Grimmjow had prepared for this moment for a month. He'd practiced this next movement with Laric relentlessly. Despite the practice, it wasn't a move he'd ever be able to do in his sleep. It was simply too complex. Laric had informed him that the ability to cast two spells almost simultaneously was merely a matter of maintaining the proper presence of mind. Some mages never mastered it, but many did.
To cast three simultaneously was almost unheard of. Laric had brought up names that meant nothing to Grimmjow, like Aegwynn, Medivh, and Malygos, and told Grimmjow quite frankly that the ex-Espada would never manage it. Naturally, this only fueled Grimmjow's desire to do it. He had the power; it was the patience and concentration that were lacking.
Nevertheless, he'd convinced Laric to train him. The old coot had given in, giving his own demonstrations of the trick. Seeing Laric manage it had only convinced Grimmjow further that it wasn't as impossible as the old man claimed (of course that was before today, when he'd discovered that Laric was Malygos's son, which clarified a few things about the old bat). Finally, Grimmjow got the trick down. And then he'd drilled, with Laric tossing all kinds of shit at him, until he was pretty damn sure he could manage it under fire in the heat of battle. Grimmjow could only do the three spells, but they were just the spells he wanted for this.
It was easier in resurrección, when he had all this extra power available to him. Grimmjow struck the false image, giving a convincing snarl of frustration and turning his back to the real Aizen, who was not three paces behind him, making a show of looking around. As he expected, the shinigami stepped forward, blade in hand, ready to strike from behind. The arrancar knew his back would be too tempting a target to resist.
Three things happened at once, followed rapidly by a fourth. Grimmjow set his gambit into motion. Faster than any mortal could track (and hopefully faster than Aizen would expect and have the opportunity to investigate), Grimmjow cast three spells at once. Then the fourth action happened as Aizen's sword pierced his Grimmjow's chest from behind, in what was fully intended to be a lethal strike.
Vellena screamed a denial, trapped as she was in the bakudō, completely unable to act. Grimmjow noted that she was quite far from the rest of the group, and fully immobilized. So far away from him right now. She watched as he sank to the ground on his knees, a surprised look on his face.
"You always were a fool, Grimmjow. I would have preferred keeping you alive to watch your friends die. After all, who could have thought that a hollow could have friends?" Aizen smirked as Grimmjow fell forward.
Then the shinigami froze, eyes widened in slight surprise, as Kyōka Suigetsu was yanked from his grasp unexpectedly and flung across the room with enough force to bury the blade a foot and a half into solid stone. Then a clawed hand closed around his neck, squeezing.
Grimmjow had cast three spells, none of which were all that special on their own. Blink, invisibility, and mirror image. Just one mirror image. More than that would have clued Aizen in to the fact that something was a little 'off'.
"Unlike you, I'm no illusion master." Grimmjow whispered quietly. Then his face lit up with savage glee. "However I don't need to be a master. I only need to fool you once. Desgarron!"
Aizen chunks bounced to the floor. Grimmjow smirked, and then noted with some alarm the small, grey block that clunked from Aizen's severed hand. The Hōgyoku. No doubt Aizen had been about to do something seriously bad, which would have likely turned the tide of battle so completely out of Grimmjow's favour that the arrancar and his raiding party would have been better off committing mass suicide. If Grimmjow had taken just a second more to gloat, it wouldn't be Aizen lying dead.
With Aizen gone, the illusions and kidō vanished. Gorric was dumped unceremoniously on the ground, bleeding black blood from countless punctures. Vellena was freed, to sag to the ground with relief at seeing the real Grimmjow alive and well. Kenna stopped flailing. Orzul was on the ground next to his dead raptor, one three-fingered blue hand caressing the dinosaur's still jaw sadly. Orfeo and Brosh left off their 'pitched battle' with the imaginary undead. Laric was out of his box. Haroldus and Ilya were rapidly attempting to bring Gorric back to his feet.
