Skills and Abilities:
Unlike with her two other Belkaranger companions, Julie is a
AAA rank mixed Mage, who has proficiency at both physical close combat and magical spell casting. Her linker core output and mana capacity is the highest amongst the three, giving her a much larger array of spells and spell casting options compared to Asagi or Mayura. This makes her the de facto support fighter of the Belkarangers, providing medium-range fire and magic spell support to cover for her companion’s weaknesses in ranged combat and spellcasting, from boost spells to healing.
In the frontlines, Julie works as rear support for the Belkarangers, but offensively, her primary field of expertise is in stealth and infiltration. Adept at camouflage, disguises and invisibility coupled with her knack for acting and her family’s extensive array of digital software resources and technology, Julie can get in and out of places that most would find difficult to approach. This makes her invaluable in intelligence gathering and black ops, particularly in sting operations or the rare heist. Oftentimes, Julie would perform an entire operation in disguise, revealing herself only at the last minute to help in the final stages. Her skill in shadow ops is what gives her the name “
Ninja of Ninja”, Super Sentai references aside.
Julie is also the group’s tactical planner and advisor, responsible for the primary battle and operational planning of whatever mission the group finds themselves in, and her input is priceless when modifying potential weaknesses in an already existing plan - most often caused by Asagi’s
EXPLODING DYNAMIC ENTRY approach or Mayura’s honor restrictions. In her words, “
Less Flash, More Action”… though she still takes time to perform the mandatory ‘
HENSHIN’ sequence.
While Julie can handle herself well in armed melee combat with bladed weapons she is more mage than knight, relying more on her spells to keep the enemy at stand-off range, and engaging in duels only when necessary. This is due in part to her being the weakest amongst the group in terms of physical strength, thus her preference revolves around the extensive use of magic in using her physical weapons and enhancing her body, in true Neo-Belkan fashion.
As to the application of this preference, her style can be summed up in two words:
Anything Goes.
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“Also known as “Musabetsu Kakuto.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“Something you’d understand if you watch what I do…”
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Essentially anything can be made to do just about everything given the right circumstances, and that whatever works will. Julie thus has no specific fighting “style” unlike Asagi and Mayura, but adopts whatever she can, and applies them to whichever situation they’re needed. With no qualms about “honor” or image, Julie will do whatever it takes to win, from direct head on attacks, from trickery to backstabbing, as long as it gets the job done quickly and effectively. I.E. why wait for the enemy to get into position in a duel when you can just shoot them?
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"Good question."
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All this is done with much planning and forethought applied through Julie’s tactically oriented mind, and this thinking applies to just about every one of Julie’s combat scenarios. Every move, every action has to be “according to plan”, even the “last-second” feints and “unexpected changes”.
However, the best laid plans hardly survive contact with the enemy, and at times when an entire plan and its backups fall apart Julie tends to panic. An easily panicked Julie is an unpredictable Julie, and when driven into a corner with no way out she tends to do just about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to get out, no matter how strange, unorthodox or outrageous. In other words:
Anything Goes.
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“You’re gonna break your neck at the rate you’re nodding Kay…”
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Asides from this Julie’s combat oriented personas also have their own slight variations on her style, stemming out of each persona’s preferences. The most distinct variations are those from Tara and Saul. In Tara’s case, she adopts Mayura’s Haken Lee “Gaoleon” fighting style, while Saul, with his much tougher and stronger physique prefers direct and blunt fist fighting. (It should be noted that even Saul’s physical body is still weaker than Asagi or Mayura in terms of brute strength).
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"And they say females are the weaker half."
"I'd rather not argue about that."
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Devices:
As a mage, Julie is the most device reliant of the Belkarangers, armed with a wide variety of Armed, Storage and Intelligent Devices for every situation, most of them created by her family company LM Digital.
Shurikenball –
This is Julie’s primary Device, created by LM Digital as a graduation present. Based in appearance off the device of the same name in Hurricanger, this baseball-like device is actually an Intelligent Device Core, housing a powerful AI (nicknamed “
Shureii”) which handles and maintains Julie’s Linker Core functions and magic use. It also has advanced compaction features which allow it to store all of Julie’s armed storage devices, and all of the devices can be controlled through Shureii. The Shurikenball also has a “
Recall” feature that teleports it to Julie’s location with only a mental command, allowing her to summon the device from anywhere as long as it is within 2000 meters from her. This feature is particularly useful in evading device checks – considering the Shurikenball has no compact storage form – and ensuring that it never gets lost. Finally, while the Shurikenball was not made for combat, it is tough enough to be used as a projectile against an unsuspecting enemy.
Survi-Buster (Julie) –
Standard equipment for the Belkarangers created by Aurion Dauer from Asagi’s requests, inspired by the weapon of the same name in the Super Sentai title GoGo Sentai Boukenger. Like in the show, the Survi-Buster is a pistol-like device that can transform into a sword called the Survi-Blade, and it is used by the Belkarangers when casting ranged spells. Unlike with Asagi and Mayura’s versions, Julie’s Survi-Buster is the closest to the original, having no special modifications done to it, and is thus considered the “stock” version. It is considered the first of 7 swords in Julie’s arsenal.
