Rukia stares in shock and in fear watching as Ichigo's body falls down the large staircase ending up in a heap at Orihime's feet. His sword having fallen from its sheath and clattering to the stony floor. She hears the other woman scream in terror seeing what happened to Ichigo before two of the sprites that make up Shun shun Rikka fly out from her hair and encapsulate Ichigo's body in an orange glow. That fear quickly turns to anger and fury as she lifts a hand and catches the saber of Ulquiorra in a single bare hand. From around her body, white and lavender colored reishi begins leaking from her body. Ulquiorra almost shows an expression of surprise on his emotionless face as the pressure around them gets higher and higher. The floor beneath his feet shatters as Rukia's anger grows. Beneath them the amplified spiritual pressure causes the sands to shift and lock together flattening miles and miles of sand dunes. Orihime has to envelope herself in her own shield in order to protect herself from Rukia's spiritual pressure, as the sand around them is crushed to a perfectly flat sandstone surface that expands for miles around them. Far above her, the fake ceiling of Las Noches cracks under the strain and pieces begin chipping away. Rukia flicks her wrist to the side suddenly, snapping Ulquiorra's zanpakuto in half as if it was made of glass. "We cannot fight here, Caballero Encima. Aizen has declared that No espada above rank five can release their resurrection within Las Noches." Ulquiorra says as he tries to lead her away from Aizen's palace.

"Fuck Aizen." Rukia growls, her voice beginning to take on aspects of her former vizard self. She punches the espada in the chest so fast that even Ulquiorra couldn't see it happen. From Orihime's point of view, Rukia hadn't even moved before Ulquiorra was thrown away so fast that he broke the sound barrier.

The emotionless espada slams into Nnoitra's palace, destroying the wall and flying straight through it before impacting the farthest wall of Las Noches, where the fake sky meets with the desert floor. He hit it hard enough to be embedded partially within the wall, having to physically jerk his arm free of the crater he left in the stone in order to free himself. As he tries to separate his body from the stone, Rukia appears in front of him again with a single hand raised and a massive black and lavender colored cero forming in her hand. "Die." She commands before firing the blast at Ulquiorra. The espada had just barely freed himself enough to sonido out of the way of the blast as it bores a hole straight through the mile thick stone of Aizen's palace and into the eternal night of Hueco Mundo. Seeing his opportunity to obey Aizen's wishes, he flies out of the hole and into the night of Hueco Mundo. Rukia's anger only boils hotter and hotter causing the world around her to get colder and colder as she takes off towards the fleeing coward.

Exploding outwards into the midnight desert, Rukia's spiritual pressure crushes the sand flat as glass underneath her as she chases after Ulquiorra. Both her blades drawn, cutting through the air waiting for the taste of blood. Her face twisted into an expression of pure unadulterated hatred and fury. The sword tails of Shirayuki and Chimamire wrap themselves around her arms as her spirit energy flows from her body, burning into the night air. Ulquiorra appears at the top of Las Noches, with his back to the moon looking down at the cero espada. Her power radiates off of her so violently it causes visible ripples of heat radiation to flow through the air, however it's far from warm or even chilly. The energy that radiates through the air is so cold that even time seems to be slowed by the chill. With his broken sword he lifts it up from his side and points its broken tip towards the espada flying towards him. "Enclose." He says calmly. "Murcielago." He speaks, and for a moment all the sound in the dayless desert is cut off before his black and green reishi explodes outwards from his body covering the eternal crescent moon behind him. The black and green hued spirit energy covers the night sky over Rukia causing green rain drops to pour down from the heavens. Due to the shift in temperature from Ulquiorra's release and Rukia's fury, the green raindrops freeze in mid air falling to the ground like hailstones. Rukia continues to fly up towards him so fast that the air around her is beginning to burn. Ulquiorra barely has time to finish his transformation before she slashes both blades down towards him. The espada sonidos to an adjacent platform and looks out at the queen of the hollows noticing that her appearance is shifting.

