Chapter four: Hot Head

Roger was a good kid, for the most part. At least his intentions were good. His methods and actions however, led people to believe he's less than good. He was sitting on the porch of the apartment building he lived in. An old run down place with many of the windows boarded up, and a fire escape hanging off one side by a hinge. The rest of the street wasn't much better, and in many cases worse. All around was filth and garbage littering the street. The people weren't much better.

Roger was scanning the street, looking for anything of interest. Not much really encouraged him to move however, but in this town, something will make you move. As it so happened, when he looked down one end of the street, a gang of people were making their way in his direction.

"What ah you lookin at punk?" one of the gang members said as he caught Roger's eye.

"A group of low life excuses for living flesh." Roger responded with a snarl.

Another of the gang members pulled a gun from his side and held it against Roger's head.

"Look who's talkin. Not even any friends, and to stupid to know when to keep his mouth shut." he said.

Rogers eyes met the man who held the gun. He merely smiled as he pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it.

"Boo." Roger said as a huge fireball engulfed everyone.

The gang members all jumped make and were scrambling to put out the flames on their clothes and hair. Roger merely sat smiling at them all and watched them jump like rabbits. The gun wielder pointed it at Roger's head.

"You little bastard!" he said and then pulled the trigger.

Another ball of flame erupted in front of Roger. It lingered for a moment as the bullet fired melted into nothing in an instant. Roger now had a large smirk on his face as he remained sitting and looked around at the expressions on everyone's face. A few of the gang members took off while two others were to awestruck to move. The gun wielder however began panicking as his numbers dwindled. Roger's eye caught his and he flinched. With another short flare of flames, the remaining gang members fled. Roger started laughing to himself.

All around this area of the city, it was like this. All the people didn't seem to care of one another, and crime was phenomenal as the police seem to have forsaken the place. Roger was now traversing the area looking for anyone else stupid enough to mess with him. As he walked, he looked at all the people and the terrible shape they were in. If they weren't following the wrong crowd, they were barely living. The few that had managed to make a life here, were being hounded by all the gangs and thugs that resided here.

Roger came to a convenience store and started looking around. The shelves were almost completely bare, save a few snack cakes. Roger wasn't sure why he was here. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, and he had no money to buy anything anyway, and he wasn't here to steal anything. He just had nothing better to do.

"You goin to buy anythin?" the store clerk asked, gun in hand beneath the counter.

"No, just browsing." Roger said.

"Either buy something or leave. I aint got time to deal with rabble like you."

"Hmph"

Roger left the store and continued walking. He came across a group of people who were hounding some kids. With a shrug for no apparent reason, he walked up to the group.

"There a problem here?" Roger said as he stood between the kids and the thugs.

"Is now, your face just ruined my day." one of the thugs said.

"I know how to make it a bit more tolerable. And hell, may even brighten up my day a bit." another thug said.

Roger held his lighter in a fist in one hand and readied his other hand to fight. The kids backed up as one of the thugs threw the first punch.

"Hrrraagh!" the thug's attack was parried and Roger replied with a punch to the gut and shoved the thug away. Just then another thug was swinging a metal bar he picked up, and landed a clean blow against Roger's shoulder. "Ah!" Roger yelled as he fell to one knee.

Another thug was swinging his arm toward Roger, but he ducked away from it, got to his feet, and backed away from his attackers. Then he looked around to make sure no one was near him that he didn't intend to hurt. The kids were watching the fight from the other side of the street. Roger nodded at no one and turned in time to see the metal bar coming for his head. Roger backed up a bit to dodge the attack and the attacker stumbled into him.

Roger took the opportunity to snatch the bar and throw is wielder to the side. He then proceeded to throw the bar down, raised his lighter, and before you could tell it was lit, a jet of flames shot out in front of him, igniting the two thugs in front of him. The thugs clothes burned for a moment, then Roger raised is hand and swiped it in front of his, as if cleaning something, and the flames went out. The thugs proceeded to whimper from their burns as they stumbled away. Roger merely chuckled slightly as he looked down at the last thug that was on the ground at the time.

"You're going to not come around here anymore right?" Roger said to the thug, who was cowering in fear.

"Nnn, nn, no, no of course not, never!" the thug was stuttering, unable to find words.

"Good, no get out of here before I let you burn to ash!" Roger said as he pointed in the direction the other two ran.

The thug scrambled to his feet and took off fast as he could. Roger was laughing to himself at the sight while two of the kids came over to thank him. The other few children stayed across the street, afraid of Roger. Roger returned the thanks, and sent the kids on their way. He then proceeded to wander some more with no destination in mind.