Chapter Sixty-Five

All too soon, it was time for the I-Island Expo.

"Nervous 'bout our presentation, Partner?" Mei asked, sitting next to me on the modified cargo plane we were taking to the 'island' of invention, really a city-sized boat. "Don't be, our Babies will knock their socks off!"

I smiled at the Inventrix, "I'm sure they will. Nah, it's just... a bad feeling. That's all."

The pink-dreadlocked girl gave me a searching look, before nodding. "Well, that's why we made your insta-gauntlets!"

My smile grew. "Yeah, yeah it was." The twin bracelets had been thrown together in a hurry, but they were by no means slapdash. With a flick of my wrist, they'd extend, creating an armored glove that extended down to my elbows. We'd managed a rudimentary electromagnetic system, but I'd been right about not being able to fully insulate it. For low-level uses it'd work, however I had about thirty seconds of flight time before they'd heat up enough that they'd start to burn me, needing a dozen or so minutes to cool themselves off completely, the little bit of insulation we'd managed a double-edged sword in that respect.

We were flying in on the morning of the Expo Preview, with a full day to look around before the Expo reception dinner, which would be followed by three days of showing off our gear, while looking at everything else the other inventors created. I was practically salivating at the thought of how much Science Talent would let me advance my understanding of the hyper-tech that these people called Support Items. It wouldn't be enough for me to instantly understand how to make everything, or anything that ridiculous, but hearing an expert talk about their craft counted as 'teaching' for the Talent, and it'd help me close a bit of the gap between Mei and I.

She may call us 'partners', but I could barely keep my head above the technical waters she swam in. With this, I'd hopefully be able to assist her fully, instead of struggling to understand what she was referring to half the time.

Checking my phone, Momo and Mina had already landed and were on their way to the hotel, along with the others from 1-A. Our entire class had gotten an invite to the artificial island, but only a few of us could attend the preview. Momo's parents held stock in several of the corporations that had their headquarters there, which meant she had gotten several tickets, as had Midoriya for winning the Sports Festival. He'd brought Ochaco as his +1, but only after Momo had offered Asui her other extra ticket.

Watching him dance around the two of them shouldn't be as amusing as it is, I smiled, shaking my head, knowing I was absolutely in a glass house in that regard, though our situations weren't quite the same, given how it was Mina that was pushing to involve our favorite creationist in our relationship, instead of both girls pursuing me.

"Hmm," Mei mused, sitting next to me, leaning over and resting her head on my shoulder as she had that 'I'm planning' look on her face. "You think we could get your girlfriend to showcase the Baby we made for her?"

"I asked her to bring her costume for that very reason," I reassured my partner, "as well as Midoriya and Uraraka." the girl turned her head around to shoot me a pleased grin, before going back to thinking.

"How many explosions do ya think they'd let us set off an hour?" she mused.

I rolled my eyes. "Three, and I had to schedule them in advance," I informed her, knowing she'd want to show off the explosive version of our capture foam, as well as a few other high-yield items. "You want to showcase the shield at the same time?" The inventrix nodded excitedly. "Then I'm glad I packed it, and several dozen cartridges, but I-Island's gonna hold it until it's time for our showcase, and they'll deliver them to us then. For some reason they didn't want unregulated explosives on their floating arcology. Go figure. Oh, and we can only use the 'Not-A-MIRV' once, in a specially prepared arena."

"But we still get to use it?" she checked.

"We can," I reassured my partner. "I know you wanted to use it for the Sports Festival."

"Against moving targets?" she pressed. I nodded. "Yay! Without them our Baby's tracking system wouldn't get a chance to shine!"

I could completely agree with that. We'd tackled the problem of missiles being stupid expensive, even with advanced creation techniques, because to work effectively each one needed to have a mini-computer built into them to handle things like tracking and variable yield settings. Mei had looked at the problem, and, like she tended to do, decided to do handle it ass-backwards, but then make that work.

If the issue was the control systems being destroyed on detonation, then why put it in a situation where it could be destroyed in the first place? Other models had worked to harden the important parts, rendering them salvageable, or made them more like explosive arrows, collectable and re-usable after minor repairs, but she'd built the computer and tracking system into the launcher, the missiles only having a receiver and the most basic of systems.

