AN: In case there's any confusion, secret identities in the "Mind Games"-verse haven't really been an issue (among the heroes, at least) since "Milady." Criminals or civilians finding out is still a bad thing, but Alya is free to tell her vigilante sister exactly why Rena Rouge wasn't there yet when Anansi crashed the party!
To The Keeper of Worlds: Yeah, Anansi is really good at losing her $#!7… Let's just say you haven't seen anything yet!
"It started on Heroes' Day. You heroes were all so busy trying to stop the horde of Akumatized people that the rest of the city was falling into chaos."
"I remember seeing you on the streets that day," Alya nodded. The two of them were sitting on the same roof edge where Anansi had sat to wait for the police response, their feet dangling over the side. Nora had removed her helmet; it lay behind where they were sitting. "The news footage after the fact was all over your stand at the barricade – very June Rebellion, by the way – helping Ladybug and Cat Noir when the rest of us got Akumatized. You were amazing, bringing together ordinary people to fight back against Hawk Moth, and with no powers, too."
"Thanks, sis," Nora said. She grinned. "Now I know you're Rena Rouge, I suppose I should be telling you how incredible you are. On Heroes' Day you nearly caught Hawk Moth; last summer you actually did. I saw the news report on that time you and Multiplice foiled a bank robbery last month. You've done some good work out there."
"Thanks," Alya told her, blushing slightly.
"But now you have to tell me: where are Mom, Dad, and the twins? Did you just leave them?"
Alya scoffed. "Please, sis, give us a little more credit than that," she retorted. She nodded across the street to where she could just make out Ladybug and Ryoku racing across the rooftops. "They're safe. They're on their way to Le Grand Paris, and as you can see at least two of the other heroes are going to shadow them. Then when they get there they'll literally be under Queen Bee's protection, just a few floors below her penthouse. I wouldn't have left them to meet you if I didn't know our family was safe."
"I'm glad to hear it. You have no idea how scared I was when I saw that lunatic break down the door.
"I really don't have a problem with you heroes as heroes," Nora went on. Alya looked at her in surprise. "I don't. You have done some impressive things, especially stopping Moth Man – no way I could have done that! You have these special abilities and you use them to help so many people. My problem is when people start relying on you for everything. There are only so many of you – sure, more now than even last summer, but Paris is a big city. And just because the Moth is gone doesn't mean the city's safe. So often you heroes arrive too late to do anything. By the time you get to the kidnapping, the victim's in the car and you have to chase them to catch up. By the time you get to the fire, the building's engulfed. Remember that charity fashion show last month? Of course you do; you were there. There were three – no, four! – of you there, and the robbers still nearly got away. When people rely on you for everything, too often it's too little, too late."
Alya snorted. If you only knew that there were actually seven of us at the fashion show… "So what are you doing, then?" Alya asked, trying to keep her voice level and without accusation. "What makes you so different from us?"
"After Heroes' Day I did try doing the same thing you've been doing: patrol the streets by night and stop crimes when I see them," Nora answered. She laughed derisively. "There wasn't much I could do: just one woman in a city of millions, my only superpowers being the ones Mom gave me. Eventually I realized I was going about it all wrong. There was a lot more I could be doing. A few months back I was in a sports bar when I heard a drunk telling his buddy that they should jump a woman who'd had a couple of drinks and was just about to leave, and then rape her. The drunks got up to leave, and I followed. They trailed the woman for about a block, and one picked up a discarded pipe. I attacked them and knocked them out cold, and their target never knew what could have happened."
Nora grinned. "That's when I realized I could do more by finding the criminals and stopping them in their tracks. I started paying more attention to the bookies and loan sharks at my matches and found where they hang out. That hangout led to another hangout, and before I knew it I had a pretty good map of all the dive bars and back alleys and warehouses in Paris where the bad guys hang out. So one thing led to another, and Anansi became a real-life, honest-to-goodness vigilante, stopping the criminals before they could even strike, instead of just another kick boxer."
"So is that how you came to be here tonight?" Alya asked. "You were following that guy and got lucky?"
Nora nodded. "If you want to call that luck… I've been staking out a drug corner downtown for a few weeks now, and your friend showed up looking strung out. He went up to the dealer, but instead of making the sale, the dealer sent him to a car down the block. The car gave him a package that did not look like drugs, and he left. I followed him to Mom and Dad's apartment building, and you know the rest."
Alya felt sick. "Any idea why he came after us? Was it because of me?"
"I don't know," Nora told her, frustration bleeding into her voice. She gripped the eaves of the roof so tight her knuckles turned white. "But I know a couple drug dealers who are going to tell me. Cuz otherwise they're gonna be getting all their meals through a straw for the next year after putting my baby sisters in danger!"
"So this is what you've been up to lately?" Alya asked, raising an eyebrow. "All this time I thought you were just busy with work and that's why I was babysitting the twins all the time!"
"I have been busy with work," Nora replied. She turned to Alya and leaned in conspiratorially. "I've uncovered something big."
"Does it have anything to do with that metal object you took off the junkie tonight?" Ala asked pointedly.
