Homeless Bunny (RWBY/Campione)

Homeless Bunny 18

Tianyu Yue

Sleep wasn't really something I needed anymore, more of a luxury indulgence than a physiological necessity, so I often found myself basking in the moonlight. It was mine after all, the moon and all its blessings, why shouldn't I delight in my own property?

I glanced up at the moon and sighed. I could tell that some of the larger pieces had begun to reorient themselves into proper position and a handful of smaller shards had merged. It was still a far cry from completion, not even half, really. There was progress, but it was too slow for my liking.

At this rate, Luo Hao might find me from her observatory and decide to pay me a visit. That wouldn't be so bad; I missed her, and she did have Noah's Ark.

The moon's metaphysical hold on the world was growing, bit by bit, thanks to my presence. There was a certain sympathetic resonance between the celestial body and my Authorities. I existed on this plane; therefore, the moon would too. I was whole; therefore, the moon would be too. I awaited the day I could reunite with my lovely wife.

Still, until then, I had commitments here, obligations I'd taken on to amuse myself.

I turned my gaze to Remnant and smiled as I watched the three young women sleep in our new room.

Which, now that I thought about it, was pretty fucking creepy. Here I was, a man a full century their senior, watching them sleep.

"… I need a hobby…"

Thusly decided, I decided to do what I normally did when I had time on my hands: cook.

Or in this case, prep.

That imbecile's question rang in my mind, a clear and haunting testimony of damnation against this world. "What is a tamale?"

How could four words so perfectly describe the wretchedness of his condition? How could a man so clearly profess his own ignorance?

No, that wasn't fair to him. His ignorance was symptomatic of a bigger problem that I'd noticed during my time at Junior's: This world was a culinary desert. Many of the flavor combinations and basic dishes I'd enjoyed and perfected on earth existed, but there were just as many that were absent. Culinary education had taken a backseat to basic survival here.

Truly, the one called Salem had much to answer for.

I had begun laying inroads at Junior's and would now continue my self-given mission of expanding this world's palate, one rube at a time. I had a long, harsh road ahead, but as the foremost chef in the Netherworld, I was uniquely qualified for this undertaking.

Which meant I had to make tamales.

Which meant I had to go shuck some corn because not even Beacon's well-stocked kitchens had corn husks lying around.

So that was how I spent my night, racing through the sky, wandering from farm to farm, looking for corn husks to dry.

X

They weren't exactly hard to find. The Kingdom of Vale had the most temperate climate of all four kingdoms and so was considered the breadbasket of the world. Vast farms outside the city walls grew a variety of produce, including corn, wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes. Just about the only starch they didn't grow in some capacity was rice, which was Mistral's favored crop, and that more because of the differences in culture and palate than a lack of ability.

This was September, the start of the academic year, which also meant it was harvest season. Corn husks were in abundant supply.

I landed on the dirt road leading up to a big farmhouse. Huge stalks towered on either side, each capped with thick, plump cobs of excellent mortal quality. The husks had begun to split apart as the kernels reached their full ripeness, leaving golden kernels to peek out and gleam under the silvery moonlight. It was a sight that warmed my heart. The farmer here obviously took great care of his produce and I would be honored to make use of them.

I could take them, just do a quick bit of shucking for the farmer, but husks were actually quite useful. Not only were they great for compost, the husks were vital protection from both pests and the elements. If the farmer didn't quickly get to the field I harvested husks from, he could lose out on a lot of crops because I shucked them all without permission.

That wouldn't do. I was a chef. As a chef, I knew the value of my ingredients and I respected those who worked to produce them. I didn't want to potentially ruin a part of someone's harvest. I was the Jade Rabbit, the King of Charity. What kind of bunny would I be if I repaid the farmer's diligence with disrespect?

So, though it was late, I walked down the dirt road to the farmhouse, intent on rousing the farmer that I might tell him of my wish. I didn't want a few leaves. I wanted the whole lot, as many as he would allow me to take. I figured I may as well stock up while I was here.

