A fanfic
(also on Ao3) made by RockSunner, for Miraculous Ladybug.
Unlike his Smart Adversaries AU for that series, this is not an Alternate Timeline that branches off from a different decision made by a Ladybug villain.
Instead, it branches off a smarter decision by the heroes: they will not use any of the temporary heroes whose identities were exposed by Miracle Queen.
This is a multi-chapter work and it is now complete.
This fanfiction work contains examples of:
- Adaptation Personality Change: Zoé has a somewhat darker backstory than what she says in canon.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Barkk and Ziggy first get to empower heroes in "Qilin" instead of "Penalteam".
- Adaptational Villainy: Zoé betrays the others to Chloé about their meeting to help Marinette in "Gabriel Agreste", but she makes up for it by working against her half-sister at the party and by getting a call for help through when the Collector shows up.
- Alternate Universe Fic: A What If? with the change that Ladybug and Chat Noir think through the implications of what happened with Miracle Queen, and decide to protect the temporary heroes by not using them again.
- Ascended Extra: Zoé gets a bigger part, for example she gets to go to the party in "Gabriel Agreste", replacing the role of Marinette disguised as "Marino". She also gets to use the Bee, Snake, and even the Cat Miraculous for a time.
- Bittersweet Ending: Gabriel and Nathalie are defeated, but two new villains will take their place. The romance between Ladybug and Chat Noir is on hold while Adrien works through the issues of being a freed sentimonster and Marinette reconciles the two different sides of him. Zoé gets a happy ending with Kagami when the latter's mother flees town, and Chloé gets better through a closer relationship with Sabrina.
- Boring, but Practical: Not exactly boring, but two heroes using "Unify" efficiently in "Mega Leech" take out a villain that it took seven heroes to fight in canon, and in much less time.
- Broken Pedestal
- Alya loses her willingness to work with Ladybug when she realizes how much danger Ladybug put her family in by using her as Rena Rouge again after her identity was known to Shadow Moth.
- Zoé becomes disenchanted with Ladybug over time from personal experience and also because she stands up for her half-sister Chloé.
- Catch the Conscience: Zoé gains some insight into the events of Miracle Queen by putting on a cosplay about it with Chloé, Sabrina, and Butler Jean. It doesn't cause Chloé any remorse but it helps restore her relationship with Sabrina.
- Clone Angst: Félix resents Adrien because the latter was intentionally created as a sentimonster and Félix was an accidental side-effect, due to using one of the magical Twin Rings as an amok object.
- Discard and Draw: During the Risk/Strikeback battle, Ladybug asks Chat Noir to switch over to using Pollen, becoming Bee-Sting, to prevent a reckless use of Cataclysm that Strikeback might steal. (In canon, she wanted him to de-transform). This change saves her life later, when Adrien is ordered to use his power against her.
- Face–Heel Turn: Zoé turns against Ladybug after being recruited as Vesperia only to be used as a target in "Queen Banana".
- Fix Fic
- The heroes avoid the mistake that leads to "Optigami." The sentimonster still appears, but it is detected earlier.
- Ladybug avoids revealing her identity to Alya.
- Ladybug and Chat Noir get vibrating buzzers so they can alert each other when they are civilians. This saves Chat from the long wait in "Truth".
- A "Pychomedian" episode has been created to fill in for one that was missing at the time of writing.
- Ladybug uses her words rather than getting violent with Chat Noir in "Glaciator 2". He apologizes more quickly and doesn't make excuses.
- Heel–Face Turn: Chloé makes a little start at treating Sabrina nicer with the help of Zoé.
- In Spite of a Nail: Chat Noir still renounces in "Kuro Neko" and gets a one-shot replacement. He resigns because he finds out about the betrayal of his identity to Su-Han, and the replacement is by Zoé.
- Internal Reveal
- Unlike in canon, Zoé's identity as Vesperia is not kept a secret from Chat Noir.
