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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 8, 2016 3:24:05 GMT
Echoing down the hallways of the lowest level of the BPD building was the distant sound of music playing. It bounced off the walls and floors of the space, causing the sound to travel farther into the building and grow distorted as it went. However, the music didn't come from an office with its door left cracked open, an annoying elevator or a radio being played too loud. No, the music escaped behind a set of pink double doors with a sign above the entrance.
Forensic Labs.
"And when you get the chance, you are the DANCING QUEEN, YOUNG AND SLIM, ONLY SEVENTEEN!"
Anna sang in an over-the-top voice, her feet tapping the floor as the radio on the table in front of her blasted out the song that could be heard playing through the whole lower level of the BPD. Spread out in front of her was a huge selection of scalpels, knives, scissors, drills and saws of various sizes and shapes. Anna continued to tap to the song as she put down the small pair of scissors she had been cleaning and picked up a medium-sized scalpel. She paused in cleaning the new instrument and instead reached over them to grab a bright purple duck with star sunglasses from her collection of rubber ducks that sat in a line against the wall.
She picked up the duck and gave it a series of squeaks in time to the song, the pair of scissors still held in her other hand.
"Ohhhh, see that girl, watch that scene, DIGGIN' THE DANCING QUEEN!" |
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 8, 2016 6:04:04 GMT
Oh, the pink door. If there was music going outside of it, it meant Anna was in. Sunshine shook her head with a silent laugh as she shuffled the case files in her hands. Shadow had gone to lunch, which meant she could get a head start on what Anna found in the autopsy of the fire-ice case, as she and Shadow dubbed it. Maybe if she got wrapped up with Anna, she could catch him - knowing him, he'd be at her stepfamily's bakery.
Sunshine raised one hand to knock on the door, and then lowered it. What if the music was blasted but Anna was dozed off? But then she heard quacking. Well, Anna was up, and playing with her rubber ducks Good time. Her knunckles came to the pink door, rapping the piano key riff that played in the middle of the song.
"Anna?"
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 8, 2016 22:44:09 GMT
The rubber duck in Anna's hand gave out a shrill squeak when she clenched her fist around it suddenly at the knock on the doors to the labs.
"Oh, fudge!"
She quickly put the rubber duck back in line with its companions, turned the volume on her radio down to silence and tried to look as if she was busy doing nothing more than cleaning the medical instruments in front of her. Shadow had once walked in on her doing something very similar and while he hadn't said anything outwards about her antics, his glower had said enough. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of that when she was in such a good mood.
However, when a voice suddenly called out from behind the doors, a clearly female voice, Anna let out a sigh and immediately relaxed.
"Come on in, Sunshine! You just missed the chorus."
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 8, 2016 22:58:10 GMT
"What? The knock perfectly in sync didn't give away it wasn't Mr. Prickly?" Sunshine made a face with a giggle as she used the nickname Shadow tolerated when she or a child said it. She made a fake pout as she entered the morgue area, looking over at the two corpses of Ashlynn and Krystal. One had skin that was completely blue, the other was charred and wrinkled, looking more like an overcooked piece of meat than a human being.
"So what's the prognosis on Ashlynn?" Sunshine asked. "Shadow and I figured out the ice death; there was a ward hanging in the air vent above Krystal that was activated by the steam in the shower."
She opened the case file and pointed to the picture. The popsicle of Krystal was evident, her hand still gripping a loofah sudded with activated shower gel. The vent was over the tiled wall of the day spa. An insert with a zoom in of the vent showed a small snowflake shaped crystal, almost like the cheap glass ones sold in Magnolia Street, being hung through.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 9, 2016 16:33:37 GMT
"Well it wasn't too long in the hot sauna, I can tell you that much. You could wring out this girl like a towel and still not get a single drop of liquid."
Anna had placed the scissors back on the table and picked up a file before bringing it over to Sunshine. She flipped through the pages with her tongue stuck out absently before flipping the folder over to reveal an autopsy report and crime scene analysis.
"When I went over the scene where the body was found, I decided to take a peek under the heating stones for the sauna. And BINGO!"
