Rogue Huntsman
Lightless
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Anoel came out of a glide down to a gentle landing, heeled boots lightly tapping the marble tiles of Ly's apartment balcony as the woman herself lay passed out in the phoenix's arms.
Her head was kept protectively leaned against the top of Ano's chest, her arms wrapped down supportively around Ly's back and beneath her bent legs.
Both of which were motionless in the steady breeze of the coastal apartment complex, the alcohol drowning out all of Ly's senses from what happened tonight at the bar.
It was all too much…
Anoel was just glad Ly was able to pass out, even if it was under the influence of heavy alcohol to do so.
"We'll talk after I lie her down…" Anoel spoke softly, knowing Niro could hear her, despite still being at the bar.
He had to be closing it up by now.
The ebony-haired woman brought Ly inside, sliding the glass door open to make her way toward her master bedroom.
She had an almost emotionless gaze simmering in her dull eyes, but it was one with far too much worry to be as cold as it looked in the dark, lightless room.
Ly's silken bed lay glistening in the moonlight as Anoel entered, moving toward the foot of it before working her way around to its edge.
She then softly laid Lylac down to rest, pushing the soft blanket aside as she placed her down with a gentleness she only really reserved for two people.
The only two girls she loved.
Anoel carefully removed Ly's high top sneakers, rolling off her thin socks a moment later. She set them aside before moving up to carefully remove the woman's coat, resting that on the nightstand nearby.
Ly's shirt was too tight to leave on in her sleep too, let alone wear a bra underneath of, so that came off soon after, resting in the same place the girl's coat did in a disheveled heap of thin fabric.
Anoel's gaze then turned back to Ly's partially curled up form.
She couldn't help but frown… noticing the numbness in Ly's face and the glisten of tear stains on her cheeks.
It hurt to see her like this.
Anoel eventually undid the clasp of Ly's jeans, fingers fumbling with a task she'd done effortlessly countless times before, hands being careful as she reached beneath the slender woman on the bed and worked the article of clothing over her curved hips.
With another gentle touch, she slid the rest of the tight fabric off Ly's long legs, dropping it to the ground.
Anoel would've stared, god she wanted to, like she always did, but she didn't even spare a glance this time to trace the curves she loved to indulge in.
Instead, she grabbed the silk blanket and pulled it up over Ly's curled up form, brushing it softly over the skin she knew was sensitive, but also knew was too numb and cold right now to notice its covering warmth.
She brought the hem of it up far enough to cover Ly's slender shoulder, tucking it up to the woman's neck to let her curl into its fabric just a little more.
"I'll join you once I can, love," Anoel whispered quietly, bending down to lightly brush Ly's stray hair out of her face.
She leaned in and placed a warm kiss on the woman's temple, holding it there for a long few seconds as she closed her eyes, before eventually pulling away.
They were dealt a losing hand…
She was going to play it till the end, even if she had to protect both Ly and Ray to do it.
Anoel's eyes finally tracked away from Ly's sleeping face to trail toward the bedroom's balcony, finding the silhouette of Niro standing alone near its railing.
His gaze was on the ocean just beyond the smaller balcony's reach, coat drifting in the wind, but she knew his attention wasn't on what was out there.
It was never on what he was looking at…
Anoel made her way out to him, closing the sliding glass panel with a silent seal before walking up to the railing beside him.
Her hair fluttered in the wind beneath the grasp of her hat, arms resting down on the railing in front of her as she leaned into it with a heavy, shallow breath leaving her lips in a noticeable evaporating mist.
One of her ankles found itself behind the heel of her other boot, her weight shifting itself onto just one of her legs as she looked out into the void of the ocean and the night skyline meeting its horizon.
"What did you want to talk about…?" she asked quietly.
"That can wait," Niro responded evenly, Anoel watching as his gloveless hand found its way to the railing as he let his glance fall to her shadowed eyes, "What do you plan to do about Quinn?"
Anoel's covered gaze only grew softer as she turned it back to the sea, "I don't know…"
He stayed quiet as she listened to the wind brushing up the side of the tall building, sifting through her hair as her heart's beats only felt more painful in her chest.
"If I tell Ray… he's going to challenge her. And if he dies…" her voice grew shaky as her breath caught in her throat, volume breaking down into a quiet whisper, "It'll destroy Lylac…"
She closed her eyes as she took another shaky breath, working to calm herself. Even just a little bit.
