Homeless Bunny 27

Tianyu Yue

That was how I ended up with another student for a total of an even dozen. When they found out I’d kidnapped Velvet, the rest of RWBY and VALN joined in out of curiosity. I fully expected the rest of CFVY to come find me eventually as well.

I watched with a contented smile on my face as my new minions tried to bunny hop in tenfold the standard gravity. Not only was this good for their core, legs, glutes, and sense of balance, the video I was taking would make for fantastic blackmail later.

Not even Amber was exempt from this mandatory physical conditioning. She tried to cheat subtly with her magic, but I tossed a jagged leaf at her like a shuriken each time I felt her mana gather.

By my side was a crackling campfire, the firepit dug directly into the Emerald Forest floor. There was a pot filled with my special workout stew. It was something I’d perfected over the years and a personal favorite of my wife’s. In fact, she was the one who commissioned the recipe from me. Her disciples trained hard and deserved to be rewarded with nutritious food, food that would help them progress along the martial dao.

This was a modified recipe without most of my divine blessings, but it was still supernaturally nutritious. It would ameliorate the side effects of training such as muscle aches without diminishing the results. Even better, it would slowly expand their souls, increasing their aura reserves with each mouthful. As with the food I fed to my team regularly, it was the expansion of potential rather than immediate gratification.

It was also an apology of sorts. Blake and Ilia didn’t get to have my bento because the twins ate their share. Sure, they were the ones who left, but I felt bad enough to offer to let them choose the menu for dinner. Naturally, Blake overruled Ilia and demanded seafood, so seafood stew it was.

“You seem to be having fun. Perhaps we should have made you a teacher rather than a student,” Ozpin said as he walked over. In his hands was one of his signature mugs. This one sported X-Ray, a superhero with his own titular comic that Miltia liked.

“I am, though being a teacher sounds like a chore,” I said. I gestured to the campfire. “Interesting mug.”

“A gift from a past student.”

“Since you’re here, would you like a bowl?”

“I would like that. That smells lovely. May I ask what’s in it?”

“Salmon, cod, grouper, clams, mussels, and shrimp. It’s surprisingly easy to balance all these flavors. I also included several mushrooms I found nearby. There’s also baby bok choy, onions, julienned carrots and green squash, and sliced daikon radishes. The spice mix is something my wife and I perfected together a while back. Hope you like seafood.”

“I’ll have to trust your expertise. If it’s as good as your coffee, I’m sure I’ll be delighted.”

I soon called an end to training and began serving bowls of stew next to rice. There had been several iterations of this stew. Originally, my idea of a seafood stew was to start with French bouillabaisse, but though delicious, it didn’t quite fit the Chinese palate of Luo Hao’s disciples. The broth made of tomatoes, dry sherry, and western herbs and vegetables simply didn’t pair as well with white rice as I would have liked.

So, I turned to another famous tomato-based soup: Guizhou-style tomato hotpot. It was light, a little sweet and sour, and suited their palates better. In the end, Luo Hao and I came up with our own spice blend because we preferred savory and spicy to sweet, but the base was reminiscent enough of both French and Guizhou origins.

“What are you doing here, headmaster?” Weiss asked, as politely as ever. She was absolutely soaked in sweat and her formerly pristine, white combat skirt had been stained green with grass but she did her best to retain her regal demeanor.

“Enjoying a lovely bowl of stew, Miss Schnee,” Ozpin said. His cane had been forgotten by his side in favor of the dish. Given how magically charged that cane was, I considered his willingness to drop it a compliment of the highest order. “However, I did come to discuss a few matters with your ‘older brother.’”

She placed her face in her hands and groaned. “Not you too…”

“Jacques found out, didn’t he?” I asked rhetorically. He wouldn’t have called me that unless he had his reasons.

“Indeed. He has informed me with no uncertainty that I am to obtain a retraction from you.” He looked thoroughly amused at that.

“Oh no…” Weiss whined. “He’s sending a legal representative, isn’t he?”

“He has promised to do so should Tianyu not comply. He has also threatened to renegotiate dust prices with the kingdom, something that may have greater ramifications than your joke intended.”

I offered them a carefree shrug. “I mean, I believe I wrote out a retraction already. It’s on the Hunters Union BBS. I said, officially, that I am not legally permitted to call myself a Schnee.”

That got a snort from the twins. “Yup. We have it in writing.”

“Wait, hold on, are you or are you not related to Weiss?” Velvet asked. She’d been through so much recently. Her world had practically shattered as I endeavored to enlighten her of her own natural superiority.

Really, I had no children. In exchange for our immense, fate-breaking power, Campione were almost completely sterile. As such, as the sole bunny who was currently learning from me, it could be said that Velvet was my martial heiress. She was, technically, the Young Mistress of the Lunar Palace.

