted. “But we feel like we haven’t lived up to our end of the bargain.”

“And I can understand why,” Chloe responded knowingly. “After all, I’ve been treating both of you like dirt for quite some time now.”

“Can’t argue there,” Marinette said.

“Say, you haven’t heard from Star and Marco recently, have you?” Chloe asked curiously.

“Once or twice,” Marinette answered. She and Star had exchanged emails and had stayed in contact ever since.

“Cool,” Chloe said. “I admit, I kinda miss having them and their friends around. And I hear that the blonde one is dating Nathanael. I don’t know why, but I’ve started having feelings for him.”

Marinette nodded. “I see. Well I’m sure that you’ll be able to tell him someday, if he’s interested.”

“So, I heard you and Twilight-that was her name, was it?-were talking about something here,” Chloe continued. “What was it?”

“I don’t know if I want to discuss it now,” Marinette answered uncertainly. “Maybe in the morning?”

“Okay, then,” Chloe reluctantly responded. Her eyes caught the dolls and the book that Twilight had forgotten to take with her. She studied the book curiously; at last, she turned to Marinette.

“I don’t suppose I could borrow this?” she asked.

“That’s Twilight’s, I’m afraid,” Tikki answered, shrugging. “So I guess you have to ask her. You can keep it safe for her in the meantime, I guess.”

“Okay,” Chloe decided at last, closing the book and picking it up. “Let’s go back now, shall we?”

Marinette and Tikki nodded, then the three girls got up, turned off the light and went up to their room.