Post by Prince Luffa on May 20, 2015 21:34:05 GMT
Name: Luffa
Alias: Sovereign Prince, Genitive Minister of the Imperial Diet
Species: Saiyan
Age: 10
Appearance: Of small and lean build, adolescent, and crisscrossed with battle scars. He has the dark hair and eyes that are common among the Saiyan species. His hair falls to his shoulders in unruly waves, and this he keeps away from his face by clasping it into a loose and bushy tail. In striking contrast to his battle-hardened appearance is his splendid battle regalia, which includes a sturdy core plate made of the finest emerald-infused Battle Armor Material, along with a lighter variant of the substance that rolls across one shoulder in the Late Kingdom style which is now seeing a return to fashion.
Background: Luffa was born a second son to one of the oldest and most stable noble houses on Planet Vegeta, the House of the Bone Moon, or the Bone Moon House. The patriarchs and matriarchs of the Bone Moon House rigidly enshrine tradition and practice ancestor worship, with bloodlines traced back for centuries in exquisite detail.
Although all proper Saiyans are battle trained, the firstborn sons and daughters of the House are usually slated to become political leaders and manage the family business, which is the highly lucrative planetary trade. Second and third issue children are made into the role of a hardened warrior. The House has produced many Saiyans that go on to become Elites and Super Elites in the Imperial Army, and although it has enriched itself from centuries of shrewd mercantilism, the family is best known for producing loyal and competent soldiers. The process of forging a true Saiyan warrior is not an easy one. Born with a respectable power level of 135, Luffa was immediately designated an Elite and put into this crucible. As an infant, Luffa was fed the best growth-enriching nutrients and coddled by his parents and servants to develop a sense of security, confidence, and superiority as a foundation to his personality, as well as to allow his power level to increase before any training could injure his developing body. Around the age of two, when Luffa began to speak fluently and walk effortlessly, his true training began. Four Saiyan tutors were brought to him -- each specialized in four different areas of combat – Buhta, a rising Elite who specialized in complex ki usage, Dil, a low-class veteran who knew no peer when it came to combination striking, Cocob, a renowned mentor and tutor who’d lived long enough to grow white in his hair for defense techniques, and Luffa’s own father, Pakel, for tactics. Due to his rigorous training, Luffa developed an uncommon speed at an early age.
On his fourth birthday, after a day of sparring with his brothers and sisters and an evening of feasting with his family, Luffa was set onto his first mission, accompanied on one of his father’s spaceships with a small honor-guard in tow. He was to arrive at Planet Meke within a month, a newly discovered terrestrial world with vast oceans, lush with wildlife. Its wreath of archipelagos were dominated by a sentient race of bird-like humanoids known as the Mekah, whom the Solar Saiyan Empire had been gathering intelligence on for weeks before the operation was greenlit by the military. The Mekah were judged to be moderate in ki ability, though this strength was considered greatly outclassed by the average Saiyan and softened by centuries of peace and prosperity. Their technology was just scratching at spaceflight, as they had yet to achieve landing on their nearest moon.
Luffa did not cease his training on the way over. If anything, it grew more intense. Cocob, one of his trainers, had joined him on this excursion. Highest priority went to large ki techniques that could destroy huge parts of land and enemy formations, as well as defensive maneuvers for battling while outnumbered.
When the ship ferrying the Prince arrived, the craft made its way for the epicenter of Planet Meke’s economic and political epicenter. Meke City was a wonder of marble and stained glass, and the Mekah took great pride in their First Nest – a vast network of palaces that stood atop the largest plateau on the main island. The peaceful denizens of the planet were cheerfully welcoming to the Saiyan craft as it landed, exuberant at the chance to meet other intelligent life that their scientists had always suspected existed.
When the doors to the regal and ornately gilded spacecraft were opened, they were greeted with a curious scene. The tiny, silver-caped Luffa descended from the craft alone. Cameras were glued to the curious little ape-like humanoid, who grimaced back in distaste as a golden runner of carpet unfurled from his spaceship. While Planet Meke was home to a low form of primates, and their scientists correctly identified Luffa as such, none had suspected the apes capable of producing such an intelligent species. Rightly assuming that Luffa was part of some sort of nobility, the Primarch of All Mekah rushed to greet him.
