Yes, I posted this a few days ago. It received very little response, however, and after rereading the pathetic thing I posted, I'm honestly not surprised.

Maybe this is *slightly* better. Please let me know!

His iconic costume wasn't really all that it was made up to be.

His 'majestic, flowing toga'? His Aunt's old drapes. His golden helmet? Bought at some sleazy costume shop for ten bucks. His combat boots? Found at a thrift store.

But when he put on this strange costume, he felt different. There was a magic in taking off his glasses and donning his helmet and suddenly changing into someone completely different. When he became the city's hero, he was actually making a difference. Crime by crime, he was saving the world.

It was fucking awesome.

It certainly helped that he was part of a genetic minority. He was born with powers, and although his parents tried to suppress the abilities he possessed, they eventually overtook him until he was his power. It was the curse of being a super. There was no way to be so powerful and have a normal life.

He could pick up a car with one arm and not break a sweat. He could soar through the sky and float among the clouds.

...or at least, he could when he was in costume. He was someone different when the helmet was under his bed.

He lived a double life, but it worked for him. He tried to save the world in two different ways. He just hoped that someday he could truly change everything for the better.

Eponine pulled her shirt away from her soaking skin. Up ahead, the sun burned through even the smog. Heat shimmered off the pavement and the light was everywhere- glass buildings glowed. The world was on fire. And wherever there was fire, he was sure to follow.

'He' was the masked vigilante known widely as Apollo. Eponine, who had shamelessly slept through the Greek mythology portion of her World Religions class, didn't see why. But she went along with it. For, as long as Apollo reined over the New York City crime world, Eponine had something to write about in her column.

She pulled out her phone (a condescending gift from her editor, Enjolras. He'd handed her the smartphone with a sneer. "Maybe now you'll get your articles to me on time") and began a voice memo. "May third, 2014. The Statue of Liberty is purple." She clicked pause only to open her camera and snap a picture of the phenomenon.

At first glance it didn't seem at all like the work of a supervillan. The lady of Liberty held her torch and seemed to nearly be braced against the wind, however she was... purple. The color of grape kool-aid. It seemed, if anything, like a bad prank.

However, the purple aura crackled with electricity. There were screams from the tourists held captive inside the landmark- and screams from everyone along the shore. All around her was chaos. Eponine waited with a cruel smirk on her face. Greek Geek would have a ball with this one.

The people stirred as the villain made herself known.

She couldn't fly. That was the first thing Eponine noticed. The woman- "Lavender Legacy"- hovered in the sky with the help of something that looked like a jet-pack. It didn't seem to be too supportive. It stuttered and barely held the figure aloft in the sky. Huh. Maybe Eponine wouldn't be here all day after all.

Suddenly, the sky exploded in purple and green. A distant form in white rose from Ellis Island, holding a bow.

"It's about time," Eponine mutters before putting her phone close to her mouth again. "Greek Geek arrives around fourteen oh three. He shot an arrow and the weird electro thing is gone. How powerful a villain."

She put her phone back in her pocket, ready to pack up and leave. It didn't seem like this fight would be interesting after all. Those around her sensed the same thing and began to shift back inland, except for the families of those still trapped. The crowd flowed viciously around those who stood in place. Eponine knew better than to fight the horrors of a New York mob. Instead she pressed herself against a building, hoping that she was small enough to not be battered.

As she was busy trying to stay in her place, something hit the wall a few inches above her head. She jumped away and looked up to see a neat little hole. Around the edges, the melted glass simmered and smoked.

Oh, shit. Little Miss Lavender had a weapon.

Fumbling, Eponine pulled her phone out of her pocket and began to film the scene that- in a matter of seconds- had changed so dramatically.

Narrating quickly (and hoping, praying that she would be able to understand herself later), Eponine said, "Looks like this bitch has some laser gun or something. With Apollo-the-avenging-asshole's magical arrows, it looks like they may be evenly matched."

She aimed the phone up at the sky, where a nearly amusing scene was taking place. Apollo and Lavender Legacy soared around the head of the statue, firing their respective volleys at each other. Apollo had better aim, but Lavender's weapon was more powerful. Apollo could actually stay aloft in the air without scratching a messy line of smoke along the sky, but Lavender was quick.

Honestly, Eponine had no clue how the fight was going to go.

"Damn, this is actually evenly matched! What a shocker," she chuckled. Her phone was capturing enough of the fight for her to get a few decent screenshots out of it. Maybe she should film most Apollo's fights.

Wait, she realized, I don't want him taking up space on my phone.

She ended the video and shoved her device back into her pocket with finality. Just as she looked up once more, she was faced with a golden helmet, gleaming in the sun, flying right at her. She groaned and lifted her arms. He insisted on doing this. Every. Damn. Time.

With shocking force, Apollo's arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her with him into the sky. Less than a second later, the spot where Eponine had been standing was blasted with Lavender's gun. As the ground grew father away and the city was sparkling beneath them, Eponine's eyes didn't leave the charred spot of pavement.

Usually, Eponine loved feeling like she was flying. The sun setting her skin on fire. The feeling of the wind like fingers brushing through her hair. Going so fast she felt as if she was floating above the world and the path she beat with her feet.

What she didn't love was actually flying. Not only was she stuck with Greek Geek, but the wind beat her and whipped her hair against her sunburned face. Each strand felt like it was branded into her skin. He flew like she drived- way, way, way too fast.

"Slow down, won't you?" she screamed over the wind. It was a familiar quip- after all, she said it to him every other time she found herself held in his arms and flying through the sky.

