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The Liar's Demise

Summary:

A “Mind Games”-verse story:

Her life was over. Everything had gone wrong. She had reached too high, too far, too fast, and now her empire was about to crumble around her. Those were the only thoughts running through Killer Bee’s mind as she raced away from the apartment building where she and Nadine had been living – where the Heroes of Paris had found them. Taking a quick glance behind her, she scanned the horizon for any sign of pursuit.

Lila furrowed her brows in thought, trying to still her racing heart and focus. This wasn’t a time to act without a plan. “I need resources – money, clothes. And I need people. And I need somewhere to hide.” Whatever else had gone wrong tonight, she was still Lila Rossi. She could figure this out. This didn’t have to be the end – she might rebound from this better than ever. She still had one trump card left to play – she wouldn’t need the safehouse for long, not if she could find her last trump card in time. But she couldn’t do anything if she just stayed here. Pulling out her phone, she tapped a few buttons. Finally, she transformed and raced out of the alley, sticking to the shadows on the street level and moving quickly.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter Text

One Week Ago

 

Her life was over. Everything had gone wrong. She had reached too high, too far, too fast, and now her empire was about to crumble around her. Those were the only thoughts running through Killer Bee’s mind as she raced away from the apartment building where she and Nadine had been living – where the Heroes of Paris had found them. The string of her broken top dangled uselessly from her finger; with a disgusted scoff, she ripped it off and threw it behind her onto the roof, leaping from that building to the next. She stumbled on landing and waved her arms wildly to regain her balance before running pell-mell across the apartment building roof and letting her momentum carry her over the gap between it the next building. Taking a quick glance behind her, she scanned the horizon for any sign of pursuit. Taureau Dechaine, Prequinateur, Multiplice… any one of them might be able to catch up to her since she didn’t have her top. She gritted her teeth, wheezing through the stitch in her side from at least three kilometers of constant running. The rooftops behind her remained clear, and none of those stupid drones were visible anywhere in the area. Her hair comb let out a whining beep as she threw herself across to the next rooftop – she only had a minute to find somewhere safe. Gritting her teeth, she dropped off the roof between the two buildings and pushed off the one wall toward the other, jumping from wall to wall down toward the ground level. A sound reached her from the direction of the street, and she turned toward it, just as her shin smacked against the fire escape with a dull ringing clang. Killer Bee hissed in pain, nearly missed grabbing onto the fire escape, and finally released it and dropped the final floor to land in the alley, her stinging leg buckling as she landed. With a yelp, she stumbled and caught herself against the wall on one side of the alley, just as her transformation faded and Pollen emerged from the miraculous.

Letting out an angry shriek, Lila punched the wall next to her so hard she saw stars from the pain in her hand. Blood burst from the lacerations to her knuckles, leaving traces behind on the brickwork. “Fucking damnit!” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold in the tears that sprang unbidden to her eyes. Pollen watched her impassively, hovering just above her head without saying a word. Lila turned to glare at the Kwami. “Don’t you have anything to say, pest?” she snarled.

Pollen pursed her lips, folding her arms. “You do not have many options left, Lila,” she told her curtly. “You can continue to run and wait for the Heroes of Paris to catch up to you. Or you can return me to my previous holder and beg for mercy. After what you did tonight – after what you attempted to do to your supposed ‘friend’ – those are the only options you have left.”

“I’m sorry I asked,” Lila muttered, shaking her stinging hand and gritting her teeth, staring down at the filth-covered alley.

“You asked what I had to say after tonight,” Pollen pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “This is the situation you have created for yourself.”

“Situation I created?” Lila scoffed. “I didn’t tell Nadine to get caught! She’s the one who got herself surrounded – Multiplice and Prequinateur would never have let her get away!” She shook her head irritably.

“You invited her into you schemes,” Pollen reminded her. “You let her think that you were a hero and manipulated her into helping you.”

“I gave her nothing more than what she wanted,” Lila retorted. “And then when things started getting bad, I kept her out of prison.”

“I suppose that killing her would have kept her out of prison…”

Lila scoffed. “Well what else was I supposed to do?” she shot back. “The stupid heroes had Nadine already! She’s so weak, she’ll tell them everything – that’s not even a question. All I could do was stop her from talking… and I couldn’t even do that.” Lila clenched and unclenched her fists helplessly. Drawing her fist back, she started to punch the wall again, only to think better of it at the last minute

“And still you tried to murder your ‘friend’.”

“Save the condescension,” Lila ordered the Kwami. “I don’t want to hear anything more out of you.” She gritted her teeth, looking up and down the alley, her ears tuned for any sign of pursuit. “There’s no going back there,” she muttered. “And once the stupid Heroes of Paris break Nadine, they’ll go after my mother next.” She sighed heavily. “How did they even find us tonight?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? It should have been impossible to find their apartment! She hadn’t told anyone where they lived – other than Tanja, but she wouldn’t have had any reason to turn them in, not if she ever wanted to see the Deaconess again. And Nadine couldn’t have told anyone where they were – she had been too scared of prison to say or do anything to give them up. She looked down at her phone: no messages. Frowning, she opened the tracking app; the phones were still in place in the decoy apartment – they hadn’t been discovered that way. But then how – “Geber.” Lila’s stomach dropped, and she turned around, leaning back and smacking the back of her head against the wall. She’d only seen his ability in action a handful of times, but it had disrupted her plans too often for her liking. “Fucking Heroes of Paris,” she grumbled. But how could he have pinpointed her apartment?

She sighed heavily, squeezing her eyes shut. Was that really important at the moment? Opening her eyes, she looked around sullenly and shook her head. She was stuck here, in this filthy back alley, with nothing but her purse and miraculous. Her apartment was gone, the decoy apartment wasn’t an option, she couldn’t go to her mother… She needed to get somewhere safe, and fast. Every minute she wasted was another minute that the Heroes of Paris could send out their stupid drones and patrols and try to find her. Getting out of the city nowtonight – would be the best thing to do… but where would she go? What would she do? How would she do it? She couldn’t just go on the run and keep on running for the rest of her life…

Ripping her purse open, she grimaced, pulling out her wallet, a tube of lip gloss, and a compact mirror. This wasn’t enough to do anything. She had a couple credit cards in her wallet… but no actual money. But the moment the Heroes of Paris learned her identity, they would almost certainly trace at least one of her cards – using it would almost be a death sentence. She needed money. But she couldn’t go to an ATM – they would track that if she used her card.

Pollen opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. Folding her arms in a huff, the Kwami descended into the purse and snatched one of the honey-coated crackers within, stuffing most of it into her mouth.

Lila furrowed her brows in thought, trying to still her racing heart and focus. This wasn’t a time to act without a plan. “I need resources – money, clothes. And I need people. And I need somewhere to hide.” She drew in a deep breath and released it. Slowly, she nodded to herself. Whatever else had gone wrong tonight, she was still Lila Rossi. She could figure this out. This didn’t have to be the end – she might rebound from this better than ever, if she played her cards right. She had been planning against just this scenario for months, though she had hoped never to need it. Her eyes widened. She still had one trump card left to play – she wouldn’t need the safehouse for long, not if she could find her last trump card in time. But she couldn’t do anything if she just stayed here.    Pulling out her phone, she tapped a few buttons. Finally, she transformed and raced out of the alley, sticking to the shadows on the street level and moving roughly north.

When she had first learned about the café with the small apartment on the second floor, she had initially dismissed it without a second thought: who would want to live somewhere like that? So similar to where that bitch lived. It was small and cramped, with narrow stairs and doors, and it would absolutely smell like sugar all the time. All the grease and oil in the air would have to be terrible for the pores.

But…

It wasn’t far from the train station… and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Lila’s contacts in the city had told her about the abandoned café months ago, when she had called ahead on her way back from Tarascon. As far as anyone knew, the original occupants were gone and the bakery itself was still ostensibly on the market, though the family would refuse to sell. It hadn’t been difficult for her to take it over and set it up as a safehouse, though the real work could only happen under the cover of night. She had left the ground floor as-is, was still a broken-down mess, the same as it had been after the looters and vandals had gotten through with it. But upstairs, Lila had renovated the entire apartment in preparation for just such an occasion, with darkened windows, beds, nonperishable food and clothing… enough to last for at least a couple weeks in an emergency. And the best part of all? The only way into the safehouse was through the roof.

When Killer Bee finally let herself into the safehouse through the roof entrance twenty-five minutes later, after tracing a circuitous route through the city in order to throw off any pursuit, she found two people looking back at her with a mix of annoyance, surprise, and confusion on their faces. Without acknowledging them, Killer Bee dropped a duffel bag on the cot set into one corner of the living room and flopped down next to it, detransforming with a quiet murmur and closing her eyes to sleep.

A throat cleared. “What the hell is going on?” demanded Tanja.

Reluctantly, Lila opened her eyes and glanced up to find Tanja standing on the other side of the room, her arms folded and eyes narrowed. Malorie sat on one of the old wooden chairs at the dining table to one side. Lila’s mouth set in a thin line. “The Heroes of Paris captured Nadine.”

Malorie gasped, her eyes bugging out. “W–what!?”

Tanja’s nostrils flared. “Congratulations. Now you know what it feels like to lose a friend because one of your dumb plans failed!”

Lila glared at her, her lip curling into a snarl. “Don’t blame this on me! Do you not realize what this means?” she demanded sourly. “They’re going to know who I am! They’re going to come after all of us!”

“They’re going to come after you,” Tanja corrected her curtly, poking a finger at Lila’s chest and pushing away from the wall. “You. You made this bed. You get to deal with it. I came out here in the middle of the night because you said it was an emergency, but no more. I’m done.”

Lila surged to her feet, her hand dropping into her purse and feeling for the grip of her energy pistol. “You’re done when I say you’re done. I’ve already had one bitch ditch me tonight; I’m not about to let another!”

“Yeah?” Tanja scoffed derisively. “Are you going to try and stop me?”

Lila clenched her jaw, her eyes narrowing. “Nadine can out you, too! And that would mean the end of Cerna, the end of you living in Paris… the end of ever getting Marta back out of that prison.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” Tanja stalked across the room and grabbed the ladder leading up to the roof, holding out her middle finger to Lila. “That’s your problem, not mine.”

Lila pulled out her pistol and pointed it at Tanja. Malorie gasped, squeezing herself back into her seat. Tanja’s eyes flashed, and she transformed before Lila could pull the trigger, drawing her battleaxe the moment it appeared. Lila let out a low growl. “If you even think about betraying me,” she seethed, her finger tightening on the trigger, “they will never find your body.”

“That’s your problem,” Cerna informed her evenly. “I’m leaving.” With that, she clambered up onto the roof and leapt away.

“Stupid bitch,” Lila growled to herself, spitting after her. Malorie drew in a sharp breath, and Lilia glared over at her. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about leaving, too,” she growled. “Because Nadine knows who you are, too, and unless you want a second member of your family in jail, you will stay right here.”

Malorie gasped, looking back and forth between Lila and the roof hatch, but she finally held her hands up in a placating gesture. “N–no,” Malorie stuttered. “B–but… what are we going to do?” she whispered. “What’s going to happen now?”

Lila gritted her teeth. “We don’t need her. We’ll figure out our own way out of this. But we’re going to need a big distraction…”

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Present

 

Marinette let out breath and refocused her attention on the holographic images in front of her. The drone had arrived ten minutes after she and Adrien had, hovering through the door in the Gorilla’s wake. Her stomach clenched. Whatever faults he may have had – and there were many – Gabriel Agreste had at least taken the security of his mansion seriously. Although Adrien had only allowed Max to make a handful of upgrades in the years since he had taken control of the mansion following Gabriel’s arrest, the security system that had been in place for the Mansion was still top of the line. With electrified fences, blast doors covering every possible exit, drones and cameras covering the entire property and block, and even a pair of actual weapons emplacements – upgraded to use sublethal energy blasts – the Agreste Mansion was easily the safest location in Paris during any emergency. Add on top of that Max’s weaponized drones and the heroes still at the Mansion currently, and that would absolutely be the best place to stay tonight.

Unfortunately, Marinette and her family were not at the Mansion. They were at the bakery, with its floor-to-ceiling windows on the main floor, front and back entrances, windows in every room, and roof access. And if, after years of experience with Akumas, Marinette could pick a building in Paris that would be nearly impossible to secure… this one would be it.

Still, this was her parents’ home, and they would defend it for them.

Gorilla and her father had both stayed downstairs in the bakery, having tipped the tables over to barricade the doors and block the windows. If anyone looked inside, they would only have seen the two enormous men preparing bread dough to proof overnight for tomorrow; in reality, they were watching out the window for any “visitors” Lila might send to pay them a “visit.” Emilie had sent a senti-guardian bloodhound up through the trapdoor onto the roof, where it was prowling around the wall at a steady pace, sniffing the air constantly. Emilie and Leïla were both in the apartment’s sitting room with Marinette’s mother. Dorreen and Kheaa had phased through the walls to perch just outside the second floor and watch the outside of the building along both streets. Adrien had disappeared shortly after they arrived, transforming and slipping through a window to roam the neighborhood, practically invisible in his black suit, his blond hair the only clue to his presence. He had reported in only four minutes earlier, just before the drone’s holographic projection had started. While there had been a few… shady people wandering the streets, none had come near the bakery. Marinette tried to force herself to relax. She had done everything she could under the circumstances. The bakery was secure. Her parents and unborn sibling were safe.

But that was all she knew for certain about the city.

Standing in the back guest room with her arms folded, Marinette’s mouth set in a thin line, and she examined the holographic Alya carefully. “How bad is it?”

Alya, still sitting at the conference table in their Headquarters, though now alone, grimaced. “We’re not sure yet,” she admitted, shaking her head helplessly. “Geber and King Monkey were targeted by the Dark Acolytes when they met up for patrol, but they’re okay – Capricorn spotted Araignée following Geber, and he helped them fight off the Acolytes. Currently, Geber and Capricorn are out on patrol, 19th Arrondissement. King Monkey already returned home.”

“Injured?”

Alya shook her head. “A bunch of thugs attacked Ondine and the kid, and M. Damocles, all at the same time that Geber and KM were attacked.” Marinette drew in a sharp breath. “The three of them managed to fight them off, at least. The Owl and the kid – ‘Impact’ – are monitoring the neighborhood around their building in case any more show up. Kim is inside with Ondine and Damocles.”

Marinette let out a low curse. “They’re going after everyone.”

“The Kubdels were targeted, too – right after you left,” Alya continued, a frustrated look on her face.

Marinette’s eyes widened. “How are they?”

“M. Kubdel is shaken but okay. We’re sending him to the Egypt temple for now to keep him out of the way. Alix got knocked out with some sort of poison, but she came out of it after a few minutes – Max collected the stinger to work on an antitoxin in case it’s needed. Jalil got hit with the same thing, but he–”

“He is currently moving north through the city,” Max interjected. The hologram shifted to show him, arm in arm with Sabrina, standing together in the Headquarters lab, before shifting again into a map of the city showing dozens of multicolored dots, all moving around the city in a complicated and confused pattern. Blue and green dots represented the police and heroes, moving consistently and labeled with their identities; red dots appeared and disappeared sporadically. The small yellow dots indicating the drones orbited around the map in a set pattern, though as Marinette watched, two of the drones winked out. A bright white indicator appeared, holding steady, and the display zoomed in on that location. Max explained, “His ultimate destination is unknown, but our drones have triangulated his location to within 100 meters.”

Another drone winked out, taking with it six red dots. Marinette frowned. “What just happened?”

The display reverted to Max, who wore a sour expression on his face. “Another drone was just destroyed,” he told her. “We have lost three in the last five minutes; fifteen in the last hour; twenty since the attacks began. I have begun mobilizing recycling and river-cleaning drones to replace the losses, but they are ill equipped for this use.” His mouth set grimly. “Given the rate at which they are being hit, I calculate at least 75% likelihood that the drones are being targeted specifically.”

“What do you think that means?” Alya asked sharply.

“They are attempting to blind us.”

“Damnit,” Marinette grumbled in frustration. “What options do we have?”

Max shook his head. “I have already begun designing enhanced armor and camouflage for the next-generation drones. For tonight? There is nothing more we can do – not with Turing out of the country.”

Sighing, Marinette nodded, and the display turned back to the map of Paris. “One problem at a time,” she decided. “With Jalil, is this Amun-Vatar? Or is it Amun?”

“Unknown.”

“We need to–”

“Sk8r Girl is already on top of it,” Alya interrupted. “She and the Heretic, plus Volpinax and the Disciple. They’re following his trail as best they can; hopefully they can get through to him.”

“Do we honestly think those four can actually stop Amun-Vatar?” demanded Chloe as the hologram morphed to show her standing in front of a nondescript wall, arching an eyebrow. “Assuming that Amun’s calling the shots, I mean?”

“Based on present data, I estimate no more than 31% chance of that,” Max responded.

“Of course, with everything else that’s happening, we’d better hope they can,” Alya retorted. “Because pretty much everyone else is busy dealing with their own crises!”

“I know,” Chloe agreed, her mouth set in a thin line. “I haven’t forgotten the assholes who attacked my father.”

“How is he now?” asked Marinette, clearing her throat.

“He and mother are… shaken,” Chloe answered, working her jaw. “The Prefect assigned a pair of officers to protect them, and we brought them to City Hall – the SLD labs, actually. The rest of the SLD is out trying to secure government buildings.”

“Have they targeted those?” Alya asked immediately, a calculating look in her eye.

“Not that I’ve heard,” responded Chloe. “But better safe than sorry.”

“I suppose that’s true…” Marinette sighed, looking around the room and taking in the suitcases and toiletry bag that Emilie had left here during her most recent stay at the bakery. Looking back up at the drone, she gave a contrite look. “I’m sorry for ditching out on you,” she apologized to Alya. “I…”

Alya waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine, girl. I get it: you were worried about your family. With everything else tonight – and considering this is Lila we’re talking about – I think we all understand it.”

Marinette nodded slowly, but paused to study Alya’s face more closely. She frowned. Something was off. Tension lined Alya’s face. When she and Adrien had left Headquarters, Nino had been there with her; where was he now? And why did Alya look so… “Your family.”

Alya shrugged. “They should be safe: Nino and Nora are both there now, along with Nino’s mom and brother. Hopefully Lila won’t care as much about getting back at the Ladyblogger through her family as about targeting the Heroes of Paris.”

“What’s the situation with the others that Lila knows about?” Chloe interjected, frowning. “Nadine, Aurore…”

“Aurore’s family was targeted,” Alya told them. “Her family is now on the Liberty with Anarka, Luka, and Rose – Mira and Kagami went to sweep the north, but they got pulled into fending of a couple of thugs who tried to attack the Kurtzbergs. Nadine is safe with Mylène and Ivan; her family is en route to the Liberty with Prequinateur.”

Our people are safe,” Sabrina spoke up for the first time. “But there are a lot of others who are not.”

“Lila has lost her goddamn mind,” Chloe grumbled.

“We already knew that.” Marinette let out a breath. “But at least we know our families are safe. That’s the most important thing.”

The bedroom door opened, and Marinette froze, turning to look and finding her mother standing in the doorway. “Is that really the most important thing right now, sweetheart?”

Marinette pursed her lips. “Not now, Mama…”

Her mother arched an eyebrow. “Yes. Now. If we don’t talk about it now, then it could be too late.”

Sighing, Marinette looked at the drone and jerked a finger across her throat. The drone blinked and let out a beep. “Fine.” She folded her arms, turning to stare at her mother with her mouth set in a thin line. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that Ladybug is sitting in here, when the people who really need you are out there.”

“That’s not true!” Marinette retorted, furrowing her brows in protest.

“Sweetheart, I appreciate what you’re doing here,” her mother began, letting out a sigh and smiling warmly. “Believe me. You have no idea how much of a relief it is to know just how much you care for your father and me – and for your baby brother or sister.”

“Of course I care about you, Mama,” Marinette insisted, her eyes widening. “You’re my family! You are my top priority!”

“Marinette’s, yes. But should this be Ladybug’s top priority right now?” her mother pressed, giving her a look of concern. “With five miraculous users here, our family is safe – much safer than some other families are tonight.” Marinette furrowed her brows in confusion, and her mother smiled impishly. “I have ears. And they need you out there. Your team needs you. Paris needs Ladybug and Cat Noir, far more than we need Marinette and Adrien.”

“But–”

“We will be fine here,” she interrupted, giving Marinette a confident smile. “With Emilie, Gorilla, and Leïla here, we could withstand an army, if your Lila decided to go after us. Or even just with Emilie, if you need Goosilla and Nabatala to come with you to help you stop Lila, or whoever is responsible for all of this. If you’re really worried, I suppose we could even go to the Mansion and wait there until everything is sorted out. But please. Don’t let us distract you when the rest of the city needs you.”

Her shoulders slumping, Marinette gave her mother a tight hug and sniffled. “I–I know,” she admitted quietly. “But… I can’t just let my family get hurt, just because Lila hates me.”

Her mother hugged her back warmly. “And we won’t be. We’ll be okay here. And if anything happens, we have those emergency watches you gave us. But no matter what, know this: I’m so very proud of you.”

Marinette stepped back and nodded, clenching her jaw. “Thanks. I suppose I have been distracted tonight.” She blinked, her jaw falling open and eyes widening in shock. “And that was the point, wasn’t it? Lila is keeping us distracted!” She waved at the drone, and the holograms returned.

“What–?” Chloe began, before Marinette abruptly cut her off.

“We need to find Lila!” she told them curtly. “Now. This whole thing must just be one big distraction. She’s trying to keep us focused on putting out all these little fires all around the city so we can’t get to her – wherever she is. She’s making her move now.”

“How could Lila possibly have set up something like this, though?” Alya objected. “What could she be planning?”

“I have been tracking her cellphone ever since we learned her identity,” Max answered promptly. “But she has not used it since then.”

Obviously she must have ditched it and switched to a burner phone,” retorted Chloe, rolling her eyes.

“Obviously,” Max allowed. “But I have been unable to find the correct burner. And until then, we are effectively blind.”

“That isn’t important right now,” Marinette interjected, clearing her throat. “We can track her phone down later. For now, we need another option to find Lila.”

“What do you suggest?” Alya asked. “We’ve been watching her mom; she hasn’t gone anywhere near her.”

Marinette hummed, furrowing her brows and tapping her chin in thought. “Where’s Geber at the moment?”

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Standing on the edge of the city hall roof in the darkness, the flickering lights from fires dancing all around her, Sent-Bee scanned the city for a long minute, breathing in and centering herself. Emergency vehicles rushed past in both directions – a firetruck whipped around a corner in a tight turn and caromed down the street toward a small fire at an outlet mall three blocks away from city hall. Moving in the opposite direction, and police car screamed down the street, over a bridge, and nearly ran into an overturned car sitting in the middle of an intersection before screeching to a stop. A shadowy figure ran across the rooftops on the other side of the street, and Sent-Bee focused her attention on it, holding her breath and tensing. A white beam of energy streaked across the sky, silhouetting the figure just as they jumped down off of the roof to land catlike on the ground on the opposite side of the street from the entrance to city hall.

“Stop right there!” ordered one of the two police officers flanking the front door, drawing his weapon.

The figure dove behind a parked car, moments before the car itself hurtled across the street, straight at the front of the building. At that same moment, however, a massive clunk reverberated from the center of the road as Mecha-Man landed hard, denting in the road surface, and drove his fist forward into the flying car. The car crashed to the ground at Mecha-Man’s feet, and he was pushed back a meter, leaving behind long gouges. The shadowy figure lunged forward, throwing itself at Mecha-Man, only to be struck down by a pair of energy beams from the two police officers.

“Damnit,” Sent-Bee grumbled to herself in frustration. “If I leave…” Her parents were safely ensconced downstairs in the SLD’s underground labs – as long as the criminals didn’t get inside the building, they would stay safe. But if they did get inside, past the police officers assigned to guard her parents… But at the same, if Lila managed to get away, would she ever get to see Pollen again? Safely strapped into her carrying pouch on Sent-Bee’s chest, Bee-atrice let out a high-pitched whine, looking up toward Sent-Bee’s face. Absently, Sent-Bee scratched the puppy behind the ears, forcing herself to breathe normally. Bee was right. Giving the two police officers a final glance, Sent-Bee let out a breath and threw herself out into space, activating her jetpack and launching herself forward and higher. Keying her communicator, she shifted it to the police frequency. “Let me know if any more of them come to city hall,” she instructed them. “If anything happens to my parents, I’ll hold the two of you personally responsible.”

