Disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug.
This is my take on 'Confrontation.'
Once again, Chloe was setting up again prank to play on Marinette.
The Classic 'pouring paint from a height' prank.
Chloe was fiddling with the shiny metal bucket while Sabrina was standing aside, a bottle of 'Fire Truck Red' in her hands.
"Sabrina, give me the paint."
Sabrina held the paint away from the blonde. "No."
Glass broke.
"What…did you say?"
"I said no. Marinette doesn't deserve this."
"She does! She needs to know her place."
"Why?
"She's a threat! Lila said so!"
"Lila is baiting you. Can't you see she's only using you?"
"Nobody uses Chloe Bourgeois! I use them! Now give me the paint!"
Chloe snatched the bottle from Sabrina's hands, yanked the cap off and poured the bright red paint in the bucket.
"I'll do it myself! I always have to do things by myself!"
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. You couldn't even do your homework."
"Shush! Here she comes!"
"Chloe, no!"
Once Chloe saw Marinette's blue head coming out from the room underneath the railing, she let the heavy and slippery bucket slipped out of her manicured hands.
"Marinette! Look out!"
Suddenly, like a bat out of hell, a girl who looked like Halle Bailey wearing a purple hoodie, beanie and black leggings pushed Marinette and took the impact of the metal bucket on her head, knocking her out while getting drenched in red paint.
"VANESSA!" Marinette cried.
"Hey! That was for Marinette!" Chloe shouted.
"Are you crazy, Chloe?" Adrien accused from below.
Juleka was especially angry. "You are an absolute menace to society for daring to lay a harmful hand on this sweet angel of music!"
"Since when she does talk?" Chloe questioned.
Juleka glared at Chloe one last time and knelt to the fallen girl.
"Is she ok?" Marinette asked.
"I don't know. She's not waking up." Juleka answered, sounding worried.
Marinette knelt and swiped the paint from Vanessa's forehead. However, the paint had a different texture to the paint splatters on the rest of her body.
"This isn't paint. It's blood!" She screamed.
Everyone around her started to freak out.
"Oh my God!
"She's bleeding to death!"
"Someone call an ambulance!"
Thankfully, the ambulance arrived and took Vanessa away. Marinette came along, concerned for the girl.
Once the ambulance was gone, everyone turned to Chloe with expressions of shock and horror.
"What were you thinking?" Adrien demanded. "You almost killed her!"
Chloe simply scoffed, not caring at all. "Yeah, almost. It's not like I actually killws her. She'll be fine."
Sabrina could not believe her. The absolute arrogance of her, to brush off a serious situation involving real people.
"You dropped the whole bucket?" She accused. "You didn't just tip it? You're an idiot! An utterly ridiculous idiot! I would call you a dumb blonde, but I don't wanna insult Rose and Adrien as well!"
Their class gasped.
"Whoa!" Nino exclaimed in awe.
Chloe gasped as well, but in outrage. "How dare you? If you had just given me the paint when I asked you to, I would've gotten Marinette covered in paint instead and none of this stupid mess would've happened! This is all your fault, Sabrina! You're useless, utterly useless!"
Mount Sabrina erupted. "That's it! I'd had enough of you! No more doing your homework, no more doing your dirty work, no more lying to the teachers for you, and no more hurting innocent people who are nice to me! I renounce our so-called friendship!"
With that, she took her gold rose-like brooch Chloe had given her off her vest and handed it back.
"You can give this to Lila. I hope she puts up you better than I did. If she's not travelling the world."
Chloe took the brooch in her hand, frozen in shock. For a moment, she looked heartbroken, but it quickly changed into a childish scowl.
"You're overreacting as always. It's just a prank!"
"Just a prank?" Nathaniel gawked. "Chloe, you could've killed Marinette."
"But you harmed Vanessa in her stead." Juleka added, very angry at the bully.
"Who?" Chloe rudely asked.
"Vanessa! The brave butterfly who flew into our hearts and saved our precious, everyday Ladybug!"
"…why are you talking weird?"
"She's saying that Vanessa was the brave girl who saved Marinette, even at the cost of her own safety." Rose explained, glowering adorably.
"Vanessa is a really nice girl." Ivan mentioned. "She doesn't deserve to be hurt like that."
"I wanted to get rid of Vanessa too, but not in a coffin!" Alya admitted. "More tying her up, stuff a croissant in her mouth and put on a plane back to England!"
"That's the English muffin you spent weeks complaining about? The dancing rich girl stealing Dupain-Cheng? I'd done you a favour then!" Chloe decided.