It cut down on the range tremendously, rendering it useless for anything more than half a mile away, but given the nature of Hero/Villain combat, that was perfectly fine. We did build in a long-range option, but it required a clear line of sight, and for the user to keep the system on target instead of being able to fire-and-forget. Also, there was just a little bit of latency, making them a little easier to dodge, but the way things worked they'd not mess up the landscape if they missed, the micro-kinetic warhead not going off unless the launcher sent the signal. However, despite those problems, we'd managed to drop the materials cost from fifty dollars per missile to just over fifty cents per missile, so it was absolutely worth it. It still wasn't something I'd want to use willy-nilly, as it launched about sixty of the things per volley, but dear god did it simplify things.

And, without moving targets to show off on, all the work we put into our Baby might've well have been wasted.

Wait, 'our Baby'? I thought, having to shake my head again. Now she's got me doing it.

We'd been spending twelve hours a day in the Design Studio, and Mei would've probably spent twenty if I, with Power Loader's explicit approval, hadn't dragged her out to get food and go home to sleep, before meeting her at the school gate with a pair of hot-chocolates and breakfast sandwiches, the girl not touching coffee because, and I quote, "Diuretics mean you waste time draining your bladder instead of draining your mind, Sparky!"

"We're making our final descent," the intercom chimed, Mei let out a "Finally!" that some of the others on the plane echoed, the craft ferrying support technicians for the expo, along with their creations. We'd been given a mass and weight limit, and had ended up leaving half of our creations behind. Mei had let me handle the display, though Power Loader had been happy to offer advice, and I hoped I did a good enough job with it.

I also hoped the expo would even happen in the first place.

This was the first movie, the entirety of Class 1-A being there a dead giveaway, but I had no idea what was going to happen. Was it going to be zany hijinks? Was it going to be some kind of heist? Was it a full-on attack? Would I-Island even be standing afterwards?

Mei poked me. "You're doing it again," she observed, and I nodded, sighing.

"Sorry. Just... just a feeling," I reiterated helplessly, shrugging.

The pink-haired girl gave me a considering stare. "I'm gonna take your mind off that," she declared.

I lifted an eyebrow, "By dragging me around the displays to look at all the new tech?"

"Of course!" she grinned. "They won't be good as our Babies, but I'm sure we'll get some great ideas!"

"Mei, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to reverse-engineer everyone else's tech," I felt compelled to point out.

"Pfshaw, like everyone isn't gonna be trying to figure out how our Babies work," she scoffed. "They're so amazing, they'll be the belles of the builders' ball!"

I was pretty sure the professionally made creations by people with decades of experience on us were going to attract more attention, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and shrugged, replying, "We'll find out tomorrow."

MHA

Getting through immigration was easier than I thought it'd be, as we all just stood on an travelator as we were all scanned. The sensors paid close attention the bracelets I wore, lights playing over them for several seconds, but the entire process was both automated and took all of three minutes to process everyone, and that was only because of how long it took the moving walkway to ferry us through the scanners. No one said anything to us as we grabbed our bags and took the shuttle to our hotel, the same one we shared with the rest of my classmates.

Looking around as it drove, I had to shake my head, as this was what I'd expected once I started to learn just how advanced the tech of this world was. The buildings, while making nods towards the twentieth century design standards Japan utilized universally, were obviously made with advanced materials, many of them using shapes and layouts that would've been difficult to create, let alone maintain, without technology we didn't have in my first life. The only exception were the office buildings in the distance that looked almost out of place in their bland normality, though I supposed there was just something about bureaucracy that exerted a certain ontological pressure on its surroundings.

It was easy enough to hook up with the others once we dropped our bags off, meeting them in the esplanade where the preview attractions were displayed. We didn't even need to show our tickets, just walking through the gate with no problem. Given how much security this place obviously possessed, I had to assume that they'd scanned our faces, or something else helpfully Orwellian, but I didn't live here, so I didn't really care, working under 'Disneyworld' rules, effectively.

"SPARKY!" I heard Mina cry and the girl leapt for me, arms outstretched. Catching her and spinning to bleed of the momentum, she hugged me tightly, before letting go. "Took ya long enough to get here, mister. How was your flight? Momo's plane was swanky AF!"

The heiress blushed slightly, "It is my parents', which they graciously let us use, and it was nothing special."

"Um, it had its own hot tub," Ochaco pointed out, "And I think it was bigger on the inside."

Yaoyorozu shook her head. "It was not. Mother was quite insistent on that technology not being ready for commercial use, despite what the salespeople said."

"Wait, that was an option?" the impoverished girl demanded, eyes wide.

