Izuku and Agoyamato stood before the stylized burning E over the Endeavor Agency entrance. The skyscraper loomed over them, and through the windows, they could see dozens of office workers scrambling to meet the needs of the nation's largest hero agency.
Through the front doors was the main lobby. Plush chairs lined the area, but the area was empty. A sign-in sheet, nearly full of penned-in names and entry times, waited on a table next to an optical gate. Workers and sidekicks passed by the entrance without giving the pair of them a second look.
A short, balding man with eyes that seemed too huge to fit in his head greeted them as he came through the gate. He blinked owlishly at them as they entered and smiled. "Ah, you must be Deku, a pleasure to meet you. Agoyamato-kun, we have your cubicle set up, we can stop by and put your belongings there before orientation. Come with me."
Agoyamato gave him a curt nod, straightened his pompadour, and followed his guide. Izuku's mentor came along a few minutes after. Neon yellow hair waved and licked the air like fire, and bright green eyes scowled at him.
"Name's Burnin," she barked. "Let's get this straight, kid, beating a bunch of first-year wimps does not make you a hotshot. If you want to cut it at this agency, you need to prove you can keep up with the rest of us."
Izuku nodded and went with her. The elevator ride up was made somewhat uncomfortable by the sheer heat radiating from Burnin. The fire she had for hair whipped and crackled, responding to the smoldering emotions underneath. She stared at him out of the corner of her eye, as if waiting for some reaction from him, but Izuku had months to get used to the heat.
The floor they arrived at had multiple training areas, from blank padded rooms riddled with scorch marks, to gyms sporting hero-grade exercise equipment, along with a swimming pool, an agility course, and a large track circling the perimeter of the floor. Heroes were training in each one, some working alone, others spotting for each other or swapping small-talk across treadmills. Burnin passed them all without a word or glance and opened up a different door, one without windows to show into the room.
The locker room next to the elevator had multiple showers, all lavish, one larger and one smaller to account for different sized heroes. Their heat adjustable to the degree, from literal freezing to boiling points, by a digital touchpad built into the wall. Three lockers stood at one end of a row of benches. Burnin typed her keycode in and a metal case slid down from inside the wall. She typed a second code in and handed Izuku the other case.
"Type your new keycode in. Leave it on the default and you'll find rotting bananas in it next time."
Izuku blocked the view of the keypad with his shoulder as he put in his new code. They stopped at the other locker room for a minute, and Burnin walked out in full hero gear.
The training room Burnin led him to was smaller than the rest, housing a few pieces of equipment in pristine condition. On one side was a computer monitor. Its screensaver scrolled through the names of each hero in the agency and displayed their ability rankings.
"The Hero Commission has a standardized test to rank the overall effectiveness of heroes," Burnin said. "This stuff doesn't count for that, but we have our own set to practice for it, and it's calibrated the same way. Get a D ranking on everything, both with and without your equipment, or you're stuck on office duty for the summer, got it?"
Izuku squared up in front of the punching bag. Even without his costume to add extra power to his kick, the bag let out a satisfying thump as Izuku drove his foot into it. Burnin scoffed at the measurements that came up. "Barely in the D range. You think a villain's going to just stand there and let you wind up a kick? Whatever, on to the next."
A short track measured his sprinting speed. Again, Izuku came in at the lower D range. His intelligence on a string of field simulations got a B, to Burnin's chagrin, and his stamina on a treadmill got a D. Stamina was normally saved for last, to avoid interfering with the other results, but after seeing everything else pass muster, Burnin was not in a mood to play fair.
"Now, last up, the agility test. Avoid the pistons while staying within the square on the floor. It speeds up every minute."
The machine started off at a respectable speed, throwing padded punches left and right in Izuku's space, but for someone who knew exactly where every punch would land, it was a trivial challenge. True to Burnin's word, it sped up after a minute, firing a punch a second. It sped up twice more, until the machine emitted a constant hum of moving pistons. Izuku's body wove through the gaps, untouched even at speeds that left Burnin gawking. It wasn't until the machine started throwing multiple punches at once, overwhelming Izuku's ability to keep pace, that he finally had a hit landed on him. The machine froze the moment it sensed contact.
