Las Catacumbas -- Hunting Paranoia

Swarrm took in the darkness of Hueco Mundo with a quick turn of its head. The moonlight from above reflected off of the ashes from long dead Hollow and the branches of petrified trees. Yet, as the Espada turned its eyes up towards the moon, no light was reflected from the goggles of its suit. It was unnatural—disturbing, even—yet it was a curiosity that no one dared question.

To some degree, this fit Swarrm perfectly. It was possible that this oddity was created for the sole purpose of propagating the mystery that was the Quatra Espada.

Bending at the knee, Swarrm took its hand and slowly moved it over the rolling sands of Hueco Mundo. The grains of the ashen desert moved slightly as spiritual power, invisible yet potent, seemed to pluck information out of the dunes themselves. To those who were watching, it was as if Swarrm was reading a brail code etched into the white soil. For all intents and purposes, it was.

Suddenly, as if it had finally deciphered a message of extreme importance, the Espada jerked its head upwards. Perhaps if it had been built similar to the other Arrancar, beings of flesh and blood, a smile would have cut across its lips. But when dealing with something as inhuman as Swarrm, an ironic thought considering the race of the creature, pondering such ideas were foolish. To think that it smiled would be to think that it felt emotion. To think that it felt emotion would be to think that it had feelings and goals and drives understandable to other Arrancar. To think that it had feelings and goals and drives understandable to other Arrancar was to think ignorantly. After decades of prodding at the enigma, decades of exploring and hunting and fighting, the entire Hollow race had learned that whatever it was Swarrm wanted, it was best to leave it to its own devices.

It was a pity that some of the youngest of the species had forgotten this. They would make fine examples of why one simply does not walk into Las Catacumbas, Swarrm's privilege, and expect to tell the tale.

---

"...The desert's quiet tonight," Agua mused. His normally quiet voice rose so that the others could hear him.

"What, did you think that just because we were close to Lady Eless's territory that it'd get loud? Don't show your green so easily, Agua," Replied another Arrancar, seemingly the leader of the small group. Tall and imposing, Granite was wrapped in an oversized grey cloak—easily bigger than most given his large stature. Beneath the hood lay beady eyes that surveyed the dunes. "It's supposed to be like this. Now let's keep moving."

With a sigh, Agua turned his back to the desolate territory and began to follow the group onwards. Despite the apparent safety, he could still feel the chill of Las Catacumbas, its talons sinking into his bones. It was a horrid feeling, but one that he had grown accustomed to as a Hollow. Raising a pair of dark brown eyes up towards the moon, Agua wondered how Eless would react to the information they had found. Hopefully she could now finally move up in the ranks and take her rightful spot as the Quatra Espada.

As he began to lose himself in his own imagination, Agua's senses dulled. Swarrm, noticing this, slowly pulled itself out of the side of one of the larger dunes of the area. Using finely controlled spiritual power, which was unable to be sensed by someone as weak as the Arrancar group below, the Espada moved the sands back to their exact spots. To anyone who might have been following, it seemed as if it had merely appeared out of thin air.

Utilizing these same stealth abilities, Swarrm began to crawl forward on all fours extremely slowly. There was no heat produced by its form, nor spiritual power, sound, or any other hint that it was a living, breathing being. To detect that one was being followed by this demon required power like Barracuda's or horns like Bronnk Ro's. From what Swarrm had observed so far, none of the group below held any of these gifts. Thus, it came to a conclusion: there was no risk in killing and murdering the dozen below.

Perfect.

Once this thought had been fully processed, the Quatra Espada began to make its move. Standing up on both of its legs, the paranoid Arrancar began to move around, beneath, and through the dunes that lead to the wind-swept flats of Eless's territory. Despite the fact that it would have taken an impossible about of time for any other soul to do what it did without leaving a trace, within a few moments Swarrm found itself in position. As the group of Arrancar crested their final dune, which meant safety to them, they found the opposite of their hopes. Like the darkness that comes and seals away the light, Swarrm stood there, motionless and silent.

