Spines are for the weak

"Uhhh, yes?" Arthur answered, unsure how to properly react to her.

"Tiger!" Flora shouted, hiving Tiger a hit to the back of the head "At least give him a moment to breathe fresh air." She said staring down sternly at the faunus who was now crouched on the ground holding the back of her head, tears in her eyes.

"Sorry…" Tiger responded with a teary voice.

"Sorry about her, Flora Azul" she said holding her hand out to Arthur.

"Arthur Fielder" He introduce taking her hand and giving it a shake.

"Ah, the infamous Arthur Fielder, famous for kicking Cardin in the balls, and getting the nickname, Nutbreaker, an honour to meet you" she responded.

"Please tell me that's not my actually nickname?" he pleaded, with a resigned tone.

"Sorry to say, but it is" Flora let out a light chuckle, letting go of his hand.

"Goddammit…" He whined in response.

"So yeah, as I've said, I'm Flora Azul, leader of team FSBT, this kitten here…"

"Tiger!" Tiger shouted bolting up from the ground.

"Is Tiger Fross, My partner." She introduced "I am not a cat!" Tiger grumbled. "The big guy over there is Bean Cornell, don't mind him, he's not completely 'there'" she said pointing to her head as bean began rubbing his cheek against his dolls cheek "And hiding behind him is his sister, Skye Cornell, She's a little 'shy', let's say" a wide grin appearing on her face, as she stared at Skye, a plan concocting in her head.

"Arthur!" Ruby shouted running up to his side and wrapping her arms around his arm, stopping him from responding to Flora's introductions. Soon followed by the rest of team RWBY and JNPR.

"You okay man?" Jaune asked "That looked like it hurt"

"Nora, apologize" Ren ordered, pushing Nora to the front.

"I'm sorry…" She said, staring at the ground her hand interlocked behind her back as she kicked the ground.

"For?" Ren furthered.

"Thinking you were dead and blowing you up…" she mumbled, sounding like a child found guilty of stealing the last cookie from the jar.

"You okay there?" Yang questioned.

"I'm fine, I've had worse" he said getting a loud, and resounding "We know" from all the members of both teams "I guess, you would".

Ruby, hadn't once taken her eyes off of the members of FSBT, as her eyes began to 'assess' the three girls, completely ignoring Bean in the process, having only given him a rudimentary and curious look, but quickly turned to the others. Her focus mainly on two of the three, the first being Skye, who was still hiding behind her brother, face crimson red. The other being Tiger, who was staring at Arthur like a star struck fan girl who got the chance to meet her idol.

Ruby turned to look at Yang, their gazes interlocking for a moment, Yang held up two fingers with a curious gaze, to which Ruby nodded, but stopped midway, before looking to Arthur, a slight twitch on her cheek. Turning back to Yang she shook her head and held up three fingers. In response Yang gave a quick nod and pulled out her scroll and began to type into it, only looking up for a moment to look at the members of FSBT her scroll pointing at each of them as three soft clicks were heard. Turning back to Ruby, Yang gave her a thumbs up and put her scroll away.

'What was that?' Flora thought, having watched the entire interaction between Yang and Ruby, feeling slightly unnerved throughout the entire silent conversation, and feeling even more unnerved when she heard the soft but, familiar sounds of a camera shutter.

Just as Flora was about to speak up, and introduce herself and her team to the eight new people, she was stopped as Goodwitch announce. "As much as I'm sure you all would like to keep talking, we are about to start the next match" she said silencing the hall as anticipation filled everyone's faces, all excited to see who would be fighting next. "Team RWBY, please enter the arena" she announced, causing Ruby to bounce excitedly.

"Wonder who we're going to fight" Yang mentioned, not noticing the nervous expression on Arthur's face. 'Please don't be…' he thought.

"Arthur Fielder, enter the arena" Glynda announced, her gaze on Arthur's mortified expression, amusement peering through her usual icy demeanour.

Hearing who their opponent was, all members of RWBY turned to Arthur seeing his panicked expression "C-can I just forfeit?" he asked, not wanting to go against the strongest team of the year.

"No" Glynda answered with barely any thought, "Now enter the arena." She ordered.

"Can I at least get new clothing?" he asked, feeling a draft against his chest due to his shredded clothing.

"You have ten minutes" she acceded

____________________________________________________

"You know, you have a tendency of destroying dads clothing." Yang stated staring in amusement at Arthur had now run out of the borrowed clothing he had gotten from Taiyang.

