Flashfire

Part 3

Written by Zelda

 

                The heat was making her dizzy. The smoke was clogging her lungs. Mallory was well versed in the way humans lived by now, after all of this time on Earth, and she was familiar with the concept of Heaven and Hell. This, was Hell. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe, and the sound of crackling wood and incinerated leaves blocked out all else, even her own yells for help. The heat was unbearable. In her distraction, she reached up and touched her hair, to find the ends of it singed and curling. Gagging for breath, she pulled herself under a half-fallen tree, which was still burning. Her shoe soles were beginning to melt on the charred ground! Her skin felt so dry, that it might begin to flake off. Trying to keep her wits about her in the dizzying mess, she had her rebreather in hand, hoping that she could keep enough oxygen in to not have to use it. But when fainting became an obvious possibility, and her vision fuzzed, there was no other choice. Mallory strapped the small, beak-shaped mask over her face, and took in a rushed gasp of much cleaner oxygen. It was still enough to cook her lungs, but at least it made the stars go away. Now, the biggest issues she had was not getting burned, and keeping the panic welling up in her stomach from invading her mind. If she lost her bearings, she was as good as dead. Still fighting to overcome the heat, Mallory called out, through the mask, and continued to trample through the ash and charcoal. Now that time was really against her, she had to find some way out of this mess. But everywhere she turned was shrouded in smoke and had flames leaping in her path. Suddenly, through the loud crackling of wood, there was a zooming noise overhead. All of those years in the Special Forces kicked in, and Mallory knew that it was the sound of a helicopter. Were they looking for her? There was a hissing roar of noise to her right, and a sudden rush of steam that nearly scalded her. They must have dumped a load of water on the fire! She leapt and waved, calling out despite knowing that a helicopter crew would never hear her. And they probably couldn’t see her through all of the smoke, either. Her heart sank as the buzzing noise receded, until she figured out that they were probably heading back to the road! Forgetting the obstacles in her path, she charged after the fading noise, leaping clean over burning logs, vaulting over large rocks that were hot enough to burn the palms of her hands. She only had about ten minutes of air left, and she was praying that nothing else got in her way.

 

                “What, hesitating now?” Tanya asked, as the team stared into the inferno before them, standing on the shoulder of the highway.

                Wildwing shot her a glare, but quickly softened his look and sighed. “You’re right…” he said. “I don’t want to send you guys into this…”

                Grin frowned up at the fire. “There’s no turning back now.”

                “Yeah.” Nosedive sneezed from the smoke. “At least the firefighters gave us some extra extinguishers. Now that we’ve each got one, at least we can protect ourselves.”

                “I don’t think that’s gonna cut it, kid.” Duke shook his head.

                “Alright.” Wildwing closed his eyes, coming to a conclusion. “We’re all coming out of this, and by all I mean the two we have in there as well. Remember the tips that the fire crew gave us: we stay in one sweeping line, keep eye contact at all times. If we lose one link, everyone stops, got it?”

                “Yup.” Tanya nodded.

                “Then let’s go. Be careful.” Wildwing took the first step, flanked by the rest of his team, into the collapsing forest in front of them.

 

                Zelda was choking on the smoke that surrounded her completely, blotting out her vision and making her eyes tear. Flying in close above the trees was the only chance she had of spotting Mallory, but the fire had grown so intense that flames were leaping high above the top of the canopy, and smoke was being belched into the air as if she were above a volcano. Through the burning, she could hear the buzzing of helicopters and planes, and was internally terrified that she might fly into one. Once, perched on a light pole near an airport, she had witnessed a bird get sucked into the engine of a plane as it was taking off. Unless she wanted to be dragon slaw, that certainly wasn’t a good way to go. Moreover, the buzzing planes would cancel out any chance she had of hearing Mallory! As Zelda flew and called out over the smoke, she began to realize that the best chances she had were on the ground. It would be much more dangerous, and she’d cover a much smaller space, but she’d definitely miss her teammate if she continued searching like this. So Zelda shut her eyes, held her breath, and went into a barrel roll straight down towards the ground, only opening her eyes again once she had felt the charred branches of the canopy scrape against her sides. Settling for flight just beneath the trees, Zelda found the smoke was a little less intense. But not the heat. Zelda was forced to gasp out in shock, swearing that she could literally feel her scales dry, crack, and start to melt in a matter of seconds. Forcing her eyes to stay open in the midst of the tearjerking blaze, she narrowly was able to dodge a huge tree trunk as it collapsed, the roots flaring up as they were pried from the earth. Now, she had no choice but to ground herself fully. It was that, or get clobbered in the head with falling branches! She landed hard, digging her feet into the smoldering ashes and shoving off in a dash. Trying to overpower the buzzing of the vehicles above her, Zelda threw her head up and let out a high-pitched cry that she normally saved as an alarm call. Now, she hoped that it would beacon to signal her lost teammate back to safety.

