I hit the pavement at a dead sprint after seeing the aftereffects of a dust plume right ahead, swallowing the entire block.
Just with a glance I saw the storefronts had folded inward, concrete slabs the size of cars stacked against each other. And underneath all of it, I could finally hear exactly what Cat Noir did earlier. People under the rubble.
"Viperion!" Cat Noir called out, already ahead of me, hands jammed under the edge of a wall section. "I've got this side, handle the right." He heaved at the slab.
I rushed by until I saw a hand underneath a leaning beam. I halted before it, braced, and pulled it clean off. The man underneath was breathing, at least, but there was no mistaking his legs had taken the brunt.
We kept at it and there were hundreds of civilians stuck from unfortunate luck. We even squeezed through a gap Cat Noir forced open from what looked like a school. A woman. Then her son — seven, maybe eight, school bag death-gripped to his chest. I got them through and back into the street, turned, found the next pocket of people before the dust from the last one had settled.
No time for discussion, no check-ins. Narrating at the civilians, or at each other, wouldn't help. Cat Noir still found room for the occasional bit of nonsense to calm a kid down — something about an angry baguette villian.
I was about to move on when I slowed without meaning to. Another sound, farther off. Cat Noir came up beside me, tail gone still for the first time since we'd landed.
Two dozen people, maybe more. A lot more than what we'd been hearing. We started our dash over, going over the worst streets with buildings creaking, until we turned onto a block that looked almost identical to the one we'd left.
My eyes stopped at the center of it — a mass of people bunched together, surrounded by rubble, packed close like it bought them safety. But there was a clear leader among them, standing on a raised slab with his hands clasped over one knee, sightlines perfect, eyes on the sky.
I stepped forward first, even if he pulled something i was ready for any sneak attack or trap.
The unbroken purple of him came into focus.
A Shockwave from the moon's destruction reached the planet in that moment — glass loosening in every window frame, rock grains moving through my hair.
The man didn't move, hood flowing with the wind.
Still, it was obvious who he was despite the dust lifting.
Felix.
Cat Noir's voice came out in a whispered gasp, likely at their similarities.
We crossed the distance, crushing debris under even footsteps, the sound audible over the wind. Felix watched us the whole way. Nothing in his face said he was ready to fight. Just that look of someone for whom life had gone direly simple.
"Chat Noir." He spoke before we were in close proximity. Unhurried, and poised. The voice of someone who'd never once needed to raise it. His eyes went to Cat Noir first, like a chore to get out of the way. "Still on that leash, I see."
He looked up at the moon a moment.
"I've always wondered what it feels like. To run toward every disaster someone else pointed you at and call it a purpose."
I read Cat Noir by his stillness. He was never fully still, and even now he wasn't, but the confusion on him was plain — he hadn't caught the insult, or the reason for it.
Felix's eyes found mine. Something colder than his usual expression, more focused.
"And you." He held the look. "The tyrant, who believes himself without flaw." A pause. "Someone genuinely without flaw doesn't spend as much time tallying the ones he's corrected."
I almost wanted to applaud at how typical anti hero he sounded, though I couldn't fully place what he meant. He's not one to talk — wasn't his own plan to burn the world down for a better one or something?
"Wow, real cool story, purple guy," Cat Noir said, flat but bright, claws already out. "But we've got more important things to do, so how about you tell us what you're doing with all these people."
"You genuinely don't comprehend. Look at what you've done and hear yourself. What's your goal, exactly, Adrien — to ignore the obvious? The villain in all this is you. And him."
"Ugh?! How do— Hey, what exactly—"
I stopped him before he got closer. Felix didn't look at him.
Cat Noir's jaw went tight.
"My aim," Felix said, a slight weight settling into his tone, "was never disorder. It was to acquire Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous's for my vision — a free world for my people, built on the Peacock. destroying this one for A means to an end. My plan was perfect. Positioned past the point no one could stop it." A hint of feeling finally cracked his voice, though his posture stayed unbothered. "Until the day you two—"
"You're one to talk. Aren't you the one trying to—"
"Let's go."
Cat Noir turned on me. "Seriously? This guy's talking trash about you, and he basically just told us he's the culpr—"
"I heard him."
A villain, same as me, to some extent. I held Cats gaze, steady, so he wouldn't push past and reveal more of what Felix had already let slip. I watched him work through it — the anger staying right where it was, at the absurdity of being cut off. Then it left just as fast.
"Fine." He turned from Felix without another word.
I turned too, filing away whatever this meant for later, back in my own timeline. But " You have to remember the people above us are the ones causing the issue with the timeline. Wasting all our time on his isn't going to save the multiverse."
"let's go find Ladybug."
He nodded, keeping pace at my side.
I scaled the nearest building and set my hands into a crouched net. He understood quickly, stepped in with all his weight, and I swung my body to launch him as high as I could. He was still going up when I heard him shout, "Found her!"
Desending rapidly, He landed hard in the usual pose, cracked the ground, and shot off. Rooftop to rooftop, I followed and we made the street in under two minutes I scanned our new building packed location and found her without much effort — pulling a kid out from under a collapsed garden wall with the focus of a true hero. Ladybug passed the boy to a firefighter, brushed the dust from her palms, and turned to find both our faces waiting.
"Cat Noir, Viperion!?"
"Hey, Bunnyx, thought you might need some help."
"Hey, Bugaboo. Long time, no see. Need a hand?"
She breathed out through her nose, shoulders loosening. "I could use a little help." She was already moving. "I've been investigating what's happening on the moon. So far I've managed to find the Guardian of the Miraculous in this timeline — he didn't know much about what was happening, but he did give me these." She tapped her yo-yo. "Miraculous potion snacks," she looked up to the sky.
"One thing's clear the Miraculous's are up there, and whoever's causing this is up there too."
She open the box of snacks, each apparently meant for our specific kwamis.
"Let's feed them first. I'll head this way." She tossed the snacks to us. Cat Noir glanced at me when she said it, and I glanced back before I could stop myself.
We split anyways. I ducked behind a billboard, not too concerned about who might see. "Sass, Scales rest." Sass appeared, and I handed him the teal green tofu. "We've got a lot of work ahead, bud. Rest up."
"Tofu! My favorite." He gave a respectful little bow before gulping it down in one bite. I'd have to remember that.
I waited patiently for Five minutes before Sass whipped back into my space. "Luka, I'm fully rested and ready when you are."
I stood off the billboard's back and nodded. "Right. Sass, scales slither!"
The transformation hit fast, but different this time — green cosmic stardust swept over my usual teal until my new form settled. I looked down at my hands. A deep indigo shone across scales more reflective than before, the tips of my fingers black as space. My fingers found my face — the mask ran longer now, tapering into something almost tooth-shaped at the edges, a band of clear glass wrapping my eyes and lower mouth like invisible goggles. A blue spatial pattern crossed my torso on the diagonal, stars drifting through it. My back had gained a pair of rectangular slots I guessed would let me fly if I thought hard enough about it. I summoned my lyre — mostly the same, just recolored indigo, with the same rectangular cut and star-bright volume buttons.
Enough gawking. Time to move.
Ladybug and I arrived at the same spot at the same moment, both fully transformed — her in the cosmic bug suit from the original series.
"Wow. Looking cosmic."
Best line I had. My head was elsewhere, on the fact that this unfixed timeline could take all of us down with it at any moment.
"Thanks. Nice hair." She replied with A laugh under her voice. I pulled a strand down to look — what was wrong with my hair? but before I got a good look a shadow crossed my vision. Cat Noir cleared a collapsed wall in a single bound and landed hard, breaking his own fall with the pole.
"Looking cool, you two."
"Moon?"
"Moon," Ladybug said.
"Right. Then full speed ahead." I gave myself a boost off the ground, jets firing before the thought was even finished.
Ladybug and Cat Noir were right behind me as the rooftops shrank.
The skyline began thinning into space, and the last wisps of cloud were dissolving beneath us. A last burst of flame and we'd left the planet behind — five seconds, maybe less.
The shattered arc of the Earth looked small below us. Space held its own kind of silence, weighted, though that might've just been the moon's gravity starting to pull at me.
The crater came into view, most of the damage visible even from a distance. This single battle could possibly beat everyone I know in the other timeline. The crater itself wasn't small and we were still far off, in terms of distance than in speed.
I paused, and felt the pull of gravity from here, the other two stopped with me.
"Are we all ready?" Ladybug asked.
"Yes, But we should scout first." I looked out over the surface. Blind searching would burn time we didn't have. "The Center of the crater's as good a place to start as any."
Cat Noir squinted at it. "So are we just walk into the giant hole and taking the Miraculouses back?"
"No, no we have to get our eyes on it first. No sense flying straight into whatever's throwing chunks of the planet around."
Ladybug's yo-yo unspooled a thin line, letting it float ahead acting as a scanner. "Cat, you're our eyes."
"I really don't want to fly into whatever's causing all this, not feeling the luckiest today," she added, mostly to herself.
