"Scooter... Brothers?" Othelia looked lost.

"Air... bike?" Eleanor even more so.

"Lune, correct me if I'm wrong here, but..." Issei sighed, "You're saying it'd be faster for us to fuck around with trying to recreate my uncle's rat airbike than to just go by boat?"

"Am I wrong?" I asked.

Thinking about it logically, only four of us can go to the Archipelago anyways, and back when we were traveling their world the airbike could handle five of us just fine. It was me, Issei, Freddy, Juavez and Sandy, yet the bike worked without a hitch. Even if it takes us a while to get the bike up and working, it'll surely take less time than going through the arduous journey of land/seafaring.

"Hell no, I refuse." Issei crossed the idea down immediately, "I hated that damned thing with a burning passion. There's no amount of money you would have to pay me in order for me to allow it to crush my balls again."

"What the hell kind of a vehicle are they talking about?" Eleanor worriedly asked Othelia.

"I imagine the kind that didn't provide the best seating." She gave a quick, witty reply.

"Issei, it's for Nelly." I pressured him, "Besides, I really hate wagon rides, so it's me or you."

"Then it's not for Nelly's sake as much as it is just you being selfish!" Issei shouted, "Dammit, do you even know how to make an airbike? It's something that didn't even exist when I left my world! In other words, it's future tech!"

"Future tech your uncle cobbled together in his mother's basement by his lonesome without any prior degrees in the field." I pointed out, "Plus, he said he had made his only a bit after you came here. Not that futuristic, after all."

"Futuristic or not, I'm still heavily against it." He shook his head, "Dude, I'm all up for modernizing the world with you again, but both you and I know that rushing these things will almost always lead to failure."

"So what?" I reassured him, "It's not like it's our first time screwing stuff up when it came to inventing. Remember the energy drink? It took us weeks of mixing different ingredients, trying them out, having a God-awful time in the bathroom later, and then trying again until we eventually got the recipe down. Trial and error!"

"Is that why you never let us buy energy drinks?" Othelia stifled her laughter.

"Now I kinda don't wanna drink them..." Eleanor shivered.

"You're missing the point, Lune." Issei explained it to me slowly, "With the energy drinks, the worst we had to deal with was a bad stool. With this world's first flying vehicle that relies on energy sources that don't even exist yet, we'll have to deal with a lot more."

"Are you afraid we're gonna fall?" I asked with an unserious chuckle, "Come on, are you forgetting I can just Materialize us some parachutes?"

"And if we mess up the construction and the megavolt battery explodes?" He asked, "Remember, the engine is powerful enough to kill a shark and still have more than enough to leave you a stuttery mess just from getting grazed by the electric current. Nelly'd rather we come in a month's time than not at all. Seriously, have you learned nothing from that plane crash you saved us from?"

"Ah..."

Dammit, he's making a whole lotta sense now. I guess I did kind of rush ahead with the idea, but it'd sure be convenient to have with us right now! With an airbike of our own, we could make it to the island in just a day or two, but it could take well over a month if we go the route we had initially planned. It'd shave off a lot of time, but I guess we really don't know how to make it by ourselves.

"Issei's world truly is amazing with all its wonders..." Eleanor pouted, "Damn you, Lune. We should've been the ones to see them."

"I really would like to go on a ride on it." Othelia clung to Issei, "Sigh, but too bad. Looks like it's just impossible for you to make."

"Your tricks won't work this time, girls." Issei was unfazed, "You might think I'm exaggerating, but it really is super dangerous for us amateurs to try our hand at making an airbike. If we mess up even one wire or solder, it could blow up the entire neighborhood!"

"Someone's scared~!" Eleanor tried to tease him into agreeing.

"Hell yeah I am, woman!"

Seeing him not budge in the slightest on this, they apparently had no other choice but to pull out all the stops.

"Sigh, we'll wear those sexy cosplays you bought us for Eleanor's birthday." Othelia slouched, "The sailor uniform ones."

"H-Hey, I didn't agree to that." Eleanor blushed, "And don't go revealing that in front of Lune!"

"You girls are willing to go this far for my sake...?" I was brought to tears by this, "Then I guess I should do my best as well!"

"Lune?" Issei tilted his head.

"Issei!" I proudly put both hands on my hips and announced, "I'll wear a sailor uniform for you too!"

In the end, it turned out the sailor uniform the girls were referring to wasn't the one I was familiar with, judging by their reactions at least. Apparently, the ones he had made for them had long Red/White striped thighhighs, a marine Blue mini skirt and a very small White button up crop top that showed a fair amount of underboob. Oh, and straps, a bunch of them. Yep, definitely not the standard wardrobe of a sailor I had in mind. Honestly, I just thought he liked sailing, how naive of me. Sigh, and here I was, wondering why they called it sexy too...

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***

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"Alright, alright, I'll do it." Issei gave in, "But I don't wanna see your dumbass in a sailor uniform, Lune!"

"N-Noted..." I scratched my cheek.

Walking outside of the house and into their yard, we had tried to mimic our old workflow from back when I was the Famed Inventor as closely as possible. Namely, the first step was always charting out all the rest.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"So, what all do we need for this?" Issei asked.

"Huh?" I glanced back at him dumbfounded, "I thought you'd know."

"Why would I-? Okay, whatever, we can figure out the necessary components later, but for now we should at least think about how it works." Issei facepalmed, "I think uncle said that the propellers at the bottom are the ones that give lift, but that's gonna open up a whole other can of worms."

"How so?"

"How many propellers does an airbike have?" He asked me.

"That's simple—Six." I proudly crossed my arms.

"Alright then, what's their diameter?"

"U-Uhh..."

"Their RPM?"

"Well, that's..."

"See what I mean? We need to know all these factors before we can even begin work on anything else." Issei shook his head, "Cause if we mess that up, either we won't have enough lift and fall, or it'll be too much and we'll get sent into the stratosphere."

"So, what can we do about that?" I Materialized a pencil and some paper to start the brainstorm session.

"Well, I think in these scenarios people always start small, then work their way up." Issei figured, "Why don't we first try to make a mini replica with smaller batteries. That way when we get the correct "feel" of the miniature, we can just size it up proportionally."

"Hm, well, we can certainly try."

And try we did, because thanks to my mastered Materialize and our combined matured intellect, the mini replica was done in a flash! Really, back in the day this would've taken us a few days in and of itself! I really do sometimes underappreciate my Iro Abilities. Then again, this thing's not even a tenth of the size of the original, so maybe that also played a huge part in the creation time.

"Okay, ready?" Issei held the keys to the ignition, "As soon as I twist this, the small metal weight on the pedal should send it flying straight up. From then on, it's your job to tell me if that full throttle is "too much" or "too little"."

"Wait, could you explain why I have to do it?" I raised my hand to ask.

"I told you, didn't I?" He tilted his head, "I'll be busy running under it to try and grab it when it falls, so you'll have to be in charge of measuring the strength of the propellers."

Heh, I knew that. But you guys didn't, so I just had to ask again. Be thankful you have such a kind and gracious storyteller~!

"Three, two...!" Issei turned the key before jumping back, "One!"

The moment the keys bridged the contact to the rest of the system, the propellers began to spin rapidly. Our gazes shot up as we looked at the plain Blue sky, but one thing was off.

"Where's the airbike?" Issei asked.

"Ah, found it." I looked back down to see it still standing in the same spot it was before ignition, "Guess 9 volts really wasn't enough, after all."

"Well, hold on now." Issei carefully approached the vehicle to inspect the spinning rotors, "...Dammit Lune, you put half of them on backwards!"

"Eh? That shouldn't matter, should it?"

"Of course it does, idiot!" He fussed, "The forces are cancelling each other out! Ugh, how do we turn this off? We need to turn them around properly."

"Oh, I don't think we can." I shrugged, "I just kind of expected it to explode or something, so I didn't really make a killswitch."

"What?" He glared at me, "Then what do we do now?"

"Well, wait for the batteries to run out before taking out the key." I shrugged, "Unless you want to jump in that pit of spinning deathblades while they're still running."

After glancing back and forth between the airbike and me, he pinched the bridge between his Eyes before sitting down on the grassy field and resigning himself to wait. The loud propellers eventually garnered the attention of the rest of the neighborhood, causing everyone to run out of their houses to see what was wrong. I'm sure they definitely didn't expect to see whatever the hell was on Issei's yard, though.

"This is...?" Cecily asked.

"Airbike." I replied, "We kinda messed it up, though."

"What does it do?" Ed asked.

"It's supposed to be able to fly us wherever we want, but..." Issei sighed, "We kinda messed it up, though."

"That thing can carry a person's weight?" Anna furrowed her brows, "It's maybe not even Cene's size!"

"This is just a smaller prototype for safety reasons. The final product will be able to carry 5 fully grown adults no problem." I sulked, "We kinda messed it up, though.

"It's loud, is it gonna explode or something?" Sigmund and Camilla worried.

"Well, we were supposed to be able to turn it off, but..." Issei hid his face behind his knees, "We kinda messed it up, though."

"You guys don't need to repeat that every time you say something, you know?" Othelia got tired of the bit real quick.

"So, you're just waiting for it to stop on its own before trying again?" Ed raised an Eyebrow.

"Nah, I don't think we'll be doing that anymore." I said plainly.

"Eh!? Don't give up already!" Issei jolted.

"That's not what I meant." I smirked, "Since we already have the blueprints for the megavolt, I think we should instead work based on that! Instead of trying to make a smaller version and scale it up, I think it'll be smarter to just cut the middle man and go big!"

"So you're throwing caution into the wind again?" Cecily joked, "And here I was wondering where my usual reckless husband went..."

"Issei, next time it'll work for sure!" I raised my hand up for a high five, "We know what all the issues are, so now it's just a matter of not making any more stupid mistakes in the construction phase like we did this time!"

"That, and waiting for the propellers on this one to stop." He pointed to the damned thing.

"Oh, right..." I sat back down sheepishly, "Guess it's gonna be a while before we can start working on the next one."