Darion was facing a full body mirror as he tried on for the first time the new costume provided to him by the ISSUE organization.

He stared at his appearance in the mirror in mute horror.

"Hell, no," he said quietly, almost to himself. "I'm not going to wear this shit."

*****

Its been two days after Darion arrived back home. He wanted to keep silent about his new codename but his family is adamant about it and incessantly asked for more details. Heck, it was the first thing Janiya asked of him the moment he stepped inside the door.

He tried to deflect the question but that didn't work. Instead, he tried to delay his answer and when that didn't stop them either, he tried being coy. But they were relentless.

"What is the big deal about some stupid codename?!" He asked, exasperated. His dad blinked in surprise while his mom gave a confused and hurt look.

Eventually, he couldn't stand his mom's look anymore and he blurted out his new codename.

"There! Are you happy?" He said.

The room was suddenly quiet. Everyone simply stared at him for a moment.

Until Janiya burst out laughing.

*****

For two days now, Darion silently endured the jokes and jibes about his new codename, including the 2-hour drive near the edge of the Stateline to go to the ISSUE Georgia headquarters for his final step in his hero registration which is to find his assigned hero designated area.

He wanted to find the bureaucrat that decided to give him such a stupid codename. And after he finds the idiot, he imagined all the things he will do to him. And he will start with his balls...

His imagination was rudely interrupted when they arrived at the building.

As part of the international hero act, it is the responsibility of ISSUE to provide individual heroes with their codename as well as their basic uniform costume to promote "unity, discipline, and the great virtuous values" every superhero needed to aspire to.

The costume is contained inside a small black cube the size of a dice and is placed in a bracelet-like device. When society needed a hero, the individual will simply need to grab the cube and placed it in their chest. The sensors are sensitive enough to penetrate any layer of clothes and scan the person's DNA for verification. Once the hero signature is properly identified, the cube will burst out into its basic nanoform and envelope the hero into the preprogram costume within.

When Darion tried it for the very first time, the costume consisted of black spandex that reached knee-length below. Tight-fitting black boots and a white open-ended doctor's coat complete the ensemble. For gadgets, he wore a bulky white utility belt and goggles.

The goggles have a cool onboard video screen that gives target data. However, it also has the unfortunate side effect, due to the unusual energy system it uses to force his rather long hair to rise up in static energy.

The costume gave him a good approximation of the mad scientist look. He was reminded of a young Asian einstein and he looked absolutely ridiculous.

"Fuck this!" Darion blurted out to no one in particular. "I'm not going out in public looking like this!"

Behind Darion and to his right, his mom was looking at him as if his son turned into a drag queen. His dad and sister were both holding their laughter in.

In Janiya's case, she was almost crying as she held her stomach from shaking and she didn't dare look at her brother anymore.

"Well, you look certainly ... unique, son," Darion's mom said hesitatingly. Then she elbowed her husband in the rib real hard.

Darion's dad composed himself as Darion glared at him balefully. "Your mother is right, son ... you look absolutely IN-SEEEY-NNH!" The last word was dragged out as his dad tried desperately not to laugh. The old comedian is turning almost red in his effort to stop his laughter and Darion sighed.

So much for family support, he thought as both his dad and sister burst out laughing.

Again.

What the hell were the ISSUE guys thinking when they design this costume? He thought to himself. He heard from the instructors in the army base that ISSUE employs thousands of the best fashion designers in the world to dress their heroes. He was supposed to have something cool to wear, not this cosplay reject he is currently wearing.

Each country is given a designated color that characterizes the origin of each hero. From there they are also given state symbols that tell anyone which state (or provinces in other countries) where the hero belongs to. Finally, small bars at the bottom of the symbol indicate the sector or county the hero is assigned to. Every law enforcement agency in the world is taught how to read this so that they can better coordinate with multiple heroes.

The US is given the color blue as its designation and Darion's black spandex incorporated several stripes with that color, as well as a blue armband, to show his origin. A spread-out butterfly is supposedly the symbol for Georgia, and his armband as well as the side of his boots has that symbol printed on it to indicate his state.

A pretty woman in ISSUE uniform offered him an elegant small shopping bag with 6 of the cubes that contain his costume inside it. it also came with the accompanying bracelet.

Darion was informed that the first six costumes are free but any additional costume replacements will be paid for by the hero if he or she needed extra. Although the nanites-built costume is very durable, it is not uncommon to see them damaged or outright destroyed in many hero fights.

"What's next?" Darion's mom asked his dad.

His dad adjusted his glasses before answering. A smile still on his face. "The last step is to register Darion to a county he will be assigned into as a hero. I can take him there alone. This won't take long, you and Janiya should take his costume bag and bring it to the car. I spotted an ice cream shop 2 streets away. You can wait for us there."

They planned their schedule some more and the Libinski family parted for the time being to do their errands.

"Later, dorkboy!" Janiya waved goodbye to her brother. Darion almost flipped her the bird.

His dad guided him to the adjacent building for the next step in being a hero. Darion never imagined that the hero business is annoyingly filled with red tape.