She glanced down as one of the two officers stiffened, looking up toward her. “We will do our best, mademoiselle,” he assured her. The other nodded firmly, just before Sent-Bee veered sharply right and they vanished behind a building. “Um… good luck.”

“I’m going to need it,” she muttered to herself, patting Bee’s head before glancing down and taking in the scene on the ground. The firetruck had stopped right in front of a boutique bearing the new Agreste Fashion House logo – “Agreste” in bluebell and emerald and written in Marinette’s neat handwriting. Flames licked the interior of the building as the firefighters sprayed water inside. A small crowd had gathered behind the firetruck, without anyone to keep them back. Gritting her teeth, Sent-Bee spun around and dropped to land on top of the firetruck; activating the amplifier in her helmet, she shouted, “Stay back and let them work!”

Several of the onlookers jumped in surprise and sprang backward; one stumbled and tripped over the man behind him and nearly fell to the ground. Slowly, the crowd backed away from the firetruck, jostling about and bumping into one another. Sent-Bee let out a relieved breath.

A wave seemed to roll through the crowd. Bee-atrice let out a low growl. Furrowing her brows, Sent-Bee turned in that direction and looked down, just as someone ran out of the crowd, pushing past the last woman on the edge and tripping over her feet. He pushed her backward into the crowd and barreled pell-mell down the street away from Sent-Bee. Bee-atrice yipped excitedly, and Sent-Bee jumped off the firetruck, drawing one of her synth-Venom pistols as she did so. The man stumbled forward, catching his balance and speeding up as he ran, turning sharply to dive into an alleyway. Just as he jumped, Sent-Bee took careful aim with her synth-Venom and fired, catching the man with a few drops of the substance. Seizing up, he collapsed to the ground, half in and half out of the alleyway. Without pausing, Sent-Bee hit a button on her communicator to send the location back to Pegasus before ascending higher and shooting up above the tops of the buildings.

All of Paris spread out below her, isolated fires still raging all around the city. Smoke from somewhere along the eastern edge of the city obscured the moon and stars. But Sent-Bee couldn’t let herself be distracted, trying to stop every fire in Paris. She had to find Lila before it was too late. Her stomach clenched as the sound of sirens pierced the night once more, accompanied by the flashing lights of another firetruck.

They had their job to do; she had hers.

Turning roughly back north, Sent-Bee glided across the city, scanning the rooftops carefully for any sign of Geber and Capricorn. A large, hulking form stood on the roof of an apartment building behind her to the south – Taureau Dechaine. Over to the west, she caught a quick glimpse of a golden head, moving steadily northward. Wings blotted out the city lights momentarily further north, as Hato Gozen wheeled about and hurled her naginata at something on the ground near an apartment building two arrondissements away. The moment she had released her naginata, she held her hand up, and lightning gathered to crackle in her palm for a moment before she released it toward the naginata, joined moments later by an accompanying blast of lightning from a spot on the ground, aimed at the exact same spot. The twin lightning bolts lit up the night sky, illuminating that building for a long moment before Hato Gozen dove for the ground and scooped something up, flying away toward the west. Off to the south on the other side of the Seine, Albailier dove beneath a spray of energy beams, spun around wildly, and fired a pair of energy blasts back at the people who had shot at him from the two energy pistols in his hands. “Stupid, fucking Lila…” Sent-Bee grumbled, her eyes narrowing behind her helmet. Sirens wailed, flashing lights crisscrossing the city. Bee-atrice let out a light yip, her mouth hanging open and tongue out.

Under any other circumstances, flying around the city at night might actually be fun. The wind whipping around her, the sense of freedom and weightlessness… Being a superhero was what Chloe lived for, where she had been able to become truly herself for the first time, independent of her father’s suffocating doting and her mother’s crushing apathy. Despite her failures the first time she had found Pollen, she had managed to make up for those mistakes since then. She had leapt at the opportunity when Marinette had given her the Bee Miraculous for real, when she had invited her to join the team permanently. Once she had recovered from the shock, she had thrilled at becoming Sent-Bee, at continuing to be a hero despite losing her miraculous. But sometimes the pressure and responsibility – of being a hero, of being the Mayor’s daughter, of being Chloe Bourgeois – could become overwhelming. When that happened, sometimes the only thing she could do to take her mind off of the pressure was to take off and just fly. Sometimes she had told herself she was searching for Killer Bee, or patrolling… but that wasn’t always the case.

But this time…

Sent-Bee patted Bee-atrice’s head, rubbing between her ears. “Think you can sniff out the bitch?”

Bee yapped excitedly, pushing her head up into Sent-Bee’s fingers. Sent-Bee smiled thinly, her eyes narrowing and focusing straight ahead as she crossed the border road into the next arrondissement north. Movement in the darkness drew her eye downward.

Along the road below, a pair of cars raced away from a department store, moments before an explosion lit up the night. Sent-Bee yelped, blown upward by the explosive force. Gritting her teeth, she twisted her body around, regaining control of her flight, and rolled over, angling straight down toward the two cars. One of the cars turned down the next main street with the other in hot pursuit, and Sent-Bee turned in that direction, quickly overtaking them. As she pulled one of her synth-Venom pistols from its holster, a head poked out of one window and looked up at her. In the dim light of a streetlight, she saw the surprise in the man’s eyes as he opened his mouth to yell. Quickly, she fired of a spray of synth-Venom that caught in the air and fell harmlessly to the ground behind the car. Something glinted in the light, and Sent-Bee rolled to one side just in time to avoid a blast of energy from the opposite side of the car. With another burst of speed, Sent-Bee raced past the car, spraying a second time, aiming for a spot well ahead of the car and this time hitting the man hanging out of the window, who froze immediately. Spinning around and rocketing down the street facing backward, Sent-Bee took careful aim at the man on the other side of the car with the energy pistol and fired.

Suddenly, two blurry shapes appeared out of the darkness and dropped off of the rooftops lining the road toward the two cars. One jumped down in front of the lead car and slammed his crook into the pavement, bracing his legs. The car slammed into the shepherd’s crook and stopped as the hood and bumper buckled, pushing the car’s rear tires up off the ground. Capricorn twisted the crook to one side, altering its angle, as the car screeched into it, rolling the car over onto its side with a screech of rending metal. At the same time, Geber slashed through the trail car’s tires, and it skidded to a halt, smashing into the lead car’s exposed undercarriage.

“Not bad!” called Geber, grinning.

“That’ll teach them!” Capricorn agreed, holding out a fist for Geber to bump.

Sent-Bee dropped to land beside them and popped off her helmet as Bee-atrice yipped. “Exactly who I was looking for.” She gave Geber an evaluating look. “I have a job for you.”

Geber raised an eyebrow. “I’m fine, by the way, Chloe. Thanks for asking.”

“Obviously you’re fine,” she retorted curtly. “If you weren’t, I would have asked. We can worry about that crap later. For now, we have a liar to catch.”

Capricorn folded his arms. “What’s up? I assume this has something to do with all the… insanity that’s been going on all night?”

“You assume correctly.” Sent-Bee’s mouth set in a thin line, and she focused her attention on Geber. “We need Vigilance. Can you locate Lila?”

Geber shrugged. “It shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” he agreed. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll give it a shot.”

Sent-Bee let out a breath and gave him an expectant look. “The sooner we find the bitch, the sooner our families aren’t in danger, the better.”

Geber sighed. Nodding, Geber twirled his spur over his head and slammed it into the ground. “Vigilance!” A ring of burnt-orange appeared at the topmost end of the spur and seemed to roll down the length until it struck the pavement and expanded out into the ground. Quickly the ring grew larger and larger, expanding as it passed through the city. Geber furrowed his brows, looking in several directions at once, and thinner orange lines extended out from the spur, only to vanish a moment later. Suddenly, a single line stretched back toward them from the south east.

Immediately, Sent-Bee rocketed into the air. “Let’s move!”

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Lila gritted her teeth, looking out the window at the red and orange lights coloring the night sky, flashing across the Paris cityscape. A pillar of smoke rose up from the shattered glass door of a small boutique store on the corner they were driving past; the poster in the window of Adrien Agreste and the Bitch wrinkled and peeled away starting from one corner. Lila’s lip curled. That, if nothing else, almost made all the effort she had put into planning this night worth it. Ladybug had been a thorn in her side for years, but the Bitchshe had held a place of loathing in her heart even longer. The Bitch had tried to turn the gullible morons in their class at school against her – even though Lila had managed to hold onto them for another year, in the end, most of them had turned their back on her. She had stolen Pretty Boy Agreste away from her… though after watching them together for the last two years, Lila didn’t want him anymore – he and the Bitch deserved one another.

Not that she wouldn’t at least try to make their lives a living hell tonight.

Glancing down at her phone, Lila frowned. Only a couple of her teams had reported back since today’s… festivities… had begun. Somehow, Chloe’s little toady had managed to elude that druggie. The two idiots had somehow managed to separate the Mayor from his guards, but not for long. She hadn’t really expected anything from the two she’d sent after Aurore…

It was strange that she hadn’t heard anything from the others, though…

The wind picked up around the van, and Lila’s grip on the handle next to her head tightened. She twisted her head around and leaned down to peer out through the rear window, over the suitcases crammed in there. It was only for the briefest of moments, but the image of a figure suspended in the midst of a swirling vortex stood out, wreathed in smoke and silhouetted against a fire burning on the far west side of the city. Lila opened her mouth to call out to the driver, but the words froze on her lips as the figure’s golden face shone through the smoke. Amun-Vatar slowly continued to drift north, as the fire that had flared up behind him rapidly dwindled down to nothing.

Beside Lila, Milk Maidge pressed her face against the window in the sliding door, staring out at a recently-built apartment building which leaned slightly to one side. The van jolted forward as the driver accelerated, pulling around a stalled vehicle in the stop-and-go-traffic. Milk Maidge yelped in surprise and nearly fell off her seat. Lila’s jaw clenched, and she braced herself, clutching her purse tightly in one hand. When she had planned this day out, this was the one thing she had not accounted for: the goddamn traffic.

If they couldn’t get out of the city tonight, then all of this would be a waste. And every minute that they sat around waiting for these vehicles to move was another minute that the Heroes of Paris might track them down. Carefully, Lila scanned the rooftops on her side of the car, looking for any moving shadows. Down the street in front of them, an exploding car along the side of the road illuminated an apartment building; a silvery metallic object was outlined in the orange glow. The drone whirred, spinning around wildly; before the flames had died down, a burst of white energy lanced out from a rooftop nearby and struck the drone in the center of its chassis. The drone burst apart in a shower of sparks and clattered to the ground directly in front of a car. Lila let out a breath.

Wrenching her gaze away from the window, Milk Maidge turned to stare at Lila, the red and orange flames outside the van dancing in her wild eyes, a look of horror on her face. “Wh–what are we doing?” she whimpered.

“We’re surviving,” Lila growled curtly. “That’s all we can do.” Smacking the driver’s seat in front of her, she shouted, “Step on it!”

The driver – a Jean or Jacques or something – grunted in annoyance. His beady eyes glared back at her in the rearview mirror. “I’m trying to drive, but I can’t exactly do that in all this traffic. Especially when you’re banging on my back!”

Lila’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not paying you to argue with me! Either you drive, or I drive. Now get us the hell out of here!”

The van leapt forward, nearly ramming into the back of the car in front of them before Jules swerved around the care and into the oncoming traffic. Headlights grew brighter in front of them, illuminating the van’s interior, and Jérémy veered sharply back over into his lane, missing the oncoming truck by centimeters. The car behind them slammed on its brakes, horn blaring, and Lila turned her glare on the driver. The van barreled down the street at breakneck pace, crossing two lanes of traffic to avoid another stalled car, running up onto the sidewalk and only barely avoiding a bus stop. Three pedestrians dove to the side, only barely avoiding getting run over. Beside Lila, Milk Maidge tensed and covered her mouth to suppress a scream. Lila’s grip on her armrest tightened so much she could almost feel the leather tearing under her fingers. A pair of jetpacks screamed past them overhead, and Lila’s breathing hitched, but the jetpacks continued south another kilometer before a winged figure approached them. White energy blasts and lightning bolts lit up the sky above them, and one of the figures dropped.

Milk Maidge’s lower lip trembled. Police lights flashed from the intersection just in front of them. The police car cut in front of them across the intersection, and Joseph stood on the brake, pitching both Lila and Milk Maidge forward out of their seats. Milk Maidge gasped, her eyes following the police car, which didn’t slow down as it careened down the street. “I–I live down that street! My–my mom–”

“They’ll be fine,” Lila growled curtly. “They’re not a target.”

Milk Maidge wrenched her gaze away from the street as it disappeared behind them and turned to Lila, her eyes wide. “But all these people… all this destruction…”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Ladybug will just fix everything in the morning,” she retorted. “Now is not the time for second thoughts.”

“But was all of this really necessary?”

Lila scoffed. “You should have thought about that before you agreed to play around with that stupid bucket!” She gritted her teeth, glaring out the window at the buildings they were passing. Police and emergency vehicles rushed past them in both directions, too focused on the chaos that had engulfed the city to worry about them. A flash of brilliant gold lit up the sky to the north; Lila’s stomach clenched, and she glanced back down at the phone. What had happened to the thugs she’d sent after stupid Alix and her stupider brother? What about the teams that had gone to abduct Aurore’s and Nadine’s families? They should have reported in by now. Although, in the end, perhaps that didn’t matter; all she needed was the distraction – between Amun-Vatar’s actions and the other attacks around the city, the Heroes of Paris had been running around trying to put out fires and protect people all night. Exactly what Lila needed.

Of course, the prudish, soft-hearted Bug Bitch would call this “unnecessary,” but she had to know the truth.

After all, it was really Ladybug’s fault she’d had to do all of this.

The city had been under complete lockdown since the day after the Heroes caught Nadine – the barricades on the roads leading out of town had appeared before breakfast. Of course Nadine had broken right away. Lila hadn’t gone anywhere near her mother since then – she had to be under surveillance. Over the past week, a couple of drug shipments had been stopped on the way into the city, but every vehicle exiting the city had been stopped and searched. The Heroes of Paris had been out in force daily and nightly, in some cases going from building to building. With all of that pressure, it would have been suicide for her to show her face within the city, and getting out of the city had been completely out of the question. And with so much focus on the Lynchpin’s organization, setting up this distraction had taken almost a week. Every day she had stayed inside, watching on the television as the police ramped up their patrols and stopped dozens of women who looked vaguely like her. Every night she had struggled to sleep, half expecting Ladybug and Cat Noir to burst into the safehouse at any moment and capture her.

All she needed to do was get out of the city, and she could start to rebuild. With luck, she could find the trail quickly and track him down. Then, together, they could begin to rebuild the organization. Get out of the city, find her trump card, then she could start to think about the future. That was the plan – the only plan available to her, under the circumstances. But until she escaped from Paris, none of it would be possible.

She could do it. She would be back in Paris before too long. And after what had happened, this time, she would be smarter next time.

Giving Lila a sour look, Milk Maidge folded her arms and frowned. “This is not what I signed up for, Lila. You said I could strike back against the Heroes of Paris. You said I could get revenge for what they did to my father. You never said anything about destroying the city!”

Lila scoffed. “Did you honestly think that would happen without some… collateral damage?” she shot back. “You didn’t seem all that disappointed when you buried the Eiffel Tower in cheese last month. This is that, but a little bigger. Sure, people might get hurt. But do you want to make them pay for getting your dad arrested or not?”

“Yes…”

“Then shut up and do what you’re told.”

Milk Maidge harrumphed, pursing her lips. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“Somewhere safe. The embassy keeps a secondary residence in Montreuil, though they only usually use it for visiting guests from the home office.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It’s in the embassy’s name, so France can’t touch it.” Lila’s nostrils flared. “All we have to do is get there and we’ll be safe to regroup for a day or two and figure out our next move.” She turned to look out the window, watching the rooftops they were passing, alert for any silhouettes of the heroes who were undoubtedly searching for her. The suitcases piled into the back of the van rattled around behind her as the van veered sharply to the left, through two lanes of oncoming traffic, and turned to drive past Le Grand Paris. Lila gritted her teeth, glaring up at a massive campaign poster that loomed over the plaza showing the three Bourgeois. A pity those two assholes hadn’t just killed that pompous Andre Bourgeois when they had the chance…

“Hang on, what’s that?” Milk Maidge pointed at something out her window, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Lila turned to look, and at once her eyes went wide. “Fuck!”

“What–?”

Without hesitating, Lila lunged past Milk Maidge to grab the door handle and threw the door open. Milk Maidge started, freezing in place and clutching the armrest tightly as Lila grabbed her by the back of her blouse. The burnt-orange ring engulfed their van and condensed down into a single line that shot back the way it had come. “That means you’re up!” Lila shouted, ripping her away out of the seat and kicking her out the door to bounce on the road surface.

“What!?” Milk Maidge barely avoided an oncoming car and stumbled to her feet as Lila leaned out the still-open door.

“Bury the hotel in cheese or something!” Lila called back. “I’ll be back for you in ten minutes!” Slamming the door shut and turning to Just, she growled. “Turn left up ahead. And step on it!”

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Sent-Bee raced across the city, chasing after the orange line, skimming barely above the rooftops across which Geber and Capricorn sprinted. A chimney appeared out of the darkness, and Sent-Bee rolled to one side without slowing down, only barely missing it. Secure in her pouch, Bee-atrice yipped agitatedly, her mouth handing open and tongue sticking out. Her mouth set in a thin line, Sent-Bee scanned the rooftops ahead of her, the night-vision on her helmet flaring in and out as the system raced to compensate for the street lights and fires flashing below her. Veering toward the side of the building and dipping a little lower, she banked hard to avoid an electrical wire and dropped down to fly through an alleyway so she wouldn’t be silhouetted by the moon. Overhead, a jetpack rushed past to the south, pursued by a figure with enormous aquiline wings – Albailier. The jetpack turned sharply, just as Albailier fired a pair of energy blasts at it. One shot went wide; the other struck the jetpack and sent it into a freefall. Wild energy beams shot out from the jetpack in all directions until it dropped out of sight. A couple blocks north of Sent-Bee, a mote of flame flared up on a rooftop, illuminating two figures. The one who seemed to be the source of the fire glowed, her hair spraying out around her head. The other held up a long-barreled weapon, pointing it at the woman. Light flashed from the weapon, just as a stretch of the roof peeled up, separating the two figures.

Just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared behind her, out of Sent-Bee’s sight. Her eyes narrowed, following the burnt-orange line. Albailier, Elementa, and the rest could take care of themselves. She had her own mission tonight.

“Any idea what the hell is going on around here?” Capricorn demanded as Sent-Bee ascended slightly to fly beside him and Geber.

She shrugged, her attention focused forward. “It’s got to be Lila, obviously.” Her eyes narrowed; below her, Bee-atrice trembled, growling. Sent-Bee gritted her teeth. “Or at least that’s the best any of us can come up with. She knows we’re after her now, so she has no reason to hold back. But why she would decide to destroy the city – other than the obvious…”

“What’s ‘the obvious’?” Capricorn wondered, vaulting over an aerial without breaking stride.

Sent-Bee quirked an eyebrow at him. “The fact that she’s a sociopath who hates us?”

“Fair.” Capricorn shook his head in annoyance. “And to think: there was a time I actually thought she was okay…”

Sent-Bee scoffed humorlessly. “You weren’t the only one. There were a lot of people who should have known better but got taken in by her.” Alya… Sabrina… Rose… Aurore… Nadine… Sent-Bee’s eyes narrowed, her stomach flipping uncomfortably. Lila had sucked so many people into her orbit over the years; she herself could easily have been one of them, had things turned out differently. And for the last year, Lila had been the monster abusing her miraculous! All this time, Pollen had been so close!

If that bitch had hurt Pollen, she would rip the miraculous from her head… and her head from her body!

“We can’t worry about what happened in the past,” Geber called back from his position near the front of the trio. “All we can do is stop her now!” He coiled his legs and sprang from one roof to the next, three stories taller, jamming one end of his spur into the side of the building and pushing to propel himself higher.

Sent-Bee turned upward to ascend above the tall buildings, looking forward to see the end of the Vigilance line. Landing on the roof and staring directly down in front of her, her eyes widened. “What. The. Fuck.”

Le Grand Paris stood in front of them, illuminated by lights in many of the windows and along the street in front, but the window lights flickered and twinkled as the building dripped oozing, soft cream cheese that covered the windows and gathered on the balconies. The entire front entranceway had been packed full of gruyere cheese, the doors jammed shut; ice cream covered the front façade and clung to the sculpted marble. A cascade of milk poured down from her top-floor penthouse. Sent-Bee gnashed her teeth, holding back a gag. In front of the building stood the too-familiar figure of Milk Maidge.

“Holy shit!” Capricorn skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof, staring down at the scene below, his jaw hanging open. “When you described her, you might have left out a few things…”

“Like the smell,” agreed Geber, waving a hand in front of his nose. “I might never eat cream cheese again after this!”

“If that Milk Wench ruined all my clothes…” snarled Sent-Bee as one of her synth-Venom pistols leapt to hand and she drew a yo-yo in the other hand. Her grip tightened around the yo-yo, which started to deform. Hanging below her chest, Bee-atrice snapped her jaws, letting out a low growl, her front paws fidgeting. Gritting her teeth in a building rage, Sent-Bee leapt out into space, freefalling past three floors before activating her jetpack and shooting straight toward Milk Maidge at full-tilt, synth-Venom pistol held out in front of her. Behind her, Geber and Capricorn separated, racing along the rooftops in opposite directions parallel to the street and dropping down to street level. When she had crossed half the distance, Milk Maidge finally glanced up at Sent-Bee, fear and anger warring in her eyes, and sent a torrent of stringy cheese through the air, straight at her. Dropping lower, Sent-Bee let the cheese sail over her head, but some landed on her back and burned in the heat of her jetpack. The acrid smell clung to her nose. Sent-Bee resisted the urge to cover her nose and scanned the street below – cars almost buoyed up by the sheer volume of milk cream beneath them, trees draped in sheets of cheese.

Geber jumped from a building two down from the hotel, aiming for a particularly large mound of camembert, and spun his spur overhead halfway down, slowing his fall the slightest bit just before impact. As he landed, however, he sank into the camembert up to his waist and stuck fast, yelping in surprise and pinwheeling his arms to avoid faceplanting into the cheese. Jamming his spur down in front of him, he pushed and prodded at the cheese, struggling for a minute to free himself before finally pulling one foot then the other out of the thick, viscous substance. Stumbling down the mound of cheese and nearly falling over, he slipped and slid to the ground and jogged toward Milk Maidge, who threw her hands out and sent a wave of cheese curds directly into his face.

While Milk Maidge was focused on him, Capricorn sprinted in from the opposite direction, mouth set in a thin line and eyes narrowed in concentration. Snagging a trashcan with his crook, he swung it around and hurled it straight at Milk Maidge, missing her by less than a meter. Milk Maidge yelped as the can smashed into the wall behind her, spinning around and throwing her hands up in front of her face.

Taking advantage of the twin distractions, Sent-Bee rocketed toward Milk Maidge, veering slightly around a tree, and fired a blast of her synth-Venom in her direction, only for Milk Maidge to move at the last moment. Glancing behind her at Sent-Bee, Milk Maidge raised one arm, and a sheen of solid yellow cheese appeared around her forearm in the form of a shield, catching Sent-Bee’s second stream of synth-Venom and letting it trail down into the cheese whey pooled around her legs. Bee-atrice barked agitatedly, catching a passing string of mozzarella in her mouth. The distance between them narrowed rapidly. Sent-Bee swung around and drove her feet into Milk Maidge’s cheese-shield, knocking her off balance, and sprang off of it into the air to hover three meters above Milk Maidge’s head. “Give up!” she ordered, taking careful aim with her synth-Venom.

