Backdraft

Clan inventor/engineer and sometime assistant alchemist. Backdraft is, along with his partner in crime science, Updraft, the creator of many of the clan's most useful weapons and other items. (Science bros for life, some of the clan hatchlings once declared.) He and Updraft are somewhat prone to blowing things up. The others tolerate this propensity, however, as they do produce numerous incredibly useful things for the clan, both warriors and non-combatant members. Backdraft is slightly better at crafting weapons and combat gear than his counterpart. (Note: the explosions are usually unintentional. Usually...)

***One day, while searching the Tangled Wood for bits and baubles for more experiments, Updraft and Backdraft came upon a large bottle of...Mist? Backdraft, though skeptical of its contents, doesn't protest when Updraft takes the bottle. Marching on and finding a few plants and minerals that might be useful, the sit down for a brief time next to a ridge in the stone. The efforts of the day wear heavy on the two, and Updraft falls asleep for a few moments. He wakes with a start, accidentally kicking his lamp over. The lamp covers his bag in oil, and ignites the entire thing. They both try to stomp out the flames to save the treasures they had collected, but both had forgotten the glass bottle of mist inside. One particularly aggressive stomp from Backdraft broke the bottle, and with an amazing retort, he was thrown backwards by a blast.
He hit the stone face behind him with a resounding thud, and crumples to the ground, motionless.
Updraft is unharmed, but dazed. He searches around for...something...After a few moments, Backdraft stirs. He sits up drowsily and looks up at the wall where he struck. Amazingly, there is an image of him emblazoned on the wall!
Unsure of what happened, the sciencey bits of brain started whirring, trying to figure out what happened...He struggles to get to Updrafts bag, sore and scraped from hitting the wall. He dumps out the smoldering remains of the bag, finding the broken bits of bottle, a magnafying glass, and weird red glowy sludge. After inspecting the sludge closely, he thinks it may be cerdae sparkle, a highly useful substance used for illumination. Though previously it was never flammable, this bottle seems particularly volatile. He searches around for Updraft, wanting to launch his hypothesis on his friend. "I do. I do believe, that your magnifying glass and this cerdae sparkle...if that is in fact what we have here...mated with heat...possesses the power to impart images on a surface!"
Utter bewilderment overcomes Updraft, still very dazed. He mutters something but it is lost to the wind as Backdraft starts talking again "WE NEED MORE CERDAE SPARKLE. I NEED TO KNOW WHY IT IS SO VOLATILE. ONWARD UPDRAFT!" and marches off without picking up the remains of their explosion, Updraft wandering along behind him...

(This bit written by Xotik.)

“It’s staring at me again!” The Tundra eyed the squat little ship hunkered silently in the middle of the workshop, feeling its baleful gaze locked on him. Updraft sighed at the alarmed exclamation, pushing his goggles up to his forehead to eye the speaker. “Bluestreak. It’s a spaceship. It is not staring at you. It doesn’t even have eyes.”

“It is! I don’t think it likes me.” He gave the thing a sidelong glance, eyeing the gleaming metal suspiciously. I’ve got my eye on you, too, mister.

“Blue, it-”, he shook his head, rubbing his temples with one paw. He could feel a headache coming on already. “Never mind. Why don’t you go help Levi with mixing up the rocket fuel? It’s easy enough a hatchling could do it.” He turned back to his workbench, gaze trailing over the tools spread out across its surface.

“I...yeah, okay.” Behind the Mirror’s back, Bluestreak gave the ship one last warning glare, sticking his tongue out at the thing.
I don’t like you either, jerk. So there. He hmmphed quietly and headed further into the science wing of the lair, where the junior engineers and alchemists were readying the fuel for the day’s test flight.

Updraft sighed again, tugging his goggles back down, and picked up a wrench. Just a few more adjustments and the Ark I would be ready for its first foray into the stars. Once the fuel was prepared and loaded, they would only require a little heavy lifting to get the ship out to its launchpad and for Sonar (who had volunteered herself once again to be the test subject for an unproven invention) to get herself settled within the ship before takeoff. Everything was planned down to the minute and, according to all of his and his assistants’ triple-checked calculations, should be flawless in its execution.

What could possibly go wrong?

---

They stared in collective awe at the dazzling light show. The Ark I had, just moments before, launched cleanly from its platform outside the science wing of the lair, sailing majestically into the stratosphere, trailing fire in its wake...and then exploded spectacularly. It was now raining down debris, which flared brightly in the dim glow of the Wood, fading quickly to nothing.

From somewhere within the knot of scientists observing the launch came a quiet, gleeful, “That was so awesome!” The glee was short-lived, however, as from the far side of a group of their clanmates came the voice of Prowl, one of the clan leaders. “As amusing as I am certain you are all finding this...disaster, I would very much like to know: where is Sonar? Your usual harebrained schemes are one thing, but this is endangering the life of a clanmate, and I demand an explanation.”

