-Julian's POV-
"Don't blink now, 'cause we are live from Paris. Yo peeps, Alya here, bringing you the one and only Ladyblog." The video on my laptop displays one of my classmates Alya on the hunt for anything Ladybug. Since discovering the Ladyblog, Ossi and I have been binging all of her past livestreams, not going to lie, her determination can rival even comic book reporters.
"Why can't we find out each other's identities anyways? All we have on are just masks." I ask my Kwami, who was digging into a mountain of bread before poking his head out in thought.
"Hmm. I dunno kid, prolly some weird Kwami magic mumbo-jumbo. All I know is unless someone sees ya transform into or out of Faon Vert, they'll likely never connect you to ya superhero persona."
"Freak out! What you got here is no ordinary book, it's a tenth grade history book. And I should know, 'cause I've got this very same book. Could our very own Ladybug be a high school student in real life? Woah!" Alya's excited voice interrupts our discussion, I look at her new discovery with wide eyes.
"What if they got evidence?" I ask nervously.
"Yeah that'll do it." Was Ossi's response.
-The Next Day-
"Only Khafre's pyramid retains part of the original casing of gleaming white limestone, which came from Tura near Cairo. The three pyramids were built at the command of the Dynasty IV kings, who worshipped the sun god, Ra." I read aloud to myself, reading my history textbook for the test tomorrow.
I jump at Ossi suddenly flying in front of me. "Kid, I love ya and all but you've been studying since last night, ya hafta take a break."
I let out a groan, "But this test is important! And my parents want me to pass it…"
Before Ossi can reply, a notification pings on my laptop, showing that Alya is having a surprise livestream on her blog. Giving into temptation, I click the link, a short break wouldn't hurt…
"OMG. Coming to you live, Ladyblog viewers, I'm at the scene even before Ladybug, Chat Noir or Faon Vert! This is insane!" Alya's voice accompanies the video of an Egyptian looking Akuma, currently using some kind of psychic power to grab a weird looking staff off its pedestal, its face changing into a classic pharaoh look.
"Woah, face changing, why can't cha costume have somethin' cool like that?" Ossi floats next to me, talking with his mouth full.
"No time for that, we need to go." I grab the pen out of my pocket. "Ossi, Horns Drawn!"
Ossi immediately dives into the tip of the pen, causing a deer head to appear in front of it. Swiping the pen across my eyes, the mask gets drawn and materializes onto my face, I drag the pen from my left hand back to my right as a brown suit slowly starts to appear from my arms towards the rest of my body. Twirling the pen around effortlessly as it slowly grows longer, I toss it upwards before reaching towards my back and pulling up a newly made hoodie, ears on its side and antlers on top as I catch the pen which has turned into blowgun as I lean against it with a lazy smile and a peace sign raised in the air.
Landing in front of the Louvre, I barely jump as Chat Noir lands right beside me.
"Heya Kitten! You know seeing you near the Louvre kinda reminds me of cat burglars..." I comment cheekily, Chat rolls his eyes.
"No time to talk deer, Alya's in trouble." Before I could complain about that lame joke again, Chat charges into the museum, leaving me in the dust.
"W-Wait, I've never been in here before!" I yell, I was never really interested in history, so visiting a museum had never even been on my radar, and Chat's probably too far away to hear me now too. Trying my best to chase after him, I end up running around in circles, getting lost twice before groaning pathetically and resigning myself to looking at the directory for some help.
"Egyptian... Egyptian…" I mumble, finger sliding down the list of the many many attractions before finally landing on what I think is it. Letting out a sigh of relief, I take off towards the Egyptian exhibit.
Entering a nearby hallway, my run slows into a walk as I take in the many original artworks and artefacts on display along the walls, if they are original of course (probably not according to some movies). Walking closer to the exit, I nearly trip over myself at the sight of the blond boy currently sitting near the Mona Lisa.
"Adrien?" I say in shock, the boy in question jumps before turning to look at me, holding a phone in his hands.
"Faon Vert? You're still here? Wait, where have you been?" Adrien asks incredulously, and I have to resist looking away in embarrassment.
"Well, you see, I umm, I got lost." I admit, Adrien stares at me for a second before snickering.
"H-hey! This museum is like a maze, and I don't do well with directions unless I study the floorplans." I huff, offended, which only makes him laugh harder.
Feeling my face heat up, I give him a light glare. "Yeah yeah laugh it up, anyways you need to get out of here, do you need me to carry you?" That shut him up real quick, as he looks at me with wide eyes.