"Another effing B rank," Burnin said. "Had you pegged more of a C for that one." She gave him a skeptical look. "Are you sure you don't have a Quirk?"
Even forewarned by his Quirk, Izuku felt profoundly uneasy as he shrugged and said, "That's what the doctor says."
"Right. Well, don't celebrate yet, you have to do it all over again in your suit."
If Burnin was hoping the gear to weigh him down enough to lower his stamina or speed scores, she was sorely disappointed when Izuku tapped out of each right after reaching D rank. His performance on the pistons dropped to a C, with his bulky gear slowing him down, and after that were the gear-specific tests.
A firing range had a thick striped disk on one end. Burnin gestured at it and asked, "Got anything to break that from here? No patrols if you can't manage that much."
Izuku uncoiled one of his whips and cracked it down range. It hit dead center and fractured the disc into pieces.
"Right, you have those whip things. Well, think you can hit a moving target? Miss a target or hit the backdrop, and you're done."
At the push of a button, slightly smaller discs drifted across the range. Izuku unwound his second wire and whipped each down the range, sniping target after target. As time went on, the discs grew faster and the discs shrank. It got to the point that Izuku had to crack his whips before the targets even appeared to catch them as they flitted across the field. He eventually missed one as the targets outpaced his whips.
"C rank, with whips of all things. I don't even know how you pulled that one off, but I guess that's the power of U.A."
"So, do I get to go on patrols?"
Burnin gave a mirthless chuckle. "Not so fast. It's all well and good to get decent scores on the standardized test, but fact is, it doesn't mean anything if you can't fight."
The padded room she led him to had weathered abuse from dozens of Quirks over the course of Endeavor's career. Its surfaces were all flame retardant, but a few patches had melted down to the concrete walls behind them.
"Get a single hit in on me, and I'll tell Endeavor you're good to go. Got it?"
The second Izuku nodded, Burnin stuck her hand in her incandescent hair and flung a glob of fire from it. Izuku took to the air with a pair of grapples. As he swung around by one hand, dodging the fireballs flung at him, he fired the other grapple across the room, filling the confines with a maze of wires.
"Think you can hang around up there and wait for me to run out of steam? Get real, kid. Burnin rain!"
Both hands scooped up a giant ball of fire that scattered as she flung it into the air. Fire fell in spinning tendrils throughout the room. Izuku leapt from wire to wire, weaving through the fire as it spread out. On the last wire, he grabbed on with one hand and pulled himself back with the other.
"Oh no you don't, I saw that trick on TV. Burnin Curtain!"
Whipping her hand around, Burnin made a wall of fire in between Izuku and herself. Izuku, however, had a different target in mind. When he let go, he shouted "Slingshot Kick" and soared high, grabbing and pulling on a different wire.
"Rebound!" Izuku aimed himself downward this time. Burnin yelped and leapt aside as Izuku axe-kicked the ground where she had been.
"Not bad, kid," Burnin said with a grin, "Looks like you have more than one trick up your sleeve. Villains will pick up on your hero moves and find ways to counter them, so it's always best to have something in your back pocket for when you really need it. Something… like this! Burnin up!"
Burnin dipped both hands into her hair, but instead of throwing around the fire, she slathered it onto her arms. Flames licked the air as she closed in on him, throwing punch after punch. Izuku could feel the heat on his face and chest as he darted around each punch.
"Looks like your agility score's no joke," Burnin said between punches, "But you can't keep this up forever. Better get your hit in while you can."
Punch by punch, Izuku was backed closer to a wall. Just before he ran out of room to back away, he jumped in the air, boosting himself higher with the leg braces, twisted mid-air, and grappled straight up. He sprinted up the wall, narrowly dodging the fireballs as Burnin flung them after him.
Once he was high enough, Izuku swung to one of his wires. From his vantage point, he cracked whip after whip at Burnin, forcing her to dodge erratically.
"Better hope those wires of yours aren't flammable!" Burnin sent globs of fire at each wire. Unlike the other fireballs she threw, these had a sticky, waxy substance at their base that clung to whatever it touched. When they hit a wire, they ate through the material until it broke in two. One by one, Izuku's wires melted away, until he was only left with one.
