Episode 117: Casualties
Over the course of her relatively brief life, Rarity had demonstrated uncommon drive for a teenager. She had chosen her intended profession at a young age, and had never hesitated in pursuing any avenue available to her that she thought would give her an advantage in achieving those goals. This meant that, beyond simply studying fashion, she’d also taken to studying business practices and economics. She did want to run her own boutique, perhaps even more than one, so expanding her knowledge of the business world was an essential step, even at her young age.
Coincidentally such studies had also branched out into a cursory study of warfare. As it happens, business and war had a lot in common. Identifying weaknesses in one’s opponent. Recognizing the flow of conflict to predict what a competitor might do next. Knowing when to remain reserved and when to go all out on the attack. Business is, in a sense, warfare by other means.
And perhaps more than any of her friends, Rarity recognized that they were engaged in a war. It might not have been a war of their choosing, and it was a war waged by significantly different kinds of forces than what she’d read in history books or any of her economic courses, but it was a war nonetheless.
In war, victory was often decided by a shockingly basic set of factors; whomever could bring more force to the field and could secure the greatest number of advantages to apply that force was usually the winner.
Presently, Hoity Toity and her were evenly poised against one another in terms of the force at their disposal. She had already discerned that much early on. His reiatsu and hers were evenly matched, and her Court of the Generous Rose was capable of outputting attacks in similar volume to Hoity Toity’s reishi arrows. That meant that victory depended on which one of them would secure the greatest number of advantages outside of force. At the moment, Hoity Toity had a lead in that regard. His amorphous, liquid form took away the advantage Rarity had in regards to being able to outnumber and overwhelm him with her knights. Not only did the liquid body negate physical attacks, but it allowed Hoity to attack and defend from multiple angles simultaneously, while also counter attacking from just as many angles.
Rarity saw this as she commanded her squadrons of knights to surround Hoity Toity’s position and sent them in at him in a relentless assault. Carefully coordinated waves of spear bearing knights leaped into the attack in streaks of red motion, stabbing at Hoity’s bubbling, churning body of liquid, while the archers and cannoneers would wait until one wave of spear knights were beaten back before launching barrages of their own to keep Hoity Toity occupied while the next set of knights was prepared. The arrows and cannon shots, while exploding with potent bursts of spiritual energy, only slightly slowed Hoity Toity down. No matter how many droplets his body was blasted into, the slick mass of flesh-like liquid kept sticking back together like so much putty.
Hoity fired an endless stream of reishi arrows from the bright circles of light surrounding the ‘ends’ of his hands and feet, although to call them such was not wholly accurate any more as the limbs were now like flailing tendrils of liquid flesh. The arrows hammered her knights, and the circles of reishi themselves were potent melee weapons, cutting through her knight’s crystalline armor if stuck head on. Yet any damage done, Rarity could repair, sending out tendrils of blood from herself to reconstitute any damaged knights in-between waves of attack.
Yet Rarity had no intention of allowing this to drag out into a fight of pure attrition. Mostly because she could sense she was expending more energy than Hoity Toity was at this juncture, so such a tactic would end poorly for her. No, she fully intended to end this with a decisive strike. It was simply a matter of gaining the necessary advantages.
Her assault waves served a dual purpose. For every rank of knights that flew in at Hoity, stabbing and cutting at his constantly shifting form, and in turn getting blasted by arrows or hammered by his light rings, small pieces of crystal were broken off and remained floating in small clouds of red dust in the air. Rarity had been pressing her knights hard, having them attack Hoity from every direction. The result was that the more of her knights were damaged, the more small fragments of crystal dust were left floating in the air around Hoity Toity. Since he was currently made from liquid, that dust was also slowly getting caught by his liquid body, saturating it, bit by bit.
“You’re not out of ideas already, are you?” Hoity’s voice seeped from within the frothing mass of his body. His face, like liquid wax running into only half the shape of his features rose from the mass as he sliced one of his reishi rings through a pair of knights that charged him from above. “You keep repeatedly sending these valiant knights at me, no matter how often I break them. Is that not a cruel tactic for a Queen? Do your knights not suffer?”
“Thankfully they do not,” Rarity replied curtly, “It would be all the harder to make them do what must be done. And really, should you be talking so much in the midst of a fight? You might end up making a mistake.”
With a sharp gesture she brought her squadron of pegasus knights to her side, and formed them around her in a V formation while raising her snow white blade high. Her rank and file knights broke off their next attack and instead swiftly moved to surround Hoity Toity in a loose sphere. Hoity’s partially melted features looked towards Rarity with open curiosity.
“Another direct charge? I applaud your grit, my lady, but even if you and your mounted knights pack more power than the others, it won’t matter as long as I keep my body in this liquid state.”
“Believe as you wish,” Rarity said, aiming her blade at Hoity Toity’s head, “But as I warned you, I shall cut you down if you remain in my path.”
The smile on Hoity Toity’s face was distorted by his liquid state into something a fair bit more grotesque than it was likely intended to be as he replied, “Such beautiful resolve can only stir my heart to greater heights! Show me what further ways in which your soul can shine, my lady! I eagerly await the sting of your thorns, if you can find a way to cut me!”
Rarity’s face became a marble mask of concentration as she charged forward alongside her knights. Her mind was not focused on any one, narrow aspect of the fight, but rather was working overtime to observe and measure every moment and motion. There was absolutely no room for mistakes or miscalculations, especially since she was closing into Hoity Toity’s range herself.
He began to counter her charge with a chaotic swirl of his liquid limbs, the whole of his body taking on a shape not unlike her whirlpool of blood, but with many more breaks and confusing contortions within it. She couldn’t even clearly see where his reishi rings were, as they continuously became obscured by his own liquid mass. But that was fine. She wasn’t relying solely upon her own sight. There was a reason she’d had her lesser knights surround Hoity Toity in a spherical formation. She could share the senses of her knights, gaining sensory information from every single one of them. Her Fullbring had evolved so that this didn’t overload her own human senses, but rather filtered into her mind in a manner that was more akin to animal instinct.
That way, when Hoity Toity unleashed the power of a Quincy’s Licht Regen from not just one point, but all four of his reishi rings, Rarity could sense it happening even if part of his liquid body was concealing the attack from view. She knew the angle in which the incredible barrages of thousands of arrows would be coming from, and her squadron of mounted knights were already moving accordingly. Their weapons of crimson crystal shifted shape under her will, becoming a phalanx of tower shields emblazoned with roses. Her knights formed a vanguard around her, their thick armor and shields now interlocked.
The reishi arrows slammed into the phalanx, and Rarity empowered the shields with a flow of her own reiatus to withstand the barrage as she and her knights flew through it, like sailing ships withstanding the rains of a typhoon. At less than ten meters from Hoity Toity, however, the Quincy made his next move.
