Howls, explosions, and groans of disappointment could be heard throughout the long white hallway. A stray puff of blue smoke could be seen hovering underneath a ceiling light, slightly blocking its artificial rays. Three doors lined each side of the hallway, each spaced ten feet apart.
Personal labs didn't really help production of Hollows, but it gave the Fourth Squad interesting reports on other things. Bankai enhancement was discovered in the labs, as well as Kido shields, Hollow bait, and other meticulous things. Even the theory of the Hollow Room had been created in these small areas of personal thinking where your psychotic thoughts could run free. It was like your own time to be mad scientist.
Making its resting place at the end of the long hallway was a much larger lab. Although still part of the personal lab complex, it was nearly three times the size of the average personal labs.
In the middle of this lab, calmly humming to himself was Decci. His goggles were smeared with an uncountable number of fluids and substances. His lab coat, once a pure white, was now a dirty messed up bundle of the condiments of the rainbow. His under shirt questionably remained spotless. His hair, for once, was freshly combed and not the messy bush it usually was. With a look of absolute faith, he pushed a large yellow button on one of the many large machines.
The large console began to hum before shrieking in a flurry of mechanically produced wind and electrical sparks. The machine was attached to a large containment cell. Surrounded by random body parts, there was a disheveled hollow lurking inside the cell, smashing its fists against the transparent glass sides. It gave one last look of complete hatred and despair at the smiling lieutenant before completely disintegrating in a large bolt of green light.
The machine whirred to a stop. Two pipes attached to the left side of the machine spewed out disgusting amounts of blue sludge, stray bits catching the hem of Decci's lab coat and pooling underneath his feet. Reaching down with one finger, Decci scooped up a small bit of the liquid. He stared at it for a few seconds before putting the dripping goop into his mouth. He immediately grimaced in disgust. He briskly walked towards his messy desk.
With well-practiced reflexes, he marked an X on a clipboard. He jumped backwards into an old chair and spun in circles, pondering how to make his twisted experiment work. Lost in thought, he rubbed his eyelids and stroked his hair as he contemplated whatever it is that psychos contemplate. His thoughts were promptly interrupted as his barricaded door was kicked open, and the squelch of wet rain boots ran down the stairs leading down from the entrance to his desk.
Decci didn't need to open his eyes to expect who was there and what she was about to do. A loud thump and the sound of whimpers proved his theory correct. Opening his eyes, he turned his vision to the small girl on the disgusting floor. Her black hair was messy, and her dirty white raincoat was now stained with much more than mud. Her eyes were teary as she looked at Decci expectantly. There was a faint blush to her cheeks that grandparents would only describe as "precious," and her whimpers were more pitiful than a kicked puppy's. Lifted above her head, her hands precariously balanced on them a bag labeled only with the word "Dunkin."
Sighing, Decci stood up and scooped the little girl from her fallen position. She grinned with satisfaction as she was seated in the old spinny chair, remembering when she had retrieved it from the living world.
"I thought I told you to stay out of Hueco Mundo," Decci started, trying to put on a stern expression that bad parents try to attempt.
The little girl immediately pouted before replying, "One, just because I look like a little girl doesn't mean I am one. Two, I'm your third seat for a reason. I can take care of myself you know. Stop being such an old fart."
They stared at each other with the faces of a child and a concerned father. They barely lasted five seconds before breaking out in laughter. The little girl's tiny legs flailed in midair, didn't reach the ground, and Decci steadied himself by putting his hand on his desk.
Decci took the bag from her and placed it upon his desk. He took out the coffee and took a deep sip before turning to the little girl and giving her the troll face. "And that, little girl, is why you don't bet with Decci. You'll lose," he said as he patted her on the head condescendingly.
"Hmph! Well I didn't think Marcy would die so quickly!" She crossed her arms and pouted. Hope sprang in her eyes as she offered, "C'mon, double or nothing. We'll bet on Chad this time!"
"Who?" Decci asked as he looked up.
"You know? Chad? Chad Fromaccounting?"
Her hopes crashed and burned as he laughed and held up the dismembered head of the late Chad Fromaccounting.
"I take it that's another week of unlimited coffee runs and no your mother jokes?" Triumphantly, he watched as she nodded with an "O God Why" look on her face.
"What ya trying to do?" she asked, trying to change the subject, a jelly-filled munchkin in her hand. Blue sludge covered most of the ground, the glass container was slowly draining the mass of body parts, and the desk seemed to be collapsing due to the weight of paper and munchkins.
"Capture the Reishi from Hollows and place it into a liquid substance. Just think, if we were able to inject it into our blood stream, the Reishi wouldn't be able to be denied by our blood cells. This would allow us to be able to regain some of our former Hollow abilities," Decci explained. The little girl clambered onto his shoulders as he turned his back to her, and walked back to the machine. Her dirty coat smudged the back of his head, and she clumped his hair in her tiny fists.
"I thought you were supposed to be the genius," she said, sounding sassy as hell. "Hollows don't need to be disintegrated to release they're Reishi, you can just drain they're Reishi from the sands in Hueco Mundo. There's enough of their cells and residue to do the job. Then you can release it into our ventilation systems, instead of force feeding that stuff to everyone," the little girl said. She leaned back and smiled to herself in satisfaction at the braid she had made in his hair.
There was an awkward silence as Decci played the theory over in his head. Air particles would take a bit longer to get a concentrated amount into our blood streams and systems, but it is faster to just do that. Decci smiled as he walked away from the machine and pressed a button in the wall behind his desk. A microphone popped out.
"I need at least ten units to gather Hollow Reishi from the sand. That means you gathering squad. I expect full reports and samples by tomorrow," Decci intoned. He could hear his own voice echo down the hallway.
