Alya's worries

Note: part of it is scrambled up from abandoned text. Decided to publish it now. The timelines of parallel stories are not synchronised anyway. Marinette and Adrien are way ahead.

Alya was not thrilled (to say the least) when her parents had told her about not going for holidays that year, not just because they did not travel, but because they both remained at work, they did not take any time off, in fact they took more shifts, and that meant Alya was about to deal with her two little sisters for two weeks. She was looking forward to two weeks of freedom from classes and saw it as an opportunity to chase each akuma that came around. That and she planned to spend more time with Nino, Marinette and the rest of the class.

Then Nora informed them about a boxing tournament where her club was a host and she was busy with organisation, while she trained and participated as well. That meant even more Ella and Etta time for Alya, she loved the girls and she could bring them to tag along even when she met the girls from her class, but she could not drag them along while she was running around and filimng akuma fights.

Marinette was going to China, with Adrien! She was happy for the girl, but as she learned almost all of her classmates had something organized during the school holidays, at least for a few days, she jumped to the opportunity to cover for Adrien. And then the two left and she made a schedule of responses and organized the photos and she was ready. She was waiting for an akuma attack, but it never arrived.

Juleka sent a few photos from the travel down the Seine and along the North Sea with Anarka and Rose (Rose sent even more, but all at once and only when they arrived to the destination). Alix sent her links from her headcam footage that she took while she was racing around. But then the girl left for a week with her brother Jalil to join her father who was doing some fieldwork digging up some old artefacts somewhere. Mylenne sent her depressed messages because her and Ivan went to different destinations. That girl went to visit the mountains and had the audacity to be sad for not staying in Paris. Lila sent a few notes about being with different celebrity each day and Alya gushed about it.

Marinette sent her photos from Beijing from her walk around the city the day after she left Paris and Alya was jealous. The fact that she was with Nino and bragged to him about the photos only to see that her boyfriend got more from his best bro did not help reduce the pang of jealousy she felt for the girl. But she cooed for the cuteness. Nino was kind enough to show her the whole gallery and he even forwarded a few, but Ms WiFi had bandwidth and storage issues while the DJ was concerned about his network traffic (he needed it for the music, man, not to waste it on forwarding the photos, he was happy he got them while on free wireless). It was Adrien who called Nino when she spoke to her best friend, Marinette did not call. She understood, she really did, mobile networks abroad were expensive.

Then came days without an akuma attack, seriously? She did not spot the heroes once, but there were photo's posted online, some of them obviously old, but few of them might have been genuine. She had no akuma attack to write about, and extra time to do little writing so she wrote about missing attacks, possible sightings on known places, speculated new patrol routes and so on and so forth. She was adamant to keep the blog up to date with any information available.

Then, finally, an akuma alert, but at a temple in China of all places? The exact temple that Adrien and Marinette were visiting? And she got the note from Ling, not from Marinette (nor from Adrien). She was excited to do an online lecture about akumas. There were more attacks and she was getting plenty of material to work with in the comfort of her own home (or from her phone while in the park with the girls). She loved it, she could babysit and cover the akuma attacks, it was a solution to all her problems. She was so busy that she forgot to post replies from Adrien to Nathaile's inquires, but that was apparently not an issue since the woman apparently forgot about the kid just like his father did.

She wanted to catch Ladybug and Chat Noir and ask them how they teleported to China, did they have a new permanent wielder or they gave the miraculous each time, she hoped to be able to go there as Rena Rouge.

And then came a new live stream from Ling. There was Hawk Moth, there was Mayura, there was Ye and two monks and then she saw Adrien and Marinette, of all people, facing Hawk Moth and Mayura. The fight was far less spectacular and far more brutal she was used to. The villains seamed far more weaker, physically, that Alya remembered from any fight. The civilians in the video were bruised and battered. But her classmates managed to snatch the miraculous off from the costumes of the supervillains. And that was something she did not manage even when transformed. As if the supervillains powers were diminished.

But the moment two transformations dropped left Alya without words. It was Gabriel Agreste, Adrien's father, and Nathalie Sancoeur, his assistant. She recognized them instantly, she knew their identities and she was proud to publish that on her blog. Everyone who participated in the battle was lying on the floor and the phone soon pointed towards it too.

The villains were beaten, but she did not know what happened to the civilians, were they injured? And where was Ladybug. She sent messages, she called, but there was no answer. She was worried. And she had no news to publish too. She took the twins to the park to meet Nino and Chris.

Finally, she got the information back, they placed a video call with Nino. Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared and fixed everything back. So her friends were not injured. It was unclear what Adrien and Marinette stole from Hawk Moth's pocket. But it was clear Adrien called Hawk Moth father. That meant he knew. She had questions, she wanted an interview, and the video call was the perfect opportunity. How long did he know? Marinette obviously knew too because she did not react in any way. But after a mere few introductory questions, she was brushed off and told she had crossed the line, and she was told all that by Nino. She took kids home on autopilot.

