Honestly this is just… your standard Pokémon AU. Because I love Pokémon. And I love Miraculous Ladybug. So obviously… I had to mash it together.
MARINETTE’S TEAM
• She’s had a Ledyba since she was a three year old. It only finally evolved into a Ledian shortly after she began her Pokémon journey at the age of 13. It’s name is, obviously, Tikki. Tikki is the Pokémon she always starts with.
• Marinette’s “starter” Pokémon, the one she received from Professor Fu, is an Igglybuff. She affectionately names her Ballon. Eventually, Marinette finds a moon stone while traveling up a mountain through the caves, and evolved Ballon into a Wigglytuff.
• Marinette snatches a Feebas out of the hands of one horrible Chloe Bourgeois after hearing her mouth off about how “hideous” and “disgusting” it is, despite how “hard” she worked at “trying to make it at least look mildly presentable.” It’s holding a prism scale, and as soon as Marinette comes into possession of the poor thing, it evolves into Milotic. Chloe’s loss.
• Marinette captures an Oricorio and promptly falls in love with its ability to change types and appearance with different nectars. She stocks up in as much nectar as she can, all different types of it.
• Marinette and Mimikyu clicked the moment they saw each other. The neck of its disguise was broken, and Marinette offered to fix it, and maybe make new disguises for it in the future.
• Marinette ended up getting adopted by a Shroomish. She doesn’t know how it happened, considering she accidentally sat on it when looking for a place to rest in the forest, but it apparently took a liking to her after she apologised. It evolved into Breloom way too fast— mostly because it kept bursting out in the middle of battles in order to fight instead of any other Pokémon she was thinking of choosing.
ADRIEN’S TEAM
• Adrien had an Eevee growing up, which evolved into Umbreon in the middle of the night one day when he was 8. His name is Plagg, and he’s Adrien’s most trusted companion, even if the little booger is grumpy as hell.
• When Adrien moves next door to Marinette, he’s invited by Professor Fu to claim a starter Pokémon. He chooses Cleffa, naming her Étoile. Adrien is given a moon stone from his father right before he officially starts his journey, but he waits a really long time to evolve Étoile after it becomes a Clefairy. In fact, he only evolves her after he got all his gym badges.
• Adrien finds a Riolu egg while traversing through the mountain caves. You’d think he’d act like a father or something, but after it hatches, he treats it more like a little brother. He aggressively asserts his role as the “big brother” when Riolu evolves, though, because “it doesn’t matter if you’re taller now, I’m still older!”
• He comes across a Litwick in an abandoned, probably haunted mansion, and nearly dies in fear. The thing was on a warpath or something, it made damn sure to scare the living daylights out of Adrien. It found it immensely amusing, and decided to stick around. When it evolved into Chandelure, it had even more power to pull off even worse pranks.
• He accidentally steps on a Wimpod while walking on the beach and has to take it to Nurse Joy. He decides to train it until it turns into a Golisopod, and ends up treasuring his new cowardly friend.
• A Honedge one day wraps its sash over Adrien’s arm out of nowhere, and in a panic to not have his life energy literally get sucked out of his body, he threw an ultra ball at it. Since he didn’t weaken it, he expected it to break out, so he was running away until… He realised it never broke out. And that’s how he found himself stuck with the thing that he’s pretty sure tried to kill him. It acts civil now but…. he’s not letting it out of its ball at night, that’s for sure.
ALYA’S TEAM
• Alya has never had a Pokémon before, but she’s always trying to run into the tall grass to capture one herself. She had only just moved in, but everyone quickly picked up on Alya’s dangerous habits, so Fu invites her to claim a starter Pokémon of her own. Alya chooses a Vulpix, who she names Trixx.
• Alya likes to run into trouble, that’s already established. That means her team should be built to counteract that danger, right? Except… she doesn’t use brute force. She wants to be able to get into places she really shouldn’t be able to. Enter Kecleon. The ultimate invisible agent.
