Episode 22
- Riposte - Tales of Kagami the Fencer
Plagg and Tikki watch a news video about Paris's new heroine, remarking on how Pollen has been let out of the Miracle Box. When Tikki proclaims her faith in Pollen's ability to maintain a low profile, said Kwami promptly appears and greets them.
After recovering from the shock, Tikki quickly warns Pollen that she needs to be more careful: if anyone ever saw her, she might expose Marigold's secret identity! Plagg notes that it would be difficult, given Kwami can't even say the names of their own holders... only for Pollen to point at Marinette, asking if this means she shouldn't mention that she is her Queen. Tikki bursts into tears, finding it unfair that another Kwami has been partnered with the girl she was originally meant to work with. Once she calms down, she sits Pollen down and starts teaching her the rules she'll have to follow now that she's out on a permanent basis.
Sabrina, meanwhile, is slowly adjusting to no longer being friends with Chloé. Fortunately, it looks like there's a new, healthy friendship for Sabrina in the works: Alix decides to invite both her and Lila to meet Alix's roller derby team.
The same can't be said of Chloé, however. After having posted an advertisement for her "BFF Tryouts" on the school bulletin board, she's frustrated to learn that nobody has signed up yet. When she demands to know why, everyone points out all the various ways she's bullied and belittled them. Not that Chloé cares, of course—not half so much as how somebody has just covered up her flyer with their own poster! Though she immediately berates them, her efforts to browbeat them into submission dissolve quickly when the culprit turns out to be M. D'Argencourt, who informs her that the school bulletin board is only for school-related news and makes clear that he won't be intimidated by her posturing and pithy threats.
Meanwhile, Marinette checks the poster he just put up. It announces that he's holding his own tryouts for an open spot on his fencing team. The same one Adrien's on, in fact. Since using Venom involves wielding her trompo much like a fencing foil, Marinette decides to give it a try.
The next day, Marinette goes to the audition. There, she meets Marc Anciel, one of Aurore and Mireille's classmates who happens to be an avid writer. They explain that they got permission to watch the tryouts as a writing reference, so long as they're not disruptive.
Enter the highly disruptive Chloé, who promptly gets warned not to distract anyone. Chloé angrily demands to know why Marc is allowed to be there, but Marinette defends them (correcting her pronouns after learning that Marc is non-binary).
Tryouts begin: each candidate must fight one of the current members, and the best will earn the only free spot. When it's Marinette's turn to fight Adrien, she manages to quickly defeat him, making her the top contender for the spot.
However, a new challenger approaches and noisily demands to join the school. Noting her apparent lack of respect, M. D'Argencourt nonetheless agrees to consider if she defeats one of his students—which she does by demanding to fight the best one among them, much to the confusion of the rest of the team. The fencing master orders Adrien forward.
It quickly becomes clear that the two are evenly matched; no matter what either does, their bouts end in draws. The challenger requests to be unhooked from the machines so that she and Adrien will have more freedom. A bewildered Marc notes that the newcomer has just given up her only guaranteed impartial judge. Nevertheless, Adrien agrees to his opponent's request... but once unhooked, his opponent tackles him off the mat! Though Marinette points out that the challenger just violated the rules, M. D'Argencourt allows the bout to continue. The resulting duel takes both fencers upstairs and into the library, where they appear to tie yet again, with only Marc, Marinette, and Chloé as witnesses.
M. D'Argencourt immediately rounds upon the trio, demanding that they declare who won. Panicking under the pressure, Marc abstains. Marinette notes how many rules were broken but is quickly dismissed for not answering D'Argencourt's question. Chloé, naturally, makes a blatantly biased call that Adrien won. M. D'Argencourt accepts her ruling and proclaims Adrien the clear victor, much to Marinette's bemusement.
The challenger immediately leaves. Adrien and Marinette follow, trying to argue that she should get a rematch: out of everyone who tried out, she's clearly the most skilled, and Adrien even thinks she might've touched first. However, the girl unmasks herself and declares that there's no such thing as second chances in her family before departing. Adrien and Marinette, meanwhile, both blush at how cute she is.
The two then quickly get in Adrien's car to follow the girl, hoping to fix things, but it's too late: Hawk Moth has already detected her state of mind and sent a butterfly her way. Adrien and Marinette discover the girl is Kagami Tsurugi, the only child of the Tsurugi family, wa prestigious lineage of fencers, which they realize is why she was so disappointed. Before they can do anything else, however, Adrien's car is sliced in half, separating the front from the back. Kagami has been akumatized into Riposte. As Scarlet Lady appears, Riposte attacks Adrien and Marinette, who are forced to split off. Marinette takes advantage of the distraction to transform into Marigold.
While Scarlet Lady distracts (or attempts to distract) Riposte, Marigold arrives to get Adrien to a safe place. However, she gets distracted talking with him and doesn't notice Riposte is about to attack her, forcing Adrien to tackle Marigold out of the way and hurting his ankle in the process, for which Scarlet Lady berates Marigold. When she realizes her distraction got Adrien hurt, the Bee heroine apologizes for her mistake, causing Adrien's opinion of Marigold to improve.
