a/n: This story was written before Oni-Chan aired so is kind of an alternate "what would happen if Lila got targeted by a supervillain" story.

Lila perked up as she spotted an akuma fluttering down through the hallway, no doubt headed straight for some upset student in the school. It flapped and fluttered, forging forward in a straight line that set it apart from any normal butterfly, if the dark aura didn't already do that. This was a butterfly on a mission.

She wasn't going to let it get to its target. Whoever it had been destined for wouldn't appreciate the opportunity like she did.

Glancing around and finding the hallways empty, Lila practically jogged towards the akuma, pulling her necklace off as she did. Once she was close enough, she swung it out. It made contact and the akuma was sucked inside, just like it had been every time before.

It had been such a great discovery when she figured out that she didn't need to be upset to pull an akuma in. Hawkmoth had been using negative emotions because it was easy- people who were angry or upset wanted to be able to change their situation, wanted the power to be able to change their situation- but all she really needed was to want the butterfly. To want the power that came with it.

She wanted that power. She craved that power.

There was a reason that Lila Rossi was the most frequently akumatized person in Paris, after all, and it wasn't because she was emotional.

"Volpina. Will you-"

"Yes, Hawkmoth!" Lila exclaimed at once. "I accept!"

"Perhaps a different akuma form would be better this time...?"

Lila shook her head. No, she had tried having a different form before, and it hadn't gone well. She preferred the versatility of her original akuma form. "The same one. I have a plan this time."

"May I ask what the plan is?"

She couldn't keep the smirk off of her lips. It was a genius plan, one that she had spent nights and nights planning. "Just watch and see."

"Very well."

The familiar rush of power rushed over her, and Volpina grinned as the weight of her flute appeared in her hand. She tossed it into the air and caught it, head already dancing with visions of what she could do this time. As Lila, she had been brainstorming every night about how she could get Ladybug to trip up the next time she was akumatized. She had come up with some new ideas, and this time?

This time, she would win. Hawkmoth would get his dumb precious Miraculous, and she would get her revenge on Ladybug at last. That little self-righteous brat would find out what happened when she stuck her nose where it didn't belong.

None of the other famous people that she had lied about had ever felt the need to some call Lila out for it. It wasn't any of their business, it didn't affect them, and really, why should they care? Besides, Lila always got what she wanted, no matter how she had to get it- lies, bribes, a few well-placed crocodile tears, threats, blackmail. To have the subject of one of her lies come to disprove it within the first day of Lila arriving at a new school...

Well. She wouldn't stand for it. And no matter how many akumatizations it took, she would win.

Volpina: Master of Illusion and trickery and, hopefully, tactical planning.

Well. She shouldn't even say hopefully, really. Because this time, Volpina had a foolproof plan.

Front-on attacks never turned out well for her. When Ladybug and Chat Noir knew that she was out, they weren't even a small bit deterred by her illusions anymore. So she had to work behind the scenes, tugging the strings of her illusions to lead the superheroes straight into a trap.

The plan: invent an akuma, one who had powers of vanishing from sight and reappearing elsewhere. After leading the superheroes on a merry chase across Paris, Volpina would surround herself with an illusion to make herself look like Rena Rouge and join the superheroes, kindly offering an extra hand. Once Ladybug and Chat Noir had their guard down, she would strike.

Well. Maybe she would wait until she had them separated. No matter how fast she went, Volpina was pretty certain that the element of surprise wouldn't last for long enough to let her get both Ladybug's earrings and Chat Noir's ring. She would go for an earring first, she thought, and take Ladybug out, and then deal with Chat Noir.

Hopefully Hawkmoth was right about Ladybug needing both earrings to stay transformed.

So far, so good. Her plan was running along like clockwork, with her illusion-akuma flickering into existence for long enough for Ladybug and Chat Noir to find and chase it, then vanishing before either of them could catch it. Volpina herself hid herself behind an illusion, watching the chase.

The last time had cut it too close. If Chat Noir's baton had hit her akuma and it exploded in orange smoke, the game would be up.