That only made her classmates angrier.
"Are you deaf?" Kim retorted. "Did you not hear yourself? YOU NEARLY MURDERED HER!"
Chloe scoffed for the second time. "Stop freaking out. Some new girl isn't worth this hassle."
"She doesn't even go here!" Mylene revealed. "She goes to the school Mr Damocles works at now as a janitor."
"What school?" Chloe asked.
"The Olympe College for Young Ladies."
The sapphire-coloured irises of Chloe's eyes shrunk three sizes too small. "Uh oh."
"You're so screwed, Chloe." Alix mocked.
"Why? What's so bad about Olympe?" Alya asked. "Besides Vanessa being there, possibly manipulating Marinette to attend."
"Right, you're haven't been in Paris long enough, babe." Nino said. "Olympe is like Beauxbatons. It's a sort of performing arts boarding school. The girls that go there are mostly daughters of celebrities, politicians, and rich people. But they're known to be yet ferocious. Even Adrien knows about them."
"They have a male counterpart school, but father didn't want me to attend there." Adrien added. "Said I won't have time to model for the company."
"So, if Vanessa goes there, then that means she's talented in the arts and/or related to someone of great importance." Alya realised. "But who's more important than the Bourgeois family?"
Nino shrugged. "I don't know."
"What's her last name again?" Mylene asked.
Ivan scratched his chin in thought. "I forgot. It starts wit think…"
Even Chloe knew not to mess with that school. The realisation of that she harmed one of its students shook her to the core.
"I-I don't care if she is an Olympe girl. I am Chloe Bourgeious! I am the mayor's daughter! I am untouchable, undefeatable, and unvincible!"
"Whatever you say, Mayfair Lipp." Max remarked. "And it's invincible, not unvincible."
"Whatever!"
"Ms Bourgeois, go to my office while I contact your father and inform him of your horrific actions." Ms Mendeleiev ordered, standing over the blonde girl with a stern scowl. "An appropriate punishment must be decided for you."
"Punishment? Me? It wasn't my fault! It was Marinette's!"
"How?"
"By threatening me!"
"…That doesn't make sense. If she was threatening you, why didn't you report her?"
"Because she threatened me! Besides, my father will never allow me to get punished! I'm innocent!"
"Go to my office. Now."
As Chloe reluctantly trekked to the head office, she wondered if it was a mistake in making the mean science teacher the principal. Ms Mendeleiev was more competent than Mr Damocles.
But at least her father could help her out of this mess.
He always had.
"I'm sorry, honey, but I can't help you this time."
"Daddy, you promised! You promise you will always protect me!" Chloe whined, stomping her feet, and pouting at her father.
He looked at her apologetically. "I did! But it's more difficult than I thought. A bystander recorded the incident, and it went viral online."
"I didn't give anyone permission to film me unless Marinette was getting humiliated!"
"I know you didn't. But the headmistress of Olympe had already contacted the other girl's parents."
"Can't you just bribe her parents or intimidate them like you always do?"
Andre looked scared. "I can't. The best I could do is stop the headmistress of Olympe, but she refused to yield and already contacted the girl's parents. That old woman has power. After all, Olympe is one of the world's most prestigious schools. Remember, I tried to get you in there."
Chloe scowled at the bitter memory of receiving the fancy rejection letter. "They said I had no talent, I know, daddy! But no one told me that girl goes there!"
Her father switched his fear for shock. "You have no idea who she is?!"
"No. And I don't care. All I care about is that she is not Dupain-Cheng. That girl wasn't supposed to be there! Why is an Olympe student doing at a public, non-artistic school anyway?"
"Apparently, the girl had recently befriended miss Dupain-Cheng and was visiting her."
"So, it was really Dupain-Cheng's fault she got hurt, not mine!"
"Do you have any idea who you had just injured?"
"No, because she wasn't supposed to get caught! Marinette was!"
"Chloe! This is serious! I can't just sweep this under the rug like I did before. It's much more complicated. You severely injured someone very important."
"Who's more important than me? I'm your daughter! You're the mayor!"
"Chloe."
Her father suddenly spoke sternly. It surprised Chloe. Her father never used that tone with her.
"The girl who took the hit for miss Dupain-Cheng is Vanessa Jane Diana Camberwell."
Chloe froze. A horrible realisation hit her harder than the time Alix 'accidentally' hit her with a dodgeball in gym.
