Rogue Huntsman

Aura-Forged

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An orb of fire condensed into a cluster of smoldering, manifesting white heat, molding itself into a long blinding streak of light the length of a sword.

The fire then collapsed around black steel, carefully heating it momentarily before the one holding the blade slipped the weapon back out of the make-shift furnace.

Arex wanted to redesign her main weapon, something she's been reluctant to really work on ever since its initial creation. It wasn't a factor of effort or time, it was far more elusive than that… since she had yet to perfect the technique she was currently using.

As the metal in her blade continued to shine, she poured her aura into the hot molecules of its steel and worked to disperse it evenly within its structural matter.

Hot Aura Fusion.

The alloy Arex forged back at her furnace at home was constructed of metal she's been repeatedly pouring her aura into since their initial firing. Each time, the material retained more and more aura as she dispersed each pulse into the structure of the object's components.

It was quickly reaching the point where no more aura could be contained inside the shell of the blade… due to the aura physically merging with the atoms making up the weapon.

That only meant she was nearing completion.

Smoke and steam suddenly plumed from Arex's forging station as she dipped her hot blade into an aura bath, finishing her special heat treatment of her weapon with a final seal to lock everything together.

The heat smothering the core of the metal in her grasp deteriorated, quickly fading away as she siphoned it into the open air around her. Before long, Arex removed her sword from the glowing pool of shimmering orange light.

She spent the next hour and a half polishing the blade with different grits of a grinder, shaping and sharpening it into a single-edged longsword. She incorporated a fuller into her design, which was a beveled groove or slot that ran down the flat sides of her blade.

Lastly, she carefully carved out a long, shallow cut inside the back edge of her blade and down its entire length, creating a slit-like line going from hilt to tip.

That was her conduit, which was carefully measured for its function to be effective.

She had already spent five to six hours engraving an intaglio of branching flames across both sides of her blade's surface. And with careful regard to those engravings, she was able to keep them clean and visible throughout the final processes of her weapon's re-creation.

Now, all that was left was to integrate the hilt and the pommel. The design of the base of her blade was unique where it met her handle, where the hilt would slide into place.

Instead of the hilt getting inserted flatly against the blade itself, she designed the blade's base in such a way to carve out a back segment of the blade. The cut followed a straight, shallowly curved line up the center of the blade before arcing outward after several inches. The removed segment allowed its front edge to connect directly with her hilt while allowing an extension of her handle to fill the groove she cut out.

It was a single-edged blade, so the design would allow for more leverage in each swing. However, she was also doing this to build a catalyst that would feed ammunition into the conduit running down the blade's spine.

The extension of the weapon's handle was sleek, only slightly thicker than the blade it connected to. Its shape mirrored the curved groove, only its back edge had a pointed slope elegantly tapering out near its base, close to the hilt. The tip of it merely connected with the spine of the sword at the end of the missing segment, sealing the extension seamlessly to the blade.

Beneath the extension and the expanse of her blade lay the hilt, taking the shape of two, short prongs. The back prong reached out about an inch, taking a rectangular, nearly rhombus shape, given its slightly narrowing edges.

The front prong reached out slightly passed the blade's edge, going an extra inch and a half as it narrowed and dipped downward, sharpening into a point. Its only purpose was to glance deflected strikes away from her hand.

With another hour to color and polish the components, Arex finished with wrapping her weapon's handle in a custom black cloth grip. Her pommel was weighted specifically to keep the balancing point of her weapon just above her hilt. Its shape was similar to a triangle, only if its sides were curved inward and its base outward… along with a hollow center, beveled angularly to make its inner corners more apparent.

Arex slowly let a breath out, eyeing the blade lying across the workbench before her. The color scheme she chose was black and green. Or, more specifically, pristine ebony and fluorescent lime green.

The surface of it reflected light beautifully, running a shine down the length of its exterior with fluid ease. Its pommel, hilt, and handle extension were carefully trimmed with the brighter accenting color, while the rest kept its dark base setting.

The intaglio wasn't colored. If you weren't looking carefully at the blade, the intaglio she engraved was nearly invisible… that was what she wanted.

