Archenemies to Superfriends
is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by Unmasked Again.
Lila Rossi is a ruthless and competitive girl who prides herself on overcoming the most powerful opponents she can find. When she moved to Paris she identified Marinette Dupain-Cheng as the most popular girl in school and set out to defeat her, using every underhanded trick in the book to steal her friends and triumph over her. But when Marinette's classmates offer to let her do something truly evil to Marinette, Lila finds herself torn. And then, following a subsequent conversation with Marinette herself, Lila embarks on an unexpected journey that may bring the two of them closer than Lila would ever have thought possible.
Tropes in this fanfic:
- Befriending the Bullied: Chloé was the only one who defended Marinette from Lila's bullying and even sought out Marinette's friendship. To Alya, this only confirmed that Marinette was a bully.Alya: Of course. Bullies belong with bullies.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Lila stops lying about and otherwise bullying Marinette and eventually becomes her close friend.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As underhanded as Lila is, she balks when the class steals Marinette's sketchbook and offers to let Lila rip it up in retribution for the 'bullying' Marinette did to her.
- Even the Girls Want Her: After Lila steals Adrien away, Marinette gets fifteen invitations to the school dance — including three from other girls.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Lila notes that she didn't even tell the class anything bad about Marinette. She just pretended to have celebrity connections so the class decided to pick her over Marinette, and then they convinced themselves Marinette was a bully in order to feel better about shunning her.
- The Friend Nobody Likes:
- In an inverted example, Lila makes lots of 'friends' in the class but quickly grows to despise them when she learns just how easily they'll forsake Marinette, whom they had previously claimed to care about.
- Marinette later reveals that there were times when she couldn't stand the class either and went to hide in the library just to get away from them.
- Heel–Face Turn: After becoming Marinette's friend, Lila also becomes a better person. Marinette tests her by getting Lila backstage at a concert with lots of actual celebrities to see if Lila will post photographs and use the event for clout. Lila doesn't post the pictures and thus passes the test. Lila also encourages Ladybug to stand up to Chat Noir's sexual harassment and his refusal to support her in battle.
- Immoral Journalist: Ladybug calls Alya out on having degenerated into just being a tabloid reporter who reports rumors and innuendo about Ladybug and Chat Noir being together even though they aren't.
- Monster Clown: Lila's first mission as (the heroic) Volpina is to fight a clown-themed akuma who turns people into balloon animals.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Lila set out to overthrow and destroy Marinette, but all she wound up doing was convincing the classmates to abandon her, meaning they're no longer burdening her with endless requests for favors and support. Without them dragging her down, Marinette flourishes and becomes more popular and accomplished than ever.
- Off the Table: The shock of being fired as a hero and denounced as a journalist pushes Alya to finally do some actual journalism and figure out what happened. She finally takes seriously the comments on her blog calling Lila out as a liar, she reveals this to the class, and they all denounce her the next day at school. Marinette, however, makes it clear that she won't be their friend again and she'd rather stick with Lila and Chloé than endure her other classmates.
- A Shared Suffering: Marinette and Lila commiserate over their classmates' All Take and No Give behavior.
- Shout-Out: After becoming closer, Marinette and Lila enjoy Doctor Who together.
- Sidekick:
- Lila (and Chloé) eventually determine that Marinette should start marketing her designs. They assist her by modeling for her (along with Marinette's other friends) and her design career takes off. Lila also begins helping Marinette by covering for her when Marinette needs an excuse as to why she's not around, or when Marinette has to babysit but doesn't have time.
- Marinette (as Ladybug) also later lends Lila the Fox Miraculous, allowing her to become Volpina for real and to fight alongside Ladybug.
- Take That!: Lila mentions in a thought that she really hated how Batman V Superman ended.
- Turn in Your Badge: Ladybug fires all the existing heroes, including Chat Noir and Rena Rouge, and replaces them with real friends. Lila gets the fox Miraculous and becomes a new and improved Vulpine.
- Unknown Rival: Lila had set out to overthrow Marinette and become the most popular girl in school, mostly just to test herself. Marinette had no idea Lila even wanted that; she figured Lila was just telling lies and stealing her friends out of hatred. When Lila learns that Marinette hadn't even noticed what Lila was trying to do, she screams in frustration.
- Worthy Opponent: Lila sees Marinette as this.
- You Can Keep Her!: Marinette eventually offers Lila a truce: she'll let Lila keep the rest of the class as 'friends' so long as Lila just leaves Marinette out of things and doesn't lie about her anymore. Lila agrees.
