Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, RWBY or anything else I may reference

Magic and Remnant

Chapter 21

Vytal

Sun shone through the clear windows of the recently constructed living room, illuminating it to anyone who was not capable of seeing in the dark. In the corner of the room, sat Nat. As ever with a cup of tea in his hand as well as his scroll activated while he read the morning paper online, he searched the internet for any mentions of White Fang or other activities that could relate to Salem.

That incident had been a few days ago and it was his desire to know if anyone had either reported it or more importantly started an investigation into the event. Personally, he hoped that if an investigation was put into place it would be a relatively short one. Magic or not, he still had to be subtle as he fought against Salem and her cronies, it was just a shame, that he was forced to wait.

That was the irritating thing, he knew the use of patience in a war such as this, and he also agreed with how slow his actions were going to take. Still, it got rather boring at times when he knew that he could deal some absolute devastating blows to the enemy if he was actually more active in his plans rather then just sitting on an island most days.

His attention was soon taken over though when his wands alerted him to the situation with his newest guest. Taking a sip of his tea, he leaned back before turning to the outside world. It was quiet for the most part, an occasional animal here or there, waterfalls still gushing with water, and rivers still flowed. This luxury canyon was a beautiful place to live his day to day life.

Things were going to have to get busier he concluded, the information he had gathered from that one White Fang agent indicated that the White Fang had serious plans for this year. What they were or who was involved was unknown to them, yet the point remained the same. There was very minimal time to get the world ready for a war, but perhaps he had been wrong in focusing entirely on the military aspect of the fight.

Guns and tanks were going to be useful, but it would be the governments of nations that would determine how this war would end. They were the ones who would pay for weapons, who would decide if their nation went to war and what assistance they would provide when they finally forced to commit not only weapons but also their manpower and economy to beating back the Grimm. It was all going to be costly, a lot of angry yelling and shouting at first as governments went under the impression that Huntsman and Huntresses could hold the frontline against the grim which in their view prevented the need for a military.

It wouldn't last for long, the number of huntresses and Huntsman in the world were very small. First, there was the actual amount of people who believed it might be a decent career option and apply to the necessary schools after that were interviews, first few weeks of training, then the actual starting training to see who has the ability to fight Grimm and not end up dead in the process. After that came the Huntsman school's where if it was Beacon, most students made the cut, whereas if it was Atlas and far more ruthless, a good lot more failed to become Huntsman and Huntresses.

The nations of the world needed to see that, learn that their beloved Huntsman was not immortal, but also that they were few in number and once gotten past, had nothing left to defend them. It was never going to work, he could argue and argue with others, point to examples and threaten something or other, but in the end, it would never work. The Grimm would have to be at their doors knocking loudly and giving out written commands before the people might decide that they need to sacrifice luxury for survival. Such as the girl currently walking through the door and drew his attention to her.

"Good morning" Snatching her groggy mind towards him, Nat offered the girl a small smile before gesturing towards the table he was at. The girl baulked back at first, likely she was very confused as to where she was and also why the boy who had captured her was now inviting her to breakfast. Still, whether it was curiosity or the call of hunger, she accepted his invitation with narrowed eyes and advanced. "I assume you slept well?"

"Where am I?" The girl spat out quickly before searching the room she was in suspiciously. Quickly Nat noticed that her gaze locked onto the set of kitchen knives that were in the corner of the kitchen. Most assumedly she was calculating on whether she could make it to the knives and threaten him before he could react. It wouldn't work, of course, him, being the paranoid person he was, those knives were enchanted to becoming not only more blunt than a brick, but also to increase in weight and stick to the first surface they were attached to.

"Would you like some breakfast, I prepared some for you" Gesturing towards the opposite side of the table, Nat directed the girl to a plate that housed a full English breakfast, whilst other useful foodstuffs like salt, pepper and al the other things sat in the middle of the table. Before the girl could argue back, however, the girl felt her stomach growl forcing her to narrow her eyes dangerously towards her host daring him to mock her. "It's not poisoned, if I wanted to kill you then I would have done so three nights ago when that Sniper had taken you down" The girl froze and her face hardened as she heard that.

"What happened to my people," She asked sullenly. Roughly grabbing one of the wooden chairs, she pushed the furniture away just enough so she could sit down. Looking down, she started to feel uncomfortable as Nat kept viewing multiple different websites on his Scroll, searching for something and not paying attention to her.

"I understand your sentiment, but the fact is you've been asleep now for the last few days. Once you've got some food and water in you, I'll let you know"

"You'll tell me now" The girl demanded angrily as she thumped her left hand on the table. Nat resisted the urge to sigh at the impatientness of the girl, turning towards her, he met her bright azure eyes with his own dull violet ones.

"Miss we both know that whatever answer I give will result in the same course of action you take. I desire for you to eat your breakfast first for the sake of your health. The last thing I want after looking after your three days is for you to collapse due to hunger" Nat pointed towards the food on the table again, "It's a relatively heavy meal, should keep you going for the next few hours, whatever you chose to do"

"I want to return to my clan" The girl bit back furiously. Staring at the food, she went to push it way however the pain in her stomach made her hesitate. With an angry blush, she picked up the knife and fork, before slowly sinking the metal into the first sausage and taking a bite. Her face brightened slightly as she took in the taste before then with no care about how others would view her, promptly began to consume everything as quickly as she could as if it was going to spoil soon.

"Content?" Nat asked calmly as he observed the devoured plate.

