AN: Several of the ideas I used for the Raccoon Miraculous came from StarDaPanda225. They didn't come up with everything, and I didn't use all their ideas, but at least some of it came from them.
To Butterfly: You can see a list of planned works on my profile. Of those, 2 stories and an anthology series are entirely written, with outlines and a little more for the others. There are another 2 anthologies with 3-5 chapters already written. Anything further out than that is no more than ideas. Occasionally I do make changes, however: I added 2 chapters to this story near the end.
After their success in miniature with the portal generator, Max worked with Paola to take the schematic for the miniature and reconfigure it to one in full-size, large enough for two people to pass through abreast. Following their mission, she would begin building the full-size ring for the American Temple, while he would build the matching ring in Paris. By the time they finished, it was after lunch in Peru, and Max needed a short nap before that afternoon's mission.
Now Pegasus was back in the lab, standing with his back to the bank of computer screens and facing the small team that Onça Feroz had selected for their mission. El Bandido, the Raccoon Miraculous holder, was a shorter man in a black-and-grey suit with a bushy tail and a black mask covering his eyes. Next to him was Alpac-Man: the boy – probably no older than 14 – with the Alpaca Miraculous, who wore a light yellow suit with a hoop draped over his neck and one shoulder. Then there was Espina, the Porcupine Miraculous holder. She was a little older than Onça Feroz and had a light purple short-sleeved suit with short spines growing out of her back and a wrist guard on the inside of one forearm, her dark hair held up in a tight bun by a needle. Last was Onça Feroz herself, whose miraculous suit was yellow with brown patches, her dark hair held back in a long braid that reached down to her waist.
"We are ready," Onça Feroz told Pegasus, tightening her grip on her tematlatl sling.
Pegasus nodded and concentrated on a location just inside the jungle surrounding the farm they would be raiding that night. "Voyage!" He punched the space between himself and the team, and a two-meter portal opened through which he could see a thick tangle of trees and vines. The American heroes jumped through the portal, followed by Turing and his two remaining drones. The moment they were through, Pegasus closed the portal and de-transformed.
"When can I expect to be able to utilize Voyage multiple times on a single transformation?" Max asked Kaalki, holding out a tray of apple slices for her. He turned back to the monitors showing the video feed from Turing and the drones while she ate.
The Kwami shrugged. "Can't say for sure," she replied, tossing an apple slice in the air and swallowing it whole. "It depends on the user. Older users get there faster than the younger ones, but they all move at their own pace. The more often you transform and use your ability, the more quickly you adapt to it. The first indicator is that you stay transformed longer after using your ability; the second is when you don't need to de-transform at all after using it."
"And if Ladybug and Cat Noir still only at the stage of not de-transforming after all their experience, I suspect I will not be there for at least two more years," he observed, frowning.
"If you're lucky." Kaalki snorted. "It's not the end of the world. Fighting with a single Voyage makes you fight smart."
Max nodded reluctantly.
"And in the meantime, it's a good thing you've got an 'in' with Impératrice Pourpre!" added Kaalki.
Max chuckled and transformed. It would not do for him to be untransformed if the American team needed an emergency evacuation. Turing's feed showed that the mission was proceeding according to Onça Feroz's plan. Three of her heroes had split up to surround the farm around the periphery of the fields, with Alpac-Man walking across the field, bent over double to avoid being seen, making his way toward the small number of laborers still at work in the field. As he reached the first one, he muttered, "Alpackify," and tossed his hoop over the man's head. The worker immediately straightened up, dropped his rake, and walked down the row to the next worker, whom he touched on the shoulder. The two split up, moving in opposite directions through the field to locate more workers. Before long Alpac-Man had "domesticated" all of the day laborers and sent them to sit in the middle of the field, safely away from any potential fighting.
Onça Feroz let out a breath. "Spot-Senses," she whispered. Her pupils dilated slightly and she stuck her head up to search the area around her, shading her eyes with one hand. Closing her eyes she inhaled deeply, spun around, and ran to a spot near the edge of the jungle where a couple of the trees appeared to have been disturbed. "¡Bandido! ¡Mira!" she shouted, waving to El Bandido. Pegasus tasked one of his drones to follow El Bandido over to where Onça Feroz was standing. The drone's scans showed nothing out of the ordinary, though there was a small scrape on the bark of one tree.
