Released from the burrows swallow I moved forward, feet planting onto the white void.
"Phew, good your safe," Bunnyx said with a breathe.
"Just give me a minute, I'll open another one for Cat Noir and Ladybug the second they're ready."
"—It's reall a miracle you guys manag—" Bunnyx's voice trailed.
But I was still on the moon, with the planet gone in shambles those version of the people I care for Juleka, Max, everyone who'd ever looked at me and decided I was worth believing in were betrayed and lost to my plot for parisp. I could only imagine what happened to them and why none of them where on the moon by my side.
My thoughts drifted on trying to focus on any other topic, but my mind seemed to betray me. The hero in New York popped back like a sore thumb. Then again was I ever trustworthy.
Maybe there wasn't a chance now to be either.
I turned my head.
A second burrow tore open a few meters to my left, and the sound of it dragged me from the daze I was held in and made the rest of my body catch up to my surroundings.
Cat Noir came through first, staff resting across his shoulders easily, but his suit was still somehow white, The Cat Blanc bleed pale was all the way to the hair. Did they fail to save the timeline? Or where they unaffected by the changes of going back in time in the other timeline. It was a little to confusing to come to a conclusion without knowing how second chance worked for a significantly longer duration and Bunnyx shenanigans.
A heartbeat later, Ladybug's foot went through next, and the rest of her came slowly, like she was giving the portal every chance to change its mind.
I planted my feet harder and made myself take a deep breathe through the nose, I let it go easy so no one could hear the seam. A bead of sweat ran the length of my spine, it could have been sweat from the long battle beforehand, but I decided to not concern myself with it, anyway. Whatever came next, I wanted to be standing prepared when it did.
I read the room before speaking up, ladybugs shoulders sat square a posture of a person bracing, holding some final decision. Cat Noir seemed thoughtful in his gaze but I couldn't tell about what. They'd both watched the crater. What I'd done to stop myself, and the other ladybug and mine had spoken about something definitely related to me.
They'd seen enough to draw their own drafts of this new luka they've never met standing before them, I just didn't know yet what they'd drawn.
"Hey." I said getting some word out before I'd fully decided where to steer the conversation. "That was intense—" I reached for something potentially neutral, it was best not to entirely bring up or ignore the fight that occurred.
"What happened. After, the fight? Once Second Chance took everyone from the crater." I kept my voice easy, like I was asking about the weather. (Did you guys go back in time with those three?"
"Weren't you even listening to anything I said." Bunnyx said speaking up first but clearly annoyed.
I could only rub my head knowing I did indeed completely blow off everything she was rambling about.
Cat Noir picked up the conversation for me thankfully "Everyone but you apparently, went through the timeline snap back. We went and found the akuma. The one that seemed to start the apawcalype from the start of all this — de-evilized it before it could akumatize Lila and cause round two." A gave a short laugh at his own puns. "Got the Fox miraculous back chasing her down and conveniently the other timeline's Ladybug was super close when it happened, figured it was hers to carry, so we tossed it over to her and Tada were miraculously back ."
"She seemed a little tense about it," Ladybug added, quietly.
"How come you guys haven't de-evilized Cat noir yet?"
"Oh this? Yeah we tried to find the akuma, but its like its completely gone" he said pointing at his collar with a missing bell.
Strange, if it wasn't on his gear where else could it be. His miraculous? Maybe.
Bunnyx stepped past the two of them and I, already opening another burrow. "This one goes back to alley." She glanced between us, something almost soft under the practiced calm. "Thank you. All of you. If that timeline had gone the way it wanted to, the future would surely be doomed."
I nodded since it was easier than speaking.
Though hearing what ladybug said I did wonder for a bit. If this Marinette knew what I'd done, that meant the other one probably did too.
Had that ladybug walked into that crater already aware of what her Luka had become, and stood at his side anyway? Or had she been fighting against him along side Lila from the start? The idea seemed very plausable but I couldn't exactly confirm it.
With the last burrow opened I went through it first giving me second to be alone before I heard both of them land behind me, besides my own buzzing away in my ear I heard another small, tired beeping, insistent on Cat Noir's ring.
"Oh that's me," he said, aiming for light and mostly getting there. "Running on fumes. I should—"
"Go," Ladybug said. "We'll catch up soon."
He hesitated for second at the interruption, but seeing her glancing at me with a serious expression it was clear something wasn't quite right, his beeping grew faster than mine now, with a glance back he was moving, vaulting off toward wherever he needed privacy to drop the transformation.
Before he fully left I'd already turned around with my back to her. I stepped ahead hearing my own beeping and tried to prevent the two of use from being by ourselves with the obvious noise in the silence
"Turn around, Luka."
Shit. I did.
I slowly turned to delay and think of a counter to whatever she'd been about to say. Finally looking it her eyes myself. They were holding a steadiness I didn't expect even her once stiff posture seemed my easy. Her balled hands were the only thing that revealed some nerves.
"I keep thinking about you Luka," she said, and didn't specify which me, she took a breathe " I'm not saying you'd do what he did. I don't actually think that, knowing you. But I do know what is at stake if I don't do anything."
Her hand began lifting.
