Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is the main ideas for this story.

• Marinette has already defeated Hawkmoth.
• Lila has made Marinette the outcast and has made good on her promise.
• When Hawkmoth was defeated Adrien had to reveal his identity to prove he was not working with his father. After Marinette took his miraculous away.
• Adrien has not kept his word to Marinette and letting Lila ruin her life.
• Marinette has lost her crush on Adrien after seeing how he handled Lila and how little he truly values her.
• Marinette’s parents have lost trust in her and keep a close eye on her. They still love her but with all of her ‘friends’ saying of all the ‘horrible things she has done to bully Lila’, they keep her on a short leash.
• Marinette before the story begins has been sent on trips to her Uncle’s for a couple of months, and has been traveling with her grandma before that by her parents to keep her from ‘bullying Lila’.
• As she is packing her stuff for her move to her Uncle’s she starts to hear something. She blacks out and the next thing she knows is that she is in a coffin.
• She has the miraculous box with her and the rest of her things that she already packed with her. She will be missing some stuff so there will be a need for her to do some type of job or work.  I am thinking she does commissions or works in the lounge or store. The lounge as a chief or baker. The student store I am not too sure as what.
• The entrance ceremony will go as usual the key differences will be that the mirror says that she has magic but her soul has no real shape or color because it constantly shifting.  When Grim sets fire to the chamber Marinette will be the one to put it out.
• I am thinking that the with the miraculous the stronger the connection Marinette has to it makes it so that she can use the magic without having to transform. The magic will not be as strong as it would be if she transformed but as her connection gets stronger the easier and more powerful it gets outside of transformation. She will get tired if she uses it too much and will pass out in extreme cases.
• Marinette will have her own form of unique magic but I am not sure what. I do know it will not be exactly like the miraculous powers. I am toying with the idea of her having magic like Elsa from frozen.
• I am toying with the idea that Marinette does have some Fae heritage from one or both sides of her family and that it is very strong in her. I might have it be that with using the miraculous so much that it woke up her Fae heritage and changed her appearance slightly. Maybe slightly more pointed ears, change in eye color, and highlights in her hair? Got this idea from her grandma’s nickname for her being fairy. If this does happen I am going to have one either her grandma or her Uncle give her the family spell book. Another thing is that Marinette will be wearing gloves because Fae can be hurt by iron and it would also be for if she does have ice magic like Elsa to keep it more under control 
• With Luka and Kagami I am going to have them be friends with Marinette still but they are mainly just going to be mentioned most likely. They will be the main form of support Marinette had when Lila happened.  They will be older in this and Luka I am planning on having him be on tour with Jagged, and Kagami I am planning on having her be in Japan with her mother since her mother thought that Paris was too much of a danger and distraction with Hawkmoth. 
  
  
• For a love interest I am thinking of doing Malleus. With the idea of Marinette being the outcast in her class I can see her being Empathetic to Malleus in a way.

This is all that I have thought of so far with this story. Tell me who you think which kwami she should have a strong connection to for this.  I am open to suggestions and ideas for this fic.

Chapter Text

This is another idea that I just thought of today. Shout out to Morgana_phantom_neko for your comment that got this idea going. So if this does happen it will be in its own story as a bunch of side stories focused mainly on the Kwamis and Grim about the shenanigans they get into while in at Night Raven.  Any from Plagg Trixx, and Grim pulling pranks on other students to side adventures involving them trying to fixed a problem before Marinette gets back to Ramshackle from her job.  Another being about Kaalki, Tikki, and Lilia having tea while making plans to play match maker with their charges. Many of the other students will be involved.  Ideas for these stories will all be looked at and while each one many not get its own story I can say that they will be considered. This poll will last till the end of the month.

Chapter Text

“Tikki have you seen where my other gloves are?” Marinette asked not looking up from her task of carefully hiding the miraculous box in her suitcase.

The ladybug Kwami zipped over to her chosen. “They’re in one of the other boxes you packed already.”

“Don’t worry pigtails. We would get them packed for you if you forgot.” Marinette shoot a annoyed look at the black cat kwami in exasperation, “I haven’t had my hair in those for a year now Plagg. Will you ever drop that nickname?”

Plagg just gave her a grin, “Nope! Until I find a better one you will still be pigtails now and forever!”

Marinette rolled her eyes. She had gone back to wearing her hair in a bun. Plagg’s idea of a better nickname is finding one that is more annoying for who ever was on the receiving end of it.  Marinette looked around at her room in its state of half packed chaos. She could only think of how it had came to this point.

Hawkmoth had been defeated over a year ago.  It was on the same day of the defeat that she had reclaimed the black cat miraculous from Chat Noir who was also Adrien Agreste. Marinette could not say that she felt any guilt about taking away the miraculous from him. Even before the defeat she had thought of taking away his miraculous for numerous reasons. Her ‘partner’ had been showing up to fights less and less. He had also been getting more forceful about how they were destined for each other, and revealing their identities to each other. He would always get angry when she would refuse and run off after. When this happened he would not show up to akuma fights for a couple of days. As Adrien he would constantly brush her aside when she came to him with concerns about Lila and her lies to everyone. She would try to argue back that her lies where indeed hurting the other’s lives and futures. All of the promises of opportunities to further their careers falling through for one made up reason or another. She was getting hurt and he saw it for himself in class every day. The class had pulled away from her the more Lila told her lies. Claims of how she was bullying Lila had been what had her classmates up in arms against her. Lila would come to school in tears with bruises on her. Marinette had to give her credit for being smart about it though some of them were real on her arms and legs but they looked like they had been from running into things or tripping.  The others were make up and from the looks of it. Marinette thought that Lila had been using actual bruises that she got by herself to make her claims more believable.  One bruise on her arm had been in the area where you would usually get blood drawn from looked like someone had grabbed her. Adrien would just say ‘Take the higher road’ and that we did not want Lila to get akumatized. This was my breaking point for my crush on Adrien. He claimed that I was one of his friends but he did nothing to help me or keep his promise when I needed him. When Hawkmoth was revealed to be his father to all of Paris when he was arrested Adrien revealed his identity as Chat Noir. This proved his innocence but gave me the opportunity to take back his miraculous.

When Gabriel was being taken away with Nathalie he gave me one requested as Ladybug to save his wife. While I was surprised that he knew where she was since everyone knew she disappeared he told me her location. Going back into the Agreste mansion and finding Emilie Agreste in that glass coffin in her coma caused by a broken miraculous was saddening. While the miraculous cure did wake her up from the coma it did not heal her body of all the damage done to it from being in a coma for so long. It was heartbreaking to see her face and have to tell her of the horrible things that her husband had done to try and get her back. Emilie was sent to the hospital to get treatment after that.

Lila had made good on her promise and to add on to her promise she got to my parents with everyone in the class. They didn’t really believe it at first but with more and more people claiming it was true they slowly began to believe them.  They started to limit certain things like no social media. My phone got down graded to a flip phone so I could only text and call people. My computer was heavily monitored. Earlier curfew was put in place and I could only go to certain places. They had me change to online courses for school to keep me from ‘bullying poor Lila’. Not that it really mattered by then I had no real desire to go there and be treated like a social piranha more. Grandma came by to visit one day and could see how miserable I was. She managed to convince my parents that traveling with her would be good for me by keeping me away from my ‘victim’ and that with my courses being online it would not affect my ability to do school. We travel for about six months to many different places. My favorite was visiting Kagami in Japan. Kagami and Luka were the only friends I had left after Lila had happened and were my main forms of support.  I miss seeing them but Kagami had been moved back to Japan when her mother decided it was too dangerous and distracting to be in Paris. Luka had gone on tour with Jagged Stone at our insistence that he should take the opportunity. We still chat over video chat but it is hard to do it with all of our schedules.

Traveling had been great but the biggest surprise was when I had grabbed on to part of the motorcycle handle bars and burned part of my hand. Grandma had taken me aside to treat my burnt hand and had a smile on her face as she did it. I could not understand how burning my hand would make her smile. She must have seen a look on my face before she explained that my great grandmother was a Fae that had fallen in love with a human who was my great grandfather and how this was one of the ways that my Fae heritage was showing itself. Grandma told me how she only knew the basics of the story as her parents had passed away in a accident when she was little and was raised by her human Aunt and Uncle. She handed my a pair of gloves and explained how people of Fae heritage are hurt by iron and how there is iron in steel so I would have to be careful from now on. She then explained that the stronger your connection to Fae blood is the more like them you are which was one of the reasons why dad had never been burnt by anything with iron in it. Dad did not have any type of strong connection to his Fae heritage so it didn’t show other than his strength. Grandma explained how while we were traveling she was going to teach me how to read the family spell book and do some of the different rituals, potions, and other things in it. She did warn me that iron was the first warning sign that my Fae heritage was starting to show and that it might cause other changes. She was right as my ears had become more pointed and pupils of my eyes became more like a cat’s along with a ring of silver on the edge of my irises. When that had happened grandma had laughed at my panic on how I was going to hide this from everyone before telling me that she had gotten me colored contacts for just in case this happened.

When my parents told my grandma I needed to stay in one place and not constantly travel I was dreading going back but grandma had made the suggestion of sending me to Uncle Wang’s so I would not be traveling but in one spot like they wanted.  My parents had leaped at the idea and made the arrangements. While this was going on grandma had given me a copy of the family spell book of my own and told me to keep on practicing and a promise to call her if any more changes happen.

A week later I was at Uncle Wang’s home in Shanghai. Wang Cheng didn’t know what to really do with his niece when she came. He did not want to believe that his sweet niece who had helped him win back his honor in his time of need had done any of the things that her parents thought she did, but decided to just wait and observe Marinette to see if there had been any type of behavior that would point to her having done something like that. Marinette had not done anything to make Wang think she had. Marinette had mainly been improving her mandarin and learning how to cook from her uncle.  Marinette had also taken an interest in her Chinese heritage and had asked if she could take classes on different traditions like dancing and martial arts. Wang could not find any reason why Marinette could not as she had finished her courses and was ready to graduate. He could not understand why Sabine had not taught Marinette the traditions of her heritage. It was during a quite dinner that Wang had decided to broach the topic that had been bothering him since Marinette had come to stay with him. When he had started to ask her about what had been going on at home and why her parents had thought she had done such a thing Marinette had her Magic show again. The bowl she had been holding had ice form on it along with her chopsticks shattering. Marinette had started to freak out and frantically look for her gloves. Wang had been in a state of shock but snapped out of it when he noticed his niece hyperventilating. Once Marinette had put on her gloves and calmed down she could only glance at her uncle scared of what he would think. Wang could only stare at his niece and let his look soften as he started to explain that her third great grandmother had been said to have something similar to what she just did. As he further explained he told her of how in their family there was a story of how a Chong Ming had blessed a woman who had prayed for a child but was barren. The child born from the women had been a fierce warrior and that his fierce cry like a Chong Ming could scare away evils from his land.  Their family had been direct descendants and in the story it was said that the blessing of the Chong Ming passed on to the descendants in different ways. Her third great grandmother had been the last one of the family to show any sign of the blessing. What her grandmother had shown was a small ability to use fire. Wang promised to keep her secret. He understood when she explained what had been going on and he explained that those with the blessing from the Chong Ming cannot stand evil or what they find evil and try to get rid of it like the mythical creature does.

After this it had been peaceful until her parents had her come back to France after being in Shanghai for three months.

Marinette came home from Shanghai and for about three weeks things had started to seem like it had gone back to normal, but it seemed Lila was about to make her final move to make sure Marinette would never be happy as long as she was around her.

It had been a quite day with Marinette running a delivery for her parents near the area that Lila lived in. When she had gotten back to the bakery she was meet with the site of a sobbing Lila and Alya comforting her. She could see the fake bruises and what looked like blood. Behind them she saw her father looking sad and disappointed along with her mother who looked angry. When they caught sight of her was when she saw Lila send her a vicious smirk then break down in more fake tears claiming that she had attacked her.  Lila claimed that she had gone up to her to welcome her back and offered her a new start when she had been on deliveries and that Marinette had then attacked her and left her like that. Alya claimed to have found Lila like that limping and once she had heard her story had brought her over to show Marinette’s parents what she had done.

Sabine grabbed her arm and brought her upstairs and told her that they could not in good conscious let her keep on living with them if she did things like this not letting her get a word in edgewise. Sabine then told her that she would be permanently moving to Shanghai with her uncle in once they made the arrangements.  She had started packing once it was confirmed.

She could only sight as she looked around at her half packed room. She had packed everything from her travels with her grandma and her stay with her Uncle already. It was mostly clothes from from everywhere and some books on the fashion from there. The most important things she had packed was her family spell book, miraculous box, and heirloom dagger from her Uncle that went to who ever had the Chong Ming blessing. She had packed her laptop that she had bought in Shanghai as her desktop she suspected had been tampered with. The grimoire of the miraculous was in the luggage with the box and the potions had been put into thermistors to keep them good along with bubble wrapped. The harder to find ingredients had been put into special boxes along with some seeds to grown some of the different ingredients. Hopefully they would survive the move. She had her contacts case in hand when she started to hear a whispering. She put them down and look around for the two Kwamis.

“Tikki? Plagg? Did you say something?” Looking at the Kwamis in question.

They look at each other and shook their heads. Tikki glanced at Marinette and said, “Is there someone outside making noise that you could be hearing?”

Marinette looked outside the window to see only regular traffic and people walking. Nothing that she wouldn’t have thought was whispering. 

“Not that I can see. Must been something else.”

She grabbed her emergency sewing kit and put it in the box that held her sketchbook and some of her smaller bolts of fabric. The largest bolts would have to shipped special since none of her boxes would be able to fit the bolts into them. She would have to buy a new sewing machine when she moved as well. She had just finished taping the box shut when she heard the whispering but louder. She turned around to find the source of it being her mirror.  She tentatively walked up to it and it started to glow an erie green. She didn’t know what compelled her to touch the mirror but when she did she blacked out to the sound of horses and carriage wheels.

Chapter Text

“For me. For them. For you. We are all running out of time. No matter what, never let go of my hand.”

Marinette slowly opened her eyes to the find herself in a dark place. She tried to recall how she ended up there. Her last clear memory was touching her mirror as it glowed and after that it was hazy. She could hazily remember the sound of carriage wheels and horses along with someone speaking. Nothing that was clear enough to tell her where she was.

As she stop feel around where she was she could tell it was made of some kind of wood. A coffin? Why was she in a coffin?! She wouldn’t put it pass Lila to get ride of her but this was a extreme she had never thought that Lila would go to. Marinette started to panic and start to feel her magic thrumming inside of herself in response to her panic.

“Marinette!” “Pigtails!”

The two cries of the Kwamis startled her out of her panic. She drew a shaky breathe trying to calm herself down from her near panic attack. She couldn’t see the two. “Tikki! Plagg! Your here! How did we end up here?”

“We have no actually answer to how but we think that it had something to do with what ever was possessing your mirror.” Tikki spoke calmly trying to not to make her chosen more distressed.

Marinette calmed down glad to have the two with her so she was not totally alone. She then heard something outside of the coffin. Straining her ears to try and hear who was outside the coffin.

“Crap. People are coming! Gotta get a uniform while they are still away.”

“Hide!” She whispered urgently to the two Kwami.

“Grr! The lid is too heavy. Time for my secret move! Guwaahuuh... There!”

There was a loud bang and blue flames all the sudden. Marinette covered her face with her arms and squeaked in surprise.

“Ok, ok. Gotta get... Gahh! Why are you up!?!”

Marinette lowered her arms and as her vision cleared saw the source of the voice. She could only look in shock and blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, “Talking raccoon?”

“I am not a raccoon! I am the Great Grim!” The creature named Grim spoke angrily. “Well whatever! Hey human! Hurry up and give me those clothes! Otherwise I’ll roast you!”

That startled her. She looked down to see that she was wearing what appeared to be a black and purple robes with gold embroidery. She felt a hood on her head as well. She had definitely not been wearing this before. She checked and sighed in relief her gloves were still on and her clothes were underneath the robe as well. She glared at the creature in anger. “Not going to happen raccoon.”

“I said I am not a freaking raccoon!”

Taking her chance she jumped out of the coffin and started to run away from him. She ran down a hallway into what looked like a classroom than into what appeared to be some sort of courtyard, and continued into a library. She stopped to catch her breath. This place looked like some sort of castle but not like any she had ever seen. Where had she ended up?

“Did you really think you’d get away from my nose? Dumb human!”

Great he had found her.

“If you don’t want to get roasted, better hand over-“

All the sudden a whip wrapped around Grim and he struggled against it trying to get out. “Gah! Ow! What’s with this rope?”

“This is no mere rope. It is a lash of love!”

She looked to see a tall man with a crows mask covering the top part of his face. He was wearing at top hat with some kind of gem on the band, along with dark dress pants, white dress shirt, and waist coat, black tie, along with a black cloak that appeared to have feathers on it.

The man glanced at her and then focused on her with a look of annoyance. “Ah, found you at last. Are you one of the new students? You shouldn’t do things like that. Leaving the Gate on your own!”

New students? How did she end up at a school?! What did he mean by Gate? Was he talking about the coffin? She was confused.

“Not only that, you have yet to tame your familiar which has broken a number of school rules.”

“Let me go! I’m not their freak’n familiar!”

She couldn’t help but agree with the creature how the heck did the man think that he was her familiar? Did he not hear what he said to her before this?

“Sure, sure. The rebellious ones always say things like that. Just quite down for a moment.” The man said no looking like he was listening. The creature made muffled angry noises.

“My goodness. It’s unprecedented for a new student to leave the Gate on their own. Uuggh... how impatient can you be?”

Had he not seen her running away from the flaming creature?

“The entrance ceremony is already well underway. Let’s head to the Hall of Mirrors.” The man started to guide her some where with a hand on her shoulder.

“Gate?” She couldn’t help but say.

“It’s the room you woke up in with all the doors. All students who wish to attend this academy must pass through one of these doors to arrive here. Normally, students wake up only after the door is opened with a special key but...”

So that’s what those coffins were doors she thought. “The fire must have blown off the lid”

“So in the end the culprit was the familiar. If you’re going to bring it with you you have to take responsibility and properly take care of it. ...Oh my! Now isn’t the time to be long winded. The entrance ceremony will soon come to a close. Let’s get a move on.”

“One minute, who are you?” She asked. He must work here and judging by his clothes he must be in some position that requires him to dress more professionally.

“What’s this? Are you still dazed? It appears the teleportation magic has left you disoriented... Well, it is fine. It happens often enough. I shall give you an explanation as we make our way there. For I am gracious.” The man start the go at a faster pace and I had to rush to keep up. We where going through the courtyard I had ran through earlier.

“Ahem. This is Night Raven College. Those magicians blessed with a unique aptitude for magic gather from all over the world, here at the most prestigious magical academy in Twisted Wonderland. And I am the headmaster, appointed to take care of this academy by the board chairman, Dire Crowley.” Crowley looked proud as he said this.

“Night... Colle...?” She mumbled out as she was in a state of shock trying to process what she had just been told.

“Only those magicians seen as worthy by the Dark Mirror can attend this school. Chosen ones use the Gate and are summoned here from around the world. An ebony carriage carrying a Gate should have gone to meet you as well.” The Headmaster explained as they made their way further.

“I think I remember the sound of horses vaguely.” She mumbled.

“The ebony carriage goes to welcome new students chosen by the Dark Mirror. They are special carriages that carry the doors to the academy. The market decided long ago that carriages are used to welcome people on special days.” Crowley further explained to me.

That explained how I ended up here but not why I ended up here. I had never heard of this place and if it was so famous I am pretty sure grandma would have told me about it. I snapped out of my train of thought when Grim started to make noise again as he struggled to get out of the whip.

“Come. Let’s go to the entrance ceremony.” Crowley said after he finished his explanation.

In the Hall of Mirrors a crowd of students were gathered. A short red-haired boy looked at a group of students, “Is that all for the new student dorm assignments? Listen up new students. Here in Heartslabyul I am the rules. Break them and it’s off with your head.”

A man with lion ears sighed as he addressed his group, “... Uuggh. The stuffy ceremony is finally over. We’re heading back to the dorm. Savanaclaws, follow me.”

Another boy with glasses looked at his group with a calculating grin, “To the new students, congratulations on entering this academy. Enjoy your life here to it’s fullest. As the dormitory leader of Octavinelle I will support you to the best of my ability.”

