To Rose Tiger: Welcome back (unless you've just been reading without reviewing)! Lila messing things up is a distinct possibility! Of course, Lila in this universe is a little more manipulative and cleverer than you'd think…

To armadas: I'm glad not everyone was guessing it; I try not to make things too obvious! We will get to see at least some of how Lila treats Pollen.

To Butterfly: I… enjoyed your mental breakdown a little too much! Lila might be a little in over her head here…

To StarDaPanda225: Pollen has most definitely turned giving 100% correct yet 100% useless answers to every single question into an art form! But her loyalty is to the other Kwamis first, and to a holder second.

Chloe closed her eyes and leaned back, enjoying the sensation of fingers kneading through her scalp. Honestly, it had been so long since she'd gotten the full salon treatment, she'd forgotten just how much she enjoyed it. But she'd spent half the summer running around Africa and assuring the African Miraculous Council that nothing really had to change now that they were all friends. And no sooner had they accepted that and planned a meeting for the team leaders in Paris than Master Fu had turned up again and Chloe had had to throw all those plans out the window and start over because apparently there was another temple in Australia to include in the discussion! So Chloe had spent a week in Australia working with Fu's contact there to plan a different meeting in a different hemisphere. And then, while Chloe was taking a couple days to recover, Alya and Max had gone and almost started an alien invasion! Marinette had gone on the warpath, and of course Chloe had to be the one to talk her down and help them convince the Australian Guardians' Council to let them build an actual spaceport on their island.

And when the salon attendant had commented on the bags under her eyes, she'd just said, "School's starting soon."

"You're stewing," Sabrina observed, pulling Chloe out of her reverie.

She opened her eyes to find Sabrina already finished with her hair and holding out one hand to the attendant who was painting her nails. Chloe gave her a half-hearted glare. "I'll see if I can think to myself more quietly."

Sabrina smirked. "You're just jealous because I didn't have two months' worth of sand under my fingernails to scrape out!"

"That's definitely part of it." Chloe rolled her eyes. "Though I don't remember the last time I got so much sun!"

"Sand?" wondered the woman washing Chloe's hair.

Crap. Normally I wouldn't be a problem to just say "hero business," but they were still trying to keep the international temples a secret, so… "My… cousin…'s daughter…'s friend. I was watching her over the summer."

Sabrina gave her a dubious look and stifled a giggle with her free hand. Chloe narrowed her eyes at her, and Sabrina arched an eyebrow back.

A phone beeped, and the girl working on Chloe's nails flushed. "I'm so sorry about that, Mlle," she apologized.

Chloe shrugged and looked away, only to see Sabrina furrowing her brows slightly. She caught Sabrina's eye, and she nodded toward the girl, arching an eyebrow meaningfully. "No, it's okay," Chloe reassured the girl. "Um… what's happening?"

Her lower lip trembled. "That's the thing, I…" She trailed off for a long moment before the words spilled out. "My little brother was out playing the other day when these men rolled up and started shooting at the guys sitting on our apartment building's steps! No one was hurt, but Jean was really scared – so now he doesn't like staying home alone anymore; he's afraid they'll come back."

Chloe's eyebrows shot up. So that's what Sabrina sensed. "Where do you live?" she asked.

"Just a couple blocks from Église Sainte-Marie des Batignolles. This wasn't the first time, either. There have been a few in the area over the last few weeks. And last week we had the power go out for two days!"

Sabrina had a troubled look on her face. "My dad mentioned an increase in violence around that area," she commented. "But he said the police were looking into it."

"Not fast enough."

Chloe hummed. "What about the Heroes of Paris?" she asked.

The girl looked up at Chloe as though seeing her for the first time. "Oh! Of course! Queen Bee!" She froze. "I mean…"

Chloe smirked. "No, no; feel free to fangirl all you want. I'll even sign an autograph when my nails are dry!"

"Sorry. It's just… we've seen more heroes lately, and that's good, but whenever the heroes leave, the violence comes back."

Chloe furrowed her brows. "I'll see what I can do."

Thirty minutes later, Chloe and Sabrina finally collected their bags of shopping and left the salon. Chloe blew on her fingers to make sure the polish was dry before running her fingers through her hair. "I finally feel human," she observed, flicking her ponytail to one side.

"It has been a while since we did this," Sabrina agreed, nodding.

"So tell me about this situation," Chloe instructed, fixing her with a look. "What does your dad know about it?"

Sabrina scoffed. "The police know less than we do," she replied, arching an eyebrow. "Crime is down across almost the entire city since we cut Lynchpin's legs out from under him with the smuggling. The one exception is the 17th arrondissement."

"That's the one organization Lynchpin never managed to take over, right?" Chloe asked. "Who was the boss again?"

"Andretti," answered Sabrina unhappily. "They have ties to the Sicilian mafia, and as far as Anansi's been able to tell, that's the only thing that kept Lynchpin at bay for so long."

Chloe groaned. "But now that we've taken out Lynchpin's smuggling operation, he needs a new income source."

"And that's where all that violence comes in," Sabrina finished.

"I thought the routine patrolling was supposed to prevent more of that violence," objected Chloe.

Sabrina shrugged. "We can't be everywhere."

"Have you sensed anything more? The Peacock is more sensitive, after all."

Sabrina shook her head. "Nothing useful. Max and I walked through the arrondissement together after Emilie and I traded yesterday, but I didn't pick up anything to get us any closer to a solution."

Chloe frowned as they walked into the food court and got in line to order their food. The salon had taken a little longer than she had expected; it was almost one in the afternoon now, and her breakfast was a distant memory. The food court had started to thin out after the early lunchtime rush, at least; Chloe could pick out a handful of their lycée classmates sitting around a packed table on the far side of the room. After Sabrina picked up the tray with their food, the two girls made their way to an empty table. Chloe dropped her half-dozen bags on the floor by her chair and collapsed into it. The conversations around them blended together into a dim roar of background noise, to the point that none of it really registered for Chloe. After how busy the summer had been, Chloe was almost glad that school would be starting in a couple days.

Almost.

"So… are you sure you've got everything now, Chlo?" Sabrina asked, passing Chloe her salad and unwrapping her own sandwich.

Chloe arched an eyebrow and scoffed. "Of course not! You've known me how long, girl?" she asked rhetorically, swiping her soda. "I thought by now we had the routine down!"

Sabrina giggled. "Every year you buy a new wardrobe," she acknowledged. "Even though it almost always looks almost exactly the same." Chloe gave her a disbelieving look, which Sabrina returned. "Just because I never say anything doesn't mean I don't pay attention. But I get it: it's your 'signature style.' And then this year suddenly it all has to be different."

"Considering how much time I spent in the sun, the yellow is just all wrong!" Chloe made a face.

"Still, the tan agrees with you," Sabrina commented.

"It does, doesn't it?" Chloe flipped her hair. "But after all of that, if I never see sand again it'll be too soon!"

"Well, with classes starting soon, there's not much chance of that," Sabrina observed, smirking.

"It's a good thing our schedules line up for a few of our classes," Chloe noted. "School would be so boring otherwise!"

Sabrina stifled a laugh. "You're just glad I'll be able to help you with your homework," she teased.

Chloe frowned on noticing how Sabrina's lips turned down. "Still disappointed you won't be seeing your boyfriend all the time at school?" she asked. Sabrina flushed. "It's not like you won't ever see him," she consoled her. "And that might actually be a good thing: you don't want people thinking you're practically joined at the hip like some people I could mention…"

Sabrina snorted and nodded ruefully. "At least we have Calculus together." She dropped a few grapes from her fruit salad into her purse for Duusu. Chloe watched quietly, lost in thought. Sabrina put a hand on Chloe's arm, drawing her attention. "I know you still miss her."

"It's not exactly easy seeing that Killer Bee-tch running around," Chloe admitted. "I keep thinking about what Pollen must be going through with her. Does she treat her right?"

Sabrina let out a sigh and shrugged. "I don't know. But now that she's showing her face more, she is going to slip up, and we're going to stop her and rescue Pollen."

"It's just not fair," Chloe complained, smacking her fist on the table.

Sabrina nodded sympathetically. She opened her mouth to respond, but cocked her head in confusion. Chloe finally tuned in to the conversation at the table next to theirs.

