Anything For a Friend : A Miraculous Ladybug Fanfic

Chapter 2

"I have to admit, it's not what I expected after reading that note," Alya said, looking at the note once more.

Marinette slouched in her desk chair and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Well, it's not the worst that could have happened, you know? It's...close to what I wanted, anyway.

Alya stepped toward Marinette and pulled her out of her seat into a hug. "Don't worry, it'll work out for the best!" she said, holding her best friend at arm's length. "This way he'll get to know you, I mean really know you, and he'll fall for you anyway!"

Marinette smiled. "Maybe you're right," she said, and it felt like a lie.

Alya looked at her, full of sympathy, but her attention was jerked away by the sound of screaming outside Marinette's window. Alya leapt over to the window and opened it wide, astonished to see an akuma victim reminiscent of a moth flapping by the window, cackling hysterically as she pointed her camera at people. Each click of the camera and a person disappeared, somehow getting sucked up into the lens.

"I need to go!" Alya said, grabbing her cell phone and bag. "Ladybug's gonna be out there any second now! You coming?"

Marinette waved her hands feebly. "Go on. You know how much I hate violence!"

As soon as Alya was out the door, Tikki flew out of Marinette's purse, and the partners in justice nodded at one another. It was time to transform.

Moments later, Ladybug was on the rooftop, chasing down the latest victim of catastrophe in Paris. The moth girl was small with dark skin and curly blonde hair. Her colour scheme reminded Ladybug of mints or the moon, but she didn't seem familiar other than that. At least Chloe hadn't likely caused this akuma, Ladybug reflected. She really knew how to take advantage of small blessings.

She leapt from rooftop to rooftop, chasing after Flashdance as fast as she could without the aid of flight. The moth woman whirled and laughed, focusing her lens on the superherione. Ladybug yelped, and nearly had her picture taken, when a blur of black and blonde pushed her out of the way.

Flashdance growled in frustration, and flew away. "You won't be getting in the way of me taking back what was taken from me!" she said as she dwindled into the distance.

"Miss me, My Lady?" Chat Noir said, helping Ladybug up.

"You're lucky you didn't get snapped!" she replied, glaring in the moth's general direction.

"If any woman snaps me up, it's going to be you," he replied, grinning capriciously.

She rolled her eyes. "You're going to have to stop saying things like that, Chat," she told him. "She's taking photos of people, and wants to take something back...Wasn't there a popular photography exhibition on the other side of town? Maybe she's the photographer from that."

"It's as good a place as any to start," he replied with a shrug, and they were off.

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"The Galerie de Agathe," Chat Noir said as they approached the unassuming building they had traced the photographer to. "It doesn't look like much but she must purretty talented to get her work showcased here."

Ladybug laughed despite herself at his pun--which wasn't even one of his better ones--but remained focused on the mission at hand. "Are you familiar with it?" she asked.

He shrugged. His father liked to believe himself a patron of the arts, despite never actually showing up to these kinds of galleries. He sent Nathalie and Adrien in his stead, and so Adrien got a pretty healthy dose of contemporary art in Paris. He obviously couldn't explain all of that to Ladybug, so he settled for, "I know it well enough."