Chapter 19: To lose in order to gain
Marinette sat in class with Alya as they waited for afternoon lessons to start, telling her about the performance at the theatre and the dance she was learning in class.
"Julie hasn't chosen the lead dancer yet, she's waiting to see how we all do with the basics of the dance first." Marinette told Alya.
"I bet you'll get it." Alya said confidently. "You're a great dancer."
They were then interrupted by a painfully familiar voice.
"Marinette? A great dancer?" Chloe said and then laughed obnoxiously. "She's so clumsy that she constantly trips over nothing. How in the world is she able to be a dancer in the first place?"
Marinette gave Chloe a bored look before turning back to Alya and continuing with their conversation as if Chloe hadn't interrupted.
"I know I am, but I work better in a group rather than standing out." Marinette said.
Chloe looked offended at being ignored.
"How can you work better in a group when you're probably tripping everyone else up with your clumsiness?" She butted in again, determined to get at Marinette.
"Yeah, yeah, sure." Marinette said absentmindedly as she batted a hand at Chloe, not even looking at the blond. "Anyway, there's some other dancers who are better and deserve the role more." She continued speaking to Alya.
Chloe was beginning to turn red in frustration at being ignored.
When Nathanael walked through the door with his sketchbook underarm, she decided to target him.
"Hey, tomato, draw anymore silly doodles of your pathetic crush." She said.
Nathanael just rolled his eyes in response and then walked over to Marinette.
"Hey, Marinette." He said. "I've just got the sheet music for your group."
"That's great." Marinette said. "Maybe we can practice together."
"Oh, really?" Nathanael blushed slightly.
"Sure. If you don't mind." Marinette answered.
Chloe was getting angry at being ignored again and grabbed Nathanael's sketchbook from his loose grip.
"What have you got here?" Chloe asked, opening the sketchbook to a random page.
"It's just for random doodles when I'm board in class or something else." Nathanael answered, not giving Chloe the reaction she had wanted. "You can keep it if you want, you probably need it more since Sabrina leaves you nothing to do in class."
Some of the class smirked at Nathanael's subtle dig at Chloe.
Chloe managed to keep herself composed enough to not scream in frustration, she then stomped back to her desk and dropped down on her seat next to Sabrina, slamming the sketchbook in front of her 'friend'.
"Here, you have it." Chloe said, not wanting to give the sketchbook back to Nathanael after she had been told she could keep it.
Despite it being a used sketchbook, Sabrina looked happy to be given it, leafing through the pages that had sketches on until she got to the blank pages.
Adrien then ran into the class, his heavy panting showing he had run a long way.
"Don't worry, dude, you're not late." Nino told his friend as Adrien sat down. "For once." He added jokingly.
"Ha, ha." Adrien breathlessly laughed sarcastically.
Adrien then noticed Nathanael standing nearby, talking to Marinette.
"Can we wait a week or two until I've had time to practice the music?" Nathanael suggested to Marinette. "I don't want to throw off your dancing by not even knowing the timing."
"Sure." Marinette agreed. "The performance is a while away, so we have time."
"What performance?" Adrien asked.
"A-Adrien?" Marinette jumped. "Well you see…uh-ah, I dance…and Nathanael plays…" She struggled with her words.
"What Marinette is trying to say," Alya said, coming to the rescue. "Is that her dance group is doing a performance at the theatre with the college orchestra providing the music."
"That's great, Marinette." Adrien said. "I'll try and come see it. When is it?"
Marinette whimpered out something that sounded like a date.
"A couple of months from now." Nathanael answered. "The leaflets with the information will probably be handed out in the college eventually."
"Okay." Adrien said.
The bell then rang and Nathanael went to his seat as Madam Bustier walked in.
"Today, you'll be working in pairs to make a presentation for tomorrow." Madam Bustier told her class. "You'll work with your desk partners. Nathanael, Lila and Ivan, you can work in a three."
