CHAPTER 3

After Rose said those magic words, the rest of the class exchanged confused and somewhat angry looks among each other.

"Did Marinette say something to you guys?" Mylene asked worried that her boyfriend and two of her friends got caught in Marinette's "insanity."

"No, it wasn't Marinette," Luka said finally stepping in and the others turned to look at him. "I actually pointed that out to those three last night."

"But you have feelings for Marinette, Luka. Are you sure you're not being biased here?" Alya asked skeptically.

"He didn't even know about Marinette when he told us that one of Lila's stories couldn't possibly be true," Juleka said defending her brother.

"Which one, dude?" Nino asked very curious along with the rest.

"That Lila got tinnitus from saving Jagged Stone's cat from a jet engine on an airport runway. And then her tinnitus was completely fixed by Ladybug's miraculous cure?" Luka said in a somewhat snarky way.

"How is that not true?" Mylene asked still trying not to believe that Lila has been lying.

"I'm a huge fan of Jagged Stone. I pretty much know everything about him. And he has NEVER mentioned having a pet cat. Only a crocodile named Fang. And he's allergic to fur. A simple Google search could easily tell you that," Luka continued. "Plus I know someone who actually has tinnitus and he told me it's incurable. While there are things a person can do to not make tinnitus a burden in their lives, it doesn't completely go away. Not to mention Ladybug only fixes everything caused by an akuma attack, yet the tinnitus was not caused by an akuma," he finished in which everyone else finally was giving it more serious thought.

"I searched that online after he pointed that out," Juleka said once again in Luka's defense. "So far, everything he said about Jagged is true and there is not one scrap of evidence that proves Lila's story."

"And think about it. Who among all of us would know Jagged Stone besides Lila?" Ivan asked rhetorically.

"That's right. Marinette did design his new album cover and he did a TV segment at her parents' bakery. Wouldn't she know whether he had a cat or not?" Alya said finally realizing this to which the others agreed.

"After Luka has pointed the Jagged Stone thing out, we decided to do some investigating. And you know how Lila has always mentioned meeting Prince Ali a bunch of times? Well, I finally remembered I know Prince Ali. So, I called him and mentioned Lila's name along with a picture of her, and he told me that he has never seen nor heard of her in his life," Rose continued with their findings.

"And that means Lila couldn't possibly be in Achu the time she was gone," Ivan concluded. Their classmates finally wrapped their heads around the evidence shown to them by Kitty Section and are starting to get suspicious.

"Okay, we're starting to get that, dudes," Nino finally said after a couple minutes.

"So, we understand Marinette's beef with Lila. But what does Lila have against Marinette? I mean, she is the one who got Marinette expelled, remember?" Kim said remembering that weird day.

"I didn't really believe Marinette have done those things that got her expelled, but I didn't want to choose between her and Lila at that time. But, after what you guys said about Lila, I think it's about time we should talk about that," Mylene suggested while holding Ivan's hand.

"I think it's time we finally hear Marinette out. We've known her for years and she has done so much for us. We sort of owe her," Ivan said and the others agreed, remembering all the stuff Marinette has done for them in the past.

"I'm texting her right now," Alya said as she furiously texted Marinette. After a couple minutes, Alya got a reply from Marinette confirming she's on her way now and will be there soon. After about 10 minutes, Marinette has finally arrived.

"Oh, you're all here?" Marinette said shocked that almost her entire class is here.

"Yeah, well except for Chloe. She wouldn't come here," Alya said and Marinette nodded in understanding knowing how Chloe is. "And Adrien. Too busy. But we'll tell him soon."

"So, what's this all about?" Marinette asked nervously.

"It's about Lila, girl," Alya answered which darkened her best friend's mood a little.

"Unless it's something bad about me, I really don't want to hear it," Marinette said firmly but gently with a frown, thinking she's gonna hear more of Lila's wild lies.

"Look, Marinette. We're sorry. We finally thought about Lila and her amazing stories, and we all agree that some things don't add up. So, we're finally giving you a chance to hear your side of the feud between you and Lila. So, you have all of our undivided attention and no judgement from any of us, right guys?" Alya explained and the others nodded.

After a couple minutes of hesitation, Marinette took a deep breath and finally have the courage to tell the entire story between her and Lila.

"Okay, it all started when Lila first came to our school," Marinette started her story. "I heard all of you guys talking about Lila and I did believe those stories at first. But when Alya told me about Lila becoming close friends with Ladybug after saving her life, I was skeptical. Because as most superhero fans would know, superheroes wouldn't be close friends with civilians. Sure, they can have close friends in their civilian lives, but not their superhero lives. That'd be very dangerous. So after the Ladybug story and seeing her hitting on Adrien, I have to admit I was jealous, so I decided to spy on them both. I know spying is wrong and it's not my proudest moment, but I couldn't help it. So anyway, I saw them both at the library doing homework together. You guys remember when Adrien got pulled out of school for losing a book that belonged to his father?" Marinette asked and everyone else nodded as they remembered that. "Adrien had that book with him. It was a book filled with pictures of superheroes including Ladybug and Cat Noir. Lila took an interest in it and when she turned to the picture of Ladybug, Adrien was gushing about how amazing she is. That's when Lila told him about her being close friends with Ladybug and invited him to the park to discuss it with him further. I saw her make him drop his bag, therefore dropping the book. She then stole the book from Adrien with her foot without him noticing. So, not only is Lila a liar, she's also a thief." Marinette recounted leaving all the others shocked.

"Why would she steal a superhero picture book?" Nathaniel asked very curious on what Lila can possibly gain by stealing something like that.

"Let's just say she used it as inspiration to make up another lie to tell Adrien to make herself even more impressive," Marinette said bitterly leaving the others still shocked and intrigued. "After I saw her steal Adrien's book, I began following her to see what she is up to. Before she made her way to the park, she was in a jewelry store and had this fox-tail necklace…"

"Like Rena Rouge's miraculous?" Alya asked as she is secretly Rena Rouge herself.

"Exactly like it. So, I followed Lila to the park and when Adrien finally arrived, she quickly dumped his superhero book in the trash. And with the fox-tail necklace she got, she tried to convince Adrien that she is a descendant of the fox super heroine, Volpina, and that the necklace is the actual miraculous passed down from her grandmother," Marinette started talking about the park incident.

"Volpina? Wasn't that her first akumatized form?" Mylene asked.

"Yeah," Marinette confirmed.

"So, did you bust her? Did you cause her to get akumatized? Is that why she hates you?" Rose asked very quickly.

"No, it wasn't me," Marinette said half-lying as she did get Lila akumatized but that was as Ladybug, so she couldn't tell them that. "Let me explain. So on top of telling Adrien that she is the descendant of Volpina, Lila said that her superhero ancestor was more powerful and celebrated than Ladybug. In fact, she said and I quote, "Ladybug doesn't even make the top ten!" Lying to Adrien and dissing her supposedly close friend who is one of the best superheroes we've ever had, I couldn't take it anymore and was about to bite her head off, but Ladybug showed up and kinda beat me to it."

"Ladybug was there?! Seriously?!" Alya asked with excitement that Nino had to calm her down a bit.

"Yeah, she showed up out of the blue and harshly told Lila off for lying about her to impress Adrien and everyone else around her, causing Lila to run off in tears. So, Ladybug was the one who got her akumatized as Volpina, but I don't blame her, you know? Lila shouldn't have lied about her in the first place," Marinette ended the story of her first encounter with Lila to which everyone agreed with that last statement.

Marinette's story is to be continued in the next couple chapters as I want it to be as detailed as possible…