Alone, in the ashes I grieve
Born in greatness, left empty
Burning in hatred, paradise I leave
For I am the Vengeful Blaze
Bound to Burn Everything
Even my own flesh in this hateful haze
A Predator Among Us
The Hol(low)y War IX
SHIFTING TIDES
(A Sunk Heart Track)
"Is she alright down there?" Candice pondered aloud from her aerial position.
She had to be cautious, after all, as she never had seen their most reserved member of the Bambis get so enraged in an instant. To cross Meninas at the moment felt like fate tempting them into their own grave.
"I've never seen her lose her cool like that," Liltotto admitted, kneeling down at the hole she drove Grimmjow down into.
Peering into the darkness she could faintly make out the glimmer of her aura far into the depths of the Silbern. It felt like she had stopped fighting for the moment.
"Tch, she better bring proof he's dead so we can get that reward," Candice huffed with a roll of her eyes.
Giselle sighed.
Letting her Vollstandig flitter off her body she felt fatigued. She normally didn't fight on the front lines like this. Perhaps she should go to where Najahkoop's body is to use him as a Zombie?
"Hey, what are you doing?" Candice asked Giselle as she sawshayed away with exaggerated swing of her arms.
"I'm going to see if Najahkoop is dead," Giselle piped up, smirking over her shoulder as she leaped up and floated casually in the air towards the downed Quincy. "He might prove useful in taking down more enemies."
"What enemies?" Candice snarked out with a wave of her arms. "Apart from that chick fighting Gremmy, I think we're out of opponents. Let's just wait for Meninas for a bit longer-"
A faint whistle hung in the air. Growing louder and louder as it spun forward.
Of the Bambis, Bambietta had her ears perked up. Her eyes wide, lips pulled back and a gloved hand sweeping the air as she unleashed a torrent of reishi balls.
A singular projectile pierced between them, avoiding the explosive orbs while flinging straight into the back of Giselle's head. Blood splattered out, blue eyes going wide and mouth agape.
Staggering a few feet forward, she fell to her knees and then collapses in a bloody crunch to the floor.
"Dammit!" Bambietta snarled out, slamming a palm over her belt buckle. Popping out in a flare of reishi, she grasped the Heilig Bogen, pulling back the string of reishi to her cheek as a tubular edge to the Heilig Pfeil is crafted.
Another whistle came out, and she fired, striking the thin blade before it could arch. A fiery blast filled the air, revealing a silhouette of a black haired woman adorned in white fabrics with a pair of blades forming a bow of her own.
"There you are-!"
BOOM!
A sudden crash rattled the ground as something heavy drove into the rooftop. Twisting her head to look over her shoulder, she gasped, seeing the looming figure of Yammy Llargo rise up from the crater he made.
Yet, his eyes looked faded, and his breathing off. These oddities are reminiscent of Giselle's Zombie, or another colleague's ability. It looked to be like a puppet as his behemoth ape-like arm rose upwards.
THUUM!
Dodging out of the way at the last second, a massive surge of reishi infused force billowed through the air, cracking the roof and slamming into a distant patch of land. Notching her arrow up at the beast, she'd barely have time to notice another thin projectile hurtled straight for her head.
Twik!
Shot before her eyes, she'd see Liltotto's own bow drawn, eyes scanning around their vicinity for more enemies.
"Spread out! The enemy is coordinating an ambush!" Liltotto shouted out.
Before, Candice would have argued. But with the hulking monster swinging its arm towards her like a club, she realized time for talk is gone.
KOOM!
A flash of light echoed with thunder, flaring a shocking reishi blast over Yammy's body. Flying above she fired a salvo of Heilig Pfeil, watching the mass of hissing muscle and flesh twist with unnatural dexterity out of the way.
Rising up like a top, gigantic arms rushed the body up like a comical helicopter, aiming to bludgeon Candice in the air. Bolting backwards faster than the beast, she fired more arrows, watching in dismay as they were easily deflected or dodged by the oddly maneuvering Arrancar.
"Screw this!" She snarled out, collapsing her bow into her buckle, and gesturing an arm upwards. A sudden pillar of lightning erupted in front of her, funneling into the sky, swirling around in an orb of crackling reishi.
Gritting her teeth, she threw her body forward with her arm, roaring out.
"ELECTRO-CUTION!"
KRAAAAK-KOOOOOOM!
A sudden flash of light the size of a skyscraper struck the charging Yammy, throttling him down with a thunderous impact that tore a hole into the Silbern. The behemoth became buried under an innumerable number of levels of the palace, and he showed no signs of emergence.
Meanwhile, a distant crescendo of explosions in the distance forced the Arrancar Archer out of hiding, landing upon the edge of the roof with the bow now changed to a pair of curved scimitars. She had some scorch marks along her cloak but looked relatively unfazed despite the floating harpy staring with contempt down at her.
"You dodge pretty well," Bambietta noted with a smirk, orbs whirring to life around her wings in preparation to fire. "But I wonder if you can evade a carpet bombing?"
Sedosa narrowed her eyes at the aerial bomber. She figured she could disperse a few of the bombs if she launched en masse, but not enough.
Just as she deliberated, a massive crescent wave of gold rushed down towards Bambi. Looking up at the downward torrent of reishi, she unleashed a slew of bombs straight into the blaze of light.
BOOOOOOM!
An elliptical shockwave came from flames that unfurled over their heads in orange and gold fire. From the storm of flames emerged dozens more smaller arcs of reishi, each one homing in on her position.
Gritting her teeth she shimmered away with Hirenkyaku, rapidly dodging the stream of projectiles that crashed along the Silbern's crater riddled rooftop. Corkscrewing in the air, she unleashed a spiral of bombs at the crescent blasts, detonating a line of explosions over the others.
Seeing her chance, Sedosa employed Sonído and appeared behind the rapidly moving Quincy. Swinging her scimitars down at her in an arc, she let loose an arch of reishi to cut her down.
CLANG!
Bambietta snarled, her hands catching both swords. Using her own momentum in addition to her Blut to shove the offending instruments straight back into the Arrancar's chest with a crack!
KOOM!
Sedosa cried out, her ears ringing as she felt herself detonate point blank by her very own Zanpakutō exploding. Propelled backwards with her chest smoldering, she coughed out as she felt herself crashed into the rooftop with a bouncing skid.
"One down, for now," She exhaled out with relief.
Dropping down behind her in a blur, Patros unleashed another enormous slash of reishi at her back. Seeing her evade with Hirenkyaku, he backed up, trying to look around with his thin exposed eye.
Tap
"You'll make number two," Bambietta whispered behind him, her hand pressed against his back.
A chill run up his spine even as he spun around to lash out at her.
It was too late.
His back exploded in a fiery blast of orange and gold, his body lurching off kilter and failed to unsheathe his blade. A merciless kick slammed into his chest, throwing him back before exploding over his front to propel him into the ground in a scorching heap.
"Heh, and now to see who's left," She intoned smugly, looking over to her comrades. They were standing in place, their expressions strained and trembling where they stood. Candice looked horrified with teeth bared while Liltotto appeared stunned with wide eyes.
"What's the matter with you two?" Bambietta snarled out, swinging a hand out with exasperation. "What are you gawking about-?"
Clench!
Her eyes widened. A sudden gripping pressure slipped around her body. From her arms and legs coiled an invisible set of limbs that cinched about her neck down her chest. Her head jerked side to side, arms shaking in place and her body trembling in the air.
"W-What is this?!" She hissed out.
"Well, that was easier than I expected," A young airy voice ebbed from above. Craning her head, Bambi sneered with grinding teeth as the air warped, unraveling as light refraction is undone to unveil a slender thin Arrancar girl.
A pair of twin-tails with skull headed pins blonde hair to brush languidly over exposed shoulders with striped black-white sleeves down over a pair of knuckles with black painted fingernails. A sweater of pale hue rolls down with a pair of faux cupid wings fluttering behind her, a feathered mini-skirt over her waist with a pair of black-white striped stockings to a pair of heeled shoes.
