For the first time in my life, I didn't have a plan. I was alone, I was helpless, and above all I was very confused.

A few months had passed since I had been akumatized, when I had become Volpina. That day was all a blur in my head: I desperately tried to hold on to whatever memories I could, but eventually almost all of them faded away. After that eventful day, I had expected things to go back to being calm and straightforward, but they had only become more and more complicated. Supervillains would attack our school every few weeks, I had to deal with all the backlash coming from the other students about what I had told them, and I had fallen in love.

At this moment, that last bit was key. The girl I had fallen in love with had vanished. It had been days now, and Marinette was no longer coming to class or answering texts or calls. I stopped by her house to see if she was there, only to find that her parents had been searching desperately all across Paris, and had contacted the police.

Usually, I was very good at planning. I liked to have a comprehensive and detailed plan going into every situation, and I was excellent at coming up with clever ideas very quickly. But this time, I didn't know where to start. She could be anywhere, for any reason. I quickly thought of dozens of possibilities, each of which would take weeks to investigate. The police claimed they could handle it, but I didn't have particularly high expectations of the father of Sabrina.

But I wanted to help. It just seemed like something I should be able to do. It was ridiculous that I could come up with one of the most effective plans to take down Ladybug and Chat Noir, but I couldn't figure out how to find one missing girl.

I considered asking somebody to help me. But that had never worked before. Everybody always underestimated my ability to execute a plan, and would say that I should just leave it to somebody else. They never remembered all my successes. And besides, there wasn't anybody I could ask. Marinette was the only person I knew at the school who would treat me well; everybody else still harbored resentment from the time I had played them all as fools.

I sat down outside the bakery and put my head in my hands. I wasn't supposed to cry. After what happened in Italy, I had promised myself I would never cry again, and I had only broken that promise once, when my greatest idol had betrayed me. But it seemed that I was close to breaking it again, because at this moment I couldn't find a single shard of my shattered hope.

And that's when the voice started to speak to me.

For a moment, I was terrified: this was exactly how it started last time, when Hawkmoth had transformed me, using me for evil. But this voice was different: it was much higher, and didn't seem to be fueled by the same rage I had heard in the undertones of Hawkmoth's words.

"Are you okay?" it asked simply.

I shook my head. "Far from it."

"You want to ask for help, don't you? But you don't know who to ask."

Even though the voice sounded different, this seemed all too familiar, and I wasn't taking any chances. "Who are you?" I asked carefully.

"Let's just say I'm somebody with a common interest," the voice replied. "I can help you, and you can help me."

No. No. Definitely not. This was exactly the same as last time.

"Down here," the voice said. "On the sidewalk."

Oh. I'd thought it was in my head. Silly me. I looked down at the sidewalk and saw a small red creature, with a large head and several black spots.

"Hello Lila, I'm Tikki," the creature said calmly.

I stared at the creature, more confused than shocked. "How do you know who I am?" I asked.

"Let's say that I've seen you around a lot lately," Tikki explained coyly.

"I haven't seen you around, ever," I retorted.

"I know," Tikki replied. "I usually stay hidden, except in troublesome situations. Like the current one."

"You're related to Ladybug somehow, aren't you?" I realized.

Tikki nodded. "I know that you and Ladybug—"

"Nope," I said firmly. "I'm not getting involved with Ladybug again. Not a chance. She's cocky, self-absorbed, and—"

"She's gone," Tikki interrupted. "She disappeared a few days ago, without a trace."

I shrugged nonchalantly, even though the news was genuinely surprising. "Well, I suspect Paris will be better off without her."

Tikki narrowed her eyes and leaped off the sidewalk, hovering right in front of my face. "Listen to me. The girl you love disappeared a few days ago, too, didn't she?"

I drew back. "How do you know about that?"

"The same way I know everything else about you. It's not important. But do you seriously think the two disappearances aren't related? Somebody's up to something, and has caused Ladybug to disappear, and I'm sure whoever did this is also responsible for the disappearance of Marinette. I need help finding Ladybug, and you need help finding Marinette. Together, you and I can save them both."

I thought for a minute. "What can you possibly do to help find Marinette that I can't already do on my own?"

