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Caleb was reading fan fiction for his favourite show, but he did not like what he found.
“Oh, come on! Alex has never done anything like that on the show, and she never would. Why do people go on about Adam not doing more to stop Lisa?!” He almost shouted while reading another absurd "salt story" on his computer.
“He didn’t know what was going on at the time! And what is this about Martha’s friends turning against her and bullying her? The worst that can be said about them is that they are too trusting!”
Caleb was getting more and more frustrated, and so did not notice the black butterfly heading toward him.
“Saltfic, I am Shadow Moth. You don’t like how people treat your favourite characters? I can give you the power to make them act like how they write them, but in return, you must give me Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous! Do we have a deal?”
“Ooh! This is just like episode 20 of season 2 and episode 5 of season 4 and…” Caleb began.
Oh no, not another weird one, thought Shadow Moth. “Yes, yes, but don’t you think you should get started?”
“Oh, right,” And he was enveloped in the familiar purply black substance.
Marinette should make them pay for having her make all those things and not pay for them.
Wait! What things? She’s never made anything for her Friends except gifts for Adrien, Birthday presents and the Kitty section costumes, which they definitely paid for.
She gave them all those free Macarons from her parents’ bakery, which cost their business money.
But she only does that on special occasions like the first day of school or Heroes’ Day.
They abandoned you for that liar. And they would do whatever she says, even hurt you.
“Those are not my thoughts! Tikki, Spots On!”
Adrien should just stand by. Lila will get better in time.
What?! Why would he think that after everything she has done?
You told your girlfriend to take the high road even though it would hurt her.
“I didn’t know she was a sociopath who would get Marinette expelled for petty reasons… also, she is not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”
“Who are you talking to?” Plagg asked his holder warily.
Adrien shook himself, “Someone is messing with my head. I think we need to investigate this, Plagg, Claws Out!”
Alya was confused. Not about the voices. They were obviously because of an Akuma. It was the so-called logic of these voices that was bewildering.
You should make Marinette pay for everything she has done to Lila, and Chloé, too, for defending that jealous traitor.
She wasn't sure what was more bizarre, the idea that Marinette would purposely harm someone over petty jealousy or that Chloé would be the one defending her. It would take a major attitude adjustment for her to do anything for anyone else without an ulterior motive.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who thought so, as from the other side of the room, a voice screeched, “As if I would ever do anything for Dupain-Cheng that's something Césaire or my half-of-a-sister would do, now, where has Sabrina disappeared to? Sabrina!”
You should make Marinette pay for doubting Lila.
“I don’t want to be mean to Marinette. She’s the most honest girl I know.”
You should ruin her baking; that would show her.
“How by putting in an extra gram of sugar?”
No! By throwing it away or spilling it on the floor.
“But her baking tastes so good, in fact, all this talk about baking has made me hungry, I'm going to her parents' bakery to buy something.”
Augh!
“I don’t need to make sense. I'm astounding.”
The students of Mme. Bustier's class groaned.
For whatever reason, the voices were having a strange effect on Lila, and she had been talking nonsense with bad grammar all day.
“Lila, maybe she should talk to Ladybug about this,” Suggested Mylène, “I'm sure she would be willing to help her best friend.”
“Ladybug is not my friend. I want to destroy her for getting in the way of Adrien. And Marinette, too. For not being stupid enough to fall for my astounding tales…”
“Why did I say that?”
You’re just a stand-in for what Chloé could have been. Even your name is just a bootleg of your sister’s.
Zoé just shook her head at that statement.
It's not exactly uncommon for siblings to have similar names, just look at Juleka and Luka or Alya’s little sisters, and from what she had heard from her friends, Chloé hadn’t really done much to stand in for.
It was, to use her sister’s favourite phrase, ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.
“So, what do you know about this show?” Ladybug asked Alya over her communicator.
“Oh, there are these two teenage superheroes, but they don’t know each other's identities, and she is in love with him in their regular life, while he is in love with her as superheroes. So they end up chasing each other all over the place, not realising they are already in love.”
Ladybug snorted, “Like that would ever happen, but why is this guy upset about fanfictions?”
“Ah, you see, some of the things the characters do can be really annoying at times, and so people make salt fics about them.”
“Ok, but why would Saltfic care about that?”
“Well, sometimes they distort the truth and exaggerate these things, so they are worse than how they actually happened, or even worse, make them go through hell for doing things they never actually did in the show.”
“They write salt fics about characters getting punished for things they didn’t actually do? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Which is probably why this guy was upset enough to be akumatized.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion, “Sorry, I'd better go, Alya, there is another troll causing trouble.”
Roger came into the station with another troll.
They had been turning up everywhere, getting up to all kinds of mischief and being really annoying, but on the bright side, it was exposing a lot of terrible people who had been hiding their true selves behind false smiles.
Why, there was even a teenager among them. A girl from his daughter's class, no less.
Steward at the front desk was talking to another officer with a suspect.
“And what is this one? A troll or one of those so-called victims.”
The suspect was the one who responded, “I stopped her! I saved everyone from her!”
“By manipulating your friends and coworkers?” The officer taking her in asked dubiously.
“C'mon, Carol, you know it’s just the akuma messing with her head, just take her in for protective custody.”
Then it was Roger's turn, but before Steward could ask, the troll gave him his answer.
“You can’t arrest me, I'm astounding!”
“A troll, then, what did this one do?”
“Tax evasion and fraud.”
“Right, put him with the others.”
Roger sighed, preparing himself. He took his suspect to the cells where they were keeping all the trolls until the akuma was taken care of, so they could sort everything out afterwards.
“I don’t belong here. I’m astounding!”
“No, I'm astounding!”
You can’t all be astounding because I'm astounding!”
“Astounding!”
“Astounding!”
“Astounding!”
“Astounding!”
Caline was walking through the school when she saw a boy about to strike another boy.
Don’t do anything. He will learn his lesson if you show him enough kindness, and you should make Marinette do some of your work for your class.
Caline ignored the voice and sent the first boy to the principal's office.
She had never put up with violence before from her students, and she wasn't going to start now, and she certainly wasn't going to make Marinette do her job for her.
The poor girl was busy enough as it was.
You should forbid your son from going out unless it is to do with work.
Shadow Moth nodded. Yes, that was sensible.
This confused the voice.
Adrien should not be allowed to have friends that he can’t benefit from in the future.
Yes, the Agrestes had an image to maintain.
The voice was starting to get concerned.
His life should be micromanaged down to the last detail.
Of course, Adrien is too emotional to handle his life.
The voice was now very alarmed.
If the opportunity is too good to pass up, you should akumatize him.
Well, it wouldn't be ideal, but if it got him the Miraculous, it would be worth it.
This was the last straw. The voice was going to call child protection services.
“Miraculous Ladybug!”
It had taken a while to track the akuma down. After that, it was a relatively simple battle despite the voices telling her Chat Noir was lazy and useless and that she should get rid of him.
Her heart clenched at the thought; she couldn't do this without him. It would be unthinkable.
Chat Noir was also thinking about the disgusting things the voices were telling him to do. He would never do anything like that to his lady. Never!
Their thoughts were interrupted by the akuma victim asking where he was
“You were akumatized, but we brought you back,” Ladybug explained as she gave him his Magical Charm.
He sighed, “I just get so frustrated with all those stories turning up in my favourite fandom.”
“Then why don’t you just not read them?”
“Oh, I hadn't thought of that.”