Finally an update! However, after the next chapter I will be going on a brief hiatus while I write my new Animaniacs fic.
Miraculous is going to be around for a while, so every now and then I'll break to write for other series. Although funny enough I actually do have an ending for this one in mind.
It was usual for Nathaniel to walk into school with his face hidden in his sketchpad. Unlike most days, he wasn't absorbed in his art or trying to shy away from the masses… well; it was sort of the second one. He could hear other students giggling and looking at something on their phones, a few of which he could pick up to be what he was embarrassed about.
"Hey Nathaniel!"
The boy jumped, having not noticed Adrien's presence until he was right beside him. "Oh-Hi Adrien! Didn't-didn't see you there."
Adrien raised an eyebrow. "You feeling alright? You aren't usually this jumpy unless you accidentally spoiled an anime for yourself and don't want to accidentally burden anyone else with the knowledge."
"That was only one time…" Nathaniel muttered, remembering the 'Chainsaw Punch Basket' incident. "You… have you been on the internet lately?"
"Of course, everything is on the internet nowadays. Especially Fanfiction… don't know why I felt the need to bring that up?" Adrien mused to himself.
"So yesterday I was on patrol when an akuma attacked. Someone may have been filming the fight… and I may have gotten a little too into it…" Cat Noir wasn't the only hero to let out a bolder side of himself when transformed, Nathaniel felt much braver with the mask of Caprikid on and let his inner feelings show on the outside in his battles. He passed his phone to Adrien with a video pulled up on [NonBrandNameSocialMedia] which showed the goat hero standing atop the lower section of the Eiffel Tower, holding a man-sized butterfly net and waving it in the air threateningly "COME AND GET ME AKUMA, I'VE GOT THE POWER OF GOATS AND ANIME ON MY SIDE!"
The blonde chuckled at the video and then realized several other people in the hall were also watching variations of said video. "Wait… are you saying-"
"Yes Adrien. I've become a meme." Nathaniel answered gravely. "No one is going to take Caprikid seriously anymore if they associate him as a meme! Heck, even the akumas won't take me seriously!"
"Don't sweat it Nate, we'll help you become more than a meme!" Adrien reassured the distressed redhead.
The goat hero was touched, then noticed something off about what Adrien had said "Hang on, 'we'?"
"Yeah, me and Ivan." the blonde causally pointed to Nathaniel's other side, where he finally noticed the larger boy hovering next to him and yelped in surprise.
"I've been here the whole time." Ivan admitted, mildly surprised by how surprised his friend was to see him.
OXOXOXOX
Regrouping in the cafeteria at lunch, the trio discussed their plans in a hushed whisper to not attract any unwanted attention. "Alright Nathaniel, first we need to talk about what to do with any unwanted attention."
"Can't I just keep my head in my book and block out the world?" the unwanted meme boy asked.
Ivan stopped chewing his sandwich to speak. "Nah man. Then people will think you're hiding something, and you are hiding something."
"Ivan is correct." Adrien agreed, "Hiding away will only rouse suspicion. Just act like everything is normal and try not to pay attention to your problem." The model's cat-like instincts he picked up from dressing like a cat alerted him to a horrible presence coming his way. "Perfect time for an example."
Like a spider stalking its prey, Lila crept up behind Adrien with an oh-so-fake smile plastered on her face. "Hi Adrien! We haven't done any photoshoots together recently and I-" a loud sipping sound drowned out her voice. Lila blinked momentarily and saw that Adrien was talking a loud sip of his milk. A very loud sip. A very loud LONG sip.
The sound stopped and Lila tried to keep talking. "As I was sayin-" Adrien took another long sip, acting like he didn't even know she was there. The cycle repeated a few more times of Lila trying to get a word in and Adrien taking a comically long sip of his (long drank) milk. Irritated at being ignored, Lila marched around to the other end of the table so Adrien couldn't ignore her. Her fake smile was crooked and even more forced than usual "About our mod-" SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP. He kept drinking, avoiding eye contact despite the attention seeking girl looking right at him.
