"Read it, please," Hawks told my old man, as we all watched him hand over his book.

"That's recommended reading from the number two hero!" said Midoriya. "Maybe I should check it out? Perhaps it holds the secret to his trademark speed…"

He whipped around and pulled a ton of copies of the book out of his overcoat, announcing "Here, I've got copies for everyone!"

"He's so prepared! Where'd those come from!?" Midoriya gasped.

He threw a copy to each of us, slamming them into our hands.

"That's right, it's the era of number two! When it comes to speed, it's all about reading which way the wind's blowing!"

"He must really love this book, to carry around so many copies," I murmured, beforeMidoriyainterrupted "It's almost like he's spreading the gospel!"

"Bingo, Midoriya!" Said Hawks. ""I'm recommending it to all my friends and heroes across the country. Because if nothing else, that liberation ideology will be pretty darn fundamental going forward. At least give the highlighted sections a glance. That's mysecondrecommendation in so manywords."He spread out his wings and lifted off. "All four of you, good luck with the work study!" And with that, he was gone, flying off looking rather majestic.

"He's only 22, but he comes off as much wiser!" SaidMidoriya.

"Just six years older than us…" I muttered.

"Ticks me off," snapped Bakugou.

My old manwas flipping through the book, mumbling "Ah, ok." But he didn't seem to find anything, and just lead us towards his agency office.

The number one hero's agency was, of course, a skyscraper, clean and new with gleaming windows, in the heart of downtown. We followed him up to the main office space, which was filled with sidekicks at desktop computers. One of them was standing in the middle of the room to face us all while the number one sulked off to his office. She had green fire hair, a black mask, sharp teeth, and wore a minidress, thigh highs, a fire extinguisher and time clock belt for her costume.I'd seen her before, at my previous internship. Burnin.

"Welcome toEndeavor's agency!" She called to us. "We're the flaming sidekickers! This is the first work study for Bakugou and Shoto, right! Y three will get right down to business doing what we do around here! But as you can see, with over 30 sidekicks, we ain't exactly short-staffed!" She came over to us and stuck her head in Bakugou's face.

"What I'm saying is, you won't get a chance to shine!"

"Fun. So we gotta try to beat the pros at their own game?" he grinned.

"Bingo! That goes for you too, Shoto! Don't assume anything just cuz you're the boss's kid! You kids've gotta sink your teeth into this job!"

All around us the sidekicks were running back and fourth, calling out things like "Dispatch request!" "Call the squad on patrol!" "They're too far, we'll go!"

"This place is so busy!" SaidMidoriya.

"Of course. It's the number one hero's agency."

"Most of the time, we're either on patrol or on standby!" Said some sidekick in mummy bandages. "But we also handle over 100 requests every day. From emergencies to escort missions to special events."

"Great. Let's get to freaking work then," Bakugou growled. "I've been pretty ticked off ever since that spoonbill stole my glory."

"Spoonbill? You mean Hawks!?" AskedMidoriya.

"You've got moxie, guy," said the mummy sidekick. "But we gotta wait forEndeavor's orders."

"He's sitting on his butt? What happened to those 100 requests?"

"Kacchan, please, just calm down!" SaidMidoriya.

"Ha ha ha! You'd better cool that head of yours, kid!" Said one of em, pissing me off even more.

"The boss only requested Shoto, so the two of you'll probably be working with us," said the green haired lady.

"As if! They told me I'd got to watch number one in action!" Bakugou shouted.

"We will. Calm down, Kacchan!"Midoriyainsisted.

"But that's not what we expected," I reminded them. "I'll talk to him."

Suddenly, the doors tomy old man's office opened and he emerged.

"Shoto. . You three - with me."

We headed to the back room to change, and emerged all suited up and ready to go.

"I'll be supervising you boys myself. But before we start, you two gotta tell me about yourselves. I don't know much about you. What're you working on now. Tell me what you wanna achieve."

Midoriyawent first, holding up his arm. "I want control over my power, and to have freedom of movement even while at max performance."

"You've got super strength that wrecks your own body, right?"

"Yes. I discovered a method to manage it without hurting myself. But I've - uh, reached the point where…how do I put this…? I've got, like, a secondary power…"

That weird black thing that came out of him during training.

"…Where it manifests in a different form."

"Show me."

That tiny bloop of nothing came out ofMidoriya's glove again. "But really focusing, I can juuust manage this much, but that's all I can handle for now. If I let any more out, I lose control."

"You said 'Max performance'," saidmy old man. "What's that mean for this ability?"

"Well, the true form of this one is more like a whip. I wanna turn it from a liability into a real weapon. I think I can apply some concepts from my other new move, Air Force - oh, I should explain that one. Itsalong-rangeattackthatstrikeswithairblasts,butitdemandsmorepoweroutputthanmybody' 10to15percent,soIhavetogointo 20percentdoesn'tactuallydamagemy body, 'vetrained ,atleastintheory,i' , 'thadmuchlucktrainingtorunthoseparralellprocesseshwileaslomovingmybodyinanyrealway…"

"Too long!" Burnin interrupted. "I'm lost!"

"He's analyzing himself, I guess," I asked.

"Gaahh! Shut ups!" cried Bakugou.

"So, you're hoping to make that tricky balancing act feel like second nature," saidmy old man, with a completely straight face.

"Yes!"

"He understood? He ain't number one for nothin!" Snarked Burnin.

"You've suffered due to your quirk," saidmy old man. "So, you're one of us…" Hm?

"Next up is you," he said to Bakugou.

"Unlike him," he said, nodding atMidoriya, "I came here to figure out what I can't do."

"Ooh, big talk, little man!" Burnin sassed him.

"Shove it! Why're you even here?!"

'I'm on standby."

"I'm serious, dammit. My explosion can pull off anything I want it to! I've only got that one quirk, but it's totally the then I learned that a strong quirk's not enough to make me the strongest guy surpass number one, I came to find out what I'm missing."

"Sure," saidmy old man. "Let's get to it."

He turned to leave, but I interrupted him.

"And me?"

"You're here to master Flashfire, Shoto!"my old manwhipped around, angry, at me.

"All the quirk training you beat into me as a kid," I told him,"I've put into practice with myright back, it's no wonder, since I couldn't escape my own hatred of you. Then I got into UA. Competing alongside these two…and everyone else…really opened my , in the end, I'm gonna do exactly what you always wanted. But please understand, the man I admire is the one mom and I watched on TV back then. As a fledgling hero, in order to become a man worthy of the title, I came here of my own free will. You were in the right place at the right them, that's all. Sorry this isn't going the way you want it to, number one. So let's stop that father-son crap in front of my friends."

….

Once again, Bakugou didn't protest at being called "friend".

"Right," saidmy old man, after a long awkward pause. "I'll be evaluatingyou threeas heroes."

We followed him as he lead us, then, out the door.