Episode 13
- Timebreaker - Tales of Alix the Skater
Marinette helps her mother get prepared: today is Tom and Sabine's 20th anniversary, and everything has to go perfectly! After pulling her daughter's cheeks for teasing her, Sabine warns her to be back in time to give Mme. Chamack the cake she requested.Today is also Alix's 15th birthday, and she and her father are discussing a serious matter: today, in accordance with tradition, he passes the family heirloom, an ancient watch, to his youngest child. When Alix asks why the last child is the one that gets the watch, her father nervously states he certainly didn't just make that up to keep the watch away from Jalil's hands.
When Marinette arrives to the track, she shows the banner she's made for the race between Kim and Alix, which greatly impresses Alya. A new girl also states she likes it: Kim introduces her as Ondine, his swimming buddy, who's there because he wants someone to be on his side.
Unfortunately, not everyone is there for the race: Chloé tries to get Adrien to bail, much to his annoyance. When Alya tells her Alix is on her way, Chloé tries to badmouth the skater girl—who shows up just then by pushing her out of the way. Kim and Alix promptly get into a trade of boasts while Ondine and Max watch, the former bemused, the latter just used to his friend's shenanigans.
Before the race begins, Alix hands Alya her watch. As Alya's trying to film the race, she hands the watch to Marinette, who's trying to hold the banner, only for Ondine to take over banner-holding duties, making Marinette muse that the girl's too good for Kim.
As Alix and Kim skate, Adrien approaches Marinette, noting that the watch is not Alix's usual style... right before it gets snatched away by Chloé. When Marinette demands Chloé to return Alix's watch, she tosses it away just as Alix and Kim are passing, accidentally running over the watch and destroying it.
Chloé quickly blames Alya and Marinette for it breaking, but Alya and Adrien furiously point out their class bully was the one who grabbed the watch and threw it to the ground. Alix, heartbroken, decides to blame all of her classmates. As Marinette picks up the pieces, everyone puts their heads together, offering to help get it fixed as fast as possible.
Meanwhile, Tom and Sabine are enjoying their anniversary date when Tom receives a call: it's Nadja Chamack, who wants to know why the bakery is closed and also wants her cake now, even though, as Tom points out, she's arrived 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled pickup time.
Marinette attempts to console Alix, but the latter seethes, stating Marinette can't fix this. Tom then calls, asking Marinette to return to the bakery... but just then, Alix becomes akumatized, and Marinette hangs up, knowing things are going to get bad.
Kim tries to get Ondine to safety, but the akumatized Alix tags them both in the back, causing them to vanish; by doing this to enough people, she claims she'll be able to go back in time and save her watch. She attempts to do the same to Marinette, who manages to throw the banner at the akuma's face, buying her enough time to hide.
Adrien and Chloé quickly transform into Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady—but the latter decides that, instead of fighting, she'll just laze around out of the akuma's reach and wait until Chat Noir does his work. Meanwhile, Alix runs after Rose, only for Chat Noir to intervene by tripping the akuma. Marinette urges Rose and Juleka to run away while she pulls out her phone, filming Scarlet Lady sitting out the fight and calling the Ladybug heroine out for not helping Chat Noir fight the akuma. Scarlet Lady comes down from the roof to berate Marinette, only to get tagged by Timebreaker.
While Scarlet Lady drops her yo-yo, Hawk Moth orders Timebreaker to grab the earrings before Scarlet Lady disappears. However, when she tries to do that and tag Marinette, Marinette responds by ducking her attack and kicking her in the back, making the akuma decide to just go back to the past now while the getting's good.
Timebreaker opens a portal to the past, and Marinette grabs the fallen yo-yo and lassoes the akuma, passing the string to Chat Noir so he can follow Timebreaker and save the past. As the akuma and hero both go back in time, they arrive just as Chloé grabs the watch out of Marinette's hands. Timebreaker jumps while yelling about her watch, startling Chloé into dropping it. The watch breaks, and Present!Alix becomes akumatized while Future!Timebreaker blames Chat Noir. Everyone tries to scatter, and Marinette gets her father's call as she escapes.
