March 1, 2021
Penny was doing her first 12-hour shift at the firehouse. With her was Weiss, Ren, and 4 other volunteer firefighters plus the 2 paid firefighters assigned to the ambulance. The time was 8:38 P.M.
Upstairs in the kitchen, Penny and Weiss talked about life. "So I've been showing Jaune some secret SDC stuff," the heiress said as she talked about her boyfriend. "Mostly low-level though."
Penny asked, "You trust Jaune that much?"
"Yeah," Weiss replied in a questioning tone. "Do you not like that?"
"I didn't imply that," Penny replied. "I'm sure Jaune is a great guy."
"Okay... Well, Jaune is trustworthy enough, in my personal opinion, to know of my password to SDC servers." Weiss then paused. "I mean, what if something happens to me, God forbid? I am next-in-line as CEO and Chairman of the SDC, so I have a target painted on my back. I want him to have access to my stuff in case I... Well... I'm not around anymore, to say the least."
"You don't have to justify it to me," Penny replied. "I'm not you. Besides, deciding who gets access to what is way above my paygrade in terms of my relationship to your family's company."
Then, the pager tones went off, followed by a dispatcher giving out an EMS call over the radio. "I'll go to it," Weiss said as Penny began to follow her to the fire pole nearby. After Weiss slid down, Penny grabbed the pole with her hands, wrapped her legs around it, and slid down to the first floor as well. When she reached the first floor, she saw Ren and another volunteer begin to board the ambulance while carrying their gear in their hands.
After Penny grabbed her gear and put her helmet on, she ran over to the back of the ambulance and opened the back door to get in, closing the door just as Ambulance 201 pulled out of the station. As she sat down in a bench seat, she asked, "What's the call for?"
"Third-party from a therapist," Ren replied. "Bravo response for a suicidal patient that's non combative and actually wants to go to the hospital. PD is sending a patrol car down too just in case."
"That's rare," Weiss said. "Usually they're full of fresh cutting scars and not exactly the most cooperative. My first medical when I was 12 was one of those. That girl was like 14 and had a really fucked-up life. To make a long story short, her stepfather was abusive to her and her mom in all 3 ways-sexual, mental, and emotional-until she was finally taken away by the police and given to her biological father, apparently. Right after that, my father forbade me from going on EDP calls until I was 14 because I had very traumatising nightmares for a few nights, though I snuck in on a few more that were less... Traumatic, I guess... When he wasn't around."
"Oh my God," Penny said in shock. "They let you get on the ambulance that young for a call like that?"
"Yeah," Weiss replied. "Wasn't the smartest decision I made, since I had to throw out a really nice white dress I had because I got her blood on it when she wiped her left arm on my dress."
Then, a paid firefighter in the front said, "Alrighty, boys and girls, we're here." Penny got up and opened the back door of the ambulance to let her, Weiss, and Ren out.
Outside was the therapist and the patient, who was a young adult woman with blonde hair wrapped in a ponytail and looked to be around her early 20s, which was around Weiss's age of 23-going-on-24. Weiss and the paid captain on the ambulance walked up to her. The paid lieutenant asked, "So, you wish to go to the hospital, correct?"
"Yes," said the patient in a quiet and sad voice. "I need help."
"We understand," Weiss replied. "Come with us."
As Weiss led the patient to the ambulance, a police officer walked up to the paid captain and said, "So I assume we're not needed here anymore?"
"I'd say so. The girl seems to be non combative and she doesn't have any fresh scars, though she does have some old ones on her right arm." The paid captain then turned to the therapist. "Thank you for calling us, sir."
The therapist replied, "You're welcome. I hope she gets the care she needs."
"I do too," he replied as he walked back to the ambulance.
As the patient laid down on the stretcher, she said, "I hope I didn't waste too much of your time."
"No you didn't," Weiss replied. "Trust me, we've gotten calls that are much stupider than this, like those frequent flyers who call us for the 5th God damn time these past 2 months because they stubbed their toe or because their stomach hurts because they overate. I'd say a suicidal subject is a necessary call by far." Weiss always hated people nicknamed "frequent flyers," who were people who basically abused the fire department's emergency medical services system by calling 911 for almost every single little thing. "And then I'm thinking in the back of my mind, "Ugh, why did you call the fire department if you could just drive yourself to the hospital or call a taxi, if you even need to go at all?""
"Wow," the patient replied. "I'd wanna punch that asshole in the face for making me waste my time."
"I wish I could sometimes to some of those flyers," she replied. "But then I like to step back and be the bigger person. That, and I don't wanna get expelled from my fire company."
"Oh my," the patient said. "Well... Anyways, I hope I just get some form of help." She then sighed. "I could used some, because I've been depressed, clinically at least, since I was 16, and it probably started a few years prior to that when I was like 13." She then began to get emotional. "I don't wanna live my life like this anymore, trying to decide whether I should live or try to end my own life every day."
"Oh my God," Penny said in shock. "My heart aches for you... I've had some issues myself over PTSD."
"Really? You have PTSD?" Weiss was surprised.
"Yeah," Penny replied. "An Atlesian Army doctor diagnosed me with it 2 years back. He said it had something to do with the Pyrrha battle." She then sighed. "Sometimes I still relive what I remember from that at night."
"Oh," Weiss said as she began to feel bad for the robot girl. "That's... Unfortunate..."
At 1:04 in the morning, the sleeping duty crew was suddenly awoken by the sound of their pagers once again ringing. This time, the tones for the siren also were transmitted, indicating this was a fire-rescue call.