Rukia's attack had shattered the massive pillar that Ulquiorra was standing on causing it all to crumble away. She turns to her right, glaring at the fourth espada she doesn't notice the change in his appearance. His lean and thin figure is covered by a sleeveless robe that covers everything down to his feet. Down the center of the robes is a long single black streak coming from the hollow hole on his chest. The half helmet mask over his head has changed to resemble a full helmet with wide ears coming off the sides of it. From his back a pair of large black bat wings spread out from his back covering the crescent moon behind him. Lifting a hand, he generates a long javelin made of spirit energy that glows a bright green color in the night air. Lifting the javelin up to eye level he throws it towards Rukia, the green energy spear screaming through the air as it covers the quarter of a mile between the two in less than a second.

Rukia doesn't fear the attack, she counters it by raising her red blade and cutting it in half in flight causing both halves to fly off into the distance of the hollow desert before exploding violently. Ulquiorra studies her for a moment, seeing the change in her appearance as she is seemingly reverting from her awakened state as an arrancar back into a hollow. She's gotten taller, and her clothes have begun to rip as her body shifts and changes. Her mask now covers her face completely, completely covering her head. From behind her, three long fox tails have manifested and flick back and forth tipped with blue fur like the colored markings on her mask. The blades have fused with her arms and the long swordtails that flow from their handles levitate into the air. Suddenly the hole on her chest expands wider and her entire body is enveloped with a cold black and lilac spiritual pressure.

Ulquiorra is nearly blown back by the release of this transformation, the energy now crushing everything around them, threatening to flatten the entirety of Las Noches. It swirls in a massive cyclone around her body picking up massive chunks of the building they're standing on and orbiting them around herself. It intensifies spinning faster and faster causing the larger chunks to be torn apart reducing them to dust as the tornado of energy expands outwards and dissipates. Towering over him is a gigantic hollow, the strongest that he had ever seen, and possibly thousands of times stronger than all of the lesser arrancar.

Tall with one raised vulpine foot raised on a stone, in shredded arrancar's robes is a multi tailed fox hollow. Five long white and blue tipped tails float through the air behind her back. Her body has swelled, becoming more muscular and bleach white. Its arms just above the elbows fused to the blades whose sword tails float upwards behind her. The fox hollow's mask covers her entire head with a set of long antlers sticking up over her head behind her ears. From the mask itself two inward curved horns reach up just a fraction of the length of the antlers atop her head. Her glowing yellow eyes pierce the fourth arrancar, and her mask filled with jagged sharp teeth. As Ulquiorra stares at what she has become, for the first time since he was born here in Hueco Mundo he feels fear. The vasto lorde before him growls before letting out a roar that only one beast could make, the most feared predator of winter. The starved, the depraved... The Wendigo.

With Orihime:

"Ichigo... Ichigo please." She whines, focusing all her miniscule spiritual pressure onto his body trying to speed up the healing process. "Please Ichigo." She cries as Nel peaks her head out of Orihime's cloak.

"Itsygo?" She asks, seeing the wound through his chest and the blood staining the icy sands beneath him. "Itsygo... please get up." the young arrancar begins to cry, her tears staining Orihime's shinigami robes given to her by Kisuke. Suddenly the roar of the vasto lorde echoes through las noches causing their blood to run cold.

"Help us Ichigo... please don't die..." Orihime whimpers as she and now Nel try to pour as much spiritual pressure into him as they can. The child arrancar even uses her strange healing saliva to try to aid in resuscitating him.