“Not a chance!” Milk Maidge waved her arms wildly to catch her balance and threw her arms out wide, sending a massive wave of cottage cheese out in all directions away from herself. Sent-Bee’s eyes widened as the wave grew rapidly and rose up to meet her. Bee-atrice let out an excited yip, and Sent-Bee rocketed higher into the air, trying desperately to fly over the crest of the wave. Geber deployed both blades on his spur and spun it in front of himself, cutting through the wave of cottage cheese that threatened to knock him off his feet, bracing himself moments before it engulfed him.

“Fleet-Foot!” As the wave reached him, Capricorn leapt into the air and landed on the leading edge, sprinting down the back of the wave and seeming to bounce on the surface of the liquid with each step. Milk Maidge’s eyes widened, and a mound of brie appeared between them, only for Capricorn to run over it without slowing. She hurled a block of cheese at him, and he spun his crook in a shield, knocking it to the side where it caught and held fast in a pile of camembert. Geber stumbled to his feet and pushed forward, and Milk Maidge’s eyes shifted back and forth between them, backing away from the both toward the hotel’s front wall. Sent-Bee swooped down and threw her yo-yo to wrap around Milk-Maidge’s arms and pin them to her sides. Milk Maidge twisted her wrists, and a layer of cream cheese formed between her and the cord, just as Capricorn jumped on top of her, pinning her beneath his crook as she floated on the surface of the cheesy mixture. “What do we do with her?” he demanded, not taking his eyes off of her, kneeling on top of the cheese surface.

Milk Maidge squirmed, struggling to push him off of her. “Get off of me! Let me go! Don’t touch me!”

Sloshing toward them through the cheese and milk, Geber took a quick look at her, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. His eyes widened, and he swung his spur in a quick stroke. Milk Maidge shrieked, trying to shield herself with her arms, and suddenly she started to slip beneath the surface of the milky cheese. Sent-Bee rolled her eyes and pulled on her yo-yo to haul Milk Maidge gasping back to the surface, her jetpack whining from the strain of trying to hold them both and fight against the cheese’s pull. Geber grabbed the wooden corset floating on the surface and wiped as much of the cheese off of it as he could. Rapidly, the milk, cream, and cheese began to sink.

As the milk and cheese dispersed along the street, lowering the level to the point where they could walk normally, Sent-Bee dragged Milk Maidge over to the curb, tying her up tightly in the yo-yo’s string and pinning her down with one foot. “You have some questions to answer,” she informed her, eyes narrowed. Bee-atrice let out a low growl. “Who’s responsible for all this?”

Milk Maidge spat, glaring up at Sent-Bee sullenly.

“Where is Lila?”

Milk Maidge folded her arms. “Who?”

Capricorn pulled off Milk Maidge’s bonnet-mask and scoffed. “You know exactly who Lila is, Malorie. You were all over her in lycée.”

“Yeah?” Malorie growled, staring hard at him. “How would you know that?”

Sent-Bee pulled off her helmet and arched an eyebrow at Malorie. “We know everything there is to know about Lila Rossi. Including her known associates. Like you. But what I don’t get is what you had to gain from working with her.”

“Of course you wouldn’t get it.”

“How could you do all of this?” wondered Capricorn, shaking his head in confusion.

“After what you did to my family, how could I not?” she shot back, pushing against Sent-Bee’s foot. Sent-Bee scoffed, pushing her firmly back down into the ground, still sitting up to her waist in cheese.

“She did it with this,” Geber interjected, holding up the corset and pointing at a scratch in the center. “The rune on here – I saw something like it in Germany. It must be what gave her this power.”

“They could have picked a better power,” Capricorn pointed out wryly.

“Why would you actually help Rossi?” demanded Sent-Bee, leaning in closer to Malorie. “Where is she going?”

Malorie scoffed. “You arrested my father – and for no reason!”

Sent-Bee arched an eyebrow. “Do you want to know why your father was arrested, Brissot? It’s because he was a mole – he sold out the Paris Police to the Lynchpin… and then you thought the best way to make up for it was to go to work for him? When he has been hurting and killing people – and never more so than tonight? How many of your friends do you think she sent hit squads after? How many innocent people did she put in danger? Now I’ll only ask it one more time: where is Rossi?”

Malorie’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Don’t worry. She’s around – she’ll be right back here to get me!”

Geber snorted. “You really think that? Do you have any idea what she did to her best friend last week?”

“The best friend that you people caught and arrested?”

“The best friend that we rescued from her after Lila tried to strangle her?” Geber corrected, folding his arms and staring down at her. “I know: I was there. Lila tried to murder Nadine, even though Nadine trusted her. If we hadn’t been there to save her…”

“You’re lying.”

“Are you really willing to bet your life on that?”

Malorie pursed her lips and folded her arms, her nostrils flaring. Staring down at the pavement, she watched the milk and cheese drain away into the sewers, refusing to speak. But as the minutes ticked by, Sent-Bee watched Malorie carefully. Subtle at first, but growing more pronounced. Slowly she began to fidget, looking around anxiously, a look of worry finally appearing on her face.

Sent-Bee arched an eyebrow at her. “We all know she’s not coming back.”

“But she said she–”

“You can’t trust a word that comes out of Lila Rossi’s mouth,” Geber told her curtly. “If she was going to come back, she wouldn’t have left you behind in the first place.”

Malorie’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed heavily. “Fine. She said there was a place in Montreuil that the embassy uses.”

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Chapter Text

“Paris Police and Heroes of Paris!” The door crashed open with a bang, nearly flying off its hinges under the force of Goosilla’s blow as he threw his shoulder into the sturdy wood. Without waiting for a response from inside, Ladybug strode briskly through the doorway, followed by Cat Noir and Nabatala, and looked around the simple two-story residence with a frown. The Italian Embassy’s residence in Montreuil appeared from the outside to be nothing more than a plain, nondescript building near the middle of the block, set apart from the surrounding houses with wrought-iron fences. Unlike the rest of its neighborhood, however, the gate was secured with an electronic lock that had been controlled by an identification reader on the front gate. Inside, the entryway had a vaulted ceiling, with doorways on their side that opened into further rooms. A hallway led further into the house on that floor; another hallways was visible on the second floor, looping around and overlooking the atrium. Ladybug’s eye immediately went to the railing surrounding the atrium on the second floor; her yo-yo was in hand instantly and out, spinning in a tight shield. Scanning through the swirling red shield, she scanned carefully, alert for any sign of Lila or her people.

Behind Ladybug, Cat Noir and Nabatala moved in opposite directions into the atrium, Goosilla stepping inside after them. Cat Noir rushed to the doorway to the left and threw the door open, bringing his staff down and pointing it into what appeared to be a deserted sitting room with a single lamp lit next to a plush armchair. On the other side of the entryway, Nabatala barreled into a formal dining room in which the long dining table had been set with service for at least twelve. Ladybug took in the rooms at a glance with her peripheral vision, all her attention focused on the stairs and hallways.

“Clear!” Cat Noir finally declared, not taking his eyes off of the sitting room.

Nabatala nodded, relaxing her shoulders and resting the butt of her harpoon on the hardwood floor. “Clear!”

Ladybug tapped a button on her communicator. “We’re all clear in the entryway, Lieutenant,” she announced. “You can search the rest of the house.”

Pounding footsteps echoed in the doorway behind her, a six officers from the Superhero Liaison Department raced into the building, Lieutenant Ramus in the front. In pairs, the officers fanned out through the first level of the residence, as Ladybug continued to search the second floor from the entryway. Cat Noir followed the officers down the hallway, as Nabatala and Goosilla stepped outside and circled around to check the exterior of the building.

Ladybug started toward the stairway, still eyeing the upper-floor railing cautiously, her ears trained for any sounds from above. But apart from the slamming of doors on the first floor and the occasional shout of, “Clear,” from the officers, the house remained quiet.

Ramus paused next to Ladybug, his mouth set in a thin line. “Do we know how many to expect?” he asked her, his prosthetic pointed down at the floor in front of him.

Ladybug shook her head curtly. “Only that Lila was planning to come here after she left the city.” She gritted her teeth. “But after the insanity she cause in Paris tonight…” Something creaked at the top of the stairs, and Ladybug froze, eyeing the railing intently. “Pegasus? Are the drones picking up anything on the second floor?”

“There is a single heat signature moving in the direction of the stairs,” he responded promptly. “No other heat signatures in the house – apart from those of yourself, Cat Noir, and the police officers with you.”

Ladybug held her fist up, and Ramus immediately dropped into a crouch, bringing up his prosthetic. Her yo-yo still spinning tightly, Ladybug sprinted across the entryway, crossing the distance in a matter of seconds, just before a head appeared over the railing and stopped at the top of the stairs.

A prim woman whose brown hair was streaked with grey froze at the top of the stairs, staring down at Ladybug and Ramus with her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Her eyes darted away from them toward the front door, now hanging off of its hinges, battered and broken into pieces. She looked down to the side just as Officer Luron poked his head out of the main floor hallway, and she gasped in surprise. Before she could move or speak, Ladybug threw her yo-yo up to catch around the railing and reeled herself up, swinging around the railing as she reached it and landing on the walkway in a crouch, yo-yo held to one side. Still in the entryway, Ramus had turned his prosthetic side-on to the woman and activated his built-in shield, drawing an energy pistol with his free hand and bracing it on the top of the shield. The woman’s breathing hitched, and she turned toward Ladybug, nearly tumbling backward down the steps before she could catch herself.

Examining the woman closely, Ladybug cocked her head to one side, taking in the somewhat-familiar features. The shape of the mouth and nose, the color of the eyes and hair, the curve of her chin… Though she had never met the woman before, there was enough of a family resemblance to make her identity clear. “Rosanna Rossi?”

Mme Rossi caught herself and stared at Ladybug in confusion. “Wait… L–Ladybug?” she gasped. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“We have a court order to search the premises for a fugitive,” Ladybug informed her curtly, jerking her head in the direction of Ramus. “Where is your daughter?”

“I–I don’t know; I haven’t–” She paused, blinking in confusion. Her mouth parted slightly, and she shook her head, holding up her hands. “But… wait… n–no; you can’t be here! This is embassy property! We have diplomatic–”

“No, you do not,” Ramus interrupted coldly, marching up the stairs in her direction. “Mayor Bourgeois cleared it with your embassy three minutes ago: we have a witness who claims that a fugitive superpowered criminal was coming here to hide. Your ambassador was very concerned about this information – and about the possible damage to French-Italian relations if his ambassadorial delegation should be found unwittingly harboring a super-criminal.”

“W–what?” gasped Mme Rossi, her eyes widening even further. “A–a–a super-criminal??? No; there’s no one like that here! I’m telling you: I have no idea what you are talking about, or why you would be here. If you really are here on an investigation, then why didn’t Ambassador Carullo contact me to let me know that you were coming!”

Ladybug’s eyes narrowed. Mme Rossi quailed under her piercing gaze. Below them, Nabatala and Goosilla stepped back into the building and paused in the entryway. Goosilla folded his arms, scanning the scene carefully; Nabatala raced up the stairs after Ramus, sprinting past him and disappearing down the hallway, her harpoon in hand. Emerging from the downstairs hallway, Cat Noir ascended on his staff as an elevator and hopped up next to Ladybug to join Nabatala in searching the second floor. Doors slammed open and shut, followed by a chorus of shouts. Only half paying attention to them, Ladybug only had eyes for Mme Rossi. Her mouth set in a thin line. She squeezed her yo-yo so tightly that it threatened to break. “The Ambassador agreed not to contact you because we believed – and he accepted our reasoning – that you would try to help your daughter escape if he warned you in advance. But now we are here. Now I’m only going to say this once: where is your daughter? Where is Lila? I’ll warn you: if you are harboring a fugitive, then you will be in even bigger trouble when we find her.”

“But why are you looking for Lila?!” Mme Rossi demanded, her gaze switching back and forth between Ladybug and Ramus before trailing down the hallway after Cat Noir, only to snap back to Ladybug’s face. “I don’t understand!”

“We’ll ask the questions, Madame,” Ramus told her brusquely, deactivating his shield. Mme Rossi jumped. “Now you will answer Ladybug’s question – either here or back in Paris.”

“I–I don’t know,” she began, her voice trembling. “I–I’ve been here all day. A member of the Prime Minister’s staff is arriving to visit Paris tomorrow, and I was getting it arranged for her to stay. I haven’t seen a soul since I arrived.” She took in a deep breath. “Please – what’s this all about?”

Ladybug frowned, glancing to the side at Ramus, who wore a troubled look. Nabatala stepped out of a bedroom near the end of the hallway and turned to look at Ladybug, shaking her head in disappointment. Ladybug’s stomach flipped over. What if Mme Rossi was telling the truth? What if Lila wasn’t here?

Ramus hummed dubiously, leaning to the side and glancing down the hallway in the direction that Cat Noir had gone. “Could we have beat her here?” he wondered.

Frowning, Ladybug shook her head. “I don’t see how we could have,” she told him. “One of our drones caught an image of a van matching Milk Maidge’s description leaving the city, just before the drone was destroyed. That was less than five minutes after she left Milk Maidge behind at Le Grand Paris – Lila should have arrived by now.” Folding her arms, Ladybug searched Mme Rossi’s face once more before leaning over the railing and looking down toward the front door where Goosilla stood guard. She pursed her lips. Lila had to be here, didn’t she? Everything lined up correctly – the attacks around Paris, the timing, the connection to Lila… But as the moments ticked past, the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified.

Where could Lila be?

Finally, she turned back to Mme Rossi, glowering at her in frustration. “You’re not just telling us this to protect your daughter, are you?” She scanned Mme Rossi’s face closely. “I know how much you have lied for Lila in the past…”

“What? But I’ve never lied for Lila…” Mme Rossi stared at her in confusion. “I don’t understand. Why are you asking after Lila? I haven’t seen her in a few weeks – she–she’s rooming with a friend back in the city–”

“She has not returned to that apartment in a full week,” Ladybug informed her, folding her arms, her eyes narrowing and her mouth setting in a thin line. “She’s on the run. She is Killer Bee – the fugitive we’ve been hunting for the last week.”

“Wait, you think that person is Lila? No!” Mme Rossi shook her head adamantly. “She–she couldn’t–”

Ladybug glared at her. “She is. We have witness testimony!”

“You–you’re making a mistake!” Mme Rossi insisted. “My Lila is a sweet girl!”

“There’s no mistake,” Ladybug told her, her mouth set in a thin line. “Your daughter is a criminal, and she’s a monster.”

Mme Rossi gasped, folded her arms, and glared at Ladybug. “No! You’re lying! She’s with her friend Nadine, in the city.” She pulled out her phone and started to place a call. “We’ll get this cleared up right away.”

Ladybug pursed her lips. “You can call all you want, but it won’t do you any good. Lila hasn’t used her phone in a week, since she’s been on the run after ditching her ‘friend.’ Do you have any idea what kind of torment she put that ‘friend’ through?” she shot back. “Nadine has been an absolute mess since we rescued her from your daughter. Lila tried to strangle her! She was scared of her family, scared of her friends, her anxiety was through the roof! All because of the hell that Lila inflicted on her, almost constantly for the last several months! That’s how we know that Lila is Killer Bee: Nadine knew, and she told us after we saved her life! Now where is Lila???”

“That can’t be possible!” Mme Rossi insisted, shaking her head. “It must be that Nadine! She must be the bad influence!”

Ladybug scoffed. “Sure. Now where is Lila? Bring us to her and we can clear all of this up, once and for all. When did you see her last?”

Mme Rossi frowned, her shoulders slumping, and finally shook her head. “I… I don’t know.”

On the main floor, the sounds of the SLD officers moving furniture around to search for Lila continued for another several minutes while Ladybug and Ramus stood at the top of the stairs with Mme Rossi. Flashing white lights visible through the windows showed the locations of the drones encircling the building and scanning it thoroughly. But as Nabatala and Cat Noir returned to join Ladybug and Ramus on the stairs, shaking their heads in defeat, Ladybug’s stomach fell. She squeezed her yo-yo tightly in one hand and smacked the railing. “Damnit!”

Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Watching out the window, Lila’s eyes narrowed. The Heroes of Paris’ hover-car had flown through the portal less than three minutes ago, searchlights on the front of the vehicle illuminating the scene as brightly as if it were daylight. Swarming around the hover-car were the flashing white lights of a half-dozen drones at least, which immediately fanned out to orbit around the exterior. On seeing the drones, Lila had ducked a little lower automatically, backing further away from her window and doublechecking that her privacy curtain was only open the minimum amount necessary for her to watch the proceedings. As the hover-car had emerged, flashing lights had appeared from a vehicle parked across the street from the building, simultaneous with two other cars bearing the marking of Paris Police, their lights throwing rotating shadows onto the buildings to either side of the house and across the street from it.

Watching the flashing lights around the neighborhood, the spotlight shining on the building, Lila had snorted. Lights had appeared in several windows up and down the block. Windows opened, and numerous people poked their heads out to watch the proceedings.

What must the people in those buildings think, knowing that all of this was happening to a residence of the Italian embassy?

The two-story house had been lit up brilliantly, searchlights covering the entire front of the building while the drones circled around to the back, their own lights reflecting off of the smooth stone surfaces. The hover-car remained a dozen meters of the ground, dipped forward to aim its lights directly at the front door, and four figures dropped out the sides of the car to land just inside the grounds. Someone from one of the police cruisers held something up to the reader next to the front gate, and at least six police officers poured through it and raced up to the front door after the four heroes. Right at the front of the group, Lila had spotted the Bug Bitch – Ladybug, herself, not more than a block away from her. Her lip curled. If she had known that Ladybug would show up personally to chase after her, she might have gone to the house anyways, just for a chance to take down the Ladybitch once and for all. She had almost succeeded both in Tarascon and at the Eiffel Tower; with the element of surprise on her side tonight, she could have rid herself of the Bug once and for all. But as she looked closer, she tensed. Ladybug wasn’t alone; the hulking form of Goosilla looming behind her threw all the others into shadow, though Cat Noir had to be there somewhere. Goosilla had smashed through the front door with a single swift hit from his shoulder, and the four heroes had charged inside. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, watching them carefully. For several minutes, Shadows moved around behind the closed curtains on both levels, until light suddenly spilled out into the backyard, interrupted by long, human shadows. At the front door, she watched two officers bring someone outside – was that her mother? What had she been doing, working late here? But ultimately, it didn’t matter. Sighing, Lila pulled the curtain shut and moved back across the room to the bed, lying down in the dark and staring up at the ceiling of the plain hotel room.

But even with the curtains pulled shut, she could still see the flashing blue and red lights from two blocks away, dancing across the walls and ceilings. Lila frowned. How long would the police and heroes stay, knowing that she wasn’t there? And more to the point, would they leave in time for her to get some sleep?

Her jaw clenched angrily, and she grabbed one of the pillows from under her head. “I can’t believe that stupid bitch betrayed me so fast!” She snarled, glaring over at the television, where Pollen sat in front of a packet of saltine crackers.

“You didn’t return for her,” the Kwami pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “What did you expect to happen?”

Lila scoffed. “Of course I didn’t! If I had, then they would have caught me, too. But she couldn’t know that.”

“Maybe she realized that.”

“Maybe. Though she must have talked within five minutes; I’d hoped that I might have bought myself a little more loyalty from her than that.” Lila rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, anyways. It was only a matter of time before she broke,” she muttered. “I knew she was a liability before I ever recruited her – just the same as Nadine was, just the same as Cerna was, just the same as the Deaconess was. But that one was always a ticking clock. Their scruples… I knew those Dark Acolytes were trouble from the first moment we met them, as likely to turn on us as to help us. But they were still useful, at least when they chose to be. And Cerna was always a little… weak. A little too self-confident. Not nearly malleable enough.”

Lila frowned, her brows furrowed in concentration. The Heroes of Paris had raided the embassy building to look for her – she could only imagine the hell there would be to pay in the morning. But that could only help her so much. She needed time, and she needed space, and she needed the Heroes of Paris to give up the search long enough for her to find her target. But even with tonight’s embarrassment, would that be enough for them to back off?

Unfortunately, if she knew Ladybug, there was no way that she would give up the hunt so easily.

Pollen folded her arms, eyeing Lila with narrowed eyes. “What are you going to do now?” she asked. “You’re stuck in Montreuil, alone. Everyone is gone.”

Lila’s nostrils flared. “Yeah? And who’s fault is that?” she shot back. “I didn’t turn Nadine against me last week. I didn’t make Tanja ditch out on us. I didn’t cause Geber to use his stupid thing and try to locate me tonight. When he pinpointed where I was, what else was I supposed to do but use Malorie as a distraction? And Julien? If I’d just let him leave, what would have happened if he got caught on the way back into the city? He almost certainly would have ratted me out the first opportunity he got. I couldn’t take that chance. He knew exactly where I was – all the cops would have needed to do was offer him a couple euros, and he would have turned me over to them without hesitation.” She gritted her teeth, staring at the three bags she had managed to carry inside the hotel on her arrival, before dealing with the van and driver. A quick shot in the right spot, a little cautious driving, a match, and it was all taken care of. With any luck, the police would find the wreck tomorrow morning, recognize some of Lila’s clothes and other necessities in the wreckage, and assume that she was dead along with Jérôme.

That was the hope, at least.

“If you continue to run, if you continue to hide and plot, you will just make this harder for you!” Pollen insisted, flying right up into Lila’s face. “But that doesn’t have to be the only way it can happen! If you return to Paris, return my miraculous to my previous holder, and give yourself up, then maybe we can save your life! Don’t you get it? You’re not going to get away this time! The Heroes of Paris will not stop until they have recovered my miraculous. They are going to hunt you down to the ends of the earth after everything you did tonight!”

“That is not happening!” Lila seethed. “I would rather destroy this miraculous than give it back to that arrogant bitch!” Pollen’s eyes narrowed, and she drifted slightly backward, away from Lila. Lila’s eyes flashed. “Now shut up! I’m trying to think…”

Pollen opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Clamping her mouth shut and folding her arms in a huff, Pollen turned away from Lila and stared up at the blank television, still hovering directly in front of her.

Lila let out a breath, reveling in the sudden quiet. She needed to think. She needed a plan of attack – no, she needed a location. Everything she had worked for in Paris was now in cinders… but that didn’t mean everything was gone. She had rebuilt in the past; she could do it again. She needed allies, and she needed resources. Night Bat had never been found after the Tarasque appeared; he had to still be out there somewhere – his power could turn the tide, especially if he could surprise the Heroes of Paris. That would be her trump card… if she could find him. But how could she find him?

Night Bat’s body had been thrown east – somewhere roughly north of where she was right now. She was here – outside of Paris. She could track the old Bat down, now that she had gotten away from the Heroes of Paris and their stranglehold around the city. If Night Bat was still alive, then she would convince him to work for her; even if he wasn’t, she could simply take his miraculous and add it to her collection. Maybe she could use it herself; maybe she would give it to another patsy who could help her rebuild. Now that she was out of Paris, she could start to breathe, start to make long-term plans.

She cocked her head to one side, listening intently to the faint hum that came through the hotel walls from outside. Eyes widening, she held her breath as a white light panned past the windows and moved to the left. Freezing in place on her bed, she fought the urge to open the window and look out – it had to be the Heroes of Paris and their stupid drones, searching Montreuil for her. She frowned, her brows furrowed in thought. The Heroes of Paris wouldn’t give up – not soon, anyways. And if she stayed in this hotel for too long, they were bound to start checking reservations – even if she had booked the room three days ago.

Even if the Paris Police stopped looking for her, the stupid Kwami was right: the Heroes of Paris would not quit so easily.

Lila frowned: should she stay near Paris and look for Night Bat? Or should she leave and wait for the search to die down? If she continued with her plan, she might run into one of the infernal drones – and if she started eliminating drones in Montreuil, then the Heroes of Paris would almost certainly come here. She could have one of her people create a distraction… maybe in Nanterre, maybe near Versailles: if the Heroes thought they had spotted her there, then they might stop looking over here. If she had anyone to do it. Her jaw clenched. Tonight had been far too costly.

She sighed, smacking her fist into the bed next to her. After breaking out of Paris, she didn’t have the resources in the area to pull something like that off – and she certainly couldn’t do it by herself, not when the Heroes of Paris knew who she was. She needed time, time to rebuild. She couldn’t do it in Paris, or even in the area around Paris; the Heroes of Paris would never allow her the room to operate. But if she could find somewhere outside of their reach, give their search time to cool, then perhaps she could give herself the time and come back, stronger than she had been before.

