Fanfic / Miraculous City

In another battle against Monarch, Ladybug and Chat Noir face off against Mr. Pigeon, this time holding a prototype Miraculous Ring meant to channel all the stolen Miraculous at once. But when Ladybug grabs at the akuma with her Yo-Yo, it sets off a chain reaction that changes Paris forever, namely empowering every citizen in Paris, both good and evil.

Miraculous City is a Miraculous Ladybug fic by Booksforthelost where the people of Paris undergo a Mass Super-Empowering Event, changing the course of the city forever.

The story concluded on December 4th, 2023.

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Miraculous City contains the following examples

• Abusive Parents:
  • Gabriel Agreste. While he does care about Adrien, it quickly becomes apparent that he cares more about his ability to control Adrien than Adrien himself.
  • Tomoe Tsurugi is just as much a Control Freak to Kagami as Gabriel is to Adrien. She firmly dominates her daughter's life and decisions, even modifying her home so Kagami can't escape even with the Dragon Powers.
• Ability Mixing: When Arashi Gozen tries to take Painted Lady's power, it's revealed that using a physical Miraculous with different powers from the innate Ladybug powers inside her makes her immune. Marinette and Adrien utilize this against Monarch by switching their Miraculouses and combining them with their internal powers.
• Actually a Good Idea: Kim is the one to figure out from Ladybug's return letter Lucky Charm that they just have to return the Miraculous Bang powers into the Crack to undo the damage, something that Ladybug confirms is right much to everyone's shock. This is immediately followed by the suggestion that Bunnyx use her powers to slow down time, something that can be pulled off by Painted Lady kamikotizing her.
  Is this what being smart is like? I like it.
• Actually Pretty Funny: After revealing their identities to each other, Marinette and Adrien realize the existence of the Love Square, and the entire Miraculous Team promptly bursts into laughter over the absurdity of it.
• Adaptational Badass: Thanks to the Miracle Bang giving everyone powers, several supporting and minor characters have gotten an opportunity to show off their stuff.
• All for Nothing: Marinette points out that Lila’s plans to woo Adrien were doomed from the start, even if she hadn’t been exposed as a liar. First, since Adrien is Chat Noir he would’ve been able to confirm Lila’s claims for himself. Second, her claims to being Ladybug’s friend would’ve just got her targeted by Hawkmoth. Finally, any relationship between the two would’ve never worked, since Gabriel had been planning to put Adrien into an Arranged Marriage with Kagami.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: During a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to Socqueline, Ladybug inverts this trope by saying how before she became a hero, she was frequently protected and guided by a Cool Big Sis who stood up against a ruthless bully that everyone else was afraid of. Even after the bully got the older girl in trouble, she helped inspire Ladybug to become the hero. When she confirms that the older girl was Socqueline, the latter realizes the hero is her friend Marinette.
• And the Adventure Continues: While Hawkmoth has been defeated and the Miracle Bang reversed, Marinette knows that more threats are heading their way thanks to the events of Timetagger. Something that is proven correct when the Disastrous Team, minus Chloé, regain their powers thanks to the Supreme using some unknown method. Despite this, the Miraculous Team keeps fighting on, ready to face the future.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: How Lila coerces Chloé into joining the Disastrous team. Lila points out that even if Chloé manages to escape from them, Audrey will do everything in her power to ensure that Chloé is criminally charged for assaulting her and Chloé has already alienated anybody who would be willing to help her, a process that Lila helped sped along.
• The Atoner:
  • Chapter 23 reveals that André has become this, wanting to make up for not stopping his wife Audrey from mistreating her daughters and enabling Chloé’s Spoiled Brat behavior that led her to become a supervillain. He does this by providing Adrien and Kagami amnesty from their respective Abusive Parent and joins Zoé in trying to talk Chloé into coming back home
  • During the raid in chapter 23, Nathalie confesses her crimes as Mayura to the police. In chapter 26, she would join the heroes in the war against Hawkmoth.
• Batman Gambit: In chapter 10, Lila pulls one on Chloé to set her up to join her team. First she brings up about how much Audrey barely cares for her and Zoé and could just as easily get rid of her when not of us, setting up the seeds of resentment. Then she sets her subordinates to attack Audrey's fashion show, knowing the model would take her anger out on Chloé. This leads Chloé to reach her Rage Breaking Point and attack Audrey, leaving her accused of assault and with no other option but to join the Disaster Team to avoid being arrested.
