Kapitel 1849: 80
Chapter 80Notes:
Time for a short filler arc! The space between semesters, that is.
Chapter Text
"HOME SWEET HOME!" Ruby cried out, kicking open the door to the Xiao Long/Rose/Branwen homestead with a bright and cheery expression, ushering everyone inside with the kind of joy and infectious happiness that made the entire place seem so much more lived in and loved than it already was. "Ahhh, it's good to be back… huh, when did Dad get a new dog bed for Zwei?"
"Since he finally chewed the last one to pieces," Taiyang answered, walking out of the kitchen with a batch of cookies in his hands, freshly baked if the steam rising from them was any indication. He nodded at his kids in turn, grinning easily as he looked between the assembled group of people- an extra ten people compared to how it'd basically just been him and Zwei for the last few months. "Hey lil rosebud, sunflower, firecracker. Oh, hey Emerald, Neo, Mercury! And Qrow! And your friends! Wow, there's a lot of people here huh?"
"Sup Mr.T?"
"Hey, Mr. Tai."
"Tai. Been a bit."
"Yeah! Dad, meet Blake and Weiss! They're our teammates at Beacon!" Ruby grinned, showing off the two as Yang winked and wrapped her arms around their shoulders. Both Blake and Weiss waved a bit sheepishly, blushing as Yang hugged them close and making their own greetings.
"I-it's a pleasure to meet you sir!"
"Thank you for inviting us, Mr. Xiao Long."
"Aww, it's nothin'- anything for my sunny little dragon's girls! C'mon in- all of you!" Taiyang replied, voice full of cheer and laughter as he turned over to Ruby again, looking now to the redhead all but hanging off of her with a tilt of his head. "And who's this cute lil button?"
"Salutations! My name is Penny Polendina! It's wonderful to meet you Mr. Xiao Long! I have heard so much about you and Zwei, and am very excited to be here!" Penny answered, stepping forward with her usual cheerful disposition and bright demeanor, already in the midst of saluting as she did so. Behind her, Ruby bemoaned the loss of warmth and made up for it by hugging Penny from behind as she spoke, prompting Taiyang to almost choke for a moment before remembering the messages that his kids had sent over the last few months.
"Oh right, how could I forget my lil rosebud's first girlfriend! And you're adorable too! C'mon, let's let these cool down and we can all head into the living room- Zwei's napping right now but I'm sure he'll- there he is!"
And with that interruption, Taiyang darted back to the kitchen to set his tray of cookies down, turning around just in time to see thirty pounds of corgi come barreling around the living room corner and straight into Ruby's face, the Aura-unlocked dog leaping into the air and landing squarely belly first with such momentum that it took Ruby to the ground (and, by extension, brought Penny with her).
"Arghsdnfsh! Zwei! Ohmigosh look at you! You're so cute and fluffy and handsome and it's been too long! Aww, did you miss me!? Did you miss me yes you did! Yes you did you're such a good boy aww lookit you who's my handsome lil man oh you are yes you are!" Ruby immediately started gushing, no worse for wear even with Penny laying across her legs while she cuddled with Zwei and let him lick her face wildly- both Yang and Cinder walking past and petting him gently before continuing on. Clearly, the family pet was busy with his favorite person.
They weren't jealous. Really. Not at all. So what if Yang spent her entire life trying to be Zwei's favorite? So what if Cinder did the same once she got used to living there? They weren't jealous. Not at all. Nope. No way.
They were totally jealous.
Weiss, meanwhile, started cooing over Zwei as well, kneeling beside Ruby and babbling in inane baby talk and holding out her fingers and tickling the old corgi around the neck and haunches, both of them laughing and giggling as Zwei showered affection on both of them. Penny, meanwhile, simply moved to lay by Ruby, not engaging in baby talk but still petting Zwei all the same and giggling as the corgi licked her fingers and face as well.
"Gods, I'm almost jealous," Mercury muttered, rolling his eyes as he stepped past the pile of girls clogging up the entryway, grumbling as he stepped further into the house with Emerald, Neo having already joined Cinder on the couch while Qrow lingered at the door to the kitchen. "Fuckin' corgi. Can't believe he likes the lil gremlin more than me."
"Maybe actually hang out here more than once a week and Zwei'll actually like you, dipshit," Emerald snorted, punching her "cousin" on the shoulder and rolling her eyes. "Gay-ass loser."
