Hee hee, been a good bit, innit?
"Not that one."
A pair of wire cutters moves from the red wire then hovers expectantly over a thick yellow wire adjacent to it.
"Hmm… not that one neither."
The red number of the scary looking clock keeps ticking down very quickly to 0. Next is the blue wire, above the yellow.
"That's… yeah, that one," the wire cutters begin to lightly squeeze on the blue wir-
"WAIT!" the wire remains uncut, and the wire cutters pull back a tad. The clock continues its quick depletion. There's a contemplative hum, albeit one that's tinged with a mechanical reverb. "Hmm… go back to the red one."
"You sure?" a voice asks, one belonging to what sounds like a teenaged boy.
"Does a bear shit in the woods?"
A pause.
Then a sigh.
"I'm going to get that 'cowboy' bit of yours fixed one of these days," the young man says with a weariness beyond his years as he snips the wire, causing the clock to suddenly stop its descent to 0 with… whew, 10 seconds left. A tiny little burst of confetti bursts from a compartment on the top of the faux bomb and a short fanfare rings out.
"Like hell you are. An' look at that: first try! Am I great or what?" the mechanical voice positively preens with a smugness that one wouldn't expect from what is clearly a robot. A robot that was clearly designed by someone with an unhealthy obsession with 19th century Wild West Americana, judging by the steel cowboy hat, steel cowboy boots complete with spurs, and slots on the robot's hips that looks suspiciously like revolver holsters. Topping off the mechanical cowboy's look is a large, golden plate of metal where a belt buckle would be embossed with a stylized "NOVA THE KID", a plate that the robot grabs and mimics sidling up in victory.
"Yes, yes, you're great. Now, can you tell me how you determined how that was the correct wire?" the teen questions, unruly green hair falling in front of his eyes as he looks down to a notebook he seemingly conjured from nowhere. A quick puff of air sends it away from his eyes momentarily before it falls back down again. His face scrunches into an annoyed scowl and runs a hand up and through his hair, revealing a well-muscled arm littered with countless little pinpricks of burns and scars ranging from little nicks to what looks were serious gashes.
"Guessed."
The boy pauses his attempts at fixing his hair and affixes the western robot with a withering look.
"You guessed."
"Yeeep."
"With a bomb. That could've killed dozens of people if you got it wrong."
"Double yeeep."
The boy sighs deeply before hefting himself up from his seat and trudges over to a beefy looking computer sitting on a large, metal table and tosses the notebook onto the table haphazardly. It lands and skids a short bit before stopping next to a truly wild assortment of blueprints, crumpled up papers, wires, screws, and tools. Going to the computer, the boy deftly runs his fingers over the keys, pulling up several windows and screens, typing things in some of them, before typing a note for a longer period of time in a "Kind of Failed Experiments" document.
"Aw, c'mon, Hoss, whaddya mean 'Kind of Failed?!' I found the right wire, didn't I?" the robot that deems itself Nova the Kid asks in an indignant southern drawl. Well, the southern drawl isn't special, nor is it speaking English to a kid that is clearly typing everything in Japanese.
"It's 'Kind of Failed' because you couldn't tell me exactly why you made a life-threatening decision," the kid explains tiredly. The cowboy robot begins to lift a finger in the air. "No, 'none of my gut feelings have been wrong yet' isn't a valid counterargument." The finger lowers itself in defeat.
"I mean… they haven't. That's gotta mean somethin', right?" Nova the Kid asks the verdant-haired teen. "Wait… I just had a thought."
"Oh? That's rare. Don't hurt yourself," the boy mumbles to himself while continuing to pour over data.
"Bite me, broccoli boy," the robot quickly retorts before mimicking clearing its throat. "Anyways: how do I have gut feelings when I don't got a gut?"
The boy's fingers suddenly halt mid keystroke, and he looks up from the screen, his face blank.
Then it twists into a thoughtful expression. Then a confused one. And then back to blank.
"Huh. I…" the boy trails off, eyes flitting back and forth as if sifting through pieces of information in his mind's eye. "…don't know."
