Rogue Huntsman

Amber

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"Heard you were playing with fireworks," I said, tipping my hat down with a pinch of my fingers as the Maestro heir bowed, "Thought I'd drop in, see if I can catch any."

"Clever, I like that," Sylvius replied, grinning as he stepped forward and gestured to his side, "Like what you see?"

I let my gaze wander for a moment, humoring him as I took in our surroundings once again, "Quaint, but not my style."

"Right, right. The Black Stallion, was it?" the boy asked, turning his gaze away as he let his own eyes wander wondrously across the cavernous crystals above us, "Homely, like a traditional tavern hearth. I've been meaning to visit."

"Drinks too cheap for your taste?" I asked.

"On the contrary, the drinks are to my liking, from the stories I've heard. If anything, they're underpriced," he walked off to the side and gestured for me to follow.

I did.

"Niro Ezdeil…" he muttered, a heavy interest lacing his words as he met my eyes, "I've always wanted to meet the man behind the name. Though, it wasn't the first you were known by…"

Ahrulian suddenly suffered the deathly grip of my tensing fingers, my face remaining in its calm, casual demeanor, but the rest of my body tensing beneath his words.

Very few knew that side of me.

"Azrael. Now doesn't that name carry a resounding ring to it. Rolls right off the tongue." Sylvius took in a deep breath a let it out, smiling all the more, "The Angel of Death… It's almost beautiful in its destruction. And here he is, standing before me."

I grit my teeth and forced my hand to loosen up, finally freeing my fingers from the clasp of my palm before I responded evenly, "I've only ever been called one name. You had it right the first time."

Sylvius suddenly held up his finger and made a soft click with his tongue, "You see, I thought you'd say that. Which is why I took the liberty of pulling up some old footage from way back when. I'm sure you'll recognize it."

My eyes narrowed as the heir drew out a crimson scroll, opening the wide screen up before playing a video across its visual.

"Your stories always amazed me," he started, dropping the scroll.

The device suddenly split and small thrusters activated, the two halves staying in relative position as they projected a screen into the air above them.

"A small figure, torn and ragged clothing, barely enough on his chest to even call it a shirt. He was a dull, emotionless child, wandering the woods… playing with the Grimm…" he continued, walking with his back toward me as his story continued, "They called him Azrael, bringer of death. They say every village he visited burned asunder once nightfall fell."

Sylvius reached out a pale hand and brushed his fingers across a crystallite sprouting out of the ground, caressing its shine for merely a moment before glancing back at me.

"I grew fascinated with your story when I was younger. Enthralled by the imagery and the emotion, the ruin, but it reminded me of something oh so dear to me that I couldn't get the stories out of my head."

His eyes fell to his associate in the distance before he waved her off, ushering her back the way he came as I watched her walk away.

"The boy in the stories was never the monster the storytellers made him out to be. Oh no, he was so much more than that," Sylvius walked around the holographic screen, the feed displaying a village in chaos filmed by a static-overlaid, shaking camera.

A boy stood amidst the destruction, staring blankly into the carnage with an empty, soulless gaze. Not a drop of blood stained his skin, and the cloth of his torn black shirt and black trousers could only ripple and whip under the burning haze of an inferno billowing from the village's rooftops.

"No… You see, what nobody caught on to… was the fact that this boy, right here," Sylvius stepped forward and brushed the backs of his fingers down the side of the child's face, my head reflexively pulling away as if the same presence touched my own, "was a victim."

Nobody was a victim in this world.

Grimm ran rampant across the screen, pillaging and ravaging the bodies of the villagers, soaking the ground with their scarlet blood as the boy turned his gaze to the one filming.

Then the screen cracked and fell, and the guttural growl of a beowolf tearing into flesh and bone screeched into the recording before the file reached an abrupt end.

"Looking into the matter further, I just had to find out the rest of the story. The most important part, if you will," Sylvius continued flawlessly, holding his hand out at his side as he set his eyes on my own, "I wanted to know how Azrael's story came to be. Like any other story, it had to have a beginning. And like any lost child in the wilderness… they had to have a parent to abandon them to the wolves."

His eyes grew dark as he brushed his hand across the screen and opened up another file. An image.

It was an old rendition of the Black Stallion, several years ago, with a young woman and a young man leaning against each other with bright smiles and even brighter eyes on their faces.

As if the world was ahead of them.

I blocked out their appearances mentally, despite them being right in front of me… for the sole sake of not ripping into Sylvius's throat before he could keep talking.

