My Hero Automata

Chapter 46: I-Island (Expo Day 1)

Summary: Day 1 of the Expo, including an unexpected meeting...

Chapter 46: I-Island (Expo Day 1)

... ...

The I-Expo was a grand event, lasting an entire week, but the first day was always the most chaotic. Unlike the rest of the heroic's students, Momo and Izumi were busy working, but this was also hardly their first Expo. While Melissa was their only R&D employee on the island, that didn't mean she was the only employee they had on staff at all. Aegis was, in fact, considered one of the more desirable places to work by the non-scientist population of the island. Izumi and Momo had always maintained a policy that you get what you pay for, and paid their employees extremely well as a result, by virtually any standard. Add in quite a few extra perks and the satisfaction of knowing you're working for a business making a real difference. Then top it all off with the local boss being an extremely hot blonde who seemed oblivious to the fact half the staff had crushes on her. The predicable result was that Aegis Inc had highly loyal and highly competent people staffing its I-Island lab and offices.

That fact meant that the vast majority of the visitors to their booth and its displays of new hardware were handled smoothly by said highly competent staff. Generally, since Aegis was privately held and didn't accept investors, only fellow engineers and scientists made it through the subtle screen around Izumi, Momo, and Melissa. That screen was extra effective since all the employees had perfectly reasonable excuses to be wearing state-of-the-art Hero Scouters...which just incidentally identified and sorted everyone that visited the booth. A bit Big Brother, perhaps. But, given that the entirety of I-Island possessed similar systems built right into their security, and it wasn't exactly a new violation of privacy to anyone who'd bothered to actually read the waivers they signed to come to the island.

All of which meant that the people that got through the screen to interact with them were the sorts of people that even Izumi was often outright excited to speak to. Such was the case with their current, entirely unexpected visitor-of-the-moment. One that had gotten through the screen not because she was an inventor or scientist, but because she was a Hero, and the staff was well aware how much of a Hero Nerd one of their bosses was.

"Ohmygoshyou'reStarandStripe!"

The muscular, 6'4" woman in strikingly similar colors to All Might blinked in surprise as Izumi seemed to simply appear in front of her. Clearly not quite used to someone managing to do that without her being able to track it happening, the woman was off put for a moment...but only for a moment. Then, in another eerily familiar act, the large woman threw her head back and laughed. For all that it was pretty blatantly an action modeled after All Might, it seemed quite genuine, with the Heroine ending with a grin.

"You have got to be the 'Young Midoriya' that my Master has told me about! Good to meet one of the few others All Might has trained personally, kid!"

She leveled her fist up to Izumi, who practically squeed at Star and Stripe's signature offer, putting a decent bit of her own strength into returning the Fist Bump. The Heroine only grinned harder at feeling the power in that tap, even as she turned her attention to Momo, who had disengaged from a talk with an aerospace inventor. The inventor, clearly an American himself, only grinned at the exchange and passed Melissa a contact card.

"And you've got to be the other one! Yaoyorozu, right? I hope I didn't mangle that too much, bit of a mouthful!"

Momo chuckled at that, more than used to foreigners having trouble with her name. Her family's conglomerate was thoroughly multi-national, after all. She offered her own hand for a Fist Bump, already knowing from her girlfriend's occasional ramblings that this woman wasn't one for formality.