"Now, down to business," Decci said as he stroked his imaginary beard and twiddled his fingers in a malicious-mafioso-boss manner. "How's our precious little subject?"
Abby climbed off of his shoulders and pulled up a chair. She sat down and pondered for a second before responding, "You mean Bobby Vinton?"
"Did you seriously name him Bobby?" Decci asked with a "what-the-fuck" face.
A facepalm was initiated by Abby before she responded, "He's the guy that sang Mr. Lonely. Of course I wouldn't name him Bobby, that's a girls name!"
Decci breathed a sigh of relief as she continued.
"I think the orphanage called him Erick, but I just decided to name him Soli instead," Abby continued. There was a nod from Decci, and she grabbed a munchkin and chewed it slowly. It seemed an eternity before she swallowed, and when she spoke, she failed to meet his gaze, instead staring down at her twiddling thumbs. "He kind of didn't get adopted for a while."
"Probably because of how you chased all the parents that wanted to adopt him away," Decci said with another swig of coffee.
"Yeah, but I let him get adopted eventually," Abby said with a grin.
"By alcoholics… two times if I recall from your reports. Great job on that by the way," Decci said approvingly.
"He's kind of cute now that he's older, but I feel like he's way too awkward around girls," she said, completely disregarding the previous comment.
"The keeping him away from the other kids at school obviously didn't have anything to do with his social skills."
"Oh, c'mon Decci. Don't be so negative. He'll be ready for the transfer in a week," Abby replied with a smile as she took the last of the munchkins. "You know what that means!"
Decci nodded. They proceeded to do a long and complicated handshake, consisting of high fives, a long round of patty cake, footsy and gang signs before finishing in an exploding fist bump as they both whispered "Vacation!"
"I was actually recently told that what we've been doing is kind of illegal up in Soul Society," Decci said after they had finished their victory dance. "Apparently fucking with humans lives isn't healthy. Can you believe that?"
They laughed for a little while. Everything that Hell had done so far was breaking the rules of the Soul Society to some extent, but nothing had ever happened before.
"Take me home, I'm tired," she ordered after they stopped laughing. She faced Decci with a cheeky grin. Once again acting sassy as hell, she looked up at the blond psychopath expectantly.
Decci swept Abby off her feet and carried her out of the lab. She pounded on his chest with her tiny fists and jokingly cried out "Raaape!" as he cradled her out of the laboratory.
The gates of Hell were already open by the time he was on the dunes of Hueco Mundo.
"You're old enough to walk into hell without me now I think," Decci said, letting her down in front of the gaping hole.
She smiled and punched him in the leg as she replied, "Have the hotel and Gigais picked out by next week. Oh, but I don't want to go to Las Vegas again, the drinks there make you act like Will Ferrel."
"'You are a smelly pirate hooker,' and little girls shouldn't know about drinking," he responded with a smile as she took a step forward. A cute little grin and a middle finger was all he saw before the gates closed and disappeared. The sands of Hueco Mundo were quiet once more as Decci stalked back into his laboratory.
HELL IS COLDER THAN ICE CREAM
Abby sat at her desk. The paperwork she had been assigned towered over her as she tried to focus on one page at a time. To her despair, the captain had demanded it done by tomorrow.
Her desk was a total mess, similar to Decci's except for the phone that lay near the edge. Her nameplate stood at the front of her desk proudly: "Abby, 3rd Seat of Squad 4 – Hollow Production Assistant Manager."
"Yes Captain Benedetta, I'll have it all done by tomorrow," she intoned sweetly into the phone.
"Oh, and Decci told me that the Shinigami representatives are coming in a few days to check up on us," she finished. The captain murmured a few more words before hanging up and leaving Abby to a mountain of boredom.
Sighing and turning away from her far-from-finished paperwork, she turned to look out her window. Hell wasn't exactly a pleasant sight. It wasn't all fire and groaning Hollows, but it still didn't help that most of the life came from the sinners of the planet. It was like a big criminal convention, except it was held every day. The scum and stupidity of the human world never ceased to amaze her, even if it did entertain her.
Stretching beyond the compound of Hell's first level was the Hollow Room. From the outside, the infamous Hollow Room was a large black box. Inside was quite different. There were no limits to its size and everywhere you looked, there would be Hollows. It was a true gladiator's arena, and it was constantly refilled due to the amount of sin in the world. All Hollows that actually made it out alive were given a chance to become a Hellion.
To the left of the Hollow Room was the Second Squad's compound. The squads were generally kept far away from each other. Too many violent things could happen.
Abby didn't notice any of this. She was too used to it. She saw Second Squads compound and the Hollow room every day and at this point they were just a part of the scenery.
What she still wasn't used to was the lack of the moon. She just stared out the window at the empty space where it should have been. She had never been one of those girls who could get happy by looking at the stars or the moon. She had never even noticed the existence of it. Sure, sometimes when it was full it could have been pretty, but it was just the moon. It had been part of the scenery, just like the squad compound and the Hollow Room. But, now it wasn't. It was completely gone, torn from the fabric of logic and everything that spoke from her memory.
She licked some sugar off of her lips before turning away from the window and climbing back onto her chair. The ocean of lab reports, complaints, bills, announcements, wanted posters, and testing schedules smiled at her patiently before swallowing her for the night.
This is the pinnacle of two years of effort, revision, deleting, scrapping, starting from scratch and all of that other shit. Hope you enjoy, RandR, flamers do your thing, and gay comic relief for the win. Thank you very much ArchxDeath for your undying patience and ur unparalleled perverted ass jokes. May the wangs of angry black men be filled forever. :D Awkward armadillos, Evil Ugly Yaks, and Girafarigs for everyone.
PS No offense to any guys named Bobby and Erick.