Rogue Huntsman

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"Come on, Arex. You know you want to see me~" Anoel chimed into her scroll, strolling through the early streets of Vale and its darkest alleys.

"I'm busy."

The reply came as no surprise, "Busy with what? More projects of yours?"

"Something like that."

"You call that a reasonable excuse? Come on, how often do I visit?"

"Almost every other day."

"I could change that to every day if you'd like," Anoel's smile was apparent in every way, considering her demeanor caught the eyes of a group of passing men among friends. She slipped into an alley to avoid them and took a backway, skipping along before hopping a fence around the corner.

"I'll change my address. I wouldn't put it past you to follow through with that threat."

"Really? You'd hop across town, maybe even move Kingdoms, just to stop seeing me?" Anoel mocked a hurt tone as she sashayed through the dark corridor, moving past dark corners and dully lit rubble here and there with all the wit she possessed, mostly.

"It's not seeing you that's a bother…"

Anoel knew what Arex was insinuating, though, it helped that she already predicted the incoming answer anyway, "Oh, now come on, that's my favorite part about seeing you!"

"It's out of line in literally every way."

"It's not! I do it to everyone!" Anoel pleaded with a smile, turning the next corner and walking down a larger back alley beyond it.

"That's even worse!"

"Okay, fine, I don't do it to anyone but you. You're special… well, maybe Niro too, but mainly you."

"I don't know how I feel about that."

"Happy, exhilarated, excited, warm, maybe a little fuzzy inside, take your pick, Arex. Draw a heart out of your deck of cards and show me an emotion."

"They're already easy enough to see as it is…"

"Body language is healthy, you know. Don't just leave it to your eyes to display your emotions all the time," Anoel slowed her pace now, taking her steps with an added hop as she approached a door at the back of one of the buildings along the alleyway.

"What's so wrong with that?"

"Nothing's wrong with it, but you'll never fly out of your coop if you don't try to crack your shell first," Anoel hummed with a caring tone, filled with affection, as she eyed the reinforced lock before her. It was half-digital and half-hardware. A keypad, eye-scanner, two deadlocks, and a reinforced titanium bar slammed into place and locked into a heavy metal door frame at the front of it all.

"Not everyone's like you, all affectionate and forward. Some people are more reserved and introverted."

It was specifically designed to only be unlocked by the right processes. Several fail safes were integrated into the rig, and several more triggered if the door was swung open without a final flick of a switch.

She was through in thirty seconds.

"Oh, don't be like that," Anoel spoke into her scroll one last time before closing it, ending the call with Arex as she kicked the heavy door closed behind her. She didn't notice the incredible wall of heat she just stepped into, let alone the superheated door at her flank.

Instead, her eyes were on something else while her senses were narrowed in on its reaction.

With a black scroll pressed to her ear, a girl only two years younger than herself glanced over her shoulder toward the door. A forge burned at her front, billowing orange flames with several glowing pieces of hot metal in its open confinement.

Long, fluttering black hair swayed at her back, the longest strands nearly reaching her waist. Pale skin shined in the light of the forge, and a thoughtful, yet slightly annoyed face stared back at her with an indifferent glare. It wasn't actually a glare, really, more like a knowing stare that suggested mild offense, but in an apprehensive way.

The girl adorned a loose, dark green, light sweater with its sleeves slightly rolled up for the time being. Its large neck hole revealed a pale nape and creamy collar bones, leading down to softly form around a thin, lithe body. It was a body that favored mobility over strength, but still displayed more curves than its owner probably ever wanted.

Her lithe legs were captured within sleek black sweatpants, sweeping down toward a pair of black running sneakers to accompany that undertone of mobility in the girl's attire.

That, or it all gave off a sense of casual comfortability.

Anoel gave the blacksmith a happy wave as the door clicked shut behind her, finally sealing the hot room off from the rest of the world as all the bolts, slides, and pistons shifted back into place in its unbeatable rig.