Darion stared in disbelief at the uproar inside the registration hall. He sighed heavily, knowing already that this is going to be a long day. It was filled to capacity and everyone seems so busy. Just looking at them made Darion dizzy.

"What is wrong with all these people?" Darion asked to no one in particular, but his dad next to him winced involuntarily upon hearing him. Although his dad is also a street hero, he still works as a government civil servant and things like this are his usual workday.

His dad's tentative explanation is that there were still a lot of empowereds that has problems that the new system has not yet fully organized. Darion nodded sagely to him, then use his hearing senses to listen to the argument on one table.

"Your office assured me that my allowance can cover the cost of the first 2 months of my new shoe business proposal." A middle-aged man said. He was literally turning red from his anger. The edges of his Hawaiian shirt are actually starting to smoke.

The black woman on the opposite side of the counter was fully engaged but wasn't impressed with his predicament. "It used to be covered, sir," She said in a matter-of-fact voice that although professional, can easily convey what she really felt about the dumbass in front of her. "But unfortunately, we did not expect that you will also be requesting an advance of more than $300,000 off your bank."

"So what? It's my money!"

"It is sir, but your deposit of $500k in the bank was also supposedly your only collateral for the $670,000 you are asking for as a loan. $500K is just enough, but since you decreased it to 200K, the bank felt justifiable not to loan you more money when that account is your only viable asset."

Darion returned his gaze to his dad. "So, where do I register?" he asked gloomily.

In the next hour, Darion and his dad have to go up and down the building to go to different departments and offices to finalize his registration as a hero. In a subdepartment called "Hero Distribution Dept," A grizzled old man with tobacco on his lips grunted as he squinted on his old computer. His dad reassured him that this is the last stop.

"So what district do you want to be responsible for?" the man rumbled. Darion almost gagged from the thick smoke inside the small room.

Darion thought about this for a moment and then nodded to himself.

The "Heroes" are classified into 3 official categories, first are the county heroes most commonly known as the "Street Heroes." They are the ones usually used to patrol the streets of the world to not only stop crime but to deter them in the first place. The street heroes represent almost 75 percent of all heroes in the world. Their classification is Class C, and the slang is Charlie.

Darion is officially designated as one.

Then there are the Bravos who are known to be the state heroes or provincial heroes, depending on the country. The majority of these class B heroes are part of a team and are considered far more powerful individuals than the average heroes. If something big happened in one county, or a villain showed up, in any classifications, then the Bravos are the ones sent to deal with it.

The Alphas are the official elite of the so-called empowered. Alphas are part of the military and usually are only deployed in matters of national-level disasters. Some Journalists claimed that they are also being used by the governments for wetwork missions all around the world to keep their respective countries safe.

From the 18th to 20th centuries, there is what history called "battleship diplomacy." Basically, the government showed off their military might to the rest of the world by how many battleships they can deploy, but now there is the so-called Hero Diplomacy, which does the exact same thing but this time with heroes. In today's age, Governments measured their dicks with how many Alphas they can showoff.

And then there are the Omegas. If Alphas are a point of pride and needed to be showed off, Omegas are different. They are the modern nukes. Something to whisper to the other guy to threaten him if he didn't back off, yet at the same time in public, it is something you downplay or outright lie about that you don't have, else the United Nations or ISSUE might regulate you for it. The Omegas are considered to be the ultimate weapons.

"I've been thinking about it a lot, and if it is possible, then I would like a neighboring district here in my hometown." Darion and his family lived in starfield county in Georgia, in a town called Hobun.

"Yeaah, they don't need one."

"Excuse me?" Darion asked.

"I said there is no neighboring district to your own that needed more heroes at this time. The only one that needed a few more heroes are either district 2 in Dalton or Bainbridge county in District 14."

Darion stared at him for a long time. "Then why in the world did you have to ask me where I want to go?"

The guy just shrugs. "It's nice to give you guys some options."

Darion kept his fake smile on his face as he continued to imagine what would happen if he threw himself across the desk to strangle the man.

He counted to ten, and when he felt he is relatively composed, he continued. "I've been out of circulation for some time, May I asked how far is Dalton from our county?" Darion asked politely.

The old man thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I don't have a google map on me right now but I-"

"You're in front of a computer right this very moment," Darion said with gritted teeth.

"What?" The man said, confused.

"Nothing, sir," His dad interrupted, giving Darion a look. "How far is it again?"

"Best estimate is that Dalton is about 80 miles from your county while Bainbridge is just about 150 miles."

"I'll choose the closest one then," Darion said quickly. "Please register me to Dalton."

The man typed for a moment and then shook his head. "Sorry, it turned out that Dalton is also full now. Do you have any other preferences?"

The edge of Darion's eyes started to tick uncontrollably. "Bainbridge would be nice," he said very slowly.

The man typed very slowly, but after a while, he smiled smugly and declared. "Congratulations, you are now a registered hero at Bainbridge, GA, USA."

Darion quietly grabbed the official papers and walked away without another word.