At another group a beautiful man with blonde hair with lilac ends spoke up, “By the way, where did the headmaster go? He flew out right in the middle of the ceremony...”

A tablet with a blue icon voice spoke, “Abandoning his post...”

A boy with white hair spoke next, “Did he get a stomachache or something?”

“Not at all!” They look to see the headmaster leading a student towards them.

The red haired boy exclaimed, “Ah, he’s here.”

“I cannot believe you all. We were missing a student so I went to find them.” He looked at the student he had been leading. “You are the only one yet to be assigned a dormitory. I shall watch over the raccoon, step in front of the Dark Mirror.”

The raccoon made noise as it struggled.

The leaders watched as with some interest as the wayward student made their way up to the Dark Mirror. The man with lion ears eyes widened in surprise had anyone been paying attention and mumbled something under his breath.

When the student reached the Dark Mirror the face looked at them and spoke, “State thy name.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng” She said softly the only ones who heard her were the headmaster, the man with lion ears, and a man with black hair with pink highlights. What the Dark mirror said next shocked everyone.

“Marinette... The shape of they soul is... I do not know.” The mirror looked confused and intrigued by what it was seeing.

“Come again?” The Headmaster said in shock.

“I sense much magic from this young lady... The color, the shape? Her soul is constantly shifting color, and shape. Therefore, she is suited for any dormitory and suited for none.”

This caused a stir among the students at the revealing of her gender and the fact that she wasn’t suited for any dormitory.

“An ebony carriage has never brought a student that could not be sorted! In a hundred years there has not once been a mistake in student selection. So why in the world...” Crowley exclaimed.

“Hah! Then I’ll take their place!” Grim yelled as he had gotten out of his bonds.

“Stay right there! Raccoon!” Shouted Crowley.

“Unlike that dumb human, I am sure to be sorted! I can use magic! Let me into the school instead! If you need proof I’ll show you right now!” Grim said arrogantly as he made a ball of fire.

The red haired boy shout, “Everyone get down!” Everyone dropped to the ground to avoid the blast of flames. Marinette had gotten off the platform already by the time Crowley had finished speaking before hand and had covered her head as she got down.

“Nnaahh!” Grim yelled as he released his spell.

Flames quickly spread around the hall and panic ensued.

The boy with white hair yelled in panic, “Waahh! Hottt! My butt’s on fire!” There was flames on the backside of his robes. Marinette’s instincts kicked in as she ran and tackled the boy forcing him to drop and roll. The flames got smothered out. She sighed in relief. When she looked up she started to have a flashback of one of the deadliest and destructive akumas FlameHeart. A firefighter had been akumatized when someone who they had saved yelled at them accusing them of not saving their house on purpose when they had tried. Most of Paris had burned down and many people had died in that attack. She would never forget the cries as people died in agony.

Marinette was snapped out of her flashback when Tikki pinched her and whispered that she was okay and Hawkmoth was gone.

“At this rate the school will be a sea of fire! Somebody catch that raccoon!” Crowley yelled.

The man with lion ears scoffed, “Che! Suck ups!”

The beautiful man shot him a look, “Hmm? Aren’t you good at hunting? Doesn’t it look like a nice, plump snack?”

The man with lion ears sighed, “Why me? Do it yourself.”

The boy with glasses exclaimed, “Mr. Crowley, please leave it to me. I’m sure the others couldn’t stomach harassing the poor creature, so I will take it upon myself.”

“That’s Azul for you. Always trying to earn himself points.” The tablet spoke.

The boy with white hair grabbed Marinette’s sleeve she glanced at him. “Thanks for putting me out.” He exclaimed.

“Are you all even listening!?!” Cried Crowley.

The man with lion ears looked annoyed, “If it’s just catching some stupid raccoon, can’t you do it yourself, Teach.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a raccoon! The Great Grim that will become the greatest magician ever is me!” Grim yelled in anger.

“It certainly has moxie. Care to help me, Riddle?” Azul asked the red haired boy who seemed to be Riddle.

“I can’t overlook those who break the rules. Let’s hurry and get this over with.” Riddle said looking irritated.

Riddle pointed what looked like a pen with a jewel on it and shouted, “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!”

A collar shoot out and warped around Grim’s neck. “Gah! The heck is this!?!”

“Laws of the Queen of Hearts number 23 ‘One shall never bring a cat into a festival.’ You being a cat means you’ve broken the rule. I shall have you leave at once.” Stated Riddle

“I am not a cat! I’ll burn this collar right up and... Eeh? I can’t use my fire!” Yelled Grim.

“Hmph! You won’t be using any magic until I remove the collar. Just like an ordinary cat.” Riddle humphed at the rude behavior.

“What! I’m not some pet!” Grim cries.

“Don’t worry, I would never keep a pet like you! I’ll take it off anyway when you get thrown out!” Riddle snapped back.

“Wow, as wonderful as ever. Any and all magic gets sealed by your Unique Magic, Riddle. I want it... No. I wouldn’t ever want that cast on me.” Azul complemented but mumbled the second part.

Flames were still going around them as Crowley came up to Marinette and exclaimed, “You must do something about this! It’s your familiar!”

Marinette had reached her breaking point. She yanked off her glove and yelled, “ENOUGH!” as her magic shot out of her hand putting out the flames. The steam blew off her hood revealing her face and eyes glowing faintly with magic and irritation. Everyone had stopped at the display of magic and yell.

Crowley got over his shock enough to say, “He is not yours?”

Marinette was annoyed, “No he is not my familiar. He even told you that before.”

“Marinette calm down.” Tikki popped out of her robe surprising her.

“So your her real familiar?” Crowley questioned the kwami.

“Sure both of us are.” Plagg decided to come out as well and just roll with the idea. There was magic here obviously and it would be easier to just claim that they were that so they could be around her.

Crowley turned his attention back to Grim and coughed, “Ahem. Anyway, let’s get it out of the school at any rate. We won’t turn you into a stew. For I am gracious. Someone help please.”

Grim struggled as he was taken out spouting about how he would be the greatest. Marinette couldn’t help but wonder why he wanted to go to this school so badly.

“We had a bit of trouble along the way but this brings the entrance ceremony to a close. Dorm heads, please show the new students back to the dormitories.” Stated Crowley.

The students started to go out some sneaking glances at her. Crowley looked around and questioned, “Hm? Now that I think about it, I don’t see the leader for Diasomnia, Mr. Draconia, around at all...”

The man with lion ears shrugged, “That’s no different from usual, is it?”

The boy with white hair exclaimed in shock, “What? Did nobody tell him about the ceremony?”

The beautiful man gave him a pointed look, “If you’re going to complain you should have done it yourself.”

The boy with white hair shifted awkwardly, “Hmmmm. But I don’t really know anything about that guy.”

A passing student spoke, “By Draconia... Do they mean ‘that’ Malleus Draconia?” His friend spoke back to him, “Is he seriously attending this school?” Another exclaimed, “Scary!”

A man with black hair with pink highlights spoke, “I was correct. I thought he might come but Malleus really didn’t. It seems the invitation ’never arrived’ again.”

“My deepest apologies. I promise, we didn’t intend to exclude him.” Azul claimed with no sincerity.

“His aura makes it hard to approach him.” Riddle said looking uncomfortable.

Marinette couldn’t help but think of how this had happened to her but was slightly different. When this happened to her it was Lila and her ‘friends’ intentionally trying to be mean to her and exclude her. This sounded like they were intimidated by him. She still could emphasize about the similarities of the situation though.

“It’s fine. Members of Diasomnia Dormitory can come with me. ... I hope this doesn’t upset him.” The man said sounding resigned.

As he was passing by leading the new students he got a look at the girl. Surprised he didn’t show it. He couldn’t help but think she looked a little like someone else but couldn’t remember who. He could see her Fae features. This was something to look at later as he had to go and find his charge after this.

After everyone had left the hall Crowley turned towards Marinette with a look of regret.

“Then. Marinette, I’m terribly sorry about this but... We must have you leave the school.” As he lead her to the mirror he further explained. “Those without a dormitory cannot be allowed to attend class here. There is no need to worry. The Dark Mirror will send you directly back from whence you came.” He finished explaining as they stopped in front of the mirror. “Enter the Gate and picture your home clearly in your mind...”

Marinette closed her eyes and thought of the bakery that she grew up in and could she really call it home now? Her parents were sending her away and there was no longer a feeling of love there. She pictured her room in its half packed state and waited.

“Oh Dark Mirror! Guide this one back to the place they belong!” Chanted Crowley. After a while with nothing happening Crowley started to get annoyed. “Let’s try this once more. Oh Dark Mirror! Guide this...”

Mid chant the Mirror interrupted Crowley. “It is nowhere...”

“What” Crowley said in shock.

When the mirror said that it was like a knife to the heart for Marinette a reminder that she didn’t belong anywhere now.

The mirror spoke again, “The place they belong is nowhere in this world... It does not exist.”

Marinette held back tears as it felt like her heart was twisting in her chest.

The mirror gave her a look of sadness as it could see the turmoil in her soul from its words.

“What did you say? That is unbelievable! Hmm, well, the unbelievable has been on parade today!” Crowley said in frustration as he was losing his cool.

The Dark Mirror gave him a questioning look.

“This is the first time it’s ever happened since I became headmaster, what should be...” Crowley pondered then turned back to back to face her. He noticed the state she was in and asked in a gentler tone, “Where exactly did you come from?”

Marinette no longer feeling she was about to cry quietly spoke in a small voice, “Paris, France Sir.”

Crowley rubbed his chin perplexed. “I’ve never heard of that place. I have a general grasp of where all the students came from but I’ve never even heard that name before.”

This shocked Marinette greatly. Crowley put a gentle hand on her shoulder and spoke as he lead her. “Let’s go to the Library and do some research.”

“There is really isn’t anything here.” Crowley exclaimed drawing Marinette’s attention away from the map she was looking at with Tikki and Plagg.

“Not only the world map, but the name of your home isn’t written in any history. Are you truly from where you say? You aren’t lying to me by chance?” Crowley asked feeling done with this entire situation.

“Marinette is not lying! We where in Paris before this happened!” Tikki looked at Crowley crossly as she defended her chosen all while Plagg was sending him a glare that promised pain if he did anything to hurt her.

Crowley backed up from his accusation feeling like he had just avoided death. Glancing down at the maps and books he spoke again, “Looking at all this, you may have been brought here from another planet... There is also the possibility you’re from another world.”

Marinette exchanged glances with the Kwamis and it seemed they knew what the answer was to that.

“What did you have on you when you came here? Do you have any identification, like a license for a magic car, name on a shoe... You appear to be empty handed.”

Marinette felt under robes and sighed in relief as she felt that she had her passport in her jacket. She opened her robe to get to her zipped pocket and grabbed it along with her motorcycle license. She had put it there when she was packing so she would not lose them in the mess. She handed them over to Crowley. Crowley flipped through her passport and seemed to be raising a eyebrow at the amount of travel she had done recently. He glanced over her license.

“Even with this proving your claim of where you are from there is still a problem. With out a dormitory assignment we cannot have you in the school. However, as an educator, I can’t just toss a penniless teenager out on the street with no form of communication.” Crowley handed back her things and rubbed his chin in thought.

“Hmmm... That’s right! There is an unused building on campus. It was once used as a dormitory in the past so if you clean it up you should at least be able to sleep there.” Crowley said looking delighted with himself for thinking of it.

Great. Marinette glanced out the window and it looked like it was about to start raining. Well if it was bad inside she would just have to stay there till the rain stopped. She had camped a lot in the pass year with her grandma so she could manage if she could make a tent.

“For the time being I will allow you to stay there! Then I will look for a way for you to return home. My graciousness is limitless! I am a model for all educators. We had better be on our way. Let’s head to the dormitory. It may be a bit old but there is a certain charm to it.” Crowley said as he started to head out leading the way. Marinette could not help but want to role her eyes at him with how full of himself he was. But refrained to doing it as he was helping her. How bad could it really be?

Chapter Text

Marinette could not help but stare at the building in front of her. She knew the headmaster had said it was abandoned but she didn’t it would be this bad. The black iron fence was bent all over it and she couldn’t help, but think of how it would of been torture for her to even get in the building if she did not have her gloves on. The thought of purposely burning her hands made her shutter. The landscape or what she thought had been the landscape was either dead or in desperate need of care. The building itself was in need of repair from what she could see. Re-roofing being the most obvious. She could see a couple of gargoyles statues and couldn’t help but smile. The statues made her think of the Notre-Dame one of her favorite buildings. It was bittersweet to see them and remember that she may never see it again.

“Right, right. Please come inside.” Crowley exclaimed guiding her into the building.

They entered what appeared to have be the lounge at some point. There was wallpaper peeling away from the walls pictures crocked tears in the furniture’s fabric. Most obviously was the thick layer of dust that coated everything along many cobwebs.

Crowley spoke sounding a little sad, “Staying here will at least keep you out of the rain. I’m going back to do more research. Make yourselves at home. Don’t go wondering around the school! Goodbye!”

Crowley could not help but feel sorry for the girl. Being stuck somewhere she no idea when she would go home. Stuck in a dreary building that was no place for a girl but there was no other option for her.

Marinette looked around and couldn’t help but think of how much cleaning need to be done before they could start any repairs to see the full damage. She went upstairs to see what it looked like up there. She came to a hall that was in the same shape as the rest of the house and opened the door to the first room. Tikki and Plagg rushed in to inspect but stopped in their tracks staring. Confused at what got that reaction out of the two she looked around and also stopped in shock. There on the floor of the room where the boxes that she had packed in her room back in Paris for moving along with her suitcase. She rushed over and opened her suitcase not caring if the clothes she pulled out got dirty. She couldn’t help but let tears of relief run down her face as she pulled out the miraculous box, heirloom dagger, and family spell book. She then heard something back downstairs and slowly went back down to see what it was. She stopped still out of site to listen to what was making noise.

“Hye. It’s really coming down!” A familiar voice said. She went down to see Grim inside somehow. Didn’t he get kicked out?

“Gyahaha! You’ve got this stupid look on your face like a spider being attacked with a water gun.” Grim said rather rudely.

“How are you back here? Didn’t you get kicked out?” Marinette couldn’t help but ask the obvious.

“I’ll have no trouble sneaking back into school. Come on, come on. If you think getting thrown out is gonna make me give up on getting in you’ve got another thing coming!” Grim said arrogantly.

Marinette decided instead to ask what had been on her mind when he had been thrown out, “Why do you even want to attend this school so bad?”

“That’s simple! I’m a genius who is destined to be a great magician! I’ve been waiting for the ebony carriage to come pick me up. But... but...” He trailed off and she couldn’t help but feel sad for him.

Grim must have seen her expression. “Hmph! The Dark Mirror just doesn’t have an eye for this. So that’s why I came here on my own. Not letting me in would be a loss for the world, humans just don’t get it.” She couldn’t help but wonder how he didn’t notice that she wasn’t completely human from that comment.

“Nya! So cold! The roof is leaking!” Shouted Grim as water came through one of the holes in the ceiling on to him.

“Fygaa! It keeps coming! My adorable ear fire is gonna go out at this rate!” Grim cried in despair.

“Where is the leak coming from?” I couldn’t see the source of the roof leak.

“Magic should fix this leak up real quick.” Grim said looking at me expectantly.

“If you know where the leak is coming from than I can fix it.” She said sternly. She was not going to throw magic around like nuts and get exhausted.

“Gah! Your useless!” Grim said angrily.

She was starting to get irritated with Grim and his unhelpful behavior. “Are you just going to sit here and complain or I don’t know actually help me!?!”

“Huh? Help you? No waaay! I’m just a regular monster staying in a rainy place. You better get a can of of tuna ready before I do any work.”

Great Grim wasn’t going to be any help unless he got his tuna. I had no idea where all the leaks are coming from with the state of the roof so it looked like I was going to have to find some buckets or pots to catch the water. I ran through a hallway looking around when I heard something else. All the sudden three ghosts appeared.

“Hihihihi.....ihihihi.... We haven’t had a guest in so long...” One ghost said with a terrifying look on his face that promised trouble.

“I’m itching for some action.” The second ghost exclaimed looking like he was about to have some fun.

“Ihihihihi!” The third one just laughed.

“Ggghhooossstts!” She screamed as she ran back to the lounge.

Grim turned his attention to the sound of screaming to see her running back into the lounge. Confused at her terror he asked, “What are you freaking out... Gyaaaaa!!! G-g-g-ghooooosts!!!”

“The people living here got scared of us and left.” The second ghost said and she can’t blame them if the got this done to them every time of the day.

“We’ve been looking for more ghost pals. How about you guys?” The third ghost asked with a malicious smile.

“Your going to kill us!” She shouted in fear.

“Uuu, uuuuh- -! Grim, the Great Magician, isn’t scared of some ghosts!” Grim said as he was visibly shaking and gathering flames in his paws.

“Punahh- - - nnn!” Grim launched a fire ball missing the ghosts completely.

“Where are you aiming?” The first ghost asked confused.

“Over here, over here! Hehehehe!” The third ghost yelled tauntingly.

“Shoot! Stop disappearing!” Grim yelled in frustration preparing another fire ball when she noticed he was closing his eyes.

“Open your eyes when you aim or else your going to burn the place down!” She shouted.

“Shut up! Don’t try to give me orders!” Grim snapped at her.

“I’ll give you a can of tuna if you win.” She bargained. She didn’t think she had any type of attacks that would affect ghosts or not destroy the building.

“Wah...!? Mmmmgmm, I-I’m a genius, I won’t let one....” Grim said seemingly in cooperation.

“Ihihihihi!” The ghosts gave taunting laughs.

Grim scowled at them, “Bunch of cowards ganging up on us!”

“Don’t burn the place down or else you won’t get your can of tuna!” She said.

“Hey you! Tell me where the ghosts are!” Grim shouted at her.

“They’re on your left!” She called hoping he actually hit them this time. She did not want to find out what would happen if they didn’t get rid of these ghosts.

“Hooot!” The first ghost yelled as he got hit by the fire ball. The ghosts started try and get away going back down the hallway they had chased her from.

“After them!” She shouted.

They chased them down the hall till they cornered them.

“Fugnaaa!!!” Grim shouted as he launched another fire ball managing to hit at the ghosts.

“Heee, heeeeee! We’re goners! Runaway!” The ghost shouted as they phased through the windows fleeing.

Marinette sighed in relief that the murderous ghosts were gone. She was going to have to look through the family spell book and see if there was anything in it for getting rid of or keeping ghosts away.

“E, eh? We... won?” Grim said in a state of shock from actually being able to drive the ghosts away.

“Thank you Grim. I don’t think any of my magic could have driven them away without destroying the building in the process.” Marinette gave a small sincere smile in gratitude.

“That was nothing for the Great Grim! How ‘bout that, ghosts? You done?” Grim said smugly in response.

She then heard footsteps and turned to see Crowley carrying a tray with covered dishes.

“Good evening. I have graciously brought supper for you” Crowley proclaimed as if he had just done a tremendous things. He didn’t seem to see Grim when he can in.

Crowley then took in the sight of Grim and said with an annoyed tone, “You’re the monster that ran amuck during the entrance ceremony! I threw you out of the school, what are you doing here!?”

“Hmph! I exterminated the ghost problem! Be grateful!” Grim said in response with his arms crossed smug.

“Nn? What do you mean by that?” Crowley asked in confusion.

She stepped in before Grim could say anything. “There was a group of ghosts that were trying to cause problems. They made the claim that they were going to turn us into ghosts as well. The only way that would happen is by death. They came at us will what seemed the intentions to kill us. Grim’s fire is what scared them away and none of my magic would have done anything to them without destroying the building.”

“Now that you mention it, there were some prankster ghosts living here so students keep away from this dormitory, and that’s why its now empty. I’d forgotten that. However, hmmmm....” Crowley replied as he remembered that important detail while thinking of something.

“For the two of you to work together to get rid of them.” Crowley began to say but was interrupted.

“I’m not gonna overlook that ‘together’ comment. She was just standing there watching. And I did this for a can of tuna.” Grim said rudely. She bristled at that because she had to be the one to tell him where to shoot the entire time.

“I still want that tuna!” Grim said clearly only thinking about food.

Crowley ignored him, “I’d like the two of you to show me how you exterminated those ghosts.”

