Homeless Bunny (RWBY/Campione)

Homeless Bunny 6

Another three weeks passed and Junior’s club started to take on a reputation for fine dining with an ever-changing menu and nightly entertainment. Most days, the club was just that, a nightclub full of loud music and sweaty bodies. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays however, Junior decided to take advantage of the midweek lull to convert his club into a jazz and cigar lounge, with an expanded menu of course. The dance floor was replaced by a portable stage for live music and the booths hosted guests by reservation only.

He was a bit skeptical of the idea at the start, but came to like this setup. The club was useful for gathering scuttlebutt from the streets, but he didn’t get to mix with the wealthier crowd very often. This way, he could easily walk around and play the gracious host, occasionally taking a seat at their booth to ask them about their tastes in music, the quality of the food, and of course, a bit of idle gossip.

Junior hired on a few chefs at my insistence. As much as I loved working the kitchen, I wasn’t going to stick around. So, I began to teach six commis chefs, three per night on rotating shifts. They were all considered trustworthy members of the Xiong Family but had chosen to retire from fieldwork for whatever reason and wanted to learn a truly noble trade. Of course, that meant they had their auras unlocked.

It was all but a necessity where I was concerned. I had come to terms with the fact that I was just as harsh a taskmaster in the kitchen as my wife was where martial arts were concerned. The kitchen was a chef’s battleground and they needed their auras just to keep up with the least of my expectations.

I could do ten times their work without breaking a sweat, but they were learning. Though teaching themes lowed my pace in the kitchen, I found myself smiling with nostalgic warmth. I remembered forcing Laura to peel potatoes for eight hours nonstop. And then I made her make hundreds of servings of potatoes au gratin until I was satisfied that the technique had been carved into her very soul.

I was downright lenient with my new assistants, but they still insisted on calling me a demon. Still, whatever rebellious spirit my work ethic inspired in them died ignoble deaths when I strolled by with a spoon in hand. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I could hear their dark grumblings from across the city.

Today was a bit of a test for them. It was Friday night, which meant a tide of hungry, horny young adults would flood the club to dance the night away and usher in the weekend. I’d intentionally kept the menu short, just six items, and left them to man the kitchen. If they couldn’t memorize a paltry six recipes, I would be greatly displeased.

That was why I was out of the kitchen. I tugged one of the bartenders to the side at random and gave him the night off. Whatever he wanted to say in protest died in his throat when he turned and found who he was talking to. Beating up the twins on the daily apparently gave me quite the reputation, not that the girls were particularly happy with my training.

They did their best, I’d accept nothing less for my time, but they definitely felt the sting to their egos each time I sent them to the floor with a wooden spoon.

As I’d expected of them, they didn’t actually get any stronger. Without a divine blessing or insane natural talent, they were stuck growing the old fashioned way. No, where they really improved was in technique and polish. I showed Miltiades some attacks based loosely on the mantis style of Chinese kenpo and Melanie the kick-based French savate. Most of all, I smacked them senseless each time one of them tried to pose or swept their bangs for flair or something equally stupid. They’d never be great, but I wouldn’t feel embarrassed calling them my students either.

I hummed happily as I offered a college frat boy one screwdriver, just a simple mix of vodka and orange juice. I stood out for being the only one not in uniform, and having a set of bunny ears, but with Junior hanging around the bar to loom over people’s shoulders, no one made an issue of it. In exchange, if several chose to wait in longer lines to be served by a human, I decided to let them be.

I smiled as an elderly gentleman in a pinstripe suit came my way. By the way he dressed and the way he gestured to Junior, I gathered that this was a contact. I decided to help Junior leave a favorable opinion.

“Hello, what’s your poison?” I called.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m a supplier, you see? I need to chat with Hei Xiong about some incoming shipments,” he said. “It wouldn’t be good to drink on the job.”

Junior had no such reservations. “Get me a martini. Dry. I recommend you take a drink, Henry. Tianyu’s good, obscenely good.”

“Well, if my business partner insists… I typically enjoy a glass of scotch but I’m in the mood for something new, something sweet maybe. What would you offer a man who does more traveling than he rightly should?”

“A traveler, eh, sir?” I said with a smile. “I hope you find rest here then.”

“Yes, yes, go light on the alcohol, if you don’t mind.”

