Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls

by thatguyvex

Episode 35: The Pride of the Quincy

Episode 35: The Pride of the Quincy

Spitfire had been carefully monitoring the training exercise from the Academy command post. Countless cameras were set up across the expansive training area, allowing her to get a good view of most of the action taking place as her recruits had engaged the packs of ravenous Hollows released into the area. The Hollows had been transported there via holding containers carried on a number of trucks driven to the edge of the training area, their cages only released when several alchemical “bait” canisters were activated deeper in the forest to lure the Hollows into the area with the recruits. The canisters basically contained reishi particles designed to “smell” to the Hollows like fresh souls to consume, and it drew them in perfectly, whereupon they’d encounter the recruits and the exercise began.

Things had been going quite well. This generation of recruits consisted of some very talented and promising candidates. Despite Spitfire’s harsh training methods she had no desire to see dead recruits. Indeed she wanted the kids to succeed, but that success could only stem from knowing the real fear and pain they’d face in the battles to come. While there were no constraints on the Hollows fighting the recruits, Spitfire, unbeknownst to any of the trainees, also had several of her fellow instructors hidden in the forest to keep things from getting out of hand. They wouldn’t prevent the trainees from getting wounded, but they’d interfere in small (and hopefully unseen) ways to prevent fatalities, at least where possible. If a recruit slipped up and got their head torn off, well, that was that, but so far it didn’t look like any of her trainees had gotten that sloppy. Yet.

She had a particular interest in watching the team of trainees containing the prodigal daughter of the Sparkle family. Both her innate power and her blatant inexperience showed in equal measure with practically every move she made. The clearing Twilight Sparkle and her comrades had chosen to fight in didn’t have as many good angles to view the action from as Spitfire would like, but she still got a good look at the trainees in action, including Twilight.

She barely has any technique, but she rapidly compensates for changes in her target’s movements. Her bow is basic and hasn’t formed the unique traits of a true Quincy bow yet, but her arrows contain plenty of punch. And that incident with Lemon Zest... if pushed into a corner she’s dangerous. Heh, you kept a fun one hidden from us, didn’t you Shining Armor? Not fair of you to keep talent like this out of the fight.

She liked Shining Armor well enough, but the man sometimes took his namesake a little too seriously, trying to play the noble knight in far too many ways. Or being a far too protective big brother. Spitfire found herself smiling as she watched the footage of Twilight and the others battling the onrushing Hollows.

No big brother shielding you anymore, kid, but I’m willing to bet that’ll lead to you becoming something special. If you don’t get yourself killed first.

As she continued to observe the monitors she saw that the team Twilight was a part of was preparing to make a tactical retreat from the clearing they where in, which made sense given that the ambush had long since played out and they’d need a more defensible location to keep from being overwhelmed by the Hollows. Spitfire had a solid measure of the other young girls’ skills, estimating that out of all the trainees this particular bunch exhibited the most potential. Well, except perhaps Suri Polomare, who was a quick replacement while Lemon Zest recovered. Then again, even Suri seemed fairly resourceful, seemingly more skilled with Quincy alchemy than with conventional bow combat. As long as they team continued to work together then Spitfire had every confidence they’d come through this exercise just fine.

Her relaxed mood instantly shifted the second she saw the blood red line of destructive energy cut across the view on the monitor, just barely grazing by Sour Sweet. Spitfire knew a Cero when she saw one, and also knew there shouldn’t have been a single Hollow released among the packs sent into the training area that would be powerful enough to use such an attack.

She didn’t waste a second, immediately grabbing the nearest headset and keying into the emergency frequency that’d transmit to all of her field instructors, while at the same instant she all but smashed her first into the base alarm, which started to emit a blaring klaxon whine through all the Academy.

“Fleetfoot, Soarin, Lightning Dust, report! Find where that Cero came from and get ready to repel attackers.”

Fleetfoot’s scratchy voice replied quickly over the coms, flush with excitement, because of course she’d be excited over something interesting happening. Spitfire knew Fleetfoot was bored to tears working as an instructor. “Can’t see anything from where I’m at, but I’m sensing more than one powerful Hollow reiatsu. Hell's bells, I think we’ve got Arrancar out here.”

“How’d they get in through the warning systems?” asked Soarin, “We should have detected any Garganta portals opening up.”

“It doesn’t matter.” said Spitfire, keeping her voice calm as she could, given the circumstances. “I’ve already activated the alarm, but it’ll be at least ten to fifteen minutes before we get reinforcements. Intercept and destroy those Arrancar. Keep them away from the trainees! I’m on my way!”

With that she spun and sprinted from the control room, rushing at top speed down several corridors before bursting out into the Academy courtyard, whereupon she instantly took to the sky, moving like a flaming comet towards the exercise area.

----------

Adagio watched as the last of the Arrancar brought by Lord Torch poured through the Garganta. Squirk was the last to emerge, eyes focused upon the portals of yawning darkness that remained hanging in the air above the forest floor.

“Won’t have a lot of time to do this,” said Torch, turning a sweeping hand towards his waiting warriors, “Go! Find as many Quincy as you can and tear them to shreds!”

Ember elbowed Adagio, “That means us too, let’s go!”

She nodded, and started to follow Ember as the Arrancar girl started to head off in a seemingly random direction, much like the rest of the Arrancar scattering to go find Quincy prey. However Adagio slowed just enough to twitch her ear frills and listen to the three Espada talking among themselves. She was curious just what those three would be doing while the rest of them hunted Quincy.

“Alright, Squirk you’d better stay here and keep our way out clear,” said Torch, cracking his knuckles, “Catrina and I will go play with any Sternritter nearby. Got to be at least a few watching over their little hatchlings.”

“What am I, a glorified doorman?” spat Squirk, “I’ll fight the Sternritter as well. I don’t need to keep the portals open. I can just make more when we need it.”

“Don’t be a fool, Squirk.” said Catrina, already having stepped off her palanquin, “If you’re killed it will make escaping more difficult. Just stay put like a good boy.”

Squirk growled something in reply, but Adagio couldn’t hear any more of the conversation at that point, having followed Ember into the deeper forest. She swished her tail and floated along faster to keep up with Ember, who was now hopping from tree to tree and sniffing the air, apparently in search of Quincy. Adagio took a second to open herself up to her Pesquisa sensory ability, something she’d been trying to refine since Ember had showed her how to use it. Her senses spread out and she had to wince at the sensory overload that accompanied it.