They were exhausted and battered, but triumphant, the ten of them.
Vellena walked over to him, runesword in hand. She spotted the small grey box Grimmjow was staring at.
"Is that...?" She asked.
"Sure is." He replied.
Vellena stiffened. She considered the Hōgyoku for one long moment. Then she struck suddenly, unleashing massive amounts of runic power. Sanguiferrous screamed as though alive as it bit through stone and ... demon soul. The explosion of power knocked them all on their asses, and obliterated a good part of Aizen's remains. That close to it, Grimmjow was badly scorched. So was Vellena. Orfeo looked to have died again, though Kenna immediately sprang to work trying to fix that, Haroldus lending his strength with a sigh. Gorric stood next to the night elf priestess, watching worriedly.
"That was kind of stupid, actually." The arrancar remarked.
"It needed to be done." Vellena replied simply.
"Death knight! Did you have to do that? That was a valuable magic item that I could have studied for years..." Laric whined as he picked himself up. "Maybe even centuries."
"Yes, I had to do that." Vellena remarked mildly. "No telling what would have happened if it got into the wrong hands. Sorry Laric." Her tone was completely unapologetic. She clearly felt no obligation to bow or scrape to the blue dragon.
Grimmjow looked at Aizen's mangled corpse. Then he started to laugh. He kept right on laughing as Kenna downed a potion and managed to revive Orfeo once more. He laughed hysterically, until pretty much the entire group was staring at him like he'd lost his mind.
"What is it, Grimmjow?" Vellena asked.
"Oh," the arrancar gasped, catching his breath. "It just occurred to me. None of the shinigami know that Aizen is dead."
Vellena gave him an odd look, and then she thought about it. A few seconds later she started chuckling too.
"I don't get it." Gorric said, quirking heavy brows.
"It's great, Gorric. Aizen's dead and none of the shinigami know about it. They'll never have to worry about him again, but they're going to be spending the next fucking century wondering when he's going to crawl out from under some rock and make life hell for them. Maybe even a millennium." Grimmjow snickered. He had no love for Soul Society. The idea of those black-robed morons jumping at every shadow for the next few hundred years pleased him immensely.
Vellena snickered a bit more, then huffed a tired breath and examined her runeblade's edge. Grimmjow realized suddenly that she was using Sanguiferrous. That thing had killed him.
"Vel," He started, giving the sword a pointed look. "Is that a good idea?"
"Oh," she said casually. "It's stopped trying to take over ever since I killed you. All I have to do is glance your way and it backs right off." She smiled.
"Well, if that's all it took..." Grimmjow smirked.
"Oh fuck you." She gave him a glare like she could barely believe he could even joke about that. He grinned back at her. She started it.
"I hate to interrupt your tender moment, but the rest of us are healed up. Shouldn't we be going to kill the Lich King?" Brosh interjected.
"Uh..." Grimmjow realized they probably should. Aizen was dead, which took a load of his mind, but Arthas was still around. And he kind of owed that bitch one, didn't he?
"I still can't get a garganta going. Or a death gate." Vellena said, stashing Sanguiferrous in one of her bags.
"Me neither," Grimmjow said after a moment. "No portals either. Let's hope we can use the Scourge teleporters, or it's going to be one long-ass run up to the spire." He remarked drily. "Let's hoof it," he smirked at Brosh, who rolled his eyes.
"Grimmjow, if you weren't my friend..." The tauren sighed.
"Yeah, yeah, let's get going."
Yet again, they raced down the dark and oppressive corridors, following Grimmjow's lead and shouted commands. Several times they encountered small pockets of undead, which they fought swiftly and vanquished, despite their growing fatigue.
They rounded another corner, weapons out and ready to fight the pack of Scourge that Orzul had indicated would be nearby. The two groups spotted each other and charged, ready to clash. And then the whole citadel shook, as though from an earthquake. Once more, everyone was knocked from their feet, including the undead. The living assailants recovered first, slaughtering the unresisting undead.