"Nothing gets past you, huh, little sis? You're gunning to be a superhero and an ace reporter!" Nora reached into a pouch on her belt which started to rattle before she pulled out something long and slender.
"What is it?" asked Alya as Nora dropped it into her hand.
"It's a lynchpin. They started appearing a couple months ago, but they've been showing up all over the place lately. I think it's supposed to be a calling card of some sort."
Alya rolled the pin around in her hand, watching it glint in the light from the streetlamps below them. "Do you know anything about it?" she asked, looking back up at Nora.
"Not much," she told her, shaking her head. "I've got a good collection now, though. I picked up some of them from robbers like that junkie tonight. One was dropped by a hit-man who was trying to assassinate some police officer. A couple came from purse snatchers. There was even a money launderer who admitted to receiving one. I stumbled onto of all things a fashion counterfeiting operation that was making knock-offs of a dress your friend with the pigtails designed, and the boss man there dropped a lynchpin as he was running away from me and screaming. None of them could tell me anything about them – not where they came from or what they meant or if there was any real significance. A couple of them had received emails, but the addresses were all anonymous burners. A couple had received phone calls from blocked numbers, but that proved to be a dead end, too."
"You know, we have a lot of resources on our side," Alya informed her. "If you give me what you have, I have a friend who might be able to put a name to those email addresses and phone numbers."
"No way, sis," Nora said adamantly. "This is my investigation, and I need to see it through. I know the places. I know the players. Now I just need to follow them back to the source."
"The 'lynchpin,' if you will?"
"Yeah, I guess that must be what these things mean," Nora agreed. She pulled another one out of the pouch on her belt, twirling it around her fingers contemplatively. "Whoever's behind this definitely has some style. And they're not afraid to let someone else do their dirty work."
"Any idea what they're involved with?"
"That's the thing, sis," Nora replied. "The best I can tell, they're involved with everything. I don't think there's been a single criminal activity in the city in the last few months that didn't tie back to these stupid lynchpins in some way. You know that bank robbery you stopped last month?"
"Yeah…"
"I was actually there. I watched them go in, an instant before you arrived," Nora told her. "I watched you stop them, and then I followed their getaway driver back to the hideout. He was only inside for a matter of moments before I followed him in, but by the time I entered the hideout was completely deserted. And they'd left a lynchpin sitting on the folding table in the middle of the room."
"This – this is huge, sis," Alya said, eyes wide. "You're talking about a massive conspiracy here! You have to let me talk to the other Heroes about this. We have to get the word out!"
"If you mean that blog of yours, there's no way you can put any of this on the Ladyblog!" Nora warned. She suddenly narrowed her eyes at Alya. "You're not going to put me on the Ladyblog, are you?"
Alya laughed. "I definitely have to report on the robbery," she said. She held her and up to forestall the retort she saw Nora opening her mouth to make. "It would be suspicious if I didn't, after it happened at my own apartment while I was there. And that the robbery was stopped by the new vigilante in town – conspiracy theory confirmed! But…" she ran a hand through her hair in mock-embarrassment "I didn't exactly get a good look at the vigilante, and I was hiding behind a table… so I couldn't tell you what the vigilante looks like – unless you want to let me break that story tonight?"
Nora shook her head. "I need to keep as low a profile as I can for now. Thanks, sis." She suddenly stopped and fixed Alya with a suspicious look. "You're the Ladyblogger, and you're Rena Rouge… is the rumor true that you heroes all know each other's identities now?"
"Only partly," Alya answered, grinning. "I know most of them, but I don't know all Ladybug's newest recruits."
"Girl, you are diabolical!" Nora leaned back and laughed. "I was wondering why your identity speculation stories started shifting after last summer. And then you front-paged that conspiracy nut's theory about Ladybug being one of Jagged Stone's backup dancers last month when she was obviously off her rocker. So you've been using the Ladyblog to hide her identity this year, not to discover it!"
Alya shrugged. "What can I say? My girl trusts me, and I would never betray that trust."
"Okay, I'm convinced. But you still can't say anything about the Lynchpin Conspiracy on there," Nora warned her again. "Best case scenario, you get branded a crackpot conspiracy nut; worst case, you actually paint a target on your back and get our whole family killed."
"Fine," Alya told her, "but can I at least talk to Ladybug and Cat Noir? They're literally my best friends in the world; there's no one I trust more with this. Please, let us help you, sis."
"Sorry," Nora responded seriously. "I can't have a whole bunch of you colorful heroes going around looking all suspicious and getting in my way while I'm trying to find clues to this Lynchpin character. But… if I need help, I'll give you a call."
The fashion show is a reference to "Tit for Tat," when Queen Bee, Impératrice Pourpre (Sabrina as the new Butterfly Miraculous holder), and the Owl were there with Jagged Stone as "celebrity judges" (to go with the show's "Heroes of Paris" theme). Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Adrien were also there as civilians but unable to intervene. The sequel to this story (which should be ready to publish as soon as this one is done next week) will also connect to "Tit for Tat," so I'd encourage going back to read that story if you haven't.