The Spring Ball

Ch. 9: Ladybug

I sing loudly dancing along with my friends. The music was catchy and the lights made shapes on the dance floor as we danced. My dreams weren't exactly coming true in the way I had thought. To be honest I've barely been alone with Adrien because Alya, Nino, Max, Nathanael, and the rest had joined together to dance in a small circle. However, I was still having the time of my life laughing at Kim's crazy dance moves or singing along with Alya to our favourite songs. It was as if the night was infinite and we were never fading stars.

"Marinette!" I hear someone call out and I see Juleka rushing towards me her expression pained.

"Whats wrong?" I ask loudly, trying to be heard throughout the noise and walking away from the group towards where she is. As soon as I arrive she takes my hand and drags me to a corner her eyes worried.

"Have you seen Rose? I saw her run away crying but I don't know where she went or what happened." She whispers scared when suddenly I hear a scream from the crowd. Both Juleka and I turned around eyes wide. There was a girl in the middle of the dance floor wearing a huge pink dress and white cloth wrapped around her arms, like Rey in star wars. Then there was her mask and I cringe a bit, frightened when i see that one half of her face is normal while the other is fixed into a plastic grin. Juleka didn't seem as scared as I, but I could tell her surprise by the way she fumbled with her black glove. Out of the blue I hear another scream and see that the girl has two students wrapped up in multi coloured cloths fake grins plastered on their faces as they try to move, but can't.

"Welcome fellow students of Collège Françoise Dupont! I am the Decorator and I'm here to show you what a real dance is!" She then pauses and points at Chloe her real blue eye angry.

"Starting with this spoiled girl!" Chloe crosses her arms scowling and muttering things like "my father will here about this." However, she is cut off mid sentence as her face breaks into an outstretched grin and she is wrapped up in some fairy lights becoming as still as a statue. I groan to myself already backing away as the crowd starts to run, most of them getting caught by the Decorator in the process. After I jog down the hallway trying my hardest to not get trampled I finally reach a storage closet locking myself in.

"Tikki...transform...me." I stammer, panting as she flies out of my bag her expression sad.

"Why do all the bad things happen in the best moments?" She mutters as I see her drop a frosted cookie into my bag and then enter my earring. As always the transformation happens my beautiful dress melting into my ladybug suit and my eyes being covered by the mask. However, the bun didn't turn into my two ponytails instead the ribbon that I had been wearing turning long until it reached my hips.

"Nice touch Tikki." I whisper as I walk out analysing the situation. Before there used to be a desperate running crowd, now it seemed eerily silent. Carefully, I tiptoe to the ballroom seeing various students hiding behind walls in the process. Many of them smile or seem to want to say something, but i put a hand to my lips as I finally reach the gym. There the decorator was moving around frozen students putting them in different places as if they were art pieces. My eyes trail to the cloth around her arms and I see that its torn; that's where the akuma probably was. Staying out of sight, I make my way to the thrones and have to stifle a gasp because sitting in one of them was Juleka frozen in time. She looked at me her eyes terrified as if she were trying to break away from the silver cloth wrapped around her.

"Nice hairdo my lady..." I hear someone whisper in my ear and I jump back, almost certain I had been caught. However, it was Chat crouching next to me with a smug smirk. I had the urge to slap it off just for scaring me.

"Yeah we are in a high school dance after all. I had to look the part!" I hiss back scowling at him, then I notice a green tie under his bell and stifle a laugh.

"I guess you thought the same as I did." I whisper and he looks down momentarily confused and then groaning quietly as he sees the tie. He then murmurs something about rotten cheese and how he was going to murder his miraculous later. Nonetheless, he stops looking at me eyes wide and I raise an eyebrow, but before I can ask he pushes me away as I see a tangle of disco lights fall where I was before.

"Ooooh look who decided to show up to the dance Ladybug and Chat Noir." The Decorator says giggling her blue eye trained on us.

"This is going to be fun." She says smiling as I grab my yoyo, Chat grabbing his staff. Let the fight begin.