Morality and Maintaining the Masquerade
School.
If there was one thing Lilynette really and truly hated about the human world, it was the insufferable prison known as school; honestly, who wanted to spend all day sitting inside a cramped classroom listening to boring lectures from old people and reading stupid books? If the class took more field trips to go out into the world to learn on location, it would at least be tolerable.
Of course, that was asking entirely too much.
Today, though, sitting through that Hell and half-paying attention to a lecture, had prompted the young arrancar to look inward and ask herself a very important question that she was unable to answer. She had simply been sitting in class when the question had burned itself into her brain, acid-etched onto the soft, squishy gray matter during a debate on good and evil and what separated the two, on how a seemingly-good leader at the time can be seen as evil in retrospect…
Are we evil?
She'd blurted out the question in class without thinking and the teacher had laughed it off and said that no, all of the students were good, but Lilynette hadn't meant the other students at all.
Were the Espada evil? Was she evil?
The teacher didn't know who or what Lilynette truly was and so she could never answer those questions. No, there was only one group of people who could give her the answer and that was the Espada themselves.
School had let out nearly a half-hour ago and rather than go home and start on her stupid "homework" as usual, Lilynette bundled herself up in her coat and trudged towards Burger World, trying to ignore the biting cold of the mid-November winds. Lilynette imagined that most children ended up asking similar questions at some point in their young lives, but most didn't find themselves in the unenviable position of being an inhuman creature whose primary diet used to be the souls of other creatures, including humans.
Did that make them evil?
She knew beyond all doubt now that Aizen had been evil, but were they evil for having served him?
The restaurant was nearly empty when she arrived, with only a couple of patrons out in the dining room enjoying a late lunch or an early dinner. She could hear Starrk and the others in the kitchen talking, and so Lilynette walked around the counter and into the back, ignoring the signs explicitly stating "Employees Only."
"Turkey-Burgers… Who the fuck came up with this shit?" she heard Grimmjow saying.
"Burger World is a multi-national corporation, Grimmjow, and turkey is a traditional meal this time of the year in America; Burger World capitalizes on this by offering these 'Turkey-Burgers' for the last two weeks of November across all stores," said Ulquiorra.
"This isn't America, though," observed Starrk and Lilynette could see the cuarto nodding in agreement as she came around the corner quietly.
"It caters to Americans who are abroad from their homeland and offers a new option to other customers."
"They taste awful…" Tyn was saying, "And I've actually been trying to cook a good one all day!"
"I do not expect to sell many of them," admitted Ulquiorra.
"I call dibs on whatever doesn't sell," said Grimmjow, grinning. "I have plans for them."
"So long as they are removed from the premises at the end of this promotion, I do not care what you do with them."
"Lilynette!" Starrk exclaimed, finally noticing his 'sister' in the room. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at home!"
"Give it a rest, Starrk," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a baby that needs to go straight home every day and wait for you."
"No, you're just a baby who came here looking for him," teased Grimmjow. Lilynette scowled and kicked the sexta in the shins for his smart remark.
"Shut your stupid mouth, fathead!" she snapped, "I'm here because I have a question for everyone."
"Tell it to the deep-fryer, brat…" growled Grimmjow angrily as he reached for her and Starrk slapped him in the back of the head roughly.
"Touch her, Six, and I will kill you," he warned.
"What do you need?" asked Ulquiorra, trying to distract the other two Espada from giving in to their more violent urges.
"We were talking about good and evil in school today…" she began, "that sometimes someone can seem good and actually be evil and stuff. I know Aizen was evil, but what about us? Are we evil, too? Did serving him make us evil, or were we evil before that?"
"We're not evil," said Starrk quickly. "We were manipulated and misguided, but never evil."
"Speak for yourself, jackass," said Grimmjow as he puffed out his chest with pride. "I'm one hundred percent bad to the bone!"
"You don't count," said Starrk icily, pulling Lilynette further away from the other man.
"Good and evil are very subjective terms…" said Ulquiorra thoughtfully. "Seeing someone as good or evil is based on one's own perception; in human history, there is an individual known as Vlad the Impaler who is seen as evil by most of the world, regarded as a monster among men. However, in his home country, he is still regarded as a hero, even centuries after his death, because of the extreme lengths he went to in order to protect his homeland."
"So, we're not evil, then?" asked a confused Lilynette, scratching her head.
"The answer to that will always depend on who you ask; the shinigami would undoubtedly say we are evil."
"We're not really good, either," said Tyn, scraping what appeared to be dog feces off the bottom of his shoe with his spatula before using it to flip a burger over on its other side. "We're something in the middle, I guess."
