Akashic

"Make… it smaller?" Pyrrha questioned, tilting her head to the side.

"Yeah, this isn't exactly the most… subtle, of things, and I'd really like to avoid having to constantly worry about people mistaking me for a grimm because of this" he said, "It's sort of… monstrous? And with it being entirely black and menacing sort of makes it look like a grimms arm, so my main goal is to try and change its shape to the point where it either looks like a normal, more proportionate arm, or to make it look like a gauntlet and pauldron, then I don't need to worry as much about becoming public enemy number one" he said, raising his arm and wiggling his claws slightly.

"Well, you don't need to worry about me, I as well as my team and team RWBY know that you wouldn't harm anyone, even if you didn't change it we would still help you" Pyrrha said a smile forming on her face as she let her head bob to the side.

A smile also formed on Arthur's face, "I know that, but if I can avoid it, I will, plus, if it actually works I will essentially have an arsenal 'on hand' at any moment" he chuckled, the immediately g.r.o.a.n.e.d and palmed his face, while Pyrrha's expression turned to a forced smile at his terrible pun, "God, please tell me Yang hasn't affected me…" Arthur muttered, shivering at the thought. "Plus, it'll probably at most a temporary restriction, it's more for the public, just so I don't cause any undue panic I really don't want to deal with, at least for now, I'm not expecting it to be any stronger than this" he added raising Cross, "but once I get stronger, then I can probably be more lax with how I use it. Plus, it's just a waste not to use it" he finished

"I understand" Pyrrha replied, "Is there any way I can help in the process?" she asked.

"Not really no… I'm just going to pour my aura into my arm while its transformed and try to manipulate its shape a bit before actually trying to finalize its shape, there's also another thing I want to try" he said, beginning to take steps back away from Pyrrha so she wasn't in the danger zone, "And it will be really cool if it works, so you can just watch for a bit" he said, excitement evident no his face, as he sat down on the ground, holding his arm in front of himself.

"Ready?" he asked, looking to her, getting a nod in return as she watched.

"Okay, experiment one… let's begin with something small" he clenched his fist while leaving his index finger pointing out, Arthurs black and white aura beginning to manifest around his index finger in a thin layer, as the layer of aura soon began to merge with the material of Cross, it began to change ever so slightly, it retained its sharp look yet to Arthur he felt something different, it began to feel as if something about it was changing, becoming more malleable, yet when Arthur brought his other hand up to it, it still felt solid and unmoving.

"So, my aura has to change it then?" he questioned to himself and he began to control his aura he could feel 'floating' inside of his finger, at first he attempted to elongate the aura into a straight line, dragging the material of the innocence along with it, sending a feeling of hundreds of ants crawling along it as it elongated into an almost meter long black, metallic blade with surprising ease.

Seeing this Arthur couldn't help but feel a smile crawling up his face as he began to bend the blade like he would with his normally sized fingers, "So it works" he grinned letting his aura dissipate from the claw, sending another wave of ants up his finger as it quickly retracted back into its original size, frowning at this Arthur muttered, "It's not permanent is it?".

His mind began to analyse what had just happened, trying to come to a conclusion as to why it had suddenly reverted, "Do I have to keep my aura within it constant to keep its form? Or is there something else?" he said using his left hand to pinch his chin.

"Anyways, seems my theory was correct, I can change its shape so long as aura is supplied" he muttered and sent more aura to now wrap around the entirety of his arm, "Then let's try the entire thing then…" he muttered and repeated his actions of bringing his aura into his arm, the moment he did, he felt as if he had submerged his entire arm into a vat of viscous slime, "Oh, that is just wrong…" he said aloud shivering at the strangely moist sensation running up his arm.

Putting the feeling to the back of his mind Arthur began to think of what he wanted to first accomplish, "Attempt number one, of creating Cross β" he said aloud, his eyes closing as he imagined the cannon like form of Allen's second invocation form, starting from half way down his upper arm Arthur imagined a small cylinder forming extending out of his arm, and then another cylinder atop that only twice the radius, both these hollow cylinders only five centimetres long, as Arthur imagined yet another Cylinder forming, once again twice the radius of the previous but longer then both the previous cylinders combined.

'Simple enough…' Arthur thought at first as he then began to imagine the next step of boring a hole down the largest cylinder making it look like a particularly large, hollow barrel. At the same time he also began to image two thin hoses connecting from his shoulder into the bottom of the largest barrel.