“I’m her big brother,” I said with complete certainty. The tides flowed to and fro. The sun rose from the east. And I was Weiss’ big brother. I declared it so, and so it was. “Trifling concerns like a blood relation is irrelevant. I am because I say so.”

“Trifling concerns, like the definition of the word ‘brother’ you mean?” Ilia drawled.

“Precisely.”

“Your grasp on reality is very… flexible, isn’t it?”

“I’m the Jade Rabbit,” I told her as if that explained everything. Because it did.

“Be that as it may, Jacques is not a man many cross lightly and you’ve started a rumor that put horns on him,” Ozpin said.

“That’s hilarious by the way,” Ilia said with a barely suppressed cackle. “I mean, if it’s true, the Schnee are fucking hypocrites and Jacques is going to be the most famous cuck on Remnant. It’s literally everything the Fang ever wanted.”

“We are not hypocrites!” Weiss yelled.

“Your mom’s love of bunny dick says otherwise, princess.”

“Tianyu isn’t related to me by blood, you insufferable lizard!”

“Woah, that sounds awfully racist there. Rejecting your loving brother? Calling me an animal? For shame, princess.”

“I will-”

My wooden spoon blurred and put an end to that. “Enough. What Ozpin’s saying is that Jacques has a lot of influence and money because he’s got a monopoly on dust, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” the headmaster nodded. “He has the ear of every kingdom’s council because of it, no matter his questionable character.”

“Oh, why didn’t you just say that?” I picked up a rock and focused.

When I first arrived in this world, I was very, very hung over. Drinking habushu sake made from the Yamata no Orochi, then having a few gallons of divine baiju brewed by Chang’e would do that to anyone, even a Campione.

While I was recovering from my weeklong celebration of mine and Luo Hao’s hundredth year anniversary, I’d noticed that this world was different. It was a true remnant, a byproduct of two gods’ tantrum. The dragon veins that should have nourished this world were distorted, twisted into knots in some places and broken altogether in others. It was no wonder then that this world’s people lacked magic.

However, the mana of the world had coalesced into natural deposits, like coagulating blood. They formed crystalline structures that the people called dust, nature’s wrath. The world was hungry for mana and in my hung over stupor, I’d released quite a bit of it into the world.

I remembered how the world took my divine mana and drank of it greedily. There was still a dust crystal the size of a small house where I’d landed, the sheer density of my mana replicating in moments what would likely take the world centuries to do naturally.

Now, I was not the most learned mage amongst my siblings, that was probably either Voban or Aisha, but I did fancy myself an expert of some modest ability. Fine control was something I took a great deal of pride in. As such, it was a simple matter to replicate my own actions. What I could do while hung over, I could do just as easily while sober.

As they watched, I trickled a hint of divine mana into the rock in my hand. Little flakes of stone fell away, like dried leaves or eggshells, leaving behind a lump of pure, unaligned magic.

I tossed it to Ozpin. “There. Dust. That one has no elemental attunement but I can put in whatever else I want.”

“Wait, you can make dust?” Weiss shouted.

I couldn’t resist. I shrugged and looked at her blankly. “Yes? Can’t everyone?”

Her mouth opened and shut like a gaping fish. My adorable minions watched our back and forth like a tennis match. “No!”

“Well, I can. It’s a bit like boiling an egg, really. You just stick a rock in enough mana, do some basic alchemy to speed up the planet’s natural processes and vola! Amber probably could, too.”

“How is that like boiling an egg?!?!”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I can?” Amber asked, surprised to be dragged into this conversation. “How are you doing that?”

“Magic. Remind me to teach you later.”

“Huh… Okay, thanks!”

“Say, Oz.”

“Yes, Tianyu?”

“If I turn the entire cliffside to dust, can I get you to tell Jacques to fuck off?”

He hummed in thought but we both knew the answer. He was the only person on Remnant with the right frame of reference to understand my nature as a godslayer, chiefly that there was nothing figurative about my titles. The crowns I claimed, I’d earned.

He had the choice between pissing off some corporate fat cat and potentially getting in the way of a godslayer’s fun, and facilitating said godslayer’s fun while being rewarded beyond any mortal’s imagination. That was no choice at all.

“Yes, that can be arranged,” he said finally. “As headmaster, it is my duty to promote Vale’s continued security and prosperity. That said, Jacques Schnee will likely demand a response regardless.”

“You let me deal with that.”

Weiss sighed. “Tianyu, I feel like I should be read in on whatever your plan is.”

“Hold up a second.”

I turned to face the cliffside. It wasn’t as though making dust was terribly difficult. What was a little crystalized magic compared to the elixir of life?

