[[Continued from here.]]

The fire engine was there in eight minutes flat. By that time, smoke was already beginning to stream from one of the building's windows and dancing lights could faintly be seen from t he ground outside.

"Looks like we might be able to get ahead of this one," Rex said before leaping off the truck. Twenty seconds later, he was charging into he building in his full firefighter regalia, colleagues and brothers in arms streaming in behind him while others set to work opening the fire hydrant.

Nowadays, Rex always made sure he was the first one into any fiery building. As his understanding of his magic grew, so had his worries over the safeties of his peers and those under his command. He now had new ways of protecting them, so his guilt would only grow larger if any of them fell before he did.

Rex charged up the stairs, automatically tuning out the fire alarm, and found one of the apartment doors were already open and had smoke coming from it. Convenient. Rex beelined for the apartment.

"Fire department! Clear the building!" he roared as he burst in.

”In here… 3 down… 2 restrained… 1 needs medivac.” Charles “Lumberjack” Montgomery coughed from the doorway to the side room as he strained against his own clothing to move. The man was massive but his mass of muscle did him no good.

Jonas “Whirlwind” Gerhart had been able to slide himself over to Ranger and could see that following the rippling his body had been going through, he was now breathing steadily. From there, he had tried to raise himself to his feet but the smoke prompted him to lower himself back to his knees.

”No… Have t’ search… What’s here.” Ranger said, finally coming to after whatever Sam had done to him. He rolled over onto his hands and knees his body feeling all wrong. His body contorting for a moment as it undergoes a large shift and back.

Rex took in the room. One man was on the floor, surrounded by scorch marks, and various items in the room were on fire, including what looked like a solid metal chair. It didn't immediately look natural, and judging my the SWAT-esque outfits the men were wearing, it probably hadn't been.

Rex wasn't there to do forensics though. He was there to get people safe.

"Archer! Thompson!" Rex shouted to the two firefighters who had followed him up the stairs. Rex pointed at the two men who did in fact seem restrained. "Cut them loose or get them to the stairs." Rex turned back to the first man who'd spoken. "Can you walk?"

The two firefighters sprang into action, whipping out their spring-assisted knives and beginning to saw away at the weirdly tied clothing. Rex then moved in toward the man who was struggling to get up. "Sir, I need you to stop moving for a few moments." Then Rex broke protocol.

He didn't know why the man's body was contorting, warping, spasming in such horrific way, but as revolting as it was, Rex had a solution. “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word," Rex began muttering under his breath, as quickly as possible without messing up the verse as he laid his bare hand on the man's back. "By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.”

His hand began glowing red, something not easily noticed in the changing light of the fire-filling room, but healing energies and a gentle warmth began coursing into the contorting man in an effort to stop whatever was happening.

The fireman called for other firemen to cut Lumberjack and Whirlwind free. As the firefighters moved to follow the command, the first one asked Lumberjack if he could walk.

”Yeah. It’s just my shirt. Damn guy somehow made it restrain my arms.” Lumberjack said as he let one of the other firefighters cut him loose of his shirt.

Ranger came through one of his warping convulsions and heard a firefighter talking to him. Telling him to stop moving. Ranger wasn’t sure why he would ask him to do such a thing as the room burned down around them. Ranger opened his mouth to protest when another wave of shifting went across Ranger’s body. It was like his mass was changing shape and quantity and the back again. Larger, smaller, and not just his muscles like it normally did.

Tensing his whole body and gritting his teeth, Ranger stayed still as the firefighter lay his hands on Ranger following him speaking some kind of prayer. In that moment Ranger felt some kind of power move through him. It seemed to stabilize Ranger’s physical warping. It slowed down and seemed to be anchored on his normal form and attempting to change to a smaller one before reversing. After a few oscillations it stopped and Ranger was himself. Only breathing heavily and covered in a layer of sweat that wasn’t wholly related to the fire.

”Desk… Need… Need t’ grab everything’... on the desk.” Ranger said as he panted and coughed. ”Nothin’... More important.”

The muscular shifts seemed to come to an end as Rex channeled more energy into the man. "Thank you, Father," he said barely perceptibly as he slid his glove back on. Once again fully protected from surroundings, Rex turned his attention to what needed done next.

The man was stabilized. Rex didn't know if there was anything else wrong with him. Now they needed to clear out. Archer and Thompson were already trying to assist the other men out of the apartment. As long as the men cooperated, that meant Rex would be alone with this guy within seconds.

Then the guy mentioned something, something Rex could just barely make out over the coughing. He turned. Papers and some metal tools and various other miscellaneous supplies littered it. "They can't be that important," he said before leaning down to try to help the man up. "We need to get you out of here immediately."

Lumberjack and Whirlwind went with the firefighters that had helped them. They couldn’t handle a fire like Ranger or someone wearing a full firefighter kit. Ranger on the other hand, dug in his heels.

