Outcast Shinigami brought to Hueco Mundo

A Garganta opened and two figures stepped out of the gate of darkness.
Fuerza Sombras, Cuarta Espada and Iori, ex-Captain of the Gotei.

Fuerza looked around to observe the Hollow activity in this part of the White Sand Desert.
Pleased to see that they were alone, he turned to face Iori.

"Now, talk Shinigami. You're in Hollow territory now. Choose your words and actions wisely." Fuerza spoke firmly and with a dangerous tone in his voice.
His light-blue eyes seemed to stare right into the Shinigami's soul as he waited for an answer.

Iori stepped out and the Garganta behind him closed. He looked around. Here he was, in the sands of the desert of Hueco Mundo. As much as he heard about this place, he has never actually been here. His missions rarely took him outside of soul society. Well there is a first time for everything. He then listened to the arrancar, who didn't seem all that pleased with him actually being here. "Right..." Iori started by removing his hood. He had greasy, black hair tied in a tail. He also looked very tired, generally. "My name is Ichinose Iori. I'm the former captain of the 12th division of the Gotei 13 and, as you can see, I am currently an exile. They kicked me out for sticking my nose somewhere where I shouldn't have. Now with me that was all fair enough, but what pissed me off was the fact that they improsoned me and wanted to take my powers away. So I busted out and, guess what, they were after me. And they still are after some undred years." Iori looked back at the arrancar, not quite as hostile as the arrancar was looking at him.

"Now here's this proposition I have for you. I could join you and serve you, the Espada. I do not request anything big. I do not want to be in charge or whatever, no. I am willing to follow orders and offer support. All I need is just some small bit of authority and a place to stay and call home. I do not ask anything more."

Fuerza started lauging.
"Hahahaha! Well well, this certainly is an interesting situation." He laughed and took a few steps closer to Iori. He could smell the Shinigami's power and the adrenaline was pumping through his blood. I'm going to enjoy this...

He licked his teeth and smirked.
"Okay here's the deal. You're going to tell me all about the place your nose has been in. I imagine it must be one of Seireitei's dark secrets. Since knowing about it can cost even a Captain his freedom, status and powers... Yes, it must be something valuable." Fuerza said as he analysed his opponent's facial expressions carefully.

"But first, you must convince me you're trustworthy of course..." He said and without a warning he threw his fist at Iori's stomach so he could throw the ex-Captain away and create some distance in between them.

The sudden attack was very unexpected for Iori. There wasn't much he could do about it. However what he did was enough to prevent damage that he wouldn't be able to afford. He sprung back, but the punch still landed. The jump back minimized the damage. With a loud thud, Iori was sent back several meters. He landed on one knee and slid back a little. "Heh.." Iori chuckled. "Now that was some punch. Almost budged me a little." Iori got up "Though it is obvious that you didn't use even a fifth of your strength for this." Iori grinned and brought the conversation back to the subject of what he knows. "I am willing to tell you anything and everything that I know about the Gotei 13. I do not like them any more than you do."

"Oh do you? How can I be sure you're not lying?" Fuerza smiled.
"Tell me quickly, because I won't stop beating you up until I believe you." He laughed.
He jumped up high in the air. As he landed he stomped with both feet hard onto the sand,
which flew up, creating a thin wall of sand between him and Iori. It blocked Iori's sight so he couldn't see Fuerza's next move coming.
Before the sand came down, Fuerza quickly twisted his body as he jumped up a little and launched a double kick with both feet at he same time through the wall of sand aimed for Iori's chest.

This time, as soon as the wall of sand was raised, Iori was anticipating something. I've seen this too many times. Then, two feet flew at him, aiming for his chest. Iori guarded with both of his arms, this pushed him back again. "You don't believe me. Of Course, why would you? Here I am, a lone shinigami that's telling you he can be your friend..." Iori dodged a punch sent at his face, by the skin of his teeth "even I would be suspicious at first." He ducked under a roundhouse kick that followed. "But then, even after seeing me massacre all those shinigami you still don't believe me?" He deflected a punch that was coming in. "Then if you want proof that I hate those bastards at Sereitei..." he crossed his arms and blocked an axe kick, causing a dust cloud "then bring a hundred shinigami before me, I'll kill every single one of them." Iori was backing up more and more from the onslaught of attacks, but he did not raise his reiatsu, did not use shunpou and did not even hit the arrancar back.

