Name: Pereza Milagost
Age: 387
Visual Age: Appears to be in his late 30s/early 40s
Gender: Male
Ranks: Espada (Primera)
Appearance: Pereza goes against the norm for hollows who have their masks broken off: the smaller and more shinigami-like they are, the more evolved and thus more powerful they are. Pereza is a rather large arrancar (7 feet tall) and has a considerable body mass. However, he is not fat and is in fact quite muscular, but because his body mass is so dense he is nevertheless called "fat." Pereza wears standard Espada pants, a divided hakama that's baggy, but he wears a customized black vest with white lining, along with leather gauntlets on both arms. His uniform is often disheveled and wrinkled because Pereza goes to sleep with it on and doesn't bother to straighten himself up. He has grey eyes and short cropped amber-colored hair, and his skin is tanned.
Pereza has a couple of notable scars on his body: one is a large horizontal gash that goes from one arm to the other, across his pectorals. The other is a diagonal slash on the left side of his face that starts from the space between his eyebrows and ends at his jawline. All that remains of Pereza's hollow mask is a white piece of tortoise-shell across his nose (shaped like Nel's tattoo, but more angular) and the tip of a beak on his chin. Pereza has the Espada "1" tattoo on his Adam's apple. His hollow hole is located where his belly button would be, and he tends to scratch at it when he has just woken up, so he does it very often.
- Spoiler:
Personality: Pereza has a cold and calculating demeanor. He is not one to crack jokes or play around with even the smallest things, let alone wartime. Also, unlike a lot of the other hollows and arrancar, Pereza does not show the obvious animalistic instincts of a hollow. He keeps these emotions submerged unless he is provoked, usually if someone interrupts his nap. However, Pereza is also a somewhat lazy person; if he wanted to relax, simply sleeping would be fine with him. But there is one matter that he is not lazy about, and that is his drive to achieve dominance over the other races and establish an Era of the Hollows. But he would prefer to do so through simple and efficient means, and without overly-complicated plans.
Pereza's goal is to establish the Era of the Hollows, but there are deeper motives to this ambition. Pereza's innate complacency is countered with a deep sense of longing for... something. At all times, he feels some sort of emptiness, one that does not stem from greed or gluttony. Pereza's drive to conquer the other races is in direct correlation to the emptiness inside him; Pereza believes that if he achieves this goal, he can discover the reason behind this longing and thus satisfy it for good.
However, Pereza has not shared this secret with anyone, not even to those closest to him. He is perfectly content for his official goal to simply be the destruction of those who had terrorized hollows for so long.
In terms of leadership, Pereza does not like to butt heads around. In fact, he is open to working things out and compromising. But if he has to use force to get his point across or end a confrontation, he will have no qualm in doing so. He treats the hollows and arrancar with relative respect; he does openly treat the weaker hollows with scorn and contempt; after all, they may prove useful in future battles. In an interesting twist, Pereza stresses loyalty not just to him, but between the other arrancar; he will show no mercy towards an arrancar who has betrayed their own kind.
*NOTE* The above sentence is Pereza's only unbending rule, besides loyalty to the Primera, of course. Any Espada/Arrancar who wants to be conniving (e.g. taking the Primera spot from Pereza) has been warned.
Leadership of the Hollows (in more detail)In forming a Hollow force that could rival any of the other races, Pereza spent a great deal of time studying and thinking about those races, in particular the shinigami of Soul Society. The main question he asked himself was: How have the hollows been put down for so long, and what could the hollows do to counter this pattern? Besides an obvious mismatch of power before the creation of arrancars, Pereza also noted the organization of Soul Society. Each shinigami was devoted to the soul reaper cause, as well as a deep sense of camaraderie.
Thus, Pereza decided that the hollows must also unify, not just out of fear or lust for power, but also because of a genuine sense of pride and devotion to the hollow cause. In short, a nationalist movement for hollows. Pereza stresses to his followers how for so long, hollows have only looked out for their own selves. This, he argues, is the main reason why the shinigami have been able to dominate them. But if they worked together, and trusted one another, then their powers could easily overwhelm the arrogant soul reapers. It is for this reason that Pereza emphasizes loyalty, that the Hollows and Arrancars treat each other not just as fellow hollows, but even like family. And to betray the family is the ultimate sin under Pereza's reign.
Fighting Style: While Pereza lacks some motivation and enthusiasm, he is no pushover. Pereza's main characteristic is his incredibly hard hierro, a formidable armor even compared to that of the Espada; he is also one of the strongest Espada in terms of physical strength. With these characteristics, he will not rush in to attack an opponent; he will just lie back and let the opponent come to him, perfectly content to do so. He won't even react much if the opponent just whales on him, since his hierro is so strong. This behavior, along with the fact that his reiatsu ebbs slowly, often convinces the opponent that Pereza is weak and/or not taking a situation seriously.
He is not particularly interested in whatever is going on around him, but Pereza is also a cold analyst in combat, able to pick out the strengths, weaknesses, and openings of his opponent in a relatively short time. Whether or not he exploits those is a different matter, depending on whether he feels up to doing it or not. Pereza can surprise opponents by reacting quickly to attacks, as he can spin around to counter an attack very fast.