• On that note, enter Zorua, soon to be Zoroark! Being completely invisible is one thing, but being disguised? An illusionary mastermind? Totally different, and just as useful.
• She realises there’s more than simply tricking the human eye, of course. She also needs to be able to knock out anyone in her way, and without them noticing… The answer comes to her in the form of a Jumpluff infestation. She handles the situation before officer Jenny arrives, and gains a companion in the process. Those sleeping and paralysis spores are going to be useful in the future.
• When going through the same haunted mansion Adrien passed through, she finds a new addition to her team real quick— a mischievous Rotom. It makes a home in her phone, and she can’t bring herself to mind. Especially when it takes over the voice app and starts spouting jokes.
• The last addition to Alya’s team is an Absol. She hadn’t originally planned on it, but looking back, she doesn’t understand why she hadn’t thought of it. After seeing it show up just before a major catastrophe struck… She knows she needs a companion that can sense an impending disaster.
NINO’S TEAM
• Nino had overslept the day he was supposed to pick up a starter from Professor Fu. By the time he got there, there was no more starter Pokémon. Marinette learns about this quickly, and suggests that Professor Fu could… possibly give Wayzz, the old Turtwig Fu had never evolved, to Nino? Surprisingly, Fu agrees.
• Music is life for Nino, so it’s a no brainer that the first Pokémon he’s drawn to after he sets off on his journey is a Kricketot. He captures it without a hitch.
• While traveling through the mountain caves, Nino comes across a whispering sound somewhere in the tunnel, and he finds a Whismur. He thinks it’s adorable, so he captures it. It’s less adorable when it turns into a Loudred. And even less adorable when it becomes an Exploud, but at that point, he loves it too much to care.
• He accidentally catches a Ditto under the belief that it was a Houndour. He… doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t release it though— if anything, Ditto’s now a valuable part of the team. Plus, it can transform into drums or a pair of headphones if he needed it. Thanks, blobby dude.
• Nino befriends a lone, singing Lapras at the beach one day, and ends up taking them with him on his adventure. He likes to use its singing voice in a lot of his songs.
• He caught a Wailord. He hadn’t meant to, like, seriously catch it. He dropped a regular Pokéball off the side of a ship he had been traveling in while the Pokémon passed under, and… it worked. He caught a freaking Wailord.
RANDOM STORY POINTS
• The region is being overrun by a criminal organisation called Akuma, run by a man who calls himself Hawkmoth (or Papillon.) It’s fairly new and only really started forming after the kids all set out on their adventure. The group’s goal is to capture Jirachi, for reasons unknown.
• Marinette starts off her adventure before anyone else, mostly because she was previously working under Professor Fu as an assistant. Professor Fu studies the inner power of Pokémon, such as their types, and what fuels their abilities.
• Despite working as an assistant to Professor Fu, Pokémon research is more of a hobby of Marinette’s than a full-time job. (Although, she certainly treats it like a very serious job despite claiming it’s a hobby…) Her real passion is fashion, and contests! Her and Tikki can win any and all contests imaginable, you’ll see!
• Adrien also has a love for contests. He’s used to putting off this stiff image in day to day life, but during contests, it’s expected of you to go all out. Get emotional, get aggressive, get competitive, get crazy! Joke, laugh, shout, dance! He loves everything about it, and when he’s performing, he truly feels like he’s… himself.
• Alya aspires to become either a journalist or a member of the police force. She dreams about herself being an Interpol agent, sometimes. She really loves those dreams.
• In an effort to fulfill those dreams, she’s pretty much constantly putting herself in danger in order to get ahead of the program. If she sniffs out any criminal activity, she’ll be snooping around the mafia’s secret headquarters before they even attempt the crime they were planning.
• Nino mostly just wants to be a DJ, but he doesn’t mind writing music for contests and musicals. If anything, he’s excited about watching Pokémon perform and dance to the music he created. He likes to make custom tracks for Marinette and Adrien’s performances.
