Thank you to AO3 user birble for the prompt that resulted in this ridiculous fic.

"It's loose."

Lilynette, disrespectful brat that she was, did not seem much concerned with the thorny tangle of Nnoitra's reiatsu.

He didn't seem to be paying any attention to her anyway. He had his long arm hooked over an equally long leg and was perched on a rock out in the howling Hueco Mundo desert. It was a wonder she'd even found them so far out.

"So if you see it, make sure to catch it, alright? It's really loud, you won't miss it."

She waved one hand dismissively. Tesla watched her with no expression and a nagging disapproval in the back of his mind. He nodded to show he'd heard her, but it wasn't his place to say if they would hunt or catch this creature loose in Las Noches' echoing white halls. Tesla could elect to help in the absence of alternative orders, of course - but he would take whatever course of action allowed him to remain closest to Nnoitra.

Lilynette clearly knew this, too, because she made a face at him - a bored, disgusted sort of face, with one squinty pink eye peering out from beneath the shadows of her mask. She transferred her stare to Nnoitra. "Hello?" she prompted. "Did you hear me?"

She sounded bold, and Tesla supposed that very few arrancar of any rank would mess with her and risk the ire of the otherwise very hard-to-rouse primera, no matter how weak she was all on her own. But he still saw her unsettled twitch - something hardening in her reiatsu, a sudden wariness behind her eye - when Nnoitra finally responded to her.

"I heard you," he said slowly, in a rough voice that showed it had been a long time since he'd last spoken. He unslung Santa Teresa from where it was balanced over one shoulder. He moved it one-handed, effortlessly.

Telsa closed his eye for a second against the rush of the huge blade's momentum. It crashed into the pale sand an inch from Lilynette's leg. The blade was so big, and she was so short, that the sharp curve reached nearly to her shoulder.

Lilynette flinched.

"Is that all?" Nnoitra growled.

Her eye moved from the sharp curved edge glinting like an unfriendly smile in the false sunlight to Nnoitra's very real, equally unfriendly smile right on his face.

It seemed to occur to her, finally, that Nnoitra might want to pick a fight with Starrk, and that she was all alone with him out here - except for Tesla, of course.

Lilyntte looked away first, as Tesla had known she must. She made an overdramatic annoyed noise and spat. "Whatever... weirdo," she muttered, and then retreated - too fast to be casual.

Tesla's hand drifted to his own zanpakuto, although a spike from Nnoitra's thorny reiatsu stilled him. He didn't show the edge of his temper to Nnoitra, of course, but he felt it all the same. "She insulted-"

"Whatever. She's a coward," sneered Nnoitra, finally unfolding himself from his seat and stretching to his full height. His shadow fell over Tesla in an abrupt wash of shade. "Guess it's what you expect from a little girl, though."

He flicked his wrist and in a spray of sand and a flash of gleaming steel, Santa Teresa's blade came free and soared through the air again, describing a huge, graceful arc that Tesla watched, helpless and fascinated and compelled. The haft met Nnoitra's broad shoulder again. He rested it there, without seeming to even notice the added weight of the giant blade hanging behind him.

"What're you staring at, Tesla?" he barked. He was still smiling, but that could have meant anything.

"Nothing at all, Nnoitra-sama," Tesla lied dutifully, even though the answer was clearly obvious to both of them.

Nnoitra's eye shifted to land on Tesla then. He licked his teeth. "Come on," he decided. "Let's go find this creature."

Tesla blinked. "To catch it, Nnoitra-sama?" he asked carefully, even as he hurried to keep pace. In their sealed forms, Nnoitra's legs were much, much longer and they carried him faster over distances, even when he wasn't trying to move particularly quickly. Tesla didn't mind scrambling to keep up. Nnoitra should not have to slow himself down for Tesla's comfort. The very thought seemed not just improbable but patently ridiculous.

