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The Universe ripples, forces of Creation and Destruction come forth once more to fight against the darkness in the hearts of others. The passive, almost dormant spirit of reality casts its gaze to the chaotic and brilliant blue marble once more, where life is not exclusive yet the Kwami flock to it nonetheless… but that was a story for another time.
Now, The Universe must watch over Tikki and Plagg, their holders, and the events that play out again and again. The battle, the triumph, the indignation of a strange and silly man as yet another Akuma fails to beat a couple teenagers, following a cleansing of the area to return it to once was. Honestly there’s so much he could do to pull off what he wants, it seems a bit excessive and juvenile to bother Fa—er—Gimmi, to fix one simple thing, like smashing open an egg with a Sledgehammer.
So many ways to fix a magical illness through so many other magical items, or even just empowering someone into a healer… although The Universe wasn’t going to waste its time telling a man the obvious when he’s too obsessed and short-sighted to figure it out himself
But it was getting distracted again, it needed to bring what little focus it had to bear. The Lucky Charm was one thing, but it needed to give a critical eye to the cure itself, make sure it heals only what it needs from the battle. If it were to just let the magic go about what it wanted to do unchecked, the girl would have extreme difficulty surviving the drain of energy needed to cure every single ailing creature and turn back the clock on centuries worth of degradation for the surrounding structures. And that was only if the damn thing kept to Paris .
And it would happily continue to do this for the sake of these two wonderful heroes, not for the sake of balance, but because it found itself endeared to the two mortals, and it wouldn’t be fair to them to get hurt because no-one told them they need to actually will the damn limit of the cure. Of course while the Ladybug kwami is thankful for the help, she continues to commune with The Universe for… benefits.
‘Please O’ Universe, grant them help in this fight against Hawkmoth.’
And while The Universe listens, both it and the kwami know full well that it cannot be shown to play favourites. Too many gifted people were persecuted and killed when it had tried to be a bit more active in the lives of sapient beings, and not just on Earth.
So it would heed those pleas, but it wouldn’t answer them.
Strangely enough, what changed this time around wasn’t Tikki’s requests, but Plagg making one of his own.
‘Come on, U, at least let them keep one good thing this time.’
The Universe… stilled… it looked back at the planet, at the situation, at the ladybugs bursting from the discarded charm.
…sure, why not?
Ladybug and Chat Noir watched the Ladybugs rushed through the streets, people that ‘Gamer’ had turned into EXP for his robot returned to where they had stood, and the vehicles and structures that were trampled in his rampage returned to the state they had once been in before the boy had been Akumatized.
They bumped fists as they yelled out the iconic phrase, “Pound it!” before turning to the now De-evilised Max Kanté. They were about to try and explain and comfort the boy before they noticed his wide-eyed and slack-jawed expression.
Confused, the two heroes turned towards the direction he was looking and found themselves just as shocked. Standing there was the Ladybug and Chat Noir themed mecha they had summoned to fight the Gamer by exploiting the mechanics of his own power. Its existence on its own wasn’t what had surprised the two however.
No, what had surprised them was that it was still there, the magical ladybugs of the Miraculous Cure avoiding the giant machine entirely.
“What? But this doesn’t make sense,” Ladybug began once her jaw was working again. “The Miraculous Ladybug is supposed to cleanse all the damage done by the Akuma, it shouldn’t leave anything afterwards.”
“Well, having a giant robot isn’t exactly damage, is it, M’lady?”
Ladybug blinked at that, looking at the giant machine that had helped to save the day. “I… guess it isn’t,” she spoke in thought. “This isn’t like Stormy Weather’s ice or the second Ladybug. It’s not exactly dangerous, we just happened to have a giant robot now.”
“Yeah, we—” and Chat’s eyes widened as he realised something wonderful. “Oh my god! M’lady, we have a giant robot now!”
Any further talk of the circumstances was put to the wayside as a familiar beeping reached the heroes’ ears. “Ah! Our timers! We gotta go, Bug Out!” The heroine quickly caught on and swung away to somewhere inconspicuous.
While Chat was wanting to stay and admire what was essentially one of every young boy’s greatest wishes, he didn’t want to out himself and followed his Lady’s lead.
With the dynamic duo fleeing the scene, only Max found himself there to gawk at the mech.
Which means only he was witness to what happened next as the machine began to move. The following events would be forever burned into his memory as one of the most amazing mechanical spectacles in history.
Regardless of how poor his day had been, this had gotten a smile from him, the excitement and desire to go record the memory of all the intricate systems in motion almost made him forget why he was Akumatized to begin with.
Ladybug landed on the Balcony of the Dupain-Cheng Pâtisserie, where she reverted to her civilian form of Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Her mind was a storm of confusion, what happened with the cure? Why is there just a Giant Robot now? As if the upcoming UMS3 tournament wasn’t already on her plate, now she has no clue what to do with it…
What did the news say?
Immediately, she rushed over to the computer and put on the news to see what was happening.
“—and as you can see, the giant robotic ladybug has finally stopped directly beneath of the Eiffel Tower, after splitting off from the other half, which has become a similarly mechanical cat that has taken to curling around the statue of Ladybug and Chat Noir…”
Marinette’s eyes widened even more, finding there was no longer one robot, but apparently two.
“Hold on,” Nadja spoke up as the camera focused on the Ladybug-bot. “Yes, it seems witnesses have reported a smaller, disc-like object has split off from each of the robots and disappeared at incredible speeds. We don’t know where they’ve gone, but they most likely have gone to our intrepid heroes for some unknown purpose.”
The girl flinched and quickly returned to the balcony, watching as something sped straight to her and, surprisingly gently, dropped into her hands. It was a rather mundane object, no larger than Tikki was, shaped as the symbol for the Ladybug Miraculous with the exception of a single, shimmering onyx button on the centre.
It was the ethereal presence, the spiritual link to the heroine, that told Marinette what this was.
This was the controller for the Ladybug robot, simply holding it allowed her to command it when it was active. The button itself was to activate and call the robot to her.
Adrien stared at the controller in his hands, back to the news, and broke into a grin.
“IT’S A SUPER ROBOT!!”