Of course, she had the password… after all.

"Hey, Anoel…" Arex sighed, closing her scroll and tossing it onto the large workbench at the center of the room. It remotely reconnected through proximity to the interior scroll within the table and resumed a song that was likely playing before, considering it was halfway through its runtime.

"Would it kill you to call me big sis?" Anoel asked, giving her little sister an insulted and abashed tilt of the head, "I'm not that bad, am I?"

Arex turned back to the forge, a move that hid her bright eyes from Anoel as the forger regarded her project once more. The materials inside were nearly glowing white, and in the next few seconds, they flared with a bright pale glow.

That was when Arex reached in and plucked one of the shining metals from her fire, tossing it into her other hand before grabbing a second.

"I could, but I fear that'd make you tease me even more," the girl confided, walking over to the hardened half of her custom workstation, what was used as her anvil, before placing the two pieces onto its surface.

"Teasing you is fun, I can't do it any more than I already do," Aneol said with an amused smile, strolling over to the opposite side of the workbench and placing her arms on it. Her eyes were fixed on Arex's own as she gave the girl a cheeky smile and leaned over, "So, whatcha up to?"

"A new alloy," Arex muttered, taking up a forging hammer and a sharpened cutting tool. She efficiently and delicately cut through the incredibly softened metal pieces before her, both of which maintaining their glow indefinitely for as long as the forger desired.

Anoel watched as the girl cut measured patterns into each piece, alternating between the two before Arex set aside her tools and took one of the pieces of material in her hands.

"Any reason why you're here?" the forger asked, flipping the piece over in her hands before lining it up with the other. She slowly slipped the grooves of the top piece into the patterns in the lower one, nesting them together perfectly as they fused with a bright orange glow.

"Can't I visit my little sister today?"

"You visited yesterday, so your arrival today is out of character, even for you. Which means," Arex turned back to the forge and placed the merged metals at its center, closing the door to its chamber a moment later as she turned back to her elder sister, "you probably have a reason for stopping by."

"Well, can my reason for being here just be that I want to see how much my only family member's grown?" Anoel asked, slipping around the workbench to pull Arex into her grasp. Instead, her delicate fingers only passed through the girl before her, causing a small shimmer in Arex's skin and clothes.

Anoel only smirked at that and turned away from Arex's hologram, spinning on her heel to grab at the air behind her, taking something solid into her hands as a suddenly red-faced Arex appeared in her arms.

"You need to learn how to hide your heat signature~" Anoel teased, locking the girl in her embrace as she wrapped her sister in a face-to-face, close proximity conversation.

Something that set off every warning bell Arex new of, considering all of the above was out of her comfort zone.

"I-I did mask my heat signature…" came her soft reply, ending with her turning her gaze away.

"Not enough, sweetie," Anoel replied teasingly, pulling her cute sister further into her grasp and nuzzling the tip of her nose into Arex's blushing cheek, "you need to work on that semblance of yours."

"I've been too busy working on my other ones," Arex replied with a sigh, fighting her urges as she turned slightly back to her sister. Anoel took the small opportunity with a smile and brushed Arex's nose with her own, an excuse to get closer to the younger sister's eyes.

They were flashing between colors. Colors Anoel loved to see.

Burning orange and bright pink were the most common ones, flicking between those for the main sets of emotions while the rest were just a combination of nervousness and uncertainty. Orange was among her favorites to see on her little sister, considering it matched the blaze of a burning sunset and told her everything she needed to know about how embarrassed her sister currently was.

"Then stop slacking off and train your semblances a little more, it'll help you in the long run," Anoel gave her sister a small tilt of the head, watching Arex's breath get locked in her throat, "Besides, once you do, you can stop me from doing things like this."

"I have other ways to stop this," Arex countered, finding new places for her eyes to wander as she waited.

"Oh? New tricks?" Anoel hummed in intrigue, pulling Arex even closer now as she let a curious smile cross her lips, "Show me."

