Homeless Bunny 23

Weiss Schnee

My brother was the greatest!

Not my little brother; Whitley was… problematic.

Well, kind of my little brother. Tianyu was so little even though he was older than me. Little-big brother?

Yes, that sounded right.

I wasn’t usually prone to bouts of silliness, years of etiquette classes saw to that, but I couldn’t help myself. I was in a cuddle puddle of bunnies. An entire fluffle of bunnies in fact.

Although, hadn’t Tianyu said the “don” of his “Moonlit Famiglia” was called Don Fluffles? He named his first bunny “Don Bunnies.”

Really, that man’s naming sense was ridiculous.

But admittedly adorable.

I pulled one of the four huge bunnies into my chest. I was pretty sure this was Semifreddo. She was so darn soft; I couldn’t resist burying my face in her fur.

“That’s it principessa, just lie back and relax,” she cooed. “Rub my ears if you’d be so kind. Yeah, right there. Ooh~ That’s the spot.”

She even called me princess!

I didn’t know how long I’d stayed like that. My world became a fog of fluffy cuddles and luxuriously soft fur. It was like a hypnotic trance of warm snuggles. But eventually, hunger woke me from my trance.

“What time is it?” I asked, glancing down at my scroll. I stood up in a hurry. “Oh, Brothers! It’s suppertime! I need to go, you guys.”

A male bunny, Sorbet, I think, waved his paw and four of the little black ones dashed off into the shadows. “Don’t worry, that’s what the picciotti are for. His majesty wouldn’t let his darling sister go hungry now, would he? They’ll bring back a nice heaping of the forest’s bounties you can graze on until midnight.”

“No, my team will be worried about me.”

“He’ll have it handled. I’m sorry, principessa, you heard il re’s orders.”

“I need to rejoin my team,” I huffed. “You can’t stop me with cuddles.”

The four bunnies, all about as large as small sheepdogs, looked at one another. Semifreddo said somberly, “We cannot let you leave. We apologize.”

I began to march off, only for Soldato Souffle to hop in front of me. He was the easiest to recognize thanks to a single lop ear. “We cannot disobey il re, not even to our dying breath. Our honor demands it as proud members of the Moonlit Famiglia.”

Realization dawned on me. “I-I can’t believe this! Tianyu wants me to kill poor bunnies to prove a point?”

“That won’t be happening,” Semifreddo said soothingly. “Souffle is right, we’d die for his majesty, but principessa, you can’t kill us.”

“I have a sword!”

“And we are bunnies anointed by his majesty, the Jade Rabbit, he who reigns from the Lunar Palace, the Seventh Campione. We will not fall to a single huntress.”

“Please don’t make me hurt you,” I begged.

Souffle sighed and stood on his haunches, coming up to around my upper thighs now. He then got into the strangest kung fu stance I’d ever seen. “Leave it, Semifreddo. She has aura.”

Semifreddo nodded and backed off. “Yeah, I guess this was bound to happen. Il re wanted to show her that he was powerful without having to hurt her himself so we should show her that she cannot even defeat the likes of us soldati.”

“Obviously. Principessa, I’m sorry. This will be a harsh lesson.”

I wasn’t an expert in hand to hand combat like Yang, but that didn’t mean I was about to draw Myrtenaster against a bunny. I got into my best estimation of a boxer’s stance. “Yes, I suppose it will be.”

X

Pain.

Everything was pain.

I was laid out on the forest floor, staring up at the stars. My combat skirt had long been ruined with smudges of mud and grass. I couldn’t even bring myself to be upset over that. The dress could be replaced but I’d yet to determine if my shattered pride would ever recover.

I didn’t just lose; I got trashed.

Souffle apparently had a Semblance. I’d gone in expecting aura, how else would the little rascal talk, but that wasn’t all. His fur had grown thickly, creating a fluffy armor that somehow felt delightful to touch yet was impossible to penetrate. Twin boxing gloves made of fluff covered his forepaws.

After a while, to my eternal shame, I became frustrated enough to draw my sword.

And then I started using my Semblance.

And then I tapped into my dust reserves.

And still lost.

Myrtenaster’s blade failed me. It could not pierce the dense fluff. What little I managed to cut merely tangled my blade until it was wrenched from my hand.

Souffle hit hard. He wasn’t as strong as Yang, but I suspected that was because he didn’t have her mass. He was for sure faster though, fast enough to maybe compete with Ruby. Put those together and he made for a deceptively dangerous opponent. All told, I thought he’d give some teachers a run for their money.

