You may have noticed that Alicia isn't stuttering as much when she talks to the main characters. That's because she's getting used to talking to them, not because she's less anxious. Okay, she's getting less anxious too but that's a different thing.

Also, the anime theme in the previous chapter was leading up to this!

Golden Eagle

Chapter X:

Animeniac

Part I

Anime was the talk of the school the next day. People were comparing seasons of one anime while debating the changes from the manga of another. Maybe it was because Alicia, Narhanaël and Adrien were talking about it or maybe because a quiz show called Otaku Trivia! was in town to judge the anime/manga knowledge of local anime fans.

"No way! How can you say FMA 2003 was better than FMA: Brotherhood?!"

"You think Jellal and Erza will officially kiss soon?"

"I heard Magi might not be getting a season 3 after all,"

Things like that floated around the courtyard as Marinette and Alicia walked into the school. Marinette had watched every movie that Alicia had recommended to her and read up on as many anime series' as possible. Sure, that was a whole lot of spoilers but it took away some unbearable tension from the shows.

"If you get any questions you don't understand, just cough twice and I'll give my opinion for you to base your answer on," Alicia said.

"Got it," Marinette agreed "Thanks, Alicia, you've been a big help,"

Alicia found her anxiety rising up within her. Why did she help Marinette? Now if she crashed and burned, it would be her fault for not prepping her enough. Her nerves made her breath shake and her eyes go wide. Had she prepped Marinette enough? If she hadn't then would Marinette be angry at her? What if-

"Hey, Alicia? Are you okay?"

Alicia looked up as her environment came flooding back to her. Marinette was looking at her with concern. Great, now she had made her worry.

"I'm... fine," she said.

"Hey, Ali!"

Alicia looked up and saw Nathanaël coming her way while waving his hand for her attention. She smiled but then blushed at the realization he had called her "Ali".

"Hey... Nathan," she stammered "What's up?"

"I checked out Sword Art Online like you said and its awesome!" he exclaimed "I'm only halfway through season 1 but I'm loving it,"

"Glad to hear it. I'll warn ya, there's some... unfortunate... stuff in the ALfheim arc that makes up the second half of season 1 but it's still a great series," Alicia said "Steadily watch anime that's a little bit more violent after SAO and you'll eventually be ready to watch Attack on Titan,"

"Can't wait," Nathanaël said.

Marinette realized the anime talk had begun and looked around for Adrien. When he joined them, he and Alicia began talking about how AoT was really gory and how you have to be "desensitized" to anime gore before you can watch it. Several times she coughed and leeched off of Alicia's opinions but as the conversation went on, she became more and more excited to watch these apparently amazing shows.

Meanwhile across town, Otaku Trivia! was getting ready to start filming. The contestants were reading over manga, studying up on Japanese folklore and watching multiple anime all at once. Among them was a Beau Abel who'd been watching anime ever since the first season of Pokémon and reading manga even longer. He sat confidently in the make-up chair as he was prepped for the studio lights.

"Okay, will our first set of contestants please take your seats on stage," said the stage manager.

Beau got up and sat down in Contestant Booth no. 3 while seven other people took up the other ones. The Otaku Trivia! host was a Japanese woman named Akiko Tanaka but, since they were in Paris, she was joined by the regular Parisian T.V personality, Alec Cataldi, as her co-host.

"Okay," said the stage manager "Filming in 3, 2, 1..."

"Konnichiwa and welcome to Otaku Trivia! The game show that'll prove just how much of an anime nerd you really are," Akiko recited in near-perfect French "Today, I'm joined by my guest co-host, Alec Cataldi, and together we'll be finding Paris's biggest otaku,"

"Now, without further ado," Alec spoke up "Let's meet the contestants,"

They queued for when the introductory reel would play before getting to the quiz.

"Round #1: Anime Exclusive," Akiko said "Everybody hates it when anime goes off book and ignores the original manga. This round will test your knowledge of characters and events that only happened in the anime,"

"Question #1," Alec started "In Black Butler, who was responsible for the deaths of Ciel Phantomhive's parents?"

Beau buzzed in seconds before anyone else could.

"Queen Victoria under the influence of Ash/Angela," he answered, casually.

"Correct!"

As the game went on, Beau racked up point after point after point. With each round, more people were disqualified until the final two. It was Beau against a girl named Amie James who had blue hair in anime-style pigtails and a Death Note t-shirt on.

"It's the final round and the score's all tied up," Alec said "It's all down to this one... final... question,"

Beau gave his competitor a death-glare that she jokingly returned before sticking her tongue out and winking at him. They looked forward, their hands on the buzzers as they awaited the deciding question.

"What was the name of the wolf-man in Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki?" Akiko asked.

Before Beau could even think about an answer, Amie buzzed in.

"Trick question! He was never named!" she exclaimed.

Beau felt his chest tighten at the realization that...

"That is the correct answer!" Alec declared "Congratulations, Miss Amie James, you are Paris's biggest anime nerd!"

The balloons rained down and confetti was shot from canons as the Attack on Titan theme was played over loud speakers. Alec and Akiko left their host booth to hand Amie a bouquet of roses and crown her with a novelty Sailer Moon tiara. Before the hosts could finish saying goodbye, Beau stormed off stage and left without anyone noticing... except for a certain somebody.

