With the Pidgeot situation closed, Marinette was expecting some sort of notification. A text, maybe a call, with an update. Heroes' laughter and jubilation and celebration and relief and maybe a voice would break unexpectedly and maybe it wouldn't be hers. She didn't expect anyone to visit. Well, not any more than usual.

There was, typically, one of her friends with her during visiting hours. They'd switch every so often. Faces changed every hour, or couple hours. Not since the beginning did she find herself with more than three people in the room, and yet, quite unexpectedly, she found herself with five. With pokémon, nine. But most weren't there for her.

Rocco appeared to chew his lip. He shifted uncomfortably and hunched over to appear small. Marinette wondered why, when what she was seeing – the dark skinned boy who looked like he could be a model alongside Adrien – was just an illusion to start with. It didn't make sense to her why he wouldn't hide those emotions. Why he didn't look happy.

Mawile sat on the end of her bed, eyeing Rocco and mulling over the question. She swung her legs and her huge jaws swayed behind her like a plant in a draft. She growled quietly, deep in her throat, and vocalized an answer.

Adrien twiddled his thumbs, twisted a ring, folded, unfolded his arms, bounced on his feet. His eyes travelled the room. The ceiling tiles. The flowers on her bedside table. Her. Juleka. Tikki. An almost, half-glance at Bisharp. The floor between Rocco's feet. He jumped when Rocco turned to him. Closed his eyes a fraction too long for a blink. Lifted his head to read the message Rocco's illusory fingers wrote.

Juleka furrowed her brow. She raised a hand to shiny lips and kissed her knuckle. She leaned, all her weight on one foot. Her eyes were a magnifying glass, trained on something she needed to examine. Something which contained some clue she had yet to identify. She tilted her head, reading Rocco's hands, but still searching.

Bisharp was razor blades. His eyes sharp and cutting as he stared down Rocco. Chloé. His mind working, sorting pieces of a puzzle while adding new ones. Trying to understand whether they even create the same picture.

Nino adjusted his glasses, his cap, his shirt. He looked at the room more than the people. He shook his head and breathed and listened and tried to sort out what to do with what Adrien said.

"We evolve." Said with a shrug from all three voices.

Chloé scowled, turned up her nose, rolled her eyes. She complained. A justified one; how do those two words help anyone? How could they help Adrien? No one is any closer to figuring out the secret than they were when they walked in the room. Useless. Pointless. A waste of time.

Tikki cocked her head. She twisted Adrien's hair passively, not tight enough to hurt, just playing. She stuck out her tongue and tapped the crown of Adrien's head. She shook her head. The meaning was lost.

Alya scribbled in a notepad. She furrowed her brow and bit her tongue and she tapped her foot and looked up every fourth of a second to make sure she didn't miss anything. She smiled, not from solving the puzzle but from looking upon the challenge.

Marinette didn't give them any better answer, when they asked, when she tried to coach Chat Noir. She didn't know. How do you mega evolve? You just do. You touch the stone and you say the words and it happens. We evolve.

"You can't think of anything else?" Adrien asked. Pleaded.

Mawile shrugged, murmured an apology.

"Is that – 'we evolve' – a word-for-word thing," Alya asks Rocco, "or are you interpreting the meaning, too?"

"That's the meaning." Rocco signs. Juleka says.

"How specific is that?" Alya asks. Rocco tilts his head, not sure what to say. "Like, 'evolve', I assume is referring to the mega evolution itself." Rocco nods. "And is the plural 'we' coming from her or you?" Rocco furrows his brow and points to Mawile before signing some more.

"She said that they both evolve. Her and Marinette."

"Interesting. Mari?"

Marinette shrugged. "I don't know. I've told you everything I can several times." She looks at Adrien only. "You feel it, but it never felt like I was calling for it. I touch the Key Stone and ask her to and Mawile evolves."

"But what about you?" Asked Chloé. "What does it feel like?"

Marinette frowned. "I don't know. Like my heart flutters, or something. Light, tense."

Adrien tapped his foot, shook his head. "I'm sure it probably can't be described. And this won't help, anyway. She said she never calls for it. She told me earlier that she doesn't try to do it."

"Maybe you're overcomplicating it?" Nino suggested. "Thinking too much?"

"The attempts while not thinking have come and gone, dude. That's what we did when we first got the stone. Before we really needed it."

"Maybe you need to need it."

"Well, I thought I needed it. The only way I'd need it more is mid-battle and I have a hard enough time staying alive without trying that while dodging crazy megas."

Juleka lowered her hand and gesticulated with it. "I think we need to figure out where the problem is. With you, or Plagg, or both. Without knowing that, we're shooting in the dark."