Nathanael managed to hide his disappointment at being group with Lila, usually it was just him an Ivan when the class was paired by desks, but with Lila as his desk mate he now had to be paired with her, and if someone else joined the class then he wouldn't have Ivan to be in a three. Nathanael had managed to get over the whole thing with Lila turning into Volpina again and kidnapping him, stealing his sketchbook and beating up Renard Rouge, but he still felt uncomfortable around her. Lila was the type to ignore him unless she wanted something, at which point she'd turn sickeningly nice and stretch the truth to get what she wanted, she was like this with most of the class, constantly switching personalities depending on the person and what she wanted, the only person she remained constant with was Adrien.
"The theme will be past heroes." Madam Bustier said. "You will each pick a hero from the past, and it doesn't have to be a superhero, just someone who did great good, and do a presentation about their history and what they did and then present it to the class."
"Yes!" Alya exploded, being a superhero fan.
Marinette, Adrien and Nathanael also smiled, having met many previous heroes already.
"If you want some extra credit, you can do more than one hero, but try and tie them together with a theme." Madam Bustier continued, ignoring Alya's outburst.
Madam Bustier then handed out some tablets for the groups to look up heroes on.
"Look up if there are any past Paonnes or Ladybirds." Chloe instructed Sabrina.
"Yes, Chloe." Sabrina said.
"Well, that's that option out." Alya said, having heard what Chloe and Sabrina's subject would be. "Oh, well, plenty more heroes. Any suggestions?" She asked Marinette.
Marinette thought about the other heroes she had met at the gathering, and she focused on the ones that came before her specifically in Paris.
"How about we look up the Quantic team? I mean, the very first members from France." She suggested.
Alya quickly searched through the tablet until she found some newspaper stories about the heroes Marinette was talking about.
"These guys?" She asked.
Marinette nodded.
"Okay then." Alya agreed
"So, dude, who do you want to do about?" Nino asked as he skimmed through a list of heroes made by someone who was a fan of them.
"Silver Hunter." Adrien quickly said.
Adrien took the tablet from Nino and found his mother's hero form, showing it to his friend.
"Sure, I guess we can do this lady." Nino said, looking through the page Adrien had brought up.
Ivan was searching on his group's tablet, looking at heroes, while Nathanael searched his memory of heroes for who to focus on and Lila was strangely silent.
Nathanael wanted to do about a previous fox hero, Chloe had only said about doing past Peacocks and/or Ladybugs and given that the Cat and Ladybug Miraculouses were usually together, the Cat would probably also be included, so the other past Miraculous wielders were fair game, but with Lila in the group it probably wouldn't be wise to focus on those heroes, both with the Volpina stuff and it getting out that she'd told Adrien she was descended from a hero. Wisp or Void were also favourable choices, being the parents of his predecessor, put general knowledge on them was very small, so there wouldn't be much to put in a presentation without him providing facts he shouldn't know as a normal civilian.
"My grandma really was a hero once." Lila suddenly said quietly.
Nathanael and Ivan turned to look at her.
"At least, I think she was." Lila continued. "She used to tell me stories about being Volpina, the real Volpina, but as I grew up I eventually believed my parents when they said grandma was just telling silly stories. But when I moved here and saw for myself that heroes were real, I realised grandma had been telling the truth."
Nathanael couldn't help but feel sorry for Lila, even though part of him was telling him that Lila was being manipulative again.
"Do you want to do the project about her?" Nathanael offered.
"You mean it?" Lila brightened instantly.
"Ivan?" Nathanael asked the large boy.
"Wait a minute." Ivan said, scrolling rapidly through the tablet until he came across a page. "Yep, she's here." He held up a page about a hero called Volpina. "Just to check." He said, not wanting to offend Lila for not believing her.
"It's fine." Lila said, her happiness dropping slightly.
"Anyway, we have our hero." Nathanael said. "Where do you want to meet to work on the project?"
"How about the library?" Ivan suggested.
Nathanael and Lila nodded in agreement.
