"No No No! Curse this wretched thing!"
A vial of purplish liquid was thrown across the room, smashing up against the wall. It was quickly followed by another purple vial, and then another, and then many more.
Overhaul roared as he vented his frustrations on another unsuccessful batch of his Quirk removing drug. He was just about to remove his gloves and cause some real damage to this shitty equipment when he felt a small, sharp pain in his back, and then everything slowed.
"Overhaul. I see batch #23 has failed. I know this must be frustrating for you, but you need to control yourself. We don't get the new equipment until next week so you can either take a week off and start again when it gets here, or you just have to deal with this inferior stuff."
Overhaul growled as his head finally turned enough for him to see Chronostasis. He'd be angry at the man for using his Quirk on him if it wasn't exactly what he had told the man to do in this situation. Chisaki knew he had a temper. He wasn't an idiot.
A few seconds later, Overhaul's body returned to its normal speed, and he caught himself before he fell to the floor. Humming, he re-adjusted his gloves and turned back to the machinery, grabbing another sample of Eri's blood from the freezer.
"I cannot wait. The cure needs to be ready as soon as possible. Thank you, Chrono, for stopping me from breaking my equipment. You may leave now."
Chrono nodded, to the man, giving a small bow. He left the room and turned to the guards of the lab, higher-ups in the Yakuza, but not at the same level as the Bullets. "You will call me immediately if he starts again, got it?"
They saluted him, and he hummed to himself, nodding, and leaving back to his quarters. Overhaul could be annoying to deal with sometimes, but his goals were noble and his ambitions achievable.
It would all be worth it when they succeeded in curing humanity.
Izuku hopped off the train with a small smile.
Hosu was a loud and bustling city, filled with heroes, brightly coloured signs, and plenty of street performers. He could tell that the guy on the corner doing sleight of hand was using his Quirk, but he found it harmless enough, especially since he wasn't being paid.
He wandered the streets for a bit, still having around 30 minutes before he had to meet Ms. Joke for his internship. He was honestly surprised that she had sent an offer to him at all, seeing as she was a teacher, but he was glad for it.
When the time came for him to head to the meeting spot, he only took one small detour. He found a small coffee shop and ordered two hot chocolates, drinking his on the way but taking Ms Joke one as a thank you for offering an internship to him.
As he walked into the lobby of the prank store she had told him to meet her in, he only had a second to react before a pie flew at his face. Unfortunately for him, his mind was still in 'protect-the-drink' mode, meaning that he wasn't able to move quickly enough to dodge it.
Standing in the doorway of a prank shop, covered in frosting, while the pro hero he was meant to be learning from laughed her guts up in the middle of the room, literally rolling on the floor laughing?
It wasn't how he expected his internship to start, but really-
-It should have been.
"EMERALD SPLASH!"
Hitoshi ducked under the sudden barrage of small, green crystals that was sent his way, rolling behind one of the couches in the room. He peeked around the side to see the pro hero he was going to be interning with standing there, striking a pose.
"You have excellent reflexes! I see UA has taught you well!"
The Hero was slightly taller than he was, with bright red hair, a bit hanging from the right side of his head, and was wearing a deep-green jumpsuit, similar to his dad's actually. The pose that the man had taken looked silly, but when coupled with his Quirk, Puppetmaster, a bright green figure with white accents floating behind him, it became intimidating.
This was the Puppet Hero: Heirophant.
Hitoshi stood up, putting his hands together and bowing. "Thank you for sending me an internship offer, Mr. Hierophant sir."
The Hero laughed. "Don't worry about it, Puppeteer! When I saw your Quirk in the listings I just knew that I had to scoop you up! We body-snatchers have to stick together, after all, don't you think?"
Hitoshi cringed at the word 'bodysnatcher', something that had been used to demean him many times, but nodded. "Of course, sir. I am eager to learn."
Hierophant just smiled. "Well, the first thing you have to learn about Underground heroics, at least from me that is, is that overworking yourself can lead to injuries and worse. So before we start, we're going to sit down, relax a bit, and you're going to explain to me exactly how your Quirk works, and we can go from there."
Hitoshi nodded, sitting down in the offered chair and placing the briefcase with his hero costume in it on the floor next to him. He leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the smaller seat in front of him, and started to talk.
"So my Quirk is called 'Brainwashing'…"
Sir Nighteye hummed. "Hmm, you are shorter in person."
Momo just gave the man's slender-man-like form a once over, frowning. "I would think that most people would be short in your eyes sir. You tend to have a leg up on people in that regard."
Momo hadn't even meant to make a pun. She was just saying the first thing that entered her mind, which was still pretty nervous. She was in the office of the former sidekick to All Might himself! How couldn't she be nervous?
But luckily for her, Nighteye let out a small chuckle, tapping his finger on his desk. "Ah, splendid, you have a sense of humour. I find that laughter and fun are great ways of unwinding from the stresses of hero work. You may come to find them helpful as well."
He then stood up, making his absurd height even more apparent as he motioned for her to accompany him out of his office. "For today, we will be going over how our paperwork is done first, before moving onto some practical exercises."
