Agent Pocket Ukulele Through the Fire and Flames

D.S. al Fine dawned consciousness back into her body from slumber, yawning, and opening her eyes to her office on fire.

Her office was so very, very much on fire.

In front of her, her mounds of paperwork were infernal. Walls were draped in flame. Her wood filing cabinets, even, alight.

What? she thought.

What the fuck?

She propped herself up from her leather chair, grabbing her cane and hobbling to the door, which thankfully wasn't yet on fire, and exited her office.

The hallway she exited into, as well, was on fire.

"Fuck."

Fire keeps going because it finds exothermic reactions which need high energy inputs. It's nothing more than chemicals doing their work, nothing more than predetermined entropic mechanisms coming to work.

Clair Wythers knows this.

She sighed when she saw the flames recede from the wall in front of her, creeping down the hall in its recession towards a focal origin with its back turned.

She never knew why she got the most tired when people fucked with fire.

She walked back into her office, freshly scorched, and reached for her telephone to report there was a Type Green walking down the hallway of the GOC headquarters in Washington D.C., and that it was burning everything.

She waited a few minutes for someone to pick up.

"We'll have a strike team there in five minutes."

She hung up, walked over to her desk, and opened the bottom drawer, taking out her Mateba Autorevolver in .44 Magnum.

She'd be done in two.

Nathan Ó'Reathallaigh wasn't exactly sure why today, of all days, everything around him seemed to be on fire.

He knew himself. He wasn't a reality bender. He wasn't a reality bender. He took a deep breath.

My name is Nathan Ó'Reathallaigh. I am 35 years old. The date is… Fuck, I've never been good at dates. I am currently at my job in the Global Occult Coalition office in Washington, D.C.. My favorite beverage is half cream soda and half tea. My favorite color is green. My favorite song is "I Want You" by Savage Garden. I ate… I forgot. Fuck. Doesn't fucking matter. This doesn't fucking matter.

He wasn't a reality bender. He was just being affected by an anomaly, which was unfortunate, but wasn't his fault. He couldn't be a reality bender. He paused, and the fire paused with him.

Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck. I'm going to fucking die, aren't I?

He rested against a wall, slipping down, his shirt riding up as his knees bent and his ass hit the floor. He cried a little as the fire raged around him.

The elevator nearby opened its doors as someone else rounded the corner into the hallway. And three cracks followed from the someone's revolver.

Two of the bullets hit the back of the elevator, perforating the sheetmetal and spitting back concrete from hitting the shaft. One hit Buck's bulletproof vest in his side, sending him to cover with a wheeze and a stagger. One more for good measure whizzed into the iron box, missing entirely.

Just a few minutes prior he had been making small-talk at the water cooler to an uninterested girl from the PSYCHE division when a circular spot of flames on the roof slowly progressed towards them.

Why the fuck does this always happen?

He peeked out around the corner, firing wildly once, being returned a bullet in kind. He fired again, this time being met with nothing. He dashed to the other side of the elevator and tried to get a good look at his target and was promptly hit in the center of mass once more, making him and his Colt fall to the ground, coughing heavily.

Six it was, then.

He picked up his firearm, eyes still watering, and sent three shots down the hallway.

The first one nicked a bystander resting against the wall in the jugular. Blood burst forth in arterial sprays, sizzling as it spattered against the flaming wall, the poor man grasping his throat desperately gurgling to try and stop its jet ejections of what little life he had left.

The second hit target, piercing through his adversary's arm, sending her now-being-reloaded revolver and bullets to the floor, her recoiling, making:

Shot three hit square center of mass. She went down in a heap. He guessed that both lungs, her esophagus, and her heart were FUBAR from bone fragments from her sternum being shattered at 2000 joules worth of impact. She shuddered on the ground, grasping for her firearm, and threw up way too much blood before the twitches took her.

Agent Pocket Ukulele rolled onto his back as the flames around him petered out and died. He let the tears wick onto his downy cheeks and roll down his face before he picked up his walkie-talkie.

"Type Green eliminated. One casualty from crossfire by firearms exchange, male."

"Very well. Mission accomplished, Agent Pocket Ukulele."

"… Target was D.S. al Fine."

"…"

"She shot at me."

"…"

"Are… any questions? I figure it's worth mentioning. That's sort of a big deal."

"I'll pass it along to D.C. al Fine. Otherwise, a Type Green is a Type Green."

"… Understood. Over and out."

It hurt.

It hurt a lot.

He had a terrible feeling that this wasn't an accident.

This was written for the SCP Original Character Tournament. Be sure to also read The Scent of the Worm by TechSorcerer2747.

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