"How do you suggest we figure that out?" Chloé scoffed.

"The victims. Good idea, Tikki, by the way. The victims are pokémon, known to be capable of mega evolution."

Alya pitched in. "To our knowledge, no pokémon that isn't recorded as having a mega form has been targeted. It's possible the devices just don't work on them, though, and it hasn't come up."

"Right. In the cases you guys got involved in, they also actually did mega evolve."

Adrien shook his head. "But they were being driven crazy. And they were hurting."

"I know. But if we assume that whoever's behind this has at least gotten the pokémon side of the equation figured out, we can look at the circumstances of the victim pokémon and figure out if Plagg fits. If he does, we have no reason to think he's not actually capable of it, or in no state to do it, and we know that the block is on your side."

Alya shook her head. "We'd be making some pretty big assumptions, but they do make sense. In pain and crazy they may be, but those pokémon did mega evolve. It's possible that for it to go smoothly, it needs the trainer. Until now, we haven't heard of pokémon mega evolving without people in the first place."

Chloé paced impatiently. "So how do we find the victims? The police won't release the records."

"Maybe they would," Nino said hopefully, "to someone who's technically partnered with them in the case?"

Adrien shook his head. "No. That's just an excuse to let us handle the megas. We've never been really involved past what we hear from you."

"Then we'll find them on our own." Alya said. "It started with Mylène's aggron, right? She's easily reachable. He never mega evolved, but maybe you can talk to him anyway while I work on the next one."

Adrien shuddered. "Right. Chlo, why don't you help her? Your connections might help."

"I'll have them found by tomorrow."

"Jules, Nino, will you come with me when we talk to Mylène?"

"'Course, dude."

"Whenever you need."

"When should we do it?"

Alya put a hand on his shoulder. "Call Mylène now. Go as soon as you can. We don't know when the next mega will show up. Hasn't happened since then – police have managed to stop it – but Aggron and Heracross were consecutive days, remember?"

"Right. I'll send her a text."

While Adrien pulled out his phone, Alya turned to Chloé. "Is there any chance you can get the records of who in the city has pokémon with mega evolved forms?"

"I can try, but that's pushing it even for me. Daddy doesn't even have that without going through loads of paperwork first, and not without good reason."

"That's fine; don't bother him. I didn't really expect it." She rubbed her chin for a moment.

Marinette thought about the broadcast during the pidgeot attack. "What about pokémon with behavior problems? Any violent outbursts are put on public record, aren't they?"

Alya snapped her fingers. "Behavior problems… On the news, a pokémon psychologist said that…"

"Pokémon forced to evolve are more likely to act out violently." Marinette said. "Surely you can find a list of incidents with violent pokémon. If an abomasnow appears after last month, or something like that, you might have a lead."

"Assuming the police don't cover it up because they're related to the ongoing case. They can do that."

"Maybe."

"But they probably wouldn't. It would cost too much to try and cover any proceeding incident with all of these pokémon. If any have acted out since, there's a good chance we'll find them. You're a genius, Mari. Chloé, do you think you can get that list?"

"I already have it." She held up her phone. "It's all public."

Adrien backed away to the door. "Sounds like you guys have that handled. Mylène said we can go over now, so we'll leave you to it, okay?"

"Of course, Adrien. We'll have the next one locked down when you get back."

Adrien chuckled weakly and trailed his gaze over to Marinette. "It doesn't hurt?"

Marinette almost laughed. What doesn't? Watching everyone get you infinitely closer to mega evolution than I was ever able to? Watching them save the city without me? Watching you all come together while I'm sitting in bed? The wound hurts too, yeah. At least there's painkillers for that. She said, "Not too bad."

Adrien smiled and retreated, followed by Rocco, Nino, and Juleka.

"Mari," Alya said, "could you bring this up on your laptop?"

She reached over and pulled her laptop close, typing in the website so everyone could see. On the screen, the locations of pokemon with a history of violence showed up on an interactive map of the city. Marinette zoomed in to just Central Lumiose.

Alya's pen flew across her pad. "I see… three houndoom, yikes. Looks like two of those are wild, huh. A manectric and a heracross. Does it say when they were registered?"

Chloé leaned over Marinette, brushing aside her hand surprisingly gently as she made for the trackpad. She tapped on the manectric. "Last incident," she read, "September fourteenth."

"Over a week before the manectric was mega evolved. That was the last week in September." Alya said.

"So, not this one." She moved the cursor to the heracross. "September twenty-seventh."

"Within the time frame. Heracross was only the second victim."

"This site only shows repeat offenders. Looks like this one has multiple marks on its record."

"Does it say when it started?"

"No."

"Mark it as a maybe, then." Alya starred the information on her notepad and scribbled some more. The location.

