Authors Note: Well HOLA and welcome to my new Bleach fanfic, and the first of its kind for me ^.^ Forgive the longness of this chapter because I seriously doubt that any other chapters of this story will be this long. Also forgive my sometimes poor grammer skills. I like words but they do not like me. ^.^'

This is inspired by songs from Lady GaGa and Cobra Starship (so I don't own the title of this story. That goes to Cobra =D) I also DON'T OWN BLEACH. Wish I did, but I don't.

Warnings: Lots of gun violence, underage drinking, a little bit of swearing, and an OC (sorry, I couldn't help myself)

The City is at War

The city is at war, playtime for the young and rich.

Soul, the most exclusive club on the south Californian coast, was surprisingly packed that warm summer night, Rosalinda noticed while scanning the crowd and sipping her club usual, a diamond appletini. 'Though,' Rose sighed, 'I really shouldn't be surprised.' A smirk crawled across her lips.

Four years ago, Soul sprouted up virtually overnight and became instantly infamous when the press found out the club was created by Kieskue Udahara, an extremely wealthy Hollywood socialite. Celebrities flocked to get into the door, but the club was exclusive. On a daily basis, A-list clebs and social princesses were rejected at the door. Everyone wondered why the club turned down nearly everyone that tried to enter. Why were the only people allowed through Soul's doors Kiesuke and his followers?

"Well," Rose said to herself, "if people knew the answers to those questions, we'd be a hell less popular." She laughed after that. With all of the drama, controversy, and danger that followed her friends and her around, Rose and the gang would be infinitely more famous. Statuses like hers were just too good to pass writing a major magazine cover story about. Sure, the club would lose some business, but people would come. They always did.

Take this particular night, for example. It was the once yearly opening of Soul to the public, and it certainly felt like everyone and their grandma was there.

"Pretty good for an announcement we made two and a half hours ago, huh?" Rose grinned when she heard the familiar voice.

"You were right, Kiesuke. Word does travel around fast." Because of their line of work, they couldn't really say ahead of time when their big blowout was every year. Last year they sent out their announcement 12 hours before opening to make sure no uninvited guests would show up and cause trouble. Rose had her doubts this time around (two hours, seriously?), but news spread fast when it came to the most exclusive group of socialites in the country.

"When am I ever wrong?" Kiesuke smirked and grabbed both the drink meant for her friend and Rose's drink before she could take another sip. "No underage drinking when you're supposed to be on the lookout."

Rose tried to protest, considering they only opened the club a half hour ago and the Hollows weren't known for their quick plan making, but Kieskue rolled his eyes and pointed across the room to their table.

"Hm, seems like Rukia wants your attention."

'No kidding,' Rose deadpanned when she saw her friend standing on the table and franticly waving her arm. In the other hand she was shaking an empty martini glass. Yumichika and Toshiro tried to get her to clam down and get off the table before she fell off.

"She's gonna be pissed when she finds out I don't have her drink. Give me our drink's back, Kie-" Rose turned to where her godfather used to be, "-suke…"

Knowing that she wasn't getting her and Rukia's drinks back anytime soon, Rose made her way across the club. Instead of going around the half-drunken mass of people, she went right through them. To most people, the crowd who was packed together and seemed to move in unison would be hard to navigate. To Rose, it came as easy as breathing. She thrived off the energy that emitted from them. Everything about the club on these nights was perfect: the pounding music, the flashing lights, the throngs of people gathered to bask in the Glory of Kiesuke's social circle. Rose thrived in the fame that surrounded her those nights, and she loved it.

When Rose finally got to Rukia, she got the expected verbal beating without any explanation involving the usual "I do so much for you" and "you call yourself my best friend". When Rukia finally finished her rant and Rose could manage to get a word in to say that Kiesuke was the one that she should have been yelling at, Rukia just shook her head.

"Tisk, tisk, Rosie, you'd blame your own godfather for your own awful friend-ness," she grinned, "and to think that I just requested our favorite song just now."

The music slowly changed to a faster beat with more bass. Rose instantly recognized the song (a new mash up of Lady GaGa's Beautiful, Dirty, Rich, which was also the girls' self proclaimed theme song) and glomped her friend.

"That's just what I needed!"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's dance!" Rukia laughed and dragged Rose to the middle of the dance floor.

The music blasted from inside soul and came pounding out through the closed doors where the infamous bouncer, Tessai, stood to keep out "riff-raff" like the obnoxiously loud brunette trying to charm, and then argue, his way into the club with no avail. Ichigo glanced across the street to the scene at the club, waiting for Keigo to get thrown from the front of the line.