Riposte follows the group to the roof, and Scarlet Lady declares she will get Adrien away to safety... only for Marigold to have already absconded with the boy before either Scarlet Lady or the akuma noticed. Marigold takes Adrien to the Louvre Museum's Tutankhamun exposition and puts him into a sarcophagus so Riposte won't find him. While he's quite distressed by this, he does gain further respect for Marigold when she states that Chat Noir, Paris's real hero, will fix things.
After Scarlet Lady stupidly leads Riposte to the Louvre, the akuma attacks Scarlet, who's saved by Chat Noir's timely intervention. While Riposte continues her attack, Chat Noir has Scarlet Lady summon Lucky Charm—a radiator. Marigold quickly improvises an idea—trick Riposte into attacking, catching the akuma's sword with the radiator, and use Chat Noir's belt to break the sword blade.
Kagami wakes up, and Marigold calms her down while Chat Noir deals with Scarlet Lady, successfully distracting her and forcing her to flee by pointing out she'll be seen with messed up hair. Chat Noir then leaves, detransforms, and returns to Marigold and Kagami; when he talks with Marigold, he compliments her, making her happy as he notices how cute she looks.
Marigold also leaves and returns as Marinette, cheerfully greeting Adrien and Kagami. Marinette manages to convince Kagami to try out again, telling the girl how enthusiastic M. D'Argencourt was at seeing her fence against Adrien.
Unfortunately, as Plagg points out later, Adrien missed something: since Kagami is taking the open spot, it means that Marinette won't be able to be in his team!
This episode contains examples of:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Pollen unknowingly circumvents the rule barring Kwamis from revealing the names of their holders by pointing to Marinette while addressing her as Pollen's Queen (which the Kwami all know is how Pollen refers to her female holders).
- Actually Pretty Funny: Chat Noir snorts at Marigold's banter of him taking too long at the vet.
- Brutal Honesty: When invited to meet Alix's roller derby team, Lila replies with a disgusted face while thinking about all the sweating that comes with the sport.
- Bullying a Dragon: Chloé crows about Kagami knowing to listen to her superiors. Kagami replies by stabbing her foil into the concrete ground just a few centimeters away from Chloé's foot.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Kagami pushes Adrien off the mat (a corps-a-corps violation) and leads him all the way into the library, making it impossible for M. D'Argencourt to give a fair ruling.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Marinette manages to beat Adrien with her first lunge at him.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Kagami demands to duel Adrien without machines in order to have more freedom—but, as Marc points out, she's sacrificing an impartial judge.
- At the end of the episode, Plagg points out that, by helping Kagami gain a second chance to try out for M. D'Argencourt's team, Adrien missed an opportunity to have Marinette in his class.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Adrien and Marinette get distracted when Kagami takes off her fencing mask, both of them thinking she's cute as she gets into her car.
- Face Palm: Marigold's reaction when Scarlet Lady accidentally leads Riposte to the Louvre Museum, which is where the Bee heroine is hiding Adrien.
- Flaw Exploitation: When pointing to Scarlet Lady that she's about to detransform in front of the cameras fails to make her leave, Chat Noir points out that the cameras will catch her with messed up hair. Scarlet Lady promptly screams all the way to an empty corridor.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Kagami enters the gym to demand being allowed to join M. D'Argencourt's fencing school, Chloé complains about the newcomer being a noisy show off.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Just after Tikki states she trusts Pollen's ability to keep a low profile, Pollen shows up in Chloé's bag, cheerfully greeting both Tikki and Plagg.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- When Marinette defends non-binary Marc from Chloé, she accidentally uses male pronouns to refer to them. After Marc mentions this, she immediately corrects herself.
- Played for Laughs when Kagami refers to Chloé as Marinette's friend, not knowing that Marinette is actually Chloé's favorite bullying target. Marinette makes a disgusted face in response.
- Not So Stoic: Kagami's stoic image is broken when Marinette makes a disgusted face after Kagami refers to Chloé as Marinette's friend, making the Japanese girl snort.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Sabrina is having a slightly hard time adjusting to her post-Chloé life. Thankfully, Alix is willing to help.
- Ocular Gushers: Tikki's reaction when she learns Pollen's wielder is Marinette.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Chloé asks why no one has signed up for her "BFF Tryouts," everyone else replies, reminding her of all the stuff she's done to them. Chloé angrily asks who asked them.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: While Chloé only names Adrien the winner due to her personal biases, the author reveals that even discounting how Kagami had disqualified herself by violating so many rules, the winner still would have been Adrien.
- Skewed Priorities: When Kagami pushes Adrien off the mat (an obvious violation of the rules), M. D'Argencourt exclaims that their bout is real fencing and lets the bout continue.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Marigold manages to sneak away with Adrien when Scarlet Lady was right next to her AND Riposte was looking in their direction.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: One of the captions establishes that Marinette wants to learn fencing "not for any particular reason."
- Talking Is a Free Action: Subverted. When Marigold comes to get Adrien out of the way, she gets distracted and doesn't notice Riposte is about to attack her.
- Villain Has a Point: Scarlet Lady berates Marigold for getting Adrien hurt—which, for once, she's right about due to Adrien getting injured because Marigold was distracted.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: Kagami turns out to be this.
- When She Smiles: When Adrien compliments Marigold's skills, she blushes and smiles. Adrien notes she looks cute.
- Wrecked Weapon: How Riposte is finally defeated.