"You're a gay-ass loser you fuckin bitch. Zwei doesn't like you either," Mercury huffed, rubbing his shoulder and lightly kicking Emerald's shin with a vindictive glee that only best friends could have, snickering as she stumbled before returning the kick to his shin… and swiftly regretting it because Mercury was still wearing Talaria.
"Motherf- argh! Stupid fucking- gah!" Emerald yelped, hopping on one foot and glaring at Mercury as he laughed… up until the point that Emerald hopped over and slammed her forehead into Mercury's nose.
"SON OF A- WHY YOU LITTLE-! GET OVER HERE YOU BITCH!"
"FUCKING COME GET SOME YOU POMPOUS LOSER!"
"GRAAAAHHH!!!"
"RAAAAARGH!"
"Will you two just shut up already!? Come on, you do this every fucking day!" Cinder cried out, groaning and lobbing a fireball of molten glass at the two idiots deciding to wrestle each other in the hallway, interrupting the fight as they yelped and avoided the burning globule as it sizzled out against the (thankfully fireproofed) wall and stuck there.
She'd clean it up later. When the two idiots weren't being stupid.
"We wouldn't have to fight if Emerald wasn't such a dumb bitch!" Mercury protested, continuing to be stupid as he grabbed Emerald into a headlock and started noogieing her, only to receive several jabs to the kidneys in response. "Ow! Fuck! Goddammit you know I'm ticklish you cheating-"
"Oi oi, easy on the load bearing walls," Qrow interjected, interrupting the fight before it could get worse and picking up his two wayward adopted… sorta… not really kids by their collars and bodily flinging them across into the living room- whereupon Emerald landed in Cinder and Neo's laps, and Mercury landed face first on a beanbag chair. "Tai only has so much budget to keep rebuilding this damn cabin, he doesn't need anyone wrecking it. Gods know the only reason he can afford to fix the walls is cuz the lil blood rose keeps knocking down trees in the woods."
"Hey, I'm not that bad!" Ruby protested, following along at Qrow's heels a moment later- or, rather, Penny followed along and held Ruby in puppy form while Weiss cradled Zwei like a precious baby while continuing to make incomprehensible baby talk at him. "I stopped knocking down trees a while ago!"
"The last time she knocked down a tree was like… two months ago," Yang deadpanned, pulling out her scroll and projecting an image of the clearing that Ruby had panic-destroyed whilst trying to save Weiss from a Nightmare. "Turned into a Sea Feilong and everything."
"... Uh huh," Qrow snorted as he dropped down into his favorite armchair, cracking open a can of mildly alcoholic cider as he did so. "I was there for that, firecracker. Shion told me all about it."
"Did they also tell you that they nearly decapitated Ruby again? Because that happened," Yang muttered, thinking back to the moments before they'd gone on the hunt, where the Hunter had somehow detected Ruby's grimm presence and nearly took her baby sister's head off with a swing from their dreamcatcher before stopping short just in time.
"Shion always was a twitchy one around anything that wasn't a Nightmare, I can believe they'd be dumb enough to try and smack Ruby. Anyway. Wait for Tai to get done with whatever the hell he's doing in the kitchen and we'll actually have a full catchup," Qrow sighed, taking a swig of his drink and groaning as he settled in and got comfortable.
"I was just putting the dishes away, don't act like I was doing something else," Tai huffed as he entered the living room, stretching his back with a loud groan and sauntering over to join his kids on the large L-shaped couch, squishing up between Yang and Cinder with a loud, fatherly groan as he forced them to move with his bulk. "Ahhhh there we go. Sure is nice to have the kids back in the house!"
He grinned, affectionately wrapping his arms around his eldest kids and trapping them in an inescapable bear hug, ignoring their squirming as he looked around the room and met everyone's gazes in turn. "So- what've you all been up to while you were gone? I'm sure that whatever it is, it's a doozy of a story!"
Ruby chuckled a bit awkwardly, clearing her throat as she straightened up from where she'd been cuddled up in Penny's lap as they sat in her beanbag chair, halfway ensconced in the thick material as she turned around and scratched the back of her head.
"Eh heh… yeah you could say that… there's been a lot that happened this semester…"
Tai's grin changed from joking to a softer, more affectionate smile as he leaned forward a little, nodding at Ruby. "Well, I'm sure that whatever it is- it'll be a good story all the same, right?"
"Yeah! So… it goes like this…"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein