"You're not really allowed to use my powers for something like this,"
"I know," Alya considers the necklace in her hands. She pouts. "But it wouldn't hurt anything right? I mean, it's just a little mirage, and no one else will see it. Anyone they tell will just think they imagined the whole thing."
Trixx grins wide, leaning forward onto his tummy in the air. "Right? We could totally get away with this,"
Alya look over at the little spirit with an eyebrow raised. "Wait, you aren't going to stop me?"
"Are you kidding?" Trixx laughs, "That's no fun. Besides, I wouldn't have accepted you as my holder if I thought you were going to play by all the rules."
"So you expected me to be a troublemaker?"
"More like a rule bender, which is more interesting," Trixx flies over to her other side, hands on his cheeks, "So we doing this?"
"Well, it isn't an abuse of power," Alya reasons.
"Right?"
"And we are bringing happiness to the defenseless,"
"Riiiight?"
"So yeah," Alya smiles, "we're doing this."
In the living room, something causes a bright flash behind the large balcony doors, and it catches Ella's eye. The twin diverts her gaze from the lackluster episode of a tv show she's seen several times to it, hoping to find something interesting. She does.
Etta is still watching the show when her sister shakes her arm and points outside with a giddy smile. It's clear from her minute squealing that she too excited for words, and Etta looks over her shoulder out onto the balcony where her twin's gaze is pointed to see what about. Her mouth drops open as she gasps with delight.
Floating in the sky over the avenue next to their home is a parading circus. Pink bears roll by on giant balloons, a trio of multicolored clowns spin round and round each other as they clumsily juggle their several miscellaneous objects, a band of four marches closely behind with cymbals, a horn, and two snare drums, and cars relatively small to all the giant characters zip to the front to lead the before zipping around back and zipping up sideways and zipping up to the sky and back.
"Ohh my gosh!"
"Alya, Alya, look outside!"
Etta and Ella waste little time making haste to the balcony. Their elder sister takes her time coming to see what they're making all the noise about– and she's missing the best part! A giganumanormous elephant comes skateboarding down the avenue behind the procession and topples all the other acts like bowling pins. The twins laugh at their expense, devolving into a fit of giggles and excited yelping. They call Alya outside with even more fervor.
Alya, unbeknownst to them, smiles slyly (with love) behind her bedroom door, an ear pressed to it to gauge their reactions. She listens to their chaotic combination of glee and eagerness.
"What?" she shouts back, her cheeks hurting, "What are you guys saying?"
Between the two of them shouting over each other, it is honest-to-goodness babbling, so even if she weren't pretending not to know what has them freaking out, she wouldn't know what in the world they're trying to say. Alya chuckles under her breath. She runs over to her own balcony to see what the mirage has become now– she'd thrown it into the air in a hurry before de-transforming and rushing back inside, not wanting to risk the twins coming to her right away and catching her as Rena Rouge.
When Alya arrives at the glass, she understands why they're so loud.
A freaking lime green tiger is prancing around, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, its jaw unhinging comically like its unleashing mute roars.
Alya's own jaw drops as she stares at the giant neon circus parading over her street.
"How. . .?"
A snicker erupts from her pocket. "I may have zapped your mirage just a bit,"
She didn't know exactly what that meant, but she got the gist. Alya turned on her kwami. "Trixx!"
"What?"
"I'm so dead– can we stop it early?"
"Sure, if you–"
"Transform me!"
"Aw–!"
Rena Rouge takes the mirage away before Paris can even fully process what is happening. Immediately after, Alya rushes into the living room to the elevated sound of her sister's cries, looking for them with confusion masterfully etched into her face. They flock to her.
"Aw, Alya, you missed it!"
"You missed the circus!"
"Circus?"
"It was outside!"
They drag her out to the balcony, but Alya takes a glance and shakes her head at them. Feigning disbelief very convincingly, she corals her sisters back into the living room, shutting the glass doors behind them. As she gets seated in the common room and the twins re-enact their version of what happened with big gestures and simple words, Alya feels a cold sweat form on the back of her neck. That. . . was more than she'd intended to create.
It was huge, and whimsical, and there's no way Ladybug didn't notice it.
Alya cringes as her sisters emphasize just how spectacular the mirage had been; she's so dead.
. . . But their smiles are worth it.