Chapter Thirteen: How Everything Went Wrong
"I wish I could say that there was one moment that started it all," Alix said. "One specific time that everything fell apart. That way, I could've at least tried to go back and prevent it all. But by the time I realized what was happening…we'd already reached the point of no return."
"So…what exactly happened?" asked Adrien.
Alix hesitated for a moment before answering. "I… Okay. Let me start at the beginning.
My timeline was pretty much the exact same as all of yours…I assume. I became Bunnyx to defeat Timetagger, met my future self, eventually became my future self, and started watching out for threats to the timeline. Threats like Hawkmoth.
In most timelines, Hawkmoth eventually either wins or loses. Sometimes he gets more Miraculous to help him, sometimes he loses them instead. But in mine, he and Ladybug and Cat Noir were locked in a stalemate that lasted for years. He never made any progress, but neither did they. Paris was plagued with Akumas for all that time, gradually wearing all of them down.
Paris…well, it was a miserable place. The heroes weren't the only ones who were getting frustrated. A whole bunch of people started blaming Ladybug and Cat Noir for not doing more to stop Hawkmoth, and some of them even tried taking matters into their own hands. Naturally, all this did was make more villains for them to fight.
It got pretty tiring for us…for all of us. Marinette didn't really feel comfortable letting us keep our Miraculous full-time, but with the sheer amount of Akumas going around, she had no choice. Anyone could be transformed at any time. If that sounds like the same as before, you weren't there.
Hawkmoth probably took it the worst out of everybody. Even before I knew who he was, I remember hearing how Gabriel had basically turned into a recluse after Adrien moved out. Nobody really saw him anymore, and his fashion empire pretty much crumbled. By the time it all ended, he was pretty much throwing out Akumas left and right, until his body was about to give out. He had used the butterfly Miraculous so much, he only stopped when he was basically on his deathbed.
I…only heard what happened later. I wasn't there to stop it. When he heard what his dad was going through, Adrien came home to see him. I don't know what possessed him to do it, but apparently, he told him about his Miraculous. Gabriel…he…
Gabriel knew where this was going. He didn't want to believe what Alix was about to say, but instinctively, he already knew what it was. "No," he said in disbelief, almost inaudible.
"He killed you," said Alix, just as quietly, looking up at Adrien. The words cut through Gabriel like a cold knife. "He just…killed you, then and there, ripped the ring right off your finger. They…they found you lying there, with him nowhere to be found."
The other three were in shock from this revelation. For Adrien and Marinette, it was from disbelief that such a thing had happened. But for Gabriel, it went beyond just disbelief. How could this be possible? How, in the entire multiverse, could there be a version of him so callous as to kill his own son? It couldn't be real. She had to be mistaken. "I…I would never do such a thing," he said, almost accusingly.
"Wouldn't you?" Alix shot back with a glare. "This coming from the man willing to Akumatize his son, to put him in danger just to get a leg up on his enemies, to use and abuse him for his own benefit, all 'for his own good.' Sure, you wouldn't kill Adrien now, but considering how desperate you were to be reunited with Emilie in your universe, just imagine how years of fighting Ladybug and Cat Noir would bring out the real you."
Gabriel's hand tightened around his glass. "You seem to be confusing me for someone who shares my name. Everything I did, callous and heartless though it may have seemed–though it may have been–was all for the purpose of recreating our family. To murder my own son…unthinkable! There have to be other factors at play, something else that drove my double to do such a thing!"
She scoffed. "There was: time. Imagine, even with everything you did as Monarch, you came no closer to getting the two Miraculous you needed. Then give that ten, fifteen more years. You really think you wouldn't lose your mind?"
This certainly explained why Alix was rather reluctant to work with him from the beginning. "I must not have been in my right mind. You said I disappeared–how can you be certain it was me who killed him?"
"Because you admitted it yourself," Alix said, rolling her eyes. "You don't think I meant you disappeared for good, do you? Of course you came back. You only had one half of Gimmi."
Adrien, who had mostly been looking around uncomfortably since the reveal, spoke up. "And…h-how did Marinette react?"
"She was livid," Alix said bluntly. Marinette nodded knowingly. "As stressed as she had been, I think she took it the worst out of all of us. She almost drove herself crazy trying to track him down." She sighed. "Too bad he found us first."
Marinette could tell things were about to get even worse. "So, then what happened?"
Like I said, he found us. And not one at a time, either–he got to most of us while we were alone. First Nino, then Max, then Chloe…there was nothing left of them. Nobody knows how he figured out who they were, just that he had. It was like they vanished into thin air. That's what the public thought, anyway. But we knew a Cataclysm when we saw one.
It was Alya who finally managed to find him. For all the good that did, anyway. She used a Mirage to trick him, but even when she got the drop on him, it didn't go well. At the very least, the rest of us got there in time to stop him, but not in time to help her. She wasn't dead…but she might as well have been. She ended up in a coma, and as far as I know, she's still in one now.
