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"Why does anyone still believe her?" Marinette fumed at Alya.
"If it's her," Alya said.
"It is."
"If it's her," Alya continued, "then she's really good at not leaving evidence and not threatening anybody when there are witnesses around."
"How does that even happen?" Marinette said. "Unless Lila's a secret child assassin from a long-forgotten Cold War program, she shouldn't be able to clean up so well!"
A stray thought flared briefly in Alya's mind and made it all the way to her mouth unnoticed. "Do you think she has a Miraculous to help?" she said.
"No, I don't think so. From what I…'ve seen on the Ladyblog, Mayura and Hawkmoth look like adults. And, as far as I know, unless they have help, like they did on Heroes' Day, they can only have one akuma or sentimonster at a time."
Alya shrugged, and the discussion stopped as Lila entered the classroom and sat down. Mme. Bustier followed soon after, smiling brightly at the students.
"I hope you have been practicing," she said cheerily. "We definitely don't want your skills to get rusty. Ivan, Alya, because yesterday was interrupted by an akuma warning, it is still your turns to choose who will be giving and receiving compliments today."
Ivan made his way to the bowls and drew a name.
"Oh, lovely! Lila is going to give our compliment today," Mme. Bustier said. Ivan retreated. Alya headed to the bowls herself and felt for someone who Lila would have to work to compliment. She felt Chloés slip and seized it, hoping it would help cheer Marinette up.
She handed it to Mme. Bustier with a smile.
"Marinette!" Mme. Bustier said, unfolding the slip with Marinette's name on it. "What a surprise."
Alya blinked in surprise. She was sure she'd picked Chloé out of the bowl. Nino's folding was pretty distinctive. She'd have to ask him if he'd changed the styles recently.
"When you're ready, Lila," Mme. Bustier said, with just enough of a look on her face to suggest that stalling would reflect poorly.
"I mean, who doesn't love Marinette?" Lila said, smiling and wide-eyed. "She's our class representative, after wresting control from the reign of Chloé Bourgeois. Brava, Marinette."
Chloé turned toward Lila and fixed her with a glare that communicated quite clearly: Insult me again and I will personally cut you.
A small smile played on Lila's lips as she continued. "It's such a shame that none of us can live up to her greatness. Marinette is very clearly the smartest person in the room, and none of us can hope to match it."
A few more heads turned to stare at Lila.
"I think that's enough, Lila," Mme. Bustier interjected.
"I'm very jealous of how everyone coddles Marinette and shields her from the consequences of everything," Lila continued, as if she hadn't heard. "I wish I had friends who did that for me."
"Enough, Lila," Mme. Bustier repeated, raising her voice enough to be unmistakably heard. "Sit down or go see M. Damocles, your choice."
Lila sat, still smiling.
Halfway through the lesson, Marinette's sense of impending danger went off. She turned in her seat just in time to catch a thrown paper airplane aimed for the back of her head. She stared up at Lila, but Lila was staring straight at Mme. Bustier, her pen taking notes.
"Is there something more important behind you, Marinette?" Mme. Bustier asked, turning back around from the board.
"Ah, no, Mme. Bustier," Marinette said, smiling and holding up the airplane. "I just had to defend myself from this just now. I'm sorry."
Marinette scanned the classroom, but nobody seemed willing (or unwilling) to admit they'd done it. She turned back to her schoolwork, senses set on alert for another airplane. Every now and then, she'd sneak a glance at Lila to see if she was preparing another airplane, but Lila continued to do nothing other than take notes when she was watching. Mme. Bustier nearly caught her a couple of times, but she'd managed to get back to the front before Mme. Bustier caught on. It made the lesson more difficult to pay full attention to, but Marinette planned to fill in the holes in her notes with Alya after class.
The next day, Kim and Nathaniel picked Marinette to give a compliment to Lila. Kim shrugged, but Nathaniel looked stunned that he'd picked the same grouping from yesterday.
"Okay, Marinette, what do you have?" Mme. Bustier said pleasantly.
"I…want to forgive Lila for what she said yesterday," Marinette said. "It's not easy being her, and I don't want to contribute to more hard feelings between us, given the amount of attention the class has drawn from Hawkmoth this year."
"That's very kind of you, Marinette," Lila said. "I almost could forget that you're accusing me of provoking akuma attacks."
Marinette opened her mouth to retort, but Mme. Bustier's gaze on her made it abundantly clear that if the feud restarted today, she would haul them both in before M. Damocles without remorse.
Marinette wasn't going to give Lila the satisfaction. She sat. Thankfully, there were no paper airplanes in the lesson, so she didn't need to spend catch-up time with Alya.
The following day, Nino picked Marinette to receive a compliment, and Lila picked herself to give it. The entire class started stealing furtive glances to see if they could spot a purple butterfly when it came into the classroom.
"How nice that you get a second chance, Lila," Mme. Bustier said. "I hope you have something genuinely nice to say to Marinette this time around." There was no mistaking the unspoken "or else" in her tone.
"I have just the thing," Lila replied. "I wanted to compliment Marinette's fashion designs. They're really good…for someone as young as she is. With time, patience, and a lot of—"
"—Can it, Rossi," Chloé said, interrupting. "You wouldn't recognize a compliment if it stung you."
"I'm not finished—"
"—I don't care. You are the most self-centered brat I have had the displeasure of being in the same class with."
"How dare you!" Lila cried.
