Homeless Bunny 16 (Patreon)

Homeless Bunny 16

I stared at the blonde idiot with naked disbelief, the one who decided that applying to a school designed to train monster hunters with zero aura was somehow a good plan. I didn't understand. I couldn't understand, and not for lack of trying.

I studied him out of the corner of my eye, just to be sure. I was a Campione. "A really stupid plan that somehow works out" was how the overwhelming majority of us ascended in the first place. We Campione were, one and all, posterboys for the term "idiot-savant." And being one myself, I liked to think I could recognize a kindred spirit.

But… But as much as we liked to joke that we were idiots, sometimes, the emphasis should be placed on savant. Luo Hao challenged a god of strength to a contest of martial arts, and won. Doni faced Nuadha, first king of the Tuatha De Danann, to a contest of swords, and won. Though I had no grand epic to tell, even before my ascension, I was such a talented chef that the Jade Rabbit ate my food and managed to poison herself without noticing until far too late.

We were, to the last, savants, geniuses of peerless skill in our respective passions. Was Jaune Arc one such person? A Campione in the making?

It wasn't impossible. As illogical as his actions seemed from the outside, it spoke of matchless confidence. Spunk, as Doni would put it. Was Jaune Arc so gifted with the blade that he believed he would emerge victorious even without aura? Had he foregone the activation ritual as a handicap against himself?

One more time, I probed at him with every sense I had, both mundane and magical. And he was…

"He's going to die," I whispered in horrified realization. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Either he was the single greatest deceiver in history, akin to Lucifer himself, or he was exactly as he seemed, a bumbling fool with zero talent to speak of.

I glanced at Ozpin. There was no way he didn't know, right? If he had no aura, he likely had no formal education in this line of work either. No apprenticeships or whatever passed for the equivalent here. Which likely meant a bullshit transcript. Ozpin did not seem like a fool; he had to know.

I met his eyes, flickering back to Jaune in open question. He raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. Then, ever so briefly, he looked at Goodwitch, the woman with a telekinetic Semblance.

Realization washed over me: Jaune would get launched into the forest, only for Goodwitch to save the fool from giving some tree a red paint job. She would then pick his sorry ass off the forest floor, giving the shaken boy the mother of all lectures. She might even drag him along as she hunts down a few beowolves, really showing him what being a huntsman was all about.

This was the plan. This was always the plan. A boy with delusions of grandeur wouldn't just stop because he didn't get accepted into Beacon. If he was willing to fake an application to come here anyway without knowing the first thing about aura, he might also be willing to head out into the forest on his own to "prove them all wrong." He'd die of course. Sure, Beacon wouldn't be responsible, but that'd be cold comfort to educators and huntsmen like the staff here.

I sighed. This was one of those "scared straight" moments in the making. My world had them too, though it was usually cops recreating a drunk driving accident or drug bust.

I locked eyes with Goodwitch. It was subtle, but she gestured to Jaune and thumbed her riding crop with obvious intent.

I gave her a respectful nod and washed my hands of him. She had it handled; I saw no reason to insert myself into something she'd likely done before.

One by one, my future classmates were launched into the sky.

I decided to have some fun with it and bounced into the air. "Boing," I muttered.

"What?" the guy next to me, some punk kid with a pink mohawk, asked.

"Boing," I replied with an earnest nod, deliberately curling and uncurling my ears as I bounced in place.

"Are you stupid?"

Then my turn came. My "Semblance" bloomed beneath my feet like a golden flower as the launchpad released. I shouted for the world to hear, "BOING!"

Beneath me, the launchpad shattered into a million pieces as I rocketed into the air. I didn't head into the forest. Instead, I jumped almost straight up, past the cloud cover and far enough above to visibly see the curvature of the world.

There, I took a deep breath and waited.

Miltia was the second of us. When she was at the height of her arc, I swan dived straight for her with pinpoint accuracy.

I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Moon Bunny Combat Arts: Hawk Eating Rabbit!"

X

Miltiades Malachite

I knew I wasn't the best, far from it. If anything, Melanie and I were probably the two weakest students here, paired with the a Maiden of myth and legend and… whatever unholy fuck Tianyu was. We couldn't even beat the blonde bitch when we had each other. Pit us alone in one of those combat classes I knew the academies liked so much and, and we were fucked, no two ways about it.