Tendrils of liquid from his body speared forward and splashed upon the shields of Rarity’s knights. The liquid seeped through small cracks in the interlocked shields and armor, and Rarity felt an intense burst of reiatsu flow through Hoity Toity. If she hadn’t been attuned to the senses of her knights she might not have reacted in time when small, needle-thin tendrils from the bits of liquid that seeped past the shields suddenly hardened into steel-like density and struck at her.
She flipped off of the crystal steed she rode and the construct was pierced through by the needles in an instant. Rarity felt Hoity Toity’s power run through those needles, and turn her steed into dust. The needles then immediately turned to liquid again and redirected themselves at her, shooting upward. One of her knights that had kept back from the vanguard in reserve rushed forward, displaying a dazzling set of flashing red slashes from twin, curved blades. Her knights might act upon her direction, but unlike her earlier constructs, the fully evolved Court of the Generous Rose created knights that could also fight autonomously. The knight’s blades sliced the needles into multiple pieces, which fell away and turned back into liquid.
By now her phalanx of knights had reached Hoity Toity’s main body, and slammed their shields into it. The force of the blows splattered the liquid of his body around, but like slapping at the ocean it did little other than just splash the liquid around rather than do any harm. Immediately Hoity counter attacked with his reishi rings, the weapons slicing through the knight’s shields like they were soft butter. Yet while Hoity Toity was busy with that, Rarity herself maneuvered up and over him with a few swift bursts of Bringer Light. At her direction her knights abandoned their shields and reformed their individual weapons, slicing and stabbing at Hoity Toity’s flailing liquid limbs. Not to inflict damage, but to harry and distract him while Rarity took a precious second to focus her power and bring up a potent aura of reitsu from within herself.
To do what came next she’d needed to get close, and pour her reiatsu directly into the next move. Without her weaker knights acting as additional senses, she’d likely not have been able to defend against Hoity Toity’s attempts to keep her at a distance, and without her phalanx, he’d be too focused on her for Rarity to even have the free second she needed to focus.
The force Hoity Toity had at his disposal was equal, or even a bit stronger, than her own. But he wasn’t securing his advantages. He was fighting sloppy. Rarity was about to teach him that whether in business or war, giving up any advantage was tantamount to admitting defeat.
Pouring her spirit energy out through her sword, the white blade lit up with a crimson light that then fanned out and swirled into the crystalline dust that was hanging around in a glittering red mist, ignored by Hoity Toity up until that moment. As her power fused with the crystal dust, a fair portion of which had also been absorbed into Hoity’s liquid body, the dust spread into hardening sheets of pure ruby.
“Oh, is this your plan?” Hoity Toity said, sounding more bemused than alarmed, “Even if you trap my body within these crystals, it will remain liquid and impervious to attack. You haven’t forgotten I can change matter besides myself, yes?”
Rarity ignored him and continued to harden her crystal dust. Hoity didn’t simply talk, however, and did send two of his reishi rings slashing at her with portions of his liquid body that hadn’t been fully hardened into crystal yet. The speed of the strikes were faster than even the glass daggers of Blue Blood’s Shikai, but Rarity had gotten faster since then, and there were just two weapons to contend with here rather than Blue Blood’s dozens. She deftly swung her sword upwards to deflect the first ring, then with a sweep of her hand morphed the blade into an elegant spear who’s shaft she used to parry the second reishi ring. She spun around in an instant, the spear in her hands whirling with an air tearing whistle as she deflected the reishi rings several more times as they snapped towards her like striking snakes. He was likely trying to break her focus on hardening the crystal dust, but now that she’d already poured some of her spirit energy into it, the process was much easier to keep going.
It was exhausting because she was making sure the crystal sheets hardening around Hoity Toity’s liquid body were far stronger than normal. She didn’t want him breaking out quickly, although she knew he could. His Xenomoprh power would let him reduce the sheets back to dust, but the more of her spirit energy she put into the crystals, the longer it’d take him to do that.
The raw sheets of crystals continued to harden around Hoity’s body, moving in rough clusters matching Hoity’s shifting, amorphous body, until he started to look like a mass of strangely twisted, red coral reef. Finally even the limbs that were striking at Rarity and her knights were hardened and the crystal sheets of deep red ruby even hardened around the reishi rings. For a moment, everything was silent and still as Rarity stepped back and admired her handiwork.
Hoity Toity was effectively trapped, but she knew it wouldn’t be for long. Not long enough for her to go to Twilight’s aid and try to help her friend deal with Sapphire Shores. She could already feel Hoity Toity’s reiatsu trying to press against her own, the strength of his Schrift attempting to break down her own reiatsu that permeated the crystals. He’d be out in a few minutes, if left alone.
But that was alright, a few minutes was more time than Rarity needed. She had fully intended to remove Hoity Toity as a threat, one way or another, and had no intention of running. Especially considering the cost of this battle had already been too high.
With a gesture she commanded her knights to shift formation. Her squadron of mounted knights flew to surround her protectively, and she winced slightly at seeing that some of them were in poor shape due to withstanding Hoity Toity’s attacks. Many bore cracked and torn armor, and she made a mental promise to fix them as soon as she could.
Meanwhile the larger portion of her forces maintained their spherical formation around the now trapped Hoity Toity, but they shifted to make room for the cannoneers to move the cannons forward so that they surrounded Hoity Toity at a distance of no more than a few meters away.
Rarity walked between each cannon, placing her hand on each intricately crafted weapon in turn. At each touch she infused a greater portion of her spiritual energy into the cannon, charging up the crystalline ammunition within. She couldn’t do much to alter the physical nature of her constructs like Hoity Toity could alter his body. If Sunset Shimmer were here, fire would be a fantastic counter to his liquid form. Unfortunately Rarity couldn’t cause her constructs to shoot fire or lightning. All she could do was infuse them with more of her spirit energy so that when they attacked, they hit with more than just physical force, but a high degree of spirit energy as well. The cannons weren’t just there for show. Each part of her army served a purpose for expanding her Fullbring’s versatility in combat. The cannons were powerful ranged weapons, focal points in which she could fire her spirit energy even in a raw form, as long as she attached it to a physical medium.
The normal shots were potent enough, but clearly hadn’t done much to harm Hoity Toity. But if she took time to infuse each cannon with more of her personal power, and then had them all fire at once upon an immobile target?
A feat she couldn't’ have pulled off if Hoity had fought smart and not allowed her to gain her present advantages. Underestimating an opponent is one of the worst mistakes anyone could make in battle. Blue Blood had learned that lesson, but at least Rarity had had the luxury of allowing that man to survive to grow from that mistake. She had no such luxury here. It wasn’t that she desired Hoity Toity’s death, it was simply that in order to defeat him she couldn’t afford to hold back even a tiny amount, otherwise she’d be the one facing defeat.
