Hello, bet you didn't expect me here, didya? So, 1 year anniversary for this book is hopefully the day I upload this. I just want to say, sorry. I told myself that I would update this once or twice a month at least, and i've barely done that. At first, it was because of my other story, I gave that one top priority, but then I had low points that I couldn't get myself out of… I didn't want to write anymore, and that's not fair to you guys, so I apologize.

ANYWHO ONTO WHY IM REALLY WRITING UP HERE.Since halloween just passed, this chapter will have a themed noncanon akuma! I was thinking about what would happen if not just an innocent person was akumatised, but someone bad… what if a murderer got akumatized?

So, imma do some warnings. Story still T, all the warnings are still T, I just want to put it in here because some people don't like some things. So, WARNING FOR SOME MILD (closer to LOW) GORE, SWEARS MAYBE, AND SOME FLUFFINEST BECAUSE IT's AN ANNIVERSARY CHAPTERAnd this one will be extra long, I hope….

Ps. PLEASE read note at bottom if you have anything to say about season 2 itself....

When you live forever

Halloween takes on a whole new meaning…

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world there was only one of him."

David Wong, "John Dies at the End".

Adrian.

I blinked. Twice. My hands went to rub my eyes but I stopped them. Letting out a sound that was more of a growl then a whimper, I forced myself to smile. "Mr. Designer man, pleasure."

What annoyed me the most was our similarities. I don't quite remember what he looked like before he became immortal, but people now could easily take us as related. He had my sunny blonde hair, albeit slightly paler, as if sick, and his violet eyes had a greenish blue tinge to them, making them change to those colors in certain light. He soo liked to brag about that when we were younger, a hundred years or so.

Now, though, he didn't look to be a teen, somewhere in his early thirties instead. He was a foot taller as well, something he was demonstrating right now by leering over us.

But he didn't like the name 'Mr. Designer man', so I took that as a win.

He frowned, standing straighter as if just remembering where they were and who was with them. Alya was tilting her head at Marinette who had liquid defiance in her eyes, and Mr. Gracestone was frowning slightly at the man. In his point of view, it was just a man with no affiliation with two teenagers first smiling weirdly at them then sneering. It made me smile to think that Mr. Gracestone was already choosing our sides and was wary, but I also didn't want him in harm's way.

Gabriel wrinkled his nose. "I'm sure it is. I was going to watch you model some of the outfits. I've very particular about who I have model my clothes."

Mr. Gracestone stepped in then. "Why don't you all get changed. Marinette, darling, we haven't cleaned out a room for Alya yet, so you'll need to share."

"No problem Mr. Gracestone." Marinette said, tapping Alya's wrist and turning around, grabbing my shirt sleeve on the way, pulling me out as well. I glanced at him once more, and he was rubbing the brooch on his neck, smiling slightly.

As soon as I had check my clothes over and had put them on. I moved to the girl's room, knocking before coming in.

They were both changed, Alya wearing black pants and a blue long overcoat with a scarf, and Mari with black leggins and a wool sweater dress. I hadn't even noticed what I put on, and I didn't care.

Alya still looked confused. "Dude, why did you both look like you wanted to drown Gabriel Agreste?"

"He just…" I trailed off, trying to find something to say. This was bad- I didn't want him anywhere closer, not to me, not to Mari, and definitely not to Alya, who didn't know and couldn't protect herself. "There was this guy on a commercial, a few years back, we both saw it, a few days before I moved here." I scratched the back of my head, brain on overload as I came up with a half decent excuse. "He looked identical to that guy, Gabriel, but the guy in the commercial was a criminal."

"Yeah." Mari joined in. "I don't trust him. We lived in a pretty rural area before- no one knew about him so he could get away with almost anything. Murder, robbing, kidnapping…" She paused. "Please, I know this could just be a coincidence, but please… don't talk to him alone."

"Creepy old guy that might be a criminal?" Alya asked. "I know I might have an obsession with superheroes, but seriously, i'm not that bad."

