Collecting Hollows

A Garganta opened and Fuerza Sombras, Cuarta Espada jumped out.
As he searched the desert for Hollows, the thing in his ear made noise.
"Testing, one, two. Testing. Can you hear me, Espada-san?"

It was Iori. He was surprised the device worked throughout the worlds.
"I can hear you." Fuerza replied and walked around.
"Now I'm gonna look around for some Hollows. But the activity here seems extremely low today... It's as if... All of them left or something. I'll try to find out what's going on." Fuerza said calmly. He continued his search for Hollows throughout the Dead Plains.
But he didn't even sense a single one.
Where the fuck are they?...

He kicked up some sand out of frustration.
If he didn't find any hollows here, he had to look for them in the World of the Living.
But he noticed while he was in Helsinki that local Hollows were very weak.
Too weak, he found. He thought of himself as a lucky guy when he encountered
the Hollow with the Zanpakutõ shards on its back.
But he was looking for a stronger kind of weak Hollows.
He just hoped he would find two of them soon.

A voice was coming in from the communications devise. Only the arrancar could hear it. "Yeah, i didn't think these would work so well, but turns out they do, If you hear some static, that's because f the interference. Aftere all these were on-the-spot design." After hearing that there were no hollows in the area, Iori replied again. "Hm, I don't know what to make of it. Is that area that you're at right now usually dencely populated? Maybe there are other areas of Hueko Mundo that have large hollow populations? Try to look in those. Also it really doesn't matter how strong of a hollow you bring to me but keep this in mind, the weaker it is, the easier it will be to study its energy signature and matrix." After a small pause Iori spoke again. "By the way, what do you want me to call you. I remember giving you my name but you never returned the favour, so to speak."

The White Sand Desert. A desolate wasteland that dwarfed even massive dome of Las Noches, it stretched to the horizon and beyond, a place where it was extremely rare to see even one hollow at any time. I wonder if that is the reason it is here, Pereza wondered as he wandered across the crest of a huge sand dune. No being, hollow or shinigami, would have thought to search here. Even if someone did, he or she could have gone centuries finding nothing but sand. "In that case," Pereza mused, "we are extremely lucky to have discovered it at all. But could that actually be the easy part?..."

Pereza could have spent a much longer time lost in his own thoughts, but the appearance of a large reiatsu presence close to him gained his attention. Based on the size of it, Pereza knew it was an Espada. He knew that the Espada were free to come and go from Las Noches as htey pleased, especially nowadays, but he couldn't think of a reason why another Espada would decide to show up here. Hmm, interesting... Thinking for another moment, the Primera started walking towards the reiatsu source.

((Giving you a chance to notice the Primera approaching, Fuerza))

"Heh... My name is Fuerza Sombras. Espada. Which one is for you to guess." Fuerza replied with a grin. Still no Hollows appeared. Though he could feel a familiar power getting closer.
"Still no Hollow activity here. And this is the part of the Dead Plains which is usually very populated by weak Hollows. Also, I feel an Espada nearby. Though I cannot tell which one yet.
I'll see if I can find out anything about the extremely low Hollow activity." He said through the communicator.

Then, he noticed a figure in the distance. It was approaching slowly, as Fuerza knew only one person would. La Primera. "It's the Primera." Fuerza said to Iori as he used Sonido to appear next to Pereza Milagost.
"Fancy meeting you here." He said calmly as he walked next to the Primera.
"Forgive me my rudeness but, why is the Hollow activity so extremely low today?
Normally you'd be able to find a couple of Hollows in this area. But now not even a single one.
Is something going on?"

As Pereza walked over the crest of the last sand dune, he finally saw the source of the Espada-level reiatsu. Ah, it's Fuerza. Pereza had recruited the Cuarta Espada just after the White Rebellion, and so far it seemed his investment had paid off. I would hope so, after he managed to defeat the previous Cuarta, Pereza remembered darkly. During his time as the Primera, Pereza had implemented a lot of policies to increase unity among the hollows, but he had never been able to eradicate the practice of dueling to the death over high positions. Hollows are hollows, after all, and Pereza could only do so much to subdue most hollows' inherent violence. I wish it wasn't like that, but I do need the most powerful warriors. It's necessary.

Fuerza flash-stepped towards the Primera, and Pereza nodded in acknowledgement. "Greetings, Cuarta." Pereza liked to address his Espada by their rank; he liked some discipline when dealing with the Espada.