Updraft stepped forward nervously. “Ah, commander, sir, I can assure you that she is perfectly fine. The launch system has registered that the escape pod ha-”

“WA-HA-HAA-HOO-OOO-OOO! What a slaggin’ rush!” Prowl and Updraft, along with several others snapped their heads up, staring at the sky in disbelief as a large, loud shape came corkscrewing in, landing noisily within the gathered circle of concerned clanmates. There were a few moments of intense rustling from beneath the large bundle of white cloth that had touched down, and then a shimmering blue head emerged from beneath it, grinning from ear to ear. “Slag, Upsy, dunno if it was s’posed ta do that, but that was fuuun! Can I do it again?” She grinned at her gathered clanmates, ignoring the mutter of “How many times have I told you not to call me that?” “Oh, Prowlie! I mean...Prowl, sir! Didja see that landing? Pretty awesome, right?” Beside her, Prowl gave a long-suffering sigh, resisting the urge to bury his face in both paws, and wondered what he had done to deserve being cursed with such ridiculous specimens of dragonkind in his clan.

---

Back in the science wing, Updraft and his partner in crime science, Backdraft, had dragged in Bluestreak and were trying to figure out exactly what had cause their ship to fail so spectacularly on its maiden voyage.

“How much fuel did you put in those rockets?” Updraft leveled a cool glare at him and Bluestreak squeaked and did his best to hide behind Backdraft, heedless of the fact that the Nocturne was barely larger than him. He peered timidly from behind the nominal safety of his clanmate’s body and gulped. “Um...”

“Bluestreak.” The glare turned glacial, and Bluestreak shivered, feeling its weight bearing down on him.

The Tundra eep--ed quietly. “I-I used the amount in the recipe, I swear! I would never try to-to improvise with something like this, not when I know you guys have been working so hard on it and that you trusted me to help out even though I don’t really know what I’m doing and I swear I didn’t mean to do whatever it is you think I did and-”

The breathless, panic-edged tumble of words came to an abrupt halt as Backdraft turned from his position of draconic shield to slap a paw over Blue’s mouth. “Bluestreak. Tell us clearly. How much, exactly, did you put in? The recipe called for ten teaspoons per-”

“TEASPOONS?!” The panicked tone was now accompanied by saucer-wide eyes.

Both scientists blinked at him, puzzled. Something was off here.

“Er. Yes.”, Backdraft said slowly. “That is the standard ratio.”

“Oh. Um. I, uh...may have overdone it then. Just a little." Bluestreak looked away nervously, ears twitching.

Updraft facepawed. “Dare I ask how much you thought it meant?”

“Uh...tensquarepounds?” The words came out in a rush, and it took Updraft a moment to decipher what Bluestreak had said.

“...Ten...” Updraft’s mouth twitched, and Bluestreak couldn’t tell if the other dragon was on the verge of laughter or tears. Possibly both.

“...square pounds?” There was a bright, hopeful lilt to Bluestreak’s response, which, combined with the guileless puppy eyes and the memory of Sonar spiraling to the ground, whooping gleefully the whole way cast the whole mess in a new and hilarious light. The realization hit Backdraft at the same time, and Bluestreak watched in utter bemusement as the tense atmosphere was abruptly broken by both scientists covering their faces with both paws and laughing until there were tears running down their faces.

“...Um. So...you’re not mad at me?”

“Wha-oh, no, no. Not now.” Updraft grinned at him, wiping all four of his eyes. “That is far too priceless a blunder for either of us to hold a grudge over. How on Sornieth you managed to interpret teaspoons as square pounds, I just-” he snickered again, waving a paw. “Forget it, Blue. We can build another one. This...incident was actually quite useful, to be honest.” “Oh. Well, okay then!” Bluestreak’s face brightened and he turned to Backdraft, who simply grinned back at him. “So we’re good then?”

“Of course, dear Blue, just...come help me find whatever might be salvageable of our poor ship.” He slung an arm around the other dragon’s shoulders, gently steering him toward the door and adding a little more force when Bluestreak looked ready to balk.

“But ‘Draaaft, I told you, that thing hated me. I don’t wanna help find it.”

“Bluestreak, it did not hate you. It was an inanimate object.”

“So? It still hated me!”

They set off down the hall towards the outside, bickering all the way.

Inside the workshop, Updraft grinned dreamily, claws trailing lightly over his workbench. So Operation: Starshine had been a failure-they’d still got a really cool explosion out of it. He stepped over to his drafting table and picked up a pencil. They would succeed next time, he was sure. They’d just have to make sure the Ark II was a little more...explosion proof.

Humming, he set to work.