New ML Fanfiction: In Direct Opposition
I figured I would post the first section of this fic here on Tumblr while announcing it's inception. Future installments will be on AO3(as this one is) which is linked in my profile.
The fic is Alya-centric and begins the morning of Origins. Alya's alarm goes off early, she gets up early, she leaves the house early, and she meets Chloé Bourgeois before anyone else at school. Events quickly clue her in that her new 'friend' is, problematic, but Alya is nothing if not stubborn and takes this as a challenge. The fic will revisit several canon-events from a different point of view and with alterations along the way. However one thing Alya begins to notice ealry... something is altering events as she's experienced them, creating multiple perceptions of the true flow of events. She sets out to find out what this is, while still living through the life of a girl at FDP stuck between Chloe and Marinette, Ladybug and Hawkmoth.
Full text below the cut.
Alya Césaire scanned an article about the mayor dedicating a new park, then entered his name into her phone's search engine. She finished the article while stirring more sugar into the remains of her morning coffee then tapped through search results to scan for more info.
Ten years, daughter, wife-Audrey Bourgeois.
Alya stopped at that name. She glanced over the embedded pictures of the mayor's family, then opened a new tab to double check her theory. Yes, it was Audrey Bourgeois, fashion critic. She was often mixed up with the New York heroes in some manner or another. Usually it was some villain seeking revenge. Majestia and Knight Owl had saved her countless times. It seemed like Audrey was really good at inspiring revenge.
Alya finished her coffee, moving on to the next article, search engine open beside her. She was deep into an article about fashion mogul Gabriel Agreste when her sister's voice interrupted her.
"What's all this, sis?" Nora indicated the breakfast array Alya had spread across the table, before grabbing an orange and peeling it.
Alya folded the newspaper and tapped it against her lips. "Well, despite my triple checking, my alarm went off a whole hour early this morning. So I put my extra time to good use. Some for me, and some for you and the twins."
Nora's eyes widened as one part of that sunk in. She froze with an orange slice poised in front of her mouth. "New school? It starts today? As in…?"
Alya couldn't help but grin at her big sister's reaction. "That means the twins are all yours today. Good luck, this breakfast should have them docile for a little while."
As if on cue a sleepy but insistent, "Mama?' and 'sis?' made themselves heard through the apartment.
Alya grabbed one last piece of toast and her bag. "Oops, look at the time. See you when I get back, Nora!" then she fled.
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Early up, early out the door, and now early for school. Alya lingered outside, watching the new kids coming and going. It was a little conceit her mother had taught her to make the move easier. ‘You’re not the new kid, honey. You’ve been around since you were born. They’re the new ones. Just give them a chance to show you who they are.’
Alya liked the idea, but it did come with the tricky afterthought. Who do I give a chance to first?
A limousine pulled up to the curb as if on cue. The other students ignored it, and Alya wondered just what kind of school this was. A driver opened the door and out scrambled first a bespectacled ginger haired girl, then a glammed up blonde whose body language immediately set Alya’s hair on end. The tinge of fear just galvanized her though. What good’s a reporter who is scared of the rich? If I can take on this one, I’ve got it made. Her morning dive in the paper had even supplied her with a name to go with the face as she approached.
“You’re Chloé Bourgeois, the mayor’s daughter!”
The Blonde’s head snapped around and sharp-cut sapphire blue eyes regarded her cooly. Alya stood her ground with her best smile in place. Chloé gestured to her, “I don’t know you, do I?”
The ginger was at Chloé’s shoulder in a heartbeat, murmuring near her ear, “No Chloé, you don’t. She doesn’t go here.”
Alya stuck out her hand, bulldozing the social barricade, “Alya Césaire, new student. So, you really are the mayor’s daughter, right? I saw your picture on the mayor’s website while doing my research.”
