A Silent Kind of Strength

Chapter 14

For the next hour the two science nerds distracted themselves with the thrill of exploration. They found several interesting little niches and hideaways. Mei promised to show Shinso while he was in the business exam.

They had to run to make it back to the auditorium in time to meet up with the purple menace before they switched spots with him. They only had time for the hero hopeful to give them an exhausted grin, wishing them luck, before the support kids were called into the auditorium. From there they were split into groups of ten, about twenty groups total, and led out into the school. Izuku may have cried a bit when he realized Mei was in his group.

They ended up in an empty classroom. There were no desks, just a large area up front and three chairs for the proctors. They were made to line up in the back of the room and told to be quiet or else they would have to wait for their turn in the hallway.

And so, the presentations began. They were given free reign over the space at the front and the smart board hanging on the wall. But they only had 5 minutes to set up and 15 to present what they had brought. The other presentations were interesting. A kid brought a whole slew of rolled up blueprints, all of the gadgets he had drawn up were based around the idea he had for a gravity destabilizer. Another pulled six different fully made costumes from her bag. How she managed to fit so much cloth and so many accessories into that tiny satchel was the work of black magic he was sure.

Mei was practically vibrating beside him the whole time. Fidgeting with the ring on her left hand in an attempt to not start asking questions he was sure. He himself kept his hand firmly planted between his teeth as he mentally prepared the notes he would scrawl into his journals later.

Mei was called up in the middle of the group. Honestly Izuku thought her display was the most fun. She plugged her phone up to the smart board and opened up the file that held her blue prints and scattered them across the wall sized screen with an artistic flourish. Then pulled her kinetic energy converter prototype from her bag. He prayed it wouldn't explode again. She hopped in place as she excitedly told them about how her idea came into fruition. How she had to hurtle roadblocks in the construction of her prototype. And how much joy it brought her when she got it to work. Before spending the last 5 minutes of her slot breaking down the science behind the thing and letting the adults pass it around for a closer look.

From the looks on their faces she had a good chance at getting into the support department

Izuku, of course, had the bad luck of being last. He knew by this point the judges were probably bored and ready to go home for the day. He prepared himself to do whatever he could to grab their attention. As the kid before him put away the last of the hybrid tools into his bag, the green haired teen typed a few rapid commands into his phone. As his name was called he took a deep breath and hit send.

The result was instantaneous. The shutters on the windows slammed shut and the lights in the room went out. Startled screams rang out as the smart board lit up brightly, scrolling rapidly through folders of notes and flashing diagrams and plans across the screen. Before landing with two blueprints pulled up front and center. He stepped lightly up to the front of the work and let his bag thump to the floor. "Good afternoon." He said with a small grin. "I hope I didn't scare you, but the darkness will make sense here in a minute."

He tried not to feel ridiculous as he delved into his speech, "To give you a little bit of backstory I only started on the path of design and creation a little under a year ago. You see, in my second year of middle school I was deafened by a misused quirk. With my profound hearing loss I was unable to function properly without the use of hearing aids. But, there was an issue there as well. You see the aids my mother was able to afford just weren't cutting it. One loud sound and they fell apart, just like my hearing. So I did some research, spent a couple of late nights, and came out the other end with these," he gestured over his left shoulder at the schematics for his hearing aids. "And a new love for the art of support items." He swiped across his phone screen and the left side of the board started slowly scrolling through his other carefully drawn ideas for future projects. He gave the proctors a second to absorb some of them as he delved into his bag for the next 'prop'.