Chapter 1

The alarm clock beeped.

A brunette stirred lazily on the bed. She tried to find the snooze button all to no avail.

She clenched her hand into a fist and knocked the alarm clock away from her bedside table, sending it up in the air and crashing into her room's wall, making a big dent and destroying the alarm clock along with it.

Suzanne turned to her other side to resume her sleep.

This was Herotapolis, where the heroes lived.

In this city there lived real, breathing heroes. You could tell already by the name of the city right?

Hero League was an organization that pooled together normal people and trained them to become heroes. From chasing of bank robbers to extinguishing of fires in burning buildings, to serving as body guards to important people as well as getting stranded animals down from trees, or odd places, the heroes were ever available.

Duties were always assigned to the heroes according to their rankings.

Slads were what the newbies at the hero league were called. All they basically did was train and foster a great team work among themselves.

Normally, when students were 13-14 years of age, they voluntarily signed up for the Hero-League exam. An exam that allowed the Sequins (that's the major heads in the Hero League) to find out which teenager had the capabilities needed for a true hero.

This exam was called the Thriox.

Most teenagers failed this exam and hence proceeded on to live their normal lives...being a teacher, a doctor, a carpenter, or whatever career they had in mind. Only the few that were selected would be transfered to different schools which the Hero-League had established in order to train those who passed on how to be a proper hero.

Then the Slads would be grouped in fours and this was known as a Squad.

Each Squad had a number of its own used to identify its members.

"Get up, Loser!"  Shane hissed angrily as he barged into his twin sister's room.

Suzanne glared angrily at him as she sat up on her bed.

Shane hadn't taken the exam simply because he wanted to become a soccer star.

"Mum said to wake you up!" he snorted, rather annoyed. He was running late for his practice. His team had just qualified for the finals and he was the star player of his team.

Suzanne stretched lazily and got out of bed, ignoring her brother who then marched out after making sure she was fully awake.

She looked at herself in her vanity and smiled indulgently.

I'm in E-rank now. Finally. She thought, much pleased with herself.

E-rank. That was the lowest rank that came before the Slads; it was a bit higher than a Slad though as the E-ranks, they were given small missions that earned some money for the Hero league. Slads never got any mission.

Civilians came to put in their petty requests which they were normally too lazy to do by themselves (more of domestic stuffs really) and paid to have them done for them by the E-ranks, who got these domestic chores assigned to them by the Hero-League as their missions.

A notification alert popped up on Suzanne's phone.

'Please tell me you're awake,'  It read.

She rolled her eyes.

It was one of her team mates, Ethan.

'You are....right?'  Another message again.

She hissed and went to the bathroom to freshen up and get dressed. The last year when she was a freshman at Superhero High, the school asigned to her by the Hero League, she had to dress strictly in the uniform provided whose color mainly consisted of black and the category of hero one belonged to.

Now, the categories and rankings were two different things entirely.

Categories depended on one's skills like for instant now;

The Jornins; they were good at anything technology, creating it, breaking it, fixing it....most of them were smart. They were extremely intelligent and their code color was green. (That's a category color.)

Then we have the Wintex; These were the gadget experts, only that they never invented the gadgets. They were used in   attacking oppositions. Their gadgets differed one from another: One could have a gadget that manipulated electricity while another could have another gadget that could explode into larva balls.

Their code color was purple.

There was also the Turds; What these set of people were skilled at was using diverse weapons. Any weapon you could name, they could use it extremely skillfully. They could even find a thousand ways to injure, or  perhaps even kill with a roll of tissue paper. They were also masters at stealth.

The code color for this category was blue.

Next was the M.D Corp; Fully they were called Medical Corp but most people just called them M.D Corps. They were those who were extra sensitive to injuries. They could pinpoint all the vital locations in an opponent's body that could shut down one's body systems.

When you hear of M.D Corp, we're talking of poison and antidote makers too. And when well trained, they could be great at accurate aiming too. They also could also treat wounds effectively and quickly too. Their code color was yellow.

Finally there was the Rolex; This category was not always seen much in the Hero-League owing to the fact that the people that were tagged Rolexs had been experimented on when they were much younger, hence they had extraordinary abilities, all thanks to science.

 Their code color was red.

Now these five categories could be found in any ranking.

You could be a Rolex and be a Slad or a Rolex and be a D-rank; the same was applicable in every category.

Categories were kinda like genders; now you wouldn't say because he's a boy he won't be in kindergarten or because she's a girl she's not allowed in the university.

So Ranking was similar to the classes in our schools.

"Suzanne! Get down here! Your Squad's here!" Shane annouced from downstairs. "And I'm leaving!" he added a bit hastily.

Suzanne threw on a red hoodie to complete her outfit and started heading downstairs hurriedly. She was always the turdy one in her group because she hated waking up early.

Since they were no longer Slads, they could afford to put on any outfit of their choice instead of the uniform, as long as their outfit had their category color and they wore the crest that stated which rank they were in.

"Hey guys!" Suzanne said with a smile, a bit amused as she joined her Squad.

She glanced briefly at Andrew whose head was buried in his laptop, too busy to pay her any attention. Normally he was the one who came to hurry her up because he lived close by but now the whole team was there.

Her eyes roamed around and rested on a certain blue-haired boy who gave her a scowl in place of the winning, sweet smile she beamed at him.

"Hey Ryan!" Suzanne exclaimed joyfully and rushed to his side to welcome him.

"Shut up!" Ryan retorted coldly as he turned away from her.

She stood still in disappointment and sulked.

"Suzanne! Just tell me this! You were planning on showing up late again, weren't you?!" Ethan demanded hotly as he walked into the sitting room from the bathroom.

"We just have 15 minutes to meet up with CIN and Coach," Andrew informed them in a bored tone as he finally closed his laptop and looked around at his Squad members.

Ethan snorted, "Well let's get going already! We'll be late if we don't head out now."

"Like we care what you think," Ryan told Ethan in a frigid tone.

"Look here--!"  Ethan started rather annoyed as he turned to face Ryan but was quickly interrupted by Suzanne.

"Quiet, Ethan!" she yelled at him, getting into the defensive mode. She was always defensive when it came to Ryan. Even if he did deserve being attacked.

Ryan scoffed and walked past her, not in the least bit thankful.

"Ryan, wait up...!" Suzanne called sweetly and rushed after him to walk by his side.

Ethan angrily walked after her, still fuming about the whole episode. Andrew raised his bored gaze to the figure that leaned on wall by the stairs.

"Let's go," he said and turned towards the door.

Ashley stood straight and laughed. Suzanne hadn't even noticed her presence. She walked up to Andrew.

"Are they always like that?" she asked, a bit curious.

Andrew merely shrugged as he used his device to lock Suzanne's house up for her.

She had forgotten all about locking the door in her excitement of being with Ryan.