Velvet set the large pot down in front of the rest of RWBY and JNPR with a grin, "No strings attached, really! We just made too much for ourselves and we needed to give it to someone before the day was out. Dig in!"

So the eight hunters started spooning out the stew and ate. And quickly scrambled for seconds. There was much gushing to be had.

"Oooh, this is so gooood...!" Ruby sighed, "The biscuits soaked up the flavour, but they aren't soggy!"

"Are these... roast beef chunks?" Weiss asked, mildly skeptical as she held up spoonful, "I'm surprised this worked..."

"It's quite an unusual combination of ingredients," Pyrrha idly noted, "Corn, chicken, green peppers, chili... is that onion I taste?"

"You're over thinking everything! It's good!" Nora decisively butted in, before turning to her partner, "It's just plain good, right, Ren?"

"It's a bit on the heavy side for me."

"Oh, heavy my butt, Ren," Yang jibbed, "If you didn't have this, you'd be be a bag of bones."

"So... did you cook this or something?" Jaune asked, "I didn't know you could cook."

Blake had one eye on an e-book on her scroll (she wouldn't chance something on paper next to saucy foods), and asked in a completely innocent tone, "Favouring domesticity for your prospective girlfriends?"

Yang snickered. Pyrrha swallowed something wrong and spent a minute coughing into her bowel, while Jaune patted her back with concern.

"Dude, that's not cool, Blake. Look, you shocked my partner."

Pyrrha was too busy wheezing to really comment on the matter.

Velvet wondered if she should suspect something in all that teasing, but decided to play nice and simply answer Jaune's question, "Well, I know how to cook a few snacks, but this sort of dish is kind of beyond me. My friends actually made this."

Everyone stopped eating at that moment. Ruby was staring bug eyed at Velvet, spoon full of her next mouthful suspending in front of her open mouth.

"Woah, wait a second. Your whole team?" Yang asked. The idea apparently was having trouble entering her mind, "We're talking about Zaffre, who hasn't seen a microwave in years, Phthalo, who thinks she can just imagine being full, and Bell, who can eat the discount leftovers from the cafeteria?"

Velvet frowned, "Well... yes? Zaffre's good with roasting, smoking, salting, and jams. Phthalo's good with frying and baking, and Bell knows how to make stews, soups, and seafood."

Yang's expression slackened with a strange realization, "...Huh. You know what, it doesn't sound that weird when you think about it like that."

"Bell is a really outdoors type," Ren added, "Still, I wouldn't think your friends could collaborate."

Velvet's grin faltered for a moment.

"HEY!" Zaffre jabbed a finger at Bell, who was leaning suspiciously close to a dish, while her hand was straying by a kitchen knife, "Get the fuck away from the beef! I found it, I bought it, I'm gonna cook it, you're not gonna eat it."

"...Chili's not thick enough."

Earlier in the day, the other three fourths of the Killer Queens had been in the floor kitchen. Every floor of the dorm wing of Beacon was ridiculously well furnished. Setting aside the inordinately comfortable lounges, the kitchens were very well equipped for all sorts of culinary projects. It let students learn a little something about self sufficiency. With the frequent shuttles to Vale below, there were ingredients and snacks always being brought in by the kids.

Zaffre shot a dirty look at the large metal pot of meat sauce that Bell had been presiding over.

"Well that's your problem if you didn't get enough ingredients, you're not shaving my roast."

Bell took a suspicious look at the spice rubbed slab of meat, "You're cooking it wrong. Too much oil. The outside will be black when it's done."

"Maybe I want it that way?"

"That's dumb."

"Well, fuck you. It's my beef. I'm cooking it the way I want it. I haven't had one with the full Scarborough Fair treatment in years, and by god, if I have to get through you to have the roast I want-"

"Hey, can you two stop quit posturing?" Phthalo shouted from below, crouched as she was in front of a running oven, eyeballing a tray of baking dough intently, "My scones are gonna absorb your bad vibes."