The area was already blanketed by huge numbers of Hollows, causing Adagio to feel a nervous hunger as the feeling reminded her of being back in Grogar’s experimental arena. She could pick out the Arrancar among the Hollows, like bright torches next to tiny fireflies. Sensing the Quincy was much harder. Their reiatsu was unfamiliar to her, and hidden among all the many Hollow reiatsu filling the forest, so pinpointing the locations of individual Quincy was difficult. Still, Adagio could tell that Ember was heading for a nearby group, one none of the other Arrancar had targeted yet.

This is it, now or never, she thought, and floated up to Ember. She had one shot at pulling this off, otherwise she was as good as dead.

“Ember, wait a moment.”

Ember halted on one of the nearby branches, glancing at Adagio, “What for? We’ve got to start racking up a body count to impress dad.”

Adagio swallowed, nervous, but steadfast. She’d gone over this in her head dozens of times since she’d decided upon this course. The plan was extremely risky, but she didn’t see another way to do what she needed to do while simultaneously avoiding killing anyone. If her plan worked, she’d impress Lord Torch without getting a drop of blood on her hands. If it didn’t, well, she doubted she’d live long enough to have much time for regrets.

The song that spilled from her lips was a wordless one, a sort of hypnotic chant of the kind she and her sisters had used countless times to bewitch simple minds en mass. She poured power into her resonating voice, drawing energy from the gem floating perfectly still within the center of her Hollow hole. This was one of the first risky hurdles in her plan. She’d used her power once on Grogar and it’d worked, despite his ability to resist somewhat, but she hadn’t tried enhancing her song with extra power from her newly reforged gem. She could feel the way her siren magic intertwined with her Hollow spirit energy, and was unsure of how volatile the resulting fused power might be, or how Ember would react to it. If she proved as resilient as Grogar, this plan could fall apart right here and now.

However as Adagio’s chanting continued, enhanced and louder with the extra power she put into it, she could see Ember’s body relax, the Arrancar girls’ eyes glaze over with a faint green hue as Adagio’s chanting penetrated her mind. It was the kind of hypnosis that made its victim highly susceptible to suggestion, and while Adagio did feel a sharp stab of guilt at doing this to who was essentially her only friend among the Hollows, she saw no other way. She needed Ember under her spell for this plan to work.

Now that she was certain the chant had taken hold, Adagio put a gentle talon on Ember’s cheek, the kind of gesture to draw a victim’s attention to orders about to be given. It only made Adagio’s guilt worse to see the slack yet receptive look in Ember’s eyes. She wouldn’t remember anything that had happened under hypnosis save for what Adagio wanted her to remember.

“You will follow me now, and do as I say. When we find the Quincy, help me defeat them without slaying any of them unnecessarily. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” was the dry, monotone reply, devoid of Ember’s usual spunky energy. Adagio let out a guilt ridden sigh and nodded.

“Good, follow my lead.”

----------

The air seemed frozen for a moment with the thick promise of merciless violence, and Twilight wondered if she and her fellow Quincy were being affected by some strange Hollow power, the way they all stood there stiff as dead wood under the gaze of the four Arrancar before them. Then Twilight realized it was just fear that had them rooted in place, the same kind of simple, primal fear that made deer freeze when the headlights of a car falls upon them. Her every nerve felt poised on a knife’s edge, and she held her breath, not daring to make a sound.

The lead Arrancar seemed to be drinking in the fear hanging in the air, taking a deep, smugly satisfied breath and licking his lips. “Oh that’s good terror I’m smelling right there. Nice and sharp. So, who wants to get torn apart first? Any volunteers?”

Next to the red skinned Arrancar one of the others behind him, a pale skinned and lanky guy with a long head of pink hair, stepped forward and said, “Why don’t we split the up, Garble? There’s plenty there for all of us to get a taste.”

On Garble’s other side another of the young Arrancar laughed in a gruff voice, all but drooling. This one was a heavyset and strongly muscled specimen, with spiky brown hair and bronzed skin. This one leered at the Quincy girls, settling his gaze on Twilight, which made her skin crawl. “If we’re splitting them up, I want the purple one. She smells the juiciest of the bunch.”

Garble turned glaring eyes upon his companion's, voice a hideous growl, “Shut your mouths. I’m in charge here. You get what I say you get, and only after I’ve had my fill first!”

The second the Arrancar were distracted, Sugarcoat moved. With swift, lightning reflexes she reached into a side pocket of her uniform and drew out a series of silver pellets, throwing them at the ground at the Arrancar’s feet. Twilight wasn’t sure what they were, but saw the other girls covering their eyes and she followed suit. There was a sound like loud fireworks, with blinding flashes of light, followed by the confused and enraged shouts of the Arrancar. Then Twilight felt someone grab her arm, opening her eyes to see Sugarcoat there, drawing Twilight towards the deeper forest alongside the other girls who were all running. Indigo Zapp was half carrying Sour Sweet, the other girl’s injury clearly causing her agonizing pain with every step.

“We need to find an instructor,” breathed Sunny Flare, glancing behind her fearfully, dart guns raised, “Like, right now. We can’t beat those guys.”

“We don’t even know where the instructors are!” said Suri, digging into one of her uniform pouches, “But not to worry, I got a signal flare.”

“You do?” asked Garble suddenly as he just appeared next to the fleeing girls, “That’s cute.”

He clotheslined Suri, spinning the girl head over heels with an audible crack of noise. The other girls all skidded to a halt, Twilight shouting, “Suri!” and drawing her bow back. Garble saw her movement out of the corner of his eye, and as she unleashed her arrow the Arrancar drew a thick, curved falchion and batted her streaking blue arrow out of the air with one swipe.

“Come on then, let’s play.”

He came at Twilight faster than her eye could follow, with a buzz of noise like a large angry bee. She saw a flash of his falchion coming for her neck, and Twilight threw herself back as fast as she could. The blade still would have struck her if Sugarcoat hadn’t fired her own arrow, her thick, pearl bow blasting with a bullet-like arrow that deflected Garble’s blade at the last second.

“No choice.” said Sugarcoat, eyes hardened, “We have to fight. Unload everything into him.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice!” said Indigo Zapp as she set Sour Sweet down and spun, charging up her own blue steel bow with a arrow akin to a golden bolt of lightning. Sunny Flare at the same instant used a nearby tree as a springboard to flip upside down and aim her dart guns at Garble from above. Meanwhile Sour Sweet, face still contorted in intense pain, turned and braced her sniping crossbow on one raised knee and took aim.