• Being Evil Sucks: Chloé hates being a member of the Disastrous Team, even subconsciously changing her superhero costume to reflect her new view of herself. The only reason she’s even a member is because they’ve threatened her into compliance and she believes there is nothing left for her.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: In the final battle, Kagami reveals to her mother that Tomoe Gozen was a former Dragon hero, and that for all the present Tomoe's claims of how she follows her namesake past, the real Tomoe Gozen would be disgusted for her part in imprisoning her partner Longg.
• Belated Love Epiphany: In chapter 30, Chloé realizes that for all her wasted efforts trying to earn her mother's approval, she had a father and half-sister that would have loved her unconditionally. However, as Drone Bee she has lost any chance of a normal family with them.
• Berserk Button:
  • Alix's button is being called short. Anyone who makes that mistake will promptly receive a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • The sight of Audrey enrages Drone Bee enough that she breaks free of Queen Chrysalis's control so she can kill her.
• Big Bad Friend:The "true" identity of Chrysalis is none other than Socqueline's friend Camille Benolt.
• The Big Bad Shuffle: The Big Bad Ensemble of Monarch and Chrysalis wanes back and forth on who was the most dominant villain, often fighting each other by proxy through their akumas. In chapter 25, Hawkmoth puts Chrysalis into a forced akumatisation, turning her into one of his minions.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • Chapter 22 has Adrien calling out his father for his Control Freak tendencies, particularly in trying to get Adrien to break up with Marinette so he can get him engaged with Kagami along with his lack of communication about why he has to be separated from his cousin Felix and his aunt Amelie. He also calls him out of his hypocritical disapproval of Marinette from being of "lower class" when Gabriel started as a fry-cook and separated himself from his parents.
  • After surviving the attack from Mizuchi in chapter 21, Kagami confronts her mother Tomoe about her controlling tendency, namely how the security system she set up to keep Kagami from escaping nearly got her killed by Mizuichi, who turned out to have been her childhood friend Tatsuya that was forced to the street after Tomoe stole shared control of her company from his father. Kagami even rips out the family crest in her clothes as she leaves.
  • During the final battle at the Agreste Mansion, both Adrien and Kagami get to call out their parents again: Adrien because Gabriel was an egotistical bastard long before Emilie fell sick (citing how he got the guardian of the Prodigious killed and didn't care), and Kagami because Tomoe, for all her claims that carries the legacy of Tomoe Gozen, actually has more in common with Tomoe Gozen's enemies.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Chapter 17 introduces Liam/Chrono Rabbit, a Time-Traveling Jerkass that tries to rob from the past only to be defeated and locked away, but not before finding out the heroes’ secret identityies. In Chapter 24, the Disaster Team find and recruit him, in order to learn the heroes’ identities and broadcast them across Paris.
  • An officer with Butterfly powers called Gaston is a recurring extra throughout the story, even offering Ladybug and Chat Noir confirmation that a Butterfly user can akumatize themselves. During the final battle he uses his powers to give Painted Lady the ability to release as many Kamikos as she wants.
• Complexity Addiction: Chrysalis notes that Cerise’s preference for complex schemes is her biggest failing. Even when she does go for a simple approach, she can’t resist making a huge spectacle of herself such as attempting to kill Marinette with a flashy public execution rather than just killing her right away.
• Connected All Along: Chapter 8 reveals that an entirely new criminal, named Chrysalis later in the story, has gained Butterfly Power and uses it to empower their subordinate criminals. After rescuing the disaster team in chapter 13, they reveal themselves as Lila/Cerise’s Evil Mentor, having trained her in deception before leaving her for her reckless lying.
• Crack in the Sky: These start to form as a side effect of the Miracle Bang and it’s revealed that they’ll destroy the universe if the Bang isn’t reversed. Later on, they start releasing blasts of energy, with Tikki noting that it’s similar to what happens when Kwamis use their powers without a holder.
• Crazy-Prepared: At the start of chapter 26, Ladybug speaks to Painted Lady and hands her something. The end of the chapter reveals she gave her the Ladybug Miraculous to keep them safe, which comes in handy when Gabriel captures her.
• Cruel Mercy: After the final battle, Bug Noire and Chat Bug heal Gabriel of both the injuries from Chat's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and the Cataclysm that was killing him. Bug Noire explains that they did it so Gabriel can suffer the consequences of having his Secret Identity exposed just like them.
• Depower:
  • In the final battle, Tomoe and her conscripted engineers create a device to take the powers given by the Miraculous Bang, albeit to transfer them instead to her and Gabriel.