One of Pereza's main drawbacks is that he cannot use sonido, a rarety among even the arrancars as a whole, and may have to be kicked out of the way of a powerful attack by one of his fraccion or another espada. But since he can withstand most attacks due to his strong hierro, Pereza frequently forgoes this method. He often uses broad, sweeping attacks with his arms that he charges with reiatsu to further increase his devastating power. His balas are also unique, in that they are not only fast but also quite devastating in terms of power.
Pereza really does not like releasing his sealed state, as it requires a fair amount of activity on his part. However, he will do so if he want to end a fight quickly so that he can go back to sleep. His main way of attacking is controlling his zanpakuto using telekinesis. Because of his strong spiritual connection with his weapon, Pereza can control it with very little effort, moving the heavy weapon as if it were a twig.
Background: Human ArcIn life, Pereza was a hard-working Jewish peasant in 17th-Century Poland, doing back-breaking work day in and day out to support his large family, who he loved very much. In fact, he also loved work and how it gave him a sense of fulfillment and pride when he brought in a successful season of crops. One day however, a series of pograms erupted in the region, and a band of men razed Pereza's crops and burned his house to the ground, along with himself and his family. As a spirit, he broke down at the sight of the burnt corpses of his wife and children. Since the shinigami could hardly be stationed in every little village and town around the world, no shinigami was able to purify Pereza's soul before he became a hollow.
Hollow ArcPereza's soul was able to rise above the other hollows in a Gillian-class Menos. Long story short, he ate many hollows until he became an Adjuchas, in the form of a large tortoise with a taste for both hollow and human flesh. He grew stronger by eating the hollows that were foolish enough to attack him (since he did not feel like hunting prey of his own). Eventually, he evolved once again and became one of the few Vasto Lordes of Hueco Mundo. Even though he was a Vasto Lorde, Pereza did not have a following of hollows, because he did not care for servants and most hollows knew that going to him for protection would be useless. His hunger for hollows subsided, yet another yearning soon replaced it.
The sense of longing that currently burdens Pereza began during his time as a Vasto Lorde. The craving grew stronger and stronger as the years rolled by, and Pereza grew increasingly frustrated. He killed to his liking, he ate what he wanted, he slept when he was tired, and he had explored every grain of dirt in the Abyssal Plains. But that irritating feeling never ceased, never seemed to ebb. It almost drove Pereza crazy: what was his purpose? what is it that he longed so much to achieve?!
Arrancar ArcPereza's savior came in the form of a mysterious figure, whom he met while on one of his fruitless journeys across the Abyssal Plains. Seeing this person as just another being to be defeated and eaten, Pereza attempted to attack the unknown being, but was surprised that he could not even land a hit on the individual, who suggested that it and Pereza talk for a moment. Never having an opportunity to actually have a conversation with another being, Pereza conceded. The figure noted Pereza's immense power, asking him why a being as powerful as him simply meandered in the outlands. When Pereza explained the feeling that had haunted him for so long, the figure made a compelling offer.
There was a much larger world out there, it stated, filled with many other beings, a world ripe for conquest. The figure suggested that with his enormous reiatsu, perhaps Pereza's goal was to unite the disorganized hollows and lead them against the other races. To aid this quest of domination, the figure also offered Pereza a way to gain even more power, in the form of ripping off one's mask.
Intrigued, Pereza accepted the figure's offer and was eventually able to rip off his mask, transforming into the first of the arrancar. After this process, the figure told of an ancient fortress in the distance that now lay unused, a prime location for Pereza to rule from. After pointing in the fortress' direction and stating obscurely that it would be in touch, the figure disappeared without a trace.
For the first time ever, Pereza felt the strangling feeling inside of him ebb slowly away, making it just bearable. Increasingly confident that the figure was indeed speaking the truth, that this longing could be satiated through conquest. Pereza marched onto Las Noches. The hollows who inhabited the compound there confronted him, having never seen a humanoid hollow like him. Pereza tested out his new powers, ripping through any hollow that dared to oppose him. He took control of Las Noches, and with the new power that had been granted onto him by the mysterious figure, he found that he could turn other potentially-powerful hollows into strong beings just like him. The beginnings of his vast hollow army were now in place.
Shinigami/Espada War ArcIn the year 2020, Pereza led a two-pronged attack on the human world and Soul Society. He himself led the hollow forces to Soul Society, eventually fighting the Sotaicho in combat. Their fight was evenly-matched, at least until Pereza went into his Resurrection state. But soon after he did this, a shinigami with a released shikai appeared in between the two fighters. Before Pereza could ask who this stranger was, the shinigami slashed through Pereza's thick shell, causing the horizontal scar across his chest. Surprised that a zanpakuto's shikai form could cut through his resurrection, Pereza flew backwards, just in time to dodge the shinigami's second attack, which only slashed his face instead of taking his head off.
What followed was a battle of survival, as Pereza struggled to fight both this powerful shinigami and the Sotaicho. Eventually, Pereza ordered a retreat, as he noticed that other extremely powerful shinigami were appearing. Thus, his plans were foiled, and his hollow army returned to Hueco Mundo. Pereza was momentarily disappointed, almost devastated that he had been close enough to potentially quench his emptiness. But in due time, his resolve returned, and he looked to replenish his depleted armies and exact retribution upon those who would attempt to stop him from his goal, from his destiny.
GOAL 
12/3/2013, 6:23 am by 
