Hello my dear readers, here we have yet another chapter to finally finish off the origin and entrance into UA. Hope you all like it as mostly my idea of what the transfer exam for the support course is like. Also warning to manga readers who aren't caught up. There is a minor spoiler in this chapter as a referance to a recent character. Also please review or pm me your thoughts as I have no other way of knowing what you like and what you want to see from my story.
As power loader went off to the judging area, the entire lab erupted into a bit of chaos with all the young inventors bringing out their own notes to find a project they could complete within two, with Izuku and Mei nodding and getting right to work. Izuku himself went off to gather some smokey white cloth, a few planes of plexiglass, only a few centimeters in thickness in total before he came back to his own workstation, and started out to cut out the needed cloth to make his mask. Forming it towards his own head shape with the measurements in his notebook before sewing it right up the back hastily with some black thread, this was only a check after all as he fitted the cowl on, it was nearly impossible to see through the cloth sure but that isn't what he needed right now as he fumbled around for a marker on the table, Mei having to place it in his hand with a roll of her eyes. Keeping a tight grip on said marker, Izuku reached up with it and marked off where his eyes are on the cloth before taking off his mask.
"Alright then, after I cut out the eyes I can work on making the glass bits. How is the code going? I can grab anything you need while getting the blowtorch and gasses needed for this crazy idea of ours." Izuku spoke to his partner as he cut out the eyeholes on what would be his back before cutting along the black thread that lined the back of the mask's head making it into a piece of flat cloth once more. After which he started to mark the same lines on his plexiglass panes to prep everything prior to action.
"Yeah, I need a microprocessor that would be small enough to fit in your mask seamlessly, some insulated copper wire, a small camera, and a microphone. I am pretty sure we can get them if you look through the available parts." Mei spoke in a calm, collected tone with none of the slightly off edge it had before when they first met this was time to focus and make it into the school after all. Her fingers were flying on her self built laptop making the program in basic HTML, it wasn't going to be the best or most complicated doing it this way sure. But it could work well enough for the first prototype cowl they had in mind.
Nodding, Izuku went off to the tools and material shelves provided ducking and weaving his way through the slightly panicked crowd all trying to get the things they needed. His eyes jumping around the shelves before he set up his Seikuken, letting the calm sweep through his mind before his arms flew out grabbing that they would need. A blowtorch, glass cutter, some extremely thin gas nozzles and a small ten-watt solar panel along with Mei's materials and of course, safety glasses and gloves before dashing back to the workstation and handing off what needed to be worked with.
Once he was there and ready, Izuku cracked his knuckles some before placing the safety equipment on his body, the gloves tight and cool to the touch, but not too bulky and glasses thick enough to stop any stray glass shards from flying up into his face before he turned towards his first plexiglass pane and started applied pressure on the surface with his cutter, smiling as he watched the tungsten wheel trace along his marked path, his hand smoothly guiding it through the drawing before he popped the piece out when finished and looked at his project it was a little jagged and very rough for his first time. Though he hoped it would work well for the exam at least and got started on the next piece of glass he needed to cut out, as close to being an exact copy of the first lens as he could and laid the two on top of each other with the gas nozzle making sure there was a small space between them.
"Mei, can I use one of the copper wires? I am about to set up the xenon layer for this little prototype. If not I can get to work finishing up the rest of the lenses we are going to need here or gathering the gasses"
"Just give me a little...bit...more and there! That should work as a patchwork job, needs a bit of refinement in C sharp or maybe Java but we can worry about that after we get into the school. Now let's see what you got for me to work with my dear partner." Laying back from her computer with lines upon lines of code on the screen the pink haired girl looked to the material components, the CPU was more than good enough for their purposes, wires were wires, the solar panel could probably use a bit more wattage but the low amount was all that read really needed she guessed. Yeah, she could work with this, for now, looking to the clock Mei let out a whistle seeing they had already spent half an hour on their current tasks hopefully the rest of the cowl would fall in place.
"Yeah get to work on the rest of the glass cutting now, it might take a bit for me to set up the electrical stuff and we should do it as we go with this." Grabbing the small CPU and reaching to her backpack for a flash drive. Mei went about transferring the code to their small machine letting that task run in the background whilst she set about fixing copper wires into the lenses as the design needed. Sticking the exposed end into the gap and slowly turning it the right way for it to still conduct charge after being squished between the glass lenses and then going about setting up the small solar panel so that it could actually start conducting and producing energy. Smiling as she heard the high pitched sound of glass being cut right through with a blade, the sound of high quality and work ethic no doubt.
Once the first wiring up was done and tested to actually conduct electricity, Mei turned off the panel and nodded towards her partner who had just finished up the last of the right eye lenses. The last, thickest piece having taken the longest amount of time before he walked over and grabbed the blowtorch as well as putting the darkening lenses of his safety glasses on.