The rose carved cannons let loose in a symphonic orchestra of percussive thunder. Each barrel burned bright scarlet before blasting reiatsu charged crystal shells that pulsed like red stars as they converged from all sides upon the immobile mass of crystals holding Hoity Toity in place. Rarity didn’t even flinch from the combined detonations, which formed a massive spherical blast of raw crimson energy that shattered and consumed Hoity’s crystal prison in blinding red light. Wind force billowed Rarity’s presently pale white hair around her stoic features. Around her, her knights tensed, as if sensing her apprehension. Each one clutched their weapons tightly, ready to strike the moment even a hint of motion stemmed from the center of the fading explosion.
It was this readiness that allowed one of the knights, one bearing a large bladed halberd, to step in front of Rarity just in time to intercept a streak of motion and blue light that tore the knight’s chest out, but deflected the blow away from Rarity. She had sensed the motion coming, but it had been insanely hard to follow, and she saw the streak of blue move past her and her cluster of mounted knights and break through the surrounding sphere of other knights.
Immediately she rounded, along with her knights, and sent instant mental commands for those with bows to open fire while she herself swept her hand out and created a few dozen flying blades of her own to chase after the streak of light. It moved in haphazard arcs, evading swarms of arrows fired by Rarity’s knights while staying ahead of Rarity’s flying weapons for a few moments before halting in place suddenly. The light turned into a sphere from which four rings of reishi sprang and spun with blinding speed, deflecting or slicing most of Rarity’s weapons apart.
The strange sphere of blue light then reshaped itself into a humanoid form, and Rarity saw it was Hoity Toity. His body held the same general shape it had for his Vollstandig, only instead of flesh and blood, it was as if his entire body was now made of neon pulsing, blue light and reishi energy. His eyes lacked pupils, and his mouth was only partially viewable amid the light his body emitted, but his voice sounded the same as he bowed to her.
“Congratulations my lady. I actually didn’t think you had enough power to damage my liquid form and force me to resort to this much less elegant technique. But be proud, Miss Rarity. I’ve only had to resort to transforming my body into a pure energy state once before, so you hold a very special honor of pushing a Sternritter of the Vandenreich to his absolute limit. This state is my most powerful one, but it burns through my reishi reserves at an unimaginable rate. If I don’t defeat you soon, I’ll burn myself out.”
“Foolish to tell me that,” Rarity said, “I get the impression you’re still not taking me seriously.”
Her army redeployed around her in a defensive formation, shields front, weapons poised. She was wracking her brain for a new plan. She’d expected his Xenomorph Schrift to be problematic, but she hadn’t realized just how far he could push it’s abilities. Perhaps he could only do this with his Vollstandig released? And if he was in a pure energy state, did she even have a means to injure him now? His speed seemed even more ridiculous than before, although Rarity had still been able to follow his movements. If she could just manage to immobilize him again...
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m taking you quite seriously. I’ve just never enjoyed fighting very much, I’m afraid. I’m too much of a talker. I also simply can’t help but want to see if you can follow through with your threat to kill me. It’s my biggest weakness, you see. I’m a patron at heart. There’s nothing I love more than seeing a flower bloom into its full potential. It’s one of many reasons I’ve been a staunch ally of Sapphire Shores since her debut among our ranks. A talent unlike any other I’ve encountered.”
“So much so that you’re willing to let her commit murder without your King’s knowledge. Color me unimpressed by your notions of loyalty, Mister Toity,” Rarity replied coolly, not daring to drop her guard. She sensed a build up of reiatsu within Hoity Toity. He was preparing to make his move. She had to be ready.
“Alas, Sapphire saw something dire in Miss Sparkle. I feel for the child, but I’ve never known Sapphire to be wrong in her judgment calls. I trust her to know what she is doing, it’s as simple as that. Surely you have those you trust with similar resolve?”
If Rarity was being honest with herself, there were. She trusted her friends, to the point of going along with their judgment calls in some cases despite her own misgivings. After all, hadn’t they sallied forth into Soul Society, shaking up the entire afterlife, all on the simple decision to try and rescue their school principle and vice principal, with very little to go on other than trust that they were doing the right thing? She supposed she couldn’t entirely fault Hoity Toity’s trust in his ally, when Rarity had placed her own faith in her friends with equal resolve.
She nearly responded, but sensed the rise in tension from Hoity Toity’s reiatsu, and realized his question was as much meant as a distraction as anything else. His body formed into a streak of light, coming straight at her. Four of her knights welding lighter weapons rushed into his path. One, wielding a scimitar and buckler, sliced down upon the beam of light, but it twisted around the knight’s blade and like a serpent it coiled around and clenched around the knight’s waist, snappit it in half.
The three other knights swooped by, one smashing with a hammer, another hewing with an axe, while the third lashed out with twin katars, but Hoity Toity’s body flashed in and out of humanoid form. He bent around the blows of Rarity’s knights while his four reishi rings struck at such speeds that they left multiple trails of light in their wake, so bright they burned afterimages into Rarity’s eyes.
Her knights were still swift in their own right, and more poured in, replacing damaged ones with fresh bodies to stand in Hoity Toity’s way. One knight threw its body fully upon Hoity Toity, trying to catch him in a bear hug, but arrows of reishi, longer and brighter like thin beams of light, pierced the knight and nearly scattered both it and the pegasus construct it rode to pieces. This did give another knight an opening with a lance that pierced Hoity’s chest, but his body simply flowed around the lance like light itself, Hoity’s body twisting its upper portion around while he sliced with two of his reishi rings to remove the knight’s helmeted head.
It was clear her knights couldn’t harm Hoity Toity, and she doubted that his energy form would take much damage from a similar barrage that had forced him to abandon his liquid form. There was only one way to beat him that she could think of, and that was outlasting this energy state of his. With his speed, however, she could only barely keep up with him. She needed a way to catch him off guard, while also finding a way to harm his energy-based body.
She did have one idea that sparked within her mind. It was a desperate trick, but it might work. He wouldn’t fall for the same thing twice, so she couldn’t rely on another cloud of crystal dust. He’d notice it immediately and back off. She had to do this another way. While her knights rushed Hoity from all sides, buying Rarity a few precious seconds to think, she formed her plan.
Of her twenty pegasus knights, half were damaged to the point of being unable to fight, and she didn’t have time or energy to invest in repairing them, so the ones still capable of moving she commanded to retreat back to her Fullbring’s manifested gate. She did the same to any damaged knights among the lesser ranks. This would free up a bit of reiatsu for her to use for what came next.