A beat passes.
"You don't know? How?"
"Well, why should I?"
"The Sam Hill ya mean, 'why should I', ya built me, ya eejit!"
"Nova the Kid. You're already a miracle of engineering, I mean… you shouldn't even be up and running, my code was so bad, and yet somehow you're very sentient. Frankly speaking, you're an affront to robotics," the teenager bluntly responds.
"Rude."
"See? You're able to recognize when someone is being rude to you. Robots normally can't do that."
"Now, is that my problem, or one for other automatons like myself?" Nova the Kid sarcastically asks before trudging over to his docking station and pulling what looks to be a revolver from a compartment on the side of it. The gun is a modified version of an old Colt revolver designed to be wielded by the gunslinging robot's thicker, mechanical fingers. Engravings depicting stellar bodies are juxtaposed by a locomotive chugging along on floating rails in between planets and ending at the end of the barrel, suggesting the locomotive's end journey away to distant stars.
Nova the Kid sticks his finger in the trigger well and begins to lazily spin the revolver around his finger while starting a slow, deep whistle that sounds strangely pleasant with the reverb.
"That's… yeah, sure, it's their problem," the green-haired engineer acquiesces with a sigh of exhaustion and goes back to typing. Finally, there's a rare moment of relative silence in the shop, with Nova having stopped whistling and gotten to work on disassembling and cleaning the revolver, and the rhythmic clicking of keys.
It was good.
THUUUUUMMM!
Ah, right. Of course, it wasn't good, why would it be? It'd be too convenient and normal.
The green haired young man lazily looks up from his computer just in time to watch a red-hot piece of shrapnel impact the top corner of the computer monitor, gouging a perfectly cylindrical hole through the plastic casing and exiting out the other side to who knows where. Unbidden to himself, the boy mentally notes that him slightly raising and turning his head was enough to move out of the way of what would've been a punctured skull.
Leaning back in his chair, he slowly rolls his neck and turns his head to face the direction of the explosion, or rather, the pink-haired orchestrator of said explosion.
"Mei," he drawls, more bored than anything else despite the very close brush he had with death, "really? Don't tell me that was one of the good capacitors."
"Nope! Just one of the backup ones, must have accidentally wired it to take on the main load, not as a reserve," Mei shouts back, dusting off the front of her work apron from the frankly abnormal amount of soot that got on it (granted, it took literal months to finally convince her to wear an apron, so a soot-magnet is better than no protection). On her face is a manic grin, one that always finds its way to her face whenever something explodes as she haphazardly flicks a power switch and the device that's miraculously not in tatters shuts down. The pinkette then reaches over, puts on some heavy duty gloves, and gives all of the offending wiring a swift tug onto the floor.
"Ah. Well, find out anything interesting?" the boy asks as he hauls himself to his feet and walks over to his companion, meeting her a few paces away from where she just was, at a desk with a somehow even harder to understand amount of clutter of blueprints. With practiced ease, Mei cuts through the chaos and grabs a specific blueprint from the pile and sets it on top, pencil already in her and the boy's hands as they pour over the sheet.
"Yeah! Even though I overloaded the capacitor, it still did provide enough time to achieve a brief amount of lift, and if my calculations are correct…" the mad inventor trails off as her hand becomes a blur of lead and wood as a series of math equations make their way onto the side of the paper and are in quick fashion solved with a hasty underline. "Yes, then if I was using some of the better, more efficient wires and electrical doo-dads that I'm looking for in the final design, this should be complete!"
The inventor looks to her partner with a triumphant grin, his own eyes alight with pride and happiness for her as the two meets in an excited embrace, jumping up and down. Soon, they untangle themselves from each other, a slight redness on both of their faces (definitely only from the happiness and nerves, they'll both say) and the verdanette boy suddenly looks to the floor in a rare bit of trepidation, which his companion quickly picks up on.
"Izuku, what's up?" the now calmed down Mei asks, a tinge of worry on the edge of her tone.
