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Description
Tyra reported in to the Kamui hero agency right on time, her hero outfit in a briefcase at her side as she approached the front desk and secretary. “Hello, I’m here from UA academy” she said, looking over the desk at the young woman tapping away on a computer. The woman didn’t respond at all to her, continuing to work diligently without even looking up. Tyra waited for a few moments before speaking up again “I’m here for my internship with Kamui Woods.”

“Fill out the proper paperwork and come back later, Kamui is a busy hero and can’t be bothered with every girl in a school uniform claiming to be his intern” the woman said curtly, still not looking up from the screen.

“Paperwork? I wasn’t informed of any paperwork!” Tyra protested “and how many girls have access to a UA uniform and hero costume? I’m obviously the one he sent the offer to.”

“Oh, ‘I didn’t know there was paperwork’ is your line huh?” the woman said “yes I’m sure you didn’t, your kind don’t have much respect for rules and procedures in the first place after all.”

Tyra’s face darkened as the woman finally looked up and met her gaze, a smirk on her face that conveyed she knew all too well who Tyra was. “What use would the spawn of a villain have for doing things properly after all? So much easier to break rules and do whatever you want isn’t it? Wish I could know how that was like.” The woman taunted

Tyra clenched her fists, but took a deep breath and exhaled slowly “fine, give me the papers, I’ll fill them out.” She said, forcing herself to keep her voice calm and friendly.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t appear to have them here, you’ll need to go to the city hall and request them. I’m sure SOMEONE there will be willing to serve a villain” the woman said as her smirk grew “of course, it’ll take a few days to process your papers even after you file them, I do have a lot of work to get through after all. Maybe if you hurry, you might get to meet Kamui for a few minutes before the week is up.”

Tyra’s fists clenched tighter as she looked down at the woman’s ever-growing smirk. She’d known she’d be treated this way after the festival, she was prepared for it, but it was frustrating to be caught in a situation where she was powerless to do anything but go along with the woman’s outrageous demands. There probably wasn’t even a form for internships, Law would’ve certainly informed them if there was, and yet she had little choice but to leave and play along.

“That’s quite enough of that.” A man said as he walked into the room. He seemed to be made of a dark-brown wood, wearing a one-piece jumpsuit as his outfit. It was a simplistic design, but his helmet-like head and wooden body were unmistakable as the famous rookie hero Kamui Woods. “This girl is the one I decided to offer an internship to, you don’t have to agree with my assessment of her character, but I’m disappointed someone working at my agency would so blatantly defy my decisions.”

The woman looked back to her computer and resumed her typing “I was just following procedure Mr. Woods.” She said, “if you vouch for this girl being the intern, I suppose that will have to be good enough.”

Kamui sighed “must you be so confrontational about this? You’re a good worker, but cause another incident like this one and you will be fired, understood?”

The woman stiffened, then nodded “very well, I will not harass Ms. Tsuta any further…” she spat, her hatred for Tyra not even remotely concealed in her voice as she spat out the name with as much venom as she could manage.

Tyra sighed, this would likely be far from the last time she had to endure such treatment, but she was grateful someone had intervened in this case. She followed Kamui into his office and took a seat across from him at his desk.

“I apologize for that incident” Kamui said “not everyone here at the agency agreed with my decision to offer you an internship for obvious reasons.”

Tyra nodded, she was well aware that taking her on even as an intern was a bit of a risky move considering the negative PR she carried with her name. Not to mention people at the agency would oppose taking her in out of personal animosity as well.

“Still, seeing just how much power you possess, and how similar our abilities are, I overruled them.” Kamui said “letting a gem like you pass us by would be a travesty. Still, I expect you to be on your best behavior and not give me any reason to regret taking you on as an intern.”

“Of course, I’ll make you proud sir” Tyra said, smiling confidently as she sat up straight and tried to look as professional as she could.

“Glad to hear it, now get into your costume, we’re going on patrol.” Kamui said as he pointed to a changing room and stood up “meet me at the front door in 10 minutes, don’t keep me waiting.”

“Yes sir!” Tyra exclaimed, jumping to her feet and running into the changing room. Her costume was a bit of a hassle to put on, consisting of a green latex suit that covered her torso, and vines that wrapped around her legs and wove together to form makeshift leggings. Her arms were left exposed for easy planting of her seeds, and her long green hair was woven into a braid with strands of flowers. The material of the suit she wore was made of regenerative material and was thin, allowing her to plant seeds into her torso if she needed to. To compensate for the design of the material she had a sort of vine and flower vest she wore to cover her chest, leaving enough gaps for her to insert seeds through it, but providing adequate coverage for her breasts so as to not be too exposed by the thin costume. She also wore a green utility belt with a wide variety of containers which carried her seed supply. The final component of the costume was a sprayed-on flame retardant, mitigating her weakness to fire. Two cans of super-condensed foam for putting out fires also hung from her utility belt.

Putting on the costume took a whole 8 minutes to do, but the combination of form and function was impeccable, and Tyra had to appreciate the work the support department had put into making sure every aspect of it was attractive but tasteful, practical for both combat and appearance, and considerate of her various needs and weaknesses. “They did a great job on this thing” Tyra thought as she ran to get to the front door of the agency within the 10-minute time limit “wish they’d have given me proper leggings instead of these vine things though, putting it on takes way too long.”