That was the last straw for Marinette. From there, she basically locked all of Paris down. Nobody was allowed out at night, and we were in charge of enforcing curfew. As you can imagine, she didn't care if anyone knew our secret identities anymore–not when Hawkmoth already knew. She wore herself and the rest of us out trying to make sure he couldn't get to anybody else. But, again, as you can imagine, that was just what he wanted.
Bunnyx regained consciousness, coughing up a lungful of dust. Disoriented, it took her a while to realize a large chunk of building was pinning her to the ground. As the ringing in her ears subsided, she pushed it off, walking back out to the street.
The entire block had been demolished. Their fight had torn entire walls off of buildings, left craters in the streets, and damaged the nearby park beyond recognition. All around was the screaming of people trying to get away from the scene. She jumped to the ground, making her way to the source of the madness.
Her team was not looking good. She passed by Luka helping Kim along, who seemed to be missing a leg. Marc leaned against a wall, holding a hand to his side, which appeared to be bleeding. Kagami could barely stand, her sword in pieces, but she tried anyway. Alix made her way towards the fighting.
"Wait." She felt someone grab her leg. Looking down, she saw Marinette on her knees. "You have to…to get them out of here." She handed Alix a pair of red earrings. It was only then did she see that she was not wearing them.
"No…no, you can't give up now! Not like this!" shouted Bunnyx. "I can go back, I can fix this, just–" She tried to open a portal, only for the effort to cause her to collapse.
Marinette struggled to her feet. "This is the only way to stop him. He's gotten too powerful. Without my Miraculous, he'll have nothing."
That wasn't entirely true, but Gabriel was indeed doing all of this to get the power of creation. Reluctantly, Bunnyx took hold of the Miraculous. They felt so fragile in her hand, like they could break any second–and, in Gabriel's grip, they certainly would. "Get to safety."
"You too," she said. Before either of them could leave, one of their own crashed into a nearby wall, falling to the ground. Juleka tried to get up, only to collapse. It was only then that they realized the sounds of fighting had stopped.
A swarm of Akumas descended on the block, coalescing before them. The dark butterflies formed into a solid shape: Gabriel Agreste. He was not Hawkmoth–not anymore. "Six, seven…how many Miraculous wielders does that make?" He strolled closer, holding Sabrina by the neck, who struggled as his fingers dug into her flesh. "Ah, it seems I've lost count." She suddenly went limp, her body dissolving into ash. "No matter. What's one more hero gone from this world?"
He hardly resembled his old self. The years had not been kind, and that was before he had obtained this power. His elderly face was twisted beyond recognition, stretched out into a sneer with eerie glowing eyes. His suit was loose on his too-tall form, and his skin was turning black and purple as though with necrosis. But strangest of all, he neither wore the butterfly Miraculous, nor had the black cat Miraculous on his finger.
Frozen with an almost unnatural fear, Bunnyx only regained her composure when she felt Marinette push her away. "Go!" The woman then began limping towards him, making no attempt to hide herself.
"Marinette!" Bunnyx refused to just run. She drew her umbrella, launching herself at the thing that used to be Gabriel. Before she could get close, he thrust out his arm, the appendage dissolving into Akumas. The swarm pushed her back, pinning her against a wall. "No! Stop!"
Gabriel loomed over Marinette, who refused to show her fear. "Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home," he sneered, gesturing to the destruction around them. "Your house is on fire, your children will burn. Just like Adrien did." His smile somehow grew even wider, showing childish glee at her distress.
"You're the one who will burn," she said weakly. "I don't know what you did to Nooroo and Plagg, but your body can't handle their power. Every time you use Cataclysm, it takes a little bit more of you, doesn't it? You won't last much longer at this rate." He snarled. "Looks like I caught on, didn't I?"
He shook off his rage, cackling to the sky. "Clever girl. And here, I was going to leave you alive to witness my family reunion. Looks like I'll just have to settle for letting you die with the knowledge that all of your sacrifices will be in vain. Let me guess, you gave your earring to one of your friends? All you did was delay the inevitable." He began walking closer to her. "I will hunt them down, one by one, until I make Tikki mine. And then, I will make my wish, and reshape this world to my liking. Consider it a slight mercy, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, that you will not live to see it!"
Once he was close, his arm shot out, reaching for her throat. But she also thrust out her hand, meeting his. A look of spiteful triumph crossed her face, confusing him–only then did he realize she had something in her hand. She fell to the ground, beginning to disintegrate…as did her Miraculous. "Let me know how the family reunion goes," she whispered, before she, and the ladybug earrings, were no more.
All at once, Gabriel's eyes were filled with terror, rage, confusion, and hundreds more emotions Alix couldn't recognize. At first, he began to laugh; a wild, inhuman sound that chilled her to the bone. But then, his laughs turned to screams. "NO! NOOOO!" She saw that he had begun to fall to pieces, the power of destruction turning against him, just as Marinette had predicted.
