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Chapter Text

Marinette's life had been rather amazing, at first. As Marinette, she was a normal girl with many friends, all of which always there for her. There was Alya, her bold and intelligent best friend, who she trusted with all but one of her secrets. She was the Ladyblogger, running the Ladyblog, the main news source for things related to Paris's heroes. She had always seemed to be a very diligent person, never giving up in her attempts to find information. She would run straight into battle, trying to gain information on the heroes or akumas, occasionally getting hurt but persistent all the same. Then there was Nino, a passionate DJ who always seemed to be a calming presence. While not always good with words, he was good with emotions, helping to sooth his friends occasional woes all the while supporting them against their foes. Adrien was the last in their little group of four, her handsome crush. He was always very kind, and seemed a peaceful person, even if rather oblivious to her absolute failures at hiding her crush. Despite her love, she never was able to speak much around him, tripping over her words, and sometimes just in general, being extra clumsy around them. The rest of the class were farther apart from her, but they were still mostly friends all the same, except for Chloe and Sabrina, the class bullies. Then there was her Ladybug side, with her amazing partner Chat Noir. Her partner was competent when he focused, with her being able to trust in him completely to get the job done. While he occasionally got distracted, focusing on wooing her instead of the battle, those problems were typically few and far between. She also had temporary heroes she could trust, Rena Rouge and Carapace, secretly two of her best friends, increasing the trust further.

Or at least, that had been her perception of the world. That, unfortunately, changed when a new student came to their class. Her name was Lila, rather fitting in a way, as she was a compulsive liar. At first it had been relatively simple things, like lying about knowing Ladybug. She of course, disagreed heavily, being Ladybug and having never met her before, and so, she had loudly disagreed the point. She had quickly backed down after, with Lila's crocodile tears about being attacked for being new, and the looks that other classmates gave her, but she still blames herself, partly, for inciting the tensions between her and Marinette. She knew the liar was even worse than she thought when she claimed to have the Fox miraculous, again acting with her emotions. This time, she had come as Ladybug, and, while not necessarily knowing to disprove the miraculous claim, instead loudly stated about having not been her friend. She regretted this later, of course, it having started an animosity between Ladybug and the liar as well as with her and Marinette, but on the bright side, she found a book on miraculous lore, and met the Guardian of the Miraculous. Of course, that joy was lost when he lost his memory and she became the new Guardian, but the silver lining was still there, she supposed. Regardless, she had expected her friends to, if not see her point, at least try to keep the peace. The two of them may disagree, but that was no reason for her and the class to drift apart, right?

Apparently not, as that was the beginning of a long slide to pain. Lila eventually threatened to take away all she loves in life when she would not bow down to her lies, and she had dismissed it at the time. After all, she had thought, it was not as if her friends, that she had between months to years of experience with, would abandon her for somebody they just met, right? Wrong again, as with a few careful lies, Lila started to convince her friends that she was a bully, both verbally and physically, to the new student. Her parents still trusted her, as she had kept them away from the knowledge of school drama, but the class had drifted away, leaving her with Adrien. This was exhausting, having everyone against her except Adrien, who himself kept away from the conflict, hoping for peace, compromising Marinette at times. He said exposing Lila would do nothing but get her akumatized, which Marinette disagreed with, but followed anyway. Add this on with her life as Ladybug, with the stresses of dealing with frequent akumas at all times of the day and night, with her partner slowly becoming more forceful in his affections for her, she was slowly breaking. So, the question was... what was she to do about it?

Chapter Text

'I'm slowly dying', was the thought that hit Marinette when she first woke up in the morning. She had been forced to fight an akuma at 1 in the morning last night, in another example of why she seriously hated Hawkmoth. She was mildly jealous of the guy's apparent permanent free time, and constant energy, as there were akumas at all times of day at this point. Early morning, mid afternoon, noon, midnight, evening, middle of the night, this guy was just endlessly powering through in his desire to... well, do whatever he wished to do with the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculous. Marinette was never completely sure of what he wanted to wish for, a sequence of thought that distracted her with speculation and curiousity.