“I have just the thing.”

I pulled out a martini glass, shaker, and three bottles: creme de menthe, creme de cacao, and heavy cream. I mixed the three with ice, slightly more heavy cream than either liquors, and gave it a vigorous shake that made my hands blur for half a second.

What did it say about me that I used godspeed more often for instant cocktails than for fighting?

I smirked and poured the mix into the martini glass before sprinkling it with a bit of shaved chocolate. A sprig of mint capped off the creation. I slid it over to him with pride. “Grasshopper, classic, extra ice, for a traveler with a love of sweets.”

I watched as the old man’s face lit up in delight. “Oh, my, that’s good.”

“Damn, I kinda want one now,” Junior said. “Remind me to try one of those later but I’m gonna take him upstairs for a chat.”

“I will. It can even be made with ice cream instead of heavy cream if you prefer,” I said. I felt a small presence perk up nearby at that. Someone else with a sweet tooth perhaps?

“Hmm, I’ll look forward to it. You have any trouble, you get one of the twins.”

“What? Think I can’t handle myself?”

“You can handle yourself a little too well, Tianyu.”

“Fine, as you please. I’m happier making food anyway.”

As they walked off, I turned to the far stool to find yet another guest. I’d heard her coming and felt her aura as she cloaked herself so when she appeared seemingly out of thin air, I merely bowed respectfully and greeted her with a smile.

The woman seemed about the same age as the twins, maybe older, maybe younger. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a coquettish smile that caught the eye. Her pale, vanilla skin and split chocolate-strawberry hair brought to mind neapolitan ice cream.

Or, she did for everyone else.

I for one had no trouble piercing through the illusion, revealing a simple, brown-haired girl with an odd bout of heterochromia that she allowed to shine through in her illusion, one brown, one pink. She was just as cute as her illusion, albeit not as flashy or eye-catching without half her hair dyed.

I decided it’d be rude to unmask her and let her play her games.

More importantly, I noticed something of vital importance: She was shorter than me.

That didn’t happen anymore. I’d given up on meeting an adult I could physically talk down to. I said nothing, I was far too professional for that, but something about this woman’s height sent butterflies of glee fluttering through my stomach.

“Hello, miss, what can I get you?” I greeted cordially.

She gestured to where Henry and Junior had walked by. Then she held out a dainty hand and mimed sipping at a drink.

“Would you like what junior had?”

Her head shook no.

“Henry? The grasshopper?”

She held out a hand parallel to the bar and waved it back and forth.

“Mute?”

A nod. And a cute scowl.

“Alright, sorry, won’t bring it up again. You want a grasshopper, but not like Henry’s?” She nodded. I played the conversation back. “Ah, you want one with ice cream?”

I received a far more enthusiastic nod this time, but still a final shake of her head. She gestured to a stirring spoon on the counter.

“Spoon. Scoop. Ah, you just want some ice cream.”

She beamed at me with a megawatt smile that literally reflected the light off her teeth. Her illusions were truly versatile.

“Alright, no problem. We have ginger-vanilla, almond-chocolate, and mint-strawberry. What do you-”

She nodded vigorously and spread her arms wide in the universal sign for “gimme.”

I chuckled and went about serving her. It was an accident that I’d been tampering with those three specific flavors to match her outfit. Or maybe it was more of the good ol’ Campione luck shining through. Either way, I wasn’t complaining about such an easy to handle customer.

 

From then on, the midget I’d come to know as Neopolitan became a regular sight at the bar. She was an unusually sassy woman, remarkably expressive for someone who couldn’t talk. She arrived each night, ate more ice cream than was strictly healthy, and vanished when she thought no one was looking. When I told Junior about the little brat not paying, he just sighed and told me not to worry about it.

As I understood it, she, Melanie, and Miltiades had gone to the same school, a place called Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy for Girls. It no longer existed but as alumni of the same place, they knew each other pretty well.

Unfortunately, “pretty well” didn’t mean they were friends. If anything, the three of them had a bitter rivalry. From what Neo said, the twins used to be bullies who tormented the younger girl because she wasn’t as good at fighting back then. I couldn’t deny it in good conscience; I knew what the twins were like.

