119 Immunity

Lila walked away from the park with a smug expression on her face. The reporter she just talked to had confused expression on his face as the poor young aspiring journalist was still wondering what had just happened. This girl with sly smile and ready to shed fake tears was fluttering her eyelashes so frequently that a normal person would have obtained serious headache. The young man verified on the phone that his boss had all the material and that live stream was finished before numbly walking away in the opposite direction from the girl. It was not the shortest way for him, but he just wanted to get as far away as possible from that girl.

Lila swiftly found and opened the link to the video recording of her interview. She shared it on her social network profile, she opened a profile on several other social networks just to be able to post the link there. She was not Lila Rossi if she was not advertising herself. Then she decided to share the link with all the contacts in her phone, she had assembled the message and added the link but then she realized it was probably not the smartest idea to share it with literally everyone. She had to remove her mother from the list of recipients, yes, and Adrien and Marinette, although she would love to brag to the girl. It took her some time before she finally sent it.

The brown haired girl with olive green eyes walked the short distance to the building where she lived. She passed more than a few people, but none of them noticed her, let alone recognized her. All of them were walking and minded their own business, few were talking on the phone, others chatted with the person they walked with. She expected to overhear all sorts of insults towards her arch nemesis Marinette Dupain Cheng. She expected nasty comments about the girl, her betrayal, her evil. She expected to overhear praise for herself, a brave girl who stood up to a bully and a collaborator with Hawk Moth.

It was mere minutes after her interview, but it was a livestream. She expected people watched that. She expected people would be replaying that interview. The live stream of the final battle with Hawk Moth was seen live and watched and re-watched in the following hour gaining millions of views. And it was transferred through Alya's blog, not even a proper news agency site. She gave an interview to a journalist, an adult and a news site with a name and a company and a bank account. She expected her video was about to get the same success. At least that much.

She was already at the entrance to her building, and yet, nobody recognized her. Nobody told her how she was brave and how that other girl was nasty. Nobody adored her. Nobody stopped her. Nobody talked to her. Nobody noticed her.

She decided to walk a little longer around her block. And she was walking slowly, making sure everyone sees her face, they should be able to recognize her by now. The streets were crowded with people who strolled and chatted or walked swiftly while discussing something on their phones. She would deliberately step in front of a person just to get their attention, and yet the person would simply step aside and continue their own business. Then she simply walked and paid attention to what the people were talking about.

"I am telling you, those monks must have trained them in some martial arts and some special kind of yoga to be able to suffer so much pain and hurt and still fight." One voice said.

"I am so worried about those poor kids and those monks, they got hurt so badly, who knows if those Chinese doctors even know how to treat them." An elderly woman whined.

"Ladybug cure fixed everything, I am sure they are not injured dear." A man's voice replied calmly.

"Everyone is admiring Adrien for standing up to his father, papa. Why should I listen to you?" A boy yelled to his phone.

"The girl and the boy, they obviously love each other, it is so romantic." One girl gushed.

"I do not see anything romantic in getting beaten up by a boy's father and his assistant." Another girl retorted in a sarcastic tone.

"Of course you are jealous because Adrien Agreste looked at her like that." The first girl teased.

"That was not jealousy. I would not accept to be beaten up like that only to be with him. He is not that good looking." The second girl replied.

Lila heard enough. She would have to practice patience. All those fools will swiftly change their minds once they saw her interview. It was just a matter of time. Minutes maybe. Any moment now. And yet, each conversation she overheard was about the battle, about Adrien and Marinette, about the two monks and about the two Chinese students who were there. Lila had enough. She went back home.

Lila watched her own interview over and over again with a smug expression on her face, she admired how the number of views increased rapidly, she was enjoying her own popularity. (The number was raising above one thousand not one million). It took some time before she finally went to open the comments section. And those were numerous, she did not bother to read them because there were messages and emails to attend to.

There were other questions and requests to meet that she interpreted to herself as invitations to new interviews. Oh how she enjoyed her own popularity. She was quick to accept all invitations and waited to arrange the time and the place. Should she organize a press conference? She imagined herself as she stood on a stage surrounded by microphones and cameras. She would be the centre of attention, all the TV stations would be showing her live on TV, and she would choose the questions, smile shyly, flutter her eyelashes, whine and cry about Marinette and blame the other girl for the injustice. This was excellent payback.

She returned to watching her own interview and noticed how the number of views increased even further. She was about to bath in her own popularity. Adrien was to consider himself lucky if she would give him a time of her day. And Marinette? She was going to make Marinette suffer so much that the girl was going to admit to anything Lila could possibly invent and even add to it just to end her own suffering.

Her mother arrived home at some undefined hour and Lila was summoned to eat dinner with her. It was a chore to be away from her phone (because her mother insisted on no phone during meals policy) and her computer. What if someone famous was looking for her and wanted to talk to her. What if the invitation to speak at the national TV arrived while she was having dinner with her mother. She did not receive a single reply from her classmates yet and she was forced to be away from her phone.

After dinner, her mother insisted on a family evening, no computer, no phone, again, and Benigna tried to have a conversation with her daughter. Lila finally got the attention of her mother that she craved for during the long hours she waited for her mother to return from work. But now she did not want it, she wanted totally different kind of attention, she wanted to be admired and adored and put on a pedestal. Her mother gently criticized her in the very diplomatic way she was trained to do. Lila did not want to bring up the interview just yet, she was preparing her mother to see it.

A very familiar police officer was holding a piece of paper. It was very important piece of paper. Officer Roger Raincomprix felt very important because he had that piece of paper in his hands.

