Nino develops a crush on Marinette so Adrien offers to help him by asking her out to the zoo. Marinette, however, thinks Adrien is asking her out and happily accepts. When at the zoo, Nino and Marinette are the only ones to show up; Adrien and Alya, at the same time, are hiding out in bushes nearby, helping the two talk to each other by instructing them via earpiece. But they end up leading to a comedy of errors, that Nino is actually in love with Alya! Meanwhile, Kim mocks the new black panther in the zoo, claiming to the zookeeper and Alya's father, Otis, that he can run faster than it. Enraged by his remarks, Otis becomes akumatized by Hawk Moth and mutates into "Animan", a villain who can shape-shift into any animal he desires, including extinct species. Afterwards, Nino and Alya find out they share a lot of common things with each other.

Marinette is babysitting Manon. They are playing with hand-crafted dolls that Marinette made herself, Marinette playing as Ladybug and Cat Noir and Manon playing as Lady Wifi, Rogercop and Evillustrator. Because Marinette always plays as the Ladybug and Cat Noir dolls, Manon laments that Marinette always wins and bursts into tears. Feeling guilty, Marinette allows Manon to borrow her Ladybug doll. However, Nadja Chamack, Manon's mother, doesn't want her to borrow it, as she complains that Manon already has too many toys; they get into a dispute, resulting in the Ladybug doll getting torn. Despite that, Manon still wants to borrow the Ladybug doll, so she asks Marinette for it behind her mother's back. Marinette hesitates and decides on a compromise instead, allowing her to borrow the Lady Wifi doll instead. Chamack notices Manon plays with the doll, and angry that Manon had defied her instructions, she confiscates it from her. Upset, Manon becomes influenced by Hawk Moth and turns into the Puppeteer, a villain who can control the people Marinette's dolls are based on.