Corn husks were useful in cooking for making more than just tamales. A South American, cake-like dish called humitas also required that they be steamed in corn husks. They could be stuffed with both sweet and savory fillings and possessed a wonderfully subtle flavor that I could best describe as "cozy," like an abuela's hug.

Husks could also be used to wrap meats for grilling. And, seeing how I lacked banana leaves, they would act as suitable replacements should I ever want to make many Pacific Islander dishes, such as laulau rice. Not to mention, they added a smoky, subtly sweet flavor to stews like tortilla soups and chowders.

Yes, it would be good to stock up.

I hummed merrily, a thousand and one recipes racing through my mind as I skipped down the dirt path. What would a humita taste like if filled with chicken adobo? Or maybe laulau rice with a side of thai curry? I couldn't wait to start experimenting again.

Of course, the farmer would be justly rewarded for his service to me. I was disrupting his harvest schedule after all. Surely a dozen vials of panacea should be worthy compensation.

I knocked on the farmhouse door, loud and confident. "Hello? Is there anyone here? I have a proposal for you!"

No answer. I looked at my scroll. It was one in the morning, surely not an entirely unreasonable time to be awake. I could come back, but I didn't want to bother. I knocked again.

Then a third time.

Finally, after insistently standing on the patio, the door slammed open to reveal a man and two barrels shoved into my face. Or, above my face, actually. The barrels poked between my twitching ears.

The fact that this man thought he was being robbed didn't bother me; it was not an unreasonable assumption. No. Somehow, the fact that this man thought his hypothetical robber would be taller annoyed me more.

I calmly reached up and grabbed the barrel. Then, slowly, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness, I pulled the barrel down until I could peer inside. "There. Now, you're aiming in the right place. Do you feel safer now? Can we talk like normal people?"

"Who the fuck are you?" the man demanded. He instinctively tried to jerk the shotgun back, but I held it in place with a placid smile.

"I am Tianyu Yue, a chef. I wish to purchase your husks. You will be compensated appropriately. In fact, if you show me where and how you store the cobs, I would be happy to conduct a portion of your harvest for you."

"What the fuck-You're a faunus. You're Fang aren't you?"

"I assure you bunnies have no fangs."

"Get the hell off my patio before I blow your head off, you freak."

I tried again. I did my best to look harmless; my appearance was good for that if nothing else. "Sir, I promise I just want permission to harvest some of your-"

"Do you know what time it is? It's fucking one in the fucking morning!" he said, still tugging at his shotgun. "This is your Brothers-damned problem. You Fang think you're doing the right thing, fighting for the good of faunus. Then you pull stupid shit like this and think you're going to do what? Make people like you? Wake the fuck up,kid!"

I sighed. He seemed insistent on me being a White Fang member. I wasn't. Hell, I wasn't even a faunus for fuck's sake! This wasn't the first time someone's called me a damn terrorist either. The more I got mixed up with one, the less I sympathized with the supposed "faunus rights advocates."

I took a deep breath. I refused to lose my cool. I was the one asking him for a favor.

"All you're doing is making everyday folks like me hate your group, kid. And that's bleeding over to hate for your kind," he said. He'd built up a head of steam now. He saw that I was about as cute as could be and felt confident enough to lecture me. Or maybe he thought I was a disillusioned youth in need of some life lessons. "You need to go call your buddies back from whatever they're doing while you have me distracted. Get out of here before you cause some real trouble, you hear? Then look deep in the mirror and see if this is what you thought it'd be."

"There is no one el-"

"Ask yourself what you're fighting for. Ask yourself if this is how you're going to make the Vale Council change whatever policy you want changed. Then ask yourself how many enemies you're making and whether this is really how you want to go about it."

"Sir, I'm telling you I'm not part of the White Fang. This isn't a prank. There is no one else. I really just want to buy corn husks from you," I said patiently. I reached into my pocket and withdrew a wooden case. I opened the lid to reveal six crystal vials filled with a jade-green liquid that shimmered in the moonlight.

