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"Can one of you explain to us how this place is even considered a school," Mason asked the class in front of him.
The group of visiting Greek students had been talking during lunch the day after the Zombizou apocalypse. Mason, Lena, and Apollo had been sent to Ms.Mendeleiev's class while Lyon and Vallia were in Ms.Bustier's. So the other three did not know how one of the sweetest teachers in the school had been akumatized.
To say that the three were shocked by what the twins had told them would be one hell of an understatement. So Mason asked the very first question that came to mind to the nearby class that his friends belong to.
"What do you mean, dude," Nino asked, confused.
Ms.Bustier's class was all sitting together that day, except for Chloe and her minion... I mean Sabrina.
None of the class really knew the other three very well. They only really heard some passing things from Aurore and Mirelle. Nathaniel had been told that the three were nice by Marc when he asked him.
"Well, from what we know, Marinette, Adrien, Lyon, and Vallia are the only ones not to be akumatized in your whole class," Apollo says. "The fact that your teacher has now been the victim to one of those moths makes it more of an anomaly."
"Butterflies, not moths," Marinette corrected.
"We're still not convinced about that," Apollo said. "But that may be more because Beautifly is a hero from our own country so butterflies do not come to mind when evil is being spoken of."
"Anyway, there just has been a lot of akumas from this school, and your class in particular," Lena says. "Even your principal has been akumatized."
They did have a point. Their class, alone, had Bubbler, Stone Heart, Lady Wifi, Antibug, Princess Fragrance, Vanisher, Refleckta, Horrificator, Dark Cupid, Gamer, Robostus, Evillustrator, Timebreaker, Volpina if Lila ever comes back, and now Zombizou. Even outside the class but still in school was Dark Owl, Stormy Weather, Syren, Riposte, Magician of Misfortune, and even the school fencing instructor as Darkblade.
Marinette and Adrien were probably the most aware of what the Greeks were talking about. Marinette actually kept a list of all akumas on her computer to keep track of them all.
"Even if Ladybug always fixes the damage done to the school, that doesn't always stop what has caused the akuma in the first place," Vallia said.
"I don't get it," Kim was confused.
"We figure that Ms.Bustier was not the type to really feel negative emotions, especially after what she tried yesterday," Lyon said. "I mean, Chloe vandalizes Marinette's gift for our teacher out of pure spite and she tries to give Chloe credit and say that she will think of both girls when she looks at it."
"Say what," Lena did not know about that. "Why would anyone on Demeter's green earth try anything like that?"
"It's Chloe being Chloe," Alix huffed. "Half the city has basically been akumatized because of her."
"From what I know, Nino and Max are the only ones in class that haven't been akumatized because of her," Lyon says. "That is excluding myself, Vallia, Marinette, and Adrien as we have not been akumatized at all."
"After how this guy has been basically feeding off of negative emotions for so long, that is an impressive feat to have never been a victim of it before," Apollo said.
"Hold on one second," Lena halted everyone. "I have one question. How long has Bourgeois been acting like a... um..."
"Spoiled brat," Marinette offered.
"Nightmare," Alya suggested.
"The biggest bully in Paris," surprisingly offered by Juleka of all people.
"All of the above," Adrien shrugged.
The class looked at him weirdly. Whenever anyone has anything bad to say about Chloe, he is usually the first one to defend her after Sabrina.
"I guess even the humanized sunshine has his limits," Mason snickered.
Adrien sighed. "More like Lyon really knows how to harshly, but necessarily, give someone a very needed slap of reality."
"Parakaló," Lyon said. Translation: You're welcome.
"What did you say to him," Marinette asked the icy teen. "Adrien can be as stubborn as Alya, and that says something."
"Hey," the Ladyblogger protested, making the class laugh.
"I basically force-fed him a few facts," Lyon crossed his arms, as stone-cold as ever. "Mainly how this girl enjoys making the people around her miserable and is always the first person to put them down."
"You probably needed more than that to talk some sense into him," Nino said. "No offense, dude."
"None taken," Adrien shrugged.
"Trust me when I say that when my brother verbally slaps someone, he doesn't hold back," Vallia said.
"It was just a few innocent questions to those like Marinette, Nino, and Kim that got my wheels turning," Lyon says. "They all said the same thing when it came to Chloe. They all shared a class with her for ten years and the girl has been a bully for all ten of them. Did she even stop when there is a psycho out there taking advantage of negative emotions? No, she did not. All for one simple reason. She. Does. Not. Care."
