#when your summary and your first two paragraphs are the same ftw

[quicksilversquared]

The Anti-Scammer

(AO3) (FF.net)

Ladybug and Chat Noir always stopped akumas, that was a fact of life. The supervillains would pop up, make a scene, get in a fight with the superheroes and ultimately end up defeated. Sometimes the akumas barely made a ripple before the city's superheroes arrived to take them down.

But not this time.

The akuma victim was a woman who, by the sounds of it, had been dealing with her grandfather's tendency to be taken in by scammers of all sorts. She had been possessed after having to deter her grandfather from falling prey to a series of attempted scams, both by telephone call and pop-ups on his computer. She had had enough of people trying to steal his money and identity, enough of the harassing phone calls, enough of trying to convince him that no, those pop-ups are not legit, and more than enough of having to deal with the fraudulent charges on his credit card. She had decided to seek out and destroy all of the fraudsters in town with the fraud-detecting powers that had been given to her by Hawkmoth. When Ladybug and Chat Noir arrived on the scene, she was cracking down on a crime ring that had reportedly ripped people out of nearly three million dollars. The men involved were screaming, throwing money and credit cards at the Anti-Scammer in an attempt to deter her.

The superheroes were incredibly amused.

"Y'know, I don't feel particularly inclined to help," Chat commented as he took in the scene below, plopping down on the edge of the roof and letting his feet dangle off the edge. "I mean, I know we're supposed to help protect all civilians from akumas, even the nasty people...but can we just leave them hanging for a bit?"

"Chat Noir!"

Chat Noir grinned at Ladybug as she sent him an exasperated look. Still, she didn't look particularly inclined to argue with him. "Come on, scammers are awful people! Can we at least call the police up first and have them ready to round the ass-"

"Language!"

"-holes up?"

Ladybug sighed, clearly torn. Scammers or not, they were still citizens and she was supposed to protect them. "I mean, we should get in there and stop her..."

"But?" Chat prompted, grin tugging on the corners of his mouth. "I mean, technically she's providing the city with a useful service. I don't think anyone's going to complain about a supervillain going around and outing all of the fraudsters in Paris."

Ladybug's lips quirked upwards. She couldn't exactly deny that. "I suppose."

"Technically she's stopping crime as well," Chat Noir continued, making himself more comfortable on the roof's edge. "Like, I bet that this is similar to what Hawkmoth's kwami is supposed to be used for. Empowering people to go out and make a positive difference."

"Except all she's doing is knocking out the scammers," Ladybug pointed out. "They'll get away in a moment unless they get arrested by the police."

"Then our role in this fight is scammer round-up." Chat Noir dialed the police department on his baton. "We can let the Anti-Scammer flush out the, well, scammers, have the police arrest them, and once she loses steam then we swoop in and bring her back to normal."

So they did, much to the confusion of the civilians who happened on the scene. The police were busy at work moving knocked-out scammers into their police cars whenever it was safe for them to dash in, but Ladybug and Chat Noir stayed up on the rooftops, sipping smoothies that they had bought from a nearby vendor and making sure that the Anti-Scammer didn't hurt any innocent civilians. They followed along as the Anti-Scammer moved from one scamming operation to the next, striking each down with righteous fury. There tended to be some property damage, which made Ladybug wince, but it would all be fixed later, with the extra bonus of having several dozen criminals in custody.

Hopefully.

Two and a half hours into the Anti-Scammer's attack, the Mayor and his daughter rolled up in their limo to the most recent attack site, where the akuma was busy screaming at the cowering workers. Ladybug and Chat Noir had come down from the rooftops to discuss the impromptu sting operation with the police, all the while keeping a wary eye on the rampaging akuma, when the mayor strode up to join them, Chloe hot on his heels.

"This attack has been going on for hours," the mayor complained as he approached. "Surely Ladybug and Chat Noir have heard- oh. You're already here."

"Have been for a while," Chat Noir commented idly, inspecting his claws.

"Well, aren't you going to do anything about this?" Chloe demanded immediately, stomping a sparkly white shoe. "There's a supervillain right in front of you, in case you hadn't noticed!"

"We noticed," Ladybug said at the same time Chat Noir quipped, "No, really?"

