Johnny Duke

Also called Red John or the Earth Saran due to the place where he grew up, John R. "Johnny" Duke is a saran from the planet Kazan. He was born with S-Class power, causing his parents to fear what would happen if he fell into the hands of the Holy Order. They had faked the records of his Power Class and made it look that he was a reject, and then sent him to Earth in a Space Pod. Upon arriving, he was found and adopted by a human couple called the Dukes. As is standard practice with children shipped off to other planets, he had programming in his brain which explained who and what he was. In addition to this, his father sent him with a pendant with the Kuri Clan crest on it, with the back scratched in the saran language “You are Karyu, Son of Ekari by Kakathara Lord of Kuri.” 
Johnny’s human father Ray was a severe martial artist, and when Johnny’s powers became apparent Ray trained him to keep control of them. He grew up in Kattegat, NJ and dealt with the strangeness which permeated the town. As a teenager he attended St. Christopher's Catholic High School, where he met the love of his life, June Hammer. Following the deaths of his adoptive parents in a car accident while he was away at college, he was overcome with despair, dropping out of college and breaking up with June. After spending the next few years picking fights with aliens and monsters he came across, he willingly went with Dashora who had come to Earth to investigate reports of a lone saran on the planet. Upon arriving on Kazan, Johnny became swept up in the struggle of the Sarada Clan to overthrow the Holy Order, and was introduced to his cousin, Kara. 
Johnny is generally pessimistic and always attempts to cultivate a detached image, which he used growing up to keep others from getting too close to him and learning that he wasn’t human. He has a typical tough guy approach to everything, and is always happiest when he is fighting. His main attack is the Fire Gun where he can sacrifice his Aura for Hellfire which he channels into a powerful projectile. He mainly grows in strength from all of his different battles, because he responds to danger by unleashing his full power. Johnny is actually the latest Oversaran, which is why his parents hid him on Earth to try to keep him out of the hands of the Holy Ghost. This explains Johnny's incredible saran powers.
He typically fights using a hybrid martial art which he learned from his foster father Ray Duke. Ray stated to Johnny that his art was so successful because rather than sticking to one particular fighting style it was constantly evolving and accepted successful elements from any and all known fighting styles. Johnny is very rarely seen without his signature red jacket with a jolly roger emblazoned on the back. He also wears a gold belt buckle with the skull and crossbones on it that had belonged to his human father. The jolly roger on the back is symbolized to represent freedom to live one’s life however they choose, which is Johnny’s greatest desire. It is this desire that keeps the members of the Magnificent 7 together. He took possession of the Rocco II, which serves as the group's home base and means of transportation, after killing the Grinning Pirates for it.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Hellfire===
Like all sarans, Johnny is a fire elemental able to manifest a powerful form of hellfire known as Hellfire. The power of the flames themselves is directly connected to Johnny's emotional state, and when driven he becomes extremely powerful. Impressed by the boy's potential, Dashora had his old friend Zena, the Fire Sage, take over his training. As Fire Sage, Zena was the keeper of the Fire Arts, the complete catalog of Hellfire techniques believed to have been passed down to them by the legendary Sara himself. Zena deemed Johnny worthy to inherit the techniques, and he became the first person besides the Holy Ghost with the ability to use the ultimate Hellfire technique, the Fire Sphere.
Fire Fist: A catch all name for melee techniques which wrap the hands or feet in Hellfire in order to increase damage.
Fire Bolt: A powerful beam of fire.
Fire Burst: A powerful explosion of fire.
Fire Gun: A technique created by Johnny by combining the Hellfire with the Aura Gun taught to him by his father. The user braces his right hand with his left and gathers a powerful ball of Fire into it, releasing it to devastating effect.
Fire Prison: He puts his hand to the ground and spikes of flame impale everyone in the area.
Fire Sense: The Fire Power which gives telepathy. Depending on the power of the user, it can be used to trap people in powerful illusions or even grant the power of prescience.
Fire Shield: A shield of fire.
Fire Embers: Johnny creates countless tiny fireballs which fill up a given area. When one is touched they all explode in a chain reaction causing massive damage. Commonly used to either trap an individual opponent or take out multiple enemies.
Fire Sword: The user generates a “blade” of flame.
