Cartoons » Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir » Criss-Cross Author: Mysterious Prophetess Rated: K+ - English - General/Humor - Reviews: 10 - Published: 11-11-15 - Updated: 11-11-15 id:11610293

MP: Jazztastic_panda 's tumblr post inspired this story. Here is the broken up link so that doesn't remove it. jazztastic - panda(removethisspace) .com(removethisspace) /post/132985330664/okay-but-plagg(removethisspace) -and-tikki-somehow-getting (removethisspace) -lost-or

Plagg wasn't sure when he'd gotten lost from his boy. Though, he was fairly sure why.

He was famished and his human was ignoring him and letting his poor, hardworking kwami starve to death! The smell of food must have been why he'd floated out of Adrien's pocket. He had to find his way back, but first, he needed some energy and for that he needed— cheese! The little black cat kwami zoomed after the tantalizing scent as fast as his food deprived body could float. He ducked around the big man who smelled liked bread and cheese, and he was almost to his target, a cheese Danish whenever a pair of hands scooped him up gently.

"Why hello there! You hungry?" Before Plagg could question it too much, one of the hands holding him let go and picked up one of the very delectable Danishes he'd been trying to eat before and offering it to him.

After wolfing it down, he looked up to see it was that one girl, (Marie-nette?) from Adrein's class and she was entirely too calm when dealing with what looks like a random extremely tiny floating cat. Especially whenever she plucked up a few more cheese danishes, took him through her house, and into her room before she let him at the rest of the pile. It was almost as if she—oh. Oh! This was too good! He looked up at her and spotted the inactive Ladybug Miraculous and began to snicker.

"I was going to ask if you were a kwami too, but I suppose that answers my question," she said blandly, and very much like her alter ego whenever his chosen had made a particularly bad pun.

"Plagg at your service!" he said with a little bow, "Where is Tikki? It's been ages since I've spoken with her!"

Marinette remembered her own kwami and she'd been neglecting her! She reached for her purse only to find that there was a huge hole right in the bottom and no Tikki. No. Tikki.

"Oh no!"

Elsewhere in Paris,

Tikki hadn't realized what had happened until it was far too late. The red kwami shook her head and saw that, luckily, nothing of importance was in Marinette's purse aside from herself when this happened. Now to get back to Marinette before anything terrible could happen, like an akuma attack. Marinette would be vulnerable! She had to get back! She had to aiyeee! She ducked behind a tree as a woman's small dog started barking at her. This was not good. How was she to ever get back to Marinette without getting noticed or attacked?

"Are you ok?" Tikki started and shot up into the air a bit. Someone had asked her if she was ok instead of what she was. Tikki looked over at the speaker and her eyes bugged out. It was Adrien! The sun around which her chosen's romantic fantasies orbited. That Adrien was asking her if she was ok. He carefully scooped her out of the air and tucked her into his pocket as if he was familiar with handling a kwami. It was then that she caught a glimpse of a plain silver ring on his hand. One that she was used to seeing in black and with a paw print on it.

Oh!

Adrien looked down at the ladybug like sprite and concluded if he as Chat Noir had a cat like kwami, a currently missing one at that, then this ladybug looking one had to be his Lady's companion.

"Aren't you a bit far from your home?" he said.

"I am, I need to get back to her before anything bad happens! Where is Plagg?" the kwami said, revealing it was a female.

"I don't know. I was looking for him when I found you," Adrien said.

"Oh, how rude. I'm Tikki!"

"Nice to meet you, Tikki, I'm Adrien," Adrien said. Tikki smiled up at him as he continued to walk around.

"Where did you have him last?" Tikki said.

"I'm not sure. One moment I'm hearing his complaints about being hungry, the next, he's gone," Adrien said as he walked around looking for any other disturbances that would indicate a kwami in distress.

"Were you near any cheese shops?" Tikki asked. Adrien laughed a little.

"Not that I was aware of. Then again, Plagg mistakes other things for cheese a lot of the time," Adrien said. Tikki let out a musical giggle.

"He never changes. Except, it used to be fish before he discovered cheese," Tikki said.

"I'm suddenly very glad he loves cheese," Adrien said. Tikki laughed at his facial expression.

"You don't make Ladybug feed you anything smelly?"

"No! I prefer cookies!" Tikki said, "But we both need to find our partners before anything bad can happen."

"Ahhh!"

"Like that?"

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

Marinette was scrolling down the Ladyblog for maybe any sightings of Tikki whenever Alya began to live blog an akuma attack on the Champs-Élysées. So much for finding Tikki.

"Plagg, can you work with my stone?" Marinette said to the kwami currently perched on her shoulder.

"If I must, but you had better get me more of those Cheese Danishes if you expect me to help-."