Each engraving she made in the blade's flat surfaces, even the fuller itself, was designed to collect and glow with aura as she linked herself to the dormant aura within the weapon. Additionally, that aura can be refilled through use and expended during attacks.

"Did you make this?" someone suddenly asked, and it wasn't until now that Arex caught the glimpse of a red cloak drifting into her peripherals.

Arex gave the new arrival a startled glance, catching silver eyes with slightly shocked yellow irises.

"H-huh?"

"This," the girl before her stared down at the weapon on the station, eyes glistening with an intrigued curiosity no other could feasibly reach, "you made this, didn't you…?"

The girl's voice was sweet, young… innocent. It simmered with excitement and sympathy, rendering itself in a silken tone that could only suggest the purest of intents.

She looked two years too young to be here.

"U-um, would you mind me asking who you are?" Arex rebounded from the sudden appearance of a young observer, finding it in herself to return something more than confusion.

"Oh! Sorry about that, I'm pretty bad with introductions," the girl replied, brushing a quick hand through her hair to adjust her asymmetrical bangs, "My name's Ruby. I haven't seen too many people in here lately, so when I saw you in here I got a little curious."

A little? Arex quietly stared at the girl, watching as she fidgeted beneath her gaze, "It's alright, I guess I should've been more aware. I get a little lost in the work I do."

"We all do sometimes," Ruby offered meekly.

"It just means what you're doing means something," Arex returned, gently resting her arms on the workstation in front of her as she loosely crossed them, "Do you make your own weapons too?"

Ruby gave a quick, curt nod, "Everyone at Signal has to. I just happen to do it a lot more than most of the other students. It's… kind of a fascination, but more of a passion, on my part. I'm kind of a weapons nut."

Arex calmly hummed, "I'm the same."

"Really?!" Ruby suddenly went wide-eyed with excitement, causing Arex to recoil slightly.

"Y-yeah."

Ruby squealed, pale cheeks slightly reddening as she embarrassed herself in front of a stranger, but she didn't care about that right now, "Have you named it yet?"

Arex glanced down to the blade in front of her and faltered slightly in her countenance, gaze softening.

Ruby wasn't oblivious enough to miss that, "B-but if you don't want to tell me, that's perfectly fine. I mean, my weapon's name is pretty personal too. It was pretty rude to intrude like that."

Arex found herself looking away, glancing toward the workshop tools to take a moment. It was just to distract herself, nothing more, "Leone."

Ruby's eyes quickly found their way back to the girl in front of her, silencing her mental rants as she heard the other forger's soft reply, "That's a beautiful name…"

Arex dipped her head in a tiny nod, "It is."

The two stood there in a few moments of silence, the only sound conveyed into the room was the noise of the forge beside them. The rest of Beacon's forge room was empty, the only station in use being the one the two girls were stationed at.

It was awkward for the both of them… Ruby couldn't stop herself from idly shifting her weight on the balls of her feet.

"Can I know your name?" the reaper asked, making the first attempt to break the settling tension.

Ruby smiled sweetly, noticing the girl's eyes change a few times before eventually turning back to meet her own.

It was… strange. Ruby found the girl to, well, actually be approachable. Everyone else felt so distant, so on another level than herself. Ever since the reaper arrived at Beacon, she's felt so out of place.

Why was this so different?

"Arex," the girl in the green sweater replied, showing off a tiny, distracted smile of her own, "It's nice to meet you, Ruby."

"I-it's nice to meet you too," Ruby quietly replied, her nerves acting up… but to a lesser degree than before.

Arex suddenly shifted her weight and pushed away from the workstation, giving her arms a quick stretch as she took in a mild breath, the action revealing a portion of her flat, pale stomach, "Listen, I've sorta been up since one. I think I'm probably just going to go nap to music or something."

Ruby gave the girl a shocked look of her own, "Wait, how much sleep did you actually get last night?"

"An hour or two, I had trouble falling asleep," Arex replied with a soft shrug of her shoulders. She didn't want to get into the part that she had even more trouble staying asleep.