"Alright then, as I do this you fix the wiring on the rest of the panes and we can put the gasses in. Then goes the assembly into the actual mask and we should be good for now right?" He only received a nod before Mei went about her own task of getting all the wiring lined up and correct before Izuku started to take to the edges of his lenses with the blowtorch. Heading the sides up enough that the two panes would form into one sealed piece of glass with a bit of space between them. The process was slow as hell whilst he carefully welded together two pieces of glass best the could, keeping the nozzle there, with just enough space to pull it out when the vacuum was filled with gas.
"Mei! I just finished up first lens's welding gotta fill it with the xenon and see if our little electrical thing works well! Mind stopping your wiring for a bit?!" With a thumbs up from his fellow inventor, Izuku went and grabbed a small canister of xenon and hooked it up to the nozzle to fill the sealed tube with the gas, only taking about a minute or two before he pulled away from the nozzle, breaking the seal a bit and letting some gas out slowly.
Going towards the solar panel and turning it on, Izuku's smile turned a mile wide as the light blue erupted from the panel he was working on as the electricity flowed through the gas. He looked towards his partner who was just as excited as he was before he turned off the panel and went to work fully filling and sealing it once the nozzle was out of the equation and went to work getting the rest of his lenses sealed and working like the first one was.
"Thirty minutes left! I hope you are all in the end phases of your projects as we will not be accepting anything turned in late!" Power Loader's stern voice made the young man shiver some before shaking his head a bit to clear it, the drowsiness starting to hit again while his caffeine ran out, without time for him to go and get a second Hero Fuel. He just hoped they could finish before his crash. Getting off his doubt about that he went and started to weld his lenses together well. Forming the seals and making it so all of them would go well together and held the lenses up to look through the clear glass as Mei fixed up the microphone and nodded at Izuku.
"Ok, it should be all set up for the right lenses now. We won't be able to finish the left with the time left but we can at least get the left one in time so it won't look too awkward. Sorry, this didn't work out super well." Mei shrugged a bit before handing the wire to her friend before he turned on the solar panel and tested the thing. Giving his three commands of harm, target, and heat, watching as the lenses lit up bright green, blue and red in turn with his words before he nodded happily and turned it off to make it go clear once more.
"Alright then, time to put our glass in and present it I guess. Let's hope these judges like our way of doing things." With those words, Izuku set about sewing and securing the glass lenses and electrical bits into the mask and sewing it back up with some white thread instead of black and put it right on his face and turned it the thing on, glad with how easily he was able to see through the glowing lenses in his mask before nodding at Mei. They were good to go for now and let out a single nervous breath, they went up to the judges after a young man showing off some particularly good arm braces and seemingly got in by one or two points.
Approaching the judging to stand the two young inventors stood before Power Loader, a man with a long extended nose and a very heavily defined widow's peak, and a computer monitor setup with a webcam and the image of a middle-aged man with scraggly brown hair before them. Izuku recognized the last one as the principal of UA, but couldn't for the life of him remember the name of the other man but assumed he had to be someone important right? He could only assume from Mei's gasp seeing the monitor that he was some big shot in terms of designing support items.
"Hello students, I am eager to see what you have made to enter the support course. Beside me are , CEO of one of the major support item companies in Japan and one of the top support item designers in the world, graciously streaming here from America to judge your items now, I assume you two worked on this together taking the risk?"
Izuku gulped a bit before nodding and letting out a breath, not sure how to start his "pitch" so to say and luckily, he didn't have to as Mei hopped right in, the wild edge back in her eyes as she bowed towards the men in front of her graciously before standing up tall with a small bounce on her heels.
"Hello there, yes I and my partner Izuku Midoriya have chosen to work together on this project to produce something neither of us would have been able to on our own. I am sure you will find our teamwork exemplary. Now onto what we made, this is an item that is more for general hero use than one particular hero. We call it the cowl. title pending of course now listen to my partner as he takes the explanation away." The girl spoke naturally as if they had practiced this a hundred times before she motioned over to Izuku, who took a moment to process this before he spoke up.
"Ah right, anyways what we have made is a mask that has the purpose of giving any perspective hero eye protection, identity protection if they so desire and a way to get crucial information in a matter of moments." Reaching up and pointing to the eye lenses he tapped the glass a couple times, letting the soft clinking sound be heard clearly.
"First off, a layer of two centimeter thick plexiglass, equivalent to a standard pair of safety goggles used in most construction sites is there to protect a person's eyes from stray debris that might fly into it in the heat of a rescue such as broken glass or smoke that would otherwise heavily impair a hero's vision and secondly. When I say the word on!" The mic, picking up the voice command instantly turned on the xenon layer of lights, making them glow a soft blue light out of his right eye and motioned to his partner again.
"When the function is turned on then the lenses get to their true purpose, with three different layers of what is essentially wide glass tubing filled with noble gasses and a soft electrical current provided by the small solar panel located on the back of any perspective hero's neck the user's vision lights up and a camera in the right lens pics up any visual information possible and displays it for the user, the type depending on the mode used."
