Chapter 45: Timetagger(Part 2)(Keith's POV)
Keith stumbles hard, making him fall on the soft ground. Pine needles prick his back a little, and groaning he sits up. Thick lush green foliage surrounds him, no clear path in sight. Distantly he hears a roar, and looking up at the sky, can only see the canopy of trees.
Where the heck am I? Keith wonders, confused. Then he remembers, that weird akuma hit him with some strange light, and something about the past…..
A blue glow emits from in front of him and out steps an old woman with a white and blue Victorian dress. Blue bunny ears with white insides come out of her grey hair, and a parasol is firmly in her hands that are encased in white gloves. It makes her green eyes stick out sharply.
"Who are you?"
The old woman chuckles, "I am one of many Rabbit Miraculous holders. My name is Lady Time and I am here to bring you back to your time to deal with Timetagger."
Keith eyes her suspiciously. She doesn't seem like the akuma who stranded him here in this strange place…. Wait a minute, bring him back to his time, then that means this is the past?!
"I know it's shocking but we do not have a second to waste."
"How can I trust you, I've only just met you."
Lady Time sighs, "I do not have time for idle conversation, young one. If I do not get you back to your time at the proper moment disaster could occur..."
"Like what?"
"Reality collapsing in on itself, ripping itself apart."
"I guess I have no choice…."
"People always have a choice. Now let's get you back to your proper time before Timetagger causes reality to tear itself apart due to his time mismanagement."
She holds out her hand, and he takes it. She quickly pulls him through the blue glow and into a bright white space. Looking around he notices windows into moments of time, past, present and future.
He sees a technology advanced Paris going about its business, along with streets of the Paris he's come to know. But before he can glimpse any further into other windows, Lady Time has led him back to the bench he and Monsieur Ramier were at.
Glancing at it he notices that he's okay, which makes Keith breathe a sigh of relief.
"Now about this Timetagger, how are we supposed to stop him from causing any further paradoxes? We don't exactly have the Ladybug miraculous to make things return to normal."
But Lady Time just winks, "Leave that to me. Right now, your friends should be fighting him around the Louvre."
"Then why you'd…."
"To keep my visit to this era a secret from Hawkmoth so that we could have the element of surprise."
He opens his mouth to argue, but stops himself. It's a fair point and if they'd just poofed in front of the fight they wouldn't have the time to analyse the situation and see how well his teammates were faring. But did they even need him? They left him with Monsieur Rameir without a second's hesitation and didn't signal that they'd be leaving that area.
"Stop dawdling, and let us get a move on." Lady Time says, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Of course."
When they get there, they see his teammates all fighting Timetagger. Ryuko is already in her water dragon form, dodging blasts from the akuma and striking him with water blasts that only stun him for a moment before he appears somewhere else entirely before anyone else can strike. And when Chat closes in on Timetagger he simply vanishes again, and reappears in another spot, only to once again get hit by Ryuko's water blast.
"Doesn't seem like they need help….."
"Ah but notice how Ryuko's blast's only stun him for a little bit before he reappears in another area. They cannot keep playing this little game of stun and vanish forever. And the others have not even managed a hit, exhausting all their energy trying to do so."
"And you know this because…."
"Forgotten already? I am the Miraculous Holder of Time and have seen this battle play out before in my burrow, before it came to fruition."
"Right of course," Keith replies, deadpan.
Sighing, "So what do I do?"
"Well, I need to push Timetagger into my burrow and take him back where he belongs, before he causes anymore trouble, and have the heroes in the future where he came from stop him. And to do that I need someone to assist with pushing him in, while he's distracted by your friends."
"Sounds doable, where do I need to be to push him?"
"Whenever you feel like pushing him. I'll know the exact time so do not worry but timing it perfectly."
Keith nods.
Lady Time opens her burrow and heads through, leaving him alone. Well no better time than the present. He runs, watching for when Ryuko will strike another jet of water onto Timetagger. A stream of water comes from Ryuko, once again stunning Timetagger when he was trying to dodge his other teammates' attacks.
He tackles the akuma, and the blue glow of a portal swallows them up.
And he lands onto something in the white vastness of Ladytime's burrow. Quickly he gets up, realising the force of his tackle knocked the akuma out cold.
"Well done," says Lady Time, leaning to pick Timetagger up. She swings him over her shoulder and opens another blue portal.
"I'll be back to return you to your time."
And not a second later she reappears, Timetagger gone from her shoulder.
"Now to see your friends."
Now back at the Louvre, Chat Noir asks, "Thank you for the assistance, ah, lady?"
"Time. Lady Time. And the pleasure was all mine. And do not forget without Marmora's assistance in tackling that akuma I would not have been able to send him back to own time."
"Couldn't you have grabbed him from one of your portals?"
"Alas, I am but an old lady. My strength is not as strong as it once was when I was first entrusted with this Miraculous…."
"But surely there are other Rabbit Miraculous holders who can help you, if you all have the power of time."
"They are merely guides, mentors, as they have their own time troubles in their own era's to attend to. And, well, some of them were only holders for a very short period of time. My circumstance is a bit different."
"Why?"
"I believe you already know, Chat Noir, as do all of you. But I believe that is something to discuss in private amongst yourselves, as well as other things. Good luck, and the future does get brighter,"
And then she walks into the blue portal, disappearing in a swath of blue light .
"What did she mean by 'other things'?" He asks, as he has no clue as to what she is talking about.
Honeybee answers his question, "You'll find out later tonight what she meant."
Keith raises his eyebrow, suspicious, but doesn't push it further.
Later that Night in Chloe's Room:
"Hey I got your text," He says, but trails off when he notices that Adrien, Kagami and Zoe, Chloe's half sister, are in the living room part of Chloe's room. He wasn't expecting this.
"Sit with me," Chloe says, tapping her hand against the couch she's sitting on.
He obliges and wraps his arm around her, quickly kissing her on the lips. "Now what was it that you wanted to discuss, Blondie?"
"Well Raven, now that everyone is here, the meeting of Team Miraculous shall begin."
"Wait… hold on. Team Miraculous, so you mean…"
"Yep, they're the other members. Adrien is Chat Noir, Kagami is Ryuko and Zoe is Rouge Renarde."
Keith briefly has an inner panic attack, because Adrien is their leader, dressed in black just like Shiro.
"In case anything happens to me, I want you to lead Voltron," Those words echo through his head. And now what he considers his younger brother is also in that same position, with the same colour, black. It makes his chest tighten. Adrien is their leader, the leader of this team. Like Shiro is of team Voltron.
Quickly he exhales, trying to calm his nerves at the revelation. He doesn't want Adrien to say the same thing Shiro told him. And god it was the two people he considered like brothers who were leaders with the colour black….. His heart races. Again he exhales, nothing will happen to Adrien, this is different. Chat Noir has a powerful suit to protect him from anything, nothing is going to happen.
"Something wrong?" Blondie asks, and he answers, "No. Just shocked. I didn't think Chat Noir would be Adrien, they seem so different."
Adrien laughs, "Then that's a point in my favour for no one reasling who I really am underneath the mask."
"True," Kagami agrees.
"But we didn't come here to talk about that," Chloe says, guiding the conversation back to whatever they were supposed to talk about.
"Hawkmoth," Zoe answers.
"Yeah him. We haven't gotten anywhere close to figuring out his true identity. All we've done is clean up the mess he's created in trying to get our Miraculous for something. Heck we don't even know what he wants with them. Adrien mentioned that only lead and Ladybug got was when she somehow got a hold of the Grimoire that somehow ended up in his father's position."
Adrien takes over, "But my father was akumatized the same day we found out. Marking him off our list of who could be Hawkmoth."
An idea dawned on him, "Well you saw what he did on Heroes Day, who's to say he couldn't have done something similar. A way to make him appear like he and Hawkmoth are not one and the same. Akumatizing himself. It doesn't seem far-fetched…."
"Except it is Keith. Me and Ladybug were there, Hawkmoth was definitely guiding him."
"But he does have a stronger motive than anyone else. Your mother passed away a year ago and Hawkmoth began his attacks in September…."
"That doesn't make any sense. Why would he wait nine months to begin his quest for the Miraculous, if what you say is true about it being a year since her passing," This time Kagami rebuttals.
"Good question. One I don't have the answer to. But given what I've seen of Gabriel firsthand it wouldn't surprise me if he was the supervillain Hawkmoth. And it would explain why he was always so busy, never attending things in person, and…." he trails, not wanting to say the last part. He neglected Adrien and left him alone. And given how in his office he has a painting of Emile and pictures of her, he must have really loved her. And there's the statue of her in the indoor garden.
And he understands the feeling. Growing up without his mom, and then his dad, if he had learned a way, before he met Shiro, if there was a way to bring them back to him he would've taken it in a heartbeat. And would have done anything if it meant having his mother's love finally and his father's love back after he died to try and save people trapped inside a burning building.
He looks at Adrien and sees raw pain in his eyes. Like he can't believe that his dad, on top of ignoring him, was doing it for the sake of getting his mother back and terrorising Paris to do so.
But then Adrien sighs, "True. And no other person we've come across fits the bill and has a motive that would drive them to this extreme. But we have no proof other than the Grimoire and theories."
"Then we need to find proof." Kagami states.
"But how, Kagami? My dad has a very tight security system that I doubt we could sneak in and get away with it."
"Then we'll find a way. Soon another break is coming due to exams taking place. We can use some of that time to figure out how to find proof that your father is either really not Hawkmoth or is for sure."
"I don't like it. But, you're right. We can't cross my dad off the list just yet until we're absolutely sure."
"Why are you hesitant? With this your father could be put behind bars, and pay for what he did to you, instead of only getting a restraining order." Kagami says, a little tint of anger in her voice.
"I know. But he's still my dad, and I don't want him to be even worse. And I don't like the idea that all this time I've been fighting him…"
Keith goes up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, "I don't like it either. But he's the only suspect we have right now. And when we're absolutely sure, one way or the other, we'll be even closer to figuring out who Hawkmoth really is."
"Accept one way leaves us with a dead end."
He shrugs, true. But maybe something fruitful will come out of out, no matter which way it goes.