  • The Miracle Bang and the related Crack in the Sky are undone when Kamiko-empowered Ladybug and Bunnyx freeze-time and collect the distributed powers, then fire them into the crack.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Chrysalis points this out to Cerise that lying about being best friends with Ladybug, a superhero in Paris at the same time Cerise was there as Lila, would have drawn said hero’s attention.
  • In chapter 28, a captive but resistant Marinette tells Gabriel and Tomoe that their plan to to set Adrien and Kagami together was bound to fail even without Adrien becoming Chat Noir and falling in love with Ladybug and then Marinette.
    • First is that both parents raised their children to be the perfect couple, meaning that they would have been in love with the perfect image they made their children play. She brings up how before the pair broke up, Kagami dismissed Adrien’s joking attitude as not who he was in place of the perfect model he was presented as.
    • Second was that even if they were able to micromanage every aspect of Adrien and Kagami’s life, the moment that Gabriel and Tomoe die they would be without any guidance and independence, destroying the empire the adults conspired to build.
  • Gabriel put Lila and Chloé under Akumatization brainwashing, that is the first two people to have thrown off his control. Sure enough, they quickly start breaking through it.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Chrysalis forms the main source of problems in the second part of the fic, with Bunnyx indicating that if not stopped all of Paris will be destroyed as a result of the Miracle Bang. But then Monarch makes a grand comeback and renders her his servant via akumatization.
• Everybody Knew Already: At the start of chapter 23, Felix as Royal Blue goes to Ladybug and Chat Noir to tell them that his uncle is Monarch... only for them to tell him they've already figured that out.
• Evil Is Petty: XY (as ViperX) tries to kill the Couffaines because Luka revealing Bob Roth's contract's pitfall led to his career (which had already been in free fall because of his stealing of other people's songs) to come to an end.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Paris ends up taking the Miracle Bang in stride. Aurore notes that the regular Akuma attacks have left Paris ready for anything and cites the city’s motto Fluctuat nec mergitur.^note He/She is rocked by the waves but does not sink.
• Foreshadowing: In chapter 22, Chat Noir visits a Butterfly-power police officer named Gaston and asks if it is possible to grant himself new power, which is used to check if Gabriel could have akumatized himself such as the Collector. In the same chapter, it's revealed that Camille did the same to copy the Black Cat powers while infiltrating Ladybeetle's team.
• Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Tatsuya Ohawa was a former childhood friend of Kagami, the two playing together while their parents ran the company they founded together. However, Tomoe manipulated the board into handing full control from Tatsuya's father, forcing the Ohawa family to the street. With his new Dragon powers, Tatsuya seeks revenge on the Tsurugi family, and isn't above killing Kagami in hopes of tormenting her mother.
• From Bad to Worse: Chapter 31 shows what can be worse than Hawkmoth taking over the city of Paris with an army of akumas and Miraculizer. Namely, Marinette forcefully akumatized into Miss Fortune.
• Freudian Slip: During their duel in chapter 23, Tomoe tells Kagami that working with Gabriel will help bring back her late husband and get was she deserves. When Kagami points out the slip, Tomoe tries to pass it off as getting what they deserve, but her daughter knows very well that her mother's priorities are to herself instead of her child.
• Freudian Excuse: Subverted with Hawkmoth. While initially it was suspected that his turn to evil was out of an obsession to save his sick wife, Fei and Nathalie reveal that 15 years prior, he hired Cash to secure and steal the Prodigious Cave, which led to the death of Fei's stepfather. It shows that Gabriel has always been dangerously ambitious.
• Heel–Face Turn: Chloé switches back to the heroes' side during the battle at the Agreste Mansion, cracking out of her Drone Bee costume to recover her Queen Bee identity.
• Heroic Willpower: Sentibeings can overcome commands from their amoks through strong will and desire. Adrien unknowingly frees himself when he fights off his father's command to keep out of danger so he can save Marinette, while Kagami frees herself directly to stop her mother from making her kill Felix. Felix would finally free himself when Hera took his Miraculous and commanded him to kill Ultra Noir, only for him to push against her order.
  • Villainous example: true to form, Lila and Chloé are starting to break through the Akumatization brainwashing Hawk Moth forced Chrysalis to put them under.
