Life is a funny thing, isn't it? All of a sudden you're thrust into the cold, bright world, and just as suddenly you can be taken from that world and thrown into one just as cold, but much, much darker. Not because the sun is gone, but because every reason to be happy has been torn from you.
With death comes heartbreak, loss, fear, isolation and guilt. When these feelings become too much, they can rot a soul away and transform them into something less human... something evil... demons...
Or to be politically correct, Hollows.
A Hollow is a spirit missing its heart, and losing the heart-the very thing that makes one human-loses with it, the appearance of being human. You give yourself over to the darkness and allow it to mold you, hide you away and let the evil of your soul rampage, free of guilt. Hollows don't think or feel remorse; all they know is loss, and this loss produces a hunger so deep and insatiable, an eternity of devouring souls of the living and newly dead can't come close to filling the void left behind.
After all, voids are eternal, unending and dark.
Voids can never be filled, only added to, and they will never give back what they take.
Erin paused, listening to the wind, her talons digging into the sand with muted anxiety. Sleep plagued her, wanting her to lay down and drift off, but she knew if she did that now she would be a sitting target; strange dreams haunted her of places and people and things she didn't know and yet were strongly familiar to her, as if in a past life she went theree and met them and lived it. This was not unsual for her though, since an Adjucha is comprised of the condensed bodies of many, many lesser Hollows and often times memories overlapped, usually those of he dominant personality that ruled the Menos. Her dominant, the original Erin, was sweet and kind and caring, even for a Hollow, and she felt that blended into the wild, assertive, independant traits that had stemmed from the ranks within her, which made her curious how such a kind heart would descend in the first place, let alone dominate an Adjucha body. She didn't mind though, as Erin was incredibly strong, even for an Adjucha, because of her dominant self; this satisfied her not only because of her Hollow pride, but because of one of the things she couldn't remember.
Weeks passed since her birth from the husk of her Gillian and they were filled with visions, thoughts and dreams that kept her up at night-hours, confusing her, drawing her out into the desert on some strange crusade, as if something out there were calling out to her to return. But what? After a while, she started to ignore it and list it as typical new-born confusion as her new mind and body fell into place and routine and that it would disappear eventually as she retained control of herself and squashed all other roiling souls into dust.
Still, this did not quiet her anxiety. Something was coming and she didn't know what or how she knew. It would reach her soon. Erin contemplated running or flying away, but she was no coward and wanted to face this mystery threat no matter what happened to ensure it wouldn't come back and haunt her later. Just then, when she decided to wait for whatever was coming, she heard a distressed screech from somewhere nearby-a Hollow in danger. Otherwise known as easy lunch.
On her lazy days Erin liked to drop in on the ridiculous Hollow brawls that popped up around her and pick off the losers instead of fight herself, not because she's a coward or because she's weak, she just gets lazy sometimes, as all people do. So she shook herself loose and planted her huge, bird-like hind feet into the soft, white sand beneath her and reared back, spreading the mazzive wings on her back and leaping into the air with a sharp crack, stretching her pesquisa out to locate her prey; it took only minutes for her to find the two brawlers and drop in on them, watching a monstrous snake-like Hollow coil around a smaller, helpless beach-ball of a creature that cried out defiantly.
That call made Erin hesitate a second, feeling a sharp pain in her body; her heart went out to the little beast-as much as her heart could, as Hollows had no hearts according to them-and she dropped down, much like a falcon, her scream startling the wrestling creatures for just a second. In that second, her colossal weight pounded into the unsuspecting snake, crushing its torso and cutting its screech off into a low gurgle as she tore into it, feasting like a starving man, not allowing anything to escape her snapping teeth save for the end of the tail which hung skewered between her normally immobile jaws, feeling the normal boost in her power that accompanied a meal. Then she turned to the injured Hollow and watched it yelp and try to escape, the right side of its body torn to shreds and bleeding everywhere, the white sands staining black and clinging to its devastated form, making it seem like it was dissolving.
