The alert for a new dispatch went out. Hat Tricks phone beeping.
Out it came and the text for a fire response. He read it over then surged to his feet. He looked across the room to Princess and Asteroid, “Let's get moving folks!” He hit the accept task button and was already moving for the door. He leapt the steps leading to the street in a bound hit the pavement on a length of ice. On the way to the location Hat Trick.made a variety of moves that seemed odd. Taking odd turns, doing a lap or two around a cul de sac on the way. As he did ice built up along his legs and fists.
As they all arrive he's moving at a good clip and never stops, building up momentum. He shouts to Princess and Asteroid, “Give me another minute and move when you got a chance!” He races down the road as familiar music began blaring over his speaker system. The opening riffs of Hat Tricks unofficial-official theme song. Maybe a little apropos in the moment what with the fire spitting sparks. But it got the people feeling safe in the moment knowing at least one known name is on the scene!
Onlookers and firefighters watched as he made an elegant cross step turn that brought him back around towards the burning properties. Moving nearly 30kph now he's almost a blur. Over the music he raises his ice encased hands “CLAREMONT!” He shouts, crowd answering “Hit!”
Creating a short ramp to launch him into the air before slamming down in front of the crowd roaring, “GREAT! WHITE! NORTH!” Usually used for crowd control, but the wave of cooled air and shaved ice that he unleashes as he hits the ground dulls the roaring flames at the front of the property, and puts up containing walls to the sides of the house.
Hopefully enough to allow Princess and Asteroid to get in there.
Asteroid eyes the containing wall with a large amount of respect. “Yo- that’s a sick idea dude.” He jumps, throwing his gravity upwards he balances on the edge of the containing wall, teetering to one side and then the other as he peers in. He reaches out with gravity, combing through the objects in the space in front of him. “Can anybody hear me?” He hollers into the fire, trying to peek into one of the windows.
Remembering what the chief said about the propane tanks, he shifts his focus to looking for those. That’s something with predictable shape and mass he can locate. He walks around the top of the retaining wall, feeling how slick the fire is making the ice.
One of the windows on the ground floor of the house seemed to have enough free room for an entrance potentially. On the comms, he says- “going in. Focusing on the propane, you guys hear anybody?”
He rips the glass pane out of the window, shattering it so that the pieces fall outside. Inside, he finds a small office. There’s a computer, a treadmill, and not much else. He drops to the floor, attempting to preserve some of the o2 in his lungs.
Now that he’s inside it’s much easier to feel around with his powers. Unfortunately, that means he finds the propane tanks laying in a pile next to the furnace in the crawl space. Exactly where he’d hoped they wouldn’t be. “Fuckin’ tanks are in the crawlspace.”
Narrowly dodging a falling piece of floor, he spots a tiny black creature hiding beneath the desk. A white soot covered cat is trembling, making tiny coughing sounds in the corner. Asteroid’s always been a softie for animals. He uses his powers to lift the cat, who immediately panics and begins flailing, out of the window. Once outside, he maneuvers it into the open window of a firetruck. Where the cat promptly proceeds to rip up one of the seats. Directing his attention back to the tanks, he crawls into the hall, looking around for a hatch of any kind.
“We don’t need to worry about…collerteral is the word?” Princess speaks over the radio, the smoke interfering enough to make static come through. James replies easily enough.
“Colleteral is to be kept to a minimum, but the building has already been burning long enough to need to be demolished.”
There was a grin on the small woman's face, the sort of expression that made a few civilians step back.
“Hey Asteroid, bud? You might want to get out of there. Now?” Hat trick was still containing flames, but was just observant enough to see the steadily growing Princess as she started to charge towards the building.
As luck would have it, Asteroid had found another cat. The fifth thus far, each one a distraction to trying to brainstorm a way to get to the tanks but not one they regretted having. As such, he was looking out of the window. The same one he quickly scrambles out of as the now towering Princess takes out the wall above it, rolling away to safety.
Inside the heated building got much hotter with the influx of air, flames that already roared with power bloomed into explosive expansions. She quickly gets to work, taking the simplest approach. Straight downward.
A single punch rattles the floor, the second cracks it, the third goes through the floor and gives her the handhold to tear it further open. Singed insulation and lumber flying behind her as if she was a burrowing animal. Within moments the lower space is revealed and moments after that she shoves her head down and finds the sooty tanks of propane.