X

My palm raced to meet my face with an audible slap as the most aggressively yellow blonde I’d ever seen punched Junior through the bar. He landed a foot away from me, groaning in pain.

I stared at him in accusatory judgment. “Five. Minutes. I was gone for five minutes. What the fuck happened?”

He let out a cough of pain before rolling over onto his side. “Not our fault. Blondie came looking for some woman. Started throwing hands,” he wheezed.

“Ugh, did you at least clear everyone out?”

“Yes…”

I glanced at the leftover food. There were platters of Scotch eggs that someone had ordered and taken two bites of before they were forced to run from the rampaging huntress. I picked up one of the unbitten ones and broke it in two. Golden yellow yolk oozed out, perfectly cooked. Jeremy had really come into his own as a chef and I was thinking about making him sous chef when I left.

“What a waste of food,” I muttered darkly, “and on a day when Neo couldn’t come around.”

The ice cream girl had grown on me. Whenever Junior or the twins weren’t “protecting me” from racist customers who demanded “real” service, she was the one who happily stepped up to kick their asses so I could keep making food. Sure, I could recognize another killer like the twins, and she was just defending her ice cream supply, but damn if she wasn’t convenient. It was a real pity she wasn’t around today because I doubted the blonde would’ve been allowed to escalate this far.

I watched impassively as Miltia batted aside a barrage of shotgun shells. Her superior attack speed allowed her to parry them while her sister lunged with an overhead kick that would have shaved off a solid chunk of blondie’s aura.

Blondie wasn’t a pushover though. She immediately stopped firing on Mil in favor of punching Mel’s foot away. Mel used the momentum of that punch to launch her in a reverse spin, before catching blondie with a crisp backhand that sent her reeling.

That bought enough time for Mil to reenter the fight with a flurry of claw strikes that forced blondie to put her hands over her face. Mel didn’t wait around for her sister to tire and present a lull in the fighting like she used to. Instead, she used Mil’s flurry as a smokescreen to sneak in a punishing kick to their opponent’s kidney.

“Aah!” blondie yelled in pain. She was launched away by that kick into a booth, sending a rain of splinters into the air.

The twins gave her no quarter, opting to rush forward and end the fight instead of standing around looking pretty. I nodded; they hadn’t studied under me long enough to imprint a full combat style, but they were taking my lessons to heart.

Unfortunately, blondie seemed to have some kind of Semblance that amplified her strength and stamina because she rebounded from that with fiery aura cloaking her hair. Her eyes, already a menacing crimson, shone like rubies in the light as she let out an enraged roar.

Melanie tried to turn her forward lunge into a tornado kick, but was surprised when she lost out in the exchange despite the greater speed and windup. She let out an undignified squawk that was tinged with pain and humiliation as she was sent soaring across the club and into a glass pillar. Blondie had some decent power to her.

“You gonna help?” Junior asked.

I considered it. “On one hand, I’m a chef. I really don’t like fighting. And the girls really could use some experience fighting someone who is closer to their level that isn’t just themselves or Neo.”

“Ugh, come on, Tianyu. I’m already out of aura here.”

“On the other hand…” I looked at the split halves of the Scotch egg in my hands. Taking a bite, I savored it for a moment and judged my students. “Jeremy really did put a lot of work into this. She ruined his cooking and that’s unforgivable.”

“Seriously? You’re going to fight her over eggs?” Junior asked incredulously.

“Food is life. Cooking is art. Cuisine is history. A chef is the noblest profession and she has levied an insult that will not go unpunished.”

“Whatever. Just… go…”

“I don’t need your permission, but fine.”

I watched for a minute longer. With Melanie out like a light for the time being, Miltiades was left to fend for herself alone against an opponent who outclassed her in every way. Blondie was tankier, stronger, and about as fast, maybe even a hair faster. Without her twin to coordinate with, Miltiades didn’t just lose half her combat potential, she lost most of it. Her claws were far less effective at landing finishing blows so she was left trying to whittle her opponent down. I wanted her to feel that desperation a little bit.

Then, when anger and frustration made her sloppy, blondie grabbed an overextended arm and swung her around like a ragdoll before angling to slam her into the floor. I couldn’t have that.

“Guess that’s my cue…”

Author’s Notes

Welp. Yang vs. Tianyu. Take your bets.

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.