All I've Ever Seen Is the Mirror
When I Weep, You Shed Tears
When I Laugh, You Join Me
When I Die, You're Not There
Please, don't forget me
A Predator Among Us
The Hol(low)y War V
Hakai
Varvhelt
Palace of the Sun
Lilia could feel it.
Enormous reiatsu thundering outside of the palace. Crossing over and away from the superstructure she currently walked within, her senses honed in on superior source of reiryoku her Pesquisa could pinpoint out. Flanked on either side with Segunda Harribel and Quinto Soto, the Primera continued to tread further down the winding halls and vast corridors.
This place, it feels like a maze, She thought, her eyes furrowing as she rounded another corner, feeling troubled just how deep this palace seemed to go. I feel like these halls are going on forever. Not to mention, I haven't come across any Quincies since Grimmjow engaged with that Yhwach guy…
Soto cocked his head to the left, eyeing the Primera Espada before looking around the corner as they passed another crossroads of hallways. His hands reached within his cloak, hands grasping the handles of his scythes while feeling something lurking in the shadows.
Lilia and Harribel noticed it as well, stopping to wait for the approaching figure to emerge.
A low, haunting whistle carried into the air. Slow, deliberate and carrying only a handful of notes, they repeated as the sounds of footsteps drew closer and closer.
Out of the darkness at the end of the hall, overhead lights flickered on and off, showing a tall man with long hair swaying over slender shoulders wrapped in a telltale cloak of white over an evenly buttoned military overcoat. The legs swished back and forth, black strapped boots going up the legs beneath the knees, long nailed hands stretching out in splayed positions at the sides. More menacingly apart from two pure black eyes filling up the eyes of the pale face is the black mask with three spikes jutting out of them.
"Another one, huh?" Lilia asked with a sigh. "This one definitely looks serious too. Better get rid of him before we move on."
"Allow me," Soto spoke, narrowing his eyes as he took a few steps towards the Sternritter approaching them. "It's been too long since I've tasted blood. I'll catch up to you two when I'm sated."
"Suit yourself," The Primera shrugged, walking away with Tier forward, leaving Soto to slowly meet the man with a macabre appearance head-on.
Just as they left, the eyes squinted with the face of the masked Quincy, an expression that unsettled Soto. A deep chuckle rattled the air, following the sparking reishi appearing in a semi-circle formation around the Sternritter.
"Fighting me alone…is the worst choice you could have made," He said.
Soto blocked out the taunt, as much as his sickles swung out to block the incoming Heilig Pfeil. They appeared to be thorns in shape, but shattered when he hit them. To him they looked to be any other projectile of energy.
Amateur, Soto thought, bending down and streaking in and around the hail of spikes shot him.
Arriving beneath the Quincy, he clicked the scythe's edge to touch the back of the handle, creating a crescent knuckle weapon. Thrusting it up to hit the Quincy in the mask, he found the weapon stopped by their hand.
Catching it between three fingers, pulsing with blue veins.
"Your overconfidence blinds you," He graveled out, the squinting eyes staring mockingly down at Soto's shrouded visage.
As if to emphasize this, a blur of white arched around his peripheral gaze. He swung his blade, only to see the etching of a coat had maneuvered adeptly to distract him; allowing the flat of the thumb and forefinger to strike his throat.
Coughing out in surprise, his face latched onto by veined hands, lifting him off his feet-
SHFT-KRAK!
-swiftly shunting space to slam the Quinto Espada's head into the far wall of the opposing hallway's corner, head embedding into the concrete like substance. Pulling back, the Quincy glided over the air gracefully in order to avoid a follow-up swipe of both blades of Soto's.
Landing with a gentle tap to the ground, the Sternritter stared ahead with a vacant expression as Soto's facial wrappings fall to the ground with drips of blood.
Had my Hierro not been used, I might have suffered worse injuries than a gash, Soto admitted inwardly, visibly sweating at the pain and slight dizziness he felt from the strikes inflicted on himself.
A hail of thorns fired out rapidly, forcing Soto to lurch to the right with the new curve of the new hall. Avoiding the shattering flotsam cast by the dozens of thorns, he saw an encroaching shadow walk through the smoke.
Coating reishi along his scythes, he stomped forward and arched both along each other, casting an X shaped blade of bright green.
Overtaking the silhouette, slamming into the adjacent wall of the corner, the Quinto blinked and saw a fading figure that resembles his prey.
A hand pressed down on his shoulder, a guttural voice whispered in his right ear.
"Your aim is off…your grip loose."
Soto roared out, swinging his right arm's scythe. A thorn struck his fingers, forcing the weapon out of his hand; causing it to be impaled by a thorn, throwing him backwards with its momentum against the wall.
In an instant, he felt an overwhelming sense of dread rush through his body. Like stepping out of the Sun into a freezer, coldness sank his veins in a dark chill he couldn't shake off. His heart races, beating like the gallop of a horse and the desire to escape echoed within his mind.
He didn't even notice the other scythe leave his free hand till it clattered to the ground. Only when it too is impaled to the wall, along with his feet, did he begin to howl in terror.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Trying to shake himself free, rattling about the thorns holding him down, the vacant stare of black eyes becoming two whirlpools of damnation before his sight. The spiked mask peeled back, showing a monstrous wall of teeth and a bottomless hole, with the snarls of beasts wishing to tear him into shreds.
Screaming aloud, his cries became silenced as thorns impaled him in a gruesome spray of blood. His mouth choked on blood, jaws wide around a blue reishi spike impaled through his head into the wall behind. His eyes gored into, along with his abdomen and chest.