Fuerza's comments about the lack of hollows caused Pereza to raise his eyebrow. "You are looking for hollows HERE? If you could find a couple of Hollows in the Desert at once, you should consider yourself lucky." Pereza shrugged, holding his zanpakuto in his left hand and twirling it while he spoke. "If you want to find some hollows quickly, just go to the Menos Forest. You should be able to find quite a few Gillian-class Menos, maybe even several Adjuchas-level ones. That is where I would go to find hollows, at any rate." With a grunt, Pereza stretched out his back, and then put his zanpakuto back into the holster on his back. "Anyway, I'm just taking a break from a... project I'm working on. I will see you next time I'm in Las Noches."

Pereza walked past Fuerza and continued on his meandering way. Before he walked too far, he turned around, suddenly curious. "Why DO you want to find hollows, anyway? Are you looking for potential fracción, or do you have something else in mind?"

Fuerza would hear from his comunicator: "You guys have a forest? Sounds that this guy is right, a forest is somwhere to look for. Also, if you want you can tell him about our little colaboration. But just don't mention to him that I'm a Shinigami, that might piss him off. Then again, I don't know this guy as well as you do." After another pause, and the sound of some tinckering Iori spoke again. "Hang on, did he say that he was working on some project?"

Fuerza ignored Iori, at least until he was finished talking with the Primera.
"I know about the Menos forest. But I'm looking for the weaker ones. The not-Menos classed.
I encounter the stronger non-Menos in this part of the desert quite often. It seems to attract Hollows." Fuerza spoke as Pereza turned around.

"The first time I took a walk in the White Sand Desert to think, I randomly chose this area.
Why didn't I walk the other way? I don't know. You say you're here to take a break from a project. So did you choose to walk this way randomly? Or is there a reason for your presence?
Anyway, I require two weak Hollows and two weak Shinigami for a project of my own."
Fuerza spoke as he walked up to the Primera.

Even though he thought of the guy as a slacker, he liked him. Fuerza found them to be quite alike. Unlike most of the other Arrancars, they weren't so narrow-minded. Pereza had a vision. Others were only interested in fighting and killing without reason. Pereza and him weren't. They each had a vision, and also had a liking for moral standards. Like discipline and respect. Fuerza had tried to help his underlings create a vision of their own. But few succeeded in understanding what he was talking about. Maybe it had something to do with their Masks. Pereza barely had anything of it left, and he only carried around a lion's jaw. His underlings still had most part of their faces covered in masks.

"My project will need your permission for continueation. But not before I get some first results." Fuerza said. He was curious about Pereza's project, but he knew his superior wasn't gonna tell him anything about it. So he decided to keep the details of his a secret as well.

"Earlier I noticed fairly low Hollow activity in the World of the Living as well.."

Hmm... Maybe this has something to do with his project...

"...or you could tell him that." After which there ws a pause, with just more Tinckering noises. "So what you're saying is that there is this area in the desert that somehow draws attention. That's interesting. I suppose once I get the hollow energy matrix I could try to see if there are any energies at work." Another pause. "Come to think of it, that part of Rukongai that you picked me up from...there were barely any hollows there for the past, oh what was it, three months or so. Seems like its happening everywhere from what you're saying. I suppose you could check this "Menos Forest" and see if there are any hollows there. From what I can get from Primera's words, there should be a swarm of em there."

As much as he really wanted to reply to Iori, Fuerza kept his mouth shut unless he was talking to the Primera. Maybe Pereza already noticed the thing in his ear and simply ignored it, or he had looked past it. But Fuerza didn't feel like this was the time to explain his superior that he was collaborating with a Shinigami.

Of course there's a swarm of 'em there... It's the bloody Menos Forest.. But it might be a good idea to check it out... If there are barely any Menos in the Forest, something obviously is going on. Fuerza thought as he waited for la Primera to respond.

Pereza furrowed his eyebrows at Fuerza's answer. A project, hmm? That could've been taken as a jab at Pereza's own use of the word to excuse his actions, but Pereza let it be. What piqued Pereza's interest was how Fuerza mentioned 'results.' It sounds like he is conducting an experiment. But Pereza had never seen the Cuarta do any scientific examinations before - Fuerza's a fighter, not a scientist - and he had not heard of any new experiments the last time he had returned to Las Noches. So it is something clandestine with our hollow scientists... or could it involve someone else outside of Las Noches?

That notion worried Pereza. But he was not willing to jump to conclusions so soon. Fuerza has always been loyal, and I cannot see him partaking in something that would defy me. He can be wild, but he is not stupid. Still...

Pereza turned his whole body and slowly walked back to Fuerza. He lifted his left hand and put it on Fuerza's shoulder, then stared fully into Fuerza's eyes. "I can tell that whatever you are doing, you want to be certain of it before you tell me, and I can appreciate that" said Pereza, "but I would feel more comfortable if I learned more about this project you are working on." Pereza lessened his glare and shifted his hand so that he was reassuringly gripping Fuerza's shoulder. "Besides, I've been at a stalemate on my end, and I am still awaiting word on some new developments happening in the human world, so I have time to listen to you." Who knows, Pereza thought half-amusedly, whatever he's doing might even help me with my own 'project.'

