Homeless Bunny 42

Homeless Bunny 42

Tianyu Yue

The sound of a trumpeting conch rang through Beacon Academy as I declared for the world to hear, “Heed my call, ye feathered serpent. Watcher of mankind, guardian of the priesthood, hear the song of the temple and come, Sovereign of the West Wind!” 

The heavens stirred. Amidst a cloudless sky, the west wind blew gently, whispering the secrets of art and dance and good commercial sense. And, if one cared to really listen, there was also something about blood sacrifice and how to choose the best, most god-pleasing slave for the heart extraction.

But hey, that was an Aztec, for ya.

Luckily for Weiss, Blake, and Ilia, none of them could hear the whispers of Queso’s domains. They still felt a hint of divinity in the air, that inescapable feeling of dread and awe and something extra that tingled at a mortal’s senses. They shuffled closer to me as Queso made his appearance.

The rainbow serpent appeared with the gentle breeze. I’d always liked that about him. He made no grand declarations; he simply arrived and allowed his presence to speak for itself.

And to be fair, he made for a radiant sight. His scales shone in every color of the rainbow, like a freshly polished mother of pearl. His feathered crest formed a crown that was at once wild and regal. Almost a full mile of coiling sky-serpent filled the Beacon airspace and shimmered like the northern lights.

He came to a gentle stop in front of us. “Hello, Tianyu. Tianyu’s little sister. Squishy things I presume are not snacks.”

“Hey, Queso,” I greeted. I pulled out a giant rice ball from my hammerspace. “Blake and ilia are indeed not food. They’d taste awful, anyway.”

“Yes, I taste terrible,” Blake agreed, head nodding animatedly.

“Yup, disgusting. We’re too bony,” Ilia chimed in, nodding just as quickly.

“Right? You’d probably just become a hairball in the back of his throat,” I added.

“I wou–That’s racist,” Blake frowned.

“It is, now let’s go. I can’t wait ‘til I meet everyone on Menagerie. Weiss is going to be polite and I’m going to be the most racist person they’ve ever met. They’ll be so fucking confused.”

“Please don’t make my job harder,” Weiss said with a sigh. “And hello, Queso. Have you been well?”

“I have, little one. I moved through the Astral Plane and ate one of Artemis’ hinds.”

I blinked at that. The Ceryneian hinds were the golden-antlered hinds of Artemis, her sacred animals. And, like most monsters in Greek mythology, they breathed fire. 

Most people knew about them through reading about the Twelve Labors of Heracles. The strongest Greek hero had to capture them without killing them so as to avoid offending the goddess. Needless to say, it was a lot harder than the stories made it sound.

“Am I going to have to deal with an angry goddess?” I shook my head with a rueful smile. She and I had a complicated relationship. Divine Huntress. Divine Bunny. Both heavily associated with the moon. Really, it was inevitable.

“Nah, probably not. I mean, she’s got hundreds of thousands of those things after so many millennia of not letting anyone hunt them. I doubt she’ll even notice one missing.”

“She might. You know how anal she can be. I swear, she’s even more prideful than the zappy manwhore when it comes to some things.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it doesn’t come back to you.”

“Alright, that’s good enough for me. Come on, everyone. Let’s go.”

Queso opened his jaw wide. “Great, hop inside.”

Weiss eyed his open maw with a barely suppressed shiver. “Can we not? There has to be a better way to travel. I can charter a private airship. We’re not in any rush.”

“He’s joking. He doesn’t always ferry people in his mouth,” I said. I wrapped an arm around Weiss’ waist and gently tossed her onto his head. Then Blake, then Ilia.

“Spoil my fun. Fine, where are we going, Tianyu?”

“Menagerie. It’s to the south of us.”

“Oh? Opposite direction this time. What’s there?”

“The pussycat’s family.”

“Ah, not food, then.”

“Fine, I can take a hint. You can catch some seafood once we land. I planned on cooking up a feast anyway so you may as well join.”

“Heh, you’re the best, boss.”

X

Sienna Khan

The world was changing. At first, I thought my men in Vale had gotten too deep into their cups. We had no “super bunny agent” who humiliated racist detectives for fun. Nor did we burn down the homes of law enforcement, too attention-grabbing to be worthwhile. 

Similarly, we had no involvement in the drug trade, both creation and distribution. For starters, faunus biochemists who were sympathetic to our cause were in short supply. And even if we did want to distribute, Vacuo or Mistral would be far better places to start, not Vale.