"I'll get them to you later. Plagg, transform me!" Marinette ran her hand along her Miraculous and it drew in Plagg, but other than that, her transformation was totally different. It felt stilted as the mask appeared and her sight changed, she didn't have time to think about it as the other parts took hold and instead of wearing a skintight mesh-spandex suit, it was a catsuit with steel toe boots, and gloves that ended in claws. She saw her reflection and blinked at herself in the mirror for only a moment. The main part of the outfit was still regular Chat Noir just molded around a female frame. Her hair was now down and her earrings were attached to her "false" ears that moved like real ones. She heard a "beep!"

'The communicator is in the baton' she heard Plagg say. She nodded before she pulled it out and pressed the paw print symbol. What she saw on the other side surprised her.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

A few minutes earlier…

Adrien followed the sounds of distress and found that in his search for Plagg (and Tikki's for Ladybug) he'd ended up on the Champs-Élysées where the distress was coming from. The one attacking was an angry looking man who was dressed like a stereotypical barber and was attacking by shooting scissors out of a hair dryer and trapping people with a giant can of shaving cream that seemed to harden on contact.

"Adrien, use me," Tikki said, "We don't have time to find the others."

"Tikki, Transform." Adrien said moving his fist forwards and he blinked as it turned red but he didn't have a chance to think about that as the other transformation changes took place. After the mask appeared, the suit followed after a brief pause and ended with the yo-yo forming around his waist. Adrien caught his reflection in a window before he prepared to use the yo-yo to take to the sky like his lady would and decided his Lady was better at pulling off the spots than he was.

He threw it and jumped into the air and promptly crashed into the side of a building. Ow. The yo-yo retracted upwards and he scrambled up. This was worse than the first time he'd-oh. This WAS like the first time.

'You'd better warn Ladybug, um…Red Beatle.' Tikki's voice said. The hero temporarily known as Red Beatle nodded as he tried to work out Ladybug's communication feature.

'No. Press that one then that one.' Tikki said as she guided him through it. When the call went through, Red Beatle was unsurprised to see his Lady looking rather good in his usual costume.

"Greetings, My Lady. I see you found something of mine?" he said.

"I see you did too. Are you near the akuma?"

"I am, My Lady," Red Beatle said.

"What are you calling yourself at the moment? It better not be "Laddy-bug."" she said.

"No, Tikki suggested Red Beatle," Red Beatle said.

"Good. I guess I'm "Panthère Noire,"" she said with a slight roll of her eyes, I'll meet you there—."

"That's another reason why I called, My Lady. Don't expect to be able to use my powers like they're yours. I already found out the hard way," Red Beatle said.

"I'll be fine. I'm better at this, remember?" with that Panthère Noire ended the call.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

"Just because he can never land on his feet doesn't mean I won't!" Panthère Noire said before she pulled out his baton and managed to extend it before attempting to pole-vault and nearly become road splat.

'So he was right, I guess he just got lucky this time,' Panthère Noir said as she began to jump from roof to roof with rather sloppy landings and earning more than a few bruises. Those were going to be hard to explain later. She arrived to see a blond and red form holding off a barrage of scissors being fired from a hair dryer.

"No one escapes Close Shave!" the barber themed villain yelled as he squirted shaving cream at another group of civilians as they tried to flee. Panthère Noire managed to land in front of them and used the baton to shield herself and them from the shaving cream.

"Lady-bug?" someone said. She turned her head to see it was Alya.

"For now it's Panthère Noire! Get to safety!" Panthère Noire said as she ran next to Red Beatle while he twirled the yo-yo forming a shield.

"My Lady, I must say you've never looked better," he said.

"Enough, uh Red Beatle. Have you figured out where the akuma is?" Panthère Noire said as she joined him in making a shield via twirling.

"It's been bugging me to find it, but I believe it's his cape," Red Beatle said. Panthère Noire saw that the villain indeed had a cape that was not unlike the capes used by barbers to keep their customer's clothing clean. She looked around and was about to order him to use a "cataclysm" whenever she remembered she was currently the one with that power. She looked around trying to figure out what would help.

"Dodge and use Lucky Charm, I'll cover you," she said. Red Beatle looked over at her and nodded before he ducked and rolled behind a tree.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

Red Beatle threw the yo-yo in the air pulling on the power like he would for "Cataclysm"

"Lucky Charm!" he said. The light cleared and it was….a jumprope?

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Red Beatle said as he looked around and he gasped whenever things were highlighted with red and black polka dots. What?"

'Calm down. It's showing you the ways your luck can be influenced to win with your Lucky Charm,' Tikki explained. Red Beatle nodded before he noticed a tree a and his yo-yo were lit up along with a pole. It came to him as he ran out into the fray where Panthère Noire was barely blocking the attacks from Close Shave.

"Use Cataclysm on that pole!" Red Beatle said.

