It's de ja vu all over again... [private]

But it never did. Instead, her eyes went wide, as there was a bright red flash, and a cero pelted her way. It was too fast for her to avoid it, and it hit her dead on, launching her backwards through the sand. Only her hierro managed to save her from being completely shattered by the blast, but it still felt like being hit by a train. She rolled to her feet from her position in the sand and spat, disgusted in the sand next to her. She was pissed now. She used her sonido to close the distance and saw the monstrosity she now intended to destroy in the most painful way possible.

It was half a story tall, and looked brutish and troll-like. It had spindly limbs but large appendages, and a body with spikes that protruded. A multitude of eyes looked vacantly out in every direction from its bulbous head and when she arrived, it screeched indecently. Gwen was not particularly squeamish but she could certainly appreciate a follow for its grotesqueness, and she almost admired this one for how gruesome and fearful it was. She let out a vicious snarl in response, flying into the offensive.

"Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck." she thought, barely having the time to gather the reiryoku to launch her own in response. It wasn't good enough, however. The overwhelming advantage of timing and vantage meant that her cero kept her alive, but could not prevent the enormous explosion which created a large crater in the sands around her.

When the dust settled, she stood in the pit, nearly doubled over, panting. She was concussed and bleeding from scratched caused by high velocity sand streams having grazed her. She held it together pretty well. She'd been battered and bruised but by some miracle of form and function, her body had managed to stay fairly intact. This was thanks to her ever increasing ability to take a hit. She focused her reiatsu upon the sand beneath her to stop it collapsing into the forest of the menos far below.

The hollow snarled and lumbered down into the pit, and Gwen responded by launching bala after bala at it, in series of hundreds and hundreds, pelting its body over and over. It scarcely slowed down as Gwen continued her relentless barrage, tiring out but determined to continue. This seemed to be no normal hollow. It was weaker than her, as she expected but was it somehow a vasto lorde? No! Vasto lorde had human forms...

Gwen stirred. She was asleep in a cubbyhole, a place she had made for herself where she would be safe from assault. Her dreams were troubled- she was recalling an event that happened long ago, where she had met possibly the strangest inhabitant of Hueco Mundo she had ever encountered. It hadn't been an unpleasant encounter and yet... She broke out in a cold sweat, shuddering in her sleep.

A click and clatter of stone. Gwen threaded mostly silently through the palace, attempting to avoid penetrating the blanket of quiet. She was not a poetic person, and did not wish to be- no singing of the past, and the lore of this place, seemingly frozen in time eternally. The old powers had left this place- and the old powers that came after them. Was the throne of Las Nochas occupied? She guessed probably not. A sinking, obtrusive sea of old memories and conflicts. If power left traces, the walls of this place would emanate thick reiatsu. If hate and triumph and glory stained the ground upon which they were earned, the ground of Las Nochas would be multihued and seizure inducing.

But it did not. And so the walls were cold.

Beads of sweat rolled down Gwen's exposed torso, droplets not caught by her ruff simply sliding between her bosoms. She'd been training hard, improving the power granted to her by her resurrection, on her own in the vast sands of Hueco Mundo. There was no other hollow or arrancar around for miles- the perfect venue for her to hone her strength. She was improving the strength of her abilities...

Firstly was one of her favourites- Uno Tras Otro. She went through manouvre after manouvre, honing her mixed martial arts fighting skills- every blow that she made was six times as strong or weak as the last. She would deliver a flurry of kicks, followed by a series of complicated punches and chops as well as open-palm strikes. She allowed the natural energy of her release to drive more and more reiryoku into her strikes, and she recognised that much like a flame, she too oscillated in power, bright burns followed by dim flickers. Such was the nature of her power and by relaxing and allowing more of that power to flow into herself, it amplified. Her strong punches and kicks were even stronger, while the weaker ones were much weaker. Such was Gwen's nature; and she was nothing if not approving of natural order.

Determined, Gwen decided to focus on the direction of energy flow in relation to the tension of her arm. When she was ready, she drew her arm back before delivering a punch to a nearby tree, and watched as it flew in a wave of sand to be far away, completely crumpled and dead. She smiled to herself- that was a success!

She moved on now- onwards and upwards. Any advanced practitioner of mixed martial arts would be able to develop the Ikkotsu into the Soukotsu, was what the manual said, and indeed it did seem to be pretty similar. Gwen was fairly confident that she knew where crotch and torso height were, and so as she moved onto her next cold dead victim, she tried it out; the first set of punches she delivered were completely off mark, perhaps a little too far apart, unless her opponent was a giant. She tried again, aiming roughly for spots 75cm apart. She had more success the second time, and by the third time, her aim was perfect. She channeled reiryoku into her arms and lashed out, however the added energy was difficult to control, and it warped around her target and shot off into the sand, making an enormous crater a little distance away.

She figured it was time to take a break from the tough stuff and do something a little easier. She had read in her MMA guide book that she'd pinched from a shop that there were in fact several schools of martial arts. It had gone on to list several but one which truly attracted her had been T'ai Chi. The idea of balance had struck a chord within her, and she had decided to learn the Minor Yang technique for quickly striking enemies. She recognised the irony in learning such a technique, as many would consider her "evil". She considered that perhaps it would be balanced to learn such a technique.

Gwen focused on herself, and considered her own actions. Something good born of evil? What even were good and evil. Probably relative to the subjective experiences of others- not that Gwen really consciously ever considered others as having subjective experience. Still she supposed that something dark could have good consequences. People getting in her way or annoying her gave her a great excuse to grind them to dust, such a thing was an excellent example...

She concentrated on that, realizing that she would probably need an instructor in order to become proficient but she let, for now, herself feel the flow of energy going through her. The combined this energy with reiatsu in her right hand, and watched it glow slightly. She delivered a fierce open palm blow, but the sudden increase in speed threw her off, and she nearly fell over. How graceful! Balance; balance was key. She focused again, positive effects, despite all negativity, and she found that she was successful- the energy returned. She made sure to breathe deeply as she struck and her hand moved at incredible speed. She rolled into the invisible attack, before striking again- with the same right hand. She'd got it!

It had taken her a little while to do it that time, but certainly, it was a success. In combat she would not have the luxury of time, and so she repeated the technique, gathering the reiatsu at very fast speed, and slamming it into the tree. The tree completely snapped in half- her attack had coincided with a strong punch from her release ability. Yep, that settled that.

She could feel a little strain from using her resurrection for so long without a break. It was possible to overcome this however, she knew it. She beat her wings rapidly, and flew up into the air, the hum of her flight surrounding her. Training in this way was much like holding a glass of water at arm's length. To hold a glass of water at arm's length for mere seconds is something even a child can do; for minutes it requires more focus. To hold a glass of water over the course of an hour, and one would begin to feel seriously drained but to hold a glass of water at arm's length for an entire day... It would be very difficult, to say the least. Gwen was capable of maintaining her release for a good while... Maybe an hour or two, tops. However, to earn full completeness of the form- it would require something all the more drastic.