A touch of Madness (Methias, Shinji, Nero and Tatsumi Ippo. No killing)

The sun beat down an incredible heat in the fabled Karakura Town, the dark roads burning the feet of the children who ran upon it, heading towards a local park or a play area to play games of tag. As it sat directly above the town, anyone could have looked up and seen the cloudless, blue sky revealing itself to the outside world. The buildings stood strong even after the events of one year past, clearly remade by the Shinigami of those times in order not to mess with the humans who's spirits would eventually cross paths with them. With such great weather, almost everybody was outside enjoying their day. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. However, todays good thing wasn't going to disappear from a simple cloud, but a cloud of disaster looming over them like a tiger ready to pounce. There was no doubt that casualties would occur on this day.

The sky tore open, an unbelievable darkness standing out like a sore thumb in the calm cloudless day. This was a Garganta, the hollows means of travelling between the dimensions. All Hollow's could do it, and because of that, one could never be sure what kind of beast would emerge from it. This simple technique, however, was not without its limits. It couldn't be used to travel within one dimension to another place in the same dimension. It would only go from one to another, and because of that, it was infact rarely used once the Hollow had become an Arrancar. Why was that? Because Arrancar were the inhabitants of Las Noches, and worked beneath the previous Sexta Espada, Grimmjow. These were the Hollow Army, the elite, and these were lead by the Ten Blades, the Espada.

Stepping out from the eternal darkness, a man dressed fully in white, matching the color of his hair. The very hair that covered this Arrancars blood red eye's. It was long, enough to cover both his eye's and most of his face, and in a terrible mess, clearly indicating it was poorly looked after. His thin lips curled at either end, a sly smirk fixated on his face. Behind him, closed the Garganta, leaving him in the middle of the enemy zone. Slowly floating to the ground, he landed in what appeared to be a field, although here, there was not a single child to inflict pain upon. What a tragedy. As he began to walk over to a fence, he could see the town in all its glory. Spirits wondering, people with smiles upon their face. He simply wondered how long they would have been smiling for. Pushing out a single hand forwards, an incredibly weak and small, yet fast and almost unstoppable Bala shot from his fingertips, blasting into a local corner shop, a massive bang echoing through the air as it turned into nothing more than rubble.

An almost manic laughter then escaped his lips. Today was definately going to be fun, and he could feel it within every inch of his six foot tall frame. Leaping over the gate, he landed gracefully on all fours, before prowling around the general area. Only moments had passed before he ended up in the center of the town, utop the tallest building in the immediate facility. This building stood at around twelve stories tall, and was incredibly well built considering its clear age. Moving up to his feet once more, he immediately remembered that some weaker Arrancar was to make his appearance with him on this day. Wondering whether or not he was worth the time and effort, this Arrancar closed his eye's and thought of a way to test 'it's' abilities.

Standing for only a few moments, he laughed once more, before a sudden roar echoed through the whole town. This was from the lips of the very same Arrancar, and as he did so, a huge Reiatsu revealed his location to anyone near, yet most would have known that they could not do a thing against such an opponent. Now, it was time to wait for the other Arrancar, and whoever decided that they were to save this godforsaken town.

The clear and beautiful sky, spotless with no hints of any cloud formation. As the sun sat high in the sky it laid down a tolerable heat, with the sun shining strong people were out in full force enjoying their day. Sadly a few of the towns residents had already met their first visitor and now it was time for the infamous Nero to make his appearance. A small crack streaked across the sky as it tore open to reveal the opening of a gargantuan. Within the gaping hole stood a rather intimidating figure standing at six feet three inches Nero looked down upon the town with his menacing eyes and sinister smile.

As Nero stepped out of the gargantuan he picked up on the espada’s spiritual pressure, it wasn’t hard considering he was pumping it out for all to feel. As Nero made his way towards the building where the espada had taken point Nero began to get irritated by the smile on everyone’s faces “look at them. How disgusting and pitiful….they all make me sick.” Nero then turned towards a street when he looked down at a sidewalk and held his hand to his side, a small green playing card formed in his hand and he threw it at the sidewalk. The card exploded with sheer force killing most of the people on the sidewalk and nearly dropping the 5 story build that occupied the block.

