What if Chloé took longer to look for a more complete revenge on Clara Nightingale?

Frightningale Fixates
Chapter 1: Masked

Mayor Bourgeois was in his office at City Hall. He showed his daughter a tall stack of paperwork that he and his staff had prepared.

"This will prevent her from making her video anywhere in France," he told Chloé.

"No, Daddy," said Chloé. "Clara Nightingale humiliated me. I trained hard for that part and I deserved it far more than clumsy Marinette. I don't want Nightingale just to lose the opportunity to make her video here. I want her kicked out of Paris. Better yet, arrested and deported from France."

"But precious, it took me a long time to find legal pretexts to get her permits invalidated," said Mayor Bourgeois. "I'll have to start over."

"I don't care," said Chloé. "Take the time to do it properly, or I'm calling Mama."

Clara Nightingale said:
"One final task.
Put on the mask."

Adrien and Marinette spoke in a nervous rush, simultaneously.

"Uh, I didn't see it. I looked everywhere in the dressing room for it but it was... " said Adrien.

"Uh, well, I...found the costume, but the mask was, um..." said Marinette.

"... nowhere to be found." said both in unison.

Clara laughed, and so did their friends in the audience. Marinette and Adrien nervously joined in.

Alya said to the friends around her, "They don't look a thing like the real Ladybug and Cat Noir now!"

A stagehand came back from searching the dressing trailer. "It's okay! I found them!"

Clara handed the masks to the terrified performers.

"Go ahead, put them on, you two.
We've got a lot of singing and dancing to do!"

Alix said, "Woohoo!"

Mylène said, "Come on!"

Everyone was waiting. Marinette and Adrien couldn't delay any longer. They reluctantly put on the masks of their Ladybug and Chat Noir costumes in front of everyone.

There was a collective gasp from the audience. People began to murmur.

"They look exactly like them..." said Alya.

"It really is them!" said Rose.

"Ladybug! Chat Noir!" cried another onlooker.

The cry was taken up by everyone until the whole room was full of noise.

Clara Nightingale beamed and said,
"Now I see who you really are:
You're truly Ladybug and Chat Noir!
It's such an honor you came this way
To be in my video today!"

"No!" said Marinette, waving her hands desperately. "I'm not Ladybug. I may look a lot like her, but..."

"I'm not Chat Noir, either," said Adrien.

"However much you want to try it,
There's just no way that you can deny it.
It's time to show the people of France
How well two superheroes can dance!"

Marinette and Adrien hung their heads, realizing how completely they had been caught. On the other hand, there was excitement building in each of them. Each finally knew who their partner was, and it was someone they knew and liked in regular life!

"Hold on a moment!" said the voice of Gabriel Agreste from the video tablet held by his assistant Nathalie. "I withdraw my son from this project. I don't accept the way he has been playing superhero without my knowledge and approval."

"I never wanted to be in this video in the first place," said Adrien. "I was worried about my identity getting exposed. You insisted, and now it's happened."

"I... I can't do this either," said Marinette. "I just wanted to be an extra with my friends. Then I was jealous of Chloé getting the part, so I stupidly jumped in. It's dangerous for everyone... Hawk Moth is sure to take advantage and do an akuma attack."

"Please, you two, you have to take part.
You'll spoil the video and break my heart!"

"Spots on!"

"Claws out!"

The fake costumes were replaced with real ones, and the two heroes abruptly left by yo-yo and vaulting pole.

Clara Nightingale ran offstage into a side room and began to cry.

Chloé and her father entered with a tall stack of legal paperwork, but it was too late.

Hawk Moth opened up the irising window in his lair. "Ah... Tears of disenchantment. Such sweet music to my ears!"

He charged a butterfly.

"Fly away, my little akuma, and evilize her!"

While he was waiting for the butterfly to reach the Grand Palais, Hawk Moth pondered the power he would give her. It was not up to him entirely, since it depended on her wishes.

Clara would probably want to compel singing and dancing, turning Paris into a giant musical. That wasn't practical because someone would have to supply creative direction. It was one thing to turn people into knights or mummies that blindly followed orders, but creating choreography for an increasing number of people would require too much energy on Hawk Moth's part.

Instead, he would give her the power to inflict a passive punishment, a transformation for failing to keep her rules. That would leave each complying person supplying their own energy and creativity.

The punishment for not moving as required: to be locked in permanent stasis, conscious but immobile, and covered with a hard plastic shell. The victims would never move, eat, drink, sleep, or breathe again, nor would they need to. It would fine if that happened to Ladybug. Hawk Moth knew that an active Miraculous with a kwami inside is highly resistant to transformation. The earrings would be covered by the tough substance of the shell, but they could be chipped free enough to get a wish from them.

Hawk Moth decided he wouldn't free Ladybug or any other victim with a Miraculous Ladybug cure – let them stay fixated forever. He would wish Ladybug to be the recipient of his wife's vampire curse while she was immobilized in the shell. She would suffer for eternity, as he had promised himself.

Because of this plan, Hawk Moth could not allow Chat Noir to fall under the akuma victim's curse. His son must be protected.

Hawk Moth sensed the purple butterfly entering Clara's star-tipped microphone.

"Frightningale, I am Hawk Moth. So, they refused to sing and dance for you? With the power I'm giving you, the world will be nothing but song and dance! I only ask in return the Ladybug Miraculous, her earrings. But not Chat Noir. Don't touch him with your magic."

Clara said suspiciously:
"Why are you telling me who to spare?
Could he be someone for whom you care?"

Hawk Moth persuaded her in rhyme:
"Obey my orders and you'll go far.
I myself will deal with Chat Noir.
You'll change the world if you obey.
If not, I'll take your powers away."

"All right, Hawk Moth, I agree,
Now you must give the power to me!"

Purple clouds of magic covered her, dispersing to reveal the harlequin-like Frightningale.