Gale Lionheart

Gale Lionheart
Biographical Information
Race	Coruscanti
Homeworld	Coruscant
Mother	Yvonne Skye Lionheart
Father	Alfred Lionheart
Spouse	none
Siblings	Edgar Lionheart (older brother)
Children	none
Born	Year -7 Day 7 (32)
Imperial Service
Branch	Imperial Navy
Positions	Imperial Academy - Recruit
Prior Service	none
Awards	none

Gale Lionheart is a bulky Coruscanti male. He is a fierce CQC expert and warrior. Gale was born to a martial family with a long history of serving in the Senate Guard and later developed Storm Hijkata based on their teachings. He has lightly tanned skin, crewcut dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a tall, imposing figure. As a trained martial artist, Gale has spent his youth dedicated to honing his martial skills and networking among other socialites in the Military District of Coruscant. He is a Recruit for the Imperial Academy on Prakith undergoing Imperial Basic Training.

Background

Lionheart Legacy

The Lionheart Family is a martial family that served as dedicated members of the Senate Guard for the past seven generations. They are experts in body refining techniques, which forge the human body to peak physique.

Children start private tutoring and instruction from a very young age to educate them on many of the unique aspects of the Lionheart Family. While assigned a personal tutor by the main family, parents were mainly in charge of early childhood education, significantly impacting their children's educational quality and content. Most children would follow in the specialties of their parents. In contrast, others would diverge completely onto other paths, spurred by rebellious youth or ambitious parents who sought to escape their bounds.

At nine, all children enrolled in the Sky Dragon Academy in the Military District of Coruscant. Each nine-year-old group enrolled in a detached class with a Lionheart-family-specific curriculum, a collaborative effort between the Sky Dragon Academy instructors and the Lionheart Family Elders. From combat hand signals, tactical leadership, basics of slicing and anti-slicing protocols, nutrition, and pharmacology to xenobiology, the educational philosophy was to instill understanding and comprehension over rote memorization to equip each member of the Lionheart Family with a high level of intellectual adaptability.

Outside their enhanced courseload, the Lionheart Family would instill a strict training regiment of rigorous physical conditioning, sparring exercises, and combat drills to form a strong foundation. Retired veterans serve as drill instructors, training these children in Hijkata, intermediate spear techniques, and blaster weapon proficiency.

After the first year of general courses, each child's talent is excruciatingly analyzed, tested, and observed. Then, children are placed into three primary programs: Martial, MilTech, or General Studies. Exceptional children, referred to as Candidates, are paired with a Lionheart Elder for exclusive mentorship to push their combat techniques into the realm of mastery. Operating on a strict meritocracy where only ability is considered, children can rise or fall in their standing within their family based on their selection. Candidates, upon graduating Sky Dragon Academy and reaching adulthood, are eligible to start their own branch families and are often given respectable roles and positions within the Lionheart Family. The others are left to return to their original families and start their careers outside the Lionheart Family, with those in General Studies often ending up in low-level civilian industries.

Lionheart Family History

While relatively small, the Lionheart Family still commands a respectable private security company with several subsidiaries in Pharmacology and Pharmaceuticals, Weapons Manufacturing, and Logistics. The central private security company, Lionheart, is controlled by the main family, while a branch family controls each subsidiary. The heads of each branch family, upon retirement, or highly regarded family members are hired as part of an Advisory Council to serve as Elders, the core of Lionheart. Executive power and the majority share of all businesses are held by the Head of the main family, who currently is Gale's father, Alfred Lionheart.

Alfred Lionheart is an unconventional Head of the Lionheart Family, initially starting as an orphan of a distant branch family. His wisdom and intelligence far exceeded those of other Candidates during his youth, and the previous Head of the Lionheart Family adopted him. While his combat foundations were lacking, Alfred Lionheart succeeded in mastering his movement techniques, Steps of Wind, and he married Yvonne Skye, heiress to a rival martial family to have enough military prowess and force to quell discontent among his other siblings.