- In "Guiltrip" Zoé gets enough evidence to uncover the secret identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir.
- By "Glaciator 2" Zoé has told both Marinette and Adrien that she knows their identities, but not that she knows the identity of the other one.
- In the equivalent chapter to "Ephemeral", Su-Han learns Chat Noir's identity, and it sticks.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Su-Han's insistence that someone has to know Chat Noir's identity is admitted to be valid by Adrien once he knows that his is a sentimonster who could have been commanded to turn against Ladybug at any time.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Ladybug uses the Rooster Miraculous to get super-hypnosis, and erases Zoé's knowledge that she is Marinette. She intends to erase her knowledge of Chat Noir's identity also, but fails because of a poorly-worded hypnotic command.
- Living Out a Childhood Dream: Zoé has a childhood dream of marrying Adrien and controlling him with a ring (due to things her mother said, based on schemes with Gabriel). She gets a chance to live this dream for a moment under the influence of Wishmaker.
- Love Potion: Zoé has a romantic interest in Kagami and vice-versa. It heats up much faster than they expected when both are affected by the simplification wave of Simpleman.
- Malicious Misnaming: Félix wants his Dog form called Flairmidable. Not liking him, Ladybug calls it pretentious and calls him "Fido" instead.
- More than Mind Control: Félix tested his idea that Adrien could be influenced by Félix's ring, the counterpart to his real amok ring, by suggesting a Twin Switch prank in "Psychomedian".
- "Not So Different" Remark
- Marinette says Zoé's wanting a more glamorous role as a hero makes her like Chloé.
- Zoé says Marinette and Chloé are both isolated, one by secrets and one by guilt.
- Once More, with Clarity: The scene in "Félix" where Gabriel polished the two rings together before the visit of Félix and Amelie is given a new twist as the story reveals Gabriel's memories — he was exchanging rings so that he could wear the amok ring controlling Félix in case of trouble, leading to the theft of that ring. He then took back the ring he normally wears to control Adrien.
- Point of Divergence:
- Thanks to the intervention of Zoé, Chloé avoids being akumatized at the football game and takes a big step towards redemption.
- Because Ladybug communicates with Chat Noir about her intended choice for a new temp hero, Félix gets a test question on the train and is exposed. Without Ladybug's trust, he settles for a different scheme to get hold of the Peacock Miraculous, with a far better outcome for the heroes.
- Power-Up
- Ladybug and Chat Noir make much more frequent use of unification with the other kwamis.
- The Astrobug and Cosmocat power-ups are used to fight Crocoduel.
- Rebuilt Pedestal: Zoé becomes willing to work with Labybug again as the Snake holder Serpentina.
- Reset Button: In "Gang of Secrets" Chat uses the Snake Miraculous to help Ladybug find out which villain has the akuma, by trial and error over the same five minutes.
- Ring of Power: The Graham de Vanilly Twin Rings are used as the explanation for why Adrien and Félix were created as identical sentimonsters. Félix is aware of his origin but Adrien is not.
- Superpower Lottery: With nearly instant access to all combinations of powers in the Miracle Box with unification, Ladybug and Chat Noir become rather over-powered.
- Team Spirit: The team of Ladybug and Chat Noir is stronger, with no feeling by Chat that he is being replaced.
- Unholy Matrimony: There is a new villain couple, Félix and Lila as the Peacock and Butterfly holders.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Zoé gets to hear what Tikki is doing in her "munchies" state in "Dearest Family", and she is horrified. She thinks, "We're fighting monsters with monsters."
- With Us or Against Us: Marinette feels that Zoé wanting to help both her and Chloé is not a valid choice.
- A Wizard Did It: Chloé's extreme character shift after "Miracle Queen" is given a magical explanation — there is personality warping that temporarily affects Miraculous holders in the opposition when the Guardianship is transferred, and she gets long-term effects because she was wearing eight Miraculouses at the time.