They were panaceas, the fabled all-cures that mortal alchemists had spent centuries searching for. Along with the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, the panacea was one of the three alchemical treasures: Infinite wealth, eternal life, and eternal health. How very quaint.

My predecessor taught me to make them, saying the Jade Rabbit must also be an accomplished alchemist, not just a chef. I tied her ears into knots for daring to imply a chef was inferior in any way to a glorified drug lord.

Still, these were precious. A single sip of the divine elixir could cure any mortal ailment. Two sips would reinforce the body, preventing the patient from ever developing that ailment again. No returning cancer. No Alzheimer's. No degenerative immune system. The complexity of the disease didn't matter; this could fix it all.

"What're those?" he asked with a hint of curiosity. I could always trust humans to eye the shiny things.

"They are panaceas," I explained. "They are elixirs that can fix any injury or disea-"

"Yeah, right. Some random rabbit faunus who shows up at my door past midnight is giving me the thing that'll fix my bum leg." He placed a firm hand on my shoulder. "Look, kid. You're awfully polite for Fang, or some snot-nosed prankster, or whatever you are. You don't want to keep making these kinds of choices. Go run along and think about what you're doing with yourself."

"I mean it. They can fix anything."

"Is this the new craze? You're not very good at being a drug dealer. You're over-promising."

I sighed. "You don't believe me."

"Of course not."

"Yeah… That makes sense. Well, I tried. I'm still going to take some of your corn."

He crossed his hands over his chest. Admittedly, he did look rather imposing, being a foot taller than me and barrel-chested with thick biceps from a lifetime of farm work. "You are, are you?"

"Yes. I'm sorry about this. For what it's worth, my potions do what I said they'd do. I will also begin harvesting the corn to your left so please start there in the morning. I really am interested in just the husks."

"You think I'm going to let-"

I cut him off with a quick sleep spell. Mind magic wasn't really my cup of tea, but hypnotizing a mortal was well within my capabilities. He'd wake up in the morning feeling completely refreshed. Hopefully, he wouldn't pass this meeting off as a dream. So long as he knew what was going on, I figured it'd be fine. I'd done my due diligence.

Just in case, I left the open container of panaceas on his coffee table and his gun by his side. I moved the man onto his couch and left him with a note describing the elixir in full. Hopefully I didn't disturb his wife's sleep upstairs.

X

By morning, I managed to find shuck, and dry corn husks, using my "Semblance" to cheat like Oddjob at Goldeneye. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and it was time for breakfast.

I wasn't a monster, or my wife, so I decided to let the girls sleep in for a little longer. I didn't even wake them by setting their beds on fire. Or teleporting them into the sea. Or throwing them off cliffs. Or sending their beds floating through a thundercloud. Luo Hao's methods were diverse and my junior brother deserved a lot more credit for surviving them all.

Instead, I decided to allow the aroma of my cooking to rouse them from slumber like the gentle caress of the spring breeze.

Truly, I was a merciful shifu.

For breakfast, I settled on shakshuka, a flexible, North African dish consisting of eggs lightly poached in an aromatic tomato sauce. It was the ideal breakfast: It was nutritious, tasty, could be served atop rice or with a side of bread per preference, and was easy to teach.

I'd used it as an introductory dish to teach Laura how to combine different spices and herbs to get wildly varying results from the same basic ingredients. It quickly became one of her favorite dishes, though I suspected the fact that it could be made in just one pot had a lot to do with that. She really liked those and had even joined the donburi club at Totsuki for a time.

Here, I'd had to play around a bit with the ingredients to get the flavors I wanted. The tomatoes Beacon had on hand had a slightly higher acid content than I was used to, so I balanced that out with a bit of additional umami. I could have used something more conventional, but decided a combination of roasted pepper paste from Vacuo and a mushroom mince would be more fun. Throw in a mix of scallions and chives for brightness at the end and I had a dish worthy of my table.

When I finished, I drew upon the moon and chanted, "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!"

