Alix's legs kicked the air, spinning her around faster as Marinette's dumbfounded expression became permanently imprinted in the back of Damian's mind.
"Are you crazy?" A whisper-shout from the girl makes Damian's eyebrows lower.
"That's not how you compliment your ally on a job well done on capturing the enemy."
"I'm starting to feel sick up here," Alix yelled.
Marinette closed her eyes and sighed, "Plagg, claws on."
Having transformed, the bluenette pushes herself off the gym doors and stomps her way up to Robin.
"I can't believe you've done this," she says, snatching the rope from Robin's hand and lowering the poor girl.
As Marinette reaches down to untie her, Damian grabs her arm and shakes his head.
"We can't let her go."
"What is she going to do?" She rolls her eyes.
"This," Damian pointed to the patch over his cheek.
"Well, you are literally holding her hostage. I don't take hostages!"
"Hostage is too rough of a word," he grumbled.
"Then how would you describe this?" Her voice was on the verge of a shriek.
"A guest."
"Prisoner of war," Alix chimes in.
"You're oddly calm about this," Damian, let's go of Marinette's arm and
walks over to the pink haired girl who was wiggling around in the rope.
"I expected this to happen sooner or later, especially if I had to go up against Hawkmoth one day."
The pair share a worried look before Robin bends down and pulls her blindfold downwards.
“Then we've found something in common,” Robin said.
"Although I didn't expect to see you again," Alix pressed her lips together before she craned her neck behind Robin to see the cat themed heroine. "You must be Lady Noire."
"Y-yes!" Marinette crossed her arms nervously as she tried to put on her best smile.
"What did you mean you expected this?" Robin narrowed his eyes and blocked her view.
"Pull my finger," Alix stuck her digit out from between the rope with a smirk.
Damian took a hold of the finger and began to bend it backward.
"This isn't the time for jokes." The pressure applied only seemed to get worse.
"Ow! Okay, okay, just check my back pocket!"
After letting go, Alix rolled over like the armless worm she was made into as Lady Noire approached her and retrieved a handheld watch from her pocket.
The glass protecting the moving hour hand and minute hand was cracked, but the way Marinette felt her aura gravitate towards the antique told her part of what she needed to know.
"This is a miraculous," she whispered in awe as she turned it and saw dates carved into the back of the watch.
"Yep. The name's Alix, but all the others know me as Bunnyx."
"And where are the others," Robin rolled her over with his foot.
"Geez. I said I'd talk, didn't I?" She whined. "It's just me at the moment."
"And your sewer rat?"
"She's a mouse, and no, she's taken up to hiding, like the others. Look, a fortnight ago, we all started getting weird run-ins with weird sources of aura around the city."
"We? Does this include your friend?"
"Yes. Me and five others only observed her from a distance. We aren't that well equipped to fight enemies we know nothing off head-on, so we consulted with the guardian on this."
"Chat Noir? You guys knew him."
"Of course we do. He gave each of us a miraculous and instructed us to fight from the benches. We are the backup plan he set in place in case anything happened to him or Ladybug whenever they fought against Hawkmoth."
Marinette cast her eyes downwards. She didn't know that, and honestly, she wished she did. There are times when fighting that she felt like the two of them weren't enough, but it was somehow uplifting to know there were backups. Yet it somewhat feels like she could have been replaceable.
"Why did you never approach Ladybug?" Her voice sounded hurt.
"That would ruin the element of surprise. Plus, he's our leader. We run everything through him. We trust him," Alix said with a fading smile. "Well, he was our leader up until he disappeared. It was around the same time we noticed that Blackfire was within the city, too."
Robin narrowed his eyes.
"We tried to contact him, but he ignored our calls. By the time we realized he was missing, we decided to call for help from the Green Lantern, a supposed friend of Chat Noir."
Robin crossed his arms. That's why he was called to the city of Paris, but the situation described to him was entirely different.
"The League told me that Blackfire was getting involved with a contact from the Red Lantern Corps here in Paris."
"We lied. At the time, she was sitting around, not terrorizing or committing crimes of any sort, so we made something up for the Lanterns to come down here. We were going to explain what was really going on until the situation changed.
All of a sudden, the members we had been watching Blackfire would come back, followed by black butterflies. At first, we thought it was Hawkmoth, probably wanting revenge. Mayura would even check in on his prison cell every day when she could, and she couldn't find anything on him. We couldn't believe that it wasn't him. They would follow us around, transformed or not, and watch us intently. We had to start meeting up in the drainage system to avoid them."
Alix frowned as she sat up.
"Then, one night, in the sewers, when we decided to reach out to Ladybug to get rid of the butterflies, we all got the ultimatum. Run away from Paris or face the wrath of The Monarch."
"So that's what the new butterfly user calls themselves?"
Alix nodded her head.
"Mayura was in charge of things at the time, and she begged everyone else to stay and fight, but when the Monarch started sending Blackfire to bully us around the city, we got scared.
Naturally, most of us agreed to fight back, but one of our members, Hound, tried to talk us into joining forces with Monarch. When we refused, she attacked us."
"She was already compromised," Robin sighed.
"Two of the other members took the warning seriously and might have possibly run away. Hound is out there being Monarch's lap dog. Mayura said she would warn Ladybug and the other holders on what was going on, anything to help in the fight, but she didn't return like she was supposed to yesterday. I guess that's the reason why Polymouse is ignoring my calls, too."
"So, it's just you now?" Marinette said with sympathy. "I'm sorry that this had to happen to you, Alix."
Marinette used her claws to cut the girl free of the rope and offered a hand to pull her up to her feet.
"But you're not alone. We're here now, and we still need your help."
"I thought you wouldn't ask," she said with a toothy grin before limping towards Robin and extending her hand. "I'm sorry about your face. If it makes you feel any better, I had to go into the emergency room to get my leg checked out. It was a clean break."
Damian looked down at Alix's hand and turned his back on her.
"We're even, for now," he said, gathering the rope pieces on the gym floor.
"So what now?"
"I need names," Robin said. "The sooner we get to the other members of your alliance, the better."
"The Hound goes by the name of Sabrina."
"The first year student?!" Marinette exclaimed.
"Wait, she goes here? Crazy."
"And the others?"
"Sorry," Alix shrugged her shoulders. "I hardly attended new member meetings in the past, so that's beyond me."
Figures.
"So I'll see you two around then." Alix put her hands behind her back and headed for the door.
"Not so fast," Robin put his hand on her shoulder. "You can't just roam around when you have a target on your back."
Marinette put himself between the two. "Don't worry about that. I have her covered. Besides, there's someone I want you to meet."
"I'm down for skipping class."
When the two girls turned to Robin, he had already disappeared into the shadows.
"When did he leave the room?"
"He just does that sometimes. You'll get used to it."
"What?"
"Come on.”
As Lady Noire picks Alix off the ground bridal style, the bunny heroine can't help but wonder how he actually stepped out of the room when they were standing right there.