//------------------------------//
// Episode 81: Cost of Victory 
// Story: Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls 
// by thatguyvex 
//------------------------------//


Episode 81: Cost of Victory 


Canterlot City, many years ago...

“So, do you plan on telling me anytime soon what it is you’re doing when you stay out until the small hours of the morning, or is this one of those weird boyfriend things I’m not allowed to ask about?” Night Light said as he and Twilight Velvet exited one of Crystal Prep Academy’s side entrances to briskly enter one of several parking lots situated around the expansive school compound’s edges. 

Velvet cast a quick, furtive glance at the face of the young man walking beside her. Night Light had that irritatingly persistent look in his eyes, but diffused it with a charming smile and raise of his eyebrow that was cute enough to let her forgive the fact that he kept asking this question. “A girl has to have some secrets kept to herself, otherwise where’s the mystery?”

“That sounds like something Sapphire Shores might say, and I don’t buy it coming from her either,” Night Light replied with a crisp half chuckle, but raised his hands quickly in mock surrender, “Buuuut I’m smart enough not to push it with you, Velvet. Whatever misadventures you’re getting up to with those girls in town, just don’t forget to take care of yourself. Graduation is coming soon, and with it, a lot of changes.”

Velvet saw him reach for her hand, and didn’t resist as he took it with a shockingly gentle and loving squeeze. They’d been dating for most of the year, but in many ways that was almost a formality as far as their families were concerned. The marriage had been decided already, but perhaps in an all too rare stroke of luck she’d already had eyes for Night Light, and he for her, before all of that had been arranged. It’d made the past year with him a pleasure rather than a prison, although she hadn’t told him about her activities with a certain group of other young women. 

With graduation around the corner, his and her other schooling would only intensify. She’d likely have to leave Canterlot City, and her friends, behind for a much heavier and constraining set of duties. 

She squeezed his hand back, “I’m always careful. And as for those girls, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention them to anyone among our peers.”

His knowing smirk was equal parts endearing, and slappable. 

“What makes you think others don’t already know? Velvet, its not as if people higher on the ladder than us wouldn’t notice that the local Hollow population takes a steady dip around here whenever you go out with those five. They might not know the details, but people can make educated guesses. Personally I don’t mind not knowing, as long as you stay safe, but eventually someone higher up than us is going to start asking questions, Velvet.”

“Tch... okay, fair enough, but my parents clearly don’t know yet, otherwise they’d have stopped me by now. So let’s keep it that way for as long as we can.”

“Mums the word,” Night Light said, making a ‘zipping my lips’ gesture as he turned to head for his car, a sporty, dark blue convertible he hopped into with ease, “Dinner tomorrow, pick you up at seven?”

“Sounds lovely,” she said, and went to her own vehicle, a sleek street motorcycle. She didn’t bother with a helmet, enjoying the thrill of wind in her hair as she peeled off onto the streets. She was going to the Apple family farm just outside of town. It was the usual meeting place for her and the girls to relax and hang out before going on patrol for the night.

Things had been quiet lately. Fewer Hollows. Fewer jobs from that shady Discord fellow. The last one to the UK had left her trusting the man less and less. Xcution was at their best fighting Hollows, not tracking down remote members of Soul Society’s other mistakes, like that poor rogue Mod Soul. It was distrustful acts like that which made Velvet wonder if it was possible to make peace with the Soul Reapers in the first place. She wanted to still believe it was possible, but the way Discord used her friends in Xcution-

She’d been so distracted by her inner grumblings that she almost didn’t see the Hollow until she zoomed past it, but the moment she realized what it was she turned her motorcycle into a hard skidding turn. She took in the scene as fast as she was summoning reishi to form her spirit bow into her hands, a plain, simple crescent of blue energy springing around the silver cross around her wrist. 

There was a moment’s hesitation before she fired as she saw the Hollow crouched over the form of a young man, lying beside his wrecked old car. It looked as if the Hollow had attacked the car and knocked it off the side of the road. The door was open, so the young man must have run out before the Hollow had pounced on him. That was unusual behavior for a Hollow, to attack a live human in broad daylight. 

Stranger still was the Hollow itself. Velvet had never seen anything like it. 

Its body was completely black, as if carved from obsidian glass, with a Hollow hole planted squarely in its chest. It was taller than a human, but still had a roughly humanoid shape, with two blade-like arms and long, spindly legs. Most notable was its small, near human shaped skull mask, from which two sharp angled, forward pointed horns extended. For a heart freezing moment of terror she thought it might have been a Vasto Lorde, simply judging from its small size and humanoid appearance, but she calmed herself as she realized its reiatsu wasn’t anywhere near that powerful. Strong, yes, but not to the point where she didn’t think she could take it down. 

Even as her bike skidded backwards she kept it under control and fired a pair of reishi arrows that were perfectly on point. However the Hollow must have sensed them coming, because it managed to leap over them with savage grace. Not to be daunted, Velvet stood up on her motorcycle and jumped off, firing arrows as she went. Her Crystal Prep uniform was quite well suited to athletic motions and didn’t restrict her in the slightest, very much so by intention of its design. 

She landed lightly on her feet and was moving at a dead run, pumping reishi into her legs with the Blut Vene technique to keep her bones from breaking or her muscles from tearing from either the impact or her sudden burst of speed. 

To her annoyance the Hollow was proving incredibly adept at avoiding her arrows, and it turned into a black streak as it charged towards her in a haphazard zipping motion from side to side. Its first strike with one of its bladed arms came close to taking her head off, but Velvet dove into a slide under the blow as she fired an arrow at point blank range, hitting the Hollow’s body and forcing it back several paces. 

As the Hollow howled in pain, Velvet rushed to the side of the fallen young man. He was wearing a fairly simple outfit of jeans, boots, and a plain shirt under a brown leather jacket. Velvet was a bit taken by his long red hair and strong features, but shoving all that aside she checked him for wounds. He was bruised up and only half-conscious, and he’d taken a deep wound on his right shoulder that looked like... tooth marks? Had the Hollow bitten him? Either way, blood was soaking into his clothes and he’d likely need medical attention. 

Stark green eyes flickered open as he looked up at her, “Wha...? What’s goin’ on?” His voice carried a faint country twang to it. 

“Stay down,” she said firmly, “You’ve been in an accident. Help’s on its way.”

All technically true. A Hollow attack in the middle of the day certainly counted as an ‘accident’, and Velvet wasn’t disguising her spiritual pressure at all either. Which meant this close to Sweet Apple Acres, Velvet’s reiatsu ought to be easy to feel. Which meant help was on the way.

The Hollow, having recovered from the wound Velvet dealt it, turned to her and howled again, blurring towards her once more. Velvet aimed her bow to start firing, but it wasn’t necessary. Help wasn’t on the way. It was already here.

“Hyyyyyaaaaa!” 

With all the subtly of a mountain of bricks, but also with a similar level of effective impact, a red skinned girl with sunny blond hair poking out in waves from underneath a stetson hat came falling out of the sky with a giant sword of roughly carved rock in her hands. She slammed it down at the Hollow with force well beyond even her tall frame of toned muscle, and though the Hollow barely managed to dodge, the raw impact caused enough of a cratering shockwave that the Hollow was still knocked back into the road. 

Sweet Cider was wearing simple, faded jeans, work boots, and a checkered red and white flannel shirt, and heaved her massive rock sword, her Fullbring “Hearthstone”, over her shoulder as she grinned back at Velvet. “Yo Velvet, ya need a hand?” 

“Help would not go unappreciated,” she said, and turned her head down the road as she heard the loud roar of a motorcycle, this one deeper and much more guttural than her sleek street racer. This was the full throated rumble of a Harley, and Velvet saw the bolt of shadowy darkness curling around the motorcycle before she made out either the vehicle or its rider.

Or riders, in this case. 

“Clooouuuddyy! Slow doooown!” cried Soft Spoken, magenta hair flapping wildly as the plump, short yellow skinned girl clung for her life to the waist of Cloudy Quartz, who leaned forward as she drove her motorcycle straight for the Hollow while howling like a banshee with a madcap grin on her wild-eyed face.

Any casual glance would show the motorcycle wasn’t normal, but was wrapped in an unnatural, thick darkness, like someone had mixed tar and shadow into a living, writhing thing. Numerous sharp edged tentacles streamed out around the motorcycle, and as Cloudy Quartz howled a battle cry at the Hollow, those shadow tendrils sprung into action, spearing out ahead of the motorcycle in a razor storm. 

The Hollow responded with precision and speed, its blade arms deflecting dozens of strikes as the motorcycle charged right towards it. For a moment it looked like Cloudy intended to ram the Hollow, but the shadows clinging to the front of the motorcycle extended out and took the shape of a ramp. Soft Spoken let out a high pitched shriek as she was nearly launched from the motorcycle, only her tight death-grip on Cloudy keeping her stable as the vehicle went soaring over the Hollow’s head. Cloudy Quartz laughed the whole way, turning the Harley into a tight, sideways skid as it landed on the other side, bringing the motorcycle to a halt.

She stepped off, Soft Spoken still clinging to her. Cloudy was wearing what could only be described as vintage 80s punk leathers, complete with silver studs that matched her ear piercings. In contrast Soft Spoken was dressed in subdued whites and soft greens of plain, almost librarian dress style and blouse. 

“You can let go Soft,” Cloudy said, trying to pry the other girl off her.

“O-oh, sorry! Oh my, did you have to drive so fast?”

“Wouldn’t have made it in time if we didn’t. Hey, Hades Shadow, get over here! We’ve got a Hollow to slaughter!”

The shadows around her motorcycle quivered, and seeped into the concrete like oil, then slid over to join with Cloudy Quartz’s own shadow where it rose behind her in a faint, feminine and human shape. The shadow person wrapped parts of its tar-like being around Cloudy’s body, not quite a second skin, but more like a cloak, and multiple tendrils grew from it and transmuted into claws as a distorted mimic of Cloudy’s own voice spoke.

“Slaughter... fun...”

Cloudy grinned, “Yup, lots of fun!”

The Hollow seemed to agree, letting out a sharp howl as it moved in a burst of speed towards this new challenger. Its blade arms sung in the air as it swiped at Cloudy, only for Cloudy’s Fullbring, “Hades Shadow”, to intercept it with a half dozen shadow claws. 

Meanwhile Sweet Cider glanced at Velvet, pointing at the fallen man, “Keep that fella safe, we’ll deal with the Hollow.”

“That Hollow isn’t normal!” Velvet protested, “You’ll need me to help take it down.”

“She’s right!” 

This came from above as a figure shot overhead, clad in dark violet, metallic armor sporting multiple bladed wings that glowed with luminous purple energy. Firefly was carrying another girl in her arms, Cookie Crumbles, and quickly flew down to drop the girl off next to Velvet and the wounded young man. 

Looking like she’d just stepped out of a new age convent, Cookie Crumbles wore a tie-dyed shirt and large cargo shorts, and sported small sunglasses perched on her neon pink nose as she swiftly knelt down next to the man the Hollow had attacked and pulled out a deck of tarot cards from a noticeably generous cleavage. 

“Heya Velvet, I’ll, like, look after this dude,” said Cookie Crumbles in a calm tone that suggested she’d been busy with some recreational herbal enjoyment before being picked up by Firefly. “His chakra feels totally messed up, but I’ll heal him right up.”

The tarot deck glowed with soft green light in her hands, and two cards rose from it, seemingly on their own, the Star and the Hermit, which Cookie made a small gesture with her hands and sent the cards to covering over the man. The tarot cards started to emit a field of pale green radiance on the young man, and he immediately gasped, eyes still closed, but his breathing already easing. 

Firefly gave an approving smile, “Good, you keep an eye on him, Cookie, the rest of us, let’s get to it! We’ve got a Hollow to exterminate.”

Velvet and Sweet Cider both nodded agreement and the three charged off, Firefly taking to the air once more. Cloudy was fully engaged with the Hollow, and emitting a feral growl a she lost ground to it. Even with her Fullbring generating a deadly arrow of sharp shadow talons and blades to strike with, the Hollow’s speed was so fast that its two blade arms alone were enough to press Cloudy and Hades Shadow. 

Meanwhile Soft Spoken had grabbed a small, brown cloth pouch from her belt and pulled out a small handful of seeds. Tossing the speeds to the ground, she spoke in a voice gentle as cotton, “Please help me, Verdant Pack.”

Green light rose in powerful motes from where the seeds had been dropped, and then vines and thick roots burst out of the ground. They coiled up and grew, taking the shape of a small pack of three large wolves, all made up of thick vines and plant matter. Each wolf sported thick wooden claws that emitted eerie green light, and emerald flames made up their eyes.  

Shaking the air with ghostly howls, the wolves moved in on the Hollow with speed far beyond the prowess of their predatory basis, almost vanishing from view with how swiftly they pounced towards the Hollow’s back. The Hollow responded with calm calculation and accuracy, bending away from one wolf’s snapping jaws and all but flipping in place to try to avoid swipes from the other two. Even so one wolf’s claws cut a bloody line in one of the Hollow’s spindle-shaped legs even as the Hollow retaliated with its blade arms, cutting one of the wolves in half while using its other arm to keep Cloudy’s shadow talons at bay.

The severed wolf fell in two pieces, but even as it lay there, its vines started reaching for each other to knit the creature back together, although not so fast that it wouldn’t take it several minutes to do so.

Cloudy pressed in hard, trying to drive the Hollow back, but met only with a stalemate, at least until a deep lavender beam of energy cut in towards the Hollow and exploded against it, tearing off one of its arms.

“How’d you like that, asshole!?” Firefly shouted, flying overhead, the hexagon shaped cannon from her Fullbring still sparking in her hands, “How about a few of these to wash that down with?”

Missiles fired from ports along her armored legs, and the wounded Hollow danced away from them, flickering out of view with high speed motions as the missiles detonated around it, blowing holes in the thankfully still empty street.

However as the Hollow evaded the missiles, it was off balance and couldn’t evade Velvet as she snapped into place a dozen paces behind it and fired a barrage of arrows at its legs. The Hollow tried to twist out of the way but took several arrows to one leg that bend awkwardly as it landed, leaving it even further off kilter as Sweet Cider rushed in from the side.

“How ‘bout eatin’ this ya ugly scarecrow!” Sweet Cider yelled, thrusting Hearthstone forward. As she did so, small ports along the edge of the blade opened, and tiny but powerful jets of gold energy fired out. This spun the blade in place, turning it into effectively a giant drill as Sweet Cider rammed it into the Hollow’s stomach. The spinning drill blade tore apart the Hollow’s lower half, but even as this happened the Hollow pointed its horns at Sweet Cider. A sphere of crimson energy swirled into existence between the tips of those horns, a Cero that would have fired point blank into Sweet Cider’s surprised face if not for Velvet, using a high-speed Hirenkyaku, landed on the Hollow’s chest. The Quincy girl aimed her bow straight at the center of the Hollow’s mask and fired from less than an inch away.