Nero finally made it to the rooftop where the espada stood and clapped his hands “isn’t this wonderful…we have the whole city as our playground.” he said as he looked at the espada with a giant smile on his face.

Shinji was sitting at the park. It was what seemed like a good day; the sun was shining, and there was a gentle breeze. He was sitting down licking an ice cream when he felt a strange disturbance. He stood up and walked towards the edge of the park where he could then get a better view of the city skyline. As he was just looking up, he could see what looked like the closing of a garganta. So much for my nice day... he sighed.

As usual, midday found Tatsumi Ippo burning daylight by taking a long stroll through out the almost constantly busy Karakura Town. Ippo was a young fellow, easily discernible at a first glance was his age, he was in his early twenties without a doubt and he was obviously some sort of fashion mogel or perhaps a trend setter, as he dressed as one. Wearing a white dress shirt with stiff, freshly ironed collar and cuffs, to add to the look Ippo wore a simple black vest which was made of a fabric that seemed to shine in the sunlight. To finish up the look, Ippo dressed in a pair of black dress pants and a black belt on which hung a strange, infinity sign that acted as the belt buckle for Ippo's trousers. Ippo was not a particularly handsome individual but one could not say that he was ugly either, rather he had a unique face that was usually a mask for his emotion, to frame his face he had a mop of raven black hair. Truly Tatsumi Ippo dressed as he saw fit.

Suddenly Ippo felt a huge rush of Reiatsu, dangerous reiatsu at that. “Hollows, or perhaps even arrancar” he whispered to himself as his eyes raked the sky, shifting through minor spirits and ghosts that roamed Karakura Town, he had never been good at pinpointing reiatsu’s exact location. Then his eyes caught hold of the Arrancar just as he fired a Bala aimed at the corner that stood at Ippo’s right hand side. The resulting explosion blew Ippo ten feet away from where the corner store had stood. “Mr. Wakazuki made that store, now” Ippo couldn’t finish the thought as he saw that the hard earned and worked for store had been reduced to nothing but rubble by the force of the Arrancar’s Bala. Ippo ignored the glass shards that now decorated his head, forming a dangerous crown of melted and molded sand that made the glass. Surely there could be no forgiveness for the Arrancar’s actions, no one could cause destruction like this and get away with it, he had to be punished for his actions. Gripping his belt buckle with an intensity that was most strange Ippo tore it from it’s spot before twirling it by the hole his middle finger had entered at the top. “Lets go Unendlich Gluck” he whispered to his Quincy Cross as he continued to twirl it on his finger.

For a second Ippo lost the arrancar but he caught sight of him again almost immediately as he noted that his reiatsu was coming from the highest building in the most busy section of Karakura Town’s Downtown. Utilizing his skill in the technique of Hirenkyaku, Ippo was soon on the building opposite the Arrancar and his partner, from his expression he was surprised to see the second of the two Arrancar occupying the rooftop. “I didn’t even notice that second one. I need to calm down and carefully feel my way through this battle if I want to even stand a chance” Ippo thought to himself as he slowly allowed his Reiatsu to be released. “At least theres an excess in Reiatsu thanks to these guys, excess reiatsu means an abundance in Spiritons and an abundance in Spiritons means I can hit harder and faster” Ippo continued as he suddenly drew upon the spiritons in the area and formed his rather uniquely shaped bow which took the form of a bright blue Infinity sign, the same shape as his Quincy Cross. Taking a deep breath, Ippo let it loose as a series of small coughs meant to gather the attention of the two Arrancar. Just as Ippo opened his mouth he was horrified to see the second of the two Arrancar launch an attack on the unsuspecting citizens down below, the attack blew apart a part of the street and even worked to bring down a five story building, killing who knew how many in the process. “OI!” Ippo roared, he was obviously less than please with the performance the two Arrancar had put on in his hometown “That’s enough.” He continued firmly “You, the Albino Reject” he said referring to the one who had first launched the attack, the Arrancar with white hair and Red eyes “Me and you. Lets go, I’ll leave your friend over their for later” Ippo nodded in the direction of the second of the two Arrancar and leveled his bow at the first of the two.

“Can’t trust guys this nuts to just go along with my demands” Ippo thought immediately after he had leveled his bow, he launched his own Reiatsu in a semi sphere from his head to his toe, which would alert him to anything entering the area roughly five feet around him.