The two American heroes whispered together hurriedly in Spanish, Onça Feroz pointing at the trees and something on the ground just inside the closest row of coca plants. Pegasus tasked the drone to gain altitude. He could not understand what they were saying, but it sounded like an elevated perspective would prove useful. He sighed: this was not his team and he was not in the field, so he could abide by their rules – even if the team's operation language was not one he understood.
El Bandido, meanwhile, withdrew a magnifying glass from his belt and muttered, "Mask and Answer." He extended the handle on his magnifying glass and stared intently at the ground where Onça Feroz had pointed. Through the video feed, Pegasus could not tell what he was looking at, but he seemed to have found something. He let out a low whistle and turned his magnifying glass to face the farm buildings. He said something to Onça Feroz, and she pointed at the farm before racing in the opposite direction, deeper into the jungle. Pegasus ordered one drone to follow Onça Feroz, while Turing and the other drone joined El Bandido in proceeding further into the farm.
Espina and Alpac-Man joined El Bandido behind the building next to the barn which Onça Feroz had pointed at. Turing's video feed showed a trio of men holding familiar energy rifles leaning against the barn in question, though none of them seemed to be paying close attention to their surroundings. Pegasus sent the drone around the back of the barn.
"There is another guard at the rear of the building," Pegasus reported in English. El Bandido looked up at Turing and nodded before sneaking around the building toward the indicated guard, racing behind a semi trailer until he was less than three meters away.
"Estoy listo," whispered El Bandido. "Tres, dos, ¡uno!"
At the same moment, El Bandido and Espina acted. El Bandido jumped out from behind the trailer, planted the handle of his magnifying glass, and vaulted into his guard's chest, knocking him to the ground with a thud. Espina stepped out from behind cover, her bow in one hand, and shouted, "Spinal Shower!" She pulled a handful of spines from her back, laid them flat along the bow, and fired. All three men were pinned to the wall by spines through their clothing in a single volley. Their energy rifles clattered to the ground, unused. Alpac-Man ran over and kicked the rifles away from them into a heap well out of their reach.
As the three American heroes disarmed their prisoners, Pegasus' attention was drawn to the third video feed by a gasp of surprise. He glanced over to see Onça Feroz standing over a small pit in the ground with a felled tree lying next to it. "Do you see this, Pegasus?" she asked him in English, looking up at the drone.
Pegasus nodded and sent the command for the drone to scan the crash site. "I see it, Onça Feroz," he replied. "It does appear consistent with the crash site we found outside Paris. The pit is significantly shallower than the other one, however; while there is insufficient data to form a conclusion, the evidence at hand suggests that this pod must have struck something that slowed its descent abruptly before it hit the ground."
"There are a few large trees broken off surrounding the pit," Onça Feroz reported. "It smells like something cut this one in half, and not cleanly."
"I think we found the thing that did it," called El Bandido. Pegasus returned to the other video feeds to see the three Americans standing inside of the barn, in front of a too-familiar shape.
"Mon Dieu," breathed Pegasus. While he had hypothesized that another alien craft may have landed here, staring at irrefutable evidence of the correctness of that hypothesis was almost too much to handle. While the drone scanned the craft from the outside, Turing flew above it and descended through the hatch. On his video feed Pegasus could see the interior of the ship, entirely stripped to the bare walls. Although his heart knew it was unnecessary, he still turned to read the scan data. "It is indeed an alien craft, identical to the one we found," he announced finally.
Onça Feroz hummed contemplatively and made her way back to the farm clearing, leaving the drone behind to catalogue the crash site. "What do you recommend that we do with it, Pegasus?" she asked. "Should we leave it in the Lynchpin's hands?"
Pegasus frowned. "That would be unwise," he finally answered. "Although he has already recovered all the components, he may still be able to make something of the shell – a heat-resistant Mecha-Man armor, for example. With your permission, I will open a portal so your people can push the craft directly into your lab."
"Do you have to?" asked Onça Feroz wryly. "There really is not that much extra space."
"I can bring it to Paris when I leave, if that is acceptable to you."
Onça Feroz laughed. "In truth, I think I would prefer that!"