I felt the familiar touch of the moon, my very first Authority raising its head. It was still weak, diminished compared to what I was capable of on earth, but that was fine. I didn't need to make the girls immortal; I just wanted them to be a little bit stronger than they were yesterday.

I infused the dish with divine wood qi, heavily aligned with the concept of growth. Like a sturdy oak, they'd sprout and reach for the sky, growing bit by bit under my care. This was not a blessing of raw power or magic but of self-improvement, one that would reward determination and devotion. The fruits it bore would be up to them.

Just as I finished, I saw Amber poke her head through the door of the dorm kitchens. Her hair was badly disheveled, and she was unsuccessfully stifling a yawn, but she was the first to rise.

"Yo, good morning, fair Maiden," I greeted with a laugh.

"Morning… And screw you, I know my bed hair is awful," she grumbled.

"Ehh, it's fine. It's only about two bird's nests big." I received a jaunty middle finger for that. "Are the twins up?"

"They are. The white one's hogging the bathroom."

"Well breakfast is ready so you can go tell them to hurry up."

She glanced at the plate nervously. "What is it? It looks spicy."

"Not a big fan of heat?"

"Not really. A little bit is fine, but I don't like food that hurts to eat."

"Well, don't worry because this is tomato sauce, mostly. It's something called shakshuka."

"Got it. I'll go get the brat twins, team leader," she mumbled as she wandered back to our room.

I portioned out four plates, three, perfectly poached eggs each, and topped them with the delicious, red sauce. The table was set, yet empty. I frowned. Poached eggs had a relatively short window in which they could be enjoyed fully because the residual heat of the water or sauce would continue to cook them. Then, as they cooled, the yolk would harden, shifting the doneness a great deal. The toast would cool as well and then they wouldn't get to mop up the yolk with the bread.

Just when I was considering giving the food out to whoever wanted a more filling breakfast than what they had in the cafeteria, the twins and Amber arrived.

"You're late," I observed. "We wake up at dawn for physical conditioning. If you are late, I'll give your breakfast away to whoever wants it."

"That's not fair, bun-bun," Miltia pouted. "I've seen you put things under stasis before."

"Yeah, it's just a few minutes," her twin added.

"It's the principle of the matter. You are my students now and so will be held to a higher standard. My food will similarly be served at a higher standard," I explained.

"How does your food get better?"

"By slowly giving you a bit of my mana to augment your training. You'll find yourself getting stronger much faster, concepts and techniques that seemed beyond you coming easier."

"You can do that?"

"I can do a lot of things."

"How come you didn't do this when we were at the club?" Miltia frowned. She then scooped up a small spoonful of egg yolk and let out a sensual moan. Melanie joined her a second later, filling the dorm kitchen with a downright indecent chorus.

"You weren't my students then. Now, you've dedicated yourselves to fighting for humanity and so deserve more of my attention. I will expect more from you in turn."

"Okay, why are you two moaning like that?" Amber asked. "I know you have your weird crush-thing but it can't be that good."

"Shut up, country girl," Melanie sniped.

"Yeah, just eat your food and develop an oral fixation like the rest of us," Miltia grumbled.

"That's not going to hap-Mnnnn~"

I rolled my eyes. This was hardly the first time someone did something like this. Even before I ascended, there was that Nakiri woman who burst out of her clothes and dry humped a fire hydrant because she loved my food so much. I was serving cabbage wraps from a food truck in Eastern Europe at the time…

That bitch chased me around for years, trying to get me to marry her daughter or something. It was… It was an experience… I didn't end up marrying Erina Nakiri, her daughter, despite Mana's best efforts. Luo Hao took one look at the blonde and dismissed her as "unworthy of becoming a concubine" so that was that.

It wasn't all pointless. That whole mess resulted in me teaching at Totsuki for a time, overseeing the education of the next generation of chefs. It was a wonderfully fulfilling experience, one that I wouldn't mind doing again.

