Unmarked spoilers for The Shadowed Guardian
Its been four years since Marinette inherited the Miraculous of Order and found herself the Guardian of four kwami. However a threat to Paris has emerged in the form of Hawkmoth, who is abusing the power of the Butterfly Miraculous for his own ends. Thankfully she has new allies in the form of Scarlet Beetle and Jynx. Unfortunately these two new heroes are woefully inexperienced and were originally tasked with reclaiming the Miraculous of Death from her. Now not only does have to protect Paris from Hawkmoth, but she also has to keep her new untrusting teammates from getting themselves killed.An Order of Shadows
is an ongoing Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by That_WildChild. It is the sequel to The Shadowed Guardian and the second installment in the Order’s Chosen series. It has also a sidestory called Out of Order, which contains extra canon scenes from across the fanfic series, so relevant information from that will be included here.
An Order of Shadows contains examples of:
- Adaptational Superpower Change: Marinette never received the Ladybug Miraculous here, instead having four different Miraculous to call on. Adrien receives the Ladybug instead of the Black Cat and Chloé, who only temporarily wielded the Bee Miraculous, is instead the full wielder of the Black Cat Miraculous.
- Adaptation Name Change: Adrien uses the name "Scarlet Beetle" instead of "Misterbug" for his Ladybug form.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Thanks to Marinette, Chloé is a far cry from the Alpha Bitch she was in canon, instead being a snarky Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Its telling when the Kick the Dog moment mentioned below is actually considered a serious Out-of-Character Moment for her.
- Appropriated Appellation: Marinette never gave a name to her Raven form. So when Scarlet Beetle calls her Shade for convenience, she decides to take the name for herself.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Scarlet Beetle gets into an argument with Shade about who gets to reclaim the Butterfly Miraculous, Shade asks him why they specifically have to be the one to retrieve it. He’s unable to give a clear answer.
- Beneath the Mask: Chloé’s confident personality and extravagance is sinply a mask she uses to hide how miserable and insecure she is. Marinette and Plagg are the only ones who can immediately see past this.
- The Dreaded: Grimm is feared by almost every other Kwami, with Tikki and Plagg admitting they were actually relieved when they thought it was just the Butterfly Miraculous.
- Experienced Protagonist: By the time the story starts, Marinette has been trained in magic, martial arts, and possesses extensive knowledge of the Miraculous, as well as experience in using four of them
- Kick the Dog: Chloé acts viciously cruel to Ivan in order to get to turn back into Stoneheart some the akuma can properly be purified.
- Oh, Crap!: Marinette internally freaks out once she realizes that Hawkmoth knows about the wish.
- Power Stereotype Flip: In-universe, Plagg expresses mock exasperation that his Chosen wound up being the responsible member of the Ladybug/Black Cat pair this time around.
- Second Super-Identity: Exploited by Marinette. She decides to create four different personas for each of her Miraculous in order to misdirect her enemies. It comes in handy when she needs to train Scarlet and Jynx.
- She's Not My Girlfriend: Chloé constantly insists to Plagg that she and Marinette are not a couple.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Between Scarlet Beetle and Jynx don’t like working with Shade, though this is primarily on Adrien’s side. Chloé is on the fence due to Plagg being more open minded about Grimm while Marinette is just frustrated with how inexperienced the two are.