”Might be… Only way… … Only way t’... save a… child.” Ranger let the firefighter help him to his feet then pushed away and shambled to the desk. Ranger swept an arm across the desk and pulled as much toward him as he could, pinning a collection of tools, paper, and bits of metal to his torso. A few pieces fell to the floor, but Ranger was most focused on the most flammable of objects. The paper.

”I… got the… the notes… You… Anythin’ else.” Ranger gestured with his head at the stuff that had been knocked off the desk or fallen from its place wedged against his load bearing vest. The coughing was getting worse. Heat and flame Ranger knew he could handle. Smoke and CO2, not so much.

Ranger took an uneasy step toward the door and stumbled. His body was no long warping but it was weak and ragged. 

The man was stubborn, that was certain. Rex could respect that. At least, under any other circumstance. Right now it was starting to interfere with his job.

Then again, there was apparently a child involved. Rex didn't know who the man was, why he was dressed in tactical gear, or why the room was on fire. None of that mattered at the moment. It didn't matter if the clutter was the man's or not. If it got him out quicker, so be it.

"O Father, be a shield unto us against these wayward flames.." he began praying quietly as he bent over to start stuffing the things that had fallen to the floor into the oversized pockets on his jacket. He focused his attention and his continuing litany of words on the flames nearest them and watched them start shrinking one by one as his prayer began work to quench the flames

He kept the prayer going, switching to different bursts of flame to burn them out, impeding the spread of flames within the room, but he could already tell the fire had spread to adjacent rooms. This was a stopgap measure.

"Okay, buddy, we're getting you out of here now," Rex said, allowing the fire-quenching prayer to end. He swiftly stepped up to the shorter man and grabbed at an arm in order to put it around his shoulders so he could support the man's weight and lead him out of the room. "We got the papers, we just got to get you safe too."

The firefighter had listened and grabbed odds and ends that Ranger had missed. It seemed like while they were grabbing the things Sam had left behind that the flames were being held back. It was enough to be curious but not enough to think too much of it. Besides, everything had gone weird since Ranger had entered that God forsaken room.

The firefighter grabbed Ranger’s arm and told him that he was getting Ranger out right then. Ranger let the man help him. His arms seemed to perfectly shift to have one go around the firefighter’s shoulder and the other keep all the papers held securely in place.

”Vamos.” Ranger coughed out and let the firefighter lead the way out.

Once they were out of the building, Ranger tried to take a deep breath and set himself to more coughing. His lungs were full of smoke and it would take a while for them to clear. Thankfully there were oxygen masks for that.

”I need the… The stuff y’ grabbed… Have t’ know… know what he did.” Ranger coughed. The statement was half about Iris and half about himself.

"We'll take care of that later, pal, right now we need to make sure you're going to be okay," Rex said as they exited the building. Smoke was billowing out of the apartment windows and the fire seemed to be a full blaze in that apartment. Another firefighter stepped up to Rex and announced there were no other occupants.

"All clear!" Rex shouted as he led the guy over to an ambulance that had just parked.

A torrent of water burst from a firehouse and into the air, where it blew through the windows of the apartment and began flooding the space within.

"Extensive smoke inhalation, possible burns," Rex said, skipping any preambles as he transferred the man to the EMTs. "Maybe concussed - seems to have a single-minded obsessions with minor minutia. Was possibly in a fight. Looked like an explosion. I'll check back later."

Then Rex turned back to assist in coordinating the efforts of his men.

The firefighter dismissed Ranger’s urgent demands and Ranger was in no condition to insist. He dimply grunted in resigned acceptance. The firefighter transferred Ranger to an EMT and gave them a run down on Ranger’s condition. The EMT tried to take the papers away from Ranger but gave up when Ranger threatened the man.

---

Ranger used the time that he sat with the EMT breathing from an oxygen tank as the fire was put out to study the papers. It was all Greek, and Farsi, and other languages Ranger could just make out the odd character from. Lots of symbols, sigils, words, and other markings indicative of different cultures. Especially those that Ranger would have associated with more mystical parts of cultures.

The notes being related to magic was exactly what Ranger expected. What he wasn’t finding was a good way to interpret what he was looking at. Sure, there were note in ENglish scrawled along parts of it and mentions to mutations but it wasn’t enough to know exactly what was going on.

Pulling out his phone from a pocket in his vest Ranger was glad it handled the heat and his whatever Sam had caused his body to do. He started taking pictures of the pages and sending them in to BlacTac Actual, or BlacTactual as Ranger had taken to calling it.

“Sir, you really need to relax. This can wait until we get you to a hospital and get you checked out.” The EMT stood over Ranger and harped on.

