The Lost Gothamite

Chapter 19

Since Hawkmoth had already been defeated, it was time to deal with what was left. Since Hawkmoth was defeated, Lila had made lies about how she had helped Ladybug find out who Hawkmoth was and how shocked she was when she discovered he was Gabriel Agrest.

The rest of her classmates who weren't in the LHC sucked up the story and Alya posted her interview with Lila on her LadyBlog. When asked about why Ladybug and Chat Noir retired, Lila made up a sob story about how she insisted they retire since Hawkmoth was defeated.

Emilia knew that Lila had been working with Hawkmoth and was getting sick of her telling lies about being friends with her superhero persona, so she finally decided to enlist the help of Jon in order to stop Lila from telling her lies.

"Hey Jon?" Emilia asked.

"What's up Em?"

The two were sitting in Emilia and Bridgette's room, the latter serving customers in the shop below. While Jon was sitting on the lounge chair scrolling through his phone, Emilia was sewing a shirt that she had been commissioned to make.

"Do you think we should expose Liar Rossi soon?" Jon looked up from his phone excitedly, his eyes almost sparkling at the mere thought of it.

"Yeah absolutely! When do you want me to have the evidence ready? I have the slideshow already prepared and the people we need to contact a call away."

Emilia thought about it for a while. Certainly she could just expose the liar the very moment and destroy her social life within minutes but she also wanted to see Lila Rossi's face as she ruined her life just as she tried to do.

"We have individual presentations coming up soon. I could use the slideshow then. Plus we could get all the people who we need on a video call to vouch for us. Since she lied about the bats we could ask them to help out as well."

Jon stood up and walked over to where she was sitting and kissed her forehead lightly. "I think that's a great idea. I'm going to go call them right now."

The next couple of days were spent carefully planning out how to take down Lila. Emilia had contacted the people Lila lied about through her connections as a designer and also with the help of Jon. Lila's lies had lots of plot holes so it was easy to find the lies.

To make sure that Lila wouldn't recover, Jason helped her find some CCTV footage of Lila willingly collaborating with Hawkmoth. The clips were quite easy to find given that Lila had not bothered to check for cameras in the vicinity when talking to him through the akumas.

When the day of the presentation came, Emilia waited patiently for her legal name to be called out. She hardly paid attention to any of the previous speakers, only going through the plan she had made mentally and observing Lila.

"Marinette? It's your turn."

"Of course Ms Bustier." She gracefully got out of her seat, plugging in her computer with her slideshow before facing the class. The slideshow was titled "The Truth About Lila Rossi". The LHC were trying their best to hold in their laughter and some were giggling as they watched Lila's face pale.

"HEY! WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN MARINETTE!" Alya yelled at her.

"Simple. Lila has been lying about everything, and I have evidence." Before she could get interrupted again, Emilia quickly moved on to the next slide. There was a list of the lies Lila had told and evidence from the internet which contradicted what she said.

Lila continued to pale further as she read the slide, not yet going to burst into crocodile tears but close enough. Rose, who was faking being on Lila's side, gasped in fake horror as she pretended to read the list before facing Lila with fake tears rolling down her face.

"Is this true Lila? Have you been faking everything you told us?" If Emilia wasn't a meta, she would have completely believed Rose's acting. The girl was a natural at it and could probably become a professional actor if she tried hard enough.

"No of course not! Marinette's probably just trying to frame me!" Lila seemed to be panicking slightly and it showed.

"Are you sure Lila? Because these facts are all on the internet." Max showed her his tablet containing the facts that Emilia had on the slideshow. Even Markov piped up saying that Lila's vitals were a mess.

As Emilia continued going through the slideshow. Lila's accusations grew increasingly worse and inconsistent, digging a further grave for herself. Soon, when Emilia finally reached the slide about Lila willingly working with Hawkmoth, she finally burst into crocodile tears.

"I know that you're jealous of me Marinette but you didn't have to go this far!"

Alya who usually backed her up was silent, debating real facts and the lies that Lila had told in her mind. If Lila had lied about everything, she would have lost her friends for no reason. She thought to herself, maybe she had already known that Lila was lying, only going along to save face.

Emilia felt Alya's confusion. Emilia never really hated Alya from the start. She had expected Alya to be easily manipulated from the day she first met her so her 'betrayal' didn't matter much to her. However she didn't expect Alya to be this confused. But Emilia didn't have time to worry about her.

"I was expecting you to say that. So, I prepared a video call with everyone you were lying about." The screen changed to show various celebrities that Lila had lied about knowing like Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale and Prince Ali. "Do you have any evidence that Lila is lying?"

All the celebrities took their turns giving evidence against Lila and soon, the liar was figuratively backed into a corner. None of the people who were originally on her side wanted to look at her and even Ms Bustier was looking at her with disdain.

Suddenly, the door burst open and Officer Rodger stepped in holding out his police badge, "Lila Rossi, you are under arrest for defamation of various celebrities (is that a thing or am i just making this up?) and working with a local terrorist, you have the right to remain silent." (I don't know)

As Lila was being dragged away, she dropped the crocodile tears and glared at Emilia with the most venomous look she could muster. Unfortunately, Emilia was too used to various glares thrown her way and instead sent a smug look back at Lila which angered her even more.

And finally, Emilia's life had peace. Somewhat. She still had to deal with the people on Lila's side who were apologising to her and to everyone. She ended up brushing their apologies off with a small smile and focused her attention on Alya who was crying in Nino's arms.

She decided that was too much for her and instead walked out of the classroom with Ms Bustier's permission. While she was concentrating on the chaos in her class, she failed to notice the two familiar presences outside the classroom.

Jon and Jason were both waiting for her outside the classroom, both with smug grins on their faces, although Jason's looked a little disappointed. "You sure I couldn't have just shot her once? It would have been a rubber bullet even. She deserves a metal bullet though."

Although the last bit was muttered she still heard him, "No, you would have gotten arrested. And I'm not about to become siblings with a criminal."

"Technically, he is already a criminal."

And just like that, the three were laughing.

Note: So sorry for the late update, I've kinda lost interest in this fic but I will still continue writing it. So expect updates at least once every 2 or 3 months. Sorry again for the really late update. I might make a Christmas and New Year's special, even though it's already the 5 of Jan for me. To those who are still here, thanks for staying for so long.