Chapter Text
Marinette yawned as she slipped out of her bed, ready for the day ahead.
“Good morning Marinette!” Tikki chirped happily as she flew out of her own little bed Marinette made for her.
“Good morning Tikki,” Marinette smiled back. Marinette moved to her dresser, removing the clothes she was going to wear that day. Those being a white pink-spotted sundress and short black vest. She changed into them and grabbing her school bag and supplies as Tikki hopped into her purse.
Marinette descended down the stairs and into her parent’s bakery, where they were already baking for the coming day.
“Bye Mama, by Papa, I’m off to school!” Marinette called to her parents.
“Oh! Marinette!” her father called, “Somebody’s waiting for you!”
“Waiting for me? But I don’t remember talking about walking to school with Alya…”
Marinette’s monologue was interrupted when she ran into a person she hadn’t seen in years.
“Tash?” Marinette gasped, not entirely sure if what she was seeing was real. The dark-skinned girl grinned at Marinette.
“The one and only!” The girl, Tash, replied.
“Tash!” Marinette cried hugging her. “What are you doing here?! I thought you were travelling!” Marinette asked as she broke away from the hug.
“For five years?” Tash laughed “My Parents finally caught the bastard they were after so now we’re back in Paris!”
Marinette couldn’t believe it. Tashia Queensten was her childhood friend, only to move away when her parents, who were Interpol agents, were tasked with chasing down leads on a white-collar criminal. She had barely heard from her in years and now she was back! Marinette took a glance at Tash.
‘Man, she’s really changed,’ Marinette thought. And she had.
Instead of the starry-eyed eight-year-old of Greek and South American descent with a tooth missing, she was at least a head and a bit taller than Marinette and had beautiful shiny hazelnut hair, as well as smile that could woo the masses.
Tash also wore a pair of designer jeans, a white shirt with two red stripes running from her right shoulder to left hip, and a black leather jacket that didn’t skimp on showing off Tash’s now well-toned body.
“So, Mari,” Tash snapped Marinette back into reality, “What’s been happening with you?” Tash paused to think for a moment, “Y’know, excluding all that spandex superhero stuff I’ve been hearing.”
Marinette laughed at Tash’s blunt description of her alter ego and partner. She then caught her up to speed as they walked to school, which Tash was apparently also attending. Tash also told Marinette about her adventures throughout the rest of Europe, Asia and America.
“You actually modelled?” Marinette asked as they walked up the stairs of their college.
Tash rubbed the back of her head with an embarrassed grin. “Nothing too big, it was just another job. I had to do a lot of temp work when we were travelling. It’s actually how I leant both cooking and swordplay,” Tash told her. “I’m pretty sure I kept the magazines they were printed in. I’ll show you sometime.”
Marinette smiled.
“Can you believe Lila knows Prince Ali? She even flew in his private jet with him!” Rose gushed as Marinette and Tash walked past, both of them looking slightly confused.
“Why did Jagged Stone write a song about Lila when he could've written it about me?” Chloe grumbled to Sabrina as they stormed passed.
“Chloe’s still around?” Tash asked Marinette with an eyebrow raised.
“Unfortunately,” Marinette smiled weakly.
“Lila knows all of the Hollywood directors. She promised she'd mention me to Steven Spielberg himself!” Nino told Max and Kim.
“Who’s Lila? She sounds popular.” Tash asked.
“I have no idea,” Marinette answered truthfully, “I’ve never heard of her before.” She led Tash over to Alya to hopefully get some answers.
“Oh, hey Marinette!” Alya greeted as she looked up from her phone before noticing Tash. “Who’s this?”
“Tashia Queenston, a pleasure to meet you,” Tash greeted.
“Tash is an old friend of mine; she’s been travelling with her parents for the past five years,” Marinette explained.
“Oh cool, nice to meet you Tashia!” Alya greeted back.
“Please, call me Tash, or Queenie.” Tash waved the more formal name off. Marinette then turned to Alya again.
“Hey, Alya, who’s this ‘Lila’ that everyone is talking about?” Marinette asked.
“Oh, she just started at our school,” Alya pointed to a girl on the upper walkway with a blonde-haired boy. “She even gave me an exclusive interview for the Ladyblog, 'cause Ladybug saved her life once! Watch!” She then whipped out her phone to show them a video of the girl.
