Side Story

“So, you tried to apply to Manual’s agency for work studies just like you did your internship?”

“I did. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to accept me this time around. Quite a few other Hero schools had begun their own work studies or internships so he was inundated with requests this time around.”

“It is unfortunate, but at the same time it gives you an opportunity.” Aurdel said, leaning over the railing of the overpass above the highway that went through the city. “Working with more than one agency or Hero gives you the chance to get another perspective on things, see how they get them done.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Ida put back on his helmet, “I have to ask though, didn’t you just recently announce that you were going to be working with Mirko? If that’s the case, where is she? It would certainly be much more productive if I had two Heroes to learn from.”

“I’m sure it would, the issue is that even though we announced our partnership we still need to smooth a few things out,” Aurdel stood up straight as he spoke, simultaneously listening into the police scanner. “One of the big issues is that Mirko doesn’t actually have a physical agency or permanent residence. She’s just been hopping around from city to city, renting apartments wherever she thinks a fight is going to happen.” He realized what he’d said, “No pun intended.”

“I’ve heard about that, wouldn’t that cause some issue with the paperwork necessary for being a Hero?”

“Apparently not serious enough of an issue to threaten her position as a pro-Hero in the top ten. The only problem she seems to have is that she doesn’t really bother to keep up with all the paperwork on the cases that she solves, though I suppose that’s not something I can really fault her for. I haven’t exactly filled out my paperwork on all my solved cases either.”

“Surely you should take that aspect of your work more seriously!” Ida exclaimed, “After all it is your duty as a public servant that-”

He raised a hand, signaling Ida to quiet down. “Legally speaking, pro-Heroes aren’t public servants. Rather they are considered private contractors hired by the government. That’s why they receive their pay on a case by case basis rather than through a wage like the police.” Aurdel walked towards the opposite railing, still facing down the highway where he’d originally been looking. “Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way though, Heroes still have a duty to help people. I’m just reminding you that Heroes aren’t held to the same standards or regulations that actual public servants like the police are held to. And while sometimes that can be considered a burden, I consider it a boon. I work better when I’m not restricted and forced to handle mountains of paperwork.”

“I suppose that you do have a point there…” Ida looked around, “Mr. Aur- Spartan, may I ask why we’re still here on the overpass?”

“Take a look at the highway below, and tell me what you see.” Ida walked over and looked

“Nothing, the highway is empty. Did something…?”

“Police began pursuing a stolen vehicle used in a robbery roughly fifteen minutes ago. In that time I contacted the police and had them cordone off this section of the highway for an intercept.” He opened the bag that he carried with him, pulling out two sets of spike strips. Then he tossed them over the edge of the overpass and onto the highway, before patching into the police dispatch. “This is pro-Hero Spartan to Dispatch, ambush for Villains on the run is set up at the next overpass. Have your officers pull back some distance from the target vehicle. Be warned, spike strips are set up five feet before the overpass.”

“This is dispatch to Spartan, officers are pulling back now. Try to take them in unharmed.”

“No guarantees dispatch.” He switched off the comms, “Alright Ida, we’re going to get a running start. The moment their car stops we’re going to be there to arrest them. We don’t want them getting away.”

“Yes sir!” Ida went into the same position that he was, standing on one side of the overpass. He could hear the sound of the approaching truck as it thundered down the highway.

He timed the beginning. Three… Two… One… “Go!” The two of them then sprinted towards the railing, clearing it completely and soaring through the air as the truck approached. Then they heard the sound of tires popping as the truck finally ran over the spike strips. Moments later, after they finally hit the ground and kept running, the truck blew past them. Its front and rear tires were both popped, leading it to swerve towards the right as it kept going forward.

Then he heard the sound. “Sir, there’s a car getting onto the highway from the ramp!”

“I know!” He grit his teeth and pulled out his knife, “Ida, the truck is going into the path of the ramp and whoever’s in that other car won’t be able to sto in time. I need you to shatter his window, cut his seatbelt and pull him out.”

“I don’t know if I can-”

“Use this.” He handed the knife to Ida, who only had a second to process the request.

“Got it! Recipro Boost!” Ida then sped off using his quirk, running faster than even he could reasonably accomplish before leaping over the median to reach the car. He then took a deep breath as he waited, watching the truck suddenly veer completely right as it tipped over due to the lack of traction. He then watched as the car that he’d heard before drove up the ramp less than three seconds later, slamming into the bottom of the truck and coming to a stop in a heaping wreck.

