Miraculous Hunters Rewritten: Book 1

Chapter 52: Gamer Part 1

(Two days later)

Well after Cheng Sifu's victory in the 'World's Greatest Chef' competition, and Artemis's dinner with the Mayor, the weekend on Marinette's end had come and gone rather quickly. However, her school principal had announced that classes were canceled that day for reasons Marinette had no idea, but had left the school open for students to use the space for any projects they had due. But while Marinette and Alya were one of those students, the pigtailed girl had totally forgotten about her study date in favor of staying in her room and writing in her diary about an akuma the night before.

'Dear diary, guess what happened last night!' Marinette narrated in her thoughts as she wrote on the diary page, laying on her bedroom floor on her stomach as she did so. 'I was only down to two spots away from transforming back and revealing my true identity to Chat Noir when...' the designer continued to regal in her mind, her pen flowing on the diary paper with practiced ease before Tikki flew over to her.

"Hey Marinette, weren't you meeting Alya back at school this afternoon to research your term paper?" Tikki questioned her holder, floating in front of Marinette as she pulled the girl out of her internal narration. At her kwami's words, Marinette suddenly remembered the prior engagement and stopped writing in her diary to check her phone for the time, only to see that she was massively late.

"Oh no, I'm late! Again!" Marinette cried out when she saw the time, quickly getting up from the floor and putting her diary in her box before locking it up.

With her secret-filled diary safe, the pigtailed girl grabbed her purse; Tikki flying into it at the last minute, and backpack before racing down the stairs to the bakery at the ground floor. From there, Marinette ran out of the bakery's front door and made her way to the school, zooming through the crosswalk so she could reach Collège Françoise Dupont. But when she raced into the courtyard so she could get to where Alya and her had agreed to meet, Marinette stopped in her tracks when she suddenly heard noise coming from the library.

"What's that noise?" Tikki wondered out loud, popping her head out of Marinette's purse to get a better look at what was happening.

"Hide, Tikki!" Marinette told her kwami despite the empty courtyard, the response mostly out of habit to prevent others from seeing her kwami.

Regardless, Tikki followed the command before Marinette ran to the stairs leading up to the library, eager to see what the noise was caused by. Once she reached the library, Marinette had opened the door just in time to see her class was playing Ultimate Mecha Strike III, with Adrien and Max the ones playing at the moment while everyone else watched them.

"Come on, Max!" Kim cheered for his friend, Max and Adrien choosing their respective mechs while Marinette spotted Alya recording as she walked over to them.

"What's going on, Alya?" Marinette asked Alya, only for the bespeckled girl to shush and shoo her away just as Adrien and Max began their battle.

"Try-outs for the Paris Ultimate Mecha Strike III Tournament!" a voice to Mairnette's right cheered, causing Marinette to look and see it was Rose who spoke up. "The school will send the two students with the highest scores!" Rose explained, her excitement reaching the roof as she filled Marinette in. But before Marinette could say anything more, Kim walked up to the trio of girls.

"Actually, the tryouts are to find a partner to team up with Max in the tournament." Kim remarked, placing his elbow on Marinette's shoulder as he leaned his weight onto her.

"Why Max?" Marinette asked as they watched Adrien and Max battle their mechs, a little unsure as to why only Max had been chosen already.

" 'Cause he's unbeatable and a total rockstar! He's got the highest APM over anyone!" Kim exclaimed, confident in his best bud's abilities in video games, unaware of how right he was as certain memorized codes flashing through Max's mind as he played the game.