Twilight did likewise, continuing to jump back to get distance from Garble as she aimed her bow. All five still standing Quincy fired at once, arrows of varying sizes and speed converging on Garble in an azure storm of bolts. He actually staggered for a moment under the assault, several of the arrows managing to pierce his iron-like skin. However the wounds were superficial at best, and Garble laughed as he used his sword to shatter the few arrows that had stuck to him, and spun at high speed to vanish then appear beside Indigo Zapp, his sword striking faster than a flicker of shadow.

“Gaaah!” Indigo fell back, clutching her side, which spurted blood onto the forest floor. Though she kept standing, her injury slowed her, and soaked her white uniform with a growing stain of blood.

Twilight pressed her lips tight, her mind accelerating to breakneck speeds of thought. Garble’s skin was too hard for their bows to injure effectively, but he wasn’t invincible. If they could just hold him off long enough for help to arrive...

“Sugarcoat, Sunny Flare, cover me!” she said, rushing forward without waiting for a response.

“What the-!?” Sunny Flare cried out, then glanced at Sugarcoat, who only narrowed her eyes for a second before nodding and doing as Twilight said. Sugarcoat rushed to one side of Garble while Sunny Flare appeared at the opposite side, and both girls fired away. Garble raised his free arm to block the needle-like darts from Sunny Flare’s weapons, while he used his sword to deflect Sugarcoats heavier shots. Meanwhile Twilight used Hirenkyaku to the fullest extent she could, becoming little more than a violet blur of motion.

She didn’t have any Quincy alchemy supplies on her, but she understood most of the basic principles behind how it worked. Much like Quincy used spirit particles to form their bows and arrows, Quincy alchemy used those same particles to react with different chemical and physical mediums to create various effects. The basic tool of Quincy alchemy was the Ginto, a silver tube containing the liquid, distilled form of a Quincy’s spirit power. These tubes were then used in conjunction with other items to create the “spells” of Quincy alchemy. Twilight’s knowledge of the techniques were limited to just the fundamentals that Shining Armor and Cadence had taught her during their training back home, but it was enough that she felt she could come up with something with the right supplies.

Supplies she knew Suri had on her, so when she moved at high speed, it was to Suri’s side she went. She also wanted to check on Suri’s condition, fearful the other girl might have been killed. Being hit at that speed, and with the kind of force Grable used, could have snapped Suri’s neck without the protection of Blut Vene. Fortunately it seemed Suri was alive, as Twilight could see the girl breathing. Suri was clearly unconscious, however, and still possibly in serious danger from internal trauma. Twilight knew the best thing to do was to end the fight fast so Suri could get medical attention. So it was only with a bit of guilt that Twilight dug into the unconscious Suri’s pockets, pulling out a quartet of silver Ginto tubes.

Sour Sweet had started to help the others keep Garble busy, rolling from left to right to fire at a different angle each time, all but screaming in rage and pain with each pull of her crossbow’s trigger. While Garble could fend off Sugarcoat and Sunny Flare’s attacks without much trouble, Sour Sweet’s heavier weapon seemed to be something he was wary off, dodging the girl’s larger reishi bolts. Still, it kept him distracted, which is what Twilight needed as she rushed as fast as she could. She had trouble timing her movement at such high speed, feeling like she was flailing around awkwardly, but she managed to plant a Ginto tube at four different points around where Garble was being pinned down.

With the fourth tube planted, Twilight popped the top of it and dipped her finger inside, touching the liquid spirit particles within and pouring in her own spirit energy. Only then did Garble take note of what she was doing.

“What do you think you’re up to, punk!?”

Twilight gulped, “In a word? Heizen!” (Heating)

She wasn’t sure if invoking the alchemy spell’s name was needed, but either way she used her spirit energy to ignite the stored liquid in each of the four tubes, which then formed a rectangular, transparent field around Grable. The Arrancar looked around himself in confusion until the space inside the glowing blue rectangle of space suddenly lit up with blue fire, like a contained explosion. Twilight winced as she heard him yell in pain.

Indigo Zapp blinked in surprise, then grinned. “Niiiiice! You’re not entirely useless after all.”

Twilight almost smiled back, but Sugarcoat shouted, “Twilight, get back! He’s not dead!”

Indeed, the Heizen spell wore off, and inside the vanishing rectangle Garble still stood. His clothing and skin were scorched from the blast, but he was very much alive, and looked at Twilight with fury boiling in his eyes.

“You made me hurt,” he said in a hissed accusation, “Now I’m gonna make you watch as I take your limbs off, one by one!”

“Uh, do you want us to help, Garble, or what?” asked one of the other Arrancar, as Garble’s three companions caught up to the fight, all appearing at various points surrounding the girls. Twilight looked around, realizing they were surrounded, with no escape route left. Garble sneered, brushing ash off his shoulder.

“I don’t need help with these weaklings, but I’m gonna take my time with the purple one, so you guys knock yourselves out with the others.”

This caused a number of happy chuckles from the other Arrancar, and they didn’t hesitate to draw their own swords and leap among Twilight’s comrades. Indigo Zapp was stuck facing the pink haired fellow, slowed by her already badly bleeding wound. She fired an electrified arrow at point blank range, but the pink haired Arrancar ducked aside the shot and jammed the hilt of his sword straight into Indigo’s gut, knocking her to the ground.

Sugarcoat was attacked by the heavily muscled Arrancar with the brown hair, who smashed his oversized sword into the ground where Sugarcoat had been standing just a second ago, but she’d jumped straight up into one of the nearby trees, and spun to fire arrows down at her opponent.

The last of the four Arrancar went after Sunny Flare. He was a gangly looking fellow with flecks of purple scales on otherwise alabaster skin, and a mop of blonde hair covering most of his face. Sunny Flare didn’t stand still as this Arrancar thrust his blade at her heart, instead dancing away from the attack and using the butt end of one of her dart guns to deflect some of the blow while using the other to shove towards his head and fire. The Arrancar bent backwards, avoiding the shot, and then sprung back fast to literally head butt Sunny Flare so hard Twilight heard the girl’s nose break as she was bounced into the nearest tree with a meaty smack.

Of course Twilight didn’t have much time to watch more of her comrades’ struggles, because Garble loomed over her. He leered down at her with deadly intent burning in his eyes, and before Twilight could so much as twitch muscle to evade, his foot kicked out, catching her squarely in the chest. Air blasted out of Twilight’s lungs and her chest exploded with pain as she was sent sprawling to the ground. Coughing, trying to get breath back into her spasming lungs, Twilight barely had time to gather her senses before Garble’s foot crushed down on her shoulder, heel first. Twilight felt as much as heard the sickening crunch, and she couldn’t stop the scream of pain tearing from her throat as she was pinned down by Garble’s grinding heel.

