Fear Not the Reaper.

((OOC: I'd just like it to be known that i intend this to take place during Salem's fight with the NPC Arrancar T-Bone in the main story.))

"We have met before, you and I" The voice came with the clang of steel in his mind, or was it his mind, he couldn't quite say. He saw nothing, he felt nothing, just a never ending black but at the edge of his hearing there were sounds perhaps yells, screams, he couldn't quite say.

"Where am i?" He asked. He looked down but saw no hands, no body, no feet, fear gripped him.

"On the cusp of death, the Abyss, between life and eternal slumber...where i reside Again the every syllable was pierced by the sound only comparable to swords battering against one anthers edge.

Sal tried to absorb what the thing, the creature, was saying but it seemed like we was grasping at grains of sand, only one thing rung clear in his mind. "You said we had met before..."

"In the Tomb of the Fallen Captain, my former wielder..." There was a piecing screech of grinding metal that reverberated across the expanse. "I chose you....i gave you my strength, you asked me my name...but you were to weak to accept such power... The screams at the edge of his hearing grew clearer, more defined, as the being spoke. All around him, in the dark, people were dying. He could hear them, crying out in rage and impotent frustration as their lives were ended.

"You mean...the power was to much and i forgot?" Sal was trying to take all this in but being a disembodied essence was impeding his ability to focus on anything else.

"Indeed...."

"Then why am i here?"

"Without a wielder...without one strong enough i am nothing, a titan forced to slumber, a god trapped in stone... The sounds seemed to slash the air and he found himself recoiling. "You must learn what i am, you must live...

"Sounds simple enough....i just need to learn your name again don't i?" He said his spirits lifting a bit.

"The last time was a test....you failed miserably. The veil drew back and Sal raised a hand to shield himself from the amber glow of a setting sun on the horizon. He was surprised to see he actually HAD a hand to do this with. He lowered it and then wished he hadn't.

Around him, for miles, was battle. Men fighting and dying, more coming to take the place of the fallen. The smell of death, of sweat, and blood stung his nostrils. The clash of weaponry, the furious battle cries, the screams of anguish all assaulted his ears. He looked around but none paid him attention, no one even seemed to see him and then the fighting stopped. Silence rolled out before him as each and every combatant turned to face the setting sun.

From the silence he felt, more than heard, a slow and rhythmic rumble and it took him a few seconds to realise what it was...foot steps. Without warning bodies were flung into the air, some whole, some not so, from the front of the gathered thousands. The crowd cried out as one and dove toward this new threat but just as the first, the second, the third, the fourth and countless other waves were cut down without mercy, decapitated, disembowelled but always flung more than thirty feet from where the strike had fallen. Sal couldn't see through the throng of people rushing to an inevitable death and he found himself pushing onward, grabbing a sword that was stuck in the belly of a dead warrior as he moved through the battle field to the fray. He needn't have bothered, whatever it was was seeking him.

As he neared the back of the crowd it parted in a flash of steel, a sweeping blade unlike anything he'd seen before carved a hole ten men wide. In this hole stood a massive being, ten feet tall, silver and black armour adorning its body. On its head a full faced helm of black with silver horns curling out from each side of it. Sal could see no eyes in the dark slits of the helm but he had the distinct feeling it was looking at him.

Without even looking behind it the armoured warrior flung back a fore arm and bowled over two sneaky attackers and then with a frightening speed whiled round in a wide circle on the ball of on massive metal foot and cleaved what remained of the unfortunate souls. It came back to facing him from its spin and then it hefted the six foot long broad sword up onto one shoulder and stood, watching him as he watched it.

"Why did you bring me here?" He asked, knowing in the pit of his stomach that THIS was his Zanpakuto.

"To show you what becomes of those that fail my tests....they linger on the field of battle, trying desperately to reclaim me, to prove themselves worthy to receive what i have to give.. It said, unmoving like a metal Golem.

"Al-all these people...tried to learn your secrets....and...failed?" He gulped and felt a sickness set into his stomach, there were so many...thousands upon thousands of corpses...doomed to fight for an eternity because they had not the strength to complete the Zanpakutos tasks. One massive nod of the helm was all the answers he was given. He had a choice...die or risk fighting forever with a chance, no matter how small, of succeeding.

"Not really a choice is it?" He thought and then with a chuckle said aloud. "Reckless is what i do....Tell me what you want me to do Tin Man." He said and something akin to peace had fallen over him, it wasn't confidence but an acceptance that even if he failed he had made the right decision.

"Fight...no more, no less. The Zanpakuto said.