"Hey, I'm didn't want to get blown up!" he retorted, turning slightly to Nora and glaring at her, causing her to turn her head away and begin whistling.

"Riighht" Yang rolled her eyes.

"Are you going to be okay?" Ruby asked, holding her Scythe in both hands. Watching Arthur let out a heavy sigh, as he stared at his four executioners.

"He'll be fine" Yang quickly responded for him.

"Ruby, he's a huntsman-in-training, and has been on the verge of death already, I'm sure he will be fine" Weiss added.

"Even then, it's a little unfair, four against one" Blake said

"Yeah! This isn't fair!" Ruby agreed.

"Sis, life isn't fair." Yang responded, coming up next to her sister and giving her a pat on the back while leaning down to whisper in her ear "If he does get hurt, you can play nurse and 'treat' him" a wide smile on her face. Ruby's face turned red, gulping slightly as Yang added "Of course, with an assistant", licking her lips when she looked to Arthur, sending shivers down his spine, causing him to look around searching for the source of the ominous feeling.

"Are both 'Teams' ready?" Glynda asked, causing Ruby to pop out of her daze as she looked to her teammates seeing them each nod, "We're ready!" Ruby shouted. Turning to Arthur she waited for an answer "Please can I forfeit?" he pleaded, his pleads going to deaf ears as Glynda said "Good, begin in Three!"

"Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling…" Arthur muttered

"Two!"

"Who am I kidding, I've had a bad feeling since yesterday…" he added, putting his hands behind his back and grasped two handles.

"Should we go easy on him?" Blake questioned.

"One!"

"Oh, not a chance in hell" Yang responded cracking her knuckles as she took a stance low to the ground, preparing to sprint.

Seeing this, Arthur's eyes widened "This is going to hurt…" he weeped, pulling out the two curved swords that made up Summer's Silverlight, that Summer had let him borrow until he had gotten his own weapon forged.

"Hey! Those are mom's swords!" Ruby exclaimed, immediately recognizing the two silver swords.

"Begin!"

Yang quickly charged Arthur, her fist raising as her weapon of choice, Ember Celica a pair of yellow gauntlets capable of firing a powerful blast from the shotguns concealed with, cocked loading a cartridge into the chamber. An excited expression on her face as she threw her first punch, which whizzed through the air, her fist hurtling to Arthur's face.

Though, unlike a few days earlier, Arthur now had more experience dealing with people, or at least bots with a speed equal to Yang's, or slower, meaning that her punch was somewhat easily dodged by Arthur as he quickly rolled to the side, quickly landing back on his feet only for him to see a the heel of a boot heading to his cheek.

In response Arthur quickly raised one of the sword and held it in the path of Yang's boot, diverting it to the side, Yang used the diversion to her advantage as she span on her heel her other a delivered an explosive punch to Arthur's guard, sending both her and Arthur skidding backwards from the force of the explosion.

"Haha, your definitely holding yourself better!" Yang said with a wide grin, as she got into another stance after cocking her gauntlets.

"Well, a week of boot camp changes people" Arthur replied 'Especially when your being trained by Summer…' he added in his head, shivering slightly at the memories of Summer's 'lessons'.

At that moment out the corner of his eye Arthur saw a white blur as Weiss lunged towards him with assistance of her semblance creating a glyph in the air behind her, creating a wall for her to launched herself forwards, Myrtenaster, her rapier held perpendicular to the ground as it's point rapidly approached Arthur's centre mass.

Arthur quickly tilted his body to the side, but found he wasn't quick enough as Weiss was already centimetres away from him when he had seen her. Finding that he was unable to dodge, Arthur brought both the swords up, crossing them over each other just moments before Myrtenasters point impacted the crossed section of the swords.

Just as her rapier impacted with Arthurs weapons, Weiss jumped backwards into the air, doing a backflip as one of her glyphs appeared behind her, ready for her to launcher herself off once again just moments later. Yet this time Weiss was not the only one to attack as Blake had taken the opportunity Weiss had created and darted towards Arthur from the side, her katana low to the ground ready for an attack from two fronts in conjunction with Weiss, who quickly launched herself at Arthur, once again thrusting her rapier towards Arthur, this time to his neck instead.

Arthur quickly separated his blades, moving them into position to deflect Blake's and Weiss's attack, as their blades connected Weiss and Blake quickly attacked once again, Blake committing to another quick slash as she spun her body around while crouching closer to the ground aiming for Arthur's legs, while Weiss commenced a barrage of rapid thrusts, each going for a different part of Arthur's body.

