?️?️?️?, Vale - 4:30 AM
"A little bit of this… a little dollop of that…" The government-sanctioned Vale science lab is officially up and running, figuring out new concoctions to aid in defeating Grimm. A scientist is trying out yet another mixture. This is the fifth gallon of stuff that has been experimented upon, the other four being pretty much a complete waste of chemicals.
"Alright, let's just add some lavender…" She adds a couple of drops and waits for a while. At first the mixture does nothing, but after a few seconds the whole thing combusts, constantly crackling and emitting some invisible, yet very potent gas. The scientists take their observations mostly unimpeded, with a couple of them occasionally punctuating their sentence with a cough thanks to the gas. After several minutes of entertaining sparks, the mixture fizzles out, the gallon-sized beaker that once held it now completely empty.
"Damn. Probably not too useful against the Grimm. What's next?"
"Combining the Caganium with *cough* paprika."
"Another one of those requests? ...*sigh* Whatever Vale says…"
What these poor, poor lab coats don't know is that, besides the fact that the Vale government is inefficient as all hell, is that this particular blend has released a LOT of gas. More than anyone would find reasonable. And it all has to go somewhere…
That somewhere being, of course, to the outside. After only a couple of hours the entirety of Vale is shrouded with it. Thankfully, other than a few slightly early wake-ups, nothing else seems to have happened. Nothing at all…
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Beacon Academy – 6 AM
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*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Someone turn that annoying racket off already!" The resident complainer, Weiss Schnee, can't hold in her displeasure at the alarm clock. It is set on Ruby's bunk, and she hasn't yet woken up to turn it off. The other three, however, aren't so lucky… Blake is covering her cat ears with a pillow, and Yang is about five seconds away from committing tick-tock arson.
"Rubes! Wake the hell up!"
"Wuaaaaaah!" Yang successfully breaks her out of her motionless trance, and she quickly slams the off button, mercifully cutting off the blaring alarm.
"Thank the gods!"
Blake can finally let go of her pillow, and Yang calms down, sporting a satisfied grin on her face.
"I'm so sorry everyone! I was just having the coolest dream!"
"And it was the most fun experience you've ever had, we know. Now please hurry up in the shower! My hair is all frazzled now…" Blake sighs as she fiddles with her now extremely unkempt and staticky hair.
"Okay, okay!" And just like that, Ruby zips off into the bathroom. Meanwhile, the other three begin getting themselves fully alert and ready to take on another school day.
Besides her messy hair, Blake has another thing on her mind. "Did anyone else get woken up in the night by something?" She looks around to see if anyone else is thinking the same way, but the others' eyes don't show any understanding.
"Nope."
"Nuh-uh. Are you sure it wasn't just Rubes frolicking around in her dream?"
"No, it wasn't that." Blake does smile a bit though, as she remembers some of the whispering that her ears picked up. She was having a whole lot of fun, that's for sure… "It was some coughing. Sounded like it came from JNPR."
"Well I didn't hear nothing! I had some great sleeping-time until that alarm went off." Yang looks over to said alarm, which is still cheerfully resting on Ruby's bed, completely oblivious to how close it was to being destroyed. I wonder if she'll notice if I move it over to my side…
"I did not hear anything either. Maybe someone got a cold?"
"Nobody seemed sick when we hung out with them yesterday, though…"
"Maybe you just didn't notice." Weiss turns to grab her scroll but is interrupted again.
"Me? Not noticing someone coughing and sniffling? Doubt it."
"Don't butter yourself up so much, Blake. I'm sure many things have slipped under your radar before." Weiss leaves no room for distractions this time around, grabbing her scroll and officially exiting the conversation.
Blake is just a tiny bit disgruntled at the jab, but quickly lets it slide off her plate. There's the rest of the day to deal with.
"When I was young
If I just closed my eyes
Then I could go anywhere
Dream of any plaaaaaaaaace!"
...And that too. God, that singing is so off-key…
She retreats as far away from the audition as possible, only satisfied after backpedaling deep into Yang's bed, where said blonde is currently dolling up her own hair.
"That bad, Kitty Cat?"
"You tell me. Haven't you had to deal with it since she was around 10?"
"Eight. But I got used to it. It was more fun when I got to record it to show the rest of the family." A grin manifests on Yang's face as she thinks up an ingenious plan. "Wanna hear?"
"Honestly, not really."
"C'mon! It'll be funny! I got this really good one from two years ago. She was trying to sing 'I Burn' and dear god, it must have been…"
Blake is quickly realizing that Yang is going to continue on regardless, and decides to just go with the flow. At least she can make this wait a good time, right?
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Meanwhile…
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A bowl is receiving the juggling of its life, as it bounces from place to place, counter to counter. There was one other person who heard the coughing last night. And he is not going to let that slide.
