Episode 75: Angelic Host
Las Noches - West Inner Wall - Seven minutes ago
While on a mission of utmost importance, where every second of delay meant the possible deaths of any number of their Quincy comrades, the three women still had a moment of pause once they were all through the hole in the shear stone wall that Sassy Saddles had cut. They said nothing, only took a second to observe the strange interior of the Hollow race’s vast fortress. Cadence, Twilight Velvet, and Sassy Saddles were all equally aware that they were the first Quincy to lay eyes on this place, and even they, as experienced Sternritter, were somewhat taken aback by Las Noches’ bright, day-like interior. The false sky and artificial desert of the fortress’ huge inner area was not what they’d been expecting.
Still they were professionals, with a job to do. A look passed between the three and they all stretched out their senses to get the lay of the land.
The sensation of the battle outside the fortress’ south wall felt like the heat of a distant forest fire, smokey and ominous, but indistinct now that they were inside Las Noches. The fortress itself felt almost devoid of life, with almost all of its inhabitants battling outside. However it wasn’t entirely empty, and within seconds they felt distinct spiritual pressures dotting the wide landscape before them.
“There’s not many here,” Cadence said, eyes still closed in concentration, “Most far too weak to be an Espada. But I’m sensing two that are strong enough to be our target, and fortunately they’re both close together so we don’t have to waste time looking for them one at a time.”
Sassy Saddles nodded, patting her bow with affectionate warmth, “Just get me within a hundred meters and I might dispatch him with one well placed shot.”
“Let’s not get cocky, ladies,” said Twilight Velvet, “We can’t afford any mistakes. Now, looks like the fastest route to our target is this way.”
She pointed east and a little north, a direction that largely had no obstacles in their way, safe for one bleak, dark tower that rose from the ground some distance away. “We’ll either have to circle around, or sneak past that. There’s a few Hollows still occupying that tower.”
“Who cares?” said Sassy, one hand resting on her hip, “We shouldn’t even have to sneak past. Just destroy it on our way by, easy as a stitch. Wouldn’t even take us a moment.”
“And announce our presence? I’d rather we get the drop on the Espada we’re after so he doesn’t have a chance to escape,” said Velvet, and Cadence gave a nod of agreement.
“Velvet is right. We’ll sneak past the tower, keeping our distance. Come on, let’s go.”
The three struck out across the sands, keeping low and moving quickly. They looked like little more than streaks of motion, barely disturbing the sand under their boots as they went. Moving around the south end of the tower, they were keeping a solid distance of a couple hundred meters, yet even then Velvet suddenly slowed.
“Wait, do you two feel that?” she asked, eyes flickering with a glint of concern.
“Feel what?” asked Sassy Saddles, face creasing into a frown, “I thought you didn’t want to stop and mess around with that tower?”
“I don’t, but...” A moment of concentration passed over Velvet’s features, followed by a shocked look, “There’s human souls inside that tower!”
Cadence shot a furtive glance towards the tower, then a reluctant but forced calm look at Velvet, her voice kind but firm, “That’s not surprising, Velvet. The Hollows probably are keeping a few extra souls around for food.”
Velvet’s lips twisted in a sour grimace, “And we don’t have time to rescue them, do we?”
Cadence’s expression turned heavy, “Even if we did, how could we protect a group of helpless souls while also accomplishing our mission? I’m sorry, Velvet. I hate leaving them to their fate, but we have a job to do.”
“Not to extend our distraction, but I only sense relatively weak Hollow spiritual pressures in the tower,” said Sassy Saddles, “So one of us could deal with that lot, rescue the poor dead folk being kept in the pantry, and then send them back through the holes I cut in the wall. It’d take a few minutes, tops, for one of us to do that while the other two continue to go after the Espada.”
Velvet looked to Cadence, “You’re in command of this mission. I’ll do as you say, but if possible, I’d like to rescue any stray souls we can.”
Cadence’s frown deepened. She was fairly sure their target was a lower ranked Espada. Judging from the reiatsu she was feeling which was emanating close to the base of the massive central tower rising from the middle of the fortress their target was powerful but nowhere near as strong as the Espada fighting their comrades outside. She was reluctant to try doing this with just herself and Sassy Saddles, considering there were two such reiatsu she was sensing. Two Espada, even lower ranked ones, would be a dangerous fight.
But Sassy was right, Velvet could easily take down the Hollows inside this smaller tower and rescue the human souls inside, and probably accomplished the feat in a matter of minutes. Once she sent the human souls on their way out through the entrance Sassy had cut through the walls, Velvet could catch up with the pair of them fast enough.
It was feasible. And a worthy cause. Destroying Hollows was only part of the Quincy’s mission. Protecting human lives, and human souls was a part of what it meant to be a Quincy. Cadence had every intention of fulfilling the task of destroying the Espada they were sent to kill, but if they could save some souls that had been captured for food without compromising that mission...
“Do it,” she said, letting out a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding, “Just don’t take long. We’re going to need your help with the Espada, since your Schrift can strike him even if he manages to escape through a Garganta.”
Velvet smiled with a quiet aura of confidence as she raised her arm and formed her bow in a burst of blue reishi, the large arbalest and canon hybrid resting easily on her shoulder as she faced the small, dark tower.
“Don’t worry. This won’t take me long at all.”
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Las Noches - North side of central tower - Six minutes ago
From a open, circular tunnel in the base of the huge tower wall the shadows of the tunnel’s ceiling began to drip like oil. The dripping shadow pooled together, then writhed until it expanded to the very edges of the light outside the tunnel.
From within this pool of dark, Cheerilee emerged first, her keen green eyes scanning around quickly before she hopped fully out of the shadow and moved to the edge of the tunnel, hand on her Zanpaktou. She was soon joined by Nocturn as he checked the other side of the tunnel, both Soul Reaper’s silent but giving each other quick ‘all clear’ hand signs.
Finally Luna emerged from the shadows, her hands clasping the handles of her already released Zanpaktou, the twin scythes resting comfortably in her grip as she dismissed the shadows that had transported them from the steam vents on the exterior of Las Noches all the way through countless lengths of tunnels until they found this exit.
“Not sure which side of the fortress we’re on, Captain, but it looks like we ended up close to the center,” said Cheerilee, “And hey, marks for speed. I thought we’d be lost in those tunnels for way longer.”
“Have a little faith in my abilities, won’t you Cheerilee?” asked Luna, “I have a much better sense of direction than my sister.”
“Now that we’re here, what’s our move?” asked Nocturn, eyes narrowing at the expansive desert forming Las Noche’s interior, “I’m feeling a few Hollow reiatsu out there. We just need one, yes?”
“Preferably an Arrancar of mid-rank,” Luna said, “Starswirl wants one that will be easy to contain.”
Her sharp gaze hovered to the left, and she stepped out from the tunnel entrance with a confident stride. “I think we have a few candidates in that direction. Let’s go have a closer look.”
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Exterior of Las Noches - Northern battlefront - Five minutes ago
The opaque white barrier of energy cracked under the monstrous blow of Torch’s axe, yet even as one shield shattered, Shining Armor already had another one in place to absorb the rest of the axe’s momentum. Shining Armor moved in a pale blur, his bow alternating between offense and defense in equal measure. Torch raged, his own axe a titanic force of fury that time and again came within inches of cleaving Shining Armor in half if not for well timed shields that kept the young Sternritter one step ahead of a gruesome death.
However Shining Armor’s return fire was having little effect on the tireless Espada. Shining Armor was certainly hitting Torch with his arrows, but the gleaming white bolts of reishi were at best causing superficial damage, and that was on a good hit that caused any damage at all. Most of them were bouncing off Torch’s ludicrously hardened skin, the toughest Hierro of any Arrancar that Shining Armor had ever encountered.
“Getting real tired of playing whack-a-mole with you, boy!” Torch grumbled, a sound like an irate volcano, “You got any other tricks up your sleeve other than these pansy little barriers!?”
