SUNDAY, 9PM (DAY 0)
It was dark and cloudy that one fateful day over Paris, France. There was a slight breeze in the air and a chill that promoted the use of sweaters, gloves and caps to keep the warmth in and the cold out. Walking alongside the sidewalks towards the streets of his home, Adrien Agreste shuddered into the blue scarf his father had given him as Plagg, his kwami, sat on his shoulder chewing on his Camembert cheese contently. Adrien would usually be complaining about the putrid smell of the snack, but with the cold day and the amount of crap he had to deal with today, Adrien wanted nothing more than to keep his mind off things that were out of his control.
Plagg sensed his chosen's discontent and inhaled what was left of his cheese in a heartbeat. "Well aren't you a happy ray of sunshine," Plagg mocked, and Adrien's annoyed huff lifted off his lips in a small cloud.
"I'm not in the mood," Adrien warned sourly and the small black kwami chuckled in amusement.
"I know, I know, believe me I was there too, but there's no need to be so sour about everything. Come on! Take a load off! Eat some Camembert! It eases stress." Plagg dove into Adrien's shirt pocket and retrieved a small piece of Camembert. He offered it to Adrien but the boy refused with a shake of his head.
"Are you sure?" Plagg asked and Adrien nodded. The kawami shrugged and took a bite. "Fine. Your loss."
Adrien sighed for what was like the fifth time that day and scratched the back of his head, lost in thought until he heard a lady grunt and groceries clatter to the ground. A hobbled old lady was cooing in remorse over dropping her groceries, but when she noticed Adrien she smiled in a way that wasn't exactly what Adrien would call welcoming. By then Plagg had already retreated into the safety of Adrien's shirt pocket.
"Excuse me, young man? Could you help me carry my groceries inside?" the elder called to the blonde teen. Adrien hesitated but nodded with a smile and took most of the groceries away from her.
He followed her to the front porch of an ominous looking house built from old dark wood with a black stale door and few windows. It was an odd sight to say the very least. The weird looking house was sandwiched between two completely normal houses, and yet this one looked old and dreary. As if it didn't belong there. Red flags kept going off in Adrien's mind, and when the lady opened the door, his body was practically screamed for him to run. The old lady gave him a crooked smile and Adrien tried his best to return it. He placed the groceries on the door mat.
"What do you think you're doing, young man?" the old lady snarled, and Adrien flinched at her sudden change in tone.
"Uh, oh, I have somewhere to be right now so I thought I would just put these here for now and get going..." he said somewhat reluctantly. The old woman scowled darkly at him.
"So you're not going to help a weak old lady like me?"
"Well, I, uh..."
"You child celebrities are all the same arrogant little bastards I swear--"
Celebrity children? "W-wait, wait, no need to go that far, Miss. I'll help you take care of these groceries." As if to prove his point, he picked up the groceries again and the woman smiled again, hobbling inside and gesturing for the blonde boy to follow. Despite his better judgment, Adrien followed her in.
He barely had the chance to get both feet inside before there was a loud slam behind him. Adrien whirled around and saw the door had closed. Adrien dropped the bags and lunged for the doorknob.
"The hell!?" Adrien yelled and tried the door but it refused to budge. It was like grasping a formation sticking out of a wall, the doorknob didn't turn and the door didn't move no matter what he did.
"Thank you for helping me, Chat Noir," a young woman's voice said behind him. Shocked, Adrien whirled around and found himself face to face with a girl no older than he with long, wavy brown hair and fair skin. She had a violet cloak covering her body and a hood drawn over her head to cover her eyes. She grinned in a way that showed all teeth.
"But then again, didn't the saying go 'curiosity killed the cat'? My, my, I do think it should have gone 'generosity killed the cat', it has a much better ring to it don't you think?" she said and shivers bolted up Adrien's spine. "Hehehe, you're so gullible."
"Why are you doing this? Who are you?" Adrien demanded, clenching his right hand and ready to summon Plagg at any second. He sensed the kwami's anticipation and knew that if they wanted to escape, Chat Noir would be their way out. This woman was dangerous, that much he knew.
"Who I am isn't important, boy. All that is is that I know who exactly you are, and that you know exactly what you've done."
Adrien felt more confused than afraid now. "What do you mean?"