The file held a picture of the charred remains of Ashlynn lying next to the heating stones. Another picture showed inside the basin where the stones had been removed except for a single flame-shaped crystal similar to the one found on Krystal.
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 9, 2016 17:41:21 GMT
Sunshine breathed in relief. So Shadow's theory of it being being a double mage attack was seeming logical. "Shadow was onto something when he pointed out the ward in the vent, then," she mused. She studied the orange crystal on her hands. As she looked at it, it began to glow brighter, brigther...until her hands began to start pulsing. Heat was forming at the base of her palms until it began to become sharp.
"Hot!" Sunshine yelped, tossing the crystal onto the closest table to avoid it breaking. Once it was away from her skin, the crystal's light died down, turning back to the muddy orange-brown it once was.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 9, 2016 18:29:23 GMT
"Well, his guesses are usually pretty good. Not perfect all the time, and certainly not pretty but generally good."
Anna had been looking down at the file but looked up when she suddenly heard Sunshine cry out. The SVU officer had picked up the gem but quickly dropped it onto the table when it began to glow.
"Whoopsy!"
Anna quickly went over to her grisly selection of tools, picked up a set of tongs and moved the crystal from the table into a simple metal container.
"By the by, the crystals are activated by water, as you just got to see."
With the crystal safely stored, Anna motioned for Sunshine to follow her over to the slabs where Krystal and Ashlynn lay spread out. She passed the bodies and looked into a cabinet across from their frozen and burned feet.
"From the analysis done on the crystals and the environments in which my two new best friends were found, I'd say that each of them activated the powers of the crystals based on their last doings."
Anna finally rose up from where she had been looking in the drawers, an reusable icebag in the shape of a smiling mushroom held in her hands. She quickly handed the grinning fungus to Sunshine to use on her burn as she continued to speak.
"Even contact with the water in a person's skin can activate these gems, although it takes much longer. So no touchy the shiny objects, ok?"
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 10, 2016 5:42:49 GMT
Sunshine folded her arms. The locations of the gems, if anything, were far from perfect. Wards could be finicky if not cast properly, which was why some creators avoided them altogether. It was like a glitch in a phone app, so to speak; if one little thing went wrong, the ward wouldn't work. This meant that the creator had to be either skilled in crafting wards or somehow fixed whatever 'glitch' was in the jewel's prowess.
Anna handed Sunshine a smiling mushroom, which was cool to the touch. This was better than the heavy muslin bags they had in the office which had unreliable velcro and couldn't be trusted. She rubbed her hands, smiling a bit as the heat sear died down. She kept cradling the mushroom, looking at its rosy cheeks, pondering.
"But the wards were placed in locations where multiple people came and went. If they're activated by water, why didn't they go off until Ashlynn and Krystal came in?"
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 10, 2016 6:32:03 GMT
Anna watched Sunshine take the mushroom icebag from her and hold it over the burn on her hand. She waited in silence, knowing that her coworker had more to say and ask on the subject of the double homicide. And it wasn't a minute later before she let her thoughts become clear, number one being how the wards could have only killed the two victims when so many people had come and gone before them.
"The crystals don't have any kind of control on them other than contact with water. So I'd say they weren't in place until our dead duo went into the shower and the sauna. Witnesses said Krystal went into the shower only about five minutes before Ashlynn was seen heading into the sauna, right? And both of them were alone."
Anna shrugged her shoulders as she let her words sink in. She wasn't a detective and rarely left the BPD building unless it was to an initial examination on a body. However, the answer to this question seemed rather straight-forward to her.
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 11, 2016 3:06:26 GMT
"But multiple people were in the shower and sauna before them," Sunshine pointed out. "The security camera caught several people going..." She stopped her argument right in her tracks. The security footage. She could check the camera for anyone looking suspicious enough to be a Mage. No one could teleport a ward into the locations. That shower and sauna would be in use
"...the cameras!" She whacked her forehead with the ice mushroom. "Man I'm such an idiot!"
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 11, 2016 3:31:31 GMT
"Ding, ding, ding! We have ourselves a winner!"
