Prideful Locust, Lazy Tortoise

Carnasde was rocking from side to side with sheer anticipation. "Ah yeah! I can't wait until this fight. I'm abouut fed up with Pereza. He needs to learn some respect, not acknoledging someone like me. Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am? I throw a rock at his head, doesn't even faze him. Today, I'm going to beat him two ways to the human world. No one disrespects me and gets away with it." He looks around the empty desert. "Where is that punk! He better not be skipping out on me!" Carnasde yelled to the sky, looking around for Pereza.

Pereza mumbled darkly to himself as he pushed through the sand. He still held the piece of stone that had struck him in the head like so many times before, but this time it had a note rolled up around it telling, no, DEMANDING that he come to a certain location and face the Octava. As if having an energetic kid like Ginbara wasn't enough, why do I have to deal with THIS guy too? Pereza kicked through the top of a sand dune, and noted that a good amount of sand had gotten into his shoes. Pausing for a moment, he let out a deep sigh before releasing a flash of reiatsu that sent a shockwave across the sand. I've had enough, let him come to ME, Pereza thought, sitting down to knock the sand out of his shoes.

As he was still ranting on, he felt a pulse of reiatsu moving through the sand, which caught him off balance and caused him to fall. "Grrr, that lousy sloth. I'll teach him!" Carnasde came rushing through the desert using his sonido until he spotted Pereza. "Rah!" Carnasde swung his foot up towards Pereza's head.

Pereza could feel Carnasde coming from a mile away, literally. It does make it easier to fight him, I'll give him that. Still sitting and with his eyes closed, Pereza slowed the kick down with his mind, just enough so that he could raise up his hand and block it. He slowly opened his eyes to look at the angry Espada. "Why are you being so irritable, Octava? You're the one who made the location for this fight in the middle of the desert, so surely you shouldn't be surprised that I don't feel like trecking the whole way." Pereza gave a little push-off with his arm, knowing that it was enough force to knock Carnasde back and put some distance between the two Espada.

As Carnasde got up from being pushed back, his eyes burned with rage. "How dare you push me off of you like a little speck of dust on your shoulder! I'll make you pay for that!!!" Carnasde rushed at him again however, right when he got in range, he ducked and then jumped up, fist first attempting an uppercut.

"That's because you ARE a speck of dust, Carnasde. If I attacked you with my full strength, you would no longer exist."

While Pereza was focusing on the Espada's forward lunge, he was not expecting Carnasde to uppercut him. The punch connected with Pereza's lower jaw, knocking Pereza's head backwards. However, with Pereza's hierro, it was unclear whether Carnasde did more damage to Pereza or to his own hand. His head still knocked back, Pereza reached upwards to grab the outstretched arm of the Octava, aiming to trap the Espada and maybe throw him around a bit.

As Carnasde layed an uppercut upon Pereza, he was suprised to find his own fist hurting. However, his words hurt even more. A rough look came across his face as the Segunda grabbed his wrist. " How dare you compare me to to an insignificant speck of dirt. You think you can get rid of me that easily? I'll show you!!!" Carnasde brought his free arm up to Pereza's face. "CERO!!!" Carnasde launched a powerful cero at Pereza's face.

Even with the strongest hierro among the Espada, Pereza knew that a cero shot by a fellow espada to the head at point-blank rage would not be pretty. He gritted his teeth as he silently cursed at Carnasde. Why must this guy be reckless with everything he does? It really makes it a pain to deal with him. Luckily, the Octava's little shout-out of his attack had given Pereza time to dodge the cero, shifting his head to his left while using his mind to move Carnasde's arm to his right, sending the cero past Pereza. Pereza rubbed his slightly burnt shoulder with his free arm as the cero crashed into a sand dune and exploded, sending sand high into the sky. "Even a speck of dirt can be annoying, which is what you are being right now." Pereza threw Carnasde through the air and towards another sand dune and shot his own powerful cero out of his mouth, aiming to hit the Octava either in midair or after he crashed into the dune.

Carnasde was suprised as he missed, not even noticing Pereza's actions. However he did notice himself being flung into the air after expressed his opinion of him. He then saw Pereza launch a powerful cero at him. He Pereza gritted his teeth as he quickly launched his own cero to at least reduce the damage, knowing he couldn't match its power in so little time. After being blasted, he got up and dusted himself off. He smirked at Pereza, taunting him with his survival. "Like i said, you can't get rid of me that easily." He then shot a couple of bala at the ground in front of Pereza in order to cause dust to rise into the air and then rushed at him using sonido and tried to punch him in the gut.