With a wakazashi sheathed horizontally at her lower back with a skull shaped guard, her eyes narrowed down at the leader of the Bambis.
"You were so fixated on the visible enemy, you didn't consider there could be an invisible one watching just out of reach," She mused out, a grin playing at her lips with eyes wide. "How does it feel to be helpless, Miss Quincy? To be strung up like a doll, unable to move or retaliate? It's frustrating isn't it? With all of that power," she said, raising a hand up, thrusting it down - sending her hurtling with her two colleagues into the ground with a thunderous impact along the Silbern roof.
"You can't even lift a finger to stop me."
The Bambis all grimaced in place, feeling the crushing force buckling the rooftop beneath them. Had their Blut not reacted to the stranglehold placed over them, they knew they'd be feeling far more pain than they already were now.
But, whereas previous foes Angelle Cooney had held in the grip of her psionic reiatsu tendrils were trapped without escape, these enemies were anything but ordinary.
"D-Daaaammmiiiiiit!" Candice roared out, her body erupting in a white hot aurora of electric discharge. The blaze of reishi borne plasma seared away the bonds, freeing herself, highlighting the ropes of invisible reiatsu that rebound away from her sparkling being.
Liltotto stretched out her own mouth, chomping at the space around her bound body. Rewarded with the taste of a unique flavor of reishi, she slurped it up like pasta, forcing the connection cut off as she righted herself off the ground to her feet.
The only one of the three that couldn't simply use their power to free herself is Bambi, for fear of damaging herself more than saving herself the trouble. Yanked up away from the two, Bambietta spewed out a string of curses as Angelle coolly glared at the two who freed themselves from her psychic grasp and held her up as a shield.
"You think you can save yourself with a human shield?" Liltotto asked incredulously to the airborne Arrancar. "You should have used a more lethal attack when you had us captured. Now you're going to get hurt worse than your friends were."
"Who's hurt?" A voice spoke from the pair's right. Rising up from their respective rough landings, Patros and Sedosa walked back with weapons in hand while sporting scorch marks but no real damage to be seen. That is, for the faintest of white wisps of flesh being grown back where it was blown away by Bambi.
"Tch, it doesn't matter if you can regenerate," Candice snarked, raising a sparking hand that crackled with intense joules. "I'll shock you both till you're a pile of ashes!"
"Amusing," A new voice spoke behind the two. Both girls looked behind, seeing a black haired woman with pink lips and haunting violet eyes narrowing at their backs. Wearing a cloak over a skimpy two piece white uniform showing her curves and cleavage with a feathered rapier sheathed on her hip, the Sexta Espada grinned with a malicious grin that ebbed with her reiatsu rolling off her body in waves of ill intent. "As much as I'd like to see those two humbled in such a way, I have a need for them. In exchange, I'll give you two a choice."
Grasping her blade, she slowly pulled it from the scabbard, a deranged smile stretching as her head tilted exaggeratedly to the right, in line with her blade's brandishing.
"Which of you will be mine?"
Liltotto eyed the new arrival with scrutiny. By her confident swagger and the large draw of reiryoku, she obviously seemed to be the strongest of the ones sent their way. Though nowhere near the tier of strength of Grimmjow, she couldn't help but a creeping feeling up her spine; like a venomous creature flourishing colors disarmingly to assist in striking its prey unaware.
The Sternritter felt herself take a step backwards while brandishing her bow-
SSSSHINK!
A blur of white and black streaked into her space, a blade thrusting with incredible speed.
Shit!
Liltotto hissed, feeling a piercing bite pass through her shoulder, stopped at a few inches shy of piercing the blue veined muscle. With her mind lashing out, a tendril of psionic reiatsu lashed out, bludgeoning a surprised Sverrie backwards.
A slash of light and a slew of arrows fired at her and Candice, the latter reacting with impeccable reflexes in a flash of yellow. Slashing the arc of reishi and projectiles in a single stroke, she turned away from a divebombing Bambietta.
