Title: Some things are Fairytales

Author: amdragjakelong'sgurl (No, I have no idea how to pronounce it)

Fandom: Warehouse 13

Sporked by: Orken 7861, Thomas Greenwall

Rating: M for My Eyes! They Burn!

Notes: Warehouse 13 is an awesomely fun show on the Sci-Fi channel and does not belong to me.  The PPC does not belong to me either. Thanks go to Tray-Gnome, Aster Corbett and Miah for beta duty. Miah also gets credit for finding me this lovely little fic, for which I thank her. This also marks the first appearance of a Warehouse 13 mission, and a Warehouse 13 mini. A link to the sporked fic can be found here 

Things had been awkward between Orken and Thomas since Orken had cried. True, neither of them had found reason to be angry with each other since, but they had also studiously avoided talking about things further. Thomas, for once, respected Orken’s desires and didn’t bring it up.

Thomas had taken to reading bits of 1984 while listening to AC/DC, which, for whatever reason, seemed to be far less distracting than the silence of the response center. Orken, for his part, was watching episodes of SG-1 on Thomas’ DVD player. It was a strange reversal of how things had been a year ago that neither of them noticed. This was what was happening when the console alarm went off.

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BEE! BZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZ!]

The Ferocious Beauty, a painting of a wolf that hung on Thomas’ side of the response center, growled at it.

Thomas pulled off his ear phones as his partner shut off the alarm, and asked, confusedly, “Was the console… buzzing?”

Orken nodded. “I believe so, Agent Thomas.” He read over the mission report, saying nothing.

Never a patient person at the best of times, Thomas put down his book and began reading the mission report over Orken’s shoulder. What he saw was enough to make him want to bash his head against the wall. He fought the urge with all of his strength, and took some Bleeprin instead. His assurances in his own infallibility had come into question, and, thinking back, he had decided that Ilraen had been right when he advised him against his head bashing.

“No wonder the console was buzzing. Dude, this thing is pretty damn awful. Peter’s new partner? Really? And for the love of Apophis, she expects us to believe that she’s a real FBI agent when she dresses like it says here? I don’t look forward to seeing that.,” Thomas said, managing to keep his voice at a volume below a shout.

Orken simply said “Ah.”

“You don’t know anything about this canon, do you, dude?” asked Thomas.

“Not really. I trust that you are familiar with it?”

Thomas grinned. “Yup. Dude, it’s an awesome show. Not really that worried about taking itself too seriously. Lot’s of fun.”

“Disguises?” Orken asked. He was all business, back to his old professional attitude. Thomas had kind of hoped he’d loosen up a bit.

He rubbed his chin and began pacing. “Lemme think. That’s a tricky one. There’s a really small core cast, and anyone else seen wandering around the Warehouse would arouse suspicion. Well, anyone except a Regent, but they’re all canon characters… wait a sec, dude! Regent Security! We just need suits and these tattoo thingies. Uh, since this is a world one variant I can also probably bring the AK…”

Orken gave him a Look.

“Okay, fine, dude. The AK would stick out. Just a boring pistol and a suit, then. I think the Berrettas will work. I mean, as long as this Sue doesn’t have any crazy artifacts, the usual gun threatening should be fine…”

“Suits? I assume that also means you’ll need a hair cut.”

Thomas sighed. “Yeah, dude. I should probably have short hair. But make sure my hair comes back afterwards.” Realizing just what kind of retort he had opened himself up to, he quickly replied, “And no, I still think that plutonium could have proven useful at some point in the future. I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”

Orken looked like he was about to make some kind of remark, his mouth half opening, but before he said anything, the console made a buzzing noise.

[BUZZZZZZZZZZ!]

“Why in the name of Apophis is it making that noise?” Thomas resisted the urge to perform percussive maintenance on the console. It usually rewarded such crude repair efforts with a small shock. That, and DoSAT didn’t like having to do dent removal, and Thomas didn’t like having DoSAT not like him.

His partner frowned. “I have no idea. It has never done that since I’ve been here.”

“Great. Let’s hope it still opens portals right. Cause dude, if we have to walk everywhere, this is going to be a really long mission.”

Orken threw up his hands in frustration. “Agent Thomas! What have I said about tempting the…”

“Don’t say it, dude! It’ll just make it likelier. If you don’t, I think we’ll still have a smooth…”

“Stop talking before you guarantee we won’t die horrific deaths,” Orken said in exasperation.

