54 Tell me

"But we just told her?" Ladybug whispered to Chat Noir. She replayed the whole conversation in her head. "We clearly and literally asked her to train Bunnix, didn't we?" She continued whispering as she thought out loud.

"Yeah, Bug, and she told us she is not a teacher yet." Chat whispered back. Then he noticed her worried face. She was blind in the dark, everyone was but him, and possibly the two rabbit kwami. "I'm sure our coming here has a purpose, don't worry Bug, you'll figure it out!"

"Master Shi?" Alix began to speak. She knew what she wanted, she wanted to become a hero. "What do you need to know? We are not really here to tell you about the future aren't we?" Because Alix knew quite a lot about the past and the future.

Master Shi whispered her transformation words. A bright light blue light flashed between the trees. They were able to see her suit, the same clothes that she was wearing as one of the Khan's guards, now changed colour into different shades of blue. Her long dark hair got tied in twin pony tails with long bunny ears sticking right next to them.

"Please call me Tuzi, that is the hero name I have chosen for myself, because that was the way everyone called me when I was little, I was so fast." Tuzi answered and smiled. "And no, you are not supposed to tell me anything about my future, but I need to understand why are you here."

"Okay Tuzi." Alix confirmed. She knew there was so much to tell, so many things have happened, to the city where they just stayed as well as in the rest of the world. But Alix also knew to say nothing when it was needed, and this was such an occasion.

"I don't like the title master, there are too many people who like to be called that for all the wrong reasons. Now, why don't you transform too and we can find a nice quiet place to sit down so you tell me how you met yourself?" She continued quietly.

Alix whispered her own transformation words and one flash of bright light blue light, there was another girl in a rabbit suit standing between the trees. Ladybug looked around and searched for a place where they would all go, but Chat squeezed her hand to signal her to stay.

"Peagasus is snoring." Chat Noir cut in. "He is not able to hear us now, he is in deep sleep." He added and yawned. "I wouldn't mind to snuggle up with my Bug over here." He added and smirked when he saw that Ladybug had blushed.

"It is not a nap time for us, Chat!" Ladybug warned him and nudged him with her elbow. "We are here on an important mission." She straightened up and pretended she wasn't affected. "Bunnix, why don't you start?" The hero directed her words to Alix.

"I got a watch for my fifteenth birthday." Bunnix spoke after everyone sat down. "It produced a hologram. That is like … a special kind of light, like a fire but in a form of a picture … " She wasn't sure how to explain that to someone from the late middle ages.

"It is fine, I understand." Tuzi replied calmly, she sounded as if she had heard of a hologram before. "Please go on." She did not intend to ask too much about the future, just the personal account of this particular wielder of the rabbit miraculous.

"My watch broke on the same day because of the stupid race that I actually won and I got akumatized into a time traveller I … don't remember exactly everything that had happened but when Ladybug restored everything, my watch was fixed." Bunnix frowned.

"Yeah, that was a tough fight." Ladybug remembered quietly. "The akuma absorbed energy from Chat Noir to go to the past and he had disappeared." It still send shivers down her spine, and now she knew that Chat was Adrien, who sat by her side, she held his hand.

"I remember two Ladybugs from that fight." Chat grinned and squeezed her hand. That made Ladybug chuckle, of course that was what he remembered, that was one of his favourite memories from akuma battles. "You wanted to go to the past to get your watch fixed."

"You were akumatized?" Tuzi frowned. "You were an akuma? A bad one? And Ladybug and Chat Noir had to fight you? And they won. And there were two Ladybugs probably because one of them went back in time together with you."

"Yeah." Bunnix replied. "There was a man, a villain, he called himself Hawk Moth and he akumatized people, but he was defeated by his own son and Marinette, they took the butterfly pin, and the peacock brooch from Mayura, in the temple, in Tibet."

"So there was no villain any more when you left your future?" Tuzi pondered. "Were you the only akuma who was able to travel in time?" To the two heroes, it sounded like her question had some hidden meaning beneath it, like she was telling more than she was asking for.

"Yeah." Bunnix confirmed. "Actually no, there was that other one, that arrived from the future, he was able to send people into the past. That is when I learned that I am going to become Bunnix, when I met the older me."

Ladybug opened her mouth to protest, to add a few more akuma that were able to make people go backwards and other stuff that involved time, but Chat squeezed her hand and they both remained quiet, this was time for Bunnix to talk.

"Tell me then, about how you met yourself from the future." Tuzi directed. "That is a rather peculiar instance, and a really dangerous one, as you revealed your identity to your younger self and the two other heroes." The voice sounded like a warning.

