Read the individual descriptions to get an idea of who each of the fire fighters in the Station are!

It was a warm, summer afternoon. There had been a succession of small fires in homes around 108's local district, and it kept the group of fire fighters quite busy.

They rested now, having removed their gear and gotten their equipment stowed. It was halfway toward eight in the evening, the news programs were all over and none of them had the urge to watch themselves TiVo'd just yet. From his cluttered computer corner, Heller gave some kind of gargling angry shout.

"What was that?" Asked Tiger. "Did your porn site crash again?"

"No," the handsome young man said, standing up and clearing the top of his cubicle-shaped corner area and leaning on the top of the hutch. "Some jerk has posted a site saying that FireFighters shouldn't be called 'heroes' because we have such cushy jobs."

There was a moment of half-amazed silence, and then the whole batch of tired crewpeople came huddling behind his chair in the corner. Sure enough there it was. A lengthy article that read like some kind of twisted fairy tale of a job description.

"He says that we have so much free time, we've got nothing to do for the other hours we work, and there are hardly any fires to put out." Heller growled. "He's completely insane."

"Just ill-informed," Dooley said, "he doesn't site sources, and I would bet that in certain cities some of that information might be correct."

The group stared back at the redhead, and she shrugged. "I am just saying, he's entitled to his opinion."

"But he's spreading lies about us," Munoz said. "We've got to change that..."

"He's all up about that 9/11 thing, like the men who died aren't heroes?" The tall and imposing Captain Temple said, easily towering over the two shortest members of the team, Nguyen and Munoz. "I wonder how long this guy would last in our shoes?"

There was a general assent that in fact, the guy who wrote the article had to be out of his mind. As they were breaking up and heading back to their own parts of the common room on their dorm floor, Chief Steele came out of the showers. He rubbed his greying hair with a towel, and blinked when he saw the odd looks on everyone, how they were all shaking their heads and muttering to themselves.

"What'd I miss?" He asked, his voice deep and fatherly.

"Over here," Heller said, and gave him the rundown. Steele was less than impressed, but he did add his own opinion.

"I've been here for a long time, and I've seen guys like this before. What they don't remember is when they have a little fire or problem, we're always there. And when lives are at stake, we do our all."

"Nice speech," Dooley said, on her way to her dorm, "you should save it for the press. They liked that last one you gave."

The others chuckled, and Steele rolled his eyes. "I didn't know they had the microphones on me," he claimed, and everyone made their 'sure, Chief, sure' noises. "I didn't!"

Rookie Duane Heller smiled to himself. That was the first day he'd been on the job here officially, at FS 108. They had tackled a small house fire, but it wasn't the fire that was causing all the ruckus. It was the dog. This dog, apparently a resident of the house, had taken quite the liking to the Chief's leg while he worked. That dog refused to leave the Chief's side. That dog was booted almost fifteen feet by said Chief - whose commentary ran into so many four letter words it would be futile to try printing them.

Live, on the air on three local stations.

While no one doubted that the dog needed some asskicking, everyone was pretty sure that Steele should have looked up at the cameras before doing it - and Dooley was always the first to remind him. Li was always the next. Her husband had been holding one of the microphones that caught the tirade. They'd given her a tape for posterity. She immediately passed it on to Steele - and everyone else in the force she could find.

Steele was hardly impressed. But, then, that was why he was the Battalion Chief, and not some grunt. He took the well-meant humor with a smile. An annoyed one, but smiling none the less. At least it wasn't one of those things that could get you kicked off the force. That would kill him. After everything he'd been through, Steele knew that he could not survive without this extended, odd family of his.

His wife and daughter lived so far away... His duties as a Chief kept him in the Station most of the time. He often remained in his office dorm for a week, not even bothering to head home. He had everything he needed there at the Station. Most of them did: a dresser with clothing, a small but functional bed, a desk, and the common room had three T1 computer stations along with other toys, gadgets and home-style things. Their kitchen was always well stocked thanks to the admin staff. They had showers and a hot tub - but don't tell the voters that their tax dollars went to a "luxury" such as that!