She pondered on the Ladybug side of her life, noticing with minor distress that it seemed to be breaking down, like her life as Marinette. Hawkmoth was seemingly on permanent vacation, as he had, after all, released an akuma at 1 in the morning. It was a brutal one too, some of the aches and pains she got in the battle still able to be felt. This akuma had been especially difficult to fight, as it had been powered as another mimicker, like Chameleon or SentiBug. Unfortunately for her, this shapeshifter could also mimic their powers, which honestly lead to an interesting an exhausting battle. The akuma had turned into a copy of Hawkmoth, which released it's own akuma, which to rub insult to injury had found Lila again. With a superpowered Lila taking the form of Volpina (and seriously, Ladybug had wondered at the time, that is points taken away for lack of originality), and the real Hawkmoth having come, seeing this as the perfect opportunity to tag team them, it had been difficult. Chat Noir had been tapped out almost instantly, looking towards her in the middle of a flirty pun before having been taken by one of the Hawkmoths (at some point she had lost track of which is which), leaving her with the other two.

It was a long hard battle, which she nearly lost, having no opportunity to run to get a Miraculous, and having been badly hurt when deakumatizing them both (turns out the real Hawkmoth faced Chat Noir, leaving them with these two). She had gone to find Chat Noir, and found him sitting on a roof, healed after the Miraculous Cure, watching Hawkmoth run free. Seeing as he was too far to do anything about, she had focused back on him, about to ask why hadn't he chased him, before being interrupted by a "Milady! So nice to see your beautiful self!", and waving her over. She, still pretty upset with him for letting Hawkmoth go, instead ran off, having to move erratically to shake him off. He had attempted to follow her home, all the while yelling about his eternal love for her and them being soulmates, saying she should really give him a chance.

She was still rather mad at that, that he had followed her, but it had taken until this point to get it into her head that Chat was more focused then her than the mission. He had been upping his flirting lately, having it come at risk sometimes in the middle of an akuma battle, him having followed her a few times, once calling her with an 'emergency' only for it to be a date. She had excused it all by saying he might just be lonely, but in this tired state she was in now, all she could do was look and see, no excuses, no energy to deny the truth. Speaking of tiredness, wasn't she supposed to be getting up right now?

After abruptly re-adjusting her train of thought, she focused back on her main problem. Getting up with a groan, she slowly turned to her closet, musing aloud on what to wear. "I always thought you looked comfier when wearing these," Tikkit, the Ladybug Kwami, flew up and mentioned, pointing to her usual grey blazer, white shirt with pink flower print on the left shoulder, and pink jeans. "That's true," Marinette started in response, "But I think that I need a change. I normally wore that, you know, when I used to be friends with my classmates. I try and try again, but no matter what I say, how much evidence I bring, my 'friends' don't even spare a glance my way before discarding it all as the desperate lies of a jealous bully. Honestly, at this point, I don't even think I am jealous of Lila anymore. She wants Adrien, she can have him. I thought I loved him, but he is a spineless coward, just standing at the sides pretending to care. Pretending to be on my side. I honestly don't know if he even cares anymore..."

"Marinette... you know what, don't worry about them. Don't stress yourself out," Tikki responded, "Just relax, and think about what you want to wear. We spiraled a bit off that, you know." Marinette chuckled in response. "We did, didn't we. Thanks for trying to make me feel better Tikki." Marinette tried to take her advice, but still mused on the problem while searching through her closet. When searching through and discarding her pants, she wondered if being in the right of the situation was worth all of her suffering. Her friendlessness, the bullying, the stolen or destroyed belongings. Was it worth being in the right, all of her pain and suffering? When she had decided that pants were a lost cause today, and was trying to decide if she wanted a skirt instead, she was attempting to think of ways to stop at least some of her problems, focusing primarily on the class ones, ignoring the question on whether it was worth the pain to continue being right against the liar for another time. When she had finished skimming the skirts, having chosen a simple black skirt, she was thinking that getting Lila to a truce was the best solution she could come up with at the moment. And when she had finished, having chosen a simple red short sleeve short and a gray knit cardigan to go as a top, she had decided that maybe a surrender was the best option.

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Having delayed her arrival to school as much as humanly possible, wishing to avoid her classmates (and the future of apologizing and surrendering to Lila), Marinette rushed into the classroom seconds before the bell rang. She ran to her seat in the back without looking anyone else in the eye. She could feel Adrien's curious gaze on her, probably having noticed that she was even more meek and small than usual, but he looked away without saying anything. At this point, she was starting to wonder if he considered her defeat a success, as she would no longer rock the boat in the class's peace and order. She probably would have thought on it more, if she had managed to stay seated for more than three seconds.