"N-no thank you, I'm fine here, you go help Ladybug." He insists.
"Are you sure?" I ask again just to confirm, receiving a vigorous nod in return, I hold my hands up in surrender. "Alright alright, I'll be sure to keep Ladybug and Chat Noir safe for ya, look after yourself fawn."
Quickly resuming my run, I finally arrived… In a completely empty Egyptian exhibit, letting out a frustrated groan, I turn around to see-
Chat standing right behind me.
"Chat! Gods you almost gave me a heart attack!" I whine, clutching my chest before collapsing on the floor dramatically. Chat rolls his eyes again and nudges me with his foot.
"As much as I enjoy the dramatics, Ladybug needs our help, don't need you getting lost again." I raise an eyebrow at what he said, but before I can say anything else Chat starts dragging me out of the exhibit.
Landing in the exit, a bunch of weird green bubbles are floating around, the people in there seem to be moving much slower than usual, one of them looks to be running towards the exit, actually hold on, that kind of looks like-
"Hey, I think that's Ladybug." I point towards the bubble, Chat nods, grabbing his staff and slashing at it, immediately Ladybug resumes her regular speed, tripping over herself and into Chat's arms.
"Thanks for waiting around for me." Chat smirks.
Ladybug shrugs, taking off towards the stairs. "No problem! We've gotta find the hidden Akuma and free it before he sacrifices that poor girl. Glad to see you joined us deer."
"Pleasure to be here Milady." I greet, running beside them.
"Hey!" I hear Chat complain. Feeling his glare on me, I stick my tongue out at him. "If she gets to use your nickname for me I get to use your nickname for her."
"Not now guys." Ladybug silences us before peeking up the stairs, following her lead, I see over a hundred mummified civilians standing side by side, blocking our view to anything further in.
"I can't see the Akuma, or his captive." I whisper, Ladybug proceeds to leap up to one of the rooftops, with us right behind her.
"Over there!" Chat Noir points towards the Akuma currently holding Alya by the arm as she struggles to break free with her phone between her teeth, before noticing something on the papyrus.
"Whoa, back up! Who's that goddess chick with the black spots! There, on your papyrus!" Alya asks her captor.
"Ladybug, my sworn enemy! My nemesis may have kept me from carrying out my ritual 5000 years ago, but she will not stop Nefertiti from coming back to me this time!"
"Did you say... Ladybug 5000 years ago?!" Alya asks with wide eyes, feeling just as shocked as the rest of us.
Even Ladybug looks surprised at this. "Everyone does have a past they can learn from."
"Well, you don't look a day over 3000." Chat replies, smirking.
I snicker, "Yeah, you have to tell me your skincare routine."
Ladybug flips her hair with a flourish, "Yeah well, with great age comes insights, that's why I'm much wiser than the both of you." Well can't argue with that.
Suddenly the Louvre's pyramid next to the Akuma starts to glow, a beam of light shoots from the tip towards the sky, a group of dark ominous clouds swirling around it.
"Ladybug!" Alya screams, now being carried by a few of the mummies to the pyramid.
The three of us duck under the wall before we could be seen. "We've gotta save her before he completes the ritual, or Alya will be gone, forever!" Ladybug says.
"What should we do?" Chat asks.
Ladybug stands up, assuming her 'I'm the Leader now' face. "You two hold back the mummies while I take on the Pharaoh." As she starts running to the Pharaoh, Chat stands up too.
"Why do I have to deal with these freaks while you get to slip calmly round back?" Chat asks indignantly, me still crouching in between them like a kid between arguing parents.
"Because I'm the only one who can capture his Akuma, and because you are the bravest one out of all of us!" Ladybug explains, putting a hand on his shoulder before winking and resuming her run towards the Pharaoh, throwing her yo-yo towards another building and leaping to it.
"I know you don't really think that, but I'll pretend you do." Chat mumbles, my hearing picks that up and I look to him in confusion.
"What are you talking about? You're plenty brave." I commend, Chat looks at me, surprised.
"You really think so?" He asks hopefully, his doubt catching me off guard a little, I didn't realize Chat Noir can actually feel insecure, especially when he's so… Chat Noir.
"Yep, braver than me at least, maybe even..." I pause, looking around in case Ladybug's listening in from somewhere before whispering. "Maybe even braver than Ladybug herself."
Chat chuckles. "Thank you Faon, now let's stop these monsters."
Chat and I leap towards individual lamp posts. "Hey there, you bunch of bandages! What do you say we wrap this up!"
