Gespenst Zerlegen

"Hey, you lot. What is... the Special Service? A force of justice fighting for the world's sake...? Or a gathering of fools, so inspired by that idiot over there that you daydream of being some Non-Killing Army...? Well, you're wrong. We're... evil."

- Gespenst Zerlegen explains about Special Service

Gespenst Zerlegen (ゲシュペンス＝ゼレーゲン), or known better as Pele Poporo (ペレ＝ポポロ), is the tritagonist of Plunderer. Gespenst is friends with Lyne Mei and also her henchmen. It's later revealed that Gespenst is the colonel general of White Special Service and one of the 7 Legendary Red Barons, known as the "Pierce Baron" (心撃の撃墜王).

Appearance
Gespenst has light brown hair and green eyes. He wears a white headband and his military uniform.

Personality
Gespenst was first introduced as a mild and cunning subordinate who enjoys teasing his superior officer when she went overboard and showed her panties. However, from the pre-Abandonment War onward, Gespenst begins to show a more cold personality towards his comrade and is willing to kill a Special Service member just because the man displeases him. It is later revealed that he is the Colonel-General of the Special Service. Like most members of the Special Service, Gespenst could easily conceal his cold and ruthless personality but would often display them against enemies and allies alike.

Despite everything else, he seems to have feelings for Lyne, acknowledging how she wanted to save Licht from having surgery. Attempting to make her feel better, he ends up pushing her into a compromising position stating how she turns him on.

Past Events
Gespenst was sold to various old men by his parents as a child in exchange for food. Due to this, Gespenst has never once trusted a person before in his life. Gespenst later joined the 13th Special Military Forces School to become a soldier. Sometime after the Abandonment War started, Gespenst was chosen to become a Red Baron.

After his Baron Surgery, Gespenst immediately founded the Special Service, a specialized task force dedicated to handling shadow operation and other clandestine missions during the Abandonment War, working directly under Schmelman Bach. Due to this Gespenst never interacted with the other six Red Barons and maintained the secrecy of his identity due to his activities being polar opposite to their own and upon Althea and the Abyss's creation, Gespenst continued to work with the Special Services and was notably known to have assisted them in helping in their efforts to overpower the Althea Royal Guard and the Royal Family over  sole control over the "Utopia" for the next three centuries.

300 years later, Gespenst was ordered to assassinate Jail Murdoch and the Gefängnis members, who were referred to as "the most dangerous soldiers of Althea Royal Guard." Due to this, Gespenst was assigned to the Gefängnis troops. However, Jail's sense of enemy was too good, which means Gespenst couldn't find his chance to assassinate him and the Gefängnis so his mission failed. Thus, Gespenst ended up joining the same group as Lyne Mei and took the name "Pele Poporo", while hiding his true identity. Gespenst described his time working on the Royal Guard like living in hell ever since.

Legendary Red Baron Arc
Under the name "Pele Poporo", he first appeared in Chapter 3. Alongside with his sergeant-major Lyne in the town of Hoemmh, Pele is making a flyer to build a children's playground. While doing the volunteer work, Pele reminded the Royal Guard's reports and informs Lyne about the "Legendary Red Baron" that showed on the wanted poster. Although Lyne doesn't know anything about the Baron's legend, she said she will capture that Baron when they saw him in the village. Soon, Lyne and Pele meet a man with a mask in a pudding costume, whom apparently named "Pudding" and self-proclaimed a man that's mostly hate by the women, while he being crying. Then, Pele told Lyne that they should help him, saying that this is the perfect time for her to increase her counts, since her count is based on how many people she had helped. Under Pele's suggestions, Lyne was having a date with Licht as to make him happy.

After a while, Pele got tried of this "game" and told Lyne that Licht is indeed the "Legendary Red Baron" that was shown in the wanted poster. When Lyne finally realized it, Pele called her a idiot for being not able to realize the obvious fact earlier. Soon, after Lyne realized that people can see her panties from her kicks, both Pele and Licht wonder why were she so surprised when she wears a miniskirt. After Licht "confessed" his love on Lyne, Pele asked Lyne if she really fell in-love with a pudding, which she ignored his question. Afterwards, Lyne realized that Licht has already run away, Pele told her that his "proposal" are merely just a excuse to turn her off guard so he could run away without her noticing, in which she was embarrassed.

In the next day, Lyne continues her volunteer work about children's playground together with Pele. During the work, Lyne said that it's shamed that she let Licht ran away yesterday, as if she successful capturing him she will increased to lieutenant rank so she could change her "sexual harassment" uniform. While Pele said he will help Lyne, he never do his job and playing with the kids instead. Because of this, Lyne gives Pele a time for rest and asking someone to help her, which Licht appeared to help her. Lyne realized that Licht appeared again and she went to capture him again together with Pele.

After a while, Licht noticed someone is coming so he protected Lyne from a attack. Licht was caught by a iron spike attack created by Jail. Once Jail arrived at Hoemmh, Pele make a salute and he told Lyne to salute too, but she was worrying at Licht and angered at Jail's action instead. Soon, Jail orders the soldiers to surrounds Licht and tell him to stop acting like if he's injured. Then, Licht stated he had no choice but has to fight against them.

During Licht's fight against Jail, along with the villagers, Pele is watching their fight and she stays in the same place, until when both of them attack each other again at their full strength which causes the ground shaking. Soon, both Lyne and Pele told the villagers to leave due to the shaking. After Licht left Hoemmh, Jail created the playground and asks both Lyne and Pele to join him in the mission as well, which they agreed.

Jail and Lyne leaves Hoemmh and continue their mission on capture Licht. As they arrived at Linden, they found that the city was destroyed. Jail and Lyne wonder what's happened and Pele soon found the only survivor. They asked the survivor about the situation, he then said that the "Abyss Demon" came to destroy the city. Pele claims that survivor is a liar and cannot be reasonable with, while Jail don't believe what he stated and tried to suspect that it must be done by the Ballot Holder. The survivor then stated that the "Abyss Demon" can fly too, which shocked Jail as there's no Ballot Holder that can fly. Soon, Pele was ordered by Jail to sent the survivor to the medical room and heal his injury.

When a earthquake suddenly happened at Anesis, Pele informs Licht's group that he discovered a black hole that looked similar to the one from Linden. When the "Abyss Demon" appeared, along with the rest of the citizen were confused at it. When the helicopter launch it's attack, Jail create a huge iron wall to block the attack. After a while, Licht revealed his rank as a soldier and temporarily took control of the Royal Guard, in which surprised Pele and some people. When the hands of Althing appeared from the ground, Hina tried to ask the Royal Guards to helping Licht to fight against the helicopter, but Jail stated that they can't help him as attacking the hands of Althing would result of them receive death penalty. After hearing Hina's words, along with the rest of the soldiers, Pele decided to help Licht against the Althing.

Soon, a mysterious girl appeared behind Jail and she "killed" him and destroyed the helicopter. The mysterious girl is revealed to be Sonohara Mizuka, the Pursuit Baron. After Mizuka introduced herself, along with the rest of the citizen were confused at her. Then, the mysterious group with black uniform known as Special Service appeared and killing the citizen. When Lyne is almost killed by a spy of Special Service, she was saved by Pele but he was punched by the Special Service spy instead. Licht tried to fight against Mizuka but he was soon defeated by her and captured along with the rest of the citizen. After Licht was angered at Mizuka, he saved Hina's group and the citizen from the hands of Special Service.

After Licht revealed his true purpose, the fight bewteen him and Mizuka begin once again. As they fighting, Pele asks Nana Bassler some questions about the Barons, as he found something's strange about Licht's strength based on his previous fight against Jail. When Licht's count is increasing, Pele and the others were shocked and Lyne wonders how comes he can increases his counts. Nana explained that this is how the Barons originally looked like. Nana stated that he was trying to activate his bloodlust side, which is known as "Schmelman's bloodlust", this would allow Licht to increase his counts rapidly but the cost is that he would lost his sanity. Later, after Jail defeated Licht and his original personality returned, Pele and the others showed to be happy and glad the battle is finally over. When Lyne is trying to heal Jail's injury, Pele is showed to be stomping at her back and angered.