The class was thinking the same thing. That when Lyon gets icy, he really gets icy. It was one thing when Marinette and Alya would stand up to her, but Lyon took the cake when it came to verbal beatdowns. Vallia was not kidding.
"Do any of us even need to bring up the fire alarm incident," Lena crossed her arms.
That got groans out of everyone, even Lyon and Vallia. When Chloe had been the only one not to be punished that day, Mason and Apollo had to basically force Lyon to be cleaning on the second floor so that he would not shoot the brat with an arrow.
The Greeks were half-tempted to allow him. Especially since it was obvious to everyone that she had been the one to make the false call in the first place yet only got out of the punishment because her father is the mayor. The Greeks were sure that anything he does to make his daughter happy and so unpunishable would be considered an abuse of power if anyone bothered to look.
"Has any teacher ever tried to actually punish her," Mason asked.
"Actually punish Chloe," Alix snorted. "It is more likely for Ladybug and Cat Noir to willingly surrender to Hawkbutt than for Chloe to ever be punished."
"I think most of us see akumas going after her as the punishments that she deserves," Alya said. "I certainly went after her when I was Lady Wifi from what Marinette told me."
"When I saw her being chased by a giant hairdryer, I thought that my birthday and Christmas had somehow both had been happening at that moment," Marinette giggled.
"I may have been the Evillustrator, doing that, but you're welcome anyway," Nathaniel said.
"When Sabrina was tormenting Chloe as Vanisher, that was certainly some karma coming back to haunt her," Ivan commented.
"From what Ali had told me, I managed to make her pretty repulsive when I was Princess Fragrance," Rose added.
"I would have paid so much money to see that," Kim laughed. "Especially after she posted that humiliating picture of me that got me akumatized as Dark Cupid."
"I wish I could have remembered Chloe's face when I made her look like me when I was Reflekta," Juleka said.
Each of the students that had been akumatized by the brat all shared their own similar thoughts. That they all wished that they could remember getting her back while they were villains, even if they didn't want to remember anything else.
"Hold it," Lena halted the class, silencing them. "How many of these akumanizations happened while on school grounds?"
Alya, Ivan, Juleka, Nathaniel, and Mylene all raised their hands. All of their torments by Chloe had happened at school, only Mylene's happening after hours though.
"So even with all of you being akumatized because of her bullying or abusing her father's mayoral status, no one in this school did a thing," Mason clenched his fists.
The silence was very telling.
"Unbelievable," Vallia pinched the bridge of her nose. "If anyone behaved like that at our school back home, they'd be expelled faster than you could say Olympus."
"Athena is most ashamed of them," Lyon says. "She is not the goddess of wisdom for nothing."
"It is not like we can do anything about it," Max wiped his glasses. "After ten years of Chloe getting away with her behavior and attitude, the odds of her changing or the school staff doing anything about her is about a quarter of a billion to one."
"Leaving the math to Max, I do still agree with him," Marinette said. "Chloe has always been like this and the teachers have always allowed it. They think that just because her mom left her and her father that she gets to act as horrible as she does with no risk of punishment or any sort of consequence."
"Why not do something about it," Lena asks. "Force a much-needed change."
"What could we do," Alya did not have a plan for once. "They never listen to us and we're just a bunch of teenagers."
"The best thing about being teenagers is that we grew up during this time," Apollo says. "So that means we know what needs to be fixed. The reason why those our age do better than their predecessors is that we have seen the problems they never bothered to fix because they are so set in their ways."
"There is a reason why people say that children are our future," Mason smirked. "That isn't some insane prediction that children will one day rebel and take over the world, you know."
"We... uh... we could all demand to be transferred to another class," Adrien suggested. "Like Ms.Mendeleiev's or something?"
"Would that even work," Mylene wondered out loud.
"If anything, so many students wanting out of the same class at the same time for the same reason should raise some red flags," Lyon stated. "Does this school have a Board of Directors or not?"
Marinette actually had a better idea. She pulled out her phone. There was a look on her face that even Alya was a little scared of.
Fate chose that moment for lunch to come to an end. The bell rang for everyone to pack up and get back to their classes. Lena, Mason, and Apollo gave the class a look.
"Don't let adults make you think you have no power," Apollo advised. "Everyone has the right to stand up to a bully and to those that won't punish her."
With that, the three of them left, joining Kagami, Marc, and Ondine on their way back to class. Aurore and Mirelle were waiting for them at the top of the stairs.
"You, Greeks, don't hold back, do you," Alya rhetorically says.
"Alya," Marinette scolded.
"Just be happy that none of us are from Sparta," Lyon stated.
