Projection Quest

by Throwaway1971

All credit goes to the OG author Bowler Hat Guy on SB

279. Sovereignty 20-11

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Blasto's Laboratory, Brockton Bay

Point of View: A Body In a Pod

Something is wrong. [Something is wrong]. 'Something is wrong'. 'Something is wrong'.

You've got four separate thoughts rattling around in the confines of your now very human grey matter.

You were supposed to have one.

In fact. You aren't entirely sure 'you' are supposed to be 'you' at all.

You have the memories of Multiversal Emulator's projection. You have the… the qualia, of those experiences within you. The subjective, personal touch, that differentiates a human's experiences from a shards more 'impersonal' cataloging of information.

The plan in your memory, visible from two separate points of view, was for you to be—essentially—a vegetable. A terminal that could carry the engram of Pemmy or… Demmy… to term in a parody of birth that would be somewhat like a… a reincarnation of which of your two disparate… of Emmy's two disparate…

Of the two projections.

It was to be simple. A well-understood process adapted from both the technologies of the twins, and the mastery of biology nearly all Shards possessed.

Your mind should be clear. Your purpose should be the same as it ever was.

Instead you feel… jumbled. Chaotic. It is as though you are a vehicle with four pilots, each one trying to ape the actions of the others so as to maintain an equilibrium.

The pod you are in has been moving about for some time now, seemingly in response to your sudden wakefulness. You ignore it.

No, you don't ignore it.

You… don't know what to think about it. That's the correct way to conceive of your thoughts on the matter.

You… don't have any.

Suddenly, with the dreadful sensation of the floor dropping out from beneath you, you realize that you don't know what you are supposed to think.

If you were utterly controlled by an Engram, you would have that to fall back on. A frame of reference. Multiversal Emulator's entire existence has always had the skeleton of another being to piggyback from.

When faced with your current situation, you are sure most of your past selves would have instinctively done… something. Pushed themselves free of their restraints. Called for help. Done… something.

But you aren't them. And you… don't have that safety net. You don't have the simulacrum of another mind holding your own up anymore. No one, and nothing, can make decisions for you anymore, and that's not a comforting thought to you. It's…

"I'm… scared…" you croak out, identifying the feeling you have been experiencing for much of your current waking moments, and shuddering, tears welling up in your eyes. The sound of your voice is, of course, muffled by the container you are in. Nearly impossible to hear from the outside.

But familiar. Not identical to Taylor's, but similar.

"I'm scared," you repeat yourself, your voice a curious warbling monotone. Your head hurts, and for some reason, the pain feels worse than anything you've ever experienced. This too, feels terrible without the scaffolding of another mind to bear the agony for you. You realize that you, as yourself, hadn't really known or understood what pain was until that moment.

'There should be a release, on the inside,' a thought occurs to you, unbidden. It simultaneously feels like a thought you could have had, something from within yourself not unlike an intrusive thought, while also feeling… external. You don't have to have that thought, or, listen to it.

You turn your head as much to one side as you can, and amidst the tubes, fluids, and machinery of the pod you are in, you spot a small, maybe fist-sized caricature of a woman feeling along the seam where the lid of your prison touches the base. It has straight, neatly kept red hair, and a light blue dress on.

'Just break it, we don't need it anymore!' Another intrusive thought dawns on you, bringing to the forefront of your mind the technical specifications of your… of this… of you.

You blink and find yourself staring at another diminutive woman with a messy mane of crimson hair, wearing an eye searingly red dress, standing on your chest and throwing light punches at the air.

These don't feel like orders. There is a lacking emotional content to them that makes them feel like they somehow can't be conscious thoughts on your part. They do nothing to take away the sensation of loss you feel when imagining what any other version of you would do in this situation.

But, in a sort of bizarre way, as your headache fades slightly, and two out of your four current active thought processes fade into the background, you think that might be the point.

These are just guides. They don't compel or make you do anything.

They're also, apparently, very helpful for remembering things from your past lives.

"I should… move?" You mutter aloud, clinging to the comforting familiarity of your own voice rather than stewing in your own silent thoughts.

You examine the statement for what it is, and spend an embarrassingly long time deciding how you feel about it.

You think… moving would be… good?

You double check with yourself, and determine that, yes, you want to get up. You also decide not to break everything around you smashing your way out.

…Assuming that is in fact a thing you can do.

[Suggestion]

You wince as the portion of you that is evidently an alien supercomputer offers to call a new emulation up to help solve the problem.

You almost—almost!—leap at the chance. Like an addict with a fix dangled in front of them, the option to simply allow your higher thought to be subsumed by another person's engram is so tempting that you almost confuse yourself trying to parse the shock of elation that runs up your spine, turning your clammy skin to gooseflesh.

Then you recall that… that Emulation won't be you. They'll be them. And you'll still just be you.

You blink away a tear, unsure of why you regret that quite so much.

With the rejection, that portion of your gestalt mind fades into the background, leaving the portion of you that is entirely contained in your own skull to make decisions.

Slowly, with fumbling fingers and arms laden with medical equipment, you feel along the inner seam of your container until a well placed and—somewhat obvious in retrospect—protruding lever lights your hand up with tactical feedback. You take what passes for a deep breath, or, as close to one as you can get with a series of rubber tubes supplying your body with oxygen, and yank on it—hard.

"Jesus fucking christ!" You hear a male voice scream as your pod rapidly ejects itself from the wall, and a pressurized hydraulic system cranks the lid off of you in short order.

The little woman in the blue dress gives you a thumbs up, and then both she and her redclad sister vanish from sight.

"Whaaaaaaat the fuck? Shit, did it malfunction? Fuck, I'm gonna die, she's gonna fucking kill me, no, she's gonna—"

You ignore the panicking man in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on the floor nearby next to an overturned office chair, instead choosing to lift your hands to tug at the uncomfortable series of pipes and tubes currently sticking out of your gullet.

"Rey, why the fuck do you have a teenage girl in your walls?" A new, female, voice demands rather pointedly.

"She's a fucking Nexus clone or something! I don't know why she's here!" Rey—better known as the villainous tinker Blasto—shrieks with dismay.

"How do you not know why there's a clone of… oh my god we're going to die," the female voice says with sudden dawning horror in her voice.

You ignore the byplay between the two, instead choosing to wipe away the rapidly evaporating amniotic slime covering your body, coughing liberally as you do so.

The sudden assault of sensation is agonizing. Coughing is painful, and you dislike it. Being sticky, and cold, you decide, is also going to be going on your list of tactile feedbacks to avoid in their entirety.

Strangely, making those snap determinations makes you feel a little bit better about your situation. You might even describe it as being proud of yourself. You took in information, and made a decision with it, all by yourself!

"Cold," you declare both proudly and as a means of explaining to those present the problem you'd like them to fix.

"Uuuuh," Rey grunts dazedly at you.

"W-what he means is uh, I can totally… I probably have something you can wear?" The mousey-looking brunette woman who is watching you from the doorway into the basement offers meekly.

Rey jolts slightly at that.

"Um, aren't the only clothes you keep at my apartment for—"

"Rey. Shut. The fuck. Up."

"Shutting up."

You blink at the byplay, pushing yourself with surprising ease out of your container and gingerly stepping onto the concrete floor below. The floor is cold, just like everything else apparently, and you unconsciously allow a frown to mar your face at that unwanted realization.

"…Do socks count as clothes?" You ask grouchily.

"Why wouldn't—" Rey begins to ask you in obvious confusion.

"They definitely do," the woman interjects. "We'll just… go get those for you. Right now. Both of us," she presses, swiftly striding across the room to snatch Rey by the ear and tugging on it so ferociously that you start idly trying to determine what the exact amount of torque a human ear can suffer before structural damage occurs.

You choose to ignore the pungent smell of inhaled narcotics emanating from the man, and add 'whatever the hell that is' to your mental list of things you dislike.

Hey, this isn't so hard! You just need to expose yourself to everything, everywhere, so that you can predetermine your responses to those things, and then that can be the framework you make decisions by!

Ah, but… you suppose then you have to take into account circumstantial modifiers, and then combinations of things, and then—

"Come with me, if you want to live," a strangely accented voice, underscored by the static buzz of a poorly made recording calls from the doorway into the room, just as Rey and the woman—who you don't know the name of, come to think of it—move to pass through it.

Neither of the two humans trying to swiftly exfiltrate respond to that with anything you could politely describe as words—although you suppose it's possible that the high-pitched shrieking and/or keening they make as a surprised response to the sudden arrival of Fred might simply be a language you have no knowledge of. Thankfully, the pair have the wherewithal not to attack Fred as he appears in the doorway. Mostly for their own sakes. You aren't sure either of them could feasibly hurt the Pod, but you do know that your Ma—your Sis—your family has a tendency to respond to attacks with sudden overwhelming violence.

"H-hello, Fred," you warble at the blue automaton, unsure why you are suddenly nearly crying again.

You don't understand. You aren't sad. You are, in fact, very happy to see the familiar little helper robot. And yet, you find yourself responding to his presence the same way you had to the sudden sensation of being alone earlier.

Even though you can say with some certainty that the emotional reason behind those responses is utterly different.

This feeling is… relief? You are… relieved to see him. Happy not to be alone.

…And confused slightly, that being sad makes you want to cry, but also, so does not being sad.

"I—I have too many feelings!" You half-whine, half-sob with delirious joy as you run across the room to leap at the little robot, who catches you in the air with surprising ease and hefts you into the air like a doctor holding a newborn.

For some reason, being held at arm's length by him engenders an unhappy, dissatisfied feeling in your gut, so, as you continue to sob like a baby, you claw your way out of Fred's three fingered grip to cling directly to his rectangular body, still continuing to cry for reasons you both fail to understand and somewhat dislike.

"Thank you..!" You say with an outpouring of emotions you can't even begin to describe to Fred. Slowly, as though unsure of what to do with this situation himself, Fred retracts his still outstretched arms to wrap them around you as best he can in an awkward hug. He lifts and lowers one hand to lightly tap you on the back three times fast.

"There, there…?" He offers you, confusedly responding using what you suspect might be his real voice, high-pitched and youthful as it is, rather than a hastily spliced together recording.

"I—I don't know what to dooooo!" You continue to complain, your mind immediately seeking direction from the nearest trusted entity now that you have the ability to abdicate personal responsibility for your own actions.

All of this is just… it's too much. Too many feelings. Too many sensations. Too many random tangential thoughts about things that don't matter, pulling you in so many different directions at once without actually providing any guidelines for how to act, or what to accomplish with your time.

How do humans live like this? How do they just go about their days, devoid of higher purpose or guidance?

Do they just… make their own decisions? All the time? For everything?

"Um, we uh, we still need to use the door, so…" a visibly uncomfortable Blasto points out.

You turn one tear stained cheek in his direction.

"We should probably—" the little blue apparition appears before your eyes, directing you to move aside while accompanied by the intrusive thought to do the same.

"Flip him off and keep crying!" The red one appears, visibly throwing a violent, thrashing, tantrum on an invisible floor.

You find you don't need to act on or acknowledge either thought, because Fred answers him for you.

"Silence!" He plays back—this one is in a shrill German accent—removing a hand from your back to point threateningly at the man and woman dazedly watching the proceedings.

Rey immediately slams his mouth shut, miming a zipping motion across his lips, but his reminder that he exists does bring a few other thoughts to your mind.

He seemed under the impression that Taylor was going to be mad at him for something when he saw you, which is strange, and also, not really your problem to work out.

But that thought DOES remind you of your Ma—sister. Your most recent memories with her drift to the forefront of your mind, and from two separate perspectives, you realize that she is still probably up in her tower, all alone, waiting for you to come back.

