To Butterfly: This entire arc is going to be from the villains' perspectives! Of the next 4 stories after this one, 3 feature villains/antiheroes as main characters.

Having shed his exo-suit in the back-up lab, Gaston collapsed into his accustomed seat in the briefing room Night Bat had set aside for his team. After making his way to the alternate location – Night Bat had changed his mind twice before Mecha-Man finally linked back up with Antoine and the workers from the lab warehouse – they had switched vehicles to a disguised delivery truck for the second leg of their trip. Antoine had insisted that he stay in the suit, despite the burns he could feel on his calves from the police energy rifles, until they finally reached Night Bat's headquarters.

His second headquarters; they had been forced to relocate after Le Tirreur blew the last one to pieces.

Although Le Tirreur couldn't possibly know about this building, Night Bat had increased the security this time, just in case. Where the old headquarters had been shielded from miraculous users by a single chi-orb, the Prior's people had placed four of them in the four corners of the building to prevent the Heroes of Paris from entering. Night Bat had also placed a team of eight guards in the building at all times, including two Dark Acolytes in case the miraculous users somehow found a way inside the chi-orb fields. And to top it all off, the building itself was an under-construction office building the Lynchpin had acquired through about eight different shell companies. Of course, for as long as Gaston could remember, this particular building had been "under construction," and it was no closer to completion now than it had been ten years ago. Who would look twice at it?

Antoine sat down in the seat next to Gaston and tossed a tube of burn ointment on the table in front of him. "Perhaps I should add the extra armor back on," he mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"The extra plating doesn't exactly make it easy to move in the suit," Gaston argued, rubbing the ointment into his burns and wincing. "Maybe something lighter that still gives some protection from energy weapons?" On top of the burns, his hearing was still a little spotty from all the noise of the firefight. "Any chance of adding hearing protection in the helmet next time?" he asked.

Antoine scoffed. "Please, you don't need that. It would interfere with the wiring for the display and communicator. You can just suck it up," he replied irritably.

Gaston glared at him. "Fine. Why don't I shoot off a dozen rifles next to your head and see how you like it?"

Antoine rolled his eyes. "Remember, you're just the pilot for my baby. I can always find another pilot; I did it once already. Then you can go back to the 'boys in black' squad."

Gaston glared at him but clamped his mouth shut. The last "Mecha-Man" was still stuck in jail, and Gaston had no desire to share his cell – especially if that meant never seeing his wife and son again. He focused on rubbing the ointment into his legs as the rest of the team trickled into the room. The first to arrive were the Prior and his protégé, the woman he called the "Deaconess." According to the Prior, she had been near the completion of her training when they had moved to Paris and joined up with Lynchpin, and he was grooming her as an assistant. They sat down on the same side of the table as Gaston and Antoine, facing the doorway.

The miraculous users showed up next – Gaston snorted on seeing that they were all transformed for dramatic effect. First was Tyran-X, his face the same mask of rage that he had worn ever since Night Bat had recruited him. Right behind him was that Killer Bee girl. If her nose were stuck any higher in the air, it would catch the wind when she walked – but then maybe that was part of the Bee Miraculous power set. The temperature almost seemed to drop when the last two arrived, the newest member of the team and the team's leader.

"I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for the opportunity, M. Night Bat," Cerna gushed as she followed him into the room, stooping so her antlers wouldn't catch on the doorframe. "I promise I won't let you down!"

"I am certain you won't," Night Bat agreed, smiling thinly. Though that smile wasn't directed at him, a chill ran down Gaston's spine all the same. Very few people who received that smile ever seemed to live through the experience…

The other three miraculous users took seats opposite Gaston and the non-miraculous users, while Night Bat strode purposefully to his place at the head of the conference table. He placed his hands on the table and ran his eyes up and down the seven people assembled in front of him. Gaston tried to meet his gaze without flinching.

"I don't think I need to tell you that the Lynchpin is unimpressed with our performance lately," Night Bat began, fixing his eyes on the Deaconess. She opened her mouth to speak, but he went on without giving her a chance to defend herself. "His people have lost eight of the last fourteen shipments they tried to smuggle into Paris, and he is… upset… with the toll that is taking on his drug dealing operations. He tells me his people have enough of a supply to last through the end of the month at present sales rates, but he needs those drugs. The counterfeiting operations are barely turning a profit, and selling guns is a dubious proposition at best – certainly not if the Lynchpin intends to stay in control of the city's criminal element." His frown deepened. "I don't need to tell you what happens if the Lynchpin runs out of money."

Gaston grimaced. He was having a hard enough time feeding his family on the meager wages Lynchpin paid him, even with the raise he'd received for agreeing to pilot the Mecha-Man suit. If Lynchpin couldn't pay… if Lynchpin couldn't pay, he would just take the suit and leave, and damn the consequences. Lynchpin could threaten his son all he wanted, but without money, who would carry out his threats? Lynchpin himself wouldn't dare get his hands dirty!

Or maybe he would; Gaston had never met the man. Nor, he suspected, had anyone else at that table.

Of course, that was assuming that Night Bat himself wouldn't come after him just for fun…

After a pause, Night Bat continued. "Then this morning the police raided no less than seven warehouses, and they were almost a total loss. According to Lynchpin's source in the Prefect's office, one was taken without a fight – the one responsible has already been dealt with. Three were seized by the police intact, and the last two were partially destroyed. The only bright spot in the entire affair as far as Lynchpin is concerned was that Mecha-Man was able to salvage something from the loss of the last warehouse." He gave Gaston the tiniest nod of approval, and he instantly sat up straighter.

"What does Lynchpin want from us?" demanded the Prior. "None of my people were at any of those warehouses today."

"Lynchpin is dealing with the warehouse situation," Night Bat replied smoothly. "Whoever sold them out to the police will wish they had never been born – as it is, the few I… helped… interrogate already wish so."

"Does he want me to go and melt the Heroes down to slag?" asked Tyran-X darkly. "I wouldn't mind going another round with the stray cat."

Killer Bee scoffed. "Didn't you get your butt handed to you by a mouse?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "Now me, I had Ladybug running around in circles!"

"You also lost to a powerless girl and a dog and failed to secure a possible nuclear deterrent for us," Night Bat observed softly. Killer Bee flushed and folded her arms in a pout, shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

"You still haven't answered the question," Antoine pointed out calmly. "What is Lynchpin's intention now? Does he blame this group for the failures of others?"

Night Bat's eyes lit up maliciously. "On the contrary," he answered, "Lynchpin's intention is to put you in the field. The success of your suit today has overshadowed the failures of others in previous weeks, and he has decided that we may be the best option to protect his smuggling."

The Deaconess glared at him, jutting her jaw out and running a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair. "Are you going to put all the blame on me for those shipments you've lost?" she demanded.

"Oh, I would never do such a thing," replied Night Bat, leaning forward and fixing her with his piercing gaze. "However, you have gotten very adept at swimming recently, wouldn't you say?"

The Deaconess lunged forward, but the Prior restrained her with a hand on her shoulder. "You cannot blame her alone for these failures," the Prior stated smoothly, holding a hand up between the two in a pacifying gesture. "My people did their best every time, but those untrained thugs Lynchpin insists on using got in their way. That first time, Marta held two miraculous abusers off simultaneously, and another dozen meatheads couldn't handle the other two!"

"Be that as it may, your people have not proven as effective against the Heroes of Paris as you claimed – as you led us to believe," noted Night Bat, raising an eyebrow. "Even you yourself cannot truly claim to have bested any of them!" He turned away from the two Dark Acolytes to address the rest of the group. "In the future no less than two of you will accompany every shipment, with at least one miraculous user."

"That sounds great and all, but my powers work a whole lot better on dry land than on the deck of a ship," Tyran-X replied, clenching his fist on the table.

Night Bat turned to the other two miraculous users and smiled thinly. "In that case, perhaps it is time for Killer Bee and Cerna to earn their keep."

AN: The unknown miraculous user is the POV character for the next chapter. However, her name is a hint to a (confirmed-in-the-show) previous miraculous user. If you can guess who, you may be able to guess what miraculous she found. Any ideas?