It was amazing how quickly his plan had began to work. Within a few mere moments, his 'ally' on this day had appeared before him, surging around the streets before him, quickly opening his mouth to speak. Methias could have heard this, with his acute sense of hearing, however, while what he said may well have been interesting, this Arrancar truly couldn't bring himself to listen to much more than the first few words. Why? Because conversation bored him. He was a man of action, who thrived off of destruction and chaos. His previous action of destroying a small store was but the first step of an unthinkable chaos that was about to be unleashed upon Karakura Town, if someone didn't arrive to atleast attempt to stop them now.

Looking over at the younger Arrancar, he couldn't help but grin manically as he saw a single card hit a five story building, causing it to eventually crash down to the ground, taking the lives of the pitiful humans who lived there. Fools. So weak and disgusting. Shortly after the building had met its end, the Priviron had finally made it to where Methias was, opening his mouth to speak once again, however, this time Methias had no choice but to listen. "Isn't this wonderful... We have the whole city as our playground." was its choice of words. Funny. Methias was just thinking the same thing. Yet, this mindless chaos was no fun without someone trying to stop them. How long was it to be until a worthy opponent was to reveal themselves? The answer to that was apparently not very long.

Now standing before Methias, was quite the trendy looking man. Dressed up in what appeared to be a formal dress suit, this Arrancar tilted his head slightly in confusion of the attire. Why someone would even consider wearing such a suit in this weather was simply a mystery in itself, let alone how this man was moving so quickly while wearing it. It clearly wasn't a suit made for battle, although this person seemed to have some form of spiritual awareness and skill to say the least. A human with a large Reiryoku supply, perhaps a Quincy was the most likely occurance. Methias himself had never actually had combat with a Quincy before, but to his knowledge, they used spiritrons in the air to create a bow and arrow which could then be used in combat for effective, fast, and almost deadly ranged combat. But could such a being truly pose a threat to a member of the might of the Espada? Likely, yet unlikely all the same. Perhaps against the lower members of the Espada this being could show his true skill, but against the likes of the higher ranks, those that would kill without a single warning, and that would attack relentlessly, the outcome was much more favorable to the Arrancar. Heck, this was a two on one situation, atleast until the 'boy' opened his mouth.

With a loud 'Oi!', Methias was finally bought to real attention. Someone was definately a wee bit upset with the destruction of Karakura Town. A pity, but nonetheless, he had asked for this by unleashing his Reiatsu into the air for all to feel. Placing but a single hand on his head, he listened as he was called an 'Albino Reject', and how he was challenged to a one on one fight with him. His grin turning to a smirk, Methias raised his hand, gesturning to the other Arrancar to stay alert for any other interferances. Letting out but a manic laughter, he couldn't help but feel as if this was going to be highly amusing to say the least. A bit of overconfidence could definately be seen by those who looked upon him, but he likely had every right to be so confident. Hollows were, after all, the strongest creatures in existance, and this one here had removed his mask at the legendary Vasto Lorde state. Before even removing his mask, he was stronger than most Captain level Shinigami, and the removal only increased this gap further. This child knew not who he was speaking to. He probably didn't even realise that this Arrancar was amongst the Elite of the Elite.

The sound of static then penetrated the ears of all who were around him, followed by the distinct disappearance of Methias' body. It almost looked as if he had teleported, but anyone who had seen an Arrancar fight would have known that this was Sonido, the Arrancar equivilent of Shunpo and Hirenkyaku. Within this single bound, he was now standing face to face with the Quincy, his right, clawed hand darting towards his stomach at an incredible speed. This was by no means undodgable, but would have definately posed an immediate threat to those who weren't use to high speed, hand to hand combat. The plan was simple, appear, attack, disappear. This would likely give him the most effective way of combating a ranged fighter, judging by the infinite shaped bow he was now carrying. If he cannot be seen, he cannot be fired at. Yes, making the opponent fight at Methias' pace was definately his strong point. After the initial attack, if contact was made or not, Methias would have used Sonido once more to immediately disappear from sight, and appear back in his original position. Was today finally about to get truly interesting?

