EDIT: Now readable, sorry folks!

"Oh my god, would you just shut up?" Chloe's voice rang out in the classroom, effectively stopping all conversations.

Chloe's sights were set on Marinette, and soon the rest of the class' were as well. The girl was startled by the sudden attention. Her hands, still mid-gesture from the story she'd been telling Alya, clenched in the air. While she wasn't exactly surprised that she was being targeted (Chloe seemed to have a thing for taking out her frustration and pettiness on Marinette), it was completely out of the blue and unwarranted. Chloe crossed her arms, looking down her nose with her mouth twisted in something a bit like disgust.

"Sorry but," Marinette dropped her hands, expression turning stony, "I wasn't talking to you."

Chloe flapped a perfectly manicured hand. "Does it matter? You were annoying me. Besides, nobody cares about your stupid little designs."

"Uh, I do." Alya leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at the other girl.

"Pff." She gave an indelicate snort, glancing up and down at Alya's outfit. "That's not saying much."

Alya was almost out of her seat, but stopped when Marinette rested a hand on her arm. She threw her friend a look that clearly said 'let me tear this girl apart'. Marinette was tempted to let her go, knowing it was more than passed time for Chloe to get a taste of her own medicine. Instead she merely shook her head and gave Alya's arm a reassuring squeeze.

"She's not worth it." Marinette told her, trying to sound more at ease than she really was.

Unable to argue with that, Alya sat back down.

"Who here really isn't worth it?" Chloe started up again, her voice suspiciously innocent. "It's funny to me that everyone here has parents who matter, you know? Adrien's dad is a famous designer, Sabrina's is a police officer. Alix's family has been in the museum business for decades, and even Alya's mom is a chef."

Marinette didn't like where this was going one bit, or how Chloe spit Alya's name like it was an insult.

"But, your family does, what exactly?"

"We own a bakery-" Marinette didn't really want to rise to the bait, but Chloe was insinuating something about her family, and she couldn't let that slide.

"That's right, a dinky little bakery that is sure to be out of business before you're out of high school." Chloe flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "Pretty pathetic if you ask me."

"Look Chloe, I don't care what you say about me, but don't bring my family into this-" Marinette tried, only to be interrupted once more.

"Did I say you could talk?" Chloe threw back and Marinette felt herself flush red with rage. "The only one here who isn't worth anything here is you. You don't deserve to be here. You don't even deserve to speak."

"What-"

"Bah!" Chloe interrupted, loudly.

"But I just-"

"Bah dah duh!" She was miming talking with her hand.

It was childish attempt to make Marinette angry, and she knew that, but she couldn't help feeling harassed. She was twitching in her seat and so, so red because everyone wasstaring at her and oh god Adrien was looking right at her. Her classmates all seemed surprised, even for Chloe this was unusually cruel, but no one was stepping in. At least, until-

"Chloe, what are you doing?" Adrien's voice was strained, like he'd wanted to jump in for a while. He turned his attention from Marinette to Chloe, which helped her relax. Just a little.

The girl smiled, a sickly sweet thing that made Marinette's stomach churn. "Proving a point. Don't act like you care about her Adrien. She's just a lowly baker who has a weird, stalkery crush on you."

Obviously, this information was news to Adrien, because he blinked slowly and turned to Marinette. She'd gone from red to deathly white in an instant. Marinette could feel Alya tensing beside her, her friend's hand reaching out to lightly touch her back. Now everyone was staring at her and Adrien and Adrien was still looking at her with that shocked expression and she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

"I-uh, that is to say..." Marinette desperately tried to save face, but her embarrassment was getting the better of her. She felt almost woozy, her shoulders hiking up around her ears.

"See? Can't even deny it, how pathetic." And there was that word again, Marinette felt herself shaking with anger and embarrassment.

"Chloe, seriously lay off." Adrien seemed to have recovered enough to turn back to Chloe, though his cheeks were tinted pink.

"I'm just protecting you! What if she tried something, huh? Forced herself on you or followed you home? I wouldn't be surprised, considering how her people are. I'm sure her oaf of a father bought her mother online or something, he seems the type."

Marinette was out of her chair and across the room faster than even she could process, her hand gripped tightly in Chloe's sequined shirt. She towered over the other girl, her face twisted into something beyond recognition. Her teeth were beared in a snarl and she was practically growling. Some small, conscious part of Marinette was alarmed, but most of her felt liberated as she stared down at Chloe's shocked (and scared?) expression.

"If you ever say something like that, about my family, again, I swear I will-" Marinette snarled, but was cut off when the teacher came through the door.

Chloe immediately turned on the waterworks, crying and clutching at her shirt in fake desperation. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Ms. Dupain-Cheng, what is the meaning of this?" Mme Mendeleiev demanded.

"I, I was..." Again, Marinette couldn't seem to put together the words, her anger melting away into white hot shame.

"Principal's office, now." Mme Mendeleiev stepped aside and pointed to the door.