In response Shining Armor boosted himself in a tall leap above Torch, unable to help himself as he broke out in a taunting grin, “No, but we’ll see if you still think they’re weak by the time we’re done here.”
Drawing back on his bow, the white line of reishi energy that formed its bowstring flared with wisps of light as his next arrow shot out and formed a hexagon shaped barrier. In short order Shining Armor fired twenty more arrows, each one layering another hexagon the size of a train engine upon the next. Then with a gesture Shining Armor sent the layers of barriers flying down at Torch like an oversized hammer trying to smash a bug.
Torch was not so easily squashed. The burly Espada spat as he set his axe aside and used both hands to absorb the crushing blow of the layered barriers, the ground shaking under him as he held the barrier’s up.
“Not bad, but still waiting for this to get challenging, kid,” Torch said with a huff as he opened his mouth wide, and from it a thick beam of flame-like ruby power exploded out. Torch’s Cero crashed through the barrier layers one after another, until they punctured through and forced Shining Armor to dodge to the side.
As Shining Armor grimaced, considering his next move, he glanced to the side to see how Jet Set was doing.
On the bright side, Upper Crust and Harshwhinny had both arrived to help. On the down side, Jet Set was barely standing by the time they got there. He was covered in blood, both his arms cut open, and one of his legs punctured in multiple places. It was clear he was only still moving and fighting because he was utilizing reishi strings to force his damaged limbs to move, like a puppet.
He’d been entirely on the defensive against the Espada called Lament, who’d continued to advance through every attack Jet Set’s reishi tendrils could throw at him.
Jet Set was near beside himself with something approaching panic. He couldn’t understand how none of his attacks were getting through to this Espada! No matter how many piercing tendrils his Kraken was able to form and strike with it was like this ‘Lament’ knew exactly where and how to counter them, whether that be through evading with ridiculous speed, or slicing the tendrils to pieces with powerful strikes of that overtly long Zanpaktou.
It was only with minimal relief that Jet Set saw his wife arrive alongside Harshwhinny, and even that was only minor relief because now his beloved Upper Crust was standing in the pathway of this insanely strong Espada.
“You look dreadful, dear,” Upper Crust said with her customary nonchalant mien, although Jet Set knew her well enough to hear the concern underneath the casual airs she put on, “You should fall back and let Harshwhinny and I handle things from here.”
Much as the fear in him more than agreed with the idea of running away, Jet Set shook his head, “I’d hardly be a man if I left my wife behind to face a monster like this.”
“Ooooh, that’s so sweet!”
“Ahem,” Harshwhinny cleared her throat, “I demand some level of professional focus from you two, especially with an enemy right in front of us.”
Strangely, Lament had not advanced as the two extra Sternritter had arrived. Instead the ghostly white Arrancar had simply stood still and observed the trio without any hint as to what might be going on behind those placid eyes. However when he spoke it was with a chilling, smooth calm, as if he wasn’t at all concerned about facing three of the Quincy’s finest.
“You two are married?” he asked, nodding to Jet Set and Upper Crust.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” Upper Crust said, one of her butter yellow hands rising above her head as she summoned her bow. It took on the shape of an exceedingly tall recurve bow, its slim spurs like the neck of a swan. As she drew the string back the entire length of it formed arrows, which in turn bore strange lengths of cloth tied to them. “And given the grievous wounds you’ve given my husband I think I can judge you worthy of swift and painful execution.”
Lament didn’t look the least intimidated, more as if he held a hint of sympathy instead as he said, “A battlefield is the last place you should bring someone you love.”
He vanished, appearing behind Upper Crust in the flicker of half an eyeblink, “You’ll only see them die in front of you.”
His sword flashed for her neck, but he hesitated as a unimaginable wave of apathy overcame him. Lament jumped back, shaking his head at the unusual and unnatural sensation of absolute apathy filled him, confusing his thoughts.
Upper Crust gasped, touching her neck, which had just been lightly cut before Lament pulled back. Her head would’ve been severed, had he completed the strike. She glanced at Harshwhinny, who now had her own weapon out, which took the form of an unusual, arm mounted flamethrower-like device with three nozzles with tubes that actually fed into her own arm.
“N-Nice save,” Upper Crust gulped.
“Do pay better attention. My Schrift won’t be able to work for very long on this one,” Harshwhinny said as she aimed her weapon at Lament. When it fired, the three nozzles didn’t disgorge fire, like their appearance might suggest, but instead what came out was akin to a reishi based acid. Unnaturally neon blue liquid shot out in three streams shot out at Lament. Despite the unusual sense of apathy gripping him, Lament still forced himself to move and dodge aside, watching as the liquid sizzled and hissed, melting a rapid and several meter deep furrow in the sand.
Lament’s eyes narrowed to a blade’s edge, “I don’t know how you’re affecting me like this, but I assume if I kill you, the effect ends.”
He raised his left hand and pointed a finger at Harshwhinny. A deathly pale, emerald sphere of energy that bathed the nearby area in a sickly light was charged into existence at the tip of Lament’s finger. Harshwhinny visibly broke out in a sweat, while Upper Crust swore silently with wide eyes and grabbed her injured husband, leaping out of the way.
A titanic wave of an emerald Cero exploded out from Lament’s finger, temporarily illuminating the entire battlefield. Even many low ranked Arrancar and Quincy soldats paused in their violent, bloody murdering of one another to gaze in frightful awe of the display as the giant green beam cut across the sands and ended up impacting with Las Noche’s wall some distance away. The resulting explosion ended up cracking a near two hundred foot tall gouge through the thick stone wall.
“Hey, newbie! Watch the damn fortress will ya!?” shouted Torch, “Aim that crap up if you gotta go all out like that! You trying to blow up the whole damn army at once!?”
“My... apologies,” Lament said quietly, “But that woman was making it difficult to focus.”
From above there was a pained grunt, and Lament looked up to see that Harshwhinny had escaped his blast, but not unscathed. The woman was managing to stand on thin air, but was missing most of her left leg and was sporting burns across the left side of her body. Her face was twisted up in pain, but she was maintaining a remarkable amount of composure, given her injuries.
“I’m surprised you could act at all, Espada. My Schrift should have removed any willingness to act at this range. Yet you managed to dredge up killing intent, despite being this close to me.”
Nearby Jet Set and Upper Crust both looked at Harshwhinny with varying degrees of concern.
“Harshwhinny, um, I don’t mean to alarm you, but you seem to be, uh, missing a limb...” Upper Crust pointed out, and Harshwhinny rolled her eyes.
“That had not escaped my attention, thank you. Since my Uncaring is being resisted here, I’m afraid I’ll be of limited use in backing you two up, but I’ll try. It’d be unprofessional to retreat without orders.”
“We’ll just have to make do,” Jet Set said, his limbs still coated in blood from the wounds Lament had given him earlier as he summoned up a fresh set of several dozen reishi tendrils, “Until we receive word form His Majesty.”
Lament, seeing his three opponents readying themselves for a renewed attack, raised his Zanpaktou before him in preparing to receive their assault.
Shining Armor, too, was readying to launch a fresh series of arrows at Torch, yet at the same time all four Sternritter paused, looking up as if hearing something. Lament tilted his head in mild bewilderment, while Torch scratched his head.
“Eh, what are you loons doing? Hearing voices?”
As once the expressions upon the Sternritter all changed, Jet Set looking near delirious with relief, Upper Crust smiling brilliantly, and Harshwhinny adopting a small half-smile of satisfaction. Shining Armor himself didn’t smile. In fact his face had become a marble sculpture of grim seriousness as he looked at Torch and raised his right hand.
“Yeah, hearing voices, you could say that. His Majesty’s words, delivered from on high. I hope you’re ready, Espada, because the rules just changed.”
The white of his glove burned away, the cloth drifting off into ash as beneath it was revealed a second, pitch black glove upon which a blazing silver, five pointed Quincy cross was embedded. Silver lines extended up and down the glove’s fingertips, and these lines and the cross itself started to glow with a intense, phosphorus white light.
