Chapter Text
Alix had been in the living room when she suddenly dropped.
It’d been a normal night. A family night. Dinner out, putting leftovers in the fridge, and then settling in for a homebrewed one-shot of DnD.
Alix sat on the floor at the coffee table. Her father on the couch, playing DM for the night. Jalil also was on the floor, but in part because he was lamenting a particularly bad roll. As in ‘rolled so bad his character probably tripped and landed on his own spear’.
“Well, you’re probably dead,” Alim mused. “Unless Alix makes a really good resurrection roll to heal you…..”
She took the dice, shaking them around and throwing them on the table. A grin at the numbers, and watching Alim pretend to be disappointed. Seeing their expressions, Jalil jumped up to scrutinize the dice.
“While I’m glad for the save,” Jalil said. “How in the world do you keep getting such good numbers?!”
“Lucky rabbit’s foot?” Alix joked.
He frowned at her, then snatched the character sheet. Turning it over a few times. He ducked under the table once again, checking the underside.
“I’m not using luck sigils to cheat,” Alix rolled her eyes.
Jalil said something, but Alix didn’t hear him.
The room warped and spun around her. Like the world’s worst carnival ride. Lights and sounds and the forces of gravity pulling at her body and all. She could vaguely hear her dad and brother calling for her, helping her up and onto the couch. But it sounded just as far away.
Something was wrong. She could feel it. What was happening?!
The longer it lasted, the more she realized that this wasn’t exactly something…. Physical. No, it was Magic. Bits of her Magic pulled apart and replaced with something similar, oh so very achingly similar, but not her and not right and did not belong.
“Hm. I forgot that the first time an Anomaly hits is always the worst.”
Alix knew that was Fluff’s voice. She knew she should be worried, should be scolding the Kwami for being out when others are near. But she couldn’t do so. She feared if she opened her mouth, she’d throw up from the vertigo.
“What in the world?” Jalil asked.
“You know what’s wrong?” Alim wondered, worry for his daughter making him ignore the more obvious questions.
“You’ll be fine, kid,” Fluff said. “Won’t hurt as much next time. Go to the Burrow. It’ll be easier.”
Alix didn’t really want to speak. Everything felt warped and wrong. But she had to do something, and it it would make her feel better…
“Fluff, Clockwise!”
She felt the transformation wash over her, heard her family exclaim in surprise and jump back. She didn’t care. Not when it felt so Wrong.
“Burrow!”
The portal opened beneath her, and she let herself drop in. Closing it before Alim or Jalil could follow.
Fluff was right about it being better here. Not gone, not completely. But better. Bunnyx was starting to understand why.
She was never quite herself in the Burrow. Or rather, she was. Just more of herself. Every version of herself from other Timelines, both merged into one but separate enough. The information flooding into her.
She’d been on the couch with her family when it happened. She’d been on a date with Lady Luck. Laughing as Panthera nearly walked right into a wall because Pigella looked cute today. Trying not to yell at Mylene for tripping her, as the girl was still getting used to having a tail. She’d been fighting alongside Tempest. She’d kicked Khepri in the shin. Captain Noire had been leading a shanty. She was already in the Burrow, hiding from Monarch. Rolling her eyes as Ainsel kept hanging ornaments off Sabrina’s antlers until she noticed. Learning many new words as Gattinera swore up a storm at an Akuma. Looking through any research to try and halt the Apex Infection from spreading.
The longer she went, the more the past and future trickled in. Her first time in the burrow. Flashes of her friends, older and more experienced and sure of themselves. The last time she saw her mother. A blink of a wedding. A flash of fire.
This was why very few people could wield the Rabbit. Other than resisting the temptation to change things.
Time was linear, but it also wasn’t. Here in the In Between she was everything. And it was easy to lose herself.
Focus.
She settled back into herself. She was Bunnyx. She was 16, soon 17. She had been given the Rabbit by Ladybug and Chat Noir.
“What’s happening?” Bunnyx asked once she trusted herself to speak.
“An anomaly,” Fluff explained. “If one person, or even a group of people, is displaced from or to your current time, you’re aware of it.”
“You explained that one,” she frowned. “But this is… more?”
“An Event,” Fluff said. “Sometimes an event in Time ripples across. Sometimes it’s like that Timetagger Villain, pulling things from different Times and throwing people to others. If I’m remembering linear Time correctly though, I think this may be the birth of a new Time Deity. Flurry is-”
“Flurry’s my age, isn’t she?” she frowned.
“Yes and no,” she said. “She will be. Just as your older self was once your age, but travels to her past and your present.”