"Not telling him puts him in just the same amount of danger, because we have no idea when Quinn will move in. We don't even know the full extent of her intentions," she closed her eyes again as she shook her head.
She hated this. She hated every part of this, not knowing what their enemy was going to do only made that dreadful feeling feel so much heavier.
"Ray's one of the few who can go against her… and has every reason to, with what she's done to Ly." Anoel's lightless eyes opened again, the corners of them glistening with silent tears in the shattered glow of the moon, "There's nothing I can do right now for them… All of my options will get me killed."
She could feel Niro's gaze leave her without noticing it go, her vision growing bleary in the wind as she let one of just a few tears fall over the railing in front of her.
They were in a bad spot, and she didn't know how to get them out of it right now.
"Are you willing to die for her?" Niro eventually asked, noticing her frame shake slightly in the breaching wind.
She could only breathe her response out in a shaky voice, but one of earnest deliverance.
Even if it was broken.
"Yes."
"Then you have everything it takes to figure something out," Niro said, his voice dropping in its emotionless inflection for a short, fleeting moment under a beat of her pained heart.
The smallest hint of worry resided in his voice, and it was enough to force a stifled sob out of Anoel as she took another deep breath to quell it.
"I won't step in for her, and if this is how you feel, I won't step in for you either," Niro continued, his eyes trailing back to her lowly dipped head as she stared down into the water, "You're smart, Anoel. It won't be easy, but I can put my life on the line in knowing you'll find a way out of this. For everyone involved."
Those words broke her. Another sob breaking out of her tightening throat as she closed her eyes.
She'd try.
God, she'd try…
But try was all she could do.
And that terrified her.
Half an hour had passed before she was able to speak, her voice hoarse but… calm again.
Even if it was still a little shaky.
"What did you find out about Kit?" Anoel asked, wiping the back of her wrist across her cheek as she stifled a shallow, hitched breath.
"Someone's been keeping tabs on her," Niro explained, moving his other hand to the railing this time as he waited a few slow seconds before continuing, "There were trace signatures of their energy inside the electrical disruption that occurred during initiation, when Kit's original partner got killed. Someone renowned for their fighting style and unparalleled skill in their home Kingdom."
Anoel slowly nodded, half her mind taking it in as she let an absent question fall out of her mouth, "Did they make a return during Kit's fight with you?"
The slightest tip of his hat caught her vision, "Felt the same signature enter the cameras watching the fight before it started, which was why I forced them out."
"That explains the barrier…"
"But not her skill," he continued, "She could keep up with me in a style of retaliation, focusing on dodging until I pushed her into a corner that forced her to fight. When she did, she capitalized on every opening I made for her. She's a good combatant, but she's scared of the person watching her."
"Scared enough to be on the run from them," Anoel slowly breathed out, lowing her hands back to the railing in front of her as she leaned against them.
"I don't know for how long, but the signature has trace amounts of a Lightning Affinity surging in its dominant reach," Niro explained, "I only know one person with an Affinity like that, and I just had a meeting with them before that fight."
"Sylvius Maestro…"
He nodded to that.
"That… could explain her paralyzing fear of lightning," Anoel sighed, letting her gaze fall back out onto the horizon, "I have a bad feeling about where this is going, Niro."
"You're right to feel that way," her partner replied, "He's infatuated with her. And not in the same way he's obsessed with my history."
That alone didn't sit well with Anoel, "Another powerful person to deal with."
"I can handle Sylvius while you focus on this, but that's only if he makes a move," Niro said, "I'm only working on speculation, nothing definitive."
"T-that's fine." Anoel's breath came out shallowly again, but it was finally starting to normalize now, "Just focus on what you need to focus on. I trust you… more than I trust myself, right now."
He paused for a moment in their conversation, something he didn't ordinarily do, "We'll both do our part. If you die, I'm ripping the one who took you clean in half."
She couldn't help but give a sad smile at that, "Is that your way of saying you care about me?"
That got him to pause again.
For a little longer this time.
"You've already known the answer to that, for a while now."
Her smile only grew sadder as she dipped her head, wanting to touch him, to hold him, but knowing none of that was anything he wanted right now.
Her next words came out in a quieter voice than the rest, but she knew he had other places to be, "You can go n-"
A gentle weight rested over her head as she felt her head dip beneath Niro's hand, her eyes widening in response to the pat before hearing his voice speak out from behind her.
"Take care, Ano."