Then, I started to receive even more ridiculous reports. A mafia that included bunny ears and slippers as part of their official uniform? They were so successful that they swallowed up lesser gangs left and right seemingly overnight? Actual bunnies that acted as their enforcers? Said bunnies were all at minimum huntsmen-level fighters?

Clearly, I’d been mistaken. There were faunus involved in the drug trade. There was a new drug on the market. My Vale branch had all gotten addicted to whatever hallucinogenic garbage they were peddling and I needed to kill Adam for this gross lapse in discipline.

And then, the reports came in from both our Vale and Mantle branches. A giant, rainbow-colored serpent appeared in the sky. Atlas’ entire navy engaged it, only to be utterly humiliated. The serpent announced himself as Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent and God of the West Wind. No such god, no such religion, existed.

That one was a lot harder to ignore, especially considering it came with stolen footage. The footage was shaky and I didn’t get to catch everything that was said, but I knew the serpent flew off to the Schnee Manor. At a guess, it had something to do with the supposed Schnee bastard, the “god-bunny.”

Coupled with Vale’s unforeseen grimm tide and brand new inlet, I could only conclude that there was some truth to the nonsense I’d been hearing. The world was changing. That had also been attributed to him, Tianyu Yue. Apparently, he was also the godfather of the newly founded Moonlit Famiglia.

I desperately needed more information. It was hard enough to rule the White Fang at the best of times. Menagerie was just too far removed from the active cells to give more than broad strokes guidelines. But just when I reached out to Adam again, he vanished.

No, he was murdered by a large, black rabbit called “Capo Cuddles.” Not a bunny faunus, an actual rabbit. The Moonlit Famiglia must have finally conquered all other factions in Vale’s underworld and had set its sights on the White Fang. Survivors described a valiant battle in which Adam and Banesaw gave their lives so they could flee… against five rabbits…

I didn’t know what to think. At this point, I wasn’t sure what was real and what was embellished nonsense. A part of me wanted to have them all executed, but they represented the only group of faunus familiar with Vale’s underworld. If I ever planned to reestablish a cell there, they’d need to be involved.

This clusterfuck ran parallel to the discussions about the Beacon Dust Company, the next, big corporate giant on the block. We were faunus, far too used to exploitation to expect anything different, especially when we heard it was yet another fucking Schnee who took the reins.

Then, Weiss Schnee appointed Blake Belladonna as the first member of her board of directors and chief ethics officer. Suddenly, the White Fang, all of Kuo Kuana, was far more divided. Had I been inclined to think Weiss Schnee capable of this level of deceit, I would have wondered if it was a psy-op to sow discord in our ranks.

The staunchest hardliners, made up largely of those who’d heard of Blake’s desertion and sided with Adam, were calling her a sellout. Some were even calling for Ghira to resign as Chieftain of Menagerie. And just like that, I had more to worry about at home than about some mythical bunny.

Others, the older crowd who were part of it all since the early days, wanted to give Blake a chance. Back when I’d taken over the Fang, they’d been why I could not usurp Menagerie from Ghira altogether. They were too respected, and respected Ghira too much in turn. They wanted to believe that Ghira and Kali had raised their daughter to be true to the cause.

The worst part of this was that I didn’t know what the right answer was. We had too little information. Blake turning traitor, I could imagine. But Ilia joining her in Beacon had caught me off guard. They’d both been staunch supporters. Simultaneous betrayal was a bit too improbable.

“High leader!” one of my guards came rushing through the door. “We’ve got a problem!”

I roused myself from my musings. “What? Another street fight? Rough them up a bit and keep them separate until tempers cool.”

“N-No, ma’am. I-In the sky!”

“What’s in the sky?”

“The rainbow serpent!”

My stomach sank. The most fantastical part of the reports I’d been receiving had shown up here. “You’ve got to be fucking with me.”

“No, ma’am. It’s… It’s coming closer.”

“Get every fighting man ready. Coordinate with the Menagerie Guard. Logistics personnel are to evacuate all civilians. Go!” I barked.

He rushed to obey, but I knew it was futile. The reports had been clear: That thing had humiliated Atlas’ entire flying navy. We didn’t even have a navy. The best we could manage was a few fishing sloops and cannons that were older than the Faunus Rights Revolution.