Before she could burn the last one, Izuku leapt from his perch and flung both wires at once. Burnin grabbed one and melted it apart in her hand, so Izuku fired the other shot right at her. The wire was only a temporary distraction as her fiery arms melted straight through it, but it kept her busy long enough for Izuku to get close. Two feints had her bring her guard up, and Izuku lashed out with a low kick. Burnin backflipped over him, but while she was in the air, her back was wide open. One of Izuku's wires whipped out, striking her on the back before she landed.
"Does that count?" Izuku asked as she brought her hands up for more fire.
Burnin paused and rubbed at the spot where Izuku had struck her. With a sigh, she shook her arms, flinging the fire onto the training room floor. "Fine, that's good enough. U.A. sure doesn't mess around, does it? You put most sidekicks to shame after your first year, and I can only imagine what you'd be like once you graduate. How the hell do you do it without a Quirk?"
"Practice," Endeavor's gruff voice said from the door. "Something you could use more of if it took you that long to think of burning his wires."
Burnin's face reddened. "I just wanted to see what he'd do with them first. Not like I was really trying to win."
"In any case, your patrol's in twenty minutes. I trust you have his scores uploaded?"
"Yes," Burnin said without meeting Endeavor's eyes. "He passed everything."
"Good. I'll take Deku from here. Get moving."
Burnin's eyes widened, and she shot speculative glances at both of them. As Burnin left and Izuku trailed him to his office, Endeavor checked Deku's scores on his phone. His eyebrows shot up when he saw the B ranks.
"What kind of training have you done at U.A.?" Endeavor asked.
"Eraserhead trained me after school almost every day."
He had never liked Aizawa, especially since that one incident where he had erased his Quirk in front of a gaggle of reporters after he had swooped in on his gang bust. It had taken a lot of throwing his weight around and cash favors to get those pictures taken down. However, Endeavor had seen first-hand how easily Eraserhead could tear through a group of villains, and he could easily recognize the underground hero's fighting style and kiting tactics in Izuku's movements.
"He trained you well. Get out of that uniform, there's things I would like to discuss in my office."
After a quick stop to return his suit, they took the elevator to the top floor. Endeavor's personal assistant nodded to the two of them as they passed by her desk and through the metal door to Endeavor's office.
The entire room was fireproofed, from its ceramic tile floor to the metal desk, along with the flame-retardant padding on the chairs, and insulated metal boxes for his paperwork. Yet, not a trace of soot or fire damage marred the room.
"Before you start here, there's something I want to be very clear between us. You're not getting any special treatment here. If you can't pull your weight, you're done, understand?"
Izuku nodded. Endeavor's fire dimmed as he studied his new intern's face. "I heard All Might made you an offer as well."
"Yes sir."
"Along with Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Miruko, and a bunch of other top pros. If I'm being honest, any of them would suit you better than my agency. So, why did you pick mine?"
With a shrug, Izuku said, "It would be rude to refuse after that bet we made."
Endeavor smothered his incredulity and asked, "Then why did you approach me in the first place?"
"If I recall," Izuku said, "You were the one that came after me." Endeavor stiffened at the reminder. "But anyways, I figured that, out of any other top hero, you would be the most likely to take that bet."
"You shouldn't let such an arrangement decide your career. When better offers are presented to you, you should take them."
Izuku gave him a puzzled look. "As far as I can tell, this is the best choice for my career."
"Really? What makes you think that?"
"Right now, most people who disapprove of me think I coasted along on U.A. favoritism. By interning with a hero known for being harsh and demanding with his sidekicks and interns, it will remove those doubts."
"Publicity means nothing when you're facing down a villain."
"That's why I wear metal boots."
Having been thwarted in his attempt to persuade Izuku to transfer to a different agency, Endeavor thought back to the blackmail attempt and the meeting with the hero commission, pondering how much he should tell his intern.
"You have powerful enemies, Deku, not just villains. You've rocked the boat quite a bit, and there are people who would prefer that you are swept quietly under the rug."