Something about that mental image sickens you. There is a fundamental wrongness to it. You hate being alone, and in retrospect, you realize that is because you aren't supposed to be. You are never supposed to be alone. You and your sister were made to be together. Always and forever.

Never one without the other.

Like a series of gears aligning, suddenly everything makes sense again.

You just need to be with your sister. Everything will be better if you are with your sister. A new emotion now fills your heart, which is suddenly beating about three times faster than it had at any point prior to this. Excitement and… anxiety.

Your other half needs you, but you hadn't exactly explained any of this to her before vanishing. You yearn with every fiber of your being to sprint through the door, up the stairs, and out into the streets above so that you can make a beeline for her. Nothing else matters but being by her side. Nothing.

But at the same time, what will she think of you? Will she be angry with you? Will she be sad?

You try to think of what face she might make upon seeing you for the first time, and cringe unconsciously away from that imagined response.

No, you have to do everything in your power to reach her, to make her happy, to be happy together.

You quickly examine the tools at hand, and the required tasks to complete in order to achieve your new goal. A gap would be nice, but you obviously don't have access to that power anymore…

Probably…

You lift a free hand into the air and chop downward, like you are trying to cut reality with the flat of your hand.

Nothing happens.

You try it a few more times, because no good experiment was ever conducted only a single time.

"What in the Sam Hill are you doin'—" "—Girl?" Fred asks you confusedly.

"I'm trying to cut reality," you explain quickly, the act of putting thought to action oddly calming, as you rapidly give in to the feeling of needing to do something.

"…Did we grow her with bipolar disorder, or something?" Rey mumbles under his breath, too quiet for a normal human to have ever heard him, but easily detectable by your custom made listening devices—your ears.

"Rey, do you know for sure she can't do that?" The girl hisses.

The man pales, but in this case, you have to give Blasto his due—because you definitely can't.

"I cannot," you offer, somewhat dejectedly.

Oh, that's a new feeling, actually. 'Dejection'. It's like 'Sad' but milder.

You should write this down somewhere. You've only existed for a very short period of time, but you have no reason to believe that you have a perfect memory.

[Suggestion]

Or you suppose you could make a note on your shard body, but that kind of feels like cheating for some reason.

"So… uh… clothes...?" Blasto tries again when his initial shushing by Fred turns out to have been counterproductive.

"Quickly, please," you request, mind turning back towards your current goal of 'reaching Taylor', preferably soon.

"You're the one blocking the door…" Rey grumbles under his breath, again, at a volume that leaves you sure he probably doesn't expect to be heard by anyone.

"I know where you live," Fred warns him, drifting out of the doorway while rotating his body to keep his single optical sensor pointed at the beleaguered stoner with an intensity that even you can't help but register as threatening.

You look deep within yourself and try to examine the vague sense of discomfort that causes you.

By rights, Fred is acting in what he thinks is your best interest, on your behalf. You can't even reasonably contend that that service was unsolicited, because you explicitly asked him to do it in your past incarnation.

But it's… mean. He's being mean. Unnecessarily so, even. And that makes you feel… bad? Guilty?

For what reason does human brain chemistry have so many different flavors of 'not good'? What possible evolutionary benefit could this be?

"Fred," you finally say when Blasto ends up staring blankly back at the adorably cranky Pod instead of proceeding with his task.

He immediately turns towards you, glowing red optic narrowing like a pleased cat.

"Be less mean," you half-suggest, half-order, nodding proudly to yourself when the feeling of 'guilt' immediately leaves your body at the request.

You can't just unilaterally order your erstwhile shadow, after all.

Taylor taught you better than that.

"I hate this city," the woman groans while watching the proceedings, before hurriedly shoving her… actually you don't know what her relationship with Blasto is.

Really good friends?

You squint after them as they leave, presumably to recover clothes for you.

…Super best friends?

* * *

Clothing is pretty alright. The sampling Blasto and his super best friend brought you fit well enough—at least enough that they aren't restrictive of your movements, which is something your Mas—sister complains about quite frequently when the dresser refuses to spit out her sweatpants.

You aren't quite one hundred percent on shoes yet, though. Or socks. It's a lot harder to wiggle your toes with those on, and you find it displeasing.

Also, walking.

Walking is just horrible. You vow to find a way to not have to do it anymore before you even get halfway to the Heap.

Thankfully, Blasto is almost quite literally next door to the Oathbound's home and base of operations, so it isn't a long walk, but it was definitely a tedious one. You kept moving your legs too fast and running into things. It wasn't your fault that human infrastructure isn't designed for impacts with ultra dense people! Honestly, they should just redesign everything to be made of rubber. That way, when you tripped over yourself and fell you'd just bounce back to where you came instead of knocking over two light posts, totalling three parked cars, and trashing that one fire hydrant.

It wasn't that you were uncoordinated, per se…

Just… you know.

You don't know your own strength.

And you do mean that quite literally. You hadn't been able to adequately predict the upper bounds of this body's capabilities because you'd been forced to replicate as many of your sister's hyper-specific physical and spiritual adaptations from first principles, using only the knowledge and skill that Popola and Devola brought to the table. At the time you hadn't had direct access to your shard, and thus, couldn't rely on that in order to perform the necessary adjustments.

…You also don't have any stolen experience to draw on when moving at speeds exceeding forty miles per hour on foot, and since that actually leaves you with worse balance than even an entirely mundane human, your rushed footsteps as you stumble into the guard house leading into the Heap are accompanied by a—perhaps—excessive amount of noise.

"…Ma'am, the Mall is closed currently," the security guard offers as you stumble into the entry point near the rear of the building that residents use to come and go without having to fight their way through the unwashed masses.

It was hardly fair to ask them to get in line in order to enter their own homes, after all. Another tidbit of wisdom you can attribute to… your Father? Uncle? How are you going to refer to Danny now? You technically have about as much of his DNA coursing through your veins as Taylor does, but you know humans can be particular about things like that.

…Actually, you have vivid memories of being told that cloning people was, in general, extremely illegal just about everywhere, so…

You'll just have to hope the Director doesn't find out. Or, if she does, that whoever happens to explain the situation to her is a very good liar.

…Oh, there's the guilt again. Annoying.

"I live here," you say without looking at the man, keeping your gaze firmly fixed on the other end of the guard post in anticipation of the door opening for you to pass through.

You… don't bother stepping closer to it though. Maybe having a bit of a gap between you and your destination will let you bleed off some momentum before you arrive. You can spare someone from having to replace the door later.

Probably. Maybe.

"Can you prove that? Look, I know where I work so I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but, I have a duty to the people who live here to keep you out if you can't," the security guard explains in a polite, but stern tone of voice.

You pause to consider that, weighing the way you would benefit if he would just compromise a bit here, against the fact that, truthfully, this is exactly how you'd like him to act with absolutely anyone else in this situation.

"Fred!" You call loudly behind you, prompting the Pod—who never had to use the guard post to get into the building in the first place—to enter the building.

"Oh, well see, him I recognize. She's good?" The nondescript—you make a note to fix that, as you quite like how this person conducts themself—guard asks at your erstwhile protector.

"It is nothing to die, it is dreadful—" "For you!" "—not to live," Fred casually threatens the man instead of answering his question.

To your surprise, the man somehow doesn't look particularly concerned by that however. Instead, he merely rolls his eyes at your companion and gestures at the door with a tilt of his head.

"Yeah, yeah. You take care, alright? You know, you do kind of look like the boss," he says with a lackadaisical shrug and a visible relaxation of his stolid demeanor when Fred just continues to just glare balefully at him.

You take in his statement— and then smile at him for it.

Pride. That's what that feeling is. You're proud to be recognized for your connection to your sister. Happy, even. You find your facial expression straining to express the delirious joy that brings you.

Somehow, that causes the man to flinch whereas Fred's obvious death threats didn't.

"I like you," you say guilelessly, turning and carefully inching towards the door.

"I am-" "-death," Fred whines at a reduced volume,

You file 'whining' away for future consideration, even as you take a big stride towards the door, stumble, and catch yourself on the doorway, your thumb immediately crunching through the wooden door where it meets the wall and a soft groaning sound coming from the metal of the building where you grip it too tightly.

Fred—still somewhat sulkily—drifts around your to lazily turn the knob and push the door open for you.

"...Thank you," you thank him, before pausing and turning your head to look at the security guard behind you, realizing you never thanked him, either. Your tendons, bones, and muscles are much more receptive to acute movement than a normal human's, so you can manage several more degrees of movement in that area than a mundane person could, and you fear if you move your whole body you'll break something again.

"Thank you," you repeat, which earns you another flinch, before you turn back around and— carefully— stumble out of the guard post and towards the garage.

You don't remember this trip being so… arduous. You suppose once you have enough experience to manage total control over your body that it won't be, but as it stands, every step you take is an operation akin to threading a needle.

"Fred," you ask cautiously as you approach the massive roll-up doors leading into the building. There are civilian entrances—used mostly by people working for Danny—but you are ashamed to admit you don't know how to get where you want to go from them. In fact, you end up navigating the Heap using Gaps so often that you have to admit you aren't sure how to navigate the interior of the building itself really at all. You only really know the narrow path from the garage to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the stairwell containing the tinkertech laboratories and the tower.

Oh, and the workshops, but those are in the basement, and thus, finding the stairwell will naturally lead you there as well as they will to the labs above.

The Pod, clearly understanding your intent without further explanation, drifts towards the doors to raise them for you, but stops when they shoot upward on their own.

You blink at the action, then nod, unperturbed by the poltergeist-like activity.

"Thank you," you dutifully say to the building itself, continuing your stumbling steps inward.

The garage is, as always, a mess. You aren't sure why Trainwreck chooses to live in an artist's rendition of the junkyard you first found him in, but your Master never questions it, and you suppose that if he wanted to live somewhere else, he has enough power, and more than enough connections to make it happen.

"Fuck's that?" The man in question barks from the rear of the room, the steam-whistle screech of his armor coming to life emanating from well out of sight behind one or another massive mound of scrap metal.

You hesitate for a moment, tensing at the sudden extremely loud series of noises, then relax.

"Trainwreck!" You call out, eyeing a nearby hunk of metal that looks entirely too sharp to lean on and then pointedly choosing to fall into an awkward sitting position on the ground instead.

"Boss, it's the middle of the fucking night, let a guy… sleep…" The titanic tinker grunts at you with a put upon tone of voice, finally emerging into your line of sight and slowing to a halt when he gets a good look at you.

"...Whatcha got there, Fred?" He asks the Pod hovering protectively over you, eyes staying locked on your sitting form.

One of the interesting things about Trainwreck is he doesn't twitch. He doesn't have any 'idle' movements, because every movement he takes within his suit is calculated and intentional. Sometimes, he pantomimes things like rolling his shoulders, or scratching himself, or wiggling his fingers, but it's easy to forget that those actions aren't unintentional or reflexive.

Trainwreck is never more dangerous than when he forgoes such mannerisms.

"Hello. I am Emmy," you offer by way of explanation. Fred bobs up and down at that in agreement.

Trainwreck immediately relaxes at that—again, a very literal action for him where he intentionally lowers the set of his shoulders—but keeps a suspicious eye on you.

"Why do you look like the Boss but, you know, if she liked ponies and sparkles?" He asks again, stepping close enough to reach out and prod you in the chest with one oversized metal finger. You rock slightly back at the motion, then blink at the question.

"...Do personal interests dictate physical characteristics?" You ask him in confusion.

"Nah, but—" Trainwreck starts trying to explain himself then stops, sighing tiredly at you.

"Whatever. What's the deal with the mini-me act?" He presses, cutting to the heart of the matter.

"We wanted to be Master's sister, so we grew one," you explain dutifully to Taylor's second in command.

He groans at you.

"Okay? One? Don't ever use 'we' in the fucking first person, that's creepy as fuck. Two, so you're the boss's clone?" He clarifies.