Fuerza took a deep breath before he responded.
Guess I have to... Hope he won't take this the wrong way and think of me as disloyal.

Fuerza pretended to scratch his ear and switched the communicator off.

"Well then, let me tell you the story from the beginning. There's no point in keeping secrets from you. I wanted to test some of my underlings' strength. So I decided to pay Rukongai a visit, see if I could kidnap a few Shinigami and let my Fracción fight them. But when I stepped out of the Garganta, I saw one Shinigami about to go berserk on another one, who was trying to signal other Shinigami to come to his aid. There were also a few bodies of dead Shinigami laying around them. So I stepped to the scene, killed the signalling Shinigami and tried to find out what was going on. The other Shinigami explained to me that he was an exiled Captain who had been on the run for about a hundred years and Seireitei wanted him dead because of something he had discovered and was experimenting. He said he had found a way to drain and store the powers of Shinigami by messing with core of their energy. Of course I did not trust him, yet I brought him to Hueco Mundo to prevent the other Shinigami that were coming our way from finding us. I punched and kicked him around a couple of times but he didn't fight back. Saying he was no enemy of mine but of Seireitei.
I thought of it as the tricks of a spy. But I gave him the chance to prove to me that what he was saying was true. I would bring him the necessary goods and he would continue his experiments. If he does anything out of line, I will kill him. If his experiments fail, I will kill him. His experiments require Shinigami and Hollows, who will die of course. So, I wonder, if the man is a spy, how long would Seireitei tollerate him killing innocent Shinigami." Fuerza spoke and took another deep breath. He stared into those mighty eyes of the Primera.
The only eyes that intimidated him.

"But what if his experiments pay off? What if he's telling me the truth? Anyway, he wanted to enter Las Noches. Which made me really think of him as a spy. I said that was impossible before he had some results and had proven himself trustworthy. So I provided him a facility in the World of the Living. He sealed the place off to prevent any Shinigami from discovering it. But... I still do not trust him. Not before I get any results. And believe me, I can kill him any time I want. Think of it as an impulsive decision, I saw an opportunity. Imagine what we would be able to do! Gain the powers of others, drain the Shinigami of theirs! It might be something we need to destroy Seireitei." Fuerza said, and blinked. The Primera didn't look like much on the outside, but those eyes... It was impossible for Fuerza to look into them and find out what was going on inside Pereza. To match this Arrancar's strength, Fuerza still had a long way to go. A very, very long one.

"Of course, I will pull the plug and kill the Shinigami at your command should you think of this as foolish and too risky."

Back at the Lab

"Hello...hello? Hm, seems that he switched off the device". That can only mean that he doesn't want me to hear what he is saying. Iori continued to tincker with his little construction. It was coming together, but was far from done. "What do you recon he is talking about?" His zanpakutou addressed him. "Well, knowing him so far...my guess is that it's something about killing me if I fail the experiment or something along those lines." "And what will you do if he tries to?" "Then I'll just fight him off and run away." "You think it's gonna be as easy as that? He is quite strong." Yeah, but from what I have seen it's nothing that I can't match." "You think?" "Oh come on. You know as well as I do that the only reason he roughed me up like that was because I wasn't resisting. If I would have put up a proper fight, who knows what the outcome would have been. But that's not what I'm after, I'm after their support." "Yes, I know,but what if they refuse?" Iori stopped tinkering for a moment. "Well I am in the real world now so that's kind of a plus. And if they refuse then I'll just destroy this place and run. Continue my research somewhere else. If this happens, in the end, they'll just fear me, like the shinigami."

As the Cuarta Espada spoke, Pereza’s face barely budged, but internally his mind was in full gear. While the ability to take energy from spiritual beings and infuse it into other ones was an enticing notion, Pereza already saw potential in what this rogue shinigami that Fuerza spoke about for a more ambitious purpose. This could be what I need for my own project. Pereza knew that he needed energy - a LOT of energy - for his plan to work, but he had been unable to think of an effective way to attain this energy and get it to where he needed it. That would be nice, but this is all hypothetical. I need to know if this shinigami’s experiment even works...

