Stepping through the portal to Lyon, the Owl looked around in awe, staring up at the unfamiliar buildings. Street noise – far less than Paris traffic – echoed around them from the vehicles moving up and down the streets in both directions. The sun glinted off the windows of a tall office building directly ahead of him; running along the top of it he could just barely make out a shadow. The Owl's breath caught in his throat, but as he studied the figure more intently, he breathed a sigh of relief. King Monkey. Ahead of them, another dozen or so of the Heroes of Paris were spreading out to search. His stomach flipped over anxiously, and he glanced back at his two companions. "I haven't actually gone on a trip like this with the Heroes of Paris before," he muttered.
Beside him, Impact nodded in agreement, looking back through the portal and into the Heroes of Paris' headquarters for the briefest of moments before the portal disappeared with a rush of wind. "Same. I don't remember the last time I even left the city. But it was definitely before… well… this." He rubbed the collar around his neck, which emitted a faint blue light, and ducked back half a pace behind the Owl.
The Owl chuckled ruefully, glancing over at Nabatala and raising an eyebrow beneath his cowl. "So does that make you the expert?"
She shook her head. "I don't know how much of an expert I am," she objected. "Aside from Tarascon–"
Impact's eyes widened, and he started at her in shock. "You really fought the Tarasque there?" he gasped. "But I was sure that had to just be a story…"
She shook her head, quirking her eyebrows at him. "No story; I really was there. I'd only been a hero for a few weeks at that point – I received my miraculous during the Chaos to help prevent more chaos. Me and Chrysaor and Albailier and the others, all flew down together to find the Tarasque, and we arrived just in time to help the Heroes of Paris."
"Killer." Impact looked around them, shaking his head ruefully. He frowned, giving Nabatala a curious look. "Do you know what happened to Chrysaor?" he asked. "He was, like, the hero during the Chaos. But no one seems to have seen him since the Tarasque was defeated." He paused, eyeing Nabatala with a worried expression on his face.
"Everything was really confused during the fight," Nabatala began slowly. Impact stared at her wide-eyed. Finally, she looked away. "I… do know what happened to him," she eventually admitted. "It's not really something I can talk about, though – the Heroes of Paris are keeping that information quiet."
"Was he…"
Nabatala started. "No – nothing like that," she assured Impact quickly. "No; he's absolutely still alive. It's just that 'Chrysaor' isn't is normal superhero identity, and they're worried that if that gets out, it could put a couple of the heroes' identities at risk. Especially since Killer Bee could use that information to hurt a bunch of people."
Impact hummed, nodding in acknowledgment. "I get that. According to la Paonne and Impératrice Pourpre, the Heroes of Paris have been working to keep my identity out of the news since King Monkey and the Owl helped me, for just that reason."
The Owl grimaced under his cowl as Nabatala led the way down the sidewalk, roughly in the direction that the other heroes had gone, though all of them had by now disappeared. Pedestrians moved to either side, giving the three heroes a wide berth; the Owl check each of their faces as they passed, but none matched the description. At the time, finding Sacha throwing things around with his mind had been one of the absolute craziest situations he had ever witnessed… at least since Hawk Moth's defeat. And yet, after watching people attack the weathergirl yesterday – and after seeing the weathergirl transform into the Lancer – to say nothing of all the insanity of last night, was that still the case.
Had all of that really only happened in the last 24 hours?
"After last night…" Impact began before trailing off. He sighed, shaking his head. The collar flickered blue.
The Owl hummed, glancing over at Impact. "Are you sure you still want to wear that? After last night–"
Impact frowned. "Last night was… okay. But what if I lost control here? What if I can't handle it?" The collar lit up brighter. "With everything else happening around here, I think me starting to throw trash around would help!"
The Owl placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you did great last night," he told him. "I don't think I could have handled all of that myself. And there wasn't a single moment that I thought you weren't in control."
Impact quirked an eyebrow at him dubiously. "That's because you're not the one with the tingle in your mind that can literally move mountains!"
"It sounds like you need to trust yourself," Nabatala pointed out, glancing back at him as she turned at the next intersection. "You're not going to get it perfect every time – I still meet with la Paonne every so often to talk about how to best use my miraculous. And if it weren't for sparring with the Owl, I'd be hopeless with my harpoon."
"Hardly 'hopeless'," the Owl objected, giving her a look.
"What matters," Nabatala continued, "is that we use the powers and abilities we have to help other people, even if we aren't really sure what we're doing."
"Heroes are heroes not because they have the power, but because they try to make a difference," the Owl finished, cracking a smile beneath his cowl.
Nabatala nodded hesitantly, giving him a curious look. "That's right."
Impact's shoulders rose and fell, and he let out a breath. "I get all of that," he answered. "But I'm still a little nervous whether the 'difference' I make would be a good one or a bad one."
The Owl hummed. "I'm not worried on that front. But I would prefer not to come face to face with Killer Bee today! Or at least… not if it's just the three of us," he added, glancing over at Nabatala before his eyes flickered back to Impact. It would be okay for Nabatala to fight a miraculous user – she had a miraculous herself. And he had helped M. Damocles to take away Sandy's miraculous… even if he'd hardly done anything during that fight. But how would Impact react to a fight against Killer Bee? He swallowed. It wouldn't do him any good to worry about hypotheticals; M. Damocles and King Monkey always told him that he just needed to trust his teammates. Glancing around them at the apartment buildings lining the street, he furrowed his brows in thought. "So… what now?"