Nora was so excited about the fight she repeated each move as if it was a carefully balanced choreography (it was not). She sang praises about the fighting skills of the civilians who faced Hawk Moth and Mayura. She gushed about their bravery, she wanted to be there. Alya just wanted to write her blog. So she did, and as she watched Nora, she dissected each move and every event.

She was getting messages from her class, even Lila who was supposed to be busy with some charity, somewhere. Of course they were all thrilled that their two classmates beaten Hawk Moth and were rather concerned for Adrien once the villains identity was revealed.

She also had to edit the video on her blog and blur the faces of all civilians (save Gabriel and Nathalie).

Lila even came for a visit, because Alya did not want to be separated from her precious computer. Ella and Etta were particularly difficult (or Alya was particularly distracted from babysitting) and that made any conversation difficult.

But she showed Lila all the photos and told her how it was her job to fool Gabriel and Nathalie about Adrien's whereabouts. Lila gave her odd looks and strangled expressions, the girl was obviously not fine with it. She was hiding something, but with her twin sisters nagging about, it was impossible to pry anything out. She let Lila go through the photos on her phone while she went to control her little sisters. Besides Lila was tired after her trip and wanted to go home.

Alya was thrilled when the girl asked her to meet up the next day.

Alya was less than thrilled when Nino asked why she wanted all the photos from his phone. Her boyfriend assumed she wanted to publish them and do a background story about how their friends travelled to China. He gave her a speech how she wanted to profit and gain publicity for her blog.

"That is an excellent idea, I can do that right away." Alya grinned.

"You will do no such thing babe, that is pure wrong." Nino retorted.

And they argued and argued and she finally hung up. She was definitely going to publish something about her classmates, but then she had more urgent matters to cover, and those were her two impossible twin sisters. And, of course, to put more information on her blog.

The next morning her mother was called to tell Alya not to release any private information about the civilians in the video, it was from a legal representative. It was a warning, Alya was pissed. The fact that Adrien even had a legal representative was unknown to her. Her mother was not nice as the woman was overworked and on her way to her next shift.

Alya took the twins to the park so she could talk to Lila. But Lila had to run away to get a phone call related to some charity. Alya reached for her phone, but it was gone. She was bored, but at least she played with her twin sisters for half an hour. That made them much easier to handle. Lila returned with her phone, poor girl was so excited about the charity she mistakenly took Alya's mobile phone.

Then the photos of Adrien and Marinette in China appeared on several news sites and blogs, those were the tabloid types of news. She instinctively checked if her phone was still with her as her instinct told her someone must have snatched it. But the phone was there. There went her exclusive story about how Adrien and Marinette travelled through China. She did not have a single picture to add, she had nothing new.

Nino called her, angry, he told her they were not speaking to each other any more and how she could have done that to their friends. Then he hung up before she could even reply. Her cool boyfriend was totally out of it.

Finally, that evening Nora offered to babysit the twins, but Alya could not call Nino to hang out. She called Lila, but she did not answer, she was probably busy. She was checking the news at random and wondered where did the photos come from.

She was sending messages to Marinette, but there was no response. That girl was so busy with Adrien that she forgot about her best friend, Alya thought and the thought made her angry. She returned to the Ladyblog and answered a few questions.

'What are you going to cover now with Hawk Moth and Mayura gone?' One anonymous visitor asked. Of course, she never thought want was she going to write about once the supervillains were defeated. She could have written about her classmates. She could have written about the villains, she had knew them personally, or at least met them, but she missed her chances to be the first one, to publish to photos, to get the scoop.

And then, there was a live stream, an interview with Lila Rossi, a classmate of Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain Cheng, the civilian heroes of Paris who fought the two supervillains while on their holidays in China. Of course they interviewed Lila, everybody knew her, she was famous, she was Ladybug's best friend, she hang out with celebrities.

With nothing to disturb her, she swallowed each word. Marinette was jealous. Check. Marinette bullied her. Certainly she was not so nice to Lila. Marinette knew? She knew and never told me? Adrien was Lila's boyfriend? Certainly Alya heard how Lila visited him in the Agreste mansion, she heard stories so many times, the girl was there practically all the time. Adrien did a photo shoot with her. Adrien sent her photos. Of course he had. And Marinette stole him from Lila.

She remembered the fight, how weakly the supervillains fought. She was certain Hawk Moth could easily snap civilians neck and he held Marinette twice. He could have beaten Adrien easily, but he did not use all his power because that was his son. Everything made sense to Alya now.

That evening she collapsed to bed late and angry, but she was too tired to stay awake.