I took a deep breath. Taking up Cerberus Whip in hand, I marched out to join the troops. If this was how I died, I would die as tigers died, on my feet, fighting for what I believed in. So many things had gone wrong already. The least I could do was buy time for my people to evacuate.

Thus resolved, I found myself staring up at the sky with Kuo Kuana’s finest. Most of us would give the average huntsman trouble. We worked well together. We were all veterans who’d been fighting to survive for as long as we could remember. And yet, as I watched the rainbow band grow increasingly larger in the sky, I knew we’d inevitably fall short.

He was here. Quetzalcoatl. I believed in no gods. If the Brothers existed, they were heartless bastards. But here and now, I could imagine how a mile-long serpent might have once been worshiped as one. Whichever forgotten pit of history he’d emerged from, he was here, and our problem.

I looked to the men manning our turrets. We had a few of those. They’d been outdated even during the days of the Revolution, but they were big and rugged and simple enough to maintain.

“Steady, men! Aim for the eyes!” I shouted, throwing my voice with my gut so I’d be heard. Winning wasn’t likely. We’d fight anyway, so long as it’d buy even a second longer. The evacuation bells ringing in the background were my only comfort.

Who knew? Maybe gods were real and one would be kind enough to lend us a lucky shot to the eye. I doubted it, but this seemed to be the age of bullshit anyway, so why not wish for a miracle?

The serpent coiled through the air in lazy S-patterns. Or maybe it was so big that its size and distance were playing tricks on the eyes.

When it drew near, I shouted, “Now! Fire!”

The sound of anti-air cannons firing was deafening, especially for our sensitive, faunus ears. Smoke covered us and stung our eyes. We loosed so many dust rounds that at least one was bound to hit.

My men scrambled to reload their shells. There was a ringing in my ears that made the relative silence feel that much more oppressive. Our rangefinders waited for the smoke to clear.

The smoke did not clear. If anything, it seemed to settle with an almost supernatural stillness.

For the first time since I could remember, I noticed that there was no wind brushing against my ears. Kuo Kuana was a seaside city. There was always wind.

I tried to move. To turn, give commands, do anything at all. I could not. The smoke set around me like concrete. Aura be damned, I could not break free no matter what I tried. I couldn’t even twitch to activate the dust in Cerberus Whip.

“You know, Tianyu, one of these days, I will find a mortal settlement that is not hellbent on suicide-by-god,” Quetzalcoatl said. His voice rang with a sibilant hiss, almost as if he was speaking through a musical instrument.

“You can’t kill them, Queso,” Tianyu said. The god-bunny. I’d assumed the two were related somehow. This was a shitty way to get confirmation. “We’re here so Weiss can put them to work.”

“You could probably phrase that better. Isn’t your little sister hated amongst the people here? That sounds very racist from what I understand of the local culture. And I’m the god of culture; I understand everything.”

“I mean, I am racist. Bunnies reign supreme. Everyone else is beneath our fluffy paws.”

“Ah yes, equal opportunity racism. How high-minded of you,” the giant serpent said dryly.

The smoke cleared as if it was a curtain being drawn aside. And suddenly, we were face-to-eye with the giant serpent. Rainbow scales glimmered like uncountable jewels. Feathers spread out like a wildfire of every hue. And his eye, as large as a small building, gazed squarely upon me.

Belatedly, my gaze trailed upwards. The god-bunny was on his head, sitting leisurely as if he was lying on a picnic blanket. Pressed into his side was Weiss Schnee, the girl who claimed to want reconciliation and rode a god to our doorstep.

Next to them were Blake and Ilia. Traitors? Dreamers? I didn’t know anymore. They weren’t anywhere nearly as relaxed as their white-haired companions.

A series of thunks filled the air. My eyes widened in shock as shells, still perfectly conical, floated in the air. They stacked themselves atop one another in a neat pyramid, seemingly of their own volition.

“Here, I think these are yours,” the serpent said with a huff of amusement.

The rabbit clapped his hands. He hopped down and looked me square in the eye. His expressionless face broke into a bright, beaming smile. “You must be Sienna Khan. I’ve heard so much about you.”

I blinked in surprise. By all accounts, the godfather of the Moonlit Famiglia was a distant don. I hadn’t expected him to care who I was. “You have?”

