The plaster dust still hung in the air of the ruined pharmacy, mingling with the scent of antiseptic and spilled cough syrup.
"Hey. Hey, hey. Come on, get up. I know I didn't hit you that hard," Kevin muttered, nudging Silas's unconscious, bloodied body with the toe of his sneaker.
Okay, maybe he had hit him that hard. The assassin's arm was still bent at an angle that defied human anatomy, but Kevin needed answers, and this guy was the only one who had them.
"Hey! Pay attention! I wasn't finished explaining the sheer magnitude of my powers!"
A shrill, indignant little voice buzzed near his ear. Plagg, the tiny, magical black-cat creature, was flying in circles around Kevin's head, waving his tiny paws around. He was visibly offended that his grand introduction was being ignored for a grumpy teenager and a passed-out assassin.
Kevin stopped kicking Silas. He let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to process the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"Listen, weird magical creature..." Kevin said, giving him a skeptical side-eye. "I'm really not interested in wearing tight spandex or becoming a superhero. This whole 'akuma' thing, magic powers, and saving the day sounds like a cheap comic book. I just got to France, and I promise you, there are no superheroes or supervillains here. Just crazy people."
"I'm not a liar!" Plagg shot back, hovering right in front of Kevin's face and crossing his arms. "Paris is in danger! And if that butterfly guy gets what he wants, the whole world might be next! You need my power!"
Kevin flashed a cynical, humorless smile. "No offense, buttercup, but I've already got the power of destruction. And trust me, I'm perfectly capable of destroying the world all by myself if I slip up. So go find someone else who wants to play savior."
To emphasize his point, Kevin raised his right fist in front of Plagg. For a microsecond, the air around his knuckles vibrated with a terrifying intensity, as if space itself was about to crack open all over again.
"Hahahahahaha..."
A wet, raspy, and completely unhinged laugh echoed from the floor, cutting off the argument.
Kevin immediately dropped his fist and looked down. Silas had regained consciousness. Despite lying in a puddle of his own fluids with a shattered body, the white-coated killer was staring up at him with an expression of pure, disturbing ecstasy.
"You talk as if you can actually control that power..." Silas spat, a twisted, blood-stained smile spreading across his face. "Don't kid yourself, boy. You're no god. You're nothing but a walking time bomb waiting to go off."
Kevin frowned. He crouched down slowly, ignoring the sharp sting in his injured shoulder, until he was mere inches from Silas's face. His yellowish eyes glowed with a lethal warning in the dim light of the store.
"Real sweet of you to worry, Sleeping Beauty," Kevin whispered coldly. "But don't lose sleep over me. I've got everything under control."
"You think you're strong just because you beat me?" Silas let out another broken laugh, coughing up blood in the process. "Hahaha! I was just the hound. Just the tracker. More like me will come hunting for you. Don't get too comfy with your curse, because you'll lose it soon enough. They'll rip that power right off your corpse."
The assassin's words struck a nerve in Kevin's mind. The kid's arrogance faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by genuine confusion.
"Who the hell is coming to hunt me?" Kevin demanded, grabbing the collar of Silas's lab coat with his good hand, his voice dropping into a serious, threatening register. "And a minute ago, before I broke your bones... you mentioned something. What the hell is the Gura Gura no Mi?"
Silas's eyes widened, shining with a mix of disbelief and sick mockery. "Hahahaha! Unbelievable! You don't even remember the name of your own Devil Fruit!" Silas started laughing like an absolute maniac, his cackles bouncing off the ruined walls. "That machine really did fry your brain! You don't know what you are! You don't remember anything!"
The words 'machine,' 'fried your brain,' and 'Devil Fruit' hit Kevin's mind like a sledgehammer. A piercing pain—his usual migraine—stabbed through his temples. Blurry images, cold wires, strobe lights, and a choking sensation tried to claw their way into his blocked memory, but the agony was unbearable.
Kevin was done with this guy. The taunts, the mystery, and the headache officially drained the last drop of his patience.
WHAM!
With a swift, sharp motion, Kevin delivered a brutal kick straight to Silas's jaw. The assassin's head bounced off the linoleum, instantly knocking him out cold and silencing his psycho laughter.
Kevin slowly stood up. His breathing was ragged, and a thin layer of cold sweat coated his forehead. He looked down at his own hands—the very hands that could trigger massive earthquakes—and for the first time in a long time, he felt terrified of his own origins. What had they done to him in the past? What was that machine?
He turned his head, locking his eyes onto the tiny, floating black creature.
Plagg, who had been watching the brutal interrogation in dead silence, gulped at the kid's intense glare.
"Talk," Kevin ordered, his tone stripping away every ounce of sarcasm, turning grim and hyper-focused. "Tell me more about these ring powers and this butterfly guy you mentioned. Because it looks like I'm gonna need all the help I can get."
For the next fifteen minutes, Plagg talked at breakneck speed. He explained to Kevin—with a mix of boredom and urgency—that he had been chosen to wield the Miraculous of Destruction. He detailed how his magic powers worked, how to invoke "Cataclysm" to disintegrate anything he touched, the mandatory dynamic he'd have with a ladybug-themed partner, and the ultimate goal: retrieving the Butterfly Miraculous from a lunatic.
Kevin massaged the bridge of his nose, feeling the migraine threatening to stage a comeback.
He just couldn't believe it. He had left his house a few hours ago with the sole mission of buying some damn headache pills. And now, before lunchtime, he'd found out a league of assassins wanted him dead, some "machine" had fried his brain, the Gura Gura no Mi, a weird old man had slipped him a magic ring, and he had to dress up like an animal to save Paris from evil.
