Vance Lindon

It was now mid-afternoon. The news outlets as well as Alya Césaire have already made the letter written for Ladybug public knowledge. Of course, the journalists were all upset that Alya was given the go ahead to make the letter public first instead of them. They did concede in silence that yes, she is the first and most valued source for Ladybug related information, but still any journalist would have given arm, leg and who knows what other appendages to be the first to get the letter out to the public.

Unbeknownst to all but two, Alya was already holding onto the Ladybug miraculous. She was wondering when she should transform to talk to Cat about the new arrangement? As for school, the day was cancelled during the day of the crime, but now it was a weekend. Still no sign of Monarch yet, and Paris feels very uneasy, what with the recent allegations of Ladybug committing murder.

Marinette was still preparing a copy of the grimoire. She had taken pictures of what was contained within before, but the issue with that is that there was no way for her to share those without them being traced back to her, so her only option was to photocopy the book. Thankfully, nobody knows what the grimoire looks like. Sure, Adrien once she it's exterior and some of the heroes inside, but it was unlikely that he knew what he was holding.

As for Cat? He was back wearing his superhero mask and costume and he entered the local police station. Of course the officers were all in awe and some even asked for autographs.

"Sure, I could spare some time signing my name on whatever you present to me to sign my name on, but I do require something in return." Cat proclaimed.

"We'd do anything for you Cat Noir!" One of the officers proclaimed.

"I can help you clean your litter box, if you like!" Another added.

"Ah... no, no! I don't need any help like that, that would be too much, I just need help finding the guy who wrote this." Cat Noir added while gesturing wildly before presenting his copy of the letter addressed to Ladybug.

"Seems she still hasn't complied with it." One officer noted.

"Well, she is probably busy with her civilian life, or she is worried that someone would report her civilian version as 'missing' and someone might make a connection. Who knows, she may have already... assigned the ladybug earrings to Scarabella." Cat Noir looked into the distance as he said those last words. He doesn't want to admit that the battle between them and Tomoe Tsurugi in her Villain outfit as well as the few patrols they had before the murder was the last time he may have seen Ladybug and that he may never see her as his partner ever again. He couldn't even be sure if he and Scarabella could work all that well together seeing as her first time was a disaster, but she made it through, but that didn't give him enough hope or trust. In his mind, it was him and Ladybug against the world. But now it is looking as if that would no longer be the case, but all this knowledge did was fuel Cat's desire to find out what really happened.

"Are you okay, Cat Noir?" Roger Raincomprix asked as he came around the corned and noticed a lot of officers in the area. "Um... don't you guys have tasks to get back to? I'll assist Cat Noir from here."

"Yes, sir, sorry sir!" The other officers replied and then they went back to their stations.

"I hope they weren't too much trouble, Cat Noir." Roger remarked.

"No, lieutenant, they just asked for autographs, and one creep asked to clean my litter box." Cat relayed.

Roger sighs before responding. "As if we don't use up a ton of ink as if, too bad you don't get your own pen when transformed... wait, do you actually use a litter box?"

"I guess I will just have to get some of my own pens if ink is so precious around here, and I use a toilet like everyone else." Cat clarified.

"I figured as much, some of these guys can still be a bit childish." Roger noted.

"Weren't you much the same when you started out?" Cat asked.

"I don't remember it that way, besides, I have a new rank that I have to aspire to, and because of Pierre's notes to me yesterday, I have to apply some introspection to better myself. He is right, I'm too 'ticket happy' and that makes people mad. Monarch could latch onto those emotions, as much as I despise ignoring people when they break the law, it seems that I now have to resort to warnings and talking things out. It's all so new to me, and there is nobody to train me but myself."

"That sure sucks, but hey, take it from the funny defender of Paris, if you try hard enough, you'll succeed!"

"Thanks for the wise words, Cat Noir, it helps a lot."

"Please, call me Mr Noir. It's what Pierre calls me."

"The captain must like you a lot for him to allow you to call him by his first name."

"That reminds me, there is something I forgot to mention to him last night, but first, I want to find the writer of this letter." Cat showed the letter to Roger.

"Ah yes, Vance Lindon, apparently he is a writer from England who is trying to get his stories published. He told me that he's sent some of his work to Gabriel Agreste."

"Gabriel Agreste? What publishers would such a fashion mogul know? Well, other than Style Queen." Cat asked.

"Well, he does know the CEO of Style Queen, plus he would be acquainted with the other members of her staff and they may have connections outside of writing articles for fashion, and those connections would mean a lot for Vance."

"And there is no exchange? Like, Vance isn't going to owe Gabriel anything?"