Izuku just shakily laughs and shakes his head. "Oh, it's uh… it's nothing. Just that… I don't know if I'm going to pass the support entrance exam. What if it's not good enough? I mean…" he shakes his head again and motions to her now proven design, "I know you'll get in, but mine isn't fully done, and there's still a lot of bugs, and I need it to be perfect, and-"
Whatever else he was going to mutter about is stopped by Mei pressing a finger over his mouth in a shushing motion.
"Nuh-uh, no doubting yourself, not while I'm around," the pink-haired engineer firmly states as a comforting smile makes its way to her face. "Izuku, you're going to be fine. More than fine – if they're a school worth their salt, and they see Nova the Kid, they're going to pass you, no questions asked, top of the list." Her tone is final and assured, and to the ever-doubting young man, they're quickly turned into gospel, very much used to her ways of cutting through his perceived inadequacies.
"Right. Yeah, top of the list," Izuku repeats back to her, his shaky smile quickly morphing into a teasing one. "Oh, wait, so you finally acknowledge that I'm the better engineer? I'm glad you caught on."
The tender moment is swiftly forgotten as she makes to swat at him with one of her discarded work gloves, missing him as he ducks out of the way of the blow and darts away. "Hey, no! I was just trying to cheer you up, I didn't mean that actually! I'M GOING TO GET FIRST, YOU CAN GET 2ND, I EXPECT NO LESS" the now re-fired up inventor takes after her fleeing partner, chasing him over desks and strewn about pieces of current, finished, and scrapped projects. The boy is deceptively quick and readily able to do parkour, seen in how seemingly effortlessly he dodges glove smacks while vaulting over tables.
"BWAHAHAHAHA! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN," Izuku madly cackles as he ducks under a wide swing of her arm, slipping behind her and taking off again. "WHICH YOU CAN'T, SO STOP TRYING~~!"
"GET BACK HERE!"
WOOSH
"NEVER"
"NOVA THE KID, HELP ME CATCH HIM!"
"And why would I do that?" the mechanical voice of Nova the Kid drawls from his table, now done with cleaning his revolver and watching the chase with what is clearly vast interest.
"BECAUSE I AM YOUR MOTHER, AND YOUR DAD IS BEING A LITTLE SHIT!"
There's an obvious sound of someone sipping tea or coffee from Nova the Kid's position, despite not having a way to consume it. "Ahh… yep, nope, this is too fun to watch, have fun," Nova the Kid chirps with twisted glee as he props up his feet up on the table, spurs clinking on the metal surface.
"AFTER IZUKU, YOU'RE NEXT!"
"Gotta catch him before ya make threats ta me, y'know."
Later, On a Specific Day…
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-
A screwdriver is thrown at the offending device with enough force that the end of the tool gets embedded handle-deep in the clock. "Quiet, you blasted contraption! Don't you know that people need to slee- oh, wait, huh, I didn't go to sleep yet. Weird."
'Yeah, not weird, you didn't sleep because you were up stress-tinkering,' my brain unhelpfully provides as I quickly take the screwdriver out of the clock and back into my hand, tightening the last few screws on the little mechanical spider limbs. Leaning over to the side, I plug a cord from my laptop over into the robot spider and begin typing like mad. Lines and lines of code flash blankly over my eyes as they rise above each other and interweave with each other and…
Tap
With a dramatic flourish, the enter key is hit and the spider has a quick spasm before righting itself on its 8 legs steadily. With a manic grin of glee, I unplug the cord leading to my laptop and the spider raises its tiny little robot mug, looks at me, and tilts its head as if expecting me to tell it something.
"Invention 96: Spyder Drone. Standby for commands in stealth mode," I command the spider, who in response, snaps one of its legs to what would be a forehead in a tell-tale salute before folding in on itself. Abdomen pulls up and over the body, head snaps back into a groove on the abdomen, and the legs crisscross over each other and lock around the body, forming a sleek black and green disk. For all intents and purposes, it just looks like a button, but if one looked uncomfortably closely, you could see the faint lines of the folded parts.