Staring at his corpse for a few minutes longer, as if basking the final moments of the Espada's life the Sternritter finally spoke aloud.
"Are you done skulking, Giselle Gewelle?"
A pair of feet traipsed daintily around the corner, a cute expression of a smile over an oval face with a soft cheeked visage with blue eyes and long raven black hair lounging over her shoulders to the middle of her back. A pair of ahoge twitched above her smooth bangs over her arched brows, her long sleeved uniform having the atypical uniform stark white but ending over a pair of stockings of pitch black stockings that ran down smooth legs to a pair of flared top white designer boots. Adorned almost unnoticed of her head is a small officer cap with the symbol of the Sternritter over the front above the black bill, impossibly angled in defiance of gravity.
"That's pretty rich, coming from the guy who wrote the book for stalking," She replied with an airy tone, swinging her arms back and forth in comical exaggeration with her legs. "I'm just being a responsible member of our society and cleaning up after everyone."
"Now that's a lie," He replied with narrowed eyes poised down at her as she halted a couple meters away from him. "You're a vulture, picking at the remains of whoever dies. To you, it makes no difference if you are ordered to or not."
"Well, even if that is true," She waved her hands around, eyes rolling away as she dismissively espoused around with a lazy twirl on her heel; nearly falling over, yet acting nonchalant as she spoke, "His Majesty's given us all free rein to act as necessary to deal with the invaders. It doesn't matter if you don't like it, or if I don't like it. As long as we accomplish our objective of eliminating all enemies, our means are always justified."
"Hmmm," He hummed, eyeing the corpse of Soto Muerte for a few more moments. Turning away, his back turned to Giselle, he left without another word.
"And people call me creepy," Giselle mused, biting the tip of her finger, gesturing it out in a spray of blood. Dousing over the gored face, chest and hands, the Sternritter watched her handiwork take effect as the red liquid seeped into the wounds and worked its way into the Hollow's heart.
Thorns popped out, wounds healed and flesh turned a stark gray color. A vacant stare forms in Soto's eyes, his dark blue hair wisping over his head. Looking over him appraisingly, Giselle mused aloud with a hand holding her chin.
"I don't think anything looks out of place on you, but you can do for a makeover," She thought out loud, looking over her shoulder at the others gathered behind her in the shadows of the battle torn hallway. "Just another one to add to the party right fellas?"
The grim expressions of the dead looked on at her with stoic servitude. Pink and purple haired Berenice Gabrielli looked on with a placid grin. Jerome Guizbatt has a sullen look of dread, like a gargoyle. Veronica Bellevair stared with a crooked smirk. Kirge Opie stared ahead lifelessly still. And last of all, Loyd stood at the head of them, with a vacant expression the same he had in life.
"It took awhile to get you guys all dolled up and useful, but between you guys and the other dead Quincies, I'll definitely be rolling with kills," She proclaimed giddily, swinging her arms back and forth with her hips sashaying with a delighted hum.
"Time for the march of the zombies, everyone!"
Varvhelt
The Pale Forest
Grimmjow clung his shoulder, the gaping gouge carved out by Säubern still burning his nerves. His tissue, muscle and vessels all grew back with a patchwork of miniature roots sprouting his replacement parts; all courtesy of Arbol customly woven into his reborn body.
Modifying Arrancar, playing God…you really are an imitation of Aizen, aren't you, Aaroniero? He mused.
"Your regeneration is impressive," The triad of voices echoed, bringing Grimmjow's attention back to the three faced, horned angel. They looked on, impassively raising the white sword at an angle in front of their gaze. "But Säubern will make quick work of your body. It's only a matter of time."
His eyes glared evenly, no smile accompanying a jeering tone coming from his mouth. He recognized just how strong this foe is. Even if his reiatsu is significantly greater than it was in his previous life, this being held too many advantages fighting in this moonless void.
Bending over, Grimmjow darted forward in a streak of blue. The angelic being stepped over to the side, avoiding a swift clawed lunge. Thrusting his off hand, Grimmjow felt an incredible impact from a flash of light.
KRAAAK-KOOM!
Throttled sideways in a line of across the Pale Forest floor, he rolled with the momentum to reduce flailing about. Jerking to a stop, he turned on all fours and leaped back into the sky.
Arriving at the same latitude as his adversary, he quickly closed the gap and stopped just shy of passing him by. Slashing around in an arc, the white blade struck down at his rising blue current of reiatsu. Gritting his teeth, he threw his other arm over, aiming to impale his foe past his occupied blade.
Snatch!
To his surprise, he saw an ethereal arm surge out of angelic being's body, halting it in a vice grip.
"Futile," They breathed, the white blade whirring up with a brightening glow.
"Sankt Krieg," Yhwach spoke, unleashing a cross-shaped blaze of light that struck the Arrancar down into the ground below. An upheaval of bark, roots and soil is consumed in blue flames, reishi burning away all trace of the Hollow.
At least, until a roar of reiatsu blew it away, followed by a whipping razor of chaotic blue light.
Seeing the Gran Rey Cero didn't move the angelic being, simply forcing it to pull their sword back and thrust it into the mass of reishi. The space around the sky rippled, undulating greatly, the potential force averted he sensed could have been catastrophic.
But amidst that, a flicker of Sonído is made behind, and a black claw brought down blue severing strokes of energy down upon him. Ghostly arms appeared from the back between the wings, crossing over to deflect the strikes of reishi; swinging out and narrowly missing the backpedaling Arrancar.
