The Sularian Academy was responsible for producing some of the realm's most gifted minds and also some of the most….eccentric minds as well. Emmanuel was in the former category, having graduated at an age younger than most and specialized in engineering. For the next hundreds of years, he would undersee various fruitful projects all while being a frequent guest speaker at the Academy which during one of those visits, he met with a bright mind attending by the name Bakura. He took a keen interest in the lad and soon they developed a good friendship which turned into an equally well professional relationship when Bakura graduated. When it came to alchemy, Emmanuel would turn to him and vice versa when it came to construction. So today hadn’t been so odd to him that his friend would appear at his house within the Purple Court.

He led him to his back porch and pour her some blueberry tea. “A problem? Of what sort?”

Emmanuel sat down and pour some in a cup as he listened in. “A big problem wrapped up in a small package.” His host snickered a bit and set the kettle down onto the table. “Haven’t heard you complain about someone since that you went to the Academy with that one girl….”

Bakura made a face as if he was in serious pain before he brought his cup to his lips. He knew which devil he had meant and it reminded him of when their precious school was nearly blown up completely. “Marin…yeah…well it's her cousin I fear now. You heard of the pier incident that took place a bit ago?”

“Sheesh, that was her? Heard it took forever to fix it back up. Seems that family is a big pain, especially since they are born from the royals.” He recalled hearing about a wave of bizarre accidents and mishaps occurring, but all from some young girl?

“Well, she’s too smart for her own good. The youngest graduate that had been seen. I know because I was one of the judges that oversaw it.” Bakura groaned, knowing that despite his harsh judgment, he couldn’t fail her. Tempest was a genius- a mad genius but genius nonetheless. “If this keeps going on, they will revoke her license and I can’t imagine that it will turn out well.”

“So, what can be done?”

“I came to speak to you to see if you can oversee her inventions and make sure they aren’t going to end up killing people and destroying properties.”

“Hm… He gave it some thought as he leaned back into his chair. It wouldn’t be farfetched if he did- it was a favor to a friend, though it didn’t seem like it could be as bad as his friend made it sound like. “How old is the girl?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen? My, they keep getting younger and younger each time”, he chuckled before lifting his cup. “Fine then. We can fill out the appropriate paperwork later. Take me to her soon. I would like the chance to meet with the little stormbird herself.”

After they drank and caught up, the two made their way to the White Rose Mansion and they were met by Blaine. “She’s at her workshop”, he sighed and looked to Toya. “Don't’ think she’s blown anything up lately, which means she’s up to something big.”

Emmanuel simply nodded while Bakura gave them all wide eyes before Blaine led them to the lair of doom. “Hey, you got some visitors, Tempest.”

“Hello, young lady. I’m Emmanuel. I am here to see what sort of inventions you have created”, he offered with a smile as his green eyes laid onto the prodigy.

The moment the door opened a brunet boy Tempest's age charged out pushing past them screeching at the top of his lungs, "NO NO NO NO NO–GET DOWN!!!" One second after the entire workshop was rocked by a violent explosion–sending dust and debris everywhere. Belen had triggered his Concordat of Conclave ring's protective magic in the nick of time, though his ears were still ringing from the blast. There was look of pure horror all over his face even after the destruction passed, as if he had known it was going to happen. It all started when Tempest came up with a new idea. Normally they were fine, and only made a 'small' explosion or fire. But this time she was doing something incredibly ambitious and that never meant anything good with his girlfriend's rather loose application of experimentation procedures. He was no enchanter or alchemist, but he had seen enough of his mother's work to know when things were going to go boom. She had just started the process right when the door opened, and then the experiment started going awry. The second it looked wrong he bolted, screaming, but even then he wasn't able to fully get out of the blast radius. 

As the smoke was starting to thin, Shiloh flickered into existence with Tempest in her arms with a strange face mask and flame-resistant armor. "Made it in time…just barely." Her voice was muffled and distorted by the mask and her heavy breathing. Dropping her son's girlfriend, she then disappeared just as she came muttering something about creating 'absolute blast protection barricades'. The workshop was a wreck, the experiment had failed, and the collateral damage was thankfully a lot less than the sea of fire engulfing the docks of Arri's commercial district. Belen laid on the ground wheezing as the dust settled. 

Taimi came up behind Bakura and put her arms around him. “We’re not all bad you know.” There was a chuckle as she knew what they had meant. “There are a few exceptions to the rule. For example, the same year that Marin, Bakura, and I graduated my sister Gaea had actually failed her magic practical exam but she still scored second overall highest. We were nowhere near as young as Tempest and she barely beat the previous youngest which was my mother… However, Tempest didn’t take all the healing courses. So she didn’t graduate with that many honors compared to my mother.” It was perplexing as Taimi got up and crossed her arms. “I worry about her.”