At the same time Jet Set, Upper Crust, and Harshwhinny all exposed similar dark gloves beneath their normal gloves, each one blazing with an identical light as the spiritual pressure of all four Sternritter started to build and build towards...
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Exterior of Las Noches - Western battlefront - Four minutes ago
The sky was erupting in apocalyptic fire and light. VTOLs alternated between spitting endless streams of death at swarms of Hollows and Arrancar, and being torn into burning balls of wreckage crashing to the desert floor. Quincy soldats moved in expert formations, unleashing streaking flurries of deadly reishi arrows that stabbed into their foes, while the Hollows retaliated with unmitigated fury.
The fuzz-ball creatures serving Catrina could open cavernous mouths of buzz saw teeth to devour metal or flesh alike. The faceless, masked soldiers serving Smooze, all identical, fought like fearless automatons, bleeding horrific, corrosive blood upon any too close to them. Chrysalis’ horde of eerily similar yet distinctly and wildly different, dark skinned Arrancar fought like a swirling swarm of locust, tearing apart anything they came into contact with.
Yet even those hordes were rocked by the explosive hurricane of tank shells that tore into them from the advancing, revealed ranks of war machines below. Wind Rider’s Strafbattalion led the charge, firing pin point suppression fire with their bows while McColt trained tank crews coordinated their fire to target the thickest clumps of Arrancar forces while avoiding hitting their own troops.
Within moments the Arrancar tide was stemmed, yet quickly redirected itself, Chrysalis’ forces moving like a well oiled machine to reorient towards the tanks. In moments concentrated Cero fire was raining down on the tanks, the thick beams ripping into the vehicles reinforced armor. Yet the tanks, and the Strafbattalion, charged on, ignoring casualties as they continued to pour fire into their hated Hollow enemies.
And amid all this chaos, individual battles between the opposing army’s most powerful combatants raged on.
Rutherford’s sixty meter form roared out in titanic wrath, even as he coughed from inhaling the deep violet fumes permeating the air around his colossal form. “If giving me flu is best Espada have, then Espada never see what elbow drop from living mountain be like! Yaaargh!”
Sixty meters and roughly twenty thousand tons of massively enlarged Quincy proceeded to leap up into the air and extend his elbow, which abruptly formed a large, silver colored elbow spike on it as Rutherford dropped upon the center of the poisonous fog mass.
Hydia, having kept herself concealed in the fog, gulped as the castle sized mass dropped towards her and some of her minions, which she quickly directed to scatter as she flung herself with a full speed Sonido away from the huge Quincy.
Rutherford’s impact shook the whole battlefield, but more importantly the sheer wind force of his fall created a blast of air that dispersed much of Hydia’s poison cloud, so even as she appeared unharmed a good few hundred feet away from the point of impact, she was now exposed.
“Hahah! Got ya!” Rutherford’s giant, grinning face said as his hand reached out to try to swat Hydia like a bug, but she evaded the attack and landed on top of the giant’s arm, her own broad face sporting a toadish grin.
“Got me indeed, young man! You think my gas is bad? Wait until you taste my spit,” she said as she opened her mouth and proceeded to start drooling on Rutherford's exposed skin. Where her saliva made contact, the thick, bronze brown skin quickly withered and turned black.
As Rutherford yelled in pain from that, Lightning Dust flinched at the sound but didn’t lose track of her own opponent.
“Why are these Espada so disgusting?” she complained as she swiftly evaded a lashing object of bone white segments that moved faster than a striking cobra.
The object in question was a whip of sharp bone fragments, the wielder of the weapon being Smooze, whose lanky frame bent and twisted like that of his whip as he lashed it at Lightning Dust again. The weapon was akin to a sharpened human spine with a hilt not unlike a small rib cage, and the entire thing dripped with a viscous black fluid that Lightning Dust didn’t doubt was toxic.
Which didn’t mean she wasn’t going to expose herself to getting hit by it to gain a power boost. She wasn’t afraid of this creepy looking, noddle-limbed pus bag. And for once she wasn’t talking smack about her abilities. She’d taken that lesson after the skirmish with Catrina, and right now Lightning Dust wanted to prove herself by being the first Sternritter to take out an Espada in this battle.
She flung herself towards Smooze, deliberately lowering her guard, and as she expected he responded by whipping his weapon at her in a rattle of bones, black fluid flying off it. The risk of exposure was so high that the power of her Daredevil Schrift immediately kicked in, boosting her power and speed in a split second. It let her dance through the droplets of toxic sludge and avoid the reach of Smooze’s whip as she in turn spun into a sideways strike with her boomerang as she threw it straight at him as she rushed by.
Her boomerang flew around in a powerful arc, cutting by Smooze and managing to catch his side even as the strangely silent Espada dodged away. Lightning Dust caught her boomerang, but almost dropped it as she saw that, whatever Smooze had bled on her weapon, the black liquid was eating away at the metal of the reishi forged weapon. The ichor hissed as it burned pockmarks in Lightning Dust’s boomerang, and she gagged as the smell of it hit her nose. The horrid stuff smelled like month old garbage marinated in dog vomit. It took all of Lightning Dust’s will to keep her nausea under control, staying focused on the battle.
Smooze ignored the brackish ichor leaking from the cut in his skin tight suit and extended his left hand. From the sleeve of his suit more of the sickening goo emerged from the seams, and glopped together in a ball of unspeakable sludge that was then hurled at Lightning Dust faster than a cannonball. She spat out a harsh curse as she jumped up to evade the ball of terrible muck, only to find the ball undulated and changed course in mid-air to follow her.
Lighting Dust used her boomerang to block it, but the sphere splattered against the weapon and bits of the sludge got on her face and other exposed skin. She screamed as the stuff sizzled her flesh, and she dropped from the air, hitting the ground and twisting in pain.
Meanwhile Spitfire tore across the sky as she chased her own foe, spears of bar-thin fire bolts flying from her bow in a machine-gun torrent. Yet as fast as Spitfire sent her blazing arrows out, hundreds of them per second, Catrina remained a step ahead of the deadly rain.
“These fireworks are impressive, but I’m afraid your aim is entirely too slow to keep pace with me,” Catrina’s purring voice taunted as the Third Espada cut a blindingly fast path across the sky and then came at Spitfire with such speed that Spitfire barely had an instant to activate her Blut Vene at full strength before she felt the force of the blow on her chest.
Spitfire grunted, feeling the hot lance of pain from the cut that went from her midriff up between her chest. Blut Vene kept the cut shallow, but it bled profusely. Catrina, halting for a moment, licked blood off the sharp prongs of her war fan Zanpaktou, her feline eyes glinting with violent delight.
“I’ll admit that you are at least, more capable than your loudmouthed fool of a subordinate. I doubt she’ll last very long even against one as lowly as Smooze.”
“Lightning Dust can handle herself,” Spitfire said, ignoring her injury and not taking her eyes off the wickedly swift Espada for even a single eyeblink, “She may be a braggart, but she’d never have made Sternritter status if she was incompetent. Now how about you stop flapping those gums of yours and try giving me more than a scratch, huh? I’m getting bored here.”
“Cheeky. Let’s do that. I wonder how your face will look without a nose, hmm?” Catrina said, caressing her war fan.
Spitfire almost didn’t see it. In fact ‘see’ wasn’t the right word, because from a purely visual standpoint, Catrina didn’t move. But Spitfire felt the nanosecond of bursting reiatsu from the Hollow, sensed the instant change in air pressure, and reacted as fast as she could by leaping away and firing her bow in a rapid burst of white hot fire arrows.
She felt burning pain across her face as a cut tore up her cheek and nearly took her eye. Had she not moved it would’ve cleaved her nose right off. Her own fire arrows passed right through Catrina without so much as leaving a mark on the Espada, and Spitfire growled in frustration.