"It was adequate," The girl said with a humpf as she crossed her shoulders and leaned back as if she owned the place. "You could pass as a cook in my clan. In fact take me back and I'll have my clan spare you so long as you stay in the kitchen where you belong" Nat rolled his eyes behind his glasses as he heard that, he was expecting such behaviour from a girl who had essentially grown up in a matriarchal society, still it was by far one of the oddest things he'd ever heard.

"And why ever would I want to take you back, if you keep threatening me"

"Because I would force you to submit, tie you up and then give the choice, servitude or death"

"I choose neither, and as for your hypothetical situation, you'd lose, badly" Ignoring the outraged look on the girls face, Nat allowed his eyes to scan through the online newspaper for anything that sounded interesting. Most of it was the usual crap, some movie actress had fucked some dude, some duck had caused a traffic jam, a Faunus was caught robbing a store, results of some sport or other. "Oh, it looks like Schnee Industries has gained a special partner in the Atlas military to help create the next generation of robots. How long do you think they'll take.?"

"Why would I know?" The girl responded dismissively.

"I thought you might have an opinion on modern politics and would be interested in hearing on your view on it" Nat responded plainly as he returned back to the newspaper. Personally, he was very thankful that he had managed to end up in a world which had similar levels of technology to that of Earth, Merlin knows how he would have coped had he landed in something like the Medieval era.

"You're trying to distract me, just tell me what I want to know and I'll be on my way"

"That could be a little difficult considering the fact that you have no money" The girl blinked confused but felt a sudden sinking feeling in her chest as she put the pieces together as quickly as she could. She didn't need money for shelter or food, she could always hunt whatever was nearest or scavenge of bushes as she had been taught. As for shelter, she knew how to put together a temporary shelter with ferns and how to make a fire. If she needed money then that likely meant that she would require transport of some kind.

"Where exactly am I?"

"Vytal or if you aren't familiar with a world map, it's the big island in the middle of the map directly to the north of Vale or to put it a different way, you're on an entirely different continent and surrounded by water." The way that the girls face changed to one of utter shock and confusion was for Nat as he saw her slump down into her seat. It seemed to be sinking in quite quickly, just how far away she was from her home and her clan, all the way in another continent and surrounded by thick lush jungle and dangerous animals that wanted to eat everything.

"How did I get here, the last thing I remember was that White Fang assassin knocking me out and that my village was on fire" She stared angrily at Nat from her seat, this time he saw that she was not going to take any other answer and doing so would result in her attacking him. Handling her was easy enough, but he wasn't going to lose anything by telling her about the death of her clan, he had just wanted to make sure that she had at least one decent meal in her before she went into depression.

"Your entire clan is dead" Nat answered slowly moving his eyes to lock onto hers so she wouldn't assume he was being rude by keeping his attention on the news. "After I rescued you, I checked on the others of your clan, a few of them were alive, but their injuries were fatal none the less and wouldn't have lived long." Dropping his eyes downwards to the floor, Nat called back to the acting lessons he had and did his best to look sorrowful about the situation. Truthfully, some had survived and would have actually made it, since the White Fang wasn't exactly the most competent of soldiers. The word was would have, he made sure to kill every single sentient creature in that area that night and after that made sure to stage the scene as best he could so that when another group of White Fang came, they'd believe it was one big firefight before the Grimm attacked.

"All of them? Nobody else survived?" Nat shook his head and gestured as subtly as he could towards the dinner.

"I'm afraid not. However, before you decide to either grieve, mourn or go on a killing rampage, I would like you to listen to what I have to say for a bit. You'll find it rather...enlightening" The girl glared at him angrily, her blood boiled in her veins and she felt the desire to attack him. First, he tells her that her entire clan is dead and next he wants to tell her some drivel about not getting revenge on the individuals who had butchered her family all because they had taken one of their men prisoner. She should break his leg for his defiance, it's what happened to slaves that refused to do what they were told. However as soon as the fury boiled into her, it then left making her feel weak as if she was staring at herself from the viewpoint of a ghost.

"What could you possibly say that I would find so interesting.?"

"How about the fact that the White Fang are nothing but a bunch of mindless puppets bent to the will of some ancient evil" The girl scowled at the response, not believing it for a second. Used to ridiculous attempts by boys and others into making her believe their pathetic lies, she looked for the telltale signs of when an individual lied such as how the lie looking away momentarily, entirely unafraid to make eye contact or the way their pulse quickened.

"I would say you're just a foolish human unable to get away from the fairytale stories that you heard at night. What are you going to say that magic is real too? Back of and I may consider not killing you for your comment."

"A fair enough comment without any evidence to back that up. However I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you" Drawing his wand from his sheath, Nat wasted no time before flicking it towards the side where with a great flash of white light, a loud trumpeting sound came out as a great grey beast with ivory horns and a loud snout appeared from nowhere. Striking it's newly created foot onto the soft wooden floor beneath them, the table that they were sat on shook as did the water jump up out of its glass and splash straight in. Promptly after, the large elephant started trumpeting, waving its trunk all over the place as it looked around confused. Seeing the two strangers, it went to change but before it did, another light struck the creature, this time freezing it entirely in stone leaving only a very expensive statue behind.

"I could always turn you into proper fox if you like" Reactively moving her hand towards her fox ears that rested on her head, the girl held them protectively as she did her tail. "It's rather uncommon to see a two-appendage faunus, I can only imagine what it must have been like when you were younger".

"Was that?" She stared at the statue as it stood there, staring her down with its trunk in the air.