Nero couldn’t help but keep the sinister smile on his face he loved the sound of suffering and the deaths and destruction he had just caused only fueled him to want to completely level Karakura Town. Nero had not really paid much attention to his surroundings had really didn’t notice the man appear on the roof top, now either Nero didn’t sense the guy or he was just plan ignoring him. Eventually Nero turned to face the new arrival and exploded with laughter, he fell to the ground holding his stomach and rolled back and forth on the ground letting out a maniacal and joyful laugh. Finally after about a good 2 minuets of laughter Nero stood up and whipped a fake tear from his eye “look at you. Aren’t you a little over dressed?” Nero still tried to hold back his laughter and eventually noticed that the guy was in fact a Quincy, either way the boy was out numbered and out classed, but when the Quincy challenged the espada to a one on one Nero let out a sigh and frowned “awe…no fun.” he said as the two began their fight.

With no one around to fight or stop him Nero quickly turned towards the city and smiled from ear to ear “well if no one is going to stop me….” Nero held up his hand and formed three cards this time and threw them at the nearby buildings, each causing substantial damage and killing anyone within the blast radius…Nero laughed at the sigh of the burning buildings and the dying humans, it filled him with joy as he watched the chaos. If someone else didn’t show up soon Nero would most likely continue to do as he pleased.

Shinji had had enough. He had been watching what they were doing from a perch on a relatively tall building. He leaped off the building and landed directly on his feet, and from there, he flash stepped to the location of all the "action." As he arrived he noticed that one of the arrancars was clashing with what appeared to be a quincy. He looked toward the other arrancar to find he was laughing upon the destruction he had just caused.
He sighed as he flash stepped behind the one causing the destruction with he zanpakuto drawn and held on the left of his neck. "Just when I thought this city was getting safer..." he said with his signature grin.

Ippo was less than impressed by the Arrancar's reaction to his challenge, not that he would have been happy for him to be mad or perhaps just start screaming, but he wanted SOME kind of reaction. It was an instant after the Arrancar had entered the area within five feet of him that Ippo's brain informed him of the Arrancar's presence. Within that one instant Ippo learned all he would need, physically anyway, about the Arrancar. "SHIT!" Ippo thought to himself just as the Arrancar launched his first of what Ippo assumed would be many attacks, as the Arrancar's hand whipped through the air Ippo took a step forwards, at a diagonal angle. The arrancar's hand ripped through the young Quincy's shiny black vest and white dress shirt, the arrancar's hand also scraped along the very edges of Ippo's stomach. Frowning, Ippo knew instantly that the arrancar had not broken the skin but he had reduced Ippo's upper body clothing to tatters and had left three lines of bruising across his abdomen. "If I hadn't used Helles Gebiet...well lets not think about that" Ippo thought to himself as he realized that without his "Second Skin" he would have been completely defenseless against the Arrancar's assault.

Ippo had come about his teacher of the Quincy arts not that long ago, roughly ten years give a take a year or two. Back then Ippo had had very little confidence, not that there was much of a difference now, but back then, he had been even more meek. Having such a quiet and easily suppressed personality, it had been easy for Ippo's bullies to take what they wanted and do as they pleased to their favorite target. It had only been later, after he had hunted Hollows for two years, after his teacher had informed him that backing down did nothing but make him weaker, that Ippo began to understand, backing down only put you in an even tighter corner than standing up. As far as Ippo was concerned this continued on through battle, business and most definitely life and death duels between Quincy and Arrancar, such as the one he was finding himself in. Surely he was not going to disobey that rule at this moment.

"Yep! Exactly the same technique that everyone else uses, come in close range and hit the guy with the arrow as hard as you can" Ippo thought to himself as he reviewed the Arrancar's battle plan. Ippo didn't exactly have a encyclopedic knowledge of the abilities that an Arrancar possessed but he was aware that they had an ability that launched some sort of energy beam, another one that acted something like Hirenkyaku for the evolved Hollows, "That must have been the one he just used to get so close to me" Ippo thought to himself as he counted off the second ability of many in his head, "The Third must be the one for Iron Skin" Ippo thought to himself as he listed off the last of the Arrancar's abilities that he knew by heart. As Ippo solidified his footing beside the Arrancar he focused and fired a single arrow off, a weak thing, most definitely below any sort of danger alarm the Arrancar might have, a half-assed blow if Ippo had ever sent one. The arrow had been launched at just within point blank range, Ippo having taken a side step to avoid the Arrancar's attack.