Though the Mekah knew no Universal, the Primarch’s words were soothing and respectful, and many bows and sweeps of his wings showed clear deference to Luffa. The boy Saiyan, however, reacted with cold aloofness, with such apparentness that even the Mekah understood the meaning. In a frantic gesture to appease their new arrival, the Primarch bowed low and fanned his wings forward with his claws raised, the highest gesture of respect that can be shown. Luffa’s scowl of displeasure soon became a bright smile, and a great sigh of relaxation swept through the ranks of onlookers.
The sighs soon became screams. Luffa had latched his gloved hands onto those wings, fingers entwined with feathers, and with a kick from his booted foot against the Primarch’s shoulders ripped his wings completely out, the Primarch’s spine dangling between them and dripping with blood as his corpse fell to the ground with an unceremonious splat. Confused panic gripped the fledgling and unpracticed Mekah soldiers, who had for decades been reduced to ceremonial status. Many of their weapons weren’t even functional. The military structure was in tatters, as nothing that approached a practical chain of command had been needed for centuries. The boy laughed in delight as he began to sprint between the shocked leaders, dispatching each one with the terrible efficiency the Saiyan warrior knows so well. Ki rained from his fingers upon the audience, whose smoldering bodies were thrown hundreds of feet into the air and upon Meke City below the Nest.
It wasn’t long before the entire island was a reeking fireball of death and chaos. Luffa’s attendants filmed his work and streamed it to his family as the boy moved across the populated archipelago, gleefully destroying city after city. It was a full two days before what remained of the political leadership of the Mekah launched a large and coordinated counteroffensive, though the echelons of Mekah soldiers and the bombardment of the spaceship merely slowed the child as an amusing spectacle. Half the world was in ruin before a meaningful resistance was devised by Planet Meke’s brightest minds. Having unlocked the mysteries of spirit energy through careful study of their Saiyan aggressor, ki-harnessing piloted machines were designed with desperate speed and deployed against Luffa. Their effect was dramatic, and his advance across the islands was halted and soon reversed.
Though Luffa, with his intense ki training and expert battle knowledge, could best one of the ki machines in a one-on-one battle, in a flock the Mekah-controlled machines were deadly even for him. The destruction of the planetary population shifted dramatically from a simple sweep and destroy mission to an intense cat-and-mouse game of survival.
In one fierce battle, caught between two squads of these Avar machines– a term Luffa learned referred to their long-ago worshiped sky deity – Luffa was nearly killed, and his honor guard had to be activated to bring him back to the relative safety and healing equipment present upon his ship. There were doubts about whether to continue with the initial plan of having Luffa face such an entrenched foe on his first mission, and Cocob wisely decided to accompany Luffa on quick exterminations runs that would punch through enemy lines to get at the soft refugee centers before moving back to the protection of the heavily shielded ship. The runs would have a twofold effect. First, it would demolish combat readiness, as many materials for the fight were made in these refugee areas. Secondly, and more importantly, it would demoralize the pilots in the Avar flocks when they learned of the demise of their families and loved ones.
As a side benefit, Cocob would familiarize Luffa with coordinated tactics during the strikes, something he would have to be very familiar with when he began to fight in a true Elite squad later in life.
While the attacks did demoralize and the Saiyans were able to make new gains, they also caused the Mekah to act more and more desperately in their despair. Suicide waves became common, as dozens of Avar units walked out of their makeshift factories just before the Saiyans advanced upon them, the machines often unpainted in their haste and sometimes manned by the machinists who built them. There was a shortage of good pilots.
One fateful day, the entire remainder of the beleaguered Avar squadrons marched in force against Luffa and his mentor. During their great battle, nuclear-tipped warheads launched from silos and spun across the sky. The target was not the Saiyans, though – they had proven impervious to even the strongest bombs – the target was the old industrial sectors of the globe, the immense amount of chemicals spewed into the atmosphere leaving much of their once pristine blue ocean an irradiated cesspool, twisting their sky into an unnatural green glow.