"Starrk, Lilynette and I are best described as Lawful Neutral. You and Halibel are Chaotic Neutral while Grimmjow is Chaotic Evil," said Ulquiorra to the quinto, and the others all looked at each other in confusion.
"What the hell does all that mean?" asked Lilynette.
"I think he's calling Grimmjow a psycho," offered Tyn and to his surprise, the sexta nodded in head in agreement rather than lose his temper for once.
"That's what I took from all that crap," Grimmjow agreed, sounding disturbingly proud of it.
"You, Starrk, and myself are not actively 'good guys' in the strictest sense of the term…" said Ulquiorra to the small, child-like arrancar, "but neither are we actively evil; we try and obey the laws of the human world to the best of our abilities. Therefore, I say we are Lawful Neutral."
"Makes sense," nodded Starrk. "I can live with that."
"And while Tyn and Halibel may not actively set out to do harm or cause disruptions, they still manage to incite chaos and disorder. They follow their own instincts regardless of what may or may not be the right choice," Ulquiorra continued, earning him a nasty glare from the raptor at the grill.
"We're not that bad!" he snapped.
"You two were going to destroy the town to settle a personal squabble," pointed out Grimmjow.
"And you would just destroy the city for fun!" countered Tyn and Grimmjow just grinned darkly.
"Not all at once…" he said, his grin growing madder and madder by the second. "I'd stretch it out for a few days…give the army time to show up or something and then destroy everything!"
"The only thing keeping Grimmjow from doing such things…" Ulquiorra told Lilynette, casting a quick glance at the sexta with a silent warning not to get any ideas, "is the rest of us; left to his own devices, the carnage—"
"Would be absolutely epic!" finished Grimmjow for him, the look on his face suggesting he was fantasizing about it already.
"What are the Soul Reapers, then?" asked Lilynette. "Are they considered good?"
"They're considered stupid," said Grimmjow, scowling. "And weak, and—"
"Lawful Good, mostly," said Ulquiorra, silencing Grimmjow's ranting. "They obey the laws set forth by the Soul Society in order to protect humans, both living and dead from harm, and to preserve the great balance between the realms of the living and the dead. There are, however, exceptions to this, such as Aizen."
"Where did you learn all of this crap, anyway?" asked Tyn as Starrk turned to his drive-through window to tend to a customer.
"The internet," admitted Ulquiorra. "Orihime's computer has proven itself to be a highly useful tool for gathering information and learning about the human world, although it could do without all the pornographic material that seems to be so prolific online."
"They have sex stuff online?" asked Grimmjow, "Ha, that pervert Nnoitra would have loved a computer!"
Well, there was yet another important question for Lilynette to ask…
"What's sex?"
The adults all looked at each other in a mild panic, no one quite wanting to be the one to give her the uncomfortable talk.
"Not it!" called Tyn, exiting the room before anyone could protest.
"I gotta go mop the parking lot or something," said Grimmjow, ducking out right behind the other man.
"I believe I should count the money in the register while time permits," said Ulquiorra before walking out.
"Oh hey, I have someone at the window; gotta go," said Starrk, hurrying to disappear as well.
Lilynette huffed in anger for a moment before shouting back at the adults.
"I'm pretty sure ignoring a kid's question is evil!" she challenged them.
The rest of the Espada simply continued on as if they hadn't heard a word.
Midday at The Oasis was always the most hectic time, save for nights and weekends; there were plenty of people who preferred to spend their lunch breaks drinking beer and sake rather than going somewhere to eat an actual meal. Halibel didn't think she could make the same choice, although since most of her tips for the day came during the lunch rush, she couldn't complain.
It was near the end of lunch, though, and most of the patrons were slowly filtering out the door, reluctantly returning to their jobs, with only a few lingering behind and nursing their beverages slowly. A human male sitting at one of the small tables closer to the bar caught her eye and smiled broadly at her and Tia forced a polite smile in response; he was a regular now, had been for a few weeks now, and while he never sat at the bar, he always seemed to be looking in her direction.
Great, just what she didn't need; a useless human admirer.
Social interaction with some humans wasn't necessarily a bad thing; she actually liked working with Dunc, Sachi, and Kishiko.
It was other humans that she generally had a problem with.
Sooner or later he would gather up the nerve to come speak to her only to have his hopes ruthlessly shot down, or he would leave a note with his phone number on it that would find its way to the trash can in short order; Tia just hoped he'd leave a nice tip along with it.
"I've got great news, Tia!" chirped Sachi cheerfully, coming around the bar to fill a couple of mugs before taking them back out to the tables.
"Do tell…" prompted Halibel dryly, keenly aware that Sachi had a vastly different definition of what qualified as 'great news' from her own ideas.