Tikki laughed. "Lila, you shouldn't be so quick to judge people by appearance. I may be small, but I have a number of hidden talents."

"So I can find Marinette again, at the cost of having to help Ladybug, too."

"You really shouldn't ever let your hate for one person outweigh your love for another," Tikki coolly replied.

I nodded. "All right, Tikki, it's a deal. Now how do we get started?"

Tikki held out her arms and dropped two small objects into my hand. "Take these earrings and put them on."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"Perhaps I should be more clear. I'm what makes Ladybug a hero. Most of the time, she has no more powers than you do. And when she needs to use her powers, she needs two things—these earrings, and me."

"So, you're saying…if I put on these earrings, then I'll become like Ladybug?"

"When you say 'spots on.' Once you say that, you transform."

I threw the earrings to the sidewalk. "No. Absolutely not. I'm willing to rescue her as a side effect of rescuing Marinette, but this is too much. There is no way I'm going to let myself become like her."

"Listen, Lila. If you don't let me transform you, this will be much harder to pull off."

"I'm good with 'much harder,'" I said as Tikki picked up the earrings off the sidewalk. "By the way, why did you come to me, instead of somebody else?"

"To be honest, you weren't exactly my first pick as a partner," Tikki admitted. "I was trying to find your friend Alya, but she didn't notice me when she went by."

"She's not my friend," I corrected. "Not at all. She exposed me, on her blog. She's the reason why everybody's ostracizing me."

"Well, I'm sure she'll have a higher opinion of you once you've rescued her friend Marinette," Tikki suggested.

"I don't care one bit about what she thinks of me," I retorted.

"Yes, you do," Tikki insisted. "But we're getting off topic. If you wanted to chat, you're talking to the wrong kwami."

"Okay then. Given that there's no way I'm ever going to put on those earrings, how should we get started?"

"You see that Métro station there?" Tikki said, pointing. "We need to get to the Eiffel Tower. I'll hide in your backpack, okay?"

I nodded, and Tikki flew quickly into my bag. The bag was quite full, and I wasn't quite sure how she fit in there. I went down the stairs, paid my fare, and waited on the platform. It was less than two minutes before the train showed up and I stepped into a crowded carriage.

"Take out your phone and put it to your ear," Tikki said from my bag.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"So we can talk to each other," Tikki explained dryly. "There are enough people on here that nobody will be able to pick out my voice, but it'll look odd if you're talking while supposedly traveling alone."

I nodded in understanding and pulled out my phone. "Okay Tikki, so what's the plan?"

"We're going to go to the concession stand at the base of the Eiffel Tower, and you're going to buy a bag of popcorn."

"Excuse me?" There was no way I was hearing that right.

"We're going to buy a bag of popcorn, to feed to the pigeons."

I slapped my hand to my face. "How does that possibly get us any closer to rescuing Marinette?"

"Because it'll give us an excuse to talk to Xavier Ramier."

"Who's that? That name doesn't ring any bells."

"He's that funny-looking man who's always feeding the pigeons at the Trocadero."

"And how is he important to what's going on?"

"Because he was once akumatized, as Mr. Pigeon, and because he's always in the same place every evening, so he's easy to find."

"I can find people who have been akumatized far more easily than that," I retorted. "I share a class with about ten of them."

"Mr. Ramier isn't just easy for you to find," Tikki explained. "He's easy for anybody to find. And so we need to find out who's already tried to find him in the past."

"And who do you think tried to find him?"

"I have my suspicions that a few of Hawkmoth's previous victims have been forming an underground movement to serve Hawkmoth and to bring down Ladybug and Chat Noir."

That was surprising. "What makes you think that?"

"Some of Hawkmoth's victims have been less than noble characters, with fairly unpleasant motives. They most likely think that Hawkmoth provides an option for them to fulfill their dark designs, while they see Ladybug and Chat Noir as holding them back."

"And so you think they'd try to find this pigeon man?"

"I think so. And so the question is whether any of them have approached Mr. Ramier. And this is where you come in…I need you to talk to Mr. Ramier, and find out who has approached him and what they said."

"Okay Tikki, I can do that."

"Excellent! Now this is our stop."

I got off the train and rushed up the stairs and out of the station, heading for the Eiffel Tower. After buying a large bag of popcorn at the concession stand, Tikki and I headed across the Seine towards the Trocadéro.

We'd timed it well. Xavier Ramier was happily sitting in his usual place, and the pigeons had crowded around. Following Tikki's instructions, I sat down just a couple paces away, reached into the popcorn, and tossed a large handful towards the birds, who received it excitedly. Once the pigeons had eaten all the crumbs, I tossed another handful.

As Tikki and I had hoped, this caught the eccentric man's attention. "A fellow friend to my feathered friends, I see!" he said happily, looking over at me. "They're magnificent, aren't they?"

"Oh, absolutely, sir," I replied politely.

"Oh, please, call me Xavier!" the man insisted. "Any friend to the pigeons is a friend to me."

"All right, Xavier," I replied, trying to think of a way to ease into asking Tikki's questions.

"Look at this handsome fellow," Xavier commented, pointing at a pigeon who was plucking one piece of popcorn off the ground. "I call him Jacques. Just look at his plumage—such elegance, such luster!"

"Yes, definitely," I replied, not quite as enthused as Xavier evidently was.

"So what brings you here this fine evening?" Xavier asked, tossing a handful of what appeared to be seeds from a brown paper bag.

"Well, I was actually hoping to talk to you, Xavier," I replied, seizing the opportunity. "From what I understand, at one point you briefly held the identity of 'Mr. Pigeon.'"

Xavier's smile faded. "I don't want to have anything to do with that anymore," he replied. "It was a mistake. But how did you know?"

"Well, you see, I share your concerns," I explained, "as a fellow victim of Hawkmoth's akumas."

Xavier narrowed his eyes and stared at me. "And who might you be, then?"

"Volpina," I replied. "You probably don't know about me."

Xavier drew back. "Oh, yes, I know about you," he said quietly. "The Ladyblog said that you were possibly the most dangerous villain of them all."

Yes, Alya would say that. No matter. I pressed on. "Well you see, Xavier, I doubt that I'm the first former villain to come talk to you."

"You're quite right," Xavier said with a nod and a shudder. "A few weeks ago, another came by, right here at about this same time. That's why I was worried for a moment; I thought you were with him."

"And who was that?" I prompted.

"Oh, I can't quite remember his name," Xavier mused. "He was a photographer, though, and I think he had a pink streak in his hair."

"I don't think I know him," I sighed.

"But I do!" Tikki said very quietly from behind my head. "His name's Vincent Aza. I even know his address!"

"Actually, I do think I know him after all," I corrected. "So what did he tell you?"

"He said…well, he said a few things. But I think…yes, his main point was about a network of former villains, working together. Naturally, I didn't want any part in that; it seemed like a crazed Hawkmoth cult. And they called themselves…the Gossamer Syndicate, yes, that's it!"

"You've been a huge help, Xavier," I said. "Thank you very much."

"Wait!" Xavier interjected. "Why are you asking me all these questions?"

I thought for a few seconds to come up with a convincing explanation. "I was sent here by Ladybug," I said finally. "She's trying to bring down this Gossamer Syndicate, but knew almost nothing about it until now. She sends her regards, and is sorry she couldn't be here herself; she'd have loved to have seen you again."

"Oh!" Xavier replied cheerfully. "Well in that case, give her my greetings! And good luck in bringing this syndicate down!"

Not wanting to be caught up in conversation any longer, I hastily left, leaving behind the now half-empty bag of popcorn. Hiding behind the wall, I opened my bag to talk to Tikki.

"Well, that was certainly useful," Tikki informed me happily. "Now we just have to go after Vincent Aza."

"You've really planned this well," I commented. "I barely had to lie at all!"

"You didn't even have to," Tikki pointed out. "You could just as easily have told the truth."

"The lie was easier," I said flatly. "So, what's this photographer's address?"

"Just get back on the Métro and follow my directions," Tikki replied. "Unless you've changed your mind and are willing to transform? It would make this much easier."

I shook my head. "Nope. Not going to happen."

Tikki sighed. "All right then. Now let's go, quickly!"

I ran off with Tikki in my bag, ready to go save the girl I loved.