A/N: This is my first attempt at a Warehouse 13 fanfiction. Depending on reviews I may continue it. Hopefully you enjoy ^_^ Please review ^_^
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Warehouse 13 or any of the charactersassociated. I only own those of my creation if I bring any into the picture. Thank you and I hope you enjoy.
Myka Bering brushed the dirt off her dress pants as she stood. Looking around, there was no sign of Pete, who just a minute ago, was fighting someone with a sword. Sounded interesting, but Myka thought she had better go save him before he got his ass killed. He was rather clumsy and everyone knew it.
She straightened her jacket and headed towards the grand staircase of the palace they had broken into to steal the artifact they were assigned. To their luck, someone else had arrived just before them and was now fighting them off with a sword. This artifact must not get away. Mrs. Fredric would be furious if Anne Boleyn's necklace was to be out of their grasp. From what they were told, if worn, the wearer would be able to charm anyone. They would become cunning and stop at nothing to get what they wanted. It sounded a little harmless, but would someone stop at murder to get what they wanted? Every artifact they hunted down was dangerous and needed to be kept out of society. That's what Myka and Pete were for.
"SECRET SERVICE!" she yelled as she turned the corner, flashing her badge to the woman with the sword fighting Pete.
The fighting stopped and both Pete and the woman looked at Myka like she was a mental patient.
"Really, Myka?" Pete asked, annoyance in his voice.
"What?" she asked. "I was just trying to help."
Pete rolled his eyes. "If she didn't stop with the sword fight, what made you thinks he would stop for Secret Service? She swung a sword at us."
Myka opened her mouth to object, but shouted Pete's name instead and pointed towards the woman who was stealing the artifact who had turned around and was running up the grand staircase, away from the team of two. Pete moved quickly and pulled out his Tessla gun and shot the woman with a bolt of electricity that stunned him, making him fall to the ground. Pete looked back over towards Myka.
"Thanks," he said, shoving the Tessla between his pants waist.
Myka nodded in response and headed over to the woman and looked down. She wondered who she was, but most of the time it's people who research about an artifact and discovers its hidden powers. They then hunt it down and plan to steal it. Why they always try to steal it on the same night that Pete and Myka is a mystery, but they always put up a fight. They believe they're going after endless wonder, but it only causes someone pain in the end. Everything has a repercussion.
Myka bent down and reached for the woman's pockets to grab the necklace, but shouted as a loud buzzing noise broke through her thoughts. She turned and looked at Pete, who was pulling out a metal box from his coat pocket. He opened it up and began to talk to it, but it talked back. Well, the person on the miniscule screen talked back.
"Please tell me you didn't let Anne Boleyn's necklace get away?" said the metal box.
"Artie," Pete said, walking over to Myka. "Don't you have any faith in us? I mean, we want to do our jobs, but if you keep…"
"Show me the necklace," Artie said, interrupting Pete midsentence.
Myka rolled her eyes yet again and realized her purple gloves were still in her back pocket and she took them out and put them on. She then bent over and reached into the woman's coat pocket and pulled out a string of pearls with a white letter "B" in the middle and held it up to the Farnsworth. Artie nodded in approval and ordered them back home to Warehouse 13 in South Dakota.
"Myka, I just don't understand why you get to drive and I don't," Pete complained on the way home.
Myka looked at Pete out of the corner of her eyes, but averted her gaze back to the road.
"It was a fifteen hour flight Pete," she said with a stern tone. "I slept; you didn't. That's why. I don't feel like being in a car accident today."
"Oh come on," he replied as if he was eight years old. "I'm not that tired."
Pete let out a yawn and stretched his arms, disproving his last sentence as Myka raised her eyebrows at him.
"All right," he said, resting his head on the head rest of the seat. "Point proven."
"Don't get too comfy," Myka said, her eyes never leaving sight of the road.
Pete shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, but Myka stopped the car and turned off the ignition.
"Welcome home," she said as she looked at Pete. He opened his eyes and moaned.
"We can't be there already," he complained.
"Pete," she began. "You're like a little child. You always want what you want and believe in the impossible."
