Chapter Text
They all knew Lila was a liar. They'd figured it out on day one, but after Marinette tried to ask her about it and caused Lila to swear eternal vengeance on her, the class decided it was safer to play along since she was so unstable. Of course, this meant having to listen to her ridiculous stories without pulling their hair out. Eventually, though, they figured out how to make things interesting with her tall tales.
Ms. Bustier had to step out to help with a crisis (apparently Mr. Damocles tried to use his new escape chute and got stuck in the loop-de-loop) So the class had a free period to do what they wanted. And for Lila, that meant going on and on about her 'glamorous life'. "Rose, have I ever told you of the time I saved the albino tigers from being turned into coats?" The liar spied the new tiger button Rose had added to her purse, not even wondering why it was purple.
"Oh, no you haven't Lila!" Rose made a subtle nod to Juleka, who in turn tapped Max on the shoulder with her pen.
"That sounds like something I would very much be interested in, too. How about we sit over here where the view is better?" Max pulled himself and the girls over to the front table, where Lila could not see behind her and notice that most of the remainder of the class had taken out bingo cards and pens. Everyone except Chloe and Sabrina, the latter of whom kept the former distracted so she wouldn't alert her other bestie to what the rest of the class was up to.
"So last month I was on a charity kayaking trip through the amazon-" a quarter of the players marked a spot off their cards, the square marked 'Lila says something is for charity.' "-when suddenly we hear a frightened roar!"
"Oh goodness!" Rose fake gasped. "Was it the albino leopards?"
"Yes!-" and pretty much everyone checked off the box titled 'Lila doesn't realize she changed a main detail of her story.'
OXOXOXOX
While their partners were in class, the Kwami's hung out in a secret room in the ceiling of the school. Mullo said it belongs to some friends of hers and the rest are too afraid to ask.
"Guys, guys, look what I made!" Ziggy carried in an object bigger than herself. It appeared to be made out of clay and paper-mache, when the goat set it down, they realized it was a lifesize human head replica.
"A head?" Wayzz flew in closer, inspecting his friend's handiwork. It was the kind of detail that would fall into the 'uncanny valley' territory.
"Eeyup! Plagg said he was looking for one, so I made it myself!" Ziggy proudly announced.
Tikki looked at the cat kwami suspiciously. "And why were you looking for a head?" She knew that glimmer of mischief on his face, that smug grin that said he had some scheme cooking with a side of camembert.
"Relax sugarcube, it's something that'll benefit all of us." he zipped off, leaving the room and coming back moments later with a shopping bag. The others looked inside and found a trench coat and matching fedora.
Stompp gasped "You don't mean?!"
"Oh I do mean." Plagg nodded.
OXOXOXOX
"-and then Arnaldo cut the rope! I had to let go of the jewel for the sake of the albino cheetahs!" More boxes were being checked off. They'd been waiting for a chance to try out 'Lie-la Bingo' ever since Nino brought up how predictable her stories are. Max and Rose were the neutral party to keep her distracted and make the game fair, so no one could steer her into giving them a box they'd written in. The best part was that Rose made a little trophy for the winner. It was coated in two jars of glitter.
Adrien grumbled. None of his boxes connected yet. He was grateful he wasn't in last place at least. He peered over to Kim who only had two boxes filled out, and one was the free space. "This game is really hard!" Kim whispered to the blonde on his right.
"What'd you put in yours?" Adrien looked over to the other boy's card and found that he had made his a little too specific. "Kim, how do you expect her to tell a story about time traveling with George Washington and that guy on the shampoo commercial?!"
"It came to me in a dream!" Kim whisper-yelled in self defense.
OXOXOXOX
Emerging from the back of the school inconspicuously, the kwamis of Ms. Bustier's class huddled together under the trench coat wearing creation of theirs. The coat was long enough to hide that the 'person' had no feet, while Trixx and Daizzi hid in inflated gloves coming from the sleeves, with Wayzz and Roaar manning the elbows. The mastermind, Plagg, rode in the hollow head on top while more kwamis took turns supporting the weight.
"Phase one is complete. Now we just need a name." Plagg hadn't come up with an alias ahead of time. This was a team effort, after all.
"Gary!" Xuppu piped up.
"Not bad, but Gary needs a last name, so people will think we're a real man!" Plagg reminded him.
"Gary Realman!" Xuppu gasped, like it was the most brilliant idea ever conceived.
“I like it!" Plagg clapped his paws together.
