Switching Deceit

Chapter 2

Where am I?

"Why can't Marinette just listen to me, Plagg," I yelled. "She's always so insistent on exposing Lila, and never listens to reason!"

"Maybe because you never listen to her, Adrien!" Plagg yelled back. "Every piece of advice you've ever given her you've always thought about how Lila feels, but when have you ever thought about Mari's feelings? How she's doing?"

"She's fine! Marinette can handle it! You saw how she handled the Darkblade Akuma, she can handle one girl talking. Lila's Akumas are hard to defeat so it's better just to keep her happy. Besides, we're already too far in! If people find out Lila's lying now, the entire class will be in chaos then everyone will be akumatised. I'm doing the right thing."

"You know what," Plagg started. "Since you're doing the 'right thing', so will I. Adrien, I denounce you as my holder. You don't deserve the powers of the Black Cat Miraculous."

"You can't do that!" I screamed as a green and black light engulfed my body.

When the flash of light disappeared, Plagg was gone and the ring that once sat on my finger was gone leaving an ugly tan line. Father was not going to be happy about that since his new collection starred many men's rings.

"Who does he think he is talking about the Guardian like that?" Plagg muttered as he flew through Paris. "And I thought my last holder was stupid, they give me this guy! He's literally the definition of stubborn."

Plagg stormed over to the one place he knew he had to go: The bakery. When he got there, boy was he in for a surprise.

Flashing red and blue police lights shone over the tall building creating monstrous shadows that made him imagine awful scenarios of what might've happened.

"Tikki?" He called out once he was in her holder's room. His gaze landed on a pair of black sports earrings. "Oh no," He darted over to them and put his paw against the earring. "Tikki?"

A bright flash illuminated the dark room and Tikki came bolting out. "Marinette! Marinette! Where are you!" She cried as she whizzed through her room looking for her best friend. "I was too late." She cried into Plagg's shoulder. "I couldn't stop her, she-she-"

"What happened to the little bug?"

"She jumped off the balcony!" Tikki wailed. "And I couldn't stop her."

"Bug did what?" Plagg asked with only the ghost of his usual voice. "N-No! I told Adrien something like this would happen!"

"A-And it did."

Tikki and Plagg heard noise from below  the floor.

"-eason that Mdm. Dupain-Cheng would want to end her life?"

Hearing this, Tikki and Plagg phased through the floorboards and hid behind a picture frame on one of the higher shelves.

"No! Absolutely not! I couldn't even remember the last time we saw her anything but happy." Sabine strained her voice and forced a smile.

"She was a great girl with an aspiring future." Tom blatantly lied.

"Is it possible she was blackmailed into jumping?"

"Could be? We never asked about her school life, she never wanted to talk about it." Sabine's eye twitched.

"Unfortunately, your daughter has an extremely low chance of survival. You'd need nothing short of a miracle for her to survive."

"Oh no!" Sabine gasped.

"That'll be it for now. My sincere condolences, I'll be in touch."

With that, the man got up and left the Dupain-Cheng's apartment.