"'Oops'! I'm 'soo' sorry, I didn't see you there," one of the current banes of her existence, Lila, spoke. She had pulled out the chair from under Marinette, under the guise of not having seen her, and having needed it because of her seat being missing. "I didn't realize this seat was taken!" she continued, her faux sweet voice grating on Marinette's ears. "It's fine," Marinette responded, groaning internally, "After all, I wasn't paying much attention around me. I should have noticed you." That got her a curious glance from Adrien, and a shocked look from Lila, before it was quickly covered with the faux sweet façade she seemed to love oh so much. "Finally," Alya yelled, seemingly out of nowhere having been next to Lila. It rather shocked Marinette that she hadn't noticed her, because, even if they weren't friends now, they used to be, and she still had some habits ingrained in her. "Maybe now we can work on you becoming a better person, and earning our trust again!" Alya continued, souring Marinette's mood even further. She knew that Alya was under the liar's thrall, but she seriously thought Marinette was in the wrong? She seriously thought that her best friend magically became a horrible person based on a newbie's word, and thought that she was the bully? It was nothing new, but it still was amazingly hurtful all the same.

Lila grimaced for barely a second, before pulling her mask back on and going, "I would never want to go between a friendship, but I am not sure I could really be comfortable around someone who has hurt me so much. I mean, just this morning she... oh, I shouldn't have said that! I am so sorry! I don't mean any trouble!" Alya and the rest of the class visibly focused in, with echoing cries of "What did she do?", "What happened?", and "Did Marinette do something?", going around. As usual, Adrien immediately hunkered down, quietly nodding to everything said and completely ignoring her side. While Marinette was still used to all of this, it still hurt, and before Lila could do anything, she called out, "Lila, can we talk? In private?" Adrien looked suspicious, sending her a glance, and a look seeming to say 'stand down', or 'calm down', while everyone immediately began yelling about how there was no way they would let her be alone with poor Lila, let her bully and hurt her even more with no one around.

Lila looked genuinely curious, and said, "No! No! I really don't want to be a bother. I am sure Marinette won't do anything... right? It'll be fine." She sent Marinette a look around the middle of the sentence, a smirk and sneer, while everyone else was distracted with disgustedly staring at Marinette. "Fine," Alya conceded, having recently become Lila's best friend instead of hers, "But if she tries anything, we won't hesitate to put her back down."

Lila quietly led her outside the classroom, into an empty hall. "What is it, Marinette?" her sweet tone clashing with the sneer on her face. "I surrender," Marinette responded, looking down at her hands. Inside her head, she was screaming, wondering what in the world she was doing, but she just as quickly directed her thoughts to this hopefully being a way to end all the drama. "I won't fight you, work against you, or try to disprove you," Marinette continued, "I won't do anything against you, if you will just please back down as well." Lila goes quiet for a moment, before laughing. The laughing continues, getting louder and louder, slowly turning into a cruel resounding cackle. "Oh Marinette," she responded, "Oh pitiful Marinette. It seems you've finally realized you can't win, haven't you. You are here, on your knees, begging to be released from your torture, aren't you?" While Marinette was definitely not on her knees, and definitely not begging, she still nodded, hoping beyond hope that this could mean the end of it all.

"Hahahhahaha!" Lila's laughing started up again, swiftly lowering Marinette's hopes of success. "You realize I have already won haven't you? I gain nothing from accepting your surrender. I will teach you that you never cross Lila Rossi!" Lila spoke, her voice slowly turning into a yell, before laughing again and leaving the hall. Marinette crumbled to her knees in the hall, curling in a fetal position on the wall. She started quietly sobbing, never returning to the classroom.

A purple butterfly fluttered in through the window.

Chapter Text

Marinette was too distraught and distracted to notice the butterfly's fluttering wings come through the window, curled up sobbing as she was. However, luckily for her, her Kwami was not. With a resounding cry of, "My chosen is not yours to take, akuma!", Tikki flew at a frankly shocking speed towards the akuma, quickly swallowing it and burping up a purified white butterfly. "Excuse me," she quietly laughed, before settling back on her chosen's shoulder.

Temporarily distracted from the despair and distraught that had consumed her, Marinette looked at her Kwami somewhat in wonder. "I didn't know you could do that," she quietly stated, "but honestly, I'm thankful you did. We don't really need an akumatized Ladybug, after all." She added a faint chuckle at the end of her sentence, smiling slightly at her Kwami." "Knowing you can do this is definitely a bit of stress relief, knowing that my emotional control is not the only way to stop me from being an akuma." She became slightly more despondent at the end of her sentence, remembering the woes that forced her Kwami to do this to begin with. In an effort to distract herself, however, she asked, "Why didn't you share with me you could do this?" Her Kwami, her best (and currently only) friend, was quick to respond. "It's not that I didn't want to, or anything like that," Tikki quickly interjected, "But that we are kinda forbidden from using our powers without a holder. You remember the story of the Plagg plus Dinosaurs equals species extinction and chaos, after all." "That I do," Marinette chuckled, remembering some of the other stories of the ancient past the Kwami had told her, since she had taken her role as guardian.