 

                It came out of nowhere, that’s all she could remember. It was the only thing that registered in her head as she turned, at the loud noise at her back. The noise was the splintering of wood, and Mallory saw its cause in the form of a huge tree trunk, enveloped in flame and forming a shadow over her as it toppled down. Eyes widening in panic, Mallory did the first thing that came to mind, and jumped for it. If she could clear it, she’d only have a shower of orange coals to deal with. So she sprung out as far as she could, the palms of her hands shoving into ash as she landed on her stomach. Before she could push to her feet and continue to scramble, there was a thundering noise, and a blinding, crushing pain that raced up from her feet to her skull. Mallory let out a sharp scream, feeling her feathers burn at the expected ash hail. She hadn’t been able to jump far enough. The log had fallen onto her legs, wedging them to the earth, just beneath the knees. Scrabbling for a handhold in the soft ash, she desperately tried to pull herself free, only to find that moving sent another electric race of agony through her. One of her legs, or one of her feet, had to be broken. At this point it hurt so much that she couldn’t tell which. Trying to get herself back under control, she forced her pained sobs back into seething hisses, and pressed her rebreather tighter to her beak. How much time did she have left with this thing? What would happen if she ran out of air, and was trapped here? And the fire, the fire was raging all around her. The log that pinned her legs was still burning, the heat crawling across her flesh. What would happen if she caught on fire? Fear was starting to cook itself into her skin, and Mallory struggled desperately to escape the crushing hold of the tree. The pain brought tears to her eyes, moreso than the choking smoke around her. Taking a deep breath and pulling the rebreather from her face, Mallory resorted to calling for help.

                “HELP! Anyone!” she screamed, going for volume. “Over here, please!” She paused to take another long gasp of oxygen, and wait for a reply. Unfortunately, the only response was the flapping flames, still eating at the forest around her. Mallory was about to call again, but paused when she though she heard something. Was it another chopper? It almost sounded like a high-pitched air horn. But it definitely wasn’t caused by the fire, and that gave her some real hope. She twisted her body and called out again, in the direction that she though the noise had come from.

 

                “Anything?!” Duke found himself yelling, just to hear himself. The noise of the fire was incredible. Popping, crackling and splintering came from all sides. The heat was making him dizzy. He was thankful to have Grin walking off to his left. And even though he couldn’t see him, he knew that Wildwing was a few steps leftward of Grin. Duke turned his head right again, sweeping the ground over his side of the flank formation, looking for something, anything that might raise suspicion.

                “Nothing!” Wildwing called back, a few seconds after he’d heard Duke. “Keep looking! They’re in here!”

                They were in here somewhere, both of them. Duke hoped that Zelda and Mallory hadn’t been turned into the ashes that he was wading ankle-deep through. He could hear Grin coughing next to him, and a quick glance to the big duck revealed him leaning over on his knees. That was a red flag right there.

                “Hold the line!” He yelled out, hoping that Wildwing would hear him. He was relieved to hear his leader echo his yell to the rest of the team to his left, and so Duke stopped in his tracks. “Grin!” he called over. “You okay?”

                Grin gave him a quick glance over, coughing loudly, but nodding. Rummaging through his baggy pants, he produced his rebreather, and pressed it to his bill. “Keep moving!” he called out, and the line started advancing again.

                Duke looked nervously around him as he kept walking. If Grin was starting to succumb to the smoke, the rest of the team must be having a hard time too. Maybe all of those years hanging around in smoky underground poker halls back on Puckworld had actually benefited him for once. But even his eyes were beginning to reflexively tear from the acrid haze. And he didn’t have a rebreather. Neither did Nosedive, he remembered. He hoped that the kid was holding up at the other end of the line. Almost to reassure himself, he patted the small fire extinguisher that he was carrying. This was really the only thing that stood between him and the blaze. He also took a quick glance behind him, and noticed that they could no longer see the road. Now, they were truly on their own. Hopefully they wouldn’t need rescuing, too.

