Chapter 26

I own nothing

It was a few hours later after Heller had fought the contact, and since then he had been learning what he could about the hollow in him from Ichigo's experience with controlling his own hollow as well as training to get stronger against the evolved while father was tracking down Gutierrez and Kisuke was calling to soul society to report how things were progressing.

Heller's training with Ichigo worked better than expected. In just a few hours, Heller had managed to boost his endurance enough to keep up his speed clones for 5 minutes at a time, take a full blown Getsuga Tensho with only moderate damage, and use his spirit energy to float in midair and boost his healing powers. In exchange, Ichigo had boosted his own speed to even higher levels and his strength had boosted enough to cut through Heller's shields without trouble.

In addition, when Heller was ready and they had time, Ichigo had been giving Heller the knowledge needed to fight off his hollow and how to beat him if he ever wanted to gain control of its power. Heller had been shocked on how much trouble Ichigo had had when beating down his hollow and couldn't help but wonder if he would be strong enough to take down his when the time came. But he decided to not give it much thought until they had more time. Father had called and told them he had found Gutierrez; he was hiding at city hall and hadn't moved for a few hours.

"But you should hurry over there and get him before he changes location." Father said as he brought up the security cameras in the building to keep an eye on him.

Heller nodded and said "he'll be under guard; we're going to need some help with this. Who wants to come?"

Rukia and Renji stepped forward as Renji said "we will. We haven't got much action lately, and besides, we can handle evolved easily enough."

Heller said "don't get cocky, they're stronger than before. Me and Ichigo took on one at the same time with us at close to full power, we could barely hurt him while he creamed us."

Well that went over like a ton of freaking bricks. Everyone looked shocked and Rukia and Renji looked pale as they processed that. And they both thought at the exact same time "we're screwed."

Heller saw the looks on everyone's faces and said "that's not to say they're any smarter. They get too cocky, plus me and Ichigo did some training just now. It won't be as hard as before." He finished confidently.

The group still wasn't reassured. While Ichigo and Heller had amazing growth rates, how much stronger could they be in just a few hours? And if mercer had powered up the evolved, then this wouldn't be as easy as they had thought. But no one made any comment except for Orihime to give chigo as quick kiss and say "be careful."

Ichigo nodded while his face turned red and left with an "I will." while ignoring the smirks on Yoruichi and Kisuke's faces while the others simply looked shocked.

10 minutes later

The group was overlooking the location as they waited for Gutierrez to leave the building. The building itself was pretty typical, huge and imposing with white marble everywhere, but the location would be trouble. Since it was in the middle of the city in midday, there was simply herds of civilians that could get caught in the cross fire, and since it was the middle of the city, they would have to deal with Blackwatch pouring in from all sides.

Heller looked over the set up and thought, "This is going to get messy. I just hope that my hollow stays out of the way." Heller had decided not to tell the others about his little 'problem', not wanting them to panic, and Ichigo had agreed to keep quiet for the same reason. They were both thankfully Kenpachi had been too wrapped up in fighting Blackwatch to notice when Heller had changed.

Heller turned to the others and said, "me and Ichigo will take Gutiérrez, you guys take any Blackwatch or evolved he might have with him or that come running."

The group nodded, having agreed to this on the way over. Ichigo and Heller would take out Gutierrez and get his memories, then come help them clean up the others before they headed back to take a look at the new info. Then Heller felt something powerful come out of the building. He turned and sent out a hunter pulse to find that something. The pulse bounced back to show that Gutierrez was walking out of the building, seemingly alone while simply looking like a human to all the world. Heller pointed him out to Ichigo and said "can you read his power at all?" Ichigo had told him about his Pesquisa, which he could use to read the strength of his enemies. The reason he had never used it on the evolved was because before, they couldn't tap and use spirit energy to enhance their strength.

Ichigo focused his Pesquisa on the man and tried to read his power. When he managed to make a connection, he felt a decent amount of power in him, but Ichigo knew that he must be repressing it. For all they knew, he could be stronger then all of them combined. He shook his head and said "He's repressing his energy; I can't get a proper read."

Heller sighed and said "then the messy way it is. We're going all out at the beginning, got it?"

They nodded again and Heller said "then let's go."

