//------------------------------// // Episode 111: The Storm Before the Bigger Storm // Story: Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls // by thatguyvex //------------------------------// Episode 111: The Storm Before the Bigger Storm It was with a brush of professionalism and an air of intellectual satisfaction that Starswirl gestured with his left hand, and Twilight felt the ward he’d created to halt Garganta portals abruptly shatter and dissolve. Her focus had been so intent upon the Twelfth Division Captain that she’d actually lost track of her allies, but with the barrier crumbling like melting flecks of snow around the area, Twilight focused for a second to sense that Di Roy, Roka, and most importantly Ember were outside the barrier’s original area.  They’d done it! But wait, why weren’t they retreating through a Garganta? Instead Twilight sensed them heading back towards the lake, and the lab? But why... oh, it had to be Ember’s Zanpaktou! “I see from the enlightened expression on your face you’ve surmised why my test subject hasn’t made good on an escape back to her realm,” Starswirl said, and Twilight cast her attention back to him and instantly raised her bow again. Magical power burst to teal life along the length of the Hexenfaust gauntlet, charged up by the loaded M-Cell within.  “You don’t seem very concerned,” Twilight noted, and Starswirl gave a short, confirming nod. He remained in the air above her from his previous attack, but seemed wholly not in a rush to make another move, instead looking at her in a way that reminded Twilight of the way her father sometimes looked at her patiently when she’d been a young child and he’d been teaching her chess.  “The specimen, I suppose I’ll use her name ‘Ember’, can’t evade my ability to track her location, and I knew there was a statistically low chance of her returning to Hueco Mundo without her weapon. While I’d have preferred to have recaptured her here, I’m still confident in my contingencies. Besides, I’m finding our conflict here intellectually stimulating, aren’t you?” “Not as much as I’d enjoy knowing my friends and allies were safe,” Twilight replied, not dropping her guard as she sought out where his next attack might come from. With his Zanpaktou’s ability to produce any number of unknown chemicals she was at a serious disadvantage, given his superior knowledge of chemicals and compounds exclusive to the spiritual realms. If only she could just diffuse the fight altogether. “You’re only studying Ember for the sake of finding a way around the blocked portal to Equestria, aren’t you? That’s a goal that would benefit me as well, so instead of trying to recapture Ember what if I offered my own assistance to your research?” He didn’t immediately dismiss the notion, stroking the soft tuft of white beard hanging from his chin, “I’ll admit, I’ve never combined research efforts with a Quincy before, but without an Arrancar to study for their affinity with Garganta portals, what good would that accomplish? Quincy cannot create their own portals.” “No, but magic can... I can,” Twilight ventured, not mentioning the fact that the only time she ever created such “portals” was when she’d either been completely overtaken by Midnight, or been possessed by the Left Eye of the Soul Queen. But Starswirl didn’t need to know that.  “Not to sound like someone lacking some level of personal ethics, but if that’s the case why shouldn’t I simply capture you instead of Ember?” Starswirl asked. “Because cooperation is superior to conflict? You haven’t actually beaten me yet, Captain Starswirl,” Twilight pointed out. “True, but as I said, I’m rather enjoying testing your abilities. Hmm, tell you what, young Miss Sparkle. I’ll consider your offer... if you manage to, well, let’s be realistic and say rather than ‘defeat me’  you force me to ‘get serious’, hm?” Twilight thought perhaps he was being a tad arrogant there, but she supposed he had good reason. She was a teenage girl whom he had centuries (perhaps even millennia) of experience over, and he had a whole second stage of power as of yet untapped within his Zanpaktou. She wasn’t exactly pressing him at the moment. Granted, Starswirl would’ve likely been briefed on the Vollstandig transformation by this point. Twilight couldn’t imagine Luna would’ve left that detail out of any report she made after capturing Ember. Still, Starswirl might and the rest of the Soul Reapers probably didn’t know much about Vollstandig, either. It’s properties, the requirements for activating it, what additional powers it granted, ect.  One would think that lack of knowledge might make him more cautious of her, but he seemed confident that she either didn’t possess Vollstandig, or that even if she did it wouldn’t make enough difference. Sadly, she was stuck playing on his ignorance in that regard. While Schrifts were powers Sombra could grant that were fairly easy to learn the basics of using, even for relatively inexperienced Quincy... Vollstandig was a different matter. She did possess a Sanrei Glove that contained the components necessary to push her into such a transformation, but she’d yet to properly acclimate herself to it or obtain sufficient control of her reishi to enact the transformation without similar risk of losing her powers like the older Letzt Stil form.  Sombra had walked her through the exercises as best he could in the limited time they had before she came to Canterlot City, but even with his help, he estimated that if she tried to use Vollstandig there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d do serious damage to her spiritual powers. Twilight wasn’t as much of a risk taker that she felt okay betting on such odds.  Then again, she had a Schrift that could possibly enhance those odds, if used right...  Putting that thought aside, she fixed her gaze on the space around Starswirl and said, “If that’s what you want, then I’ve no compunctions with obliging you.” Midnight, we’ll see how he handles both magic and Quincy alchemy at the same time! With the M-Cell, don’t hold anything back! Her alter ego eagerly responded with a chilling laugh that made Twilight want to gulp nervously, but at least she and Midnight were working together. She aimed her bow at a spot to Starswirl’s left, and let Midnight’s presence inside her mind expand a little further, merging their thought patterns even further. Teal light intensified around her eyes and back, becoming more solidly akin to a mask of magic witchfire and wisp-like wings as the arrow she formed within her bow pulsed with such light that it all but recolored the forest below with eldritch light. The M-Cell sent surges of magic through both her and her bow as she fired, Midnight and her working as one within her mind to shape magic around the dense reishi arrow. At the same moment she fired, she also sent herself shooting upward into the air with a powerful jump, bouncing off the air once with Hirenkyaku to rocket towards Starswirl’s other side just as her arrow arrived. The magic inside the arrow burst into a spell, rippling out into a solid sphere of teal energy. This was akin to one of her brother’s barriers, but with a fundamentally different set of principles, which became more apparent as magical circles formed along the exterior of the sphere. The spellwork here was complex, and without Midnight’s help, Twilight wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The sphere was one part barrier, one part amplifier. As her mind enacted the magic at the speed of thought, she wondered what the application of such amplifier spells might have been. She knew the magic instinctively from Midnight, but not the context in which the magic had existed back in Equestria. Regardless, she knew the magical circles would interact with her Quincy alchemy to transmute them into enhanced versions, and with an additional layer of duplication magic circles, she could fill the entire sphere from just one ginto tube. Starswirl was moving, spinning his fan above his head, and Twilight wasn’t sure what he was doing but acted fast to try to beat him to the punch as she threw a ginto tube towards the nearest magic circle and sent out a strand of reishi to it as the tube burst and spilled alchemic water onto the magic circle. “Weise Wespe!” (White Wasp) What was normally meant as a fairly basic Quincy alchemic spell to generate a taser-like blast of electricity was now transmuted into something far more potent as it hit the magic circle and the sphere attached to it. Twilight couldn’t even stab a guess at the voltage from the blinding storm of white colored electricity that flashed through the sphere with a crack of thunder. The energy was both spiritual and magical in nature, the two energies amplifying one another while the singular spell was also duplicated all across the sphere over a dozen times. The sphere should have eliminated Starswirl’s ability to evade, and she had to think that an attack boosted to that degree had to at least hurt him, regardless of how potent his reiatsu was.  