"I told him there was no use trying," Tatsuki sighed, "there's no way we're getting in."

Not that I mind much, Ichigo thought. He wasn't one for partying anyway. The night started out as just a night for Ichigo to hang out with his friends, but Keigo had to go and overcomplicate things with newest random harebrain idea.

**Flashback time**

All was quiet at the Asano household, when all of a sudden-

"IIICCCHHHIIIGGGOOO!!1!" Keigo bounded into the living room, wildly waving his cell phone. Ichigo, using his Keigo-stopping reflexes, held his foot out in front of his friend to stop him from yelling and causing everyone to go prematurely deaf.

"Oh, my! Are you okay, Keigo?" Orehime gasped when his face hit the floor.

"Don't worry. Keigo's a survivor," Tatsuki laughed.

"I wonder what he's raving about now," Mizuro chimed in and tapped Keigo, who was still on the floor (being overly dramatic about getting tripped). "Come on, Mr. Asano. Wake-y, wake-y."

"Don't just kick me like I'm dead, Mizuro!!" Keigo sat up and yelled dramatically.

"You're kind of dead from the neck up already," Chad, who was sitting in a corner and observing the whole situation, said. Ichigo started cracking up with laughter.

"Well, you can all forget about the amazing opportunity I just found out we have!" Keigo laid face down on the floor once again and let out an insanely loud, long sigh.

"Okay, okay, we'll listen to what you have to say Keigo," Ichigo finally stopped his friend's mini sulk-fest. Keigo sprang to his feet and started his rant.

"Well, I just got a text from this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy's cousin, who's girlfriend knew…!"

So Keigo went on and on through a list of associations to finally get to the point of the matter. He was supposedly invited through association to the most exclusive and amazingly awesome, infamous, celebrity-packed club in California, Soul.

Ichigo thought it was a decent fantasy, but there was virtually no chance of the group to get into Soul. Well, they were all old enough to get in, so they had that on their side, but that was all they had going for them. Soul did reject half the people that tried to get in, but Ichigo figured he might as well give it a try. Miracles could happen.

Too bad the club's bouncer thought otherwise. He looked over the six and said no. Keigo started arguing with him, but the bouncer just looked at Ichigo and shook his head. Come to think of it, it seemed to Ichigo that Tessai wasn't letting the group in because of him. Ichigo did get this weird feeling when he walked up to the door…

"You okay, Ichigo? You've been kind of quiet," Orehime brought Ichigo out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how we got into this," he laughed while nodding towards Keigo who was finally thrown from the front of the line.

Keigo huffed and started ranting about how rude bouncers were. Ichigo pretty much tuned him out, like he usually did when his friend was ranting. After a while Orehime touched Ichigo's shoulder which brought him back from lala land.

"Well, I guess we're all heading home, then," she smiled, "You want a ride with us Ichigo?" Orehime's eyes were hopeful. She was wishing for more time with her long time crush, but Ichigo shook his head.

"No thanks. I don't live very far from here, so I'll walk," Ichigo waved goodbye to his friends and crossed to the other side of the street. Even though Soul was probably one of the most popular clubs in LA when open, it was in an incredibly random spot. It was on the edge of the city, almost in a residential part of town. Ichigo lived just blocks from the building, so he figured that walking home would be better than paying for part of the taxi ride his friends were taking.

Ichigo headed towards his house, leaving the pounding music and the horde of people trying to enter the club behind him.

"You know, if you want to go enjoy yourself, I can watch the monitors for a while," Yoruichi felt a pair of hands on her shoulders. She sighed and continued glancing from monitor to monitor.

"Nah, you go have fun, Kiesuke. I'll just stay here and do my job, unlike some people around here," Yoruichi rolled her eyes. On most nights like this, she and Kiesuke sat in the "VIP" room (otherwise known as Soul's surveillance center) to watch for any intruders. If one of them wanted to go see how the party was doing for themselves instead of staring at computer screens all night, they'd step out for a couple of minutes and be right back. On this particular night, however, Kiesuke slipped out and didn't come back for almost an hour.

"Okay, I get it. I'm sorry I left you here by yourself all this time just so I could shamelessly shirk my duties and have a good time," Kiesuke smirked and leaned down so he could whisper in her ear. "Now, why don't you go out there? I know you love these parties almost as much as the kids do. Plus it would be such a shame to let that dress go to waste."

Yoruichi laughed and smacked away Kiesuke's hand that was now stroking her arm.