But that didn't mean we had nothing to contribute. We had contacts and resources. And we were good at what we did. We'd watched Junior work for years now and some of that rubbed off on us. Tianyu and country girl could be our giant beatsticks; we'd handle the intel.

Most of all? I liked to think Mel and I were the most inoculated to Tianyu's general Tianyu-ness.

Then, just because the fluffy son of a bitch liked proving people wrong, he divebombed me like a falcon.

"Moon Bunny Combat Arts: Hawk Eating Rabbit!" He tackled me, catching me by the lower back and flipping me over into a bridal carry.

"AAAHHH! What the fuck, Tianyu?" I screamed.

I had my claws out of course. My plan was to catch them on a tree trunk and spiral my way down. I lashed out on instinct, flailing wildly, and managed to catch him in the face.

It didn't do anything, I'd yet to see him take even superficial damage, but I stabbed him a few more times to make myself feel better.

"Hey there, drop in often?"

"Fuck you. Fuck you so much."

"Aww, don't be like that, Mil," he said with that stupid pretty boy smile and those stupid fluffy ears. Tianyu was a man who smiled with his whole face, not just his mouth. His ruby-red eyes shone with mirth and he had a way about him that made him impossible to stay mad at.

I felt blood rush to my face. He was holding me. We locked eyes. He was my partner. Not Melanie's, mine.

I was going to hold this over her forever.

"Fuck you," I repeated for appearance sake. Still, I wrapped my arms around his neck. He was warm. And soft. And had a really nice smile. I huffed, more to distract myself than anything. "And shouldn't it be 'Rabbit Eating Hawk?'"

"Are you the martial artist or am I?"

"I don't need to be a master to know you sound stupid."

"Well I'll have you know, this bunny can eat hawks. There are some decent recipes for rocs actually. Not quite the same, but pretty tasty, and you can't beat those portion sizes."

"Right…"

We alighted on a tree branch to wait for the others. It didn't take long; Tianyu was hardly subtle. Looking back, we saw the blonde with the bunny onesie flail like an idiot before getting saved by Goodwitch. I wondered what his story was, then immediately dismissed the loser.

A minute later, country girl, Amber, flew through the air, riding her staff like some witch out of a storybook, which she was now that I thought about it. Melanie straddled the rod behind her and I shook my head to banish the dozen sex jokes that came to mind.

Not the time. Unlike my twin, I had a filter between my brain and my mouth. Not much, but it did exist.

"Great," Tianyu clapped, "we're all partnered up. Shall we get going?"

"Yeah, let's get this over with," my sister grumbled. I saw right through her though. Bitch was laughing at me.

Well, joke's on her. Bun-bun was still carrying me. I wrapped my arms around him and shot her a cheeky wink.

Guess who was his partner? That's right, this bitch, right here.

We glided to the ground and Tianyu finally made me let go. Tianyu started to walk in a direction so we all followed him. He probably knew where he was going.

"So, are you always so dramatic?" Amber asked him. "And what are the Moon Bunny Combat Arts?"

"They're a set of intermediate-level martial arts techniques I made so people could ease into things before picking up the Lunar Revel, my actual fighting style. They emphasize speed, agility, and decisive killing strokes from unexpected angles. Why? Interested?"

"I'll stick to my staff and magic, thanks."

"Is that what we're going to be learning?" I asked. We'd always wanted to be strong, strong enough to tell mother dearest in Mistral to go fuck herself. We were good, but not huntsman-good. That kind of training was almost impossible to find outside the academies.

Until now. Until one day, a hilariously overpowered bunny dropped into our laps and adopted us. It'd suck. He'd probably have way too much fun torturing us in the name of training.

But it was free training from the single strongest person we knew.

Surprisingly, he shook his head. "Nah, you need to start with the beginner stuff. This is intermediate-level. But yeah, you'll get here eventually."

"Speaking of training, have you and Melanie thought about picking up a ranged weapon?" country girl asked.

"There's nothing wrong with blades," Melanie said, more to be argumentative than anything. She was prickly like that.

"Amber's got a point," fluffy mused. "You two are used to throwing out rowdy drunk people at a club or fighting in the alleys with your gang where range wasn't really an issue. Now, well… a gun wouldn't be bad to have at your level."

"What do you mean 'at your level?'"

