Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of the following. All I own is the computer I typed this on.
Evolution
Summary: What if things went a little differently when Ichigo's mom died? What if there were others who died that day, including Ichigo? Follow Ichigo and company through their evolutions from hollows to arrancar. Ichi/Ori/Nel.
"Hello"- Ichigo, Orihime, Masaki, Sora Talking
'Hello'- Ichigo, Orihime, Masaki, Sora Thinking/Thoughts
"Hello"- Ichigo, Orihime, Masaki, Sora Yelling
"Hello"- Hollows Yelling
"Hello"- Hollows Talking
'Hello'- Hollows Thinking
Chapter 2:
Menos Grande
"What's a hollow?" Everyone asked (A/N: If you don't know who everyone is, please refer back to chapter one). Masaki sighed. 'Now I know how Isshin felt when he had to explain everything to me.' She thought. She proceeded to explain.
"If I have to tell you, I have to start from the very beginning. When a human being dies, they don't go to heaven or hell, they stay on earth a while. Usually about a month or so. The reason is because a warrior known as a Shinigami, or Death God, must come and perform a Kōnso, or soul burial. What this does is it transports the soul to the afterlife, or hell if the soul was an evil person during their life. But sometimes, the soul never encounters a Shinigami, sometimes they are never noticed, or even overlooked by the Shinigami. The human soul is not meant to stay so long in the world of the living. After a long period of time, the soul begins to deteriorate and devolves into a hollow. Or the soul could be attacked by another hollow and be devoured, thus transforming the soul into a hollow. That's what happened to us." She looked at the small group, as though waiting for a question.
"So what is a hollow exactly?" Asked Sora. Masaki nodded to him.
"I was getting to that. When a human dies and the soul is wandering, the Shinigami call them a 'Plus'. What a hollow is, is simply this: a plus who lost their heart. Usually hollows are mindless killing machines that only work on instinct, and eat the souls of other plus's to fill the void within their heart. It's very rare for hollows to keep their human memories and mind. So, lucky us, we're in that minority." She stopped to take a breath. "Contrary to popular belief, hollows don't have to eat. It's a choice they make. A Hollow could enter Hueco Mundo, a dimension that hollows usually retreat to, which has an infinite amount of Reishi, or spirit energy, and eat that."
"If a hollow could just eat Hueco Mundo energy, why eat human souls?" Asked Orihime.
"It's just a preference. If I offered you an energy bar that would give you every nutrient that you need, but tasted bland, when you know you can have a Filet Mignon, which tastes great, which would you choose?" Masaki asked.
"The filet mignon." They answered. Masaki nodded.
"Exactly. Are you satisfied now?" Everyone nodded, except Ichigo, who has been silent up until now. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Mommy, the hollow that attacked us, Grand Fisher, said something about hollow evolution. What does that mean?" He asked.
"There are more than one type of hollow. There are five. A hollow comes in many different shapes and sizes. But it is usually weak and nothing special. When a hollow enters Hueco Mundo and enters a feeding frenzy with other starving, cannibalistic hollows, they fuse together to form a giant hollow called a Menos Grande, a Gillian class hollow. Usually these hollows are stupid. But if one of the hollows that was part of the fusion, was smarter, or had some ability more advanced than the other hollows, it's mind takes over. That hollow's individuality, and mentality takes over, becoming the mind. The Gillians and all the stages after Gillian have a special and greatly feared ability, known as the Cero. It's basically the concentration of spiritual energy and firing it in a super dense beam. When an intelligent Menos Grande wants to evolve even more, it eats other Gillians, devouring their spiritual energy and grows stronger. Eventually, it gains so much power, it evolves into an Adjuchas. Adjuchas are smaller than Gillians, but can still be pretty big. The downside to being an Adjuchas, is the necessity of devouring souls. Simply absorbing the energy of Hueco Mundo doesn't work for this, they must eat living spiritual energy, from other hollows or from humans or plus's. If an Adjuchas ceases to devour souls, it will return to being a Gillian, with no hope of ever evolving from there ever again. Another downside to being an Adjuchas is that if it is ever devoured, it will cease to evolve or devolve. It will remain an Adjuchas forever, until it either dies or is killed." Masaki cleared her itchy throat. All this talking was starting to irritate it. She continued. "Sometimes, if the Adjuchas is lucky, it will evolve into a Vasto Lorde. Not every hollow is lucky enough to become a Vasto Lorde, it is believed that there are only about twenty or less in the entirety of Hueco Mundo, which contains millions of hollows. Not much is known about Vasto Lordes. The only thing they do know, is that they're powerful. The average Vasto Lorde is considered to be stronger than the average Captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads." The instant Masaki finished she regretted it. Now she'll have to explain everything about Soul Society and stuff.
