#animan | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

milarqui · 2 years ago

Text

Scarlet Lady: Animan

Directory | Intermission

From his vantage point, he could see Marinette and Alya animatedly talking about something that (apparently) required the former to wave her hands around while showing something.

“Hmm...” This plan he had come up with would require some work to put into practice, particularly –

“Uh, Nino? Any particular reason you've been ogling Marinette so much lately?”

“AH!” he shouted: Adrien had not only come up from behind him, but was also giving him a rather unhealthy (for him) glower. Well, maybe he could have a bit of fun. “Ah, man, you caught me. Truth is I'm totally crushing on Marinette.”

Adrien's made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a whimper, as his face became pale and he began to tremble.

“O-Oh, awesome, I hope you'll be h-happy–” Adrien somehow managed to say through clenched teeth.

“Dude, I was kidding,” he replied, thinking that maybe he had underestimated how bad Adrien had it for Marinette, before noticing something red coming out of his friend's mouth. “Is that blood?”

Adrien shook his head and pulled a handkerchief from a pocket to wipe out the blood. While still worried for him, it looked like it wasn't serious, so he turned to his plan.

“I've been thinking of ways to hook you up, dude. Like, maybe you can ask her to the new panther exhibit at the zoo!”

“Nino,” Adrien replied. “I can't ask Marinette out. I have no time or energy thanks to my... job.”

“No way!” he exclaimed. “You've been way livelier lately! Even your Pops has let you have more fun! You should at least try!”

“That's... true,” Adrien admitted, looking down at his hands. “Can... can I really? Is it possible? Am I allowed?!”

Man, he was sparkling like an animated character.

“Bro, it's just a date.”

Nonetheless, he pulled him towards the girls, who had just stopped their talk and started to leave the place.

“Hey Alya, Marinette!” Adrien greeted as they came close.

“Hey guys!” Marinette replied.

“Have you heard about the new panther exhibit at the zoo?”

“Oh, yeah, it's all my dad talks about since the panther's quarantine ended,” Alya said, smiling. “Did I tell you that's why we moved? Dad switched zoos with it.”

“Well, wanna check it out together?” he suggested.

“Sure, sounds fun!” Marinette agreed. Score!

“Fair warning, don't engage my dad in front of the animals. He gets so weird,” Alya warned them.

----

The girls agreed to meet them in a while, and the two of them quickly dropped their things at their homes before meeting again.

“A date with Marinette!” he said. It was the one thing he had been hoping for so long. He turned to his best friend. “Hey, should I get her flowers? Or a present!”

“Whoa, slow your roll!” Nino exclaimed, smiling. “We're testing the waters with a chill hangout, remember?”

“Yeah, you're right,” he agreed. He had to make sure that Marinette was interested in him, or at least willing to try, before he could begin.

“Don't worry, man, soon you'll be asking her out on a real date, and then you pull out the smooth moves.”

He laughed.

He had been blessed that day when he sat in the front row.

“You're awesome for setting this up, Nino.”

----

Up above the two boys, a blonde girl growled in anger.

----

She wasn't going to complain.

She had seen this too many times.

“This is hopeless! Nothing will disguise my beauty!”

It was going to be useless, but she was going to try anyway.

“Chloé, this is ridiculous,” she said as Chloé picked a pair of boots. “Adrien is free to date whoever he wants!”

“Of course he is!” Chloé replied. She just waited for – “As long as it's me!”

There it was.

“But why'd he choose the stinky, sweaty, gross zoo?! I'll have to talk to him about his lack of consideration for me.”

“Ugh.” What a wonder, this girl's mind was. Able to mold reality to fit her narrow-minded beliefs.

“The sacrifices I make for love.”

“You don't have to–”

“SACRIFICES!”

----

“I'm surprised you agreed to a date, Marinette,” Alya said as they waited at a picnic table, already inside the zoo.

“Huh? This isn't a date, we're just hanging out,” Marinette replied.

“Hm. I guess you could see it that way.”