"Such a happy couple, but I won't get into their stories. I want to keep talking about yours. These two happy renegades settled down in Vale, opened up a fresh bar, and decided to finally live a happy life. But uh oh, somebody accidentally got someone pregnant."

He was either trying to get an emotional response out of me… or in some way was trying to piss me off.

My lien was on the latter.

But that being said, why the hell was he so interested in all this?

"They decided on his name the day before he was birthed, not much else being planned for the new inclusion to the family." He swiped to the side, flicking to an array of hospital records. One of which… was a death certificate, "In fact, they had their sights on adoption or… even abortion. How cruel. It would've been the happiest moment of the couple's life, truly… if tragedy hadn't struck it down so abruptly. After all, when the child they didn't plan for drew its first breath, its mother softly exhaled her last."

He couldn't have been more obvious with where he was taking this, especially considering the tone in his voice suddenly grew soft and tender.

If you're spitting fighting words, don't speak them like you're trying to comfort me.

"A plague overtook the hospital, killing all its inhabitants and workers in a single stroke of time, save for one," Sylvius said, smiling as he swiped again and revealed an older picture of my old man, only his smile was gone, seeming like it was never there to begin with, "He was the lone survivor."

If I wasn't so set on actually needing the heir before me for something, I'd have removed his head from his body right then and there. But unfortunately, I had to be polite and not interrupt his speech.

Fine. Continue your rambling. I'm sure you're just dying to tell the rest of it.

"What a horrible father at that, as well. You see, as the hospital collapsed around him to ruins, he brought his only son out into the forest and left him there. He knew no family would take a boy like that, and he certainly knew he didn't have the power to kill it. So… he left it, hoping the Grimm would deal with him if the wildlife didn't."

Sylvius brushed his hand along the floating edge of the scroll between us as he made his way around, my own legs taking me instinctively around the other way to mirror him.

"The Grimm did find the child, alone and helpless. Yet, not a cry nor a tear even came from the boy. And, what the father did not expect… was for the Grimm sent to kill the human boy to take him instead and raise him amongst their own."

Reflective golden eyes turned down as Sylvius turned my way, a small grin gracing his lips as a shadow fell over his eyes from his blonde bangs.

"That… was the man I wanted to meet. And yet, someone different stands before me. What happened? Someone actually point you in the right direction? I mean, my collection of villages Azrael visited are… quite innumerable, surely something had to happen to put an end to it."

I already knew that he knew what happened next, but it was easy to tell that he was waiting for some kind of reaction.

Anything at all… considering I'd been indifferent throughout the whole endeavor under his gaze.

"It's an old urban myth exaggerated over the years of its retelling," I replied, letting my hands slide quietly into my pockets as the two of us slowed to a standstill, "Stories have their ways of getting… blown out of proportion, if you're not careful. Don't believe everything you read."

Sylvius only smiled in return to that as he grabbed his scroll out of the air, sliding it closed in a swift collision before pocketing the device into his golden jacket. The thin cloth held sleekly to his skin, showing off a thin frame to his body beneath and trailing down into a white trim detailing his attire.

Twin coattails dangled down at his back, split down the middle as golden buttons lined down the face of his sealed front. Clean dress pants lined his legs in a darker shade of gold than his jacket, leading down into white sneakers.

He dressed cleanly for a royal cockroach.

His height was the same as mine, as if destiny itself decided it'd be funny to see what'd happen if we stood on even ground.

Literally.

And just like the rest of him, he had clean blonde hair, short and patted down in a mildly messy manner. Most of his bangs, if not all of them, were parted away or only slightly dangling over his face.

Shining gold eyes brimmed with energy as he smirked at me, listening to my words with a cool interest that could only suggest he had the mindset of a man intrigued by everything.

And to that extent, he was.

Shining golden irises took me in as I turned away, melting and erupting in their interior colors with seemingly molten storms of rich, luminescent light. Not many irises did that, if at all.

It was power… the same power I sensed the moment I saw him.

Even his goddamn hair flowed softly outside of the movement of his head, drifting on its own by an unnatural wind, overflowing with a potent, surging energy. The very same energy that festered in his eyes and aura.

Two golden rings lay snugly at the base of each of his pointer fingers, rimmed with metal but each one encasing a crystal central layer that wrapped fully around each ring, emitting soft electrical golden glows inside their crystalline structures.

That central encasement emitted the same overwhelming power I sensed down the tunnel behind me, where the woman walked off to.

"I knew I'd like you," he returned, smirking all the more.