As soon as his voice drifted off into the wind, the weight left her head.
And his presence left the balcony.
The girl couldn't help but let that sad smile remain on her lips as she took a shaky breath, pushing herself away from the railing to make her way back inside.
The room was still as dark as before, but she saw Ly had rolled over at some point during their outside conversation, facing inward toward the center of the bed now.
Anoel's gaze grew soft just looking at her, part of her starting to come to terms with something she should've addressed a long time ago.
But the rest of her still not knowing what to do with it.
She quietly took off her own jacket, hat following soon after as she slipped herself out of her own clothes to bring herself to the same state of apparel Ly was in beneath the covers.
Black wings unfurled from their wrapping around her slim midsection, the tips of them serving as a cupped support for her chest in the form of a makeshift bra as she padded her way around the bed and slid herself beneath the covers in front of Ly's sleeping form.
She rested her head down a moment later, silently watching Ly's softly breathing frame draped only in the fading glow of the moonlight threading through the curtains in a long few moments of thought.
She didn't even have to think about the single answer she gave to Niro earlier…
Anoel was living a life of self-sacrifice for the ones she loved, she never knew when she was taking it too far.
But even so… she knew, even now, that she was willing to die for the woman resting in front of her.
She shakily pushed herself closer to Ly to bring her forehead into the crook of her neck, gently running her fingers through Lylac's blonde hair. Her digits brushed through their lilac tips before the info-broker wrapped Ly's slim frame in the comfort of her arms and wings, entangling their legs beneath the caress and silken covers.
She hated to do it… but she had to tell Ray, for Ly's sake.
It was going to turn into a witch hunt, but it was their only shot at challenging her with even remotely stable odds of nobody dying.
And it was the only way to keep Ly out of it.
Anoel slowly closed her eyes as she held Lylac closely to her body, Ly's own arms numbly wrapping around the phoenix's lower back out of reflex.
It was all she could do… before inevitably breaking the promise she made to Ly just a few hours ago.
Arex was sitting up on her side of their shared bed, Kit curled up beneath the covers on her own side with her fox ears lightly flicking on her head.
The phoenix's gaze glanced over for the umpteenth time that night, the light of her scroll illuminating the soft contours of her face in the darkened room as she watched the peaceful expression on Kit's face.
It was adorable to her, seeing the kitsune sleeping calmly like that on her own.
Though, she figured it helped that she was next to her the whole time, acting as a slight heater for the girl.
They'd washed off the cool Dust coating for now, dark bruises on the mend and working on dissipating overnight.
Arex couldn't help but smile at thinking back to how happy Kit looked when the Dust was finally off, her tails darting about behind her in the mute's tight hug.
After a few more seconds, Arex went back to her black scroll, flicking through her blog as she thought about what to do next for her weekly project. She had a lot lined up, but she'd been focused on Ray's project as of late, only having it finished and delivered to him in the last few days.
Which left the upcoming days open for something new to work on, alongside waiting for payment from Ray's end.
Her eyes sifted over the couple servers she had for comment sections, each project release getting its own thread as she tabbed over to her latest alloy.
It was last week's project, but she was surprised to see the thread nearing three thousand posts, each with their own specific threads of replies to individual messages between readers.
"Circulated faster than I thought…" she murmured quietly, scrolling down through the long list of feedback, almost all of it positive.
It was already hitting the major weapons manufacturers and just now circulating through the smaller businesses across the Kingdoms. It was an alloy specifically designed for weaponry, something she used in her own weapon, but she wasn't expecting each of the leading companies to take it up so quickly without extensive testing.
They seemed to be doing that a lot more lately, especially with how closely they paid attention to her posts.
It didn't really bother her all too much, being scouted like that, but she knew she had to be careful with what she posted all together.
Especially if it was getting used so quickly in the blacksmithing market.
She eventually came across a popularly liked comment, the one message having about sixty replies from other users as she came to a quick stop to read it.
'Think she'll ever do a face reveal?'
Arex couldn't help but roll her eyes at the comment. They've been pressing for that lately, especially with Sparrow's rising popularity.
But usually these comments didn't get such high feedback. So, why did this one get so many replies…?
Her curiosity got the better of her as she opened up the reply thread to the message, skimming down through the long list of people trying to guess what she looked like.
Eye color, hair color, height, brea-
She quickly flicked passed the thirty or so comments in that category alone, the thread's scrolling coming to a gradual halt as she reached the bottom.