They all flash stepped down to the street, all of them ready to fight as Rukia and Renji had their Shikai ready, Ichigo in his Bankai stance and Heller had both fists up in a boxer pose, ready to shift either to the weapon he would need. Gutierrez immediately spotted them and shifted his arms to ax arms, causing a panic as the crowd saw this and began to run away screaming while Gutierrez paced back and forth across the stairs, eyes never leaving them as he said "well, well, jimmy Heller and his group of friends. I've been wondering if I would get the pleasure."

Heller growled "great, tell us where archer is right fucking now."

Gutierrez laughed and said "not even if you asked nicely. Now it's time to put you all in your place."

Renji laughed and said "you think you can take all of us at once? All by yourself?"

Gutierrez smiled and laughed again as he said "what makes you think I'm alone?"

Two more evolved appeared then, one flash stepping to appear besides Gutierrez while the other jumped of the top of city hall, doing a back flip to show off on the way down. Both had arms like Swiss army knives, but thicker to allow for heavier blows.

Gutierrez shouted "FULL STRENGTH, NOW!"

And with that, all the evolved began to pour out their spiritual pressure. The combined pressure was stupendous, being enough to give them all auras that were dark red with tings of black in it. The steps began to crack under the pressure while Rukia and Renji felt their bodies get heavy with the weight. Ichigo had felt greater power when fighting with Azien and Heller's body was able to adapt to the change in weight.

Heller shouted "YOU THINK THAT SCARES US? TRY THIS FOR POWER!"

Rukia got into a defensive stance and poured out her power, causing a blue aura to develop around her while Renji and Ichigo shouted "BANKAI!" and Heller shifted his right arm to sword and shouted "REFLECT IN DESPAIR, SHADOW SHIFTER!"

All the collected energy sent out a blast of air like a bomb went off, sending smoke and cars flying as the dust obscured the group. When it cleared, Renji had out his Bankai, Ichigo standing ready with Tensa Zangetsu, Rukia still in her defensive stance, and Heller having out shadow shifter. Heller had a bright red aura around him, Renji pink, and Ichigo had blue with hints of red and black.

They didn't waste time with words and went directly onto the attack, with Rukia and Renji taking the two evolved while Ichigo and Heller took Gutierrez.

Gutierrez, Heller, Ichigo fight

Heller and Ichigo used their speed to hurl forward at high speed flying through the air as Gutierrez did the same; they met in mid arm with a crash of blades. Gutierrez stabbed at Ichigo who dodged, then dealt a sideways blow while Heller shifted his other arm to hammer fist and tried to deal a body blow. Gutierrez used a burst of spiritual pressure to dodge both blows, getting behind them while slashing at their backs. Both moved their swords behind them to block the strike, surprising Gutierrez while they both took their legs and kicked behind them, hitting Gutierrez in the chest and into the street to plow a trench. Wasting no time both turned and swung their swords shouting "GETSUGA TENSHO!"

The two blasts of energy flew at high speed to cut into the ground and flew towards Gutierrez, who was just climbing back to his feet, then exploded, obscuring him in dust. They both flew into the dust cloud, using their sensing abilities to make up for lack of sight. They both felt and heard something go whish behind them and turned to block, Ichigo using his sword and Heller making his other arm his shield. The blow didn't hurt them, but it did send them skidding back on the air as they made a platform with their spirit energy.

They both looked up to see Gutierrez standing there with several cuts and bruises on his body while his clothes were torn but the wounds were rapidly healing due to his powers. He chuckled and said "not bad. I wasn't expecting such a challenge from you two, since I heard you could barely beat the informant."

"You'd be amazed what a little training can do." Heller said as he kept his sword at the ready.

Ichigo took up the train of thought and said "plus you bastards are too confident in your own powers to be a real challenge."

Gutierrez narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth as he hissed "you want a challenge?"

Gutierrez then disappeared again and they both whirled around to block his blows, but before they knew it, he was on either side of them and slashing their arms before he vanished again and began to make speed clones.

The clones charged as Heller said "not bad, now it's my turn." He got ready to make his own speed clones before he suddenly fell to his knees, clutching his head with his left hand and shouting bloody murder.

"HELLER!" Ichigo shouted before he was forced to begin blocking the strikes coming from all direction. He shouted again "Heller, WHATS WRONG!?"