Nnoitra grunted. "Nah. If everyone's gotta keep an eye out, it's probably important... and that means it's powerful." That did seem to be in line with Aizen's usual mode of operation, Tesla had to admit. "And, if we find it first," Nnoitra smiled, "I can fight it first."

Tesla was not so naive as to expect there to be anything left after Nnoitra had fought a thing first. They were going to find it and kill it. He nodded to himself.

Suddenly, Tesla's path was blocked by the broad flat blade of Santa Teresa. He pulled up short so he didn't walk right into it and lose a limb.

Nnoitra turned his head so the dull glow of his single purple eye was fixed on Tesla again. "But to do that," he said in a warning growl, which Tesla felt in the bones of his ankles and clean up his spine like a shiver, "we have to get to it first. Ain't that right, Tesla?"

"Yes, Nnoitra-sama," Tesla agreed.

"So you're not gonna get in my way, are you, Tesla?"

Tesla blinked slowly. "No, Nnoitra-sama," Of course he would not. He never wanted to be in Nnoitra's way. Even as his startled unhappiness at the implied accusation registered, it was being reassessed: Nnoitra-sama did not, despite appearances, expect Tesla to be in the way, of course - if he had, Tesla would have been killed by now. He was only cautioning him. He was reminding Tesla. It wouldn't be safe to get in Nnoitra's way.

Tesla's whole demeanour softened perceptibly. "I would never, Nnoitra-sama," he said, bowing his head.

Nnoitra's eye narrowed. It took a long, still moment before the suspicion in his face faded again, and then he made a noise in his throat and lifted the blade. "Don't," he said shortly - but, pleasantly, without much bite. "What's this thing called again?"

"A 'chicken'," Tesla responded promptly. He was pleased to have ready the answer to Nnoitra's question.

"Huh," Nnoitra said, striding toward the nearest building with purpose. "What the fuck's a chicken?"

That, Tesla didn't know. "I'm not sure, Nnoitra-sama. I've never heard of such a thing before," he admitted, "but if it has evaded capture, and even espada are being troubled to find it, it must be fierce and dangerous."

"It had better," Nnoitra said. Then, "Whatever. It doesn't matter what the hell it is. I'm gonna find it... and kill it."

Tesla felt a smile tug at his mouth, although he restrained himself for propriety's sake. Truly, Nnoitra's determination and dedication were admirable.

They did not immediately find the 'chicken'. Neither one of them was able to locate it via pesquisa, although Tesla could feel everyone from Aizen and Starrk right down to the little blips of adjuchas out in the desert.

"So it's good at hiding," Nnoitra deduced, annoyed. "But that little brat said it's loud," he added.

"Perhaps it is only good at hiding its reiatsu?" Tesla suggested. It was a skill someone could learn but it took a lot of practice and concentration to keep it up.

Nnoitra grunted. He didn't seem especially pleased with the development. His mouth tugged into a grim line and his regular stride turned into a tense stalk in which he came down hard upon the heel of his boot, and the leverage of the heel threw his whole body into the next step. Tesla was not rude enough to presume to tell him not to walk on his own shoes in this way, but he did hope that it didn't break the heels.

"So should we search manually for it..?" Tesla suggested. "It seems we will be able to hear it if we're in the same room..?"

"Shut up, Tesla," Nnoitra said moodily, but this did indeed seem to be the plan going forward. The buildings in Las Noches were all very empty and monochromatic. Tesla did not really understand th need for so much unoccupied space, but the shinigami seemed to like it, and perhaps this was just how buildings were meant to be. Tesla did not have a lot of experience with buildings. He could have written a thesis on bones and on sand and reiatsu and hunger, but he didn't really understand the necessity of buildings.

They certainly weren't conducive to chicken-hunting. They trapped smells and changed the tracking landscape so much that it was unrecognisable, even if he'd known what he was trying to scent. He couldn't see through the walls, either.

