#con au

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Millions Knives & Vash the Stampede (Trigun) Characters: Millions Knives (Trigun), Tesla (Trigun), William Conrad | Revnant Vasquez, Vash the Stampede (Trigun) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, POV Second Person, Hallucinations, Alien Biology, Gaslighting, rot, Telepathy, Grief/Mourning, Vivisection, Pre-Canon, chemical formulas, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Body Horror, Eye Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Dissociation Summary:

you are trapped, wrapped in rot and ruin and held by someone who should have loved you. you wish - you wish.

(Knives will not remember this. He will lock it away, attribute it to someone else's memories. He will only remember this in snatches, and never in any solid form)

~~

For the Trigun Body Horror Week by @organsoutsidelovinglydescribed

It’s not in all technically for the Mama prompt, but the song was too good to not be the title.

A Preview:

I’m going to try to clear this up and work out the kinks so bear with me.

The Clash of Noir timeline is as follows:

This AU starts out in the plot of the 2D Miraculous Ladybug where Felix Agreste is the Black Cat. For Felix, the ring is cursed and he can’t remove it. So he’s stuck with bad luck and forced to become Chat Noir, but he hates it and needs a kiss from Ladybug in order to break this curse. He only works with Ladybug and attempts to woo her in order to get her to kiss him.

Ladybug eventually finds out this little secret of Chat Noir’s and is heartbroken because she at least thought they were partners. Figuring it would hurt less if she just let him go, she kisses him and breaks his curse, revealing him to be Felix (AKA, the boy she was crazy in love with). Felix immediately abandons his position of Chat Noir and Ladybug is forced to fight alone from then on.

Eventually, the akumas get to be too much for her to handle alone and in an assault on the school, Ladybug is killed in an attempt to protect Felix, revealing herself as Marinette and dying in Felix’s arms. Horrified, Felix attempts to use the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculous to fix things.

A new timeline is created.

Felix wakes up in the past before he ever got his ring, but discovers he doesn’t exist and that instead there’s another boy named Adrien Agreste living his life. Felix takes this as a second chance and is intent on protecting Marinette and preventing that bad future from happening again.

Felix doesn’t trust any version of himself and is worried Adrien will take his place and repeat the events from the bad future. He still has some form of his “bad luck” powers and decides to determine his own successor to the Ring.

He realizes Hawk Moth is bound to attack soon and attempts to regain the Ring and keep Marinette away from Adrien. He fails in both.

Cue events from Stoneheart’s attack. Adrien gets the Ring and becomes Chat. And Marinette still ends up falling in love with Adrien.

Felix continues to attempt to push Marinette away from Adrien. This doesn’t work as he intends. Marinette continues to harbor feelings for Adrien, but Felix at least ends up causing her to temper them so they’re not as debilitating as what we see in the 3D canon.

Felix also keeps an eye on Adrien to judge whether he should be allowed to continue as Chat Noir. His juvenile antics and tendency to needlessly take hits and get himself in trouble are of great concern. In the meantime, Felix has left an impression on Adrien. And over time, hearing some of Felix’s opinions about Chat Noir’s behavior causes Adrien to temper himself and take fighting more seriously.

While watching Adrien, Felix is also searching for an appropriate replacement to be the new Chat Noir. Nathaniel? No, he doesn’t quite fit. Alya? Too much trouble. Luka? Certainly an option. Kagami? She has the fighting spirit for it.

Felix fails to realize that he’s having an impact on people or akuma fights. He continues to intervene behind the scenes in several akuma battles in an attempt to protect Ladybug, but is having trouble due to being a normal civilian.

Fu notices this intruder and his strange dark aura. He realizes that Felix does not “belong” and chooses to keep an eye on him.

Princess Fragrance — Felix steps in to assist in aiding Prince Ali while Marinette is trying to get Tikki healed. Because of Felix’s interference, Prince Ali is able to avoid being caught. Chat Noir still gets hit with the perfume and becomes Princess Fragrance’s servant. He attempts to capture the two, but Felix manages to take him down and knock him out. Felix takes the Ring and traps Adrien in a closet. This allows a short reunion between Felix and Plagg—who reveals he remembers everything about the previous timeline. Felix transforms to become Chat again (temporarily) in order to help keep Princess Fragrance at bay. When Ladybug arrives, she KNOWS this isn’t her Chat Noir, but he’s all the help she has at this point so she is forced to work with him. She is surprised that his powers are very different—bad luck instead of pure destruction. They still manage to take out Princess Fragrance and end the battle. Felix does not reveal himself. He doesn’t have the time or inclination to explain things to Ladybug at this point and assures her that the previous Chat Noir will remain the Black Cat (for now). He goes back to where he left Adrien and returns the Ring, but warns Adrien that he will be watching him.

