Venom was just as affected by the high as Izuku had been. It was just that with all that additional muscles that could be broken apart without any harm to Venom himself, he was able to tank blows way, way better, and so, a battle of Endurance had really favored him.
...
He had made a grave error by standing there to Tank Uraraka's power blow, when Izuku knew that had it been him in his right mind in that position, he would have dodged instead. It wouldn't have been hard, there was plenty of space to work with.
Instead, he had decided to weather the blow head-on.
If there was a lesson to take for all of this, it was that not only did the sweet, amazing siren call of Chocolate drain his meager cash reserves at an astonishing rate, the high they produced was liable to get him killed in battle too.
Something to watch out for that was.
After having watched the fights through to a level of personal satisfaction, Izuku was struck by an idea. Or rather a question.
He quickly typed in the Kanji for Eren, curious to see what Mei had named this horrible, horrible orb of pain and suffering after.
The answer was an anime villain who had caused horrible pain and suffering by committing total genocide on the entire world in some old shonen series.
Well… It was a fitting name for something that caused nothing but pain and misery.
The gauntlets in turn were named after another character from the same series, though he didn't really get the reasoning as he had with Eren.
And finally, there was Luke, which was an obvious nod to Luke Skywalker, the main character of the various star wars universes.
Even he knew that much about non-hero pop culture.
Then there was Mei herself.
Early after she came home, He'd asked his mom about whether she knew her from some time they might have met sometime before.
Inko's answer had been a decisive no.
She had never in her life seen or heard about the girl before Yesterday.
That left him in the dark again, with his most likely source for an explanation of what the hell she had been talking about out, being as clueless as he was.
He did learn a bit about her on the web though. Mostly about her inventions, as her private life wasn't very well known.
As it turned out though, the girl was quite well known in the robotic community and had had a presence there well before she joined Yuei.
So, he could add her and everything about her to the list of things he didn't know. Along with the plans and organizations of All for One and the Big Man.
---
Izuku had been kinda worried that Mina would do something over the top with his taxi, and send a limo or something, but no, it was just a regular taxi, with a gruff older driver that asked for his name, took one look at his poofy green hair, and told him to get in.
The trip took half an hour or so, accompanied by the sights of Mustafa, and Venom's complaints that they could have made it way earlier by soaring above the city.
Finally, Izuku spotted the sight of Mina by the edge of the street playing with a cat.
She looked up at the sight of the taxi and burst into an adorable grin as she waved at Izuku.
As he stepped out and took in the sight of the street, Mina quickly paid the taxi driver behind him. The man quickly drove off after that, leaving the two teenagers, and an old, orange cat behind.
"Yo Midori! How'd the trip go?"
"I-It went fine."
Izuku had been expecting something big, maybe a house or manor, but instead he was greeted by the sight of a set of bigass stone walls on one side, and a police station on the other side. Black cat seemingly took her security very seriously.
"Do you like our walls?"
"They're… Pretty big."
And they were. At least 6 meters tall.
"Yeah… back when I was a kid, I used to pretend they were castle walls as I climbed them. Drove my parents completely bonkers. By the way, Midori, this is Johnson."
He turned, as Mina presented him with the big orange cat, which she had picked up while he was surveying the walls.
" Oh, um hi Johns-" He was cut short, as the cat tried to bite him as he reached forward.
His reflexes though made him pull back his hand instantly, leaving the cat to simply hiss at him, leaving Mina to awkwardly hold him as he began pushing himself off her, and the moment she let go he was up at her shoulder, angry face at Izuku.
Mina looked like she was about to chastise the feline, but before she could do so, the orange cat had leaped from her shoulder and disappeared off into the neighborhood.
"That's strange, he's usually such a sweetheart." Mina said as she pouted, hands-on-hips as she looked after the feline.
Today she was wearing a similar outfit to the one she had worn back when they had hanged out at the arcade, only now her hair was loose, and she had exchanged the t-shirt for a top that covered her upper chest and arms, but left her toned stomach bare.
Izuku felt his cheeks go red again as he realized what she was wearing, but he managed to hold it together without making a fool out of himself.
Mina's annoyed look changed to a smiling one, as she waved for him to follow towards a set of the wall with a couple of straight lines going up from the ground to the top.
"Anyway, you sure you're feeling up for this? Like, if you're not we can do this some other time."
And have her waste more money on two taxi drives.
"No, I'm fine. Really."
"Well, if you're sure dude."
She clicked on a small pink device she had been holding in her hand, and with a whirr of mechanical sound, part of the wall itself, the spot between the lines, lowered itself down into the ground.
"Welcome to Hardy-Ashido mansion Midori."
She turned and grinned, a wide-toothed grin, her arms to the sides as if she was showcasing something behind her.
What was behind her… Was a pretty large western-style house with 4 stories, and a pretty massive courtyard of grass all around it, with a few buildings here and there. A shack, a garage, a greenhouse, and what seemed to be a storage building.
It was a pretty luxurious house, but if it hadn't been for the massive walls, there was nothing that was truly unique about it.
"It's really…"
"Big? Outstanding? Spectacular?" The pride in Mina's voice was obvious.
"Yes, it is all of that." Venom piped in. "It sure beats your crappy, compressed, rundown apartment Izuku."
"Oh."
Mina faltered a bit. She had apparently not considered that this could look like it was her rubbing her wealth in his face.
"It-It's nice Mina. It looks great to live here." Izuku hastily interjected.
Her grin came back. Then she waved for him and Venom to follow as she closed the wall behind them with a click of the door opener.
"Well… To the right, we got the garage, not much to say about it, but over there we have the greenhouse. Dad grows all sort of dangerous and cool plants there, and over there is the shack tha-" She immediately stopped herself, and after a brief pause, she continued on in the stiffest, forced tone Izuku had ever heard her speak." That's full of our garden equipment and stuff like that. And over there we have our storehouse.
That's where we keep all the spare parts that dad uses for his research. It's connected to his lab, below the house so you can just drive the stuff in above, then lower it through an Elevator."
That was all interesting stuff, and Izuku would be lying to himself if he didn't want to see the Lab Black cat used for her tech for himself. At the moment though, his curiosity was more peaked about what was in the shed.
...
If you want to read ahead of the public release, or just want to support me.
You can join my p atreon :
[email protected]/Huvnn