Their faces all took on ghastly looks as they saw the Aspect of Paranoia standing before them. Tall and featureless, save for its apocalyptic mask, Swarrm was an avatar of all their fears. Several took a step back, muttering things like "Impossible" or "How?!" Others drew their weapons or prepared their energy for the fight of their lives. Only one of the Arrancar refused to make a move, either struck by extreme awe or fear. He was flagged as the first to die.

Agua's neck was torn open in the blink of an eye as Swarrm appeared, a black, jagged blade jutting from its mask and slicing his juggler vein right open. In a gush of blood, all of which seemed to somehow be avoided by the Espada, the Arrancar fell to the ground in a crumpled and gurgling heap. The Blade of Paranoia would take no chances in this fight. It never did and never would. Thus, as Granite roared and swung his mighty, stone axe around, Swarrm quickly fell back into sonido, reappearing atop a dune more than a hundred meters away.

Due to the modifications in Agua's body, his breathing did not stop; his heart continued to pump; and the cameras in his eyes continued to roll. Eless watched through these organic lenses as the Espada known as Swarrm danced from dune to dune, Arrancar to Arrancar, barely avoiding bala and cero alike. To the untrained eye it would seem as if it was unworthy of its rank. Only a select few could ever hope to understand the amount of training reflected in a series of carefully calculated movements and death-defying stunts. It was obvious that Swarrm was holding back, despite being greatly outnumbered and surrounded by enemies. This revelation terrified Agua.

How could someone hold punches and still do the things it was doing? A sonido here dodged a blast, and a turn of its head decapitated Granite before he could respond. An acrobatic flip there steered it clear of gouts of flame from one of their group, responded to by an obsidian cero that carved through half of Eless's Arrancar. After several minutes of needlessly drawn out fighting, Swarrm stood victorious amongst a sea of corpses and bloodied sand.

Only then did it turn back to Agua. Slowly, cautiously, did it approach, stepping over bodies and steering clear of the different colored liquids oozing from the Arrancar's bodies. It was as if it knew of all the enhancements and weapons hidden by Eless.

Agua kept his hand tightly clasped on his wounded neck. As Swarrm reached him and kneeled, his instincts screamed for him to run; however, his legs refused to listen to his fear-born orders. Tears rolling down his cheeks, the young warrior could only return the lifeless leer Swarrm gave him, staring into the darkest wells of black that he had ever witnessed.

What was this thing?

How was it so powerful?

Why was it only ranked four?!

A thousand questions burst through Agua's head and, as if trying to voice them all at once, he opened his mouth to let out a horrendous scream. Swarrm didn't even seem to hear it. Instead it raised its fingers, placed them around the Arrancar's left eye, and pushed in. Another scream accompanied the rush of blood that came from the socket as the Espada pulled out the modified organ. It then callously opened one of the zippers on its body and dropped it in before standing and turning on a heel to leave.

As Agua screamed and cried for help, for his master, for salvation, a black mist left Swarrm's mask. It curled and coalesced in the palm of his right hand, reforming the black Zanpakutou used to slay so many. As if performing some sort of ritual, it slowly and carefully slid the jagged blade into the open zipper of its left hand, allowing the unholy metal to fuse with the pale, dead flesh beneath. Surging spiritual power seemed to cause random bumps and bulges to rise on its suit but, with a single thought, everything returned to its normal proportions.

Though, for only a moment.

For the first time it would seem Swarrm had felt pain, as it threw its arms back in a horrendous arc and allowed dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of black tendrils to leave its body. Determined to leave no evidence or survivors, the Quatra Espada willed the darkness to curl around the screaming Agua and the corpses of his allies. It pulled them and broke apart their bodies into their most basic components. It digested their very souls. Within moments it had all come to an end—the tendrils returned to their places and Swarrm appeared no different than before.

Turning one last time to survey the sands of Hueco Mundo, Swarrm disappeared in a burst of sonido, leaving behind no footprints to mark its destination.