The majority of her army fell back, forming ranks behind Rarity while she herself threw herself forward towards Hoity Toity, who was still engaged with the remaining half of her pegasus knights. He seemed to be taking pleasure in dismantling them, now that his energy form had such speed and striking power that even when surrounded he could easily avoid her knight’s blades, and even when they struck the weapons did little more than pass through him without harm. Yet he did still try to avoid attacks, telling Rarity that even if he wasn’t being harmed directly, his energy body likely expended power to repair itself.
Hoity Toity was capable of contorting his form even faster and in more bizarre ways now than even his liquid form. He was able to reshape it in any way he pleased, attacking and defending simultaneously. Rarity didn’t think he was actually as fast as light, otherwise she shouldn’t have been able to respond to his movements at all, but he was still the fastest opponent she’d faced, even putting Blue Blood’s Flash Steps to shame.
As her knights assaulted him, Hoity opened his mouth and a hand shot out of it, grasping the greatsword of one of the knights that had been coming in with a sideways chop, and one of Hoity’s legs bent around like a python and aimed it’s reishi ring at the knight’s chest, firing spearing arrows at point blank range that tore through the knight with ease. Another knight came up from below, both the knight and the pegasus spinning to slice with both sabers and wings, and in response Hoity Toity bent his light body into a donut shape to grasp the knight out of the air. As Hoity Toity squeezed his energy body around the knight and pegasus construct, burning through them.
Rarity sped past the chaotic melee, flickering in and out of view with bursts of speed that saw her striking at Hoity Toity from several angles within the same second. Her white blade sliced through Hoity’s pulsing energy body, and as she expected, she didn’t feel any actual resistance. At least, not the fist time. Between her strikes, Hoity lashed out at her in turn. His light speed attacks were too much for her to be able to avoid fully. One reishi ring sliced across her abdomen, blood spewing from the wound even as she regrew her armor to staunch the flow of blood. Another ring of reishi appeared below her as he extended a limb, firing lancing arrows at her from below. She swung her blade to deflect them while pirouetting in the air through the beams, her reactions enough to avoid being utterly pin-cushioned by the arrows, but still taking at least one beam of light through her left arm, drawing forth a burst of pain and blood that left her grimacing even as she sped back in at him to counter attack.
“Are you really this desperate now to just resort to swinging your blade at me blindly, my lady?” Hoity said, meeting her next several sword strikes with flashing motions of his body. He’d avoid one blow, only to step into the next, forming more rings of reishi from his back supported by pincer-like limbs that slashed at Rarity from above. She just barely blocked one with her sword but the other slashed her across the chest, breaking the crystalline plate of her armor and burning the flesh beneath. Fortunately she’d leaned back enough for the wound to be a shallow one, and her knights now came in at Hoity Toity from behind. He spun to face them while still slashing at her with the new reishi rings from his back, but with his attention divided she was able to parry those while biding her time for a second.
Hoity slashed through another pair of her knights, while firing a barrage of light beams from another pair of reishi rings, but Rarity took that moment to duck under a pair of slices from the rings coming out of his back and attacked him again with a blurring series of blows. And this time she made a subtle alteration to the crystal structure of her sword. While the first few strikes still did nothing to his energy body, once the change in her blade was complete, the final blow met with resistance and Hoity Toity let out a shocked yelp of pain.
“What in the-!?” Hoity Toity began, but Rarity didn’t give him time to recover. His speed was such that the moment he realized what she was doing, he’d be able to escape her. Her only chance lay in surprise. Striking him, causing him even a moment of pain, was surprise enough, although she hadn’t known for sure that what she’d tried was even going to work.
But now that she knew, she immediately struck again, while Hoity was still shocked.
She hadn’t just been sacrificing her knights without a plan. Their desperate melee with Hoity Toity had served to keep them close, practically right on top of him. Several were still grasped by his contorted body of light, and the rest were all within mere meters.
Rarity zipped back and sent her power out into her knights, and their bodies shimmered with her spiritual energy. Both knights and the pegasus constructs flowed into red, shining blood, forming a surrounding cascade not unlike a larger version of her old whirlpool. She then immediately reshaped them all into a new construct surrounding Hoity Hoity.
An iron maiden. Or more accurately, a crystal maiden, like a large, red sarcophagus. It slammed shut around Hoity Toity’s body while he’d still been distracted by the pain of Rarity’s strike, and only once he was inside would he see not only how Rarity had injured him, but how he had lost the battle entirely.
For Rarity had layered her sword’s edge to carry a mirror sheen. In fact, she’d ensured the interior of the iron maiden she’d just trapped him inside all had a polished, reflective, mirror-like interior.
It’d been a long shot, but she’d surmised that since his energy body was akin to light, that any material that was made to be reflective would sever the bonds of that light, or at least disrupt them through refraction. She’d had to risk getting into direct melee with him to test her theory, and her body was marked with the bleeding wounds of the fact. Yet she’d confirmed what she’d needed to know, and the very moment she had, she took the opening to trap him within a prison of mirrors that would reflect his energy body. He’d either have to abandon it in order to escape, or let his energy form burn out his reishi.
Either way, she brought up the remaining forces of her knights whom she’d held in reserve, and positioned them around the iron maiden, weapons at the ready.
She found herself breathing heavily, and with the adrenaline starting to wear thin, her body was starting to remind her of the pain of her wounds. Yet she didn’t drop her guard or take her intense blue gaze from the iron maiden. She could feel Hoity inside it. Would he break free? Burn out? Everything rode on the next few moments, for Rarity knew she was nearing her own limit.
There was a cracking noise like the breaking of a massive piece of glass, and Rarity’s eyes narrowed as she saw a fracture form along the center of her iron maiden. Suddenly Hoity Toity’s reiatsu flooded out of the sarcophagus of deep red crystal, causing more and more spiderweb cracks along its surface. Rarity’s heart sank as the iron maiden broke apart in a burst of white and blue light...
Only for Hoity Toity to be seen standing there, flesh and blood once more, save for a few sections of his body that still clung to their energy state. His skin was burned and raw in many places, and he was heaving his breaths in and out, like a man exhausted from a marathon run. Rarity felt his reiatsu, but it was fading quickly, like a candle guttering out in the wind.
“Huff...huff... I must... congratulate you once more...” Hoity Toity said, face pale and gaunt, even as his eyes shone with equal parts admiration and grim resolve, “You may well be... the most dangerous one among your little group of friends...”
“A fact I take no pleasure in,” Rarity said, raising her shining white blade and pointing it at Hoity Toity, “It seems you’ve used yourself up.”
“Not... entirely,” he said, struggling to raise an arm, “Although my gamble with my energy form did backfire. The burnout of it is just... killer...heh...”
One of his reishi rings snapped into existence around his raised arm, and a somber twist of a smile touched his lips, “Yet I can still fight.”