Tikki, who had come along to keep everything from turning into a complete catastrophe, sighed to herself. "We're dead.”
OXOXOXOX
Alix tapped her pencil impatiently, waiting for Lila to get through explaining the so-called 'Law of international furs union' she was so close to getting bingo! All she needed was to check off 'Lila name drops a recent celebrity that conveniently stopped by to assist her'.
Sandwiched between Ivan and Alya, Alix peaked over to check how they were doing. To her dismay, they were also getting close to bingo. Getting desperate, Alix dropped her pencil to the floor and reached down to grab it. Or that's what she wanted everyone else to think. She pulled out her phone and sent a brief text to Sabrina. The dog wielder had recently changed her text tone to the latest Clara Nightingale song, and just as Alix planned, Lila incorporated it into the story.
"But just as the wagon of orphan albino cubs was about to crash into the wall, I remembered a dance move I had taught Clara Nightingale and used it to divert the wagon!" Lila boasted, seriously did this girl even think she was being realistic with her lies?
"Not exactly what I need for my-" Alix mumbled as she sat back up, her eyes bugged out when she noticed her card had been swapped! It had all the squares she had made, but they had been swapped around and not checked off. She looked to Ivan, who pointed to Alya, who held up a handful of alternate bingo cards that matched the ones already made. The rabbit wielder pouted. She should have known Alya had gone through and made extra cards to prevent cheating! Now she had to remember what she'd already crossed off and start over.
OXOXOXOX
‘Gary Realman' took a trip to the zoo first. The tiny gods inside went around trying to find the animals they were based on… or were the animals based on them? It's something of a 'chicken or the egg' scenario, and only Orikko knew the answer to that, but they weren't here right now, so-
"Look, we found Wayzz's people!" Barkk pointed to an aquatic exhibit.
'Gary' oohed and awed at the shelled creatures, but alas, Wayzz had to correct them "I am the turtle kwami, these are tortoise's."
"What's the difference? You both have shells." Trixx asked.
Wayzz would have been offended, but he was preoccupied with watching the… um, I guess 'cousins' of his kind. "Look at them. I may not be one of them, but I can see into their souls. They are sick of being trapped in such a small habitat. They wish to be free!"
"Then free they shall be!" Plagg announced to his kin.
'Gary' retreated back towards the bathroom, letting a handful of kwami out to start the jailbreak. Roarr snuck over to the exhibit door and used the tiniest bit of her power to blow the lock to smithereens. Wayzz, Fluff, and Kaalki pulled the door open and greeted the now free inmates "Fellow chelonians! You have been released from your prison and now may leave to see the world! Rejoice!" The great tortoise escape was imminent, however they were slow. They walked towards the cage door at a crawling pace. A painfully slow pace.
OXOXOXOX
"Psst- Mylene!" the blonde girl heard a whisper coming from her left. Nino hid his face with his hand and sneakily slid his card to her. "I need some help. I have a square for 'Lila claims she knows karate', now Lila just said she used kung fu to fight the poachers, does that count?"
The mouse hero shrugged. "Not sure, let me ask." she tapped her pencil a few times. Quiet taps that were hard to hear over the voice of a pathological liar. But the bespectacled boy up front heard them. He took his own pencil and tapped back against the chair.
After tapping back a 'thank you' in morse, Mylene looked at Nino and shook her head 'no'. Nino sighed and looked back to his card. He really thought he had that one- "and once they found out I knew karate, they let the tribe leader go!" The boy made a silent fist pump in the air! Inconsistency was always reliable!
OXOXOXOX
The trench coat full of kwamis hovered down the busy sidewalk. They wanted to get ice cream next but Tikki had brought up the complications that would arise "We have no money, our mouth doesn't open, and the second we sit down to eat the coat'll fold over and reveal there's no one underneath."
"But we're underneath!" Daizzi helpfully reminded her.
The topic was put on pause when an alarm sounded from a building a yard away. The bank of France had its windows busted open and the man who had just finished robbing it escaped in the direction of 'Gary'. "He's heading right for us! What do we do?!" Fluff gasped.
Stompp cranked his neck from side to side, not worried at all "I've got this. Resistance!"
The trench coat was imbued with the power of the ox, making it a sturdy force that could withstand anything thrown at it. The robber learned that the hard way when he collided with the disguised kwamis and felt like he had run into a brick wall made of steel. The robber fell over, unconscious, as the police caught up with him. "You stopped the thief!" Roger shook the 'hand' of the 'man' "We can't thank you enough Mr…"
"Gary. Gary Realman." Plagg answered, with the kwamis maneuvering around, so their disguise nodded and gave a tip with his hat. Before the police could thank 'Gary' any more, the trench-coated hero backed into the crowd and blended in, the perfect mysterious escape.
