Rate this (Trust is Hard to Come By)
Its six am here and I just got to work. And am now writing a drabble at my desk. Again tweaked prompt a bit. Oh and I just realized that based on this and my last few “drabble” that are long that some picture books… I don’t know what a drabble. Or least I know it doesn’t apply to what I usually write.
No one would who or what had caused the akuma this time. However, when a thirteen-year-old superfan of Ladybug got Akumatized, everyone knew it.
A loud voice boomed in the ears of all the citizens in Paris, “Beware Paris, I am the Gardener, protector of the Loveliness. Those who have failed our Queen Ladybug will be revealed. A number you shall be given on a scale to 100; the higher the number, the more trust the Queen has in you. Low numbers have failed our Queen, betrayed our queen, betrayed the loveliness, and will be punished!”
“Loveliness,” Adrien asked, already preparing to make a break for it to transform.
Unaware that Marinette decided to wait for a bit. Some lessons needed to be learned the hard way. All the kids were at lunch and seemed to be enjoying the day until the alert happened.
Max pushed his glasses up, “A group of ladybugs is called a ‘loveliness of ladybugs.’. Gardeners love Ladybugs because Ladybugs protect their gardens.”
“Cool!” Kim grinned. “We get to see how much Ladybug digs us.”
Alya preened, “I’m at least a 90.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m so going to live stream this.”
“I think I’m like an 80, dude,” Nino smirked.
All the kids gave their guess; most figuring they were at least in the 70s. It was Alya who joked, that Marinette probably had a ten.
The others agreed; thinking the girl had been such a bully lately, and so mean to Lila.
Marinette overheard them from where she, Chloe, Kagami and their new friends sat. A smirked spread across her face. This would be good.
A blindingly flash filled the cafeteria. When it was gone, all the kids had numbers above their heads.
One by one the excited grins on the students of Bustier’s class faded.
“A two,” Alya paled. “How can I be a two?” A dark ugly red 2 floated above her head. She touched the number and words appeared next to it: Warning: Disloyal. False friend. Bully. Anger control problems. Easily swayed. Bad journalist… etc.
Nino frowned, “I got a four.” How could he have a four? He was carapace. Ladybug had chosen him herself. Or at least she had. He hadn’t gone Super in over a year. Was that when Ladybug lost her trust in him?
He touched the number. His warning said: bad friend. Disloyal. Bully. He touched it again before he could read any more.
Kim had a five. Alix had a three. Mylene had a seven. Rose and Juleka had 10s. Ivan had an eight. Nathanial had an eleven. Max had a six. All were in the red. All had similar warning signs.
Adrien had frozen in his seat when he saw his number. A 14. How could he be a 14? Why did Ladybug barely trust him? They were partners, friends, maybe more one day. But how could they be any of that she didn’t trust him.
He touched his number. His warning sign read: Naïve, Spineless, pushy, Bad friend, and, in bold letter, COWARD.
“We should go,” Max whispered. “People are staring.”
And sure enough they were. Most of the student body had numbers in the 30s or 40s, it was respectable seeing as they barely dealt with the hero. However, this meant it was easy to find the kids who ranked so much lower.
Slowly suspicious eyes fell on Bustier’s class. What had they done, most wondered. Whatever, it was they knew it was bad. Somehow the students of Bustier’s class had hurt Ladybug. And as far as the rest of the school was concerned, and those watching from Alya’s livestream, if Ladybug couldn’t trust them, they couldn’t either.
Marinette watched with cold eyes as her classmates and ex-friends scrambled to rush out of the cafeteria. Still she kept a smile on her face as one by one student came up to thank her for whatever she had done for Ladybug; for being such a good friend to the hero.
A glowing, bright beautiful emerald green 92 floated above her. It was the highest number anyone had seen so far. Her words attached were less of a warning and more of brag: Loyal, Honest, Good. Trustworthy. Caring. A great friend. Hardworker. Heroic. Brave. Then her warning was: A bit too insecure but working on it.
Aurore beamed at her friend, livestreaming from her own phone to her new Bugout. She had a neon green 70 above her head. Her words: Honest, Hardworker, loyal, good friend, amazing journalist. “Everyone post a pic of themselves with the number above their heads; it’s blowing up Twitter.”
Chloe gave everyone smug grins, as she had the second 86 above hers. Her words: Brave, strong, loyal, good. A great hero. A great friend.
Kagami had a 72. Her words: loyal, confident, headstrong, good, good friend. Marc a 67. Ondine a 66. Claude a 71. They all had similar ones to Kagami.
“You’re in Bustier’s class, right, Marinette?” A girl who had come to thank Marinette had asked. Her question drew attention from everyone. “Are you going to be safe there? With them?”