The Mekah had become so desperate that denying the Saiyans a meaningful victory was their main objective. Perhaps, the thinking went, the Saiyans could be dissuaded from continuing their genocide if they no longer found value in the result. They did not fully understand the Saiyan economy. Even with the planet ruined, the Saiyans could squeeze profit from its withered husk.
The battle proved more fortuitous in stalling Saiyan fortunes than the scorched earth strategy. His ki infusion exhausted during the prolonged exchanges, Luffa was overwhelmed by sheer numbers and grievously wounded in his chest, and the six-foot retractable razor on the talon arm of one Avar nearly decapitated the young prince. Instead, a small hairline scar was made on the jaw of his young face. Cocob had pushed Luffa backwards, and fulfilling his duty as the boy’s protector, threw himself against the sharp blades of the machine. The brave Saiyan veteran died during that battle, searing his way through scores of Avar, but in his explosive death cry he weakened the resistance long enough for Luffa’s remaining honor guard to commit a successful rescue.
After the loss of Cocob, the mission overseer, and the near-fatal wound delivered to their charge, the honor guard contacted the Bone Moon House in Cacumber Capital for reinforcements. The boy’s aunt, a fierce Saiyan warrioress known as Aspera, brought with her a group of low class ruffian mercenaries from the hardnosed Radditsu District, and launched a rescue of Luffa.
Aspera’s vicious decimation of Planet Meke is not recorded in the official Imperial Annals of Conquest, but it is sang of in battle halls and drinking dens throughout the Radditsu District. Young Luffa was recovered, Planet Meke sold for a decent sum, and Cocob was given a proper warrior funeral when his remains were returned to the pink skies of his homeworld.
All that remains of the Mekah are their smashed avian skeletons dotting the scorched landscape of their planet, sometimes picked at by the curious miner or driller.
Although Luffa was wounded and unable to complete the mission, he was not considered a failure because the advent of ki machines was not forseen in the extermination models built for the Mekah. Luffa was raised to the status of Level Two Elite, and granted further training as well as an assault commando’s pension – no small pay, even for a rich boy. Luffa had spent an entire blood-soaked year on Meke. His return home was met with much ceremony, as is traditional when an Elite first returns to their family from an expedition.
Politics on Vegeta was heating up, as it did any time the centennial accords with the Arcosians neared. The House of the Bone Moon was somewhat insulated due to their power and stability from the interfamilial bloodshed that accompanied the turning of a century, but this political season was especially violent, with reprisals blooming in even the lowliest of noble houses.
The Bone Moon House’s loose but recurrent genetic connection with the royal Koregutsu line put many of their heirs in jeopardy, including Luffa. An ill-planned shuttle bombing left him the sole survivor, as the explosive ordinance hadn’t compensated for the relatively high battle rating he’d attained through his brutal time on Meke as well as the large Zenkai he’d attained, the Full Release of a Saiyan’s rejuvenated chi upon recovering from a near-fatal wound. Due to the assassination attempt, Luffa was given two of the Radditsu mercenaries as permanent protectors and his aunt Aspera agreed to become his martial arts advisor.
It wasn’t long before a more intimate assassination was attempted. During the festivities of Crowning Day, where all paid reverence to King Zasho Koregutsu I with great parties and feasts, the entire Bone Moon House was targeted for elimination. Luffa and the other immediate scions were the first to be attacked in a coordinated strike spanning the entire Bone Moon palatial grounds. A strong Radditsu rough and two aliens were contracted to ambush Luffa at the end of a training session, when both Luffa and Aspera’s energies would be waning from the prolonged sparring.
The attack was countered, barely. Luffa retains a slight scar on his cheek from where an alien’s claw grazed him, and Aspera suffered a broken leg and fractured arm from the intense brawling. Both of Luffa’s Radditsu bodyguards were killed. Half of the barracks they were fighting in was left in ashen disintegration, and due to the other attacks – one which left Luffa’s older brother dead -- much of the palaces of the Bone Moon House were left in ruin.