"Whatever," Chloé replied, sounding bored. "It might pop your bubble to hear this, but Marinette can design circles around a lot of people right now. When she gets older, she's going to be a great asset to whatever house can afford her. Sit down and shut up."
Lila sat.
Mme. Bustier sent Chloé to M. Damocles to explain herself, even though the class knew no permanent consequences would come of it. Most of them were okay with that in this particular instance.
Mme. Bustier also had to handle a larger-than usual amount of requests to use the classroom space for study during lunch, which she denied, citing the need for preparation work.
Given that she had a habit of leaving her door unlocked when taking short trips to other places, the class planned accordingly on how to get in and out without being seen. None of them wanted to risk another Lila-Marinette interaction.
When Mme. Mendeleiev called Mme. Bustier down to her room on an urgent matter, the class sprung into action. In the space of only a few minutes, Juleka found and removed Marinette and Lila's names from the bowls along with her usual disappearance quota and Sabrina added her own name several times to each bowl, because of Chloés reasoning that Sabrina was expendable, thus perfect to draw aggression.
Alix was plotting their move when they saw Lila brazenly walk into the room, without trying to hide or even care to notice whether or not she was observed. When Mme. Bustier appeared in the hallway right afterward, Alix ditched their plan and wished for some popcorn.
"Hello, Lila," Caline said, closing the door.
"Mme. Bustier!" Lila replied brightly.
"What are you doing in my classroom?"
"I was trying to gather evidence, Mme. Bustier," Lila replied. "Marinette sent her classmates in to manipulate the compliments exercises."
Caline had to admit that Lila was practiced and polished at telling almost-truths. If she hadn't already known the extent of the manipulation attempts, any investigation would have turned up the manipulation, but nothing involving Marinette. And that would make some teachers suspicious of her.
"Mlle. Rossi," Caline said, trusting Lila to understand the change in formality, "if you are going to brazenly lie to me, you should at least try for something plausible."
Lila's face gave the slightest signs of shock, then calculation, before returning to a more relaxed setting. Caline kept her own face disbelieving, to see if Lila would persist in her first line of argument or jump to another.
"While you were out, Mme. Bustier, Juleka and Sabrina both snuck into the classroom. They must have done something to the selection bowls."
Persistence it was, then.
Mme. Bustier looked over at the bowls. Sabrina was doing better at making herself less obvious, she noted. The paper level in both bowls was pretty close to what it had been before she had left.
"We can look in the bowls," Caline said, sounding like she was humoring Lila.
Lila smiled when they were done. "You see, my name isn't here any more! Someone must have removed it."
"So it is," Caline agreed. "Marinette's name isn't here, either."
"She's trying to disguise her involvement," Lila replied smoothly. "She'd look suspicious if it were only my name removed."
Caline kept herself from shaking her head. When given time to plot and plan, Lila was very good at making her stories believable, but she was absolutely terrible at improvisation.
"That's equally applicable to you, Lila," Caline said, shrugging.
"I couldn't," Lila said, casting her eyes downward. "I don't have any friends, Mme. Bustier."
Caline's skepticism must have shown through, because Lila continued.
"They're polite, and we can make small talk and work together, but they don't like me."
"That is a significant part of adult relationships," Caine said wryly. "You may be ahead of the curve on learning this."
"You saw how Chloé insulted me today," Lila persisted.
"You have had trouble keeping your compliments complimentary recently," Caline pointed out. "At a certain point, no matter how subtle you think you are, you get caught."
Caline hoped Lila would take the hint.
"Why didn't Marinette get punished?" Lila said coolly. "Her constant accusations that I'm lying are hurtful. And she's not giving genuine compliments, either."
Caline replayed Chloés outburst from earlier. She'd sent Chloé off to M. Damocles more for her lack of tact rather than anything she'd actually said.
"Why is Marinette so important to you?" Caline asked, deciding deflection could be as useful to her as it was for Lila.
"She has what I deserve," Lila replied, struggling to keep the sarcasm in check. "She's popular, and has friends, and I'm just so jealous of her."
"Or you could tell me the actual reason," Caline said, letting herself be led.
Lila sighed (a touch too dramatically to be believable, Caline noted) and waited, as if she were deciding whether or not to actually tell the truth.
"I hate liars and fake people," Lila said finally. "Marinette is all smiles and cheer when other people are around, but when we're alone, she threatens that she's going to 'expose me.' I don't know how to get her to stop coming after me."
Caline had several suggestions ready, but they all centered around not lying, so none of them escaped her lips. Lila wove her deceptions so close to the truth that Caline suspected it was second nature by now.
"I may not be able to help much with that," Caline said. The truth seemed like the best tactic in this case. "I will do my best to make sure my classroom is safe for all my students, however."
"Thanks, Mme. Bustier," Lila replied, heading to the door.
"Mlle. Rossi?" Caline called after her.
"Yes?"
"Genuine compliments, without qualifications."
"Of course," Lila said, smiling brightly.
Caline watched her go. Lila hadn't said anything serious about herself, but Caline suspected that sarcasm was a front and that Lila was projecting when she talked about Marinette. Caline understood that it was only her associations with Marinette, before Lila arrived, that was putting doubts in her head about the nature of Lila's accusations. If Lila was correct about Marinette, then she'd have to admit she'd been fooled like everyone else.
Caline sighed. She needed to change tactics. Pushing Marinette and Lila hadn't worked, because she'd misunderstood the situation. She'd probably made it worse by insisting on regular exchanges between them. Maybe if she cooled off, they might as well. It was worth trying, anyway. She'd long since had her fill of akumatized students.