"Right now, we have readied three kinds of vision that work for this prototype. What you are seeing now is the target vision, for heroes with elemental quirks or projectile weapon support items" Reaching up with his web shooters after taking of the talking point, Izuku shot a web line to the roof, one of the few blank spots and pulled himself up on the rope to show off his sturdy anchor point.
"It gives them a number of ideal targets for their attack at the moment, next is heat mode. Which gives the user thermal vision in cases of dark missions or a need to negate a villain's stealth quirk. Finally ending with the hurt vision, which lets the user see injured people in the vicinity and what their approximate injuries are from how things look outwardly, while this is mainly for a support role in saving civilians, this may also help when fighting villains to attack potential weak points or old injuries, as unruly as that tactic is, if it works and saves lives that is the only thing that matters in the end no? If you have any questions, feel free to ask." As he spoke, Izuku's right eye shifted from glowing bright blue to red to green when the appropriate mode was mentioned. Smiling under his mask at the presentation, he stayed hanging from this thread. Something about it gave him comfort as he looked towards the judges.
"Hm, yes I have one. As a man who supports heroes and civilians with many types of different body types and support items, would this Cowl as you called it, work with any of those body types or is it only for the basic human body type?"
"Well, the lenses are cut from regular plexiglass so while this particular version of the Cowl may not fit everyone, the materials are there so that they can be custom made and built yes," Mei answered her potential employer soundly and confidently with a grin on her face.
"Why does only one eye glow right now? Is it supposed to do that? It looks like the thing is meant for two eyes ya know." The American's accent was clear in the way he spoke, David scratching the back of his head some before coughing and becoming dead serious again.
"Oh um...Well, both are supposed to glow, but because of the time restraints, we were only able to finish one set of lenses in time for the judging. This right now is only a prototype and we intend to improve on it whenever possible if we get accepted into the support course." Izuku blushed a bit behind the mask at that, knowing that his one glowing eye must have looked strange to them but hey, he couldn't help it if they didn't have enough time.
"Oh alright, that also answers my second question then. Power Loader, do you have anything else to ask?" David looked to the man, or really his webcam swiveled a bit on its hinge to face the hero before turning back to the students to give them his full attention once more.
"Yes, in fact, I do. What did each of you do on this project? As I won't give the double points if only one person did the important work while the other hung back trying to coast on their friend's success as you two know." The man with iron claws leaned forward, his fists interlocking as he looked at the duo expectantly. Not giving away anything that he was thinking.
"Oh well sir, I handled the Coding and wiring up the electrical components of the project so it would work smoothly as possible. Though I want to go back and get it in Java or a better coding language than HTML at this point it works well enough for a prototype. My partner here sewed the cloth, cut the lenses and filled the thing with gas. Is that enough for us to have worked together well?"
"It's quite enough young lady, now I think that the three of us have heard and seen enough to judge on whether or not you are good enough for UA. Now ?"
"Well, it's a little rough around the edges to be sure but what else can we expect of high school students? With a bit of fine-tuning and refinement of the mechanics though, I would gladly sell that to my customer's hero or not. The help with vision impairment is always a must nowadays with the different bodies everyone has, and the fact they used common base materials makes it easy for me to adjust as needed. I give them fifteen points in total."
"Ok well, I think you guys did fine for the time allotted! I could see a few places I myself would improve it and have it so you have both eyes working. Maybe add a HUD for the hero with some other vital information and some first aid treatments for the injured part but all in all good job! I look forward to seeing what you all make in the future I give them a full twenty points."
Nodding at the other judge's assessment of the item, Power Loader looked at the two inventors, one with a crazed look in her golden eyes for more and the other hanging from a self-made web fluid. One that wasn't even going to be going to the course full time if he passed and sighed...They were going to give him a lot of trouble he just knew it, and it was trouble he asked for.
"I agree with the other judges, though as a pro-hero myself I would not be comfortable taking those out into the field save for the eye protection which stems from the material you used to create it. I see no reason to fail you when you clearly have potential here, I give you sixteen out of twenty points. With your teamwork, I say you did split the load evenly enough and worked well together so I give the double score there. So welcome to the support course you...kids." The hero watched as Izuku's grip slipped from the web line and he fell forward onto the floor, letting out a snore as he did so and looked to Hatsume in confusion.
"Did he just faint from excitement or what? I don't want to worry about my new student getting home if he is prone to that right now or something."
"Oh no it's fine, he was just running on caffeine until now. Tired out from the other test he had to take today, he said he has someone to pick him up after the crash and I believe him so don't worry about us and thank you!" She grinned before lifting the sleeping boy off the ground with a grunt, the kid was heavier than he looked, and felt like he was built from pure muscle! Either way, Mei carried him back to their workstation before going to clean up their mess and save what was needed for later. After which she jostled Izuku awake just long enough for him to call Katuski before passing out again with a loud snore. Leaving the girl to giggle at his actions, and burst out laughing as the angry blond barged in to grab his friend, flipping off everyone else in the room along the way.