"T-that's not much…" Ruby muttered, the look on her face quickly falling into a sympathetic gaze, "Are you alright?"

The question caught Arex a little off-guard, especially coming from someone she only just met, "For the most part, but you don't have to worry about me. I'm used to it."

She's used to it…? Ruby nodded, but she didn't exactly know what to think right now. The nod was only a filler to give her time, but that time was cut short as she watched Arex pick up her weapon and shut down her forge.

She was leaving.

"W-wait, don't you have classes later?" Ruby quickly asked, her tone falling into the same tone of her worried thoughts, "You'd be missing them."

Arex stopped for a moment, glancing over her shoulder as her sword's tip dipped slightly toward the floor, "I'm not in the system yet, so I'm not required to attend anything."

Her gaze then turned upward as she sighed, looking into the tall, vast reaches of the room above them and toward the openable panels of the roof.

"I'm sure that'll be fixed soon since I'm already on a team. It's just not official yet."

Ruby didn't know what else to say, watching as Arex waited for another few moments before moving toward the door. The reaper quickly jostled her hair for a moment, trying to find something to at least leave off with, but the girl at the door beat her to it.

"It really was nice meeting you, Ruby," Arex said, glancing to the young reaper out of the corner of her eye, "Maybe I'll see you later, at some point. You'll probably find me in here a lot either way."

She left before Ruby found it within herself to wave goodbye, disappearing from the room as Ruby's pale hand remained in front of her for a few solemn moments.

The warmth was gone. She didn't know why, but the room suddenly felt colder…

"See you around," the reaper murmured, eventually letting her hand return to her side.

It took her another few minutes before she started making her way back to her room. She needed to wake her team…

Three hours… over three hours of my life have been wasted. And for what? To learn about war between the faunus and the human race and the shocking tiers of Grimm.

That time could've been spent doing other things. I could've run 98 jobs, accumulated 470,000 Lien, decimated 310 grimm of all varieties, and had time to make tea for a party of seven. And I'd still have three hours to do other things. You call this a good way to spend my time?

No, this is a good way to burn the authoritative system to the ground in my mind. Nobody needs to know about the past. He says we're destined to repeat it if we don't learn it, which is the best way to color a fit of lies in the current day and age.

Say it confidently and dramatically and anyone will believe you.

Like hell that'd ever work. Oh, and look… it worked… on the entirety of the class save for us and one other dumbass in the crowd.

This school's a joke.

The only acknowledgeable thing, the only thing worthy of even mentioning, was the tiers Grimm can achieve in a long life of ancient cowardice and sophisticated laziness. Yeah, that's right. In Grimm logic, the best way to get powerful is to do nothing.

Survive, and you shall obtain power.

They have the easiest system in the world to grow in strength. Us on the other hand, we have to fall to our knees and pitifully beg others to train us. To give us a purpose and a goal to chase, to learn lessons and obtain skills, to do something with our lives because we're too ignorant to figure it out ourselves.

This is why education is the most controversial piece of hypocrisy in history.

The council can literally claim that Dust is edible and should be ingested in regular doses to catalyze the aura genes inside our bodies to accelerate our aura outage by several percentages. And the world would believe it.

At least until civilization starts to suffer the side effects of eating energy.

We might as well gouge out our eyes and walk by faith of someone else's will. It's not like we're doing anything different as a race. We're only interested in surviving and thriving under the rule of someone else because only the crazy want to be responsible for ruling such a civilization.

You think a benevolent person seeks power in a world like this? That's a pipe dream dragged along bloodied snow on the tail end of a meat toboggan trailing with entrails. Nobody nice ever obtains a seat of power.

The pre-requisites of obtaining power is selfishness, corruption, and personal gain.

At least Professor Port gave us something to actually learn, if people weren't too busy staring at her legs the whole time. Low and behold, I thought Port would be a boisterous man who'd teach us valuable and extensive lessons about his past through monologued stories of his chivalrous acts and knightly duties.

