Rise of a furious and merciless beast. (Solo)

Elated was the hollow, knowing that so many days of searching were fruitful. But that was just the beginning, the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “Now…. it begins…” he spoke to himself once again as he sit his mark upon the location, making it clear that he would return. With that done, D’gerik turned and opened a garganta into the realm of the living.

Prison; it was a place D’gerik knew all too well. In life, one of his colleagues once suggested utilizing death-row inmates as test subjects. Everyone else on the board, including himself, concluded that to be a deranged thought. His colleague was later submitted to testing and found to be a clinical psychopath, promptly stripped of his medical license. Never could the brilliant scientist turned hollow have imagined that he would one day follow that advice. These inmates, souls most often destined to hell. They were perfect. Most often, he would wait for their executions, although sometimes he just didn’t have the patience. Over the course of months so many twisted souls were stolen from the clutches of hell only to be brought to something far worse. D’gerik would drag them into his dwelling, trapping them for use in his experiments. His ultimate goal being to improve and develop his ability to control a soul, to channel his power to another soul, or a husk, in the case of his clones; it was not unlike when he channeled his thoughts into the clones so that they could speak in his stead. Only, naturally, this was much, much harder. So often the process led to failure. Attempting to channel so much energy into a soul would often destroy the soul altogether, leaving nothing more but a trail of rotting chains to be rebuilt in hell to suffer for eternity… “Oh well… No sense in giving up now. I will just have to try again, and again, and again….”

So what was next? How after so much failure could he continue? To him it was simple. It was the same way he got so far to begin with; rest, practice, repeat, over and over until the goal was achieved. And so he continued – days at a time before resting some.

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the soul society found out about D’gerik’s little escapades in capturing the souls of the dead; and it was only a matter of time before they began to send members after him. At first, it was small-fry. Nothing that D’gerik couldn’t handle was thrown his way. A few dozen failed attempts changed things, however. Someone in the Soul Society had decided that it was no longer an intelligent move to send low-ranking Shinigami in his direction. The man they sent after him this time was no lieutenant, wasn’t third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth seat. But they chose carefully which squad would go after him. Perhaps the record of Moeru’s encounter was linked to him? It was entirely possible that somehow the Soul Society figured out that the hollow that was kidnapping freshly killed souls was also the same hollow that Moeru had encountered in the ruined village some time ago. Whatever the case, it was the only logical choice. It was the only kind of Shinigami that could definitively match…. Kidō Corps.

The Shinigami began a monologue that D’gerik figured only hollow were capable of, and yet here he was, listening to Rei boasting about how skilled he was at kidō traps, at his prodigious abilities for his age and lack of training. This, D’gerik was sure would be his downfall – as during the monologue, D’gerik was busy formulating a plan, and one that was far easier to accomplish than he suspected. The Shinigami made very clear that the traps were specifically chosen to counter D’gerik’s clones, to thin his numbers. This would have set the hollow off were it not a part of his plan.



“Me? Trapped by you? You make me laugh. I’ll have you know that you’re far more outnumbered than you could have ever imagined…”



“Truly you jest, hollow. I’m done with you. Now die!!” It was a surge of attacks, one after the other, D’gerik would continually bounce between the points he had memorized as being safe, where the traps had already been triggered. His speed and avoidance annoying the Shinigami and distracting him to the fact that as he did so, those traps were slowly but surely being triggered by more and more clones that continued to take the place of the prior ones. This was increasing the space that D’gerik had available to dodge, and the Shinigami was inadvertently revealing more spots as D’gerik combined his tactic along with continuous flurries of bala, forcing the Shinigami to dodge into places he hadn’t trapped or risk focusing exclusively on shielding himself from a veritable machine gun of bala.

Finally, the time came, D’gerik was tired of playing around, but he still had to commit to just one more experiment. “There!” He called out as one of his clones moved to intercept, and successfully caught the Shinigami, sending him into an even more fearful fury than before. “Let me go! Let me go!” cried Rei as he began to flail. Suddenly, D’gerik’s eye sockets formed a glowing, deep Cyan eye. “Siete Vicios; Apatía” without much warning that could be responded to, the two clones holding the Shinigami began to glow as Cyan colored flow of reiatsu began to flow into D’gerik’s opponent. Rei continued flailing, but even though his panic remained, he slowly slowed his flailing to a near halt, looking incredibly pained by something. This was it. At last, D’gerik had fully turned the tables. It was now time for the hunter to become the hunted…

“Y… You bastard… w-what did you do? What is the cause of s-such intense pain!?” D’gerik cackled maniacally “You cretins are all the same; as bad as humans!!” With that the clones tossed the Shinigami aside. Because the clones did not use much force it wasn’t impossible for the Shinigami to not recover, but as he did it would feel as though his bones had become terribly brittle, as though they were suddenly all coated in hairline fractures. He cried out in pain, only able to find solace when standing still. “W-what is this?” Begged Rei, searching desperately for an answer to the cause of his torture that he just couldn’t seem to find until finally D’gerik explained “Did the soul society really think that I would have spent so long kidnapping souls for no real reason? Did the records from my duel with that boy fail to mention what I was doing in the first place at that village? No matter then... now it’s far too late. Do you like it? It is the result of my latest experiment in power. How ironic that I could get to test it against a trap master like you… Movement is pain for you under the effects of my ability. You must stand still for an allotted time-frame to be free of this curse. Which means that since you’re alone you’re a sitting duck!” The clones suddenly exploded, tearing into several dozen fragments and scattering everywhere in the nearby vicinity. These fragments absorbed into the ground as D’gerik simultaneously charged forwards, his massive claws brandished like the sharpest blade imaginable. Rei acted on instinct, moving out of the way, causing incredible pain as he did; his steps heavy as though an open wound were paralyzing him to a degree. Upon landing his foot, the ground began to shake. The Shinigami had no other warning, he tried to jump away, but his movements had become sluggish thanks to the pain. From the ground where one of the bone fragments had landed a spike of bone stabbed upwards and into his foot before he managed to get away entirely. Rei cried out, straining every muscle in his body to try and strong-arm his way through the pain, but it wasn’t enough…