“Who is this girl and what is she doing next to the love of my life?!” Marinette exclaimed.
Tash raised an eyebrow. “Love of your life?” she leant closer to Marinette, “Was there something you didn’t tell me, Marinette?” Tash smiled slyly as her friend began sweating bullets.
“She didn’t tell you about Adrien?” Alya asked, not catching Marinette’s clear ‘no’ gestures. “Well that guy up there,” She pointed to the blonde boy, “Is Adrien Agreste, supermodel and son of famous fashion designer, Gabriel Agreste.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Tash admitted.
“Well, Marinette here has the hots for him. Bad.” Alya looked at Marinette who had now crumpled up into a ball on the floor, tomato red in embarrassment.
“Well, well, well Mari, you’ve found yourself a little crush,” Tash gloated. “Honestly from how you acted when we were kids, I thought you’d be playing for the other side.”
If it were somehow possible, Marinette turned even redder, shooting up and spluttering at Tash’s accusation. Tash was laughing at her old friend’s actions with glee.
“W-well back to Lila!” Marinette quickly changed the subject.
“Lila's got the most incredible life,” Alya answered, fully distracted, “and now she's going here. She's totally awesome!”
“What?! Don't say that! This is super bad, what if Adrien totally falls for her?! I've never flown in a private jet; nobody's ever written a song about me; I don't know a single person in Hollywood! Adrien will forget I even exist!” Marinette rambled.
“You were right, she does have it bad,” Tash whispered to Alya, who nodded. Marinette watched as Lila walked away with Adrien.
“Where are they going?” Marinette gasped. “Alya, Tash, we've got to stop them!”
“You need to chill out, Marinette. My Ladyblog has the highest number of hits ever after that Lila interview!” Alya told her.
Marinette pouted before following the other two.
“Does this happen often?” Tash asked Alya.
“Too often,” Alya sighed. She looked down at her Ladyblog and then back to Tash. “Hey, you’ve been away out of Paris for five years, right? So, you don’t know anything about Ladybug and Chat Noir?”
“I know a bit, but yeah, not much.” Tash shrugged.
“Well seems as I’ll have to fill you in!” Alya smiled as she dragged Tash off somewhere.
Sometime after school had finished, a meteorite flew down from the sky, only to be stopped by a new fox-themed superhero. It all seemed great, a new protector of Paris almost seemed too good to be true.
And it almost was.
“I don’t want to be you friend, but at least now you can’t say we don’t know each other.” Volpina gloated in her assured victory. She had Ladybug metaphorically cornered. By herself, on a rooftop surrounded by rockets (they were only illusions, but she didn’t know that!).
“Lila?” Ladybug asked, realising just who this ‘superhero’ was.
“You will call me Volpina!” Volpina Demanded.
“You’re not a superhero! You’re another one of Hawkmoth’s akumatised victims!” Ladybug accused.
“Well everyone thinks I’m a superhero, including Chat Noir. So you won’t be able to call me a liar anymore, because everyone will think you’re the liar!”
“Not everybody!” a voice shouted as Ladybug and Volpina turned to see a sparkly blur heading towards them.
“What the…”
“STAR-CROSSED CHOP!” the intruder cried as their arms were engulfed by a rainbow fire, that spread out in five directions like a star. They rammed through Volpina and the hovering missiles, but instead of being hit, they just turned into wisps of orange smoke.
“Of course!” Ladybug said to herself, “They were illusions, fake, just like her lies…”
Distracting Ladybug from her thoughts, the new figure flew over to her. Ladybug’s eyes widened and hew jaw went slack upon recognising who it was.
It was Tash.
Ladybug spluttered for a few moments before composing herself. “Thanks for the assist, but who are you?” She asked.
Tash threw her head back in a laugh. “Really Mari? Drop the theatrics I know it’s you.”
Ladybug’s jaw dropped a second time. “B-b-but HOW!?!” She exclaimed.
“Whatever you're doing to make... this,” Tash gestured to all of Ladybug, “Uses a glamour charm to hide your identity. I’m largely immune to them.”
Ladybug gawked for a second before sighing. “Y’know, I always kinda wondered why people never recognised us when all we are wearing are domino masks.” She shook her head in dismay. She looked back up to Tash. “You better explain everything to me later.” She pointed a finger at Tash.