Go die in a hole.

He suddenly turned, though, and started heading in the very direction I actually wanted to go, stepping deftly through the crystals at his feet as he gestured for me to follow, "Let's go for a walk. I'm sure you're interested in the energy source you've been sensing since you got here."

I took a page out of Inuba's book and followed like an obedient dog, "You seem to know me. You should know showing me your secrets can lead you to some pretty nasty ends."

Sylvius hummed as he let me fall in line at his side, shaking his head, "I prefer to provide my favor to my friends and my enemies, then wait to see which was which."

"You play for both teams, huh? Sounds like someone on my team," I replied.

"Yes, that's right. You're attending a school now. How is that? Getting good grades?" he asked, glancing over to me as the cavern around us began to grow in luminosity.

"For the most part." I grit my teeth, but answered all the same, "Faculty couldn't be less qualified."

"Tough luck, but at least your team's looking up. Team Elandrial, was it? ELAA?"

That name was only made official yesterday, "Doesn't take a genius to look up a class roster."

"Oh, I'm not claiming to be one, my friend." A pale hand pat my shoulder as golden eyes met mine in a disgusting gaze of neutrality and interest, before he let his arm fall, "But I'm impressed by your teammates. Anoel, the world renowned yet infamous info-broker, and your closest ally. A small little Sparrow flies in your midst as well, going by the name Arex I presume."

He glanced back ahead of us as we conversed, the cavern seemingly getting bigger the further in we strolled.

"And then… a beautiful little fox. Frost fur so white it's like a fresh coat of snow." His voice almost turned whimsical, head turning up to the roof of the cavernous structure around us with a reminiscent smile, "I hear she's a mute."

"She is." Someone made her that way.

"Poor thing," he lowered his gaze again, sympathy falling into his words as he gazed at the ground, "Such a tender creature shouldn't suffer a life of silence alone."

Arex has that covered, "She'll be fine."

"I'm sure she will…"

My eyes looked to the far wall ahead of us, the cavern coming to a flat, abrupt halt to a wall of illuminated golden crystals. Compared to the rest of the cavern, these ones seemed to contain a flowing, lively energy deep inside their thick shell.

The cavern itself felt superficial and created. This… felt alive.

"Like what you see?" Sylvius asked, moving ahead of me as he gestured his hand to the softly glowing wall in front of us, energy flicking and shining from within, "It's a mile thick, if you're interested."

"I already know," I said, scanning the immense structure buried beneath rock and stone.

It was a sphere, hollow once you get past the shell encasing whatever lay at the heart of the immense manifestation of energy.

This thing was producing the veins of lightning Dust making up the cavern and the reaching veins that climbed all the way to Remnant's surface far above.

This was the central source to those veins.

"Know what it's called?" he asked calmly, laying his hand on the wall before him.

It was four miles in diameter, its heart fully encased in a shell impossible to penetrate by normal means.

The very proximity to the exterior shell protecting the real energy inside was enough to vaporize anything that drew near enough to touch it, something that made his casual contact with its surface suddenly meaningful.

And it also explained why his associate was idling so far back, considering we passed her on the way.

"A Dust Core," I replied.

His smile couldn't have been more satisfied, "Correct. This is a Lightning Dust Core, the heart of all this Lightning Dust you see around you. Doesn't it just feel… alive? Like it's a living, breathing entity?"

"It does," I humored him, stepping up to the exterior shell and pressing my hand against its surface.

It was warm, the surface harsh against human skin, but the energy inside… felt unmatched.

"The heart that lies within this shell is even more beautiful," Sylvius continued, brushing his fingers across the crystal in front of him before he reached forward and crushed a chunk of the shell in his grasp, leaving a shallow indentation, "But it wishes to protect itself, as you can see."

He dropped the fragments of the shell at his feet, shards striking the floor as the break in the shell he made slowly mended itself. New crystals grew in its place before it flawlessly brought itself back to the way it was.

"I managed to only touch it, for but a brief moment. Nearly died doing it, despite my immunity," Sylvius continued, stepping quietly away from the shell and moving to the side.

He was an Affinity user too. Lightning based.

And now that I finally got a solid read on his energy signature, I realized he was the same presence I felt on the night of the docks incident.

He was there.

"Thought Affinity users were pretty much immune to their own element," I said, taking my hand away from the Core and turning toward the Maestro heir.

"All Affinity users have a high durability to their element of inheritance, and all have a full immunity to the element they put forward using their own energy. Keeps them from hurting themselves, but…" Sylvius turned back, glancing to the Core once more before meeting my eyes, "They can still be consumed. I only lasted a few minutes after I got through the shell."

Those words shouldn't be taken lightly, either. The young man I was looking at, there was one thing that was painfully clear about him from the moment I glanced at his toxic appearance.

He was the most powerful Affinity user I'd met to date.

And his proficiency, knowledge, access to resources, and condescending intellect were all enough to get him to that level… and he's only just began.

He knew too much for an 18-year-old.

Arex took a deep breath and held it, eyes focusing hard on the door in front of her as she stood with her heels pressed tightly together.

This was exactly why she never personally delivered any prototypes or projects to those who contracted her.

She was out of her element whenever she left her home, her room, or even the forge room. It was this kinda stuff that really ate at her nerves, and knowing that someone on the other side of this door was waiting for something to be repaired by her hands made it even more unbearable.

And to make it worse, the phoenix knew the person she was delivering it to was the grateful type.

She was almost half-hoping the blonde was still out cold from medication or something. Anything to just let her go in, drop the gauntlets off, then leave.

No words spoken… no awkward eye contact made… just in and out in a few short seconds.

Maybe that would be the case? Hopefully?

But that was only getting her hopes up. The receptionist in the infirmary wing's lobby told her to knock before entry.

That could only mean that Yang was awake.

So, that effectively ruined those few rays of hope Arex saw. Now, all she had left to bank on was that the early hours of the morning meant Yang didn't have any visitors.

And knowing Ruby, there was a good chance the reaper was in there at Yang's side as the girl's only visitor.

Which meant Yang's attention would be off Arex and on her sister… She hoped…

I'm stalling… like always. Arex finally released the breath she was holding, hot air cascading nervously out of her lips as she finally reached a small, pale fist forward and knocked her knuckles lightly against the door.

The seconds that passed seemed to tick away at Arex's nerves, grinding slowly enough away for her to hear every tiny sound coming from Yang's infirmary room.

A hazy red blur was the first thing she saw finally transition across the small frosted window encased in the door before the knob turned and the door was pulled open.

Then silver eyes were the next thing to cross her vision.

"Arex?" Ruby pulled the door inward before quickly stepping aside, opening the door most of the way for Arex to walk in, "Wait, are you done already? It's only been a little more than a day."

Arex's soft orange eyes quietly blinked for a moment as the girl bit her lip, stifling the last of her nerves one last time as she nodded, "Y-yeah. I ordered the parts as soon as you gave me the gauntlets and I worked on them that night."

Which was last night, but she felt adding that would be a bit much.

Ruby's eyes widened for a moment as a smirk overtook her face, "That's amazing! I was hoping you'd at least get it done during that week, but I wasn't expecting you to finish it this soon."

"Well," Arex rubbed the back of her neck, switching the weapons box she brought with her containing Ember Celica to her other hand as she glanced away, "With classes starting up after the weekend ends, I figured Yang would want her gear ready before combat class."

"You're incredible, you know that?" Ruby asked, settling into a warm smile before glancing back into the room after a small sign of movement.

"Hey, Rubes? Who's at the door?"

That… must be Yang. But since Ruby's right here, Arex can just hand it off and go, "Ruby, Kit's gonna be waking up soon and I need to be-"

"It's Arex! You know, the girl I told you about?" Ruby's eyes snapped back to Arex just as the girl was raising the box to be handed off.

Did she hear what I-

"Here, come in and meet my sister!" Ruby reached forward for what Arex had a fleeting hope would be for the box, but instead, Ruby's soft grasp found its way to the phoenix's wrist and pulled her inside.

So close…

Arex's orange eyes quickly brightened in color and luster as that particular emotion became more apparent in the young forger, the room's door quietly clicking shut behind them as the phoenix found herself under the gaze of someone she'd yet to meet.

"U-uh, hey," the phoenix greeted nervously, gaze falling on Yang as she sat up comfortably in her bed, orange t-shirt covering what looked like full-body bandages wrapped around most of her skin.

Her arms were left visible, though, seeing as they healed up quickly on their own.

"Oh my god…" Yang's eyes quickly fell on Arex as the girl shrunk under the blonde's widening lilac gaze, "there's two of them."

Before Arex could say any more, Yang took the thin blanket covering the lower half of her body and threw it aside, slipping out of her bed and lowering her feet to the floor to stand.

It took a moment, but Arex managed not to stare at the surprisingly toned and lithe legs suddenly on show, the girl only sporting a pair of black short-shorts beneath her shirt.