Dammit! Grimmjow swore internally, gritting his teeth at the sight of the additional four limbs fastened between the six wings aligned about the Sternritter's back. Narrowing his eyes, he could sense that he was being observed, even without direct eye contact.
If he is to make contact, he'd have to attack when he couldn't react.
Inhaling, he leaned forward.
Boom!
Dashing in a pop of a sonic boom, reappearing above the Quincy several dozen meters. The airborne Arrancar spun in a ball downward, rapidly building up momentum till he visibly became a razor of white and blue homing in down at the Angel below.
Not even moving, Yhwach looked up, his eyes meeting the downward spin that unraveled into a set of black claws. Two ephermal limbs whipped out to intercept, clashing against the claws with mighty impact of cobalt over teal reiatsu.
An arc of white light slashed up and across his chest, a gout of blood spraying from the wound inflicted by the Angel's weapon. Seeking to reel back, arms pulled backwards Yhwach pulled back Säubern to thrust through the Arrancar's chest.
Not seeing his foe cock his left elbow at his face till it fired a slew of green bladed darts. Sweeping his left arm, he aimed to deflect the projectiles.
A flash of pain followed by the shredding of flesh, tearing past the veil of protection his Blut Vene offered. Yet his face showed no signs of changes, a mask devoid of flinching as the arm lolled to the side.
Slashing an arc of white, the Arrancar found himself feeling another surge of pain over his chest. It came shallow with a bounding leap away, only biting the outer armored layer of skin.
"Sankt Bogen," Yhwach declared, his sword crossing the air above his head. Gesticulated at his whim came a tear in the blackness, forming an arc of blue that curved back like a bow, a string of reishi growing taut with a dozen massive cross edged pillars of reishi.
Firing off, appearing like ballista rounds rather than arrows.
Shit! Grimmjow swore inwardly, deftly weaving in and around the immense arrows that traveled in a flash like lightning. One came near to cleaving his head off, forcing him to duck; coming face to face with an arriving pillar of reishi.
Crossing his arms in front of him, Grimmjow barely had time to brace himself against the crushing force that slammed into him. Careening him across the air with unbridled velocity, caught in a cone of blue, the Arrancar crashed into the ground.
Followed by six more that pummeled him into the earth.
down into its burning tongues. He watched for awhile, seconds turn to minutes before he began to turn away.
VMMMMMMMMMMM!
An eruption of reiatsu blew away the fire, following the rise of a scorched blur of marred white. Claws hoisted with streaks of blue that stretched out behind him, the angelic being giving him a cold glare at his approach.
"Desgarron!" Grimmjow howled out, swinging his left arm, throwing the massive clawed spears of deep blue reishi.
Yhwach engulfed his blade in a wild torrent of swelling power, becoming a massive blade of pure reishi. A stroke of his sword, and lighter azure collided with the Arrancar's piercing claws. Crackling thunder crossed horizon, blue bolts snapping with destructive power into the ground with fiery reishi explosions.
Without even realizing it, Yhwach's feet skid across the air, all six wings furling forward with the building momentum of the five reishi clawed spears. His stoic face quivered, eyes twitching with effort. The singular arm swelled with muscular physique, blue veins darkening and the blade within his grip glowed a brighter blue over the white.
Gradually, the blue claws began to whir with effort, breaking down.
Ccccccraaaaaaaackkk!
And shattering within a crescent wave of pure blue light.
In that stroke of the sword, Grimmjow appeared amidst the flare of reishi, surprising the angelic being. A pair of black pawed feet slammed into his chest, breaching the white cloth and crashing past armored veins beneath.
Gaping, he found himself thrown to the earth with a dramatic impact of Hollow reiatsu. As blood spewed out of his mouth, blue eyes widened at a shearing arc of blue came with a black hand. A slew of reishi arms thrust out to intercept, shredded apart like cloth as the black hand crashed into his chest.
A crushing force buckled against the Blut Vene cracking and blistering in bloody sprays against the blue claws of reishi, Yhwach roared out, flaring out a mighty wave of reishi about himself even as his enemy continues to thrust his strongest attack downward.
Even as he whipped Säubern, a free hand snaked out and caught the wrist, holding it back while crushing the reishi lances downward.
Snap!
One broke against the barriers of reishi constantly being generated to halt the piercing blades. Then another cracked and shattered, reducing the number to three.
Then two.
"I don't care how much reishi you gather," Grimmjow sneered out, blue eyes glaring down at Yhwach's eyes, fierce fangs spread as he leered down with a ferocity unbridled before the Father of Quincies. "I'll crush anyone who stands in the way of my throne!"
Upon the penultimate claw withered away, the chest caves into the piercing thrust. Yhwach's visage changed into horror, his ribs torn away with his flesh, a cold chill rushing through his spine. A stinging burn reached his heart-
Shhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiip!
-before the organ is ripped gorily out of his body in an arc of crimson. A gasp leaves the Sternritter's mouth, his face shifting to that of a single shape of a bald man with a pale complexion and a third eye cracked over his forehead. The shine in his eyes glaze over, his mouth oozing blood as the heart is crushed in the unrelenting grip of the fierce Arrancar crouched over him.
Royd, the second and last of the Yourself Sternritter, is dead.
Heaving heavily, the Tres Espada looked over his foe with weariness. It took him dredging all of his reiryoku to generate such powerful Desgarron. To defeat such an enemy, he knew he couldn't afford a drawn out battle.
Not when the entire terrain is their source of limitless strength.
Their fake king ended up being really strong. I wonder if I even-...no, I've come this far. There's no way I can be beaten now! He thought to himself with a determined grip of his bloodied right fist.
