It took nearly a month, but Artemis was beginning to hold his own in the Pit. It wasn't that he was finding suitable weapons, and it certainly wasn't any feat of strength. Artemis was developing a certain knack for fighting dirty. He found that his thoughts were truncating in combat. Articulate sentences reduced to patterns of thought, flashes of inspiration. He wondered if this was how Butler's mind worked.

Artemis smiled as he watched the security monitor. Butler's titanic frame lumbering into the garden. "Evening Gentlemen," he greets the empty night. Then it begins, a ballet of violence, as short, unconscious bodies flicker into view; LEP Recon, shields failing as the gargantuan manservant dispatches them with brutal efficiency. A sense of smug superiority fills him. They'd never stood a cha-

He winced, shaking the memory away before the spike of pain could drive too deep. He'd found the hole in that memory last night, the minutes between Butler's victory and the next time he'd checked on Holly's cell were painfully vacant, and trying to recall that information was inviting a migraine.

"Fowl!" Qrow called. Artemis leaped down into the Pit and landed with a roll. He kept moving, staying low to obscure his position for a few precious moments as he looked for a weapon. The last few classes he'd been tearing pages from books, ripping them into confetti and using them as chaff. Blinding his opponents for a moment had won him a few fistfights, but his classmates would get wise eventually. He'd picked a bad corner. There wasn't much to hand here, it was mostly bookshelves, cabinets, and things that were small enough to throw. He picked up an old magazine to pull his confetti trick again, but something caught his eye beneath it. A cloudy yellow gem, glinting in a pile of broken glass and plastic that was probably a clock at some point. He picked up the tiny crystal, feeling the magic thrumming under his fingertips. It was like a tiny fragment of a storm. ' Nature's wrath indeed,' he thought. He'd handled powdered dust at home of course, but he'd never needed to handle a whole crystal. There was potential here. He reached into it with his aura, experimentally, feeling the power within the gem staining his own. This was nothing like reinforcing a makeshift weapon, the power didn't rigidly fill the form of the gem. It was somewhere between liquid flowing through a filter and light passing through a prism until thin arcs of light began to coil and sputter around his fingertips.

"Found you!" An opponent barked. He didn't have time to register who it was. He threw himself to the side, a thick hardbound book flying where his head would have been. His classmate was crudely armed, a wooden bucket slung over his shoulder with half an extension cord as a makeshift quiver. Closing the distance wasn't an option, and he didn't have time to pick and choose his own projectiles. He parried a dinner plate with the back of his hand, bracing his stance as he raised the crystal toward his opponent. He clenched his fist around the crystal until it's edge started to dig into his palm. The stone hummed as he forced aura through it, sparks arcing wildly into the nearby furniture as he fought to control it. The power felt restless, a writhing serpent of energy waiting for any opportunity to strike. He dodged an empty bottle and a paperweight as he marshaled the gathering power, looping it between his thumb and his fingers. It coiled angrily around his aura, numbing his hand as it shook with gathered volts. His focus wavered for an instant, and a bolt of lightning scorched a fractal scar into a cabinet.

There was a moment of clarity in the ringing silence that followed. His aura didn't want to flow once it had turned to lightning; it wanted to leap. To snap from place to place as soon as it broke free of the crystal. His opponent scrambled backward, trying to get out of range before Artemis could figure out what he was doing. He ducked into cover, his hand tingling from the sudden shock. He cast his gaze around, trying to relocate his opponents. He heard straining wood behind him, and turned to see the cabinet he had his back to beginning to fall. Thought faded as the opportunity presented itself. He pivoted, bracing himself against the storm between his fingers as the furniture lurched forward. His opponent's eyes widened as he realized he was flanked. It was as if time slowed. The lightning wanted to move and it was going to move whether he liked it or not. It was a moment without thought, a moment of instinctive clarity; his left eye closed. He lined his foe's chest up between two knuckles just as the bolt broke his grip and struck true. A thunderous crack split the air, and his opponent collapsed to the ground in a convulsing heap.

"Red zone!" Qrow shouted, demanding the fight end. "Tundra, find the ladder! Fowl, keep moving!"

Ruby couldn't help but feel envious, even as she cheered Artemis on while he started racking up knockouts. Artemis hadn't been learning for long, and it already looked like he'd be rushing past her. Leaving her behind, just like Burgundy and Carmine. They didn't hang out as much as they used to. They shared fewer classes, so they couldn't do homework together as often... and Carmine was getting a little too smug about how good she was getting with her spear. But this wasn't about her. She could smile today. For him.

"Fowl! Red zone!" Qrow barked, snapping Artemis out of a haze of adrenaline and endorphins. He'd never fought this long. For a moment he was confused as to how he fell into the red, but as he approached the nearest ladder he realized just how much aura he'd been throwing around. That would be something to remember, a drawback to this way of fighting.

"What was that!?" Ruby asked as he collapsed next to her on the bench. "That was awesome! You were all 'Zap!' and 'Boom!' and 'Bzzzt!' Her glee was infectious, and Artemis found himself smiling too.
"I'm not sure," he sighed, leaning back to savor his respite. "I just did what came naturally."
"Do you have any idea how hard crystal casting is?" Ruby gawked. "You've gotta have great aura control to be any good at it, but you made it look so easy!"
"Have you ever tried it?"
"I'm kind of okay with wind dust, but there's not a lot of ways to fight with that." Ruby shrugged. "You could totally be a colorist! There are so many ways you can incorporate that!"
"A colorist?" Artemis asked. "Isn't that a field of graphic art?"
Ruby shakes her head. "No, that's a color artist. A colorist is a professional dust caster."
"Why not just leave it at 'dust caster?'" Artemis asked.
"It's a difference in skill," Ruby explained. "Anyone can throw a handful of dust around and call themselves a caster. A colorist is like a master caster, somebody really good at it."
"So it's the difference between a short order cook and a chef?"
"Kinda!" Ruby nods. "Ooh, have you figured out your semblance yet?"