The other girl was clearly not used to being approached. She regarded the hand as if it might be a weapon, but a few beats later what Alya had said seemed to register and her scowl turned into a delighted smile. “You saw my picture on daddy’s webpage? Was it big? Was it on the front, or was it buried again? Why were you looking me up? I mean, I am interesting, I know, but why specifically? ”
Alya kept up the pressure, recognizing tells. “Well, it just made sense, looking for the important people in town. I’m an independent reporter. While I have you, can I line up an interview?”
It worked. The delighted curiosity morphed into a self-satisfied pleasure on Chloé’s face. She reached out and plucked at Alya’s hand, not a proper shake but a gesture that could be worked with. “An interview? Well, I suppose I could do something like that. Are you very famous back where you come from? You’re not… dressed… very fashionably.”
Fashion! Alya remembered the other little nugget of information and put it to use. She clasped her hands behind herself, squaring her shoulders. “I’m rising in the journalism world.” Not technically a lie, even if I’m very close to the ground right now. “As for fashion, we can’t all be as well versed as Audrey Bourgeois, can we? Anyway the story is supposed to be what stands out, not the reporter.”
A series of reactions danced over Chloé’s supremely-readable face, not all of them positive. Alya filed that away for later. In the end though her smile remained, if slightly more pasted on. “Quite right. Well, it’s a very busy day, new girl. If stories are what you are here for, today is the very first day Adrien Agreste will be attending Francis DuPont. Oh, I know!”
Chloé’s face brightened with childish delight again.
“You can do a joint interview for the both of us. The mayor’s daughter, Chloé Bourgeois, and Adrien Agreste, fashion icon, friends finally united!”
Professional interest joined with her desire to make new friends. Alya nodded with a toothy grin of her own and clenched a fist, “I’ll interview the two of you within an inch of your lives.”
Chloé nodded, “Excellent. Just follow me Césaire. I can see we’ll be good friends.”
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The school was definitely a change of pace. Alya knew her father’s new job was a lot better, but everything about this school screamed money. There were only a few dozen students in total from what she could tell, and her classroom had seats for twelve at most. She was still taking it in when Chloé stopped beside one of the front desks and held up a hand.
“Wait here. I have some adjustments to make.”
She ascended to the next tier and stopped beside a dejected looking girl who wore her dark hair in pigtails. Chloé said something in a normal tone that Alya couldn’t hear. Alya tried to strain her hearing, snooping being a perfectly valid journalistic activity, and so flinched when Chloé’s voice went from normal to bellow.
“Wake up, Du-Pain-Cheng! You’re sitting in my seat!”
The pigtailed girl jumped, her eyes focused on Chloé and she sighed, “Chloé, this is my seat, this has always been my seat.”
Beside Alya, Sabrina opened her mouth, but then snapped it shut and gave Alya a side-eye. Alya’s hackles rose.
“Not anymore!” Chloé snapped. She thrust a finger at the empty first row seat in front of pigtails. “It’s going to be Adrien’s first day and that’s his seat. Which means you’re sitting in my seat.”
Pigtails seemed resigned, but still questioned, “Who’s Adrien?”
Chloé laughed into the back of her hand. It was not a nice laugh. Alya’s hackles rose further. Chloé leaned in too close to pigtails, “Adrien Agreste! What, have you been living under a rock? Well, no, scratch that. I know you have been. Adrien is only the most famous model in all of Paris, and he’s my best friend. I was the one who had daddy get him enrolled here, so I get to sit beside him.”
Alya’s senses expanded, taking in the room, the reactions, tiny details that mattered in an instant. She stepped up to the pair, “Hey!”
Not just two pairs, but all the eyes in the room swiveled to her.
Alya gestured back to the empty front row desk Sabrina still stood beside. “If it's the proximity you want, this seat makes a lot more sense. No desk in the way, and he’s not facing the wrong way. I mean, I’m new to Paris so I don’t know who he is either, but I’m guessing it’s not the back of his head most people go gaga over.”