Oh, no, no that was only the assumption of a mad man. No, she was a busty woman in her early thirties, developed beyond the imaginations of the horniest students of the room and flaunty enough to show off a lot of skin.

She could kill most children in the room at any given time if she chose to do so. Instead, she spit knowledgeable words at us in hopes of two or three syllables being retained over the course of the 90-minute class block.

Unfortunately, those words were only used as filler for the mental fantasies passing through half the class.

No wonder why everyone arrives early to Grimm Studies class.

Nonetheless, the tiers of Grimm were as simple as they got. They started with the lowest of the low, the newborns. These don't even make it onto the tier list to begin with. They're so weak and so plentiful in numbers, they don't even deserve to be mentioned.

The step above them, the actual start to the tiers are the Minor grimm. These have at least some sense to them and have accumulated enough knowledge over time to formulate packs and strategize. These were what you find in the Emerald forest, like that pack of beowolves I slaughtered last night.

The next tier is the Majors. These are usually lightly armored and lead small platoons of Minors, who naturally follow orders from a higher ranking Grimm and tend to eventually escalate to the next level given enough time.

That level was the Alphas. These are heavily armored, often times lethally tactical and strategic, and know how to get lesser grimm to eat out of their claws. They lead the Majors and the Minors, taking the chief of a horde in name and in strength.

They pale in comparison to the next level of the tier list. We discovered pretty quickly that, anything past the Alpha, was still technically an Alpha. It was just more armored, or bigger, or brawnier, or had more teeth, or more spines.

Some Alphas even learned how to merge their black essence with Dust veins within Remnant's caves or exposed rocky outcrops, giving them an elemental prowess.

They're still Alphas.

No, it wasn't until they accumulated enough power to reach an aptitude capable of leveling a mountain that we decided to label the next one up on a separate tier list from the Alphas and the rest. These were the Dremoha class Grimm.

They all have an affinity to an element, sometimes two, and have enough power and strength to wipe armies off the face of the planet. Some grow to rival the size of five Atlesian Airships, others maintain their original size but increase in the potency of their power threshold.

Most hunters could only dream of facing such beasts, if those hunters were delusional enough to confuse a nightmare for a dream. Dremoha were incredibly territorial and don't venture too far out of their marked homes. All Dremoha tended to avoid one another, keeping to their territory and only occasionally invading that of another.

Dremoha were incredibly smart and tended to avoid civilization.

Not like they needed to, anyway.

The final tier, the fifth tier, is another massive power gap between levels. Only… this one is so much larger than the difference between an Alpha and a Dremoha.

The Omegas, meaning the end of everything.

Only one has ever been spotted throughout the entirety of the history of the human race. Only once has an Omega ever been seen…

And that date was wiped from the history books to place a veil of ignorance over civilization. Historians wanted to keep such a creature at a mythological belief rather than a proven fact.

There used to be five Kingdoms.

One for each cardinal direction and one at its center. That's what the world used to look like.

But on one fateful day… the Lost Kingdom of Kerillor was wiped off the face of Remnant. Its entire southern continent was obliterated, its populous decimated, and its name and existence forever written out of common knowledge for the centuries to follow.

All it took was a day… and an entire Kingdom disappeared, landmasses and people in its entirety, gone in the blink of a few hours.

I've always wanted to take one of those things on.

It sounds like fun. Plus, the collateral damage would be substantial. It'd give the world a nice little reality check to rethink their decisions.

"Are you just going to monologue in your head all day?"

Put a sock in it, Anoel, "If I didn't monologue in my head, my observers wouldn't be entertained."

"People are observing your thoughts?" the info-broker asked, tilting her head with an amused smirk beneath her cowboy hat.

"Only the ones stupid enough to look into them," I replied.

The sea of students before us parted like the red sea with every step I took, keeping to a wide area of avoidance as I kept half my gaze hidden behind the front of my black cowboy hat. Good, I was afraid I'd shatter bones if I ever walked into another student.

They got out of the way like they were supposed to.

We made it to the center of Beacon in the next few moments and pressed the call button to the elevator of the Academy's centralized, and tallest, tower.

