A fit, tan blonde headed woman in a bikini swimsuit clutched a beach ball and pranced about the sand, making cute faces with her puckered lips over her shoulder. She dillydallied toward the tide and turned around and giggled about something while tilting her head a bit to show off her long, luscious hair. Then, she remained frozen in the spot, grinning seductively at someone while the oncoming water rushed past her feet and up the shore.

Pigman, the man she was staring at, held up a thumb and straightened his posture from the hunched position he was in. Plain-Man, who carried a long stick with a bright light at the end had followed them both from behind.

“How did that one turn out?” the swimsuited woman asked, standing up straight as well.

“That one was great. You looked like you were convincingly having a good time!” Pigman said without sarcasm.

“Awesome! Thanks! Send it to me over vybe as soon as you get the chance!” the woman smiled at both of the masked men as Plain-Man switched off the light and brought it down, holding it like a spear.

Right before the bikini woman walked away, Plain-Man stopped her.

“Mind if I get one with my phone as well? You know, for a keepsake.” the masked man asked her without expression.

“Your phone?” she grinned and had to stop herself from laughing, “That’s kind of old fashioned... Sure, go ahead!”

The woman, still holding the beach ball at her side, posed in front of the ocean, now with a slightly goofy grin.

“Got it? Well boys, I’m off!” And then the bikini lady sauntered barefoot over the hot sand, away.

Pigman took a few steps nearer to Plain-Man as they both watched.

“See? I told you this would be easy! When summer comes around, we can do this two or three times a week with all the tourists that came through. All you got to do is hold that light up and we’ll be raking in the friendly points, no problem. These models got loads of credits to spend.”

“I appreciate it, Pigman.” was all Plain-Man could say, though it didn’t represent totally all that he felt. He was very thankful that he could team up with someone so easygoing and who actually looked out for Plain-Man, as opposed to his recent mission with snobbish Fight Man. For that, he was eternally grateful for Pigman.

He took out his phone, felt satisfied with the credit total, and checked to see if there were any new missions in the area.

“Hey, how would you want to do another mission that’s nearby? One just popped up on my phone.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Uh, it says it’s at an apartment building two blocks away that needs some ‘damage control’ taken care of. I wonder what that could mean…”

“I’ve taken care of one of those once, it probably has something to do with the structure of the building or something, like they need a window repaired.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound too bad. So you game?”

“Sure, let’s go check it out.” And with that, the two masked men headed over the sand, towards the boardwalk.

The first thing Pigman and Plain-Man saw as they walked up the pavement on Lantern street were a group of people rushing passed them in fear.

“Uh, is that the building that sent out the request?” Pigman pointed to a structure across the street that was smoking, the fumes growing faster and bigger every second.

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Plain-Man took out his phone and verified.

“Uh, yeah that’s it.”

More people rushed past. The masked men sprinted together across the street to the burning building and approached a distressed women with glasses crying just right outside the entrance.

“My God! You got to help me!” the woman grabbed onto Plain-Man’s arm and fell to her knees, “My baby is up there! You got to get my baby!”

He looked away from the pleading woman and at Pigman.

“Here, help this lady while I go inside,” Plain-Man said, “Alright, ma’am, everything will be alright.” He handed her off.

“Don’t you want to wait for the Fire Drones to arrive first? They should be here any second…” Pigman said, with the panicked mother clinging to his arm now.

“Can’t risk it!” He said, rushing into through the smoke into the lobby of the building.

The entire interior of the building was in a haze and Plain-Man could barely breathe standing up straight, so he squatted and felt his way around until he found a staircase. Then he rushed up onto the second floor looking for any sign of a baby.

“Should’ve gotten the room number!” he scolded himself out loud.

He ran up and down the hallway, checking every opened door. The smoke was getting too much for his lungs and he was about go downstairs for air when suddenly he heard a high pitched crying from a room he already checked. Plain-Man coughed and did his best to follow the sound of the voice which led him to a coat closet. Instead of a baby like what he was expecting, inside he found an overweight boy who had a gaming device in one hand and wiped his tears with the other.

“I! Want! My! Mommy!” he screamed in between his gasping for air.

“Does your mom wear glasses?” Plain-Man calmly asked and then coughed.

The kid in the closet nodded his head, sobbing.

Plain-Man looked down at the chubby boy, thought for a second, and squatted down, turning his back to the kid.

“Here, get on kid. I’ll take you to safety!”

The kid kept crying, hesitating, but quickly made up his mind and wrapped his arms around Plain-Man’s neck, climbing up.

Plain-Man struggled a bit to get to his feet and he was overall overwhelmed by the child’s heftiness, but he still managed to trudge forward through the smokey corridor.

“Are we going to die!?” the boy screamed in Plain-Man’s ear, still sobbing and frightened out of his mind.

“Everything will be alright, we’ll be out of here soon!”

Right when they reached the stairs, something above them exploded.

Hearing the explosion from outside, the mother shrieked and could only imagine the worse about what could possibly happening to her son. She grabbed tightly onto Pigman jacketed arm, wailing.

“Everything will be alright ma’am. Look, the drones have arrived!” Pigman pointed to the sky where a flock of flying things carrying buckets halted and hovered over the building. They began dumping loads of water from their bodies, putting out most of the fire immediately. More drones arrived and flew through the smoke, into the building. Just as this happened and the steam was building up from the putout fire, and appearing in the doorway, away from the confusion, Plain-Man jolted through with the kid on his back and eventually collapsed several feet away.

“My baby!” the woman left Pigman aside and ran to her son, immediately grabbing his sooty face and kissed it all over. “I can’t believe you saved my baby!” she began kissing Plain-Man all over his mask too and then hugged them both.

It turned out that the fire originally started due to one of tenants on one of the upper levels leaving their Beautifying Tank plugged in for too long, which eventually caused the explosion. Fortunately no one was hurt and there turned out to be minimal damage to the building aside from the room where it initially broke out. Still standing outside the lobby, Pigman conversed with Plain-Man about how crazy he was for running into a burning building like that.

“I tried keeping calm for that woman when that explosion went off, but honestly I was just as worried as her and thought you might have bitten the dust. What made you run in there like that?”

Plain-Man thought it over while he sipped from a water bottle that had been given to him. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I just sort of rushed in. I knew I needed to help and I just did what I felt was best…”

“Well, how about the next time we team up for a mission, let’s not do something so dangerous, alright?”

He nodded at Pigman, unrolled his mask, and then reached into his pocket for his phone.

“Hey, look another mission just popped up. How about it?”

“Really!? After all that?”

“Sure! Why not? I still got energy.”

“Alright, but it depends on the mission.”

“Let’s see, it says… Noise complaint, loitering children in a parking lot. That doesn’t sound that bad…”

“Yeah, I guess not. I can handle a couple kids… Okay, let’s go. Where is it?”

Plain-Man looked at his phone and pointed.

“This way.”