Kamui waited patiently at the door for Tyra to arrive, glancing at the clock periodically. At almost 10 minutes exactly, Tyra arrived, slightly out of breath from having had to sprint down the stairs at top speed in order to make it in time.

“I didn’t expect it to actually take you 10 minutes to get ready, you’ll need to get better at changing into and out of your costume” Kamui said “when there’s a crisis we can’t afford to take 10 minutes just to dress up. There’s nothing wrong with a complex design, but tell your support department to consider that when they work on the next model of it.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir” Tyra said as she caught her breath “I’ll be sure to pass that feedback along.”

“Good, now follow me, we got a report of a bunch of minor villains making a ruckus downtown while you were changing, we’re going in now.” Kamui said

“Yes sir!” Tyra replied, following the wooden man as he ran out the door.

------ downtown ------

A group of men in the street were on a rampage, there were five in total, all of them appearing to have some variant of a pyrokinesis quirk. They were firing off blasts of flame in all directions, starting fires in multiple buildings and attacking anyone who came too close. People were fleeing from them in a panic as the cops tried to set up a perimeter and call for heroes to intervene.

“Just a bunch of drunken idiots huh?” Tyra said as she and Kamui arrived on the scene “they have fire quirks though, not the best for us.”

“Even so, as heroes we must do what we can, we’ll focus on evacuating civilians first and engage the enemy once everyone is safe. A hero’s first priority must always be protecting the innocent” Kamui said as his arm extended and wrapped around a streetlight, then pulled him towards it and shot himself into the fray like a slingshot.

Tyra nodded and looked around, assessing where she could best be of use. A blast of fire shot through a window of a shop and detonated something inside, causing a massive blaze to pick up in the store as people ran out of the building in a panic. Tyra rushed over to the store and jumped in through the window so as to not interfere with the people coming out of the door. “Is anyone trapped in here? I’m a hero here to help, if you’re here answer me!” she called out.

“Over here! Daddy’s trapped!” a young child cried “please help us!”

Tyra looked to the source of the crying, a man was trapped under some rocks that had fallen in the explosion, and fire had cut off the escape route of several small children and their mother, trapping them in the corner of the store with the unconscious and pinned man.

“Stay calm! I’m coming to you” Tyra said as she snatched one of her condensed foam cans from her belt. She didn’t have enough to spare for her put out all the fires in the building, needing to conserve it for more situations like this one, but the foam also served to coat whatever it was sprayed on and prevent it from catching fire again. She found the shortest path through the flames and sprayed the foam from the can, the white substance smothering the flames and creating a small pathway of safety for her to reach the civilians. She rushed through and knelt down by the man to assess the situation. The rocks were too heavy for a normal person to lift, and the man’s leg was probably broken, but there wasn’t any structural danger to moving the rocks that might cause the situation to worsen.

“Ms. Hero, I’m scared, is Daddy gonna be ok?” one of the children asked.

Tyra forced herself to smile at the child despite the intensity of the situation. “It’s alright now, he’s not badly hurt, just a broken bone it looks like, now lets get you all out of here before the fire spreads too much” she said. She planted a seed into her arm to sprout a large vine that grabbed the rock on the man and tossed it aside, then wrapped around him and carefully lifted him. The vine wrapped around his leg carefully to hold it in place and prevent the broken bone from causing more damage as she moved him. Another explosion rocked the building as the fire spread to more of the store’s products, causing Tyra to lose her footing for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Alright, I’ve got him, let’s go!” she exclaimed, leading the family out through the path she’d created before and outside the store. She needed to use a bit more foam to secure their exit, but they were soon safe outside.

“Thank you so much” the mother of the family said as her children rushed off with the police and their father was carried away on a stretcher “I had my doubts about you at the festival, but we owe you our lives.”

Tyra smiled and nodded “it’s ok, lots of people doubt me now, but I’m just glad you’re safe. Now get going, I need to make sure everyone else gets out safe too.”

Tyra used the vine she’d carried the man with to wrap around a sign and hurl herself over to the next building she could see was in bad shape, leaving the woman behind without another word. This building had suffered structural damage from multiple explosions and the burning of the building itself. There were still many people on the upper floors screaming from the windows as the flames closed in on them and the fire escapes that they’d hoped to use collapsed due to the structural damage.

“Everyone hang tight!” Tyra shouted as she planted more seeds “and get ready to jump on my command!”

Tyra extracted primed seeds from her arms and planted them in the ground at the base of the building, causing large fluffy flowers to grow from the ground like plant-based cushions. Then she grew multiple vines from her arms to catch anyone who bounced too high off the cushions or looked like they were going to miss.

“Alright go go go!” Tyra shouted “quickly!”

The scared civilians wasted no time abandoning the building and jumping towards the cushions Tyra had provided. Some misjudged their jumps and needed to be caught by her vines, but soon they had all landed safely on the ground and run off towards the police perimeter. Some stopped to thank Tyra, but most were too scared. One woman ran to Tyra, her face covered in soot and tears as she grabbed Tyra’s arm pleadingly.

