Episode 1: Pawn forward

"Ah yes, a police force... it's not an ignoble way to think I suppose. The weak, loved ones, those who cannot defend themselves. Stand up and fight on their behalf, it's certainly selfless... but also meaningless."

He let the chain of his watch extend until the clock hang suspended in the air, and began to let it sway back and forth gently.

"Shinigami kill hollows to defend humans, who die and become hollows and shinigami... Short term thinking and motivation only serves to trap all human souls in an endless repetition." He frowned as he finished this sentence, spitting out the gum he had been chewing on.

"It's disgusting, the way the world works. It angers me to the very core of my being." He stood up again, apparently refreshed from his break, but clearly more serious now than he had been before.

"I don't hate you, shinigamis, but our ideals are opposed. The kind of world I wish to create has no place in it for you, and if you wish to defend the weak, as is your duty as shinigami, you must do so by eventually stepping over my corpse... Come at me."

Phoenix bristled at the Arrancar's words. "So you want to destroy the balance between worlds and destroy the world altogether?" She'd paid attention at the history lessons of why the Quincies were slaughtered. She didn't agree with the method, but she understood why it had been done. "I guess we have nothing to talk about, then." She readied her fighting stance.

As if realizing he'd been goaded into giving more information than he should have, he slapped his face in embarrassment, the humor returning to his voice.

"Oh my, how embarrassing... A gentleman must never bear his fangs so brazenly... I guess even I have some passion left in me. " He shrugged. "Well, my ambitions aside, I'm a hollow, and you two are shinigami. Isn't that reason enough to fight?"

He looked down to the ground, charging a cero through his left eye and firing it downward to kick up an enormous cloud of dust that swallowed the three of them in its concealing mist.

"Ah, there you are!" Chirped Alexi cheerfully, his previous business temporarily forgotten. he patted Hion's arm affectionately. "I was afraid I'd fail in my duties as your babysitter if I left you on your own for too much longer, so your timing is simply perfect!"

Phoenix coughed as the dust cleared. Seeing another Arrancar didn't make her any happier. She felt rather helpless, which only served to make her angry. She hated being a damsel in distress.

"Oh, how can I say no to a face like that?" Alexi said with a sigh. "I'm a gentleman, not a monster... still, he'll be your responsibility, so try not to lose interest too fast."

The young man's second comment hit him out of the blue, and he again turned his attention to Phoenix and Jin.

"Toys, eh..." He said, a moment's unreadable expression crossing his face. "I suppose you can call them that... but try not to break them. I'm fond of them, in spite of myself."

'Toys?!' Jin raged inwardly. Outwardly, she mumbled, "Fucking hell..."

Phoenix set her face into an unreadable expression as she tried to think things out while the smaller Arrancar studied her. Despite her misgivings about her current company, they did not seem inclined to kill her or her companions just yet, so if nothing else, she could at least learn something more about them. In a way she supposed that she was actually doing what she set out to do, which was protect people from hollows. If they were busy with her, it meant they weren't out elsewhere.

"My name is Phoenix," she announced abruptly. "I don't want any pet names."

Aspin watched the arrancar ramble on and on about something, but she couldn't make a word of it. She held her sword out, though she knew that she wasn't the main target of both the arrancar on the field. Her body was filled with bruises, but she didn't mind, she was used to being beat up in this way anyway.

"I may look weak, but I got enough fight in me." She muttered under her breath.

Higgins saw what Aspin was planing, and under the spiritual pressure directed at him, he couldn't move much, but he decided that saving two was better than none. He whispered the incantation as quietly as possible for Hadou #1, Sho, in an attempt to launch Aspin and Phoenix as far from the arrancar as possible.

Higgin's hadou came at just the right time, pushing them away from Hion's first playful attack, although not really giving them the distance needed to escape. They both stumbled to recover from the unexpected push from behind.

Alexi applauded the attempt, smiling warmly. "So there IS something other than muscle inside that head of yours, my shinigami friend. Your willingness to struggle in pain for your teammates is commendable, and I doff my hat to you... still... I'm very cross for the damage you did to my suit..."

he redoubled the pressure his reiatsu inflicted on Higgins, forcing the shinigami down, despite his strength, until he was laying prostrate on the ground.