Pereza looked down upon the Octava, his half-closed eyes showing little emotion. "Well, I'd hope so. If I had killed an Espada with just a cero, then I would truly question the Primera's decision-making." Pereza saw the balas closing in on him and braced himself for the hits, realizing too late that the balas were not meant to hit him to begin with. He instinctively closed his eyes as soon as the sand hit him, and he began to rub them in a futile attempt to get the sand out. In his temporary blindness, Pereza heard the impact of a sonido in the sand directly in front of him; he could assume what was coming next. Pereza took a deep breath and tightened his core muscles just as he felt an impact towards his stomach. He grimaced, but immediately grabbed for the arm of his assailant with his left arm. "Cheap tricks will only get you so far, Carnasde." Pereza opened his mouth again to fire another cero at point-blank rage. Perhaps this time I'll get a limb or two and beat a lesson into his head.

At first, Carnasde had believed he had finally got a good hit on Pereza, however, when Pereza grabbed his right hand with his left, he could see that he meant to take the hit. ' This guy sure can take a hit,' Carnasde thought to himself as Pereza charged his cero to hit at close range. "Cheap tricks, huh. How's this for a trick." Carnasde quickly brought his left hand up to Perea's face and attempted to get his cero in at the same time as Pereza's, hoping to either overpower him and put him in his place or reduce some of the damage that he would take from a point-blank cero from an Espada member.

Again with the clse-range ceros? Why does he even bother? The two ceros collided with each other, causing a massive flash of light and energy. The resulting explosion threw Pereza dozens of feet into a sand dune. After a moment, he crawled out, spewing sand from his mouth as he glared at the Octava. "...If you truly want me to destroy you Carnasde, then so be it." Pereza's zanpakuto began to shake, before flying off of Pereza's back. It hovered in the air before Pereza grasped it. Aiming at Carnasde, Pereza chucked the spear, combining his telekinetic power with his brute strength to increase the velocity of the weapon until it made the air sizzle as it raced towards Carnasde.

Carnasde got up from the dune the cero collision had knocked him into slightly dazed. "Hehe, that was fun." He saw the Segunda spitting out sand as he crawled out, trying to hold back a laugh. However, his laugh got under control once he saw the projectile heading towards him. At first he couldn't think of waht to do, not knowing if his hierro could withstand, or if he could dodge it. However, at that moment, the perfect idea popped into his head. He put his hands forward and launched a massive cero to try to slow it to a stop. After he finished, he then danced around like an idiot.

"I'm sorry Octava, but did you think that you were safe now?" Pereza was not amused by the Espada's random dancing. He simply flicked his index finger forward, and his zanpakuto, which had been slowed down considerably by the explosion, zoomed forward yet again, leaving little room for the Octava to dodge or deflect.

Carnesde who had completely ignored Pereza, was still dancing around as the spear cut through his right arm, not even noticing the initial pain at first. "Ha! Take that!" Carnasde ignorantly replied before pointing at him with his right hand and then noticing that it wasn't there. A face went expressonless as he realized that he had been hit. He then looked over behind him where he saw both of their zanpakuto and his arm. He then walked over, restored his zan to its rightful place, and then picked up Pereza's zanpakutou, smiling in triumph as he twirled it between his fingers.

Pereza tilted his head as he tried to figure out the Octava. I'm not sure if he has no fear of death, or is just out of his mind. Either way, he's still underestimating my abilities. Pereza lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. Almost immediately, his zanpakuto spear, which had been twirling in Carnasde's hand, began to spin even faster, until it was going about as fast as a helicopter's rotor. It spun out of the Octava's hand and flew towards him, spinning vertically and aiming to cut the arrancar in half.

Carnasde hadn't noticed at first when Pereza's zan started to spin faster, however, when he had had trouble spinning the zan, he knew something was wrong. Once, it had free'd itself from his hands, he had moved backwards and to the left with sonido to dodge it before running up to Pereza and then jumping over him to try to make his own weapon hit him.

Pereza didn't even blink as the Octava ran up to him and then jumped straight upwards. Pereza simply blocked the blade of his zanpakuto with his bare hand and grabbed it with the other. He twirled the spear and held it straight up and to his side. He looked up at the other Espada. "I'm getting tired of this. Would you just use your released form so that I can crush you already?"

"Heh, I was waiting for you. Oh well, this was starting to get boring for me also." Carnasde used Sonido to quickly retrieve his zanpakuto. "Buzz!" Carnasde's zanpakuto disappeared as his skin from the neck down thickened and turned black, while his arms, shins and chest gained white armor made from the material of his mask fragment, which moved to his midsection. On his elbows, knees and his chest were cyan, rounded gems. He now had four arms, two pair of wings, and hand like feet. His mask fragment had moved from his forehead to his jaw, two points coming from the bottom. His tattoo rested upon the back of his neck.

Carnasde crossed his top arms while holding his bottom arms by his sides. "Well, let's start this party." Carnasde brought up his two bottom arms and fired a cero from each, keeping his top arms crossed while maintaining a smirk.