"Impossible?" He asked. "Have you seen where we work? Is there such a thing as the impossible anymore? I mean, we just got Anne Boleyn's necklace that made people get what they want."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Myka said, getting out of the car. She pressed the button and the door to the old, creaky warehouse opened. They both stepped in and walked through the white tunnel that led to the main office. The door in front of them opened and when they stepped through, someone jumped out in front of them, making Pete and Myka both jump.
"Wanna see my new invention?" Claudia Donovan asked, but backed away when she saw the reaction of the pair. "Jumpy much?"
Pete looked at the teenager with disbelief. "In this job, you usually get jumpy when someone jumps out at you like that."
"Whoa," Claudia replied. "Hold your horses. I didn't really 'jump' out at you. I just.. I jumped from around the corner."
Claudia showed off her mischievous grin and unbuttoned her black jacked that hovered just above her waist, hiding a Hollywood Undead t-shirt. She tried to get Myka into wearing one, but it looked too… Teenager-ish for her and Myka shrugged it off. Claudia then knelt on the ground and tied the shoelaces of her black converse, stood, and buttoned the jacket back up.
"So?" she asked, but Pete and Myka looked confused. "My invention?"
Choruses of "yeah," "okay" and "sure" rang through the office as Artie stepped in from the door that led to the artifacts. Claudia rolled her eyes and headed over to the alien metal tube that led to the ceiling and picked up a cylinder that was made of the same material.
"This is it," she said, looking satisfied.
The trio in front of her looked around her, confused at the objects they were looking at. Pete was the first to speak.
"You made a…. ice cream maker?" he said, hopeful.
Myka, Artie, and Claud all glared at him.
"Of course it's not an ice cream maker," Myka retorted. "It's a… math cylinder? Something to do with math?"
Claudia shook her head. "Will you let me show you instead of making ridiculous guesses?"
Artie looked at Claudia, disappointed.
"You shouldn't use the things in the Warehouse to make new things," he said, demeaning her project. "And you shouldn't modify things that we have. Remember when you messed with your Farnsworth and it messed up everyone's when we could have really used them?"
Once again, like a teenager when a parent attempts to make a point, Claudia rolled her eyes.
"First, I was trying to make it so we could, you know, send texts, leave voicemails, things that people do nowadays. And it wasn't me that messed up everything. It was that projector thing that was going to end the world by showing those movies with that same actor in them."
Now it was Pete's turn to roll his eyes. "I can't believe you don't remember his name!" he said, highly insulted.
"Not like it mattered," Myka said. "It's over and done with and the world was saved from Dr. Doomsday or whatever it was. Besides, Artie's face got sent to every television that was tuned to that movie that day."
"Now THAT was a good day," Claudia said, laughing.
"That was the day you also met Tom," Myka said, a motherly gaze in her eyes. "Or was it Tim?"
"Doesn't matter anymore," Claudia replied. "He's gone now. Can I now show you this invention? Please, please pleases?"
Artie nodded. "As long as it doesn't blow up the Warehouse, I'm okay with it."
She jumped up and down and held up the cylinder.
"What if instead of having to use the zip line or wonder aimlessly through the Warehouse, we could send messages to someone down there from up here?" she asked, excitedly. "Well, I have made this possible. Presenting another new invention by Claudia Donovan!"
With that she lifted the cylinder to her mouth and spoke inside of it.
"Leena," she said clearly. "You are needed in the office. Please join us."
She closed the cylinder and placed it into the long tube and closed it inside. She pressed the green button and the cylinder sped through the tube and out of the office. Claudia headed toward the door that led to the zip line and motioned for the others to follow and they did. The door opened with a creak and Claudia's voice bounced off the walls of the Warehouse repeating her message over and over again.
"Didn't you make this once?" Artie asked.
Claudia nodded, sadly.
"The other one had a few… kinks," she said. "But I worked this one out! The only thing is…"
"How do you get the cylinder back up?" Pete asked as if he was psychic.
Claudia nodded and replied, "The only way I have right now is walking down there to get it. Or the person down there could bring it back up."
"I am not going back all the way down there," a voice beside them said.
Leena was walking up the stairs to the viewing area with them. She looked tired, but calm, peaceful and collected. She looked as if she had gotten enough sleep, but was still exhausted for some unknown reason.