Fire Warp: A teleport technique which enables the user pictures a location in his mind and instantly be there.
====Ultimate Attacks====
Fire Cannon: Learned from Dashora, this is the strongest technique Johnny can use in his normal form. When using the Fire Cannon, he spreads his arms to gather energy, then brings them together to aim, releasing the Hellfire as a titanic blast.
Fire Sphere: The Fire Sphere is the most powerful technique, but was so taxing that Johnny was the first person to actually successfully pull off the technique in centuries. Even though Zena knew how to do it, she was unable to control it. Instead she taught it to Johnny in the hopes that he could master it. However, even Johnny found the technique unusable until he entered his Oversaran form which gave him the power to control it. Using this technique, Johnny essentially manages to create a small sun which he throws at an opponent. The Fire Sphere has the power to destroy a planet.
Fire King's Spear: An attack Johnny learned when he went to Inferno in Hell. The technique had been inscribed on the walls of the Fire Palace by Sara himself as a gift to his successor.  Johnny focuses the Hellfire into a massive spear shaped projectile which he throws at a target. The technique possesses even greater destructive power than the Fire Sphere and requires being in the Oversaran to use. It is so powerful that it will obliterate any target it hits.
==== Dual Techniques ====
Black Hole Sun: A technique used by Johnny and Cain, they each create a giant orb of Hellfire and Darkness respectively and then smash them together over an opponent which then explode for massive damage.  This technique was powerful enough to temporarily destroy Satan's physical body as well as a sizable chunk of Pandemonium, which was said to be indestructible.
===Other Abilities===
Super Strength/Speed/Fortitude: Being a saran Johnny possesses an advanced physiology, and is therefore far stronger and faster than a human.  At a base charge he is able to lift (press) roughly 10 tons.  His speed is such that even without using his powers of flight or Cutting he can move much faster than the eye can see, and his body is durable enough to shrug off powerful blows and explosions.
Advanced Senses: Johnny's senses all operate on levels far beyond a human's.  He is able to see extrarodinarily far in dark as well as he does light.  He can also hear from great distances, singling out particular sounds to the exclusion of others.  In particular his sense of smell is extremely powerful, allowing him to follow scents over great distances.  This has come in handy when his sense of Aura Detection has been hampered.
Advanced Healing Factor: Even when injuRed John’s body quickly heals itself.  He has survived numerous fatal injuries such as impalement, shrugging them off and healing instantly.
Hand to Hand Fighting Expert: Being a saran, Johnny possesses a natural talent for fighting.  He was raised by Ray Duke, the most powerful warrior on Earth who taught him everything he knows about martial arts.  In battle Johnny generally thinks on his feet and is an expert at noticing an opponent’s patterns and habits and how to exploit weaknesses.
Cutting: Cutting is a skill common to most Aura capable races that allows for lightning fast movement. When cutting, an individual uses their Aura to "cut" themselves out of spacetime and reinsert themselves elsewhere, effectively allowing them to be in two places at the same time. While initially learning the skill from watching Thuro during a battle, Johnny quickly surpassed him. A quick study, he rivals Cain, who was believed to be the best cutter among all sarans, though Bellona is still faster than him.
Flight: Johnny is able to project his Aura to hold him aloft in the air.  In an earthlike atmosphere he can fly faster than Mach 10.
Aura Awareness: Johnny is highly skilled in the use of his Aura to sense the flow of energy around him.  He has highly developed senses which enable him to sense the whereabouts, identity, strength, and intentions of others even when they are trying to hide them.  With his Aura Awareness he is able to track people when even when they are Cutting.
Immense Aura: Johnny possesses an immensely powerful Aura, which even by saran standards is absolutely monstrous.  When charging his Aura, all of Johnny’s other powers become amplified.  People in the immediate vicinity can be brought to their knees by its power, and its force can be felt at much greater distances.  At full charge in his normal form he is 5X stronger for as long as he can hold the charge.  When he pushes his Aura even farther, his body transforms into an Oversaran to manage the power more efficiently.  Before learning to use the Hellfire, his Aura was yellow in color, but afterwards it became like crimson fire.
