Owner	Pose
Abe Sapien	A forklift beeps as it moves slowly through a corridor from the BPRD's Triskelion hangar towards its more 'homey' section of the building. A pair of large crates sit on the forks, sealed with tape in a curious pattern on which even more curious characters have been written in magic marker. Abe Sapien waits at the entrance to the BPRD offices, holding up a webbed hand. "You know that's not going to make it down the stairs," he says in a flat tone. "Yeah, no kiddin'," the forklift driver says, putting the vehicle into park. "I just bring it here. The rest is up to you ... all," he continues, mouth contorting slightly as if he'd meant to say something else. "And what shipment is this, precisely?" Abe asks, looking at the crates while they're gently lowered to the floor. "Look, pal, that's above my pay grade. They tell me to move stuff, I move it," the forklift driver replies before turning his vehicle around and driving back toward less creepy areas of SHIELD headquarters. Abe squats in front of the crates and sighs, scrutinizing the writing. One or two other BPRD agents walk by, shrugging at the scene before they head to their own duties.
Liz Sherman	Stepping around the forklift as it beeps merrily along the SHIELD corridors, Liz Sherman pauses a moment, flattening herself along the wall to make space for the thing as her eyes watch the vehicle drift down the corridor. Her lips purse. Bringing up her hand after the passage, she brushes her fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her shoulder. All in all, she looked better today, mostly - like she had gotten some sleep and managed to push a brush through her hair. Tucking her hand back down into her pockets, she steps forward, her course changing correction as she spies Abe, lifting her chin to her fellow 'special agent'. "Christmas comes early to BPRD. Think the guys upstairs..." meaning SHIELD. "... found something weird?" Liz herself looks down at the writing on one of the crates, her hand lifting up to brush along the outside edge of one of the same. She smelled of nicotine and ash. But she always smelled of ash, at least.
Abe Sapien	Raising his brow enough to be noticeable, Abe offers a hand palm-up toward the crate and then toward Liz. "Crates of unknown origin, covered in strange writing and packaging?" He shakes his head. "At this point, it would be weird if it had explicitly traceable provenance and a receipt from Target attached to it." Abe slowly stands. "Seen O'Donnell around today? I admit these marks are unfamiliar to me. But maybe he would know." To Liz's eyes, however, the markings are clearly legible: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH.
Liz Sherman	"Naw, Abe. I haven't seen O'Donnell around," says Liz, her gloved thumb flicking over the edge of some of the writing. "Last I saw him was yesterday. After he brought that faery in for questioning," she says, pursing her lips tighter. Everyone in BPRD probably liked a good enough mystery, and mysterious crates was a mystery. But mysteries tended to have edges, at least here in the BPRD. "How you been, anyway, I..." Liz had been banking on the idea that if Abe couldn't read it, she sure as hell didn't have a hope of reading it. However, once she actually /looked/ at the writing with more than a glance... Liz's blood cools. "We gotta..." she says, her normally laconic voice lifting up with a brief bout of anxiety. "...we gotta get these in containtment. /Now/." Lifting up her hand, she glances over her shoulder towards a passing BPRD agent. "Get Red, if he's not on one of his walks! And the Professor!"
Abe Sapien	"Liz?" Abe asks, his face scrunching up in puzzlement. "What's the matter?" His voice is calm and quiet, though one hand begins drifting slowly toward his sidearm. He pivots on one heel and takes a step back from the crate. He extends his free hand in the direction of the crate, and looks back and forth between it and Liz. The passerby agent nods quickly to Liz and begins jogging in the most likely direction of Hellboy & Bruttenholm. "Yes, ma'am," she says. Just then, one of the crates bursts into flames, its wooden sides popping and snapping with the sudden heat. "Liz?" Abe asks again, seemingly oblivious. "Is there something wrong?" Two coal-black eyes appear in the flames above the crate.
Liz Sherman	And this is a lot of why Liz liked not sleeping, living in that state of perpetual tiredness with the flame licking at the inside of her mind and her heart. At least you can blame the weird shit you see on the dreams then. Jaw clenching tight, Liz takes two steps back from the crate as it bursts into flame, her hand reaching and drawing her sidearm in a fluid motion. Her bullets were cold iron today - they had been having trouble with fae hooligans as of late, but luckily, nothing had to be shot. But the modified Glock - the BPRD Special, some of the men called the 'standard' sidearm - was still leveled upon the eyes within the flame. Reflexively, something inside of Liz calls out to the flame - a sick joy at seeing a sister or brother in inferno. Liz didn't feel that. She just felt her stomach heave. "You don't see that?! Get away from the crates, Abe, there's something... in them! Fire... and... eyes?"
Abe Sapien	From around a corner, the dispatched BPRD agent returns, huffing. "I've tried to raise them on comms, ma'am!" she says between breaths. "They're still working on it." Glancing over his shoulder at the agent, Abe nods. "Thank you, Agent Sullivan. I think that Liz--Agent Sherman--may have this under control." As Liz sounds her caution, though, he moves back several feet from the crates. Sullivan continues to catch her breath. The crate's flames continue to grow, licking and snapping. Then, there's a quick jump--as though a gust of wind blew through the corridor--and the flames catch hold of Sullivan's jacket. Then her hair. Then her skin. She stands there, unaware of her skin charring and cracking off, her hair disintegrating. The smell permeating the hall. "Liz?" Abe asks from his newer position. "What fire? What eyes?" He draws his pistol and points it at the crate. "Is this a 'containment with prejudice' situation?"