Invention 96: Spyder Drone is a more specialized version of the previous spider drones I've built, designed for concealed carrying and infiltration, with additional measures in place to avoid hacking or other methods of tampering. The camera records both audio and visual, and has the ability to capture footage in infra-red, slow motion, and at high speeds as well. Still has the spider motif because…
Well…
Huh. I forgot why I have a little spider motif going. Green, I get. Midori-ya. Izuku doesn't really mean anything to spiders, and there's been no spider-themed incidents in my life, and-
Meh, not important.
WHAT IS, HOWEVER, IS THE DATE! February 22! Specifically…
…
Well, I don't have a clock anymore to tell what specific time it is. My alarm is always set to 5:00 AM, and it's been some amount of time since, so… 5 something, February 22!
The day of the Support Course Entrance Exam! It finally came!
And I am woefully unprepared for it. Well, in all reality, I'm probably overprepared for it on the actual content angle, but on the mental angle… 0 hours of sleep is never conducive to a productive and stable mind. Not that having a stable mind is feasible anymore, given the number of times I've had my soul wrenched back into the realm of the living after it already left, but that's just semantics.
Though… I suppose I can just get in a little quick save in. Can I? Lemme check…
I rummage around my desk drawers in order to find the letter given to applicants from U.A. themselves.
This drawer? Nope, that's wires.
Next one? Nope, that's an IED.
Next…
Wait, no, probably shouldn't have that. When did I even have time to make that?
'Probably in all of those hours you didn't sleep' my brain chimes sarcastically to myself as I look at the device and quickly disable it with liberal application of a pair of wire cutters.
Where was I? Right, U.A. letter!
Next one below that… yep, right here. Good 'ol Rule of Threes.
Flipping the envelope over, I reach in and take out the folded up letter for instructions, eyes quickly skimming over the irrelevant information until I find a time.
Ah, it says… 11:00 AM to 5 PM, then those 6 hours are split into 1 hour slots for last names A-D, E-H, I-L, M-P, Q-T, U-Z
So… 2 PM.
That's a whole like… 7 and some change hours! I can get some sleep in!
Alright, how about this, me: get 1 last revision session in, make sure everything is good, then get a nice sleep in, then we can nail that exam! Excellent plan!
With a plan in motion, let's do this!
Later, at 1:59 PM, Standing in Front of U.A.'s Support Course Door
Where did everything go so wrong? There was a plan, a good one, one very easy to follow. What happened?
"Don't answer that," I mumble under my breath, not even giving my traitorous brain the chance to sass me with the answer I don't want to hear. Off to my side, I see a boy with an unruly mane of poofy, white hair shoot me a strange look from the corner of his eye before returning his attention back to his phone.
"You say somethin', Hoss?" Nova asks from behind me, the robot fixing me with what I can somehow determine is a raised eyebrow, only being represented by the Greek letters that serve as his pupils rising minutely.
"Nothing important. Just talking to myself," I respond back to the automaton, which really gets the white-haired boy to look my way funny. I stare back at him, lack of sleep causing my filter to go MIA as the stare quickly becomes a scowl. "What's your problem?"
The prospective student sits up straighter in his seat, nervous energy radiating off him in waves. "Nothing! I was just uh, um…"
"I think he thinks you're off your rocker, Hoss. Talkin' to yourself and then conversin' with a metal man in English," Nova helpfully summarizes into my ear in what I presume should've been a whisper, but comes out loud enough to hear from not, well… being able to whisper.
"Ah, right, yeah, that makes sense," I nod at the cowboy robot's deduction and sheepishly rub the back of my neck with a hand and face the boy. "My apologies, I just… didn't get enough sleep last night."
"Any."
"Same difference. 0 sleep is not 'enough.'"
"'Not enough' generally means that there was some amount to being with."
"I…"
A very deep sigh escapes my lips as I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger before I hold both of my hands up in an 'I surrender' gesture. "I'm not going to fight my own robot about the semantics of a lack of sleep."