That was what had gotten her into this predicament in the first place: she had gotten too eager, too impatient, had forgotten to sit back and play the long game. Without knowing exactly where to find Night Bat, it would be too much of a risk to stay near Paris and search for him right now, while the Heroes of Paris were still actively hunting for her. She could come back and look for him later, when she had time and space, after their search had run its course and they had been forced to admit defeat. So as much as it pained her to admit it, her first step had to be escape. But with the Heroes of Paris and police after her, that would not be an easy task. If she tried to fly anywhere, they would track her. They had stopped and searched busses, trains, planes, boats… every exit from Paris.

But after tonight, would they be able to do that in all of France?

She furrowed her brows in concentration. How could she get away from them safely, without drawing their attention?

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused, Ladybug?”

Ladybug folded her arms, glaring back at President Guizot furiously. “Trouble that I’ve caused?” Beside her, Cat Noir’s fists clenched tightly, a low hiss starting in his throat. Putting her hand over his, Ladybug gritted her teeth. “We’ve been trying to protect the city and stop the super-criminals running around and causing chaos! My friends were attacked in their homes! Criminals targeted innocent people and hurt them! What on earth do you think happened in Paris last night??”

Guizot pursed her lips, her eyes narrowed. “Yes, all of that is true. This… Lila Rossi appears to have caused significant damage throughout the city,” she allowed, running a hand through her barely-combed hair. “Assuming that your accusations have been correct for the last week and she is responsible for last night’s chaos. Once she has been brought to justice, you can be sure that my office will investigate properly and hold her accountable for any illegal activity. That is not the trouble I have in mind.”

Ladybug sat back, cocking her head suspiciously. Beside her, Cat Noir tensed. Sent-Bee and Pegasus, the only two others they had brought with them for this meeting, shared a look.

“I just got off a four-hour phone call with the Italian Prime Minister, who demanded to know why my police force had insisted on raiding one of his embassy’s secondary residences!” Guizot pressed her hands into the table, meeting Ladybug’s gaze, her eyes flashing with barely restrained fury. “And you know what, I had absolutely no response to give him beyond a heartfelt apology and a promise to rein in my resident super-nuisances!”

“Excuse me!?” Sent-Bee snarled. “That is an utterly ridiculous accusation!”

“We had a credible witness saying that Killer Bee would be there!” Ladybug insisted. “We–”

“–started a diplomatic incident on the word of a teenaged terrorist!” Guizot interrupted.

“We are trying to track down a teenaged terrorist, so of course we were acting on the word of a ‘teenaged terrorist,’ if that’s what you want to call Milk Maidge!” Cat Noir retorted. “What else were we supposed to do when we captured one of Lila’s cronies and she told us exactly where Lila was going to be?”

“Follow up? Corroborate?” Guizot shook her head. “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you would have done under the circumstances, because evidently you were wrong! Mlle Rossi was not at that residence, so you did not capture Mlle Rossi and my government lost face in front of a close ally – and at the worst possible moment!”

“We spoke with the Italian Ambassador before we did anything last night,” insisted Sent-Bee, her mouth parting incredulously. “We wouldn’t have raided that house if the Italians hadn’t known what we were doing.”

Guizot arched an eyebrow. “According to Prime Minister Moro, Ambassador Carullo was unaware of the… thoroughness of your search. Evidently, embassy property was damaged and destroyed–”

Glaring straight at Guizot, Ladybug drew her yo-yo and tossed it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug.” Even before the swirl of red magic had passed through the wall and expanded out over the city, Ladybug had already replaced the yo-yo around her waist. “There. I’m sure the Italians will be appeased. Happy?”

“Hardly.” Guizot leaned forward. “Fixes to property damage do not change the fact that you violated a sovereign nation’s property on the word of a teenager. If you had found Mlle Rossi there – instead of simply traumatizing her mother – then perhaps we would be having a different conversation right now. But as it is…”

Ladybug’s jaw clenched. “If we hadn’t acted on the information we had at hand, then we would have been letting an incredible opportunity get away from us.”

“Given the delicate nature of this situation, a more circumspect approach would have been better,” Guizot told her curtly. “But I suppose we could hardly expect you teenaged superheroes to understand the intricacies of international politics.” Beside Ladybug, Sent-Bee bristled. “However,” continued Guizot, turning to the other two men in the conference room, “I expected better from you, M. Mayor.”

Mayor Bourgeois straightened his back and let out an awkward cough. “I assure you, Mme President, I had no idea that this operation would cause so much trouble – and for so little gain. Believe me when I tell you that I am as disappointed and appalled by last night’s events as I am sure that you are. And I promise you that my office will get to the bottom of this incident to ensure that it never happens again.”

Guizot’s mouth set in a thin line. “I am beginning to wonder if it is appropriate for a municipal government to have access to the resources that the Paris Police Prefecture does.” She glanced at Prefect Raincomprix and frowned. “Perhaps it is time that my office explores the feasibility of folding your Superhero Liaison Department into the National Gendarmerie.”

Prefect Raincomprix’s back stiffened, his eyes widening the slightest bit in surprise. “Madame–” he began, before she cut him off.

“We need order in this country, and that requires a firm hand. With the Basque territories splitting off, with Alsace and Lorraine petitioning to join Germany – and now Italy is even looking to gobble up PACA, ever since Marseille had that referendum in June.” Guizot’s eyes narrowed. “No more. All of this comes to an end now. I will not be the President responsible for the dissolution of the Fifth Republic!”

“If we don’t find Lila Rossi and reclaim the miraculous that she stole, we have no idea how much worse this could get!” Ladybug insisted, folding her arms.

“Yes, Lila Rossi.” Guizot pursed her lips. “Let us discuss your target in greater detail. Conveniently, your target is an Italian national whose mother works for the embassy whose property you prematurely raided last night.”

“With permission from the Ambassador,” Sent-Bee pointed out.

“But not from his government.”

“That does not change the evidence,” Pegasus argued. “We have eyewitness testimony that Lila Rossi is Killer Bee. We have eyewitness testimony from a second witness – the aforementioned Milk Maidge – that she ordered all of the chaos which tore the city apart last night – including attacks on several of the Heroes of Paris individually as well as their families. We have eyewitness testimony that she personally ordered the attack on Le Grand Paris in order to distract us until she could escape.”

“Then present these witnesses so my people can interview them.”

“Absolutely not with the first witness.” Ladybug shook her head. “She has been so greatly traumatized by Lila’s actions that she would not be able to handle it. We cannot allow your people to interrogate her. Especially when she now has information about some of the Heroes of Paris personally – including information that Killer Bee doesn’t yet have. Milk Maidge is currently in the custody of the Superhero Liaison Department; you can talk to her whenever you want.”

“If you are going to hide your witness, then my hands are tied.” Guizot began to rise. “I will try to smooth this diplomatic rift, but that is all I will do.”

“Mme President,” Sent-Bee interjected. “We might still be able to stop Killer Bee and salvage this. Lila may have gotten out of the city, but she has to still be in the country. Close down every border, and send border guards to search everyone leaving until we find her.”

Guizot scoffed. “Absolutely not! I am not dedicating any more French resources to this waste of time! The Heroes of Paris may do what they will – clearly, I cannot stop you. Our police and law enforcement agencies will act on credible information about criminal activity. But the French government will no longer play any part in your witch hunt.”


Ladybug nearly punched one of the columns outside the door as they were leaving. “Is she serious!?”

Sent-Bee frowned. “Obviously.”

“How could she just dismiss us like that?” Cat Noir demanded, glaring at Sent-Bee. “I thought we were all on the same side!”

Sent-Bee quirked an eyebrow at him. “Clearly you haven’t been paying enough attention,” she told him. “What have I told you about thinking you can trust a politician?”

Cat Noir gave her a deadpan look.

“We do not need their assistance,” Pegasus pointed out. “We have resources of our own.”

“It will make things a lot harder for us, though,” Sent-Bee told him. “What are we going to do? Send your drones to watch every single road that leaves France and scan every vehicle until we find Lila? Without the SLD and police helping us out, we’re pretty alone…”

Ladybug let out a breath. “No, we aren’t. We may not have their help, but we’re hardly alone..”


Standing on the edge of the butterfly garden with Sent-Bee beside her, Ladybug pushed down her trepidation and swallowed her anxiety before nodding curtly to Pegasus. The drone hovering in front of her blinked, and at once the tiny images of nine ethereal figures appeared, projected above the drone’s chassis. Ladybug nodded to them in greeting. “Thank you for making the time for us.”

“Of course, Ladybug,” the Knight assured her. “Valkyrie and I are always happy to assist our friends when they are in need.”

“What is the problem?” asked Zeus, grinning. “Do you have another beast in need of some divine retribution? If so, then you can count on us!”

Vuvk furrowed his brows. “We are happy to help, of course, but we do have our own concerns in Kyiv – I do not know if we can take the time away.”

Sent-Bee waved her hand dismissively. “Fortunately, we don’t have all that much to ask you at the moment – especially you and Nochnoy Storozh. This is not another Tarasque situation, where we need help in Paris. All we need for you to do is to keep your eyes out. We have identified Killer Bee finally, but she managed to escape our net in Paris. We are concerned that she could be trying to flee the country. So we need you to look for her.”

“I am sending you all the information we have on Killer Bee, also known as Lila Rossi,” Pegasus informed them. “Additionally, I will provide you with a supply of the synthetic antitoxin that I developed last year to negate the effects of her Venom. Unfortunately, this situation is taxing our ability to produce it, so the supply is exceedingly limited.”

“Send me the formula and I’ll see what I can do,” Caravela responded, her head appearing over O Patriota’s shoulder. “I might be able to get a little extra lab time at work today.”

“Any assistance would be greatly appreciated,” Pegasus told her, sighing in relief.

“If you see her, let us know immediately,” Ladybug instructed them, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “Don’t try to take her on yourself – we can’t underestimate her or let her escape again.”

“You can count on us,” the Hound assured her. “We’ll be watching the Chunnel, plus the Channel docks, just in case she decides to try the water.”

“I’ll check with Mecha-Man,” added Iron Maiden. “He might be able to swing something to help you out.”

Pegasus nodded. “His assistance last night was tremendous.”

Sent-Bee grimaced. “Guizot vetoed using French resources, so he might not be able to do much now, unfortunately.”

De Gaulle folded his arms, his eyes narrowing. “She doesn’t control all the resources of France. If she comes through Lyon, we’ll find her for you.”

Sent-Bee let out a breath. “You have no idea how much it means to hear that.”

Ladybug nodded, swallowing back her emotions. “Just having such good friends at a time like this… it’s incredible.”

“I can make no promises,” Euskaldun told them, “but we will do our best – if we are to be a more active participant in our region. If she tries to go West, we’ll be ready.”

“I’ll swing by that way and give you a hand,” el Peregrino promised.

Ladybug let out a breath. “Thank you all, so much. With luck, we will get her before she reaches any of you.”

Notes:

Today’s “Patrol Log” (chapter 27) occurs shortly after this chapter.

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Chloe let out a frustrated groan, nearly throwing her phone across the penthouse as she did so. Lying on the bed next to her, Bee-atrice perked up, whining, and licked Chloe’s hand. Absently, Chloe pulled her hand away from the puppy and patted Bee’s head. Bee nuzzled up against Chloe, licking her leg. She tried to breathe slowly and evenly, to relax with the techniques that Tante Emilie had been trying to teach her. Inhale slowly through the nose; hold; exhale slowly through the mouth. Inhale; exhale. Bee-atrice bumped her hand, drawing Chloe’s gaze down to meet her enormous eyes as she let out a yap. But Chloe couldn’t muster a smile for the puppy. The sun streaming in through the wide-open windows and slight breeze moving the air around gave the penthouse a bright, airy feeling – entirely at odds with Chloe’s mood this afternoon.

About the only good thing she could really say was that at least her clothes didn’t smell like camembert after Milk Maidge’s attack.

Was it really only yesterday that her father’s campaign rally was interrupted by Castutrice and a bunch of… whatevers? So much had happened since then. Her father had been abducted; only the quick thinking of the SLD and Anansi had rescued him from whatever Lila’s thugs would have tried to do with him. Chloe’s stomach clenched. She had been right there… and she hadn’t managed to do anything. The one had knocked her out before she could react, and that had been that. She had spent most of the afternoon with her parents in a “safe location” in the SLD’s underground headquarters – and it still hadn’t been good enough for her mother. The city had literally been on fire outside, and her mother had still complained that it was too bright, too cold, too quiet, too noisy, too humid for her hair… Eventually, M. Vernant had closed the door to his lab and refused to come out again, and the three officers posted to protect them had fled to the elevators. Getting called away by Ladybug to track down Geber and Capricorn had almost been a blessing, even if it had meant leaving her parents exclusively in the hands of the SLD.

And her parents had been the lucky ones last night. So many others had been targeted last night, even just for their association with possible members of the Heroes of Paris. The Kubdels had been attacked and almost abducted – if Amun hadn’t intervened, then they would have been. Ondine and M. Damocles had been assaulted and only barely fought their attackers off. They had attacked Aurore’s family before they could relocate; according to the security footage, Nadine’s family had only escaped ten minutes before a group of thugs had invaded their apartment. The Kurtzbergs and Lês had almost come under attack themselves before King Monkey got them someplace safe. Adrien had driven off three groups of thugs that had strayed too close to the bakery last night. And those were only the families of the heroes. Jean and Valèrie had been held captive in their apartment for an hour before Hato Gozen and Ryoku noticed what was happening and rescued them.

All of that, and what did they have to show for the night? She, Geber, and Capricorn had managed to capture Milk Maidge and take away her power. Amun-Vatar had killed or captured another dozen, as had M. Damocles, the Owl, and “Impact.” After their “meeting” with the President that morning, they had watched no less than a dozen transports bringing criminals – some powered and some not – to Nouvelle Bastille or Le Santé. But the big prize, the one they had been hunting for over a year, that one was still at large.

Chloe sighed heavily, flopping back in her bed.

They had warned all their allies about Lila that morning, but now there was absolutely nothing left for them to do. Nothing but wait. Chloe clenched her fist, her nostrils flaring. Lila was out there somewhere, with her miraculous, wreaking all kinds of havoc, and they had no idea where she could be. As far as they knew, she wasn’t in Paris anymore… but they couldn’t be sure of that even – what if this whole thing had been one giant ruse to throw them off and make them think that she had left? For that matter, how could they know that Lila hadn’t already snuck out of the country, even just in the seven hours since they captured Milk Maidge? Until someone spotted Lila or she made a mistake, all they could do was wait. Wait, and hope.

She let out a breath, glancing down at the feed on her phone. A firetruck remained parked in front of the main Agreste Building, alongside a police car. Police tape covered the front door and one of the windows; smoke continued to trail out through a broken storefront window. Chloe could recognize one of the women standing outside the building – one of Tante Emilie’s friends, maybe.

The destruction could have been so much worse.

Last she had heard from Max, the recovery from yesterday’s attacks was proceeding smoothly. All of the fires had been extinguished, and repairs had begun on the stores and apartment buildings that had been damaged. Several of the targeted buildings had been empty; apart from damage to property, the damage had been surprisingly minimal. But the same could not be said for the Agreste Fashion House property. And that might have been the most absurd part of it: not a single Agreste Fashion House location had survived the chaos unscathed. If they hadn’t known any better, the fact that the Lynchpin’s people had targeted department stores which sold Agreste clothing might have been concerning – particularly after they strayed so close to the bakery itself. But knowing that Lila was Killer Bee, suddenly the whole thing made so much more sense. After all, why wouldn’t Lila target Adrien and Marinette in a useless, impotent attack or twenty?

Chloe’s nostrils flared in annoyance. Property damage was reparable. But there had been so much more damage.

The trauma to Ondine and M. Kubdel and the Beauréal family might not go away for a long time. According to Max’s reports, Ondine had started to recover – having the kid, Sacha, staying with them had somehow helped. M. Kubdel had spent half the night in the Egypt Miraculous temple, so he had been in his element. But for Aurore’s family, however, it had been particularly jarring, since they had known so little about Aurore’s double life as a superhero before that moment. Although Olivet and the Lancer had arrived in time to save them, they had still been forced to come face to face with the true danger of Aurore’s life as a superhero – and especially as one whose identity was now public knowledge after the attack by the Eiffel Tower yesterday.

How the fuck had Lila Rossi managed to arrange attacks on Chloe’s family, Aurore, and Sabrina, to say nothing of last night’s mayhem, all while in hiding from the Heroes of Paris???

Bee-atrice let out a high-pitched whine. Chloe reluctantly returned to running her fingers through the puppy’s fur.

“What do you think of this pattern?” asked Sabrina, lying on the other side of the enormous bed. She held her tablet up to Chloe with an expectant look on her face.

“Hmm?” Chloe cocked her head in confusion and glanced over at Sabrina before finally noticing the tablet she held out toward her. Right: Sabrina had come back to the hotel with her after the meeting with the others. Finally, Chloe turned her attention to the design, showing all a wide assortment of constellations. She shrugged. “What’s it for?”

“For the baby’s room,” Sabrina replied calmly. “I was thinking about putting that on the nursery ceiling so at night he can look up and see the stars – that’s where his grandma was, and that’s where he will be too, one day.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow. “Not even born yet, and you’ve already decided he’ll be an astronaut? Setting the bar a little high for the kid, aren’t you?”

Sabrina stifled a giggle. “Not so high; the idea of becoming an astronaut isn’t as farfetched now as it would have been a couple years ago,” she pointed out. “Space travel was something that only a handful of people on the planet had experienced up until this year; now, if Max and I wanted to, we could take a vacation to the Moon!”

“What would you even do there?” Chloe scoffed.

“I don’t know.” Sabrina smiled fondly, letting out a sigh. “But I know Max would come up with something. He’s actually working on plans for a Moon base right now.”

“Wait, now?” Chloe demanded with a growl. “That’s hardly a priority! Doesn’t he have anything better to do than worry about something like a stupid Moon base?? Like, I don’t know, tracking down that fucking bitch???” Bee-atrice yelped and backed away from Chloe, letting out a whine as her ears drooped. Sabrina jumped, but her expression quickly smoothed into a sympathetic smile. Bee-atrice cocked her head to one side, staring up at Chloe in confusion. Her stomach clenched into a knock, Chloe groaned in frustration, her shoulders slumping. “Sorry,” she mumbled, looking down at the bedspread. “You didn’t exactly deserve that. Especially after that scare yesterday.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m feeling a lot better today; it’s Max you should be worried about on that front.” Sabrina sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t think he’s gotten over it yet – though not getting any sleep last night didn’t help.” She put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “I understand. You’re upset. You’re worried. You’re frustrated because we can’t find Lila and get your miraculous back. And I suppose you don’t need me trying to distract you from that, huh?”

Chloe smacked the bed next to her and shook her head. “Not especially,” she admitted, pursing her lips.

Sabrina rolled onto her side, looking up at Chloe intently, bracing one hand on her belly. “Okay, so let’s talk. What specifically has you so angry… upset… frustrated at the moment? Are you upset about losing Pollen? Is it the fact that Lila got away?”

“I think…” Chloe frowned. “Well, okay, neither of those things helps. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. But the big thing that keeps going through my head is… I think it’s the fact that I didn’t see it sooner. I should have realized that it was Lila. In retrospect, it all seems so obvious.”

“We were pretty close to her,” Sabrina agreed, nodding. “A lot of clues were there. If we had just put them together, then maybe we could have figured out who and what she was so much sooner.”

Chloe gritted her teeth, shaking her head in frustration. “She even said that she knew all about me losing my miraculous…”

“You mean before school started last fall? Remember, you weren’t the only one to hear her say that,” Sabrina pointed out. “I was there. Nath was there. Alix was there. Any one of us could have paid better attention and put the pieces together. That responsibility isn’t entirely on you. Frankly, we thought we knew Lila: she was a liar. She couldn’t help herself from lying about anything and everything, even if it was obvious and easily corrected or checked. But none of us bothered to check up further on what she was saying. Because none of us even imagined that she might be telling something even resembling the truth about something as serious as this. And that’s how she managed to piece together that Nath was Geber while we weren’t paying attention.”

“But after Germany–”

“After Germany, we started watching her more closely – it’s not our fault that Philippe didn’t notice anything suspicious about her sooner; it’s not his fault, either, really. It was a good plan that didn’t pan out the way we wanted.” Sabrina let out a breath. “Unfortunately, we can’t go back and do things another way. All we can do is live with the consequences of our actions in the past and try to make up for then in the present.”

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Looking sullenly out the window, Lila gritted her teeth, her eyes peeled as she watched the skyline. She had left Montreuil at the crack of dawn, almost six hours ago, switching Uber drivers every few cities. The first driver she had called had given her a funny look when she loaded her bags into the backseat, though he hadn’t made any comment beyond vague pleasantries. All the same, she had watched him every moment of the hour they were in the car together, hyperalert for him to try using his phone for more than directions. When he had dropped her off in a small town just outside the Paris metro area, she had already had her next Uber driver on call for a pickup. That first man had given her a nod, said goodbye, and gotten back into his car without giving her another look, but still the hairs on the back of her neck had prickled. She had watched until the driver was out of sight before immediately grabbing her bags and sprinting three blocks to get away from that spot, ducking through two back alleyways and a parking garage as she did so. Though she hadn’t seen a single police vehicle during the four minutes she waited for the next driver to arrive, that hadn’t stopped her from imagining police cars coming after her the whole time she was there.

When she had left Montreuil that morning, she had hoped that with each leg of the trip, the level of anxiety would diminish. Doubtless the Heroes of Paris were still dealing with the fallout from everything her people had accomplished in Paris last night – just a glance at the embassy residence down the street from the hotel window had been more than enough of a reminder of what the Heroes had done. A police car sat in front of the building, with three embassy officials looking around the grounds. But that had been the only police car Lila had seen in Montreuil.

And yet, despite the lack of active searching in Montreuil, still she could not relax.

Now six hours and at least 500 kilometers later, she was tired, she was hungry, and she couldn’t allow herself to lose her focus for even a moment. The police didn’t seem to be searching for her so actively now, but they were hardly the only threat. Despite the dozens of drones that her people had destroyed last night, somehow the Heroes of Paris always seemed to have more. Any second, one of those drones could fly past them, scan the car, and identify her. The Heroes of Paris could drop out of a portal on top of her. Or a police car might pull them over and demand to see her information before bringing her in for questioning. Or that stupid flying car could appear out of nowhere to attack them. All she could do was keep moving – keep moving, and try to stay at least one step ahead of the Heroes of Paris.

Lila stifled a yawn, gritting her teeth and shaking the cobwebs out of her head. She couldn’t let herself lose focus – not until she got to somewhere safe.

Would even Italy be safe?

She was finally roused from her thoughts when the car slowed down and came to a complete stop in the middle of a block. Looking forward, Lila furrowed her brows suspiciously, eyeing the driver in the rearview mirror. “Why the hell are we stopped?” she demanded, studying his eyes and body language closely.

“What do you want me to do?” the driver shot back at her, annoyance coloring his voice. “The traffic’s just crawling along! We can’t move until it clears up!” He groaned. “Welcome to noontime in Lyon.”

Lila gritted her teeth, scanning the area carefully, her eyes drifting up to the rooftops of the high apartment buildings on either side of the street. She hadn’t seen any sign of the Heroes of Paris or their drones since leaving Paris… but that didn’t mean she was in the clear. With the Horse Miraculous, the stupid Heroes of Paris could be anywhere in the world in a matter of moments. And with how many of the heroes there were, even just in Paris, they had an incredible array of resources at their disposal. And with the connections they’d had in the city of Paris, they could almost have ruled the city if they had tried.

In a way, Lila was jealous of the level of power the Heroes of Paris had amassed. She had enjoyed great power and influence in Paris, of course – at least until last night. But after all the resources she had expended just to plan and facilitate her escape, she had almost nothing left. And even what power she’d held, it hadn’t been as brazen and open as the Heroes of Paris. But still. Perhaps she had managed to take away some of the Heroes of Paris’ power and influence last night…

Her mouth set in a firm line. This is not the end.

