Heartrate: A Darkness Inside; Part 3
Ladybug realized that she was in the past as her yo-yo fell away from where she had held onto Timebreaker.
“Oh, not again,” she groaned.
Timebreaker hadn’t seemed to notice that Ladybug followed her. Knowing Alix, it would take her a little while to remember exactly where she had been an hour ago. Ladybug still had some time to come up with a plan.
Hopefully she could fix this one alone.
“Kim distracted her,” Ladybug thought aloud, “He can do it again.” Silently, she thought of how close the two had gotten in the past months. She and everyone else had started to wonder if it was more than friendship.
She had to find Kim and get him to help her.
Kim was on the basketball court in the school, practicing drills like the competitive weirdo he was. Rumor had it that at a sleepover, Adrien had defeated him in a game, and Kim was determined to win the rematch.
Not that Marinette really doubted that one. Adrien was a pretty good basketball player.
Ladybug approached Kim, “Kim!”
Kim stopped, missing his shot, “Ladybug? What are you doing here?”
“I’m from about an hour in the future,” Ladybug explained, “I’m here because I need your help! Alix is going to get angry in therapy and turn back into Timebreaker!”
“Alix is going to therapy?” Kim asked, shocked.
“That’s not important,” Ladybug said, “What’s important is Timebreaker ran back in time to stop her dad from making her go, and I need your help to stop her before she kills people!”
“Why do you need my help?” Kim asked, “Why not just go ask her dad not to send her to therapy?”
“Because you’re close with her,” Ladybug explained, “She listened to you before, at least for a little while, and I have a feeling she’ll do it again if you try to talk her down.”
Kim shrugged, “Fine. It’s worth a shot.”
“Good. I think I know where Alix is, which gives us very little time to get there first.”
Alix skated around Paris with her Spotify playlist for working out on shuffle. It was a good day. No school, because it was a Saturday, and her dad had told her that after she got home, he had something to tell her. Her dad was pretty cool, so she supposed it would probably be a good thing.
Suddenly, Ladybug of all people ran up in front of her, with, for some reason, Kim in tow.
“Alix!” Ladybug exclaimed, “Thank goodness we got to you first.”
“What do you mean, ‘got to me first?’” Alix asked, “What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kim said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “What matters is you’re safe.”
“Doesn’t matter?” A voice asked over her shoulder.
Alix turned to see her worst nightmare. Timebreaker was here. Her evil alter ego.The one that she would never admit she had nightmares about.
“I’d say I matter very much, Kim.”
“I don’t get it,” Alix said, “I’m not angry or sad. How can you be here? Why would I become you again?”
“Dad’s going to force you to go to group therapy,” Timebreaker said, “And I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m not going to become you again,” Alix growled, but inside, she was terrified. She tried to calm herself, as she knew that negative emotions could make her get akumatized. But Timebreaker was her worst fear.
“Get her out of here,” Ladybug said to Kim, “If she doesn’t become Timebreaker, this Timebreaker should fade away. Go.”
Kim grabbed Alix’s hand and ran away.
Kim stopped at the school and pulled Alix inside a classroom, where he locked the door.
“That should keep her at bay for a little while!” He said confidently.
He was wrong. The door exploded as Timebreaker skated in, her roller skates charged with at least three minutes.
“That’s impossible!” Kim shouted, “Ladybug—.”
“Is dead,” Timebreaker interrupted, “And soon, you will be, too.”
Timebreaker backed them into a corner, and Kim put himself between Alix and Timebreaker.
“Kim?” Alix whispered, staring at her worst fear.
Kim seemed surprised that she would even admit that, but turned around to face her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, “I’m not going to let her get to you.”
Timebreaker cackled as she raised her hand to tag Kim...
And Ladybug’s yo-yo stopped her.
“You!” Timebreaker snarled, “How?”
“You may have finished off the future me,” Ladybug said bravely, “But present-time me is still here!”
Still, Ladybug threw her yo-yo high in the air, “LUCKY CHARM!”
A bow and arrows landed in her hands.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Ladybug wondered aloud in disgust, “It’s not like I’m just going to kill her, and I can’t shoot!”
Timebreaker attacked, and Ladybug jumped out of the way. She looked around, seeming to weigh her options for what to do.
“Kim!” She yelled suddenly, throwing him the bow and arrows, “Shoot her in the legs!”
Kim instinctively slung the quiver over his shoulder and shot at Timebreaker. He got close, but missed. She was too fast for him to hit.