"Camberwell? As in Lulworth Camberwell? Mayor of London? The guy you're scared of? Head of the one of the most powerful families in Europe?"
Andre nodded.
"She's a Camberwell?"
Andre nodded again.
"If she's Mayor Camberwell's daughter, then that means…"
"She's the younger half-sister to Crystal, the world-famous actress. The one you like?"
Chloe did not just like Crystal. She adored her. She admired the actress since childhood, watched every movie and television show she had appeared in. Crystal was Chloe's idol after Ladybug.
"Now do you see, Chloe? You almost murdered the most beloved girl in England, maybe all of Europe, since Princess Diana! This is a PR nightmare for us. It could bring World War 3!"
"…Opps."
"I'm doomed, Lila! Doomed!" Chloe wailed, hugging her pillow.
After learning what she had done to the last person she every expected to even touch, she ran straight to her suite, threw herself to her bed and freaked out.
Lila arrived shortly later and helped herself to some chocolate covered strawberries while Chloe panicked.
"Lila, what am I going to do?" Chloe asked tearfully, expecting her new best friend, the only person she trusted, to comfort her and offer her advice to fix the horrible situation she got herself in.
However, Lila did the opposite.
"Oh, Chloe. You're in such deep shit now."
"Huh?"
"Why should I help you? You did this to yourself."
"ME?! It was your idea to teach Dupain-Cheng a lesson!"
"I never said to drop a metal bucket filled with red paint on her, did I? I was thinking of something harmless, like faking a love letter from Adrien."
"You told me Dupain-Cheng is a serious threat!"
"You overreacted."
Chloe became furious that Lila had manipulate Chloe to harm Marinette anyway. Sabrina was right about that.
"You made me do it! You manipulated me! You told me Dupain-Cheng was a threat and needed to be dealt with! I'll tell my daddy on you!"
Lila merely scoffed. She was nothing like pushover Sabrina.
"Who's going to believe you? Chloe, it's your ugly mug on the video. It's your manicured hands that dropped the bucket. It's your big mouth that said Marinette Dupain-Cheng was meant to be your target. If you tell anyone about me, I'll just lie, and they'll believe me."
"Why would anyone believe you? You tricked me!"
"Because you're the bully. You tormented Marinette, even before I came along. I may have given you the gun, but you pulled the trigger."
Chloe stared at Lila blankly, stunned.
Lila smirked and stood up. She fixed her jacket, a pretty brooch on the lapel.
"Thanks for the brooch."
She sashayed out of the suite, leaving Chloe with another realisation.
One saying that Sabrina was right. Lila was using her.
And she was paying the price of it.
Chloe quickly became the most hated girl in the world.
(If she wasn't already the most hated girl in France.)
Her prank made international news. All of Europe was outraged. England was especially angry. The scandal of it also hung out the rest of the Bourgeois's dirty laundry, anything that Andre had buried to protect his family was bug up.
The love for the Camberwell family overwhelmed the fear of the Bourgeois family.
Andre thought it would be a great idea to seek out Mayor Camberwell at the hospital where Vanessa was being treated at, hoping to catch him at a vulnerable time and talk him out of pressing charges.
It wasn't.
The mayor of Paris waited outside Vanessa's room. The British mayor's daughter was in bed, surrounded by flowers and doting family members. Her big (half) sister Crystal, Crystal's fiancé Allan, her stepmother Annie, her mother Julia, and her father the man himself, Lulworth Camberwell.
Marinette was also in there, giving Vanessa a handcrafted butterfly mask with silver designs.
"Thank you." Vanessa said, smiling.
Marinette smiled back. "I should be thanking you, for saving me. It could've been me in that bed." She graced a sad expression. "It should be in that bed, not you."
"It's fine." Vanessa countered. "No one should get hurt by anyone. Especially like that."
Vanessa's mother Julia rubbed Marinette's shoulders comfortingly. "Don't beat yourself up, dear. It was a matter of circumstance."
Vanessa glanced to the big window where she could see doctors, nurses and patients walking pass, only she saw Andre lurking.
"Mom, there's a strange man outside."
Julia turned and saw Andre, and then turned back to her husband. "Lulworth."
"I'll handle it."
Lulworth reluctantly left the room and faced Andre with a cold scowl.
"What do you want, Bourgeois?" The British man demanded.
Andre gulped in fear.
Chloe was right about one thing. Lulworth was scarier than Adrien's father.
A vulnerable Lulworth was a scary Lulworth.
"Lulworth, I apologise for my daughter-"
"It is not just me you have offended."