The arrow pierced through the Hollow’s mask and skull, and drove it to the ground. Even as this happened, the sphere of Cero energy started to go wild, and Velvet threw herself as hard as she could into Sweet Cider, shoving them both away from the impending explosion.

Cloudy Quartz let out a sharp and filthy curse, swirling the darkness of Hades Shadow into a shield around her and Soft Spoken. Firefly, still high in the air, turned to try and dive to pull Sweet Cider and Velvet away from the self-destructing Hollow, but at the last second a small green glowing object flew across the street and appeared in front of th two.

The Tower card from Cookie Crumbles tarot deck, arriving from one hell of a threw from the girl still kneeling close to the wounded man. The card flashed, and grew a small stone bastion around Velvet and Sweet Cider just as the Hollow detonated in a fierce, crimson explosion.

As the smoke cleared, the stone wall was revealed to still be intact, if blackened and cracked, with both girls still safe on the other side. Collective sighs of relief were had all around, with Sweet Cider helping Velvet up with an offered hand.

“Hoowee... ya really know how ta find the good fights, don’t ‘cha Velvet?” said Sweet Cider with a friendly grin. Velvet, dusting herself off and letting out another heaving sigh, just shook her head at her friend.

“I could do with a little less of this in my life, honestly, but since that won’t happen anytime soon I suppose I’ll settle for having good friends I can rely on to help me out of a jam.”

“Think nothin’ of it, gal,” said Sweet Cider, tipping her stetson, then turned to look towards the Hollow’s intended victim, “Now just what’d we got here?”

“Good question,” Firefly said, landing lightly in the street. Without even a gesture the high-tech looking, winged armor covering her vanished in a wash of light, returning to the shape of a simple pair of aviator goggles she wore on her head, “Even better question is what are we going to tell the cops if any of them drive by?”

Cloudy Quartz snorted, letting the inky blackness of Hades Shadow return to her Harley, “Who cares about the cops? Just tell them it was a gas leak or some shit. They’re dumb enough to buy that.”

Soft Spoken went up to her wounded wolf as the other two gathered around her, giving it a gentle pat on the head, “There there, you did very well. Thank you all, you can rest now.”

The wolves vanished in motes of green light, and Soft Spoken secured her seed pouch back to her belt while giving a concerned look towards the crater where the Hollow had exploded. “W-what kind of Hollow was that? It didn’t look like any kind we’ve seen before.”

“Should I do a tarot reading to learn more?” asked Cookie Crumbled, and Firefly waved hand in a negative gesture.

“No offense, Cookie, but your Twist of Fate isn’t so hot at actual predictions. Last time we tried that we ended up lost for three days in Tokyo.”

Cookie’s face burned rose as she stroked her tarot deck self consciously, “That’s, like, kinda harsh Firefly. And we had fun that time anyway, so it's, like, we still found something of value even if it wasn’t what we were looking for, you know?”

“Uhhh... point still stands, Soft’s right, that Hollow was weird. Hey Velvet, you got any clue what it was?”

Velvet shook her head, “It's nothing the Quincy have run into specifically. At a guess I’d say it was a mutated Adjuchas-class. Its strength was around that level, but a bit higher.”

“Who cares what it was?” said Sweet Cider, approaching the fallen young man, “It’s dead, we ain’t, end o’ story. Now let’s git this fella some help. Cookie Crumbles might’ve healed him up some, but he’s still gonna need a hospital.”

“Um, about that,” Cookie said nervously, “I, like, felt something off in his chakras while I was healing him. I, uh, think the Hollow infected him somehow.”

“Say what now!?” Cloudy exclaimed as the girls gathered around the young man, “Infected him with what? And do we got to back away before that shit from Alien happens?”

“I got no idea,” Cookie admitted, licking her lips, “I just felt it inside him.”

At that point the young man let out a groan, turning his head, his eyes fluttering open and closed as he began to awaken. Firefly gave all the girls a sharp look, nodding to the remaining Fullbrings and Velvet’s spirit bow. Soon enough all metaphysical weapons were swiftly unsummoned. The man groaned again, not fully awake yet, but moving his arms now.

“What do we do?” asked Soft Spoken, “If he’s infected with something dangerous, he can’t go to a hospital, can he?”

Sweet Cider frowned, her eyes now locked on the young man’s features, and with a nod to herself she gently picked him up in her rather strong arms. “Ain’t nothin’ for it, we gotta take him ta Discord’s place.”

“Makes sense,” said Firefly, frowning, “He can probably tell us more, and if anyone can heal a Hollow infected wound, it’d be the Old Man.”

“Wait,” protested Velvet, “You can’t be sure that... that man won’t report this to his superiors. What if the Soul Reapers decide a Hollow infected human is too dangerous? Let’s take him to my home instead. Quincy alchemy might be just as good if not better at curing him.”

Firefly looked thoughtful about it, but Sweet Cider shook her head, “Ain’t nothin’ personal Velvet, but yer the only decent Quincy we’ve run into so far, an’ much as I ain’t sure how much I trust Soul Society these days, ‘least Discord’s been straight with us so far.”

After a second, Firefly nodded, “Hate to say it, but Sweet Cider’s right, Velvet. The Quincy don’t have reason to help us, but Discord’s basically our boss. He’ll help out. Going to your people is a bit more of an unknown factor.”

There was a twist of pain inside her, hearing those words, but Velvet nodded, knowing at least to a degree that what they were saying was true. Aside from herself the girls of Xcution hadn’t had any good encounters with Quincy. But she didn’t like or trust Discord, that shadowy Soul Reaper that sponsored and oversaw Xcution’s activities. She wasn’t fond of Soul Reapers on matters of principle, but Discord seemed even less trustworthy than usual for their kind. Yet her friends owed him much, and at least for now they seemed to trust him.

“Ugggh... did I die or something?” said the young man as his keen green eyes finally opened and stayed that way. He looked up at Sweet Cider’s face, and blinked, “Well heck, I must’ve died, ‘cause I’m getting carried to Heaven by an angel.”

Sweet Cider rolled her eyes, “This angel is gonna drop yer butt back on the ground if ya don’t stow that talk right here an’ now, mister.” 

As several giggles came from the other girls Sweet Cider face only grew more cross, and the young man just grinned up at her with open warmth, “Yes ma’am. Name’s Hard Nail, by the by. Who’re all you girls, and if you don’t mind my asking, just what in tarnation happened to me? Last thing I remember was driving into town...”

As the long process of trying to explain things to Hard Nail began, Velvet was left wondering if she should have pressed harder to have the girls take him to her family’s estate. But it was too late now, and for better or worse Hard Nail’s care would be left with Discord. There, predictably, Discord would alter the young man’s memory of the crash to remove any trace of the Hollow, or of seeing any unusual powers being used by a certain group of young ladies. Furthermore, the Hollow energy that had somehow infected him was “quarantined” within his soul, or at least that’s what Velvet heard from Firefly sometime later. 

Velvet didn’t think much on that day, too distracted with her own trials in the Quincy Academy, and starting her new life with Night Light. Years passed, she became a mother, as did many of her friends, and Xcution itself eventually rebelled against and was disbanded by the Soul Reapers that had created them. 

Life and all its many struggles and complications went on, and Velvet didn’t think much about the young man she helped save, who went on to marry one of her best friends and start a family of their own. She’d known Hard Nail well enough, but had cried more for Sweet Cider when she’d learned of their death, and had hated the fact that she hadn’t been there to save them that fateful night. 

She never thought she’d see either of them again...

----------

Las Noches, present day...

Standing in front of the Espada, known as Lament to some, and Velvet knew without a doubt to be Hard Nail, she could feel the same Hollow reiatsu that she’d felt all those years ago. The same cold, off kilter spiritual pressure that the strange Hollow from back then had radiated off of Hard Nail like a miasma, yet she could tell it was different than before. Not just stronger by unimaginable leaps and bounds, but it fluctuated and shook like a tremor, and it seemed clear to her that there were two spiritual pressures here, each intertwined to the point of being one and the same.

It made sense to her. Whatever that Hollow had been, when it had infected Hard Nail, it had joined a part of its soul to his. When he died and became a Hollow, that “quarantined” Hollow infection had joined with his soul fully, making something new and altogether more potent than a regular Hollow. It was the only explanation she had for how Hard Nail had become an Arrancar, and an Espada, in the few short years since his death.

Of course that explained nothing of where that Hollow had come from. The theory that it had been a random mutation, even if it had been one Velvet herself had first postulated, had never set right with her. Perhaps it was paranoia talking, but she suspected it to could have been another Soul Reaper experiment gone awry.

Not that it mattered now. In this moment, why Hard Nail had become what he had was secondary to the fact that he was here, and a clear and present threat to Twilight Velvet and the mission she and her comrades had been sent to accomplish. Velvet could still feel Cadance and Sassy Saddle’s reiatsu as they fought elsewhere within Las Noches. If Hard Nail was allowed to run rampant on his own he’d ruin what chance they had of killing off Squirk. 

Do you really have time to worry about that? she chided herself, At the moment your own survival isn’t looking too likely.

It was true that Hard Nail’s reiatsu was murderous in its focus upon her, and beyond impressive in its capacity. It was a lucky thing he’d run into her first, since she didn’t think Cadence or Sassy could’ve stood up to this. Then again, if Velvet hadn’t come to this tower in the first place then its possible Hard Nail wouldn’t be seeking to fight at all. Hindsight and all that. 

The standoff between them hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds as the two assessed one another. Hard Nail’s face was a off putting mixture of stone cold flatness to his features that was utterly offset by the shrunken pupils and glowing rage pouring from his eyes. Velvet prepared herself to evade his opening move, since she didn’t doubt he’d make the first one.

Even being ready for it, she almost didn’t see him move. His Sonido might not have been the fastest on record, but it was still leagues above what Velvet was used to dealing with. His blade was a white streak heading for her neck before she could barely blink, but her own reflexes were keyed up to full strength at this point so even with this blinding speed she was able to respond. She ducked the blow, still feeling a light cut across her cheek from the close shave, but she angled her arbalest towards Hard Nail’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The reishi sphere blasted out, shredding dozens of meters of desert, but Hard Nail had evaded right through the blast to come at Velvet from behind with a thrust towards the back of the neck. Anticipating the move, she’d already been spinning, her let hand glowing with red lines of power as she pushed Blut Vene to maximum strength. 

A shockwave of force blasted sand for hundreds of feet as the back of her hand met with the flat of his sword, deflecting Hard Nail’s Zanpaktou. Roka, barely conscious, covered her face from the blast of sand hitting her, while Fenice struggled to tear herself free from the reishi bonds holding her.

Hard Nail and Velvet were thrown back from each other, Velvet firing a barrage of reishi spheres that twirled in hard to follow, zig zagging patterns as they swarmed in at Hard Nail. Like a darting shadow he evaded them all, ending up leaping high into the air to avoid the last cluster of spheres detonating below him. He extended his finger and a sharp emerald glow glinted upon the tip. Velvet burst to the side just in time to avoid a thin, cutting Cero that sent a ripple of explosions across Las Noches’ inner desert. 

For a second she assumed he was just testing her reflexes, but then realized the Cero had been carefully aimed to force her away from the tower. She saw him vanish with a Sonido and appear next to Fenice, and with a swift cut of his blade he severed the reishi strands holding her.

“F-Father!” Fenice blurted, eyes wide, but she quickly shook herself and stood, grabbing up her fallen blade and hefting the giant sword, which steamed and hissed as bright magma started to cover it like veins. “I’ll help take her-”

“No!” Hard Nail said with an almost feral ferocity, one that made Fenice flinch away from him. His eyes were shaking, his pale hand gripping his Zanpaktou even tighter, “Take your sister and other siblings and go into the basement shelter, now.”

“But-”

“Don’t make me repeat myself!”

His voice rose only one or two octaves, but it seemed to serve as a literal whipcrack to the young girl, and Fenice nodded with wide eyes, rushing over to Roka and carefully helping the Arrancar girl up. As the pair started to retreat into the tower, Hard Nail turned his attention back to Velvet. 

She’d watched the exchange with no thought of using it to attack or run away. His senses were clearly too sharp for her to launch a surprise attack, and his speed was such that any attempt to run would be pointless. Instead she used the moment to consider her options. For the time being it seemed they were evenly matched, but that could change in an instant. Even with her Vollstandig, she wasn’t sure if it’d stand up to his Resurreccion, if he used it. Her Schrift was more likely to be the key to victory, here, but to use it she’d need to be able to lay a hand on him.

She needed him off balance, if only for a moment. 

Velvet didn’t think she could avoid a fight by talking, but maybe she could unsettle him enough to get an opening to bring the Vengeance into play. She doubted he had any actual memories from being human, but if he cared this much about the surrogate family he’d somehow forged for himself here, then perhaps...

“Hard Nail, its been a long time,” she said in loud, pointed words, “I don’t think Sweet Cider would have appreciated you adopting children without her say in the matter.”

She carefully watched for his response. There was a tremor in the placid surface of his features, but it was hard to tell if it was recognition, more anger, or something else. His step towards her was menacing enough, however, and his voice held plenty of unmasked violence to it... but there was also a trace of his old accent. 

“I don’t know no Hard Nail or Sweet Cider, Quincy. All I know is you hurt my children,” his eyes started to lose focus, and his voice took on a freezing and haunted quality as his reiatsu flared out. “My family! I won’t let it stand! Hurtin’ my kids! Disappear!”

Velvet could all but choke on the rush of thick, heavy spiritual energy pouring from Hard Nail. It was sour and rancid, cold and writhing, and it felt like staring into a deep chasm of sorrow and regret given tangible form. His eyes looked far more wild, even as his face turned back to something chilling and stone-like, his voice returning to flat, merciless tone as he repeated, “Disappear.”

When he came at her again it was with far more frenzied strength and terrifying speed than before. He didn’t do one strike, but instead unleashed a torrent of thrusts and slashes that made his arm become a haze. 

Velvet employed her arbalest like a shield, dodging as much as blocking with the large, bulky weapon. She was keeping up with Hard Nail’s incredible pace, but not enough to avoid mounting cuts appearing on her arms and legs from the blazing storm of sword strikes. Yet even as she was pressed back, she found herself smirking. Her words might not have gotten through to any real memories, but it had ignited enough emotion in Hard Nail that his fighting was just a shade more sloppy than before. Potent and fierce to the point that a lesser Sternritter would’ve been rendered to blood stained ribbons by now, but still sloppy. 

To finish creating her opening she took one split second between the hail of blades to point her arbalest at the ground and fire, jumping back as she did so. It was a shotgun style spread of arrows this time, creating a wave of sand to explode outward. Nothing that would harm Hard Nail, obviously, but the moment of obscured vision, combined with his aggressive stance leaving him less focused on defense, was all the opening Velvet needed.