Slowly, the traffic started to move around them, and the car proceeded down the street, though still it moved at little more than a crawl. She frowned, not taking her eyes off the rooftops. Even with the Heroes of Paris after her still, she had nevertheless considered staying in Paris for another day or two and searching for Night Bat. If she could just find him, all of this would be different: the two of them, with their miraculous, would be more than enough to rebuild, to defeat LadyBitch and Cat Noir. But in the end, she had had to bow to reality: she couldn’t afford to stay near Paris, not when the Heroes of Paris were still looking for her and still had drones at their disposal. She had to live to fight another day.

But if she was going to do that, then she would need resources – more resources than just what was in the suitcases she had brought with her. She had money and clothes; she needed more of each, to say nothing of safe passage out of the country and shelter until she was ready to leave. Lyon was hardly a hub for the Lynchpin’s network, but Andretti had a small operation in the area. They could provide her with everything she needed for the next step on her journey. If they could be trusted. But Andretti had already been planning a betrayal before all of this started. And if his people went with him, if they were now loyal to Andretti and not to the Lynchpin…

Her mouth set in a thin line. They would give her what she needed, one way or the other. And if their loyalty was exclusively to Andretti, then they would just have to be dealt with.

The driver slowed down once more, and Lila glanced out the front window and into the back window of an SUV with tinted windows. The sunlight glinted brightly off of the glass, and Lila turned to the opposite side of the car, wincing against the spots in her vision. Three people with red berets stood on the far corner of the street, talking quietly among themselves. As Lila watched, one of them glanced away from the others and looked into the car. He met Lila’s eye, and almost immediately he turned away, seeming to look intently at his friend, carefully avoiding eye contact with Lila. One of his companions laughed uproariously. Lila’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She studied the group for another long minute. That look. It could have been nothing. Or it could have been…

The man looked back up at Lila, and she knew. Her mouth setting in a thin line, she slid across the seat to the opposite side of the car.

The driver glanced up into the rearview mirror, his brows furrowed. “Hey, mademoiselle… what are you–”

Without hesitating or even glancing at the driver, Lila grabbed her purse, pushed the door open, and jumped out, just as the car in the lane next to them started to crawl forward. Sucking in a breath, Lila threw herself back toward the Uber with seconds to spare and edged down its length, her back pressed against the side of the car. She could hear horns honking behind her, in front of her, around her. The driver shouted something she couldn’t make out through the still-open door. Traffic rolled past her in both directions. But under the traffic noise, the pounding of footsteps raced toward her from the opposite side of the car. Glancing over her shoulder, she locked eyes with the first of the three people who had been standing together, his eyes narrowed and mouth open to shout something. Traffic cleared momentarily in front of Lila, and she bolted. A horn blared from the right, and she put on a quick burst of speed, just as the oncoming truck slammed on its brakes and swerved, clipping a sedan and knocking it into the oncoming traffic. Another car horn screeched, followed by another. A group of pedestrians stood at the corner waiting to cross. One of them gasped, pointing at Lila. Without thinking, Lila grabbed the woman by the shoulder and shoved her off the sidewalk and into the crosswalk. Car horns blared, mingling in with the cacophony of vehicles racing past them. Three more screams reverberated across the intersection, drowned out by more honking horns. A van’s tires screeched, the woman driving it standing out plainly visible, a look of terror on her face as she stood on the brake and her vehicle swerved slightly, starting to turn side-on toward them. Before Lila could react, someone wearing a beret jumped off of the sidewalk and into the traffic, grabbing the fallen woman and hauling her back moments before the van would have hit her. Two more pointed at Lila and tensed.

“Stop!” One of the women pulled out a thin rod and whipped it at her side, extending the baton and narrowing her eyes. “You’re coming in with us!”

Lila sneered, glancing back and forth between the two women. “You’ll have to make me! Pollen, Buzz on!”

The first woman’s eyes hardened, though the second woman jumped backward, her eyes widening in surprise, as Lila was covered in yellow light and transformed. With a yell, the first woman leapt forward and swung her rod at Killer Bee’s head. Drawing her top, Killer Bee spun it casually as a shield, catching the blow, deflecting the rod to one side, and knocking the woman backward. The woman stumbled, nearly losing her balance. Her companion drew her own rod and lunged forward, feinting back at the last moment when the first woman jumped in and aimed a kick at Killer Bee’s head. Her attention focused on the other woman, Killer Bee stumbled as the blow landed, shook her head, and threw herself back at the second woman, tackling her to the ground and coiling the top’s cord around her chest, springing off of her and back to her feet before the first woman could react. Killer Bee spun around and pulled her captive off the ground and into her hand, glaring at the first woman.

“If you want your friend to live, you’ll back off,” Killer Bee growled. The woman tied up in her top cord squirmed, struggling feebly against it. Snarling, Killer Bee tightened the cord. Her captive’s eyes bulged out, and she let out a whimper. The first woman’s eyes narrowed, and she charged with a scream. Her lip curling, Killer Bee kicked her captive in the back, hurling her out into the street as the group from the other side of the street finally made it through the traffic. “Venom!” With a single smooth motion, Killer Bee caught her top and jabbed it into the woman’s gut, sneering at her. The woman gasped in shock and froze midjump, and Killer Bee pulled her up into the air before slamming her into the crowd of people gathered on the street corner. Killer Bee didn’t wait around to watch their response; catching her top around a roof projection, she drew herself up off the ground, swung across the street to land on the roof of an apartment building, and sprinted away.

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Chapter Text

“How the hell did this happen!?” Dropping through the portal, Ladybug landed in the middle of the torn-up intersection with Cat Noir and Sent-Bee to either side. The portal stayed open for a couple moments longer before shutting with a whoosh. Ladybug’s jaw dropped as she took in the damage around them. Two cars smoldered against one corner of the intersection, their hoods seemingly fused together by a head-on collision. Four police vehicles had cordoned off the intersection in all directions, directing traffic toward side streets around the scene. An ambulance was parked next to a delivery truck that had stopped with one tire on the sidewalk and long skid marks behind the tires. The back doors of the ambulance hung open; a pair of paramedics were treating someone on a stretcher. Another couple vehicles had been stopped in in the middle of the street, one of which sported a long scratch mark that ran the length of the driver’s side. Several dozen civilians lined the sidewalks on all four corners, watching the emergency workers while speaking in hushed tones. Ladybug’s stomach clenched anxiously.

This was not what they’d had in mind.

Sent-Bee placed a hand on Ladybug’s shoulder and nodded toward the police car on opposite side of the intersection from them. A man a couple years older than them stood with a police lieutenant, speaking animatedly. De Gaulle pulled the red beret off his head and wiped his brow, pointing to one of the stalled cars and shaking his head. The officer said something, and de Gaulle shrugged, glancing down at the pouch in his hand and then across the intersection. On spotting Ladybug, he immediately nodded to the officer, shook his hand, and jogged over in their direction.

“So…” Sent-Bee arched an eyebrow at de Gaulle, a sour look on her face. “So much for not engaging her without us…”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, sighing heavily and grimacing. He waved a hand toward the street corner behind them. “Maquisard spotted Rossi in a car when it stopped at the intersection, and she must have realized she had been made.” A woman in a red beret stopped in front of de Gaulle, who opened the pouch and pulled out a syringe. Glancing behind her, Ladybug’s eyes widened slightly. In the midst of the chaos in front of them, she hadn’t even noticed the Liberté member lying on the edge of the sidewalk, completely immobilized. Another Liberté member sat next to her, cradling his wrist and wincing. The woman who had approached them sported deep bruised on her face and arms, along with a black eye. Handing the syringe to the woman, de Gaulle instructed her, “Use this on her.” Even before the woman had left, turned back to Ladybug with an apologetic look. “My people tried to stop her… but she transformed, overpowered us, and escaped. I’m afraid that Rossi is in the wind.”

Sent-Bee let out a curse, shaking her head in frustration. “Too little, too late.”

De Gaulle nodded regretfully. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, looking over at Sent-Bee, his jaw set. “But I promise: I will do everything in my power to help you find her.”

Ladybug groaned, restraining her instinct to punch something. Sighing heavily, she threw her yo-yo up into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!” Even before the swirl of red energy had expanded out, restored the destroyed cars, and healed the injured Liberté members, she turned to de Gaulle, an intense look in her eyes. “Which way did she go?”

De Gaulle pointed northeast. “She went in that direction.” Before he had finished speaking, three drones rose higher into the air sped to the north, spreading out as they went. De Gaulle paused for a moment before continuing. “Unfortunately, my people have already started the search and haven’t found anything yet.”

Sent-Bee kicked the curb. “Damnit! This was our best chance to catch her, but now she knows that we know where she is!”

“Hey.” Cat Noir started to put a hand on Sent-Bee’s shoulder but froze when she glared daggers at him. “We can find her,” he assured her. “We know more now than we did five minutes ago. The search was all of France; now we can focus on Lyon.”

“And meanwhile, she’s getting further and further away from us.”

“I am sorry we failed you,” de Gaulle apologized, giving Sent-Bee a contrite look.

Looking away, Sent-Bee groaned. “No – I guess if you hadn’t seen her, she could have slipped through here without us knowing.” She sighed. “We’ll just… have to try and find her, I guess.”

Ladybug pursed her lips, her brows knitted together in concentration. “You said that Maquisard saw her in a car, right?” De Gaulle nodded. “I assume the car’s still here?”

De Gaulle nodded slowly. “We’ve talked to the driver, but we wanted to wait for you before going through the stuff that she left behind.”

Sent-Bee furrowed her brows and cocked her head to one side. “‘Stuff she left behind’? What did she leave?”

De Gaulle shrugged, leading them toward a smaller dark-colored SUV sitting on the edge of the intersection. “Not sure exactly, but it looks like she grabbed her purse and that’s it.”

Following him, Ladybug’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “She needed to keep Pollen with her,” she mused softly. “Pollen, wallet, phone…”

“She hasn’t actually used her phone in over a week, though,” Cat Noir pointed out as the three of them followed de Gaulle over to a car with the Uber sign on the dashboard. “Or her credit card. Pegasus would have picked up on either of those immediately.”

Ladybug tapped a button on her communicator. “Pegasus, see if you can find Lila’s Uber account and track her phone that way. We can see where she’s been – hopefully where she’s going.”

“I will put Markov on it immediately,” Pegasus assured her promptly. “However, I am still in the process of assembling a backup team to assist you in the search.”

“Let me know when you have something,” Ladybug instructed him, pausing a couple paces behind de Gaulle.

“Renard,” de Gaulle greeted the driver, who was sitting on the hood of his vehicle, arms folded and staring down at his phone. “Tell these fine heroes everything you can about your last passenger.”

“Seriously?” Renard groaned, shaking his head in frustration. “I’ve already told you ‘red berets’ everything I know! Can I go already? Every minute I waste here, I’m missing out on more riders, and that means I’m losing money.”

“And every minute you spend bitching about it means that a super-criminal gets further away and you lose out on even more riders,” Sent-Bee pointed out acidly. “So answer the question. The sooner you do it, the sooner we’re out of your life.”

Cat Noir sighed. “We’ll pay for your time. But only if you answer the question fast.”

Renard jumped and nearly fell off the car hood, staring up at Sent-Bee and de Gaulle in surprise, and past them toward Ladybug and Cat Noir. His jaw dropped. “Wait… the Heroes of Paris!? Here??” he yelped, his eyes widening. “I’m a huge fan!” His eyes shifted to focus on de Gaulle, and he gave him a look. “You didn’t tell me you were working with the Heroes of Paris!”

De Gaulle frowned and folded his arms. “It’s not exactly something we have announced yet,” he told him briskly. “So you had better not tell anyone about this – not until after we make the announcement in a couple weeks. Because if you do, I will know. So… your last fare.”

Shrugging, Renard looked down at the pavement. “I didn’t think too much of it,” he began. “Overall, it seemed pretty standard at first. I got a message over the app that someone wanted to be picked up near an intersection in Limas and brought to a hotel in Lyon. It was pretty far out of the way to pick her up, but my last rider had wanted a drop off in Anse, so I was close enough and the money was pretty good. I agree to it and go to pick her up, and she dumps some suitcases into the back seat – most people put their luggage in the trunk, but I figured she was just trying to keep it close so it would be easier to get out when she arrived. The ride itself was nothing out of the ordinary: I asked a couple questions when she first got in, but she didn’t answer more than one word, so I just stopped talking. The whole time here, all she really did was insist that I wasn’t going fast enough for her – she seemed to be in a serious hurry. Then we got to this intersection. She spooked, threw the door open in the middle of traffic, ran off, and she was gone.”

“And her bags?” pressed Ladybug, glancing past him into the car.

“Right where she left them,” he assured her, gesturing toward the car’s back seat. “I didn’t touch any of it. I tried calling the number she gave, but it didn’t connect.”

“What’s the number?” demanded Cat Noir, leaning forward immediately. Renard held out his phone and opened an app. Cat Noir typed quickly. “She probably ditched the phone already, but it’s worth a shot.”

Ladybug shared a look with Sent-Bee and nodded, moving around to the back of the vehicle. The door was mostly closed, but it seemed to hang loosely off the hinges; an enormous dent had pushed in the door, and a long streak of light blue paint had been left behind in the scratch. Inside the vehicle were three bags from a middle-tier label, all seemingly loaded to the bursting point. Ripping the first bag open, Ladybug’s mouth set in a thin line: clothing. The second bag likewise had clothing in it, with a computer nestled into the middle. But on opening the third bag, Ladybug’s eyes widened. “That’s a lot of cash.”

Looking over Ladybug’s shoulder, Sent-Bee let out a low whistle. “There’s no way Lila Rossi could’ve gotten her hands on that much by herself,” she murmured.

“Not with us watching her accounts,” Ladybug agreed. She furrowed her brows. “So how the hell did she get her hands on so much money?”

“We’ll have to ask her when we capture her.” Sent-Bee chuckled humorlessly and raised an eyebrow at Ladybug meaningfully. “But if we got all her money, then that means she won’t really have anything to use to get out of the city. That means she’ll need help – someone who can give her some more money,” she suggested. “After all, this is probably what she was planning to use to survive wherever she’s going.”

Ladybug nodded slowly, studying the suitcase full of crisp euros pensively. “That’s my thought, too,” she agreed. Glancing at Cat Noir, she jerked her head toward the bag of money. “Can you go through there and see if there’s anything to indicate where she might have gone, Kitty?” she asked.

“I can,” he agreed hesitantly, giving the bags a quick scan and glancing back up at Ladybug dubiously. “But I hope you won’t actually need me for a few days…”

“If you need help, Résistante works in forensic accounting,” de Gaulle offered. “She could give you a hand in going through all of this – based on serial numbers, you might even be able to trace it back to a bank.”

Cat Noir hummed. “Maybe… but I wouldn’t be op-paw-sed to help!”

Sent-Bee raised an eyebrow, glancing over at de Gaulle. “Thanks.”

His mouth twisted around in distaste. “It’s the least we can do.”

Sent-Bee tapped her chin, studying the money and then turning to Ladybug. “If Rossi is here, and she doesn’t have the money she was planning to live off of, then that might actually give us the break we need to catch up to her!”

Ladybug nodded, a little of the tension in her chest easing. “She’s got to be around here somewhere; now it’s just a question of where. But maybe now we can find her and stop here.”

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Less than twenty minutes after arriving in Lyon, Sent-Bee took to the sky, angling roughly north in the direction Killer Bee had gone when she escaped from Liberté. The wind rushed around her, sending shivers down her arms and across her shoulders despite the long sleeves of her Sent-Bee suit. Rising above the rooftops surrounding the intersection where Killer Bee and Liberté had fought, she rotated slowly around, taking in as much of the scenery as she could. Far in the distance to her right and left, she could just make out the moving shapes of Cat Noir, King Monkey, and Nabatala, fanning out as they extended the net; though they were too small for her to spot, Sent-Bee thought she caught a glint of sunlight toward the south, reflected off the metal chassis of one of the dozen drones that Pegasus had deployed. Letting out a breath, Sent-Bee turned back north and shot forward.

the traffic noise below almost completely drowned out the hiss of her jetpack as she accelerated. The next block over, a little girl standing on the sidewalk looked up at her and waved excitedly, jumping up and down. Suspended in her carrier on Sent-Bee’s chest, Bee-atrice let out a yip, her tongue hanging out. Sent-Bee’s stomach clenched. With every passing moment, Lila could be getting further and further away. A high-pitched whine came from the direction of Sent-Bee’s chest, and Bee-atrice glanced up at her with wide eyes. Sighing, Sent-Bee dropped one hand down to run her fingers through the soft fur. “Think you can pick up her scent?” she asked wryly. Bee-atrice yapped. Sent-Bee smiled in spite of herself.

Below them, traffic had finally begun to clear up. Miraculous Ladybug had repaired the damaged vehicles and healed the injured civilians; while taking statements from the witnesses, the police officers had begun to move their barricades and allow traffic to pass. Now, with the accident cleaned up where Liberté had fought – and lost – Killer Bee, the city had come back to life. Vehicles moved steadily up and down the roads, adding to the cacophony below. The gawkers near the accident site had left, to be replaced by dozens of civilians standing around on the sidewalks, many craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Sent-Bee and her companion. A few of them looked up and waved as Sent-Bee as she passed, but she kept her gaze forward, intent on the rooftops ahead, keen for any sign of Killer Bee.

Next to her, Ladybug sprinted across the rooftops, swinging from block to block on the end of her yo-yo, spinning through a tight backflip to land midstride on the next building. She clenched her jaw shut, her eyes narrowed in concentration; without skipping a beat, she weaved through a clothesline and immediately launched herself across the small gap to the next apartment building, clambering hand over hand up the side of it to reach the roof and putting on a burst of speed to catch up to Sent-Bee. Ladybug’s gaze remained firmly set forward, on the next rooftop, the next block; Sent-Bee could see the gears turning as she calculated their best route through the city.

For her part, Sent-Bee’s eyes shifted from side to side, scanning the cityscape for the lone figure on a rooftop that would have to be Killer Bee. Her jaw clenched. “Are you seeing anything yet, Bug?”

With a groan, Ladybug shook her head. “Nothing.”

“She had to have come this way, though,” Sent-Bee insisted, gritting her teeth. “Right?”

“That’s what de Gaulle said…” Ladybug pursed her lips. “But she could just have been trying to throw them off her scent.”

Sunlight glinted off of something on the roof of the apartment building across the street from Ladybug. Sent-Bee paused, holding her hand up, and banked in that direction. A yo-yo whipped through the air behind her, and Ladybug landed on the apartment roof just as Sent-Bee dropped down beside a smashed cellphone. Carefully, Sent-Bee examined the device from every angle, taking in the large footprint marked over it, the shattered screen. Finally, she picked it up and turned it over in her hand. “Or this could be the right way,” the pointed out to Ladybug, arching an eyebrow. “You still have the number she used for Uber?”

In response, Ladybug pressed a button on her yo-yo; a couple seconds later, the phone in Sent-Bee’s hand started to vibrate, the cracked screen lighting up. “So she must have come this way,” Ladybug mused.

“Or at least she came far enough to ditch her phone here,” Sent-Bee pointed out.

Ladybug hummed, hitting a button on her yo-yo. “True…” she conceded, before suddenly turning her head sharply. “Pegasus? We found Lila’s phone. Could you send one of your drones to collect it and scan the rooftop?” She paused for a moment and folded her arms. “We’ll be waiting.”

Sent-Bee quirked an eyebrow at Ladybug. “You know Lila isn’t going to give us anything with this, right?”

Shrugging, Ladybug let out a breath. “There’s always the possibility. She isn’t perfect. She’s bound to make a mistake sometime. And when she does, we’ll be ready and waiting.”

Sent-Bee’s shoulders sagged, and she looked out toward the east. A winged figure banked and dipped lower in the sky before dropping down below the level of the rooftops. Further to the south, another couple of figures raced along the rooftops from east to west, skirting the edge of the city. Beside Sent-Bee, Ladybug shifted her weight from one leg to the other, one hand planted on her hip.

Finally, Ladybug coughed awkwardly. “So… how are your parents after yesterday?”

Starting, Sent-Bee glanced over to find Ladybug watching her curiously. She shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Daddy so shaken,” she answered. “Mother was… well, Mother. Daddy met with Jean-Claude for three hours after our meeting with Guizot this morning.”

“Jean-Claude?”

“Daddy’s campaign manager – he’s been working for him since the first time he ran for Council,” she explained. “That means he gets to do ‘damage control’ for last night.” Ladybug scoffed. Sent-Bee held up a hand. “I know, I know. We didn’t cause it, we tried to prevent it, it was all Lila.” Sent-Bee gritted her teeth. “But in politics, facts don’t matter; all that matters is what people see. It happened while Daddy was mayor, so in the eyes of the public, it’s his fault. And that means that Jean-Claude has to figure out a way to spin it to the public to make it look like Daddy was nearly abducted and the city went crazy because he’s so tough on crime and he definitely wasn’t hiding in a bunker all night! Or something like that.” She made a face.

“Sounds like a headache.”

Sent-Bee grimaced. “That stupid election can’t come soon enough,” she grumbled.

Ladybug hummed. “Your father’s coalition had better win.” She stuck out her tongue in distaste. “If Loubet becomes Mayor…”

Sent-Bee nodded reluctantly. The fact that Loubet was even still allowed to run for Mayor, despite everything they knew about him… But the city attorney had insisted that they could not have him arrested in the middle of an election based solely on the testimony of one person – even if that person was a member of the Heroes of Paris. In fact, according to him, Sent-Bee being part of the Heroes of Paris could have led to accusations of corruption if they couldn’t produce more evidence. But all they had was Aurore’s testimony: Loubet was the man who had given her the lance. And if the man who had given Aurore her lance – a man who had to be working with the Lynchpin – became the Mayor of Paris, how much damage could he cause?

The Heroes of Paris wouldn’t be able to rely on support from the police anymore… though after this morning, that was already in question. And if that happened, it would be up to Sent-Bee to figure it all out for Ladybug – Ladybug didn’t know anything about politics; that was why she needed to keep Sent-Bee around. But what could Sent-Bee do in that case?

A gentle vibration came from Sent-Bee’s stomach and chest area, and she reached down to place a hand on Bee-atrice’s head. The puppy whined happily, licking Sent-Bee’s gloved fingers. Swallowing, Sent-Bee forced herself to breathe, slowly and more deeply. Whatever happened, would happen. All that mattered now was that they found Killer Bee and got the miraculous away from her.

Where was that stupid drone?

Sighing, Sent-Bee glanced over at Ladybug. “So… how is your family after last night?”

Ladybug smiled fondly. “Mama is fine – I think she appreciated having me actually come home, even if it was under these circumstances. And she and Emilie enjoyed having Leïla come to visit, too.” She frowned. “Of course, Adrien did have to fend off a few bad guys, but Mama and Papa barely noticed that anything was wrong.”

Sent-Bee nodded in understanding. “That’s good – I know you were worried.”

Ladybug started to flush and coughed awkwardly, glancing down into the alleyway below them. “Oh, good. There’s the drone.”

“Took him long enough,” Sent-Bee mused as the drone rose up to their level and blinked a couple times. She held out the broken cellphone and placed in it a compartment that extended out of the drone’s chassis, and the drone beeped and whirred, rotating quickly as it scanned the rooftop around them.

Pegasus’ voice came over their communicators. “I will clone the phone and see what I information I can pull from it,” he assured them. But based on the state of the device, I can make no promises.”

“Understood,” Ladybug told him, raising an eyebrow at Sent-Bee and jerking her head toward the north. “Keep us posted.”

Nodding, Sent-Bee lifted back into the air and turned to shadow Ladybug in that direction. “That’s another lead gone,” she grumbled.

“Looks like it,” Ladybug admitted. She frowned. “It’s a pity she figured out that Liberté was watching her.”

“I can’t believe they blew it like that!” Sent-Bee growled, squeezing one of her yo-yos and deforming it to mold around her hand. “We said not to engage her, to call us the moment they saw her! If they’d called, we could have been here to capture her!”

Ladybug sighed heavily. “They made a mistake,” she agreed sullenly. “So now we just have to try and fix it.”

Sent-Bee frowned, looking down at the street below her. “Maybe we won’t be able to fix it.” Movement caught her eye from the mouth of an alleyway just one block ahead of them. Swooping down lower, she paused by the alley entrance and scanned the length quickly for signs of what had moved. A cat looked up at her and let out a yowl. From her spot in Sent-Bee’s suit, Bee-atrice growled. Groaning, Sent-Bee muttered a low curse. Quickly, she caught up with Ladybug and gave her a look. “Maybe Lila’s already gone.”