"What are the Thirteen Court Guard Squads?" Orihime asked. Masaki sighed.
"Well…" She began to explain.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXx
After the explanation everyone sat around the site of their deaths. Ichigo spoke up once again.
"Mom, earlier you said that there were five stages of hollows, you only mentioned four." Masaki sighed once again. Will she ever stop talking?
"There is a stage that is very rare, they are called Arrancars. An Arrancar is basically a hollow who tore it's mask off. Arrancar in Spanish actually means 'to tear off'. When this occurs, a hollow goes through a transformation that gives it shinigami powers. They even regain human forms. The only physical indication that they are hollows, is the fact that they keep a piece of broken mask on their head, and a hollow hole somewhere on their body. Usually hollows die in this transformation, but a long time ago a Shinigami scientist developed a substance known as the Hougyoku, or distortion orb. This substance turns a hollow into an Arrancar one hundred percent of the time." She concluded. That was enough for today. They had to escape before a Shinigami came to kill them. She was about to say so when the man known as Sora grunted in pain. His new tail started thrashing about responding to his pain.
"So…hungry!" Sora yelled. 'Shit, the hunger of becoming a hollow got to him sooner than expected! I have to get us to Hueco Mundo!' Thought Masaki.
"Sora, calm down! Just relax for one second and I'll fix this!" Masaki screamed. It seemed to work. Sora regained control, although it was strained. She could see him shaking.
"Hu…hurry!" Sora yelled. Masaki nodded. 'I have to focus! The way to Hueco Mundo is instinctual. Just relax.' She did. It felt like she was walking around in a tunnel. No light, nowhere to go. She continued to search. She opened her eyes excitedly. 'FOUND IT!' As if by magic, the air in front of them became distorted, before opening up like a portal. On the other side was nothing but desert. White sand stretched out as far as the eye could see. The sky was pitch black, yet everything was clear as day.
"JUMP!" Ordered Masaki. Everyone jumped through the portal. It shut just behind them.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Hueco Mundo was barren. No plants. Just sand, and Hollows. If one payed enough attention, you could hear the occasional roar of a hollow. It was funny how things contradicted themselves here. White sand, black sky, white crescent moon. Despite the desolate wasteland, it was refreshing. Sora calmed down and took deep, gasping breaths. Each breath seemed to sate him some more. They all took deep breaths, feeling themselves fill with energy.
"Do you see what I meant, now? As hollows we are compelled to devour spiritual energy. I want you all to promise me, that you will never devour the spiritual energy of other living things." Masaki demanded. Before anyone could answer Ichigo spoke up.
"No." He stated. Everyone was shocked at this. Masaki more so than anyone.
"What do you mean 'no'.?" She asked, shocked at what Ichigo was saying.
"I promise not to devour the spiritual energy of humans and plus's, but I can't promise the same of Hollows. I'm going to devour hollows, and I'm going to evolve. I'm going to become a Vasto Lorde, and, if possible, an Arrancar. I'm going to become powerful." He concluded. Masaki was shocked. Become powerful, evolve! What the fuck! Why in God's name would he want to evolve?! Masaki said just that.
"Why in God's name would you want to evolve?!" She asked.
"Because, I want to protect everyone. Right now, we're nothing special. What if an Adjuchas comes along, and decides to eat us, just because we're easy pickings. If everything you told us was true, we have to evolve, otherwise we won't survive in Hueco Mundo." Ichigo rebutted any reason she could come up with to prevent their evolution. 'He's right. If we're going to survive in Hueco Mundo, we have to get stronger.' She thought. They were all watching her. Right now, she was the unspoken leader, because she had the most knowledge of these affairs.