Marinette's parents came up to Lulworth's side, both gracing scowls directed at Andre.
"Sabine and Tom have informed me your daughter has been tormenting their only child for years and whatever attempt was made to stop your daughter, you stopped it instead. You even threatened to shut down their business."
"I was just trying to protect my daughter!" Andre tried to explain. "She's a sweet girl, just-"
"Spoiled? Reckless? Utterly unpredictable?" Lulworth interrupted.
Andre didn't say anything back.
"Mayor Bourgeois, we never said we wanted to hurt Chloe." Sabine said. "We just wanted her to stop hurting Marinette. As her father, you should've done something about it years ago, when she started bullying Marinette. Had you listened to us the first time and disciplined her, her behaviour wouldn't gotten worse. But you took our warnings as threats instead and completely ignored how ruthless she is."
"You can't possibly mean I discipline my daughter?" Andre retorted, finding his voice. "I would never hurt her!"
"Discipline doesn't mean you smack her!" Tom exploded, on his last straw of patience with the mayor. "It's doesn't mean violence anymore. You could've talked to Chloe, make her understand how dangerous her behaviour is. We told you hundreds of times Chloe was bullying Marinette, but you never listen!"
"But Chloe said your daughter was bullying her!" Andre shouted back.
"How can you know? We never talked about it! We never figured why Chloe was bullying Marinette. We never even got the girls to make up. You allowed your daughter to go completely out of control and turn a blind eye to whatever chaos she made. Whenever anyone tells you, you literally sent them to jail! You're not a father, you're an idiot!"
"Easy, Tom." Lulworth interrupted again, this time more gently with Tom. "Allow me." Lulworth turned his piercing violet eyes on Andre, striking fear into his heart. "It's clear that you spoiling Chloe truly spoiled her. The Dupain-Chengs have suffered under you enough. With my support, they will finally sue you for all the damage you've done to them. As well as me."
Andre almost had a heart attack.
"Perhaps it's fate that my daughter was injured by yours. Had it been Marinette…you would bury it. My daughter bears my last name. Burying her…would be difficult."
Lulworth, Sabine, and Tom went back into the room, leaving Andre in his sorrows. His attempt to stop the situation made it even worse than it was before.
Like father, like daughter.
"So, Crystal, how do you feel about Chloe Bourgeois?" Nadja asked the movie star.
"How do I feel about the girl who nearly killed my sweet little sister? I feel…angry! Disgusted! Furious! Chloe Bourgeois is a monster! A truly outrageous monster!"
Chloe watched the televised interview with teary eyes, her heart breaking at her idol calling her a monster.
As for Lila…
The fiend that Chloe once thought as a friend, a trusted ally, told everyone that Chloe bullied her and even forced her into doing things against her will.
(Lies, of course, but who would believe Chloe?)
And then she disappeared.
Without a trace.
Leaving Chloe utterly alone.
After an investigation, it turned out that Lila Rossi never existed.
So, Chloe put all her trust in a ghost.
And it backfired on her.
Due to the severe bad press, Andre stepped down as mayor of Paris, taking the only source of Chloe's power away.
His long face told her how disappointed he was of her.
"You're useless! Utterly useless!"
"Dear-"
"That brat ruined the family and you let it happen!"
"But darling-"
"I want a divorce!"
"Audrey!"
"I need to get rid of you before you ruin my life too! Come along, Zoe!"
Audrey grabbed Zoe's wrist and pulled her away from Andre's side, making her drop a pair of sneakers she designed.
"Wait, mom!" Zoe yelped.
"Zoe, no!" Andre cried in woe. Zoe was like another daughter to him, never minding that she was his wife's child with another man.
"I'm taking this one with me back to New York before you screwed her up like you did with the last one! You can keep Clovis."
"Chloe! Our daughter's name is Chloe!"
"Either way, I am not associating myself with that…thing! Your idiot daughter nearly killed one of the world's most beloved children! I knew she would never amount to anything! Why can't she be more like Zoe? Or Marinette? Now that's a girl who's exceptional!"
Chloe watched her own mother rejected her, got her name wrong, and compare her to her half-sister and rival all in one go.
"Dupain-Cheng is gone?" Chloe asked when she arrived at school and was greeted by glares of the kids in her class (apart from Lila.)
"YES!"
"Because of you!"
"Thanks to your prank, Marinette and Vanessa spent more time together. They bonded and became closer, and Vanessa convinced Marinette to apply to her school!"
"But we're starting high school in a few months!" Chloe pointed out.