Arex bit her lip, taking a cautious glance at Anoel's eyes, "I'd rather not."

"Hmm, you know… I hear it's not uncommon for siblings to share a kiss every once in a while. In fact, I hear it's a custom among wealthy families in the northern kingdom to greet one another in such a way," Anoel leaned into Arex, pressing her body into the lithe, moderately curvaceous frame of the girl trapped in her arms, adding a sensual overlay to her visage and tone.

"I-I haven't tested them yet…" Arex responded meekly, eyes locked on Anoel's as she leaned back, but found a lack of ability to lean any further away.

"Now's a good a time as any, is it not?" Anoel asked, tilting her head opposite the girl's in her arms as she felt the forger's heat flare up, raising the temperature in the room even more, "Are you going to make your older sister kiss you just to force a new semblance out of you?"

"N-not really my decision h-here," Arex forced out in a mild whimper, heart throbbing to the tune of her music still loudly playing over the sound of the forge at their side.

"It partially is," Anoel continued, keeping her voice to a level of sultry she reserved for people she loved to tease, including Niro, "We were born with a lot of similarities, Arex. But sexuality… was not one of them. Though, I don't mind giving you a little smooch just to spark something in that mind of denial you have…"

The info-broker let her voice trail off as she leaned in closer, bringing their noses back into nuzzling range before going beyond that by a little more.

"What do you say, wanna be like the northerners for a few seconds?" Anoel asked with one final teasing smile before letting her eyes go half-lidded, then she tilted her head a little further than it already was.

Arex's finger's tightened in their already firm grip on Anoel's sleeves, eyes refusing to avert even slightly as she was having trouble maintaining her aura, affinity, and heart rate. Her cheeks nearly reached a new record of redness, and it was only rising to new heights as Anoel closed the distance between them.

The thief watched closely as Arex snapped her eyes closed and held her breath, a cute little reaction to what she was doing. But, it wouldn't stop her from forcing another option into Arex's actives. So, she reduced the distance between their lips to zero and pressed forward into… nothing.

Her arms suddenly collapsed against her own body as the girl trapped within them disappeared, winking away in a bright flash of white, wispy light, forcing her to take a stumbled step forward from the change of weight distribution and balance.

Teleportation? She quickly narrowed in on the reappearance of the incredibly heightened heat signature of her sister and turned to her right, finding Arex panting by the door with a hand pressed against her chest.

Anoel could sense a major drop in the girl's aura reserves, which only suggested the use of that semblance takes a large effort to perform… for now.

"See! That wasn't so hard," Anoel commented, pulling herself up onto Arex's workstation to take a seat on its edge, "You just needed a push, and boom, now you can teleport. Whose is that, anyway?"

"Y-your-" Arex took a shaky breath, taking a moment to indulge in two more to try and calm down slightly before continuing, "your c-curiosity… is unrivaled and-" she took another breath, but her blush remained across her once pale cheeks in a permanent sea of pink, "incredibly annoying."

"It's my job to be curious, honey," Anoel returned, kicking her feet idly as she let her younger sibling calm down, "Besides, now I get to tell you why I'm actually here."

"C-couldn't you just start with that?" Arex asked, giving Anoel a hard, emotionally backed, and mostly embarrassed glare. Something the elder sibling was quite proud of seeing.

"I could, but where's the fun in that?" Anoel smiled, placing her chin in her hand as she enjoyed every moment of breaking her little sister's usually impregnable indifference.

Arex closed her eyes and took one last deep breath, letting it out slowly as she took a step toward the door and pressed her back to its surface. She used that to slide down and take a seat on the ground, keeping one leg bent while the other went straight out in front of her.

"Why are you here, Anoel? Other than to tease me about my… preferences," Arex didn't want to bother with any particular wording right now, but with that, she felt it was safer to just continue to leave it vague.

