Homeless Bunny 5

Despite the twins’ grandstanding, they had to wait a few hours for their auras to recharge. On the plus side, I finished making my ice cream. I tasted it, decided to go with the vanilla-ginger recipe, and roped the entire unpowered gang membership into stirring huge bowls of ice cream over ice baths. They could take turns.

Sure, I technically held zero authority in the Xiong Family, but I only needed to give Junior a bowl before he said my word was law. The mooks probably hated me, but meh, they were mooks.

Hours later, I stood and watched as the teddy bear DJ, Frank, hooked up our scrolls to the TV again. Our auras displayed as full, though I was intentionally clamping down on mine to avoid overloading the system. It felt like I was wearing a straitjacket. And cement shoes. And a noose tied to an aircraft carrier.

I’d deal. It really wasn’t a big enough handicap; they deserved more. They would have lost to Jabra before I gave him daggers made of Tiangou’s teeth. Guy turned into a bit of a monster as far as mortals went after that.

I reached down and pulled my apron from my waist before tying it around my eyes.

“What are you doing?” Melanie asked suspiciously.

“Blindfolding myself.”

“Why?”

“I’m giving you ladies a handicap. No eyes, no Semblance.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“I am not.” I then pulled out the Wooden Spoon of Gentle Guidance and held it between the pinky and thumb of my left hand. Flicking posture, as Laura called it. “You have two win conditions: First, you can steal my blindfold. If you can do that, I’ll consider it your win. Second, you can exhaust my aura the old fashioned way.”

“Bullshit.”

“This is too much, fluffy,” Miltiades said with a sullen glare. “We thought you were cool.”

“Well, fuck him, Mil. We’ll just have to teach him some manners the hard way.”

“That’s a spoon, Mel.”

“It is. Giving you one chance to grab a real weapon, fluffy. You know, for the frittata.”

I smiled placidly. “This is fine. The Wooden Spoon of Gentle Guidance was made for this exact purpose. Remember, you don’t need to defeat me, just get the blindfold off.”

Miltiades ran her claws against each other, drawing an ominous grinding sound. “That’s it. I’m going to enjoy beating the stuffing out of you.”

I shrugged. I was being kind to them by giving them a way out. Winning by aura count was tantamount to exhausting a Campione’s reserves. Asking a mortal to pull that off was like granting an ant immortality, then asking said ant to move a mountain one mile away. It was possible in the most abstract sense. The ant could, over millions of years, wait for erosion to take effect. Then over another million years, carry the mountain a mile away, grain of sand by grain of sand. Technically doable, but it was such an unlikely feat that the very notion was hilarious.

I held out my spoon. All around us, the mooks were starting to make their bets. Even Junior was looking down from the balcony where he’d been fielding a call. “I’m not underestimating you, believe it or not.”

“Yeah? Don’t blame us when we rip up those pretty ears, fluffy.”

“You don’t believe me. Fine, let’s trade pointers. Come at me as you please.”

And they did.

They worked in perfect synchronicity, like a pair of dancing cranes skimming the surface of a tranquil lake as plum blossoms floated in the breeze.

I shook my head. Hanging out with Chang’e was making me a bit too poetic. I heard the hiss of Mil’s claws streaking towards me and ducked, dodging the blow to my throat by the narrowest margin possible. I even left my ear between her claws and wagged it teasingly.

She growled in frustration and launched into a series of slashing swipes that impressed me with their accuracy. As pissed as she was, she never let it get to her head, at least not enough to make her movements sloppy. Each slash was aimed at either a joint or a vital organ: Uppercut towards the left armpit. Thrust into the opposite kidney. Switch trajectory into my eyes.

I nodded approvingly even as I wove between her strikes. She was vicious, utterly merciless. I could see it in the cold jade of her eyes; this ruthlessness wasn’t born of knowing aura would protect me. No, this was born of experience. Miltiades Malachite was as much a huntress as any licensed one, albeit of men rather than grimm.

‘Luo Hao would like her,’ I mused. She had the grace, flexibility, and killing intent. What she lacked in natural talent, she made up for with raw experience and training. ‘Then again, wifey might just kill her for her insolence, always a tossup with her.’

I whistled innocently as Melanie joined in. Where Miltiades was as fast and relentless as a pissed off cat, her sister preferred a stronger, more penetrating style. Kicks, being slower, made Melanie’s attacks much easier to parry, but the twins took advantage of that. When I flicked a bladed heel away with my spoon, Mil was there, already trying to get under my guard. They’d clearly developed their combat style with the other in mind so that one could make openings while the other capitalized.

It didn’t matter.

