"Burrow!" Ladybug yelled, and a portal appeared. They all stepped through. "Bunnix is our only chance. Those aliens took her away. We gotta rescue her."
As they stepped through, a blinding light penetrated their eyes.
"Ladybug! Cat noir! You— all of you!" a man said breathlessly. He was short and had a grey beard. His eyes were green and determined, and his glasses were askew, hanging lopsidedly from one ear. His clothes, a cloak, was tattered and torn in some places.
They all raised their weapons.
"Who are you? Do you know Bunnix?" Cat noir whispered.
"You mean the girl who sold the pendants by the river? Oh, they got her. Nice person, she was. Always helped me out in sticky situations. A brave fighter. Her cause will never be forgotten." He sighed.
"She's… dead?" Ladybug gaped incredulously.
The man shrugged. "Something like that. Even if she's not dead, the existence she'd be in would be worse than death. If they took me away, I'd choose death instead of the other things they do to people." He shivered.
"A different existence? Sorry, but we're from…" Ladybug checked her watch sarcastically. "About fourty years from the past, we don't understand your technologies and we didn't have aliens roaming our streets!" Ladybug huffed indignantly. "So please explain, NOW, in a way we'd understand."
"You don't have aliens roaming your streets?" he gasped. "Wow. I'd do anything to go to your time. And why are you saying you're from the past as if it's such a big deal? People travel time all the time. It's a daily thing to get blokes who claim to be from the year 7397 saying how the world is gonna end. And we got a Roman girl who got cursed by the time-slayer."
"The time… the what?" Rena Rouge gasped.
"Time slayers. These little gadgets that gives you three chances. The first one is remorse, and it let's you go back in time, to the past. If you seek the truth, you use the first chance. The second one's determination, and let's you go to the future. This one is mainly driven by patience, and courage. The third chance is anger, and it just makes you suddenly not exist. Boom. You're wiped out of existence, and forgotten forevermore. You were never born. You never happened. You're… not there. That's when you join them lot", he said, pointing upwards to what looked like an alien spaceship up above.
All of the superheroes were utterly bewildered.
"Ah, never mind. Cobra— Bunnix, used to be Bunnix… she used to sell them, to help people escape the aliens with determination, to go to the future. That's irrelevant, we just need to save her. Here.", he said, and shoved a pendant at Ladybug. It was rusty, and a golden locket was at the end of it, emblazoned with words that didn't seem to be any language they knew. As soon as she touched it, it turned red with black spots.
"Ar knapto liv plac de-morih tantyll." He said. "It means "we only have one rightful place in time."
"So… if you go to the future… you won't belong there?" Cat noir said.
"Nope. You guys will never understand what's going on, so you can hardly help us. If you go to the past, you won't belong there either."
"Well, that's helpful." Hawk moth muttered.
Ladybug wailed. "Please, help us understand. These aliens… how do we defeat them? Do we need to understand? Okay, I get that something is going on. All of this stuff about time slayers, pendants, time, existence and aliens, we just don't understand. None of this makes any sense to us." Ladybug said, burying her face in her hands. "Something terrible is going on, and I just want to return home, without any memory of any of this, back in my own home, when aliens never came." Ladybug sobbed. "Why can't this be simple?"
Cat noir stepped forwards, and put his hand reassuringly on Ladybug's shoulder.
"Ladybug, we're exceptional as a team. When have we not got out of tight situations? We're unstoppable, and that can never change, past, present, or future. We've got a chance. You're absolutely right, we don't need to understand. We just need to rescue Bunnix then save everyone else." He smiled, and embraced her.
Rena Rouge stepped forward. "Ladybug, I used to be a nobody, only some hopeless blogger who hoped to get some publicity. Since you gave me my miraculous, I've become stronger. You've inspired me, ladybug. You're a driving inspiration for so many. You're a legend, Ladybug, and legends never fail." She said, and she hugged Ladybug too.
Pegasus smiled. "Ladybug, we have a 101% chance of succeeding" he said.