Unfortunately, things could not stay so light. "Let's head a bit back to the point," Tikki started, "which was an attempt to lessen your stress and pain, wasn't it? To get rid of one of your sources of trouble?" Marinette nodded, not making a noise. "I do really, support your endeavors, I do, as I love you like I love all my holders, and you deserve to be happier than you are." "However, this solution did not work," Tikki continued, "which, while disappointing, can't be said to be surprising. It is Lila Rossi after all. So, what will you do instead?" That got Marinette focused, which, luckily for her, and happily for her Kwami, distracted her from her troubles.

“Well, my plan had been to try and stop the active antagonism from Lila, which, I mean, you made a good point, I shouldn't have laid so much hope onto the possibility," Marinette finally stated, after a minute or so of thought. “But,” she continued, “it definitely isn’t the only way. The question, though, is if I am taking the right approach.”

However, before she could continue musing, she heard footsteps on the hard tile floor of the bathroom. Quickly ushering her Kwami back into her purse, turning towards the door from her position on the floor. Hoping beyond hope that it was not one of her classmates, her prayers went, unfortunately for her, unanswered. Walking in was Alya, with a rather amazing mix of disappointedness and anger showing on her face. Marinette had but a second to think, to wonder whether or not to run for it, before she spoke. "Seriously, girl? Really? I was just starting to think you could get better too..." Alya started, before continuing, "I knew I shouldn't have left her alone with you." Marinette, despite her hopes that Lila wouldn't spread another rumor while she was here crying, had a good idea what had happened. "What did she say this time?" she asked, somewhat exasperated, no longer with the kindness that she had hoped would help earlier today. "What did she say? Really? That's all you have to say?!? Don't play dumb, Marinette! I know you threatened Lila while you two were alone in here!" 'Oh', Marinette's thought to herself, 'oh oh oh, the irony, it hurts. That's what she said? Wow.' Still, she didn't say anything, feeling it was better to let Alya's rant get out of her system.

And rant Alya did, going on about how Marinette used to be such a nice person, helping out others, only to suddenly turn into this despicable bully, worse than the likes of Chloé Bourgeois, how she was so disappointed in her. About how she wondered if the nice was all an act, if Marinette had secretly been such a horrendous person all this time, just hiding beneath the surface. Yelling about how Lila was such a nice person, helping all of them with her connections, and how even if Marinette was jealous, she was taking her emotions way too far. About how, given how much of a despicable person she apparently was, such a sweet boy like Adrien Agreste would never love her, let alone even want to be around her. Marinette found the last part rather ironic, given her crush had long since faded on the boy, given his verbal statements of being on her side, but actions of not being so. At this point, she had really only followed the advice to stay away out of a lack of other ideas, until the stress had gotten to her, and she had tried her plan to make peace with Lila. A plan that, now that she thought about it, probably wasn't as good an idea as she had originally felt.

Eventually running out of steam, Alya moved on from the topic, heading instead to, "Now, to my other reason for being here. Besides you being a frankly awful person, I am also here because you are missing class, and, given Lila came back a few minutes ago, don't really have an excuse for doing so. Ms. Bustier sent me to come check on you. Now come-on, we need to head back, otherwise we will miss even more time, no thanks to you." Marinette personally thought the rant was unnecessary, and without it they would probably be back in class sooner, but decided to keep such thoughts in her head.

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Classes went on mostly undisturbed, besides the whole "How could you do that to Lila?", "I knew we shouldn't have left you two alone!", and "Why are you such a horrible person to such a nice girl, Marinette?". Although she did have to meet with Ms. Bustier at lunch, which she was not looking forward to. However, things progressed normally, learning her literature in homeroom with Ms. Bustier, feeling a breath of fresh air in Ms. Mendeleiev's class, with her no nonsense policy stopping Lila and her allies from making Marinette's life miserable in any way, with with everyone being too busy in D'Argencourt's Physical Education class to talk to each other, in any way, let alone for any meaningful bullying.