                On the other end of the line, Tanya had her arm up over her beak, hoping that the fabric of her sleeve would help to screen out the smoke, and let her get some oxygen. She had a pounding headache, and her vision was blurring from tears that were also evaporating and fogging up her glasses. There was noise overhead, and she knew that fire choppers and tanker planes were busy making passes. She wouldn’t have minded if they dumped a whole load of water on them, even if that meant getting burned by all of the resulting steam. It would be better than being slowly barbequed alive in this fire. “Wildwing!” she coughed out. “Is the Mask picking up anything?” Over Nosedive’s ragged coughing, his reply was hard to hear.

                “Too much heat, no good!” he barked back.

                Tanya sighed, and kept trudging.

                “Hey---“ Nosedive coughed. “You guys---hear that?”

                “Hear what?” Tanya asked. “You need some oxygen kid?”

                “High noise---!” Nosedive ignored her. “Off left!”

                “Hold the line!” Wildwing commanded, also hearing Nosedive. “That could be Zelda!” He coughed a little, and then pulled out his rebreather, gasping into it for a few moments before he could speak again. “The line shifts left ten degrees!”

                “Roger that!” Duke called in. “Ten degrees starting now!”

                Tanya shifted in angle as ordered, and started walking again. She glanced over at Nosedive to see him staring intently at the inferno before him. Had he really picked up something in all of this mess? By DuCaine, she hoped so.

 

                She heard it, she felt it. It had to be Mallory, it just had to! Few other thoughts registered in Zelda’s mind as the dragon tore across the forest floor, her feet trampling the lines of glowing coals. The forest was collapsing around her, ash and charcoal pelting her sides as she had to vault over logs and duck beneath burning trees as they fell. All that she knew was that Mallory was here, somewhere very nearby. She had felt it. Something was terribly wrong. And then, much more than just a feeling, the dragon froze in her tracks as Mallory’s voice struck her ear. She was calling out for help. Zelda replied with a loud roar, hot breath splitting the smoke that was surrounding her. She nearly ran straight into a tree as she started off again, barely able to see through the heat and smoke. Something was burning very closeby. She tripped and somersaulted into a ditch filled with ash, and suddenly there she was! Mallory was next to her, flailing, tugging, desperate. Zelda rolled up quickly, choking for air.

                “Zelda?!” Mallory wheezed.

                For a moment, the dragon could only manage loud snorts for reassurance. “Mallory—what happened?”

                “Tree on my legs---“ she gasped. “Broke something--- out of air…”

                Through the haze, Zelda made out what looked to be a rebreather in one of Mallory’s hands. It must have run out of time and stopped working! Zelda could also make out the tree trunk, almost four feet thick in diameter, and still burning fiercely. The dragon went to grab Mallory’s hand and start to pull, when the duck let out a loud note of protest, and pushed away. Confused for a moment, Zelda sneezed loudly and then charged up to the trunk, starting to dig through the soft ash, and then the baked soil. She’d have to dig Mallory out, if she couldn’t be pulled. The duck started to help too, inching back and somehow trying to scrape at the earth along her sides. But as Zelda wedged herself in deeper along the trunk, more of her thoughts came back to her, and she started to realize that this was hopeless. The heat and the smoke were both too much. It was obvious that Mallory was having trouble breathing. Zelda herself wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Faintness was tugging at her body, weakening her muscles and making her dizzy. Her body was overheating too quickly, and unlike the ducks, her smaller body would make her quite vulnerable to heat exhaustion. A vulnerability that was already starting to take its toll. Growing desperate herself, Zelda pulled herself out from underneath the log, gasping for air.

                Mallory looked back in panic and confusion, watching as Zelda tottered backwards, stumbling as she tried to keep her balance. She could only watch, coughing in a desperate fight for air, as the dragon pitched her head back and let out another very high cry. Buckling down to her elbows and knees, Zelda wheezed. “Come on girl---“ Mallory gasped. “---Stay with me—“

 

                “There!—“ Nosedive choked. “Again!” He pointed wildly off to his left, before having to brace himself on his knees. Within seconds, his brother was at his side, offering him a breath from his air mask.

                “What?” Grin asked, just as lacking for oxygen.

                “The noise!” Nosedive kept pointing.

                Suddenly, Duke was stepping out ahead of the line, pointing with the ready nozzle of his fire extinguisher. “I see something!!”

                The line all readied their extinguishers, putting out burning logs that blocked their way with a few quick blasts of carbon dioxide foam. Over the hissing of his own extinguisher, Wildwing could definitely hear someone coughing, and he saw through the smoke just a second later. “Mallory!” he called.

                “Wildwing?!---“ she wheezed, struggling. “Here!”