Even as I limited myself to their speed, the gap in experience was far too wide to bridge with a simple two on one. I kept a hand behind my back as my fingers lashed out, twirling the spoon and using the revolution to deflect a roundhouse kick from Mel. I then predicted Mil’s aggression and stepped into her guard to meet her before bringing my spoon flush against her nose.

Miltiades went cross-eyed trying to see my “teaching aide.” I flared my qi just a tiny bit, filling it with twin elements: metal to penetrate her aura without shattering it in one blow, wood to nourish and nurture so as to not break the delicate girl beneath. Then my fingers blurred and a loud, satisfying snap filled the air.

“Aah!” she cried out, stumbling back several steps. She clutched her now crimson nose as tears stung the edges of her vision. “What the hell!”

“This is the Wooden Spoon of Gentle Guidance. Respect. The. Spoon,”I said smugly as I twirled it between my fingers. I glanced up to the monitor to confirm what I knew; her aura had dipped by less than one percent, so little that the system didn’t even recognize the drop.

“Oh, that is it!” she shrieked. She launched herself at me with renewed fury but this time, I was done dodging. I held the spoon between my index and middle fingers and used the gentle slope of the back to redirect her swipes and thrusts around me.

“Rage is good, but you should not let it consume you. Instead, be as the stone in the river. Become an isle of calm in the flow of battle,” I intoned sagely. “All things shall pass so fill your heart with tranquility and conviction.”

“Oh, fuck you and your Mistralian fortune cookie bullshit,” Mil growled. “Mel!”

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“On it!”

Melanie got on her hands and knees in a sweeping kick that would have ripped out my Achilles tendon. I stepped over it as easily as a child walking over cracks in the sidewalk. Then, I redirected a downward slash from her sister towards Melanie’s face.

“Hey, watch it, sis!” Melanie cried, narrowly dodging the crimson claws. A single petal from the flower in her hair fell to the ground.

“Wasn’t me!”

I lashed out again with my spoon in the dreaded flicking posture, this time for the nose of the older twin. Again, metal and wood blended perfectly, my will keeping the two normally warring elements at peace. Another snap pierced the air, sending Melanie skidding back on her butt.

“Oww!” she yelped, hands clutching her abused nose and sounding a little nasally.

“Talking isn’t a free action,” I said. “You should only talk if the information you’re conveying is vital. Or if you outclass your opponent so heavily that it no longer matters.”

I stepped back a bit to give them room to come up with another plan. Mil helped her sister to her feet and some unspoken message passed between them. I doubted they knew this, but the slight clacking of the stones in Mil’s necklace and the rustling of Mel’s fur collar gave them away. Not to mention, the sound of petals and feathers. Once I knew the position of their heads, the rest of their movements were easy to follow.

The twins glared heatedly at me before charging as one.

“You-”

“Stop looking down on us!”

This time, instead of splitting off to my left and right, they worked together for a direct assault. Their attacks came fast and hard, with Mil trying to whittle down my defenses and Mel going low to target my ankles, knees, and even my balls.

The twins were vicious and I loved them for it.

When I reached out with my spoon to flick Mil, her older sister grabbed her by the hand and yanked her back half a step. They worked like a well-oiled machine, with Mel acting as a mobile foundation for her sister’s faster attacks.

Then, Mel leapt into the air, breaking their pattern. She twirled like a ballerina, more of that needless flair I warned them about, and gave me a good look beneath her skirt. It might have distracted most men, but that sense of propriety had been beaten out of me long ago so when her bladed heel came slicing towards my temple, I just ducked and gave Mil another flick on the nose.

Miltiades reeled back in pain even as Melanie came down from her jump. Without her twin to bounce off of, she could do nothing when my spoon snaked up between her armpit to give her an identical flick on the nose.

“Aah!” the twins yelped as one. “Will you quit it?!”

I sighed. I could hear the real tears in their voices. I reached up and pulled off my blindfold before tossing it aside. Kneeling, I cupped each of their chins. “I’m sorry, maybe I went a little overboard. I didn’t mean to bully you, just break you of your bad habits.”

“Hell of a way to go about it,” Melanie said with a pouting glare. “You humiliated us.

“In front of all our goons,” Miltiades added. “Bet you just wanted to slap around two girls.”

“I did not,” I said firmly. Maybe I was a little too harsh. Luo Hao was far harsher with me, but I’d wanted to learn. I did kind of goad them into challenging me. “How about I stop slapping you around the dance floor and get you some ice cream?”

“We’re not children,” Mel sniffed.

“Yeah, we’re twenty-three, you jerk. And taller than you,” her sister quipped.

I grasped at my heart. “Oof, really? Short jokes?”

