Chapter 23: Thomas, Wonderweiss Hooleer vs. Gantenbainne

After leaving down their own pathway, the three friends began to notice that the hallways were getting darker. It wasn't too noticeable at first, but as they continued on, it was definitely becoming more and more prominent as they moved further on. They ran for a few more minutes until they appeared in a dark room with lit torches around the walls. The room was fairly large for the group at least and seemed to be a foyer of some kind.

"Well, this is awkward." Thomas started as the three stood and looked around for a moment.

"What kind of room only has one entrance and no exit to it?" Wonderweiss asked as he looked around the seemingly empty room with no windows or other doors.

"No idea."

Before any of them could do anything else, Hooleer pulled on Wonderweiss' sleeve, gaining his attention. He looked to her as she pointed towards the far wall. The arrancar turned to see the silhouette of a person sitting on the ground. Not wanting to be taken by surprise, Wonderweiss motioned over to Thomas and pointed out the person sitting not too far away from them.

"Oh joy, we ran into someone." Thomas said sarcastically as the three got into readied stances.

Thomas took a deep breath as it was time to really put all that training to good use. All this time while Ichigo and company were battling over the city in the world of the living, Thomas had been training to fully control his powers with the help of Wonderweiss and Hooleer. He learned some interesting things about his powers from their training, so now was the first time to use it for a real fight. He held out his right hand where he was wearing a white bracelet with the kanji for 'Create' and 'Destroy' written on it. The bracelet glowed a bit and morphed into a small white ball floating over his hand. Thomas smirked as he got into a fighting stance with the ball morphing into a tanto. Wonderweiss smirked as he drew out his own zanpakuto while Hooleer stood at the ready.

"Hmm." The figure started as he stood up to reveal himself in the light. He was a tall man with tan skin just a shade lighter than Halibel's, had an orange afro, goggles, a variation of the standard arrancar garb, and these red-orange spiked gauntlets on each wrist. "Interesting ability you got there kid." He placed his hands into his pockets and walked over towards the three slowly. "As much as I don't want to destroy a bunch of children, if you're so eager to fight, then I won't be holdin' back." He stopped only a few meters away from them and released his own pressure to intimidate them. "Got it?"

The three were unfazed by his power as they had felt Ichigo's many times beforehand. This was nowhere close to his or even Halibel's and they relaxed a little. The man got into a fighter stance, and they all stood at the ready, waiting for someone to make the first move. Surprisingly enough, Thomas was the first to make a move as he used Bringer Light to launch himself towards the arrancar at impressive speeds for a human. The arrancar dodged the tanto as Thomas swung with careful precision as Wonderweiss joined in only from behind. The blond arrancar appeared above, large purple broad sword raised high to bring down to end this fight quickly. The arrancar sonidoed out of the way in the hopes that he would strike down the human for him. That didn't happen as he appeared a way off to see a rather interesting move.

Thomas noticed Wonderweiss above and once the arrancar had used sonido, he morphed the tanto into a spartan-like shield. Wonderweiss flipped in midair to land on top of the shield and used it and his momentum to catapult off of Thomas and straight towards the arrancar. He raised the broad sword up once more and swung down hard only to be met with nothing. The arrancar sonidoed out of the way at the last second.

"Impressive." He started. "Who are you three anyway?"

Thomas morphed his shield into spear and took a stance. "Thomas Rancher, just a human."

"Wonderweiss Margela, former Vasto Lorde, now an arrancar." Wonderweiss raised his broad sword up once more and a purple energy began to envelop the blade. "And she's Hooleer."

The arrancar raised a brow as he looked around for that strange mass of purple goo in the shape of a girl, but he noticed she disappeared from his line of sight during his brief moment with the others. He looked around until he noticed that he couldn't move his feet. He looked down to see a large puddle of the same purple goo that made up that girl. A face formed from it and smiled up at him.

"Now!" Thomas yelled out as he threw the spear while Wonderweiss swung his blade and the energy towards the spear, coating it in its energy. The spear flew like a bullet and, despite blocking as best as he could, struck the arrancar in his arms, sending him flying back towards the wall. He crashed through it and a small explosion occurred. The spear formed its original, orb form and flew back to Thomas's hand.

Hooleer rose out of the ground and reformed. She turned towards the boys and smiled. They had won this little scuffle with barely even breaking a sweat.

"That was pretty good." The arrancar spoke up from the rubble, gaining the three's attention. He stood up slightly hunched over and deep cut on his left shoulder. "If I hadn't redirected that attack, it might've killed me. Guess I'm gonna have to take this fight seriously it seems." He stood up straight and walked out of the rubble. "My name is Gantenbainne Mosqueda." He started as his energy began to swirl around him. He muttered something under his breath and suddenly his energy exploded, blasting away most of the walls in the room to reveal a well-lit room beyond.

