#megadeth class

Thanks to some recent info I got from @nincopyjasb on the Lightning the Argent novel, we have a broader idea of what happened in Kliff’s fight with the Hydra.

The battleground they fought in was in a region of London, England that was destroyed but over the span of 60 years became known as “Dragged Town” (the story was told from the perspective of events post-2180’s GG1 tournament… which puts the battle itself at or around the year 2120).

So, around 2120 the Sacred Order were struggling against the Hydra and were actually in the process of retreating after trying to fight it for a whole day and night before Kliff finally arrived on the battlefield.

He quickly barks some orders at them to take Military Formation to “win or die trying” and they create a Magic Field to enhance their own strength.

They begin to fire elemental magic projectiles (about the equivalent of explosive shooting stars flying through the sky).

Kliff stands alone in front of the Hydra.

The parasites inside the Hydra’s body spot him and begin to attack, some of the parasites have bodies coated in electric energy and others emitting poison gas from their noses, but none of them can touch him as several dozen of them chase after him all at once.

With a single swing of his Dragonslayer sword he cuts down half the parasites without even touching them directly, knocking aside others simply from the force of his swing.

As Kliff tries to approach the Hydra directly, the beast’s range is too large and manages to attack Kliff’s “7th blind spot” with all its limbs.

He dodges four of the limbs with a sort of “spinning air walk” and jumps again before the remaining three limbs can touch him.

As he dodges the attacks he generates a Ki-barrier around his body and uses something he calls the “stars of plasma” (the elemental spells his men were firing from a distance) as catapults to rebound off of, using his Ki as a repulsion force and “accelerates” the arc of his jumping (basically climbing the spells like platforms on to one of the Hydra’s heads).

The Hydra shakes its body and with two of its snake-like limbs attacks Kliff both from the front and behind, while simultaneously generating a shockwave of roars from its remaining five heads.

Kliff uses his hand and fires a massive Ki blast (Reflex Roar/Bellowing Roar) to repel the shockwave.  The explosion from the blast disperses the limbs and Kliff attacks the head, smashing one of the Hydra’s eyes.

His men get excited as the first successful hit lands, but Kliff and the beast know the battle has only just begun…

For 3 days and 3 nights (7 days in total) the battle continues unceasingly…

As Kliff manages to finally cut off 3 of it’s 5 heads and only 4 of it’s sword-like limbs he realizes he can no longer afford to spend time fighting the creature (as he has more important battles to fight) and gives the order for them to begin the sealing process on the Hydra.

They sew its body’s meridians with 13 chain wedges (about the equivalent of a linch pin with chains fixed to it) and place 2 giant boulders on the remaining heads.  The purpose of the chains is based on traditional Chinese medicine as a means of blocking the life energy channels (Ki flow) of the beast’s body.

And finally they station a “Watcher” (sentinel) near the sealed Hydra to notify them in case of an emergency or if it breaks free of the seal.

As of October 26th, 2180 the Hydra was still running a diagonostic on the battle it had with Kliff in the form of simulations to the point it could no longer determine which was the original record of the fight and what were merely the results of a projected simulation.

Kliff had fought on the front lines during the Crusades until his 70s before passing his role on to Ky Kiske.

After the original battle, London was left in ruins with only the area where the Hydra was sealed blocked off.  Entire nearby buildings were destroyed and miasma emanated from cracks in the ground.

Even in the so-called “safe zones” lava from the ground had boiled out and solidified like waves of hardened volcanic rock, making just traversing the area on foot difficult.

The Sentinel Watcher monitors the Hydra’s vital signs by using “mechanical magic insects” that function as its eyes and relay 600 fps video, audio, IR, and UV frequencies and relays these back to the Sacred Order’s headquarters in Paris as needed.

They’d be rare by the time of 2187, as most Gears that were considered a major threat to humans and the environment were hunted down and sealed away if not obliterated.

