t a l k s

The shrill sound of the bell rang in the students' ears. After that episode in class, Ms. Bustier opted to give the students study hall time.

As the students gathered their things and left, she finally decided to speak. "Marinette, can I talk to you for a second?" Her voice had a bit of a bitter and harsh tone to it. Marinette slightly flinched.

"Maybe I shouldn't have done that after all." she whispered to Chloe.

Chloe's eyes softened at Marinette. She put on a smile. "Don't worry, I'll wait for you out in the hall." Marinette smiled and nodded, graciously. Both girls walked to the front together, but after a few seconds, only Marinette and Ms. Bustier stood in the classroom.

"You said you wanted to talk to me Ms. Bustier?" Marinette questioned.

Ms. Bustier nodded. "Yes, it's about your behavior today." She paused. "And also about your friends." Marinette stilled. "I asked you to be the class's example! Being the class's example does not mean you can do whatever you want! Have you thought about everyone's' feelings?! When you move out of this school, how am I supposed to control this class? You're being incredibly selfish Marinette! Insulting Lila and enraging the class isn't what a class example does!" Ms. Bustier scolded, her voice getting higher with each sentence until the point where she was yelling. After that, she stood there panting.

Marinette stood still. "I didn't ask to be the class example." she stated simply. "Huh?" Ms. Bustier looked up. "When have I majorly disrupted class other than today?" Marinette paused, looking Ms. Bustier in the eye. "Why do I have to care about everyone's feelings when they don't care about my own?" Another pause. "When I leave, you asked me how you're supposed to control this class. By being a teacher, a good example. You say I'm the one being selfish when you're the one who's trying to put the burden on me just because you aren't good at your job! Sure, me leaving this school is selfish, but I'm leaving this school so that there won't be any more negativity here!" Marinette paused one last time and took a deep breath. "Besides, who would want to stay with traitors as classmates and with liars as teachers?" She gave Ms. Bustier a cold stare as she made her way to leave.

"Liar? How dare you! I'm no liar!" Ms. Bustier exclaimed, grabbing Marinette's wrist. "I'll find a way to stop you from leaving. Then you'll see who the real liar is when you see what a great teacher I am!"

Marinette froze at the pressure on her wrist. Then smiled. "There are cameras in here, did you forget?" Ms. Bustier's eyes widened. Marinette turned around. "I can't do anything if you stop me, but if you do, I will demand Mr. Damocles to see the footage in the classroom today. What you did here was verbally and physically attack me. I'm sure you won't have your job hereafter that is shown." Marinette smiled, and a cold feeling of dread made its way to Ms. Bustier's spine. She let go of Marinette's wrist.

"Also, Ms. Bustier, you dropped something." Marinette bent down to pick something up. She placed the objects in Ms. Bustier's hand and whispered in her ear "Now who's the real liar?" and then made her leave.

Ms. Bustier stood alone in the classroom in shock. She looked down into her hand, only to see the two slips of paper from the compliment task in the morning. They had Ivan and Max's names on them.

Marinette let out a deep breath as she walked out of the class. She turned and was surprised the see Chloe leaning next to the door.

"Did you hear?" Marinette asked.

Chloe nodded. "I would've come in and helped you, but right from the start, I knew you had it handled."

Marinette smiled. "Hey, want to come to the bakery for some lunch?"

Chloe's face stilled. Then it broke out into the happiest looking grin ever. "I've always wanted to be invited by you." she murmured to herself. Then she nodded to Marinette. "Sure, that sounds great."

As Chloe started walking, Marinette stood at the same spot for a few seconds. Chloe turned and paused, "Come on."

Marinette shook herself out of her daze and nodded. She caught up to Chloe and both girls started making their way to the bakery. Marinette glanced at Chloe, then softly smiled. One of the perks of being a superhero was that you had super hearing.

When Chloe first stepped into the bakery, Marinette's parents were like angry hens. But after Marinette explained the situation, her parents skeptically nodded in understanding. They were still skeptical of the girl however, after all, she had bullied their daughter for years. However, they did treat Chloe civilly with a bit of cold kindness by allowing her to eat the bakery's goods.