The world shook as my presence filled the earth. It was the nature of the moon to enact change. It was its nature to embody mystery. I typically favored using my primary Authority through food, but there wasn’t any hard and fast rule when it came to alchemy. It was, in the end, the art of changing one thing to another via the principle of equivalent exchange.

Enough mana overwhelmed the world, forming a visible corona around me. The mana-starved planet reached out hungrily like a baby bird. What would have occurred naturally over millennia became reality in the present as familiar words flowed from my lips. “Mine is the secret of the Way of all things. Unto my creations I impart the sagely treasures of the Queen Mother's garden. Peach Blossom Alchemy!”

The results were immediate. Prismatic mana filled the cliffside, transmuting rock to every color of dust. Those closest to the five elements of the wu xing were most prevalent, but subelements such as ice were simple enough. I even threw in rarer types like gravity, just to prove I could.

“There. Now, what were you saying, little sister?”

She looked at me, then at the cliffside, then back at me. “On second thought, us being siblings would greatly improve the future of Remnant, wouldn’t it? Go wild.”

X

Ruby Rose

Tianyu was doing something crazy. Again. Or, he was continuing to do something crazy? The whole “definitely not a Schnee” thing started even before Initiation, after all.

I didn’t know. What I did know was that he’d somehow roped Weiss into this. Weiss! Miss Prim & Proper! The whole thing was like a fever dream, one caused by delicious, delicious fish stew.

My thoughts warred with each other. One side, the one that loved food and loved my baby even more, said I should ignore it all. This wasn’t my business. The other, “responsible team leader Ruby” side said I should at least check in on my new bestie.

“Weiss?” I called hesitantly. Darn my responsible side. It’d been growing louder lately.

“Yes, Ruby?” We were all in bed. Yang was already snoring. Blake and Weiss were reading two very different books, one I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole and another I wasn’t allowed to touch with a ten foot pole.

“Are you sure letting Tianyu go wild was a good idea?”

“Ruby, do you have any idea how much that dust-cliff is worth?”

“Umm… A lot…?”

“Billions! Billions of lien at a conservative estimate. When dust gets mined, it doesn’t just come up already formed into pretty little crystals. Dust is like any other mineral; it shows up in veins and nodes that need to be carefully extricated from the surrounding stone.”

“Okay, so what?”

“What happens when you hit dust too hard?”

Ooh! I knew this one! “It expl–Oh…”

“Yes, oh. Mining dust is extremely hazardous. It needs incredible precision to do right, or the entire mine could collapse. The best case scenario would be that the dust around you goes off, making it all worthless.”

I heard Blake close her book. “Which is why the SDC’s policies are–”

“Not now, Blake! I already agreed that father’s a horrible person!” Weiss snapped. “What I’m trying to say is, dust needs to be extracted, purified, and condensed into mostly inert crystals that can be safely handled and transported.

“Tianyu didn’t just make a whole lot of dust, he made extremely pure, high-grade dust that doesn’t need expensive mining equipment, doesn’t pose a risk to the surroundings, and skips much of the refinement process. All of that costs lien to arrange, never mind the logistics and support staff required to make it all possible.”

“So… It’s worth a ton?”

“More money than you can imagine. Just the money saved on equipment, personnel, and time alone would make that cliff the single most profitable dust mine in the world.”

I was starting to understand. Tianyu, as always, made no sense. Given everything I’d overheard when he and Professor Ozpin first talked, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. I’d already ruined more than one weapon in combat class because our baby was invincible and any normal steel that met lunar cold iron was going to lose.

The cliff was yet another one of Tianyu’s impossibilities. He already gave me Crescent Rose Mk 2, so now it was Weiss’ turn to get something.

Then again, just because I had to be supportive didn’t mean I couldn’t have my fun.

“I get it,” I nodded.

“You do? I mean, that’s good,” Weiss said.

“You’re a gold digger.” I heard Blake choke back a laugh. “That’s what Yang says when someone likes money, right? She said I’m one because Tianyu and I made our baby together.”

“You made a what now?”

“She means her weapon. Wait, is that why it cut through Dove’s sword the other day?” Blake asked.

“Yup! Our baby is made out of some super-metal. I tried to make Crescent Rose myself but I couldn’t even get the forge hot enough to dent the nugget. Tianyu had to do some weird magic thingie.”

“That’s so unfair. How come you get a super-weapon?”

“Wait, step back a bit. I’m not a gold digger!” Weiss yelled indignantly. Ah, there it was. Yang acted like I was so innocent. It got annoying sometimes, but it was pretty fun when everyone else tried to decide if I was messing with them on purpose or not.

“I mean, definitionally speaking…” Blake trailed off, highly amused with this conversation.

“Oh, don’t you start.”

“I was going to say, ‘You’re not a gold digger because you’re not sleeping with him.’”

“Right? Exactly, Ruby. Don’t let Yang fill your head with nonsense.”