Cold, empty and a feeling of falling are all that Ichigo can feel as he lies on the hardened sand. The wound through his chest doesn't ache like a normal stab wound, instead it feels empty and cold. He can no longer see the world around him, but vaguely he can make out the voices of someone next to him. They sound like murmurs, distant and unable to discern what is being said, but one word he does recognize and it's his name. Even through the mumbles he can tell that someone or two people are saying his name, calling out to him even in the void. "Get up." He hears his own voice screaming in the back of his mind, trying to get his broken body to stand and fight. "You need to save her, you need to save everyone... Get up!!!" His subconscious shouts once more. His fingers curl scraping into the sand stone as black red spirit energy begins to bleed out from his body. In the world between life and death, he stands as his body burns with his hollowfied power, "I will protect you!" He shouts as the reishi consumes him.

Orihime falls forwards as Ichigo's body vanishes from underneath her hands, she lifts a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes before noticing a tall shadow looming over her. Almost eleven feet tall, completely bone white with long black painted markings along its horned mask. A skull with a menacing glare, two long bull's horns extending forwards over its face. The full head mask is covered in black markings, with jagged knife sharp teeth. Around the opening of his robes, flared red fur lines the area round his neck, around his wrists and ankles. His orange hair has become so long that it's now draping down his lower back. His hands and feet now have claws over the tips of his fingers and toes. The hole through his chest and shihakusho reveals a wide infinity symbol shaped hollow hole. Orihime looks up in horror at the vasto lorde standing mere inches from her. The mask over its face opens along the mouth for a moment, as it breathes out an angry growl. A black miasma escapes its breath dissipating into the air as it looms over her. Hearing the roar of its mate, the vasto lorde extends an arm out to the side and opens his hand. Instantly the sealed sword that had clattered away jumps into the air before exploding violently in black and red reishi becoming a long black katana dark as a sliver of midnight. He catches it in a single hand and turns to where it heard the roar of his mate. Stomping a massive clawed foot forwards he leans towards the hole left by Rukia and Ulquiorra's fight before letting out a horrific roar answering her call.

Across Las Noches, Pesche, Dondachaka, Chad, Uryu, Renji and Byakuya all feel this sudden transformation in both Rukia and Ichigo. Their combined power radiates through the entire dimension and when they hear the hollowfied roar from Ichigo it shakes all of Las Noches from just the sound alone. The screams of the Vasto Lorde are so loud that the entire mega structure shakes as if being affected by an earthquake. So violently that Pesche and Dondachaka fall over due to the tremors. Uryu gives a terrified look to Renji who returns it back to the quincy, and even the stoic Byakuya himself can't help but feel actual terror from the roar of the two vasto lordes.

"Itsygo?" Nel asks, seeing the gigantic vasto lorde leaning forwards looking towards the hole in the wall. The massive being turns and looks at the tiny arrancar before vanishing, the burst of speed shattering the ground beneath his feet and sending Orihime flying. The orange haired woman clutches the small child to her chest as she uses her powers to catch them both.

Ulquiorra feels the sudden reappearance of Ichigo's spiritual pressure but he isn't given time to study it with his pesquisa. He's staring down the barrel of the reverted vasto lorde form of the cero espada. Realizing that if he doesn't ascend further he's going to die, he flaps his wings and tries to get as far away as possible from the attacking Vasto Lorde. Though Rukia doesn't attack him at first, instead she stares at him and he can't tell if she's sizing him up or waiting for him to release his resurrection once again. Taking this opportunity, he flares his spiritual pressure even higher than it initially was when he transformed, black and green reishi radiates from his body and begins burning away the white robes around his frame. The skin on his arms and legs turns black as fur begins to grow from it, his mask melts away forming two massive elongated ears almost like horns along the top of his head as he grows a tail and his joints shift becoming goat-like. "Resurreccion. Segunda Etapa." He declares, the hollow hole on his chest bleeding a black stain down towards his hips. He stares at Rukia for a moment before seeing something appear beside her.