He stopped next to the two wrecks. “Ida?”

“I pulled him out sir! I also managed to get out his personal belongings too,” Ida handed him back the knife.

“Good, now stay here. The police will show up in a moment once they move over the spike strips.” Aurdel walked over to the now flipped over cab of the truck. He then used his knife to cut through the roof of the cab, creating an opening before peeling it back. When he did he found two young men brandishing weapons at him.

“G-Get back! Or we’ll shoot you!”

He gave them a cold hard stare, “Is that something you really want to do?”

They lowered their weapons, then dropped them onto the asphalt. “No…”

“Smart choice.” Aurdel pulled the two of them out of the wreck, then tied up their hands and policed their weapons. He motioned for them to stay there as the police. After that he walked back over. “Now, would you care to explain why you tried to get onto the highway even though the entrance should have been blocked off by police officers?”

The man clutched the large backpack in his hands, “Look, you can’t just shut down the highway and expect everybody to just go along. Some of us have places that we need to be.”

“You do know that it was only this stretch of the highway that was shut down, right? The rest of the highway was fine to travel on. You could have just kept driving and entered at the next ramp.”

“I… could’ve?” The man’s anger deflated somewhat after that.

“Yes, you could’ve. And in your rush to get wherever you’re going sooner, you could have gotten yourself killed,” he gestured towards the wrecked car. “So, mind telling us where you had to be that was so important that you were willing to completely disregard public safety officials and nearly end up in a wreck?”

“Well… Uh… You see, it’s late in the day and it’s almost the end of the week. A lot of people order food since they’re just coming back from work and don’t want to spend the time cooking. I do food deliveries.” He looked at his car, “Or, well, I did food deliveries.”

It seemed careless to risk one’s life over a job like that, but he supposed that people had to make their income one way or another. “Either way, it doesn’t seem like you’ll be able to finish your job.” Aurdel grabbed the backpack from the man.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“You already got paid for it, right?”

“…I did, yeah.”

“Then the police can give you a ride home, we’ll worry about delivering whatever you had left.”

“Some Heroes…” The man grumbled, walking away as the sound of sirens approached.

Ida pulled off his helmet, “Is this really something that we should spend our time doing?”

“I can understand why you might think that, but someone has to do the job. Besides, going door to door is the simplest form of public outreach. So long as people know you’re there it can make an impact.”

Aurdel ran with the backpack in his hands, “Ida, where does the first delivery say it has to go?”

Ida pulled out the note from the pouch. “It doesn’t look like the list has any names, only addresses. But the Chinese food is going to one of the residential areas here in Musutafu.”

He took a glance at the note, “Huh, that’s relatively close by…” He glanced around, “In that case, we’ll take a shortcut.”

“A shortcut?”

Aurdel jumped from the side of the road and cut into a nearby alleyway. “Yes, and so long as there’s no trouble-”

“Help!”

Damn, “Speak of the devil.” Quickly he performed a heel turn, pulling a loose brick out from one of the walls as he took a step back out of the alley.

“Someone help, he took my purse!” Aurdel then pivoted, spotting the purse thief running away He then pitched the brick as hard as he could, throwing it with so much force that when it hit the back of the man’s leg from behind it managed to completely shatter his knee.

“Some people just think that they can take it easy,” He walked over to the purse thief, picking up the purse. He then threw it back over to the women who it’d been stolen from. “Ma’am, can you call the police to pick this crook up? I would stay to do it myself, but he won’t be running away any time soon and I need to keep up my pace for tonight.”

“O-Of course.” She sounded a little flustered with the encounter, but there was no time to mull over that detail. They had places to be.

“Ida, let’s keep moving.”

“Yes sir!” And just like that they were back on track. Aurdel used a map of the city to try and find as many shortcuts as he could, weaving in between stores, homes, gas stations and anything else that got in his way.

When they did finally get there he found walking into a community of gated homes, seemingly where a bunch of stuffy upper crust people would live. The implication that some of those people would opt to order for takeout food instead of some fancy restaurant felt off to him. But rather than question it took much he just went along with it. He pushed the buzzer on the wall next to the gate. “Who is it?”

“Takeout delivery.”

