Homeless Bunny 8 (Patreon)

Homeless Bunny 8

"It's just a weapon, brat," I told the silver-eyed brat. I regretted those words the moment they left my lips. The sheer unadulterated grief in her expression couldn't be faked. She didn't look like a huntress who'd lost her primary means of combat; she looked like a mother who'd lost her child, a sight I'd seen far too often in my life.

Then the world crawled to a standstill as my senses accelerated beyond all mortal logic. Something in her eyes changed. Mana welled up from within, drawing upon her very soul, until her sorrow was drowned out by righteous fury.

"Just a weapon? A weapon? Y-You monster!" she screamed out.

White light flooded the dance floor but the unrestrained, uncontrolled spell was targeting me alone. I felt the mana wash over me and… do absolutely nothing.

She poured out all her grief and rage, wrung her very soul dry to eke out what mana she could, and fell pitifully short of my passive magic resistance. I was a Campione after all. Far be it for me to discredit strength born of desperation, the majority of my siblings ascended in much the same way, but it just wasn't enough most of the time. We Campione were freaks of nature, by no means a fair standard.

Scythe-girl rammed headfirst into this impossible standard. She had no idea what she was doing. I could tell that this wasn't a spell she'd practiced. Hell, I doubted this was something she even knew she had in the first place. She dug deep for inner strength, found it in some sort of hitherto unknown heritage, and gave it her all. It wasn't her fault for coming up short.

The slightest stirrings of respect nudged my heart. Just a little. She was still a disrespectful brat, far too short-tempered, but damn if she didn't put in her best effort.

In a way, she reminded me of a hime-miko, descendants of divine ancestors who possessed innate gifts born of that heritage. However degraded though they may be, they did have it, that ever so slight spark of divinity. It allowed them to see the future, tap into the Memories of the Void, or, in the case of Susanoo's "granddaughter," even channel his Authority for brief periods of time.

As the light faded, I reached out with my own mana and stabilized the fading traces of the spell. They condensed into thin wisps of light, like spiderwebs in the morning dawn. Curious, I looked closer.

In my time, I'd often opened up the Lunar Palace to gods of varying pantheons. I hosted banquets with guest lists of major and minor deities, fae kings, demon lords, and more. It wasn't unusual for them to pay their tabs with books, spell matrices, alchemical ingredients, or artifacts. After all, what good was gold to any of us?

The Norse in particular were gods fond of food and drink, their king most of all. And as the god of wisdom and father of runes, Odin had plenty to offer to buy himself a hearty meal or dozen.

Suffice to say, I'd gotten rather familiar with spell matrices of all types. The one I was looking at, the imprints of a divine blessing from a god of light, made me wonder at the sheer nerve of the girl.

"Did… Did you just try to petrify me?" I asked the scythe-girl incredulously. I wasn't offended; I was impressed. Voban, my eldest brother, had an Authority that did something similar, the Eyes of Sodom, which could turn any living creature he saw into a pillar of salt. That some snot-nosed brat had a power reminiscent of the fiercest of my siblings was… surprising to say the least.

She collapsed, utterly spent, but I was there to catch her. Gently, I laid her down on the ground next to the gold one.

"R-Ruby," the blonde blubbered. "W-What did you do to her?"

I looked at her with a halfhearted glare. All else aside, she still ruined Jeremy's Scotch egg. I wouldn't forget that. "Nothing, you brat. Has she ever used her heritage before?"

"What?"

"Her heritage. The eye-magic."

"What magic? Her Semblance is speed!"

"So she's never had flashing eyes before?"

"No! What was that?"

I frowned. That made me feel even guiltier. "Somehow, me breaking her weapon caused her enough grief that she tapped into an ancestral ability of some kind."

"What?"

"You're one giant stereotype, aren't ya?" I said, rolling my eyes. "She, Ruby, has eye-magic. She's always had eye-magic. Sometimes, bloodline gifts like this can awaken when put through sufficient trauma, though why breaking her weapon of all things caused it is beyond me."

"She loved Crescent Rose like her child!"

"Ah, that'd do it." I ran my fingers through my hair. The blond flinched back as I raised my hand. "Relax. If I want you dead, you would be. You breathe, ergo I don't want you dead."

"Real comforting," she muttered under her breath. "What the hell was that?"

"Eye-magic. Weren't you listening? It turns her enemies to stone from what I can tell."

"Yeah, you're looking real stony."

I flicked her nose, sending rolling in pain. "Ow! Why does that hurt so much?"

"Because I want it to. And I'm not stone because…" I thought about explaining the nuances of being a Campinoe. She clearly knew nothing of gods or Authorities or divine magic so I'd have to start there. Or really, just with magic in general. I thought about it, then decided shit wasn't worth wasting my breath over. "... because I'm a bunny. Bunnies are the sacred guardians of the moon and therefore immune to magic," I declared, with full confidence. Who was going to question me? Bring me a bunny and I'd just use an Authority to make it immune.