Originally, Volpina had wanted to give her "akuma" more powers, causing a lot more destruction and panic. But more illusions gave more opportunities for something to disrupt them and give her away, so she had to content herself with a weak but annoying akuma, one that would take a huge chunk out of Ladybug and Chat Noir's day.

"They're getting frustrated, Volpina," Hawkmoth told her. "And they've retreated to plan. Whatever you're planning, now might be a good time to move ahead."

"Good." Volpina stood up, playing a short tune. Her disguise settled over her, and she made a face at it. She liked her outfit much better than Rena Rouge's, but sacrifices had to be made if she wanted to win. "Very good. I'm going in."

With that, she started off over the rooftops. There were some cheers from the civilians in the streets below as "Rena Rouge" passed overhead, and Lila forced herself to smile and wave.

They weren't the ones that she had to fool, but she had to play the part properly.

It didn't take long for her to find her targets: Ladybug and Chat Noir. They looked up in surprise as she landed, and though she wanted to scowl, Volpina beamed at them.

"Hey, you guys!" she chirped, doing her best to sound like Rena Rouge. She had spent ages practicing in her room, watching the same few news clips over and over until she had the voice down. "I saw the akuma on TV and it seemed like you guys might need a hand to wrap this fight up fast!"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a look, something wordless passing between them too fast for Volpina to decipher. Then they turned back to her with twin smiles, nodding at her.

"That sounds good," Chat Noir agreed. "This akuma is really, really slippery. We've almost caught it a few times, only for it to phase away at the last minute."

"Well, with three of us, it should be easy to catch it," Volpina said cheerfully, barely able to hide her glee at how easy it had been to fool the famous superheroes of Paris. They were so dumb, honestly. She almost suggested that the group split up right away, but thought better of it at last minute. Volpina had learned during her first akumatization that Ladybug didn't appreciate other people trying to take charge of the group, so it was better to wait for Ladybug to suggest the obvious. "What's the plan?"

"Well, right now, we're waiting for the akuma to show itself again," Ladybug told her. "And we're using the akuma hashtag on Twitter to find it, so that we don't have to do all of the searching ourselves."

Volpina nodded, quickly checking in on her illusion-akuma. It was on the far side of Paris, and she let it expand back into full size. "That's smart."

"So we can catch up in the meantime," Ladybug said cheerfully, and Volpina's friendly expression nearly faltered for a moment. Uh-oh. This wasn't in her plan! But she recovered quickly. She could manage this. "How was your vacation in Martinique?"

...well. Okay. Ladybug was making this easy for her, practically feeding her a lead. So Volpina spun a story, as she did best.

"Oh, it was lovely!" Volpina gushed, beaming. "I spent some time on the beaches, of course. I couldn't go and miss that."

Ladybug nodded. "Of course! I wish I could go to the beach. Did you do any crimefighting there?"

Volpina tittered. "Oh, you know me! Just a little. I was on vacation, of course, but there were a few robberies nearby that I simply had to stop."

"We wouldn't expect anything less," Chat Noir chimed in. There was a beep from his baton and he hastily looked down at it. "Akuma spotted by the Louvre! C'mon, let's head over and get a better visual."

They all straightened, Ladybug moving to take the lead and Volpina falling in behind her. She could barely believe how smoothly this was going. The superheroes hadn't looked suspicious for a single second! It was taking every fiber of her willpower for her not to smirk in triumph.

And then everything changed in a heartbeat.

Dark metal flashed through the corner of her vision hardly a moment before Chat Noir's baton made contact with her shoulder, dissolving her illusion disguise in a puff of orange smoke and making her knees buckle under her. She yelped- she had been discovered? How had she been discovered?- and immediately spun to flee, but Ladybug's yo-yo had already pinned her arms down to her side. Snarling, Volpina tried to break free, but it was useless. Ladybug yanked the fake necklace off of Volpina's neck, grinding it to dust under her foot

"Idiot!" Hawkmoth scolded over the shattering connection. "Ladybug gives out the Miraculous to the temporary heroes each time! You should have asked me, I would have told you that!"

