Episode 1
- Origins: Part 1 - Tales of Chloé the Ladybug
Angry after Marinette Dupain-Cheng stands up to her, Chloé Bourgeois plans her revenge. She decides to steal an ancient-looking wooden box from Marinette's purse, thinking it's a family heirloom. However, when she opens the box, she finds it contains a pair of earrings—along with Tikki, a Kwami, who attempts to greet Marinette as she comes out, only to find herself facing Chloé instead. Tikki explains that her purpose is to provide the one who wears the earrings with the power to fight evil, but Chloé doesn't seem to be interested.
Elsewhere in Paris, Adrien, the sheltered son of Gabriel Agreste, has found a similar box containing a ring and the Kwami Plagg. Adrien quickly puts on the ring, deciding he will become a superhero while oblivious to the load he'll soon be saddled with.
Marinette, ignorant of her stolen destiny, watches a breaking news report about Stoneheart, a giant golem that is walking through the streets of Paris with some unknown purpose. Initially apathetic about it, Marinette quickly changes her tune when she sees her new friend Alya pedaling after the large creature.
Adrien, taking the name of Chat Noir, begins to track Stoneheart while learning how to use his new abilities, only to crash and get entangled with a transformed Chloé, who doesn't seem happy to see him. Chat Noir manages to follow Stoneheart to the Parc des Princes and fights him to prevent him from hurting innocent people... while Chloé stays away from the fight, more interested in her image than in helping Chat Noir.
Alya, having followed Stoneheart, produces a cellphone to begin recording the events, telling the transformed Chloé she's filming everything so the world can see it, unknowingly igniting Chloé's interest in the fight by appealing to her love for attention.
Stoneheart grabs one of the stadium's goals and throws it at Alya, who is saved by the intervention of Marinette. When Marinette points out that Stoneheart is keeping a fist closed, Chat Noir compliments her and states she should be a hero instead, causing an angry Chloé to attack Stoneheart. Chat Noir demonstrates his power of Cataclysm by reducing the goal Stoneheart threw to dust.
Chloé attempts to reply by using her power of Lucky Charm, which provides her with a red-with-black-polka-dots wetsuit, similar to her hero suit. When Chat Noir mocks her, Chloé throws the wetsuit at Chat Noir, who asks Marinette what to do with it. Marinette quickly comes up with a plan on how to use the wetsuit to force Stoneheart to open his closed fist. This reveals a stone that, when broken, frees a black butterfly and a sheet of paper.
While Marinette runs up to her classmate Ivan—the one who was transformed into Stoneheart—Alya asks about Chat Noir's ring beeping while the unattended black butterfly flies away to cause more mayhem. An angry Chloé, ignoring the butterfly, remembers her second power, and throws the wetsuit into the air to use her Miraculous Ladybug power, which undoes all the damage caused by Stoneheart and Chat Noir during the fight.
Chloé takes advantage of the fact that Chat Noir is forced to leave before his ring runs out of energy (the source of the beeping) to greatly skew the account of events to make herself look heroic and proclaims herself as Scarlet Lady, the heroine of Paris—much to Master Fu's shock, as he had slipped the earrings into Marinette's purse, only to learn too late that someone else is using them.
That night, as news of the event goes viral, an angry Adrien decides to call Scarlet Lady "Scar" on account of the scars she's already leaving in his life while Tikki belatedly asks Chloé if she caught the akuma (the black butterfly that escaped while Chloé was distracted).
This episode contains examples of:
- Accidental Hero: When Chat Noir compliments Marinette, saying she should be a superhero instead, Scarlet Lady's Berserk Button is pressed, and she rushes into the fight to confront the two, kicking Stoneheart hard enough to stagger him in the process.
- Attention Whore: The only reason why Scarlet Lady is willing to take any action against Stoneheart is because of the prospect of having the whole world's eyes on her.
- Badass Bystander: Despite not becoming Ladybug, Marinette still ends up doing more to deal with Stoneheart than Scarlet Lady. Lampshaded by Chat Noir remarking that she should be a hero instead.
- Berserk Button: Chat Noir unintentionally strikes one of Scarlet Lady's when he compliments Marinette and suggests she should be a hero instead.