"Physically. Yes. Mentally, I am Emmy," you pause to rethink that statement then add, "mostly."

"Are you being creepy on purpose?" Trainwreck asks bluntly.

You tilt your head at him in confusion.

You're… reasonably certain you are behaving rationally. Almost positive even. You can see a clear throughline in your behavior starting from your awakening.

"No?" You finally reply to his query.

He sighs again.

"Alright, whatever. Why are you in my space right now?" He moves on, clearly giving up on that line of questioning.

You suddenly find it easy to appreciate why this man is your Mast—sister's second in command. Trainwreck 'rolls with the punches', as it were, and it shows.

"M—Taylor is currently in the tower. Probably. She is very sad. Probably," you tell him, then, thinking about it, you stretch your arms upwards towards the man and wait.

"…You want me to take you up there," he says after staring blankly at your behavior for a second.

"To the stairs, please," you request easily.

"Can't Fred—"

"It is not as comfortable," you cut him off.

Hm. Guilt, but only just a little bit of it. You make a note that interrupting people feels bad, so you should do it only infrequently.

Fred crosses his arms and plays a recording of a child blowing a raspberry at you.

"…I'll do it, but I don't wanna deal with whatever this is again until the sun is up," Trainwreck says eventually, stretching a metal hand out and turning it upward to create a platform for you to sit on.

You don't move, keeping your arms up and outstretched the way Munin does when she refuses to get out of bed under her own power.

"Please place me on your shoulder. I remember liking that, the first time I was a woman," you state matter of factly.

Trainwreck inhales sharply through his nose, then sighs again, switching to wrapping his fist around you and lifting you upward.

His touch is surprisingly gentle for being capable of throwing Endbringers around. You'd make a note to ask him about that, give your own difficulties with self control, but don't see a point to it. Trainwreck's control comes from his suit—not his body.

Assured by the durability of your armored friend's suit, you grab tightly onto the neck guard to your right as he places you on his shoulder and stands up, the Heap's high ceilings easily capable of tolerating the extra height you add to his silhouette.

Fred silently drifts up to be level with you, still sulking over his lack of seating.

Trainwreck makes it two steps towards the entrance to the tunnels before a thought occurs to you.

"Also, as I am now once more in a female body, I understand that you may desire to—"

"Lemme stop you right there!" Trainwreck blurts out, jerking to a halt.

"You're a kid! And you look like the Boss! Holy shit, never even imply—I mean—fuck, Emmy!" He stammers at you in distress, looking quickly around as though he expects your sister to appear nearby just because of something you said.

"My apologies, just, current data would imply a pattern of behavior—" you try again.

"Stop! Holy hell, just stop!" He literally begs you, lurching into motion and practically sprinting for the doorway and the tunnels beyond.

You shrug.

You suppose that you've only been a woman a few times before this. It's not exactly a tremendous sample size. You had thought to include Trainwreck's interactions with every other woman he has ever met in your models, but feel you must now scrap that hypothesis.

Clearly there are separations among that group that you are not aware of.

* * *

"Far as I go, uh… kid?" Trainwreck says as he deposits you at the base of the stairs leading to the top of the tower. You tilt your head backwards to stare up the cylindrical stairway, and imagine that for a normal human the structure would vanish into inky darkness after a point, given the obscene, cloud scraping height of the building.

Not you though. You, much like your sister, have extremely sensitive eyes.

…Maybe too sensitive, actually. The reality is, you have many of Taylor's adaptations, but nearly none of the safeguards or stupid magical workarounds that allow those adaptations to exist without being liabilities. Case in point, while you can see straight to the top of the tower perfectly fine, you also know that your eyes must currently be so dilated that a flashbang would probably give you a stroke or something. It's the same problem you are having with your strength and motor control. Taylor's physical capabilities are largely spiritual in nature, and those that aren't, require 'fuel' in order to function. Thus, if she wants to be as strong as a 'normal' human, she will be as a matter of course.

You do not have such intent based control, and as such, are quite proud of yourself for merely breaking several inanimate objects in your travels.

"I like that one. You call Taylor that," You confirm absently as Trainwreck awkwardly waits for you to finish your musings to address his unspoken question.

Actually, that was the subtext, right? That wasn't so hard. You aren't sure why Taylor complains about hating it so much, so often.

"Right… anyway. I can take the stairs, but it's tight. Not super comfy. Also, if I fall from halfway up that thing, we're gonna need a new mall with how much I weigh," Trainwreck explains, pointing straight up and then slamming a closed fist into an open palm with a loud metallic thwack to emphasize his point.

You nod at the explanation, and for just a moment, consider having Fred fly you up. You reconsider though. He can certainly catch you if you fall, but, for some reason, you feel it's important to climb them yourself.

Hesitantly, you take a stumbling step towards the first floor landing, before turning your head to glance over your shoulder at Trainwreck, who raises an eyebrow at you.

"Thank you, Trainwreck. If… if you want, we can probably grow you a similar—" you begin to say, already well aware of Trainwreck's issue with his own physical situation.

He responds by striding forward to cut you off, stretching his hands out to adjust your upper body so that more of you is turned towards him than just your head.

"You gotta move the whole fucking thing or people are gonna think you have a demon up your ass or something," he warns you.

"Trainwreck—" you try again, frowning at his deflection.

He interrupts you by pushing you slightly forward, causing you to stumble and catch yourself on the guard rail of the stairs.

"I'll think about it," He says dismissively. "Go on, I'll wait here, in case you need someone to catch you, or scrape you off the floor or some shit."

You glance at the stairs, then at the man who you've known nearly as long as Taylor, then at the stairs again, before turning fully back towards Trainwreck.

There is a new feeling in your chest, a cloying itching sensation. Annoyance.

"I do not understand your resistance to this topic. You complain very frequently about your inability to copulate—"

He makes an audible retching noise at that.

"—and we have several means to fix the problem at this point, and you are my friend, and I do not like it when you are unhappy, and—" you halfway growl at thim, unable to cleanse this feeling of… of frustration with the man for refusing to allow anyone to help him.

"Kid, relax, you're working yourself up, I said I'd think about it—" the massive metal tinker tries to cut you off again, but you simply ignore him as the burning in your chest rises to your eyes and moisture starts falling down your face.

This body has too many brain chemicals, and they are currently interacting in a way you don't like and wish would stop.

"—and I want you to feel better, and to trust me, and to be able to come to breakfast and eat with us and— and—!" You stop, failing to find the words to express what is currently going on in your head.

Frustrated beyond words, you give up on any form of communication, and simply leap angrily at the man, who hurriedly snatches you out of the air before you can impact him. Growling in irritation once more, you snap your hand out, too late realizing that Trainwreck's very exposed head is no more durable than any normal person's, and are relieved when you do manage to stop from punching his head off.

Instead, you extend a finger from your closed fist, and poke him in the nose.

[Connection]

"Kid, you seriously gotta… gotta…" Trainwreck trails off, blinking once in confusion before his eyes dilate, his irises glowing a bright blue.

Realizing that… you have no idea what you just did, the action performed in frustration as it was, you jerk back at the sudden change in his demeanor, then are forced to catch his armored form as it slumps over on top of you.

You don't see what happens after that, because while you are quite strong, you are not quite so strong as to be able to do much more than prevent Trainwreck's body from squishing you. But there is a loud… crunching noise that leaves you profoundly worried for your friend, and then a wet plopping sound as something organic impacts the ground behind you.

Terrified that you may have just killed the man, you strain your muscles to slide the weight bearing down on you off to one side, allowing Trainwreck's armor to drop to the floor in a heap, and whirl around on what just fell behind you.

Which turns out to be a slightly overweight naked guy.

A totally normal, mundane, human.

With Trainwreck's face.

"Ffffuuuuuuccckkkk…." he groans, his arms and legs wiggling aimlessly like he isn't accustomed to having bones in his limbs anymore.

Then he stiffens, and his hands, big enough for a normal man that they almost seem to foreshadow his armored stature, flex slightly against the ground. His toes wiggle. His legs rock back and forth, like he is trying to shake something loose.

He lifts his head, and stares down at himself.

"I've got hands? I've got motherfucking feet!" He screams, rolling suddenly over onto his hands and knees, and breathing heavily like he just ran a marathon.

"Wait—my fucking powers! Fuck!" He screeches, scrabbling upright and then looks all about himself, as though trying to find a button to press so he can change back.

There isn't one, but you're pretty sure you didn't take his powers away, so—

[Request]

Oh, that's… new. That one wasn't yours.

[Permission]

That one was.

Then, as though going backwards in time, Trainwreck's body melts back into the gelatinous blob it was prior.

He sighs with relief. Then screeches again.

"My dick!"

He changes back, a sickening snap heralding the return of his bone and muscle structure.

"...Holy shit," he whispers finally, lifting his hands to stare at them in wonder.

"Hmph," you huff at him, turning your head pointedly away from him and waiting for an apology.

Smugness. That's what this feeling is. Sure, you're pretty sure you just ate his shard or… stole it, or something, and sure, you're pretty sure there's an alternate earth getting exploded with the long range transmission of Blue Maso somewhere now, but…

You can't altogether bring yourself to be too worried about that.

Well. Maybe a little worried. If that was a Warrior shard, you're reasonably certain you can expect Scion to turn up any second now, which…

You pause to glance around, then, when the world doesn't dissolve around you in a pulse of golden light, nod.

"Hmph!" You repeat louder, taking a step closer to Trainwreck and putting your hands on your hips.

"Huh? Oh, fuck! Jesus christ, what the fuck did you do?!" Trainwreck gawks at you, turning towards you, then, realizing that he is naked, turning sideways to sort of stare gobsmacked at you over one shoulder.

Then he realizes he is a changer now, and his body melts, slithering back over to his power armor to reinhabit it, his eyes trained on you the entire way.

"Your power was stupid—"

[Objection]

"—so I fixed it," you explain, waiting for him to respond to that for about five seconds before turning away from him again. "Hmph!"

"Why are you—you know what? Fuck it. I gotta tell Becky, no, wait, I gotta…" he trails off excitedly, before glancing up the stairs and then back down at you.

"...I gotta wait for you, I think. You want company on the way up? I can probably find some pants somewhere," he offers tenderly.

"Trainwreck," you say with a sigh, idly noticing your foot tapping rapidly on the ground in a way that would probably have left a divot or a crack in normal concrete.

"Yeah?" He replies eagerly, smiling the way your sister does when a big fight is forthcoming. It's a lovely smile, honestly. Lots of teeth.

"I would like a 'thanks', please," you request formally.

He blinks at you.

"...Thanks? No, I mean… really, thanks. I… I just don't know what to say about this. Uh… sorry," he offers, lifting an armored hand to scratch at his head.

"You are welcome. I, also, apologize. I did not know I could do that," you reply primly, before turning and striding towards the stairs.

Well. You try anyway. You sort of put too much force into one leg and kind of bounce off the wall, then rebound off of it just to catch yourself on the railing.

"You… what the hell did you think was going to—" he starts to blurt out in sudden distress, which you choose to bypass by taking another 'step' up.

Naturally this causes you to fly forward several feet, but you at least bounce off the bottom of the next floor's landing, and land higher up than you started.

"Emmy! Emmy, explain what the fuck you did!" Trainwreck yells up at you.

You take another step, this time modulating your strength as best you can so that you land halfway up the next flight of stairs, without bouncing off of anything.

Then you have to snap your hand out to grab the railing to stop yourself from falling backwards down the stairs as you land awkwardly on a corner.

"Emmy!"

You think you're getting the hang of this. You reason that if that much strength is equal to a whole staircase, and half that is half the staircase, then… one tenth of that should be… one normal step?