"Magic yes. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder to prove the existence of this other secretive group, but I can indeed confirm that they're real, as well as a lot of other stuff. The question remains, are you willing to listen or would you rather wish to leave now?" The girl glanced out the window into a wide beautiful canyon just like those she had seen in paintings where she was younger. It was the type of place that people dreamed of visiting to get away from the world or to have a romantic honeymoon alone. It was well hidden this place she noticed, far away from any grimm and by extension any significant presence of humanity if she remembered her geography.

"Talk" She stated.

"I'll start with this other group as that's what you're going to want to know more about." Flicking his wand over to a nearby pile of paper, Nat waited as the pieces flew in the air before then depositing themselves in a neat pile in front of the girl. Before she could ask a question, however, she saw that ink appeared on the page by magic, forming words and pictures as Nat began to speak.

"In this world, there is a creature known as Salem. This creature is the ruler of the Grimm, the Queen of them. Humanoid in appearance, it's stated that she has snow white skin that and red lines of corruption on her body just like Grimm do. How she came about I don't know, but what I do know, is that like the Grimm, it can be assumed that Salem's desire is to destroy humanity and currently she is on her most recent attempt at that. This is where the White Fang comes in, she's using the group of terrorists to cause trouble and start a panic in the kingdoms with the ultimate desire to divide the kingdoms up allowing her to sweep in and destroy the bastions of humanity."

"Wait if she wants to destroy humanity, why would she even work with the White Fang, all they care about is enslaving humans?"

"The White Fang is nothing but a pawn to her, a useful tool in her arsenal that allows her to direct the focus of her enemies off her main agents and onto a larger group. This strategy as mentioned before enables her agents to infiltrate and commit their plans whenever and wherever needed with as little observation as possible as well as to raise the amounts of fear in the Kingdoms, leading to more Grimm attacks and drastic measures. I suspect, that she wants' to cause some kind of incident to single out a kingdom, most likely Atlas due to its military strength and point it in a bad light"

"Wait so the White Fang is nothing but thugs working for some Grimm Queen. How come nobody knows about this?" The girl said in disbelief as she leaned back on her chair trying to wrap her head around such a bizarre story. It was certainly unique, something that a conspiracy theorist would point out to, most of the time it was to create a panic or because they wanted some type of fun, at other times it was because it truly was what they believed.

"Because we have no evidence to show off this fact, and if we do inform the world, the world will then start asking questions leading to the reveal of other hidden secret facts. Besides, if we reveal Salem, then her main enemy, Ozpin will also have his secrets revealed likely leading to a massive outburst of anger towards the man and a drastic reduction in trust. Suffice to say, it's a secret war."

"Okay but why are you even telling me this, how does this affect me" Nat took a sip of his tea before he then proceeded to move his scroll in the middle of the table allowing for a holographic image of the world to be displayed. On that map, were a series of multicoloured shapes. The largest of these coloured shapes were a series of red diamonds then followed by red squares, red triangles and the red circles. "The stars are the capitals of each respective kingdom, the squares are other cities, triangles, decent sized towns or villages whilst the dot's are small settlements. Now, these white dot's represent the location of White Fang bases that I have uncovered as you can see, they have at least one in every single kingdom and many more located around the outskirts of the Kingdoms. From what I can gather, the White Fang are taking certain amounts of land that they consider under their domination. Your clan lived in one of these areas and when you took action against them by the kidnapping of one of their member's you essentially declared war.

"So what, my people are dead, all I want is revenge. Thanks for giving me the location of their base, I'll send you a postcard or something when I get back." Rising out of the seat, the girl huffed angrily as she looked for the way-out of this place, occasionally glancing towards the map to see just where the base was located.

"There's no point, that entire base was destroyed and abandoned last night, as of right now any surviving members of that group have likely been called away to do some other job as they investigate what occurred in your clan's jungle."

"Then I'll just hunt down the other bases and kill every other White Fang scum who gets in my way" Again Nat shook his head as he glanced back towards the map. There was a reason as to why he had been searching for high profile White Fang members when he went around the world trying to stop a corrupted lady from obliterating everything. What concerned him, was the rapid rise in bases that had occurred over the last weeks especially in Vale. More and more numbers he noticed had arrived in their Mountain Glenn location and it wasn't just the old veterans of the cause, but also newer fresher blood indicating that this place was going to be a lot more permanent than other locations.

"Then walk to your death then"

"What are you talking about, I can beat a bunch of poorly trained White Fang idiots"

"The lower ranked ones most certainly you can, but you cannot fight forever and sooner or later your aura will vanish and your strength will drain. How do you defend yourself when the other bases realise you're coming after them and decide to group up together in order to kill you?" The girl waved him off in a bored fashion as she continued to search for the door that would allow her to escape. Unfortunately for her, she didn't find one and instead could only try the windows which resulted in her attempting to open the closed windows. Again to her dismay, she found the windows locked trapping her in the kitchen.

"They don't know I'm coming, and I also know the jungle better than them. I can slip in, kill everyone and be on my way. Nobody will ever find me and nobody can beat me in a fight when I'm in the jungle"

"You severely misjudge your skills, Miss?" Despite all this time of them discussing matters, the girl realised that not once had she disclosed her name to the strange boy who had kidnapped her one time and then apparently managed to save her life. Narrowing her eyes at him, she marched toward the table and slammed her ass back on the chair as she realised that she would not be leaving until her "saviour" had finished with her.