Temple watched his lone superior in the Station with a careful, tired eye. Lewis Temple had his own ghosts - his own ex wife and daughter - their lives were quite similar. However, Temple had been in the Navy while Steele headed straight to the FireFighting forces. There was a bit more loner in Lewis, less of the gregarious and he thought somewhat needy feelings that he saw in Steele.

Captain Temple didn't realize how many others in the Station - not just his fire team - knew that he drank and would often be alone all too many times. They saw him pull away from social situations. He was an exceptional fire fighter. Everyone knew that, and no one could ever say he wasn't brave or strong. He was silent about it whenever anyone asked if he was going to visit his daughter for a long weekend. Even though they lived closer by than Steele's family, he just didn't seem to have the desire to keep them in his heart.

Duane immersed himself in the web site browsing that he often did, before starting on his paperwork. They all shared duties but he was often assigned to do the final writeups of any event that needed to be filed with Talon's central admin. Since he typed about nine million words a minute - to hear Tien say it - he was always elected to type. He was one of the few who could type with both hands - and he gloated about it all the time.

Dooley stood watching one of the tv's that were on, this one had "Aliens" showing on it, but she wasn't a big sci fi fan. She retired for the night, sure that the next couple of days would be better than the last. It was too active, something had to give.

As she went down the hall, she passed several of the other dorms, one of which held the tall and annoying Caine, Joe was always looking to get into trouble. At the moment, fortunately for him, he was on the phone with his girlfriend and they seemed to be plotting something for each other. How nice. Dooley herself didn't have time for things like that. And she knew she'd never have made a good mother like Tiger. Dooley went out to her car, and headed home after a long long week.

Tiger and Tien were busy playing something aggressive and fun on the X Box. "Mike will love this trash," she said, pulling the controller as though it could help steer her virtual vehicle. "Ooh - look, let's go kill that guy."

Tien snickered, "not if I get him first - I've got a bounty hunt for him. Yeah! Points!" he yelled.

"Try-ing to read," Munoz said from the corner.

"Then turn of that darn television! It rots your brain!" Said Tiger as she gritted her teeth and ran her car over the curb, sliding it into another half dozen people and racking up more points than ever.

Munoz groaned, but she did wind up turning off the televisions. For some reason, they always turned on every available electronic item when coming back from a job, and no one really watched anything if it got past the news hours. It made things rather hard to read. She sat in her own secluded corner, curled up with a manual on chemical and toxic fires.

"You want to go out for drinks?" Asked Steele to Captain Temple. "I'm headed out, if you want to come along?"

Part of Steele thought he saw mixed emotions in Temple's dark face. One - the drinks part - got him interested. Another - the having to come along with someone - clearly made him hesitate.

"Come on," Steele said, tossing Temple his leather jacket. He had noticed that Temple never went anywhere without it, and it was cool enough tonight to warrant anyway. "I'm driving, if you're paying."

"You want to make this hard for me," Temple said, "I don't like drinking with-"

"I know, I know," Steele said, grinning. "That's why you are coming with me tonight. Don't you feel something... Odd?"

"Odd, like, well, odd?" Temple said. The pair at the X Box were arguing over the hooker, whether they should pick her up and take her to the police station or just run her over like they had been. "Other than this odd?" Temple thumbed toward them. Steele laughed.

"Odder than that, even. Dooley said something about feeling different today."

Temple thought about it on the way out to Steele's car. They took the little Acura around the station house and saw that the EMTs had come back from whatever minor disaster on the freeway they'd dealt with that day. The fourth side of their block, still under construction for some reason, would house... what?

"Steele, when do you think we're going to see what's going into the fourth block?" Temple asked, as they drove.

"Soon, Temple." Steele said with some strange confidence. Like he knew something. "You did know that the Alabaster people are supporting that side?" He asked.

"I did not know that." Temple said. "Turn here, there's a good place over down that street."

Steele took the advice, and turned. "Yeah - Alabaster is funding it, but they're also putting something weird in there. I don't know any of that shit, but it sounded like someone once said 'spacial anomoly'. Isn't that something like on Star Trek or something?"

"Sounds that way," Temple nodded. They pulled in to the small parking lot to a narrow bar that was across from a batch of junk shops - to be fair they were hardly selling junk, they were shops that catered to artsy buyers and people who needed to add style to their very bare walls. Temple and Steele both agreed that they sold 'junk'.