• Horrible Judge of Character: During her battle against Kagami and Royal Blue, Tomoe justifies her alliance with Gabriel by describing him as a visionary genius. Felix laughs and points out that a man who akumatized a baby, started a kissing zombie apocalypse, and akumatized Kagami so she could kill his son (despite planning to put them in an Arranged Marriage) is less of a visionary and more of an idiot.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Subverted in a fashion. When Drone Bee tries to kill Audrey for all the abuse she put her through, Vesperia stops her by pointing out that as bad as Audrey is, she isn’t a murderer, and if Chloé kills her then she’ll be worse than her.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In chapter 26, Team Miraculous faces off against Miss Fortune (AKA akumatized Marinette), trying to get through to her. They pinpoint the cause of her akumatization as the fear that she put her friends in danger in the fight against Hawkmoth and that letting him win will save them, and thus tell Miss Fortune that no matter what, they will stick together and protect her and each other just as she protected them. This gives her the Heroic Willpower to break free from her transformation.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: For all of Swinearchy's lunacy, her deepest desire was for her parents' love long after they left her in the asylum.
• It's Personal: Lady Beetle and most of her team have a personal vendetta against Lila/Cerise for how she hurt and manipulated their loved ones.
• Mad Artist: Robin Null/Faunmania. Before the Miracle Bang, he was a Nightmare Fetishist with a penchant for disturbing art. Now he’s into performance art, like sending a burning truck towards oncoming traffic or trying to shut down a power plant to see how many people die in the ensuing blackout.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: The “Miraculous Bang” that granted every citizen in Paris this power, not just the Miraculous that Monarch possessed but also the Ladybug, Black Cat, Peacock, and Rabbit Miraculouses.
• Meaningful Name: Plenty of them, all of which are explained in the notes at the end.
  • Lady Harlequin is named after the Harlequin Ladybug, which are rather unpleasant insects that are often mistaken for real ladybugs.
  • Swinearchy is a fusion of “swine” and “anarchy”.
• Mythology Gag: When the cracks start discharging energy four of the places shown to be affected are Rio, London, Dakir, and Tokyo, the locations of the Miraculous World specials that have yet to be released at the time of the stories writing.
• Not Me This Time: When Nathalie comes to question what he was planning with The Robber (who haven't even fought Ladybug or Chat Noir), Gabriel replies that he never sent out that Akuma. This sets up the introduction of Chrysalis.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The rest of Team Miraculous are unsettled when Pigella shows an uncharacteristic cold fury at Swinearchy for using the Pig Miraculous power to harm innocent people.
  • In the raid against Monarch, Bumble Owl/Principal Damocles doesn't bother using his Dark Owl antics, instead ruthlessly attacking Monarch for harming his staff and students until Monarch's Akuma tosses him aside.
• Police Are Useless: Subverted. Thanks to everyone in Paris acquiring powers, the police are now much more capable of dealing with threats than they were before.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While Chrysalis and their team discover Monarch's true identity, they refrain from revealing it because it will only benefit the heroes.
• Psycho Rangers: The Disaster Team, a group of criminal Miraculous users to counteract Team Miraculous. The group has at least one Evil Counterpart to another.
  • Lila/Cerise/Lady Harlequin is this to Marinette/Ladybug. Both are charismatic leaders, but Marinette fights to protect her loved ones while Harlequin fights for her own interests.
  • Tulip/Swinearchy to Rose/Pigella. Both are cheerful and optimistic Genki Girls with powers of the Pig Miraculous, but while Rose is a kind and gentle person who uses her powers to help others, Tulip is an insane Cloud Cuckoo Lander who doesn’t care who she hurts or kills in her pursuit of having fun.
  • XY/ViperX to Luka/Viperion. Both are musicians with the snake power, but while Luka is a genuinely talented musician and a compassionate heart, XY has no real talent and steals the work of others. Word of God even lampshades that XY is already an evil Luka in canon.
  • Socqueline Wang/Lady Beetle is revealed to have one through Camille/Chrysalis. Both of them were Big Sister Mentors to Marinette and Cerise respectively. Socqueline becomes a full-out Good Counterpart when she gets the Butterfly Miraculous and becomes Painted Lady.
• Second Super-Identity: This tends to happen to those who already had a Miraculous but now have indefinite access to their respective abilities.
  • In chapter 2, when a group of expelled bullies invades and attacks Dupont, Marinette uses her internal Ladybug powers to make a new appearance, which is publicly named "Maribug".
  • In chapter 5, Sabrina (already the dog hero Miss Hound) transforms into Stray Hound when dragged by Chloé into performing heroics for the latter's own desire for fame.
  • In chapter 6, when the same group of bullies turns villains attack a fair Adrien and Marinette are attending, he transforms into Cat Walker to help Maribug and Lady Beetle.
  • In chapter 7, it's revealed by a flashback that Luka used an unnamed snake transformation as a precaution when signing a record deal with Bob Roth, which lets him turn back time after signing and learning how skewed the contract really was in the fine print. In chapter 12, this new identity is named Snake Charmer while his sister Juleka has another Tiger form named Goth Tiger.
  • In chapter 11, Chloé gains a new transformation after joining Lila's team against her will, representing her lack of power. Her "teammates" mockingly refer to her as Drone Bee, which she doesn't even protest.
  • Following his Heel–Face Turn, Felix becomes the Peacock Hero Royal Blue in place of Argos.
• Sick and Wrong: Team Miraculous has this reaction when they find out that Adrien, Kagami, and Felix are all Sentibeings, with the former two's parents able (or once able to in Gabriel's case) to take away their free will with just a command. Pigella struggles not to throw up when Ladybug mentions how Gabriel described Adrien and Kagami as "of the same design" when trying to set them together, implying they were created with the purpose of their parents marrying them together.
• Stable Time Loop: In chapter 17, Ladybug briefly arrives a short time into the future, and runs into that time’s Rena Rouge and Carapace who embrace her in relief but, for the timeline's sake, unable to tell her why. Chapter 36 would reveal that Marinette had feared something bad would happen to her. When the Disaster Team exposed Team Miraculous's identities, she took that as a sign that this was the incident and gave Socqueline the Ladybug Miraculous in case something happens. This would lead to the same events to occur in chapter 34.
  Socqueline: So wait? You gave your Miraculous to me because you thought something might happen to you because of the way Alya and Nino looked at you in the future?
  Kim: My brain hurts.
  Alix: You get used to it.
• Stealth Pun: The story has Tomoe Tsurugi taking the role of The Dragon to Gabriel Agreste. Her own Miraculous Power is the Dragon, like her daughter Kagami.
• Stupid Crooks: The Rejects. They’re too stupid to think of using their powers for anything more than petty crimes like destroying a school or robbing a fair, tasks they fail miserably at, and are barely considered threats. Then they join up with Lila.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Subverted. Once word gets out about Hawk Moth taking over Paris, the United Heroez and Ladydragon immediately head towards Paris. The only reason the United Heroez don’t immediately help once they get there is that they’re worried that acting too rashly will force Hawk Moth to do something drastic.
• Super Mode: Combining both the innate Miraculous powers and the true Miraculous unlocks Ultra Mode, which further boosts a Miraculous user's power, which include curing Emilie of her Miraculous coma.
• Teens Are Monsters: The members of the Disastrous Team are all teenagers and, with one exception, are all nasty pieces of work.
• Time-Traveling Jerkass: Lyam Farcot aka Chrono Rabbit. He’s a jerk who uses his powers to jump through time recklessly. While he doesn’t actively try to change major events, he doesn’t understand just how fragile time is, and based on how he constantly brushes off the Bunnyxs’ attempts at warning him, he obviously doesn’t care.
• Villainous Breakdown: Gabriel starts to lose it after Chrysalis publicly reveals his past as Gabi Grassete, exposes his abusive and controlling parenting, and all but admits that she knows he’s Monarch. The last straw is when he finally realizes that he’s completely lost his ability to control Adrien and causes him to go as far as attempting to Akumatize him before Nathalie stops him.
• Villain Decay: Monarch is hit by this hard as the story goes on, with his plans quickly taking a backseat to Chrysalis and the Disastrous Team culminating in him having his identity revealed and losing all of the Miraculous, including the Butterfly, forcing him to flee. Even his own ability to control Adrien falls apart thanks to Adrien breaking free of his amok. He then proceeds to completely subvert it by taking control of Chrysalis and the Disastrous Team, firmly reclaiming his spot as the story’s Big Bad.
• Villain Reveals the Secret:
  • In chapter 20, Chrysalis and their team break into The Diamonds' Dance and expose on lifestream the secrets of the rich elites, such as Gabriel's past as Gabi Grassete and both his and Tomoe's Control Freak tendency towards their respective children and their failed attempt to get them together. King Monkey initially doesn't see the big deal as some rich jerks had their reputations stained, but Rena points out that by exposing their secrets, Chrysalis established that no one, neither the elite nor the heroes, is untouchable to them.
  • Chapter 25 has the Disaster Team takes this further by broadcasting the Secret Identities of Team Miraculous.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: André is disgusted that Gabriel didn't even bother watching his wife's Video Will when she vanished, failing to know her dying wish for Adrien to pick for himself.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Gabriel's rush to get the Wish is based on the Cataclysm he let himself take when trying to escape Ladybug and Chat Noir's grasp.

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