"Hey! Watch it!"
"I literally can't help it-"
KOOM!
An explosion coned outward from Bambi in mid speech, connecting with a wide eyes Candice; whom dissolved into currents of electric reishi, avoiding the majority of damage. Appearing in an arc towards Angelle, she thrust a clawed hand pulsing with millions of joules.
Bending around her as if defied by thought, Angelle raised a hand up to Candice. A small concentration of reiatsu funneled into a large orb, condensing with a rumbling whir, casting a black epicenter with a red outline.
"Bala Mente," Angelle coolly said, gesturing with a small flick of her wrist.
It disappeared from view, flickering before Candice's eyes. And then, a horrible grinding pain crashed into her chest, the breath drawn out of her before carrying her forcefully over the Silbern's rooftop. A distinct burning sensation began to unravel, the reishi orb destabilizing and then in an instant expanded.
Exploding in a massive pillar of fire, shooting up and funneling out into a mushroom cloud.
"Dammit!" Liltotto hissed out, seeing her comrade's direction subsumed in a deadly blast. She couldn't dwell on it long, her body bending and somersaulting dexterously away from her many opponents.
Patros slashed repeated Iaido discharges of reishi, Sedosa using her Zanpakutō's bow form, unleashing volleys of silk woven arrows at her sprite frame. Even the swift strikes of Sverrie continued to narrowly miss penetration, using thrusts to test her defenses and prod it for openings.
Each one drew closer and closer, aiming to do real damage to the last of the standing Bambis. While they all saw that she appeared to be on the ropes, narrowly avoiding all the attacks, Sverrie noticed something change.
A glint of predatory malice escaping her cool eyes as she glanced her way.
Stopping advance in a jolt, she beheld a sudden rush of movement sweep just shy of her feet and curl around in an arch of motion. Where two sets of feet stood now were without their upper halves, Sedosa and Patros's legs fell before crunching by another whip of skin and teeth.
"She ate them?" Sverrie gawked with wide eyes. "A Quincy ate Hollows? I thought that we were toxic to Quincies!"
"Your bites are toxic, not your blood and flesh," Liltotto corrected, her amorphous mouth retracting back to her face as she chewed sickly on the last bits of the Arrancar. "To be honest, you taste like shit. But I do have the benefit of being able to devour anything I come into contact with, matter or reishi otherwise."
Rolling her neck side to side, she swung a hand, unleashing a fiery blue arc of reishi at Sverrie. The beautiful Arrancar sidestepped away, running into a slew of Heilig Pfeil with jaw etched tips. Parrying the shots, she'd see her change trajectory with a shot poised up at Angelle.
Bringing Bambietta around to deflect the shot, it struck her chest.
"Gotcha," Liltotto hissed out, yanking a fist down and hauling Bambietta's wing clad form down to the ground. Angelle blinked, feeling the tether she had wrapped around the Captain of the Bambis been yanked away, leaving her free of her clutches.
"Little bitch!" Bambi began to snarl at Liltotto as she rubbed the wound over her chest. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"You know if I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have used a shallow shot on you," Liltotto dryly dismissed, eyeing the remaining two Arrancar. "We can't take the enemy lightly. Without Meninas or Candice, our offensive power has been significantly reduced. These two have strange powers and I need your destructive power if we hope to get through this."
"Heh, always the thinker," Bambietta chuckled, withdrawing a cross on her belt. In a sparking flare, a curved sword is engulfed in a swathe of reishi, brightening it with an azure aura.
"I'll take care of the mental case, you can have tits for brains," She remarked with bravado.
"Don't count on me saving your ass if you get caught again," Liltotto remarked coolly with a smirk.
"Wouldn't dream of it!" She crowed, the pair streaking in bluish light as they locked blades with their respective foes.
All the while, a deep rumbling occurred in the depths of the Silbern.
Bazz opened his eyes.
He wondered how long he had been blacked out. The pain of the flesh tearing from his arms and legs had been so severe, he thought he was dying in that very moment. The life he lost, the goals he's set and everyone he ever knew departed from him like ashes in his hands.
