"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Why the hell do we have to take orders from these guys?!"
"Pipe down Yammy. There has been an agreement between the two parties with neither of them not wanting to get in the other's way."
"Why the hell did you even show us that, Ulquiorra? We already had a tour of the place."
"That is an oversimplification. I was gathering information not only about the facility but how these people worked. It's almost time for the meeting, get ready."
The more aggressive arrancars are getting impatient. All are present and accounted for. As soon as the meeting starts in this conference room, Angelica begins the discussion. "Thank you for coming. Now I shall begin to give you the purpose of recruiting you. As some of you may know, there are unique individuals from other worlds arriving at ours and within the spiritual realms. However, they are not the only ones. While they account for the minority the majority are hard to discern. Including Soul Society, we have concluded over thousands of new and foreign souls have somehow been converted into compatible souls with this world every month," Thousands of souls? This piques Szayle's interest greatly. "We have reason to believe that this is the handwork of the Royal Guard. I'm sure Aizen has informed all of you what they are. Evidence suggests that none of these new souls come to Hueco Mundo due to their interference. The new souls have similar energy signatures but with minute differences. These souls are off-limits. Recent studies have shown that hollows who devour these souls have random side effects. Most cases nothing happens but the rare few would mutate and in some cases, very dangerous." The Espadas are shown a video of a strange hollow that looks like one of those horror movies that are easily killed and another shows a regular hollow just eaten the otherworldy soul and mutated into a captain class behemoth. it looked undead-like as if the body had been mutilated and made a ghastly wail that even some of the arrancars shiver. They see Shinji Hirako fighting the thing and giving it trouble before slaying it. The Espadas know the guy and seem surprised Shinji is working with them. His shikai wasn't activated or anything so they still don't know of his abilities.
As the video ends, Angelica continues the meeting as per normal, "Your mission is to make sure to capture any individuals of otherworldy nature, keep the converted souls safe and eliminate all threats to this. Due to the near-infinite factors of our unknown enemies, all of you will be trained in furthering your control of your powers."
"They don't seem that tough to me!" Yammy declared.
"There have been other beings with powers rivaling to captains and we have encountered at least one at the level rivaling Yamamoto. Any Espada who refuses to comply will be terminated." That doesn't sound good. So they're forced to work together; which made the more aggressive espadas growl or give a look that would kill.
"I take orders from no one you little bitch. So piss me off and see what happ-" He gets gut-punched by Ulquiorra.
"Idiot, did you not see the footage? That was Shinji Hirako, a high-priority target of Lord Aizen's and that hollow gave him trouble. If there are beings far greater than what we comprehend it's best to cooperate," Ulquiorra kept him in place. Nnoitra looked uncomfortably with the scene. He may not like taking orders from women but he's screwed either way. For the sake of survival, he has to swallow his pride.
"Are we going to work with the Soul Repears? What would happen if Lord Aizen wants us to kill them?" Harribel asked.
"Once your war starts, any losing combatant will be transported safely outside harm's way, to this facility. We need all the help we can get. If Aizen should succeed, and the Royal Guard fails, we will step in and kill him. It does not matter to us if you report this to Aizen. We have contingency plans for him and the hogyoku."
"Are you sure you should be telling us this?"
"We have studied the hogyoku carefully and Aizen's spiritual pressure. His file is top-secret not even you can access it. He can try all day and nothing he does will change." Then that's when they realize they were on the losing side of the war. They can't take all of them at once. "You will begin training starting tomorrow. All arrancars are to take an examination first thing in the morning. The test shall be about spiritual control and technique, then it's training how to use your spirit energy in maximum efficiency, and after that it's a sparring match with me. Once the arrancar passes the first stage, you will be moved to the more advanced stages, failure would result in going to the basics. There will be team training twice a week, one is against me and another is against each other. All espadas will be assigned which fraccion will be under their command during the excercise. You're all dismissed."
The next day, their training begins. Surprisingly most espadas failed not because they're bad but they never had the need to control their power at all to such a degree. Most of the failures are the adjuchas but Harribel's and Barragan's group passed, those of wilder personalities didn't. Szayle's fraccion were exempted due to their modifications and purpose as Szayle's guinea pigs or lab assistants. The arrancars are listening closely to Angelica on how to use spirit energy more effectively and practicing each strike on it's concentration except for those who failed as they are sent to Angelica's assistant to retrain in the basics. Then the awaited sparring match comes. They all go to the training grounds, a wide and open field. It looks as vast as the abyss itself, a void of white. Suddenly the terrain changes to that of a city in the world of the living.
"No Ressurreccions. You will all be fighting me in your base forms. Now begin. You may injure me as badly as you can. Any friendly fire can be treated by our healers no matter how severe the injury so long as they are alive. Now begin!" Nnoitra attacks with glee in the first strike almost like he's venting all his frustrations on her with his swings. Angelica easily parries it but has a hard time penetrating his hierro. Her distraction allows Grimmjow to launch a Grand Rey Cero. Angelica sees it coming and dodges it only for Zommari to catch her. She struggles to move as Barragan aims for the head only to be met with golden blades striking behind him and Zommari. Zommari winces in pain as Angelica frees herself only for Starkk to shoot a cero, with Angelica caught in the blast. Harribel shoots Ola Azul at her direction clearly hitting her. Every espada watches to see if they got her, only to reveal most of her clothes got burned and torn. "Very good. I never expected you people to work together quite well."
"You humiliated us. We will kill you and your boss if it's the last thing we do," Barragan said. He is not used to working with the espadas as a team. Normally he'd be using ressurreccion but they're practically surrounded by individuals who can kill them anytime. He might as well put in his frustration if nothing else.
"If working as a team is essential to this exercise then we will do so regardless," Ulqiuorra said as the espadas charges at her.
In the seireitei in Aizen's office, he is intrigued that the espadas are forced to work together but disappointed their powers were to be sealed as they were before entering for his war. "Do you really have to give such a handicap Ethan?"
"The Espadas are powerful enough as they are. And besides, giving them more power outside the facility would be catastrophic. Or would you prefer Yamamoto to charge in with his bankai?"
"This does explain why there aren't many otherworlders in the world of the living. When have you been able to organize such a group?"
"Around 10 years ago. While I was under Captain Hitsugaya, I was sent to the world of the living and left my post for a few hours to chat with Kisuke to help me form the group."
"I take it Kisuke Urahara won't be a threat to me? Such a shame. I was kind of hoping he would be there to stop me," Aizen sounding disappointed. "But I do understand your concern. If these otherworlders are such a danger then all the more reason I should continue working on the hogyoku and you doing your thing. But I do wonder, what happens to any captains injured once my war has started"
"Once they're beaten they are taken to the facility to get treatment and will be forcibly become inactive during the war as if they're dead."
"I suppose that would be fair enough."
"Thank you for leaving me alone," then Ethan said something unexpected, "I know you got another otherworlder like me who knows about this world. Coyote Stark wasn't supposed to be in the espadas for another 10 years." This surprises Aizen as he'd hope to keep him a secret but decides to let it slide. After all, he got valuable information which Ethan purposefully let him know with those words. Ethan leaves squad 5 and return to his barracks.