“You know it really just boils my blood to think a bunch of wimps like you are supposed to be what we Hollows are afraid of.” Garble growled, twisting his heel in Twilight’s fractured shoulder, causing waves of pure, mind numbing pain to shoot through her. “I mean, seriously, we ought to be out hunting whenever and wherever we please, but because of you Quincy and the damn Soul Reapers we gotta always be the ones hiding. Well screw that noise! Today we give the Quincy something to be scared of!”

Despite the horrific pain scrambling her thoughts, Garble ranting on and on gave Twilight a moment to force her mind to focus. With difficulty she forced her spirit energy to flow through her blood and concentrate in her shoulder. While the damage was already mostly done, forming a Blut Vene on her shoulder allowed her to dull the pain and keep Grable’s grinding foot from doing more damage. At the same moment she forced both her arms up, forming her glowing azure bow once more, clearly catching Garble by surprise given the blink of shock on his face as she fired an arrow point blank into his face.

With a roar of pain he stepped off her, stumbling away while clutching at his left eye, which was now spewing a trail of blood.

“Grrraa! You bitch! What’ve you done to my eye!?”

Without waiting for him to recover, Twilight concentrated a burst of reishi from her feet, using Hirenkyaku while still on the ground to thrust herself upwards at an angle. She soared up over the fighting, seeing that her friends (they were friends now?) all desperately trying to fight against the other Arrancar.

Sunny Flare was stumbling back from the blonde Arrancar, one of her dart guns missing and one arm hanging useless and broken. Still she fired with her other weapon, slowing down the Arrancar’s advance, if only for the moment. Indigo Zapp had lost her bow and was being held up by her throat against a tree by the pink haired Arrancar, though she still struggled and pulled out a silver Ginto tube to smash at the Arrancar’s face in a flare of fiery blue light, causing him to howl in pain and drop her. Sugarcoat was holding her own against the heavily muscled Arrancar, though part of that was because Sour Sweet had taken up a new sniping position in a nearby tree and was giving Sugarcoat cover fire that allowed the other Quincy to stay evasive, keeping out of the big Arrancar’s reach as she kept pouring arrow after arrow into him. While each individual arrow wasn’t doing much damage, the small wounds were mounting, and the broad and heavy set Arrancar was clearly getting angry.

Twilight was amazed none of her fellow trainees had tried to continue retreating. There were equal looks of prideful determination on each of their faces, despite the desperate situation. In spite of the pain and fear wracking her, Twilight thought perhaps she understood why none of them could flee. What was the point of their training if all they could do was run away?

As Twilight managed an awkward landing a good ten meters away from the fight, she realized she could probably flee and get away clean. Garble was still too busy clutching his ruined eye to notice where she went, and the other Arrancar were all focused on her fellow trainees. She could get away, and maybe find help.

But no, she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t strictly logical, but there was a fierce heat blossoming in Twilight’s chest as she saw her fellow Quincy fighting against such insurmountable odds. There was something deep inside the young woman that could not turn away from the fight before her, nor allow these brutish Hollows to do as they pleased.

I’m... a Quincy. This is exactly where I belong.

Ignoring her pain, tossing her fear deep down to the pit of her stomach, Twilight drew her bow and aimed for the Arrancar that Indigo Zapp had just hit with a Ginto tube. She aimed for the pale Arrancar’s leg, right at the weak point of the knee-joint, and instinctively pushed her attack power higher with Blut Arterie, her arms glowing with red veins of light as she did so.

Her arrow was let loose with a burst of air strong enough to blast back tree branches, and the arrow penetrated right through the Arrancar’s knee. The pink haired fellow roared with pain and collapsed to the ground, clutching his now maimed knee. Indigo Zapp looked at Twilight in surprise, then gave a tired thumbs up and dove for her own dropped bow.

The pink haired Arrancar’s agonized shouts distracted the larger brown skinned Arrancar, who glanced back just long enough for Sugarcoat and Sour Sweet and both fire simultaneously, combining their arrows to hit the big Arrancar in the chest and force him to stumble back into, and through a tree, causing the trunk to crack in half. Meanwhile Sunny Flare used the distraction to slip away from her own opponent and join Twilight and Indigo Zapp, breathlessly nodding to both of them.

“Enough!” growled Grable, finally recovering his own senses and taking his hands away from his ruined eye, “Fizzle, Clump, Fume, back off! I’m going to finish them myself!”

“Uhh, if you say so,” said the pink haired one, Fizzle presumably, and all three of Garble’s flunkies vanished using that high speed, buzzing movement to get a good dozen paces away from the fight. Meanwhile Garble faced the five heavily wounded Quincy girls. Six, technically, but Suri was still out like a light, though Sugarcoat had grabbed the unconscious girl while Garble had been ordering off his comrades.

Garble eyed them all with his only remaining good eye and licked his lips, holding his falchion in front of him, “I’m crushing you all at once! I’ll teach you to take us Arrancar lightly!”

A flickering aura of orange reishi built up around Garble’s body, and concentrated in his now glowing yellow falchion.

“Explode, Despecho!” (Spite)

The very second the words left his mouth, Garble’s body was engulfed in a humongous explosion of intense spirit energy, like a column of dark orange fire rimmed with a solid aura of flaring red energy like miniature lava bursts. Twilight had to shield her face as her hair was blown back by a massive wind kicked up by the explosion of energy, and could feel her adrenaline pumping in fear as she sensed just how much higher Garble’s spirit power had just risen.

“Well great, this is just perfect!” shouted Sour Sweet, grimacing as she staggered back a step, “Maybe one of our instructors would like to get off their fat asses and come help us!?”

“Use your senses, Sour Sweet,” said Sugarcoat, face a stone mask despite the sweat dripping from her brow, “Can’t you feel what’s going on? The instructors are already busy fighting bigger threats.”

“Crap, you’re right,” said Indigo Zapp, wiping blood from a cut on her forehead, trying to keep her eyes clear, “So we’re on our own.”

It was hard for Twilight to feel anything past the potent aura of Garble’s spirit energy, but if she forced her senses to focus past that, she could pinpoint various reiatsu signatures all over the place. Strongest of all were the feeling of several strong Quincy auras which had to be the Academy instructors, but Twilight also felt at least two incredibly powerful Hollow reiatsu facing them. The Hollows must have brought some of their own heavy hitters to keep the instructors busy while the other Hollows attacked the trainees. Which meant if they wanted to live through this they’d have to defeat or escape these Arrancar on their own.

