As Coco and Velvet looked at the advertisement on Coco's scroll, gears were turning in Coco's head. The advertisement was for two new Pumpkin Pete's flavours, "Pumpkin Pete's Cocoa Flakes", and "Pumpkin Pete's Double Stuff Marshmallow Flakes". It also mentioned that the company were looking for new faces to match their new flavours.
"This could be awesome for us. We'll have more money to help prep for the Vytal Festival at the end of the year, and you'll have a safe way of getting out there, working on your shyness, stuff like that," Coco exclaimed. Velvet's bunny ears drooped slightly as she heard Coco talk.
"I don't know, I always hear really dodgy stuff about companies like this and jobs like this," Velvet said quietly.
"Relax, I doubt they're up to anything shady. Besides, they got Pyrrha working for them, and she's happy enough. Also, if they make you do anything you don't wanna do, I'm gonna throw so many lawyers at them they'll regret messing with your cute butt," Coco reassured, holding Velvet in a close one-armed hug.
One photoshoot and helpful conversation with Pyrrha later, Coco, Velvet and Pyrrha had freshly printed contracts in front of them, and Coco's shrewd eyes were carefully examining them for anything weird.
"This all looks pretty standard to me. You found anything weird yet, Pyrrha?" Coco asked.
"No, this all appears to be very normal," Pyrrha answered as she read over her updated contract.
"Hold up, found something," Coco announced, quickly rereading the page she had just turned to. "We gotta eat their cereal every day and record it? Ugh, their stuff tastes awful."
"You are eating new flavours, they may be better tasting than the original. And perhaps the Marshmallow Flakes will be healthier now," Pyrrha mentioned, doing her best to sound optimistic.
"I hope so. I always seen you wincing a bit whenever you're eating the cereal on their ads," Velvet added.
"Well, they sent us some free stuff, so we might as well try it," Coco said with a lazy shrug. Reluctantly, Velvet set up a camera and the three of them poured out a small bowl each of their cereal and milk. Pyrrha and Coco's cereal looked fairly normal, but Velvet was a bit taken aback at her cereal. This was mostly due to her cereal being mostly marshmallow, with maybe a quarter of it being actual cereal. Still, they all got ready for their recording, sat in front of the camera with their cereal ready.
"Hello everyone, I am Pyrrha Nikos, and with me I have Coco Adel and Velvet Scarlatina, who are our new mascots for our exciting new flavours," Pyrrha said in a voice that must have been rehearsed a thousand times. "We are all very eager to try them out, aren't we?" Pyrrha asked her fellow mascots. Velvet nodded quickly.
"We sure are," Coco said with practiced confidence and charm as she flashed a thumbs up.
"Well then, let's get started," Pyrrha announced. The three of them tentatively took a spoonful of cereal and ate it. Their faces all went from subtly sceptical to pleasantly surprised in seconds.
"Oh, wow, this actually tastes like chocolate, really good chocolate," Coco said, surprised at the words that were coming out of her mouth.
"They have certainly improved the taste," Pyrrha commented politely.
"This doesn't really feel like cereal, but it is pretty nice," Velvet added.
"I'm having more," Coco said quickly, pouring more cereal into her bowl, getting close to an actual meal size rather than the bare minimum she had put in before.
"I'll also have more," Pyrrha agreed, adding a bit more to her bowl.
"I'm not such a big eater, but I'll have more later," Velvet said, her voice a little wobbly from nerves.
Over the months coming up to the Vytal Festival, the three girls always made sure to start their day with a bowl of their sponsored cereal. It just tasted too good for them to pass up. Over time, the bowl became fuller, then they got bigger bowls. Eventually, they were having a couple of bowls of cereal a day each, and their other meals grew to match their hefty breakfasts. Unfortunately, Pumpkin Pete's priorities definitely didn't include making the cereal healthy, and their increased appetites made putting away extra calories very easy, as the girls found out when they started putting on weight.
The weight hit Coco the fastest, with her weakness for chocolate and generally bad impulse control leading her to indulge a fair bit more than the rest. It was also exacerbated by her more grounded fighting style meaning she wasn't quite as active as the rest of her fellow mascots. While her waist cincher and form-fitting dark brown trousers did help hide her gains from others at the start, it made her increased weight very obvious to Coco, especially since her extra fat seemed to focus around her stomach. As much as she was concerned about the extra weight, she didn't have the best of luck when it came to losing it or not putting on more, not being able to give up her tasty cereal, and she wasn't in a massive rush to do it. Besides, it wasn't exactly impacting her combat style or abilities, and no one was going to give her of all people grief about her weight, even when her fat gut grew too big for her cincher and she had to stop hiding it.