"Everyone alive?" Grimmjow turned, asking the group, as yet another tremor shook the building. He looked at Orfeo pointedly, who gave him a slightly insulted look back.
"Aye," muttered the dwarf.
Grimmjow's eyes slid over to Vellena, and he suddenly felt worried. She was staring off into space in an odd way. He quickly took stock of the entire group. Everyone else looked to be ok, except for Gorric, who was also looking just as out to lunch.
"Hey Vel, Gorric, snap out of it. We gotta run." Grimmjow said. At his words, Vellena blinked, and Gorric drew in a visible breath. The two death knights looked at each other.
"Did you feel..." Vellena began.
"Yes." Gorric stated.
"Could we be mistaken?" Asked the dead elf.
"Hey, what are you two talking about? We gotta go!" Grimmjow insisted.
"Maybe not." Gorric said, turning his attention to Grimmjow. "Did you feel that?"
"Feel what?" Grimmjow asked, puzzled.
"Did you feel that?" Vellena asked Laric. The mage blinked, looking perplexed. At the polymorphed dragon's bemused expression, she clarified. "When the first shake happened."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, girl." The mage said.
"It's Arthas," Gorric said.
"He's gone." Vellena continued for him.
Everyone stared at the two death knights.
"Grimmjow, you don't feel it? He was always there, trying to break his way back into my mind, except for when I was in Hueco Mundo. Now he's completely gone again." She said. They all braced as there was another brief tremor.
"He left me alone after he thought I was dead, remember?" Grimmjow reminded her.
"Do you mean to tell me that the Lich King is dead?" Laric interrupted.
Grimmjow considered the last pack of undead they had just dispatched. Come to think of it, there'd been a distinct lack of resistance from them. They'd just kind of stood there and died.
"Oh! Could it be?" Kenna openly breathed the hope that was on everyone's face.
The ground shook again, and a chunk of masonry crashed from the high ceiling to the ground nearby.
"Yeah," said Gorric, "I think he's dead. I think maybe we better think about getting out of this place. Fast."
"Uhm..." Grimmjow chewed his bottom lip. He tried garganta. Nope, still no go. "Well, we better get to that teleporter quick then, because if these shakes keep up we'll end up flattened under falling rock. Let's get to safety and figure out whether Arthas is still alive then." He said. The others nodded. Yet again, they ran down the halls of the citadel.
The teleporter wasn't that far away. They arrived at the room, lit by the ghostly green glow of the teleporter, and fanned out around Grimmjow.
"Good, it's still active." The arrancar said.
"How does it work?" Haroldus asked, giving the green glowing platform a look of distrust.
"We step on it and someone activates it." Grimmjow replied.
"Eh, don't we need a Scourge beastie to do tha'?" Orfeo asked.
"I can do it. I remember how." Grimmjow said. The members of the group who hadn't been a privy to the fact that Grimmjow had (briefly) been part of the Scourge looked at him in confusion. "Well don't all just stand around there looking stupid; get on the damn thing!" The blue-headed man barked.
Everyone crowded into the bright green centre of the platform. Once they were all there, Grimmjow closed his eyes and concentrated, remembering how it worked. The world lurched around them. He opened his eyes to another teleporter chamber.
"Naxxramas?" Vellena asked with puzzlement, looking around.
Grimmjow shrugged. "It seemed as good a place as any. We should be able to garganta to Shadow Vault from here."
"Or death gate." Vellena said. She closed her eyes, summoning the bone frame, which rose obediently from the ground. The raiding party went through it one-by-one, disappearing into the shadowy portal.
They rematerialized in Shadow Vault, which was milling with activity. Gargoyles were swooping in and out through the huge entrance, bearing messages. People of all races and factions were running about. The exhausted assault team could hear a sound swelling outside, gaining in volume. Cheering. Cheering from thousands of throats.
The Lich King had fallen.
