As one, the entire team belts out the response they'd been planning for the last twenty minutes.

They all turn to face Timothy, and snap out a parade-perfect salute.  "Yes, Sleeping Beauty!"

He always gives this speech, and they always listen, and it's not wrong but oh my god would this man get the stick out of his ass?

Having undergone the formalities, they wait for Tim to count off the seconds 'till buff, heave a flat chunk of concrete out of the way.  It's a wonder how a piece of concrete this size wound up over here.  Maybe it used to be part of the school walls?  Or maybe part of a mall?  Whatever it is, it's picked up and hurled into the street in under ten seconds.  Not bad.

"DRT here!  Is anybody home?"

From deeper into the rubble, closer to the parts still recognizable as having once been a nice little house in a lovely neighbourhood, comes the sound of a young woman sobbing hysterically.

"Over here," calls a louder, clearer, less emotionally compromised voice from the same direction.

They pick up the pace.  "We're coming!  It'll just be a few more minutes, hang in there!"  Rubble begins flying towards the street.  Riggs, whose secret job is Esper Management, nods towards Tim.  "Son, why don't you be the one to help them out, while we're clearing the path?  Not like you're going to roll an ankle here."  That boy needs a job or he goes crazy.  Can't teach some people to relax.

Tim has been Observing all day.  It makes sense, he needs to manage his stamina.  But he haaaaaaaates not having a job to do, and hasn't internalized the fact that his job is to sit there and be a good little distributor of augmentation.

Hell yeah he'll save a civvie!  Esper balance, combined with a touch of his power, is more than enough.  "Okay, I'm going to tap on this wall!  Can you tap it back at me, so I know where you are?"

Knock knock?

"Uh, one sec..."

Shuffle, shuffle.

Inconsolable weeping.

Knock knock.

"Okay.  How much clearance do you have back there?"  How far back do you have to stand before I won't hurt you with splinters?

"Uh, some? Do you want us to get back? I think we can do like a few feet..." His muffled voice sounds dubious about this prospect.

"Yeah, please - and turn around.  I'll be careful about it, but you don't want splinters.  Let me know when you're clear.  You'll be alright in a few minutes, I promise."  He gestures at the rest of the team.  <Clear space, back up.>

"Can do..."

Shuffle shuffle.

Sobbing, wailing, etc.

A quiet vocalization that's either wordless or unintelligibly muffled, and then, "We're clear!"

"Okay, hang tight!"  Tim gives himself just a sliver of power and slides one of his spikes through the wall like it's butter.  Then he does that at three locations in a rough rectangle.  "Almost done, you'll be out in a jiffy."  Then he scores lines between those holes using a spike.  "Okay, I'm about to take this out.  Sunshine in ten seconds!"

He puts a hand into each of the two left-most holes, then flexes his powers and his biceps.  The wall crumbles in his hands.  He does this on the right hand side as well, then he breaks off most of the top of the wall.  "Sunshine in three...two...one...!"  And finally, he rips the chunk of wall out, largely intact bar a small chunk at the bottom.

Total backlash accumulation: twenty-three seconds of medium intensity.

He looks back over his shoulder with a hesitant grin. "Hey, would you look at that. Sunshine!"

It's hard to tell whether the head of blonde hair weeping into his chest has even noticed he's talking to someone.

Yeahhhh...

"Okay, work with me, babe," he says gently to his armful of tears. "We gotta get out of here."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaah I haaaaaaaaaaaaaate thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis..."

But she's beginning to detangle herself and turn toward the light.

Her boyfriend(?) gets her as far as the hole in the wall and then hands her out through it.

She's still full-on sobbing as she reaches half-blindly for whoever or whatever is out there to grab.

That's Tim!  He's grabbable!  He's got to pick her up, a little, this wall isn't exactly a ninety-degree angle anymore.  Maybe a forty-degree angle.  "I've got you, ma'am, just a - "

"Uhhh, you're an esper?  Are you -“

- clinging to him in a clumsily skin-contact-maximizing way and yelling "FUCK SHIT ASS BALLS!" in a tone of combined shrieking rage and hysterical relief? Why yes, she is!

?!?!?!