"So, what do you guys think," Alix asks them all. "Class or principal's office?"
They all got up as they put their things back in their bags. They were all looking between the two rooms.
"Now or never, right, dudes," Nino said.
"I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we have had enough of Chloe Bourgeois to last all of our lifetimes," Marinette says.
The rest of the class did nothing but nod in agreement.
*****
"You all want to WHAT," Principle Damocles yelled.
"Did you not hear us," Vallia crossed her arms. "We want to transfer out of Ms.Bustier's class."
Vallia proved that Gardens did not hold back even when dealing with authority figures. It was a bit of a shock that it was the Flower Princess saying things like that and not her Ice Prince of a twin brother. Not that Lyon's silence and ice-cold stare was anything less scary. If anything, it only terrified them more.
Ms.Bustier had also been called in when what they wanted had been made perfectly clear. Chloe and Sabrina were behind her, as the teachers did not want to leave the two students alone in the classroom.
"A...All of you," Damocles stuttered, the students nodding. "It...It isn't possible. There isn't enough room in the other classes for all of you, even separated."
"Then make room," Lyon stated as if it was that simple.
"Why would all of you even want to leave," Ms.Bustier asked.
Their teacher, soon to be former-teacher, did look hurt. The students felt guilty over being the cause of her feelings being hurt, but it was also her own fault for never punishing Chloe.
"I think it's quite obvious," Marinette says. "We want to be as far away from Chloe Bourgeois as possible. We are sick and tired of her bullying us and getting away with it."
The rest of the class all voiced their agreement with the bluenette. To say that the two adults were shocked would be one hell of an understatement.
"Just because you are all jealous that you aren't as rich or beautiful as me..." Chloe started.
"SHUT UP, CHLOE," they all yelled at her.
"You can't talk to me like that," Chloe took out her phone with a huff. "I'm calling Daddy to stop you all from being mean to me."
"Call him all you want, we don't care anymore," Nino yelled, shocking the class as he had never yelled at anyone before.
"You have been destroying our work, bullying, and insulting us for ten years and we are no longer just gonna lie down and take it," Nathaniel sternly stated.
"Destroying work," Damocles was confused.
"How have you not noticed," Marinette snapped. "What about last month when Chloe destroyed the children's book that Alya was working on about Ladybug so she could read it to her sisters. Or a few months ago when Chloe dumped all that red paint on a dress I was designing in the art room."
"Well..." Damocles tried, but Marinette was not done.
"What about last year when Chloe ripped apart one of Nathaniel's sketchbooks," Marinette continued her rant. "Or that same year when she stole, and then snapped, a CD that Nino made of his DJ music. Or two years ago when she stuck a bunch of Juleka's and Rose's pictures in a bucket of paint."
"When I first heard about her doing that, I started keeping all my spray paints in a locked box that's in my locker," Alix crossed her arms.
"Which I saw Chloe try and break into more than once but you refused to do anything about it even when I had pictures and videos of her doing it," Kim glared at the authority figures.
"She tried what," Alix yelled. "And you didn't tell me!"
"Hey, even with proof, they didn't punish the brat," Kim responded. "You punching her would not have helped, even though she would have deserved it."
"Chloe would NOT have deserved it," Sabrina defended her 'friend.'
"She would have deserved that and so much more," Alya glared at the minion. "The rest of us see akumas going after her as karma coming to bite her in the butt."
"She's worse than Hawkmoth," Alix said for the second time in two days.
"She's caused so many akumas that you can almost call her Hawkmoth's sidekick," Ivan says.
"The fact that no one in this school seems to care about her victims speaks volumes about the staff," Lyon said. "There were a lot of spoiled brats back home, but at least our teachers and headmaster punished them when the punishment was deserved."
"After all this, Chloe should have been expelled a long time ago," Vallia put a hand on her hip. "Just because her victims don't remember what got them akumatized doesn't mean that the act did not happen at all."
"She even affects what other people think about those that hang around her," Adrien finally spoke up.
"Adrikins..." Chloe tried.
"No, you are not going to steamroll me this time, Chloe," Adrien actually glared at her. "I spent so much time defending you to everyone, but you just used that to hang off me no matter how clear it was that it made me uncomfortable. People already had bad opinions about me before they even met me because you were my childhood friend. They thought I'd be like you. Marinette did when she saw me messing with that gum on our first day of school."
The mentioned bluenette blushed, remembering that she did think he was a spoiled brat like Chloe when she saw that.
"Sorry about that," she said quietly.
