In my oh so humble opinion, Winter break didn't last nearly long enough to count as a break.

In the first week, Hawkmoth decided to contribute his own bit of Christmas cheer by making a Santa Claus akuma. It was like some The Nightmare Before Christmas bull crap.

Mom really wanted to go caroling, which is always awkward. We dedicated a whole day to baking cookies, brownies, and various other bite sized things, just to give them away to random people. Well, not entirely random; it was mostly people we knew, like the Dupain-Chengs and Master Fu. But when we were done with that, we had extra and then gave them to our neighbors. I didn't even know their names.

Christmas mostly consisted of an extremely laggy video call from relatives who we couldn't visit. The main event was calling Pax and Jane and finding out how their lives were going.

Pax was dead tired, and slept less than I did without the excuse of having a secret life of a superhero/cryptid. But she was a college freshman with insomnia, so she had that going for her. Mom grilled her about making sure she took care of herself, Chase filled her in on the musical while she laughed at his pain. I tried to tell her how much I missed her without guilt tripping her into booking a flight to Paris with college loans.

Jane was "doing good." She just graduated from college, with a degree in History. She still didn't know what kind of job she wanted, so she was temporarily getting a teaching job at a charter school. I tried not to wince when she said it was a middle school, because I knew that age range was terrible. We all wished her luck.

The return to school was unforgiving, alleviated only by the fact that I could see Adrien and Nino on a daily basis.

Musical rehearsals also started, which meant my afternoons were now taken up by dancing and singing. The good news was that I didn't have a main role, so I didn't need to show up for every single night. Chase did, because he was directing this whole thing.

As one of the Silly Girls, I had one line, but I also had a good character trait. Silly Girls' whole shtick was that they fawned over Gaston, they even had a small solo during the 'Belle' number after Gaston's entrance.

The good news was that Chase managed to wrangle Monsieur Garnier into hiring a choreographer. The choreographer's name was Debbie (she never told us her last name) and she was a mildly insane mother of twin toddlers. She often showed up to the lessons like she stayed up all night, drafting dance moves like some sort of manic artist. She sometimes spoke in the third person. And she came up with her own nicknames for each move, like the butt swish or the pony trot. I thought she came up with the nicknames, but it'd be really funny if those were the actual names of the dance moves.

The choreographer occasionally brought her children to practice, which made things a little more... Crazy, to say the least.

. . .

Unfortunately, Chase needed to call the Silly Girls in most Gaston scenes. Even though he only needed to work with us, specifically, for about fifteen minutes of the two hours. Most of the rehearsal was spent with him giving the leads acting directions, while he placed them around on stage.

"Now, Gaston, your character is a dumb, narcissistic misogynist, right?"

The junior who played Gaston nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"So act like it! Play it up a whole lot, you're the villain here!" Chase passionately exclaimed. "You need to talk and walk like you've drunk no 'respect women juice' in your life, without realizing that there's a problem with that. Flex your muscles a little, you're the most important person in the room."

Gaston looked over at his arm, a normal sized one. Then he looked back at Chase and puffed his chest out and strutted about. People chuckled.

"You look more like a bird," LeFou's actor chuckled.

Gaston leaned into that remark and started squawking, and laughs rippled through the ensemble.

"It'll be more convincing when we get your costume sorted out, fake muscles included," Chase said. "But body language is a great start."

They ran through a few lines, and it did look better when Gaston actually walked like Gaston.

"We can work with the leads on a separate day to give body language lessons," Gen noted. "Let's focus on blocking and ensemble right now, since they're all here."

And so we started working on crowd scenes, where people group together and where they walked to and various cues. The Silly Girls were always next to each other, which was awkward since we weren't friends.

"We've ran through this at least eight times," Chloe complained. "How often am I going to have to walk in a straight line?"

"If you're bored," I grumbled, because I was sick of her bs, "consider making a character for yourself and sticking to it."

"Why would I need a character ," Chloe sneered.

"To be a good actor," I responded, because she asked, even if it was rudely, "you need to stick to a character. You can't just walk around as yourself, you aren't in love with Gaston."

She scoffed. "Why would I be in love with him ?"

I breathed out, closed my eyes and silently counted to three. "Silly girls are in love with Gaston. Your role is 'Silly Girl.' So you have to come up with a character to act like."