Oversaran Form: When Johnny pushes his Aura past it's limits he transforms into an Oversaran, a legendary warrior from saran myths.  In this form his body becomes red, his eyes become yellow, his mane grows longer and becomes spiky, and his fangs and claws grow more pronounced.  His powers and abilities are greatly amplified putting him in the SS-Class of the SENTINEL Power Scale.
==Trivia==
- Johnny is famous throughout the Universe as Red John, a name he gained because of his trademark red jacket and the trail of bloody mayhem he leaves in his wake. The name was first applied to him by bar patrons who watched him single handedly slaughter Wylie and the Grinning Pirates and later by the elf princess Abijensia who claimed that he deflowered her and all of her handmaids (though he's quick to point out they were all seasoned veterans when it came to fucking). Johnny is very proud of the nickname for which the other members of the Magnificent 7 mock him mercilessly.
- Due to his parents hiding him as a reject, Johnny's full title among Sarans was Karyu: 4694-56. This marked him as the 56th child born out of Batch #4694 at the Delta Nursery. When researching the odd appearance of the Earth Saran, Cain was shocked to discover he had come from the same batch as him. When Johnny's true parentage became common knowledge, he would afterwards be identified in the Noble Manner.
- Johnny tends to say "dude" alot as a generic exclamation. Additionally, he tends to say "Rock" to mean acknowledgement or agreement.
- Johnny was born in the same facility on the same day at about the same time as Cain. Both were also born with S-Class power, though since Cain's was expected Johnny's parents managed to use him as cover in order to fake Johnny's power readings and make him appear to be a reject. His father did this because upon seeing Johnny's power level realized that the prophecy about a "Son of Kuri" was correct and exiled him to keep him out of the Holy Ghost's hands.
- The R in Johnny's middle name doesn't actually stand for anything. When discovered by the Dukes, Carrie was quick to give him the name JR as they were the initials they'd picked out for their own unrealized child. Ray immediately chose "Johnny" as the "J" in the name, but nothing was ever picked for the "R." As the years went by, it stayed as a place holder to him as a place holder and they never got around to picking a name. As he got older it became a running joke, with Johnny giving a different answer whenever asked.
- Johnny likes to use fake names on occasion with "Spike Steiner" being his favorite pseudonym. It was under this name that he was able to be thrown into the Tombs. SENTINEL would not discover that "Spike Steiner" and "Red John" were the same person until well after he escaped. Upon discovering he still used the name June became embarrassed, telling the others he developed the identity whenever he would call to June's house when they were younger because he thought her family didn't like him. Other names he's used are Russell Nash, Howie Feltersnatch, and Jackie Duke.
- It gets noted often that Johnny and Cain have similar personalities and tastes. It was these similarities that attracted Kara to Johnny and made her use him as a surrogate for Cain whenever he wasn't around. June, upon meeting the Dark Prince, posits that the two are opposite sides of the same coin.
- Since his and Kara's fathers were identical twins, genetically they are half-siblings rather than cousins. Given the nature of their relationship this severely creeps Johnny out.
- Due to his training under Ray Duke who would take him around the world learning from a wide variety of masters and opponents, Johnny developed a general understanding of nearly every martial art on Earth and an ability to quickly discern the basics and structure of other fighting styles he would observe, incorporating anything he found useful and extrapolating new techniques from them.  After Ray's death, Johnny inherited his title as World's Strongest and was even recognized by anyone in the know as someone capable of incredible feats that couldn't be duplicated.
- Ray passed on to Johnny a love of classic rock and prog rock music. While it's not typically something he'll listen to at first thought, when he's feeling nostalgic about his Dad he'll play it and rock out.
- Prior to donning his iconic red jacket, Johnny had a jean jacket covered with heavy metal patches that he would wear.
- During one of his training sabbaticals where his father would dump him alone in a dangerous wilderness, Johnny lost his virginity at 13 to a trio of gypsy girls who he saved from a werewolf.
- Johnny is an avid reader of comics and manga, though he likes to downplay how much he loves it. While he prefers battle and hentai manga, he is also a sucker for various romance manga, something June often teases him for. His favorite is the epic manga, Pirate Treasure, and he is constantly worried about missing the end to it while he's adventuring out in space. In his first meeting with June, the two bonded over their fanatical love of it.
- According to Dashora, Johnny's looks are identical to his father, Kakathara, but his personality and mannerisms come from his mother Ekari.