OPTIONAL (This was thought up before the reveal about the Peacock Miraculous being damaged): Felix eventually realizes he cannot continue as he is. At some point, possibly during Bubbler or Simon Says, Volpina (after Adrien sneaks in and takes the book), or alternatively on a completely different occasion altogether, he manages to sneak into the office and get the Peacock Miraculous from the safe. He replaces it with a fake.

OPTIONAL: Volpina happens differently. Tikki still notices and stresses about the book. Marinette is angry over Lila’s lies. It’s not even because she’s jealous over Adrien—she is just outright FURIOUS that Lila is lying about her and trying to manipulate Adrien based on that. She goes to confront her during her little “date” with Adrien in the park. Felix interferes and stops her. Something is wrong. Marinette wasn’t like this before. In the previous timeline when it came to Volpina, she had privately confronted Lila kindly but sternly about her lies to warn her of the danger she was putting herself in, NOT just go up to Lila and try to out her in public. That’s…not how Marinette is. But when Ladybug expresses being upset due to Lila lying, Felix is horrified. Marinette was never this reactive about lies before—it’s an echo of the previous timeline and a remainder of the impact HE had on her because of his betrayal. Because he LIED to her before. He’s horrified because even removing himself from existence couldn’t erase the harm he caused her. He encourages her to focus on getting the book and swears to deal with Lila himself. Ladybug is uncertain, but is calmer now (albeit mostly out of confusion) and agrees. Felix is the one to confront Lila in front of Adrien and call her out. Ladybug takes this opportunity to search the trashcan and take the book. She may or may not be seen, but regardless Felix is able to disprove Lila’s claim. Lila storms off, gets akumatized, and naturally targets Felix.

Felix uses the opportunity that Lila and her lies present to try to convince Marinette that Adrien really isn’t that wonderful or amazing as she thinks if he’s stupid enough to blindly trust Lila’s words. Marinette is left questioning. She retains her crush on Adrien, but there are doubts there.

After Volpina, Felix calls out Chat Noir on not trusting his partner. Instead of accusing her of being jealous, he should have taken her suspicions into account. He makes a point to highlight how unlikely it was that a meteor would just appear out of nowhere to nearly destroy the city when none of the space-monitoring agencies were aware. Of how convenient this happened JUST IN TIME for a new hero to appear. How this new hero’s first words—the VERY FIRST thing she said was that she was the ONLY HERO Paris needs. Of why on Earth the super villain who had been hiding in the shadows and turning people into monsters would suddenly make an appearance with no reason. Of how Chat COULDN’T put two and two together that the angry girl who had just been outed as a fake in front of him was very likely turned into an akuma because of it so she could parade as a hero to make her lies true. Come ON!

Chat/Adrien is defensive about this, but can’t deny the point made. He makes more of an effort to be more supportive of Ladybug. While he still questions her at points, he doesn’t dismiss her out of hand like that again.

Collector — Felix is the one to return the book to Gabriel. There is…a tension there. Gabriel doesn’t know what to think of it and doesn’t understand why he seems to recognize this boy when he has never met him. Felix merely returns the book and leaves. He doesn’t know Gabriel is Hawk Moth, but his father was never much of a father to him. And his having the book and Peacock Miraculous is still suspicious.

Fu decides to have a chat with this stranger. Either he approaches Felix or Felix has finally tracked him down—if it’s the latter, it will be because Fu LET Felix find him…

Felix is encouraged to reveal the truth about the original timeline and what happened. He explains his history—that he was Chat Noir, that he was cursed when he found Plagg, and how he only agreed to help the city in order to find a way to save himself. He reveals how Ladybug discovered his secret and kissed him just to put an end to the charade. And he goes on to tell the tragedy of how it killed her in the end.

He gritted his teeth at the memory.

“Ladybug fell. And the world followed.”

The man hummed to himself, processing that information with what Felix felt was nowhere near the appropriate level of concern. “And what of Chat Noir?”

He tensed. Because wasn’t that just what it all came back to?

“He…”

He thought back to her final broken smile, his own selfishness, and a kiss that both fixed and destroyed everything.

“He wasn’t there.“

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t there.”

Fu is…not happy to hear about what happened in the original timeline.

Fu ends up acting as a sort of mentor and advisor to Felix. He understands Felix’s concern, but doesn’t believe Felix understands why he made the choice he did when picking Adrien. He asks Felix to let him judge whether Adrien remains a suitable choice of being Chat Noir before taking away the Ring.

Felix is hesitant, but agrees.

Ultimately, the end result of this AU isn’t that Adrien loses the right to be Chat (though that’s not to say there aren’t branches where he could if he messes up badly enough), but that he grows into a better Chat Noir precisely BECAUSE Felix was there.

Think of the second Lego Movie and what Rex says at the end: