MiracuCrack #L91F: Leave Some Stones Unturned

by DFC

(Timeline: Post-Season 3 Finale)

The front door of Master Fu's old studio opened with a creak, and a young woman stepped inside with a little trepidation.

"Thank you, Wayzz. I doubt that I would've found that hidden spare key without your help," Marinette said.

"Not a problem. There are many, many secrets here to be discovered, even without Master's presence," replied Wayzz, somberly. "Now that you have become the new Guardian, I am happy to show you what I could not before."

Marinette reached over and flicked on the light switch, which illuminated the front room. She felt pleased that the air felt warm and inviting, indicating that the climate control system was still functional. "I helped him move out of this building, when he went on the run from Hawkmoth," she noted. "He didn't sell it?"

"He owns the property. He would have been a fool to sell it, to be honest," said Wayzz. "Both for financial reasons, and because at that time, he felt that someday he would be able to return here safely."

"He owns this whole thing?" wondered Marinette. "No mortgage, no rent? It must have cost a fortune, in this neighborhood."

"When he bought it decades ago, it wasn't nearly as costly as it would be today," smiled Wayzz. "And you should not have to worry about bills and such. For a man of his age and background, Master was surprisingly savvy with money. He had a small fortune tucked away; it's amazing what you can do with small investments, compound interest and the passage of many years." Wayzz gestured to the room around him, still furnished modestly. "He could have chosen to live like a king, but he preferred this simple existence. For him to do otherwise would have been most unlike him."

"So I don't need to tell my father that he needs to pay property taxes on a building he doesn't own?" Marinette verified, with some relief.

"Master has automated processes set up with his banks that pay off things like taxes and utilities, which should be minimal now. So all you should need to do is to gather up the mail once in a while, make sure that no one's broken in and is squatting here, that sort of thing," Wayzz assured her. "Not a lot of worry there."

"You'll help me keep track of anything that does come up? I mean, I may end up playing occasional caretaker here, but I don't have access to his bank accounts. And I really don't want that, to be honest. That's his money."

"Of course I'll help," answered Wayzz. "I used to help him maintain his account credentials; his memory really wasn't the best. If we need to transfer some money around for those essentials, I can do that from your computer. And your disinterest in such things is one of many reasons Master took a shine to you."

"Good," Marinette smiled. "But... that's not why we're here today, is it?"

"No, it is not," Wayzz confirmed. "There are things here that Master did not show you when he was moving out, but that we should verify are still secure. Hidden compartments, a basement that requires a secret trick to enter, possibly some minor artifacts that even I don't know about. This will not be something that we can de-mystify in just one visit."

Wandering around Fu's bedroom, Marinette looked a trifle bored. "There isn't much left here to rummage through, Wayzz," she noted. "We'd boxed up most of his personal belongings when he moved out, and this is just... basic furniture."

"Looks can be deceiving," Wayzz replied. "Come here, please."

When she joined him across the room, Wayzz instructed her to press a panel on the wall in specific places and in a certain sequence. Once she did, it popped loose and a cubbyhole behind it was revealed.

"How did that work? Some kind of Kwami magic?" asked Marinette, wide-eyed.

"Hardly. A simple mechanical device. Something he learned to make with his hands many years ago," said Wayzz. He allowed Marinette to reach inside and feel the sliding pieces that controlled access; easy to use if one understood how it worked, fiendishly resistant if one did not. "Have you ever seen puzzles in shops with sliding bars, connected rings, pieces that seem impossible to separate but that there's a hidden trick to it? He was very good at solving and making that sort of thing."

Reaching into the cubbyhole, Marinette retrieved a handful of items: some papers with Chinese writing on them, two colorful and intricate crystals that she ooohed at, and a small notebook.

"You see? One of many caches of interest," explained Wayzz. "Nothing of earth-shaking importance, but that notebook would be useful to me in handling some of Master's affairs. The paperwork concerns some other property he owns in another part of the world. The crystals... they are more sentimental value for him than anything else. They are from the village where Master was born."

As Marinette held them up to the light, Wayzz continued, "They are not magical or mystical in any way... but I am sure that he would feel pleased by your taking care of them."

"Good," smiled Marinette. "So there are many more of these kinds of things to find? Let's see what we can discover."

The two of them wandered through the house, with Wayzz helping Marinette uncover similarly subtle treasures and oddities. The morning flew by innocently enough... for a while.

A short while later, Marinette called over to Wayzz, "Hey, I think I found something." She had gotten into the swing of things, tapping at walls and other seemingly solid places, and this particular section of flooring sounded slightly hollow to her.

