AN: This is a follow-up to "The Teutonic Knight."

To yellow 14: I do enjoy showing more of the "slice of life" moments.

To Butterfly: Thanks!

"Come on, we all know it's got to be Lila!"

"Do we, though?"

"Yes!"

"I mean, we know that she lies like she breathes, but it's a huge leap from there to super-villain, dude."

"You weren't there before Amun-Vatar. Lila heard Jalil and booked it right away."

"Don't forget: I was there, and I remember a lot of people leaving around the same time as that. Nath and Marc left almost immediately, too. And we know neither of them is Killer Bee."

"Okay, so how do you explain Lila's emotions, Sabrina?"

"She's a pathological liar. Her emotions are almost always elated when she is 'holding court' and manipulating a large group of people."

"And doesn't that sound like someone else we know?"

"Killer Bee? Maybe…"

"Yeah, but we can't just jump to conclusions, dude."

"It's not that much of a jump, though, is it, babe? She's been obsessed with Mar and Adrien for years now – and on both sides of the mask…"

"To be fair, you were pretty obsessive about Ladybug, too…"

"Hey!"

"Ugh! You're all being ridiculous! Max, I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe you should be the voice of reason here… Is Lila Killer Bee?"

"Um… I cannot give a definitive answer to that question. However, based on the evidence at hand, there is a 54% chance that Lila is Killer Bee…"

"Factoring in her known association with Hawk Moth, it rises to a 68% chance!"

"I already factored that in, Turing…"

"From my analysis of the equation, I weight her Akumatization rate at a factor of 6, not 3."

"Yes, but Akumatization is not an inherent indicator of mal-intent. Just in this room, everyone has been Akumatized at least once with the exception of Adrien and Marinette!"

"That's true, dude, but didn't we see Lila grab an Akuma one time? Plus, you weren't there when we fought her to get Chloe out of Hawk Moth's sight."

"I thought you were on Team 'Lila's Not Killer Bee,' babe."

"I don't think she can't be; I just don't think we can assume she is."

"This whole meeting is utterly ridiculous. Tell you what: I'm just going to walk up to her and punch her in the face on principle. If she transforms, then we'll know I'm right."

"Or you'll get arrested for assault."

"Daddy'll make it go away."

"Really, Bourgeois? You honestly think that you can assault a diplomat's daughter unprovoked and get away with it?"

"You got a better idea, Césaire?"

"Interview her again. See if her story changes."

"A pathological liar like Lila won't change her story that much, though. And if you call her on it, she'll just dig in, just enough to convince you she remembered wrong, or you heard it wrong, or something."

Marinette rubbed her forehead in frustration, listening to the others argue back and forth across the conference table in the Heroes' Headquarters. They had been at this for close to two hours now. She leaned into Adrien's side for comfort, drawing strength from his presence, the arm he draped over her shoulder.

The moment Alix had passed along their suspicion that Killer Bee was in the class, Pegasus had dropped Turing into the museum security office to check the CCTV footage, only to discover that the museum only had one camera in the room where the fight had occurred, and it had been pointed at the exit. After hitting that dead end, over the last week Pegasus and Rena Rouge had arranged interviews with every French student who had gone on the trip to Berlin, checking and double-checking their whereabouts during the battle between the three Heroes, the Teutonic Knight, the Armanemagier, and Killer Bee. And after close to two dozen interviews, they had maybe narrowed down their suspect pool to four. Marlène had lied about hiding with Mireille and Aurore when the fight began. Léa said she had been in the bathroom, though no one could corroborate that. Then there were Lila and Nadine, who had told exactly the same story about hiding together, exactly where Philippe insisted that he had left them.

"Do you really want to focus all your attention on one of the suspects with an alibi?" asked Nino, raising an eyebrow dubiously. "What about Marlène? She clearly lied."

"I haven't forgotten about her," Alya assured him. "But my gut tells me something is off about Lila's alibi. Her story and Nadine's line up far too exactly for my taste. Down to the phrasing. So we can't dismiss them as suspects out of hand. Of all our classmates, I think they're the most likely."

"Not Nadine, though," Chloe interjected. Alya looked up at her in surprise. "I saw Killer Bee's natural hair color, remember? Her hair is reddish-brown; Nadine's is blonde. So we can at least count her out as a suspect."

"Unless Killer Bee was dyeing her hair over the summer," Alya pointed out, frowning.

Chloe muttered a curse and folded her arms.

