Akashic

Arthur's struggle to steady himself in the clutches of the grimm lasted all of ten minutes, his eyes unable to get a proper look at his abductor due to it's size and his focus on preventing it from biting down into his flesh, groans coming from him as his back collided with a tree, completely breaking through it sending splinters of wood throughout the surrounding forest.

Luckily his abductor had broken through into a relatively open clearing, at the centre of which train tracks were. The grimm reared up and began to violently shake it's head, it's mandibles having dug into Arthur's aura and around his weapon, but otherwise leaving him unharmed.

Not long after it had begun to thrash had Arthur found it's grip around his body to be loosening, letting out a grunt of his own Arthur released SilverLight and slipped through the grimm's hold, quickly running backwards a few metres to get away from it's thrashes, as well as to properly analyse what had attacked him.

The Grimm, having realized its prey had escaped stopped its thrashing its head slowly moving to direct its six large glowing orbs on either side of it nearly three metre wide but much thinner head, it's body made up of dozens upon dozens of equally sized segments, each overlapping with the previous leaving miniscule gaps, the bottom of each segment made of pure black carapace. At the edges of each segments dark red markings scrawled their way to the centre of each segment.

And connected to each of the dozens of segments were two large segmented legs, each separated into three parts, with each part being as dark as the previous. The legs got larger and larger the further towards the back of the grimm they went, eventually ending in two giant legs connected with the rear of the giant grimm, these two legs seemingly not having much use apart from intimidation or distraction as they had the same bony carapace and resembled the two giant antennae that connected just under the grimms eyes, the two antennae curling backwards revealing that they were nearly a fourth the length of the grimms body.

Yet, most intimidatingly, right underneath those and connected to the undersides of the grimm's head segment were two massive mandibles, each covered in the same bony plates as all grimm were famous four, except the further along the mandible you looked the more yellow it became, eventually becoming a luminous yellow like that of a death stalkers stinger.

The grimm continued staring at Arthur for a few seconds, it's mandibles grinding against the metals of SilverLight but otherwise leaving it unharmed as it soon released the weapon from its grasp before it quickly began to scuttle across the forest ground around Arthur, revealing that Arthur's head barely reached to the centre of its segments.

"Crap…" Arthur muttered and quickly glanced to his weapon, his teeth grinding when he saw it behind the grimm, but not taking too much time to think on it as he turned back to the grimm, his sight constantly on the most dangerous part of it, it's mandibles.

Not willing to be without weapon against an unknown grimm, Arthur quickly invoked his innocence, unleash cross out into its α form, which he quickly brought in front of himself to give him a bit of defence as well as to let him react at a moment's notice.

His actions seemingly amusing the grimm as it created a chattering noise using its two mandible which Arthur could only assume were its way of mocking him as it stopped in it's place and charge towards him.

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"Uhhh… What?" Ruby asked, watching as Pyrha slowly lowered her hand, after Jaune had miraculously brought his shield up just as the Ursa swipped down at him, safely blocking the attack while also giving him enough leeway to swiftly raise his sword, running it clean through the Ursa's neck, decapitating it.

Weiss equally as confused as she muttered "How did you…?"

"Well, Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs. My semblance is Polarity" she quickly explained, amazing Ruby.

"Whoa, you can control poles…" which, in no way had anything to do with poles in the slightest, except maybe metal ones.

"No, you dunce, it means she has control over magnetism!" Weiss lectured.

"Magnets are cool, too…" Ruby whispered, still impressed. At the same time Pyrrha took a final glance to Jaune with a smile on her face she turned around and began to walk away, Weiss noticing this said, "Wait, where are you going?" followed by Ruby saying, "Yeah, we've gotta tell them what happened!"

"We could… Or, we could perhaps keep it as our little secret?" she said turning back around to tell them, and began to walk away once again after Ruby and Weiss shared a small understanding smile, both soon turning around to walk with Pyrrha, but both tilted their heads in confusion as they saw Pyrrha kneeling just a few metres away from them.

"You find something?" Ruby asked, peaking over her shoulder, seeing a gouge in the ground as if something had been dragged through it, only the gouge starting in the centre of the path and getting smaller as it was dragged to the other side of the path. On either side of the gouges numerous circular tracks leading of into the forest where the gouges were headed, "Tracks…?" Ruby muttered.

"Looks like it, Arthur did say he saw some, are these from the same grimm?" Weiss inquired, "But what's with this gash? It looks like the grimm came from there and took something with it down there" she said looking to either side of the path, throughout this Pyrrha remained silent.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby muttered.

"Wasn't... Arthur following us?" Pyrrha muttered, turning to look up to Ruby who's eyes quickly widened as she spun in place looking for him, but upon finding nothing she looked down the tracks and to both Pyrrha and Weiss, each giving her a nod in return as all three began to sprint after the tracks.

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'Shitshitshitshitshit!' Arthur chanted as he dug his feet into the ground, having been pushed backwards by the giant centipede grimms his claws holding the head of the centipede back. Finding his footing Arthur quickly side stepped while also throwing his arm to the side to divert the grimms charge.

Not willing to let the opportunity go, Arthur quicly charged to the nearest segment of the centipedes body, quickly bringing his claw down upon it, 'Crap, it's hard' he uttered, his claw barely sinking an inch into the grimms armour.

Yet, his actions only annoyed the grimm as it turned back around to him, raising it's head up revealing its two griant mandible in all their menacing glory as a small droplet of venom fell from one of them, immediately causing the ground around it to start steaming and melting.