The last message was surprisingly short, which was the only reason she didn't switch away from the thread and actually read it.
Its user was… anonymous.
Most people didn't care for usernames, everyone following the unspoken trend of going under the title of anything they wanted.
Arex herself did that, taking the name 'Sparrow' early on in her site's upbringing. Something she could claim for herself and not have to worry about other people replicating.
There was a way to list yourself as anonymous, but it required bypassing the name creation step in creating an account, something few people were actually researched enough to actually do.
She'd managed to patch that bypass two weeks ago, so this user must've been around sometime before then.
Still… her eyes scanned slowly across the text beneath the user's hidden tag in a small gaze of confusion.
'Working on it.'
Working on… what?
She checked the timestamp and noticed it was posted about eight minutes ago.
A small breath left her lips as she felt her heartbeat speed up a bit, having a feeling that she'd have to deal with another hacker at some point soon.
She'd been hacked before… several times, actually. It was the only reason why she even had the skill that she did now in fending them off, something that sparked her amateur interest in the digital field altogether.
This just gave her the incentive to get better, and get better quickly.
But even so, several people have gotten through.
What's confused her was that none of her personal information had ever hit the scroll network.
Even with those breakthroughs.
Maybe she was lucky, or Sentinel's interest in her actually extended to either just testing her or dealing with those incidents of others getting through, she didn't know.
It could've even been Anoel for all she knew.
But what she knew now was that another hacker was going to try to break through her firewalls, and it was likely going to happen tonight.
She couldn't sleep now, not with a pulse like this and a threat like that.
A slightly shallower breath left her lips as she slipped her way out of the comforter, sliding her way quietly to the edge of the bed to lower her bare feet to the ground. She quickly reached down and pulled out her storage box, taking out her collapsed keyboard just inside before moving to grab a new pair of socks and her shoes.
With a quick glance back to Kitsuki on the bed, she frowned to herself and realized she'd be leaving her alone in here for a little while.
But she couldn't risk waking her up if she got frustrated.
She silently slipped the thin ankle socks on, throwing on a quick pair of black short-shorts and her sneakers before slipping quietly out of the room with her scroll, earbuds, and keyboard in hand.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim lights of the hallway for a moment as she looked around, finding the corridor empty at the late hour.
It was midnight, so she was glad nobody was up and about at this time, which didn't actually occur to her until now that she'd quickly thrown on something that she didn't ordinarily wear out in public.
She just grabbed the closest thing to her pajamas…
Which… was a very short pair of shorts…
She was incredibly glad she didn't walk out into anyone else… That… would've been too awkward.
She swiftly turned with a slight fan of her ebony hair, making her way toward the lounge and the stairwell door at the end of the hallway.
With a quick push of her way through and a light spring up the stairs, she made her way out onto the rooftop and peaked her head out to see that it was empty.
Black strands of hair scattered in the cool breeze as she reached a hand up, keeping most of it behind her ear as she looked up with a careful, bright gaze.
The area right above the door would be good…
She found a series of vertical piping built into the side of the protruding stairwell, finding a thin bolted rim running around the middles of each one.
With a quick step, she found a swift footing on the makeshift foothold and kicked upward, using her free hand to place her fingers lightly on the top edge of the upper roof to help vault her legs over the side.
The wind was slightly more prominent without anything obstructing it, but she wanted to be out of sight from the door and away from anyone else who might've liked late night journeys to the rooftop of the dormitory.
It was just easier for her this way… keeping away from social interaction.
With a quick glance around, she centered herself on the much smaller roof of the stairwell and slipped her wings out of her sweater. One of them reached down beneath her lightweight form and carefully laid itself flatly beneath her, giving her a soft area to lower herself down onto before crossing her legs beneath herself over her soft feathers.
Her scroll had been off the whole time, but when she glanced down, the screen was already sending her red alerts that someone had been prodding at her outermost firewall over the past thirty seconds.
She sighed as she expanded her scroll and set it down in front of her, her other wing helping to prop it up slightly as she plugged in her earbuds and rested them in her ears.
The keyboard went down next just as her music began to play, drowning out the cold sound of the whistling wind as her hair fluttered and swayed in its passing grip.
They didn't seem to have broken through any walls yet, which was good. But she didn't like how careful the attacker was being…
They were taking the time to get a read on every piece of her defensive grid before actually making a direct move.