Ladybug glanced over at her, still running along the rooftops by instinct. “I don’t think so. I think we’ll be able to find her. Lila isn’t nearly as smart as she thinks she is.”

Sent-Bee snorted. “That’s the understatement of the century!” she agreed. “She always assumes that everyone will just buy her bullshit without question, that there people will just accept whatever lie she tells them. But the moment people start to question it and realize there’s a flaw in what she’s saying, it all falls apart around her.”

Ladybug hummed. “You would think so… but a lot of people will just accept whatever crap she feeds them.” She raised an eyebrow at Sent-Bee meaningfully.

Sent-Bee’s jaw clenched. “That was years ago,” she retorted. Her shoulders slumped. “But I suppose you’re right. Everyone just believed whatever she said.”

Ladybug grimaced. “Honestly, if I hadn’t known for a fact that Lila was not my best friend, I might have even been sucked in, at least by some of what she was saying.”

“I know I believed her at first,” Sent-Bee admitted, looking away. “The idea that she knew all these famous people, that she had all this influence and power, it was all so… alluring. But then I started thinking about it more… and then I saw how our classmates were reacting to her – like she was the second coming or something. And that was when I started questioning her. And when I found out who you are…” She shrugged, giving Ladybug a sidelong glance. “Pretty hard to believe Lila over Marinette. Thank you, by the way,” she added quickly. “I–I know I’ve said it a lot, but I really mean it. Thank you for trusting me, for believing in me, even with our history together. I’m sorry I let–”

“If you’re about to say you let me down,” Ladybug interrupted, her eyes narrowing, “I will throw you into that building.” Her mouth set in a thin line. “After I returned the miraculous to you, Queen Bee never let me down; since you became a fulltime hero, you have never let me down – as Queen Bee, as Sent-Bee, or as Chloe. Understood?”

Sent-Bee stiffened, nodding. “Understood.”

Ladybug cracked a grin. “Although I have to admit, it’s pretty wild to think that I’m here hunting down one of my collège bullies alongside my other collège bully!”

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Shading her eyes from the bright early afternoon sunlight, Killer Bee lay prone at the edge of the warehouse roof, watching the shipping office across the street carefully. A fence ran the length of the property, enclosing a large, clear yard. Traffic flowed steadily up and down the street between her and the building. Two men leaned against the building’s wall on either side of the main entrance, seemingly having a conversation, though every few minutes one of them would turn to give the street a quick scan before returning to the “conversation.” Glancing toward the far corner of the building, another two men sat on the ground, resting their backs against the building next to the shipping office. As she watched, no less than four men jogged past the building, went to the end of the block, and turned, only to reappear within ten minutes from the other direction. Two of the joggers leaned against the fence near the gate for a couple minutes before glancing in either direction and slipping inside. Killer Bee tensed, leaning forward slightly, and watched the joggers walk straight up to the shipping office and step inside. Another pair of men emerged a shortly after they had entered. As she watched, at least another five men wandered around the yard, seemingly picking up trash though without filling their trash bags.

She frowned. Normally, there should just be a couple of guys watching the road in case the police raided them. That was the standard that they had adopted the moment Andretti had agreed to work for the Lynchpin a year ago; any more guards than that risked drawing undue attention to their operation. So why did Andretti have so many men watching his Lyon hub? Did it have something to do with those stupid red berets? Were they expecting trouble today?

Or did Andretti warn them that she might come?

Killer Bee’s ear twitched as a sound carried to her from behind her to the east, and without hesitating she rolled off the roof and into the alley beside it, catching the edge of the roof with one hand and pressing herself against the wall. Digging the gloved fingers of her other hand into the grooves between the bricks and balancing carefully on the top of the window frame directly below her, she froze in place, hardly daring to breathe. Over the pounding of her own heart, she could hear murmurs from across the street, accompanied by a flurry of activity. Three of the men who had been visible from her alley perch ran around the corner of the shipping office and disappeared from sight. Footfalls landed on the roof directly above Killer Bee and paused for a moment. Killer Bee held her breathe, forcing herself to remain calm, and pushed herself into the bricks as much as she possibly could so the roof overhang would shield her from view as much as possible. After a moment that seemed to stretch on for hours, a shadow passed over Killer Bee’s head, and someone landed on the roof of the next building. Killer Bee opened her eyes just in time to catch a quick glimpse of a miraculous suit before the hero disappeared from view. Finally, she let out a breath.

That was too close.

After waiting another five minutes, Killer Bee carefully crawled down the side of the building to the fire escape. Clearly, Andretti’s people were watching the front of their building very carefully – and clearly, the Heroes of Paris were here to search for her. She gritted her teeth. If she could be sure of Andretti’s men’s loyalty, this would be easy. If the Heroes of Paris weren’t already here, she could wait a little longer before making a move. But she couldn’t afford to wait, and she couldn’t afford to leave. With a sigh, Killer Bee started working her way around the warehouse, keeping below the roof level as much as possible. During a break in the traffic, she swung across the street and continued a little further south before turning back west and making her way along the rooftops back to Andretti’s shipping office. A lone drone drifted past several blocks to the west, and she hid behind a shed atop an apartment building for three minutes until she could no longer hear its faint motor. But finally, she was in place.

Pausing for a moment on reaching the rear side of the shipping facility, Killer Bee looked in either direction carefully before swinging across the avenue to land on the roof. Gravel crunched beneath her feet, and she rolled up into a crouch. She paused, straining her ears for any sign that the men on the ground had heard her arrival. Faint conversation echoed up to her, but no accelerated footsteps. Staying low to the ground, she scanned the rooftops around the building, but no sign of the Heroes of Paris.

Her mouth set in a thin line, Killer Bee carefully scurried across the rooftop to one of the slightly-elevated windows near the side of the building. Slipping the tip of her top into the gap between the window and frame, she gave it a sharp jerk and unlatched it, catching it before it could creak open. Softly she eased it open and slipped onto the catwalk inside that ran the length of the warehouse floor just above the support beams. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim interior light, she scanned the building quickly, taking in the stacks of shipping containers along one wall, the trio of SUVs parked just inside the far sliding door, the forklift pushed into the corner closest to the unloading bay. A half-dozen men were moving around on the floor, one holding a clipboard and checking the insides of the crates closest to the unloading dock. Three others moved crates and boxes around, stacking them close to the SUVs. None of them turned or paid any attention to Killer Bee. Finally, she pulled the window shut. The rusty hinge creaked slightly, and she held her breath for a long moment, watching the men below for any sign of recognition. When nothing happened, she let out a relieved breath and crept along the catwalk toward the main office, a boxy structure near the center of the building set on four support pillars which elevated it high enough to look out over the entire storage floor. Below her, aisles of storage crates ran the length of the building, setting apart several smaller sections of the building where tables had been set up. A couple of the boxes near the far wall bore markings showing them to be among the last shipments of energy weapons they had been able to produce in Paris before the Engineer abandoned them. Killer Bee’s jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed. Of course the Engineer would abandon them. Of course everyone would abandon her. Perhaps there had been a miscalculation with regard to the Engineer’s loyalty. Killer Bee had assumed that he would stay on their side, that money was enough to buy his loyalty. But of course it hadn’t been – maybe he had grown a conscience in Angola. And when she had gone after his daughter to convince him to come back, Andretti’s people had betrayed her. She had brought some of Andretti’s people back in line, of course, but the damage had already been done.

Money had not been enough to buy their loyalty. Lies had not been enough to keep Nadine and Malorie in line. That was something she needed to keep in mind for next time.

As two of the men inventorying the crates approached her position on the catwalk near the center of the building, Killer Bee froze in place, flattening herself against the open grate floor and watching them carefully, her top already in her hand. Stopping directly below her, one of the men opened a crate and looked inside at a shipment of drugs – white powder in large bags. The other man, the one with the clipboard, pried the lid off of a larger container that held what looked to be a piece taken from an alien spaceship. Making a note on his clipboard, the man called something to his friend, and the two of them continued down the aisle. Eyes narrowed, Killer Bee crept along the ceiling toward the office, moving as quickly and quietly as she could until she was directly above the central office. Dropping down onto the landing right outside, she threw the door open and sauntered in.

Two men stood inside, looking over a ledger together. As the door flew open, both men jumped, turning to stare at the door in shock. One started to pull a pistol from his pocket, but Killer Bee’s top whipped out, knocking the pistol to the floor with a clatter. The other cocked his head to the side in confusion and held up his hand, his eyes widening. “Wait, Killer Bee?” he began. “What are you doing here? How the hell did you get in?”

Killer Bee arched her eyebrow languidly and kicked the office door shut behind her, folding her arms and examining the men carefully. “And here I was expecting you to be happy to see me,” she mused, baring her teeth at them. “After all, we’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

“Um, uh, yes!” the man agreed, too quickly. “Of course, we are!”

“That’s good.” Killer Bee’s eyes narrowed. “Because I would hate to think that you were not my friends…”

The other man grimaced sheepishly. “Um… sorry for… that,” he mumbled jerking his head toward the pistol. “You just… um… startled me.”

The first man coughed. “Of course we’re your friends. But… what can we do for you?”

Killer Bee’s mouth set in a thin line. “The heat in Paris is too much,” she informed them curtly. “I need to get out of the country. And you’re going to help me.”

The man blinked. “I–er–what?” he stuttered. Cocking his head to one side, he looked past her, out into the loading area. “Do you want us to… smuggle you out?”

She scoffed, her nostrils flaring. “Travel in one of those crappy boxes? As if! I’m going to make my own way out of the country. But you’re going to fund it.”

“And why would we do that?” the second man demanded, folding his arms. “Andretti didn’t say anything about giving you money.”

Killer Bee rolled her eyes. “Because we’re friends. And–” her top whipped out and coiled around the man’s neck. He fell to his knees, mouth open in shock and staring up at her “–because you don’t want to see what happens when we’re not friends.”

The first man flinched, holding his hands up. “Alright! Alright! We’ll help you out. We don’t keep a lot of cash here… but whatever we have, you can take it all!”

She smirked, loosening the cord around her captive’s neck slightly. “That’s what I thought.”

Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Ladybug let out a heavy sigh, looking around at the assembled heroes. After spending the better part of an hour searching the city, she and Sent-Bee had finally conceded defeat and returned to the scene of Killer Bee’s escape, hoping for any kind of clue to where she might have gone. Cat Noir and King Monkey were still out searching, along with Hato Gozen, Nabatala, and a dozen others. They had covered every block of Lyon at least twice, with no sign of Killer Bee. And with every passing minute, the chances of finding Killer Bee were dropping exponentially. Bee-atrice had sniffed the rooftop where Killer Bee first landed for several minutes before her ears drooped and she let out a whine. Rechecking the luggage that she had left behind had revealed little more. Finally, de Gaulle had offered Liberté’s penthouse headquarters overlooking downtown for them to use while they were in Lyon, and now Ladybug, Sent-Bee, and Rena Rouge were sitting around the conference table with de Gaulle, staring blankly at a drone’s holographic projection showing a map of Lyon, the locations of the heroes indicated in blue and possible Killer Bee sightings in red. Unfortunately, there was far more blue than red on the map.

“She’s got to be here somewhere,” Sent-Bee insisted, gritting her teeth and folding her arms. Beside her chair, Bee-atrice lay with her head on her paws, her ears down. Absently, Sent-Bee ran her foot down the puppy’s back.

“Does she, though?” asked Rena Rouge, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged helplessly. “It’s been an hour. If she didn’t stick around, she could have gotten pretty far. Especially if she had help.”

“Maybe,” Sent-Bee allowed, “but not without making noise and drawing attention to herself. We arrived… what? Five minutes after she bolted?” she asked, turning to de Gaulle.

De Gaulle furrowed his brows in thought before nodding slowly. “That does sound correct. I contacted you the moment Maquisard notified me; she escaped only a few moments later.” He gave Sent-Bee an apologetic look.

Sent-Bee hummed. “And Liberté was watching for Killer Bee when it happened?”

He nodded firmly. “Absolutely. I would not want to let you down, Mlle Bourgeois.”

“So if she had just bolted, someone would have seen her,” Sent-Bee told Rena Rouge. “Either Liberté would have spotted her, or one of the drones we brought would have found her. So she couldn’t have gotten too far.”

“But if she didn’t try to get away, then why stick around in Lyon any longer than she has to?” Rena Rouge argued. “The only reason for her to do that would be if she’s expecting to get help from someone.”

“Yeah, but where would she get help from?” Sent-Bee retorted, frowning. “Pegasus is monitoring her credit card; if she had used either of them, we would know about it.”

“She found all that cash somewhere,” Rena Rouge pointed out, an irritated look on her face. “Unless you think she happened to have €50,000 on her when she left her apartment a week ago.”

“Lynchpin must have given it to her,” Ladybug agreed, nodding.

“Why?” Sent-Bee scoffed. Bee-atrice let out a low growl.

Ladybug quirked an eyebrow at her. “We’ll have to ask her when we find her. But in the meantime, is there anyone here in Lyon who would help her?” She glanced over at de Gaulle meaningfully.

He shrugged. “I mean, before you asked us to watch out for her, I had no idea who this Lila Rossi even was. I would have no idea if she has contacts in Lyon, let alone contacts that would help her. There is an Italian consulate in the city – just upriver from here.” He gestured to the north. “But my people have been watching it nonstop since you sent your first warning.”

“Has Résistante found anything more from the cash?” Ladybug asked him next.

“Nothing.” He let out a breath. “The bills are nonsequential, there aren’t any special markings on them – not more than you would expect in any random assortment of cash. At this point, that’s a dead end. But what about that phone you found? Did you get anything off of that?”

Sent-Bee shook her head, frowning. “Pegasus is still working on it. But it’s a long shot – she smashed it pretty well.”

“I doubt Lila would have done anything on there that we could trace,” Rena Rouge observed sourly. “She’s a little too smart to make that kind of mistake.”

“So there’s got to be someone here in Lyon that could help her,” Sent-Bee pressed, looking intently at de Gaulle. “Think! Has there been any Lynchpin activity in the city?”

He grimaced. “If you’re asking whether there are criminals in Lyon, of course there are. Whether any of them are affiliated with your Lynchpin…” He threw his hands up. “Your guess is probably better than mine.”

Ladybug furrowed her brows pensively, tapping her chin. “You know whose guess would be better than any of ours…”

Rena Rouge cocked her head, eyed Ladybug for a moment, and her eyes widened. “You’re not thinking about asking–”

“Why not?” Ladybug’s mouth twisted around in distaste. “We didn’t exactly know Lila well, apparently; she was – supposedly, at least – her best friend.”

“Do you really think she’s ready to talk about it, though?” asked Rena Rouge. “From what Multiplice said…”

“I know.” Ladybug’s shoulders slumped. “Believe me, if I could think of any other option, I would do it instead.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not like we have any better options,” Sent-Bee pointed out.

“I will tell my people to widen the search and check out every single criminal in the city,” de Gaulle promised, rising from the conference table and moving back toward his desk. “But there’s only so much we can do – we can only work with the information we have.”

Sent-Bee swallowed. “I’m sure you’ll do your best.”

Fifteen minutes later, a portal opened in training space on the far side of the Liberté headquarters, and out stepped Pegasus, followed by Taureau Dechaine and Multiplice. Prequinateur came through last, guiding Nadine with an arm around her shoulders. Nadine looked around the large room in alarm, seeming to tremble in Prequinateur’s arms on taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. Her shoulders tensed, and she shrank back into Prequinateur’s side; in response, he squeezed her gently, and her breathing eased for a moment. Multiplice placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a consoling pat. Nadine’s breathing hitched, and Multiplice whispered something softly, eliciting a jerky nod. Suddenly, Nadine’s eyes locked onto Ladybug, and she froze, her eyes bulging wide open.

“L–Ladybug!” she gasped, her voice quavering. “I–I didn’t think – I mean – that is to say–” She sniffled. “I’m so sorry!”

Ladybug’s eyes widened in surprise. “Nadine?”

“I–I had no idea that she would do something like this!” Nadine began. “I – so many people were hurt, my family would have been hurt, if Taureau Dechaine and… Prequinateur hadn’t –” She gulped, sniffling, and squeezed her eyes shut.” But if I’d known, I never would have done something like–like this!”

“What did you do?” Rena Rouge started to ask, only for Nadine to cut her off.

“I–I thought I was helping you!” she wailed, tears staining her cheeks. “Lila said she was your best friend, and she agreed to let me help her. I assumed that meant I was being a hero! And then, in Germany–” She swallowed “–I thought I was doing the right thing, taking that bucket. But then Lila gave it to Malorie, and I created a supervillain.”

Ladybug held a hand up to stop her babbling. “Nadine, I–”

“–and then I was just – I was in too deep!” Nadine continued, without taking a breath. “Lila said all I could do was keep helping her, that I would be in trouble if I didn’t. And then–”

“Take a breath, girl!” Sent-Bee half-shouted, shaking her head in disbelief. At her feet, Bee-atrice hopped up to her feet, looking up at Sent-Bee expectantly.

Nadine yelped and flinched, nearly falling over backward. Prequinateur caught her and held her upright, and she stared at Sent-Bee in terror.

“Was that necessary?” Multiplice demanded, hugging Nadine protectively with one arm and placing her other hand on her hip, glaring daggers at Sent-Bee. “She’s been through enough; she doesn’t need you yelling at her, Chloe Bourgeois!”

Sent-Bee started, staring at Multiplice in surprise. “I’m sorry, I–”

“Do you have any idea what Lila put her through?” Multiplice went on, her eyes narrowing in fury. “If she said or did anything, Lila would tell her off – so badly she can barely sleep if she thinks something is wrong! And then you go off and start yelling at her–”

“Enough!” Ladybug finally interjected, standing up and placing her fists on the table. Multiplice clamped her mouth shut, but without taking her eyes off Sent-Bee. “Enough,” Ladybug repeated, more calmly this time. Softly, she told Nadine, “You know me: you know I wouldn’t get angry at you for trying to do the right thing. And like I told you last week, I’m not angry about anything that you did when you were with Lila. I just want to help you. You’ve helped us so much already, just telling us about Lila and Malorie and everything Lila has been doing. But Lila is still out there, and she’s still just as dangerous. So my hope is that you can help us a little more while we try to track her down. Why don’t you come and have a seat?”

“O–okay…” Woodenly, Nadine sat down at a chair on the far side of the conference table. Ladybug frowned. Nadine’s breathing hitched, and Multiplice raised an eyebrow at Ladybug.

Ladybug let out a breath, sitting down herself and trying to relax. “Nadine, nothing I say is a command. You don’t have to sit if you don’t want to; you don’t have to stand, either. All I want is for you to be comfortable.” Nadine swallowed anxiously. Ladybug forced herself to breath slowly and calmly. “I understand how difficult this has been for you, Nadine,” she began. “I know how manipulative Lila can be. She has a miraculous, and she’s hurt a lot of people. But you’re safe now. We’re going to protect you. She can’t hurt you anymore. And in fact, we think you might be the key to stopping her for good. So: do you know of anyone in Lyon who might help Lila?”

Nadine furrowed her brows, looking down at the table. Her lower lip trembled, and she sniffed. Prequinateur rubbed her back consolingly, squeezing one of her hands. Suddenly, she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. “I–I have no idea! I thought I knew her… but I really didn’t! I guess I really am as useless as she said!”

Gritting her teeth, Ladybug sprang over the table to land next to Nadine. “Look at me,” she instructed her firmly, drawing Nadine’s gaze and holding it on her. “You are far from useless. You have already helped us so much, just by telling us who Killer Bee is. You are kind, and loyal, and brave – and you were all of those things in spite of helping Lila. Now that you’re free from her, just think how incredible you can be.”

“But I can’t help you,” whispered Nadine, her eyes shining with tears.

Prequinateur hugged her protectively. “It’s okay, babe,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Nadine jumped; looking down, Ladybug spotted Bee-atrice, nudging against Nadine’s ankle. Nadine glanced down, and her breathing hitched as she reached one tentative hand down to her. Bee-atrice yipped once and licked Nadine’s hand before letting her pet her.

Ladybug sighed. “Maybe you can’t help this way,” she allowed, “but there are so many other ways that you might help us. In fact–” she glanced up and nodded to Pegasus, who pulled out a bag “–there’s a way you can help us right now.” She smiled. “We were going to talk to you in a month or two once you had recovered, but I think this is as good a time as any for it.” Taking the bag from Pegasus, she placed it on the table in front of Nadine. “I know you thought you were a Hero of Paris before, but how would you like to be a Hero of Paris for real?”

Nadine’s eyes shot wide open as she carefully opened the bag and looked inside at the fabric leotard, pulling out the cloth mask and collapsible staff in wonderment. “You–you mean it?” she gasped, staring at the suit for a long moment before turning her wide eyes on Ladybug. “I mean, I – yes! Yes, of course!”

Prequinateur smiled. “See? Everything is going to be okay. We’re going to get through this – together.”

Nadine sniffled, clutching the staff tightly, and leaned into Prequinateur’s side. “Th–thank you,” she whispered to Ladybug. “I–I won’t let you down.”

Ladybug smiled, taking her hand that held the staff and squeezing gently. “I know you won’t.”

Sent-Bee frowned. “That still doesn’t quite solve our other problem, though,” she pointed out.

On the other side of the table, Rena Rouge hummed. “Who are the biggest criminal organizations in Lyon?” she asked de Gaulle.

He shrugged. “There aren’t too many of them – we took out Filippovich’s group a couple month ago. Renardeau, Boullermand, Andretti–”

“That’s got to be where she would go!” Rena Rouge interrupted, meeting Ladybug’s gaze.

Ladybug nodded firmly. “Where is his organization located in the city?”

Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Sent-Bee gripped her yo-yo tightly, crouching on the warehouse roof and scanning the shipping facility’s loading yard carefully. At least six men were visible in and around the yard – two stood on either side of the main door; another sat on a stool next to the loading dock. Three – no, four – more of them were spread out in the open yard. A man jogged past the gate, paused for a moment, and continued on down the block before turning to the left. A couple of shipping containers, along with a delivery van, sat around the yard, though none would block their approach. Silently, Sent-Bee crawled back away from the edge of the roof to where Bee-atrice sat waiting for her.

“I see at least six,” she reported into her communicator, securing Bee-atrice into her harness as she did so. “Shouldn’t be a problem on this side.” The communicator clicked twice, and Sent-Bee-atrice let out a breath, rubbing Bee’s fur as she tried to bring her breathing and anticipation under control.

“Let’s do it!”

Even before Ladybug had finished speaking, Sent-Bee had already dropped backward off the warehouse roof. When she was about halfway to the ground, her jetpack roared to life and launched her upward. No sooner had it activated than she turned it down – just enough momentum to send her in a parabolic arc over the warehouse toward the shipping office. Silently, she flew higher before gravity took over. Bee-atrice quivered, the low growl in her throat the only sound as Sent-Bee held her arms out for stability, synth-Venom pistols in both hands, and began her descent.

Thirty meters above the ground, she took careful aim with her pistols at the two closest guards, near the center of the yard. Twenty meters above the ground, her jetpack let out a whine as it revved to full power. Fifteen meters above the ground, one of the two men cocked his head in confusion and looked upward, raising a hand to point at her. Ten meters above the ground, Sent-Bee fired long sprays from both pistols and swung her legs around below her, arresting her downward trajectory. At that same moment, an arc of electricity lanced out from a spot to her right and passed straight through the two men by the main entrance, both of whom crumpled to the ground without a sound.

“Two more!” Sent-Bee mouthed to Hato Gozen, releasing another stream of synth-Venom at the third man in the yard.

Nodding, Hato Gozen raised one glowing hand and sent a beam of brilliant white light at the final man. His mouth hanging open in shock, the man tumbled backward off his stool. Before he could get back to his feet, Sent-Bee had already hit him with a final blast of synth-Venom. “I don’t see any up here,” Hato Gozen called over to Sent-Bee as she banked around and flared out her wings to land near the center of the roof.

Sent-Bee nodded, her mouth set in a thin line. “The yard is secure,” she announced into the communicator.

There was a grunt. “Everything is just purrfect on this side, too!” Cat Noir replied cheekily.