Suppressing an angry whine (that people could still hear), Lila stomped off to go eat with Chloe. Finally, removing the straw from his lips, Adrien's inner Cat Noir shined with a devious smirk. "And that is how you ignore a problem."
OXOXOXOX
The advice wouldn't be used until the next time Caprikid was on patrol. He, Pigella and Bunnyx hopped across rooftops, from down below the goat hero could hear some chatter directed towards him.
"Look, it's Caprikid! The hero from the video!"
"What happened to the giant butterfly net?"
"How many goats and which anime does he have on his side?"
Caprikid took a deep breath. "Ignore it, ignore it." he muttered under his breath. He closed his eyes and focused himself away from the voices of other people. Which sadly included his teammates, who tried to warn him that he was about to smash into a brick chimney.
He did not dodge the chimney.
OXOXOXOX
"Glad the suit absorbed the pain. But couldn't it have also taken the imprint of bricks off of my face?" Nathaniel dryly commented. The lower half of his face was red and marked in a brick pattern. Adrien and Ivan met the boy back at his house and were sitting around his room while their kwami's were busy huddled around a smartphone.
"You should be even more thankful no one recorded that and made you into another meme." Adrien pointed out.
Now that he'd learned that ignoring the public wouldn't work, it was time for the boys to bring out Plan B "So I guess it's time for us boys to bring out Plan B." The redhead sighed, looking at the blonde expectantly.
Adrien shrugged. "I got nothing. My other methods for dealing with problems probably won't help in your case."
"Hey Adrien!" Plagg's little voice spoke up. "I finally managed to make your phone automatically autocorrect the word 'Lila' to 'Butt'!" his holder gave a grateful thumbs up. Autocorrect wouldn't solve Nathaniel's problems, but they can solve his!
Ivan hummed to himself, scratching his chin in thought, "Maybe if you do something so awesome and cool, everyone will just forget about the meme?"
The suggestion had merit, but they were superheroes. They always did awesome things. "Ok, but what would this 'awesome and cool' thing even be?"
OXOXOXOX
At the next Akuma attack, Caprikid's plan went into motion. Cat Noir and Minotaurox already got him connected with his 'mount' and he was capable of creating his own weapon. And as if fate itself was shining upon him, the akuma was one that helped make the idea even cooler!
"Look out for the ninja!"
Rena Rouge warned the civilians still in the area. This ninja akuma (apparently named Shuriken) was sneaky and evading the heroes' attempts to apprehend him. Ladybug, Cat Noir and Vesperia were fighting almost blindly, standing back to back to back to keep Shuriken from sneaking up behind them… like a ninja!
"Where's Caprikid?" Ladybug tilted her head towards her partner. Although Cat Noir had explained that they had a secret elaborate plan they wanted to try out, neither boy would tell her what to expect. Because then it would just be an elaborate plan and those aren't nearly as fun!
The ground shook with what sounded like giant footsteps. Akuma and heroes alike hit pause on their fight to figure out what was going on. With a mighty roar, a T-Rex barrelled around the corner, wearing the second largest pair of sunglasses in the world and carrying a goat-themed hero on his back. Caprikid had his own human-sized sunglasses (and we mean HUMAN-SIZED) strapped to his back and some kind of gun or laser of slightly smaller size than the sunglasses held in his arms.
"Is that one of Dr. Anne-Jeanne's dinosaurs?" Ladybug was somehow not too fazed by this turn of events.
"We had a coupon." Cat Noir nodded.
Too stunned by what he was witnessing, Shuriken stood still long enough for Caprikid to aim the weapon at him. "VIVA LA FRANCE!" he shouted as he pulled the trigger. Flaming t-shirts shot out at lightning speed and fit Shuriken with enough force to leave a crater behind as he lay unconscious, with the burnt shirt wrapped around his torso.
