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"Do you know about how America operates with their heroes? It's much different from Japan."

Akira shook his head.

"America is much bigger than Japan, so it operates very differently. We have 50 states, and each of those states has a hero from the top 51 which they are responsible for and lead. Cathleen mainly presides in Washington, DC, in her headquarters which is the Pentagon. Due to how fast she can travel with the jets, she is given lots of leeway with where she can go, so she often pops up in other states to deal with any underlying threats." David explained.

"Outside of the top 50, heroes are predominantly sorted into teams. These teams are chosen carefully by higher ups and skilled people and placed where they want them to go. They usually have a specific purpose in mind, for example, there is a team of heroes who are responsible for the prevention and disaster relief for hurricanes," He chuckled, "Put 10 people with strong wind manipulation quirks on a team, and hurricanes are nothing. These teams that the higher ups decided can range from 5 to 10 people, though in special circumstances teams are made much larger. "

"That is…Wow…" Akira was speechless, the American system was so much better! Japan sorta just had heroes put their agencies wherever they wanted and let them do their thing, while America put actual thought into it.

"Also, pro hero licences are given state by state instead of the whole country. Even before quirks were introduced, America had different laws in different states, but ever since quirks showed up, these laws have stretched even further. Some states see quirk usage as a right to bear arms and legal in some circumstances, while other states have much more strict quirk laws. Have you heard of Captain Celebrity?"

Akira nodded.

"He was sued by a villain some time ago. Apparently the villain was a son of a business tycoon so they hired the best lawyers and managed to sue Captain Celebrity for physical and psychological damage and revoke his licence. He fled to Japan and was a hero there for a short while until the heat on him died down, and his quirk licence was given back in a few states. That's an example of some states having different laws than the others."

"It all seems so…"

"Complicated?" He huffed, "Yeah, tell me about it.  Star needs to be careful about how hard she hits her enemies in case they try and do something, though it's extremely unlikely, she's the number one hero in this country, arresting her would be stupid and counterproductive."

David flashed his card a few times, going through multiple security checks. They were eventually walking down a busy hallway with people running all over the place. Once they passed through that they arrived in an even more hectic room, it was chaos.

David pointed towards a group of people sitting down on computers, rapidly typing away, "That's the anti-quirk terrorism team. They come up with counters and solutions for dangerous quirks that could be held or are currently held by villains. They have the best technology and are also trained to deal with real-time threats."

Akira tilted his head, "So they can predict what quirks people will hold?"

"Sorta," David replied, "From what I understand, they use the Database full of information about the American citizens and their quirks, trace back their ancestors as far as possible and use a complex algorithm to try and predict what quirks people could have."

Akira tried to hide his befuddled expression, but was obviously failing judging from the amused look David was sending him. He tried to change the subject to escape the embarrassment, "And what about them?" He pointed towards another group of people some ways away.

"Ah them! They are the anti-quirk warfare team. They create weapons which counter quirks most commonly used in wars. Super speed? Create an undodgeable bullet. Invincibility? Create something to reveal them. Y'know, basic stuff like that."

"Ok…" Akira sweat dropped, regretting even mentioning everything. He just left more confused than he was when he arrived.

"The Pentagon is the main headquarters for lots of this stuff. Don't get it confused, most of the teams here are only a fraction of their total manpower, and lots of them have facilities elsewhere in the country, but the Pentagon is the paragon of information, so small teams like this must be here. Do you know why that is?"

Akira shook his head.

"Because Cathleen is here. Unlike most pro heroes who set up their agencies with bright flashy signs, Cathleen doesn't do that. You could say in a sense that the Pentagon is Cathleen's agency, so there is no safer place on earth."

"Wow…The way you speak of her, are you sure you're not her colleague, but one of her fanboys?"

David threw a punch in mock fashion at Akira, who dodged it with a smile. They shared a laugh together.

"It seems like that sometimes, I just really think she is amazing," David said, "Looks like we've arrived." They were standing in front of a large metal door, almost double the size of Akira in width and height.

