Disclaimer: Joss is the all mighty. All hail.

A/N: This is my attempt at a more serious fic. Let me know how you like it.

No spoilers that I'm aware of so y'all are safe. This is rated R. If you have dificulties with implied/talked about rape or bad language then don't read any further.

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Chapter 1

With all of the crime here, Marshal law could have been a good thing. That is, if the law hadn’t been as bad as the rest.

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. If I hadn’t been a victim of it.

It almost seems impossible that something you believe so strongly in can be pulled right out from under you and sends you crashing down. Hollowing out a void in your chest.

I’d heard the rumors, but dismissed them instantly. Because there was absolutely no way that they could be true. That the Alliance was corrupt? That my life as a Federal Marshal was practically a lie... I guess I was fucking wrong, huh?

My name is Tien Blake. And I am an Alliance Federal Marshal... Or at least I was until about two months ago.

Now I’m called criminal.

Rebel.

I’m also wanted.

Now, when I told you that I was a victim, that might not have been the technical term. I do feel victimized. Betrayed. Raped even.

Let me tell you what I mean.

I was appointed a Federal Marshal at the end of the war. That was over six years ago. I didn’t fight in the war. Soldiers fight wars. I always wanted to be a lawman. They wouldn’t have let me anyways. I am the only son who can carry on my family’s name and they don’t let senators’ only sons go to war.

At the age of twenty, I got to live my dream. Having spent three and a half years in a cadet Academy, I became a Fed.

I was a loyal and dutiful little puppy. I was good at what I did to. I got my first big bust about four months in, before I could legally have alcohol. Parliament gave me a shinning metal and the next few days off.

About three years in, things between me and my old man were becom