"LEENA!" Claudia yelled and ran to the woman, hugging her tightly. "I see you got my message."
"I did, " she replied. "Now there had better be a very good reason why I ran from the section where all the containment items were to here in three minutes."
Claudia knotted her fingers together.
"I was just testing my new invention," she gave the reason innocently.
Leena shook her head, but glanced in Artie's way.
"Artie," she said really concerned. "There is something I need to speak to you about."
She looked worried as if something important was going on. Everyone knew Leena and could tell when something was wrong and this was one of those times.
"What is it, Leena?" Myka asked. She knew Leena wouldn't be worried over nothing, so this had to be huge.
Artie also looked at Leena and nodded. "What is it?"
Leena hesitated telling everyone, but she had to. Last time it happened, everyone had a chance at being killed, but they needed to be ahead of the game this time.
"It's…" but she was interrupted by Steve poking his head into the area.
"What's up, people?" he asked, a little too hyper.
"Steve!" Claudia ran up and hugged him too. They were partners and had been through so much together. Steve had actually died, but Claudia was using an artifact to keep him alive. Using artifacts were usually against the rules as each one could ultimately have a bad affect on the world, but the regents had given the okay. More specifically, Pete's mother, Jane, had given the okay. It was her fault Steve had died as she was the one that hired him to be undercover, but the other regents didn't really agree. They actually wanted to stop the metronome that Claudia was using, but they hadn't as of yet. They probably knew they may lose Claudia and Jane from the job if they did. Jane might convince Pete to stop as well and Myka had already left once. She could leave again, not as easily though. They had all been affected by Steve's death in a way where they all almost broke down completely. His murderer was gone now though, hopefully in hell where he belongs.
"Did you get it?" Steve asked, looking right at Pete and Myka.
They both looked confused and looked at each other.
"Get what?" they asked in unison.
"The necklace," he replied, agitated. "Anne Boleyn's pearl necklace that you went all the way to London for?"
"That necklace!" Pete exclaimed. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of the static bags that they use to contain the artifacts in for transportation.
Steve pulled out some purple gloves and put them on quickly, taking the bag from Pete. He opened it and poured the necklace out into his hands and looked at it admiring it.
"This necklace," he said. "This necklace has extraordinary powers. Did you know this necklace makes someone who wears it irresistible? Part of the reason Anne Boleyn married Henry VIII. He found her irresistible. Although, there are some people who are immune to its charm. Should we test it?"
Artie looked at him, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
"I was kidding," Steve said, shoving the necklace back into the bag as sparks flew and a bright, white light flashed. "This necklace isn't going anywhere except for the necklace aisle of the Warehouse. Care to escort me there, Claud?"
Claudia nodded and began to head with Steve down the stairs, but stopped and looked at Leena.
"What was so important?"
Leena looked straight at Artie.
"The Caterpillar's hookah," she began. "You know you guys trapped Alice's soul in it the last time she escaped…"
Her voice trailed off and everyone looked at her, begging her not to say what was coming. They kinda knew from the look on her face, but no one would believe it until she said it.
"I was doing inventory," she stated. "The Hookah… It's not there."
"What do you mean 'it's not there,'" Artie said, storming back into the office.
Steve and Claudia abandoned the journey to the necklace aisle of the Warehouse and followed him, Leena right behind the trio in front of her and Pete and Myka following her.
"I was organizing everything, like you asked," she began to tell the tale. "I was placing it all on shelves and I just finished it. We should have the Hookah, but it wasn't in that pile. I don't know where it would have been if it was placed elsewhere, but it's not in that section."
Artie ran a hand through his hair and looked at everyone in the room.
"What are you doing just sitting there?" he practically yelled. "We have to find that Hookah. Do you not remember what happened the last time Alice got out?"
"Artie," Myka said calmly. "I'm sure it's somewhere in here. I mean, who brought it back into the Warehouse after we captured Alice?"
Pete raised his hand and took responsibility for that.
"Well, where did you put it?" Myka asked.
Pete began to look nervous.
"I threw it on the pile with the other containment items," he said, his voice shaking, but the joker part of him was gone from his voice and a serious person took over.
Artie glared at him, but Myka held up a hand.
