Amour chassé-croisé
In the age before time was counted, when the world was still unshaped, two forces existed in perfect balance : Destruction and Creation. They were neither good nor evil, but the twin forces of all things, what is made must one day be unmade, and what is lost must be born anew.
From the cosmic weave of existence, two sacred beings emerged to guard these forces. Tikki, the Firefly, carried the power of boundless creation, weaving life, light, and destiny into the fabric of the universe. Where she fluttered, civilizations flourished, stars ignited, and dreams took form. She was the guiding spark in the darkness, the whisper of new beginnings.
Opposite her was Plagg, the Black Cat, the silent bringer of change. He was not merely destruction, but transformation, the storm that clears the old, the decay that feeds the soil, the chaos that births renewal. With a mere touch, he could unravel the strongest of empires, reducing all to dust so that something new could rise.
For eons, these two forces danced in harmony, neither overpowering the other, for one could not exist without its twin. But the power of Destruction and Creation was too great for the hands of mortals, and so the Miraculous were forged, sacred vessels that would allow chosen wielders to channel their strength.
Legends tell of times when these Miraculous fell into human hands. When one alone was used, the world tilted, either towards endless ruin or stagnant perfection. But when both came together, their wielders could rewrite reality itself, for the Firefly and the Cat were two halves of the same cosmic truth.
Yet, the tale carries a warning : those who seek to control both Creation and Destruction walk a path of gods and fools. To wield them together is to hold the threads of existence itself, and in the wrong hands, even the stars could be undone.
"I’m just a normal guy with a normal life… well, mostly."
That’s what Ekko would say if anyone asked. A regular high school student in Paris, just trying to make it through classes, tinker with whatever broken tech he could get his hands on, and maybe, just maybe, catch the attention of a certain blue-haired girl. To most, he was just another kid with big ideas and an even bigger heart.
But when night fell and the city’s underbelly stirred, he was something else entirely.
The Firefly Miraculous, an artifact of creation and endless possibility, had chosen him. With it came Tikki, the ancient Kwami of Creation, and a duty far greater than any school assignment. As a hero, he was fast, clever, untouchable, his mind and body working in perfect sync, just like the gears of a well-oiled machine.
By day, he was Ekko, the boy who dreamed of fixing the world.
By night, he was its guardian.
Ekko sat on his bed, one leg dangling over the edge, lost in thought as he stared at the picture pinned to his wall. It wasn’t the only one, magazine covers, runway shots, and candid street photos of Powder filled the space, each one a reminder of the girl who had once been his best friend.
Powder. The name itself felt like a whisper of the past, like dust stirred up by forgotten memories. He still remembered the little girl with wild blue hair, oversized sweaters, and a mind full of impossible ideas. Back then, they had been inseparable, building things out of scraps, racing through the streets of Paris, talking about all the inventions they would create together. She used to laugh so easily, bright and reckless, her eyes lighting up like fireworks.
Then, one day, she was gone.
Silco had taken her abroad, pulling her into a life that was worlds away from the one they’d shared. Years passed, and the next time Ekko saw her, it wasn’t on the streets of Paris, it was in the glossy pages of fashion magazines, on billboards towering over Piltover. The Powder he had known was still there, but now she was a model whose face was everywhere. The wild girl who once smeared grease on her cheeks now walked the runways of the most luxurious brands, draped in silk and diamonds.
She was untouchable. Perfect. A dream just out of reach.
Ekko sighed, leaning back against the wall. He told himself it was just admiration, that he kept up with her career because it was cool to see a girl he had known making it big. But the truth was, she still made his heart race the way she always had.
And the worst part ? Powder barely even remembered him.
At school, she was distant, guarded, surrounded by a world of cameras, designers, and people who understood the life she lived now. Ekko was just some kid from her past, someone she used to know before she became the Powder everyone else saw. But he still saw the real her.
The girl who used to build explosives out of scrap. The girl who climbed rooftops with him, daring each other to jump farther, run faster. The girl who, for a time, had been his whole world.
Ekko exhaled, tearing his eyes away from the picture.
He had to let this go.
And yet, as he reached for his tools, ready to distract himself with another unfinished project, his gaze drifted back.
Some things were harder to fix than others.
Ekko still remembered the first time he saw her again, back in high school.
It had been raining that day, one of those sudden storms that turned the streets into rivers and left the air thick with the scent of metal and ozone. He hadn’t even realized he was standing in the downpour, too busy daydreaming, leading him to sprint back towards the school he was just leaving to cover up and wait for the downpour to pass before going home. That’s when he saw her.
Powder.
She stood under the awning, perfectly dry, flipping through something on her phone. Even with the gray sky overhead, even in the middle of a soaked and crowded street, she looked like she had stepped straight out of a magazine. She had grown so much since he last saw her, longer hair, sharper features, a confidence in the way she stood that was nothing like the scrawny girl he used to chase through alleyways.
Ekko had stopped dead in his tracks, his breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat.