Flying forward with all the speed she could, becoming little more than a lightning bolt of white, she slammed the palm of her left hand onto Hard Nail’s stomach. She’d boosted her strength with Blut Arterie, ensuring the blow had enough force to knock even him back twenty or thirty paces, but she knew the hit didn’t do any real damage. But that wasn’t the point. She’d just needed to make contact.

Hard Nail looked down at his stomach where he’d been struck, eyes narrowing slightly as he looked back up at Velvet, who was holding her left palm up. Her entire hand was glowing with a misty stream of reishi, wafting upward like thick smoke. Upon her palm was a gleaming silver stardust pattern consisting of a circle with a stylized ‘V’ contained within. The same brand was mirrored on Hard Nail’s stomach where she’d hit him. 

“Since you’ve forgotten me, Hard Nail, I’ll be polite and introduce myself. I’m Twilight Velvet, Sternritter V, the Vengeance. Even if you kill me here, I’ll be taking you with me. You’re not the only one with family to protect.”

Although dying was far from her intention. If she could find any opening to defeat Hard Nail, or escape, she’d take it. Velvet was just practical minded enough to realize that in a fight against a foe like this, being able to take him down with her might be the best she could manage, barring backup arriving. From what she was sensing of Cadence and Sassy’s fights, she couldn’t count on that backup arriving in time. 

However, now that the Vengeance was in play, she might have a chance.

“Lament.”

Velvet blinked as Hard Nail spoke, and at her look he merely gave a shrug, an oddly almost too human gesture coming from him.

“It is what I’m called here, other than ‘Father’ by my children. You gave your name, and even if I intend to kill you, that’s no excuse to be impolite.”

What kind of logic was that? From the feverish look in his eyes Hard Nail, or Lament, wasn’t playing with the usual full deck of cards. His speech pattern kept shifting, sometimes spilling forth rage, or showing hints of his accent, or now with its almost too calm and reasonable tone. If his mind was that fractured, was there something there she could exploit? She decided to keep working the memory angle, since he was still chatty.

“We don’t need to do this, Hard Nail. You weren’t always a Hollow-”

“Oh I know that,” Hard Nail spat, the rage returning full force, “I know what I’ve become, even if I don’t remember what I was. Destructive, covetous, power hungry, soul devouring monsters, that’s what Hollows are. But the children can still laugh. Laugh just like...”

His eyes lost focus and for a second he stumbled, gripping his head, “Ugh, my... my little hayseeds... where are they? There’s blood. Family, it’s comin’ fer my family! Get away from them!”

Velvet had been getting ready to make a break for it while it looked like Hard Nail was having some kind of mental breakdown, but even her small motion was enough to set Hard Nail off, his wild eyes focusing on her with laser accuracy and with fresh, violent intent. Whatever he was seeing, whatever crossroad of madness he was at, he’d painted Velvet as the source of his fear and anger, the threat to his family. 

Great, was hoping to get him distracted, but all I’ve done is cement me as the target. I’m sorry Hard Nail, but if I have to put you down, I will.

He flew towards her like a ballistic missile, and his overhand sword slash howled through the air with a screaming contrail, hitting with such force that a literal shockwave flew out in a cutting line for over the length of a city block. Velvet had barely side stepped the attack, but even so she’d caught the edge of the sharp pressure wave and taken a bloody cut across the left shoulder. Hard Nail... no, Lament came at her without so much as a microsecond of hesitation, giving her no breathing room. Yet Velvet refused to stay on the defensive, launching herself over the powerful horizontal slash Lament threw out that blasted a huge football field large semi-circle of sand out. Inverting in mid-air, Velvet aimed her arbalest at nearly point blank range and sent out a withering rain of explosive reishi spheres. At that distance even Lament couldn’t fully dodge them all, getting battered several times by powerful bursts of reishi that knocked him into a sand dune some distance away.

He didn’t stay down for even a second, flipping to his feet with a swift backflip, unleashing a tight beamed Cero in an emerald streak towards Velvet as he did so. She took to the air with a prodigious leap, the Cero exploding behind her, and she aimed her arbalest down at Lament. With a few quick shotgun styled blasts she filled the sky with a thickly packed cloud of reishi arrows, but Lament simply rushed headlong into the cloud, his sword a dancing blur that deflected the multitudes of arrows like a snowplow. 

He reached her, and one quick feint with his sword left her unguarded long enough for him to catch her with a surprise snap kick across the face that would have torn the head off a normal person. Fortunately Blut Vene reduced the blow to a star burst of dazed pain as she spun to the ground. Velvet flipped at the last second to land on her feet, skidding across the sands as she raised her arbalest and concentrated reishi within the barrel, even drawing additional power from breaking down the reishi in the desert around her. 

She ended up firing a large, pulsating sphere around the size of a pickup truck, which flew towards Lament at past the speed of sound. He swiped his sword to try and deflect it, but at the last second the sphere broke apart into a cluster of smaller spheres, each tied together by a small reishi strand. When they surrounded Lament, the strands tightened and brought the spheres together to detonate in one large explosion that rocked the desert and shook the nearby tower. 

Velvet didn’t assume for a second that attack had finished the job, and wasn’t surprised when Lament walked out of the explosion. His duster was tattered and falling off his body, leaving his chest and stomach now largely bare. With the duster gone, she could now clearly see the number ‘4’ tattooed in dark ink along the right side of his collarbone.

That’s...exactly where he’d been bitten by that Hollow.

Setting aside whatever that meant, it was little wonder she was having so much trouble with him. Even that last attack had only managed to scorch some skin and leave him looking slightly battered. But if he was truly the Fourth Espada, then even inflicting that much damage on him was impressive enough. And she wasn’t done yet. 

As he flew down towards her to resume his assault, she raised her left hand and the Vengeance brand there flashed. This flash of light was mirrored by the brand on Lament’s stomach, and his headlong charge faltered as a burst of reishi exploded from within, like a flaring spike that pierced itself outward from inside the brand.

It didn’t slow Lament down as much as Velvet had hoped, but it was enough for her to meet his charge head on, slamming her arbalest into his chest and firing straight into him. The reishi sphere was of the same concentrated strength as the blast she’d used to finish the fight with Roka, and while it was strong enough to launch Lament into the ground, Velvet didn’t expect it to do more than rattle him. 

Her prediction proved accurate as before even the pillar of sand sent up by his impact had settled down a powerful, wide beam of green, searing light flew up faster than the eye could follow. The Cero almost caught Velvet head on. She got most of her body out of the way in time, but her arbalest was broken apart by the beam and a large portion of her right arm and shoulder were seared red by the blast.

The pain wracked up and down her body, but Velvet didn’t lose her concentration as Lament flew up from the impact crater he’d been standing in. His long katana made a shining arc through the air, and while she avoided being cut in half, she felt the hot bite of that blade on her chest, leaving a shallow but painful cut. 

Yet those wounds served her purpose well enough. Every bit of damage she took fueled the Vengeance, and the fissures of reishi forming into spikes only grew upon Lament. They spiderwebbed out from the brand, forming jagged patterns across his flesh. The more Velvet was injured, the larger the web of reishi spikes would become, both in scope and in the size of the spikes. Furthermore the brand itself would grow, and in certain circumstances would allow her to do more than just inflict harm on her enemy.

A good thing, considering the harm the Vengeance was doing didn’t seem to be slowing Lament down much at all. Even as the spikes and brand spread, he kept coming at her full force, as if his body wasn’t even in any pain. That said, his swings were coming in wider arcs than before, probably because he saw that her arbalest was destroyed and assumed that without the weapon she couldn’t block.

He clearly didn’t understand Quincy. 

As she barely dodged one slash, Lament brought another one across diagonally from right to left, but instead of evading, Velvet stepped in towards Lament, her right arm lifting. In the blink of an eye reishi particles flowed up from the ground and formed a new arbalest around the light from her Quincy cross, and she blasted Lament backwards with a rapid fire burst of reishi spheres. 

“You might not have realized this, but as long as Quincy have reishi to use, we’re never unarmed,” she said, and shouldering her arbalest for a moment, she used her teeth to peel off the glove of her left hand. The Vengeance brand remained visible there through the cloth of the black glove beneath the white one she’d had over it. 

“Last chance, Hard Nail. Back away, and we go our separate ways. If not, I’ll stop holding back.”

Not that she’d really been doing that much to begin with. Velvet had been fighting all out, short of using Vollstandig, which was exactly what she was prepared to utilize now. She didn’t expect him to let her go, but for a slow, hopeful second, she wanted him to. Not because she feared death. She did, of course, she was only human after all, but mostly she just didn’t want to have to kill the man one of her best friends had loved. Hard Nail had been a good man, and deserved a better fate than this. If he’d just walk away now, maybe Velvet could somehow get in contact with Firefly again, find some way to help him...

The way his body trembled, then went utterly still as he looked at her told Velvet that her notions had been a fool’s hope.

“Leave? After spilling my children’s blood? Makin’ my hayseed’s cry like that!? Ya don’t chase vermin off yer farm...”

Thick black reiatsu intermixed with flecks of deep violet and harsh emerald energy poured off his body. His eyes were blazing jewels of green in a sea of seething black.

“You exterminate them.”

He raised the long blade of his Zanpaktou over his head and drew his palm along it, the blade turning into a jade beacon of light. 

“Fade to black; Lamentar.” (Regret)

----------

Twilight rubbed sweat from her brow, looking over her work on Dumbbell. As luck would have it, among the random assortment of goods these Arrancar had stolen from the human world had included one of those medical kits designed for wilderness treks, common to most sporting goods sections in department stores. Apparently these boys hadn’t been too specific in their robbery, piling whatever they thought looked neat through a Garganta portal. Twilight had to admit, petty larceny aside, it was kind of ingenious in its simplicity, and she wondered how many other Hollows did such raids on human establishments? 

At any rate, the simple medical supplies, combined with some clean water and towels, had let her stem the bleeding on Dumbbell’s worst wounds. She didn’t know if Arrancar suffered from infection, but she’d cleaned the injuries before binding them with gauze and medical tap, using the towels to clean or as a compress on the wounds she wasn’t working on. It was all basic first aid and emergency wound care, nothing that anyone who hadn’t spent ten minutes reading a proper guide couldn’t have done, but it was more than Dumbbell would have received otherwise and his chances of survival were all the better for it.

“Try not to move until you can get someone who actually properly treat these injuries,” she told him, pausing before asking, “Is there someone that can do that?”

Th Arrancar youth looked remarkably calm, despite his condition, “Adagio might be able to arrange something, same as she did for a couple of others who serve her. If not, well, doesn’t really matter, long as I got the job she gave me done.”

For a moment Twilight was tempted to ask what that job had been. What was so important that Adagio had risked the lives of three of her... friends? Servants? Minions? Regardless, she’d clearly put them in mortal danger for some goal, and while Dumbbell and his companions had apparently succeeded, it had nearly cost him his life, and might still if he didn’t get real medical care. 

Somehow she doubted she’d get an answer if she asked. There was an odd, fervent light in Dumbbell’s eyes when he said Adagio’s name, and Twilight suspected there was a loyalty there that wasn’t going to appreciate prying into Adagio’s business. 

“Well, I hope she can help you,” she said, approaching the room’s only window to look out into Las Noches’ interior. Her spiritual senses were still fairly new to her, but she could tell there were battles taking place out there. She could hear distant thunder, and see the flashes of explosions far off across the many kilometers of this vast internal environment. She looked at its expanse, and at the artificial blue sky filing what she knew to be the “ceiling” of the fortress, and was struck by how similar this place was to Discord’s training area beneath his shop.

That train of thought was utterly derailed by the sudden and gigantic weight of reiatsu that abruptly floored Twilight’s senses, making her choke for a second as a bile-like taste hit the back of her throat. 

What in the world-!?, she half formed the thought as she clutched the window’s edge, her eyes staring out to the northwest section of the fortress. There, towards a distant tower, she could make out what looked like a trembling geyser of dark black and green spiritual energy, rising like an eruption of oil that started to blot out the sky in a black boil. 

Before she could begin to comprehend what that malevolent spiritual pressure was, she was hammered by another sense of reiatsu, this one stemming from a towering pillar of light that shot up right next to the oily darkness. This light she recognized as the pillar resulting from a Sternritter releasing their Vollstandig, and even as it hit the ceiling of Las Noches and pierced through, she could make out the five pointed Quincy cross forming at the pillar’s apex. 

“Crapbaskets, do you feel that!?” blurted Score from across the room.

“Feel that? I think I’m about to vomit that!” replied Hoops, clutching his stomach.

Despite his injuries, Dumbbell stood and hobbled over to the window, eyes wide and sweat touching his forehead as he looked out at the scene near the far off tower, “Wow... whatever Quincy is over there is dead. Like, the deadest. One way ticket to Deadsville.”

Twilight was shaking, her hands light violet turning to near white at the knuckles as she gripped the windowsill. “What is that?”

“The Lament. It’s gotta be,” Dumbbell said, “He’s the Fourth Espada, and that’s him releasing his Zanpaktou. I don’t care what fancy powers the Quincy are busting out these days, there’s no way any of them is taking that monster down.”

Twilight's trembling didn’t stop, but she did reach one hand over to grip the Quincy cross she still wore on her right wrist. Even if she had the Hexenfaust now to focus her bow, she kept her mother’s old cross as a good luck charm. She didn’t feel much comfort as she held it now. 

“He’s... he’s just the Fourth, though, right? There are stronger Espada. And... some Quincy are really strong, too.”

Dumbbell gave her a look, “Maybe, but you’re feeling that, right? You tell me who you think is gonna win. Hope that Quincy fighting him ain’t a friend of yours, because whoever they are, they’re not going to last long against the Fourth.”

His words shook her like running headlong into an iceberg, chilling her gut and squeezing her heart with cold fear. Somewhere inside her mind, she heard Midnight say something, but it felt partially drowned out by white noise. 

Twilight’s fear wasn’t simply of the monstrous reiatsu stemming from this “Lament”, but because she now recognized the Quincy reiatsu fighting him.

Her spiritual senses weren’t sharp enough for identifying specific people at a distance yet. She’d thought she might have felt Cadence’s reiatsu nearby, but hadn’t been sure. Now, however, with that pillar of light fading against the slowly slackening cloud of dark reitsu, she could feel who it was more clearly. Perhaps it was just as simple as a bond between parent and child that made it easier to recognize now, but for Twilight there was no mistaking that it was her mother who was fighting the Fourth Espada. 

And she was terrified for her mother’s life. 

WhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo?

Her mind whispered in an icy repeat, her whole body rooted in place as she screamed internally over her inaction.

Finally Midnight’s voice managed to break through, cutting across that cold void like a hot knife. 

Get a HOLD of yourself! Think things through, Twilight Sparkle and calm down!