Adrien confronts Future!Chat Noir and demands to know who he is, though hearing Future!Chat Noir call Scarlet Lady "Scar" convinces Adrien that his future self is who he claims to be. He then transforms into Present!Chat Noir so they can deal with the two akumas together. Scarlet Lady asks Future!Chat Noir if he's Théo Barbot and got akumatized into Copycat again; feeling insulted by the hero's attitude, she declares both Chat Noirs will have to beg her to help out. They ignore her, deciding things will go smoother with her out of the way.
Marinette arrives home just in time to give Mme. Chamack her cake and thinks about staying home... but when she sees a bike parked in front of her house, she is unable to resist the temptation to return.
The Chat Noirs are unable to prevent the Timebreakers from getting enough energy to go back in time, which the two heroes know they must prevent. In order to buy some time, the present Chat Noir uses Cataclysm on the building Scarlet Lady is perched on, collapsing it just as Marinette arrives with a plan in mind.
Marinette stands in front of the Timebreakers, who decide to tag her on their way back to the past. However, just before they can touch her, Marinette ducks and hooks a bike chain around the akumas' legs. Distracted, the Timebreakers roll into an improvised ramp, allowing the Chat Noirs (using Scarlet Lady's yo-yos) to catch the akumas, knock them out, and destroy Past Alix's akumatized object—the remains of her watch—before Scarlet Lady casts Miraculous Cure.
Future Chat Noir and Alix return to their time while Present Alix laments her loss... only for Chat Noir to present her the watch, fixed thanks to the Miraculous Cure. Alix finally blames herself for the watch breaking, but Alya tells her she shouldn't blame herself—she was being responsible by making sure the watch was kept in a safe place while she raced. With everyone's mood restored, the group goes to Marinette's house, where the birthday party is taking place.
Everyone enjoys the party, although Kim laments losing his bet: Alix's demand was that he refrained from making dares with other people for the rest of the year, but Kim thinks he can go one month without making dares. Max corrects him, though; the conditions stated Kim couldn't make dares for the rest of the school year, much to his's shock.
After the party, Adrien stays behind to help Marinette clean up when her parents arrive. Marinette apologizes for not being at the bakery on time to prevent Mme. Chamack from interrupting their anniversary date, but Sabine doesn't blame her for Nadja arriving earlier than expected... although this does mean that Nadja won't be getting any favors from them in the immediate future.
This episode contains examples of the following:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Ondine, Kim's swimming partner, shows up in this chapter instead of debuting in "Syren" in canon.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Chloé deliberately tosses Alix's watch towards the track just as the latter and Kim are approaching instead of dropping it in shock like in canon.
- Adaptational Karma: Nadja in gets called out on demanding that she be given her cake ahead of the scheduled time just because she arrived early (and without even calling ahead). She apparently won't be getting favors from Tom and Sabine for a while.
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Due to how many times she's been involved in akuma attacks, Marinette has been undergoing gùn training at her mother's insistence.
- Badass Normal: Marinette reveals that Sabine has forced her to take martial arts training because of her tendency to get caught up in Hawk Moth's plots, which she uses to good effect against the titular villain.
- The Bet: Alix and Kim were betting on the race, with Alix demanding that Kim go the rest of the year without making dares with other people if she wins.
- Big Entrance: Alix arrives for her big race by shoving Chloé out of the way, all the while sassing the class bully for making fun of the others while showing up uninvited.
- Comically Missing the Point: Kim thinks that the bet he had with Alix just keeps him from making dares for the rest of the year, so he only has to hold it for a month. Max corrects him—it's meant to be for the rest of the school year, meaning until summer.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: After giving Nadja her cake, Marinette thinks about staying safely at home. But then she sees a bike and can't resist returning to help Chat Noir.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: When Nadja calls Tom to demand she immediately be given her cake and Tom sternly replies that she's 20 minutes early, Nadja quickly says, "Yeah, and?"
- Evil Is Petty: After snatching Alix's pocket watch out of Adrien's hand, Chloé insults its appearance. Then, upon hearing whom it belongs to, she casually declares it worthless and tosses it right onto the racetrack. The narrative commentary underneath the strip implies that this is all because Alix knocked her out of the way earlier; moreover, Chloé wasn't even invited to watch the race to begin with.
