Capítulo 2005: 24
Chapter 24: Friendship Summary:
The day after the USJ.
Notes:
I am so sorry that this chapter is so late!
Huge shout out to everyone on my discord server for giving me so many ideas for this chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They cancelled school the day after the USJ attack to increase security, which meant that Izuku was bored. Normally, he'd be taking notes on heroes or cool quirks that he saw on the news, but all that the news was covering was the attack and he...wasn't quite ready to think about that yet. He knew that he should analyze Shigaraki's quirk or Kurogiri's warp quirk or even the Nomu's mess of quirks, but every time he thought about the whole attack, he just froze. Hound Dog had pulled both him and Mei aside before they left school the day before and warned him that something like that might happen and that it was normal and expected, but he still felt guilty and frustrated. He didn't understand it! It's not like the villain's quirks weren't interesting! He just...couldn't bring himself to think about them without panicking about the fact that he'd challenged a powerful villain or thinking through everything he did wrong that led to Thirteen and Eraserhead being hurt.
What he really wanted to do was work on his quirk reports for the first years, but that required the notebooks in his workroom and the students' files, which could only be accessed from a UA computer. He'd already emailed Nedzu asking if he could come in and work on them, but had been told to take a well-deserved rest, so he'd, only half-jokingly, texted Mei and asked if she'd be down to help him break into UA.
She'd said no.
So here Izuku was, scrolling through his keep watching section of Netflix for the fifth time because nothing sounded good. It sucked.
Izuku was just debating whether it'd be worth it to get takeout for lunch when someone started pounding on the door. Izuku jumped a foot in the air and somehow ended up hiding behind the couch. Had the villains found him somehow? Was his poor attempt at a persona not enough to hide him.
Izuku frowned as the person outside knocked again. Shigaraki wouldn't knock. He'd just disintegrate the door. Same with Kuroguri. If he knew where Izuku lived, he'd warp straight into the house. But if it wasn't the villains, then who could it be?
"Izu-kun! I swear to God, if you went to UA on your own!"
Izuku squeaked and raced to throw open the door and let Mei in. She already had her arm raised to knock again while Shinso stood next to her looking slightly lost. Mei didn't waste any time pushing past him and dragging him back into his apartment by the hand.
"M-Mei-Chan!" Izuku stuttered. "Not that I'm not happy, but why are you here?"
"Making sure you don't do something stupid, apparently." Shinso deadpanned.
"Hey!" Izuku gave him a glare, then started grumbling under his breath, "It's not like I would have broken into UA on my own, that'd be stupid."
Shinso raised an eyebrow, "Like breaking into UA at all wouldn't be."
"Yeah, Izu-kun!" Mei said. "Look what happened to those villains yesterday! They had to deal with you!"
"Mei-Chan! That's supposed to me a secret!" Izuku glanced over at Shinso in a panic, but he just shrugged.
"She already told me you guys were involved when she texted me and dragged me here." Shinso said. "And it's not like everyone didn't already know there was an attack. Honestly, I'm not even surprised, you two are like...chaotic deities or something. Plus, there had to be a reason why I found you cuddling under your desk during lunch instead of eating."
Mei cackled over the sound of Izuku spluttering, "Oh Extra-Credit-Kun! You know us so well already! Plus, I had to tell him because I needed an extra brain."
Shinso's eyes widened slightly before almost immediately going back to his default bored expression, "You really need to practice not sounding ominous."
"Eh, that's boring." Mei shrugged and slammed her notebook open on the coffee table, "Look that these!"
Izuku and Shinso both leaned over the notebook and Izuku froze when he realized what was inside, "What...Mei-chan! I don't need a logo!"
Mei scoffed, "Of course you need a logo, Izu-kun! Imagine! Heroes are looking for the perfect analyst to help them on an important mission. Who else are they gonna pick besides Cheat Code! The victor of the USJ!"
Shinso didn't bother hiding his laughter as Izu-kun blushed and covered his face with his arms, "Mei-chan!"
"Hence why I needed Shiso." Mei huffed. "So! Extra-Credit-Kun! Which of these ideas is your favorite?"
"Hey!"
Shinso grinned at him and pulled the notebook toward him, "Hmm...oooh, these are cool!"
"Yep!" Mei grinned. "I'm thinking about making stamps, maybe even a paper embosser, you know, one of those texture things that leaves an imprint on the page?"
"Oh, I like that idea!" Shinso said, still grinning. The traitor. He was enjoying this, wasn't he?
"Me too!" Mei said. "It'll be perfect for when Izu-kun finishes his reports on the first years, because then he can just put his logo on the final page and…"
Izuku finally got enough control over his vocal chords to stop mindlessly sputtering and interrupt the two before they plotted to make him famous or something, "Guys! Don't I get any say in this?"