"The moon's broken," she said sarcastically. "Doing a real bang-up job guarding the moon, huh?" My fingers blurred and she rolled away again. "Aahhh! Ow! Fuck! Shit! Why!"

"Shut up. Bunnies are magic-proof 'cause I said so. And as the embodiment of the will of the fluffy and Master of Fluffles, my word is law." I looked around at the destruction around us. Melanie and Miltiades were pretending very poorly to not eavesdrop. I rolled my eyes and waved the twins over. "Are you done?"

"Hey, we didn't start this," Melanie whined. "It's the blonde bimbo who barged in here and started wrecking shit."

"Yeah, Mel and I were just doing our jobs defending the place," Miltiades chimed in.

"I know. And I'm putting a stop to it. All four of you. It's over now, got it?"

"Can we hit her a few more times?"

"No."

"Aww… Can we watch you hit her with a spoon again?"

"No… Maybe…"

"Sitting right here," blondie grumbled.

"And? Are you done? Because you still need to go find Jeremy and apologize."

"You're really not going to let that go, are you? It's just an egg!"

My qi filled the club and an immeasurable pressure settled over her shoulders. "It's just an egg to you, but it represents the sum total of his efforts training under me. It is his first true accomplishment as a chef, and tonight was to be the first night he was put in charge of the kitchen. It's not just an egg."

"O-Okay, chill. Fine, I'll say sorry!"

I smiled beatifically. "Good. Life is better when you respect people's efforts, don't you think? And longer."

"W-What about Crescent Rose?"

"I know. I'll apologize for breaking her weapon when she wakes up. Ruby, was it? I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't make it up to her somehow."

"Good luck with that. You use a spatula. Crescent Rose is the most complex weapon I've ever seen."

"And? It's still a farming tool. Can't be too hard to reforge it." I rummaged around in my pocket and pulled out a lollipop.

It was a tiny rice crispy treat shaped into a marble, coated in dark chocolate, and sprinkled with shards of peanuts. It was also blessed with the Peach Blossom Alchemy for healing purposes. I decided that the rice balls of healing were a bit too much to choke down mid-fight and settled on these. I carried a few hundred of them in an enchanted bottomless pocket at all times; I never knew when I might need one to pacify children.

I peeled away the wrapper and shoved it into Ruby's mouth.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I'm the stranger giving a little girl candy. She has to come home with me now. That's how this works, right?"

"You…!" To her credit, she managed to muster up a tiny spark of aura, enough for her eyes to go red again. I wasn't even sure why I was provoking her. No, yes I was. I was still annoyed about the egg.

And… If I had to be perfectly honest… It was kinda funny…

"Ngg," Ruby moaned as the candy's magic did its work. Her lips closed around the treat without conscious input. "W-What happened?"

"You got all bright-eyed when you looked at me. You were so captivated that you passed out. And now you're sucking on my lollipop," I explained patiently.

"That's gross," the twins drolled.

"Maybe, but true. She's just going to have to accept that she sucked a random stranger's lollipop."

"I don't know how, but I'm going to kill you," the blonde swore through gritted teeth.

"Crescent Rose!" Ruby yelled as it all came back to her. She looked down at the lollipop in her mouth and the shattered remnants of her weapon before shooting me a glare of pure loathing.

I raised my hands in surrender. "Hey now, I already promised the blonde idiot I'll make it up to you."

"Yang's not an idiot!"

"Oh, so that's her name. I mean… I've just been calling her 'that blonde idiot' in my head because she never introduced herself."

"I did!" Yang protested.

"I mean, but you didn't matter then so I ignored it." Two pairs of glowering eyes stared me down. It was funny how humans could go from "utterly terrified" to "done with this shit" so quickly. "Alright, fine. Look, red, blon-Yang came in here and beat up the owner and his two bodyguards, that's those two cuties there. I intervened and kicked her ass. Then you came in, saw me standing over her, and went all 'Don't touch my sister!' and wouldn't listen to anything. So I broke your weapon."

"Yang wouldn't do that!" Ruby fumed.

"Ehehehehe," Yang laughed nervously.

"We have cameras," Melanie chimed in. "Like any other club. We can prove the blonde bitch started it."

"Seriously. Lots. Of. Cameras. That could find their way into police custody," Miltiades added with a smirk.

"Yang!" Ruby gasped, scandalized. "How could you?"

"I was looking for mom!" her sister said. "I thought… I thought that Junior might have information about her."

I tried to understand, really. Other than Aisha, I was the most benevolent of Campione. I took pride in being an understanding king. Absolute monarch though I may be, I listened to my subjects' wishes and did my best to make life easier for them. This… This night just got stupider the more I listened.

"Let me get this straight," I muttered. "Yang is looking for her mother. And decides that the most well-connected information broker in Vale is the man to go to. And further decides that in order to convince him, she should trash his headquarters and beat up his men. Rather than, I don't know, paying for information like a normal person. And she has chosen to immortalize her stupidity on camera. Am I hearing this right?"

"Well, when you put it that way, everything can sound stupid."