Twilight’s mouth felt like a desert itself as she gulped, thinking, How? How can you expect me to be calm right now? Mother’s in danger! She’s going to get killed!

You don’t know that, Midnight’s voice replied flatly, but there was a measure of doubt there, For all you know she’ll either win, or escape. But if we do anything foolish, I can almost guarantee you we’d end up making things worse.

She was right. Twilight knew that Midnight was right. It was only cold logic, but true logic nonetheless. At her level of strength, she was nothing against a power like the Fourth Espada. She’d be less than useless if she went to try and help her mother fight. She’d be a distraction, a burden. She might even be the factor that got her mother killed, if she went out there. 

Yet the idea of staying put, remaining in Adagio’s chambers while her mother fought for her life against... against that. The thought tore a hole right into Twilight’s chest and left her standing in mute denial. 

There had to be something she could do! But what? She couldn’t fight against a monster like that, even if she somehow managed to gain the element of surprise and get the drop on him, any attack she’d launch would be utterly fruitless, just by the laws of reiatsu and how overwhelmingly strong ones negated attacks by sufficiently weaker powers. A direct hit, even to a vital area, would be meaningless.

So what could she do? 

Think... think... you’re the smartest person you know, so think, Twilight!, she mentally howled at herself, and consequently, Midnight as well.

Gah, do you have to think so loud!? Be nice if I could just teleport myself out of this head for a change.

Twilight’s eyes shot wide, her mouth gaping open.

Teleport, that’s it!

Midnight, picking up immediately on what Twilight was thinking, was fast to say, It won’t work. Teleportation is too advanced for us to handle without me dumping way more magic into you than you’re ready to control.

But it can be done, Twilight thought back, eyes narrowing, You understand magic better than me, and you know how to do it. You just have to give me enough magic to make it happen. We can teleport mom to safety.

In theory, yes. But if I pump that much magic into you, our mind might not be able to handle it. This isn’t the Friendship Games. I won’t be in control like I was then. Sunset’s little magical girl ‘purification’ stole enough of my control that I can’t regulate the magic for us like I did then. If you try to use too much before you can manage it yourself, we might end up doing anything from turning ourselves into a teacup, to just straight up imploding. And that’s assuming we get close enough to even try teleporting mother and ourselves to safety before this Lament freak destroys us. Are you willing to risk all of that?

Twilight was silent only for a second before replying, Aren’t you? She’s your mother too.

...I really hate you right now, you know that?

----------

Squirk’s time was numbered in moments, and every participant in the fight knew it. The only real question that remained was whether Luna would succeed in capturing him, or Cadence would succeed in destroying him. From Cadence's perspective, she all but had that question answered. Her Vollstandig was giving her all the advantage she needed. Even as a prototype transformation seeing its first use in battle, it was performing to projected specifications, which was to say against a lower tier Espada it was more than enough for her to have the upper hand.

That said, while Squirk wasn’t able to land any hits on her, his Resurreccion did have a surprisingly tough defense in the form of that large carapace, and he wasn’t fighting stupid. He knew her crystal arrows and the gas that stemmed from them would subject him to her Lust, so he was doing all in his power to keep his huge armored shell pointed towards her while holding his breath. That couldn’t last, however, as Luna was occupying his attention by gradually severing pieces of his legs with her scythes, and moment by moment Squirk’s motions were getting more sluggish. 

While Cadence’s arrows hadn’t penetrated his shell yet, she just needed one crack in that armor for her to make use of the beams fired by her wings. The reishi of her wings conveyed the power of her Schrift even more potently than the arrows did, so even a glancing blow on a breach in the armor should do the trick. Assuming he didn’t just run out of breath and take in some of the gas that now covered the area like a thick, pink fog.

Even Luna had to hold her breath to keep from falling under the Lust’s sway, although the Soul Reaper Captain’s stamina for that kind of thing seemed quite vast, as she hadn’t slowed down her assault upon Squirk at all even while holding her breath. 

Squirk’s Garganta was slowly getting wider, despite Luna’s shadows trying to hold it closed, but it wasn’t opening nearly fast enough for Squirk to escape through it with his Resurreccion form’s massive body. Cadence figured she had more than enough time to crack his armor, affect him with the Lust, and force him to give her a clear head shot to end this whole affair. After he was dead, she imagined Luna could be convinced to retreat. Cadence had no real desire to fight Luna, and if Squirk was who Luna was here for, then his death would remove any reason for her to remain.

Then Cadence could go help Sassy with Grogar, and once either eliminating or fending him off, the pair of them together would go help Velvet fall back from the Espada she was fighting. 

Just as long as no more complications arose.

Later on Cadence would reflect that if there was a force in charge of fate, it had to have been snickering at her in the moment she had that thought. 

Unbeknownst to her, no more than fifty yards away, the pale form of Adagio, along with the shuffling Ember, had carefully crept along as fast as they could without making their presence obvious. This was the distance Adagio had judged was the closest they could get and still allow for her to sense and control the water in the many caverns beneath Las Noches. Adagio was well aware that every single second counted, because as soon as she began to extend her power to take hold of that water that her reiatsu would start to spike upwards.

She was banking on the Sternritter and Soul Reaper being too focused on Squirk to notice what was happening until it was too late.

She was banking on a lot of things, in fact, but she had no time to refine a more subtle plan. This became even more obvious as Luna, dashing like a barbed shadow, cut a onyx path with her clothes and all but severed one of Squirk’s front right legs in a fountain of blood. Squirk screamed and almost collapsed on his side. In desperation he fired another barrage of Ceros from his back spikes, transferring them into small Gargantas to try and catch Luna or Cadence in the intertwining, raking beams. It was a futile effort. Both Luna and Cadence were simply too swift to be caught, even by beams appearing from multiple angles. 

Squirk’s unbalanced stance left his main body at the front open, and Cadence was quick to zip around to his front, more than happy to take the shot provided.

However this was also the moment that Adagio’s power reached a peak, her spirit energy rising high enough that even the supremely focused Sternritter couldn’t help but feel the Vasto Lord’s reiatsu spiking behind her. Luna felt it as well, along with a rumble within the sands beneath her feet.

As both turned, a lot happened all at once, within the span of mere couple of seconds.

First, water erupted from the ground in a great, billowing set of geysers. It had been brought up to shallow levels within the Warrens, then pulled up through the sands by Adagio’s power and will, leading to a wave consisting of hundreds of tons of water blasting up into Las Noches all at one.

Adagio and Ember were caught at the top of the wave, riding it forward, Adagio more skillfully than Ember, but Ember still managed to maintain her balance due to Adagio’s careful manipulation of the water that kept the other girl buoyant. The wave itself rolled forward at high speed, breaking and thundering like a waterfall. 

Ember fired Balas as the wave surged ahead, the small reishi bullets aimed at both Luna and Cadence. The attacks were far too weak to do much, but they did force the pair away from Squirk, if for just a fraction of a second. Long enough for the wave to crash right into him.

“What the hell-!?” Squirk got out as the water cascaded over him and shoved his body backwards with the wave’s shear weight.

Before he knew what was happening, he saw Adagio dive into the wave ahead of him, her trident thrust towards the Garganta portal he’d been opening up. A thick red Cero beam shot out, boiling water as it went, but it also struck the portal... or more specifically it struck the shadows holding it closed, severing enough of them that the portal was able to open a little wider. Just wide enough for normal, human sized proportions to fit through.

Squirk was a lot of things, but slow witted wasn’t generally counted among them, despite the opinions of some of his peers.

If he stayed in his current form he’d get caught on the edges of the Garganta and get stuck. So he released his Resurreccion form, the large shell and limbs of the armored crab body dissipating in a wash of white slivers which reformed into his harpoon, which he grabbed as he, along with Adagio and Ember, were swept through the Garganta by the rushing waters.

As stunned as she was by what had just happened, Luna wasn’t slow to react. In the span of a half breath she realized her quarry would get away and there was only one way to pursue. She also knew she couldn’t leave her Lieutenant and Third Seat behind. Fortunately her Shikai was well equipped to deal with the situation. Shadows snapped out from around her, flooding across the ground in an instant to engulf Cheerilee and Nocturn and pull them in. At the same moment Luna herself was enveloped by shadow, which flowed towards the closing Garganta portal that already had her shadows surrounding it. 

Cadence reacted quickly as well, but she was less equipped than Luna to handle the circumstances. Despite her vastly increased physical abilities in Vollstandig, she didn’t have anything that’d let her bypass the fundamental slowdown that water had on mass. While Luna’s shadows were in no such way hindered, Cadence was innately slowed as she flew into the water and tried to reach the Garganta before it closed. Unfortunately even with her extra speed, physics were against her, and though the surging waters only slowed her down a fraction, it was enough to leave Cadence staring at thin air as the Garganta snapped shut.

The water, cut off from Adagio’s control now, stopped flowing and fell to the wet, muddy sands, leaving behind a soaked, and exceedingly frustrated looking Cadence.

A rare look of jaw clenched fury crossed Cadence's features for a moment, but she soon took a calming breath, and forced her mind to calm, cool focus. Squirk might have escaped with the help of some unexpected comrades, but he wasn’t in the clear yet.

After all, when she’d struck him with her first crystal arrow, she’d taken the liberty of attaching a tracker to the arrow that had transferred over to him.

Focusing her senses, she located the tracker’s signature. It was still inside Las Noches, northward, she sensed. There were a cluster of small, squat and cylindrical buildings of bright red stone that way, near Las Noches’ north wall. That must be where Squirk’s personal quarters were located. It was far away, but with her speed she could still get there reasonably fast. He might think he was safe, but that’d just play to Cadence's advantage. Assuming Luna didn’t manage to capture him by the time it’d take Cadence to catch up...

Cadence froze, shivering as she felt a spiritual energy erupt behind her, to the west. Back in the direction of Velvet and the Espada she was fighting.

With wide eyes did Cadence look at the humongous outpouring of inky black reiatsu that was eclipsing the tower Velvet had gone to, coating the sky in that direction like a diseased blemish. Then, rising to meet that ocean of dark reiatsu was a thin pillar of white light, the sign of a Quincy Vollstandig being released.

Velvet...

Cadence was struck through the heart by a moment of pure indecision.

She knew Velvet was stronger than she was, but that hardly seemed to matter next to the colossal monstrosity that Velvet seemed to be matched against. That thick, malevolent reiatsu made Cadence shiver and feel sick to her stomach, like her skin was being coated in cold grease. Velvet couldn't stand against that. Not for long, at any rate.

If I go after Squirk, Velvet may well be dead by the time I finish the mission. Even if I ignored Sassy Saddles and went right now, I might not make enough difference by myself...

Maybe, maybe if she went right this second and pulled Sassy away from Grogar within a minute, and they both rushed to Velvet’s aid, perhaps then they’d make it time to save Velvet’s life. The three of them together would be enough to at least force even that monstrous Espada to disengage. But Velvet by herself? It’d take Cadence five, maybe ten minutes to catch up to Squirk. Could Velvet survive that long? 

She couldn’t hesitate. Cadence knew that much. Whatever choice she made, she had to make it now.

The mission. Or Velvet.

One life, or the life of every Quincy that’d already been sacrificed to see Squirk dead.

Cadence’s duty to her people, or her duty to the family she loved.

An image of Twilight Sparkle’s face, heartbroken and devastated, crossed Cadence's mind, followed by an image of Shining Armor, and finally Night Light. Then the image of dozens upon dozens of broken, dead Quincy, the numerous lives sacrificed in this battle whose sole purpose had been to slay Squirk.

Twilight, Shining...I...I’m sorry...

The plain, unnatural lighting of Las Noches’ interior reflected tears from Cadence's eyes as she hardened her features, and her pained heart, and made her choice.

----------

Water splashed unevenly around a large sand-bowl chamber. Adagio saw that they were inside some kind of cylindrical building, its walls rising up dozens of meters and encircled by many stone walkways and stairs. The ground was, oddly enough, covered in sand much like the outside. In places this sand had been sculpted into sandstone, which rose up to form rough tables, chairs, all in the shape of some long, large feasting hall. At the back of the chamber was a tall sandstone throne.

“Its empty,” Adagio said, the first thing that struck her as odd. If this was Squirk’s chambers, she’d expected there to be at least one or two Fraccion or other servants hanging around. She’d intended to deal with them, if necessary, but was somewhat relieved that wouldn’t be necessary, even if she wasn’t sure why no one was here.

Squirk, his red frame dripping wet, turned a look towards her that was somehow both withering, and grateful at the same time, “I don’t let the help hang around my throne room. When I want company, I send Krang to fetch it. Otherwise they know to stay away. Besides that, anyone worth a damn in a fight is out fighting the Quincy.”

Convenient. Not that Adagio was complaining. It made her job that much easier. Speaking of which, “Well that makes sense. In any case, Lord Squirk, I hope you didn’t mind myself and my friend here interfering with your battle. You seemed to be in dire straights.”

Squirk snorted, looking away as he stomped over and kicked a nearby sandstone chair, breaking it into dust, “You mean I was getting my ass handed to me. You can go ahead and say it! I know I was losing. Pffah! I’m done with this place! Tirek, Chrysalis, Catrina, they can all go to hell! And you can tell them I said that! I’m through with Las Noches, through with Quincy, through with Soul Reapers, and through with everything else for that matter!”

As he was ranting, Adagio turned a look to Ember and nodded. With a grim light in her eyes, Ember nodded back. She hadn’t released her own Resurreccion form since the fight with Prim Hemline, and she hefted her large, thorn shaped blade as Adagio slowly approached Squirk from behind.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Squirk. Had you decided this sooner, I sincerely doubt I’d have to do this.”

“Do wha-urk!”

Perhaps had he not been so exhausted from his fight he’d have reacted faster, or sensed Adagio’s hostile intent in time to do something. As it was, Squirk was so tired, and so caught up in his rant, that by the time he realized he was in danger, Adagio’s trident was already piercing his chest. The white bone tips of the trident punctured through him, emerging from his back in a spray of blood, leaving him impaled and transfixed like a speared fish.

Even with that mortal wound his eyes remained focused, if bloodshot, and he gripped the trident with one hand as he stared at Aagio. Suddenly recognition sparked there, “Y-you... you’re that...damn Adjuchas...”

“You must have missed the gossip about my recent evolution,” Adagio said, holding her trident tightly and keeping it pressed hard into Squirk, even as he weakly tried to remove it, “Not that I suspect recognizing me earlier would have helped you here. For what it's worth, this isn’t personal. I’m just doing what I have to in order to survive. I imagine that’s a motivation you can understand.”

Blood spurted from his mouth in a choking cough, some of it spattering Adagio’s face. His mouth twisted in an ugly grimace, “Not... dying...”

He raised his other hand, forming a Cero there in a swift, crimson ball, but Ember was there in a flash of Sonido, her blade slashing. Squirk screamed as his arm was cut off, and with the momentum of the same slash that took Squirk’s arm off, Ember spun around and slammed her blade into his back, impaling him from behind. 