"Seriously, what are you thinking about?" Anoel prodded, poking my arm with the pad of her index finger, "You wouldn't happen to be thinking about our Grimm Studies teacher, would you? I mean, she was pretty hot… and that's me saying it."

"If you think I find a female carrying a blunderbuss for a weapon elegant and refined, then you'd be wrong. She's eye candy for the class," I let out a stifled breath, grumbling into the exasperated air as we waited for the elevator to descend, "But at least she had something useful to say, unlike our other class."

"With the coffee guy?" she asked, flicking the front rim of her hat up before crossing her arms, "I think his name was Oobleck."

"You know his name was Oobleck," I countered, pushing the retort even more afterward, "You probably know his family history by now alongside what he had for lunch, how much coffee he drinks per minute, and how much lien he makes on average."

Anoel rolled her eyes, "He actually drinks approximately 11 cups worth of coffee every minute. It's highly impressive, if you can stomach it."

"He's more than stomaching it," I growled, emphasized by a ding and the metal doors before us sliding open, "It's more likely his body requires it to survive. It's his elixir for immortality."

"And what's yours?" Anoel asked, stepping inside the elevator and taking the side near the buttons. I took the corner opposite her, "What do you live for?"

That question was as unfair as asking a child what song he wanted for his funeral, "Does anybody have to live for anything in the first place?" I returned, pressing my back into to wall behind me as the doors sealed shut.

"Everybody lives for a reason, Niro. Everyone has a reason for what they do, some just haven't found that reason yet," she replied, eyes and face turning toward me as she leaned against the adjacent wall of the compartment.

It wasn't worth thinking about, "I wasn't given a choice on whether or not I was born alive or dead, or conceived in the first place. The odds were in favor of throwing me into a furnace and seeing how long I'd last. Unfortunately, that furnace only made me stronger. And now, all I can do is wait out the ire of society."

"You're not chasing anything? You don't have anything you can say that you're striving to become?" Anoel asked instead.

"I'm going to avenge my father's murder, anything beyond that doesn't matter right now," I replied, listening to each consecutive, slow ding of the floors passing us by.

"That can't really be it, can it?"

She was really pushing this.

I sensed a sudden gradual pressure on the cables suspending this elevator compartment from plummeting down its shaft, and a moment later, before I happened to give any response of my own, the elevator came to a slow halt on the floor of the library.

We were close to ascending into the tower itself, but of course, something had to have been waiting for the elevator on a floor above us.

The doors slid open and Jaune Arc stepped inside.

"Going down?" he asked.

I grabbed him by the collar and full-armed slung him down the expanse of the library's hallway he came from.

And then the doors closed, and we continued.

"To be honest, I haven't thought that far ahead," I responded to Anoel's question, returning to my corner.

She hummed for a moment, visibly mulling her next words over carefully before she spoke them, "And what about in the long run? Ever think about settling down, maybe even start up a family?"

"You think I want children to put up with what I do on a daily basis?" I asked, turning my hard gaze to her.

"I'm just saying, maybe you want your lineage to be something more than an afterthought. You never know, you might find a little happiness in a family of your own," Anoel said.

"Anyone who's ever known me has experienced anything but happiness," I stated. It was as harsh of a truth as my reality ever got.

"I have…" Anoel replied softly, her voice trailing off as I looked at her.

Then the elevator doors opened, and I walked out.

"Ah, mister Ezdeil, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Ozpin asked, sitting like a Headmaster should behind his vast desk and a surrounding wall of glinting windows.

The very same glint that shined over his glasses.

"The pleasure's all mine," I replied falsely, and he knew it, "I believe our team has acquired a fourth member, if you aren't already aware."

"Oh, I am very much aware of miss Arex Stark joining your ranks," Ozpin replied, turning to regard Anoel with a welcoming nod and a pleased smile, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person, miss Anoel."

"It is quite the pleasure to meet a man such as yourself, Headmaster," Anoel replied, giving the man a respectful tip of her cowboy hat a small curtsey.

"We'd like to register her into the system," I followed up, wanting to make this meeting quick and painless.