“But we already got rid of all the ghosts! Before that. Give. Me. Tuna!” Grim shouted the last part.

“I shall be the ghost.” Crowley exclaimed.

This confused her as the only way she knew of was death for someone to be a ghost.

“If you beat me, I’ll give you two tuna cans. For I am gracious.” Crowley said as a bribe to Grim.

“Transformation potion!” Crowley yelled as he drank from a bottle of liquid. This got her attention making her think of the miraculous potions from the grimoire and how they could be similar. A puff of smoke came and as it cleared she could see a ghost wearing Crowley’s top hat and mask.

“Eeh. I don’t wanna. This is a pain and I have to team up with her again...” Grim bemoaned.

Well that was insulting but she just want to get this over with. “Come on once this is over you get two cans.”

“This is the last time! You absolutely, absolutely have to give me tuna!” Grim said clearly impatient for his promised reward.

Crowley start to move around and Marinette directed Grim on where to shoot. This went on for about ten minutes till finally the potion wore off.

Grim panting from all the magic use exclaimed, “Hee-haa... How ‘bout that!”

Tikki and Plagg came down sometime to see what was going on and watched from the side.

“I can’t believe... there is a person who can command monsters.” Crowley said with excitement.

“Hey!” “We’re not monsters!” The two Kwamis said simultaneously.

“Hmmmm.... Actually, my teacher-senses were telling me since the uproar during the entrance ceremony that you have talent as a animal or wild beast trainer.” Crowley said as he was in his own world not hearing any protests or seeing the looks he was getting.

“Maybe you could let Grim go to this school? He really just wants to learn.” She said trying to help Grim get his dream of going there.

“What... A monster...” Crowley exclaimed in surprise at the suggestion.

“You...” Grim said in shock that a human was trying to help him with his dream after all that he had done.

“Hah... this can’t be helped. Alright.” Crowley said coming to a decision.

“Great.” Grim exclaimed in joy.

“I can’t simply allow someone, let alone a monster, into school who wasn’t selected by the Dark Mirror. Also I can’t let you be a freeloader here until you return to your own world.” Crowley stated.

Grim deflated at what Crowley had said. “Well... talk about short lived joy...”

“Listen until the end. Concerning the fact your soul was called here the school has to take responsibility as the owners of the Dark Mirror. For the time being you’ll be permitted to stay in this dormitory for free. But, other necessities you will have to provide for yourself. Seeing how you have nothing to your name.” Crowley said and was about to continue when he was interrupted.

“Umm... sir? I don’t exactly have nothing.” Marinette couldn’t help but say.

This got Crowley’s attention, “What do you mean by that? I didn’t see anything will you when you came.”

“Some of my possessions managed to come with me. We found them in one of the bedrooms earlier.” She further explained.

“You still need a way to provide other things so here is my proposition. You will be doing some maintenance and odd jobs around campus.” Crowley proclaimed.

“Would you two like to become the ‘handyman’ of the school? This way you will receive special permission to remain on school grounds. You’ll also be able to research going home or study whatever you desire in the library. For I am gracious. However! Only after your work is done.” Crowley gave his offer.

It looked like this was the only way she would be able to stay and find a way back. She would have to take it even if the idea of being a handyman did not appeal to her.

“Eeh?! I’m not okay with that! I want to wear the fancy uniform and be a student!” Grim shouted his displeasure.

“It’s fine if you’re unsatisfied. I’ll simply toss you out again.” Crowley threatened.

“Fgnaa!? I get it! I just have to do it. Just do it!” Grim shouted in fear.

“I understand.” She said accepting that this was for the best.

“Wonderful. Then you two starting tomorrow, endeavor to be the best handyman at Night Raven College!” Crowley exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Crowley picked up the tray and handed it over to Marinette. “I hope you find this satisfying. I will go fetch the tuna as promised.” Then he left.

Marinette went down to the dining room and uncovered her meal. To her surprise it was a beef stew with a roll and side salad. She started to eat and Crowley came back with the two promised cans of tuna then left for the night. She gave Plagg the mozzarella from her salad and part of the roll to Tikki. She went upstairs to the bedroom to go to bed. Grim tried to follow her in. “No you’re not sleeping in the same room as me. Go find another room to sleep in.” Grim was about to protest but noticed the hard stare Marinette, and the Kwamis were giving him then went off to find another room. Once he was gone she went into the room to see all the other Kwamis and couldn’t help but smile. They all tackled her talking over each other asking if she was alright. After they had all calmed down she noticed that they had been busy cleaning the room to the best of their ability. She took of her robe and decided to just go to bed. She feel asleep with the Kwamis all around her that night glade she was not alone in this world.

Marinette woke up the early and rubbed her eyes to see it had not been a dream last night. The Kwamis woke up as she dug around her stuff and found her cloths she wore when doing maintenance on the motorcycles with her grandma. The clothes of a old grey t-shirt, brown cargo pants, elbow length work gloves. She put her clothes and made sure her gloves were on correctly before putting on her shoes. The problem with finding the most protective shoes is that they are reinforced by steel in some part so she had to be careful with putting them on. Once she was done she went downstairs to the kitchen with the Kwamis following they spent thirty minutes cleaning to have it be clean enough to make breakfast. She heated up the leftover stew from the night before and was chatting on what needed to be done in the dorm when she heard a scream. She could only assume was Grim.

She ran upstairs and opened the door to see the three ghosts from last night surrounding Grim.

“Are you all going to be living here? You’re going to get pranked.” The first ghost said.

“Shoot we’ll get rid of you eventually!” Shouted Grim cranky from being woken up.

“Good morning you two! Did you sleep well?” Crowley came in entirely to cheerful for the morning in her opinion.

“I was all sprawled out then fell off the bed! Just how ramshackle did you let this place get? Then the ghosts woke me up, this is the worst!” Grim snapped back.

“It was fine.” Was her simple reply in truth she was so emotionally and mentally exhausted she couldn’t really care.

“I came to speak about your work for today.”Crowley explained as they walked down to the lounge.

“Today, you are to clean the campus. ...But campus is quite large. Cleaning it all will take sometime with only yourselves. So I’d like you to clean Main Street from the main gate to the library. Understood?” Crowley explained with his arms folded. We nodded with Plagg doing the Kwami version of thumbs up.

Crowley then turned to her, “Please watch Grim closely so he doesn’t cause a scene like yesterday.”

“I can try but I can’t make any guarantee that he won’t.” I already had Plagg to look after and he was literally chaos.

Crowley just sighed, “I suppose that is the best you can do with you already having your own familiars to watch over. You have permission to have lunch in the school cafeteria. Take care of your work enthusiastically.” Crowley left after that to the school.

“No way I’m doing any cleaning. I wanna go to class and, bang! Boom boom boom! Use a bunch of awesome spells!” Grim said dreamily.

“Come on the fast we get done the sooner we can go to the library, and then you can find some awesome spells.” Trying to get him motivated to at least help for the idea of finding something he wanted. She went back into the kitchen and told the other Kwamis to try and get what they could done while she was gone, and warned them about the ghosts. Grim was muttering as they left. Tikki and Plagg sat on her shoulder chatting as they went. Hopefully today there would not be any trouble like night.

Chapter Text

Marinette was starting to feel uncomfortable. The entire time since students caught sight of the group they had been whispering, pointing, and staring at them. She tried to ignore it and focus on the area round her that she had it been able to really see last night in the dark, but it was making her remember bad memories of Francoise Dupont. When Lila had made her claims of her bullying she would here the whispers of others, and wary glances. Her classmates on the other hand wouldn’t hold back and would jeer at her and nock into her. Tikki must have seen that her mind was going back to painful memories and nuzzled her check reminding her where she was. She gripped the broom they had found in the supplies shed. They arrived at what she could only assume was Main Street by the tall gates and path leading to the school.

“Uwaaah... Amazing. So this is Main Street.” Grim said not even trying to disguise his awe. She couldn’t help but agree. It was very impressive.

“I didn’t get a good look yesterday but what’s with these statues? All seven of them look pretty scary.” Grim said pointing down the direction of the school to the statues lining the edge of the street.

She didn’t really agree with Grim on them being scary, but compared to some Akumas she had faced none of them could really scare her.

“This granny looks especially snobby.” Grim said while looking at the statue of a woman dressed as a queen with a bigger build. She couldn’t help but find his comment rude as clearly who ever the statues were of had a very important role here.

“You don’t know about the Queen of Hearts?” A student with messy orange hair and red heart on his left eye said incredulously as he walked over to them.

“Queen of Hearts? Is she important?” Grim asked curiously.

“In the past she was the queen who lived in the Rose Maze. She was someone who valued rules and discipline above all, strict in all things from the march of the Card Soldiers to the color of rose bushes. It was a land of madness where all submit to her rule. Why you say? Because or else it was off with your head!” The orange hair student told. She could figure why the Queen had been so strict and could respect that, but it was a bit more than needed. She wished that Ms. Bustier and Principal Damocles had been more like the Queen though.

“That’s terrifying!” Grim exclaimed in fright.

“It’s cool! I like it. Nobody would listen to a queen who’s just nice all the time, right?” The orange hair student said in response. She had to hid a flinch at that comment. That had been exactly what had happened to her. She had been class president and had always tried to be nice to them but when she had asked for them to listen to her they had not.

“I suppose. A strong leader is better.” Grim said in response.

“Bye the way who are you?” Grim asked turning to look at the orange haired student.

“I’m Ace. A fresh-faced first year. Nice to meetcha.” Ace introduced himself while rubbing the back of his neck with his arm.

“I am Grim. A genius who’ll become the greatest magician. The dimwits over there are my henchmen.” Grim said arrogantly.

“ Hey!” She glared at Grim along with the two Kwamis.

“Ignore what he just claimed. I am Marinette and these two are Tikki and Plagg.” She said and pointed at each kwami respectively.

“You’ve got an interesting sounding names.” Ace said sounding like he had wanted to say something else.

“Hey, Ace. The lion over there with the scar, are they famous?” Grim asked getting Ace’s attention pointing at another statue.

“Of course. This is the King of Beasts who rules the savannah. However, he was not born to be king, but he took the throne through effort and elaborate planning. After becoming king, he even allowed the loathed hyenas to live in his kingdom without discrimination.” Ace explained.

This story sounded like one from her world that the villain looked like the statue, but different worlds and she couldn’t really judge as she had no idea what the full story was.

“Ooh. I guess he was a rock not held captive by his status! Who’s the lady with octopus legs?” Grim said and pointed to another statue of a large set woman with most of her body that of a octopus and was holding a unfurled document.

“The Sea Witch who lives in a cavern in the deep. Her purpose was to help all unfortunate merfolk. As long as you could pay the price she could transform you, help you find love, anything. If it was within her power there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do. They say her prices were pretty high, though. That’s what it costs for‘anything.’” Ace told them.

Marinette knew that first hand that magic like that always came with a price. From what she had been told in the past people had used the ladybug and cat miraculous together to make a wish and the price was always more terrible the bigger the wish. A man had asked for his dead son to become alive again, and then Pompeii happened whipping the city he lived in out. Another had been of a girl who had asked for her family to be healed of a terrible illness and then the Black Plague came killing millions.

“So what you’re saying is I can get rich if I become a great magician!?” Grim said completely missing the obvious from the story making her want to facepalm.

“Then what about this man in the big hat?” Grim said pointing at a statue of a man wearing robes and a turban while hold a staff with the topped shaped like a cobra.

“The Sorcerer of the Sand. He was a cunning vizier to a foolish sultan and saw through the fake prince that was actually a street rat trying to deceive the princess. Then he got a magic lamp and became the most powerful sorcerer of all! With that power they say he became sultan.” Ace explained indulging Grim.

She could understand the sorcerer. Her situation had been similar with Ms. Bustier and Damocles being the sultan, Lila the street rat, and her classmates the princess but they brushed her aside when she tried to expose the truth about Lila.

“Ho hoh! So it is important for magicians to be the center of attention! Oooh! This lady sure is beautiful!” Grim exclaimed while pointing at a statue of a slim woman who was dress as a queen with an apple covered in something.

“She is the Beautiful Queen. Everyday she checked the ‘beauty ranking’ in her magic mirror. And when it looked like she might fall from the number one spot, she never hesitated to do anything to get it back. I guess she had the strong will to remain the most beautiful in the world? So freaking amazing. They say she was even adept at making poisons.” Ace explained with admiration.

Marinette could understand wanting to be the best in what you prided yourself in and doing your best to be that but it sounded like the Queen had done something sinister to keep her place.

“She’s pretty but... no thanks...” Grim said and swallowed heavily.

“You think? But it’s cool that she has something she’ll never give up.” Ace asked Grim.

“S, sure, that single-minded drive is pretty cool. Over there, what’s with the guy on fire? Just looking gives me goosebumps.” Grim said pointing at another statue to change the topic. The statue was of a man in a toga with fire at his feet and fingertip along with his hair seemed to be fire.

“Lord of the Underworld! He rules a land crawling with evil spirits on his own. No doubt he’s extremely skilled. Even though he’s got a scary face, he did the detestable job without ever taking a vacation and his sincerity won over Cerberus, the hydra, even the titans, to fight for him. Hmmm, hmmm. So talent doesn’t mean you get to be haughty.” Ace explained as he tried to make a point to Grim.

She was a surprised as if she was correct this was Hades. It seemed that he was a real being here and not just a myth like in her world.

“And the last one, with horns?” Grim pointing to the last statue of a elegant woman who had horns upon her head wearing robes and held a scepter in her hand.

“That is the Witch of Thorns from the Magic Mountains. Noble and elegant, even within the seven she is top class in magic and curses! She can summon lightning and storms, cover an entire country in thorns, her magic is on a whole other level. There was even a time she transformed into a huge dragon!” Ace explained with respect and wonder in his tone.

Marinette knew who this was as the family spell book had referenced the Magic Mountains sometimes along how the Witch of Thorns was the Fae who ruled the Valley of Thorns. This was Maleficent! Her grandma had told her how great grandmother had spoke about potentially visiting some people who served under the witch before she had died in the accident.

“Oooh! A dragon! All monsters look up to them!” Grim cried with wonder.

“They’re all so cool... Unlike a certain raccoon.” Ace said insultingly to Grim. Grim made a sound in  anger at the insult.

“Pfft... ahaha! I can’t bear it anymore! Ahahaha!” Ace laughed holding his sides.

“Aren’t you the ones who went crazy at the entrance ceremony? You were summoned by the Dark Mirror even though you couldn’t be sorted, and you, monster, weren’t called but still trespassed. Yaah, it took everything I had not to lose it at the ceremony.” Ace said mockingly. He was getting on her nerves and she could feel her magic wanting to lash out at him. She glared along with Tikki and Plagg.

“Wha!? You’re a rude one!” Grim yelled.

“And now you weren’t allowed in and regulated to janitor? Haha, how lame.” Ace continued on with mocking now pointed at her. She was trying to control her temper and not explode. Losing her temper here would hurt all of the students around her as her magic would lash out at everyone and everything near her. Anyone who was a Fae had a temper and had to learn to control it or express some other way that was safe or else it could end badly.

“Nyanyooo...” Grim growled.

“On top of that, you don’t even know about the Great Seven. How ignorant can you be? I recommend you go back to kindergarten before coming to Night Raven College.” Ace said condescendingly to them as he continued to laugh.

Grim made noises in anger.

“I thought I’d just mess with you a bit but you really blew my expectations away. Unlike you two, I actually have classes to attend. Keep this school squeaky clean, you two.” Ace started to walk away.

“This jerk! He’s just gonna say that and leave! I’m pissed now!” Grim said anger clear in his voice. She was to but she was more focus on keep control at the moment.

“Whaa!” Grim shouted releasing flames that barely missed Ace.

“Oh my! Watch out! What’re you doing.” Ace yelled at Grim.

“It’s what you get for making fun of me! I’m going to light up that fire-head of yours!” Grim yelled.

“Fire-head, huh? Heee. You’ve really got guts picking a fight with me.” Ace said in anger than he turned towards her, “You too. I’ll turn you into a puffy, little toy-poodle!”

Grim growled and released more fire.

“Uh-oh, gotta watch out. Take that!” Ace yelled releasing his magic and the wind started to blow the fire around she couldn’t help but notice how it was getting closer to the students and statues.

Students started to gather to watch Grim and Ace fight. She could here them talking amongst themselves.

“What’s happening? A fight?” One student who seemed to be in the same dorm as Ace said.

“Yeah! Get ‘em!” A student with animal ears yelled.

“A flimsy little fire spell like that won’t hit me!” Ace yelled tauntingly at Grim.

“What? You better be ready!” Grim yelled at Ace preparing a larger fire spell.

“Eat this!” Grim yelled launching the spell.

Ace send a gust of wind at the fire changing its course. “And I just changed the trajectory with wind like... that!” Ace said mocking Grim.

Marinette yanked off her glove and dropped down to touch the ground as soon as she noticed it was head towards the statue of the Queen of Heart. A trail of ice streaked towards the statue and as the fire ball was about to hit it a wall of ice formed. There was a hissed as steam formed from the fire hitting it. She was panting slightly from releasing her magic and making sure that it would not hurt anyone. She grabbed her discarded glove and stood up only to notice that everyone was staring at her in shock.

“Just what is going on here!” Crowley suddenly appeared yelling sternly.

“Gah! Headmaster!” Ace cried coming out of his shock as Grim looked on in fright.

“He’s gonna tie us up with the ‘lash of love’! Get outta here!” Grim cried in vain as he and Ace got caught by the whip crying out in pain.

“This is my Lash of Love! It’ll be another hundred years before you can out run me!” Crowley proclaimed.

“I told you not to cause anymore trouble after yesterday, and then you go and nearly damage a statue! I should expel you!” Crowley scolded them.

“No wait!” Ace cried out.

Crowley wasn’t finished, “Marinette while I am glade you protected the statue did you way you would try to supervise Grim?”

“I was a little busy trying to control my magic.” She said as she held up her glove that had frost visible on it. The Kwamis nodded along.

Crowley sighed, “My goodness... You, what is your grade and name?” He asked Ace.

“Ace Trappola, first year.” Ace said nervously.

“Then, Trappola, Grim, and Marinette as punishment I order the three of you to wash one hundred windows around campus!” Crowley yelled.

“Nysa? It’s all cause this joker was making fun of us!” Grim yelled in protest.

“Eeeh?! Me too?” Ace said in shock.

“Most definitely! After school, meet in the cafeteria. Understood?” Crowley demanded.

She sighed, “Yes sir.”

“Fine.” Ace said resigned.

“Nothing but misery since yesterday.” Grim grumbled.

It had been a long day and it was only going to get longer. She could only sigh they had finished cleaning Main Street forty minutes ago. Tikki and Plagg were so tired that they had gone into one of her pants pockets and fell asleep. She couldn’t help but think that she should look for cleaning spells when she got the chance. Those would come in handy for the dorm and look for any that could repair some of the place. They had gotten lunch to go earlier because she couldn’t stand all the staring from the students. No doubt the news had gone around about the incident on Main Street. After that it was back to work.

“I’m already beat from cleaning all day... Now we have to wash a hundred windows too...” Grim complained.

She rolled her eyes at him. It was his fault for starting that fight so he had no room to complain.

“That Ace guy is sure taking his sweet time. Who does he think he is, making me wait! I’m pissed!” Grim basically growled out.

They waited for a while more for Ace to show up.

“I don’t care what happened, this is too late! Wait, he wouldn’t just skip out, right!” Grim said frustrated. She couldn’t help but think that Ace probably would try to with how long they had waited. “We should just go get him.”

“I’m not gonna let him get away with putting all the punishment on us! Let’s go henchman! We’re gonna catch Ace and make him do all the window washing!” Grim shouted determined.

They started walking and came to the class Crowley said Ace had last and went in.

“Oraaa! Where’s Ace! We’re not gonna let you hide away! Aah? Nobody is here?” Grim said as they looked around.

A portrait on the wall spoke up, “No. I’m here.”

“Aaah! The picture talked!” Grim shouted in surprise.

Well that was a first for her unless she counted that time with Pixelator. Hopefully this was just a portrait that could talk and not someone trapped inside it.

“What now? It’s not uncommon for paintings to talk at this school. The Wall Lady over there, the Wall Gentleman over here, everyone can speak. Portraits can speak because they have a mouth. That’s normal, you know?” The wall portrait said.