Momo nodded. "That is fine, sir! I'm willing to go at whatever pace you would like."
Nighteye hummed. "Excellent. Now firstly, let us meet my other employees. There is Centipeder, Bubble Girl, and my protege, Lemillion."
Momo froze for a second, taking that last name in. "Wait a second… Mirio works here?"
Nighteye raised his eyebrow. "Yes? He's been under my employment for around a year now."
The pair turned a corner to see the other three employees sitting at their desks, doing paperwork. Momo pointed at Mirio, a hurt expression on her face.
"Why didn't you tell me you worked here?!"
Mirio just stared at her for a moment, the straw of his drink still in his mouth. He let out a slow slurp, staring Momo in the eyes, before suddenly dropping through the floor.
The sound of his laughter could be heard even from upstairs.
"Greetings, Stampede. Welcome to the Hive."
Pony jumped as she heard a voice in her ear, sounding as if it was being played alongside static. She turned to see a small robot floating in the air, fashioned to look like a bee.
Cocking her head to the side, she whispered to the robot. "Are you controlling this, Miss X?"
The Robo-bee bobbed up and down a little bit, performing what Pony was going to take as a nod. "Yes, please follow this bee to reach my office, I'd come down to greet you myself but I have to finish with this document. I should be done by the time you arrive."
Pony hummed, nodding, and the Robo-bee started to slowly float its way over to an elevator. Riding it to the top, Pony was excited to see the heroine in her costume. "Miss X? I'm here!"
The Bumblebee hero smiled at her, standing up and motioning for Pony to enter the bathroom. "Alright! It's good to see you Stampede! Go get your costume on and we'll go on a patrol right away!"
Pony ran towards the bathroom, getting her costume ready to take out of its case, and nodded to X, smiling. "Yes ma'am!"
She couldn't wait!
"You must be Battle Fist! Come in, come in!"
Itsuka smiled at the Hero as she walked in the front door of the agency, noting how similar it was to how she expected it to be. After Izuku's suggestions, and her chat with Hitoshi, she had eventually decided to go with Backdraft, as his style was very focused on crowd control.
Hitoshi had pointed out that her hands, when fully enlarged, could be good at creating barriers to protect civilians, and her fingers could be used like how backdraft used his Quirk to make lines that civilians couldn't cross.
After she had gotten changed into her costume, Backdraft started to give her a tour of the agency before anything else. She might have been eager to get into the physical stuff, but she could understand that this was important as well.
His agency was styled after a stereotypical American fire station, and he even actually had a firetruck off to the far right of the ground floor, a large door in front of it in case he needed to mobilise quickly.
(And if he seemed extra excited when he showed off the actual, working fireman's pole that lead from his office to right next to his fire truck, then she would wait until she had been left alone in her bunk to laugh about it.)
Backdraft eventually got a ping on his phone, a request for his presence at an attack. Turning to Itsuka, he waved her over to his car, hopping into the old American convertible and quickly turning it on.
"Let's roll!"
"Oh, cmon! Don't give me that look! You walked into a prank store not expecting to get pranked?"
Izuku just sighed, placing the hot chocolate he had gotten for Ms Joke to the side and taking the hand towel that she was offering off of her, wiping down his face and the front of his shirt. After he was done, he picked the hot chocolate back up and held it out to her. "I got this for you to thank you for sending me an internship offer."
Ms Joke immediately got a guilty look on her face but grabbed the hot chocolate. "Ah jeez, now I feel mean! You didn't have to get me this! But also, how did you know my favourite flavour?"
Izuku just smirked. "Aizawa told me that you liked hot chocolate more than coffee. But, I feel like I am obligated to tell you that he phrased it as; 'the crazy witch likes hot chocolate more than coffee."
Ms Joke just burst out into laughter. "Somehow I know that you aren't even joking about that! I'll make sure he pays for that the next time I see him!"
Izuku laughed as well. "I'm sure he's shaking in his boots even now, he can probably sense when you're planning something. He always can with me."
Ms Joke smiled, wrapping her arm around Izuku's shoulder, pulling him into a side hug. "I like you, Kiddo! You can call me Emi. Now, how's about you and me start patrolling the area, and I can teach you about my kind of semi-underground heroics!"
Izuku beamed, nodding, bringing his suitcase up to his chest. "Yes! I'll just go get changed first! I'll be right back!"
Emi nodded, watching him sprint off to the bathroom of the store to get changed. It was lucky she owned the store because if she didn't, he would have probably been stopped from doing so.
Pulling out her phone, she opened her text message app and clicked on the name 'my future husband' and quickly tapped out a message, hitting send as Izuku walked back out in full costume, his helmet resting at his side.
Emi smiled. "Alright kid, let's go kick some villain butt!"
RoflCopterPilot: I like him. He's a fun kid.
NoSleep4You: Good. Keep him safe out there, Emi. He's got a habit of getting into trouble.
ROFLCopterPilot: Will do, tall, dark and tired! Go get some rest now, alright?
NoSleep4You: I'll sleep when I'm dead.
ROFLCopterPilot: Goodnight, Shouta.
NoSleep4You: Night, Emi.
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