David scanned his card in, and Akira was immediately assaulted with the smell of sweat, iron and chalk. The room was filled with machines and weights of all kinds that would even give a veteran bodybuilder a shock. If a machine existed, then it was in this room.

In the centre of the room stood Cathleen, dressed in casual gym wear, pounding away on the punching bag with rapid punches, each of them containing enough force to launch the bag up in the air. She occasionally had to stop as she forced the punching bag to high up.

"Wow…" Akira was surprised, "She's so fast, I certainly didn't expect that, given sh–"

"Given what?" Cause she's a woman?" There was a warning in David's glare, a far contrast to the usual soft spoken man.

"No, because of her size," Akira affirmed, "For someone with the power of a heavyweight, she throws with the speed of a featherweight. She's like Mike Tyson." David's glare eased.

"Hey!" Cathleen wiped sweat off her forehead with a towel, settling into a light jog as she ran over.

"Sorry I went ahead and left, all that time in the jet left my muscles cramped, I just needed to let loose."

"It's no problem, my tour with David was fun." Akira replied. He noticed both of them share a look and make a brief moment of eye contact. It was in the brief moment that David nodded, eliciting a smile from Cathleen.

Akira felt like he needed to say something, "Uhhh…" But he had no idea what to say.

"Ah, you noticed that?" Cathleen rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, "Well I suppose there's no harm in telling you since you passed. The time you spent with David was not only a tour, but a test. We wanted to test you first hand to see if you were the person Nezu said you are, we simply needed to see it in person. Being a hero isn't just about your quirk, it's also about your heart, and you have it kid!" She flashed him a thumbs up.

"Now I can officially welcome you as my intern! Welcome…uhhhh, what's your hero name?"

"It's just Akira." He said.

"Ok Akira, let's get started with your training!"

"Wai-" Akira shook his head. He would deal with the name issue later, "Are we doing it already?"

"Of course! You came here to train your quirk right? Am I missing something? What did you think we would be doing?"

Akira shrugged, "I don't know, maybe signing a bunch of paperwork before we get started."

"HAHA! Paperwork!" She said the word like it was never a problem for her, "I have my own team who deals with all of that too. Nezu sorted everything out on your end, and my team is sorting everything out on my end. I mean it's pretty counterproductive to do paperwork as a hero isn't it?"

'America is truly the land of the free.' Akira grinned.

Cathleen looked Akira up and down, "I can see you've got your hero costume on now, so let's start now, follow me!"

She jumped up into the air, cracking the ground beneath her and shooting through the small gap in the roof that was opened up a moment ago.

"Hahh…" David sighed, "The team will have to clean up the damaged ground…again."

Akira sent him an apologetic look, "Twice." He muttered to David, shooting up into the air, creating another crater in the ground.

"Oh c'mon!" He heard David complain as he passed through the roof.

"You're quite fast noobie, but let's see if you can keep up!" She shot off in a burst of speed, much faster than she was before. Akira launched after her immediately, trying to keep up pace, but with every second that passed, Cathleen's figure got smaller and smaller.

'How is she so fast?' Akira cursed. The gap between them both was truly put on display here, and Akira knew he would be seeing it a lot during his time here.

He saw Cathleen, who was only a small black dot in the distance, shoot towards the ground. He veered closer towards the earth, passing through cloud after cloud until he was low enough where he could possibly see a human. He spotted Cathleen a ways away, giving him a wave.

"Huff…Huff…" Akira landed shortly after, gasping for air in his attempt to keep up with Cathleen. "How are you so fast? What <Orders> do you have on?"

"Flight and superspeed? You?"

"Super speed and wind manipulation. The wind allows you to fly, propel yourself further and you can also control the surrounding wind, reducing drag." Akira explained.

She huffed, crossing her arms, "Smart kid, but as you saw then, experience always wins. In theory you should have won that race, but it's only because I have been doing this for years and my quirk is stronger that I was able to win. But that's why you're here isn't it? To train your quirk so you can eventually be as strong as me?"