Roger turned back to his fellow cops. "You see that, that is what a hero looks like."
"But sir, we live in a city that has a whole team of superpowered teenagers." Another officer raised his hand.
Roger shook his head, disappointed. "And that, Captain Obvious, is why you'll never be captain. Just obvious."
OXOXOXOX
"-and let me tell you, it wasn't easy escaping the pit of platypuses! I had to be careful, or I'd get scratched with their venomous spurs!" Lila dramatically shared her entirely made-up story. Max shifted so the rest of the class could see him straighten his bowtie, the signal for 'Holy kwami, she actually said something that's true!'
More squares were scratched off. Juleka and Marinette were checking the box off when the card belonging to the tiger holder slid away from the table and floated down the aisle, dangerously close to Lila herself. Others saw it too, but the only ones who were close enough to grab it would alert Lila that something had fallen.
This was serious, serious enough for Marinette to use her trademarked 'Marinette Vision (™)' to gaze around the room in gray-scale as various objects lit up with pink polka dots. Concocting a plan, Marinette grabbed a spool of thread and a needle from her bag, the ox miraculous from Ivan, and a very long tree branch Kim had brought in for what he referred to as 'Danger Limbo' and fastened them with some tape from Nathaniel. The result was an odd looking fishing pole.
Casting her line, Marinette launched the curved needle down the open path. Her shots missed a few times before they finally were close enough to the card. Wiggling the needle towards the paper, Marinette was laser focused on getting it at the exact angle she needed.
"-and then the temple door opened with a whoosh!" Lila spread out her arms quickly, making a flow in the air just strong enough to push the card up in the air. The other bingo players silently gasped. It was in a trajectory to land on Lila's head! In one swift move, Marinette swung her rod up and pierced the paper with the needle only a hair away from Lila's hair! There was a collective breath of relief as the paper was pulled backwards and returned to its owner. Now back with Juleka, Marinette pointed out there was another space she could cross off 'Lila doesn't notice intricate way to grab dropped card'.
OXOXOXOX
"-and that's when I realized my mother was right! I am a failure and will never achieve my dreams!"
The collective kwami disguise listened sympathetically to the man beside them on the bench. They'd just gotten off the carousel in the park when they heard the sound of someone crying. They didn't know the sad guy, but heard out his problems and offered a metaphorical shoulder to cry on. They couldn't offer an actual shoulder since they didn't have any.
"Well, that's a load of garbage and you know it!" Plagg spoke for 'Gary' "Who is she to tell you to give up on what you love?! We don't chase our dreams for other people, we chase them for ourselves. If someone doesn't believe you can do it, then you prove them wrong!"
The man sniffled, wiping away a tear. "Do you really think so?
'Gary' nodded "Absolutely! There were times when no one thought I could pull off wearing a snazzy trench coat. But I never listened to them, I got my trench coat and I look fabulous in it! Now it's your turn, show the world that true dreams can never die!"
Inspired by his new friend, the man jumped up from his seat. "You're right Gary! I am going to prove my mother wrong and become the world's first singing assassin! Thank you for everything!" The man shook 'Gary's' 'hand' and ran off on the journey to follow his heart's desire.
… "I liked him!" Daizzi piped up.
OXOXOXOX
"-and so the orphan albino pumas were rescued and returned to their mothers." Lila finished her daring story, littered with plot-holes. Rose and Max nodded like they enjoyed listening to her rambling while Sabrina took Chloe out to fix her makeup in the bathroom.
A perfectly timed phone call reached Lila's phone, and she excused herself to go answer it. The squad was left to themselves and grouped up to compare bingo cards. "Did any of us get bingo? I didn't hear the 'bingo' signal tap." Adrien glanced around. He thought for sure at least one person would have one.
"Actually…" Nathaniel held out his bingo card. Every single box was marked off. "I got bingo super early, but I didn't want to end the game for everyone else.”
The squad couldn't believe it. Rose reached for her bag and passed the glitter-filled trophy to the winner. "Congratulations! You are the master of Lila Bingo!"
"How the heck did you make your card so… accurate?!" Alya questioned.
Nathaniel grimaced. "I sit next to her. I've heard them all."