"Nailed it." I snort, receiving a smirk from the blond.
"Chat Noir! Faon Vert!" Alya yells, still held captive by mummified zombies.
The Pharaoh glares at us with narrowed eyes. "Seize them!" He orders, the mummies splitting up and charging towards us. Thankfully they move really slowly, allowing us to jump from lamp post to lamp post without ever being caught.
"Is that really as fast as you can go?" Chat taunts with me sitting on the lamp beside him, blowing raspberries and shooting a thumbs down at the Akuma.
"Wait, this looks… like a trap!" The Pharaoh realizes too late as Ladybug swings toward Alya, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the roof. The Akuma quickly chases after them while Chat and I continue fighting the mummies.
"Chat, look out!" I yell as a group of mummies carry a car and hurl it towards the blond.
"Sticks can be used as Vaudeville Hooks*, Mind's Eye!" My blowgun quickly grows into a longer stick with a large hook at the end. Immediately I throw it towards Chat, hooking it around his waist and yanking him towards me.
"Guys, this way!" Ladybug calls for us. Chat and I take off towards her and the bus she's standing on, sliding under it as the superheroine lures the mummies into the bus, exiting from the other set of doors and shutting it. Chat and I stick our weapons underneath the bus and push, knocking it over in one go.
Climbing over the bus to meet with Ladybug, she worriedly looks at Alya being carried away to the dark clouds. "We have to save Alya before she reaches the circle of darkness!" She says before all of us charge towards the pyramid until The Pharaoh intercepts us again.
"You will not stop me from bringing Nefertiti back! I'll finish you off! Anubis, bring me mummies!" The Akuma's mask suddenly changes into a jackal, beams of light shooting out of his eyes as he fires it at us. Quickly Ladybug wraps her yo-yo around Akuma and pulls, restraining him as Chat and I vault behind him, Chat running ahead while I hook the Akuma as well, restraining him on both sides.
"Horus, give me your wings!" The Akuma shouts, mask changing again as he takes off into the air. Ladybug and I share one frightened look before being pulled into the air by him.
As the Akuma flies directly to the dark clouds, Ladybug retracts her yo-yo to land on his back while I stay hanging pathetically beneath him. Ladybug yanks the pendant from the Pharaoh's neck, but fumbles with it, the pendant spills off her hands, falling to the ground.
"Chat! Faon! The pendant! That's where the Akuma is!" Ladybug screams.
"What!?" I ask with wide eyes, reaching wildly for the pendant, missing it by millimeters as it continues its fall. Letting out a curse, I quickly deactivate my Mind's Eye as the hook disappears, free diving towards the pendant.
"Faon be careful!" Is the last thing I hear before I realize that I have no way to break my descent, quickly angling myself so that I land on my feet, the floor cracks from the force as I collapse onto it, holding in a shout as an unbelievable amount of pain shoots through me.
"Faon!" I hear both Chat and Ladybug shout, landing beside me, but before they could do anything else the Pharaoh drops in front of us.
"Sekhmet, give me your strength!" His mask changes again as he creates a shockwave, which knocks the three of us away from the pendant, I finally let out a pained gasp at the unexpected pressure.
"Faon, are you okay!?" I hear Chat yell.
Letting out a strained laugh, I try to stand. "I'm fine, sorry I was a little bit stupid there…" Feeling Chat's arm slide under me, helping me up, I can finally meet his glare head on.
"Yeah you were, why-"
"Ladybug, save me!" Alya's voice interrupts his inevitable berating, thankfully.
"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug activates her Miraculous, ladybugs flying around her before creating a polka dotted box in her hands.
The superheroine looks confused. "A Ladybug outfit?"
" That's our last hope?" Chat judges, I flick him behind the ear, laughing a little at his surprised face.
"Don't… don't doubt the Lucky Charm…" I grin before wincing again, even with the superpowers I would not recommend falling like that.
"Chat, look after Faon, I got this." Ladybug instructs after some thinking.
"Roger that."
"Wait-" I yelp as Chat suddenly grabs me and jumps away from the mummies and Ladybug.
I try my best to break out of his grip, but with a hand holding a stick that acts as my Miraculous and the other trying its best to maintain balance I couldn't really do much.
Finally we land on a rooftop and he slowly lowers me to lean against the door.
"Chat I'm fine, you need to help Ladybug." I whine, Chat simply shakes his head.
"No can do, who's to say that you won't just join us after I leave?"
I narrow my eyes at him, trying not to blush at being predicted so easily, choosing to let out a huff instead. "I thought you would've enjoyed me not being there to annoy you and your bugaboo."
