The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of by Anon --------------------------------------------- WRITTEN FOR SGI WORKSHOP 1.10 DOWNLOADED FROM http://www.superwomenmania.com/storybank --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- Some notes about the story 1- Before I write this I try to get as many documents as possible about the Chicago Fire Dept, but I found very few material. I thank the owners of the www.emergency.com/firepage.htm of managing a very good site about the Fire Brigades 2- I know that there is no 25° battalion in the CFD, in the real world. (there are 24 battalions divided in 6 Discricts) 3- I apologize for the, probably, terrible spelling and for any possible error of syntaxis or grammatic, but the English isn't my mother language. --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- "Dedicated to all the heroes fallen on the line of duty since the foundation of first fire brigade." --------------------------------------------- It started with one phone call, as usual, but this time it looked like a serious thing, not the usual panic attack after a flaming canvas, this time looked very serious, but Jackie already knew this. Jacqueline 'Jackie' Flannagan was born at the begining of the 80's in the suburbs of Chicago, she was almost an archetipal tomboy, while the other girls of her age played with Barbies and pretends to be little princesses, she prefered to watch 'Dukes of Hazzard' or 'A-Team', or reading some fantasy book, and then she runed all the way around her parents' house pretending to make some crazy stunt drive manuvers or fighting some bad guy, she looks like she had an almost endless supply of energy. Almost all the other girls in the area thought that she was crazy, except Kelly Fisher, a little afro- american girl, daughter of the local Protestant minister. They separated when they were 10 and Kelly's father decided to move to a new parish. But when they were 18 they met at a pub at the 228 W. Illinois St. near the 'L', called 'McGinty's', and discovered two things, first that they are still friends despite the years, second that both of them shared the same doubt about the future. They were athletic girls but the dislike the competion, and both of them felt that they have to do something to repay their families and friends for the love and the help. Together they decided not to go to college, and together they decided to sign for the public service, Kelly became a police officer and Jackie a firewoman, strangely enough the 'McGinty's' was built in a former firehouse. Everyhing went fine, as much as possible for a woman doing such a dangerous, and not so well paid job, until two months ago when he made his move. His name was Jonathan Goroskij, a little nerd, with a quirk for young women doing heroic deeds. He was almost famous in the police and fire department of Chicago, every time there was an emergency he was there taking pictures of the female officiers, many people in both departments hates him, many women wanted to bring him before a court, but he was smart enough or coward enough, o maybe both, never to cross the line between simple interest and sexual harrasment. When the whole TF4000 thing started the temptation was too big for him, he joined the UGF Forum and ordered two devices. He used the first one on Jackie two months ago, she never knew that was him the responsible for her new powers. Jackie made all the possible efforts to hide her powers, she was afraid to hurt somebody, maybe her comrades, maybe her family, but she also worked hard to master them. In the end she decided to tell about them to Sean McLenard, her battalion chief. Sean was a tall and slim man near his fifthies, with a steel gray goat beard and blue eyes, and almost 30 years of service in the CFD, a veteran fireman decorated 6 times, a man with a deep understanding of life. While he was a little scared by Jackie new powers, he also understood how useful she can be for the Dept, together they made some research about the TF4000, tried to test the limits and the possibilities of Jackie's powers. That was a couple of weeks ago, just now Jackie was in her bed at 25th Battalion HQ pretending to rest, even if she doesn't need rest since the transformation, she was doing practice with her super- senses. She heard the phone ringing three floors below, she was able to hear both the officier responding and the terrified boy at the other side of the cable as they were in the same room only a few paces from her. She focuses to find out where the boy is calling from, she started to extend the range of her super hearing filtering at the same time the noises, in two seconds she had picken 63 phone calls in the area, then she filtered all the 46 call that involves women, then the 9 with men too old to be the boy, finally