Chapter Text
Millennia ago, before the world became as we now know it today, an ancient sage and expert craftsman, known now only as Shao-Lang first came into contact with the spirits known as the Kwamis.
While it is unknown through what means he was able to connect with them, the things he discovered they could do, what they represented, and the power they had motivated him to create a means through which they could connect with the material world, from the realm of the spiritual which they were forever locked in.
After much trial and error, he successfully forged a series of magical jewels, which each of Kwamis imbued with their own unique power, allowing them to access the material world so long as each jewel had a holder, one who would wield the power of the Kwamis and use it for the benefit of humanity and the world as a whole. These jewels, which were fixed and fashioned to correspond with each kwami’s unique form and ability, soon became known as the Miraculous.
Among the most powerful were the Earrings of the Ladybug Kwami: the spirit of Creation and Good Luck, and the Ring of the Black cat Kwami: the spirit of Destruction and Bad Luck.
Shao Lang learned that when brought together, these two Miraculous could grant the user ultimate power, one stronger than the forces of nature and death itself.
He realized that if word of this power ever got out, there would be war without end in a bid to obtain both jewels. In order to avoid such an apocalyptic scenario, the great sage never wrote this revelation down anywhere, besides his own personal scroll, nor spoke of it to anyone but the Kwamis.
Shao lang went on, with the approval of each Kwami, to grant each Miraculous to his friends and family, ensuring each would swear an oath towards using theirs for the greater good and never for evil or personal gain. For a time, an era of peace and prosperity fell upon his home land.
However, this would not last.
The holder of the butterfly miraculous, Ye-Lang; Shao Lang’s nephew, through unknown means discovered of the ultimate power granted by the Miraculi of creation and destruction, and in a blazing inclination to obtain it, he turned away from his oath and began to abuse his miraculous in a way of which Shao Lang and the Kwami’s themselves hoped would never come to be.
His Miraculous, the one of the Butterfly, which possessed the power to create Kamikos, magical butterflies capable of turning anyone with even a hint of intense emotion whether it be good or bad into the holder’s own personal champion, served as the forefront of his plan. He turned those which were supposed to be beacons of light into harbingers of darkness, and from then on out the butterflies throughout the land became known no longer as Kamikos, but as Akumas.
For years Ye-Lang along with his disciples, fought with the holders of the other miraculous in a conflict of which the Kwamis anticipated, but still hoped would never come to pass. Thousands died, villages were flattened, and once unbreakable bonds were shattered by the sorrows of war.
Then at last, with one final battle, Ye-Lang was slain by his own uncle using the combined power of the very things which he had so desperately sought after.
Though he had won, in the end, both Shao Lang’s heart and his home were left broken, and soon after in a moment's decision, he confiscated all the Miraculous and went into deep self-exile.
While away he decided that the miraculous were too powerful and tempting to be freely granted to humanity, and took upon the role of Guardian, the first of such, to ensure that they would never again be used in a way that would cause chaos in the world.
Shao Lang died a decade later, and would pass on the Miraculous to his most trusted apprentice, whom he had met while in exile.
When he died, he too would pass the Miraculous onto his apprentice, and he his, and so on.
Centuries passed, and with each new guardian the miraculous began to once more make their way out into the world. When times of chaos arose or when the world faced a threat too big to be handled alone, the miraculous, in particular the ones of the Ladybug and Black Cat, would venture out across the globe and find new holders who possessed the courage, and the heart needed to save the day and restore peace.
As time went on, a new order of guardians was built up from the ashes of the first, with the job to guard, study, and regulate the occasional distribution of the miraculous to new holders. For over 2000 years the miraculous and the world were kept safe.
But sadly, it is the natural order of the world nothing can ever last forever, and that all good things must sooner or later come to an end.
Tragedy struck once more. A local Qing Noble and warlord, who lived near the location of the temple of guardians, heard about the Miraculous through a series of rumors circulating through the region which he ruled over.
Unlike threats of old however, the warlord did not see the Miraculous as an opportunity towards expanding his power, but rather viewed their unnatural abilities as a threat to both it, his country, and humanity as a whole. And so, driven by fear, the warlord gathered together an army, and dispatched it to the temple with the sole objective of eradicating the order and the miraculous from existence.
The guardians fought valiantly that night, but in the end were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. In the heat of the action, a singular guardian was able to escape the onslaught with a few of the Miraculous including those of the Ladybug and Black cat.
A few days later he would return to the site of the temple, in the hope that there may be a possibility of salvage. But when he arrived, all that was left was the remnants of inhuman carnage.
Every last guardian, even down to the youngest trainee was slaughtered, and all of the miraculous save for the 5 which he escaped with, were destroyed. Their last traces scattered amongst the ground like pieces of a mosaic, and their Kwamis once more banished back to the cold and endlessly isolated spiritual realm from whence they came.
He left China soon after, and for years he wandered throughout the world, traveling from continent to continent, until at last, he settled down in the city of Paris, France, where he took on the self proclaimed role as the last Guardian of the last few Miraculous.
A spacious, yet dark and rather cluttered room is shown. The walls were separated into two sections, with the lower and larger section being painted a common white, and the upper and smaller section being painted a beautiful silk red with elaborate floral patterns dancing along the wooden beam that split apart the two highly contrasting halves. The floor was made of simple wood, but was mostly covered up by clutter, dressers, decoration, potted plants, and a large beige traditional Chinese mattress which encompassed the center of the room. On the walls hung decorational scrolls displaying rows of ink sinograms, and framed Guo-Hua paintings depicting either natural scenes of which one could only see in places that had been uninterrupted by man, or iconic scholars and monks who’s tales went and continue to go sadly unnoticed by a large portion of the world.