Paris sucks, Kevin thought bitterly.
Even though playing vigilante superhero didn't appeal to him in the slightest, Kevin's pragmatic logic kicked in. If this magic ring could give him a tactical advantage, better durability against Silas's assassin group that wanted him dead, then... yeah, he could play hero for a while. At least until he uncovered the truth about his past.
"Ugh!" Kevin aggressively scratched his head in frustration, messing up his hair. "Fine. I'll do it."
"Excellent. But before we save the world... I want Camembert, not this garbage!" Plagg complained, hovering in front of Kevin's face while holding a piece of dark chocolate in his tiny paws with absolute disgust.
Kevin, who had just raided the diet candy aisle of the wrecked pharmacy, took a bite of his own chocolate bar.
"Eat what's there or starve, buttercup," Kevin replied with his mouth half-full, totally indifferent to the creature's culinary drama. "Beggars can't be choosers."
Plagg glared at him with those massive green eyes and, reluctantly, swallowed the chocolate in one gulp, sticking his tongue out in disgust and pulling a comical face.
"Blech! Tastes like sweet dirt. Anyway..." Plagg crossed his little arms. "Are you ready or what?"
"So, my demanding little friend, how will I know when this butterfly guy makes his first move?" Kevin asked, crossing his arms.
But, as if orchestrated by a universe with a deeply sadistic sense of humor, the answer didn't come from Plagg.
KABOOOOM!
A gray sedan went flying through the air and smashed brutally into the metal security gate blocking the pharmacy entrance, tearing it completely off its hinges. Sunlight flooded the store, followed by a shower of debris.
Kevin instinctively threw his arms over his face to keep the shrapnel out of his eyes.
Through the fresh hole in the wall, standing right in the middle of the street, a colossal figure made entirely of living rock let out a deafening roar that shook the asphalt. It was a massive stone golem, smashing cars like they were toy trucks.
Kevin slowly lowered his arms, blinking at the sheer absurdity of the scene. Then, he turned his head to look at Plagg with a deadpan expression. "I'm guessing that's the signal."
"That's an akumatized villain. A Stone monster," Plagg confirmed, nodding. "Time to go to work, kid."
Kevin didn't move right away. His face grew dark and calculating. He locked eyes with the tiny god of destruction.
"Listen closely, cat. I'll play along for now, but let's get things straight before we start," Kevin began, holding up a finger for each point.
"First: my main priority will always be my dad's safety and my own, not the civilians. Second: if you stick with me, you play by my rules. I'm no Boy Scout. And third..."
Kevin paused, his yellowish eyes gleaming with a coldness that didn't belong on a thirteen-year-old kid.
"Even though I don't like the idea of killing anyone... if the situation demands it and it's strictly necessary to survive, I will do it. Are we clear?"
Plagg hovered in silence, analyzing Kevin for a few seconds. In millennia of existence, he had been wielded by noblemen, princes, knights, and pure-hearted heroes who were terrified of the power he represented. But this kid... this kid understood the nature of his power.
A sharp, feline smirk spread across the kwami's face. "I won't stand in the way of you protecting your pack, kid," Plagg replied, genuinely intrigued. "And I don't have a problem with killing if the situation calls for it. After all, death and destruction always go hand in hand. I like you."
"Alright," Kevin sighed, suddenly feeling ridiculous about what he was about to yell.
Plagg had told him the activation phrase, and it felt like the least intimidating thing in the world. He flushed slightly with embarrassment, clenched his fists, and yelled: "Plagg, claws out!"
The ring on his finger flared with a blinding neon-green flash. Plagg was magically sucked into the jewelry. A dark, sparking energy enveloped Kevin's body, replacing his casual clothes with something entirely different.
When the light faded, Kevin opened his eyes. He felt different. Lighter, stronger; his senses were dialed up to an almost feral level. The migraine was completely gone.
He walked over to one of the large shattered mirrors that had fallen from the cosmetics section. He picked up a massive shard of glass from the floor and took a good look at himself.
The kid in the reflection was unrecognizable. His short brown hair had grown and completely changed; he now sported a long, wild mane of silvery-white hair that tumbled down his back. His eyes were no longer normal; his pupils had slitted like a feline's, and his irises burned with an intense, piercing golden-yellow hue.
He was wearing a sleek, form-fitting full-body suit made of a black material that looked like a hybrid between leather and heavy-duty latex. The suit zipped up the front with a silver zipper running from his abdomen to his collar. To break up the solid dark black, the collar of his jacket, the cuffs of his gloves, and the trim of his heavy black tactical boots were lined with thick, striking white fur.
He raised his hands. His black gloves ended in razor-sharp metal claws that looked like they could slice through steel. He wore a black utility belt with a silver buckle, from which hung a long, articulated black tail—like a leather whip—that ended in a metal hook and swished lazily with a life of its own.
Finally, a black domino mask shaped like a feline's face covered the upper half of his features, concealing his identity flawlessly.
Kevin tilted his head, inspecting his claws and then the white fur around his neck.
"Well..." he muttered, flexing his arm muscles and feeling the magical power surging alongside the latent energy of his Gura Gura no Mi. "I gotta admit, black leather and white fur isn't exactly the look I would've picked to blend in during the summer... but I'd be lying if I said I didn't look intimidating."
He dropped the glass shard, letting it shatter against the floor, and walked toward the hole in the wall. The stone golem was still roaring out in the street, tearing the city apart.
Paris's new hero flexed his claws, ready to destroy.