"Artemis," The girl said as best as she could without adding any scorn into it. "Artemis Violet"

"Of course it has to be Artemis" Nat muttered to himself. "The one girl I save out of a bunch of Amazon-like women just happens to be called Artemis." There was also the issue of the girls last name. He was more than aware of the naming conventions with Qrow having once commented, that his name seemed to have also followed the naming convention as the word Tempest brought up images of a storm which were typically dark with purple lightning streaking, but still it was a stupid tradition. Artemis had bright purple eyes, and bright purple hair, as well as purple ears and tail, essentially what someone had done was see the hair colour of the child and decide that was all they needed to give their daughter her last name.

"Is there something wrong with my name, boy" Artemis scowled at his muttering and started tapping the table with her left finger impatiently.

"Hardly, Artemis is the name of an old Goddess. According to the legends, she wasn't too much fond of men and had a tendency of turning any man who may have been hunting in the worlds and come across her as she was bathing into an animal and then hunted them down for sport. Suffice to say, you remind me of her a bit" Artemis nodded in an interesting manner as she heard Nat give a very brief explanation of this goddess that she had never heard of before. She found it rather intriguing, a goddess with her name and one who also seemed to share the same type of values.

"How many concubines did this goddess keep" She inquired.

"None to my knowledge, she was a goddess of chastity alongside, Archery, The Hunt, The Moon, Maidens and a few other things. Her entire thing was never having a romantic partner or interest and travelled the world with a bunch of female hunters who she kept forever youthful. So no lovers and if she did exist, the only thing I can see her agreeing with you is about society being Matriarchal"

"That's disappointing, do you have any other stories about this goddess?"

"No and back onto the topic at hand, I'm sorry to say that your clan won't exactly be heaving funeral rights. After the battle, the Grimm came in, I'm afraid to say there is nothing to either burn or bury. I also wouldn't advise revisiting the area as a number or more powerful Grimm have made it their new home" Artemis slumped backwards in her chair as those words struck her harder than an arrow fired by one of her teachers. Her voice rasped and she struggled to breathe for a few seconds as she felt the pain strike her. They were all dead, her second family, the ones who had raised her and protected her after her village had been destroyed by bandits. Now everything she had gained was also lost?

"Did you at least try to bury them?" She croaked out "I know you can teleport, you couldn't have saved anyone else?".

"Nobody survived, and it took a while for me to recharge my aura after teleporting so far. When I returned, there were multiple, gryphons, beowolves and even a Nuckaleeve in the area. It was far too dangerous to approach, all I managed to retrieve was your weapons" Artemis snapped her attention to Nat as out of nowhere, he produced her familiar set of weaponry and attire. Slowly they floated over the table until they hovered only a few inches away from her face, daring her to grab them as she once had. She didn't hesitate for a second, first, she grabbed her familiar weapon and then her clothing. Bringing them close to her, she soon narrowed her eyes back at the boy as he sat casually across the table.

"These have been cleaned" She stated in a matter of fact way.

"Would you prefer that I give you your clothes still torn, dirty and covered in blood" Nat replied as he averted his attention back onto the map. "I could always undo the process if you like" Instinctively, Artemis yanked her clothing away as if to protect it.

"No," She said, "This will do." Blushing slightly, she turned her head away in embarrassment as she then slid her weapons onto the table. "Would you mind turning away as I get changed" Currently, she was dressed in a set of clothes that had been given to her when she awoke. They were only basic, a black t-shirt, some jeans, a pair of socks and some trainers, though she hated them, she had put them on as quickly as possible preferring to have at least something between her and the ogling eyes of whoever had captured her.

"That room you woke up in is yours, once you're finished here you can go back and change if you desire. In the meantime, I have an opportunity for you, something that you may like." Pressing a few buttons on his Scroll, Nat put in the command for the holographic image to display the image of a human male followed by several lines of text in multiple boxes that detailed differently things about him.

"What do you want?" Artemis inquired.

"Simple, I want you to work for me" Artemis scoffed loudly, her eyes directed upwards and a small amused smirk appeared on her face as she stared at the rather beautiful ceiling for a moment. Soon afterwards however she looked down again and much to both her fascination and concern, she noted that the kid wasn't laughing with her. Instead, Nat simply looked at her as always, calm yet serious in the same expression.

"I don't work for anyone, least of all men" She snarked. "Now excuse me I'm going to return to get revenge on those bastards who killed my people" Turning on her heel, the girl went to take a step forward only to her shock and confusion, she discovered that her leg refused to obey her commands. "What the" She spoke as she tried to lift her leg harder, this time pulling in her aura to assist her with her effort only to no avail.

"Allow me to finish my offer before you walk out Miss Violet." Artemis glared hard attempting to scare the boy into submission however much to her annoyance Nat didn't even give her so much as a look instead preferring the holographic image in front of them. "You want to get revenge against the White Fang, I understand that. What I'm offering you, is far much more miss Violet. There is going to be a war soon, not between nations but between humanity and Salem. The White Fang will make up a good bulk of Salem's forces, terrorising the population, performing hit and run tactics and darker members will probably commit more heinous acts like that your clan underwent."

"So what, this war doesn't involve me, I don't care about the other Kingdoms and their pathetic rules and laws. Who cares if some Grimm bitch wants to destroy humanity or something, none of this has anything to do with me" Artemis's voice far louder then it normal echoed through the somewhat large dining hall of the still in construction castle. Unfortunately for her, she possessed no ability to destroy the magic that kept her pinned to the floor, entirely unable to move as she would have liked to.