"If you're all over your snivelling monologues." Hawk moth said with a mocking sneer. "… we're actually here for a reason, not for you children to feel sorry for yourselves."
The man opened up the pendant. "It's time to use the second chance, determination. We're going to rescue Bunnix!" the man said decisively. "Go back to your own time, detransform, recharge, come back here and we'll go!"
They went back and parted.
Marinette rushed into the bakery. "Oh, Marinette, you're back!" her mum smiled. "Some friends of yours want to speak to you. I told them you'd be back, and to wait in your room."
"I—" Marinette said breathlessly. "Oh, alright." She sighed. "Thank you, maman" she said, and rushed up the stepladder.
"Marinette! MAJOR DRAMA HAS HAPPENED!" Rose wailed.
"Alya? Rose? Juleka? Alix? Mylene? Luka? Kagami? What—?"
"Look, something big happened."
"Can't… can't it wait? Is it really that urgent?"
"Well, it's slightly urgent. It's just that… Adrien is involved. And Luka. I mean— oh, Luka, you explain." Rose wailed.
"Look, Marinette, Kagami and Adrien have had an argument, and it ended with Adrien—"
Marinette's eyes watered with boiling hot fury. "This— this…" she said breathlessly. "THIS IS IMPORTANT!?" she yelled.
Everyone seemed really taken aback. "Marinette, we're involving you in this for your own benefit, you see, the argument happened yesterday, but Luka was with Adrien and he said that Adrien s-said—" Mylene started, but Marinette, purple with rage, cut her off.
"I'M FACING WAY MORE IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT NOW THAN A PETTY ARGUMENT! THE WORLD IS AT STAKE, LIVES ARE AT STAKE! HOW CAN SOMETHING SO TRIVIAL, SO MINOR, SO— JUST, WHY CAN'T IT WAIT!? NOBODY UNDERSTANDS, NOBODY—" Marinette screamed in a formidable thunder.
"MARINETTE!" Luka yelled. "Calm yourself! You're not telling us something!"
TYFRMF :)
(Meanwhile)
Gabriel Agreste had left the mansion mysteriously, and instead of explaining his absence, told Natalie that she didn't need to know. He had been gone for a while, unbeknownst to her, in the future with the heroes.
"I have to do something, Dusuu." She sighed. "I know he'd want me to." She said, and she pressed the buttons on the portrait of Emilie Agreste and entered Hawk Moth's secret lair.
"Dusuu, spread my feathers!" she said. She closed her eyes, willing her mind to find the first emotion she could find in the vast city. She met one instantly. It was remorse, and fury, and the emotion of not knowing what emotion to feel. She took out a white feather from her fan, and cupped it in her hands. It turned a shade of ocean blue.
"Fly, beautiful amok, and enhance and hone that frustration!"
TYFRMF :)
"So rude!" Alya huffed. "Marinette, get a grip, we're just—"
"ENOUGH!" Marinette sobbed hysterically. "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
"Marinette—"
"OUT." She said in a deathly hiss. "Don't. Make me ask. Again."
They all scurried out.
"Oh, Tikki, what have I done?!" Marinette wailed. Suddenly, the amok dissolved into her earrings, and she heard a voice inside her head.
"I am Mayura. I will create for you a sentimonster that you can control to get revenge on your friends. In return, you are going to get me Ladybug and Cat Noir's miraculous."
Tikki gasped. "No, Marinette, resist!" she wailed, frantically shaking her owner.
"Yes, Mayura." She said nonchalantly, and pulled off her earrings, and held them out for the sentimonster, who took the earings and disappeared.
"How did you get them so quickly?" Mayura asked. Marinette shrugged.
"I can get the cat miraculous myself from here. I do not wish to keep my end of the deal. I renounce your amok." She said, and the feather came out of the earrings she was holding in her hands, and the sentimonster disappeared.
Marinette gasped, and pulled at her hair. "Oh no! Tikki, what have I done!" she wailed.
"Hawk Moth lied to us." Tikki cried. "He lied."
TYFRMF! It's not done yet, but thanks for reading anyway! I won't continue the story if I don't get any comments though…