"No need to apologize, Mari," Adrien says. "But that doesn't mean Chloe's attitude did not almost keep me from gaining friends. I've tried to get her to change for years, but she seems to only get worse. Every day she bullies, insults, and torments everyone around her and all we get told is that we need to be the bigger person or that there is nothing you can do. There is EVERYTHING you can do. Give her detention, lower her grades when she forces other people to do her work, scold her when she insults someone, act like you are TEACHERS!"
By the end of Adrien's rant, everyone was staring at him like he had suddenly grown two more heads. This was Adrien Agreste, who people have called the Sunshine of Paris. He hasn't talked to anyone like that since... he's never talked to anyone like that.
"What Chloe does to Adrien can basically be considered harassment," Lyon said. "I had a girl once try what Chloe is doing to Adrien. One phone call later and she was slapped with both a lawsuit for harassment and a restraining order before she could say Olympus."
"The look on her face when our lawyer handed her those papers was worth more than an entire family's jewel collection," Vallia giggled.
"Maybe not worth that much," Lyon says, making his sister roll her eyes.
"The point is, we are putting our feet down," Kim said. "If you won't punish Chloe, then we don't want to be in the same class as her."
"She has already been the cause of all our akumazations, other than myself and Nino's," Max pushed up his glasses. "Taking in my calculations of Marinette, Adrien, Lyon, and Vallia never being akumatized, the result of Chloe being the cause of any of us being akumatized again is roughly ninety-nine point nine-nine percent."
"How does he do that without a calculator," Vallia whispered to Rose. "Or a supercomputer?"
"We have no idea," the sweet blond whispered back.
"Have I ever mentioned I hate math," Vallia shook her head. "I'll always prefer geology to geography."
"You just need to forgive Chloe," Ms.Bustier tries. "Set an example for her to follow."
"I can let the anger go but I will never forgive Chloé Bourgeois," Marinette said. "We shouldn't be held accountable for the stuff Chloé pulls because we have to be good role models. You've only been our teacher for four years but Chloé and I have been together for ten years. She's been like this for a decade and nothing has ever changed."
"It's because of people like you," Adrien says. "Adults like you who look at Chloé and think her mother leaving her is enough of an excuse to act like a horrible person. You're better than the people who just want to be on her dad's good side, but not by much. You keep giving her second chances when she's already gotten long past the point of no return. You're enabling her behavior instead of punishing her even when she's been bullying everyone for years. Even I know that and I only started public school this year."
"Now, I wouldn't say bullying," Mme. Bustier says, trying for a smile. "That's a bit too far."
"She's been the biggest bully in the entire school," Alya says, arms folded, eyes firm. "We told you how she destroyed Nathaniel, Juleka, Nino, Marinette's, and my work several times. She's vandalized everyone's work. She's insulted and personally attacked every person in class too many times to count. There's always evidence and several witnesses every single time."
"But what have you done? Nothing," Nino took his turn to rant. "You've never once stepped in because you coddle her and think she'll eventually change even though she's proven she is never going to change. And do you want to know why? Because of stuff like this. Chloé vandalized the purse Marinette made you out of pure spite yet you had the nerve to try and give her credit for it."
"You want us to fix Chloé when you should be doing that yourself," Marinette took the baton. "Instead of doing something a responsible teacher would. Like, suggest a counselor work with her, talk to her dad, or give detentions when she acts like a horrible person. You throw the people who care and respect you under the bus. Beyond preaching about love and trust, you do nothing to help us deal with Chloe. Chloe doesn't respect anyone but herself."
"The akuma that turned you into Zombizou was only even here because it was most likely going after Marinette," Lyon was not happy when he figured that out. "We can add nearly getting the human embodiment of a cinnamon bun akumatized to her already very long list of bad things she's done."
"We are the victims of Chloé Bourgeois's bullying and you expect us to understand and excuse her behavior when she hurts us," Marinette continued. "But you will never think about it from our perspective and never when this is reversed. We're sorry, Ms.Bustier, but we don't want to be a part of a class with a teacher who has no respect for us and continues to let a bully hurt every single one of us."
Silence washed over the room after they were all finished. They were all just so done with the brat of Paris.
"Now that you have all gotten that off your chests, I find that it is time you all go back to class," Damocles tells them.
There were about five seconds of silence for the students to process what their principal tried to just make them do. They were about to blow their tops and start yelling and saying that he had lost his mind if he thought that just because they said all that means that they want to get away from Chloe any less than before.
But Marinette's mother, Sabine, came walking in. The look on her face and the way she simply sat down in the visitor's chair like she was supposed to be there in the first place was a little terrifying.