All too soon however, lunchtime came, and with it, yet another talk with Ms. Bustier. Marinette was rather upset with her, as she knew, or at least thought, Lila had a lying disease (she did not know it was a lie, after all), and yet, as her most recent talks with her showed, Ms. Bustier still thought that all of her words about Marinette bullying her were true, without even checking. It bothered her, but there was nothing she could do about it, as she was not the one with the position of power between the two of them. Hesitantly opening the door, she walked into Ms. Bustier's empty classroom, the rest of her classmates having gone to the courtyard for lunch. Ms. Bustier was sitting at her desk, beckoning Marinette in with a hand while looking out the window. "Come in," she stated, "this talk needs to be had, after all." And so, with that, Marinette walked in. "What is it you wish to speak to me about, Ms. Bustier?" Marinette asked aloud, inside already preparing for the eventuality she suspected to happen. "Marinette," Ms. Bustier started, looking away from the window and focusing on her, "your behavior towards Lila has been unacceptable. I know what she did at the beginning of your time together, with your expulsion, was probably rankling, but you need to move beyond this. I cannot, and will not, tolerate this type of behavior in my classroom." Marinette stayed silent as Ms. Bustier continued speaking, quietly wondering what Ms. Bustier thought of the behavior of the rest of her class towards her, if only second-hand words were enough to get this towards herself. After all, she had seen first-hand some of the things they had said to her, seen firsthand what they did to her stuff, stealing from her, destroying her property. How could all of this be ignored, in favor of the words of a girl known to the administration to have a lying problem, whether or not the cause of the lies was truthful in the record. She sat and listened, not saying a word, except for a "I understand" when prompted by Ms. Bustier, before she was swiftly dismissed to lunch.

Leaving the classroom, Marinette fervently prayed for a peaceful lunch period. After all, this was the perfect time for Lila's supporters to attack her, as, unlike in class, they were monitored. She was not headed to the courtyard for lunch, as that would just be asking to be verbally assaulted, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn't search for her, and find her, as they had done before. Unfortunately for her, her hopes were not to be met, although not in the way she expected.

So focused she was, on finding a good hiding place to have lunch in, she never noticed Adrien coming up behind her, shocked when he pulled her to the locker room. There, he beckoned her to sit, while he leaned on the wall. It heartened Marinette to notice her locker's lock had not been broken, even if there was a note on the door, before she refocused on the person in front of her. "Can I help you?" Marinette asked, wondering what the situation was about. "Marinette," Adrien started, giving her a rather disappointed look, "is it true? Did you threaten Lila in the bathroom?" Before Marinette could answer, Adrien continued, "Because confronting her will do nothing, you know, besides getting her akumatized. She will fall on her own you know, but if we interfere, she will get akumatized. Besides, even beyond this, threatening her is way overboard, completely unreasonable, so much more so than just confronting her. It is not the right way to do things, you know. You need to-" Marinette interjected before he could continue, "I didn't do it Adrien. Surely you know that the words from that liar's tongue are worth absolutely nothing, right?" Adrien looked taken aback at the interruption for a moment, before finally speaking. "Alright then. Sorry that I assumed that about you. I'm still not wrong though, you know. Also, what you did this morning? The whole nice act? I am proud of you, you know, being peaceful and maybe finally letting the class settle happily again! Or at least, before the whole interruption of you wishing to speak with her alone, you know. Still, it is nice to see you finally settling back into yourself, you know, the kindhearted girl that can forgive anyone for anything, and helps whenever she can." Marinette decided not to deign that whole mess with an answer, simply side-stepping to, "Was that all? Can I go now?" Adrien looked a bit disappointed at her tone, but let her leave, to enjoy her lunch at a hidden place. She ended up eating on the roof, as very few people ever went up there, and she didn't think anyone would go looking for her there.

Up there, while eating lunch, she mused on her problem, thinking of potential ways to solve her problem. Finding Hawkmoth to stop his akuma's would be nice, but she didn't really have the time to search. She could set Chat on that, but she wasn't really sure on how that would turn out. So, she instead focused on Chat himself, before deciding to shelf that for later given the whole mess that was. So, she focused on her Marinette life. She could lessen commissions, although given how they were part of her positive interactions with life she really didn't want to do that. She could drop class president duties, which would probably lower her workload, although the backlash from the class might just be worse. But that was the problem, wasn't it, she mused. The class itself. Lila was horrible, but being friendless and hated in the class was worse, she thought. And with that discovery, she was forced to go back to class, as class was to start in around five minutes. Still, she would have to think on that later.

After all, it might just solve her problem.