You choose to focus on that instead of Trainwreck's continued yelling as your control and distance from the ground increase, because self control is very, very important.

And definitely not because of this new, icky feeling in your stomach.

Embarrassment.

* * *

"Fred, I do not like stairs," you complain, having made it most of the way up, and managed enough control that you are now taking the steps two at a time in a stable jog that would probably count as a sprint for any normal person.

You are… what is the word… exhausted. Your body started perspiring at some point due to the effort—more the effort of controlling yourself than the actual act of moving around—and you now feel slightly sticky, and uncomfortable, even as you are forced to continue your trek.

You considered giving up and riding Fred the rest of the way up at one point, but by then, it had ceased to be a task and had mutated into a challenge.

You will climb these stairs. Emmy. Emmy the human girl.

…The mostly human girl.

And nothing, and no one is going to stop you.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body," The little jerk chirps at you, having at some point moved past his offense at your assertion that he is not at all comfortable as a vehicle, and instead, begun to take a snickering sort of amusement at your entirely safe plight.

Rude.

"I do not have any weaknesses! I specifically requested no weakness during my design process!" You retort.

You, of course, are not nearly so bothered by the pod's ribbing as you are trying to distract yourself from what is to come. As much as the distractions provided by your circumstances have allowed you to avoid thinking about it, your original concerns as to how Taylor will take all of this are still valid. You have simply opted to think about just about anything else in an effort to evade the sinking dread that fills your gut when you ponder the subject.

Your trepidation is such that, despite repeated and persistent attempts to re-establish your mental connection with her, you have failed to simply call out to your sister(now in blood, which is, in hindsight, sort of the problem).

At length you reach the door leading into the office at the peak of the tower, having traveled a vertical distance on foot that would probably have decimated the wellbeing of any other normal person. Certainly at the speed you traversed it, at least.

You consider just walking in, and acting like nothing is wrong, but that seems… unworthy, somehow. Disingenuous in a way.

"My legs kind of hurt," you grumble to yourself, doing just about anything to try to extend this moment in time so that you don't have to deal with the one that comes after it.

You once more consider calling down an emulation to handle this problem for you, but quickly discard the notion.

Instead, you lift your hand towards the door, and, unsure even yourself of what you intend…. you knock.

There is a rather long pause, before finally the door is flung open to reveal Taylor, her shoulders set as though she is expecting a fight, for some reason.

You aren't sure why. Even if someone did want to pick a fight with her, you'd wager that doing so while sitting on top of the magically equivalent to a missile silo is the wrong way to go about it.

"…I'm back," you offer weakly, leaning on the doorframe even though you really shouldn't need to.

But the weakness you feel is more emotional than it is physical. Taylor continues to stare at you with a level of wariness you find disturbing, until it occurs to you that you have a very easy way to prove who you are.

Carefully, you allow the portion of your Shard that was, for lack of a better word, 'clenched' around your connection to her to relax, and feel a wash of relief flood over you as your link is reestablished.

Your sister's eyes widen, and her stance slackens, and then, she charges towards you, picking you up and swinging you around in circles in the center of the room like a demented top.

She cackles madly the whole time, babbling almost incoherently at you, and something about the simple, uncomplicated joy she is obviously feeling bleeds through to you, because you begin to giggle uncontrollably as well.

This… this is okay, you think.

This is good.

* * *

"So, you cloned me?" Taylor asks you curiously, having finally calmed enough to truly question the bizarre situation the two of you now find yourselves in.

"I… certainly tried," you say with a twinge of exasperation in your tone of voice.

"I mean…" She responds, rolling over on the roof of the tower—the slope more or less chose to become as flat as possible when you decided to sit up here—and gesturing loosely at you with one hand. "Not identical or anything, but pretty close. I guess, uh, twinsies? Is that a thing people still say?"

"I do not know," you respond blandly, tilting your head to try to remember if you've ever heard the term used in casual conversation around Winslow and coming up short.

Then you shake your head and return to the topic at hand.

"You… are not replicable with anything I had available at the time. We did our best," you say somewhat grumpily.

"So, what, you're 'just' really strong and fast?" She asks curiously.

"I was forced to incorporate several things you do not have in order to mimic effects you have easy access to. You see well in the dark because of the superior physicality granted by a number of your powers. I can see well in the dark because I am three-point-two-five percent cat," you explain.

"I've listened to Greg at lunch enough times to know you should never tell anybody but me that," Taylor winces, rolling back over to look up at the night sky as she places her hands beneath her head as an impromptu pillow.

"…Why? It is strictly fact, and does not impede my ability to be human at all—" you start to complain.

Why on earth would you hide any aspect of your craftsmanship? You literally made yourself from the ground up. You might not be able to match up to your sister but under no circumstances does that mean you are not proud of your work.

"Emmy, you're a cat girl," Taylor says tiredly, as though that should explain anything at all.

"…I do not understand. I have fractional amounts of DNA in common with many animals, not merely cats. The bulk of my makeup is still you, however, so by rights, the correct term would be a 'Taylor Girl'," you counter.

"No it's… that's… ugh. Just trust me, okay?" Taylor warns you cautiously before tilting her head as a new thought crosses her mind.

"Actually, are you gonna, like, come to school with me now? Do you… even need school?" She asks hopefully.

"It was my desire to be with you, always, so, I will of course go where you go," you assert instantly, not even bothering to consider anything else.

"And… you look like my twin sister…" she says slowly, as though working out a problem in her head.

"I am, functionally, your twin sister," you interject, lifting a hand with your pointer finger in the air as if to form a more literal point. "…If… if that's okay…" you add meekly, having forgotten for a moment that there might be more friction in that notion than you had originally assumed.

No, actually, that is a lie, you knew, even before this, that it would cause problems. Just, neither of your component parts considered the consequences worth stopping for.

Taylor, as though sensing your fragility on the subject, rolls towards you, then immediately begins tickling your side, eliciting a muted shriek of surprise from you and causing you to rapidly scramble away from her grasping hands. She follows swiftly after you, scooting towards you while continuing to whip her hands out and past any attempt at guarding yourself until the maddened giggling and shrieks for her to stop finally convince her to cease.

"You!" She says with such force you'd think she was trying to cast a spell, before snorting and rotating so that she is laying down on your stomach. "You kind of already were," she admits with a shrug.

"Ah… why are there… so many things that make me cry...?" You ask as that thought hits home for you.

You had come to this point expecting some degree of pushback. Maybe not necessarily a great deal of it, or anything that would permanently affect your relationship, but you've done things that vexed your sister before, and you'll do them again.

To instead receive this total acceptance, this unconditional love…

"You, ah, you get used to it," Taylor offers awkwardly, lifting a hand overhead to intertwine her fingers with your own so that your bodies form a rough triangle shape.

The two of you trail off into companionable silence for a while just watching the sky go by, before Taylor clears her throat to speak again.

"What was I saying again?" She asks absently.

"You had cautioned me not to explain the peculiarities of my physical form," you offer, now much more comfortable with yourself.

"Right! So you look like me, and I have to beat the boys… and girls… off with a stick, so…" She frowns. "Eh, I'll just threaten 'em all." She finally shrugs.

"I do not understand," you admit, confusion suffusing your being at this sudden line of thought.

"It's… don't worry about it okay? Just never go anywhere alone with a strange boy—or girl!—you don't know just because they said they liked you, okay?"

"I still do not understand. Everyone likes you. I am like you. Therefore, everyone should like me. So—" You begin, trying—and failing—to explain that you have no intention of following anyone anywhere just because they asked you too.

…Well, maybe if they're very interesting, you suppose. Everything just feels so different and new in this body, and you feel compelled to chase down and examine every novel sensation and feeling.

"…Is this what it feels like to be an older sister? I hate this, this feels weird," Taylor mutters to herself, clearly unenthused by your diatribe on the topic.

You try not to flinch at the clear discomfort in her tone of voice, and rapidly scramble for a change of topics that will make her happy again.

She's had more than enough unhappiness for a lifetime, she shouldn't have to engage with any more of it on your account! That completely defeats the point!

Hurriedly, you latch onto the first thing that comes to mind when you think of things your sister enjoys.

"Would—would training make you feel better?!" You blurt out.

Now. Past experience would inform you that what your Master considers 'training' just about everyone else considers torturous.

However, having never been on the other end of that particular mania, you can't really say you have strong feelings one way or the other on the topic.

You start to suspect that maybe you have erred when Taylor bolts upright, turns so that she is on her knees with her face dangling over your head, and smiles widely at you.

"Emmy… Emmy, we can go beat up Ichigo and his twin!" She squeals—literally squeals, in a manner that you have heard Munin manage only when something particularly 'cute' occurs on the television.

Or that one time you gave her Taylor's credit card.

…Did you ever get that back, or..?

"I—I am sure he will appreciate the additional assistance—" you start to say, about to add 'tomorrow' because even your stunted understanding of human norms can understand that the boy is most definitely asleep at this exact moment. However, a sudden lurching sensation in your gut informs you that you are now falling, and the hideous landscape of piercing red eyes surrounding you tells you exactly where you have fallen.

…Suddenly you understand why people dislike it when your sister randomly throws them through these things. The effect is quite perturbing.

For a second as you fall through the space between spaces, you think you catch a dim glimpse of a small girl frantically flail-swimming her way through un-space towards you.

But only for a second.

* * *

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Karakura Clinic, Karakura Town

You emerge into a cramped, dark, closet space with a muted thump, and Taylor quickly emerges after you, more or less falling on top of you—likely because she is so accustomed to you being intangible most of the time that the fact you can no longer do so hasn't fully set in for her yet.

"I have decided—" you begin to make a loud note to yourself, only for your sister to shush you at a volume significantly louder than you were speaking.

"He might be asleep!" She cautions you in a whisper yell, only to immediately kick the sliding door of the closet you are in open, and then roll swiftly out of it.

"Ichigo Kurosaki! I have come to bless thine eyes with…" she trails off. "He's not here," she says with obvious disappointment.

You carefully slide out of the closet behind her, alighting on your feet in the small room while doing your level best not to accidentally break anything by moving too quickly.

"…I have decided I do not like falling," you finish your original thought, tilting your head left and right to get a better look at a space you've been in before without ever really looking at it.

Ichigo Kurosaki's room is decidedly spartan. He has a single bed, unadorned by anything save simple white sheets and pillows, an equally unassuming desk with a small stack of neatly sorted notebooks on it, and a closet against one wall that is big enough to be considered the main feature of the room—even more so than the bed,

"I also do not like surprises," you add after a moment when Taylor doesn't deign to answer your subtle accusation.

When she doesn't answer that accusation either, you frown.

"Also, I believe you forgot a small child in the gap. She still lives," you finish, and that earns a short lived bark of amusement from your sister.

"Just Bonesaw. She can rot," she says decisively, though, upon closer inspection, you realize her gaze is darting about as though she is looking at something you cannot see, before returning to you, and repeating the process.

"Is… something wrong?" You ask worriedly.

"Um… I can sort of tell there's a fun—big! There's a big fight going on right now, but…" she trails off, glancing towards you again before going back to staring straight through the wall at something.

"Ah," you allow, finally understanding the problem, lightly tapping your fist against an open palm the way you've seen Trainwreck do to indicate sudden understanding.

It doesn't make the satisfying clanking noise you were expecting though, so you pause mid thought to glance down at your own hands while your sister watches you with a somewhat bemused expression on her face.

You try again, but put more force into it.

This time, your reinforced bones and enhanced strength crash together producing a satisfyingly loud clacking noise.

"Emmy!" Taylor hisses at you, eyes darting to the door of Ichigo's bedroom, before she swiftly tears open a gap and stretches forward to grab you by the wrist to pull you through it.

"Ichigo?! What was that!?" You hear a panicked young girl's voice call out as you exit the room.