He pulled out his wooden spoon. Both Mel and I tracked it with well-deserved caution. Tianyu did something to it with his Semblance. It bypassed our auras to cause pain without harm, which just meant he could make our training sessions really last.

Then, with a lazy smile, he flicked the spoon between his fingers so fast that the air visibly rippled. A tree more than twenty yards away split clean in two, vertically. It looked like lightning struck the thing, but without the burning.

"Get good enough with aura and you'll be able to launch ranged attacks with physical weapons," he explained.

He gave us a lecture on martial arts as we walked to the relics, wherever they were. There were grimm in the way, but I didn't have to lift a finger. Country girl had apparently decided on a "wind" Semblance, using blades of air to cut down her enemies and fly. She also used the fire dust crystal on her staff to generate massive fire spirals.

I wasn't jealous…

Seeing how we never bothered to stop walking to take care of the grimm that came our way, it wasn't long until we found a big, ruined temple in the forest. Most of it had worn down over the years, but there was an altar with… a chessboard.

"Well, that makes things simple," Tianyu muttered. He grabbed the black king and handed the queen to Amber.

X

Ilia Amitola

Why, oh why, did I think this was a good idea again?

No, of course I wasn't thinking. I felt abandoned, lonely, desperate, and horny and decided leaving the Fang to chase down my crush was somehow going to get Blake to finally notice me.

Finding her wasn't any trouble. It wasn't like she changed her name. Or cut her hair. Or wore contacts. Or changed her outfit. Or color palette. Or her extremely recognizable sword-cleaver-pistol-ribbon mechashift weapon.

No, Blake's idea of a "disguise" was a bow over her kitty ears. Her fluffy, perky kitty ears that I knew made her purr.

Focus, Ilia… Find Blake now, be horny later.

I grunted in annoyance as Lightning Lash wrapped around a beowolf. I yanked on the whip, breaking its neck in one, fluid motion. Who the hell was she fooling? There was no way in hell Blake seriously thought she'd conned Ozpin into letting her here. I at least had the benefit of looking mostly human.

I'd been keeping my distance until now; I knew how skittish she could be. But this was different. If I could find her, we'd be partners, together.

Attending Beacon would mean tolerating two other people on the team, probably humans, but I could bear it for her. We'd graduate together, having grown much stronger. Then we could ditch our two hanger-ons and be badass huntresses. It'd be us against the world. We'd travel all across Remnant, fighting for faunus rights, protecting people the kingdoms were so eager to throw aside.

Or maybe we'd return to the Fang, where we both belonged. Or to Menagerie, where Ghira and Kali were waiting.

I had so many things to say to her, so much to get off my chest. I was pissed. I felt abandoned. But I missed her so, so much. I didn't believe Adam for a moment. He claimed in his report that Blake had left him to fend off the SDC's security droids on his own, left him to die. He claimed that she was a traitor to the cause, a coward who ran with her tail between her legs.

Adam was full of shit. I knew Blake better than anyone. Blake was an idealist. She'd never abandon the faunus, not even with a blade to her throat. She'd never throw away her beliefs, her dreams of a world with equality for all. Behind the stoicism, she was a creature driven by passion and dreams.

But she did leave the Fang. There was no denying that.

Conflicting feelings warred in me. Blake was the single most loyal person I knew. She wasn't loyal to a person, but to the cause? There was none more faithful. So what did it say about the Fang that our most faithful chose to walk away?

I didn't know.

Maybe I didn't want to know.

But I had to find out. I needed to hear this from the horse's mouth. I wanted to trust her. No, I believed in her. I just needed her to make it make sense for me.

My thoughts ground to a screeching halt. I'd done well to avoid any searching eyes, but with my emotions going haywire the way they were, it was hard to hold my camouflage. Green eyes met mine.

"Hello there," my new partner said.

I suppressed a sigh of disappointment. I knew I could do worse than Pyrrha Nikos, but she was no Blake Belladonna.

Author's Note

There were a lot of ways to take this. I thought about just why Jaune was allowed to get as far as he did. This is my answer. Tianyu can't let him die, it's just not in his nature to ignore something immediately in front of him, but he's also perceptive enough to put the pieces together.

So Jaune's out. And because I don't feel like making a flushed out OC for a crack-fic, Ilia's in. She left the White Fang to chase after Blake. I didn't watch anything past S3 so I'm sure I got her character wrong, but meh.