Using his Pesquisa, he honed in on the prevailing sources of reiatsu in the dark skied realm he's in.
Two immense ones continued to battle, one belonging to Yammy. He decided to keep his distance from that fight, as it likely is the work of berserk meatheads. The more concentrated hub nearer to them is likely the castle of the Quincies.
Using Sonído, he returned with a boom of speed, reappearing above the hole where he drove the fake Yhwach out of the vast palace. Bending down, he peered into the darkness, seeing it descend past his sight to what he could only assume is the sublevels deep beneath the palace structure.
I wonder if I can get to the real King before Starrk and Harribel? There's still a lotta 'em left, so I doubt I'll get there without trouble. Perhaps if I ignore the weak ones? He belabored.
Then, an abrupt shift in pressure drew over his body. Reiatsu that ebbed over him felt familiar. Almost like…his?
"HNGH!" He suddenly choked, a black hand surging out and grasping his neck with rising thrust. The figure arriving above the hole of the palace roof raised himself up and over to crash into the ground, kicked back with an elliptical shockwave of cobalt left in his wake.
Tumbling in a ball, he clawed at the floor of the roof, gritting his teeth angrily from the pain he just felt. His eyes went from sharp to sudden shock at what he saw.
Grimmjow Jeaguerjaques, an overcast cascaded from the horizon's bright Jaws of Light. Instead of a perfect reflection, the armored Resurreccion is partially obscured by the even buttoned jacket and suit pants of the Quincy, and a cloak of the Sternritter draped over the shoulders. Even more unsettling of a decaying grey coloration over the face and a blank glaze over the blue eyes.
"Another copycat, huh?" He hissed out, baring his black claws at either side of himself as he regained his fighting stance. "Well bring it! I'll make you unrecognizable when I'm done with you!"
Leaping ahead in a bluish white streaks, both sets of Grimmjows engaged with an opening collision of spiked forearms. Sparks shot out, a flare of deep blue reiatsu shook the ground below their pawed feet. Tendrils of reishi lighting cracked from their limbs, grinding Hierro against Hierro, armor against armor.
Breaking away, both mirrored each other in circling around, dropping to all fours and then vanishing; flickering dozens of times over across the vast black canvas bordering the palace to the open dimension doorway, cracking and smashing into each other repeatedly.
The dance between them felt eerie, like there was no attempt for finesse or strategy. Just subtly changing tact without warning, like breaking away from the melee and priming up a Cero Oscuras within a clenched right hand.
"Ha! You really don't hold back, do ya?" The Tres Espada crowed out, brandishing his own black orb of reishi to strike his adversary.
Yet, that was his first mistake.
A sudden, large figure arrived in his shadow, mid-charge of his Cero. Looking over his shoulder, the silhouette swelled in size, towering over him and becoming a grayish ape in appearance. Inhaling a vortex of air, it suddenly bellowed out a horrid howl.
RRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRR!
Flung forward from the supersonic blast of reishi, Grimmjow swore under his pained breath as he swung his half made Cero into the incoming wave of black reishi. A mass of pitch black wafted over with fiery pain, chipping away plating and skin off his arms, around his chest and legs, even as he blasted away the worst of it.
Blasting out of the smoke of the explosion that ensued, the Arrancar found himself assailed by another figure he found familiar. A pair of scythes held in each hand, slashing down in arcs of emerald reishi that cracked against a raised arm.
"The Hell is with you," He snarled, looking at the gray face of the current Quinto Espada's visage, stoically staring ahead while not looking at anything amidst the sparks and reiatsu ebbing off himself, "Soto?!"
The Quinto flipped back, boots kicking off the defending arm, forcing the Arrancar to bat away several scythe shaped arcs of reishi sent at him from a distance.
Loyd took advantage of this, thrusting a clawed hand into Grimmjow's side, grazing his armored flesh in a slew of flashing keratin and tissue. Red painted the normally white exterior, and the Tres Espada retaliated with a thrust of his own slashing up the uniform chest and carving a deep gash along the gray flesh.
Even as he bled, the copycat thrashed a kick out, slipping through his defense and struck his jaw. Spiraling back, another ferocious bellow of supersonic reishi, blasting him away to get hit by a salvo of scythe energy blades that cracked over his tough body.
Two pairs of feet landed behind him, his hearing blaring but able to pick it up just barely. Stomping a pawed foot down, he swirled around, saw a pink-purple haired woman and a messy red haired woman both of deadened complexions. He swiped towards the pair, one opening her mouth to speak while the other raised a hand in defense of the speaking one.
"You can't win against us," Berenice Gabrielli said.
Her words struck an unnerving cord as the red haired woman's mane flashed white and her eyes a crimson shine. The arc of his claws rebounded back, whipping him backwards, all the while a chilling thought filled in his mind.
Am I…going to lose? He thought, as the copycat thrashed another mighty thuum of force hitting him, and another supersonic bellow blasted him in conjunction with arcs of reishi thrown by Soto.
The Quincy and Arrancar drew bloodied wounds from him, each blow more severe from the last. It was getting harder for him to think, to focus, as the words the pink haired woman confused him and kept him from fighting more effectively.
No! He gritted his teeth, stopping mid twirl of blood and pain to turn at the nearest Quincy.
The Tres Espada retaliated with a desperate howl of his own, blowing back Jerome's bellow long enough for him to get close enough and carve a hole through his chest. Firing off a black Cero, he erased the simian foe from the waist up, leaving only a pair of legs behind.
