Aisha's Amazing Adventure: Aisha and the Fire Part Three

One second, Aisha had been talking to the kids. The next second, she was on the other side of the room, the furniture going every which way. The kid was… screaming, but she couldn’t hear him, just seeing his mouth.

The little girl was—oh shit.

The toddler was under a heavy cabinet, two of her Numbers holding it up, but Aisha managed to run forward and yank her away before they lost their grip.

“Kr-“

“Can’t hear you so good—wait.” Aisha handed her earbud to a Number that stuck it in it’s ear.

Huh, wonder how that wo—

“Krewe, evacuate immediately,” Armsmaster didn’t sound pissed, he sounded super intense. “The chemical cloud is highly toxic.”

“Can’t Boss!” Aisha said. “Got two kids in here.”

“Krew, get them out now, any route. We’re trying to vector people to you but the explosion has caused severe damage.”

“Yeah, I can’t—“ Fuck. There was a strange, nasty smell coming into the room and Aisha only had one fucking mask.

“You!” She told the older kid. “Hold your breath!”

“I—“

Aisha unbuckled the mask, and tried to figure out—okay, that handled the air, so she put it on the little kid, the toddler fighting her until one of her Krewe grabbed her and held her. The little kid took a deep breath, but…”

“Can I fucking use this thing on two people?”

“What?”

“Two kids, I’m trying—“

“Krewe, put your breather on, now!” That was Piggot.

“I ain’t gonna fucking let them die!” Aisha snapped out. Her Number slapped a hand over the little kid’s mouth and another one put the mask on the older kid. “Breathe it in!” Aisha said. She took a little breath of the air while the kid used the breather. Not so bad, little tangy, but not so bad.

Aisha ran to the shattered window. The hallway was a nogo, She’d popped a Number out, and the entire damned hallway was full of junk and choked in superhot smoke.

Hell, she could feel the heat from here.

‘C’mon, think…” Outside, the building that formerly stood next to the apartment was collapsed—and on fire. Smoke and sparks shot past the widow, curling in and pretty fucking soon they’d be on fire.

Damn. It.

She—A coughing fit interrupted her thought and Aisha spat to the side. It was a huge, gross…

Bloody loogie.

Shit. That wasn’t good. And then she was coughing again, and who the fuck had put broken glass in her lungs.

“Right,” Number 1 said. “I’m gonna—“

Then she was hacking harder, and the kids were staring at her, not the number.

Fuck, where was all that blood coming from?

“Make certain to hold your breath!” she shouted at the bigger kid, then slapped the mask over the toddler, Number 2 with one hand over her mouth, the other pinching her nose shut when she pulled the mask away. Aisha took a breath but it really didn’t help.

Goddamn, she’d only breathed a little bit in.

Fuck, if I die, the Number’s die, and the kids… For some reason the idea that she might die wasn’t as bad as the vision of the two kids crying next to her body, waiting for help that wouldn’t come as they also breathed this shit in.

Armsmaster was saying something. Aisha couldn’t worry about that. He wasn’t here, and by the time…

She hacked again, and now she was on her knees, but she had a solution for that. Number 3 and Number 4 grabbed her, held her up, because fuck you death!

Think. Think, think, think. Can’t go out the door. Can’t carry the kids down the side of the building. Can’t go up the stairs… Can’t fly. If I port, I just stop.

What had Taylor said…

Right. Think around the problem if you couldn’t go through it. Granted, this wasn’t math but…

If I port, I just stop.

And she could port fast. She’d never tried this—but now the door was actually smoldering, and there were little fireworks going off behind her eyes.

“Hold on!” she told the older kid. “Hold on to my back.” She scooped up the toddler, the Numbers helping her.

“Don’t let go.”

“But—“

And then, before Aisha could think about what a fucking horrible idea this was, she threw a number out into the air, and before it started falling… twisted.

Oh. Good. The kids were with her. Screaming their heads off as they realized she’d just ported right over a fire. But for a second they were stopped. The thing that kept her from squashing if she ported after stepping off a building. But now—

She threw a Number out and twisted again, and there they were, thirty feet higher. She did it again, and they were thirty feet away from the fire.

Twist, twist, twist…

Aisha felt like she was gonna die. She didn’t know if it was from the rapid-fire porting, or just the fact that her lungs were probably turning to goo.

Stupid fucking factory. Who put something like that in the middle of a city?

Twist, twist, twist… And she was losing it. They were still in the fire zone, but Aisha knew she might not be able to do it again, so she twisted one more time, putting them just above the hot ground. The kids were crying and the goddamn air was still full of smoke. They landed, and the two Numbers picked Aisha up because her legs weren’t working at all, another one holding the kid and the last one holding the toddler and they started running.

Fuck, I’m not—

Aisha couldn’t talk because her throat felt like it had been skinned, so a Number talked for her. “If I pass out, you need to take your sister and keep running, okay? You keep running.”

“But… But we’re your Krewe.”

“Don’t talk or breath too much!” The Number with the kid was figuring out how to put those Goddamn straps around the kid’s head, but it was loose. “Just run—and yeah, you’re my Krewe, and so is your little sis, so you gotta be strong for her.”

Another step and now her Krewe was flickering. Shit, you’d think the power would stick around after she went to sleep, but nah.

That would have made chores a lot more fucking easy but—

Wait, what was that smashing sound? She blinked as the bigguy, Bulwark, came charging through the fire, spray seeming to come from every part of his body, beating back the fire. Behind him were some firefighters, and Armsmaster right behind him with some kind of gadget that was pushing the smoke back?

Shit. Should have been a tinker, they get all the neat—then she was hacking again while Bulwark reached out and picked her and the two kids up.

“Gotcha,” he said.

Armsmaster ran a gadget over her and she hoped he wouldn’t be bitching at her because she really didn’t feel—and then the part of his face she could see under his helmet and breather turned white and that wasn’t a good sign, nope. Nor was him jamming a tube down her fucking throat, shouting at Bulwark to bring the kids, and then somehow she found herself on his bike heading for somewhere with him shouting something about Panacea, and he’d go to her.

She didn’t think a bike could go that fast.

Well fuck.

And then a big, comforting cloud fell over Aisha and she didn’t hurt anymore.