There was no trick or illusion to this. It might not have looked like Catrina hadn't moved, but she had. It was just insane, raw speed that had allowed Catrina to strike and dodge, all without seeming to move from where she was standing.
“Oh, so close. Let’s try again,” Catrina laughed, and Spitfire threw herself aside once more, feeling the wind pressure from Catrina’s super-sonic movements as her only warning. A bloody line tore across Spitfire’s midriff again, this time crosswise to her earlier wound, only adding to the blood dripping from her. Again Spitfire countered, by this time she tried something different.
She fired around Catrina, and her lances of flame halted in a cloud around the Espada, which Spitfire then detonated with a snap of her fingers, creating a series of large mid-air explosions that shouldn’t have left any room to dodge.
And for what satisfaction it might have given Spitfire, Catrina didn’t dodge. She still emerged from the flames of the explosions with a bounding leap, and the Espada let out an irritated yowl of frustration as she patted out the flames singing her dress.
“These aren’t easy to have made, you know!?” Catrina hissed, “Smooze charges like you wouldn’t believe for the cloth alone!”
“Complain to someone who cares,” Spitfire said, raising her bow and peppering the air with more arrows that quickly converted into explosive bombs of incinerating heat, but now that Catrina was wise to the maneuver she didn’t let herself get surrounded again, appearing behind Spitfire before the first arrows were even done exploding.
Catrina moved in, slashing with her war fan. The move was still faster than just about anything Spitfire had ever dealt with before, but she noted it was a slower attack than what Catrina had been doing earlier, and she was able to swing her bow around to deflect the blow, knocking herself away from Catrina in the process.
That insanely quick high-speed attack she does, she only does it when she’s already standing still. I don’t think she can do it when forced to maneuver normally, she’s got to be able to concentrate. So I just can’t let her stand still to gain that concentration.
Grinning savagely now, Spitfire started to pour more and more rapid fire arrows from her bow, the four bars of light comprising it glowing almost pure white from the intensity of their heat as they unleashed hundreds of arrows per second. Catrina began to dodge, never getting hit by the incredible rain of searing destruction, but she was clearly now stuck on the defensive, at least for the moment.
While this was occurring the hordes of Arrancar serving Chrysalis had become locked in combat with the Strafbattalion and the corps of tanks it was escorting. Fierce melees were occurring between small clusters of Quincy troops trying to keep the Arrancar off the tanks. The tanks themselves had switched form long range bombardment with their main cannons to extending multiple small gatling barreled turrets that fired bursts of reshi shells into their attackers at close range.
Even so, despite their thick, alchemic reinforced armor the tanks were getting picked off by Arrancar who used both Zanpaktou and point blank Ceros to tear through the machines.
One such tank was lifted straight off the ground by the bulging muscles of Pharynx as he hurled the tank into one of its brethren, causing both to explode in a billowing pillar of fire.
“Hmm, this is too easy,” Pharynx muttered, then rubbed at his chest where the strange red gem was held by the device over his Hollow hole, “Or is it this thing that’s making it feel that way?”
He didn’t much like this little accessory that Chrysalis insist he use. Sure it was making him feel strong. With each Quincy he killed he could feel the gem absorbing spiritual energy and pouring it into him. But it didn’t feel natural, like the gem just didn’t belong as a part of his body, and he really wanted to just tear it out and toss the damn thing. Why was mother so interested in testing out this toy anyway?
A scream of noise behind him clued Pharynx in to a tank shell coming at his back, but before he could react there was a blur of movement and Thorax appeared, cleaving the tank shell in half before it could detonate.
“Watch yourself, brother. It’d be the death of me if anything happened to that exceptionally toned butt of yours. Every female Arrancar in Las Noches would be after my head, especially Ember.”
As Thorax waggled his eyebrows at Pharynx, the larger of the two brothers just let out a small groan and rubbed at his face, “How we’re related I will never understand...”
“Well you see when a mommy Espada and a daddy Espada screw each other very much-”
“You know that’s not how we were made, and stop giving me weird mental images of mother. Gah, you’re so irritating. Just concentrate on the battle and stop saying weird stuff.”
Pharynx’s words came on the heels of him blocking several reishi arrows from a squad of attacking Quincy soldats. With a snort he flung a concentrated, purple colored Cero in their direction. The resulting explosion burnt away several of those Quincy, but a few evaded the shot and charged in, two firing arrows while another drew forth a silver tube that ignited with a blue reishi blade.
With a whistling spin of his glaive, Pharynx blocked the blow from the reishi blade and proceeded to hammer his fist into, then through the Quincy soldat’s chest. To the Quincy’s credit, even fatally wounded he still pulled out a small, silver ginto tube and detonated a point blank explosion on Pharynx. The blast certainly hurt, but not enough to make Pharynx remotely worried, and he felt the red gem in his chest pulse as it absorbed some of the power from the Quincy as he expired.
He then turned his attention to the two other soldats, which were still pouring arrows into him. Some of the reishi bolts scored his flesh, but most bounced off. He was no third-rate Arrancar, but one of Chrysalis’ eldest children and personal Fraccion. He was on a different level than any mere fodder that would fall to attacks such as this. He also had tricks most regular Arrancar didn’t.
Demonstrating as much, he extended his left arm and the thick muscles undulated and morphed, transforming in a flicker of emerald fire into a massive, insectoid scythe claw. He then used Sonido to appear behind the two Quincy and with a single reaping blow, cut the pair into bloody halves.
As the red gem pulsed with light once more, absorbing yet more energy from his fallen foes, Pharynx flinched at the unnatural feeling of the gem, then glared at Thorax.
“You could have helped.”
“What, and cheat myself of watching my fabulous brother at work?” Thorax asked innocently, a hand to his chest in mock hurt.
Pharynx rolled his eyes and morphed his arm back to normal, seeking a fresh target, only to find someone was moving past him at rather impressive speed. This Quincy zipped right on by him and charged Thorax, a pair of what looked like heavy semi-automatic pistols barking with streaking silver bullets formed of reishi.
Thorax responded swiftly despite his casual stance, blocking the bullets with blurring motions of his Zanpaktou. The Quincy flipped into the air, flying over Thorax, firing all the while. As Thorax blocked those, however, Pharynx noticed a trio of small dark, metallic objects land at his brother’s feet and recognized the grenades for what they were.
“Thorax, move!”
Thorax took heed and in a blink of Sonido flashed away from the spot he’d been standing in just as the grenades detonated with bursts of silver shrapnel and blue fire, more Quincy alchemy at work.
“Yeeash, you two are a pair of tough nuts to crack,” said the Quincy, an elderly looking man in his late middle years with graying hair, wearing a white bomber jacket over a more normal Quincy uniform that, like many of the Quincy in this area of the battle, he wore a black mantle in sharp contrast to the white ones Quincy were known to wear.
“Wind Rider, Commander of the Strafbattalion,” the man said with a small nod, “Going to guess you two are in charge of this bunch.”
“More or less,” Thorax said, cracking his neck, “I’m more of a supervisor than an ‘in charge’ kind of guy.”
Pharynx spat, “Ignore the idiot. I’m the one leading this attack. And I don’t really care who you are. You’re just going to be another body in a few minutes.”
“Few minutes? Well glad you’re being generous...” Wind Rider’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he aimed his pistols at the brothers. The weapons were essentially his Quincy ‘bow’, forged into the shape of a pair of long barreled ‘Mauser’ patterned pistols. “I was thinking this’d be over in a few seconds.”
Finally, high above all the churning maelstrom of battle, Chrysalis stood watching it all with the look of someone enjoying a late night horror movie. It didn’t seem to matter to her whether it was seeing her own kind torn to shreds by Quincy arrows or cannon fire, or seeing the Quincy in turn being mauled and cut down by the rampaging Arrancar, Chrysalis just licked her lips and relished the spectacle taking place below her.
Yet she hadn’t gone down to participate herself, remaining standing some several hundred feet up, just watching.
After a moment she closed her eyes with a small laugh.
