Marinette was very excited when she received the offer to train at the temple to become an official miraculous guardian. Now that Hawkmoth had been defeated, Marinette hadn’t really been sure what to do with the miraculous and how to handle them. So, this training is exactly what she needs. Being able to go though, would be tricky. She would be able to use the horse miraculous to go to the temple and come home every day. The hard part would be school. She would have to find a way to keep the school from calling her parents to ask where she was. Soon, Marinette had a plan and set it in motion.
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Because of all the akumas, the school had started offering distance learning for students during the Hawkmoth crisis. You just had to complete your assignments in a timely manner and watch pre-recorded lectures. Even though Hawkmoth had been defeated, the school was still offering distance learning for students who were still traumatized by what had happened and weren’t ready to return to the school yet. Since Marinette had always appeared anxious and ‘hid’ when akumas came, the school didn’t even question when she requested the distance learning forms. The real trick would be to get her parents to sign the forms without really reading it. She brought the forms to her parents during rush hour at the bakery and just said they were a permission slip for a field trip. Her parents didn’t even look at the papers, and just signed and quickly got back to work. The next day Marinette returned the forms to the school and started distance learning the day after that. She would go to the temple for lessons during the school day, and would come back home that night to complete her assignments. Things were going smoothly and Marinette was fascinated by her lessons.
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The one thing that Marinette didn’t count on was Lila being nosy. Lila instantly noticed when the designer stopped coming to class. She was sure this would be the perfect way to remove Marinette from her life for good. She wasn’t sure why Marinette had started skipping class, but she knew that Marinette could get expelled for this. She went to Mrs. Bustier ‘concerned for her classmate’ “I just noticed she has been absent a lot and I am worried about her! How will she catch up with all the work she is missing!” Mrs. Bustier would have known about Marinette switching to distance learning, if she had checked her emails. But, Mrs. Bustier had been neglecting her emails and didn’t see the email about the switch. She had already been wondering if Marinette was skipping classes, but now with Lila’s concerns, Mrs. Bustier felt justified taking this information to Mr. Damocles.
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Unfortunately for Mrs. Bustier and Lila, when Mrs. Bustier went to Mr. Damocles office, the superintendent was there for a meeting. When Mrs. Bustier brought up her concerns, the superintendent was initially concerned Marinette was skipping as well. But thankfully, he thought to check the distance learning students before he acted. When he saw her name listed there, that took care of the problem. At least at first. Until he realized that this teacher hadn’t known about her student switching to distance learning, and this meant she hadn’t been checking her emails lately. It made him wonder what else Mrs. Bustier may have missed.
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The superintendent looked into all the other students in Mrs. Bustier’s class and didn’t find anything too alarming at first. He was planning on just have a discussion with Mrs. Bustier about checking her emails more frequently and making sure there was a legitimate concern before bringing it to Mr. Damocles. That was, until, he looked into Lila. When he did, he found scores of unexcused absences. Lila had been out of class for months at a time, and unlike Miss. Dupain-Cheng, Lila had never been signed up for distance learning. The more the superintendent looked into Lila, the more concerned he was. All these disabilities and accommodations for one student, without so much as one doctor’s note. All the unexcused absences. And most troubling was an incident where Lila had gotten Miss. Dupain-Cheng expelled for a time, but then took back all her accusations against her, citing some factitious lying disease. It was absurd! There was clearly a need for a long meeting.
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By the end of the day, Lila’s mother had been called for a meeting with the superintendent, principal, and teacher at her daughter’s school. To say she was shocked by all the lies her daughter had told was a bit of an understatement. Lila was expelled once everything came to light and her mother shipped her off to Italy to be with her grandparents until a more permanent arrangement could be made.
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Marinette completed her training quickly, and after only three months of distance learning, she had finished all the required training to be a guardian. When she started attending in person classes again, she was shocked to find that Lila had been revealed and expelled while she was gone. Marinette was definitely surprised, but she was also very happy, now that Lila’s reign of terror was over.
