The second day of Minor’s internship passed without any great fanfare; he and the Fly spent about half of it working through chess puzzles and playing a few actual games against one another, and the latter half of it out patrolling the streets once more. Although Minoru was careful to avoid using his Quirk this time—and was unhappy to see one of the petty criminals they tracked down get away as a result—the Fly did have him start to help him with his work.

  Admittedly, it was doing things like corralling ordinary citizens away from where the Fly was herding a villain or providing shouted information to the Fly from his perch on the top of a nearby building when they ran into a small gang of three people who split up as the Fly attempted to apprehend them. But even with his peripheral involvement, he was starting to get a feeling for what the Fly had been talking about with all his chess analogies, and he went home once more exhausted but happy with his contributions.

  And before he knew it, the third day of his internship arrived.

  Unlike the first two days, the Fly asked Minoru to join him in the afternoon. Evidently the heroes in Hosu City were loosely organized across agencies to make sure that there was always a minimum presence on the street at any point, and the Fly’s responsibility that day was in the afternoon and evening.

  The afternoon passed without much fanfare, but as the light waned and night approached, Minoru got more and more antsy. He was pretty sure this was the day that the Hero Killer returned to action and ended up confronting Ida, Midoriya, and Todoroki.

  The Fly noticed. The two of them had been making short flights between buildings and walking along the edges of the roofs to keep an eye on the city streets below; evidently the Fly normally just flew around for most of his shifts, but that wasn’t practical when carrying a high schooler around with him and Minoru’s Quirk didn’t give him the mobility necessary to keep up with the Fly.

  “I take it you’ve heard the rumor that villain activity increases in the evening, eh?” said the Fly, his focus for once on Minoru himself instead of the streets below.

  “What?” Minoru turned towards the man, not having expected the question.

  “You’ve got it written all over your face, kid!” The Fly laughed a bit. “Don’t worry, though. It’s true that there is an uptick in certain types of villain activity at night, but the kind of stuff that I’m likely to be responsible for handling? I’m pretty bored most of my evening shifts, and I don’t anticipate this one being any different.”

  Minoru was spared having to respond, however, as he was interrupted by the sound of an explosion closely followed by screams a block away.

  “…but sometimes I’m wrong!” The Fly zipped behind Minoru, who having practiced this extensively over the last couple days automatically jumped up and let the Fly grab him under the arms as he planted his feet on the man’s thighs. The two whipped straight off the building and into the air.

  As they jetted to a height more than double the height of the nearby buildings it became clear that there were three disturbances, and just as Minoru had feared all three were from different nomu: one with ridiculously long limbs, another with wings and what looked like a gas mask, and a third that was mostly black, reminiscent of the nomu that had attacked All Might during the U.S.J. training.

  The three appeared to have just showed up in the middle of the city somehow and now were scattering in three separate directions, smashing buildings and targeting citizens as they went.

  Minoru barely had time to take all that in when the Fly sent them plummeting back toward the street in a nausea-inducing maneuver. They came down just behind the big, dark nomu and the Fly dropped Minoru to the pavement, but Minoru whirled around the grabbed the Fly’s ankle. “Wait!”

  The Fly shook his leg, but Minoru held tight. “No time! I need you to get the citizens out of here and tell any heroes you see I’m leading these three monster things toward Memorial Plaza!”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “No!” insisted Minoru. “You don’t understand! Those are nomu! One of them almost took down All Might when villains attacked us at school! I don’t think your chess strategies are going to work on them; they’ll just blow right through you!”

  The Fly shrugged. “Yeah, that happens. Sometimes, no matter how clever you are, you can’t compete with raw power. I didn’t plan to get into this so early in your hero career, but you’re probably right those things are out of my league so…you know, Minoru, every hero worth their salt has the same fallback plan. When our strategems fail or our Quirk proves lacking, there’s only one thing we can do.”

  Minoru slowly withdrew his hand from the Fly’s ankle. “What’s that?”

  The Fly grinned at him, though the expression was somewhat forced. “We just have to do our best to save as many people as we can.”