“Promise.” Tash chuckled. “Now I believe we have an Akuma to catch.”
Ladybug nodded and they took off.
“Our first priority is to find Volpina, lucky for us I have an idea of where she’s going.” Ladybug folded out her yoyo, revealing a screen with Chat Noir on it.
“Chat Noir, is Volpina with you?” Ladybug asked quickly.
“No, and I can’t find Hawkmoth either.” Chat Noir responded over the yoyo phone.
“Forget him, he was never there in the first place.”
“Huh?! But we saw him!” Chat Noir exclaimed.
“That’s Volpina’s power, she creates illusions. What we saw wasn’t real.” Ladybug explained.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Volpina isn’t a Superhero she’s been akumatised. She showed her hand when she attacked me.”
“What?!” Chat Noir yelled, “But why would she become a villain?”
“I think that’s partially my fault, I kind of ruined her chances with a boy she liked because she lied about knowing me.”
“Lila?” Chat Noir whispered to himself.
“But I was able to pick up a new ally,” Ladybug said as she turned the yoyo to Tash, who waved. “This is Tash Queenston, she has powers and is going to help us.”
Chat Noir balked at the sight of Tash. Unbeknownst to Ladybug, He had met Tash earlier that day as Adrien Agreste, so seeing her now and being told she had superpowers, without a miraculous, were a bit too much for him. Fortunately, Ladybug brought him back to reality.
“We’re going to head to the Agreste Mansion, meet us there.”
As Ladybug lead the way to the Agreste Mansion, Tash flying behind her, she had an itching question on her mind.
“Hey, Tash, what are your powers?” Ladybug asked her companion.
Tash rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, “I’m not really used to using them, this is the first time I’ve got practical experience. So far, I’ve learnt flight (which didn’t go well at first),” She muttered the last part softly, “Enhancements in strength and speed, star fire, and astral projecting. Oh! And I can sense magical energies, the stronger they are the better I can sense them. I actually sensed some magical energy on you back at school, but I didn’t think much of it back then.”
Ladybug nodded, but her mind was working rapidly. There were people in the world who had their own superpowers? Had Tikki known about this?
The duo of Ladybug and Tash finally arrived at their destination, just in time to see Volpina slip in through an open window. They approached the building, eavesdropping outside the window.
“Lila?” They heard Adrien asked Volpina.
“You can call me Volpina. I'm sorry about the scene in the park earlier today. Ladybug's jealous because she's not as powerful as me.” Volpina said to him.
“Jeez, what farm did she work in to find this A-grade bullshit?” Tash asked. Ladybug had to put her hand up to stifle a giggle. She then turned back to her yoyo.
“What is he doing?” Ladybug asked herself. She then looked back up to Tash and then to the window below them. “No time to hang around and wait any longer. Come on Queenie, let’s go give this liar a big dose of truth.”
“Ehh, 6/10 on the one-liner Mari,” Tash gave a so-so motion. The two heroes then burst through the open window to confront the Akuma villain.
“See what I mean?!” Volpina said to Adrien as they noticed the heroes’ arrival. “She's jealous of me, of you, of us, but this time you nor your new sidekick aren't going to ruin our date.”
“Sidekick?” Tash asked, slightly annoyed.
“Mm excuse me, but it wasn't really quite a date, per se,” Adrien corrected. Volpina turned to him angrily. “I mean- what I meant was…”
Adrien was interrupted when a giant, blue, ethereal arm grabbed him and pulled him over to Tash. She slung him over her shoulder as the arm shrank to normal size and joined five other arms floating behind the star hero.
“I’ve got the damsel, you take Volpina whilst I take him to safety!” Tash told Ladybug. Ladybug nodded and begun twirling her yoyo threateningly at Volpina, who growled animalistically.
Tash then flew out of the window to get Adrien out of harm’s way before returning to aid Ladybug. After at least a minute of flying, she set Adrien down as she looked the way they had come from.
“All right, that should be far enough,” She turned back to Adrien. “Go ahead and transform, sooner you do sooner we can help Ladybug.”
Adrien’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates while his mouth hung open. Tash laughed at his shocked expression.
