The Grand Deception

Chapter Four

In retrospect, I should have scheduled my plan to start on Saturday rather than Friday. Dealing with superheroes was exhausting, and now I was faced with returning to school on two hours of sleep. At least it was Saturday now, so I'd only have half a day of classes. I wondered if Ladybug and Chat Noir were facing a similar problem, since they were fighting each other all through the night.

I hadn't expected the two to be so evenly matched—I'd expected Ladybug to emerge as the clear winner within a few minutes. But as the sun had risen, neither of them had defeated the other, and they were still clueless as to how I had tricked them, each still believing the other to be akumatized.

As I ate breakfast, I had a chance to watch the morning news. Sure enough, a reporter was covering the aftermath of the fight. "We're not sure what prompted Ladybug and Chat Noir to turn on each other," she was saying. "Some believe this was simply a disagreement between friends. But others fear that there is a more sinister factor at play. Perhaps one of our heroes has fallen victim to Hawkmoth—or perhaps one of them may have turned to evil of their own accord. Because of this possibility, Mayor Bourgeois has declared a state of emergency. Neither Ladybug nor Chat Noir could be reached for comment. It seems our only course of action at this point is to wait for future developments. Until then, I'm Nadja Chamack, and this is TVi News."

The plan was far more successful than I had anticipated. This city had gotten used to being attacked by villains on practically a weekly basis. But I'd seen the news coverage from those, and this seemed the first time in a long while that people seemed actually scared. They'd learned to rely on their heroes when danger struck. And now people were questioning whether that trust was misplaced.

"I'm impressed, Volpina," Hawkmoth's voice spoke in my head. "You're certainly the sly fox I took you for. But let's not lose focus. I want those jewels!"

"Don't worry, Hawkmoth," I replied. "Sabotaging their reputation and their trust in each other is only the beginning."

It was time to go to school. Since I couldn't exactly go into class looking like Volpina, I created an illusion duplicate of myself in my normal form. As I crouched on the roof of the school, my duplicate walked up the steps, and was met there by Marinette.

"Good morning, Lila!" she said cheerfully. "Did you sleep well?"

"I'm afraid I didn't," I replied.

Before I could say anything else, I noticed both Alya and Adrien walking up the steps toward us. "Good morning, Lila," Alya said as she brushed past my duplicate. "Marinette, did you see what happened last night?"

"No, what was it?" Marinette asked innocently.

Alya pulled out her phone, and both Marinette and Adrien leaned over to take a closer look. "Ladybug and Chat Noir were fighting each other. Look, you can see that they broke those windows and even cracked the sidewalk! It must have been intense. I wish I could have been there filming it, because we've got no footage at all."

Marinette didn't look particularly shocked, but took an expression of surprise as Alya looked up from her phone. "Do you know why they're fighting?" Marinette asked.

"At first I thought that Chat Noir was being mind-controlled by a villain. It's happened a few times before—with Dislocoeur, with Puppeteer, and with Princesse Fragrance. But each of those times, Ladybug beat him easily, and this time it looks like it was an evenly matched fight. Nobody even knows who won, if anybody did. So I think Chat Noir's turned evil of his own accord."

"Or maybe it's Ladybug that's turned evil," Adrien suggested.

Alya shook her head. "No way. I could never see that happening."