With that blow what little fight was left in Squirk left him, and he sank to his knees. Ember withdrew her Zanpaktou, but Adagio kept her trident firmly embedded in his chest. Not out of cruelty, but simple caution. She and Ember had managed to do this only because he’d exhausted his spiritual energy fighting that Sternritter and Soul Reaper, and had let his guard down. Even fatally wounded, Adagio wasn’t about to underestimate an Espada until he was full and truly dead.

Which didn’t look like it was going to take long, because wisps of ash-like energy were starting to flake off of his body as he weakly looked up at her. She almost felt bad, if only because she knew what it felt like to be at this dire point of helplessness. It was true that this wasn’t personal, just survival, but she did resent Chrysalis more for putting her in this situation.

“Who...?” he asked, and it was fairly clear that he’d realized she was just the instrument of his demise, not the root cause. In a moment of charity she decided to give Squirk one parting gift.

“Chrysalis,” she said.

He coughed up more blood as he laughed, an empty, bitter sound.

“F...figures...”

And that was the last thing the Ninth Espada ever said as he slumped upon Adagio’s trident, his body starting to fade to ash.

However at the very moment of his death, something occurred that Adagio did not remotely anticipate. Her siren gem glowed a radiant, piercing red that filled the whole chamber. Arcs of green and red energy flew from around the gem, and gripped Squirk’s body like hungry tendrils. Adagio felt a burst of both pain and ecstasy rush through her, and she threw her head back, her eyes filling with solid crimson energy as she let out a scream that was both agony and pleasure mixed into a unimaginable tied. She had no idea what was happening! It was as if her gem was alive and hungry, feasting upon the spirit energy of Squirk’s dissipating form. 

The energy seared through her, making her twist and bend as she struggled to contain it. Her gem was both funnel and devourer, its tendrils of red eagerly stripping Squirk’s body piece by piece until it became nothing but a final few motes of ash drifting through the air. 

Adagio was left lying on the ground, panting in rough breaths as her body crackled with surging energy. After a few seconds the power, and pain, subsided, but it still left Adagio feeling dazed and shaken, like she’d just taken a bath in molten lava. 

Ember quickly stood above her, worry etched over her features. “Adagio! What... what the hell just happened!?”

Still trying to get her breathing under control, Adagio said, “I have no idea.”

Ember offered Adagio a hand up, which she gratefully accepted. The second she stood, however, she sensed a rush of air and a motion to her left and quickly spun, crossing her trident before her. She did so just in time to catch a blow upon her trident, a large, black metal scythe that hit hard enough to numb Adagio’s arms and send her skidding back across Squirk’s chambers until she smacked her back into a sandstone table, cracking it in half.

Ember leaped away with a fast Sonido, appearing at Adagio’s side as she faced this new threat, blade at the ready. 

The Garganta Squirk had opened was vanishing with its creator now dead, but shadows were pouring out of the closing portal like dark blood. The scythe extended from those shadows, and pulled back to greet a dark blue hand as Luna emerged from the darkness beneath her feet. Beside her rose Nocturn’s dusky skinned form, rubbing the back of his head, and Cheerilee, who held her coiled Zanpaktou whip with a distinctly fed up look.

“Did you have to hit me so hard, Captain?” Nocturn asked.

“Both of you are clear of Cadence’s power, aren’t you?” Luna asked, and without waiting for answer she went on to say, “Then yes, I did. Now let’s address the dead Espada in the room.”

Cheerilee’s face pinched in a sour frown, “Looks like we were a step too late. Sorry, Captain, if you hadn’t had to grab me and Nocturn-”

“It's no matter,” Luna said, stepping forward. Her Captain’s coat billowed out behind her as she spun her scythes, eyes narrowing like a thin sheet of ice towards Adagio and Ember, “We might not have an Espada, but there’s an Arrancar right here that’ll suffice for our mission.”

Uneasy glances passed between Adagio and Ember, and no words needed to pass between them for them to understand each other. There was no way to easily escape the chamber, even with a Garganta, which would take several seconds to open. Perhaps if they were just facing normal Soul Reapers and not a Captain, there’d be a chance to get out that way, but it was unlikely. That said, neither one of them was going to abandon the other. This was a fight they’d do together, one way or another.

Adagio could still feel the energies absorbed from Squirk inside her gem, but at the same time she felt like some kind of funnel had directed at least some of that energy elsewhere. Her gem felt hot, like a coal in her chest, but she didn’t think it would interfere with her ability to fight.

More importantly, she recognized Luna for who she was, but she wasn’t sure that Luna had recognized her yet. Not that Adagio had had much contact with Luna in the past. In fact, besides the day she and her sisters had brainwashed Canterlot High’s principal and vice principal, she hadn’t seen Luna since then. The revelation that she was a Soul Reaper, let along a Captain, well... Adagio wasn’t as shocked as she imagined she otherwise would have been in her earlier life. 

Given the things she knew about the spiritual realms now, it just stood to reason the Soul Reapers had at least one bigwig around that school. 

A fight seemed inevitable here, but Adagio wasn’t one to toss aside a chance to talk her way out of trouble. She took a step forward, alert and her trident at the ready, but spoke before any of the Soul Reapers attacked.

“Vice Principal Luna, right? It’s been awhile. How’s your sister?”

The casual tone, combined with the simple recognition itself, was enough to make Luna pause in her own hostile advance. Those keen, ice blue eyes regarded Adagio more carefully, and there was a flash of recognition now combined with a swift look of guarded interest.

“Adagio Dazzle. I’d heard what had happened to you, but didn’t recognize you in that form. I suppose the hair should have been a dead giveaway, but you’ll forgive that I didn’t quite connect that dot until I heard your voice to go with the hair. I do hope you won’t be trying any of that singing this time around. You’ll find my mind better prepared for it this time.”

Nocturn blinked, leaning towards Cheerilee, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Do these two know each other.”

Cheerilee shrugged slightly, “Three fish girls from the world beyond the portal tried to brainwash the school. Long story.”

“Ah,” Nocturn said with a nod, then frowned, “Does that change anything for us?”

“Knowing the Captain, probably not,” replied Cheerilee.

Luna raised one of her scythes, pointing it at Ember, though her eyes remained on Adagio, “My Lieutenant speaks the truth. My mission is to capture an Arrancar alive. With Squirk gone, this one remains our last viable target.”

“Surely we can come to some kind of arrangement,” Adagio began to say, “Perhaps I can find another Arrancar to-”

“No,” Luna said pointedly, “There is no more time. The battles outside will end soon, and I’ll not risk waiting longer. Because I am aware of your situation and bear you no specific ill will, Adagio Dazzle, I shall grant you the chance to stand aside... but that Arranar is coming with us.”

To emphasis her point, Luna let her reiatsu pour out of her. The spiritual pressure pressed in upon all in the chamber with its hefty weight. Though Adagio remained standing, her own spiritual pressure not inconsiderable, she was all too aware of there being enough of a power gap that this would be no sure fight. 

But it wasn’t a fight she could run away from. 

With a prideful rise of her head and mirroring of Luna’s stance as she thrust her trident out, Adagio said loudly and clearly, “So be it. I will not stand aside. You will have to do this the hard way.”

And hopefully the time consuming way... Adagio thought, realizing that her and Ember’s only real chance of making it through this was to last long enough against three Soul Reapers, one of which was a Captain, for some manner of help to arrive. As Luna had pointed out, the battles outside Las Noches had to be ending soon, which meant Luna couldn’t afford to stay much longer or risk being surrounded by more Espada than she could handle. 

From the look in Luna’s eyes she was having the exact same thoughts Adagio was, and she thought she noted a hint of respect flash in those blue depths.

Without another word Luna vanished with a godly Flash Step, her scythes curving in black arcs to try and cleave through Adagio.

----------

Pharynx and Thorax’s stalemate with Windrider was persisting to the point of exhaustion for both parties. Thorax was just about to abandon his loving flair for the dramatic and just recommend to his brother that they both go Resurreccion, when something Thorax had half expected, and fairly well dreaded occurred.

Pharynx was in mid-swing with his glaive, coming at Wind Rider from the side while Thorax had been keeping the Quincy occupied with a barrage of Ceros to dodge, when Thorax’s burly brother suddenly sized up with a cry of pain.

Coiling lines of red energy flowed from his Hollow hole, where the small, artificial red gem Grogar had provided was located. The metallic, ring shaped devices around the edges of Pharynx's Hollow hole sparked and sizzled, while more energy poured out of Pharynx’s seizuring body.

“Brother!” Thorax shouted, rushing to catch Pharynx as the larger Arrancar fell out of the air like a moth tazzed by a bug zapper.

“Grrrgaaa!” Pharynx clenched his teeth, eyes squinting with the struggle to resit a chorus of pain singing inside him, “Da...damn it, what’s going on!? It was, grr, working fine until just now. Arrgh!”

Thorax only needed one look to see the small crimson gem had cracked, but was still pouring out unstable energies into Pharynx. He’d feared something like this might happen, but this was his mother’s and Grogar’s experiment and he hadn’t the nerve or power to gainsay them. He just had to trust his brother was strong enough to survive the backlash.

Furthermore, this confirmed that Adagio had just succeeded in her mission. Squirk was dead, and at least half of the late Espada’s power was pouring haphazardly into his brother through Grogar’s malfunctioning prototype. Clearly the artificial siren gem wasn’t up to snuff to transfer that much power all at once. 

Seeing the gem crack even more, the small crystal pulsing with ever brighter red light, Thorax took the only chance he could. He forcibly reached in and tore the gem out with his bare hand.

His scream joined his brother’s as the gem seared his palm, but Thorax bore through the pain and hurled the pulsating gem straight at a very confused Wind Rider. The Quincy, no man’s fool, used a swift Hirenkyaku to flew away from the gem. Just in time, too, as the gem exploded with a detonation big enough to knock all three combatants to the ground.

Grunting, Thorax stood up while hefting his injured brother with one of Pharynx’s arms slung over his shoulder. Pharynx was wincing in pain, his body limp, but he was still conscious as he looked up, “Brother... look out.”

Thorax turned in time to see a slightly burned Wind Rider aiming one of his pistols, firing a reishi bullet that flew right for Thorax’s head.

Fortunately a swift moving teal blue streak intercepted the bullet and deflected it out of the air. With a graceful flip, a young Arrancar blue of teal skin with a soft pink mohawk landed in a defensive pose before the two brothers, her darker ocean blue eyes sparkling as she brandished a curved kukri blade in one hand.

“Heya, Big Brother Thorax, Big Brother Pharynx. You guys are looking kinda beat up. Need help?”

Thorax offered the girl a wide smile of gratitude, “Excellent timing Ocellus. And yes, we could use a spot of assistance. Pharynx is in poor shape to continue fighting. A tactical withdrawal is in order.”

For all the cheerful candor on Ocellus’ youthful features, there was a tint of seriousness hidden in her eyes’ as she looked at Pharynx’s limp form, then at Wind Rider, who’s guns remained trained on them. 

“You better get going, then. I’ll cover you.”

“Was rather thinking this would be a family retreat, all together and such,” Thorax said, face breaking out in a cold sweat, “I don’t wish to imagine the things mother will do to me if I allowed you to get hurt by some past-his-prime Quincy.”

“I can hear you, you know.”

“Yes, Wind Rider, I’m well aware.”

Ocellus tensed, raising her kukri as Wind Rider licked his lips and looked at the three Arrancar thoughtfully, then regarding the larger battle around them. It had mostly left them behind, the flow of the fighting pushing to the south, leaving him and the trio of Arrancar siblings standing amid a sandy field strewn with blackened wreckage from tanks and VTOLs, and dozens of fallen corpses from both sides. 

“Well, how about this,” Wind Rider said, “The way I see it, the odds haven’t shifted much in either of our favor, and since I still got a battalion to command, and you want to skedaddle so badly, let’s just call this one a draw. We can kill each other some other day.”

“It’s as if you read my mind, as I was considering making the same offer,” Thorax replied flatly, “Do feel free to leave first. No offense, but I’m not terribly comfortable turning my back to you.”

“Oh, as if exposing my back to you has any more appeal to me?” Wind Rider said, then chuckled and used a Hirenkyaku to all but vanish from the vicinity, rushing back towards the battle lines. Thorax waited a moment to make sure he could sense the Quincy’s reiatsu rapidly falling back from them. Thorax suspected that even if he’d been inclined to try and shoot Wind Rider in the back with a Cero or Bala that the Quincy could have evaded them and made good an escape.

That concoction of his must have been close to running out, otherwise I don’t think he’d have let us go so easily, Thorax theorized, but ultimately Wind Rider’s reasons for offering a mutual retreat mattered little to him. Right now Pharynx’s safety was paramount. 

Ocellus came over and slung Pharynx's other arm over her own dainty shoulders, and to Thorax it looked rather adorable to see his little sister’s petite frame shouldering Pharynx’s massive bulk. Just one of Pharynx’s biceps was larger than Ocellus’ entire head. 

“Alright, show’s over, at least for us,” Thorax said as he began to open a Garganta for them to step through, “Time to exit, stage left.”

---------- 

Boiling with the churning essence of cold fury and absolute regret, the cloud of densely negative and ink black reishi covered enough of the artificial sky around Lament’s tower that the area was coated in gloomy dark for kilometers. 

The center of that cloud was still connected to the ground by a flowing black strand of energy, but that now cascaded back down like a terminated faucet, the spirit energy billowing out like a fog from around where Lament had been standing.

Twilight Velvet stood waiting to face him in all the resplendent glory and power of her Vollstandig, but even she doubted whether it’d be enough to face what was coming. 

Her uniform remained unchanged, but she’d gained a painfully bright mantle of pure white energy that covered her back and shoulders, and from which extended several bands of light that trailed up and around her right shoulder to connect to her new weapon. Her arbalest had transformed into a brilliant silver and pearl cannon with six rotating barrels surrounding a small, central spike of metal; a pile bunker that worked on similar principles to a hydraulic pile driver. 

Six wings of light rose high from her back, all positioned on her left side. Each wing was gently curved and widened at the tips with a circular flare of light that within the center of each a small marble colored cannon barrel formed, each with a spherical body that allowed them to rotate along the wing-tip nearly a full three hundred and sixty degrees. 

The halo above her head consisted of three faintly flaming five pointed stars connected by a shining band of light, the tips of each star meeting in the center of the halo. 

She already had her gatling cannon aimed at the spot Lament had last been standing in, along with her six wing cannons, each of which’s barrels were already glowing with deadly white light. Slowly the dark, oily reiatsu from Lament releasing his Resurreccion started to clear, and Velvet saw a form emerge from within. 

His size had not increased much, save perhaps gaining a few inches of height, but that did nothing to lessen the imposing figure that now faced Velvet, and gave her sharp flashbacks to the day she’d first met Hard Nail.