The mayor swelled up and gazed sternly at the superheroes. "So the problem is...?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a quick glance before Ladybug spoke. "Well, there have been several articles in the paper recently about the sudden spike in scams based in the city. Technically Anti-Scammer is doing the city a favor by tracking them all down for us."

The Mayor frowned at them sternly. "Surely there's a better way to do this than to let an akuma run rampant. She's tying up traffic and if this continues much longer, it'll get in the way of my fancy dinner tonight! Dignitaries from all over the world are coming to my hotel. It'll look awful if half of the city is a disaster!"

"Technically only a couple buildings have been smashed," Chat Noir pointed out helpfully. It was clear from the Mayor's rapidly purpling face that he wasn't particularly mollified by Chat's words.

"There can't possibly be that many more conmen left in the city," Officer Rodgers chimed in, patting the mayor comfortingly on the shoulder. "It shouldn't take much longer to clear out the rest of them and then Ladybug and Chat Noir can do their thing. Really, you would not believe how helpful this akuma has been," the officer added when the mayor didn't look convinced. "Over two dozen arrests so far in connection to three different fraud groups, including those hackers we were having trouble with earlier this month! I have officers at those locations gathering evidence so that we can put those criminals away, and they're even finding evidence that they can use to track down other headquarters!"

Still the Mayor wavered.

"It'll look good to have cracked down on so many crime rings at once," Officer Rodgers pointed out again. "I'm sure the dignitaries would be able to excuse a little bit of a mess in face of such an accomplishment."

Mr. Bourgeois sniffed haughtily. "What they'll be seeing is our esteemed police force relying on a supervillain to do their work for them."

"Hey, if a supervillain is willing to do the police's work for free, why not let them?" Ladybug asked, shrugging her shoulders. "She seems perfectly content to limit her damage to those who, well- these guys actually deserve it, no? Their work is all about ripping people off."

The mayor sighed loudly, as though a criminal-finding supervillain was the biggest inconvenience he could have ever dreamed up. "Well, I suppose you might have a point. Very well, you can continue, but wrap it up before four, if you please. I can't have my dinner interrupted." With that, he turned and strode back to his car. Chloe followed with a haughty sniff.

"We weren't asking permission," Chat Noir grumbled, turning back to watch as the Anti-Scammer pounced on a short, portly man attempting to make an escape. As her focus narrowed onto him, several officers cautiously edged their way in to grab the fraudsters that the akuma had knocked out. "Can we let her run past four, just to annoy him?"

Ladybug snorted. "No. I have things I need to do, and I'm sure you do as well."

"You didn't bring along your homework?" Chat Noir joked as they made their way back onto the rooftops. "I forgot mine as well. I rather thought this would be an open-and-shut sort of thing."

Five hours and thirty-three minutes into the attack, the akuma landed in front of Ladybug and Chat Noir with a thud, sending dust flying. Anti-Scammer raised a haughty eyebrow as she sized up the heroes in front of her. "Oh, here you are! Are the little superheroes scared of me? You've been hiding for a long, long time!"

Ladybug pasted a wide smile onto her face as she took a half-step back, putting a little more space between herself and the supervillain. If Anti-Scammer lunged, she would have a half-second more for reaction time. "Oh, no. We just thought your cause was so just that we figured that you could take care of all of the scammers in the city before trying to take care of Hawkmoth's little task."

Anti-Scammer's smirk grew, making Ladybug and Chat Noir exchange nervous glances. They had thought that she would be a little taken aback by their decision, at the very least. Letting an akuma run loose was something they hadn't ever done before. "All the scammers in Paris? Yes, yes, that might do for some people. But me? I will take out everyone who scams, hacks, or is involved in fraud in all the world! It's not just the local criminals who are the problem in the Digital Age, you know. They're all over the world!"

"I don't think she'll be able to do all of those criminals before four o'clock today," Chat Noir said in a loud whisper. "Maybe by four o'clock by this time next year, though."

"That's a, ah, very admirable goal," Ladybug said, valiantly ignoring Chat Noir as she focused on the akuma. "But maybe that's too much for one afternoon. Start small, you know? Or maybe you could, uh, use your powers to direct the police to help you on your quest."