We drifted closer together in somewhat of a formation, quite enough now that I could hear my own pulse over the silence. The crater came into fuller view and giant gapes size was undeterminable. I looked closer with cat the jagged rocks seem to spread in more than one direction, and even more smaller craters that littered the ground had the same unnatural edges.
We continue to move closer to the center and I led the way. Until cat put his hand on my arm, that's when a light built in an instant, low and steady near the crater's center, it was almost the same as that first white—
"Get down!" I didn't have time to explain past that, just grabbed for both of them and pulled us behind a jagged spur of rock jutting out of the surface.
The second ball of white expanded just passed above us, close enough that I felt the threat of death emanating through my suit even in the vacuum of space, it kept going, then in a second it was gone indifferent to us entirely, and struck the Earth somewhere over what used to be the Pacific. Another chunk sheared cleanly away, drifting off into its own slow orbit, glowing faint at the fracture line where it had torn from the rest.
Nobody said anything for a second.
Cat Noir's tail had gone rigid again. "Okay. Cool. Normal moon stuff."
My eyes were still on the crater, on the source of the light, because it was exactly what I suspected. A cataclysm. Was it another Cat Blanc situation with ladybug and cat noir?
More than likely but one things for sure, "we've confirmed there location," Ladybug said taking the thought from my head. " lets go save our timelines"
We crossed the ridge fast, vanishing into a blur toward the center, the ground dropping into a shallow basin ahead of us. We stopped high above it — small against the size of the hole.
"Down there," Cat said, pointing.
I saw something for only a second before it moved I barely followed but the person I thought I saw stopped in place a few miles away from there original distance. Focusing my sight I noticed it was someone who had a miraculous, orange or no more purple in particular. Wait, that facial structure and hair, was that?
Lila.
No question she was at the center of this, possibly making the cat blanc scenario worse. I continued focusing and off in a distance I could barely see inside the crater another group became visible, it seemed to be a pair of dots. I tried squinting even more but was quickly blinded by a light close by.
I rapidly blinked my eye clearly my vision and checked who it was. Wearing a fully black body suit that draped down into a with a short collar with red dots and a pair of horns . Ladybug, combat-ready. She wore the Ladybug Miraculous and what looked like the Goat's hair clips both.
None of them were moving. The one I could see clearly wasn't looking our way, but her stillness said she already knew we were here. So did the rest of them.
I signaled the others down — no use pretending we hadn't been spotted.
We hit the crater floor in a loose triangle. The group ahead still hadn't moved.
"So what's the plan," Cat Noir said, low, eyes on the group. "Besides walking up and hoping they're friendly."
"We don't know who's who yet," Ladybug said, just as quiet. "I go first. You two hang back until I say otherwise."
"And if they don't want to talk?"
"Then we'll know that too."
Ladybug didn't wait for the rest of us to catch up. Her yo-yo was already spinning grappling onto a juding rock before she pulled herself to the other Marinette of this timeline. Cat Noir and I dashed past.
She'd worked it out faster than I had. the other Ladybug was the one carrying the miracle box, tucked away somewhere in that yo-yo of hers, and whatever strength she was carrying under that black suit, ours wasn't planning on giving her the chance to use it.
"Lucky Charm."
She threw it before the other Ladybug..
climbing out of every crack under the whole crater giant red and black dotted walls broke through forming itself into a grid of towering boxes. One segment closed around the two of them alone and another encased us with whoever was nearby us. Only the top was see threw and the rest solid.
This didn't seem like a very good Idea.
Being trapped with people superior in strength felt like a death wish in this case, maybe we shouldn't have acted so hastily believing the luck charm would solve everything.
Cat Noir and I closed the last of the distance to Lila alone, and I could feel it before anything actually happened. We were all quiet knowing the would start at any moment now.
!?
two shapes I think I caught in glimpses broke down to our direction filling behind lila with dust. The dots from before stepped forward out of the bloom and up close, there was no mistaking what I was looking at.
The Cat Noir of this timeline wore his pure white suit, hair bleed pale yellow to match it, his face was beyond the seriousness I've seen on him ever, and his eyes felt like they had a single purpose.
Beside him stood, well me.
climbing his shoulders in a burnt, molten gold, was his bright scales catching what little light the crater had left to give like something lit from underneath. Fire red hair was cow licked from the rooster miraculous, the talon ring resting on his pointer figure below the snake.
"Viperion. Cat Noir." The other me spoke first, voice carrying easy and sure, like a man used to being followed. "Come stand with us. Whatever she's planning, we handle it together."
We didn't need telling twice. Cat Noir and I closed the gap toward them, circling in on the two doubles rather than crossing straight for them. Lila stayed exactly where she was through all of it, tracking our movement with an easy smile.
