Masked Permanently

Tingles and Pricks

Ladybug felt unusually exhausted by using her Lucky Charm powers to defeat a man made of clouds with a terrifyingly human-morphed horse head. She didn't see what he looked like, but from Chat's description, Hawkmoth knew how to give people nightmares. It nearly seemed impossible to catch something that wasn't even solid material, better yet break it.

"Ladybug, you're overexerting yourself! You barely slept five minutes under my awkward watchfulness, and you look exhausted. Take a break," Chat Noir strongly suggested, grabbing his partner's shoulder.

"But we have to stop him!" Ladybug insisted, "He's scaring people!"

"LB, it only affects those who are sleeping. What's the worst that can happen? So far, all I've seen him do was float over sleeping people with his dark little cloud, and strike them with the lightning that gives them nightmares. It doesn't affect you unless you're asleep. No one gets physically harmed, and you're exhausted. Get some rest, and you can get back to this. I promise, I'll fight him and try to get his akuma," Chat Noir compromised, but Ladybug pulled away from her partner's gentle grip on her shoulder and shook her head.

"The civilians come first, Chat. They always come before me. You come before me too, and I won't have you fight alone," Ladybug told him, then hurled her yoyo away, allowing it to pull her with it.

Chat Noir stood dumbfounded for a few moments. Why was she always so stubborn, yet generous at the same time? If she wasn't careful, she could pass out from exhaustion. The heroine already looked as if she were getting more tired by the minute. He continued to stay behind her for safety measures.

"Night-Mare, you do realize that your name is a weird pun, don't you?" Chat Noir shot out, trying to distract the strange cloudy, transparent horse-man while Ladybug figured something out.

The heroine rolled her eyes with a smirk, then called forward another Lucky Charm.

The villain glared at the cat-themed hero, obviously irritated.

"Mare is actually a female horse. Also why the dark cloud? Your horse head and dark cloud are a strange combination. I wouldn't go with that if I were you," Chat Noir practically imitated Chloe's behavior, snobbily scoffing at the end as he waved the villain off with a sassy attitude.

"A battery?! Now Tikki is just running out of ideas," Ladybug groaned after searching the area for anything that could be useful with the given item. With her recently developed power of unlimited Lucky Charms, she spent a lot of her supposedly unlimited energy trying to receive things from Tikki that could possibly aid her in the fight, and throwing them back up once she couldn't find a use.

Of course, there was probably a use, but it would be visually easier to find that if she were able to actually see, Ladybug thought grumpily. She felt around the nearby objects, also using her extremely heightened sense of smell to locate.

Nothing required batteries.

"Miraculous Ladybug," The heroine mumbled exhaustedly, tossing the battery back up.

Once she returned that object, her fingers began to tingle. She ignored it, seeing as it wasn't too noticeable.

Ladybug shook off the exhaustion and grabbed her yoyo out again. Once she tossed it, the tingles grew into sharp pains, as if her blood were circulating actual pins and needles through her stream from her fingers. She bit back a cry, and hoped she aimed her yoyo toward the cloud man correctly.