sliceitwithwind | Warehouse AU because of course it is.

Warehouse AU because of course it is.

"We've got a ping." the quiet voice of the man at the computer nevertheless managed to cut through the back-and-forth of the people taking care of routine business in the rare downtime they had to do such things as reports, maintenance of their gear, and general unwinding.

"Who's going, and where?" the largest of the people in the room asked, already folding the papers he'd been working with into a neat file which he handed to the one-eyed man who'd been woken by the magic words. Anything else and it took him hours to come to awareness, but a ping? Seconds.

"You two, and New York City. We've got reports about a museum's statues coming to life. Go."

The file dropped onto the desk with a grunted, "Sign it when I get back." and the two men headed to NYC to see if they could figure out what needed to be snagged and bagged.
~~~

At the museum they looked around for the cops in charge. There were always cops, and how they could talk to the boys in blue made all the difference. Stopping outside of the line defined by uniforms the bigger (and more diplomatic) man murmured, "Could you please point out the person in charge? Thank you." with his badge in hand so that they could avoid misunderstandings. The smaller man's badge was likewise out, but he was more angling to see what he could without interrupting the locals.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There's a lot of weird things in this world." Dilan said with a smile, "That's why there are so many questions to ask about things to try to figure out what's up."

He then turned his head towards the girl, "Oh? Do you have the cards you were playing with here? May I see them, please?"

Braig's smile blossomed as statuary started for him. One of the reasons he was as battered as he was, was the fact that the wild and weird were attracted to him even when he hadn't done anything. (One of the others was his instinctive need to Do Something if people were in trouble.) "Hey! Somebody send me a sledgehammer! Somebody else see if you can get past while I deal with statuary!"

"His is the word of God," Aya spoke into the walkie on her belt, "fetch it!" Because she was on point here so a green light was good. She had no idea what was going on but hell, she could make sure people were equipped!

"No, they were in Amy's backpack!" The girl answered.

"Son of Sam..." Aya swore. Several of the kids has lost their gear when the statuary had come to life. "If you need it and have this covered I'll go fetch it." From deeper in the museum.

"Hey, Dilan, you hear that?" Braig chortled cheerfully even as he started to dodge the statuary's attempts at reducing him to a smudge. Dilan sighed, a lot, and then ignored his partner in favour of;

"Better idea," Dilan said, passing up a pair of purple latex gloves and a small foil bag, "get the cards with the gloves, dump them in the bag. If they're the source of the problem there'll be a purple spark. If not, bring the bag and any other you can find back here."

"In this emergency only," Aya amended, amusement in her voice but the glance she tossed at the statue dodging man worried. They'd played dodge the clay fists getting downstairs, she knew the cursed things moved faster than they should.

Grape gloves and a foil bag. Well. It wasn't like she had any better ideas. "Kids, you're to listen to these men, they're here to keep you safe. If you need me I'm on channel three..." Because even if the FBI men didn't have radios anyone coming in to extract would. "I won't be long."

"Spoilsport." Braig said, dancing and dodging with the ease of someone who regularly worked out with a Katzu. If anyone understood that things could move faster than they 'should', it was the men and women who worked with, but were not, Katzu.

"Got it." Dilan said, nodding and then dismissing her from his mind so he could go back to talking to the kids, "Anything else you can think of that you'd consider important?" he asked them.

"Everyday," she was always someone's wet blanket really. Came with being a cop. Luckily she was also very good at getting a job done, even when the job was weird.

Such as now...dodging marble owls and getting up the stairs before some new arrival statues came down.

Fun.

"Jimmy took Ethan's pudding," stealing was important right? "And I wanna go home. I don't like the museum any more."

At least most of the statues wanted to get Braig, so she really only had to dodge the ones in a straight path towards her.

Dilan nodded at the commentary, "Who is Jimmy, and who is Ethan?" was his only question, followed by, "We'll get you all home. I promise, and I never break my promises."

Yeah, and that was just an additional layer of weird on the day really. So the statues wanted kids and a short agent? It made exactly zero sense really. Statues should have a better sense of fair play.

Or something.

She was probably tired. Yeah. That or she was tripping an ancient warrior statue down the stairs. Yeah, the paperwork was going to be fun.

His question got raised hands, both boys being in the group who weren't allowed to leave yet. "I took his string cheese last week though, so I guess it's okay? Are we in trouble because of that?"

"It's very unlikely." Dilan informed the boys, "So lets leave that alone and move on to any other strange things that have happened in, hmmm. Lets say the last three days. Especially to everyone in the group, but if anyone has something they want to suggest that just happened to a few or one of you that's okay too."

"Good, 'cause everyone steals lunch, it's a game," Jimmy laughed. "I don't know, my dog ran away?"

"And the class hamster had babies?"

"I had to go to dinner with my mom's Aunt and she smells like toothpaste!"

"Sledgehammer, coming through!" And two people in riot gear with big shields to escort a few kids out! "And a radio?"