“Eh, heh, heh, heh… I can sense magical energies, and that ring of yours is giving quite a bit. Not as much as whatever you have in your jacket, though.”
Plagg took this as his cue to come out, inspecting the super girl meticulously.
“Hmm… I feel I should know who you are…” Plagg then shrugged. “Oh well, couldn’t be that important. Especially if it wasn’t about cheese.”
Adrian ignored his cheese-fetish kwami and turned to give a stiff look to Tash.
“You can’t tell anyone.” He said sternly. Tash gave a weak smile and put her hands up.
“G-got it!” she whimpered. Dang, Adrien could be scary if he wanted.
“Good. Plagg! Claws Out!”
Tash and freshly transformed Chat Noir rendezvoused with Ladybug as she was speeding towards them.
“Volpina’s heading towards the Eifel tower!” She called as the cat and theme-less heroes swerved to begin following her. When they finally reached the tower, they found Volpina. Dangling an illusion of Adrien over the side.
“You’re kidding me.” Tash and Chat Noir deadpanned.
“Give me your Miraculous now or I will!” Volpina demanded.
“I thought you hid him!” Ladybug yelled at Tash.
“I did! It must be an illusion.” Tash looked up at Volpina and had an idea. “Did you ever think of us catching him?”
Volpina faltered.
“I wonder what would happen if I called him?” Tash mocked, taking out her phone. Chat Noir was snickering at Volpina’s growing fury that her face clearly showed. Ladybug had caught on by this point.
“Or I could do... this!” Tash shouted as she sent a blast of starpower at the illusion. It landed and poofed the fakes in a burst of orange smoke.
“There she is!” Ladybug exclaimed, spotting the real Volpina on the other side of the tower, before dashing further up it. The heroes tailed her until they were all on the top of the tower, which was covered in Volpina clones.
“LUCKY CHARM!” Ladybug cried, activating her powers. After a flash of light and swarm of magical ladybugs, a wrapped-up chocolate popsicle appeared. “Huh?” Ladybug questioned as she inspected the object in confusion. She opened up the wrapping, only to be blinded by the shiny interior. “That’s it! I've got an idea to take down Volpina!”
“With a popsicle?” Chat questioned.
“Not the popsicle, Kitty Boy,” Tash said, getting the same idea as Ladybug. She summoned her six astral arms again, prepared for Ladybug’s plan. Chat Noir followed suit, crying out “CATACLYSM!” As his hand began swirling with destructive energy.
Ladybug threw away the popsicle and turned it around, reflect the light until one of the Volpinas in the middle flinched, meaning that she was the real one. Chat quickly leapt up and used his Cataclysm on the metal above Volpina, followed by Tash’s astral arms stretching forward, grabbing the bars and stabbing them into the floor beneath Volpina, creating a make-shift cage around her. As she struggled to get out, Ladybug quickly snatched her necklace off her.
“Your days are over, Akuma!” Ladybug then smashed the necklace on the ground, the Akuma emerging and attempting to make its escape. “Time to de-evilize!” She shouted as her yoyo separated to reveal a glowing inside.
She swung it once at the Akuma, the yoyo closing to ensure its capture. “Gotcha!” Ladybug said as she grabbed her returning yoyo. Opening it back up, a white, totally not evil, butterfly emerged, cleansed from its impurities. “Bye-bye little butterfly.
Next, Tash handed her the ice-cream wrapper which she threw up into the air where it exploded into ladybugs.
“Miraculous, Ladybug!” She exclaimed as she threw it. Once everything all over the city was fixed by the magical ladybugs, Marinette turned to Lila. “Lila?”
“Ladybug?” Lila looked up to her, kneeling on the ground.
“I... totally overreacted and... never should've spoken to you like that. I'm sorry.” Ladybug apologized as she knelt down next to Lila.
“Forget it, Ladybug; you were right. We'll never be friends.” Lila spat as she brushed Ladybug’s hand off her shoulder. Getting up, she took her necklace and left.
“Ouch.” Chat Noir commented.
“Well,” Ladybug began, “I guess if that’s over with, we have one thing left to deal with...”
She and Chat Noir turned around to see Tash attempting to sneak off, freezing once she saw them looking at her. Straightening up she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
“Heh... I can explain?” she shrugged.