Anime
In the last episode of Plunderer anime, after Licht was absorbed into the black hole created by Taketora, seven Baron's masks was shows to be floating in the "world of darkness" and surrounding Licht. Although the true identity of seventh Baron is yet to be revealed by the time the event happens, Gespenst's mask appeared together with the other masks but it remains silent throughout the episode.

Along with the other masks, the seventh Baron's mask tries to criticize Licht’s actions and advise him to give up and die. However, after he remembered his promise with Hina and the others, Licht destroys all of the masks and successfully escape by splits the "world of darkness".

Special Booklet
Gespenst appeared in the special booklets that's released together with the anime's Blu-ray.

Schmelman's Alternative Tales
Gespenst appeared in the Drama CD Schmelman's Alternative Tales.

In Cinderella part, Gespenst portrayed as youngest sister-in-Law of Cinderella.

Abilities and Power
Gespenst's count is 120, although it's unclear if it was his true count or not. His count stands for how many people he has doubted.


 * Pierce (心撃): This is Gespenst's ability as a Baron, his body has been enhanced to be able to use special abilities.
 * Mind Reading: Gespenst can read other people's mind. Gespenst in particular largely employed this ability during battle, where he would constantly read his opponent's thoughts and figure out their weaknesses in order to overpower them, as seen during his fight against Licht, in which despite Licht's immense speed, Gespenst was able to easily keep up with him and avoid each and every attacks and managed to easily defeat him by constantly attacking in his blindspot after reading his thoughts and learning his weaknesses.
 * Memory Implantation: Gespenst can implant memories into the minds of others. This ability was first believed that it belongs to Erin, due to she work together with Gespenst to transfer Licht and Tokikaze's memories to the others. This is later proven to be false, as this ability is actually belongs to Gespenst while Erin was merely acting around in attempt to trick Firenda and Clone Schmelman.
 * Transmission: Similar to Erin, Gespenst can connects a person from another place and communicate in several digital screens.


 * Bloodlust: As the Red Baron, Gespenst possesses the ability to increase his count by activating Schmelman's bloodlust genes. However, the higher the count, the higher chance he would lose his sanity.


 * Master Spy: During the Abandonment War, Gespenst founded and lead the Special Services in their various clandestine operations across the world during the war, particularly the missions involving assassination of enemy leaders and acquiring enemy intelligence, implying that he is immensely skilled in the art of espionage.
 * Master Assassin: As the founder of the Special Service, Gespenst can perform the art of assassination better than the average spy.
 * Master Tactician: Gespenst is shown to be an immensely skilled and cunning tactician and is shown to be incredibly skilled in the art of warfare. As seen when he was able to immediately discern the situation regarding the reformed "Non-Killing Army's" plight in their war against Schmelman and come up with an accurate psychological analysis on how the general populace would react to them and create an accurate plan on how to counteract it, and later gave accurate orders and actions necessary to strengthen their forces and give tasks to the best personal for the job to increase their odds of winning. And during his betrayal against Schmelman, Gespenst was shown to have taken several accurate tactical moves and actions prior to his revealing betrayal and accurately analyzed the potential moves he would need give his plan the best chances of succeeding.
 * Skilled Actor: During his time working with Lyne and Jail, Gespent as "Pele" managed to flawlessly trick, act and infiltrate the regular Althea Royal Guard with no one suspecting or noticing his true nature or his immense power, showing his immense skill in acting.

Trivia

 * Gespenst means "ghost" in German, while Zerlegen means "dismantle" in German.
 * His first name directly refers to his role as the unidentified 7th Baron who remained unknown to the other six during the Abandonment War and the next 300 years of Althea's history.
 * While his second name being a reference to his "Pierce" ability, with him seemingly being able to "dismantle" his opponents by reading their minds and finding their weak points/weaknesses.
 * Based on his name, Gespenst may be a German.
 * Gespenst is the founder of Special Service.

Reference
Геспенс Зереген