- Blank White Eyes: Chloé sports these when Tikki pops out of the jewelry box.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Scarlet Lady develops one after realizing that Alya is recording the battle with Stoneheart.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Poor Adrien starts out so excited about becoming a superhero. Then he meets his "partner" who treats him as anything but, promptly leaving him to struggle against Stoneheart solo while she fusses over her hair before stealing the credit for his victory. By the end of the episode, he's already sporting bags under his eyes as he decides upon her new nickname.
- Dare to Be Badass: Downplayed. When Alya notices that "Super Red Bug" is just standing by and fixing her hair, she asks the heroine what she's waiting for, declaring that "The world is watching you!" This successfully convinces Scarlet Lady to get involved.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- Master Fu and Wayzz are caught completely off-guard by somebody who clearly isn't Marinette using the earrings since the same footage revealing Paris's new "hero" also shows an untransformed Marinette.
- Scarlet Lady certainly didn't expect Marinette to be such an effective leader in the fight against the akuma, having sat out the fight to see Marinette humiliate herself with her incompetence.
- Diving Save: Marinette arrives in this fashion, tackling Alya out of harm's way and preventing her from being crushed.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Marinette's initial reaction to Nadja's report about the akuma attacking is to casually note that it "Sucks" while munching on popcorn. She only changes her tune upon seeing that Alya's chasing after Stoneheart.
- Going for the Big Scoop: Alya's so determined to cover the akuma attack that she tails Stoneheart on a bike while complaining that Lois Lane makes it look easier.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Scarlet's attempt to make "Clumsinette" look bad by refusing to help completely backfires when the latter instead immediately snaps into Heroine Mode and takes charge of the situation.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Alya doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that Scarlet Lady was completely ignoring the fight before she called out to her.
- Implied Death Threat: After hearing his powers get declared "useless" by Scarlet Lady, Chat Noir stares her down while silently demonstrating just how easily he can disintegrate a goal post from the stadium.
- In Spite of a Nail: Marinette helps defeat Stoneheart in much as the same way she did in canon despite Chloé being the Ladybug heroine instead.
- Ironic Echo: Scarlet Lady deems Chat Noir's power to be "Barbaric and useless, like [him]." After she uses Lucky Charm and receives a wetsuit, Chat Noir mockingly asks, "So, how useful is your power?"
- Jaw Drop: Tikki sports one when she realizes she's greeting Chloé instead of Marinette.
- Lame Pun Reaction: When Scarlet Lady literally falls on top of Chat Noir, he cheerfully declares, "Well, nice of you to drop in!" Scarlet Lady just crinkles her nose in disgust while muttering, "Omigod, no."
- Malicious Misnaming: Adrien opts to give his new "partner" the nickname "Scar" "for the scars she leaves on my life."
- Missed the Call: Marinette, thanks to Chloé's theft.
- Misplaced Retribution: Downplayed; while Chloé does want to punish Marinette for the "high crime" of standing up to her, her thoughts also indicate that she's also angry at Alya for doing the same... but Alya is treated as an afterthought as Chloé focuses entirely upon her favorite victim.
- Refusal of the Call: Chloé wants nothing to do with Tikki at first, regarding the Kwami with an utterly disgusted face as Tikki insists that she's The Only One who can stop Stoneheart. She only changes her tune when she realizes it's opportunity to bask in the public's adoration.
- Screening the Call: Chloé unwittingly screens Marinette's call to superheroism by stealing the Ladybug earrings from her purse.
- Spanner in the Works: The comic starts off with Master Fu's plan to make Marinette the Ladybug hero going awry due to Chloé stealing the Ladybug earrings from Marinette's purse before the latter even noticed they were in there.
- Stealing the Credit: Scarlet Lady uses the Miraculous Cure to draw all of Alya's attention to her, then brags about herself in their interview while Chat Noir incredulously seethes in the background.
- Unmanly Secret: When Ivan reveals how Kim caused his akumatization, Marinette reveals that Kim cried over The Little Mermaid back when they were ten.
- What If?: The series diverges from Canon the moment Chloé swipes the Ladybug earrings from Marinette's purse.
- Wingding Eyes:
- The newly transformed Chat Noir has stars in his eyes as he gushes about how awesome being a superhero is going to be.
- Alya has the same stars in her eyes when Scarlet Lady notices her cell phone and again after Marinette saves her.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Chat Noir has this reaction when Scarlet Lady tries to claim all the credit for fight she didn't take part in.Chat Noir: You... You didn't do anything...
