Chapter 1:
Ruby Rose stretched as she climbed out of her bed, landing softly on the ground. Her light footfalls didn't appear to disturb the other members of team RWBY who were still sound asleep.
Early bird catches the worm. Ruby thought to herself. Or, so Weiss says...
After she had brushed her teeth and took a slight rinse, Ruby came out just as her teammates woke up.
"Morning lil' sis." Yang yawned. "You're up early."
"Seven-thirty." Weiss noted as she glanced at the clock. "That's extraordinarily new for you."
"Couldn't sleep." Ruby replied as she hung up her wet towel. "Maybe one of those days."
"Maybe it's because you did less studying than usual?" Blake mentioned as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Well, there wasn't much we missed from Professor Peach's class." Weiss answered, grabbing her moisturizer and towel. "I think everyone grasped the lesson well."
Ruby thought back to the previous day. She giggled.
Weiss shot her a look. "What?"
"Oh, nothing." Ruby chuckled. "It's just, do you remember what Nora did then?"
The three girls looked at each other. Yang suddenly smirked while Weiss did her best to suppress a chuckle. Blake smiled slightly, then frowned as she remembered something else.
"That wasn't a very pleasant memory for me mind you." She grumbled.
Professor Peach was going on about the remedial effects of the Melforan cactus, a plant that gave off a particularly pungent smell when it was heated. Unfortunately, the class in question required them to make a muscle relaxant rub which required, you guessed it, boiled Melforan cactus paste.
Most of the students had gagged once the fumes had saturated the air within the lab. However, Nora didn't seem to mind at all. She was still the same as she always was. Big smile, big heart.
And a really big affinity for the incredibly weird.
For reasons that were unfathomable, Nora decided to help herself to a whole bowl of the boiled cactus. Before Ren could point out the potentially harmful effects of eating it, Nora had swallowed a good helping of the stuff.
It was then that Nora realized the only thing worse than the pungent smell of the cactus was how bitter it was to the human tongue. Nora instantly spat out the entire bowl, with most of the paste landing on the other person within close proximity, none other than Blake. Even worse was when they discovered the smell could only be removed with a thorough shower.
In a nutshell, Blake reeked for the rest of the day and had to put her clothes through three cycles of washing just to remove the pungent cactus fumes. Subsequently, Nora had gulped down at least four syrup jars to rid herself of the bitter cactus paste, leaving Ren at a complete loss on how to best flavor the next batch of waffles.
"Oops." Ruby gulped. "Sorry. I forgot you were trying to forget the whole thing..."
Blake rolled her eyes. "Don't worry. I just have to start all over."
"Don't worry partner!" Yang came and placed an arm around the Faunus's shoulders, taking a slight sniff as she did. "If anything, I must say that you smell great with essence of lavender and rose!"
"Thanks Yang." Blake sighed. "I was also trying to forget my hour long camping excursion in the bathroom."
Ruby resolved to stop mentioning anything about cactus for the next three weeks and also to ensure Yang didn't. She took out her scroll, looking through the schedule for the day.
"Well, it seems we don't have much today either." Ruby commented. "We only have another class with Professor Oobleck at nine and just one more with Professor Port."
"Huh..." Weiss blinked. "There's really not a lot to do is there? I can't believe I'm saying this, but we might get more time to ourselves for the whole day."
"Well, I did hear most of the teacher's aren't in today." Yang replied. "Wonder why..."
"Maybe they're just handling some Hunter business?" Blake spoke as she headed to the bathroom. "Don't forget about what happened when that huge Nevermore decided to camp out near the city."
The Grimm rarely intruded into human habitats. However, occasionally, Hunters and Huntresses would have to respond to cases of stray Grimm just wandering in. Ruby remembered how classes had to be suspended for the day as Professor Ozpin had called all of their teachers just to deal with the issue. That resulted in more extra classes to be taken over the weekend.
"Ach..." Ruby groaned. "Don't start. It'll probably jinx Weiss's statement."
"C'mon Ruby." Weiss frowned. "It wasn't that bad. Besides, we are training to just like them, so sometimes, we need to accept the extra lessons to fill the holes made in our schedules."
"I know Weiss..." Ruby sighed. "Geez, you don't have to keep reminding me..."
"Well then, stop crying and let's get today over with before something really jinxes our free time." Weiss turned and made her way to the bathroom.
Ruby stared at her scroll. Weiss did have a point. The day itself didn't seem to be that packed. Perhaps they could have their own personal time for self-relaxation after all.
"Well, I'll start planning!" Yang cheered.
"Yeah sis." Ruby smiled. "You do that. Just make sure it doesn't involve any crazy excursions okay?"
Yang winked at her before turning to wait outside the bathroom door.
Little did team RWBY realize that their day was going to be among the most eventful in their whole week.