Lila Rossi has been killed. As Detective Stella Wolfe investigates the crime, she finds out that the victim's life wasn't as clean and innocent as it appeared. Troubling still, there are a lot of people who had it out for Lila.
The Murder of Lila Rossi
is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by Cornerverse (who also wrote Hero Chat and Lady Luck). At 31,829 words and 19 chapters, it was completed on March 7, 2020.
The Murder of Lila Rossi features examples of:
- Adaptational Superpower Change: Similar to Hero Chat, several of the Miraculous grant different powers than in canon. The Tiger gives Invisibility, the Goat gives Dream Walking, and the Rooster gives The Power of the Sun.
- Asshole Victim: Lila, natch, between dividing her classmates, trying to sabotage Marinette's career, and attempting to force herself onto Adrien.
- Canon Immigrant: The Dragon Witch, a character from the author's other works such as Hero Chat and Lady Luck, appears in the story.
- Deadly Distant Finale: The events of the series happened a few years ago and Lila meets her violent end when she is 18.
- Death by Adaptation: Lila's death is what starts the story.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Chloé raises this alongside her alibi and the flaws in the murder when explaining why she didn't kill Lila. Lila's lies were already starting to fall apart and people noticed the inconsistencies. If Lila died, she'd remain the victim, masking the inconsistencies.
- Do Wrong, Right: Along with a strong alibi, Kagami and Chloé use this as their reason to Detective Wolfe for why they didn't kill the titular character.
- Kagami wouldn't bother hiding if she had killed Lila since she would have only done it if she was a threat to Kagami or her loved ones, and would have confessed to it immediately without a hint of guilt.
- Chloé admits that she does have the money to hire an assassin to kill Lila but wouldn't have hired one for doing a "sloppy job"note . She would have instructed the killer to dispose of the body far out of Paris to keep Chloé from being a suspect.
- When Wolfe finds out the identities of the active heroes, she definitely rules them out as suspects despite having a grudge against Lila. While they had powers to bypass cameras, they also have the powers to get rid of Lila's body, such as Chat Noir's Cataclysm, Bunnyx's time travel, or the Horse Miraculous's teleportation.
- Easily Forgiven: In Chapter 16, after finding out that Lila has been deceiving them for years, Alya heads to Marinette's home to properly apologize for never believing her. To her surprise, Marinette says that she's forgiven.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Marinette tells Alya that while the late Lila Rossi might have used lies to manipulate Alya and the others, she believes that Lila might have valued her friendship with Alya after all the years together. The epilogue reveals that when Lila got a soul-mate ice cream from André before her death, her order had a strong resemblance to Alya, hinting that she loved the reporter above anyone else, including herself.
- Exact Words: Initially in denial that Lila had been deceiving them, Max asks Markov to check her past dialog, which shows that Lila has lied about as average as the rest of their classmates. Detective Wolfe then asks to check the percentage of Lila's statements that weren't just lies but were inconclusive, such as statements with no other witnesses or required illegal methods to confirm like hacking medical records. After this, Markov concludes that a high percentage of Lila's statements were lies.
- History Repeats: Marinette wasn't the first girl whose life Lila tried to ruin. She had manipulated and corrupted classmates with lies and acting as a defenseless victim for many years. The woman who did kill her, Scarlet, was one of the many victims who got caught up in Lila's spell and tried to put an end to her terror.
- Incompatible Orientation: Discussed by Alix to Detective Wolfe when explaining why she joined the anti-Lila group. She realized Lila was a liar because she called Chloé jealous of her "relationship" with Adrien — despite the fact that Chloé's not even interested in Adrien (she's dating Alix here).
- Insult to Rocks: When Wolfe asks Kagami about what she thought of Lila, Kagami has this to say:Kagami: Some might call her a lying snake. But it's an insult to snakes, which are rather cute creatures.
- Interrupted Declaration of Love: In chapter 13, it's revealed that Ivan was planning to propose to his girlfriend Mylene on the night that Lila was murdered, but they have to head home when Mylne suffered from a strong case of PMS. He planned on delaying the proposal again to a later date after news of Lila's death, but with Kim almost blurting out the earlier plans, Ivan decides the best case is to ask Mylene to marry her before she gets worried.
- Irony: It's mentioned that the fact that Rose was actually friends with Prince Ali, rather than working to disprove Lila's lie of being his friend, ended up making it easier to believe. After all, if a regular girl from Paris could be his friend, why not the daughter of a diplomat? Doesn't help that when Rose and Juleka did confront Lila over this, she either played the victim or came up with an excuse.
- Karma Houdini: Played With for Gabriel, whose actions as Hawkmoth have been covered up by Team Miraculous to protect his son from any fallout of his crimes. That said, they confiscate the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous from him, as well as making him and his family attend therapy.
- Mama Bear: Emilie Agreste (who was revived from her coma a few years before the fic started) is pissed when she hears that Lila was draping herself all over her son "like a velvet couch."Emilie: She did WHAT?! Why didn't you two tell me about this? I will kill her!
Gabriel: Dear, she's already dead.
Emilie: I don't care! I'll kill her again! Where's the corpse! - Multiple Endings: Parodied; it has one canon ending revealing Lila's true killer and a bonus chapter with multiple alternate reveals.
- Pair the Spares: Kagami and Luka are a couple here.
- Reincarnation: Lila's final fate in the epilogue by Ariel's hand. At Lila's consent, the Dragon Witch has her reborn as a girl named Layla Voss, with a spell to keep her from lying again.
- Secret Relationship: Alya tells Detective Wolfe that Lila was dating the famous model Adrien Agreste, but they kept it quiet because of tabloids. This is the first of Lila's many lies to be exposed but part of the reason it worked is that Adrien really does have to keep his relationships secret. Plus his actual girlfriend, Marinette, is an employee at his father's company, and it could quickly lead to accusations of Nepotism (though Marinette has threatened to kick Gabriel's ass again if he tries to give her any sort of special favors).
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Those who didn't trust Lila don't hide it when speaking to Wolfe.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Scarlet, the killer wasn't planning to hurt anyone. She just didn't want Lila to continue causing people pain and thus killed her in the heat of the moment.
- Take That!: The concept of Marinette confiscating the Miraculouses from classmates who sided with Lila and giving them all to new more "worthy" holders is subverted here in that while she did confiscate the Miraculous from her friends she had a falling out with over Lila, Marinette is more than willing to give them back once they make up. Marinette never even gives them to a new holder, just benches that particular Miraculous until such a time occurs.
- Who Murdered the Asshole: Given a bit of a twist; half the cast thinks that Lila was the sweetest girl they knew, a constant victim of unfair bullying. The other half knows that she was a lying snake who would do anything to get ahead. The cop involved initially looks into the second group as the obvious suspects but then realizes that the first group could easily have done it if they discovered that Lila had been lying to them (and ruined their friendships) for years. In the end, it turns out to be one of Lila's old victims who happened to be in the city. When she realized that Lila was still lying and manipulating everyone, she snapped and killed her to end the cycle.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: When Wolfe confronts Ariel about knowing Gabriel was Hawkmoth since day one, Ariel asks if the police would believe if the supervillain they were after was the famous fashion designer. Wolfe says she would due to their relationship but doesn't say anything about the other police.
