Lightning Strikes Twice
is an Alternate Universe Fic 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 one-chapter work and it is now complete.
This fanfiction series contains examples of:
- Adaptational Jerkass: Played with. The story ends with Marinette fearing that the American superheroes will hunt her down and torture her for her knowledge about the Miraculous in order to make sure that their power never falls into evil hands again. However, the only evidence this will actually come to pass hinges on the idle speculation of her parents, who may be grossly underestimating their moral character.
- Alternate Universe Fic: A What If? with the change that Stormy Weather responds intelligently to a message that Ladybug sends her (which may have happened in the real episode — we don't know how Ladybug really won).
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant: When Hawk Moth nearly wipes out all of humanity, an international task force led by the American superhero team from the comics comes to Paris baying for his blood.
- Bittersweet Ending: The world has turned on Hawk Moth and will bring him down one way or another. Marinette's romantic dreams are crushed — she will have to go on the run or seek witness protection because of the fallout of the massive investigation to come.
- Canon Immigrant: Or about as "canon" as a fanfiction can get, anyway. The story ends with the American superhero team, who were introduced in the Miraculous Adventures comics, coming to Paris for Hawk Moth's head.
- Deconstruction: What would really happen if a supervillain showed he had enough power to cause human extinction? The whole world turns on him and starts hunting him down.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: The two heroes speculate on why Hawk Moth isn't stopping Stormy Weather's global apocalypse. They decide it got too cold too fast, and he couldn't focus his power to remove hers.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Most Smart Adversaries stories have the villain act smarter than they did in canon. This story instead expands on a canonical Noodle Incident, and the nail doesn't come in until after the dust settles.
- Fridge Logic: Brought up in-universe. If Aurore kills everyone on Earth, who will be around to tell her how powerful she is?
- Heel–Face Turn: Faced with the illogic of what she is doing, Stormy Weather gives up her akumatized object.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Chloé, who targets Aurore in hopes of seeing some superhero action, gets nothing but an icy tomb. Restored to life, she will most likely be captured and interrogated by one of the less scrupulous teams of investigators after knowledge about the Miraculouses, because of her public identity.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Displacing the whole Earth and freezing millions of people turns the whole world against Hawk Moth. His goals have become unreachable.
- Noodle Implement: Averted. This story shows how Ladybug and Chat Noir could have won using a marker and a copier.
- Shout-Out: To the Watchmen movie. The American President calls Hawk Moth's endangerment of the planet through Stormy Weather an "act of supreme evil."
- The Unmasking: Marinette realizes the heroes' secret identity won't stand up to an international investigation. She tells her parents the truth about herself.