Tesla followed Nnoitra with mounting uncertainty beneath his inexpressive facade. They began at the bottom of the building and stuck their heads into rooms as they passed. Nnoitra's stalk became tenser and faster as they went on with no immediate success.

"Hey," growled Yammy, when Nnoitra shoved open his door to inspect the room beyond for a chicken. "What's the big idea?"

Nnoitra made a face and did not bother to answer. Having determined that Yammy was the only creature in the room, he said, "Whatever," dismissively and continued on his way without bothering to close the door behind him.

"Hey," Yammy said, this time louder and, ominously, angrier. Tesla eyed him for a second. He was no threat to Nnoitra, of course, and of little interest to Tesla. Politely, Tesla gave a perfunctory bow. "Excuse me," he said, and closed the door.

"Tesla," Nnoitra roared to him over his shoulder, a fair indication that Nnoitra had noticed his brief inattention and that Tesla should hurry up. Behind Yammy's door was the clatter of his body moving around in the dark room.

"Yes, Nnoitra-sama," Tesla called, and broke into a jog to catch up before Nnoitra's temper became any more... tumultuous. He was already impatient with their hunt, and it would be best not to press him further. There were a great many rooms left to search.

"I would know," Szayel condescended to explain in small, slow words, "if there was a wild animal running around in my laboratory. In fact, I would know if there was anything unauthorised in my entire building."

He brushed a fall of soft-looking hair away from his face, and his golden eyes gleamed behind the frame of his mask in the moment they were left unshadowed. His hair fell again, back into exactly the same place it had been before.

"I know that the two of you came in from the south entry approximately twenty three and a half minutes ago, and I have been watching you since."

Tesla shifted on his heels. He didn't intend for the uncomfortable movement to draw attention, and Nnoitra certainly paid it no mind, but he caught the split-second shift of Szayel's gaze away from Nnoitra and back again. Tesla knew, intellectually, that Szayel did watch everything, but he did not necessarily like the reminder.

Nnoitra seemed utterly unfazed. He opened his mouth. Szyael rudely pre-empted him. "You cannot possibly begin to appreciate my genius and I'm not in the habit of allowing subjects to wander my laboratory in search of some - beast."

Nnoitra tipped his head, letting his inky hair slide across his face in a soft spill that Tesla could hear in the quiet corridor. His hand tightened around the haft of his weapon. "So what you're saying is, I've gotta fight my way in," he said. He smiled, wide and threatening. "I don't mind that..."

"Now, now." Szayel's reiatsu flickered. It was not a happy flicker. He glared between them, evidently assessing the costs and benefits. Nnoitra's smile widened in inverse proportion to his dwindling patience.

Tesla stood with his hands clasped behind his back and observed the exchange in silence. Nnoitra, he knew, would get his way. All that remained to be seen was whether or not Szayel would give in gracefully.

Finally, Szayel drew back from his doorway. With bad grace he snapped, "Don't touch anything."

Predictably, Nnoitra paused at a lab table that held a precariously balanced... something, met Szayel's eyes, reached out and ran one long pale finger over the rim of a beaker. It wobbled. Szayel twitched, but didn't say anything under the threat of Santa Teresa, and Nnoitra smiled ever wider.

There was, however, no loose beast in Szayel's domain either.

"Of course there isn't," he complained, following them out - mostly, Tesla assumed, to be certain they'd left. "As if a being of my calibre allows random beasts to roam the labs? What were you even looking for?"

They told him, and his brow furrowed mildly. "A... chicken," he said, slowly. Then, "Loose in Las Noches?"

"It is apparently very loud," Tesla said neutrally, seeing that Nnoitra was not going to answer him, and feeling it only appropriate to lift the burden of interaction from his master.

"Mm, a cock then. How unusual. I-"

"A what," Tesla said blankly.