"N-No… I think this is just you, Yang," Ruby said with a sigh. Clearly, the weapon-nut was the reasonable one of the pair.

"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side!"

"And that means calling you out when you do dumb things. Uncle Qrow said so."

I reached up and tugged my ears over my face. "Just who is your mother that you thought this was a good plan?"

"I don't know! She ran off when I was born," Yang said. She produced a picture. The woman had black hair and red eyes but was otherwise a dead ringer for her daughter. "Her name's Raven Branwen."

The twins gasped. I eyed them curiously. "You know this one?"

"Yup. She's pretty famous," Mel said. "Practically everyone born in Mistral knows who that is. Can't believe I didn't see it earlier."

"Yeah, seriously. At least that explains her everything, sis," Mil added. "Raven Branwen is the most wanted woman in Mistral, at least officially. Everyone who would have a higher bounty than hers pays off the council."

"She doesn't pay the council because she lives out in the boonies. She leads a tribe of bandits called the Branwen Tribe, see? Doesn't really care much for organized crime."

I turned back to Yang. "There. Your information. You realize that you could have solved your problem with about four seconds of talking to these two, don't you?"

"W-Well, I didn't know," Yang mumbled.

"No, you just grabbed Junior by the balls and sucker punched him," Mel said dryly.

I sighed. "You also came to Vale for information about someone in Mistral. Does Junior even have informants that far out?"

"Some," Mil nodded. "Not many. I mean, we wouldn't be able to find the Branwen Tribe anyway since they're bandits and they move around. Any information we get would be old by the time blondie here can act on it."

"Figures. Whatever. This is done. I think we can agree Yang's made a lot of fuckups tonight. Hei Xiong, if you're done back there, wanna join us?"

Hei Xiong, leader of the Xiong Family and biggest information broker in Vale, stepped out from behind the kitchen with a sheepish smile. It really didn't suit a guy his size. "Sorry, you looked like you had it handled."

"Yeah. I heard you making some calls to get this place fixed. You send the boys home?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna have to arrange for medical care for the ones blondie trashed. We'll be closed for a few nights while the place gets cleaned up and rebuilt."

"Neat, how much is that?"

"Add up medical expenses, paid time off, redecorating, and lost revenue… A couple hundred grand, easy."

Yang went pale. "I-I don't have that kind of money."

"Oh, I know, blondie. There are ways for you to work it off."

"What? I'm not-"

"A high profile guard can make about 40 lien per hour. You need to pay back 200,000, maybe a bit less. So, in exchange for not pressing charges, that's what you're going to do."

"And you'll tell Jeremy you're sorry about the egg," I added.

"Seriously? Fine, I'll apologize to Jeremy, whoever he is," Yang mumbled. "I can't work here though. I have to go to Beacon in a few weeks!"

"Tough," Hei Xiong said with a shrug. "You broke it. You fix it."

"But…"

I rolled my eyes. "Junior, how much would the bill be if you forget about medical?"

"Half that maybe? I don't know, sounds about right," he said with a shrug. "My boys have aura so none of them were hurt too bad, but that's still a lot of boys she beat up."

"Bring them by. I can heal them."

"You can-Of course you can…"

"Now, that's 100,000 lien I expect you to pay off by working here, Yang. I don't care if you do it during the weekends, but you will make this right."

"Wait, does this mean we'll be her boss?" Miltiades asked. She sounded giddy with thoughts of petty vengeance.

"I think it does, Mil," her twin chimed in. They shared a wicked grin before staring at Yang like a piece of meat.

"Later," I interrupted. "If that's settled, all we need to talk about is Ruby and her weapon."

"Crescent Rose…" the slip of a girl wept. She held the shaft like a mother cradling her baby. "You're gone too soon…"

"I broke it so I will fix it. Let no one call me a hypocrite." I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'm going to help you redesign and fix your weapon. Hell, I'll throw in a few rune matrices just for fun."

"Y-You can fix Crescent Rose?"

"I mean… Probably? Look, I'm more of a hobbyist smith, but Dvalin and Odin really like their booze and they pay their tabs by giving me books and demonstrations and whatnot, alright? I know a thing or two about making weapons."

"You use a spatula," she deadpanned.

"No, I don't. I have weapons for fighting. The Wooden Spatula of Righteous Rebuke is for punishing idiots."

"You can fix her?"

"She'll be even stronger," I promised.

Scythe-girl stared me down. She must have seen the sincerity in my eyes because she eventually nodded. "Okay," she sniffed tears away. "I'll forgive you if you help me reforge Crescent Rose. But! I'm doing this too! She's my baby!"

She was like a silver-eyed puppy, so earnest and serious. I couldn't resist. I pat her head. "Of course, Ruby. Of course."

That was how a definitely underage girl ended up a regular patron at the club. Things were tense at the start, but as I'd found, ice cream could pave over all ills.

Author's Note

Yes, I have a problem. My boss told me I can have Monday off (it's Juneteenth) so here's another one. And another...

Alright… Now to railroad to canon.