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Ladybug gets into a "hairy" predicament when an akuma capture goes wrong.

A collaboration between @ao3bronte​ and @yamina20-blog​ 💕

“Remind me why you thought this was a good idea?”

Surrounded by animals, Chat Noir lands gingerly on the top of a light post and scowls spectacularly, having just peeled himself off the sod in the park across from Sacré-Coeur. This isn’t their first animal themed akuma and it certainly won’t be their last, judging by the increasing frequency of angry protesters flooding the streets of Paris; there’s always something to protest it seems, and Le Papillon was having an absolute field day targeting them all.

Today’s protest themed akuma of the hour? FrankenFur!

“Hey!” Chat rubs at the grass stain on his belly as a panicked giraffe goes running by and sticks his tongue out at the akumatised monster who’d just tossed him like a Frisbee halfway across Marcel-Bleustein-Blanchet Square, “This wasn’t my idea, this was your idea!”

Ladybug throws her hands into the air, “You led it over here!”

The monster, dressed in a pseudo animal activist uniform and spouting endangered animal facts to all who would listen, throws another magic smoke bomb at a group of unsuspecting visitors, “There are too many tourists at the front of the Basilica! There’s less chance for collateral here and besides, we weren’t getting anywhere anyway. We still don’t know what the object is!”

The smoke clears to reveal a family of farm animals lying on the ground and Ladybug swoops to get out of the way of the panicking herd, landing on a tree branch, “Could it be in the protest sign it’s holding?”

Chat flexes his hand and spins his baton in his other, steadying himself, “It’s worth a shot.”

Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charm and immediately notices the strings of fairy lights hanging atop the pergola the akumatised protester is standing upon as well as the sewer grate embedded in the concrete directly across from it. Dodging a flock of ducks, Ladybug catches a red and black polka dot crowbar and swings it between her fingers, “Chat, try and tangle it up in the string of lights over there.”

Chat follows her gaze and nods once, leaping from the lamp post to the tree tops. Meanwhile, Ladybug runs over to the sewer grate and lodges the business end of the crowbar beneath the steel lip, quickly prying it open.

“AhhhAAAAGHH!”

Ladybug peers into the puddle of rainwater in the divot by the grate and uses its reflection to watch as Chat expertly dislodges the fairy lights and drops them unceremoniously onto the akumatised monster. The creature screams as it tangles itself in the mass of wire and glass and tosses its limbs every which way like a deranged octopus, howling curses at the top of its lungs.

Amongst all of the chaos, Ladybug launches her yoyo and wraps it around the monster’s legs, unbalancing its already lopsided stance. Chat sees where she’s going with this and drop kicks the creature in the back just as Ladybug yanks the string, causing the akuma to topple forward towards the manhole, and with another well timed feat of synchronised backflip ingenuity, the dynamic Cat and Bug duo have the monster falling headfirst into the hole and Ladybug is certain she’s got the protest sign in her sights—

“LADYBUG!”

She looks up and feels time slow to a crawl, watching as the akumatised monster uses the very limited range of motion it has in its arm to launch one last grenade at her face. Ladybug can’t move, not really, not when one arm is reaching for the sign and the other is wrapped up with her yoyo and—

It feels a little like falling into a giant tub of Perrier, the tingling sensations on her skin almost overwhelming. There’s static in her ears and panic in her heart as she closes her eyes and holds her breath against the onslaught of colours and shapes swirling passed her eyelids, a cacophony of noise so loud she can hardly stand it. She reaches up to cover her ears but there’s no moving in this strange purgatory as the world falls out from under her, shoving her to the cobbles with a thud that jars her bones. She tries to cry out but there’s no sound save for the high pitched squeak coming out of her throat like a siren, and it occurs to her suddenly that something has gone very very wrong.

She opens her eyes.

The world is suddenly a lot larger than it was before.

HELP!

“CATACLYSME!”

Ladybug looks up just in time to see her gigantic, skyscraper of a partner disintegrate the sign with his fingers and backhand the monster into the manhole, reaching down with his monstrous hand to pick up her yoyo. Ladybug shrieks insistently as he slips his finger through the loop and tosses it at the fluttering black and purple butterfly, quickly capturing the cursed insect in his grasp. He calls the yoyo back and stares at it for several moments before bending down into a crouch, holding it out for her to see.

“Ladybug? What do I do now?”

Throw the crowbar up into the air and say Miraculous Ladybug!

Chat gulps, “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Ladybug looks down at her tiny paws and does a double take, What AM I?

“Now that I could understand,” Chat says, reaching out with his other hand. She gives him what she hopes is a truly devastating stink eye and rears up onto her hind legs with a particularly petulant squeak, “You’re a hamster.”

A HAMSTER?! Ladybug’s jaw drops and her paws are on her face immediately, patting every part of her she can reach. She’s got whiskers! And huge front teeth! And fur! Fur everywhere! Why am I a HAMSTER?!

Chat has the gall to laugh, “Oh my god, you are so adorable.”

I AM NOT!

“Come on, get on my hand before someone steps on you.”

NO!

Chat places his open palm on the ground and beckons her forwards with his fingers, “There’s like, three elephants over there and the last thing we need is for you to get squashed.”

Indignant, Ladybug tries for several humiliating moments to cross her arms and finds herself entirely at a loss. She glares at his outstretched hand with contempt for almost as long before finally giving in and marching over, determined to stay on her hind legs like any self respecting human should. She gets a good look at her body then, the soft tuft of white fur covering her belly and her tiny hind paws. How the heck was she supposed to purify the city as a hamster?!

Momentarily distracted, Ladybug stumbles over one of Chat’s claws and falls onto all fours as the ground disappears beneath her, HEY!  

Smiling indulgently at her little squeaks of horror, Chat brings her to eye level, “Thank you. Now, should I just throw this in the air and say Miraculous Ladybug?”

Ladybug nods in earnest, chirping as she mimes the movement with her paws. Chat tries his hardest to suppress his giggles and turns his attention back to the crowbar in his hands.

“Here goes nothing. Miraculous Ladybug!”

Ladybug tracks the crowbar with her eyes and watches as it falls back into his hand, still as spotted and corporeal as it was before. She tugs on his thumb and gestures for him to try again.

“Miraculous Ladybug!” he yells with gusto, tossing it yet again into the sky. When it falls back down in front of him, Ladybug realises with an awful sense of dread that she is very much screwed, “Ladybug? I think we have a problem.”

No kidding! She tugs on her whiskers and rubs her eyes, What are we going to do?

Chat sighs, “I guess we can’t purify the city like this. We’ll need to go see Master Fu.”

Ladybug nods vigorously and chatters as Chat clips her yoyo onto his belt and glances away as a flock of ostriches run across the square, “And quickly! This is otter pandamonium!”

Chat Noir’s laughter at his own puns turns to howls as Ladybug bites down on his index finger with all the prim resentfulness she can muster; she may have been turned into a hamster, but at least some things would never change.

Both of these were done with graphite pencil and used as the illustration images for “Little Lady Paws” by the lovely and talented @ao3bronte. I had fun drawing all these little hamsters for the story and will try to update more often with my images from here on.

Here’s a link to the story thus far: