Kran

**Widhalm Martin Luthier**, also known as **Kran**, is an antagonist of Mega Man X: Unit 49's Season 1 and its final boss. Occupying a high position in the Neo Maverick Army for his unique brilliance and label of high risk Maverick, Kran fights the Maverick Hunters to avenge his tragic past as Widhalm, believing they and the humans can put no restrictions to his creations only because they can be used for evil.

## **Appearance**

Essentially, Kran is a civilian human-ish Reploid with a blonde hair in the front area of his head, having a white skin and blue eyes. In his former identity as Widhalm, he wore a golden detailed black and white costume with a red body skin.

After the tragic incident shown in Chain Vengefulness, Widhalm developed his **Retribution Armor**, a resistant blue and gold armor slightly resembling Enker for his color scheme.

## **Personality**

Kran is a very smart fighter and strategist, being able to easily trick others with his techniques due to his superior intellect, also scorning ordinary opponents. He does his best to prepare himself to fight tough enemies, and does not act without being certain of his success.

It seems he acquired an admiration for the phenomena of light while working as a luthier/weapon developer and could create several devices with potent lasers through the years, infusing this passion in his own fighting style, in which he almost becomes a light ray.

After being manipulated by his mentor, he has been blinded by vengeance and ignores every argument of the Maverick Hunters or the Earth's Government, always thinking they are lying and blaming him for a situation created by themselves. Due to his hatred towards injustice and subjugation committed by the humans, he feels pity for any Reploid under oppressive circumstances and seeks to free them.

Kran still holds a grudge on Kerbekeros for his coup on the KLN-001 Mantra project and frequently needles him for that.

## **Specifications and Abilities**

Having attack, defense, mental and flight qualities, Kran can easily handle several reploids at once, if they are fighting in propitious territory.

**Height:**163 cm (5 ft 3 in.)
**Weight:** 76 kg (167.5 lbs)
**A.I. age:** Unknown (His mind developed differently from Reploids of his type due to his lifestyle after he's been labelled as a Maverick.)

* **Supermind Factor:** A succession of findings and mind adaptations during his lifetime allowed his "brain" to learn by itself an advanced method of information analysis that, combined with his creative potential, turned him in a strategist beast. Kran can think in dozens of movement possibilities in very short time spans and simultaneously think in hundreds of sequences like a quantum computer, but involving **inexact factors like his enemy's feelings and behavior in battle**(after he learned them), building his strategy based on that, making him **virtually unpredictable** and unique amongst most of the Reploids, that have in mind a main attack pattern that could be used similarly against every opponent.
For this, Kran claims to be the *intellectual equivalent* to X's Unlimited Evolutionary Potential.
* **Shining Signals:** A modification in Kran's head that allows him to send signals to devices wirelessly connected to his brain. Some light rays can be seen coming out of his damaged head when he sends signals to his mirrors in Shattered Shine.
His Supermind Factor made it possible for him to coordinate almost twenty mirrors in the end of the battle, although the intense signals and damages started to show signs of overload.
* **Counterstrike Mirrors**:Complex devices with the appearance of a mirror that contain 10 compartiments with a large data storage capacity. With enough energy, the internal structure of the mirrors can materialize any adapted entity with a DNA program, which appears from the glass surface along with light rays carrying less than 0,01% of the energy used in the conversion. The mirrors can also hover with two flexible thrusters if charged with enough energy.

Adapted bodies like Kran's and *Demolistar'*are maintained in a "halfway between matter and energy" when touching the glass surfaces, making the mirrors able to absorb the bodies back and **materialize them once again in the same reflection angle of the light rays, and not the direction the mirrors are facing**. Interrupting the materialization or destroying a mirror containing the energy equivalent of a body will result in the releasing of all of its energy, creating an explosion of **catastrophic proportions**.

The Counterstrike Mirrors can transmit energy to each other if they are connected in a prepared field, like the network Kran installed in the Iberian Castle that was also connected with the energy network of the castle itself, granting him almost unlimited energy to restore his powers.
* **Golden Defense:** A special energy field that wraps all of Kran's body, generated by microscopic devices throughout of his armor parts. His face also seems to be adapted, giving his skin a red tone. The Golden Defense absorbs any ordinary projectile or impact, nullifying the damage but slightly disestablishing the field. However, the physical contact with exterior sources of concentrated energy like beam sabers, high voltage or a collision with a extremely rigid surface with diffuse reflection will make the energy field dismantle until it vanishes away, leaving Kran vulnerable to attacks once again. However, like in Orchestra of Lights, entering a mirror connected with any powerful energy source will be enough for him to restore the Golden Defense.
* **Teravolt Buster MK XI:**First seen in Parade, this weapon makes part of the *Teravolt arsenal*, a series of electrical-foccused busters. The limit of its **Energy Amplification Device** is *3x*, that can be divided in two shots of *1,5x*. This model seems to be heavy but it is actually only volumous, since it has the same weight of Kran's arm. However, its use is not practical as its less potent versions or its successor.

* **Teravolt Buster MK XII:** Probably finished between the 4th and 16th chapter, this weapon is the last of the *Teravolt arsenal* and the most efficient of the twelve. The limit of its **Energy Amplification Device** is 4*x*, that can be divided in three shots of *1,3x*. The reduced recoil and compactness make fast attacks much more easier for Kran.
*To note, Kran can still switch between the MK XI and XII because they are only configurations of his arm structure. His Energy Amplification Device can be activated even without his arms transformed in Busters, damaging his arms but a good last resort that almost defeats X in Shattered Shine.*
* **Teravolt Light Amplifier (TLA):** A kit of 16 laser cannons hidden inside the floor of the cross corridor of the Iberian Castle, which are also connected to the energy network and require a huge amount of eletricity to shoot its deadly lasers. They can be forced to shoot without passing through the charging process, but that may induce malfuctions. Their purpose is to create an unique laser through the surface of the **Punishment Parabolic Melter**.
* **Punishment Parabolic Melter (PPM):** Kran's ultimate creation, a large parabolic mirror that can float and was hidden in the floor of the cross corridor. To make a perfect attack, Kran had to somehow force his opponents to stay near its focal point before he could start charging the *TLA's*. The *PPM* has an invisible flat surface covering the glass area that receives the sixteen lasers and diffuses then in the concave surface's side, then the energy rays suffer a specular reflection and create a devastating energetic laser. It is likely that he would later improve the PPM to be used as a weapon for the Neo Maverick Army.

## **History**

### **Before the Neo Maverick Army**

#### **Civillian life**

**Widhalm Martin Luthier** was the name given to a civillian Reploid especialized in manufacturing devices, mostly musical instruments. He was given a peculiar mental capability that made him creative, a characteristic that was unexpected in robots years before. Later, his brilliant mind would somehow start to reprogram its processing method based in his experiences and learnings, not only expanding his knowledge but evolving and making his "brain" faster.

At some point, Widhalm met Maestro, an obsolete Reploid of his class that became his mentor and teached him most of his tricks, including the manufacturing of laser weapons, even though Widhalm couldn't see any malice from Maestro's creations. Less than a year later, Widhalm surpassed his mentor and worked with him in some requests.

*Recommended reading: Chain Vengefulness.*

In May 2187, Maestro hires Widhalm to enhance a product requested by two customers of his, and they would split the cash. Widhalm managed to enhance potency of the*multiple laser bomb* in more than **ten times**, even though his naiveness (probably due to a manipulation  previously planned by Maestro) made him not realize how dangerous was it.

