(Summary: Lila made a huge mistake when she came for Jagged Stone's favourite niece and designer. And when you throw a vengeful Alya Césaire into the mix… Lila never stood a chance.

I realised that I haven't written any stories with Jagged Stone, so I needed to rectify that, immediately.

Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir.)

Sure, Marinette knew Jagged Stone, and sure, everybody knew she knew Jagged Stone, but it's not like she flaunted that fact. If Marinette were to casually mention, "Oh, I'm designing the clothes for Jagged Stone's next concert," she'd be accused of lying, or saying things for attention. Marinette nearly snorted. Double standards.

But everything was fine. Marinette was fine. One hundred percent fine. Not like she'd gotten expelled or had her reputation ruined or anything. Marinette was perfectly alright.

Because even though Lila had claimed to have a lying disease, Principal Damocles had decided not to tell everybody why Marinette was reinstated, for 'Lila's safety'. What bullshit. So Marinette was still an outcast. She was still getting stared at and getting notes to kill herself and shit, but it was fine. Absolutely fine.

Marinette didn't even notice the needle poking into her finger until Jagged was already in front of her, carefully removing it and applying pressure to the small cut. "Ah, you need to be more careful, Mari. You could get seriously hurt with these little trinkets. That'd so not be rock 'n roll."

"Yeah…" Marinette had a faraway look in her eyes as she nodded. Jagged's eyes narrowed.

"What's wrong, Marinette?" She shrugged non-committedly. "Ah, ah, ah! None of that now! I want you to tell me what's wrong, and then I'll murder whoever needs to be murdered, 'k, love?"

"No murdering," Marinette said, looking away from Jagged to the bunched up fabric in her hands. "It's nothing. There's just… this girl, in my class."

"Ah, a bully," Jagged nodded. "Well, what'd she do?"

Marinette inspected her fingernails. "Got me expelled…" Marinette muttered.

"What?" Jagged demanded. "I'm sorry, Marinette, I think that old age is affecting my hearing. Did you just say she got you expelled?"

"I─" Marinette flinched. "Well, yes, but then she got me un-expelled!"

Jagged wasn't impressed. "And was she bribed to get you 'un-expelled'?"

Marinette frowned, tilting her head to the side. "I don't actually know. I know Adrien said something to get her to do it, but I don't know what…"

"Right…" Jagged looked down at Marinette. "Just out of curiosity, what else has she done?"

To be fair, when Marinette answered him, she had no idea what Jagged was planning, so you're not allowed to blame her.

"Hey, Marinette," Alya said, dropping into the seat beside her. She peered down at her best friend, who was examining a slip of paper. "What you got there?" she asked, trying to get a closer look, but Marinette shied away, hiding the paper in her notebook. Alya's eyes narrowed. "Everything good?"

"Y-yeah! Why wouldn't everything be fine?! Everything's great! I'm great! You're great─are you great?!" Marinette laughed nervously as she rambled on.

Alya levelled Marinette with a stare. "Girl, what's wrong? You can't lie to save your life. Spill."

Marinette slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms. "I… I don't want to talk about it."

"Marinette─"

"Leave it!" she exclaimed, standing abruptly. "I'm going to the bathroom. Excuse me."

Alya stared at Marinette's retreating form in confusion. "Have I done something wrong?" she wondered.

Alya looked back at her desk and noticed Marinette hadn't taken her notebook with her. Sure, it'd be an invasion of privacy, but this was also her best friend and Alya was worried.

When she opened it, three slips of paper fell out. The first two had been typed out, possibly to avoid detection through handwriting analysis.

'Why dont you go kill youreslf whore'

Alya stared at the paper incredulously. Somebody had told Marinette to kill herself… what the fuck?! Alya was about five seconds away from murder.

'Well, Marinette, it seems like I've won. All of your 'friends' bow down to me, and Adrien worships me! You should've thought twice before challenging me in front of everybody, bitch! Why don't you just go and jump off the roof? It'd sure make everyone happier.'

There was only one person who Marinette had ever 'challenged'. But… Lila hardly wrote this. It… was illogical. Lila was too kind to ever write something like this. It had to be somebody else.

But when Alya read the third message, fear solidified in her chest.

'If you ever need help dealing with that Lila bully of yours, call me.

+33-655-532-293. It's my private number.

-J.S..'