Most assumed surprise was better than preparation, but that ultimately ran them into problems and helped her capitalize on their mistakes.
It… was always hardest when her opponent knew exactly what they were looking for…
She was forced to wait for now, to see what they'd do, but she couldn't help but feel her heartbeat quicken even further as she waited for something to happen.
It was actually starting to get stressful as her worry and excitement rose over the next minute, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what happened when Ray broke into her scroll.
So she managed to keep a calm enough mind to pay attention, counting the seconds that were ticking by before the sound of an alert and a red flashing notification brightened her screen.
"There you are…"
She quickly moved to where her first firewall just went down, hoping to try to block out wherever they were trying to path to next only for her eyes to widen as her next firewall went down as quickly as the first did.
They'd planned past the first firewall…?
The third fell soon after as she had to backtrack, her fingers rapidly dashing across her keyboard as a wall of text flooded across her screen.
She was afraid her fourth firewall would fall as quickly as the others did… but it looked like the attacker didn't plan ahead to this point.
Most people didn't have as many arrays of firewalls as Arex did…
Which gave the girl enough time to quickly stop a few of the attempts made to get through, but that only gave away the fact that she was here to defend against the attacker's own moves.
More of her code was getting bypassed by the second, but she managed to at least stop the process in key moments of it almost breaking through.
They even attempted a memory overload to break some of the lines of code connected to that, but she was quick to switch her attention over to that and redirect the flow.
"Just give up…" Arex quietly whispered, eyes dashing across her screen as her fourth firewall finally broke down and the attacker got through.
She was running out of defenses, and with everything she was doing as quickly as she was doing it, she was starting to realize the attacker was better than she was at this.
Her heartbeat quickened even further as she realized she kept getting forced into a position where she had to backpedal, pressured further and further through her scroll's systems to eventually retreat into her next firewall.
T-they were good…
Arex's fifth firewall went red as it failed to hold the attacker back now too, the girl biting her lip as she drew on every single tiny piece of knowledge she had to try and counter the attacker's moves.
But… it was slowly becoming more and more apparent that…
It just wasn't enough.
The sixth went down just as Arex let out a frustrated breath, gaze narrowing as she worked to hammer out another line of code.
Eyes glued to her scroll's screen.
She didn't even notice the soft flicker in her outer firewalls, the momentary dispersion so small and fleeting that it was immediately passed off as a glitch in her own mind.
There was too much going on in her head to even care about that, her full focus centered on trying her absolute hardest to defend against something she knew she was ultimately going to fail against.
And that was quickly crumbling her drive to keep this much resistance up, the girl biting her lip harder now as her irises flicked across the screen in front of her.
Another firewall fell, frustrating her even more due to it falling faster than the last.
The next was already cracking when-
Arex's eyes widened as she watched something white filter into her vision from the very side of her screen.
Her fingers stalled as her breath got caught in her throat, her eyes dashing to the small female figure walking out toward the center of her screen from the righthand side.
A-a… 16-bit sprite?
H-how did that get there?
The sprite turned and appeared to glance to the winding wall of code behind it, placing a hand on its hip as it just stared.
A couple of seconds passed before it turned around, a dialogue box appearing just above it.
'Wow… this is a mess, would you like me to clean it up for you?'
Arex's voice was too caught in her throat to even respond, eyes too transfixed on the sprite itself as her mind mentally stuttered over its own thoughts.
W-who? H-how? W-what?
Arex didn't even know if the sprite could see her, but as the next firewall fell in the background under no resistance, she tinily nodded her head rapidly in desperation.
The sprite appeared to respond to Arex's small reply, nodding its head once before snapping its fingers.
A small, dispersing light flickered out from the sprite's hand as Arex followed the motion.
On the top of a screen, a flash of pixelated particles came into view as an object materialized and fell into the sprite's hands.
'It seems you need a firewall.'
"F-firewall…?" Arex finally managed to stutter out, eyes roaming over the 16-bit flamethrower that rested in the sprite's grasp.
A bright glow of fire flooded out from the sprite as it began to torch the lines of code with a stream of 16-bit flames, slowly snaking its way across the entire screen, save the small section the sprite 'stood in'.
Before Arex knew it… the flames died down and all that was left was her rebuilt array of firewalls.
The code reduced to just a few short lines.
As soon as Arex read the lines, the screen quickly changed back to her scroll's home screen, the sprite looking up at her apps now as Arex sat speechlessly staring.