she listened to a couple of words of each of the remaining 8 until she picked out the right one, the entire process was only 10.1 seconds long, but she knew that she can do better, she still have to understand how to discern a voice not only the words. After picking the right spot she opened her eyes and focused toward it, squirting a little to active her X-Ray vision and the telescopical one. "SHIT!!" she thought as she surveyed an old, probably built during the 50's, 6 story building, neither the several buildings in between, nor the various means anything to her lovely green superhuman eyes. Through some of the windows of the lowest floors she could spot with perfect clarity the red and yellow light of the fire. She squirted a little more and the walls of the building disappered from her line of sight, with horror she spoted, in less than a thought, several tanks of propane used in the various kitchens, and several people in the upper floors apparently not aware of the growing inferno under their feet. With a calculation too quick to be described her super-brain evaluated that the fire was going spread at least at two more floors at the time the engines will arrive. She had to act immediatly, but at the moment she took her decision the alarm rang and she dressed like the rest of her comrades with the fireproof uniform. She had mixed feeling, she was glad not to show her power, but she was also afraid for the people in the building. It took 8 minutes and 21.3 seconds to the still alarm team (2 engines, 2 trucks and the battalion chief) to reach the site, for Jackie they were 8 minutes and 21.3 seconds of pure torture, she continued to look towards the building through the people and the buildings of Chicago, hoping that somebody will arrive to help, but there were no superheroes in Chicago. Only the presence of her comrades retained her from jumping down form the truck and speeding, faster than any vehicle, to the building. When they arrived Sean took the command immediatly, asking for informations and shouting orders to everyone in sight, even without the powers of Jackie the seasoned veteran understood the very perils of the situation. "Galindez, Monroe, Chang, O'Reilly and Flannagan. There are people trapped on the last floor, probably they can't reach the windows. Take the emergency kits and go inside, try to get as many as you can out." he ordered. The five nodded and reached the equipment inside one of the truck hatchs. They were almost ready when Jackie felt an hand on her shoulder, she turned and faced Sean. He whispered "If things go wrong do not try that superbreath thing, ok." She smiled "Don't worry chief, I won't." He refered to an exercise that Jackie tried several times with little success, to put out a fire cooling the air around with a concentrate puff of her breath. "Ok, are we ready?" asked Galindez, the team leader, with his typical drill seargent tone. "Yes sir." "Very well. Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?" he quoted from one of the classic Marine catch phrases, while the team speeded toward the doors that looked like the gates of hell themselves. Inside it really looked like the very hell, the fire's heat was so high that even with the fireproof uniforms the skin felt unbearbly hot, the blood near the boiling point, the smoke clouded the sight and filtrated through the breather masks piercing the eyes, and the air from the shoulder tanks tasted like a disgusting medicine, at least for the normal humans. For Jackie the whole situation was a source of wonder, her body reacted very different to each stimuli. The smoke didn't bother her anymore, her eyes could see through it even without thinking, and they appered to be as invulnerable as the rest of her. The breather was off, she have no need to breath for hours if she decides so. And the heat feeled comfortable as a tepid bath, even if she could calculate the deadly temperature of the fire through the heavy fireproof coat. The five moved through the building, when they reached the fourth floor the Law of Murphy stroke. A massive piece of flaming wood felt from the ceiling in the middle of the team, Monroe and Chang were trapped behind it, with one of Chang's leg right below. His scream was something that nobody will be able to articulate in normal circumstances. "Billy! Frank!" shouted O'Reilly "Hang on guys! We'll take you out of here." "Flannagan. The axe. Quickly." ordered Galindez. Jackie moved like in a dream, she knew that she was the only hope to save Chang, she knew that this is the moment to throw her concerns out of the window and act. She dropped the axe on the floor and marched toward the flaming mass of wood and concrete. "Bloody hell! What are you doing, girl? The axe!" shouted Galindez, while O'Reilly watched Jackie with an horrified