“Wait...” Marinette said, and Alya could detect the tone was the kind she really didn't want to hear. “Alya, do you want this to be a date? With Nino?”

Alya felt her cheeks redden and tried to hide her face from her inquisitive friend's look.

“We've already established it's not a date, so why does it matter?”

A look aside to the widely grinning Marinette told her it was too late.

“Oh no.”

Fortunately for her, something interrupted Marinette before she could squee like one of Adrien's fangirls.

“Hey, Marinette, Alya!”

“Hm?” Alya mumbled, smiling upon the face of her saviors, one of whom was waving hello at them. “Hi Max! Hi Kim!”

“Not here with your girlfriend?” Marinette asked.

“Nah, we're having guy time!” Kim said, flexing his biceps. “We're gonna see the new panther to see how I measure up!”

“Measure up?” Alya asked.

“Yeah, like, speedwise.”

Max's face told pretty much what he thought of it.

“How do you plan to measure that?” Marinette asked.

----

As Max and Kim split off, Marinette looked in the distance and saw two familiar figures, one of them waving a hand.

“There they are!” she told Alya, standing up and waving at their friends. “OVER HERE!”

“M, I'm telling you right now, don't do anything weird,” Alya demanded.

“Whaaat? We're just having a nice, no pressure day out with the guys!” she replied, but Alya didn't look convinced.

“Mhmm.”

Looking away, she unconsciously slipped into what her father called her 'slasher movie special' (which was ironic, given her hatred of horror movies).

And if me and Adrien accidentally leave you two alone halfway through, that's just a coincidence, she gleefully thought.

“You have a terrible poker face,” Alya fired.

----

Ughhhh... the only good thing about today seemed to be that she'd be out.

“Grr, look at those gross idiots! I need to get closer!” Chloé said, 'hiding' behind a newspaper with holes at eye height.

Sometimes she pondered how she hadn't gone mad yet.

“Maybe you'd do better in the bushes. Where you can sit in shame.”

Oh, right. The chance to snark at her. And mess with her stuff. Even if she barely realized it.

“As if! My plan is so original and genius, just watch!”

And she sat on a chair and hid behind the newspaper again.

Should she feel pity over this? Because there was no way she could be this dumb.

Wait. She was this dumb.

There was even a man right next to her, doing the exact same thing – down to the newspaper.

Although, who was that man spying?

----

“STOP! YOU CAN'T COMPETE WITH MY PANTHER, KID!”

Marinette could hear Alya's father from the distance, which really didn't bide well for the next exhibit, the panther. Which already had Kim in front of it.

Which probably explained why Alya's father was shouting that.

“Whatever, it's clear I'm the hot one!”

Yeah, that did it.

“Whoa, Kim, you wanna race a panther? Do you like being lunch?” Adrien asked, amused, as she looked at the animal.

“Ha, I can take'em!”

“Go!” Otis ordered, angry. “My panther needs calm during her meal and you're stressing her out!”

“Then shouldn't you feed her in the back, away from the public?” Marinette asked, and from the way Alya's father's face went red, it was obvious that he hadn't considered that option.

“Get out or I'll have you banned from this zoo!”

“Dad, no,” Alya said, exhausted.

----

He had sensed the man's anger from his home, and, seeing how strong it was, and what kind of power it could play out, he decided he could make for a good chance.

“Animan,” he said, “I'm giving you the chance to get revenge.”

“Excellent! How dare those kids disrespect my panther, thinking they can outrun her?!”

He blinked. He had heard way too many dumb reasons for people to get angry about (some of them from the Enchanted Florist)... and somehow this was the worst of all.

“... really?”

Well, dumb reason or not, it was enough to get what he wanted out of him.

----

“Well, that was... interesting,” Nino said as he delivered the drinks, noting Alya's still embarrassed face. “Where to next?”

“I'd like to see the giraffes,” Adrien suggested as he and Marinette accepted their drinks.

“I'd rather go to the reptile house,” Alya replied. “Faaar away from panthers.”