“My baby! My baby is still inside! I couldn’t get to her before the fire cut me off! I made it out but…!”

“Give me the floor and room” Tyra said sharply, cutting off the hysterical woman. Her voice was not harsh, but she cut to the point. There was no time for a long-winded explanation if she was going to help.

“3rd floor, 5th door on the left, I came from the leftmost window” the woman said quietly, cowed by the sudden sharpness of Tyra’s tone.

“I’ll save her” Tyra promised, then latched onto the window in question with her vines and threw herself into the building. Immediately the smoke began to sting her eyes. This floor was burning much more intensely than the rest of the area, and Tyra was beginning to feel the effects. Her costume’s flame-retardant coating did help to protect her from the heat, but she was still vulnerable. Even if the fire didn’t hit her directly, being in this building for long would be deadly. Her plant-like body wasn’t designed to handle things like this.

Grabbing her foam can again, Tyra began carving a path through the flames. Running down the hallway even as parts of the ceiling collapsed around her. She heard crying from one of the rooms and tried to open the door, then winced as her hand was singed by the metal doorknob. There was fire on the other side of the door for sure. Planting another seed, Tyra made a fist made of wood shoot from her forearm and break down the door, following up with a spray of foam to stop the fire. Her wooden fist was burned before the fire could be put out, but Tyra grit her teeth and pushed through the pain as she detached it and planted a few more seeds in case of an emergency.

The young toddler was in a crib at the end of the room, crying loudly even as Tyra ran over to her and picked her up out of the crib. “There there, you’re going to be ok” Tyra cooed softly as she began making her way back. Before she made it to the door the floor collapsed in front of her, cutting off her exit. The building didn’t have long before it gave out entirely at this rate, and the gap was too big to jump while carrying someone.

Tyra looked around, judging by the layout of the building she was pretty sure the wall behind her led outside, but if she was wrong and she broke down another wall it might push the building over the edge. She didn’t have much choice in the matter though, and so a large wooden pillar erupted from her arm and smashed through the wall, opening a hole to the outside as she jumped down. Shooting a vine from her arm as she detached the wooden pillar she snagged onto the nearest protrusion she could find and retracted the vine as fast as she could to adjust her swinging descent back into the street. It wasn’t quite enough to land gracefully, and she crashed into the ground, wrapping her arms protectively around the child as she rolled to a stop. She suffered several scrapes, cuts, and bruises from her collision with the ground, but she kept the child from being hurt.

Shortly after, the mother ran over to Tyra, taking her child from the girl and hugging her tightly. “Oh thank god you’re safe” she cried “and thank you for risking yourself for my child” she added, reaching down to offer Tyra a hand in getting up.

Tyra gratefully accepted the hand and got to her feet, coughing a bit from the smoke she’d inhaled. “Of course ma’am, happy I could help.” She said, then her eyes widened, and she shoved the woman aside “look out!” she cried as she took the place of the woman and received a blast of fire square in the chest from one of the rampaging villains.

Tyra cried out in pain, the fire damaging her more severely than it would have a normal person and driving her to her knees. The man who’d shot the flames at her laughed and began to saunter over, flames dancing between his hands as he formed another ball of flame and juggled it back and forth. “Oh man that was great!” he said “I love the smell of burning people, the screams they make as they burn too, and oh man was your scream satisfying.”

Tyra grimaced in pain and shot out vines to try and bind the man, but he simply blasted them with his flames and backed away a few steps, causing her even more pain as her vines caught fire. She detached them from herself quickly to cut off the pain, but the agony was unbearable. With a cry of pain she forced herself to her feet and planted more seeds in an unburnt part of her arm then grabbed a can of foam from her belt.

The man placed his hands together and started another ball of fire, allowing Tyra to see how he generated it. He seemed to be producing gas from his palms that he then ignited with a spark from his fingers. Now that she knew how he made the flames, she had a chance. The man laughed as he threw his fireball at Tyra, and she grew a bark shield to block it. Her bark creations were more resilient to fire than most of her plants, and she angled her shield to deflect the flames, using the fact they were gas based to predict how it would flow off her guard.

Before the man could generate his next ball of flame Tyra aimed her foam canister at him and sprayed his hands, coating them in the foam. With their flame-retardant properties the coating prevented the man from generating a spark with his quirk, effectively shutting him down completely until he could wipe it off. Tyra wasn’t about to give him a chance to do so though, sending out vines and binding him, taking extra care to restrain his hands thoroughly so that he couldn’t possibly try and burn his way free.

“Mother Gaia, are you alright?” Kamui said as he swung over to Tyra and landed beside her.

“I’ve been better” Tyra admitted, sinking back to her knees after checking to see the civilian had run away. She didn’t want to worry the mother if she was still around, but the truth was her condition was far from ideal. “I took a direct hit from a fireblast in order to protect a civilian, and I’ve been close to large fires for too long, I captured one of them though.”