In front of him stand two vasto lords, one garbed in black and a near invisible sword, and the other with two blades one lilac and the other crimson red that have fused with her arms. Seeing the threat before him, Ulquiorra extends his hands to his center and clasps them together, forming a lance made of his condensed spiritual pressure. He pulls his arms apart extending the blade before clasping it in one hand. "I don't know if either of you can understand me, but you will know the truest definition of despair." He says coldly, in a voice just above a whisper but he gets nothing from the two vasto lordes before him. Flexing his wings outwards he spins the weapon in his hand and prepares to attack. This gesture earns a loud growl from the female vasto lorde as she lunges for him.

She closes the distance between them in less than a second, moving fast enough to create a solid after image in the place where she once stood. She slams both blades against the lance that Ulquiorra is holding and growls. Angry spittle leaking from the sides of her mouth as Ulquiorra strains from the strength of the hollow in front of him. He has to grab the lance with both hands and fuel it further with his spirit energy just to keep her from cutting through it. Suddenly the male vasto lorde appears behind him with his arm raised high into the air, Ulquiorra turns his head slightly to see the white hollow having appeared out of nowhere. "What?! He completely slipped past my pesquisa." He thinks before having to drop a hand from the blade lock and create a second lance in order to protect himself from this on coming sword swipe. Her swords quickly cut through the other lance, cutting straight through Ulquiorra's forearm and the other into his right thigh.

The fourth espada uses a sonido to escape the blade lock between the two hollows, but his hopes of having the male vasto lorde strike the other are quickly dashed as he reappears he sees both having turned to look exactly where he was fleeing to. "I've had enough of you." He declares before lifting a hand and pointing towards the two lords. His severed arm quickly regenerates in a matter of seconds allowing him to raise it for a new attack. A black cero quickly manifests from his hand prompting both hollows to retaliate. The male leans forwards and manifests a massive bright red cero between his horns and the female flexes her four tails and creates four simultaneous purple ceros to fire back. Ulquiorra's eyes widen in fear seeing the five ceros that are about to be fired towards him. Thinking quickly, he spins the remaining lance in his left hand then throws it forwards before firing the cero not a moment later. "Lanza del Relampago." He says as the lance flies through the air right for both hollows.

The male and female vasto lordes fire their own attacks in order to combat what Ulquiorra has thrown at them. The four beams fired by the fox hollow converge into a single massive beam that impacts the lance and the cero thrown by Ulquiorra. The beams explode on contact, sending out a massive shockwave that rips apart the roof of Las Noches destroying the fake daytime sky of the mega structure. Orihime looks up in horror at the fight taking place, watching as a mushroom cloud rises high above the fake city bloating out the moonlit sky above her. As pieces of rubble begin to rain down, Orihime summons Shun Shun Rikka in order to shield herself from the destruction. She turns and clutches Nel into herself in order to protect her and winces expecting the worst. However she's suddenly grabbed by the waist before she's and whoever grabbed her vanishes just as the rubble comes crashing down on the palace below. As she recovers from the save, she sees Captain Kuchiki had managed to grab and transport both her and Nel to safety. "We need to leave." He says calmly, as the two observe the destruction that the three vasto lordes are unleashing on Hueco Mundo.

"The hell is happening up there?!" Renji shouts as he, Chad and Uryu rush over to the captain. "We heard a massive roar then an explosion before the entire roof got ripped off!" He says before looking up at the three figures as the giant white hollow slams a near invisible blade against Ulquiorra's lance. "Is that Ichigo?!"

"That espada snuck up on him, stabbed him in the back and then Rukia went berserk. I was trying to heal him before he transformed too." She explains timidly as they watch the three clash again. "I heard her scream, and then he answered her and vanished. His sword exploded and turned into his Bankai blade."

"He went into Bankai without speaking?!" Renji echoes his disbelief, having looked at the orange haired woman for confirmation for a moment. "Fuck, we need to get the hell out of here." He says before bringing a hand up to his face to summon his mask.

"Don't, you might draw their attention and make them think there's another threat. Pesche and I can open a garganta to get you to the human world but we need to get far away from here first. Don'cha'know." Dondochakka suggests prompting the rescue team to follow the two former fracciones away from ground zero.