If there were Megadeth Class Gears that became sentient, there’s no telling where they’d live or how, if they still existed.

Leopaldon is probably a rare example, as he lived in Antarctica, far from civilization (though nature preserves still exist, such as in the Federation of China, so they might still live in such places).

Also keep in mind that Gears are not unlike animals in some regard, as with the Hydra, it housed a legion of parasites in its body and would have probably become their food eventually, given its size and a Gear’s natural voracity.  So even if a Megadeth Gear isn’t affected by natural viral disease… it can become victim to smaller Gears of its own kind (survival of the fittest and all that).

Most Gears of that magnitude were sealed away during the Crusades, so hypotheticals probably wouldn’t count for much, though I don’t think Dr. Paradigm would appreciate us talking about his kin like this.

Still, most Valentines are probably exponentially stronger than the Gears were back then, not to mention how strong Bedman is.

The Assassins (Venom, Zato, MIllia, Slayer) worked together to defeat the God Series, which may as well have been large or near that classification, though they got ambushed by Bedman, which says a lot.

Everyone else took on a Copy of Justice, though it was based on her combat data from the old tournament in 2180, they handled themselves pretty well considering.  And taking on Justice compared to a Megadeth class Gear is no small feat either, even if the Justice they fought was considered significantly “weaker” than her original giant form of 2074.

Dizzy is still considered a potential threat by some (even her own Gear kind, as Paradigm almost destroyed her at one point because of the threat potential she poses as a Backup of Justice).

Let’s review what we know:

Officially it is labelled as either:

メガデスクラス (Megadeth Class)

メガデス級ギア (Megadeth Grade Gear)

Able to destroy a city populace of 1 Million in less than an hour.

To kill most Megadeth, “Last Resort” (ラスト-リゾート) was required, a “Houriki” 法力 (Magic Particle) based satellite weapon that had a destruction radius of several kilometers.

In the case of the Hydra (ヒュドラ), “Last Resort” ‘s destruction radius was 3 kilometers (after 3,000 residents were evacuated).

Because Last Resort can reduce all life to nothing within it’s space during the blast, no one can enter the kill-zone.

The charge time requirement of the Satellite is roughly 2000 seconds per 1.5 kilometers, even so it has a terrible effect on the environment and ultimately makes the target area a blockaded zone (or No-Man’s Land) for several hundred years.

The Hydra itself had 5 heads, and 7 blade like limbs, and apparently it had smaller scope parasite-Gears sloughing off of it that made approaching it very difficult.

Killing it completely wasn’t even possible (even after fighting it for 3 days straight) so Kliff sealed it away under London.

That is a somewhat broad if difficult question.

Gears, as you may already know, were bred as bio-weapons of war...so it goes without saying that they are extremely difficult to kill when active, much less seal away into dormancy. But of course, this also depends on class of Gear and species.

Fortunately for most of humanity, once Justice was sealed (and later killed), nearly all the existing gears awaiting her orders went into a semi-catatonic state. Gears that were mass-produced after the first model, Justice, cannot operate and function under normal circumstances without her commands (unless special circumstances change their core programming).

The gears that produced the most trouble for the Sacred Order were the T-Class and M-Class Gears. Toxic Class Gears can produce massive amounts of miasma and spores that can kill off whole ecosystems if a cure is not found and administered. Megadeth Class Gears possess size, durability, and raw physical and kinetic power capable of leveling whole cities with populations of 1,000,000 in less than an Hour.

In the case of sealing a rogue Megadeth Gear...it is almost impossible to do alone, much less with a limited group of soldiers...to say nothing of trying to kill it. If it weren't for I-No and Sol's intervention, Ky Kiske would have died from a Megadeth Gear attack in 2173, after trying to take it on alone.

