“Potter! Sanchez! You’re up!”

Harry put down the magazine he’d been leafing through and got up to head out to his assigned ambulance for the day, pausing only long enough to grab what details there were for this particular run. Sliding into the passenger seat he plugged in what was the closest thing they had to an address since the site of the emergency was actually in the middle of some woods.

“So what do we have?” Frank asked as he pulled out to the bay.

“Not much in terms of details.” Harry admitted as he read down what little there was in terms of actual information, “A group of local ‘kids’ were out playing or something in the woods and there was an accident of some kind.”

“Anything a bit more, you know, specific? Like how many kids got hurt, or their ages, or what kind of accident it was? So that we’d have at least some idea about what we’re about to walk into?” Frank groused, just as disgruntled as Harry was with the lack of information.

“We’ll be meeting up with a local rescue hero who’ll lead us out to where the kids are supposed to be?” Harry said with an answering snort. Because of course there wasn’t enough information to go on. That would be too easy. Particularly since it looked to Harry like it was a case of unsupervised teens fooling around and doing something that they knew very well they weren’t supposed to. Which meant that it likely involved illegal alcohol, drug and/or quirk use.

“Typical.” Frank snorted as they sped through the city proper and into the surrounding suburbs, “No, no. Don’t tell the people coming to help you anything they actually need to, you know, help. just be as vague as humanly possible; more points for the less said and all.”

Harry sighed as Frank began to rant. Frank wasn't wrong exactly. The truth of it was that most people didn’t know how to properly deal with a medical emergency. They simply didn’t know what they needed to tell emergency services when they called the emergency in. Half the time they couldn't tell the difference between what was and was not an actual emergency (and it wasn’t all blowing a non emergency all out of proportion. There were just as many people who would put off calling in for help because they underestimated how bad an illness or injury was since it didn’t seem like it was ‘that bad’ until it was almost too late), and when you added in the fact that the panic that inevitably came during an emergency situation exasperated people’s inability to figure out what information they did or didn’t need to give when they called in an emergency. Which was entirely understandable since most people didn’t deal with medical emergencies on anywhere near a regular basis. Not to mention that no one (especially kids and teens) wanted to admit to their wrong doings and get into trouble over them so would often leave out critical information in an effort to avoid having to face the consequences of the wrong they’d done. 

It took them about a further ten to twenty minutes of driving before they reached the rondevu spot they’d been directed to. The rescue hero who was to be their guide was already there, waiting impatiently for them to park and grab the gear that they would need.

“About time you got here.” the hero groused, his bushy squirrel-like tail lashing about in his irritation from having to wait for them.  

Harry bit back a frown at this. The hero’s attitude was grating to Harry; as if being asked to do what was in effect his job and be a hero in these circumstances was a big bother. Yes it had taken him and Frank some time to make it out to the site of the accident (or as close as the ambulance could get anyway) and there was always the chance that in the time it took them to get there the patient (or patients as the case might be given how little information they’d been given) could’ve succumbed to whatever injury or illness they’d had. But it wasn’t like they could’ve just teleported over from the hospital they started at (space warping quirks were very rare after all). All in all it left a sour taste in Harry’s mouth and he made a mental note to mention it to someone after the patient(s) was seen to and they’d gotten back to base. 

“Just head north for about a kilometer or so then hang a right and go about two or three more kilometers; the old abandoned quarry where they all are should be somewhere on the left of that.” the hero said unhelpfully before jumping into his car and speeding off before either Harry or Frank could ask any questions (like if he could actually lead him to where they had to go instead of giving them vague directions that could so easily see them lost since they weren’t familiar with this particular forest).

“Well that was a thing that just happened.” Frank commented.

Harry merely sighed and pulled out the compass he carried around on his key ring for such occasions (mostly because he could never really remember how to find north without one). “Let’s just get going.”

Harry and Frank hiked for a while in relative silence. It really was a pretty little wood; full of oak, maple, and birch with the occasional pine or poplar thrown in the mix for diversity. Birds twittered and hopped about as they passed.

“You know what I don’t get.” Frank finally said as they reached (what they believed was) the point at which the hero had told them to ‘turn right’, breaking the quiet that they had fallen into.

“Hmm?” Harry asked.

“Why’d they call us in? I mean, there has to be someone closer right? Or maybe they could’ve gotten the rescue hero to bring the kids out of the woods instead of having us go in to them...” Frank continued.

“I don’t know.” Harry shrugged in answer, “It’s not like I’m familiar enough with this area to know what company covers it. And maybe the patient couldn’t be moved for one reason or another.”

Again they lapsed into a sort of silence punctuated by the occasional crack of a twig being snapped as they continued on. Half an hour or so of hiking later, they finally reached the spot the hero had indicated might’ve been where they were looking for. Or not because the hero had been vague and completely unhelpful as to where they were supposed to go (there was a reason he’d been asked to physically lead Harry and Frank to the spot where the kids were). Any qualms Harry might’ve had about reporting the hero’s behavior when they finally got back to civilization (not that Harry’d had very many in the first place) vanished as they began poking around ‘to the left’ in hopes of maybe finding some clue as to where they were meant to be.

A few meters to the north of their position was indeed an old quarry. Moss and lichen covered previously exposed stones where the rocks had been excavated from while hardy plants poked up from small patches of dirt, and every here and there they could see bits and pieces of broken down human made structures like rusty ladders and broken platforms leading to and from nowhere. It was, as Harry felt, hauntingly breathtaking. A not so subtle reminder about the impermanence of man and the sheer power and persistence of nature.

There were also signs of more recent human activity (as in, had happened sometime this year rather than being a relic from decades ago when the quarry had still been in active use). Broken bottles and bits of other trash were scattered around showing that the old quarry had found new life in the form of a secluded hangout spot for the locals (the kind that the youth liked to believe the adults in their life were completely unaware of despite the fact that same said adults had likely used the spot in their own youth). There were no signs of anyone having been there more recently than maybe a week or two ago that either Harry or Frank could tell (and they could easily be wrong about that. They were paramedics not forensic investigators and so were not able to accurately date any of the detritus they’d found) so either it’d been a false call or they had the wrong spot. They did make a good faith effort to look around, just in case their patient had managed to wedge themselves into a non obvious spot after being abandoned by the people they’d been with as those who could get out of there did in order to avoid getting into trouble that being found there would’ve led to, but in the end they decided to head back to their ambulance and call things in from there. Technically they could’ve searched further for their supposed patient, but that wouldn’t have been practical. They didn’t have enough time to waste getting lost on some wild goose chase looking for someone who may or may not exist.