"That's what I've heard."

"That doesn't sound like my fa— I mean Gabriel Agreste."

"Who knows, Mr Noir, maybe he's changing his colours, which I wouldn't know much about seeing as he keeps hidden from the public eye."

"Can I ask where I can find this Vance, I have questions for him... Oh, and if you see Pierre tell him that I watched the video of Ladybug killing Lila Rossi, and Ladybug said that she and I were on patrol, but we never agreed to patrol at the time of the crime."

"I guess I can tell you where Vance is saying, I believe Gabriel or Vance booked a room for Vance in the mayor's hotel. You've battled a few villains there before, so you can't miss it. As for your request, are you saying that Ladybug and you were not supposed to be patrolling when she killed Lila?"

"That's right. Sure I've had to solo patrol, but I always make sure that Ladybug and I have agreements in place when and where to start and there was no patrol to be done at the time of the crime, as Ladybug and I would have agreed to patrol at that time and we never did."

"I'll see if I can get Pierre to add that to his record. I think he'll find it interesting."

"Ok, thanks for everything Roger, I'll see you later."

Roger waved to Cat Noir as he began to depart. "No doubt about it, Cat Noir."

*******

Vance's room was one of the fancy ones in the hotel, Cat was star-struck, its not an everyday man room, that was for sure, could this be part of whatever deal that Vance had struck with Cat's civilian form's father?

Vance was at his computer, compiling notes for his tales and he had some of his documents open along the bottom bar of his computer screen, it seems that sooner or later he'll be editing the stories he wasn't happy with.

Vance was Caucasian with a light tan, he has black hair and dark blue eyes, he was 171cm tall (5' 7" for Americans) he had a jade coloured serpent tattooed on his left arm, and half of it was hidden under his short-sleeved silver shirt, on the shirt was an image of a pirate ship, and he also wore navy pants. He was wearing white socks with black shoes which were well tied.

"Is that a sneaky feline that I hear sneaking about?" Vance asked before he turned around, he had a light voice, almost something you'd hear from an eleven-year-old boy. "Or perhaps you brought me the light snack I ordered from room service two minutes ago?"

"How did you know it was me?" Cat asked flabbergasted.

"The bell is a dead giveaway." Vance added, pointing to Cat's bell.

"Oh, was it ringing that loud? I guess after a while wielding this miraculous, I forgot about it." Cat asked. "Your voice is weird, is it always like that?"

"I know, I'm like 25 and I still sound like a child, it happens, rarely, but it happens." Vance explained.

"You were the one who was hired to write this, right?" Cat asked as he bought up an image on his staff's phone. It was the letter that Vance wrote.

"It looks like mine and there is my name at the bottom, so I guess I must have written it." Vance added.

"You guess?" Cat asked.

"I'm messing with you, that's the writer in me, I can't help it." Vance joked.

"Why did they hire you? I'm sure there are plenty of great writers in Paris who would have been happy to have written this letter." Cat noted.

"Ah, but they all love and admire Ladybug, she is a national hero after all. If Gabriel hadn't recommended me, I may have never gotten the job, and I was more then happy to accept it, as I will need money to fall back on if Gabriel can't find a publisher for my work." Vance added.

"You are from England aren't you?" Cat asked.

"I'm from overseas, yes. I had bad luck and I managed to scrounge up enough for a one way ticked here. I was quite lucky to have gotten Gabriel Agreste, fashion creator extraordinaire, to be my sponsor." Vance gestured about how grand Gabriel is by extending his arms out.

"What exactly did you show him to have him sponsor you? As far as I am aware he is a tough nut to crack. The only other two people he seems to be in dealings with are Audrey Bourgeois and Tomoe Tsurugi." Cat noted.

"It was a simple narrative really, one in which the villain, a well-painted menace, wins." Vance informed.

Cat Noir was quite confused, why would anyone, let alone his father, be interested in such a concept. "But good always triumph over evil, and love always beats hate. That's the way its always been." Cat said defensively.

"Are you saying that nobody will accept my story because the bad guy wins? People will never accept the tale because it is written from the good guys view, right? If you've read a dabble of Sherlock Holmes, you'd know better. The best story is one where all angles are included, so it makes it harder for the reader to chose who to side with. Most will decide that the heroes are in the right and that villains are in the wrong, but such a perception is clearly incorrect. History, Cat Noir, is written by the victors, if Hitler had won, we'd all be praising communism and we'd forget what a Jew even was. If the Vikings succeeded in pillaging more than the northern seas, we'd all be drinking ale and setting boats alight when our comrades die. You only believe what the right thing is by the examples set by the victors, can we really say that those victor's never did anything bad? If good beats evil and peace is inevitable, then why hasn't it happened? Because the 'good guys' are still making irrational and bad decisions, decisions that will remain unrecorded in history and all we will remember is the 'good' that they did.