"I understand that our attacking you feels random, but please understand it's important to confirm data regarding those who managed to so easily kill our hollows..."

Phoenix clenched her jaw in an effort not to say anything. But willpower wasn't her strongest suit. "I'm flattered that you think so highly of us, but killing those hollows was far from easy."

once hion and tetsuya had left, arina continued on her way to the gathering of her shinigami allies under the guise of the shadows. upon her arrival, she was dismayed to find that jin had been captured by the adult arrancar from earlier, and that hion still had tetsuya. the two arrancar also seemed to be terrorising the other shinigami.

arina hadnt been there long; only long enough to learn of hion's intentions and to witness higgin's attempt at saving the others. reaching into one of the many hidden pouches of her uniform, she pulled out several kunai, each held between her fingers. releasing a sudden burst of reiatsu, she immediately changed locations before masking her reiatsu once more. in this new location, she threw each handful of kunais at each of their adversaries, before she immediately changed locations once more keeping (hopefully) well hidden all the while.

just as she touched down, she turned to see what scenes would unfold.

"I am not so uncouth as to call a lady a liar, madame, but it appears in this instance our ideas of what constitutes difficulty may differ. Against an ordinary hollow, a group of shinigami without shikai fighting against it would suffer at least moderate injury in the process. Our hollows lack something... perhaps we need more than this beautiful melody in the air..."

Alexi was back to sitting on his rubble, chewing his gum. His pleasant smile did not disappear from his face, even as a flash shot through the night and he suddenly swung the chain of his pocketwatch in a rapid circle, deflecting several kunai knives each targeted with frightening accuracy at a vital organ.

"My my... seems this is my day for making new acquaintances."

Phoenix stiffened in place, and then frowned, realizing that what the Arrancar had said about them defeating the hollows was true. Her frown deepened as she noticed belatedly that someone had attempted another attack. She sighed. It seemed as though she was the only one who thought that playing along and being cooperative was the best course of action given the situation.

She hated how things were going right now. That arrancar did not want them dead, that's for sure. She hated the idea that they were being overpowered, despite the fact that there were a lot of them on the battlefield.

And what ticked her off the most is that he knew that she still wasn't even able to achieve shikai. She looked at Phoenix, seeing she was a lot calmer than anyone out here. She probably had a plan, but Aspin wasn't in her right mind to read what Phoenix was up to.

She shifted her gaze from her partner to the browned haired arrancar.

"Look, Mr. Arrancar, what the hell do you want?" Her grip on her sword tightened, out of anger rather than defense. She was fighting every inch of her body not to swing her sword at the monocled freaks head. His smirks are already getting on her nerves. "If you want us dead, why not kill us?" Her words injected with venom.

She wanted so much to wipe that smile on his face.

"My, so flustered." Alexi responded, his pesquisa honed on the onmitsukido member who was doing an excellent job of hiding amongst the shadows.

"I want to see what effect extended exposure to the melody will cause in Shinigami, although I doubt it will be much. You're my guinea pigs, such as it were." He smile turned into a mischievous grin. "Why... does that anger you?"

"We are guinea pigs for the Shinigami, too," Phoenix said out loud the same moment she thought about it. "They are trying to recover so they've been training people like us and sending us out, even at our low level of experience." Her eyes were dark. "It's hard to figure out who to be mad at."

"Of course, you all were a desperation measure... if the Id Impulse hadn't reduced the number of conscious hollows in the city, many of you would be dead... all so the Soul Society could save manpower." He shrugged, extending his pack of gum. "Still, whether you choose them or me, anger is a misplaced emotion. Have some gum and relax."

Phoenix eyed the pack of gum incredulously, her anger forgotten for the moment. "Gum? That's kind of unexpected." With some hesitation, she took a piece, and examined it. "What's the catch if I chew this?"

"The catch is that I will have one fewer pieces of gum, a fact which is mildly depressing, I warrant, but hardly something you should be concerned about."

Phoenix frowned. "I guess if you're chewing it, it's probably not going to hurt me," she reasoned, popping the piece of gum in her mouth. "What is the melody you are talking about?" she asked, something he'd said earlier coming back to mind.