She was right there.
It should’ve been easy to just walk up and say something, anything, but his feet felt like they were stuck in place. What was he supposed to say after all these years ? “Hey remember me ?” Like she didn’t have a whole new life, one that didn’t include him.
Then, just as he was about to turn away, Powder looked up.
For a second, he thought he saw recognition in her eyes. Then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by a small, polite smile. The kind you give to strangers.
Ekko swallowed hard. Yeah. Of course.
Then she did something he never expected.
She stepped forward, into the rain, and held out an umbrella.
Ekko blinked. “Huh ?”
“You’re uh… kinda drowning” she said, tilting her head slightly. Her voice was different now, smoother, more refined, but underneath, there was still a trace of the Powder he remembered.
“Oh. Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding. “Thanks.”
He reached for the umbrella, but before he could take it, Powder smirked, twirled it in her hand, and, with absolutely no warning, pressed it into his chest and walked past him, stepping into the rain herself.
Ekko turned, watching as she walked away, completely unbothered by the downpour. She hadn’t even looked back.
And just like that, the moment was over.
Ekko sighed, pulling himself back to the present as he stared at her picture on the wall.
Yeah. He was in trouble.
By day, Powder was perfect.
She was graceful, composed, the ideal daughter, the rising star of Paris’s fashion world, the girl everyone admired but never truly knew. Every step she took was measured, every word carefully chosen. She smiled when she was supposed to, played her part without flaw. It was easier that way.
But it wasn’t real.
There had been a time when she wasn’t like this. A time before the accident. Before Silco took her away at her demand, before she learned that the only way to move forward was to bury the girl she used to be. Now, that girl existed only in memories, flickering at the edges of her mind like echoes of a life she barely recognized.
Vi probably still remembered her that way.
Powder sighed, leaning against her bedroom window, watching the lights of the city flicker in the distance. Vi had tried, in the beginning. Messages, calls, awkward attempts to reconnect. But Powder had never been good at answering. She wanted to, God, she wanted to, but every time she tried, the words got stuck, tangled in everything left unsaid. Now, Vi had Caitlyn. She had college. A life.
And Powder had this one.
Or at least, she did until the mask came on.
When night fell, when she whispered a single word and let the transformation take hold, everything changed.
As Jinx, she didn’t have to be composed. She didn’t have to smile at cameras or pretend she wasn’t suffocating under the weight of expectations. She could run, leap, feel the wind tear through her hair as she soared across the rooftops of the city. She could laugh. She could destroy. She could be free.
Because Jinx didn’t care about being perfect. Jinx was chaos, wild and untamed, a streak of neon against the city’s darkness. And for just a little while, Powder could forget the girl trapped behind the glass and lose herself in the night.
On her first day back at a Parisian high school, the city itself seemed to weep with a gentle, persistent rain, a fitting prelude to new beginnings and old memories intertwined. Powder moved through the crowded hallways with the same measured grace that had made her a rising star in the fashion world. Her demeanor was impeccable : calm, reserved, every smile practiced and precise. Yet beneath that composed exterior, hidden away like a secret she dared not share, there flickered the remnants of a once-unbridled spirit, a spirit that had been tempered by an accident and years of silence away from the life she had known.
As she waited for Sevika to come pick her up, her eyes caught sight of a familiar figure.
Ekko, her childhood friend, once the co-conspirator in daring adventures and whispered dreams, stood alone beneath the muted gray sky, his hair and clothes soaked by the Parisian rain. In that moment, time seemed to slow. Memories of sunlit afternoons filled with laughter, of shared schemes and innocent rebellions, surged within her. For a heartbeat, Powder’s heart ached with both longing and regret, a bittersweet reminder of the bond that had once meant everything.
She recalled how they had promised each other endless possibilities, not knowing that life would soon pull them onto separate paths. Without fully understanding why, Powder found herself reaching for the umbrella she’d kept with her since returning, a small token of care that now felt laden with significance. It was a simple act, yet on that rainy day, it bridged a gulf of years and unspoken words. Stepping forward, she approached Ekko with the practiced calm of a public figure, yet with a tremor of genuine emotion that threatened to unravel her carefully maintained façade.
He looked surprised when she walked to him. Perhaps he'd forgotten after all this time without contact. His initial surprise pinched his heart, leading her to reply in a far less elegant manner than she would have liked.
“You’re uh… kinda drowning ” she said softly, extending the umbrella with a steady hand. Her voice was as controlled as ever, yet for a brief moment, the composure that defined Powder wavered, revealing the quiet, conflicted heart of the girl who had once run free through the streets of Paris and now found herself both anchored by duty and yearning for freedom.
Ekko paused, surprise and gratitude mingling in his eyes as he accepted the umbrella. In that simple exchange, a fragment of their shared past was resurrected, an unspoken acknowledgment of the connection that still bound them, despite the changes wrought by time and circumstance. For Powder, the gesture was more than politeness. It was a silent homage to the life she had left behind, and a tentative step toward reclaiming a piece of herself she feared had been lost forever.
