Karin stepped into the cave that Rizar had seen and immediately fell down and brought her hands up to cover her head as she pushed herself back towards the entrance. But it was too late. They had seen her. the dark shapes advanced on Karin and she clutched Rizar, who was already clutching her for comfort in their last seconds before they became a part of whichever hollows it was that were about to eat them.

Their fears were somewhat assuaged when the creatures emerged from the light, revealing themselves to be a humanoid hollow whose head was almost completely covered by his mask, which resembled an insect-like head with large mandibles and horns. His large, left, yellow eye, was visible through an eyehole on the front of his mask. However, his right eye was concealed by a purple eye patch, which is attached to his brow. He had blond hair, some of which stuck out from under the back of his mask. The majority of his body was purple, but he was wearing a white, armour-like vest that covered the upper part of his torso, as well as white armour on his forearms and shins. He was also wearing a loincloth around his waist, which was a lighter shade of purple than the rest of his body. His Hollow hole was positioned near his stomach, directly beneath the edge of his vest.

There was also a female Arrancar child with him that had hazel eyes and short green hair, her eyes incredibly wide. The canines on her lower jaw were larger than usual, and the remains of her Hollow mask made up a cartoon-like skull which sat on the top of her head. A crack ran along the left side of the mask and four teeth on the left side of the skull were broken off. She had a large scar coming down from her forehead to her nose and a crimson line that stretched horizontally across her face below her eyes. Her clothing consisted of a simple green gown with a hood which covered her entire body.

There was a third hollow with them that had a large, heavyset, but dumpy body with short appendages with small, white hands and feet. He was wearing a hooded yellow bodysuit covered with black polka dots of varying sizes. His head was very large, being almost as big as his body and his Hollow mask covered his entire head, the eyes and mouth functioning properly as if it was his real face. His mask resembled a stereotypical tiki mask with exaggerated colourful features, including large eyes and teeth, as well as a prominent nose.

The three creatures all took a pose as soon as they were certain that the human would be able to make out their forms and the child said, "Hello, we are, The Thieves: Nel-Don-Pe."

At the same time, the purple bug-esque humanoid said, "Hello, we are, The Great Desert Siblings!"

The yellow clad one said, "Hello, we are, The Three Siblings!" at the same time as the other two creatures.

Karin said, "O-kayy…"

The child shouted over her, saying, "Heyy! Didn'd we thay dat we'd be da Thieves Nel-Don-Pe when we dalked earlier?!"

The purple one exclaimed, 'I told you that I'd only go by 'The Great Desert Siblings'."

The yellow one said, "I definitely want to fit Three Siblings in there somewhere!"

Karin shouted, "Hey! Cool it! If you're not going to eat me or something, I want to know your Names first. Then, where exactly this is and what you are, because there's no way you're from my world!"

The purple one said, "I am known as Pesche Guatiche, my yellow-clad friend, is Dondochakka Birstanne, and this, is Nel Tu," indicating Nel with an open hand. As to your question, no. We no longer possess the need to devour souls and find the act distasteful in the extreme.

"Wait. Devour souls? What do you mean?"

"You are an arrancar as well, are you not?"

"Arrancar? What the heck's that?"

Pesche looked at the lizardine hollow next to the girl and said, "You didn't tell her?" the lizard flared its frill and looked up, showing that its mask encapsulated its entire face, preventing it from saying anything at all, let alone explaining concepts such as the different levels of hollow. Pesche said, "Alright then. I'll explain it. We," pointing at himself, Nel & Dondochakka, "are all creatures known as hollow." Seeing Karin about to interrupt him, Pesche cut her off, saying, "Before you ask anything, I'll probably cover it by the time I'm done." Karin settled back down to listen to the explanation. "Now, I'll start with the basics. A hollow, is created when the soul of a deceased human loses all hope and corrupts after spending too much time in the real world. A hollow will consume the souls of living and deceased creatures in order to fill the hole in their heart that appears when they first transform into the hollow. After that, if they are strong enough, the hollow can transform further, becoming what is known as a Menos Grande. More specifically, the lowest tier of Menos, a Gillian. Since you are on the sands you needn't concern yourself with either classification though, they tend to congregate in the Menos Forest and other secluded areas of Hueco Mundo."

Karin said, "So then does that mean that there are more types of 'Menos'?"

"Yes. They can be said to be at least five to ten times more powerful than the Gillian, and far superior in terms of intelligence and cunning. Now, these adjuchas are in constant threat of regressing into a Gillian if they are unable to consume enough food to sustain themselves. The strongest tier of Menos, are the Vasto Lordes. They are largely humanoid in appearance and can be considered to be at least ten times stronger than an adjuchas level menos."

Karin said, "Then that must be what that thing that we saw earlier was, right, Rizar?" Karin said, looking at her lizard friend.

"You mean to tell me that you actually saw a Menos transformation?"

"Well, yeah. Why?" Pesche looked away, considering something. He said, "When I'm finished explaining things we will need to leave."

"Why's that?"

"Because, Vasto Lordes have keen senses and will probably have recognized that we are here. Even if we are arrancar, there is no guarantee that we will be able to survive an encounter with one."

"What is this arrancar thing?"