                The team circled in close, and soon stumbled over a large fallen tree trunk to find her pinned beneath it. Zelda was by her side, looking like she was struggling to hold onto consciousness. Her eyes were glazed over, and she was panting heavily.

                “What’s wrong?” Duke coughed, being the first to reach her and kneel down in the ash.

                Mallory shook her head, trying to find the air to speak. “Legs--- something broken---“

                “Here…” he took his rebreather away from his face and pressed it to hers. he was confused when Mallory continued to cough, and pushed it away.

                “Time up!” she replied.

                Duke frowned deeply. The time must have run out on their rebreathers, which meant that everyone was trapped in here, without any source of good oxygen! They’d have to free Mallory’s legs and book, fast. He looked behind him to see Nosedive bracing his hands against the log, and Grin leaning against another charred trunk for support.

                “What’s wrong--- with Zelda?” Wildwing coughed.

                Tanya was kneeling by her, pulling the dragon into her lap. “Could be heat stroke--- gotta get them both out!”

                “Grin---“ Wildwing called to the big duck. “Help me move the log--- Dive and Duke, cover us with--- your extinguishers!”

                The team snapped into action, yelling over the hiss of the fire extinguishers as they tried to keep the fire back from the immediate area. Tanya pulled Zelda over her shoulder as she stood, and tried to help Grin and Wildwing as they started to roll the tree trunk off of Mallory’s legs. But it wasn’t easy going. The log slid instead, in the soft ash, and the moving weight on the already shattered bones caused Mallory to squirm in pain.

                “Heads up!” Nosedive yelled, and the team scattered as another tree trunk toppled over, narrowly missing Wildwing.

                “Can’t---- hold the fire back---“ Duke wheezed, finding himself growing increasingly faint, almost losing his balance with the weight of the fire extinguisher in his hands. The fire was closing in all around them again, sending more debris raining down on them. He and Nosedive had backed up against the log that Mallory was under, and after that there was nowhere to run. He glanced around desperately, and realized that they were out of options. Mallory wasn’t free yet, and they were all on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, he was startled by a rush of cold that shot past him, in the form of a thick jet of water. Steam roared up around them, and the team was forced to crouch to the ground, cringing in the rush of heat. When Duke looked up, he saw a very familiar set of black and neon yellow stripes in the inferno before him.

                “Hey!” a firefighter called out, voice muffled by his gas mask. “Let’s get you out of here!”

                Water erupted all around the team as a loud buzzing noise zoomed overhead, and a plane dropped its tank load nearby. The fire hissed, as if it were seething, and started to recede under an envelope of steam. Grunting, Wildwing and Grin finally managed to roll the log far enough, and it started off down the hillside with a thundering noise, leaving Mallory free. It was a firefighter that helped her up to her feet, being careful not to let her brace herself on her legs. As if she were suddenly revived, Zelda started to struggle and kick on Tanya’s shoulder. In a whirlwind of activity, the disoriented team was shuffled back through a long line of firefighters, pulled farther and farther out until they were no longer being enveloped by flame and suffocated with smoke. They were all eventually pulled through the treeline of the forest, and out onto the highway. The sun was shining down on them, and the wail of emergency vehicles blotted out any voices.

 

                Somehow, she didn’t seem to come back fully at first. It had been quite a few minutes since they had stumbled back onto the road. It was all a dizzy blur to her, a blur that refocused when she was sitting down in a passenger seat of the Migrator, water being poured over her head and something twisting her leg enough to make her cry out in pain.

                “It’s okay…” She heard Grin mutter softly, his voice dry and worn with the smoke. “Just the ankle---“ he broke off into coughing. “Drink this…”

                There was something cool in her burned hands, and she brought it up to her beak to find it to be a bottle of water.

                Next to her, Grin shoved himself up into a chair, and started drinking as well, his head hanging down as he leaned over, with his elbows braced along his legs.

                Mallory blinked, feeling her eyes still burn with the heat from the fire, and looked around. Wildwing was standing just outside the ramp hatch, leaning heavily on the side of the Migrator. She caught a few words, understanding that he was thanking a firefighter that stood with him, and telling him that they would be alright from here on out. Nearby, Duke was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, slumped over into his lap, just trying to regain his breath. Nosedive was inside the Migrator, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. His eyes were closed, and he too was breathing heavily. Tanya was stooped over by a cot along the opposite wall, telling Zelda to lie still, and keep drinking water. She was also pouring water over her body, a little surprised and confused as the dragon’s charred scales were flaking off in her hands. Mallory tried to sit up and look alert as Wildwing walked up the ramp and into the vehicle, flopping down in the driver’s seat and looking the team over.