Volpina wanted to ask how Hawkmoth knew that, but their connection was gone and her powers were swept away in a whirl of those stupid sparkling ladybugs. Lila glanced up, and was met with the judging stares of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Next time. The next time for sure she would win.

Most people could not claim to have any sort of connection with a supervillain. Most people would probably not want a connection. But Lila found it useful. Hawkmoth wanted something, and she wanted something. She could help him with what he wanted, and he could help her.

After all, there was no other way that she could get the superpowers that would put her on Ladybug's level.

Of course, she couldn't get her way every time that she got akumatized. After her failed attempt to impersonate Rena Rouge, Volpina was sidelined for a bit, and Lila's next two transformations were both different akumas with different powers. Neither were any more successful than Volpina or Chameleon.

Still, Hawkmoth knew that she was there, and if he needed Volpina's powers again, she was more than willing to step up. They were allies.

And then an akuma appeared that was targeting her, and Lila was furious.

"Don't you know who I am?" she snapped, in case Hawkmoth somehow wasn't paying enough attention to notice that he had sent an akuma after his ally, thank-you-very-much, but the words didn't seem to make a single difference.

"Do I know who you are?" the akuma- who cared what their name was, it was stupid anyway- asked, a taunting tone to their voice. "Yes, Lila Rossi, I know who you are. And I know what you are- a dirty, thieving liar!"

"Ask Hawkmoth, then!" Lila shot back, hoping that there was no one in earshot. "Ask him what he thinks of you attacking me?"

The answer, evidently, was that Hawkmoth didn't care. He didn't care that he was endangering his most frequent and most willing akuma. He didn't care.

This. Meant. War.

Hawkmoth was going to find out the hard way that Lila Rossi did not get go of grudges. She never forgot a wrong. And she was going to do whatever she could to get back at him.

But she wasn't going to partner herself with Ladybug to do that. No, Ladybug was still going down, too. Lila was going to take both of their Miraculous, and then Chat Noir's, too, just because he was Ladybug's partner and defender.

It was going to be hard. But Lila could do it.

And she was going to start with that backstabber Hawkmoth.

Lila spent the remainder of the school year with one focus and one focus only: research. And not her normal research, figuring out what famous people would most impress the people around her. No, this was research about Hawkmoth.

It wasn't hard to find a list of all of the known akumatized villains- despite the fact that it was undoubtedly a fangirl gossip blog, the Ladyblog did at least have a easy-to-find complete list of all of the akumas (with the sole exception, it noted, of some of the new akumas on Heroes Day). With a little bit of work (aka visiting all of the links that the Ladyblog had for each of the akumas), Lila found approximate locations- or approximate presumed locations- of where all of the akumatizations had taken place, and she plotted it on the Paris map that she had pinned to one wall. They were fairly tightly clustered, actually, and made a vaguely circular shape, if she ignored the outliers.

So she had her area to stake out. Once school let out for the summer, she could dedicate her every waking hour to tracking down and destroying the supervillain traitor.

Day 1

It wasn't hard to get out of the house without questions. Lila had told her mom that she was spending a bunch of time with her friends at school, and she had told the other students that she would be spending much of the summer abroad, of course. Both parties had accepted it without question.

As soon as she was out of the apartment, Lila tied her hair up- there was no point in giving herself away with her distinctive hairstyle- and then she hid her hair and face under a hat and sunglasses before heading out onto the street, following a predetermined path (designed, of course, to avoid going past any of her classmates' homes or frequent haunts- not that they would be up at this time anyway, but it didn't hurt to be careful) to the building that Lila had picked out to be her starting point. Then she hauled herself up onto the fire escape and climbed.

And climbed, and climbed, and climbed. The benefit of such a tall building meant that she would have a fantastic vantage point.