"An arrancar, is what eventuates when a hollow, of any form, removes their mask. An arrancar that we used to know before we met Nel, believed that when Hollow cease being Human, they become beasts and, as Arrancar they regain their sense of reason." Karin saw Nel wince and grab her head for some reason, but didn't think too much of it. "I'm not sure if that's true or not, but at the very least we no longer feel the need to consume souls to ensure that we do not regress. I was informed by the same arrancar that Vasto Lorde, possess the same trait."

"Okay," that's great and all. But, since one of these 'lesser' hollow things caused me to come here, would that mean that a 'greater' hollow, such as yourself, would be able to send me back to my world?"

"Hmmm…yes. And no."

Karin sighed and said, "Get to the point already."

"It is true that all hollow possess the ability to open a portal to the human realm, however, doing so will send out a signal to any other hollow in the area, and I've been told that the hollow in Las Noches have come up with devices to augment that sensory capacity in certain hollow that reside there. Given the speed and power of the Vasto Lorde-arrancar, despite the distance from here to where they are, with their sonido, they could arrive here within minutes, after which there is a time delay before the atmosphere around the portal returns to normal, letting them find out where you went in your world. Are you okay with that?"

Karin sighed and said, "No. I'm not."

"Even then, that's only if Dondochakka and I can somehow stabilize the Garganta for human use."

Karin sighed and said, "Well then, I'd say that there's only one viable solution then."

"What's that?"

"You train me to fight in order for me to survive this place and so that I can fend off whatever comes after me when you open the portal back home and hightail it out of there."

Pesche closed his eyes as he hummed and hahhed. Eventually, after seeing the strange dagger by her side, he said, "I think that that just might work. Ummm…I don't think that you gave us your names yet."

Karin thought back over their interactions and realized that yes, he was right. She grinned sheepishly and said, "Sorry 'bout that. I'm Kurosaki Karin, and I don't know what this guy's actual name is, so, for now, I've given him the nickname 'Rizar'," as she rubbed the lizardine hollows neck.

"I see."

"So, how long is this training of yours going to take? Days, Weeks?"

"You…seem to be misunderstanding something."

"What's that?"

"The skills that you are going to have to learn can take months to years to learn, let alone being able to make use of them in such a way that will let you fend off an enemy of the caliber that you would be faced with."

Karin exclaimed, "Years?!" and thick tears started to roll down her face as she thought of not being able to see Yuzu or their brother for years on end." She gulped, forcing down the sobs that she felt coming, and wiped her face on the hem of her shirt. She said, "Alright. The sooner we start, the sooner I get home. What's first?"

Pesche said, "You're not being very modest when making your request."

In a monotone, Karin asked, "Was…that a joke? Because, if it was, it wasn't very funny."

Pesche rushed to the back of the cave and squatted in the corner, mumbling, "I worked on that really hard."

Nel piped up and said, "Hey! You meanie! Apowogise to Peshe righd now!"

Karin sighed and said, "Yeah. Alright. Sure. Whatever. Pesche, I apologise."

Pesche sprung up and rushed back over to her. He said, "Alright then. Let's get you started. First off, if you're going to survive here, you'll at least need know how to increase your body's physical defenses. To do that, you will have to condense your reiryoku and layer it above your skin."

"My what now?"

"Your reiryoku. Your spiritual power."

"Spiritual power? I have that?"

"Yes. The only way that you could see us, let alone actually come here in the first place, is if you have at least some latent spiritual power within you. You need to use that to do what I just said."

"Okay, so how do I do that?"

"Hmmm…it's a bit hard for me to explain."

"Why's that?"

"All hollow are 'born' knowing how to use their powers, so we don't really need to train the way that humans and Shinigami do, though there are benefits in doing so anyway."

Karin said, "So, the long and the short of it is that you don't know how to teach me to do it, right?"

Peshe said, "Well, I can only try."

"Alright. Go for it."

"Alright. Now, hold your hands in front of you so that they are close together, but not touching."

Karin nodded and said, "Right," as she did what she was told.

"Now, I want you to focus on one point between your hands and flow your spiritual energy into that spot."

Karin nodded and tried to do it. After a while, she moved her hands together to try and force some kind of nonexistent energy together from both of her hands. She said, "Yeah. I got nothin'."

Pesche sighed and said, "Alright, I wasn't expecting you to get it the first time that you tried it anyway. For now, I think that we should go 'there'."

Dondochakka said, "There? You don't mean 'that' place? We can't! Nnoitora will…"

"No!" Pesche said, cutting him off before he could cause Nel's memories to return. He let out a relieved sigh when Nel showed no reaction whatsoever. He said, "No. I mean Las Madrugada."

"Madrugada?" Karin said.

"It means Breaking Dawn."

"What is it?"

"It's a fortress that we had during the first war against the Shinigami. There should be some tools there that will be able to help you in your training."

"I don't know," Karin said.

"Why's that?"

"You said it yourself. Hollow can use their powers innately. If it is a fortress of yours, then there shouldn't have been any tools needed for that."

"Nevertheless. We still need to relocate from here, and that is not too far away from here."

Karin sighed and said, "Alright. How do we get there?"

"We'll use Bawabawa to travel there. It should go relatively smoothly if we ride on him."

Karin sighed and said, "Alright then, let's go," and started to move back towards the entrance of the cave.

Pesche asked, "Where are you going?"

"What do you mean? Back outside, obviously."

"There's no way we could have gotten in through that way." Pesche said, "Come, the entrance is this way," and left, heading deeper into the cave.