The three braced themselves as they noticed that Gantenbainne transformed. His arms were covered in large plates of armor that curved over his head like and armadillo. Hs wound from earlier had healed and he was now motioning for the three to attack him.

Thomas looks to Wonderweiss and nodded towards him. Wonderweiss did the same and rushed him. Hooleer rushed in as well, confusing Gantenbainne with this strategy they were using now. Wonderweiss swung his blade down and connected with Gantenbainne's armor. It slightly chipped but did nothing else. Hooleer had grabbed several pieces of debris from his release and began to throw them at his speed. Gantenbainne dodged one and saw that the rock she threw went through a wall with intense force. Not wanting to get hit by that, Gantenbainne dodged many of the rocks and other things thrown his way all the while blocking Wonderweiss' attacks.

Gantenbainne continued to dodge and block as the swings from Wonderweiss weren't simply random. He kept on striking at certain spots on the armor that was slowly causing it to crack. Hooleer managed to get a few god hits in that seemed to cause even further cracks in the armor.

"Wonderweiss, now!" Thomas yelled out from a distance, gaining Gantenbainne's attention. Wonderweiss brought his sword down hard with his energy flaring out in the process.

Gantenbainne was forced back hard as his armor had a large crack in it now. He turned to see Thomas holding some sort of riffle made out of the same material that orb was, only it had purple goo around the barrel. Thomas took aim and was preparing to fire. Gantenbainne used sonido to move out of the way only to see Hooleer running full speed towards him. Taking his stance, he reared his fist back and prepared to strike. Hooleer leapt towards him and expanded in order to cover the man completely. Gantenbainne struck only for Hooleer to cause a hole to appear where he was about to strike, causing his arm to go through her in a sense. Hooleer wrapped herself around the man and constricted his entire body for a moment, more than enough time for Thomas to take aim and fire. The goo that was on the barrel morphed into a bullet that was both Hooleer's and Wonderweiss' power. The bullet struck Gantenbainne in his shoulder and went through it, destroying the armor and the wall right behind him in the process. Hooleer let him go as Gantenbainne fell back through the destroyed wall and landed in the sands of Las Noches. The three went over to him as Thomas knelt down.

"Hey man, where's the human girl?" Thomas started. "Where's Tatsuki?"

"Unfortunately, I don't know." Gantenbainne answered in a haggard breath. "Lord Aizen banished us here once we became Privaron espada."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Thomas asked, confused by this statement.

"It means that he's nothing more than a guard dog for Aizen." Wonderweiss answered, slightly disturbed by what he was hearing.

"Then why follow a guy like this Aizen guy if he's so quick to throw you to the side like trash in a heartbeat?" Thomas grabbed Gantenbainne by his collar and pulled him up to look him in the eyes.

"Because he's strong." He coughed out. "Stronger than most of us that is. We follow him because he is strong."

"Then you should follow someone because they actually care about your well-being and your strength, not just because they're strong." Wonderweiss spoke up, a fire in his eyes as he looked to Gantenbainne. "If you simply follow someone out of fear, then that just means you're nothing more than a fool and a damn coward."

"Yes." Hooleer nodded, a slight scowl on her face as well as she stood by Wonderweiss and looked down towards Gantenbainne.

Thomas let the arrancar go and sighed. His friends were right about that. Ichigo was a perfect example of following a friend to the brink. Look at him. An average human in a world where monsters and spirits fight to the bloody end no matter the circumstances, yet here he is fighting for a friend he should have never met in the first place. Maybe things were better this way.

"Well, well, well," a new voice spoke from behind the group. This caused Gantenbainne to widen his eyes in fear as he knew this voice all too well. The three turned around and saw a tall, lanky arrancar standing there with a large tooth grin and a strange weapon resting on his shoulder. "Looks like I may get a good fight out of this after all."

The three could feel that this guy was definitely stronger than Gantenbainne, but not as strong as say Halibel or Neliel. Thomas looked over to Wonderweiss and Hooleer who both nodded to him. They looked back to the tall arrancar and smirked, confusing him for a moment before he felt something tapping the back of his shoulder. He turned quickly only to be met with a small glob of purple slime in his face. He struggled, rather comically to the three, and tried to pull it off all the while swinging wildly. Thomas morphed his orb into a pistol while Wonderweiss brought his blade high and let loose a purple lightning bolt. Thomas fired at the same time and the moves combined to strike the arrancar in his chest. He flew back several meters and tumbled into the sand. That didn't last long as he stood up and screamed in rage in the air.

"Time to go." Thomas said as he and his friends ran off to parts unknown, determined to save Tatsuki now.

And that's the end of this chapter. Figured I make this one a bit on the comical side of things.

The next chapter will be Meiko, Keiji and Neliel taking on Dordoni.

No real major updates aside from me saying that I'll post a new chapter to two fics next week. Hopefully on Friday and Saturday.

Stay awesome, and as always...

PEACE!