...Tock

~~China, 192X~~

[A lone carriage strolled across the pathway to a castle town, inside of it stood a lone, elderly figure. The carriage soon stopped itself by the gates as a guardsman knocked on the door, asking for identification. The figure gave the guard a slip of paper, and the gates opened, keying the carriage through. The carriage strolled along down the path towards a majestic palace. Once there, the elderly got off and walked up to the door and knocked on the door, until it unexpectedly opened and the elderly figure flinched. A jester wearing bright colors and a comedy mask waltz right up to her.]

["Ah- uh er, ni how." The elderly figue spoke, in broken Chinese. "Ni shi kong zely ley de ma?"]

["No, I'm new here, but I know the place very well. And I speak very good english." The jester responds in english. "I've heard of you, detective. You and your adventures. Such a shame the years seem to catch up to you. Here, you might need this to find your way around." The jester handed her a scroll containing the layouts of the lamp, and then left.]

["Hang on, I haven't gotten your name." the aging detective called out. The jester stopped in his tracks and turned to face her.]

["You may call me the resident jester, -"]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alya, Can you repeat that again. You want me to do what?" Marinette asked, confused.

"For crying out loud, Marinette, it's simple. Bake a buffet worth of goods, design dress and decorations for a dance we're hosting under that brat's nose by next week." Alya. States. "If you do all of this for us, then MAYBE we might forget your jealousy streak."

Marinette thought to herself for a minute. On one hand, the bullying might stop, and they can become friends again. On the other hand, this is too much for her alone to accomplish.

"I'm sure she'd love to." Adrien intercepted before she could hope to answer. "After all, she's our everyday ladybug. Right princess?" He looked at her. Marinette couldn't help but feel charmed.

"Well, I uh, am eh-"

"Perfect, I knew you could do it." Adrien states as he and Alya left her alone in her room. Marinette slumped down and tried to come up with several design ideas for her classmates. She might've tried to be neutral in this, the fact that Adrien has hope in her changed her mind. She didn't like to upset him.

Soon, she was visited by a friendly face.

"Hey, ma-ma-Marinette." Luka spoke. "What are you designing today?"

"Hey luka." She spoke back. "I'm designing my classmates' commissions."

"Ok, what did they commissioned exactly?" He asked, concerned about her well being. Marinette looked up to him.

"oh , you know, dresses, food, decorations, the usual stuff for a party…" she states, trying to draw several rough sketches of various dresses. Luka looks at them with concern.

"Melody, when are these for?" he asked.

"Oh, by next week." she answered casually. Luka was shocked. "Ma-ma-marinette, you can't be THAT serious. Don't they know that it takes weeks to organise such things, are they at least helping you?" he asked.

"N-no." she admits. "But they need me for the party. Besides, if this works, they'll forgive me."