"That can be arranged, however, she has yet to be tested for proficiency," Ozpin responded, fixing me with his stare now. It was a stare of intrigue, something far befitting of a man silvered by age, "Can I trust that she is more than capable of handling herself? Additionally, more than capable enough to keep her partner safe alongside her own troubles?"

He knew too much to really call himself a disconnected human in this society, "I can personally guarantee that her proficiency and adaptability far exceeds the 90th percentile of your entire freshmen year." I informed.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow to that, a devilishly curious smirk growing across his lips as he changed his countenance to something more… serious.

Something felt off.

"I hope you don't mind, but I find myself, regrettably, in disbelief of that comment," he returned, swiping a hand across his desk as he pulled up his holographic scroll built into its surface.

He then opened up a map of Beacon Academy, which then projected itself up into a digital display of the physical building and its entire cliff side.

"I understand," I said. If someone came up and told me they were stronger than me, I'd rip their arms off and see how far I could kick them into the layers of bedrock beneath the surface of Remnant's crust.

Something worked its way into the gut of my senses, festering there as I felt a twinge of dark, malicious intent begin to flood its way into my array of sensory abilities.

Something was coming.

Ozpin then pulled the image before him and expanded it, standing as he did so as the glass windows surrounding the building tinted slightly.

"Good, then I hope you would find my test for her to be rather fair. I will be observing her aptitude over the next few hours, to which she must take part in," he informed, pulling the image of Beacon further and further back as he expanded the view of the map to go beyond its borders.

Going further, the map began showing the sea of trees of the Emerald Forest and then started to display the mountains in the distance.

"Her test will begin at the beginning of this coming siege on Beacon Academy," Ozpin finished calmly, pulling the image out one last time to reveal something large, rapidly moving, and highlighted red moving in from the ocean, "I believe that is satisfactory enough?" He asked.

I nodded, "She will take part."

The feeling was getting stronger as this thing got closer. It wasn't any ordinary grimm.

"Sir, if you don't mind me prying, what is that thing?" Anoel asked, slipping her silken voice into a curious stupor, staring at the approaching red manifestation of digital polygons.

"That, my dear," Ozpin said, placing his hands on the desk before him as he looked to my partner, "Is a Drakian Hydra."

"What class?" she asked, eyeing the grimm a little more closely.

He smirked, "Dremoha."

"You just made my day," I said, giving the Headmaster a momentary tip of my hat before I turned on my heel and headed for the elevator.

"Oh, mister Ezdeil, one last thing," Ozpin interrupted, slowing my pace slightly, "Do ensure that my school sustains no damage during the extent of the siege. I would much prefer it to remain fully intact."

It wasn't a request.

"What will I get in return, if I do this for you?" I asked, turning to regard the silver-haired man out of the corner of my eye.

"A full team," he replied, a challenging smirk pulling at his lips, "You and miss Stark must pass this test, or I will deny her entry into my Academy."

"And you think I'm not okay with just a three-person team?" I returned, watching as his smirk widened.

"I have already begun searching for a fourth member on my own. I do believe you would very much rather choose your own member than allow me to choose one for you," Ozpin replied.

This man…

"You have yourself a deal," I stated, waiting for any more replies before moving on.

"Don't disappoint me, mister Ezdeil. Though, that task will be quite difficult to begin with, given what I've seen so far," I felt Ozpin smirk behind me one last time before I made it to the elevator, Anoel stepping in with me as we turned around.

His smirk was the last thing we saw before the elevator doors before us sealed shut.

I've always hated it when someone else held all the cards.

Well, you know… I released a chapter earlier this week because I wanted to take Friday off after my finals. I did take that day off, and it was very pleasantly spent just mulling around and heading home for the start of my Winter Break.

However, I had the urge to write Arex, since she's fun, and so I did. And, well, now a 5.1k RH chapter is done and ready for upload, which I will do.

Here's your little early treat for the holidays. I wonder if more will come.

Any theories on Arex's weapon?

The rest were all things that aren't canon or are my own deviations from canon.

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