- Following the defeat of the Holy Ghost, Johnny was named as the new Lord Kuri and given all the titles and wealth that went along with it. He was given Kuri Tower as his home and numerous warriors sought to enter his service, but he turned them all away as he was largely uninterested in restoring the Clan. Instead of taking up residence in the Tower he would instead live aboard the Rocco II, though he did move the Clan's treasury into the ship's cargo hold, figuring that part of the inheritance might become useful. He would later use some of this money to buy the Magnificent 7 hideout, the Garage.
- The Rocco II is Johnny's favorite thing in the Universe. Ever since he took the ship from the Grinning Pirates he's learned it inside and out, gradually shaping it according to his tastes. His habit of staying aboard the Rocco II instead of moving into Kuri Tower confused his saran friends, and many who've seen him have made fun of his habit of just staring at it and smiling. Making fun of the ship is one of the surest ways to arouse Johnny's anger, to the point that he even spoke back against May Hammer (who he is normally terrified to the point of meekness) when she derided his lifestyle aboard the ship as being like "traveling around in a van." When Jaxx Parro stole the ship from him it earned her his eternal resentment despite her claims that it was hers' first.
- It has been noted that Johnny is an extraordinarily heavy sleeper. So long as he is approached without killing intent, he can sleep through just about anything. 
- Like all sarans Johnny is a fire elemental and is constantly exuding heat, the intensity of which depends on his mood. In thinking back June would note that she was never cold around Johnny. When he was a child, others would note that snow and ice tended to melt around Johnny.
- Due to experiences when he was younger, Johnny hates vampires with an intensity bordering on the irrational. He feels about them the same way Cain feels about reptiles, and it takes a great deal of self control to stop from killing them out of hand.
- Despite his disinterest in the Lordship of the Kuri Clan, Johnny liked the red Lord's Coat he got to wear over his armor and thought it was really flashy and cool. After the destruction of Kazan he would hold on to it and lament that there didn't seem to be any occasion to wear it anymore.
- Johnny has a dislike of drinking alcohol while eating food, preferring to drink soda with his meal and then drinking copious amounts of booze afterwards.
- Johnny has several items that he is rarely seen without. The first is his iconic red jacket which he has been wearing since his teenage years. The jacket was a gift from his mother who thought Johnny would look good in red. The second is his jolly roger belt buckle, which had belonged to his father Ray. He would later synthesize a copy of this buckle for Kara to wear. The third is his chain wallet in which he keeps the keycard for the Rocco II. The chain keeps Johnny's important stuff connected to his pants to make sure he doesn't lose it.
- Johnny's saran name, which he has known since childhood thanks to the implanted memories, is Karyu. In keeping with Kuri Clan tradition, it begins with the saran character "Ka" meaning "Brave."  Altogether Karyu translates to "Braveheart."  However, he finds it awkward to say and has a dislike for, and he vastly prefers going by his human name. When he finally met other sarans, he attempted to get them to call him Johnny, a request they promptly ignored in favor of calling him by his saran name. This is because in saran culture there is a prevailing sense that anything saran is "better", so it would be insulting to call another saran by a name given to him by weaklings. It becomes a running joke that sarans looking to pick a fight with him would call him "Johnny", but instead of getting mad he was elated that he was finally being referred to as he wanted.
- Johnny rarely calls people by their proper name, either making up a nickname for them.  For instance, he calls June "Buttercup", Kara he generally refers to as "Littlebutt" (though he tends not to refer to her this way around June).  Owing to her stern disposition he began ironically calling Bellona "Sunshine" (though privately she's fond of the nickname).  For others he generally refers to them as "dude", "man", "bro" "guy", "chum", "fella" or "friend" (occasionally "sweetheart" if it's a girl he's fond of).  After meeting Cain and Kara and observing that they also tend not to refer to people by their names, June began to believe that it's a common trait among sarans to not bother remembering the names of people.
- While he is deeply in love with June and devoted to her, a private dream of Johnny's is to have a harem of adoring women at his beck and call. The reality of this is somewhat intimidating to him, and he's secretly jealous of Cain since Cain seems to have one.
