AN:/ As per request, I've moved this story to a separate story so I can work on it more often and also keep my other story running! Please support this story by fav/following/reviewing! Thanks :)
A little story I wrote that's inspired by one of my best friends. It's based on a true story that's actually quite recent! My friend is one of the loveliest people I've ever met and it's adorable watching her and her internet friend fall in love (thank you Skype).
Beginnings
Marinette wasn't sure how it started. A "few" messages, random confusion, multiple clicks and many aggres(te)sive Internet searches later, she was (most definitely) in love.
Winner!
"Yesssssssssss!" Marinette cheered, a wide grin on her face, throwing her arms up into the air. She had won another round of Ultimate Mecha Strike III (again) and this time, it had only taken her slightly under 30 seconds.
"Jeez Mari, it's no fun playing against you. You always end up handing my ass to me." Alya complained grumpily. "Hell, you could probably even beat me without even looking at the screen."
"Oh cheer up, Alya," Marinette replied teasingly. "It's not like you're going to lose sleep over it. Besides, I've got no one else to play with right now. My dad's been busy with a big order lately, and I've got nothing to else to do. Neither do you."
"Homework?" Alya asked pointedly, with a smirk on her face.
"That doesn't count!" Marinette protested in response.
"So you didn't do it."
"Well…I did some of it? I'm terrible at physics!" Marinette wailed. "Everything just turns into a jumble of letters and numbers and formulas and argggghhhhhh!" She flopped down onto the couch face first and started to moan, depressed. "I'm hopeless."
"Oh come on, girl. You can do it. I can try to help if you want!" Alya offered encouragingly.
"Nah, It's okay." Marinette sighed, taking a breath in. "I'll just ask the teacher or something. Maybe Google it. I'll get it eventually."
"You sure?" Alya said, frowning. "I got nothing to do tomorrow night, maybe I could drop by and help with the homework a bit. We could struggle together!"
"Really?" Marinette asked, lifting her head up hopefully.
"Yeah!" Alya grinned. "Tomorrow at 7?"
"It's a date!" They both burst out laughing; knowing fully well that neither of them had ever (and probably never will have) gone on a date. Alya's phone suddenly beeped, signaling that she had received a text message. Alya pulled the phone from her pocket and scanned the text message briefly before frowning.
"I gotta run. My mom wanted me to help out with set up at the restaurant before the big event this evening. Guess she wants me to come early. You going to be okay?" Alya asked.
Marinette sighed, yet again. "Yeah. I will." She smiled halfheartedly and walked Alya to the door.
"Laters, Mari!" Alya called, speed walking around the corner. Marinette waved to her friend and then proceeded to slam the door shut as soon as Alya was out of sight. Marinette then walked to her room and turned her computer on. She immediately began to browse the Tumblr search page for Ultimate Mecha Strike III and began to unconsciously smile, reading all the latest news and admiring the gorgeous fan art. Then, one headline caught her eye.
Ultimate Mecha Strike III Online Tournament!
Sign up now for free! Many prizes and rewards available!
It was an online tournament sign up post, hosted by a quite well known member of the UMS III community, "The Gamer", AKA the nerdiest kid Marinette ever had the pleasure of knowing, Max. Below the headline there was a link to a page that Max had posted a few hours ago. Clicking on the link, Marinette began to read the details and the more she read, the more her interested in the tournament she was getting and, holy, those prizes! First place would win the title of Best UMS III player as well as a bunch of other goodies that were very rare and very expensive. Marinette was pretty sure she was gaping and if she didn't close her mouth, she'd probably start drooling. She logged onto her Skype account as fast as she could and saw that she had hundreds of messages from her online UMS III friends. As if on cue, Max requested to video call her.
"Hey Marinette! Did you hear about the tournament I'm hosting?"
"Of course I did! Who do you think I am?" The two friends shared a grin. "But wait a sec," Marinette asked, slightly confused. "How is this going to work? I mean, how are we going to get all the people together and…"
"No worries Marinette! We're going to play on the new connect mode that's coming out with the latest update. It lets you party with people from all across the world! Plus we'll make a Skype group that'll let us keep of the participants and be able to inform everyone of dates and times."
"Max…That sounds…AWESOME!"
