[ WP ] Tell me the story of a publicly hated hero fighting a much beloved villian

So many years have passed since that night in San Genova. I still remember each moment as clearly as cut glass. 
 
 We were entering into a new world. We read in the papers of the heroes... of their powers, their garish costumes. It felt a little theatrical, a little unreal. Like a little bit of fiction was seeping through some unseen crack in the universe. 
 
 Then, the catastrophes. Cities leveled to radioactive ash, skyscrapers cracked and thrown about like children's toys. These were n't men, fighting and flying through the streets. 
 
 I once had the *privilege* to watch Highflame during a parade through the city square. He stood a hand and a half taller than any man, and his body flickered and pulsed with living wreathes of white fire. 
 
 He did not speak to us. Watching his stark silhouette glowing brilliant against the twilight, I was filled with the horrible sensation of *falseness* -- as if he were something terrifying and alien, stuffed into an ill-fitting human skin. 
 
 At the moment of this very thought, his brilliant violet eyes found mine, and flashed once -- twice. Mocking me. 
 
 No, these were not men; they were gods. And to play out their little romances, their petty grudges and adventures, they killed *millions*. 
 
 We fled the cities in droves, only to find that the gods followed us wherever we roamed. What good is godhead without a captive, prayerful audience? They fed off our adulation, our fear. 
 
 It in this moment of utter despair that He rose from the least of us. I know very little about who he was, or what drove him to become humanity's final martyr. I know only these events as they transpired, November 30th in the city hall of San Genova: 
 
 -- - 
 
 -- - 
 
 Moonlight gleams in silver shafts from the few remaining towers of the city main. Let them paint a picture: a lone man, shoulders slumped. His clothes are slick with grease and ash -- a weighty but worn toolbelt pools around his knees. 
 
 He is cradling the charred remnants of a once-human body. Punishing, ungodly heat has scored away flesh and gristle, leaving only a collection of blackened bone. These he touches gently, aware of the grotesque insignificance of it all, but far past the point of caring. 
 
 Above him towers the olympian figure of the great hero Highflame. All light shies away from his harsh and crackling form. 
 
 **She was in the way. ** he says, with a voice like a million bonfires roaring in unison. **Do try to understand. ** 
 
 A silent crowd has gathered now, watching from their windows, stoops and store corners. They know better than to interfere. 
 
 **And at the end of the day, you know she was only a... ** the hero pauses for a moment ( *is it possible? do even gods feel guilt? * ) 
 
 **Well she was n't anyone important** he finishes lamely. 
 
 The man stiffens at these words. His threadbare shoulders, in that instant, seem to carry the weight of the world. 
 
 `` Her name was Samantha.'' he whispers hoarsely. Then, without warning he reaches to his waist. When his hand returns, it is firmly clenched around the shaft of a gleaming wrench. 
 
 The great olympian hero rears to his full, godlike height. Fire runs in brilliant rivers up and down his sculpted length. 
 
 **You ca n't be serious? ** he asks, as would any god challenged by an insect. 
 
 This man -- this insignificant gnat, does n't waver. And in that moment he is glorious; his ashen rags are armor, his wrench is the shining edge of *Excalibur. * 
 
 `` We wo n't live like this.'' he says. 
 
 *A heartbeat, a fateful swing -- * 
 
 The smell of sizzling flesh... 
 
 -- - 
 -- - 
 The rest is illusion, insignificant. Remember only this: against the gods themselves, a man chose, *chose* against all reason, to stand. His name is unimportant. He is all men, and all men reflect him. 
 
 I *choose* not to remember what happened next. And on quiet nights, when the moon is full, I *spit* -- 
 
 and a small but brilliant white star will blink at me from the horizon. 
 
 Once, twice. 
 
 Mocking me. 