As the rain continued to fall and the murmur of Paris carried on around them, Powder felt a subtle shift within. Though her daytime life demanded the composure of a famous model and the reserved dignity of Silco’s adopted daughter, the memory of that moment stirred something deep inside, a reminder of the wild, unrestrained freedom she embraced each night as Jinx. In the darkness, when she shed the mask of perfection, she was untethered, liberated by the power of destruction that allowed her to rewrite her own story.
Yet now, in the fragile light of the early school day, Powder couldn’t help but wonder if that night-time freedom might someday blend with the yearning of her heart, a longing to reconnect with the past, to heal old wounds, and perhaps, to rediscover a bond that had once promised endless possibility.
Under the cloak of a Parisian night, Jinx prowled the rooftops with a quiet, deliberate grace. The city, alive with the pulse of neon and rain, seemed to bend around her, a perfect stage for secrets and whispered desires. Tonight, however, her mind was not solely on the art of controlled chaos. It danced around a familiar, radiant presence : the Firefly holder.
Every time she thought of him, a spark of mischief and longing ignited within her. In the darkness, as Jinx, she felt an exhilarating freedom, one that let her shed the carefully constructed mask of Powder, the composed model admired by day. Here, among the flickering lights and distant echoes of Parisian chatter, she could be herself : wild, unpredictable, and daringly flirtatious.
She remembered the first night she’d glimpsed him from afar. Amidst the scattered beams of streetlights, there was a moment when his silhouette caught the light, she found herself frozen in time, admiring someone who didn't hesitate, who had advanced into danger with courage and self-confidence. The first time she saw him was also the first time she was Jinx, and she had felt her interest piqued by the man in front of her about whom she knew nothing. In front of him, she was free to be whoever she wanted. And although she was rather atypical and they both obviously knew nothing about the tasks they would have to carry out as Miraculous Holders, they had surprisingly made a good team. They seemed to complement each other, just as their kwami were all two sides of the same coin.
Her eyes gleaming with both adoration and a dash of daring as she remembered her partner, she let her thoughts wander “if only you knew how much your glow makes my night sparkle.”
In her mind’s eye, she flirted with the notion of a challenge, a rooftop rendezvous where sparks, both literal and figurative, might fly. The thrill of the chase and the promise of laughter mingled with the bitter memory of the accident that had forced her into silence for so long. With him, the weight of her guarded façade felt a little lighter, as if his light had the power to illuminate even the darkest corners of her past. She recalled how his creative energy had always complemented her own chaotic nature, and in that unspoken harmony lay an irresistible allure.
As Jinx, she allowed herself a rare moment of vulnerability, a secret acknowledgment that every calculated act of destruction, every burst of rebellion against the world’s constraints, was tinged with the hope of catching his eye. She knew it : she'd fallen under his spell the first time she saw him. In the symphony of the night, her playful banter took the shape of a daring smile aimed in his direction, a silent dare that said “Catch me if you can.” It was a flirtation not just of words, but of actions : the way she would orchestrate a controlled burst of luminescent sparks, the way her laughter echoed off the ancient Parisian stones when she narrowly evaded capture by her own explosive art. Even though he spurned all her advances, she had become used to playing these games with him, when they were doing their rounds and nothing seemed to disturb the calm that reigned in Paris after dark.
Yet, amid the exhilaration, there lingered a quiet truth : she could never know the identity of the man she loved. Plagg had told her several times, it was dangerous for them to know each other's personal details. However, despite the warnings, against all odds, with every mission, every day that passed, she found herself thinking about him even more than the day before. Despite the fact he didn't really seem to reciprocate her flirtatious attitude, although he did match his attitude somewhat, always putting up a sort of invisible wall between them to keep them apart, in the solitude of the Parisian night, with only the whisper of the wind as her confidant, Jinx allowed herself to dream.
She dreamed of moments when their paths might cross more intimately, a chance to merge the worlds of creation and destruction, to find solace in the luminous promise of a firefly’s glow. Until then, she would keep dancing on the edge of chaos, a provocative smile always ready for the next spark that might just lead her back to Ekko. Or the next akumatized person, even though she didn't wish anyone to fall into the clutches of someone who, unlike them, didn't seem to want to use the powers of his Miraculous for good and fed on human misery.
In the dim, forgotten corners of Paris, rumors whispered of a mysterious figure known only by the symbol of the butterfly. He moved like a shadow in a dream, unpredictable, dangerous, and impossible to grasp. His presence was heralded by a subtle, almost hypnotic flutter that seemed to twist reality itself, leaving behind a trail of both wonder and unease. No one could say where he came from or what secrets he guarded, only that his power was as ephemeral and lethal as the delicate wings of a nocturnal butterfly. In a city that thrived on light and beauty, his dark allure remained a constant enigma, a silent promise of transformation and peril hidden beneath a fragile guise.