Liz Sherman	People said Liz controlled fire. But there was nothing further from the truth. Liz lived /with/ the fire - and yes, she knew how to whisper to it - to make the crackle and pop of flame and heat dance to her way. But many times, like a lot of things in life... it had a life of its own. And the more she cracked the door open to whisper to it, the more opportunity it had to just... kick the door open and bolt past her into the world. If that made any sense at all. Seeing the flame jump like that, Liz jerks back and reflexively fires - the cold iron bullet aimed to tick into the body of the crate. There was a dichotomy within Liz now - that elation and joy at seeing the flame, and the cold fear of her mind that this whole thing would end up with her friends burning. Again. Every time. "Just... get out of here. Get out of..." Sullivan didn't scream, didn't seem to even care, so it wasn't until Liz tears her eyes from the crates to look towards Abe that her eyes were drawn to... "SULLIVAN NO!" Fingers loosening, the BPRD Special slips from between them, spiralling in the air as the weapon falls to the ground. And Liz's eyes turn orange. She had opened the door, and was whispering to the fire that lived in the home beyond. Trying to tell the flame to get /off/ of Sullivan. Even if, she had more time to think about this whole thing - it was likely an illusion. Perhaps she couldn't speak to it at all.
Abe Sapien	"ELIZABETH," a voice hisses in the back of Liz's mind. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY ... TO YOU ..." Sullivan looks around with one good eye, confused, as Sherman's gun falls to the ground. "What's wrong?" she asks with a swollen, seared tongue, ducking instinctively. "Are we under attack?!" Her jaw, burned bare to the bone, falls to the ground with a clatter. Abe narrows his eyes and inhales deeply. "I think ... I think Liz is having a very different experience than we are." He cocks his head slightly to one side. "Do you know something we don't, Liz? Elizabeth?" he asks again, louder. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY ... DEAR ... ELIZABETH ...," the hissing voice continues. "MAKE A WISH, DEAR ..."
Liz Sherman	Sullivan didn't seem to realize that he was burning to death. In spite of these things, Liz didn't stop trying - didn't want to stop trying to conjole the flame away from him, illusionary or not. To talk to this living thing in these crates and tell it to get away from everyone. Perhaps, in many ways, she /couldn't/ stop trying to stop something like this. "No. No no no." Now flames were starting to spark on Liz's own body - but these were real flames, dancing over her upper arm on the left, out of her belly, her hair. Little traces of the blue-hot fires that usually came before the inferno. This may or may not be worrying to those around her. "I wish..." she says, her tone of voice strained - the tears that bud at the edges of her eyes turning to steam before they could even touch her cheek. "...that you would just leave!" she calls to the hall at large. Which may be misinterpreted.
Abe Sapien	"PARTY POOPER," the voice hisses. Then, there's another popping and crackling, and the crates catch on fire (again, for one of them). "What the--?!" Sullivan says, leaping back and stumbling away from the crates. "Liz!" Abe calls in a concerned tone, stepping toward his friend. "You are alright. Don't lose control." He slips his gun back into its holster and nears Liz with hands raised. The crates' flames remain localized, and in less than a minute the two boxes are nothing more than small piles of ash. Sullivan's appearance returns to normal like she'd never been burning to death at all. "MAYBE NEXT YEAR ..." the voice hisses, and then is silent. From around the corner, a pair of BPRD agents in hazmat suits and hauling large boxes of equipment come jogging up. "What seems to be the problem?" one asks. Abe blinks and looks to Liz. "I wish I could tell you," he says quietly.
Liz Sherman	Liz clenches her jaw tighter, her wide open eyes filled with that flickering orange light still. It was... leaving. "Who are you?" she whispers. But was that with her voice, or to the flame behind the door? A long breath in, and out - it seemed like Abe was an eternity away, calling across a void that crackled with fire. But he was drawing closer, in her mind. A breath in, a breath out, and Liz was whispering something under her breath. He would no doubt recognize it as a prayer to one of the Saints. And a handful of seconds more, and Liz closes the 'door', so to speak, and takes a step back. But perhaps, if she quirked her ear just so, she could hear it whispering back to her. Eyes return to focus, her gaze turning back to brown, as she focuses again on Abe. Liz sticks out her lower jaw a bit in thought, her eyes turning from him, to Sullivan. A snort comes from her. "I need a smoke, Abe. Want to come with?" The agents here would probably want more of an explanation. That would have to come later, maybe.
Abe Sapien	Moving his head back and forth as if weighing options, Abe nods after a long moment. "Sure. Of course." He points at the crates and looks at the containment crew. "I will come by shortly to finish up the paperwork for these items. But we'll also need the SHIELD agent who brought them by earlier. It was ... ah ..." Abe blinks. "I cannot rightly remember who it was." "We'll check the requisition sign-out and vehicle logs, sir," one of the hazmat-suit-wearing agents says. "Thank you," Abe replies. "Now then. Liz, let's get some fresh air. Or at least a mix of fresh air and nicotine."
Liz Sherman	"Great," says Liz. Yeah, she was saddling Abe with the paperwork, but... Liz didn't want to think about this whole experience any more than she had to. And the BPRD Special Agents were notoriously bad with filing paperwork. Although Liz still did. When she... had to. "Careful with that stuff," she says to one of the Hazmat agents. "It's some... magic crap. Or a magic pile of ashes. Whatever." Liz brings up a hand, searching around for her pack of smokes. "We need to find out where that stuff came from. It was a... birthday gift. Hopefully, it's just someone's idea of a joke." "Although that's a hell of a joke..." she murmurs, casting one eye back towards the ashes, her eyes narrowing.
Liz Sherman	And no doubt the two agents head down the hall, towards one of the access hatches to the surface. And the ever-shrinking space where smokers were allowed to do their thing.