"Not like this- Wait, is that what you really think of me?" Chat asks, sounding… really hurt?
"What? No! Not at all, well, maybe? Okay, hold up." I try to sit up, hissing at the sudden pain but not stopping. Chat looks worried, moving to push me back but stops when I glare at him.
"I don't think of you like that, but sometimes you glare at me whenever I say something, or when I'm just standing too close to you two, especially Ladybug, like you don't even want me to be around." I curl up a little, ignoring the additional pain from said movement. "I didn't really mind, cause I get it… you know, I can be a bit too dramatic sometimes, or childish, which, I'm told can be extremely annoying." I try to joke at the end, even though I was free to express myself as much as I want as Faon Vert, talking about my real identity always brings me down.
"That's not-" Chat's starts to say with wide eyes, but gets interrupted by a swarm of ladybugs overwhelming me. Slowly I feel all the pain leave my system, back to when I first transformed, my Miraculous beeps insistently showing that I have less than a minute left before I transform back.
"I need to go, check if the person Akumatized is alright, for me? Please?" I mumble before taking a running leap off the roof, heading straight back to my room.
-Later that Night-
"Thanks Ladybug, But, uh, I still gotta ask: how old are you, really?" I watch Alya ask Ladybug in her blog, posted minutes after the superheroine single-handedly defeated The Pharaoh (seriously, her brain should be a national treasure).
"Um, much older than a high school student, that's for sure!" Ladybug responds before quickly swinging away. Pausing my video, I look at Ossi pretending to be dead next to me.
"Ladybug is probably not five thousand years old, well, her Kwami might be, but the person they're with shouldn't be that old." I muse, patting Ossi on the back, receiving another groan. I roll my eyes and pull out another slice of bread from my desk and plop it in front of him. Quickly he pounces on it like a lion on its prey.
"Who knows kid, she doesn't look that old to me, but Kwami magic messes with ya a lot." Ossi replies, too distracted with his meal. I continue the video.
"Don't you wanna know how old I am?" Chat Noir asks, giving the camera a sly grin.
"In a sec, looks like I'll be able to tell for myself." Alya points out. Looking at his ring in shock, Chat quickly spins around and runs away, Alya laughing in the background.
Snickering, I rewind the video to take a screenshot of Chat's face, saving the image to my images folder.
"Gettin' creepy there kid." My Kwami judges, looking at my folder of pictures and videos, most of them I collected from the blog or pictures taken by civilians.
"Oh shush, I'm just keeping them as memories, it's likely that we'll never see each other again once Hawk Moth is defeated…" I say sadly, flipping through what I have so far, next time I'm going to get a group photo with them, if they would let me of course.
Arriving at a particularly funny video of Chat flying through the air after his first meeting with Stormy Weather, I can't help but snicker. "Are all Chat Noirs normally this smooth?"
Ossi takes one look at my monitor before bursting into laughs. "Lemme tell ya kid, of all the Chats I've met, not one of them can resist a good pun."
I look at him with a raised eyebrow. "So all the Chats are similar then?"
"Eh, there are some basic similarities between them, all Miraculous Holders do, but all of 'em are special in their own way." Ossi explained.
"Hmm, what about Faon Verts? I mean I'm probably not your first choice if you can help it, but just... am I doing the name justice…?" I ask a little hesitantly, why am I even asking? I don't think I can handle being told I wasn't good enough.
Ossi glares at me for a moment before considering something. "Lemme tell ya a secret kid." He says, beckoning me to come closer, looking around before whispering. "You're one of the best Faons I've had."
Quickly feeling a blush overtake me, I sit up straight, staring at my Kwami incredulously. "Th-That's not possible! You've been alive for centuries!"
"Much longer than centuries."
"Exactly! You have so many Faons to compare to, and I'm just… I'm just…" I let out a sigh. "I'm just me…"
Ossi flies up and lightly headbutts my cheek. "That's whatcha get for askin' questions with answers ya won't accept yet. I told ya the honest truth, and one day you're gonna see it too, mark my words." He says finally, before floating to his side of the bed, apparently done with this conversation.
"You clearly haven't seen how much I messed up during the fight with The Pharaoh." I grumble.
"Mmmhm."
"I'm serious Ossi, you can't just say these things haphazardly."
"I know what I said."
Blushing heavily, I sputter out an excuse before rushing to the bathroom, washing my face to cool it down a little. Ossi isn't making sense, there's no way that I belong with the other, much better Faons, there's just no way.
