AN: Killer Bee will be the protagonist of a future story, so consider this a bit of a tease for things to come.
To Butterfly: Not all of the Dark Acolytes are necessarily bad. Like the Heretic, they believe what they have been told.
To mary okeeffe.16: Thanks!
Killer Bee lounged on one of the benches in the boat's hold, playing idly with the communicator on her top, reviewing the abilities it listed. Pollen had explained some of the miraculous' powers in the months since she got the miraculous, but Killer Bee still hadn't had too many opportunities to cut loose and experiment. In fact, aside from meetings with Night Bat and the rest of the team, she could still count on one hand the number of times she had even transformed.
"What is the world coming to?" muttered the Prior, leaning against a crate on the far side of the hold, staring at her in disgust with his arms folded. "Millennia my people have been working to preserve the world from the imbalance which miraculous bring to it, and I suddenly find myself working with people like you."
"And yet, you have to work with us if you're ever going to accomplish your goal," Killer Bee replied evenly, not looking up from her top. "You say you're these high-and-mighty anti-miraculous crusaders. The way you talk, you think you're in this 'holy war' against 'miraculous abusers.' But in all that time, what have you actually done?"
"I've fought miraculous users on three continents!" the Prior insisted, smacking his chest. "My people defeated a miraculous user and took his miraculous!"
Killer Bee finally looked up and arched an eyebrow at him. "Yeah? And where is it now?" Leaning forward and sneering she continued, "The fact is, the Lynchpin's people have accomplished more than your people have: they've fought miraculous users and taken their miraculous… and kept them. In fact, I would say that I've probably fought miraculous users as many times as you have – and I've actually had more success than you… because I've actually had success."
The Prior furrowed his brows. "But… you joined this team at the same time that I did. How is that possible when you haven't fought a single miraculous user?"
She scoffed. "I haven't always been on this team or had a miraculous. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand that you don't need a miraculous to fight people with miraculous."
"Obviously you don't," he replied dismissively. "But I have decades of training to fall back on."
"So it must grate on you to find out that a teenager without any of your vaunted 'Dark Acolyte training' has accomplished more than you."
The Prior glared at her. "Rich talk without proof to back it up." He turned away from her to stare out the porthole and frowned. "What–"
The thud of someone landing on the deck above them was their only warning. Killer Bee looked up at the ceiling suspiciously, moments before they heard yelling filtering through the hatch entrance. Several of the guards on the top deck began firing their weapons, and Killer Bee glanced over at the Prior. "Looks like the pleasure cruise is over," she observed, arching an eyebrow.
He nodded and climbed up the ladder, pushed the hatch open, and charged onto the deck. Killer Bee sat back and smirked. The Heroes were here for one thing, and one thing only: the contents of this hold. Why should she go up there and fight them when she could wait down here and let them come to her? It's not like the product was going anywhere. With the hatch open the sounds of fighting were magnified as the guards on the deck fired at the heroes. Someone – she couldn't tell who – let out a piercing scream, and a body fell past the porthole into the river with a splash.
"There are four of them up here," the Prior reported over their communicators. "Carapace, Anansi, the Heretic, and – crap, I lost the other one. For all your high and mighty talk, we could use a little help up here!"
Killer Bee grinned maliciously and dropped back into the shadow behind one of the crates. A hero who vanished could only mean Bengalia. As if on cue, she heard a soft creaking sound from the ladder, so soft that even her miraculous-enhanced hearing barely caught it. "Venom," she whispered, holding her top tight.
A disembodied voice spoke from the opposite side of the crate behind which Killer Bee hid. "I see five crates down here," the voice whispered, close to the corner where Killer Bee hid. Taking a chance, she tiptoed around the crate in the opposite direction, listening carefully. The lid of the crate shifted as though an invisible person were trying to peel it off. "This one has–"
Bengalia never got to finish the sentence, as Killer Bee stabbed her in the back with the Venom-infused top, immobilizing her in place. She reached out to find the invisible hero, and finally her hand connected with something solid. Running her hand up the hero's form, her hand ran through the bottom of a ponytail. Grabbing the ponytail tightly in order not to lose track of where she was, she used her other hand to following her hair up to Bengalia's shoulder. "That didn't exactly work out for you, did it?" Killer Bee commented, pulling her ponytail back and sneering in front of what had to be the hero's face. "Invisible and immobile. If I don't free you, you could be stuck this way for a really long time. And then how would your friends find you?" She laughed derisively and put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "I may not undo the immobility, but let's see if I can solve your invisibility problem…"
Unfortunately, Pollen had not been able to describe what any of the miraculous looked like, and based on the pictures on the Ladyblog she hadn't noticed anything specific that could be the Tiger Miraculous. But of the miraculous Lynchpin had, three went on the head and two were worn around the neck, so the head and neck were as good of places to start as any. She ran her hands up Bengalia's head and through her hair: nothing. She was just about to check around her neck when something crashed down the ladder, ricocheted off the bottom rung, and struck her solidly in the side, knocking her back a pace. Killer Bee whipped her head around to face the attack just in time for Carapace to drop through the hatch. He landed at the bottom of the ladder, bent his legs as he landed, and sprang at her in a tackle, catching her around the waist. He slammed her over into the ground, knocking over the still-invisible-and-frozen Bengalia in the process, and Killer Bee kicked out her leg, pushing him off of her.
Carapace spun over and rolled to his feet, picking his shield up off the floor with one hand in the same motion, and charged her again, ramming the center of his shield into Killer Bee's chest and nearly pushing all the air from her lungs. She spun around the shield and looped her top around his arm. Carapace turned to face her and planted his feet as she tugged desperately on the top string. "Are you kidding me, dude?" he asked, giving her a look of disbelief. He flicked his elbow to grab the string before spinning and pulling her off-balance. "I trained against the real Queen Bee." He brought the edge of his shield down on her arm. "I train against Ladybug." She pulled her arm back just in time to avoid him breaking it. "And you're not half as good as either of them." He swung out the shield, missing her face by millimeters as she ducked. "Give us back the miraculous right now, and I promise we'll help you. But whatever you think Lynchpin will give you, whatever he's told you, he's full of lies."
Killer Bee smirked. "So noble. I'd expect no less from the 'Heroes of Paris.'" She released her top from around Carapace's wrist and dove into a somersault which took her to the base of the ladder. Carapace was right on her heels, and she pushed off into a jump through the hatch the moment her feet were underneath her. The moment she reached the boat's top deck, her heart sank.
The Prior was embroiled in a fight against the Heretic beside the pilothouse. Near the front of the boat Anansi was in the process of kicking the last guard standing over the railing and into the water. The rest of the dozen guards they had brought were either gone or strewn around the boat, unconscious. As she watched, the Prior swung his quarterstaff at the Heretic, who ducked beneath the strike, elbowed the Prior in the side, and kneed him in the gut. The Prior stumbled backward away from him and looked up to see Carapace, who had just followed Killer Bee out of the hold. The Prior threw a pellet of chi-putty in Carapace's direction, but Carapace threw his shield to intercept it, clattering to the deck in the middle of the boat. The Prior took one last look at the three heroes before diving off the boat to escape.
Killer Bee turned to find Carapace standing right behind her, and spun into a kick. Carapace blocked the kick with one arm, pushed her away, and dropped to the deck, sweeping her legs out from under her. She hit the deck and rolled to her feet, narrowly avoiding a wad of chi-putty that the Heretic threw at her.
At that moment, she heard her miraculous beeping incessantly. She would de-transform in less than a minute. There was no way for her to salvage this… Killer Bee kicked Anansi in the face and dove off the boat and into the river a moment before her transformation wore off. Dammit!