gaze. "I don't need it." answered Jackie, while she calmly placed her hands inside the flaming mass, finding a point solid enough to had a good grip. The comrades watched in awe as she lifted the 2 tons mass apparently without any effort, completly ignoring the flames. "Watch out for the debris, guys." stated Jackie. A moment after she smashed the mass against her body, right on her breast. She felt the mass smacking against the supposed softest parts of her, for less than an heartbeat it appeared that the momentum of the mass was enough to dent them, but after it was smashed in a thousand pieces. Monroe covered his face with the left arm to deflect a small flaming shard and whispered "What the hell??" Jackie smiled at them "A long story." then she turned and quickly scanned Chang with her X-ray vision. She ripped two pieces of wood form the floor and made a improvised medication to Chang's leg, whispering "Don't worry Billy, we'll take you out." She raised, beaming a confidence that she never had before "Ok guys, take Billy out of here, I will go ahead." "Are you crazy Jackie? You can't go alone you're not Superg..." said Galindez, blushing visibly while the last part of the sentence died in his throat. "That's the point. I amn't Supergirl, but I am the closest thing to a superhero we have here, don't we?" Galindez swallowed hard, it was against all the rules to leave a member of the team alone inside a burning house, but he had just seen what Jackie can do. He recovered his usual cynical tone of voice "Ok Flannagan, we go, but we will be back before you can say 'Justice league', ok." The three firemen took the wounded comrade and went down the stairs. Jackie took a big breath and relaxed, it was amazing but in the heat of that inferno she feeled free for first time in months. She took a little time to inspect her uniform, the contact with the flame and the impact with the piece of ceiling had ruined her coat. "Well, I have no need of this." she thought as she dropped her helmet and the breather, then grabbed the side of her coat to remove it. But she underestimated her own strenght and she ripped the remains of her coat and her suit all at once, she discarded the remains of her uniform and remained here naked except for her sport bra and panties facing the fire. Like a living thing the fire growth, a long ball of flame engulfed Jackie for a moment destroying her remaining clothes. She felt the flames caressing all her body at once, it was a powerful sensation, causing her to gasp for the unexpected pleasure of the fire making contact with her most sensible parts. For a second she wandered how bathing in a lava pool will fell, but immediatly the ball of flame dissipated and Jackie regained her composture. Before her transformation she was around 6 feet, maybe with a little fat around her waistline, but very athletic with toned strong muscle, and a nice face, but absolutly far form the definition of gorgeus. Her lack of 'frontal development', she wears barely a 32AA, combined with a certain advesion toward the make-up and elegant dresses, made her appearing less sexy than the reality. But the TF4000 changed even this, during the night after being zapped she had felt her body hitching and twisting in ways that she didn't understand until the morning. She hadn't witnessed the process, but this didn't make the results less impressive, and less difficult to hide. Her figure had lost every possible ounce of fat transforming in a mindblowing hourglass, long perfectly shaped legs with wide hips (36), connected to a slim waistline (26) with a toned sixpack, and her breast was now about a 36D size, two perfectly formed spheres topped with perfectly proportioned nipples, that proudly challenge the gravity. Her green eye were no more of an uncertain light green, but looked like two pools of liquid emerald, her cheeks a little less pronunced, her lips a little fuller, her teeths a series of 32 white pearls. Her skin had lost every trace of past or future imperfections becoming like a smooth silky sheet wrapped closer than a vacuum bag around her superhard muscles. Her hair was still short, had shifted from the rust red to a fiery copper red, that reflected the light of the fire while she stayed in all her glorious nakedness, like an angel in the middle of the Hell. She watched the fire, it looked like a monster, a dragon form the fairy tales that her grandma read to Kelly and her when they where younger. A dragon like the ones who kidnapped helpless princesses and were slayed by knights with shining armors and swords. But this wasn't a fairy tale. "Sorry kid." she smiled wickedly "This time the princess isn't helpless," she place her hand on her hips and trusted her chest in the canonical 'power pose', "or powerless." Using her X-Ray vision Jackie