"I know right! We can play with everyone and…ahhhhhhh!" The two shared a combined fangirl/fanboy moment before they ended the call and Marinette was left to grin crazily alone. She would finally have the chance to play the people she'd chatted with over the months. Marinette was very famous in the UMS III community. Any hardcore fan of UMS III knew Marinette. Well, knew her by her screen name, Ladybug. She was well known for being a "grandmaster" at her bot of choice, the LB-03. She had won many junior tournaments in France as well as a junior grand championship. She knew most of the best players and were pretty good friends with all of them. Well, most of them. Occasionally she would also post videos of her fights onto her Tumblr page and they always got thousands of notes. Marinette was a hardcore gamer who like baking and fashion designing. She was also a pro-feminist. Not all girl gamers were tomboys or strippers and Marinette loved to prove people who stereotyped her. Just because she was a "girly-girl" did not mean that she wasn't able to leave her opponents in the dust. Marinette to the controllers, it's off the hooks! Bam-Pow! :D Marinette grinned as she replied to all the messages that her friends sent to her before she noticed the time and as quickly as it had got there, her grin fell. Her math homework. Crap. Ohhhh crap. She'd gotten so carried away with replying messages that she had forgot to start on the math homework that was due tomorrow. She scrambled to grab her bag and proceeded to trip on the power cord and fell face first onto the floor. Great.
The preliminary matches were a breeze. They were so easy that Marinette, well, Ladybug, didn't even need to try and she still got through fairly easily. Now the bracket was down to eight players, down from the couple thousand that had signed up. Players were drafted into brackets of around thirty and then winners of the brackets were sorted into brackets of ten-twenty and so on. The final eight players were put in the grand finale bracket, where they would brawl it out and a winner would be declared. After weeks of fighting, here they were. A ding! Signaled a notification from Max. Marinette checked it and pleasantly surprised. He had created a group chat for the top eight and unsurprisingly, Marinette knew most of them. The usual were here, Max (The Gamer), Nino (Bubbler, which was a nickname from "a friend"), Kim (It'sJustKim), Alix (Timebreaker), and Plagg (Plaggue). There were also two people that Marinette didn't recognize. A girl named Volpina and a guy named Chat Noir. Hmm. They had cool profile pics, she noted. A cat and a fox. Interesting. Marinette immediately requested to add them as contacts and quickly typed a hello into the chat.
Ladybug: Hey guys! What's up? ^_^
The Gamer: Hey Mari! Just thought I'd make a group chat for all us winners ;)
Timebreaker: Great idea, Max! BTW, who are the new fries?
Plaggue: Some friends of Nino and I.
Volpina: Who are infinitely better at UMS III than you'll ever be ;)
Chat Noir: Its sad but paw-sitively true ;DDD
Ladybug: …
Ladybug: Sry bro, but I dnt hv a hard time believing tht.
Plaggue: U guys r just jealous I don't love you as much as cheese.
Plaggue: Someday, I will marry my beloved Camembert.
Plaggue: And we will fly off into the sunset and live happily ever after
Bubbler: …and that is why you dnt have a gf
Plaggue: pshh who needs a gf when you can have cheese!?
Chat Noir: Why are we still friends? You're a paw-ful. I ain't kitten here.
Ladybug: Are you going to keep doing that forever? :l
Marinette typed while rolling her eyes. The response came almost instantaneously.
Chat Noir: y? is it buggggging uuuuu? :oooooo
Volpina: should I smack u? I would love to smack you rn
Marinette almost face-palmed. Gosh, the 5 of them were already a handful, but with the addition of the two new members of their little circle, this was going to be total chaos. Not that she minded it. It was wonderful to have a group of friends with the same interest as you. She quickly typed up a response.
Ladybug: seriously? xD
Chat Noir: Embrace the catness or you might find yourself in a
Chat Noir: Wait for it
Chat Noir: Cat-astrophe
Ladybug: y
Ladybug: I can't believe I wanted to be friends with you! ;_;
Ladybug: you...pun-making...
Ladybug: ...dork
Chat Noir: I didn't mean to, princess T_T
Chat Noir: I was just kidding, plz don't hate me M'Lady! qq
Chat Noir: M'Ladybug*
Chat Noir :DDDDDDDDDD
Ladybug: -_-
Chat Noir: :ccccc
Ladybug: '-'
Chat Noir: *-*
Ladybug: 0,0
Chat Noir: ~(-_-)~
Chat Noir: ಠ_ಠ
Ladybug: ('-')
Chat Noir: (⌐■_■)
Ladybug: =_=
Chat Noir: ❀❀❀
Ladybug: ._.
Chat Noir: :3
Ladybug: ._.'
Chat Noir: ('_')
Ladybug: ('_')
Chat Noir: 8)
Ladybug: (- -;
Chat Noir: (^w^)
Chat Noir: (^^^^^^^^^w^^^^^^^^^^)
Ladybug: ...what?
Chat Noir: HA I WIN
Ladybug: …
Chat Noir: play again? :D
Ladybug: no
Chat Noir: b-but…
Ladybug: guuud byeeeeeee
Chat Noir: But Buggy-boo
Ladybug: Oh hell no
Ladybug: I ain't your Buggy-boo
Marinette looked at the screen in exasperation. Puns were bad enough but nicknames…god what kind of a nickname was "buggy-boo"? Then suddenly she remembered there were other people in the chat room as well.