Phthalo was insistent about the vibes. At times she would quote how microwaves and heat waves could be interfered with by electromagnetic pulses given off by agitated people. In an attempt to protect her food, the chemist was wearing oven mitts and the pinkest, frilliest apron that could be found.

"Oh please, you don't have a say in the cooking process, Fairy," Zaffre scoffed, "You make the literal easiest dish in the world. It's just flour and eggs and shit in an oven."

"Oh, speak for yourself. You're planning on burning meat. You've almost moved beyond the prehistoric era, Zogg, daughter of Thagg."

"Thanks, Zaffre."

Zaffre spluttered and turned to see Bell calmly dropping a handful of beef chunks into the stew, while her prepped beef was now a few centimetres shorter.

There was a minute of silence, in reverence for the oncoming tidal wave.

Zaffre glared, "Oh, motherfucker, it's on now."

With that, the older woman spied container full of pre-sliced green pepper, possibly intended for someone else's meal. She grabbed a fistful of it and proceeded to hurl it into the pot of chili, sending rivulets of splashing in all directions.

Bell stared at the peppers sinking into the meat sauce, "The chili's crunchy now..."

"You got no one to blame but yourself."

Bell nodded, "I'll fix it."

She grabbed the kitchen knife with a meaningful eye on the remaining slab of beef.

"Oh no you don't-" Zaffre began, and quickly snatched a tenderizing mallet, and pointed it at Bell. The silver haired huntress held her knife at the ready, while her eyes began to glow.

There was a momentary pause, right before Bell took a swing at the beef, which Zaffre countered with an underhand swipe, knocking the knife back. Then the two quickly devolved into a dizzying fray of cooking utensils, knife clashing with mallet.

"Crap! The two of you keep away from my babies, you buncha nutbars-" Phthalo whined, and discretely pulled her baking tray out of the oven, intent on crawling away from the melee. Phthalo only managed three steps before Zaffre's sudden lunge at Bell kicked the tray of cooling scones into the air.

Everyone paused watched in macabre curiosity as the pastries soared through the air, then fell. Some of it fell onto the ground. Most of it also fell into the pot, and sank slowly into the growing mixture.

Phthlao stood up, staring at her work, and then turned to the other two.

"...Right, it's a three way. DIE!"

Phthalo shrieked and launched her oven-mitten palm into Zaffre's face, knocking her into Bell. As the two staggered, Phthalo found another container full of shredded chicken, and threw it into the pot.

"Stop it!" Bell growled.

"My scones have died because of you! REVENGE!"

Phthalo batted away the steak knife thrown at her, but couldn't dodge in time as Zaffre tackled her to the ground, leaving the beef exposed to Bell's wrath.

Some time later, Velvet opened the door to enter the kitchen.

"Girls, are you in here? Didn't one of you need to have your notes revised before..."

She stopped. Mostly because she wasn't sure if she was in the kitchen. Cutlery, pots, pans, and ingredients were strewn everywhere, as if the room had exploded. In the center of the mess, her teammates were all clinging to each other. Zaffre was wrapped around Bell in some sort of hold, wrestling for control of a table knife that her partner, eyes blazing, was trying to bring towards a shredded slab of meat, which lay inexplicably on a muffin tray on the floor. Bell would have garnered more success fighting for the knife, if her other hand wasn't gripping Phthalo by the ankle, as she tried to crawl towards a bowel of vegetables that had tumbled out of the open refrigerator door.

"Drop it, Bell. DROP IT!"

"Apologize to the scones! They were pure and innocent before you touched them!"

"You ruined my chili."

"Fuck off your chili! There's only a third of my roast left, you little shit!"

"Your resistance only makes this celery crispier!"

Velvet shut the door, and spent several seconds staring at its white surface as she listened to the struggling on the other side. Finally, she rebooted, shook her head, and walked off.

Right. I guess I better go to the library. Hopefully Blake or Pyrrha's there.

All the while, a pot bubbled on innocently.

"...Well, you could say it was a labour of love, all the same," Velvet admitted, and decided to pour herself a serving.