And finally the last part of Cross β, the five orange energy spikes that hovered around the end of the barrel, each resembling the sharp fingers of the α form, "How would I even imagine these?" Arthur muttered, opening his eyes to look at his unchanged arm, "Guess I'll figure that out once I'm done…" he muttered.

Taking a deep breath Arthur began to slowly move the material making up his arm, starting with his fingers, he began to pull the aura within them back into his palm. Slowly but surely, each finger began to disappear, receding into the shiny black 'metal' of his arm, leaving him with a fingerless and stumpy hand, "Now I know what an amputee feels like..." he muttered, holding up his hand in front of his face, his mind confused at the sudden lack of opposable fingers, 'I've got to get Fairy a leg' the feeling only making him sympathetic to Fairy's current plight. Deciding he would look into it after he got back to his room where he could speak with Summer about it.

Once he had finished processing the feeling he returned to creating the rest of the β form, he kept his wrist level with the rest of his arm, pointing it straight in front of himself, his aura now beginning to surge through the entirety of his remaining hand and up along the entirety of his forearm and shoulder, stopping just before the pale green flame that wrapped around his shoulder.

"I need a base first…" he muttered to himself as he manipulated his aura to begin to change it's shape into a more cylindrical shape, sending wave upon wave of uncomfortable pins and needles across the entirety of his arm, until it finally took on a near perfectly cylindrical shape, not even leaving any indication of where his elbow was, apart from the multiple seemingly layered plates of material that still let him bend it, the entirety of his leftover hand also having been absorbed into the soon to be barrel, the only indication of it still being his hand being the white cross on the top of the cylinder.

"Good enough…" He said, feeling a light throb at the back of his skull indicative of his aura being used up, "I should hurry, this is using a lot of aura", he said as the cylinder slowly began to expand in size, eventually coming to a stop once it had made a three centimetre wide radius from halfway up his shoulder down, "One down, two to go" he muttered, another throb coming from the back of his head, "Shut up Arthur and focus" he berated himself.

Soon the next cylinder began to emerge partway down the first, creating a cylinder now with a diameter of twelve centimetres. Just as the third and final cylinder began to extrude from his arm, Arthur felt a strange feeling of something slithering on his shoulder, slightly turning his eyes to it, while keeping his focus he saw two black tendril like hoses emerging from the barrier of pale green flames, both the tendrils beginning to automatically float toward the rising platform of the final barrel, the hoses eventually forcing their way into the bottom of the newly emerged barrel.

The moment they slotted in Arthur felt the aura within his arm quickly dissipate, forcing itself out of his body and causing him to grit his teeth and grab his head with his free left hand, a groan forcing its way out of his throat as his vision began to get blurry.

"Arthur!" Pyrrha shouted and ran up to him, kneeling at his side, her hand going to his back and shoulder, "You should stop" she said in a soft voice, watching as the large barrel that had replaced his arm began to pulse, slightly growing in size here, shrinking there, new tendrils of the 'Innocence' forming between each of the three stacked cylinders, four connecting each smaller barrel to the larger on each side, the top, the bottom and both the sides of it, these 'hoses' soon began to change colour as each of the hoses began to circulate a orange energy.

Smirking Arthur said, "I'm not the one doing it" with a hoarse voice, as finally five jagged orange energy spikes began to break away from the top of the barrel, the five spikes taking position around the muzzle of the cannon. Once the five spikes had taken their final positions Arthur saw a wave of pale green flames envelop his arm, disappearing just as fast as they appeared.

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Cross β Unlocked

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He saw written in a golden page hovering in front of him, which he quickly dismissed, a wide smile on his face, staring in admiration at his new arm cannon, excited to test fire it, yet, his mind had another idea as he felt another pang of pain extend throughout his head sending him reeling back down, his arm automatically returning to its regular shape, his previous white shirt now missing a sleeve after being torn when awakening Cross.

Arthur began to feel his mind wavering, his body wavering and falling to the side, only to be caught by Pyrrha, "Hey Pyrrha… I think I'm going to black out for a bit…" he muttered as Pyrrha wasn't even given the chance to respond as he soon saw everything go black as he fell into unconsciousness, leaving Pyrrha kneeling there, speechlessly holding Arthur's body up.

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Alternate Chapter names: [Shape shifting] [Megaman]

I hate England and it's bloody heat waves, I really wish I had an airco right about now…

Also when refering to the different forms of Cross you want me to use the Greek alphabet (α-β-γ-etc-etc) or just Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc?

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