Dilan kept nodding, and encouraging kids to talk. Alas that he totally stopped being focus of attention when Braig started in with the sledgehammer and warbling some sort of battle anthem. The Katzu just sighed.

Braig was just begging to become the main focus of EVERYTHING wasn't he? Well, until curious kids peeked over the counter and the flying statues took another run at them! "He's...really happy huh? Do you guys do this a lot in the FBI?"

"No go on the deck," Aya called over the radio. And you've got more company coming down the stairs below me. Hope you guys like mythology." She was going to have to find an alternate way down.

"Oh, he's not FBI." Dilan said with a sigh, "He's ATF. We're just both part of a multi-agency task force that deals with all kinds of weird stuff. Braig just really loves his job, and to be fair weird things love him so it works."

Dilan frowned, "I don't suppose you noticed if it's a whole deck or a partial?" went into the radio and, "Do any of you have cards?" to the kids.

"What's an ATF?" Slightly lesser known acronym among the gradeschool set these days! "But yeah they really like him. Or hate him. Is he going to kill them all?" Maybe? THAT WOULD WORK RIGHT?!

"...no. The box was old, cloth and soft. Hard to tell if there's space in it." So until she had a better idea she was gathering backpacks.

"...maybe? We were in the middle of a game when the bus stopped!" MASS POCKET CHECK TIME!

"Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms." Dilan offered, "Not kill, they're animate but not alive - like cartoons. I hope that he won't have to destroy everything."

From the noises on the other side, however, Braig wouldn't be too upset.

Pocket checking gave him two odd cards, some pokemon cards with things written on them, an ace of clubs and a handful of business cards! "...can we still write a paper on them if he smashes them all?" THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY AND IMPORTANT QUESTION!

"Dude, show and tell! We can all get a piece!" There would certainly be enough to go around as far as the smashing was going?

"No," Aya sighed over the radio. "The pieces still belong to the museum and you can't take them."

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

"Yes, you'll just have to rely on your memory more." Dilan informed them, then Braig yelled back, "I'm just smashing their mobile parts! No legs seems to be stopping them!"

In Katzu, Dilan mumbled something about being glad his job was not cleaning up after this. In any way.

"Awwww, but that's an eye over there! He knocked out an eye!" one of the boys laughed. "Just one piece?!"

"No," Aya repeated over the radio, glad the extraction team had left it on broadcast. "Stay down, stay still." And she was...blocked on the back exhibit stairs too. Bohr.

"I'm going to have to come in over the balcony, I may land hard, sorry guys."

"Don't worry about it." Dilan said as he stood, "Aim for me, that will at least keep you from breaking anything. Including the desk. Kittens, stay under the desk."

"Might not have time but I'll try," Aya admitted, grimly cheerful as the sound of crashing statuary echoed from the upper levels. "And just so you know, jade is getting in on the game now." Not just terracotta, stone, and clay any more!

Fun times.

And yes, that would be her, slapping a hand to the railing above and leaping out into the open air just before a large, carved trunk slammed the railing to splinters.

Dilan couldn't have explained everything that went through his mind if he had three times the amount of time to do so (four times, though, and he could). He just figured out where he needed to be to catch her and get both of them out of the way of a swinging battle axe that Braig hadn't managed to disarm yet, then spun on light feet to get them both back to the desk and set her down.

"Can I have the cards and the bag?" he asked her politely, "The cards you have, too." to the kids.

She'd braced, and been ready to roll and hope for the best when she saw that battle ax but...wow, okay, suddenly be scooped out of the air? That was a new one for her. Nice, but new. Too bad he was FBI instead of a cop. They could use someone like him...

...granted, someone like him on the bigger picture was probably good too. Damn, even in random thoughts she looked at the greater good. DAMNIT. Her libido was going to cry or something. Oh well.

"Yes, give me a moment," to adjust to being set down and to pull the backpack stuffed full of backpacks off her shoulder! The weird cards were in an outer pocket at least?

The kids were a little to in awe to do more than hand over every card ever yes.

He took the cards and dumped them into another of those foil-like bags without ceremony, when the full deck was in there was a sparking shower of purple light and things got very quiet.

One turned head later he looked at his partner, leaning on the sledgehammer with a deceptively mild gaze at the marble carnage, "Mom's going to kill us." the little man said.

"No she's not." Dilan said immediately, "I didn't break anything. She's going to yell at you."

...well...that was weird.

Yes, very weird.

More importantly it was something she could think about later. She winced as the terrible thud of airborne statues, suspended for a moment beyond the silence, crashed to the ground. Yeah, this would fun to justify in damages. One one thousand...two one thousand...

"Grab each others hands and DO NOT LET GO. Stay low, follow me, it'd time to go kids." Because that was the next priority yes, getting the children OUT of the scene. She had teams waiting outside, handing them off was probably the most relieving aspect of this mission.

The two men left through a different set of doors, ready to head back to the Warehouse and give their oral reports. The paper ones would come after that.

The transfer order for one Detective Brea, NYCPD, to a podunk town out in the middle of nowhere by order of someone-or-another with REDACTED posted all over Aya's copy took about two weeks.

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