Chad looked back behind him.
He had had this uneasy feeling for the past little while, as though something were following him.
After walking a bit more, he stopped.
For no reason whatsoever, he punched the air next to him. His fist connected with something hard, and he felt something break. It wasn't his hand.
'Strange' he thought to himself. 'Punching the air doesn't normally result in hitting something hard.'
He looked around the park he was in, searching for a trace of what it was that was nearby. What it was that seemed to be following him, what seemed to be hunting him.
Then he saw a glimpse of it. No, that's not quite right. What he saw was part of the air shimmering, the way it does in hot weather. It was fall, and more importantly it was a fairly cool day.
Chad knew something was up. And he also knew that it would be going down.
He ran towards the source of the shimmer, without much in the way of a plan, as any plan revolving around 'punch it a lot' can't really be considered very intricate.
The thing seemed to have guessed his intentions, and promptly moved away from its location, weaving away from him.
He ran after the small haze, when he started hearing some scuttling noises.
Followed by a small explosion a couple of feet away.
He had been pushed by the blast, tripping a bit, but managing to not fall over.
He hadn't been expecting that.
He heard some more scuttling noises coming near him. He sprinted away from them, before they could explode next to him.
He looked for the shimmer, the sign that gave away the location of whatever it was that he was fighting, but hearing some more small movement towards him forced Chad to keep evading these invisible things.
They kept coming after him, he kept moving away from them, they kept exploding.
This all had to change however, when he saw a young kid getting awfully too close to this battle area.
He ran towards the kid, jumping to block him from a nearby explosion's blast. The opponent didn't seem to be only interested in Chad.
"You all right?" he asked as he got back up.
He recognized the kid. It was Karin, the older of Ichigo's two younger sisters.
She seemed to be in a bit of shock from what was going on. Chad couldn't blame her. He knew what he could blame however, and how to have it make up for it.
"W-wait, aren't you Ichigo's friend?" asked the girl, recovering a bit from the blast. "Can you see that thing too?"
"Huh?"
"You mean you can't even see it? Then how were you fighting against it?"
"I just did. How doesn't matter."
"Well, whatever you did, you sure did a number on its face; about half of it is smashed in."
"Good to know."
There was some more scuttling. This time it seemed as though a good many times more of the things were approaching them.
"You can't see those things, right?" asked Karin.
Chad gave a grunt meaning yes.
"Then how about I see for you, so you can take out that thing?"
"Can't think of anything better."
Chad picked up Karin with one arm, and placed her on his shoulders. She shouted where the scuttlers were, where the Hollowtron was, and Chad managed to land a punch on it again.
While Chad was feeling somewhat victorious about beating the creature, the look on Karin's face told him he wasn't quite done.
"It's…it's growing wings." she barely managed to say.
"LOOK OUT!" she shouted, but it was too late; the bug-thing that had been dropped towards them, not making the usual noise since it wasn't moving along the ground, had exploded too close for comfort in mid-air, and it sent Karin flying off Chad's back, as well as sending him a few feet from where he stood.
He got back up and raced towards his friend's sister. She was lying on the ground, a bit scrapped, but didn't seem to be bleeding, at least not externally. For now she merely seemed to have lost consciousness, but it was still too much.
"I try not to get angry anymore, and anyone who's been around Keigo knows that that's no easy task, but right now, let's just say that 'pissed' is a serious understatement, and let's also say that just punching you won't be enough to make you regret this."
A dark haze surrounded Chad, but he didn't worry. He couldn't say why, but he just felt that this mist-like cloud that was now swirling around him was calling out to him, telling him that he would soon gain something very powerful.
When it lifted, he found himself on a motorbike.
It's frame was blood-red, except for the front end, which had a large white skull, eerily similar to the 'face' of most Hollowtrons (hint hint).
It had three rows of small missile launchers on either side, and was rumbling loudly.
Something was missing, and his vehicle seemed to have picked up on that, and produced a pair of shades. They didn't have any special function. They didn't need to.
Chad started his chopper, despite the fact it was already going, but now it was even more going.
He was now able to see the Hollowtron's outline, as well as that of the smaller creatures, and while it wasn't the best circumstance, it was still worth something.
Chad's biggest problem right now though was those smaller ones, more specifically the fact that they currently covered a very large percentage of the playground they were in.
Add to that the fact that the larger machine was now flying, and Chad was in what most people would call a 'very shitty situation' (likely followed by many cries of 'get me outta here!').
The only thought going through Chad's mind right now, in this scenario, was:
"Wonder what I should have for dinner tonight."
The small machines started scuttling towards him, so he changed direction and headed to the side. The creatures followed his movements, and though he was faster, the amount of ground they covered made up for the difference in speed.
He'd need to find another way to go about this. That's when he found the solution to his current problem.
He again changed direction, however this time he was headed towards the Hollowtron. Those self-destructing things blew up left and right, but he veered his vehicle out of their blast ranges, rendering their efforts meaningless. That's when he was able to put the second part of his plan in action.
He jumped the nearby slide, using it as a makeshift ramp. It inexplicably exploded once he was airborne.
He was now heading right for the Hollowtron, which seemed to be attempting to escape, when he drove his motorcycle in fucking midair a few feet in the direction of his target. Once he reached it, he pulled his right arm back, and then delivered the strongest punch he could muster, aiming it square in the creature's head, crushing it outright. As he did so he said:
"I'm thinking chicken."