I stared as it did, that pointless and terrible reasoning that was clearly manipulative language was going to be used against me. Yet I still didn't have an answer that wasn't going to sound like a defense, the moment I try she'll have more ammunition but what else could I do except nothing.
"I need your miraculous back," she plainly stated,
"Not because I think you're him. Because Paris can't afford to find out either way. I need it back so I can look at you knowing there's nothing to question anymore."
There it was.
My jaw clenched. I reached for the beacelet without letting myself think about the motion, because thinking about it was going to makw mw do something I might regret. "Sass, scales rest."
The green came off me slow, indigo fading back down to nothing, my own hands looking small and plain in the moonlight once the scales were gone. Sass hovered a moment before settling my shoulder like he usually did, waiting on whatever came next.
I slid the bracelet from my wrist and held it out. What else could I do..
Ladybug took it without ceremony, grasping her hand around and curtly replied. "Thank you." Two words was all I got in exchange, and then she was gone with her own beeping trail beginning, off toward wherever she needed to be that wasn't here.
I stood there a while longer.
A beeping sound came closer, then close enough that I understood he hadn't gone far at all. He came around the corner slower than usual, the blue light at his ring blinking its last warning.
"Hey." He stopped a few feet off
"For what it's worth I still believe in you. Whatever that guy back there was, it wasn't you. Not the you I know."
I kept my eyes barried to the ground.
The blue light gave one last pulse and died into a flash I saw bouncing off my clothing. When I did finally look up, it wasn't Cat Noir standing there anymore.
Adrien didn't say anything just letting everything sit between us and reached out to pat my shoulder once before he walked off into the dark.
my head dropped back long after he'd gone.
I wanted, more than almost anything, to be left alone with the fact my miraculous I worked so hard to get, and the trust I built shattered in minutes. I couldn't handle any noise, or company, nothing but the quiet to sit in while I worked out what came next — if anything did. What was I supposed to do with any of this? How does someone who couldn't even hold onto his own miraculous convince Ladybug, of all people, that he'd earned it back? She'd handed it to me once already believing in something I apparently hadn't lived up to. I didn't see a version of this where I talked my way into a second try.
Who I finally need to use, that.
I wasn't above using dirty tactics, but then again I already knew that, I did want to rule, but how do you get a world to welcome a ruler when the person doesn't want to truly rule. A nation without followers, strong ones at that is nothing.
My ambitions seemed insurmountable. Without crossing a line that would lose trust, but if I was never destined to be trustworthy then..
Arms wrapped around me from behind I heard it coming, and I only knew it was Chloe because of the way she held on way too tight.
I lifted my head and turned enough to see her.
"Chloe." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "You shouldn't—" I stopped, started again, made myself get through it. "You should just go home, It's better if we stay away from each other."
I'd done enough pulling of this girls strings. To all my allies. It was best to simply just let them go and do this the way a real competent villain would. Take what I need and take over without worrying about consequences.
She didn't let go.
"I mean it." I looked past her instead of at her, because looking at her while I said this was going to make it harder than it already was. "You if all people should know how I've treated you. Manipulated you into things you didn't want to do. Made you fund half my ideas out of your own pocket because I asked and you never had a choice. Used your bear like it was a prop for whatever I needed." I exhaled, and it shook more than I wanted it to. "Let me be clear to you, I am a villain and you'd be better off if we weren't—"
"You're ridiculous." She said it flat, no heat behind it, like she was correcting a fact and not arguing a point. "Utterly ridiculous."
I didn't have anything ready for that.
"You think I don't know exactly what you did? I was there for like half of it." She finally let go, just enough to step around and face me properly, chin already up in that way she had before she said something she meant. "You didn't twist my arm into anything, Luka. Maybe at first, but I gave you my time because I wanted to be near someone who actually saw me for me. You gave me somewhere to put all the parts of myself no one else had patience for." Her eyes didn't leave mine. "So don't you dare stand there and rewrite it into something you did to me. I was there. I chose it. I'd choose it again and I'm choosing you for you."
I looked at her. really looked, past the part of my head still cataloguing every reason this was a bad idea — and something in her expression didn't waver once. Not even a flicker of doubt? She meant every word of it, all the way down, the same way she'd meant it the first time she'd decided I was worth her time at all.
She actually believed in me. Still. After everything I'd just watched myself become capable of on that moon.
"So," I said, because the alternative was standing there long enough to cry about it, "Chloe Bougeious does this make you some kind of hero, showing up like this?"
That got her — the corner of her mouth twitching before she could stop it, arms crossing like she was going to hold onto her dignity through sheer will. "Obviously. I've been carrying you since the start, Couffaine, someone has to."
I laughed at that joke a little to loudly, she seemed irritated and then she was in my arms again and I was in hers, her head tucked under my chin like it had a standing reservation there.
"My house is right around the corner," she said into my shoulder, muffled, casual in a way that wasn't casual at all. "Come up. I don't feel like letting you out of my sight tonight."
I didn't have it in me to say no to that either.
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For my fellow americans à 1meter = 3 feet Thx for watching the chpt. Guys guys don't comment on the dialogue IK its trash I'm of course gonna come back to edit it, the dialogue is definitely shakey at best but I hope you appreciate it :3