Mikel and Yoyo

"If you say so," Sosa said, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. He examined the street they were on now. It was mostly empty, but the stores along it were all still open. "Now that's odd. There should be people here..."

Zane looked around. He wasn't familiar with these areas but he had to agree. It was odd that there weren't any people around.

"Why do you suppose they are not here?" Did something happen? He really wasn't sure but it was precisely then that a loud explosion rang through the skies.

Sosa ducked instinctively, turning his face to the sky. Black smoke floated through the air, coming from a street over. He frowned, instinctively running toward it. "What kind of instincts run toward smoke?" He wondered briefly if Zane would follow, but at that moment he did not really care.

Zane followed, rather curious as to why a place like this would be bombed - or whatever happened anyway.

And Sosa seemed to be just as curious. That was when he realized who that guy was. But he kept quiet for a while. No wonder he was skilled with a gun.

Sosa cut through an alley to get to the other street faster. He was alarmed to see that a building here was on fire. Smoke was billowing out of the windows and there no people around to put the fire out. He could have sworn screams coming from inside the building. He looked at Zane as he ran toward the building, hoping it was just in his imagination.

Zane definitely heard it. Screaming. "Sosa, there are people in there," he said. But what really alarmed him was that no one was there to help. Usually people would be intrigued by these kinds of things and would scurry to help or get a good look. But the place was totally deserted save for those screaming.

"Crap, I thought so," he muttered, struggling to unfasten the holsters that hid his firearms. He finally removed them and shoved them at Zane. He paused in front of the building to find somewhere not fully engulf in flames and dove in.

The basic structure of the buildings were simple: main floor was the shop and storage areas. Basement was more storage and sometimes an extra bedroom if the family was particularly large. The upstairs floor were living quarters. The screaming had come from the upper level.

Zane held on to the holsters, unsure of why he gave it to him but he seemed excited enough to help them so he didn't say a thing about it.

He followed in where he entered. Just in time before flames engulfed the entrance. "Up, right?" he looked at Sosa.

[ I totally closed this before posting so it's rewrite time! ]

Sosa stopped on the stairs and stared at Zane like he had never met the man before. Something was wrong about his presence...

"I gave you those guns to keep them out of the fire!" he shouted as his mind kicked into gear. He looked around, trying to find an exit in the inferno, but found none. He growled and snatched his weapons back and stormed up the stairs while buckling them on. "Hope butlers don't burn."

Zane couldn't help but laugh. Surely he did not expect that he'll stay outside just like that? He already said he was bored. He took off his coat and folded it twice before moving in haste up the stairs, pass Sosa.

The screams grew louder and Zane tried to look for the source.

"It's hot," Sosa muttered, trying to see through the smoke and flames. He could hear the screaming up here, but the source was difficult to locate. It was somewhere beyond the wall of flames before him, though. He took a breath and leaped through the flames, coming out on the other side to find a small path leading to the rooms ahead that was not covered in flames.

Zane watched as Sosa leaped through the fire which reminded him of a circus lion. But he shook his head; he couldn't lose focus now.

He was not going the same way as he did so he looked for an alternate route. He went the other way though, walking. "Good luck, Sosa. I'll try to find a way out."

Sosa barely heard Zane and really listened even less. His main focus now was to find who was screaming and get them out. He followed his ear to a door which he quickly broke down. Smoke poured out of the room, blinding him and sending him into a fit of coughing. He blinked his watering eyes and entered the room cautiously. The screams were nearly deafening now.

"Hello? I'm here to help?" he called, uncertain suddenly about the matter. He stumbled forward, someone shoving him roughly in the back. He turned to see a man standing there, a smug grin on his face. The man waved and pulled on a rope beside him. Something slammed into Sosa from the side, knocking him into a wall. The man walked calmly out of the room, leaving a blurry-minded Sosa behind in the burning room. "Crap..."

The place was heavily in flames, at least where Sosa went to. He realized that at the opposite direction, the flames have yet to really scatter and it was a win for him.

Entering a room, going over carefully something burning, he saw a few people tied up. Quickly, he tried to untie them, starting with taking out the cloths shoved in their mouths.

Sosa stumbled to his feet, barely keeping his balance as he tried to catch his breath. His side was killing him, now. A burning beam had somehow been released when the man had pulled the rope and had hit him. He would not be surprised to discover he had at least one broken rib when he escaped.

If he escaped. The door he had come in had been blocked by the fire. The only other door, he found after a quick stumble across the room, led to more flames. "But they're flames, not wood on fire," he noted, making his way forward.

There were four of them. A family, he supposed. The two kids looked frightened beyond words and the mother was crying her eyes out. The father was heavily injured.

"Help us," the mother said, her voice laced with just as much fear. He quickly untied everyone of them, the father with much difficulty since his was rather intricate, going along a few furnitures.

Sosa shook his head, confused. There were no flames where he was now. There was certainly danger of the flames to spread, but the room was yet untouched even though the room right next to it was completely engulfed. He pushed the matter from his mind, attributing it to his injury. He stumbled on through, finding another door that he hoped would lead somewhere he could use to escape. He shoved open the next door, falling as he did so.

"Crap crap," he muttered, bored of the entire situation.

He didn't completely untie the ropes from the furnitures, just enough for the father to be untied. The four huddled together, avoiding the flames, now ready to engulf that room. "At any rate," he said as he tied the ropes together, making sure it was good enough not to split and all those worries.

He opened the window and looked to see how far up they were. He nodded. It was enough. "You can get out through here," he said and threw the rope out. "Just be careful. I'll support you from here." They nodded, just glad there was a way out.

Sosa pushed through another door, finding a room that was on fire. "That makes sense," he said, convincing himself that he had not hit his head. The previous room had just been a strange fireproof one. He looked around, noticing that light was filtering through the smoke. Stepping forward, he saw a window and Zane.

"Zane!" he shouted, regretting it immediately. There was too much smoke for shouting. "I'm assuming you've got an exit?"

He let the mother and the kids go first, the father still not really in his right state of mind and supported them by holding on to the rope while the mother went down first.

Then someone called out to him and he looked to the side. "Sosa, you're alive. Good," he said, holding on tightly to the rope. "Here. But they go first." He nodded to the two kids and the father.

Sosa grabbed the rope beside Zane as the woman climbed down the rope. He nearly fell--again--when she reached the bottom. Sosa pulled the rope up and tied a loop in one end that the two children wrapped around themselves. He helped them out the window and lowered the rope slowly. Finally it was time for the man he assumed to be the father.

"What do you propose we do? He's a little hurt for rappelling."

Zane looked down to make sure they were all right, the mother and the two kids. When he deemed they were okay, he turned his attention to Sosa and the father. "Yeah, you're right." He said, noticing how much smoke was engulfing the room already.

"But we need to get out of here. Unless you know a different route?"

Sosa shook his head. "Nope, and we're two stories above the ground. We might be in some trouble once we get him out of here," he said calmly. He examined the father quickly, frowning as he did so. He looked to Zane, eyes narrowed. "Think we can lower him like we did the kids? He won't be able to climb like the mom did."

Zane nodded. "I think we can do that, since we're two anyway," he said and proceeded to tie the father who was wobbly. He didn't really say anything, as if he was in a trance.

"Sir," he tried to call out to him. "You have to hold on to the rope tightly. You can do that, right?" It seemed stupid but with how the father was acting, he was rather unsure.

Sosa frowned as the man ignored Zane. Things were getting worse by the second and the man was ignoring the people helping him. "Just get him out the window. We'll just have to hope the rope holds," he said quietly. "Otherwise we're all gonna be burnt like toast."