I winced, "Your mom's right. Mei and I looked into space-warping for these," I said, tapping my bracelets, "and for anything you want to put people in, fill with stuff, and put a couple thousand feet up, that's a bad idea. We just took a cargo-plane, nice, but no frills." I looked around, and while Asui was here, we were missing our designated protagonist. "Where's Izuku?"

"He said he needed to meet someone, Ribbit, and that he'd be back before the party," Tsuyu replied, frowning. "Didn't say who, though."

Probably All Might then, I assumed. "If I had to guess, it's Quirk-related," I reassured the frog-girl. "He's gotten better at using his, but he still has a backlash if he overdoes it. Hell, he completely busted up the boots we made for him during the Finals, so maybe there's someone here that can help with that."

Froppy considered that, before nodding, relieved. "That makes sense."

"You can talk about that later, Sparky," Mei complained, grabbing my arm and dragging me towards one of the display halls. "We've got tech to see!"

I caught Momo giving Mina a confused look, but my girlfriend just grabbed the heiress' hand and dragged her along after us, the last two following a moment later. The first building was full of small, one-off devices, many of which utilized an odd sort of compression tech, which seemed to almost deconstruct the items into blue glowing energy, a hexagonal grid spreading out over it in a sort of mapping matrix, or at least that was Mei's best guess. To me, it'd crossed the sufficiently advanced line into tech-magic, but while my partner didn't understand it either, she was practically vibrating with ideas.

If we could figure out how to do this, I'd never be disarmed, I thought, especially as, unlike with normal space compression, the process also seemed to negate the mass of the deconstructed object, which opened up a lot of possibilities.

Another building was dedicated to shield and armor tech, showing off new materials and defense designs. Hard light barriers, repellent fields, and even one that actually used targeted teleportation, though the energy requirements for it must've been insane, were on display. They were also very likely very heavy, from what I knew of the tech required, though they likely could be lightened by cutting down on use time, but these pieces were very much 'proof of concept' prototypes instead of purchase-ready devices, constantly on to display their function.

"If all this available, why don't we see more at home?" Asui wondered, as we watched a robot show off a hard-light buckler. Against kinetic blows, it would be okay, but the nature of its projected design would mean it would no-sell energy-based attacks, like fire or lightning, and be immune to acids.

"Bureaucracy," I answered, even as Momo said, "Regulations."

I motioned for her to go on, and she smiled, nodding and taking up the explanation. "Because of the extreme capabilities Support Items can bestow upon their wielders, they are highly regulated in Japan, as well as many other countries." She motioned towards the hard-light buckler, "For instance, there are Quirks which can make shields like this. By using it, the user would effectively have a second Quirk, and so they are regulated almost as tightly as Quirks are."

"Which is why, as Heroes, we're allowed to use them," I added. "UA takes responsibility for us, since we're in the Hero course, but for normal people there's a ton of paperwork, permits, and other problems if they want to use them."

Moving on, the next hall was much more open, a blue column of what looked like water in the center, easily fifty feet across, and walled cubbies all around, while floating teal and purple spheres hung above our heads, providing light. Looking in the cubbies, these Support Items were all vehicle based, like a full on Patlabor-esque mecha suit with tank-tread legs, though there were other devices as well, like a panopticon helmet that let the user monitor thirty-six different feeds at once with a very intuitive GUI.

Uraraka perked up. "Oh, hey, look. There's Dek...u," she trailed off, as the boy was standing next to a blonde girl who, if I was right, was flirting with him. Ochaco started to walk towards him, expression flat, but, given that whoever this was hadn't showed up in the next season at all, the new girl wasn't the threat Uravity saw her as.

Quickly striding past the girl before she could confront her not-a-boyfriend over his not-a-infidelity, I called out, "Hey, Midoriya! Here's where you ran off to!"

The green haired boy twisted around, a look of surprise on his face. "Wha', Kaminari? What're you doing here?"

"I was invited," I grinned, the boy not having been part of our planning directly, and seemingly had not realized that Momo only had an extra ticket because I had my own way of being here. "Who's your friend?"

"O-Oh, um, this is Melissa!" he rallied. "She was just showing me around a little."

The girl looked us over, noting the four girls in-costume, the fact that Mei and I weren't, and smiled. "Nice to meet you. My dad and Uncle Might are really good fri-"

"Gaaah!" Midoriya yelled, jumping back to her, pulling away, and crouching down for a quick whispered conversation that wasn't suspicious in the slightest.