surveyed each floor, and in a matter of few heartbeats she found the people, an old woman and three girls, the older must be 10, traped in a room on the last floor. She took up a large piece of her uniform reasonably intact and made an improvised fireproof sheet with it. Than she took up her breather and headed up along the stairs at superspeed. She could fell the pavent crushing seconds after her passage, leaving a trail of footsteps in the concrete, the walls became a blur of motion and the fire a continuing red wall. But in some strange way her brain registered everything, even things that she consciusly didn't notice, creating a perfect mental map of the building and letting her moving to such an high speed without creating excessive damage to the structures. Arriving before the door Jackie stopped herself in less than a second, the pavent under her feet was smoking for the acceleration, she took a second to imagine a more superheroic entrance, like kicking the door at superspeed then overrun the improptu missile and catching it in mid air. She smiled at the idea, and inspected the door, she found that the lock was closed. 'Strange...' she thought. Then she drove her index finger through the metal, that offered less resistance than the wet paper, ripped the lock from the door and compressed it in a small ultradense brass ball, then she stepped in the room. One of the girls, the smallest one was already knocked out, but th remaining three occupants of the room stared in bisbelive, when the naked girl entered through the, supposly closed, door almost ripping it. "What... Who are you?" asked the old woman, the first to recover, position herself between Jackie and the girls. Even in that Inferno she answered to hers protective instinct. Jackie looked at her, she liked the courage, and spoke, triing to put all her newfound confidence in her tone, "My name is Jackie, I am part of the fire dept." She showed the corp patch attached to the remains of her suit, "I'm here to get you out of here." The woman and the two girls watched her with open mouths, as she approached the unconscius one and placed the breather mask on her face. "Ok I will take her out first." "Absolutly no, I won't let you take her." answered the old woman, she looked brave, but Jackie hears could pick a sligtly sound of desperation in her voice. She acted this way to help the girls, but she is on the verge of an emotional collapse. "Fine. Take her." shouted Jackie, the woman obeyed and brace the girl. Jackie enveloped them with the remains of her uniform and took them in her arms, then before anyone could even say a word she speeded down along the stairs and out in the road. She was careful not to go too fast, she knew that the human body has a very limited tollerance to the acceleration, from a full stop 4 Gs before passing out, 13 Gs before dying. She stopped right in front of Galindez, causing a small gust of wind, he stared at her with his mount open. "The girl have a nasty intoxication get here the first aid equipment. I have to go back." she shouted while she placed the girl and the old woman on the tarmac near one of the trucks, before speeding back in the building in a blur of motion. Galindez needed 5 full seconds to regain from the event, when he did Jackie was already inside. Even a structure in perfect state have trouble to endure the stress caused by a superhuman's actions, and the building was far from perfection. When Jackie speeded up along the stair she heard a cracking sound behind. She turned, continuing to run and saw that each of her footsteps destroyed one or more steps. Silently she cursed herself, she knew that she couldn't took the girls and jump out of the window, she will barely register the impact, but they will probably be injured, and her control over her flight powers was almost nonexistent. When she reached the room, the two girls looked at her in awe and grabbed her legs looking for help and protection. Jackie swallowed hard, she considered herself a not important person, one of the thousands that lived in the town. Now these two girls acted like she was an angel, and the worst thing was that a part of her enjoyed the sensation. "You are going to save us, aren't you?" asked the younger of the two girls. Jackie looked at her and then to the other one. On both faces she spotted the confidence that the two placed in her, and felt unworthy of it. Jackie pulled lightly freeing herself from the two and knelt placing herself eyeleved with the girls. "Yes, but the stairs are destroyed, we have to go out in another way." she answered caresing hairs of the girls, feeling the smoke and the cinder between them. "How?" asked the older. Jackie smiled to hide her nervousism "We have to fly." She took up the two girls, one with each arm, and marched to one of the