Marinette slowly released Chloe's shirt and took a step back, trembling all over. Several students immediately came to her defense.

"Chloe was insulting her family!" Alya protested and a few others nodded.

"And egged her on." Alix added.

"Ms. Bourgeois will have to speak with the principal as well, but we never resort to violence in these situations. Dupain-Cheng, principal's office."

"Madame-" Marinette started, her voice shaking.

"Go."

Of course, Mme Mendeleiev didn't know that she'd done the very same thing that Chloe had been doing, but Marinette wasn't cognizant of that. It felt like she was being shut down again and she shook even harder. The anger and embarrassment was boiling under her skin and she could feel Tikki pushing against her leg through the purse, sensing the swirl of emotions in her chosen. But even the comforting gesture wasn't enough to calm Marinette down.

She groaned, loud and raspy and angry, and stormed out of the room, yanking the door as she went.

Adrien watched as Marinette let loose what could only be described as a roar, a shout of frustration, and stomped to the door. Marinette wrenched it open and slammed it shut with both hands, the door rattling violently in it's frame. The class was blown away by the outburst and by the tiny girl's strength, watching through the windows as she stormed down the halls.

"What a drama queen." Chloe had stopped crying and tossed her head.

"Oh, you're one to talk." Adrien threw back as he glared at her and she startled.

"What ever do you mean?"

Adrien was absolutely furious, the calm and polite mask he put up in public rapidly crumbling away. "Really Chloe? You basically called her mother a prostitute, her father a simpleton, and then shut her down whenever she tried to speak! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Mr. Agreste, language." Mme Mendeleiev warned.

"I don't care if you send me to the principal's office." Adrien spit before turning to face Chloe more fully. "What she did was sick and cruel. And the worst part is that none of you is going to do anything because she's the mayor's daughter and you're too scared of her to punish her. It's a fucking outrage."

There was a chorus of agreement, Nino yelling a 'hear hear' and Kim thumping his desk. It was rare to see anyone in the class stand up to Chloe, and Adrien had certainly never let himself do it before. Their "friendship" (really a beneficial partnership his father had crafted) was generally put above his own personal feelings about Chloe's behavior, but she'd pushed too far.

Mme Mendeleiev was obviously unprepared to deal with a class of rebelling students and decided to try to cut them off at the source. "Mr Agreste, I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you don't calm down."

"Then do it." It was delivered like a challenge, accompanied by the most dangerous expression the boy had ever given as himself, as Adrien.

She pointed to the door and Adrien stood without hesitation, already planning to find Marinette.

Marinette had marched her way straight to the bathroom, stepping inside and slumping against the sinks. Her head felt hot and strange, and she tried scrubbing her face with cold water. She was crying, she realized, and pounded on the sink.

"Damn it." Swearing, Marinette rubbed away the tears and stared at her red face in the mirror.

She didn't notice the black butterfly until it had settled on her purse.

"Silent Night." A low voice rumbled in her ear and Marinette stood up straight as a rod. "I will help you get justice if in return you bring me Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous."

"I-I can't." Marinette trembled with the effort to fight off the anger, the darkness of the akuma already seeping it's way up her sides.

"Oh? You are a fighter. Maybe you will be strong enough to actually finish the job."

She clenched her fists, distantly able to hear Tikki's pleas for her to push back. It was difficult, when all she could feel was the inky blackness crawling up her arms and down her legs. She fought, but it was so easy to let the darkness settle over her, consume her. Marinette gasped a breath before the black substance covered her head and she was drowning in rage.

AN: I'm just gonna post my notes from AO3 here, sorry about the rambling.

"First of all, this isn't really how I interpret Chloe? I kinda played up her awfulness for the sake of plot. With what we've seen of her interactions with Sabrina (*cough* the end of Anti-bug anyone? *cough*) she's not as terrible as she likes to pretend. But, like I said, I needed an antagonist and we've seen her be the cause of a lot of akumas, so it just makes sense. Also, she's the only one who doesn't seem to like Marinette. I am very firmly in the Everybody Loves Mari Club and Chloe is the only one who I can see doing something drastic enough to akumize her.

Second, I don't know if Chat and Ladybug can even be akumized? Like, they don't talk about it, but I assume they can? Something I have harder time believing is it happening in the suits, but in civilian form it seems totally possible.

And finally, I know it's February and no longer Holiday Season but Silent Night felt like the right way to go with Mari's name. I know a lot of people like giving her bug based names but this isn't Ladybug getting akumized, it's Marinette. That's where the title comes from too, obviously.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with this, I have another chapter and a half written, but I'm not expecting this to be very long. Also,the chapters will be around the same length or so, but all pretty short, for me at least. (I have another fic where I write 5k chapters every time and it's a /lot/). I also have a ton of other fics I need to work on (at least 3 jfc maz finish a fic before you start a new one gdi), as well as ideas for other Miraculous fics, so keep an eye out!"