"Ren, you know you can slow down right?"
"Yes, Jaune, I know that quite well." Both his hands are swapping between ingredients faster than a chameleon can swap between colors.
"I know you're worried about her, but do you really have to do this here? Why not go to the kitchen?" Pyrrha offers this up to Ren while watching him balance three different mixtures at once.
"No time for that." Ren puts a bottle of parsley spice in his mouth in order to grab a gigantic bag of sugar. Despite the obstruction, he continues on anyway. "I have to get this done as fast as possible."
"Nora's fine. She's not even here anymore. See?" Jaune points behind him in the direction of where Nora once was, now just her bed and some pajamas.
"Where is she?" Ren stops his multitasking for the time being and looks over to the same spot.
"In the shower. Damnit!" Pyrrha chirps out in annoyance, eventually choosing to just lounge on her bed until Nora pops out.
"That's fine then. Jaune, can you hand me the pink food coloring?"
"Where is it?"
"Down in that bottom drawer over there." Ren directs him down to said drawer, which has been left open from previous spice ventures. Jaune goes to look through it and his eyes instantly grow to the size of baseballs as he takes his first look inside. It's a maze of never-ending bottles, packets, and jars of all kinds of cooking ingredients.
"Uhhh… what does it look like?"
"It's pink, obviously."
He looks around for a patch of that color, and- YES! There it is!
Except it's not, because there are about 16 pink bottles of god knows what. Jaune scans through each one, picking them up and setting them back in before finally finding one that has the words 'Pink Food Coloring' in light green.
Please, for once, have something be simple in life…
He picks the bottle up and looks to hand it off to the master chef, but by now he's already juggling 4 other bowls and ingredients that whiz by too fast for him to get a proper look at.
"I'll set it on top, okay Ren?"
"Sure." Jaune plops it right on top and quickly goes back to some exciting Ren-watching. Pyrrha decides to scrap the 'lounging around' plan, instead moving over to Jaune's bed to join him.
After possibly the most hyperactive 10 minutes of Ren's life, his creation is finally complete. Sealing it off with a unassuming little cap, he sets the bottle off on a desk, awaiting its inevitable consumption.
"Should I ask what it is?" Pyrrha asks the million-lien question for both her and Jaune, who is still stuck in astonishment.
"Some immune-boosting medicine. Should stop her getting ill."
"I don't think she's sick."
"You don't?! Hey! I take offense to that!" The bathroom door flings open to reveal one sharp-looking Nora Valkyrie, ready to engage in a quick battle with the one that downplayed her so casually.
"Nora, that's not what I meant."
"She meant that she doesn't think you are getting any cold or anything."
"Oh!" Nora's face lights up like a Christmas tree. "Nah, no way! I'm fine! Just a little hiccup!"
"I hope that's all that coughing was. Take that bottle up there."
"Uuuhhh..." She looks over to Ren with clear doubt, but his unyielding gaze and pointing at said bottle is enough to convince her to take the plunge. She snaps up the bottle, popping the cap off and taking a swig in one flashy motion.
Everyone else stares at her, waiting for her opinion on Ren's concoction.
Unfortunately for them, Nora is not able to provide that opinion because she is too busy chugging the rest of the drink.
Before anyone can process it, she's already blasted the empty bottle straight into the trash, dancing around happier than a clam.
"That was amazing! Let's go get some food!" Nora rushes outside of the room without a spare thought as to what time it is or what other people need to finish up first.
"She's not going to actually get sick or anything from drinking that whole bottle, right?" Pyrrha walks into the now empty bathroom, shutting the door behind without even waiting for his response.
"No, she shouldn't. I hope…" One thing Ren does know for sure is that he's going to have one mammoth of a time keeping watch over his partner-in-crime today...
This is the Zimbabwe story that I alluded to in the ending chapter of In Want of Some Porcelain.
For those who have read IWoSP, this fic is going to be similar in style to that one. Not the exact same, as instead of focusing on Jaune it will focus more on the situations he and his friends get into, but similar. Just with a pinch of extra mammary shenanigans. Well, maybe more than a pinch… ≻:)
As you can tell, this fic actually has a real plot! Crazy right?! This chapter doesn't have anything out of the ordinary, but that will change as I go along. Honestly this chapter could have easily been 3K+ words, but I wanted to chop it here so I don't force myself into writing a lot in the future.
You don't know how much effort it took to resist naming this "Got Milk?" Speaking of names, let me tell you all about the original name for this fic.
It was going to be called "Sexponential", for reasons that will eventually become more apparent once I get that far, but FFN would not allow you to search for it, so that name had to go.
I know, I cried for a whole week after realizing.
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The rating might go up to M in the future depending on what I end up doing...