“Well as long as you’re not someone who got trapped in a painting fine by me. I’ve seen that once and once was enough.” She said glade that it was nothing like what had happened to her in the past.

The painting gave a questioning look at her response.

“Who are you looking for?” The wall portrait asked.

“A guy named Ace. He’s got a heart mark on his face and hair that sticks up.” Grim described him.

“Aah, I know him. He’s one of the freshman that started today. He went back to his dorm not too long ago...” the wall portrait explained.

“Whaaahaat! So he did try to get away! Which way did he go?” Grim demanded.

“The entrance is behind the East Building.” The Wall portrait told Grim calmly.

“Hey! We’re going after him!” Grim yelled.

As they went out she looked over her shoulder and called out, “Thank you for your help.”

When they had left the wall portrait spoke to the others. “Has anyone ever heard of a living person being trapped in a picture?” A series of no’s followed. “What sort of place did she come from that would even happen? I wonder? Well she seems like a nice young lady.” A series of agreements followed.

In the hall of Mirrors Ace was getting ready to head to his dorm. “No way I’m washing a hundred windows. Gonna head on home...” He muttered to himself.

“Hey!!! We found you!” Grim shouted startling Ace.

“Geh! Found me!” Ace said still shocked that they found him.

“Jerk! Hold up! I won’t let you be the only one to escape!” Grim said determined.

“I’m not just going to wait around for you! I’m out of here!” Ace said as he tried to escape.

“It’s not fair for only you to get out of it! I want to skip out too!” Grim shouted.

Just than another boy came in with blue hair and a spade mark on his face. “...Huh?”

“Outta my way! Outta my way!” Ace yelled as he tried to escape.

“Eeh... ooh?” The blue hair boy replied.

“Catch him!” She shouted.

The boy backed away from her avoiding eye contact. “I-i’ll fr-reeeez-e.” Was all she could here him say as he mumbled.

“Any way, I don’t care how, just hit him hard! Hurry!” Grim yelled at the boy.

“Any way!? Any, way... any thing is fine so come on! Something heavy!” He said to Grim.

All the sudden a cauldron appeared in the air landing on top of Ace.

“Gueeeh! What the heck?! A pot!?” Ace shouted in surprise.

“Geh! Check it out! Ace is flat as a pancake under that caldron! So lame!” Grim shouted tauntingly.

“I didn’t think I’d get a cauldron. Did I over do it?” The blue hair boy questioned himself.

“Man this hurts...” Ace said as he rubbed his back once he got out from underneath the caldron.

“You should be fine. Those hundred windows should be clean in a flash.” Ace said to them miffed.

“Well not everyone knows cleaning spells, and the headmaster was the one who ordered all of us to do it.” She said annoyed.

“Washing a hundred windows as punishment... What in the world did you all do?” The blue hair boy asked.

“I got into it a bit with that furball and we might have nearly damaged the Queen of Hearts statue.” Ace replied.

“You nearly damaged one of the Great Seven statues!? That’s definitely something that people would get angry with. You get into a prestigious school then do something like that on the first day...” The blue boy said in shock.

“Shuddup. And who are you?” Ace questioned irritated.

“I’m Deuce. Deuce Spades. Would it hurt to remember your classmates’ faces at least?” Deuce said annoyed at Ace’s attitude.

“Ummm...” Deuce awkwardly tried to remember Ace’s name.

“You haven’t memorized them either.” Ace pointed out.

“A, anyway! If you were ordered to by the headmaster, that means you take it seriously.” Deuce stated in a firm tone.

“Yeah, yeah. Understood... Then let’s get it done and over with.” Ace said resigned to doing it.

“Hmmm?” Ace realized something.

“...Wait where did Grim go?” She said making the realization that Grim was trying to skip out.

“Ah! That furballs gone!” Ace shouted angrily.

“Dumb cat making me replace him!” Ace muttered irritated.

Marinette opened her pocket and Nudged the two Kwamis awake. They blinked up at her in question. “Can you two look for Grim please? He’s trying to get out of the punishment.” She explained.

“Of course Marinette.” “Sure pigtails!” The two say simultaneously as they zipped off.

“What are those things?” Ace questioned.

“Those aren’t things. They are Tikki and Plagg. They are called Kwamis from where I’m from.” She stated irritated that he was calling her friends objects. Feeling like he was on thin ice Ace looked at Deuce.

“Umm juice?” Ace said to Deuce.

“I’m not juice. Deuce! Deu!” Deuce said annoyed that had his name mistaken for a drink.

“You’re partly responsible so help us catch that furball!” Ace demanded.

“Why me?” Deuce said indignantly.

“I have no clue what here magic is other than it would make him an ice cube! Let’s go!” Ace replied.

This day just kept on getting more troublesome. What else could happen?

Chapter Text

The trio could be seen running down the hall chasing after Grim. A black kwami was over head also in pursuit of Grim making sure they did not lose sight of him.

They cashed him back to the cafeteria. “Crap! He’s darting around everywhere!” Ace shouted in frustration.

“Heeheehee! Catch me if you can suckers!” Grim taunted from his spot on the chandelier looking down at them. She really wished that she had her yo-yo right now.

“Kuh, getting on the chandelier is a underhanded move! We’ve haven’t learned the magic to fly yet...” Deuce shouted in anger and frustration. When she heard that they had flight magic she wouldn’t help but wish she had brought some of her potion macaroons for right now.

“We need something to get up there, and also catch him...” Deuce trailed off and started to mumbled to himself.

“Ah, I’ve got it!” Deuce announced.

“I’ve gotta think of an idea... Woah, woah, wait a sec!” Ace said as he turned to look at Deuce and started to get nervous when he saw his pen pointed at him.

“Why are you pointing your magical pen at me!?” Ace shouted in fear and confusion.

“I’ll just throw you!” Deuce shouted.

“I don’t think that’s going to end well guys!” She tried to dissuade them from their plan.

“You’re joking!? Wooaahaa! Don’t make me float! You’re really going to throw me!? Knock it off!” Ace shouted a little too late at Deuce fear evident in his voice.

“Catch him ya hear!” Deuce shouted as he launched Ace at the chandelier and Grim.

Ace yelled in fear as he rapidly headed for the chandelier. Ace knocked into the chandelier and Grim got knocked out. The chandelier shook dangerously from the combined weight of Ace and Grim. The chandelier snapped and was heading straight toward Deuce who was stuck in shock. She was already running towards him and tackled him only seconds before the chandelier crashed to the ground. A cloud of dust surrounded them making all of them start coughing.

“Cough, cough! I can believe it!” Ace exclaimed while trying to cough the dust out.

“I, I screwed up! I didn’t think about the landing!” Deuce exclaimed as they stared at the ruined chandelier remains with Grim still knocked out on the floor.

“Are you... AN IDIOOOOOOT!!!???” Ace yelled at Deuce.

“We caught Grim but if the headmaster finds out we busted the chandelier...” Ace trailed off as Crowley entered the room and paled at seeing him.

“If I... find out?” Crowley said in a calm tone that she knew all too well. That was the same tone she used when Chat Noir would do something stupid and she was about to lose her temper.

“Ah... Headmaster...” Ace said scared.

“Just~ what~ exactly~ ARE YOU ALL DOING???” Crowley shouted in a dead serious tone with clear anger as well. He had woken up Grim from his previous state of unconsciousness.

“Ffnyaaa... The room is spinning...” Grim then passed out again.

“You weren’t satisfied with just nearly damaging the statue so you decided to destroy the chandelier?! This is the last straw. I will have all of you expelled!” Crowley shouted angrily. She couldn’t help but flash back to when she had been expelled when she had been framed by Lila. She shock her head trying to dispel the memory.

“Eeeeh!” Ace and Deuce cried in unison.

“Please! Anything but that! I have a thing I have to do at this school!” Deuce begged frantically.

“You have nothing to blame but your own idiocy...” Crowley said to Deuce.

“I will pay for all damages if I have to!” Deuce said frantically.

“There is no normal chandelier. This is a magical chandelier that uses candles that will burn for eternity. It is a masterpiece made by a legendary master of magical tools. It has been entrusted to the school since its very foundation... Taking into consideration to its historical value, it would cost no less than a billion Madol. Can you pay for those damages?” Crowley said in a tone that clearly said he did not think they could.

“A b-billion Madol!?” Deuce said in disbelief.

“But, teacher, can’t you just fix it up with magic...” Ace asked frantically.

“Magic is is not all powerful. More importantly, the magic crystal, what we call the Heart of any magical tool was shattered. No two magic crystals are the same. The chandelier will never be lit again.” Crowley said sadly.

She knew that repairing something that was magic by itself was completely different from repairing something with no magic. The miraculous when broken had to have specific rituals done that required certain things and she suspected that it could be the case or they didn’t have any ritual like it here.

“How can that...” Ace said clearly confused at this new piece of information.

“Crap... What am I doing... What am I going to tell Mom...” Deuce said to himself.

Crowley then looked at them as if he just remembered something, “... That’s right. There’s one way. There might be one way to fix the chandelier.”

“What!?” Ace and Deuce said clearly confused as Crowley had said there was no way to fix it earlier.

“The magic crystal for this chandelier was mined in the Dwarf’s Mine. If we have a magic crystal of the same kind as the original, repairs might be possible.” Crowley explained.

“I will go find a magic crystal. Please, allow me to go!” Deuce begged.

“However, I have no guarantee that there are any left in the mine. The mine has been closed for a while and it’s very possible it is exhausted of crystals.” Crowley said.

“I’ll do anything if it means not to get expelled!” Deuce declared.

“...Fine. I shall give you one night. Come to me with a magic crystal by tomorrow morning, or face expulsion.” Crowley said reluctantly.

“Yes! Thank you very much!” Deuce cried.

“Uuahh, I suppose. Let’s go get that magic crystal and be done with it.” Ace said.

“Use the Gate in the Mirror Chamber to go directly to Dwarf’s Mine.” Crowley instructed.

“Yes, sir!” Deuce yelled then ran out of the room.

Grim finally woke up and looked around in confusion, “Ha! What not...? What exactly did I...” he asked.

“You just got all of us in to another troublesome situation.” She turned to Ace. “I’ll meet you there. I have to find Tikki. Can you take Grim with you?”

“Be fast we won’t wait for you.” Ace said to her annoyed as he grabbed Grim.

She ran off and found Tikki at the dorm looking for Grim.

“Tikki we’ve got to go to the Mirror Chamber. Grim caused another problem.” Tikki just sighed exasperated. She was about to leave but then got the feeling to do something. She went up to her room and grabbed her dagger. She unsheathed it to look at the blade. It was more of a short sword than a dagger. It was a tang blade made of an unknown metal that was almost white. The symbols for courage, honor, loyal, truth, and hope were engraved into the blade. She sheathed the blade and strapped it on to her hip. As she ran to the Mirror Chamber she did not notice Pollen and Trixx had his sin her pockets.

As she entered into the Mirror chamber Ace saw her. “Took you long enough.” He said annoyed.

“Aaah... Why did it turn into something like this? Today is really not my day...” Ace as he missed her  look of annoyance.

“Now isn’t the time for mumbling! Let’s go!” Deuce shouted at Ace as he avoided looking at her while he dragged Ace towards the mirror. She followed and came in front of the mirror with them.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall! Light our way to Dwarf’s Mine!” Deuce chanted as the surface of the mirror started to ripple then a flash of white light surrounded them all. When the light died down they were no longer there.

They ended up in from of the entrance to the mine.

“So this is Dwarf’s Mine... It used to be prosperous thanks to magic crystal mining but...” Deuce trailed off as they continued to stare at the entrance.

“Uuuuuuh... Feels like something could jump out...” Grim said nervously. She couldn’t help but agree there was definitely some sort of presence in the mine but she couldn’t tell what.

“Oh, there’s a house back there. Let’s go ask them about the mine.” Ace said as he pointed at a cottage. If there was anyone there should would blame them for getting angry at them since it looked like no one was home or they had all gone to sleep.

They knocked on the door and when no one answered Deuce went in anyway.

“Good evening... I guess it’s abandoned. It’s a mess in here.” Deuce stated. She looked around and could see a fin layer of dust and cobwebs. The furniture had cracks in it but what got her attend was the number of chairs. There was seven chairs and judging by the size the dwarves had used it. Seven dwarfs who mined and lived in a cottage, it sounded like Snow White.

“Puhwah! I got a spider web in the face... Peh peh!” Grim said as he tried to wiped the web off his face.

“Aren’t the tables and chairs on the small side? Are they for kids?” Ace asked as she rolled her eyes. It was called the Dwarf’s Mine so it was obvious that this is where the dwarfs had lived.

“One, two... There’s seven! So many!” Ace shouted in surprise.

“This was probably a lively home when Dwarf’s Mine flourished.” Deuce observed.

“They did what they had to. After all, magic crystals are found inside coal. For now let’s just go check it out.” Ace said.

They left the abandoned dwarfs cottage and headed to the entrance of the mine.

“W-We’re gonna go in that pitch black hole!?” Grim asked fearfully.

“Scared? Lame.” Ace said unimpressed to Grim.

“Naaah!? I’m not s-scared at all!” Grim denied.

“I’m taking the lead! You all follow me!” Grim shouted wanting to prove himself. He walked ahead of them into the mine.

Ace was about to say something so she interrupted his train of thought before he could say something to cause more trouble, “Just let him. With the flames on him he will light the way.”

They followed after Grim into the mine. From what she could see there was still gems in it but they couldn’t have been magic or else they would already been gone with them being so close to the entrance. She couldn’t help but wonder how no one had come to mine the gems. Even if they weren’t magic they still would hold a good amount of value. She had a bad feeling that there was a reason for that.

“Wait.” Deuce said.

“What.” Ace said put out.

“Something... is there!” Deuce exclaimed.

“Eek!” Grim squeaked and Ace’s eyes widened in fear. She shivered as a sudden chill filled the air.

Two ghosts appeared both of them in grey cloaks. “Heeee hee hee! Our first visitor in ten years!” One of the ghosts exclaimed.

“Make yourselves at home. For eternity!” The other ghost shouted.

“This place is haunted with ghosts, too!” Ace shouted startled.

“We don’t have time to deal with them one by one. Let’s go!” Deuce shouted as he ran past the ghosts further into the mine. They ran to catch up to Deuce.

“Don’t think you can just order me around. If you hadn’t done something so idiotic, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Ace said to Deuce irritation clearly in his tone.

“You wanna talk about who started it? It’s cause you wouldn’t clean!” Deuce shouted at Ace accusingly.

“It started when that furball nearly damaged the Queen of Hearts’ statue!” Ace shouted as he pointed at Grim.

“Ffgna! That’s what you get for making a fool outta me!” Grim shot back.

“All of you! Do you understand our situation right now? We’re all expelled if we don’t get back with a magic crystal by tomorrow morning!” Deuce shouted trying to impress how serious the situation was.

“So stop patronizing me. It’s really ticking me off.” Ace snapped back at Deuce.

“Will you stop arguing! This is getting us no where and is only wasting time!” She yelled at the three squabbling people. The she heard a something faint that was steadily getting louder. “Listen something is coming.”

“....on’t.....ive.....wo...” Was what they could hear something or someone say.

“W-What’s... this voice?” Ace asked as they froze in fear.

“St.....one....ssss.....mine....” The voice could be heard saying and was getting louder by the second. She couldn’t help but robe reminded of numerous akuma attacks where she would be hunted for her miraculous.

“I think it’s... getting closer...” Deuce said in a small voice as fear colored his words.

“Stone...... IS MIIIIIINNEEEE!!!!” Something that had large body with a long red shirt and brown pants. It’s head look like a ink well with a crack running through it with ink leaking out of it creating a mouth. As brown hat rested on top of its head and it held a large pick axe in its left arm.

“I-It’s heeeere!!!” The other three yelled. She froze  having thinking that she was back in the past while she was fighting Hawkmoth and his akumas. She was so unaware that she only snapped out of it when Ace grabbed her arm as they ran away from the thing that reminded her all too much of a Akuma. They managed to get away from it and stopped panting. She managed to calm her breathing reminding herself that Hawkmoth was gone and that she had Nooroo and his miraculous in her care now.

“What the heck is that thing?” Deuce asked in fear.

“Ffgnaaa. Crowley didn’t say anything about that! Let’s get outta here!” Grim said not even bothering to put up a fake facade of not being scared.

“It’s so nasty! But didn’t it mention a ‘stone’!?” Ace asked everyone.

“Eeh?” Grim said in confusion. No one had time to respond as the thing had come upon them again.

“St.... one, won’t... give...!!” The thing said brokenly.

“So there really are magic crystals left!?” Deuce exclaimed totally forgetting that the thing was in front of them solely focused on the that there was a magic crystal left.

“N-n-n-nope! Nope! I’m a genius but I can’t beat that thing!” Grim shouted in fear.

“But we’ll be expelled without it... I’m going!” Deuce yelled.

“You’ve got to be kidding!?” Ace said in disbelief. She was starting to think he had no sense of self preservation at all.

“Hey you don’t even know what the thing can do to you!” She tried to dissuade him from his idea.

Deuce had a determined look on his face and for the first time looked her directly in the eye, “I cannot, under any circumstances, be expelled!” He said in a fierce tone with fire in his eyes.

“Leave! Leave! Leave!! Leeeeaaave!!!” The thing shouted at them in its garbled voice.

“Guah!!!” Deuce yelped as he was knocked over by the thing.

“Stand back if you have no control, Mr. Serious! I’ll stop it! Haa!” Ace shouted as he sent a blast of wind magic at it but had not effect on it but making it angry and knocked Ace against the wall.

“Guuhaaah!” Ace said in pain.

“Gau! Stay away!” Grim shouted in fear as he released his fire magic. All thing just growled at them.

“I-It’s not working at all!” Grim yelled in terror.

She looked up in time just to see something glitter behind the thing.

“Behind that thing! At the end of the tunnel, something...” Ace trailed off as Deuce interrupted him.

“That light, is it a magic crystal...?!” Deuce asked.

“GOOOOHHHH!!! WON’T GIIIVE!!!” The thing yelled.

It looked like she was going to have to try. She took off one of her gloves and stuffed it into her pocket. She had only released a a small amount of her ice magic when the thing knocked her over with its pick axe. As it made contact with her skin it burned her. She screamed in pain.

“Marinette!” She heard Tikki and Plagg yell.

“Retreat!” Grim yelled and Deuce and Ace grabbed her from the spot she had fallen to. They rushed out of the mine. As they got outside they panted for breath.

“Is this far enough?” Grim asked in fear.

“Ooooww... What in the world was that? No one said anything about that!” Ace shouted.

“That wasn’t any ghost.” Deuce stated.

“Let’s give up and go home. I’d rather get expelled than fight that thing.” Ace said clearly afraid of what would happen if he saw it again.

“What!? Don’t screw with me! I’d rather die than face expulsion!” Deuce yelled insulted by the idea of giving up he continued, “There’s a magic crystal in front of us and you wanna go home!” He yelled.

“Ha. You talk big for someone worse at magic than me. Go alone if you want. I’m done.” Ace said to Deuce.

“Oooh, that right? Then stay right there cowering like a spineless coward!” Deuce said while he punched his clenched fist into his other hand in a hard voice.

“Huuuh?? Coward?? Who exactly are you talking about?” Ace asked Deuce surprised at his sudden change.

“U-uuuh... Deuce. Did you switch up your character?” Grim asked awkwardly.

“Huh! A-ahem! My bad I lost my composure a bit.” Deuce apologize.

She winced as the adrenaline rush wore off and the burn flared with pain. She must’ve been louder than she thought because they all turned their attention to her, and noticed the burn on her arm.

“Marinette!” Tikki and Plagg shouted in concern. At the same time Pollen and Trixx came out of her pockets that they had stowed away in. She winced as she moved her arm but was thankful the burn wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. It was a first degree burn but was still painful. She looked at the others and could see concern and anyone who wasn’t the Kwamis confusion as well.

“How did you get burnt? You weren’t near Grim’s fire.” Ace asked the quest he and the other two seemed to be thinking as well.

She just sighed and took off her other glove then reached up and took out her contacts, and looked at them. They took in her features. Ace was the first one to realize as Grim didn’t seem to know what her features meant, and Deuce was avoiding looking her in the eye.

“Your a Fae.” Ace said shocked.