"Sorry," he snapped, looking behind them at their pursuer. "I didn't realize you had a fucking death wish." His voice had a resonance hers did not. Even as they soared over the traffic-clogged streets, she could hear him loud and clear, almost as if they were in a silent room and he was speaking only to her.

Something slammed into the corner of her mouth and she spat, disgusted. "That's the third fly this week!" she complained.

Something that sounded like a special effect on a video game came from close behind them. Too close. Apollo jerked upwards- Eponine just yelped and clung to him (don't remind her)- and the beam crashed into a billboard, which collapsed from the hit and fell to the street below, burnt black.

He didn't stop after they dodged the beam, though. He kept flying higher and higher. Eponine's ears popped like gunshots and she winced into his (annoyingly) muscular shoulder. The only myth she actually knew, that of Icarus, floated on the tip of her tongue. She felt as if they were flying into the sun.

Soon he slowed enough so that she could hear her own voice. "Any chance you could give me a ride to 100 and Broadway?" Eponine asked, allowing all the sarcasm she possessed to be put into her words. Apollo turned his helmet to her- what little she could see of his face showed his frown.

"Any chance," he mocked her, "your next article about me won't be quite so scathing?"

Below them, New York City kept about its business as if a superhero wasn't flying in the clouds with a University reporter in his arm while a supervillan chased them.

He slowed nearly to a hover, allowing the two of them to sink into the fogginess of a cloud. The condensation was cool against Eponine's burning skin.

"What are you doing reading a school newspaper? Do you have any sort of life or are you just as pathetic as you are in this ridiculous costume?" she hissed. He hid any sort of reaction, instead turning his face away fro her for just a moment.

Finally he spoke. "You intrigue me, Miss Jondrette. How do you manage to find yourself on the scene of every job I run? Why do you pursue me when you hate me so?"

"Don't assume. It makes an ass out of 'u' and me. And besides, I'm not going to sit up here and spew my life story to you, asshole. Please just... put me down. Somewhere, anywhere. Hell," she snorted, "I wouldn't be surprised if you know where I live."

"Are you calling me a stalker?" For the first time in the long while since she first spoke to him, Apollo has a touch of amusement lacing his voice. Those tauntingly full lips are tilted into a smile. Those blue, blue eyes that seem like the sky captured twinkle.

She looked away. "You're a fucking creep in a toga and girl's combat boots. It wouldn't surprise me if you were."

"Jondrette!" the barking voice that boomed from behind her caused her to jump. Eponine cursed as her coffee spilled over her jeans. A boiling drop sizzled against her skin, exposed by a hole on her thigh. She clenched her teeth together and bit back the yelp that threatened to escape.

"You owe me coffee," she snapped. "What do you want, Enjolras?"

In the reflection of the computer, she could see his scowl. It seemed permanently etched-into his face. She'd never seen the man smile, and they'd worked on the University newspaper together since she was a freshman and he was a sophomore. It was the frown that scared people away, for he was not intimidating without it. In his ill-fitting clothes, chunky glasses, unflattering haircut and know-it-all manner, Jacob Enjolras was nothing more than a nerd. Who just happened to be able to yell really loudly.

"Need I remind you that I am your boss? Technically, it's you who should be bringing me coffee." Stiffly, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. They slid back down immediately.

"I never said you had to bring it to me, dick," she murmured.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Do you have your article ready yet? Or am I going to have to use Bossuet's shit writing... again?"

Eponine winced at the insult. The Newspaper committee was a small one. Most of them had been together for three or more years. The younger grades figured that it was a dying form of media, and new members were rare. Those who stuck with it were like family, and when one of them was slighted, everyone else felt the sting. Eponine shrugged the cruelty towards Bossuet away. She could deal with it later.

"Actually," she said, feeling around her desk for the printed article. "It's done."

He must shave seen her headline, for he sighed dramatically from the entry of her cubicle. "I swear to God, Jondrette, if it's another biased retelling of Apollo's latest triumph-"

"So what if it is?" She shrugged and turned around in her chair to face him. "It draws in readers."

"Yes, it does," Enjolras said as if he was agreeing with her. However, she knew his condescending tone too well. "It's because they make fun of you for being the only one in the city not in love with him."

A sting shot through Eponine, and for whatever reason so did the image of Apollo's eyes. "So what? Readers are readers are readers."

"... and yet your column lacks originality every week," he huffed. Eponine bristled at his critique. She sometimes wondered how he managed to be so cruel and cold all the time. Hoe was such a demeanor second-nature to him? How could he be so commanding and stuffy 24/7?

"My writing is-"

"Good, yeah. But I feel like I'm reading the same thing-"

"It's different! There's something new to complain about in every new article," she defended her writing as best she could. As she did every time she turned one in and Enjolras rolled his eyes and made that dramatic sigh. It was nearly a tradition by now. He would complain, she would argue, and he would publish it anyway.

"Just give me the damn article," he growled, sticking out his ink-stained hand. Despite the lack of air-conditioning and the summer heat that lingered on every surface, his baggy shirt reached all the way to his wrists and was buttoned up his neck.

She smiled sweetly and handed him the paper. "Thank you, Enjolras."

His frown grew deeper. "Yeah, okay."

So there's the first chapter!

I have no clue how long this is going to be, but I will try and update at least once a week, perhaps more if I get a positive response! (or even negative, I'm a little desperate for attention to be honest)

Please, please, please tell me what you think! The review box is very, very hungry.