"SHIT! Thats way less tha" Ippo's thought was cut short as he was suddenly hit by a wave of Reiatsu that could only belong to the so called, "Vizard". "Feels like I'm sensing a Hollow and a Shinigami at once coming from the same source" Ippo thought as his attention was drawn to the Vizard for an instant. He usually never lost focus but this was a rare occurrence, a Vizard in person, definitely something worth looking at. "Well, at least he's not coming after me" Ippo thought.

The initial reaction to an attack often told Methias all he needed to know about a person, atleast when it came to their battle style anyway. With someone like this Arrancar, he was almost impossible to read. He rarely revealed his intentions in battle, which often left the opponent confused as to what the next attack would be in store for them. As his fist moved forwards, he quickly noticed that instead of slicing through soft, tender flesh, he had infact sliced through a simple, yet relatively expensive piece of clothing. This Quincy had obviously had some form of experience with both high speed combat, and hand to hand. Stepping in was always an effective tactic. It limited both the movement of the opponent, as well as the general ability to launch an attack. However, with a ranged combatant in close range, Methias immediately assumed that he would want to gain distance as quickly as possible, likely after some form of counter attack. It was likely, at this range, that gathering the energy to provide a truly threatening shot would prove challenging, mainly due to the mentality issue of being so close to a hand to hand fighter, who was more than capable of providing a counter attack of his own.

Looking to his side, clearly due to the Quincy making a sidestep motion, Methias found himself coming face to face with an Arrow. At this range, impossible to dodge, but he could probably reduce the impact if any way made. No matter how effective an attack, it ALWAYS required some time to build up, it may only be half a second, but it was still there. But this? This was even faster than half a second before the arrow was made and on its way. Without even thinking, a tiny bala appeared just before his right eye, deep red in color, shooting towards the Arrow that had immediately been fired. This Bala was definately nothing special, as all it served to do was slightly lower the ferocity of the already weak attack, taking the arrow to the side of his face. No damage was incurred, as apparently the Bala was so tiny it didn't even cause an explosion. However, it did push him back ever so slightly to bring about a distance of around a yard between the two new adversaries.

Without even achknowledging what had just happened, he immediately realised there was a new presence. The power was somewhat like his, although the Shinigami Reiatsu was definately considerably higher within the new being. A Vizard was the logical answer, a being who dwelled into the power of the Hollows to increase their own strength. It was but a perfect idea, after all, if you hunger power, you should mimic what the strongest of spiritual beings could do. However, even with such an opponent making themselves known, Methias knew exactly where he was without having to lift his head to see, a task which the Quincy had apparently failed to do. Due to this one and only reason, the next attack would definately give him the advantage, and a mild element of surprise. No matter how strong you are, you should never look away from death when he's staring you in the face.

Within a single moment, Methias had already prepared his next attack. While Quincy boy was looking away, Methias immediately fired a Cero, a Cero that would definately destroy the building they were standing upon, leaving but a smoldering wreckage. It wasn't aimed directly at the Quincy, however, it was just beneath him, at the ground where he stood. This meant that it would likely achieve the goal of creating a huge disturbance, the destruction of the building giving him the upper hand once more, as he would know what was going to happen and the Quincy would not. Most wouldn't have considered such an attack, atleast while their allies were standing just a few meters away, but alas, Methias truly only cared for the victory and bloodlust that battle created.

The feeling of cold steel against Nero’s neck but a small frown on his face “come on! Cant a guy have a little fun around here without some no good half breed weakly interfering?” he said as he slightly turned his head and looked back at the Vizard, Nero was all to familiar with the workings of each race, after he is a scientist. Nero gave the Vizard a smirk before using his Sonído to get behind the Vizard the second Nero appeared his hand was already coming forward and a neon green card flew from his hand at the Vizard.

Nero then brought back his left hand and began to charge a cero but immediately canceled the charge and Sonído’d off of the buildings roof, just in time to as he saw the espada fire a cero at the feet of the Quincy.
Nero began to laugh like a mad man as the cero was shot “that was very good. Nice thinking” he said looking at the espada with a smile, it seemed as of now the arrancar team was a duo hell bent on destruction and driven by an ungodly bloodlust.