"Houndoom, Houndoom, and Houndoom." Chloé clicked her tongue. "One of them is well before it mega evolved. This one… has a lot of marks."

"Let me see." Alya pushed in close to Marinette's other side. "Yeah. Maybe too many. It was only a week ago."

"This one?"

"Seems possible. That one's wild, isn't it?"

Chloé hummed. "Yeah."

"Might be hard to track down." She wrote down the location of both of the houndoom, anyway. "Zoom out." Chloé did. "Check out that one."

"The abomasnow?" She clicked on it. "Seems far away."

"It's the only one even remotely close, and if it has a trainer, it's not unlikely that they might have come near the central city. That one was along the river, remember? It's not an unpopular road."

"The river…" Chloé muttered.

Alya sighed. "No luck. Too far back."

"Hang on. There's an abomasnow at our hotel."

"Wait, what?"

"It's right along the river; I saw an abomasnow in the hotel. Its trainer is some famous guy in Sinnoh, I think."

"Are they still there?"

"I don't know, but I can get to the records without anyone seeing."

"That's perfect."

Marinette watched the two work, wondering why she was sitting sandwiched between them. Well, they clearly don't need my help anymore.

Marinette received updates as the hours passed. Once Alya and Chloé had taken off in pursuit of some lead, she was left alone with only Mawile and Bisharp again. She looked at them and sighed, shaking her head. Mawile mimicked her, shrugging and grinning, exasperated. Bisharp just looked on the both of them with fondness and chuckled.

"Nothing interesting from Aggron." Nino reported over the phone. "Dude remembers it, sort of, and man if all of them are like this I'm not sure I want to keep hearing these. It's just Rocco figuring out what he means but it's still freaking terrible. If we have to talk to a pokemon like Rocco or your bisharp, you know, the really really smart ones, I'm not sure I'd be able to hear it."

"I don't think any of those have mega evolved."

"Thank god."

"Your worst bet might be houndoom. At least as smart as Plagg, right? In general. I know Alya and Chloé have a lead on that one."

"Aw, not a puppy."

"That puppy almost killed your best friend."

"All dogs are puppies, no matter how fierce. I will admit that it was a bad boy, that day, but you will never get me to lose belief in the inherent good boy-ness of puppers."

Marinette laughed.

"Anyway, that's all I really had to say. I was just letting you know. I'm not feeling very good about this, and not because the stories are terrible. Or I guess sort of. We asked him what it felt like, right? But basically all we got out of him was that it hurt. If the others say the same thing, we won't make any progress with this."

"It's okay. We know it hurts them. Just listen for anything that might give a clue. Think about what Alya would do."

Nino chuckled. "Ha, yeah. What would Alya do? Probably figure everything out from the freaking person Rocco talks in. 'Oh, yeah, he told us that in third person. It's obviously all because Plagg is a grumpy little mess and can't be bothered to save the world if his life depended on it.'"

"Admit it, it was a good observation."

"It was, it's just still stupid how much she can pull out of a few words. Really, she should be with Rocco, hearing these stories. I'm not much help here."

"You help Adrien." The line was quiet for a moment. "Why do you think he chose to bring you and Juleka?"

"Because Alya's a genius and Chloé has connections so they're the best for finding the other pokémon."

"Seriously, Nino."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." He sighed. "Sorry. You're right. He was probably more bothered by it than I was. Plus, I don't think he's super comfortable around Rocco again yet."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They're getting better but… it might be the topic."

"It's understandable. Rocco has to talk a lot about things Adrien doesn't want to associate with him."

"Yeah. I'll try and make sure they stay square."

"I'll have to leave it to you, but please. You know how important Rocco is to him."

Nino chuckled. "Probably more than us, honestly. Those two were inseparable outside school."

"Take care of him."

"Yeah, yeah." His voice grew teasing. "I'll make sure your boyfriend comes through."

"Nino… not you, too."

"Sorry girl, you know Alya tries to make me help set you up like every other week."

"And you're wise to stay out of it."

"As much as I can. Truth is-"

"I don't want to hear, Nino. I know."

A pause. "I wouldn't set you up anyway. I don't think Adrien's in any place for a girlfriend. He'd only end up hurting you. That's nothing he's said, just what I think."

"To tell you the truth, I think the same is true for me."

Another pause, longer this time. "For most of us. Maybe once this case is solved."

"Maybe."

He sighed. "Well, I'm looking forward to that day."

"I have a hard time believing it'll even come."

"Not with that attitude it won't. Come on, smile for me?"

"You can't see that I'm not smiling."

"I can hear it."

Marinette shook her head and smiled. "Can you really?"

"There it is."