In any case, I'd long since come to terms with the fact that people were going to climax from my food. It was a natural consequence of "chasing the culinary dao," as my beloved wife put it. I simply took it as a compliment, proof beyond words that my food was being appreciated and (in)appropriately revered.

"Okay, that's just wrong," came a voice from the door. Yang Xiao Long had arrived to poke her head in, likely drawn by the sounds of what could pass for a small orgy. She had a towel around her neck and her hair was damp, likely returning from the gym shower.

"Shut it, bitch. You wish you had food this good," Melanie shot back.

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know why people do this either. It's perfect shakshuka, but still just shakshuka."

"It's orgasmic is what it is."

"I don't know. I think my food gives people oral fixations. It's just something I've come to live with."

Yang stared at the bowl, then at my three teammates, and then back at the stove where the pan sat. Her stomach grumbled loudly in protest. "Yeah… You wouldn't have any left, would ya?"

"Nope. I respect Chef Orion here too much to just cook for everyone. He is perfectly capable of serving the masses and I don't see the point in taking his job."

"Hah!" Melanie laughed. "Sucker!"

"Mel, stop being mean."

"But blondie deserves it."

"No, she doesn't. She's going to be working at the club over the weekend anyway. Leave her alone."

"Oh, right."

The twins exchanged evil grins. I'd have to tag along to make sure they didn't take Yang's punishment too far.

Then again, she did bring it on herself…

X

Despite my words, I decided to take a cue from team RWBY and spend the morning before our first day of class decorating our room. As it stood, our room was spartan in its emptiness. There were four desks, for small dressers, and four beds. Two communal bookshelves lined a wall. Closet space was minimal and we had one shared bathroom.

That was fine, two of us required virtually zero space. In my case, I had an exquisitely made dimensionally expanded suitcase where I kept all my things. Alice had been very accommodating after I fixed her spiritual imbalance. She gave me a suitcase that could fit a literal house, which I promptly filled with a selection of ingredients, kitchen tools, and a modest library of recipe books and ingredient encyclopedias from all across the Netherworld.

The only reason it lacked a kitchen was because I like to empower my cooking and the use of an Authority inside the suitcase would overload the spell matrices that managed the space expansion charms, collapsing it all and ruining everything inside. Rather than risk it, I opted to simply not have a kitchen at all. I could easily bully someone for theirs anytime.

Amber herself had very little to add to the dorm as well. She was a nomad who owned little save her staff and some extra sets of clothes. Her main hobbies included flying and birdwatching, things that required no possessions. She apparently also had a white mare she used to ride but had no idea where she'd run off to.

So, with little reason to object, we agreed to let the twins have free reign of the room.

Melanie had seen what team RWBY had done with their beds and had insisted on building our own bunk beds. I checked, theirs were disasters in the making, but the extra space was nice. I provided some metal and had Amber practice by melting eight chunks into shape, forming braces for the bedposts.

While we did that, the twins filled our communal bookshelves with a surprising number of books.

"Wow, I didn't think you two were big into reading," Amber noted idly.

"And what's that supposed to mean, country girl?" Melanie said.

"You keep calling me that but it's not the insult you think it is. I'm proud of being a country girl. Besides, I mean you two don't really seem like the academic type."

"Ehh, you're not wrong."

Curious, I gave them a quick glance. "Let's see… Vampire Academy, Ninjas of Love, Seven Seas Saga… Are these all young adult novels?"

"What's wrong with them?" Melanie asked defensively. "I at least read words. Mil just likes comics."

"Hey, you leave my X-Ray & Vav alone," the red twin said.

"Nothing's wrong," I said placatingly. "You can enjoy what you like. Just leave enough room for actual textbooks, okay? We are technically in school."

"Ugh, bun-bun, that's boring. Are you going to make us do homework?"

"I might."

"Lame."

"Totes," Melanie joined in the pouting.

I rolled my eyes and gently flicked their foreheads, making them pout harder. "Too bad. Is this everything? We still have a fair bit of room in the center. Should we look into a coffee table and some lounge chairs?"

"Can we have more stuff brought up from the club?"