• Yeah so… Gabriel is the villain once again, but since this is the Pokémon universe, you know he’s probably not going to be permanently locked up for his deeds. (Seriously, why did Lusamine and Lysandre and Maxie and Archie just… w h y.)
• Gabriel is after Jirachi in order to wake it up and claim a wish— a wish to bring his wife back. And he will stop at nothing to acquire this wish, including slipping butterfly pins onto people and brainwashing them into doing his bidding. Yeah.
• Contests in this region are huge. Arguably considered more important than even gym battles or the Elite Four. Which is why everyone is given the option to perform… completely anonymously. Wearing masks.
• Yeah that means the whole messy love square? Whoops, sorry, still exists.
• During a contest, Akuma crashes the party and literally breaks through the walls, declaring to transform everyone in the stadium into an Akuma. Luckily, Ladybug and Chat Noir aren’t simple performers— they’re Grade A trainers and they’re ready to whoop your ass. You picked the wrong day, butterfly man.
• In the end, Ladybug and Chat Noir save the day like a pair of actual superheroes. Their popularity shoots through the roof, everyone ships them, everyone admires them, everyone simply just loves them. It’s a little overwhelming.
• Of course, purple butterfly man takes this as a sign of war. Marinette and Adrien rise to the challenge. They start wearing their masks outside of contests as well, when they’re foiling the plots of the Akuma. Sometimes Marinette or Adrien… forgets the mask, but it’s usually passed off as just a (weirdly capable) fan trying to help out. (Which causes even more ship wars— Ladrien! Marichat! Noooo, Ladynoir, the OTP!)
• Alya, of course, prides herself as being the best investigative journalist around. (Y’know, despite being a literal 13 year old.) That means she follows these new superheroes around like a predator— she’ll get her scoop no matter what!
• Unfortunately this means that Alya’s the one who finds out their identities first, then promptly outs them to each other under the assumption that they already knew… which they didn’t. That didn’t know, Alya.
• #Ladynoir and #Adrienette confirmed, now
I still have,,, so much to write on this, but it’s already gotten way too long, and I’m too tired at this point to give it more thought. So, for now, I’m just gonna post what I have. I might make another post later detailing more on Alya and Nino’s lives, and maybe even Professor Fu, and definitely more an the Akuma and Gabriel, but for now… This is it.
Tell me what you think, add your own points, etc etc, hope you liked this! Sorry for the long post! (Yikes this took me hours.)
What’s hawkmoths team look like? Obviously venomoth, but how does he get the hypnosis thing down? A haunter perhaps? The bad guys tend to have themes and poison or ghosts seems appropriate.
Honestly, considering the man literally calls himself Butterfly, I feel like he would have a bug based team more than anything. So…
GABRIEL/HAWKMOTH/PAPILLON’S TEAM
• You’re entirely correct about Venomoth. He had captured Venonat when he was young, back when Emilie was still around, before Adrien was even born. Nooroo and he used to get along well, but after Emilie’s disappearance, things have been looking grim…
• Vivillon is a Pokémon he captures while traveling, and it ends up becoming his organisation’s “mascot,” so to speak. His outfit and mask is fashioned after it. He never reveals this Pokémon to anyone as Gabriel. Adrien is under the assumption that he has three empty slots in his team.
• He captures a male Burmy early on before he started his criminal organisation plan. He was fascinated with it’s ability to change cloaks, and was rather inspired by it. He made quite a few designs based off it before it evolved into Mothim.
• Sewaddle was a Pokémon he caught before he had even met Emilie. It was his moth valuable assistant when starting out in the fashion world, and it was an even greater help when it evolved into Leavanny.
• He got an Anorith, which later evolved into Armaldo, after stealing it during an Akuma mission. This is the other Pokémon he makes an effort to hide from everyone, mostly because he has no idea how he could possibly explain how he acquired it so soon after the claw fossil was stolen.
