Climbing the stairs to M. Damocles' apartment, Thierry paused just as the landing came into view, surprised to see a woman standing in front of M. Damocles' door and carrying a dish in her hands. He furrowed his brows, studying her carefully as she moved to lean against the doorjamb. A few years older than him, with short red hair and freckles, muscular arms… something about her looked vaguely familiar, but Thierry couldn't quite place where he might have seen her before. She shifted her weight from side to side, tapping her foot impatiently and glancing up and down the hallway, until the door opened and M. Damocles poked his head out, his eyes widening in delight.

"Ah! Ondine!" he greeted her, smiling broadly. "Thank you so much, my dear! You know, I can cook, though not nearly as well as you do, of course."

Ondine smiled back and handed him the dish. "Oh, it's no trouble, sir," she assured him. "If I'm making a batch for us, it's just as easy to double the recipe and bring some up for you. I've been trying to experiment a little more in the kitchen since Kim and I moved in here. Of course, Kim will say anything is good; I'm hoping that you can give me an unbiased opinion!"

"We will do our best," M. Damocles promised. "Just as soon as my young friend arrives…" Thierry flushed and finally ascended the last few steps up to M. Damocles' floor. On catching sight of him, M. Damocles' smile widened. "And speaking of the devil…"

"I'm sorry I'm a little late," Thierry apologized, grinning sheepishly.

"Not a problem, my boy," M. Damocles responded graciously. "You are perfectly on time." He furrowed his brows, looking back and forth between Thierry and Ondine. "I don't think you would have met…" he began slowly before snapping his fingers in realization. "No! You must have overlapped for one year, correct?"

Ondine shook her head. "I suppose we would have, if I'd attended François Dupont. But I was actually one district over."

"Ah, I see." M. Damocles nodded in understanding. "My mistake."

Ondine shrugged. "No worries! Kim has told me all his stories from collège; that was when we met, actually. Through swimming."

M. Damocles hummed. "I doubt that he has told you all of the stories, my dear," he mused, with a benign chuckle. "Why, I'm sure I could tell you some that you would not believe!"

She stifled a giggle. "Oh, I'm almost certain I would believe them…" She sighed, shaking her head. "But I should get back home; our dinner is probably getting cold."

"Well, we would not want that," M. Damocles told her. "But thank you again."

"Of course! And we'll have to have you down for dinner sometime," she promised, passing Thierry on her way to the staircase. "You can bring the dish back then."

"I will look forward to it."

"And if you need anything, you know where to find us!" she called up the stairwell.

M. Damocles sighed, shaking his head ruefully. "You would think, the way she and Kim coddle me, that I was one step away from the nursing home," he muttered.

"Sir?"

M. Damocles shook his head, clearing his throat, stepped back inside the apartment, nodding for Thierry to follow. "No use standing out here," he told him, indicating the casserole dish in his hands. "Our dinner will get cold as well!"

Thierry nodded obediently, walking further into the small apartment and looking around in surprise at the enormous collection of Knightowl memorabilia scattered around the apartment. A framed Knightowl comic book hung on the wall just around the corner from the door, alongside a pair of photos, one showing the Owl and King Monkey and the other with Knightowl and Majestia hovering in front of the Statue of Liberty. On one corner of the entertainment center sat a framed picture of Knightowl and Sparrow standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, with two signatures on it. Glancing toward the couch, Thjerry's eye paused on a cane with the Knightowl logo engraved onto it, leaning against the end table. "Who was that?" Thierry asked M. Damocles curiously, following him through toward the small dinette.

He chuckled ruefully. "Never get old, my boy," he answered. "Her fiancé was a Troisième student at Collège François Dupont when you were in Sixième; now they live in the apartment below mine and bring me food a couple times a week. You know," he interjected suddenly, shaking his head, "in all my years of teaching, I probably had at least a score of former students' children pass through my school, but I cannot think of a single grandchild of a former student that I also taught." He hummed, setting the dish down on the already-set table. "But I suppose it would only have been a matter of time, had I remained another year or two…"

"Um… yes, sir." Thierry looked down at the table awkwardly.

"Well, sit down, sit down," M. Damocles instructed him, gesturing toward one of the chairs and claiming his own seat as he did so, spooning a helping of casserole onto his plate, a mix of potatoes, meat, and a couple of different vegetables.

"Thank you for inviting me over," Thierry told him, snagging a piece of fresh-baked bread from the basket and slathering butter on it. His empty stomach growled, his mouth watering as the scent of food reached him and he bit off the end of his bread. His plate was hardly on the table before he dug in with gusto.

"Of course, my young protégé," answered M. Damocles, beaming at him. "You are more than welcome to come by any time you want. I am especially curious to hear of your adventures! I hear bits and pieces of what is happening over the communicator, of course, but it is so different from being there in person, or even hearing the full narration."