Chloe and pigtails exchanged looks. Alya counted to ten in her head to keep from going on, she had to let it stew. Chloé went from confusion to confidence again. “Of course! Up front is where the winners are anyway.” Alya was congratulating herself but Chloé snapped back to pigtails, “Being behind Adrien will remind you that you’re beneath him too, Du-Pain-Cheng.”
Chloé immediately stepped away from pigtails, and Alya considered it a partial victory. Behind her, the other girl wilted with relief. Chloé stopped short when the problem of three girls and two seats became apparent, but this time she had a solution of her own.
“Sabrina! You go up and sit beside Dupain-Cheng. She clearly needs all the help she can get. Don’t let her out of your sight. Cesaire, you stay with me, we can’t have you getting lost on your first day.”
Shuffling took place. Chloé was rattling off information about Adrien Agreste, but Alya was listening with half an ear. She’d been in school for less than thirty minutes and already she sensed she was in the middle of something big.
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Lunch was Alya’s first free moment. This Adrien Agreste hadn’t shown up, and Chloé had gone from energetic to reticent as the hours wore on. It was Sabrina, not Chloé, who informed her, “Chloé’s going back to the hotel for lunch. As her best friend , I’m going with her. You stay here, and try not to get into too much trouble.”
It was funny, 35 kilos of awkward girl trying to look intimidating through glasses thicker than Alya’s. Alya made sure not to laugh though, it wouldn’t help anything. Instead she just gave Sabrina the same innocent expression she gave the twins when they were trying to be bossy. “Of course not! I’ll be fine. Go cheer her up. Only a best friend can do that, you know.”
Sabrina’s suspicious look had Alya thinking maybe the other girl saw through her, but she didn’t say anything. She just trotted out after Chloé, who’s ground-eating stride had almost taken her out of the courtyard already.
Alya had a goal this lunch and scanned for her target as soon as she entered the cafeteria. Finding her, she crossed to the table-for-one, and tried a cheerful sing-song. “Heya, pigtails.”
The intensity of the glower she got surprised her. “I have a name you know.”
Alya tried again. “I know, Du-Pain-Cheng, right?”
The glower darkened. Everything about this girl screamed cute and perky, but her expression would have fit a hardened criminal. “It’s Dupain-Cheng. That’s my last name. My friends call me Marinette. You’re Chloé’s friend though, so I guess that doesn’t matter.”
Alya would not be defeated. She helped herself to the seat opposite Marinette. “I’m going to be a friend to lots of people if I can help it. Can I count on you being one of those people? The name’s Alya Césaire, journalist-in-training.”
She stuck her hand out, and just as Chloé had, Marinette eyed it suspiciously.
Alya offered, “I did manage to avoid you having to give up your seat this morning.”
At that, Marinette cautiously extended her hand. “Yeah, why did you do that?”
Alya grabbed it before Marinette could reconsider and gave a solid shake. “Because, as Majestia says, ’All that is necessary for the triumph of evil if for good people to do nothing.’”
Marinette looked thoughtful for a moment, but then shook her head. “Well, you’ve set yourself up with the evilest girl in all of Paris.”
Alya’s own observations has been piling up, and before this morning she would have agreed instantly. However, Alya had already made nice with the blonde girl, and she would not be defeated , even by herself. A new line of thinking presented itself and Alya took hold of it with both hands.
She looked Marinette in the eyes, speaking slowly to convince herself and the other girl at the same time. “No. People aren’t evil. Evil gets inside people. If she’s evil now, then we just have to defeat that evil. That’s what heroes do. They defeat evil and save everyone .”
Marinette looked doubtful, but she slid a beat up box containing a single intact Macaroon amid a lot of mushed crumbs across the table toward Alya. “Well, thank you for what you did this morning, my hero.”
She finished with a smile and Alya smiled back in relief. Alya broke the macaroon in half and offered one piece back to Marinette. “Glad to help. Now, I need you to give me your version of what goes down in this school. A good reporter can’t ever have too many sources.”
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