When Adrien arrived at school, Nino couldn't wait for him to finally talk about his findings. He spent the whole night looking for information about their new classmate and checking the things Max told them the other day. He was actually really proud of his work, what's more, he thought that even Alya would be proud of such a good job.
"Hey, dude" Nino said excitedly, throwing his arm around Adrien.
"Hi, Nino. Wow, you seem way too excited about coming to school" Adrien said jokingly.
"Yeah, that's not what I'm excited about" Nino said, shrugging.
"So, what's up?" Adrien asked with interest.
"I checked out that new girl and her father last night" Nino replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "I found this site where you can find info about all kinds of scientists and…" he continued until he was interrupted by his girlfriend, taking the phone out of his hand.
"And here I thought that I was the one doing the detective work in this relationship" Alya commented sarcastically, making Marinette behind her chuckle.
"Hey, you ruined my big moment here" Nino said with a sad voice.
"Your big moment? Don't you think that these things you found should be something that she should tell you, if she wanted to?" Alya asked questioningly.
"Uhh… Well, I guess you're right" Nino said, scratching the back of his head.
"Nobody could really talk to her yesterday" Adrien added. "The whole day flew by so fast."
"Mhmm" Marinette agreed. "She seemed so uncomfortable the whole day. I guess we didn't greet her the most proper way, huh" she said sadly.
"No" they heard Max joining the conversation. "Yesterday… That was all my fault."
"Max…" Alya breathed out.
"Don't say that, dude. Of course it wasn't your fault" said Nino, defending his friend.
"It was and I can say that with 100% certainty" Max said, sighing." I was just so thrilled that I couldn't help but talk about her father to everyone. I should've just kept it to myself. Or ask her about that later."
"I'm sure that you can make it up to her" said Marinette with a smile.
"Marinette is right" added Adrien encouragingly. "You should talk to her about it."
"Yeah, dude. Just tell her that you didn't want to be pushy about it" said Nino happily.
"What is Rose doing?" asked Alya, looking at Rose hiding behind the entrance of the school.
ˇˇˇˇˇ
When Juleka went to school that morning, she had all the confidence she needed to talk to the new girl. Her brother made sure to encourage her to start a conversation with her. She already planned it in her head. How she will ask Rose to go in first so she could wait for Danielle outside the building alone. The things she will say about yesterday, the things she will ask… But the closer she got to the school, the less sure she was about this. Why on earth would her brother incite her to talk to basically a complete stranger. It's not like she doesn't have any friends. She has a lot of them, actually, more than she could've ever imagined having. She already arrived at the front door, and she was standing in front of it like a tree, rooted to the spot, anxiously waiting for Danielle. When Rose came, she told her friend what she was planning, and Rose was so excited about it. But Rose finally went inside, and she could stand on her own, thinking. She was so deep in her conflicting thoughts, that she didn't even notice Danielle arriving.
Danielle was walking toward the building with her hands in her pockets, when she saw the goth-looking girl standing there like she was frozen in place. Dani wasn't sure that she blinked at all while she was walking toward her, the thought of which made her smile.
"Good morning, Juleka" Danielle greeted her, stopping next to her. "Are you… umm... waiting for someone?" she asked, looking in the direction she was staring.
Looking at Danielle with wide eyes, Juleka's face turned red as she turned around, mumbling something and hurriedly made her way toward the bathroom. Leaving behind a baffled Danielle, who immediately started questioning what just happened.
"Did I say something wrong?" she asked nobody in particular as she watched Juleka storm off.
"Jule…" Rose squealed, watching her distressed best friend almost running away from Danielle.
"Ah, such strong anger towards those who hurt the ones you love. Just what I need. Fly away, my little akuma, and evilize her."
"What just happened?" asked Max, watching Juleka making her way through the hall.
"Hey, Jule, wait!" shouted Alya, running after her.
"What could've made her so upset?" asked Adrien, wondering.