"You child celebrities are all the same. You think you own the world and everyone in it, and when even the slightest complication shows itself you are ready to tip up your nose and act like an innocent brat. But I know better, and you will repent for all your sins." She grabbed his right wrist and sunk her long nails into his flesh roughly. His heart sprung into action, and just as Adrien was about to call out for Plagg the witch covered his mouth with her other hand.
"Oh, and don't even bother summoning that kwami of yours, Chat Noir. This is an inter-dimensional space separated between realities. If you try to escape now, you'll be lost in oblivion for all eternity."
Adrien scowled and looked out the closest window, and sure enough, only empty blackness was outside. No lampposts, no signs of being anywhere near the streets of Paris, nothing. They were literally in a house in space. She pulled her hand away from his lips and tugged him further down the hall. Strange symbols painted in black ink (or is it blood?) covered the walls; some sorts of odd spiral with three lines curling into spirals outward, something that looked like a harp, and even one that looked like a never-ending knot. The entire room house seemed to be painted in strange varieties of green, and Adrien wordlessly looked between them. Plagg floated out of his shirt pocket and drifted up to his face, looking equally perplexed.
"You just had to go with your good boy morals, didn't you?" Plagg hissed at him.
"Shut up and help me think of a way out of this, Plagg!" Adrien whispered and the small cat creature merely shrugged.
"I'm sorry Adrien, but witches, wizards and warlocks have some tricky magic up their sleeves. We kwamis may be gods but we can't protect mortals like you here. I mean I could leave whenever I want but there's no way I'm leaving you and my miraculous here. We're pretty much stuck here because only she can take us out, so let's just go with it. Maybe if you apologize to her then she'll let us go?"
"But I don't even know what I did wrong!"
"We're here."
At the end of the hallway was a white wolf skin drape acting as a door to the next room, and as the witch pushed it aside Adrien found himself facing a witch's personal lab. A cauldron filled with swirling green and black liquids sat over a stove with pots and bowls and glass jars filled with all sorts of herbs and remedies. Vermin like spiders and rats scuttled around the lab, carrying equipment along their backs. Most chilling of all was the fact that there were cat skins covering every open portion of the wall, and it wasn't even decoration. Real life cat pelts, black cats, grey cats, white cats, tortoise shell and calico cat pelts were hanging with tints of red still visible around the edges.
Plagg gulped.
"What is this place?..." Adrien muttered, and the witch sneered before steering the blonde towards the cauldron.
"Stay," she commanded, and Adrien did just that. She walked around and took the large wooden stick and stirred it around the cauldron.
"Please, I'm sorry for whatever I did, just let us go and I promise to never bother you again," Adrien finally managed, and the witch glanced up at him. She examined him for a moment before she began giggling. Her giggles soon evolved into full blown laughter and Adrien cringed at the sound. The only way to describe it was comparing it to nails on a chalkboard.
"Chat Noir, I don't believe you understand the situation you are in." She reached across the cauldron and grabbed his chin. Adrien gritted his teeth in pain as she dug her sharp nails into the soft flesh under his chin. "You know, you're quite a handsome boy. It's such a shame that you just had to be wearing that ring, but I made a promise. And unfortunately for you, kitten, I don't break my promises."
The witch tugged off a small strand of his blonde hair and dropped it into the cauldron. The solution in it reacted immediately, swirling inwards until a dark green whirlpool formed at the center. A dark green gust erupted from the cauldron and lifted to the ceiling like a storm cloud, brief flashes of lightning dancing throughout it and an inexplicable wind appeared suddenly. Adrien was swept off his feet, and as the wind grew larger he was eventually tossed against the furthest wall. He covered his nose and mouth but dared not to look away from the scene. A tornado had formed from within the room but somehow it didn't affect anything else except for him and the witch.
Then something emerged from the eye of the storm.
A dark entity appeared from the clouds; first came the head, then the neck, the body, the claws and finally the tail. It looked like a cat outlined in an ominous green hue. The cat opened its eyes to expose milky white orbs and looked over at Adrien with a ghostly meow. It's body slunk low to the floor then sprung forward and its body transformed into a beam of sickening green light that struck his chest. It felt like lightning had struck him, filling the very marrow of his bones with pain and agony. Adrien fell over clutching his chest, and the witch grinned at the scene.