Panthère Noire nodded as she jumped back and charged up the attack and slammed her hand into the pole watching as it rusted and fell right towards the villain. Red Beatle jumped forwards and used the jump rope to tie up the villain and the yo-yo to deflect the attacks while the villain was brought down onto the pavement. Panthère Noire leapt over him and pulled off the cape ripping it in two revealing the akuma.

Red Beatle ran his finger over the top of the yo-yo at Tikki's prompting and began to twirl it like he'd seen Ladybug do many times, and promptly hit himself in the head.

"Hurry up!" Panthère Noire said as the akuma flew back down at Close Shave. Red Beatle twirled the yo-yo around this time without hitting himself and captured the akuma.

"Got it!" he said. He opened the yo-yo again,

"You'd butter-fly away," he said. He looked over to see Panthère Noire giving him a "look." He shrugged before he picked up the rope and tossed it in the air.

"Miraculous Ladybug!" The damage was erased and Close Shave was back to being just a regular barber.

"What's with the costume changes?!" Alya yelled before the duo exchanged looks and took off running.

"We're going to have to change back near enough each other to get our kwamis back," Panthère Noire said.

"We could just reveal ourselves to each other," Red Beatle said. Panthère rolled her eyes before she found a building with what they needed. There was a large set of air conditioner units the two chosen could hide around to preserve their identities.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

The duo released their transformations kwami that were ever more exhausted than usual floated out.

"I never want to use your stone again, Plagg!" Tikki said as she weakly floated past Plagg and returning to the waiting arms of Marinette who cradled her kami close.

"You said it. I'll hold you to your promise, Ladybug!" Plagg said.

"What promise?" Tikki said.

"I promised him as many Cheese Danishes as he could eat." Marinette said.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

Adrien heard Ladybug say that and laughed.

"You're going to regret that, my Lady. Plagg can eat a lot." Her laugh in response was beautiful.

"I know." Adrien pulled out some cheese and fed it to Plagg.

"Will this be enough for a temporary transformation?" Adrien said.

"Yes, but you really owe me!" Plagg said before he swallowed it practically whole.

"Plagg, Transform!" Adrien became Chat Noir and it felt so much more natural.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

"Sorry all I have is a Cheese Danish, Tikki," Marinette said as she handed her kwami the only food she had on her person.

"It's ok," Tikki said before she ate it.

"Tikki, transform." Marinette said. Ladybug stretched and walked out to see Chat was already waiting for her in the open.

"We're never doing this again," She said, "I'll stick to my Good Luck and Lucky Charm."

"Agreed, My Lady," Chat said, "Though, I'll regret not seeing you dressed like me again."

"We'd better get going before we run out of power again," Ladybug said as she swung away from her companion.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

Later that night

Marinette had a huge pile of cookies for Tikki as she worked to repair the damage to her purse, which looked suspiciously like it had been done with scissors but she wasn't going to point fingers.

"So, what's he like outside the catsuit?" Marinette said once her curiosity got the better of her.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

"You have really good taste in women, Adrien. She fed me Cheese Danishes! Not just cheese but cheese baked into something and she didn't complain about it either!" Plagg said as he polished off another chunk of smelly cheese that made Adrien wrinkle his nose in disgust. What his kwami said finally registered.

"Was she amazing?" Adrien said.

"Of course! She fed me!"

"That's not what I meant!"

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

"Oh, he's the same old Chat," Tikki said, "You know him very well."

"But is he really a huge flirt outside of being Chat Noir?" Marinette said.

"No, I've never noticed him flirting with anyone." Tikki said.

"Really. Wait, what?"

"There's a lot more to Chat than meets the eye," Tikki said.

"What do you mean Tikki?"

"I can't tell you. If you don't figure it out yourself it will damage the trust you and Chat have," Tikki said before she went to the cookies. There was a pause.

"Do I know him?" Marinette said.

"He's closer than you think," Tikki said.

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

"Oh, if only you weren't so blinded you'd be able to see what was right in front of your face," Plagg said.

"What are you saying I know Ladybug?" Adrien said. Plagg's answering laughter was not able to be taken as a denial or a confirmation and further pressing made his kwami laugh all the harder.

"Whatever, and to think I was worried about you," Adrien said rolling his eyes. Plagg smiled before knocking over Adrien's pile of homework with a snicker.

"Plagg!"

.-.. .- -.. -.- -... ..- -.

Fin

MP: Author's Note time!

Originally, whenever I posted Criss-Cross Marinette's Black Cat name was simply the feminine of "Chat Noir:" "Chatte Noire."

I was informed that was probably a bad idea by a concerned reviewer.

After consulting the lovely and talented The Fluff Queen Lilly-sama, I was able to change the name to still a feline, but a badass one suitable of the adorable yet awesome Marinette. Hence, "Panthère Noire."