Chapter Nineteen: Pancakes and Power Outages
"Wake up!" Nora cried out.
"What the hell!" Phoenix yelled as he fell off his bed. "Nora! What are you doing in his room!" he demanded to know. "And for that matter, how did you get into my room?" His second question was answered when he saw his door, or rather what was left of it, lying on the floor.
"I wanted to make sure we had enough time to make pancakes so I got you up," she responded as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
"Let me get this straight. You broke down my door and woke me up at, what time is it, 8:00 in the morning to make pancakes?"
"Yep."
Knowing Nora wouldn't take no for an answer, he gave a defeated sigh and said, "Just give me a moment to get dressed."
"So why are you coming to me for this? Isn't Ren your chef?" Phoenix asked as they walked to the kitchen.
"Usually, but he can't control fire," Nora answered.
"So that's what this is about," he thought.
"We're here!" Nora cheered as they reached the door.
"Alright, so what do you want me to do?" he asked, unsure about if she wanted him for anything else.
"You can put in the flower and powder. I'll handle the sugar."
"Okay," Phoenix replied hesitantly, nervous about letting Nora handle sugar. His fears were justified. Nora ate half the bag, another quarter of it spilling all over the room. The last quarter went into the bowl.
"Uhh… Nora, the recipe say just one tablespoon of sugar. I think that's a table. And you just said to put in flour and baking powder. The recipe says we should also add salt," Phoenix pointed out, gesturing to the recipe Nora had given him after he wiped excess sugar off his glasses.
"Well, I don't like salt. It's too salty. So I decided to replace it with sugar. As for the rest I figured why not."
"Wonderful. So now it says we need to make a 'well' in the center and poor in one and 1/4 cups of milk, an egg, and three tablespoons of melted butter."
"Alright I'll get the eggs and milk, you heat up the butter," Nora ordered as she ran over to the fridge, throwing out its contents in her search for milk and eggs. Phoenix, on the other hand, calmly proceeded to put three tablespoons of butter on a pan and pull out his lighter. In an attempt to add some dramatic flair, he created a small dragon and had it breath fire on the butter to melt it.
"Alright Nora, butter is melted. How's your search going?"
"Got everything. Now let's crack an egg!" she yelled enthusiastically, slamming an egg against the bowl, shattering it completely.
"How about you let me do that. You handle the milk."
"Fine," she replied dejectedly, upset she couldn't smash anything else. As Phoenix cracked the egg, Nora poured milk into the bowl.
"Did you even measure that?"
"Nope."
"Whatever. The recipe says the final step is to stir until it mixes together."
"Got it!" Nora said as she grabbed a wooden spoon and began stirring so fast her arm became a blur. Contents of the bowl went flying out occasionally, making even more of a mess.
"Alright Nora, that's enough," he said, having to wipe off his glasses yet again.
"Now I'll just oil and heat this and we can get to heating the batter," Phoenix explained as he pulled out a frying pan.
"That's for making small pancakes. I want a big one," Nora stated as she pulled out a comically oversized frying pan from out of nowhere.
"Wha-? How? Why?" Phoenix stammered before remembering that this was Nora.
"And done!" Nora declared, flipping the pancake onto a plate too small for it. "Now for the serape." With that she proceeded to give the counters a similar treatment to the one she gave the fridge. When she finally found it she poured the whole bottle onto the pancake.
"You want some? It tastes great!" she asked Phoenix, though he could barely tell since her mouth was full.
"No thanks. I think I'll be going now," he said as he backed out the door, not wanting to be in the same cleanup situation he was back at the party. The last thing he saw before closing the door was her waving with one hand, stuffing her face with the other. Just as he started walking away, he bumped into the janitor, who he could only assume was there to clean the kitchen. He quickly apologized before running back to his room for a change of clothes, seeing as his current outfit was covered in various different cooking materials. The janitor saw this as well, and he saw where Phoenix came from. As Phoenix ran, he could hear an enraged yell come from the kitchen.
At about 9:30 that night, the power went out. Phoenix was about to win an online game, but the power outage prevented him from dealing the killing blow. "Oh come on!" he yelled, throwing his hands up into the air in frustration. He decided to go to bed since there wasn't anything else to do, but just as he lay down he heard a knock on what was left of his door.
"What happened to your door?" Yang asked. She was with the rest of her team along with team JNPR.
"Nora. Now my turn for a question. What're you doing here?"
"Well, Blake had some candles, but nothing to light them with, so we thought you could… you know. We also invited JNPR since they didn't have anything," Ruby explained.
"First I'm used as a cooking utensil, now a lighter. What's next?" Yang opened her mouth to say something before Phoenix said, "Rhetorical question."
After they got the candles set up, it quickly became clear they had no idea what to do.
"I'm bored," Nora declared, stating what they were all thinking.
"I've got an idea," Weiss stated. "How about we just go back to our rooms and get some sleep."
The response was a collective "Naaaa," from everyone but Phoenix, Weiss, and Ren. As he stared at one of the flames on the candle he got an idea. He pulled out his lighter, flicking it open and creating two constructs, a knight and a dragon. The two engaged in combat, catching the attention of everyone. For the rest of the night he kept them entertained, with content ranging from sword fights to interact moving patterns. One by one, they fell asleep. When they had all gone to sleep. He blew out the candles using his semblance and got in bed, forgetting that Ruby had fallen asleep on it. He fell asleep before he noticed, although Yang was sure to point it out to them in the morning.
"What the hell!" Phoenix exclaimed as Yang woke him up with her laughing. "Why are you-?" His question was answered as he sat up, waking up Ruby who was lying next to him.
"Gaaaahh!" he screamed as he fell out of his bed, turning a deep crimson. "Two days in a row I've been woken up like this," he thought as he recovered from the fall. His scream woke Ruby up, and when she realized where she was she ended up in a similar state.
"See! You two are the perfect couple!" Yang declared in between fits of laughter.
"What! No, it's not like-" Phoenix stammered before realizing his efforts were futile. After this realization, he simply got up off the ground to brush his teeth.
The first part of this chapter was a request from Merra. Hope you like how I did. And yes, the janitor was the old man who has every job in Remnant. As always, thanks for reading!