By the time Lila reached the top and carefully scoped the place out for security cameras (there were two that she would have to avoid, but that would be easy enough), it was hot and Lila was sticky with sweat. She couldn't let it distract her, though- she wouldn't let it distract her- and so she took a hearty swig from one of the water bottles that she had packed before settling down with the pair of binoculars that her father had once bought her.

And then she started searching.

Narrowed eyes scanned the skyline, looking for any akumas, and irritated fingers refreshed her news feed every so often, hoping that she hadn't missed seeing an akuma on her very first day out. She hadn't, and so Lila returned her gaze to the city, searching, searching, searching, searching.

Sweat ran down her brow and her eyes stung from the sweat, the strain of looking through her binoculars for so long, and the glare of the sun on the city buildings. Still, Lila refused to give up.

Hawkmoth had wronged her, and she would get her revenge.

Lunch passed by in a miserable haze of warmed water and a hastily thrown-together sandwich, and then Lila returned to her post. Another two hours passed, and then- and then!- she got lucky. A dark flutter caught her eye, and Lila focused her attention on it. A corrupted butterfly was headed over the rooftops, making a beeline for whoever had caught Hawkmoth's attention this time. Lila tracked its path for a few seconds, then focused her attention on where it had come from.

So. Hawkmoth's lair was in that direction, unless he was smart enough to move from one place to another between attacks. Somehow, Lila doubted that that was the case. If he were that smart, he would have won already.

So she could move over to the building that she had first spotted the akuma by the next day. It wasn't as high as her current building, but any progress was good progress.

With the akuma spotted, Lila could relax. She moved down into the shade- to wait until she could go home. There would be too many people in the building for her to risk going down now.

Day One had been a success.

Day Two

Getting up onto this fire escape had been harder. It required a bit of creative stacking with the garbage bags in back of the building- and hadn't that been an unpleasant experience?- before Lila could haul herself up. Then she had had to watch her step the entire way up to make sure that she didn't step on any of the particularly rusted portions of the steps.

Lila had to hope that she would be successful at finding an akuma today, too. She really didn't want to have to do this again. This building was awful.

And then her only akuma sighting all day was when Ladybug's purified butterfly went fluttering overhead early in the day. Lila cursed and slumped against the rooftop.

Sure, she had expected that there might be a few days when an akuma went in a different direction, but did it have to happen already?

Lila was serving herself a big bowl of ice cream once she got off of this god-forsaken building.

Day Five

Trying to track down Hawkmoth's lair, Lila was finding, was easier said than done. It had taken three tries to get off of her second building, and she had only really been able to move about half a block.

And now it was threatening to rain. Ugh.

Lila had to admit that at least the cloud cover meant that it was easier to look through her binoculars for hours on end. The glare of the sun off of the Paris buildings was gone, and she could scan up and down the rows of buildings easily. But the ease-ability of scanning didn't make a single whit of difference when Hawkmoth wasn't sending any akuma out.

And then it started to rain. The first sprinkles had Lila scrambling for her umbrella- she was going to be up here all day, she couldn't afford to get wet- and then the skies opened.

She wouldn't be able to see any akuma in all of this mess. Lila huffed, hoping that maybe the rain would clear up and then Hawkmoth would send the akuma out. Then she could be one step closer, reaping the rewards for being out in all of this mess.

The screams that started up mid-rainstorm ended that hope pretty quickly.

"Ugh, another day wasted," Lila complained, glaring at the growing puddles around her. Who had designed this rooftop? They had done an awful job. Lila was willing to bet that the top floor had to deal with leaks all the time. "Again."

If she were a lesser person, Lila would have given up then and there. But no one double-crossed her without living to regret it, and supervillains would be no different.

Day 7

Another day, another failure. This time, Hawkmoth had gone the entire day without akumatizing anyone. It meant that Lila had spent the entire day waiting for nothing.

Still, the day hadn't been entirely wasted. Lila had spent the time planning.

Once she found out who Hawkmoth was, then she still had to take him down before her revenge would be properly complete. She wouldn't be able to do it without magic powers, that was for sure, but Lila refused to be akumatized again just to try. She could recognize that even attempting to go after Hawkmoth while akumatized would just result in him pulling his powers back- he could do that, she had seen it- and then she would be in trouble. No, she needed a Miraculous.