He couldn't possibly-

But on the other hand, this was Szayel, so-

"A cock," he repeated, as though he saw absolutely nothing... strange... about that. Then, "Oh, I see," Szayel said, and Tesla immediately regretted prompting him, because that meant he was going to have to listen to him talk more, "For your edification," Szayel began, which seemed like a sure sign that he was about to be very insulting, "the 'loud ones' are referred to as cocks, they're the ones that crow. It's best to be specific - it prevents confusion among the dimwitted masses. Not," his eyes moved from Nnoitra to Tesla and back again, "that you would know the difference, I suppose."

Nnoitra made a mean, derisive, nonverbal noise in his throat.

Tesla felt himself frowning. "I..."

"I do wonder what effect the ambient reishi is having upon its physiology," Szayel said, moving on blithely, "Well, it certainly isn't in my laboratory - or this building. Verona or Lumina would have gotten it if it had been. And I certainly don't have time to go looking for any exotic wildlife."

He pushed his mask up one-handed, and his other hand landed briefly on Tesla's shoulder. He could feel, in that half-second, the hard, cold rush of a much stronger arracar's reiatsu, and it did not give him the thrill that Nnoitra's did. Tesla felt like his whole body lit up with tension.

He stilled and looked up at Szayel - and it was up. Szayel was nowhere near Nnoitra's height, but he was taller than Tesla.

His golden eyes were fixed intensely, and did not seem entirely lucid. Tesla took a step back.

With a sly sideways glance at Nnoitra, Szayel let him go. "Good luck on your, hm, wild goose chase."

He took a step back of his own, then, and Tesla realised they'd come all the way to the exit with him. The door slammed after him, and then a blast door that seemed to be made of, or at least plated with, sekiseki stone fell down after him with a thunderous crash.

Tesla could already feel it sucking at his reiatsu.

He eyed the door. If he entered his released form, he could probably break it with main strength, but Aizen frowned upon destroying the buildings in Las Noches. He waited patiently instead for Nnoitra to stop glaring and decide.

"Come on," he said finally. "There's no point in messing with a weakling like that."

Tesla inclined his head, and so they went.

There were a long few minutes of silence while they walked over the sand on their way to the next building in Las Noches. Tesla kept his attention sharp in case a strange sound could be heard, but it was mostly just the wind and the occasional noise of arrancar voices.

"Tesla," Nnoitra said, a few minutes later, and his head turned in Nnoitra's direction like a weathervane following the wind.

"Yes, Nnoitra-sama?"

There was a short, peeved pause.

"...What the fuck is a goose?"

Oh. That.

"I'm sorry, Nnoitra-sama." Tesla shook his head. He didn't know.

There was a long silence. "Whatever," Nnoitra growled. "We should split up - this is taking too much damn time. Someone else is gonna get to the chicken first!"

"Szayel said it was called a 'cock'," Tesla reminded him.

Nnoitra snorted. "You believe that shit?" he sneered.

Tesla held firm, though. "With every respect, Nnoitra-sama, I believe that... Szayel is too self-absorbed to play so childish a prank."

Pranks, after all, required an interest - however superficial - in the feelings of other people.

"Ha!" Nnoitra shot him a narrow-eyed glare, but he grunted and did not seem inclined toward immediate violence, which Tesla took to mean that his point had been well received.

"Do what you want," Nnoitra grunted. "I'll take Ulquiorra," he added, nodding to one side of the next building.

This, Tesla noted, would conveniently avoid Nnoitra having to talk to, or look at, Tier Harribel. "As you like, Nnoitra-sama."

"Of course it's as I like! What the hell else is a fraccion for?"

"Indeed," Tesla murmured.

Politely, Tesla knocked on the door to the rooms shared among Tier Harribel and her fraccion.

Nobody answered.

That was inconvenient.

Tesla wasn't rude enough - or powerful enough - to barge in, or even to open the door, without an invitation.

He had checked the rest of this half of the building, ignoring the sounds of Nnoitra yelling at Ulquiorra from the other side. Ulquiorra would not break Aizen's rule against releasing inside Las Noches, and he and Nnoitra could never have a proper fight without doing so. He would not miss seeing Nnoitra fight. Therefore, that familiar sound was safe to ignore.