After the Hollowtron had been destroyed, the smaller ones all immediately self-destructed.
Karin awoke, in a slight daze, and rubbed her eyes. When she looked up, she saw Chad driving out of a huge circle of flames on his motorbike, looking unfazed.
"You're on fire."
"Yeah, a lot of things have gone my way today."
"No, I meant your sleeve."
"Oh."
He hit his sleeve with his hand, extinguishing it.
"We'd better get you some medical attention, to make sure nothing happened as a result of getting thrown back that far."
"What about you?" she replied.
"I'm probably fine."
"Probably?"
"Don't worry, haven't been to the doctor in years, nothing serious ever really happens to me anyways."
Karin wasn't sure how to respond.
"I can't help shake off this nagging feeling though."
"What's that?"
"Just feel as though two important fights were mixed into one, in a particularly sloppy way…But only a retard would do something like that."
"Who are you shaking your fist at?"
"No one."
"Tatsuki…I don't think we should stay here, something doesn't feel right…" whimpered Orihime's cleavage.
"You wanna go back to your place then?"
"I think anywhere but here is better."
Tatsuki also felt that things seemed off, but what concerned her more was her friend's tone, and the fear that lingered in her words.
She took Orihime by the hand, comforting her a bit.
"Don't worry, if anything happens I'll protect you, just like I always have."
"Thank you, Tatsuki."
Orihime hugged Tatsuki (in a way that was sadly devoid of lesbian attraction and feelings).
The two continued walking, heading towards Orihime's house, when suddenly something wrapped around her leg.
She let out a cry.
"What's wrong?" Tatsuki asked loudly.
"Something grabbed-" she started to reply, but was jerked back and dragged along the ground.
"Orihime!" yelled Tatsuki, running after her.
"Struggle all you wish, you won't be able to escape." said a high-pitched voice, closer to a shriek than a normal voice.
"Who's there!"
"Why, it's just you two, me, and allllll your school friends, just here to spend some time together, before our youth can squander itself."
Something was wrong (apart from the already obvious issue with Orihime and whatever caught her by the leg). There was indeed a number of their classmates, but something was off…
They were shambling around, with empty looks on their faces, eyes void of any feeling, any semblance of thought.
Tatsuki had managed to get to Orihime, and while she was unable to get rid of whatever was holding onto her, she was able to at least stop her from moving any further back into the crowd.
Among said crowd, they saw a familiar outline, it was their friend Chizuru.
She lunged at Orihime, yelling:
"It's rape time!"
"Chizuru, what's gotten into you?" Orihime cried out, worried about her friend.
"No no, she's always like this." interjected Tatsuki. "Just this morning she tried breaking into the stall you were in and-"
"Impertinent fools, prattle all you want, in a few moments it won't matter anymore."
Something quickly shot forth towards Tatsuki. She couldn't see it very well, but she could make out the outline. It was shaped like a tentacle, and seemed to be connected to the source of the shrill voice.
It wrapped around her arm, but just when she thought that it wasn't that bad, and that she could still move around, with the exception of her arm, it plunged something into her shoulder.
It felt thin, somewhat like a small root, and it took hold of her limb. Soon, it had started wresting control of her upper torso and neck, and before long she was unable to move any part of her body of her own will.
"Let's have some fun, shall we?"
A boy from the group walked toward her, and held out a small knife.
Tatsuki's right arm reached out to take it, and before she knew it she had started walking towards Orihime.
She tried yelling to tell her to get away, to leave her here and to get somewhere safe, but her mouth would not comply with her wishes.
Her legs slowly shuffled over in Orihime's direction, but before too long she would be standing right in front of her, knife in hand, and her actions would be completely up to the discretion of the creature that was toying with them all, gleefully enjoying the heart wrenching scene that was unfolding.
Her body continued, seemingly oblivious to the inner cries and pleas going through her mind.
She was now no more than three or four feet away, still not stopping. Orihime had been immobilized, her legs bound together, a look of sheer terror in her eyes.
Orihime bit as hard as she could on the tentacle that had wrapped around her mouth in order to gag her, forcing the creature to withdraw it out of pain.
"Tatsuki!" she yelled out. "Don't worry about me, all I care about right now is for you to escape, to get out of here!"
Tatsuki felt some tears forming in her eyes. This was just like Orihime. Even in the worse situations, no matter how much they all knew that she was in no way able to defend herself from serious harm, all she cared for was that her friends be safe and unharmed, even if it meant she would end up badly hurt.
Through sheer determination, Tatsuki had managed to regain control of her left arm. She grabbed hold of her right hand, gripping it firmly, before choosing to break her fingers by pressing them together as hard as she could.
Some loud snapping noises, accompanied by a large amount of pain soon followed the decision.
She persevered through it, and picked up the knife, before plunging the blade into the tentacle that had stuck itself in her shoulder.
The creature let out a loud cry of pain, before removing itself from Tatsuki's body. It was enraged at what was happening, first being bitten, and now stabbed? It let out a holler, before sending an appendage straight for Tatsuki, smacking her in the torso and sending her skidding across the pavement.
"Tatsuki!" yelled out Orihime.
She ran towards her friend's unmoving body lying on the ground. She was breathing heavily and irregularly, but spoke up to Orihime:
"R…run…" she mumbled, before losing consciousness.
Orihime stood back up, turning around slowly to face the creature.
Lights started swirling around her, empowering her, giving her the strength she needed to defend her friend, and save her classmates.
Shit was getting real.