“I'll go with you!” Nino offered, and Marinette realized this was the golden moment she had hoped for.

“Let's split and meet up later! I'll go with Adrien!”

“Yeah, okay!” Adrien agreed, smiling.

And then disaster struck.

“Oh, Adrichou! What a coincidence meeting you here!”

“C-Chloé?!” Adrien replied, dropping his drink from the impulse of being pushed by the irritant now hanging on his arm. Fortunately, he managed to make her let him loose and glared at her. “Wow, Chloé, wild that you're here, where I am, without me telling you.”

“Must be our deep connection,” Chloé replied. Marinette stuck her tongue at the stalking girl, irritated that she was (a) messing her plan to get her friends together and (b) disturbing Adrien.

Adrien, for his part, gave Chloé a glare.

“You weren't invited, Chloé, you can't just–”

“AHHHHH!”

Suddenly, Max and Kim were passing by them, running as if the devil was behind.

“GET TO SHELTER!”

“GET OUT OF HERE!”

Looking in the direction the duo had been running from, they realized why.

Somehow, all the animals had escaped their enclosures.

Again.

Come on, it took us hours to get you back here last month! Adrien and Marinette lamented.

“AH!”

“SCATTER!”

----

Adrien was a tad irritated. Chloé had prevented him from finally being alone with Marinette, and now this?

“We were so close to going off on our own, Plagg, CLAWS OUT!”

----

“Ha!” Chloé laughed. Her plan had worked perfectly! “Now their 'date' is ruined, I win! Tikki, SPOTS ON!”

----

She had been this close to finally giving her best friend the chance to be alone with Nino!

“This was Alya's big break, so annoying! Pollen, BUZZ ON!”

----

The heroes quickly entered the scene, and managed to protect the civilians, forcing the wild animals to stop and distracting them.

“Get OFF you overgrown handbags!” Scarlet Lady shouted as she smacked a panther with her yo-yo.

Meanwhile, Chat Noir was twirling his baton to keep a giraffe away, all while Kim looked at the event, transfixed.

“Get out of here, Kim!” Chat Noir ordered, and the boy shook himself off and ran away, thanking him for the help.

Marigold noticed two other people were still there, trying not to put their backs to any of the animals, and saw her chance.

She grabbed Alya.

“Ah!”

She grabbed Nino.

“Whoa!”

She pushed them both into the now empty panther enclosure and slammed the door.

“Stay safe!♥” she said with a smile, jumping back into the fight.

“HUH?!” both of them replied, still in shock.

----

It took Alya a while to realize what had just happened. And what it entailed.

“Nonononono!” she yelled.

“Alya?” Nino asked, worried.

“This can't be happening!”

“What's wrong?”

“My dad's an Akuma and I'm stuck in here instead of getting footage, which is the onlyreasonI'mrelevantbecauseScarletLadyonlyworkswithrealreporters–“

Alya's sudden panic spiral was cut short when a pair of headphones blocked all sound save for the ones it emitted, and she turned to Nino, who was smiling at her and saying something she didn't quite catch, but looked like... something about breathing?

“... I can't hear you,” she replied. Taking off one of the headphones, she was able to hear him.

“Missing one Akuma won't ruin you,” Nino suggested. “You can still make a blog post about it.”

“I guess,” she admitted.

“And maybe try interviewing the other heroes.”

“That's a good idea...”

And then she began to listen to the actual song. It had no lyrics, but it was really cool, full of rhythm and intensity.

“This is a good song,” she said, amazed.

“Really? I mixed it myself!” Nino replied, and Alya took off the headphones.

“What software do you use?! I can never get background noise out of my videos!”

Nino laughed gently.

Wow, I've never seen him so close, a part of Alya noted, as she got closer.

“Maybe listen to more of my stuff before deciding my advice is worth it,” Nino said, but Alya knew she wanted to know.

She laughed.

And she grabbed his DJ hand with her writer hand.

----

Unfortunately, the heroes weren't having as good a time as the lovebirds. Right now, they had had to jump to the higher point they could find to avoid the animals, and even then the giraffes and elephants weren't looking friendly.