Hayate Sumaru –
A weapon directly inspired from Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger, the Hayate Sumaru is the second of Julie’s 7 swords. This katana-like storage device is tougher than the Survi-Buster, and is thus able to take more physical and magical punishment. The Hayate Sumaru’s most useful feature though is its Rifle mode, accessible when the sword is stored in its scabbard, and is capable of processing larger amounts of magical energy than the Survi-Buster Gun Mode, making it the best choice when casting more powerful ranged attacks.
Shuriken Bat –
Another Hurricanger-inspired weapon, this bat is used when non-lethal force or extreme blunt force trauma is required, often with the use of Impact Cushioning or Blast Impulse Spells respectively. A short sword is hidden inside the batting head, which is actually the scabbard, and is considered the third of Julie’s 7 blades.
(This is also Julie's favorite implement of pain when Asagi or Mayura incite her ire...)
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*shrugs*
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Magistick –
[Magistick in Rod Form]
[Magistick in Magisword form]
This Magiranger-inspired device is a storage device designed mainly for spellcasting. It has better mana-processing abilities than Julie’s other storage devices, and coupled with Shureii’s assistance makes the Magistick the ideal device for casting complex miscellaneous spells. When the head of the staff is pulled down the Magistick becomes the Magisword, which is the 4th of the 7 Blades. This sword is used for advanced magic-enhanced melee attacks, though the physical blade itself is weaker as a result.
Wolsabre –
The strongest and heaviest of the 7 Blades, this other Magiranger-inspired weapon is physically the largest and toughest of Julie’s weapons, able to withstand and dish out significant amounts of punishment. It has the worst mana-processing ability of Julie’s devices though, thus it can only be used with simple, low-level spells.
Gekisaber –
Originally designed for Mayura, but given to Julie due to the former’s incompatible fighting style, the Gekiranger-inspired Gekisabers are a set of twin scimitars which make up the 6th and 7th blades of Julie’s Seven Swords. These light yet sharp blades are used in dual-wielding styles, and their design makes them ideal as throwing weapons.
Auxilliary Devices:
Accelular –
Straight out of Boukenger is the Belkarangers all-in-one multipurpose device, the Accelular. This signature cell-phone like device performs almost every function its original can in the show, including cellular phone communication, compass navigation and ultraviolet blacklight. It also has various scanners and sensors that give it incredible detection abilities, ranging from infrared detection to magic scanning.
While similar in many respects to the original, several changes and improvements have been made to the design, like the replacement of the main LCD display with a 3-D holographic screen and projector, and tougher materials and construction, allowing it to withstand the harsh rigors of field use. Also, the Belkaranger’s intelligent device AI’s can interface with each other through the Accelular’s computer. And like in the show, the GoGo Turbine is used in the mandatory transformation posing sequences (even though their base intelligent devices perform the actual transformation).
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"..."
"What? It's only copypasta."
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Special Abilities:
Of Julie’s magical abilities, her most powerful is her lifelong specialty, and once an important part of her identity: Transformation Magic.
Julie excels in two types of transformation magic:
“
Peripheral Transformation”, which is a much lower class of transformation magic where the mage can only change the external properties of her body, like the color of her hair and eyes, the tone of her skin etc;
And
“
Equivalence Transformation”, where the mage adjusts the object’s physical mass and volume. Examples include changing the length of hair, the size of one’s extremities etc.
Her near-instinctive proficiency with both these types of transformation magic gives her impressive control over the shapes and forms with which she can mold her own body into. She can assume different sized body builds from fat to thin, and her face can be morphed into just about any appearance she can think of limited only by her imagination. This powerful ability is made even more so coupled with her
Replicate Scanning magic, which can completely record another person’s physical form and transfer that data to her mental faculties, allowing her to perfectly impersonate another person down to the smallest detail, even fingerprints and vocal cord shape, which allows her to change her voice naturally. These, combined with her Soul Advent: Infinity Wardrobe program allows her to create perfect disguises almost instantly for any occasion. Also, these are not merely illusory transformations but true physical changes, and Julie can “
lock” herself into one form comfortably without needing further magic sustenance, making at least her physical disguises immune to anti-magilink fields or magic negation spells, though she still requires magic to change out of her current form. All this, and Julie needs only a tiny fraction of her mana output to use this powerful transformation magic, which is the main reason for her AAA mage ranking.
There are limitations to Julie’s transformation skills: she can only increase or reduce her current mass by 50%, any more and she’ll need to resort to illusion magic to compensate. Likewise, Julie can only transform herself to within the limit of her base physical form, meaning she cannot transform into anything non-humanoid, like animals and plants, or inorganic matter. She also cannot disguise her magical signature or her DNA (despite the physical changes) and is thus vulnerable to advanced biometric and magical identification techniques and technologies. Finally, Julie’s magical efficiency drops by varying amounts depending on how far from the original base form she changes: the more drastic the change, the less efficient she becomes, and as a male her efficiency drops by nearly 80%. For this reason Julie has to return to her original form to cast spells at maximum efficiency.