Miraculous Ladybug: Civil War

Chapter Two: In Which The Room Clashes

"Now, this is how the debate will work- you choose one side, and stick with it. If you change for some reason, you'll need to explain why you changed. Try not to cut off one another, please. When you find a seat, get a piece of paper and make yourself a makeshift nametag so you can properly address one another. Those who are in agreement with Chat Noir, over by the windows please. Those understanding of Ladybug, please sit at the desks closer to the door," Ms. Houlihan instructed.

There was a moment of silence as everyone looked around at one another, trying to see if this was actually going to go down now that they saw that video. Marinette knew that the people in her class were expecting her to move over to defend Chat, but she wouldn't do that this time. Today, she had to defend herself.

Adrien, however, was the first to move, Nino following behind him. When the settled on Chat's side, the others were spurred into motion. After the sides were chosen and the nametags set, they counted up the numbers.

Adrien, Nino, Nathanael, Alix, Rose, Juleka, Mylene, and Ivan were the kids from Marinette's class that chose the side of her partner. From the class down the hall there were Phoebe, Simon, Jelli, Zander, Damien, Cervantes, Teddy, and Nikolai- a total of sixteen with Chat Noir.

Marinette, Alya, Chloe, Sabrina, Max, and Kim were over by the door of their classroom. The other people that made up that side were Cheyenne, Karina, Alee, Adreanna, Amelia, Annika, AJ, and Peter. For Ladybug, fourteen people knew how it felt to be in that position, and felt she was in the right.

"Now, to start off the discussion, I'll pick one person from each side to say their views, and you may go off that," Mr Kapatunik decided. He did a quick once-over of both sides before naming his choices. "Adrien and Marinette."

"You're not picking on your class today?" The female teacher mused as the two teachers got ready to grade the students' performance in the debate.

"I've picked on them all week, they need a little break," he chuckled, getting his own grading sheet out. "Whenever you two are ready, please decide who will go first," he directed at the students.

"Ladies' first," Adrien offered, somewhat sheepishly.

"O-okay," Marinette stammered, eliciting snickers from their peers; everyone but Adrien knew of her crush on them. She fought the blush off her face, determined not to make a fool of herself- either version of herself, for that matter.

"I believe that Ladybug, while she shouldn't have been as harsh as she was, had every right to call Lila out on what she said. According to Alya's Ladyblog, Ladybug had even said so herself after the incident that she shouldn't have been that rude to Lila, and even offered her hand in friendship. She also didn't get upset when she refused, because she knew she hurt Lila, but she did try to make amends," the bluenette stated clearly, shocking Alya with her quick change of demeanor from a shy stuttering girl to one ready to start a fight.

"I disagree with you," Adrien started. Marinette's shoulders drooped- she knew he would obviously be disagree with her, as he was on Chat's side, but part of her wasn't exactly ready to hear it yet.

"Ladybug had no ground to call Lila out- so she fibbed about being friends with her. A lot of people do that every day, and get caught by their friends or family in said lie. But having a super hero call her out on being a liar? It's not very hero-like, and even hurt Lila so much that she refused to be friends with someone she initially would have been over the moon to befriend," the blond calmly explained. The room fell into silence, nobody daring to speak up yet.

"Except Lila didn't just lie about being friends with Ladybug," Alya spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to her. "She lied about being a superhero herself. And yeah, those may have been small lies, but Lila is someone who, when confronted with lie, goes to the extreme to try and cover it up."

"What do you mean by that?" Nino asked, confusion written all over his face.

"She's saying that this Lila girl would ultimately have lied about Ladybug," a girl on Ladybug's side, Adreanna, offered a short and concise version of the ombre haired girls words.

"Yeah, we're aware she lied about Ladybug, that's been established. But since people do it every day, Ladybug should have just left her alone," Nikolai retorted.

"She wasn't saying that," Cheyenne sighed. "She was saying that that Lila chick would have lied about things about Ladybug due to the type of person she was."

"What does that even mean?" Zander asked, confusion written on a few people's faces besides his own.

"We all kind of met Lila when she transferred here, and she just let lie after lie flow out of her mouth with no regrets. She lied to get out of lies she got caught. Eventually she would have been caught about not being Ladybug's friend, and she'd lie about Ladybug's personality and things she liked instead of admit she was in the wrong," Annika explained.

"So why not have fate catch up with her?" Teddy offered. "She had no reason to shut her down so fast and so harshly."

"Probably to spare her from less embarrassment when it did happen, since it'd probably go viral," Alee chimed in.

"It probably would have been better for her to be embarrassed instead of being torn down by her idol," Damien pointed out.

"Well, it was nicer of Ladybug to shut her down early and have Lila hate her instead of having Lila get interviewed by people because she said she knew Ladybug," Karina started, but chose not to finish.

"How was it nicer? She lost out on having the press in her face- which is what it seemed like she wanted," Phoebe queried.

"The press might have called her a liar to her face if someone asked Ladybug about something Lila said and Ladybug being confused," AJ replied thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Amelia added, "the press would go from really nice to kind of mean and intruding faster than someone could blink- and Ladybug stopped that from happening."

"Aren't you guys getting a bid ahead of yourselves? Because wouldn't that have taken time to happen?" Cervantes mumbled.

"Not really. There's a good possibility it would have played out like that- right Max?" Peter directed to his nerdy team mate of sorts.

"There is a more than sixty percent chance it would have played out like that had Ladybug done nothing," the other boy agreed, fixing his glasses.

"How do you even calculate that?" Simon asked, her voice containing a bit of awe.

"Mainly from her personality, probably," Chloe spoke up, some of her old rudeness threatening to show through.

"Alright kids," Ms. Houlihan dragged their attention to her, her hurried voice tinged with worried- which everyone could understand, given that no one wanted old Chloe back. Most of them were thankful for the rift between the heroes simply because of the way it had impacted the blonde girl. "I think that's all we needed to hear to decide that this matter is still mostly a controversial one, and that with the information we have right now, we can't finish this without repeating any subjects we've touched on. Even if you didn't speak, we won't take away points from you since there wasn't enough material for everyone to speak equally. You all will get passing grades, and you may converse amongst yourselves until the bell rings."

Typically, the students would jump out of their seats and run to their friends. But that wasn't the case today. Nervous glances were cast around the room from a majority of the students- as if they were hiding something.

Marinette, for one, knew she was. She was Ladybug after all, one of the main points of this discussion. But she also knew that Chat Noir could be in this room. Before today, she would've immediately crossed Adrien off that list. Now, however, with him looking around the room with the same fervor she did, she allowed those suspicions to rise back from where she had pushed them.

What if- Her train of thought was silenced by the bell, which was followed by a mass exodus.

Which reminded Marinette that their final exams were coming up. She fought the urge to slam her head on the desk, instead choosing to leave for the library.

"Hopefully there's no ak-," she started mumbling to herself, before smiling ever so slightly. The only good thing to come from this fight between her and Chat Noir was the fact that there were at lest twenty or so other miraculous users besides her and Chat in Paris now. If there was an akuma today, she could continue studying, knowing that it would be handled.