DISCLAIMER: Boku no Hero Academia is not owned by me but by Kohei Horikoshi, Bones studio, and Shonen Jump. Please support the official series.
Co-Author: Ryuzaki777
Chapter 1
Scrapped For Cash
When the world is a shitty dystopia, people tend to distract themself from their suffering with any means of entertainment they can. At first, it was bare-knuckles fighting, but that got plain after a while considering how everyone basically had a superpower. So people started being permitted to use their quirk during fights, which eventually started to lose attention when the balance issues really started to show, and finding a match that was entertaining whose outcome wasn't obviously telegraphed from the first few seconds became a diamond-level rarity.
When all hope seems lost for a wide-spread form of copium entertainment, legends said some genius rose up from the crowd and suggested something that would stave off boredom for generations.
Giant Fighting Robots!
There was a silence in the air as the statement sank in, and then everyone began to clap.
"I feel like they're dramatizing what we don't know too much," Izuku mumbled to himself, reading a small booklet about history the greenet saw on the shelf of a store he walked by, "They're making the whole thing seem the solution of the world's problem. Then again, with how big these Zoids fights have become, I'm not surprised they're trying to turn the tale into an epic legend."
After stuffing the booklet in his pocket, Izuku looked around to make sure he was heading in the right direction. Today he was planning on visiting an acquaintance he knew, someone that while a bit crazy, was an absolute genius who could make him whatever he needed. Mei Hatsume. After spotting a broken-down hut, he walked over to the back where he knew she would be working. Izuku walked past one of the towering piles of trash to where he saw Mei was cutting apart a piece of scrap to fit one of her inventions.
"Hey, I'm back. How is- MEI! FOR GOD'S SAKE PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON!" exclaimed Izuku, stunned when he actually got a look at the gearhead in question. She was completely naked, again.
Hearing the familiar voice, the pinkette spared the boy a glance. She barely blinked at the fact that Izuku was there while she was in such attire, or better said, lack of attire. It was a testament to the trust in their relationship that the greenet managed to get her attention during one of her intense building haze, even more, that his presence made Mei turn off the power saw before continuing the conversation.
"But Greenie, they will just get dirty, and then people will keep asking all these unnecessary questions like 'how are their grease stains on the back of this shirt?' and 'what were you doing that you got that dirty?' which doesn't even make sense since we live in a scrapyard, everyone is dirty here!" explained the Pinkette, shooting up straight, causing her breast to freely jiggle.
"That's… mostly true," Izuku mumbled to himself under his breath, trying his best not to stare, "The issue is that you somehow find a way to be extremely disproportionately filthier than the average mook here, especially when you go on your building benders."
"Not to mention it started to get costly in productivity and money-wise to be buying new clothes all the time when they keep on getting torn, ruined, or caught on fire. Sometimes all at once!"
"Wait, you set yourself on fire!?" Izuku wondered aloud in concern, finding her discard clothes folded on the side. He grabbed them and handed them to her.
"You make it sound like it was on purpose, it only accidentally happened a dozen times this year."
"...it happened so frequently that you started keeping count? How are you still alive?"
"That's not the point! It's easier to just take off all that restrictive stuff to go minimalistic in what I need while I'm working, making it easier to stay clean and conserving money. Which means more time and resources for baby-making!" chimed the mechanic. It was an interesting reasoning that sorta made sense to the verdant boy, usually, his friend was liable to go on rants that would confuse even accomplished engineers. This time she's looking a bit more reasonable… the nudity aside. Thankfully she was considerate enough to put her clothes back on.
"So what's got you worked up out here? You usually stay clothed when you're outside at least." Izuku asked, his eyes drifted around the area until he spotted a barely recognizable robotic body on the ground.
"My baby last night, Booster Boy-2999! He horribly lost in a Zoid Match last night!"
"I see, it's looking pretty bad for it."
"Him."
"It!"
"Rude."
"Is the endoskeleton ok?"
"They're called a chassis, and I don't know, been trying to get it up since morning but nothing seems to be working," Mei states, biting her thumbnail from the mix of frustration and stress. She worried over the condition of her precious baby, all the memories she created while building him filled her mind. That when Mei suddenly remembered something and snapped her head toward Izuku, "That's it, why don't you use your quirk to see what's wrong? You can speak to machines!"
