A fanfic
made by RockSunner, for Miraculous Ladybug. Part of the Smart Adversaries AU for Miraculous Ladybug on AO3, in which Ladybug villains make smarter decisions. The series has a tropes page here.
This is a multi-chapter work and it is now complete.
This fanfiction work contains examples of:
- Alternate Universe Fic: A What If? with the change that Roger Raincomprix notices Ladybug putting Chloé's bracelet back in her bag, which spoils the easy explanation for its loss and leaves Marinette and Roger still in trouble.
- Bittersweet Ending: Marinette and Adrien both lose the chance to be Miraculous holders again. They have a chance to get together, but it will take a while before Adrien recovers from all the shocks about himself and his family. Marinette gets partial control of Adrien's will, though she will try to resist the temptation to exploit it.
- Blackmail: Ladybug uses the threat of exposing Mayor Bourgeois for poisoning Tomoe in order to get Roger Raincomprix reinstated in his job. She will also use it to protect Adrien from being sent to Japan if she needs to.
- Discard and Draw: Marinette makes a deal with Master Fu, giving him back the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous in exchange for the Dragon Miraculous, for a chance to use the new powers to save Adrien. She also gets to try the Peacock and Butterfly Miraculous.
- Driving Question: A mystery drives the second half of the story. Who poisoned Tomoe Tsurugi?
- Entertainingly Wrong: Marinette finds out that Emilie was interested in the Miraculouses. She concludes that Emilie could be Hawk Moth.
- For Want Of A Nail: Since Chat Noir is more subdued and Marinette is not messing around sending embarrassing phone messages to Adrien, the sculpture unveiling from "Copycat" goes smoothly without producing an akuma.
- Halfway Plot Switch: From Adrien dealing with the fallout of Chloé’s stolen bracelet to Marinette uncovering a decade-old mystery.
- Incapable of Disobeying: Adrien cannot disobey a direct order from his father, or so he believes.
- Internal Reveal: After Adrien's prank, Marinette is nearly akumatized. Chat Noir feels compelled to reveal his secret identity. Marinette is not happy with him. She doesn't reciprocate the reveal, and she gets even angrier that Chat wants to keep it all a secret from Ladybug.
- Invisibility: Marinette is able to use the elemental forms of the Dragon Miraculous to do a recon mission of Agreste Mansion without being seen.
- Never the Obvious Suspect: Zig-zagged. Gabriel is an obvious suspect to the reader, but the person who put the poison in the drink was Mayor Bourgeois, trying to poison him. However, Gabriel suspects and passes the drink on to Tomoe, making her an involuntary poison tester and getting a handle on the Mayor as a result.
- The Pawn: Adrien learns that his parents wanted him only to claim the Prodigious, and that his father's wish was to go back in time to replace him with a regular child.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Tikki goes to consult Master Fu when they get close to finding Hawk Moth. Fu wants to take Plagg back from sentimonster Adrien, but he's willing to listen to Marinette's ideas on how to rescue Adrien instead.
- Self-Poisoning Gambit: Gabriel uses this on Tomoe when he knows or suspects his drink is poisoned. He gets her to switch drinks for an "indirect kiss."
- Shoot the Hostage: A threat is made by Marinette (as the Peacock holder) to release sentimonster Adrien (as Chat Blanc) from existence. Abusive Parent Gabriel doesn't care and calls her bluff, which she would never carry out, of course.
- Shout-Out: The lawyer whom Gabriel hires to defend Adrien should Chloé and her father sue him for stealing Chloé's bracelet is named Saul Bonhomme, and at the end of Chapter 2, Gabriel says that he'd better call him.
- Slave to PR: After admitting to a "prank", Adrien is required by his father to pull new pranks as part of a new "bad boy" image. The implication is that Hawk Moth intends to use him to create new Akumatized villains at the school.
- Snowball Lie: Adrien, in order to maintain his new image, is required by his father to pull another prank, this one on Marinette, and to justify it by pretending to hold a grudge about the feather hat she made. Hawkmoth is ready to take advantage.
- Taking the Heat: Adrien is willing to take the blame for stealing Chloé's bracelet even if it costs his freedom to go to school, to protect the secret of Plagg. However, Adrien's father doesn't end up pulling him from school and instead forces him to take on a new "bad boy" image and pull more pranks at the school, presumably intending to use him to make people at the school upset so he can create new Akumatized villains there.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Adrien learns that he is a sentimonster. He can only get back half his free will, with the rest in the control of Marinette for now, because of the nature of the magic rings that were used as his amok objects.
