SSD III: Silver

78. Sparrow's Hat

Nezu was the kind of man who just had this stunningly powerful ability to piss off everyone in the vicinity without giving them a way to release that anger on him. It was truly quite the skill, of course, it also meant he had a lot of people who hated his guts, and Silver was one of them.

Which naturally, was all the reasoning she needed for the string of curses leaving her mouth as she stared out at the mess of random tools, scrap metal and devices that could probably cause a fair amount of destruction should they be knocked too hard.

So this was 2-H.

"Finally!" The shriek from behind her should not have surprised her so much, but she was hoping for someone calm to help her with her suit and judging by the pink hair, weird goggles and crazed look in her eye, Silver was going to be stuck in here with one Hatsume Mei for however long it took to come up with 'reasonable hero attire'. "I'm Mei," the girl introduced, practically tearing off Silver's hand and stepping far too close for comfort but hey, at this distance (of zero) Silver realised those crosses in her eyes Midoriya had mentioned looked a whole lot like crosshairs. Silver had to admit that was pretty cool. And it made sense considering her quirk: Zoom. It was pretty self-explanatory, but it allowed her to see things much more clearly than even Silver— who was blessed with pretty good vision if she did say so herself.

Come to think of it, a quirk like that had to be pretty useful in a support department. Working with fine electronics had to be a breeze for Mei, at least if her hands were steady enough.

"So tell me all about your current hero 'stume, I must know all."

Silver looked down at her body, at the stolen trainers, at the plain black clothes and finally at the jacket with sewn on holsters, patched up in places by hand. This was going to end badly, she could tell already. "You're looking at it," she confessed, ready for a meltdown of Vesuvian proportions. Silver didn't know Mei well, but she'd heard enough to know nothing was ever done in halves.

In Mei's defence, she seemed to take it much better than Silver had expected, though Silver didn't exactly enjoy the way she poked and prodded and glared daggers at the material of her leggings. There was faint pride at the approving nods to the holsters on the inside of her jacket, currently holding nothing but a pair of what Nezu deemed non-lethal firearms alongside a blunted knife. Truly, Silver felt Nezu underestimated her skill if he truly believed giving her weapons like those would actually minimise the likelihood of death to her enemies.

With little other choice, Silver sucked up the feeling of being some kind of lab animal as Mei continued to pinch at her clothes until the bundle of caffeinated energy (Silver didn't want to know if every mug on that desk cubicle belonged to Mei) finally stepped back, a constipated expression on her face. "It looks homemade, it's almost completely useless. There is no protection whatsoever, the leggings are just leggings, the top is just a top, those shoes look like they've been through hellfire twice, and I think I need holy water after seeing that jacket."

"Hey!"

"In fact, take that travesty off now, I'm burning it, it is not worthy of my babies."

Her what? Silver jumped back, arm firmly out, keeping Mei at a much more comfortable distance. "Look, you're right, this costume is homemade, it wasn't meant to be perfect, it was just supposed to do-"

"It has no protection, how are you alive?"

Good question. "Skills. Now are you going to help me upgrade or not?"

"Of course I am."

Silver found the sudden switch from a mixture of exasperation and horror to bubblier than a jacuzzi mildly unnerving.