“Good work, take this, it’s a support item developed for me specifically to treat burn injuries on my wooden body” Kamui said, handing a spray can from his own utility belt to Tyra “your body’s composition isn’t quite the same, but it is plant-based, so it may help.”

Tyra nodded in thanks and sprayed the medicine onto her injuries. Immediately the pain lessened significantly, and her body’s healing process seemed to accelerate. She was still in a lot of pain, and she wasn’t fully healed from such a small dose of medicine, but she could stand again now. “Ah… thank… you” she gasped in relief

“No, thank you, you’ve saved a lot of lives today. We’ve finished evacuating the other buildings, and other pros are engaging the remaining arsonists” Kamui said, letting Tyra lean on his shoulder for support just in case.

“Is it ok to let the other pros handle the villain capture?” Tyra asked after taking a minute to recover “I know the priority is civilian rescue, but you’re a pro, you need to vie for credit and popularity right?”

“Heh, you’ve got nice instincts for this, but not this time” Kamui said, “these are small timers, capturing them won’t yield much fame or rewards. We need to stop them of course, but for incidents like these we focus more on cooperation and banding together to resolve the issue, rather than personal glory.”

Tyra nodded slowly “I see, and I suppose since I captured one under your tutelage despite being at a disadvantage in quirk types, you can always play that up, as well as banking on popularity gained from people you rescued becoming fans.”

Kamui smiled, or at least Tyra was pretty sure he was smiling. The odd structure of his face made it a bit hard to tell exactly what he was doing. “You’re sharp, yes you’re absolutely correct. The monetary reward for capturing the villain won’t be worth mentioning, but the rewards and fame gained from rescuing civilians will be.” He said, patting Tyra on the back “plus as you said, it reflects well on me for my intern to successfully capture a villain whose quirk they are weak to, I hadn’t considered that yet.”

Tyra smiled, then winced a bit in pain as her burns flared up a bit from the patting, even though he hadn’t touched any burns directly.

“All in all, an excellent first day, now then, come with me, I’ll show you how to interact with the adoring public. I think its high time you got some public praise instead of jeers for a change” Kamui said “people may have been wary about you before, but you’ll find people are quick to discard such biases when you save their lives.”

Tyra nodded and followed Kamui past the police barricade and over to where the civilians were being rounded up for medical treatment and to reunite families and the like. Those who’d been treated or otherwise taken care of were hanging around so as not to get separated, or offering to help maintain order.

The moment Tyra and Kamui arrived they were swarmed by the various people they’d saved, all of them practically climbing over each other to give thanks. Tyra was a bit taken aback by their sudden intensity.

“You saved me twice and rescued my baby, I can’t thank you enough” the mother she’d taken a hit for said, getting uncomfortably close as she held her now giggling child.

“I… ah… you’re welcome” Tyra said, instinctively backing away “But… owch!”

Tyra yelped in pain as she felt her braid get pulled on by a young girl she’d rescued from the burning building “woooooow your braid is so pretty, can you show me how to do my hair like that?” the girl asked, eyes wide in awe as she tugged on the braid and looked up at Tyra.

“I.. ow… sure… owch… just please stop pulling!” Tyra exclaimed, making the girl realize she was hurting her savior and back away sheepishly.

“What beauty! What strength! Madame, please marry me!” another man said grabbing Tyra’s hand and kneeling dramatically as he looked up at her with adoring eyes

Tyra’s face blushed dark blue “w-w-w-w-what!?” she stammered, completely taken aback by the man’s sudden proposal, but before she could even process this turn of events a woman stormed up to the man, her forearm turning to stone as she punched the man on the back of the head and knocked him out.

“Sorry about my womanizing brother” the girl said with a friendly wave and smile as she picked up the man by the collar “this dolt proposes to everyone who catches his eye, we’d almost broken him of the habit but it seems you saving him caused a relapse.”

“U-um… sorry?” Tyra apologized uncertainly, at a loss as to whether she should feel guilty or not

The woman laughed “don’t be, better I have a live idiot brother than a dead but slightly less dumb one. Thank you very much” she said as she dragged her brother away.

Tyra looked to Kamui for support as more and more rescued civilians overwhelmed her, but he’d reached the point where she could barely see him through the throngs of his adoring fans. She turned back to the incoming horde of her new fans, she was on her own here.

----- about an hour later ----

With the crisis diffused and the villains apprehended, the fires were soon put out and many people were free to return to their homes and shops to clean up the mess. Some buildings were too unstable to enter or had outright collapsed, and so some people were carted off to temporary shelters until they could be found new homes and compensated for the damages. As everyone went about returning to their daily lives, Tyra was given a respite to sit down and rest at last. Her face was pale and her body exhausted, the pain from her burns had faded to a dull but constant throbbing pain in the back of her mind as she endured the assault of the fans.

Kamui walked over, having now escaped the paparazzi and fans as well “So Mother Gaia, how was your first time dealing with rabid fans?”

Tyra looked to Kamui and let out a defeated sigh “I think I’d rather have stayed in the burning buildings.”

Kamui’s laughter echoed through the emptied streets, joined soon by the tired laughter of Tyra as the two bonded over their shared harrowing experience of surviving the adoration of fans.