"As for your question..." Iori continued to block and evade the attacks that the Arrancar was throwing at him "its way too broad. What exactly do you want me to tell you? The structure of the Gotei 13, the invention made by my former lieutenant, the defence system of sereitei or its underground passages? I can tell you all of those things."

The Shinigami had blocked and evaded all of his attacks quite easily.
But ofcourse Fuerza was only teasing him, he didn't even put any effort behind the attacks.
He was simply testing the exiled Captain.
But then while he had blocked Fuerza's high kick to the face, he spoke of underground passages and special inventions. Fuerza decided the bullshit had been going on for too long.
After the high kick Fuerza jumped up, threw a front kick at the Shinigami's face, followed by a front kick to the stomach and as he landed a knee to the chin. But this time he put some strength and speed behind it.

"Seireitei has done so many dark things in the past, killing a few Shinigami in order to gain a spy inside the Esapada wouldn't surprise me at all. I'm going to need some serious evidence.
The kind of evidence you can't fake." Fuerza said as he delivered his powerful combo of kicks.

Iori dropped his arms, lowering his guard completely and took the incoming attacks. He would be sent flying into a dune, turning it into a humungous cloud of sand and dust. As it settled, Iori just lay there on his back, blood streaming from the corner of his mouth. He sat up. "That was at least twice the power you were coming at me with before. But you're still not even at half of your power. I'm glad to see that you have such a control over your own strength." Iori stood up. He still did not raise his reiatsu or even his arms in an anticipation of an attack. "And I'm also glad to see that the Espada have high standards of safety and security too. You don't trust me one bit, do you? Well that is entirely reasonable. But how about I tell you a little secret, something that I discovered during my studies. And it was that little secret that got me kicked out."

"Tell me everything about it, and bring me proof afterwards. Then.. I'll give you a... Challenge.
A test. Failure ends up in death, success will gain you my temporary trust." He replied, getting rather frustrated the Shinigami didn't fight back. He suddenly disappeared, using sonido, and reappeared above Iori. He stomped his foot into the sand right next to Iori's head.
"Also, you have no idea how little of my strength I'm using right now. But it frustrates me you're not fighting back." He said as he gazed into the former Captain's eyes, trying to find anything that would give the Shinigami away.

He then backed up a little and sat down.
"Tell me all you know about that secret and make it quick."

"Guess I misjudged a little. Oh well." At this point Iori seemed a little exhausted, but that's because he wasn't actually fighting back. "So then, I'll get straight to the point. The research that I conducted was so terrifying for the shinigami that they erased every single trace of it. The results were there as well. But there is one place that they didn't erase." Iori grinned and pointed at his head. "I still have all that knowledge."

"My research involved studying the energy patterns and matrices of the shinigami. I conducted it on the prisoners and I came to an interesting discovery. Now we all know the core of every being with energy. However, I have found a way to harness that power. That's right, I found a way to drain a shinigami of his or her energy. If I drain all of it, the shinigami won't just loose all his powers, he will die. Of course you don't have to go that far and can just permanently drain him of his powers or weaken him and let him recover. This naturally means that the energy that was drained from the shinigami can be storred, after all, it doesn't go anywhere. If it can be stored, that also means that it can be injected into a different container. So that shinigami that was weakened by this process, once he recovers and you inject the energy into him, his power would be doubled. Or you could dump multiple samples of energy into an artificially constructed body. Unfortunately my study did not involve any other races aside the shinigami, but I suppose it is similar for Arrancar, Quicy, and pretty much any other being that has energy."

Iori then grimassed slighty and look at the moon, scratching his head. "Of course it is just a theory. I wasn't able to do any practical work on this at all because they discovered me. Imagine how frustrated I was to not be able to find out whether this theory works." He then looked back at the arrancar. "But now, I'm hoping you're willing to give me a chance to complete this study, and maybe expand it slightly. So what do you think? You interested in this little experiment?"

"If that what you say is true. I would be very interested. VERY interested.
But as I said before, I need proof. Seireitei has destroyed all documents on it you say,
so all the knowledge exists only in your mind.
So here's what we're gonna do... We're going to lure Shinigami to the World of the Living by creating some trouble there. We're going to capture the Shinigami sent out to see what's going on. They'll be our test subjects. Of course, they will inevitably die. If not by your tests then by my hands. Another problem is convincing the Primera that you're trustworthy, of which I'm not even sure yet. So as an addition to capturing some Shinigami, you'll have to kill a few of them and bring their heads or corpses as proof for your loyalty to us." Fuerza said calmly. He stood up and walked up to Iori.