"You, kids, should go and wait in Ms.Bustier's classroom," she told them in a sweet voice that brought chills down their spines. "Your principal, teacher, and I have much to discuss."
They did as she said, everyone quickly leaving the office.
Seeing her mother like that made Marinette remember a time a few years ago when she was told about the Chinese zodiac. Her mother had told her that she, herself, had been born in the years of the tiger. Marinette never truly believed that until now.
"Marinette, your mother is awesome," Alya cheered. "How did she even know to come?"
"At that exact moment, too," Nino says. "That was perfect timing if I have ever seen it."
Marinette smirked as she held up her phone, which she had brought out earlier.
"My parents were listening the entire time we were in there," she snickered. "I figured that Principal Damocles wouldn't listen to us, so I brought out the big guns."
"After seeing your mother's wicked skills with a baking slab during that one time someone tried to break into the bakery last month, I do not doubt that," Vallia giggled.
Marinette slightly shivered as she remembered the beatdown that her mother delivered against a man that tried to rob their bakery. He had arrived just after closing time after nearly a week straight of having a line out the door after the debut of Marinette's Ladybug and Cat Noir baked goods line.
The robber thought that after such a long time of good days, they would have a lot of money lying around. While they did, he had no idea of her mother's past of being very well trained in the martial arts. She grabbed the nearest thing to her, a baking slab used mostly by pizza makers to put pizzas in their ovens, and he was a bloody mess on the floor by the time the cops came.
When Marinette put her phone away, the rest of the class seemed to catch on to her actions and decided to add their own pressure on the principal.
Alya whipped out her phone with a speed that only all of her blogging would have given her. Mylene was very theatrical with her phone call, doing a lot of talking with her hands as her arms waved around as she spoke. Rose and Nino were also quite enthusiastic with their phone calls, not that anything less was expected of them. Ivan, Juleka, Nathaniel, and Max were a lot quieter when they made their calls. Kim and Alix, of course, were basically yelling into their phones.
When Marinette looked at the twins and Adrien, their phones were not out. It made sense with the twins, having told them that their dad, who came with them, did not speak any French. He was usually very confused whenever they went grocery shopping and one of the twins always had to come with him as a translator. With Adrien, with his very absentee father and non-family bodyguard and assistant/manager, he had no one to call for something like this.
"If you want, I could drag your father here by his hair," Lyon says to the blond. "Or threaten him with an arrow to get him here."
"Lyon, as much as I would appreciate that, both of those things are illegal," Adrien sighed, but Marinette could tell that he was tempted.
"Hasn't stopped me from threatening Chloe with my bow before," the Greek boy smirked. "And that was only when I had a very long breadstick notched in it, not even an actual arrow."
"As the daughter of a baker, I can tell you just how dangerous a stale piece of bread is," Marinette giggled.
One by one, other parents and guardians of their classmates came running or walking into the school.
Otis and Marlena Césaire were the first ones there. Otis was too angry to greet the kids, but Marlena happily gave her daughter a basket of food to give out before both parents vanished behind closed doors. Fred Haprèle, easily recognized from his movie roles, tipped his signature hat to the class before entering the office. Claudie Kanté was next to arrive, giving her son a hug before vanishing behind closed doors. Mr. Kubdel arrived with Jalil, both men looking angry as they passed the class, but Alix was given a thumbs up from her brother.
Mr.LêChiến, a military man, was very intimidating as he walked by after giving his son a pat on the back. It was very easy to see where Kim got his strength from. The same could be said for Ivan as Mr. and Mrs.Bruel greeted their son, as both parents could be compared to WWE superstars. Rose's mother, a keen gardener, was as bubbly and kind-looking as her daughter and it was easy to see where Rose got her love of pink from. Mrs.Lahiff did some motherly things to her son after she arrived, also telling Marinette and Alya that they were welcome anytime before she too went into the office.
Madam Kurtzberg, Nathaniel's grandmother, was last to arrive with Captain Couffaine. Luka, having come with his and Juleka's mom, helped the elderly woman up the stairs.
"Rise and rebel, land lovers," Captain Couffaine cheered in the students as she passed them, making her two kids slightly embarrassed.
Luka just joined them in the classroom, sitting next to Marinette.
"All Juleka would say was to come to the school as quickly as possible and to not allow mom to bring her sword," he said.
"If I was Juleka, I would have let her bring her sword," Vallia snickered.
"Considering that I've seen you use your bo staff against an akuma, I can see why you would," Adrien said.
"You two have slight violent tendencies, don't you," Alya asks, only getting shrugs in response.