Lament’s face had become covered in the long, ivory mask of a wolf’s skull, its eye sockets twin pits of blackness that bore only the smallest pin-pricks of pale green flame as irises. Sharp angled, edged horns curved from the wolf skull’s head and pointed forward, similar in shape to the horns the Hollow that’d infected Hard Nail all those years ago, but longer and slightly thicker. Lament’s upper torso was bare and pale as polished bone, but black stripes curved from the back to encase the Hollow hole around his throat, and a shoulder mantle of thick, coarse black fur wrapped his shoulders and draped down his back, like a wolf’s pelt. His waist was similarly clad in a black furred wolf’s pelt, leaving his lower legs bare. Both his hands and his feet were tipped with black, obsidian claws, wickedly curved. A tail of segmented bones extended from behind him, each segment all the way down to the tip consisting of sharp protrusions like blades. His hair spilled out from behind the wolf skull mask, a curtain of wild red strands that were now more starkly crimson than their earlier lighter, strawberry coloring. 

The final component of Lament’s Resurreccion was his sword, the same long bladed katana as before, only now it lacked any visible guard or hilt, and looked like one solid shard of metal, all of it the black of starless night. 

There could be no hesitancy here. Velvet didn’t so much as wait half a second after she had a clear target before raising her gatling cannon. The barrels spun in a blur, and the cannons along her wings opened fire at the same time as the gatling cannon itself. The air shattered under dozens of concussive blasts of force as a flood of explosive reishi shells hammered the spot Lament was standing in with enough destructive force to bring down a mountainside.

Velvet had to dig her heels into the sands to keep from getting pushed back too far from the shear explosive force of her barrage, her hands both gripping firmly around handles both above and to the side of her gatling cannon. She even had to use Blut Vene to reinforce her body just to keep the weapon steady and protect herself from the shockwaves of the hundreds of rapid, point-blank impacts.

She felt Lament’s reiatsu barely waver under the assault and sensed the painfully keen focus of that power as it cut straight through her barrage. Pain ripped through her and her eyes widened as she looked to a set of four deep cuts through her energy mantle and into even her Blut Vene enhanced shoulder.

She staggered backwards, glancing behind her.

Lament stood there, a dozen meters away, having used a disturbingly quick Sonido to move through her hail of fire and strike her with the claws of his left hand. The four curved, onyx claws dripped with her blood, and Velvet felt hot pain in her shoulder from the cuts that had treated her Blut Vene like paper. 

Eyes narrowing, the six cannons on Velvet’s wings reversed direction and immediately fired backwards at Lament, exploding multiple wide spheres of searing white light at the Espada. At the same time she coiled her legs and sprung upwards into the air, seeking to get some distance from Lament and his clearly potent melee prowess. As she flew upward she suddenly found her vision turning sideways, and to her shock she had just a fraction of a moment to register that Lament had flown up next to her, smashed his palm across the side of her face, and was literally throwing her like fast ball before she went sailing past the speed of sound towards the side of Lament’s tower.

Pouring more power into her Blut Vene she just managed to mitigate the impact as she smashed through the tower, crashing through multiple interior walls until she exploded out of the other end and went cartwheeling into the ground in a long river of churning sand geysers, her body tearing a ravine into the desert.

Her muscles and bones strained under the incredible forces being pressed upon them as Velvet, utilizing all of her focus, managed to spring up from her out of control path and send herself flying back up into the air. She didn’t have time to let the pain register, even as blood streamed down her face from a profuse wound on her scalp. She felt Lament coming her way, and while her eyes couldn’t track his swift movements, she could sense him clearly enough to track his path as he flew over his tower and rocketed down towards her.

The six cannons on her wings pointed their barrels towards a point in front of her, and fired beams of white energy that coalesced together into one large cannon ball of shining light that she then fired towards Lament. He tried to flow past it with an instant Sonido, but the sphere tracked him and changed course with equally instantaneous speed. So instead of trying to evade again, Lament swung his dark sword and unleashed a concussive wave of force that knocked the sphere of light careening off course to detonate on the ground half a mile away. Its explosion sent a pillar of light flooding into the air, cracking more of Las Noches’ ceiling. 

The sphere had served its purpose as a distraction, however brief, to allow Velvet to appearing behind Lament. The pile bunker spike at the center of her gatling cannon pulled back, power gathering within the weapon as she slammed the gatling cannon forward. Lament turned within a heartbeat, his sword coming around with a backswing with as much concussive force as before. The blade met with the pile bunker spike as Velvet triggered it in a blinding blaze of white light, vents along the back of her gatling cannon letting out massive bursts of blue reishi as her power shoved the spike out fast enough to crack the sound barrier. 

”Licht Pfählung!” (Light Impalement)

Upon Velvet’s invocation the air was split by a spear of light that rushed from the impact of the spike, and even Lament found the force of his blade countered by the strength of an attack the drove him straight into the ground. The spear of light sheathed the spike itself, which had extended out to ram Lament down and grind him into the sands, and upon the impact the reishi started to spin like a drill, creating a storm of wind and force that ripped out a crater dozens of meters deep and several times that wide.

Yet when the dust cleared, and Velvet’s spike returned back to the center of her gatling cannon, she grit her teeth in frustration as she saw that Lament remained in the center of that crater, standing with his blade still held out. The blade was unbroken, though Lament himself had suffered a torn wound in his upper stomach that, while not bleeding, was deep enough that had it been any other Espada that’d taken the wound, they’d be in agony. Velvet also noted that while Lament’s sword had withstood her attack, his arm had a piece of broken bone stick out from the wrist. However even that wound didn’t seem to remotely bother Lament as he looked up at her with the empty black pits of his eyes within the wolf mask giving Velvet’s soul a chill. The wolf mask’s mouth opened and a ear bleeding howl poured out, and Velvet wondered if there was anything left of reason inside Hard Nail’s mind at this point. 

It pained her more than her physical wounds to see him this way, but she could afford no sympathy at this point. It was taking all of her concentration, skill, and power to keep up with him, and that was a state of affairs she knew wasn’t going to last long. 

Lament hurtled upwards like a shadow-clad comet, and though Velvet’s senses were adjusting to his insane speed, she still barely had time to react as his blade cut the air. Extending the spike of her pile bunker, she turned it just in time to catch the sword on the silver spike, but raw force alone was enough to send tremors into her bones and blow her backwards. Automatically tracking and targeting, her wing cannons unleashed a punishing round of exploding reishi shells. Lament’s bone tail spun in a scything buzz of motion, cutting down the shells as he flew towards her.

Grunting, her right arm in scathing agony from its earlier wounds as she hefted her gatling cannon, she flew backwards and joined its fury to that of her wing cannons, filling the sky with blinding explosions. Lament flew through it all, his sword and tail working in tandem to cut apart any attack getting close to him as he soared after her. Both of them moved like supersonic jets in a dizzying pattern across the air above Lament’s tower, spheres of reishi darting across their wake like a swarm of bees that formed a trail of explosions wherever they went.

Velvet was only barely keeping ahead of Lament. The two flew no more than twenty feet above the top of the tower, blowing past Lament’s cabin and dead orchard. Velvet thought she saw a small Hollow dog sitting at the cabin’s door, barking away at them as they flew by.

Hard Nail always loved dogs. It saddened her even more to know there were parts of him still inside the monstrosity he’d become, but she shut those feelings out. However even that instant of mental distraction let Lament close the gap between them.

He reached her with a powerful overhand swing, the black sword descending with all the strength and fury of a cruise missile. This time Velvet wasn’t able to completely block the attack, the spike catching Lament’s sword at a poor angle. Molten pain reached past her mental defenses and she let out a scream as part of her left mid-riff suffered a bloody gouge that spilled a gush of blood through the air as she was sent spinning down to the ground. 

She recovered at the last second, landing on her feet and springing away as Lament, having followed right on her heels, just barely missed with a thrust of his sword that still hit the ground like a meteor and created another fresh crater around his tower. 

Raising her left hand, Velvet let the power of her Schrift, now increasing with her wounds, pour out from the brand on her palm and rush into Lament. Only this time, instead of the spikes of light growing from within, they extended out from Lament and became charged with bands of light, forming multiple halos around his body that started to constrict upon his form. The Vengeance could be adjusted to switch from inflicting damage, to acting as a binding force, limiting the powers of its victim. Since wounds seemed to do next to nothing to Lament, Velvet hoped this might work better.

Unfortunately even the bindings from the Vengeance did little more than slightly slow Lament’s movements as he turned toward her. Still, slightly slower was better than nothing, and it suited Velvet’s next move just fine.

She’d already realized that most of her attacks just weren’t powerful enough to do worthwhile damage to Lament. Except for her Licht Pfählung. That had hurt him, even if his body was capable of ignoring that kind of damage. This meant that if she could get a clear shot in with the Licht Pfählung on one of his limbs and tear it off, that might make a critical enough difference and allow her to escape. Or a direct hit on his head might be able to kill him. Surely he couldn’t ignore losing his head, right?

And binding his powers, slowing him down if only by the smallest percentage, gave Velvet the only opening she knew she’d have.

So as he turned to her to renew his assault, Velvet threw herself forward with all the speed and strength she had to muster, cocking her gatling cannon back while the pile punker spike retracted for one more strike. The moment she did this, she saw Lament lower his head so his twin horns were aimed right at her.

Absolute darkness formed between those horns, a circle of energy that drowned out all color and light around it, as if it was turning the world around Lament into washed out gray. Velvet knew this was a Cero, but she’d never seen, or even heard of one that consisted of such pitch black coloration, nor ever felt one filled with such singular reiatsu that dripped sorrow and rage in equal measures. 

Yet she could not dodge. Could not even afford the thought to evade. She was committed to her attack, the vents already opening along her gatling cannon to expel their streams of reishi as the white sheath of energy formed around her pile bunker’s spike. 

At the very least she could look at one silvering lining... Lament was making his head an easy target.

“Licht Pfählung!”

At less than a few meters from Lament, she slammed her weapon forward, firing the spike and its spear of light straight into Lament’s Cero just as the Espada howled his own fury and fired it, drowning the world in black.

----------

Sassy Saddles was not having a good day.

Her Vollstandig surrounded her in a white cloak, quite stylishly cut, and trimmed with gold. Its trailing edges spread into three distinct tails that held a curved, wing shape. The cloak itself extended down part of her chest into a fine chest piece that complemented her uniform with its silver markings and tight fit. The cloak of course had a hood, which in turn acted as her halo as the top of the hood blazed with a smokey light in the form of a Quincy Cross.

Her bow had transfigured itself into the form of a very long barreled sniper rifle, one with a slim, elegant body and a sophisticated looking scope formed from holographic light. 

In this form she’d gone from having trouble keeping herself uninjured while facing Grogar, to essentially playing an extended game of cat and mouse with the cagey Espada. The frustration painting Sassy’s middle-aged (but still well cared for!) features was that Grogar was not playing the game very fairly. 

She knew she was strong enough to get a certain kill-shot on the old goat if he’d just stay still enough for her to get him in her sights. The Needle would do the rest at that point. But he wasn’t presenting her with a clear target. The moment she’d gone into her Vollstandig he’d shifted to purely evasive tactics, and most annoyingly the man appeared to have an endless supply of those horrendous and grotesque Arrancar servants to throw at her.

Quite literally so. She’d seen him pull a set of capsules from within his clothes and throw them into the air, from which ugly little balls of flesh popped out and rapidly grew into the mutated, misshapen Arrancar that kept coming at Sassy, no matter how many she blasted into oblivion.

She was just finishing off another set of such foul creatures, her sniper rifle sending out a sparkling, needle thin bullet that ripped through the unfortunate souls like little more than soggy tissue paper, when she finally spotted Grogar some distance away, back near the wall extending from Las Noches’ central tower.

Trying to run, old fool? You could run for miles and still be within my range.

Sassy took aim, her rifle’s scope magnifying Grogar’s location as if he were standing right next to her. It looked as if he was trying to recover that device she’d shot at earlier, the one with all the holographic view screens. Odd that he seemed so interested in that one device, more so than fighting her. He hadn’t even bothered to use his Resurreccion. If he had she’d be in more dire straits.

Well, no matter, she had him in her sights. Just line up the head and-

Every single danger instinct Sassy Saddles had went off all at once, alerting her to the immediate need to move!

Not questioning her own instincts, she rushed to the side with as fast a Hirenkyaku as she could manage. And just in time, as a markedly massive beam of utter, night black energy rolled across the desert like an avalanche. It destroyed a near two hundred meter wide section of the fortress’ inner wall, and consumed a large pathway across the sands, including the area Sassy Saddles had been standing in a second earlier.

Sassy landed a score of meters away, her eyes blinking in complete astonishment as the obsidian beam, a Cero of gigantic proportions, continued to rip apart a path across Las Noches until it finally struck the exterior wall, many kilometers in the distance. The resulting explosion shook the very ground like a localized earthquake, and Sassy saw a large chunk of the exterior wall crumble like dust under the power of that Cero. When it was done she could literally see outside Las Noches.

Finding herself panting in fear, her heart quaking in her chest, Sassy quickly composed herself with a steadying breath and looked back in the direction that blast had come from.

She’d known Twilight Velvet had been in that direction, fighting a disturbingly powerful Espada... but Sassy had been so focused on her own fight that she hadn’t realized just how dire things were over there. And now... was Velvet even alive?

She wasn’t sure anything short of His Majesty could have survived a direct hit from that Cero. 

Shaking her head, Sassy reminded herself that whatever was happening, she still had her own job to do. Cadence was dealing with Squirk, and as afraid as Sassy was for Velvet, she couldn’t let Grogar...

Wait, where was Grogar? She scanned the area with her sniper rifle. The portion of the wall Grogar had been on was about fifty meters short of where that giant, dark Cero had hit, so that clearly hadn’t killed him. But she didn’t see him anywhere. In fact, she didn’t see the device he’d been trying to pick up, either. On top of that, she no longer sensed his reiatsu at all.

“Bloody hell...” she breathed. He must have taken the device and fled through a Garganta.

Not ideal, but on the other hand, at least he wasn’t in the area any longer. That gave Sassy the freedom to rejoin her comrades.

Assuming either of them were still alive at this point.

----------

Adagio wasn’t certain how she managed to block that first attack from Luna. Her speed as a Vasto Lorde had certainly improved by leaps and bounds, but even she was surprised that she managed to react in time, crossing her trident in front of her to catch both of Luna’s scythes as they’d come in at her far faster than any mortal eye could have hoped to see.

Even so she was still rattled by the impact and didn’t have so much as a chance to blink before Luna skillfully turned one of her scythes downward, planting its blade into the ground, and used it like a pole to lift herself up and around and kicked Adagio square in the side of the head. The whole move had happened in a split second, in one smooth flow of motions that left Adagio spinning across the chamber to smash into Squirk’s throne, shattering the sandstone construct in the process.

