9 Twisted
Marinette and Adrien stashed her clutch purse and his pockets with cookies and cheese in the kitchen while their kwami had a small talk with Bunnix upstairs, then they climbed back up and transformed into Ladybug and Chat Noir.
"It is different than the last time." Bunnix warned Ladybug before she made a circle with her umbrella and opened a portal. Ladybug stared at the portal. She passed through one so many times in the last two weeks that she forgot to count.
But now she was back in Paris, Bunnix was the same rabbit miraculous wielder as that time that seemed so long ago. The time when the rabbit hero came for her to fix the future and he small mistake she just did that apparently caused Chat Blanc.
"How different?" Ladybug asked cautiously. Because the last time she had business with this Bunnix was perhaps not the last time this Bunnix had business with her. When one has the ability to travel in time, schedules and what was before and after become irrelevant.
Chat Noir was ready to jump through, but Ladybug held his hand firmly and made him stay for just a moment while they awaited an answer from Bunnix. She hoped that with their victory over Hawk Moth, they were safe to love each other and know their identities.
"You will have to go and see." Bunnix smirked and led the way through the portal. "I can't tell you much about this future, but you are here to fix it, or find a way to prevent it from happening, just like the last time."
Ladybug hitched a breath. At least this time she had Chat Noir by her side, she had Adrien, the memories of Chat Blanc played in her head and everything was making so much sense, at least more sense than at the time she fought him.
Chat Noir, on the other hand stepped through the portal only slightly concerned, and even that only because he saw his lady so worried. There was nothing on the other side that would justify serious concern, at first, just there was more mess on the floor.
"At least there is no water all over the city." Ladybug sighed when she looked through the window. It was early in the day, the sun was up, the sky was blue, and the birds in the park were probably singing except they she did not hear them.
"So I tried to pick you up several times." Bunnix mentioned offhandedly. She tapped her foot nervously and looked to the side. The following words she used had to be chosen carefully.
"What happened? We were not there?" Chat Noir inquired teasingly. It was a logical question, really.
"Well, you two were both gone, once. Then I went earlier in time ..." Bunnix was speaking quickly, she rushed through the words that were difficult to say, they were her friends, after all.
"What do you mean gone? How gone? When was that?" Chat Noir insisted. He wanted like specific time and place when Bunnix searched, but the rabbit hero was not supposed to give away that much.
"Then I found you both with no miraculous and no kwami." Bunnix continued. She took a deep breath and let the information sink in.
Ladybug gasped.
"Then I went earlier and found the two of you sleeping together, your miraculous jewels were still on you … " Bunnix made a pause intentionally to watch the two heroes blush. "But your kwami were gone."
Ladybug was too worried to be flustered for long. Chat Noir felt as if Bunnix just spoiled all the fun when she stopped teasing them and became serious again. But yeah, at some point they were gone and apparently their kwami disappeared first.
"So I went even earlier and found the two of you snuggled together and your kwami still present." Bunnix finished the story. "I am not supposed to tell you about the future, but you are expected to fix this mess and it might be important."
"Okay, but what is wrong and when are we?" Ladybug insisted. It was not an obvious fact that stared at her face, her room was sometimes that messy, especially when she spent her evening working on some design until she passed out.
"I thought I removed all futures like these when I made an intervention in the TV studio." Bunnix smirked. That was a funny memory for all three of them. "It is possible that you revealed your identities again."
"Oh, I remember the interview, it was cool." Chat smirked. Bunnix pulled them fifteen minutes back so that Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared in the studio with Adrien and Marinette.
"Maybe you got caught in the morning?" Ladybug elbowed knew what he was thinking, ever since two Ladybugs during Timebreaker.
"Okay, took the warning, I'll wake up really early and go to Nino." He retorted. Yeah, they still had to keep their identities a secret from the public although the three of them knew who they were.
"I forgot to set the alarm clock early, is this it?" Ladybug dragged her fingers down her face. "Last time I just had to erase my name, this time I have to set up the alarm clock."