After Fuerza finished speaking, Pereza scratched the back of his neck, considering which of the thoughts that were swirling within him to talk about. The angry one first came to mind. “Well, first off, I have no idea why you thought going to Soul Society, even Rukongai, was a good idea.” Pereza crossed his arms, intensely glaring down at Fuerza. “If you wanted to test your Fracción, you should have just gone to the human world to find lonesome shinigami. That was especially impulsive, considering” - Pereza sighed - “that there are now shinigami even stronger than captains residing Soul Society. What if you had encountered one or more of the Elder Shinigami on your trip to Rukongai, hmm?!”

Pereza bit his tongue as he heard his voice escalate and took a few sharp breaths. “Now that I got that out of the way... I am very interested in what this shinigami has to offer, if he is willing to turn against his own kind.” Pereza stroked his chin as he pondered what Fuerza had told him about the ex-captain. “But I do not trust him either Fuerza, at least not yet. I do not see what benefits he would receive from working with hollows, and until I know that I would not trust him to be anywhere near Las Noches. Even then, I would be hesitant to have him here in Hueco Mundo. If he did seal off his present location from outward sensors, then that is probably the best place for now.”

Pereza was conflicted about how to deal with this shinigami. He didn’t feel comfortable allowing him to stay in the human world, but the shinigami definitely could not reside in the world of the hollows. After the ultimate defeat of the Hollow Army in the White Rebellion, Pereza had to knock around quite a few heads to keep dissent from spreading amongst the hollows. Even now, murmurs still persisted among the arrancar, doubts about the Primera’s leadership and whether the hollows, even united, could ever defeat Soul Society, now that the Elder Shinigami have appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The last thing I need for the arrancar to talk about is that ‘the Primera is housing a shinigami in hollow-territory.’ In the end, the shinigami’s present location seemed to the best available choice.

Pereza now looked squarely at the Cuarta. “For the moment, I think you should be in charge of supervising this shinigami, Fuerza. Keep an eye on him and find out what his schedule is for completing work. When he does get results, inform me and I will see what he has accomplished.” Wrapping things up, Pereza leaned forward to softly speak to the Cuarta. “And Fuerza, make sure not to let ANYONE ELSE know about this. I do not know what your Fracción knows at the moment, but it would be best to keep their mouths closed about this topic. Is that understood?”

Fuerza closed his eyes and took a deep breath when the Primera told him he had been impulsive and foolish for going to Soul Society.
He knew that too, but deep down he had hoped to encounter a strong Shinigami to fight and kill, it would've felt so good. Still, it was a stupid thing to do. Nevertheless the Primera
was interested in the Shinigami's findings.
By the time his leader finished talking his face had turned from sad to overexcited and smiling.

"I originally never planned to tell even you anything about it before I had some results. But yes, understood. Loud and clear." Fuerza replied and bowed respectfully to the Primera. He was about the only one who did that, but he found it important. Respect is one of the important aspects of unity among a race. And that's also what the Hollows were lacking.

But this was very good news, the experiments and research could continue, he would be in charge of the Shinigami's supervision and nobody else would know about it. Now that he was certain there would be no Hollow interference, he wanted to make sure there would be no Shinigami interference as well.

That would be Iori's task, he knows how to hide and keep things under the radar of Seireitei... Since Fuerza would be the only one going in and out of the facility in Finland regularly, he was the one who had to be careful. Very careful. He didn't want to end up drawing Seireitei's attention. He was thinking about how he could kidnap two Shinigami without anyone noticing. He thought of sending the stealthy arrancars of his Fracción to the World of the Living and capture two of them, but then his Fracción would start asking questions. It's better if they too didn't notice anything.

"Well, then I'm off to the Forest. If there is a spectacular low activity of Menos, something is going on." Fuerza said as he turned and opened a Garganta. After checking the Menos activity he'd return to the World of the Living to go after the Hollows. Hopefully he'd find some Shinigami on the way. He jumped into the Garganta and turned his communicator on as soon as it closed.

Pereza nodded his head as Fuerza acknowledged the Primera's orders. He took that lecture a lot better than I expected. In fact, the Primera was somewhat surprised by the lack of antagonism. During his time as an arrancar, Pereza had experienced his share of hostile hollows who would have bristled and attacked at the slightest hint of insult. Because of that, he always values the hollows that could sustain criticism and move on with their orders.

As the Cuarta Espada disappeared into the Garganta, Pereza turned away and surveyed the barren landscape. He took a deep breath, then snorted a little from the dust-laden air. Rubbing his irritated nose, he thought back to the object that he had found earlier in this vast desert. It may have some potential, and it is related to the plan, but priority should lay with this technology that Fuerza's soul reaper can offer for my operation. Pereza gazed off into the distance, the faintest sign of a smirk appearing on his face. If the soul reaper is able to contribute... "then not even the Elder Shinigami can save Soul Society from total destruction."

[[END TOPIC]]