• The star of his team is actually the team member no one, not anyone in his life as Gabriel or Hawkmoth/Papillon, knows about. It started as Nincada, evolved into Ninjask, and that was all fine until… it evolved into Shedinja. They say the hollow crack in the back of its body is capable of stealing the soul of all who peer into it, and Gabriel did some experiments to make this possible with butterfly pins. It captures a person’s soul when they are most weak, troubled by negative emotions, then bends that soul to his will.
I wouldn’t say this is a perfect team for him, but I’m sticking with it for now. Especially the Shedinja.
Edit: I accidentally said “moth valuable” instead of “most valuable” I can’t believe my typo ended up being a pun
In which Chat Noir and Ladybug get into an argument… and some false conclusions are drawn.
• Ladybug is trying to convince Chat Noir to go see Marinette Dupain-Cheng by himself, for whatever reason, and he gets peeved because she seems to always be avoiding Marinette. Ladybug lies and says the reason is because she and Marinette… don’t really get along.
• Which, to Chat, makes no fucking sense. He’s literally daydreamed about how well the two of them would get along if they ever met each other, so for Ladybug to outright say she doesn’t like Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the most baffling thing ever.
• “How could you not like Marinette??? Are you crazy? She’s literally the nicest person ever, she’s popular with everyone, she’s always willing to lend a helping hand— Which, by the way, you know that because she literally volunteered herself to help capture a fucking AKUMA—”
• “Oh my god Chat, I just don’t like her, let it GO.”
• He doesn’t let it go. In fact, he’s weirdly peeved and moody about it, despite apparently only having met Marinette a handful of times. The next three akuma battles are tense and filled with whiny comments and Ladybug is quickly getting sick of Chat’s bullshit. They start arguing about it again in the middle of the next akuma battle.
• “I don’t have to like everybody, Chat! It’s none of your business who I do and don’t like! Why are you acting like such a child over this?!”
• “I’m a child?! I’m not the one who can’t even face her! I seriously don’t get you, you and Marinette like the same things and have similar personalities, I just don’t understand how you could hate her enough that you can’t even botherto properly protect her! Is that why you just left me by myself during the Evillustrator incident?”
• “I don’t hate her, I just— Look, my reasons for not wanting to face her are my own, dammit Chat, just drop it!”
• He refuses to drop it the entire fight, which is annoying not only because they’re busy fighting, but because Alya’s on the sidelines taking a live video of the whole thing, so at this point everyone can kind of garner what it is they’re talking about. When they purify the akuma, instead of bumping their fists, Chat crosses his arms and pouts like a petulant kid.
• “If you don’t hate Marinette, then why do you have such a difficult time being anywhere near her? And now that I think about it, you totally clam up whenever she’s mentioned, except that one time when you sent me a picture of her and asked me if—”
• He stops, and his eyes go wide. Ladybug can practically see the wrong idea popping up in his head, and she holds back a frustrated groan. Or a laugh. She can’t tell which, she’s, like, too stressed and exhausted to tell.
• “Oh my god, you asked me if I thought Marinette was cute.”
• Alya’s creeping closer now, while the two are distracted, getting better audio on their conversation, and zooming in on the looks on their faces.
• “My lady… Do you have a crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”
• It’s laughter. She’s holding back laughter. Oh, the irony. She has to take a moment to mentally pull herself together, but Chat takes her silence and her carefully neutral expression as a sign of confirmation.
• “You DO!!!”
• Alya’s gaping behind her phone screen as Chat Noir starts raving about how much sense that makes, pointing out literally all the indications that pointed towards Ladybug having a crush on her best friend. She belatedly realises that she just broadcasted Ladybug’s crush on her best friend to the entirety of Paris. INCLUDING HAWKMOTH.