Here the issue becomes bulk. It is easy to haul out the tanks, weight being easy enough for her, but the risk of dropping the likely volatile canisters if she carried more than a few at once.
The solution came from an avenue she forgot about. Her team.
Hat Trick stomped left then right foot, shoring up the walls of ice around the house, keeping the fire from spreading to the sides anyway. The brush behind the house, not so much. Only when he’s sure the walls will hold a little longer does he join his teammates in the house. Sliding in, and creating a slick of ice to slide the propane tanks out, Asteroid followed only to slip on the ice and decide to walk on ashy floor. No words are exchanged, they simply work. From her lower spot does Princess pass the cans to Asteroid who lightens them and passes them to Hat Trick who shoots them back out. Like a net with no goalie.
In under a minute they got the strange amount of propane tanks out of the building and followed soon after. Just in time for it to start collapsing behind them.
Messy work but it will do. It’s as things start to creak and crunch they start to get out. As Hat Trick exits he lets out a breath, which causes a cloud of vapor due to the heat, yes it’s a thing. He shakes his head, “That’s hella hot.” Then his heart skips as something echos over the roaring flames. “Did you guys hear that?” He looks at the house as it collapses room by room. Then louder, “HELP US!”
And before he can really think, Tyler Ermineskin, Hat Trick throws a lane of ice in front of him. The Firefighter screams at him to stop, but Hat Trick is building up speed, and he crashed through the burning front bay window of the living room, “Hey! Is anyone here!” He shouts into the fire. With a cloud of cold vapor billowing up around him, Hat Trick stands among the flames, “Hey!” Then again, loud again, to be heard from outside, “Help!” And he moves again, shoulder down, spikes of ice on his shoulder pauldron, “Guys!” He calls, “Get in here!” He crashes through one, then two walls. And into a bedroom. There, an older woman, hunkered over 2 kids, and a man beside her, though he looks pretty bad. Hat Trick screams into the comms, “I’ve got the civvies!” He scoops the kids up in one arm, the woman and the man in the other, “I need help in here!” He cries again, "Asteroid? Princess? Get them to put a focused stream of water on the place I came in…”
After that the only sound is his grunts of effort.
Asteroid hears Hat Trick’s comm and starts directing the firemen. He claps loudly a few times to get everyone’s attention, and he directs the fire fighters to adjust their streams of water to just around the space he’d entered and just beyond.
“Princess! I can cover you, can you help him out of there?” He starts focusing on using his gravity to hold the room up and together, splitting pieces of the room off to make a bigger opening for her to get through and Hat Trick to get out. Princess charges back in, not just with destruction but direction. Heaving smoulders beams of lumber and crumbling walls out of the way with each movement till she finds herself at the rooms opening. Insides is steam and ice, but nothing that stops her from loaming over Hat Trick to take his burden, letting the icy hero escort the family though the fire and the flames.
Slowly, they make their way outside. Hat Trick protects the civilians form the ever rising heat while the Princess acts as a shield from the crumbling building, and it isn’t long before the two join the third outside absolutely covered in dust and soot. Asteroid coughs- “Well that was brutal- nice job team! Thought you were almost barbequed there Hat Trick!” Outside the building the calming sounds of relieved breaths and that pile of cats cleaning, coughing, and hissing at each other serve as a nice finish to the hectic last couple minutes.
Hat Trick coughs after handing the woman and the man to Princess. He keeps the kids close and only once they make it to the EMTs does he let go. He has no clue how the parents will fare but the kids should be fine.
Asteroid’s concern was not sated yet, walking over and letting his eyes on each of the rescued cats, their frail bodies shaking. A few are kittens, but one of them is hardly able to keep it together. He picks it up, removes a glove, and clears its mouth out with his pinky finger. “This one isn’t gonna make it without some extra help.” He slides the kitten into a pocket on the inside of his suit, leaving the top unzipped to leave room for a bit of air. Curly brunette chest hair is barely visible behind his open zipper.
With a groan Hat Trick shakes himself, “Okay…note to self…fire is hot…” As he says that one of his retaining walls comes crashing down in a burst of ice shards and cold air. “Very hot. What do you say to going back to the company building now?”
Stryder BC
Citrus
FourtyTwo
RuggieBucchi
Magpiefriend
cosmiccowgirl
Scrawl Banditta
shylarah
mixed with
Credit: 
Loralie
Credit: 
Radio Coworkers - Jack (Weather - 35) & Diane (Night Manager - 32)