Miraculous Heroes | Miraculous x MHA Crossover

Chapter 12: Whack-A-Teleporting-Mole

"Hey Bugaboo."

Ladybug looked up. Cat Noir sat perched in a tree, his green eyes glinting in the shadows of sunset.

"Why are you late?" Cat Noir tilted his head comically.

"I got de-transformed before I landed, so I fell and hurt my ankle. It's better now, though." She wiggled her foot around to prove her point. Her injury hindered her journey quite a bit, but after a while, she was able to recover. Not fully, but good enough. The last third of the way she swung with her yo-yo, using the alleyways as cover. "Sorry for the wait, Kitty."

"It's fine." Cat Noir leaped down silently. "I did some exploring. The security is no joke."

"You tested the security?" Ladybug frowned.

"Relax, I kept my distance. I watched from a tree, and I saw a bunch of little robots on campus. And the walls seem to have some kind of defense mechanism, but I don't know for sure since I didn't get close."

"Well, that means we can't get inside without attracting attention." Ladybug sighed.

"We need to, though. Dunno why the villain chose to come here, but we gave him a pretty long time to recover." Cat Noir said.

"Here's what I've been thinking." Ladybug said, "Transverser came to U.A. because he's probably a young teen, and the only way to become a hero for him is to charge energy from people who are similar to himself. Y'know, younger heroes, like Deku."

"That means... Yeah, I guessed it before. You're a teen, too." Cat Noir beamed. "Maybe even the same age as me."

"Yeah." Ladybug knew they couldn't know too much about each other, but secretly, she felt happy. She was one step closer to knowing her partner.

"The thing is," Ladybug said, "we need to finish this fight right now. U.A. is full of people like Deku, and Transverser is probably fully charged now."

"Agreed. But," Cat Noir looked solemn all of a sudden, "we're breaking the law here. So Transverser's probably not going to be the only one going against us."

"I know." Despite herself, Ladybug smiled. "But what was it you always said to me?"

Cat Noir grinned.

"It's you and me against the world." They said together.

An explosion sounded from their right, rattling the air. A distant yell echoed through the forest.

"Is that... the anger issue guy?"

"Only one way to find out." Ladybug said, already swinging through the trees.

The battle soon came into view: Deku, Bakugo, and Shoto were all fighting Transverser. The villain was having a hard time, but the hero students couldn't land a hard blow on him either -- the akumatized villain blinked from here to there with flashes of yellow light.

Ladybug was almost mesmerized by the three intern's fighting moves. In their previous fight in the city, Ladybug mainly focused on getting the villain, but now she can clearly see Deku, Bakugo, and Shoto fighting. Their moves were as smooth as flowing water, one blow after the other, and fully integrating their quirks in every step, every attack.

Deku was a blur, only materializing slightly while he studied his opponent. Bakugo wasn't as fast as Deku, but even more efficient. Nearly every explosion connected with the villain, a split second before Transverser teleported away again. Bakugo was screaming obscenities as always. Shoto on the other hand was silent, the only sound coming from the sudden bursts of ice. He limited his use of fire, though, as they were in a forest.

As expected from future heroes in this world. Those three were good.

"Looks like Transverser's in trouble now." Cat Noir said with glee. "We've got help."

"LUCKY CHARM!" Ladybug threw her pink-glowing yo-yo in the air, determined to finish the fight as soon as possible.

Her yell attracted everyone's attention, which then turned into confusion as they saw the mp3 player in her hands.

"You gonna play some meow-sic?" Cat Noir said with a mischievous smile. Ladybug rolled her eyes. The grand return of the cat puns.

"How are you going to--"

Cat Noir cut Shoto off with a wink, "You'll see."

Transverser kept his eyes on Ladybug. "I should've known..." he whispered, then disappeared.

"Ladybug!" Cat Noir yelled.

Ladybug jumped out of the way as Transverser grabbed at her earring from behind her.

"Hey! I thought you didn't want our miraculouses! You can't just randomly change your mind!" Cat Noir swung his staff towards the villain but hit nothing aside from a flash of yellow light.

"Hawkmoth is stupid, he's so predictable and easy to manipulate." Transverser said from a tree, "that butterfly-loving weirdo wanted your miraculouses. But I had other plans."

"Yeah, to become a pitiable hero, we know." Bakugo blasted at the villain and missed as Transverser teleported. But immediately Bakugo whipped around and blasted again, which hit the akumatized villain square in the chest. Transverser flashed away again with a grunt.

"I thought I was strong enough to become the best hero with the akuma's power." The villain continued rambling and flashing around the five people's attacks. "But apparently Hawkmoth was too weak to grant me the power I needed. I concede I was too focused on defying Hawkmoth that I missed the most important point --" Transverser pointed at Ladybug and Cat Noir, "-- Without your miraculouses, you are nothing. They're the reason you two are such well-respected heroes. So, you don't deserve them, I do."

Wasn't it obvious that I'm nothing without my miraculous? Ladybug's subconscious replied sardonically. She didn't say it out loud, of course. She couldn't act weak in front of a villain.

But from Transverser's words, she realized he -- all citizens of Paris, actually -- only saw Ladybug and Cat Noir as heroes, because that was their only role shown to the public. Their true identities were unknown, which meant their imperfect, non-heroic selves weren't perceived by others.

She didn't know about Cat, but she was all too aware of it herself. Marinette is not perfect. Ladybug isn't, either, but the power of the miraculous had given Marinette the courage to do things she'd never imagined to do. In some ways, she relied on the miraculous. But... no. Without the miraculous, she could still do the right thing. She could still be something greater.

"The miraculous isn't what makes you a hero. It gives you power, yes, but that's just a catalyst for someone to become something they were meant to be. Something they already are deep down." Ladybug looked at her partner with a proud smile.

"Yeah. Me and milady? We have something different from most people -- especially different from you, Transverser." Cat Noir's eyes glinted impishly.

Ladybug suddenly cringed.

"Cat, don't say it--"

"We have awesomeness."

"...He said it."

A/N: I sincerely apologize for this cringy chapter orz. Thanks so much for reading  :)