As classes for the day finished each of the groups told Madam Bustier what hero they were doing to make sure no one was doing the same hero before gathering what they had already researched and heading home.
"Have the research on the previous Ladybug and Chat Noir done by tomorrow." Chloe told Sabrina as she climbed into her Limo, leaving her 'friend' on the sidewalk.
Sabrina sighed and walked towards the library to use one of the computers for research.
In the library, Sabrina managed to find a spare computer and sat at it, logging on with her college ID. As she waited for the computer to log her on, she looked at the computer screen of the two girls next to her, displaying the history of a hero.
"Did you get an assignment about heroes too?" Sabrina found herself asking the girls.
"Yeah." One of the girls replied. "Casey wanted to do about a hero from England called Avantia, so we're doing about her."
Casey waved her hand but didn't look away from the information she was reading.
"Who are you doing?" The other girl asked.
"Chloe decided on the previous Ladybug and Chat Noir." Sabrina answered.
Casey looked away from her screen at the mention of two of the current heroes' predecessors.
"I suggest looking for a book called 'The cursed cat and the kiss of a lady', it's about those two." Casey suggested. "The information there is more reliable than online."
"Oh, thank you." Sabrina said.
Sabrina clicked onto the internet and searched for the book Casey had mentioned.
"So, are you doing one hero and your partner the other, or something." The other girl asked.
"Um, no." Sabrina answered. "I'm doing the work, and Chloe will be presenting it."
The two girls frowned.
"That seems very unfair." The other girl remarked.
"It's okay, it's how Chloe and I have done things since we met." Sabrina said. "I usually do her work, I'm her friend after all."
"'Usually do her work'? Does that mean you do all her work, like her homework?" The other girl asked.
"I hate to say it." Casey said. "But that doesn't sound like friendship, that sounds like being used."
"I really don't mind." Sabrina defended. "And Chloe gives me things."
"Like what?" The other girl asked.
"Well, she got me a pin, and she sometimes lets me borrow her clothes or CDs."
"And in return you do all her work and what she says?"
"Of course, Chloe's my friend."
"Yeah, and I thought Stacy was my friend." Casey snapped back.
"What?" Sabrina asked.
Casey sighed. "Look, I'm about to divulge something personal, but I'm telling you because I see you're in a similar situation."
The other girl put a hand on Casey's shoulder in comfort.
"A few years ago, I didn't have friends." Casey said. "And then I met Stacy, who wanted to be my friend, actively inviting me to hang out with her. And then she started expecting me to do things because we were 'friends', like always hang out with her even when I just wanted to be on my own, and it was always to her house which was a long distance away, expecting me to wait for her even when she was incredibly late, if I had my bike with me and we were going somewhere she'd expect to use the bike while I had to run alongside her because she didn't want to pedal slow. And then there were the insults and sometimes even harsh slaps on the back when I didn't listen to her. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"
Sabrina cringed because it did. Chloe had never hit her for not doing as told, but there had been the occasional disparaging comment, and Chloe always expected her to do as she said.
Casey heaved a big sigh. "Look, I know it's hard for you to see what's going on, it was for me too. But my dad sat me down and told me that my friendship with Stacy was bad for me and I finally saw that he was right and broke off our friendship. So, I advise you take a good look at yours and decide whether it's worth it." Casey then turned to her work partner. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Casey then stood up, picked up her bag, and walked out.
"Sorry about how blunt she was." The other girl apologised. "What happened left a deep wound on her that took a while to heal."
"It's alright. I just…never thought of things that way." Sabrina said. "But Chloe is my only friend."
"Well, she doesn't have to be." The other girl offered. "You can always be friends with me."
"Really?" Sabrina asked.
"Sure. I'm Bree." She held out her hand.
The two girls shook hands.
"And as my first act as your friend, I'll help you with your work." Bree offered.
"I couldn't ask you to do that." Sabrina rejected.
"I'm offering. We're mostly done with our work anyway." Bree said. "But you need to get Chloe to do some work as well, or tell the teacher that Chloe didn't do any work."
