Chapter 5 - Is this it?

Claire tries with all her might to push through The Man on Fire, but she's not strong enough, it's as if she's running into a brick wall. Claire doesn't know what to do.

She has these powers but no idea how to use them, or if she even should. She tries to zip past him and towards the door, but is met by an arm as tough as a brick wall, and she starts to fall to the ground.

She tries to get back to her feet, but in an instant his leg comes flying in, and Claire finds herself barrelling towards the wall behind her. She doesn't know what to do anymore, she can barely feel anything anymore, no pain, no emotion. Nothing. Until the rage kicks in.

If The Man on Fire is here, then her father must be dead. With her last bit of energy she stands up, and lets loose her scarlet eyes, and a beam of pure energy thrust itself forward into The Man on Fire. For a second she thought she had won.

It was the next second that brought her back to reality.

The energy she fired into him, seemed to rejuvenate him, make him even stronger. Up until now, for some reason he had only been using one side of his body to fight with, but now his entire body was covered in flames, and he looked ready to settle this right now.

This time she doesn't have a second to react, The Man on Fire grabs Claire by the throat and squeezes until she has nothing left. At first she tries to fight this, but it's futile. He's so much stronger and she's just a child. A child playing at being superhero.

As Claire begins to fade out of consciousness, she feels his grip loosen, and she falls to the ground in a heap. "Is this it?" she thinks, as this hulking man looms over at her ready to strike.

Claire hears a resounding *CRASH* and assumes it's over, it takes her a few seconds to come around, but by the time she does, all she sees is her father stood in front of The Man on Fire. He was alive, but for how long?

Before anyone can react, The Man on Fire is ablaze, and holding Matthew by the throat. Claire is lost. If she acts she'll die. But if she doesn't her father will. She sees red, and feels the heat reach her eyes, launching The Man on Fire outside of the house, and away from her father.

Claire lets the rage take over, and finds her flinging herself at The Man on Fire. She doesn't know if it's her strength or just adrenaline coursing through her veins, but she feels much stronger now.

She would later tell her father how she felt in this moment, and he knew deep down why she felt this way. It wasn't her strength, and it wasn't adrenaline pushing her on. She had found a reason to fight. Something to push her on. In this world, that was the strongest boost to your powers you could ever have.

This was something she would soon witness for herself when her father, who to her looked on death's door, somehow flew towards The Man on Fire, and started flying straight up, at a speed faster than Claire had ever witnessed.

She tried her best to catch up, and help, but her father was just too fast. Although when The Man on Fire began to struggle, she was there. Spurred on by her purpose ready to risk it all, only to be pushed away by her father, plummeting back to Earth, as she watched him take this man higher and higher, until the flames went out.

Claire didn't see where her father ended up after everything, she just had to hope that he was alright. But before she could think about any of that, she had to stop herself from falling. She had gone too high, and she knew it. She could feel the air thinning, but pushed on because her father needed her in that moment.

Before she could ready herself, she felt it, the sting of the roof breaking in two under her. She was back in the basement. Back in her house. She was safe, for now.

She pulled herself up the stairs, and towards her bedroom. She was exhausted. She had never experienced anything like this before, and hoped never to again. After some time she made it to her room. Which was somehow one of the only intact rooms left in the house. She crawled into bed to just rest for a moment, and felt herself drift off.

She awoke 30 minutes later, not refreshed, but in a clearer mindset, and everything came flooding back to her.

Any number of things that happened to this girl today could have broken her. But none of them did. What did break her is realizing that this is the end. The end of her normal life. She was a "Super". Her Mom was a "Super". Her Dad was a "Super".

She was one of the villains of this world, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it, and she broke down. There's no telling how long she was crying for, but she was in that room for what felt like an eternity, so when she heard the doorknob turn, her eyes developed the red hue of her rage, and she was ready to strike down whatever came through that door. Consequences be damned, she was already a villain in the eyes of the world.

But sometimes life throws you a helping hand, because for her sake she didn't have to make that choice, as the man who came through that door wasn't The Man on Fire, it wasn't anyone here to hurt her. It was her father.

In that moment Claire felt the anger leave her, and she fell to the ground, only to be greeted by her father's embrace, and comforting voice telling her the one thing she wanted, no needed to hear right now; "It's OK kiddo, it's me. We're ok".