Anti-Scammer paused, finally puzzled. "You wish... to help me? Hawkmoth said that I would have to get rid of you to complete my goal."

"Hawkmoth says a lot of things," Ladybug managed, straightening her back. "Not everything he says is accurate. Officer Rodgers is just over there, maybe you can tell him how your fraud-tracking powers work and you two can figure out if there's a way to do world-wide crackdown on crime from Paris. You'll be famous around the world!"

"Weeellll..." Anti-Scammer hummed, putting a pensive finger on her chin. "That would certainly be nice, but..."

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged nervous glances, and both of them winced when the purple mask flashed over Anti-Scammer's face. She scowled for a moment at whatever Hawkmoth was saying.

"Working with the police would help you work a lot faster than you would be able to do by yourself," Chat Noir said quickly after the mask vanished. "You'd be able to cover more of the world! If you did it all by yourself, more scammers would be able to pop up as soon as you got rid of others because it would take so long to go around the world."

"If you got police help, you could do all of that work in a couple days' time," Ladybug agreed. "Very efficient, you know."

The butterfly mask flashed again and this time, Anti-Scammer winced. She looked like she was in pain and her hands went to her neck as though she was choking. Ladybug and Chat Noir froze, unsure what to do. They half-wanted to step forward and try to help, but it could be a ruse. The akuma was unpredictable, and it almost looked like Hawkmoth was trying to take control over her from a distance. After a couple seconds, they both decided the best course of action was to scramble several meters back and get into a defensive position. Seconds later the Anti-Scammer straightened up, eyes refocused on then with a focused, steely glint.

"I cannot keep my powers if I don't uphold my end of the bargain," she said in a flat, almost robotic voice. "I will get your Miraculous, and then I will work with the police to do a worldwide sting. It will be fabulous, and the whole world will know my name!"

"Shoot, and I was hoping that that would work," Chat Noir said under his breath.

The next second, Anti-Scammer lunged. Ladybug and Chat Noir both danced away out of her reach, spinning into fighting poses as soon as they could. Seconds later they found themselves forced into retreat as Anti-Scammer ripped bricks off of a nearby building and threw them. She destroyed a full wall in seconds, using the wreckage as projectiles as she tried to hit the superheroes.

"Retreat! Let's see if we can get away and then do a surprise attack," Ladybug suggested quickly. Chat Noir nodded and then both of them were sprinting away, heading for a less populated part of town. Civilians scattered out of their path as they ran, some yelling warnings to others ahead of them as they started sprinting.

"I've never seen Hawkmoth do that to an akuma before," Chat Noir gasped as they spun around a corner. "Do you think that's new? That's terrifying!"

Ladybug though back. Now that she thought about it, she had kind of seen something similar before. When she had arrived for her "date" with the Evillustrator, he had been clutching his hand as though it was in pain and he had made some sort of exclamation- some kind of frantic "Okay, okay!"- right as she walked up. Like with the Anti-Scammer, the Evillustrator had gotten more than a little distracted from his task of getting the Miraculous. "Actually, remember Evillustrator? Marinette said afterwards that when she walked up, he was clutching his hand as though it was in pain. If it really is the same power, Hawkmoth's been able to do that for a while and he just doesn't do it that often."

"I guess most akuma cooperate enough," Chat Noir said. He looked intrigued. "It seems like what we just saw is an extension of that. With Evillustrator, he was probably pulling through the akuma. This was targeted through the neck."

"We should talk to our kwami to see if they know what Hawkmoth's kwami's limits are." Ladybug vaulted over a car easily, just in time to miss the large chunk of concrete that slammed into the side half a second later. "It would be good information to have."

"If they even know," Chat Noir pointed out. "If it's never been used for evil before, there might be things that it can be made to do that they just don't know about because it's never been done."

"We should find her again after we free Hawkmoth's kwami," Ladybug said a bit breathlessly as she dodged a thrown brick. She flipped into a somersault to get over a brick wall and drop into a sheltered alcove. "I'd love to see all of the world's scammers taken down. One has been bugging my parents for ages, calling almost every day. We blocked the number and they just used another."

