Saria: (is looking extremely peeved as she stares out the window)
Tori: Look on the bright side Saria, the rain has caused classes to be cancelled!
SA: (glares at Tori) This isn't rain, it's a FLOOD!
Zas: Umm… Saria, I think you need to rescue your car.
Saria: And put it WHERE might I ask? (glares when she sees that the water is easily at least mid thigh deep)
SA: Well, might as well write the story. Not like you have anything else to do right now…
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"Aizen, his name will be Aizen Ichigo," Aizen said as he bounced the small boy he held slightly. Ichigo laughed as he was bounced and hugged Aizen's arm happily before he slipped out of his "father's" arms and began to play happily with Yami's (former) dog.
"Of course Aizen-sama," Halibel replied as she watched Ichigo scratch the hollow dog behind the ears.
"One other thing, Halibel," Aizen began before she could gather the boy and leave. "Ichigo-chan will soon be big enough to train, but he doesn't have any appropriate clothing. I believe by the time the weavers and tailors here in Las Noches would be able to rectify that situation, it will already be too late. So, I believe you should take an experimental gigai from Szayel and go to the human world so we can get a quick fix for the situation. Buy a number of clothes, especially ones for training, and in multiple sizes so that we can hopefully stay ahead of his growth."
"What of the child?" Halibel asked as she tore her eyes from Ichigo to look Aizen in the eye. "Shall I bring him with me?"
"No," Aizen answered firmly. "There is the possibility of you being attacked by the Shinigami, especially if you have Ichigo-chan with you. You should take your fraccion with you instead, so that if there is an attack, you can defend yourself, and not lose any of your purchases."
"But if I take Apache, Mira Rose, and Sun-sun with me, who will care for Ichigo?"
Gin grinned as he stuck his head into the throne room and was immediately noticed by Ichigo; who quickly rushed over to him.
"Hey Ichi-chan, I got you a surprise! Don't open it now though, no showing it to anyone else, and no telling where you got it from," Gin whispered as he tucked a small package into the child's yukata.
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"Now be a good boy Ichigo, and don't do anything that Gin tells you to do," Halibel lectured as she carried the child into a different portion of the fortress. "For that matter, don't do anything Yami, Nnoitora, or Szayel tell you to do either. Am I understood?"
"Yes mommy," Ichigo answered in a dejected sounding voice. "Why can't I come?"
"Because, I think you would be bored where I'm going. Here you can play with fraccion, the dog, and other little animals." Ichigo simply pouted. "I'll be back soon enough, and when I return I'll have some new things for you."
Ichigo still looked
dejected, but she did notice a slight spark in his eyes at the
promise of
"new things".
Halibel then shoved open a door that they had just arrived at and gently put Ichigo down, right as a girl with shoulder length hair and a helmet style mask appeared.
"Lillinette, this is Ichigo, you and Stark are going to be watching him for the next couple of hours until I get back from a mission. Don't let any harm come to him." Halibel's voice was extremely firm at the last statement. She was gone only a moment later.
"So, you're the pipsqueak everyone's been talking about! Pleased to meet you, I'm Lillinette! The lazy bastard over on the cushions who is faking sleep is Stark!"
Ichigo's face was instantly hot as his temper rose. "My name is Ichigo, not pipsqueak!"
"Anyway, you want to have some fun, Ichigo?" Lillinette asked, and at Ichigo's nod she immediately grabbed the boy's hand, turned, and sprinted across the room, jumping when she was about halfway across the room, and landed feet first on Stark's chest, dragging Ichigo the entire way. The insane girl then proceeded to start tickling Stark after his initial waking yelp, not stopping for several minutes, even when Ichigo joined in on the torturing of the Espada.
----------
Lillinette made a face at the closed door, the one that was meant to keep her out of Stark's bedroom, where he had retreated to as soon as there was a break in her's and Ichigo's attacks.
Ichigo on the other hand, decided that he should see what it was that Uncle Gin had gotten him, and though he knew that his uncle had told him not to show it to anyone, his mommy had said to not do anything that Gin said, so he probably should show Lillinette at least. Luckily, Lillinette saved him the effort of calling her over when she noticed the small package that the small boy was holding and rushed over to take a peek at what was inside.
"Wow," Ichigo said as he stared at the contents. "YUM!"
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"CANDY!!!"
Stark immediately lurched upright, horror filling his being when he heard Lillinette's voice scream that terrifying word in jubilation.
----------
The two children quickly split up the treats, laughing when several of the treats would up being pastries.
Ichigo grabbed a pastry happily and bit into it after swallowing his first handful of candy. The pastry was filled with a jelly-like substance that tasted like raspberries, and it dribbled all over the front of his yukata.
When Lillinette noticed, she began to giggle, but Ichigo retaliated by throwing the pastry at her, splattering her clothes with red also.
"Ichigo, now we're both dirty!" Lillinette exclaimed as she grabbed the boy's hand, causing him to drop the sweets box, and they both went into the changing area where Lillinette quickly threw off her clothes and covered herself with a towel before turning and assisting Ichigo with his clothing as well.
"Need new clothes!" Lillinette said, as she felt a new rush of energy take a hold of her. She then raced towards her room, Ichigo in tow, dumping their old, dirty clothing on the floor of the main room.
----------
'It was just a bad dream,' Stark told himself, even as he got up to go check on the children. 'Lillinette knows that she is not allowed candy, and who would give her any to start with? Barragan and Ulquiorra would never do something like that for anyone; Halibel wasn't here; Nnoitora or Grimmjow would do it to torture him; Zommari didn't seem the type; Szayel and Yami were also definite no's; Aaroniero, maybe if he were trying to set up a trap to capture hollows to consume…'
Pausing at the door, Stark listened for a moment, listening intently for any sounds from the other room. For a long second, nothing could be heard aside from what sounded a lot like chewing noises and several cracks and snaps, then a door banged open and a set of feet scuttled out.
Grabbing the handle for his door, Stark unlocked the door to his room and threw it open, casting a confused eye across the room before he caught sight of a horrifying thing. Lillinette's clothes were on the floor, and they were covered in a thick red substance.
Rushing over to the discarded clothes, Stark felt his foot slip on another piece of discarded clothing and he landed hard on his rear, but his attention was quickly drawn to the small piece of clothing now wrapped around his foot. A small yukata, and it was covered in the red stuff also! Lillinette and Ichigo were running around without their clothes!
'Wait a second,' Stark thought as he noticed one more out of place item in the room, a small package that had some sugar crystals around it. A package for sweets. Stark's thoughts immediately flashed back to when he was trying to determine who would give out candy.
"AARONIERO!" Stark yelled as he rushed out of the room, zanpakuto at the ready. Maybe he could still rescue the little ones if he found that bastard fast and sliced open his stomach. This time of day, if Aaroniero had just eaten a big meal, he would be in the restricted training area practicing with his resurrection form.
As he rushed down the halls toward that location, Stark felt his blood rush. If anything happened to Lillinette, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. And if anything happened to Ichigo, Halibel would have his hide. What made him certain though that Aaroniero would have eaten those two was the fact he knew that that idiot had in fact tried it before. Everyone knew that Aaroniero had practically had his jaw ripped off by Ulquiorra afterwards, though not many knew that it had happened when Ulquiorra was attempting to liberate his fist from the other's mouth.
About halfway to the training ground though, Stark ran into someone who was ALMOST unexpected. Tesla. Who upon spying Stark had immediately started running at the mouth.
"Did you hear about what happened? Can you believe it? I mean I know that Aizen wanted Kur- I mean Ichigo-san to join us, but to go this far? Unheard of! Nnoitora-sama just found out, and he was peeved!"
"Heard about what?" Stark replied as he continued his forward rush.
"Aizen-sama adopted Ichigo-san!"
Stark almost misstepped at that comment. The situation had just gotten a lot worse with that one comment. If Ichigo had even a scratch on him now, not just Halibel, but Aizen would have his hide as well!
Pushing his speed faster than ever, Stark quickly left Tesla in his wake and he barreled onto the training ground at full speed. Sure enough, there was Aaroniero, in his released form, fighting and devouring several lower class Arrancar and hollows.
"Choke them up you bastard!" Stark yelled as he charged at the bloated abomination.
----------
"StarkynothereStarkynotherewhere'sStarky!" Lillinette chanted as she bounced on her heels.
"Wannaplaygottaplay," Ichigo bounced on his heels just as eagerly.
"Lillinette, did you see Stark?" Tesla poked his head into the room. "I just passed him and he was running full speed toward the restricted training grounds. He looked like he was panicked or something!"
"Starkywenttothetraininggrounds?! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Ichigoletsgo!" The young girl gushed as she grabbed Ichigo's hand again and ran out of the room. They left behind a very confused Tesla who was wondering why the two were just wearing towels.
----------
"Where are they?!" Stark yelled as he sliced into Aaroniero's hide for the fifth time, reaching into the fat form of the other's resurrection, finding another only partially digested being, yanking them out, and searching to see if there were anymore. He was so engrossed in his self appointed task that he completely missed Lillinette and Ichigo racing onto the training grounds, tripping other the body of one of the arrancar that Stark had rescued, and both falling head first into the first cut created by Stark.
Aaroniero missed it as well when the two entered, but both noticed soon enough when Lillinette started hacking her way out using her zanpakuto.
"Lillinette!" Stark yelled, relief flooding him to see her relatively unharmed, though covered in guts and gore, and she was naked as well. "Where's Ichigo?"
"He's down there too?!" Aaroniero yelled but was ignored by both the Primera and the fraccion.
"Starky! IchigoandItrippedandhe'sstillinsidethatthing! GethimoutStarky!" Lillinette, though slightly more sober due to the traumatic event of TOUCHING Aaroniero, was still sugar high, and now just more excited.
Stark didn't hesitate as he charged the widened hole that Lillinette caused and started digging through the mess, once again ignoring Aaroniero's screams of rage and pain. Seconds passed, then about two feet to the right of Stark, another sword appeared. Thinking that it was just another unfortunate trying to escape Aaroniero's bowels, Stark turned his attention back to trying to find the helpless Ichigo. Then an orange mop of hair appeared behind the sword.
Stark's arms lashed out in an instant to grab the child's shoulders and tug him out as well. The boy slid out relatively easily, and Stark saw that he, like Lillinette, was in only his birthday suit. He also looked a lot more dazed than Lillinette, and his first words were, "Lost towel…"
"What happened? Who's zanpakuto is that?" Stark asked as he set Ichigo down and began to scan around the area, looking for something to cover the kids with.
"Side ways world, old man said had to get out and he could help. Sword appeared then and I don't know what happened! Scaried!" Ichigo said as he began to tear up.
"It's okay now," Stark soothed as he realized that Ichigo had unknowingly called forth his Zanpakuto. He grabbed a jacket from a groaning mess of a male and quickly wrapped it around Lilinette's shoulders. He turned his attention back to locating something for Ichigo when Lillinette began to laugh again.
"Lillinette, what's wrong?" Stark asked, almost afraid that she had finally cracked and was going to jump onto the insane bandwagon with Szayel.
"I have a sister now! See?" Lillinette replied as Stark turned to see that Ichigo was now dressed, in a SKIRT! A skirt that Lillinette had gotten from one of the scantily clad girls lying on the ground.
Stark felt his eye begin to twitch and reminded himself that he knew Lillinette, and that this shouldn't surprise him. The fact it did didn't help the twitch.
"Lillinette, why don't you go to your room and get some clothes to wear?" Stark asked as he took another jacket from another male and wrapped Ichigo in that, lifting the boy's zanpakuto also. He needed to report this development to Aizen.
"Because I'm out of uniforms…" Lillinette replied as she followed Stark out of the area, all of them once again ignoring Aaroniero's yells.
----------
A bath and a visit to the supply room later, and both Lillinette and Ichigo were fresh and clothed. The former was now running through a series of katas using her own zanpakuto, and jabbering happily to Stark on games she wanted to play with Ichigo after her practice session. Ichigo on the other hand, was wiped out by their adventure and gaining his zanpakuto and was currently napping on Stark's favorite mound of pillows. Stark wished he could take a nap as well, but after what happened last time with the two children when left unattended, he decided that that would be a bad idea.
Gin had stopped by also and had heard all about Aaroniero's ploy to consume the children by luring them out with candy and Ichigo awakening his zanpakuto. Stark decided for everyone's sake though, he'd leave out the part where Ichigo and Lillinette were actually eaten. Gin had agreed to go and inform Aizen of his son's adventures and to insure that Aaroniero received a harsh punishment.
And it could have only been his imagination, but Stark was almost certain he heard Aaroniero screaming later on, right before Halibel came to pick up Ichigo for that matter. The odd part was, Gin told him later that there was almost a thirty minute gap between the time when she checked in with Aizen and when she came to pick up Ichigo when it didn't even take ten minutes to get from the throne room to Stark's rooms.
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Saria: Ok, that's the chapter, so once again, we shall vote as to who gets shafte… I mean, who gets to babysit Ichigo next!
Tori: Choses that now remain: Zommari, Barragan, and Aaroniero! And just so everyone knows, I think Saria is planning on extending this fic, maybe even writing a sequel since there have been so many requests for one!
Zas: She's already making plans for it, now she just needs motivation!
SA: Saria, WATER! (points at where water is finally starting to enter the apartment despite the duct tape on the door and windows)
Saria: HOLY MONKEYS! (grabs her cat, her laptop, and a poncho, and runs to join her neighbors on the roof) DAMN YOU VOLUSIA COUNTY!