Bleach: Ultimate Alien

Night of the Monsters

Nelliel was gritting her teeth as hard as she could, clutching at her now bleeding stump of an arm. So this was the power of Segunda Etapa. Never had she known that such a power existed. How Ulquiorra could have discovered it was beyond her. Managing to fight off the tears, Nelliel looked around to see what was happening. She could Orihime was running towards something while crying. Crying? Why was she crying? She turned her head towards the direction that Orihime was running to. She froze when she saw Ichigo lying on the ground. Although she was kneeling on the ground, she could see that Ichigo now had a massive hole in his chest.

"Oh no," she whispered, looking over at her friend in sadness. She could not blame Orihime. She would've done the same thing if that had happened to Ben. That thought jolted her.

Ben? Where was Ben? And also, where was Ulquiorra?

It didn't take her long to find Ulquiorra. He was standing with his back to her, facing...well to Nelliel it looked like some kind of ghost. The being had lines all over its body, spindly arms with droopy hands but pointed fingers, a tail instead of legs, all the while glaring at Ulquiorra with one big green at the side of its head. Nelliel would never have recognized him if it wasn't for the green symbol on the being's chest.

"Ben?" she breathed.

"Indeed," a voice beside her said. She turned to see the man known as Professor Paradox kneeling by her. He was inspecting her wound. "Ben has become a rather unique creature known as an Ectonurite. This particular individual is labeled by Ben as Ghostfreak."

"Ghostfreak?" Nelliel repeated. She looked at the ghostly creature.

"Yes, Ben has quite the history with that form," Paradox told her. "However, it's a rather long history that I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in. In the mean time, let's focus on healing your wound."

Had she been in her right mind, she would've asked Paradox how he could possibly heal an arm being separated from her body. The man didn't look like he had any special abilities. But she was not in her right mind. She simply watched as the one she loved was going to be battling someone who tossed both her and Harribel like ragdolls.

"Please be careful," she whispered quietly.

She then became aware of Paradox suddenly holding her severed arm in one hand and Gamuza in the other. When did he do that? He walked over to her and connected the severed arm with her still bleeding stump.

"Close your eyes," he told her.

Confused, Nelliel did close her eyes. She wasn't sure what happened next but...she opened her eyes and saw her arm reattached to her body. She stared at Paradox. How could he have...?

"It's all in the timing," he said cryptically at her as he handed her back Gamuza. She grabbed it with her reattached arm to make sure it was working right. Nothing seemed out of order.

(In case any of you are wondering, one of Paradox's time abilities is that he can reverse time in certain ways. He simply reversed Nelliel's arm back to before it had gotten ripped off by Ulquiorra.)

"Thank you," she told Paradox. She got up, ready to help Ben.

"No," Paradox told her firmly. "Going in there will just bring about the same result."

"But," Nelliel wanted to argue. How could Paradox allow Ben to go up against Ulquiorra alone?

"Sometimes, one must wait for the opportunity to come to them," Paradox said to her."Besides, Ghostfreak will give Ulquiorra the run around for a while."