Claude frowned, “Maybe you shouldn’t go back there.”
It took a lot of reassurance to get her friends and even quite a few of the other students who had been in the cafeteria to allow her to go back to her class. Even then, Marinette found Ms. Mendeleiev, who had a solid forest green 71 above her head and had a bit more pep in her step that usual, escorting her and Chloe to class.
Students in the hall moved out of Marinette way as soon as they saw her coming, a look of awe on their faces. The bluenette couldn’t find the pink blush that crept on to her face.
They knew they had gotten to Bustier’s class when they saw the red glow emerging from the room
Alya couldn’t believe it. How couldn’t Ladybug trust her? She was Rena Rouge. Or least she had been. There had been a new Fox running around with Ladybug, lately. Rena hadn’t been seen in over a year. Still, Alya ran the Ladyblog. Alya thought they were friends. But how could that be true with a 2 above her head. And she wasn’t a bully or disloyal.
The rest of the class had a similar mindset. Even Bustier, who had a three, had a sorrowful look on her face. She didn’t understand what she had done wrong.
When green glows entered the room, they all noticed. Mouths dropped.
Ms. Mendeleiev with a 71, they could understand. She was a great teacher, no one could deny it. The beautiful blond Chloe they could sort of understand. She had an 86; maybe she had done more good as Queen Bee than they knew about. Marinette though? Their minds just couldn’t compute.
How could Marinette have a 92?
They read the words attached to her and Chloe’s numbers with disbelief.
Said girl thanked Mendeleiev who had taken to blatantly staring at Bustier with distrust. It occurred to Mendeleiev, that the younger teacher did have an absurdly high number of Akuma transformation from her students. When Mendeleiev and told everyone what she had seen and realized; most of the other faculty would begin to keep a close eye on Bustier and her class. Something just wasn’t right with that lot.
Marinette and Chloe made their way to the seats in back. The green above their heads looked a halo.
Alya wanted to scream. “Why does Ladybug trust you?” She asked the girls.
“She’s Queen Bee,” Marinette pointed at Chloe. “A loyal ally of Ladybug.”
Chloe smirked, “Don’t you remember that it was Marinette who first got you that interview with Ladybug; the reason your blog became as popular as it did?” She asked reporter. “Marinette’s Ladybug’s friend.”
Any scathing thing the students had been thinking to sneer at the girls died on their lips. Marinette was Ladybug’s friend. They knew Marinette knew the hero but never thought about how close they were.
“Why do think Ladybug stopped giving you interviews?” Chloe leaned back in her seat. A euphoric feeling filling her. “She only started working with you in the first place because she knew you were Marinette’s bestie. Once that changed, well… Ladybug just didn’t want to work with you anymore. Something about Journalistic Professionalism. How is your website doing by the way? I haven’t checked in a while. I normally use Aurore’s Bugout blog. Ladybug endorses it, you know?”
Marinette could have kissed the blond. The devastation on Alya’s face was finally karma for all the nasty texts she had sent to Marinette before she change her number.
Nino pulled his girlfriend into a hug.
“She read those texts you sent me by the way.” Marinette sent them a cold smirk as horrified looks overcame their faces. “Every last one. She was so disappointed.”
“You showed her?” Rose whispered. “How could you show her?”
“Why not?” Marinette shrugged. Rose hadn’t sent as many mean texts as the others in class and weren’t all that mean; just accusatory and claiming that she refused to be friends with a Bully. “I trust her. She trusts me. I even sent her videos of what a day in our class has been like lately. Ladybug got to see and hear everything personally. She has so many concerns about the goings on in this. She’ll be going to the school board with the videos.”
Bustier paled. She knew the students had gotten a bit out of hand but surely they weren’t that bad. They were just kids after all. (The teacher would get her answer a week later, along with a pink slip.)
Alya sobbed as she remembered everything she sent Marinette. How could she know Ladybug would read them? No wonder Alya got a 2. Ladybug probably hated her. “I only sent that because you were being such a bully.”
“Yeah,” Alix hissed. “It’s not fair. You were being such a freak about Lila!” There were nods.
And as the old saying goes, speak of the devil, and the devil…
Lila had taken her sweet time getting to school that day. She had lied to her mother that it was closed for the morning because an Akuma. And it was just her luck that one would appear. She had stayed in bed all day, earphones blasting music in her ear, wondering just how she’ll amazing her classmates that day. It felt great to be adored.
When Lila got up to leave for school, she looked in the mirror and saw a dark, blood red glowing Negative 51 above her head. She shrugged and left her apartment. Earphones still in her ears. A happy smile on her face.