Description
Tyra reported in to the Kamui hero agency right on time, her hero outfit in a briefcase at her side as she approached the front desk and secretary. “Hello, I’m here from UA academy” she said, looking over the desk at the young woman tapping away on a computer. The woman didn’t respond at all to her, continuing to work diligently without even looking up. Tyra waited for a few moments before speaking up again “I’m here for my internship with Kamui Woods.”

“Fill out the proper paperwork and come back later, Kamui is a busy hero and can’t be bothered with every girl in a school uniform claiming to be his intern” the woman said curtly, still not looking up from the screen.

“Paperwork? I wasn’t informed of any paperwork!” Tyra protested “and how many girls have access to a UA uniform and hero costume? I’m obviously the one he sent the offer to.”

“Oh, ‘I didn’t know there was paperwork’ is your line huh?” the woman said “yes I’m sure you didn’t, your kind don’t have much respect for rules and procedures in the first place after all.”

Tyra’s face darkened as the woman finally looked up and met her gaze, a smirk on her face that conveyed she knew all too well who Tyra was. “What use would the spawn of a villain have for doing things properly after all? So much easier to break rules and do whatever you want isn’t it? Wish I could know how that was like.” The woman taunted

Tyra clenched her fists, but took a deep breath and exhaled slowly “fine, give me the papers, I’ll fill them out.” She said, forcing herself to keep her voice calm and friendly.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t appear to have them here, you’ll need to go to the city hall and request them. I’m sure SOMEONE there will be willing to serve a villain” the woman said as her smirk grew “of course, it’ll take a few days to process your papers even after you file them, I do have a lot of work to get through after all. Maybe if you hurry, you might get to meet Kamui for a few minutes before the week is up.”

Tyra’s fists clenched tighter as she looked down at the woman’s ever-growing smirk. She’d known she’d be treated this way after the festival, she was prepared for it, but it was frustrating to be caught in a situation where she was powerless to do anything but go along with the woman’s outrageous demands. There probably wasn’t even a form for internships, Law would’ve certainly informed them if there was, and yet she had little choice but to leave and play along.

“That’s quite enough of that.” A man said as he walked into the room. He seemed to be made of a dark-brown wood, wearing a one-piece jumpsuit as his outfit. It was a simplistic design, but his helmet-like head and wooden body were unmistakable as the famous rookie hero Kamui Woods. “This girl is the one I decided to offer an internship to, you don’t have to agree with my assessment of her character, but I’m disappointed someone working at my agency would so blatantly defy my decisions.”

The woman looked back to her computer and resumed her typing “I was just following procedure Mr. Woods.” She said, “if you vouch for this girl being the intern, I suppose that will have to be good enough.”

Kamui sighed “must you be so confrontational about this? You’re a good worker, but cause another incident like this one and you will be fired, understood?”

The woman stiffened, then nodded “very well, I will not harass Ms. Tsuta any further…” she spat, her hatred for Tyra not even remotely concealed in her voice as she spat out the name with as much venom as she could manage.

Tyra sighed, this would likely be far from the last time she had to endure such treatment, but she was grateful someone had intervened in this case. She followed Kamui into his office and took a seat across from him at his desk.

“I apologize for that incident” Kamui said “not everyone here at the agency agreed with my decision to offer you an internship for obvious reasons.”

Tyra nodded, she was well aware that taking her on even as an intern was a bit of a risky move considering the negative PR she carried with her name. Not to mention people at the agency would oppose taking her in out of personal animosity as well.

“Still, seeing just how much power you possess, and how similar our abilities are, I overruled them.” Kamui said “letting a gem like you pass us by would be a travesty. Still, I expect you to be on your best behavior and not give me any reason to regret taking you on as an intern.”

“Of course, I’ll make you proud sir” Tyra said, smiling confidently as she sat up straight and tried to look as professional as she could.

“Glad to hear it, now get into your costume, we’re going on patrol.” Kamui said as he pointed to a changing room and stood up “meet me at the front door in 10 minutes, don’t keep me waiting.”

“Yes sir!” Tyra exclaimed, jumping to her feet and running into the changing room. Her costume was a bit of a hassle to put on, consisting of a green latex suit that covered her torso, and vines that wrapped around her legs and wove together to form makeshift leggings. Her arms were left exposed for easy planting of her seeds, and her long green hair was woven into a braid with strands of flowers. The material of the suit she wore was made of regenerative material and was thin, allowing her to plant seeds into her torso if she needed to. To compensate for the design of the material she had a sort of vine and flower vest she wore to cover her chest, leaving enough gaps for her to insert seeds through it, but providing adequate coverage for her breasts so as to not be too exposed by the thin costume. She also wore a green utility belt with a wide variety of containers which carried her seed supply. The final component of the costume was a sprayed-on flame retardant, mitigating her weakness to fire. Two cans of super-condensed foam for putting out fires also hung from her utility belt.

Putting on the costume took a whole 8 minutes to do, but the combination of form and function was impeccable, and Tyra had to appreciate the work the support department had put into making sure every aspect of it was attractive but tasteful, practical for both combat and appearance, and considerate of her various needs and weaknesses. “They did a great job on this thing” Tyra thought as she ran to get to the front door of the agency within the 10-minute time limit “wish they’d have given me proper leggings instead of these vine things though, putting it on takes way too long.”

