Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Second Moonlark (a KOTLC/MLB crossover)

Chapter Eighteen: Adrien

"Man, this is still smaller than my own room!" Sophie laughed.

Adrien let out a sheepish grin. After they had dispersed to get ready to get him and Marinette to the Lost Cities (and Alya, Chloe, and Nino had been given their Miraculous to keep so they could protect Paris just in case anything happened), Mr. Forkle had given Sophie some clear wand thing, which she later explained was a pathfinder. Simply adjust the crystal to a certain facet (it was set to some place called Everglen), and it reflected a beam of light going in that direction, and you rode with the light. Easy enough.

Only, you needed good concentration to be able to light leap. What happened was that your body broke down into particles and you needed enough concentration to be able to piece yourself back together as you glittered into the place you were going to. Lose more than half of yourself in a leap and you faded away, your body breaking down into particles forever and staying with the light forever. However, normally, if an elf was faded, they were normally colorless. Special devices called nexuses helped bring an elf together after a leap.

It finally made sense as to why he had seen Marinette's arm turn colorless when he'd caught her messing with that beam of light last week.

"So you have a large room too?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sophie said. "Mine takes up the entire third floor."

Adrien blinked a couple times to make sure he'd heard that right.

"You live in what, a mansion?" he asked, grabbing pictures of him with his friends, Plagg trying to move his endless store of Camembert cheese.

"Yeah," Sophie shrugged, as if it was any old fact.

Adrien paused. "And that's normal?"

"I mean, it's still a little crazy for me, but elves all have a birth fund of about five million lusters," she explained. "Each luster is about a million dollars, so we each get five trillion human dollars."

Adrien was confused.

"Darn it, I forgot this is France!" Sophie tugged out a couple loose lashes (she had said it was a nervous habit of hers). "Okay, doing some quick math, it's about 4,419,000,000,000 euros."

Adrien was still shocked.

"It's standard," she added.

Adrien shook his head in disbelief.

"So, anything big you really need to pack?" she asked.

"Not really," he sighed. "Most of this... isn't 100% me. Which is kinda funny; I've been stuck here at this place for pretty much all my life. And ever since my mom disappeared, my father's been even more protective."

But he could feel his mood darkening even more.

Because once the words left his mouth, he realized the truth.

Gabriel and Emilie Agreste were never really his parents.

Which would probably make leaving them a lot easier.

He had no idea how Marinette was holding up, having to let herself go away from her actual family.

Adrien didn't even know who his own family was anymore.

"Don't worry, I only know my biological mom, and it took me two years to figure out," Sophie said.

Adrien stared at her weirdly.

"Did you just read my mind?" he asked.

"Don't ask me how; I have all my mental shields put up," Sophie said. "It's a little trick Telepaths have so that we don't have to hear thoughts every second of the day. Only the way my mind works is that it's like, completely impenetrable. So how did yours completely broadcast to me?"