That didn't leave her with many options. She could try to take Ladybug or Chat Noir's Miraculous, but the only way that would be even remotely possible would be if she were akumatized, which...nope. She could try to figure out where Ladybug got the extra Miraculous from, but that would require way too much luck to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe she could try getting the Miraculous from one of the less experienced Miraculous holders but again...how?

That left her with one option. Steal the Miraculous from the one extra team member who was dumb enough to out herself to the whole of Paris. There would be very little room for error- if Ladybug and Chat Noir were in the area, they might be able to grab Lila before she could transform- but it was her best shot. Her only shot.

At least she should have plenty of time to pull that off.

Day 10

Lila was starting to wonder if Hawkmoth was purposefully sending akumas away from her. It seemed like she only spotted the akumas every few days, which meant that the rest of the time she spent baking away on too-hot tar rooftops with the bright sun beating down on her.

Of course, if she tried going around to another side of Hawkmoth's lair...well, there would be no guarantee that she was on the right track, would there? So she stayed where she was.

She would have tried to enlist some help- the Ladyblogger probably could have been roped into the stakeouts without much effort at all, and maybe some of her other classmates, too- but the more people she enlisted, the less control she would have over the information they learned once she found Hawkmoth's lair. The Ladyblogger would no doubt insist on running right to the superheroes with the information, and no doubt they would then get all the glory instead of Lila.

Besides, at this point, her classmates all thought that she was sunbathing on the beach off of the coast of Florida. She couldn't backtrack on that now even if she wanted to, not unless she wanted to deal with a whole boatload of questions.

The day dragged on, and still Lila never left the rooftop. With every passing hour, she mentally added another slew of punches to the beating that she would give Hawkmoth once she found his stupid, backstabbing self. The only thing that lifted her spirits was the spotting of another butterfly late in the afternoon.

No matter how little it was, at least she was making progress.

Day 20

Lila hadn't thought that it would take this long. She had thought that it would be a week of stakeouts- two, tops- and then she would have her target. Then she would have to steal a Miraculous and go in and get her vengeance.

She was getting closer. At least she could say that much. But it wasn't fast enough.

But Lila Rossi was no quitter. Hawkmoth had made her bake (or drown, or practically get blown off of the top of the building) for twenty days now, and he was going to pay.

It was unfortunate that no one would find out who was responsible for Hawkmoth's defeat, really. She would gladly bask in that glory. But it would require letting her classmates know that she actually had been in Paris for the summer, which- well, Lila had already decided that that was a no. Being publicly involved and becoming famous would mean that her entire life would be put under a lens, too, and... well, she preferred to not be too closely examined, because her stories wouldn't hold up. And probably worst of all for her image, going would mean that all of Paris would know that she had stolen a Miraculous. She wouldn't be able to take Ladybug down.

There were enough people who hero-worshiped Ladybug that that would pose a problem for her.

Of course, Lila mused as she scanned the horizon again, she could claim to be an inside source. Everyone would eat up the scoop she served. Now, how best to frame it...?

Then it hit her, a stroke of inspiration. Lila could say that the person who took the Bee was a keeper of the Miraculous, or at least had handed them out. They had noticed that Ladybug and Chat Noir were making no attempts at making any progress towards taking Hawkmoth down in order to serve their own purposes- getting famous as heroes- so she had to take things into her own hands. It had taken weeks- she would mention the suffering that she had had to do, unprotected by any Miraculous since Ladybug and Chat Noir had asked for all that she had- but she found Hawkmoth and defeated him, then reclaimed the other two Miraculous, but not without a fight. Ladybug and Chat Noir had seemed such promising candidates at the start, but alas, the fame went to their heads and they didn't want to give up the source of that fame.

Some might question it, but by then there would be no verifiable Ladybug or Chat Noir to dispute the claims. And the new Bee would come in to back up Lila's story, and it wouldn't be long before Ladybug and Chat Noir's legacy was thoroughly ground into the mud.

