Miraculous Decendent

Poor Performance

Fred looks around in confusion but soon realizes he's at the Eiffel Tower. After giving a couple more confused blinks, he finally asks.

"How did I get here?"

Ladybug walks over to the confused man with a look of pity.

"I'm sorry, sir. You were taken advantage of by Hawkmoth. What's the last thing you remember?" She asks Fred, causing him to try to find his most recent memory.

"I remember talking to one of the students at the school I work for and being tricked into going to the wrong pick-up location. Everything is a blank after that." Fred explains.

Hearing this causes Ladybug to narrow her eyes, but someone interrupts her before she can say anything.

"What do you mean you were tricked?" Sarah asks from behind Ladybug.

The two turn to see a nervous Sarah slowly walking toward Fred.

"That's what I was trying to tell you on the phone. Chris told me we were meeting at the Louvre instead because it was closer to the Eiffel Tower." Fred explains. There's no anger at Sarah, only desperation, tiredness, and sadness, causing Sarah to wince when she sees his behavior.

However, Sarah narrows her eyes in the next second before looking at a nervous Chris.

"Is this true, Chris?" Sarah demands, the intimidation move amplified by Ladybug and the other heroes glaring at the sneaky man.

Seeing them glaring at him, Chris has trouble thinking of a lie under the pressure. However, he's unwilling to give up now, knowing this could be a massive blow to his career when it starts circulating.

"Why are you blaming me for this? We all know Fred is late or has an excuse. Maybe Hawkmoth's powers influenced him and made him think I did something since I'm his understudy." Chris points out, getting a pause from everyone since that's a relatively fair point. They still don't know enough about Hawkmoth's powers.

However, Sarah gets an idea and looks back at Fred.

"Give me your phone." She tells Fred, surprising the man.

He doesn't say anything and gives her his phone. After getting the passcode with it, she goes through the call logs and sees that Chris did call Fred before they had to leave. After getting this piece of evidence, her glare hardens at Chris.

"What did you call Fred for then, Chris?" She demands again, this time in a more dangerous tone.

If there's one thing she can't accept, it's underhanded methods for getting spots. And Chris knows this since he becomes more nervous when she asks that question.

"Uh, well, you see." Chris stutters while Sarah presses the attack.

"Surely you're not going to tell me Hawkmoth also manipulated his phone logs?" She sarcastically asks Chris as the man tries to come up with an answer.

"Sarah, why don't we calm down before things go too far? We don't know if Hawkmoth will try something again." Fred warns as he tries to calm Sarah before anyone can get hurt again.

"No. I do not accept sabotage when I'm in charge." Sarah snaps at Fred, causing the man to back down slightly while raising his arms placatingly.

"I want an explanation, Chris." Sarah orders, causing the man to wince.

For a good while, he doesn't say anything.

"Can't you just have him tell the truth?" Brawling Tiger asks Ladybug, getting everyone's attention.

Ladybug looks the most surprised by Brawling Tiger's sudden question, and the girl shrugs.

"What? You haven't used Seamstress yet. You might as well use it now so we can finish this. I don't know about you guys, but I have better things to do than to sit here while everyone argues." Brawling Tiger tells everyone with a shrug.