- Despite the fact that he only trained with Zena for 3 months, Johnny remembers his time with Zena as having taken several years.  This is because of the Infusion method which she used to force all of her knowledge and power into him.  The Raw Hellfire which he absorbed and assimilated contained the knowledge of techniques of all Fire Sages going back to the beginning, which would manifest in his mind as Zena.  Therefore, Johnny remembers lessons with Zena which never actually happened, but rather are constructs created by his subconscious to make sense of the knowledge and power he inherited.
- After completing his training with Zena and mastering the Hellfire, Johnny is technically the new Fire Sage. Zena herself acknowledged this by giving him the Fire Sage's Robe which he wore during his second fight with Cain.
- Johnny's pet name for June is "Buttercup" as in "What's up, Buttercup?" He always wanted her to reply "Nuffin, Muffin" but she never would. Instead her petname for him is "Chicken."
- According to June, Johnny's entire wardrobe consists of two pairs of blue jeans that he rotates from week to week and a pile of rolled up white shirts that he pulls from.
- One of Johnny's secret fantasies is to have all 3 Hammer Sisters in bed at the same time. He is however, terrified at the prospect that any of them should find out he dreams about that.
- Soda is Johnny's greatest weakness, particularly his favorite brand Red Cola. He is particularly loyal to that brand, and utterly despises its rival brand Blue Cola. He loves it enough that he brought bottles of various flavors of Red Cola with him into space and they were the first thing Rocco scanned to be able available for the synthesizers. If Johnny goes too long without drinking it he tends to get very irritable.
- He has a habit of losing interest in the answers to questions soon after asking them, and will occasionally stop mid-sentence when he realizes he is asking something he already knows or doesn't care about. Others find this habit infuriating.
- Because he's a saran and a natural Aura user (like all demons), Johnny has been able to use high level Aura techniques most of his life, some without knowing he was ever doing them.  For instance he was able to use Aura Tongue from a very young age and never thought it weird that he could understand and read every language.  He wasn't aware that he was doing it till joined by June in space, where Thuro explained the technique and Johnny had no idea he'd been doing it.  The first time he fought Thuro, he was able to learn Aura Cutting, a high level technique after observing it once, and in a later battle managed to work out how to Double Cut.
- Johnny is a skilled artist and likes to doodle in his free time. Since he was a kid he'd been working on a story of a group of time traveling adventurers.  When June comes aboard the Rocco II, she expresses surprise he's still working on "that weird time travel story" to which Johnny becomes flustered and says he does it to pass the time.  Unknown to him, she edits the story together and puts it up on the Network (an intergalactic internet) where the story becomes a huge hit.  When bored he tends to make pornographic comics.
- Despite growing up the son of a mechanic, Johnny has no idea how cars work but considers himself a skilled driver. This translated to his ship, the Rocco II as well, which he quickly figured out how to pilot but didn't bother to read how anything actually works.
- Johnny has succumbed to Kara's seductions numerous times (usually when he was either too drunk or delirious from his injuries to fight off her advances), a fact he tries to keep hidden and which he regularly denies. Because sarans do not have many (or any) sexual taboos, they are puzzled by his behavior. Though he will never admit it, his feelings for Kara are actually more serious than he lets on. In addition to being highly sexually compatible, they had a very easy rapport with eachother. When June came aboard the Rocco II, she found herself unintentionally regarding Kara as a sexual rival, which was ludicrous to her since she was introduced as Johnny's cousin. Even after rekindling his relationship with June, Johnny would continue to fall into old habits in his interactions with Kara and found himself regularly lusting after her to the point where he dreamed about her often.
- According to Thuro, Dashora, Cain and nearly all his close friends, Johnny has a bad habit of "playing with his food." By this it's meant that he tends not to take fights seriously at the outset and will drag fights out for his own amusement.
- On the planet Varnia, Johnny is referred to as "Dark Lord" because he is the master of Dreadgate Castle. Whenever the Magnificent 7 stop there the people act very deferential to him. Upon hearing him called the title, Cain who both killed Warlock AND had powers based on Darkness, was heard to remark "wait a fucking second, how is KARYU the Dark Lord here and not me?"
Category:Characters
Category:Aliens
Category:Sarans
Category:Magnificent 7
Category:Fighters
Category:Outlaws
Category:St. Christopher's Students
Category:Chapel University Students