"Sure, good and evil are on the same coin, but do you know that the outcome of the coin landing on evil is 50% and although you are more likely to get one side 7 times in a row before you see the other side, it doesn't change the fact that even those we perceive as evil could still win and they would campaign to make their actions the new good and we won't know any difference. That's the big difference between you and I. You fight for an impossible reality where everything is sunshine and roses, while I have long accepted what reality is. You can keep your mind as closed as it is, but my mind will forever be open with the knowledge that bad people win every day and we don't notice because they manipulate us into thinking that they did something good."

Cat Noir was astonished, the information was more than he could handle, but he tried to take it all in regardless. "I still think your wrong." Cat added.

"Of course, you do, all good people would. Nobody would willingly accept such a dark view as mine. Let me tell you something. Being a storywriter is one thing, but being a character in a narrative that takes control of the narrative away from the heroes is another. I may never be able to change the world, but I won't stop trying. You can't silence me." Vance added.

"Is that what your story is about, the villain realizing they are in a book and taking control of the narrative?" Cat asked.

"That's part of it, yes, I know its not the newest idea, but then again, who has heard of a 'new' idea lately? I warrant not many, as humans have achieved almost all they can and no doubt well see a lot of things triggering people's nostalgia given enough time, because so many ideas would be out there that remixes are inevitable, and a lot of people will be accusing others of stealing their works." Vance replied.

"But why would Mr Agreste be interested in your fiction?" Cat asked.

"Perhaps he too, like my antagonist, is looking to win as a villain. After all, we've all heard that until recently that his own son was kept from the world, and Adrien appears much more happy at school, such a dramatic change makes me wonder what type of abuse that boy is suffering under such a well designed roof, and if he is abusing his son, who knows what else he is capable of." Vance smiled.

Cat didn't know what to think. "You're wrong, my fa— I mean, Mr Agreste isn't a villain, and if he was, he is definitely not Monarch. After all, he's been akumatised more than once."

Vance shrugged. "I guess you're right, Gabriel can't be Monarch, after all, your logic is sound, and you'd know about miraculous better than anyone right? So, I'll believe that you are right."

"But you think otherwise, don't you?" Cat noted.

"Maybe, but I don't need to tell you anything." Vance added.

"What do you know? What aren't you telling me?" Cat asked, he was becoming frustrated.

"I might know a little, or maybe I know a lot. What I know is something I don't want to tell you. I have my secrets, and if you don't respect that, I'll reveal yours, Adrien Agreste." Vance said with a sharp look in his eyes.

Cat was surprised, but he did his best to keep it hidden. "M-me? A-Adrien Agreste? Not likely, I'm a joker and he is as serious as they come!"

"Oh, so I guess that means that the only source of fun he's allowed to have at fencing isn't fun at all to him." Vance noted.

"No comment." Cat remarked.

"Choosing to remain silent I see, well, then I too will choose to remain silent about how I deduced your civilian identity. You know the police are looking into the matter also, and if they are smart like me, they will soon find out Ladybug's identity and yours."

Cat was a little anxious about Vance's claims. They couldn't be true... could they. "So, you know Ladybug's civilian identity."

"Even if I did, it's not like Ladybug would allow me to tell you anyway." Vance noted.

Cat Noir was slowly beginning to unravel the cryptic nature of Vance Lindon, but then he recalled that he had to get going before his father noticed his civilian form was missing. He still didn't know how Vance figured it out, and he also knew trying to get that information out of Vance was like drawing blood from a stone. But Cat did know one thing, Vance's appearance and the murder of Lila Rossi may yet have a hidden connection not even the police noticed. Such an idea made Cat feel like the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes, maybe, just maybe, Cat had within him to be just as good of a detective as Ladybug.

Cat departed and Vance resumed the work on his computer. Something big was going to happen, Cat could feel it. He would have to uncover the truth and get it added to Pierre's record before it was too late, at least he could find solace in the fact that six days remain before the Cour d'assisses began Ladybug's trial and in likelihood the whole of Paris would come to a standstill to wait in anticipation to see what will happen. So, Cat Noir/ Adrien Agreste had the potential of having a free day from school to look forward to in the future, which under normal circumstances would have made him unhappy, (as Plagg once said 'I've never seen anyone so willing to go to school' which is likely a paraphrase as I'm not good at recalling season 1 things on the fly) but this was an exception.