The first semister was nearing a close and already students from the other kingdoms had begun to arrive in Vale for the Vital Festival. The city was already being decorated with new holo-displays and lines of flags criss-crossed the streets. Although the initial air was festive, undernieth existed one of anxiety. Dust shops were getting knocked over left and right. While the police stated that everything was under control, the fact that the collprits had yet to be caught stated otherwise.

But this didn't stop the students of Beacon from heading down to the city on their day off to have a bit of fun. Both Team SEAL and Team RWBY had boarded the same airship back to Vale in the late afternoon. While most of the well-aquanted members of each side made small talk with eachother, Evan sat in the window and looked out at the city below him until he felt a rush of air and rose petals began to fall around him. He looked up to see Ruby Rose's beaming face looking down at him.

"Can I help you Rose?"

"Hi," she said with her usual child-like enthusiasm, "I don't we've ever had the chance to formally introduce ourselves. I'm Ruby!"

"Evan Gwryddlas."

"I just want to say that I really like your fighting style, but I've never seen you use your weapon. Can I see it?"

"Sure," Evan sat up and took his signature coat off. He was wearing a black tank-top undernieth and his Lightning Dust tattoo could be seen in it's near entirty.

"Uhmm," said a sightly flustered Ruby, "where is it?"

"Right here," Evan smirked and gestured to his tattoo.

Ruby's silver eyes widened. "Really? Thats IT?"

"Not what you expected?"

"I mean, I'd heard the rumors, but I didn't think you were actually unarmed all the time. THATS SO COOL! Can I touch it?"

"I'm not gonna stop ya," Evan offered his right arm to the young huntress and focused really hard to retract his semblance from that arm as to not electrocute her.

Ruby carefully and methodically traced the Dust in Evan's arm starting from the open-mouthed snake's head on the back of his hand. He shuddered slightly as Ruby's hands gentlly made their way up the lightning bolts on his upper arm. Evan, chill out. She's like 15. You DO NOT want to open that can-o-worms. He completely relaxed his focus as Ruby's touch neared his chest and her hand got zapped.

She squealed slightly as her hand shot back from Evan's chest. The look in his eyes offered her all the apology that she could ask for. "So how long did that take to finish," asked Ruby.

"The whole thing took about a month to complete. Most mages get magic circles or runes etched into them, but I wanted to design my own image if I was gonna have it permanetly. So the initial installation took about a week, then I had to spend three more weeks in the ICU."

"What? Why were you in the hospital?"

"Sometimes the body will reject Dust that gets fused into it. Alot of huntsmen and huntresses have actually died from that very rejection process. And thats what happened to me for the first week of my stay there. I was actually pronounced dead half a dozen times before they decided it was safe to release me."

Evan laughed at the memory and looked over to see a dumbstruck Ruby. Their conversation was ended by the airship's landing process. Ruby bolted over to her teamates where her sister Yang simply gave her a snarky grin. Evan donned his coat again and joined his team as well. Spencer looked up at him with judging eyes. "You know she's 15, right?"

"Yes I know she's fucking 15," Evan hissed at his leader.

Lily stifled a laugh and the teams said goodbye to one another as they exitted the transit center.

Aaron ran out in front everyone and hailed a cab. "Where ya goin' stranger," said the driver.

"Avon Beach," said Spencer as all four of them pilled into the cab.

"I can tell ya right now that'll be 28lien for the lot of ya. That okay?"

"Thats no problem at all."

"Okay, off we go then," said the driver as he put the car into first gear and sped off towards the sea.

Next time, "A Break for the Young"