"Did you see the news about the new Bee hero?" someone had asked. Chloe recognized her as a girl in their year who'd gone to François Dupont, shorter with light blonde hair in a bob cut, leaning against a boy she didn't recognize who had his arm around her. "TVi got a picture of her last night!"

"There were some rumors about her on the Ladyblog a while back, weren't there?" asked Nathaniel, a dubious look in his eyes. "Didn't it say there might be a new evil Bee out there?"

Lila scoffed. "You can't believe everything you read on the Ladyblog," she told them.

"I don't know about that," Marc objected, frowning. "The Ladyblog's always been a pretty reliable source for news on the Heroes of Paris."

"It's so sweet of you to be so loyal to Alya since she promotes your comic books," Lila replied dismissively, "and sure, a lot of times it's correct. But not in this case. After all, how could Ladybug have allowed someone bad to get their hands on the Bee Miraculous?"

The first girl, Nadine, gave Lila a look of realization. "That's right!" she squealed excitedly. "Ladybug's your best friend, isn't she? So did she tell you who the new Bee is, or why there's a new one?"

Lila blushed delicately and replied, "I… really shouldn't say. It's not my place to share what happened between Chloe and Ladybug."

Aurore's eyes widened. "Something happened with Ladybug and Chloe?"

Lila gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that! Ladybug will be so disappointed – and when she trusted me, too!"

Chloe felt her blood starting to boil and clenched her hands into tight fists on the table, snapping her plastic fork in half.

"How can there be a problem between Chloe and Ladybug?" asked Alix, eyeing Lila suspiciously. "Didn't you see her on Heroes' Day? Wasn't that her running around with the Heroes a while back on patrols?"

Lila gave Alix a patronizing look. "Then why didn't she have a miraculous? And where was she all summer? When's the last time anyone has seen Queen Bee? Who's to say what could have happened between Ladybug and Chloe in all that time? And why else would Ladybug have given the Bee Miraculous to someone else?"

Chloe would have shot out of her chair in a hot rage if Sabrina hadn't restrained her, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her back down into the chair. "Don't engage, Chlo," Sabrina muttered, her eyes not leaving Lila's face. "You know she's not worth it…"

Chloe released the tension in her fists marginally, exhaling slowly. Through narrowed eyes she watched Lila look around the table at their classmates, her eyes resting on Alix a little longer than the others. Lila noticed Chloe's eyes on her and gave a tiny smirk. Chloe glared back at her, her jaw set harshly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nathaniel's gaze drift to her. He was fidgeting with his thumb ring, twisting it around his finger. Chloe gave him a look, and he immediately stopped, his hands dropping into his lap. Chloe attacking Lila and forcing Geber to reveal his identity and intervene in the middle of a crowded mall food court was the last thing either of them needed.

Ridiculous.

If only someone had gotten a clear picture of Killer Bee any of the times she had fought the Heroes between Heroes' Day and now. But the Champs de Mars had been entirely deserted by the time Sent-Bee and Sk8r Girl arrived to stop Amun and found Killer Bee waiting for them – the only picture Alya had received had been of Amun hovering beside the Eiffel Tower and playing with his stupid light constructs. All of the Heroes' interdiction efforts along the Seine had happened under a cloud of secrecy in order to hide their methods and the accuracy of their raids – meaning that none of the regular press had been present, and the media had received little more than a couple sentences of information from the Paris Police after each successful raid. Max had captured images and video from his drones that showed Killer Bee and the rest of the Lynchpin-ions, but he, Marinette, and Alya had all decided it was too risky for them to publish any of it on the Ladyblog. What if someone realized where they came from? What if that gave away how close of a relationship Alya actually had with the Heroes of Paris? Alya was already in some danger as the Heroes' preferred media contact; this would only paint a larger target on her back.

Chloe understood the others' reasoning. But at the moment she really wished they could have made an official statement about Killer Bee – if for no other reason than to keep Lie-la from dragging her reputation through the mud, pretending that she and Ladybug were fighting!

Sabrina squeezed Chloe's shoulder sympathetically, and she exhaled slowly, releasing yet more of her built-up tension. Attacking Lie-la wouldn't be helpful, but it would definitely be cathartic.