“Will you not just surrender? This fight is over,” Rarity said, her voice holding a pained plea to it, but no less firm for the fact.
“I’m still breathing, my lady, and you have a promise to fulfill. Now... show me the beauty of your conviction, for if you don’t, I still have enough strength left to strike you down in turn.”
As if to prove his point, she felt his reiatsu rise in one last burst of power. She saw the shimmer in the air around him as he sought to solidify the air in a conical shape in the direction of herself and her army. From the faltering nature of his reiatsu, she could tell he was using all he had left in this move, holding nothing back. This was his final attempt to defeat her, and it wasn’t an unimpressive move. His cone of solidifying air spanned a width of nearly a hundred meters and rushed towards her and breakneck speed. If it struck, it’d freeze her whole army and herself along with it.
And Rarity had been prepared for it. She’d never intended to give Hoity Toity a fair chance, even if he had escaped the iron maiden and persisted in trying to fight.
Hoity Toity shuddered as something struck him from behind. He looked down to see a white blade identical to the one in Rarity’s hand now sticking from his chest.
She’d left an exact copy of her sword hidden and hanging in the air a short distance behind where the iron maiden had been. She’d altered it to have a glass-like quality, making it hard to spot. Rarity hoped Blue Blood wouldn’t feel plagiarized by her stealing of the idea behind his Shikai, but it was too handy a trick to not use, although she hadn’t been able to make the blade completely transparent like Blue Blood’s glass daggers could be. Still, it’d been enough that Hoity Toity hadn’t seen the blade slowly maneuvering behind him, and had been unable to defend against it’s killing blow.
Rarity’s face showed no hint of satisfaction as she withdrew the blade from his back in a shower of blood. HIs reiatsu altered, and the solidifying cone of air dissipated just a few bare meters from Rarity and her knights. Hoity was still standing there, looking at the wound on his chest as she slowly approached him with tired steps, her eyes betraying the exhausting both physical and mental within.
“Huh...” he said, as if genuinely surprised, “Well done.”
This was followed by a burst of blood from his mouth, and his body tipping forward to fall, only to be caught by Rarity as she kept him from falling to the ground many hundreds of feet below.
“No,” she said, “Not ‘well done’, merely... done. I’d have preferred things not come to this. I never once wanted to kill you.”
“I know,” he said past bloodied lips, his body becoming more slack in her grasp even as he raised a hand to weakly brush away a tear that Rarity didn’t even realize she’d been shedding, “You are a true rose, with a large and tender heart. I understood the risk of running afoul of your thorns. Death isn’t something a true Quincy has cause to fear. Our souls go to our King, to be reborn anew. One day, you and I shall cross paths again, and I pray you shine with even greater beauty upon that day... my lady...”
He went still, a serene expression upon his face, and Rarity felt his breathing stop. She closed her eyes and took a moment to steady her own breath, which she’d held for those last few seconds.
Two of her knights arrived at her side, as if sensing her distress. One actually placed a gauntlet clad hand upon her shoulder in a gesture of remarkably human comfort, coming from a faceless construct. It was the same knight with the twin scimitars that had instinctively leapt to her defense earlier in the battle. Rarity looked at the knight, which bore no features beneath it’s helmet of ornate red crystal, but she almost thought it was asking her if she was alright.
“I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” she told the knight, wondering if she was crazy for speaking to a construct of her own Fullbring. She held Hoity Toity’s body tight for a moment before nodding to the knight, “Could you take him down to the ground, please? I don’t wish to drop him, but I’m quite... tired. I need a moment to catch my breath.”
Without a word the two knights took Hoity Toity, and carried him in a respectful manner as they floated down to the forest floor, where they would lay him down by one of the larger trees. Meanwhile Rarity summoned her Fullbring’s gateway closer to herself, and mentally ordered the rest of her army to start marching back through it. She’d need to summon them again soon enough, but even letting them rest inside the gate for a few minutes would help repair the damage they’d taken.
As she watched the ranks of her Fullbring’s knights march back into the shining red gate, she tried to get her thoughts in order. The pain from her wounds was hitting her full force as well, which didn’t help. She didn’t mourn, nor let regrets flood her. There’d be time enough for that later. Instead she focused on what needed to happen next. Twilight was still in danger. It’d taken practically everything Rarity had to defeat Hoity Toity. If Sapphire Shores was even stronger...
“Rarity!”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Rarity turned around to see Rainbow Dash appear before her in a crackle of lighting. Rainbow Dash’s prismatic wings were abuzz with power, and the girl was looking around wildly, her lightning spear ready for battle in her hands.
“You alright!?” Rainbow Dash said while turning around, eyes scanning the area, “It felt like you were in trouble, so I came as fast as I could but... uh where’s the bad guys at? And holy crap, is all that blood yours?”
Rarity realized that between her wounds and Hoity Toity bleeding out on her, the white armor and battle dress she wore was soaked red. She met Rainbow Dash’s questioning gaze, doing her best to look at her friend’s earnest eyes filled with concern and try to dispel that concern by taking hold of her emotions and speak calmly.
“You’re a scoach late, Rainbow. I already won.”
“Whoa, really? I mean, not that I didn’t think you could win on your own, eheh,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the back of her head, “But are you sure you’re okay, you look pretty hurt...”
Rainbow Dash peered at Rarity more closely, and Rarity saw Rainbow Dash’s eyes blink several times in what at first appeared to be confusion, then a pale cast of growing horror. Seeing her friend’s distress, Rarity made a waving gesture, “Oh, don’t worry. I’m hurt, yes. Ugh, rather painfully, truth be told, but I should be alright. As you can see, I completed my Fullbring. These knights are-”
“Yeah, Rarity I see the knights, they’re awesome, but... uh... have you looked at your chest?”
“My chest?” Rarity said, confused, and glanced down, where her breastplate had been broken earlier, and what it had been concealing during the course of her battle with Hoity Toity.
Several seconds of silence stretched between the pair as Rarity froze in place, her breathing halting in her throat. Rainbow Dash was the first to speak, gulping first.
“Rarity, you said you completed your Fullbring. But... you didn’t have any of us nearby...”
Rarity remembered. She remembered bleeding out on the forest floor after Sapphire Shores had stabbed her from behind. She remembered the moment when she’d lost her doubts and felt the surge of power of her Fullbring reaching its full power, and the subsequent explosion of spirit energy that had resulted. Uncontrolled by having any of her friends nearby to help contain it. Her next memory had been stepping out of the gate of her completed Fullbring to face Hoity Toity.
She had felt good. On top of the world. Spirit energy had flowed through every pore of her body and she’d never felt stronger or faster. She hadn’t even questioned how she’d survived the explosion of uncontrolled spirit energy from her Fullbring being completed. She’d just assumed it might have been a unique result of her Fullbring having such a strong tie to her own blood, that it had healed her when she’d transformed.