"Could you not flirt with me when I'm trying to concentrate?"

"Well then, remind me to never give you a complement again," Kiesuke grinned and sat in the leather seat next to his friend.

"No, you were blatantly flirting with me," Yoruichi finally looked away from the screens on the wall, "And you wonder why Rosalinda flirts with every male that comes within five feet of her."

Kiesuke nodded and started inspecting the monitor for the camera in the back alley closely. He seemed like he noticed something on it. Yuroichi looked at the monitor too, but didn't see anything special about it.

"What's that?" Kiesuke finally said.

"I don't see anything."

"There," Kiesuke pointed to a line near the side of the screen.

"Hm," it was small, but once Yoruichi looked at it long enough, she could tell it was a cable. She knew what every side of the building looked like, and the cable was new. "You don't think…"

Kiesuke didn't wait for Yoruichi to finish her sentence before turning the chair to a set of computers next to him. He quickly started scanning all the programs that ran inside club, from the cameras, to strobe lights, and the audio systems. At first glance, everything seemed normal, but the coding for everything had one thing in common. They had three extra numbers on the end.

"Yoruichi," Kiesuke whispered, "keep your eyes on the monitors when I tell you this, okay?"

"Why?" Yoruichi nodded and glanced at the monitor to the back alley again.

"We've been hacked." Two men emerged from the shadows in the alley once Kiesuke realized what was wrong.

"I'll lock the doors," Yoruichi was already trying her best to get around the hacked codes.

Kiesuke quickly walked through the crowd, maneuvering the dancing people just as well as Rose did. He knew exactly where she and Rukia were. He found them in the middle of the dance floor, bouncing around to the music that was on.

"Hey Ruki, does this song sound funny to you?" Rose yelled over the music.

"Kind of… Wait! Why isn't this song mixed? Ikkaku's slacking off-" Rukia was cut off by Kiesuke's hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry to interrupt you're partying, but we have a serious situation on our hands," Though, Rose thought, you wouldn't be able to tell from his voice. Kiesuke had a way of downplaying nearly everything with his oh-so-casual voice. It always made Rose do a mental double take.

"Oh, relax," Rukia laughed (Rose decided Rukia was definitely near her alcoholic cut off point) "it's not like there's a security breach or anything."

Kiesuke rolled his eyes and still kept a casual tone even though he looked like he wanted to slap himself in the forehead, "Oh, there is."

"Ah. Well then-"

Just then two men in all white burst through the front door. Both of them had a gun in each hand and wore masks. When rose saw this, she inhaled sharply, but hid any surprise with a groan.

"God, why hollows, today?"

"HELLOO REAPERS! Wanna come out and play?!" one yelled and shot a few rounds in the air, causing the crowd to duck down and panic. People ran for whatever exit they could find, but to their surprise, all other exits that weren't filled with crazy gunned men were locked.

"Can you handle this one for me?" Kiesuke said in a rush, sill looking at the door where four more men in masks entered.

"Of course we will!" Rose already had reached for her pistol strapped to her thigh underneath the tool of her dress.

Rukia had a cocky grin as she kissed her brand new gun. "I never thought I'd actually get to use this baby," she twirled the gun in her hand while nodding to Rose to shoot a warning shot.

"Everybody, get down now!" Rose yelled and fired into the air.

Over at the DJ booth, the music stopped. The DJ disappeared under the turntables only to return with a gigantic machine gun. Ikkaku, the most sought after DJ in California, was known for his violent tendencies. If only people knew how much he down right enjoyed a good fight. The fact would have saved many a paparazzi from a punch or two.

"Damn, I love a nice ass-kicking in the evening!" Ikkaku had an insane looking smile on his face and tossed a gun to Yumichika, who just ran by the booth.

The others, seeing that Ikkaku was taking care of the Hollows (and nobody wanted to get in the way of his fight), hurried to gather the clubbers. Everyone was rushed into a room reserved for emergencies like this one, though Kiesuke hoped he would never have to use it.

One of the Hollows saw Rose and approached her once the people started to clear out. He stared at her with lusty eyes and smirked.

"Now, now, what do we have here?" the Hollow foolishly put one of his guns away. "This little girly thinks she can stand up and fight with her little gun." Rose felt another Hollow shove a gun into her back.

Oh no they don't think that I'm not gonna kick their asses for this, Rose's finger stayed on the trigger of her pistol.

"Tell you what, Reaper, I won't have my friend here shoot you in the back if you keep that pretty little mouth of yours shut and help us get rid of your Reaper friends, hm? What do you say to that?"