Thomas grinned. “Yay! You’re showing your old frustration with me again. Dude, you have no idea how relieved that makes me.”

Orken decided not to question whether or not his partner had just doomed their mission for the sake of personal comfort. Swallowing his retort, he opened a portal and gestured towards it. “Shall we go?”

The two agents emerged into the boring grayness of undescribed space. Shortly afterwards, the North Dakota landscape around where the Warehouse stood began to form around the two agents. Thomas gave the enormous structure a longing gaze.

“Dude, I would love to get my hands on some of the stuff in there. All that super top secret magicy ish stuff...” Realizing that he had started to drool, he turned away from Orken and wiped his hand on his sleeve. “Erm. Yes. Mission.”

Orken looked at the dilapidated Warehouse with far less admiration. “That’s the warehouse? You know, Stargate Command is a lot more impressive looking.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Course it is, dude, cause it’s military, and spacey. This is more quirky!”

“No wonder you like this show...”

“Hey! I’ll have you know, I’m a perfectly nor-”

The shrill voice of the author decided that this was the proper moment to make its introduction.

A/N: This story takes place right after Breakdown, at which point, Myka decides that Warehouse 13 is too much for her, and she leaves. Pete's partner is Leah Cantanzaro from then on.

Thomas groaned and held his head in his hands.  “That’s so stupid. It took them a long time to replace Myka when she left for a longer period of time. Totally not a plausible AU scenario. I really hope that’s the only one of these we get. That one Stu with the magnetic jammer had that author who had something like ten of these damn things. You remember that, dude?”

Orken furrowed his brow. “That was the mission where I broke your toes, right?”

Thomas’ faced turned red. “Er... yes.”

The setting had finally set itself up, and the two agents found themselves standing right next to the door to the Warehouse. A young woman-shaped blob, most likely the Sue, was standing in front of the Warehouse looking around. Neither agent was prepared for the sudden, violent lurch that happened when she finished looking around.

The landscape which had only recently appeared, save the Warehouse, disappeared out from underneath the two agents’ feet. After a brief and highly unpleasant falling sensation, Orken and Thomas where able to steady themselves, seeing that they where once again in undescribed space.

Thomas fought with dry heaves before speaking. “What in the name of Apophis was that?”

Orken, equally confused, gave the words a look before groaning. He gestured with his right hand. “See that there?”

It was - quite literally- the middle of nowhere.

Thomas groaned. “Really? Come on, the Suethor doesn’t know the meaning of literally?”

Orken shrugged. “Well, it is an expression, albeit a grating one that makes no sense.”

The Sue began wondering why she was there as Thomas pulled out his notebook and noted the charge for placing the Warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Orken nudged him.

“I assume her having no idea why she had to drive all the way across the country is canon?”

Thomas nodded. “Yup. So far, she could be a lot...”

She parked her Mustang outside the huge, rundown looking building.  But all he government training allowed her to realize; looks can be deceiving. She leaned against the Black car and crossed her arms, simply waiting.

Several things happened in rapid succession. The Sue-blob teleported into a suddenly extant black Ford Mustang. Two men appeared in the car with her, all squeezed into the front. The Sue appeared not to notice, as she parked it, and all three got out.

One of the men, a fairly average looking mid twenties something with jet black hair, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, began wondering aloud why he had let the Sue borrow his car as he was stepping out of said car.

“My dad bought me this car. Why did I let this girl borrow it? What is this place?” He was obviously quite confused. Luckily, he appeared to be addressing the second man, and did not seem to notice the agents.

 The other man, a drill sergeant type in an army uniform turned to face him and immediately began yelling. “That’s not my problem, maggot! Do I look like a question answerer to you?”

The younger man looked utterly bewildered. “Uh... no?”

The sergeant leaned forward and began yelling in his face. “Wrong answer, maggot! Looks can be deceiving! Now drop and give me twenty!”

“But...”

“Do as you’re told! You’ll learn that looks can be deceiving or my name isn’t Government Training.”

Thomas swallowed three Bleeprin pills in quick succession. Glancing at Orken, he saw he was doing the same. “Wow. That’s...”

Orken shook his head. “Alright. Charge for spelling and grammar errors. Also, we might charge her for having what looks like an expensive car that’s outside of the reach of a government employee.”

Thomas nodded. “Yes. That’s the problem with this section.”