Thierry swallowed his mouthful of casserole and frowned, his brows knit together in thought. "I don't know if I really have any good stories," he admitted. "So far I've trained with King Monkey a couple of times, but that's pretty much been it."

"Well, how did the children's hospital go?" asked M. Damocles, sipping his water.

"It was… it was nice." Thierry nodded slowly, humming. "A few of the boys were disappointed to see me instead of you – they didn't buy that I was you for a minute. But then Nabatala came in and told them off, and they were actually pretty cool for her. The girls were adorable, of course – almost all of them were wearing Nabatala kerchiefs on their heads when I went in their ward. But…" He let out a heavy breath. "There was something about it. It smelled so… sterile."

M. Damocles nodded in understanding. "Unfortunately, not every problem can be fixed by magic. For many of these children, either they will overcome their illnesses by themselves or they will continue to become sicker. That is the reality of life – and it is especially the reality for a hero: we cannot fix everything. And yet…" A small smile lifted the corners of his lips. "Those children are among the most inspiring people I have met. Some of them have been in the hospital for as long as I've been going," he confided. "But they do not complain. They do not give up. They were just as cheerful and excited each time I saw them. It is both sad to see their pain but also inspiring to see their tenacity."

"Yes, sir." Thierry glanced around the room again, and his eye settled on a brass key inside the entertainment center. "Why don't you tell me about some of your stories," he begged. "Like you said, it's so different to hear it from you, rather than just read it on the Ladyblog.

M. Damocles tapped his chin pensively. "Where to begin… I suppose I can start from the beginning. You remember, of course, that I was Akumatized into Dark Owl, shortly after the Owl's first public appearance?" Thierry nodded. M. Damocles pursed his lips, shaking his head. "I had gone to save Ladybug and Cat Noir from a new villain… only to discover that they had staged the whole thing, ostensibly for my 'benefit.' I became so embarrassed and humiliated by the whole debacle that I became an easy target for M. Hawk Moth." He frowned, looking down at the table. "Had it not been for Ladybug's ingenuity, I might have been the cause of their ultimate defeat."

"It was Hawk Moth, though," Thierry insisted. "He's the one who manipulated you."

"Oh, yes," M. Damocles agreed, nodding. Sighing, he looked away, his eyes unfocusing in the direction of the wall past Thierry. "It is quite a… unique experience – being Akumatized, I mean." He grimaced. "If you have never experienced the sensation, you cannot understand what it was like. Once the Akuma got ahold of you, it rarely let you go – or at least not willingly. But I placed myself in that vulnerable position. I allowed myself to become consumed with my embarrassment and shame, exactly the sort of negative emotions on which Hawk Moth so often preyed. And it is one thing for a citizen to be manipulated by a criminal; it is something else entirely when it is a hero who allows him or herself to be manipulated in that way. We have to be better. That is my caution for you: if you are to be a hero, then you must rise above the circumstances around you."

"Understood," Thierry acknowledged, nodding fervently. His jaw clenched, and he placed his fork back down on his plate, studying it carefully. Rising above circumstances… That seemed so much easier to say than to do. In a very real sense, he had gotten into this position in the first place because he had simply accepted the circumstances – his father's prejudices and hatred – at face value. And yet, had he not tried to rise above those circumstances, M. Damocles never would have appointed him as his successor, and he would never have become a hero.

"But my second lesson for you is that you do not need superpowers or incredible technology when you have the ability to think," M. Damocles continued, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. "The first time that Anansi, Guitar Hero, and I teamed up, we ended up in a battle against the first Mecha-Man – not the current one, of course; this current one appeared several months later. No, the previous Mecha-Man had a much less developed suit, but it was the first time the Heroes of Paris had ever seen such a device employed by a criminal. And Guitar Hero and I were left to deal with Mecha-Man all by ourselves while Anansi fought the other criminals who were with him."

"Did you stop him?"

M. Damocles nodded slowly, raising his eyebrows. "And a difficult fight it was. I had nothing at my disposal – no weapon or gadget – that could really stop him. I had never imagined that such a device could be possible. My only strategy was to jam an Owlet into the servos controlling his legs and hope to hobble him, albeit temporarily. Meanwhile, he was throwing Guitar Hero and I around like we were nothing. But in the end, we managed to identify a weakness and exploit it to shut down his suit so we could apprehend him. Neither of us was equipped to face him – alone or together. But by using our minds, we were able to defeat him. That is the Owl's greatest weapon, even more than the tools in the utility belt: the mind." He leaned forward, fixing Thierry with an intent look. "And that is the tool that you must cultivate above all the others. King Monkey may teach you hand-to-hand combat. You may become so accurate that you can light a match with a thrown Owlet. But none of those skills are worth anything if you don't use your mind."