Rogue Huntsman

Bejeweled

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"You two be good, you hear? It'll be a nice cool night tonight, so don't stay up too late and get a little shut-eye if you can," Nyla called out with a wave, eyes bristling with mild worry as she leveled them on Arex, "Especially you. Don't keep Kit up too late."

"I won't," Arex replied, slightly hiding her face behind her hand as she shook her head.

Kitsuki was only nodding in affirmation as she watched the doors slide open behind Nyla, then waved back as the woman stepped out and took her leave.

Leaving the mostly empty, massive forge room in silence.

The only other occupant was Ray Chroma on the other side of the forge room from Arex and Kitsuki.

"She carried the crate all the way through campus after taking it to the bullhead with us…" Arex sighed, peering out from behind her slim fingers at the black box resting on her workstation.

Kit soon dipped into view and signed a quick phrase with a smile, "I like her."

The phoenix could only roll her eyes at that, "I know. She's… different, but she tends to take a liking to people."

"She's taken quite a liking to you, Arex," Kit signed, her tiny smile soon widening as she stepped up onto a stool and plopped herself down onto it, "She's really nice too."

"Only to people she likes," Arex replied, finally taking that moment to re-open the box of pre-ordered parts and tools, "She puts up a front for the rest."

"Do you think she put up a front for me?"

Arex pulled out the tools first, removing the padding beneath them a moment later as she went to work unpacking the delivery crate, "No. I can tell when she puts up her front after so long of knowing her. She likes you."

Kit's smile brightened, her hands soon tugging over the tools laying out across the foam panel and organizing them across the station.

Whenever Arex pulled something new out, Kit slid it over and organized it. The tools remained in their own individual sector of the workbench, leaving all the parts organized by project in their own sectors. To divide each portion of the workstation, Arex turned on the scroll built into its surface and let Kit draw the straight white lines to separate them.

After a little while, the crate was finally empty and stashed away beneath the workstation with the other storage units. She'd have to return the crate once she could.

For the time being, Arex had a request she needed to fulfill.

Off to the side, resting on the hardened parts of the workbench to be used as an anvil, sat the dull glow of a chipped, scratched, and dented pair of golden gauntlets.

The blood that once tainted their metal panels had already been wiped off, leaving behind a bullet-indented rendition of what used to be a pristine set of weapons.

Kitsuki silently reached over and picked one of them up, causing a quiet digital wave to pass through the large scroll beneath it. The dispersing pixels soon brightened and projected upward, tracking the movement of the gauntlet before encircling it in an array of dimensional numbers, a scale, calculated weight, and listed materials.

"That's Ember Celica," Arex absently commented, swiping through the blueprints across the surface of the table and opening up a few files under someone else's name, "Yang's weapons, from team RWBY."

Kit set down the gauntlet, watching as the numbers and projections followed it, "Ruby's half-sister."

"They might as well be called sisters, but you're right. Ruby was the one to request Ember Celica's repair while she looked after her sister in the infirmary," Arex explained.

"I'll call them sisters then," Kit replied, taking a glance to the far door for a moment, where the infirmary sat on the opposite end of campus, "Will she be okay?"

A large projection soon emerged from the table and Arex brought it up to float in the air, enlarging it from there.

It was a clean representation of Yang's finished gauntlets in all combat forms, as well as disassembled.

"The school is equipped to deal with any kind of injury, so I'm sure she'll be fine," Arex said, eyes analyzing what she was working with, "She has the weekend to recover."

"She's tough," Kitsuki signed back, watching the same light projection Arex was fiddling with before transitioning her golden-orange eyes to Arex herself, "like you."

Arex grimaced at that, "I'm not tough. I'm easily physically drained by my Semblance, and my usage of my abilities are all incredibly inefficient. I have no endurance, lack in physical strength entirely, and almost broke under one heavy hit from that Hydra."

In fact… Arex did break under that hit, several of her hollow bones were fractured on impact. It was Skyla who healed them.