After a while, his screaming had silenced. His body had completely turned to ash, aside from a few Akumas that soon fell to the ground, dead. Alix herself fell to the ground, lifting herself up. She looked down at the earrings in her hand, only now realizing that they were fake–a Lucky Charm.
Gripping tightly to the earrings, Alix knew what she had to do. She hurled them as far up into the air as she could, shouting "Miraculous Ladybug!" …Only for them to fall back to the pavement. "What? No, no!" She scrambled over to them, once again throwing them upward.
Again she tried, and again, until she could hardly see anymore through her tears. Although the Lucky Charm remained, without its Miraculous, it couldn't be used. She fell to her knees, clutching the earrings to her chest, knowing there was no way to bring everyone back.
Alix reached into her pocket, placing the earrings onto the table. "And there you have it: how everything went wrong. That's what happened in my dimension, and how I know my Gabriel can't be responsible."
Everyone was silent for a time, before Marinette worked up the courage to speak. "Not to pour salt on the wound, but…did you ever go back in time to–"
"I tried." This was punctuated by her hitting the table with her fist. "That was the first thing I thought of. But every time I thought I had found a solution, it somehow made things worse. I couldn't find a version of events where everybody made it out alive. By the time the ITAA found me, my timeline had been worn down to almost nothing." A humorless laugh. "That many changes in so little time aren't good for a universe's stability. They had to tear me away before I brought the whole thing down."
Adrien was deep in thought. "That explains why you were so sure your Gabriel wasn't behind the Ripplers. But, when me and Da–eh, Gabriel touched, we saw something happening in another timeline. Butterfly and black cat…your Gabriel had those powers too. So even if he isn't responsible, don't you think he's connected somehow?"
"Impossible," replied Alix, turning away. "I saw him disintegrate. He didn't even leave his Miraculous, they were just…gone. I still don't…" She sighed, resting her head down on the table. "Whatever. There's nothing we can do now anyway. I would know–I tried everything."
Despite how adamant she was that her Gabriel wasn't to blame, Adrien wasn't convinced. "Well, there's only one way to find out, right? We go back to your timeline."
The very idea of doing that made Alix spring out of her chair. "NO! …I mean…no, we can't. Like I said, it's barely hanging together. It'll be crawling with ITAA goons. They'll be on us the moment we show up."
"We escaped from them once," Gabriel pointed out. "And that was before we knew what we know now." He gestured to Marinette. "And with a new addition to our fellowship, surely we stand more than a chance against them if they come calling?"
Marinette agreed. "I don't know any more about the ITAA than what you guys told me, but if you want us to fight them, that's what I'll do!" She tapped her bat on the ground to punctuate her point. "These Ripplers destroyed my home. If this has even the slightest chance of getting closer to stopping them, I say we go for it!"
"Great, then that's all of us!" said Adrien, happily looking over his companions. "If we lay low enough, we should probably avoid any… Uh, Alix?"
She was glaring at him. "I don't remember giving you the okay to go poking around my timeline," she muttered. "There's nothing for us there but death and destruction. Looking for clues there would only bring up bad memories."
"Your bad memories," said Gabriel, his tone accusatory. Adrien nudged him, but he continued, standing up. "Have you forgotten that you are not the only one here who has suffered? All of us have experienced loss in some form or another, even before our worlds were annihilated. Why are you so insistent we stay away from your world? Unless you believe this Gabriel to still be around…"
Alix knew Gabriel was leading her, but she couldn't resist. "Fluff, Clockwise," she hissed, becoming Bunnyx. "You want your proof? I'll give you proof. We can look around my timeline as much as you want, until you're satisfied that my Gabriel is dead and gone, with no connection to the Ripplers whatsoever. Burrow!" A portal to her timeline appeared, which she gestured to impatiently.
"Thank you very much," said Gabriel, perhaps just a bit smugly, before walking through the portal. Marinette followed, but Adrien hesitated before walking through, looking over at Bunnyx.
"Hey…we're gonna get to the bottom of this. If your Gabriel really is still alive, we'll do everything we can to stop him," he promised.
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just head through before I change my mind." He did so. Bunnyx followed, the portal closing behind them.
Time-Hopper, Darner, and Killer Bee watched the four of them pass through the portal from atop the cafe. "Targets moving," said Darner. "Should we pursue?"
"Of course we should," said Killer Bee, rolling her eyes. "The real question is if we should call this in. They might have a lead."
"If they have a lead, we should make it our lead," said Time-Hopper, opening a portal of her own. "Nobody calls the Director until we're absolutely sure what they're after. Got that?" The pair made it clear they understood. "Good. Now, go! We can't let them get away!"
The three of them disappeared through the portal, which closed behind them.