"Okay," she said again. "So what if the Hookah isn't there anymore. It was only her soul trapped into it. Even if she got out, she doesn't have the mirror to trade bodies anymore. Could she even get into a body without the mirror?"
"I don't think it's possible," Artie said, a little relieved.
Steve froze and glanced around the room.
"What?" Pete asked, noticing Steve's appearance.
"The piece of the mirror she used last time…" he stopped midsentence.
"What about it?" asked Myka, looking more nervous.
"I filed it into the Warehouse," he replied.
"You mean, you didn't break the fragment like I asked?" Artie asked, angrily.
Steve shook his head.
"You told me to break it," he replied. "But you're the one that always states that we're not to destroy artifacts or use them to our advantage, so I put it on a shelf."
"Find. That. Mirror," Artie said, extremely angrily, glaring at Steve.
"I don't get why he's so mad at you," Claudia said through clenched teeth. "He can be so damn hypocritical. I mean, one day he's all 'we don't use or destroy artifacts' and now he's all 'why didn't you' blah, blah, blah."
Steve laughed at Claudia's imitation of Artie and turned down yet another aisle.
"This probably would have been faster had we taken the zip line," Steve said.
"And I said no," Claud stated. "I hope he suffers in anticipation of not knowing that it's there or not. Besides, chances are that the Hookah probably just got misplaced anyway. Pete doesn't know what he's doing half the time anyway. Probably thought he put it onto the pile, but really put it somewhere else."
Steve nodded, trying not to pay attention to what Claudia was saying and concentrating more on the aisle they were in. The things in the Warehouse tended to "act up" for better terms. If they came in close contact with some things, weird things would happen. All Hugo did was watched a spinning lamp-like thing and half his brain went dead. Pete touched a comb he knocked off and he got thrown into an alternate universe where he didn't even exist. He didn't want to imagine what could happen to them.
"Steve?" Claud said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Huh?" he said, realizing she had been talking all that time.
"I asked where you put the mirror," she replied, concern in her eyes.
Steve shrugged her off and turned down yet another aisle.
"I put it somewhere I knew Artie wouldn't go down often," he said when they finally arrived and Claudia nodded in approval.
"The Christmas aisle," she stated, looking around at the artifacts it held. "I remember some of these. I mean, not that I went and captured them, but I remember inventory and there are some pretty neat artifacts here. Take this snow globe for example."
She picked up the snow globe from the shelf and admired it, turning it over carefully in her hand.
"What does it do?" Steve asked.
"What do you think?" she retorted. She then shook it and snow fell from the bottom of the snow globe and fell to the floor, covering it with ice.
"Whoa," Steve said, taking a step back, trying not to get caught in the ice.
"I know, right?" Claudia said. "I use to use this baby to cool down drinks when working in the Warehouse. Nifty little thing."
She threw the globe into the air and caught it effortlessly and stuck it in her coat pocket.
"This will come in handy. Now, where exactly did you put the mirror?"
"I put it next to the last item placed in this section before Alice escaped," he replied, talking a few more steps into the aisle.
"That would have been..." Claudia paused and thought for a minute. "Rudolph's Red Nose!"
Steve looked back at Claudia and realized exactly how much Claudia reminded him of his sister he couldn't protect. He was going to protect her though. It was the least he could do, right? He watched as Claudia ran to the other end and stepped up to one of the shelves. She pulled out her purple, rubber gloves and pulled them onto her hands before picking something up off the shelf.
"Poor Rudolph," she exclaimed. "Now who will light the way for Santa for all the good little boys and girls? Ah, oh well."
With that she chucked the sphere somewhere behind her and Steve dove onto the floor to catch it.
"Do you realize what you could have started had this broke?" She asked her, frustrated.
Claudia shook her head in response.
"Me either," Steve replied. "But let's not take any chances."
He gently placed the red nose back onto the shelf and looked beside it. He frantically pushed items from one side of the shelf to another, looking for the mirror that wasn't there.
"It's not here," Steve said, disbelieving his own words.
"I know I'm going to sound like Artie," Claudia began. "But what do you mean it's not here? It has to be here. Where else would it be?"
Steve shook his head and began to search the other shelves of Christmas items, hoping that someone had just moved part of Lewis Carroll's mirror, but he knew somewhere deep down that it wasn't true. It was gone and there was nothing he could do besides hope that Pete and Myka had more luck in finding the Hookah than Claudia and he had.
"The hookah was just lying there," Steve heard Myka's voice. "How would it have even gotten there?"
Artie shook his head and held a strange device up to the hookah.
"Is the evil demon spawn still in there?" Pete asked anxiously.
"If you and everyone else shut their trap, I would be able to tell," Artie snapped and the room got quiet.
After a few minutes of Artie running the strange device over the hookah, he threw it to the side.
"It's empty," he finally said, angry with himself and everyone else. He then turned his attention to Claudia and Steve.
"Please tell me you have the mirror," he said, hoping like hell that they had it, but allowed his face to drop when Claudia shook her head.
"Well," he spoke again. "Alice is out again. We have to find her."
"That's obvious," Leena said. "But how are we going to do that? Last time she kept body jumping on you guys. She was even Myka at one point and that almost landed her dead."
Myka nodded, remembering the feeling of being trapped in the mirror. It was devastating and as if she was trapped for all eternity to a life of unhappiness. She saw what had happened that drove Alice mad in the mirror. Her mother being killed in front of the mirror and being trapped in the tomb, forced to watch it replaying over and over again. Myka imagined it was enough to drive anyone mad, including a little girl.
"She's just a child," Myka stated, but Artie shook his head.
"She's a vile, cunning, murderous kid," he retorted. "Death is her mission and she won't stop until she gets what she wants."
"How do we find the psycho?" Pete asked, trying to break the tension.
"Last time we knew the mirror had been removed from the Dark Vault and got that ping thing going on," Claudia replied, not really answering the question.
Artie didn't say anything. Instead, he sat at his computer that was as old as a dinosaur and clicked away at the keys in front. Claudia attempted to lean over his shoulder to watch what he was doing, but he shooed her away quickly. More clicking of the typewriter-like keys persisted in trying to find the young girl who could very well kill them all.
After about fifteen minutes, a ping echoed through the office and Artie became pale.
"She's here," he said with a shaky voice. "She's here in Univille, somewhere in town."
The room became silent yet again. There was nothing that anyone could say that could break this tension. Who knew what the wicked girl would do this time. She could be hurting someone right now and there was nothing the team could do to stop her as of right now.
"That doesn't really answer how we find her," Steve pointed out. "She could be anywhere, anyone. Sure, Univille is a small town, but there are a lot of people. Is there anything we can do to narrow it down?"
Pete looked up from the floor with a smile on his face.
"Look for homicidal maniacs?" he said, joking. "That's what she is and always will be."
Myka shook her head. She was always the type of person to see good in people rather than evil and she knew, somewhere, there was a little girl that wanted nothing more to live a normal life of a girl, but had that future ripped out of her hands. She wanted nothing more than to give the girl what she wanted, but things were difficult. How could she when all Alice wanted to do was murder someone any chance she got.
Then it hit her. Last time, she wasn't killing at random. Alice was going specifically towards people who Artie were close to. What if they could set a trap like last time? Would she fall for it yet again? It almost cost them their lives, but she got caught. Which would be worse, someone on their team dying or Alice on the loose.
Myka shook her head. She couldn't think about one of her team locked in the grips of death, forever consuming the flames of Hell. Were they doomed to Hell was another question that ran through her mind. Through everything they have done, people had been hurt. Some, like Steve, had died, but they had saved countless others. Who could forget that? Surely they could get into the pearly gates of heaven for that, right?
Artie watched Myka with a curious look on his face. She noticed, but kept her mouth shut. The plan she was drawing up in her head was too dangerous for everyone, including Artie. She couldn't offer him up like a pig on a platter for Thanksgiving or any other holiday. She shook her head again and came back into the conversation.
"… and use this hookah thing to trap her again?" she heard Claudia say, but Artie kept shaking his head at her. "Why not?"
"You're missing a vital part," he told her and looked at Myka. "How are we going to lure her in?"
His eyes burned Myka with fire, urging her to spill her ideas. She finally took a deep breath and let it out.
"I have an idea," she said quietly, looking back at Artie. "None of you are going to like it, least of all, you."