The Multiverse Team

Chapter 2

Ichigo watched as the strange blue-skinned people took the others and loaded them onto the hovercraft, if that was even what it was. Apparently, only the other four guys could see him. At least he still had that.

He considered going after them, but before he got the chance, a small mound of snow moved near him. He immediately froze (as in stopped moving, not turned into an icicle, though that was a possibility). With that one action, Ichigo missed his window and the vehicles moved off, almost faster than he could follow.

The mound moved again, and Ichigo fixed his eyes on it. Then, it practically exploded, revealing a fluffy lion plush toy. And this particular toy had an attitude.

However, today it was strangely silent.

Ichigo walked over and lifted it by the arm. "Guess I should have figured you'd come up with a way to follow me, Kon. Come on, why so silent? Finally decided to act like a real toy?"

He spun the toy around and stood up, watching the mystery vehicles disappear into the distance. He noticed that they left slightly disturbed rivets of snow in their wake. He was about to start following them when the toy lurched in his hands, and an annoying but familiar voice started yelling.

"Ichigo! Why did you have to spin me? I'm miserable enough as it is! I mean, seriously, whoever decided to drop me in a frozen wasteland is going to be beaten to a pulp when I find them!"

Ichigo tossed the toy, Kon, into the air and caught him by the head. "Shut up! In case you haven't noticed, I'm in the same situation as you, and I'm not whining!"

"Yeah, but you can't feel cold!"

Ichigo sighed and set Kon down, who was so light he hardly broke the surface of the snow. "That may be true, but you shouldn't be able to feel it, either. Now, where is my body?"

Kon shuffled his feet and attempted a smile. "Well, when those weird blue-skinned guys took off with those other guys, they saw me, or you, or whatever, lying there. So they dragged it off."

"But weren't you inside?"

"Yeah, well, you see, I didn't think it would be good for my health to stick around..."

At this point, Ichigo lost what was left of his patience. "So you're saying, you chickened out, and now we have almost NO IDEA WHERE THEY TOOK IT?! OR THE OTHERS?!"

Kon cowered. "Uh, yeah, that basically sums it up..."

"IDIOT!"

Ichigo and Kon followed the ripples left by the vehicles until they found themselves on a bluff overlooking a strange city. Half enclosed, half exposed, it was all cold steel and metal, aircraft that didn't even look aerodynamic somehow flying upwards and disappearing into the clouds.

Without a word, Ichigo ran into the city, Kon riding on his back. Ichigo would gave preferred to leave the toy behind, but Kon had gotten him out of a couple of tough spots before. When Ichigo's soul left his body to be a Soul Reaper, his body would be completely non-functional. Kon was a Mod Soul, and could be moved from his current body into another. Kon could possess all of Ichigo's traits when he wanted to, so by transferring himself into Ichigo's body, they could keep suspicion away from them, and make sure Ichigo kept his grades up in school, while in truth he was killing Hollows. So getting rid of Kon, tempting as it was, wasn't a possibility.

Contrary to what was said before, Ichigo could feel cold. It just didn't effect him. So he could tell people lived here by the fact that the moment he stepped onto a street, he was pillowed by warm air. However, the paths were strangely empty.