Spoils of the Hunt [OPEN]

At first, Gray had thought that throwing his sword at Lance while Ophelia was close by was a bad idea; there was a good risk of her getting hit by it instead. But he was confident that she would be able to dodge it, especially since he had warned her. He was proved right when she sonido'ed away. Unfortunately, this meant that Lance was also alerted to the attack. Still, Gray had gotten rid of the overly large weapon in favour of something more versatile; that was a plus. Even so, he would have to be more careful from here on out, with all of the water in the room, he could end up freezing the whole area over, and everyone else along with it.

He saw Lance facing Ophelia and suddenly blurring out of sight. Assuming that the Arrancar was about to attack the Hollow again, Gray attempted to rush forward to attack him, only to gasp in shock as he was grabbed and forced underwater. At first, he thrashed around, as was the reaction that anyone would have after being pinned down underwater. Then he began to see them; memories long buried by Gray's need to move forward; the loss of the two people who had saved his life, and how he had caused the death of one, and ruined the life of another. The instant he had opened his eyes underwater, what he saw was Ur's death and Lyon's despair. For a few seconds, Gray was still, staring at nothing, but seeing everything.

Then he noticed himself starting to feel light-headed, and realized that he was panicking, and under the influence of Ophelia's ability. Mentally berating himself for almost losing it so easily, Gray squeezed his eyes shut to block out the offensive memories. Given the pressure on his neck, Gray knew that someone was holding him down, and that it was most likely Lance. He couldn't stay underwater for much longer or he would run out of air, but there wasn't much he could do. But, there was almost always a way out of everything.

Forming the ice blades on his forearms was the best thing he had done this entire time; if he hadn't he would have no chance. Because of how the blade on his right arm was shaped -- curved like a sickle and jutting back from his elbow -- he could hack at whatever was holding him down if he swung the blade in the right direction. Granted, he couldn't move as fast as usual underwater, but the blades were sharp enough that speed really didn't matter in this case. Knowing this, Gray made a motion that one would take to elbow someone, blindly swinging the wickedly curved ice blade up at Lance's leg that was holding him down. Once he felt the blade make contact with the Arrancar, he would push harder, in attempt to force the blade deeper to get Lance off of him.

As Czaiohme completely lost it, clearly due to the effects of Ophelia's power, she knew she had succeeded. Though slightly annoying, the telepathic screams and gunfire were effectively a nuisance for her. She was well accustomed to despair and hysteria thanks to the nature of both her power and as a Hollow. The Arrancar fighting Nikolai would be subdued for a while, or at least completely unfocused.

Ophelia could hear the thunder's low rumble, which told her a few things. This part of whatever building they were in could not be far from the outside, given the fact that they could hear the weather generated by Nikolai. This gave them an escape route. Remembering that this was a fight to flee from the enemy's grasp and not to finish their foes, Ophelia set to work on that, unhindered at the moment by Lance. She heard Nik's alert to stay out of the water, and she did with good reason, familiar with his power over lightning. Raising her palm to point away from the battle and up towards the part of the roof in the hall where she heard the thunder, Ophelia unleashed a storm blue Cortar Cero, disintegrating the construction in its path and opening a hole to the two upper levels with its penetrative power. Beyond the third was a main dome of Las Noches, and their way out; she would need to use another Cero to reach it. In order to keep up the pressure on Lance, she then turned to launch a Sudden Despair in his direction, making sure to angle it not to hit Gray if he was released.

When Gray felt his blade his hit Lance's foot, he pressed harder still. His main goal was to get the Arrancar off of him so that he wouldn't drown, but he wouldn't mind if he also caused some real damage to the Primera. Just as he was starting to wonder if he had hit Lance, or something else, he felt an intense stinging sensation run through his entire body. It almost felt like there was hot, thick water rippling under his skin. At first, he thought it was some sort of attack from Lance, but then he vaguely remembered that Nikolai used electricity, and he was fighting another nearby. One of his attacks must have electrified the water, and there was nothing that Gray could do about it; he couldn't make any voluntary movements while he was being shocked like this.

Just when he thought that he was going to black out, the electricity stopped, and the Arrancar lifted his foot off of Gray. His immediate need for air made it easy for Gray to get past the numbing effects of the shock and force himself up out of the water and on to his feet, although his movement was rather sluggish, and his heart was still beating furiously from the electrocution. That bastard... Gray thought, nearly gasping for air. He was pretty surprised that the Primera had actually tried to drown him. It was a... creative way to fight; he had to admit.

He saw what looked like a big black wolf charging Ophelia. Given the Reiatsu signature, Gray knew that it was Lance. He had no idea that Arrancar could shape shift, either. That didn't matter though; Lance was now leaving himself wide open. While he was attacking Ophelia, there wasn't much he could do to defend himself. He had lost the advantage of dexterity by turning into an animal, and Gray didn't plan on giving him a chance to revert back to his original form.