“I have. Mostly within the past half-hour. Queso’s great, but he doesn’t exactly come with in-flight entertainment.”

“You’re the one who told me you didn’t want to hear my rendition of the Fate of the Four Suns. It’s a famous epic, you know.”

“Meh. If you’ve heard about how the ground is destined to grow teeth and swallow up humanity into the Netherworld once, you’ve heard it a thousand times.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry the prophecies of my subjects are uninteresting to you, mighty godslayer.”

“Look, I’m just saying. Apocalyptic prophecies all tend to sound same-y after the fifteenth one. I mean, props where it’s due, you folks in Mesoamerica had some pretty creative ideas when it came to death and torture and whatnot,” the bunny shrugged.

“They did, didn’t they?” Quetzalcoatl, Queso apparently, said. He was preening. The giant snake was preening because his subjects were good at thinking up torture methods.

“Yup. Thanks for the ride, Queso.”

“No problem.” A bubble of air enclosed the three girls. They were lifted from his head and placed gently on the ground. “Now, I believe we must discuss matters of my payment.”

“Of course, Queso. Even god-snakes need to be fed,” Tianyu said, his ruby eyes still staring squarely into my eyes.

His words carried in the silence. They struck like hammers, straight at a prey response I didn’t realize I had. My fingers clasped Cerberus Whip’ hilt.

For a half-second, I thought about wrapping its lashes around his throat. Surely, the serpent would stop if I took his master hostage. It might be the only way to buy my people time.

Tianyu crimson eyes bore into mine. Their endless depths sucked me in, making my breath catch in my throat. His smile grew by a few molars, as if daring me to draw my weapon. I found myself frozen again, this time not by hardened air, but his smile alone.

Surprisingly, it was Weiss Schnee who broke the dreadful silence. She elbowed her “brother” with a huff of annoyance. “Stop scaring them, Tianyu. You promised Queso you’d cook seafood. Sea. Food. Not faunus food.”

“Faunus aren’t food, dearest sister. I know we’re here to exploit the ever-loving fuck out of them, but that’s kinda racist.”

“We’re not here to exploit them! And I’m not racist!”

“Sure, sounds exactly like what a racist, colonizing corporate overlord would say.”

“You said you were going to cook seafood. Stop trying to make my job harder!”

“Ah, but you make the most adorable faces, my beloved,” he cooed, wrapping her in a hug. At her mutinous glower, he relented. “Ahem, right, seafood. When did I ever state otherwise?” 

“You are such a–No, never mind,” the Schnee let out an exasperated sigh. He was a right bastard, in more ways than one. “You’re impossible. Queso, please go catch whatever you want. I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Right. See, Tianyu? This is what responsibility looks like,” the giant serpent said. With that final quip, he sank into the water, so gently that not even the smallest dinghy shifted.

More than one person gazed out at the sea nervously. Something that big had no business being that quiet, or that invisible, in the water. I doubted anyone else would be going fishing anytime soon.

“Just having some fun, dearest sister.”

“Your ‘fun’ results in existential dread for everyone else,” she said dryly. “Now come on, we have to greet the chief. That’s your father, right, Blake?”

The cat faunus blinked in surprise, finally returning to herself. If anything, she looked as nervous as the rest of us. “Yeah… I… Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes, let’s.” Weiss fake-coughed, stood ramrod straight, and held out a hand for me to shake. “High Leader Sienna Khan of the White Fang, I am Weiss Schnee, Chairwoman and CEO of the Beacon Dust Company. I am here to negotiate with your people. Please, for the sake of your continued sanity, try to ignore the god-bunny.”

Author’s Note

Sienna is working off limited information. I’d imagine that connection is spotty, if CCT exists at all, and most of the intel would come from a network of White Fang informants. She knows she’s on the end of a game of telephone so takes things with a grain of salt. Except, even when she gets completely legitimate news, it sounds batshit crazy.

Can someone please tell me what the difference is between a tiger and cat faunus? How is Sienna a “tiger” but Blake a “cat?” Was this ever covered in all the volumes I didn’t watch?

Animal Fact: Manatees seek out warm water, I think I mentioned that before. It's given rise to a strange behavior.

Instead of natural springs, manatees in Florida have taken to gathering around municipal and private power plants. Up to sixty percent of manatees in Florida spend their winters around power plants nowadays.

You may leave today knowing that humans can and have made jacuzzis for sea-cows.