Chapter Text

Marinette mused on the thought as she headed back to class. She had already decided to leave her Ladybug life out of it, when she had gone for Lila, as her earlier musings of the issues with Chat Noir and the lack of time to deal with Hawkmoth, but she had targeted Lila, which, as she had previously concluded, was not the main problem. The main problem was dealing with her classmates, their malicious words and the lack of friends. It hurt, in her opinion, more having the sheer number of aggressors, than the one worse one that had been Lila. She could deal with a bully, she had after all dealt with Chloé Bourgeois for years, but dealing with the larger numbers were difficult. Even more so given they used to be her friends. But that conclusion had already been reached, right before she had to head back to class. The true topic she needed to be focusing on was how to deal with this. She had a few ideas running around in her head, but she decided to have a talk with the Kwami, and maybe her parents, before doing anything. A second opinion could be helpful, and if she wanted to do anything major, her parents would have to be in the know. That would be a rather painful endeavor, to finally inform them of the situation, but in this case, needs must.

Arriving in the classroom around a minute before the bell would ring, she was about the sit down in her place in the back, but before she could she got an akuma notification. Back when Max had still been on friendly terms with her, she had asked him to set up a special program to alert her if an akuma was found, looking at a few different news sources, like the Ladyblog, to check for a few keywords, like akuma or Hawkmoth. If it found one, it would give her a special alert noise. Ostensibly it was so she would get advance notice to run and hide, but in reality it was for her Ladybug duties. With akumas happening all over Paris, there might often be ones that were far enough away not to be noticed quickly enough, and so she had asked for this from him to help. Quickly running out of the room, with a yelled, "Oh my god! I think I'm gonna vomit!", she ran to the bathrooms, transformed, and jumped out of the bathroom window. That excuse might get her a bit of flak for running out without asking Ms. Bustier, but it was the first thing she could think of at the moment.

Regardless of her choice in excuses, she still had an akuma to fight, so she quickly opened her yoyo towards the phone interface. Finding that the akuma apparently was on the very far side of Paris, near the city border in fact, she swiftly swung her yoyo out, trying to move as quick as possible towards the akuma. She, luckily, did not have to deal with traffic, and moved at a decent speed, but it still took a good few minutes to arrive at the scene of the akuma. The figure seemed to have a gun, which was a first for Hawkmoth, and Ladybug almost panicked until, when the akuma had noticed her and fired at her, she noticed it was a tranquilizer dart. It was still somewhat worrying that she could be taken down with a single shot, but she was somewhat relieved it was at least not lethally.

Spinning her yoyo into a shield, she took the chance to observe him. Ignoring his shouts and the continued fire. He seemed to be dressed in traditional cartoonish safari clothes. He also had an adult size butterfly net on his back. That hilarity, combined with the intensity of the tranquilizer gun, created a rather contrasting picture. Still, given the lack of obvious powers, she almost thought it was a mistaken report, with just a somewhat insane, rather silly person, until he took out the net. Then, his akuma-like traits began to show. He seemed to move much faster, jumping much higher, the net apparently giving him a super-human physique. More pressing, at the moment, however, was that he had leaped at her with it with a shouted, "Give me your miraculous, Ladybug! So I can go back to finding Trevor!"

Somewhat in awe that he had successfully jumped to the top of a multi-story building, Ladybug dodged, using his momentum forward to attempt to tie him up from behind. Of course, things could never be that simple. He turned around fast enough to bat aside her yoyo with the net, before, the net expanding to be able to trap a human, attempting to contain her with it. "The Saf-Hun-tar shall get your Miraculous!" the akuma, apparently Saf-Hun-tar, shouted, continuedly attempting to trap her with the net. Ladybug repeatedly dodged, again and again, him moving too fast to try much else. Eventually, he jumped a few buildings back, apparently trying a different method. His switching to the tranquillizer gun from the net in the process of doing so, revealed he had the superhuman abilities the whole time. Her misconception of the net providing the powers apparently came from him displaying them first when switching to it, not of an actual reality. Then, when he was a few roofs away, he let loose fire.

Ladybug dodged to the side, using the yoyo to try and grab the net, suspecting it might be the akumatized object. If it was not the net, she would check the tranquillizer gun next. After all, as he was not currently holding it, she suspected it would be rather easy to yank free from his back. Unfortunately for her, he took advantage of the situation, using the yoyo's grip on the net to, after quickly grabbing it, spin and throw her over an impressive number of rooftops, before she finally came to a stop. However, luckily for her, in this whole process, the yoyo still remained around the net, and, taking advantage of the akuma's distraction, Ladybug pulled it out of his hand, before snapping it over her knee. She was also lucky in that it was this, not the tranquilizer gun. Swiftly purifying the akuma that came out. Having not used a lucky charm during battle, she threw the yoyo into the air instead, the Miraculous Cure fixing the town, and taking care of the bruises she had from hitting the roof when thrown. The bruises were already minor given the powers of the suit, and so the Cure could fully heal her, leaving none of the aches and pains of the previous akuma battle.