As Wayzz approached, she repeated her gesture and let Wayzz interpret the sound. "What do you think is down there?" she asked.

"I... honestly, I have no idea," admitted Wayzz. "I believe that you are correct, that this is another of Master's hiding places... but I do not know what he might have kept here. If I may?"

At Marinette's nod, he phased through the floor to check it out, and returned swiftly. "There is something down there! A box of some kind," he confirmed. "But the mechanism is very intricate. It might take even me a while to puzzle it out. Whatever it is, it is something that Master did not want someone to find accidentally."

It took twenty minutes for the two of them to free the floorboard through trial and error. Twice, a misstep snapped a piece back into its original position and they were forced to start over. At long last, perseverance won out and the board rose gently at an angle, giving access to the prize beneath.

Wayzz and Marinette looked at each other briefly. Mutual curiosity winning out over nervousness, Wayzz pushed against the loose board gently while Marinette reached inside...

"How very interesting!" bubbled Wayzz.

The box in Marinette's hands was rectangular and black. When she brushed aside the dust covering the top of it, she saw red calligraphy characters painted onto the box, in no language that Marinette recognized. She looked at Wayzz, who indicated that he didn't recognize them either, and then looked back at the box. It felt slightly warm in her grasp.

"Are you going to say it, or am I?" whispered Marinette.

"I will. I think that is a Miraculous!" gasped Wayzz. "But it's not one from our set!"

"Your set?" wondered Marinette. "Just how many sets are there?"

"Remember your lessons," instructed Wayzz. "Whenever a new concept was formulated strongly enough in the universe, a new Kwami was born. This was true long before the beginning of humans' recorded history! Creation, Destruction, Transmission, Jubilation, Protection... all the -ions. Ancient Chinese mages learned the secrets of binding Kwamis to jewelry that we now know as the Miraculous... however, surely they cannot be the only people who have ever succeeded at that. Master traveled all over the world before he settled in Paris; who knows what he might have acquired along the way?"

"So this could be from just about anywhere in the world?" Marinette marveled. "What concept might it represent? How powerful might it be?"

"The Chinese set covers a large amount of ground... I cannot imagine it would be on the level of Creation or Destruction," ventured Wayzz. "Beyond that, nearly anything is possible."

"There are no... bad Miraculous or Kwamis, are there?" worried Marinette. "Like how the Moth isn't bad, it's that Hawkmoth is misusing Nooroo?"

"Correct," Wayzz clarified, "though some concepts are more... tasteful than others."

"Well..." reasoned Marinette, "I guess we won't know until we open it..."

A long moment passed in complete silence.

"That... that's jewelry, all right," Marinette finally managed. "In two pieces."

"Indeed it is," Wayzz said, flatly.

"And I... have a hunch as to where they would go," continued Marinette, forcing the words out. "Though I don't think that I want to know that for sure."

"I was rather hoping that I would not have to explain that to you," echoed Wayzz. He made a small gesture, to which Marinette turned beet red and nodded her head.

"Master Fu wouldn't have... would he?" she asked, weakly.

"If I can tell you anything for sure, it is that such things were not to his taste," Wayzz assured her.

"I am not trying them on. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever," Marinette insisted. "It's just not going to happen."

"Nor would I ask you to," chuckled Wayzz. "What do you want to do with them?"

"Part of me is screaming to put them back where you found them, now," mumbled Marinette. "But the Guardian part of me is wondering... if we could find someone who would be comfortable wearing these... who knows what kind of untapped power they represent?"

Wayzz merely shrugged.

"Hmmm," mused Marinette. "Tikki is off visiting the other Kwamis in the Miracle Box right now, or I'd ask her what she makes of this..."

"She's already red enough as it is," Wayzz noted. "You do not have to... wear them to invoke them, if you dare. Just hold them in your hand and will them to be yours, however temporarily." To her look of distaste, he added, "They do not look like they are in any way unsanitary, if that helps. I doubt that they have been awakened in many decades, judging from the dust on the box. And I will admit that I am highly curious. After all these centuries, to meet new cousins!"

"All right." Suppressing the urge to cringe, Marinette put the small items in her hand and concentrated.

A dual white flash took her breath away for a moment...

"Well, hello there, gorgeous!"

A bright, high-pitched voice greeted Marinette with considerable enthusiasm. "What a pleasant sight to wake up to, at last! I've been hoping someone like you would come along for a very long time," it bubbled.

"Yessss... a very long time," a lower, growlier voice echoed from nearby. It sounded friendly to Marinette's ears, or at least certainly not hostile... yet somehow left her a bit unsettled, as well. "It'll be good to have some new comp'ny."