"That guy over there…" whispered the shorter woman conspiratorially as she stepped close to Tia and gestured to the man at the table, "is interested in you and he's single."
"…and I care because…?"
"You can't be serious!" exclaimed Sachi, mouth open in shock. "He's cute, looks pretty successful, single, and he likes you!"
"Pass," said Halibel dismissively, turning her back to the table and the man as she began to clean out a mug.
"But I told him I'd talk to you for him because you're shy!"
"I'm not shy," snapped Halibel defensively. "I'm just not interested."
"I thought you said you weren't romantically involved with that psycho roommate of yours or anyone else!"
"I'm not."
"Then why not?" asked Sachi, sounding very confused. "Tia, any normal woman would be excited to have someone like him interested in them!"
Tia stiffened at that, barely suppressing both a twitch and an irritated growl at Sachi's choice of wording in her accusation.
Normal…
God damn it.
The Espada were supposed to be striving to appear normal in the eyes of the humans around them so as to not arouse any suspicion and blend in perfectly. Behavior that was abnormal was dangerous, could compromise their little masquerade and bring down the wrath of the Gotei 13. Their usual instincts and desires had to be either ignored or carefully toned down to acceptable levels, and in some instances, they found themselves forced into doing something decidedly unpleasant all in the name of appearing to be normal.
And now Sachi was telling her that the normal response would be to grant this miserable human a date…
The dark thoughts running through Tia's mind at that moment would have put even Grimmjow's madness to shame.
"Fine…" sighed Halibel, shoulders slumping in defeat.
"You could sound a little more enthusiastic…" said Sachi critically, eyeing the taller blonde.
"Sorry…" said Tia, forcing a smile as she lied, "It's just that with all the turmoil between Tyn and myself lately, I'm just not sure I'm ready to start dating at the moment."
"Oh, you poor thing!" said Sachi, hugging her. "I understand, I do, but trust me, now is the best time to start healing! Go out, have a good time, and forget the past few months! See what it's like to be with a good man who's not an abusive lunatic!"
"Tell him I'll meet him here Saturday night, around five, and we'll see how that goes," mumbled Tia, running a hand through her short hair as she sat the now-clean mug down and turned back around.
She watched Sachi scurry off to the table and whisper in the man's ear, noting how his eyes brightened with her words.
Don't get your hopes up, worm… she thought disdainfully as she tried to force a smile suggesting that she found the attention flattering. Dinner, perhaps a movie, and that would be it; no second date, no kiss, and certainly no 'action.'
It wasn't that he was unattractive, either; his skin was pleasantly-tanned, his face was quite handsome with alluring dark eyes and a gorgeous white smile, and if his choice in clothing was any indication, yes, he was a fairly successful young gentleman.
No, the problem was the pesky 'human' thing.
A human could never truly understand her: where she'd been, what she'd gone through, what she was capable of, what she truly felt about the world around her, nothing. Even if she were to try and explain it to a human and successfully convince them as opposed to leaving them thinking she was completely insane and delusional, they would still never truly comprehend what it meant to be an arrancar trapped in a human shell.
Lost in thought, she never noticed Sachi was back by her side until the smaller woman spoke, adjusting her small, wire-frame glasses as she did so.
"He's asking about Friday instead…says he has to work Saturday evening."
"Fantastic…" Halibel almost growled, mentally noting that Friday meant she would have to leave work, go home to clean up and change clothes, and then drive back down to the bar to meet him. Stupid humans; why couldn't anything ever be simple with them?
"Friday, then. Six o'clock so I have time to go home and get a shower," agreed Tia, and matchmaker Sachi rushed back out to the table to share the 'good' news.
Tia watched impassively as the man smiled more broadly, and Sachi shot the blonde a cheesy grin and a thumbs up. Really, the human girl was far more excited than she was.
And now, another problem reared its ugly head; how the hell would she explain this to Tyn?
It had been almost three weeks since their battle and they had reached a stable understanding of one another, with no fighting and only a few light-hearted insults thrown around, and there was the very distinct possibility that Tyn could view this as a threat to the stability they had built. It wouldn't surprise her for the raptor to consider the human as an unwelcome intrusion into the 'pack' and deal with it in a manner that only his savage mind would consider appropriate.
An image of Kisuke Urahara in his goofy-looking green-and-white striped hat flashed through her mind, wagging his finger disapprovingly at her.
Nu-uh-uh! Murder is bad, m'kay?
She just hoped her roommate wouldn't forget that and do something irrational.
Well, it was only Tuesday; she had plenty of time to think of a way to break the news to Tyn gently…