“This isn’t fair,” I panted. “How are you this strong?”

“I’m not strong, principessa,” he said. He shrugged his little shoulders and the fluff that covered his paws like boxing gloves fell away. “Capo Cuddles is much stronger than me. I’ve never met her, but Don Fluffles must be a giant in comparison. It is said she can slay divine beasts with a flick of her whiskers.”

“And Tianyu?”

“Look up,” he pointed. “See the moon? Good. Now grab it.”

I fell silent at that answer. My brother commanded so much respect and loyalty. Maybe it was because he was the one who elevated them, but I didn’t think that was all. It wasn’t just them after all.

His teammates, and Ruby and Yang, they all treated him like he was someone special. Amber was strong, so strong that it baffled me how someone like her could have gone unnoticed for so long. She made Pyrrha look like a complete rookie. I would have thought someone like that would challenge such a wishy-washy team leader, resent being under him like I had with Ruby at first, but she didn’t. Instead, she deferred to him at every turn.

Even Professor Goodwitch, as clearly infuriated with him as she was, still treated him differently. She acted like he wasn’t someone she could discipline, like he was her equal and not a student.

Clearly, my worries were unfounded.

“I… I have a long way to go, huh?” I laughed bitterly.

“You do, but we all start somewhere. Il re said you left your home to find yourself,” Sorbet said kindly. “I think you’re in the right place, principessa.”

“He’s not my real brother, is he?”

“What makes you say that?”

“This,” I said, waving my hands at all of them. “He’s too… too much. His Semblance has some superficial similarities with mine, but he’s too strong. Too perfect.”

“Does it matter? He adopted you anyway. Do you think he’d call us from our task for just anyone?”

“No, I suppose not. Say, what is your directive? It’s not like you just spend your days in the forest. Or do you? Did he make you to keep the Emerald Forest safe for travelers?”

“Not quite.”

“Then what do you do?”

He tapped his feet nervously. “Ah, that’s…”

“Oh, look at that,” Semifreddo cut in. “It’s midnight. Our task is complete. Give il re our regards, principessa.”

The four of them, along with the palm-sized black bunnies that seemed to fade into the shadows, vanished.

Really, I supposed an adopted brother was fine… But what could he be doing with an army of huntsmen-level bunnies?

X

Tianyu Yue

“You!” I heard as Weiss stomped up to me the next morning.

“Yes, my darling little sister?” I asked, sweet as honey. “How was the cuddle puddle?”

“I-You-Agghhh!”

“I believe my point has been made.”

“It… It has,” she said grudgingly.

I slid over a cup of coffee and cut her a big slice of quiche. It was feta and spinach, simple, tasty, and not too heavy. I’d made extra just for her after all. “Good. Have some breakfast.”

She took a seat with a huff and cut out a forkful of quiche into her mouth. She hummed in appreciation. “You can’t bribe me with food, you know.”

“Of course not,” I said with a smile, ignoring the way her actions betrayed her. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I couldn’t even do my homework last night because of you.”

“Mmhm. A tragedy, to be sure.”

“Exactly! Y-You need to make it up to me.”

“Of course. Care for a second slice?”

“Yes, please,” she said politely, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief. Then, “But don’t think this is enough!”

“I wouldn’t dare. What can I do to make it up to my darling little sister?” I said with a chuckle.

“T-That’s right. You’re my b-brother… A-And as my b-big brother, you have responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities I have not met, I assume?”

“R-Right! You have to train me!”

“Hmm… It shouldn’t be too hard to teach you summoning,” I mused. “And if not, I can still teach you how to use a sword. Admittedly, a rapier and saber are two different things, but they’re similar enough to qualify.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“I don’t see why not. I mean, it’s not like I actually do any schoolwork here.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“And what’s with that?” she asked, jabbing her fork at me in a distinctly unladylike manner. “The professors let you get away with way too much.”

“I’m fluffy. I’ve charmed them all with the wonders of my fluffy ears. And food. Food is life, after all.”

“Ugh, you’re ridiculous.”

“Yup.”

The twins looked at each other with barely hidden amusement. “She has no idea what she signed up for, does she, Mel?”

“No, no she does not. This should be fun.”

X

Capo Cuddles

I looked over my crew, the Cuddles Crew. This was it, the very first of the Moonlit Famliglia in Remnant. We were the first, and with that privilege came the burden of establishing ourselves in the name of his majesty, the Jade Rabbit.

My soldati looked up at me expectantly. Semifreddo, Shortcake, Souffle, and Sorbet were fine hares all, blessed with strong minds and bodies. They would go out and conquer the underworld in the name of our king. The picciotti were small and weak, but swift and silent, melding into shadows. They would be our eyes and ears. Soon, the Moonlit Famiglia would reign over Vale from the shadows.

But first, there was the issue of Detective Powers. That filthy copper dared insult his majesty. Retribution must be delivered. That was what we were gathered to discuss.

“You all know the mission?” I asked them.

“Of course, capo. We make that fucker regret being born,” Shortcake, a doe with light, tan fur, said with a bloodthirsty grin. Il re gave her the power to make swords out of her own fur, and mayhaps a tad too much of the killing instinct. “Lemme at him. Fucker won’t be calling anyone no stinking terrorist.”

“We can’t do that,” Sorbet, her brother and the sniper of my squad, said quietly. “You know il re’s orders. We need this to be quiet.”

“You just want your shot at him.”

“No, we can’t end him. Il re said he should be miserable. Our job is to make his life as inconvenient as possible.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He explicitly told us that the detective ain’t to come to harm. No broken kneecaps, no fallin’ down the stairs, no cement boots. No nothing.”

“Well what’s the fun in that?” Shortcake huffed.

“It ain’t fun. This is a mission, a stealth mission.”

“Hold on,” Sorbet cut in. “That’s all well and good, but are you sure il re wants this to be a stealth mission?”

“That’s what I heard. Ya sayin’ my hearing’s goin’ bad?”

“No, capo, what I mean is, we’re not going to remain quiet forever, right? The Moonlit Familiglia is going to take over the underworld.”

“We are.”

“How are we going to do that if no one knows we exist?”

That did seem contradictory. The five of us fell silent in thought. Il re had plans; he had to. Which meant we were the ones who hadn’t thought things through yet.

“I don’t think he means for us to be quiet forever,” Semifreddo said. “I think his majesty just wants us to keep things subtle, make sure we’re not taken too seriously by the cops or the government. It should be fine to make a name for ourselves underground.”

“What makes you say that, sis?” Souffle, who’d been silent until now, asked. He wasn’t lazy per se, but he was the one who wanted to finish the job as soon as possible so he could get back to lounging around.

“He revealed us to the principessa and that Amber girl’s met the capo.”

“Yeah, I remember her. She’s strong, for a human, but also kinda soft. She ain’t ready for the tough life so it’s a good thing il re’s keeping an eye on her,” I nodded. Now that she mentioned it, the picture was starting to paint itself. “Say, the other two broads on his team, ain’t they some kinda mob too?”

“That's what I heard from the picciotto, capo.”

“So the bossman's already been making inroads with the locals. That means it should be fine to approach their don.”

“Sounds good,” Sorbet said. “That should give us resources and manpower. So what do we do with the detective?”

“Alright, I've decided. We'll split up. Sorbet and I will talk to this Junior fella. Get a read on him and make sure he knows where his loyalties lie now.”

“What about us?” Shortcake asked with a frown. “Don’t tell me we’re going to be sitting around digging up clovers while you two have all the fun.”

“Nah, it ain’t like that, Shortcake. You and Souffle look into the other gangs. There’s gotta be a few smaller ones out there. Beat ‘em up and take ‘em down. Let ‘em know there’s a new king in town.”

“Got it. We can consolidate,” Souffle said with a nod.

“And me?” Semifreddo raised a paw in question.

“You’ve got the best ears out of all of us,” I told her. “You’re gonna lead the picciotti. Take your group and bug the shit outta Powers. Get creative. I’ll leave it to you.”

“Aye, capo. I can do that,” she said with an earnest nod. “We’ll stick with the classics for now…”

“Good. We, the Cuddles Crew, are the first of the Moonlit Famiglia on Remnant. We will not disappoint his majesty.”

“Aye, capo!” my crew cried out as one.

They did an old bunny proud.

X

Hei “Junior” Xiong

LIfe was… not good… but decent enough. It had been a week since the twins left with Tianyu and the worst I’d had to deal with were some customers complaining that the food wasn’t as good as it used to be. Lenny and the boys tried their best, but they hadn’t quite mastered the bunny’s recipes. Even considering that, the club brought in more money than ever before.

That said, not all was peaceful. There were stirrings in the background. Someone had let slip that the twins, my top enforcers, were off in Beacon, turning over a new leaf. They weren’t, Tianyu sure as shit wasn’t some angel, but the rumor gave other, lesser gangs ideas. I’d probably have to go smack them around a bit, maybe get the twins back for a weekend.

Then there was whatever the hell Roman and Neo were up to. Roman surrendered to Glynda Goodwitch over a dust robbery, allegedly, but I had it on good authority that a snow-white bunny was involved. The crook didn’t stay in jail of course, not even for a full twenty-four hours, before Neo broke him out. They’d been keeping their heads down but I doubted that would last; I knew those two too well to think otherwise.

Lastly, there was talk about the White Fang beginning to move.

Oh, I wasn’t stupid. I realized pretty damn quickly that Tianyu was the one who met the farmer; there was no one else insane enough to solicit a farmer for corn husks at one in the fucking morning. But that didn’t mean anyone else knew what was going on.

From what I could gather, the White Fang thought there was some kind of “super-faunus” secret agent. His hypothetical mission ranged from destabilizing the police force, taking hostage the local food supplies, to peddling some new drug. All of that would be hilarious if I thought people were smart enough to not act on baseless rumors.

Unfortunately, I’d been in the gig long enough to never underestimate human idiocy. Depending on how the VPD and the Fang reacted, things could get messy as rumors snowballed out of control.

Which was bad for business.

In a time when the twins were stuck in school of all things.

Oh, I could call them back, but they would bring the bunny with them, and that was like throwing a grenade down a rabbit hole. I had no doubt he could solve whatever needed solving, but the question was, what other steaming shitheap would he leave me with when he was finished?

I knew from living with him for over a month: Tianyu did not think like normal people. He functioned off some weird sense of reciprocity mixed with condescension, as if he was the only adult in the room and everyone, from blondie to the twins, were children he needed to scold and guide along the right path.

That, and whatever fucked up mentality that made him decide that being a chef was the greatest profession of all.

He also seemingly had zero sense of scale. A destroyed club could be forgiven with an apology to the chef, not the dozens of other boys that blondie actually beat up. A broken weapon would be repaid with another made using some kind of super-metal no one’s ever heard of. And, if the farmer was right, corn husks were paid off using magic drugs that could fix anything.

I really wanted to test that last one, but Ozpin had taken them out of my reach long before I’d heard the full story. Any attempt to acquire a bottle for myself would be far too messy for my liking.

All told, “proportional response” had a very different meaning to the fucking bunny than to us normal folk. I didn’t even want to know what he’d do if the twins convinced him to take out the gangs.

Which was why I slammed my head back down on the pillow in exasperation. I was about to go to sleep. Considering the things set in motion, this might well be my last night of uninterrupted sleep for weeks.

“Tianyu sent you?” I asked, groaning up at the figure. Rhetorical question, there weren’t many people who’d break into my room like this. The ones who could were much more likely to leave a bomb, not a pair of oversized rabbits.

“Aye, il re sent me. Capo Cuddles of the Moonlit Famiglia. Nice to meet’cha, Junior,” the bigger one, pitch-black with a shock of white fur over his chest in the shape of a four-pointed star, grunted out. He had a distinct accent I couldn’t quite place but I felt he needed a cigar to finish his look. “This here’s Sorbet, a soldato in my crew. We need to talk.”

“Brothers, I better not be dreaming…”

“Ya ain’t dreamin’. Get up.”

“You say that, but rabbits don’t talk.”

“We do. Get used to it, bub.”

They stared at me intently. I didn’t know what it was that made me get up, but get up I did. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable with the little shits staring at me in bed.

I tried to ignore the distinct shiver of danger that crawled down my spine. He looked like any other rabbit, just freakishly large, but I couldn’t dismiss my instincts. They were screaming that this little fuzzball was dangerous.

I poured myself a glass of whiskey. Then, wondering why the hell not, I poured a second and third tumbler before sliding them over. “You drink?”

“Heh, good man,” Capo Cuddles said. He, somehow, picked up his glass and swirled it around like a fucking expert before taking a sip. No, he didn’t have opposable thumbs. Yes, he picked it up anyway. Next to him, the one called Sorbet did the same but took noticeably smaller sips, like a watchful guard should. “Mmm, it’s got a nice smell to it. You’ve got the good stuff, huh?”

“Only the best,” I replied. It was surreal, how the hell did they do that without thumbs?

Still, I quashed my reservations and engaged the two in small talk. Capo Cuddles was an easygoing fellow, the kind of man who knew what he was about. Meanwhile, Soldato Sorbet was much more serious and kept his words brief.

They made a good pair. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was sharing a drink with two veteran mobsters.

I suppressed a sigh as I realized that I would forever be forced to associate the name “Capo Cuddles” with serious gang negotiations from this point forward.

Tianyu was fucking with me.

He had to be.

“So, what’s this about?” I asked neutrally.

“You, joining the famiglia. Well, let’s say we’re to be… associates.”

“Tianyu started his own gang and wants me to join.”

“Heh, that’s right. We’ll be taking over the underworld eventually. For now? We’ll keep things nice and quiet-like. There’s some stinkin’ pig we gotta deal with first.”

“Who-Detective Powers?”

“Good, the famiglia could use smart associates.”

“Did… Did Tianyu send a hit squad of talking bunnies to off a detective?” I asked, only partially in disbelief. Given all the other shit I’d seen him do, this wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should’ve been.

“Eh,” Capo Cuddles grunted, waving his paw back and forth. “Il re don’t move like that. He said he wants this quiet-like, and that means we can’t off the bastard. We’re to make his life real inconvenient. I’ve got my best gal and the picciotti on the job.”

“The wha-Never mind, I don’t need to know. So you want me to feed you and your… famiglia… information while you lot keep to the shadows?”

“That’s right. Some of my boys are out on the town. Let’s say they’re doing a little… fall cleaning, eh? They’re off sifting through the dirt, picking up all the good carrots. As for the rest, well, they ain’t nearly as polite as me and Sorbet here. Ya hear me?”

I heard what he wasn’t saying: My group got a pass because I was useful, probably because the twins got in good with their don. The “Moonlit Famiglia” was consolidating power. Cuddles, and holy shit was that word starting to sound ominous, had sent his buddies out to beat up the other gangs, maybe picking up a few of the more useful guys while they were at it to increase manpower. Those were probably the “carrots” he was talking about.

I almost pitied the poor bastards. At least I had a frame of reference for Tianyu’s bullshit. Getting my ass handed to me by a hit squad of literal rabbits would probably have made me kill myself from the sheer indignity of it all otherwise.

And, surprisingly, I believed Cuddles. I believed he could kick my ass, never mind that I had a good ten times his weight on him. There was an aura of danger about him, an air of competence and self-assuredness I’d only seen in the most veteran of huntsmen. It was the confidence of a man who knew he could murder everyone in the building if he needed to. Capo Cuddles was a rabbit that walked like a lion.

Still, I wasn’t about to be intimidated by literal rabbits. Not even rabbit faunus, or whatever Tianyu was, literal rabbits. Tianyu scared the shit out of me, but I wasn’t that far gone yet.

“You realize I’m gonna need more from you than just promises,” I said sternly. “You’re free to buy information like everyone else, Capo Cuddles, but I run a business here.”

“Fine, let’s start with something nice and easy: Powers. Everything you know about him. I want a list of his family and friends. I wanna know where he lives, what he likes to eat, how much he makes, the whole shebang.”

“I can do that. Powers isn’t important enough to keep tabs on, but I can have someone get into the records. It’ll cost you though.”

“Go on…”

“See, there’s a group called the Scorpions down by the docks. They mostly smuggle drugs in and out of the ports.”

“You want us to off ‘em? Shortcake and Souffle should make their rounds eventually. I can move them up the list. Then you and yours can take over that territory.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Tianyu wasn’t just fucking with me. His entire famiglia was named after dessert apparently. Except Cuddles, for whatever reason.

“No, I don’t want control of the docks. I already know what goes in and out of Vale and that’s good enough for me,” I told him. “I just want you to destroy their newest drug sample; they’re too addictive and Raul, the leader of the Scorpions, isn’t thinking about the long-term profits.”

“I hear ya. Too much destroys lives and the customers can’t spend money they don’t have so you want the drugs kept under control.”

“That’s right. Take out the drugs and I’ll have an information packet ready for you.”

Capo Cuddles leaned back, stroking the four-pointed star on his breast like a beard. “Alright, we have a deal, Junior. Consider it done.”

Then, the two vanished in a blur of speed, almost as if they’d never been there at all. I felt like I was dreaming, but the two tumblers of whiskey were proof: Tianyu was fucking insane.

Author’s Note

Today, my parents are celebrating their 60th birthdays. It's a huge deal in Korean culture (five cycles of the 12 annual zodiac). In honor of that, I allowed ACL chat to choose what chapter they wanted. Here's Patreon's share.

Yes, I probably butchered Italian. No, I don’t care. It’s funnier this way.

If an Authority is used to create a familiar, that familiar is technically a divine beast, right? No matter how humble the starting animal, it inherits a bit of that god/Campione’s power.

Pity Junior. The man has the dubious honor of being the first on Remnant to figure out what being friends with a Campione is like.

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.