Checking on Hawkmoth's victim, she discretely checked on his health, before asking if he felt well, just to be safe. He said he was fine, before going into profound apologies. He fervently explained why he was akumatized, and that he was so sorry for being an inconvenience to the superheroes of Paris. His background apparently was that he was a zookeeper, fired over letting one of the animals leave it's enclosure. So, he was akumatized, given the powers to swiftly travel the area, what with his superhuman speed, in search of them, apparently named Trevor.

Quickly assuring him that it was fine, that no one could be blamed for having emotions, and that no one was to blame but Hawkmoth, for taking advantage of those emotions. However, as she made to leave, Chat Noir finally arrived. "So sorry M'lady!" Chat Noir yelled in greeting, "I just got the chance to escape my civilian life. But hey, now that we're both here, and the akuma is taken care of, it's the perfect time for a date, no?"

"I thought your civilian life was to strict to escape for long," Ladybug replied, "But regardless, I have to head back. I will be missed if I don't arrive back soon." Chat Noir didn't quite take the negative answer, following her while attempting to be discreet. She went in circles all over the city, repetitive but never slowing, until her partner was forced to give up, and return to whatever his civilian life.

Somewhat upset at all the time wasted, and not looking forward to explaining her long absence, she made for Collège Françoise Dupont, moving as quickly as she was capable. After checking the bathroom was empty, Ladybug jumped into the building through the open bathroom window, detransforming into Marinette in one of the stalls. Heading back to class, she decided to explain her absence, longer than one might expect for vomiting, she decided to say she had a stomach bug, and was violently ill at both ends of her digestive tract, leading her to stay in the bathroom for an extended period of time. Providing her excuse to Ms. Bustier, she was waved off, and sat in the back of class, to try and absorb as much of the lesson as she could. She missed the first part, but by paying extra attention, she hoped to not have to study this later. If so, she could study the missed parts instead.

------

The rest of the day passed by without much significance. The rest of her classes were uninterrupted by akumas, and her class did not do anything more than normal. The verbal taunts in the halls, and the being tripped, was mostly what it was kept to today, so the day passed without much of her attention on it. When she arrived at home, she quickly went through the motions, completing her homework, working a small shift in the bakery at the register, another in the kitchen, and finally doing her chores, mostly cleaning and dusting. When she finished all her work, she sequestered herself in her room, locking the trapdoor entrance. Then, she opened the Miracle Box, and greeted the rising Kwami.

"Hello again all of you! I wanted to ask you to help me brainstorm on something. I was thinking of trying to lower my stress with the class, given that they provide a large amount of it, and thought you guys would probably come up with some great ideas!" And come up with great ideas they did indeed, with a frankly ridiculous amount of suggestions pouring out from the inhabitants of the Miracle Box. There was an incredible variation in the types of ideas, ranging from threatening the class ("Stompp, no! I will not threaten my classmates, no matter what they have done!") to buy there loyalty, ("Given the amount of stuff I did for them before, the free clothes and free baked goods, and that they still turned on me, I'm not sure that would work. But thanks for the suggestion, Daizii), to tricking them into thinking she was one of Lila's cronies ("I could never bring myself to obey her, listen to her, or encourage her. True I tried to surrender, but that would be a 'I don't mess with you, you don't mess with me kind of thing'. But that honestly is a really good idea, Trixx."

The winning suggestion came from Plagg, to her somewhat surprise. "Why deal with them at all?" he had asked, "Why not just transfer to a different class? Or maybe even a different school?" Marinette loved the idea, so much so that she immediately went with it. Deciding that transferring classes probably would not help her enough, given that Lila's lies had affected the administration, namely Ms. Bustier and Headmaster Damocles, which was rather impressive given they knew that Lila frequently lied. So, she decided that moving to a different school, which led her to start diving into the online pages of different schools in the area. After dismissing five different options, she finally decided on Lycée-Collegé Mariston, named after the apparently famous politician who had created the school in 1823, though she had never heard of him. It was a school that combined Collegé and Lycée into one program, focused on the liberal arts. It had all sorts of liberal arts programs, ranging from public speaking to fashion design, which was perfect for her. Now, to figure out the process...

Oh, and to tell her parents.