Gabriel didn't do anything but stare during the actual shoot. It was inexplicably unnerving and uncomfortable, but we were at work, we needed the money. Mr. Gracestone stood arms crossed next to him the entire time, dwarfing him in height still.

"Adrian, huh?" Gabriel said with a smirk right as we were leaving. I don't know why he said what he did next. "My wife named our son Adrian, too."

I turned to look at him as Mari got into the taxi, raising my eyebrow. Even though it's not my real name, it's very close to my real name, and him having child? As far as I know, this will be his first one. "Your point?"

He blinked, before smiling slightly. "Oh, you don't know? None of the other immortals told you the plan I have for you? I'm surprised."

"So are you going to tell me yourself?" I asked calmly, trying my best to keep my face passive. What plan? And if it was such a bad plan that the other immortals would try to warn me, why would he tell them it in the first place? "Or will you just give me that brooch on your neck? We might forgive you if you do." Lie.

"No fun in that, Arden." He shifted, as if about to move forward. Still wary, I took a step backwards, meeting his eyes the entire time before turning on my heel and going to the taxi. I could feel Plagg's sheer anger for the immortal burning in his part of my soul, and from where he was in my pocket with Tikki. Out of every immortal or kwami, he held the most hate for the man. The only one coming close being Mason.

And that was the easiest part of the weekend.

We had tomorrow, sunday, off for halloween. Even though I haven't gone trick or treating in years, Mr. Gracestone still gave all the minors the day off, making them promise to balance their diet of sweets. After lunch, we joined Nino and Alya at a candy store to grab some sweets, before heading back to our place to watch some horror. For the first hour, We watched a b rated movie, the kwami nestled in my hair, before Tikki shivered and Plagg hissed at something.

"Hey, Mari, help me make some more popcorn." I got up, moving over towards the kitchen with Mari behind me. "Don't snog each other too hard while we're gone."

"You english or something? Snog?" Nino laughed as Alya said. "Like you won't be doing the same."

That made me blush more than it should.

We walked into the kitchen, the kwami flying to sit on the shelf. Marinette looked at me curiously. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." I said, looking at the kwami, "Just had a hunch."

"There's an akuma out." Tikki said in explanation. "It feels, weird, like its gaining power by the minute."

"Isn't that what a lot of akumas do?" Mari asked. "Timebreaker stole power and it made her stronger."

"No…" TIkki shook her head. "It feels different. It's… it's not power, it's more like a lifeforce."

I narrowed my eyes, "What do you mean, lifeforce?"

The power went out, blanketing the entire apartment in darkness. Static seemed to buzz in the air, whispering something in the winds.

They say the ghost goes away when the clock hits midnight, but I say it's the other way around.

X

"All the power in Paris is out. Everything electronic is malfunctioning, but everything else hasn't been touched." Ladybug landed next to me, footfalls soft as she looked around. "The weird thing is the people. They're attacking each other and robbing stores, kids trick or treating are going missing, and everything is going down a hell hole. I thought that maybe the akuma could be doing it, but they all just seem to be in a furious panic."

Isn't it your job to calm them down? Doing a terrific job, arent you Mari?

I blinked, shaking the surprising thought out of my head. Standing up from my crouched posistion, I looked out over the street below. It was quiet where we were, a group of kids still ran up and down the street asking for candy. The adults giving out the candy was gone, but the kids were still only taking a few peices from each. Good kids.

"It'll show up eventually." I said after a moment. "It defeats the entire purpose of having an akuma if they never attack us."

Marinette scrunched her eyebrows in thought. "If it was someone chasing us right now, do you think we could lure it out of Paris? With it gone, maybe the lights will come back on."

I looked back down at the kids. The night light posts seemed to be the only source of light that wasn't off, which was good for Mari, who couldn't see in the dark as well as I could.

Slows you down, huh?

"We'd be taking the akuma to some other city, through, a city not prepared for akumas." I responded. "The panic would be extreme, and the citizens might try to stop us from working."

Mari frowned, more at me then at the idea, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. On a dime, I changed the subject. "Has Tikki said anything?"

