Tick Tock

Two

We all went inside  to the auditorium with people from different schools and districts that and I had no idea who most of them were. There were at least two thousand people in the huge room and I looked around seeing the stage I had never really looked at before.

The school had used it for assemblies or the occasional musical but I had never really stepped into the auditorium until now. Ms. Bustier led us to our section where some of the classes that had gotten there earlier were already sitting with each other.

Juleka was in a beautiful black dress with her black hair in an elegant bun with two strands of the vibrant dyed part framing her face wearing delicate pink rose earrings.

Rose was sitting next to her holding her arm and waving us over. She was wearing a pink baby doll dress with puffy sleeves and a black scarf with purple at the end. The two of them were subtly not so subtly announcing to the world that they were more than friends.

I heard Alya go "I ship iiiit." quietly while we took our seats.

After about ten minutes of sitting and talking with everyone, the ceremony was about ready to start. People from every school were called up to give speeches or teachers came up to talk about an experience they had when they were our age to make them seem "quirky and relatable"

Eventually, it was my turn to go up being the valedictorian, and I had planned a speech so I was prepared and reached for my bag to find the stack of papers when I realized I had left it o my desk when I was getting ready in such a rush.

I groaned as I walked up to the stage knowing I'd have to improvise or at least try to remember what I had written. When I got up to the podium I sighed at the mic fully prepared to bomb, when I smiled and saw my speech sitting there. I looked up and saw Marinette smiling giving me a thumbs up and I just started talking.

"Um hi. I'm uh, sure most of you have all been in school for several years waiting for this moment. I had only been enrolled in school recently so I had never really known about this but I can say that when I did hear about it I was excited. I didn't have to become an adult so soon I had years of waiting."

It just started pouring out. It wasn't the artificial speech I had remembered it was what I thought. It was the first speech I wrote with Nino. Marinette must have found it. In this moment I wasn't a perfect model Adrien, I was just me. Chat noir was letting loose you could say.

"But then there are people who train us and talk to us about the greater good and how we'll use these powers and it's scary. We're just kids for god's sake and they're entrusting us with powers and we're expecting ti help people."

Suddenly I wasn't talking about the gifting anymore, but my experience as Chat noir. "I mean come on really what genius thought we should give eighteen-year-olds super powers what could happen? A lot of things, crazy right?"

" After everything, I realized I'm still not ready for this or being an adult. From my experience none of us are. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I guess the lesson is here that with the life you're never ready. You never will be, so life has given you a push into the deep end, and just hope it turns out ok. Thank you."

 I wrapped it up thinking who the heck is gonna find that inspiring but was happily greeted with applause in the background I went back to my seat to zone out for another thirty minutes while other schools and teachers did their speeches.

Then after a long long time of waiting and getting Plagg to shut up so he didn't get caught, the mayor finally started announcing schools to come today up and receive their powers. Some said that theirs were flying or x-ray vision, kinda basic. But others were super strange like they could freeze time or they had an infinite slice of pizza.

It was time for my school to go up. We went down to the stage all some different forms of nervousness showing. Mylene was softly whispering her concerns to Ivan, Alya was biting her nails, Marinette was fidgeting with her hands, Chloe and Lila... we'll they were Chloe and Lila they were fine with everything, simply positive it would work out.

We were in a line alphabetically and the person bestowing the powers called us one by one. 

Lila was up first and was gifted the power of manipulation, though she didn't need it.

Then Sabrina Kim and Rose were up, followed by Nino Nathaniel and Alix. So on and so forth until it was just me and Marinette waiting.

 Marinette was called and given the power to read everybody's aura which is seeing peoples intentions and emotions. I had a feeling she would use her power for good is a such a very good friend!

(AN: Kill me I can't believe I just wrote that)

I was up next and really ready for whatever I was given. I walked unsurely to the stage my legs not getting the message that I was ready for this despite what the speech said. There was a reason I had scraped the first one father said he didn't like it and thought it was too insecure and I couldn't be insecure I was perfect.

I was able to get up the courage to go up there and was met with the scroll I was supposed to read from in Latin nonetheless. So that's why they had us learn Latin. 

"Hac potestate utar, ad bonum solum bonum et ad nihilum nisi bonum donatus sum. Elena nama naman etumatu elekahnaman ah tu mah tu elekanaman" I chanted making a green glow envelope the scroll. For a moment I heard a booming voice saying "do you swear to use this for good?" I nodded slightly and the glow faded away.

I looked up to see what power I got. "How much longer do people have to live," I  spoke into the microphone.

I look around seeing numbers appear over people's heads and went back to the line.

I smiled at Marinette ready to talk to her about our powers when the amount of time left to live appeared over her head.

3 months 2 weeks and 6 days.

Oh.

Oh...