You re-emerge in the rather overly large basement belonging to that one hedge wizard you spoke to briefly. Ura… hara?

The homeless-looking one.

You blink once at the sudden change in locale, then shrug and continue with your original, paused, thought.

"Do not worry, I am sufficiently tailored to survive low to mid level combat with most foes," you inform her, before turning slowly on one heel and adding:

"Also, I have a standing agreement with Fred to assist in my defense. I do not believe he has realized we left the tower though," you say, then when your sister just shoots you an exasperated look you stare at her, waiting to see if she will understand the subtext of your statement.

Evidently, and much to your surprise, she doesn't, and so you mark 'better at subtext than Taylor' in your mental list of advantages.

"…Can I have Fred, please?" You ask straightforwardly.

"Emmy, you can't just—I don't think this is really…" Taylor grapples for the correct words, clearly intent on denying you the ability to follow after her.

Which simply won't do. If you can't go with her, then the only two options are either to leave you here—separating you—or for your sister not to indulge in her desires in the first place.

That wasn't fair!

"But—!" You start to protest, but your voice cracks and you find yourself at a loss for how to express your frustration again. You feel your entire body quiver, and a separate part of you that is still getting used to all this 'having a body' stuff throws its arms up in the air in defeat.

There are, without doubt, far too many things that make you cry. You can only assume the average human finds ways to mitigate or remove this tendency because you can't fathom how their society could manage to function with all these feelings wasting valuable time to sort through.

"No, wait! I—it's—I just don't think—aaaaaah!" Taylor blurts out in confusion at your sudden display, hands coming up to awkwardly hover between you like she doesn't quite know what to do with them, before she eventually just yells at the ceiling in irritation, and grasps her own head between them.

"I—I'm strong! Look!" You insist, making another mental note to get some kind of… vision… protection, so that you can cry without making it hard to see in front of yourself.

Maybe you can replace your eyes? Did you really need the biology for this? Surely not, right?

Regardless, you quickly scramble over to a sizable boulder and lift a slim hand over it, forming a fist.

"Hey! Did anyone tell you it's rude to visit someone's basement uninvited?" Urahara barks, the hedgewizard swiftly dropping into a crouch at the bottom of the ladder leading into the room just as you bring your fist down on the over-large stone with all your might.

"…Ah," You blurt out when you realize 'all your strength' was probably too much strength, because while you do obliterate the stone, you also overbalance yourself, which has the unfortunate effect of causing your punch to continue well past the exploded cloud of dust the rock becomes and straight into the ground.

….Where the force of your punch causes you to punch straight through the bizarre fake ground, causing you to end up buried up to your shoulder, with your face bouncing off the ground.

"…If we're done with the boulder-punching—" you hear the hedgewizard behind you, at the same time as your sister calls out to you in alarm.

"Emmy!" She yelps, flashing next to you with barely a thought and swiftly helping to pull you up and out of the hole you just made.

You end up with her arms under your shoulders, lifted into the air about a foot as she dangles you overhead—like an unruly cat.

"…Strong," you insist, pointing at the hole.

"Hello! Hi! Is anyone home? Did everyone in this room suddenly go deaf? Trying to make a conversation here, you know. This is just outright offensive!" Urahara demands in a hurt, joking tone that slowly inches forward to threatening as he walks towards you all. While his unserious demeanor still clearly lingered, there was now an undercurrent of danger to it, only held back out of respect, perhaps for your sister's association with Ichigo.

…Not that you or your sister really care enough about the man to acknowledge him immediately.

Well. You would if she did, but you're following her lead here and she doesn't seem all that fussed, so you won't be either.

Instead, you and she stare into each other's eyes for several more seconds, before she sighs and turns her head away from you, lowering you to the ground after a quick check to make sure you aren't actually injured by the attack.

You were, a little bit, but even if your regeneration is nowhere near as capable as your sister's, it's still definitely present, so your fractured wrist isn't really worth mentioning.

At least you had the wherewithal to design yourself not to feel injuries above a certain level while they were healing. You can't even begin to fathom pain beyond the most minor annoyances you've already suffered—and you'd rather not try.

"Hark, hedgemage. I hath come for Ichigo, but see we are at war," she says, finally answering Urahara's questions.

The man stills at that, leaning away from the two of you and slowly placing both hands on the walking cane he always keeps with him.

"I see. Came for Ichigo, eh?" He says slowly, subtly changing his grip on the head of the weapon.

"Aye. This one was bored, and wished to introduce mine… sister. However, she is young yet, and noisome air ran abound in his household. We did not wish to disturb his family, and so, came here," she explains.

"I wouldn't suppose you know anything about all of the commotion going on outside, would you?" Urahara presses, a subtle menace entering his tone.

"Nary a thing. It doth seem fun though. I should like to partake," Taylor says immediately, before frowning. "However…" She turns subtly towards you.

You lift a dainty fist as though to emphasize that you won't need protection and she should have fun, and she just sighs at your gesture.

"…I worry for mine sister," she says eventually.

Urahara stares sharply at the pair of you for a second, and you feel, for just one moment, his gaze turn towards you, which causes Taylor to tense up significantly.

Then the moment passes and he sighs.

"Doesn't explain how you got in, though…" he mutters mulishly, scratching at his chin.

Your sister just snorts at him.

"Trifling wards require trifling effort to ignore," she replies succinctly.

You watch with curiosity as one of Urahara's eyes twitches violently at the statement, but swiftly refocus on your sister as she promptly turns back to you, presumably ignoring the man's response.

"I'll call Fred, but I have conditions!" She finally agrees, eyeing you sternly.

You can feel your eyes light up as she agrees, and nod furiously towards her.

"First, if it gets dangerous, you leave, okay? Here," she demands, pulling a tag from a pouch on her waist before reconsidering, and withdrawing several of them instead.

"Big Laser, Area Suppression, Small Laser, Gap, Healing," she informs you, pointing to each one in turn and shoving several of them into your hands.

You… don't really have anywhere to put them, so you swiftly end up slipping them halfway into the waistband of your skirt, where the piece of clothing can keep them attached to you but you will still have easy access to them.

Your sister squints at the pleated skirt with distaste, but otherwise doesn't comment.

"Second," she says, nibbling on her bottom lip, and glancing back at Urahara before shrugging and motioning you towards her. "Come here and let me awaken your aura real quick, so you can punch ghosts and stuff."

You acquiesce to that, too.

Actually, you've been curious about this one for a while. In theory, aura is an easily replicable form of power that this body should have access to, but you are… somewhat… worried.

After all, this body of yours, it's more of a puppet than anything else. You are, as ever, a Shard. Not a person.

And deep down, you somewhat fear the idea that, maybe, just maybe, your people don't really have souls.

Clearly however, this isn't a concern for your sister, because she just sighs again, before lifting her hand to grasp your face, placing her forefinger on your temple and her thumb on your forehead.

It's warm, and you find yourself subtly leaning into the touch.

"For it is in strength that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become unstoppable, a champion to break all bonds. Infinite in forbearance, and bound only by will, I release your soul, and by my hand, set thee free," she intones with the air of someone reading a prayer, and at first, nothing happens.

You're… sad… but not altogether surprised by that, or you weren't until you feel a sharp stinging sensation behind your eyes, that rapidly spreads through your nervous system like wildfire. You feel like a child who put their finger in an electrical socket, like a balloon being filled with acid, like—

And suddenly the sensation recedes, you find yourself blinking stars out of your eyes as your sister holds you upright with a concerned expression on her face.

"You okay?" She whispers, and you nod, tilting your head to observe Urahara as he carefully creeps towards you with a curious expression on his face.

"That's the thing you did for Chad, right? Would you be willing to—" he starts to ask curiously, but Taylor cuts him off by turning to the side and rending a gap open next to her. The man turns to stare at the hole in reality like a moth drawn to a flame, and even takes a single, firm, step towards it before Fred emerges from it, angrily waving his little arms in the air as he rotates in the air until he catches sight of all of you, and begins aggressively floating towards you.

You aren't sure how one might express 'aggression' via floating, but Fred certainly manages, and the gap closes behind him not long after, leaving Urahara staring at the empty space it was in, in a daze.

Then slowly, he turns towards the three of you, his expression utterly blank.

"…So, you can speak normal English?" He asks incredulously.

Taylor looks up from where she is still prodding at you, clearly still concerned by the decidedly non-standard format your aura took when it awakened, and pauses to consider before answering.

Which she does in japanese.

"…Nay," she responds succinctly, before rending another gap open beneath all three of you, causing you and her to fall through it—and Fred to dive after you.

* * *

Point of View: Yasutora "Chad" Sado

The night, like most nights in Karakura, was simultaneously quiet… and very loud.

It was one of the inevitable side effects of the abilities Chad had acquired in his short time dealing with the supernatural. He was faster, stronger, tougher. Even before his awakening, Chad was the type of person who many might consider inhuman. Before he even had the spiritual strength to perceive Hollows, he was capable of wielding—however briefly—a telephone poll as an improvised weapon.

After awakening his abilities, after unlocking the strength in his right arm, he had become a titan. 'Strength' he had thought, did not adequately describe the limits of his ability.

Which brought him back to the noise. The ever-present noise. Because while he had undergone a great number of changes since becoming involved in his friend's—in Ichigo's—affairs… the most notable, despite his strength, to him, was the noise.

Having his abilities unlocked was like having a veil lifted from his senses. He could perceive things beyond sight, hear things at great distances. Feel the power moving through the air whenever a Soul Reaper, or Quincy, or Hollow, or anything of sufficient power really, moved about. Sometimes it was better, and sometimes it was worse, but almost always, it was quite loud.

Especially the Hollows.

Like vermin seeking scraps, the horrible, demonic, creatures would turn up basically every night in Karakura. He'd been told that was uncommon. That they were typically more spread out, and less focused on a specific place than this.

He hoped that was the case, and not just a comforting lie. Because the creatures were, if nothing else, dangerous. But not just dangerous in the way a wild animal suffering from starvation might be.

No, Chad had long found that Hollows had all the desperate, hungry, fervor of a wild animal—and all the low cunning that the worst of humanity had to offer.

And. They. Were. Loud.

Chad had once had the pleasure of watching a movie about a giant nuclear lizard. The noise that thing had made was quite distinctive, and yet, it was always the first thing he thought of when he heard a Hollow.

He often wondered if the two were connected in some way. If the, maybe, the creator of that franchise might have been inspired by—or heard a Hollow once, somehow, and simply imagined what kind of creature must it be to make such a noise.

Regardless, they often woke him up in the night.

Typically, he didn't have to do anything about them. He could, and, where the opportunity presented itself, he did. Sometimes even going so far as to patrol the town in recent days seeking the things out for destruction—but he was not the sole defender of his home. He wasn't even the strongest defender of his home.

But defend it, he still did.

That was probably why, when he 'felt' the six presences appear in the middle of the town, before instantly and rapidly splitting up, with one moving towards him specifically, he was neither surprised nor bothered.

Just slightly tired—and not even because he was having trouble sleeping.

Carefully, slowly, he rose to his feet. At first, he took a step towards the front door of his home.

Then he recalled the sheer length of time he'd had to spend gingerly working his front door open, and instead angled himself towards his open window, where the moon was shining brilliantly down from the clear skies above.

He… for lack of a better word… 'hopped'. It was small. A bunny hop, really. Before he'd been empowered, it might have carried him a handful of feet. Afterward, it might have been enough to clear the entire room and reach the window directly.

Now, there was a flicker of light pink, and he found himself rocketing out of the window like he was trying to tackle the moon.

He'd barely cleared the window sill and started gently reorienting himself to land on his feet, when a man appeared overhead.

And he did mean 'appeared'.