Oh that was a headache and she’d put it out of her mind.
“These anomalies,” Bunnyx said. “Do they happen a lot?”
Fluff blinked. Trying to calculate an answer. Right. Ancient Time Deity. Either one of those things would skew perception. Think other questions.
“Why am I still feeling it?” Bunnyx wondered. “I’m feeling that people are displaced, but that should go away because I’m here, right?”
“Not all of you is here,” Fluff said, easily moving on to the new subject. “Only those of you that have access to the Burrow. Though you are often given the Rabbit, it’s not always. And there’s also Times where the Miraculous don’t exist. You’re going to have to learn to connect to them if you want to fix this.”
“Fix this,” she repeated.
Fluff nodded. Doing a quick spin and flickering for a moment before zipping to her shoulder. The Kwami’s paw on her face.
“Focus on your Magic,” Fluff instructed. “Find a piece that’s missing still. Follow it, and you’ll find them. Connect like you connect to the others.”
Bunnyx closed her eyes and felt for it. Those missing pieces. An unraveled thread to follow. Spinning through Time. Past, Present, Future and Otherwise.
Bunnyx, Alix, connected in. And the first were familiar. Timelines where, through some twist of fate, she’d been given a different Miraculous than the Rabbit. Chartreux Noire running along the rooftops with Crimson Beetle. Queen of Hearts mocking Jynx as he failed to flirt with his crush. Cheshire mimicking her namesake, grinning wild as she disappeared. Jabberwocky unleashing a blast of lightning.
But then there were others. No Rabbit, no Miraculous at all.
She was sparring with Alya, wearing a more heroic version of her Lady Wifi outfit. She was in a Palace, built like a mausoleum. She was staring in horror as Juleka, eyes dim through a panther mask, raised her arm and made the earth turn into a tidal wave. She grinned at Luka with too-sharp teeth, her ears flicking as she thought of a new riddle. She drew her gun, taking aim at the newest recruit to the Akuma gang as they tried to rob the train. Her body changing shape, becoming a two-sided palm axe, swung at some bloodthirsty creature.
The ‘wrongness’ in her body faded lower and lower with each ping into another her. Some of herself was confused. Why was she getting this connection? What was- Time? Miraculous? What sort of Spirits- No. No. Don’t get too lost don’t get confused you’re here to help don’t think too much you’ll be fine.
“Good,” Fluff said. “Now you need to tag them.”
“Tag them?” Bunnyx asked, feeling as if her voice were overlapping but sure she only spoke once.
“Follow the missing pieces,” she said. “Through your other selves, and into their worlds. A touch of Magic to stay with them, so it’s easier to find.”
She rolled through it again. Following the golden thread through the labyrinth. How to mark them? Leave a piece of Magic. It’s easier to visualize something physical.
Her mind wandered to an old memory. Those pizza restaurant arcade things she went to as a kid. The stamp on the back of a hand. She visualized that, blue ink appearing on skin in the shape of a clock. Over and over and over again. Until she was sure all of her missing pieces were tagged.
Opening her eyes, Bunnyx waved her hand and the different viewing windows appeared. She picked one, laying her hand on the ‘screen’, and once again following the thread. She saw Adrien, her Adrien, bickering with a Ladybug that wasn’t her own. The clock symbol appearing on his hand without either noticing.
“Good job,” Fluff grinned. “Now the tedious part: grabbing all of them back here.”
The task took…. Bunnyx didn’t even know how long. Time blurred in the Burrow, and it didn’t move forward for her at all. Hours? Days? Who knew. She ran across the others at times. Other hers, Teammates from Times where she didn’t get the Miraculous. Unrelated Time Travelers who were helping fix the anomalies.
What she did know is that her Magic felt whole again. There were a few stragglers that the others still had to get from her Time, but everyone that was Hers was now with her again.
The other thing she knew was that she was hungry and tired. Time may not move forward, but her Magic use depleted.
Opening one last Burrow, she stepped through into the Time she had departed from. Right into the kitchen. Because of course her hunger led her there.
She dropped her transformation as she opened the fridge. Ah, yes! Perfect timing because her leftovers were still in there! She popped them right into the microwave.
By the time the countdown started, she heard running from the other room. Before she could turn to look, she felt herself tackled into the middle of a group hug.
“Are you okay?!” Jalil asked, checking her over.
“Fine,” Alix said. “Just tired.”
“Good,” Alim said. “In that case, perhaps you could elaborate on…. Everything that just happened?”
Oh. Right. Fuck.