Outlaw: Into The Fire

Chapter 1

A/N: Well it has been awhile but here's a chapter for ya.

As always Vote, Comment and thank you for reading.

Edited by BizarreSmalls

Chapter 1

It's been one month since what has become known as The Heroes Last Stand, or simply The Stand. We held our breath during that first week waiting for the villains to rampage after their victory. The heroes managed to do a good deal a damage to the villains. Most of them had to retreat and lick their wounds, but those that were left started hunting those heroes that escaped the battle, or weren't present. Even beaten, the remaining heroes continued to fight.

Well that was until two weeks after the stand. A dozen villains executed the last remaining active hero in the Washington DC area on the white house lawn. The villains demanded that all hero's are to be deemed criminals, that the government is to no longer aid any so called heroes, but they are to fact arrest anyone claiming to be a hero. The president refused. The villains proceeded to rampage through downtown DC. Over a hundred civilians were killed. Half of the DC police force was either injured, or killed. The government refused to release how many soldiers and agents from various agencies were injured or killed. Three retired heroes joined the fight as well. All three died fighting. After five hours, only four villains had been killed. Three of them due to the retired heroes effort's.

The house and the senate passed the law outlawing heroes. The president vetoed it, and they overrode the president's veto, Passing the law. The president was enraged. Rumor is that he cussed out congress and has been working out of a hidden bunker ever since. Over half the remaining heroes went into hiding after the law was passed.

Little has changed for me in the last month. I'm still a six foot tall, overweight, seventeen year old Junior with dark brown hair and glasses. I haven't become faster, stronger or anything like that, my eyesight sucks without my glasses, I've heard nothing from this Athena person. I've spent the last month talking with my only two friends, ‘cause the fat guy who's not really good at anything has tons of friends, and the two friends I do have are real social climbers.

My oldest friend is Owen Chambers, and he has been branded a Nerd with a capital “N.” The truth of the matter is, he is a certified genius. He could be in college already if his parents let him, but they won't, and that's probably a good thing. Owen, like most highly intelligent people, is socially awkward. He's all of five foot five and his build is wiry at best. He keeps his sandy blonde hair cut in a simple style and, unlike most nerds, he dresses normally. His only piece of nerd fashion is a pair of small round reading glasses that he perches on the end of his nose while he reads. We met all the way back in Day Care, and have been together ever since. What happened on the soccer field is the only big event in my life that I haven't told him about. That includes my crush on my other friend.

I've had a crush on Madison Sloan for years, but I've been too chicken to make a move. Okay, until last year, I had a crush from afar. She was injured when a villain tried to rob the bank she and her mother were in. The female hero Crystal Shard stopped the robbery, but Madison took a blow to the head during the fight. I had to stop Owen from giving me a full medical description of how she lost her eyesight.

Madison has a classic beauty about her and people gravitated to her before she lost her sight. She is five foot nine with honey blonde hair, and her eyes are still a clear blue, though they have dulled with the loss of her sight.

We were friendly before she lost her sight. All but one of her so-called “friends” abandoned her because she was, as they put it, a “crip.” I treated her no differently than I did before and we became friends. The other kids couldn't pick on Madison, because she was blind, but they could insult and pick on her through Owen and I at lunch. After a really bad incident, she was was in tears. I could see how much it hurt her, so to spare her, Owen and I didn't sit with her at the start of lunch the next day. Madison and her friend, Abigail Burk, aka Abby, showed up at the table where we were sitting and sat down next to me.

“Why didn't you sit with us?” I can hear the hurt in her voice, and God it hurts.

“I didn't want them to tease you through me again. With you sitting with us,” I gesture to Owen and myself. She just smiles at me because I forgot she can't see the gesture, “it allows them to pick on you as well.” Her hand slides over the table until she find's my hand, and gives it a squeeze.

“I would rather be teased and have you to talk with, than not be teased and not have you to talk with. This is the first time you have treated me differently, Theo, please don't do it again. I don't think I could stand it if you did.” I went from just having a crush on her to being head over heels for her.

Owen gives me a look that says, “Are you going to make a move or what?” Abby gives me a knowing look. Dear god does everyone know but Maddie? I give Owen a look right back ‘cause he's got it just as bad for Abby. When I asked him why he hasn't asked out Abby, He told me he could give me a mathematical equation to tell me his chances of getting her to go on a date with him, but I would only hurt my brain trying to figure it out. “So to simplify, she's a jock, I'm a nerd, and that's the end of it.”

I think he's being a little harsh about her, but Owens’ been burned by the jock and popular crowd before. Abby is a jock. She plays soccer, softball, basketball and at least one type of martial art. She is the female version of Leon Thompson, our schools all-star male athlete. She's also six foot tall with fiery red hair that most girls can only try to get out of a bottle, and her emerald green eyes that scream her Irish roots. That, and she's smoking hot.

Well to say the least, I chickened out. From then on we always sit together for lunch, and both Owen and I pine for the two girls we sit with.

Well tomorrow we go back to school, and nothing has changed. Did I just make everything up in my mind? Did the old man really talk to me and give me that metal box? I just don't know anymore. I reach to turn off the monitor to my computer. It flickers, and the face and shoulders of a woman appear on the screen.

“Hello Theo, my name is Athena. You were told to expect me.”

And so it begins.