Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 50: Salt

Izuku may have looked calm on the outside, but inside he was panicking. On the one hand, it was super good to have found the hive because that meant that he could capture one of the bees and see if he had any more luck hacking them, but on the other...he hadn't actually been expecting to find the hive!!! The first day he'd looked, sure, he'd been expecting to find something and so had brought along a bento box to hold the bee in, but then Mom had lost hers and needed something to put her lunch in and Izuku hadn't even really thought about it before handing her his, which meant that even though he had written a program that basically acted as virtual honey to attract a bee, he had no way of actually containing one.

But, well, he hadn't actually ever had the tools to be successful as a vigilante, had he? He'd basically just gone out and figured it out as he went using whatever he could find, so...Izuku looked around the diner. What could he use? It needed to be strong, since the bee might try to escape and since it was quirk-made it was most likely quite a bit stronger than a typical bee, so anything plastic was out. He could trap the bee between the table and his milkshake glass, but then he wouldn't be able to take it anywhere else, which wouldn't be good if the hive somehow registered him as a threat. He wasn't stupid enough to take it home, those things probably had trackers, but if he could at least put a little bit of distance between himself and the hive, it'd be better than nothing. So what...?

Izuku's eyes caught on the small glass salt and pepper shakers sitting next to the napkins and he groaned internally. Mom would be so mad! If he did what he was thinking, he wouldn't be a very polite customer, but if he didn't, he wouldn't be a very polite vigilante. Why did he have to make these kinds of decisions? And he couldn't just dump it out all over the table! Denki, the waitress, everyone in this diner would think he was crazy. And however true that might be, it probably wasn't the best idea to just admit it!

"Uh, you ok there Izuku?" Denki's voice knocked him out of his thoughts and he glanced up to see Denki looking at him with concern. "It's ok if I was boring you! You know you can tell me to shut up, but uh, you're looking at the salt like it personally offended you...."

"No! You're fine! I'm fine!" Izuku waved his hands frantically. "It's just...uh...it's not, well...it's an experiment?"

"Looking at the salt is an experiment?" Denki cocked one eyebrow skeptically.

Izuku grimaced, "No? But uh...I was just thinking about how um, like you were saying, with the ions and because water is polar, it uh, the salt will conduct electricity? Maybe? I'm sorry, it's probably really dumb."

Denki grinned, "Nah, you're good. Let's try it! Wait, what are we trying again."

"Um, I'm not really sure." Izuku trailed off and grabbed his water and the salt shaker. "But let's start by..."

He unscrewed the top off the salt shaker and upended it into the water, sending an apologetic smile toward the waitress, who thankfully wasn't paying attention as she served another table. With any luck, they'd be gone before she noticed that he'd pocketed the salt shaker. Oh, he was such a bad customer, he'd never be able to come here again and then he'd have to tell Denki that he couldn't flirt with the waitress anymore because he'd stolen a salt shaker!

Izuku shook his head. He could worry about that later, for now he had a mission. He turned to his laptop and started his virtual honey program on it's lowest possible setting before opening up another window and frantically googling experiments with electricity and salt water. If he didn't attract any bees, he could modify it so that the attraction was stronger, but since he was basically sitting inside the hive, as far as he knew, the last thing he wanted was to get swarmed by trigger bees. They probably wouldn't affect him, what with him being quirkless and all, but it would draw more attention than he wanted.

"Ok, um...according to this website, we would need a lightbulb." Izuku looked at Denki "Do we have one of those?"

"Uh..." Denki glanced up. "Probably best if we don't steal the one over the table, right?"

Izuku chuckled awkwardly and checked to make sure his program was running correctly before moving to the next experiment in the list, "Uh...maybe just see if you can shock me?"

Denki glared at him, but Izuku simply smiled back, "Come on! It's not like you've never shocked me before!"

Denki chuckled and shook his head, "I guess you're right! Let's do it!"

"Perfect!" Izuku smiled and stuck one finger in the glass. "Now you stick your finger in too and make sure you're not touching me, then use a tiny bit of electricity."

Denki shrugged and Izuku felt the now familiar feeling of static running through him. It didn't hurt, but Izuku knew his Mom would complain about how the electricity wasn't helping his curls behave when he got home. Denki was getting a lot better at control at low voltages too, considering that he was able to just give a tingling shock, rather than a large one.

"It feels tingly, so the salt is definitely working." If Izuku wasn't currently concentrating on three different things, he'd definitely be scribbling in his notebook right now.

"But, I wasn't really trying yet." Denki frowned. "Like, I wasn't trying to not produce electricity, but I also hadn't started putting electricity into the water yet."

Izuku's eyes widened and he caught movement in the corner of his eye. He glanced over toward the wall to see a bee, metallic body glinting in the light, crawling toward his laptop curiously. Keeping one eye on the bee as it got closer, he grabbed the empty salt shaker and forced his attention back to the experiment, "Uh, that's actually pretty cool! I mean, it makes sense that your natural level of electricity is higher than the average person's but it also means that the salt is probably slightly amplifying the electricity as well as conducting it. Does that make sense?"

"That's awesome!" Kaminari said loudly. Izuku winced as the bee almost flew away, but thankfully the digital honey he was using to attract it was slightly stronger than whatever told it to mimic a real bee's instinct. "Does that mean that if I had a bottle of salt water or something as part of my costume, I could use it to make myself stronger."

Izuku glanced at the waitress, who was glancing around and looking at their table suspiciously, probably because their experiment and volume was starting to bother other guests. Time to wrap this up.

"It'll probably be best to give you some range and set traps." Izuku theorized. He hid his hands behind his laptop screen and carefully scooped the bee into the salt shaker as it crawled across his keyboard before quickly transferring it into his lap and screwing on the lid. "I, uh, think we should try some stuff at the park this weekend, but uh, we should probably leave before things get too shocking. Right? Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." Kaminari pouted. "Alright, fine. I'll ask the electricians at work about it too, see what experiments they recommend."

"Good idea!" Izuku quickly stopped the program and shut down his laptop as he nonchalantly crammed the now vibrating salt shaker deep in his pocket. "I'll bring a light bulb too!"

"That's a great idea!" Denki laughed. "Actually, with all these great ideas, maybe we won't need it. I mean, a lightbulb's bound to appear above one of our head's eventually, right?"

Izuku forced himself to remain calm as they paid for their milkshakes and left. The waitress hadn't seemed to notice the missing salt shaker, but she definitely seemed to realize something was off, even if she didn't seem to be able to tell that it was Izuku. He only breathed a sigh of relief once he had waved goodbye to Denki and made his way to a rooftop a few blocks away, taking out the saltshaker, complete with a now kind of angry evil bee, to assure himself that he had actually taken it.

Mission successful.