Taimi fetched some books and looked back at the men. “I have to run these back to Tuila before she kills us both but… Just be careful. Tempest doesn’t have a temper like her grandmother but it doesn’t mean she’s not as durable as Toya is. She’s still a little girl after all.” She kissed Bakura good-bye and on her way out she stopped short. “Oh, I meant to tell you. Tempest passed her apprenticeship for blacksmithing… She’s considered a master blacksmith now on top of it all. Happened about a week ago or so.”

–

Tempest had gotten some rad stuff from her cousin Marin in Mamlak. It was glowing a faint purple and Tempest had her goggles on while holding it in a pair of tongs. “As long as no one opens the door… We won’t all blow up!” She seemed rather giddy as she slowly, and I do mean slowly, transported the unstable material from one side of the room where it was super-heated to where she needed to put it for mana lines.

“What sounds better Belen? Mrs. Tempest Kyrie. Doctor Tempest Kyrie. Queen Tempest Kyrie.” She stopped a bit and giggled. “ALMIGHTY TEMPEST KYRIE FIRST OF HER NAME.” She let out a laugh as she was completely nervous. She had been given instructions on what NOT to do. However, an oversight of hers was that she wasn’t counting on her grandfather opening the door.

“GET OUT,” Tempest yelled and Belen was in motion as the purple substance got air to it. She dropped it and started to run herself. Thankfully Shiloh appeared and scooped her up as the workshop got hit with an explosion.

When Shiloh dropped her she pulled her legs in and pushed up her goggles. “Must I get a: Mad Scientist at Work PLEASE KNOCK… Sign?” She looked up at her grandfather. “Working with materials that can’t have fresh air hit them here Grandpa. I put up the wards like you asked me to though so the house is still standing.” There was that sass.

She looked up at Emmanuel and tilted her head. Her brown curls were all over and singed. She had black soot on her face from the fast explosion. “I’m Tempest! I was working on a way to make dragons stronger for Grandma’s army when the door opened and exploded my projected. BUT COME IN!” She got behind Emmanuel and Bakura and started to push them in. “Belen, I’m gonna be a hot minute can you run down to the market and fetch me more of that silver stuff?”

She ran in front of them and started to show them all of her projects that had survived the blast. Her work board was full of a drawing for some type of dragon armor. There were metal plates that were loosely attached so she could undo them and take them outside. Measured perfectly to one of the dragons outside the house. “This is the armor. It was going to use mana lines to power up a dragon’s blast similarly to how we use arcane empower to power up our magic. It would result in a white flame.” She whistled and a little dragon came in. She had a little armor done and hooked it up to the cat-sized dragon. “Go on now… Show them.”

The dragon breathed a small flame and it went from an orangish-red to a white. “See? It works.” The dragon didn’t stop. “Okay… Stop.” The dragon defied her having fun instead. “I SAID STOP.” Then the armor started to smoke and Tempest did a drop and roll grabbing the dragon and fighting to get it off. “YOU ARE GOING TO KILL YOURSELF STOP. THIS WAS ONLY A TEST PIECE IT WASN’T DONE.” She got the armor off and laid on the ground. “Why are you like this?” The dragon was sitting on her chest looking at her.

“ANYWAYS,” she yelled from the floor. “Is this about the harbor? It’s about the harbor isn’t it?”

Emmanuel gave the lady a cool shrug, “My apologies. Aside from hearing about your mother, I’ve only seen you and Marin and heard only about this Tempest. Two to one, it’s hard to think of a group of geniuses like them, not to inadvertently starting trouble.”

“Inadvertently, Bakura expressed even with being in the comfort of Taimi. “The girl, I can see that. Marin? I doubt that she cares. At least Tempest is just too excited for her own good whenever she starts a project.” He wasn’t too thrilled to hear that the girl also now passed for blacksmithing- a smart mind she held but it was also chaotic.

Emmanuel would see what he meant when they were about to enter the workshop, only for a young lad that moved to stop them. Blaine was about to curse up a storm before the explosion happened, and the men moved down, feeling the house shake with the coming blast. While he was used to accidents occurring ever so often from his field of work, he didn’t have a knack for the alchemy side of things as well as Bakura. Nor was he expecting to be nearly engulfed in such a blast. Raising his head from the ground, he spotted someone coming out of the room with the girl he suspected to be the mad scientist his friend only spoke of hours prior.

Blaine rose up and saw the being vanish while his granddaughter opened her smart-alec mouth and earned a good head whackin’ from his hand. “Apparently you do because you didn’t say anything about it, girl. Perhaps we should involve your grandma?” He knew that would cut the sass of her attitude immediately. While Bakura grumbled and went to help Belen up, Emmanuel got up and peeked inside the ruined room, only to find himself getting pushed on right in by her afterward. “Hm, yes. I’m Emmanuel”, he introduced himself a bit hasty as she took them on a tour. His thoughts at the moment were that at least she was very enthusiastic about her passion, which was the right direction. Blaine scratched the back of his head, shaking it before he looked at his granddaughter’s “friend” as he went off on the errand, pitying him a bit.

Moving to her armor, he gave it a once overlook while Bakura winced when he heard that she was messing mana lines to increase the firepower of an already powerful beast. It was going to be the Marin incident all over again, which he still never gotten over. “Is there any way to exhaust excessive, wasted power from the lines?”, he questioned just as she put it onto the lithe dragon. Perhaps it would have been better for him to ask a bit before because the answer came but in a way, he didn’t wish to occur once the dragon didn’t cease and he saw the girl’s panic. The result was a hilarious, if not dangerous situation where she forcefully tore it off it.

“I ask that every day about you, love”, Blaine sighed as he took the dragon off her and petted its head.

“Hm, yes”, Emmanuel replied as he offered a hand to help her up. “Among other things, of course. My colleague was worried about some of your projects. Aside from the need for some safety precautions and likely a need for an area that’s more spacious and isolated from the rest of your household, things seem to be in order.”

“I think there’s more of a need for some guidance. I don’t want another Marin”, Bakura spoke adamantly. “Speaking of which, what is your friend bring back? Something about ‘silver stuff’?”

Tempest opened her mouth to retort but then firmly closed it. However, she still had something to say. A small journal appeared in her hands and she flipped through it before stopping at a page and running her finger down it. “I would rather not be punted halfway across Sularia today. My schedule doesn’t have room for ‘spectacular bonding time’ with Grandma today.” That was going to get her in trouble.

She was in the middle of tackling and fighting with Kaa as she answered Emmanuel. “Not yet, haven’t gotten that far yet. I was going to work on it with the stuff that Marin gave me today. Took a long time to convince her I wouldn’t blow up half of Sularia. Now I have to tell her I blew up my workstation. She might be more forgiving of that than the latter.”

Tempest looked up at her loving grandfather and blinked a few times. “Words hurt Grandpa. Words hurt.” He took Kaa from her and the dragon simmered down and snuggled up to him. Kaa had been a gift to Tempest from Toya once she started to blacksmith.

She rubbed the back of her head as she got up shyly. “A lot of the times my projects go wrong because I have too much input and I wasn’t expecting it. The case of the harbor exploding… I didn’t know we were due for a supercharged thunderstorm. Who the hell plans for a supercharged thunderstorm? Not any alchemist I know… Though they don’t play with lightning rods so I wouldn’t expect them to know. You can’t really have something to stop what happened besides putting the rod away from the harbor farther than I had it. A minor miscalculation on my part. I wanted the red sand on the beach for a glass project.”

Tempest looked at Bakura and thought about the best way to answer it. “Well, there are a few different things I mean by silvery stuff so he gets me all of them. There’s silver, mercury, platinum….” She named off a few other things. “All of them I can use in the forge and around here so I like to have them. I just ran out today when I made the clasps for the armor. Also, I had to have Kaa’s stomach emergency pumped because he thought eating a clump of silver was a good idea. I didn’t want that back. He just did that… Yesterday? I think being small has stunted his brain a bit… When I asked Grandma for a dragon I didn’t mean one that stayed small.”

The door slammed open and Toya strolled in. “I certainly wasn’t going to give you a big one to cause havoc on. You cause enough havoc with a small one. Look at this place… It’s a mess, Tempest.” Toya had her hands on her hips. “I’m the hurricane’s grandmother Toya.”

“I’m gonna clean it up. This is all just part of the process.” Tempest was shrugging her shoulders and trying to argue with her grandmother.

“I get worried about you. You are going to get yourself killed Temp. You can’t always rely on Shiloh bailing you out.”

Tempest rolled her eyes and Toya hit her hard on the back of the head. “OW. I’m gonna get better YOU’LL SEE.”

“That’s my fear… That you are going to get better at it.” Toya looked at Bakura and Emmanuel. “My granddaughter is super intelligent and maybe more so than my daughter before her. I fear how ambitious she is. Please take care of her and make sure she stays on the right path. The last thing I need to be building is a casket her size. Gods know we build enough of them around here. Now, what do you say to them?”

Tempest pouted just a little but nodded as she turned to them shyly. “Can you guys teach me where I’m going wrong? I don’t want Gramma to have to build a casket my size.”