We reached them but I felt a cold sweat running deep inside. I was sure lila could have put a stop to us in a second but how well could these two actually protect us. How long has this fight been going on for?
The white-suited Cat noir went first without warning breaking me from my thoughts, one second I was next to him the next he'd closed the last of the distance to Lila in a single motion.
"I guess it's time to bring the claws out!." Cat Noir was already moving to back him up, claws out and staff ready.
both of them were on her at once, and the fight tipped into something too fast to hold onto cleanly. Lila had back up far away and Cataclysms began raining on my right direction. My cat noir had taken high ground with his staff dropping down on lila and raked out his claw in one arc, tearing furrows through rock every time they were dodge with little movement from her. I could just barely keep up with the slower paced actions, really only seeing my cat noirs full form. She moved like she was outside the space around her, flute atop her solder not having thrown out a single attack yet.
I stayed back, and so did the other Luka, I had to figure out what actually was going on so we could stop her and fix whatever needed.
"What's her goal in all this?"
"I believe she thinks ruling is her calling." His eyes never left the fight.
Okay terrible explanation jerk. Was he trying to mind game me? Right now that wasn't important though I refocused on the fight— on the exact second Lila has taken a hit from Cat noir, catching the edge of his claws clean across the chest and folded backward. He lowered ready to pounce some strain going out of his shoulders that no blow should have been able to loosen.
But as he rushed to continue his flurry she disappeared!? No wait, a physical illusion. she came from behind flute pointed at cat noir and notes already having been completed like a mute button was deactivated. A gold light shot at his as he was turning around.
I didn't understand what I was looking at until the gold burst into a pure white akuma, climbing up his suit from the collar down.
He looked nervously, in the second before the white swallowed the last of him.
I had to do something, I rushed forward but was stopped by my other timeline self.
"Don't worry, look first."
Huh, what was I supposed to be looking at? Wait. Now that I think about it how did she managed to akumatize him without his emotions being out of control? And looking at him now he was just staring down at his hands, completely fine. Were there delay effect, or was this luka right and there really wasn't anything to worry about?
Still though It made no sense why she'd akumatize him, only to do nothing with it.
There wasn't time to sit with the question. By the time the last of the white finished settling over him, he was already back in motion, matching this timeline's Cat Noir stride for stride, and the other Luka and I looked at each other for a second before breaking into the fight in the same breath.
Our speed matched for a second using my maximum boost to move in a straight controllable line and timing it to stop at the perfect distance. In order to stop her I had to use every trick I had in the book.
"Second Chanc—"
I didn't get past the second word. He was just in front of me a second ago. But before I'd finished my mouth was already being clasped shut over my mouth, the rest of the sentence dying against his palm.
"My ability is already active,." Quiet, almost apologetic, close enough that I could hear it under the noise of the fight. "It's been since before you lande A voice command from, well me undoes all of it and unlike your mine doesn't have the limit thanks to the rooster."
I nodded a little slow to understanding from the shock of being grabbed in an instant. Whatever he's using it for must be important to stop her.
I came in low, aiming to close off her retreat, and the other Luka broke wide to cut off the angle she'd have taken instead. She seemed prepared though. With a blow of her flute a double was spawned in and immediately targeting me. It started to blow its own flute forming a giant sword as it's weapon and in my attempts to dodge she'd slipped the gap between us. The other luka was still going in full force and there clash sent out ripples of impact.
I took the chance of the grounds instability to land my own blow to the clones eye, summoning my lyre at the last possible second to poke through and burst her clone.
I had to rush back into battle asap so we could keep our advantage in tact. While I was
"This isn't your Paris luka its mine," she called out, with an illusory wall catching and throwing back the cataclysm ball meant for her knees.
"Isn't it?"
"hmph we'll see." Lila's voice carried over the fight without her so much as glancing my way, weaving out from between all our claw strikes and my own lyre's sound waves in the same motion.
I couldn't comprehend what they were saying with half my focus pinned on the cataclysm splitting rock a foot from where I stood trying to staying upright before I remembered I could fly.
Spinning upward in an attempt to gain stability my eyes stopped on the Earth. It hung low over the crater's edge, close enough from here that I could still make out the shape of it without needing to squint, well what was left of it. Whole continents gone adrift into their own slow orbits.
Both Cat Blancs went past my a second later, moving too fast to track individually until they weren't moving at all thrown clean across the crater floor and hitting the edge of Ladybug's box wall hard enough that the whole segment shuddered under the impact.
I turned to see what had thrown them and didn't get the chance to finish turning. An illusion of a black rod caught my spine, real enough it felt like I wasn't wearing the suit, and the ground came up to meet me a second later.