The poor kid just looks even more confused, now tinged with concern as he not very subtly scooches down to the opposite side of the bench he was sitting on. I go back to staring at the door, then down at my watch. 2:00 PM.
…
"Makin' friends already, Hoss."
"And thank you for volunteering to be the practice dummy for Mei's competed Jet Propulsion Baby."
…
"C'mon, Hoss, it was just a joke. You aren't actually gonna do that, are ya? Hoss? Izuku? ... Buddy?"
"Maybe," I answer non-commitally as I look around for a suitably good spot to wait and find a nice little section of the hall where no one had gathered yet. Slowly walking over to the highlighted area, I put my back to the wall and slide down until I reach the floor. Nova stands off to my left, and I tiredly reach up to his holstered revolver and take it out, popping the cylinder out and spinning it until a blue-capped bullet is in the chamber.
"Wake me up when my name is called, Mr. The Kid," I mumble before pointing the barrel at my chest, cocking the hammer, and pressing my finger to the trigger.
The last thing I hear is a muffled "Gotcha, Boss," before I drift into unconsciousness from a sleep cartridge.
Some Unknown Amount of Time Later
"Hey, Boss, wake up, time to rock and roll," Nova the Kid calls out as he not softly kicks my foot, thoroughly waking me up in short order. I can only be thankful he kicked my reinforced boots instead of my very unprotected shins as I haul myself up to my feet.
"I'm here, I'm coming," I call out blearily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes on the walk over to the door that some other prospective student was holding. Ah, he was probably the one before me, and they get the last examinee to come out, not the teacher themselves.
A bit disappointing, but what can you do?
As I brush past the student, I finally see what was behind the door and… if this is what I'm working with when I get accepted, I can most certainly deal with this. The room is vast, with such a vast array of technological goodies that it makes the workshop Mei and I work in look like 'Baby's first toolbox'. Industrial welders, lathes, drill presses, saws of all different kinds and sizes, sheet metal cutters, and if I'm not mistaken, that appears to be a frankly deliciously oversized 3D Printer. Without me even noticing, my open mouth began to leak a trail of drool.
"Oi, Izuku Midoriya, over here, we don't have all day," a commanding voice calls over from a corner of the room, which upon inspection looks like a teacher's desk mixed with a workbench. The figure that called me is short, even shorter than I am, which is no mean feat. Or, well, he would be short were it not for the power armor that he's piloting that has an achingly familiar design to me, but I can't exactly place.
Then I look at the head, which has what looks like a helmet stylized to look like an excavator bucket with scraggly orange hair poking out from the bottom of it.
Ah, that's who it is.
Power Loader. Y'know, only probably every single support course student's favorite hero, including mine, which makes me quite angry at myself that I couldn't spot him just from his power armor. Granted, it's different from the one he normally uses for heroics, judging from the lack of bulk and weapons, but still. It's POWER LOADER!
"POWER LOADER-SAMA-SENSEI!" I excitedly choke out and practically teleport over to his desk, causing the hero to slightly recoil from the speed. "OH MY GOD, IT'S ACTUALLY YOU, CAN YOU PLEASE SIGN MY NOTEBOOK?"
Reaching into my bag that contains both my notebooks and my schematics, I pull out a specific notebook and rifle through it at blazing speeds, before finding the page I'm looking for and all but slam the stationary on the desk. Spun towards Power loader for maximum convenience of signing.
The stunned support hero just stares at me for a couple seconds before sighing and rummaging around his desk for a pen and signs his name on the page. It's… well, quite sloppy, all things considered, but then again, I've yet to meet an inventor that actually has neat handwriting, so I suppose the trend continues.
"Alright, now that… that is taken care of, I'm going to say something that I suppose now is redundant, but I'm contractually obligated to say, so here goes," the hero says, and I idly note that the few interviews of Power Loader exist don't give his gravely voice justice, as his words get distorted and almost hard to hear through the helmet.
"Greetings, Izuku Midoriya, to the U.A. Support Course Entrance Exam. This is the practical portion of the test, given and scored by me, Higari Majima, also known as the pro hero Power Loader. Tomorrow, you will be taking the written portion of the Entrance Exam, one that is given to all prospective students on the same day. In this segment, you will be showing me a few of your blueprints, schematics, prototypes, and what else you have made in order for me to gauge your aptitude and position in the Support Course. Are there any questions?"
Thousands. I raise my hand.
"That are specifically about the test, not about me."
I lower my hand.
"Good. Alright then, show me what you have for me."
I school my facial features into a serious, business mode and give Power Loader a nod and I shrug off my backpack, setting it on the table behind me and pulling out two sets of schematics. One of them, notably, is much thicker than the other one and if the grease and soot stains are any indication, older than the other.
First, I take the smaller schematic and unfurl the paper, idly taking random tools from my pockets and using them as paper weights for the design. On the paper is a familiar 8-legged figure, drawn from top, side, and bottom profiles, broken down part by part with accompanying details on features. And on the top of the sheet, written in slanted white pencil, is 'INVENTION 96: SPYDER DRONE'.
Power Loader gives an appreciative hum and shuffles closer to me in order to get a better look, and I notice him reading the part pertaining to the two modes, Stealth and Recon, as he taps the sheet lightly with a finger.
"Damn, kid, this is one fine piece of work you have here," the pro hero compliments with a low whistle. "This only in the theory phase or have you begun making prototypes?"
At the man's question, a confident smile appears on my face. "I can do you one better," I say before clearing my throat and tap on an inconspicuous button on my shirt. "Spyder Drone, switch to Reconnaissance Mode."
After the command is said, the button suddenly unfurls into an 8-legged mechanical arachnid and jumps from my shirt onto my awaiting hand. Power Loader laughs and in the small bit of his face I can see, a grin is plastered on his face.
"Very good! I can see the uses for this little thing, and believe me, there are many," the teacher says as he gingerly pokes at the little mechanical spider. "And this runs autonomously?"
"Yes, though there is a manual override code built into it if need be."
"Battery life?"
"The top of the abdomen is a solar panel, and the systems of the Spyder are very efficient and require very little power. Realistically, several days, if not weeks given suitable conditions."
"Jesus, this thing just keeps getting better and better," the man says, awe evident in his voice. "I'm guessing the only thing keeping you from mass producing these things is the price of the cameras?"
"Indeed, that's easily the largest cost. The solar panel is second, but everything else is for the most part quite easy to come by," I answer back, very thankful that I have yet to stutter or otherwise make a fool out of myself, other than my overexcitement over seeing Power Loader in the flesh.
"Well, Midoriya, this is awfully impressive, but this apparently isn't even the main course," Power Loader guffaws, gesturing over to the thick bundle of schematics and graphs. Immediately, my shoulders tense up before I force myself to calm down, pushing the doubts down as best as I can.
This is good, this is amazing, and WILL be successful.
"It is not. This," I take the bundle of papers off of the table I had set it on over to the examination table, and begin to unfurl it. "is what I have been working on for the past… getting close to a year now. Granted, the robotics and coding I have been learning for a time beforehand, but the actual design is that age."
Taking the papers, I line them up in a hopefully coherent way, starting with a breakdown of all of the body work, all of the wiring, and materials user to make the robot. Then is the coding (I don't feel the need to mention the whole 'possibly is possessed by techno spirits' thing), a detailed history on the various tests that've been done to it, and the last section is a series of graphs pertaining to the output, efficiency, durability, and basically everything about that thing I've ever tracked and quantified.
After laying everything down on the table, I take a step back and let Power Loader move closer to the papers in order to get a better look, which he does.
A minute goes by in complete silence.
Then another.
And another.
Until finally, the silence is broken by the sound of Power Loader's mouth opening and closing, as if he was talking but no words came out. Then he goes silent again before he clears his throat and takes a deep breath in and out. And then he asks a single question.