Anoel let her head tilt once again, using her arm to support her chin as she flashed Arex a cheeky grin, "Team ELA's looking for a fourth member."

Jaune looked terrified.

Quite frankly, I was half-tempted to kick him over the ledge.

We were at Beacon's cliff side again, staring out across the distant Emerald Forest below as a gale of wind rushed up from the sea of leaves beneath us. The rocky outcrop we stood on wasn't exactly the tallest thing in the world, but the fall would easily kill any normal person who slipped over the cliff's edge.

"Now, I'm sure you all had landing strategies during initiation. But, of course, that was with your weapons and equipment," Caza explained, her voice easily carrying itself to the ears of the large class before her, "Your first assignment of my class is to survive this fall, but without any assistance from external mechanisms. You are only allowed to use your body and your aura, any violation of that rule will result in an immediate failure of the task at hand."

She gave us free reign over aura… she was going easy on us. I'd place a large chunk of lien down on the fact this won't be the only time we did this. In fact, I guarantee we'll be forced to do this without the use of our aura later on.

"Is anyone here feeling confident enough to give us a demonstration of what I expect of you?" Caza asked, sweeping her gaze across each of us in scrutinization and challenge.

I ignored it.

"Nobody?" Caza asked with a raised brow, casting her eyes across us one last time. Her eyes seemed to remain on me for a little longer than I deemed as normal before she turned and looked elsewhere, "Mister Dante, would you care to be our demonstration?"

I followed her gaze and found someone I recognized from earlier. He was the one that wanted to challenge me in Goodwitch's class, but Yang won out over his hand.

He stepped forward after exchanging glances with his team, consisting of incredibly bland colors. They all wore mainly white, leaving black to accent their attire in individual ways. Two of them looked too young to even be here, considering they looked to be a year younger than Ruby, who was fifteen.

Just because toddlers can wield a little knife before they can take their first step doesn't mean Ozpin should be accepting children so young just based on skill. There was a fine line between bloodlust and mentally breaking someone with images of death and savage desolation.

The younger they are… the worse it gets.

They looked like siblings, considering they were twins. One boy, one girl. The third member was that kitsune I took note of in the arena, and lastly, was the one called Dante taking his strides to the cliff side of Beacon's edge.

I had a sudden hope that he'd somehow die in this fall.

"So then, nothing but body and aura?" He asked, standing at the edge and gazing down the outcrop below.

"That is correct," Caza replied, crossing her arms as she watched.

"Well, at this height, aura isn't exactly needed. Would it be breaking the rules to go without it?"

I didn't know if he was trying to be arrogant or innocent, but in some way, somehow, he suddenly pissed me off. I felt irritated just looking at him and the aura exuding from his skin… his white hair, chin length, fluttered annoyingly perfectly against the wind rushing up from below.

His bright sky blue eyes were trained over the edge, a color that would've been unique if the two twins of his team didn't have the exact same irises.

He wore a white button-up coat, its tails lightly tossing about behind him in lengths that would've reached his calves if they stood still. Black trim patterns adorned his coat, along with black buttons. Beneath the coat, he wore gray jeans and black running shoes, each with white soles.

He had a fascination with a balance between the colors… a very annoying fascination.

I knew what kind of person this teen was. And immediately, with only 23 words spoken, I already found him aggravating in every way. It was easy to tell he could perform this fall with little to no issue at all. And that's without aura.

His persona seemed perfect, almost too perfect, like whoever created him wasn't adverse enough to know what a weakness was. Like they wanted to create a world where this character won in every regard, every instance, and never failed to do what was right.

A character of sympathy, ingenuity, intelligence, strength, power… and above all, ultimately unbeatable given enough time and training.

As if existence itself was supposed to regard him as some sort of important person.

It pissed me off.

"Without aura? I won't allow you to potentially kill yourself, Mister Dante, if that's what you're asking for," Caza replied, fixing Dante with a critical gaze.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I'm sure I can handle it. I know where my capabilities lie. Falls like this are nothing. I've done them several times in the past without aura, and several more at even greater heights," Dante explained, taking a step back as he glanced at our professor.