It's not uncommon for them to not say anything while suited up, I'm just surprised at how silent Plagg has been, since he was so off put about this akuma. Maybe he's just thinking.

"Buzzing about something or other in a different language." Marinette waved the question away. "Come on, lets do another lap."

Like you and your blind eyes will be a help at all.

An hour later, we landed on a park bench, out of luck and tired. Marinette groaned loudly. "Where is it hiding?! No subway, no tower, no walking around the streets! Not in the school or anywhere-"

She trailed off as a man wielding a baseball bat strayed closer, eyeing us warily while tapping the thing. We shared a glance, before I got up, giving the man's my famous grin. "Hey, sir, is there a cat-astrophe you need help with?" The man gulped, backing up with fear in his eyes. I raised an eyebrow, shifting slightly in defense. "What? Cat got your tongue?"

In a single second, the fear in his eyes turned into raging fury, and he swung his bat as hard as possible. Instinctively, I jumped back, shielding myself with my arm. The bat connected with my forearm, so close to breaking something but just a little to soft. I hissed in pain, jumping backwards completely to hold my arm. Even though leather fabric covered it, I could feel the bruise blooming underneath.

The man ran forward, bat held over his head. Holding my bad hand to my chest, I ducked down, doing a partial handstand before kicking my feet out into the man's chest, causing him to groan and collapse. As he staggered to his knees, Marinette wrapped the yoyo around his bat, taking it away easily, and holding it behind her.

That's a good partner, she is. Letting you get hurt before helping out.

In the back of my head, past the pain, I could hear some chattering, like Plagg was mewling at something. It was soft, so soft that I didn't know if it was real, or if my mind wanted to give me comfort for the pain, and was making Plagg up instead.

After a moment, when we were sure the guy wasn't getting up, Marinette gilded towards me, gently taking my arm. "Broken?"

"Fractured at most. Internal bruising definitely, but nothing to bad. Still have my dominant arm." I took my arm out of her grip, waving around my free arm somewhat wildly so she could see that I was fine. A small smile lit her face, which made me smile too. After a moment I stepped back, moving towards the still down man.

"Hey." I nudged him with my toe. "Why'd you attack me?" When he didn't answer, I crouched down next to him, slapping his face lightly. "Hey I know you might've never been in a fight before but I didn't get you that hard."

I looked closer at the man. His skin had a slight greyish tint to it, something I thought had to do with the light or my night vision but looking this close I could easily tell it didn't. It looked as if his skin had a second layer, so thin and almost transparent that the normal eye might not even catch it.

I turned to look at Marinette, scanning the only skin I could see while she still had on a mask, around her cheeks. It's usaully vibrant tan and peach tones were dull, no flush to them whatsoever, and also slightly grey, albeit in a much lower tone. "Hey, my lady, there's something on this guy's skin-"

In jus the blink of an eye, all the lamp posts cut off, blanketing the city in darkness, before turning on a millisecond later. The guy shot forward, gasping as if he just had a nightmare. Any sign of that weird tint had disappeared. The man got up quickly, sputtering an apology and dashing away.

"I didn't see anything. Her tone didn't sound doubtful, but it felt like that to me. "What did you see?"

She doesn't believe you. Grey skin? Ha, she's going to laugh.

"Nevermind." I Said after a moment, then rethought. "I'll… tell you later."

X

After another 15 minutes of running around with nothing to say for it later, we were both starting to get annoyed.

"Maybe we should go back to Nino and Alya, wait for the akuma to show itself." I suggested, hopping to the top of a lamp post and crouching. My arm was burning, something I disliked even more then the sharp stab of pain the actual bat gave me, but I said nothing about it, resting it carefully on my knee.

"Maybe that's all we can do…" Marinette murmured, and I glanced at her. The grey tinged had darkened a fraction as we had been running around in silence. I looked at my own gloved hand, wondering if under it my skin was grey too.

"Ladybug! Chat Noir!" A police office waved wildly from where he stood some good meters away, before making a dead sprint over. His gaze flew by me to Ladybug, huffing before speaking. "You need to come see this."

X

The police office was dark, like every other building, but a decent amount of glowsticks hung on the walls and a few on the ceiling, casting an eerie glow to the whole place. A row of cells cover the far side wall, all open and empty. Probably because everyone it was holding was out, yelling and trashing things and hurting others.

"Connor!" Captain Roger yelled out in the din of noise, pushing through passing officers. He glanced at us with a scowl. "Why'd you bring kids here?"

He doesn't believe what you told them all. He thinks you lied.

Connor frowned. "Since they're combat advanced and they have, what i guess to be, thousands of years of experience-"

"I don't care if they can beat Bruce Lee with their pinkie finger. I don't care if they're 15 million years old. They look like kids and kids should not see this."

He waved behind him, and I could see an officer dragging a male officer with a shredded knife wound out of the fray. Looking up again, I noticed something that gave me a large double take.

Since I noticed before, I had been looking at passing people as we went, checking out how noticable their grey skin was. Many it was barely noticable, some it was there but almost hidden in the low light around the city. Those with the more noticeable skin were the ones who seemed more panicked and scared. More aggressive.

That would make sense as to why no one under the age of ten seemed to have it, or even seemed at all paranoid. They were completely oblivious, and even if they weren't, they would be more likely to hide then fight.

But then that didn't explain why the police officer, Connor, was almost devoid of even a tint of grey. It was so nonexistent, that now he almost stood out like a beacon, especially next to Roger, who was starting to look like a statue.

Overthinking it. You need to find the akuma.

I do need to find the akuma, but I don't think im overthinking it… Connor looked confused, tilting his head. "If they are millions of years old, they have probably seen way worse, captain."

Try Genghis Khan's sock drawer.

I shudder at the memory.

That was when a criminal wielding a kitchen knife moved past the fray, charging towards Roger with murderous intent, the green and blue glow sticks making his almost solid grey skin unnoticeable to even the enhanced eye. Ladybug noticed at the same time. "Roger-"

We acted as one.

Marinette made a move forward, pulling Roger out of the way while simultaneously stepping in front of Connor. I pulled out my baton, holding it out one handed, letting the knife scrape off it towards the floor, which brought the man's arm with it. She kicked the man's hand, disarming him as I hit the back of his legs, making him fall to the floor. With her yo-yo, Marinette grabbed a hanging pair of cuffs, flicking them over to me. I caught them, locking them onto the man's wrists behind his back. I had to ignore the pain of my arm, but it was slight, and the whole thing had been five seconds at most.

Roger blinked in surprise, mouth slightly open, but Connor just grinned slightly, mirth flashing in his eyes. After a moment, he looked at me. "Are you injured? Your arm?"

If not for the years of practice, I would've look visibly surprised as well at that moment. Instead, I grinned again. "S'fine. Just a little bruise. A few painkillers and it'll be fine."

"I can see it now." Marinette mumbled. "'Superhero Chat Noir stuck in hospital because he didn't properly heal his arm. Just a few painkillers~'" Her tone was light though, and she smiled.

And, for a second, her skin lightened.

We helped clear out the station, locking the basically grey criminals up back in their cells. I really didn't know how the cops or Marinette got around, even if their eyes adjusted. The glow sticks were waning down, the moon was almost the only light in the building.

"28 prisoners accounted for with a plus 12 missing. From accounted prisoners, 10 injured, and 6 deceased." Someone reported over the comms. I hung my head slightly, saddened by the news. Marinette's cleanse heals the living, but not the dead. Well, at least, not Immortals. We've tried, many times…

You could've gotten them all if she had done a better job. No one would've died either.

No… that wasn't anyone's fault, the only fault it was, was Gabe's. If I think negatively all the time, then I won't be able to do good as easily-

Wait.

Those… aren't my thoughts.

"Mari!"

X

"Who's Mari?" Connor asked curiously, head tilted. He was the only one close enough to hear me besides Mari.

