Marinette was jauntily skipping across a bridge, as all was right in her world. In one hand she carried a bag filled with the best finds from her local fabric shop. She even got a discount because she was a regular customer! (It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she kept flirting with the love-struck owner's son. Nope. Nothing to do with that at all). In her other hand, she was holding the most delicious chicken sandwich ever (in her opinion) which she was currently munching on. And Adrien just walked past her and said hi to her! And-wait. Wait what?

Marinette quickly spun around, face full of chicken sandwich. She was greeted with the warm golden glow of Adrien Agreste's angelic beauty. No seriously, she could hear angels singing in the background. She quickly gulped down her bite and opened her mouth to sputter out a greeting.

"A-Agreste? Good! I-I mean Adrien! Hi!" At this point her throat closed up and refused to allow her to make another sound. Sweet merciful vocal cords.

"Hey Marinette. I guess you didn't hear me calling out to you just now, huh?" Adrien flashed her a megawatt smile.

"It was the singing angels' fault." She muttered.

"What?"

"N-Nothing! So-o, water you doing in this part of town?" She quickly slapped a hand over a mouth, very much prepared to see Adrien's horrified look at her accidental pun.

Instead, a look of shock briefly passed by his face before he burst into laughter. The boy nearly keeled over from laughing so much. Finally, he let out one last laugh before unsteadily straightening up.

"I swear that pun was completely accidental-"

Adrien snorted, cutting her off. "To answer your punderful question (at this point he winked and Marinette's face went scarlet), I just barely escaped Gorill-I mean my bodyguard. I just wanted to walk around town like a normal person." He looked away and sighed, before looking back at her and smiling. "Remind me again why we don't hang out as much? You're so fun to be with."

Marinette flushed red and opened her mouth to answer, but her voice was drowned out by the screaming that came from directly behind her. She shared a panicked look with Adrien, before they shouted, "AKUMA!" in unison.

"I AM CHROMOZONO, AND I WILL-"

She didn't get to hear the rest, because Adrien grabbed her hand and ran towards an alley.

"Stay here, okay? It's safe here." Adrien shoved her into the empty alley, and without another word, turned to run off. Marinette grabbed his hand.

"What about you? Where are you going? It's not safe outside!" She whisper-screamed at him. She realized she wasn't stuttering.

"Uh…t-there's not enough space in the alley! If I hide with you, it'll be too obvious that there are people here! It would be better if we were separated! Bye!" Adrien gave her a sheepish grin and rushed off. What's with his stutter?

"But…" She looked around her at the fairly wide alleyway that could definitely fit more than one person. "Well, he does make it much easier for me."

However, just as she was about to summon Tikki, a little man dressed bizarrely in a pink frilly skintight suit passed by, using his laser gun to randomly shoot screaming civilians. Marinette ducked on instinct as a laser beam came whizzing by her head.

"Whew, that was a close-OOF"

When a stray beam shot her straight in the chest, she stumbled back from the sheer force of it, pin-wheeling her arms and bracing herself for the fall. A moment passed. Marinette slowly cracked open one eye. Strong, blazer covered arms held her under her armpits.

"Uhh, are you alright?" a smooth, deep voice asked her.

"Huh?" Marinette quickly stood up and whipped her head around to look at her savior's face. She was greeted with blue-black hair, wide blue eyes, and pink lips that made up the boy's admittedly handsome face.

"Mari? You okay?"

"How do you know my name? Who are you? I thought I was alone in this alley? Where did you even come from?" Marinette gasped, remembering something. "The akuma's laser beam just hit me! But nothing happened? What's happening? Wha-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down. Let's do introductions, alright? Hi Marinette, I'm you."

Marinette just raised an eyebrow.

"No I'm serious! When the laser beam hit you, it kinda duplicated you, and I appeared! As…a male version of you."

Marinette's eyebrow rose even higher.

"Please stop doing that. Your eyebrow looks like it's trying to crawl off your face."

Marinette slapped a hand over her forehead and groaned. "Fine! Prove it. Tell me something nobody but I would know."

"Your computer password is adriensabs4life3." The boy said with a cheeky grin.

Marinette's mouth fell open, and her cheeks became furiously red. She never told anybody that! Not even Alya!

"Ohmygosh you really are me." Marinette didn't know what to do. Should she leave him here? Can he help out? Is this a Time breaker kind of situation?

"Nope. I'm not you from the future. I'm just…a male you." The boy regarded her patiently. Oops. Guess she said that part out loud.

"Yeah you kinda did. Now go do your job! Chat's waiting for you."

"How did you?-right. Right. Of course you would know. You're me. Okay then, Tikki! Spots on!"

After her magical spandex formed around her, she pointed to the boy…er…herself. "You. Stay here. We will talk later. Don't eat my sandwich." She lassoed her yo-yo over her head and threw it onto a nearby chimney. "And keep my bag of fabric safe!" She called out as she swung herself away.

"Right…" The boy grumbled, making himself comfortable on the ground. He unwrapped the chicken sandwich and took a big bite. "This is gonna take a while."

"Where is he, where is he-Aha! There he is!" She jumped towards the fray. Chat Noir was already there, clawing at a tall woman dressed in a navy blue suit. The little man in the frilly pink suit was standing right behind him, grinning evilly as he aimed the laser gun at him.

"Chat, watch out! The little man's right behind you!" Chat rolled out of the way just as the beam shot past him.

"Ladybug! Nice of you to drop in." Chat winked at her. Ladybug was about to reply when an outraged scream tore through their conversation.

"HOW DARE YOU. I AM NOT. A. LITTLE. MAN. I AM A WOMAN." The akuma furiously shouted. She lowered her laser gun to aim at her. "JUST FOR THAT, I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU! AND THEN I'LL TAKE YOUR MIRACULOUS." The beam grazed her side before Chat jumped in front of her. The beam hit him right where the seam of his suit met his neck, making him groan in pain.

The akuma looked at them in disgust. "Whatever. Come on, Chromo, let's go clone some more people." The man-sorry, woman in the pink suit and the woman in the blue suit walked away.

"No! Chat! Are you okay?" Ladybug fussed over him, her mind whirling. This akuma has something to do with cloning, so where was Chat's double…? And was the tall woman in the navy suit the akuma's own clone? But if the 'little man' was actually a woman, was the 'tall woman' actually a man?

"Yeah…I think I'm fine. It didn't actually hurt that much?" He sheepishly grinned up at her. Ladybug gave him a deadpanned expression before pushing him off her lap. He yowled.

"Ladybug?" A melodic voice rang out. "Ladybug, are you alright?"

Both Ladybug and Chat Noir looked around for the source of the voice. It must be Chat's double! Ladybug thought excitedly. She spotted a girl with blonde hair walking around in a cat suit. That must be her!

"We're over here!" Ladybug ran over to the girl. "Hi! Are you Chat's female counterpart?"

The girl slowly blinked at her. "Y-yeah. Mice to meet you." The girl gave her a shy smile before slowly reaching over to Ladybug and draping herself lazily over the heroine's spotted shoulder.

Ladybug blinked, turning to ask Chat what this was all about. "Chat…?" The question died in her throat when she noticed Chat hissing furiously at her…er…himself.

Ladybug facepalmed. Then dragged her hand down her face and sighed. "I'm not even going to ask. Let's move."