Twilight’s confidence that they could do that was lowering by the moment as the glowing light around Garble faded and revealed the Arrancar in a transformed state quite different than anything Twilight had seen before.

He was nearly twice the height he’d been before, and his body was covered in thick segments of bone white plates, like the armor of some scaled beast. His back was hunched and sported several long, curved back spikes like white blades. His arms had grown longer than normal, with curved talons and short knuckle spikes. Reverse jointed legs, like those of some dinosaurs, ended in thickly clawed towns that dug into the ground. Garble’s face had elongated into something tapered and draconic, partially covered in bony white armored plates and sporting inch long fangs. His eye that Twilight had damaged was still shut, but it was no longer bleeding, and his remaining eye glowed with fierce yellow rage. Even his voice had changed, darker and guttural.

“So, who wants to be the first snack?”

Sugarcoat didn’t hesitate, tossing the unconscious Suri to Indigo Zapp, and shouting, “All of you, run for it! I’ll keep him busy!”

In the same instant the pigtailed Quincy jumped up, aiming her bow down at Garble and unleashing a flurry of arrows down upon him. The arrows exploded in a cloud of dust around the transformed Arrancar, creating an obscuring veil. However before Twilight or any of the other Quincy got to take more than one or two steps before Garble simply appeared in the air next to Sugarcoat. Twilight could only watch as he smiled in malicious glee and swiped his claws.

Blood flew from Sugarcoat’s face and she screamed, falling to the ground. Twilight gasped as she saw the red laceration that went cleanly across Sugarcoat’s face, leaving both her eyes a crimson ruin. Standing on the air above, Garble laughed.

“Hey, now I get why you aimed for my eye before, Purple. It's kind of fun listening to how much people scream from it.”

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So far things were going well, Adagio thought. The Quincy recruits were largely confused and scattered, and Ember even under mind control could hone in on the Quincy with unerring accuracy. With Adagio planting suggestions into Ember’s mind to keep her under control, they’d found and ambushed three small groups of Quincy recruits who’d been too distracted by the lesser Hollows still running rampant all over the place to be able to respond quickly when Ember and Adagio set upon them.

Aside from one or two close calls from some strange spell-like powers the Quincy used with those tiny silver tubes with liquid, and one arrow that’d grazed her, Adagio had managed to help Ember knockout seven Quincy so far. In each instance Adagio had double checked to make sure the Quincy wasn’t dead, just unconscious and injured enough to be out of the fight. Then she’d taken parts of their uniform, usually the cloak, or maybe one of the silver crosses they tended to carry, and used one of the Quincy’s jackets to act as a sack to carry the trophies in.

Torch might question it, but as long as Ember remembers killing the Quincy, which she will once I plant the suggested memories into her mind, then he ought to accept these trophies as proof of our actions.

Not the most elegant plan she’d ever concocted in her time, but it should get the job done. She figured they just needed a few more trophies to make an impression with, then she could find a good spot to hide until Lord Torch gave the signal to return to the Garganta.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a nearby flare of Hollow spirit energy that drew her attention. She saw through the trees an intense orange glow of light, the origin probably no more than fifty yards away.

“What is that?”

She’d mostly just been thinking aloud, but Ember responded. Mind controlled or not, Ember could still react and think like normal. It was just that Adagio’s siren song was coloring all of Ember’s thoughts like a green fog, hazing over the reality with whatever details Adagio wanted to plant, which for the moment was that knocking Quincy unconscious was the same as killing them.

“That’s Garble’s reiatsu. Feels like he just went Resurreccion,” Ember said, voice still something of a dull monotone due to the mind control, “What do you want to do, Adagio?”

Adagio frowned. That Garble fellow had a serious attitude problem, and she suspected he might be trouble down the line. He clearly didn’t like her, and wasn’t hesitant about voicing his opinion that she didn’t belong in Torch’s horde.

With a devilish little grin, Adagio considered how much she might enjoy interfering with Garble’s fun and getting few more Quincy trophies out of the deal. After all if her song could work on Ember, there was no reason to think it wouldn’t work on someone even weaker minded like Garble.

“Follow me, Ember.” she said and floated off in the direction of the light, Ember following right behind her.

It only took a minute to wind her way through the forest to reach a small clearing where the light had been. She got there just in time to witness the scene of a young Quincy girl with pigtails try to distracted a fully transformed Garble so another group of Quincy could escape, and for her trouble got her eyes cut out with one swipe of Garble’s claws.

“Sugarcoat!” Adagio heard another girl scream, a voice she instantly recognized and looked with shock to see Twilight Sparkle rushing to the fallen Quincy’s side while Garble laughed.

“Ha! Sugarcoat’s her name? Nice, her blood even tastes kind of sweet,” Garble said as he licked his claws. Twilight was kneeling next to Sugarcoat, who was clutching at her damaged face and grinding her teeth to keep from screaming further.

Adagio swallowed back bile. What was Twilight Sparkle doing here!? The last Adagio had seen of the nerdy young girl she’d been hanging out with Sunset and the others back in Canterlot City. It didn’t make any sense that she’d be here of all places, and wearing a Quincy uniform no less!

And if Adagio had any doubts that Twilight was a Quincy, those doubts were put to rest the instant Twilight, with a scream of rage that didn’t at all sound like the mild mannered girl Adagio knew, formed a blazing blue Quincy bow and fired a massive arrow of spirit energy up at Garble.

The arrow was caught by one of Garble’s claws, which he used to crush the arrow in an explosion of azure reishi, but aside from a small scorch mark he looked completely unharmed by the attack.

The other Quincy girls present looked equally horrified and enraged by what Garble had just done to one of their own, but most of them were frozen with hesitation, none of them seeming to know what to do against an Arrancar in its Resurreccion form. Even Adagio could feel how much stronger Garble was than the Quincy trainees, like a massive shark hunting among minos.

Adagio quickly realized that without help Twilight Sparkle and the other Quincy here were as good as dead.

For a slow instant in time Adagio was torn. She didn’t really owe Twilight Sparkle anything, technically. Twilight wasn’t even among those who’d come to help rescue her sisters, so strictly speaking she didn’t have any real reason to care what happened to her. Garble hadn’t spotted Adagio or Ember yet, so she could just turn and leave without any consequence. Certainly trying to interfere would jeopardize her entire plan to get in good with Lord Torch and have Ember teach her the secret to evolving into an Arrancar. Why put that plan at risk just to help a girl she hardly knew and had no reason to feel beholden to?

It wasn’t like Sunset Shimmer or any of those other Canterlot girls would ever know this happened, anyway. Adagio could get away clean!

