✩𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕤𝕥 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥, 𝔹𝕝𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕤✩

𝘉𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘴

Marinette stormed out of the prison and took out the phone that Damian had gifted her.

Visiting Hawkmoth was pointless. He was weak and arrogant, but if he really did have the butterfly miraculous on him, he would have taken the time to boast over how it wasn't over.

"Marinette," Plagg said as the teen began texting her findings to Damian as she continued walking down the street.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something, Plagg," she whispered harshly.

"You need to stop and turn around."

"There's no way I'm going bad to see him," Marinette grimaced.

"I wasn't talking about Gabriel," he said, making the girl's eyebrows raise a little as she slowed her pace.

"That woman who told you she was waiting on you. Do you see her?"

The bluenette stopped in place and whipped her body around as her eyes searched each pedestrian on the sidewalk.

"Over here," the woman's voice called out as she raised a hand above the crowds' heads.

Marinette, cautiously, walked over to the woman.

"I'm glad you didn't run away," she said out of breath. "I didn't expect you to zoom out of there."

"Righttt," Marinette dragged on as she eyed the woman and decided that she didn't wanna hear her sympathies. "It was nice meeting you, sort of, but I have somewhere I need to be."

"Wait!" The woman exclaimed as she grabbed onto Marinette's arm as she was leaving. "I know who you are."

"What?"

"That ring says it all," she exhaled.

Marinette's eyes went wide as she covered the gray ring with her other hand.

"I'm not your enemy, but there's someone who's trying to get to all of us, but it's not Gabriel. Someone else is manipulating the black butterflies. "

"Get away from me," Marinette warned with a scowl, but the woman relented.

"I know you won't run away, but if you choose to fight, take this with you and find the one with stripes. I tried to tell the others, but I haven't found her, and so have they," she said in a hurry as she slipped a small metal object into Marinette's hand before letting her go.

"Who are you?" Marinette called out as she watched the woman turn around.

"A friend of a friend. We may never see each other again, but I'll always be watching you from the shadows, Lady Luck. This is the best I can do," she said before disappearing into the sunset.

"Don't chase her down," Plagg warned as Marinette tried to push through the crowd in the direction she came.

Seeing how it was already too late to catch up to the woman, Marinette looked down to the object in her hand and gasped.

She was holding onto a brooch. If she called her 'Lady Luck', then what she had in her hands was a miraculous.

She fisted it for dear life and steadily made her way down the street, aiming for home. Whoever that woman may have been, she seemed urgently desperate. Something was definitely going on.

Just as the bakery was in sight, she felt her hand on her shoulder, and she slapped away promptly.

"I didn't think we were already at the slapping stage of our ex-friendship," the familiar voice echoed in the air around them.

"Alya," she said in surprise. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I don't know what you are actually sorry for," Alya said as she narrowed her eyes on her. "Your mom called mine. You were supposed to come over to my place to pick up your things, but here you're, heading home already."

Alya shoved a box of Marinette's belongings into her arms, pushing the bluenette back slightly.

"Okay? You don't have to be so rough about it."

"Oh, is that so?" Alya said in fake surprise as she crossed her arms. "I didn't realize how aggressive I've been, but maybe it's because you didn't stand up for me."

Marinette shrugged her shoulders.

"Why are you acting like it's the first time my mom told you to stop hanging with me?"

"Well, you couldn't even give an excuse?"

"Maybe I'm sick and tired of giving excuses. Maybe I wanna comfort my mother's worries with the truth."

"You've gotten me into a lot of trouble over it."

"I'm not the only one who's trying to avoid the frying pan, Alya. You jumped out of my bedroom window! How do I even start explaining that to my parents? What were you even doing in there?!" Marinette shrieked.

"I'll do you one better. Why weren't you at the Le Grand Paris Hotel?" Alya yelled. "Getting cold feet all of a sudden, when you were the one who helped me plan it?"

"It's called having a moral conscience. I was saving myself the embarrassment of being caught trying to break into someone's hotel room, not to mention how you were going to drag Damian into this."

Alya raised her hands in the air in surrender.

"Fine, Damian could have stayed out of it for all I care, but you ditched me! Are there really other things in this world that are more important than your own friend in need?"

A deep-seated frown tool over Marinette's face.

"Yes, there is Alya," Marinette said in a low voice. "How can you be so selfish?! You act like I don't have my own life to live. Marinette, let's do this. Marinette, let's do that. Marinette, I hope you don't mind that I entered your drawing in the art competition. Marinette, I put your name in the Goblet of Fire. When are you ever going to get it past greed and stop using me?!"

The two girls stared at each other, enraged. Maybe Mrs Dupain-Cheng was right, they really shouldn't see each other anymore.