walls. "Brace yourselves." she whispered, a moment after she kicked the wall that crumble to dust under an impact equivalent to that of a fridge falling from the 21st floor, she ran for the nearest window and jumped into the sky. She raised like a comet for several meters and the she lost her momentum and started falling. Operating at superspeed Jackie's mind tried to concentrate on the flight with each atom of her willpower, each part of her consciusness, but she was still falling like a stone. Until she felt a burning sensation in her thighs, she felxed her muscles in a strange way, triing to wash away the distraction, and suddenly she hovered weightless about 10 meters form the ground. She laughed and the two girls laughed forming a strange chorus, under them several hundreds people watched mesmerised. Jackie landed with some difficulties near the main truck, she placed the two girls on the pavement and took three sheets, two for the girls, and one for her. She smiled at her comrades who stared at her. "The building is empty." she said in a practical tone of voice, some noded, others simply turned. "Jackie!!" a voice screamed from the police line around the area. She didn't even need to turn to know "Hi, Kelly." The black detective stared at her friend "Jackie, what the fuck is going on here? You... you... you FLYED!!" she looked hysterical. "Kelly, calm down. It's difficult to explain but..." Jackie stopped as she spotted a strange light halo around her friend, and a second after Kelly fall on her knees gasping for air. Behind her Jonathan Goroskij tried to hide a kind of flashlight. Again Jackie disappered in a blur of motion, Goroskij felt an hand pulling his neck, after a second his vision went red. When he recovered he found himself hanging over the void from the top of the Sears tower, the only thing preventing him from a deadly fall was the arm of a young woman, a furious young woman. "YOU!!" she roared, "So you are the responsible!" Goroskij liked the sensation of being in control, he made him fell brave and powerful. And now the situation was light years out of his control, so his body reacted in the most simple way losing the control of his bladder. "H...help..." he gasped. "No one is going to help you Johnny." she hissed like a cobra "Now you will tell me the whole story. How many of that devices you have. On who you project to use them. And each time the answer isn't good enough I wille remove one of my fingers, understood?" He noded as much as possible and started to spoke. A minute later Jackie was back at the site, she was glad to see that Kelly was ok, even a little too much. The next morning a security guard will find Goroskij tied with a piece of steel cable to the protection net of the Sears towers terrace, he wouldn't bother the women of the depts anymore. When she arrived, she recovered the sheet and surveyed the situation, the fire appeared to be under control, it was only a matter of time before putting it off. Her comrades looked tired but they were all safe, except for one. "Hey where is the chief?" "Her ran inside a moment ago. The team 3 heard a voice from the basement. You had disappered, so he..." Jackie never heard the rest of the sentence, as she sprinted in the basement of the building, the tarmac along her path was liquefied. --------------------------------------------- Epilogue --------------------------------------------- The grey sky looks like lead, mirroring the feelings of the men and women around the open grave in the cemetry. The priest have just finished to read the prayer, now they will pay the last respects to their friend. Sean McLenard, descendant of Scottish clansmen, 49 years old, 30 years of honoured service in the Chicago fire dept, 7 decorations the last one postumous, father of two children, friend of many, died when a support beam felt on him breaking his spine. On his tombstone 'He gave us too much to be repayed.' Jackie walks to the exit when she spotted them, a man and a woman who walk toward her. The man is tall and quite big, with short curly hair, he wears glasses and a gray suit, in spite of his size he doesn't look menacing. The woman is a little shorter, with dark hair tied back, a very sexy figure, she wears a tailleur that emphatized her long legs. "Jacqueline Flannagan?" she asks. "Yes, and who are you?" "Lois Lane, this is Clark Kent. We work for..." "Metropolis Daily Planet." Jackie growls like a tiger "And you obviously want an interview with the newest Chicago attraction. Well let me tell you..." "You are wrong ms Flannagan." Clark interrupts "We don't want to talk about you. We want to talk about him." he points the tomb. Jackie looks puzzled "He... he was a good man... the best, I've ever known." and she continues to talk about him while they move away from the cemetry.