[Prologue]
It all started when she tried to get Marinette expelled again, this time though it would appear that the others were causing it, so that Adrien wouldn't suspect her. To achieve that she had to get Alya to make the first move. Lila was so sure that this plan would work that she was already celebrating. Though she did not expect Alya to refuse to cooperate. She also questioned the lie Lila used to ask her to betray Marinette. Lila could not let those suspicions grow, she now had to get Alya out of the way first.
[Scene: Lila alone thinking about her next move]
She never wanted to mess with Alya but now she has to since she started getting suspicious on her. Now, she has to get Alya out of the way too! "Double the work", she thought. "At least it is gonna be worth it when I see the looks on their faces when they are expelled from school and finally out of my way. Then Adrien and the path to fame he provides me will be all clear." And then she smirked evilly.
Her plan was simple: frame Alya as much as possible till she loses trust and then accuse her of theft. Sucks that she had used such a plan before on Marinette and failed but this time Adrien will definitely not intervene, he has no reason to suspect her trying to get Alya expelled. After all, she and Lila are good friends, aren't they? Then without Alya's support, getting Maribrat out of the way will be a piece of cake.
It is still going to be rough because Alya is the exact opposite to Marinette: she is never late, always seems to tell the truth (Marinette is honest too, but she has to lie about her superhero life all the time; not that Lila knows that but it is obvious to her that she lies a lot too) and is social enough to make it hard for her to spread rumors without getting herself exposed. But Lila is confident, she always gets what she wants and no one can do anything to prevent her from winning. No one can outsmart the little vixen. Right?
Three days have passed and surprisingly, Alya is idly accepting the 'bullying' just like Marinette does -no wonder why they are best friends, they seem smart but are willingly letting themselves into a trap-. Seems like Alya is taking advice from Marinette on how to deal with Lila. This just makes it a whole easier for Lila to move on to phase 2.
[Scene: Marinette's bedroom. Marinette and Alya are discussing stuff about being a Miraculous holder]
"Alya, now that you are a permanent holder, you need to make sure your identity is secret and to do that, you need to never lose your mental and keep calm. Treat Lila as I do when she tries to annoy you. Fighting her will only end up causing an Akuma which is trouble. Also, it creates bad feelings to you too and there is the danger of being akumatized. Especially since you now know my identity and have a Miraculous of your own, you being akumatized would be the end of the world. So try interacting with Lila as little as possible.", Marinette told Alya shortly after she promoted her to permanent.
"But Marinette, we know she is a liar and we can't just let her spread her lies. I don't want to expose her just because she is mean to you and threatens you but because those lies are also dangerous. We have to stop her unrestrained lying before her tower of lies collapses and not only makes her end up akumatized but also pretty much the entire school who will be upset when they realise how stupid they had been to believe her.", Alya defended her position.
"Exactly Alya, we must not let that 'tower' collapse, because we know what to expect after that. And don't worry about that happening randomly. Everyone believes her so deeply, that even when I would find flaws in her stories while I was trying to expose her, either no one would believe me, or she would patch that up with another lie. She is too smart to let it go down, I have to give her that."
"But what if she tries to attack us like when she got you expelled? Surely we can't let her do that.", Alya questioned her best friend.
"Then sure, we will defend ourselves and give her what she deserves, but note: that would be an edge-case scenario and we would have to do it in a way that minimizes the damage in terms of akuma victims. But after we defeat the big bad guy, area is clear for operation Expose Lie-la."
"OK, I can work with that. It would also give us another motive to defeat Shadow Moth as soon as possible. By the way, great thinking Mari, when did you because so wise?"
Marinetter smirked and raised her hand pointing at her earring. "I wonder too..."
Both girls laughed at the joke and then changed topic.
[Lila setting up 'phase 2' of her plan]
"This should not be that hard", she said to herself "after all I have done it before and it went pretty good; only Adrien suspected me and he already was aware of my lying." She then went into the locker room and planted her necklace inside Alya's locker; she also managed to bury it under some books so that it would be even more convincing. Then she quickly walked off the room without attracting any attention.
Sadly, Alya is not as good of a student and she is more protective with her things (and is not clumsy) and accusing her for cheating in a test would be impossible. Fortunately, she had more tricks up her sleeve.
