Rodger stepped out at his stop and waved to the bus driver as he made his way down the sidewalk in the sweltering heat. His stop wasn't very near his home. The city was reticent to place a stop directly within some of the lower class neighborhoods, but he didn't mind. Walking did a man good. He enjoyed it.

What he didn't enjoy was the sounds coming from an alleyway up ahead. It sounded like some kind of street fight and that wasn't something he wanted to get caught up in. It didn't surprise him to hear it, this being the Kaiser's territory. He slowed down to a casual stroll as he listened. Probably just some punkass who'd bitten off more than he could chew from the way he was begging. The Kaiser's wouldn't kill someone like that, but Rodger decided to wait around to see whether the poor guy could use some help afterwards. He leaned up against the wall and waited for the sounds of violence to stop.

When they did and he heard the sound of footfalls echoing away, he pushed himself off the wall, dusted himself off, and made his way into the maze of alleys that he'd heard the sounds from. It was then that he noticed the smell, the distinctive smell of burning trash. That was odd, and he quickened his pace. He sniffed the air, the smell getting stronger and stronger until it lead him to the scene. He saw the fire.

At first he was confused. Why was someone burning trash in an alleyway? Did the person the Kaiser had beaten do this? But then why would they leave the fire if they'd taken care of the firebug? He rushed forward, intending to put the fire out, when the relity of the situation came into sharp clarity.

"Oh my god!" Rodger yelled as he recognized the form that was wreathed in flames. "「VITALOGY!」" The Stand leaped into action in an instant, dragging the man (he thought it was a man) out of the fire around him and hastily beating at the flames, trying to put him out. It a few moments Rodger realized that was useless, and willed his Stand to tear off the mans flaming clothes. It wouldn't have been hard even if they weren't weakened by fire damage, and he tossed them into a corner of the alley before Vitalogy began working to snuff out him flaming hair.

Once the man was out Rodger knelt down and pressed his ear against the mans (yes he was certainly a man) mouth. He had to see. He had to check to see if the man was still breathing. Was he? Was he!? He couldn't tell! Either this guy was dead or his breathing was so shallow he may as well be. Rodger slipped a seed out of the packet in his pocket. The old guy had burns over most of his body, ruined skin everywhere you looked. This was not going to be pretty.

"Sorry about this." Rodger said breathlessly. Technically he had nothing to apologize for but that wasn't going to make this any more pleasant. A full body healing never was. He tossed the seed to Vitalogy and in an instant the Stand had grabbed it and plunged it deep into the mans chest. 

The man began to convulse and spasm almost as soon as the seed had gone in, and Rodger placed his hand in the guys mouth and held him down to keep him from hurting himself anymore. The first to fill up was the small hole that Vitalogy had made to plant the seed, a small white flower blooming up out of it. Rodger felt his hand slide freely over the mans chest as his ruined skin shed off of him, revealing a new layer of green underneath. His hand was forced from the mans mouth from a volcanic eruption of throat and lung tissue was expelled to make way for a new layer made of roots and leaves. The mans hair grew even grew back, green with the occasional flower poking out of it. When the man finally stopped shaking and Rodger was able to sit back, he was unrecognizable from the charred mess he had been. He might even look healthier than before someone set him on fire. Even the cavities in his teeth would have been repaired by the power of Vitalogy. Rodger had no idea if this man would ever look like a normal person again. He supposed that the guy would shed his green skin and hair as his body healed, but who knew if the internal damage could be repaired naturally by the body. That is, if this guy was still alive.

Rodger bent down over the man again. "Hey, buddy?" He said desperately, shaking him a little. "Come on guy, talk to me if you can. Are you all right?" He put his ear down next to the mans mouth again, to check his breathing.

(I'm going to let [@Dark Eternity] decide whether this man is dead or alive)

(*Edit* He lives!)

Rodger nearly collapsed with relief when he heard the old timer taking in deep, steady breaths.

The man was understandably upset about his new condition, but Rodger was able to placate him. Rodger had been right, the man was healthier than he had been before the fire. No more back pain, no more two pack a day voice, no more loose teeth. After a few minutes of talking the man told Rodger everything he remembered about the attack, which wasn't much. A young punk had indeed been the cause of the disturbance, but as to his features and how he had set the man on fire there was only a blank spot in his memory. The only notable thing he remembered was a phrase the punk had said before he'd started pounding him. 

"Courtesy Call."

It was because of those words that Rodger was now pounding down the alley with considerably more spring in his step than when he'd heard the beating. He and the man had parted ways, Rodger leaving him with only instructions to find some place sunny and drink lots of fluids. And the money Rodger had meant to spend at the Golden Peking today. Rodger had even repaired his pants. The man hadn't wanted to go to the police. Even if they looked past both the freakishness and homelessness to believe his story, they weren't going to put much effort into finding some punk that beat up hobos.

But Rodger, whose apathy had almost gotten that poor man killed, felt like he had to find him. He hoped it was just a normal punk. He prayed that this was just some normal psychopath. Courtesy Call wasn't exactly an odd thing to say before beating someone up, if you squinted and turned your head a little bit, but Rodger was already jumpy. He's seen men dead in the street and had met another Stand User already today.

He hadn't seen anyone come out of the alley the way he'd gone in so if he followed this path quickly he could probably lay eyes on the punk, and when he did find him the two of them were going to have words.