The severed Soul Chain dangling from her chest, however, told a very different story.
----------
“Grogar!” Applejack spat in a low growl, standing on weakened feet and moving with a burst of speed. She snatched up her lance from where it had fallen and then with another blink of high-speed motion she was standing between Grogar and where her parents and Fenice were, brandishing her lance.
He gazed upon her with eyes filled with wry amusement, a sly quirk of a smile on his face as he stepped towards her. Applejack didn’t flinch or step backwards, holding firm even as a miasma of thick, unpleasantly powerful reiatsu flowed out of Grogar.
“My dear deluded human, whatever do you think you’re doing?”
“Beatin’ yer face in if ya take one more step towards my kin!” Applejack said past barred teeth.
“Adorable. And here I thought the blue one was the least intelligent of your company. You’re already injured and drained, and even if you weren’t, the full extent of your power would still fall short of my own.”
“We won’t know that ‘till I try,” Applejack said, and began revving up the drill portions of her lance, making them spin with jets of gold light.
“Applejack, wait.”
She turned as she saw her father stand with the help of Fenice, who was looking between him and Grogar with wide eyes.
“Father, what are you-?” Fenice began, but Hard Nail held up his one remaining hand to silence her, and then fixed Grogar with a flat, measuring stare. As horribly injured as he was, he managed to stand with a steadiness that still spoke of some power remaining within him. His wounds didn’t bleed, and Applejack wasn’t even sure her father felt pain anymore, in the conventional sense. While both he and her mother were weakened from their fight, their spiritual pressures remained potent to a degree.
“What are your intentions, Ninth Espada?” Hard Nail asked with an unblinking gaze.
Applejack felt an uneasy chill in her gut as Grogar gazed at her father, for in those eyes she saw the look of a man who didn’t see people, but merely things. They weren’t dead eyes, but rather the kind of eyes that shone with the excitement of one who couldn’t wait to pull something apart to see how it ticked. It left her guts squirming to see that gaze directed at her father, and she took a defensive step towards him.
“My intentions? Could it not be that I sensed a fellow Espada in danger and thought to come to his aide?” Grogar asked with a mocking innocence, the hand not holding his bladed staff going to his bizarrely cybernetic chest in a gesture of equally false sincerity.
Hard Nail stared back at him dubiously, and Grogar shrugged, “Not buying that, hmm? Not that I actually intended to try deceiving you, Fourth Espada. Or should I just start calling you Hard Nail, now? I do wonder what our fellow Espada will think of this, one of our own having such close familial ties with a Captain of the Gotei 13.”
“That is irrelevant,” Hard Nail said, “Do you honestly believe Tirek would care? That man cares solely about power, and loyalty, and honestly I doubt loyalty plays that much of a role, given he seems to encourage those like Adagio Dazzle to seek to unseat him. Why would he care at all if, in life, I was married to Sweet Cider?”
“He wouldn’t,” Grogar agreed, with a derisive tone that suggested he thought Tirek rather foolish for the fact, “Unless he believed you intended to betray Las Noches in favor of your human and Soul Reaper ties. He may encourage competitiveness among us, but he’s not so blase in regards to those who might bring the enemy into our very walls. Adagio walks a fine line, treating as she does with the Quincy.”
At Hard Nail’s look, Grogar let out a dry, sandpaper grating laugh, “Of course I know about that. Adagio is hardly free of my hooks, whatever she may think. But that’s not why I’m here. She’s free to conduct her own schemes. They’re quite entertaining, and I eagerly await to see just how she intends to seek revenge on me. I also don’t care about your little family get together. By all means, rekindle that relationship. I’d be curious to see what an Arrancar/Soul Reaper hybrid would look like, if such is possible. No, I’m here merely to... conclude an experiment. Although, admittedly, I have not calculated your odds of surviving it, so perhaps that will put a damper on the family reunion.”
His hand raised with an ominous grasping gesture towards Hard Nail, but before he could finish, Applejack moved, as did Fenice and Sweet Cider. All three women converged on Grogar, although Sweet Cider was much slowed by her wounds and depleted reiatsu. Applejack came straight on with a leap and downward thrust from her spinning drill-lance. Fenice attacked from the right, her Fullbring blade coated with a layer of magma that burst out in a searing wave. Sweet Cider struck from the left, Kizuna carving a path towards Grogar’s neck.
He reacted with potent speed, reminiscent of when Applejack and her friends first faced him back in Hueco Mundo after Grand Fisher’s defeat. It told Applejack immediately that while she had gotten much stronger since then, Grogar had either grown in power as well, or was holding back a lot less. Probably both, considering his changed appearance. Before he’d look like a withered old man. Now his body was a strange, cybernetically enhanced goat-man monstrosity with youthful blue skin and a lot more muscle tone.
He lashed out with his left hand and expelled a powerful, green Bala bullet that blasted through Fenice’s magma and dispersed it, while striking the girl’s blade with enough force to send her flying backwards. His right hand swung his hook bladed staff to intercept Kizuna, and it was a testament to how weakened Sweet Cider was that he managed to stall the blade one handed, although the force of the blow still saw him sinking into the ground as Sweet Cider pushed on the blade. This allowed Applejack’s thrust to strike home, the drill lance smashing straight into Grogar’s chest.
Satisfyingly, this did push Grogar back, sending his cloven feet skidding across the ground for a few dozen feet. But Applejack’s satisfaction soon dulled upon seeing how little damage her blow had actually done, barely leaving a mark on his armored chest. Grogar cracked his neck and sighed, “Physical combat is so undignified. I got quite enough of this from Celestia. Why don’t I have you girls play with someone else instead? Since reunions are the order of the day, I think the good Captain and Lament will appreciate this...”
He snapped his fingers, and Applejack felt a stabbing sensation of danger on the back of her neck, like a sudden needle of ice between her vertebrae. Something that had been remaining hidden, keeping its spiritual pressure low to an unnoticeable pin-prick suddenly ceased hiding and rushed the group from the edge of the destroyed valley with incredible speed. Applejack was able to see a streak of black and swung her lance just in time to stop a long, curved blade-like limb from taking her head off. The thing that struck at her immediately spun in the air, somersaulting over Applejack and lashing out with equally bladed legs. Applejack managed to duck away from the blows and countered with a thrust of her lance, but she struck nothing but air as the speedy, dark assailant went after Sweet Cider next, unleashing a blinding series of spinning slashes that set the wounded Captain on the defense.
“What!?” Sweet Cider exclaimed as she got a good look at her assailant, “Ain’t no way! I dang well destroyed ya already!”