"Adrien Agreste. The wielder of the cat miraculous, model for the Gabriel fashion line and partner of Ladybug. I hereby bestow upon you the Curse of Animosity. From 'tis day forward you shall renounce the experience the joys and festivities a human life brings, and live amidst your primal urges and desires. You shall live in greed and gluttony, and by the ninth day if you haven't yet learned your lesson, you will remain as you are forevermore. "
Adrien gasped, still clutching onto his chest as he felt something dark and wrong settle there that hollowed him out from within. Whatever that cat thing was, it was doing something to him, something that would mark a whole new time of darkness for the boy. The burning in his chest refused to subside and Adrien desperately tore off his shirt to take a look at what the cat demon had done to him. He caught a glimpse of some sorts of dark inscription on his body before it began glowing a blinding bright green that sent violent and white hot flashes of pain to every nerve within him. Adrien screamed and buckled to the floor, thrashing around violently as something sinister began taking root in his body, expanding out from the mark on his torso to his fingers and toes.
For a moment, Adrien swore he heard a cat yowl, though it sounded more like eerie laughter that was coming from within his own mind.
Adrien didn't need a mirror to know that his physical body was dissolving and reshaping, because he could feel every second of it. The silent room was filled with deafening loud sounds of crunching and snapping as the unfortunate teen's muscular and skeletal structure began changing at a violent, rapid pace. Adrien's limbs writhed and elongated, snapping and curling into place as the muscle beneath his skin went with the rhythm, expanding and retracting into large and unfamiliar mounds. His legs dealt with the worst of the pain as they out grew his shoes, tearing expensive fabric and leather open as his heel and foot began stretching outward with his toes spreading out and enlarging. He could feel his spine arching and snapping as his shoulders and pelvis made room for adjustments for the rest of his body, a tail bone growing out from the base of his spine with flesh, blood and skin following in hot pursuit. His head was the last part to change, as he felt his ears change and shift, moving from the sides of his head to the top and his skull. His skull began changing as well, pointing outwards painfully with humanly flat teeth reshaping into deadly incisors and canines.
While all this was happening, Adrien's body was slowly growing in size, whiskers were growing out from his cheeks, the cuticles of his hands and feet exploding with blood as claws sharp enough to cut through steel grew and a thick hide of black coarse fur began covering his body from the tip of his snout to the ends of his tail, tearing through expensive designer clothing like wet paper except for his exceptionally tough jeans. Adrien's eyes felt like they were being doused in acid as his irises began enlarging with the pigments changing from a kind earthy green to one that almost seemed to glow, his pupils narrowing into diamond-shaped slits.
In that moment Adrien welcomed death, for what changes that were overcoming his body were simply too excruciating to bear.
The hulking creature that had once been Adrien laid down in the middle of the floor, its labored panting filling the now quiet air as it allowed itself to rest. The pain was quickly fading, and with it came the appearance of its senses, which were so overwhelmingly powerful that its head began pounding all over again from the sudden rush of scents, taste, and sounds galore. After a while of recharging, the creature lifted its head and scanned its surroundings slowly, eyes lingering on everything until it met a large mirror in the corner of the room.
In the mirror was a giant hominid black cat with acid green eyes, torn up jeans and a single silver ring on its right finger. It took the beast a moment to register that it was staring into its own reflection.
"Good. Now go embrace your animosity, Chat Noir, let the thrill of hunting vermin consume you! Just like your predecessor before you!" the witch chanted, and like a spell, new and unwelcome thoughts took over the former human's mind. It fell over, clutching its head painfully until its body stopped twitching.
The space around the werecat shuddered then suddenly the beast was in the middle of a darkened alleyway. The moon hung like a silver globe overhead with the skies as black as pitch. The street lamps filled Paris with an orange hue, and the air smelled faintly of baking dinners and goods. The city streets, even at night, were filled with activity.
The beast stumbled to its knees and growled lowly, making way towards the scent of a man smoking a cigar at the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was then that the reign of the werecat began.
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[A/N]: I hope you guys liked the first part of my new Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction! This idea has been stuck in my mind for so long and since the concept of Chat becoming a werecat is a concept that has rarely ever been touched upon I decided, ey, why not? Man, I am digging my grave with all these new fanfictions... oh well! See you all next time!