"WOOO! That was awesome, Caprikid!" Cat Noir cheered and clapped, hoping everyone else would join in. However… "Wait, where are all the civilians?"
Rena Rouge walked by as Ladybug went to purify the akuma. "I got everyone evacuated right before dino-boy arrived."
Cat Noir's face fell, realizing that absolutely no one other than the heroes themselves saw what just transpired. "Gosh dang it to heck!" he stomped his foot on the pavement.
Rena looked unimpressed. Oh no, not because of the dinosaur, but because of Cat Noir's lack of language. "Wow, we really need to teach you some swear words."
OXOXOXOX
After returning the dinosaur and Max's shirt launcher of doom (patent pending), The boys were back to the brainstorming drawing board. Although the kwami's were using the drawing board to play tic-tac-toe, so it left them going over ideas verbally.
"-and Alix won't go back in time to stop me from doing that." Nathaniel groaned. At this point, it seemed like all other options had been exhausted. He would live and die as a meme. They would immortalize it on his tombstone for sure!
Ivan grumbled to himself, "Come on, there has to be something we haven't thought of…" he looked over the side of the roof they were apparently hanging out on. Hey, it was a nice day out, and they didn't want to be cooped up inside! Staring down at the masses, one spot of hideously bright orange and a furious shriek got his attention. "Is that banshee noise coming from Lila?"
"Probably. She must've found out she's been replaced for the next Gabriel photoshoot." Adrien answered. Somehow it had to have been his doing.
A lightbulb metaphorically went off over Ivan's head. "That's it! We need to make a new meme so people forget about the goats and anime!"
Nathaniel brightened, seeing what Ivan was getting at. "Then I'll be replaced as the meme of the moment and the spotlight goes to someone else!" It was brilliant! They'd fight memes with memes! His video will die quicker than Hawkmoth's rap career!
Ziggy, Stompp and Plagg returned to their holders, having overheard the new plan. "From what we've seen, most human 'mi-mi's' are something dumb or embarrassing happening to someone." Ziggy spoke up.
"And cats. Cats are everywhere!" Plagg added.
Striking a pondering pose like a model (which he was) Adrien contemplated how they should go about this. "If we go with embarrassing someone on in the internet for the whole world to see, I think I know who-"
"Lila?" Ivan raised an eyebrow. Adrien nodded in response. "What is your deal with her lately? You've been a lot saltier to her than usual."
The blonde's expression darkened. "She told my dad about the baked goods at the snack table during photoshoots and got them taken away. I swore vengeance until my mini croissants have been returned."
Baked vengeance aside, they still needed to figure out who to meme. An alert from the Miracusquad group text pinged on all of their phones. Nathaniel opened the chat to view the new post, and his eyes widened. "I think I know just who to meme."
OXOXOXOX
"Did you see that video with King Monkey!?"
"Are you kidding? All of Paris has seen it!"
Nathaniel strolled into school happily, listening to the same people who had been laughing about his video now laughing over a new one. Getting Kim on board was easy. After his post asking how much pudding was needed to fill a swimming pool, they knew he was the right man for the job. All he had to do was fight the next akuma and 'be himself' with camera's rolling to record whatever he'd do. And one video of him tossing a rubber chicken at a giant, flying amok and causing it to blow up instantly, then doing a stupid victory dance went viral. By the end of the day, people were already using it as a metaphor for destroying the problems in their lives.
And thankfully, being a meme was on Kim's bucket list, anyway.
So when Nathaniel walked into the classroom to see Kim sulking in a corner he was surprised "Uh, what's wrong with Kim?" the former meme boy asked his classmates.
Alya seemed sympathetic as she answered, pushing up her glasses in the middle like they do in anime. "He's depressed that he can't tell anyone he's the guy in the video."
In a quick swoosh, Adrien and Ivan were kneeling at Kim's sides. "Have no fear! We'll help you out!" Adrien assured the boy, winking at the camera.