Midnight, how’s the M-Cell?, she asked. Still has about half its juice left. Mmm, that felt pretty good. I do hope he’s not worn out from just that much. I want to keep going. Twilight could only suppress an inner face-palm at the tone in Midnight’s voice, which left Twilight wishing she could somehow mentally spray bottle her alter ego. This isn’t a game or... or anything else you might be thinking! Just focus. This isn’t over. She was making no assumptions that her attack would have ended the fight, and was already preparing her next move when she sensed a drastic shift in the spiritual energies contained within the barrier. The light of intense electrical surges faded, and then to Twilight’s intrigued if also a little horrified surprise, she saw the very reishi making up her barrier being eaten away as if it was corroding. She saw Starswirl in the center of the sphere, still spinning his Zanpaktou. She saw it’s fan shape releasing a steady stream of a darkly pink gas, which was eating away at the barrier. From the few remaining flickers of alchemic electricity, this gas had also diffused a portion of the electrical energy that had filled the sphere. Starswirl was still injured, with his body bearing several notable scorch marks and his clothing left frayed, but whatever this gas was that he’d unleashed had severely weakened the attack’s impact. Twilight guessed that the gas was somehow designed to break down reishi particles. Through Midnight’s help, she could sense the magic of the barrier was still present, but since it’d been combined with reishi to reinforce its power, with those spirit particles being corroded then the barrier itself couldn’t hold form as the magic was left with no structure to maintain itself.  Why the gas wasn’t affecting Starswirl himself was a different matter, but Twilight theorized that if Starswirl had invented this spirit particle corroding gas, then he’d likely have a means to immunize himself to it or otherwise counteract it... which meant... She flickered closer with Hirenkayku, making sure to stay just outside the immediate vicinity of the gas. Starswirl cocked his eyebrow at her, and she made a point of focusing her eyes directly on him with an intense stare as she activated her Schrift. Altering variables required she had a grasp on those variables. She could make educated guesses as well, which did reduce the power of the Variable, but didn’t counteract it. Spiritual pressure was also a concern, but Twilight had little to lose by trying. Switch the variables of the gas so the corrosive properties are magnified, and operate on a different chemical level..., Twilight concentrated, recalling the structure of the reishi particles in Quincy alchemy and making an educated guess that whatever Starswirl was using to protect himself was calibrated to ignore Soul Reaper based spirit particles and attack Quincy ones. She simply switched that variable into reverse. The effect was immediate as Starswirl’s eyes began to water and his body started to smoke as if something acidic was eating away at his clothes. He didn’t waste a second on confusion, his eyes narrowing at her as he Flash Stepped out of the gas and appeared above her. “A smart counter. Your Variable is quite the perturbing ability, Miss Sparkle.” With a sweep of his Zanpaktou a translucent liquid burst down around her. Twilight was taken aback by how fast Starswirl moved this time, as if his previous motions had been simple tests, and now he was going at this battle in earnest. Even with Hirenkyaku she couldn’t quite get out of the field of liquid in time, some of it splashing across her right arm. It adhered to her skin faster and stronger than any super-glue she was aware of, and she felt pain shoot through her arm, as whatever this substance was it was clearly also poisonous. Midnight stepped in, taking a moment of control of the magic coursing through their body to teleport Twilight, and only Twilight, a good fifty meters upward. The benefit was that the teleport could exclude anything that wasn’t Twilight’s body or her gear, so the poisonous, hardening chemical had been left behind. However some of it’s toxins were still in her body, and without knowing exactly what it was infecting her, the Variable couldn’t as easily counter it.  Magic, on the other hand, was a different matter. With Midnight’s help in taking up a portion of the mental focus needed, Twilight began enacting a purification spell. A magical circle surrounded her right arm and began slowly sweeping over it, cleansing her bloodstream of the toxins. However this was a rather tricky spell that required both a decent amount of energy and focus, which meant for at least a minute or two Twilight couldn’t do much of anything else magical oriented. Midnight could maintain the spell, still allowing Twilight to fight, but without the ability to draw on further magic from inside herself. Which meant the M-Cell was still viable, but Twilight couldn’t do anything fancy with it without Midnight’s help. Then again, she didn’t necessarily need to do anything fancy for it to be effective. Making it clear that he was taking the fight a bit more seriously, Starswirl hadn’t waited for her to mount a counteroffensive. He pursued her higher into the air, and she decided to keep herself mobile, trying to maintain the open range between them as she too leaped higher. She fired a string of arrows at him, using her own innate abilities to alter their trajectories while enhancing the speed of the arrows with the Variable. The result was that the air became filled with a buzzing storm of arrows that moved around like a hive of very irate, explosive bees.  Starswirl didn’t try to evade the barrage, perhaps because while he was fast, as all Captain-class Soul Reapers were, he wasn’t specialized in physical fights. Twilight was firing enough arrows, scores of them per second, that only dedicated Flash Steps experts would have an easy time dodging. Despite this, Starswirl chased Twilight boldly, for all he had to do was sweep his Zanpaktou out and generate more of that reishi corroding gas. Since Twilight couldn’t easily focus on the gas while moving at high speed, she couldn’t use the Variable on it in this instance, and likely Starswirl surmised that. He was learning the ins and outs of Twilight’s Schrift. There was no avoiding that, but it was something she was counting on. Starswirl’s keen observational skills couldn’t be denied... but perhaps they could be fooled. Twilight’s arrows were coming in at Starswirl from too many angles to count, but the constant field of gas that followed him kept dissipating the arrows before they could strike home. On top of that, Starswirl wasn’t simply chasing her, he was on the offensive. She saw several distortions in the air that billowed forth from Starswirl’s location, and noted that they appeared to be tendrils of a more colorless gas she didn’t recognize but could only see due to distortions caused by the gas’ high density and the spiritual energy contained inside it. She hadn’t known Starswirl could produce so many different chemicals at once, because the gas streams were also carrying droplets of a faint, blue liquid within them, also filled with latent spirit energy. “You’re familiar with the human realm’s concept of ‘nitroglycerin’ I imagine,” Starswirl said, “Let me introduce you to the reishi version of that which I concocted to combine with a special gas to boost explosive yield.” As if coaxed by the gas, the droplets splashed together, and Twilight had all of a split second to react before the sky was ripped apart by a string of vast explosions. She hardened her body with Blut Vene and dodged downward with a boost of Hirenkyaku, but she was still thrown around by a rag doll, and she let out a cry as the world spun around her. Dazed, and feeling blood trickle down her face, Twilight opened her eyes to find her vision was blurred. Her glasses had come off during the chain of explosions. Shaking her head, she used the Variable to adjust her eyesight so the lack of glasses was no longer a factor and flipped herself over so she could land on the air.  Her arm was still numb from the toxins, but since it was her right arm, her artificial hand was still mobile, so she made use of further reishi strings to get her arm moving and raised it to the Hexenfaust. She extended the hilt of the Hexen Schneider and pulled out the potent, teal reishi blade. Midnight had nearly purged all the toxins out of Twilight’s arm by then, but she didn’t want to risk any of that unknown substance being left in her body so she didn’t tell Midnight to stop, either. She felt she’d established the way her Variable functioned enough to Starswirl that she could make her gamble, now. Besides, if this kept up much longer, she was pretty sure she couldn’t take a repeated beating like that. Whatever that explosive liquid was, nitroglycerin was of significantly lesser yield. If she hadn’t used Blut Vene in time, or been able to make it as strong as she could now, then Twilight’s otherwise very human body would’ve been liquefied.  