"You are already at war Miss Violet, if by some chance you kill all the White Fang nearby your home, then you will be targeted and if you're targeted, then Salem will send one of her own inner council members after you if not her own personal magic user. You will die and with you your clan and whatever sense of pride and honour your clan had" Artemis recoiled back as if struck by an arrow from her own bow. Rage boiled in her veins as she heard the little brat talk back to her, without thinking, she dropped her armour and grabbed her bow. Just as she was about to go for her arrow, however, a streak of light crashed into her freezing her body where it stood entirely unable to move beside her eyes which could only helplessly swivel left and right.

"I will give you this one warning Miss Violet" Nat's voice rang out in a deadly calm whisper, sending shivers down Artemis's spine as all she could do was wait where she was for her imminent demise. "While I saved you from imminent death, the fact remains that your clan was no better than a bunch of slaving matriarchal thugs who killed others simply to get hold of recourses and food. A bunch of bandits nothing more, now I took mercy when I saved your life when I could have easily allowed you to die. However, if I release you now and allow you to go back into the world where you continue your clan's traditions, then I will be responsible for the deaths and enslavement of others. That is not something I am going to allow"

Artemis locked her gaze onto the thin wooden stick in Nat's hands. It looked rather breakable; if she was able to get to it and snap it then it would be him who would be begging for mercy from her. She called on her aura and felt the energy flow within her body, rejuvenating and protecting her from harm as best she could. Focusing on her feet once again, she attempted to raise her left foot and remove it from where it lay stuck on the ground.

Nothing happened. Growling to herself, she focused on a different part of the body like a hand and then a finger, but still, nothing happened and she was forced to stay where she was, frozen like a statue encased in ice.

"Not trying to sound like some kind of Dark Lord or anything, but if you join me I will give you the chance to redeem the honour of your clan, to spit in the eye of Salem and ruin her plans when the war comes. Refuse however and you have two paths ahead of you, the first is that you choose to carry on with your people's tradition and start your own clan. That path will result in your imminent death, the other is that you decide to leave and fight the White Fang on your own terms, most likely dying in the process."

As he spoke, Nat resisted the urge to roll his eyes at how bad this sounded. He wasn't trying to come across as some Dark Lord of the Sith offering a young and naive Jedi UNLIMITED POWER so long as they joined him on his quest. Instead, he wanted to offer the girl the opportunity to get revenge on an enemy who had done a disservice. He was good on his own, but he needed a reliable backup, someone by his side that he knew could handle most threats as well a person who wasn't in it for large stakes of cash. As time went on he knew he could offer people money for their services, but for now, he needed all the things like gold and silver he was mining as either collateral or as materials needed in the actual construction of weapons that would start soon.

"That's not much of a choice" Artemis managed to sputter out through her lips.

" It's a choice between life or death. You get to decide which outcome is preferable" Nat said with a slight smile as if though he was talking about the weather.

"So join you or die"

"Basically" Nat spoke cheerfully as he shrugged his shoulder. It was funny seeing Artemis like this, entirely at the mercy of someone else forced to go against what she preferred. With how prideful the girl was about her clan and about what they did, she had never come to the harsh truth of reality that there was always someone stronger, or faster or more intelligent out there. In this case, her face if she could move it was one of despair as she knew that there was very little way of getting out of this scenario that didn't benefit him. Truthfully Artemis had less choice then she knew since if she decided to take the walk away option and live, then Nat would have ended her life there and then. He did not have the time to keep constant tabs on one girl to ensure that she wasn't acting like some fictional Amazon.

"Men, all the same," She growled. "Fine" She stated angrily. "What are we going to do and what else do you need to tell me?" Nat offered a slight smile before with a flick of his wand, the girl felt her body unfreeze fiving her the ability to move again. For a second Artemis considered firing of an arrow towards Nat or charging him with her daggers drawn, however that thought son vanished as she realised that she likely wouldn't get close enough to deal such a strike.

"First there's Ozpin" With a scowl on her face, Artemis walked back towards the seat that she had been sitting in before and proceeded to rest herself again as she waited for Nat to explain to her things. Over the course of about two hours, Nat informed her more about Salem, her actions, Ozpin and his actions as well as the Maidens and the Relics to which they acted as keys too. At first, there was obvious disbelief however as time went on and Artemis listened, the girl felt her eyebrows rise more and more about the secret and hidden nature of the world that she had never once known about. As she did so, she would ask questions and Nat would answer them to the best of his ability until finally as the information sharing came to an end, Artemis cocked her eye at Nat and asked a simple question.

"So what about you, how did you get your magic?"Artemis inquired as her finger continued to slide up and down the edge of one of her daggers that she had withdrawn from its sheath. The design wasn't anything special, but she had already hunted and killed with this knife showcasing her loyalty and ability to support the clan as all members had to do when they reached a certain age.

"How do you not know I'm a girl in disguise?" Nat asked in a sarcastic manner only to be met with the un-amused face of Artemis as she briefly looked him up and down in a bored uninterested manner.

"The face and the hair can disguise you at first glance, but neither your tone of voice or your physique resembles that of a woman. Besides what self-respecting woman would wear something as tacky as that?" Nat looked towards his own clothing and shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't chosen his state of appearance because it looked cool or made him appear like some sort of secret agent or that type of bullshit; his clothing was practical in nature, designed to be easier to move in and store things on the way. Jeans and trainers were useless with the type of exercise he got up to on a daily basis and certainly weren't designed to deal with combat should he have to fight someone in hand to hand combat lest he reveal the magical world.