  Without further ado, the Fly rocketed down the street. “Hey there, ugly!” yelled the Fly as he buzzed right by the nomu’s head from behind, the big creature swatting at him with startling speed, but failing to connect.

  Minoru dragged an arm across his eyes. Dammit! He did not have time to be freaking out, even if the image of All Might being pushed to the brink by a nomu so recently was refusing to leave his mind’s eye. Do his best? He was just getting going.

  Minoru dashed toward a small group of people who were just standing there staring slack-jawed at the retreating back of the monster.

  “Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms to get their attention. “Get out of here! It’s not safe!”

  His words appeared to snap them out of their shock, and they took off running in the opposite direction from the nomu.

  Minoru peered ahead, but the Fly and the nomu had completely out-stripped him at that point, both moving with far greater speed than a short high school boy could muster. He put his head down, pumped his arms, and did his best to catch up, regardless.

  When Minoru reached the intersection, he almost collided with another person in costume; presumably one of the heroes stationed in Hosu City, although not one he had interacted with during the last couple days. The hero had what appeared to be some sort of oversized animal paws and a leopard-print theme to his costume.

  “Get out of here, kid!” yelled the hero as Minoru skidded to a stop next to him.

  “I’m interning with the Fly! He wanted other heroes to know that he’s drawing the nomu to the Memorial Plaza!”

  The hero nodded. “Got it. I’ll spread the word. Now get out of here, this is no place for a kid!” His piece said, he took off running down one of the side streets, already reaching for his cell phone.

  Minoru cursed to himself, and grabbed his own phone out, desperately dialing the authorities while he continued to follow the sounds of havoc being wreaked. He needed to warn the police about the attack and let them know where the Fly was leading the nomu, as well.

  A few minutes later, Minoru had successfully alerted the police to the Fly’s plans, and he emerged from one of the streets into what must have been the Memorial Plaza and a scene of utter pandemonium.

  It appeared the Fly had successfully baited the flying nomu and the large black nomu, but the leggy one was nowhere to be seen. Minoru could only hope that someone else was dealing with it, although from the explosion and sudden screech of brakes he could hear in the distance, he wasn’t sure if that was the case. The animal-pawed hero he’d run into was also nowhere in sight.

  Minoru paused at the edge of the plaza, irresolute. He couldn’t see any citizens around who would need his help, and he was hesitant to face creatures that could give All Might a run for his money.

  Although on second look, these nomu did not appear anywhere near as threatening. The big black nomu was certainly strong and fast, dealing devastating blows to the heroes trying to attack it while shrugging off most of their attacks. Although it wasn’t doing as much damage, the flying one was also causing the gathered heroes grief as it dive-bombed them, picking heroes up only to drop them and move on to the next.

  “Tenya!” he heard a hero in a helmet yell off to the side. “How could he run off at a time like this?!”

  That must be Ida’s mentor, which meant that the Hero Killer was also likely quite close by. As Minoru paused in indecision over what to do, Midoriya raced into the courtyard from a nearby alley, stuttering in his dash with obvious dismay at the destruction and sight of the nomu, before a female hero pushed him back away from the fight.

  Midoriya’s gaze met Minoru’s where he stood on a near side of the plaza. “Mineta!” he yelled. “I think Ida’s in trouble!” His message delivered, he took off running down a nearby side street.

  Minoru half turned, ready to follow Midoriya. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything useful here except distract the professional heroes, but maybe he could—

  At that moment, the big black nomu swatted the Fly out of the air with almost contemptuous ease.

  “They took down the Fly!” one of the heroes cried. “What are these monsters trying to achieve here?”

  As the nomu pivoted toward the downed Fly, presumably to finish him off, Minoru found himself running not after Midoriya but into the central plaza toward the nomu.

  He was damned if he was going to watch his mentor get killed. He might not be supposed to use his Quirk, but damn that, too. Unlike the local heroes he at least knew what he was up against.

  Now he just had to live through the next few minutes.

  that sounded like a challenge worthy of a My Hero Academia protagonist; especially one who is wrestling with the dilemma of what to do in the face of unbeatable enemies.