And I don’t wanna say I told you so...

[shoottokill]

Gin Ichimaru's footsteps were light on the Desert Palace's ancient stone floor. They were soft enough to barely echo off the walls except for the scuff of a toe or heel.

He liked the Palace at night. It was more peaceful, like any populated place tended to be when most of the inhabitants were in bed and, for the most part, quiet. Even the air seemed to move more quietly when the hum of conversation and the distant sparks and flares of spiritual pressure were felt from the training centre, where the wards applied didn't keep it back if the door was left open.

Peaceful as it was, he rarely slept there. He had somewhere else for that, somewhere within his jurisdiction as a Gotei captain. He retained a room though, and it was from there that he was walking, heading in the direction of the quiet kitchen, while the borrowed sky outside the window was dark and the air was cool and filled with the smells of night time.

Nobody seemed to be up. He was sure that some of the denizens would still be awake, doing whatever they felt like in their rooms, but nobody was up and about. It was too late for the night owls and too early for the morning people. He smiled to himself as he reached the top of the stairs down to the main hall, but the expression fell away abruptly when the sound of an alarm split the silence.

The noise set every nerve in Gin's teeth on edge. Halfway between a scream and a siren, it was a magically amplified and erratic, half-undulating sound that had obviously been designed not to be ignored under any of the circumstances it might be set off to. It was hideous, organic and ear-splittingly loud, akin to the sound of a thousand babies crying and just as many tomcats yowling, foxes screaming and nails being drawn down a chalk board and it rose and fell in tone enough that it was impossible to get used to. For a moment, even Gin stood frozen at the top of the stairs, eyes briefly wide, the hair on the back of his neck on end.

"That's new," he said to himself, his soft voice drowned by the screechy baying of the siren.

He headed down to the hall, feet quick on the stairs. From beyond the front door, and the hall that separated the door to the Zertinan Caverns from the palace proper, he heard a low roar, angry and bellowing, even with the siren's wail doing its best to block everything else out.

"Oh," he said. "Look's like one of Kuja's little pets has slipped its leash." He smiled to himself, directing his gaze up the stairs, anticipating appearances from other members of the Clan. "This should be fun."

Comments

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia had been asleep.

Emphasis on had. The noise cut through his dreamless slumber and woke him so surely that he felt like he hadn't been asleep at all. It was more effective than a shot of caffeine could ever hope to be. More effective than any alarm clock.

Marluxia had no idea what was going on, what the noise even was, but he didn't need to be awake to reason that noise didn't signify anything good. It was both organic, and artificial, and whoever was responsible for it had clearly decided to hit every single note that sawed across a human brain, and from the sound of it, a few more species besides, in a way that was absolutely impossible to ignore.

A warning, then. Though what it warned of remained a mystery.

Marluxia didn't sleep naked, and a sound such as that didn't suggest there was time to dress before attending to it's call. He left his room wearing plain black pyjama trousers, and hair that looked messy rather than fluffy, and not much else.

The sound didn't seem to fade in any part of the Palace he noticed, as he made his way to the entrance hall. He expected Lumi wouldn't be far behind, but knowing Lumi, he was probably grabbing at least a gun before he came out, still recovering from his injury or not. Marluxia had no need to pause to collect a weapon, fortunately. He debated waiting for Lumi, but decided that finding out what was going on would be a more fruitful use of his time, in this instant.

He spotted Gin in the hall, suspiciously fully dressed, though it was hard to claim suspiciously awake given how suddenly alert Marluxia felt, and then heard a noise beyond the Palace's entrance.

"Ah." So that was what it warned of.

[extinguir]

Wonderweiss steeled himself and jumped down from the back of Forvalaka, expression serious. He heard and felt the attack outside, the discharge of Chakra and Fire magic rippling through the air.

"Now," he said, a little more sharply than he knew he could.

He used Sonido, something he wasn't hugely practised at, to get outside as quickly as possible, trusting that Lumi, Marluxia and Forvalaka would follow him, at a safe distance.

Wonderweiss arrived outside to a sea of flame. The Arrancar were relying on their Hierro and Nel's Shell spells and Even was weathering it with Shell and depending on the force of his own apparently formidable Sentinel ability to guard him from the fire. Fire didn't bother Wonderweiss, not with Fury on his side. Fury was a nickname, a sobriquet, not his Hollow's real name. It's true name was Extinguir, and it lived up to it.

Within seconds of Wonderweiss's arrival, the fire began to converge on him, being absorbed by his Hollow's natural ability to take in and negate fire. Within seconds, the battlefield was clear.

He felt Lumi behind him, sensitive as he was to the proximity of animal-like creatures, and he felt Forvalaka afterwards, his Chakra flaring as he arrived, heavy paws thudding on the rock behind him.

The wyrm, up close, was immense. It seemed even bigger than he had guessed from his glimpse through the door, and its reiatsu was heavy, as befit anything with Chakra reserves as vast as it possessed. Wonderweiss was stronger than he looked, though, magically, and didn't bow. Fury was enough to help him endure it.

Wasting no time, he concentrated his Chakra.

[extinguir]

Wonderweiss had lost all concept of time.

He didn't know how long he had stood there, nor how long he would have to. All he could feel was the wyrm, the force in front of him, pushing against him, but not hard enough to move him. Dimly, he knew that his legs ached and, even more dimly, he felt the presences of creatures close to him, benevolent ones, two beasts, but he wasn't sure where they were.

He wasn't sure he could even see any more, all he was aware of before him was the dragon, and he couldn't say whether he could see the thing, or whether the creature's power had just imprinted itself in his mind, like the after image left after a flash of bright light. Sweat dripped down his face, but he did not blink.

He was getting tired.

Submit, he thought, determination surging. Submit to me.