Oh just kill yourself already.

"Very well, I expect you to be successful then," Caza gestured to the cliff side as Lanza clawed his way over to the cliff's edge.

It was her version of a safety net, by my assumption. Jaune was going to need that bird to save him… after I kick him over the edge myself.

For now, I watched as Dante nodded and took a step back, before moving forward and dropping over the edge. Most of the students stepped forward to watch, I remained behind with Kitsuki at my side. I didn't hear the satisfying crack of bones like I wanted to… Instead, I heard a soft thud of sneakers followed momentarily by a couple steps.

To anyone else, they would've been silent, but to someone with any senses to their name… they were louder than gunshots.

Speaking of gunshots, where's the nearest anti-materiel rifle? I need one to pop him in the head.

"First student passes with flying colors. Anyone willing to follow up the demonstration?" Caza asked, turning to the class once more.

One by one, members of the group began to drop off. All of them used their aura, a luxury none of them wanted to drop like Dante did voluntarily at the start. His team had already dropped down after him, being the only ones to choose not to use their aura either.

I didn't know if they were proving a point or just following their leader, but in any case, I didn't find them nearly as aggravating.

My fox was cuter.

"U-uh, professor? I'd, uh, I'd like to take a pass on this assignment… if that's alright with you."

I turned my gaze to the one who spoke. Though, I really didn't need to. It wasn't like Jaune's voice was that hard to distinguish from the rest of them. It was just one of those voices…

"Mister Arc, backing out was not an option. You either jump and land on your own, or you jump and flail until Lanza catches you in his claws. The first step is always taking the leap," Caza shut him down, but I had hoped she would've left her safety net a secret for a little longer.

Though, it was already needed a couple of times for some students too nervous to be even slightly confident in their abilities.

Jaune was the king of them all, in that regard.

"I-I just don't think this is a good idea. I mean, I'm not exactly an aura master or anything, but I don't think I can do this. Can't I just find another way down?"

"You must jump, Mister Arc."

"What if I had a rope with me?" Jaune suddenly pulled out a coil of 200 feet of rope and hauled it up onto his shoulder, "Can I climb down with this?"

"Mister Arc… where were you hiding that coil of rope?" Caza asked, narrowing her eyes to keep them from going wide in mild shock.

"With my grappling hook?" Jaune asked, rather than answered, as he pulled out a four-pronged hook and attached it to the end of his rope.

Caza had to take a step to her left to try and look around the guy standing at the cliff side, struggling to see where he was pulling any of this from.

The kid came prepared, I'll give him that. Too bad the 200 feet of rope and the metal hook will only make him fall all the harder… especially after I took initiative here and stepped behind him, then proceeded to kick him over the edge with a satisfying thunk.

His screaming and flailing probably attracted every grimm in the area, but it was worth it. I'm hoping something big shambles out of the forest and tears the white prince down there a new one. Either that, or it'll just show me how much power he truly has… if he's even willing to show it.

Caza gave me a cautious glare while I watched Jaune plummet, and as predictable as the morning sunrise, I saw a strong pull of someone else's aura take hold of his metal grappling hook to slow his decent.

He made it to the ground seemingly on his own with a small amount of reduced velocity, enough so to allow him to buckle and role once grounded.

Pyrrha needs to mind her own business… or her assistance will get the kid killed in the end.

"Mister Ezdeil, was that necessary?" Caza asked, but I disregarded the pointless authority in her tone. It wasn't real, anyway.

"It was, actually. We're tight on time, considering our condensed presence has attracted several wandering grimm from this side of the Emerald Forest. The other side has been cleared during initiation, but you happened to choose the one that was still infested," I looked down below and let Caza take note of some of Dante's teammates entering hand-to-hand combat with some lesser creatures of grimm on the forest floor.