Melanie got up and dragged her sister to her feet. “That better be damn good ice cream, fluffy.”

“The best you’ve ever had. Bunny’s promise.”

“Hmph, we’ll see.”

X

“Mnnn~” the girls moaned in chorus.

“Best you’ve ever had, as promised,” I grinned smugly. My ears bounced in mesmerizing patterns. I had it on good authority they made me impossible to stay mad at.

Melanie wagged her spoon at me. “Stop it. We’re supposed to be angry.”

“Yeah. Don’t think this is forgiveness,” her sister added.

Junior, who’d walked down from the second floor for his own bowl, groaned in satisfaction. He tapped the counter with a finger. “So where the hell’d you learn to fight like that? And cook like this?”

I shrugged. “My wife taught me to fight. I’m the best chef; she’s the best martial artist. We learn from each other.”

“Woah, wait, hold up. You’re married?”

“Oh. Did I not mention that? Yeah. I mean, we often do our own thing so we don’t see each other daily, but yes, I’m happily married.”

“Bullshit. You look like you could be in middle school.”

“Yeah, pics or it didn’t happen,” Melanie said.

I rolled my eyes and made my Semblance appear in the air. I plunged my hand into the seal and called on yin, the darkness, to spit out the things I’d stored inside. In particular, a miniature photo album. I slid it over. “See? This is Luo Hao, the Ruler of the Martial Realm and my beautiful wife.”

“Holy shit, that’s not fair.”

Miltiades groaned. “Yeah, for real. She looks that good and she’s stronger than you?”

I nodded. “In direct combat. I can win if I have some time to prep. But yes, I’ve never beaten her in a straight martial arts contest.”

“Unfair.”

“Totes.”

“Relax, girls, you two aren’t terrible,” I soothed.

“You kicked our asses. With. A. Spoon,” Mel grumbled. “You know what that means for our rep?”

“There is zero shame in losing to me. I’m… a special case.”

“We lost to a bunny with a spoon!”

I chuckled sheepishly. She wasn’t wrong. Back on earth, the twins would have won a lot of respect for facing me, no matter how much I held back. Here, my reputation as the Seventh King was nonexistent. All anyone knew was that there was a bunny who barely scraped five feet tall who absolutely clowned on the enforcers of the Xiong Family. “Well, if anyone thinks ill of you for it, feel free to send them to me for a challenge of their own. Shared humiliation is a great way to build empathy.”

“Right… How’d you get this strong anyway?”

“I told you, Luo Hao taught me.”

The twins looked at each other. A silent conversation passed between them before they looked back at me with what could be mistaken for predatory smiles.

“We’ll forgive you,” Melanie began.

“But, you need to teach us to kick ass like that,” Miltiades finished.

I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t expecting them to do an about-face like this. Most gangsters, especially enforcers, tended to have highly sensitive egos. They hated losing face and tended to bare fangs at any perceived slight, no matter how outclassed they were in reality. I’d had to gently rebuke more than one wannabe New York kingpin over the century.

Was it the ice cream? Had I left such a positive impression on them in two weeks? Or were these girls more down to earth than their gaudy dresses first implied?

I hummed in thought. I didn’t want to empower gang members, especially not killers like these two, and yet… My godly power was having trouble confronting the twin gods’ magic. Not that I wasn’t making ground, but it was unpredictable, as three divine magics blending together tended to be. By the rate the moon was repairing itself, I’d be here for a while. Maybe a year, maybe ten. Wouldn’t it be good to have an entourage of my own? Why not guide the Xiong Family into a more tolerable moral state?

It wouldn’t be the first time. I helped redeem Maeve, though admittedly I’d just forced her to “intern” with Annie so she could learn to be a real fucking hero.

‘Besides, it wouldn’t really be empowering them,’ I thought. A few pointers wouldn’t hurt; they’d still be within the realm of mortal skill.

“It’ll be hard,” I noted.

“We know,” Mel said.

“It’ll hurt.”

“We can deal with pain,” Mil added. “Come on, fluffy. Teach us.”

“You girls really want to learn from me?” I asked a final time. “Last chance to back out.”

They looked at each other, then at Junior. Their nominal boss shrugged. He had no objections. Why would he object to getting stronger subordinates?

“Yup. We want to be strong.”

“Strong enough to fear no one.”

I nodded. “Well, looks like I have new disciples.”

“Yes!” they cheered as one.

“Don’t get too excited now,” I said with a beatific grin. “There will be many spoons in your future.”

Author’s Note

Hmm… Even after a century, Tianyu has a habit of picking up people from the other side of the law. First Laura, now these two.

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