“Cheerilee, Nocturn, subdue the Arrancar girl and begin opening a Senkaimon Gate. I want to be out of this place within five minutes.”

“Yes Captain!” both rang out, Flash Stepping to surrounding Ember.

Adagio shoved a large chunk of sandstone off of her and rose to her feet, snarling, “You’re not taking her!”

Thrusting her trident forward she formed multiple Aqua Balas, firing the reishi enhanced water bullets in a sweeping arc at Luna. 

Luna blinked in and out of view with Flash Steps that left Adagio struggling to correct her aim, and then in the next moment the Soul Reaper Captain was above her, descending like an angel of death with her twin scythes slamming down as firmly as guillotines.

Adagio leaped away with a Sonido, but still felt the biting cut of those scythes on her flesh. Even her hardened Vasto Lorde body with its thick bone armor couldn’t fully withstand those Zanpaktou, and though the cuts were shallow Adagio was still left with two bleeding wounds down her chest. 

Meanwhile Ember was stuck dealing with being flanked, both Cheerilee an Nocturn assaulting her from either side. 

Cheerilee’s whip flashed in with cracking strikes, Ember twisting and springing across the chamber to avoid the blows, some of which shattered sandstone tables and chairs like so much kindling. Ember wasn’t certain what the Zanpaktou abilities of either Soul Reaper were, which made her cautious enough to fight defensively for now. Nocturn came in at Ember just as she was dodging one of Cheerilee’s whip strikes, slashing in a downward cut with his Zanpaktou, the twin claw blades whistling through the air. Ember leaned back from the blow, the claw blades only cutting a bit of cloth from the simple vest she wore.

However the moment that happened she felt her upper body had trouble moving, because the fabric of her vest was suddenly as hard and rigid as steel.

“The hell-!?” 

Ember twisted and rolled her shoulders, her strength while still in her Resurreccion form sufficient to bend even the hardened fabric of her vest, but that still left her off balance for Cheerilee to Flash Step above her and send her whip coiling down towards Ember. The Arrancar managed to raise an arm to block the whip, but the white leather still coiled around that arm and Ember felt the metal, barbed tip bite her skin.

With a look of surprise she felt her whole left arm go utterly numb, and fall limp. 

Not letting that distract her, Ember saw Nocturn appearing behind her and ducked under the swing of his claw blades, spinning around and lashing out with her own sword in a punishing slash. Nocturn managed to raise his Zanapktou to block, bracing that arm with his other one, but even so Ember struck with enough force to pummel the dark skinned Soul Reaper into the ground and send him bouncing into the wall. He smacked into the wall with a hefty impact and fell to the ground, but Ember couldn’t appreciate that fact much because the numbness in her arm was spreading further down her shoulder as Cheerilee pulled her whip tighter around Ember.

Having no intention of just letting the Soul Reaper have her way, Ember spun her head around and opened her mouth wide. A fiery red orb formed between her teeth, and she spat out a wide, red Cero beam that spiraled with traced of flame-like energy. Cheerilee wasn’t crazy enough to try and keep her whip’s hold on Ember in that circumstance, and quickly Flash Stepped away, letting go of Ember with her whip. The Cero beam blasted a hole through the wall of the throne chamber, crumbling away a rounded section from which light now streamed in.

Appearing a dozen feet from Ember’s right side, Cheerilee snapped her whip low, aiming for Ember’s legs. Ember flipped over the strike, or tried to, but the steel hard vest she wore slowed her down and while she managed to avoid Cheerilee’s Zanpaktou whip, she landed off balance. 

“Grr, dammit!” Ember swore. She would have torn her vest off, but her left arm was utterly numb and dead at this point from the power of Cheerilee’s whip. She wasn't sure if it was poison or something else, but the mere touch of that whip had a paralyzing effect. 

Pointing her sword at Cheerilee, she started to spin the blade in preparation to perform her Espina Perforadora technique, but while she’d been focused on Cheerilee, Nocturn had recovered and managed to push himself up to one knee. While there he’d moved his hand in a series of rapid gestures, creating streaks of blue light in the air that formed curving sigils as his body became clad in a misty blue light.

”Bakudo Number Twenty Nine: Boseki!” (Gravestone) 

The sand at Ember’s feet suddenly transmuted into a gray, cement-like substance and rose up around her like a living ooze. Within a split second it covered her lower half and reached up to encase most of her body except for her head and part of her right shoulder and arm. The cement hardened to stone, encasing and binding those parts of Ember’s body while dark inked sigils identical to the ones’ Nocturn had gestured earlier appeared all over the stone and flashed with light as the binding spell started to work to suppress Ember’s reiatsu.

Of course she was an Arrancar with her full power released, so the spell couldn’t hold her fully, which is partly why it had failed to cover her body entirely. Even within a few seconds the cement started to crack from Ember’s struggles. However this game Cheerilee time to add her own Kido to the mix.

Coiling her whip around her right hand, Cheerilee’s left palm glowed with faint yellow light as she drew a triangle of energy in the air in front of her. 

”Bakudo Number Thirty: Shitotsu Sansen.” (Beak-Piercing Triple Beam)

Upon her own invocation the corners of the triangle glowed brightly and formed three yellow, beak shaped shards of spirit energy that shot out and embedded themselves into Ember, one on each arm, and the third around her waist. Ember growled in pure rage as she felt her body being further bound, and her spirit energy being suppressed even harder. She struggled to raise her sword, to swing it at the cement binding her, or aim a Cero at one of the Soul Reapers before her, but by now she was slowed to the point that even getting her sword arm up was proving difficult. 

And she was more than immobile enough at this point that when Cheerilee lashed out with her Zanpaktou, the whip coiled around Ember’s neck without any trouble. Ember choked, struggling now just to draw in breath as Cheerilee’s Zanpaktou went to work, numbing Ember from the neck down, and then finally knocking the Arrancar girl unconscious. 

“Got her,” Cheerilee said, sighing, “I’ve had easier dates, I must admit. Nocturn, hurry and get that Senkaimon open!”

Nocturn, rubbing his bruised ribs as he stood up fully, Flash Stepped over to the unconscious Ember, and gave Cheerilee a nod, slowly reaching out with his own Zanpaktou. The claw blades sunk into the air as if it were water, and started to create a gateway in the air consisting of multiple, circular paper rice-wall sliding doors. 

While this had been happening, Adagio had not been idle, but she’d been thoroughly unable to help Ember. Luna was simply proving to be too powerful an opponent to require anything other than Adagio’s full attention, and even then Adagio was struggling just to defend herself, let alone think of going to Ember’s aid.

Everywhere Adagio turned, Luna was the specter of death, scythe and shadow alike seeking to tear into Adagio. She fought back with trident and water, pushing herself to the furthest heights of speed and strength she could, and felt like she was barely keeping pace. Luna’s twin scythes formed a black storm that Adagio’s trident sparked off of as she twirled and spun the three-pronged weapon, but for every parry Adagio managed she felt a cold strip of pain from another cut or laceration upon her flesh. She summoned bursts of water in high-pressurized streams that tore through the sandstone of the chamber, but Luna conjured shadows in jagged masses to consume the blasts of water.

Those shadows sprang at Adagio from practically every direction, painting the ground and walls black, and Adagio knew that letting those shadows catch her would spell the end, so she moved with blindingly swift Sonidos to keep one step ahead of the darkness. Luna’s shadows formed thin, tearing ribbons that sliced at Adagio from both sides and from behind. With a spin of her trident, Adagio summoned spheres of water as large as her own body that intercepted them. At that same moment Luna hurled one of her scythes at Adagio’s exposed side. Adagio’s tail flicked with strength enough to crush boulders, but she still felt every inch of her body shudder from the impact as she deflected the thrown scythe. Luna didn’t even miss a beat, following right behind the scythe she threw while wielding its twin with both hands in a massive spinning attack.

Adagio managed to turn around and cross her trident in front of her in time to catch the scythe, but found herself being driven straight into the ground by the strength behind Luna’s blow. Adagio held the scythe back just barely as Luna pressed in, the edge of the blade a bare inch from Adagio’s chest. Grunting in concentration, Adagio summoned a burst of water in front of her, trying to use the wall of water to push Luna back, but the Soul Reaper Captain must have anticipated such a move because she Flash Stepped away instantly, grabbed the scythe she’d thrown earlier, and then swung both scythes down at once to cut Adagio’s water wall in half and hit Adagio with a pressure wave that shoved her back into the wall next to what was left of Squirk’s smashed throne.

So this is what a Soul Reaper Captain is capable of? These are the other enemies we Hollows must face, in order to survive?

Between this, and the previous fight with Prim Hemline, Adagio was starting to see why the Espada were so necessary. Not just their power, but the way they obtained and maintained that power. Hollows only got stronger through consuming each other, and competing with each other. If the Espada didn’t exist in such a state of constant natural selection, then they couldn’t possibly be strong enough to face foes like these Soul Reapers and Quincy. 

And I’ll obtain those heights of power! she thought with keen resolve as spearing shards of Luna’s shadows stabbed towards her and Adagio jumped over them, letting them smash the wall behind her as she rushed towards Luna. She swung and stabbed with her trident, trying to force her way past Luna’s defenses, even bringing her tail into the assault with wide, hefty swings of the blade-like fin at the tail’s tip.

I sacrificed my old life, and only have this one left to live. I will never let anyone else take this from me again! 

For just a few seconds she thought she might have been gaining the upper hand. Luna had taken a few steps back under Adagio’s attacks, her scythes working in perfect tandem to parry the blows coming her way, but without any sign of being able to mount a counter attack. But soon that proved to just be Luna’s ploy, as she lured Adagio into overextending herself, and in that moment of confidence, Luna slipped inside Adagio’s reach with unbelievable speed, showing that all of her previous Flash Steps had been the Captain holding back.

Adagio simply didn’t see Luna, even within the span of her spiritual senses, for a microsecond, and suddenly her trident was only touching air and Luna was standing behind her, blood dripping from her scythes.

“Your power is great as a Vasto Lorde, Adagio Dazzle... perhaps enough to threaten even a Captain such as myself,” Luna said, regarding Adagio with respect, but grim firmness, “But that alone will not bring you victory.”

Blood gushed from Adagio from a cross of cuts over her chest, reaching all the way to her hips and shoulders. While deep, the wounds weren’t fatal, but they left Adagio staggered as she used her trident to keep herself propped up. Teeth clenched, eyes glaring, Adagio tried to turn a hand around to point a Cero Luna’s way, but by now Luna had gotten her shadows beneath Adagio’s feet, and a literal cascade of shadowy limbs rose and bore Adagio up in a curving arc into the wall, pinning her there as firmly as if she was melded with the wall. 

“I know Sunset Shimmer bears you in some fond regard, including a desire to save you from your fate as a Hollow. While purifying you with my Zanpaktou would technically accomplish this, I don’t think Sunset would appreciate the gesture,” Luna sighed, “So while it may go against my purpose as a Soul Reaper, I shall spare you this once, Adagio Dazzle.”

Her eyes hardened to glaciers, “But only once.”

With that Luna turned and walked over to her two subordinates, ignoring Adagio now, even as her shadows continued to keep Adagio bound to the wall. Adagio struggled against the shadows, but it was like trying to push her way out of quicksand while buried up to the neck. She saw that Ember was unconscious, and was being carried by Cheerilee, while Nocturn had finally opened the Senkaimon Gate.

“What are you bastards planning to do with her!? Give her back, damn you!”

Luna didn’t even respond to her, instead saying to Cheerilee and Nocturn, “Good work securing the target. Let’s go home. I’ve more than had my fill of Hueco Mundo. Cheerilee, you go first.”

“Yes, Captain,” Cheerilee said, patting Ember on the head, “She’s a pretty tough cookie. Hope the RnD folk aren’t too hard on her.”

“That will be up to Starswirl,” Luna said, “I don’t know what he intends for his research. I only hope it proves worth our time.”

The Soul Reapers began to enter the Senkaimon Gate, small black butterflies fluttering about the gateway that would guide them across the Precipice World, and eventually to Soul Society. Adagio watched Cheerilee enter first, carrying Ember, and everything inside her screamed in denial. Ember had done nothing but help her since her earliest days in Hueco Mundo. Adagio didn’t doubt that she’d have died a second death by now many times over if not for Ember’s presence. More than that, thinking of all the things she’d done, things she’d held back from Ember, and even after confessing the ways she’d used or manipulated Ember, she’d still chosen to stick by Adagio’s side as an ally... well there wasn’t anyone else in all Hueco Mundo like Ember. 

And through all of this, the only reward Adagio could give to pay back Ember for such loyalty was to halfheartedly watch her get dragged off to an unknown fate by Soul Reapers.

No. She couldn’t let that pass. Not without more of a fight! 

But cold facts were cold facts. She wasn’t strong enough to fight the likes of Luna, not even as a Vasto Lorde.

So she had to become more than a Vasto Lorde, and Ember had already told her what she needed to do to accomplish that.

She’d been too afraid of the risks. She’d wanted a surefire, safe way to ascend. That had been the real reason she’d sent Dumbbell and the other boys to fetch information from Grogar’s lab. She hadn’t wanted to risk the natural path to Arrancar evolution, and had wanted a more secure manner to obtain more power. 

What hogwash. Power was never gained without risk. And the kind of power Adagio wanted, the kind of power she needed? She’d never gain it if she was still afraid to risk her own existence on rising to those lofty heights of strength! 

To become an Arrancar, all a Hollow had to do was remove their mask by their own will. The reason so few Hollows ever tried such a feat was that the breaking of their mask was almost always fatal, as it scattered their Hollow essence. Only supreme will could keep that essence together, and trigger the change to an Arrancar. That was why desperate situations usually brought forth the change, which was what she and Ember had been trying to achieve in the Forest of Menos.

But instead she’d become a Vasto Lorde. A useful step forward, but not the one she needed to take now. And she would encounter no situation more desperate than this. No need greater than to keep the one and only real friend she had in this place of violence and backstabbing. 

If she wasn’t willing to risk absolute destruction of her soul now, then there’d be no other time. She’d just have to accept her weakness for the rest of eternity.

And that wasn’t who Adagio Dazzle was, a weakling who sat by while she had ambitions to fulfill! 

Her limbs were pinned, but that didn’t matter. She still had her element of water. So she summoned it, forming a stream of flowing water that curled out and took on the shape of a grasping talon. That talon of water gripped Adagio’s face, squeezing around the edges of the Hollow mask that took on the shape of a siren’s features.

This act was not unnoticed by the Soul Reapers, Luna turning to look with at first confusion, then dawning realization.

“What is she doing?” Nocturn asked, but Luna just held a scythe out to usher him and Cheerilee both further into the portal.

“Don’t stop!” Luna commanded, “Go now, and leave this matter to me!”