In the case of the Hydra who leveled London, England: Hydra had 5 heads and a great many sword limbs that tore the city to rubble. The Sacred Order couldn't do anything against it for a day and night before their leader Kliff Undersn finally arrived. He fought the beast for seven days and nights...managing only to cut off 3 of it's 5 heads and only 4 of it's sword limbs. Though the struggle and loss was great, the Order wrapped Hydra in 13 Chains, put two large boulders on the remaining heads and sealed it...as they had many other legions of Gears to fight at that time to route their forces...and for a long time, the buried Gear lay dormant and the location became a No-Man's Land. Though despite the Hydra, humans drifted back in and built a village on top of it.

Blackard Company tried to control it with Solaria, but were unable to manage it. Eventually the International Police had to initiate "Operation Last Resort": a blacktech laser satellite that obliterated the Hydra for good (after they evacuated the villagers of course!)...but once again, the scorched earth meant no humans could ever live there again for many years to come.

As for the gear Leopaldon...his whereabouts are unknown.

And lest we forget the destructive power of Dizzy.

It's worth noting, that only the Command Type Gear Justice has had the onus of being sealed in Dimensional Prison. Most other Gears fall dormant or can be contained by simpler and cruder means, though do NOT MISUNDERSTAND...Gears are still very difficult to contain!

Related to this, though...are the Forbidden Beasts. Hi-Deigokutsuipo, the 6 Forbidden Magics not only produced 2 deadly assassins, but 4 other unknown subjects, not to mention the countless other "failures" that the Post-War Administration Bureau produced.

Most notable, however...was the project Leon Maining produced by extracting D.N.A. from Zato=ONE and Millia Rage and cloning the genetic information from their "beasts" and concentrating and injecting the fluid he produced into the soldiers of the Kingdom of Calronia. He labeled his army the "God Series". The fluid was intended to increase the soldiers' combat abilities while reducing pain and stress in the field...however this caused much more problems than he realised. Not only did it cause EXTREME STRESS on the human body...it caused the body to rupture and mutate uncontrollably.

The result was a nigh unkillable army of Gears...though not even a Gear in a traditional sense...abominations born from the exploded bodies of human soldiers! At first, Maining thought he could control the beasts and called out to them, commanding them to assassinate the leader of the Assassins' Organization.

Fortunately, at the time...three Assassins who had been at odds with one another decided to band together: Zato=ONE, the leader of the Guild, his former lover (turned traitor), Millia Rage, and his loyal servant Venom. Zato had the power to fight these "Gears" on relatively even terms, through the use of his own Dark Sentinel, the Forbidden Shadow Beast Organism, Eddie. Though he could not defeat them outright due to being outnumbered. What instead occurred...was a professionally executed plan. Venom distracted the creatures by hitting their critical points with his sniping ability "Red Hail", while Zato used the "Damned Fang" of his beast to tear open and expose their chests...while Millia Rage, despite her conflicted emotions, used "Winger" to pierce each exposed Gear Core...returning the mutations back into human corpses.

So as you can see...if you can expose a Gear's core...and have the means to destroy it...you can kill the Gear. But this varies from Gear to Gear...as some are nigh indestructible.

In fact, I'd say Sol Badguy's summoned Tribe Servant "Gigant" with all his enhancements would be nearly unstoppable...of course...Servants of a Gear are unheard of to humanity...and they aren't exactly Gears either, as that method is related to Soul Sinker.

Most Seals are done either by use of a blood pact...or forming a time-space "Ouroboros Loop" that causes a small loop in space-time...the latter requires extensive knowledge of the 12 Steps and possibly Forbidden Magic itself...beyond what humanity currently knows and utilizes. Most complex barriers are called 4ths for short because of the complicated notation.

There is a third method of forming a seal...but it's currently unstable and the method has yet to be fully researched. Transmuting an OutRage into a seal...this has only been achieved through use of Ky's sword Thunderseal...but we do not know how he did it exactly. This particular seal was meant to stop the Maiden of the Grove from eroding into sublimation, with the hope that one day she could be restored. Regardless, once a Gear has been fully sublimated...it's uncertain if they CAN be restored...or if they are gone forever.

