Allina woke slowly. When she did, she found herself in a large…glass tank? She blinked, looking around. Yes, it was a glass tank. Well, that was the best way to describe it. Though, three of the walls were made of some form of pale stone, only one side being glass, and even then it wasn't a very large one. The ceiling was extremely high. Unnecessarily, for the small single occupant. It was also far too wide; she was sure four football fields would fit easily inside. The glass was pretty decent-sized, permitting her a view into a room full of computers.

Monitors blinked from every wall, and even sat on desks facing away from her. A few strange people wandered between them, also garbed in odd white uniforms, though no one person looked exactly the same. Hell, some of them didn't even seem…normally shaped. There was one that floated about, completely inhuman. It had a head and a conelike body, no legs, and where arms might have been on a person, two long tentacles hung all the way to the floor. And here she'd thought Pinkie was weird…Slowly, they began to file out of the room as she looked in, the glass darkening so she couldn't really see through it anymore.

"So you're awake. Good." She looked around at the intrusion, though she saw no one in the room. The disembodied voice's owner did not reveal himself, though she recognized it. That was…Mister Szayel. Or Pinkie, or Giggles…She wasn't sure which nick she liked more, since both of them were completely demasculinating. "Hungry?"

Al frowned, then shook her head. She wasn't sure if he could hear her. Again she found herself looking for the source of that voice. It was so unbelievably loud, and seemed to have been somehow broadcasted at her from all directions at once. Almost like she was surrounded by him. Though, that would be utterly creepy if it was true. But maybe it was. She had to remember the way he'd moved, faster than she could see, and how he'd somehow paralyzed her. She then noticed her clothes.

Someone must have changed her while she was asleep, because she now wore a long white hakama. She had on a skintight white shirt, with a black line running down the front and around the tail. Her shoulders were bared, the material rising to form a turtleneck. Though, she had sleeves on. They just started in the middle of her upper arms, flowing down gently and ending at her wrists. She also had on white gloves that ended just below her elbows. Al didn't really like the idea of having been dressed, and just hoped Pinkie hadn't been the one to do it. She glanced back at the window, realizing it was no longer darkened.

Szayel was there at the glass, standing with his thin arms crossed over his chest and gazing silently at her. "Well, you will be." He reached over and hit a keyboard, and she heard something…looking over, she saw that something was rising out of the floor…the top of a head emerged, then a blank face. A neck, shoulders… Soon, a second Mister Giggles was standing in front of her. He walked forward slowly, calmly, folding his hands together behind his back. The one still behind the glass pulled out a rolling chair and sat down. "You'll be fighting this clone now. He's not as strong or fast as me, so he should do for now. And as your strength grows, so will his. The point of this is to get your reiatsu up. I've already given you the enhancement that will speed up most processes. This test will be to see what it does for those wishing to get stronger faster, since I may want to come up with a new prototype before I speed up your Encroachment process for that test, and the following ones. And I would explain what reiatsu and the encroachment process were, but that would take far too long. I'll wait and see if you survive this first." He ran a hand slowly through his hair, grinning.

At about that same time, Al's feet came sliding out from under her as something slammed against her legs, and she found herself down on her side, watching as the other Szayel was righting himself from a leg sweep. Well, it looked like it, but now he was going into position to slam an elbow down into her gut. She rolled to the side, and his elbow slammed into the stone floor, jarring him. Must have upset his funny bone too, because he shivered, and the face he made was hilarious as he clutched at his arm.

Allina took the chance that gave her and popped to her feet, swinging a leg out to kick him in the face before he could stand, considering the fact he was taller than her and she couldn't jump that high, nor was she sure she could get her leg up there with the pants she was in. Seeing her move though, Pinkie Clone grabbed her foot, twisting it - and her - as he pushed to a stand and jerked it upwards, dumping her on her back with a dull thud. He stepped forward and raised his foot, clearly intent on stomping her in the gut. Not having time to roll out of the way, she instead drew up her legs, meeting his one foot with two of her own to kick him away. The force knocked him off balance, and he stumbled back.

"You could at least teach me how to fight first!" She shouted towards the glass after popping to her feet and backing away. Bad move, of course. As soon as she turned her head, Giggles Number Two slammed his fist into the back of it. She stumbled forward, and he kicked the back of her knees. Having not seen that coming and thought to fortify herself, she fell. For like, the third time, damn it all. Crazed laughter was her only answer from the man behind the glass. Fingers tangled in her hair, pulled her head back, then slammed it forward, intent on smashing her face into the floor. She crossed her arms in front of her and tilted her head forward slightly, ignoring the sharp pains from the hair being torn from her scalp as she did so. Instead of her head getting forced into the floor, her forehead hit her arms.

She then drew her legs under her, and as her head was drawn back a second time, she dropped her body as far as she could without taking her head away, and shot out a leg, aiming a kick for the weak zone between his legs. The Achilles' heel of a man. His grip loosened as he howled, and she twisted onto her left side, chopping his wrist with her left hand before reaching up to slam her palm up against his nose, to either break it or shove cartilage up into his brain and kill him. Instead, he grabbed her hand, and she rolled onto her back, kicking again. "Let go!"