That morning, that Max kid, a classmate of his daughter Sabrina, walked into the police station with a tiny robot that floated next to the boy's head. Several officers hid and called for backup ready to attack the kid and his robot. It was understandable, in the city that got so used to the akuma attacks, his colleagues simply thought that was another magical villain. But officer Roger knew better. His daughter Sabrina told him all about Max and his tiny robot friend Markov. So he knew whom he was facing. He bravely approached the short bespectacled kid and his robot.

"Hi Max, Hi Markov, how can I help you?" The officer asked while he towered over them. It was his duty to serve and protect the public, and these two were also members of the public, or perhaps it was only Max, he was not so sure about Markov.

"We believe that we have accidentally stumbled upon information related to Hawk Moth and Gabriel Agreste and we would like to report on that." Max stated simply while he adjusted his glasses.

The boy gave a statement how his classmate Lila Rossi asked for a favour. He had shared the link with the police officer and the police man's eyes became like saucers. There was a lot of proof and a lot of incriminating evidence, and, most importantly, a clue how to enter the villains lair in the Agreste mansion.

Markov insisted to give a statement too. Officer Roger Raincomprix had witnessed his share of odd things so he simply added taking a statement from a tiny floating and talking robot to the pile of odd things he did in his career.

That was how his day had started. Now he stood in front of a building that housed several employees of the Italian embassy. He had a search warrant. He needed to collect hardware and statements. But he also knew about things such as diplomatic immunity. Therefore, the sheet of paper had few more stamps and signatures than he would usually need. It was an important piece of paper. He stood taller while he held it in his hands.

Lila, on the other hand, pretended there was nobody home. Her mother was in the embassy offices or busy somewhere else. She did not even care where she was, as long as she was not at home to answer the door.

Officer Roger Raincomprix had to search for Lila (and her mother) through the official administrative channels. Finally, defeated by the administration, he requested the embassy cooperation through the official channels. They were friendly, they promised to cooperate, they did not want to be labelled as an embassy who cooperated with Hawk Moth. Benigna Rossi resisted to hand over the phone and the computer that belonged to her daughter. The embassy officials searched her daughter's room and took it away as soon as there was an official request from the French authorities.

"But mama, it is that girl, Marinette, she stole Adrien from me." The girl shed fake tears even in front of her mother. "It was her who worked with Hawk Moth, it was her, not me. She framed me." Lila whined and cried while her mother took away the laptop and the phone into her own room and locked it up in a drawer.

"Why would police need your computer and phone, Lila? This is the last time I ask." Benigna insisted. The woman was desperate to see anything good in her daughter. She got fake tears and accusations of the girl who was known for fighting Hawk Moth. And a police request to hand over her daughter's belongings.

"You can't give them my phone, my tablet and my computer mama, we are diplomatic staff, we have diplomatic immunity." The girl whined.

Benigna Rossi sighed.

"I am merely a secretary, Lila. I am important in the embassy. It is my job to ensure all the procedures in the embassy work properly. I have to organize everything. But diplomatic immunity does not work that way, it can be renounced at any moment." Her mother explained patiently.

"But you said that diplomatic immunity means we can't be prosecuted for anything we say." Lila screamed at her mother.

"That does not give you a free pass to commit acts of crime, Lila." Benigna was fighting a loosing battle with her job on the line on one side and her daughter on the other. She slowly realized she might as well kiss her career goodbye.

It was one phone call, from none other that Chloe Bourgeois herself.

"Do you want this to reach the papers? Imagine a title 'Italian embassy is a known collaborator with Hawk Moth and Mayura'" The heiress stated bluntly.

That was all that was needed. The two supervillains were considered terrorists, and the whole situation could easily be interpreted as if it was the Italian embassy who supported Hawk Moth and Mayura. That was an equivalent to an act of war. Wars have been started for less during the course of history, heck even wars between Italy and France (or at least different Italian provinces and French departments).

"We have proof that your daughter had inside information about Hawk Moth from Gabriel Agreste himself." Officer Roger Raincomprix stated at one moment. "We know she used her phone, tablet and computer to contact him."

"You used embassy property for that, do you understand what you did?" Benigna was angry with her daughter, but even more, she was angry with herself. Because it was her who let her do that. Lila was offering excuse after an excuse, but nobody listened.

In the end, Benigna was given a choice, give the requested information straight to the French authorities or to the Italian authorities first (who would definitely hand it over to the French because EU exists).

Lila sulked, grounded, no phone, no computer and TV restricted. She was not interested in TV, you could not watch it for five minutes without somebody dropping a reference to the final battle.

Benigna Rossi managed to keep her position, but she knew she could only dream of a promotion. Even her husband got scolded for the way their daughter behaved. That was followed with a very Italian phone conversation between her and Lila's father, it was long, it was loud, and the muscles in their arms hurt from how much their waved their arms. They continued with the phones attached to the chargers once they got empty, they talked long into the night and even once the sky was lit up by the sun of the next day.

Finally, the woman requested for transfer. There was an open spot in Geneva that she could get, it was some UN agency, but it was much closer to her husband. She applied for the position instantly. She knew it was a long procedure and it would take a few months before they had to move, but she started to look for a school for her daughter. She picked one and sent the application data. Her daughter was refused. Apparently they did background check, her daughter gave several interviews and they did not particularly like what they saw there. The school estimated her daughter would not fit in well in their school and recommended her to look further.

She sent applications to all the schools in vicinity, even a few private schools she could hardly afford or not al all. She got her answers, all of them were no. Several of them recommended an alternative. It was a school that also treated psychological disorders in teenagers.