“You’re a polite pair. I have my back turned, but you haven’t attacked yet.”
Her words were spoken to the pair of women standing a few dozen paces behind her, who had just appeared there a second ago. Sapphire Shores and Coloratura both appeared as relaxed as Chrysalis, although the air between the three was starting to shimmer with the build up of reiatsu pouring from Espada and Sternritter alike.
“We’re not rude dance partners,” Sapphire Shores said, offering a gracious bow, “It’d be the height of unsightly barbarism to strike at your back.”
“Besides, such tactics are hardly necessary,” added Coloratura with a self-assured smile, “His Majesty selected us for the honor of dealing with you because we’ve no need for underhanded methods.”
“Nor is there any rush,” commented Sapphire, making a casual gesture at the battlefield below, “We’ve time yet to see how our comrades perform on this grand stage, before beginning our own part in the show. One wouldn’t want to miss what’s coming next, after all.”
Chrysalis turned to face the pair, licking her lips as she did so, “Oh I know all about what your boy-King has up his sleeve. I’m not interested in that. I’m sure my fellow Espada will have fun with it, though.”
This caused Sapphire Shores and Coloratura to exchange a brief glance with one another.
“Is that so? How do you know that, Chrysalis?” asked Coloratura.
One slim, dark finger raised and waggled as Chrysalis smirked, “Tut tut tut, I’m not in a questions answering mood, I’m afraid. The two of you seem a poor substitute for the last pair of women I fought, but I suppose it's unfair to expect anyone to compare to those sisters. Still, I imagine you’ll entertain me for a time.”
“We’ll endeavor not to bore you,” Sapphire Shores said dryly, and waved her hand through the air before her. As if forming from drops of liquid silver, a bow took shape that was not so much solid as it was a shining crescent of mercury metal that sparkled with a thousand light fragments.
Coloratura held out her own hand and before her a semi-circle of light appeared that formed into the shape of a curved set of luminous floating piano keys.
A quiet rasp of metal signaled Chrysalis drawing her Zanpaktou, eyeing the two Sternritter’s ‘bows’ with a curious eye and cocked eyebrow, “Sparkly liquid metal and a ghost piano? I swear you Quincy just need to learn to stick to simple swords like the rest of us.”
“Your mocking words are merely the beginning chords of the symphony we shall be playing, Chrysalis. Do try to keep up with the beat,” Coloratura said with a feverish light appearing in her eyes as her fingers began a sensuous ballet of motion across her keyboard.
A haunting melody filled the air, deep resonate notes that sounded like a mix between a funeral dirge and a slow techno beat. The air wavered and began to be filled with warped bands of light shifting across numerous dark color spectrums, Coloratura's playing accompanied by the formation of what could only be described as sharp bands of pyrotechnic light that Chrysalis could sense were not just for show, but filled with deadly reishi.
Sapphire Shores’ own bow moved like a living river, the liquid metal shifting from sparks of pulsing gold to bleeding red as power built within it.
Despite there being no way for Chrysalis to know what manner of attacks this pair could unleash upon her, there wasn’t a look of fear or unease on her face, only delighted eagerness as she raised her Zanpaktou and stepped forward.
----------
Las Noches Exterior - Lakeshore - Three minutes ago
Calculations flew through Twilight’s mind. She blinked to Gilda’s right, sending an arc of arrows flying both straight at Gilda and arcing above in perfectly planned trajectories. Not to actually strike the Arrancar, but to create the response that Twilight wanted.
She’d already realized two things about her opponent. One, Gilda was stronger than her. And two, Gilda was dumber than her. Twilight’s only avenue to victory lay in exploiting the latter while doing everything she could to prevent the former from being used against her.
The initial barrage of arrows swept in, and as Twilight expected Gilda used Sonido to flash away from them.
She’ll move at a 67 degree upward angle to avoid the higher trajectory arrows, aggressive mindset will mean a 90% chance of attacking me from the front after utilizing Sonido to reach my exposed right side, which means I fire an arrow...NOW!
Twilight moved and fired without thinking, aiming to her right. Her arrow was already in flight as Gilda appeared there with another Sonido, blade poised to strike just as Twilight had calculated. However Twilight hadn’t counted on just how fast Gilda’s real reaction speeds were, because even being caught off guard by the arrow barely an inch from her face, Gilda bent her body backwards and essentially limboed below the shot, slid on her knees with the forward momentum she still had, and changed her strike to aim a slice for Twilight’s legs.
With little more than a split second to react herself, Twilight boosted herself up with Hirenkyaku, bending in mid-air to fling out a ginto tube down at Gilda. She gathered reishi in her right hand in a stream of blue light then cast it out at the ginto tube a second before it reached Gilda.
”Gritz!” (Five Pronged Restraint)
Twilight’s invocation was followed by the liquid in the ginto tube reacting with her specifically charged reishi to create an immediate encapsulating prison of steel with the arms of the Quincy cross around Gilda, like an instantly summoned coffin.
Landing behind the coffin, Twilight turned to fire an arrow towards it, but before she had a chance to get the arrow off, the binding prison glowed at one point with melting crimson light, and a Cero beam fired out of it, nearly catching Twilight head on if she hadn’t thrown herself to the side at the last second.
“Urgh, I hate tricks like this,” Gilda bellowed, smashing her way out of the reishi binding, “Just for that you’re getting a double dose of face pounding!”
This time even Twilight couldn’t calculate fast enough to predict Gilda’s movement, although she still tried. A punishing hammer kick rocked Twilight backwards, sending her skidding across the sands towards the lakeshore, and would’ve ruptured organs if she hadn’t instinctively used Blut Vene to blunt the blow.
She coughed, forcing herself to flip to her feet, firing blindly with only her calculated predictions of Gilda’s follow up attack to guide her bow. This time she was more fortunate, catching Gilda as the Arrancar rushed her, this time Twilight’s arrows striking in several pale explosions of witchfire. Not that this stopped the juggernaut of an Arrancar as Gilda charged through the hits, taking a few light wounds, but still reaching Twilight with her sword raised high to strike.
Only a glowing disc of reishi and a charged up reishi arrow caught her, both from the back and the front, while a barrage of lighter reishi darts peppered her from the left. The attacks didn’t do much damage through Gilda’s thick Heirro, but the attacks did distract her for a second, giving Twilight a second to burst away at high speed.
“Didn’t ferget us did ya now!?” shouted Buzzsaw McColt, bleeding profusely for her deep wound in her side, but sitting up and firing with her disc flinging weapon.
“Even a weak McColt won’t drop so easy,” shouted Cotton Barrel, crawling out of the lake, dragging a coughing and sputtering Hacksaw behind her as she aimed her own bow.
“More to the point, you’re not fighting Twilight alone, you bloody neanderthal,” said Sunny Flare, advancing with both dart guns at the ready.
Twilight swallowed back a rise of fear, seeing a glimpse of the battle taking shape around her. Even while she tried to face Gilda, there were scenes of intense combat taking place all over the small dunes and beach area. The cadets were barely holding their own against the handful of Arrancar that had gotten past the Sternritter guarding them, and from what Twilight could see of the tornado swirling in the sky, filled with flashes of Cero beams, Fleur Des Lis was still locked in combat with the Espada.
She couldn’t see Sugarcoat, or any of the other girls besides Sunny Flare amid the chaos of the battle, and that frightened her more than the prospect of continuing to fight Gilda. But she had no choice, she had to defeat Gilda to have any chance of rallying the rest of her squad, so she adjusted her glasses and aimed her bow once more. She knew Sunny Flare’s reishi darts weren’t ideal for penetrating Gilda’s Heirro, and she didn’t want Buzzsaw to keep trying to fight while that injured, so she was quick to take charge.
“Cotton, try to patch up Buzzsaw! Sunny, keep your distance until you see an opening!”
“R-roger that!”
“Ya got it!”
Twilight exploded into motion, not intending to give Gilda a chance to pick her own targets. She needed Gilda’s attention focused on her. She sent a cluster of arrows towards the Arrancar, just as a means to force Gilda to look her way. It worked, as Gilda deflected the arrows with her Zanpaktou, then rushed to meet Twilight with so much speed she created a sonic blast of air as she went.
Twilight fired a pair of arrows in a spiraling pattern, each arrow adjusted with carefully calculated bursts of reishi to adjust their flight pattern erratically. They converged on Gilda, exploding in a combined blast of ghostly teal energy, but as usual Gilda powered through it, some of her flesh scorched but roaring in angry defiance as she slashed out with a powerful arc that created a shock-wave all on its own.
Twilight sidestepped the shock-wave, crossing her arms to try and absorb the blow, but still felt a laceration of pain across her arms and chest as the shock-wave alone cut at her, even past Blut Vene.
“Gah!” she cried out in pain, and the momentary distraction cost her further as Gilda rushed in with a thrust took her glasses off. She managed to dodge, but her cheek was cut and her glasses struck the sand. Gilda’s foot crushed them a second later.
“Hah, take that four eyes. I guess just two eyes now,” Gilda laughed, seemingly distracted. That was enough for Sunny Flare to take action.
With her own remarkably quick Hirenkyaku, Sunny dashed behind Gilda, dart guns aimed at the back of the Arrancar’s head, and fired at point blank range.
However Gilda in a blinding motion, ducked the darts, spun around within the same instant, and wrapped her free hand around Sunny Flare’s throat, lifting her off the ground.
“You know, prissy looking chicks like you really piss me off,” Gilda said, choking Sunny Flare with an iron grip, “I mean look at your freakin’ hair! I bet you spend more time on that shit than you do on training to fight.”
“Put her down!” Twilight shouted, and her mind echoed with Midnight’s otherworldly voice.
Let me out some more, you need more magic!
Twilight grit her teeth, trying to ignore the voice as she fired an arrow at Gilda’s feet, exploding a massive cloud of sand around the Arrancar and Sunny. She didn’t want to use any more magic than she had to! But still, Midnight wasn’t wrong. She needed more power against Gilda.
Okay, just a bit more, she thought, and she felt Midnight’s pleasure as a flare of greater magic worked its way from her core and into the warm metal of the Hexenfaust. The glove flared with an ever brighter aura of magic which seeped through her bow, making the amethyst gems glow bright violet.
Her next arrows flickered with even more phantom-like witchfire, and seemingly on their own they transmuted into what looked like the claws of a raven. Some of these claws stabbed in at Gilda, causing the Arrancar to grunt in pain as the ghostly limbs impacted her with both explosive force and lacerating energies. Another such claw grasped Sunny Flare and yanked Gilda’s hand off her.
Sunny cried out in pain, because the witchfire burned her too, but the claw deposited her safely away from Gilda before dissipating.
Gilda, snarling in frustration, batting away the flames still licking at her and glared at Twilight, “Alright! Getting tired of the weird light show from you, dweeb! I’m ending this crap right here and now.”
She started to reach her free hand to grasp the blade of her Zanpaktou, which then glowed with an intense purple radiance, but then a voice shouted from nearby.
“Twilight! Get down!”
Someone tackled her from the side as a Quincy arrow that had been aimed at Twilight’s head flashed by. She looked to see it was Indigo Zap who’d rushed in, yanking both of them to the ground just in time for Twilight to avoid having a fresh hole through her skull.
“W-what?” Twilight blinked in shock, but immediately concluded what had happened and looked in the direction the arrow had come from.
She just barely saw a flickering white clad form, a Quincy soldat, readjust their aim and send another reishi arrow towards her. She shoved Indigo out of the way of harm and raised her own bow, firing just in time to intercept the arrow coming for her.
The moment the assassin’s second arrow failed, the mask wearing soldat stiffened and turned, fleeing into the confusion of battle.
Remembering the reishi tracer that Cadence had taught her, Twilight realized she might only have this one shot at finding out the assassin’s identity. But Gilda was right there!
Before she could consider her options, there was a lull in the fighting as almost every Quincy and Hollow present felt a shift in the air. A massive upsurge in gathering reiatsu.
“The hell is that-” Gilda started to ask...
Then the sky exploded in light.
----------
Across the vast black horizon of Hueco Mundo, spears of light shattered the dark. One after another eleven pillars of untarnished white radiance shot high into the unnatural black sky of the realm of Hollows. Each pillar rose hundreds of meters and ended in a blazing halo that was then interposed by the symbol of a five pointed cross.
A gust of sighting air washed over the deserts for miles from the distant air pressure of such a massive and concentrated burst of multiple spirit energies. The pillars’ light was so illuminating that it touched upon the white dunes for dozens of miles away, turning the white sands silver.
Such light had never been seen in Hueco Mundo before, and as the pillars of light faded it was as if they were signaling the coming of an angelic host.
----------
Torch used his axe to shield his eyes from the blinding light in front of him. Where the Sternritter had been standing were now massive pillars of pure white light that pierced the sky.
The moment those pillars started to dissipate, Torch could sense the change in the air. A deadly charge of energy, like the quiet moment before an avalanche hits.
Wings of radiant light unfurled, each of the Sternritter he and Lament faced now transformed as they stepped from their vanishing pillars. Not a one looked alike, but all bore similar traits, most notably the wings and halos of blinding blue and white incandescent. Torch didn’t get a good look at the three facing Lament, only felt the massive surge of spiritual pressures and the explosion of force as they attacked.
But he sure got a good look at Shining Armor, who was now more than living up to that name.
Silver plate mail clad Shining Armor’s form, from long gleaming greaves all the way up to a full Roman-style helmet with nose guard. The armor was well fitted and left no obvious gaps, as if in places the metal molded to Shining Armor’s skin. Five wings of light shaped like vast, elongated heater-style shields spread from floating points around his back and shoulders, evenly spaced. The shield on his bow had also grown longer, taking on an appearance more akin to a lance now. A circular halo floated a few inches above the crown of his helmet, with five smaller circles forming the pattern of the Quincy cross within it.
Torch could feel the power cloaking Shining Armor now, and couldn’t help but grin and heft his axe, “Now that’s more like it! Let’s see what you can do now, kid!”
With a full speed Sonido he burst towards Shining Armor, not wasting a second on subtly as he brought his axe down with enough force to nearly break the sound barrier.
Two of Shining Armor’s shield-shaped wings bent around and blocked the axe, stopping it dead in its tracks. Shining Armor didn’t move so much as an inch. He just looked at Torch with silver fury pouring from his eyes, and aimed his bow. An ‘arrow’ that was more like a ten meter long pillar of solid barrier energy slammed into Torch’s gut hard enough to send half a dozen shock-waves rippling through the air as the Fifth Espada was launched backwards with such speed that he impacted with Las Noche’s walls merely a second later, hitting hard enough to create an impact crater near ten times the size of his body.
And across the battlefield, the tide of combat shifted once more...
----------
Adagio tried to blink away her blindness, not even certain of what had just happened.
One second she, Ember, and Garble had been about to incinerate Prim Hemline with a combined trio of Ceros while the Sternritter was still trapped in Adagio’s sphere of water, the next... light, blinding, searing light.
She found herself on her back, her ears ringing. She must have been blasted back by the massive surge of reiatsu she sensed. Even as she blinked her eyes, rising to her feet, Adagio could make out the rough shape of the desert around her, and see that Garble and Ember had been knocked back too, both of them also stumbling to their feet. But everything was bathed in insanely bright, pale light, and Adagio shaded her face with one clawed hand as she looked towards the source.
Where Prim Hemline had been trapped was now a massive pillar of light that shot into the sky, and Adagio could sense nothing but overwhelming spiritual pressure from it. Not just that pillar, but many more that were shooting into the sky across the battlefield. Four to the southeast, at least half a dozen trailing behind her to the west.