Lila was so gleeful about her idea that she forgot to be careful on her way back home at the end of the day. As she passed a block of apartment buildings, she heard her name being called out and she froze.

No. No, this couldn't be happening. She couldn't be discovered now!

Alya was jogging towards her, and Lila realized now where she was- outside of Alya's apartment building. Her classmate had apparently been with her family, heading out on some outing.

Lila should have been more careful. She knew that she had to avoid certain areas, and- oh, she didn't even have her sunglasses on! No wonder Alya had noticed her.

"I knew I recognized you!" Alya was saying gleefully. "I would give you a hug, but I'm all sweaty and gross. I thought you were out of the city for the summer!"

"I am," Lila said hastily as an idea came to mind. She deserved a short break, after all. "But my mom and I came back to Paris for a couple days before we head off to London to spend some time with the royal family. We had to wash everything and repack, of course, because the weather isn't quite the same and we wouldn't want to freeze with all of the rain in London."

"But you didn't say a thing about that!"

"Well, we didn't know for sure when we would be back, of course," Lila said, pasting on her sunniest smile. "And by the time I knew, well, I was sure that everybody would already have plans and I didn't want to disrupt anything for anyone- I didn't want to be an inconvenience-"

"Oh, Lila, you're far too thoughtful," Alya chided fondly. "It's no inconvenience for us to add one more person to our outings for a couple days! I'll text you our plans- how long are you going to be here for?"

Lila gave it a moment of thought. She deserved a break, sure, but she also had to get this whole Hawkmoth thing dealt with before the end of the summer, unless she wanted to risk claiming that she was traveling again. Which left her with... "Two more days, and then I'm off again."

"Oh, great! Our class- well, except for Chloe, because she's on vacation- is getting together tomorrow for a big picnic in the park. Everyone is going to be so excited to see you!"

"What should I bring?" Lila worried, pasting a concerned look on her face. "I mean, I don't exactly have a lot of time to prepare or anything-"

Alya cut her off again with a firm shake of her head. "Just bring yourself! And a plate and fork to eat off of. You'll be there, right?"

Lila thought about the rooftop she had spent the entire day on, and the way that it had been so hot that her entire shirt was soaked with sweat by the middle of the morning. She had eaten a stale sandwich with warm water.

"Yeah," she told Alya. "I'll be there."

Day 21

For once, Lila slept in. Once she got up, she divided her hair into her old hairstyle- and kept it that was as she left the apartment.

It felt nice. Still, she couldn't resist glancing up at the rooftops out of habit, looking for any akumas. There weren't any, of course- she wasn't particularly near Hawkmoth's lair right now- but it was habit by now. That, and looking for routes up to the rooftops on buildings.

Once she got to the park, Lila was greeted by several excited classmates. She flashed a smile at them and immediately dove into her prepared stories, telling them that she had spent time with several American celebrities at the beach. She had a captive audience, and Lila was thrilled. She was in her zone, absolutely thriving.

And then a voice cut off the end of Lila's story.

"That sounds fake."

"Super fake," a second voice chimed in, and Lila whipped around to face the dual naysayers. She blinked when she came face-to-face with a pair of identical- and identically doubtful- faces.

Aha. There was a reason why she had always hated little kids.

"It's all true!" Alya told the twins, and it took a second for Lila to realize that oh, drat, her sisters. "Lila's parents are diplomats and she gets to meet super famous people all the time! She's met Jagged Stone-"

"So? So did you. So did Mom."

"And Prince Ali-"

"So did Mom. She taught him how to cook!"

"And-"

The girls yawned in scary unison. "Who cares?"

"I'm so sorry about them," Alya said quickly as her sisters trotted off. "They're not old enough to understand."

Lila hoped that her smile wasn't too stiff. "Right, right, of course."

Alix and Kim arrived, clearly bickering over something, and Lila welcomed the interruption. It took the spotlight off of her for a moment, though it didn't stay off for long. People wanted to hear about what she had done and who she had met, of course, and then there were questions about where she would go next. Lila managed it all with a smile, though she was starting to feel a bit tired.