But he persevered past the pain.
Made it work for him.
It's the only reason he's still alive, and the only purpose he has as a Sternritter.
Can't die yet. Not until I murder that bastard!
Pushing himself up, he shoved debris off of himself with a heave. Ceiling and walls had collapsed over him from the bisecting strike the Segunda Espada unleashed upon him. Looking at his arms, he saw his Blut Vene had resisted what it could and angry red covered his arms from the lacerations embedded into his limbs.
They'll have to bear with it. Got a job to do, He thought with a stoic expression.
In the darkness he peered around, feeling that dominating reiatsu. The underground of the Silbern is vast and the interconnected corridors to other vast chambers often confusing, built with the intent to confuse outsiders as much as confound denizens within.
Yet thanks to her reiatsu, he could feel her battling something else. Another Quincy, he reckoned.
"I'll be damned if I let another beat me to the punch!" He snapped, his body undulating with flames. A column of white and blue surged upwards, his body transforming with layers of reishi overlapping his uniform and skin.
A halo sparking blue fire manifested over his Mohawk, crimson tongues burning of white wings, fiery sleeves and boots engulfed the floor in brimstone and magma. A pair of bandoleers leading from torches for pauldrons on each shoulder with his family's crest branded over the center of his chest, burning a bright blue within a red circle.
"Let's go," He snarled, spiraling off the floor and streaking like a comet through the underbelly of the Silbern.
Earlier
Tier Harribel walked into the disheveled room she saw Lilia had entered. Covered in damages from the battle that transpired minutes ago, she could tell her colleague was far away, outside of the enemy stronghold.
Focusing on her Pesquisa she could feel Grimmjow's reiatsu, weak and on the other side of the palace's under levels. There Nnoitra is facing a Quincy adjacent to him, one much stronger than him.
Above, she felt a number of Quincy fighting the promoted Espada. Their numbers whittling down, each side felt like their strength was deteriorating the more they pressured against each other.
"Guess all these fights are spreading us thin," She said to herself, turning around to exit the chamber.
Click!
Coming face to face with a Colt 1911 Semiautomatic Pistol, pressing almost against her forehead.
BANG!
Tier wordlessly stepped to the side, her outline pierced by a bolt of reishi. A trail of sparks left from a grazing pock mark to her left cheek, her yellow eyes glaring as she swung her massive pata in a horizontal stroke.
Leaping up above the Arrancar's weapon, tapping gloved fingers at its flat while pointing his weapon to fire three more shots at her. Bending backwards, slugs of light narrowly whiz overhead, twisting herself to avoid each consecutive discharge from his weapon.
When her back almost hit the ground, she twisted her hips, swinging her leg to catch him in the air. Somersaulting up and over her leg, he fired four more shots, these deflected by the flat of her pata with sparking impacts.
Sparks that become swept up by a mass of yellow reishi, opaquening the white double edged weapon.
"Cero," She uttered, rising up and slashing her Zanpakutō in a massive arc of energy that filled the room with searing power.
Whirrrrrrrrrrrr!
Tier's eyes widened with shock.
In an instant, her Cero is caught in a whirling vacuum, encircling around the Quincy. He had a shimmering golden hue to his normal blue reishi makeup, short segmented wings sprouting from his back with a pair of glowing shoulder and knee pads with miniature wings adjacent to his boot heels. His halo pinwheel had separated, shining bright with her energy.
"Wrong move," Robert Acutrone replied, raising his pistol - now brandishing a pair of crosses on either side and elongating the barrel - to take aim at her.
Discharges of fiery blue energy shot even quicker than before, forcing Tier to avoid with rapid shunts of swift dashes across the floor. Swinging her pata, she unleashed more La Gota, reishi crescents colliding with Robert's repeated reishi slugs.
Amidst the evasive movements, she lost sight of the Sternritter-
CLICK!
-suddenly feeling a cool barrel press against her forehead as he materialized in front of herself.
A loud bang filled the room, a spout of blood arcing into the air and stained the floor nearby.