"Someone who might know the akuma." I pulled up a lie, spewing it out without even realizing it. "We gave you our number? Call whenever something's wrong. Ladybug-"

She was already next to me, following me out of the police station, matching my quicken stride as we left the building into the cooler air. Even with the heat off, the building was still warmer. "Chat? What happened?"

"Remember when I noticed something early but didn't elaborate?" I almost cut her off with how quick I was talking, unconsciously wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her up on top of a particularly tall building. The contact felt wrong, every part of my brain said no, like she isn't my long time best friend, but my entire body was basically purring for the contact, as if I had been deprived of it. It's why I didn't let go as I sat down, pulling her down with me. She didn't say anything, though.

"Yeah, something about skin." Marinette, Mari nodded. "What 'eureka' moment did you have?"

"Every single one possible on this subject." I grinned mischievously, more as a little excitement then an answer. I nodded mentally when she giggled, her skin changing a hair of a fraction. "On all the people I've seen since this started, I've seen this little grey sheet of skin or something wrapped around them. When we knocked that bat guy out, and the lights went off, when I looked at him again, he looked completely normal. It had gone."

Mari nodded, but said nothing as I continued, leaning a little more on her. "I think this is the akuma's power- borderline mind manipulation. Have you heard this little negative voice in your head?" I wasn't surprised at her nod. "Suspected so. It's the akuma. I think that when you first hear the voice, your skin color is a barely noticeable grey, but then when you start doing what the voice says, like hurting someone, you get to a darker grey, until you're so far gone that you're not in control anymore."

"Complete control?" She asked. "We've dealt with that before, we should be fine. We just need to find the akuma."

Barely listening to you-

I blinked, mentally shaking my head to get rid of the voice. Shaking my head physically, I said "This is different though. None of the other akumas had their captives kill people. And it hit everyone in the city at once with no warning." I shook my head. "Except for the children… and Conner. They're completely fine-"

"Wait." Mari interrupted. "Connor isn't grey at all?"

"Not at all." I nodded.

Mari tapped her chin, shaking her head in thought. "Kids… innocence, maybe? But then Conner is a grown man in the police force. He seen some things, definitely. What connects that?"

I shrugged, looking around. "He did seem a little, off. Gullibility?"

"Wouldn't that make them more likely to turn grey?" She paused, before snapping her fingers. "Moral."

"What?"

"Kids are gullible, your right." She said. "They're very impressionable, but most parents give their kids good morals, like using manners, helping people, and stopping violence. Stuff like stranger danger. That voice won't work on them because it's a strange telling them to do stuff their parents told them not to."

"And Connor seems to have good morals as well…" I agreed, thinking about it. "And most people aren't that grey, except for the criminals-"

"-Who wouldn't have as many or any morals-" Mari completed the setence.

"And some others, like baseball bat man, but he seemed more scared then evil, persay…" I trailed off again. "I need to find a mirror."

"To see how grey you are?" She asked. "I don't have night vision, but you don't seem to different."

I touched the skin around my face, trying to feel through the pads of my gloves, as if I could tell just by touch. "I just want to make sure." I said. "I can head to the apartment and check."

"Alya and Nino will be there, though." Mari held her yoyo. "I got some cookies in on me. I'll lucky charm one for you."

"Figured out how to control it?"

A smirk. "More or less."

A moment later, a full length mirror fell down, ladybug barely catching it before it broke. She huffed slightly, setting it down. I raised an eyebrow at the height of it.

"This is the 'less', part." Mari grumbled. "I'll work on it later. But for now, take a look, it's to dark for me to see."

I moved to the mirror and yelped. I hadn't even had a good look yet, and I had already realized that the problem wasn't the skin.

Surrounding my body like a cloud, black particle smog floated around, staying packed around my general form.

"What's wrong, Chat?" Mari asked, but I put my hand to my lips, purposely being a bit rude. Immediately as I did that, I could see Mari's lips tilt down in the mirror, while the black smoke around her flared.

That's when it happened.