“Oh good, I was wondering when you would show up.” The panel buzzed and the gate unlocked, Aurdel and Ida walked in. Upon entering the yard a college aged boy walked out of the home. Not exactly the kind of person that he expected to be staying in a place like this. “Hey, wait a minute. You’re not the usual delivery guy. You’re that Hero!”

“You’re delivery driver got into a car accident, I’m just doing what he was supposed to do since he can’t.” He opened up the backpack, and began pulling out the food.

“You know, it’s kind of weird. Whenever I go home my dad won’t shut the hell up about you, and now here you are.”

“Would that be a good or a bad thing?”

Aurdel handed him the food. “Well, he mostly just complains about you. Says that he didn’t need your help to get better.”

“And who would be-?”

“Natsuo, what’s taking so long? Was there-” A woman peeked out around the corner, “Oh, a Hero! Did something happen?”

“No, just here to drop off your food.” Natsuo, huh? He recognized name. “Your dad can think whatever he wants about me, the opinions of others don’t bother me that much.”

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think that will have him feeling any better about it,” Natsuo gave a slightly pained smile, “Anyways, tell Shoto that I said ‘Hi.’”

“I’ll make sure to.” After that, he and Ida walked out.

“Was that Todoroki’s brother?”

“Yeah, and I’d keep the understanding at that for now.” He folded his arms, clutching the backpack. “What’s the last place that the rest of this stuff has to go to?”

Ida looked at the note, “It’s relatively nearby, room eighty seven of a nearby motel.”

“Motel?” He raised an eyebrow behind his helmet.

“You don’t know what a motel is?”

“I know what a motel is, I’m just surprised they’re still a thing. Especially in Japan. Where I’m from the idea of the motel is dead, the average person rarely even leaves the planet they’re born on. And most that do usually have the money to afford an apartment on the planet they’re going to.”

“The idea that in the future, someone can travel between entirely different planets… It’s mind-boggling.”

“The world has a long way to go. Live long enough, and you just might see it.” He took a deep breath, then glanced at the note. “Alright, let’s do this last delivery. Then we can get back to the normal patrol for the night.”

“Yes sir!” After that they began to run again, booking it in what was effectively the opposite direction.

“There’s something else I have to wonder about…”

“What’s that?”

“Why is fast food so popular and widespread?”

“What?” The sudden questioning dumbfounded Ida, “I guess… Because it’s made fast?”

“Sure, but I’d hardly say that outweighs all the cons that it has.” The leapt up almost in sync, clearing a railing and moving down to a lower level of the city. “The food is pumped with God knows how many chemicals to keep it shelf-ready, the quick preparation time means that the cooking quality is almost always sub-par, the taste is often artificial and frankly most of it is too expensive for what is actually being provided to the customer. I’ve had a Moa burger before, and the most I can say for it is that it tasted better than most military rations.”

“You ate an extinct bird?!”

“Different species, the name is just something that happened because the two birds looked similar. They were considered a pest until people started raising them and harvesting them for their meat.” Upon giving the topic some thought, he bit his tongue. “...Though now that Reach is gone, they might actually be close to extinction.”

“Was that before or after you ate one?”

“A very long time after.” The two of them stopped in front of the relatively large motel, then they looked around.

“There, I can see the room we’re looking for.” Ida pointed towards it, “It’s on the right side of the second floor.”

“You have surprisingly good eyesight for someone that has to wear glasses.” After walking the way over he gave a knock at the door, before opening the backpack to pull the pizza box out.

“It’s about time! They say thirty minutes or it’s free, so I better not be paying for this!” The person inside ran over to the door, and threw it open. “It better-” She cut herself off mid-sentence.

He saw who it was. “Don’t-”

“What, I was taking too long to move in so you decided to get another job?”

He gave a sigh. “No, your delivery driver got into a car crash. What are you doing here anyways Mirko? I thought you said you were busy with moving in.”

“I was,” she leaned on the door frame, “During the day, that is. I still go on my night patrols and I’ve been using this place to crash since my place still isn’t ready.”

“We haven’t even worked together yet and I can already tell you’re gonna be a piece of work,” he shoved the pizza box into her arms.

“Yeah, I try,” she gave a smug grin. “I’ll make sure to be quick, don’t want to waste the opportunity since you’re here.” She went back inside, slamming the door shut.

“Ida.”

“Yes sir?”

“When you’re a big time Hero, try and find someone far less willful as a partner.”