Etolie took her gaze from the window as she was looking outside at the tree in the front yard. By it was a bench on which there was a student reading though the 'Class Dismissed' and the shuffle of bodies captured her attention as it returned back to the class room.

To most she may have seemed bored but she wasn't. Chemistry was a big interest of hers though she had already knew this stuff and her attention lapsed for a bit.

“I'll let you burrow those notes later after I get them off the dictator from last class.”

It seemed that the Vice President, Crystal, was a little behind in keeping up. She was a full figured girl, the sort Etolie would have taken advantage of if she weren't so worried about Vera watching out for that. The other student … she wasn't so bad either and no doubt the black ring she wore would respond to the mere thoughts she was having.

It was strange indeed. Etolie was working to reform and had taken some steps, had a slip up with Kanoe (quieting smoking was tough and this was tougher!), and well, when she found this ring of her's on that beach all ideas of reform ebbed away as she considered what she could now do.

She slipped her Chemistry book back into her bag and approached the underclassman. She thought she was a Freshman any way though it had not mattered.

“Sumire isn't it?” She was already searching for any signs of a higher standing of living; earrings, necklaces or so forth. Her analyzation was guess work all the time though given the uniforms. “I over heard Crystal. If you like you can look at my notes.”

She had no notes. This was the stuff she had memorized years ago and was rather simple for the Haitian born girl. She had two options. Jotting stuff down on the last lesson which was too much work or just getting her alone and altering her memory a little. She was more interested if there was some sort of connection with Crystal and figuring out how to use that to her advantage.

A slight jolt ran up Sumire's spine when she heard her name called from behind. It had been some time since someone had approached her, after all. Even in a campus as diverse as Shokushu, Sumire had a certain tendency to fade into the background, a talent which she'd spent her freshman year honing. Her dark hair was shorn simply, her uniform was pressed and crisp but unadorned with jewelry or affectation. Just looking at her, one might even think that she owned nothing that the school hadn't given her ... or that she lacked the imagination to interpret the dress code in any but the strictest sense. Though perhaps not as full-figured as the Vice President, Sumire was fit, her hips flaring below her narrow waist to give her that traditional hourglass form even as the school's short skirt did nothing to hide her toned legs.

"Ms. Leblanc?" she asked, sounding a bit surprised. So far as she knew, the President of the Student Council preferred to associate with girls closer to her own social standing. Of course, she supposed that hardly mattered. It was probably just her duty as a member of the Student Council attracting her attention. Something like a smile tugged at the corners of her lips, it was good to know that even here people could be counted on to help each other ... even if it was annoying to admit she still needed the help sometimes.

"If you have them, that would be a great help." she said, bowing her head slightly in gratitude, "I need the notes from Ms. Narasimhan's mathematics course from last Tuesday. There was a problem with my calculator, and by the time I had corrected the issue she'd gone on." her straight-laced, precise choice of language helping to smooth the lie ever so slightly. In truth, she never had figured out how to get the infuriating little plastic box to do what it was supposed to, she'd taken to working out each problem by hand instead. There was no denying that it was a much slower solution, however, and she worried that if she didn't work out this deficiency of hers soon she was going to start to fall behind.

As she waited for Etolie's response, Sumire gathered up her own notes from Science, which were both copious and detailed and began gathering them into her bag. Her open folder showed some half-finished work on chemical bonds in what seemed to be an organic compound ... a thought experiment as she tried to apply what the teacher had been covering today to one of her side projects.

Not chemistry? Well … that made things easier in a sense. Etolie was an elitist for sure. She had made some steps in reforming though their had been some pretty strong temptations along the way. Before all that she had been on strange terms with Rhaine, one of her few victims that had memory of her attack.

It was so they (she and the monster Tidal) could blackmail Rhaine. Etolie had no idea that she too had a monster in her back pocket. No … two. Though Rhaine had made her presence known only the first time and by now she had guessed that Rhaine hadn't directed the last attack against her. Suffice it to say it was the equal footing that she had been on with Rhaine, that fear of reprisal that had her towing the line. Not just that but Rhaine did help her out with Slimer too.