Twisting around, he leaped bodily into his copy, shoulder tackling him to the ground while rearing his mouth back.
Crunch-sppppllllllrrrrrrrt!
Biting straight into the neck, drawing out a fountain of blood that he drank like a thirsty man in a desert. He drank in the reishi and felt renewed, his wounds restoring without focusing on them and exhaustion receded by large margin. Without much struggle, he tore off the head of the copycat, leaving a limp torso behind as he threw the head away with an ugly spat.
Hitting the ground with a limp stare upwards, a startled Berenice tried to speak out to Grimmjow.
"You can't-!"
POW!
"Shut the FUCK up!" Grimmjow swore out, tearing out the throat of the reanimated woman. As Berenice tried to keep talking without a voice, her head is sent flying with a backhand gesture, a black claw slamming into Veronica Bellevair's side-
BOOM!
-causing Grimmjow to be thrown back again with flash of crimson-white light. Bounding away in a tumble, he clawed himself to a stop, bleeding from the nostrils and mouth as he seethed in anger.
Damn bitch has a reflection field or something! He realized, gritting bloodied teeth as Soto Muerte landed beside her with scythes at the ready. Just got two left. Something tells me whoever did this has an ability like Zommari or Szayel to puppeteer shit. Makes me wonder where the puppetmaster is?
A sudden eruption of light emerged behind himself. Twisting around, he beheld a winged being with a long saber in hand clad in reishi as his gauntlets, boots, a bandoleer shoulder pad and a halo over a gray faced, bar eyed man smiled eerily at him from above.
Similarly, another pillar of light followed and Veronica herself is adorned in a pair of wings with glowing shoulder length gloves, stocking fitted heeled boots a shoulder harnessed breastplate and a five pointed star halo of thorns circling over her head. The name of this Vollstandig is Adriel.
"Pounce, Astuta Lagarto," Soto graveled out, his own body erupting in a thick reiatsu that stretched his black hair to a spiky shoulder length mane, his mask covering his face in a sheer slant of white with a pair of slanted eye slits. Bone handled scimitars held in each armored hand, with his waist down a pair of arched raptor legs with razor sharp claws fashioned over the digits.
"Of course this wasn't going to be easy," He drawled out, heaving heavily as the strain is felt beneath his healed injuries.
If he fought any of them one on one, this would have been over easily. But with all of them coordinating as a unit? This seemed to be more difficult than any fight he had in the past.
VMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
As he focused on them, a damning reiatsu brought a chill to his spine along with a sudden painful thrust through his chest. Craning his neck down, he raised his hands up to clench a blade of bluish white, having pierced between the cross emblazoned area where his Hollow hole would have been. Twitching his neck around to look over his shoulder, he gagged out blood, and began to visibly trembled.
"How? I killed you!" Grimmjow strangled out a gasp.
"You're a fool to think you can slay an Angel of the Lord," Royd proclaimed, his three-faced visage returned and his younger Yhwach visage staring down coldly at him. There, where his chest had a gaping wound, had been restored, with nary a scratch. Even his mutilated arm has been fully healed. "Asmodel has total dominion over reishi. Any part of me, if left alone, can be healed by the dominance I have over spirit energy. I can restore myself to life, no matter the severity of the damage, so long as my brain is intact. In other words," he sneered, clenching his grip on Säubern with a narrow eyed glare, "You should have aimed for the head!"
And in an arc of light, Grimmjow felt his body flung forward while his legs remain standing. His eyes looked aghast, seeing his lower torso flop back unceremoniously, leaving both halves cleaved in two.
"D-DAMN IT!" Grimmjow swore out, clawing at the ground, hissing with anguish and anger.
"Now that was mean," The Arrancar heard suddenly, a Feminine voice emerging from the darkness of the hole. Her small tilted hat, the ahoge bouncing and her feet hopping onto the palace roof with a bouncing glee. Squatting by Grimmjow, she looked down at him with her hands on her knees, speaking to her comrade and not to the Espada in general. "I called dibs on this guy. I almost had him."
"He's with the one who killed my brother, and had nearly claimed my life," Royd proclaimed, dropping to the other half of Grimmjow with a cold stare poised at Giselle. "Your methods take too long."
"Says the guy who has to revive himself," Giselle mocked with a curling grin.
"Like I'd let you turn me into one of your zombies," He said with vehement disdain. "I know your power has its uses, but it still an aberration against nature."
"I already had my ear chewed out by As Nodt, I'd rather not be preached by one of His Majesty's choir boys," The effeminate Sternritter dismissed, biting a forefinger in readiness. "I'm within my rights. Just stand back and let me make use of him."
"Tch," Royd clicked his tongue with disapproval, turning his tri-faced head away.
This…can't be it…! Grimmjow thought with desperation, helpless to stop a stream of blood spraying his face and slipping into his nostrils, eyes and mouth; worming its way into his barely intact insides.
I can't die here…! He ground his teeth, eyes becoming bloodshot and body convulsing with muscles spasming around.
"You better settle down, otherwise this is going to hurt," Giselle warned with a deranged smile on her face. "Though if you don't, I'd like it if you scream. It gets me off knowing this hurts you!"
"Ggggguuuuuuh!" He graveled out, his face blanched, eyes contracting pupils, and mouth opening wide.