Cheerilee and Nocturn both shared mutual looks of uncertainty, but the command in their Captain’s voice could not be questioned, and so both started to head deeper into the Senkaimon Gate.

At that same instant, Adagio’s mask began to crack under the pressure of the water talon.

Luna gestured with a scythe, the shadows around Adagio constricting, but she ignored that pain as bones bent and her armor strained against the pressure. She just focused on the agonizing yet somehow cleansing feeling of her own mask, the Hollow mask that had been a part of her since she’d chosen to transform her soul into this new state of being, crumbled under the grip of her own will... then shattered.

It was like ripping out her soul chain all over again. The pain roared through her like the wrath of a sun, ripping through her essence as the fragments of her mask spun through the air. Her whole body started to crack apart, seams bursting up and down her form in lines of deep cobalt light. Adagio could feel herself breaking apart not just in form, but in mind, in spirit. It was like without the mask, the Hollow essence had nothing to keep it together, and hence it was spilling out like a canteen with its cap torn off.

The only thing to keep herself together with was her will, her emotions, her refusal to lose herself, and the clear focus upon the desires that drove her. 

Power erupted out of her, blue light spiraling out in a torrent, at the center of which was a single bright red light, Adagio’s siren gem pulsing with a furious crimson heartbeat. The broken fragments of her Hollow mask turned to streams of energy that flowed into and object that flew out of the torrent of energy, Adagio’s trident. The rough hewn weapon of bone blew apart into motes of blue dust, then reforged itself anew, still a trident, but this one a long and elegant weapon with a shining white shaft of pearl and three large blades forged from ruby crystal the same color as Adagio’s siren gem. 

Smoke and dust clouded the spot, but only for a moment before a burst of force sent it all spiraling away as Adagio rocketed outward. She grabbed her new trident as she went, and in a streak of speed rushed the Senkaimon Gate. Luna was there waiting for her, and trident and scythes clashed in a combined embrace so forceful that it shattered the walls on either side of the chamber, blowing out multi-ton chunks of rock for hundreds of meters.

Adagio now looked much as she once did when in her human body. A full, well endowed body of feminine curves, now lean and hardened with muscles that did nothing to take away from her beauty. The only allusions to her Hollow, now Arrancar nature, was the Hollow hole still in the center of her chest, bearing its gleaming siren gem, and the three small but gracefully curved spikes of the crown-like crest she’d borne as a Vasto Lorde, joined together by a single band of bone across her brow. 

She was also presently without clothing, but that was a minor detail, and there was some strategically placed dust and smoke about, so if there had been any onlookers present, they’d be getting a show, but one well within a PG-13 rating. Mostly. Luna probably had a better view.

Luna strained under Adagio’s strike, and had to respond quickly because Adagio moved in a dance of blazing motion, her trident screaming through the air. In the span of an eyeblink over a score of blows were exchanged between the two. 

Adagio saw the Senkaimon Gate closing, and her body wreathed itself in red light as she threw her newfound strength behind a thrust that created a conical burst of air around it as she aimed it straight at Luna’s head. Luna in turn spun one of her scythes around in an air splitting strike while slamming her other scythe down upon Adagio’s trident. The parry was strong, pushing the trident aside, but shockingly to Luna not enough to keep from getting a deep, scarring cut across her cheek and brow, right across her left eye, if not quite enough to take the eye itself.

Meanwhile Adagio twisted her own face aside as Luna’s other scythe passed by, cutting a similar deep cut across her right cheek and eye, a near identical wound to what she’d just given Luna.

The twin blows pushed both of them backwards, Adagio skidding back until she shoved her trident into the ground to halt herself. Luna was pushed back into the Senkaimon Gate itself, and by now the paper rice doors had closed to the point that all Adagio could see was the Soul Reaper’s bleeding face. She couldn’t see Ember anymore, and was left with the sure knowledge her friend was somewhere deep within the portal, being taken to Soul Society.

Rage churned inside Adagio, as she knew that Luna had won this skirmish and was escaping. But she didn’t want to let the Soul Reaper part without a final promise.

“I will get her back.”

As the Senkaimon Gate closed, all Adagio could see was Luna’s hardened, resolved eyes as she replied, “I expect nothing less.”

----------

Dust was settling quietly near Lament’s battered tower. Somewhere deep below the tower, Roka, Fenice, and the many young Arrancar children were huddled in a fortified basement that Lament had built specifically for the purpose of holding up to the powers he might unleash if he ever needed to battle near the tower itself. They had felt the incredible shaking in the very walls of the cozy, heavily reinforced stone basement, and Roka and Fenice could only exchange fearful looks with each other. Both felt their Father’s reiatsu, felt that overwhelmingly potent and dark aura of sorrow and regret. Only Roka had ever seen her Father’s Ressureccion before, and knew the danger of it. Not because of its incredible power... but because while in the throes of that transformation she knew her Father lost himself and became a true death-bringing beast, a feral wolf that even she not ought approach.

The fortified basement was as much to protect Lament’s family from him as it was to protect them from any potential enemy.

On the surface, falling clouds of sand were gradually blown away by the interior breezes of Las Noches to reveal a wide, carved path of destruction that trailed off eastward. A hundred meter wide expanse was melted to seared chunks of glass and burning sand, widening even further as it moved eastward. 

Within that large portion of burned out sand, Twilight Velvet twitched, and slowly raised her head. She was lying on her back, blood coating her. She was covered in burns, her uniform tattered. The gatling cannon was half melted, four of its barrels twisted beyond use. The pile bunker spike was broken off, its partially melted tip laying in the ground next to her. Three of her wings were blown clean off, their torn stumps bleeding shards of reishi. The other three were damaged, but intact, for all the good that would do her.

Coughing, she stood on shaking legs, blood dripping down to splatter like thick raindrops on the blackened sands beneath her feet. Blood covered eyes looked ahead toward the origin of the crater, the place where Lament stood.

He growled, a menacing sound that vibrated through the air with frozen menace.

Velvet saw that he wasn't entirely unharmed by her final, desperate attack. Her spear of light had managed to do two things. First, it had kept her alive. That unbelievable powerful, black Cero would have destroyed her completely if the Licht Pfählung hadn’t carved a relative bubble of safety within the destructive river of dark energy. Even then, the proximity had torn through her weapon, burned and ripped her flesh, broken bones, shattered her wings, and left her barely able to stand. The second thing the attack had managed to do was break Lament’s right horn, severing it at the sharp bend near the brow. Not that this seemed to bother Lament much as he growled once more and took a step forward, brandishing his black sword.

Velvet huffed out a humorless laugh.

She had no more delusions concerning her survival. She only wanted to await the final blow, so that she could fully enact the power of the Vengeance to put Lament down for good.

I can do that much for you... for both of you, Sweet Cider... Hard Nail.

She couldn’t pretend not to be afraid. She certainly couldn’t pretend to lacking any regrets. She had enough of those to probably compete with Hard Nail. Velvet dearly missed her friends. She’d left them so long ago, afraid for her own family, and perhaps just as afraid to interfere with theirs. But now more than ever she wished she could have seen them all, one last time.

Beyond that, the thing she regretted most was that she’d made an utter mess of her time with her daughter. All she’d wanted to do was protect Twilight from the harsh world she knew awaited her one and only daughter, but she’d been so focused on trying to isolate Twilight from the the people Velvet feared would hurt her, that she’d only ensured she was isolated from Twilight as well.

Can’t be helped now... but at least I can make sure this monster can’t be a threat to anyone else, neither my fellow Quincy, my old friends, or my family, Velvet thought as Lament drew close, sword poised to strike. She had nothing left to throw at him that would do any good, but for the sake of defiance, to die with some measure of pride, she let her last remaining three wing cannons let loose with what they could.

Lament deflected the reishi shells with contemptuous ease, not breaking stride.

But that was alright, she had one last card to play, and as soon as he struck the fatal blow, he’d discover the full measure of her Schrift's power.

Then she heard something that froze her blood in shock and fear.

“MOM!”

No, no she can’t be here!

But her eyes were not deceiving her. A teal arrow, coated in as much magic as reishi, flew down and impacted with Lament in an explosion of witchfire. It was followed but several more that flew in at strange angles, impacting upon Lament from half a dozen different directions. The only reason Velvet imagined he hadn’t deflected them was simply that the Espada was momentarily confused and curious about this new opponent.

“Mom, hold on, I’ll get you out of here!” Twilight Sparkle said, landing next to Velvet, reaching out her hand.

While Velvet stared at her daughter in abject horror, she still noticed the strange way her daughter’s form was slightly different. Her eyes were surrounded by the pale, teal colored flames of magic, and similarly colored motes of magical energy flowed from her shoulders like the ghosts of wings. She could tell that her daughter was exhibiting higher spiritual pressure than before, an impressive leap, all things considered... but it was meaningless. Twilight couldn’t possibly match the Lament as he was now, or even if he hadn’t been using his Resurreccion. Her daughter had just committed herself to death by being here, and Velvet’s heart tore apart in denial of Twilight’s very presence.

From Twilight’s perspective, the terror in her mother’s eyes was attributed to facing this horrible looking Espada and being near death. She felt a clench in her chest, a terrible tremble of pain and regret, at seeing how wounded her mother was, how badly her skin was burned and how much blood covered her. All past angers and issues in that moment were forgotten. Now all she wanted to do was save her mother.

Midnight, I need that teleport NOW! she screamed mentally.

Magic churned inside her and Midnight’s voice let out a strained reply, I’m working on it! Just need a second! And will you calm down!? That anomaly is shaking like crazy!

Twilight’s hand touched Velvet shoulder and she closed her eyes, Please do it fast, Midnight!

Almost- Midnight started to say, but then Twilight felt a sharp rise in spiritual pressure from Lament, and looked over i time to see him swing his sword towards her. He wasn’t close enough to physically strike her, but he didn’t have to. The pressure wave alone hit like a blast of hurricane force winds, and both Twilight and Velvet were blown away from each other, both sent tumbling away and rolling across the crater in different directions.

Twilight rolled to her feet, aiming her bow and firing off a quick set of four arrows that flew in at Lament from several zig-zagging angles, but now that he’d taken his measure of this new threat, Lament didn’t waste time and in a single Sonido avoided all of those arrows and appeared before Twilight.

Only her ability to think and calculate quickly let Twilight react at all, her mental voice shouting at Midnight.

Teleport us to mom, then teleport us outside!

I’m not even sure I can do one safely, let alone two, but there’s no choice. Hold on to your internal organs, this is going to be bumpy!

Magic flared up as Lament’s sword descended and Twilight felt the world distort in a flash of teal energie, her senses feeling as if they were burning in light as her body was warped from one spot to the next. Dizzy, Twilight glanced around to see she was now next to her still shocked looking mother. 

One more teleport, then we’ll be safe, Twilight thought, and reached out to grab her mother, magic flaring up around her body once more.

And then Lament, with even more speed from before, was simply next to her with his sword making a dark flicker through the air.

Twilight blinked. She’d been reaching out for her mother with her right hand, but now she suddenly didn’t have a hand. 

It’d been looped off at the wrist.

“Huh...?” Twilight blinked, not sure she comprehended it. Her logical mind was listing off random statistics on blood loss and how long she’d need to keep her hand on ice if she wanted it reattached. Midnight was also screaming something, but Twilight couldn’t really hear that.

She saw her mother’s eyes look impossibly wide, then felt a shadow over her and looked up. Lament had inverted his sword in his grip and now poised it above her head, about to impale her. Twilight couldn’t react, and felt rooted to the spot as that impossibly dark blade started to descend.

Then she felt herself being pushed, and her back hit the ground numbly. She rose to a sitting position with her one remaining hand, ignoring the blood and pain from the stump of her right wrist, and starred.

Her mother had pushed her out of the way, and now sat kneeling in front of her.

Lament’s sword had shoved its way in through Velvet’s left collarbone and protruded out of the right side of her ribs, red blood dripping from its tip.

Velvet made a small sound, blood seeping from her lips. She raised a hand to Twilight, eyes tearful, pain etched over her face as she choked out one word. “...Run...”

Then Lament twisted his sword and ripped it out of Velvet’s chest sideways. Blood in an impossibly large curtain of red fountain out, splattering the ground, and Twilight’s face. Her eyes shook, pupils shrinking as they reflected her mother’s body falling to the ground in a limp, dead heap. Blood continued to flow out, bathing the ground.

For Velvet, consciousness had not entirely faded as she felt the coldness of her body as the heat of her blood left her. She could barely think, but her final thoughts were keen and clear. 

She would protect her daughter. She’d protect her little girl, to the very last breath.

The Vengeance had two simple modes, inflicting damage and agony, or binding power. She’d intended to let her death activate this final ability in the form of a last explosion of power that would probably have destroyed Lament. However with Twilight here, Velvet couldn’t do that, because it’d kill her daughter too.

So instead she used the power in its binding form, in the last hope it’d give Twilight a chance to escape, to go on living.

Twilight Velvet’s last fragment of thought was for her family, as she breathed one last time and invoked her Schift’s full power.

”Letzte Rache...” (Final Vengeance)

Then she was gone.

As Velvet’s body went still, the brand on her left hand ignited to a blaze brighter than the sun, covering the area in pure white light. 

Lament let out a howl that pierced the air as the brand on his stomach also filled with blinding light, and every spike that had pierced his body now exploded in the form of hundreds of small, binding chains. The chains wrapped around Lament in their multitudes, piercing in and out of the Espada’s body again and again, doing no damage but instead embedding themselves into the essence of his spiritual energy. 

Finally the chains fully melded with his body until they vanished inside it, and Lament’s Resurreccion form broke away from him like shards of glass. He now stood in his normal state, the shards of energy from his Resurreccion reforming around his sword to transform the Zanpaktou back to its unreleased state. The chains were gone, as was the Vengeance brand. But in the brand’s place where two silver nails, one impaled through each of his palms. The nails caused no harm, but they acted as the seals on his power, suppressing his reiatsu and preventing him from releasing his Resurreccion again.

How long the seals would last was anyone’s guess, but for now Lament’s power  was limited to his normal state.

But far more importantly, his mental state was returned to something resembling normal, if incredibly confused. Lament knew he’d blacked out during his Resurreccion, and even his memory of the fight with Velvet up to its release was fragmented and unclear. His head hurt fiercely and he looked at the scene before him with utter confusion.

A dead woman lay in a bloody heap at his feet, and a short distance away a girl sat with a severed hand, and her face obscured by the fall of her hair that left her eyes hidden.

Within Twilight Sparkle there was no conscious thought. Everything had simply stopped inside her. Everything except a small piece of white noise that occasional resolved into Midnight’s frantic, shouting voice.

”-snap out of-”

“-otta do somethi-”

“-its opening, Twilight!”

Opening? Some tiny voice inside Twilight mentioned an ‘anomaly’. 

Then what little conscious thought Twilight had left was swept away as something inside her did open up with the sound of a primal scream that shook her very soul.