Kamui waited patiently at the door for Tyra to arrive, glancing at the clock periodically. At almost 10 minutes exactly, Tyra arrived, slightly out of breath from having had to sprint down the stairs at top speed in order to make it in time.

“I didn’t expect it to actually take you 10 minutes to get ready, you’ll need to get better at changing into and out of your costume” Kamui said “when there’s a crisis we can’t afford to take 10 minutes just to dress up. There’s nothing wrong with a complex design, but tell your support department to consider that when they work on the next model of it.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir” Tyra said as she caught her breath “I’ll be sure to pass that feedback along.”

“Good, now follow me, we got a report of a bunch of minor villains making a ruckus downtown while you were changing, we’re going in now.” Kamui said

“Yes sir!” Tyra replied, following the wooden man as he ran out the door.

------ downtown ------

A group of men in the street were on a rampage, there were five in total, all of them appearing to have some variant of a pyrokinesis quirk. They were firing off blasts of flame in all directions, starting fires in multiple buildings and attacking anyone who came too close. People were fleeing from them in a panic as the cops tried to set up a perimeter and call for heroes to intervene.

“Just a bunch of drunken idiots huh?” Tyra said as she and Kamui arrived on the scene “they have fire quirks though, not the best for us.”

“Even so, as heroes we must do what we can, we’ll focus on evacuating civilians first and engage the enemy once everyone is safe. A hero’s first priority must always be protecting the innocent” Kamui said as his arm extended and wrapped around a streetlight, then pulled him towards it and shot himself into the fray like a slingshot.

Tyra nodded and looked around, assessing where she could best be of use. A blast of fire shot through a window of a shop and detonated something inside, causing a massive blaze to pick up in the store as people ran out of the building in a panic. Tyra rushed over to the store and jumped in through the window so as to not interfere with the people coming out of the door. “Is anyone trapped in here? I’m a hero here to help, if you’re here answer me!” she called out.

“Over here! Daddy’s trapped!” a young child cried “please help us!”

Tyra looked to the source of the crying, a man was trapped under some rocks that had fallen in the explosion, and fire had cut off the escape route of several small children and their mother, trapping them in the corner of the store with the unconscious and pinned man.

“Stay calm! I’m coming to you” Tyra said as she snatched one of her condensed foam cans from her belt. She didn’t have enough to spare for her put out all the fires in the building, needing to conserve it for more situations like this one, but the foam also served to coat whatever it was sprayed on and prevent it from catching fire again. She found the shortest path through the flames and sprayed the foam from the can, the white substance smothering the flames and creating a small pathway of safety for her to reach the civilians. She rushed through and knelt down by the man to assess the situation. The rocks were too heavy for a normal person to lift, and the man’s leg was probably broken, but there wasn’t any structural danger to moving the rocks that might cause the situation to worsen.

“Ms. Hero, I’m scared, is Daddy gonna be ok?” one of the children asked.

Tyra forced herself to smile at the child despite the intensity of the situation. “It’s alright now, he’s not badly hurt, just a broken bone it looks like, now lets get you all out of here before the fire spreads too much” she said. She planted a seed into her arm to sprout a large vine that grabbed the rock on the man and tossed it aside, then wrapped around him and carefully lifted him. The vine wrapped around his leg carefully to hold it in place and prevent the broken bone from causing more damage as she moved him. Another explosion rocked the building as the fire spread to more of the store’s products, causing Tyra to lose her footing for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Alright, I’ve got him, let’s go!” she exclaimed, leading the family out through the path she’d created before and outside the store. She needed to use a bit more foam to secure their exit, but they were soon safe outside.

“Thank you so much” the mother of the family said as her children rushed off with the police and their father was carried away on a stretcher “I had my doubts about you at the festival, but we owe you our lives.”

Tyra smiled and nodded “it’s ok, lots of people doubt me now, but I’m just glad you’re safe. Now get going, I need to make sure everyone else gets out safe too.”

Tyra used the vine she’d carried the man with to wrap around a sign and hurl herself over to the next building she could see was in bad shape, leaving the woman behind without another word. This building had suffered structural damage from multiple explosions and the burning of the building itself. There were still many people on the upper floors screaming from the windows as the flames closed in on them and the fire escapes that they’d hoped to use collapsed due to the structural damage.

“Everyone hang tight!” Tyra shouted as she planted more seeds “and get ready to jump on my command!”

Tyra extracted primed seeds from her arms and planted them in the ground at the base of the building, causing large fluffy flowers to grow from the ground like plant-based cushions. Then she grew multiple vines from her arms to catch anyone who bounced too high off the cushions or looked like they were going to miss.

“Alright go go go!” Tyra shouted “quickly!”

The scared civilians wasted no time abandoning the building and jumping towards the cushions Tyra had provided. Some misjudged their jumps and needed to be caught by her vines, but soon they had all landed safely on the ground and run off towards the police perimeter. Some stopped to thank Tyra, but most were too scared. One woman ran to Tyra, her face covered in soot and tears as she grabbed Tyra’s arm pleadingly.