To her credit, Melissa just rolled with it, standing back up and clasping her hands together with a smile. "How about we all grab some tea at the café?" she suggested.

Midoriya was nervous the entire way, both his not-girlfriends giving him the stink-eye, though the others engaged Melissa in small talk that was absolutely digging for information, and which the new girl went along with, talking about herself, but deflecting away from the reason she was here with Izuku.

It turned out the girl, one Melissa Shield, was the daughter of one of David Shield, whose name I recognized from some of the tools we used in the Design Studio. She was attending I-Island Academy, which was actually a university, having skipped several grades and attending college despite only being seventeen. The college, while not creatively named, was apparently the premiere school for Support Item Technicians.

"You thinking of going?" I asked Mei as we walked.

"Nah," she disagreed. "You're gonna be out doing your Hero things, and I'm not just gonna leave ya to go learn stuff I can figure out myself!"

Melissa blinked, "You're a Hero too, then? But, you're not in costume."

"I'm not here as a Hero, but as an inventor," I smiled. "Though I'm very much the junior partner."

"Oh, you're both? That's interesting," the blonde girl smiled, looking to Mei, "And if you're good enough to be invited to the preview, you really should reconsider. I've learned so much during my time at university!"

The inventrix considered that. "But, I'll have to stay here, and everything I make will be secret?"

Melissa nodded. "Yes, it's for the safety of-"

"Hard pass," Mei cut her off, a little rudely. "What's the point of making my Babies if no one sees how awesome they are?"

"I, well, once you graduate, if you choose to leave-" the college student tried to rally.

"Nope," my partner insisted. "Not gonna happen!"

Mina redirected the conversation, "She's not being mean, sweetie. Mei's just... direct."

"It's fine," Melissa smiled, waving away the unspoken apology, "some of my classmates are the same way."

The conversation continued, the older girl being wow'd by the fact that we'd gone out with professional heroes, and I waited until a lull in the discussion to drop a conversational bomb.

"You know, Midoriya," I smiled, "You could've told them you were slipping away to see All Might about your Quirk." It was obvious enough, in retrospect. If what Mei and I had whipped up increased his capabilities, then getting All Might's personal Support Technician on the case was the next logical step.

"I, uh, what? All Might?" the boy asked, eyes wide as he panicked. "How'd you kno- I mean, um, no, I was, um-"

"It's fine, dude," I reassured him. "You're not gonna insult me by having someone make something better to use than the boots we invented to let you use your Quirk without hurting yourself." To my side, Mei Ahem'd, and I added, "And as long as you let Mei look over the plans, she'll be fine with it too."

My partner considered that, before nodding, and going back to her mint iced chocolate.

From Deku's confused expression, the boy replying, "I... what?" I was either completely off the mark, or it was supposed to be a surprise.

Whups, I thought, as Melissa turned to look at the green haired boy, asking, "Your Quirk hurts you?"

"I, uh, yeah, a little," he replied with a shrug.

Asui, on his left, added drolly, "If a little means breaking every bone in his arm when he punches something, Ribbit."

Izuku winced. "That was only at first, and Recovery Girl helped patch me up, but I've gotten better at using it, though at lower levels, and I'll eventually be able to use it, it's just going to take a while; it's just that my body can't quite handle it yet, which wasn't something I expected, but I can work with it, and the boots you and Mei made really help, Denki, and All Might didn't say anything about that, but it makes sense when you think about it, and maybe it was a surprise, but I don't want anyone to feel like I'm getting special treatment, because that wouldn't be fair, and I'm doing well, and I'm glad that everyone could come here, but I wonder what it'll be, maybe a glove, it'd work with the boots and I wouldn't want the work to be put in to be wasted, and I just was getting used to them, though they mutter mutter mutter."

"And there he goes," Mina laughed, shaking her head. "Midoriya, ya dork, All Might's helping a lot of people. No one's gonna care if he helps you. Except maybe Bakugo, but he's kind of a jerk."

"Kacchan's getting better," Deku argued. "No, really," he added at my girlfriend's incredulous look, "I know he's loud, and angry, and violent, but he really wants to help people. Just... just in his own way."

"Uh huh," the pink skinned girl replied, "whatever you say, honey."

Melissa, however, seemed deep in thought.

"Your drink, si-hey!" a familiar voice announced from my knee. Glancing over, I saw Mineta standing there, in a waiter's uniform. "What're you doing here!?"