Volpina: Ew. Get a room.
Bubbler: I ship it! I SHIP IT
Plaggue: I ship myself and Camembert ;)
Timebreaker: YES
Timebreaker: Not you plagg the emoticonic friend texting lovebugs
Timebreaker: you see what I did there
Volpina: Should I start planning the wedding?
The Gamer: Already on it.
Wait. What?! Why are...? They just...Apparently Chat Noir was thinking the same thing, because a second later, a "HOLD ON FOR A SEC" showed up on her screen. Marinette typed furiously into the chat, (chat…heh…oh my god he was already rubbing off on her), fingers flying.
Ladybug: omg guys wtf
Bubbler: whats their ship name guys we need a ship name
Volpina: Lady Chat?
Bubbler: Ladyien?
Volpina: Chatbug
Volpina: WAIT NOOOOOOO
Volpina: LADY NOIR
Volpina: I LIKE LADY NOIR
Bubbler: I GOT ONE LISTEN TO THIS
Bubbler: LADRIEN
Volpina: YASSSSSSSS
Bubbler: NO NONO WAIT MARICHAT I LIKE MARICHAT
Volpina: wait wahts Ladybug's name again
It'sJustKim: Ladybug. Duh.
It'sJustKim: jkjkjk
Bubbler: MARINETTE
Bubbler: sorry caps
Ladybug: …I'm still here guys
The Gamer: do you prefer lilies or orchids? 2 tier or 3 tier cake?
Ladybug: WE ARE NOT GETTING MARRIED
Chat Noir: well…
Ladybug: what is wrong with you guys
Volpina: I GOT IT I GOT IT
Volpina: ADRINETTE
Volpina: I LIKE ADRINETTE
Bubbler: MARICHAT IS BETTER
Volpina: FINE
Volpina: LADY NOIR IT IS
Bubbler: LADRIEN. LADRIEN RULES OVER YOUR DUMB SHIP NAMES
Marinette could only blankly stare at the computer screen as the mayhem unfolded in front of her. Alix and Max were arguing over where the venue should be, and Kim was already buying wedding presents for them. A new notification popped up. It was a private message. From Chat Noir.
Chat Noir: Uh…why are they randomly shipping us? We literally just met ._.
Ladybug: IKR! They can be so weird sometimes
Ladybug: Like this one time, they argued over what kind of bread was better
Chat Noir: lol, did Nino start that argument?
Ladybug: yup.
Chat Noir: I'm not surprised. Nino can be passionate about many different…weird things.
Ladybug: You betcha.
Chat Noir: So…um…
Chat Noir: So how do you know Nino and Plagg?
Chat Noir: They're both my IRL friends and got me into UMS III. Though I'm definitely better than them both. xD
Ladybug: Tumblr.
Chat Noir: oh
Chat Noir: haha
Chat Noir: Not surprised.
Chat Noir: I'm Adrien, by the way. Adrien Agreste :)
Ladybug: Marinette.
Ladybug: Marinette Dupain-Cheng ^_^
Chat Noir: Um…this might sound stalkerish but where do you live?
Chat Noir: I know Max lives somewhere in France and Kim is from Thailand…
Chat Noir: I'm from New York, and so are Volpina/Nino/Plagg
Ladybug: Oh, I live in Paris :D
Chat Noir: Really? That's so cool. Your English is really good too :)
Ladybug: Haha, thanks.
Ladybug: Nino does tell me I speak with a weird French accent sometimes though XD
Chat Noir: haha
Marinette smiled at the screen. Maybe Chat, well Adrien, wasn't actually that bad of a person. They chatted for another half an hour about how weird their friends were and Marinette couldn't stop laughing when Adrien brought up the time Plagg got lost in L.A because he was trying to visit a cheese factory but ended up realizing that he was holding the map wrong and ended up on the other side of the city. Turns out, they had a lot in common. They both liked to play video games, liked the number seven, were better gamers than Nino and Plagg, were the same age, loved croissants...Then a question suddenly popped into Marinette's head and so she typed it into the chat.
Ladybug: One question, why Chat Noir?
Chat Noir: Why Ladybug?
Ladybug: Touché
Ladybug: Ladybugs are a sign of luck here in France :) I always was a fan of the comic Lady Luck so when I chose a screen name, I decided to choose Ladybug :)
Chat Noir: That's really cool!
Chat Noir: Cooler than my story, that is
Ladybug: oh really? ;)
Ladybug: Try me.
Chat Noir: I just like making cat puns.
Ladybug: oh.
Ladybug: ok then
Ladybug: well…what do you like to do in your free time?
Ladybug: Any hobbies?
Chat Noir: I don't have a lot of free time. My dad's a fashion designer and I model a lot cause he wants me to.
Chat Noir: He's rarely at home and usually the one watching me is my dad's assistant, Natalie.
Chat Noir: Whenever he is home though, we don't really talk.
Chat Noir: I don't think he knows how to talk to me...
Chat Noir: I also have fencing lessons, piano lessons, Chinese lessons, basketball…
Chat Noir: You get the idea.
Chat Noir: But I do like to watch anime in the time I am free…
Marinette nearly burst into laughter. Anime. Well then again, she liked to stalk her favourite celebrities so in comparison, anime wasn't that weird. ish.
Ladybug: That's nice :)
Chat Noir: what bout you?
Ladybug: Err…I like to bake and make nice clothes?
And stalk my favourite celebs? That totally doesn't sound creepy at alll. Like if I knew you and you were a celebrity I'd totalllllllllly stalk you. Not that she'd actually say that. She hoped.
Chat Noir: Sounds about right :))))
Ladybug: excuse me?
Chat Noir: :PPPPP
Chat Noir: jkjk
There was an awkward silence in the chat.
Ladybug: Soooo….how's life?
Chat Noir: I don't know…
Chat Noir: stressed right now
Ladybug: why?
Chat Noir: got another shoot lined up. :(
Chat Noir: I don't really like modeling…
Chat Noir: but if it makes my dad happy, I'll do it I guess…
Chat Noir: Just wish he was there for me sometimes :(
Marinette frowned. That sounded a lot like a character from Lady Luck she knew. Lady Luck's partner, Fèlix, was neglected by his parents growing up. They were hardcore businessmen and Fèlix often spent his weekends alone, even though his parents were home, they were always too busy working to care about him. Fèlix ended up taking business education courses even though he hated them because he knew it made his parents pleased. Eventually, Lady Luck, or her civilian identity, Bridgette, managed to convince Fèlix to follow his heart and do what was best for himself, though it did take a few years for her to finally convince him. Fèlix was such a cinnamon roll and Marinette despised the way he had been treated. At one point, Fèlix even fell into a deep depression and was akumatized! She wasn't going to let Chat Noir/Adrien be akumat- well, become depressed like Fèlix had been. She was going to make sure of that much.
Ladybug: Sometimes you gotta take care of yourself first though…
Ladybug: When you have some spare time, just take a moment and take care of yourself :) Do what YOU want to do and treat yourself to some Zen relaxation.
Ladybug: I know what it's like to be stressed and when it feels like all the cards are stuck against you, but you're going to be okay. I know you are. I believe in you :)
Ladybug: Do what makes you happy!
Ladybug: People might bring you down and set up all these expectations for you, but you don't have to listen to what they say, because the only one who truly knows you is yourself.
Ladybug: You have nothing to prove to them. You are amazing the way you are.
A moment passed and the chat was silent. Marinette tensed, waiting for his response.
Chat Noir: Thank you.
Chat Noir: I really mean it. :)
Ladybug: I know you do and if you're Nino's friend, then I know that you are an amazing person and you should just rock it!
Chat Noir: I will. :)
He signed off shortly after and Marinette hadn't even realized that she had been smiling the whole time. She noticed that the group chat had over 400 new messages. Rolling her eyes, she clicked on the tab.
Volpina: MARICHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT MARICHATMARCHIMARINCINIA
Nino: LADRIENLADRIENLADRIENLADRIENLADRIENKADRIEEEENNNNNN
Plaggue: CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESEEEEEEEEE
Well then...
Supressing a snort, Marinette's thoughts drifted back to Chat Noir/Adrien. Maybe she had gotten the wrong first impression of him. Adrien did seem like a really nice guy. And apparently he was a model as well…she's gotta check this out. Opening up the Google Search page, she typed in the name
"Adrien" then paused. What was his last name again? Agreste? She's heard of that name before…but Marinette couldn't remember where she heard it. She quickly typed in the rest of his name and what came up made her heart stop.
Oh. My. God.
OOOHH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOD
GOOOD LORDDDDDD
THIS ASJHDASODHA;ASHaklsdhl;akhd;laksdh'p
He was-
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodhessohothessohothessohotwhyhasgodbroughtmeabirthdaypresentomg
Marinette scrolled down and her mouth just dropped open as she stared. He was the hottest guy she had ever seen and oh my- LOOK AT THAT PRECIOUS FACE! LOOOOOOK AT ITT
She was vaguely aware that she was starting to drool and read every single article she could find about him. By the time she went to bed, she knew his birthday, his favourite color, his address, all the jobs he's done, his measurements, his favourite foods… Marinette knew she was being a creepy stalker but he was hot and nice and funny and cute and she could go on and on and on. It was certain. Even though she had only talked to him for forty minutes through text messages, just met him a few hours ago and only seen him though those precious Google Image searches, Marinette was most definitely in love.
Definitely had a lot of fun writing that. :D