Arex didn't know if the school would've been able to handle something like that so readily.

"I wasn't talking physically," Kit continued, eyes dropping away from Arex now as she tugged her panda hat off, "You're surprisingly strong mentally and emotionally."

The phoenix's gaze widened for a moment, yellow irises flashing to Kitsuki as she set her fluffy hat aside, letting her ears flick around and stretch, "Despite… what?"

How much did she know?

"It's just something I've picked up on, is all," Kitsuki offered in response, meeting Arex's gaze with her own again and getting Arex to quickly look away, "I like seeing that in people."

Arex's cheeks tinted slightly in a scarlet hue, "R-right…"

She immediately got her warm hands working by disassembling the physical Ember Celica on the workstation.

"I do too."

Kit smiled as she watched Arex work, a small flame of intrigue and interest flickering in her shining eyes as she paid attention to everything her partner did.

The kitsune's irises seemed to reflect the haze of the fire at Arex's back, the furnace burning brightly in the segmented forge Arex worked with. The heat pleasantly warmed Kit's flowing tails, all three flicking absently back and forth behind her as she watched.

After an hour, Arex reached out for a moment and glanced up from the spare parts across the station, "Here, gimme your hand."

Kitsuki's ears perked up briefly, but she didn't hesitate to reach forward and nestle her fingers into Arex's own.

Without knowing what Arex had in mind, the kitsune watched as Arex lifted her hand up by a small margin before holding it there.

Off to the side, Arex dragged over the digital rendering of Yang's Ember Celica and phased it into place right in front of Kit's extended arm.

"The difference in size doesn't matter, so I'm going to cater the digital version to fit you specifically," Arex explained, getting a small nod from the kitsune as the hologram shrunk down and encircled her wrist sleekly, "I just need to see the functionality in motion."

Kitsuki caught on quite easily to what Arex had in mind, but she didn't exactly know herself how Yang used her weapons. She's only really seen them outside of combat, when the girl occasionally wore them outside of campus grounds.

"You can sit up on the table too. The scrolls here tend to only allow their fields of projection to be vertical, I still need to upgrade this one to allow for horizontal shifts beyond the screen," Arex continued, taking a firm grasp of Kitsuki's hand before giving it a light tug.

The kitsune let herself be silently pulled up onto the station, settling herself down in a cross-legged fashion once she found a cleared away spot to sit.

After that, she sat still, quietly shifting her tails back and forth as she waited for any further instructions.

"These videos should give you an example of how to use them. Play them while I fit the other digital rendering to your left arm," Arex said, flicking a few flat, digital images toward the kitsune's front before maneuvering around the table and dragging the second gauntlet hologram with her.

Kitsuki watched a couple of the training videos taken of Yang, some of which took place outside of the Semester's time-frame and before Beacon.

She took in the technique Yang used to prime her gauntlets and watched carefully to see for any particular muscle tensing. After a few minutes of watching clips, she slid the open videos back over to Arex and brought up both her hands.

Golden-orange eyes took a moment to take in the glowing neon yellow holographic representations of Yang's weapons resting snugly on her own wrists, rotating and angling perfectly to match any movement she made on her own.

Like she was actually wearing them.

"Whenever you're ready. I just need to analyze exactly how they slide in person. I'll be able to enhance that specific functionality once I can see it work, now that I'm already working on the weapon in general," Arex explained.

Kitsuki took a moment to sign something, "Are you going to add upgrades too?"

"No, not without request. I'd rather not change the weapon at all. Enhancing its current attributes will be enough to make it better."

Kit nodded in understanding before turning her eyes back to the gauntlets, then slowly closed her hands into fists.

With a small, silent breath, she brought her right fist forward and held it there for a moment… then tugged it back in Yang's customary reload-fashion.

Then she did the same to her left arm.

Arex watched the cylindrical panels shift and slide under the motion of Kit's hands, analyzing how each shift utilized the carried momentum of each pull-back before slamming forward to load a new digital shell into their built-in chambers.