Anna clapped her hands together as if she were the canned audience used during TV shows. She smiled at her friend and was also secretly pleased that her own theory had followed the same track of reasoning. While she was one of the best when it came to forensics, her mind didn't seem to follow deductive reasoning in the normal sense.
"And I'd bet my secret chocolate-surprise cupcake recipe that whoever killed these girls went into the shower and sauna right before them."
With that said, Anna went over to the table holding Krystal's body and pulled down the sheet that had been covering it from the neck down. A large Y-shaped incision had been made down the chest and was still in need of stitching now that she had completed the autopsy. Without any hesitation, Anna quickly washed her hands, threw on an apron, protective mask and gloves and moved a small side-table next to the slab. The table held a set of needles and medical sutures ready for action.
"Oh and by the by, I'm gonna be cooking again this week! I'm thinking of maybe going with a Moroccan theme."
Anna spoke with enthusiasm as she threaded the suture through one of the needles and set to work on Krystal.
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 11, 2016 5:59:38 GMT
Sunshine laughed audibily at Anna dinging about getting something right. Usually, she as the one making those kinds of jokes when analyzing cases with the rest of her team. So, it felt good that someone who wasn't part of SVU appreciated her sense of humor. Sure, Anna could go to darker places than Sunshine went, but their level did make her feel happy. "Speaking of that cupcake recipe," she wagged her finger scoldingly, "I want a copy of that to use for choco-holic month. We're looking for something then our...usual treats." Sure, the chocolate beer beignets were a household item, but it got boring throwing heaps of chocolate flavored batter in the fryer.
She backed up, wringing her hair in one hand. The blonde strands were getting wound up, and her green eyes, which were already wide, got a bit wider. When Anna went to work on a corpse, it was both fascinating and terrifying; like watching a car accident.
"Moroccan, huh? You're welcome to come by and," she winced at the sound of crisped skin getting pierced, "borrow some mint..."
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 11, 2016 6:12:04 GMT
"Don't worry, I've got so many spices at my house now I might as well start my own spice trade! However, I'll keep that in mind if my mountain of oregano ever runs low. And as for my cupcake recipe, I'd sell my soul before giving that away!"
As she spoke in her overly dramatic voice, Anna's eyes looked up from her macabre work while her agile fingers quickly closed up the opening she had made only a few hours ago. She didn't miss the hair-twisting that Sunshine was partaking in, clearly showing how uncomfortable she was with watching Anna work on a corpse. Even as she worked on tying up the sutures, the strawberry-blonde wondered at how someone who dealt with some of the most disturbing crime scenes still had trouble watching an autopsy.
"I'm cooking up a big batch of Chicken Tagine with onions, honey and mint mixed in. Think Mr. Prickly might join us?"
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Post by Zuyuri on Apr 12, 2016 6:27:11 GMT
Rather than correct Anna and say she was talking about mint, Sunshine let the topic go. The cupcake recipe was still under lock and key, at least according to Anna, so the blonde flicked her nose, "Don't forget, missie, and I'm a detective. I may get it one way or another, or figure it out from eating them!" There was no need for selling souls, with Anna it was hard to tell if this was a joke or not, when there was a detective involved.
All images of the cadavers disappeared at the words 'chicken tagine' Nothing like crock-pot stewed food to get her stomach growling. The Seddons were big cooks, too, but their shepherd's pie was the only notable thing. The snapping out was Anna calling Shadow 'Mr. Prickly', which was a nickname bestowed on him by the street kids at Dragon's Lair.
"The look on his face when people other than kids call him hat," she laughed, "priceless." She cleared her throat. "Um, it depends on if he gets hooked onto another case. You know how focused he gets."
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Apr 13, 2016 4:05:59 GMT
"Ssshhhhh! Don't let him know I use it behind his back!"
Anna looked around suspiciously as if Shadow might be hiding behind the double doors or under a table. However, the huge grin on her face broke the overly-dramatic tension she had produced as she tied off the last suture on the cadaver.
"As for how focused he gets, don't even start! Sometimes I wonder if he would just starve to death or drop from lack of sleep if you weren't there to remind him that, while he is a brilliant investigator, he also isn't a machine. But pass the dinner invite on to him all the same, would you?"
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