Work Text:
Cerise was loved by no one.
She came from a not so wealthy family. Constant business trips forced little Cerise to take care of herself. Despite her "aspiration" being a stay at home Mum, her Mother never seemed to have a minute to spare with her. She saw her child as a burden, never a blessing. In raw, she never cared about Cerise.
School was similar and never-changing like her home life. The constant teasing of her fellow classmates was never resolved. Little Cerise didn't know why she was bullied, but she knew she hated everyone and everyone hated her. She hated her life, she hated her family, she hated herself.
That's why at the young age of twelve, she fled her hometown in Italy, and landed herself in France.
Despite her young age and reputation, she'd always been smart, so finding her way of life in the big city of Paris was seemingly not so hard for little Cerise. And with this new country, she adopted a new identity. Lila Rossi, leaving little Cerise overshadowed.
She'd found a Mother: Miss Rossi, snaking her way in to her life pretending to be her daughter who'd gone missing six previous years before. Miss Rossi was overjoyed to be reunited with her "daughter", but Cerise decided to exploit her endless love and affection towards with gifts and homemade food. Eventually, Cerise grew tired of Miss Rossi, so she left, telling her "Mother" she had to go abroad.
With finding her second Mother, came a similar story, being her Mother's child who'd disappeared at birth. Once again, Lila was showered with love and affection from her "long lost Mother", and then there was able to pretend she was abroad to everyone she knew in her life as Lila to built her reputation as a person with good ethics telling stories such as: "she was helping animals in Africa" or "feeding starving children", and everyone fell on their knees for her lies.
But there was one person in particular who knew from the start Lila wasn't the person she painted herself to be: Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was everything Cerise ever wanted to be. She had everything Cerise never had in her old life and she hated her for it. From her kindness, her popularity, her family: she wanted all of that,
and she intended to take all of it.
So she used everything lie that rolled from her tongue to make Marinette look like a bad person. Ultimately, her lies did nothing, her friends believing her vendetta against her came from her wanting to date her crush. However hard Lila tried, her efforts always seemed useless.
Yet, after she began working for Gabriel Agreste, everything seemed to turn around. He too hated Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and Lila intended to help him.
Lila started to take out Marinette's friends one by one, yet Gabriel Agreste's own son proving hardest to erase. Marinette had taken his heart and stood proudly against Lila with Marinette, but taking him down wasn't her main priority.
Cerise had also developed a hatred for Ladybug, and with this came the discovery of the Miraculous, magical jewels that granted powers to whoever wore them. He who obtained both the Miraculous of creation and the Miraculous of destruction could make a wish; Cerise set herself a new goal. After discovering Gabriel Agreste was Monarch, she aimed to snake her way into taking his Miraculous so she could Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous for her wish: her wish to take Marinette's life, and give her Cerise's.
It all seemed to easy, until she was fired by Gabriel. This only made her more determined to take his Miraculous.
And after he akumatized her, he unknowingly made it so much easier to take it.
But, the life of Lila came abruptly to a halt, after Marinette herself exposed Lila for everything.
Cerise then found her third Mother, now going by the name Iris. Despite her failures, Cerise knew her reign was near.
The finally fight between Monarch and Bugnoire was brutal, and Cerise watched all of it. With this, she learned Marinette herself was Ladybug; Everything was falling right into Cerise's open hands. She had watched Gabriel trick Marinette, watched him make his with. She had even previously watched as his Miraculous fell into the waters underneath the basement, and she got to it before Marinette could.
Cerise's life seemed to be looking even brighter than before. And with her new power, came a new confidence; her plan was soon to be in motion,
the reign of Chrysalis was about to begin.