The family moved from the ruined estates to their ancestral seat outside of Cacumber Capitol, an old but powerful citadel known as the Bonefort. Reprisals were meted out instantly by Pakel, who personally slain the scions of two rival houses with his own hands, the murders doing nothing to quell the rage stoked by the death of his eldest son. Rumors of open warfare between the great Houses were broiling in the streets before Koregutsu I wisely issued a Declaration of Peace and Prosperity, whose commandments forced all subjects of the Solar Saiyan Empire to acquire high quotas of planetary resources each year or be subject to stiff imperial penalties. This tore attention away from internal competition, and refocused the Saiyans on an outward, expansionist mindset. Pakel was promoted from Lord to Sovereign Prince, a perfunctory office separate from the Crown Princes that are direct issue of Koregutsu, the Grand Princes who are direct relatives. The title was a relic of the Ancient Regime, when border lords who were the first line of defense had slightly higher status over the lords in the capitals, and this Princedom was a reflection of that ancient honor, which imbued every bleached stone and sharpened spike of the dread Bonefort.
The new Prince Pakel immediately sent his children to the far fringes of the North Galaxy to fulfill the King’s commands. Luffa, now at the age of six, was scheduled for two planets due for sale by year’s end. He was accompanied by his aunt Aspera and a cousin whom he’d never met. They were to fight and conquer using the coordinated tactics of an Elite squad. The two planets were what Saiyan raiders called swamp soups, globes bursting with high levels of carbon in their atmospheres, creating broiling hot, wet and wild worlds which were that teeming with every sort of crawling and buzzing lifeform one could imagine. The sentient species that controlled these worlds proved less than a challenge, though on the second swampy sphere Luffa had to blast his way out of a giant froggadder’s stomach.
Luffa’s education wasn’t all martial in nature. On his return home from his successful missions, he was enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Continuous Mathematics, where he excelled with high marks, especially in Electromagnetic Spectrum courses, which were vital to certain aspects of the Saiyan warrior, including Blutz-wave properties. A Saiyan Elite is expected to be just as sharp with his mind as he is with his ki, and Luffa’s tutoring detailed intensive engineering and physics, including the practical abilities of being able to rig an attack ball on the fly, repair scouters and transports, operate complex computers, and to customize all manners of machinery.
In his seventh year, in Age 2798, a grand tournament was held by Koregutsu I to celebrate all fighters and conquerors of the empire. The winner of each Elite tier would receive a royal commendation for the rank of Super Elite – a rare cream of the crop when it comes to the Imperial warriors – and the overall grand champion – regardless of class -- would gain their own estates in the Capital, their own warship, and a Baron’s pension for life.
Luffa trained for months for his bout, against a prim and proper diplomat’s son named Haisee who was born with the title of an Elite just barely. Though Luffa and Haisee were of the same age, Haisee was derided as a one-worlder, those Elites who had taken their first world early in life and had never been expected to conquer another, as their destinies were pegged in the imperial bureaucracy.
It was to be a First Blood match, with the victor determined quickly by the first drop of blood to stain the pale and chalky dust of the arena floor. Luffa used psychological attacks against his opponent before the exchange of blows began, mocking Haisee and his timid reputation, called him a wilting flower, and questioned the lineage his slightly lighter-than-normal shade of hair. Haisee responded with a stiff frown, and the battle commenced. Luffa was taught well, and knew that a Saiyan used every advantage in battle to secure a victory. He fought with the sun to his back, and whenever possible kicked up large plumes of obscuring dust to shadow his movements and cloud his strikes.