She sensed Starswirl coming towards her, and she looked at the area around her and activated the Variable once more, this time focusing on the weather conditions around her. A clear sky suddenly became permeated by a thick cloud as moisture that hadn’t been there before suddenly coalesced into being, the very variables of weather conditions changing under the power of Twilight’s Schrift.  Starswirl halted above the cloud, wisely choosing not to rush into it, even if it was just a normal, mundane, physical cloud as far as he could tell.  “Interesting tactic, but I’m not likely to just walk into an obvious trap. Although I’m not sure what you might do to said cloud if I rushed in. Make it corrosive, like you did to my gas? Poisonous? Oh, perhaps your Variable can alter gas into solid matter? That’d be a nifty trick, trapping me in a solid cloud. At any rate, I suppose I ought to flush you out of there...” Twilight knew she had only moments to act before Starswirl likely rained a cascade of deadly chemical attacks down upon her. That cloud wouldn’t provide much protection, even if she did as Starswirl had suspected and solidified part of it with the Variable. The cloud wasn’t there to protect her, or even really obscure her, however. It was just to give Starswirl the illusion that she’d prepared a trap that also obstructed her line of sight to him. Why had she done that? Because she’d been making a point of only using her Variable on things within her line of sight... Even though she didn’t need line of sight to activate the Variable. She just had to sense what she was targeting with her spiritual senses. She drew back on her bow, forming a powerful stream of arrows, but kept her Hexen Schnider in that same grip as she started charging it with the magic from her M-Cell. “Licht Regen!”  Over a thousand reishi arrows exploded upward from inside the cloud, rushing around Starswirl in a locust-like swarm. Yet most of them didn’t come close to the Captain, the attack clearly a wide-range styled attack meant to compensate for Twilight’s lack of direct vision on his location. This was meant to not only reinforce the idea that Twilight had lost line of sight to him, but that she’d gotten desperate now that her “trap” had failed. Starswirl had a sneaking suspicion something was off, but decided that it didn’t matter as long as he eliminated the entire cloud. He had no particular intention of killing Twilight Sparkle, as he considered her an interesting young woman whose intellect should be preserved. Ideally he’d have preferred to capture her along with recapturing Ember. A brilliant mind was a brilliant mind, after all, even if attached to a Quincy. Seeing as she’d survived his earlier explosive attack, he decided to go with the use of Compound GS-7, the highly explosive blue liquid he’d synthesized in his early years in the Twelfth Division as a means of clearing out hordes of Gillians. The compound had been banned from conventional use due to its lack of ability to purify Hollows it killed, but Starswirl recalled the chemical structure intimately, so creating it with his Zanpaktou was easy.  He’d scatter a cluster of the substance around the cloud, with the intent that the explosions would force Twilight out of hiding, or knock her out of the fight. It probably wouldn’t kill her, he calculated- Starswirl didn’t really sense the magic, per se. His experimentation with the unique Equestrian energy source had been an endlessly fascinating affair, and he had discovered that magic could be detected in several ways, ranging from magic’s effect on normal physical phenomena, or the way it caused spiritual energies to react in odd manners. So it was less that he sensed the magic directly and more that he felt the odd fluctuation in his spiritual senses that indicated a powerful casting of magical energies. He halted his attack and prepared himself to defend, holding his Zanpaktou in front of him like a shield. Down inside the cloud, a vibrant pulse of violet streaked teal flame had engulfed the hilt of Twilight’s Hexen Schneider as the reishi blade, now turned into an arrow, absorbed the full remaining magic out of the M-Cell. Magical and spiritual particles alike danced around her bow in a storm of wisp light and witchfire. Then, she released. The air cracked from the Hexen Schneider flying forth at supersonic speed, blasting a cylindrical hole through the cloud. It’s path took it past Starswirl, as if Twilight had miscalculated her aim due to not being able to see him, much like with the Licht Regen barrage. That’s what Stasrwirl assumed as well, thinking it too bad that Twilight hadn’t had a more intelligently thought out trick up her sleeve, and that the limitations of her Variable were what were about to lead to her defeat as he prepared to saturate the cloud with his explosive chemicals. Only Twilight had already activated the Variable and cast its power into her Hexen Schneider, and even without direct line of sight to the powerful, magically charged arrow, she used her Variable to change its course. Starswirl felt the change a moment too late, turning a fraction too slow as the burning beacon of the Hexen Schneider veered at a sudden, ninety-degree angle and proceeded to detonate right atop him with enough magical energy to flatten several square kilometers. The blast still wiped away the cloud Twilight was in, and she had to activate Blut Vene and shield herself with her bow to maintain her balance in the air as the shockwaves from her magical blast washed over her. Unfortunately she was pretty sure being overcharged like that, and in the center of the blast, her Hexen Schneider was going to be in need of replacing... but that was okay, she already had designs in mind for a Mrk. II model with several upgrades.  The real question was; what had happened to Captain Starswirl? Midnight’s voice slid across her mind in a velvet laugh, You’re worried you might have killed him, Twilight? I assure you he’d have had any number of unpleasant fates in store for us. Oh, I’ve finished with healing our arm, by the way; you’re welcome. Twilight didn’t respond, all of her focus on the fading light and dissipating teal flames of the explosion above. She was  both relieved, and somewhat perturbed to see Starswirl still standing once everything had cleared, but the Captain had clearly taken a beating. His body was smoking and his robes were shredded, revealing burned and bleeding flesh in more than a few places. His sweat stained face was showing a harsh twitch of pain, but as he gasped and laid eyes on her, Twilight was unsettled by the intense light within that was one part admiration and respect, and one part cold calculation. “That was... remarkable, Miss Sparkle...” he said between gasps, holding out his Zanpaktou, which was also smoking and somewhat scorched. “I do believe you’ve exceeded my expectations.” Twilight gulped past a dry mouth, “Enough to get you to consider my proposal?”  The weight of the Sanrei Glove hidden beneath the normal glove she kept on her artificial right hand seemed to double in her mind. If it came down to it, she was ready to use Vollstandig, risk or no risk. Starswirl grunted in further pain as he examined his wounds and took on a contemplative expression. “Perhaps. You’ve certainly proven you have an aptitude for magic that surpasses what I can achieve through pure research alone, but my curiosity is not yet satiated. I think you have more to show me, and if I don’t get the opportunity to test you again, I’d be remiss as a researcher if i didn’t take full advantage of the chance while it remains. You’ve proven a match for my current abilities. So logically, the next step is...” Oh boy... here we go, Twilight thought with a sense of deep disgruntlement at how unreasonable this whole situation was, but resolved to see it through as Starswirl gripped his Zanpaktou at it’s front with his free hand. She felt the condensing of his spiritual pressure within himself and the gunbai fan as the Captain emitted a thick aura of white spiritual energy. “Bankai.” Twilight had expected some manner of eruption of reiatsu or similarly flashy expulsion of energies from the Soul Reaper. Instead his spirit energy just continued to condense in upon itself as he began to push in on his Zanpaktou, cracking it along its length. Then with a sound of tearing metal mixed with breaking glass, the large war fan broke apart into strange globs of liquid metal. These globs then fanned outward around Starswirl, bulging out and growing larger. Within seconds the globs smoothed out into hard angles, becoming perfect, dark metal cubes, dozens of them. Each was of a different size, some no larger than the palm of one’s hand, while others were as large as a cabin, and everything in between. The cubes were lined with veins of circuit-like white energy, giving them a strangely digitized appearance when combined with the fact that each also glowed along the edges with a similar, faint white light.  Standing in the center of this odd cluster of various metal cubes, Starswirl held out a hand and one of the smallest cubes flew down to his waiting palm.  ”Sonzai no Jukuko.” (Contemplation of Existence)  ---------- Despite the near literal storm of various spiritual pressures vying to compete for Rarity’s attention, she refused to let any of it sink in past a surface level, despite the growing clench in her gut that left her fearfully aware of how much danger still persisted for her and her friends. She focused solely upon the small but distinct blip upon her spiritual senses that represented the shard of crystal she’d left attached to her unwitting quarry. Or at least she sincerely hoped they were unwitting. It’d be quite the embarrassing gaff to suddenly become the hunted in this little chase after she’d made such a blase statement to Sunset that she could handle this mysterious Quincy assassin. Why had she insisted on doing this alone? The question hung in her mind like it’s own little sliver of crystal, poking at her uncomfortably. Because she knew the truth, she just didn’t want to admit it to herself. The truth left her feeling ashamed. Guilty. She didn’t like this ugly little bit of truth poking at her heart, so she was pretending it wasn’t there and hoping she could resolve the situation without having to acknowledge it. Which she knew was childish. Too childish for a battlefield. Stop thinking about it. You’re getting close now. Just focus on what you need to do, Rarity. Keep worrying like this and you’ll go gray before your time. The thought was supposed to help lighten her mood, but all it did was emphasize the disquiet inside her as she drew close to where she sensed her crystal shard. It was on the move, and at a surprising pace for something she suspected was still underground. Whatever power this Quincy had, it was allowing them to treat solid matter as a polite suggestion rather than much of an obstacle.  Well, we’ll just see about that... She’d been using Fullbring to step lightly across the air, all but flying at a swift pace to catch up to where the Quincy was. This had taken her from Camp Everfree itself on a fast path north, then sharply west, reaching the western lake edge and moving out into the deeper forest. There were battles to both the north and south of this area, although Rarity couldn’t fully tell who was fighting who with all the conflicting reiatsu signatures out there. But given the Quincy assassin was curving southward, generally in the direction of where Twilight’s little field lab was, Rarity could easily stab a guess that the reiatsu she sensed in that direction was Twilight’s.  With swift steps she flew just above the tree line. The forest was thick below her in an uneven carpet of greenery, but at the distance she was closing in at it was much easier to pinpoint the Quincy’s location. Or rather her shard’s, but there could be little doubt now that the shard marked her target. She caught glimpses of the forest floor below her, and saw nothing on the surface. Clearly they were still underground. She didn’t think they’d sensed her yet. She was intentionally trying to keep her own spiritual pressure from spilling out too far, and the Quincy hadn’t deviated course to try and evade her. Either this was a trap, or they hadn’t spotted her yet. Only one way to find out. Rarity increased her speed in a short burst, zipping ahead of the Quincy’s route, and then spun around. With an elegant raise of her hand, the flower on her wrist conjured her swirling pool of blood. From that whirlpool, she formed a massive crystalline claymore, about three feet wide and five times that in length. As was the case with the vast majority of her creations, it was also a work of art, with detailed vines and leaves worked into the pattern of the blade, and an ornate cross-guard bearing a carving of a rampant unicorn. Most of these designs came about almost without conscious thought on Rarity’s part, the creation of each of her weapons individual yet somehow intuitively fast. They were ephemeral works of art, forged as weapons, but also a reflection of Rarity’s desire to maintain a sense of beauty even in something as ugly as a battle. It was as if each weapon she created was a statement that the brutality of fighting wasn’t going to erase the artist inside her.  This thought, along with a stormy disquiet in her soul that she was still hiding from an unpleasant truth, hung in her head as she cast the giant claymore downward like a crimson cruise missile.  With meteoric speed the blade descended and drove itself into the forest floor. The impact threw up a pillar of dirt, and uprooted several nearby trees. Rarity remained above, face impassive as she snapped her finger and allowed a set of smaller, more elegant longswords to take shape from her whirlpool, while slowly forming a crystalline rapier into her right hand.  Her jewel-like eyes scanned the ground carefully. She sensed her shard still, and it had stopped moving right at the point of impact. Had she actually gotten them on the first go? She hadn’t expected to, but she hadn’t held back with the sword she’d cast down, either. If she’d caught the Quincy off guard, that attack had been thrown with killing intent... The instant she felt the reiatsu from her crystal shard vanish, Rarity snarled. “Oh no you don’t!” With a flick of her wrist she sent her array of longswords flying downward like pure red streaks. Streams of blood from her whirlpool flowed down alongside the blades, coating them and enlarging them into much longer crystals. The swords hammered the ground in a semi-circle around where the reiatsu signature from the crystal shard had been, and Rarity watched carefully as the impacts tore up the ground beneath her. Then she saw it, just a barest flicker of motion in the treeline to her left. Instantly she kicked off the air and catapulted herself towards the motion, flinging her arm out and sending a whirlwind of sickle-shaped crimson crystals flying into the forest floor. Trees were cut to ribbons and the ground pureed by the barrage, and amid the destruction Rarity saw the air shimmer like a ripple of transparent cloth. She surged towards the distortion, thrusting her rapier with expert precision and speed. She felt her blade brush something solid and heard a gasp, then Rarity was forced to dodge sideways with a graceful spin as a hailstorm of reishi arrows flew out of the distorted air and almost pin-cushioned her. “Well, it seems you really are determined to make my day difficult,” said Sour Sweet’s voice as the distortion in the air rippled again and the false image of the young female Quincy appeared, holding her very strangely shaped bow out and aimed at Rarity. Rarity in turn raised her rapier in a classic fencing pose and said, “I dislike leaving matters unfinished, and you skipped out of our dance early. Why? Didn’t like the odds?” “I like them better now that the Arrancar and Soul Reaper aren’t present,” said the impostor Sour Sweet, “You do realize it was reckless to pursue me alone, don’t you Miss Rarity? Skilled as you are, you must realize I’m not an ordinary Quincy.” “Darling, I could give less of a fig who you are. You’re up to no good, and I aim to put a stop to you. Whether that means forcing you to surrender, or... “ she took a deep breath and hardened her expression, “Or simply ending you, that’s a ball entirely in your court.”  “My my my, how frightening. I suppose I’d better just surrender immediately and abandon my entire mission, then. Or, conversely...” The motion was subtle, but Rarity still caught the slight twist in the impostor's left wrist. She sensed the extension of reishi particles through the air, but it happened so fast that Rarity was caught even as she jumped back to get out of range. What she was caught by was a bizarre sensation of suddenly being trapped in thick cement or quicksand as the air around her was filled with a gripping force. No, not quite. As she looked around herself she saw an amorphous glob of air extended from her to the Quincy assassin had taken on a faintly opaque and solid consistency. It was unlike anything Rarity had ever seen, as if the air was no longer ‘air’ but had become some kind of solid matter. Her arms were pinned in place, as were her legs, and while she could move slightly under the pressure of the now solid air, she couldn’t do much else. Breathing was also proving a problem, as even if she could slightly turn her head, the air was so solid that she couldn’t breathe it in without her mouth getting clogged by what felt like gelatin.  “Don’t be afraid,” ‘Sour Sweet’ said, “I don’t intend to kill you. You’re not my target, and His Majesty would not look favorably upon the slaughter of innocent human life. Heh, I suppose that is a contradiction, given my goal, but I can only pray His Majesty will understand, once all is explained. Now please, do lose consciousness would you? I’ve been put off schedule enough alre-” The speech was cut off by the vicious stabbing motion of several crystalline blades that came flying out of the woods to slash across the Quincy’s back. They’d sensed the attack coming just in time to put up Blut Vene, but even so their uniform and skin bore bloody slashes from the whirling crystal longswords that remained under Rarity’s control, regardless of whether Rarity could move herself.  ‘Sour Sweet’ spun around and was forced to vanish with the speed of a Hirenkyaku as the longswords continued to slash and stab at her, driving her away. Rarity noticed that the solidified air around her had weakened slightly as the Quincy’s attention was diverted, and she willed the claymore she’d created earlier to come flying out of the ground and spin towards her. She directed the claymore while still putting concentration towards controlling her other longswords, sending the weapons after the impostor, who was now firing powerful reishi arrows at the blades while still dodging them. “My, aren’t we the cutthroat one?” the Quincy said as their arrows smashed several longswords to pieces, while other blades stabbed towards where she’d just landed upon the branches of a nearby tree. The assassin managed to evade once more, the swords impaling the tree, but at the same time the claymore had reached Rarity and sliced down, cutting into the solid chunk of air like a block of butter. This weakened the Quincy reishi that was keeping the air solid, and Rarity felt the air grow even more loose, more akin to a thin mush than cement. With a moment of focus, she used Fullbring to push away at the air, and was able to pop herself out and land on the ground nearby. She gasped in a welcome breath of air, and turned heated eyes towards her opponent as cold anger spread through her limbs. “I’ll thank you not to make the mistake my last foe did when they underestimated me. Now tell me, are you after Twilight?” She sent the claymore flying towards where Sour Sweet had landed between several trees not too far away, but the impostor turned and fired a reishi arrow straight into the claymore. On contact the crystal of the bladed weapon wobbled and then burst into dust, as if it's very molecular structure had been destabilized.  “What would be the point of answering you?” the Quincy replied, “If I said ‘yes’, you’d be no less determined to stop me, and if I said ‘no’ then you wouldn’t believe me and continue getting in the way regardless.” “That may be true, but it would assuage my conscience a tad to know I was stopping someone trying to kill one of my friends, as opposed to just some random assassination I know nothing about. Besides, I’m curious why anyone would want to hurt Twilight, especially one of her fellow Quincy.” Neither had dropped their guard, and Rarity felt the next attack coming before the assassin actually moved. Her whirlpool disgorged a set of shimmering crimson shields, perfectly rounded and with a rose sigil in the center that locked in front of her like a phalanx, and just in time to intercept the blinding fusillade of reishi arrows that the Quincy blasted towards her. Of course she remembered what had happened to her claymore, so she was already dodging to the side before the arrows impacted, knowing the shields would only buy her a second. She was right, as the crystal shields turned into a consistency akin to putty after the first few arrows struck. Rarity sensed the Quincy’s spiritual energy infecting her crystal constructs, and the way it subverted the very structure of her creations. Likely this was how they were altering other forms of matter as well, and had taken on Sour Sweet’s form. Having zipped to the right, Rarity rushed towards the Quincy. Even as the assassin turned their barrage of arrows towards Rarity, she was able to move with a serpent’s grace and even greater speed, ducking, juking, and weaving through the hail of reishi arrows to get close to her foe. Her rapier stabbed out, and the Quincy blocked it with their bow, the weirdly rectangular structure acting as a fairly sturdy melee weapon. However, Rarity had her old standby trick at the ready, instantly morphing her rapier into a longer weapon, this time in the shape of a scythe which ended up extending behind the Quincy’s head where the curved blade formed. Rarity yanked back on the scythe’s shaft and brought the blade plunging towards the Quincy’s neck. Just as the blade was about to strike flesh, Sour Sweet was able to get a hand up to catch the blade. Her hand was shot through with the red veins of Blut Vene, but even then Rarity’s scythe was sharp enough to draw blood. Still, a second later the Quincy sent their reishi into the scythe, and it burst into dust just like the claymore had. Rarity was prepared for that result, however, and transformed the shaft of the scythe into a set of short swords that she used to lash at the Quincy’s mid-section. To Rarity’s shock and a small among of disgust, the assassin’s body itself molded and shifted like some kind of alien creature, their bare midriff convulsing and thinning out like taffy in a manner not unlike how Pinkamena could stretch her limbs. This let the Quincy evade Rarity’s sword strikes while bending her upper torso over Rarity at an angle that let her fire an arrow from the side. Rarity twisted with the attack, but the arrow still stabbed into her hip. She bit back a scream of pain and with Fullbring she sent herself jumping back, avoiding another set of arrows that might have pierced her torso if she’d been half a second slower. She felt the Quincy’s reishi trying to push into her body from the arrow in her hip, but Rarity, grinding her teeth against the pain, yanked the arrow out and tossed it aside. Limping slightly, she faced off with the Quincy once more, staring at the rather grotesque way their body bent and twisted back into a regular shape. ‘Sour Sweet’ smiled at her, “Don’t look so repulsed. I’m rather proud of my Schrift, you know, and it hurts an artist to see their work so misunderstood.” Those words struck Rarity. She’d heard them before, and her memory sparked to something that had happened about a year ago. She’d been struggling to get noticed in the fashion scene for some time, but had lucked out that a local show was being sponsored by the boutique Rarity had started working at, owned by a woman named Prim Hemline who’d given Rarity a chance to show one of her own dress designs off at the event! She’d been absolutely beside herself with equal parts excitement and anxiety. She’d worked herself sleeplessly all that week to get her design finished in time for the event, going through enough coffee to kill a small herd of elephants.  She’d felt her dress design was bold and different, but it initially had been met with laughter from the audience. Almost all of the audience. One man had praised the design as ahead of the curve, and at first Rarity had been shocked to see how fast the crowd had started to agree with him, until Prim Hemline had explained who he was. The man had even come up to her afterward with words of encouragement, and that as an artist she shouldn’t be discouraged when her work was misunderstood. “...Wait, I never asked how you knew my name,” she said, “We’ve met, haven’t we?” ‘Sour Sweet’ continued to smile, but her whole body began to bubble and shift, like wax sloughing off a mannequin under a hot sun. “We have, and I’ll confess I’ve had Prim keep me updated on your progress, Miss Rarity. Granted I never expected you to get involved in such messy affairs as this war. I was only curious to see how you’d develop as a fashionista. A shame that potential is being squandered in battles that really shouldn’t concern you.” In place of where Sour Sweet stood was now a man whose presence seemed to define a certain charming flair, his gray skin complimented a well coiffed head of white hair. Even his uniform, despite it’s starkly white appearance and military cut showed elements of daring flare, from the tassels on his shoulder to the wide, twin tailed cape on his back.  “While we may have already met, I think a more formal introduction is in order, since this is your first time seeing me at my, ahem, ‘day job’. Sternritter X, the Xenomorph, Hoity Toity, at your service. Well, not actually at your service, but you get the picture, don’t you?” Rarity blinked a few times, then shook her head, “I... don’t really know what to say to this. I suppose it shouldn’t matter, should it? Not when you’re trying to take the life of one of my friends. I still don’t understand why that is. If you’re one of Twilight’s colleagues, what possible reason could you have for seeking her death, especially against your King’s wishes?” For his part, Hoity Toity did look a shade... unsettled? He was wearing a pair of purple shaded glasses that made it hard to see his eyes, but Rarity saw a hint of something ruffled in his expression as he replied, “I do what I do because I am a loyal servant of His Majesty. Even when he doesn’t know it. He is, after all, still only human, a fact which many of my fellow Quincy tend to forget. He doesn’t always know what’s best for himself, and your friend, Miss Twilight Sparkle... represents an absolute threat to His Majesty, and possibly all Quincy. It’s unfortunate, but that is why she must die, before she ends up destroying both His Majesty and the rest of us.”  “But... but that’s ludicrous! Twilight couldn’t be such a threat. How did you possibly come to such a far fetched conclusion!?” “I didn’t...” Hoity Toity said, sighing deeply, as if in regret. Rarity felt a stabbing pain strike her from behind. She hadn’t sensed a hint of the attack coming, and looked down to see a brilliant blue blade of reishi sticking out of her chest from where it had impaled her from behind. She looked at the thin, shimmering blade of spirit particles uncomprehendingly, somewhat surprised she didn't feel any immediate pain. “She did,” Hoity finished, as Rarity looked behind her to see a woman standing there, holding a silver tube-shaped sword hilt the reishi blade had extended from to impale Rarity. Somehow the woman had managed to sneak up on Rarity without so much as a hint of spiritual pressure leaking out to give away her presence. Rarity hadn't been careless. She'd been ensuring to keep her spiritual senses up the entire fight with Hoity Toity. It was simply that this woman hadn't put out the smallest hint of spiritual pressure up until the second she'd struck, and even now with the blade piercing her body, Rarity couldn't sense the blade's spirit particles... which struck her as something that should be impossible. But then again, she really didn't know everything Quincy could do, did she? “Our apologies, child, but we can’t have you interfering with our work,”  said Sapphire Shores, her eyes gleaming with a mad, zealous light, “His Majesty must be protected at all costs.”     Rarity recognized the woman, although seeing her in the uniform of a Quincy, however ostentatious it was with it's wide flaring dress and ruffle marked sleeves, was unexpected. She might have questioned more why famous fashion designers like Hoity Toity or renowned pop idols such as Sapphire Shores were members of the Quincy, but she was preoccupied by the now swift returning sensation of pain in her chest as her shock wore off and her nervous system started screaming at her about the issue concerning the sword running her through. Sapphire Shores yanked the blade free in a smooth motion of someone who'd done this many times before, and whether Rarity liked it or not it was like a string had been cut inside her that controlled all her muscles. She collapsed to the ground, feeling the warm sensation of her lifeblood spilling out of her and coating the ground. Hoity Toity looked at her briefly, then cast a frown towards Sapphire Shores. "I wasn't intending for her to be killed, Sapphire." Sapphire Shore's response was bizarrely upbeat, and equally dismissive of the girl bleeding out on the ground in front of her, "Then you shouldn't have revealed your identity. Better yet, you shouldn't have let her catch you in the first place. Or gotten sloppy and drawn too much attention to yourself. This was supposed to be our best chance of eliminating that purple harpy, and you've created quite a mess of it." A sharp breath exhaled from Hoity Toity. Rarity, meanwhile, twitched her hands, trying to command her Fullbring. She tried to be subtle about it, not expend too much energy, but Sapphire Shores noticed her and Rarity felt a booted heel slam onto her back, right atop her wound. The pain alone shattered her concentration utterly, preventing her from controlling her Fullbring. "Still alive? Surprising. I thought I pierced your heart. Must be related to your Fullbring, I suppose. Hoity, would you come over here and finish this? I need to go deal with the problem we've set out to correct, since it seems I'm the only one capable around here." "Watch your tone, Sapphire. I agreed to help you because I know your predictions are accurate, but I never wanted to leave a trail of bodies behind us. And I'm not the only one who's been sloppy, or have your forgotten how this whole mess began? Our co-conspirators that you insisted we needed to use as scapegoats? Yes, they've been oh so helpful, haven't they? Probably fornicating on poor Filthy Rich's bed right now..." "Hoity..." Sapphire Shore's voice was utter ice, "The girl. Now." Rarity couldn't see if Hoity responded with any expression, but she did hear a sound similar to a pained grunt as she saw his feet start to move towards her. Her vision was started to grew dim around the edges, her body getting colder as more of her blood stained the earth in a widening circle around her. She could still feel her heart beating, despite Sapphire Shore's claim of having pierced it. Yet the sharp pain there suggested maybe the Quincy hadn't exaggerated. Rarity wasn't sure how she was still alive, but her Fullbring had always revolved around her own blood, and she'd learned she was more resistant to injury and blood loss as a result. She hadn't imagined surviving a pierced heart was possible, although it seemed she was still quite capable of bleeding out and dying, because that was what she certainly felt like was happening as she noticed her heart struggling to beat, and gradually slowing... No... they're going to murder Twilight. Also me, and I am not ready to shuffle off the mortal coil just yet. I've seen how dreadful the common fashion is in Soul Society. No. Thank. You. I look terrible in black. Oh... Sweetie Belle... it's no good growing up without a big sister... who'll look... after... ---------- The moment Grogar spoke the words to release his Zanpaktou’s power, a thick and organic sound like twisting cartilage and bone filled the air. The sword bent and twisted upon itself, like a corkscrew, and the flesh on Grogar’s withered, parchment-like body began to bulge and bubble like a nest of living things were burrowing beneath the skin.  Celestia felt her stomach recoil at the sight, but she remained resolute in the face of the churning increase of Grogar’s reiatsu as parts of his flesh suddenly began to tear and burst open with showers of blood. Yet for as painful as the transformation looked, Grogar’s expression was one of simple, rapturous satisfaction as his sword turned around like a living snake, and it’s corkscrew blade drove itself into his heart and drilled inward in a shower of gore. Celestia didn’t remain idle as this was occurring, raising her hands in front of her and moving each in a different direction, tracing a circle of crackling yellow light in the air.  “Hado Number Eighty One: Kaminari-o Sakebi!” (Thunder King Warcry) The circle of bristling yellow energy magnified in size until it was as wide around as a house, forming dozens of internal lances of power inside of it that formed at a single central point. Then with a ear bleeding roar of noise louder than a hundred thunderclaps, a bolt of golden lightning lashed forth from that central point while around it a sonic wave of pure sound force ripped apart air and ground alike for a width of nearly thirty meters.  This bolt and wave of power rushed towards Grogar’s form, but in a shower of blood and viscera his left arm rose up and grew at an alarming rate, bones splintering out of flesh which was reforming through twisted tendrils of white Hollow bone liquid and what appeared to be dark, gossamer wires. A skeletal hand of bladed claws, with new flesh forming around them, intercepted and grasped the bolt of oncoming lightning. The sound wave crashed into a growing spherical aura of pulsing Hollow spiritual energy that surrounded Grogar as his body continued to distort and grow. The potent attack Kido was halted almost entirely, not even slowing down the former Eighth Espada’s transformation.  Muscles bulged and tore, only to reform as wires crawled across the skin and bleeding flesh. White liquid poured forth from cavernous places inside Grogar’s chest and stomach, expanding over his body as it took the shape of almost metallic gears, corded tubes, and segments of riveted plates. Exposed organs shifted inside, shot through with sharp wires or pumping tubes. For a second Celestia could see Grogar’s heart, an emaciated organ that was pierced by his Zanpaktou blade that buzzed with unnatural energies of red, orange, and black. Then his chest became covered by the mass of armored carapace that was overtaking his body as his flesh kept remodeling itself and his body grew larger, blood still pouring from the awful display in sheets. His Zanpaktou had fused fully with his chest now, it’s hilt breaking off and growing on its own, transforming in a wash of bubbling white wax until it had become a giant staff tipped with a forward curving metal hook, with a single black bell hanging from a chain attached to the back. Grogar’s skin, what was left of it to be seen, had darkened to a vibrant blue, and it’s withered textured had turned smooth where it was left exposed, and was lean with fresh, youthful muscle. His face had similarly grown younger, with a stronger jaw and no visible wrinkles. It did little for his looks as half of his face had become covered by a ram’s skull, bone white safe for a metallic covering over the eye where a gleaming red lens adjusted itself with a mechanical buzzing noise. Twin, curved ram horns remained upon his brow, but larger and glinting with a metal sheen. His whole body was nearly twice the height of before, with his chest bulging and hunched. His arms were longer, and covered in white plating that gave the arms a more robotic look, with pieces of muscle and flesh still pulsating between the gears, pistons, and wires. Both hands ended in gleaming claws that still dripped flesh blood, the right hand gently grasping the hook-blade that had become his main weapon. Four metal canisters sprouted from his shoulders and spine, interconnected with white and black tubes, and leaking blood and strange, glowing purple liquid. Metallic white plates armored his chest, but around his stomach the armor and flesh tore away into little more than a wide, gleaming spinal cord that extended down to where his legs had grown in size and become thickly armored, reverse-jointed goat legs, giving him the appearance of some mechanical undead man-goat.        