Chapter 217 - Growing Up

"Morning, where's Gem?" Petunia greeted Von and Lei, still with her human body during their early potion's class which she was in charge of.

"She's probably still asleep," Lei said while sitting comfortably across Von.

"Yeah, tell me why I chose to attend this class again instead of just resting from that exhausting trip? Aren't you guys tired? And you, why are you still in your human form? Did you take the potion again but by yourself this time?" Von complained which made Lei shake his head for having to deal with Von's nagging again.

"No," Petunia said with disbelief etched on her face, "And wasn't that trip supposed to be our vacation anyway? So just think of it as coming back to school after a holiday break. Even though that holiday turned out to be more exhausting and eventful than what was originally planned."

"Right… On second thought, I still don't want to study guys. Good luck with you two though, study well!" Von said and scooted out of the classroom without a care about his teacher being there already.

"Where is he going?"

"I don't know… probably to the kitchen to eat some snacks," Lei said and stood up which alarmed Petunia.

"Sit down, I have a class to finish," Petunia said after blocking Lei's path in an instant even though he just wanted to sit in a closer seat to her which was in the front row.

"Chill, I'm not going anywhere. You know I'm very interested in your class, right?" Lei said while stifling his laugh to the nervous Petunia who thought she would lose another student in her class again, let alone the only one left.

"So, what are we studying today?" Lei said and finally sat down in front of Petunia's table.

"I don't really have a definite lesson plan yet. But I can teach you anything that you want."

"Anything?"

"Anything about potions, of course," Petunia said and sat down on her table instead of the professor's chair.

"Then, can you teach me how to make the flight potion now?" Lei said, creating lemonades with the situation that he got instead of complaining about it like Von.

"I totally knew you were going to say that," Petunia said and held the dangle in her purple collar to activate her stat-hut so she could share some files with Lei in it, "Here, watch it for yourself," she added which made Lei curious about what she was trying to do.

"Are you really willing to make the Flight potion with me now?" Lei asked before playing the clip after receiving an affirmative answer from her.

"Everything I did was stored in here, that's why this thing is so important to me," Petunia said while caressing her purple collar.

"What made you think about transferring all your memories in there? I mean you didn't even have the collar when you made the flight potion," Lei suddenly asked, making Petunia wonder what was the reason behind his tolerable attitude today and the less nagging about the flight potion.

"That was mainly Venedette and Fily's idea. They offered me a way to keep my memories intact with the help of this Stat-hut and that was how I got into this mess in the first place… although I don't regret accepting her invitation, especially now.

"I see," Lei said and turned silent while focusing on the video in front of him.

"Do you want to start making it now?" Petunia asked with a soft voice, cautious about the awkward silence between them suddenly breaking down into a more uncomfortable atmosphere than what they had right now.

"Sure- I mean, there's no rush… but can we?"

"Of course. I'm the alchemy teacher here so no one's probably going to stop me from teaching you how to make the flight potion, right? I mean, the authority's mine anyway, so that's already a given-"

"Let's go? Are you ready to go back down there? Or do you want me to check the place and get rid of everything that broke your senses first?" Lei said while still watching the video upon standing up.

"It's fine. I think I'll be just fine."

"Nice cardigan, by the way, is that your Gummy cloud? You're being creative about your cloud lately, huh? Did you love it that much?" Lei said with a bit of a teasing tone, pertaining to the cute cotton-like purple cardigan over Petunia's black spaghetti-strapped shirt and casual denim pants that she got from the bulk of clothes the castle has in one of the many rooms.

"It's not that hard to make, I just ordered it to shapeshift into something with long sleeves, just like how I got to shape it like a dress yesterday."

"Well, thank goodness you still look like a person, right? Or else you would have no choice but to ride it as a cloud again. I wonder if we should just make something similar to your gummy cloud so we can also fly like you or drink the flight potions ourselves."

"Either way we'll still need the flight potion right? So hurry up, we still got an experiment to do for this whole day. Are you sure you can stand being in the lab with me for the whole day?"

"Aren't we going to ask for the other's help?"

"Fily is asleep and so is Gem. You can try to ask Von for help, but I'm sure he wouldn't turn out. He doesn't have any reason to be interested in the flight potion anyway.

"Since he can already fly, right…" Lei said and finally stood up from his seat, signaling for Petunia to go ahead and lead the way back to the basement where she just experienced the scariest thing that happened to her life after trying the gummy cloud for the first time or traveling back and forth across the border to get toxic and expensive ingredients for free.

***

"Mom!" 

"Von? What are you doing here? Don't you have a class with Petunia to attend to?" Venedette said after bumping into Von on the hallway to the hospital wing.

"Oh, about that," Von said and scratched the back of his head, "They were just going to make the flight potion anyway so I thought it was okay for me to leave the class already."

"Really? Petunia's finally recreating the flight potion again?"

"From what I've heard, yes," Von said and whispered thanks to his super senses for catching what Lei and Petunia were talking about from a mile away before he completely disappeared away from the school area.

"That's great then! Shouldn't you at least offer to help them instead of running away?"

"I didn't run away! I just thought I should go and pay a visit to Gem since she has the most important ingredient of that potion anyway," Von said while convincing himself that it was the main reason why his flight brought him to the hospital wing in the first place.

"Oh, nice thinking. I was also on my way there to Gem to pay her a visit. But uhh, how did you know that she was in the hospital wing? I'm sure I just brought her there earlier this morning without telling anyone because when I went there, I felt that her temperature was very high."

"I checked her room earlier and saw that she was gone, she also didn't attend class so I thought she's probably in the hospital wing. Did something else happen to her inside that Solitude?" Von asked and paused when he noticed Venedette's proud smile while looking at him.

"W-What's wrong? Do I have something in my face?" Von asked while stepping back which made Venedette move closer to him instead.

"Nothing, I'm just so happy that my son is now caring about other people than himself. It's just so good to see you grow up!" Venedette said and hugged him tightly, which Von would normally appreciate if he was still the same childish Von that Gem first met months ago.

But because of the new eye-opening experiences that he heard from his new friends and the emotionally shaking events that they have been going through the past few months since the team was formed, Von felt like he was growing a lot quicker now than he was before.

Soon, the childish Von who would prioritize whining over rational thinking and the scaredy-cat that only wanted to live a comfortable life for the rest of his life would be gone and only a more reliable version of Von would be left.

"I'm so sorry for cutting away your childhood just like that-"

"It's not your fault, mom. I admit, I really didn't want to be involved in any of this when we first started, but the more stuff I learned, the more I wanted to work hard and win this thing. What happened to Demi was not something I could ignore anymore. You were right, we need to do something or else it will just keep happening again and again to other people."

"Thank you for understanding, Von. You don't know how proud of a mom you're making me right now," Venedette said and kissed Von's forehead while trying to suppress her tears with a smile.