"Then I'll just have to rock the boat even harder. That way, I won't fade into obscurity."
"Do that, and those enemies will consider a more lethal form of keeping you out of the public eye."
Izuku faked a smile. "I wouldn't be much of a hero if I let the villains kill me."
Endeavor couldn't help the small smile that came over him. He didn't want to take bets over whether Nezu or the Hero commission would win in the shadow war over Deku's hero career, but the easy confidence in the young hero's eyes almost made Endeavor believe he could handle it.
"I suppose not. Now, where's Shoto? I thought he was supposed to be with you."
As Endeavor asked that question, a collective shudder ran through every person in the entire building.
"He went to Selkie's agency."
"What?" Endeavor's voice was calm and even, but his disbelieving tone foretold the explosion to come. As he searched on his computer, first for the absent letter of acceptance on Shoto's behalf from U.A., then for details about Selkie's agency, the fires on his head grew larger and hotter. By the time he was done, Endeavor's fiery hair was touching the ceiling.
"These childish antics of his have gone on for long enough! First, he has the gall to ignore his fire until it's too late to save him, then he goes and interns under a complete nobody! Is he trying to ruin his career?"
"He doesn't want to use his fire. He's interning with Selkie so that if it does get out of control, he can just jump off the boat."
Endeavor rounded on Izuku, eyes blazing just as hotly as his fire. "He would be able to control it just fine if he let me teach him. Why does he want to cripple himself so badly?"
"From what I know about him, it's because he doesn't want to be anything like you. Shoto thinks that fire can only hurt people, and he refuses to call you his dad. I can guess you've been a bit rough trying to train him."
"You have a lot of nerve saying that to my face," Endeavor said through gritted teeth. "I've half a mind to take you back to that combat room and show you how a real pro hero fights."
At that moment, the office door flew open. A sidekick clad in a black padded jacket, whose face was wrapped in bandages, rushed into the room. He took one look at Endeavor and the target of his rage and said, "Everything alright, sir?"
"Is there a reason I wasn't informed that my son had once again decided to run off?"
"I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. I'll take Deku and give him a quick tour, so you can get ready for your patrol, alright?"
Before Endeavor could point out that he didn't have a patrol scheduled, the sidekick grabbed Izuku by the shirt and pulled him out of the office. The receptionist gave them a worried glance, and at the sidekick's nod, went on an extended bathroom break.
"Name's Kido," the sidekick said once they were in the elevator. "Let me guess, you broke the news?"
Izuku nodded. Kido whistled and said, "Whole firm's been dreading that one. Nobody, not even Burnin, wanted to drop that bomb. Sorry you had to go through that, we didn't realize he would want to see you personally." Kido looked sheepish as he admitted, "We were really hoping that Endeavor would just find out on his own and give us enough time to clear the blast radius."
"Your Quirk is Traject, right?"
Kido blinked. "You know your stuff, kid. I can change the direction of an object's momentum by looking at it. It already has to be moving, and I can't make things go faster or slower." With a smile in his voice, Kido added, "Boss thought I wouldn't cut it here until I sent his own flames back at him."
The elevator doors opened up at a cafeteria. Heroes had reinforced chairs and tables on one side, while the office workers had more modest seating. A long buffet line heaped high with white rice, roasted vegetables, and marinated meats catered to the whole building.
"Grab yourself a plate. There's only one thing worse than an eight hour patrol on an empty stomach, and that's a patrol on a really full stomach. First time, I ate so much I nearly puked." As Kido shepherded Izuku to the buffet line, he leaned in and whispered, "Fair warning, you're not very popular around here." Voice dripping with sarcasm, he added, "I'm sure Burnin rolled out the red carpet for you."
"You don't mind me being here?"
"You might not have a Quirk, but you burned brighter than everyone else in your class, Shoto included. With a mock look of terror, Kido said, "Don't tell Endeavor I said that."
"Your secret's safe with me."
As they sat down in the midst of the other heroes, a few friendly smiles and some not-so-friendly glowers were aimed his way. Kido clapped Izuku soundly on the back and said, "Guess who won the bet?"
Heroes groaned all around him. A hero with a horned helmet asked, "Wait, really? Damn, kid, that's rough. I put my bet on you because I thought it'd be hilarious." Smirking at the other heroes, he held out a hand and said, "Cough up."
Everyone at the table, Kido included, passed him thousand-yen notes. Once the hero had his pile, he tucked it in his pocket and held out his hand.
"Name's Okido. Thanks for buying me dinner. My Quirk's State-Swap, lets me change the phase of matter from solid to liquid, gas, or plasma, and vice versa." To demonstrate, he slapped his plate, and plastic hit the table with a wet splat. "Doesn't change the temperature, though."
"We found that out the hard way when he tried to climb a staircase made of fire," Kido added. "Couldn't walk for a week."
"Hey, I thought we agreed not to tell the kid our stories! Don't make me tell him about the shower accident."
The woman next to him rolled her eyes. "Name's Borealis, and the way I see it, you owe me a thousand yen. With Aurora, I can create and control tiny ice crystals." In the palm of her hand, a glowing whirlwind of powdered ice whipped in a circle, giving off vibrant blue and pink hues."
The introductions went across the table, and the meal resumed in stony silence. Heroes came and went as patrols came back and heroes got called for emergency dispatches. Once Izuku was done eating, Kido took him through the lower offices, where they briefly passed Agoyamato studying a merchandise contract with three other associates.
Kido walked him through how the agency operated, from how patrols and on-call hours were managed, to their training regimens, social media posting, the different departments to contact for press appearances or other public activities, their in-house engineering department and materials requisitions, and more. Having already absorbed all this from his Quirk, Izuku asked only the questions he needed answers for and followed silently along.
Once the day was done, Kido showed him to his room at the Agency and left for his own patrol. The keypad had the same password as the locker. The room was smaller than his bedroom at home, with no windows. A twin-sized bed, adorned with multiple blankets and an expensive memory foam mattress, and a cheap desk and stool took up nearly all the room's space. Izuku's backpack was on the bed, the laptop and spare clothes undisturbed. An alarm clock, the sturdiest item in the room, rested on a nightstand by the bed.
Izuku set up his laptop, and with instructions from Agoyamato, connected his social media accounts to the Endeavor agency. Within minutes, he got a veritable flood of comments on his update status that his business partner was already answering.
With nothing left to do, Izuku went to bed and dreamed of a city aflame and knives flying through the air.
A/N: I tried to get into Starcraft II yesterday. Played the first one as a kid on the N64, which yes, I know, is definitely not the way to play it. My PC back then sucked, sue me. Anyways, I can manage the campaign just fine, but a real online match? I know the theory, but I can feel my brain overheating after getting up a third or hitting a hundred supply.
I managed to win a game when I caught my opponent cannon-rushing and pulled the boys, killing both probes and two pylons. From there, I macro'd until my brain hurt, flung mass marine-marauder at him, and cleaned him out. The other games, though… let's just say having DTs in your main with one scan available is never any fun. And yes, I know ravens and turrets exist, but it's so easy to forget about them between the rest of the macro game. So, yeah, I'm done. SCII's way too stressful for me.
Also, as of the time I'm writing this, FFnet is flipping out, so this may be delayed by a bit… or a lot. Who knows?
Alright, FFnet is back to normal, can post the story now. Let's see some reviews.
To Emrys Akayuki, I completely agree that Endeavor is not a good person. However, giving an excuse for his actions is hardly the way to go about redeeming his character, or making him more interesting. Oftentimes, reader and writer alike love to see some karmic retribution on the scumbags of fictitious worlds, but it's hardly realistic. As to having done anything illegal, that's another matter entirely. As far as I can tell, he hasn't technically committed any crimes in the MHA universe. No excuse for his behavior, but legally defensible.
To XXxxxadisxxxXX, grammar mistakes happen. I proofread and try to trim them down, but I don't obsess over it too much.
To Laeknyr, paradoxes would be quite likely if Izuku tried, so his Quirk developed a safety mechanism.
That's it for now, hopefully ffnet doesn't crash next Sunday!