"Well," Rose smiled. In one swift move, Rose kicked the gun from the man with the one at her back into the air, punched the sleazy Hollow who was hitting on her in the nose, and caught the first gun. The Hollow fell to the ground (hopefully the nose bone went into his brain) "That's Miss Reaper to you."

Ichigo had walked maybe half a block away from Soul when he realized that someone was following him. He didn't think much of it at first. There were plenty of people at the club and chances where someone else was walking home too. Ichigo decided to walk a block more and if that guy was still behind him, he'd do something about it.

A block later, still behind him. Ichigo stopped walking and glanced behind him. Whoever it was stayed back far from him, but sure enough it was the same person. Ichigo decided to turn down an ally instead of heading straight to go to home. If there was anyone actually following him, he'd know.

Yup, he was still behind him. Ichigo was walked further away from his house. He knew how to defend himself; he didn't really care if the person was dangerous. Ichigo just didn't want any of his family involved, so decided to keep walking. Maybe his stalker would get tired of following him. He really didn't feel like fighting anyone at the moment.

Eventually, when he felt like he went far enough from his house, Ichigo stopped and turned around to see who was behind him. Yeah, that guy was still there. He walked closer to Ichigo.

"Hey," Ichigo called out to him and the man stopped. "Why the hell are you following me?"

The man came close enough for Ichigo to see him. He removed his hood and chuckled. Underneath it, there was a white mask that looked almost like a skull. There was a design on it. It looked like a bloody handprint.

"Well, you made my job a heck of a lot easier," He pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.

Ah, great. A mugger.

"Listen, if you want any money, you've got your work cut out for you," Ichigo put his hands out in front of him.

"What have we got here, Ray?" another voice came from behind Ichigo. He turned around to see another man with a mask. This one had orange paint splattered all over it.

"That kid we were supposed to be on the lookout for," the handprint mask chuckled, "Ichigo Kurosaki."

Ichigo clenched his fists. How did he know his name? Why were they supposed to be looking for him?

"I have no idea what you two want, but if you try anything-"

"What?" Ichigo felt a gun on the back of his head. "Now listen kid, we don't want any trouble. We just want to talk to you."

"Then what's with the guns?" Ichigo wondered if he could manage to take the gun away from this guy, but it might have been hard since his handprint friend started pointing the gun at him.

"Let's call it insurance," his smirk was made apparent by his tone. Maybe getting out of this would be harder than he thought.

"Listen up, Strawberry. You have a couple of choices, here," The one with the splatter mask and the gun to his head said, "We're apart of a- let's call it a 'social group'. We're real powerful and pretty bad ass, and it just so happens that our leader has his eye on you." Ichigo was trying to figure out how to get out of the situation but started to pay attention once the man said that.

Has his eye on me? Like he's been watching me? Okay, now it's time to get rid of these guys.

"Let me tell you, kid, that's a real big honor. Now you could join us and we'll be peaceful. We won't shoot you or anything and all your family would be safe. But if you don't, there's gonna be a lot of problems for you."

And at this, Ichigo had enough of the two masked men and decided to just hurry up and kick their asses so he could get home. The next moment, Ichigo quickly grabbed the gun at the back of his head. Before the other could shoot, he kicked the gun from his hand.

Well that was easier than I thought. Ichigo thought confidently. He immediately turned to the splattered mask.

"No way would I ever sink that low," He pointed the gun at him. It seemed like the threat didn't shake him. In fact, it looked to Ichigo that the guy thought it was funny.

"Well, you can't say I didn't warn you," he laughed. His hand was reaching towards his pocket. He most likely was getting another gun. Ichigo's first instinct was to shoot his hand so he wouldn't try anything.

"Dammit!"

"Louis!" the other masked man shouted to his friend and Ichigo turned to him.

All I have to do is make sure this guy's not gonna follow me and I can head home, but before Ichigo could do anything about this man, another voice came from at the end of the ally way.

"Yo! We've gotta get out of here! Those Reapers are seriously insane, man!" It was yet another man with a skull mask. He paused for a moment at the mouth of the ally but kept running after warning the other two of whatever was coming for them.

Reapers, huh? Sounds like I got stuck in the middle of a gang battle, the thought didn't really bug Ichigo, but the fact that both men had suddenly disappeared, left him uneasy.

"Geez," Ichigo slapped his forehead, "I should have just shot them."

They must know where I live. Great. Might as well keep this with me, he put the safety on and tucked the gun into his pants.

It wasn't until he emerged from the ally that Ichigo realized he was behind Soul the entire time.