The bells on the door handle jangled as a new customer entered the shop. There were already four customers there, ranging between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. The largest one happened to be the oldest but found he had a hard time keeping up mentally with boys his age, so he opted for friends younger than him to avoid feeling quite as useless. If you were to ask any of the other boys in the group which one was the dumbest, all of them would still say it was the large one. This was the character of Carter Marlin.

Now, if you were to ask the boys which was the smartest in the group, there would be a small discussion and possibly a bit of bickering, but the general consensus would be the second oldest boy. He could outsmart any one of them in every game and competition. Whenever he was deep in thought, he would start to rub his earlobe, and for the boys, if they challenged him to a game, it would be considered a victory for the others if he had to take the time to think before acting since truly winning against him was far out of the question. This was the character of James Westin.

The other two boys, Patrick and Max, were twins, tan with dark red hair, but the similarities stopped at physical. Patrick was always scared to try new things and the last to do something stupid if the other boys decided they would be in on it. Max was eager to follow and even more eager to be the first to try something new. When they first met, it only took the rest of the boys one day to be able to tell the difference between the two, purely because of how differently they acted.

These four boys turned at the sound of the new customer, and all smiled when they saw that it was Parker. Parker was always outgoing and easy to talk to, making him a natural leader of the boys. Parker was also frequently the one who thought of unique ways to kill time when they weren't busy helping their parents run their shops. The store owner prepared a soda for Parker right away. He knew exactly what every single boy wanted since the boys had been coming to this same shop to drink soda and talk every day for three years.

"I'm surprised your mom let you leave your house," stated James.

Parker placed a copper bill on the table and grabbed the soda. "Yeah, well, me too, but here we are, so let's make the most of it before she changes her mind."

At that moment, six holes were blasted into the shop door. All five boys ducked behind a table. Parker cursed himself for forgetting his Liquid at home since this was the entire reason his parents gave him a weapon to protect himself in the first place.

"Yahoo!!"

Three bandits crashed through the front door whooping and hollering, one of them, seeming to be the leader due to the bandana meant to be worn around the bottom half of the face to preserve identity, instead being wrapped around his bicep, brandished a pistol with a bright gold stripe running along the top and pointed it towards the owner.

"All the money."

The owner knew the rest of what he was going to say and didn't need to waste any time. He opened the register and started taking money out and handing it to the men. They all shoved the cash into their pockets, and the boys realized none of the bandits had thought of having a bag with them. The Leader pulled the trigger on his gun, and a fireball burst across, lighting the bar table on fire.

"Faster, old man, we've got places to be."

The owner, now nervous about the growing flames on his table, hurriedly gave the rest of the money to the men. Before leaving, the leader shot two more fireballs, one of them getting dangerously close to the table the boys were hiding under, and then he let loose with a stream of flame near the entrance. Then, the crew ran off. Immediately after the gang left, the boys emerged from under the table. Carter removed the flannel he wore and started patting out the flames the best he could. Parker went to check on the owner to make sure he was alright. Patrick and Max both called for help. James began grabbing items that seemed valuable and taking them out of the shop. After a while, Carter had given up on using his flannel, and there was a line of townsfolk outside getting buckets of water to put out the fire. Parker helped get the shop owner out of the burning building, when he turned to the owner and realized he had never asked the name of the owner before, he saw tears in the man's eyes as the fire slowly subsided.

"I won't be able to fix it." Said the owner.

Parker hooked his fingers behind himself, not knowing how to console the man, "I'm very sorry, sir."

"This shop was all I had in this town, and now I have nothing."

Parker looked on towards the charred building, the last of the flames getting washed away, and felt anger. Anger towards the bandits who destroyed the store. Anger towards the people who did nothing to stop men like this. Anger towards himself for not having been prepared. But now that he thought about it, what would he have done? He'd never tried to protect people like that. Now that he thought about it further, what had stopped him all this time from protecting people? Parker made sure the man was alright, handed him off to some of the other townsfolk, and went to find his friends. Parker had found his purpose.