Ughh.
I layed there a moment before I remembered how to move.
'This isn't your Paris luka its mine,' Her words..
I thought about my own plans and looked back up at the moon before buckling back down from the pain.
What was this Luka's plan?
I never intended to burn the world down, ruling it required it to be there. Neither seemed interested in the Cat or ladybug miraculous to fix this. Instead there just fighting each other. What could be the reason behind it? I couldn't understand it, unless.
There wasn't. I looked back at the two.
Was this fight for the planet just, their own.
Incompetence…
What was this dumb version of me doing? And what did that mean for my future in the other timeline.
I pushed myself up off the ground, needing to hear his reasoning for myself.
The fight was even more hectic and hard to follow since I left but seeing the other luka I jumped back into it without thought.
"What is it. Your goal?!" I said shouting aloud ignoring lila entirely.
He barely gave me a glance absorbed in the fight "Proving I'm capable of holding what's mine."
"That's. not an answer."
"Trust me, you'll understand later."
I understood him loud and clear. He was proving it to Lila.
The wall was coming down without warning as I made my own realizations. the red-and-black descending before me. Ladybug stepped out of what was left of it first, something new sitting behind her eyes that hadn't been there. The other Ladybug trailed a step behind her seemingly pacified, all the fight gone out of her and looking a grieved from bringing up a topic. She just watched now as my timelines ladybug slowly walked toward us.
Ladybug's eyes found mine across the ongoing battles wreckage and held there, serious in a way I had a bad feeling I already knew what that seriousness was about.
I had to quickly avert my gaze thanks to an unpredictable illusory pike made of purple flames popped up, with her few exchanges I was dragged back into the fight without challenge.
Whatever those two had talked about is irrelevant now, I have to stop these two from destroying our timelines!
The moment Lila turned from me I began gathering all the speed I was allowed, along with my lyre's jet I zoomed forward heading straight for Lila, fist cocked.
A blow came and connected cleanly. only the force was stopped, pulling back soft at the last few inches. Angled to open space between the two instead of box her in.
It was good she was smart, she seemed to notice. Her eyes found mine for a second I assumed she acknowledged my plan, an expression I didn't typically see from her passing over before she turned back to the fight with the two cats.
Ladybug watched from the edge of it all now was she waiting or something, or confirming?
Both Cat Noirs kept driving at Lila from opposite angles, white on white, the ground splitting under every exchange despite being miles in the air. And the other Luka stood open across from me, all his attention on the fight instead of on the opening I now stood in front of.
There wan't time to think about anything but this move. I went for it without further hesitation a full speed attack. This time meant to land.
With the rapid pace I was going at and lila's not so subtle attempts to prevent excessive travel that cause me to miss I'd barely managed to form a sledge hammer with my two fists before knock it straight to Luka's head.
Lila didn't even hesitate for more than a second.
Golden chains came at an impossible pace and snapped taut from the edge of her flute wound around his wrists yanking him backward out of the fight entirely.
I caught the pale-haired Cat Noir a moment later hopping all the way from below coming from a blind spot but unlike my cat noir he seemed to make his attacks known shouting before delivering his blow arms stretched. Without even turned she'd pinned his arms mid-swing, a thin band of light sealing shut over his mouth before whatever he'd been about to say made it out.
Lila turned the whole of her attention on me. It was her typical smile she wore when she knew she'd already won, and it knew it.
"Don't you worry your little head Luka, I've subdued him." She said certain, like she was doing me a favor just by saying it out loud. "Help me put down the version of yourself who still thinks any of this is his to rule. He's the only villain left standing on this rock."
Everything about it was arranged to land exactly where she wanted it to. One cat down the other frozen by my actions. Ladybug as still as before. Just her voice, and the offer sitting open in it, and me standing in the middle of this end of battle.
I looked her in the eyes and let myself think clearly— the incompetence I'd seen in him, the plan I'd never let curdle into this, the world that had died long before I ever got a say in saving it. None of it added up to an answer I wanted to live inside.
That included her.
With Luka subdued there was only ever one door out of this crater that didn't run through her.
"Second Chance."
in the last half-second before it took the crater whole, I caught his face finally crack into something that wasn't calm.
Quiet.
in that stretch before the white finished swallowing everything, that I could hear my own pulse keeping time with it.
I stood alone in on the moon.
'He's the only villain left standing on this rock'
She said, but was I any different from him..
Was this future similar to mine?
A whiteness caught the edge of my sight, blinding against all the dark of space, folding in on itself into a shape I recognized.
A burrow.