『 Tinkering 』

〚 Story by: AyyyZelos 〛

As the girls escaped from the crossfire of their mother's anger they made their way back to their shared bedroom.

"Activate the entrance to the super secret lab!" said an eager Mei.

"Hai professor!" replied Rina in an equally excited tone, being swept up by Mei's over excited aura.

Rina went to the corner of the room and picked up the key to the 'super secret lab', a very thin metre long pole, which was used to push up the trapdoor and pull down the connected ladder.

Mei dragged over her toybox full of her successful 'babies' from her side of the room and told Rina to stand on it, doing so Rina pushed the pole into the trapdoor which ensued in the foldable aluminium ladder slowly unfolding and almost landing on top of the girls if they didn't escape quick enough.

The two girls then climbed up the ladder and fumbled around in the darkness for a while looking for the light switch. Shortly afterwards they found the switch and turned it on giving light to the previously dark room.

The room had wooden planks for floorboards and the same for the ceiling as it is the underside of the roof. Looking above herself Rina could see a bunch of horizontal beams in a crisscrossed fashion supporting the roof, giving it stability. There was a skylight window in the roof that allowed the sun's rays to shine through, giving the room some natural lighting.

The floor was covered in a transparent laminated sheet that looks as if it was there to protect the floor from being tarnished by anything.

On one side of the room, there was a few brown leather bean bags and a bookshelf that was packed to the brim with different textbooks and knowledge on various scientific subjects, the most commonly occurring being technology and anatomy. On the other side of the room was a bunch of disorganised materials and tools just scattered across the floor.

'So this is where Mei makes all her crazy exploding gadgets.'

"So Nee-san, shall we try and fix those wind shoes of yours?" suggested Rina whilst holding up the pair of red boots with metal vents on their sides.

"For your information, these babies are called 'Air assist boots' and you will call them as such." replied Mei in a reprimanding tone with a stern look on her face that just looked cute because of all of the baby fat on her cheeks.

"Okay, okay, tell me what's the problems with your babies then." sighed Rina, knowing she would never get her sister to stop fawning over her gadgets.

"Hmm, let's see." Mei fell deep into her thoughts "They were meant to suck in air through the vents on the sides and expel it from the bottom to make you fly, but they only let you glide for a bit before blowing up." She said with a scrunched up face, a clear side of thinking too hard.

'She's so adorable.' thought Rina as she squeezed Mei's chubby cheeks.

"Nooo shtop!" Mei pouted with tears threatening to burst out of her eyes like a pressurised dam.

It was at that moment that an idea sparked Rina's imagination.

'That could work, we may have to change the design of the soles but the rest should be salvageable' thought Rina.

Thinking back on how the air currents expelled from the gadget were a steady stream that would be suitable for hovering or gliding, Rina believed that she could change the purpose of the boots to be more interesting.

"Nee-san" Rina called out to a downhearted Mei "How about instead of letting the air flow steadily like a stream of water you could let it out it in charges, or all at once like a broken dam of water at high pressure."

As Mei thought about the idea her face adorned a huge smirk "Dummy! That won't let you fly you can only make big jumps with that." Seemingly proud of herself for proving her sister wrong.

"Yeah, but we can call it a prototype and rename it to 'Double jump boots' then we can make it better in the future versions until it can make us fly" suggested Rina.

[ A/n: The Super Mario double jump or the 'cloud in a bottle' from Terraria is the result of this prototype, whilst the flying boots she intended would work like the 'rocket boots' from Terraria. ]

"We'll have to change the bottoms of the boots then, the small holes won't be able to support high pressures. Maybe we could have one big hole in the centre of the sole to act as an exhaust pipe for the pressurised air to be expelled from." suggested Mei, showing off her intelligence and talent for inventing.

"That high pressure could hurt the wearer's feet so we should make the insides thicker or more comfortable, that could be done by fitting some memory foam insoles. The boots should also be on pretty tight so that there's no room for the wearer's feet to shake about."

"We could also make it so that the vents actively suck in air when someone wears it by adding a pressure pad to their insides and activate the shoes double jump ability by voice command or a button, maybe a motion sensor to work in tandem with your muscle contractions and activate the compressed air jump, yes this will be called 'baby number #7'."

"Maybe I could improve this to make a hover inducing device that can be controlled by tilting your body weight in the direction you want to go by adding 2 fan-like thrusters on the bottom of them and one on the back of the heel. It would also require a battery pack so it would be bulkier and could be incorporated into a mecha suit that boosts overall strength."

"The thrusters could also be used to cushion the landing after the wearer finishes their hover session by letting out a small pocket of air and then slowly decreasing the fan speed to an eventual stop, depending on the rotation speed of the turbines these could even generate flight but that will have to be determined after seeing the results. These 'Hover soles' will be called 'Baby number #8'."

(The hover boots idea was what Mei showed in the UA sports festival, I plan on making her babies much better and more versatile by the time that comes along so I made this earlier on)

As Mei went off on a tangent thinking about the different possibilities she could implement into the boots, Rina was in awe at her genius of a sister. She may have gotten the idea from her previous life's memories to use as a reference since she had seen similar tools and gadgets in different games and movies, but Mei had thought of a bunch of ideas on the spot displaying her talent and intelligence far surpassing a common 4 year old and maybe even some older children. [ A/N: 3 years and 10 months is almost 4 years old, so don't bully me on this one ]

'Nee-san is already this talented of an inventor that with only a little push she could think of improvements for her babies, If I gave her more ideas based on games and different comics I've seen before her dream of being the number one inventor in the whole world could become a reality' thought an astounded and proud Rina, having played a part in the creation of one of Mei's babies.

[ A/N: I can already HEAR the goddamn smirks on you people. Lemme say this once there will be NO incest at all. ]

Unbeknownst to Rina her 'little push' would one day bring about a revolution in the hero support gear industries and cement the Hatsume Enterprise as the most technologically advanced company in the world, far surpassing I-island in technology, quirk development and renown.