Heller looked up as Ichigo turned and Ichigo saw his eyes were being covered with blackness and his iris turning gold before Heller closed his eyes again and kept screaming.

"Shit!"

Heller's P.O.V

I felt like my head was being torn in half and then those halves were being soaked in acid. I could barely think, let alone move or fight.

"What the hell is going on!?" I shouted in my head as I tried to figure out what was going on and how to stop it.

Then I remembered what Ichigo told me, how his hollow would interfere with his fights by trying to take over his mind in the middle of battles, causing intense pain while it tried. I gritted my teeth and thought "not on my watch asshole!"

I tried to force back the spirit energy of the hollow with my own, but that only drew out the stalemate and made my head hurt even more as I could dimly hear the clangs of Ichigo's sword meeting Gutierrez's blade arms. I could feel several cuts to my body as Ichigo couldn't block all the hits, there were too many clones and he wasn't fast enough.

Heller tried to force the hollow back with more spirit energy, but the hollow just increased his own flow.

"Damn it, something must drive this thing back!" Heller thought as he furiously thought while fighting back the hollow. The thing was fighting like an animal sunk deep in rage and hatred.

Heller finally got it. The hollow was composed of rage and hate, meaning it might be fought back by feelings of love and caring. Heller tried thinking of Ichigo and his group but it wasn't enough to drive the hollow away completely, just enough to ease up the pain. Heller tried to think of something that would have enough feeling that the hollow would leave and sent his mind back to some of his older memories.

Flash back, 4 years ago

"AAHH! DADDY, A SPIDER!" a little girl of African descent yelled as Heller walked into the room. He was in the apartment where he and his family had lived before the infection hit. Heller had just come back from overseas and found that his daughter Maya was a little girl of 8, being very smart and caring for her age, but like any children, afraid of spiders.

"KILL IT, KILL IT!" Maya yelled as she clung to her father's leg. Heller chuckled and gently peeled of his daughter as he grabbed a sheet of paper and a drinking glass while he looked at the spider. It was a common brown garden spider that was crawling its way across the carpet of the living room floor. Heller gently slid the paper under the spider and put of the glass over it to trap it as he said to his daughter "why? He's just minding his own business and not hurting you."

"But it's yucky." Maya pouted as she stood far away from Heller, who was walking across the room to the window.

Heller chuckled again as he said "maybe, but just remember Maya, just because you can kill something, doesn't mean you should. Just like this little guy." He finished as he opened the window and put the spider in the flower box outside the window.

Then he turned and walked across the room to give his daughter a hug as he said "promise you'll remember that?"

She hugged him around the waist as she looked up and smiled saying "promise."

End flash back

Heller remembered the love he felt for his daughter that day as she had looked up into his face with that smile, so happy and care free.

He gathered those emotions and channeled them into his spirit energy stream and then blasted the hollow with everything he had. The hollow let out a roar of pain and rage as it disappeared back into the recessives of Heller's mind

General P.O.V

Getting back to the fight, things were not looking good for Ichigo. Despite his Hierro, Gutierrez still managed to deal a few deep cuts that Ichigo didn't have time to heal as he was still fighting him off. Ichigo was panting from keeping up with Gutierrez's speed and strength as he protected Heller. Ichigo noticed that Heller had stopped screaming, but was still grunting in pain and still seemed unable to move.

Gutierrez on the other hand was still doing well, having only a few cuts from Ichigo that had all healed in seconds, and he could still keep up his speed despite using it for over 5 minutes.

He laughed and said "you're pathetic if you can't keep up with this. And Heller if he acts this way all the time. No wonder you had trouble against the informant."

Ichigo growled as he thought of what to do. The only thing he could do would be to use his hollow mask, but he had no idea what that would do to Heller while he was struggling with his inner hollow. But given the current situation, if he didn't then they would both die.

"Heller, forgive me." he thought as he raised his hand to put on his mask. Though he stopped as he felt something shift. Something in Heller.

He turned to Heller just as he felt Heller's power sky rocket. Heller's eyes were open and they were his normal eyes, no black or gold in them at all. Heller rose up and looked at Gutierrez with hard and cold eyes. But more than that, they were glowing with a red light as Heller stood tall and his wounds healed in seconds.