The room was illuminated by traditional orange lanterns, each donned with a pair of sinograms at each side, with the bright full moon of the warm late summer’s night shining through the patterned windows of the large planters balcony doors which took up the bottom center of the longer left wall, at least from the perspective of someone entering the room though the brown door on the shorter wall next to it. Two brown dressers stood at two of the walls, one next to the balcony doors which atop it were a small decorative gong and some potted succulents, and more prominently a larger one which housed an oddly placed gramophone amongst a sea of candles, plants, and decorative cups.
At the very center of the room, sat an old Chinese man, dressed in a red and white buttoned up Hawaiian shirt, ankle length tan capri pants, and brown Birkenstock slip ons. He was short in stature, and his hair was an old gray as displayed by the thick layer that seemed to cover all but the top, and the thin Van Dyke which rested upon his lips and chin, which even at first glance, defined his appearance for anyone who had met him. Just by viewing him, anyone could tell that despite his age, he was a man of wisdom and experience, who had seen many things of which most people have never nor will ever get the chance to see before their own two eyes.
The Man stood up from his Criss cross position on the mattress and turned around to face the large dresser upon which sat the Gramophone. He slowly approached the outdated music device and eyed the heads of the two face to face bronze dragons that had wrapped themselves around the bottom of Gramophone.
Looking at their outwardly stuck brown pupilless eyes, he stuck out his thumbs and pressed against them, letting them push back until a small click resonated through the air.
He removed his thumbs and soon after the heads of the dragon along with the wooden background they were fixed against flipped back, revealing a hidden console with two rows of similarly silver buttons. He stuck out his pointer finger and tapped 3 more buttons in the shape of an upright obtuse triangle, before backing up a step and watching as the top of the gramophone began to rotate around, clicking with each centimeter like the hands and gears of an old grandfather clock until, after turning 180 degrees, it stopped and flipped open like a bottle cap, revealing in its hollow interior, a small, octagonal box built out of old Ebony wood, and fashioned with small half-circular gold plates which were stuck onto the sides of the box like handles to drawers. Most noticeably out of its features however, was the large indescribable symbol carefully painted on the lid of the box; the symbol of the long gone order of guardians, to the near extinct collection of Miraculous jewels.
The man lifted up his hands and stuck them into the hollow gap between the box and the Gramophone, taking hold of the former and lifting it up to set down onto the dresser, taking notice of the colorful glows of red, dark green, yellow, green, and orange that emitted from the crack lining the thin lid and the rest of the box as he did do.
For a brief moment afterwards as he prepared to open it, he put his hands down a little and stared at the symbol covering the top of the box, but seconds later shook his head a little and continued on with the thing of which he had originally intended to do. He slowly put his hands on the lid and lifted up, revealing an interior fashioned and divided into sections that resembled a flower above a subtle outing of red cloth that lined the bottom.
Its outer area was divided into five sections, each lined with a different colored cloth, those being Blue, Purple, Yellow, Orange, and Green, each with a small golden design engraved into the center, those being a Butterfly, a Fox’s tail, a bee, a broken circle of curved outly stretched arrow-esque shapes, and a series of Peacock feathers respectively.
Similarly to their designs, each section, save for the Purple and Blue ones, had an object resting atop it, each glowing a color the same as that of the cloth it rested upon. This triad of objects were: a small golden hair comb with a bee pendant atop it for the yellow section, a Fox pendant attached to a golden necklace chain for the orange section, and a black bracelet with sky blue hexagonal carvings in the shape of a turtle’s shell for the green section. All of them, three of the last remaining miraculous on earth.
In the center of these petal-like divisions was the circular center of the flower design. This section was instantaneously noticeable as more unique than the outer division, as it was clear that it was designed in a far more unique fashion than its counterparts. The circle like its outer companions was matted by cloth, but in contrast, the color of the material was not chosen to match that of the two Miraculous resting atop it. The center’s design matched that of the iconic Taoist Yin-Yang symbol, and like it, it was divided into two subdivisions who’s border was lined by a curved piece of scarlet red metal. The foremost division was laid with Black cloth, with golden fern designs engraved into it, and a red spot that carried smaller dots of black within its borders, where the white Yang would normally reside. On the other hand, the backer division was padded with silver cloth and unlike its counterpart, lacked in design, but still carried its own Yin symbol, with that being a cat’s claws encased within a silver circle.
As for the objects which rested upon them, atop the red and black spotted ladybug-esque dot there rested two stud earrings, each with the exact same design as it, and likewise, atop the cat’s claw symbol there rested a small yet thick black ring with a green paw in the circle section of it, and four silver claws extending from each corner of said section to grasp the ring band behind it. These meager objects were the famed Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat, the two most powerful to ever be made, and sadly two of the last 5 remaining.
The Man looked up from the box and began speaking.
I am Wang Fu, the last of the ancient order of Guardians, and the keeper of the Miraculous. It is my duty and my desire to protect these jewels to the very end, and to make sure that they will never again be used for such evil purposes.
But, that is not to say that they will never be used again. The world today needs heroes, now more than ever, and should a new threat appear, it is my duty as a Guardian to ensure that these jewels will be entrusted to the right people, who will only use them for the greater good of humanity, and like their holders of old, will not gain just the jewels, but the very title of Miraculous itself.