With the transformation finished, Grogar flexed his hands and twisted his neck, creating a machine-like creaking and whirring, more than the popping of normal bone and flesh. “Hmm, it’s been too long since I’ve used this. I really should have made some adjustments back at the lab.” “...What in the Soul Queen’s name have you done to your own soul?” Celestia said in a mixture of repulsed horror and something almost approaching pity. Grogar waved the words off with a snort. “Oh please, your disgust and pity are utterly without merit to me. I’ve only improved upon myself with each new discovery. Did you think all my experimentation was solely to modify other Hollows? My work exists to improve myself. I’ll admit the aesthetics may leave something to be desired, but the functionality more than makes up for it. Observe...” One of the cylinders on his shoulders hissed as it creaked open, and a blast of four smelling, purple goop traced a line across the ground towards Celestia like a pressurized hose. She Flash Stepped aside, glancing at the bubbling stuff as it ate through the rocky ground she’d been standing on. It looked vaguely familiar, and she realized it was very similar to the stuff secreted by the Tenth Espada, Smooze. She’d never fought him personally, but read reports of Soul Reapers who unfortunately had. Grogar was far from done, not only firing out more of that diseased, corrosive liquid from one of his cylinders, but another cylinder opened up and this time disgorged a stream of crimson flames, burning so hot that even Celestia had to respect the intensity. She was able to evade the poisonous stream, but the flames managed to scald her side, Grogar’s speed and accuracy much greater in his new form. She kept back a grunt of pain, forcing her mind to remain calm as she noted the red fire was also familiar; near identical to those used by the Fifth Espada, Torch. Celestia was even less surprised when Grogar vanished with Sonido and appeared in her path, raised his left hand. A hatch opened up on his arm, and gears inside burned with gold energy and Hollow power as a chain was produced, similar to reports she’d read concerning the former Sixth Espada, now Seventh, Guto’s power. The gold chain flashed towards her and she bent backwards into a somersault kick that knocked it aside. Grogar came in with his Zanpaktou’s hook-blade and slashed it down at her exposed belly, but Celestia turned her somersault kick into a twirling tornado of kicks as she planted her hands on the ground and spun. Grogar blocked, and instead of being driven back, his renewed physical strength kept him in place as he smashed the haft of his weapon forward and clipped Celestia’s side. She pushed off with her hands and flipped herself upright once more, kicking off the air and bringing a fist glowing with reiatsu down like a golden hammer.  Another cylinder on Grogar’s back opened, and a black energy whipped out, forming a tiny Garganta-like portal in front of Celestia’s fist. The portal nearly closed fast enough to take her hand off, but she was just fast enough to Flash Step back and avoid the closing portal. A portal that had formed too fast and precisely for any normal Arrancar. She wasn’t sure who’s power Grogar had stolen for that one, but it sounded akin to the one named Squirk that her sister had tried to capture in Las Noches prior to having to capture Ember. “One stolen power after another,” she muttered, “Do you have nothing of your own, Grogar!?” His expression, what of it could be seen past the half ram-skull, flickered with annoyance, “Everything I take is my own, but if it’s one of my custom creations you’re curious about, I’ll gladly show you.” He raised his weapon above his head and waved it back and forth. The bell at the end of it’s chain created a dry, rusty tolling that scraped at Celestia’s ears with its painful, discordant tone. Grogar opened his mouth, and from inside his gullet came a droning hum. He then vomited out a swarm of darkness that resolved into the shape of a cloud consisting of hundreds upon hundreds of flies. No ordinary flies, either. These creatures were bulbous and larger than most people’s thumbs. Their carapaces were metallic and covered in tiny spikes and wires, sparking. Their legs ended in small needles or drills, while their bodies bulged and pulsed with a luminescent, putrid green fluid.  Celestia gave Grogar a flat look, “Sorry I asked.” He just shrugged at her, and with another tolling of his dreadful bell, the swarm of disgusting flies surged forward. Each one had individual speed approaching Grogar’s own, resulting in less an insect swarm and more a rain of super-sonic miniature missiles with intelligence behind their homing attacks. Celestia knew immediately that she couldn’t possibly dodge all of them. Perhaps Luna could, but Celestia would have to defend herself with alternative methods. There wasn’t time to cast a defensive Kido, either. Brute force was her only ally in this situation, so with as much speed as she herself could muster she raised her right leg in a flexible move straight above her head, and then brought it down in front of her with a heel strike on the ground with such massive force that an entire shelf of the mountainside cracked apart and flipped upward in front of her.   The flies impacted with the rock, and to Celestia’s surprise the little things burrowed right through the rock, rather than get smashed to pieces. Small needles stabbed with blinding speed and tiny drills twirled with high pitched screeching noises, and the stone chunks soon became swiss cheese in front of Celestia. However this did slow the insects down a fraction of a moment, long enough for Celestia to Flash Step upwards and gain some distance. The swarm followed her, as did Grogar, his body appearing next to her with a speedy Sonido. He was already slashing his hook-blade in a cross pattern at her side, and she couldn’t fully twist away from it as she blocked the strike with one elbow. The rest of her concentration was focused on trying to fling her other palm out towards the swarm coming up form below and chanting as fast a Kido as she could manage, but would still have some power behind it. She drew her index and middle finger together and swept the forward, a current of twin blue trails of energy forming from either end of her hand. Normally this Kido required two hands, but Celestia was skilled enough to do this with just one. “Hado Number Seventy Three: Soren Sokatsui!” (Twin Lotus Blue Fire) Pushing outward with her palm she unleashed a pair of wide bolts of burning blue energy that rushed down like an avalanche towards the swarm. Some were caught by the blast and incinerated, but far too many smartly dodged, using their speed and maneuverability to split up around the twin Kido blast.  Grogar pressed his attack on her, smiling with a twisted smugness as he feinted with his hook-blade and lashed out suddenly with one of his ram legs, crude bone-like pistons visible inside the leg churning out steam and sparks of orange energy that seemed to magnify the power of the kick. Celestia hadn’t fallen for the feint at all and powered her own leg with a burst of golden reiatsu as she met his kick with one of her own. The two limbs slashed in wave of force, blasting both of them backwards from each other; Grogar further than Celestia. As he halted himself in mid-air he gave his leg an irritated look, noting the dent in the armor plating as opposed to the slight bruise on Celestia’s. “Hmph, even without a Zanpaktou, I suppose you remain powerful in your own simple manner,” he commented with his smirk forcibly returning, “Fortunately brute strength has never been something I’ve relied upon.” The swarm was upon Celestia now, having spread out to surround her in it’s buzzing embrace. Coming from all directions, she was limited in how to defend herself, and while she swatted the first few that came at her with ease, soon she felt the harsh sting as more and more did quick fly-by attacks that she couldn’t see. She felt the sting of those tiny drills stabbing into her back or side, or the prick of those stabbing needles catching her arms or neck. Each wound was minuscule, but with the number of insects and their incredible speed the damage would mount in no time. Considering there was also a painful burn spreading through her veins, it was also obvious that glowing green liquid inside the bugs was also something that was getting injected into her with each attack, not enough at first to do more than hurt, but in time...? If Shinryu Taiyo was with her, this wouldn’t have even merited a threat to her, but if she didn’t do something fast to eliminate this swarm, she’d be in trouble.  ---------- Things were quiet in Las Noches. This wasn’t that unusual, but more often than not Lament could hear one distant clash or another as some of his “neighbors” became bored and got rowdy with one another. None of that today, for which he was grateful. The quiet made it easier to keep his mind... in check. That had been proving difficult of late. Ever since his family had been threatened by that woman, and Adagio’s plans had coerced him into a more active role with the Espada, Lament’s mood had become even more temperamental. He was self-aware of his own unstable nature. It hadn’t bothered him when the only ones he’d hurt had been those Hollows stupid enough to test his patience or invade his family’s home. It was bothering him now.  His mind’s eye kept replaying the attack on the tower, and the fight with the Quincy. The lethal impalement of that young fellow, Jet Set. The despair and anguish on Jet Set’s wife’s face. The confusion and regret that followed, and the bitter anger at finding his own family threatened. That uncontrollable anger surging out against the woman, Twilight Velvet. He didn’t know just what had happened, as his memory grew dark when he lost control of himself, but he knew he’d killed her, too... only to face the full weight of the daughter’s vengeful pain and the odd power’s she’d unleashed. And all of it disrupted his already difficult to control thoughts, making his moods harder to control. What had that woman been talking about? Hard Nail? Who was that? And why did his mind keep conjuring images of green fields, apple trees, and a warm, cozy farm? He looked at the dead orchard that topped his tower. He was sitting outside his cabin, as he usually did, his dog Winston by his side as he sat in the chair beside the cabin door. He’d felt compelled to plant this orchard, even if the trees couldn’t survive here, even after he’d brought in real soil from the human world.  The hatchway deeper into the tower swung open, and the red and orange streaked head of hair belonging to Fenice popped up. She looked at him with eyes that creased with worry, but her voice was forced to a stale chipperness, “Father, lunch is ready.” “That was fast,” he commented, and Fenice gained a more natural, if sardonic grin. “Well, those helper boys of Adagio’s pitched in. Brought in stuff from the living world.” Lament felt one of his usual stabs of irrational anger as he said, “Those boys best not have led any trouble back here. And I’m not much on stealing.” Fenice didn’t flinch from the thunder in his voice. His human adopted daughter was a brave soul, to be sure, and he calmed himself as he reminded himself how much he cared for her and all his children. “They mean well. Thick as bricks, sometimes, but they mean well. Dumbbell isn’t half bad in the kitchen, either, when he actually follows instructions.” Ostensibly Lament was keeping an eye on Adagio’s territory while she was gone, although what that actually translated into was that her three weakest vassals, Hoops, Score, and the still wounded Dumbbell, were staying as guests at Lament’s tower. It was just a safer place for them while Guto and his goons might be prowling around. Of course that was also part of why Lament was in a dour mood. Adagio had convinced him, with Roka’s practically minded advice, that he was the one best suited to help rescue Torch’s daughter if things went south with Adagio’s plans. Lament didn’t like it because it’d mean leaving his home less guarded, but Roka, ever more rationally minded than her father, had pointed out that even Guto wasn’t stupid enough to attack people inside Lament’s tower, even if he wasn’t there. Which was true. The moment Lament returned, if he found harm done to his home or family, the perpetrators would not last long after that. He’d done well to establish himself as an Espada to be feared, and that fear acted as a shield to those within his home.  Adagio was working on building her own reputation so that others would fear to strike at her and her own holdings, but until then the knowledge that she was allied with Lament should have it’s own deterring effect. On top of that it was no secret she was also favored by Torch, although the old warrior minded Espada might have a more ‘sink or swim’ mentality about allies. It actually bothered Lament to be leaving Torch out of this whole rescue operation, but he understood why. Torch would cause nothing but collateral damage. As unstable as Lament knew his own mind to be at times, he still had better control than Torch would. Yet Lament did find that among the Espada he knew, he could at least respect Torch. The man appreciated the value of family, in his own way. Lament could imagine Torch’s anguish over his missing daughter. If it’d been any of his own children taken, Lament would be ripping Soul Society to pieces in order to find them.  “Father?” Fenice asked, looking at him with barely disguised concern. Lament blinked, realizing his mind had wandered and his expression had likely turned dark. “I’m fine. I’ll be down soon,” he said, rising from his seat.  Just then both he and Fenice turned, for they sensed the formation of a Garganta portal. The black hole in reality opened up right in front of the cabin. Fenice instinctively reached for the pendant that was the source of her Fullbring, but Lament simply stepped forward, already sensing Roka’s distant reiatsu trickling through the Garganta. He approached it, seeing the small gossamer thread appearing through the portal, and reached out his hand to touch it. “That’s Roka’s,” Fenice said, her eyes growing wider as understanding dawned, “Oh no...” Lament didn’t respond, taking a moment to focus on the thread. Roka couldn’t transmit anything like actual words or thoughts through the threads, but since they were made of Roka’s own reishi, her state of being and general mood could be felt, if only faintly. Lament felt his daughter’s distress and clear call for help. So it had really come to this, then.  “It seems Adagio’s plan has run into a snag,” Lament said, voice giving away neither his regret or the fact that he’d imagined it would turn out this way, “They need my help.” He retrieved his Zanpaktou from where he’d left it leaning against the cabin wall, and as he turned back around he found Fenice standing in front of the Garganta portal, holding her pendant in her hand as she summoned forth the blazing, massive blade of her Fullbring. He stared at her.  “What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” “Going with you, of course.” “No, you’re not,” he said, even as he saw the unbelievably stubborn spark that appeared in her eyes. “Father, your power has been crippled,” Fenice said, pointing at the nails that still pierced his palms. He glanced at them. Twilight Velvet’s final gift to him. A parting piece of vengeance, sealing away a portion of his power. He’d been able to hide this weakness from his fellow Espada so far, and had gradually been working to break the Quincy’s seal, but progress had been slow. He had managed to weaken the seals somewhat, but not enough to enter his Resurreccion yet. Even so, he knew his own power. Even with the seals, his might well suppressed Adagio’s, so if she’d run into an opponent she couldn’t defeat, then Lament stood a good chance of turning the tide, seal or no seal.  Adagio may have been a manipulative woman, and power hungry to boot, but... she had proven to be an honest and trustworthy ally. Her servants, Gaw and Di Roy, had stood alongside his own children in defense of the homestead. Adagio had started to help Roka and Fenice both come a bit more out of their own shells and he knew that both considered the Espada a friend.  Abandoning her was not an option on the table. That said... “My power is weakened, not crippled. Fenice, you need to remain here and protect your siblings.” Her jaw set tightly, her heels digging into the dirt as she gripped her blade tighter, traces of magma already oozing down its surface. “Nobody is going to be stupid enough to attack this tower while we’re gone. Father, we don’t know what Adagio is up against. You’re going to need my help!” He walked towards her, and she didn’t flinch from his starring eyes. Slowly he reached up, and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Then, slowly, he applied pressure, and pushed her aside. Despite her best efforts, even after she dug her sword into the ground, she couldn't resist his physical strength, and was pushed to the side. Not enough to cause her any harm, but enough to get the point across. “I’m sorry, daughter. This isn’t a fight you can help me with,” he said, and despite his soft tone he still felt a cold pain in his chest as he saw the tears of frustration spilling from Fenice’s eyes.  Sighing, he added, “We also both know that if you go back to that place, you might run into her. The other who bears your features.” “I don’t care about that. I care about you, and Roka, and... and I guess maybe also Adagio and her crew. Please... Father... don’t leave me behind...” He stood there for only a second longer, then closed his eyes and said, “I’m sorry,” before striding through the Garganta, and letting it close behind him.