He ran after the wolf, pretty quickly for one who had just been electrocuted. Just as Lance was about to bite Ophelia, Gray came up behind him, and swung his left hand, and the ice blade along with it, towards Lance's back, quickly following up with a quick slash from his other blade. The slashes were strong enough to cut deep, but he made sure that they wouldn't hit Ophelia even if the Arrancar somehow dodged them. He wasn't using Seven Slice Dance for precisely that reason. If he did so this close, he would most likely hit Ophelia a few times as well.

Ophelia recoiled as she could feel some feral beast charging into her. It reminded her very much of a rather nasty Hollow she had once devoured. This tactic was familiar to her, a denizen of Hueco Mundo; though nigh impossible to evade completely due to their difference in speed, Ophelia could soften the blow. Letting the mouth grate part of her mask fall to cover her throat, Ophelia’s human mouth and nose were revealed. She parted her lips wide, swiftly unleashing a point-blank Cero right at Lance’s lupine face, attempting to force the bite further along her shoulder to cause less severe damage. Whether or not it actually struck, she could not tell yet, but the bite was far enough off course because of the reflexive attack that it only shallowly bit into her shoulder, rather than the severe damage she would have taken.

Due to being ignored and forgetting for a good while now, the orb of water she had initially created had at least quadrupled in size. It was beginning to have a hard time fitting in the dungeon hallway, and was threatening to be quite a nasty surprise. Realizing now was the best opportunity, Ophelia activated a dormant storage of her spiritual energy, resulting in a catalytic reaction within the massive ball of water. Its surface ruptured before exploding violently, sending high pressure water in every direction. It was too far away from Ophelia, Lance, and Gray to catch the other two off guard, so they would be able to weather the blast with sufficient technique. At the same time, the force of the explosion combined with Ophelia’s powers caused all of the water around it to blast away at high speed as well. The surging currents slammed against the iced over surfaces, shattering the frozen parts, and sending all of it crashing into walls and further down the hallway. The water level did not drop, as no water was introduced or removed from the lower levels, but it did clear away all of the ice and carry away anything caught up in its current, including Czaiohme and Nikolai if they were still lingering.

Gray jumped back as Lance was thrown up in the air by Ophelia's Cero. "Nice shot!" He exclaimed, upon seeing that it had gotten the Arrancar right in the face. He deserved it; that was for sure. He had not been particular attention to the ever-growing orb of water created by Ophelia, but he was aware of it. When it exploded, he held a hand up in the direction of the oncoming blast of water. "Shield!" He said, and a thick, spiky disc of ice formed above him, taking the force of the explosion in his place, shedding the water like an umbrella.

After the water subsided, Gray grabbed on to the side of the shield, in a spot that had no spikes so that he didn't cut himself. He planned on doing what he had done against Daxel with the shield, since no one usually expected such a move. By now, Gray was starting to get accustomed to Lance's speed. He expected him to appear suddenly after attacking Ophelia, and so he didn't let his guard down, this time.

When he felt the Arrancar's presence suddenly appear next to him, Gray tightened his grip on the shield and swung it around in a horizontal arc. He didn't even bother to wait and see how the Primera would attack, he just swung. The hard, spiky plate of ice was likely to hit Lance's leg with great force, unless he pulled back. Even if he did, he could still be hit by it unless he completely backed off completely.

Before Ophelia could react to much of anything Lance was going to do, she would have to get back on her feet and turn this battle around. As she began to prepare an attack to lay into the Lance she could see before her, it turned out to be merely a ruse. As it happened, his full speed in his released state was far more terrifying than before, as it left illusions in his wake. The Vasto Lordes was unprepared for this trick, and so, when grabbed from behind and knocked into the wall of the palace, all consciousness disappeared from her.

After letting go, Ophelia's subdued form fell from the height into the water, making a large splash before all of it seemed to drain away in a matter of minutes. At this point, she was out of the battle. If Nikolai and Gray were still intent on escaping, they would need to bring her along without her being awake and somehow finish the fight themselves.

As soon as he felt the icy shield pass through empty air, Gray knew that he had missed again; he wasn't fooled by the after image. As soon as the Primera's after image faded, Gray dropped the shield to the ground. As far as he was concerned, it wouldn't be of much use any more. He planned to finish this with Seven Slice Dance. "You won't get the chance." Gray responded, sliding his left foot forward a bit in preparation to attack, but stopped when he saw Lance jump back and do something weird with his hand.

Gray jumped back a couple feet as Lance's Reiatsu exploded, raising his arm in front of his face as a means of shielding himself. It was then that he noticed his blades were beginning to melt. And he still didn't know what had happened to Ophelia after Lance had attacked her last. The thought that he may have killed her angered Gray, even though he had only known her for a short while; they didn't deserve this.

Gray was about to charge forward to attack the thing that emerged from the smoke, before it disappeared, and Gray's expression shifted from anger to shock as he was grabbed by the head again. Shocked by the deafening roar, he had no time to do anything before he was slammed into the ceiling. There was an explosion of pain in his head before his vision went dark for a second. He had only blacked out for a moment, but now his sight was so blurry, that he could barely distinguish anything. In fact, he barely knew what was going on now; he just knew that there was something attacking him, holding him against some hard surface, and that it was very big and pissed off.