"I'll try." Sabrina said.
Sabrina found a page showing the book Casey had mentioned and her eyes widened when she saw how much it was.
"Wow, that'd be expensive even to Chloe." Sabrina said.
"Yeah, but…" Bree exited off the page and went into google, adding 'read' to the search bar.
The link Bree clicked on led to a digital copy of the book to read, though each page was very slow to load.
"Thanks." Sabrina said.
Nearby, Nathanael, Lila and Ivan were working on their own project.
"There's not much on Volpina to find online." Ivan commented.
"Grandma said that she wasn't very public." Lila said. "She was seen more as a myth than an actual hero who went around saving people."
"Still, we need some sort of physical evidence of her existence." Nathanael commented. "A photo or something."
Lila nodded in agreement before clicking her fingers as she remembered something. "I think I have a picture of her somewhere at home, mum had said it was grandma playing dress up, but it had to have been her as Volpina."
"That'd be very helpful."
"I'll see if I can bring it in tomorrow."
"Now, what can you tell us about her?" Nathanael asked.
"Well…" Lila began to relay some of the stories her grandmother had told her.
Nathanael lay down on his bed once he got home, Vixx flying out his bag and coming to rest on his chest.
"You didn't tell me there was an actual Volpina." Nathanael said.
"You never asked." Vixx defended.
"So, can you tell me anything about her?"
"There's not much that that Lila girl hadn't already told you. She was brave but mischievous, able to take down much bigger foes by her own wit."
"Would you happen to know any places I can get references on her for the project?"
"One of the other heroes from her time wrote some books about their adventures under a fake name, but I can't remember what it was. One of the book was about the curse that had been place on the Cat Miraculous and the Ladybug of that time though." Vixx recalled.
Nathanael sighed as he got up and went over to his laptop.
"I guess it's a long night of internet searches then." He bemoaned.
The next day, Nathanael trudge to school, more than a little tired. He'd eventually found the author Vixx had been talking about, but it had taken him long into the night, and then even longer to find the relevant information from the online copies.
Once in class he slumped into his chair and it was only his hand that stopped his head from slamming into his desk. He was on the verge of falling asleep when someone dropping into the seat beside him and slamming something on the table shocked him awake.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Lila asked cheekily, not sounding sorry at all.
Nathanael only grunted in response.
"Well, anyway, I promised you proof, and here it is." Lila practically sang with happiness. "I wasn't going to risk bringing in the actual photos because someone would get jealous and prone to damaging property." She pointed at Chloe.
Lila took out her phone and showed some of the pictures on it, they were black and white and of a woman dressed like a fox.
Nathanael guess Lila was so happy because she finally had proof for one of her 'lies'.
The woman in the photos wore a costume similar to Volpina but also different, for one it was a dress instead of a skin-tight body suit, with white going down the front, a belt that trail behind her and was stylised into a fox tail, black gloves and shoes, a veil hiding the lower half of her face, her long hair pulled into a plat with the end being tipped with white, and a bandana with long ends trailing upwards to form fox ears.
"Wow." Ivan said. "She must have been good to be able to fight in a dress."
"I don't think the skin-tight suits the heroes wear now would have been as accepted back then." Nathanael commented. "Anyway, we can add those to the presentation alongside some information on her I managed to find after a night of searching."
"Ah. So, that's why you look so terrible." Lila said.
"Thank you for your honesty." Nathanael said sarcastically.
Down at the bottom of the classroom Sabrina entered the room, she took a deep breath as she went over to Chloe and put down some things in front of her.
"What's this?" Chloe asked.
"You're side of the work." Sabrina said shyly. "We can't say it's both our work if you didn't do anything."
"Sabrina, we agreed that you do that work and I present it, that way it's both our work, and you take care of the stuff you're good at and I take care of the stuff I'm good at."
"But we don't do equal work. I do all the research and putting it together. Plus, I left you the Ladybug portion, the one you wanted in the first place." Sabrina said quietly.