Gear cells are links into the Backyard...Gears can still be sublimated and broken down, regardless of their dormant status. The method Valentine used to sublimate Gears goes outside the realm of the 12 Steps, so it is most likely impossible for normal humans to grasp the incantation.

There's very little information to go on, certainly.

"He is a good man at heart who somehow manages to control a giant Gear, but otherwise little is known about him, his Gear, or his faithful dog. A killer who shows absolutely no mercy, he is a formidable beast."

(Source: Translated from Guilty Gear Isuka Arcadia Issue.)

While general information states that Leopaldon is the "man" inside the Gear along with his giant dog...this information isn't entirely confirmed, and mostly speculation from the magazine itself. 10th Memorial Guide says nothing regarding the name of this man in particular.

"To the ends of the Earth, he uses his ability to control the Gear to help people. His body itself is a Gear, and he is fused with a predatory dog (possibly female?).

While his outward instincts appear to be part-dog, he's in control of his own actions. His goals are completely shrouded in mystery."

(Source: Guilty Gear 10th Memorial Guide)

Collectively they are referred to as Leopaldon, but the man controlling the Gear with his bongo drums is fused to the creature...his large dog also does not appear to be a normal dog in any sense due to its size and the fact it has the appearance of a large puppy, larger than any known adult dog. The large puppy is female reportedly. According to the GG 10th Memorial Guide, the relationship between the three is something like a fusion of sorts, though to what extent is unknown, though it does not appear the large puppy is fused to Leopaldon, and simply rides inside it.

It's important to note that it's NOT uncommon for small Gears to control/pilot larger Gears as what can be seen on Ganymede Island in Dr. Paradigm's Tribe. The relationship chart in 10th Memorial also puts Leopaldon under the status of "Gear" next to Gig ( from Dust Strikers) and Justice, saying nothing about the man controlling him. Also worth noting, the man is most likely a humanoid Gear fused to an even larger Gear.

What we DO know is that these three Gears reside in Antarctica, the South Pole...which although seemingly uninhabited by humans, might be an ideal residence for Gears, similar to Ganymede Island, due to its unhospitable climate. Whether or not he is stationed at a Gear Plant in the south pole remains to be seen, as other forms of 'inhuman' and 'non-animal' life appear to reside there as well. According to the information given, he simply wishes to help those in need that might be stranded out in the cold, similar to St. Bernard tradition.

Also worth noting, roaming gears the size of Leopaldon are actually quite rare post-2180 that weren't sealed, not to mention its fighting power is off the charts! Here's his movelist:

LEOPALDON: ----------------------Specials Chou Haitacchi! [Super Hi-Touch] Reverse River (Back Current) Chou Ote [Super Shake] Perfect Rainbow Killer Note Level 1 Killer Note Level 2 ----------------------Overdrive/Chaos Attacks Killer Note Level 3 808 ----------------------

Speculating based on his raw power from "Perfect Rainbow" (a laser belched from his mouth) and "808" which appears to be a powerful shockwave that hits anyone within close vicinity, he has the destructive power of a Megadeth Class Gear, which can tear into whole populaces in a short amount of time. His hide is indestructible, and all attacks to it register as a "guard" when hit, as the only vulnerable spot is the inside of his mouth.

He also has the dubious destinction of having extremely bad breath, as in "Back Current" he pukes up a rotten fish that causes any opponent to get dizzied on contact.

His song theme is "Kill DOG as a sacrifice to DOG.", DOG spelled backwards is GOD in this case...and plays on the old saying "Dog-eat-dog world." The distorted vocals in this song repeat the phrase in the title as well.

Aside from this information, Leopaldon does not have a full bio like the rest of the Guilty Gear cast, due to his status as a secret boss in Guilty Gear Isuka (his information was not listed on the official Isuka website when the game was released).