"Use an air horn right into the phone," Chat Noir suggested as he batted bits of broken glass away with his baton. "Or anything loud. They'll quit then." It was something both his father and Nathalie did. He wasn't sure who had picked up the habit from who. He paused. "You think she could be possessed again?"

"We don't own an air horn and even if we did, we couldn't use it in our building. It's very tempting, though," she added. "And yes, I do think so. If the butterfly had a different holder, someone who wanted to do good..."

"That would be a good reintroduction of the butterfly," Chat Noir agreed, nodding. "Y'know, to redeem it so people don't forever associate it with bad guys."

A large shower of bricks interrupted their conversation and both superheroes darted out of their makeshift hiding spot.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," Chat Noir said with a grumble. "I love it when people throw things at my head." He paused. "Uh, any idea what the possessed object is?"

Ladybug gave him a look, even as she narrowly ducked the jagged remnants of a window sailing past her head. "Yes? It's fairly obvious, isn't it? She's been using the phone in the case on her belt to track down the scammers. That has to be it."

"Good to know. That's easy enough to try to grab." Chat Noir glanced over his shoulder, where the akuma was still in hot pursuit. "Well, relatively. At least we don't have to try to grab something really tiny, like we did with that akuma last week."

"That was awful," Ladybug agreed. They fell silent for several seconds as they focused on all-out sprinting away from the akuma so that they could have a few seconds to regroup and come up with a plan of attack. They spotted a large building up ahead and exchanged a meaningful look before changing course to head straight towards it. Then Chat Noir spoke up again.

"At least her powers seem to be more brute force and less, y'know, complicated," Chat Noir said a bit breathlessly, dodging the car Anti-Scammer had paused to fling at them. "I know how to deal with brute force. Other stuff- dodge left!- can get kind of scary sometimes because it's harder to deal with."

"Yeah, it's showy but not exactly that effective," Ladybug agreed. She jumped up and over a garbage can as they reached the building. "I don't think that Hawkmoth has quite as much control over what powers the akuma have as he would like. Some have kind of useless powers. Remember Pigeon Man?"

"Do I ever," Chat Noir answered with a groan. They rounded the building as fast as they could, hoping to get out of Anti-Scammer's sight so that they could either sneak up on her from behind or scale the building and attack from above before she caught on. "Thank goodness it seems like he can't control it. I don't want to think of what kinds of powers Hawkmoth might think up if he was given full reign over what they could be."

"I think he might run out of ideas eventually if he had to think everything up," Ladybug pointed out. They skidded around yet another corner of the building and started running again. "If he had to think up every single power for every akuma, he would have to start recycling eventually. And if we had to fight against powers we already saw..."

"But he could improve on them then," Chat Noir countered. "Figure out where the akuma went wrong and fix it for the next time. There were some really close calls before-"

They swung around yet another corner and fell quiet. Anti-Scammer was just reaching the far edge of the building and hadn't noticed them yet. They slowed for a moment, letting her round the corner before they launched themselves onto the top of the building.

"Maybe you should call up a Lucky Charm," Chat Noir suggested as they landed. "We'd be sure to end the fight quickly then."

Ladybug nodded, and seconds later she was holding a fully inflated red inner tube decorated with her signature black dots. She shrugged at Chat Noir- the inner tube would make its purpose known when it was time- and together they headed quickly over to the side of the building that Anti-Scammer would soon be rounding. They had tried doing surprise attacks on akumas before and they generally were successful, so hopefully this time would be no different.

"We should drop own and pin her," Ladybug murmured as they reached the edge of the building. Anti-Scammer had apparently realized that they had shaken her and she had slowed down. "Then whoever is closer grabs the phone and smashes it."

Chat Noir nodded in understanding and they readied themselves to jump over the edge. Then Anti-Scammer spoke without even looking up, and Ladybug and Chat Noir froze.

"Oh, how cute. You thought you could sneak up on me?" She looked up then, waving the phone in their direction as she smirked. "This finds both scammers and superheroes. You can run, but you can't hide- HEY!"