“Why would her being a Fae have anything to do with why she was burnt?” Grim asked

She just sighed, “Anyone who’s is a Fae or has a strong enough connection to their Fae heritage will be hurt whenever they come into physical contact with iron.” She explained.

She chilled her hand and ran it across the burn to sooth the pain a little. She would have to wait till they got back to put on the burn ointment on it. She got up and walked over to a dead tree and touched the bark and chanted, “Allagí” soft blue magic spread enveloped the tree and when it disappeared in its place were wrappings in her hand. She quickly wrapped it around her burn and tied it off not not noticing the wide eyes looking at her.

“If her magic can do that can’t magic help us out at all?” Grim asked the other two as she was busy wrapping her arm.

“Like the headmaster said earlier, magic isn’t all-powerful. If you can’t imagine it then it won’t materialize. Large-scale or complicated magic require a lot of training to use.” Deuce explained.

“But that’s why we have schools for magic. You have to practice a lot to use magic just as it comes to mind. Bluntly, you’ll screw up if you lose your cool.” Ace further explained.

“That explains why Grim has only been using his fire.” She interjected to his explanation.

“Stuff you’re good at you can go off instinct.” Ace said.

“At any rate, I’m going in there. I’ll figure out how to beat that thing and come back with a magic crystal.” Deuce said determined.

“However. Judging by the chandelier incident, you’re a complete idiot. You couldn’t land a single hit earlier but now you’ll ‘figure it out’? It’s going to end the same.” Ace said to Deuce.

“Come again?! You think of...” Deuce said getting angry again.

Grim groaned, “Here they go again.”

“Will you all KNOCK IT OFF!” She shouted at them startling them and getting their attention.

“Why are you yelling at us all the sudden?” Grim said stunned at her sudden outburst.

“We need to work together for anything to work if we do anything. Not arguing or against each other like you’re all doing.” She said to them thinking of the Syren attack and how Chat Noir had abandoned her during her time of needing his help.

“Guu..... B-But... W-wh-h-a-at-t ex-x-aaac-ct-t-tl-y s-sho-ou-ld we d-do?” Deuce asked her looking at her reluctantly.

“We need to work together and come up with a plan.” She stated. This was obvious to her from past experiences from working with Chat Noir and the temporary heroes from Akuma attacks.

“Strategy? You mean get along and work together? Ha! That’s cold. You have no problem saying lame things with a serious face, huh.” Ace asked her like she was crazy for suggesting it.

“Past experience. We had similar things like this happened back home for three years straight on near every other day basis.” She explained receiving startled looks from everyone but the Kwamis.

“What do you mean by past experience?” Ace asked her.

“We had akuma attacks happen.” Seeing their confused looks she further explained. “A akuma is like that thing in the mine. I got involved in helping with getting rid of the akumas a lot of the time. I worked with at least one person or a team when this happened most of the time.”

“No way I’m working with this loser.” Deuce said looking at Ace.

“But... I feel like it’s way lamer to get expelled on the first day of school.” Grim said to Deuce.

“Huh... That’s...” Ace couldn’t counter Grim’s point.

They were silent until she decided to speak again. “I have an idea but I need all of you for it to work.” She said pointedly.

“....haaaah. Fine! We just have to get it done, right! So what’s your plan?” Ace said reluctantly.

She smiled and started to explain her plan to them. They walked over to the front of the mine after they had gone over the plan.

“You... really think it’ll go as planned? I’m sca... no, just nervous.” Grim said to her.

“We have to try and if something goes wrong we improvise.” She said as Pollen nuzzled her check as a reminder that the Kwamis where there to help if she needed them.

“Haha, you’re too stiff. Just go with the flow. Let’s get this over with! Ace said to her.

She hoped that nothing went wrong and that her suspicion that the thing in the mine was wrong. It reminded her too much of an akuma and suspected that it was more like an akuma than she would like. She hoped that she was wrong.

Chapter Text

“Hey, beasty! O-o-o-over here!” Grim yelled trying to get the thing from the mine to come out with his taunting.

“Grrrr... LeaAAAAVVEE!!!” The thing screamed at them.

“Gah! It’s coming!” Grim shouted in fear as he scrambled to where she was hiding.

“Mirage” She whispered the spell with Trixx on her shoulder helping her stabilize the illusion in the short time they had. Not a moment later the thing came out of the mine.

“Hey! Over here!” The illusion of her shouted at the thing getting its attention.

“Grr!? There... thief... too. Won’t give... Mine... Mine!!” The thing shouted as it took a swipe at the illusion. Her illusion got out of the way and thankfully and didn’t dispel.

“Pyah! That punch looks like a knockout if it lands!” Grim exclaimed.

“Come take the bait.” She muttered hoping that the thing would follow her illusion further away from the mine entrance.

“Go away! Go away!” The thing yelled as it continued to follow her illusion.

“It’s pretty far from the tunnel now!” Grim pointed out.

“Now!” She shouted as everyone else jumped out from hiding. She released her illusion at the same time.

“Ok, I got this! Let's go, Extra Large Tempest!” Ace shouted as he unleashed his spell at the thing causing it to stager.

“And the Great Grim's Fire Special! Ffgnaaaaaa!” Grim yelled as he launched his fire at the thing surrounding it in fire.

“Guaaaah!?” The thing screamed at them.

“How's this! I can even fan Grim's shoddy flames into an inferno!” Ace exclaimed as he launched his spell at the flames causing them to grow.

“Now Deuce!” She yelled hoping that the flames would stay till he did his part.

“Calm down... Take aim... The biggest, heaviest... thing I know... Come forth, cauldron!” Deuce shouted his spell pointing to right above the things when his spell fired. When this happened a giant black cauldron appeared over the thing pinning it down with its weight. Just in time as the flames flickered out.

“Guaaa!?” The thing yelled in what she thought was surprise.

“Got it! Nice work, everyone! Hey, look! The monster looks flat as a pancake just like Ace was earlier!” Grim shouted with glee as he pointed at the thing.

“You don't need to bring that up again! Jeez, today just isn't my day.” Ace said annoyed at the reminder of the earlier incident.

“Let's go get the magic crystal while that thing can't move.” Deuce said reminding them of their goal.

“Pollen stick close. We might need you to use venom if it gets lose.” She said to the bee kwami.

“Of course my Queen.” Pollen replied ready to take action if need arises.

They ran back into the mine towards where they saw the crystal. They could hear the thing struggled against its burden.

“Waaaaaiiiiitt!” They could hear it roar.

“There! A magic crystal!” Deuce yelled as they saw a large crystal that was mainly blue in color with red and green mixed in. She grabbed hold of it and yanked it out of its place on the wall of the mine.

“Hands oooooooooffff!!” The thing shouted all the way from the entrance of the mine anger clear in its voice. They could hear it struggling more.

“Shoot! That thing is almost free!” Deuce said in panic.

“Oi, Deuce! Throw some more stuff on it!” Grim asked desperately.

“Eeeh, something heavy!? C-come forth! Cauldron! And, uuuumm, uuum, caldron!? One more, cauldron?” Deuce said uncertainty as a small cauldron appeared then dropped.

“Nnnnguuaa!!” The thing shouted as it got free.

“Do you have nothing but cauldrons in your repertoire!?” Ace asked incredulously.

“Shut up! I'm at my wits' end over here!” Deuce shouted back as the stress of the situation was getting to him.

“We got the magic crystal! Let's skadaddle!” Grim shouted at everyone.

“Roger!” Ace said ready to leave. They ran back out the entrance to see the thing free from underneath the caldron.

“That. Is... MIIIIINNNEE!!!” The thing shouted furiously.

“You're kidding!? It knocked off all that stuff and came after us!” Ace said astonished by its escape.

“Uuuh... uuughhh...! Give... it ba...ck!!” The thing shouted more anger than ever as it chased them toward the cottage.

“Shoot, it's gonna catch up to us!” Deuce said in fear. An plan came to her in that moment.

“If you guys can distract it I can get it subdued!” She shouted at the others.

“Aaah, fine! Let's finish it! Don't let me down, Ms. Serious!” Ace said to her as he got ready to distract the thing again.

“Ok!” Deuce yelled clearly nervous.

“I'll show off my true power!” Grim shouted for everyone to hear.

“Raarw!” The thing roared as the other launched different attacks as she got behind it. She had to concentrate for venom to work and last or else it would not do anything. The others had stopped launching their spells as she lunged.

“Venom!” She yelled as her hand came in contact with the thing as the affects of the attack were immediate causing it to be paralyzed. She followed her instinct and unsheathed her dagger and thrust the blade into the thing’s head causing it to shatter. The thing screamed as it vanished in a flash of light. She could only pant and stare at the dagger. Uncle Wang had said its name is Guāng Dāo which roughly meant Light’s blade. She could help but wonder if this was also from the Chong Ming or if it’s power was embedded in it by her ancestor.

“Huff, huff..!” Deuce panted from the effort of what had just happened.

“We... did it?” Ace said uncertainty as if he expected the thing to come back again.

“W-we won... We actually won!” Grim said excitedly as the reality of what just happened started to sink in.

“Hooray!” Deuce exclaimed unable to contain his excitement.

“We did it!” Ace said as his shock finally wore off.

“Victory high-five!” Grim said to everyone.

“Yay!” The three exclaimed happy to be alive. She was surprised when Deuce high-fived her as he avoided her at all costs, but who knows maybe going through this will make him feel more comfortable around her. She couldn’t help but give a smile at their celebrations.

“Well it seems everyone is getting along now.” She said cheekily making them freeze in embarrassment.

“...Ah. N-no. This is nothing like that!” Deuce said in denial.

“Y-yeah, yeah! Could you stop saying weird things?” Ace said but she could see a flush of embarrassment on his face.

“W-we won, thanks to my genius! It's not because we pooled our strength!” Grim tried to claim.

“... I guess making excuses is pretty lame. I hate to admit it but we won thanks to your plan.” Ace said admitting to the truth.

“... True. We got the magic crystal because you gave us level headed instructions. We can prevent our expulsion this way. ... I'm so relieved.” Deuce said.

“The only reason it work is because we all decided to work together as a team. Not because I came up with a plan but because each of you decided to listen and work with me.” She said trying to impress that they had each been apart of why they had won.

“Yeah, yeah. We're all relieved. And seriously worn-out and battered. Let's go home.” Ace said clearly not feeling comfortable with sappy feelings.

“I'm starving from using so much magic... Hmm? What’s this?” Grim said a he picked up a black rock and inspected it.

“Remnents from that monster? A magic crystal..? But I've never seen one pitch-black like coal before.” Deuce guessed. She had a bad feeling about the crystal as it reminded her of the Akuma butterfly and felt eerily like it.

“Sniff, sniff... This thing smells really good...” Grim said as his mouth watered.

“No way!” Ace said in disbelief at Grim.

“This has to be candy the monster was hiding! Oooh, I can't hold back! Time to dig in!” Grim shouted before he ate it to everyone’s shock.

“Grim spit that out! You don’t even know what it was!” She shouted.

“Uuhh!!!!!” Grim groaned gaining concern form everyone.

“Hey, you alright?” Deuce asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“Aaah. That's why you don't eat things off the ground~” Ace started to say but was interrupted.

“D...D-d-d-d-d... DELICIOUS!!!” Grim shouted as a look of delight over came his face. They could only stare in disbelief at him.

“Wha!!?” Ace and Deuce said in unison.

“It's full-bodied, but also rich, with an aromatic sweetness that blooms in my mouth... Like a whole field of flowers in my mouth!” Grim said dreamily. This was by far one of the weirdest things she had ever heard of someone enjoying eating, and that includes the cravings Nadja had when she was pregnant.

“Bleeeeegh. Monsters really do have different tastes than us.” Ace said disgusted.

“... I guess so. But more than that... Most people wouldn't even put a mystery object in their mouth without a thought.” Deuce said questioning what had just happened.

“This is by far one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard of someone eating.” She said in a dead pan voice. That got her some questioning looks.

“Have you ever seen what a woman will eat with pregnancy cravings?” She questioned and got looks of understanding from both.

“Gahahaha! Tasty, tasty! Don't worry, my stomach isn't weak like yours.” Grim said reassuringly but she still felt uneasy about it.

“Don't come crawling to me when you get sick later.” Ace told him.

“Switching gears, let's get this magic crystal to the headmaster!” Deuce exclaimed. They made sure that they had everyone and the crystal and disappeared in a flash of light again.

They appeared in the Mirror Chamber to find Crowley there looking at them in surprise at the sight of the Magic Crystal in-hand.

“Eh!? You really went to Dwarfs' Mine to find a magic crystal?” Crowley said clearly shocked that they had really done what he said.

“Eeeh!?” Ace, Deuce, and Grim said clearly noticing that Crowley had not expected them to do what they did.

“I really didn't think... You'd not only go but then come back with a crystal in hand. I quietly completed the paperwork for your expulsion.” Crowley said in despaired that the time he had spent on the paperwork was wasted. This only received put out looks from them all.

“Nnga! The nerve of this guy! While we were off fighting some crazy beast!” Grim said offended. She couldn’t help but agree somewhat but she suspected that Crowley wasn’t the type of person to send someone to their dooms knowingly. He probably had no idea about that thing in the mine.

“Beast?” Crowley asked confused. So she was right he didn’t know about it.

“There was a monster there! It was super gross and crazy strong, it was awful!” Ace said seriously.

“Could you explain in more detail? Let’s head to my office.” Crowley said as he guided them.

They explained what had happened in the mine and about the thing there. The Kwamis came up and she had to having nineteen Kwamis in total. He was very interested about how they had defeated the monster.

“Hoh hoohh. A mysterious monster living in the coal mine. The four of you worked together to defeat it and bring back a magic crystal?” Crowley said intrigued.

“We didn't really work together...” Ace denied.

“It was more like our goals were aligned...” Deuce said lamely.

“Isn’t that what all team work is based off?” She said to the boys.

“Ooh... Ooooh... OOOOOOOOHHH!!!! OOOOOOHHH!! Crowley sobbed surprising them all.

“What's with this guy? Why is an adult bursting into tears!?” Grim asked uncomfortable and a little freaked out by the sudden outburst from the grower man.

“In all these years that I've been Headmaster... For the day to come that students from Night Raven College to go hand-in-hand to face and defeat their enemy!” Crowley exclaimed. When he said it like that she couldn’t help but wonder if this was true than how did they do anything like competitions against other schools or in general.

“What!? I did not hold this guy's hand!” Deuce yelled while pointing at Ace.

“I would never do that, gross! But Headmaster, how old are you!?” Ace asked incredulously.

“I am overwhelmed with emotion. This incident confirms it. Marinette. Without a doubt you have a talent for leading others.” Crowley exclaimed.

“Me?” She was confused at what he was getting at with this.

“Students of Night Raven College are budding wizards called here by the Dark Mirror. However, they are of a superior class that makes them prideful and egotistical people that have not even the slightest inkling to work with others. Making many of them selfish and self-centred.” Crowley explained.

“You're really not saying anything good.” Grim interjected and she couldn’t agree with him more.

“You could not be sorted. But you could get people to work together. This  is something that cannot go to waste!” Crowley said excitedly.

“Marinette I have no doubt that your existence is essential to the future of this academy. So says my educator-senses. Trappola, Spade. Along with rescinding your expulsion I shall give you the qualifications to attend Night Raven College as a student!” Crowley said happily.

“Eeh!?” The rest of them said in shock.

“You want me to go here as a student?” She said in surprise.

“Yes. For I am exceedingly gracious. But there is one condition. Grim. You have proven to me that you possess enough talent to become a wizard. Therefore you both will be enrolled as students. Marinette will become Perfect of your dormitory.” He explained.

“Ffgna!? I... I can go to this academy too...? Not as a handyman, but as a student?” Grim questioned in disbelief that his dream was being offered to him.

“Yes. Provided that! You don't ever let an incident like yesterday occur again! Do we have an agreement?” Crowley added on the first part for Grim.

“I agree to this.” She accepted.

“Ffgnaa... Fffnnaa... I-I can.” Grim said in a state of shock.

She gave a small smile as she looked at Grim. “Looks like you got your dream after all.”

“Ffggnnnnnaa!! I did it!!” Grim shouted in triumph.

“Well then, I will give you both the symbols of your student statuses of Night Raven College, magic crystals for both of you.” Crowley said as he pulled out two different items.

“Whoa! A magic crystal!?” Grim said in excitement.

“Marinette will be receiving the normal magic crystal in the form of a ‘magic pen’ but, you wouldn’t be able to grip it in your paws, right? It’s a small custom. Aaah... I pay attention to even the smallest details! Aren’t I too gracious?” Crowley exclaimed as he handed a magic pen to her that had silver details instead of gold and a purple crystal on it. Grim had a collar with a purple crystal as well in a silver setting placed on his neck.

“I did it!! I'm so cool! I got my own special magic crystal collar!” Grim shouted with glee.

“He isn't listening at all... As his dorm head your going to have to try to keep him in line, and make sure he starts to become accustomed to human society.” Crowley said to her. She nodded to him.

“Aha! Look at you. School's just started, but you're already a Perfect?” Ace teased her. She gave a small chuckle.

“So you only have Grim to look after as he is the only other student in the dormitory with you.” Deuce said with a look on his face.

“I was once class president in the past back in my home world, I doubt he can be as bad as a whole class.” She said as she thought of the ‘Akuma class’.

“Good luck perfect.” Ace said to her with a grin.

“Ah I have a small request for you. I entrust you with the ‘ghost camera’.” Crowley as he held up a older looking camera holding it out to her. She grabbed it from his hand inspecting it.

“Why is it called that?” She questioned.

“Ah, I think my grandma told me about that. It's a super old magic tool, right?” Ace exclaimed as he tried to remember if there was anything else said about it.

“It is not ‘super old’ ...Ahem. It's true this may have been invented during your great grandmother's, or great-great grandmother's time. There is a very special spell cast on it. It not only captures the subjects' form, but also a part of their soul.” Crowley explained to them. This freaked them out at the idea that it could take part of their soul.

“A part of their soul...?” Deuce questioned not liking the sound of it.

“We call this ‘Memory: A Fragment of Remembrance.’ Furthermore, the most interesting part of this magic camera is that the souls of the photographer and the photographed become deeply connected and the Memory in the photo comes jumping out!” Crowley explained further to calm them down.

“So it catches the memory of the moment?” She questioned as that sounded like any old camera to her.

“Depending on how close the subject and the photographer are, the picture could move like a video, or bring to life the situation in the photo. Fascinating, right?” Crowley explained what made it so special.

“Bring the photo to life? It's like a ghost photograph!” Deuce exclaimed.

“Yes. Therefore it is called a ‘ghost camera’. They say it was made before the time of videos for when people wanted to leave behind vivid memories... Spade was correct; in the past, people would scream ‘ghost!’ in surprise when the memory came jumping out. They were paralyzed with fear at the thought of having a photo taken with this camera.” Crowley explained how the nickname came to be.

“A camera for freaking people out...” Ace trailed off. She could see some of the Kwamis using it to prank others to mess with them.

“Please take photos of Grim and the other students to leave behind many memories of your lives in this academy.” Crowley exclaimed and it sounded like he was planning on using them to mess with future students.

“La-lalala. Take lots of cool photos for me~” Grim said in a sing song voice having no really payed attention.

“Make sure to do it when someone step out of line. This will make sure there is evidence. I am so gracious!” Crowley exclaimed.

“I’ll try my best.” She promised.

“It is already late. Let's save the detailed conversation for tomorrow. Return to your dormitories, everyone.” Crowley said to them as it was already early morning.

“Pardon our intrusion.” Deuce said as they all went out the office.

“This is going to be an interesting year.” Crowley said to himself as he let his office to see to the repairs to the chandelier.

The group walked down the hallway towards their dorms exhausted from the entire experience. The Kwamis had already fallen asleep. Plagg and Tikki had nestled into her bun with Trixx curled up on her shoulder, finally Pollen had gone back into her pants pocket. The Kwamis purred and buzzed in their sleep.

“Haaaaaah... Expulsion rescinded... I'm beat.” Deuce said quietly clearly dead on his feet.

“La lala~ I start as a student of Night Raven College tomorrow! I'm gonna leave you all in the dust and take the top spot!” Grim said arrogantly.

“Ssshhhh!” She said pointedly at Grim while glaring. She did not want the Kwamis waking up startled especially Plagg and Trixx. Even thought they were Kwamis didn’t mean they don’t have claws. She had the unfortunate discovery when Roarr had been woken up from taking a nap on her lap by a car alarm going off.