As Head of the Lionheart Family, he merged the Lionheart Family and the Skye Family. Adopting the corporate hierarchy of the Skye Family, Alfred Lionheart then centralized the previously loosely associated federation of branch families into a single organization, forming the current hierarchical structure and systemized training regiment. Despite vastly upheaving centuries of family history and rules, he maintained a strict meritocracy that the straightforward and honest Lionhearts accepted begrudgingly. After a vast improvement in the efficiency of training and an accumulation of wealth previously unfathomable, the Lionhearts fully embraced the new ways as tradition.

Gale's mother, Yvonne Skye Lionheart, was the crux of the unification process of the Lionheart and Skye Families, ending long-standing grudges and ushering in a new age of prosperity for both families. Despite the polar opposite martial and cultural philosophies, Yvonne Skye Lionheart became a quickly beloved figure among both parties, seeking avenues of collaboration and cooperation. The critical change was the introduction of a novel squad formation that integrated the strengths of the strong-armed Lionheart front liners and the highly mobile assassins of the Skye Family to form a formidable squad composition.

Traits and Abilities

Storm Hijkata

Requiring keen perception to infer enemy moves, Storm Hijkata excels at redirecting and counterattacking, focusing on ramping up an individual's momentum to empower their strikes and enhance their agility. The art utilizes explosive unilateral directional movements to propel the practitioner in a perpetual state of rotation, demonstrated as a wild fury of powerful kicks, swings, jumps, and gravity-defying acrobatics.

Advanced proficiency in Storm Hijkata yields combat effectiveness by inferring an opponent's movements and properly leveraging their strength against them. With unwavering balance and fluid adaptability, The practitioner can comprehensively deflect and redirect enemy attacks, sapping away at an enemy's strength and empowering the practitioner's momentum. Unwavering balance, fluid adaptability, and relentless momentum are combined to form a powerful close-quarters combat technique that sports great flexibility, variation, and, most importantly, powerful attacks.

The core of Storm Hijkata lies in its doctrine over body movement collated together as the Tempest Movement Technique: the practitioner's ultimate goal is to have precise control over their bodies, allowing for the intricate application of force to maintain and increase their momentum. The martial art integrates powersuits and repulsor lift generators into its movements and forms, serving as bursts of speed and power as necessary.

A critical aspect of Storm Hijkata is "touch," where the practitioner reduces threatening enemy attacks into sources of additional momentum and speed. The most essential "touch" technique involves rotating and shifting the body along the path of enemy attacks, incorporating enemy momentum into their own. As simply following along the path of enemy attacks in a linear fashion creates easily predictable and exploitable weaknesses, the practitioner applies the "touch" technique to multiple points in varied sequences. This results in a smooth yet unpredictable deflection and dodge pattern reminiscent of the wind, hence the name of the movement technique.

There are two standard offensive approaches in Storm Hijkata. The first offensive approach relies on pure strength and is excellent in dueling settings, leveraging the additional momentum into powerful finishers. Within this approach is Storm Hijkata's most recognizable move, Heart Strike, in which the practitioner transfers all their strength and momentum. Heart Strike is a powerful finisher and can even break through military-grade armor, often paired with crushgauntlets and vibroknucklers to enhance lethality.

The second offensive approach is far more esoteric and complex to master, rarely being seen in the galaxy. Instead of singular heavy strikes, the practitioner opts for a flurry of sharp cuts, wielding vibroblades, nanoblades, or lightsabers to deliver a relentless cyclone of rapid slashes. The practitioner prioritizes maintaining their velocity and momentum rather than expending it, adding to their evasiveness and offensive potential.

Storm Hijkata is an excellent martial art for skilled elites but thoroughly mediocre in a novice's hands. New practitioners should solidify a foundation in the Tempest Movement Techniques, incorporating it with basic CQC techniques, before mastering Storm Hijkata.