Chad would have guessed it was that… flash step… thing, that Ichigo was apparently very good at for no real reason. A common enough skill among the Shinigami that most of them could use it, if not necessarily without effort.

The man, who was 'flying' directly parallel to Chad, whipped his arm forward, clearly aiming to pierce through his chest.

Or slap him, but, given the circumstances, probably that first thing.

A day or two ago, he probably wouldn't have even been able to perceive the movement. Now, while he could perceive it, he still wasn't quite fast enough to raise his arm, release his power, and block.

So instead, the attack struck him, and he flared bright pink, his airborne trajectory changing at a ninety-degree angle to send him careening into the street below.

It was strong. An attack that fast, and that strong, would have probably killed him instantly a few days ago.

Now it was like being pinched by a small child.

Well, no, it still hurt like he was going to die, but in terms of actual damage the pain was effectively all it amounted to. Using the same sense he'd long grown accustomed to using to detect other supernatural entities, Chad could get a rough feel for how much of this 'aura' he had left, and while the attack had shaved off a few percentage points of the stuff, he guessed he wouldn't be in too much trouble if that was all his attacker had to bring to bear.

"Who are you?" He demanded from the man, pulling himself—once more, carefully—out of the Chad-shaped depression in the asphalt he had created, twisting his neck left, then right, in a stretch.

His attacker was… not the usual. He felt like a Hollow. He had a mask like a Hollow. And indeed, he was acting like a Hollow.

But in all other respects he was utterly human. Scraggly, slightly long, white hair, a narrow pale face, and a white robe that seemed to intentionally mock the Shinigami adorned the monster, with the only nods to its true nature being the almost crab-shaped crest on his head like some kind of helmet, and his oddly shark-like teeth.

Chad's eyes flicked towards the sheathed sword at his hip, then back up to his face again, which was twisted into a cruel grin as he leered down at him.

This was, then, clearly, another one of those… Super Hollows, like the one that had hospitalized him the day before.

He felt his fists clench at the realization. The indignation in his heart nearly bursting out of his chest, and the air in his fists literally causing a muted detonation at the sudden movement.

Not because he couldn't tolerate losing. Indeed, he lost fights with alarming frequency against actually trained opponents. A fact that he found intolerable, but not anger inducing.

No, it was the look on Ichigo's face, when he visited him in the hospital.

That forlorn acceptance.

Chad didn't know when it had happened, but at some point, the two boys who had fought together against all comers, ready to protect the peace and their friends, had separated.

One of them had gone ahead to greater strength than the other could easily manage.

Chad didn't like that. He didn't like feeling so… useless. It was as though all of his efforts merely amounted to this and no more. It was as though his long time friend, a man almost a brother to the half-foreigner with nearly no one else to rely on, would now have to deal with everything alone.

He was so vexed by the thought, his jaw clenched so tightly just imagining it, that he nearly missed his assailant's response to his question.

"Death," the hollow declared maliciously, rocketing down towards Chad again with one hand extended in the same spear-like pose.

Chad was briefly confused until he realized that his attacker probably had no idea what aura was, nor did he have any idea how many times Chad could liberally ignore such an attack.

Not that he would allow himself to be hit by it.

This time, with foreknowledge of an attack coming, Chad was more than capable of responding in time to defend himself.

He twisted at the hip, cocking back his right fist, and allowing his left leg to inch forward. There was a burst of air pressure, and his unconstrained movement made the road tremble and wobble like an earthquake had hit.

Then, he released his attack.

A simple uppercut.

His opponent, perhaps sensing that he absolutely should not allow himself to be hit by the attack, abruptly stopped halfway towards him, then backed away with that same flash step technique, appearing several blocks away as a tiny pinprick over a distant neighborhood.

Chad was kind of disappointed, if he was being honest. He couldn't teleport, and he definitely couldn't fly, which meant that his only chance to actually hit his opponent was in a counterattack.

A counterattack he was evidently too slow to be able to guarantee landing.

Frustrating.

He heard clapping from behind him, and turned his head fractionally to glance at the source of the noise without allowing the distant spec of his foe to leave his line of sight.

"Verily, excellently done! Thine form is of the highest caliber!" The extremely strange girl that had been following Ichigo around cheered at him, striding towards him like she was a girl on a shopping trip rather than a strange and powerful warrior in the middle of a pitched fight.

…The new strange girl that had been following Ichigo around.

…The new, new strange girl that had been following Ichigo around.

Behind her, another girl who looked eerily similar to her, a… floating DVD player with arms, Ichigo, and Rukia quickly moved towards him.

"Ichigo?" He asked cautiously, greeting Rukia with a nod, and eyeing his theoretical benefactors with an unsure expression.

Ichigo treated her with a significant degree of irreverence, but Ichigo treated pretty much everyone that way, so it wasn't at all a good way to measure such things.

"Chad! Let me—" Ichigo began, and his heart sank. Chad just knew that his next words were going to be some flavor of 'let me handle this'.

Because he knew Chad couldn't.

That same infuriating feeling burned in his chest, but he suppressed it, reasoning that he could find Orihime, and maybe protect her during the fighting, but—

"Nay. This sister of mine's mettle is most untested, and lo, this twig of a man shows as thy perfect choice!" The… woman—Chad never really got her name, somehow—interjected, waving the roughly identical copy of herself, albeit with darker hair, forward.

Chad's gaze flickered to her, then to the Hollow, who, by some miracle hadn't attacked them during the brief interaction.

"If he's so weak, why don't you just handle him yourself?!" Ichigo demanded pointedly, turning to bark at… the woman.

""T'would bore,"" the pair of girls respond as one.

The DVD player also played something that sounded like it was a sentence, but it was in what Chad had to guess was english, so he couldn't understand it in the slightest.

"So you're just gonna watch?" Ichigo demands.

"Ichigo, I don't think—" Rukia started to caution him, clearly unsure of how to act around either girl and seemingly just as perturbed by the sudden appearance of a duplicate of the woman as Chad was.

"Stronger foes yet lay in wait, and this challenge threatens none enough that this one be concerned," she shrugged off, clearly unbothered by the angrily seething boy.

Ichigo glanced from her, to Chad, then up at the sky where the Hollow still refused to come any closer, then growled in irritation and turned away.

"Fine! If anything happens to Chad—"

"Ara. Thou will fight me? Woe is me," the woman half-crooned at him. It honestly sent a shiver down Chad's spine. It was like watching a cat play with a mouse. Chad had no idea why people like this always seemed to accumulate around Ichigo, but he wished his friend the best.

Ichigo just growled at the taunt, before turning and running back the way he had come, with Rukia hot on his heels. The two girls exchanged words—again, not in Japanese, so he had no idea what they were saying—and then she, too, left, though at a much more sedate pace.

At this point Chad had to have guessed that the reason his attacker hadn't gotten close to them during the conversation was the simple fact that there were so many of them, so he was glad for the lazy speed of her exit.

It gave him a few more minutes to come to terms with the situation, and the fact that he would have to protect… whoever this was, now, while fighting.

Still, he was thankful for the intervention.

He didn't have to leave. He didn't have to give up.

He could stay. He could fight.

Then, as though to mock his earlier thoughts about Ichigo, he found himself staring slightly downward at the girl who's name he didn't know that he was apparently supposed to be babysitting.

"…Greetings," she offered, standing entirely too close to him while her pet DVD player thing hovered immediately behind her, staring into his eyes with a single, baleful red lens.

He took a pointed step back before answering, but instead of doing so, was forced to lurch suddenly forward again as their attacker once more flickered back into view, this time aiming for the girl who seemed all but oblivious to the attack as it descended on her.

He took a single step in the time it took his opponent to travel several city blocks, and the ground quaked as he made it just in time to deflect the attack off of his shoulder. The force of the piercing strike—it felt like getting stabbed more than anything shaped like a human hand should be able to manage—once more deflected off of his newly acquired aura, and a surge of brilliant pink rose up around him as he was spun around, forced to pivot on his left foot to disperse the energy of the attack in a spin lest he be flung backwards into a building that would probably contain a number of otherwise innocent people.

He made it that time, though.

He had responded in time.

In a world where he was swiftly coming to realize that speed was king, he was naught but a turtle.

But that didn't mean he couldn't learn to deal with it.

Chad ended up with his back directly towards the girl he had just saved, his eyes scanning the skies overhead to keep track of their foe, who arched back upward as his attack once more failed, though this time he didn't move so far away that he became indistinct. Instead, he stopped and turned in the air to glare at Chad, like something particularly gross had found its way to the bottom of his shoe.

"Just die already! Even those other ones left you behind! Can't believe I'm having problems with such deadweight," the Hollow grumbled, flexing the over long fingers of his hand as though stretching before returning it to the knife hand configuration he had been using to 'stab' Chad with.

Chad didn't let the banter get to him. He didn't need to. He wasn't dead yet, which meant he had to be doing something right, and while he didn't know much about the girl behind him, he had to assume she would be at least some help going forward. Perhaps she could also move as quickly as the Hollow? That would certainly even out their fighting capability against the monster in the shape of a man.

Once more, as though to mock his internal monologue, the girl in question stepped lightly up next to him, clearly mimicking his boxing pose.

Poorly. Her face was tilted toward him like she was trying to keep him in her peripheral vision to assist her mimicry, and it was just… awkward to look at.

"Stay close–behind me," he told her near instantly, not entirely sure what to make of her at that exact moment but not really desiring for her to meet a swift end without seeming to even understand what was going on in the first place either.

"Why?" She asked him curiously, at pretty much the exact same moment that the Hollow attacked again, flickering out of sight and reappearing on the other side of the girl, using her as effectively a human shield to prevent Chad from directly intervening fast enough without moving through her which would probably be more gruesome than just letting him hit her.

The girl seemed entirely unbothered though, dropping straight down by spreading her legs until she was doing the splits and stopping her sudden downward motion by catching herself on the outstretched tips of one hand's fingers before her torso could actually hit the ground.

Their assailant seemed as surprised by the sudden dodge as Chad was, and so, neither of them were quite prepared to capitalize on the sudden pause the movement brought, though Chad did notice a light green aura with blue striations flickering across its surface envelop the girl as she moved, lifting her free hand to point at the monster with her forefinger out, her thumb up, and the rest of her fingers curled in a fist.

Chad might have expected a blast of energy. Those were pretty common. Heck, even he could do it, he just wasn't because he was fighting on the ground in the middle of a populated area. This wasn't like Soul Society, where basically everyone around him was an active combatant—he literally couldn't afford to cut loose here, now more than ever.

There was a blast—it just didn't come from the girl.

Instead, a beam of blue energy emerged from her pet machine that their attacker leapt backward to dodge. Instead the beam slammed into the sidewalk behind him, where it promptly vaporized the concrete there.

There was no more time for talking then, because that was when the battle was truly begun, and several things happened at once.

The girl, using what Chad could only describe as superhuman alacrity, pushed herself to her feet from the position she was in on the ground so swiftly that it almost looked like she was moving backwards in time to a standing position. The entire time she kept her pointing hand trained on their foe, twitching the appendage left and right to keep it on target as the Hollow flickered left, then right, then back up into the sky to avoid the continuous barrage of beams lobbed at him.

Chad—not being capable of immediately following up on the rapid burst of movement—chose a different tack, cocking back his arm and waiting for just the right moment when—there!

As he had expected, their foe did not like having the initiative stolen from him, and, after an additional handful of dodges, once more flickered into view directly behind the girl, who he had clearly decided was the bigger threat.

Chad put his back into it this time, and when his fist landed on the Hollow's chest, it was with a sound like a mountain being hit by a missile. The air wobbled around the point of impact, and he winced as the girl was thrown off target, sent flying slightly by the blast of his simple punch.

But not nearly as much as the Hollow had been, his body deforming around the point of impact and getting launched up the road like a rocket.