Getting a bunch of notes for a math class from a math wiz was pretty easy. She smile. It was one of her fake smiles but she assessed nothing of value on Sumire though Arblis would be sensing her desire flowing through her.

Etolie had entertained thoughts of control, of dominance but had to be careful here since she wanted so much more and yet she could not help but notice the notations that the girl had taken down. She had not seen them all nor for longer than a moment but it was enough to spark her interest in another way. Oh, the desire was still there. She still planned on manipulating her to her ends but there was no need for that to be one sided. What she had here, regardless of her upbringing, was a kindred spirit it seemed if she had gathered what she saw correctly. She knew this stuff and knew that those formulas weren't the sort covered in such a fashion.

Hm … she could always use a lackey too. She couldn't bring her servants to Shokushu after all.

Her attention shifted from the notes to this in an instant. “What are you working on? I could not help but see and those details go beyond our class lectures from the little I saw.”

There was a slight glimmer in Sumire's eye as she saw Etolie shift her weight to look at the notes she was gathering up, her smile widening just enough to show some teeth now. People had a tendency to see the quiet girl lurking on the periphery of groups and assume she lacked social graces, but Sumire was a devoted watcher of people. She knew a fake smile when she saw one, just as she recognized genuine interest. So far as she was concerned, she had the taller woman on the hook, for the moment at least.

"These?" she asked, feigning some surprise in her interest as she pulled the notes back out of her bag, "I am reverse engineering some mixtures I was taught by my old instructor. It is ... strange, seeing them arranged into their parts where once I knew only the process of their manufacture. Enlightening though, this will help make my own experiments significantly less haphazard."

She offered the dog-eared pages for review as she pulled her bag over her shoulder. None of the formulas were complete, various key elements missing though some of the unmarked molecular models suggested what some of them might be to someone sufficiently advanced. It seemed she was sketching them out on paper only to help her work through the model but once it was fixed in her mind she hopped off to the next project. Some pages bled seamlessly from one project directly into the other without any hint to speak of.

Still, they were a strange collection of oddities. The anti-anxiety tonic was simple enough, though interesting in that it was designed to use plants that could be collected from the island. The muscle relaxant that followed was of a similar make, though some of the border-work and dosage made it seem that it was a diluted form of something more potent. The slow-release oxygen tablet seemed simple enough, but the bonding agent to regulate how quickly the pill dissolved and thus how long it would provide oxygen was surprisingly complex ... though, ultimately, the notes suggested that someone using one could still only "hold their breath" for approximately fifteen minutes. Then there was a topical lotion that, supposedly, heightened sensitivity and bloodflow to skin it was rubbed into ... and a strange mix that, when boiled, apparently released a faintly scented steam that heightened suggestibility in those who breathed it.

For her part, Sumire didn't volunteer any clarifications on her work. Part of her was curious regarding how much Etolie could work out on her own.

She followed. Not just that she had sat down her own book bag and dug out a mechanical pencil. “May I?” There was a genuine smile now though she was busy with the notes. She had nearly forgotten why she had come over here in the first place though as she was side tracked by chemistry quiet easily. Just like that creature with other girls when she sacrificed Cordelia to it. She was unaware that there were too of them.

Hm … a scent … she did not come across any aphrodisiac in the forms of scent. Ania could unleash some and Slimer's slime had been more of an enhancer than an aphrodisiac though she bet getting samples of that aphrodisiac from Ania was easy enough.

Now that was useful … breathing under water … she had experienced that through some of the sea creatures that Tidal used. Her best guess was that the life forms of their world had been breed for such qualities.

Since that day she had begun studying Biology too though she had little success in working this one out for herself, she just did not look into it as much.

If allowed she would make some notations in pencil mostly with the muscle relaxant. She had experimented with muscle relaxants to a great extent. Slimer used them on her as she became a test subject and notes were taken. Extensive notes that Rhaine took though Slimer's lasted only half a hour. The main drawback was feeling every sensation about six times as potent and of course paralysis but these notes differed from the slime. Her insights though allowed her to see a bit into this.