She knew exactly what to do to enhance that slide system and make it easier for Yang to pull off, hopefully with less exaggerated motion all the time.

But she also knew how flashy Yang was, from what she's seen so far. So, she didn't want to ruin the joy Yang felt from priming her own gauntlets in an impressive and aggressive fashion.

So Arex didn't want to make it too easy for them to be primed. They still needed that sense of power behind every draw.

Despite that, Arex knew what she could do, especially in the priming chamber to avoid jamming.

She had to hand it to Yang, though. Integrating a bullet chain into a compacted shotgun was impressive, especially without a trigger system.

It was well-built, and it was a shame to see the weapon so broken.

"Been awhile since I felt silk sheets against my wings," Anoel chimed in a quiet, tired voice, soft sunlight drifting through the open curtains of Ly's nearby bedroom balcony beneath a warm breeze.

Ly yawned, doing her best to wipe the sleep from her eyes, "Only the best for how sensitive they are."

Anoel hummed as she pulled a fluffy pillow against her chest, closing her eyes for a few more seconds, "How thoughtful."

"Yeah… you can thank me later."

"Too much to drink?" Anoel asked, smirking into her pillow as she reached a warm wing out and curled it around the woman next to her, "Or just trying to get rid of me."

"I don't have the resistances my cousin possesses and Niro gave me acolyte, take a wild guess," Ly's response was muffled by the black silk pillow she cradled.

Anoel rolled herself over and opened her golden eyes, irises falling on the back of her sex partner as the girl hugged her own pillow tightly to her chest with her legs pulled up, "Maybe he could sense the tension burning between us in the booth."

Those amber eyes traced an elegantly curved shoulder blade and collarbone, following them down to Ly's hip and lower back. She halted her gaze there for a few moments before tracing back up to follow the designs of a tattoo running from there to Ly's upper shoulders.

"When did you get a set of angel wings?" Anoel asked lightly, reaching a delicate hand out to softly graze her fingers up the center of Ly's spine, fingertips grazing gently over the tattoo, "Never knew you were an angel…"

Ly popped a single cerulean eye open to gaze at Anoel over her shoulder, "I've always been an angel, I don't know what you're talking about."

Anoel's lips curled into a smile as she shuffled over and pulled Ly in, resting her chin gently over her bare shoulder and brushing a tender cheek against the side of her craned neck, "Jealous?"

Two sleek black wings wrapped around Ly's sides, slipping beneath her naked hips and around her waist.

Ly smiled, "Hardly. Having those feather dusters seems like a lot of work."

"High maintenance, but incredibly useful," Anoel replied, nuzzling into Ly's neck and nipping the skin there.

"Exactly the reason why I got a tattoo, my dear."

"Hmm… you're hiding something…" Anoel said quietly, slim arms keeping Ly close as they wrapped around her stomach, "It certainly wasn't there last night."

The angelic wings on Ly's back slowly began to melt away, fading until there was no longer a trace of the tattoo, "I'm always hiding something, Ano."

"Impossible to hide everything from me, honey," Anoel returned, kissing her neck before pulling away and sitting up, "Not when we get this intimate."

"You should know by now that I no longer attempt to hide things from you," Ly responded earnestly, "Not like I had much of a choice to begin with, so I might as well just let you pry."

"Prying feels too harsh… more of a gentle prodding," Anoel glanced down to Ly at her side, giving her a soft pout, "Irresistible and highly enjoyable prodding."

"Call it as you will, sweetcheeks, I know what you've been doing," Ly responded with a wink.

"I know," Ano whispered, letting the silken blanket slide off her skin as she bent her legs up and slid across her side of the bed to the edge.

The info-broker was quite fond of the black silk sheets of the bed and pillows, glowing softly from drifting rays of sunlight peeking through the gaps of a wall of fluttering curtains. Beyond those rested a reflective gleam of a wall of glass, most of the panels open to let in natural light and a soothing breeze.