"Exactly! Olympe is a combined education, so she's going there now!"
"She's gonna be so busy, we won't hear from her until she graduates!"
"You took away our Everyday Ladybug!"
The entire class was mad at Chloe, especially Adrien, because their good friend Marinette was supposed to go to the same high school as them.
"I lost my best friend because of you!" Alya screamed.
Chloe was quick to defend herself. "None of this would've happen if Marinette just took my prank like she was supposed to do!"
"Did you really think that you would get away with everything you've done? You're delusional!"
Adrien was looking very mad at Chloe. He wanted Marinette to pursue her dream in fashion design (and be safe from Chloe) but was frustrated that the prestigious boarding school was keeping his girlfriend in one of its towers. Their security and strict schedules were worse than his own.
"How am I supposed to properly date Marinette if we're always kept apart?" He wondered out loud.
"You can date me instead!" Chloe offered herself. "I'm much better!"
Adrien recoiled.
"No. Never. Not in a million years. I think I'll attend Olympe's boys' school, just so I can be with Marinette. And get away from you."
Adrien turned away from her and walked away.
Chloe growled.
"Marinette…"
It wasn't hard to find Marinette. The goody-two-pink-shoes was at the hospital again, spending more time with Vanessa. Chloe couldn't go inside since she was the one who put Vanessa in the hospital in the first place, so she waited outside. When Marinette finally emerged, Chloe pounced.
"This is all your fault!"
"Chloe? What are you doing here?"
"To see you! You've ruined my life! Every bad thing that happened to me was your fault!"
Even after everything, she still had the audacity of to blame Marinette for her troubles.
"Chloe, bad things happened to you because you did bad things." Marinette answered back as calmly as she could. "You tried to hurt me. You hurt Vanessa."
"It was supposed to be you! If she didn't push you out of the way, none of this would've happen! You should've taken my prank like the good girl everyone said you are! You always do what you're told! You do what everyone else asked you to, but you always ignore me! You prefer to ruin my life instead! You show me up, you frame me, you steal my friends, my mother and sister! You even took Adrien from me!"
Chloe begun to cough out some sobs.
"It's not fair that you get to be so popular whereas I had to struggle just to get one person to like me! I'm the princess of Paris! You're nothing but a pauper! I tried so hard to make friends when I was little. But other kids just called me spoiled and too overbearing."
At that moment, Marinette felt sorry for her. The notorious Chloe Bourgeois just wanted to be liked by others. That was why she bullied her so much over the years, Chloe was just jealous of her. She envied Marinette for her sweet personality that drew everyone in while Chloe had a hard time. So, she ruined Marinette's life in order to stop her from being popular by being liked. Something she could never have.
"Chloe, I-"
Marinette tried to say something, but Chloe had to cut her off with her spite and jealousy.
"If I can't have happiness, then neither can you!"
"That's where you're wrong, Chloe."
Both girls turned around and were shocked to see Vanessa standing there, her head wrapped with bandages.
The British girl walked towards the two French girls, staring at Chloe with piercing violet eyes. Just like her father.
"Just because you had a hard time making friends doesn't mean you have to give Marinette a hard time. Everyone has trouble making friends. But no good person uses it as an excuse to justify their bullying. Your jealousy poisoned you. You get off the satisfaction of hurting others and keep hurting others to feel that sick type of happiness. You confused happiness with satisfaction."
"What's the difference?" Chloe demanded.
Vanessa's cool answer silenced her. "One doesn't last as long as the other."
While Chloe was stunned, Vanessa looped her arm around Marinette's.
"Come on, Mari. We have class tomorrow."
The two girls walked away, with Marinette holding her head high, like a heavy burden was finally lifted off her shoulders.
Chloe screamed as she trashes her suite. In the process, she broke her wall-length mirror. Shards scattered on the floor.
She was a simp for strong, confident women like her mother, Ladybug and Crystal. She wanted to be just like them.
But she had forgotten, apart from her mother, that they were kind, selfless and would never hurt others just to make themselves happy.
In no time, Chloe was on a plane, flying her to Norway where her new school was. A boarding school for 'difficult' children to straighten her out.
And her status meant squat in the new status quo.
Energy drained out of her, Chloe just stared out of the window, watching the beautiful landscape of France disappearing from her view.
She lost everything.
She lost her luxury.
She lost her immunity.
She lost her father, Adrien and Sabrina, the only good people in her life.
She should've listened to Sabrina.
Chloe is called 'Mayfair Lipp' - Reference to The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.