A/N: As a disclaimer, please don't try the experiment described below at home.

I turned my head to see the person who I was waiting for all this time- Raphtalia!

She was dressed in a yellow sundress that no doubt turned some eyes, though I was most definitely not admiring her figure or anything.

"Raphtalia onee-chan!" Filo yelled out.

"Sorry I was late, something came up at home," Raphtalia said.

"No worries."

"So, what did I miss?" she asked.

"Well, Big Bro here saved someone's life!" Shindo said.

"Not even close to what happened... he might've gotten community service at most..." I said.

"But it looked cool!"

This was almost as bad as when people made a big deal about my cooking.

"Oh right," Shindo said, seemingly remembering something. He pointed to Raphtalia. "Alright, there have been some nasty rumors flying around my big bro... that he's a lolicon or similar slander..."

"The only one who's openly said it is you!" I protested.

"...but, I want to clarify things, my brother isn't into elementary or middle school girls, only into high school girls! Because Miss Raphtalia here is his girlfriend!"

"Eh!?" Raphtalia said, whose face was flushed at this. She looked like she wanted to smack Shindo, but didn't- likely because he was my brother.

No worries- I could do that on my own.

"Agh! Bro! I was just trying to help!" Shindo cried out.

"You've managed to make things much worse!"

"Eh?" Filo said, seemingly just realizing something. "So... Raphtalia onii-chan is only in high school... so Mel-chan is more advanced than she is?"

"Uh, well, it's not like that," Melty said as eyes turned to her.

"Ah, Melty-sama has always been a precocious child," Eclaire said. "Oh, but I didn't know that you were still in high school, Miss Raphtalia- you looked older, I guess looks can be quite deceiving..."

"Well, I didn't finish on time because of some... issues, I am older than a normal high school student..." Raphtalia said, with it looking like this was a topic she'd rather not go into.

"Yeah, Mel-chan's great!" Filo said. She seemed to be making fun of Raphtalia for being behind Melty despite being older than her- or at least, that was sort of the impression I was getting. It was also possible that she just found the idea amusing... because it was weird for her to think that when as far as I knew, she was still... wait, did Filo even go to school? I hadn't seen her in a school uniform, though given her history I was willing to bet that Fitoria most likely homeschooled her.

Well, Filo was probably already loaded and had no real need for school anyway.

Once things had somewhat calmed down, and I was sure that Atla wasn't there to barge in on us again, I once again made my appeal.

"So remember guys, please vote for us, okay?" I said. Everyone aside me groaned a little- even Shindo (the project was technically in his name). "Okay... tell you what, if I win this, once this is over, we can all go back to my place and do an actual volcano experiment."

"Yah!" the loudest cheers came from Shindo and Filo, the latter of whom immediately went around trying to coax people to vote for us. I had to admit- she was rather good at that. With her exotic looks and charm, in addition to her training as a performer, she was very charismatic and able to sweet-talk people with ease. Yeah, if we were a D&D group, she'd most definitely be a Bard.

"Volcano?" Raphtalia asked, somewhat confused.

"Long story, but short version is that I'm surrounded by people who are children, either mentally or physically, or both," I said.

"Right, we can join them though?" Melty said, looking expectantly at Eclaire.

"I don't know Melty-sama... this would technically cut into your study time..." Eclaire said.

"But, Eclaire, it is educational..." Melty said, eyes askance.

"Alright," Eclaire said, sighing.

"Right, Eclaire, if we're going to do this volcano thing right I'm going to need a few things..."

Long story short, we didn't end up winning anything- though I didn't let that dampen my mood as we all gathered outside my apartment to work on the model volcano. Even Raphtalia had tagged along.

First, we had to make the actual volcano which we were using clay and plasticine for. All of us began molding the clay, before I hardened it with a hair dryer.

Now, your typical school volcano experiment usually involves baking soda and vinegar, with occasional red dye added for flair. But, there was nothing that I did that was ordinary... and I had had a feeling that Eclaire had some of the things that I needed lying around.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"As sure as I can be," I told her. She handed me some gunpowder (why did she have that? It wasn't like modern guns used it- but whatever, maybe she was into shooting historical guns or something?) which I plopped into the volcano's base. The other thing that I had asked her to get was a strip of magnesium, of which one end went into the powder and the other came outside the volcano. Not to say that I hadn't added some baking soda for flair, but it was the initial reaction that would really make it look good.

"Uh... is this really okay?" Raphtalia asked after seeing my entire ensemble. I put on a pair of gloves and gave her a thumbs-up as Shindo took out his phone and started recording.

I lit up one end of the magnesium ribbon- if you don't know, magnesium burns extremely brightly when lit up, to the point that you can't even look at it directly without it possibly damaging your retinas, which is why everyone was instructed to not look at it directly as the dazzling spark snaked its way up into the mouth of the volcano.

It was already quite a spectacle even before the gunpowder ignited, and when it did- it did so with a BANG! that was probably heard all over the apartment complex as a fountain of white foam shot out of the mouth of the volcano fifteen feet high.

It was pretty fun- until someone called the police after saying that we were trying to make a bomb outside. Trying to explain that was less fun... though after a warning we were pretty much let off the hook.

A/N: Again, as a disclaimer, do not try the science project outline above. Especially not at school- you don't want to end up triggering the fire alarms, causing the place to be evacuated, and then called to the principal's office now then, do you?