"Of course, Izu-kun!" Mei said sweetly. "You can pick the logo."
Izuku scowled at her, but when she didn't give in, he sighed and pulled the notebook toward him. Shinso wasn't lying, they were really cool. There were a few in various stages of completion from where Mei had obviously gotten bored before finishing them, but they still gave him a really good idea of what was going through her head as she designed them. She had obviously tried to lean into the gamer aesthetic with Cheat Code, which Izuku could appreciate, even if he really didn't want a logo.
A few of them were based on the d-pad from video game controllers, with different colors on each button. A few of them looked more like crosses, while others had buttons and others were more stylized. One even showed the d-pad on the controller, which Izuku thought was a nice touch, even if it made the logo look a little busy. Another one had the same problem, even though it went with a more hacking or PC gaming aesthetic. It was a laptop, and on the screen it had his codename written as if it was a piece of coding. There were only a few keys on the keyboard, though...just the A, the B and the spacebar, which said Start for some reason.
"Mei, why is this computer so weird?" Izuku finally asked. "I wouldn't be able to code anything with that keyboard! And why just those keys?"
"It's because it's based on a famous cheat code." Shinso said. When Mei and Izuku both turned to stare at him, he shrugged defensively, "What? No one wanted to play with the future villain, so I ended up spending a lot of time playing video games."
"No one wanted to play with me either, but I ended up chasing hero fights." Izuku pointed out.
"And I ended up inventing." Mei added. "But that's not important! Didn't you look at how Cheat Code is written?!"
Izuku leaned down to see the paper a little better, "Y-you mean the arrows on some of the letters."
"Ugh!" Mei groaned. "Izu-kun, you're hopeless! I thought you were supposed to be super nerdy!"
"That doesn't mean I know everything about video games!" Izuku yelled.
"I spent forever on that!"
"I"m sorry!"
"It's a stylized version of the Konami code." Shinso interrupted. "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, b, a, start. The arrows are all in your codename. Two ups on the h, two downs on the A, one left and one right on the T, another left and right on the E. Then the rest of the code is on the keyboard. It's a nice touch."
"O-oh." Izuku looked a little closer. "That makes sense."
The more he looked at it, he really liked the stylized way that one was written, with the arrows paying homage to a real cheat code. Honestly, it looked kinda bad-ass, like it was something that Katsuki would be jealous of.
Which obviously meant that Izuku had to have it.
He still didn't like the laptop though, "Would it be possible to combine that writing with one of the others?"
"Of course!" Mei said excitedly. "One of the advantages of that one is that you could just use it on it's own and use it as a signature if anyone ever asks for your autograph!"
...and now he was blushing again, "Mei-chan! I'm an analyst! No one's ever going to ask me for my autograph!"
"Never say never, Izu-kun!" Mei cackled.
"Can we just pick one of combine it with?" Izuku pouted.
"I like this one." Shinso pointed to the page, "Though I'm also partial to the ones with glitching effects, but they would be hard to use as a signature."
"I'm not going to be signing anything!" Izuku insisted. He looked at the logo Shinso was pointing to, which was one of the d-pad inspired ones. Each button was like an arrow pointing to the center and the top three were purple, green, and pink, while the bottom one just said Cheat Code. "I like it, but what do the colors mean?"
"They're us!" Mei said proudly.
Shinso blinked at her, "...what?"
"See!" Mei gestured animatedly toward the page, "Pink for me! Green for Izu-kun! And purple for Extra-Credit-Kun!"
Shinso was trying to hide his nervousness under a layer of skepticism, but to Izuku, he just looked slightly nauseous, "Why am I on there?"
Mei shrugged, "I needed another color and you're the first person I thought of."
"We could probably use another color!" Izuku offered quickly. "Why not orange for Powerloader?"
"Then the colors would clash!" Mei complained. "Purple works best."
Izuku really didn't want to make Shinso uncomfortable, which being included on the logo was clearly doing, "How about we just make those three buttons black? Then they'll contrast well with the white button and we can put the styled Cheat Code signature on that one."
"Ooh! I like it!" Mei said. "I still like the color, but black and white will work well too. It's all techie!"
Shinso shot Izuku a grateful look and he smiled back as Mei quickly sketched out the new logo, "What do you think?"
Izuku and Shino leaned over the page and Izuku couldn't hold back a smile. Even though he still didn't think he needed a logo, it had turned out pretty cool and it was a fun thing to do with his friends. He liked it.
"Now all that's left is to engrave it onto everything you own." Shinso said with a shit-eating grin.
Nevermind. Next time they needed to pull Shinso out of class, Izuku was going to send Mei. See how he liked being called Extra-Credit-Kun in front of his whole class. What? He was just practicing being petty!
Notes:
Here were some the various ideas that Mei had in her notebook (from the discord).
X X X X X
And the final logo!
X
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder