Author's note: As much fun as it is writing about how supernatural abilities clash against advanced technology, the battle of Karakura is starting to run long with no ending in sight. There needs to be some sort of resolution to the endless chaos. With that, let us proceed to the next chapter.

xxXxx

We own the night

December 25th, Japan, Karakura city

The city of Karakura was in ruins.

Across the outskirts were countless scattered bodies. Unmoving augments were pinned to the ground with Zanpakuto sticking out their chest, arrancar with knife handles sticking out their eye sockets, and hacked apart bodies of shinigami were plentiful. Various charred husks of helicopters and other aircraft littered the city, surrounded by displaced earth and more bodies of dead soldiers. Countless buildings were reduced to rubble. What was once a great city was now a mass grave.

The scene that gave the most testament to this, was a Bunker suit hunched over a pile of rubble, whose operator was obviously dead. Surrounding the heavy suit was 5 dead arrancar, 3 augments, and a hollow with a pole jutting out its forehead. The entire area around the pile of bodies was covered in craters and more

The remaining forces of the PWCD, shinigami, and arrancar alike, had under some unspoken agreement, agreed to have a break in the fighting. When night pulled in, the shinigami and arrancar slowly disengaged and settled into whatever areas or buildings they had secured. The arrancar were licking their wounds and resting where they thought they could afford it.

The shinigami intended to do the same, but in the dead of night, PWCD commandos convinced the spirits to relocate from the center of the city into the outskirts, which the PWCD had firm control of. The process was slow and many of the remaining shinigami were too exhausted and worn from battle to even think about moving. When the commandos informed them of what the PWCD planned to do now that night time had pulled, in they were suddenly more willing to get up and leave.

Ectoplasmic vision was similar to normal default settings, the main difference being that it allowed one to clearly see ectoplasm, which spirits and hollows were made of. However, what if one had to fight spirits in a setting other than broad day light? It was discovered that for some odd reason, spirits emitted body heat, which made thermal vision and infrared vision viable. Though the situation made a mixture of Ectoplasmic vision and night vision preferential, the augments decided that it was better than nothing.

The arrancar were under the impression that now that the fighting had slowed down, and the majority of their enemies were resting, than they would be safe.

To be fair to those arrancar, they were ignorant to how the PWCD or any properly equipped human military fought. The PWCD armed forces being entirely made up of ex-special forces, the augments became more deadly now than they ever were during broad daylight.

Spec op squads who had suffered major casualties, shock troopers, terminators of all variants, and lastly Bunker suits, all stayed behind to rest or consolidate their positions. Meanwhile, the two remaining Lockheed AC-130 gunships, nearby Apaches, and few bomb equipped jets were on standby for bombing runs.

Across the city, PWCD spec op squads, commando teams, and a few individuals moved through the city, using their active camouflage to stay hidden.

Countless arrancar were murdered in their sleep. For commando's, snapping necks, stabbing out eyes, and cutting off tongues was the preferential way for silently killing arrancar. For spec ops, silenced pistol shots and quiet knifing were the preferred methods.

As predicted however, the arrancar who were still awake began to notice that their fellow arrancar were flickering from existence at a steady pace. Realizing they were being killed in the dead of night, those arrancar hastily woke up their allies and warned of the occurrence.

As the stealth forces of the PWCD got to work, they steadily came upon more and more groups of arrancar that were wide awake and watching out for them. When it was apparent that such groups couldn't be removed silently, the PWCD decided to go loud.

Squad leaders began giving out coordinates of major arrancar positions. If they were going to go loud with their attacks, than they weren't going to be half assed about it.

The world erupted into action as high explosives illuminated the night. Low flying apache gunships opened up on arrancar positions with armor shredding minigun fire and anti-tank missiles. Lockheed AC-130 gunships rained hell down upon the coordinates they received. Low flying jets delivered payloads of bombs, making entire blocks go up in flames.

If the arrancar in Karakura weren't awake before, they definitely were now.

Before the arrancar could organize into a proper response force, the bombing runs stopped. The stealthy PWCD soldiers remained hidden, ceasing to give anymore coordinates or risk more of their air support being shot down. The arrancar realized that the attack had stopped, but were now very attentive. They realized the humans wouldn't stop attacking simply because night time pulled in. In fact, they seemed a lot more liberal in their use of explosives, now that the darkness had set in.

All the power was cut off, leaving the entire city bathed in pitch black darkness. Arrancar, being part shinigami, lost the superb eye-sight of some of the more animalistic of hollows. This meant that in some parts of the city, they literally couldn't see their own hands, much less someone else's weapon. That was the only reason the majority of the fighting had stopped, as the opposing forces had to fire brightly colored cero's and kido just to see each other.

Military hardware had no such limitations.

The stealth adept forces of the PWCD launched a series of commando raids, and called in air strikes. A small group of arrancar could be walking down a dark street, and disappear from existence the next second. Any lone arrancar was picked off with ease. Large groups had bombardments called down on them from attack helicopters, bombers, and gunships. Even full encampments, numbering as large as almost one hundred arrancar, were picked at with hit and run attacks and selective bombardments. The PWCD soldiers even went as far as to start bringing in mortars and javelin missile launchers. They never committed to an attack, always retreating when the enemy got too close or came in too strong for comfort. Try as they might, the arrancar were fighting blind and could only manage firing ceros in the direction of gunshots. That was ineffectual though, as the PWCD soldiers routinely moved to different fire points to avoid being uprooted.

This was how augments were meant to fight. Not from frontline trenches, or in massive charges, but by tearing apart your enemy at their most vulnerable.

The arrancar that managed to survive without being in large groups learned fast, however. They had taken to always being mobile. They sonido'd everywhere they went, and made sure to scrutinize any unusual sound or moving shadow they came across. Those individuals were few and far between. Passing PWCD operatives opted to simply ignore them, rather than open fire and risk giving away their position. They posed no actual threat other than the usual blind cero they may unleash just to make themselves feel safe when they stopped.

One such passing arrancar, or "runners' as the various spec ops teams began identifying them as, led a squad of commandos straight to Grimmjow's residing area.

The arrancar there had been brutally smashed by the shock troopers several hours before night time rolled in. When the darkness settled in the arrancar lost their ability to see as clearly. The shock troopers transitioned from fighting in daylight to pitch black without so much as a pause in the fighting. They seemed to be a lot less accurate at scoring kill shots with their knives, as all the humans could see was a red figure with vague facial features with thermal vision, but that seemed to be their only flaw during the night time. The arrancar and their Espada commander, who smelt like burning oil, were forced to retreat or be destroyed in the pitch black darkness of Karakura.

The commandos were able to make out only about 20 or so arrancar total.

Considering this force was just shy of a hundred before the shock troopers showed up, the commandos were impressed. Pushing those thoughts aside, the squad leader of commando team Alpha called down an air strike from the nearest air support available.

It just so happened that a Lockheed AC-130 gunship was passing through this particular section of the city.

xxXxx

Grimmjow was miffed to say the least.

He had been forced to run away from a fight, and a good one at that. He briefly wondered why the hell it was so dark in the human world. In Huecco Mundo, the moon illuminated the night to easily visible levels. Here in the human world, it was like someone dumped black paint over the sky, with only a few distant stars making any sort of visible light.

That was before areas in Karakura started blowing up in fantastically large explosions. When no reiatsu could be felt from the explosions, it was apparent that the super humans were still fighting, or at least just dropping bombs for intimidation purposes. He admitted that it did annoy him to try to sleep, only to be woken up by the sound of something blowing up a few blocks down.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Grimmjow heard the sound of some other human weapon being fired off but didn't care. It wasn't like they were firing at him or anythi-

BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM!

The Espada immediately jumped to his feet as explosions rocked the building he was in. The roof collapsed upon both him and the remaining arrancar that he had been put in charge of. The weaker evolved hollows began to panic as they heard the loud explosions slam into the building.

BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM!

The very room they were in was torn apart by violent explosions. With the roof gone, the explosives were landing on everyone's heads. The high explosives punched through hierros and support beams alike. The entire building collapsed upon the group of battered arrancar.

The Lockheed AC-130 gunship was armed with three main weapons. The minigun, the lightest weapon, was for tearing apart infantry. The bofors gun, which had just been used for leveling the house arrancar resided in, was an anti-tank weapon. Finally, was the howitzer, a weapon previously only used as a highly mobile artillery piece. The weapon was designed for making entire platoons of enemy infantry go up in smoke. Mounting it on the side of a gunship only made the artillery weapon even deadlier.

With word of the arrancar's durability spread throughout the ranks, gunships tended to 'double tap' on any targets they were ordered to hit.

The howitzer lined up a shot.

Grimmjow had managed to dig himself out the rubble easily. He shrugged off the shots from the bofors gun, with little more than a bit of scraping. His arrancar underlings on the other hand were annihilated by the mounted anti-tank weapon's volley. As the 6th Espada contemplated what to do next, he heard a loud sound.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The remains of the building as well as half of the entire block was consumed in a large explosion.

xxXxx

The arrancar forces were rapidly losing ground.

All their forward positions had been silently killed off, bombed, or been raided. The arrancar were harrowed as they tried to survive the night. They were paranoid of every shadow, and every loud noise that occurred. The arrancar were certain of their abilities in battle, but they weren't fighting a fair battle. They were swinging blind, while the shadows themselves seemed to be picking them off like grapes. For the first time in history, an arrancar could honestly say he was afraid of the dark, and his fellow arrancar wouldn't look down on him for it.

It wasn't uncommon for arrancar to turn up dead, with their eyes and tongues carved out, hanging on a rope from a street light. The arrancar, having never seen such terror tactics put to use before, were horrified upon seeing such barbarity. Every single body had a skull carved into their chest. They began to believe that all augments were feral murderers rather than trained soldiers.

The PWCD gave no such order for terror tactics, however.

Javier had taken to assassinating random arrancar and hanging up their bodies for display. It was meant to be a sign of vengeance specifically from him, which was why he carved his own skull emblem into the arrancar he killed. He didn't consider that the arrancar were unable to differentiate between augments other than their armor designs, but then again, he didn't really care what the creatures thought of him or his allies. So long as they died, he didn't care about their opinion.

The PWCD had called back the spec ops and commando teams from across the city. They wanted their soldiers to get at least some rest before the real fighting started again. The night time raiders fell back. Their air support moved away to nearby PWCD bases in the country, to re-arm and re-fuel. The pilots were tired from flying around all day and half the night, and had to get their rest as well. The night time attacks were over, but they were a success in their purpose.

Not a single arrancar, even the 1st Espada, went to sleep that day. They stayed awake the entire night, despite their bodies demanding rest. They feared they'd be raided or gutted in their sleep if they did otherwise.

For the first time in days, Karakura was truly quiet.

This only made the arrancar more attentive in their search for an enemy that was no longer there.

xxXxx

December 26th, Japan, Karakura city

The early morning sun rose and the PWCD were already on the move.

Yuri and his shock troopers took to the skies once more, well rested and ready for battle. Assault terminators were at the forefront, prepared to smash their way through any opposition. Commando teams deployed deeper into the city, ready take pot shots or silently kill groups of arrancar as they showed. The main force of the PWCD were groups of spec ops squads moving attentively through the destroyed city, their ranks dotted with standard terminators and bunker suits. The PWCD air force was on their way for another day of bombing. Attacks like this usually recommended armored spearheads, but with the arrancar all possessing the power to fire ceros, such an attack would only be a waste of tanks.

The shinigami had stayed behind to rest and recuperate, having been entirely exhausted from the brutal fighting they had to endure.

Without having to worry about the shinigami, the PWCD air force was cleared to fire on any target that emitted large levels of reiatsu, so long as none of their own infantry were nearby. The PWCD's forces crept deeper and deeper into the city, passing by areas that had obviously been bombed or raided last night. The augments began to get more and more suspicious as they had yet to engage any arrancar. It seemed as if the evolved hollows had retreated deeper into the city.

The commando teams confirmed that the arrancar were there, but they weren't moving forward.

The arrancar had organized the remains of their 'armies' into one large force. Of the original force of 1000 arrancar and hollows at their beginning, they sieged Seireitei and lost two Espada, along with 700 of their original number. The Remaining 300 attacked with the intent to destroy the remaining shinigami. Instead they met that, and a force of super humans. Counting the remaining Espada and fraccion, there were maybe 50 or so arrancar still alive in Karakura city, either by skill in adaptability or pure luck.

There were easily thousands of augments in Japan at this time. The entirety of the fighting from yesterday was only the first 500 or so augments that managed to get here in time. The entirety of the PWCD's fighting force was well over 4,000 augmented super soldiers, 5,000 before the arrancar invaded.

The arrancar were outnumbered practically outnumbered 100 to 1, outgunned in every meaning of the term, and for all intent and purposes, outmatched. They refused to go down without a fight however.

Every arrancar went into their resurrecciones.

xxXxx

"Well the arrancar have run their course." Aizen stated. "It's time we intervene."

Tosen and Gin readied themselves. The Meta hissed and growled at the same time. As the group of 4 flew toward the ground, a feeling of dread picked at everyone's mind. Not just the spirits, but the super humans as well. It was as if something bad was going to happen and everyone knew it.

The Meta sped past Aizen, scanning the ground for the nearest target it could find.

Below them, approximately 57 arrancar were about to close in with the numerically superior army of the PWCD super soldiers. Things would get chaotic very soon.

The Meta let its human memories wash over it as it identified the most immediate threats.

Bunker suits. Sonic weapons. Slower than bullets, but more deadly and debilitating. Primary threats. Rail guns. More powerful versions of his own weapon. Not too immediate a threat but something to look out for. Commandos. Same weapons as his own, strong enough deal physical damage, fast enough to keep up with him. Secondary threats. Espada. Powerful attacks. Slower reaction and movement speed. Primary threats.

The Meta's hollow side picked up shinigami reiatsu approaching. They must've sensed Aizen as well as the rest of them approaching. The hybrid opted to ignore them until they appeared.

The Meta had established its engagement tactics and moved in for the kill.

xxXxx

Author's note: Finally we reach the true climax. Aizen and his cronies showed up, the Meta is being murderous and a tad bipolar in its desires, the arrancar in Karakura are about done for, the PWCD is about to get blindsided, and the shinigami don't want to be left out when shit hits the fan.

I have to thank my readers for being this supportive the entire way through the story. Without support, this whole ride could've easily crashed and burned. For those of you who want to see this concept of humans fighting monsters continue, don't fret. I have a whole mess of budding ideas in my head for where to take this, after the fighting is resolved. My only question is which idea I should pursue first. Trying to write multiple fics at once just screws me up.