“But,” I could practically hear Blake’s smug grin. “If your own conscience condemns you, let it be the one to cast the first stone.”

“I hate you both.”

“Seriously though, how long would that much dust last if it’s used by a kingdom like Vale?”

“I have no idea,” Weiss said. “It depends on how deep it goes, I suppose. Even so, considering that it’s all one solid chunk rather than small veins, I would say quite a while.”

“That’s really impressive. Is… Is there any truth to the whole Jade Rabbit nonsense he keeps spouting?”

“I mean… Maybe…? He has his bunny mafia too, but I don’t think he’s literally some moon god who’s come down from another world.”

“Y-Yeah, no way. Hahahaha. Gods aren’t real,” I laughed nervously. “And they definitely didn’t abandon the world. And Tianyu didn’t regrow like half of someone’s soul with a cake pop…”

“Ruby, those are some very specific denials.”

“L-Look at the time! We should all go to sleep. Busy day tomorrow!”

“Ruby? Ruby? You know that makes you seem even more suspicious, right?” Weiss said. She kicked the bunk below me but I let out a loud snore. She couldn’t be suspicious of sleeping people. That was against the rules.

X

Willow Schnee

“Klein, what is this?” I asked.

It was morning. Like most mornings, I was hung over and my head throbbed from the lack of hydration. It was a sad state of affairs, one best remedied with more wine.

Yet, instead of more wine, the head butler held a scroll in his hand, one already turned to a video.

“Well, madam, I believe I have something you should see,” he said.

I sighed. I knew that tone. It was the same tone father used to express disappointment in me. Oh, he never said it, but it was heavily implied. Klein had been with the family for so long that he had father's trademark tone down pat.

I sat up in bed. Groggily, I stood and used the nightstand to prop myself up. “Fine, shower first. And more wine. I'm not dealing with whatever that is sober.”

To my surprise Klein did not protest. “That… would not be an unreasonable response in this case, Madam Schnee.”

I looked at him more closely. Few things ever showed on his face; he was a professional of the highest caliber. He was a young boy when he was hired by my father as a hedge trimmer and had seen everything there was to see.

Yet, I could spy the crinkling of his crow's feet, the nervous tension that poked holes in his normally unflappable facade.

“That bad, huh?” I waved him off before he could speak. “Never mind. I'll see for myself. Just have another bottle brought up.”

“Yes, madam.”

X

I stared blankly at the scroll in front of me. I had a shower. I had breakfast, a light, two-egg omelet with a gooey center dusted with chives and freshly cut oats. I had a glass in hand of the finest pinot noir money could buy and a pleasant buzz going. This was the most alert I'd been in days.

I failed to compute what was in front of me.

“Klein?”

“Yes, madam?” My butler replied dutifully.

“I-Is this… real?” I asked. It was unlike me to stutter, not without another four glasses anyway, but I wasn't sure how else I should phrase my question.

“Preposterous, madam. You have not vacated Schnee manor for a long enough duration to-”

“Not that! I think I'd remember having a second son,” I snapped. I was a lush, a pale shadow of who I used to be, but I wasn't that far gone. “This… claim… Is it being made in earnest? It's not some joke?”

“As far as we can tell, Miss Weiss had not seen fit to reject the claim.”

That… That changed nothing. It gave the faunus some credit, but Jacques would bury him alive, maybe literally.

“Dear Mother: An open letter to Willow Schnee,” read the video title. It had been published onto the Hunters Union message boards by one “Rabbit Stew.”

The thumbnail was a picture of my presumed bastard son, according to the comments. He was an absolutely adorable bunny faunus with red eyes and my family's trademark white hair. He was certainly pretty enough to be a Schnee, no, even prettier. Putting aside everything else, there was an ethereal, sublime beauty about him, as if the gods opted to make a perfect statue to show all humans how much we fell short.

I read the title one more time. I understood the words individually, but their collective whole slid off my vision. They formed meanings I was not drunk enough to entertain. Surely no one was this suicidal.

I threw back the glass. When that emptied, I tossed it aside and reached for the bottle before downing it as fast as I could.

“Fine,” I hiccuped. “Let's hear it.”

I pressed play.

Author’s Note

Brought to you several weeks early by some hick from Texas.

Imagine demanding a Campione retract a statement. He is king. His word is law. Ergo, to demand such is to demand that he repeal a law, the adoption of a younger sister no less. There was only one way this could possibly end.

In other news, Tianyu is a lying liar who lies. He doesn't lie about his power, but everything else is fair game so long as he finds it funny. He's a bit of a chaos gremlin.

Animal fact? Sure. Baby elephants suck on their own trunks for comfort the way children suck on their thumbs. I don’t know if I’ve used this one before, but it makes me smile every time I think of it anyway.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.