“Try these,” it should provide for one though I can see it being practical only for surgery when keeping someone perfectly still without an involuntary muscle twitch is necessary ...”[/color] Or you wanted to take total advantage of someone she thought …

“And this ...” she tapped the notation near the scent based stuff … “is quite interesting though I don't know a damn about plants and would just be collecting weeds.” All in all she seemed to comprehend most of it. Even when things dead ended or had been incomplete she would have seen the same steps along the way or begun in the same way and see the start of what she would use when experimenting herself.

“If you had the time perhaps you would be interested in my research on muscle relaxants. Commercial use may not be there yet though eventually I wish to make it a true muscle relaxant that calms people.” Oh her desires were bubbling up, her interests in chemistry among other matters had been there as well.

“I could grab those notations too when getting those math notes.”

Sumire raised an eyebrow slightly when Etolie withdrew the pencil from her bag, but she gestured graciously towards the loose pages gathered in her hand to silently grant her permission. Once the sharp scratching of rapid writing signified that Ms. Leblanc was into it, Sumire shifted her feet to stand behind her and to one side, rubbing her chin as she inspected her work.

"Hmn ... as expected of our President." she murmured. She'd cleared each hurdle at a good pace, quickly enough that Sumire might suspect she'd already been familiar with the formulas. Even with the muscle relaxant, she'd manage to take the dangling threads and follow it back to the original formula. She tapped a finger to the paper, her faint smile still on her lips.

"You need to be careful with this formula." she said, pointing at the muscle relaxant, "In this state, it can weaken the heart. You can compensate by mixing this in..." she said, adding a few notes off to the right. Supposedly, there was another workaround that involved electrical discharges, though with the compound repressing even involuntary responses Sumire had never worked out how that was supposed to function.

She looked at the notes on the aromatic mixture, rubbing her chin. The look in her eyes said that something was wrong, or, at least not what she'd been trying to work out. The implications of the work in front of her were interesting enough that she apparently didn't feel the need to voice her original intentions though.

"I would like to see these notes. Perhaps we can trade ... there is an anti-anxiety tonic that I had been offering to students with a bad case of pre-exam jitters last year. Perhaps there is something in there that would help your own project?" she offered. Idly, she pondered how much of her old recipes she could afford to share. Etolie seemed talented in this field, pooling their resources might allow each of them to reach higher than they might have alone. On the other hand, many of these were not really her secrets to share ... and if Ms. Leblanc was casually mentioning commercial use, she couldn't be certain that she wouldn't try to monetize her old instructors secret medicines.

For the first time since setting foot on the college she had forgotten about station. Her mind had focused on the problem at hand. “Electrical discharges … of course,” she murmured looking at the notes for the muscle relaxant. She had wondered if there had been an additional element to Slimer's slime she had missed.

She knew that the the slime wasn't an actual paralytic agent since she still could speak, had the movement of her eyes and could breath but she had not realized exactly how. Perhaps the notes that Rhaine took weren't as detailed or Slimer elected to leave some elements out.

Next time it was clear that having someone experienced with chemicals would be more fruitful though she had grabbed Rhaine in a heated pinch. Etolie was from privilege though she was not thinking of gaining wealth. She already had it and until she became the head of the family she did not have to offer an abundance of ideas.

Besides, the few things she got from Tidal had enough practical uses to grab her attention right now and should profit the family if she marketed an idea every year or two. The first thing she was made to study was the eel's blood though it had a minute shelf life it could increase breast size temporarily though permanently if it was taken often enough, Tidal never explained how often and had only given her a small sample to look over that was long since gone.

What flat chested girl wouldn't pay a small fortune for a drug that naturally increased their bust? And the amount of cosmetic surgery that could be cut out … no scars either …

“I'll bring those notes along too. Can you meet me say at six after dinner at the library? The fourth and fifth floors tend to be quite and we could go over a few things in detail. I'll grab those math notes for you too and I would be pleased to have a look over your material. It's been some time since I got to work on something myself.”

And that was true. Tidal disappeared some time back and so she wasn't getting projects any more outside of the one that Slimer had. She had worked out as much of the details after the fact with Rhaine that she could and Sumire's notes had allowed her to piece together what her peer had forgotten as well as expand upon her own theories based off of the actual results she had been exposed to.