"I think your parents don't like me." Chloe whispered to Marinette. Both of the said parents wouldn't let the girls in any room alone together.

"Nah. I think they are just being a bit cautious because of your... a-hem, not so good past." Marinette said, as kindly as possible.

Chloe flinched. "About that..."

Before she could finish, loud rumbles began to shake the floor. The rumbles were shakier and louder than ones that would occur in normal earthquakes.

"Akuma." Both girls realized at the same time.

Before anyone could stop her, Marinette ran out of the bakery to transform.

"Marinette!" Her parents and Chloe cried, but couldn't move due to the shakiness of the ground. Strangely, much in typical Akuma fashion, none of the buildings were breaking or falling down.

Marinette hid behind the edge of a building. "Tikki are you ready?" Marinette asked.

"Yup, let's go save Paris!" Tikki replied.

Marinette smiled. "Tikki, spots on!"

The familiar fuzzy feeling washed over Marinette as she felt herself transform.

After her transformation, Ladybug called Cat Noir, whose signal had shown up at the place where the Akuma was.

Cat Noir picked up just as she had started swinging from building to building.

"Hello, M'lady!" Cat Noir said.

"Hey there, kitty! I'm on my way. Mind filling me in?" She replied.

"Sure. Anything for you Bugaboo." Ladybug frowned at the nickname.

Apparently, Aurore Beauréal had gotten akumatized into Stormy Weather once more.

As she arrived at the scene, Ladybug could see that Stormy Weather was as powerful as her second akumatization.

When Stormy Weather saw her, she smiled. She started blasting snowstorms at Ladybug.

"Uh Oh. Looks like shes spotted you, M'lady." Cat Noir laughed at his own pun. He had just landed right next to the spotted heroine.

"Not the time Cat." Ladybug said. Both started dodging the freezing snowstorms. As they ran around Paris dodging, they didn't realize that a huge snowstorm had overtaken the city.

When Ladybug finally realized, she called to Cat Noir. "Kitty, we have to end this! She's freezing the entire city!" Cat Noir nodded. They both stopped running and attacked Stormy Weather at the same time.

While Chat Noir fought Stormy Weather sword on sword, or umbrella on staff, Ladybug came up behind her and grabbed her umbrella.

Realizing this, Stormy Weather was livid. "Not this time!" She yelled as she sent a huge blast of the storm in both heroes' directions.

"M'lady" Cat Noir called as he and Ladybug tried reaching for each other.

Stormy Weather seeing this, sent a larger blast that made both heroes' ears ring and fingers go numb.

"Cat Noir!" Ladybug called as she blacked out.

When she came to, all she could feel was pain. The pain was so excruciating that it made her numb. Was she getting frostbitten? Was Cat Noir okay? How long had she been here?

The thick layer of snow that covered her seemed to answer her.

Hours.

Her head pounded painfully, but she also felt light-headed at the same time.

She was going to die.

Time began to slow as Ladybug reflected on her life.

She had stopped feeling pain an hour ago, only to become numb. Her eyes were closed, and frozen tears were on her cheeks.

She didn't want to die. She realized how selfish she had been this entire time.

Ladybug had stopped wanting to save Paris because a liar was making Marinette miserable.

Ladybug was fine, but Marinette was not. They were not the same. Ladybug was everything Marinette was not. And she had lost sight of what was important to her.

How would Cat Noir react when he found out she had died? She hoped he would be capable enough to protect Paris on his own.

What about Marinette's parents?

And Chloe?

Nino?

Alya?

Adrien?

She felt her heartbeat for one painful second. She couldn't deny it, she still had lingering feelings for the boy. Even if he had ignored Marinette for the past few months, she still had hope in her heart that things would return back to normal.

She wanted to see her friends smile at her again.

Marinette wanted Adrien to smile at her again.

Ladybug realized how hopeless she was. She and Marinette were different, not the same.

The people of Paris' reaction told both girls so.

Ladybug outshined Marinette in every way; she wasn't neglected by her classmates and the boy she loved.

She wasn't taken down by a liar.

Marinette was.

What Ladybug did realize in her final moments was that she and Marinette wished for the same thing.

Adrien...