Tier Harribel staggered back, her left eye oozing and devoid of sight, the burning pain making her head swim with agony. Stoically bearing through it, she swung her massive weapon in a swift stroke upwards at where Robert stood.
Bang-Bang!
"Hngh!" Tier grunted, her calves feeling piercing bolts sear past her Hierro, causing her to stumble forward. The body she slashed disappeared like vapor, her one working eye looking over her shoulder at Robert Acutrone standing just outside of reach with pistol smoking.
"I'm impressed, Arrancar. You are resisting Göttliche Vergeltung's shots, even with Grimael bolstering the shots. Though your Hierro seems weakest around the face," Robert noted aloud, his eyes meeting hers past the glare his holy form made over his spectacles. "Don't worry. I'll make sure to kill you quickly."
A loud crash blew from the adjacent wall. Both Robert and Tier glanced over. They'd see the crumbling debris waft out as a burly white cloaked figure emerged; one the prior grimaced at seeing.
"Ah! I've finally found an enemy!" A large mustached man said, stomping forward with a pleased toothy smile. With star brandished gloves and a luchador mask, muscles practically bulging through the confines of his military uniform, he came in with a small child bounding in - bald, with no visible eyes past tight spectacles over the sockets wearing a pair of overalls - as he approached with a swaggering confidence.
"Mask," Robert muttered with disdain. "I thought you were crushed by the Palace buckling from the battle's shockwaves."
"Ha! As if mere flotsam and jetsam could hold a Hero at bay," Mask de Masculine guffawed, stopping to pose with hands on his hips and grinning ahead. "After all, Justice never sleeps so long as Villains are lurking about."
"Oh yes, Superstar! That's why you're the best!" The small child, revealed to have a high pitched man's voice, bouncing up and down with ecstatic glee. "No one can ever stop the mighty Mask de Masculine! You're invincible! You're incredible! You're-!"
"I get it," Robert sighed with exaggeration. Glancing at Tier, he noted her bloodied eye reopened, white pus leaking with ichor.
Super regeneration, hm? That complicates things…Robert observed.
Tier, now seeing the new enemy and Robert, she realized her Pesquisa had been distorted since entering the chamber. She didn't even notice the large man's approach. It also explained why the speed overtook her so swiftly despite being in her released state.
Inhaling deeply through her nostrils, closing her eyes.
VMMMMMMMMMMMM!
A loud crack filled the space, surprising both Mask and Robert. The ground beneath her, yellow light shining bright as her reiatsu rises and shakes the whole chamber. Tendrils of white reishi spark and dance, the air becoming pressured with a force akin to gravity.
Robert Acutrone replied by raising his pistol, firing another triage at her vitals.
Tier shimmered away from the attacks, sucking low in a crouch just below the man's outstretched arm. He looked down surprised as her unarmed hand swiped out at him, a crackle of yellow reishi sparking around her fingers.
BOOM!
The Sternritter streaked across the chamber in a stream of gold, colliding into the wall with a fiery blast.
Turning to her other foe in a leaping spin, she swung the pata around to cut him horizontally. Crashing into a raised arm, the sleeve shredded under the weapon, the air roaring with a gust but Mask held his ground.
"Ah! So quick and nimble, you are!" Mask responded with glee, eyes twinkling with enjoyment at Tier's cold glaring orbs. "What rank do you hold among your kind, Arrancar?"
"Segunda Espada," Tier replied evenly, dropping to the floor and pulling her weapon back. She saw a shallow cut where her weapon made contact, a flash of blue veins throbbing along the hairy muscle and skin. "You're quite formidable yourself."
"And she's even polite! How uncharacteristic of your kind," He laughed. "We're going to have a lot of fun, you and I."
Grasping the clasp of his cloak, he tossed it aside, revealing all of his bulk beneath.
Tier patiently waited for her adversary to move first when she definitely felt it.
A sudden increase in temperature. Getting hotter and hotter with every passing second.