“Wait,” Alix said, getting an idea.
“What?” Kim asked, missing again.
“Don’t shoot her,” Alix said, “Shoot me!”
He looked over his shoulder at her, “Are you insane?”
“She’s me in the future!” Alix insisted, “What happens to me happens to her, too! Shoot me in the leg, and she’ll get shot down, too!”
“Are you insane?” Kim repeated, “I’m not going to shoot you again!”
“Again?” Alix asked, before letting it go, “Nevermind. Tell me later. Kim, shoot me. If you don’t, a lot of people could die.”
Kim hesitated, then turned around, aiming the arrow at her knee. The bow shook, and Alix grabbed his hand to steady it.
“It’s okay,” She said, “Just do it.”
Kim let go of the bowstring and Alix screamed in pain as the arrow went straight into her knee.
Not thinking clearly and needing a distraction from the pain, Alix grabbed the front of Kim’s shirt and slammed her lips into his.
Ladybug did a double take before realizing that Timebreaker was on the ground, too.
She ran up to the villain and quickly de-evilized the butterfly before running over to Kim and Alix.
Alix pulled away from Kim and quickly started pretending like the kiss didn’t happen.
“Will my knee be fixed when you do the MLB thing?” She grunted through the pain.
Ladybug nodded, still shocked, “Probably.”
Kim passed her the bow, and Ladybug hurled it at the sky, yelling, “MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!”
In flashes of pink light, everything was fixed. Timebreaker was gone, and Alix’s knee didn’t feel like it was on fire anymore. Weirdly, she had all of Timebreaker‘s memories, and Kim probably had all of future him’s, too.
“Um... I’m gonna go,” Ladybug said awkwardly before leaving the room quickly.
Alix realized that Kim was still standing over her, and he awkwardly moved back and offered a hand to pull her up.
“So my dad wanted me to go to therapy,” Alix said awkwardly, “And I don’t want to do that.”
“I go to therapy because I need someone to talk to,” Kim said, “My parents don’t listen to me very often.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Alix said, “Well, got to go. Bye!”
She ran out of there more quickly than she probably should have.
On Monday the next week, it was obvious that things were awkward between them.
Max kept looking between his best friends, wondering what had gone on between them.
Everyone else noticed that they weren’t talking to each other, and simultaneously seemed to wonder if they were having a fight. Not that that was uncommon.
“I’ve decided to not have class today,” Mrs. Bustier said, “And instead, we’re going to talk about experiences as akumas. Please be aware. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but this will be a good opportunity to get anything you need to off your chest. Would anyone like to go first?”
To Kim’s surprise, Alix raised her hand.
Alix took a deep breath, “Being Timebreaker showed me something about myself.That deep down, I have a willingness to kill. Even a thirst for it. I have this scary bloodlust.” She glanced at Kim, “I hurt—even killed—people I care about. People I... love. I’m really sorry, to all of you who I killed. I’m scared that Timebreaker is still inside me. That maybe I’m a bad person.”
People said stuff about how Alix wasn’t a bad person, trying to comfort her, but Kim had known these people since kindergarten, besides Alya and Adrien, of course. And he knew those two well enough to read them, too.
They were all afraid of Alix, whether they’d admit it or not. She was the only one of to be akumatized twice, and one of the only ones actually looking to kill when she turned.
“Who wants to go next?” Mrs. Bustier asked.
Kim and Nathaniel raised their hands at the same time.
One glare from Kim made Nath back down.
“Whenever you’re ready, Kim,” Mrs. Bustier said.
“I don’t know what there is to say,” Kim admitted, “Chloe broke my heart, and I was upset. I was sad, but more than that, I was angry. Angry at myself for thinking I had a chance with her. I see now that I never did.”
Chloe smirked. She clearly had no regrets.
“I wanted revenge,” Kim continued, “Not on just Chloe, but on love itself. I wanted to make everybody hurt the way I was hurting. It made sense while I was Dark Cupid, but...” Kim psyched himself up for the next part, “It’s hard for me to admit this to you guys, but I still have nightmares about me shooting my friends. Except, in the dreams, the arrows are real, and I’m actually killing you. Like Alix, I’m scared that maybe I have this monster inside me, and maybe Hawkmoth just woke it up. I’m not really scared of being Dark Cupid again, but I think it’s definitely possible that I might become another villain before we graduate, and if I do, some of you may not survive it.”
Nobody seemed to know what to say to that.