Things only got worse. A black, shallow bit of fast moving water, moving like a car, pulled up next to the Mustang. Thomas could only give a flat “What” as Peter Latimar stepped out of it.

Orken groaned. “This author needs to learn what to capitalize. That poor man was forced to drive here in a “ford.”

Thomas blinked several times. “I... I thought I was just imagining Pete driving a bit of a river. Nope.”

“Who?”

“That’s Pete Lattimer. The guy mentioned in the author’s note. Generally immature guy, but he’s good at his job.”

Leah quickly assessed him, and he did the same. Leah took in the tall, muscular frame, brown hair, brown eyes, kind face, which was currently set in stone. He wasn't too happy she was replacing his partner. The man, in turn, took in her skinny, but tough frame, green eyes, brown hair with neon yellow extensions, tan skin, and the kind face mimicing his own steel like expression.

The Sue blob finally got some definition, but her clothing was still mysteriously gray and blobby. Thomas wrote down a charge for the hair extensions. “Well,dude, other than some silly hair, which is, yah know, unprofessional and all, that wasn’t a bad paragraph.”

"So you're the new girl?" He brought his eyes to her face.

Thomas’ face went white, and it was only because Orken covered his mouth that he stifled the urge to scream. In front of them, Lattimer had, without seeming to notice, neatly popped his eyes out of his head, and held them in his hands a la Pan’s Labyrinth, as he brought them over to the Sue’s face.

Thomas, having regained control of himself, pushed Orken’s hand away from his face and downed Bleeprin.

Government Training, and the young man (presumably Black) both stopped what they were doing and looked at Pete with horror. GT was mumbling something that the agents couldn’t hear, and Black was making gibbering noises.

Orken gave the typo created characters a sympathetic look. “We should help them, somehow.”

Thomas nodded. “Once these two go inside, we neuralyze them. Black at least can integrate.”

Pete, who kept his eyes in his hands as he and the Sue shook hands and exchanged greetings and the Sue mentioned how she was “one of the best”, remarked on the way the Sue was dressed. The rest of the gray blob finally became clothes, and the two agents where momentarily blinded.

She also looked down at her outfit. Bright yellow skinny jeans, a yellow shirt with 'love' written on it, a black sleeveless leather jacket, and bright pink knee high converse.

Thomas gibbered a bit before speaking. “That’s almost as bad as the thing with the driving a river. So a charge. And I’m so gonna love killing this one.”

Orken nodded. “Yes. I somehow highly doubt that the FBI would just “deal with” someone who dressed like... that. The amount of yellow is mind boggling.”

Pete, who was somehow able to see despite keeping his eyes on the Sue’s face, grabbed her and pulled her out of the way as a football came speeding over the roof of the Warehouse and slammed into the door next to the agents.

Orken jumped. “I must have missed the typo that caused that one.”

“Nope. That’s actually canon.” Thomas gave a relieved smile. “I needed that, dude.”

The Sue, her attention diverted in the direction of the agents, asked Pete “Who are those two? Friends?”

Pete pulled his eyes off of the Sue’s face and popped them back into his head, and gave a few blinks. “Who?”

“The two guys in the suits!”

GT and Black, who still appeared quite confused, also turned to look at the agents.

Pete, suddenly seeing them, frowned. “I don’t know...”

Thomas gave Orken a look, which clearly said ‘stay here,’ and walked over to Pete. He whispered some things in the agents ear, showed him his wrist, and then walked back over to Orken. Pete crunched his eyes shut and held his hand to his forehead, his classic look of concentration, but then the Sue touched him. Anything resembling thinking disappeared from his face as she asked. “So? Who are they?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

The Sue didn’t seem happy with that, but she shrugged. “Okay.”

Without further ado, Pete led her into the Warehouse, and the two agents breathed a sigh of relief.

“Dude, if he wasn’t so badly sued, that wouldn’t have worked. He’s being way to friendly. On top of, you know, the whole popping his eyes out thing.”

Orken nodded, and glanced at the words. “We have to follow them. We don’t have time to help Government Training and Black.”

Thomas pulled open the door to the Warehouse. “Alright then, dude.”

After emerging from the white tubular entrance of the Warehouse, the two agents found themselves in Artie’s office. Besides being only a little more welcoming than usual, however, Artie seemed pretty normal. Thomas did make sure to note a charge for making all of the computers “very looking computers,”when the Sue pulled a locket out of her pocket and handed it to Artie.

