Sooku

Gender: Male

Species: Hedgehog

Height: 4'3"

Weight: 90lbs

Age: 24

Faction Ties: None - freelances.

Role in Game:

Supporting Character. Had already made an enemy of Suzaku prior to the game's events which continues into Psi's meeting with him. Over the course of Suzaku's initial reign, Sooku successfully coaxes Lynness away from Suzaku's side through a series of duels, turning her against her former ruler and creating a lasting alliance that continues all the way to game's end.

Abilities

Sooku's left arm is a robotic swiss-army buster capable of attacking in a very wide choice of modes - most commonly as a chargable energy gun and a semi-solid beam sword, but also capable of firing full-auto machinegun, flamethrower, shuriken launcher and even a fire extinguisher. The arm itself is made of a virtually indestructable metal - this compliments Sooku frequently using it as an object to deflect ranged attacks, from bullets to rockets to energy blasts. Finally, Sooku has a vicious hyperactive reaction to sugar and sugary foods which causes him to become extremely fast in his attacks, including his buster shots - he usually keeps a stash of sugar cubes inside a compartment of his gun for just that purpose.

Personality

Unusually serene and laid back most of the time, and simpleminded sometimes even to the point of happy-go-luckiness. Even when shit hits the fan, Sooku is rarely intimidated or annoyed, and even when he is, he's fairly mild compared to most of his peers. Overall, he's a generally helpful guy who takes time out of his day to solve other people's problems, though he has been known on occasion to be too lazy to bother - in some situations more severe than others.

Summarization of Fighting Style

While Sooku has all the obvious makings of a ranged fighter, he can still easily hold his own in a close-quarters brawl and can alternate between the two practically on the fly. His recoil mechanics can make for some interesting fakeouts and surprise attacks, mostly in using his recoil momentum to barge into foes, but can also be used as a platforming mechanic. Finally, Sooku has some of the best counter abilities of any character in the game, and is the only one capable of countering projectile attacks in that he is capable of deflecting them and even returning them to sender with precise timing - suffice to say, he's best utilized when used defensively.

Primary Attack

Buster Swing. Generally performs blunt attacks with Sooku's rigid Buster frame in moderately quick but lightly damaging swings. If a projectile hits Sooku while he is blocking with his Buster, he'll deflect it away from him in various angles depending on the player's timing (a Parry will return the projectile straight back towards its point of origin). Buster attacks also have extremely fast counters, making it one of the easiest moves to outprioritize other attacks with.

Secondary Attack

Buster Sword. Protrudes a vauge laser blade to cut enemies with. Sword swings are generally far more vanilla than Sooku's blunt attacks, being slower but more damaging. In exchange for the higher damage potential, however, it becomes difficult to out-prioritize other enemies with decent speedy attacks without first setting them up beforehand with post-hit stun or mindgames, but it does have an extremely responsive guarding time which compliments Sooku's deflecting and countering skills with his blunt Buster extremely well.

Special 1

Energy Buster. When tapped, fires a small projectile towards the cursor, dealing light damage and stun with no knockback. Sooku can only have a certain amount of projectiles onscreen at a time, and will have to wait for them to hit a target or surface before he can fire more. When the special button is held down, the Buster charges up for extra effect, firing a much larger, heavily damaging projectile and inducing a brief cooldown period before Sooku can fire again. Both methods of fire induce excessive recoil (for the latter, proportional to the length of charging) which pushes Sooku in the opposite direction whenever he fires his buster - while this may be viewed as a hindrance to some, an expert player will use the recoil to their advantage. Firing downwards will push Sooku into the air, lending it effectiveness as a platforming aid, and if the resulting recoil momentum directs him straight into an enemy, Sooku will barge into them and bowl them over, dealing slightly less damage than the projectile itself, but at significantly higher speed. While Sooku can't fire whilst moving, he can maintain a charged shot whilst performing other actions.

Special 2

Shuriken Cannon. Behaves similarly to the Special 1, but in exchange for the charging capability and a slower ROF (read: # of onscreen projectiles), launched Shurikens are much faster, will bounce several times and penetrate through any living enemy to a certain damage threshhold. While Shurikens are best used in the hands of a reasonably accurate aim, in tight areas they can be spammed to abuse their bouncy penetration abilities, and some other environments can lead to trick shots by way of accurately bouncing Shurikens to hit certain targets - in some areas more deliberately than others.

Climax Mode

Hyper Sooku. Sooku eats a sugar cube and turns hyper to the extent that his fur turns white. Whilst hyper, Sookus general speed increases, his projectile attacks become scattered, Danmaku-esque barrages of mass projectiles, and his melee attacks become speedy, almost self-comboing flurries that hit multiple times per button press. When the Climax wears off, however, Sooku suffers a brief period of sugar rush, leaving him vulnerable to enemy attack afterwards.

Climax Attack 1

Sooku fires a wide, heavily damaging beam at the cursor, dealing a single hit to anything caught inside and knocking them back a far distance. There is a brief pre-fire delay that an enemy can capitalize on to avoid the attack entirely, but this can be negated by using the beam as a combo finisher while the victim is still trying to recover from previous blows.

Climax Attack 2

Heavily damaging grab attack. Sooku grabs the enemy, then fires a charged buster shot towards the ground, carrying both of them into the air. At the apex of their ascent, Sooku hurls the victim straight into the ground, then lands on top of them with his Buster arm in an elbow drop. Best used as either part of a counter or as a guard breaker

Climax Finisher

BMFB. Sooku performs a lunging fake-out with Buster arm outstretched, jabbing the victim with the barrel. He then lifts the victim off the ground by the chin with the Buster, then after a lengthier-than-normal charging time, obliterates the victim with a screen-filling Buster shot that vaporizes anything that takes lethal damage from it. Any other enemies caught within the beam's influence take heavy damage themselves, but the one targetted for the take takes particularly vicious damage, having been caught by the full force of the attack. Anything that survives is blown several screenlengths away, including Sooku, who suffers intense recoil after the move finishes.

Sketches

[During the Suzaku saga, after meeting back up with him outside Castle Suzaku.]

Sooku: So I never did get around to askin'... what's your deal, anyway? Why d'you keep changing every now and then?

Synn: I guess the simplest way to put it is that it's similar to having two personalities.

Sooku: Yeah, I got THAT bit. That's not what I'm talking about. Why do your eyes keep changing colour?

Psi: Oh, that? I dunno. It makes it easier to tell the two of us apart, so I can't really complain.

Sooku: Well no MPD I've ever heard of works like that. That's just... wierd. And creepy.

Psi: Oh, you think that's creepy? Check this out!

[Psi's eye colour changes as normal whenever the dialogue switches over. Sooku simply looks on with increasingly awkward facial expressions.]

Synn: Psi, what are you doing?

Psi: Boop.

Synn: What are y--

Psi: Beep.

Synn: Stop th--

Psi: Check it, I'm a traffic light!

Synn: But you're n--

Psi: On.

Synn: You're not even green!

Psi: Oh yeah. Let's fix that.

Synn: How? Wait don--

[Psi's eyes turn green instead of their usual blue]

Psi: MINDTRICK!

Synn: Why am I even--

Psi: Green.

Synn: I swear to--

Psi: Green!

Synn: RED!

Psi: GREEEEEEN!

[They continue back and forth in the background]

Sooku: ...are you two always like this?