Ranger spoke without looking away from his phone and the pages, ”I can go t’ the hospital when the work is done. Find me that fireman, the one who pulled me out. Sooner he’s helped me sooner I’ll be cooperative.”

Rex emerged from the building once again. "All clear," he announced. Now it was time for his team to go in and start surveying the damage and begin the process of finding out what happened.

The fire had been contained fairly well, almost textbook-like. Looking from the outside, Rex was estimating only half a dozen or so apartments around the initial one were affected by the flames. No loss of life reported and the only injuries reported were from those souped-up security guys.

Then an EMT approached Rex and began relaying his directive. "Speak of the Devil..." Rex muttered.

It was several minutes later, after delegating a few more tasks, that Rex made his way over to the man with the obsession over papers. Rex barely glanced at the photo-taking. "I hear you're giving the EMTs a tough time and ordering them around like you own the place. Who are you and what's your problem?" Rex barked.

Having sent a picture of all the papers, Ranger started taking pictures of the few pieces of equipment he had managed to keep hold of. A brass key with some engravings, some tool used in etching, and a fixed blade knife. Ranger was giving special attention to the engravings. Some of what he saw matched the papers.

It was while Ranger was trying to get his phone to focus on a sigil engraved into the key that a firefighter approached. Ranger recognized from the voice it was the one who helped him earlier. The firefighter’s tone conveyed he was over Ranger’s crap.

”Michael Hunter.” Ranger said as he clicked off his phone and looked up at the firefighter while producing a badge and ID from a pocket on his vest, ”I’m with SUPER.” It was easier to explain this action as part of work with the government than as a solo operation of a private military corporation. ”The guy we were after, he did somethin’ t’ a kid. These papers, the stuff I had y’ grab, it could be the best chance t’ help the kid since the perp got away.”

Ranger put his badge back in its pocket on his vest muttering to himself. ”Damn magic.”

Rex stared stone-faced at Hunter. "Right," he said with little inflection. He reached out to investigate the ID and badge. He had no idea what SUPER was supposed to be. "Adkins! Over here!" he shouted at a passing fireman. The young man jogged over.

"What's up, boss?" he said.

Rex nodded at Michael Hunter. "Run this guy's ID and badge number by dispatch, okay? I want to verify who he is," he said. Adkins quickly went off to do just that.

Rex crossed his arms and stared down at the shorter man. "That doesn't give you the right to threaten EMTs," Rex said. "There was a fire here and I'm the ranking officer. This is my domain. If you have an issue with something, or you want to do something, you can address it to me and I'll decide whether or not to grant your request."

The last thing Hunter said made Rex's eyes narrow and his posture stiffened even more, if possible. Magic? "What exactly happened to a kid?" Rex said slowly and in a lower voice.

The firefighter called over another member of FDNY to check in on Ranger’s identification. That wasn’t a huge deal. Probably for the best to confirm someone who was at the scene of a battle that caused an apartment fire was in fact a federal agent and not just some craft arsonist.

While Ranger was fine with the ID checking, he was getting tired of the firefighter’s attitude. Ranger was doing what he needed to to help Iris as quickly as he could. The EMT was a roadblock to completing the mission objective.

Ranger sighed. Getting into an interdepartmental pissing match won't solve anything. In fact all it seemed to do was get him a lecture from a firefighter. And it not being an official SUPER case meant Ranger couldn’t actually pull rank as a fed. ”Y’r right. I overstepped… Uh. Can I get y’r name so I know where t’ direct any future issues?”

The firefighter asked what happened to a kid. ”The guy we were after here…” Ranger considered how much to say, ”He targeted a toddler, one with an impressive mutant ability. He was able to remove ‘r lock up the kid’s power. The fear is he’s goin’ t’ start targettin’ more kids. Doin’ whatever he did t’ the little girl t’ more. Like some kind of mutant genocide.” Ranger shook the papers he had recovered, ”This stuff might be the only way t’ track him ‘r maybe undo what he did.”

Rex stood even straighter, if possible. "I'm Lieutenant Rex Vidales," he said crisply and with an accent that he rarely brought out in English except when choosing to emphasize something. He wasn't concerned about blowback on any of this and even if there was, he'd face it head on. The Lord only knew he'd faced down more thana potential governmental agency spat.

He considered the man's explanation and imperceptibly arched an eyebrow a millimeter. Someone could take away mutations? Now that was interesting indeed. No wonder the government (if that's who this person truly was with) wanted to track him down. That would surely have all manner of uses for law enforcement. The genocide part was alarming.

"The kid in danger? Hurt?" Rex asked, his eyes furrowing in a deeper frown. He continued to keep his arms crossed, but now he was glad he'd helped the guy pick up whatever had been on the table. Rex was no fan of mutants, for it was far too easy for them to do unparalleled harm and destruction to entire communities, but kids were still kids. Even if it was troublesome that they were getting powers so young. But to kill them?