Adrien, Nathanaël, Marinette and Alicia were still talking anime despite being in Ms. Mendeleiev's class. Luckily, the somewhat crotchety science teacher hadn't arrived yet. Marinette was nervous about seeing gory anime since she wasn't into horror so Alicia found a clip on her phone of a gory moment in Attack on Titan. Marinette begged for it to be stopped before it could finish.

"Okay, so Marinette can't handle a lot of anime gore," Adrien said "Guess that rules out Black Butler too,"

"Black Butler II was terrible, anyway," Alicia said.

"That's not what I- never mind,"

Alya turned around in her chair to join the conversation.

"Are you guys forming an anime club or something?" she asked.

"Yeah, you lot haven't stopped talking about anime, like, all day!" Nino agreed "I know Adrien's into it but Marinette, you too? And Nathan?"

They all began to awkwardly give their reasons for liking anime so much in such a short amount of time. An idea popped into Alicia's head but seeing the others talking to one another made her anxiously sit still with her mouth shut. But she wanted to tell them her idea... even if it was a bad one.

"Wh-What about..." Alicia closed her mouth and the others went quiet.

"What is it, Alicia?" Adrien asked.

Before she could pluck up the courage to talk again, Ms. Mendeleiev arrived and began to tell them about Newton's Law of Motion. Still anxious to get her idea out, Alicia quietly took a sticky note from the stationary supplies on her desk and wrote her idea down before passing it to Nathanaël, who was sitting beside her:

Let's start an unofficial anime club. Then Alya and Nino will get where we're coming from and Nathan and Marinette can catch up with me and Adrien.

-Alicia

She passed it to Nathanaël under their desk and he read it from his lap. He smiled and nodded at her before crumpling the note up to toss it onto Alya and Marinette's desk in front of them. Marinette uncrumpled the note and held it between herself and Alya. They both looked back at them and gave a double thumbs-up. Alya then purposely dropped her pencil on the floor and leaned over to get it. As she sat back up, she stuck the sticky note onto Nino's side. He felt her tap him and he pulled the note off his t-shirt. He read over it before giving it to Adrien under their desk. He read the note before writing on the back and he crumpled it back up to casually toss it over his shoulder and onto Alicia and Nathanaël's desk. Alicia uncrumpled the note to read the response:

Definitely -everyone

She and Nathanaël smiled when there was a sudden crash outside in the courtyard. The students jumped to their feet and crowded out of the classroom to see what was going on. Standing in the middle of the courtyard was a big yellow tentacle monster with a wide grin and dressed in old fashioned teacher robes.

"Nurufufufufu," it chuckled.

"Koro-sensei?! What's he doing here?!" Adrien asked.

"Here?! What's he doing in reality?!" Alicia exclaimed "He's a freakin' anime character!"

Koro-sensei jumped back up and flew out of sight at mock 20 speeds. When Ms. Mendeleiev instructed everyone to go straight home as per the Akuma Attack protocols, a certain trio of the students hid out of sight.

"Tikki, spots on!"

"Plagg, claws out!"

"Donno, wings out!"

Koro-sensei went flying across Paris, stealing delicious treats from unsuspecting consumers. Ladybug, Cat Noir and Golden Eagle were having a hard time following him when a lamppost suddenly fell and they had to save a woman with her baby carriage from it. They looked to the rooftops for whoever toppled the lamppost and saw... LEVI FROM ATTACK ON TITAN?!

"And that makes two anime characters," Golden Eagle sighed "Great..."

"Cool, it's Levi!" Cat Noir gawked.

"How tough's Levi? He's pretty sh-" before Ladybug could finish her sentence, Cat Noir and Golden Eagle covered her mouth.

"Don't say it, my Lady!" Cat Noir begged "Levi's extremely deadly!"

The anime character looked down at them before disappearing over the rooftops. If not for the dire need to purify the akuma, Golden Eagle and Cat Noir would have fangirl squealed at receiving Levi's signature tired look of slight disgust. Ladybug led them back up to the rooftops but Levi was gone. Then they noticed the Seine was freezing over and headed in that direction. Standing on the ice was a shirtless guy wearing chains for a belt and a cross around his neck.

"Uhh... why's Gray Fullbuster here?" Cat Noir asked.

"Three anime characters in and that's the first time you ask that?" Golden Eagle pointed out.

"I'm a cat! I'm curious," he said, shrugging.

"Curiosity killed the cat, genius,"

"Enough!" Ladybug exclaimed "We need to find where these anime characters are coming from before something really dangerous appears,"

After noticing a Djinn-equipped Alibaba from the Magi franchise and Straw Hat Luffy from One Piece heading away from the same point of origin, they decided the follow it back to where they came from. Even more anime characters were appearing and even if they were the protagonists of their respective shows, they were still causing trouble for the people of Paris.

Dear Ananomous (the one who reviewed Chapter IV) -

I'd love it if you illustrated my story! The moment I read that, I shot up in bed and exclaimed "Yes!" as if you could hear me. Just tell me your DeviantArt username so I can check it out. It kinda has to be on DeviantArt because that's the only website I semi-know how to use. Also, I would have PM'd you with the good news but you don't have a Fanfiction account.

Looking forward to your drawings!

-Noto