He was narrowly able to defend himself against Blake and Weiss's assault, but ended up in trouble as Blake span to her side, moving behind Weiss who went for a diagonal slash, swapping her positions with Blake in the process as another assault began, this time with Blake acting as the main attacker as she rapidly commenced a series of slashes and acrobatic flips around Arthur, using her semblance of shadow clones to assist in directing her in the air along with transforming her katana into it's kusarigama form, which she threw to Yang who quickly grabbed it and began to swing Blake around in a circle.

During this Weiss had taken the role of keeping Arthur distracted with another barrage of stabs, this time ranging from upwards thrusts aimed at his face and chest, along with slashes whenever Arthur tried to look to Blake.

Soon Blake had been swung in a full circle as Yang released Gambol Shroud, Blake poised in such a way that she was doing a mid-air roundhouse kick. Just as Blake was about to impact Arthur, Weiss had crouched low to the ground to avoid being a victim to her attack, unable to react in time to the black silhouette in his peripheral vision, Arthur felt a powerful impact against his cheek, which threw him to the side as a loud crack resounded through the hall, while Arthurs body began rolling until coming to a stop right next to Ruby who had been hesitant on ganging up on Arthur like that, in a light cloud of dust and broken debris from the now fractured ground.

As the dust settled Ruby was able to see Arthur, but what she saw caused her face to pale, as Arthur lay limply on the ground on his back, the only problem being that, normally you would be capable of seeing the persons face if they laid like this, but in Arthur's case his face was completely missing, and in its place was a head of white hair, with the skin on his neck contorted and stretched in such a way that it looked unnatural.

Seeing this, Ruby stumbled backwards, her hand over her mouth in horror, the same expression on the faces of the other students, apart from a select few, such as Cardin who seemed to be elated and Trill who was too busy staring at Flora in pure contempt. The hall was silent as the sound of gagging could be heard from a few students who had seen such a grotesque scene.

Blake fell to her knees, her mouth covered by both her hands, unable to take her eyes off of Arthur's once again, seemingly lifeless body. Weiss had also covered her mouth, having dropped Myrtenaster and turned her head to the side and began trying to collect herself. And lastly Yang who had her hand on her head staring with unsteady eyes, in clear distress.

Glynda had also gone pale, as a situation like this was one of the last things she had expected, she quickly pulled out her scroll to call Kardia for an emergency but paused as she saw the gauges showing the Aura levels of all fighting students, her eyes drawn to Arthur's bar, which had only been depleted by about 1/4, meaning he was for all intents and purposes, still alive and in able condition. Looking up from her scroll she still saw Arthur's body limply on the ground, Ruby now collapsed onto her butt, still staring mortified at him.

She soon came to the conclusion that there had to be a fault in the system as such a thing wouldn't be survivable, even from owl faunus, as they could still be killed if their heads were forcibly turned, such as what had just happened to Arthur. Taking a deep breath Glynda quickly pulled up her contact for Kardia, hoping that she would be able to save Arthur, even if it did leave him paralyzed. Yet at the last moment she faultered as she heard a collective gasp resound throughout the hall, soon followed by the screams of various girls, one of them being Jaune, who screamed like a girl.

Looking up from her Scroll Glynda was shocked seeing Arthur's body rapidly twitching, his fingers clenching and unclenching followed by his body convulsing, before quickly dyeing down as his body once again went limp. This time, no one was able to remove their eyes from his body as they saw his hands flatten onto the ground and his body began to rise until it was sitting straight up.

The hall was once again silent as everyone stared at the now clear sight of Arthur's head having been spun a full 180 degrees, the skin on his neck this time looked much less, stretched and on the verge of tearing, this time instead being as smooth as the skin on the rest of his body.

"Ar-thur?" Ruby muttered aloud staring wide eyed at the side of Arthurs face, her voice trembling as she saw Arthurs head turn even more towards her, now breaking through 180 degrees now going to a full 270 degrees, the furthest that even an owl faunus could go.

"Hey Ruby… Everything feels… Backwards…" he said his voice seemingly uninhibited by the unnatural rotation of his head. His head tilting a little as he saw Ruby's mortified a pale expression, even paler than her skin usually was.

In the distance Arthur could hear the voice of Nora screaming "See! Zombie!"

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Alternate Chapter names: [An Owl in disguise] [The waking dead, part 2. The Wakening] [Breakneck pace: The Sequel: The Breakneckening]