To armadas: Fortunately there is one final chapter!

To Lyger 0: Unfortunately, the Heroes didn't have time to worry about the Bearator before running off to help Cat Noir and Viperion. And it's not like XY would care to fight 2 bad guys at once…

To Butterfly: No arguments there!

To StarDaPanda225: Not the next story but the one after it is the sequel to "The Hound and the Maiden." Felix will also be in another one-shot before then.

To yellow 14: Well, XY managed to do something right…

Adrien relaxed back into the couch in his bedroom and let out a quiet breath. Although he'd taken a couple painkillers the moment they got to the Mansion, his head was still killing him. And his muscles. And his chest where Tyran-X had kicked him. And his forearm where Night Bat had sliced through his suit. And…

Honestly, it was easier at this point for him to take a "painless inventory" than a "pain inventory"!

"I really hope the girls finish up their spa day soon," he grumbled, turning back to the video game just in time to watch Ivan's character throw his mech off the edge of the map.

"No kidding," Felix agreed with a wince. He had claimed Adrien's bed and was holding an icepack to his wrist.

"Oh, I'm so sorry I let you down," Barkk whined from her position curled up on Felix's shoulder, nuzzling the side of his neck. "I'm a bad dog."

"No, you're the best dog I've ever had," Felix assured her, stroking her head with a finger.

"That's true," joked Adrien. "His father was allergic!"

"Oh, hush," Felix retorted, sticking out it tongue. "You know I always wanted a pet; that we couldn't have one was pet-icularly a-paw-ling!"

Ivan snorted. "Do the puns run in the family?"

Adrien shrugged. "I'm pretty sure it's genetic."

Plagg shoved a cheese ball in his mouth. "A holder after my own heart." He and the other three Kwamis had claimed the coffee table and the snacks on it for themselves. Sass and Wayzz had divided a can of sardines between them, and Stompp was halfway through a bag of crackers.

"You're just saying that because he can afford the best cheese!" Stompp scoffed, shoving the last few crackers in his mouth.

Plagg tossed a cheese crumb at Stompp. "Ya know, that actually hadn't oc-curd to me, but this is whey nicer than anything my last holder could afford!"

"Do they ever stop?" Nino asked Wayzz, not taking his eyes off the screen, where Ivan and Luka were trying to trap his mech between them.

Wayzz hummed in contemplation. "I do not believe so," he finally admitted. "The two of them in fact prolonged the Hundred Years' War by an extra decade thanks to an ill-timed pun!"

"A cat-astrophic ox-currence!" observed Adrien.

Nino elbowed him in the ribs. "Not cool, dude."

Adrien smirked. "I suppose that one was pet-icularly ap-paw-ling." He turned to look back at Felix, who was trying to stifle a laugh. "At least now we know how much you can carry!"

"Yeah." Felix held up his wrist and waved it, wincing. "Exactly this much less than two of your friends!" He glared at the back of Ivan's head. "Seriously, what are they feeding you, big guy?"

Ivan's mech tripped off the platform, leaving Luka and Nino as the last two. He turned toward Felix and shrugged. "My mom's a good cook."

"Clearly."

Adrien turned back to follow the game just as Luka's mech finished off Nino and the start screen flashed. A swirl of red magic washed through the room, settling on all five of them before dissipating. Adrien suddenly felt the bruises and cuts all over his body disappear and new energy return. Looking around, the others had been healed similarly. Luka stretched his shoulders with a contented sigh, twisting his neck in either direction. The yellowing bruise under Ivan's eye had disappeared. Nino tossed the bloody gauze he'd been holding to his cheek onto the coffee table, revealing unmarred skin underneath.

"It appears that Ladybug has finally gotten your message," Wayzz observed, flying over to inspect Nino's cheek. "And there was no lasting damage."

Felix tested his wrist and threw his icepack into the trash can next to Adrien's bed. "Oh, bloody hell," he groaned in relief, "do I wish my partner could do that!"

Adrien grinned. "Sorry, this one's already taken!" He pushed himself up from the couch and tossed the controller at Felix. "Now that you can't blame a loss on your wrist, ready to give it a shot?"

Felix scoffed and took Adrien's spot next to Nino on the couch. "Please," he retorted. "Do you think your friends stand a chance against me?"

"Tough talk, Dog-Boy!" quipped Ivan. "But I think your bark might prove to be worse than your bite!"

Felix gave him a malicious smirk as Barkk fluttered down from his shoulder to join the other Kwamis, curling up between Plagg and Sass and picking out a stick of beef jerky. "Afraid I'm going to horn in on your title?"

"You'd better hold up your end, Dog-Dude!" Nino warned Felix. "I don't think I can take another loss happening just because my partner can't handle it!"

"Don't worry," Felix assured him, eyes lighting up with excitement. "These two won't know what hit them!"