The Quincy fortress that had sprung up out of nowhere had a pillar rising right from its center, and Adagio could see the walls of those fortifications glowing with the pillar’s same radiance, then turning from simple white stone to a burning gold, as what looked like four massive wings formed from interlocking square cubes spread out from the fortress top.
What in the name of the Abyss is that? Adagio wondered, then looked towards the pillar of light right next to her, noting the Quincy style five pointed cross at its apex, hundreds of feet up.
Slowly the pillar and its many cousins dissipated, making Hueco Mundo seem positively dismal but comparison to that insane light, but what was revealed within the vanishing pillar was far more unsettling than the pillar itself.
“What’s wrong my Arrancar friends? Is the sight of my Holy Form, my Vollstandig, truly that unnerving?” Prim Hemline asked, stepping forth from the vanishing pillar of light that had surrounded her.
Solid azure light coalesced into the solid form of three smoothly curved, angelic wings that spread from Prim’s right shoulder, spanning over twenty feet long. Her uniform had changed, gaining bands of blue light that crossed her body like wrappings of cloth. Large silver needles pierced her limbs, yet certainly seemed to cause no discomfort, as if the sharp pieces of metal were grafted into her as a natural part of this new form. A particularly large needle, more a twisted spike of silver, extended from her left shoulder, and from it extended a golden thread that tied itself into the string of her bow, which remained largely the same except for an increased size and the presence of more silver needles embedded along its spurs. Above her head hung a circular halo of light, with five spikes extending downward from it in the same rough arrangement of a Quincy cross.
“Vollstanwhat?” Ember blurted, “Why do you suddenly look like a holy pincushion with wings?”
Prim smiled in such a way that made Adagio feel cold all the way to the core of her gem.
“Let me answer that with actions, child.”
A single sweep of her wings moved Prim like a bolt of light, a single backhand blow cracking across Ember’s unsuspecting chin and catapulting her into the ground with such force that her body blasted a massive furrow through the sand for the length of a city block. This, before either Adagio or Garble could have so much as twitched a muscle to react.
Adagio gathered her wits quickly, leaping back to put distance between herself and Prim, raising a towering wall of water in front of herself to be both a shield and to obscure her from view. She hoped if she could buy just a few seconds she might rush to grab Ember from where she lay prone, and just make a run for it. She could already tell from the way Prim had moved, and the chilling and thick reiatsu pouring off the Sternritter, that there was no longer any way to overpower her. They’d lost their chance to win this fight, so Adagio’s only goal now was to get herself and Ember out of there. Garble could fend for himself.
However all of her thoughts of flight were halted immediately by the way Prim Hemline gestured with her wings and Adagio’s barrier of water simply fell apart. This wasn’t the power of the Zero, but rather just raw spiritual pressure canceling out Adagio’s. In desperation Adagio growled, leveling her trident in front of her. She didn’t have time to think of any kind of plan, and she poured all of her anger and frustration into pulling up as much of her Hollow power as she could. Her siren gem flashed brightly, arcing with forks of ruby energy as a trio of scarlet Cero orbs formed, one at each tip of her trident.
The triple Cero she fired was stronger than any other she’d tried before, and she didn’t particularly care if Garble was partially in the way of the massive wave of destruction formed by the three nearly combined beams.
Like a living shield of light Prim Hemline’s three wings curled around her, cocoon-like. Adagio’s triple Cero broke upon the shield in a thunderous torrent, melting sand to glass and burrowing a crater across the desert for nearly a mile distant. However when the energy finally slacked off, Prim remained standing, her wings unfurling, smoking slightly, but leaving the Sternritter all but unscathed.
“I’ll commend you for this much, Adagio Dazzle, for the first Hollow to act as a bench test for my Vollstandig, I do feel like I’m getting a decent breaking in of this Holy Form,” Prim said as she flexed her wings like a boxer taking a few test punches, stretching their limbs, “I wasn’t certain how well this transformation would live up to His Majesty’s expectations, but I certainly have no complaints so far. The boost to speed, power, and defense are superb. Let’s see how well it’s upgraded my Schrift, shall we?”
She raised her bow, and Adagio saw the sands around Prim start to break down as the base spirit particles turned from sand into motes of blue light that streamed into the large needle on Prim’s left shoulder, which then absorbed into the gold string that ran to her bow.
Garble had managed to avoid the edge of Adagio’s Ceros a moment ago, and Adagio saw him release his Resurreccion form. His draconic transformation vanished like melting wax as he adopted his normal appearance once more, his Zanpaktou taking shape from the waxy white substance that melted off from his previous form.
What was he doing? What point was there in letting go of his empowered state? Not that the Resurreccion was strong enough to help against this strange new Quincy transformation, but some power boost was better than none. Adagio saw him sheath his Zanpaktou and reach into his pocket, hiding something in the palm of his hand, but she couldn’t see what it was.
Meanwhile Prim’s bow flared with a golden aura, and in an instant a stream of needle-like gold arrows flashed out. They didn’t fly towards Adagio or Garble, but rather spread into a wide circle around all of them, even Ember who was only just now barely pushing herself upright. Adagio tensed to try dodging whatever attack might be coming, but the second the needle shaped arrows formed their circle she found herself rooted in place. Any attempt to twitch her muscles one way or the other resulted only in her staying still as a statue. It was hard to even breathe, her lungs barely able to draw any air in.
“Hm, it seems my control over kinetic forces improves considerably. Still not enough to stop you from breathing or cause your heart to stop beating, but I can finely tune how much or how little kinetic energy you can exert,” Prim said, almost to herself as she walked between Adagio and Garble, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “I wonder if I can change the parameters for each body part? Let’s see...”
With a gesture from Prim, Adagio found she could move her mouth and breathe easier. She wasn’t sure if she could speak, but a moment later she heard Ember shouting.
“Grrr, that was a cheap shot! Try that again without this, ugh, damn cowardly trick!”
“While I would normally have no problem being the courteous opponent and finishing things the ‘fair’ way, as you wish, I’m afraid that I’ve been given orders to end this quickly,” Prim Hemline said as she turned towards Adagio, ignoring Ember as she walked towards the Vasto Lorde, “And sadly that means our time together has come to an end. I apologize for having to end you in such an anticlimactic fashion, but I do promise I’ll try to make it relatively painless.”
Adagio could move her mouth, but not turn her head, otherwise she might have tried firing a Cero at Prim the second the woman got in range, but Prim was being careful not to go directly in front of Adagio, coming at her from an angle where Adagio wouldn’t be able to target her.
But Adagio wasn’t without options, now that she knew that Prim’s little experiment with testing out what she could do with the Zero allowed her to use her voice.
But my song probably won’t affect her fast enough. Dammit, what other choice do I have? I just need to buy time.
If her song could even give Prim Hemline pause for a moment, it might purchase Adagio the time she needed to try summoning more water to try and trap Prim again. She didn’t have to move to create the water, but Prim’s reaction times had clearly increased with this ‘Vollstandig’, so Adagio knew she’d need the element of surprise-
“I imagine you’re considering how to trap me in water again,” Prim Hemline said, causing Adagio grit her teeth in further frustration, “You’re welcome to try, but I don’t intend to give you the time. A shame. I find you a curious one, Adagio Dazzle. That gem you possess is unusual for a Hollow. I wonder what would happen if it was torn out of you?”
Prim drew back on her bow, forming a large, thin arrow that she aimed straight for Adagio’s head. Knowing it was now or never Adagio opened her mouth to sing, hoping against hope that she could give Prim enough pause to gather water for a high pressure jet stream that might manage to penetrate the woman’s defenses, but before she could somebody else spoke.
“Oh, sure, a talentless moron like you would go for her first,” crowed Garble with a voice heavy with a mocking drone, “Start with the weak ones first. Pfah, go for it, I’ve been wanting to see that bitch bite it since I first saw her. Why don’t you get a little closer to her, make sure you don’t miss, since you can’t aim for crap!”
