Death Battle Match Ideas: Harpuia

"...We, the Reploids of Neo Arcadia...We are defenders of humanity. The only justice here."

I considered doing an entry for all Four Guardians, but like with Zaheer on the Red Lotus I'm pitting them against, most of the focus was on the group's leader so this entry is more about him. Warning this give a ton of spoilers if you haven't gotten into Mega Man Zero.

The conflict in the Mega Man X series called the Maverick Wars was eventually ended by the creation of a program called the Mother Elf which could control Reploids and prevent them from going Maverick and attacking humans. But a deranged scientist named Dr. Weil (no connection to Wily, he's actually called Dr. Vile in the Japanese version) decided letting all the machines off for a war caused by a computer virus was too good for them and reprogrammed the Mother Elf in the Dark Elf and led to the Elf Wars which wiped out over half the surviving humans and Reploids and left most of the Earth a wasteland until X sealed the Dark Elf away.

In the wasteland, the only safe heaven for humans is city called Neo Arcadia. Harpuia and the rest of the Four Guardians were created based on X's data to restore the ravaged Earth, but their priorities changed when Neo Arcadia's leader, a flawed copy of X, began oppressing the Reploids during an energy crisis and would brand any would resisted or spoke out against him as Mavericks. Survivors formed the Resistance, but were outclassed until they found and added Zero to their rank.

I haven't said much about himself so far, and that's because in the original game he doesn't do much to stand out from the other four and just acts as another antagonist. It's the second game where that starts to show more depth than just acting an enforcer who blindly obeys the law; for starters, due to a sense of honor he took Zero back to the Resistance base after he collasped fighting an army. For most of the game, he's also the de facto main antagonist, taking over after the death of Copy X. Towards the a member of the Resistance goes named Elpizo rogue and since he has two copies of the Dark Elf, only Zero is able to stop him.

While Harpuia's presence doesn't drive the plot heavily (even problems faced the Resistance are more thanks to Elpizo's incompetent leadership), he starts to start to understand the horror of the war and that the Resistance may not be the Mavericks of the X series, but he continues because he sees what he's doing as the best thing for the surviving humans. It gives hints that he could have been a hero if the series operated on a more black and white morality.

By the third game, it actually does. Dr. Weil comes back, and rebuilds Copy X and gets him to install him as the leader of Neo Arcadia's military. Weil has pretenses of trying to help Neo Arcadia. Harpuia doesn't trust him, seeing other Reploids under Weil have gotten outright malicious, but can't do anything due to Copy X, whose been reprogrammed into Weil's puppet, stripping him of his rank. He has enough when Weil destroys a chunk of the city with a missile and attacks his pet killing machine Omega, but as Omega has the Dark Elf boosting his power, he can't damage him.

Taken back for repairs by the Resistance, Harpuia decides to hell with laws, and he's going to fight against whatever the biggest threat to the humans even it's technically a human. He and the other Guardians help Zero against Omega, but are destroyed when Omega explodes from Zero's coup de grace. However this wasn't the end for him, as the remains of the Four Guardians, along with those of X and Zero, were used to create the Bio Metals in Mega Man ZX, which like most other Mega Man series, it's plot has gone unfinished.

Harpuia admittedly doesn't have a good track record, but that's pretty normal for a Mega Man villain. It stands to his credit that he kept surviving his fights with Zero since he doesn't hesitate to kill.

When fighting, Harpuia's main weapon are his two swords, which can fire energy waves. His element/theme is wind, as such he's extremely mobile, and can fly. His other attacks consist of shooting missiles, summoning attack drones (probably as nod to the Funnels in Gundam), calling down lightning, and his big attack in the first game is creating a plasma tornado, while in the second he does his new air dash move while creating giant sword beams. In both games he's one of the tougher bosses.

Going by his Bio Metal in the ZX series, Harpuia attacks do actually pack a similar punch to X and Zero (in the original ZX his tornado move is one of the most overpowered attacks in the game), so Zero's success against Omega can likely be attributed in part to the Cyber Elves he had enhancing him.

I already mentioned who I'm pitting Harpuia against, here my other ideas:


Satsuki Kiryuin (Kill la Kill): Satsuki initially comes of as a self-righteous social Darwinist, but gradually is revealed to have had a different goal. Like Harpuia, she does undergo some character development, and admits that even if she was trying to kill a greater evil she was only doing it for revenge.


Jin Kisaragi (Blaz Blue): Similar premise to the above, but correct me if I make any mistakes assessing Jin as I haven't gotten into Blaz Blue yet. What I gather is he is another villain who works for an oppressive government, and does some pretty terrible things, but gradually develops into a better person, for all the good it does since nothing good characters do in Blaz Blue ever seems to matter.


Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear Rising): Sam like Harpuia tries to do good, but in different case he started out fighting against evil, and ended up adopting Armstrong's insane vision when he found he couldn't beat him, deciding he try to do some good working for him rather than against him.


Darth Vader (Star Wars): Again, somebody who took the opposite path Harpuia did, going from hero to hero on the edge of the Dark Side (literally) to full blown villain.


Legion (Mass Effect): I have no idea if this is an even fight, I'm just throwing out this battle of robots because Legion is tied with Wrex for my favorite ME squad-mate.


Judge Dredd: Both of them fight to maintain an oppressive order, as they see no other alternative, even if some of their actions have left a bad taste in their mouths.'


Rob Lucci (One Piece): On other end of the shade of grey, we go into a dark shade of black. Rob Lucci fights to uphold the rule of the World Government, which almost the entire series has been hammered into the readers as the biggest bunch of assholes on the planet and it's probably best if they do go down. Lucci wouldn't have it that way, he likes killing too much.


Duke Panteria (Tales of Vesperia): Back to anti-villains, Duke fought for his fellow humans alongside his friend against the Entelexeia, but gradually seeing more of humans being bastards caused him to see them as not worth saving by the time the selfish actions of one human released an Eldritch Abomination called the Adephagos. Duke aimed to stop it from destroying the world by sacrificing every human, including himself, in contrast to Harpuia, who always seems to accept humans for the good and the bad. Also for some reason people keep saying Duke is Verspia' main antagonist despite not actually acting as one till the final act.

Ritcher Abend (Tales of Symphonia 2): Okay this one is bit of a stretch as these are very different characters, but they are both anti-villains doing what they see as the right thing. Also I really like this guy and he does more recognition. In Ritcher's case, he's trying to kill the spirit Ratatosk because as far he knows, Ratatosk is an egotistical jerk who aims to kill humans and half-elves alike, and killed his best friend Aster right in front of him. His warning fall on deaf ears for most of the game, and by the end Ratatosk has the seen the error of his ways, and Ritcher firmly establishes himself as villain since as far as the main cast knows, he aims to release a horde demons into the world.


Fate Averrunucus (Negima): I talked about this guy I few times already so I figured I should throw him as an idea at some point. Another anti-villain, this guy is part of an organization that is eventually revealed to be trying to save the inhabitants of the magical world. While Fate has some villainous moments, being a well-intended extremist, he is none the less the nice guy among the antagonists and most of subordinates stick by him out of sheer loyalty and refuse to abandon him even when outclassed.


Van Grants (Tales of the Abyss): One more "Tales of" Big Bad. This guy is from a game where the main conflict ultimately revolves around trying to deviate the world from a set of prophecies. Van is on the extreme end, aiming to wipe and replace the world with replicas, which the prophecies don't mention. But beyond simple hate, the prophecies predict the world's destruction, hence why he takes such extreme measures.


Raoh (Fist of the North Star): Both are trying to bring order in post apocalyptic world, but some of their actions set them against the heroes.


Kain (Legacy of Kain): They both see themselves as necessary evils. Kain has more to back it up despite being a far worse person, and in contrast to Harpuia detaining violance, Kain relishes it.




Amon: Enforcer vs revolutionary. Amon's blood bending is useless but he can still put up a fight with conventional waterbending.

Sold to

Ideas for all four Guardians:



Elite Four (Kill la Kill): Four on four between a tyrant's top enforces, and for ironies sake despite Satsuki initially coming off as bigger jerk than Copy X, she ultimately proved ultimately proved to more benign them him in the long run, even discounting when he was rebuilt by Weil.


Winds of Destruction: Another four on four.


Thaal Sinestro (DCU): Yeah like the last one I'm suggesting all four of them against because I'm sure they'd still lose. Either way it's a clash of well-intended extremists, while differing Sinestro's goal being to bring order while the Four try preserve it, they both have also ended up aiding the heroes against far worse enemies.


Pillar Men (Jo Jo's Bizzare Adventure): Four vs Three, or kill off Phantom since he died in the first game and make three vs three. Either way, groups of villains who have their own hordes of henchmen.


Nagato/Pain (Naruto): Four vs Six, one group fights to defend the establishment while the other wants to rip it out.


Akoji (One Piece): Maybe this would be fair as one on one, maybe not. Akoji is the only one of the three admirals who displays any humanity. Harpiua uses plasma weapons so he could probably hurt Akoji, plus there's another member with flame weapons.

Any takers?