Miraculous Adventure - a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic

Chapter 31

"For the record." Adrien moaned while sprawling near the banks of Seine. "Twiddle Gain finally nabbed the Most Annoying Akuma award from Jackady."

Marinette hummed as she rolled near his side. "Watching your father doing a Butterfly Dance in a live television must be a traumatic sight."

"Tell me more about it."

It was high noon yet the teenagers didn't budge an inch to spare their exposed skin from the pricking hot rays. They were too exhausted to move, and sunburns were the least among their concerns.

"We've battled forty-two clones, My Lady." the boy moaned again. "Forty-two pesky clones of nothing but an Akuma vessel - and we barely covered a single arrondissement."

"Are we going to play that blame game again, Kitty?" his companion slurred. "Because I was damn sure I warned you about that wormhole in the dumpster."

He sniffed. "Who would've thought TARDIS can be anything aside from telephone booths?!"

"Sometimes I forgot you're a nerd." the girl responded, raising her head a bit to check their sheltered kwamis.

Adrien's duffel bag was slightly zipped open on its side, revealing a grumpy-looking Plagg and an enervated Tikki.

"You guys okay there?" she probed.

"Ask me that again when you're not imposing a gavage." the black kwami groused between cheese bites.

"I thought tubes are unnecessary." his charger scoffed. "For a glutton like you."

The red kwami groaned, unsure if she was supporting his claim, or simply defending her counterpart.

Even though the Miraculous boosted their strength and protected them from harm, Marinette and Adrien would still need a sound mind and a stamina to endure lengthy battles. True that their powers could alleviate their pains, but not the fatigues and stresses that usually crept inside their bodies.

The kwamis weren't spared either.

In every Lucky Charm drops and Cataclysm hits, Tikki and Plagg would always exhaust themselves till de-transformation. They might be able to regenerate themselves by eating cookies and camemberts, but they also need recuperation - or according to Plagg's terms, savor the moment - else they would lose their control enough to endanger both the wielder and the Bestower. This might be the reason why nudging them to eat faster made them cranky.

"Think like we're batteries - for the sake of your geek mind." his kwami once explained. "We're stable if charged normally. We'll go haywire if charged forcefully, or charged in a wrong port. Continuous usage without charging, or barely charging, or charging in less than the minimal requirement, would be deadly. We'll electrocute you and smoke ourselves till both of us will never see the daylights again."

He thought it was pure baloney he even laughed on Plagg's face. Now that he was experiencing the severity of their situation, he couldn't help but feel remorse.

Marinette was informed by her kwami about the effect of constant transformation even before Bubbler's battle, as well as the Vanisher and Anti-Bug's. She also witnessed how a frazzled Tikki slept on her untouched cookie tower throughout the night.

This led her charger to be afraid that one day, the kwami might enter hibernation.

Thinking about it, she couldn't imagine the strains Papillion suffered on the ordeal.

Serves him right, she wanted to say but didn't have the heart to declare it.

Because at the end of the day, whether it was a good or a bad karma, all Miraculous holders must face the consequences of the each other's actions.