Chapter Text

It took her a few hours, deep in research on how the transfer process as she was, to realize two critical facts. Fact One - she had forgotten the fact that, well, her parents needed to approve as well, and now she had to dread telling them of her schooling situation, which she had avoided doing for the past few months. Fact Two - Plagg was Chat Noir's kwami, which meant he should be with Chat Noir, not her. It was this second revelation that had her, a few hours later, jumping right out of her seat, to stare confusedly at the kwami.

"What in the world are you doing here Plagg? Does Chat need help?" Marinette asked, briefly beginning to panic over the second statement. What if he had needed help, and she had just spent hours ignoring his messenger? What if he was dead now? He was not the greatest partner, but he was still a human being, and did not deserve to die!

However, luckily for her, she was broken out of her thoughts rather quickly, with Plagg's response. "Nah, he's busy," Plagg started, "I just wanted to check on those power cheeses. You know, since we needed to use them before, like in that train akuma. What was it, Star Train?"

"I think so," Marinette stated, getting an inkling of what Plagg was here for, but still not quite sure.

"Either way, my chosen used the space cheese, and, since akumas are kinda unpredictable, I was thinking you maybe might want to just have in on your mind? Maybe? To learn how to replace those? You kinda have to, since you are the guardian now. Just thought you wouldn't want to be blindsided, and Chat is working now, civilian, so...?"

"Oh my gosh!" Marinette explained, having come to realize the magnitude of the problems such a situation would cause. "I will have to start looking through the Grimoire translations, maybe I will be able to find it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Plagg!"

"No problem, baker girl!" Plagg cheerily responded, before phasing back out her window, presumably to head back to Chat Noir. Now, that just left her with her first fact. Since she had done the research, the tabs on her computer glaring at her with the various required paperwork and procedures, she now had no excuse to avoid talking to her parents.

"Well," she spoke to herself, "Waiting will do me no favors. If I want to get this over with, then I will have to talk to them." She clambered out of her computer chair, and headed towards the stairs. She hesitated on the step. Did she really wish to do this? Was she overreacting. She was stopped in her thoughts by Tikki's hand on her shoulder. Tikki didn't speak, but seemed to just be quietly re-affirming her confidence. Marinette took a deep breath, exhaled it, and inched down the stairs. She was dreading, to rather noticeable extremes, the coming conversation.

---

She sat directly across the table from her parents, her Maman and Papa, quietly having told them the details of Lila's, and the rest of her classmates, actions towards her. After all, even if Lila was the instigator, it still hurt that her friends did not trust herm and they were factors of her wanting to transfer schools. They stared right back at her, Sabine seeming quiet and controlled, while Tom seemed like barely controlled fury. For her, Marinette knew, but it was somewhat worrying to see all the same.

Sabine moved from the table, but did not break the silence. She simply filled the kettle, put it on the stove, and came right back. Instead, it was Tom who was the first to speak.

"Why didn't you tell us earlier, Marinette? We could have helped you..." he asked, the energy in his tone clear, but also the fact that the fury within was not directed at her.

She quite simply responded with, "I didn't think it was that big of a deal at first, and then, when it grew, I simply... did not want you to be worried. I thought I could deal with it myself." The family looked at one another for a few moments, before Sabine and Tom, having seemingly communicated with a series of glances, facial movements, and gestures, split apart. Tom went towards the computer in the living room, muttering about emails and incompetent principals, while Sabine walked up to Marinette, and hugged her. Marinette absorbed the warmth in the hug, calming a bit from the stress induced by the conversation, before Sabine finally spoke.

"You mentioned having looked up a new school?" she asked, before continuing, "Let's go look at that, dear."

Marinette was somewhat nervous at if they were going to keep her in College Francois Dupont, but she followed it up with, "Tom is over emailing the principal about withdrawing you from school, and transferring elsewhere. Now, we just need to make sure the place you chose is to standard, don't we?" Sabine had continued, quietly chuckling at the end, albeit hollowly. Still, the words brought Marinette's mood up: she had hope for what was to come.

"I am sure you'll love it Maman!" she somewhat excitedly began, detailing the many programs the school had, and the rather interesting history. "It even is a magnet, no need to worry about the private tuition of Dupont!" And that was truly an important, Dupont was a school for the gifted and talented. It had a museum curator's daughter, the son of the famously strict Gabriel Agreste, the mayor's daughter, and so on, which meant it charged quite a pretty penny. Even with a scholarship, it was draining her parents. That was one of the reasons Marinette had chosen Mariston.

"Sounds great, Marinette," Sabine responded, them having reached Marinette's computer. "Now, could you show me all this wonderous research you have gotten?"

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