'Herald of Arson' (? Issues)

"All available units report to the First National Building on Woodward Avenue. A fire has engulfed a large portion of the building, cause of the fire is unknown, suspected case of arson." The voice of Officer Archie Roberts spoke through Aerohawk's earpiece, which was connected to the Police Station's Radio in the city of Detroit.

Aerohawk was sitting in the passenger seat of Turboshot's Ford SUV, one of her fastest vehicles. The two were out on a nightly patrol of the city when Archie's call for backup rang through our hero's earpiece.

"Amber, we've got a report of an arson on Woodward Avenue. We gotta get there fast." Aerohawk spoke as he lifted his mask from his lap and pulled it over his head. Turboshot twirled her hands and turned the steering wheel as the SUV sharply turned around, performing a U-Turn on the street they were on. Car horns blared as the two heroes sped off towards Woodward Avenue toward the fire.

Turboshot swiftly maneuvered the vehicle through traffic as the two sped down the street.

"Callin' me Amber during patrolling hours? Somethin' wrong, Kon-man?" Turboshot asked as she kept her eyes on the road, the smoke rising from their destination was seen out in the distance. Aerohawk shook his head as he continued listening to the police radio in his earpiece.

"Hey, I can call you whatever I want." Aerohawk joked as the reports progressively got worse and worse. "Speed this up, we gotta get there quick, people were in the building!"

"What'd you expect, that it'd be totally empty?" Turboshot questioned as she sharply turned a corner, the two were now on Woodward Avenue and the First National Building was at the end of the street. Aerohawk nodded as he unlocked the car door. The SUV slid to a halt a few yards away from barricades keeping civilians out of the way of the paramedics and fire fighters. "Go get 'em, Kon-man." Turboshot kept her hands on the wheel as she watched Aerohawk quickly open up the door and make his way through the group of civilians.

"Make way! Make way! Aerohawk comin' through!" Officer Archie Roberts shouted, causing the civilians to open a path for the vigilante. Jumping over the barricades, Aerohawk quickly jogged alongside Archie as the two made their way to the building.

"We have fire fighters inside trying to put out the fire, people are trapped in the flames and we don't have enough men to send up there." Archie urgently spoke as he tried to keep up with Aerohawk. Archie was one of the first few police officers to trust Aerohawk when the vigilante first made his appearance in Detroit, ever since then he has been working closely with Aerohawk and was giving him inside information that was only available to the members of the police force.

"Make sure not to send any of your men up there, I'll get the people out while the fire fighters put out the fire." Aerohawk spoke to the pudgy police officer. Archie nodded and grabbed the walkie-talkie on his uniform to inform the rest of the force to not interfere.

Bursting through the front doors of the building, the temperature massively increased Aerohawk as he entered through the flaming rubble. 'Good thing I have a mask, good hell.' Aerohawk thought to himself as he slowly moved through the entrance way and toward a nearby stairwell. Making his way up the stairwell and avoiding the flames, Aerohawk ascended to the 6th floor of the building where he encountered the first trapped civilian.

"Archie, do you have those trampoline things set up outside?" Aerohawk spoke through his earpiece hoping that the fire wasn't interrupting him.

"Yeah, we have the life nets set up on the ground floor, north side of the building." Archie responded as Aerohawk made his way over to a black woman wearing a business suit.

"Aerohawk! I thought I was gonna die in here!" The woman shouted as the vigilante helped her to her feet. "No worries ma'am, can you walk fine?" The woman nodded and Aerohawk led her through the burning debris, it was starting to crash through the ceiling. "Don't be scared, the fire department has a life net ready to catch you." Aerohawk told her as he helped her out of the window. She fell down to ground level and bounced on the life net as it caught her.

Down on ground level, Aerohawk watched as fire fighters scrambled out of the front doors with their fire hoses behind them.

Archie radioed up to Aerohawk with urgent news. "Get out of there, the building is coming down!"

Aerohawk panicked as he looked around, debris was really starting to fall. "There are still more survivors, I gotta get them out of here!" He started running through the flames, dodging the rubble as it fell.

"We saved as many as we could, get out of there before it's too late!" As much as he hated to admit it, Aerohawk knew that Archie was right, he had to get out of the building, quick. Making a dash towards the stair well, Aerohawk quickly descended until he ran into a firefighter still stuck in the building, he noticed that the firefighter was carrying at least 4 people and dragging a 5th one down the stairwell.

"Mind.. giving me.." The firefighter coughed with ash all over his uniform and face. "A hand, pal?" Without hesitation, Aerohawk picked up one of the civilians and slung another one over his back. He and the firefighter then quickly descended as the building started to collapse.

Exiting through the front doors of the building, Aerohawk and the firefighter managed to make it out just in time as the fiery building crashed in on itself, dust slowly settled and flames fell from the sky as firefighters sprayed down the exterior of the building, trying to contain the fire. Making sure every single one of the civilians made it to a paramedic, Aerohawk brushed the ash off of his white costume and looked around for the firefighter that helped carry survivors out of the building. He managed to find the ash covered hero laying on the ground next to a firetruck.

Aerohawk made his way through the police and paramedics until he was next to the firefighter, who looked up at him. The firefighter had his helmet off and most of the ash was cleaned off of his face and uniform, he had short and well trimmed brunette hair, it reminded Aerohawk of his father's old haircut.

"Nice ta.." The firefighter coughed again. "finally meet ya, Aerohawk." He smiled as he lifted a hand, Aerohawk extended his hand and shook the firefighter's hand.

"Glad to see you made it out alive, you helped save lives today, man." Aerohawk spoke as he sat down on the ground, crossing his legs next to the firefighter, who sat up from his laying position. "As long as they live to see another day, the name's Howard Dixon, my friends call me Howie."

"Nice to meet you Howard." Aerohawk replied.

"You can call me Howie, too." Howie retorted with a cough.

Aerohawk smiled underneath his mask as he watched the fire slowly dying under the pressure of the other firefighters. "I left my equipment in there, damn." Howie muttered, Aerohawk turned his head and looked at the firefighter. "I'll have to pay to get it replaced."

"That's how you managed to gather up all of those people, huh?" He asked, Howie nodded. "The equipment was weighing me down and I knew I had to get out as many people as I could. Eh, paying for new equipment isn't so bad, right?" He laughed, but the laugh turned into a cough.

"I dunno how much your equipment costs, but I really appreciate you helping me by getting everyone out, I gotta go talk with the police to figure out if this was an arson or just a regular fire." Aerohawk stood up and patted Howie on the shoulder. "Get that cough checked out." Giving Howie a thumbs up, Aerohawk disappeared through the crowd of police officers and paramedics as he made his way over to Officer Archie.

Howie nodded and watched the vigilante walk away, coughing one last time he got to his feet and put his helmet back over his head. The fire was now fully put out and the ambulances were loaded up with the survivors, they quickly left the area and sped off towards the nearest hospital.

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