Dangerous Load: The Call

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Sleeping in, Angel gets a call that not only forces her out of bed but to put on pants.



It was pretty unusual to see Angel skipping out on her morning swims but with finals on the horizon, she'd been staying up later and later to make sure she was prepared. She'd woken up briefly when Yvette had paused to make sure she wasn't dead before heading to breakfast - something else she almost never skipped - before rolling back over and falling right back asleep.

Now under the cave of covers she'd created, she groaned as her alarm clock suddenly blared to life. It was only in the middle of taking it and slamming it down repeatedly on the night stand that she realized it wasn't the clock but her cell phone. She dropped the clock, picked up the phone and dragged it under the blankets with her.

"lo?" she muttered.

"Miss Jones? Angelica Jones?" The voice on the other end was a man's unfamiliar and almost brusque. "My name's Jeremy Kidd, I'm a captain with the Salem Center fire brigade. I got your number from Paul Camp."

That got her attention. It didn't mean the sleep was easier to shake off but now she was not going to hang up on them. "Captain Kidd?" she responded, sitting up, rubbing at her eyes as she tried to focus. "Sir, is everything - is Paul all right? Is the station?" Getting a call from another brigade was startling and she had to wonder if her guys were okay.

"Paul's fine. Actually, he suggested I call you. We've got a bit of a situation outside of Salem Center and to be honest..." There was a pause, as if Kidd couldn't believe he was about to ask a teenage girl for help. "We could use a hand. Paul tells me you're trained in rescue? You and the other kids at that school of yours?"

"Yes, sir," Angel responded as she rolled out of bed and started to look for her pants. "I've been an intern at the station for over a year and there's a bunch of us that work with RedX here in the school." She paused in the process of pulling out clean clothes as a thought occurred to her. She'd been told that some of the local law enforcement didn't like mutants and she didn't know if that translated over to the firefighters attitudes. "Sir, did Paul fill you in on everything? Like what I do?"

There was a brief chuckle down the phone. "You mean, did he tell me you were a mutant? Heck, that's exactly why we need you and your pals. We've got two trains derailed and a chemical hazard - we don't have the manpower to clear the area and clean up the mess. The local cops didn't want to get you Xavier's kids involved, but Paul's been talking you up enough around the stations that I figured it couldn't hurt." He paused, and then added. "Ah, the cops might give you a hard time. They really don't like you kids. That's not a problem, is it?"

"It won't be," Angel promised him. "At least not on our side it won't be. And there won't be much they can do, really, if we were officially invited." With a yank, Angel pulled open the top drawer; nestled among the socks and undershirts gleamed a badge. It clearly said intern on it, as they'd gone out of their way to make her something official looking but it might do the trick. "I'll just let everyone know ahead of time that we might run into some grumpy officers, you know?"

"Might be a good idea. You Xavier's kids still involved with that Red X thing? A bunch of them helped us out at a stable fire a few years ago and the help could be useful again, 'specially if you've got anyone who can breathe propane. We've got train crew we're having trouble getting to." There was another pause and the sound of Kidd talking to someone else. "We'll be expecting you asap."

"I'll see who I can round up in about 10 minutes, Captain," she responded. "We'll be there as fast as we can." When she hung up, she tossed the phone on the bed and groaned, scrubbing at her face. "Pants first, crisis immediately afterward."