She didn’t notice the shocked and disgusted looks on people’s faces as she passed them. Or why a mother picked up her a child and ran in the other direction. Lila didn’t see the brave man who reached out, with shaky hands, and touched her number as she passed by. Nor she see the People taking pictures of her and her warning signs. The photos went viral almost instantly, everyone wanted to know just who was the girl with the only negative number in all of Paris… As far they knew.
When Gabriel Agreste saw Lila’s image on the web, he ordered Nathalie to sever all connections to the teen girl and release a statement making it clear the company had no idea just what Lila Rossi had been capable of. Afterwards, Gabriel wondered what Lila had done to earn such a dramatically low number.
Gabriel himself was at a respectable and average 30. While Nathalie was at solid 34. Decent not too green numbers. Though as Hawkmoth, they were both an Ugly negative -2. He knew he was a Supervillian; Ladybug regarded him as a bad guy. But she seemed to regard Lila Rossi as pure evil.
…Maybe Hawkmoth should sever his connection to the Italian girl as well.
Lila arrived at school, just at the end of lunch, students had just started to leave the cafeteria for lunch. She didn’t notice that students stopped in their tracks to stare at her. Or the teachers with horrifying and calculating looks on their faces. She didn’t seem Damocles’ pale and rush off to call her mother.
She didn’t notice anything. Lila just smiled pleasantly; having decided to go with a Prince Ali story that day. Maybe that he asked her to marry him. She’d be the envy of all the girls in class.
However, when Lila got to the class she did notice the shocked looks she got from her classmates. But not the cold smirk on Marinette’s face.
“What?” Lila asked looking around. “Did something happened? Oh, no is the Akuma still around? How awful!” She said fighting the smile off her face. Hopefully Ladybug was getting her ass kicked, she thought.
Alya dropped her phone. Negative? How could Lila be negative? How could she have such a low negative number at that?
Everyone in class read the giant warning label attached to Lila Rossi’s number: Liar, backstabber, nasty, bully, untrustworthy, manipulative, rotten, villain, horrible person; the list went on and on. However, it was that shook them to their cores: Evil. Not bad. Not awful. Evil.
Alya collapsed against her boyfriend, “No. No. I didn’t know. I swear.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Nino comforted her. “None of us knew.” There were nods from the other students.
Marinette and Chloe looked at them with narrowed eyes because: What the hell.
“Except I told you she was a liar,” Marinette glared at them. “You didn’t listen. You turned against me… for her.”
“You turned against Marinette,” Chloe said slowly. “The girl who did everything for you. And for what? A few glittery stories and false promises?”
Adrien closed his eyes. Was this why Ladybug distrusted him? Because he didn’t side with Marinette like he knew he should’ve. Plagg had warned him he was wrong. But he just didn’t want to risk losing all his friends like Marinette seemed to be losing hers.
Marinette looked at Rose, “Now I want you think again about every text you all sent me because of Lila Rossi.” Once again the students turned pale. They had been so mean, so harsh, so unbelievable cruel to the girl that had been so dear to their hearts. “Now I want you to remember again that Ladybug saw them.”
Rose was the first to break out in tears. “I’m-I’m sorry!” She sobbed and struggled to find her words. She had disowned one of her closest friends for a villain. “I’m so sorry!”
Other students were in the same boat she was. The fiery Alix was had been contemplating going on another tirade against Marinette when Lila walked in, felt her anger be snuffed out a like a campfire in a thunderstorm. The pink haired girl remembered helping lead the charge in showing Marinette what it was like to be bullied; tripping her, ripping of her homework, shoving her. What she done? Kim had been crushing on Lila hard felt crushed. Marinette had been since friend since pre-k, and he just… left her.
Lila looked honestly confused. She had missed something, and it was big. “What’s going on?”
Nino glared at the girl; his eyes red, tear streaks his face. “Those numbers tell the world how much Ladybug trusts you. Or how much she doesn’t,” He said darkly, thinking about his own number and his actions against the girl he once called his best friend. “And why.”
“The lower the number,” Adrien added. “The less she trust you.”
Chloe leaned forward in her seat and sent vicious smirk to the Italian girl, “And guess who has the only negative number in Paris.” She teased. “Besides Hawkmoth, but at least he was smart enough to hide. You’re trending by the way.”
“No!” Lila said, looking around desperately, but all she saw was cold stares. “No!” She pulled out her phone, and sure enough the name Lila Rossi was trending. Her picture with the giant negative number above her head seem to be everywhere. “This can’t be happening! How can this be happening!”
Marinette stood up, “Because you’re a bad person. You’re mean and you’re cruel. And worst yet, you dragged everyone down with you.” She said. Her voice was righteous or angry. It was like she was stating a fact from a history book. Marinette looked over every single one of her ex-friends, “Ladybug will never trust you again.”
“Time for class,” Chloe sang. “Maybe you guys will finally learn something.”