... Except that she’d remember. Just like she remembered every other rotten thing she’d done that had led to this wretched state of affairs, separated from the only two people she really cared about. Did she want to keep adding memories to the list of things she’d eventually regret?

Damnit! I hate having to be the blasted hero! she thought with bitter spite as she turned to Ember, who looked on at the scene blankly. Adagio spoke in a low, singing tone, her siren gem gleaming with light.

“Look at him, hunting our prey.
I think you should make him pay.
Prove that these Quincy are ours to claim.
If he gets hurt then he’s only himself to blame.”

The words sunk into Ember’s mind, igniting a bit of her inner flame as she growled and said, “Garble won’t claim our prey!”

With that Ember launched herself from the bushes she and Adagio had been hiding in, throwing herself straight at a very surprised Garble, who turned just in time to manage to use one of his claws to black Ember’s blade in a shower of sparks.

“What the hell!? Ember!? What do you think you’re trying to pull!?”

“Back off Garble! These Quincy are mine and Adagio’s to hunt!” Ember shouted, pressing in on Garble and forcing him back a step before she spun around and launched a heel kick towards his gut, hitting dead center and pushing him back a few skidding yards in the air.

“Are you crazy? We were here first!” Garble growled, “If you don’t turn tail and run, even your old man can’t protect you from me.”

Ember snorted, “I don’t need dad to protect me. These Quincy belong to me and Adagio, so if you want them, you’re only getting them over my dead body!”

Suddenly deep cobalt flames wreathed Ember’s sword, dripping off of it like water. She placed her free hand on the blade’s edge and ran it over the flames as she spoke.

“Eviscerate, Espina!” (Thorn)

The intense blue energy that flowed around Ember spiraled in a spherical embrace. It fluctuated like an unstable wave, breaking apart with twisting coils of energy, arching back and forth over the sphere until a single white blade of bone burst from the front of the sphere and it burst in a storm of fading blue embers.

Ember herself wasn’t as drastically changed, physically, than Garble had been. She still retained a human shape, her body and face the same as before, save for the additional horns now sweeping back from the crest of her head to join the two that curved forward. Smooth white armor of bone, like a second organic skin, covered her arms and chest, though her midriff remained exposed. A long armored skirt, split to allow her legs free movement, covered her lower half along with two bone-like boots. Two wings with blue membranes and stark white bones spread from her back, tipped with small bony thorns. Her sword was changed now into a huge, five foot long affair seemingly made from solid white bone, with a thick triangular blade that extended past the hilt with a pair of outwardly curved thorns forming the cross guard.

Ember leveled her sword at Garble and spat, “Last chance. Back off.”

Garble just rumbled with a deep growl and brandished his claws as he said, “Like hell.”

That was all either Arrancar needed to say to one another, both flashing forward and come together in a titanic claws of blade on claw that created a burst of force that rattled the trees around them.

Meanwhile Adagio moved, floating up in front of Twilight Sparkle, who looked at Adagio with a shout of surprise, turning her bow towards Adagio. Adagio barely dodged the arrow Twilight fired, and growled in a low voice, “You damn idiot, its me!”

Twilight blinked, “You? Who?”

Adagio cast a worried glance towards the other Arrancar that were with Garble, but they were all focused on Garble’s fight with Ember, which caused yet more blast of force as the two clashed with one another again and again, providing just the perfect distraction.

“Adagio, moron! Now get your skinny butt out of here while this diversion lasts! Hurry!”

She didn’t wait for a response, she instead floated up and towards the three distracted Arrancar, charging up power within her gem.

“Hey, listen up boys, I need you all to pay attention to me for a minute, if you’d be so kind.”

They turned surprised and confused looks towards her, which was just what she needed. Minds that were off balance were easier to control than ones that were focused. The second the three Arrancar looked at Adagio she began to chant, letting her voice push waves of bewitching magic towards her targets. Without her sisters to harmonize with she’d only be able to disoriented multiple targets for any length of time, at least not while still also maintaining control of Ember. She didn’t know for sure how she was going to deal with things once Twilight was in the clear, but hopefully Ember would beat Garble and then she could work out a plan after that.

Risking a glance behind her, she saw Twilight helping the blinded girl with the pigtails stand, and then rush to join the other Quincy girls. Twilight gave Adagio one last worried and confused look before she and her fellow Quincy ran off into the forest. Adagio let out a small sigh of relief, and turned to focus on her chant to confuse the three Arrancar that had been with Garble. All three of them were looking up at her with the glazed, vacant eyed stare of those being slowly seduced by her siren song, but she could feel how slippery her control was over them. Adagio just wasn’t used to doing this without her sisters, and with power already invested in bewitching Ember, she just didn’t have the juice to do more than temporarily disorient the three below her.

So instead she decided to just blunt force the situation and charged up a Cero in her gem, unleashing it in a focused beam to cut along the ground in front of the three Arrancar. She knew her beam wouldn’t be strong enough to injure them badly, but the force of the Cero’s destructive wake would toss all of them aside and kick up enough dust and dirt to confuse them for a moment. A moment she used to fly up towards where Ember and Garble still battled.

She saw Ember and Garble both flickering in and out of sight with high speed movements that brought them together in flashing clashes of sword on claw, and it seemed the pair were evenly matched in terms of speed and strength. Garble broke the pattern of attacks by jumping backwards and flinging a claw out, each of his talons crackling with crimson sparks. Instead of a Cero, he started firing an attack Adagio had never seen before; a set of high speed, red energy bullets that blasted from his talons like his claw was some kind of machine gun.

Ember responded by spinning her sword in front of her like a shield, deflecting the energy bullets into a rain of blasts that slammed into the forest at random, exploding trees and smashing into the ground in small explosions.

The fight was too even a match for Adagio’s liking, so she charged up another Cero, firing it up from directly beneath Garble. He responded to the deep red energy blast coming towards him by scoffing and extending his left arm towards the beam, pointing a single claw that glowed with flaring orange light as he unleashed his own Cero. Adagio swore loudly as her beam was broken apart by Garble’s, and the blast continued down towards her. She threw herself to the side, feeling her hide heat up with burning pain as even the slight graze of Garble’s passing Cero was enough to scorch her side. The beam hit the ground in a concussive explosion that threw up a building sized pillar of smoke.

However, Adagio had succeeded in distracting Garble, for Ember appeared above him with her large sword upraised. The sword’s blade suddenly began to spin around like a drill, becoming surrounded by a pulsing aura of blue energy as Ember aimed it down, point first, at Garble.