"Or maybe not what, but who" said Nino, watching a dumbstruck Danielle slowly walk inside the school, stopping in the doorway and looking at Juleka's figure.
"Did she do that…?" asked Marinette with disbelief.
"What have you done?" asked Rose with an accusing tone, staring at Danielle with a stern face.
"I… uh, I don't know" replied Danielle, confused. "I just, I mean…" she struggled with her words, looking around to see that everyone was staring at her with questioning or angry looks.
"Did you say something mean to her?" Rose asked in a high-pitched voice. "Why would you do that? She's never been mean to you, why would you try to upset her?"
"I… I didn't…" Dani said, trying to talk to the upset Rose, seeing something small and black flying past her, towards the blond girl, landing on her bracelet.
"Princess Fragrance. I am Hawk Moth, it's nice to see you again. This girl has just hurt someone very important to you. She didn't deserve that. Nobody does. Why can't everyone be kind and peaceful, in a world without fights and arguments? I give you the power to create a peaceful world through the scent of the most delicate perfumes. In return, you will seize Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses for me."
"Sounds great, Hawk Moth" Rose said in a menacing voice, as she was enveloped in a black substance.
"Ohh, shoot" Danielle said with wide eyes, running out of the building.
"And where do you think you're going?" a voice behind her asked, making her stop and turn around, to see Rose with green skin and magenta coloured hair, standing with her arms crossed, holding a gun-like object in one of her hands.
"Rose?" Danielle breathed out unsurely.
"Rose isn't here anymore. I am Princess Fragrance and I am here to make the world a better place. To turn all the meanies to kind people. Starting with you" Princess Fragrance said with an evil voice.
"Oh… That's… Umm… That's such a great plan" Dani replied with a nervous laugh, watching the students behind Princess Fragrance running away from the villain as she was slowly inching toward the side of the stairs. "That's very kind of you, huh" she said jokingly.
Princess Fragrance wasn't impressed and Dani wanted to sink to the ground for making an idiot out of herself. In return, Princess Fragrance just raised an eyebrow and held her gun up, pointing at Danielle.
"Any last mean words?" Princess Fragrance asked triumphantly.
"Why… would I want my last words to be mean?" Danielle asked with genuine interest.
"Huh?" Princess Fragrance replied, surprised.
"Can I… like, can I have some nice last words?" Danielle asked, visibly confusing Princess Fragrance.
"What?" Princess Fragrance asked, lowering her gun, putting her hands on her hip.
"So, you know… I just thought that, uuuh…" Danielle started, having no idea what outcome she should expect from this exchange. "Maybe this could be the start of… My new kind life" she continued with a fake smile.
"Alright, go on" Princess Fragrance replied, crossing her arms.
Well, crap, Danielle thought. She was not expecting this to work. What the hell is she supposed to say now?
"What are you doing?" asked Hawk Moth with irritation, planting his face in his palm. "You're supposed to transform people and get the Miraculouses for me, not make small talk. Shoot her and everyone around, so that you could attract Ladybug and Cat Noir. If you turn them to kind Ladybug and kind Kitty, they will give up on the Miraculouses on their own accord."
"Argh, alright, fine" said Princess Fragrance with a slight annoyance. "Even though you didn't sound very kind."
"I'm sorry, Princess" Hawk Moth said slyly. "Let's do our best to make this world a better place, shall we?"
"I like the sound of that" said Princess Fragrance happily.
Seeing the opportunity at hand, Danielle jumped off the side of the stairs to the bushes as a cloud of pink smoke flew over her head, hearing Princess Fragrance calling out to her. Looking around to check if anyone can see her, she saw that nobody was around.
"Buzzy, Borrowed Time: 1 second" she whispered, turning her puzzle ring 90° clockwise on her finger.
For one second, time seemed to freeze. But, to be precise, it didn't freeze, just everyone and everything slowed down around her. She could feel her ring slowly turning back to its original place, so she had to be quick. Running out of the bushes to the side of the road, she peeked out to see if anyone was around the corner, and she was lucky she did that before stepping out. She could see Ladybug on the top of a building next to the school, ready to throw her yo-yo. If she goes back or stays in Princess Fragrance' line of sight, she will be shot with the kindness-cloud. If she tries to escape, she will basically appear out of nowhere for Ladybug to see and jeopardize her secret identity or abilities. Looking down on her ring, she realised she had almost run out of time. Seeing an empty can on the ground, she got an absurdly stupid and risky idea. She picked up the can, ripped the top off and threw it at the gun of Princess Fragrance, hoping the opening will face the right direction when it reaches her. With that, her time was up.
"... if you think you can ran away" said Princess Fragrance as she shot her gun again.
To her surprise, the pink cloud was directly shot into a can flying toward her, the gas being released dangerously close to affect her. Quickly, she covered her face and jumped backward, just in time to avoid being affected by the gas.
"Wow, nice throw" Ladybug said, landing right next to Danielle. "You should get to safety, quick" she said, as Cat Noir was already fighting Princess Fragrance.
It took some time for the superheroes to defeat her, and when Ladybug called her Lucky Charm, Danielle felt like flames engulfed her finger instead of her ring, but by the time of the maths class, they were back in the classroom, with Rose apologising and the others telling her not to worry about it. Danielle felt like she should apologise to Juleka for offending her with whatever she said or did. After school, when she gathered the courage to go and talk to her again, she noticed that Rose was noticeably trying to help her friend avoid being in contact with Danielle. So she just gave up on her plan, walking home alone, thinking about what she could've said that was wrong or insulting to Juleka.
ˇˇˇˇˇ
The next day was Friday, and Mr. Monlataing decided to take the students to the Louvre to see the newly opened seasonal exhibition. However, ther short field trip ended in Mylène being akumatised, as she became jealous because Ivan sat next to the new girl on the bus and not her.
After school, Marinette and the others gathered in the Liberty for a band practice for Kitty Section.
"What's wrong, Ivan?" asked Luka the distraught drummer while checking the tuning of his guitar, grabbing the attention of the others.
"It's just been a bad day so far" Ivan replied. "But practice always makes me happier."
"Well, maybe you should've sat next to your, you know, girlfriend on the bus and not another girl you've known for a few days" said Alya sarcastically, defending Mylène. "And things would've been different today."
"But she helped me yesterday" Ivan said with a sad undertone. "And I wanted to do something nice in return."
"She helped you? With what?" Mylène asked.
"You remember when Ms. Mendeleiev asked me to solve that math problem at the board yesterday?" Ivan asked.
"Yeah, that was easy" replied Alya. "You could do it with no issue."
"Yeah… But only because of Danielle" Ivan replied, scratching his nape.
"What do you mean?" asked Marinette with a questioning look.
"When Ms. Mendeleiev explained how to do it, I didn't understand any of it" Ivan admitted. "But during class, Danielle helped me solve some of the examples. She made it sound so easy. And after that I finally understood what to do. So when I had to solve one in front Ms. Mendeleiev and you guys at the board, I could do it without any help."
"Oh, that's so nice of her" Rose squealed.
"Yeah. And she didn't get angry at me when I couldn't understand it for the first few times" Ivan continued. "So I thought that asking her to sit next to me on the bus would be nice. To thank her, or something."
"That's very thoughtful of you, Ivan" smiled Luka.
"I don't know. Because of that, Mylène got akumatised and now Danielle doesn't want to speak to me" Ivan sighed.
"She… doesn't want to speak to you?" Mylène asked with a guilty voice.
"What? Why?" Alya snapped.
"She said… She said that you probably wouldn't like it. And she didn't want to get me in trouble with you because of her" Ivan said, looking at his girlfriend.
As the others still talked about this, Luka looked at his sister with a knowing smile. Returning his gaze, Juleka sighed loudly.
"This is so embarrassing" Juleka mumbled, making her brother chuckle, as the conversation carried on.