Haisee proved remarkably well-trained and strong as well, contrary to the rumors about him, able to endure and even match Luffa during their blistering exchanges that tore across the Royal Coliseum. During a great clash of ki waves, the seemingly impossible happened. Luffa was overwhelmed by Haisee’s beam of spirit, and scorched badly on one side as he leapt away from the detonation. A rivulet of blood streamed from his shoulder, but before the trickle could land on the sand Luffa’s arm shot out and he snatched the crimson stream with a fist. With his other hand, he reached down and took a handful of the arena dust, grinding the sticky and sandy substance into the wound, wincing as he applied deep pressure, making sure no more blood would seep out. He licked his fingers free of the red stain, chuckling with a wicked malice.
Luffa would not be defeated, not by one with such a sorry reputation. He would be a Bone Moon Super Elite! He dug deep into his ki reserves, and brought out an ancient technique of his family, swathed in secrecy and known only by those closest to the Seat, and taught directly by the Lord. It was considered taboo among his kin to display the technique when not conquering worlds, but Luffa didn’t care. He would have his victory.
“You’ve dug yourself a pretty little pit, flower.” Luffa growled as he charged his attack, a milky blue aura rising from from his shoulders. A bright icy light began to strobe from him, tossing daylight shadows about the arena chaotically. “Now freeze in it! Icewolf Bite!!!” He yelled, and suddenly a wide beam of the frost-hued ki shot from his outstretched palms, the ki taking on an wet appearance. Haisee was confused by the strange energy of the strike, and attempted to block it.
The attack hit with a cutting wave, freezing the arms and lower half of Haisee’s body in ice. The boy was sealed solidly to the ground. Luffa grinned and walked nonchalantly towards his opponent, delivering a hard fist to the boy’s nose, crushing it with a spray of blood that arced high, landing in several bright splotches across the sand.
Luffa won the match, and was declared its victor, though he went on to be defeated by a fifteen year-old Elite in the quarter-finals. Quite surprisingly, a low class, no-name veteran with grey wings in his hair ended up winning the entire tourney, but Luffa was still in high spirits despite it all. He’d won his first tier, and would be granted a battle promotion by the King himself.
Standing in the presence of the King was a terrifying and exhilarating experience. All of the Grand Princes and Princesses were there, along with His Highness, flanked by dozens of imperial attendants and executors, including Viceroy Mustad, a high-ranking bureaucrat and one of the most feared Super Elites in the Empire.
Zasho Koregutsu I was leaning back in his dark throne, a grim expression on his aging face. He was striking and regal in appearance still, but time had turned his fearful youthful features into a grandfatherly stoicism. His imperial-style beard had gone white as the walls of the Great Hall, and his hair had taken streaks of the same shade as it retreated along his scalp. But his dark eyes had remained hard and wise, and there was a deep strength coursing through his body, even while it was resting.
Those dark eyes gleamed with an unknowable calculation as it became Luffa’s turn to approach and kneel.
“Elites are born. Super Elites, are made.” He boomed in his deep voice. “Many of House Bone Moon have I raised to this status over the years. And all have proven, deservedly so. See that you maintain such a high standard as you serve your King and Empire.”
“By your will and command, your Grace.” Luffa responded in his boyish voice, head bowed low. He prostrated himself before the King as the royal scepter was tapped upon the pauldron of his battle armor, bestowing the boon and rank of Super Elite.
This singular event would change his life, and the fortunes of his family, forever.
One night shortly after the tournament, Luffa was awakened to the a great pounding at the gates of the Bonefort. Peering hazily out the barred windows of his chamber, he could see a long phalanx of the King’s soldiers gathered, delivering great blasts of ki to the protection field that incapsulated the gate and the fort walls with its shielding glaze. Quickly dressing in his newly-awarded battle armor, Luffa made his way outside, where his father was already shouting with the assailing troops.
“Open the gates, in the name of the King!” Their commander yelled.
A great defense was marshalled, with all of Luffa’s kin arrayed against the royal army. A purge order had been given by the ailing King against all perceived enemies, which, inexplicably, included the Bone Moon House.
The gates burst with a great roar, and chaos reigned in that storied fortress for hours. Luffa’s mother was the first to fall, under a hail of ki waves. Then Luffa’s father, delivered to death at the end of Viceroy Mustad’s fist. Luffa’s brothers and sisters and cousins, and there were many, were slaughtered by the score. The army took a high number of casualties, but the proud warriors of the Bone Moon House were overwhelmed by the scale of their opposition. Aspera, in her rage, managed to deliver killing blows to half a dozen Elites before she was overran and fell.