"Are you okay?" He called to the girl, who'd managed to catch herself by grabbing onto her pet machine and was now dangling a few feet in the air, with her hand in its grip.

"Thy strength is immense. This one's health is in abeyance," she allowed, speaking in the same archaic sounding japanese as her sister, releasing her grip on her pet and dropping lightly to the ground where she stumbled and caught herself before straightening. She peered into the distance where Chad's attack had launched the monster, and furrowed her brows.

"It yet lives," she pointed out, quite literally lifting a hand to point in that direction.

"We need to move. I can't fly, and I can't attack at range here," he offered gravely, his opinion of the girl's competence drastically improved by her previous display of offensive might.

The girl nodded, reaching towards one of several odd-looking paper talismans dangling from her waist, before seeming to pause in thought.

"Canst thou offensive reach the clouds?" She asked, and it took several seconds for Chad to parse what she was saying, seconds wherein the feeling of malevolent power he could sense in the distance from their attacker suddenly spiked, causing Chad to grimace.

Why did it seem like everyone had between one and two extra forms ever since they went to Soul Society? Was all the transforming strictly necessary? Were they in an anime now?

"I can attack straight up. That should be safe," he allowed.

The girl nodded.

"This one shall create an opportunity," she offered in the same slightly droopy-sounding monotone she'd been using the entire time, eyeing the walls of the buildings around them thoughtfully.

"How—" Chad started to ask, wanting to actually understand the plan before committing to it, but unfortunately was interrupted as their attacker returned—though now he was much changed.

For one thing, his sword was gone. For another, he was encased in what Chad could only describe as a fitted exoskeleton in the rough shape of a bird. The skeletal wings of the bird were small—almost vestigial looking—the beaked helmet on the Hollow's now maskless head more than made up for that deficiency, with the oversized beak being nearly long and sharp enough to change the Hollow's profile into an almost scythe like configuration when he was standing normally.

This was all information Chad took in at the last possible second, as said oversized beak whipped past them, shredding a rent in the asphalt below by its passing alone, and causing both their auras to flare in their defense as the girl jumped straight up to avoid being skewered by the attack. Her robot followed her of course, and that, perhaps, was all that saved her life, as she was able to use it to brace herself mid-air and bounce away towards the nearest building, barely avoiding another blistering fast pass from the Hollow.

Now Chad truly couldn't keep up. If he were alone, his only choice would be to brace himself and accept an attack on purpose, trusting in his new aura to defend him long enough to use the brief moment of offensive contact to initiate a grapple.

For now, however, the Hollow seemed utterly focused on the girl, shrieking in rage as he drove towards her, stopping on a dime and turning back towards them to continue assaulting her at high speed like a heat-seeking missile. The air shrieked around them with the abuse the Hollow's passing put it under, and with each pass, the girl would—just barely—dodge out of the way, bounding back and forth from building to building, from wall to wall, and occasionally, off of her own airborne companion, who seemed utterly unbothered by the attacks heading its way, at one point even suffering one for its owner that did little more than bounce it off the ground and then back up into the air again—none the worse for wear.

Chad realized, with some concern, that while this seemed to be working for the girl, and further reassured him that she did actually know how to fight somewhat, each attack she dodged actually drove her further and further skyward, and that eventually, she was going to run out of things to bounce off of in order to change her position in the air.

He really, really dreaded what would occur when that happened.

Then he saw the look on her face, and he was simultaneously reassured and… concerned. Because as she bounced one final time off the lip of the tallest building in the area out into the open area over the street, twisting and twirling with each movement like a ballerina in motion, Chad realized she was smiling. No, not… smiling. Smiles were supposed to be reassuring. Happy.

This was… the opposite of that. This was a smile that spoke of raw, unadulterated insanity. Too wide, with too many teeth showing, and oddly reminiscent of a wolf baring its fangs, the manic smile forced Chad to remember what the girl had said not too long ago.

That she would create an opportunity.

He grit his teeth, and began concentrating power in his fist. It was an attack he had figured out before ever going to Soul Society, but equally, one that he knew would be foolish to use anywhere near other people. Or buildings. Or… anything, really.

The final attack came, this time from directly below the girl. Almost as though she had predicted this angle of attack her arms shot out to either side of her, her superhuman strength causing the movement to make her start spinning just enough that rather than being bisected by that scythe-like beak, she was merely grazed by it.

But that wasn't the end of the dodge.

Before the Hollow could fully pass her by, the girl's hands snapped down mid spin, landed on his shoulders, and, via a combination of pushing herself off of him, and his own upward momentum, launched herself skyward, practically disappearing straight up into the sky.

"Hah! You dare contest me in the sky?!" The Hollow shrieked, dipping slightly in the air before rocketing up after her.

Chad continued focusing his attack, praying that his trust was not misplaced.

When the two airborn forms once more overlapped, and at about the same time Chad realized the machine had followed its owner upward, something strange happened.

The Hollow froze. No, rather, a small circular area around it froze, noticeable only because everything inside the sphere turned monochromatic under the influence of the power.

Then he heard a noise behind him, and jerked around to see the girl stepping out of a frankly disturbing looking portal with her pet in tow. There was a jagged bloody rent down the center of her torso where she had suffered a glancing attack from the Hollow, but she seemed entirely unbothered by it as the portal closed, and she pointed upward.

"Kill," she informed him politely, before tilting her head to the side and adding, "...please," as an afterthought.

Chad didn't need to be told twice.

He turned back to what he was doing, lined himself up as best he could, and thrust his fist skyward.

"El Directo!" He growled as he did.

What few clouds were in the sky were dispersed as the oppressive force of his punch, his directed will, and every bit of spiritual power he could condense into both was sent skyward.

For a second, Chad felt the raw power of the attack coursing through him, and found himself once more staring up at the clear moon above, allowing his fist to relax into an open hand that, from his point of view, looked like it had the moon in its grip.

The attack lit up the night sky like it was noon, and Chad didn't have to look to know that the Hollow he'd hit with it had either stopped existing on impact, or gotten launched out of earth's atmosphere by the strike.

Either way.

They'd won.

Aaaand then the girl was in his personal space again, and still smiling that un-smile of hers.

"Thou art entertaining! Wouldst thee bear mine children?" She asked eagerly.

Chad practically choked on nothing at the question, and immediately stepped away from her again.

Not that this did anything, because she just followed after him like a dog with a bone, watching him with shining eyes full of interest, but completely devoid of affection.

"We should find the others and—"

"Thou would gain great power!" She insisted, chasing after him as he made a hasty turn to try and move towards where he could feel Ichigo in the distance.

He ignored her.

"None have been disappointed by mine progeny!" She pressed.

Chad felt his face twitch briefly out of its otherwise neutral configuration for a moment at… whatever that was, before deciding to ignore it.

He'd leave the crazy wrangling to Ichigo.

* * *

Point of View: Taylor "Nexus" Hebert

What an excellent day.

She got to have a (semi) normal outing with a bunch of other teens, Emmy was her sister now, and there was all kinds of fun stuff going on in samurai ghost world!

Sure that 'normal' outing had ended with her trying to distract a bunch of teens with magic, and sure she probably shouldn't be so pleased to be in the middle of some kind of… demonic invasion, but still!

'You're sure you don't want me to just—' she offered to Emmy for perhaps the tenth time in as many seconds since leaving her behind to get some training in with the obscenely large boy she'd given aura to the other day. Sad? Chad? Chad!

She liked Chad. He was quiet and direct. He wasn't terrible to look at with no shirt on either, but—

What was she thinking about? Right, demon invasion thing.

'I am fine. Please enjoy yourself,' Emmy insisted, which brought a frown to her face.

They should probably… change her name slightly, for her government I.D. She had yet to pester the PRT into doing it—obviously—but Emmy with a 'y' on the end felt like a pet name when you put it in writing. N-not that she was embarrassed by the name she had given her friend— sister! Just, well, she should probably have a more 'real' name too, so…

A throaty cackle that made her think of a hyena laughing made Taylor blink as they moved away from Emmy and Chad and Taylor looked up to find perhaps the most thuggish-looking man she had ever seen in her life glaring down at her from overhead.

He had bright blue hair, a white pair of pants, and a white jacket with nothing underneath. She could tell there was nothing underneath it, because it was completely open, hanging from the man's torso more like a cape than a jacket.

"HAHAHAHAHAH! Look at you, just ignoring my man! Hey! Which one of you is the strongest!?" He demanded, his hands in his pockets, hunched over like a petty thug despite literally standing on thin air as they approached.

Taylor noticed the man moving before anyone else did, though, that was more a function of her excellent dynamic vision than her own physical speed. She could probably move faster, but not in her base state of being.

Unfortunately, she could tell from the angle of his movement that she wasn't his target, which was kind of vexing.

"!" "Damn it!" the small—incredibly small, really—girl she had been introduced to as Rukia, and Ichigo exclaimed at once when Taylor's best attempt to prevent the challenger to her position in the closet from dying resulted in her having the blue-haired man's arm buried in her stomach.

Actually, his hand was literally coming out of her back, which made it somehow ten times more uncomfortable as it happened.

"Hoh? Not you then!" The man crooned smugly—for about one and a half seconds.

Then he tried to jerk his hand out of her, and found he couldn't, because she had taken the opportunity to wrap her hands around his elbow.

"Ichigo," she ground out through grit teeth, profoundly annoyed by this turn of events. She trusted her regeneration enough that she wasn't concerned by the injury itself, but she was a bit irked that she had to defend like this.

There were, after all, a great number of ways she could have ended the fight shortly after noticing this man even existed. She just chose not to. Ichigo needed the practice, anyway.

"Fesity! I like it!" The blue haired man cheered, his expression sharpening at her perceived defiance. "Know that you were killed by Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez! The sixth—!"

"Hush, fool," she hissed at him, letting go of his elbow with one hand to slap him lightly on the face. "Ichigo. Thy demon," she insisted pointedly.

She chose to ignore the girl as she split in two, her body happily bounding away while the form of a soul reaper emerged from it, instead keeping her eyes trained on Ichigo who seemed surprised by her regard for some reason.

She smiled, as his grip on his sword tightened, and determination filled his expression.

Good. She understood he was still hesitant to use his demon, but that was no excuse to be sloppy and get caught off-guard like this.

…Even though she had also been surprised by the attack…

Her attention was drawn back to the man who was presently eviscerating her when he lifted the arm sticking out of her and swung it to one side, attempting to throw her off of him.

She debated stopping him for a second—it was amazing what you could do with the ability to create leverage in thin air—but ultimately let it go, allowing herself to be flung several feet in the air in a spray of blood, and feeling her stomach and back seal themselves shut almost the moment the obstruction stopping them from doing so was gone.

The blue haired man—Grimjow—glared balefully up at her as she stopped in the air and crossed her legs to take a bored sitting position, with one elbow on her knee to prop up her head.

"Ulquiorra didn't say anything about you," he half crooned at her, his smile widening despite her casual dismissal and insult. She recognized the expression, and felt her heart soften somewhat towards the man.

He was like her. And Kenpachi. And Unohana.

Just a fighter looking for a good fight.

"I'm gonna enjoy—"

"Thy opponent is over there, fool," she pointed out as he crouched down with a vicious leer on his face, clearly preparing to lunge at her. He cocked his head at her as though confused, and she rolled her eyes, pointing off to the man's left in time for him to raise his arms and catch the black blade of Ichigo's bankai in his open palm.

He seemed nonplussed by the attack, which made sense to Taylor—Ichigo wasn't even really trying. Well. He was. But not the way she wanted him to.

With a sigh of annoyance, Taylor made use of her meager skill with the flash step to leapfrog past the two fighters and land next to Rukia, placing a hand on her shoulder to prevent her from rushing in to assist.

