I woke up the next day in my bed staring at the ceiling of my room, shit I have that PR thing today don’t I?

I rolled over, the last week had been a blur of forms, officials and being yelled at by my mother (yes they told her) so all in all not as bad as it could have been. Mum was, understandably pissed when she had found out about what I had been doing and nearly forbade me from continuing down the hero path, but with constant whining she eventually caved.

I stood up and jumped a little as the chill past from the floor passed through my feet and into my body, fuck its cold. I walked over to the shower and let the hot water wash over me for a few minutes before snapping myself out of my stupor and washing properly, They told me I would have to be clean for my first PR meeting, costume fitting and then my first ever interview with the press, it was going to be a long day.

I stepped out of my house at 8 in the morning and ran toward the train station my loose shirt and pants billowing in the cold morning air.

I slowed my pace as I began to reach the headquarters of the BCH and checked my watch, 10:30 thank fuck I’m not late. I walked through the glass revolving doors and was met with a truly immense foyer.

The floor was made of black marble and was polished to a near reflective sheen, the walls were made of a slightly lighter shade of the same material but were still quite dark, these more macabre colourings were offset by the large columns that, six on each side and all stretching up to the high, vaulted ceiling.

I walked up to the front desk, a grandiose affair made of dark wood. Standing behind it was a short attractive looking blonde woman as I walked closer I could see that her name badge read Lisa.

“Good evening sir how may I help you?” She said in a chipper voice was a strong Australian accent.

“Ugh yeah,” I said awkwardly “I have an um, appointment with mister…” I dragged out the last syllable of the word mister as I rifled through my pockets for the business card I was handed yesterday.

The woman, Lisa, just looked on with a bemused expression as I progressively got more and more embarrassed which would then fuck up my searching which would make me get more embarrassed, you get the picture. Fuck I was bad with pretty girls.

Finally my hand clasped around the small slip of hard paper, I pulled it out smiled sheepishly at the receptionist and then the read the name.

“Mr Santana, I have an appointment with Mr Santana.” I said with a triumphant smile, I was happier about finding this slip of paper than I should be, I made a vow that I was going to burn it after I was done with this meeting.

“Thank you Mr Kaine, we have been expecting you.” She said with a slight smile.

“Wait how did you…” I stopped mid-sentence, expecting you. So that meant she already knew I was coming and I didn’t have to look for the card, she was good.

“Come with me please Mr Kaine.” It was at this point I realised I had been standing still and staring off into space for a few seconds, if I was embarrassed before I was way more now, so much so I could barely mutter an okay before trundling of after her.

She led me threw a labyrinthine series of hallways and staircases before we reached a door marked, “PR Department” She opened the door and then ushered me through.

The room we entered into looked more like something out of a sci fi mission control than a business’s marketing branch. There were computer everywhere I looked and people were running around like someone had lit a fire under their collective asses. They carried a whole garden variety of forms and items, it was madness and I am man enough to admit I stared slack jawed as Lisa led me through the centre walkway.

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After a little bit of leg work we approached a frosted glass door marked with ‘J. A. Santana’ Lisa opened the door and gestured for me to enter, when I did she promptly shut the door behind me.

The room I had entered was interesting to say the least, the walls were lined with bookshelves expensively made and lavishly embellished but in contrast to this was the fact that the shelves were covered in vintage records and I even saw a book titled ‘Marketing for Dummies’ also the fact that the floor was carpeted with a neon pink shag rug.

Much like the shelves, the desk at the far end of the room was expensively made of a wood that I guessed to be mahogany, and it was covered in fast food wrappers and trashy magazines.

It looked like classical architecture and 80’s funk had a love child and the man that rose from the desk was the epitome of this.

He was tanned, had a perfectly trimmed black beard and immaculately groomed oiled back hair. From what I could see he was powerfully built and when he stood at full height he was about an inch taller than me. This image of a self-made business man was ruined as he was dressed in both a Nirvana t-shirt, ripped jeans, ray band sunglasses and Nike sneakers.

He walked up to me at a brisk pace observing me the whole time, looking me up and down like a predator examines its prey.

He stopped about a foot in front of me, then lunged forward and pulled me into and embrace kissing me on both cheeks before finally letting me go.

“Ciao, please take a seat.” He said in a Latin American and very not Italian accent while gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

After we sat he spoke again.

“Well, look at you, the new little hero. Thank god who ever chose you had brains, tall, dark and quite handsome if I do say so myself. Do you know how hard it was to market Harold?!” He said with wild hand gestures before stopping abruptly, I then realised that hi question was not, in fact rhetorical and that he wanted me to answer.

“Um, not that hard.” `I said

“Ha, not that hard. Say that after you have to market someone how sounds like fucking squid ward!” I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“Anyway,” he said in a much more calm voice “let us get to business, come” He said while standing up from his chair and walking to a door at the far end of the room.

When we walked through what first hit me was the temperature, I must have been shivering because Santana said “We have to keep it cold for the fabricators.” Fabricators? Now I was curious but I said nothing further.

When we reached the far end of the room Mr Santana pressed some buttons on a tablet he was holding and then several segments of the jet black wall slid back revealing.

“Costumes, every hero has one. But what makes it special from any old piece of clothing.” I looked around at the costumes lining the walls, I recognised ones for Ultra, Glitch and Mindhack and several others from before my time. “There are three things: Utility, ie what can your suit do for you? Recognisability, because it is always easier to notice the costumed yahoo telling you to evacuate the burning building then the average Joe in a business suit and finally Marketability, now this is a big one. You see the BCH sells merchandise for all of their heroes, that’s t-shirts, action figures, hats and all that jazz, now although majority of each sale goes back to the BCH ten percent is sent to the hero whose merchandise it is. And people are far more likely to buy merch for the hot chick in the skin tight costume than for the fat guy in the same thing. Now son this leads us to you, more specifically your new costume.”

He said while gesturing animatedly to a case at the far end of the room he mays have spoken some more but by this point I was mesmerised.

They had replaced the gas mask with a stylised reptilian head of some sort. There were sharp spines about an inch thick running down from the top of the head getting progressively smaller until they stopped at the tail bone. The suit looked skin tight and it was covered in small interlocking scales, and from what I could see the finger tapered into claws.

The helmet was now blood red as was most of the suit, the scales had the same garnet colour but each of them was bordered by black making it look incredible, I was in love.

I tuned back into Mr Santana’s ramblings to catch the end and I was euphorically happy that I did.

“We are going to call it, I mean you Ddraig Goch, if you didn’t know that is the name of the dragon on the welsh flag.” He kept speaking but I didn’t hear anymore all I heard was, Ddraig Goch, the red dragon, it felt right.

I was broken out of my stupor by the sound of an intern bursting into the room. Before Santana had time to rip his head off he began to speak.

“Ultra, told me to tell you that while they were busy on a job another villain started attacking a different part of the city, they cant get here in time so they are sending out the junior heroes,” He said between gasps then looked at me “sorry the junior hero to deal with it, your orders are to suit up and then be briefed in the foyer.” He scampered off after his message was delivered.

A few minutes later Santana was helping me into my costume, I was in a trance.

The dragon was about to come out of hiding, and the world will know hear my roar.