“There's too many of them!” Marigold admitted.

“Then what do you suggest, Stinkbug?!” Scarlet Lady yelled.

“Back to roots: defeat the Akuma and the animals will be captured!” Chat Noir suggested.

With some effort, the three of them jumped at the roof of the nearest enclosure and made their way to one that offered a better vantage point.

“Where did you go...” Marigold mumbled, looking around.

“There!” Chat Noir shouted, pointing at a passage that only had two beings.

One was a panther that did not look like the one that had been freed earlier.

The other...

“KIM!” Marigold shouted.

“He's really going to eat him!” Chat Noir realized.

And all of them realized as well.

All because he said he was faster than a panther?!

Seriously, people needed to get some priorities in order...

Realizing that Kim was clearly tired from running away, Marigold and Chat Noir jumped between the Akuma and him. While Marigold twirled her spinning top to prevent the Akuma from advancing, Chat Noir allowed him to take a breath and gave him a pat in the back.

“Quick, hide in the first building you find!”

Kim nodded and started to run again. While he trusted the heroes, he knew they wouldn't be able to do this forever. And the less work they had to do protecting him, the better.

“You won't get away this time!” Marigold declared, trying to find the way to paralyze the Akuma.

“You will never catch me!” the Akuma declared, and suddenly its black skin turned into feathers as he became an eagle.

“He transformed!” Scarlet Lady pointed out.

“And is getting away,” Marinette lamented.

“No worries, I tagged Kim so we can beat him there!” Chat Noir told the girls, and Marigold smiled.

“Well played, kitty,” she complimented, starting to scratch his chin as he happily purred.

God, he was so adorable!

Scarlet Lady made a disgusted face.

“Be gross on your own time,” she complained.

----

Chat Noir eventually began to track down Kim, whom they ended up finding at Marinette's parents' boulangerie. And Marigold took point as they entered the delicious, delicious-smelling shop.

“Hello, Ma–uh, Ma'am,” Marigold greeted Sabine and Tom, who had helped an exhausted Kim into a chair.

“Oh, but you're–!” Sabine said.

“Ohoho! Yes, it is I, your hero–” Scar claimed, but was interrupted.

“Marigold!”

Seeing Scar silently thundering about being slighted was hilarious, and he had to cover his mouth to avoid being heard.

“It's so nice to meet you!” Sabine stated, picking Marigold's hand – making her look awkward for some reason.

“A-Ah, thanks!”

----

The embarrassment of her parents welcoming her to the boulangerie past, she had led Kim to the hall and realized something: if the Akuma was like an animal and could track Kim by smell, then there might be a way to trick him into a trap.

But they couldn't put Kim at risk, obviously.

There were other ways of doing it, though.

“Can we borrow that?” she asked, pointing at one of his wristbands.

“Sure,” Kim replied, trusting her, as he immediately took off the wristband. She was thankful that she was wearing gloves, because the band was kinda sweaty.

“Ew, newbee, what do you want that for?!” Scarlet Lady complained.

“We're gonna lure the beast into a cage, obviously!”

----

The plan was simple, really: put the wristband in one of the many empty buses nearby, wait for the Akuma to show up, and trap him.

The first part worked, as the Akuma – back in his panther form – pounced into the bus, only to find too late that the smell that had led him there was not that of Kim, but of one of his clothes.

“WHAT?!”

“He's in! Now, Chat Noir!” Marigold said, and Chat Noir jumped into the bus.

“Cataclysm!” he shouted, destroying the door controls, and he jumped back out just as the bus doors closed, with the panther only just crashing into the doors.

“Nice!” Marigold declared. “Now we just let him tire himself out!”

Suddenly, the panther transformed once more – but this time, he picked a rather larger form, large enough to break through the roof of the bus.

“Oh yeah, he looks real tired out!” Scarlet Lady yelled in annoyance as the Tyrannosaurus Rex climbed out of the bus.

Chat Noir quickly jumped at his head, intent on distracting him.