Mercifully, Chloe didn't say anything. And I was allowed to continue. "When I'm playing in a scene, I'm not myself. So I come up with a character to be, a person with a name, relationships and a backstory. My character's name is Cassandra: she's sixteen, the baker's daughter, but she wants to be a seamstress, and she has the biggest crush on Gaston."

" Cassandra , really?" Chloe raised an eyebrow.

I raised my own eyebrow in turn. "I'm not going to listen to criticism from someone who hasn't made their own character."

The menace flipped her hair and turned around with a 'hmph.'

We ran the same few lines a few more times, to make sure everyone remembered where their spot was. And, eventually, we worked our way through the script to where Silly Girls actually had lines.

"Silly Girl 1," Chase called out. "Who's that?"

"Me, obviously ," Chloe pushed me aside, causing me to run into the girl behind me.

" Right ," Chase said and made direct eye contact with me.

'I have to put up with her,' I mouthed to him. He smiled thinly. I was left uncertain if he understood what I said and was enjoying my pain or if he didn't understand and was ignorant. It could be either one.

"I want all silly girls to always try to get Gaston's attention: wave at him, blow kisses, come up with something, as long as it isn't too distracting from the main scene. Be sure to sort out which Silly Girl has which line-"

Someone was talking behind me, much to my irritation. They were fairly quiet, I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was just enough background noise to make it difficult for me to focus on whatever Chase and Gen were saying. Unfortunately, they weren't the only one talking. A few sophomores were having an entire conversation somewhere to my right. My eye twitched.

I had forgot how annoying people were.

We reset positions, once again, this time with the intention to finish the scene.

"Cut!" Chase said. "Who's silly girl 3?"

There's a third silly girl?

I glanced at Chloe, who seemed equally perplexed.

No one else was saying anything.

Wait.

I turned around, and saw Luka's little sister, timidly raising her hand. What was her name? I knew she was in some of my classes and was always with the pink girl - Rose. I didn't even know she auditioned.

Great, now I feel like a douche-bag.

"Make sure to speak up and enunciate when you say your lines." Chase instructed. "And that goes for all of you!"

She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Run it again!"

A chorus of groans rang out, this was the fourteenth time running this scene, but everyone got back into place.

Eventually, time ran out and it was time for the student directors to give notes on how to improve.

"There was way too much talking onstage today. You're disrespecting everyone when you talk during a scene or when either Chase or I give instructions." Gen was not pleased. "I understand that this is everyone's first musical, but we need to be productive in the rehearsals. We only have a few months to memorize this, to perfect this. We can't afford to spend minutes between scenes just talking."

I felt my ears burn a bit. I hated being near anyone who was getting scolded, much less getting scolded myself. And I wasn't guiltless. I blamed Chloe for being annoying, though.

"If you have lines, pay attention to who speaks before you. You need to be prepared to speak up. Make sure you project and enunciate your words." Chase added, "Grandmas in the back of the theater need to hear and understand you."

"Thank you all for the hard work, tomorrow is choreography with Debbie-"

Several people cheered.

"-I hope you all have a good day, T-shirt and sweater sign ups are up front-"

. . .

Juleka was trying her best not to cry.

That rehearsal was... was... frustrating.

She didn't have a problem with singing or dancing days. Everyone had a place, a part, and everyone was working together.

But today, every single time she tried to say anything, someone else talked over her. It didn't matter if it was a scripted line or a question.

And no one seemed to notice her. She always was in the back of the crowd, even when she tried to be closer to the front, people moved in front of her.

She felt like she was invisible.

. . .

Alya hated science homework. She sat at her desk, staring at the packet full of word problems and boring passages connected to boring graphs. Madam Mendeleiev gave out the worst homework, and she gave it out almost every night. She actually seemed annoyed whenever she didn't give out homework.

Alya flipped over the final page of the packet, and almost cheered. She almost cheered because she thought she was done. She didn't cheer because the last page was double sided.

She flipped through the rest of the packet furiously and - the back page was the only one that was double sided. Why?!

Madam Mendeleiev was definitely a sadist who hated children. Alya didn't think she had the brain power to complete the last page...

Alya's phone buzzed.

She picked it up in record time. Her face split into a grin. She could finish the homework later.

She snagged her jacket and a hat and rushed to get outside.

She was at the front door when-

"Where do you think you're going, little lady?"

Alya turned around. " Mama , there's an akuma attack, I have to go see Ladybug!"

Her Mom arched an eyebrow. "Did you even check the classification?"

"It's green!" Alya said. "You said I could go watch the green ones!"

"And did you finish your homework?"

Alya withheld a groan. "I've been working on it for hours , I need a break!"

Her mom scrutinized her. "Be back before... 9 o'clock."

Alya grinned. "Thanks, Mama!"

"And stay safe!"

Alya rushed out of her apartment complex and made her way to where the attack was reported. She saw evidence of the attack on her way, as per usual.

Usually, the evidence was collateral damage like cracked stone or flipped cars or pigeons behaving strangely.

This time, the evidence was a trail of identical, obnoxiously bright pink people. Who were all complaining.

"Ugh! How am I supposed to go to work looking like this!" One of them complained, their voice was a deep baritone that completely contrasted with their appearance.

"Robert? Is that you?" Yet another man's voice.

"Matt? Where are you?"

Alya heard a child laughing maniacally. "Yes! I'm finally tall!"

Another one was sitting in a baby carrier, wailing like a newborn. Another one was attempting to comfort it, only to end up get repeatedly hit in the face by the flailing limbs.

This was enough to convince Alya that these weren't clones of the akuma or something similar, but rather affected citizens.

"Does anyone know where the real akuma is!?" Alya called out to the disgruntled people on the street.

"She was going that way!" Matt's voice said, and one of them pointed down the street. Alya assumed the one that pointed was Matt. This was getting a little confusing.

"It's a little hard to keep track of her, when everyone looks the same," Robert grumbled. "Is this dress made of plastic or something?!"

"She was shooting lasers! Like: blam! blam! blam!" The kid who was excited about being tall said, "She hit me and it was a little weird, but it didn't hurt at all!"

Alya really didn't have time to talk with all of them, she had an akuma to catch.

"Thanks for the help!" She yelled. Then she took off sprinting.

The further she traveled in the akuma's direction, the more the streets were cleared of people. Most everyone who was hit had gone inside and people who weren't hit, stayed inside.

And as Alya went further, she could practically feel her akuma senses tingling. She started taking cover behind objects as she advanced. She started live streaming on the Ladyblog.

"Ladyblogger here," She whispered. "I think I'm getting closer to where the akuma is. It's a green akuma, so it should be pretty safe to observe..."

"Ladybug and Chat Noir! Why don't you come out of hiding and give me your miraculous!"

That has to be it.

Alya pressed herself against a nearby car. She peeked her phone's camera around the corner and caught sight of the akuma.

She looked just like the people Alya ran into earlier, or rather, the people looked just like her. Gaudy, pink, kind of like if a Barbie doll and a clown had a baby. Her power must be to make other people look like her. Alya didn't really see how that was supposed to help her fight Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Alya wasn't here to watch a fight (that was just a benefit). She was here because she wanted to talk to Ladybug. And she knew that Ladybug had to show up for akuma fights!

(Ladybug patrolled late at night, so Alya's mom didn't let her chase after them. Alya also couldn't ever catch up to them.)

Alya was going to secure an interview today, no matter what!

. . .

It took a while to track down the akuma. Every time Reflecta saw anyone, she shot a laser that turned the person into an identical looking copy. That was all it did.

Easy to fight, but hard to track down since literally everyone looked like her. Ladybug accidentally almost jumped an innocent civilian twice .

Luckily, the akuma didn't look up very often, or she would have spotted a trio of heroes trailing her from the rooftops. I personally didn't have an easy way to slingshot myself across the city like Ladybug, but most of the roofs were pretty close together so I had that going for me.

And to continue the good news, the Reflecta they were trailing decided to announce to the world that they were the akuma.

So this time, Chat Noir didn't hesitate to launch an attack from the sky with a war cry.

Less fortunately, he got nailed with a pink-ifying laser mid attack.

"Chat Noir!" Ladybug cried from beside me.

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Not that she could see the raised eyebrow. If he didn't want to get caught by the uglifying beam then he shouldn't have announced his attack.

Chat Noir landed without any cat-like grace. He examined himself with disgust, then he looked at his new shoes - which were now hot pink high heels that looked like they were made of plastic. He tried to get up, and ended up wobbling on his feet.

"How do girls walk in these?"

Reflecta laughed at him. A faint outline of a butterfly glowed on her face for a moment.

"I'll handle it," She said cruelly and without any context whatsoever.