It whimpered, scooting away and hissing as she approached; Erin hesitated, then flicked her head and tossed the tail at the creature, hearing it thud against the sand mutedly. "There," she stated, watching it; the Hollow froze, its gazed flickering between her and the tail and back. "Eat it," she commanded, seeing it jump and then drag itself closer to the appendage. "It will help heal you faster than normal."
The little Hollow gulped down the tail and not even a second later, it was back on its feet, shaking off the little fiasco from before and trotting in a small circle, testing itself.
Pleased, Erin said in a low but gentle command, "Now go," and watched it run off into Hueco Mundo in a hurry. Why did I do that? she wondered, sitting on her haunches and staring at the white sand at her feet.
"Curious," a deep, smooth voice said behind her quite suddenly. Erin jumped and rounded, her body bristling as she looked up to the moon-once perfect and bright, now blotted by a small, dark smudge high above-a deep growl resonating from her throat as her back arched in warning, not unlike a cat. The smudge vanished a second and she threw out her pesquisa, feeling a stab of panic when she couldn't sense the intruder, the foreboding aura of earlier catching up to her full force; the figure reappeared not far from her and she snorted upon seeing how miniscule he was. "You received nothing," he went on calmly, hands in his pockets, "yet you saved that trash's life without any regard to the consequences. Such behavior is very un-Hollow-like."
Erin growled louder, arching her back and fanning her wings up, trying to gauge her enemy's power. He wasn't very big, but his uncanny resemblance to a human was unnerving, his skin as with as ivory, hair black as the endless night sky and eyes as piercing and cold as cut emeralds, devoid of all emotion; she found familiarity in those eyes, but mostly she felt hostile, as the cyan tear lines down his cheeks and the broken kabuto with the single horn sitting on his head could only mean one thing: Arrancar. A Hollow that broke its mask to obtain shinigami-like abilities and a power boost that went beyond anything a Menos could achieve-even a Vasto Lorde.
"Perhaps you don't understand me," he mused plainly, never taking his eyes off of her. "As an Adjucha, it is normal to be capable of thought and speech and self-awareness, but perhaps you are trash as well and this assignment was for not."
"What assignment?" she hissed, tensing to spring at him, her fight or flight response choosing the former, even if she stood no chance whatsoever.
"You do speak," he pointed out, shifting his weight slightly and casually drawing one hand from his pockets; Erin knew this to be his battle-ready give instinctively, so she readied for him to attack.
"Yeah, and? Answer my question. What assignment?"
"The one assigned to me by my lord, Sosuke Aizen."
Smart ass
, she thought bitterly, though in a way his dry attitude amused her; thankfully her masked face didn't change with her emotions. "Details?"
"They are none of your concern." He studied his query carefully, assessing her. She was big, as was normal for an Adjucha, but she was bone white everywhere except for the sky-like hue that covered the underside of her wings and lower body, the pattern stretching along her sides and joining at her abdomen to create one, long stripe that ran under her tail, which ended in a stiff, boney point; her joints were marked by similarly-colored, metallic balls that he couldn't be sure were her true joints and her anatomy was like that of a puzzle, or if they were merely decorative, and joined the muscular upper arms and legs to her twiggy, deer-like lower limbs, making her strong but agile; her front feet had five, bird-like fingers each ending in a crescent-shaped talon, while her feet only hads three, her weight up on her toes, light and efficient; her masked head was that of a dragon, with ridges and spines above grooves on either side that functioned as sonar receptors, picking up sound vibrations like the bones of the inner ear, and a separate lower jaw that did not move when she spoke, her teeth locked together in an impassable wall of thumb-length, needle-pointed fangs that seemed painful to even look at, while her eyes were black and marked by purple, downward-facing crescents, their depths a mesmerizing black void that was not unusual for a Hollow of any type, except in their depth of darkness, as if there were nothing within.