"Mother sends her regards. She apologizes for breaking in and stealing it. She suggests you get someone to install a new security system."

"The locket of Aphrodite!" Artie grinned at Leah. "I knew your mother would return it eventually, that's why we didn't send anyone after her."

Thomas pulled his gun before Orken could stop him, but a swift stomp on his foot brought Thomas back to his senses. Orken, not knowing the canon, had no way to know just how much was wrong with those two sentences.

Thomas, after putting his gun away settled for lightly banging his head into the wall behind him.

"She was wondering."

"Artie?"

"Oh, her mother has contiuously broken down the Warehouse's defences, Pete. To steal or return the Artifacts she stole. That's pretty much why we have Leah here." Artie told the confused man.

"Mom won't steal from here, if I work here." Leah shrugged. "Something about 'letting me decide my own-”

Thomas grabbed Orken and dragged him into the entry-way. He shut the door behind him and immediately began venting. “Gah! You can’t freaking break into the Warehouse! It has been done exactly three times in canon. Two of those times require season long conspiracies, and the other time involved Peter, Arty, Myka and Claudia! Not one person. And they didn’t send anyone after her? That is such horse shit that, well, pardon my language, but that’s horse shit. We might have to kill the mother.”

Orken, taken aback by his partner’s tirade, could only think of one thing to say. “Indeed. Now, if you’re done, we do need to get back to observing the fic.”

Thomas nodded, and opened the door back into the main office area. The Sue was in the middle of talking.

Leah rose her eyebrows. "Yeah, um, I've been reading your data, sorry."

What she said was bad enough, and Thomas made sure to charge yet another Sue with “improbable hacking skills” (and did not bother to explain to Orken that, while the Warehouse had been hacked, it was still highly unlikely) but even more strangely, her eyebrows turned into roses.

Artie then handed out plane tickets, and suddenly Pete and the Sue were headed off to Montreal and Berlin, respectively.It also explained what the locket did (it gave the wearer the ability to see what the other person wanted with one look into their eyes),

Thomas, was staring with unfocused eyes at the words, and wimpering a bit. “Agent Thomas? Are you all right?”

“Dude... oh dude. For the love of Apophis, I hope the Sue isn’t actually going to try to catch MacPherson in Berlin.”

“Why not? Could he complicate things?”

Thomas, still pale, shook his head. “No, dude. That’s the start of the episode after the ‘Breakdown.’ I just hope she doesn’t try to replicate the whole plot of ‘Nevermore.’ That could get annoying to fix.”

Orken was about to ask why that was, when suddenly...

BERLIN

The two agents, unprepared for the scene change, suddenly found themselves in what looked like another city pretending to be Berlin. Strictly speaking, that could fit with canon. Both noticed right away, however, how loud everything was.

Orken, almost having to shout over the ambient street noise, said “I guess this is BERLIN. This author has a thing for using capitals incorrectly.”

The Sue was easy to spot, in the window of a nearby apartment. The ‘scene,’ such as it was, was a dialogue that took place over the Sue’s earwig, involving Pete’s canonical attempt to catch MacPherson in Montreal. It was nearly exactly like the one in canon.

Orken gave a sigh of relief. “I assume that nothing that happens in this weird off screen chase majorly breaks canon?”

“More than the Sue totally replacing Myka in this scene? No, dude. Request, though. Can we just let the chase play out, and, you know, take a break and not portal ahead?” Thomas asked, pleadingly

Orken nodded. “Not a bad idea, Agent Thomas.”

“Thanks, dude.”

So the two agents found a park bench and sat down, resting as well as they could with the loud ambient noises of BERLIN going on around them.

The two agents took the brief time to stretch and catch a drink of water. Thomas also took the time to try and figure out how much Bleeprin he had consumed. He was pretty sure he had hit his limit, which meant that he would have to endure the rest of the fic without it. It was right around then that he glanced at the words. “Oh no. No she is not. She is not doing that.”

“Doing what?” inquired Orken.

“Dude, she’s stealing the thing that happened to Myka’s dad! It’s happening to her brother! We need to kill this Sue now before the book actually shows up. I don’t want to have to undo it like they did in the show, because that will be a pain in the neck.”

Orken frowned. “Let us hope that killing her will-”

There was a sudden scene shift, and for a second, everything went black.