”Espina Perforadora!” (Piercing Thorn)

Ember rocketed down at Garble, her spinning energy blade thrusting in front of her. Garble spun to face her, thrusting a claw up that was filling with a glowing Cero sphere. Ember’s blade smashed into the Cero sphere in a shock-wave of force, followed by an explosion of power that was strong enough to knock Adagio out of the sky. She went spinning to the forest below, smashing through a few tree branches and nearly losing her senses as she cratered into the ground.

Grunting in pain, Adagio floated back up, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, and looked up to try and see what had happened. Her spirit senses were for the moment scrambled by the overlay of various spirit energies clashing all around the battlefield. All she could see was a huge cloud of smoke and dust in the sky, at least for a few seconds. Then Adagio saw two forms falling from the sky, both leaving trails of smoke behind them. One was Garble, missing an arm and seemingly unconscious. The other was Ember, half of one of her wings torn clean off and the left side of her body scorched black, also unconscious.

Adagio gasped, and flew up to catch Ember before she hit the ground. Garble smashed into the forest some distance off, but Adagio wasn’t paying him any attention, all of her focus on Ember’s wounded body. Ember’s Resurreccion form was fading away, which Adagio had no idea if that was a bad sign or if it was normal for a knocked out Arrancar to revert back to normal. Either way it was clear Ember was badly injured, and the battle was still going strong all over the forest.

Fearful for Ember’s safety, not to mention her own, Adagio held Ember close and quickly flew off into the forest, hoping to reach the Gargantas before something else went wrong.

----------

Spitfire arrived at the training area to already find her fellow instructors squaring off against a pair of Arrancar that she didn’t need to ask to know were both Espada. The sheer potency of the dark, Hollow spirit energy she was sensing was enough to confirm that much. Once she got closer she was able to spot the numbers tattooed on both of her foes, seeing that the huge and ludicrously well muscled man with the axe was the Fifth Espada, and that the voluptuous woman with the flaming red hair and catish eyes was the Third Espada.

She sensed there was another Espada in the area, but pinpointing his location amid all the other swarming reiatsu down in the forest was difficult. Regardless, this was not a good situation. Soarin, Lightning Dust, and Fleet Foot were all Sternritter like Spitfire, but in terms of power scale only Spitfire ranked among the upper tier of His Majesty’s servants. Spitfire briefly weighed the risks, then immediately discarded the notion of caring about the odds. Her recruits were being attacked. The home territory of the Quincy had been violated. The strength of the opponents were irrelevant under such circumstances. The honor and pride of the Quincy required an answer in blood for this insult!

When she arrived on the scene it looked as if the two Espada and her three fellow instructors were still sizing each other up, but Spitfire had absolutely zero patience for the niceties of introductions or standoffs. She reached out with her right hand and with a snap of her fingers summoned her bow, which appeared with a heated buzz. Her bow’s shape was unusual, in that it didn’t have a physical body, but rather took the form of four solid bars of pure heat energy joined by a central sphere of glowing golden flame around her hand. The air itself grew hotter by just the mere presence of her bow, and she didn’t waste a single nanosecond before aiming it at the hulking Fifth Espada. Each of the four bars of heat energy flared with power, and from Spitfire’s bow launched an entire barrage of crescent shaped projectiles of heat so intense that she knew each one could burn through solid steel in an instant.

The Fifth Espada reacted with remarkable speed and power, swinging a gigantic axe with enough force and spirit energy concentrated in it to create a wave of force that deflected most of Spitfire’s projectiles, save for a few that managed to impact with him from the sides, but to Spitfire’s surprise the Espada’s skin took her melting blows with only some minor burns to show for it.

The huge man grinned at her, bellowing, “Well that’s a fine hello! And we were just about to get to partying with your friends, too! Whom do I got the pleasure of facing, eh? I’m Lord Torch, the Fifth-”

Spitfire didn’t let him finish, moving at high speed to flash right in front of him and unleash a charged up strike at point blank range, all four of her bow’s bars glowing brightly as she cut loose with a blast that combined all four bars into a large X shaped projectile that slammed into the Espada hard enough to push him back a few dozen paces before the projectiles exploded in a pillar of fire.

“Spitfire, you made it!” said Soarin happily, looking relieved to see her there. Not surprising, really. Soarin usually prefered to let her handle the tough situations, if he could. The guy was a athletic sort, with blue skin and darker blue, wavy hair. His face usually had a laid back look on it, but now he just looked deeply upset as he cast a glance down towards the forest. No doubt he could feel what Spitfire felt, that their Quincy trainees were being picked off by lesser Arrancar down there.

“Go help the recruits,” Spitfire said, “Take Fleetfoot with you. Me and Lightning Dust will handle these two.”

“A-are you sure?” Soarin asked, “These are Espada. You could get-”

“Sorain, move your ass, now!” Spitfire growled, eyes blazing. “Our recruits are dying down there!”

“Y-yeah! Got it! C’mon Fleetfoot!”

Fleetfoot, a slim woman with paler blue skin than Soarin and a swept back head of white hair, wearing aviator glasses, just sighed and gave Spitfire a brief salute before saying, “We’ll deal with the small fry. Catch up with you later, chief.”

Soarin and Fleet Foot then turned and started rushing off down into the forest. The female Espada glanced at them, licking her lips, and speaking in a sensual tone, “I don’t recall giving any of you kittens permission to leave my presence.”

She pointed a finger towards the departing Soarin and Fleetfoot, and from that slim finger an unbelievably massive, dark green Cero beam fired. It was intercepted by Lightning Dust, who flashed in front of the beam and caught it with her “bow”, which wasn’t actually a bow. There were a number of Quincy who formed projectile weapons from their reishi that didn’t take on the traditional shapes of bows, but instead took forms that more suited their fighting style or personalities. In Lightning Dust’s case the weapon of choice for her was a huge tri-bladed silver boomerang, whose curved blades were serrated along the inner edge. She held the boomerang like a shield in front of her, halting the massive green Cero that broke around her like a river around a stone.

Normally such a risky move would be deadly to the Quincy trying to stop such a powerful Cero, but the Third Espada had made the mistake of underestimating the power of what His Majesty’s bestowed Schrift’s could do. In Lightning Dust’s case, she was Sternritter D, the Daredevil. The more dangerous a situation she put herself in, the more powerful her counterattacks became. Spitfire knew well it was a double edged sword, however. Lightning Dust had to recklessly put herself in danger in order to get any power out of the Daredevil Schrift, as was evidenced by the fact that even as she blocked the Third Espada’s Cero the energy was still causing burns to appearing along Lightning Dust’s arms and legs.