Nabatala shrugged. "From what Ladybug said, they need as many people as they can to track down Killer Bee – Lila Rossi." Her eyes narrowed. "After what she did to Paris trying to escape, she and Cat Noir and Sent-Bee sounded really angry."
The Owl's mouth set in a thin line under his cowl. "Considering that she sent people to attack M. Damocles–"
"She did what?" Nabatala interrupted, her eyes shooting wide open before narrowing in rage. "She didn't."
"She did." Impact's eyes flashed, and his collar flared bright blue. He shifted his neck around and exhaled, and the blue faded. "I was there. They attacked him, and they also attacked me and, um, King Monkey's fiancée." He gritted his teeth. "We fought them off, but it was pretty intense for a few minutes. Or M. Damocles and King Monkey's fiancée fought them off at first. Then the Owl and I watched the outside of the building to make sure they didn't come back."
Nabatala let out a low growl. "But why? Why would Killer Bee send people after them like that? What did we ever do to them? Ladybug was terrified last night that they would try to hurt her family, too."
The Owl blinked. "But they don't know who she is, do they?"
"King Monkey didn't think they knew who he was, either," Impact pointed out, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.
Nabatala groaned, looking down at the ground. "I didn't think about that when I agreed to be a hero…" she admitted. "That they might actually go after my family." She shuddered, and a cloud passed over her face.
The Owl gritted his teeth. "They could have my father," he spat. "But if they even think about hurting my mother…"
Nabatala's eyes widened slightly and darted toward the Owl, but she let out a breath. "Well, no matter what, the sooner we find Killer Bee, the better," she told the other two, pausing at the street corner to wait for the light to change.
"Should we split up to cover more ground?" suggested the Owl, looking down the side street in either direction. Impact raised an eyebrow at them dubiously.
Nabatala hummed and shook her head. "Let's stick together," she told him finally. "If we find her…"
The Owl nodded, watching in his peripheral vision as Impact relaxed slightly. "True." Reluctantly, the three heroes started jogging down the sidewalk, Nabatala clearly holding back to stay with the Owl and Impact. Glancing up, the Owl scanned the rooftops carefully, searching for any sign of Killer Bee. He frowned: at this angle he couldn't see anything up above them. "We could use an eye in the sky," the Owl pointed out, glancing at Nabatala.
She nodded firmly, sprinted ahead of them, straight up to the last building on the block, and took a flying leap, grabbing onto the building's façade and springing off of it to the building next to it, hurtling up onto the roof. Just as the Owl and Impact reached the building, she glanced down and waved before shading her eyes and looking past them along the rooftops. "I see Hato Gozen and Sent-Bee, off to the north and west," she reported over the communicator. "I don't see anything else – wait, Ladybug just swung up into view, near Sent-Bee."
"No sign of Killer Bee?" asked Impact, tensing next to the Owl.
"Not yet."
"Keep us posted," the Owl told her, not breaking stride as he and Impact jogged across the intersection and down the next block, shadowed on the rooftops by Nabatala. For several blocks, the Owl only concentrated on the pounding of his feet, scanning the streets as they passed them, always with Nabatala's shadow moving along the buildings' shadows. Impact jogged to keep up with the Owl, panting heavily as the blocks dragged on.
"Hang on…" Nabatala announced presently.
The Owl paused, looking around cautiously just before reaching the next intersection. "Do you see her?"
"No." Nabatala leaped to the next rooftop and looked down the side street. "It's not Killer Bee. But it looks like… I think it's a drug dealer. A couple of Liberté members seem to be trying to stop them."
The Owl furrowed his brows in thought.
"Should we… keep going?" asked Impact, hesitation in his voice, giving the Owl a curious look.
"That would make sense," the Owl admitted, sighing. "We need to find Killer Bee. But at the same time, we're heroes. We can't just ignore this."
"Already on my way," Nabatala called, sprinting down the length of that building's roof and leaping to the next roof, as the Owl and Impact raced after her on ground level. Traffic had dropped down to almost nothing on this side street, with several cars ahead of them screeching to a stop and turning down the closest side street to avoid the fracas another two blocks away. Ahead of him, the Owl could see a pair of people wearing the red berets of Liberté, trying to fight four tough-looking men. One of the Liberté members stumbled back a pace, holding a hand to his jaw. Two thugs closed in around him, one of them with a collapsible baton in his hand.
Nabatala sprang off the building's roof directly above the group, rotating around in midair as she fell, and landed behind one of the criminals. Before the thug could react, Nabatala's harpoon was off her back and she tripped him, sending him careening to the ground. At the same time, the Owl drew a pair of Owlets from his belt and released them in the same motion, sending them arcing through the air directly around the closest Liberté member and into the two men surrounding him. Finally, pulling off his collar, Impact let out a grunt, and a small shower of pebbles fell off the roof above the altercation, scattering over the group, most of them missing Nabatala and the Liberté members to strike the criminals.
Stopping in front of the dazed and confused drug dealer and his accomplices, the Owl hummed wryly. "I think we got them."