***

Thomas blinked several times, trying to refocus his eyes. He realized that he had hit his head on the wall behind him, but it looked like repeated head slamming had caused him to build up some kind of head-to-wall trauma resistance, and it had only momentarily stunned him. Still, his head hurt like he couldn’t believe, and he was sitting on top of something that felt strangely soft, with some poky bits. Glancing down, he saw that he had landed on Orken, and quickly scrambled of off of him. After Thomas shook him several times, it became obvious that the senior agent was out cold.

Thomas couldn’t see much of the room he was in, as he found himself behind a generic bed with generic sheets. The floor underneath him was generic rug. Groaning, he searched his backpack for asprin. Luckily, he believed in being prepared, and found what he was looking for. He dry-swallowed two pills, and while he was waiting for them to take effect, he glanced at the Words. The Sue had arrived home already. Her whole family was here, which meant that if they had to kill the mom, they could, although he was having second thoughts about that. He had missed getting her gun taken away and disassembled by her father (which was convenient for him), but she had only been home for mere minutes.

“God damn it! The Sue got the Poe Journal involved. I did not want to have to fix that particular mess.”

Thomas took stock of the situation. He had a gun, and the Sue didn’t. There were no real major charges left; the journal, and the Sue essentially stealing one of Myka’s important character building arcs to become closer to Pete was the last one. Orken was probably out for the long haul, or at least the length of the fic.

Sighing, he leaned back against the wall and waited for the aspirin to take effect. He had to get down to the basement soon.

***

Leah’s brother Ruben, who was supposedly sick, was acting fine. Pete Lattimer had come here to support Leah, because despite only knowing her for a day, he knew she was cool. And a good partner. This meant he could relax. He did not mind this so much, and they weren’t even that far from the Warehouse. All the rooms had mini-fridges, and Leah’s family was awesome! Her siblings where doing their best to embarrass her, which made him grin. For some reason though, one thing she had said bugged him.

"Seriously Ru, I've been here like what, a minuet?"

He frowned. It was like he was forgetting something important. But no, a minuet was a perfectly viable length of time. It was based on a type of music, after all. Wait. That didn’t make any...

Suddenly, Ruben's screaming was heard throughout the mansion. Leah gasped and shot down the stairs as fast as she could. He was on the ground in the middle of the basement. He used the basement as his private library.

"Ruben," Leah gasped. Pete gently moved her out of the way. Her parents made to go to their oldest, but Leah held them back. "Don't."

Pete noticed the book in Ruben's hand and bent down.

It looked familiar. He could have sworn that he had seen it before. For some reason, it was making him think of Myka. No, that was ridiculous. He’d remember such a dangerous artifact. Best to just try to help the kid. It was right then that he got a wickedly bad vibe. The sound of a gun cocking that he heard right afterwards just confirmed it.

“Alright, dudes, I don’t want to hurt the kids. But Sue... er, Leah, you and Pete need to do exactly as I say, or things get messy.”

Pete turned around slowly to face the source of the new voice. He was rather surprised to discover the gunman was a kid, who didn’t look any older than twenty. He looked strangely familiar. Then he remembered. Why had he not noticed how young the guy was before?

“Wait a second. You’re that Regent Security guy from the Warehouse! What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to fix things, dude. It’s my job. Now Pete, if you don’t mind, I’d love it if you put your hands in the air, out of reach of your Tesla. And... what’s your name, not sick kid?”

“Evan,” said the boy of indeterminate age.

“Evan, I know what’s wrong with your brother, and I’m going to help him, but first I need to talk to your sister and Agent Lattimer alone.”

The boy, looking at the gun with worry, complied, helping his injured brother to his feet, all the while avoiding the inked words that had appeared on his skin.

Pete cleared his throat. “Look, mister, we just want to help this kid get better. I don’t know what you want, but...”

Leah’s face was going pale. “Oh god, Pete. He’s going to kill me. It’s his hearts greatest desire.” She was still wearing the locket, it seemed, and she had indeed looked the crazy man in the eyes.

“Yeah it is, Sue,” he growled. “But I want to help your brother, too. I need Edger Allen Poe’s pen. Ugh. I’m gonna have to chase down that damn kid.”

Pete and Leah shared a confused look.

The gunman’s eyes went unfocused for a bit, and he groaned. “Okay, this actually works out pretty well. I’m just gonna let the fic reassert itself for a bit. That way I can neuralyze Claudia real easy like. Pete, give Leah your Farnsworth and have her call the Warehouse.”