Sent-Bee rolled her eyes, drifting back a little so she could see the entire front of the building. “Some days I really feel sorry for Ladybug.”

“Hey!” he protested. “I don’t like your purrnicious attacks on my funny jokes!”

“I wouldn’t ‘attack’ them if they were actually funny,” Sent-Bee retorted, her voice dropping as the warehouse doors opened and two men stepped out, rifles in hand, and shut the door behind themselves. “Shit!” she yelped, sweeping around and sending a quick shot of synth-Venom at them that went wide. “I guess they heard us!”

“Time for the big guns,” Ladybug answered.

Sudddenly, Taureau Dechaine and Goosilla barreled out from behind the warehouse across the street, with Oitokoisi hot on their heels. Together, the three charged straight through the shipping facility’s front gates. Turning to the left as a trio of guards emerged from a shipping container on the far side of the facility, Taureau Dechaine leaned his shoulder into a delivery truck and sent it careening across the yard, straight at them. Though the three dove out of the way, the van crashed into the side of the shipping container with a loud grinding of metal on metal. The two men by the front door, their hands shaking, fired unsteady beams of energy at the three heroes; Sent-Bee rose higher into the air as their wild shots came perilously close to hitting her. Spinning his feather duster as a shield to block the energy bolts, Goosilla barreled straight toward them without slowing; the two men dove out of the way with moments to spare before he slammed into the front door, smashing it off its hinges and crashing through. Oitokoisi bellowed, his shaggy hair spreading out into fur as he transformed, and dropped on top of one of the men, batting the energy rifle away from him and growling in his face. Meekly, the man held his hands up as his companion did the same.

Sighing, Hato Gozen shook her head ruefully, dismissing her wings and crouching next to one of the rooftop windows. “They really didn’t put up much of a fight,” she mused, examining the window frame closely, a look of intense concentration on her face.

“I’m not going to complain,” replied Sent-Bee wryly, killing her jetpack just above the roof and dropping to land. Bee-atrice yipped excitedly, and Sent-Bee released her from her harness and placed her on the roof. The moment her paws touched the ground, Bee-atrice race over to the window beside Hato Gozen, sniffing it intently.

At that moment, Cat Noir sprang onto the roof from the rear, followed by Ladybug. Bee-atrice cocked her head, looked up at Ladybug, and barked in excitement. Cat Noir let out a breath, compacting his staff down to its normal size and rolling his shoulders. “That was easy…” he mused, pursing his lips.

Ladybug nodded slowly. “I was expecting a little more from them,” she agreed.

Hato Gozen hummed. “It looks like this window might have been forced open before,” she called. “And recently – these scratches look like they could be less than a day old.”

Sent-Bee cocked her head, her brows furrowed in thought. Someone had broken into here… recently. A sinking feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach.

“We’re completely secure down here, dudes,” reported Carapace over the communicator. “Once Goose got the doors open, these guys didn’t exactly put up much of a fight…”

Glancing over Hato Gozen’s shoulder at the window, Ladybug grimaced. “We’ll just have to see what their story is,” she decided, giving the cityscape a last quick scan before leading the way over to the edge of the roof and looking down toward the front of the building, where they could see the top of Anansi’s head as she stood guard over the unconscious guards. Over the communicator, Ladybug told Carapace, “We’ll be right down.”

Leaving Hato Gozen to watch the roof, Sent-Bee scooped up Bee-atrice and dropped off the roof, using her jetpack to slow her descent as Cat Noir and Ladybug both rode Cat Noir’s staff down to the ground next to her. Bee-atrice squirmed out of Sent-Bee’s arms and bounded into the shipping facility ahead of them, racing straight through to the center of the building where the main office sat overlooking the loading floor. Following her more slowly, Sent-Bee scanned the room as she went. Taureau Dechaine and Goosilla stood over a group of men who appeared to be factory workers, whom they had placed in a group, sitting meekly against the wall in a small dead end formed by a bunch of crates, not far from the front entrance. King Monkey, Sk8r Girl, Capricorn, and Geber watched another group on the far side of the room, most of whom bore injuries. A handful of destroyed weapons strewed the ground in front of them. Without hesitating, Ladybug and Cat Noir marched up the stairs to the main office; Sent-Bee paused at the base of the stairs as Bee-atrice sniffed at one of the crates. Picking her up, Sent-Bee started up the stairs behind Ladybug and Cat Noir. Pausing partway up, however, Sent-Bee glanced back down at the various open containers around the room and frowned. A glint of silver caught her eye from near the far end of the room. “Geber! Go and check that out!” she called, before hurrying to catch up to Ladybug and Cat Noir.

Entering the office, they found Carapace and Rena Rouge standing over two men who sat sullenly at the single desk. One looked up at started on seeing Ladybug. “Let me guess,” he began, arching an eyebrow. “You came here looking for Killer Bee.”

Ladybug eyed him, her mouth set in a thin line. “Where is she?”

“She’s not here!” The other man snorted. Eyeing him closely, Sent-Bee cocked her head on spotting the faint bruising around his neck.

Sent-Bee’s nostrils flared. “Don’t give us that!” she growled, placing her hands on the table and glaring down at them. “We know that she’s in Lyon; where else would she go?”

The man fell silent.

“It’s unfortunate that you didn’t get here sooner,” the first man answered. “She was here, but she didn’t stay for long. As soon as she had what she came for, she left almost immediately. You just missed her.”

“Sure, that’s a likely–”

Ladybug put a hand on Cat Noir’s shoulder. “Then where is she?”

He shrugged. “Not entirely sure,” he admitted. “She said she was looking to get out of the country, that there was too much heat in Paris.”

Carapace grinned thinly. “Oh, the heat is on in Paris,” he agreed. “And the heat on you and your boss will be even worse if you can’t give us something.”

“I’m telling you!” the man insisted. “I don’t know! She only left about twenty minutes ago, but she seemed to be in a hurry.”

“There’s got to be something you can tell us about her!” Rena Rouge interjected, her mouth set in a thin line.

“Just that she’s absolutely insane,” the second man retorted, rubbing his throat. “Believe me, I wish I had something to give you. But I don’t.”

“Think!” Sent-Bee growled, leaning in closer. “Did she say anything about where she was going??”

“No! Just that she didn’t want to travel in a crate!”

Ladybug hummed humorlessly. “That’s Lila.”

“So where could she be trying to go?” Cat Noir pressed.

Rena Rouge hummed, holding one finger up to her mouth. “Hang on… What if we’re overthinking this? Maybe she’s just going home?”

“‘Home’,” repeated Ladybug. She blinked. “Of course.” Her eyes narrowed. “When’s the next plane, train, or bus to Italy?”

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

Chapter Text

“Passport, driver’s license, or other form of identification?”

Lila nodded, reaching into her purse for her wallet. “Really?” she asked the bored-looking woman behind the ticket counter. “I didn’t think you would need to see a passport or anything like that. I’m just going to Italy, after all.”

The woman sighed, resting her head on her hand and stifling a yawn. “We just need to verify your information, Mlle…”

“Rossetti,” Lila supplied promptly, giving the woman a bright smile.

“All we need is to make sure the information on your ticket matches the information on your credit card matches the information on your identification,” the woman continued. “The sooner you can show me a passport or a license or any form of identification, the sooner we can get you on your way.”

“But I’m going to pay with cash,” Lila protested, her eyes widening innocently.

“I don’t make the rules; I just carry them out.” From the direction of the platforms, a train whistle blew. The woman raised an eyebrow at Lila, tapping her fingers on the counter and glancing pointedly back at the growing line that had formed behind her. “Now… do you have your passport on you?”

Lila’s stomach dropped. “I’m sure it has to be in here…” Twisting her mouth around in an expression of extreme concentration, she made a show of searching through her purse for a couple minutes, ignoring the enormous eyes of Pollen staring back out at her, before groaning and stamping her foot. “Oh, shoot!” she whined, giving the woman a pitiable look. “I can’t believe it! I–I can’t find my passport anywhere!”

The woman shrugged, waving to the couple behind Lila in line. “In that case, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Nex–”

“No, wait!” Lila interrupted, clasping her hands on the counter and looked up at the woman with a pleading expression, tears falling down her cheeks. “P–please – I need to get back home! My–my mother needs my help! She just was diagnosed with cancer, you see. It’s spreading so fast and–”

“I’m sorry, Mlle Rossetti, but I can’t do anything for you without a passport. Once you find it, I will be happy to get you a ticket on the next train.”

Lila’s breathing hitched, and she started to sob. She had anticipated this, of course – back in Paris. While waiting to put her plan into motion, she had gotten a passport for “Lilianne Rossetti” just for this purpose. But that passport had been in one of the bags she’d had to leave behind in the Uber. Searching her purse again, pushing Pollen down lower and trying not to meet the Kwami’s accusatory gaze, she finally let out a heavy sigh. Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head in frustration. “But I’m sure it was in here when I left, though,” she began, sniffling. She turned and looked at the ticketing agent intently. “Let me see… I had it when I left the hotel…” she mused, watching the woman out of the corner of her eye. “Then I got on the bus… That was when mother called…” She gasped, her eyes widening, and grabbed the counter. “I must have left it on the bus!”

The agent shrugged noncommittally. “Then I guess that’s where you’ll have to go to find it. The bus hub is a few kilometers from here, but there’s a taxi stand just outside the station. And fortunately, there will be another train to Rome leaving in an hour; you can take that one if you get your passport back in time.”

“But that won’t work! My mother’s surgery is in only three hours!” Lila begged. “Please – I’m cutting it too close as it is! If–if I’m not there… and the surgery goes badly…” She swallowed. “I didn’t part from her on the best terms, and the doctor said that he was optimistic… but the way he said it…” Her breathing hitched. “I–I need a chance to make up with her – in person. You know?”

The agent leaned forward, giving her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry,” she told Lila. “I really wish I could help. But rules are rules. If I do this and I get caught, then I could lose my job.”

Lila groaned, sniffling, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, letting some of her cheap mascara run for effect. Giving a put-upon sigh, she averted her eyes from the very contrite-looking ticketing agent, and glanced back toward the station entrance. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want my mother to cost you your–” She froze in place, the words dying in her throat. Clearing her throat, she averted her eyes down to the ground and mumbled, “Um… actually… I think I will go and see if I can find that bus…”

“Are–are you sure you’re okay, Mlle?” the agent called hesitantly, leaning forward over the counter as Lila backed away from it, slowly so as not to draw attention. “Mademoiselle?”

“Oh, yeah… I’ll be…” Shit. Lila was just about to turn away when Multiplice glanced in her direction and their eyes locked. Multiplice’s eyes widened a fraction, only to instantly narrow. Tensing and reaching down for her jump rope, Multiplice pointed straight at Lila, opening her mouth in a shout. Gritting her teeth, her heart pounding in her throat, Lila spun around and bolted as fast as she could in the opposite direction. The ticketing agent shouted something behind her; the couple that had been waiting behind her jumped out of the way. A figure appeared right in front of Lila – without hesitating, she pushed him aside, barreling through the crowded station as fast as she could manage.

Not far ahead of Lila, a group of people – most of them collège-age kids – stood near the middle of the station, bags and suitcases piled up around them. Without breaking stride, Lila charged straight through the middle of the group, jumping over their piled-up suitcases and knocking a duffel off the top. The bag hit the ground and burst open, scattering a girl’s clothing all across the terminal floor. A couple of the boys in the group whistled; a girl shrieked.

“Hey!” Someone near Lila shouted and made a lunge for her. Acting on instinct, Lila grabbed them by the arm and pushed as hard as she could, hurling them backward into the rest of the school group and bowling several of the kids over. Another person tried to grab her, but Lila wriggled out of their grip and stumbled away.

Nearly losing her balance, Lila leaned forward and turn the stumble into a burst of speed, searching the station in front of her in a panic. She could hear pounding feet behind her, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down, couldn’t look. All she could do was run. People cleared out before her as she barreled around a corner leading from the ticketing counters toward the platforms. The footsteps behind her were gaining on her, but they weren’t there yet. If she could just – yes! Ducking around a corner near the signs for the restrooms, she collapsed against the wall, clutching the stitch in her side. Pressing herself against the wall into the shadows, she tried to make herself as small as she could.

“Lila?”

Lila froze. Plastering on a warm smile, she turned to face Nadine, standing hand-in-hand with Prequinateur, partway down the hallway, between the two restrooms. Staring at Nadine, Lila cocked her head in confusion on seeing the new brightly-colored leotard she wore. Nadine’s brows furrowed; her grip on Prequinateur’s hand tightened. Recovering quickly from the shock, Lila’s smile widened. “Nadine!” Lila simpered. “It’s been so long! I’ve missed you!”

“I bet you have,” Prequinateur growled, his hand finding the hilt of his cutlass. His eyes narrowed, and his legs tensed.

“What – what are you doing here?” asked Nadine, her eyes wide, staring at Lila in shock.

“Oh, uh, you know…” Lila waved her hand dismissively. “Just… taking a trip…”

“L–Ladybug is looking for you.” Nadine’s mouth set in a thin line. “She’s going to stop you.”

Lila’s eyes widened innocently. “But stop me from what? I haven’t done anything wrong – nothing more than you have.” Her eyes flashed maliciously. “You know that if I’m on the run, then you should be here, right alongside me…”

Nadine flinched.

Prequinateur took a step forward, placing himself just in front of Nadine. “You bitch! You used her – your ‘best friend’,” he snarled. “She trusted you, and you took advantage of that. After everything you put her through, do you really think you have any room to speak to Nadine? We forgave her – we gave her the chance to really do what she always wanted to!”

Lila scoffed, arching an eyebrow as she looked Nadine’s new outfit down. “So I see…” she sneered.

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” he growled, his grip on the cutlass’ hilt tightening.

“I think you know.” Focusing her attention on Nadine, Lila purred, “You know me. The Heroes of Paris are just using you – using you to get to me! Don’t let them manipulate you! You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Nadine’s mouth fell open, her breathing hitched, and she looked back and forth between Lila and Prequinateur. “I…”

“Don’t listen to her,” Prequinateur whispered, squeezing her hand. “She doesn’t have any power over you anymore.”

Nadine swallowed.

Lila sneered. “And I thought Nadine already had a boyfriend – or are they turning you against him, too?”

Nadine’s eyes hardened, and she glared at Lila furiously. “You’re not going to turn me against my friends anymore, Lila,” she shouted, pulling her hand out of Prequinateur’s, dropping one foot back, and clenching her hands into tight fists. “I’m done with you!”

Lila’s mouth set in a thin line and her eyes narrowed. “Is that how it’s going to be? Pollen, Buzz on!” With a screech, Killer Bee leapt at Nadine even before her miraculous suit had fully formed around her, hurling her top at Nadine and angling to loop it around her torso. Nadine’s eyes widened, and she froze in place. The top had only crossed half the distance, however, when Prequinateur lunged between them, cutlass already up. Shouting, he slashed down on the top’s string, which wrapped around the cutlass several times before Killer Bee could recall it, and Prequinateur tugged hard, spinning around and aiming his foot at Killer Bee’s face. Contorting her body in midair, Killer Bee only barely managed to avoid the kick, sailing over Prequinateur’s head and tumbling down the hallway behind him. Prequinateur turned to watch her and their eyes locked, just before Killer Bee landed between him and Nadine. Catching her top, she drove the pointed tip into Nadine’s chest. “So much for friendship,” she hissed.

Nadine leaned back and spun into a backward cartwheel, only barely avoiding the tip of the top and nearly kicking Killer Bee in the nose as her legs swung up. Spinning around and pushing off to land on her feet, she flicked out a collapsible staff and held it up in front of herself, pointing the tip at Killer Bee’s head. “I could say the same to you!”

Growling, Killer Bee threw herself at Nadine, who sprang to the other side of the narrow hallway, only barely avoiding Killer Bee’s furious assault, and whacked Killer Bee in the back of the head with her staff. Killer Bee spun to face her, just as a cutlass slashed at her face. Ducking below the blade, Killer Bee threw her top out at Prequinateur, who spun his cutlass around his finger as a shield to block the top away, moving to interpose himself between Killer Bee and Nadine, holding one hand out to push Nadine back behind him. Seeing her opening, Killer Bee slid past them, back toward the entrance to the hallway, and the open station beyond.

Growling furiously, Prequinateur charged after her, Nadine right behind him. Nearing the entrance to the hallway, Killer Bee’s lip curled, and she looked up for any protrusions from the ceiling that might support weight, already testing the top in her hand. If she could defeat them and take the Shark Miraculous…

“Lila! Stop!”

She froze the moment she was out of the hallway, glancing to the side in time to spot Ladybug, Cat Noir, and Taureau Dechaine racing around the corner and barreling straight toward her. Killer Bee’s eyes drifted back to Prequinateur and Nadine, and she groaned, racing in the opposite direction. In the distance, a train whistle blew.

Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Notes:

I don’t know if my depiction of the train system in Lyon is accurate; it is based primarily on some that I’m familiar with in the U.S., particularly in Chicago.

Chapter Text

Ladybug sprinted after the receding form of Killer Bee, Cat Noir and Taureau Dechaine to either side of her. Ahead of them, Killer Bee barreled through a group of civilians, running straight toward the gates leading up to the train platforms. “There’s nowhere to go, Lila!” she bellowed, throwing her yo-yo to wrap around Killer Bee’s legs. Planting one hand on the turnstile, Killer Bee vaulted over the barrier, nearly kicking a woman in the head as she went. The yo-yo deflected off the base of the turnstile, and Ladybug recalled it to her hand, not taking her eyes off of Killer Bee.

“You’ll have to catch me, Ladybitch!” Racing up the stairs toward the platforms, Killer Bee grabbed a man directly in front of her by the shoulder and pulled him backward off balance, throwing him down into the crowd of travelers below her on the stairs. The man yelled, waving his arms wildly to try to regain his balance, but stumbled off the edge of the stair and back into an older couple behind him. without hesitating, Killer Bee fled up the stairs, putting as much distance between herself and the heroes as possible.

Civilians scattered in all directions as the three heroes pursued Killer Bee, racing toward the turnstiles without slowing. Taureau Dechaine gave Ladybug a grimace. “You’ll fix all of this, right?” Ladybug gave him a curt nod, still trying to keep the yellow-and-black hair in sight. With a grunt, Taureau Dechaine pulled ahead of Ladybug and Cat Noir. “Stampede! Out of the way!” People jumped, diving out of his path, as he put on a burst of speed, lowered his shoulder, and slammed it into the gate. The turnstile ripped out of the ground, and he barely caught it before it could barrel forward into the civilians in the stairwell.

Racing past him, Ladybug looked up the stairs, scanning the ceiling and walls quickly before flicking her yo-yo out to catch around a metal support bar at the top of the stairs and using it to reel her up the stairs. Cat Noir’s staff whooshed next to her as he extended it up the stairwell beside her. Below Ladybug, dozens of civilians had frozen in place and ducked, covering their heads and looking up at her nervously. Ladybug’s stomach clenched. “It’s okay!” she shouted down to them. “Just… stay out of the way!”

On reaching the platform at the top of the stairs, Ladybug spun around to land a few meters away from the opening, Cat Noir next to her. Yo-yo clutched tightly in one hand, she searched quickly before her eyes stopped on Killer Bee, halfway down the platform. Two sets of train tracks lined either side of the platform. On one side, a train was just pulling out of the station southbound, the final car of which was just turning out of sight around the office buildings next to the station. Another train was in the process of pulling into the station northbound, already beginning to brake. Train whistles sounded from both directions, adding to the cacophony of shouts from panicked civilians.

Spinning around to face them, Killer Bee’s face shifted almost instantly from fear to malice. With a sneer, she tossed her top to the side and caught it around a couple standing near the edge of the platform to Ladybug’s right. “If you don’t back off, who knows how many more people might get hurt because of you?” she taunted, pulling the couple up off the ground and across the platform, hurling them down onto the train tracks in front of the oncoming train. The horn blared.

“No!” Cat Noir let out a shout, starting in that direction.

Before he had taken more than a few steps, Taureau Dechaine burst past Ladybug and Cat Noir, hurtling out of the stairwell and barreling across the platform, hardly sparing a look for Killer Bee as he passed. Leaping down onto the tracks, he grabbed for the first person he could reach. “I’ve got you!” he called to them, grabbing the man and half-throwing him up onto the platform before lunging for the woman.

Refocusing her attention on Killer Bee as the platform rumbled under her feet with the approaching trains, Ladybug’s eyes narrowed, and she spun her yo-yo in a tight circle to one side. A half-step ahead of her, Cat Noir tensed, staff upraised. Killer Bee dropped into a crouch, top held in one hand, no more than a dozen meters in front of them. “You aren’t going to hurt anyone else ever again!” Ladybug growled. Her eyes flashed. “We’re going to stop you, once and for all!”

Killer Bee’s lip curled. “I’d love to see you try, Bug.”

Springing forward, Ladybug lunged to the left, bringing her yo-yo around and throwing it low, aiming to wrap it around Killer Bee’s legs. Killer Bee jumped over the string, flicking her top out at Ladybug, only to jump right into the path of Cat Noir’s swinging staff. Looping her yo-yo around a trashcan near one of the pillars holding up the roof, Ladybug jerked it back toward her, bouncing it off the ground and up into the air, and sent it straight into Killer Bee’s back, just as Cat Noir struck her a glancing blow to the shoulder and batted her down. Killer Bee yelped as the trashcan impacted her thighs, pushing her legs up even as Cat Noir’s staff knocked her torso downward. Waving her arms wildly, she tried to regain her balance, but Cat Noir pounced on top of her the moment she hit the ground, pinning her shoulders down. Killer Bee squirmed, wriggling underneath him until she could pull her knees up to her chest, and kicked Cat Noir in the gut, throwing him off of her.

With a shout, Ladybug hurled her yo-yo back at Killer Bee’s legs before she could get up, but the yo-yo struck the platform and bounced back to Ladybug’s hand. Rolling backward, Killer Bee sprang back to her feet and spun around to avoid the yo-yo a second time, only to spin right into Ladybug’s foot. Reeling backward from the kick, Killer Bee caught her balance and ducked a punch, diving behind a column to put space between herself and Ladybug.

Flying toward the tracks, Cat Noir extended his staff into the space between the tracks and used it to push off, retracting his staff and throwing himself back through the air toward Ladybug and Killer Bee. Ladybug caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision as he pushed off of the support beams above the tracks and hurled himself back at Killer Bee, swinging his food around at her head. Simultaneously, Killer Bee dove backward out of Ladybug’s reach, placing an elderly woman between herself and the northbound train that had half-passed the station.

Ladybug’s breathing hitched. “Don’t you even think about it, Rossi!”

Not taking her eye off of Ladybug, Killer Bee shoved the woman in the direction of the train. The woman stumbled as her feet found the uneven surface closest to the edge of the platform, and she screamed in terror. Gritting her teeth, Ladybug caught her yo-yo around the woman’s waist and hauled her back away from the edge before spinning her focus back to Killer Bee. With a gasp, the woman rushed away from the platform, triggering a stampede as the few civilians still on the platform raced for the stairs.

“Get them out of here!” Ladybug called back to Taureau Dechaine.

With a glance back at Cat Noir behind her, Killer Bee spun her top, sneering at Ladybug. “You can save them, or you can try to catch me, Ladybitch! But you can’t do both!”

“You’d be purrprised what we can do, Lila!” retorted Cat Noir, lunging forward and swinging his staff at the back of her head. Casually, Killer Bee leaned forward out of the way before spinning backward through a cartwheel to avoid Cat Noir’s spinning follow-up kick. Landing where she had been standing, Cat Noir spun his staff in a shield, blocking Killer Bee’s top away from his head and batting it down into the ground.

“Nowhere to run, Lila!” Ladybug called, racing up beside Cat Noir, spinning her yo-yo to one side as she sidled to the right while Cat Noir separated to the left. “Give up now, and save us all the trouble.”

“Not a chance of that!” Killer Bee glanced in either direction, only to cock her head in confusion. Her hand reached up toward her hair.

Gritting her teeth, Ladybug lunged forward, throwing her yo-yo at Killer Bee’s arm. Killer Bee’s eyes lit up maliciously, and she held her arm up, bracing her legs. The yo-yo looped around her arm, and she jerked her arm back, pulling Ladybug off balance. At that same moment, Cat Noir dove forward, swatting at Killer Bee’s back with his staff. With a roar, Taureau Dechaine barreled in at Killer Bee from the side, and Killer Bee spun Ladybug around at both Cat Noir and Taureau Dechaine. Cat Noir slid lower, under Ladybug, and smacked Killer Bee’s legs, pitching her forward. Sailing over Cat Noir, Ladybug released her grip on the yo-yo and pushed herself up, throwing herself over Taureau Dechaine’s head as he lowered his shoulder into Killer Bee’s chest. Killer Bee dove forward with the force of Cat Noir’s staff and hit the ground as Taureau Dechaine stumbled over her and tripped on Cat Noir’s staff. A train whistle sounded from the north. Ladybug started to turn in that direction, but a yelp from Taureau Dechaine drew her attention back to him as Killer Bee sprang up and pushed Taureau Dechaine toward the tracks. Taureau Dechaine stumbled, flailed out with his cattle prod, and only barely caught himself on one of the columns close to the edge of the platform. The yo-yo still looped around her forearm, Killer Bee caught her top around the columns on either side of Taureau Dechaine and threw herself at him feetfirst.

Concentrating on her yo-yo, Ladybug willed it to move, and the yo-yo wrapped itself around Killer Bee’s arm before continuing up to her torso. Killer Bee’s eyes widened in surprise, and she grabbed for the yo-yo just before it could pin her arm to her side, wrenching it away and quickly unwrapping it before throwing it off of her. Ladybug held out her hand, and the yo-yo sprang back to her, springing out into a shield before it reached her and slipped onto her finger. Taureau Dechaine braced himself and grabbed Killer Bee by the arm, pulling her in and trying to pin her down. Killer Bee struggled against his iron grip and finally wriggled her arm away from him. He stumbled off balance, trying to catch her again, but before he could get a hand on her, Killer Bee dropped to the ground and swept his legs out from under him. Taureau Dechaine went down with a crash, and Killer Bee sprinted across the platform away from him.

“You won’t get away!” Ladybug shouted, sprinting after her. She had just barely caught up to her when suddenly, Killer Bee stopped short, spun around, and threw her elbow into Ladybug’s gut. Ladybug gasped, dropping to one knee. Killer Bee’s eyes narrowed. Something shifted in Killer Bee’s hair.

“I will,” Killer Bee hissed. “Once you’re out of my way! Venom!” The top raised. Ladybug held up her hand to block it.

“Uproar!” With a cry, King Monkey raced onto the platform and hurled a can of pesticide at Killer Bee.

Killer Bee yelped in surprise, the top dropping to her side, and turned away, trying to dodge the pesticide. Ladybug kicked her in the side of the knee and rolled out of the way, raising her yo-yo in a shield. The pesticide can hit Killer Bee’s shoulder, and suddenly Multiplice grew to full size on top of Killer Bee as all her clones were sucked back together.

“Wait… what!?” demanded King Monkey, staring in shock.

Multiplice yelped, lunging and grabbing desperately for the hair comb in Killer Bee’s hair, but Killer Bee unbalanced and toppled to one side. Her top came up and poked Multiplice in the thigh, and Multiplice sucked in a surprised breath, her eyes widening and mouth parting slightly. The top looped around Mulitplice’s waist, and Killer Bee swung her around, hurling her toward the opposite end of the platform as a train barreled into sight and whipped past them on the southbound tracks. Taureau Dechaine lunged after her, catching Multiplice in his arms and falling to the ground cradling her unmoving body on the edge of the platform. Ladybug threw her yo-yo after Killer Bee, but too late as she looped her top around a handhold on the last car of the passing train.

“So long, losers!” called Killer Bee as the train pulled her off her feet and out of the station.

“Damnit!” Ladybug shrieked.

Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Chapter Text

“We can’t let her get away!”

Sent-Bee wheeled about in midair and rocketed south toward the train station she moment she heard Ladybug’s warning, as Hato Gozen did the same. They had spent the last thirty minutes watching the faces of the people boarding buses at one of the city’s many depots while the Owl, Capricorn, and Maquisard tried to blend into the crowd below, all to no avail. Leaving the three on the ground behind, Sent-Bee put on a burst of speed, racing above the buildings, all her attention on the large train station a couple kilometers away. She could just see a train pulling out from under the pavilion in the direction of Paris, as another train rushed straight through in the opposite direction. A small yellow-and-black figure hung off the last car of the southbound train, reeling herself in toward the train and carefully pulling herself up onto the roof. “We see her!” Sent-Bee reported, adjusting her trajectory slightly and accelerating. Hanging beneath her chest, Bee-atrice growled, quivering in her harness.

Ladybug’s voice came back through the communicator curtly. “Don’t let her out of your sight! We’ll be there as fast as we can.”

“Copy.” Sent-Bee’s grip on her yo-yo tightened, and she glanced down at the indicator on the side of the synth-Venom pistol in her other hand. She grimaced. Between all the fighting in Paris and Lyon over the last few days, she had forgotten to refill this pistol, leaving it at less than half capacity, while the other was nearly spent. Her mouth set in a thin line. No time to worry about that now; what it held would have to be enough.

“The hover-car is almost ready,” Pegasus interjected. “Last night taxed its engine and depleted its power stores, but it will hold out for this. I am running through the final checks, and then it will be set to go. All we need is a response team.”

“Come through and pick us up at the station,” Ladybug ordered.

“I do not recommend it. If I stop for you,” Pegasus pointed out, “I will not be able to catch up to the train – or not until it crosses the border. If I push the car that fast, it will run out of fuel too quickly.”

“In that case–”

Toggling her communicator to a private channel to avoid the distractions – Ladybug could let her know when they were close – Sent-Bee’s eyes narrowed, and she rocketed across the sky, putting on an extra burst of speed. Hato Gozen matched her speed closely, flying directly behind and above her to ride the thermals of Sent-Bee’s jetpack. Ahead, the train track curved around toward the east before turning due south. “Get in front of her!” Sent-Bee called behind her, not taking her eyes off of the black-and-yellow figure.

“Got it!” Hato Gozen peeled off, swinging around a pair of tall apartment buildings to cut the corner. On the train, Killer Bee eyed the two heroes warily, her eyes narrowing, and glanced sideways toward one of the tall office buildings to her left.

The train started to accelerate, and Sent-Bee gritted her teeth, pulling her arms in flush against her sides to create a more aerodynamic shape as she raced after the train. Ahead of her, Killer Bee walked along the top of the train, toward the intersection between the first two cars. Slowly, Sent-Bee was starting to catch up with the train, but the train was accelerating. Taking careful aim, Sent-Bee fired her wrist-mounted grappling hook and caught it on the lip of the rearmost train car’s roof, reeling herself in as quickly as she could to help the jetpack keep up. On reaching the train, she landed on the roof in a crouch and sprinted across the train, toward Killer Bee.

“Get back here, Rossi!” shouted Sent-Bee, spraying a stream of synth-Venom at Killer Bee which caught in the wind and blew away.

“You sure you’re ready for that, Bourgeois?” Killer Bee shot back, dropping into a fighting stance, her lip curling in a sneer.

Sent-Bee’s eyes flashed. “I will rip that miraculous out of your greasy hair and throw you onto the tracks!” Squeezing her yo-yo so it conformed around her knuckles, Sent-Bee charged Killer Bee, jumping and throwing a punch at Killer Bee’s head as she landed. Killer Bee dropped down to avoid the punch, and Sent-Bee slammed her fist down on the roof, stumbled, caught herself, and only barely avoided falling off the train. Killer Bee swept Sent-Bee’s legs out from under her, and Sent-Bee fell backward over the side, activating her jetpack and drifting to the side to hover alongside the train. Bee-atrice snarled. Drifting backward to avoid a signal, Sent-Bee fired again at Killer Bee with her synth-Venom, and again the synth-Venom blew away in the wind. Killer Bee spun her top as a shield for a moment and threw it at Sent-Bee, narrowly missing her head as Sent-Bee dropped lower before lunging back over the train. “You’re not getting away from me that easily!”

“You’ll have to catch me first!” Killer Bee dove and rolled, dropping down into the space between the two cars and landing on the platform outside of one car.

Sent-Bee flew through the space where she had been and shot up a little higher to avoid a bridge over the tracks. Dropping back down to the train, she spun around, sweeping through into the space between the cars as Killer Bee grabbed onto the handle and ripped the car door off of its hinges, bracing it in front of herself as a shield. Sent-Bee swung her feet forward and drove them into the door in Killer Bee’s hands, knocking her out and off the train and chasing her through.

Midair, Killer Bee hurled the metal door back at Sent-Bee, who dropped lower to avoid it, and the door clanged off the side of the train and bounced down into the traffic below. With a yelp, Killer Bee caught her top around a protrusion from one of the train’s windows, which broke the lock and pulled the window open. Her mouth set in a thin line, Sent-Bee veered around to give chase and threw herself at Killer Bee. Caught in the wind, Killer Bee slammed against the side of the train and bounced off, grabbing for a seam between two metal sheets, and Sent-Bee fired synth-Venom at her face. Releasing her hold on the train, Killer Bee spun her top as a shield to deflect the synth-Venom away, sending it back into the train itself, and barely managed to grab onto the bottom edge of the train above the wheels with one hand as she fell. Swinging her legs to avoid getting them caught in the train’s undercarriage, Killer Bee threw herself off to the side, away from the train, only to spin around in midair and catch her top on a pole inside the train and reel herself in.

With a yell, Sent-Bee killed her jetpack and slammed into the top string, which collapsed and wrapped around her waist just below Bee-atrice’s harness, pulling Killer Bee in toward the train at twice the speed. Killer Bee yelped, slamming into the side of the train, and Sent-Bee reactivated her jetpack, pulling both of them back up toward the train’s roof. Shaking her head groggily and scrabbling for a hold on anything she could find on the outside of the train, Killer Bee grabbed the arm of a passenger near the open window and dragged him out of the train. The man yelled, trying to pull away from Killer Bee as she deposited them both on the train roof.

“Either leave now, or I throw him off!” Killer Bee ordered, her eyes narrowed in rage, pushing the man over and holding him near the edge. “I’ll do it!”

Sent-Bee’s mouth set in a thin line as something swept past them behind Killer Bee. “I believe you.”

“So–”

Sent-Bee lunged for Killer Bee, who released the man and pushed him away from the train, out into open space. All her attention on Killer Bee, Sent-Bee tackled her to the ground, driving her fists into Killer Bee’s face as Bee-atrice bit at her chest, digging her claws into the miraculous suit. To the side, Hato Gozen dove past them and grabbed the man, hauling him back up and placing him on the small landing between the two cars.

“You don’t have any power here, wench!” snarled Killer Bee, scratching at Sent-Bee’s forearms and trying to pull her knees up to her chest. Bee-atrice let out a whine, and Sent-Bee rolled to the side just in time to avoid Killer Bee kicking her right in the gut. Killer Bee jumped to her feet, and Sent-Bee looped her yo-yo around her as she was in midair and hauled her down to slam into the train roof on her back.

“I’ll kill you, you bitch!” Sent-Bee spat, bringing her fists together and driving them into Killer Bee’s face. Blood spurted from Killer Bee’s nose, and she gasped in shock. Grabbing for Killer Bee’s miraculous, Sent-Bee took a huge fistful of Killer Bee’s hair and yanked as hard as she could. Killer Bee let out a pained scream, scrabbling for her hair, and kicked Sent-Bee away. Reeling, Sent-Bee stumbled backward; looking up, her eyes widened on spotting the underpass they were rocketing toward – the front of the train had already passed beneath it. With only seconds to react, she rocketed up into the air and flew over the bridge, barely missing the structure, and landed back on the train’s roof. But Killer Bee wasn’t there.

Sent-Bee slammed her fist into the train’s roof in frustration; Bee-atrice cocked her head to one side, sniffing the air to their left. Movement flashed in Sent-Bee’s peripheral vision, and she ducked on instinct, barely managing to avoid Killer Bee’s top wrapping around her neck. Holding her arm up, Sent-Bee lunged backward to put distance between herself and Killer Bee, fumbling to get her synth-Venom pistol up and aimed properly. A shot of synth-Venom caught Killer Bee square in the gut and was swept away in the air; a follow-up squirt into Killer Bee’s face, and nothing came out. Gritting her teeth, Sent-Bee tossed the empty synth-Venom gun away and threw a punch at Killer Bee-s face.

Screaming in rage, Killer Bee ducked under the punch and kicked Sent-Bee in the gut pelvis, knocking her up off the roof and into the air, before driving her elbow into Sent-Bee’s back. Sent-Bee grunted, rolling onto her side so she didn’t land on top of Bee-atrice, and swept Killer Bee’s legs out from under her. Killer Bee fell to the side, and Sent-Bee groaned, pulling herself up. Killer Bee kipped to her feet first and went to kick Sent-Bee, who dropped back down, catching Killer Bee’s ankle and pinning her down as she tried to throw her top at a passing train. The throw went wide; Killer Bee over-balanced and fell backward, and Sent-Bee pounced on top of her, grabbing the miraculous out of her hair and rolling off.

“No!” Killer Bee shrieked as her transformation disappeared in a flash of yellow, leaving behind Lila. Lila rolled over onto her chest, turned on Sent-Bee with a growl, and threw herself at her, grabbing for the hair comb.

Eyes narrowed, Sent-Bee kicked Lila away hard and dragged herself to her feet. Her eyes flashed, and Lila swung her purse at her wildly. Not taking her eyes off of Lila, Sent-Bee casually leaned back out of the way. “You’re going away for a long time now, Rossi,” she growled, grabbing Lila by the collar and lifting her up off the train. “Hell, I have half a mind to throw you in front of the tracks!”

Lila sneered past her bloody nose and split lip. “I could say the same about you!” Her hands moved lightning-quick to pull something out of her purse, tossing the purse away. Suddenly, she let out a howl of pain, the energy pistol falling from her hand, and clutched at her bleeding wrist where Bee-atrice had bitten her. Bee-atrice let out a growl.

“Good girl,” Sent-Bee told her, pulling Lila in closer. “And now, for you…” she hissed. The wind whipped past her as the train picked up speed, approaching the outskirts of Lyon.

Suddenly, Pollen appeared in the air in front of Sent-Bee. “Chloe! My Queen! I have missed you so much!”

Sent-Bee smiled, too. “I missed you, too.” Her eyes didn’t leave Lila’s face. “Now just give me a moment…”

Pollen eyed Lila evenly before turning to Sent-Bee. “Don’t kill her. She isn’t worth it.”

Sent-Bee frowned, staring into Lila’s hate-filled face. It would be so easy to just drop her, to throw her in front of the train or splatter across the ground. But would that be right? Would that be justice? Or would it be revenge? Lila squirmed feebly in her grip, trying to punch her in the chest, only for Bee-atrice to grab onto her wrist again, clamping her jaws down tighter this time. Lila hissed in pain, her eyes widening in fear.

Revenge? Justice?

“Fine.” Drawing her second pistol, Sent-Bee shot Lila in the face with synth-Venom.

Chapter 19: Epilogue

Chapter Text

 Her life was over. She had lost – really lost. Everything she had been building… all of it gone – or so far out of reach that it might as well be gone. She had reached too far, too fast, been too greedy, acted hastily. If she had only been more selective with her patsies, been more discrete with her identity – damn that Nadine… But she had wanted to have it all, the moment it appeared to be within reach.

And now she was left with next to nothing.

Lila lay back on the rough metal cot, wincing at the lack of tension, the pricking pain in her back in all the wrong places from the springs digging into her muscles. A tension headache had set into her forehead within the first week, and it hadn’t abated in the slightest. She rough, starchy prison uniform that they forced her to wear scratched and irritated her skin; since Gabriel Agreste had been an inmate in this prison since its opening in the spring, she had expected the uniforms to be at least moderately fashionable. But perhaps this was part of the Heroes of Paris’ punishment for the former Hawk Moth: forcing him to wear these too-firm, scratchy, striped tents for the remainder of his prison sentence. And by extension, forcing the same on her. Lila groaned, smacking the wall next to her, staring up at the blank ceiling.

Nearly a month she had been in here, and the finally it was starting to sink in: this was going to be her home for now.

There had been no talking her way out of this one. The moment Chloe Bourgeois and the Heroes of Paris had dragged her back to Paris, she had been dropped unceremoniously in the prison yard of their Nouvelle Bastille Prison for “processing.” Both President Guizot and Mayor Bourgeois had released statements within the hour condemning her actions and promising that she would be prosecuted swiftly, to the fullest extent of French law. The Italian Embassy had officially disavowed her and any knowledge of her activities; her mother had been recalled to Rome and reassigned to the embassy in Suriname the next day. No one had said anything in Lila’s defense – not publicly, at least. The trial had commenced before the end of the week.

The trial itself had been little more than a formality. Pegasus had brought out information from as far back as the first Heroes’ Day to suggest that she had been in league with Hawk Moth, though her attorney had gotten that stricken from the record – the universal amnesty for Akuma victims still applied. In a closed session, Antoine Becquerel had appeared to testify and confirm that Lila had been a member of Night Bat’s “Lynchpin-ions” as far back as last summer. Chloe had recounted every instance when the two of the had fought over the past year. Speaking in her own defense, Lila had tried protesting to the judge that Night Bat had threatened her mother to force her to help him; Ladybug had countered that Night Bat had not been at Tarascon when Lila betrayed them and attacked Ladybug. Lila’s attorney had found several of her old classmates willing to testify on her behalf as character witnesses… all of whom had been destroyed by the prosecutor on cross-examination. Then Nadine had come out to testify. Lila’s jaw clenched. If she’d had her way…

But after that, all hopes of leniency had disappeared.

Lila’s stomach turned. No deals had been forthcoming. The Heroes of Paris had never even asked if she was willing to give them names of the other Lynchpin-ions, or the Lynchpin, or anyone else in the organization. Probably Nadine’s fault – she had known far too much for her own good, and she hadn’t known enough to keep her mouth shut. Or else it was Chloe: she probably told the Heroes of Paris not to trust a word she said. Her nostrils flared.

Even a last-minute appeal to the Italian consulate had fallen on deaf ears. Her mother had returned to Paris for the trial, before being sent to South America, and Lila had been given an hour with her mother after one of the trial sessions. Her mother had been shaken – after Nadine had finished speaking, there hadn’t been a dry eye in the court. Lila had begged, pleaded with her mother for help, insisted that the Heroes of Paris were setting her up, that it was all a witch hunt engineered by Chloe Bourgeois. Her mother had given her a dubious look, but she had promised to speak to Ambassador Carullo. The next day, the Ambassador had attended the trial, staring at Lila stone-faced until the judge gave him time to speak. But when he had spoken, he had only expressed “his government’s deepest regret for the events that had occurred,” and insisted that “his embassy had no knowledge of the actions of one of their citizens.” The soundbites had played on the international news for the rest of the trial, right alongside the pictures of Lila at the embassy’s last holiday party.

Bastard.

Lila scoffed ruefully. At that party, Ambassador Carullo’s idiot son had spent half the night flirting with her and plying her with drinks. She had almost agreed to leave with him… but her sense of standards had prevailed. At the time it had been the obvious answer: he was boorish and ugly, without any motivation – even in the bedroom, according to one of the embassy clerks. But in retrospect, if she had left with him, then perhaps the ambassador’s answer could have been different.

In the end, it had been a relatively short trial – the evidence against her had been overwhelming; the evidence in her favor woefully inadequate. Lila frowned. In retrospect, the Heroes of Paris had been far too well prepared for the trial. How had they been able to amass so much evidence, so quickly? Nadine had given them her identity barely two weeks earlier, but the evidence against her, especially from her actions at school during Hawk Moth’s reign, had been far more than Chloe alone could have accounted for, even with Alix and Kim and Nathaniel to supplement it.

That question deserved some thought.

Not that she would lack in time for thinking. She was going to be stuck in this godawful prison cell for at least the next decade, before she could even hope to receive parole. The only slight mercy to it all was that she had been given her own cell and wouldn’t need to share it with a roommate. That suited her just fine, at least for now. Isolation was protection and safety, until she could figure out the prison hierarchy. She could observe the other prisoners in the exercise yard, watch their interactions, plot her next moves. Since the trial’s end, most of them had kept their distance… but perhaps that would change in time. Lila sneered, staring up at the ceiling. She had been kicked in the teeth – that much was clear. But like the bruises and bitemarks from her last fight with Sent-Bee, these bruises would heal. She was in prison now, virtually cut off from the outside world, but she could rebuild. She could come back again.

Heavy footsteps rang down the corridor from the direction of the cellblock entrance. Letting out a breath, Lila clasped her hands behind her head. It wasn’t mealtime, or time for exercise, and those were the only times the guards had ever come for her. The footsteps drew steadily closer before stopping abruptly. “Visitor, Rossi,” a guard called gruffly, rapping on the door to her cell.

Slowly, Lila sat up and glanced over at the guard, a taller man with close-cropped hair and a sour look on his face. “Oh, thank you, M. Ouvret,” she answered, giving him a quick once-over before looking up at him with a bright, simpering smile. “Do you know who it might be?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say. But it wasn’t on the schedule earlier, so must be important.”

Interesting. Standing up, Lila approached the door, swaying slightly as she walked. “I do appreciate your care in coming to get me.”

“Wrists.”

Sighing, Lila held out her wrists through the small opening in the door for him to cuff them together. “You know, normally I prefer when my partner is cuffed,” she purred, leaning forward and batting her eyelashes. Stiffly, he snapped the handcuffs in place and opened the door, his face remaining entirely expressionless. Lila masked her annoyance with a hurt expression. “Oh, you’re no fun,” she pouted. “You see, I’m just so nervous to be walking through here with my hands cuffed like this… but you’ll protect me, won’t you?”

“This way.” Clenching his jaw, Ouvret gestured for her to walk slightly in front of him down the hallway toward the cellblock door. Lila took in the cells lining the corridor on either side as she went, cataloguing the prisoners and their reactions to seeing her. A couple made eye contact with her; Lila held the eye contact for as long as she could, daring them to look away first. Then out of the cellblock, down another hallway, through a locked door, past a guard station, a couple of turns. Finally, Ouvret stopped outside another door and pulled it open. “I’ll be right outside.”

Coolly, Lila stepped inside and paused in surprise. “Here to gloat, Bourgeois?”

“Nope.” Chloe lounged at the chair on one side of the table, feet up, casually filing her nails. Not taking her eyes off her hands, she held her fingers out to inspect them. “Just thought I’d stop in and make sure you’re still here.”

Lila’s nostrils flared. Her eyes narrowed “You may have taken back that stupid comb and the stupid pest, but that doesn’t change anything.”

Chloe furrowed her brows, examining her fingernails carefully, and placed her nailfile on the table, brushing her other hand through her hair. “Oh, you mean this old thing?” she taunted, revealing the hair comb. Unconsciously, Lila took a step forward; the nailfile was up in an instant, pointed at Lila’s face. “Give it a shot. I dare you to try.” Lila froze in place, glaring down at Chloe, who snorted. “That’s what I thought. I’d say that this changes everything… for you.”

Lila scoffed. “Just you wait. I’ll get out of here, and next time I will kill you.”

Chloe finally glanced up at her languidly. “Yeah? You really think so? You’ve lost. You’re in here where you can’t hurt anyone ever again. There’s no way you’re escaping from here – short of doing your time. And even if you ever get out, there’s nothing you can do to us. You’ve lost your miraculous. You’ve lost those other Lynchpin-ions you suborned – most of them are in prison here with you, or else they’ve disappeared.” She hummed, arching an eyebrow. “Now which group do you think you should be more concerned about?” she asked. “We have a pool going, you know. The ones on the outside are a little stronger… but the ones in here have a lot more access.”

“Access goes both ways,” Lila pointed out, clenching her jaw.

Chloe snorted. “Considering that you’re the reason they’re in here, I doubt you’ll have too many friends. What power do you have left?”

Lila narrowed her eyes, her fists clenching. “You’d be surprised, Bourgeois. I might be down for now, but I’m not out. I might have made a mistake this time, but you can be sure it’s not one I will repeat.”

“I know you won’t repeat it: you won’t have a chance to try it again.”

“You’d better watch your back,” Lila snarled.

Chloe smirked, standing up and rapping sharply on the door. “Don’t drop the soap.”

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