“You talk big for someone who barely made it as a student... Anyway, it’s fine.” Ace said.

“We're classmates tomorrow, Perfect, Grim.” Deuce said to them barely containing his stuttering.

“I doubt that it can be as bad as my pervious school.” She said with a slight frown as some memories came to mind. She would be surprised if it was anywhere near as bad as the Akuma class.

“Saying stuff like that is embarrassing. Will you stop?” Ace asked her. He was also concerned by what she said, and what had happened in her previous school if her comment and dark expression was anything to go by.

“Pff, that's true. Even if we don't want to, we're going to see each other every day. I'm even in Heartslabyul with this jerk.” Deuce said trying to keep the conversation light. He had noticed her dark aura and didn’t want to push her. He had a past too and from what he could tell so did she, but that was for her to tell.

“Thinking about seeing your serious mug every day, no thanks.” Ace teased lightly trying to brighten her mood as Deuce caught on to what he was doing and played along.

“That's my line, truant Ace.” Deuce said back to Ace hoping the play fighting would work.

“Sure, sure. Almost-expelled-crybaby Deuce. Alright, see you tomorrow, Perfect.” Ace said as he waved farewell with Deuce both internally sighing in relief to see that her dark aura had dissolved. She smiled a little at their antics.

“Those guys might make a good combo. They're the "fight because they're so close" type. We better get back to the dorm! Tomorrow, we aren't the handyman! Finally... Finally! Our bright and shiny academy life at Night Raven College begins!” Grim exclaimed in excitement as she shushed him again. They made their way back to the dorm in silence. When she opened the door she was pleasantly surprised for the first time that day. The other Kwamis had cleaned up the dust and cobwebs from the entire dorm. The pictures had been straightened on the walls as well. They Kwamis were spread around in various parts of the room asleep tried from cleaning and waiting for her. Grim went up to his room while she gathered the Kwamis and took them to her room silently promising to give them some type of reward for their hard work. She quickly got ready for bed and quickly succumbed to her exhaustion from the entire days worth of events. Her last thought before she slept was about how she hope that today was not an indicator of what the rest of her time here was going to be like.

Chapter Text

Marinette stared at the ceiling as memories of the past filled her mind. Giving up on going to sleep she slipped out of bed, and quietly padded down to the lounge. She looked around to see if the ghosts were around and then went out the door and sat on the steps as she stared at the moon thinking about her past and the events that lead to this point. All the negative emotions surrounding the events. Of sadness, pain, despair, anger, and frustration. She sighed and decided to vent some of her pain the way Luka had taught her a while back through music. Softly she sang to the air the song that came to mind.

“Say something I’m giving up on you.” She couldn’t keep on hoping that her parents or old friends would realize the truth or believe her.

“I’ll be the one if you want me to.” She would have been there for any of them. To be the one they could rely on for help, for support, and a shoulder to cry on. To encourage their dreams and keep on trying to reach them. For both her old friends and parents. (Say Something by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera)

“Anywhere, I would of followed you.” She would have gone anywhere to help them if they needed her, and they had taken advantage of that in the past numerous times.

“Say something I’m giving up on you. And I’m feeling so small it was over my head I know nothing at all. And I will stumble and fall I’m still learning to love just starting to crawl.” She had been learning how to really have friends, and she had messed up a while learning what it meant to be a friend truly. She had been drowning in so many thing that she had done for her friends and life. Ladybug, class president, favors, babysitting, commissions, the bakery, guardian duties, and so many other things had all been for them.

“Say something I’m giving up on you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.” She wish that she could’ve got through to them or at least one of them. Who knew how different her life would have been if that had happened. Would her parents stopped believing in her had she had someone like Nino, Kim, or even Sabrina be there to say something in her defense.

“Anywhere I would’ve followed you. Say something I’m giving up on you. And I will swallow my pride you’re the one that I love and I’m saying goodbye.” She would have put aside her pride if she had been wrong for them as she loved her friends and parents, but they wouldn’t do the same for her and listen to her pleas that she was telling the truth. Now she had basically said goodbye to them all with her departure.

“Say something I’m giving up on you. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you. Anywhere I would’ve followed you. Say something I’m giving up on you. Say something I’m giving up on you. Say something...” She was done hold out hope that things would change. As she finished singing she was so lost in her thoughts she didn’t even notice the the gaze of a horned figure who had been listening to her. She got up tried and went back inside to finally get some sleep.

“Who could that have been?” The horned figure said to himself quietly as he left to continue his wondering.

Marinette fallen asleep finally and was softly breathing but her breathe hitched a little. She all the sudden saw a vast maze and a couple of card soldiers painting white roses red. She was confused wasn’t she just in the dormitory in her room?

“Hurry paint the roses red.” A card soldier said.

“Hurry before the flowers wither.” Said the two of clovers.

“Hurry, hurry! We have to paint them all red!” Said the ace of clovers as he hurriedly painted the whites roses. Why would they need to paint the roses red they were beautiful white. She was taken from her thought as a young girl in a blue dress with a white apron over it entered the scene. The girl reminded her of Aurore with her long blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Why do you have to paint the white roses red?” The girl questioned the cards. She would like to know as well. She had heard of people spray painting flowers before but not actually painting on them with a paint brush.

“Huh?” The cards all said surprised at the question.

“Why you ask? The truth is we made a mistake and grew a white one.” The two of clovers explained the situation.

“The queen loves red. If she sees white she’ll have our heads!” The Ace of Clovers further explained as they shuddered at the thought of what the queen would do if she found out.

“Really?” The girl said in disbelief and she completely agreed, but in her world people had been killed for lesser things. For one having red hair among Puritans would likely make you be executed for being a witch who conspired with the devil.

“That’s right. Therefore we’re painting the roses.” The three of clovers told the girl as he gestured to the white roses.

She all the sudden woke up to the loud insistent knocking at the door. What was that dream even about she had never seen that place before. She was interrupted from her train of thought by another series of loud knocks.

She looked outside to see it was still nighttime. “Who would come here at this hour?” She muttered as the Kwamis made various sounds of agreement.

“They better have a good reason for waking me up from my glorious dream of delicious cheese.” Plagg said groggily as he sat down on her shoulder. She opened the door to see Grim up as well.

“Munyaa... Hey, you. Sounds like we have a late night visitor.” Grim said in his half asleep state as they walked downstairs to see who be up at this hour to bother them.

“What? Is it those ghosts again? They don’t know when to quit.” Grim said in annoyance.

“I don’t think so. They agreed to not wake us up unless it was important in the night.” She said remembering how they made the deal of letting the ghosts stay as long as they didn’t cause any harm or trouble. Sure they could play pranks but she had been clear on not disturbing them when it came to things like sleep or while working on things unless it was important.

They finally made their way to the foyer to see who came at this late of an hour. “It better not be that crow of a headmaster” Plagg muttered and she agreed. She might have agreed to help out around the when needed but it had better be a dire situation if he was here at this hour. If not she was going to have the mischievous kwami trio of Xuppu, Trixx, and Plagg make his day extremely harder with pranks.

“Alright who is it?” Grim yelled at the door.

“...It’s me, Ace. Let me in.” Ace said on the other side of the door. She opened the door confused at why Ace of all people who be here at this hour.

“Ace? What’re you doing this late... Guah! You have a collar!?!” Grim yelled startled at the site of Ace wearing a collar of the same design that he had put on him at the entrance ceremony. What could he have done in such a short time to get that put on him? She couldn’t help but wonder.

“I’m never going back to Heartslabyul. Starting today I’m joining your dorm!” Ace exclaimed clearly irritated at what ever had happened.

“Come again!?” Grim exclaimed in surprise to Aces declaration.

“Slow down. I’m pretty sure that you can’t just switch dorms like that. I’m pretty that there is some sort of protocol for this especially with the Dark Mirror placing you there.” She said confused at why what could of happened to make Ace want to become part of their dorm.

“That’s the same collar that that red-haired upperclassmen put on me during the entrance ceremony.” Grim said as he got a closer look at the collar on Ace. The collar’s main shape was a heart that was half red half black with the heart being framed by gold the had some pints sticking out.

“Why do you have something like that on?” Grim asked Ace in confusion. She couldn’t help but agree and wonder what he could have done in less than twelve hours since they saw him to have that done.

“I ate a tart.” Ace said put out as he folded his arms across his chest.

“A tart? I think that you’re going to have to explain a little bit more.” She said as Ace’s explanation was too vague for the whole situation.

“Yup, just because of a tart!” Ace said clearly annoyed as he went on to further explain.

“I was hungry when I got back to the dorm so I checked the fridge and there were tarts chilling inside. Three whole tarts! So...”

(Flashback start)

Ace walked into the Heartslabyul dorm kitchen slowly trudging exhaustion clear in his face. The kitchen had a black and white checkered floor tiles. The various furniture looked like you were looking at a funhouse mirror with the curving shapes. The walls had a black and white pattern with red roses and green stems on the white while red hearts were on the black, along with a tall wainscoting color red and black checkered below. The island had a white countertop with cabinets doors and drawer being white with a red heart shaped handles, the rails and stiles were black. The ceiling had a black and red checkered pattern with brown wood lining each square.

“Huuuhh, I’m exhausted on day one. And I missed out on dinner, so hungry.” Ace said tired from the events of the dwarfs mine. Deuce had got straight to his room for bed already while Ace had gone to the kitchen for something to eat. He pulled open the door to the fridge hoping that there was something to eat to satisfy his hunger.

“In the fridge we have... Ah, tarts! These look good!” Ace said in excitement when he saw three very large decadent strawberry tarts.

“...There’s so much nobody’s gonna notice one piece missing.” Ace said to himself as he cut a piece of the tart out for himself.

“Thanks for the meal. ...Wow! This is amazing!” Ace exclaimed after his first bite. He didn’t notice Riddle enter the kitchen too focused on eating the tart.

“Of course it’s delicious. Trey does not make tarts that are anything less than the best.” Riddle said to Ace who had not looked at who had spoken.

“There’s nothing better than this! Not even those sold in... Eh, dorm leader!?” Ace said and as he had turned to look at who he was speaking to he was startled to see his dorm head standing right there. Riddle looked at Ace with annoyance and anger in his eyes.

“You sure have some nerve putting your hands on things that belong to me. Queen of Hearts Rule #89: ‘You shall not eat tarts prepared for the Queen ahead of her.’ Larceny of the Queen’s tarts is a capital crime!” Riddle said as his anger became more clear Ace froze in fear and paled.

“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” Riddle shouted as he shot his spell at Ace. The collar latched around Ace’s neck jolting him from his frozen state.

“AHHHHHH!” Ace yelled in shock.

(End flashback)

“And that’s what happened...” Ace finished telling what had happened as he looked at them expecting some sort of reaction. Grim, Plagg and her just stared at him with blank face in silence.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame.” Grim said as he finally broke the silence. Clearly Ace had not been expecting that as his disbelief was clearly shown on his face.

“But ain’t it overreacting to seal my magic just ’cause I ate his tart?! For a wizard it’s like having your hands and feet chained up! Plus, there were three whole ones! He can’t possibly finish all of those! There’s a limit to how heartless he can be!” Ace said annoyed that they didn’t agree with him right away.

She couldn’t believe how reliant everyone was on their magic based off of what he had just said. While sealing off Ace’s magic was a bit much she could think of better punishments that fit better. For one buying or making a replacement tart. With it being the first day of school Riddle had most likely been all the new students and their questions all day. His patience had probably worn thin from dealing with what she didn’t doubt were stupid questions to him and having to repeat himself. Ace was the unlucky one who made Riddle’s control snap, and was on the receiving end of what had been building from the day.

“I can’t say that sealing your was called for.” She said and was going to continue but was interrupted.

“What’s with the lukewarm reaction!” Ace said still annoyed.

“Ah! Wait a second... If there were three whole tarts, they might’ve been prepared for the party, yanno? Like for someone’s birthday? Man, I’m such a great detective, huh!” Grim exclaimed confident in his deductive reasoning. She could see Grim’s point as she knew people did not buy tarts the size in that quantity unless they had some sort of event going on. No one could eat that all that before it all went stale.

“Birthday?” Ace said surprise at the thought.

“It was probably for some type of celebration so it is understandable why he would be upset.” She pointed out as no one would be happy if someone ruined food for something like that.

“Uh... I came here thinking that you’d agree with me about the Prefect being a little tyrant...” Ace said as he thought about what had been pointed out to him.

“It is rude to eat someone else’s food. Especially since tarts can be expensive.” She said pointedly at Ace.

“You’re also at fault for eatin’ his food.” Grim said to Ace reminding him that it was his own fault for it. Ace had a put out expression at the reminder.

“Yah. I would do worse if you ate my cheese.” Plagg said very seriously. She shuddered at the memory of what had happened last time. Plagg had left his cheese in the kitchen and her father had eaten in a sandwich. Plagg had pranked him for three days in retribution.

“Anyways just go apologize to him tomorrow and ask if you can do anything to make up for the tart.” She said as it was reasonable that Ace could do some form of work to pay him back for the tart.

“Grudges over food are scary. Ah! Speaking of which, I still haven’t received my canned tuna from the Headmaster!” Grim exclaimed. He was really making her compare him to Plagg with his cheese but with tuna. Hopefully he didn’t hid tuna in random places like Plagg did with his cheese. She had a hard enough time keeping the smell of stinky cheese at bay.

“I get it. I just have to apologize, right?” Ace said with a sigh. She nodded her head in agreement.

“You suggested it, so you better come with me, Prefect...” Ace said resigned to the situation. It was probably for the best that she went with him as he might just try to put it off as long as possible.

“We’ll go in the morning to do it.” She said and judging by the light outside that would be in a couple of hours.

“In the meantime, where can I sleep?” Ace asked them all. They looked at him incredulously.

“You’re serious about stayin’ the night? The other rooms aside from our rooms are still full of dust. If you’re gonna sleep here, you better clean it yourself.” Grim exclaimed.

“Ugh, I don’t wanna clean at all. Marinette~ Let me stay in your room~ I’m a pretty handy guy so I won’t take up much room! Please~?” Ace whined.

“Not happening. I am a girl remember. Girls do don’t share a bed with boys who aren’t family at our age.” She said with a very strong look.

“I doubt he wants to do that as there are twenty of us already in the room.” Plagg added on as he gave Ace a look that promised if he tried anything.

“Fine then. I’ll sleep all by my lonesome on the lounge’s sofa. Good night!” Ace said hurriedly as headed over to the sofa. The rest went back to their rooms to go back to sleep.

She woke up the next morning and opened the door to go make some breakfast but stopped in her tracks to see a package on the floor with a note. She picked it up and opened the package on her bed. The package had five sets of the uniform that consisted of black slacks, black blazer lined with gold, and a white dress shirt. There was three vests that were smoke gray with the same number of black and white stripped ties. There was five sets of what looked like what she assumed was a gym uniform as it was a black tracksuit with a shirt in the same smoke color as the vest. There was two sets of text books as well. The note attached was her and Grim’s class schedule along with a map of the school. She changed into her uniform noting that she would have to shorten the pants length. She had just put on her gloves when she heard something from downstairs. She came downstairs to see Ace and Deuce talking.

“Not completely. He’s in an irritated mood and about three people who didn’t follow the waking up routine suffered the same fate as you.” Deuce said to Ace and from what she could guess was about their dorm head.

“‘Not completely,’ my hide! He’s totally mad!” Ace yelled.

“Looks like it’s toast for breakfast. And Ace you are still going to apologize.” She said startling the two with her presence. She walked into the kitchen and made toast for everyone. She would have to go shopping today for groceries as Crowley had given them a loaf of bread, cheese, and cold meat cuts. The others came in with Grim muttering about how tuna would be so much better. When she, Deuce, Grim and Ace headed off to Heartslabyul she ran upstairs and grabbed her backpack with all her textbooks and gym clothes. Kaalki, Plagg, Longg, and Tikki were joining her today for school. They made their way to Main Street and could see students already making way to morning classes. She ignore the curious stares that where directed at them. This was making her remember Francis Dupont and how any time she would head to anything the other students would stare at her and whisper. She was taken from her train of thought by Grim’s outburst.

“Hey hey. Outta my way! The Great Grim is making his way as a student of Night Raven College!” Grim shouted excitedly. She couldn’t help but smile a little bit. Grim was finally living his dream, but she doubts he had ever been to school before. She couldn’t help but wonder if he would be as excited once they went to class.

“Look at my collar. Unlike the lame thing around your neck mine is very stylish. On top of that, you can’t use magic, correct?” Grim said smugly to Ace.

“You’d make a really good janitor today. Nyaha! I feel good!” Grim tauntingly said to Ace making a jab at him for his comments from yesterday.

“Grrnrgh! I’ll remember this for when I get my magic back!” Ace said growling at Grim. Deuce looked at the two with annoyance. The scene of the two was like yesterday morning that happened in this same place but with the roles switch.

“The headmaster just told us yesterday to not make another scene... Nevertheless, you’re going to have problems in class with your magic sealed.” Deuce pointed out to Ace. She didn’t know if he was right or not as the classes listed for her and Grim could require magic use in them or none.

“Have you thought about apologizing to Dorm Leader Rosehearts and having him remove it?” Deuce questioned Ace. She couldn’t help but think this was Deuce’s way of showing that he was concerned for Ace. He wanted Ace to be able to do his best in school and not have a handicap to prevent him from being able to.

“Crap. This won’t go well at all!” Ace exclaimed despairing at the thought of apologizing to his dorm leader who was already in a bad mood.

“We’ve still got time before class and I’m curious about the other dorms.” Grim piped in. She was curious to see what the other dorms looked like since they were no doubt paid tribute to their founding member of the Great Seven.

She had brought her small sketchbook for if she got inspired by something. She avoided bringing her big sketchbook since her last one had been destroyed in an ‘accident’ by Lila. She had made the mistake of leaving her sketchbook out when she went to go grab a textbook from her locker, and when she came back her sketchbook was covered in coffee. Lila had been fake sobbing as she ‘apologized’ to her and said that her wrist had ‘all the sudden given out its strength’ spilling her coffee onto her sketchbook. She had wanted to scream as her classmates consoled Lila and Ms. Bustier had told her to accept Lila’s apology. Adrien had given her a look that was to remind her to take the higher road. When she didn’t say anything her classmates had gotten angry at her saying that it was an honest accident, and that she should have forgiven Lila right away. As this was happening Lila shot her a triumph smug grin. The only thing that had kept her from losing her temper was that the sketchbook was one that had older designs that she had been going over to see how they’d could be improved. There had been no commissions in it thankfully. She had taken to the small sketchbook after as she could take it anywhere with its small size and could transfer the designs to her large one later.

“Let’s go observe Ace’s apology.” Grim said to her pulling her from her memories as he tugged on her pants leg.

“This isn’t a show! Screw this!” Ace shouted as he stomped his foot.

“You’re going to have to do it sooner or later Ace. So get it done now before it becomes a problem from not being able to use magic.” She said. It would become a problem sooner or later with how reliant Ace seemed to be on magic from what he said yesterday.

“She’s right.” Deuce said as Grim and the Kwamis nodded. Ace looked irritated at them for telling him why he should apologize.

“Fine! Let’s go.” Ace said as he angrily headed towards his dorm. They followed him. The entered the Hall of Mirrors and went to the mirror that would take them to Heartslabyul. The mirror was framed by playing cards and roses with the top having the dormitory crest along with two spears with heart shaped spearheads crossed avoid it. The bottom was a open book. They stood in front of it and in a flash they were gone.

They landed in front of a building with a path that had red rose bushes on the side each trimmed into the shape of a heart. In front of the building was a water fountain placed in a heart. The building itself was in a Victorian style and had a heart shaped entrance. The entire thing was white and red colored except for the roofing which was black.

“Howoah! This is gorgeous! It couldn’t be more different from ours!” Grim said in awe at the building.

“They’ve had people actually living here while we are the first to living beings to in ours in a while.” She pointed out. They would have to keep up on repairs and maintenance for a building that people lived in for most of the year.

“Let’s find him and get this over with.” Ace said clearly ready to be done. They headed into the maze where they heard someone.

“Crap, crap. I’ve gotta get these roses painted.” She heard someone say out loud. They turned the corner to see a guy with orange hair and leaf green eyes, along with a red diamond mark on the right side of his face under the outer corner of his eye. He had a paintbrush with red paint on it as he was painting a white rose with it while talking to himself.

“Oh, someone is here.” Grim said curious at what guy was doing.

“Oh, watch out. Any paint splatters and my head is gone.” The guy said. She felt like she had seen something like this before but couldn’t think of where. Ace and Deuce approached the guy making sure not to get too close and accidentally make him mess up.

“...Hm? Do you all need something?” The guy asked noticed the two and then saw the rest of them.

“What are you doing with that?” Ace questioned confused as he rubbed the back of his neck with one arm.

“This?” The guy held up the paintbrush.

“As you can see I’m painting the roses red.” The guy said as he gestured to the roses he had been in the process of painting.

“Eh? Why would you?” Deuce said in disbelief that he didn’t try to hide as everyone had the same look on their faces.

“Hmm, your fresh reaction is so cute!” The guy said clearly amused by their reactions.

“Now that I take a good look at you, you’re the freshmen that busted the ten million madol chandelier yesterday.” The guy said as he looked at Ace and Deuce.

“We’re gonna hear about the chandelier until the day we graduate...” Ace muttered as he and Deuce looked resigned to the fact.

“And you’re the one who added on more punishment by stealing the dorm leader’s tart last night!” The guy exclaimed as he pointed at Ace.

“I feel so lucky getting to meet the notorious newcomers first thing in the morning. Hey, hey, hey let’s take a selfie! Yaaay!” The guys said as he pulled out his phone and got close to them. They guy took a picture of them not waiting for their response.

“How rude.” Kaalki said as the other Kwamis nodded in agreement while Marinette backed up to get some space from the guy.

“Can I put this on Magicame? Tell me your names so I can put you in the tags.” The guys eagerly said. At least he is asking for permission this time she thought, though she wasn’t going to give him her name. Giving someone your full name would give them control over you until they gave it back to you. Names had power in magic quite literally. This was one of the reasons why people had a secret name as her grandma told her. It could be that they only go by a nickname instead of their real first name like someone going by Tim rather than Timothy. Or it could be that you have a middle name or two middle names that no one knew was. Her grandma had slipped a middle name onto her birth certificate when she was born, and had put a spell on the paper so no one would see it. Not even her parents knew about it. She only found out her grandma had told her it.

“I’m Deuce Spade.” Deuce said confused at what had just happened not thinking as he said his name.

“Ace.” Ace said more cautious.

“Grim and my henchmen!” Grim said. She was indignant along with the Kwamis at what he called them, but it would seem she would have to educate Grim on the dangers of giving his name later along with the others. The guys looked at her expectantly.

“I’m called Marinette.” She said wording how she responded so there was no risk of him taking her name. There was a ding from the guy’s phone.

“Hoi, upload finished! Ah, I’m your senpai, third year Cater Diamond. Call me Cater. Cay is fine, too. Nice to meetcha!” The now named Cater said not noticing that the Kwamis weren’t in the photo. It seemed that they used Japanese titles here she had learned about it while Kagami was teaching her Japanese. They had done that for fun and because Marinette wanted to learn more about the culture her friend grew up in. She was drawn from her thoughts as Cater’s attention a was directed at her.

“Ah, you’re the perfect from the Ramshackle Dorm I heard about. Good on you, living in a place like that! It’s super dark and you can’t get a good Magicame in there. You have my sympathy.” Cater said to her. She was surprised that word had spread about her being a perfect in less than one day.

“This guy is really running his mouth.” Grim said with annoyance in his showing in his tone and face.

“Ah, I don’t have any time for small talk!” Cater exclaimed as he saw the time on his phone.

“The party is in two days. I don’t wanna lose my head for being late. Hey, you guys, will you help with painting the roses red?” Cater asked the group. She was suspicious of what he was trying to do as class was going to start soon.

“But why are you doing something so weird?” Ace asked Cater as he still not told them why he was painting the roses.

“Red roses at a party are the most photogenic! I guess! I’ve also got change the flamingos’ colors for croquet to match, so I’m busy with all this work.” Cater said not sounding convinced himself at the reason.

“You’re changing flamingos’ colors!? Your chores are so weird.” Grim exclaimed.

“So the tart that Ace ate was going to be used for the dorm leader’s birthday party. That’s why he was so mad...” Deuce said to Cater but muttered the last part to himself.

“Nope. That’s not it.” Cater said surprising Ace, Deuce, and Grim.

“It’s not!? Then who’s birthday is it?” Ace asked Cater.

“It’s not anyone’s birthday. The day after tomorrow is our dorms traditional ‘Unbirthday Party’. The dorm leader choses a random day that isn’t anyone’s birthday and we have a tea party.” Cater explained.

“The heck is that!?” Ace shouted shocked that it was no one’s birthday.

“Later, worry about the reason later!” Cater told them.

“All you have to do now is make the roses red! Deuce, Grim, Marinette, you three can do it with magic. Ace, since you can’t use magic here’s some paint.” Cater said and handed Ace a paintbrush and can of red paint. She shrugged to herself as she may as well learn a new spell and practice it on given targets.

“We can change the color with magic...” Deuce said in disbelief. She’s seen magic do much crazier things than that though Deuce it seemed had not seen much magic in his life.

“I’ve never done anything like that.” Grim said not happy about helping.

“Okay, if fine, just relax! We’ll figure it out! We better hurry if we don’t wanna lose our heads to the dorm leader.” Cater said as he started to explain how to change the color with magic.

“So the spell itself is just sending your magic at the object and picturing it changing color.” Cater told them. She looked at the sun a saw that they would need to hurry if they wanted to get to class. They split up to different rose bushes.

“Marinette we need to get to class on time.” Tikki pointed out.

“I known Tikki. Kaalki would you mind opening a portal in front of the school when we are done please?” She asked the horse kwami.

“Of course Marinette.” Kaalki responded.

Now she grabbed her and focused her magic into it. She was use to using her hands to focus her magic so this would be a new experience. Her grandma about how when using magic it was best to something that you were familiar with and had a connection to like Kagami with her sword, and Luka with his guitar. She had said that you could also use magic materials as a focus, but they were rare as most magical beings had gone into hiding, and many of the old objects that had been used were destroyed in the past. Her grandma used a necklace the had a Celtic medallion made of elf’s silver for her magic.

She focused on her magic and imagined the white roses becoming red like a strawberry. She felt her magic burst out of her pen in a rush. She heard clapping and opened her eyes to see Cater grinning at her as he applauded her.

“Wow! You got it one your first try, and even changed all the roses on your bush and the ones beside it!” Cater said excitedly. She looked at her rose bush and saw that he was right. She looked at the other two to see they weren’t having much luck.

“Red, red... There! Gaaah! It turned blue...” Deuce said in disappointment at his failure.

“Change color... Take that! Gyaaa! The roses are on fire!” Grim yelled as he had accidentally sent a fire spell at the roses he was working on. Cater waved his pen and put out Grim’s fire with a small water spell.

“You two are really more terrible at this than I could’ve imagined.” Cater said in disappointment to Deuce and Grim. Ace stopped his painting to turn to Cater.

“Aren’t the roses fine being white? They’re pretty.” Ace said confused at why they were changing them when they already looked good naturally. She had to agree Ace. She liked white roses because they were a symbol of respect, hope, and remembrance.

“This is our tradition. Roses are red for the Unbirthday Party. And we use flamingos in seven different colors for croquet with hedgehogs as the balls. But y’know, the spring garden concert of the flowers uses white roses. That’s an important point, too.” Cater explained to them.

“Those are all strange rules!” Grim said in response. She wasn’t one to judge as in her world there were many traditions that someone from another culture would find strange. If someone had no knowledge of a culture they would find the traditions completely odd such as Holi where people would throw colored powders at everyone no matter who you are.

“They say these rules were all decided by the Queen of Hearts from the Great Seven. Riddle is particularly passionate about following the rules even compared to other strict dorm leaders. I won’t deny he does go too far sometimes, though...” Cater said awkwardly as he looked at the collar on Ace.

“That’s right. I don’t have time for this. I want to speak to the dorm leader, is he inside?” Ace asked Cater.

“Hm? I think there’s still time before he leaves...” Cater said as he trailed off looking at Ace for something.

“By the way, Ace the tart thief, did you bring a tart of apology?” Cater questioned Ace.

“Ah? No, I came first thing so I’m empty handed...” Ace said while he rubbed the back of his head with his arm.

“Aaah noo. That so?” Cater said.

“He was going to ask if he could do anything to make up for it.” She said while giving Ace a pointed look.

“Ah! What she said!” Ace said quickly.

“Anyway since you’re going against Laws of the Queen of Hearts, Number fifty three; ‘One must always return what they stole’, I can’t let you in the dorm.” Cater explained.

“Haa? The heck is that!?” Ace shouted in disbelief.

“I’ll lose my head too if I knowingly let you in while you’re not obeying the rules. I feel bad but you need to leave before Riddle notices.” Cater said to Ace with a serious look on his face as another copy of him appeared.

“Woah, his face got serious! Guys, help me out!” Ace shouted.

“Ace just do as he says. If Riddle is as rules obese as he said it would only make him more mad at you for disobeying more rules.” She reasoned.

“She has a point Ace.” Deuce said to him.

“Fine we’ll go.” Ace said reluctantly.

“Now, go get a tart then try again! Bye-bye!” Cater said waving them off.

They headed back to the entrance of the dorm.

“What’s his problem!” Ace exclaimed angrily.

“He doesn’t want to end up in the same situation as you.” She said to him receiving a sour look from Ace.

“I wonder if he was using illusion magic?” Deuce muttered.

“We get turned away at the gate without a tart? We didn’t have anything to being with. He just wanted us to paint the darn roses!” Ace said annoyed at the situation.

“I didn’t see anyone helping him so he was probably desperate for any form of help he could get.” She said remembering the times in her old class and how she would have to do everything by herself no matter how much she asked for help.

“He’s a shrewd one.” Grim said with his arms crossed not pleased about being tricked into helping Cater.

“Then we just have to bring a tart and try again. We can go after... Ug!!! Crap!” Deuce shouted when he noticed the time on his watch.

“What?” She questioned.

“This is bad, the warning bell already rang! We’re gonna be late!” Deuce said worriedly.

“Ffgna! My shinning school life is going to be tarnished on day one!” Grim shouted in dismay.

“Let’s get a move on!” Grim said hurriedly.

“What class are you two in? You’re first years, right?” Ace questioned.

“Yeah we’re first years both of us are in class 1-A.” She said as Grim nodded along.

“Wow, we’re in the same class. First period is Potions.” Deuce said with his chin in his hand.

“Wooah! Sounds like fun!” Grim said excitedly. She could agree as she had enjoyed making the miraculous potions and it was like cooking but with magic.

“I can’t use magic so we’ll see how this will go.” Ace said with a look of dread.

“I can get us to the school.” She said and got curious looks from the others.

“How?” Grim asked.

“Magic. Kaalki a little help?” She said to the kwami.

“With pleasure.” Kaalki said as she started to channeling her magic to Marinette.

“Voyage!” She exclaimed as she pointed her pen opening a portal to the entrance of the school. The others looked surprised at the display of magic and followed her through. The portal closing behind them as they made their way to potions. Hopefully they could go through the rest of the day without further incident.

Chapter Text

The group entered into the laboratory for Potions in a hurry. The Marinette, Ace, and Deuce pulled on their lab coats and goggles while Grim and the Kwamis sat down at a desk waiting for them. Marinette sat down next to Grim and pulled out the textbook for the class and glanced over it again. She had looked over it last night and was relieved that most of the plants in her world grew here as well. There were some plants that she vaguely recognized from the family spell book but had never seen before as they didn’t exist in her world. She was looking over the book when the bell rang and a man with black and white hair stood at the front of the class. The man was dressed in black and white fur coat with half black and white tuxedo vest, the had a black dress shirt underneath it along with a red tie, red fingerless leather gloves adorned his hands as well, he also wore black dress pants along with black and white dress shoes that reminded her of saddle shoes from the fifty’s. The man glanced around the room inspecting them and his gaze paused on her with a spark of interest but quickly got back to the task at hand.

“So you all are the fresh faces in my homeroom.” The man who would be their teacher said after he had finished taking in all of their faces while looking rather pleased.

“Hmmm, there are some rare hair colors in the bunch. Not bad. Make sure to take proper care of it daily.” He said to them. It sounded like to her he was telling them to take care of themselves in a subtle way that no one would noticed if they did not pay attention to the hidden meaning.

“My name is Divus Crewel. You may feel free to call me Crewel-Sensei.” The man now known as Crewel-Sensei said as he introduced himself. She was distinctly reminded of the famous fashion designer Cruella de Vil from her world from his looks now that she thought about it. Cruella was one of her idols from her world with how she was always pushing the limits for the fashion world with her designs.

“Take your seats. Class will begin. ...First for the basics I will beat the names and appearances of a hundred types of medicine and poison into your little brains.” Crewel said as he smacked a pointer in his hand that had a red collar and a clear magic crystal attached to the end.

“We’ll cover fungi later. Now memorize these so you don’t go around getting poisoned by random things you eat off the ground. Dogs will eat whatever is lying around. Your training will be strict and I better not see any red marks on your tests.” He said seriously as he pointed to the board that had a list of things for them to memorize. He heavily reminded her of Madam Mendeleiev when she was teaching her science classes. She had been one of the few teachers that had tried to help her when everything had happened. She had turned in her work to her so that she could graduate early. She was supposed to get her graduation certificate any day now when she had be pulled away from her world.

“I see. ...By the way, what’s a ‘fungi’?” Deuce questioned as he looked at the rest of them. As she was about to respond to his question Ace groaned loudly.

“Blegh. I’m no good at memorization.” Ace said as he looked at the list on the board as if it the source of his misery.

“All that matters for grass is whether or not it tastes good.” Grim said to them. She gave an annoyed look to Ace and Grim as she turned her attention back to Deuce.

“To answer your question Deuce. Fungi is one of the five classifications of living organisms in biology. Fungi are eukaryotic organisms that have multiple cells.” She saw his confused look but did not notice that she had gained the attention of some of the surrounding students along with Crewel’s interest, as she decided to give he simple examples of Fungi.

“Ok. Some of the Fungi you have probably seen are mushrooms, mold, and yeast. All of these are from the Fungi family.” She explained to Deuce as a look of some understanding came over his face as she turned her attention to Grim.

“And Grim your wrong about the grass. I can think of one called Arrow Grass that is poisonous to cats like you.” She said to Grim who looked like he was about to respond but was unable to say anything as someone else beat him to it.

“Well it would seem we have someone knows more than just the basics here.” Crewel-Sensei said as he looked at her. She tensed at that and tried to hold back her flinch as memories of Bustier calling her out in class came to mind. A flash of concern came across Crewel’s face but he quickly schooled his features.

“Miss Cheng have you experience in making potions already? Not many people are that knowledgeable until second year.” Crewel said leaving off that even then many of them did not know that much detail about them. He was concerned at her flinching but was not sure if it was cause by him saying something or if it was from something else.

Marinette took a calming breath as she reminded herself this was not Bustier’s class and that her teacher just wanted to know if she had experience.

“Yes Crewel-Sensei. I have made potions in the past for about three years.” She answered and got mutters of surprise from the other students and a pleased look Crewel.

“Excellent.” Crewel said as he turned his attention back to the rest of his class as he noticed her starting to become uncomfortable with all the attention and decided to help get it away from her.

“Be sure to memorize everything on this list as there will be a pop quiz on this sometime in the future.” Crewel said to the class and was satisfied when they scrambled back to their previous task. Crewel was concerned at Marinette’s reaction and made a note to pay attention to her in the future to see if there was something more to this. He had been very pleased to hear that there was going to be a female student in the school this year and had high hopes for her in the future, but they had no real knowledge about her life beforehand. The only thing they knew was that she was a Fae and that she had a number of familiars, so they would have to be careful with how little they knew.

The class continued on as the students memorized the list. Marinette knew most of them and spent most of the time helping Deuce. Ace and Grim would ask a question here and there but mostly tried on their own. The Kwamis read over the textbooks and helped her with Deuce. Well most of the Kwamis. Plagg had decided it was the perfect time to nap in her bag. The bell rang signaling the end of first period they put away their gear for potions. As she was taking off her lab coat her sketchbook fell out of her pocket onto the table. Crewel caught sight of it and saw the designs inside before Marinette grabbed it and stuffed it into her bag. The designs were beautiful and he couldn’t help but think that they probably looked even better in real live. He refrained from saying anything about it and vowed to bring it up later once she was more comfortable or sure about him. He watched as Marinette’s group left to their next class. He would bring up his concerns later with the rest of the staff in the week if her concerning reactions continued.

The group made their way into a classroom that had desks on two sides of the wall in stadium style with teacher’s desk in the center at the front of the room with a chalkboard behind it. They quickly sat down and grabbed their text books. She glanced over the book for the history class. This was going to be harder as there was not much she knew about this world’s history other than what was mentioned in the family spell book and even that was vague. An man with gray hair that had a few white pieces holding a large cat that was mainly black but had a white under belly, and white mouth along with the tip of its ears and tail in white entered stood in front of the room. The cat’s yellow eyes honed in on Plagg looking lazily interested at the black cat Kwami. The man had a very put togetherness to him with his hair neatly combed back while wearing a maroon robes the had an embroidered collar over a black suit along with white jabot round his collar that turquoise magic crystal pendant on it.

“I’m Professor Trein and I’m in charge of your history lessons. This is my familiar, Lucius. You will learn about the history of magic that has brought prosperity to the world.” Professor Trein said in a strict no nonsense tone. Lucius meowed in tone after his master not taking his focus off of Plagg.

“Participation in class will affect your grade, not just reports. I will not forgive sleeping in class.” He said as he glanced around the classroom as if to see if anyone had already done just that. She would have to be sure not to fall asleep in class as this would be one of the harder subjects if she did.

“Open your textbooks to page fifteen. We will start with the discovery of magic crystals in the Dwarfs’ Mines...” Trein instructed as Lucius meowed again. She would have to ask Plagg later what Lucius was saying after class.

“Magical energy spread throughout the world during the century after this discovery, we call it the ‘Beginning of Magic’.” Trein explained the historical significance of the discovery to them as Lucius continued to meowing along.

“Ahhhh.” Ace yawned as Professor Trein continued on with his lecture. She was taking notes with one hand while in the other she was reading along with the lecture. Deuce was muttering softly to himself.

“Wooah~ At Dwarfs’ Mine... Wooaah~ Magical energy...” Deuce muttered furiously. Grim had a look of boredom on his face.

“Hmmm. I want a class to use magic like BANG!” Grim said clearly not pleased about the lack of magic use. He quickly quite done as he was meet by a series of shushes from Marinette and the Kwamis. The lecture continued on until the end of class. They packed up up to head to their next class. As they were doing this she failed to notice the look of contemplation in Professor Trein’s eyes as he looked at her.

Mozus Trein didn’t know what to think about the only girl student in the school. She seemed to be a serious students so far in his class but only time would tell. From what the staff had been told by Crowley she was from another world but had no way of getting back. Trein couldn’t help but think about his daughters when he looked at her and how worried he would have been if this had happened to any of his daughters. He could only imagine what was going on in her home world. His attention was taken from his thoughts as Lucius meowed at him.

“Yes. I believe your right Lucius. Keep an eye on her.” Trein responded to his familiar as he got ready for his next class.

The group entered into the gym. She saw the boys heading into a locker room and looked around for the teacher to see if there was any type of single room bathrooms that she could change in. She glanced around until she saw a tall muscular older man who was wearing a red track jacket and black track pants with gold details and a whistle around his neck. He had brown hair that was styled in pompadour and a thin bread framing his face along with cobalt blue eyes. She walked up to him and cleared her throat getting his attention.

“Ah Miss Cheng. Crowley mentioned you. There is a family bathroom that you can change in next to the locker room.” The teacher said as he pointed to it. She nodded her thanks as she headed in to change into her gym clothes. She put her regular uniform into the bag and glanced around. She didn’t think that anyone would want to steal her stuff but she rather be safe than sorry from her experience in the past so she took it outside with her. The group meet up outside and headed towards the where the other students were gathering. She sat her bag down and the four Kwamis sat on it to guard her things. She smiled at the Kwamis as she turned back to face the teacher.