Akira shook his head, "No, that's not it. I want to be stronger." He stared at Cathleen, a green glow of determination burning his pupils. It was like a fire that would never burn out.

Cathleen looked shaken. Her face trembled, but it slowly morphed into that of a grin, "That's the spirit. Well to train you the most efficient way possible, we need you to put you in a situation that will force you to constantly think on your feet, pushing out and giving yourself <Orders> nonstop, all the while pushing those <Orders> to the very limits it allows. This will improve your critical thinking, but also your quirk because of the constant strain we are putting it under."

Akira nodded thoughtfully, "How are we going to do that?"

"How? Let me show you, " Cathleen appeared in front of Akira in a flash, kicking his stomach and sending him flying in the air.

Just as Akira managed to orient himself and get on his two feet, Cathleen was already on him. She threw another kick, but this time Akira was prepared. He launched a small blast of wind, jeering the trajectory of the attack of course.

Akira had just solved one problem, but another 10 appeared in front of him…in the form of punches. A huge blast of wind launched Cathleen back, stopping her assault from escalating any further.

Akira sent another large blast of air towards the wind towards Cathleen, trying to stop her from even getting close to her. Cathleen slammed her hands down the ground, raising the earth and deflecting Akira's attack.

A moment later a large wave of earth made its way towards Akira. It was like a tsunami, but instead of water it was earth. He pushed himself into the air with a burst of wind, dodging the attack that would have otherwise killed him.

A squeal of surprise left his mouth when he felt something tug of his foot. Looking, he saw that a thick hand of earth had wormed its way from the tsunami all the way to his foot.  He tched, trying to push his foot out of bind, but it was too tight.

When he saw that Cathleen was slowly getting closer to and closer to him, he started to panic. He cancelled his wind manipulation, exchanging it for super strength. With this new <Order> active, he freely allowed himself to break out of the bind that was giving him so much trouble.

With his wind manipulation gone, he freely allowed himself to fall to the floor. Cathleen was already onto him by that point, closing metres upon metres with each push of her leg. Akira gritted his teeth, he didn't want to go into Close Quarters Combat, but he had to.

He decided to take the initiative, bursting forward as Cathleen was in the process of one of her leaps. It caught her off guard, and it allowed Akira a free hit on his mentor.

*SLAM*

Cathleen's bones felt like steel as Akira made contact with them. Her jaw hadn't even moved from the position it had been in when Akira hit her. Even with both super strength and super speed, Akira felt like he truly did nothing to her.

"!" For the first time in a while, Akira felt fear when he saw Cathleen rear her fist back. He tried to back away with his super speed, but Cathleen grabbed his still outstretched hand he punched her with before.

He cancelled his speed order, frantically moving his mouth as he tried to utter out another.

"I am indestruct–"

*BOOM*

Akira felt his body cave into itself and lose all functions the moment Cathleen hit him. His chest was tight, and he felt his conscious fade for a short moment. The taste of bile and iron filled his mouth, and he salivated in buckets like he was about to be sick any moment.

Akira whispered to himself, and the next moment he spat out a bullet of blood, accelerating towards Cathleen.

The woman in question smirked, tilting her head to the side and effortlessly dodging the attack. His legs were suddenly swept up from under his feet, and his world turned. Cathleen pinned Akira down with her body weight, preventing him from moving, not like he could anyway.

She pulled away, throwing him a hand to get on his feet, which he gladly took. He stood up on his two feet, hunched over and trying to prevent himself from throwing up.

"So that's what you meant," Akira said after a moment, "I don't think I ever used my quirk to that degree against someone else."

"Well you better get used to it. Over the course of our internship, I will fight you again and again, and you will have to adapt. This will not only increase your quirk strength, but also your critical thinking and time spent putting on <Orders>. By the end of this training course, you will be able to speak your <Order> in a millisecond." She checked her clock and tutted, "You're lucky. We have an awards show in a couple of hours, so you've been saved by the bell."