Heroes

I gave Ma a huge hug when I got home early, still wrapped in a blanket and smelling like smoke. I just held on tight for a while.

Ma patted my back and asked me what happened.

My partner, Jack, and I got called to a building fire, at least that was what the call said. They didn’t mention that a nutcase in flamey red spandex tossing fireballs caused the building fire. For once, I kinda wish we didn’t have the fastest response rate of any EMT team in town.

The guy apparently robbed a jewelry store, and when the cops showed up, he started flinging fire at them. There were two cops down with bad burns when we got there, and the fire guy had set the apartment complex across the street ablaze.  Fire trucks were trying to fight the building fire while cops and a couple of superheroes tried to subdue the robber.  

Takedown was there, a local guy who Jack and I had seen before a time or two. He’s good people. He does a lot of the educational outreach stuff with kids, Stranger Danger, that kind of thing. It was pretty obvious that he could hold his own in a fight, too, from what I saw. But he's not fireproof, so he couldn't get near the robber. The other hero was actually one of the Protectors, a nationally famous hero that I’d only seen on TV before, getting a medal for saving a bunch of kids. White Knight.  That guy makes my jaws tighten every time I see him. He dresses like a refugee from a Renaissance faire and has a sword and shield, but what pisses me off is the image painted on his shield: a guy with one foot on the chest of a dying dragon, holding a spear through it.  Asshole. But that shield seemed to be a good defense against fire.

Jack and I went to help the cops who were down. One cop just had burns over his forearm. We cut away his uniform, laid some burn sheets over the worst of it, and sent him to sit in the passenger seat while we took care of his buddy. The other cop was burnt bad over nearly 50% of his body, screaming in agony. The smell of it choked me, and made my stomach turn. Jack called it in, and got permission from the doc on duty to shoot him up with morphene. The cop went out like Jack had flipped a switch. The cop was in for a horrific few months in the hospital, and had a high probability of not making it. And even if he did, he’d be scarred and probably disabled for life.

I sent Jack back to the unit for more burn sheets, cleared my mind till all I felt was empathy for the cop’s pain, checked to make sure no one was looking our way amid the chaos, and bit him on his uninjured arm. I made sure the fang pierced the median vein, and gave him a full dose of venom.  My venom doesn’t heal instantly or anything, but it vastly accelerates and augments healing, even to the point of helping him regenerate burnt skin. The cop was going to make a miraculous recovery, and probably would be back on the streets in a week or two. In six months, he wouldn’t even have scars.

Jack and I got a drip going into him, got him on a gurney, and headed toward the unit. We were paying so much attention to the injured cop, we didn’t notice that the fight had come our way. In like a second, a bunch of stuff happened. The White Knight shouted a warning. The fiery bad guy was headed straight for Jack, and his body had flames licking all over it. If he touched Jack, my partner would be in as bad a shape as the cop or worse.

I jumped over the gurney longways from a standstill and landed in front of the fiery guy who ran into me instead. I stumbled backward into Jack. My uniform shirt caught fire instantly, and I shoved the burning man hard away from me with my left arm. Right into the shield of the White Knight.  The force of my shove knocked the Knight down, and dazed the bad guy.

The flames flickered out for a second and Takedown put both gloved palms on the villain’s back. I heard electricity crackle, and the fire slinger went limp. The White Knight yelped at the same time, and I have to admit, I chuckled. TakeDown’s tazer gloves took out the bad guy, but apparently the knight’s shield and scale armor conducted the electricity a little too well. Take that, big bad knight.

I wasn’t laughing long as I realized half my uniform was burning away, and the scales on my left arm and shoulder were showing. Yikes! I hunched over the arm, trying to cover it before anyone saw, jumped into the back of the unit, grabbed a blanket and threw it over myself. Jack was right behind me.

He kept asking how bad I was hurt and trying to pry away the blanket. We had what I can only describe as our first fight. I had to practically throw him off me to keep him from looking under the blanket. He kept saying things like, “This is no time for modesty,” and “It’s okay. It’s just me.” like I was being overly shy.  I told him I was fine, but he didn’t buy it. He wouldn’t leave it be until I reminded him we had two patients to get to the hospital. He wasn’t happy about it, but he drove.

I bailed on the rest of the shift, went home sick officially. Jack gave me a look as I was leaving, not like I expected. He didn’t look pissed. He just looked kind of, disappointed, I guess. 

Ma said she was proud of me.

But I can’t shake this feeling, like I did something really wrong. I just can’t figure out what it is.

D Dragon