"Call Claudia, Leah." Pete slipped into leader mode as he handed Leah the Farnsworth.

"Hey," Claudia answered instantly. "How's your brother?"

"He has an artifact," Leah rubbed her eyes angrily. "Claudi, we need you. Just take a cab we don't actually live very far from the Warehouse.”

The gunman jumped, as if startled by something. “Great. One more thing I’ll have to take care of.”

“What do you want with us? You can’t possibly be some kind of security for Mrs. Fredrick,” said Pete.

“Nope. I’m with the PPC, actually, and Leah’s right, I’m here to kill her.” Without taking his eye off of Pete and Leah, the man pulled a notebook from his left pocket.

“Leah Constanzaro, you are hereby charged with the following offenses against canon. Through typos, you have caused a variety of unfortunate incidents, including, but not limited to moving the Warehouse to the literal middle of nowhere, creating wholly new individuals and creating the city of BERLIN, all capitals. You are also charged with having replaced Myka far too soon after her decision to leave. It took a long time to replace her in canon after she left more long term like! You have thrown Peter Lattimer out of character, causing him to accept you too easily after his former partner left, as well as making Artie far, far too trusting of you and your family. There is no way in hell that he would just let people break into the Warehouse!”

“But...” she protested weakly, “we always return-”

“Shut up. My partner is unconscious upstairs thanks to this blasted fic, and I’m in no mood to listen to stupid excuses. You are also charged with having improbable hacking skills, and dressing in an implausible fashion. Actually, I’d call how you dressed ridiculously stupid. I mean, dude, come on. Who even likes the color yellow that much? You are also charged with creating a non-canonical artifact, replacing the character of Myka Bering in a major canon event that was important to her character development, making a type of music a length of time, creating the mini Claudi, and finally and most egregiously, being a Mary Sue. The sentence for this is death, and I shall now carry out that sentence. Any last words?”

“Don’t-”

The man shot her.

Pete was shocked. “How could you just gun her down like that? You’re a monster!”

“Give it a second,” said the murderer.

It really did only take a second. Even before the Sue’s father came running down the stairs, the pistol he had been working to reassemble in his hands, Pete remembered.

“Hands up, you bastard! And drop the gun!” yelled the Sue’s father.

The stranger, who seemed to value his life enough to comply with that order despite being crazy, did as he was told. “Pete, please tell this man not to shoot me.”

Pete squeezed his eyes shut, trying to concentrate. Something had been messing with his head, he knew now. He had just abandoned Myka! They had to get her back. But first, he had to deal with the nut bar, who obviously wasn’t quite as nutty as he had first appeared. “What’s going on here, man? Who is this woman, and what has she done with Myka? Did she hypnotize us or something?”

“That women was my daughter! And this son of a bitch shot her!” The Sue’s father’s hands were shaking. He circled around from the stairs, and crouched down. Keeping his right hand on his gun, he used his left to check for the Sue’s pulse. When he didn’t find one, he cocked the gun. “You killed her. You killed my daughter. So now, I’m going to-” His body convulsed with electricity from Pete’s Tesla, and within moments he was unconscious.

***

Leah’s family was huddled in the living room when Pete and Thomas came up the stairs with the unconscious father. It did not take long for him to wake up from having been stunned with a Tesla. Pete managed to deflect most of the questions aimed at them, and referred to Thomas as ‘a friend.’ Right around the time the Sue’s mother was pointing out that friends did not generally point guns at friends, Thomas hit the button on his neuralyzer. Pete looked away from it. Thomas groaned inwardly, knowing that this would make his job harder later .

“Alright folks. You’re a normal family. You two,” said Thomas, pointing to the parents, “are successful... insurance salesmen? Yeah, that works. You do not have a daughter named Leah, you have never heard of Warehouse 13, and me and my friend Pete here are IRS agents who just wanted to ask a few questions.”

The father, the first to come out of the brief post-neuralyzer trance, said, “Right. So I filed my taxes on time. I don’t see why you’re here.”

Then there was a knock at the door.

Thomas mouthed “Improvise” at Pete, and ran to answer it. On the stoop stood Claudia and Artie. Thomas was about to neuralyze them when he realized that Artie was wearing his customary sunglasses.

“Damn, dudes. This was going to be so easy, too.”