It was several beers later that Temple finally asked, "but if Alabaster's spending all this cash on putting this thing in there, how come we still work for the crap wages we've got? And why don't we have newer equipment?"

"Or paint on the office walls?" Steele agreed while taking a pull at his beer. "I think I heard the council complaining that the funds they wanted Alabaster to give them couldn't be guaranteed to go to the 108, and Engell refused to go with any other contract. It was a compromise, I think it's still better than sitting in that old crappy warehouse of a Station they tore down."

"Amen to that, brother," Temple raised his glass, and they toasted one another.

The men spent the evening at this club, wacthing people and speculating about what could go into the fourth side of their Station house.

***

They did not need to speculate very long. Within two weeks, a pair of what looked to be the biggest Dragons they had seen set foot on their Earth strode up to the building. One was a brilliant silver, the other a rich blue - they were state trooper colors, how about that.

"They're in trooper colors," muttered Dooley.

"They're huge!" Cried Tiger. She almost ran right up to them, a childish glee on her face. Then she turned to Temple and Steele. "These are the things going into the fourth block?"

Steele nodded slowly. "They are. Them, and I think there are some more on the way."

"No way!" Caine said, jumping out from the back of their little crowd. The whole of the Station had turned out for this, but since the Batallion Chief was in their section it was the FireFighter squad who got to greet the Exotic team. Joe was stunned. This was like a dream.

"Nice to meet you both," Steele said, holding his strong calloused hand out. The woman who rode the silver dragoness smiled and shook his hand with the same strength he showed her.

"We've finally got a place to stay," she said. "This is Katz, I'm Red - our dragons are going to introduce themselves once they stop arguing about who gets the bigger den."

"Arguing?" Said Muñoz, "they're not saying anything."

"They don't even look like they could fit in here," Dooley pointed out.

"Hey - when did you guys get here?" Said Tien, suddenly jolting at the presence of a pair of men behind the group.

"We came in the back way," said the white-haired man while thumbing toward the doors to the fourth block. "Come see. And Red, let's get those two something to eat. They sound like they're ready to chew on these trucks."

"He can hear them?" Asked Heller. He glanced up at the taller dark-haired man, who appeared to be checking him out.

"Of course he can. He is a telepathic mutant," the tall guy replied with a faint grin on his thin lips. Then he too turned to escort the dragons into the rollup doors. The pair of dragons - silver Betjanath and Blue Ampararth - folded their curved wings down and walked elegantly on their big-pawed limbs and snaked into the building.

"There's no freaking way that those two can fit in there!" Tien said. "No way!"

"Well, there's one way we can find out how they're going to do it," Tiger said, and she started walking. Within a few steps they all were in a line, ready to see this marvel of engineering that had been set up in block four.

There was a garage, the door to the offices, and a large black space below what appeared to be an archway. The mismatched Alabaster pair of Engell and Sanger stood nearby the big black portal. There was nothing else in the room. Needless to say that room could never have handled two dragons. One might comfortably lay down, but they could never stretch their wings here.

"They're not here," Dooley whispered.

"Where did they go?" Temple asked, "that's that anomaly thing you were talking about, isn't it?" He turned to Steele.

The tall black-haired man turned to look at the Captain and smiled. "Engell, we've got another leak in security. How is it that people find out about these things?"

"It's our building," Steele said, "you can't possibly expect a group of people like us to keep from gossiping."

"It was a joke," Sanger said, "but I'll keep that in mind. And yes, this is the Spacial Anomaly. I built it as a doorway to a more proper locale for the dragons to reside. They are far too heavy to perch on normal buildings, and they complain constantly about the noise and smell." He turned to Engell, and added, "I have to agree with them. And Fennryth tends to go along with it."

"Fennryth is..." Dooley asked, trying not to just run and hide.

"My dragon," Sanger said. He tilted his head a bit, blinked, and very shortly a smallish blue dragon swept into the room. His wings were hardly big enough to fill the doorway, but he was still much larger than could easily remain in here. "He's just a little one, and he is quite young yet, but we hit it off anyway." The blue's long nose sniffed at his long hair, and he smiled while scratching at the dragon's skin.