"You're going to feel really foolish when we knock you out in the first minute," Luka commented calmly, giving Ivan a high-five.

Adrien sat back on his bed to watch as his friends bantered back and forth about the game. This certainly wasn't the way he had expected Nino's hang-out idea to go today, but it had all turned out well enough in the end. After all, it didn't really matter what they were doing as much as it mattered that they were doing it together. And after the number of hang-outs that his father had forced him to miss out on over the first two years he had known them, he would take all the opportunities he could get. Idly he checked his phone to see a new message from Marinette waiting for him.

M: "The stadium looked like a warzone! What did you do to it!?"

A: "In our defense, I'm pretty sure most of that was from Tyran-X and Mecha-Man"

M: "You're not helping your case, Agreste"

A: "Have I told you recently how incredible you are? *heart*"

M: "Flattery will get you nowhere. Out with it."

A: "So you know that XY CD Chloe gave me for my birthday? I'm burning it."

M: "Okay…"

A: "Seriously, we're all good here thanks to ML. Enjoy girl time. See you tonight."

M: "Chloe says you're all utterly ridiculous."

A: "But I'm YOUR ridiculous"

M: "And don't you forget it! *heart* Love you"

A: "Love you too, Bugaboo"

Adrien glanced up when the weight on the bed shifted slightly. Luka had already gotten knocked out of the game. He picked up his guitar and started playing a new song. Adrien cocked his head: something about the melody struck a chord with him.

Seeing the look in his face, Luka explained, "The five of us here." He plucked something similar but without the same harmonies. "Our songs weren't quite in sync this morning, though it was a subtle thing. Since the reveal and the fight, though…" The first song, full and rich. Adrien could pick out all the different lines merging together.

"Is that going to be our next Kitty Section headliner?" Adrien asked, raising an eyebrow.

Luka hummed. "It could be," he decided. "It's certainly better than XY's song…" He shifted his fingers along the guitar and started strumming. On the couch, Felix almost dropped his controller in surprise.

"What's with the fully-diminished sevenths?" Adrien demanded, wincing.

"XY's song," Luka explained, letting the last chord die. "That's all I was hearing from XY when we visited him the first time. But now?" He played something a little calmer, but still slightly modal and disjointed, ending on a major-minor seventh chord. "He actually did something good for someone else today. I… honestly didn't think it was possible." He paused. "But now it's a question of how it will resolve…" He played a major chord, then a minor chord. He shrugged. "I suppose he could go either way."

Adrien nodded. "He took at least one positive step since then," he noted, fishing XY's fancy ring out of his pocket, tossed it in the air, and catching it one-handed. "Although this isn't nearly as exciting as we all thought it might be a couple hours ago!"

"He certainly took all of us in," Luka agreed. "Xtreme tonalitY's song sounded… off… but I didn't realize this was why."

"You can at least give Bob Roth this much credit: he knows his special effects." Adrien frowned. "How did we miss it?"

Luka shrugged. "It's not your fault. We were far enough away and saw enough of him to think he was legit, but not enough to question what we were seeing."

"Alya would've seen right through him," Nino called from the couch as Ivan dodged, allowing Felix's attack to strike Nino's character.

"Probably," Adrien acknowledged, nodding. "But she has the Miraculous of Illusion."

"Night Bat thought there could be something to him, also," Luka pointed out. "'Xtreme tonalitY' claimed to have too much power to ignore."

Adrien frowned at the ring and set it on his nightstand. "Imagine it: all of that trouble over a stupid piece of costume jewelry."

Luka shrugged. "People do strange things in the search for power. It's just that this time it was all purely illusory."

"The power might have been illusory," Adrien agreed, "but the danger and trouble it caused was all too real."

Luka shook his head ruefully. "It still blows my mind that he thought being a hero was just about fun and games."

Adrien grinned. "Eh, we have fun every so often," he pointed out. "And we did both find our girls thanks to our miraculous."

Luka smiled fondly, staring at the wall. "True, but not quite the same thing."

"Yeah, not exactly." Adrien nodded. "I am glad he decided to cancel the rest of the tour," he observed. "And that he announced that 'Xtreme tonalitY' is hanging up the mask and entrusting his 'powers' to the Heroes of Paris. Such as they are."

"I suppose that's for the best," agreed Luka, nodding. "I can't imagine Bob Roth being too happy about it, though."

"After today, he should be glad his son is still alive!"

Luka chuckled. "I wonder if this means he's turned over a new leaf."

Adrien snorted. "Not likely. I mean, he is still XY…"

AN: Yes, Luka talks in musical terms, but it's a language Adrien understands.

Also, texting format doesn't work so well on FF... AO3 looks so much cleaner for that.

This is the end of "Guys' Day Out." The next story will be "An African Assist" (or something like that), and I have a couple one-shots and 3 more chapters of "The Woman out of the Fridge" to publish first.