Crawling out of the ground (through the roof), something that could barely be described as humanoid climbed out of the ground. It was easily 6 feet, shooting towards 7, with a pencil thin body and gangly long legs and arms, like noodles almost. It was clad in black, with white armbands around it's biceps, and thighs, three around the ankles and one for a neckline, even though the clothes covered it's face. On its head, a full mask with pitch black way to big eyes draw on it, purple circles around the cheeks, and a wide, open smile on its face, showing off sharp teeth in between it's red painted lips.

It crawled out of the ground with it's hands, but after that it's arms stayed limp to its side, its legs also dragged on the ground as if it was a puppet, or an marinette doll. I forced myself to stay still, eyes staying on Mari when it glanced at the mirror, at me. When it reached her, it crouched by her ear, nothing moving but I could tell it said something when Mari blinked, clenching her fists before breathing in to cool herself down.

"Mari." I whispered as soft as possibly, staying still otherwise. The thing made no notice of me talking, still next to her ear. She tilted her head to me through the mirror, and as softly as I could, I said, "In two seconds, turn 8 o'clock and grab at the air, as fast as possible. Trust me."

Even with the voice's negative words, Mari still did exactly as said, gracefully spinning in the air to look straight through the thing and diving into it, knocking it over. They hit the ground, and the thing fell limp, as if the strings holding it had fallen. As it did, the ting became visible without the mirror. Mari gasped, jumping off of the creepy thing before thinking twice and jumping back on, turning to me. "Chat, help please."

I moved over to her side immediately, grabbing a hold of the thing. It was icy cold, like it had been in a freezer for years. The thing definitely, and probably never had been, alive. With that thought I gripped the arm tighter and brought it to my hurt arm, sighing slightly when the pain started to numb. "Is there a reason for this, my lady?"

"The baseball bat guy, after he passed out, the lights went out, you said the grey was gone. I'm thinking the same-"

Darkness blanketed the whole city again, and suddenly, we were being pulled. It was so fast and strong that I couldn't even try to stop it. I could barely stop myself from getting whiplash. My mouth opened to gasp, but we stopped before I could even part my lips. Like last time, it had happened within a second.

My gut dropped as we stopped, and I almost puked then and there. We were in an almost completely dark building, the only light from a pedestal in the middle of the room. I went to get up, before crying out as the journey caught up to my arm, hot flashes of pain rippling through it. Mari, instead, slapped a hand over my mouth to muffle to noise, gently holding said arm as she touched her earrings.

1 spot left.

Someone was by the pedestal, a figure in complete black. He turned towards us, and Mari pulled us over to stack of containers, transforming back quietly as I watched the figure. It moved to the monster thing, strings shimmering into existence from it's fingers connecting to the monster. It was a puppet. The figure moved it's fingers idly, watching the puppet move up and towards a small pile of other puppets. If i've thought of it right, baseball bat guy's evil voice was one of those puppets, and probably some of those criminal's puppets were there too.

The figure messed with the puppet when I went to attack. It was way too easy to snatch the akuma, something on the guy's cloak. To easy to turn it to dust. I voiced the thought when Mari was Ladybug again.

She groaned after she purified the akuma. "I forgot the mirror! We have to go back and-" Her eyes widened, and that was the only clue I had to dive to the side. A blade hovered right where my spine had been seconds before, and the figure stood behind it, now a middle age man with short brown hair, yellow looking eyes, and a snake tattoo starting at his left ring finger, curling up his arm and neck, and ending with it engulfing one of his eyes.

The guy sneered. "Stupid fucking kids!" He screeched, slightly insane. "You should of stayed out of my fucking way!"

"Woah!" Mari gasped as she moved backwards, twirling her yoyo. "I thought everything was fine after purification!"

"Bitch!" He sneered. "You should of let me finished-"

Im done.

"Hey." I said in a deeper voice, cutting him off. I disarmed the man, ignoring the stinging pain in my arm as I tossed the knife away, hands clenching his collar as I pulled him nose to nose. "Don't you ever call Ladybug anything less than amazing ever again."

Then I punched him, hard. He was out a second later.