Luka groaned, but left her to it. There was no point in talking her out of something. Once she puts her mind to it, she won't back down. He soon went to his bedroom, sleeping whilst hoping she would go to bed herself sooner before sunrise.

~~~~~~

Meanwhile, in a distant realm, Lloyd was sparring with one of the oni Lords, Venge. The oni lord thrusted his dual blood red swords towards him, which the oni prince parried bare handed before knocking them off his hands with his horns. Venge took hold of his horns and arms using his four arms and flung him towards a nearby wall. Lloyd teleported behind him before he could hit the wall and unleashed a flurry of claw attacks on him. Venge turned and backhanded him on the face. Lloyd responded by exhaling his dragon breath towards his general direction. This caused the oni warlord to crash into a wall so hard that rubble fell onto him afterwards. He quickly got out of the rubble.

"You've grown, young prince." Venge states as he retrieved his swords. "I expect nothing more than Lord Garmadon's second biological child."

Venge caught the shadow dagger that appeared in Lloyd's hand that was thrown in his way in his hand. the oni warlord knew what would trigger the young prince. At that point, Decer, another oni warlord, appeared.in the room

"Venge, you've been called." the second warlord states. The two oni warlords teleported into a large war room. Lord Garmadon, Omega and Hareed were seated.

"All Oni warlords call their names." the large horned oni warlord call out. "Omega"

They turned to the ninjagan warlord. "Lord Garmadon."

Then to the other four armed warlord. "Lord Venge."

Then to the other warlord. "Lord Decer."

Then to an empty spot on the table. "Still no contact?" Omega asked.

"Not even after a century and a few years." Garmadon responds.

"Alright, next." the elder Oni replies.

They then turned to the female Oni "Lady Ha'reed."

"The Council of the Omni calls forth a meeting to all warlords in regards to a terrible situation." Omega, the elder oni, proclaims. "Lord Garmadon has brought news that he has found the miraculous, along with terrible news: the prophecy of armagedon."

This caught the attention of the three other warlords. They knew the consequences of the death of the young ladybug user.

"The child in question is called Marinette Dupain-Cheng." Garmadon announces as he produced a holographic projection of the girl. "A student in what is publicly called 'the akuma class'. She, as well as a bloke named Adrien Agreste, are the new guardians of the miraculous. The class is against Marinette for believing her to be a jealous lying bully.

"Typical teenage drama." Hareed commented. "It's like whoever gave them the miraculous had set them up for failure."

"Whatever it is, they're not fit to keep the miraculous, but we also have to keep her alive." Garmadon states. "Anything happens to her, the entire world is fucked. I want all oni to be prepared for anything."

"Anything… including the event of another… Bridgette event." Decer responds. They all shuddered at the thought. Those who were present remembered personally how painful the reign went. It cost the oni's the peace between them and the humans… as well as the disbandment of the first jury of nine.

"... Let's not have a reenactment of that, shall we." Omega states. "Meeting adjourned."

The warlords soon left the room one by one. Lord Garmadon was soon joined by his son. |How was the meeting? Are they going to react?|

"They'll investigate in their own way." Garmadon responds. "They still have memories of how badly their last encounter with a miraculous ended."

|Alright… by the way, what happened to the warlord who didn't show up?|

Lord Garmadon looked back at him. "He would happen to be Lord Lucifer," he responds. "...My former apprentice. An ultima with a broken mentality and a darkness far greater than I've ever seen, even capable of resurrecting himself with no outside help. That level of darkness is said to be on par with the first cat user, Shad the destroyer. He claims to have lived a past life, which not even himself can fully remember. All he knew is that he was sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit, on the basis of his wolfen trait. He desires to restore nature and the animal kingdom, but he despises humanity, which he describes as despicable, greedy lying bastards and wishes that they would perish. He'll go to any length to achieve human genocide, yet will shove it aside temporarily for the sake of the environment… I, nor any of the warlords, have not heard of him since the great devourer, when he left to find pieces in his mental equation to bring humanity's final solution."

|Seems like he's dedicated to his causes.| Lloyd remarks.

"That may be him to you, but he's something else altogether. He's more twisted than a mad hatter, his personality shifts at random moments. One moment he's telling a joke to someone, the next he'll stab said person in the back and rip out his insides. And that he attacks his own allies at times. However, he's the kind of guy that makes complex plans, so complex neither of us understands it. He does have some sort of connection towards the animals, mainly hedgehogs and other woodland creatures. We use the latter to distract him, due to how he loves them…" Lord Garmadon soon grimaced nervously. "although he does react when one is killed in his vicinity."

His mute son looked at him looking quite perplexed. He never knew that his father could feel fear.

"Like I said… he's an ultima, and they're quite known to go on an unstoppable, unstable animalistic frenzy when provoked, becoming so powerful that even looking into their eyes would kill you… and he's a region wide frenzy, packing like a nuke." Garmadon explains in a dark tone. "And even when he isn't, he still likes to mess with them. He tends to hide his dark side at times, fooling his opponents into lowering their guard."

|So, a wildcard… how do you retain all those information.| Lloyd asked, becoming quite confused at the explanaition.

"Still, it would've been better if he were around back when he attacked us a century ago." He growled at the thought of what happened back in China a century ago. If only he knew what happened to her. He pushed those sad thoughts back in his mind as he returned to his volcanic lair.

He felt that Ninjago had missed his brand of chaos and fear.

~~~~

Back in Paris, the fairytale detective was settling in with the french couple, trying to adapt to the modern era. The place was filled with new technologies she hasn't even heard of, as well as historic events she wasn't part of. The couples were telling tales of their families, mostly about their daughter, Marinette. They refer to her birth as a miracle because, on the day she was born, there was a storm outside, and the doctors told her that she looked quite ill, which thankfully, she had overcome moments later.

Family… that was something the detective felt heavy on. Her most recent adventure had unintentionally restored her youth, at the cost of a broken family, with the wife dead and the daughter lost in the corridors of time. She felt bad because she felt responsible for the incident.

Worse, it literally was (or felt like) that it all happened yesterday . Although, given the circumstances regarding the villain's use of time travel, that would've been the case. She wanted to tell them what happened, but it wasn't like they would believe her.

However, a slip of a tongue from the father (whom she believed was called Tom Dupain) had the detective believe that there were miraculous around. she was only familiar with the dark ones, and had only heard stories of the rest from her mentor, sensei Wu. When asked, it appeared that there was a magical terrorist that corrupts people with evil butterflies. The last time she heard of that was during the 'queen of sand' case back in France a long time ago. Back then, Some Onis had been infected because one believed it to be related to the butterfly miraculous. She decided to investigate this Hawkmoth person and see what was really going on here. With her belongings gathered, and having heard of rumors of a double homicide on an old couple nearby, she thanked the married couple and ventured out around modern day Paris, hoping to rectify her mistakes.