Everyone was talking at once now and Ash could feel his temper begin to bubble up beneath the surface. He cocked his jaw and glowered at the blonde girl who was adamant about the whole running away from this oddly huge fucking coincidence that was all of them running into each other is a coffee shop. A coffee shop in Pavar. Pa-fucking-var. He didn't understand it and everyone wanting to do their best to just gloss over it and run away from each other was enough to make his blood boil. Ash was practically a superhero and these idiots were as well, but they didn't want to do something with it. They all seemed to want to do their best to be normal. 'Fuck normal,' he wanted to scream. 'Fuck normal and fuck this little town. Fuck you guys,' he mentally amended his original statement, beginning to part his lips to tell off the crowd of scared shitless kids. Even the redhead was trying to run off now.
The door blew in, flecks of burning debree hitting his body and falling to the floor around him as a man made his way through the door. Well, maybe a man. Ash couldn't tell through the suit of fucking armour he was wearing. And that got Ash thinking.
In a moment things had gone from bad to potentially catastrophic. Normal people didn't wear armour and normal people didn't have weapons on open display. This guy was not normal. He was not someone showing up to the scene of a fire. He might have had powers. He might have been on their side. Ash would have been willing to accept that if there wasn't a Sig Sauer aimed straight at his dome a moment later.
"Its been a long day. Now this is my last stop before I can head home for some much needed rest. You all can give up or I can end you all by force. The choice is yours." It said, the voice vaguely masculine but still distant and muffled behind the mask.
"Like hell!" Ash hissed, reacting before his mind had time to catch up with his muscles or his lips. Ash threw a hand at blondie's feet, making a ripping motion that ripped up the concrete beneath her feet, throwing her backwards and rising up like a wall, sending her on a crash course with the redhead. Curt was gonna be pissed when he realised that Ash had been hiding his other power from him. More precisely, Ash was hiding that he had Curt's power and had been practicing extensively with it since their powers bloomed. He had also been hiding that they shared their gifts. If they made it through this, Curt was gonna be pissed. Maybe Ash would get lucky and get offed before he had to deal with his brothers bitching or that damn "I'm just disappointed, Ash" bullshit he had bulled on Ash a few times before.
Ash's body burst into roaring flame that consumed him. He was now a silhouette under a roaring flame. If this were a movie, Ash would've yelled something witty and blown the guy across the mall in a single blast. But this wasn't a movie. And all that Ash could do was let out a thunderous battlecry as flames ripping from his hands on course with the intruder.
A deafening boom filled the room followed by a silence.
The roaring flames disappeared as suddenly as they were made and for a moment Ash and the man in armour stared at one another.
And then Ash dropped to the ground. Mouth agape, eyes wide in shock as if he had just been caught doing something embarassing, while a stream of blood ran down the side of his forehead from a hole dead in its center.
In the movies the good guys always won.
This wasn't a movie.