• Ladybug’s earrings beep, and she just zips away without saying anything. Alya finally comes to her senses to shut off the video, at the last second catching Chat’s expression as he turns towards her and realises oh shit he fucked up—
• The video goes viral in seconds, and Alya isn’t fast enough to delete it before it’s already being posted on multiple other websites, and even being broadcasted on news stations. The word is out— The Girl Who Holds The Key To Ladybug’s Heart: Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
• It’s a disaster. There’s literally no coming out of this. Even if she were to deny it now, there’s, like, no way anyone would genuinely believe her. Paris is convinced that Ladybug has a huge lesbian crush on a sweet little bakery girl, and… they’re loving it.
• A surprising amount of people dropped Ladynoir like a hot potato and hopped onto the Maribug/Ladynette bandwagon overnight. There’s fan art. Marinette loves herself, sure, but not this much.
• She angrily calls Chat that night and tells him to meet her at the Eiffel Tower. Immediately.
• She doesn’t even get to tell him off before he’s apologising.
• “I’m so sorry, My Lady, I didn’t see the Ladyblogger there and it was so stupid of me to think that fighting about something like that in public was a good idea, if it’s— If it’s any consolation, I totally understand why you’d have a crush on Marinette. It’s, like, nothing to be embarrassed about. Pretty much everyone has a bit of a crush on Marinette it’s not that surprising, honestly I couldn’t think of a better girl for you—”
• He’s making it really difficult for her to be angry at him.
• “I’m not angry at you for outing my crush, Chat. I’m angry at you because I don’t have a crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and now the entirety of Paris thinks I do.”
• He looks like he doesn’t believe a single word she says. Which is fair, because she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t believe herself either if the positions were reversed.
• Their talk really doesn’t go anywhere. At the end of the day, Chat still thinks Ladybug has a crush on Marinette, and Ladybug can’t convince anyone that she doesn’t. The only thing the talk serves to do is tell her that Chat pretty much thinks the world of her as Marinette and somehow can’t find it in himself to be angry at her for supposedly stealing his Lady’s heart. Which is… wow.
• Marinette is pretty much bombarded both at home and at school, both by her peers and reporters alike. Her classmates, for the most part, are the least most infuriating out of the bunch— a lot of them apparently just pity Ladybug for choosing a girl who’s already got the hots for some other major celebrity.
• Things get… worse.
• Adrien seems weirdly supportive about the whole thing and is somewhat pressuring her into having a go with Ladybug, which… actually sort of pisses her off. Like, a lot. He didn’t even stop to ask if she’d genuinely be interested in dating Ladybug, or if she’s even into girls at all. (She does like girls, but he certainly didn’t know that.)
• Alya, who is aware that Marinette also like girls, keeps giving her glances even though she’s trying really freaking hard not to tell her to go for it. At the very least, she’s trying. It’s sort of the least she could do after accidentally broadcasting that whole conversation. Plus, she’s still team Adrienette all the way, so…. She’s gonna have to force her idol to deal with it. She’s not gonna scheme in Ladybug’s favour.
• Akumas start going after her at first, but they quickly realise that whenever they do that, Ladybug doesn’t come around. They come to the conclusion that Ladybug gets massively shy around her crush, and can’t even work up the guts to fight the damn akuma if Marinette is around. (WHICH IS SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS, MARINETTE CAN’T HANDLE THE IDIOCY OF ALL THIS!!!)
• The hype doesn’t necessarily calm down, although at some point photographers and reporters realise that they won’t be getting anything no matter how long they loiter around the front of the bakery. (Marinette had to take extra care in not transforming into Ladybug in her house, instead sneaking out if there’s an akuma.)
• When it seems like all the reporters and photographers are gone, Chat makes a personal visit to her civilian self to apologise. Which was a mistake. A massive mistake.
• Marichat is trending by tomorrow morning. There’s a picture going around of Chat Noir supposedly “getting friendly” with the bakery girl, leaning against the railing of her balcony and eating a jelly cookie. How is this her life?
• She’s done. There’s no fixing this. This is the end. She’s fucking done. Might as well let this happen. Let it run its course. Oh well.
CAN SOMEONE GREENLIGHT THIS!?! THIS NEEDS TO BE A THING!(fanfic, cartoon, or any form of media)