"This is real, correct?"
"100%, sir."
Power Loader nods in understanding. "And is he…?"
"Here? Yes, he is," I confirm before turning away from him and towards the door, cupping a hand around my mouth. "NOVA, GET IN HERE!"
Almost instantly, the door is forcefully bashed open and forced off its hinges by a metal boot to the handle, and Nova the Kid comes in view from the other side. "The Sam Hill ya want, Hoss?" In his mechanical voice is a confusing mix of concern and annoyance slurred together by a thick southern drawl. Walking into the room a little, he turns to Power Loader. "Aw, shucks, was that your door, sir? Hol' on, gimme a second."
Turning around, he picks the fallen steel door from the ground in one hand and sets it haphazardly against the wall next to the now empty doorframe. Dusting his hands off, he turns back to the two of us. "Problem solved. So, whaddya need, Boss?"
There's an awkward silence as Power Loader's head mechanically turns to face me. "How sentient is this thing?"
I can only sigh in response.
"Very."
Power Loader's reaction to this information is to walk over to his desk, sit down at his computer and type in a few things. In the interim, I catch Nova turning to look at me quizzically, and I quickly turn to him and shrug at him and motion to be quiet as I patiently wait for the teacher to finish… whatever he's doing.
A little moment passes before Power Loader rises from his seat, walks back over to me and sticks out a hand.
"Welcome to the Support Course, Midoriya," Power Loader says with a sort of… happy finality.
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, welcome to U.A. You're in."
My brain stalls.
"Why?"
Power Loader sighs. "Kid, you literally made sentient A.I., not to mention an automaton of such complexity that maybe even 3rd years couldn't make with all the money and time at their disposal. You haven't even begun your education here yet."
"But… what about the other test?"
"Meh, do it or don't, doesn't matter. Extrapolating a bit based on how smart you need to be to make all of this," he twirls his non-outstretched hand over to Nova the Kid. "you'd ace that anyways. Besides, the Rat already signed off on it, that was part of what I was filling out on the computer." For some reason, after saying that last bit, a shiver ran through the seasoned hero.
"The Rat?"
"Nezu. The principal."
"I… see."
I don't see at all.
"Now, are you going to shake my hand already? It's getting kind of tired," Power Loader lightly says, and I hastily go and shake his hand between both of mine.
"Thank you, sir. You won't regret this."
"I don't think I can," the hero says with a grin as he slaps me on the back good-naturedly. "Besides, you seem sane enough, maybe you can help me wrangle in this other kid. I can already tell she's going to be a handful."
Letting go of his hand, I can't help but get a feeling about this when he says 'she'.
"Girl didn't get halfway through showing off her stuff before one of them things blew up! Worst part is, she didn't even flinch, hell, I think she started smiling wider!" The man laughs. "I mean, can you imagine a person like that?"
"Yeah, Mei's quite the handful alright."
"Yeah, that sounds an awful lot like Ma," Nova and I say at the same time, making Power Loader freeze up.
"Wait… you know this Hatsume girl?" the teacher asks, skepticism creeping into his voice.
"Yeah, she's my partner and best friend! We spent the past few years together basically every single day," I happily tell the now concerned Power Loader.
…
…
"Maybe there is one way I can regret this," Power Loader murmurs under his breath, low enough where I couldn't hear it.
That'll do it for now. And I'll be perfectly honest, this is on a 'when I upload it' basis. Frankly, I lose the interest for writing randomly, same with gaining it. And a good bit of gaining the inspiration to write is me looking out at the sea of fanfic and being petty that what I just about specifically want to read isn't there, so I'd might as well be the change I wish to see. My apologies to those of y'all that got excited seeing those first 4 chapters come out pretty close to one another then... 6 months go by. All I can say is that I ain't gonna abandon this. Unlike my other """ongoing""" fic, where my interest in that fandom just sorta plummeted. MHA is still nice and fresh for me.
Welp, that being said, I guess I'll see y'all... when I see y'all. Take it easy. Have a happy New Year.