Crab-V #2,5×2

A howling wind, a dark, still and empty sea which reflected the many stars in the nightsky. The waves were calming, soothing the hearts of all those who hear it. This serenity was shared by only two people in the entire world. Yet, they couldn't enjoy it.

Though the water looked calm and still, one close look and you could tell.

It was afraid.

Afraid of the thing that was approaching, soon the water began moving sideways, trying to escape the imminent and dreadful being. The ground shook, not by footsteps or any force at all.

The rocks around them began to crack, exposing the two who were hiding. Seeing this, Anastasia spoke in a quiet voice while they were trying to find a better spot to hide.

"See? And you keep asking me to be in the Union again."

Her voice was like the endless expanse of water, calming, soothing and still. And just like the water, she carried a hint of fear. Even the maggots on her face were trying to 'escape' her face.

"I only meant it as a jok-"

Not allowing her to speak further, Jean covered her mouth with his hand. Then, the ground cracked so deeply that they could see dozens of Zirtues fleeing away.

Staring at the horizon, they finally saw it. A massive, towering creature was approaching, and fast. Like a poor tide, the water receeded back from the shore greatly.

Thereafter, sounds of footsteps echoed all throughout the endless skies as the creature approached the 500 meters mark. It was huge, it looked to be 40 meters tall and a hundred meters wide.

'Shit, atmospheric pressure might not work.'

On closer inspection, the grade V had no platonic shapes on its carapace at all, much to the shock of Jean and Anastasia. Instead, its legs looked like tentacles, dragging the grade V on the ground. The grade-V looked soft.

'I was conceited.'

Then the grade V stopped walking, turned to the water and stood there, unmoving.

'Argh, let's just run.'

But when they poked their heads out of their hiding spot. The grade V immediately moved, abeit not a lot. This caught them by surprise and almost made them fall.

They began making their way out of their hiding spot slowly while carefully observing the grade V. It still hadn't moved. Their unease died down a bit which made them relax their eye muscles a bit.

One moment the grade V stood still but immediately after blinking once, the grade V was gone. Jean was confused and terrified, he tried to look for the Zirtue when

A tentacle hit him in his liver sending him flying into a nearby rock, shattering his bones and basically ruptured all his organs. Anastasia blocked its blow but was still sent flying back.

Jean tried to get up, however he couldn't, he was paralysed from the head down. The grade V disappeared again and he felt a massive blow to his right arm, breaking it and knocked Jean into the sea.

"Jean!"

The grade V disappeared yet again but this time, Anastasia was prepared. She closed her eyes and focused on all the different things around her. She felt mostly dirt and sand that filled the air after the three blows but she also felt a slight movement within.

She then moved her arm at an inhuman speed, so fast that the hand and flesh couldn't catch up. It then hit a massive tentacle coming her way, somehow redirecting it to the ground.

The force of the impact created an explosion that flew all matter away, leaving a crater with a diameter of ten meters.

Stopping herself, she looked at the Zirtue as millions of eyes looked back at her, its intent was clear: kill Anastasia.

'Shit, all the other Zirtues ran away, I can't heal.'

The two of them were severely underprepared, especially Jean. Speaking of Jean, he was knocked out after that blow from the Zirtue and was currently sinking to the very bottom of the ocean.

He was drowning, but then something happened. On his neck, appeared gills that allowed him to breathe. He then opened his eyes which were now covered in a protective layer. He swam upwards towards the surface, each stroke made him faster and faster until eventually, he jumped high out of the water, and dived into the ongoing conflict.

As he was falling down, his legs began to fuse together, forming the shape of a sharp needle. Arriving on the creature's carapace, the needle bounced off, dealing no damage.

The Zirtue realised something on its back and began barraging it with attacks. Which allowed momentary rest for Anastasia. Then, holding the maggots, she threw them forward which stretched them, however, now the maggots were the anchor, thus pulled her up.

She quickly found Jean, who currently had 8 eyes around his head giving him a 360° view of everything, 4 more arms to defend against the numerous giant tentacles and his feet were stuck to the ground like glue.

'A failed adaptation it seems.'

The most unpredictable and unknown ability of all: Adaptation, it needed an unknown set of conditions to be fulfilled before it could fully adapt, else it'd look something like the scene Anastasia was seeing now.

Landing on her maggots, she cut off two of the tentacles targetting Jean. However, the two pieces she cut off, regenerated into two small Crab-II's which she happily killed and used as healing material. The pain was still excruciating but it had to be done.

Looking at Jean who had swarms of grade II's targetting him, he began to grow even more limbs.

'Shit, why is it the limbs this time!?'

Jean now had 18 arms on his body, all moving to kill the Zirtues and defend against the tentacles at the same time. He also quickly gained immunity to the poison from the Zirtue.

When the attacks died down a bit, he fused all the Zirtues on the carapace into his own body and got rid of all the extra limbs. Then he punched the carapace of the Zirtue, shaking the whole beach.

In their exchange, all the sand was blown away, all the rocks pulverized, all Zirtues ran away and the waters receeded by a hundred meters.

And his punch, which finally caused a tiny crack to form on the carapace, altered the terrain so much, it looked like a meteorite had hit the earth.

All the tentacles pulled back and they felt themselves moving, towards the dark sea.