The infernal screeching of the monstrous bird echoed over the ruins in the forest. Eight heavily armed teenagers took cover behind the stone pillars that dotted the landscape.
Suddenly, a massive scorpion crashed through the forest, decimating the trees in its path. It was headed straight for two of the warriors-the same two that had previously managed to outrun it after unwittingly stumbling into its lair.
One of them, a tall boy with scraggly blonde hair and blue eyes quickly assessed the situation.
Okay, he thought to himself there's eight of us in the middle of what is basically a wide open killing floor stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one side, in the air, we have a giant bird that can shoot feathers and on the other, on the ground, we have a giant scorpion to deal with. He eyed the scorpion as it approached. None of us have the firepower to take that thing down, so unless we were to organize some kind of over-complicated team attack, we're stuck with either running into the field and getting punched full of holes or…
He looked down at his sword and shield and sighed. It looks like I'm going to have to use that if we're going to survive this insanity. He shouted to a red headed girl armed with a grenade launcher.
"Nora! Can you distract the bird?" Nora gave a mock salute, and ran out into the middle of the field, firing arcing pink grenades in the general direction of the bird. It screeched and let loose a torrent of feathers that screamed as they flew through the sky.
Okay, now's my chance! Jaune thought to himself. He raised his sword and sprinted towards the scorpion. Behind him he could faintly hear his partner shouting at him, something about how he was going to die if he attacked the monster head on. He continued to ignore his partner's warnings as the scorpion paused for a moment, confused by the human charging towards it as if it had any chance of succeeding.
It pulled back the golden stinger, preparing to skewer the boy.
As he swung his sword at the bone white claws that were already rising up to protect the scorpions face, he focused his soul. Time slowed to a crawl. Jaune activated his semblance.
Everything was blank whiteness. The flat, featureless landscape seemed to stretch almost to forever, and it was difficult to tell where the horizon was. In the middle of this nothingness was a simple wooden table with two figures sitting in equally simple wooden chairs facing each other.
In one chair sat Jaune. He was hunched over the table as he fidgeted with something in his hands while his leg nervously bounced up and down.
Across from him sat an entity. A humanoid entity, with no hair, or eyes. The entity matched the purgatory-like landscape's color (or lack thereof), and would have been almost indistinguishable from it had it not been for a faint dark grey outline surrounding its figure. It sat back calmly with one leg crossed over the other.
"Well Jaune?" the entity asked "Even if I can't say 'I don't have all day', as I am immortal, this is getting boring" it complained. It leaned forward with a leering grin. "You should know by now that your little rituals will hardly improve your chances of getting what you want."
Jaune rolled the six sided die around in his fingers once more, eyeing the surface. He sighed resignedly.
"Okay. Alright. I'll go" he said. Cupping his hands, Jaune blew on the die one last time, (the entity would have rolled its eyes if it had had any) and with shaky hands, cast the die across the smooth surface of the table, his eyes locked on to every motion of the cube.
Please, just be a four. I'll settle for a five even, hell I'll settle for a one as long as it means I don't get a six. I just need enough to crack the armor, nothing more.
The white cube bounced around for what seemed like an eternity, before landing with a dreadful sense of finality.
Jaune's eyes widened in horror. The six pips looked up at him like mocking, beady black eyes. The entity grinned in amusement at Jaune's face of abject terror.
"Well now Jaune, looks like things are about to get a lot more interesting" it said, chuckling. Jaune held his head in his hands and looked once more at the die. The blank whiteness began to fade away as it was replaced by the lush green of the forest, and the deathly black of the massive creature standing right before him.
Jaune's sword seemed to move in slow motion, as a number hovered over him. Only he could see it, and only he knew what was about to happen as it sliced through the air towards the gargantuan scorpion's shell.
The second the sword touched the creature's carapace, a thunderous boom erupted as it was blown into tiny pieces by what seemed to be an incredible force emanating from Jaune's now glowing blade. It ripped through the creature like wet tissue paper, and reduced the ground to rubble and dust.
Miles away, on top of a cliff overlooking the forest, two people watched the events unfold on a screen. But they needn't have bothered with it, as they could see with their own eyes what had just happened.
They saw the solid arc of pure energy tear through the air before slowly dissipating into nothingness. They heard the explosion and felt the shock wave ripple through the ground.
The man with white hair raised an eyebrow at this sudden display of ridiculous power.
"I had always known that the Arc family was made of exceptional warriors but this…" he mused, as he raised his mug to his lips. The woman beside him could only shake her head in disbelief.