"Anyway, I can't tell what exactly went wrong in this instance yet, there were plenty of moments when something went wrong to lead to this, but you have to fix it and I have to return to my burrow. See you sometime." Bunnix waved and returned to her burrow.
They were in Marinette's room, but everything was tossed and turned. Ladybug went to the trunk where she kept the miracle box and it was not there. She collapsed on the floor beside the trunk and sat on the floor. Chat sat beside her.
"So, I should tell you about one time when Bunnix took me to the future to fight Chat Blanc. You were akumatized, I don't know exactly why, but you told me it was our love that destroyed the world and you knew my civilian name." Ladybug looked at Chat, her eyes spoke volumes.
"Paris was flooded and in ruins. You were completely white with blue eyes. I had to fight you and the akuma was in your bell." Ladybug spoke quickly to avoid tears picking up in her eyes. "But this is different, Paris is not destroyed and as far as we know Hawk Moth is not active any more."
Chat was grateful for her choice of words.
"Um, and the cure was to remove my name from the gift I left for you in your room." Ladybug connected her index fingers. "When I brought you that beret and said it was from your fan club in Brasil? But this is different."
"So this is not because I came over for a sleepover?" Chat teased. But his insides sunk a little, what was he going to do if he was not able to vault to his lady in the middle of the night whenever he needed her?
"It still might be, I don't know just yet." She sighed. She felt guilty, because Adrien used his miraculous to get to her, because she felt lonely and wanted him there, because she thought the two of them were selfish.
Chat Noir jumped to the loft bed and was ready to open the skylight when Ladybug warned him not to. Bunnix insisted on making a portal inside for a reason. Ladybug went to the computer instead and switched it on.
The news titles looked exceptionally good. Ladybug saved the day, Ladybug was the best, Ladybug was helping out everyone. All the titles praised Ladybug. The Ladybug in front of the screen frowned. What was wrong with Chat Noir?
But then she clicked on the news. There were interviews upon interviews. There was Ladybug that loved attention and always made a show of telling stories about some battles with villains, but when Ladybug looked for a video of an actual battle, there was none.
"This is totally wrong, she is not you." Chat Noir frowned at the screen when he looked at the was Ladybug on the screen behaved. "That is Falsebug." He spat out the words after particularly annoying video they watched.
"He is not you either." Ladybug pointed towards a Chat Noir in the background on the TV screen. Chat could not tell the difference at first glance and frowned. Ladybug froze the video because Chat Noir was visible only for a short while.
"He has no bell." Chat shrugged. "But otherwise, he looks exactly like me, I mean, that's me, just without a bell and charisma." Ladybug rolled her eyes. "Perhaps that is me, just some twisted and broken version of me." Ladybug felt shivers down her spine, she knew about twisted and broken him.
"She behaves entirely differently than me, although she looks so much like me … what if I got akumatized or something? Perhaps some villain took control over me or … what if I transformed with that dark option?" She thought out loud. 'Twisted and broken' rang in her head.
"Falsebug is not you, I am certain of that. I know I got fooled before, especially when the imposter was doing what … what I wanted you to do, like try to kiss me, I guess I wanted it so bad that I believed them were you." He sighed.
"That's fine Chat. I am certain that this guy is not you either, although he looks just like you, just without the bell. There's no way you would be just standing there in the background and keep quiet, no stupid grins, no winks, no making faces, no nicknames and no puns." Ladybug smirked.
They dug through the information and there were only videos upon videos that praised the Ladybug as the best. Chat Noir was not even mentioned and he was seldom featured in the background of the photos that accompanied the articles.
But there was no Ladyblog.
"According to this piece, Ladyblog was shut down for spreading false information about Ladybug." Ladybug frowned. But then she did something she thought she should have remembered as soon as they got there, Ladybug opened her email, well it was Marinette's email.
Of course there were emails from Alya. Most of them had attachments, Ladybug clicked on one labelled as the most important clue. The video showed the new Ladybug, but with red spots on black as she chased after Alya and threatened to punish her.