"Ichigo's right. If we're going to survive here, we need to evolve and get stronger. So instead, like Ichigo, you all must swear to never devour the spiritual energy of a human or a plus, only hollows. Understand?" She asked. They all nodded in agreement. "Once we orient ourselves with Hueco Mundo, we will start evolving." Well, that was it. Once they started evolving who knows what would happen.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Everyone was asleep. After deciding how things were going to work, they decided to turn in. Ichigo and Orihime snuggled up together and quickly fell asleep. Sora was laying on Orihime's left, while Masaki was laying on Ichigo's right. She stayed up, thinking. It was so odd. She always wanted to grow old with her husband, Isshin. She wanted to watch her children grow. She wanted to be there when her daughters got married. She wanted to be able to meet her grandchildren. Masaki knew it was done with. There was no going back. But God it was depressing. She was about to stretch her paws when she felt something tapping her side. She lifted her head to look to her side. It was Orihime. She looked like she wanted to ask her something.
"Yes Orihime-Chan? Is there something I can help you with?" Masaki asked. Orihime shifted uncomfortably, her face was red and her stance was awkward, as though preparing for a blow to the chest.
"Um…kaa-chan, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. You said that hollows work on pure instinct, even the ones who keep their sanity, right?" She asked. Masaki nodded. "Well, I remember, a while back, Sora-nii-chan told me about…sex…and stuff, and I remember him saying that it was one of the strongest human instincts. And…well," Orihime looked at Ichigo's sleeping form. Masaki understood immediately.
"You have feelings for my son, don't you?" Masaki asked in a teasing voice. Seeing the girl blush and sputter nonsense was rather amusing. She chuckled. "Don't worry. I don't mind, I approve of you pursuing a relationship with my son. But in regards to your question, don't worry. Hollows do work on instinct, but hollows have no reproductive organs." Masaki lifted her tail, revealing nothing but smooth, bony hollow skin. Orihime looked at her own genital area, like Masaki's, nothing. Since hollows have no genitals, they have no sexual hormones, thus removing that instinct. However, if we become arrancars and regain human forms, we will regain those instincts, even so we won't be overtaken by lust, because arrancars have human control." The girl visibly relaxed. Her fears obviously quelled. 'I think I'll tease her a bit more.' "If Ichigo is anything like his father, you're going to love it when he does take you." Masaki said, laughing inside. Orihime blushed even harder, sputtered a bit, then fainted. Masaki blinked.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXx
They spent two months in Hueco Mundo, wandering, memorizing landmarks, getting a feel for the dimension. They didn't travel far, a couple dozen miles from their safe point. Their safe point was their makeshift home. It where they rested and slept. It was a cave, it went deep underground, and was well hidden from sight amongst the white sand dunes. Masaki had led them to their first hollow devouring. If they were going to evolve, they needed to learn what it was like to devour a living thing. The hollows they devoured were nothing special, no powers, or intelligence. They were simply wandering around. The hollows took after animals, like Masaki. They were a dog-sized mouse, a full grown horse, an oversized bee, and a hawk. The ambush was nothing special either, they simply attacked, singled out their target, and ate them. Literally, they didn't fight and then devour. They simply surprised them, bit into them, and ate. None of them were really traumatized, they didn't look human, so it didn't really feel like they were killing something of significance. It was like hunting, what they caught, they ate. The only one to say anything was Ichigo.
Flashback
"Mom, what happens to the souls of the hollows that we eat?" Masaki looked at Ichigo, glad he was feeling something about the hollows they killed.
"When a human dies they go to the soul society, or become hollows. When a spirit, hollows or the ones in soul society die, they are reborn into the world of the living. It's a repetitive cycle." Masaki explained.
Flashback End
Masaki believed they were all ready to become Gillians. They had all devoured a couple of hollows with no problem, and their power grew. Not majorly, but one could sense the difference. Either way, today was the start of their evolution. Who knew how far they could go? She briefly wondered what she would look like as a Vasto Lorde. Shaking the thoughts from her head, she gestured to the group behind her. Together, they headed into Menos Forest, looking for the perfect free-for-all.