Alya spent a whole two minutes examining the notes, before quickly scribbling down the number and pushing the first two notes into her own journal. She'd like to dust them for fingerprints using her kit, too. It shouldn't be too hard to convince Lila to let her take the prints. She was always so giving, so this must be a misunderstanding of some sort.

It had to be a misunderstanding.

Alya didn't know what she'd do if it wasn't.

Alya didn't get around to calling the phone number until later that night. There was an akuma attack, so Alya had been too caught up in that to remember the number. She'd just started her literature homework when she caught sight of the number scribbled in the margin.

Alya inhaled, slowly dialing the number. She was a journalist, she could do this.

The phone was picked up on the third ring. "Hello?! Marinette? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" came the accented greeting.

"Um, Marinette is fine," Alya started hesitantly. "Actually, I'm a friend of Marinette's. I was hoping you could help me with something?"

"Help you with what?" the person asked.

"Has Marinette ever told you about a girl named Lila Rossi?" she asked. "And if so, what has she told you?"

The voice quickly told her a lot of second hand stories, each one making her angrier and angrier and angrier. Lila… had done all of that. That was… disgusting. Jesus. Fuck.

"That's… I…" 'Why didn't I listen to her before?' There was no way Marinette had made any of that up. She wasn't capable of doing something like that. But that meant Lila was a liar… Alya decided to focus on the least scary topic. "I'm sorry, I never got your name. I'm Alya Césaire."

"Jagged Stone." Alya froze. Jagged Stone. The Jagged Stone. She'd been on the phone to the Jagged Stone and hadn't even known.

"Holy shit!"

Jagged only laughed at her exclamation. "Haven't heard that one before," he said. There was a momentary pause. "You run the Ladyblog, don't you?"

"Y-yeah, I do!" Wait, if Jagged thought Lila was a liar… and had never met her… and only knew about her through Marinette… that meant Lila had never saved his cat… then she couldn't have gotten tinnitus... then Lila really was a liar! Shit.

"Hm. I've been talking to a couple of my friends who Marinette tells me Lila's lied about. We have a bit of a plan to stop her lies for good, but your website, the Ladyblog, could really help us out."

Alya thought about Marinette. Marinette who always goes out of her way to help people. Marinette who gave but never expected anything in return. Marinette who was good.

"I'm listening."

Two days later, Alya had a folder of evidence under her arm as she stalked towards Principal Domacles' office. Lila had been all too eager to prove her fingerprint for Alya's 'experiment' and after Alya had shown him a bunch of evidence, Max had agreed to hack into the school's security cameras and found a bunch of videos showing Lila bullying Marinette. She wasn't exactly subtle.

Alya would be posting the video on the Ladyblog at exactly eight thirty, so she had another forty minutes to deal with this, first.

She knocked on the door to his office, barely waiting for an invitation to come in before she pushed the door open, walking in. Mme. Mendeleiev and Mme. Bustier were also in the classroom.

"Oh, good. Witnesses. I like those."

Mme. Bustier looked at Alya in shock. "Alya! What are you─"

Alya closed the door behind her, starting forwards and throwing the folder down onto Principal Damocles' desk. Alya popped into a chair. "I suggest you read those. I don't have all day."

"What is the meaning of this?" Damocles asked. "Caline, control your student!"

"Yeah, you see, Caline isn't very good at that. Neither are you." Alya scoffed. "Bullying has been going on right under your noses and you don't even realise it."

"What's Dupain-Cheng done this time?" Mendeleiev asked.

Alya crossed her arms. "Marinette hasn't done anything wrong. But Lila…"

"What?" Mme. Bustier asked. "Lila?"

"Open the fucking folder," Alya instructed.

"Language," Bustier chided as Principal Damocles opened the folder.

"Oh my…"

Alya nodded. "'Oh my' indeed."

Alya had been asked to leave so that the teachers could have an impromptu meeting. This was fine. In fact, it was just in time for Alya to upload the video.

She hurried to the classroom, glad to see that everybody had gotten to school early, like she'd instructed. "What's up, dudette?" Nino asked.

"One second," Alya said, opening her laptop. She'd hooked it up to the projector the night before, so she only needed to turn it on. As it loaded, Alya turned back to everybody. "So, I bet you're wondering why I called you all here today."

"Yes, we are," Chloé said, rolling her eyes as she filed her nails.