According to school regulation, students are only allowed to use their phones for school work, communicating parents and other simple stuff. It is said that the school has a way of viewing your search history while you are in range of the school building and doing anything that is not mentioned in the rules can get various punishments. She thought of it as a great way to harm Alya. So, when Alya said that she had infinite mobile data for the week, Lila did not hesitate to ask her to hotspot because 'she had no signal for some reason'. Alya being the good person she is, gave her access since such an act did not seem too much of a threat. Little did she know that as long as Lila uses her hotspot, Alya's IP address shows up on the school's control device. So Lila visited many 'illegal' websites like a gambling website, a black market website etc. Just a visit in one of those websites can get somerone in trouble and combining all of them is a recipe for catastrophe. "Technology makes manipulating people so easy", she thought as an evil smile formed on her face.
The other day she asked Alya to give her her phone for a minute to search something up because 'her battery had just run out' and installed a malware on her phone that would cause it to crash when she activated it with her own phone. Alya never found it to uninstall it and so it is still on her phone. "I wonder what she is gonna do when she connects her phone to the teacher's computer to present the class the project she was working with Marinette. Everyone will think of the crash as a poor excuse to get more time to complete the project, since the two would be thought of not having completed it. On top of that punishment, if the teacher's computer crashes too, then Alya can be accused for destroying school property which can get her expelled for two weeks.
Another school day is starting. All students of Ms Bustier's class are sitting in their respective seats waiting for Ms Bustier to come in and start the literature lesson. Alya was surprised to see that Marinette wasn't late today as usual. Little did she know that many surprises would await her that day, all thanks to Lila.
Shortly, Ms Bustier joined the classroom and asked every group to present their projects. Marinette and Alya were the last group to present their project and Alya was smiling victoriously when she stood up to connect her phone to the teacher's computer, indicating that she was really proud about it. "She must had spent a lot of time on it to be so proud of herself.", Lila thought "Too bad it's all for nothing...". Lila pressed her button and Alya's phone crashed at the instant.
After few attempts to reboot her phone, it finally did so, but all recent data was lost, including their project (God bless backups, at least her Ladyblog content was safe). Alya tried to come up with an excuse but no one believed her as they didn't have a backup for the project and everything was saved on Alya's phone. Ms Bustier had no other choice than to grade Marinette and Alya as 0, since they could not present a project. The two girls also had to have a talk with Mr Damocles about not being consistent with their studying. Though Alya claimed it was all her fault and probably some of the fan-sent videos she received to post on the Ladyblog she downloaded caused the crash, thus Marinette did not deserve to be punished and Ms Bustier accepted it and only sent Alya to the principal's office.
Alya explained the situation to Mr Damocles and he believed her. So he decided to not further punish her, since her grade already took a hit and that was enough for a technical issue. Though as he was checking her profile to log the event in school files, his eye caught a glimpse of the websites Lila had visited undercover. She presented the proof to Alya and she refused claiming that it was some sort of mistake but he didn't believe her because this time there was proof. So she got expelled for a day and he was going to communicate with her parents about 'her taste of internet browsing'.
Alya grudged but restrained herself from protesting. She knew someone was framing her and that someone was obviously Lila and going against her without proof would only worsen things. Plus, she had to stay calm in order to not get akumatised.
Just as she was starting to exit the room, Lila bursted into the principal's office with crocodile tears in her eyes claiming that her necklace was stolen (déjà vu, I would say). Then she noticed Alya and pointed her finger on her and said "She did it, she was the last person I left in the locker room where I left my stuff. I put it in my locker before I joined class and now it is nowhere to be seen." Such a statement was not only a lie but also impossible, since the only places she has been today is the classroom and Mr Damocles' office and Alya immediately understood the situation and defended her position.
"Sir, I haven't even been in the locker room today and my classmates will confirm that. She is obviously lying to frame me like what she did with Marinette. her 'rare lying disease' must be acting up again." Alya said to Mr Damocles who nodded understanding.
"Lila, are you sure your necklace got stolen again? And that you are telling the truth this time?" Mr Damocles asked suspiciously.
"Yes sir, and I know Alya has it."
"I don't, Lila is lying."
"Why would you believe her after what she has done?"
"Actually Lila, you're right, no one can have an alibi for this act of theft. Miss Alya, would you allow us to search your bag and your locker?"
"Sir, she is lying and she planted her necklace somewhere in my stuff, I am sure of it, she has done it before anyways. I didn't steal that goddamn necklace."
"Mr Damocles, my necklace is stolen by a student and I already suspect Alya of it. I demand her to be checked first, I want my necklace back."
"Don't worry Lila, we will find your necklace. Alya, would you start off by showing us what is in your fanny pack?"
Alya groaned. She was so upset that everyone believed Lila so easily. She was so angry that she could get akumatised any moment but fortunately no akuma showed up. Just when she was about to open it, terror filled her heart as she realised of what was in her bag, or who to be precise.