"Remember, find a mob full of stupid, wimpy hollows. It's imperative that you become the mind of the Menos, otherwise that's it for you." Masaki warned. They all nodded. They leaped forward, entering the dark forest.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Masaki looked on. Man, it was nothing but carnage. There were several hundred hollows from what she could see. She had left in a random direction, away from the others. She warned them not to end up in the same frenzy, that way they wouldn't end up fusing together and one of them ceasing to exist. Anyway, the hollows just ate and killed. There was no sign of intelligence, or special abilities in these hollow. She decided against entering the fray. She would wait until they begin fusing, then she would enter the fight. She rested on the tree, waiting.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Sora was fighting up against several hundred hollows. They were all stupid and nothing special, really. He wasn't even breaking a sweat. But they were annoying, they just kept coming. He didn't kill any though, they weren't worth it. He just wanted to be amongst the hollows when they fused together. He would become the mind. He needed to evolve so he could protect Orihime. That's why he wanted power. And he will obtain it, soon.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Orihime sleuthed between the hollows. She didn't really fight, just the random hollow she had to fight off. She didn't like fighting. She knew it was useless though. The stronger she grew, the more she would have to fight. She knew she would have to fight. She supposed she would compromise. No matter how strong she became, she would only fight when absolutely necessary. That was good enough she supposed. Power was just beyond the horizon.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Man, this was fun. Ichigo knew he wasn't supposed to enjoy all this carnage. But, somehow, he felt comfortable. It was as though he was born to fight. Duck, dash, punch. Man this was exhilarating! If evolving was going to be this much fun, he would regret if he reached Vasto Lorde. The pressure around the fray was getting thicker for some reason. There was a flash of a bright, red light filled Ichigo's vision. There was excruciating. It was crushing, wringing, and burning all at once. It lasted longer than his initial hollow transformation. Then it went, leaving a sense of vertigo. He looked around. 'Everything seems smaller.' No, he was much bigger. Over one hundred stories! He was a Menos Grande! He did it. He was a typical Menos. Huge black, shrouded body, spikes around the neck, and the hollow mask. Only his hollow mask changed. It was a bit elongated and sharper, a huge row of teeth, and red markings adorning it (A/N: It's just Ichigo's Vizard mask, sorry I can't describe it better). He remembered what his mother told him.
Flashback
"After you become Menos, come back to the cave. If you don't come back in fourty-eight hours, we will leave without you. Understand?" Everyone nodded.
Flashback End
He had to get back to the cave. His now humongous body traveled slowly through Menos Forest, slowly going to the cave.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Orihime felt like she was suffocating. The air became thicker, the hollows went even crazier than before. Was this it? Was the fusion process beginning? 'At last,' Orihime thought. 'I'll become a menos.' She was right of course, the process was starting, and it was painful! Much worse than before. 'This better be worth it!' Orihime cried. In a flash of red light, it was over. 'I don't feel too good.' She thought to herself. Shaking off the nausea, she slowly trudged off to the cave, over one hundred stories tall, a menos.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Sora felt like he was gonna be sick. The fusion was painful, and longer than before. Plus there was a sense of nausea afterwards, but he endured. Now, as a Menos, he trudged off, searching for the cave in which they called home. Never noticing the change of his mask. It now had a resemblance to a snake. More like a king cobra than any other. But, he trudged on, hoping Orihime managed to take control of her menos body.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Masaki waited at the cave, the experience was painful, but she carried on. She was now a Menos, Her mask stayed the same. It was still a fox mask, just flatter. It wasn't shaped into a muzzle anymore, more like a flat sketch of a fox face. But, all in all, she felt great. She saw them approaching, slowly, all three of them. Ichigo, Orihime and Sora. She noted that the tallest of all of them was Ichigo, followed by Orihime. She and Sora were the same hight. 'I wonder if that's significant in some way?' She thought to herself. She shook it off.
"Are you all alright?" Masaki asked them worriedly. Ichigo responded first, a mixture of awe and shock.
"Mom, I can hear you think!"
"Me too." Orihime added
"And I as well." Sora stated
Masaki nodded her huge head, "Yes, Menos have no vocal chords. That's why they always roar, but never talk. The intelligent Menos communicate telepathically. Well, congratulations everyone, we made the first step into the Hollow Evolution. Menos Grande." Masaki finished.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
A/N: Well, here's the second chapter, hope it was up to all your expectations. Special thanks to Lord of the Land of Fire He's an amazing author (My favorite, actually) Check out his work. By the way, if you haven't noticed the pattern, I'm naming the chapters after the hollow evolution. There will be an Adjuchas, Vasto Lorde, and Arrancar chapters, then the story will begin. You can consider these chapters Prologues if you'd like.
To: Lord of the Land of Fire: I have a plan, don't worry. I have a vague idea on how this story will end.
By the way, did anyone see the U.S./Brazil game? I was scared for a second, but Brazil came back 3-2! It was awesome!
Adios!