The warm air from outside tingled over her skin as she slipped her bare legs over the side of the bed and lightly lowered her feet to the wooden floor below, eyes dancing around the room to graze over clusters of glistening lights littering the furniture and floor.

The whole place was littered with gems of all assortments.

"Leaving so soon?"

"I can stay for a little longer," Anoel returned, glancing back to see Ly rolled over and looking her way, "Any traces of alcohol left in you? I can burn it away if you'd like… though, your body's still sensitive."

"If you can sense any, knock yourself out. Though, I'm sure some food will do it all the same."

"Want me to cook you something?"

"Hell no," Ly responded immediately, pushing herself up into a sitting position, "You're a terrible cook."

Anoel pouted at that and crossed her arms beneath her chest, "I'm not that bad."

Ly rolled onto her back, running her hands through her hair and down her face before sliding out of the covers, "Not in my apartment, Ano. I prefer my kitchen in one piece."

"Fine fine," Anoel relented with a mock pout, sliding over for a moment before crawling back to Ly's side, "Close your eyes for a sec."

"You can grope me in the open, I don't care."

"Oh, don't wind me up now, not when I can go another round," Anoel smirked, grazing her hand back over Ly's body before drifting down her flat stomach, "But if you want to see yourself on fire… by all means, you can watch."

Ly sighed before closing her eyes, "On second thought, I changed my mind."

"Good girl."

Ano pushed herself to her knees before placing her hands softly on either side of Ly's arms, shifting her weight to settle across her partner's hips and straddling her there.

After a moment of settling in, she slid her hands up to graze over Ly's collarbones before drifting them into place. Her left hand settled softly against Ly's forehead, the other placed itself lightly against the girl's breathing chest, right where her heart was.

"Brace yourself," Anoel stated in a small exhale.

The girl beneath her pushed her chest up for a moment and furrowed her brows, shifting before settling back down, "Is the straddling really needed?"

"Mhmm."

Anoel lit a small blaze beneath her hands and swept that over Ly's skin, raising a small flinch from Ly before letting the soothing warmth seep into the thief's body and simmer into her bloodstream.

A beautiful flickering glow emerged from Ly's brightening aura, pink and blue energy bristling with an orange flame encompassing and flowing through its hybrid combination as Anoel's irises sparked with a similar fire.

Before a minute passed, the fluctuating flames drifted back into Anoel's arms and dissipated.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I could go another round," Ly breathed out immediately, a hot breath cascading from her parted mouth.

Anoel gave her hips a small grind before leaning down, pecking Ly's lips before she could open her eyes, "Don't tempt me. The juncture between my legs just happened to be the warmest place on my body at the time."

Ly's eyes opened and her smirk widened, her hands quickly making their way to Anoel's hips to keep them moving against her, "I like playing with fire and you know it."

Ano stifled the small gasp escaping her lips as she let Ly take over, having been hiding the fact that she's been incredibly sensitive herself after last night's endeavors.

But they really did have other priorities to attend to, rather than each other.

So Ano squeezed her thighs, keeping them locked tight before letting herself lean down and rest comfortably on top of Ly's chest. She kissed the thief's shoulder before claiming it as a new resting place for her head, "I know… my fire likes you too."

"That's cute," Ly whispered softly, recognizing Ano's resistance and receding her hands from the info-broker's hips. Instead, she brought them up to delicately trace her fingers through the many black feathers presented to her, "You know, my body's all tingly after your little magic trick…"

Ly spread her legs a little to emphasize her point, pressing her hips up into Anoel's and wrapping her lithe legs tightly around Ano's body, locking her ankles up there.

"Are you sure all you did was burn the alcohol away?"

Anoel gave a mock little gasp and leaned up, staring into Ly's eyes after a hot quiver rushed through her core, "How could you accuse me of something so nefarious?"

Ly's eyes narrowed as her smirk remained, "Is that a trick question?"