There was a slight twitch in one of Prim’s eyes as she glanced back towards him, “If you prefer to die before them, I can oblige.”
Garble’s voice turned up the mocking whine to ear grating levels, “Oh would you? Pretty please? Sure you can hit me from over there, Primmy? I’d paint a target on my chest to help you out, but you’re such a pathetic wimp you got to freeze us in place to have a chance of hitting us.”
Adagio couldn’t parse out what he was trying to accomplish, rather than be the first one to die. Then she noticed something odd. Just like her and Ember he’d been paralyzed by Prim’s power, but apparently before that circle of arrows had formed around them he’d brought his hand up to his chest, hovering right above his Hollow hole. Why? It must have had something to do with that object she’d seen him take out of his pocket, but what could he be holding that’d be of any use here?
And why taunt Prim Hemline into focusing her attention on him?
She didn’t like Garble in even the remotest sense of the term. She hardly respected him either. But if one was to twist her arm she might have admitted that Garble had demonstrated moderately more intellect than she’d have given him credit for upon first meeting him. He was a loudmouth braggart and overtly violent jerk, but he had a low cunning that she couldn’t deny. One of the reasons she hadn’t outright killed him when she had the chance back at Thorax’s party was because she figured he wasn’t entirely useless.
So she imagined he had a plan, and she kept a close eye on Garble as Prim Hemline turned towards him, clearly trying to look cool and collected while keeping her anger at Garble’s barbs under control.
“Do you know what it feels like to have several hundred needle thin objects boring through your skin at the same time? Because I can arrange that,” Prim said, stepping closer to Garble. Her back wasn’t turned to Adagio, and Prim’s stance was guarded, but Adagio prepared herself all the same. It didn’t matter if the distraction was coming from her song or Garble, if she could get an opening to use her water powers, she’d take it.
Meanwhile Garble was laughing at Prim’s threats, carrying of current of hysteria in it that left even Adagio wondering if he was being genuine or acting, “Come over here and do it then you hatchet faced, namby-pamby little knob-headed priss! I’ve passed gas that was scarier than you!”
“Garble what in bloody hell are you doing!?” shouted Ember, clearly struggling to move from the look in her eyes, but she wasn’t having any more luck than Adagio or Garble were. “She’s gonna kill you!”
“Good! Means I don’t have to keep looking at her ugly potato face for another second!”
Prim had taken another step closer to Garble, close enough to reach out and close his mouth with a simple gesture, silencing him immediately as she took away what ability she’d granted for them to move their mouths.
“Blessed silence,” Prim said, letting out her anger in a long sigh as she walked behind Garble, “If distracting me with anger was the goal, you near succeeded. You have a talent for being infuriating.”
She drew back on her bow, aiming a bolt for Garble’s back. Adagio saw her chance, with Prim’s eyes focused on Garble. With all the speed she could manage she summoned a concentrated, condensed sphere of water, then shot it out in a highly pressurized jet, aiming for Prim Hemline’s head. Even if the blow didn’t kill the Sternritter, it might knock her out long enough to escape.
Adagio nearly screamed in frustration as Prim simply stepped back, avoiding the jet of water. Adagio twisted the jet, trying to take Prim’s head off at the neck, but the Sternritter ducked under the blow, and with a snort she sent a golden arrow back at Adagio. The arrow embedded itself into Adagio’s right arm, boring into it and causing a hot boil of pain to rip through her. Concentration thus broken, Adagio lost focus on her water.
Determined not to give up, Adagio forced herself to ignore the pain and opened her mouth, starting to sing an entrancing melody, but Prim merely cut her off with another gesture, freezing Adagio’s mouth in place.
“Seriously, A-marks for effort. I sincerely wish more Quincy had that level of never-say-die attitude you have, child. No, I suppose child isn’t appropriate for you. Adagio. I may be about to kill you, but I can give you that much respect, I think,” Prim said, then turned to Garble and fired an arrow straight through his back.
“Him on the other hand, not so much.”
“Garble!” Ember shouted in a furious wail.
The hole Prim had blown through Garble’s chest wasn’t large, but the arrow had still torn a decent sized gap right above where his Hollow hole was. Though his body was frozen in place, the shock and pain in Garble’s eyes was plain enough to see. But so too was a strange glint of satisfaction. Because Prim was standing behind him, she couldn't see his face, but Adagio could. She could see him looking back at her. Adagio was good at reading people, and while neither of them could speak, a single look could speak volumes on its own.
Garble had known they were dead, and had intentionally provoked Prim into killing him first, because he had a trump card she wasn’t aware of.
As a Hollow dies, its form tends to dissipate to ash. The same is generally true of Arrancar, minus the occasional exception. This vanishing also tends to occur from the extremities inward, so the outer limbs are the first to go.
Including hands.
As Garble’s hand turned to ash, a black cube that he’d been holding there now fell free, and landed right inside his Hollow hole.
Instantly the black cube flared with purple energy, and like a flash of lightning a series of energy bands sprang forth, blinding white on the outside, violet rimmed blackness on the inside. They seemed to scrub the air around Garble, and subsequently Prim Hemline, erasing the space they stood in like a massive hand brush painting over reality.
Prim had all of a second to shout, “What!?” before the space around her and Garble was completely enshrouded by this reality warping energy, and as fast as it had begun it was over... and both Prim Hemline and Garble were gone.
Adagio found she could move and breathe normally the moment Prim Hemline was gone, as the circle of golden arrows the Sternritter had created seemed to lose power and vanish into motes of gold light. As Adagio caught her breath, Ember scrambled over to where Prim and Garble had just been, a look of pale shock on her face.
“Garble, you freakin’ idiot, what the hell did you do that for?”
Blinking in her own state of befuddlement, Adagio asked, “Just what exactly did he do? What was that cube?”
Ember, teeth grinding, and stamping her foot with a torn growl of mixed anger and grief, looked over at Adagio, “It’s something Lord Tirek gave the Espada to punish subordinates with. Caja Negaccion. Makes a prison out of a sub-dimension. Kinda like Garganta, only not. Damn Garble must’ve...” Ember rubbed at her eyes and seemed to try to growl her emotions away, “Grrr, he must’ve stolen the one my dad has. Had. Dad never used the thing, just kept it in some junk pile because he never gave a crap.”
Adagio frowned, thinking, “He couldn’t have known it’d be useful against a Sternritter. And does it only work on Hollows?”
“I guess? You got to toss it inside a Hollow’s hole to make it activate.”
"Is it going to trap her permanently?" asked Adagio.
"I don't know," Ember replied, "I always heard that someone as strong as an Espada could escape the prison in a few hours, but weaker Hollows would be stuck in there pretty much forever."
Understanding blossomed in Adagio’s mind, and her begrudging respect for Garble went up a notch, “Wily little bastard. He was planning to use it on me. He baited in that Quincy instead, played her like a fiddle.”
Ember took several shuddering breaths, shoulder’s tense, arms hung at her side. Her blade tip rested on the ground, sagging.
“Yeah, I... I guess he did.”
Adagio went up to Ember, hesitating a moment as she raised her hand, but then put it on her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”
Several nearby explosions forestalled further talk, and both Ember and Adagio saw that the Quincy fortifications, in their changed, golden state, were also gaining new weapons. More advanced cannons, and even various missile pods were now emerging, built up in lines of golden light from the upgraded fortress, and were firing out fresh salvos across the battlefield. More than a few such explosions were rocking the area not far from where Ember and Adagio were.
“I’ll mourn him later,” Ember said, her sadness giving way to fresh energy and anger as her red eyes flashed and she took up her Zanpaktou again, “Right now we’ve still got a job to do, don’t we?”
Adagio managed a small smile at her friend, and nodded, “That we do.”
She glanced towards the lake to the south east, where now she could see that the battle there had gotten even more intense, with the distant sight of more gleaming Quincy wings in the sky, as the Sternritter there had clearly also activated these ‘Vollstandig’ transformation.
“And it looks like it just got a whole lot harder.”