A small groan erupted from Izuku before he told her, "I told you, my quirk isn't to 'speak to a machine'! It's called 'Technopathy' it's different."The long explanation.
"... so yeah you speak to machines, I don't get why you went all Shakespearian on me," chuckled Mei, shrugging as she shook her head as if the greenet was the crazy one.
Izuku kindly responded with a soft chop to her forehead, making the girl wince in pain. Nudging her to the side, Izuku stepped up to bat, he squatted down near it. The closer he was to the machine, the better his quirk can work, it's similar to the range walkie-talkies have to work effectively.
'Get up,' commanded Izuku as he looked down at the machine, his mouth didn't move but he was heavily focusing on the machine.
In response to his quirk activation, Booster Boy-2999 telegraphed something Izuku comprehended as a reply, 'BZZZT BZZT!... BZZZT! Nega - BZZT - tive…... sy-system BZZZT….. Failure!'
'That isn't good,' thought Izuku, rubbing his chin. Damage machines having system failures or being unable to perform the commands Izuku gives with his quirk isn't abnormal. The issue was that the machine was barely able to respond to the calls. What makes his quirk unique is that not even Mei could create something close to replicate it is how deep his quirk can go calling to a machine. Mei described it as him 'talking to the soul' of the machine, which Izuku found ridiculous and instead suggested that it's just the advantage of not needing a middle man to communicate, 'Come on you bot.'
He calls out to the zoid again, 'On your feet, get up!'
'N-NEGA-... BZZZZT…. FAILUR- BZZZT!...SH-...ING….DOWN…. BZZZZZZZZZT!...'
Then there was radio silence.
'Get up! GET UP!' demanded Izuku.
'...BZZZT...BZZZZT…...'
More radio silence.
Izuku sucked in his teeth, this only meant one thing.
'It's brain dead.'
"What's wrong?" frantically asked Mei, jumping into his sight to see if Izuku needed any assistance as soon as she saw the expression on his face, "Is something broken? Is it anything I can fix?"
"The Bot- uh…. Booster Boy-2999, it's… well in simple terms the AI matrix has disintegrated. Normally I speak to the OS and it does what I ask or at least will respond, but this time it just… fell apart. I can't talk to it anymore."
The pinkette covered her mouth with her hands in a gasp, "You don't mean…"
Izuku nodded his head, "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can for it."
A solemn atmosphere filled the room as they both dropped their heads.
Funeral arrangement was made quickly, there were only two attendants. The ones that were there during Booster Boy-2999 final moments.
The mechanical corpse of the once fighting robot was laid to rest, slowly being lowered into the hole Izuku dug up. After a few sniffs, Mei sang a few words for her fallen zoid.
"In the eyes~ of~ an angel~! fly away~"
After the body was buried there was a moment of silence.
…
Then Mei clapped her hands together and turned next to her to give Izuku one of her usual bright smiles.
"Alright, that's enough of that. So what brings you over here today greenie?" she asked casually as if the last couple of moments of dramatic tension didn't happen.
It took Izuku a few moments to recover from the whiplash of tone shifts before shaking off the feeling, shenanigans like these from her he was used to. Getting back on track Izuku answers, "I'm here for the tool I ordered. You promised you'll have it done by today."
"...Ooooo."
"You forgot?"
"It's... not finished?"
Izuku put a hand to his temple, already feeling a headache coming, daring to ask, "What was it this time?"
"Well, you see it's not like I'm incapable of building it, I certainly can!"
"Buuuuuut," lead on the greenet, waiting to hear what was the catch. He was clear on the instructions and it was like what he requested was difficult to make, it was just costly to buy because the vendors were swindlers. This is why Izuku went to Mei in the first place so he could get what he needed for a fair price.
Bashfully, the pinkette pressed her two fingertips together. Mei diverted her eyes away from her friend while whistling a supposedly innocent tune that only showed her guilt in the limelight.
Scornful, Izuku called out to her, "Mei!? I know you heard me."
"H-here's the thing," said the mechanic, painstakingly dragging her eyes to look at her customer, "I… kinda ran out of funds to build it."