Howling as a torrent of blood soaked branches shoot out of his torn torso back to his lower half. Royd looked on in alarm, watching him pull himself together with sickly grotesque sounds of muscles and tendons reforming with the flesh and armored exterior. Parts and pieces shedded, a massive surge of reiryoku channeled with a billowing blue wave of reishi; blank eyes became slits of white in blue backdrops, as he howled out.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He roared out, his body transforming, causing Giselle to be blown back into the arms of Kirge, while Soto Muerte looked on with a stoic glare and Royd looked on with a surprised expression.
The power seemed to warp the space beneath, spreading out like a gradient and crack the black canvas above, like a fierce pressure of gravity that waves all about in a passive presence of pure bloodlust. The blue became deeper and deeper in shade, till it became nearly black as Grimmjow rose upwards from the ground.
Bluish fire ebbed off claws, more akin to razors than edges of fingers, prominent as a pair of burning tails with a black recession going up to a mostly unarmored back. His arms, legs all deprived of the scales up to his abdomen up to his chest which instead of the engraved filling now had a pure white cross burning over his abdomen up to his neck and over each pectoral. His hair arched with flames over the bluish tresses, his pure white pupil in a blue backdrop glaring about with his mouth pulled back into a thin lipped sneer.
"Segunda Etapa," Grimmjow hissed out, looking down at himself with faint interest. "So, this is the power that I've been given by Aaroniero?"
He paused, taking in the sensation of the reiryoku thrumming deeply inside, stemming from the white cross emblazoned in fire over his chest. It resonated with him, taking all of his innate features and enhancing them to a super level. The reservoir of power felt so much that even Grimmjow himself couldn't quantify the difference between his Resurreccion and this new improved state.
To grant me this level of power so casually…must make you a true monster beyond Hollows, Grimmjow fathomed.
"Ah, so you got another transformation," Giselle mused, dropping down a decent distance from the Arrancar. Looking up unafraid, she waved her arms out and proclaimed bravely. "It changes nothing. You're outnumbered, and I doubt you can keep up that level of power after the injuries you had to heal. So how about we cut to the chase and get back to the bloodletting, shall we?"
As if to emphasize this, Soto rushed in along with Kirge.
"Lacerar!" The Quinto Espada snarled out with an arc of bisecting green light curling with the edges of his scimitars he slashed towards his transformed for.
"Zorn Gottes!" Kirge shouted, swinging a hammer of reishi down at the other side of the Tres Espada.
KOOOM!
Grimmjow raised both hands up, catching either attack, the palace floor cracking beneath his clawed paws, blowing the air back in a powerful pressure wave. Both zombies gaped, shocked at how easily he blocked either of their attacks without flinching.
"Good hits," Grimmjow murmured, grinning toothily in jeer back at them. "But not enough!"
Throwing them back with a warping push, both the angelic being and the transformed arrancar wobbled back from the strength of the Tres.
In an act of instinct, both raised their arms, deflecting a number of blows too fast to parry, all slashing about either of their reanimated bodies.
Giselle herself saw it happen with a nervous smile. Too quickly did Grimmjow rush her way, a burning claw of bluish-black thrown at her neck.
KOOM!
A flash of blue came with a sudden rebound from the transformed Grimmjow. Thrown across the rooftop, he stopped with a skidding stomp, eyes turning around to look over his left. There hovering in the air is Veronica, whose hand had been raised where he had been a moment ago.
Shft-THUUM!
The Arrancar displaced, reappearing in a blur behind Veronica, repulsed in another flash of blue. She turned around, a stave with a forked top akin to a shepherd's stave erects in her grip. String pull back, a sphere of condensed light whirring in sparks of white as she pulled it back to her ear.
As Grimmjow recovered, he widened his eyes and veered away, a streak of light cutting his left cheek; carving away a long line of the rooftop behind and curling the air in its wake.
Struck in the back, a bite of pain crossed over his shoulder, making him grit his teeth and swipe around with his claws-
CLANG!
-cracking against the raised Säubern, held in Royd's hand. Reishi flickered off, veins throbbed and both sides looked evenly matched as Arrancar and Sternritter glared at one another in the grinding of both weapons.
"You shouldn't leave your back unguarded," He warned with a scowl, "For all your power increase, I'll ensure you won't master it before this battle's end!"
"What are you talking about?" Grimmjow grinned as inquired, "You act as if I haven't got a clue how to use this power. I'm just getting warmed up!"
Royd wondered where the bluster came from. He had been on death's door merely a minute ago. Where did this unyielding will come from when he had nothing to believe other than his own selfish pride?
Unheard by all save for the sword locked Tres, reishi string pulled taut back to the cheek of Veronica as she took aim at Grimmjow's head. Grasping the blade, Royd widened his gaze as he whirled around to kick him, punting him through the hand he used to catch it.
The moment he flung away across the roof, Grimmjow evaded the bullet of light while aiming a cocked elbow straight back without looking; firing a near invisible dart of blue back faster than Veronica could sense.
Her eyes widened, feeling the fingernail sized projectile drill its way into her head-
BOOM!
-exploding in a fiery blue ball of reishi that destroyed the head down the chest between the shoulders. Wings fizzled, body dropping in a sick squelch onto the ground.
Soto leaped upon Grimmjow, feeling a ripping slash across his waist and back. To Kirge, he simply appeared upright past the Arrancar; with a meaty diagonal stroke severing the raptor arrancar onto the ground in a bloody mess.
"And the next one up is…" Grimmjow lolled out, turning his head around to glance at the reanimated Kirge. The man visibly trembled, taking a step back with his saber raised up.
"I-I won't back down!" He cried out, raising a hand up to his halo.
Snatch!
"Eh?" Kirge gasped, finding his gaze looking straight at his neck where his head should be. Looking over with a gaping maw, he saw the top of his skull in the grip of the Arrancar, his claws wrapped around his temples and crown.