"Is this Ladybug akumatized?" Chat Noir asked while Ladybug felt cold shivers go down her spine. Even if it wasn't her, if it was some other Ladybug, akumatized Ladybug was dreadful.
"There is no violet mask. I guess this would also happen to my suit if I called my transformation with 'dark spots on'." Ladybug thought out loud. For a moment she considered to detransform and ask Tikki or ever just transform and see.
"What colour would I be if I asked for 'dark claws out?" Chat wiggled his eyebrows. One look at him was sufficient to know that the boy was ready to try it out, just of curiosity, and see what he got. "Or maybe it is claws without the bell out?"
"You don't want to know." Ladybug shook her head. Actually, she did not want to know and preferred to keep it that way. She turned back to the computer, there was another video where the new Chat Noir threatened to use his cataclysm on Alya.
"Trust me, it makes people disappear without a trace." The new Chat Noir smirked wickedly. Chat took a step back on instinct, that wasn't him, he was certain, although the boy in the video looked just like him. How twisted and broken was he?
The emails told a story how Adrien and Marinette disappeared and new heroes arose. But the new heroes had no villains to fight, so they invented whom to fight and what to destroy and the new Ladybug did not always bring everything and everyone back.
Alya was writing desperate emails in hope that both her friends simply ran away after some argument with Adrien's family about inheritance and his obligations. She did not even demand an answer, she wanted them both to stay hidden and safe.
"Okay, where are they and how do we fight them?" Ladybug sighed. "It doesn't matter if they are us or someone else, those are two imposters who took over the city." Deep inside she hoped that the two of them did not lose their mind or tried to revive Emilie or something else.
"Well, Alya wrote that they have nobody to fight. If we just appear outside, they should come over and fight us?" Chat smirked. The boy had no existential doubts like his hero partner, he felt ready to fight, another day, another villain.
"Yeah, waste our only advantage, reveal our presence and act as targets, what else would you propose?" Ladybug muttered. She did not mean to be so blunt and criticise Chat, he was Adrien after all, but she was in such grim and self-deprecating mood that it reflected.
"You have a better idea?" He inquired. "How do you find someone if you don't know whom you are looking for? This is like looking for Hawk Moth's lair. We never found it until he literally brought us there!"
"But they appear in public on a daily basis, perhaps we just need to wait. This new Ladybug likes to be popular. Perhaps we should search into other clues. Let's see about that family argument Alya mentioned." Ladybug typed something in the search engine.
They got zero useful results.
But then announcement popped out. The new Ladybug and Chat Noir were having another of their spectacles and everyone was invited to join in and be entertained. A ship full of tourists on the Seine was sinking and Ladybug was busy saving people.
Well, she was actually busy holding two kids for the camera and bragging how she saved them while officer Raincomprix and a small fleet of vessels collected people form the ship and the river.
"How can anybody see her as a hero any more?" Ladybug frowned.
"Ladybug, we know where they are. Let's go!" Chat Noir pulled her away from the computer screen.
It was literally few jumps away, they hid behind a chimney on a rooftop nearby and observed. A group of journalists surrounded new Ladybug with microphones and cameras while the new Chat Noir observed the scene on the Seine with contempt.
"You know, we could take them down, take their miraculous and call it a day?" Chat winked.
Ladybug called on her lucky charm and got a post card. It was a photo of Gustave Klimt painting, a very familiar Gustave Klimt painting.
"It looks like that painting of my mother in my father's office." Chat Noir slumped his shoulders down, he already knew where this one was leading. Internally, he groaned, he wanted to scream, he did not want to go there again.
"I guess we will have to go there." Ladybug shrugged. Her eyes searched him, she knew he did not feel ready to go there, but she knew they had to sooner or later (which was rather ambiguous considering they were brought then by Bunnix).
"I swore never to go there again." Chat Noir whisper shouted. It was at least too soon for him to go back there. Ladybug was ready to offer him to go there alone, but she saw the change in him, he did want to go, if nothing else, then so she wouldn't go alone.
"Maybe that is what went wrong?" She smirked and launched her yoyo. "Maybe we have to go there, now and then, whenever we need to."