Ladybug had taken advantage of Anti-Scammer's triumphant distraction to wedge the inner tube over her arms, pinning them to her sides. Chat Noir wasted no time in snagging the phone and snapping it in two. The akuma fluttered free and Ladybug snapped it up immediately. Seconds later it fluttered away, white as new snow.

"Wait a moment," Chat Noir said before Ladybug could retrieve her Lucky Charm and fling it into the air. "Is that going to get all of the criminals loose again, since the Anti-Scammer was the one who got them?"

Ladybug paused steps away from the akuma and blinked back at him. "I- I don't know? I mean, I don't think so. People don't usually go back to where they were before an attack if it was the akuma that moved them. A ton of people ended up at City Hall when Black Knight hit, remember?"

"At least the Healing Light moved people down to the ground," Chat Noir said with a shudder. "I wouldn't have wanted to have to haul all those people down from the roof. But yeah, that's true."

"And technically, Anti-Scammer didn't even move them," Ladybug pointed out. "She just knocked them out. The police were the ones that dragged them from the buildings and into the police cars. But I'll see if I can focus the healing light somehow. Maybe you should call Officer Rodgers and have him keep an eye on things," Ladybug suggested. "So we'll know right away if the scammers need to be rounded up again."

Chat Noir nodded and pulled out his baton to dial the officer as Ladybug retrieved her Lucky Charm from around the defeated-looking akuma slumped on the ground. She waited until Sabrina's father answered and Chat Noir quickly explained what they were about to do, and then she focused as she tossed the inner tube high into the air. She wanted the damage fixed and any innocent passerbys cured, but the scammers left in jail where they belonged. Her nose scrunched up a bit with the effort, and her eyes tracked her healing ladybugs as they swept over the city. As they started to fade, her eyes flicked over to Chat Noir, who was still holding his phone to his ear with an anxious expression. Several seconds after the last of the sparking ladybugs faded away, Chat Noir flashed Ladybug a grin and a thumbs up. His grin dropped away quickly, though, as the newly reverted woman realized what had happened and immediately started sobbing. The two superheroes exchanged a glance and then immediately moved to try to comfort her.

"I d-d-didn't mean to get akumatized! I was just upset that Grandpa Jack fell for a-another s-s-stupid-"

"You got akumatized for a far better reason than most people," Ladybug said comfortingly, patting the crying woman's shoulder. "And you did a lot of good. There were busts all over the city and all sorts of hackers and scammers got arrested with your help."

"And the police said that they found a ton of evidence at a lot of the sites that will lead them to other people involved," Chat Noir added. "A lot of criminals are behind bars thanks to you. That's the most help an akuma has ever been," he said when the woman still looked upset. "Ladybug and I were talking about it earlier, actually- the butterfly Miraculous is supposed to create heroes, and this is the closest it's gotten so far."

The woman nodded and sniffled again. Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged another look; most of the time akuma victims weren't particularly upset by their akumatizations, probably since so many people had been akumatized at this point and it was clear that they had done nothing wrong. Still, some people either saw it as a sign of weakness or were just outright horrified at the thought that they could become a supervillain. They weren't trained to really do a whole lot of comfort, but thankfully there were people that were.

Before the woman could break into another round of sobs, the signature dusky purple van that the counselors drove around in pulled up to the corner. Two women immediately hopped out with blankets to wrap around the akuma victim. Ladybug and Chat Noir helped them move her to the vehicle, and then the van was packing up and on its way almost as quickly as it had come. The woman would get to sit with the counselors until she was no longer upset and then she would get a complementary ride back home. Hopefully the counselors would be able to come up with some suggestions for her to help keep her grandfather from falling for more scams in the future.

"Somehow I don't think she would be up to becoming Anti-Scammer again, even with a completely trustworthy Butterfly holder," Chat Noir said as they watched the van pull away. "Pity. Anti-Scammer would have made for a good temporary superhero."

"Yeah," Ladybug agreed as the van rounded the corner and vanished. "Yeah, she would have."

In his lair, Hawkmoth was seething. Another day, another akuma, another defeat. It was absolutely mortifying that Ladybug and Chat Noir had decided to ignore his akuma for hours and let her run loose until he had finally forced their hand. He didn't create heroes. This kind of do-gooder slip-up couldn't happen again.

He wouldn't let it.