A Void.
His only problem was her lack of spirit pressure, which is what drew him to her in the first place, yet she was sitting at only a standard, trash-like level; it was not possible, he knew, for her as an Adjucha to be so weak, especially an Adjucha like her, so he assumed she was masking her power similar to the way he was, if not less refined. She was positioned to attack him, which would not pose an issue if he were not ordered to bring her back alive. "Come with me," he ordered, shifting away to show her she did not frighten him.
"Why?"
"My orders are to bring you to the fortress of Las Noches. Alive," he added upon seeing her shift backwards. "I am not negotiating. I am not asking. Come with me, now."
Erin said simply, "Bite me," before she charge forward with more speed than he had accounted for, her jaws hinged open and prepared to skewer him if his reflexes hadn't made him jump out of the way, a very brief flicker moving across his otherwise-stoney features.
She rebounded quickly and followed him, throwing herself forward to chomp, but he merely pushed off of the reishi-rich air and flipped over her back, landing softly in the sand behind her and lifting his free hand as she reared up like a horse and pivoted, throwing her weight and some reiatsu forward in a shock wave which he avoided with a small hop; Erin charged again, but he was not fazed this time and merely swung his arm, back-handing her face and sending her careening away, kicking up a gigantic cloud of sand as she lay in a slight daze, trying to comprehend what just happened.
Getting hit was not something Erin was terribly familiar with and the ringing aftershock left her mildly disoriented as she rose shakily, trying to find the Arrancar and seeing double, one ear ringing loudly. "It's useless to fight," he taunted, back to his relaxed stance. "Just come and end this farce."
"Over my dead body," she grunted, shaking herself back to rights.
"That is not the arrangment," he retorted, feeling as if something was not right.
That's when Erin released her spirit pressure at him, trying to drive him off; he felt it hit him, but as he was the stronger of the pair, it hardly fazed him, though he did note the growth potential and that she was already naturally on par with a few of his comrades.
Dammit
, she cursed, knowing he wasn't bothered by her impressive power one bit, beginning to draw it in on itself with her mind. Being one of free spirit, the she-Hollow did not appreciate being controlled or told what to do one bit, though sometimes she went along with another merely to amuse them, she always had her own agenda that no one got in the way of, and having a random Arrancar-even a good-looking one-appear and order her around under mysterious circumstances was not something she enjoyed. Obviously.
"I am to bring you alive," the emerald-eyed Arrancar started, and her keen eyes saw his body ready for an attack, "but that does not mean I have to bring you in one piece."
It was a threat, she knew, and she roared in response, her voice launching a shock-wave of reiatsu that slammed him and off-set his balance, a harsh glimpse passing through his eyes as she lept, wings beating once to carry her above him and tensed her claws, ready to maime; he dodged of course, but he stayed close enough to give her a swift, viscious kick ot the head, making her other ear ring, though thankfully she managed to stay upright this time.
"If I must, I'll sever each of your limbs one-by-one and drag your bleeding body back myself."
"Persistent little bastard."
He was quick, that was certain, but even she was surprised by how quickly his hand came up, forefinger charged with a bright green light that fired in an instant, her mind blown by how quickly he could charge his cerro blast; for once, though, she didn't need to be quicker.
Erin had a special ability. One he was unaware of. One he just inadvertedly activated.
She let the beam come at her and raised her chest to aligne her Hollow hole with the path of the cerro, a black energy begining to swirl around it like a whirlpool, distorting the very light around her chest; the blast struck home and was immediately absorbed into her body without a scratch, his shock plainly etched into his marble features for a moment too long for it to be written off as a lapse in sight. Erin's sides had plain, white, rounded nubs along her ribs that were usually invisible against her skin, but now the markings lit up one-by-one, starting closest to her forelegs and quickly turning bright green until the boney tip of her tail changed color as well, green energy crackling around the boney end; she then stored the energy to for a moment, feeling her ear horns vibrate and hum as the power built, her will reaching out for the reishi-rich air and shaping it into the vague shape of an arrow atop her head as long as one of his arms, solid white but slowly turning a pale shade of green and crackling much the same as her tail had, the javelin of pure reishi following the movement of her head exactly.