"The watch, it activated, there was a hologram, a riddle, I was expected to find Ladybug and Chat Noir and pass them the message. Then they found the grown up me, transformed, hidden in a stone." That was far easier to state it than to mention a museum and an Egyptian artefact.

"So the watch contained a message. For Ladybug. That you recorded for yourself? And you were expected to participate in the battle? Both the hero you and the civilian you." Alix confirmed each question. "Go on." Tuzi encouraged.

"There was an akuma, a time travelling akuma, he came from the future, he had power to send people to the past, and he sent himself from the future to the past to try and defeat young Ladybug and Chat Noir." Alix continued to explain. "He also sent me, the adult me, to ancient Egypt."

Tuzi hummed she was able to follow the tale easily. She obviously had no issues with concepts of time travel and multiple instances of the same person at the same spot, in fact, the story probably made more sense to her than to Bunnix.

"And the future Chat Noir had damaged the clock the grown up me had, so I had to give her my own and she gave me hers." Bunnix continued. "Then little Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated the akuma and the adult me created a portal and brought the civilian home. I mean, his time."

"So the adult you and the akumatized person left, and by the end of that akuma battle you had another watch." Tuzi summarized. "And the future you had the watch you had previously, the one with the message."

"Yes! But, the watch I was left with, it wasn't working, there was no hologram at all, it only showed the time and … and it did not release Fluff when I took it like the miraculous Ladybug gave me … last night?" Bunnix frowned.

"So the miraculous wasn't fixed when little Ladybug launched her miraculous cure?" Tuzi inquired. She knew the answer already, the other three were to reach the same answer on their own, that was the way the teaching was done, they were expected to learn how to think, not only the facts.

"No … but it was Chat Noir from the future who damaged it." Bunnix replied. "Perhaps that other Ladybug, the adult one, should have fixed it, but the mini Bug did fix everything that Timetagger did in the L… in our time."

"Right." Tuzi concluded. "And you got another watch from Ladybug, I mean, one of the guardians, last night, and then you were able to see Fluff?"

"Yeah, and Fluff just popped out from that one." Alix confirmed. "But my first watch, it also turned blue when big me, I mean, the adult me, took it in her hand. And she needed it, because she said that the one she had was damaged, by a cataclysm from Chat Noir."

Chat felt rather guilty for the cataclysm he did not make yet. He huffed quietly and hunched his shoulders and Ladybug squeezed his hand to make him feel better. She had other issues on her mich, but this wasn't the time to discuss them, not with Bunnix and Tuzi present.

"Okay, and there was an akuma, that arrived from the future, when you were an adult?" Tuzi asked.

"Yeah, I was like … much taller than I am now." Alix raised her hand to try to illustrate just how tall the adult Alix was.

"But Hawk Moth who used to create akumas was caught before you were even given the miraculous … " Tuzi trailed off. Either the story wasn't making much sense, or everything was setting into place, but the idea she had wasn't for her to speak out.

There was a moment of silence. Tuzi let the three other superheroes take their time. She was not a teacher, but she knew that it had to be something they had conclude on their own for as much time as it took for them to reach their own conclusion. It did not take that long.

Ladybug knew the answer, deep in her mind, but she refused to accept it. Chat knew it right away, but dismissed it as if it was another crazy idea of his, he wasn't that cruel to say it out loud and make his lady sad, she's been through enough with him already.

"That means that there will be a new Hawk Moth!" Bunnix exclaimed quietly, she was so excited but she remembered to keep it down. "But Ladybug and Chat Noir said that they got the butterfly miraculous back and it is stored safely."

Chat let his head drop to his chest as he deflated. Ladybug huffed and looked to the sky annoyed about the future and destiny and stuff, but then she wrapped her arm around Chats back and pulled him closer, they held each other like that and braced themselves to be ready to hear the rest.

"Temporarily." Tuzi replied. She was in deep thought. Everything that Alix had said sent cold shivers down Ladybugs spine, while Chat Noir wanted to jump on his feet and fight. That implied they were going to lose the miraculous, they felt incompetent already.

Ladybug felt like she should have known, they have already fought an akuma from the future, of course they should have known, they changed that future, or not, and she had no idea to tell what was about to happen, and they were sitting right next to Bunnix, and Tuzi, something was wrong.

"So they will loose it?" Bunnix voiced the daunting fact and sent another set of shivers down everyone's spines. It wasn't a pleasant prospect, but it was obvious. There was no other way to have a time travelling akuma to fight with than to have another Hawk Moth in the future.