As Penny and the others shuffled tiredly but quickly out of bed and slipped their hip boots on, the siren control box downstairs clicked on with a loud thud as the siren wound up. The tired girl could only recall scant info of the call as it came through the radio. What she knew was that it was some sort of gas leak.
Penny and Weiss were the last to leave the bunk room, quickly running to the fire pole that led to Truck 201's bay. As they wrapped their arms and legs around it and slid down one at a time, they could hear the ambulance in the next bay begin to start up as all 3 outswing doors for the bays were opened by other firefighters to let in volunteers running from their homes.
As Penny put her gear on in the ambulance/rescue bay, Ambulance 201 left with a full crew aboard a minute and a half after the call had come in. By now, Penny could feel her circuits almost beating rapidly like a heart. After she put all of her gear on, she ran to the truck bay to get on Truck 201 as several volunteers ran into the station to fill the other trucks.
As Penny and Weiss got aboard Truck 201, Ren started up the truck from the driver's seat. "Looks like I'll drive," he said. Ren did not mind driving, but it also kind of bummed him out, since it often meant he had to stay with the truck the whole time.
"Get us there soon," Weiss said as she sat in the front next to Ren. "It sounds like a major gas leak."
Penny asked as she sat behind Weiss, "What's going on?"
"It's a reported natural gas leak in a canalside warehouse," she replied, referring to an old shipping canal that ran through the neighbourhood and in fact right next door to the firehouse that was now mostly used for recreational boating. "The caller says she does not know how long the gas had been leaking." As she said that, 2 more firefighters hopped into the truck.
Within 3 minutes and 40 seconds of the call, all 10 seats were filled, and Truck 201 pulled out of the building. Weiss radioed, "Fire Alarm, Truck 201's en route with a crew of 10, all interior."
"10-4."
Then, another radio transmission came through. "Ambulance 201 to Fire Alarm, urgent!"
"All other units clear the air. Ambulance 201 go ahead."
"We just had an explosion at the warehouse... Uhhh... We got heavy flames from that area and we felt it from our 10-10. Transmit a 10-60 for a major emergency!"
"10-4." Then, 3 beeps went over the radio. "Fire Alarm to all units responding to Box 266, a 10-60 has been transmitted per the orders of Ambulance 201." A 10-60 meant that, automatically, 2 alarms would be transmitted, and all administrative chiefs and the fire commissioners would be notified to respond as well. Thus, the assignment was upgraded from 2 companies, a fire patrol station, and an Assistant District Chief to 10 companies, 4 fire patrol stations, a District Chief, an Assistant District Chief, and all available administrative personnel from both the fire department and the fire patrol. Normally, administrative personnel only were notified on 4th Alarms and above.
"Holy shit," Weiss said to herself before turning to Ren. "That's not good."
"Looks like we're going to work," Ren shouted to everyone in the truck. "The whole warehouse blew up."
Ruby, who just now was noticed by Penny, said to herself, "Oh my God..." She then herself noticed Penny and said to her, "Oh hey, Penny!"
"Ruby," Penny replied enthusiastically. "I'm glad you could make it." She then sighed. "This is gonna be a big one."
At 1:10, Truck 201 arrived to what remained of the canalside warehouse. There was debris strewn across the street, and the windows of the apartment building across the street were completely shattered. Immediately, Penny and Ruby ran out of the truck to secure the hydrant and supply the truck with water as Weiss and Ren raised the aerial ladder up to begin doing master stream operations.
People streamed out from the apartment building across the street, awoken by the blast, as more units arrived on scene. Weiss was handed a 2 1/2-inch hose line with a red nozzle attached on the end by Ren. She said, "Raise it to 85 feet so it goes just over the top of what used to be the roof."
"You got it," Ren replied as Weiss climbed up to the top with the nozzle and hose. When she reached it, Ren began operating the controls for the ladder, raising it slowly to 85 feet. As it rose, Weiss looked down upon the burning ruins of the warehouse. The roof was almost completely caved in, a majority of all 5 floors of the warehouse were obliterated, the canalside wall had mostly collapsed into the canal, and an intense fire raged in the rubble below.
Weiss then radioed, "Truck 201 Ladder Pipe to Truck 201 Pump Operator, charge my line! Charge my line!"
"10-4, charging the Ladder Pipe line."
Weiss then said to herself as she braced for water to fill the hose, "Here we go..." Once water reached her, she slowly opened up the bale of the red nozzle, spraying water onto the fire below. "Look at all that debris... It'll take hours to get all the hotspots here..."
Meanwhile, on the ground, Yang, who had arrived on the rear step of Rescue 201 at 11:12, was tasked with operating the rescue's deck gun. Below her, operating the pump panel, was Winter. "Just make sure you keep it aimed at the building," she said to Yang as she charged the deck gun from the pump panel. "Preferably through a window, or as I should say, the remains of a window frame. Don't worry about backblast or anything. This is not a hose. You'll feel nothing if you grab it."
"Got it," Yang replied as she aimed the deck gun through a window frame into the building. As it pumped 500 gallons of water per minute into the warehouse, Yang took her helmet off and put it to the side before yawning and wiping her eyes. "Say, Winter," she said as she turned to her.
Winter replied, "What is it?"
"Looks like this will be a, Long, night for us," Yang replied in a funny tone as she made a pun based off of her last name. "Eh? Ehhh?"
Winter looked at her, annoyed, before facepalming and saying, "God Damn it, Yang, with your puns..." She then laughed and said, "But yes, this will be a long night, no pun intended on my end. I hope that you, Schnee, to it that you stay on focus for this fire." She looked at the blonde with a "gotcha" face.
"Touché," Yang replied. "Touché..."