T-the hacker just got…
Obliterated.
Confused eyes watched as the sprite pulled down one of her apps, opening up a new page in her notes to swiftly type out a set of coordinates.
'The hacker lives here.'
The sprite turned again as she seemed to smile back at Arex, the notes screen closing away and saving to go back to the home screen.
S-she… she was still speechless.
'This was fun! See you around, Sparrow!'
As the dialogue box appeared, so did a door on the lefthand side of the screen, and the sprite immediately began to walk toward it.
The small action only registering in Arex's mind once the sprite actually reached the door with its small strides.
"W-wait!" she quickly sputtered out.
But as she said that, the sprite disappeared through the door, a bright pixelated red heart flashing across the center of her screen as the door dissipated a moment later.
Arex's frame still felt tense for another few moments… struggling to even relax now before she finally forced herself to take a breath.
W-who was that…? She'd managed to catch a glimpse of a small symbol colored into the sprite's pixelated back, only just now recognizing its association.
"Sentinel…?"
The gold insignia was unmistakable… even in its 16-bit glory…
The phoenix quickly slammed her keyboard and scroll closed, pushing herself to her feet to move back to the edge of the risen roof.
She slipped over its ledge with a careful but rushed drop, landing softly on her sneakers right in front of the door before disappearing back inside the building.
Her mind was already rushing again by the time she stood in front of the door to RGDS's dorm, eyes staring up at its blank, imposing frame as her shoulders rose and fell with her shorter breathing.
She didn't want to knock, knowing it'd wake up some of the team that she didn't actually want to talk to. Not right now.
But she knew for a fact that Ray was up at this time.
So with a quick bypass of the lock, she carefully turned the handle and lightly pushed the door open, peeking her head in first to avoid letting in too much light from the hall… and to make sure she wasn't walking in on anything.
She let her eyes scan across the dark room for a moment before glancing to an empty fourth bed on the far left, which was where she remembered to be Ray's.
Gone…?
Her eyes trailed further in to see a light coming from the bathroom, the girl's eyes only catching the sliver of light beneath the door just before it flicked off and the door… opened…
And out walked Ray… wearing nothing but a towel…
He froze as his glowing amethyst eyes met Arex's own, widening as he realized her head was peeking through the door frame, "What the f-"
"S-sorry!" Arex quickly whispered out, her eyes wide in alarm as she shot her gaze to the floor.
Her curiosity got the better of her and she didn't even think twice about her actions… She'd just casually broken her way into someone else's room late at night.
"I-I just had a question t-that… couldn't wait…" she muttered out, the door slowly closing as she tempted herself to just leave in embarrassment.
Ray sighed, muttering something to himself as he continued walking toward his bed.
"Well it clearly couldn't wait until morning, so come in…"
Arex stopped herself from closing the door completely when she heard what he said, the girl carefully peeking her head in again to half-glance toward him, "I-it can wait until you get s-some clothes on."
"Just shut up and enter, Arex," he said as he sat on his bed.
She listened and made her way inside soon after, holding her arm tightly in her hand as her other occupied both pieces of her tech.
Her gaze was still down when she glanced at him, but she quickly averted it again when she met his eyes.
She didn't realize until now that… she had no real idea of how to actually word this.
Or word this at all…
"H-has… Sentinel ever… worked with…" she slowly started, her mind obviously having trouble coming up with some comprehensive set of words to go one after the other as she paused, eventually resigning herself to a soft sigh, "artificial intelligence?"
Ray's left eyebrow quirked, clearly indicating a sudden micro-interest in what she was saying.
Hesitantly, he slowly nodded in response.
"We've played around with it, yes."
Arex slowly nodded her head, biting her lip as she struggled to find how else to word this, "C-can it do anything without you knowing?"
This time Ray's eyes narrowed, "Yes…"
Arex only nodded silently again to that, "W-well… I just got hacked and… I think I just met her."
"God fucking dammit, G…"
Ray muttered to himself as his voice grew mumbled, rubbing his face with his hand as he reached over toward his bedside cabinet and grabbed his scroll.
"Less than 12 hours…" he continued, furiously tapping his scroll, "I specifically told you not to get caught…"
"Caught?" Arex asked lightly, keeping the excited flutter in her tone down to a stifled minimum.
So he knew about her!
That was honestly more than Arex was expecting to find out.