Chat replayed the events in his head, his father was under the mask as he appeared to the world when the pin was taken, but everything changed so much earlier than that, it changed when him and Marinette decided to go to China, everything else was just a consequence.

"The future is not set in stone." Tuzi cut in. Although their conversation was held in the dark, she felt how the two heroes tensed, and she wanted to keep the mood light, that was the only way to reach the truth, if one wasn't rejecting the facts.

"Right." Bunnix felt for her watch, the one she got in exchange, that was now sitting idly in her pocket, and then for the other watch, the one that gave her Fluff and then she smiled, at least that part of the future did not change yet, she was a miraculous wielder, at least temporarily.

"A tree has to die to make room for another tree." Tuzi spoke solemnly, but the sigh she got in return wasn't really the one of reassurance nor acceptance. "Sometimes, things look bad when they happen, but they are necessary for something good to happen from it."

"You still have your watch." Ladybug spoke to Bunnix and got affirmative hum in return. She knew that the present sometimes changes when you change something in the past, so if Alix still had her watch, that meant that part wasn't changed, at least not yet.

"Yes, I have it, right here!" Bunnix stressed her words and patted her suit on a lever where one would usually find pockets on pants.

Chat shifted slightly in his place. He felt so happy when he was given to share the duty of the guardian with Ladybug, especially since it meant they were together, but now he realized they were bound to make mistakes, and it was much easier to forgive Ladybug than himself.

"You have two watches now?" The young woman asked next. "That happens if a time traveller travels back in time, just like you and me both have watches, but if you have two … that means a time traveller lost one."

"Yes, but this one is different. The one I had before, that one had … there was a blue light coming out of it, even on my birthday, there was a hologram that appeared from it, it just did not speak, it did not direct me to do anything that day." Alix explained.

"Fluff was in the miracle box." Ladybug cut in. "I used all the available miraculous once, I needed all the kwami, to defeat Kwamibuster, one particularly nasty akuma, so I wielded them all, but I did not transform into a rabbit hero, I just needed Fluff."

"And we talked to Fluff and … and Bunnix, the adult one, she came from the future once, to pick us up, to deal with something … " Chat trailed off. "Anyway, that timeline is probably removed from existence … I hope." He added in the end. It looked like some parts were inevitable.

"Um … yeah?" Bunnix wasn't so sure about anything any more. Yeah, she knew she was going to be a hero that enabled time travel, but she had no idea that that implied that the two heroes and guardians by her side were expected to make considerable mistakes.

"But if you giving me the miraculous also means that you have to lose butterfly miraculous and that there will be one more Hawk Moth … or the old one … I don't want that for my friends, Adrien and Marinette go to my class you know?" Bunnix explained.

"It is not that simple." Tuzi muttered and looked away. She hated to be the bearer of bad news, and she often was, she was the weapon of the last resort, she was called in when everything else was bound to fail, her powers were needed because there was nothing else to do.

"It was Fluff and Bunnix who told us to give the miraculous to you." Ladybug spoke to Bunnix encouragingly. Suddenly she hoped that that part of the future had changed too, perhaps Chris wasn't going to become Timetagger, but there was still need for Bunnix.

"That means you are supposed to become a hero." Chat exclaimed with a cheeky grin. "Come on, we will have so much fun, you will find us all sorts of trouble to sort out from any point in history." And he knew that she knew history. His enthusiasm was contagious.

"Just this watch wasn't working." Alix patted her pocket again and grinned. She wanted to be a part of the team of Parisian heroes so much, and when Hawk Moth was defeated, although she was happy about it, she also felt as if she had missed her chance.

"But why haven't I fixed that watch when I launched the miraculous cure after we defeated the Timetagger?" Ladybug pondered. There were too many unknowns about her powers, things she did not understand, and Tikki seldom had concrete answers, as if the goddess wasn't aware of the full extend of her powers either.

"It got destroyed in the future? Maybe it will get fixed once the future you launches her miracle cure?" Chat wondered. "Maybe it was because it was the adult me who destroyed it?" He grinned teasingly, his eyes practically glowed with mischief in the dark.

"Nope, I fixed multiple time lines before, I probably fixed the future too." Ladybug replied and poked him just to make him stop turning everything into a joke. "But that means, the future me did not need to launch the miracle cure … "

"You mentioned how the watch got fixed although it was broken before you got akumatized?" Tuzi was having an idea. "Perhaps your cure did fix the watch, but sometimes it works strange ways across timelines, it got fixed when it needed to be, not when you wanted it."

"Oh." Was the most eloquent reply that the young woman got from all three of the teenagers with whom she was speaking. It was starting to make sense, or not, because now they knew that they never knew how the cure would work across time.