Age: 452 years old, counting mortal life (422 afterwards)
Height: 6'1"
Aspect of Death: Pride/Honour
Weight: 189
Reiatsu: A dark blue, tinged with dark red and smelling faintly of the ocean
Speech colour:
Navy
Appearance:
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Tall and somewhat imposing, Apolinar is never found without his armour and helmet, or without his 16th century Spanish soldier's uniform. A fairly lean man who looks to be in his thirties, he sports black hair, a beard and moustache of middling length and his Hollow Mask, which is a steel plate adorned with a depiction of crashing waves strapped over his left eye. His 400 years without an eye seem to have given him plenty of time to accomodate for this lack of depth perception, and he shows no signs of being hindered by the missing eye. Incidentally, the Hollow Hole is his left eye, in case anyone was wondering why he has to wear an eyepatch. The main standout feature is most definitely how haggard he looks. His skin is ghostly pale, and there is a definite... dampness about him. He looks slightly pruned, almost as if he had spent some time at the bottom of the sea...
Personality:
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The sargeant's temperament has always been reserved, polite and gentlemanly. When riled, however, he becomes a regular old dog of war, abandoning tact, social graces, but never obedience, in favour of uncompromising brutality. He owes everything to Las Noches, as his fealty to them gives him that all important reason to live, and would obey any orders except the ridiculous without question.
History:
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Apolinar was born in 1558. His father, Roderigo, was an artist with a great love for Greek mythology. Despite his father's protests, Apolinar joined the Spanish Army, and became renowned for his strict sense of honour and discipline. However, on that fateful day in 1588, when the fire ships burned into the harbour at Gravelines, Apolinar found himself and the ship he was on in the heat of battle as the Armada was pushed into the Channel. There, his ship was shot to pieces and the men dived off like rats. Surrounded and basically alone on a sinking wreck, Apolinar cursed the evacuating sailors, and spat in the face of the captain as he climbed aboard one of the boats. He started to load the cannons himself, but a chain shot hit the mast and it toppled down on top of him. The ship soon folded up and sank to the bottom, and that was the last anyone saw of Sargeant Apolinar Rodriguez.
Unfortunately, no one thought to check that last statement with Rodriguez himself. After several days wandering on the seabed, he came up, expecting to see the glorious Armada back on course. Instead what he saw was devastation. The glorious, invincible Armada... a spot on which Rodriguez had been preparing for his whole life... was in full rout. Helpless, he watched and raged helplessly as the ships dashed against the rocks, and thousands of his comrades died, not fighting gloriously, but begging for mercy. It hit him, starkly, in that moment, the sheer weakness of humanity, how easily it hid itself, no matter the punishment. It did not take long for him to Hollowify after that.
Maybe the Fae were on holiday. Maybe he just didn't do that much. But after slaughtering his parents in a blind rage, Apolinar toured Britain, terrorising children as a malevolent Hollow spirit, even killing some, in a state of total anger. How dare they mock Spain!? How DARE they mock ME!? Eventually this slowly passed, and a new, yet at the same time old, feeling came back to haunt him: Guilt. He was a child murderer. Fratricidal. Matricidal. What had happened to the honour and chivalry that had guided him so far? Being a soldier, and not one to give in at that, Apolinar came to realise just how little these meant on their own. It is about this time that Apolinar became an Arrancar, somewhere around 50 years after his death. The souls he had consumed up to this point made him strong enough to survive, but only just. Making his way to Hueco Mundo, Rodriguez became a Numeros after pledging fealty to the King of Hollows. The next 400 years involved him getting strong enough to work up to fraccion status, which was difficult given he did not take the usual Menos path most took.
Abilities:
Standard Arrancar Powers:
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Bala- Apolinar does not really go in for Bala, and when he does, he usually uses it as a decoy before an actual strike. It isn't really that harmful, due to his lack of practice, but it is quite flashy.
Cero- Comes out of his mouth, and is essentially blood-tainted seawater, which may have once been coughed up from his lungs, in an energy form. It's strong and quite quick moving, but he spends a few seconds inhaling beforehand, and he has to drop some hierro away from his facial area while he performs it.
Hierro- Outstanding. Easily one of the best, if not the best, among fraccion. It even sometimes matches an Espada's level. And that is not even counting the armour. He also has exceptional control of this ability.
Garganta- Portal to other dimensions. Nothing more to say really, as Apolinar has an average skill in this.
Sonido- Poor. Although Apolinar can (barely) stand on air, he prefers the ground, and his movement speed is barely-above-mortal slow, although he is fairly quick and skilled with his weapon.
Pesquisa- Fast (about 1 second), and far reaching, but quite indistinct, not giving anything other than direction. It's basically a sonar ping, in that respect. If he wants more detail, Apolinar can focus upon one person above all others, but only within about 50m.
Zanpakutō: Precio del Deber
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Appearance: A battle-worn halberd, with an elongated tip which makes the weapon look more like a pike.
Resureccion
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"Romper, las olas de vosotros, contra el acero del Honor..."
("Break, ye waves, against Honour's steel...")
A fairly accurate description of what this entails. Scales form over Apolinar's skin, although this is hard to notice against the sudden thickening of his armour: suddenly a full suit of plate, as worn by feudal knights. It's heavy, but it feels significantly lighter to Apolinar; about the weight of his regular uniform in fact. Although this helps somewhat against attacks, the main defense increase comes from the fusing of his hierro with this armour, allowing him to treat it like his own flesh and blood for channeling his hierro, which is now strengthened significantly, making him nigh-invulnerable to anyone below VC level, and reasonably close to that on anyone below Captain. He's still slow as all heck though.
Glorious Fusilade: His strikes, although no faster, can, at the price of some fatigue, gain the force of a ship cannon's broadside. When this happens, the blade of his weapon glows white-hot, and the crashing of waves can be heard. He can alternately, provided he stands stock still and lowers his defenses, channel this energy into a heavy cannon bombardment. Think his cero, on fire, shot 20 times at once, wide to narrowish spread, depending on Apolinar's wish.
Sea Control: Apolinar can do such things as raise up a wave to shield against incoming attacks, and cause eddies and currents to catch those in the water off balance, but really this is not anything more than the occasional fancy trick.