"Easy, you," his companion cautioned him. "We finally got out of the box; don't get us thrown right back in! And, besides... now that I get a good look at her, this one might be a li'l young to play with us, don't you think?" After a pause, she added, "And, yes, that matters."

"Hmmph," grumbled the second voice.

"Hello there to you, too," Marinette replied, cautiously. "Are you two... Kwamis?"

The pair were the right general size for Kwamis, floating in the air in front of Marinette. The female-sounding one looked like a surprisingly curvaceous sheep, while her companion looked like a fighting rooster that had won three or four local tournaments, picked up some bad habits and survived a close encounter with a truck tire or two.

"And how about dat, Sugar? She's got brains as well as good looks," the sheep grinned. "Yes, we are Kwamis. This here's my Dixie Chicken, and I'm his Tennessee Lamb."

"Greetings," Wayzz piped up. "I am Wayzz, the Kwami of Protection. Your Miraculous are not of Chinese origin, I take it?"

"One hunnerd percent 'Merican," grinned the Chicken. "A little Louisiana hoodoo, as I recall."

"Interesting. I take it that whatever magic existed there explains your... unusual set of jewelry?" Wayzz continued.

"T'ain't so unusual down our way," the Chicken countered. "T'ain't a thing for little girls, though. Not usually, anyway," he leered, making Marinette take a step back involuntarily. "So how's a little girl know what a Kwami is, hmmm?"

"I was wonderin' that myself," the Lamb added. "Last time we were out, it was Old Man Fu giving us the eye. Didn't like the look of us. Didn't like the look of him much, neither."

"You will not speak of Master that way," growled Wayzz. "And I will have you know that Marinette is a Guardian of the Miraculous. You will show her some respect."

"A Guardian?" marveled the Lamb. "At her age? Heavens above, I would not have guessed that. I am impressed, young lady!"

"Somethin' happen to the old guy?" asked the Chicken. "You take him out, or somethin'?"

"Easy, Wayzz," Marinette warned him, sensing that her tiny friend was ready to pounce. "Why was it that Master Fu disapproved of you? What are you two the Kwamis of, if I may ask?"

"Well, a lot of the really big concepts were taken by the time we came along. We weren't part of the first batch," explained the Lamb, "but there's lots of different ways for humans to have fun, know what I mean? They call me Teezze. I'm the Kwami of Seduction."

"Teezze as in 'tease.' I get it," Marinette pondered, not really having wanted to get it. "Not what I would call the most obvious strategy for fighting evil..."

"Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer," Teezze grinned. "Sometimes very close indeed."

"Right. I am... just going to stop there, okay?" replied Marinette, nervously. "And how about you?"

If Teezze's grin was a toothy one, the Chicken's was absolutely sinister. "They call me Sleeze," he laughed. "And I'm an old hand at dealing with evil. Gotta know your enemy, right? Figure out what he does, what makes him tick. Do what he does. Learn how it works. How to do it bettah."

"Sleeze is the Kwami of Perversion," Teezze explained.

Both Marinette and Wayzz stared at Teezze, with jaws dropped, then back at Sleeze, whose grin widened even further.

"How're you doin', baby?" he leered at Marinette.

"I warned ya, dangit," they heard Teezze mutter faintly at her partner.

As they left the building, Marinette shivered and gave Wayzz a meaningful look. "We are never going to speak of this again," she declared.

"I can't argue with that," Wayzz agreed. "What an experience... I hope all of my cousins aren't like that."

"I mean it," Marinette ordered him. "The other things we found, those are fine. But one word of them to Plagg... especially to Plagg, I'd never hear the end of this from him... and you'll be joining them."

"Understood!" announced Wayzz, recoiling.

In a dark, deserted sub-basement in Master Fu's old studio, there was a black box with red calligraphic characters painted on it.

The box was locked inside another box, which had an intricate device of Master Fu's design repurposed to hold it securely shut.

The second box was buried in yet another hidden compartment, this one beneath the basement floor. The rest of the compartment was filled with every other nearby object Marinette could find, to minimize the hollow sound its door might make if tapped.

A set of heavy crates and storage boxes had been piled on top of the hidden panel, haphazardly arranged so as to appear that the pile hadn't been disturbed in years.

The door at the top of the stairs had been locked, checked twice, and covered by some shoved-into-place filing cabinets. Marinette wasn't sure yet whether she was going to drop the basement key in the Seine or glue it to a particular girder on the Eiffel Tower, but it wouldn't be going anywhere that it would be found any time soon.

Inside the box, an unusual set of jewelry sat motionless, waiting... where it would be waiting for a very long time.

~fin~