"Say's the girl who wears, tight-fitting armour." The girl flushed at the comment and covered her chest area as in to hide that part of her body away though Nat had long since turned his attention back onto his scroll. "Did you just lack the required metal, or did your clan find some sort of pleasure from only wearing enough protection to cover the joints" Seriously Nat thought, the armour that her clan wore may have been much better than that of Pyrrha's considering the fact that it was actually made of metal rather than some leather corset, however the fact remained that Artemis looked like someone had fit her in a sexualised form of Greek armour. It would work, but it left a good chunk of her skin on show and vulnerable to an attack.

"I'll have you know that this armour symbolises the strength of my clan. That we are both warrior and women and that Men should fall beneath of us"

"In other words, get men to ogle at your chest whilst you cut them down" Though blushing a brighter red, the lack of an answer from Artemis only confirmed his theory. Shaking his head he made a mental note that once this mission was completed to get a proper set of armour for the girl to wear. Armour was good and useful, but only when it acted like armour and not something that was best left to the bedroom or Hollywood. Then again, it could have been worse, she could have been wearing bikini armour or some shit like that.

"Well, uh. Just answer the question already dammit"

"You want the truth or the story that you are more likely to believe?" Nat said before taking a sip of his tea though his eyes still lingered on the girl making sure that she didn't try anything like stabbing him with a knife.

"The truth" Artemis replied without hesitation.

"I'm from a different universe or planet, it doesn't really matter which. Either way, I was born with magic, went to school and learned to use it. Then a few months ago someone tried to kill me using apparation as the main method, it failed to kill me however it did manage to land me here In Remnant where I was finally found and recovered." In a bored manner, before Artemis had a chance to react to the disbelief, Nat rapidly summoned a series of books on the second world war and proceeded to open showcasing to her a map of the world even if it was one of several decades ago.

"You, you're an alien" Artemis attempted to hide her giggles but ultimately fell short as soon she burst out into full-grown laughter. Smacking the table harshly as she attempted to gather he breath, she went to look up at Nat only for a book to hover directly in her face showcasing the map of Earth. "Haha, what's this a map of your planet?" She managed to cry out as her eyes flickered over to the oddly shaped planet in front of her.

"Yes though to be more specific the larger island of the two on in the centre of the map just above the peninsula" Nat replied with a bored expression as he kept his eyes focused on Artemis's following them as they began to follow his directions until quickly she located the British Isles just of Frances northern coast.

"Great Britain" Artemis worded the name slowly as she stared at the relatively small island that was on the map. "That's where you're from" Nat nodded. "What's so great about it?"

"It's a geographic term. Thousands of years ago when the Romans came, they named the entire island Britannia. Since then, the island has been divided between three countries which united to become the nation of Great Britain. Great specifically relates to Scotland which is the northern bit as England and Wales combined actually make up Britain, so when you add Scotland in, it makes Britain Great. Then when you add in Northern Ireland, the name of the country changes to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is its official name; Most of the time though, the entire nation of the UK is referred to as Britain for shorthand.

"And who are the Romans?" Artemis asked as she tried to deny the growing sense of both wonderment growing within her, alongside shock and other emotions. Subconsciously she thought that if her captor couldn't give her much information, then it would help her disprove his wild claim.

"The Romans or more accurately the Roman Empire was a European Empire that spanned all corners of the Mediteereane sea and had their Capital as the city of Rome that was located on the west coast of the Italian Peninsula" Out of nowhere, a piece of paper appeared in front of Elyria this time focusing on a certain part of this strange new world. In the centre she recognised was the same boot-shaped peninsula as the other map only it was coloured a deep red alongside most of the surrounding area alongside part of the island of Britannia.

"What happened to them?"

"They did what all empires did, they fell"

"How did they take up so much land if it was thousands of years ago, wouldn't only small villages be left because of the Grimm?" While it wasn't unheard of for kingdoms to claim vast tracks of territory, everyone knew that very little of it was actually governed, most of the time a nation's territory was only used for things like mining or fishing rights but again that was limited because of a lack of infrastructure.

"There is no such thing as Grimm back home, No nation or empire has ever had to fight them"

"That's, that's impossible. How can a world exist without Grimm?" Artemis replied in shock. Taking a sip of his tea, Nat changed the world map to a more modern globe so as to give each nation their respective size and geography it's fair due.

"They just didn't come to be, evolution didn't turn out that way sparing us from that horror" Idly, Nat wondered how Earth would have been like if Grimm had existed. Without a doubt, it would be very different seeing as Grimm had prevented many things that people back home had taken for granted. For one, with Grimm preventing mass communication, empires like the Romans would never have been to expand that far and hold the terrain realistically. European colonisation would also take longer due to the ever-present concern of Grimm, as would the world wars with nations being forced to withhold troops lest the nightmare beasts take advantage of the situation and spill into the cities and towns with the express purpose of killing everyone in sight.

"Evolution, what are you even talking about" Of course Nat remembered, he was unaware of how humans and Faunus had come to be in this world compared to his own. With Qrows memories stating that Ozpin knew that some old pair of brothers had created the world and all life, it became possible that humans on this planet simply didn't evolve over thousands of years, but were placed on the planet. He seriously doubted such a theory though and unless a person was able to show him hard evidence for the existence of these deities, then he would have to dismiss them as nothing more than folklore and lies as all religions were.