"And it's a bloody alien, great, just great" he g.r.o.a.n.e.d and quickly transformed his innocence into its new β form, which he quickly pointed at the revealed underbelly of the centipede, the muzzle began to glow as the five spikes began to rapidly flash in sequence as numerous giant yellow glowing pylons were fired from the cannon, most missing but some coming into contact with the grimms underbelly, all soon falling to the ground seconds later none having gone deep enough to stick into the carapace.

"Please, just die!" Arthur pleaded as he kept firing volley after volley of hardlight energy stakes against the grimm which just shrugged them off, "Fine then, laser sword it is" Arthur muttered as the muzzle of his arm cannon began to close and extend into a short cone now with a much smaller barrel from which a long, thin pylon of hard energy extended, the so called Cross Spear by Allen.

"Please work…" Arthur pleaded to no one just as the last paling fell from the fore head of the grimm, leaving a small circular indentation in it's wake, both staring each other down, waiting for the other to make a move, that of course being the centipede as it quickly began another charge to Arthur, who took a deep breath, "Well… here goes nothing!" he shouted as he too began to charge towards the grimm.

"This is going to hurt" he muttered as he quickly jumped into the sky moments before they were going to hit each other. While in the air Arthur spun himself so that he was facing the front portion of the grimms body, his spear primed and ready to stab into the back of the grimm.

But, as fate would have it, the grimm was smart enough to realize what Arthur was going for as it raised the front portion of its body, bending it into a U shape, it's feet seemingly digging into the air as its legs began to release a thin dark fog from the joints in its legs creating solid 'ground' for it to scuttle along in the air, "Oh, that's just not fair…" Arthur muttered and raised his spear up to intercept it.

Yet once again fate seemed to intervene as a roar was heard from the side of the clearing followed by a loud crunch as a dark figure tackled the side of the centipede, sending it collapsing back to the ground and dispelling the fog around its legs, causing it to begin to squirm and bend its body until it was right ways up.

Landing on the ground Arthur quickly looked up to his saviour, his eyes widening in surprise, "You…" he muttered.

"Manspawn… we meet again…" the familiar black and white Byakko stood there, its body low to the ground as it growled towards the centipede grimm, the same womans voice resounding from it.

"And much… earlier… than I expected… now, help me… kill it"

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Ruby, Pyrrha and Weiss had been running for what felt like nearly a full thirty minutes before they came to a stop at a shattered tree trunk, the tree seeming to have been crushed by a powerful force crashing into it.

"We're close…" Pyrrha announced just as a loud crash resounded throughout the forest.

"There!" Weiss shouted, pointing to an opening in the tree line where she could see a clearing where numerous yellow lights could be seen, all three quickly rushed towards the clearing, coming to a stop just as they entered it, their eyes widening in fear as they saw a giant grimm centipede thrashing across the ground, numerous places on its body impaled by long orange glowing pylons.

"What is that!?" Ruby screamed immediately bringing Crescent Rose her scythe out, along with Weiss and Pyrrha bringing their own weapons out, "Arthur!?" Ruby screamed in surprise whe she saw Arthur standing atop the grimms head, his arm having transformed into it's α form, the claws large enough that they hooked under the three metre wide centipedes face plate.

Hearing his name called, Arthur lost his concentration, giving the grimm enough time to raise its body and slammed it against the ground sending Arthur flying towards Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha all of which quickly dodged out of the way before Arthur collided with a tree, cracking it and sending it falling backwards onto the ground.

Groaning Arthur pushed himself up from the now splintered wooden tree, "Why is it always me?" he complained pushing himself up, "Go to a forest, collect some sap, have fun, she says!" he grumbled, flinching as he felt pain spike through his steaming right arm.

"Stop complaining manspawn! There are more important things currently, so please, do help here!" the m.a.t.u.r.e voice of a woman resounded through the field along with a growl as the giant centipede grimm let out a scream as a loud crack resounded from its carapace where a large tiger grimm could be seen biting into the plating of the centipede. Half the mask of the tiger which was also steaming and looked to have begun melting.

"Well I'm sorry if I'm complaining but MY ARM IS MELTING!" Arthur screamed at the tiger raising his arm into the air revealing that the metal of it had begun to liquefy and drip onto the ground.

"Oh… boohoo, MY FACE IS MELTING!" the tiger snarkily retorted as it too was thrown off, except unlike Arthur the tiger landed gracefully next to Arthur.

"Okay, we're both melting, happy?" Arthur decided to not further this argument and decided to just take the middleground.

"Yes… now... FIGHT!" the tiger growled and charged towards the centipede.

"Arthur?" Ruby muttered worriedly, her eyes locking with his.

"Oh… heeeyyy Ruby" Arthur said, awkwardly scratching his cheek, "Can we talk later?" he asked, his eyes turning panicked for a second when he saw the centipeded rearing up. both Weiss and Pyrrha staring in surprise at the seemingly non-hostile grimm, both clenching their weapons tight while looking between the two grimm.

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Alternate Chapter names: [1000 – 7] [Two face] [Grimm assistance]

I am now in Holland, already can't wait to get back home after my family problems finish, then I can get back to my desktop and not be stuck writing in a lounge feeling like someone's looking over my shoulder every moment. Hopefully its only two weeks, but with everything going in Ireland now I could be stuck for at least a month. This shouldn't affect my schedule, so no worries there.

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