Behind the door, there was a lot of noise.

"No," shrieked Apacci, only slightly muffled, deeper in the room. "It was my idea! I'm giving it to Harribel-sama!"

"Finders keepers," purred Mila Rose, sing-song and taunting.

He couldn't quite make out what was being said in Sung-Sun's softer, cutting voice, but it prompted another unholy screech from Apacci.

Tesla twitched.

It was possible that he was not being ignored, exactly, and simply... nobody had quite heard him.

He knocked again, louder, and was relieved to hear the sound of footsteps.

"Excuse me," he said, and then stopped abruptly as Tier Harribel's reiatsu rushed over him. It was, aptly, a lot like drowning. He blinked once, twice, slowly.

"Yes," she said, calm and patient, but plainly also wondering what he was doing there. He felt the chilly wash of her pesquisa. Looking for Nnoitra, he supposed. Her eyes narrowed, piercing behind her bright blond hair. "Do you need help with something?"

His voice made its reappearance as soon as he adjusted to the overwhelming feeling of her presence.

"Yes," he said. The argument was much quieter inside, now that the door was open and he was there. The tres bestias' version of etiquette, perhaps. After a second, he said, "I'm looking for a... cock."

There was a short pause. The argument in the room had gone silent, too.

"Well," said Harribel, and Tesla could see beneath her messy hair that her eyebrow lifted incrementally. Her voice was halfway to amused when she went on: "He's not here."

Tesla, too, paused. "That's not..."

Distantly, he heard the crash of something inside Tier Harribel's rooms.

"Ah," said Harribel. "Maybe you could elaborate," she suggested tolerantly.

"A beast called a 'chicken'," he amended, "or a 'cock'."

"In Las Noches?"

"Indeed."

"Stay there," she said, soft but warning, and the feeling of her overwhelming reiatsu withdrew with her. "Sung-sun, Apacci, Mila-Rose, have you seen - any unusual living creatures?" he heard her ask. "Recently?"

He waited patiently, wondering if maybe Nnoitra had been right and Szayel was lying. It didn't seem likely... But Harribel's response certainly suggested it.

There was an indecipherable clamour from inside, each of Tier Harribel's fraccion trying to one-up the other with news of what they had seen in Las Noches. None of it sounded terribly relevant, but one needed to be sort of an expert to untangle all of it.

"No," said Harribel, finally, reappearing, and since she was an expert, Tesla took her at her word.

"Thank you," he said.

"Hmm," said Harribel, and then closed the door in his face.

They did eventually find the chicken.

Lilynette had been quite right: it was extremely noisy. Its bursts of uncertain warbling echoed down the corridor from the room in which it had ensconced itself.

"That's gotta be it," Nnoitra declared, slamming open a door. The noise got louder as fewer obstacles remained between them and the creature.

He kicked open the nearest door. The noise did not get louder - not that one.

But there was a huge, dizzying rush of reiatsu. It eclipsed the thorny tangle of Nnoitra's and even Tier Harribel's did not compare. Tesla's feet were planted very firmly on the ground, so he did not sway genes the enormous pressure of it, but he did feel as though all the breath had left his lungs. His eye watered as though it was stung.

Even Nnoitra paused in the doorway for a second.

"Oh," said Starrk, from a reclining heap of limbs and coat and cushions. "Hmm. Visitors?"

Nnoitra scowled furiously down at him. Tesla could well imagine how annoyed he must be that someone with so much dark, roiling power was so disinterested in doing anything with it - least of all fighting.

He saw one of Nnoitra's curved boots twitch, as though he might be tempted to kick Starrk in the side. Tesla had a lot of faith in Nnoitra, but he wasn't completely certain this was a good idea.

Nnoitra settled for a much gentler toeing motion, of the sort he usually reserved for Tesla. Tesla felt, briefly and irrationally, yet incandescently, jealous.

