To yellow 14: They are definitely on a collision course! I'm trying to keep the aliens ambiguous for now.
To Butterfly: That would seem to be the case!
Rena Rouge let out a sigh as she carefully slid the manhole cover back into place and climbed down the access ladder. The small holes in the cover allowed little pinpricks of light through, but barely enough for her to find each rung of the ladder. After the bright sunlight on the street, it would probably take a minute for her miraculous-enhanced night vision to catch up. She shoved her nose in the crook of her elbow and forced herself to breathe through her mouth.
Unfortunately, her miraculous-enhanced sense of smell was already working just fine…
"You okay there, babe?" asked Nino over the communicator. Not for the first time was Rena Rouge grateful that Max had connected their phones and miraculous communicators into a single system. While she would have preferred to have Carapace suited up right next to her while investigating a potential alien serial killer, she would gladly take Nino's voice in her ear as a substitute.
"Just wonderful," she retorted. "But I think I just found that month-old bouillabaisse Mom had to flush last week." An entire pan of soup that her sous chef had forgotten about – wasted and rotting in the back of the refrigerator. Her mother had spent an hour berating the man before making him clean it out, only to fire him anyways. The miracle in the incident was that it happened hours before the hotel's annual health inspection. And Alya knew all about it because her mother had spent the entire week complaining about the incident!
That and, according to Chloe, Sabrina had nearly passed out on feeling the fired sous chef's surge of negative emotions when she passed him in the hotel lobby.
Nino made a gagging noise. "That's disgusting."
"You're telling me." Rena Rouge pulled the end off her flute and rooted around until she finally found a nose plug. "Are your miraculous-senses this sensitive?" she asked irritably.
He laughed. "That might just be you. Mine are better than normal, but not quite good enough to know exactly which spices are going in the soup your mom's cooking on the other side of the city!"
"That was one time. And besides, she always uses Colombo!" She sighed heavily. "So what do you think?"
"Of Hugo?"
"Yeah."
Nino hummed. "I'm not sure yet," he admitted. "I mean, we definitely owe the dude something – he did save you twice already."
"I know," Rena Rouge acknowledged. She made a sound of disgust as she waded through muck up to her calves, holding her flute in front of herself as a flashlight to supplement her night vision, its red light reflecting off the walls and creating unusual shadows. "I'm not sure when Max would have found someone to get me last night if Hugo hadn't been there to unfreeze me. So if he wants our help to get home, we totally need to help him out if we can. And if there's another alien running around murdering people…"
"But…" Nino prompted.
"But something feels a little too… easy about his story." She frowned, playing her light along the sewer walls where she could see faint scratch marks. She took a couple pictures and sent them to Max. "At least one part of his story definitely checks out: someone has been living in the sewers this whole time – though there's nothing to indicate whether this is from Hugo or from the murderer. And I'm not sure if living in the sewers for a year accounts for his ability to pick up French so easily."
Nino was silent for a minute. "If things go sideways and you need me, I'll be back home in an instant," he promised. "I'm not gonna let little things like international borders keep me from protecting you, babe!"
Rena Rouge giggled. "I know; it's part of the reason I love you so much!"
"Only part?"
"Oh, there are other things," she replied, giving her voice a sultry tone. Nino coughed and cleared his throat, and Rena Rouge smirked. Three years and she could still leave him speechless with a word.
The sewer wall fell away to reveal a shelf, a little more than five meters wide and four deep, set above the highest level of the water. On the shelf she could see what appeared to be bones, as well as a couple ratty old blankets. Climbing up onto the shelf, she felt around under the blankets to find an alien pistol as well as a handheld device with a cracked screen. She hummed thoughtfully. "Someone must have been staying here," she told Nino, dropping to one knee to examine the pile of bones more closely. "There's enough bones to account for a few months of hard living and scavenging for food. I don't see any indication of whether they're animal or…"
"What's wrong?" Nino's voice sounded worried.