"But before I escort you to the World of the Living, you must answer one more question.
Is it possible to drain the powers of a Shinigami and store it into an Arrancar?"

Iori grinned as there was talk about more shinigami killing. "I wouldn't have it any other way. And I can assure, my tests will kill them. But as you say, if they don't, then you can pick off the stragglers." His face then turned serious. "However, it is not a simple matter of capturing shinigami and then draining their energy. This process can not be done with bare hands, I will have to construct some specific devises. There are three of them. A drainer, a storage container and a console in which I can be analysing them. Also, the stronger the shinigami is, the more difficult it is to drain their energy. So if we, as you say, go and cause some trouble in the real world, and the captains show up, we might beat them, but we won't be able to drain their energy. I would suggest starting with low rank, weak shinigami and work our way up from there. So I suppose, if its allright with you, our trip to the real world will have to wait."

Iori then heard the arrancar's question. He also stood up. "Difficult to say. As I said, I was only limited to experiment on shinigami so I can't say if their energy could be injected into an arrancar. You see, I also considered the concept of compatibility. Shinigami energy is "compatible" with the energies of other shinigami, so once injecting into shinigami, he will just gain a permanent increase in power. I would imagine, same goes for hollows and arrancar, their energies are "compatible" with one another. To cross it over..." Iori started thinig about this, trying to remember that he heard something like this happen before. "Well, I have heard of cases where shinigami gain hollow powers. I think they called themselves "Vizards", the masked army. But there was an internal conflict between the shinigami in question and his hollow powers. The two energies were not compatible. I suspect that something similar would happen if I try to inject the energy from a shinigami into an arrancar. There is also no guarantee that the arrancar is going to be victorious in this conflict."

Iori then looked at the arrancar. "What we could try is also capture one of those Vizards so I could study the nature of both their powers. I suppose I can drain the "Hollow" part out of them separately, and then drain the rest, the "shinigami" part. I could then construct an artificial body and inject both energies, slightly rearranged, so we won't end up with just another Vizard."

"I see. There are many possibilities. What resources do you need in order to make these devices?" Fuerza asked as he thought of all the possibilities they had with this.
Gaining the powers of other strong Arrancars and maybe of other races too.
Then he thought of those Vizards... Shinigami with Hollow powers. They gained their powers when they gained Hollow Masks. He himself was a Hollow with Shinigami powers. And he gained his Shinigami powers when he tore off his Hollow Mask. The Vizards were obviously the Arrancars' counterpart.

He also thought about breaking into Seireitei to steal the necessary goods to make those devices. It would be an impossible task. He hoped he could get the resources in the World of the Living.

Iori raised his eyes to the sky, thinking what exactly he would need. "Well, I think that I don't need anything too complex. Fortunately those things, I can build with my bare hands out of scratch. All I need is a facility where I could do so." As he said that he looked in the direction of Las Nohes. "As for the materials..." he looked back at the Arrancar "I don't need anything too fancy. Hollow mask remains, Zanpakutou shards, hollow or shinigami bones...really, just anything that has the slightest trace of energy left inside of it." He then pointed in the direction of the giant building "I suppose you're from there. Would I be correct to assume that we can find some of the scrap that I mentioned somewhere there?"

"You're not getting into Las Noches without the Primera's permission.
Knowing that slacker, it might take a while until you're granted permission.
You also won't get in without any results. So I suggest you find your facility elsewhere
before you try to enter Las Noches. Search for a facility in the World of the Living, I'll get the resources." Fuerza replied and opened a Garganta.
He jumped in and waited for Iori to follow.

"Hurry up, I want to start capturing those Shinigami as soon as possible."

Iori was slightly dissapointed with this, but this was within his range of expectations. "Oh well, fair enough. I suppose you are willing to help me out with this." Iori followed suit with the arrancar, entering the Garganta. "Oh yes, that reminds me. Is there a way I could possibly study these Gargantas so I could use them myself? The seem like a very handy trick in regard of transportation." Iori wasn't expecting much of an answer for this question but he still was interested.

"Maybe if you find a way to store the drained energy of an Arrancar in yourself." Fuerza said as the Garganta closed.

(( We'll be continueing in a thread in the Real World. I'll make a thread in the Europe sub-category. ))