Above them, Ulquiorra is in a fight for his life, having to continuously dodge coordinated attacks between the two vasto lordes assaulting him. Every time that he tries to direct attention to one, the other is right there preparing to counter attack. Deciding it's worth the risk to deal with the hollowfied soul reaper first, Ulquiorra slams a hard kick into the female vasto lorde's chest but this gamble doesn't pay out. She had shifted slightly, allowing his foot to pass straight through the hollow hole on her chest before she slashed both blades in opposite directions across his thigh, severing the leg. Before the pain can even register in his mind, he's grabbed by the larger male hollow by the wing and jerked upwards. He catches a split second glance at the massive bull horned hollow before he's yanked backwards and his wing is torn from his back. The two vasto lordes roar once again, their combined screams continuing to shake the entirety of Hueco Mundo. Not giving their prey a chance to recover, the male sonidos behind Ulquiorra stabbing him through the back and out his stomach. Ulquiorra can only watch as the female hollow attacks from head on, stabbing both her swords into his chest, tearing him in half at the waist.

Ulquiorra manages to lift a hand and blast the female hollow in the face with a lesser condensed ball of reishi called a bala, freeing himself from the attack but the damage is already done. He slams hard into a still partially connected piece of the roof of Las Noches, causing it to break off of the wall and fall to the ground below. As he looks up at the two hollows his legs begin to regenerate but they do far slower than he had been able to regenerate his arm. She appears at the other vasto lorde's side, silently observing him for a moment. The massive hollowfied form of the shinigami rips the lower half of Ulquiorra from his blade and offers it to the other vasto lorde allowing her to consume it. "Disgusting creatures." Ulquiorra scoffs but the skull face of the larger hollow instantly turns and looks at him. The larger hollow appears in front of him before slamming his foot down on Ulquiorra's head beginning to charge another massive red cero between its horns. "I should have known, there'd be no mercy from a hollow." He whispers before the beam is fired, consuming both of them in a massive explosion that blows apart the remaining walls that once held Hueco Mundo together.

Byakuya and the rest of the rescue team had managed to escape Aizen's former palace just in time to see it completely obliterated by the largest explosion any of them had ever seen. A massive dome of fire and heat rises over the horizon, completely swallowing Las Noches, reducing it to ash. "Note to self. Never piss them off. Under any circumstances." Renji says aloud but the others all say "Agreed." in unison. In the distance they can see the two vasto lordes ripping apart what is left of Ulquiorra and devouring him. "Now what? We can't just leave them here?" Uryu asks as he pulls up a pair of binoculars to observe what the two are doing in the distance. What he sees shocks him, the hollow form of Ichigo pulls the vasto lorde form of Rukia into himself holding her close as the shell of the hollow begins to fade from his body, and as his goes hers vanishes as well. "They're reverting back to normal, c'mon let's go get them. We need to get back to soul society."

"No, we need to go to the human world. Byakuya says stopping the group from moving forwards. "Aizen's attack is taking place there, and we need to get them to the battle field to defeat him."

"After all that? I don't think they'd have enough power left to even stand a chance." Renji responds before flash stepping away to go catch up with the two.

"Orihime, you will need to use your power to restore their energy. I will assist in this and give them as much as I can." Byakuya says before following his lieutenant to recover the two soul reapers.

"Let's go," Chad as he helps Orihime up off the floor. "We need to stop Aizen."

"Yeah," She chimes in and allows the behemoth of a man to help her gently to her feet. Uryu places his hands on their shoulders then flash steps holding on to the two of them bringing them to Ichigo and Rukia's side. 

(Author's Note: I have to thank G-X9k_Literature for the artwork of Vasto Lorde Rukia. He's also responsible for the cover art on this story and a few other pictures later to come. If you haven't heard of him then go check him out.)