"I want you guys to watch this video that I just posted on the Ladyblog," Alya said. "Everything will all make sense in a minute." Alya looked at the laptop, nodding in satisfaction as it was ready to be played. "You guys may need a little background. See, it all started when…"

Horror built up in Marinette's chest as Alya spoke. 'Oh God. Oh fuck. Oh shit. She's going to tell them about the notes and they're going to laugh and then everybody will hate me and my life will be even worse than before!'

Eventually, Alya started the video. When she did, she hurried up the steps, standing beside Lila, as if she were guarding her. Marinette was more than surprised to see herself and Lila. Lila could be seen calmly walking down the stairs as Marinette spoke. Lila said something back before sitting on the floor and beginning to shout. Their voices couldn't be heard, but that didn't matter since they had all been there for this little scene.

Bold, white writing appeared on a black screen.

'Lila lied about knowing hundreds of celebrities. Clara Nightingale…'

Clara Nightingale could be seen dancing in her studio. She paused, looking at a camera.

"I don't know any Lila Rossi! But from what I've heard, she seems kind of frosty!"

Marinette glanced back. Alya's hand was on a struggling Lila's shoulder, keeping her in place.

'XY…'

"Lila Rossi? Nah, don't know her."

'Prince Ali…'

"Who? I've never heard of her. The only girl my age that I am friends with is Rose."

Rose could be heard squealing, momentarily distracted from what the video meant.

The video went on to list and show more and more celebrities. Marinette didn't know how she felt. Adrien moved subtly, taking Alya's seat.

"Did you know about this?" he asked, staring at the video, where Stephen Beseilberg was sitting at his desk.

"No, I had no idea," Marinette replied honestly. "I think Alya saw the notes─"

"Notes?!" Adrien asked abruptly. "Marinette, what notes?"

"Uhh…"

They were interrupted by Jagged Stone's face appearing on the video.

"I bet you're wondering why the rockin' Alya Césaire and I have made this video," he said. "Well, my favourite designer and honorary niece, Marinette, told me that there was a liar and a bully in her class by the name of Lila Rossi in her class. Now, I couldn't really do anything about Miss Rossi, but then one day, Miss Césaire called me, and told me about these two notes." Images of the notes appeared on the screen. Marinette flinched, looking away. "Alya's a budding journalist, I'm telling you. She fingerprinted the notes, and turns out they were both from Lila Rossi! Funny, isn't that?"

Marinette jumped up. Of course she knew that one was from Lila, but the other one… she'd gotten those notes at the same time… did that mean Lila had sent her all of the notes?!

Jagged continued to talk, but once the video was over… eyes darted between her and Lila.

"What the fuck?!" Kim demanded, breaking the silence.

"I… uh─" Lila wavered, looking at their expectant and angry faces. She opened her mouth to say something, probably to accuse Marinette of something, but then Principal Damocles' voice was heard over the loudspeaker.

"Could Lila Rossi come to the Principal's office? Could Lila Rossi please come to the Principal's office?"

Alya clicked her tongue. "Yeah, I'm not sure if you know about this, Lila, but bullying is a serious offense." Alya looked at their classmates. "Chloé, Kim could you accompany Lila there?"

"Why should I?" Chloé asked, barely looking up.

"Because Lila's not going to trick you with her lies, now is she?"

Chloé considered this before huffing loudly and stomping up, grabbing Lila's arm and dragging her out. Kim scrambled out after them.

The second she was out of the room, Alya was rushing forwards, engulfing Marinette in an embrace.

"Marinette! I am so─so sorry for ever believing that witch! You don't deserve that! I'm so sorry! Please believe me when I say that!"

"I─I believe you," Marinette said, still staring at the screen in shock. "Y-you believe me?"

"Of course I believe you!" Alya exclaimed. "I can't believe I didn't before! It was all so obvious! God, I'm an idiot and I really hope that you can forgive me!"

"I do forgive you, Alya. Don't worry about that."

"G-good," Alya said. She glared at the class. "And all of you! You better apologise to Marinette immediately!"

Let it be said, they apologised.

Lila was also expelled for bullying, so that was something, at least.

Marinette was definitely in a better emotional state than before. She now knew that Alya was a true friend who wouldn't abandon her.

And her classmates all learned a valuable lesson that day.

Always believe Marinette Dupain-Cheng, because she's usually right.

Usually. There was still that one time she thought the Dark Side actually had cookies so she'd signed up thinking, 'oh, more for Tikki!' and had dived into the Dark Web so Max had to rescue her accounts before she went too deep, but we don't talk about that.