"Even similar in height," she continued, making her way in front of Arex with a few quick steps and eyeing her carefully, "No wonder why she li-"

"Yang's recovered!" Ruby suddenly blurted out, pulling a flinch out of Arex as she recoiled backward slightly and interrupted Yang's next comment, "A-as you can see. She's still healing up the last of her internal injuries, but she's almost cleared to go!"

Ruby looked… nervous?

Arex glanced to the girl for a moment, confused to see her rubbing her own neck nervously now as the two sisters exchanged a harsh, family glare.

Was Arex… missing something?

"Aaaanyway," Yang continued, tapping her small sister aside as she made her way to the foot of her own bed and plopped herself up onto its edge, sitting down there, "Ruby told me you were taking care of my babies. Did they give you a hard time?"

Babies? The weight in Arex's hands suddenly reminded her why she was here in the first place as the girl got her bearings again, "Oh, right. They were pretty chipped in several areas and the slides were jammed, a lot of it was dented too, but I managed to buff it all out and replace any broken parts."

Arex took a cautious step forward and placed the box on the foot of Yang's bed, next to the creamy leg she was currently having trouble not looking at.

"They really took a beating, huh," Yang's gaze grew worried as she opened her box, wondering what condition her gauntlets would be in before that gaze suddenly grew wide, "W-what?!"

"Yang? What's wrong?" Ruby quickly zipped to Yang's side, leaning over the side of the bed to look inside the box too.

"They're perfect! They look brand new!" Yang took Ember Celica out of its black confinement and threw them onto her wrists with a subconscious deft familiarity, sliding both gauntlets seamlessly into place before their panels rotated and collapsed to form the brawler's golden bracelets.

Ruby was… still staring.

"I-I took the liberty of-" Arex tried to speak up, but her voice stopped coming out when she saw Yang give a momentarily confused look to the bracelets on her arms.

"Hang on…" She cocked her fist back again, bracelet sliding and extending to form her gauntlet once again before she retracted it, "It feels… smoother?"

Lylac eyes fell on Arex as the phoenix reworded what she was about to say.

"It should feel that way, yeah. I've never really seen weapons of this model before, so when I took her apart to repair her, I made your momentum trigger system a bit more sensitive and consistent," Arex focused her eyes on Ember Celica instead of Yang's irises, finding it easier to speak if she wasn't making that kind of extended eye contact, "I didn't want to change anything without permission, so I just tried my best to clean them up and make whatever systems already in place a bit more efficient-"

"Is it alright if I hug you?"

Yang's interjection caused Arex to snap her eyes back up to Yang's and pause in what she was saying, cheeks burning a little red under what was just said before Ruby nudged Yang's shoulder with her own.

"Yaaaang, can't you see that she's-"

"I'm hugging her anyway."

Arex's eyes went wide as Yang slipped from her bed and enveloped her in a suddenly tight hug, a startling amount of strength behind her arms for someone who'd just been heavily injured.

"I can't thank you enough for taking care of them and fixing them up," Yang said, tucking her chin over Arex's shoulder as the girl went stiff, "It really means a whole lot to me."

She didn't even know what to do with her hands, just keeping them pressed at her sides as she felt the voluptuous blonde press comfortably against her.

Not like she can move them anyway with Yang's arms around her like this.

"I don't know you very well, but thank you," Yang whispered, tightening her embrace ever so slightly and squeezing a small helpless squeak out of Arex's throat, "Aww! You're so huggable!"

"Yang, you're suffocating her!" Ruby quickly pulled Yang out of Arex's infiltrated personal bubble and quickly took the phoenix by the shoulders, holding them gently as a worried silver gaze locked with Arex's own, "You okay? Your face was getting red."

Arex's lungs ached but she managed to nod to the reaper, taking a step back to recover the breaths she'd been denied, "I-it's fine."

The phoenix glanced passed Ruby and saw a giddy but apologetic Yang standing behind her, but she guessed it was only right for the older sister to get thankful in her own way, "I'm glad everything worked out. It looks like you've recovered pretty quickly too, so your friends must be happy to see you okay."

"Oh yeah, they'd be bummed if I kicked the can out there," Yang replied with a laugh, her hand holding her side for a moment in grimace before she dropped it, "Still not 100%, but getting there. I'm just still a little surprised Blake spent the night."

Lilac eyes glanced over Arex's shoulder for a moment as Yang looked to the corner, and the small suspicion that arose was enough for Arex to glance over as well to see a raven-haired girl curled up and sleeping on three aligned waiting chairs.

Her fair skin was almost forbiddingly smooth, a tight black and white outfit fitting the rise and fall of her curvy figure elegantly as Arex visually traced down the girl's side and hips.

T-that's Blake?

Arex gulped dryly and, despite some clothing being a bit disheveled, found herself staring at what she'd quickly realized was an almost feline beauty asleep in the chairs in the same small room as herself.

She couldn't see past the girl's long, curled up legs, but she noticed they were encapsulated by full leggings, gradually fading from black to purple down to her ankles. Blake ankle-socks adorned her feet, the girl's choice of black low-heeled boots resting down beside her chairs and within reach.

Coattails draped down at the back of her waist, trailing up into a buttoned black vest with only a high-necked sleeveless white shirt beneath it, cropped to show her flat stomach.

A pair of white shorts sat at the peak of the raven-haired girl's leggings, almost completing her ensemble.

The rest seemed to be accessories…

Arex counted quite a few. Black ribbons seemed to be wound tightly around her wrists and forearms, then a small, loose scarf rested lightly around her neck, just barely caressing her nape. Lastly, as Arex followed the girl's lower back length hair, she found a large bow atop her head.

All the accessories were black as well.

One thing that contrasted that theme was the catseye styled purple eyeshadow the girl wore, only reminding Arex of her preference to avoid makeup in most cases.

If not all cases.

Anoel always told her she didn't need it, since Arex was one of the few who actually didn't require it to look cute or pretty.

Or, so Anoel said. Though, it seemed that really was the case with Arex.

But… the eyeshadow probably brings out the girl's eyes… which Arex was kind of wishing she could see right now, but knew it wasn't right to stay long enough for the girl to wake up.

"Blake's my partner, if you're wondering."

Yang's voice suddenly brought Arex back to the fact she was standing in the middle of a room full of other girls, and reminded her that she should probably get going.

"Actually, she was why we were even out there that night to begin with. She sorta blamed herself for my injuries, but it's all good. I came out perfectly fine in the end aaaaand walked away with an enhanced set of gauntlets to top it off!" Yang exclaimed, her words causing a small stir in the girl sleeping in the corner as her bow fluttered.

Right. Time to go.

Arex's nerves were suddenly flaring again at the prospect of actually getting a chance to look into the sleeping girl's eyes, and she had a quickly forming apprehension to do just that.

"I-I'm just glad you're alright," Arex said, turning around on her heel before starting to make for the door, "Plus, working on your weapons was actually pretty fun, so I didn't mind the long night."

"Wait, hold up!" Yang started to follow, causing Arex to quicken her pace a little and grasp the handle of her exit, "You can't just up and leave without us figuring out how I can repay you! You did all this and likely dropped everything just to do it."

"It's fine. The gratitude's enough and like I said, it was fu-"

"Nuh uh, not getting off that easy." A sturdy hand flashed into Arex's vision with a hint of reflective gold as it pressed itself firmly against the door Arex was just opening, effectively slamming it shut again, "Now, how much do I owe you?"

Arex silently sighed and turned around, trapped between the inner wall of the room and an imposing blonde brawler who was only looking for a way to be even more grateful.

She was really pushy with this…

"Really, it's-"

Yang narrowed her eyes, snapping Arex's mouth closed again before the girl looked away.

Really pushy.

"So? What'll it be?" Lilac irises drew slightly closer as Arex stepped back, finding the wall suddenly pressing into her as her delicate hands pushed against the hard surface at her sides.

"Yang?"

A new voice suddenly filtered into the atmosphere of the small infirmary room as there was a small shifting in the corner of the room, causing Arex to stifle another deep breath, as if the silence would actually hide her presence.

"What are you doing?" Blake asked calmly.

Yang smirked and stepped aside, letting both Blake's and Arex's eyes meet for the first time as she kept her hand on the door.

"Oh! Nothing. Just wondering how to repay Arex, is all."

T-they were… amber…

Sylvius is fun to write for XD (but not as fun as Arex or Niro). But still really fun. I hope he comes across the way I want him to for you all. As to whether or not they'll fight… I don't know yet.

Arex! What are you going to do?! You're surrounded by three girls, one burning hot, one adorably cute, and one gracefully beautiful.

What's your next plan of action?

She's… she's not answering.

Arex is so adorable. She's soooo out of her element. Anyway, this chapter gave you two sides to a coin.

Dark mysterious exposition and fluffy canon interaction.

Hope you enjoyed 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