“I’m Coach Vargas. I’m in charge of athletics for you bean sprouts. Becoming a wizard starts with your muscles! Look at all the muscle I’ve built eating raw eggs everyday!” Vargas exclaimed as he puffed out his chest to the class. She was surprised that he hadn’t gotten Somalia from the eggs.

“You baby wizards have no stamina. Start with twenty laps around the track then one hundred pushups!” Vargas yelled as this announcement was followed by a series of groans.

“Eeeh... I don’t dislike exercise but I can’t deal with this type of teacher.” Ace said rubbed the back of neck with a look of resignation.

“I’ve got confidence in my stamina.” Deuce said as he punched his fist into his other hand with a look of pride on his face.

“What’s so fun about running in circles!? I’m not a freaking hamster!” Grim said in exasperation.

“If you can’t defeat a threat than your next best chance is to runaway from it Grim.” She pointed out thinking about the monster in the mine.

“Don’t tell me your looking forward to this!?” Ace said to her as if he was questioning her sanity.

“Believe it or not this is considered light for me.” She said not looking them in the eyes. Akuma attacks could last for hours and she would be running around all over, sometimes with the akumas’ target with her. It was a daily thing and she would do it with little sleep most of the time. This was easygoing in comparison.
The class started running around the track with a few pulling ahead and some lagging behind. Marinette keep pace with front runners not pulling ahead to not draw attention to herself more than she already was. By the time they finished running around the track she was the only one not breathing hard. Moving on to pushups it was pretty easy as compared to carrying someone of Jagged’s weight on one arm or carrying flour bags. By the time they had all finished she was the only one who had not broken out in a sweat or had labored breathing. She had changed already by the time the others had finished the exercises.

“How are you already done!?” Grim exclaimed.

“I have to agree with Grim. What did you even do before that made this so easy for you?” Ace asked her incredulously not sure if he wanted to know the answer. She was saved from their questions when Vargas got up to speak.

“All right bean sprouts! Good job for a first day! Maybe if you keep this up you can hope to have muscles like me sometime in the future. Now go hit the showers!” Vargas said to the rest of the class. The rest of the class trudged into the locker room to get ready. She sighed in relief as they left hopefully they will forget their question by the time they get back.

Coach Vargas didn’t really know what to make of the female student. She was fit he could see from her performance in class but her comment before hand was concerning. What would she have been doing in the past that made this easy? There was also the fact that she had a guarded look in her eyes when her classmate asked her the question. He would have to wait and see if there was any other warning signs before he did anything.

Marinette was walking down the halls with Grim while the Kwamis sat on her shoulders when she heard a shout.

“Wait up Marinette!” Ace called as he and Deuce made their way to them. She stopped and glanced at them as they got closer. The two finally caught up to them in the hall.

“Could you have not waited five minutes for is?!” Ace said in exasperation. She just shrugged.

“Our next class is…” Deuce muttered as he rubbed his chin in thought.

“For a magic school it’s not that different from regular school. It’s a lot more subdued than I expected… Not having magic hasn’t been a problem at all.” Ace said with disappointment clear to be seen that the school was not what he expected. She snorted at his comment.

“If you think this is bad than you would hate being in my home world.” Marinette said as she got a confused looks from Ace and Deuce. She further explained.

“Back home hardly anyone can use magic so everything is done without it. Even if you can use magic you don’t use it in public or your just asking for trouble. The less people who know you can use magic the better.” She explained to them as the Kwamis nodded along with what she said. Ace and Deuce shuddered at the thought of not using magic.

“How about you, Grim? …Hm?” Ace asked but then noticed that Grim was not there. They all looked around not seeing him.

“He better not be getting in trouble again.” Marinette said with a sigh just thinking of what kind of trouble he would do.

“Look out the window! The fur ball is making a beeline through the courtyard…” Deuce said as he pointed at Grim down below.

“Is he trying to get in trouble again?” Marinette said with a exasperated sigh at the thought.

“Making a break for it already, he never learns…” Deuce said as he shook his head in disbelief.

“Pff, your first day as perfect and you already have to report you lost track of him. So, do you want help catching Grim?” Ace said as he failed to his humor of the situation.

“I can do it myself thanks.” She said to them.

“You better watch out, Grim’s getting away! You okay with that?” Ace said as he pointed at Grim who was getting further away.

“Voyage” She said the spell and a portal opened up in front of Grim. Grim couldn’t slow down and came through the portal. Marinette grabbed him by the back of his neck. Grim struggled in her hold.

“Now Grim either you behave or am I going to have to make sure you can’t get away?” Marinette said in a too sweet voice that promised pain that sent shivers down the other’s spines. Grim nodded frantically not wanting to know what she would do otherwise.

“Good.” She said as she put him down and headed off to the cafeteria.

The group finally made it to the cafeteria and got in line for food.

“It’s finally lunch time!!! Uwaah! Everything always looks so good here!” Grim said in excitement.

“It looks pretty good but I prefer to made my own lunch.” Marinette said as she looked at the menu. Don’t get her wrong she didn’t mind school lunch but she rather eat her own cooking.

“Fluffy omurice! Grilled chicken and bacon egg tarts!!!” Grim yelled with stars in his eyes while drooling at the thought of food.

“You’re too loud! You’re only this excited during lunch…” Ace said in annoyance. They were closer to the front of the line now.

“Hey, hey, I want some grilled chicken! It’s the past one! And omurice, too! Bread with jelly, too! Just take a bunch of everything!” Grim said as he dragged them to the front of the line and grabbed said food items. She grabbed her own meal with the others. Grim bumped into another student.

“Aaaah! Watch it! Cause of you the egg in my pasta broke!” The white haired student snapped in anger.

“Woah, woah, woah~ Breaking the goey egg is the best part of eating carbonara. How do you plan to pay for this?” The student with red hair covering his eyes exclaimed in anger at Grim.

“Hand over that grilled chicken as consolation and we’ll call it even.” The white haired student said threateningly.

“Ffgna!? Heck no! This is my chicken!” Grim exclaimed.

“Ah? Not showing your senpai respect as a freshmen? Come back here!” The red haired older student shouted as magic sparked off his pen.

“S-senpai, settling personal squabbles with magic is prohibited…” Deuce said unsure of what to do.

“Squabble? This is just seniors teaching their juniors proper behavior!” The white haired older student shouted.

“Grit your teeth!” The red haired older student shouted as he made a fist. Deuce closed his eyes preparing for the coming hit but it never came. He opened his eyes to see Marinette holding the students fist in a tight grip.

“Hey let go!” The red haired older student shouted. Marinette gave them a cold look not letting go of him.

“I don’t think so. It looks like I have to report to the headmaster that your trying to fight other students over small innocent accident.” She said as she let lose some of her magic making the air around her drop a couple of degrees.

“Let go!” The red haired older student shouted angrily. The white haired older student took a swig at her. She let go and swept his feet out from underneath him making him fall down. The red haired older student tried to punch her. She ducked under his arm and grabbed him then threw him over her shoulder on to the floor. The cafeteria was in stunned silence.

“Get out of my site before I report you two for attacking a perfect.” Marinette said as she them a cold stare. The two got up hastily as they grabbed their food and scrambled away. She glanced around to see the stares at her. She flashed back to Francis Dupont in the cafeteria and how her classmates would watch her like a hawk making sure she didn’t do anything to sweet helpless Lila. She took a took shakes breath as she reminded herself that she was not in her old school. The silence broke as everyone went back to their business but a couple of curious gazes stayed on her.

“Come let’s just go sit down and eat! I’m starving!” Plagg as he tried to draw attention away from Marinette. It snapped the others out of their stupor and headed for a table. As soon as they sat down at a vacant table Plagg lunged at the cheese on Marinette’s tray.

“Plagg! Where are your manners!” Tikki scolded him.

“Who has time for manners when your starving?!” Plagg argued back. Marinette’s eyes rolled in fondness as the two Kwamis argued.

“Back to the task at hand! Let’s eat! Om nom nom! Delicious! The egg around the omurice is light, fluffy and the center is filled with gooey cheese!” Grim said with stars in his eyes. The food was good for a school but Marinette still preferred her own cooking and her uncle’s. She gave Kaalki her apple slices then Longg some melon and Tikki a cookie.

“Om nom nom! So we saw your guys’ dorm this morning but what are the other dorms like?” Grim asked between bites curiously. She was wondering that as well.

“You know about the Great Seven statues displayed on Main Street, right? There’s seven of them so there are seven dorms.” They startled at the voice behind them and turned to see it was Cater who had spoke. He was with another older student who had green hair, black framed glasses, and mustard colored eyes.

“Hey! You’re the guy from this morning!” Ace exclaimed with a start.

“You tricked us into painting those roses for you!” Grim said angrily with narrowed eyes.

“Saying I tricked you is so mean. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to. It’s just how things are done in our dorm.” Cater said all while he had an unapologetic grin on his face. Marinette scowled at him. His actions reminded her of Lila and what she would pull on others to do stuff for her.

“You were grinning all the while…” Deuce said quietly.

“Now, now, Deuce-chan. Those rules are only for inside the dorm so now I’m just your kind Senpai.” Cater said in a teasing voice.

“D-drop the ‘Chan’ Senpai!” Deuce exclaimed flustered at the honorific. His flustered state caused the green haired student to chuckle in amusement while Marinette frowned at Cater.

“That’s just how Cater shows affection.” The green haired student explained as his amusement leaked into his voice.

“Forgive me if I am wrong but I don’t think that you’ve introduced yourself.” Marinette said as she studied him.

“Oh, my bad. I’m Trey. Trey Clover. I’m a third year in Heartslabyul like Cater.” Trey introduced himself as looked at her and recognition flashed in his eyes .

“And your the first year prefect of that ramesh- ahumm, unused dorm, right?” Trey asked and clearly did not know what to called her dorm if the cough was anything to go by.

“I heard from Cater about you. Sorry about all the trouble these guys from our dorm have caused you.” Trey said as he glanced between Ace and Deuce.

“I’m sitting right here…” Ace said with annoyance clear for anyone to see and hear at being talk about as if he weren’t there.

“Marinette Cheng.” Marinette introduced herself in turn for Trey.

“We should put that aside and make up. We’re in the same dorm after all. Let’s all exchange numbers!” Cater exclaimed to the group as he held up his phone.

“I’m not sure if my phone would even work here. Much less have any service.” Marinette muttered as the only time she had used it was to set an alarm.

“If it doesn’t work I know a place to get the newest models for cheap~ How about we go on a date to choose one?” Cater said with a flirty wink at Marinette making her shudder in her seat feeling self conscious and nervous as memories flashed in her mind. Plagg hissed and the rest of the Kwamis narrowed eyes at Cater since the comment was much like something Chat Noir would have said. Trey nudged Cater in the side with his elbow drawing Cater’s attention away.

“Cater. Look at this freshman, hold back a bit.” Trey said in a gently scolding tone with a long suffering expression as it seem Cater had started to go into sensitive territory judging by the reactions shown.

“Ahaha, sorry sorry! We were talking about the dorms?” Cater said as he nervously brushed a piece of hair behind his ear feeling like he just barely avoided a dangerous encounter.

“Sounds good, a fresh convo! We’ll tell you anything you wanna know.” Cater said with a grin.

“First I want you to tell us about our own dorm. The heck is up with those crazy ‘Laws of the Queen of Hearts’?” Ace said jumping at the chance to know more about why he was being punished.

“You know all about the legend of the Queen of Hearts, right? She created a wonderland of madness built on strict adherence to her rules.” Trey started to explain to them the about the history. Marinette could vaguely remember the story from when she had briefly gone over the seven in the history book. It sounded like Bustier’s class but with someone who was actually trying to control the situation.

“Out of respect for the Queen of Hearts, those of us in Heartslabyul traditionally wear red and black arm bands, just like her dress, and uphold the laws that she made.” Cater further explained and gestured at the arm band on Trey’s uniform.

“Sounds like a stiff place!” Grim remarked glad that he was not a member of a dorm like that.

“How strict we follow the rules depends on the dorm leader, last’s years was pretty chill about it all.” Cater said with a bit of a wistful tone.

“Riddle is the serious among the serious of all dorm leaders. So he follows the rules to the max.” Trey went on to explain with a fond look in his eyes.

“Bleeeh. What a pain…” Ace muttered at the thought of the dorm leader.

“I can understand and respect that.” Marinette said with a nod to Trey making him to give her a small smile.

“What are the other dorms like?” Grim asked eagerly wanting to know more.

“Like Cater just said, there are seven dorms each emulating one of the Great Seven.” Trey said as he adjusted his glasses and made sure they were paying attention.

“Our dorm, Heartslabyul, is founded on the strict spirit of the Queen of Hearts. Next is. Savanaclaw, the dorm founded on the fortitude of the King of Beasts. Octavinelle, the dorm founded on the benevolence of the Sea Witch. Scarabia, the dorm founded on the deliberation of the Sorcerer of the Sand. Pomefiore, the dorm founded on the strenuous efforts of the Beautiful Queen. Ignihyde, the dorm founded on the diligence of the King of the Underworld. And, Diasomnia, the dorm founded on the elegance of the Witch of Thorns.” Trey listed each with care to mention who the founder of each was.

“Their names are too long! No way I’m gonna remember all of that!” Grim exclaimed as his head was spinning with all the new information. Marinette had finished writing down the names of the dorms and their founders in a small notebook and slide it back in her bag not commenting.

“Ahaha! Just to get the rough idea. You’ll remember them eventually.” Cater said amused by the expression on Grim’s face.

“Which dorm you enter is based on the judgment of the Dark Mirror when it looks at your soul during the entrance ceremony… So each dorm has their own quirks about them.” Trey explained as he glanced at Marinette for a moment but then turned his attention back to the topic.

“You’re right about that. I totally see it.” Cater said in agreement.

“Quirks… What?” Deuce asked confused. Trey noticed and glanced around till he spotted something.

“For example… Look, over there.” Trey said as he gestured at a student nearby. The student was tall with muscular build and tan skin, but what really stood out was in spiky silver hair was a pair ears that looked like a wolfs or canine along with a tail the same color as his hair.

“That rugged look definitely means Savanaclaw.” Trey said as they all glanced at the student.

“Totally! That dorm has a lot of people good at sports and martial arts. They’re the buff and gruff big bro types? Savanaclaw wears yellow and black armbands.” Cater explained in further detail.

“Hooo. Then what about that guy with the grey and lavender thing on his arm?” Grim asked as he pointed at another student. The student had rectangular glasses and wavy silvery bluish hair.

“He’s from Octavinelle. At the table in front of us, the guys with the red and yellow are from Scarabia. Trey said as he pointed out two students. One student had white hair with gold and white band around his head along with wearing a cream colored cardigan. The student next to the white haired student was taller and had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and was wearing a red hoodie under his uniform jacket.

“They say both of them are really smart. Those two dorms are in a dead heat during written tests. Though, the Scarabia dorm leader isn’t that great at studying.” Cater said with thought.

“We’re getting completely derailed.” Ace said a little annoyed.

“You sure adapt quick. Back to what we were saying, over there, practically sparkling, are members of Pomefiore. They have a purple and red arm band.” Trey said as he got back to the original topic and pointed out more students. The first student had light blonde hair in a bob with straight bangs and had a tan hat with a white feathers on it. The second student had light purple hair that hung to about his shoulders with their tie done in a bow.

“Woah! There’s a super cute girl over there!” Grim exclaimed in surprise.

“Wha!? I thought Marinette was the only girl in the school!” Deuce said in surprise and clearly nervous at the thought of another girl here.

“Idiot. There hasn’t been a girl attending this school in years before Marinette. We would have heard about it if there had been another girl in this school.” Ace said annoyed at having to explain it.

“Eeeeeeh!?” Deuce and Grim said simultaneously in shock.

“If you wanna see girls, the portrait in the west building, Roselia is pretty high level. I don’t mind introducing you if your interested. Should I set up a blind date?” Cater offered to Ace.

“I’m good!!! No matter how cute Roselia is, she’s just a painting.” Ace scrambled to say.

“Anything goes if you’re good looking. Pomefiore always scores high for looks and their beauty regimen is second to none. Their dorm leader is a Magicamegrammer with over five million followers.” Cater said as he checked his phone.

“Hey now. Don’t focus entirely on their looks. Pomefiore has many members skilled at making potions and curses.” Trey reminded Cater who looked bashful at forgetting that important detail.

“Ahaha, is that so? Next would be Ignihyde but… I don’t see any of them around, they’ve got blue and black arm bands. Everyone in that dorm has their guard up at all times, not even I have any friends there. They’re the exact opposite of the extroverts in Heartslabyul.” Cater said with consideration at the differences between the two dorms.

“They’re all dull?” Grim questioned but winced as Tikki swatted him on the arm.

“Hey! Word choice! Though they do have a very quiet image. Many of them are good at building equipment that use magic energy or digital things.” Trey said in defense of a fellow dorm.

“Only the… Diablahblah dorm is left? Deuce questioned as he butchered the name of the dorm.

“You can’t fool me with that straight face. It’s Diasomnia.” Ace said as he corrected Deuce a little smug.

“I bit my tongue, okay!” Deuce said embarrassed at being caught.

“Diasomnia is… there. They’re all shoved into that booth in the back. Their symbol is their green and black arm band. They’re kind of like celebrities around here. They’ve all got this aura that makes it hard for us regulars to approach them. The dorm leader has MAX don’t come near me vibes…” Cater said as he gestured to the students. The first student was tall with straight silver hair that framed their face with one piece in between his eyes. The second student was short with black hair that had dark pink highlights underneath along with a stripe in his bangs, and two tuffs of hair on the sides sticking out with his tie in a bow. The third student being tall with light green hair.

“Huh? There’s a kid with them.” Ace said in confusion as Marinette rolled her eyes at his comment. Really with magic all around the thought of someone looking young while actually being older is not something to consider?

“You can skip grades and still enter this school. But he isn’t a kid. He’s a third year just like…” Trey explained but was interrupted by the same student hanging upside down over them.

“Lilia. Lilia Vanrouge.” The now named Lilia introduced themselves making the others at the table yelp startled at his sudden appearance. Marinette clapped her hands over her ears at the loud noise and winced. While this happened Lilia silently noted her reaction.

“H-he just teleported right over here!” Grim said still not over his shock yet.

“Are you all curious about my age? Kufufu. I have this baby-faced visage but, like glasses said, I’m not at an age one would call me a child.” Lilia said with clear amusement at their reactions.

“Baby-faced…” Trey still startled at Lilia’s appearance and being able to hear them from across the cafeteria.

“There’s no need to look on from afar, just come up and speak with us. Are we all not students of the same academy? We at Diasomnia will always welcome you with open arms.” Lilia said to them but he seemed to amine it more towards Marinette. The other Diasomnia students sent cold hare stares at them from the booth.

“Those guys over there don’t look like they’d be very welcoming…” Deuce said awkwardly to Lilia who glanced behind his shoulder.

“Kufufu. Apologizes for dropping in on your meal. Until we meet again.” Lilia said as waved and walked back towards the booth.

“Our table is easily over twenty meters away from them but you’re telling me that he heard us talking? Freaky!” Ace whispered with everyone still in shock at what had just happened.

“Well… Let’s just say that Diasomnia has many peculiar members. Many of their members excell at magic in general. Their dorm leader, Malleus Draconia, is counted among the top five wizards in the world.” Trey said finally getting over his shock to finish explaining.

“Honestly Malleus, is like super super super crazy. Our dorm leader is his own brand of crazy though.” Cater said back to his regular self Ace nodded in agreement.

“So true! All I did was eat a single piece of tart and he collared me. His narrow-mindedness is super crazy.” Ace said rather loudly not noticing someone coming behind him.

“Hmmmm? I’m super crazy?” Riddle said with a displeased expression on his face as everyone but Ace looked at Riddle with alarm. Marinette tapped Ace’s should but he kept on talking.

“Yeah. He blew right past ‘strict’ and is just a tyrant.” Ace said ignorant that the person he was talking about was right behind him.

“What?!” Ace said annoyed at the taping and finally noticed everyone’s expressions.

“Ace! Behind you!” Deuce said to Ace urgently in fear.

“Heh! Dorm leader!” Ace shouted in surprise when he looked around to see Riddle standing right behind him with an angered expression. Marinette couldn’t help but think the situation was about to get worse.