"Have a taste of your own medicine," she growled, lowering her upper body onto the sand to aim the arrow and setting him in her sights. The Arrancar tensed, his hand twitching slightly as he prepared himself, and she let fly, the arrow careening towards him like a bullet.
He did not move and he did not fire back, at least not that she could see, the sand creating a powerful cloud in the ensuing explosion that neutralized sight completely; Erin then unleashed the stored, charged cerro back on its owner, punching through the cloud and seeing a figure get launched out the other side and land upright a few dozen yards away. Waiting, the dust settled and she saw, much to her dismay, that her unwelcome guest was still very much alive, though he had burns across his left side and shoulder, which was bare due to his white jacket being torn to shreds in the explosion; from the damage, he looked to have tried to deflect the arrow with his hand and then taken the full force of his returned cerro mas while blinded, and he was still standing.
The hell are these guys made of?
she wondered, baffled.
Still standing, the green-eyed Arrancar straightened his back and started walking closer, his injured hand swinging at his side as his wounds started to slowly heal before her eyes, though it wasn't much of a surprise considering most Hollows had some form of regeneration or another. "That is a curious ability you have," he said, soon placing his once-injured hand back into his pocket and seeming altogether unfazed by her assault. "That arrow was more difficult to deflect than I assumed, and I was not expecting my cerro to be bounced back like that. I felt the way your reiatsu changed upon taking it in, which affected your attack's energy signature, which led me to believe you had incorporated my cerro into it. An error of judgement on my part."
"And you blathered your assumptions because...?"
"Appealing to your reason. I can analyze and deconstruct your patterns, attacks and habits through meer observation, and therefore render you predictable and powerless. You cannot win. Acquiesce."
Erin rumbled, beating her tail into the ground and tossing her head in frustration, swearing. "Give me one good reason why!"
"Power," he told her simply, seeing how she froze suddenly and knowing he'd gotten her. "You will be turned into an Arrancar through a method proven to produce exceptional-quality in subjects and upon doing so, recruited into lord Aizen's army."
"Army?"
He closed his eyes briefly, refraining from answering. "All will be explained in time. Now will you come peacefully or must I resort to dismemberment?"
Erin hesitated, her guard lowering instantly, her thoughts racing. Power had driven her this far, or rather the search for it had, and though she could not place the reason behind it, she knew that she had to become as powerful as possible, as if it were the meaning in her life to do so, and the only thing that trumped a Vasto Lorde was an Arrancar. This she knew instinctively.
"Need I also add that becoming an Arrancar would put an end to the endless hunt to devour other trash? Your power would increase and become fixed, and you may discover new abilities, but the eternal need to devour and not be devoured would come to a sudden stop."
Erin looked over at him immediately. "Sold. I'm officially interested." He nodded. "Now was it so difficult to explain yourself?"
He nodded again and she rolled her eyes. "You would have learned eventually, and I am not fond of unnecessary chatter. Come." Turning, he vanished, standing in the air above her, waiting.
With a sigh, Erin spread her wings and took to the sky, joining him and keeping up with his swift, direct pace once he took off in the direction of Las Noches fortress, impressed even more with his speed. "So," she asked conversationally despite his earlier statement about disliking unnecessary chatter, "may I know your name now? I'm Erin."
There was no immediate reply, but just as she figured he was going to ignore her, his clear baritone voice said, "Cuatro Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer."
"Ulkiora Shifa," Erin repeated, testing his name. "Exotic. I like it. It fits you."
Ulquiorra merely grunted, lapsing into silence the rest of the journey.