"We're looking for the stupid chicken thing. I can hear it, where is it?"

Starrk hummed, apparently unoffended by the toe in his side. Starrk was a hard arrancar to rile, which was in itself unusual - adjuchas did not tend to rise from the mass of personalities that comprised a gillian without being personalities with very strong feelings. Starrk... was something of a puzzle. You didn't usually get an adjuchas from someone whose only stand-out trait was being more pathetic than every other personality. Which meant there had to be something else, which meant... Tesla did not know what it meant. That was the puzzle.

Starrk was eyeing Nnoitra with one slow sleepy eye. "You're going to take care of it? Lilynette said she'd catch it hours ago..."

He pointed them to his left and mumbled a complaint about the noise keeping him awake - but then he waved vaguely at them and rolled over and immediately went back to sleep, so Tesla wasn't sure how honest that complaint could be.

Tesla closed the door very carefully on that enormous, terrible reiatsu. Even that flimsy barrier lessened its effect. He flexed his hands and ignored his own weak knees.

"Hurry up," snapped Nnoitra, who presumably had little idea of - or interest in - the impact a reiatsu like Starrk's might have on any lesser arrancar. Even Aaroniero struggled to stand next to Starrk for long periods. Tesla wasn't quite sure how Lilynette managed it.

They followed Starrk's lazy pointing gesture and did, finally, locate the source of the noise.

It was... small.

And feathered.

A bird, Tesla decided, but not like Abirama. Like... a living bird. It was small and frightened and, he was pretty sure, the reason they couldn't feel its reiatsu was because it didn't have very much. Less than a gillian - less than a lesser hollow, even. Less than a single human soul.

"This thing?" Nnoitra demanded.

Tesla toed a stain on the floor, frowning. He could definitely smell that. Was that the smell of chicken? It was... incontinent?

"THIS THING?"

"Ah..." Tesla did not know quite what to say. There was nothing he would be able to do to assuage Nnoitra's temper like this. Only blood would do, and he doubted a single, solitary... "chicken" had enough of it.

Nnoitra snarled, a noise that echoed off the walls terribly, and further avian incontinence followed immediately. Tesla wrinkled his nose.

Nnoitra's reiatsu flexed, and unlike with Szayel or Tier Harribel or Starrk, Tesla relaxed into the familiar, angry prickle of it. His eye fluttered. His blood rushed, heavy in his body, thick with anticipation. There was no reason for it - he was not expecting a particularly interesting showdown, here. But the sense of Nnoitra's anger, the rising potential for violence in the air, the hot flood of his reiatsu over Tesla's senses, all nevertheless produced the effect.

Enraged, Nnoitra stamped forward. He did not unsling his weapon from his shoulder - he reeled back and, quite as he had not with Starrk, he slammed the pointed tip into the chicken's side and punted it across the room.

It made a hideous crowing noise before it hit the wall with a wet, ugly crunch. Then it hit the floor with a sort of ...spattering noise.

It smelled like iron, like rust. The smear was almost artistic.

Nnoitra made another frustrated noise and turned on his heel, away from the bird. One bent feather stuck up out of the wet mess of its body.

"What a waste of fucking time," Nnoitra complained, looping both his arms over the haft of Santa Teresa, bracing it against the back of his neck. "Ahhhh... I'm already bored again," he lamented.

"It was disappointing." Tesla knew better than to offer him condolences. There was no such thing as sympathy for Nnoitra, no matter how well a person intended: just the bitter sting of pity.

He clasped his hands behind his back and followed Nnoitra away from the little bird, out to the desert, to find more interesting things to kill.

This fic came from a prompt given to me by Birble - apparently in BBS it is heavily implied that Tesla and Nnoitra don't know what a chicken is, so he suggested I lean into that when I was whining about not knowing what to write.

As ever, if there was something you liked and you feel like commenting, please let me know; otherwise have a good night!