"Back home, humans evolved from apes over millions of years and before that apes evolved from other mammals and from those creatures were other species. This goes back for millions upon millions of years, we even have names for these era's such as the Jurassic age." Artemis raised a speculative eyebrow as she heard that, however, her attention was drawn to the planet known as Earth as images of the early humans spread across the world into different regions and evolved into tribes, and then into villages, which turned into towns and then cities and then empires. It was a constant flickering of different colours with random names and dates appearing. At times Artemis witnessed as a kingdom appeared, conquered it's neighbours and then began to shrink in territory before finally shattering in a glass-like animation.

"Wait when you say evolve, you mean to say that you weren't placed on your planet by a god" Nat shook his head quickly hoping to dissuade the assumption that some deity or another was responsible for humanity when they didn't even exist. And even if some great intelligent and powerful being was the one who kick-started everything off, then which one was it. The Christians would say it was their god, the Muslims there's, then there were also the Jews, the Ancient Greeks, The Egyptians, Japanese Gods, Native American gods, the old Celtic gods. Frankly, it would be downright impossible to tell which one was correct.

"Nope," Nat popped the p. "The universe began just over thirteen and a half billion years ago when the big bang happened and created the universe, then four and a half billion years ago Earth was formed. Fast forward a billion years later and we know for certain that the smallest form of life existed on Earth in the form of single-celled organisms which is because Earth managed to luck out and gain all the necessary things to support it. Then if you fast forward again past massive geographic changes to the planet, multiple extinction events, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, one of many ice ages and arrive at two hundred thousand years ago, then the very first human emerges. From which, it then took us 190,000 years for us to develop agriculture and form civilization. Ten thousand years after that, we humans evolved as a species, have gone through thousands of wars including two world wars and one very cold one where the world would have been destroyed had it turned hot, have landed on our moon, are planning on colonising space and are painfully aware of our entire insignificance in the universe around us."

Nat didn't smile as he rattled off that answer. It was always strange when he thought about that type of thing, it was unpleasant and took a large amount of time to fade away, however, no matter what happened it kept returning, taunting and taunting him as if attempting to mock him. He shook his head briefly and returned back to the topic, the faster he got Artemis's help in this war the faster he could continue on with his plans.

"You landed on your moon?" Artemis exclaimed loudly. "I thought that was impossible"

"Maybe with dust, but not with rocket fuel. You see the advantage that we have on Earth is that when all those dinosaurs and ferns died millions of years ago, their remains became more and more compact as time went on. Eventually, after enough time and pressure, their remains became petroleum which is what we use to power our cars."

"You drive your cars on dead animals"? Artemis stared at Nat in a slight look of abject horror as she imagined the scene of some poor horse being slaughtered and then having its blood taken to some factory to produce a type of fuel which was then used to blast a rocket into space.

"Well technically yes, though it isn't what you're thinking and honestly, I don't really have the time to explain to you the long complex and very bloody history of Earth. The fact of the matters is that I'm a human who can use magic and accidentally end up here and whose goal is to stop a tyrannical grim woman from destroying everything. Oh, and I want your help" Nat finished with a fake smile as the illusion magic depicting Earth vanished instead leaving the two of them to stare at an image of a man in his early fifties.

"You want me to help you fight an evil woman?" Artemis said slowly as if she was trying to piece a puzzle together. "Why do you need me, you can probably do all kinds of things with your magic"

"I don't need you to fight her, I need you to help me run covert operations around the globe as we do our best to prepare the nations for the coming onslaught that is going to be a Grimm war"

"Covert, why would we do covert missions instead of just fighting the evil woman herself" Nat rolled his eyes at the accusation, it was always the same from muggle raised people when they heard of something like this. Why bother with being subtle when you could fight the enemy all by yourself. They acted as if magic was some type of weapon that required no skill or planning or didn't have grades of strength that individuals used. Seriously, one might have imagined that those muggle realised people who grew up in the time period of the second Magical war with Voldemort would have realised that.

"One, because I don't know where she is, two is that I don't know how powerful she is which could end in my death if I was not careful. Three, nobody in the world besides yourself knows about my magic giving us an incredible advantage that would only be thrown away once revealed. Four is because I don't want to be harassed on a daily basis for having some strange power that most people could only dream or write novels about."

"Okay but why me? Why ask me to help you with your grand strategy in beating this woman. If you were really that serious, you could just walk into any tavern and hire the first Huntsman that you like?" Admittedly it wasn't the smartest idea to just hire the first person you saw if you were going to wage a secret war against an enemy Artemis would later admit, but it was still better to find a person who would actually suit the job profile than some girl who had her entire clan murdered before her eyes because of some White Fang bastards.

"Because your my own age and so it won't feel so awkward if I were to give you orders, two your experienced in combat and I would be willing to pay for lessons, third, you can get revenge on those who killed your family and fourth, because it could be fun and you have nowhere else to go right now nor any money to achieve your goals," Artemis growled furiously at the answer, so he thought that she was only good for the job because her people had been killed, had they survived than would he have simply ignored her for someones.

"That's it" Nat nodded casually.

"You are still able to take up my offer of leaving so long as you never commit the acts that your clan did"

"Their part of my culture, you can't tell me not to treat men as equals, their nothing but thugs and bandits. That would be like saying that you can't drink tea" She argued.