Sal looked at the knotted and scratched Katana he held in his hands and then at the monstrous behemoth of a weapon the armoured Juggernaut held. Wasn't exactly fair...but as he kept reminding himself, it wasn't about what was fair...it was about survival. He launched himself at the Zanpakuto, hoping his speed would keep him ahead of that meat cleaver, but his hopes were dashed.
His strike was fast, very fast, and physics dictated that nothing so large should be able to move so swiftly but it did. His Katana hit the Broadsword like it had always been there and he'd only just noticed.
The return strike was just as fast and it took an extreme act of concentration to flash step himself backwards, the foe kept coming. Moving forward swiftly cleaving the ground, it sought to strike the appearing and disappearing Sal as he appeared every few milliseconds in one stage or another of a one handed black flip like a movie with frames missing.

He stopped his rapid retreat hoping to catch his enemy off guard and it appeared he had done so even illiciting a look of shock, if that were possible on a blank metal face, as he took the force of a downward slash on his Katana positioned over head, with only marginal strain. He was mistaken however, in the blink of an eye a massive metal boot collided with the whole of his chest and sent him tumbling backwards across the war torn plain.

He sway the length of metal descend on him from his brief glimpses of the sky that came in and out of his vision through out the tumble and in desperation hand sprung himself out of the way as his upped body spun to face the ground sending him clear and skidding across the ground as he tried to stay upright. The Zanpakuto showed no signs of frustration, it showed nothing at all, and he was reminded of a line from a very VERY old movie that was something of a cult classic even 300 years later.

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." The Terminator...yeah he could imagine what Sarah Connor had felt like....he really could.

But you're a Rock and Roll Star, remember? He thought and it made him laugh. His laughter seemed to give the Steel Warrior pause as he made his steady advance, unsure what the joke was or what trick the Glaswegian had up his sleeve. "What an arrogant bastard i am..." He smiled and charged forward, diving left and then right as his foe sought to split him from head to toe, never slowing until he was well within attack range. He leapt a foot in the air, his momentum carrying him ever forward, and slashed repeatedly at the armoured head and shoulders of his enemy, sparks cascaded across his face and body, the world a slow and dramatic place in his mind as adrenaline did its work giving him a heightened sense of things. The sword bit deep into his side, he felt ribs split, internal organs lacerate but pain can be harnessed and if he said he had one talent it was turning pain into something far more useful. Anger, pure and utter rage.

He was still in the air, time still trying to play catch up, the sword buried in his side. He let go of his own, barely even registered its clatter to the ground, and gripped the thick wrist of his foe. In a display of the latent strength that had seen him through his days in the afterlife he twisted the metal in his grip and heard it creak and give way. The Broadsword began to fall, but his reflexes and his heightened awareness enabled him to release the broken wrist, grab the sword, retract it from his body and planting both feet on his foes shoulders for support, bring it crashing down on that fucking emotionless Helmet.

The sword cut through the metal with ease, slashing a gaping hole from the its top to the slits in its centre. The massive body began to topple but Sal wouldn't stop, even as it fell he smashed the sword again and again into the scarred metal and even when the force of his foes impact with the ground caused the Broadsword to jar and fall from his hands he proceeded to punch the serrated metal surface. Blood drunk they called it, were one passes by the point of higher thought and the animal instincts that we humans chose to forget we have take over. His knuckles split from the blows, blood covered them and gushed from his opened wound but such was the force of his punches that the Helm was nothing more than a flattened and misshapen lump of metal by the time his strength failed him and he rolled onto his back beside the metal body.

"It is not arrogance that drives you..." The Voice came from everywhere around the battle field. "You live your life, with little regard for the fears and worries that stop others from living theirs and merely existing...death to you, is just another adventure." He managed to raise his head, he could feel his lung collapsing, his breath coming ragged and laboured. The Katana he had used rose from the ground, hung vertical over him, point down, and then fell plunging toward his body at the very last second it did a 180 degree turn and his hand shot out and caught it by the handle. Sparks flew from its metal and then the surface of the aged Katana cracked and shattered as a new blade, the one the armoured foe had used, erupted from it like a snake shedding its skin. "I am Claidheamh Mor, you are worthy Scotsman...rise.

((OOC: Yeah I know I'm staff and all but if i made any mistakes in the below it was like that when i got here...>.>))

Call out phrase: Sound the funeral bell, Claidheamh Mor!!

Description of released form:

With a length of almost 5ft(55") Claidheamh Mor is a massive weapon. Its blade a bright silver, its hilt a dark grey with two prongs coming off either side ending in sharp spikes. The handle is simple and functional with a black fabric grip wound around it. Its pommel is also a silver spike.

Ability 1: Claidheamh Mor's released form grants the wielder substantially increased strength.
+5 to Fighting Skill.

Ability 2: Gained after "200" amount of ZE.


Ability 3: Gained after "300" amount of ZE.

I'm going to give a pending approval, when we get the numbers crunched on that ability of yours.

Approved. Of course