She had forgotten how much work it was to remember all of her stories and keep them straight. She had to be on the ball all the time, not slacking off for a single second. An hour in, she thought that she might be able to sit back and enjoy the day when another reminder of why she couldn't slip up at all caught her attention.

Adrien and Marinette, hanging back at the fringes of the group. Neither of them looked particularly impressed by her presence.

All at once, Lila remembered that oh, yes- her revenge list didn't just include supervillains and superheroes. Adrien and Marinette had both tried to point out her lies, with Marinette's attempts being much more direct than Adrien's. Once she got the Butterfly, she'd try to give herself Volpina's powers again to create illusions that would discredit them to the class and to all of Paris forever.

Was it too much? She didn't think so.

There was no need to disrupt her lies. No need to make her life harder. And everyone who did...

Well, they would pay.

Day 27

The relaxation from her days off didn't last long. After a couple more days baking up on rooftops in the sun, Lila had all but forgotten the taste of the fresh, cool watermelon and chilled lemonade that she had had at the picnic.

At this rate, she was going to end up with sunstroke. That was, if she didn't hurt herself getting up onto the rooftops first.

Lila groaned as an explosion sounded from the far side of the city. An akuma, no doubt. She hadn't spotted the corrupted butterfly at all, which meant that she wasn't close enough yet to the lair to be able to see it no matter what.

She would have hoped that she would be that close, at least, but no such luck. Not yet. But she wasn't giving up.

Spite was a strong, strong motivator.

As she waited, the sounds of fighting drifted through the city. Lila ignored it- at least until it got closer.

And closer, and closer.

Lila couldn't hold back the swear that fell from her lips when she spotted the superheroes chasing the akuma straight towards her. They were running across the rooftops, and on this particular apartment building...

Well, there was nowhere to hide. That left her with only one option.

In a panic, Lila gathered up all of her things and rushed for the fire escape. She didn't go down far- she didn't have time, and rushing would just make the fire escape clang loudly- but it was enough to get her out of the superheroes' field of vision. The fight tumbled overhead, and Lila breathed a sigh of relief once it was gone.

That was far too close. She had to be more careful. If Ladybug or Chat Noir spotted her, they would no doubt report her to the building manager like the nosy idiots that they were.

"Hey! You! What are you doing up there?"

...that was, if she didn't get caught herself.

Day 35

Thankfully, all of Paris was dumb. As it turned out, all Lila had to do was invent some made-up project that required her to stake out on rooftops for several days at a time, and she got permission and even help. Both were absolutely invaluable now that she was firmly in a residential area and getting up on top of the townhouses that made up the area was a lot harder than getting onto apartment and office buildings.

She was getting closer, she could just feel it. Even though it was slow, she was making progress. There was no backtracking or akumas coming from unexpected directions, which meant that she was close.

Hawkmoth was going to regret ever sending an akuma after her.

Lila surveyed the ground from her newest perch. It overlooked a small park, the Agreste mansion, and a few other smaller buildings. It was open enough that when a butterfly showed up, she would be able to see it coming from ages away. It would be her biggest leap yet.

Well, once a butterfly actually showed. She had been up on this rooftop for a day already and had gotten nothing. But Hawkmoth rarely went two days in a row without akumatizing anyone, so today she was sure to get something.

Late in the afternoon, she finally did. A flicker of movement caught Lila's eye, and she looked over in time to see a butterfly slowly working its way up into the air above the Agreste mansion. Once it had gained some height, it fluttered away.

And Lila's eyes narrowed. Unless she was very much mistaken, that butterfly had come out of the Agreste manor. And when she looked closer, she spotted it: a small opening in the dome on top of the house, something that definitely hadn't been there before.

This was interesting. The esteemed Agreste family had some skeletons in their closet, it seemed.

And Lila was going to uncover them all.

a/n: Part 2 coming next week! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!

As always, reviews make my day! :)