An Unexpected Lesson: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie [Closed/M]

Xiaobei snarled, a low, dark, grumbling noise that did nothing to shake the voices buzzing inside her skull. They were so loud nowadays. It had been bad before, but after eating her Tenko's flesh the young Hollow-breed had lost all semblance of control over her own head. It wasn't that the other souls were capable of taking over their shared body, Xiaobei was still the main personality, but they had grown viciously argumentative. Whereas before the voices had been minor whimpers, a whisper here or there, or more usually loud growls and snarls, now there were actual words. Sentences. Screams. A cacophony of voices that drowned out her own thinking and resulted in endless headaches.

Xiaobei didn't want to complain to Abba, he would know then that she had snuck into the Segunda's tower to visit her Tenko. And she didn't want Abba to be mad at her again for not listening to him. But her desire to keep the secret was slowly being chipped away by her inability to sleep now that the occupants within her headspace had grown their own personalities and opinions. It had been so much easier before and she hadn't even realized it, back when all it took was an angry bite or nip here or there to silence the souls she'd consumed. Those had all been minor souls though, the parts and pieces of a weak assortment of base Hollows. After Xiaobei had consumed parts of her Tenko, she was now flooded with souls on the highest level of being. Flecks of ascendency, splashes of fully realized entities, even a dash of motivation. With these new roommates Xiaobei was finding it very hard to maintain any one line of thought. Not when every half second or so a new voice piped up.

Shaking her head from side to side with enough force to slice the wind, Xiaobei trotted a few more feet deeper into the crystal forest. Abba had taken her here a few times after his promise with Miki and she had even elicited permission to go on her own if she was careful to stay on the outskirts. Normally, Xiaobei obeyed, but today there was a strange urge, an almost over the top excitement that pushed her to break the rules and go on an adventure. Ill advised or not.

Go! Go! Go! Go! The voices shrieked, childish and cackling and foreboding all at once. Flicking her ears flat against her skull, the young Hollow-breed sauntered deeper into the forest. She came across few other Hollows, her senses telling her that there was a large collection up ahead. Unlike the rest of her Gillian-brethren, or the more base Hollow-breeds, Xiaobei felt no desire to pile on towards that group and inevitable battle. Instead, she ate up the few creatures she came across that would be easily defeated and ran away from the rest. Despite the ache in her head the pain from her stomach was unceasing and it bothered her more and more as the voices grew louder.

Eat. Hunger. Hunt. Play. There were so many orders from within and Xiaobei broke out into a trot as if she could outrun the gibing calls. Staying far enough away from the mess of Hollow-breeds ahead Xiaobei ensured that no one would be able to sense her mediocre reiatsu over the distance between them. It was not too smart to attract the type of predator that attended those festivals of gorging, and after a while that lesson and that alone had seeped into her brain from Abba's many stories.

Sniffing the air, all redolent with the scent of dirt and decay and blood, Xiaobei picked up a new scent that piqued her interest. It was almost sort of familiar, a scent she had smelled on Erasmus if not perhaps second-hand. Like old leather, the smell was rich and deep and enticing. Tongue lolling, she perked up as the child-like Hollow followed her scent trail to a tall looking tree. Staring up at the crystalline structure, she knew that her prey was hidden up there somewhere.

Smiling at this new game of hide and seek, Xiaobei steathily clawed her way up the tree trunk until she caught sight of the tiny nook in the tree that housed a larger then life Arrancar. Arrancar, her entire life, had always been an extension of Abba. They were the same as him, so they had to be friends. Part of her pack. Xiaobei didn't waste any more time contemplating reality as the voices tumbled over themselves again with a new set of priorities.

Chase. Eat. Attack. Pounce! And so she did. 

WC: 773 | GP: 15 | Total GP: 15

She jumped, flying through the air as her claws glistened in the sunlight and her mouth opened wide for the bite. Curling forward, using her larger bulk to make up for the short distance between where she'd started and where she was going to end, Xiaobei landed with a heavy thud on her target's chest, snapping viciously at his shoulder as if she could worry her way through skin as thick as steel. Apparently it wasn't so easy though, as her prey's eyes snapped open and he suddenly shoved her with such force that he broke her hold on his shoulder and sent her flying backward.

Flailing with her long limbs, Xiaobei contorted in the air, pulling herself down and in and landing neatly on all four legs only a few branches away. The thick crystalline branch swayed and creaked beneath her sudden weight but it held nonetheless, and Xiaobei opened her mouth to taunt the weird Arrancar man with his weak kick when all of the sudden he wasn't laying down anymore. Actually, he wasn't even in the tree anymore, his body blurring into thin air as she was left blinking myopically at an empty tree hollow.

“Where'd ya-” her shout of surprise was broken off like the flick of a light switch as something hard and heavy slammed into her shoulder, the branch beneath her giving way at the pressure as Xiaobei went tumbling into the dirt. Hitting the ground with such force that her teeth rattled in her mouth, Xiaobei wriggled and writhed under the foot that seemed intent on pressing down on her shoulder and keeping her pinned to the earth. Blinking past tears of pain as she felt that offending limb jam into what was clearly a separated shoulder, Xiaobei snarled angrily as she snapped at the air, getting only bits of leaf and dirt in her mouth for all the violent energy she was expending.

The more she struggled the harder the foot seemed to come down on her shoulder, and suddenly Xiaobei went limp, a few whimpers crawling their way up her sore throat as she whined and wriggled in a display of subservience. This Arrancar wasn't as friendly as she had thought, and he seemed to have no desire of letting her up any time soon, so Xiaobei decided to try and play the smart game. Or what Abba had been telling her was the smart game anyway. She sagged in the dirt and used that smallest bit of give between her shoulder and the man's foot to allow her joint to pop back into place as ligaments snapped and mended themselves now that there was room to repair.

Looking up at the angry face with doleful eyes, her own wide and rimmed with tears, Xiaobei snuffled once more. Hollow-breeds were animalistic creatures and as often as they were wont to take advantage of weakness there was just as much of an instinct to preen and preach when you got the upper hand over another. Trying to play into that, and totally unashamed of the pitiful mess she looked like in that moment, pinned to the ground with her throat showing, Xiaobei suddenly jerked into action as her free arm and her two hind-legs curved upward, their long claws unsheathing as she aimed to skewer the Arrancar's abdomen and pierce into his stomach and guts with the surprise attack. A fierce snarl rose up, roiling and rumbling as Xiaobei surged into the movement, struggling to break free even as she felt her shoulder tweak as she pushed against that heavy weight.

Eat. Play. Bite. Claw. Fun-fun-fun-fun! 

WC: 604 | GP: 12 | Total GP: 27