"Can I --" Muñoz asked quietly. "Can I touch him?"

"Of course, he loves that."

The dragon lifted his wing, transparent azure that showed light through it as cobalt. Jennifer stroked the soft hide, and was surprised.

"It's not scaley, it's skin? It's almost like a dolphin, or something." Several others had come near, and were tentatively thinking about touching the exotic creature themselves.

"Some have scales, some have skin, others even have fur," Engell supplied. "There are a staggering array of different types."

He was about to go into more detail about their habits and habitat, but suddenly the stations alarm went off. Abruptly, while she was still petting the dragon's warm skin, Fennryth vanished with a bit of a squealing noise.

"Dammit!" Steele yelled, and the batch of fire fighters bolted around the corner to their own portion of the Station. Jennifer stood there, eyes wide.

"He just ... disappeared?" She said. She noticed the odd look on Sanger's face, "what's wrong?"

"First? It's extremely loud. Second, that little bastard should have taken me with him. You have a job to do, you ought to be doing it." He nudged her into the direction of the main office, where she bolted off to get into her gear.

***

The fire was only a middling-sized one, but it was well into destroying the building where it raged. It was an industrial area, and the other sections of 108 had been assembled just in case. The hazard duty folks weren't too happy about the situation at all, especially since their jobs depended upon the firefighters to get the building under control before they could even establish whether there were any extremely dangerous or toxic chemicals inside.

"Can we even see inside yet?" Captain Davies asked, irate. Steele was busy with his radio but he shook his head and motioned for the hazard staff to head around to the other entrance.

"I don't care if they're on the other side of the sector, they're going to have to get here soon. There are residential buildings on the next block and they're being threatened." Steel yelled into the radio. He was apparently greatly displeased by what he heard as an answer. "Well then maybe when your house goes up we'll roast marshmallows and make s'mores, but until then, your ass is going to get into gear and get over here as backup."

He angrily switched the radio off and stuffed it back into his bulky yellow jacket. Tiger and Tien were busy with the hoses on the outside of the building, Temple had entered the building with Caine and another heavy hose, and Heller waited with Muñoz with the pumps under their watchful eye. Dooley came up to Steele, and glanced nervously at the building.

"I think we should send Hazard in," she said.

"Then do it. They're chomping at the bit as it is. If they want to head in when they can't see, that's their problem."

Dooley relayed the Chief's instruction to Davies and Ward, two of the four Hazard captains. The other two on duty bolted in behind them with their stiff plastic shields and odd devices which apparently detected obscene levels of bad things the moment they entered. The boxes they carried hummed with sounds just in case their carriers weren't sure what the little needle slamming into the red on the scale meant.

Ward came out abruptly, and pulled up to a stop near the officer and her Chief. "There are fumes in there, and it gets worse the farther inside we get. Close the place off, we're going to try sealing it in."

"Sealing?" Dooley said, "we don't even know if the fire will be contained!"

"Better now than when it blows the roof into the hills," the tall man thumbed toward the expensive homes overlooking the other side of the ridge. Their back yards were in danger from these fumes already.

More than fifteen minutes later another pair of fire trucks and a huge rig bearing the biohazard logo arrived, and Steele hoped that they could settle everything. The residents on the hill weren't going to be too happy their homes smelled the way they did.

At last, without too much more threat to the buildings nearby, the structure fire was out. Half the interior of the place was covered in a mucky white foam that didn't burn, suppressing the fumes. Steele counted his men and women as they came out, and thought something was odd.

"Where is the other hazard kid? Yakisoba or something?" Steele said, and Tien made a snorking noise as he wiped his dirty brow.

"Yakamura, is she still inside?" He asked.

"Getting attached?" Steele grunted with a smile. The smoke was still thick but it was white and billowy, not the same black that indicated burning. He took several strides into the building and flipped down his visor, to see better and to keep his mouth free of the thick air.

As he turned into one hallway that had most of its walls broken down and destroyed, he thought he heard something. A ... yelping?

'They had a dog on guard here?' Steele thought to himself. He stepped over the rubble, and into one of the smaller rooms.

