"The people. Did they seem happy?"

"I guess???"

"Jill was alright, wasn't she? And Dennis. And the workers with the trucks. They had nice days. Dennis had a nicer day yesterday with my help. Hal and Reks and Samuel had a nicer day today with my help. I didn't help Jill at all and she's having nice days, too."

"Can you get to your point?"

"I'm only one person. I can't help everyone equally. The world isn't equal. If I could, I would, but I can't. That doesn't mean it doesn't count. The people I didn't help, or didn't help today, aren't worse off for my having helped others or at other times, are they?"

"That's a stupid point. You didn't make anything worse, did you?"

"Not this time, no. Maybe that's an argument against making guns for a living, you won't find me disagreeing with that. Fewer guns in the world sounds splendid to me, actually. But my point is...

"...the world isn't so simple, alright? It's, things don't get fixed if you just make them more equal. It's noble, I get where you're coming from, wanting to give power to the powerless, wanting to help the helpless. I've dabbled in that occasionally, myself. But that's not—enough. It's not enough to make things equal. That's not an angle I could use to make the relationship between townspeople here and the bank healthier and better, it's not because of inequality that those issues have cropped up and it's not that that'll solve it. Helping people is a lot more about—"

He's interrupted by the sounds of gunshots.

"—hold that thought," he says, darting towards where the noises come from.

—what kind of lunatic hears gunshots and runs towards them???

.............Zash the fucking Stampede, he supposes. And, damn him, he's following, apparently.

It's easy to catch up, since (as was very predictable) the gunshots came from where the armoured car had been starting to unload its money. Zash is looking around a building corner at the situation when Frank gets to him. He lifts a finger to his lips when he notices Frank.

There are four people there surrounding the car. Two are facing outwards and holding machine guns, one is pointing a rifle at the bank employees, and one is pointing an enormous pistol at whatever in creation he wants to. "I think we all know how this is gonna go," he says, being very very careless about his gun. "Now we can do it the easy way or the hard way..."

"Get everyone here," Zash whispers urgently to Frank. "As many people as you can get. Surround the place. And wait for my signal."

And he goes in.

"...what? Zash! Zash!!" he calls, but he's still whispering so it's useless. "Fuck. What's this nutjob trying to do, what the fuck..."

He'll do as instructed, though.

Zash walks into view and two guns are on him. His hands are raised, though, and he's walking very slowly.

"...who the fuck is this clown?" asks one of the machine gun people.

"I just wanna have a chat."

"A chat?" she asks. "Do you know who this guy is?" gesturing at the one holding the big pistol. "That's Zash the Stampede, the legendary Human Typhoon."

Zash stops walking and blinks at the man. "Seriously?" Is that the bit they're doing?

"I'm Zash the Stampede, the $$6,000,000 man!" the guy confirms loudly, shooting up at the sky. "Anyone standing against me is doomed!"

"Are you sure? I heard he was a lot handsomer than you."

"Why, you," he splutters and shoots the floor right in front of Zash. "Now shoo! I'm doing very important criminal business here!"

Zash can psychically hear the woman wanting to facepalm and: same, girl.

"Well, Zash the Stampede can talk, right? We have a lot in common, we share initials!"

"...what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Zash the Stampede."