Before another noise is uttered, his head crushed in a shower of blood, bone, and brain matter.
"And that leaves you two," He spoke aloud, grinning sadistically at Royd and Giselle's faces. "Which of you should I wipe the floor with next?"
Royd narrowed his eyes. Sweeping his arms out, the corpses of the fallen broke down into a slurry of reishi, rearranging and compositing themselves over him. An additional four arms clenched scimitars, a stave and a saber in his free hand. Reishi armor gleamed over his skin, his Yhwach covered by white plating with angled slots for his eyes to glare ahead.
With his reiatsu erupting through the roof and up into the sky with a massive reversal of gravity, Grimmjow bared his teeth with excitement.
"Guess you got some fight left in you after all," The Tres Espada crowed, turning to the visibly irritated Giselle.
SSSSSHRRRRRIP!
In a blur of speed, he ripped through the effeminate Sternritter, arms chest and neck all torn off in bloody chunks. Falling to pieces on the floor, Grimmjow swung blood off his fiery blue claws, turning his attention to Royd.
"And this makes one," He said with a sneering smirk.
A brief pause crossed the pair. Both ebbed a transcendent level of power, warping space and affecting the spiritual land. The dark ceiling above quivered, tendrils of reishi sparking up and about like lightning in response to the two terrifying combatants' energy. Everything below the palace could feel their might brought to bear to one another.
It's only a matter of time before one makes the move to reignite their battle.
Yet, amidst it all, Giselle's face construed into an expression usually foreign on her smug face. An emotion few have seen, and lived to tell about it. A single word to sum up the feeling that burned within her veins.
Rage.
A sudden wave of power interrupts the standoff of the two formidable warriors. An eerie coldness swept up their backs. Sweat beaded off Grimmjow's face and Royd's neck, the two looking over to see a pillar of reishi subsuming into a focal point where a pile of limbs were left upon.
Arms stitched back together, covered by femurs interlocked around like armor. A torn chest is grotesquely pulled back together with a breastplate made of pale ribs of light. Clawed fingers extended from digits, feet rose up off the ground laced with white lattices. The blue eyes possess white skulls for pupils glaring ahead with a demented smile and a pair of skeletal wings swinging back behind her back.
"Samael," Giselle sighed out, arms spreading out with fingers grinding against each other in sprays of bluish sparks. "You were a fool to think I'd just let you steal my zombies' power without my permission."
"Giselle-" Royd began to grate out, only to feel his voice stop. He tried to speak but felt it hard to breathe. Something inside him chilled, and then ground through his chest. Choking out, he grasped his neck, black veins sprouting out along his faces, the partitions of limbs and armor cracked about him.
Eyes bulged, and he squeaked out an impotent plea.
Then exploded in a rupturing blast of gore.
Grimmjow felt stunned.
It happened so quickly, and the power all siphoned from the blood in the reishi.
He'd watch the ichor rise up, swimming in the air and flowing out to Giselle, funneling into her mouth and down her throat in thick swallows. Sighing with the last gulp, an instant increase of power outage cracked the roof beneath her feet and spread out across their environment.
"It's been awhile I felt this good from my zombies' power returning back to me," She admitted, unfurling her hands and taking a step forward with an eerie grin on her face. "You tore me up good. It was so fast that my blood didn't even get into you. A shame. I'm going to have to work to make you my zombie."
"Tch, as if I'd let you!" Grimmjow snarled, leaping back into the air, slashing down at the grinning Angel of Death. As her own clawed hands met his, a shearing arc of spirit energy cascaded across the vast surface of the palace.
The battle of destroyers has just begun.
Lilia could feel Grimmjow's battle as he and Harribel drew closer. The source of this immense reiatsu felt imminent, flowing past him like a strong gale from a distant horizon. Winding past twists and turns, the two soon found themselves at a final hall.
Vast in height as it was in width, there seemed to be a vaulted ceiling with arches of marble held up by half naked angels over a starry sky. Pillars lined along the path, with the crest of the Wandenreich engraved over every tile and a wide pair of double doors with six starred handles.
"This must be the throne room," Lilia murmured aloud, eyeing paintings of Yhwach and various Sternritter she didn't know or recognize. They all looked from a different time period, and the Quincy leader the copycat mimic even looked younger as well.
Stopping at one, she saw a man with a full frock of black hair, adorned in a hooded black cloak. He sat upon a dark horse, posed with a large band of white clad soldiers that numbered in the hundreds behind him. A stoic expression is painted with unerring accuracy to detail, almost giving the impression this was painted by a master artist.
"We should confront him," Tier implored at Lilia's right side.
"Yeah," She said, turning away-
-in time to see a small bolt of light whizzing straight towards her head.
Bending her head away, the bolt struck the image of Yhwach's in the painting instead, bursting the painting aflame. Tier Harribel whirled around, brandishing her sword to meet a black gloved hand grasping her sword wielding hand. The white hooded Sternritter pointed a finger at her face.
"Burner Finger One!"
BANG!
A bolt of red-golden light speared through the ceremonial hood and veil, leaving a scorched mark over a shark mask of teeth where her lower visage lied. As she evaded, she used her free hand to grasp his collar and throttle him over her head into the wall.
Crashing into the burning painting, Lilia stepped aside as Tier slashed an arc of yellow reishi into the Sternritter's front; exploding through the wall into a distant adjacent corridor.
"You go ahead," Tier said, turning her barely covered bodice over at Lilia's direction. "This one needs a thorough execution."