"How!? I paid in advance!"
"Well you see, Booster Boy-2999 needed some repairs after his last loss. So I thought that if I used most of the funds to repair him, I can then go win a zoid match and earn a lot more money to use," Mei then awkwardly gestured to Izuku as if she was trying to joke with him, "You know the saying, spend money to make money."
Izuku just blinks at her with a straight face of silence.
…
And then he turned around and started walking away without a word.
Sparking into action, Mei lunged forward and wrapped her hands around Izuku's waist trying to prevent him from leaving. She cried out, "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!"
"Not this time Mei," Izuku calmly tells her, continuing to walk forward and dragging Mei's weight behind him.
"NOOOOO, DON'T LEAVE!" begged Mei, trying her best to hold him back. Unfortunately the difference in the kind of labor and how much they do show. She was fairly fit for her body type, but what Izuku does on the day by day surpassed her in pure strength, "I DIDN'T MEAN TO!"
"You suck at zoid matches," Izuku casually told her, "Why on this godforsaken planet will you make such a bet on winning? Literally, you only won one match in literal months, and that's because the other guy's machine self-destructed!"
"A minor miscalculation, I was certain I could win, I don't know what went wrong!"
"This is becoming an unhealthy habit of yours Mei. You're flat broke most of the time, and when you do make some money from whoever dares to order something from you, you toss it into the dumpster fire that is your zoid fighting career."
"You don't understand Greenie! I can't help but want to see my amazing babies in action at a zoid fight, it's absolutely exhilarating to see the great things they can do! Please, don't take that away from me!" whined Mei.
Sighing to himself, Izuku told her, "Sorry Mei, this is for your own good. I need to teach you a lesson about the consequences of your actions. I'll be taking my business… elsewhere!"
"Wait, please not the-"
"The Scrapyard Supermarket."
"NOOOOO!" howl Mei like a wolf, it looked like actual psychic damage was done to her, "They're the worst! Overpriced for a product that's cheaply made, they break in no time. They're a disgrace to any builder out there!"
"Well, at least they have the things I want when I need them at any time! They wait till after I got what I wanted to start fucking with the money I give them."
"I was trying to get more funds to use for your order!"
"Really?"
"YES! I wanted to make sure I could spare no expense in getting the best material for you. Wanted to add a bunch of cool stuff to it as well!"
"Why?" Izuku asked, stopping in his tracks, "What I asked for was simple. I get you're really ambitious on every project but this seems excessive even for you."
With the boy's finally become still again, it gave the pinkette a second to breathe. Mei pouted before mumbling, "It was supposed to be payback, for staying a valued customer to me for all this time. Even though I mess up so often, you still trusted my skills so I wanted to give you something outstanding as a show of appreciation."
"...Do you mean it?" questioned Izuku, turning around to look the pinkette in the eye.
There were watery sparkles in Mei's eye as she nodded her head, "Mmh!"
…
Sighing, Izuku states, "Damn it Mei, I can't say no when you're giving me those eyes. Fine."
The mechanic jumped into the air for a cheer, "Yay! I promise you won't regret it! I'll even finish your order for free!"
"Too late for that, you already spent my money."
"Oh… right. Uhhh, then I'll earn back your money three-folds!"
"How about we start by making the money to build my order."
"That works as well!"
"Alright, alright," Izuku said, he took out his phone to look through some messages from his source, "I actually got a job waiting for us. It should pay enough to cover the expenses."
Rubbing her hands together, Mei stated, "Yes, we can use our earnings to fund the expenses of another zoid! Then we can enter my baby into another zoid match, win, and quadruple our earnings! The perfect plan!"
…
Izuku started to walk away again.
Mei hopped onto his back crying again, "Wait, no! I'm sorry, I was mostly kidding! We can do it the normal way!"
Shaking his head, Izuku petted Mei's head before saying, "Mei, what am I going to do with you?"
The irresponsible pinkette was extremely lucky she was cute.
TO BE CONTINUED
Next Time Teaser: While Izuku tried to show Mei the fruits of earning cash through hard labor, the pair seem to come across something that can change everything. The question is, for better or worst.
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