Luffa put up a fierce resistance, killing two Elites himself, but when he met the unwavering bulk that was Mustad, his opening roundhouse left his right leg shattered, and he quickly succumbed to the blackness of unconsciousness with the Super Elite’s counterstrike.
When he finally awoke, Luffa was in a prison. He was not to be executed, by the grace of the dying King, but was to serve as hostage and ward to Viceroy Mustad until a loyal heir to the Seat could be established. The next year was a dark exercise in Saiyan brutality, as Mustad had held no love for Luffa’s legendary lineage, and took great joy in making certain he knew how low his House had been brought. Still, the name Luffa carried was not without its powers, and the summer after the Bonefort’s destruction he was ransomed by his aunt Aspera, who’d taken to running a mercenary guild that was modeled after Zucceta’s infamous Apocalypse Inc.
Half of Aspera was now robotic, and her battle rating had dropped substantially due to the loss of several limbs, but she was still a wise and formidable warrioress. Through her varied connections in Cacumber Capitol’s underword, she propelled Luffa, now age ten, to the position of Genitive Minister for the Radditsu District, the lowest form of legislator in the Imperial Diet. After the vacuum of power and confusion provided by the Koregutsu I’s death and Koregutsu II’s disappearance, Pakel’s title of Sovereign Prince was posthumously passed to his only surviving direct heir, with all his land and rights attached.
Now restored, Luffa looks for revenge against those who wronged his family, and for answers.
Starting Planet: Vegeta
Techniques:
Offensive
Icewolf Bite [UV3]
Using an ancient technique belonging only to the ruling scions of the Bone Moon House, Luffa charges a strobing milky-blue aura and releases a blast of ice-cold ki from his palms that when connects cuts with a powerful impact as well as freezes his opponent, temporarily (1 round) binding them in ice if they are within 100% of his PL. Cuts for 66% damage.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Toketsu-ken
Savage Salvo [MP3]
A brutal upbringing of rigorous and pitiless training has given this Super Elite a keen understanding of hand-to-hand combat. In his rage, Luffa releases a volley of blindingly fast punches and kicks, which not only can wreck an opponent on contact but are strong enough to create powerful supersonic booms in the air that can damage them if they're not in range of fist and foot.
Support
Flight [SU]
Pulsing his ki downwards at a constant rate, Luffa is able to defy gravity, levitate, and fly.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Flight
Tail Training [SU]
Through intense mental and physical conditioning, attacks against Luffa's tail no longer cause great pain or hinder him in any way.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Tail
Oozaru Mastery [SU]
Through long periods of meditation and study of the effects of Blutz radiation on the psyche, Luffa is able to master his rage and achieve complete control of his actions while in the Great Ape form.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Ape
Princely Power [SU3]
Summoning his ki, Prince Luffa can create a howling aura of energy that allows him to charge his powers by 100% of his PL each round.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Power_Up
Tail Training [SU]
Through intense mental and physical conditioning, attacks against Luffa's tail no longer cause great pain or hinder him in any way.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Tail
Oozaru Mastery [SU]
Through long periods of meditation and study of the effects of Blutz radiation on the psyche, Luffa is able to master his rage and achieve complete control of his actions while in the Great Ape form.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Ape
Princely Power [SU3]
Summoning his ki, Prince Luffa can create a howling aura of energy that allows him to charge his powers by 100% of his PL each round.
dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Power_Up
Transformations:
False Super Saiyan (x6)
Luffa is able to bring forth and channel the flickering echo of a Super Saiyan's power when confronted with great anger or hardship, expanding his powers sixfold.
Items:
False Super Saiyan (x6)
Luffa is able to bring forth and channel the flickering echo of a Super Saiyan's power when confronted with great anger or hardship, expanding his powers sixfold.
Items:
Scouter
One-Use Pod