He drew in a shaky breath as blood began to run down his face. His ice blades, curiously, started to turn black. Even through the haze of pain and disorientation that clouded his mind, Gray still tried to fight. He was planning on trying to use Midnight Assault on Lance as soon as he got a chance, even though there was no way he would be able to move fast enough to carry it out, now. It was the only thing left that he could try.

Just as Gray summoned up the strength to raise his arm and attempt to swipe at Lance with one of his ice blades, he was stopped dead by the surge of electricity running from the Arrancar, into him. He blacked out again as he was electrocuted for the second time that day; clearly, he wasn't going to be able to fight for much longer.

There was nothing that Gray could do to avoid being thrown towards Nikolai. He was paralyzed by the lightning and barely even conscious as it was. Everything went black as Gray slammed into the Bount. What was left of the ice blades on his forearms and whatever other frozen objects left by him rapidly vanished as he lost consciousness, not getting up again this time.

[OCC: Sorry for the short post, but there really isn't much more I can throw in there.]

Gray was brought back to wakefulness by the jolt of electricity, only to be dropped back into the electrified water, receiving another slight shock. Moments later, he slowly got to his feet, disorientated and weakened from the beating he had taken moments before, but otherwise, all right. It took him a moment to grasp what was going on, as he looked between Ophelia, Nikolai, and Lance, but he soon came back to his senses and got a grip on the situation.

We've got this. He realized when he saw that Lance was back to his normal form, and the other Arrancar was down. Ophelia had not gotten up yet, but even if she didn't, himself and Nikolai could probably handle Lance, in his weakened condition. He wasn't going to attack right away, since Nikolai was attacking him right now, and Gray would only interrupt it, but this did give him time to prepare a larger scale attack of his own. A circle of white Reiryoku formed along the ground at Gray's feet, and he raised his arms as a large object started to form slightly above him. Soon enough, he was holding what looked to be a large cannon made out of ice. He couldn't shoot yet, though, since Lance had a hostage.

[OCC: yeahhh, remembered after I had the post finished that Lance has a hostage. Kinda ruined what I had going on, so I deleted most of it, but honestly didn't want to think up a whole different post because of that, so yeah. ._. that kinda just... ruined this whole thing for me. xD]

Nikolai's electricity surged through her body, causing her muscles to twitch in various ways. Though she lacked a heart where humans possessed them, the rather crude defibrilation did serve its purpose by waking her up. Taking in a gasping breath, her lungs filled with Reishi. It was not enough to heal her, as she would need time to focus to do that, but it was enough to renew her attack. As well, her state of mind was now jolted into action by the shock it had received.

Looking around in a panicked state, she was surprised she had woken up at all. A loss for a Hollow usually meant death no matter who they fought; such was the fate of their kind. And yet, it seemed her allies had lasted just long enough for her to regain consciousness. They could still win. Gray was preparing a long-ranged attack nearby, while Nikolai's Spielen had seemingly transformed and began assaulting Lance. Nik himself was nowhere to be seen, but his energy could be felt at Spielen, so maybe he was using the machine as an armor of sorts. Czaiohme had apparently collapsed in the water. Lance himself was holding someone who seemed to be his hostage. That was curious. Had the tides shifted so much in their favor that he was on the defensive now?

Ophelia took a cursory impression of the alleged hostage. She had not been present before, but it was possible that she had been in a cell and was freed by the damage being done to the dungeons. She smelled foul, her spiritual energy like fire and brimstone...where had she smelled that before?

Xavier! The hostage was a sinner from Hell. Helpless or not, her soul had committed some atrocity so horrible that she was damned to suffer for eternity. Ophelia would have no qualms of her getting caught up in their attack. Mustering her strength, the Vasto Lorde charged with renewed vigor, appearing with Sonido low to the ground at the hostage's feet, out of the line of fire of Nikolai's and Gray's attacks, as well as out of line of sight of Lance. Looking upward, her eyes piercing through the woman's abhorrent body and aiming at the Primera's torso behind her, Ophelia's face guard dropped, and with it, her mouth. Storm blue rapidly collided in the space before her open jaws, and with Lance holding her like he was, she would be force to overpower him to get out of the way in time. There would be no time to warn him to move, as Lance would be too late by the time her Cero fired, and unless he could perceive her attack without seeing her, he himself would be unaware until it was already too late, thanks to Lust blocking his view. The Cero blast released, its wide angle more than capable of engulfing the two of them should Lance retreat further away to dodge Nikolai's beam, and ducking under the beam would only put both his and Lust's head directly in the point-blank blast. Dodging forward with Sonido would leave him vulnerable to Gray's cannon fire should he choose to face Nik or Ophelia, and using the hostage to shield himself from Gray's potential attack would leave his back dangerously exposed to a follow through by Nik and Ophelia. They had him cornered now; would it be checkmate?