- Exact Words: Kim agrees to Alix's terms, believing that she means the end of the calendar year, dismissively remarking to Max after losing that he can deal with going without making any dares for a month. Max reveals that she meant the end of the school year, meaning he'll have to wait significantly longer.
- Heroic BSoD: Marinette gets one when she realizes that by threatening Scarlet Lady with video footage of the Ladybug heroine ignoring an akuma fight, she accidentally got the Scarlet tagged and destroyed by the villain.
- Hypocritical Humor: After Sabine calls Marinette "cheeky" while pulling her cheeks, she pouts when Marinette says coming back in time will be a "piece of cake."
- In Spite of a Nail: Ondine offers to hold the race banner for Marinette so the latter can hang on to the watch; it still gets broken due to Chloé snatching it and throwing it to the ground. Then, in the second timeline, she drops the watch in spite of not being told by any future heroes to put it down.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Chloé says she's sure Alix ran home when she heard the rest of the class would be there to watch the race, only for Alix to promptly show up, shoving Chloé aside.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Scarlet Lady's refusal to fight Timebreaker bites her in the butt when she winds up as one of the akuma's victims. It can also be seen as belated karma for her actions in "The Gamer": after trying to get Marinette temporarily killed there, she is the one that gets temporarily killed.
- Downplayed with Nadja; while she got her cake, her selfish, demanding behavior ensures that Sabine and Tom won't be doing her any more favors in the foreseeable future.
- Never My Fault:
- Chloé quickly blames Alya and Marinette for the watch breaking when she was the one who snatched it and threw it away towards the track.
- Timebreaker goes back in time to save her watch and end up startling Chloé into dropping it, causing the watch to break again; though the akuma seems to realize it was her own fault, she still decides to blame Chat Noir for it.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Nadja acts this way despite ostensibly being friends with the Dupain-Chengs. Though she's fully aware that it's their anniversary and that they're going out of their way to do her a favor by having a cake ready for her when the bakery is closed to the public, she still demands they go even further out of their way for her sake, insisting she be given her cake ahead of the scheduled pickup time just because she arrived early.
- Oh, Crap!: Marinette has this expression when Alix gets akumatized just a few meters away from her and again when she accidentally causes Scarlet Lady to get tagged by Timebreaker.
- Ret-Gone: Timebreaker's power allows her to do this to people, which lets her store energy she can use to go back in time.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Timebreaker wants to go back in time to save her watch.
- Skewed Priorities: When Marinette shouts at Scarlet Lady that she's recording the Ladybug heroine ignoring the akuma, Scarlet decides to berate Marinette for threatening the hero of Paris instead of actually fighting the akuma—who promptly tags her.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Alix asks why the Kubdel family tradition states that the last child is the one who gets the watch, Alim replies that he definitely didn't make that up specifically because of Jalil.
- Team Spirit: The class quickly comes together to plan out how to fix Alix's watch after it breaks.
- Trust Password: Present!Adrien realizes the other Chat Noir is his future self when he uses "Scar" to refer to Scarlet Lady.
- Unsatisfiable Customer: Even though she's fully aware that Sabine and Tom have plans for their anniversary and are going out of their way to do her a favor, Nadja still shows up well before she was supposed to come by and pick up her cake before demanding she be given it immediately, ahead of the scheduled time. After how rudely she behaves over the whole situation, Sabine implies to Marinette that they won't be going out of their way for Nadja like this again anytime soon.
- Ungrateful Bitch: Tom and Sabine agree to do Nadja a favor by having a cake ready for her even though the bakery is closed to the public for their anniversary. When Nadja later arrives ahead of schedule without notice, she calls to complain about not getting her cake early as well.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Marinette calls out Scarlet Lady for not doing anything to fight Timebreaker, pointing out that she's recording the Ladybug heroine ignoring the akuma.
- Youngest Child Wins: Played With; it's implied that Mr. Kubdel is lying about the watch traditionally going to the youngest child because he doesn't want to pass it down to Jalil.