Ray looked to Arex with a neutral gaze, "You may or may not have noticed my absence during your partner's fight with Niro, this was intentional."
She didn't notice, but she nodded anyway, "The AI…"
It suddenly dawned on her why he used the word 'caught'.
"You placed her in the school's system…" she slowly realized, letting the words leave quietly from her lips.
"I hardwired her into the CCT itself," Ray clarified, his focus having now returned to his scroll as he continued to fiddle with it.
"That's connected to every scroll tower on the planet…" Arex spoke to herself more than him. That was the center of all scroll connections across the grid, "How?"
Ray sighed, "I used a device I like to call a 'tether'. It bridges the connection between her central processing unit to whatever I plug it into. In this case, the servers located inside the CCT."
It… still wasn't an easy task. She guessed it helped that he was a student of the Academy. But what she got more out of that was the fact the AI had a central processing unit somewhere…
Which meant it was backed by a massive power source if her actual infrastructure had to be physically built somewhere to contain her core.
Which… explained why she was so powerful…
"She… seemed nice, like she had a personality," Arex said, her grip growing tighter on her arm as she glanced to Ray still typing at his scroll, "Can she hear me?"
"She can hear everyone, and as for her personality? You have no idea."
"I… want to have an idea…" Arex admitted.
She couldn't get the words out when the AI stopped the hack, but now she was struggling to hold herself back from saying too much in her excitement.
"C-can I meet her again?" she asked, but she knew her hopes were far higher than she knew they should've been.
"What avatar did she use when she stopped the hack?" Ray asked, finally returning his attention toward Arex.
"It was 16-bit…" Arex responded, her fidgeting grip on her collapsed scroll and keyboard growing just a little tighter, not knowing if he'd let her.
Ray sighed, almost exasperated, "She's been playing that damn game again…"
He paused, tapping on his scroll a couple more times before setting it to the side.
"If you're going to say hello, G, you could at least have the decency to use your voice."
"She has a voice?" Arex asked, her own voice leaving her lips before she could even think to stop it.
Ray nodded, "Yep, and she loves hearing the sound of it, it would seem. Which is why I am actively encouraging her to use it now."
Ray placed his scroll on his bed as four corners of it flipped open and four holographic projectors protruded from inside the device's frame.
A couple moments of silence passed before the projectors began to glow to life, slowly building a translucent frame of a young woman.
"Hello."
Arex locked up for a moment as the feminine voice spoke out into the quiet room, her eyes staring in a bashful yet clear intrigue, "H-hey. You… uh… left before I could say anything."
"My work was finished, there was no need for conversation," she replied curtly, tilting her head.
"C-can there be a need for conversation?" Arex asked lightly.
The AI's head tilted in the other direction as a question mark appeared hovering above her head, "Oh?"
Arex didn't want to straight up admit that she really wanted to talk with her… but she ended up straight up admitting that she really wanted to talk with her, "I… kind of… want to get to know you more."
"Why didn't you say so?!" she gleamed in response, smiling brightly as she spoke.
"You mind keeping it down? They're trying to sleep…" Ray murmured.
"W-we can take it elsewhere… if you trust me with her," Arex muttered quietly, glancing back to Ray for a moment before returning that gaze to the hologram.
Ray lifted the scroll on the bed between his thumb and fingers before handing it to Arex, "Lose this scroll and I'm cutting your payment."
"T-that's fine!" Arex responded quickly, lightly grabbing the scroll as she paused there for a moment, "I guess I'll be in the forge room. I don't really have the lien for my own holographic projector."
"Do as you see fit, I just want my scroll back," Ray replied, "whenever that may be…"
Arex nodded her head to that and quickly made her way to the a quick glance back to Ray, she silently left the room.
Meet... G, I guess? I'll just pretend the first scenes of this chapter never happened.
You know, the ones where Anoel broke down for the first time since this story started and that the only reason why she was even remotely collected last chapter was for Ly's sake.
But, yeah, I hope that went well.
Things are getting layered on thick and there's a lot to do, so this'll be fun to see how it'll play out.
I think this is the first, if not one of the few, to show Niro's perspective outside of his usual first-person perspective.
That was to keep the center point of view on Anoel.
You should know why.
On a side note, I'm having increasingly more trouble holding myself back from shipping Kitsuki and Arex officially in the story...
Yeah, we'll see how long I can hold out before that happens.
They still don't have a ship name. Closest I have is White Flame, not sure yet.
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