Even her foe noticed, his head turned to see the hole he emerged from glow a hot red and gold. Erupting forth with a fiery conflagration came a burning winged Quincy, whose eyes glowered with visible rage that burned as assuredly as his body did.
"Move aside, Mask," Bazz-Bee sneered, pointing a gloved finger at Tier. "She's mine."
"On the contrary, I believe you got here a second too late," Mask responded, not looking the least afraid of the burning Quincy. "You stand there and watch as I take care-"
A molten beam of fire launched like a laser at the large man. He looked unable to respond, yet, a blue bolt made contact a few inches shy of his chest, knocking the beam away to the floor.
Bazz blinked, looking to his left, seeing a wall mounted Robert with a smoking gun in hand. A small burn and bruise showed around his chest with a blood and grime caked scalp, his face grimacing as he aimed his weapon at Bazz-Bee.
"I think you're both mistaken since I was here long before either of you," Robert graveled out, wrenching himself from the wall to softly land to the chamber floor below. "So don't get full of yourselves."
The Segunda Espada appraised her chances now that a third enemy she thought dead was now here. The heat even this close was somehow more potent than it had when she crossed paths with him before. If she landed a blow, it surely would burn straight through her Hierro.
But due to their distractions on stepping in front of each other, she decided to use their enclosed space to her advantage.
Raising her pata in the air, all three glaring Sternritter turn and see what she's up to. Only when they did, did their countenance waver.
A mass of water churned above her head, filling up the space of the vast throne room and folded over the ceiling and the recesses of the walls. She had never used her water manipulation without being close to the sky before, but with her reiryoku as a catalyst, she didn't need much.
"Water? Peh! I'll vaporize it before it touches me!" Bazz crowed, raising hand towards the ceiling-
Cascada
-only to feel an immense rush of force barrel down from the moisture itself. His flames doused as assuredly as it boiled and steamed the water that crashed into him.
Mask himself and Robert could do nothing but get swept up in a billowed cloud or steam that engulfed the room as hot as it was visually imperceivable. The flames could be felt past the boiling water in the air, causing both Sternritter to engage their Blunt Vene to protect themselves from the current quality of the air.
BZZT!
Robert Acutrone heard the displacement in the space behind him. Twisting around in a blur of blue, he poised to fire when a hot blade of sickly yellow ran him through. Shooting out of his back in a gore of blood, the Sternritter vomited out as his glasses hit the floor and his body hoisted up off his feet.
"Cero Espada," Tier Harribel intoned, slicing apart the rest of the Sternritter's body, leaving it to fall to the floor in a single stroke of her weapon.
Bazz barreled at her, a fiery wraith poised with a large claymore of flames over his right arm. Parrying his downward stroke with a cross slash, unleashing another arc of reishi that pushed him back across the fogged room into the wall.
Another buzz of air came as she lanced straight into Bazz-Bee's blade as it narrowly crossed in front of his chest. Gritting his teeth he kicked into Tier's gut and made a follow up slash at her, only to whiff air as she evaporated into the steaming air.
"Dammit!" Bazz swore, looking around with fury etched onto his face. "Show yourself, you coward!"
A boom of Sonido touched the air to his unarmed side. He turned, only to have his face grasped by one hand, a swell of blackish reishi primed over her palm.
VMMMMMMMM!
Discharging outward, throttling the Sternritter in a torrent of wisping reishi that drilled through the underground complex. The force of it all cleared most of the fog, revealing Mask standing still with his arms crossed and a smile on his face.
"I see you took care of them quite handily, Espada," He jeered with a toothy smirk. "But you'll find I'm a bit sturdier than those two."
"If that's the case," Tier spoke quietly, turning to face the man. "I won't hold back in using all of my strength."
A sudden upsurge of reiatsu filled
the room, shaking the Palace to its foundations. Mask's eyes widened, his feet stepping back as a glare of white light shined so bright he had to shut his eyes.
And, when he opened his eyes, he saw a blade of light rushing at him.
A/N: Sorry about the delay. Been busy with work and also helping write the two co-stories my coauthor and I have been working on. Hope this makes up for the delay!