"Invited, you?" I replied, noticing Sero as he walked over as well.

Sero smiled that almost too wide smile of his. "Since our flights were comp'd by the school, we saw there was a job opening as wait staff, and applied."

"We get to explore the Expo early on our breaks, and we make some money," Mineta added. "And we might just meet-" he froze, spotting Melissa, before glancing over to me as I watched him, waiting. The pervert made a low sound akin to a distressed dog as he vibrated in place, before, taking a deep breath, and he mastered himself. "Might meet some of the cute, smart girls that live here," he added, as if nothing at all had just happened.

Without missing a beat, the college girl turned to Momo, "Are they also your classmates?"

"WHY ARE YOU TWO SLACKING OFF!?" Ida's voice yelled, as the boy, in full costume, came running towards us. "YOU WANTED TO MAKE MORE MONEY, DIDN'T YOU? BUT YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO WORK HARD!?"

Both Mineta and Sero fell backwards, Tenya coming to stop standing over them, looking disapproving.

"Ida, you're here too?" Uraraka asked cheerfully, ignoring his entrance, even as I wondered just how many preview tickets this place handed out.

The boy turned to face us, "I come from a long line of heroes. It's to be expected that we receive an invitation to the expo. But my family was busy, so it's just me."

"Are you their manager?" I asked, motioning to the two teens on the ground, wondering how that worked.

Behind his glasses, the boy blinked. "No. No I am not."

Lifting an eyebrow, I questioned, "So do you often accost people in the service industry, when you think they're 'slacking off', making a scene, or is that just something you do when you're representing your family?"

The boy froze, looking around, and realized that everyone else in the café was now staring. "No, but these two are students of UA, and represent us in their actions abroad. They-"

"Talked with us for less than a minute, when things aren't that busy," I interrupted, motioning towards the seating area, which was over half empty, as the two boys stood up. "Freakin' chill. I know you're a stickler for the rules, but don't hide that in caring about our 'image'." I understood that Mineta and Sero, as the class perverts, were considered 'acceptable targets' by most of the others, in the same way Denki originally would've been, but jumping over them for things that weren't that bad did nothing, except maybe make Ida feel better about himself.

And given the teen had gone out to kill Stain, solo, Tenya didn't have an engine-leg to stand on.

Ida hesitated, before slowly stating, "I may have been a little overzealous in the carrying out of my duties."

"A little?" Mina echoed, laughing. "It's summer vacation, my dude. We're not in class, and even then, keeping these two in line would be YaoMomo's 'duty'," she pointed out, jerking a thumb to the girl in question.

"I... yes, it is obvious now I have been in error," the boy agreed, far too seriously. "In that case I apologize, Sero, Mineta, for my mistake. I was trying to defend the prestige of UA, and you have developed a bit of a... reputation."

Mineta winced, but Sero just raised his hands incredulously. "Why? Just because I lost to Ms. Midnight?"

The girls nodded as one, Ochaco informing him, "Pretty much."

"You lost 'cause you got too close," Asui added.

"Come on. How was I supposed to know she was that strong?" he complained.

"Why," Mina questioned suspiciously, "because she's a giiirl?"

Mineta started to edge away from him, even as Sero shrugged helplessly and replied, "Well, yeah."

I could practically feel the chill from the frosty looks the assembled heroines were giving the tape-dispensing boy.

"But, Ms. Mirko's a girl," Midoriya frowned in confusion, "And she's stronger than I am. Stronger than I am safely," he amended, getting subtly approving nods from Asui and Uraraka.

"Yeah, but she's a heteromorph. That doesn't..." He started to argue dismissively, trailing off.

"Go oooon," my heteromorphic girlfriend smiled with corrosive sweetness. "That doesn't what, Sero?"

The boy blinked, frozen in fear. "I, uh, that doesn't matter 'cause I've got tables to wait! See you later!" he declared, running back indoors, where it was safe.

Tenya coughed awkwardly. "I have other matters I must attend to. See you all tonight!" he called out, dashing off in the opposite direction, both boys leaving the feeling that they were running away.

The collected heroines turned their gazes on Mineta, who just shrugged, completely unbothered. "Hey, I knew Midnight was as dangerous as she is easy on the eyes. You girls want anything else 'fore I go inside?"

AN: Yep, We're Doing The Movies Too! Next Four Chapters Are Available On !