"Cease," she ordered, already feeling a migraine coming along.

Honestly, training people who didn't want to use their powers was exhausting. Was this what Unohana thought of her? This sucked, no wonder the woman was always annoyed with her.

"Hah? Is this it?" Grimmjow half-whined, levying a lazy punch in Ichigo's direction and then whirling around to catch the blade again when Ichigo simply vanished from sight before reappearing behind him to attack again.

They ended up basically exactly back where they started, which was immensely dissatisfying.

"Let go," Rukia said coldly to her, drawing Taylor's attention back to the smaller girl.

"Nay. Wend help to thy cater-cousins," she said with a bored roll of her eyes to indicate all of the other high-energy fights going on around the town tonight.

Fights she really wanted to get involved in, but couldn't, because she had to babysit Ichigo long enough for him to get over himself—a task that was proving kind of tedious.

"Hey, I'll let you live for now, so piss off. Let me—" Grimmjow was offering to Ichigo, who only looked infuriated by the 'mercy'. Grimmjow was hardly paying attention to the orange- haired boy, instead keeping her in his peripheral vision.

Honestly, if he wasn't actively trying to kill a bunch of people she nominally liked, Taylor could even admit she sort of liked his attitude.

"Girl. If 'twould be true that mine own bankai be unleashed upon hither, how many wouldst survive?" She asked Rukia conversationally, recalling—ever so vaguely—that the fabric of reality here was for some reason weak enough that a sufficiently strong presence would simply extinguish the souls of the mundane people around it.

She was fond of a good fight, but she wasn't a psychopath, so she obviously wouldn't do that, but Ichigo obviously didn't know that, and more importantly, she wanted to make a point here.

For reasons that were beyond her, Ichigo's own Bankai compressed his power, which made him less likely to do that to the people around him.

Rukia, clearly seeing the point she was making, gulped and darted a worried look at Ichigo before answering.

"Central has isolated space around us, so it… should… be safe…" she offered weakly.

Taylor actually perked up at that, and Ichigo clearly noticed it, as did Grimmjow who for some reason was being polite enough to let them talk this out while idly holding back the orange haired boy's weapon.

"Oi! So you'll fight me when he's done with?" He queried her curiously.

Taylor had to fight not to lick her lips and leer at the man at the question—because she absolutely would just handle things on her own if Ichigo proved too reticent here.

She could only leave a morsel on the table for so long before getting annoyed that it was getting cold.

Even Emmy was getting to have some fun right now!

'You are looking at this situation in entirely the wrong way,' Ozma pointed out to her.

She sent the psychic equivalent of a snort back.

'Nemesis would agree, I bet,' she rebutted.

'That is how I know you are wrong,' Ozma confirmed, and she rolled her eyes at the statement—even if it did make her engage in a bit of self examination, if only for a second.

…Was she being unreasonable?

She checked her priority list. She wasn't putting anyone in active danger, had the power to step in and stop things if anyone was in true danger, and so far had yet to see anything that would prevent her from doing so…

No, no, she saw no problem with this.

"Hah! I'll hold you to it!" Grimjow crooned, lifting a foot to kick Ichigo away from himself and turning fully to address his current opponent.

He put a hand on his sword, and Ichigo lifted a hand to his face, both fighters preparing to start fighting in earnest.

And then the horizon lit up like a nuke had just gone off and Taylor felt one of the other Hollows that were in the town at the time stop existing.

'I am done,' Emmy sent her with a proud tinge to the mental voice she was using.

Good, good. Now she just needed—

"Grimmjow," a new voice called from above, and Taylor felt her eye twitch as she glanced up at the dark-skinned man who had appeared through a portal kind of like a gap overhead.

She just wanted to get to the fighting! Just a little fighting! As a treat! She'd been exceedingly patient about it!

"The hell do you want?!" Grimmjow complained, seemingly just as vexed by the interruption as she was.

She found herself nodding furiously at the question, earning odd looks from both Ichigo and Rukia at the agreement.

'They are looking at you like that because you are insane,' Ozma informed her tiredly.

'You know I can still totally force you and your ex-wife to sit in a room and get counseling, right?' She warned the spirit.

'How rude of them, you're being very reasonable,' Ozma changed her tune instantly.

"You have invaded without permission. You had no permission to attack the Shinigami, let alone mobilize five arrancar, all of whom died pointlessly. Aizen is furious," The dark-skinned man intoned like he was proclaiming a summary judgment in a court case.

He paused for a beat, before adding, "Do you understand?"

Grimmjow's face screwed up into one of absolute disgust, and he spat to the side at the question.

"Tch! Fine," he grunted, shoving his hands back in his pockets like a freshly scolded teenage boy and grouchily shuffling towards the other man.

"I doth apologize, but methinks ye are still beholden to our accord. I've rather taken a fancy on that one," Taylor said with a pleasant smile on her face, even as she very pointedly pinched her fingers in the air and closed the portal the two men were about to exit through.

Both men jolted to a halt, with Grimmjow eagerly turning to eye her with a hungry expression that she couldn't help but return, and the dark-skinned man keeping his back to her, seemingly doing his best to think of a response to that.

"Hah, you can be useful, hag!" Ichigo cheered with a sneer on his face for their foes.

"…Lord Aizen is willing to offer you a trade, anomaly," the dark-skinned man eventually turned towards them, his blindfolded face staring off into space.

Taylor lifted an eyebrow at that, and Grimmjow just looked annoyed.

"No way! You attacked us! We—" Ichigo began to growl, but Taylor cut him off.

"I hath no interest in thine grace. Thou show nothing I wanteth," she pointed out.

The man tilted his head at her in a half agreement, before gesturing at Grimmjow with one finger.

"This man is the sixth strongest among our forces," he explained, prompting Grimmjow to turn and lift his jacket to show off a tattoo of a stylized six on his back that Taylor stared at more because he was an extremely fit man than because she actually cared about the tattoo.

"And?" She asked, idly waving away several more halting attempts to open new portals in the area, some from the man in front of her, but several feeling as though they were coming from elsewhere leading in.

That was interesting actually. It meant they had significantly more reinforcements than they had shown today.

"…Lord Aizen would be interested in a… ceasefire, if you would meet with him. You are an object of some curiosity. Perhaps you could…" the dark skinned man paused like he was listening to something before continuing, "…spar, with some of our own during the… peace… talks?" He said, eventually.

Taylor weighed that in her head for a moment, really considering it for what it was.

She would be absolutely lying if she had any idea what the hell was going on in this place.

Her personal understanding of the current situation was that one of the Shinigami had lost his entire mind and killed a bunch of government officials (she couldn't bring herself to feel that bad about that), then left and started… sort of elevating hollows into people? She had a hard time feeling bad about that too, given these Arrancar bore a suspicious resemblance to her own daughter, Simone.

Plus, well, peace talks were always good, right? Theoretically, anyway. Maybe she could bring Simone with her to have a chat about everything? She'd probably be better at the politicking, anyway.

"You—!" Ichigo growled, but Rukia, who was next to her still, just frowned, glancing back at her like she actually had any authority in this situation to speak for anyone.

Oh right, they all thought she was their boss's kid or something. Awkward.

"Then this one shall sealeth this town against invasion, and consider it. How shall I contact thee?"

The dark-skinned man turned to Grimmjow. Who blinked once at the implication of the look, before responding.

"No!"

Yes!

"Acceptable. Begone," she interjected before anyone involved could object or change their mind.

And by 'interject' she meant the ripped open a gap following the path of all of those gates they'd been opening took, and slid it over the dark-skinned man before snapping it shut again.

A few seconds later, she felt most of the other presences besides Grimmjow disappear, too.

No wait, all of them were just actually dead.

Well.

Good for them.

* * *

Point of View: Multiversal Emulator. "Emmy"

"Unacceptable!" a short boy with white hair that looked the same age as your youngest niece at best barked.

You have no idea why this is apparently the highest ranking officer in the city, but, in the wake of your sister using her powers to ban gateways and teleportation inside the city limits, he was, and there was no one else coming to replace him or take over.

"Didst any of ye cease breath?" Taylor responded pointedly, sitting next to you with her legs splayed out like a bored child on the ground next to the small table everyone present is sitting around.

"We suffered losses but no fatalities no, thank you for—" the short boy, who had introduced himself as Hitsugaya Toshiro, began clearly frustrated by how lackadaisical your sister is being about all of this.

"Then what problem is there? Forsooth, did this one not secure a period of peace and an opportunity to reconnoiter, secure thine borders, and forced those folk to accepteth losses?" Taylor points out bluntly.

"That—!"

"I believe the problem is that we aren't… sure you have the authority to declare a ceasefire," a new voice responded, coming from an adult woman wearing an entirely too small school uniform. Your sister refused to even look at her when responding to the statement, instead keeping her eyes trained on Hitsugaya to avoid snapping at her for the impropriety of it all.

Your sister just shrugs at that, clearly unbothered by it.

"I shall alloweth thee to sendeth someone to speaketh to my… grandsire. Howe'er. Can ye stand to me?" She responds lazily, causing those present to tense ever so slightly.

It's not so much that they aren't sure of taking her in a fight. There are rather a lot of them, after all, and this doesn't even include the other two shinigami that the group spoke of briefly so as to ascertain their well-being. However, the very casual manner with which your sister has spent the last hour more or less disallowing transportation to or from your current location was, apparently, completely unheard of to this group of people—and its strategic value cannot be overstated.

In one fell swoop, she has turned the area into a veritable fortress, a truly defensible position from which the Shinigami can sortie in order to prevent assaults on the area, and retreat to in the event of danger.

The fact that she could disallow them from coming or going as easily as their enemies went somewhat without saying, and did not at all sit right with some of was probably also the reason none of them had dared pick a fight over her acquisition of a new stray, lovingly left in the hedgewizard's basement to roam about until Taylor could muster the energy to go deal with him.

Which probably wouldn't be today.

When no answer was forthcoming in response to Taylor's very pointed question, she nodded, and stood up, turning to a glowering Ichigo in one corner of the room.

"Tame thine demon properly, boy Thy performance the present day was lackluster at its most wondrous," she told him with a disappointed look on her face.

'Seriously, he didn't even do anything! I practically had to threaten him!' She whines privately to you.

'There, there,' you offer in an attempt at comfort. That's a thing people say when they're trying to be comforting, right? You remember people doing it to babies on the television at least.

"Don't tell me what to do, hag!" Ichigo snapped at her, earning sharp intakes of breath from everyone else present, who no doubt views the insult to someone of your sister's perceived station as suicidal at best.

'He's kind of cute when he's angry, though,' Taylor allows with some amusement as Ichigo refuses to maintain eye contact with her.

You peer at the silently seething boy for a second, before being forced to admit, you don't really see it.

'Chad is cuter,' you offer tentatively.

Vicky does this all the time, so that… should be the correct response, right? This is how teenage girls talk to each other?

…What even is cute? Is it a measure of interest? Because if that's the case, Chad is definitely more interesting. Probably.

Oh. Taylor is staring at you now. You aren't sure you've ever seen that expression on her face before.

'Just… curious, but, where exactly is Chad right now? Asking for a friend.'

'Fred reports he left to sleep shortly after our fight. I wished to follow him to make my case, but he begged me off. I would like to return another day to continue,' you dutifully inform your sister, whose expression shifts into a placid, mask-like smile the more you explain yourself.

'Case for what?' She says slowly, now completely ignoring the ongoing conversation between the shinigami surrounding her in the unassuming living room of Orihime's home.

'Well…' you trail off, before explaining that you think the boy would really benefit from carrying one of your Buds with him.

Somehow, this does not at all calm Taylor down.

You suppose you'll have to ask Jess or Katherine what the problem is tomorrow. You don't see the issue.

Having kids is a natural part of life, right?