"I'm not sure," she reported, picking up what could only be a skull. "But this one sure looks human…"
"Do you think… the other alien might have been eating them!?" Nino made a sound of disgust. "Remind me why you decided to look into this on your own again?"
"What, afraid I can't take care of myself, babe?" Rena Rouge teased him. She sobered. "That's definitely how it looks right now. Though appearances can always be deceiving."
"Damn." He was quiet for a minute. "Should I come meet you?" he asked.
She closed her eyes for several minutes, her miraculous ears turning in all directions. From all sides she could hear the slow, steady dripping of water on the sewer walls, the faint screeching of cars on the road surface several meters above. Finally she opened her eyes. "No, I'm fine. I don't hear anyone else down here." She smirked. "Besides, it looks like I have a new reptilian protector now!"
Nino gasped in mock-horror. "Replaced so quickly!" he replied, laughing. "Fine! Maybe I'll just go back to training with the Hound!"
Rena Rouge snorted. "Don't beat Felix too bloody! Though if you wanted to wipe that smug look off his face…"
He chuckled. "Just be careful. I love you, babe."
"Love you, too." Rena Rouge disconnected the call and hit another button on her flute to call Max.
"What have you found?" he asked promptly on answering.
"I found the place where someone was staying," she reported, kicking aside a couple of bones that looked like they came from birds or small animals. "So he was at least telling that much of the truth." She sighed heavily. "And I found what might be the remains of one of our missing persons."
Max didn't respond. "It appears probable that Hugo was telling the truth, then," he finally observed.
Rena Rouge shrugged. "So it would seem," she admitted. "But I wish he was not telling the truth about this particular element."
Max hummed. "Agreed. The very idea of an extraterrestrial serial killer active in Paris is highly disturbing."
"The sooner we find and stop this murderer, the better," she agreed, setting her jaw and giving the shelf one more cursory examination.
"Hugo assures me that the resupply ship will have the necessary sensors to locate the other alien," Max reported.
"And you believe him?"
"Do you not?"
Rena Rouge laughed derisively. "What can I say? Maybe Lila burned me one too many times with her too-convenient lies and I can't trust people I don't know anymore. Maybe I wish we had a little more time to really look into this story instead of just taking him at his word. Maybe I just can't think straight with my legs covered in crap!"
"Well, if his story is correct and there is an extraterrestrial murderer on the loose, we must act on it, correct?" argued Max.
"You're right," she admitted, frowning. "What have you and Hugo been doing?"
"He has helped me better understand some of the alien technology I have been studying," Max replied. "He already helped me improve the next-generation drones so they can handle more varieties of missions. We have completed construction on the communication array and are testing the laser emitter at the moment."
She nodded. "How far can this thing send?"
"The range is relatively short on a cosmic scale," Max explained. "According to Hugo the transmitters on their ships are capable of transmitting a message over a light-year. However, this transmitter will have a range of approximately 30 light-minutes before the signal becomes too dispersed and distorted to be recovered."
"That sounds like it's still pretty far."
Max laughed. "That is less than the average distance from Earth to Jupiter," he told her. "We will need to be very precise if we are to contact Hugo's supply ship."
"Nino thinks we need to take this seriously," Rena Rouge admitted. "What do the others think?"
"I have not heard from Adrien or Marinette yet, but it is the middle of the night there and their conference is taking the majority of their time. Chloe stated that she concurs with Nino's assessment, although she is otherwise occupied at the moment," Max reported. "Sabrina is cautiously on board with the plan. Unfortunately, she still cannot understand Hugo's emotions beyond a general sense of unease and anxiety. However, she does acknowledge that to be an appropriate response under the circumstances, especially if a murderous alien is on the loose."
Rena Rouge sighed. "Considering the time crunch, we don't have much choice if we're going to do this." She frowned and gave the shelf a final look before climbing off it to return the way that she had come. "I only wish Sabrina could read his emotions better."