“My baby! My baby is still inside! I couldn’t get to her before the fire cut me off! I made it out but…!”

“Give me the floor and room” Tyra said sharply, cutting off the hysterical woman. Her voice was not harsh, but she cut to the point. There was no time for a long-winded explanation if she was going to help.

“3rd floor, 5th door on the left, I came from the leftmost window” the woman said quietly, cowed by the sudden sharpness of Tyra’s tone.

“I’ll save her” Tyra promised, then latched onto the window in question with her vines and threw herself into the building. Immediately the smoke began to sting her eyes. This floor was burning much more intensely than the rest of the area, and Tyra was beginning to feel the effects. Her costume’s flame-retardant coating did help to protect her from the heat, but she was still vulnerable. Even if the fire didn’t hit her directly, being in this building for long would be deadly. Her plant-like body wasn’t designed to handle things like this.

Grabbing her foam can again, Tyra began carving a path through the flames. Running down the hallway even as parts of the ceiling collapsed around her. She heard crying from one of the rooms and tried to open the door, then winced as her hand was singed by the metal doorknob. There was fire on the other side of the door for sure. Planting another seed, Tyra made a fist made of wood shoot from her forearm and break down the door, following up with a spray of foam to stop the fire. Her wooden fist was burned before the fire could be put out, but Tyra grit her teeth and pushed through the pain as she detached it and planted a few more seeds in case of an emergency.

The young toddler was in a crib at the end of the room, crying loudly even as Tyra ran over to her and picked her up out of the crib. “There there, you’re going to be ok” Tyra cooed softly as she began making her way back. Before she made it to the door the floor collapsed in front of her, cutting off her exit. The building didn’t have long before it gave out entirely at this rate, and the gap was too big to jump while carrying someone.

Tyra looked around, judging by the layout of the building she was pretty sure the wall behind her led outside, but if she was wrong and she broke down another wall it might push the building over the edge. She didn’t have much choice in the matter though, and so a large wooden pillar erupted from her arm and smashed through the wall, opening a hole to the outside as she jumped down. Shooting a vine from her arm as she detached the wooden pillar she snagged onto the nearest protrusion she could find and retracted the vine as fast as she could to adjust her swinging descent back into the street. It wasn’t quite enough to land gracefully, and she crashed into the ground, wrapping her arms protectively around the child as she rolled to a stop. She suffered several scrapes, cuts, and bruises from her collision with the ground, but she kept the child from being hurt.

Shortly after, the mother ran over to Tyra, taking her child from the girl and hugging her tightly. “Oh thank god you’re safe” she cried “and thank you for risking yourself for my child” she added, reaching down to offer Tyra a hand in getting up.

Tyra gratefully accepted the hand and got to her feet, coughing a bit from the smoke she’d inhaled. “Of course ma’am, happy I could help.” She said, then her eyes widened, and she shoved the woman aside “look out!” she cried as she took the place of the woman and received a blast of fire square in the chest from one of the rampaging villains.

Tyra cried out in pain, the fire damaging her more severely than it would have a normal person and driving her to her knees. The man who’d shot the flames at her laughed and began to saunter over, flames dancing between his hands as he formed another ball of flame and juggled it back and forth. “Oh man that was great!” he said “I love the smell of burning people, the screams they make as they burn too, and oh man was your scream satisfying.”

Tyra grimaced in pain and shot out vines to try and bind the man, but he simply blasted them with his flames and backed away a few steps, causing her even more pain as her vines caught fire. She detached them from herself quickly to cut off the pain, but the agony was unbearable. With a cry of pain she forced herself to her feet and planted more seeds in an unburnt part of her arm then grabbed a can of foam from her belt.

The man placed his hands together and started another ball of fire, allowing Tyra to see how he generated it. He seemed to be producing gas from his palms that he then ignited with a spark from his fingers. Now that she knew how he made the flames, she had a chance. The man laughed as he threw his fireball at Tyra, and she grew a bark shield to block it. Her bark creations were more resilient to fire than most of her plants, and she angled her shield to deflect the flames, using the fact they were gas based to predict how it would flow off her guard.

Before the man could generate his next ball of flame Tyra aimed her foam canister at him and sprayed his hands, coating them in the foam. With their flame-retardant properties the coating prevented the man from generating a spark with his quirk, effectively shutting him down completely until he could wipe it off. Tyra wasn’t about to give him a chance to do so though, sending out vines and binding him, taking extra care to restrain his hands thoroughly so that he couldn’t possibly try and burn his way free.

“Mother Gaia, are you alright?” Kamui said as he swung over to Tyra and landed beside her.

“I’ve been better” Tyra admitted, sinking back to her knees after checking to see the civilian had run away. She didn’t want to worry the mother if she was still around, but the truth was her condition was far from ideal. “I took a direct hit from a fireblast in order to protect a civilian, and I’ve been close to large fires for too long, I captured one of them though.”

“Good work, take this, it’s a support item developed for me specifically to treat burn injuries on my wooden body” Kamui said, handing a spray can from his own utility belt to Tyra “your body’s composition isn’t quite the same, but it is plant-based, so it may help.”

Tyra nodded in thanks and sprayed the medicine onto her injuries. Immediately the pain lessened significantly, and her body’s healing process seemed to accelerate. She was still in a lot of pain, and she wasn’t fully healed from such a small dose of medicine, but she could stand again now. “Ah… thank… you” she gasped in relief

“No, thank you, you’ve saved a lot of lives today. We’ve finished evacuating the other buildings, and other pros are engaging the remaining arsonists” Kamui said, letting Tyra lean on his shoulder for support just in case.

“Is it ok to let the other pros handle the villain capture?” Tyra asked after taking a minute to recover “I know the priority is civilian rescue, but you’re a pro, you need to vie for credit and popularity right?”

“Heh, you’ve got nice instincts for this, but not this time” Kamui said, “these are small timers, capturing them won’t yield much fame or rewards. We need to stop them of course, but for incidents like these we focus more on cooperation and banding together to resolve the issue, rather than personal glory.”

Tyra nodded slowly “I see, and I suppose since I captured one under your tutelage despite being at a disadvantage in quirk types, you can always play that up, as well as banking on popularity gained from people you rescued becoming fans.”

Kamui smiled, or at least Tyra was pretty sure he was smiling. The odd structure of his face made it a bit hard to tell exactly what he was doing. “You’re sharp, yes you’re absolutely correct. The monetary reward for capturing the villain won’t be worth mentioning, but the rewards and fame gained from rescuing civilians will be.” He said, patting Tyra on the back “plus as you said, it reflects well on me for my intern to successfully capture a villain whose quirk they are weak to, I hadn’t considered that yet.”

Tyra smiled, then winced a bit in pain as her burns flared up a bit from the patting, even though he hadn’t touched any burns directly.

“All in all, an excellent first day, now then, come with me, I’ll show you how to interact with the adoring public. I think its high time you got some public praise instead of jeers for a change” Kamui said “people may have been wary about you before, but you’ll find people are quick to discard such biases when you save their lives.”

Tyra nodded and followed Kamui past the police barricade and over to where the civilians were being rounded up for medical treatment and to reunite families and the like. Those who’d been treated or otherwise taken care of were hanging around so as not to get separated, or offering to help maintain order.

The moment Tyra and Kamui arrived they were swarmed by the various people they’d saved, all of them practically climbing over each other to give thanks. Tyra was a bit taken aback by their sudden intensity.

“You saved me twice and rescued my baby, I can’t thank you enough” the mother she’d taken a hit for said, getting uncomfortably close as she held her now giggling child.

“I… ah… you’re welcome” Tyra said, instinctively backing away “But… owch!”

Tyra yelped in pain as she felt her braid get pulled on by a young girl she’d rescued from the burning building “woooooow your braid is so pretty, can you show me how to do my hair like that?” the girl asked, eyes wide in awe as she tugged on the braid and looked up at Tyra.

“I.. ow… sure… owch… just please stop pulling!” Tyra exclaimed, making the girl realize she was hurting her savior and back away sheepishly.

“What beauty! What strength! Madame, please marry me!” another man said grabbing Tyra’s hand and kneeling dramatically as he looked up at her with adoring eyes

Tyra’s face blushed dark blue “w-w-w-w-what!?” she stammered, completely taken aback by the man’s sudden proposal, but before she could even process this turn of events a woman stormed up to the man, her forearm turning to stone as she punched the man on the back of the head and knocked him out.

“Sorry about my womanizing brother” the girl said with a friendly wave and smile as she picked up the man by the collar “this dolt proposes to everyone who catches his eye, we’d almost broken him of the habit but it seems you saving him caused a relapse.”

“U-um… sorry?” Tyra apologized uncertainly, at a loss as to whether she should feel guilty or not

The woman laughed “don’t be, better I have a live idiot brother than a dead but slightly less dumb one. Thank you very much” she said as she dragged her brother away.

Tyra looked to Kamui for support as more and more rescued civilians overwhelmed her, but he’d reached the point where she could barely see him through the throngs of his adoring fans. She turned back to the incoming horde of her new fans, she was on her own here.

----- about an hour later ----

With the crisis diffused and the villains apprehended, the fires were soon put out and many people were free to return to their homes and shops to clean up the mess. Some buildings were too unstable to enter or had outright collapsed, and so some people were carted off to temporary shelters until they could be found new homes and compensated for the damages. As everyone went about returning to their daily lives, Tyra was given a respite to sit down and rest at last. Her face was pale and her body exhausted, the pain from her burns had faded to a dull but constant throbbing pain in the back of her mind as she endured the assault of the fans.

Kamui walked over, having now escaped the paparazzi and fans as well “So Mother Gaia, how was your first time dealing with rabid fans?”

Tyra looked to Kamui and let out a defeated sigh “I think I’d rather have stayed in the burning buildings.”

Kamui’s laughter echoed through the emptied streets, joined soon by the tired laughter of Tyra as the two bonded over their shared harrowing experience of surviving the adoration of fans.