No More Mr. Nice Guy [Completed]

Chapter 21: New Found Courage

~~Recap~~

"CHAT NOIR!" She cried in response. She placed her head on his chest and began crying. Suddenly, she felt a bright light flash on her closed eyes.

~~Recap Over~~

Note: For this part, let's assume that the Miraculous specials happened before season 4 when Fu was still the guardian of the Miracle box.

As she opened her eyes, she became speechless. Instead of Chat Noir, laid a blonde kid about her age. His body was wounded. His scars would take forever to heal and his blood kept flooding out of him. For a moment, even her tears stopped. Confusion and realization struck her when she finally discovered who was under the mask. Who was there to make cringe cat puns and awful jokes? Who was there for her during every battle? Who was the one who kept making sacrifices for her? Who always picked her up when she was down? Protected her? Cared for her? Loved her? Well it was none other than her crush, Adrien Agreste himself.

"A... Adrien." Her voice cracked. Her eyes became teary and her skin turned pale. Her brain kept playing all these random flashbacks of the time they both spent together:

"I've never had friends. It's all quite new to me." (She recalled him handing out his umbrella when the new school year started. When she first picked up the title of Ladybug. When her life changed forever).

"What about Ladybug? Aren't you supposed to be a duo?" She teased the cat.
"She's busy with something tonight so... you get to be my Ladybug." He responded.

"You're our everyday Ladybug." Adrien complimented her and passed on his heart warming smile.

"You- you've had your heart broken too?" The cat inquired with concern as he sat on the railing of her balcony.
"Yup." Was all that she could say in disappointed.
The next thing she remembered was being carried away in his arms.

"I've been walking all over London looking for these for you." She recalled him saying while she blushed in embarrassment as she held onto (well... You remember).

"But Lila is-" she was cut off.
"A lier" Adrien finished.

"Hey Marinette. Wanna dance?" He took her hand and led her to the dancefloor as they danced at Chloe's party... And in mid-air in the middle of the night (reference to the NY special and speaking of that episode...)

She recalled the pain she went through when Chat Noir quitted.

"The last thing I want is to hurt someone. Least of all, you." He ran away after giving up his miraculous to her while ignoring her desperate calls for him to come back.

"You've got something Marinette." He praised her not so long ago.

"M'lady a french girl we know- Marinette- is missing in Shanghai." The Chat called her worriedly and went to find her in the unknown city.

Ladybug wiped off her tears as she recalled all these memories of them simultaneously. No words could express her pain, her grieve, her sorrow, her heartbreak.

"Marinette..." Rena finally tried to comfort her but then trailed off as she did not know what to say. She wrapped herself around the young baker's arm to show her support.

"It was him. It was Adrien all along and I couldn't see it." She whispered through her shaky breaths and teary voice.

"All of this time, I could have told him. We could have been more than friends. He loved me. My crush loved me but I rejected him. I was too blind to see through that mask." Her tone was down and she sounded disappointed in herself for never having the courage to speak to him. To tell him her true feelings for him.

She was already wiping off the blood from his face. His one hand still on the ground while the other was doing a terrible job in hiding his chest wound. She grabbed his hand and whispered "Adrien" one last time before she bent down to kiss his forehead.

(Anyway....)

Vexer made her trademark demonic laugh again. But this time, it was focused on hurting her emotionally more if possible.

"Look at yourself. With all the power you had, you could have been a queen. Yet you chose to play the role of a defenseless little princess just waiting for a prince to come and rescue you." Vexer hissed at Ladybug's pain.

Ladybug listened to all those insults but remained silent. However, she snapped when Vexer concluded with "And now look at you? There's no prince left to save you. How pathetic!"

"NO! The only one pathetic here is you. Taking over Paris is one thing. You could have hurt me, tortured me, or even killed me... yet you chose to go after Chat. You killed my friend and THAT'S NOT OKAY!" She spat coldly.

In a fit of fury, she removed Adrien's ring off of his finger. This only put the others in a state of shock and fear.

"Woah- Marinette, what are you doing?" Carapace asked with wide opened eyes.

She didn't reply but put the ring on  ring finger instead. Plagg appeared and seemed pretty energetic. Probably because Adrien never got a chance to use his Cataclysm so Plagg still had a lot of potential strength in him.

"Marinette wait. What you're doing is-" Luka tried to talk but was cut-off by Alya.
"Girl, if you're doing what I think you're doing then stop. You know how dangerous merging miraculouses are. Espically if one of them is a power of creation and the other is destruction. We don't know what might happen to you."

But Marinette ignored all their concerns and was only focused on Vexer's smirk.

"I have no choice. Vexer's too powerful. With this, I could hopefully match hers."

Vexer laughed in amusement.

"Oh I would love to see you try."

Marinette, determined to bring Vexer down once and for all, brought both her hands to either side while calling "Tikki, Plagg..." Then brought both her hands together and finally ordered "...Unify!"

A bright light surrounded her while blinding everyone else. When it finally cleared, Ladybug was in a new suit. Her mask resembled to Chat Noir's from the bottom half. A bright green lining trailed from her neck to her shoulders to her arms. Her hands and feet were gloved by black leather that appeared to enhance her fingernails to some extent. A loose black leather belt hanged around her waist with a cat's paw print at the center of it. A small shaft was secured between her and the belt. Small cat ears also appeared on her now loose silver messy hair (shoulder length). The rest was her iconic Ladybug suit. As she opened her eyes when the transformation was complete, one eye was her usual blue while the other was green. As she let a satisfying smile on her face, small sharp fangs resembled to that of a cat.

"The real fight is just getting started." She concluded with determination.