"I haven't, actually." Artemis shook his head. "How did you discover yours?"
"I haven't either," Ruby said, somewhat subdued. "I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. I mean, Yang was around my age when she figured hers out. So it can't be that long right?" She forced a smile, knowing full well that some people never figured their semblances out at all.

"Well at any rate, today has been enlightening," Artemis changed the subject hastily. "Beyond finding a suitable melee weapon, it seems that I have an aptitude for casting to follow up on."
"Yeah!" Ruby brightened. "You'd probably have to find a tutor, though. Casting's kind of a niche skill these days."
"I think I might know someone, come to think of it." Artemis smiled.

~o~o~

"Artemis?" Amber gasped at her unexpected guest. "What are you doing here?" She leaned hastily out of her doorway to glance down both sides of the hall, as if paranoid he'd been followed.

"I came to ask something of you-"

"No- well yes but-" Amber forced a quick breath to center her thoughts. "How did you know where I live?"

"You weren't that difficult to find," Artemis replied, his eyebrow raised.

"That is very concerning," Amber insisted.

"I imagine so, but do recall what I managed when I was twelve," he smiled. "I am very good at finding things."

Amber sputtered for a moment, "I- you- but-" She took another deep breath. "You might as well come in." Amber's apartment wasn't as spartan as Artemis expected. The furniture was all in harvest gold and dark woods, and her decor had an overall autumnal color palette. The main room had bookshelves taking up an entire wall, bursting at the seams with novels, and the walls were bedecked with framed photos. Amber wasn't in most of them, in fact they seemed to feature the same three people. Clearly huntsmen and huntresses judging by the garb and their armaments.

"So, what brings you here?" Amber asked, returning from the kitchen with a couple of cold cans. Hers was beer, but she handed him a violet can that insisted 'People Like Grapes' in a bold font. He cracked it open as he sat opposite her on her sofa while she settled into an overstuffed armchair. Surprisingly, it actually smelled like grapes rather than chemicals, dye, and corn syrup.

"I've been enrolled at Signal for a few months now, and I've recently discovered a talent for crystal casting," Artemis took a sip of the fizzy beverage. In another life, he wouldn't have entertained something so effervescent without a glass bottle and a french label. His few weeks on the streets had cured him of such preferences. It was difficult to turn one's nose up at a soft drink when it was one's only source of potable water. "I came to ask you if I could hire you as a tutor," he continued.

"You? At Signal?" Amber raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Hunting seems an odd career choice for you."

"Ah, no I'm afraid not," Artemis clarified. "I have no intention of applying at Beacon, or any other academy, once I'm finished with Signal."

Amber regarded him for a minute, seeming to size him up as the silence stretched awkwardly on. He knew that look. He'd gotten it from several school counselors shortly before 'encouraging' them to pursue other careers. "You don't trust easy, do you Artemis?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Artemis began, intending to wrest the conversation away from armchair psychiatry.

"Butler," Amber said, cutting him off. "You've never been separated for so long, have you? Not even when he died."

"He did not die," Artemis insisted, surprising himself with his vehemence. "I made certain of it."

Amber raised her hands in surrender. "Far be it from me to debate the finer points of resurrection , but that wasn't my point. My point is that you won't settle for a bodyguard, not even now that you've got the scratch for it. You don't want him replaced. It's just a step away from admitting he's gone."

"What do you expect me to say, Miss Harvest?" Artemis challenged.

"Not a damn thing, Artemis. I've been where you are."

"Oh, I rather doubt that-"

"You know hunters work in groups, right?" Amber leaned back in her seat. She focused her gaze on the ceiling, not wanting to look him in the eye. "Had a whole team, once. Team Harvest. H-V-S-T. That's bad luck, getting your team named after you. Violet used to be the Fall Maiden. We were clearing out an infestation. A Resignation of Apathies... But then we let a Death Knell sneak up on us." She closed her eyes with a shuddering sigh, but she proceeded in a calm voice. "I was the only one that made it. Vi knocked me off a cliff so I'd fall out of range, then she just laid down and never got up again."

Amber sat up again, focusing back on Artemis. "She passed the gift to me when she died. Damn impressive she still had enough in her to care with a Death Knell standing over her. But that was it. Everyone I held close was gone, and I suddenly had a secret that I had to protect. Sound familiar?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Artemis fumbled. "This seems deeply personal for the second time we've met."

"Kind of like being the only one you trusted to teach you?"

Artemis was stunned, at a loss for words in a way he hadn't been since he was twelve.

"Like I said; You don't trust easily. What would you be doing if you'd never gone out there, if you'd never had a teaching prospect that had saved your life? Would you be going without the skill? Settling for another teacher? Or would you have taken the challenge to teach yourself?"

"I suppose that's a no." Artemis frowned.

"Of course not," Amber flashed a weak smile. "It's a wake up call. Took me a long time to trust anyone again after that... It's a hard life. A lonely life. Take it from me, kid. You've got to learn to let people in."

"Well then," Artemis fumbled, trying to figure out where and how he'd lost all control of this conversation so quickly. "I suppose we should discuss scheduling and rates-"

"None of that, Artemis." She chided, gently. "I'm not gonna be just another one of your employees. I'm gonna help you as a friend."