To yellow 14: That's true; I hadn't thought about how stealth craft can do that. Though even then they I don't think they can disappear entirely from infrared, especially not at that distance; Turing wasn't able to see any of the alien ship whatsoever.
To Butterfly: I love being able to keep people guessing!
To StarDaPanda225: There were definitely hints here and there that he was hiding something.
Rena Rouge rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and bit back a comment. She crouched next to Pegasus, holding a cold compress to his side just under his armpit. For his part, Pegasus had his eyes closed, leaning forward while Impératrice Pourpre held another couple cold compresses to his back. Although Turing had canceled the alert the moment he had recognized the alien ship to have disappeared, Impératrice Pourpre had already been on her way from home; when the alert was canceled she had called Rena Rouge immediately for an update and stopped at a pharmacy on the way. Seeing the look of concern on Impératrice Pourpre's face while tending to Pegasus, Rena Rouge was forcefully reminded of the last time their roles had been reversed, when Impératrice Pourpre had told her about Carapace's team being ambushed at Rouen. At least Carapace had been uninjured when they returned; Rena Rouge could imagine the thoughts running through Impératrice Pourpre's mind at the moment.
Telling her what had happened had been bad enough, considering that Pegasus had been injured by his own drones. Rena Rouge was not looking forward to explaining all of this to Ladybug and Cat Noir eventually. Her flute had already rung twice in the last five minutes with Ladybug demanding to know why she'd been woken up in the middle of the night for an SOS only to have it canceled before they reached the Australian portal ring. Rena Rouge hadn't answered either time. Unfortunately, she didn't have anything to tell her yet…
Her flute rang again, and she looked down to see the red-and-black Ladybug symbol requesting a video call. "Of course," she muttered. Pegasus gave her a look. She shrugged and handed it over to him.
Pegasus answered. "Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal."
Ladybug gave him a look of surprise, her head cocked to one side. "What happened?"
"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" Pegasus smirked, but it turning into a wine as he leaned into Impératrice Pourpre's shoulder.
"Oh, you know, we were asleep – it's 3 in the morning here! So–" She stopped, her mouth open. They could hear Cat Noir laughing in the background. Ladybug's eyes narrowed. "You were quoting Star Wars at me!? Why were you quoting Star Wars at me!? Give me back to my 'bestie.'"
Rena Rouge took the flute and grinned sheepishly. "Hey, girl…"
Ladybug's eyes flashed angrily. "Explain. Now."
"Um, I… don't actually have an explanation for you because I don't really know what happened myself but if you let me get the answers I promise I'll call you back in like four hours when you're supposed to be awake?"
Ladybug groaned and rubbed her temples. "Make it one. There's no way we're going back to sleep again after this."
Rena Rouge nodded. "You got it boss. Sorry."
"I forgive you. Just…" Ladybug trailed off, a troubled look in her eyes. "Don't worry me like that, girl." With that the call disconnected.
Rena Rouge sighed. Now to get those answers… She fixed her gaze on the orange-furred alien who had introduced himself as "Victor." Everything had seemed so much simpler yesterday, when aliens were a distance concept. Yes, they certainly existed – the Heroes had recovered enough of their artifacts to confirm that fact – but there was no evidence of living aliens on Earth. Well, they had received incontrovertible proof of two different aliens from two different races, both living in Paris, at least one of whom had just tried to initiate an alien invasion, and now Rena Rouge really wished Impératrice Pourpre had picked up more than just a two-pack of Advil!
"So you can create illusions," Rena Rouge stated to Victor, eyes narrowing. "That ship just now, that was you."
The alien nodded. "That is a crude description, but yes," he replied. His face contorted in what she could only describe as a frown, his ears drooping. "I apologize for everything that has happened – especially for your teammate's injuries."
Pegasus scoffed around a wince. "I have burned myself worse on a stove," he retorted. "And I suppose it is my own fault for not checking Hugo's work after he assisted in redesigning the drones this morning."
Impératrice Pourpre squeezed his hand and pulled his head over to rest on her shoulder. "You couldn't have known this would happen," she consoled him, wrapping an arm around his back carefully.