Sabrina placed a hand on Chloe's arm. "Wouldn't it make sense to treat the hair color as fact until we can rule it out?" she asked Alya.

"Definitely," Alya agreed, nodding.

"You're not really sure about focusing entirely on Lila, are you?" observed Sabrina, raising an eyebrow at Alya.

"You play dirty," Alya grumbled. Sabrina gave her an amused look. Alya sighed heavily. "No…" she admitted. "We've – I've – gotten burned enough times in the past by focusing entirely on the most obvious answer."

"Like when you thought Chloe was Ladybug?" Marinette spoke up, stifling a giggle.

Alya groaned, and Nino placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Not exactly my best moment," she muttered. "But yes," she added, louder so the rest of them could hear. "And in this case, there's no guarantee that Killer Bee really was part of the class. The evidence all points in that direction, but there are other possible explanations."

"Come on," Chloe scoffed. "Do you honestly think that a Paris super-villain turns up in Berlin at the same time as a Paris school group and there isn't a connection? Check that; do you think she turns up at the same museum with them and there isn't a connection?"

"They definitely can be connected," Alya allowed. "Hell, they probably are. But that doesn't make it definite, so we still have to at least consider other possibilities. How many other Parisian girls were in Berlin at the same time?"

"There were 37 other female Parisians in Berlin that week," reported Max, as Turing projected a list into the air above the table. "Of those, 23 are accounted for through security footage, as are a further 9 through credit card transactions."

"Yeah, but those could be faked, couldn't they?" asked Nino, pursing his lips. Max nodded, frowning. "So that's still 14 other suspects, even without including the four girls in our class."

Adrien hummed pensively, drawing their eyes to him. "Does Killer Bee even have to be a girl?" he asked, staring at the list with a calculating look in his eye. "The miraculous can change our appearance."

"That's true," Nino agreed, raising an eyebrow toward Alya. "Your hair is a different color. And your waist is thinner." Alya arched an eyebrow at him and he froze, eyes widening in fear. "Of course you're beautiful in and out of your super-suit," he added quickly.

Alya snorted. "Nice save, Turtle-Boy." She leaned into his side and let out a breath. "I guess that's a possibility, too," she admitted. "But we should try to eliminate the most obvious suspects – dark haired Parisian women or girls – before considering any of the more farfetched possibilities."

Chloe cracked her knuckles. "I call dibs on eliminating the most obvious suspect…" she volunteered, her eyes lighting up maliciously.

Marinette gave her a deadpan look. "You're not eliminating Lila, Chlo," she informed her.

"But if I eliminate her, then she won't be a suspect anymore, right?" Chloe asked rhetorically. "So problem solved!"

"No, Chloe." Chloe folded her arms in a pout. "Besides," Marinette added, "if anyone is going to 'eliminate' Lila, it's going to be me!"

"How about we flip for it," Chloe suggested.

"Maybe." A smile played at the corners of Marinette's mouth. After the last three years, it was almost crazy to think that not only was she not facing Lila alone, but even Chloe was on her side!

"What do you think, Princess?" asked Adrien, squeezing her shoulder.

Marinette let out a breath, covering Adrien's hand with her own. Of course she wasn't alone; she was never alone when she had Adrien with her. Marinette cleared her throat. "Maybe we don't know for sure that Killer Bee is part of the class, but it's more of a lead than we've had in a while," she decided. "Max, you and Alya work on eliminating the rest of the suspects. Sabrina, keep an eye on Lila–"

"But with Lila, it sounds like reading her emotions isn't exactly the best way to do it," Nino interjected, raising an eye in amusement. "Plus, do you really think Chloe's best friend is the best option for watching a Killer Bee suspect?"

Marinette sighed heavily. Given the… cool reception that all of them had given Lila over the last couple years, none of them were really in a position to "keep an eye on Lila." She frowned. They could assign Markov to track Lila, but even that could raise suspicion. "Do you have a better idea?"

Nino furrowed his brows, stroking his chin. "If we can't get close to her, maybe we need to make a new friend who's already close to her."

AN: There will be "Patrol Logs" today and next week, but other than that this is the end of this season in the "Mind Games"-verse. Tomorrow will be the beginning of "Miraculous: Tales of Cat Noir-2039," a follow-up anthology to "Running out of Time" set in the "RooT"-verse. And after that will be the beginning of the next "Mind Games"-verse Event: "The Colossus Saga"…