I then switched my gaze to the professor at hand.

"So, out of necessity, I sped up your slow process of student evaluation. Besides," I turned and watched Kitsuki slip over the ledge and glide down to the ground below, falling in a slow, gentle descent as the wind carried her to a soundless landing, "we're just about done anyway."

I was the last one.

"You seem confident in your ability, much like our demonstration. Care to restrict yourself as well?" Caza wondered, stepping closer to me as I glanced over the edge once again.

"Like hell I'll ever do the same thing your demonstration did," I growled, then took a step forward and let myself fall.

I didn't just let gravity take hold. I forced enough aura to condense within my body to enhance it. So much of it was forcefully culminated within every part of my being that I forced the downward acceleration of gravity to quadruple, then scaled it up exponentially from there.

I didn't stop accelerating until I broke the sound barrier, then beyond even that as I continuously shattered the rules of terminal velocity and caused my own force of nature to take hold.

None of this mattered, absolutely none of it. I was fed up with all of it, and for some reason, I kept finding myself blaming him. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to be anywhere near him, and I certainly wasn't going to copy him.

This was a show, an anti-climactic story of students throwing themselves over the side of a cliff.

Well, let me be the first to tell you…

I didn't just break the forest floor, I destroyed it. Cracks ruptured straight up the cliff behind me and the ground beneath me caved in under my feet, cratering from the sudden pressure of an impact equivalent to a tungsten alloy rod fired from an orbital satellite at a descending velocity that exceeded Mach 85.

That number equated to nearly 95,000 mph, or about 65,000 mph less than the top velocity of a meteor.

I needed to blow off steam, and what better way than to wipe out another infestation of grimm so willingly sacrificing themselves just by merely entering my presence.

The ground didn't stop caving in, in fact, I had to reinforce it to make it stop. The result was a shockwave through the fabric of matter within the surface of the Emerald Forest's forest floor. A destructive, heavily damaging sonic wave surged through the thin layers of dirt and roots as it rushed out, avoided all students, and ripped the flesh and bone from every grimm in any vicinity from here to the mountains several miles away.

I was done with this. I was done with everything today, and I was done with everyone.

With a wide birth around me that I made personally by throwing all students too close to the impact zone out of the way, I allowed the ground to fix itself as the floor of the forest illuminated in a sudden storm of electric, flashing lime green light.

Every crack, ever shattered tree, every stone turned to dust, everything repaired itself to the state it once held before my impact as I stood up from my crouch.

Pissing me off was a bad idea in every regard, but this… this was just irritating. I was irritated, and I didn't know why.

So I just ignored everything and walked away, leaving a stunned class behind… and another section of grimm-less forest in their midst once again.

Kitsuki can find her way back to the room on her own.

Well, I guess you know where Anoel went now and what she has been up to.

Rule number one of Rogue Huntsman, never give Anoel something to tease you about. Especially if she can use her allure to accentuate the already embarrassing effect of the teasing at hand. Rule number two, please try not to poke a certain someone with a stick, no matter how long it is.

I personally guarantee no world, dimension, reality, or void will save you from its freshly baked cookies. And by that, well, what do I mean by that?

I don't know anymore, let's try it and find out.

Heh, more new characters. Arex and Dante, but Dante is from a story called 'Hero of Remnant' by a good friend of mine. He goes by the name 'andy2396'. He's also recently released a second story called 'Hero of Remnant: Veil of the Aether', which I recommend reading in case you're interested.

Of course, he knows that I had every intention of bashing on his character. However, I never quite informed him of how I was going to do it. I just told him Niro was going to hate the guy.

XD, I'll be having a lot of fun with this. And don't worry, he doesn't mind. He actually finds it to be an entertaining idea. He's still completely in the dark.

He has no idea.

For now, Favorite and Follow.

I look forward to seeing REVIEWS for this. You'll be introduced to a LOT of concepts of mine. Feel free to give me your thoughts.

Cya XP