Claudia blinked, suddenly noticing the man standing in front of her. “Uh, dude, like, who are you?”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he reached forwards and grabbed Artie’s sunglasses. The older man gave a protest of “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” but before he could snatch them back, Thomas had hit the button.

“Alright dudes. You’ve never met anyone named Leah Constanzaro, and you are both going to head back to the Warehouse right now to wait for Pete’s call asking for help on an artifact that’s afflicting Myka’s dad.” He handed the abnormally compliant Artie his sunglasses. “And you can have these back.” With that, he shut the door.

“...so it’s like a friendly audit. You know, we’re trying to give ourselves a better image with the locals and all. We don’t actually think you’re doing anything wrong!” was what Pete was saying as Thomas passed him in the living room.

Thomas headed up the stairs and found Orken, still unconscious. “I guess I finish this without you. I hope you’re okay...” Removing the remote activator from Orken’s pocket, he opened a portal to Medical and gently eased his partner through.

He met Pete downstairs. “Alright dude, we have to go do that thing in the basement now.”

The Sue’s former father frowned. “I don’t see any reason why you need to inspect my basement.”

“We’re checking for secret tax records. But only if you want us to. I mean, this is a strictly friendly audit, after all,” said Pete.

The man’s frown deepened, but he was still in the mood to comply. “Alright. You go do that. My wife here will whip you up something to drink. Just gonna say right away though, we don’t have any secret records down there. Just lots of books.”

“I believe you, Mr. Constanzaro, but we just want to be sure.”

***

When they were alone in the basement, Pete’s friendly demeanor vanished. He normally trusted his gut. It was a well established fact. As strange as it seemed, he wasn’t getting any more bad vibes from the strange man. After stunning Leah’s father, the weird guy with the gun had seemed a lot less crazy. He had been right about Leah effecting his character, but all the rest of the stuff he had said was still really odd. The man, who claimed his name was Thomas, had explained as quickly as he could that a reality warping typewriter had been found by an enemy of the Warehouse, but warned Pete that they needed to hurry, and he would explain more later.

It was later now, and he wanted answers.“Alright, Thomas, you better tell me what’s going on here. I’ll accept reality warping artifact to explain the fake partner thing, but I’ve never seen anything like that flashy thing before, which makes me think it’s another artifact, and a dangerous one at that. I helped you back there, but it doesn’t mean I really trust you all that much.”

Thomas sighed. “Yeah, you’ll say something like that again about a year from now, and you’ll be right. Thanks for the help though, dude. It was cool getting to work with you like that. ”

Pete frowned. “You can see the future now? I want answers, and this whole evasive secret-agent thing is starting to get really annoying.”

Thomas sighed again “Yeah, I bet, dude. Look, I’d love to tell you everything, but I can’t. I have to go give the journal to Myka’s father and rescue her from a plot hole. Then I have to get this mini...”

“You’re talking gibberish again!”

“Am I?” The last thing Pete saw was a flash.

***

It turned out that finding the Poe pen was unnecessary. After neuralyzing Pete and sending him back to the Warehouse, Thomas had portalled the Sue’s body to the geothermal vent underneath the Warehouse and sent the diary to where it was supposed to be in canon. Moving the diary to Colorado Springs seemed to have cured the boy. As for Myka, Thomas had found her in the ford. Pulling her out and neuralyzing her had also been surprisingly easy, thanks in large part to help from Government Training and Black. The two had agreed to help after Thomas had offered to explain what was going on. Then he had neuralyzed them. After telling Government Training that his name was actually George Washington Smith, he had portalled them away from the Warehouse.

Thomas breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned back against the building. “That’s everything, I think. Right, Claudi?”

The mini-Farnsworth, which was a misnomer, seeing as it was the same size as a canon Farnsworth, bobbed up and down on its two stubby legs.

“Cool, dude. Come on, I’ve got chocolate waiting for you in my response center. I just want to check on Orken first.” He opened a portal to medical, and looked to make sure the mini was following him. It was not.

Even though it did not have arms to cross, the mini-Farnsworth still gave the impression of haughty disdain for the idea of placing friends before chocolate.

“Come on, dude. It won’t take that long.”

The mini still looked non-plussed.

Thomas pulled a necklace out of his pocket and slipped it over his neck. He stared at the view-screen on the minis face for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Okay, fine. I might have some bacon in my Response Center too, if you behave yourself...”

The mini jumped the portal before Thomas could say anything else.