She got her opponent to back off with a powerful side swing, but the effort clearly hurt Sweet Cider as she coughed up more blood and clutched at her stomach wound, almost going to one knee as the strange, dark foe landed a distance away and stood next to Grogar. The Espada, in turn, gave a thin smile of pleasure as he placed an affectionate hand on the thing he’d apparently summoned.
“Destroyed? Well, technically yes, you did ‘destroy’ a part of him. Experiment 528 is a creation of mine that is split into multiple duplicates, all sharing a single progenitor soul. The Hollow I created him from possessed an interesting ability I wished to cultivate, the power to plant a ‘seed’ within a victim that would fuse with the target’s soul and grow in power so it could be harvested later. Of course this would weaken the victim, but I theorized that if the power could be altered to allow the victim to continue to grow in strength along with the seed, then it’d produce an altogether more potent result for the eventual harvest.”
Applejack didn’t quite know what to make of any of that. To her eyes, the creature standing next to Grogar didn’t look much different from other Hollows she’d seen, save for it’s generally smaller and largely humanoid form. It had an ebony black body like that of a gaunt human, but who’s arms and legs ended in pointed, curved blades rather than hands and feet. It’s Hollow mask was a smooth human skull, but it had... strangely familiar, pointed horns. Horns that Applejack realized looked a lot like the ones that her father had when he’d used his Resurreccion form.
“What are you saying, Grogar?” asked Hard Nail, who’d retrieved his own sword, and while he looked like a walking corpse trying to hold the blade in one hand, he looked ready to fight, “My memory from my life as a man might still be a tad fuzzy, but I remember Sweet Cider and her friends saving me from something like that thing standing next to you. That was your doing?”
Grogar regarded him with hungry eyes, “I confess I’d sent several of 528’s duplicates to the human world to plant seeds in a few human targets. I’d targeted humans, Soul Reapers, Quincy, and fellow Arrancar for such experimentation, to see which produced the best results. Most were vastly disappointing, and I’d largely considered the experiment a failure... until you showed up in Las Noches. In all the other targets the seeds’ growth was minimal compared to 528’s previous power, but in your case the seed generated a remarkably potent result. The seed appeared to act as a catalyst for your incredibly rapid growth in power as a Hollow, beyond any of my projections. Sadly I didn’t have a means to harvest that power effectively, until Adagio Dazzle landed in my hands and I was able to divine the secrets of her species's gems.”
He pointed at the gleaming red jewel that was fused into his chest, “With this, I have the means to reap the seed that was planted all those years ago. Your contribution to the study of Hollow evolution is appreciated.”
“We ain’t lettin’ ya have yer way, ya goat-faced bastard! Whatever yer plannin’, it’s stoppin’ right here n’ now!” Applejack shouted, pulling up as much power as she could from within herself. She’d been battered around plenty during her fight with her father, but in a way the fact that he’d been overwhelmingly stronger than her played to her advantage now, since the fight hadn’t lasted long enough for her to really drain that much of her stamina or spiritual pressure. At least, not as badly as Sweet Cider had, by comparison. That meant Applejack had plenty of reserves left in the proverbial tank left to throw at Grogar.
He might still be stronger than her, but she could sense that power gap wasn’t so wide that things were hopeless. She hadn’t damaged him with her first strike, but she could hit harder than that if need be. And whatever craziness he was talking about, whatever mad experiment he had going, she wasn’t about to let him just have his way. And she knew she wasn’t alone in that. She felt the burst of power and heat from Fenice as the other girl leapt to her feet from where she’d been knocked earlier, and Applejack saw a pillar of magma emerge from Fenice’s sword as she glared fiery death towards Grogar.
“You’re not touching my father!”
Fenice jumped into the air, her pillar of lava following her like a living river. Applejack, needing no prompting, moved to join her on the attack.
Sweet Cider did as well, but in a blur of dark motion, Experiment 528 was in front of her, it’s bladed limbs silently dancing a pattern of deadly strokes that forced the wounded Soul Reaper Captain to focus all of her attention on the modified Hollow. She was still fast enough to parry it’s blows, but this creature was much stronger than the duplicate she’d fought so long ago, and with her injuries and drained reiatsu, it was all Sweet Cider could do to keep it’s blade arms at bay.
Grogar watched Applejack and Fenice coming at him with quirked eyebrows, as if he was genuinely curious what the two Fullbringer girls had in terms of a plan of attack. Applejack didn’t know if his calm curiosity was the result of overconfidence or not, but she was determined to wipe that look off his face. Matching her timing with Fenice, Applejack rushed Grogar from the opposite side of Fenice and with golden jets of energy from her armor boosting her speed and power she unleashed a fast triple-thrust of her drill lance at him, so quick that it was akin to three strikes happening simultaneously.
She felt a moment of satisfaction as a look of strain passed over his face as he took his hook-blade staff in both hands and had to turn to face her fully to block the attacks. The impacts rang like gongs across the valley, and Applejack saw Grogar get driven back several yards by her blows. She followed the thrusts up with a brief leap back, kicking out with her left foot and firing a thick beam of gold energy which forced Grogar to block with his Zanpaktou. This kept him rooted in place long enough for Fenice to come in from above, slashing her sword down hard and bringing the river of magma with it.
The magma struck Grogar dead on, splashing over him in a bubbling pillar that rose up into the air as Fenice slashed more of the molten rock upon the Espada. Fenice then spun her blade around and held out her free hand towards the lava, eyes closed in concentration. Suddenly the magma flash cooled, turning into a prison of black rock near twenty meters high.
Both girls stood there a moment, but Applejack didn’t think for a second that Grogar had been killed. She looked to her father and Fenice and said, “Ya two need ta git out o’ here! Pa, open up one o’ them Hollow portal things n’ take Fenice. This ain’t gonna hold Grogar long!”
“Incorrect,” Grogar’s voice resonated as green light spilled forth from cracks splintering across the pillar of hardened rock lava. The pillar burst apart in a flash of light and Grogar strode out, brushing himself off, “It’s not going to hold me at all. Really, your efforts are commendable, and it’s clear your exposure to magic has enhanced your Fullbring to a level that, had I not already surpassed my previous level of strength, I might have been in trouble here. Yet this struggle is pointless. I will take what is mine.”
“Like hell!” Fenice literally had heat waves pouring off of her, steam rising from her sword as tendrils of magma encased it, turning the blade into a solid sword of burning lava. She landed on the ground, then gripped her sword with both hands as she burst forward, seeking to impale Grogar with a straight thrust.
Grogar turned the thrust aside with the bladed portion of his Zanpaktou, then with Fenice off balance, he turned the staff around and jabbed the blunt end into the girl's stomach so hard that Applejack could see an impression of the blow from Fenice’s back. Eyes wide, Fenice gasped and was knocked flat to the ground about twenty feet away. Grogar raised a hand towards her, and sickly green light gathered into a sphere.