He saw a smallish mass, which was moving. It was the color of ash and soot, tossed with the grime of the industrial building. Steele carefully wrapped his arms around the dog and lifted it out of the smouldering ruin. He gingerly walked around and noticed that Yakamura was outside, chatting with her crew like nothing was wrong.

As Steele approached, he nudged his visor back up with his shoulder, and yelled, "Yakisoba, you're supposed to come out the same way you went in, and you've got to yell a heads up if you don't - don't forget that!"

"It's YAKAMURA!" She and Tien yelled in unison, from across the wet pavement.

Captain Redburne of the EMT division approached the Chief, her black-rooted red-dyed hair shifting in the wind. "What's that?" She asked of the trembling mass in the Chief's arms.

"It's a dog, someone had it inside."

"That's not a dog," she said.

Right about then Steele looked down with more concern on his face. His bronze colored eyes were red with the smoke, but suddenly he realized that this thing ... was a dog - but it had wings. He sat down with it on the back of their truck, as everyone else was packing up and making sure everything was settled with the owners of the building. Steele's concern turned to wonder, as the animal lifted its grey-spotted head and yawned.

By that time, he'd drawn a crowd. Half the crew of 108 were there staring at them, and more than a few other onlookers from the other station. The creature licked Steele's nose and then... Fluttered its feathery wings.

They were singed a bit, but they were sound. Birdlike wings, on a wolf-like canine body.

"What ... is this thing?" He asked. "Not that it's not cute... but..."

"Looks like a dalmation with wings!" Shouted Caine. "Cool!"

Redburne nodded slowly, "these are really amazing... rare."

"What do you mean rare? Wolves don't come with wings!" Steele said. The creature had lifted up from his lap and lept down to the ground, where he stretched out. He had long legs, and it looked like his coloration was indeed the black-white-silvery color that Steele had seen in the room, only not just because of the dust and ash.

"This one does, and remember we're not alone in the universe any more." Redburne said, turning her hair around her finger. "Are you hungry? What a sweetie!"

"We've got to keep him for the Station house," Caine said. Temple behind him was nodding.

"We've been needing a fire dog." He added. "Cute doggie!" He waggled his finger at the ball of fluff who was sniffing at the tires of the rig.

"Well I guess you're elected, wonderdog," Steele said.

Right about then, the wolf with wings turned to him and spoke. "My name is Eye of the Fire Eaaeril, and I'm not a dog... Nope!"

Stunned, everyone froze while the creature fanned his wings again and shook off what was left of the ash.

"I don't remember much of how I got here, but I was needed. Obviously!" The winged wolf proudly strutted toward Temple. "I like you - but remember I'm Eaaeril. Not doggie."

"Yes sir," Temple said, and held his hand out to scratch Eaaeril's muzzle. At first the wolf was about to snub him but then allowed it - there was ash clogging his ears.

"No thanks to me," Steele said, half meaning it.

"Don't say that," Eaaeril replied as he climbed to the top of the truck. "I would have died. I owe you. Someday we'll be even. But not today!"

***

Everyone at the Station was in awe of the creature, and they hardly wanted to leave for home when their shifts ended. But Steele remained at the Station that night, just to make sure that Eaaeril would have a good place to sleep and knew the layout of the building. Truth be told, he was just curious as to how this creature got where it had been, but Eaaeril seemed unable to remember even after a good meal and drink of fresh water, and a hosed down bath.

"I can feel perhaps a bit of an affinity to things, fire and flight. You do not seem so surprised now." Eaaeril said to the Chief.

"Well ... I just saw my first dragon close up today too, so it's been a long day." He sighed. "A loooong day."

"Dragons are here! Excellent luck!" The wolf yipped happily. "Where are they? Where are they bred?"

"They - well we don't have any here... yet." Steele said. "We're going to be doing some experimental thing next week. I think you got her just at the right time, Eaaeril."

Steele relaxed on his bed, and didn't mind making room for the young winged wolf next to him. He could tell that even though the strange creature spoke as though it'd experienced quite a bit, he seemed rather young and small for a wolf. He doubtless had some growing left to do.

***

Next: the Bond Selections