The Mini Menace (Hiatus)

Debut

"Why haven't you destroyed the costume yet?" Tikki asked with a hint of irritability.

Marinette was having second thoughts. She knew they had an agreement; she would destroy the costume - earrings included - and forget everything she had learnt that night. But a week had passed and she still couldn't bring herself to do it. She swivelled in her desk chair and studied the briefcase with fiery intensity.

"Lucille meant for me to have it. You know she did," she said with a sigh, fiddling absentmindedly with the padlock, turning the numbers to a different combination and pulling. No luck.

Only Tikki and Lucille knew the code.

"You can't just replace her." Tikki's reply wasn't venomous, but that didn't mean her words didn't sting.

Even after planning this conversation for days - since the idea first manifested - she was no more sure how to win Tikki over, but she still gave it her best shot.

"I don't want to," she said. "I was thinking, maybe I could use her equipment to find her killer," she tried

The police's investigation into Lucille's murder had run cold in the early days of questioning. Obviously, the killer had connections to Ladybug, not Lucille, which stunted their progress significantly. Marinette couldn't just sit on the side-lines. Not when she was the only one with the necessary resources to bring a murderer to justice.

But Tikki was instantly dismissive. "Out of the question. Trust me, you don't want to mess with that guy," she said.

Marinette jumped to her feet. "Wait. You know who murdered Lucille?" she asked without missing a beat.

"Forget I said anything," Tikki urged between gritted teeth. She didn't have to know Marinette long to gauge that this wasn't something she was likely to drop.

"I have a right to know. Lucille was my friend too," said Marinette. Playing that card was low - to use Lucille as leverage like that - but it was by no means easy and she hated that it had to come to that.

Her gamble payed off, however, as Tikki relented. "… A rival criminal. Goes by the name 'X'. He's been after us for years now, and - up until last night - we've always been one step ahead." Marinette can hear her struggle to keep her emotions at bay, but still her thinly veiled weakness seeps through the cracks - almost as if she held herself responsible.

Marinette knew she should at least attempt to reassure her, but she had a more pressing question. "But Ladybug has only been active for a few months. How is that possible?"

It turned out that this was a more effective method of comfort as Tikki sounded almost smug. "You've only known about her activities for a few months, but Ladybug has been around for almost a decade." Suddenly, her voice sounded grave. "But… she got sloppy and that's why-"

"-She wanted to retire," Marinette finished.

"Yes."

There was a beat of silence before Marinette continued her onslaught of questions. "I don't understand Tikki," she said, collapsing into her chaise lounge face down. "What was she thinking when she gave me those earrings," she murmured.

"I guess she just wanted someone to know her secret," Tikki mused.

"Or maybe she wanted someone to stop 'X'," said Marinette, lifting her head onto her elbows. "I have to do this Tikki. With or without you."

Once Marinette had made up her mind, there was no stopping her - her stubbornness was both one of her best and worst qualities. Almost a minute passed before Tikki responded.

"I have a feeling you're going to make a great Ladybug," she praised. "Fine. I'll help you, but if we're gonna do this, we do it my way. First, we need to lure him out, which means you're going to have to be bait," she began, laying the foundations of her master plan.

"I don't follow," Marinette confessed sheepishly.

"It's time for you to make your debut!" Tikki squealed - the most emotion Marinette had ever heard the girl express.

-MLB-

A warm summer breeze moved silently through the dark night air, brushing wisps of midnight-blue hair across Marinette's shadowed cheek. Crouched, unmoving on a steep, hipped roof, she waited patiently for Tikki's signal.

It hadn't taken much to convince Marinette to sneak out in the dead of night and make her way to the Parisian auction house that Tikki had indicated on the digital map mounted to her wrist. It may have had something to do with the promise of liberating a priceless, emerald, butterfly brooch from an impregnable vault or the fact that doing this meant that the costume and all of Ladybug's high-tech equipment was at her disposal.

But her true motivator was far more sombre and besides, she couldn't enjoy these things while 'X' was still on the loose.

After delivering a succinct briefing on how to bypass the security systems and disable the burglar alarms, it was time for Tikki's lock picking 101 - a sure sign things were about to get very interesting very quickly.

"Now rotate the bobby pin ninety degrees clockwise and wait for the click," Tikki directed.

Without a visual, she can only assume Marinette had correctly followed the previous steps. Confirmation quickly came in the form of the promised click over the com link as all the pins shifted into alignment.

"I'm in," said Marinette as she turned the door handle and stepped inside via the back entrance. "The student has become the master," she gloated, earning a soft chuckle from her accomplice.

"Kudos," Tikki piped. "Now, to disable the silent alarm activate the EMP built into the suit's glove. Remember, it will shut down all tech in the vicinity, so that means from that point on, you're on your own."

"Don't worry, Tikki. I got this," she boasted, rolling her shoulders to limber up. "Going dark in three… two… one…"

Marinette pressed her index finger into the middle spot on her palm and held the button for a few seconds, initiating a temporary black out. The background hum of generator-powered machines cut out, leaving complete and utter silence. The vault was located on sub-level five, behind two more locked doors - both of which Marinette proceeded to pick with ease (she'd always been a fast learner). Once inside, she was greeted by an old-school, heavy-duty vault with a steel handle composed of five shiny spokes around the circumference - the final obstacle.

The metal door was cool to the touch, chilling her skin as she pressed her ear to the dial and began to crack the safe. Apparently, Tikki had built a stethoscope into the left spotted glove and hooked the feedback up to the earrings, but the electromagnetic pulse had taken all of the suit's systems offline, so Marinette had no choice but to do things the old-fashioned way.

Without the use of this feature, it was so faint she almost had to start from the top after an almost fatal mistake halfway through. Under Tikki's tuition, she had made a quick recovery, but it ate up precious time; she barely had a chance to admire the delicate green butterfly resting on a cushioned pedestal. Slipping the jewel-encrusted brooch into a scarlet pouch at her hip, Marinette shut the vault door behind her and high-tailed it back up to the ground floor.

Instead of sneaking out the way she came in, she burst through the front door into the cool night air. Tonight would have proved pointless if she failed to alert 'X' to her escapade, so she turned to the oak-panelled door and pulled out a small canister of spray paint. Shaking the can with a rattle, Marinette tagged the building with a red circle and a line vertically through the middle. Switching to black, she finished her artwork with five circles and stood back to admire her handiwork.

That should do it, she thought as she broke into a sprint and disappeared from the scene of the crime…

A/N: Please let me know if something doesn't make sense and, if you're enjoying this story, I would really appreciate it if you recommend it to another MLB fan!

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