He actually did, jumping back before she could even land the kick. Allie pushed quickly to a stand, and the two simply circled each other. Beyond him, she could see someone walking up behind Szayel in the room. The clone lunged forward, aiming a punch at her. "What's going on?" The voice was perfectly audible even from over here, which meant the clearly male visitor was speaking quite loudly. Al rushed forward as well, dropping to her knees as she did a body roll. Once on her back though, she swung her legs around and aimed a kick at his stomach.

"A workout, more or less." Szayel's voice, irritated. At the disturbance? The clone groaned, reaching for her legs, but she whipped them away and rolled to the side, popping to her feet and darting away to recreate the distance. Again, they circled.

"This looks boring. Let me in there at her." The male's voice again. This time, she was the one to make a move. She feinted a step towards him, and he swung out his leg as though to trip her. She'd stepped back though, then kicked her leg out to nail him in the ear. Contact.

"I need her stronger, not dead. She's part of an experiment." Szayel's voice was definitely irritated now. If not a little tired. She heard an annoyed grunt, and tossed a glance over her shoulder. All she could really tell about the new person was that he had blue hair, the same white uniform as Szayel, and…wasn't in the least bit shy about his body. He had on pants and boots, and there was a very thick black sash wrapped around his waist, but the only item he wore for a shirt was an open jacket. He was muscled, very well built…that was almost more muscle than she'd seen on a guy aside from the ridiculous professional wrestlers. Well, a normal guy, anyway, but she realized he wasn't a normal guy. There was a huge hole going through his stomach, for crying out loud. Not. Normal. At. All.

She caught movement again from the clone, but all she could do was quickly wave a hand in front of her face, muscles locked down, to block a punch, and then she was twisting to the side, another aimed punch following her and forcing her to block again. Annoyed, she kicked him in the shin, then uppercutted him. He didn't seem to care about the kick much, even if he did flinch slightly, and he moved with her uppercut, so that didn't seem to hurt him much either. Only, after that he spun and dropped down on his hands, throwing a kick for her chin. This did connect, and dear lords above, did it hurt.

Al shuddered, stumbling back. A leg sweep threw her to the floor, and she stayed down. Rolled over onto her stomach, pushing to her feet and running a few feet away.

The next few days continued in much the same way. Szayel would have her worked over until she got hungry, and as soon as she'd rested the clone was right back to attacking her. Eating, sleeping, and fighting, with short rests in between when she talked directly with Szayel. A few other randoms wandered in. The first visitor whose name was apparently Grimmjow. Another one came, who seemed bored with existence, all life in general. He was dressed more like a butler, deathly pale, and had a strange sense of…almost sadness about him. She somehow felt like she could relate to the guy. He was apparently Ulquiorra. There was also a green-haired lady who came.

There was such a large flow of visitors throughout the time she spent here, she didn't really take the time to get to know them all. In the end, she only vaguely recognized a set few, who'd oddly enough taken to coming around on a near-daily basis, simply watching. Were their lives that boring or something? Over the first few weeks, she was sore, but that slowly wore off as time went on. Her senses were slowly refining, and she realized she was able to tell when someone was coming, and, finally, she could even tell who approached.

She could tell what they were eventually, how strong each happened to be. Eventually began to notice that they tended to come in certain pairs, aside from Grimmjow. He wandered about independently of anyone, and never seemed to have another of his kind tagging along. During her breaks, if Szayel for one reason or another was too busy with something on a screen to talk, they would speak. He always had this intense look in his eyes, and the set of his jaw made him seem almost angry. His voice was harsh and at first scared her a little, but eventually she got used to it. Unlike Szayel, he seemed nearly feral. His smiles were in a way confident and crazed, but it was more of a you-are-so-fucking-dead smile, and sometimes she actually got the feeling he was going to punch through the glass, grab her by the head, and crush her skull. For fun. Though he'd yet to actually threaten her in any way, Al always expected violence from Grimmjow. The other Arrancar - since that's what they were, apparently - seemed to share her fears, flinching away from him if he moved too fast. Well, aside from Szayel. He always seemed fairly confident as well.

Ulquiorra, she's spoken to once or twice as well. He never really had much to say, simply questioning her reactions to things. What are you thinking about? Why do you wonder about your friends? Why aren't you scared? Why don't you cry? He was always ready to point out any weaknesses she had. He was threatening too, but not in the same way Grimmy was. He wasn't exciting. There was also a brown-haired man who came, with a young man and a boy following him, who didn't feel like the others. He radiated a kindness, but she could tell it was a false one. There was something…snakelike about him. Untrustworthy. Wrong. And then there was a silver-haired fox faced boy, who seemed friendly enough, even if he landed on the creepy radar pretty hard as well. And then there was the dark-toned one. She'd spoken to him once, and he seemed okay. She wasn't wary of him. Well, in a way, yeah, she was, in the whole you're-affiliated-with-my-captors-somehow way. But if they'd met on other terms, she probably wouldn't have been afraid of him. She didn't get the feeling he'd carve out her heart and smile in the same, dead, insincere way she imagined that the brown-haired man would.