Heller looked at Gutierrez and began to make speed clones. But Heller was making over 40 that outnumber the maximum of 18 that Gutierrez could make at top speed. Heller said nothing as he and his clones all charged forward, forcing Gutierrez on the defensive, but he and his clones were taking blows and slices left and right, rendering Gutierrez to a panting mess in seconds. He looked at Heller and panted "How…the hell… did you…get this strength?"

Heller looked at Gutierrez with cold eyes and didn't bother to respond as Heller sliced off Gutierrez's head and consumed the remains.

Gutierrez was standing by silently as archer and mercer were talking. Mercer asked "Dr. Archer, has your team completed your goal?"

Archer nodded smugly as she said "implantation is 98% complete Doctor Mercer. Nearly every existing store of white light is treated."

Mercer looked at archer with the eyes of the devil as he said calmly "not good enough. I want all of it."

Archer looked shocked as she said "you…want me to go back? But sir, the risk of exposure…"

Mercer cut her off with a growl and a "the risk if you don't go back will be far greater, I assure I understood?"

Archer hung her head as she said in a submitted tone "yes sir."

Heller shook his head. Not good. If all the stores of white light were almost treated, then mercer would make his move soon, and Heller still had to deal with his hollow problem. He turned to a hand on his shoulder and saw Ichigo looking at him.

Ichigo looked into Heller's eyes and said "gave me quite the scare Heller. You feel okay now?"

Heller laughed and said "as okay as I can be with a 'roommate', but yeah I'm fine. Sorry for the scare."

Ichigo opened his mouth to respond, but he suddenly turned his head down the street where Rukia and Renji were fighting.

Heller instantly said "lead the way."

And they flash stepped to the battle to find something awful.

Rukia and Renji were barely on their feet, blood streaming down their sides with their robes hanging in tatters of their frames while Renji had his sword in Shikai, his hair falling to his shoulders and his headband missing to show his tattoos, while Rukia could barely hold her sword from exhaustion and the blood that soaked the handle while red was now the main color, white peeking out slightly. One evolved was dead in the street, his arms missing along with a hole blown in his torso, but the other was still standing, but panting and missing one arm.

The evolved looked over at the new arrivals and thought "shit! I can't win here and I can't get away. Looks like this is the end of the line." The evolved looked at Rukia and thought "but I'm not going to hell alone."

Before anyone could do anything, the evolved charged all the available biomass and spiritual pressure to its legs and used the fastest flash step it could to get behind Rukia and raised his ax arm to yell "DIE!"

But as the arm came down like a flash of lightning, too fast for Rukia to bring up her sword to block, Renji suddenly appeared in front of her and took the blow on his shoulder, shouting in pain as he went down clutching the new wound.

"RENJI!" the group shouted before Heller and Ichigo charged up to the evolved and stabbed it in the head in both eyes. The body dropped to the ground as they pulled out the sword and turned their attention to Renji, who was unconscious on the ground, still clutching his shoulder while Rukia held his head in her lap sobbing. Ichigo immediately applying healing kido to his shoulder while Heller looked around for any approaching Blackwatch. He could feel a few spiritual pressures that said they would be here in 10 minutes, maybe less.

It took a few minutes, but finally Ichigo leaned back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve as he said "I stopped the bleeding, but it'll take more to heal him completely. We need to get back home to finish."

Rukia nodded but muttered, "Why? Why did he do that?"

Ichigo shook his head and muttered "I don't know." But deep down, he had a suspicion that he knew why Renji had taken that blow for Rukia.

Heller picked up Renji and put him over his shoulder with his arms back to normal and said "we can figure it out back home, I say we have less than a minute before Blackwatch gets here."

And speak of the devil, a convoy appeared around the corner and spotted them. The commander of the convoy yelled "STOP!" but was too late as they flash stepped back to the apartment.

well guys, hope you liked it and I'm sorry for the wait, I've been busy with school and had some slight writers block. Also helping my friend write his story, which I highly recommend. It's called Dante Price: Multiverse Jumper Chronicles by lostsoldierS636, great story if you enjoy doctor who and fights at a higher level. He's just started, but I'm helping with his drafts and some fights are freaking awesome, even more so then bleach, so give it a look. Thanks and also review please.