The Noir, The Lady and the New World

An Unlucky Situation

Ladybug wasn't having much good luck. She opened her eyes to find herself in a dark closet, surrounded by boxes and fallen objects. "Where...Chat!?"

She remembered her partner's angry yowl and seeing him dive into the portal after her, but where was he now? Where was she?

She sat up, pushing a broom stick out of the way. "Ugh...huh?" She saw a little red glow coming from inside one of the boxes, and found her kwami lying still inside. "Tikki!"

Tikki's eyes opened, then she gasped and flew up to Ladybug's face. "Marinette...you're a real ladybug!"

"Huh?" Marinette looked at herself in the reflection of an old mirror, finding a pair of wings on her back and antennae curling on top of her head. "Weird...I wonder where we are..."
She crawled to the door, opening it a little and peering out. She saw a long, dark hallway, and an ominous humming in the air that made her antennae twitch. "Great..."

"Hello...?" Tikki whispered, settling down on Ladybug's shoulder.

"Shh..." Ladybug stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her. "We don't know where we-!" She gasped as she saw the window at the end on the hall. She ran to it, placing her hands on the glass as she peered out.

Below her was an orb of water, land and wispy white clouds over it all, and stars glittered all around.

She was in space.

"Ooh...I'd always wondered what it was like to be in space..." Tikki murmured.

"That's not Earth. The landmasses are all wrong. So where-" she paused as she heard unfamiliar voices, and she jumped up on top of a pipe, out of sight as two shapes passed below her.

"Are you sure you heard something, old chap?" One asked, a ball-shaped robot.

"I'm not losing my nuts and bolts, Orbot!" The other, a box-shaped robot replied. "I heard somebody talking! 'Gasp!' What if it's a ghost!?"

"If this place were haunted, we'd have seen the ghost by now!"

"Do they mean us?" Tikki whispered in Marinette's ear. Marinette motioned for her to be silent.

"Probably some malfunction in the audio system. Dr. Eggman will fix it. He needs this station to be in perfect shape for his evil scheme!"

"Which is...?"

Orbot sighed. "He's never told us..."

As the robots rolled away, Marinette thought over her situation. I'm trapped on a space station, orbiting an alien planet, with some mad scientist out to destroy something, probably the world.
"We're in trouble, Tikki." She whispered. "We have to get off this thing...!"

"How? Even if we find a shuttle, you can't fly it!"

Marinette nodded. "I know...we'll have to figure something out. Let's hope Chat is out there looking for us."

"I'm sure he is..."
______________________________________

This would've been a good time for Chat to know Ladybug's true name. There could be hundreds, if not thousands of ladybugs around here, and all he could think is that she'd recognize him if she saw him on the street.

Over time, he'd deduced that she was his age, despite what she'd told his classmate Alya after saving her from an akumatized pharaoh. She had black pigtails tied with red ribbons... And he had a feeling she sat behind him in class.

He was almost certain it was Marinette, but he never told her. She should tell him when she was comfortable. He'd tried to get closer to her at school, but a certain mayor's daughter kept him from doing so.

Chloe was only nice to him, he'd noticed, and it bothered him. She was like a scorpion trying to be his butterfly.

But he loved his ladybug.

Hopefully her luck would hold out until he found her.

"Any clues on where he might've taken her?" He asked, looking around the street where the civilians were now just suspiciously watching him pass by.

"Probably somewhere she couldn't be heard from outside...a warehouse, maybe."

"Hopefully somewhere with cheese...!" Plagg sighed.

"You know, for someone with such a big head, you do a lot of thinking with your stomach."

Chat snickered, getting a glare from Plagg in response.

"Abbie has a similar power to yours, but she controls the age of people and objects, not just rusting iron."

Chat looked at his hands. "I've never seen what happens if I used Cataclysm on a person...I'm afraid to try."

"Probably a good plan." Solaris paused, taking in a deep breath before his ears pricked up. "...Abbie!"

"You can smell her!?" Plagg asked.

"Yes. I'd know that smell anywhere!"

Honestly, all Chat could smell was a scent that made him wanna gag. Was that what he was smelling? He decided not to argue, because the sooner they found his wife, the sooner they could get to finding Ladybug.