Just as Grogar discharged the Cero towards Fenice, Applejack got in the way, slamming her lance forward at full power. The drill portion spun to a blurring speed and managed to split the Cero like a boulder upon a waterfall, although Applejack felt the impact and strain of doing so down to her very bones and sinew. As the Cero dissipated, Applejack was left with her lance intact, but smoking, and Fenice laying behind her coughing and sputtering as she tried to regain her breath.
And Grogar wasn’t standing where he’d been before. Applejack’s eyes shot wide as she looked around for him, and felt her skin grow cold as she realized that Grogar had moved with the speed of a Sonido to get behind her father.
“Pa!”
Hard Nail turned with shocking speed for one with his injuries, blade swinging, but Grogar had the advantage of positioning, surprise, and the fact that Hard Nail was vastly weakened, whereas Grogar was still going strong. Hard Nail’s Zanpaktou was blocked by the shaft of Grogar’s own, the bell upon the bladed staff ringing with an ominous and chilling tone.
Then Grogar raised his other hand and made a grasping gesture towards Hard Nail, specifically at the spot upon Hard Nail’s collar where the number ‘4’ had been tattooed, and where Experiment 528 had bitten him during that long ago incident. The siren gem in Grogar’s chest pulsed, and red light poured from both it, and Grogar’s hand. Hard Nail let out a sudden choking sound as that spot on his neck suddenly lit up red as well, and the flesh there started to pulsate and writhe like something beneath it was moving.
“I am given to understand your body is a ‘deathless’ one, Lament,” said Grogar as Hard Nail fell to his knees, gasping and shuddering, his sword falling from his hands, “Which is fortunate, since the Arrancar I have extracted seeds from before didn’t survive this process. The seed interconnects with almost every part of your spiritual body, you understand? It intentionally cultivates power so it can later be absorbed like this. The ones I experimented on previously were nameless trash no one would miss, and didn’t offer up much in terms of power. You on the other hand, I am giddy with anticipation for how strong this seed shall be. And with your deathless body, why, you might even survive this. Tell me, are you feeling any discomfort? This is for science, so please, honest answers only.”
“Stop it!” Applejack flew towards Grogar, lance poised to strike right at the Espada’s head. Grogar turned his head towards her and opened his mouth wide. Before Applejack knew what was happening, a swarm of disgusting, bulbous and wasp-like insects with pointed needle legs flew from Grogar’s mouth and came straight for her.
Revulsion filled her, and she swept her lance through the swarm, smashing a number of the insects, but many more flew around her, stabbing with their syringe-like legs. Luckily her armor protected her quite thoroughly, with her face the only place not guarded by the thick plates of shining gold. She flew straight up, incinerating more insects with the rocket jets that blasted from her armor to propel her upwards. The remaining insects gave chase, far faster than what Applejack was used to dealing with. In order to keep them at bay, she expelled jets of energy from near every port along her armor, and spun around, effectively creating a spherical burst of golden power that hammered the swarm to pieces.
However, in the few seconds it took for her to do that, her father screamed. Red lines, like veins, or the roots of a plant, spread across the surface of his skin, and a pustule shaped growth now shook like a heartbeat on his neck. Hard Nail was on his hands and knees, but he still tried to grasp at his Zanpaktou. Grogar stepped on his hand, just inches from the blade’s hilt.
“Now now, this will be over in just a moment. By now the other Arrancar had already expired. I’d say that’s a good sign of your chances of survival. Or maybe it just means there’s far more power to harvest out of you than those dregs.”
Applejack rocketed down towards them as fast as she could, but in that same instant Grogar grasped the rounded growth on her father’s neck and in a burst of red light, was able to tear it free. Applejack thrust with her lance in a gold streak of speed, Grogar looking up and attempting to vanish out of the way with a swift Sonido. Applejack felt her lance connect with a glancing blow before she hit the ground, blasting apart a large chunk of the earth beneath her. When the dust cleared she saw Grogar standing a fair distance back. His chest was marred by a bleeding line of gored flesh, Applejack’s hit having managed to actually draw blood this time. It was a shallow wound, however, and Grogar, while looking rather annoyed with her, gave the object in his hand a pleased look.
A gleaming, wet orb of crimson material that was like the smooth skin of an apple, but perfectly round, and luminous from within as if it contained a red star at its center. Applejack could feel a wealth of spiritual pressure from the object, the ‘seed’ that had been ripped from her father.
She immediately turned to her father to check on him. Hard Nail was still conscious, but his face was wracked with pain and there was a gaping wound in his neck. It didn’t bleed, much like her father’s other wounds, but his reiatsu felt terribly weak now, like a faltering pulse. She knelt next to him, taking his altogether too light and frail seeming body in her arms, “Pa? Pa!?”
“Ugh... I’m alright... just take your sister n’ ma away from here...” he said, clearly trying to stand.
Applejack was about to respond, but Grogar’s laughter stopped her and caused her to give the Espada a hate-filled glare.
“Haha! Beautiful, is it not?” Grogar said, examining the seed with an appreciative gaze, “With this, I’m one step closer to pushing Hollows to the next stage of our evolution. One step closer to freedom from the ignorant, the weak minded, and the self-aggrandizing. I thank you, Lament, for playing your part in this momentous occasion. As a reward, I’ll let you decide which of your kin I spare. The Soul Reaper Captain, the daughter of your human life, or the adopted daughter of your Hollow life? I can’t let them all go, you understand. Far too valuable as research subjects, but I’ll let you keep one of them, as a sign of my gratitude. Isn’t that nice of me? I can be so generous when I’m in a good mood.”
“I don’t know about that. I think that’s still being pretty mean, even if you are in a good mood.”
“Well by my standards it’s being quite generous I... think...?” Grogar had responded to the sudden voice next to him without really thinking about it, but then he paused, blinked, and looked next to him.
Pinkie Pie, in hammer form, somehow managed a bright cartoon smile, while Pinkamena, looking far more dour, just waved.
“Hiya!” Pinkie Pie said, “Whatcha’ got there?”
Grogar glanced at the seed, then narrowed his eyes at Pinkie Pie, “How did you get so close without my sensing you?”
“It looks really shiny. I bet it’s super important.”
“Looks delicious, actually,” Mena added, licking her lips.
At that, Grogar’s eye twitched, and he leveled his Zanpaktou at Pinkie Pie and Pinkamena, “Answer the question. How did the weakest of you children manage to slip past my senses.”
“Uhhh, duh, because it was funny,” Pinkie Pie said, giggling, “Where’s your sense of humor, Groggy?”
It was clear from the growing number of veins on Grogar’s forehead that his level of amusement was at an all time low, “And apparently this is now happening. Good mood; gone. Killing all of you; now.”