Ladybug jumped down while the akuma was distracted by Chat Noir's misfortune. I landed right beside her, my cloak billowing out from the fall. Cloaks are the best , I decided. They should never have gone out of fashion.

The fight started promptly.

Reflecta attempted to blast them with her lasers, Ladybug and I did our best to dodge them, while Chat Noir stumbled about, trying his best to figure out how to wear heels while fighting.

Eventually Ladybug got nailed with a laser. The heels hardly affected her movement. The only thing that changed was that she no longer had access to her yo-yo.

"When I'm done with you all, no one will ignore me!" Reflecta taunted, shooting a laser at me, which I ducked.

"If everyone looks like you, how are you going to stand out?" Chat Noir wondered, truly puzzled.

Reflecta snarled and punched him in the face. He responded with a slap.

"Why are you hitting yourself?" Ladybug taunted with a smirk.

That's when Reflecta hit me with a laser.

I was suddenly very tired.

I looked down, expecting to see obnoxious pink and heels. Except I looked the same.

This confused everyone. But Reflecta didn't pause, and just shot me with another laser.

This one worked and the fight continued much the same and wrapped up very quickly. It was a three against one, where everyone literally had the exact same physical abilities, even if we all had different technique.

Ladybug purified the akuma, much to my relief - I really couldn't stand obnoxious colors.

"Ladybug, wait!"

I jumped a little. I didn't notice that Alya was here.

"Ladybug can I please have an interview, it won't take longer than ten, no, twenty minutes!"

Ladybug smiled a little. And asked to talk about it later.

I retreated quickly. I really didn't want to get interrogated by the blogger.

. . .

"-Due to the recent attack of the akuma known as Reflecta, we have updated the akuma classifications."

"The new classification is class: Minion. Akumas in this class directly target and affect civilians."

"Reflecta is a Green Minion class, because her ability specifically affected people, although the effect was practically harmless."

"When a Minion class is identified, we encourage all civilians to stay as far away from the akuma as possible. Hide, lock your doors, make sure it doesn't know your location-"

. . .

It was difficult to book a flight to Paris.

With the villain known as 'Hawkmoth' abusing the Butterfly Miraculous, the city was in near constant lock down. People who lived inside were adapting to the magical attacks on their livelihoods. However, no one wanted to enter the city, and the economy had plummeted when a rush of people left the city in the initial attack of the first akuma known as 'Stoneheart.' It had since plateaued, but it had not yet begun rising. The majority of the tourist attractions were temporarily shut down. Public airlines no longer landed at the Parisian airport, too afraid that there could be a powerful akuma that would strike a plane from the sky.

It wasn't impossible to convince a private jet to make the flight to Paris, with enough money.

Kagami Tsurugi didn't have time to ride a boat to the mainland and then drive approximately ten thousand kilometers to Paris.

By the time news of the rampant Miraculous user reached the ears of the Tsurugi clan (three hours), it was far too late to keep it from the news. In fact, shameful as it was, the news had learned about it before the Tsurugi clan. The damage was far too extensive to sweep it under the rug, and so now the world knew of the Miraculous.

Though, outside of Paris, most people were split on whether or not it was genuine or not. Some people believed it was merely an outrageous movie promotion, blinded by their own narrow view. And those who did believe argued over the true cause: aliens, the devil, monsters.

They were all incorrect. The Tsurugi Clan had been a keeper of secrets, the record holders of Magic for the past thousand years. The Guardians rose, and they fell. The wrathful light of Dream smote all who opposed her, but she too fell. The Corruptor was dragged from its place of false deity-hood and sealed below.

The Tsurugi Clan survived through it all. They kept to their duties of recording the passing of times.

And now, Kagami was to insert an entry in the Archive.

It was something rarely done. After the majority of Kwami were sealed away in the wake of the Corruptor's reign, magical events dwindled. To be the one chosen to record a major event such as this was a great honor.

Currently, the airport was on lock down. A mild inconvenience, but for a fair reason. An akuma attack was occuring, and the screens displayed various pink people who all looked the same. It appeared part of the akuma's power was to make others look identical to them.

The news reporter interviewed a few of them, who confessed that it was not painful and they fully intended to go to work looking like they did. The appearance change must be the extent of its ability.

How useless.

Kagami was more interested in the Miraculous users than what foolish power Hawkmoth deigned to grant his minions. But she would record it, nonetheless.

She knew the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous were used by the 'heroes.' But she had also heard of a third, whose theme was more difficult to trace. There were few online pictures of them, and the public merely called them 'Ghost.'

Kagami needed to know what fool entrusted two of the most powerful Miraculous to two children, when one adult holding a Miraculous of middling strength should be more than enough to take care of Hawkmoth. Children could not channel nearly as much energy safely as an adult, which was why Ladybug and Chat Noir occasionally struggled against Hawkmoth's minions.

The Ghost was an enigma. The Tsurugi Clan had no information on any Kwami that met its description. This was troubling. That implies that there was either a kwami connected to a Miraculous or Charm that escaped the Archive's notice , or a new kwami came into being and someone bonded them to a Miraculous.

Bonding a kwami to a miraculous was a lost art. Not because it was forgotten. No, the knowledge and the ritual was purposefully destroyed.

After Dark Magic first surfaced, twisting the wills of kwami to serve an evil user, the Binders wiped out all knowledge of it. They worried, for good reason, that the dark sorcerers would bind an unwilling kwami, such as Gravity, and abuse the power of a kwami that could control the laws of the Universe. The original story eventually became lost to time and most forgot that kwami needed to be bound in the first place.

The Guardians tried their best to eliminate all records of Dark Magic. They hunted down all who used it and burned their vile tomes.

Some slipped through the crack, since Hawkmoth spread the foul magic now.

Foul it was. Kagami could taste the dregs of it on the air. It hung in the air like rot and mold. She had always been an excellent sensor. Unfortunately, Hawkmoth spread it all across the city- it would be difficult to track the source, even without considering the overpowering flavor of Creation and the rusty taste of Destruction.

There was another flavor, one she couldn't quite place. Kagami assumed it was the mysterious Ghost. Strange, she was usually able to place the exact source of something after sensing it.

She returned her attention to the TV screen, where the footage of the akuma fight was now playing. It had a bird's eye view over it, where it took place in an abandoned street. It must be a news helicopter that was recording the fight.

Three of the 'Reflectas' all attacked one, only for it to attempt to retreat. The purpose of the tactical retreat was unclear, perhaps Reflecta desired to blend in with the affected civilians and form an effective strategy? However, all the civilians had already retreated to either their workplace or their home, and the doors were locked behind them.

So the only potential strategy was a mute one. And, without the heroes worrying about civilian casualties, it became a three on one beat down. Reflecta attempted to confuse the heroes, by weaving in between the attacks, but it was not effective. The heroes must have been able to identify each other by voice.

Soon the corrupted object was found and broken. The akuma's powers faded and with it everyone's appearance returned to normal.

Chat Noir's suit was made of black leather. There was no armor, beyond the suit's magical properties. Ladybug's suit was similar, though it replaced the leather with spandex, which was perhaps even more egregious.

Kagami was struck again by how young they were. They couldn't be older than her. Kagami was not one to judge others based on age; she has met a fair amount of adults who were incompetent and a fair number of children who were wiser than their parents. She herself was a prodigy in strategy and combat - which was the reason she believed she was sent on this mission as opposed to a clan agent with more experience.

The final figure had a cloak concealing the majority of their figure. The angle of the camera made it difficult to see their face, even if there was not some form of object that concealed it from view.

Ghost was not in frame for very long. The camera zoomed in and focused on Ladybug alone, who whipped out her yo-yo and captured the fleeing corrupted butterfly.

The purification tasted like citrus, but it was soon drowned out by the overwhelming taste of Creation - a flavor so complex Kagami often struggled to describe it to others who didn't share her unique perspective on magic.

The pink and red magic restored everything damaged in the fight, though there must not have been much collateral damage considering the weakness of the akuma.

It didn't matter now.

Kagami had a mission to complete.

AN:

This is the fastest chapter I've ever written. I finished it only a week and some change after I posted last chapter. So I've managed to actually start writing some backlog.

Reflecta has always been my least favorite akuma. Her power is just about useless and it literally prevents her from doing what Hawkmoth wants her to do. How's she supposed to take the LB earrings or the BC ring if the heroes don't have them? In the episode, Hawkmoth asks the same thing and the only answer we get is 'I'll handle it.' Like, Goirl, handle what?

What's Kagami up to? Guess we'll never know...

What are y'alls thoughts on the mlb movie? What's the dumbest quote from the show?