                “Everyone--- sure they’re not cooked through?” he managed.

                “She’ll be okay…” Tanya started, referring to Zelda. “Smoke inhalation, heat exhaustion… nothing too serious—“

                The dragon raised her head and rumbled, an attempt to speak for herself.

                “Mallory?” Wildwing asked.

                “Grin says--- just my ankle---“ she coughed, not believing how smoked-out her voice sounded. “I’m okay too…”

                The rest of the team gave their own responses, nonverbal, but much to the same effect of Mallory’s. Duke tramped up the Migrator ramp, and sat against the wall next to Nosedive.

                “Good.” he nodded weakly. “Everyone rest, drink water--- We’re in no hurry.”

 

                And they weren’t, not in the least. The team ended up sitting there in the Migrator for several hours, just focusing on recovery. Most of them had fallen asleep during that time, waking up slightly more refreshed, and more aware of just what they had been through. They all found themselves with singed feathers and dry eyes. Their lungs were sore and burned from all of the heat. Their muscles were pulled and strained by all of the work they had done. And they were very, very thirsty. After seeing to it that Zelda was in no real danger of declining in health, Tanya had given Mallory a quick examination, determining that her right ankle was broken in two places, and that the rest of both legs had pretty serious bruising. She wouldn’t be back on her feet for several days, at least. Her case of smoke inhalation didn’t help, either. Zelda revived more quickly than any of them, and was soon back on her feet, scratching at her dry skin irritably. That left a pile of charred scales all around her, and one very strangely bald-looking dragon. Zelda insisted that the shedding was normal for damaged scales, and that new ones would grow back in just a matter of days. Other than that, the team was just plain exhausted, too exhausted to pay much attention as day slowly faded into night, and the only lights were the flashing alarm signals of the fire trucks, and the flames themselves, being pushed back into the distance and away from the road. But slowly, the team all came back to their senses, and recovered enough of their energy to decide they could make it back to Anaheim that night.

                “I really don’t believe it…” Duke muttered, his voice still not back to its normal sound.

                “What do you mean?” Nosedive asked, his voice equally gravelly.

                Duke had moved from the floor, and now perched wearily in the Migrator’s front passenger seat, with Nosedive seated behind him. “How this all played out. I mean, we’re supposed to  be the heroes, right? And we needed these guys to come in and save our butts. They’re out there still fighting that fire, right now, and we’re limping back to the Pond.”

                Nosedive chewed on the thought for a moment, realizing with a tired nod that he was right. “Yeah… guess it puts things in perspective… or something like that.”

                “We must not lose faith in ourselves, simply because of this.” Grin spoke up from a seat farther back. He sat with his fingers steepled in meditation, and it seemed that he was the only one who had yet regained his normal composure. “We fight different battles, simple as that.”

                “Yeah…” Duke rubbed the back of his neck. “But that’s not an excuse, you know.”

                “I think I know what Grin’s trying to say.” Zelda raised her head up from where she was laying on her cot. “We’re just not firefighters. We’re used to dodging laser blasts, that sort of thing. We were really ill-equipped to deal with this sort of situation, that’s all.”

                “So we specialize in a different area?” Nosedive nodded. “I guess I see your point, Grinster.”

                “Doesn’t cover up what happened out there.” Wildwing grumbled from the driver’s seat, frowning at the darkened skyline before him. “We could have died in that fire, and we owe those firefighters bigtime for saving us.”

                “They’ll definitely get an invite to watch our next game.” Tanya nodded, sounding tired. Now didn’t seem like the time for thinking about the hockey schedule.

                “We’ve been fighting crime, fighting Dragaunus for so long, we’ve gotten good at it.” he continued. “Today was a curveball, and we weren’t prepared at all. I should never have sent you guys into that fire. I… I really just didn’t know what we were up against.”

                “My fault, really.” Zelda sighed, putting her head back down. “I should have listened to you Duke, not flown back into that fire on my own. I’m the one who made the bad gambit.”

                “Hey, who’s the one who never came back out in the first place?” Mallory asked aloud. “All of that combat training, and I lost my head as soon as I lost sight of the road. I should have been able to prevent all of this.”

                “Look, this is useless.” Wildwing took a hand off of the wheel to wave it dismissively. “We should be thanking our lucky stars that we’re not giant servings of Peking duck right now. We’re almost back to the Pond, and everyone can finally get cleaned up.”

                Mallory couldn’t help but smile a little. “Goodness knows.” she said. “We’ll all sleep well tonight.”

 

 

The End

 

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