"You're leaving me alone to fight the big boss?" Lilia questioned with a raised brow.
"Do you wish to trade places, Primera?"
"No, I'm just concerned that whoever is the boss of these guys is ridiculously stronger," She confessed to her blonde cohort.
"I have faith in your abilities to see this through," Tier said with a nod.
"At least that makes one of us," She murmured.
As the two separate, the Primera approaches the door.
Grasping the handles, she pulled them wide, revealing a dimly lit interior. A red carpet draped the middle, torches kept faint luminescence within the tall blank white pillared and arched ceiling. Shadows danced about the flickering lights, banners of the Wandenreich strapped about the support columns as Lilia entered deeper.
A throne sat upon a pedestal, curved and dark in make with a series of white stairs leading up to it. Its cushioned seat deprived of an occupant, nor anyone else within, immediately set Lilia on edge.
"Ah, you're here," A light voice spoke out from the ether. Looking around, she couldn't pinpoint the sound, the reiatsu all but drumming about her senses. "Forgive me, but you won't find what you're looking for here. This is all but a ruse to lure you into a trap, Primera of the Reio."
"A trap, huh?" Lilia asked, her eyes looking back, seeing the door has vanished.
As if it never existed, with a wall of granite in its place.
"Yes," The voice came out clearly, causing Lilia's eyes to widen with surprise.
Looking around, she saw a small figure seated upon the previously vacant seat. A hood of white drawn back with long curly locks of silky blonde hair, yellow eyes shining in the dark gleamed with a pretty visage akin to a girl's, yet a slender flat physique below told that of a young man's bodice.
The white hooded cloak hung loosely over the throne, a white ribbon wrapped around the collar over a white blouse with a golden trimmed white skirt wrapped over a pair of white stockings hugging snugly down to a pair of white heeled shoes.
"My name is Gremmy Thoumeaux, but you can just call me Grem," He said, gesturing with the left hand. "I already know what you are, but I don't know the name. May I have it?"
Lilia warily narrowed her eyes at the strange effeminate Sternritter. He didn't know if she felt disappointed or simply annoyed. Yet another subordinate of the boss that has a quirky motif.
"Lilia Starrk," She responds after a few seconds of pause.
"Pretty name," Gremmy remarked, leaning back into the chair. "I haven't had visitors in awhile, so apologies if I'm not a good host. Yhwach only let me out to lure you invaders into the palace. Most of the others fear me because of what I can do, but I have a few friends. One of which gave me inspiration for the form you see before you."
"I didn't think the source of such a powerful reiryoku would care about looking cute," Lilia snarked with a smirk.
"You tend to get bored with a standard appearance after you've been cooped up for as long as I have," He admitted with a dismissive wave of the hand. "I've been an old man, a busty woman, a monster, a multi-legged insect, and even a devil. You get creative and then you settle for something more quaint and comfortable."
"It does look nice," Lilia admitted with a once-over.
"Doesn't it? Bambi actually says I pull off the Femboy look better than Giselle, but, don't let her know I said that," He urges with a smile and a wink.
"I won't, but I have more pressing concerns," The Primera uttered more seriously. "I was tasked to find the enemy leader and eliminate him. If he's not here, can you tell me where he is?"
"At this moment? Probably headed to the big doorway you guys used to get in here," He admitted with a shrug. "But you'd be wasting your time, trying to stop him. He's got the Schutstaffel with him, and they're each on their own almost as strong as I am."
"Almost?" Lilia questioned.
"Well," Gremmy said with a raised finger with a smile. "That's because I'm the strongest Sternritter."
"From the reiatsu you've given off since I got down here, I'm inclined to agree," The Primera intoned, her red eyes narrowing at the effeminate boy's yellow eyes. "But it doesn't mean I'll just sit back and let your leader get away."
"I'd rather you not fight me straight away," He proffered with a calm smile. "It's been lonely as of late, and you're the first new person I've talked to in awhile. Can't you just sit down and have a chat with me?"
As he asked this of the Primera, a chair seemed to materialize in an instant behind her. It alarmed how quickly this happened, let alone no reiatsu even changed in the air when it occurred. To her, this is not a boy sitting on a chair.
This is a God, playfully looking down at her as if she is a child instead.
"I don't know what game you're playing, Gremmy, but I don't have the patience for it," She said, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. "I have comrades. People I care about. I can't let you keep me here so that your comrades kill mine. So at the moment, even if I don't like it,* she gritted her teeth, bending her knees and lunging towards Gremmy in a blur, "I have to beat you!"
Crashing her fist into his face, a massive thuum shook the confines of the throne room. Air blistering about, the site of connection of the fist hitting the Quincy shocked the Primera.
For the first time since she awakened, her fist was stopped, and did no damage to her opponent.
"I tried to warn you," Gremmy said, his face not flinching beneath the larger fist pressing into his frowning brow. "Now I'm going to hurt you."
A/N: Happy New Year's!
I wanted this fight to be a good one. Grimmjow has been my favorite Espada for awhile, and with no Ulquiorra returning, I wanted to stack a lot of power he had potential for into this chapter. With Royd busting out incredible feats of strength, to Giselle strategically using her zombies, to the Segunda Etapa and the Vollstandig, all of it is something I really enjoyed incorporating.
Even the last section is really just a teaser, as I wanted to showcase my redesign of Gremmy, since I find his original inclusion to be a severe letdown in the original Manga. Hopefully my audience will take to his new design, but apart from that, I got no worries about the story pushing forward.
See you all in the next update!