“Get the F–” the akuma said, but Chat Noir yelled over him.

“GET HIS LEGS!”

“DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” an annoyed Scarlet Lady shouted back, hitting the dinosaur's leg with nothing to show for it. Instead, it was the spinning top that tangled its legs together.

“I got him!” Marigold said, and picked up the top. “VENOM!”

Jumping at the Akuma's head, she stabbed him with the tip of the top, quickly paralyzing him and causing him to collapse on the ground, with Chat Noir jumping off just in time.

“That was easy,” he admitted. “Thank you Venom!”

“Right?” Marigold said, smiling. “No one even got to jump in his mouth!”

“Ew!”.

----

Tikki enjoyed a cookie, doing her best not to let her wielder annoy her too much with her attempts to claim success.

“I did such a good job today. Stopped Maribrat from being alone with Adrichou, ruined their date, defeated the Akuma without even using my Lucky Charm. I'm too good for Paris.”

Alright, mission failed.

I'm going to throw out her hairspray while she sleeps.

----

The two of them had been let out by the zoo workers, so they could also return the animals back to their enclosures, and now they were just waiting for their friends to show up again.

“Sorry, sorry!” one of them said, running into the scene.

“We're here, we're here!” the other added, huffing.

“Hey, glad you're okay!” she replied, waving at the two.

“Did you get chased far?” he asked, a bit worried.

“Yeah, I–”

Then, their friends noticed they were holding hands.

“Whooooa!”

“What is this?!”

“OOOOH!” both said in unison, pointing at said joined hands.

She turned to her boyfriend – her boyfriend! – and sighed.

“Told you they'd make it weird.”

“Wha– When– How?!” Adrien asked, surprised, while Marinette wiggled with a wide smile.

“Marigold locked us in the same cage all afternoon,” she replied.

“Turns out we have a lot in common: an interest in video editing...” he said.

“Really young siblings...” she added.

Then they gave smug glares at Adrien and Marinette.

“Best friends that ditch them.”

“Eheheh!” both awkwardly laughed.

----

Fortunately, since nothing bad (or too bad) had happened, Adrien and Marinette were forgiven, and they split off once again.

“Hey, man, congrats!” Adrien told Nino while giving him a one-arm hug, and Nino smiled.

“Thanks, dude!”

Adrien's eyes opened, and suddenly the cheerful atmosphere turned kinda oppressive.

“Pretty amazing you got a girlfriend when you're supposed to be wingmanning for me.”

“M-My bad.”

----

Meanwhile, Alya had a bone to pick with Marinette.

“Girl, I told you not to be weird but you totally tried to dip on purpose,” she complained, and Marinette tried to put a surprised face.

“Whaaat? I just wanted to see the elephants!”

Alya gave her an irritated gaze.

“It was giraffes.”

----

After being told what had happened, Otis felt quite embarrassed of his actions and how they had affected everyone. He had been lucky that he had only been sent home early and that this issue would be written down in his file: if it weren't for the fact that Akumatized people were not blamed for the actions taken under Hawkmoth's influence, he could have been fired.

“How embarrassing,” he complained, after the twins mobbed him and asked what had happened.

“I'm home!”

“Alya!” Ella exclaimed, as his second daughter entered the room. He had to apologize, fast!

“Listen Alya, Dad didn't mean to ruin your day out! You know how I get when people stress out my–”

But then Alya gently kissed him in the cheek and danced away, humming a song he had never heard.

While he was glad that she was fine now, he wondered what in the blazes had happened while he was possessed to make her so happy.

----

Puppeteer

@zoe-oneesama If only Animan could prey on Hawkmoth...

Alright, we're getting (slowly) closer to the end of Season 3!

BTW, not counting the 18 empty pages reserved to begin all the chapters I have yet to do, this story stands now at 321 pages in Times New Roman size 12.

#scarlet lady the novel #fanfiction #milarqui #long post #marinette dupain cheng #marigold #adrien agreste #chat noir #animan #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe

14 notes · View notes