"Sabrina, have you been talking to other people again?" Chloe asked.
Sabrina looked away but nodded.
"Was it Marinette again?"
Sabrina shook her head.
"Sabrina, these people just want to tear us apart because they're jealous that they're not my best friend like you are." Chloe told Sabrina.
"I…" Sabrina trailed off.
"Look, I'll be generous to add even more of my help. I'll find some good photos for the presentation while you can write out about them." Chloe acted like she was taking on a big challenge.
"I guess that makes it fair." Sabrina said unsurely.
"Good." Chloe said.
Sabrina sat down next to Chloe and pulled the work from in front of Chloe to in front of her.
Some of the class looked at Sabrina in pity, having witness her failed attempt to assert herself.
Sabrina was working in the library again to fill in the past Ladybug part of the project that she had originally tried to leave for Chloe.
"So, how'd it go?"
Sabrina look to her right to see Bree.
"Oh, I…got Chloe to do part of the work." Sabrina said, unsure if she should still be speaking to Bree since Chloe probably wouldn't like it.
"Define part of the work?" Bree crossed her arms.
"She'll go over it once I'm done, editing and adding pictures." Sabrina stretched the truth slightly to make it seem Chloe was going to so more that she really would.
Bree hummed and looked a bit unimpressed. "I guess it's a start."
Sabrina nodded.
"Anyway, if you want to make more friends, you could always join my guiding unit." Bree then suggested.
Sabrina looked at her, confused.
"The Girl Guides." Bree explained. "I've been a part of it since I was a Rainbow and met some of my friends there. It was how I met Casey."
Bree indicated over to where Casey was.
"I'll think about it." Sabrina promised.
"Here." Bree handed Sabrina a card with a date and location on it. "See you around."
Bree jogged over to Casey and the two girls left the library together.
Sabrina unsurely stepped into the community centre, past the adults that were leaving until she reached a room full of girls dressed in the blue uniforms of the Girl Guides.
"Hey, Sabrina." Bree said, going over to the nervous girl. "Glad you came."
"My dad said I should come." Sabrina said.
"Well, I'm sure you'll get comfortable here quick. Everyone here is really nice." Bree said confidently.
The guide leader then entered the room and Bree went over to her, informing her about Sabrina.
"I'm happy you're here." The leader told Sabrina. "And I hope you'll chose to stay on with us."
Sabrina just nodded.
The guides then gathered in the circle and they recited the Girl Guide promise before moving onto the activities for the afternoon.
Despite her initial shyness, Sabrina found that she was enjoying herself, taking part in activities, talking and making friends with the other girls and discussing the patches the girls wanted to earn. By the time the meeting came to a close she found that she was smiling.
"So, do you think you'll come back?" Bree asked.
Sabrina nodded. "If every meeting is like this one." She said.
"Glad to have you on board." Bree smiled.
There was a beeping of a car horn.
"That's my ride, see yah." Bree said, running off.
It wasn't long before Sabrina's mum came to pick her up as well.
Chloe wasn't happy when she walked into college, for the remainder of the week since their small disagreement over their project she had barely seen or heard from Sabrina outside of class, leaving her with no one to complain or brag to or do things for her like keep her schedule, with Sabrina she had missed a hair appointment, not that the hairdresser could complain when she finally did show up. Chloe's eyes then widened when she spotted Sabrina sitting on one of the college benches, talking and smiling with some other girls.
"Sabrina!" Chloe shouted as she marched over to the group of girls. "I hardly hear anything from you for days and then I find you talking to some other girls instead!"
"She's allowed to have friends other than you, you know?" One of the girls pointed out.
"Sorry, Chloe, I didn't mean to worry you." Sabrina said, still sounding meek.
"Did you at least finish the project?" Chloe asked.
"Yes. You just need to add the finishing touches." Sabrina answered.
"Come on then." Chloe said, turning around and leaving. "I don't want a bad grade because you were too busy making friends other than me."
"Sorry, girls." Sabrina said as she stood up. "I've got to go."