"Actual their not alike, one is a beverage that is consumed and affects only one person, the other however is a mental attitude that results in innocent men being kidnapped, tortured and executed. That is all there is to it Miss Violet so again I will reiterate my offer to join me or leave and never take up such vile practices again"

"Fine" She yelled not at all trusting him to actually let her leave. Already he had promised to kill her if she were to return to her true ways of how a woman should behave. It was cruel and the desire to kill this boy for daring to impose such rules made her desire to strangle him in his sleep even greater, yet she didn't stand a chance. While his skills with a blade were not up to hers, he had shown the typical deceitfulness nature of men already by using magic to overpower her where natural strength could not. She could lie to him and then leave, but if he did have magic as he had demonstrated, then he might simply track her down one day and decide to kill her when she wasn't looking. No, it was better for her safety to keep an eye on him and prevent him from harming her when she didn't see it coming. "Just what exactly is your next big plan, take down a White Fang base, destroy a dust shipment?"

"Kidnapping a weapons expert actually" Artemis blinked. Against her own anger at following a man's instructions of all things, she focused to where Nat was pointing on the Hologram. "Long story short, I'm planning on creating weapons however as I do not have the required experience in either designing them or anything else, that leaves me as rather limited in what I can do. As such, I need to get on my side a person who known weapons inside and out, a person who can craft me a new design that can be produced easily and sold to the average person for a good price"

"A weapons dealer" Artemis scoffed loudly as she stared unimpressed by the man that her saviour wanted to kidnap. He wasn't anything special, probably didn't have much strength on him because of living in a cushy job in some office building where he drank coffee every day. "I thought you were planning on fighting the White Fang, not go on some business venture to earn a couple Lien?"

"War is about more than individual confrontations between small numbers of combatants. Taking down a few White Fang bases here and there may assist in the war, but in grand strategy, it is a waste of a person of my calibre abilities"

"Wow ego much"

"The weapons industry is nonexistent in everywhere but Atlas and even then, it's unpractical order weapons of them due to the sheer cost. When the war kicks off, the other kingdoms will be left without a capacity to wage war and very likely will require months if not years to form one. If Salem is able to isolate Atlas in that time and prevent arms from being sold, then the rest of the world is in severe danger. However should there be a new producer of arms and other war materials, then perhaps I can equip the nonexistent armies of the other kingdoms with enough equipment until they have the capacity to do it themselves." Nat explained to the girl hoping that she would at least grasp the basic concept of why producing weapons was of such high tactical and strategic importance. In all honesty he had no idea how long it would take the other kingdoms to organise their shit together and actually prepare for war.

Not one nation including even Atlas would be able to produce anything like that of what even the UK did during the Second World War not to mention the severe quantity that the US did. Not one kingdom had the cities needed for such a thing leaving them very vulnerable to bombing runs should the enemy actually become intelligent with their machines. Then again, considering the fact that they mostly stole Atlas weapons and that kingdom had some very stupid ideas such as giant mecha suit's perhaps the world wasn't as screwed as people thought.

"So then why not just steal the weapons blueprints and give them to someone in the other kingdoms and ask them to produce them."

"Does it look like I have that kind of money for such frivolous spending?" Nat bit back sarcastically. "And before you ask about contacting the Kingdoms councils, actually think about it. Some random kid asks you to start preparing for a full-scale war because an evil Grim lady is coming to kill them all. It sounds ridiculous and besides the White Fang would either steal or blow up any weapons and ammunition anyway." The untold thing was that Salem had agents of some form or another in every city in the world, therefore if there was a very sudden ramping up of large scale weapons out of nowhere and especially if that came out from government funding, then Salem would very much like to know why nations were preparing for a war when they had spent the last few decades in a gentle peace.

"Fine, who is this guy?"

"James Sky, formerly he worked for the Atlas military R&D department. Defected to the White Fang several years ago after gaining Faunus sympathies, since then however he's reportedly grown a distaste for the organisation's recent activities. Six months ago, the White Fang faked his death after he embarrassed the group on live TV since then he's been held captive in a secure site where he's been forced to help the organisation with setting up their members in the procurement of Atlas military tech. We are going to bust him out and recruit him."

"Okay, how are we going to hide this from the White Fang? If this man just vanishes their going to get suspicious." Nat gave her a slight grin.

"They won't if they think it's the Atlassian Military doing the job"

"I don't follow"

"It's very simple, I will first rescue Mr Sky from their clutches, whilst that occurs you are going to plant enough explosive devices to blow up all the dust that their little research place has stored. After Mr Sky's rescue, we enter the place under the guise of Atlas special forces, have a quick battle and then by some mistake, a bullet misses the enemy striking one of the many containers of dust and blows them up incinerating everything and everyone."

Artemis was speechless. She had expected the quick in and out extraction that her new boss as frankly he didn't seem to be the brave type who would face an enemy directly with a clash of steel in a deadly game of dance of skill, but to actively plan on blowing up what was likely a major White Fang base resulting in the death's of hundreds if not thousands of people was something entirely unexpected. Yet not once did she even feel guilty about completing such a task, instead, it actually made her kind of gleeful.

On her own, she may kill a few White Fang bastards, but she wouldn't do much more than that, however, this opportunity presented to her would give her the express ability to dispatch thousands at once. In one fell swoop, she could bring honour back to her clan and leave their spirits to rest. As it was she didn't care about this hidden war that the boy wanted to wage, but the prospect of being used as some kind of weapon pointed at the throat of the enemy and told to let loose very much did have a certain thrill to it. How much damage could she do she wondered, how many enemy lives destroyed if she followed the direction of this boy.

It was incredibly thrilling, just the anticipation got her to grin. Soon the White Fang would pay for what they did to her people and then afterwards she would extract interest.

"Any questions"

"When do we start?