"Maybe…" Ano rolled her eyes, letting the core of her body heat up ever so slightly as she sealed herself against Ly, "Okay… I may have played with a few of your sensitive spots as I burned the alcohol away…"

"Thought so…"

"I can't help it, it's just too tempting," Anoel replied, almost meek with her words.

"I bet you tried that shit with Niro too, huh?"

"M-maybe once or twice," Anoel replied with a bite of her lip, unwarranted heat festering inside her cheeks.

"You're such a hopeless romantic…"

"Aside from the gems scattered about everywhere I look, your apartment's rather impressive," Anoel commented, pulling her thin black half-coat back into place as she gazed around, taking a moment to tour the penthouse.

"I literally just asked for the most expensive one they had and extorted Ray for the money to pay for it. It was already furnished when I bought it, the only additions I made were the valuables you see before you," Ly replied as they walked down the hall.

Paintings decorated the white walls, breaking up the pattern as they passed the bathroom and spare bedrooms opposite to one another.

The bathrooms themselves were all full-baths, centralizing large, jet-accompanied bathtubs, walk-in showers, black marble vanities, and full-body mirrors.

Aside from the basics for what the room and furnishing were, Anoel strolled into the nearest bathroom while having her look around, glancing up into the somewhat tall empty space of the full-bath before scooping her hand down into a tub of diamonds.

"Wow… moans would really echo in here…"

"Wanna take a bath in the diamonds?" Ly asked from the doorway, leaning a lightly clothed shoulder against its frame, only fitted now by a t-shirt and underwear.

"I don't want diamonds in me," Anoel replied honestly.

"Suit yourself," Ly replied with a cheeky smile, nodding her head out toward the living area down the hall from Ly's bedroom, "Here, let me show you the main balcony."

Anoel let her handful of small gems sift between her fingers and fall into the tub, rolling back into place among the rest piled up in the jacuzzi-sized bath, "Oh? I like where this is going."

"I know you do. You're fascinated with heights."

They passed the spare bedrooms, Ly opening the door briefly to show the interior of each before moving on to the vast, open living area. To their immediate right was a wide glass wall, giving them a view of the balcony outside.

The whole apartment seemed to favor natural light, since another wall of windows sat in the bedroom they slept in.

With the apartment's entrance down another corridor far to the left, the two stepped across the open floorplan of the main area toward the sliding glass doors of the balcony. A kitchen lay beyond the foyer's wall, bending along the back left corner to open up into the living room.

A corner couch lay before a wide 70-inch scroll TV on the wall to the left of the glass windows, nice, big, and expensive. Just Ly's style.

Wrapping around a square mahogany kitchen table with four chairs, they slid the doors open along the right wall and stepped out into the brushing breeze of a silver-granite balcony.

To their right was a ladder dipping into the crystal clear swimming pool and to their left stood a set of spiral stairs.

"Ah, I noticed an exterior level earlier, while we were on the couch," Anoel commented, glancing toward the staircase, "Where's it lead?"

"There's a communal garden on the roof, quite nice actually. I like to count my money up there after I'm done for the day. View is lovely. It's mostly looked after by the staff here, but residents can grow their own flowers and food if they want."

"I don't know… I thought the view in bed trumped everything else," Anoel replied, glancing up to the upper edge of the roof above them before clicking her way to the base of the stairs, low-heeled boots tapping along the granite, "But I can never resist a lovely view."

Ly gestured towards the top of the stairs, "After you."

"Sure you'll be alright up there? It's a bit breezy," Anoel replied, bouncing up the first few steps and turning around to see Ly padding her way up as well, still in just a shirt and panties.

"I'm used to the draft. I sometimes count my lien naked up there."

"Oh? You're giving me ideas," Anoel replied, reaching the rest of the way up the stairs at a leisure pace with Ly.

"It is a communal garden though, but there are ways to reserve it for certain periods of time under privacy agreements with the hotel's staff," Ly replied, stepping out ahead of Anoel and making her way into an open, lush garden.

If the gems inside weren't already so accumulated, the flowers, flora, and fluorescent colors of the building's uppermost level would've easily taken the title for the most beautiful level of the grand hotel.

Sanus's oceanic horizon lay at their backs, and in the distance beyond the garden sat the cityscape of the great Kingdom of Vale and, beyond that, the far eastern mountain range.

It was there the sun had just risen, casting a golden glow across the white clouds of the city's sky.

Anoel's breath… may or may not have been just taken away. Not like last night's breathlessness, but in a much more awe-inspiring way.

"Like the view?" Ly asked, turning toward her info-breaking associate as the two made their way to the far edge, facing the sun.

Anoel could only nod, the rest of her words getting trapped in her throat at the moment.

"You know, with your silver tongue always at work, seeing you tongue-tied is pretty cute," Ly teased, brushing her short strands of golden hair behind her ear.

Ano just glanced toward Ly for a moment, then back toward the sun and the horizon of mountains in the distance, then back to the ocean out across the other edge of the hotel, "There isn't a lot that can make me breathless, you know…"

Ly crossed her arms and glanced out toward the sun, "Am I on that short list of yours?"

Anoel stepped up onto the ledge and leaned out over the breaking updraft, shivering slightly under the small euphoria of rushing wind, "You're one of five."

"Only five, huh?"

"You'll figure out the rest of them with time. One's pretty obvious though," the info-broker replied, closing her eyes as she tempted fate by leaning out to balance herself against the uplifting air.

"Yeah, but I have no idea where to start with the other three," Ly returned, glancing back to Ano with a small smile forming.

"Fly with me?" Anoel quickly asked, opening her eyes and glancing back.

"Now? I'm not even dressed," Ly replied, eyes suddenly changing from a bright sapphire to a pearlescent rose-pink.

"Just a quick dip, it'll feel nice with what little clothes you have on right now."

A soft sigh escaped Ly's lips as she closed her eyes, "If you insist…"

"Are you still nervous about things like this?" Anoel asked softly, turning around to leave her back facing out into the open air.

"That's because flying a bullhead is significantly different to clinging to someone for deal life, Ano."

"This isn't something I like to force. It's entirely up to you," Anoel explained, her sky blue eyes remaining on Ly's own.

"I know, Anoel…" Ly paused, running her fingers through her hair and sighing, "but I feel like I'll need to get used to it at some point. I didn't train to pilot aircraft in a day after all. No point in dodging it."

"The take-off is always the scariest part. Once we're up there, your nerves are just going to melt away," Anoel assured, nodding up to the ledge she was standing on before reaching out her hand.

After a moment, Ly entrusted her hand into Anoel's elegant fingers and stepped up, letting the woman pull her onto the ledge and against her side.

"Last chance to back down," Anoel stated, holding Ly close as she leaned the two outward slightly.

"Just don't crash, I've had enough of those already…"

"I haven't crashed since I was little," Ano promised, before reaching down and taking Ly's legs up into her free arm while keeping her other wrapped firmly around her upper back.

"I-I hope this isn't giving you any other ideas…"

"Wouldn't dream of it, honey," Ano replied with a wink, slipping her sleek black wings out from hidden slits at the back of her jacket, "I'll be making those a reality…"

Ly's nerves seemed to act up a little more, but Anoel quickly remedied that with a quick flare of her aura's warm Affinity.

"Eventually," Anoel finished, before fanning out her full wingspan and stepping out into the wind.

Summer… time to go find my motivation again and keep these stories kindled.

I like writing them.

Hope you don't mind, but I want Kitsuki and Arex to be pretty inseparable. They're a cute pairing... and cuddly.

Additionally, this, and the last, were written in tandem with andy (prior chapter) and Hydra (this chapter) to keep characters aligned properly. It kept all direct actions with their particular characters from going OOC.

In any case, I hope it's fun to read too. Anoel may or may not be addicted to flying… as are most avian faunus.

It's a euphoric experience, no matter how often they do it.

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