X

As we went towards the mirror in the darkness, a thought struck me. "Was that man wearing a prison jumper?"

Marinette glanced at me as she jumped over a roof. "Think he was a criminal like the others?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I can look him up later, I got a pretty good look at him."

Mari frowned and stopped, plopping to the floor. I tilted my head, stopping and moving down next to him. "Something wrong Mari?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, just lay down. Use me as a pillow for a second.' She patted her lap. "I need to show you something." She laughed when I raised an eyebrow. "You could just use the rooftop. I'd thought this would be more comfortable."

I shrugged again, laying down. Mari pointed to the sky, where thousands of stars shown in the night with the grey moon in the middle of it. I looked at it, before looking at her. "It's pretty, but don't you think we could do this later..? We have to cleanse the city…"

She put her finger to her lips, still pointing skywards. "What do you see up there?"

"Stars and a moon, Mari."

She smiled. "You need to look a little deeper then that." After a moment of my confused silence, she continued. "I see beauty and mystery, but I mostly see wisdom and age. The moon and the stars… so old, but so beautiful. A few hundred years ago, they were considered immortal."

I frowned. "Where are you going with this?"

She carded her fingers through my hair before continuing. "In all our years alive, these are some of the only things that never changed. People were born and people were killed, kingdoms created and destroyed, but nothing ever changes up there. No matter what people could do down here, they couldn't change the moon or stars. Even though they've now stepped on the moon, they still can't change it. But we're... we're the opposite."

I hummed in contentment. "What do you mean by that?"

"We changed with each kingdom, with each birth and each death. Every person we meet impacts us, and sometimes that's good, but sometimes that's bad. We started off like a newborn moon, but we grew craters."

"Parents call that growing up, Mari." I chuckled.

She gave a laughing hum in return. "Let's start acting more like the moon, lets stop letting people change us into their own image. We're to old for that." She gave a sad smile. "If we get anymore craters, we might just fall apart.

X.

We landed on the terance, walking into the apartment. It was late, and Nino and Alya weren't there. Everything was back to normal, mostly. The pain had left my arm, but a big black bruise still bloomed on it. Mari plopped on the couch, transforming back with a sigh. "Can I sleep for a week? I feel so… pessimistic."

I draped over the armchair. "Same. Let's call in sick for school and work."

That's when I heard the giggle.

I looked at Mari, but she was out of it, she didn't giggle. I looked around again, slightly more alert.

Alya was by the bathroom door.

"I am soooo happy I didn't leave with Nino."

X

If anyone can get my reference at the police station, i'll call you out in the next chapter(s).

I'm watching some season 2 episodes to see if I want to add anything from them, and I like the episodes, even though I'm sort of iffy about how their doing the transformations. Like, Ladybug and Chat can know everyone's identities but each other? And they give their identities out almost as bad as Spider Man does. Like srly, choose.

RAISE A HAND if you wished they treated the duo more like a duo then a hero and sidekick! That's my biggest problem with the show, the duo more or less acts like a duo but Ladybug does say things as if she was superior and Chat even acknowledges it before. I now this show was focused on a female lead, and that made me soooo happy, but why can't they be equal? Why can Ladybug almost easily best Chat, even with him trying? I HATE that. I would LOVE if for a couple scenes, they make a plan together, or train together, or maybe have CHAT beat the akuma instead of just being a distraction. It upsets me that while trying to make the female lead look better, they're messing with the male lead. He's goofy and wants to protect her, yeah, I know, but there are so many BETTER ways to do that AND have them stay equal! (This was made b4 the season 2… final? I guess. The 2nd Volpina just came out…)And from all the episodes I've watched, Chat hasn't once given out a miraculous. Equality my ass, this is why I stopped watching the show tbh.

Someone tell me an episode where they're equal and work well together, please I BEG OF THEE. I will literally call you out if you give me a season 2 episode like that, that I like. PLEEEASE. Sandboy is a good example of Chat actually doing something, but it also makes Ladybug a damsel.

I would love to hear your opinions on this though! Reviews make me want to write more, and of course I read all of them!