Chapter 31: Work Study Internships
Hey howdy hey hello, welcome to the show! Enigma's back (finally).
I took a brief break from writing this, and then made the Christmas Special, and now I'm back to this.
Been working on some big Tapas projects, and now we're here.
Enjoy!
Feel free to review, but don't just rip into me. I'm doing this for fun, not excessive criticism.
"Kid, you I really think you're missing the point." Fatgum sighed, over the phone.
It was late into the day, after class. Class 1-A had yet to learn whether or not they'd be allowed to participate in the Hero internships, but they were advised to reach out anyways.
"Well, I went to you after the sports festival, so I thought-"
"Moxie, kid, you already learned from me, the point is so that you can get more experience." Fatgum cut him off, "You can't learn much more from me."
"Then what do I-"
"Look, I'll put you in contact with another Hero, she'll be happy to take you on. She's a teacher as well, so she'll be able to work around your school schedule." Fatgum explained.
"Thanks a bunch!" Moxie grinned, "Seriously, that's great!"
"No problem, kid." Fatgum responded. Moxie could hear him smiling over the phone.
Immediately after hanging up the phone, Moxie got bored and went to do some light training with the punching bag in his room. A few minutes later, he got a call from a number he didn't recognize. He rushed to pick up the phone and, in his excitement, tripped over the corner of his desk and hit the ground hard.
He jumped back up with a big red mark on his forehead, shouted a quick "I'm fine!" at the door in case anyone had heard, and picked up the phone.
"Hey, kiddo!"
Hiryu
Taking a few deep breaths, Hiryu dialed Gang Orca's number, holding the phone up to her ear as it rang. She hadn't actually saved him as a contact because she thought that would be weird, but she had written it down on a sticky note, and now she was glad she had.
"Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up…" She muttered over and over.
"This is Gang Orca."
Hiryu held the phone away from her ear to breathe a massive sigh of relief, and immediately went back to being stressed.
"Um… this is Hiryu… from the internship?" She spoke, hoping he remembered her.
"Draconia, right?" Gang Orca asked.
"Y-Yes that's me!" Hiryu exclaimed, before realizing she probably sounded way too excited. Gang Orca didn't seem to notice, though.
"I suppose you're calling for the internships?" Gang Orca asked.
"Y-Yeah… if that's alright with you…" Hiryu crossed her fingers desperately.
"Sorry, but I can't. I'm busy right now." Gang Orca told her. Hiryu almost had a heart attack, "But I can give you the number of someone else."
"Th-That would work!" Hiryu said quickly, once again kicking herself for sounding too excited.
"Alright, here's the number, grab a pad and pen." Gang Orca instructs, sending Hiryu scrambling through her drawers.
The Following Morning
"So we had a conference about potential work studies for first-years yesterday. Plenty of teachers, even the principal, said, 'Don't even think about it'." Aizawa told the students, first thing the next day.
"Huh? Even after that whole demonstration we got?!" Kirishima slammed his fists on the desk.
"It makes sense, given what led to the dorm system in the first place." Kaminari shrugged, playing with Ojiro's tail.
"Take that!" Bakugo yelled.
"Some were of the opinion that the overprotective direction we're going in won't foster strong Heroes. As such, we will allow agencies with proven track records that offer work studies to take on first years, that's our decision."
"Wonder how Gunhead's doing…" Uraraka mumbled.
"Hell yeah!" Moxie cheered, leaping out of his seat.
"I-I'm glad, or else all that stress would have been for nothing." Hiryu sighed with relief.
"Now, let's begin." Aizawa interrupted their celebrations, getting to the actual lesson for the day.
The Next Day
Hiryu took a deep breath and nervously knocked on the door to her internship, holding her breath for a few seconds before she remembered she shouldn't do that.
The door opened gently, and a woman in a dark red dress stood at the door.
"Ah, you must be the third UA student." The Pro Hero Ryukyo smiled kindly, inviting Hiryu inside, "I believe that's everyone."
Inside, Uraraka and Tsuyu were waiting.
"Hey, Hiryu! You're here too, huh?" Uraraka asked, as Tsuyu waved politely.
"Y-Yeah…" Hiryu nodded, as Nejire came running into the room, trying to grab Hiryu's wings to look at them.
"Woah! Hiryu, you too?" Nejire asked, while Hiryu flew upwards, avoiding Nejire, "You didn't even come to me like they did!"
"Gang Orca gave her my number." Ryukyo explained, "With Hiryu here, we've got everyone. Hopefully, we'll get a call soon."
Moxie
Moxie was running through the city, a hastily scribbled address on the back of his hand. Turning the corner, he very narrowly avoided running into a man with short black hair, a mouth mask and white gloves.
"Watch it." The man warned.
"Sorry!" Moxie shouted as he ducked around the man, running on down the street. He screeched to a halt outside the brightly colored Hero office and pounded on the door, people passing by looked at him like he was crazy.
"Moxie! Kiddo!" Ms. Joke threw open the door, grabbing Moxie's shoulder and yanking him inside, "Come on in here, hops!"
"Wha-"
"No time to explain, get changed! We're going out!" Ms. Joke told him, "Changing room down the hall on the left!"
"Alright! Give me three minutes, tops!" Moxie nodded determinedly, rushing down the hall.
Just two minutes later, Moxie and Ms. Joke were racing to the rescue. Moxie sat on the back of Ms. Joke's brightly colored motorcycle, soaring down the street towards a plume of smoke, his cape fluttering in the wind.
"Villain activity has sky-rocketed since All Might's retirement!" Ms. Joke explained loudly over the wind whipping through their ears, "Bigger stuff like this is becoming the norm, and I'm gonna be trying to get you used to it! Typically, with an incident this big, other Heroes will show up as well! In fact, some are already on sight!"
"Things must really be rough if they need back up!" Moxie commented.
"Yeah! Your job is general suppression, so use that agility of yours and take some weight of the other Heroes' shoulders! It's a vital job in an incident this big!" Ms. Joke instructed, "But don't worry, no pressure kiddo!"
"Jeez, no pressure, huh?" Moxie laughed.
Hiryu
"A fight of this scale is bound to have injured bystanders." Ryukyu explained to everyone over her comms, sweeping away a number of Villains with her tails, "Save whoever you can, leave the rest to us!"
"I can see a civilian under the rubble!" Hiryu told the others, sending Uraraka scrambling to free them, "And there are heat signatures over there!"
"Slips, behind you!"
A toad-like Hero spun around just in time to see a Villain bearing down on him with a hook for a hand.
Before the Villain could take a swing, Moxie rocketed in feet first, slamming into their head and flipping away, knocking them out in one blow.
"Suppression is easy, with chumps like this!" Moxie laughed, flipping onto his feet.
"Don't even think about playing the Hero kid!" A huge stone Villain came bearing down on Moxie, her fist smashing into the ground as Moxie flipped away. Death Arms came in then, wrestling with the Villain.
"Where's your quip, kid?" Ms. Joke asked, causing the stone Villain to laugh so Death Arms could get the upper hand.
"My quip?" Moxie scratched his chin, zigzagging towards a Villain in a gas mask and striking them across the chin with his knee.
"Your quip, you know! No sidekick of mine doesn't know how to quip!" Ms. Joke crossed her arms.
"You'll have to teach me later!" Moxie shouted as he was snatched up by a bird-like Villain, bending backwards to kick them in the beak.
The Day After
"Ugh… Ms. Joke doesn't mess around." Moxie groaned, exhausted.
"I don't think I've ever seen you so tired." Sero admitted.
"It's totally out of character." Jiro agreed, sitting on the desk in front of Moxie's.
"Ms. Joke had me up for hours teaching me to 'quip'." Moxie sighed, "She's really serious about it."
"How was your internship, Hiryu?" Kirishima asked.
"I-I helped with rescue during the incident yesterday." Hiryu told him proudly, "Uraraka and Tsuyu too!"
"Yeah, Hiryu was great!" Uraraka smiled.
"Come on, show us how to quip!" Kaminari insisted.
"You're only supposed to quip during a fight…"
Well, what did you think?
Yeah, I'm back to writing this now, who knows when the next chapter will go up.
Check out the Christmas Special if you haven't, it's short but fun.
Enigma, signing off.