Velvet, on the other hand, was gaining the least of the group. Her naturally small appetite took longer to build up than the others, but there was no hiding her gains with her outfit. At first, it was mostly focused on her legs and rear, and the only attention that attracted was more perverts staring at her and more people on the receiving end of a glare from Coco or intimidating looks from her other teammates Yatsuhashi and Fox. Once it started showing up elsewhere, the teasing and bullying started. It stopped a lot quicker than it started thanks to Velvet's team, but it still made Velvet even more self-conscious than she already was. Regular compliments from Coco and some strict training keeping her fit despite her increased size helped Velvet become somewhat comfortable with her steadily growing body, but there was only so much that could do for someone as shy and nervous as Velvet.
As for Pyrrha, she was surprisingly positive about the whole weight gain thing. Sure, it wasn't exactly an easy and comfortable experience for someone in an armoured corset, but once she had managed that problem, along with the other wardrobe issues, she noticed a definite upside. She wasn't sure what was causing it, but Jaune's eyes seemed to be on her more than they used to be, whether is was surprise or interest Pyrrha wasn't sure, but she had his attention and she was happy with that. Of course, she wasn't going to tell anyone this, and just told people she was bulking to put on muscle and get stronger. She then made her story more believable by actually doing it, and she saw her combat ability skyrocket, even with the need to change her combat style somewhat to accommodate her increased strength and bulk and slightly decreased speed. All in all, putting on some weight seemed to send pretty well for Pyrrha.
When the Vytal Festival rolled around and the girls handed in their recordings, there were mixed responses from the people at Pumpkin Pete's. By putting on so much weight, it totally dashed all the plans their marketing team had, but the girls had fulfilled their end of the contract, so they still got their paid sponsorships, just in time for some wardrobe changes.
Coco's massive body, which wasn't too far off a quarter of a tonne, had outgrown her old clothes a long time ago and led to some changes in fashion. The end result ended up being something similar to her old combat gear, but friendlier for bigger figures, making the most of her bountiful curves without worrying about anything digging in or spilling out. It would have been a tall order to contain a body with a waist circumference that was about the same as her height in normal off-the-shelf clothes, but with fashion and tailoring skills like Coco's, it was a piece of cake.
Velvet, even being roughly a hundred kilograms lighter that Coco, made some well needed changes to her combat gear too. She went for almost the exact same gear as before, but with some slight adjustments to maintain modesty, mostly longer short to keep her giant rear covered properly, at least until she and Coco had some private time to enjoy each other's big, soft bodies. Other than that, it was most same but much bigger to keep her comfortable.
Pyrrha, on the other hand, was right smack in the middle of the couple in terms of weight, but with probably more muscle that Velvet and maybe even Coco at this point. Pyrrha didn't go for modesty as much as the others, cramming herself into gear that may have been a touch too small once she was sure that Jaune had a taste for larger women. She certainly hadn't confirmed it with him, of course, but she saw how red his face went when she bent over in front of him, or when her body wobbled after moving around. Still, for simplicity's sake, she kept combat gear that was similar to her old gear, except swapping the armoured corset for a breast plate to let her jiggly belly be free and on display.
The rest of the school were sceptical about their skills in the Vytal Festival, despite maintaining good scores in combat class, and the other academies' students definitely underestimated them, but that only made it more surprising when the girls kicked all kinds or arse. Coco almost literally became an immovable object on the battlefield, like an indestructible gun emplacement, which was fitting considering the occasional door she got stuck in. Pyrrha became the unstoppable force to contrast Coco, going toe to toe with foes that her older, skinner self would have had to constantly dodge and weave around to avoid trading blows, and she gave even better than she took, sending some of her old opponents flying in ways that left the crowd wondering if it was Pyrrha or her mighty teammate Nora. Meanwhile, Velvet found ways to throw her weight behind her unarmed combat, leaving her opponents very surprised when such a timid looking blubberball bowled them over, while being a bit sturdier in a straight up brawl than her old scrawny body would have been.
When their combat prowess became obvious to the world, Pumpkin Pete's put out an ad starring the girls all about body positivity, quietly down playing the cereal's influence on the girls' sizes. Still, the girls became international plus size icons and unintentional spokespeople, inspirations to larger women and girls everywhere. It scared Velvet at first, her massive body getting all that attention, but the positivity and the chance to help others helped her gain the confidence of her fellow larger ladies. When they looked back on this time, they couldn't agree on whether it was a good time or not, but they could all agree that it was for the best.
[AN: This was a request by Impossiblu over on DeviantArt]