"I mean… I guess? Depends on what you want."

"I'm thinking I can grab a small sound system from the club, have our own little karaoke corner."

"Ooh, and I can have Junior send me my guitar," Miltia added excitedly. She was typically the mellow twin. "It'll be great!"

They occasionally sang for the crowds when the mood struck them. They weren't idols or anything, but they did have a small following among the regulars of the club. Junior didn't often allow live performances, but it was a good way to add a little variety once in a while.

I nodded. "That sounds good. Maybe a coffee table with foldout legs so we can tuck it into a corner when you want to play music. That way we can have more surface space."

"You two can sing?" Amber asked skeptically.

"Hey, screw you! We're awesome!" Melanie said defensively.

"I'm not judging, I just… You're cooler than I thought."

"Damn straight, bitch. We get all the boys going."

"That sounds like it'd be more annoying than flattering."

"She's not wrong, Mel," Miltia drawled.

Her sister scoffed. "Yeah, that's why we just have the boys throw them out if they get too rowdy."

"No objections from me," I told them. "Amber?"

She shrugged. "I don't mind as long as you're not blaring music at three in the morning or something."

"Yes!" the twins cheered, giving each other a high-five.

They really were like children sometimes.

X

"Monsters! Demons! Prowlers of the night!" Professor Port began his lecture. He was a short, squat man with a fantastically groomed mustache and a low, baritone voice that carried well across the classroom.

Beneath his well-pressed suit, he was dense, built like a stone Buddha rather than the lean, swimmer-like build I often saw among huntsmen. Most huntsmen prioritized speed and agility, but this was a man who favored endurance and explosive strength. It was the kind of strategy that provided no other alternatives should the hunter not be good enough. After all, what happened to a shield that couldn't take the strain?

That he was alive and gray spoke volumes of his strength. Despite the exaggerated demeanor he put on to make himself seem like a jovial, bombastic grandpa, I noticed that he walked with the gait of a man used to combat. I didn't doubt that under the blazer was a body scarred from countless battles.

Unfortunately, he was also a bit of a blowhard.

Oh, I didn't doubt he actually wrestled an ursa or grabbed a deathstalker by the stinger to use as a flail to club its fellows to death. His voice carried a bit too much earnestness to ring false in my ears. Besides, I was a Campione; I'd heard and lived through even more outlandish tales than that.

Hell, the very first god I killed (on purpose) was a fuck-massive snake big enough to deepthroat skyscrapers. I crawled down its throat, fed it some sangria, and stabbed it to death with a kitchen knife from the inside out.

Yeah… Maxa'xak hated me big time.

Professor Peter Port seemed like the kind of man who I'd love to share a beer and swap war stories with. He was a survivor, and that alone made him worthy of respect in my eyes. It was a pity then that Ozpin asked me to keep a relatively low profile.

This was my perspective, the perspective of a century-old Campione, one who had slain countless gods and carved out his place among the Thirty-Six Heavens of the Taoist pantheon. Where I saw a fellow veteran, most of my fellow students saw a windbag.

Amber looked like a child who'd found out Santa wasn't real. She'd come into this class with high hopes, only to find a man who spent most of it sharing war stories. She at least pretended to listen.

The twins were well and truly gone. They eyed me with looks that promised mutiny if I made them do work for this class. Melanie was on her scroll, playing some platformer game that looked a bit like Super Mario. Miltia was also on her scroll, but had opened up a word processor and begun to write out what looked like the first lines of a poem or song.

Granted, it started with "Blonde bitches be crazy," but it was something. She saw me looking and flushed red before shutting the scroll off. It was nice; away from the club, I was seeing sides of the twins that I hadn't known existed.

Team RWBY was no better. I could see Ruby doodling in the corner as my "sister" chided her in hushed whispers. Yang was all but asleep and Blake had hidden a small novel inside her textbook to read discretely. The catgirl had abandoned her bow, maybe because that chameleon faunus kept reminding her just how stupid her disguise really was.

"Now, a true hunter must be bold, strong, prepared for anything. Who here thinks they have what it takes?" I heard Port say to the class.

"I do, professor," Weiss answered with her hand in the air. She'd gotten progressively more annoyed with Ruby's inattention and looked like she had something to prove.

What followed was… a disaster.

She wasn't the best swordsman I'd ever seen, but she was perfectly adequate, not dissimilar in skill to many of the mage knights I'd known on earth.

And yet, she acquitted herself atrociously. Her obvious irritation with her team leader bled through in her fighting style, making her forms sloppy and her footing unsure. The boarbatusk, a babirusa-like thing that could roll like Sonic the Hedgehog, slapped her around like a ragdoll. It even managed to disarm her.

Utterly disappointing. I knew she could do better. I'd seen her do better yesterday during initiation. By the slight frown on Professor Port's face, he knew as well. He wasn't blind; he could see the cause for her sloppiness as well as I. Still, when she did manage to kill it, he complimented her and called her a "true huntress in the making."

After he dismissed us, we were close enough to hear her blow up at Ruby and stomp off.

"Yikes," Mel muttered. "You sure you wanna adopt that one?"

"Seriously, Tianyu, she's kind of a bitch," Mil added with hilarious lack of self-awareness. Though to be fair, the twins had gotten better. Losing a fight to a five foot tall bunny with a wooden spoon on the daily had a way of humbling a person.

"She's not that bad," Amber defended her, though it was plain she'd said so for the sake of throwing in a kind word. "I mean… She did kill the boarbatusk in the end."

I nodded. Contrary to their expectations, I didn't feel the need to stick my nose in here. It wasn't as if I'd decided to "adopt" her because she was useful to me, quite the opposite. I led us towards our next class, history with Dr. Oobleck. "She's fine the way she is, guys."

"She is? I mean, I don't mean to speak ill of her, but she's…"

"A mess? Yeah, I agree. She's smart, refined, disciplined, and knowledgeable because she grew up in an environment that mandated excellence. Is that right?" I asked the twins.

"Ehh, pretty much. Jacques Schnee's a colossal shitheel. Like, internationally renowned for his douchebaggery. I can see him demanding perfection from his kids. That doesn't change the fact that she's an arrogant brat though," Melanie said with a shrug.

"She is. She probably thinks she should be team leader. Or wants to be put on someone else's team. I bet she went to either Ozpin or Goodwitch to ask for a transfer."

"So you're not going to butt in?"

"What? Do I look like I have that kind of free time?"

"Yes," all three chorused.

"Well, I'm not and I don't. I'm sure the teachers are perfectly capable of straightening her out. In the end, Weiss isn't the kind of person who should lead a team, whether that's RWBY or some other, because she's incapable of inspiring others. That might change someday, but she needs a harsh lesson in the moment."

Amber hummed in thought and nodded slowly. "And… You think that Ruby girl can?"

"I do. Ruby is genuinely altruistic, passionate, and kind. Even putting aside her heritage, she is someone who makes others want to believe in her. She's got room to grow, don't get me wrong, but the potential is there."

"That's high praise coming from you, bun-bun," Miltia mused.

I nodded in agreement as we took our seats. "It is, and I'll be most cross with her should she disappoint me."

Author's Note

If you get the Oddjob reference, please join me in a moment of silence for our bygone youth.

Naturally, explosive foodgasms are also a thing.

Random bunny fact? Sure.

Rabbits don't eat carrots or other root vegetables in the wild. They're just not part of a rabbit's natural diet. Their high sugar content means too much is actually bad for the bunny.

In fact, a rabbit's diet should consist of roughly 80% hay (such as alfalfa), 15% fresh vegetables (leafy greens), and only 5% good quality pellets/pet food. Carrots should only be an occasional treat.

Thank you for reading. Believe it or not, this is the seventh website I've crossposted to. I want to make sure this site catches up with the others, but it's slow, tedious work. Until then, other sites will have a much more updated library of my works. If you want to read ahead, or check out other stories I've written, you can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.