“Hey, hag,” shouted Lightning Dust as the Cero played itself out around her, and her boomerang started to glow with blue reishi that spun around the boomerang’s three blades like a buzz-saw, “You’ve got bigger worries than those two! You’ve got me to deal with!”

Lightning Dust hurled her boomerang at the Third Espada, the weapon cutting a screaming path through the air. The Espada raised a large, bladed warfan to block the attack, but the blow was strong enough to actually force the woman to skid back in the air a few paces before the boomerang returned to Lightning Dust. The Espada eyed Lightning Dust and Spitfire both with a look of mocking admiration.

“Impressive, for mere Quincy. Perhaps you adorable young ladies will entertain me and Lord Torch more than I expected,” she smiled, revealing feline fangs, “Of course I still don’t expect that to last long.”

As she spoke Torch stepped from the remains of the flaming explosion Spitfire hat hit him with, his body smoking but still largely undamaged even by an attack of that magnitude, and was dusting himself off with one hand while hefting his massive axe with the other.

“Catrina, you don’t need to get your hands dirty here. I’ve got these two.”

“Now now Torch, don’t be greedy. There’s two Quincy here, and two of us. It’s only polite to split the sport evenly.”

“There’s not sport to be had here,” Spitfire snarled, raising her bow, “You want to challenge the pride of the Quincy? You’re about to find out that you couldn’t have made a bigger mistake.”

Torch grinned merrily, “I like your attitude, missy. You got just the right kind of fire in you to get my blood running hot. Even if you hate introductions, I got to know your name.”

Spitfire narrowed her eyes. Even if all she wanted to do was incinerate these Hollows to ash, she realized that each Espada was more than powerful enough to possibly be more than she and Lightning Dust could handle. But time was ticking away, and every minute she kept the enemy busy was a minute longer for HIs Majesty to mobilize reinforcements. By now the Silbern had to be in an uproar, with every soldat and Sternritter present rushing to reach the Academy. Even His Majesty was likely on his way.

So she could afford to indulge Torch, she supposed, if only to buy a few more seconds of time.

“Fine, if it’ll make you feel better before I destroy you.” she said, already charging up her next attack for emphasis, her bow glowing a bright golden hue that made it look like a blazing star, “I’m Spitfire, Sternritter I, the Inferno. Happy?”

“Immensely.” Torch said, hefting his axe, “When I kill you, I think I may just take your soul back home with me to add you to my horde.”

Spitfire shuddered at the thought, and responded to Torch’s insinuation by firing a barrage of several hundred blazing projectiles that nearly covered the sky.

Author's Note:

It's chapters like this that kind of make me wish Tite Kubo had gone into more detail on how certain Quincy techniques worked, or at least expanded their repertoire. In this case the Ginto tubes which form the basis of Quincy "spells" are only rarely used in the manga, and very little detail is given on exactly how they function. In my mind its always soft of resembled a form of alchemy, so that's a term I go with here, even though I don't think its ever called that in the manga. Anyway, on the bright side, the lack of details given in the maga gives me a bit more free range to make up some spells and techniques of my own involving the Quincy alchemy, and I think Twilight is suited to making more use of it in time, relying on those techniques as much if not more than her bow.

Anyway, since it occurs to me I haven't gone into detail yet on how Arrancar high speed techniques work, I'll just borrow Gin for a moment to show you guys what Sonido is all about. Take it away Gin!

...Huh, I guess Sonido really is identical to Shunpo and Hirenkyaku. Kind of makes me wonder why Kubo went through the trouble of naming them differently?

Well, in any case I hope you folks had fun reading today's episode! As always I highly appreciate any and all comments, questions, or critiques you guys might have for me! 'Till next time.

Comments

[stephen51991]

So does this mean that the Quincy are going to learn about Adagio the not-quite-friendly-but-not-exactly-evil-either ghost from Twilight and the currently unconscious recruits?

[Bubbler]

You're seriously making Bleach better than it actually was.

[Misdirection01]

Poor Sugarcoat! Also, Adagio. She's walking an increasingly fine line with her siren shenanigans. Hopefully it doesn't blow up in her face. Excellent chapter!

[ElCazadorDeHistorias]

Eh, Adagio really is a chessmaster, isn't she?

And now a real bit of packed up action of lasers, projectiles and explosions!

[Twilight_Crow]

What an awesome battle! Glad this chapter focused only in this battlefield.

Adagio is really risking herself trying to remain a good guy. How is really that possible? I'm guessing that is because she is not a human, so she can't be an ordinary hollow, thus the gem in her hole. Anyway her arc is really interesting.

Thanks for the chapter.

[the other sans]

As long as they team continued to work together
Garble’s fun and getting few more Quincy trophies
flaming explosion Spitfire hat hit him with

1. The.
2. Garble's fun and getting a few more Quincy trophies.
3. Had.

Interesting way for how Adagio decided to handle things. Deep down she knows and abhors killing if she can help it especially against other people that still retain their humanity. And human form. Let's not forget that you said before that you showed Adagio's side as an... introduction of sorts to the three big powers and the role she has to play in it will be undoubtedly game changing.

Now Twilight has encountered Adagio reborn but of course in the heat of the moment can't properly make much sense of it save the fact that she was saved by a Hollow. The fact that it was Adagio will eventually catch up assuming her mind can properly process what happened in order.

Let's not forget Twilight's goals to change the Quincy for the better and now that she had a glimpse of that possible change in Adagio it's gonna be very interesting telling her seniors what she and her team encountered. Another possibility is them not telling yet but the potential gains (chaos) outweighs the potential losses (blind rage/hurt pride). Don't ask me why I put those there except maybe to put a rough number on it. Or maybe it's just the excitement talking.

[Jarimor]

The big difference had to do with HOW they achieved super speed.

....and all I can remember is that Sonido was actually FASTER than flash step, it supposed to be more like a teleport, less like hyper speed movement.

[Helljumper206]

I really like the Author's Note you do here. It really brings out a refresher for those who haven't watch the show in awhile or have missed certin episodes in the show that have this stuff shown in it.

good show man

[RanmaChaos]

Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.

[DDDDDDDDD23]

What Quincy pride all of their top rank members are probably pretty much slaves to the guy who's only line in the show is Crystals.

[Forthwith]

Adagio: Big Damn Hero. That's not something you hear often. The quincy are going to be very confused if Twilight doesn't explain.

[Teraunce]

Yeah that's gonna be a real headscratcher when that group debriefs and says a hollow saved them.