"It's okay." Bree said understandingly. "We'll be here for you."
The other girls nodded in agreement.
Sabrina quickly caught up to Chloe and they entered the classroom, Sabrina then handed Chloe her laptop with the presentation to add the photos.
At the back of the classroom, Nathanael, Lila and Ivan were going over their presentation, making sure they had everything and going over who said what. Lila had most of the lines, but since it was about her grandma and she was really excited about it, Nathanael and Ivan let her get away with it, neither of them were big speakers anyway.
Madam Bustier then entered the class and began to call for the presentations.
First was Rose and Juleka's presentation on a hero called Wolven from Spain, who had the ability to turn ordinary animal into giant and ferocious beasts under his control
Then was Max and Kim, who went with Tech and Glitch from the UK.
Next was Marinette and Alya's presentation on the three founding members of the Quantic team.
Then Adrien and Nino with Silver Hunter.
Then Alix and Mylene about the Imp from the UK as well.
Then Chloe and Sabrina', mostly Sabrina's, presentation on the Ladybug and Chat Noir before the current heroes. And Marinette could help but feel the two former heroes looked familiar in some way.
And finally, Nathanael, Ivan and Lila's turn came around.
"While Volpina is the name on my Akumatised form." Lila said. "It is also the name of a fox themed hero from many years back."
"Oh, this stupid thing again." Chloe interrupted rudely. "Are you seriously still trying to sell that you're descended from a hero?"
Lila only smirked.
"Ah, but this time I have proof." She said.
Nathanael clicked onto a slide showing off a picture of the original Volpina.
"And for a closer look, I have these to pass around."
Lila handed out pictures of Volpina to pass around the class, starting with Adrien.
Lila then continued with the presentation until the pictures reached Chloe.
Chloe was a little shook by the photographic evidence, but she was determined to be right.
"I can't believe how much effort you put into making this lie real." She interrupted again. "You even stage photos. These are obviously fake, as well as your presentation, and you're dragging Nathanael and Ivan down to a poor grade with you."
Chloe then held the pictures between her fingers, making it obvious as to what she was going to do.
"Chloe don't." Sabrina said.
But Chloe tore the pictures in half anyway and dropped them to the desk before brushing them off with her hand.
Nathanael managed to grab Lila before she could lunge at Chloe.
"You're lucky those were just copies." Lila growled threateningly.
Lila was angry because she had contemplated bringing in the original photos to add authenticity but decided not to risk it, meaning if she had brought them in then they would have been torn apart by Chloe, and if then happened, not even the combined strength of Nathanael and Ivan would have stopped her from attacking Chloe.
"You're really getting upset over some fake photos?" Chloe asked.
"Volpina wasn't made up, Chloe, she really did exist." Sabrina remembered from her own research.
Sabrina began moving away from Chloe, finally seeing the monster Chloe had become since they first met now that her new friends had taken away the veil created by her denial.
"I can't believe you didn't that Chloe." Adrien said in disappointment. "What if those had been the original pictures, you would have just destroyed something really important to Lila."
"But, Adrikins." Chloe whined.
"Don't call me that, Chloe. I don't want to talk to you right now." Adrien said, finally having enough of Chloe's behaviour.
Sabrina put her hand up.
"Madam Bustier, may I move seats?" She asked.
"You may." Madam Bustier said.
"Where do you think you're going?" Chloe demanded.
"Away from you." Sabrina said.
"Sabrina, if you do this I won't be your friend anymore." Chloe threatened, not realising the threat no longer held weight.
"Good, because I don't want to be friends anymore, I have other friends now."
Sabrina then moved to the only other available desk, next to Ivan. But she didn't get to sit there for long before the bell rang for lunch.
"Class dismissed. Miss Bourgeois, you have detention for destruction of another pupil's property." Madam Bustier said.
The entire class then left, except Chloe, who stayed where she was as she tried to process what had happened. Adrien had left her. Sabrina had left her.
She didn't have anyone anymore.
She was alone.