"Perhaps, perhaps not," he admitted. "But it was a very hard-earned lesson." He picked up Turing and turned the robot over in his hands. "I am sorry," he whispered. Louder he explained, "I will need to rebuild his rotor, and a few circuits may need to be replaced. It could have been so much worse, however."
"I do apologize," Victor told them, his lips turning down. "I did not think that you would believe me if you didn't see the Shunjar's true colors for yourselves. Our planets have been at war for centuries, and the Shunjar have spent decades attempting to bring other races into the war on their side to turn the tide against us. If you had gotten a message out to them, it almost certainly would have led to an invasion and to your planet being militarized and dragged into the war."
"But did you have to actually allow us to get a message out?" Rena Rouge demanded.
Le Tirreur snorted.
Pegasus glanced down at the transmitter, traced a finger over one of the wires, and chuckled. He held up the severed wire that had connected the device to the Eiffel Tower. "You truly did think of everything, did you not?" he observed, giving Le Tirreur a nod. He grimaced, and Impératrice Pourpre put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently, shifting the cold compress as she did so.
"I guess someone had to!" Le Tirreur commented, raising an eyebrow at him.
Pegasus gave him a sheepish look. "Thank you," he conceded. "This has delayed his people's plans – whatever they ultimately were. It will take him some time to accumulate the necessary components to build a new transmitter," he added. "Some of the parts were scavenged from the debris field in orbit and did not come from the escape pods we found. The probability that he will find someone else able to acquire those particular components is so low as to be incalculable."
Rena Rouge nodded and let out a relieved sigh. "That's good to hear." She turned to Victor, fixing him with a piercing gaze. "So what do you want from us for stopping your enemy from doing what he wanted to do, or should I take a wild guess?"
Victor laughed derisively. "Obviously I would like to go home," he replied, "but for the moment I cannot do so – not while this Shunjar is running around attempting to bring your planet into the war."
Rena Rouge glanced at Le Tirreur and arched an eyebrow. He gave her a dubious look. She looked over at Impératrice Pourpre, who gave her an uncertain nod. Pegasus shrugged noncommittally. "I think we're 'first contacted' out at the moment," Rena Rouge told Victor finally, setting her lips in a thin line. "Considering that we've made 'first contact' with two different aliens in about 24 hours, and the other one tried to start an invasion… If you want our help, you're going to have to earn it."
Victor nodded in resignation. "I understand that I still need to prove myself to you and earn your trust."
"We'll talk to our friends and see exactly what that means," Rena Rouge promised.
Le Tirreur sighed and stood up to leave, stretching his arms as he did so. Rena Rouge rose to follow him. Near the edge of the park she said, "I should thank you for your help."
He shrugged. "I really don't want to see the Earth subjugated by intelligent raptors, so it wasn't just for your benefit."
"What are you going to do now?" she asked, fixing him with a curious gaze.
"I still have a score to settle with Lynchpin and Night Bat," he replied. "And I'll keep my eye out for your lizard friend – 'Hugo,' did you call him? But after all of that – if I'm still alive – who knows?"
"If we share information, we might be able to help each other out," she pointed out again. "Though you really do need to stop killing people."
He let out a bark of laughter. "You and I will have to agree to disagree on that point, Foxy," he told her. "I have my way of doing things; you have your way. Still, I guess you heroes are alright as long as you aren't messing around with alien invaders." He jogged across the street to the building where his harness still hung. But before reattaching it, he turned and gave her a two-finger salute. "See you around, Foxy."
AN: This is the end of "It Came from Outer Space." The next story in the series will be "The Hound and the Maiden," after a few more chapters of "The Woman out of the Fridge." All of the characters in this story will appear again, some sooner than later. I especially want to thank Lyger 0 for their reviews; while I didn't change the trajectory of this story significantly, I did rethink my future plans with the Shunjar and Volpine and how their war will play out from a terrestrial perspective – the fact that one of the alien races tried to initiate an invasion doesn't exonerate the other one…