Marinette's POV (uh-huh, AGAIN-)

I sat perched on the top of the castle, gazing out at the flickering sea of lights with dry eyes and wishing I could erase the last few minutes of my life.

That moment with Adrien? I'd been waiting for it my entire life (or at least, what felt like my entire life). Now? I wished it had never occurred in the first place.

A hand tapped my shoulder, and I whipped around in fear that he might have followed me out. But, thankfully, it was just Bridgette. And Felix, who looked very out of breath behind her.

"M-Marinette..." Bridge started.

I slumped against her, the long-forgotten sobs now wracking my body again. My sister patted my shoulder and murmured sweet nothings in my ear as I tried in vain to pull myself together.

I could vaguely make out Felix saying, "We'll have to abort, Mari's in bad shape and we need her."

I bolted upright, wiping the tears out of my eyes. "What?! No! That's crazy! We can't abort now; we'll never get another good chance to find the book! I'm fine guys, I just need a minute...or two..."

They looked at each other uncertainly, then nodded in unison. "Okay, we'll be over there, we... should go over the likely defence mechanisms they'll have, take as much time as you need."

I nodded, my eyes following them until they were out of sight before they began to water and I collapsed, the fear, shame and guilt feeding on me like a bee to pollen. I was afraid of what was to come next. Shameful of the fact that I'd left the boy I loved behind. Guilty... that I was still so hung up about it.

I snapped up. What? Where'd that one come from?

You know you're right, a voice said in my head. You know you need to forget about whatever it is you had going on down there because you're LADYBUG. You don't have time to be obsessing over him, you need to scrap that and get down to business.

I was right- or, rather, that voice in my head was. I didn't have time for this. The world didn't need crying Marinette right now, it needed Ladybug.

Yeah, or else the world as you know it will crumble to bits. The voice said.

Shut up. I replied.

I braced myself against the railing for a second, then went after my teammates, leaving behind both my fear and my obsession with Adrien Agreste.

It was time to let go.

~

"You sure you're up for this?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay then." Felix pointed down to the treasure vault. He'd changed back into his armour, as had my sister. I too had grown tired of the dress (seriously, who invented those things?) and was now wearing my Ladybug costume.

"The book, according to the kingdom's records-"

"Hold on, you have access to the kingdom records?!" Bridge asked dubiously.

"Um..." he muttered, "I don't..."

"Felix Agreste!" My sister and I yelled.

He held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, yes I... stole them... but I'll give them back! I swear! I mean, would you rather the planet be taken over by Hawkmoth?"

"Fair enough," I grumbled, "please continue."

"Why thank you," Felix rolled his eyes," Okay. We'll have to traverse the catacombs underneath the castle, which are only accessible from the treasure vault."

"And- no, let me guess Bridgette- it's gonna have tons of super scary, dangerous and possibly life-ending traps?"

"Put simply," Felix rolled up the scroll he's been examining, "yes."

"Sweet," My twin grinned. "Then lead the way, Mr Know-It-All."

~

We swung down silently from the zip line (turns out, grappling-hook arrows are indeed a thing) and landed on the treasure tower.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Nope," Felix grinned sheepishly. "So, let's do it!"

Bridgette tapped something on her sword and it glowed a bright orange. She carefully traced a circle on the glass next to us with her katanas, and it fell away in a perfect circle.

"Heat modification," She explained. "Now let's go before it's too late."

We silently dropped down into the tunnel below. Silently tiptoeing along, we slowly made our way along the stone tunnel until we reached what appeared to be the 'first defence'. A line of guards stood there, poised, ready for action. As soon as they saw us, they drew their swords in perfect synchronicity and turned to face us.

"Well," I muttered, "Here goes nothing." We leapt into action.

Before I'd left for the ball, I'd also made a couple of 'modifications' to my yoyo. Every spot on the ladybug pattern unleashed a new surprise. The first- spinning, dull blades sticking out from every end, forming a ninja star. Not sharp enough to draw blood, but enough to knock out its victim, the second releasing a bright light which blinded everyone it touched- except me. The third, a sharp burst of pure energy, and so on.

We quickly defeated our enemies and stacked them in a corner- why the heck we even bothered, I don't know. Something Bridgette said about leaving an impression, but these weren't judges. These were people who kept vital information from the world to save- well, the world!

Anyway, we walked on into the next room.

There lay a scroll of paper, fancy script structured in such a way it looked like...

"A riddle," Felix walked up to it and examined it. "My speciality!"

He grinned. "Look."

Looking at each other and shrugging, my sister and I peered over his shoulders to read the elegant writing.

1) pLeAsE tAp tHe SmAlLeSt CiRcLe

Below were five circles all varying in size.

"What? What's so exciting about this question?"

"Look at the words," Felix pointed to the 'i' in 'CiRcLe'. "The 'i' is deliberately lowercase, and the rest of the sentence is toggled-case to disguise it. The smallest circle is the dot in the 'i'!"

"Smart." Bridgette rolled her eyes, but it was hard to miss the fond looks she shot at him, and the blushing ones he shot back.

Man, those two are oblivious.

Felix tapped on the dot in the 'i' and the ink dissolved away, only to be replaced by another question:

2) 68, 88, L8. What comes next?

"Ha! Child's play! Upside down the numbers are 89, 88 and 87. So clearly the last number is 98 because upside down that makes 86."

"Makes sense," I muttered, "But don't get too cocky."

Felix nodded as he wrote the number '98' with his finger on the parchment. Again, it dissolved and was replaced by a third question.

3) Which shape has two sides?

"Hold on. What?" He scanned it again. "It- but- what? No! It's doesn't make SENSE!" He threw the scroll down and stomped to the other side of the room, sliding down the wall until he came to a resting position.

"I'll talk to him. You keep working on the riddle, 'kay?" Bridgette patted me on the shoulder and went to comfort Felix.

Now, let me be very clear. I wasn't spying. I was out of ideas, and thought their conversation might inspire me!

Okay no, I was totally spying.

Bridgette slid down to Felix's level. "Hey, it's okay, we'll figure it out."

Felix sighed. "It's okay, I know we will, but it's so frustrating! I mean, a shape with two sides?! What the heck does that even mean? Sometimes I wished we could just push a button to save the world and go back to the tree so we could actually get a couple of hours of decent sleep!"

Bridge laughed, "No, I get what you mean," She smiled, "but don't you love it?"

Felix stared at her incredulously. "You like not getting enough sleep to properly function as a proper human being?"

"No no, no! I mean, you know I've been more of a night owl than you ever were-"

"True that."

"-but don't you love the feeling of saving people? The satisfaction you get? The feeling when they all look up to you and depend on you to save them- to make a difference? To be able to look at the world-"

"-and felt like you've made a change?"

My sister stared at him. "Yeah. Yeah, exactly. " She turned again, grinning absentmindedly at the wall in front of her. "There's no feeling like it."

She rose to her feet, dragging Felix with her. "Okay, on your feet. Enough moping. Take a couple of minutes, see if you can find the answer to the riddle in that big brain of yours. I'll go check on Mari; she'll have found something by now."

She hesitated, then rose on her feet and kissed him on the cheek. Turning away, the beet-red colour of her face matching Felix's, she quickly walked towards me.

"Tell me that didn't just happen." She whispered.

"' Fraid I can't, sis, it just did," I smirked. "Honestly, I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier. You've been living together for how many years, one, two-"

"Six." She mumbled. Then louder: "Six years."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felix quickly turn towards us, realize what was going on, and turned back around, staring intently at the wall. Maybe he's more intuitive than I gave him credit for when he showed up at Paris. Another question flew into my head but I pushed it away for now. I had bigger problems on my hands.

"Six?" I questioned. "Earlier you said you'd been living in the tree for 3 years. The other three..." I trailed off as I realized, covering my mouth with my hands. "You were on the run."

She nodded, looking down at the floor. "Let's just say... people had it in for us. To this day, we still don't know why, but they did." She sighed before continuing. "We met while I was being taken away. I was locked up in a facility, and Felix was breaking out. It's a long story, one which I'll give you all the details of later."

(A/N: Possible prequel idea? It sounds really cool to me!) Warning- very slight description of blood- read at your own risk.)

She was trying to avoid the elephant in the room (and no, it wasn't Felix) and we both knew it. However, I could tell something really, really bad had happened back then. I felt tears prick my eyes as I pictured nine-year-old Bridgette and nine-year-old Felix running from murderous people who wanted them dead. Sick and hungry, barely managing to stay on their feet, stumbling over and over again. Gashes, bloody and swelling, covering their hands and legs. I choked back a sob as all these things came to mind.

No matter how hard I wanted to break down and weep for all they'd been through, I had to stay strong. For them. I could cry at any time by myself if I wanted to, but not in front of them. I swallowed back my tears and gestured over to Felix.

He walked over (looking much less red, might I add), sensing that the conversation was over. "Hey, managed to crack the code yet?"

"No," I huffed, "not yet."

"Damn. Well, let's put our heads together, and see what we can get from it." Felix replied.

We all leaned closer to the scroll...

...and managed to bash our heads together.

Oh god. I thought. I'm definitely going to feel that tomorrow.

We all clutched our heads in agony.

"I didn't mean literally..." Felix groaned.

We all managed a laugh because of that, but then quickly quietened down as we realized what was happening to the room around us. The room did seem a bit smaller earlier, but I'd thought that was just the aftereffects of our little head-bash. Now, the room really was closing in- the walls moving towards us quicker with every shift they made. That wasn't even the worst part.

Spikes protruded from every corner, every inch of the wall suddenly gone and replaced with glistening spikes. Every time they inched closer, so did death.

"Guys..." I stammered. "D-Did anyone know there was a 'time limit' to this room?"

"What do you think?!" Bridgette screamed.

The walls inched closer, the spikes almost touching me.

~

I was going to die in here.

~

A/N: Hey everyone! Gods, how long has it been?

*checks laptop* A... m-month minus t-two days since I last u-updated.

* cowers on Pluto * DON'T KILL ME I'M SO SO SORRY I HAD WRITER'S BLOCK AND A TON OF HOMEWORK-

But guess what? It's now half-term! Which means I have ages to update!

(yes, only a week and a half [I think], BUT I'M DETERMINED)

Anyway, is one of my best friends (from real life) and she's joined WattPad! She's started to write her own story, it's about... well let's just say loads of murder. Check it out if you're interested in that sort of thing (thanks for the chocolates by the way my dad loves them)!

I was planning on writing a murder story before but then I adopted Camp Cheng, but I stand by that decision! I love writing this story and won't stop updating until it's finished!

So- uhm- yeah. Blame my late update on writer's block.

BYE!

Word Count: 2235 words (when was the last time I wrote this much?!)

-MyCrazyFandoms