After two weeks, in June 2187, Widhalm arrived late to the meeting point because he stayed too long watching the concert of his client, Sonata. He found his mentor in his last moments, after being hunt down by the Maverick Hunter called Red Thunder. Maestro said he and his clients were accused of arms trafficking and for plotting against the C.E.U., just because the device created by Widhalm could be used for evil. Even though he tried to negotiate and was willing to go to their headquarters, the orders of the Council were absolute and the Maverick Hunters killed them coldly. Maestro finally dies saying Widhalm should use his own creativity to survive the hard times he was about to face, and that the Maverick Hunters would go after him.

Since Maestro mentioned Widhalm while talking with the two criminals, Red Thunder denounces Widhalm to Signas and says he could be a far more skilled inventor and his geniality should be stopped before it became a threat to mankind. They couldn't track back his exact origins for some reason and his DNA program was never discovered.

#### **Living as an Outlaw**

Widhalm took everything he could from his workshop and escaped. For the next years, he would live escaping from the authorities while developing new dangerous weapons to be sold to criminals. He didn't want to live like this, but his distrust and hatred of the Maverick Hunters made him live to avenge his mentor and his past self.

With enough dirty money, he started to develop his **Retribution Armor**. Up to 2190, only the chest and boots were done, but it was enough to let him fly and resist the persecution against him. In December of the same year, the Maverick scientist and illegal merchant Saturn manages to buy the last invention of Maestro from Widhalm and persuades him to join his future rebellion group, and would later become Neo Maverick Army. In that day, he got his codename "Kran" from a misspeling of *khan*by Saturn, that said he would become as great as a khan of the Golden Horde and would raid Europe if he joined him.

#### **Mantra and the Soulstream Exchanger**

Later in the 2190's, Kran would meet Kerbekeros, a foreign scientist that had an ambition of incessantly evolve until he became the most powerful Reploid in existence, since he had a civillian body like Kran, he had to transfer his idealization to an armor, the **Raijin Armor**. He teached Kran some of his technologies with high voltage devices that would later have a great part in the *Teravolt arsenal's*development.

Kran moved to Kerbekeros' laboratory and fortress, the Arashiha Citadel and started a joint project for the Caribbean Convention with his new ally and his subordinates, but they wouldn't finish it in time. After months of effort, they finally created an extraordinary device, the **Soulstream Exchanger**, that could give its bearer access to the mind of other Reploids just by an energy transference made by contact, although it took too much time for a full acess. They also started to design a Reploid with the best technologies of both of them, the Keros-Luthier Number 001 Mantra, which would be equipped with the *Soul Ex*.

Weeks later, Kerbekeros suddenly make a coup on Kran and banished him from Arashiha so he could get all the credit, but not without a fight. They ended up destroying part of Kerbekeros' lab and making him lose progress in some of his researches, mostly of the Raijin Armor. This betrayal would make them hold a rivarly for the rest of their days.
Kran still had the blueprints of Mantra and the Soul Ex, and gave them to Saturn, that would develop the spy unit Doppelganger.

Ironically, Kran and Kerbekeros were the first ones to be called by Saturn to found his Neo Maverick Army, and they still accepted to join forces, still maintaining distance so they wouldn't fight again.

## **The Neo Maverick campaign**

### **Before the Operation Doomsday**

Kran received the task to find and take control of factories and laboratories that could provide new weapons and troops for the Neo Maverick Army. One day, he sneaked into the Jamison Liquid Metal Engineering Facility to investigate their researches and found several Liquid Metal Reploids agonizing in experiment tubes. He freed Corrosive Nagaxid and took her away from the place before the sentries could get them. Kran brought her to Saturn and the two began teaching her about the world she lived in and analyzed her powers. It seems that their time together created affective bond between them and she acquired a fighting style similar to what Kran would use in the future.
After Saturn managed to mass produce the gangster units, Kran secretly took over the Iberian Castle with a squad of *Shield Thugs*and installed a base in the innermost area of the castle, while his subordinates reactivated Castechno Inc. and changed the A.I. templates so the recently produced troops would obey them. Kran spent days working on the "Orchestra of Lights", the plan of defeating the Maverick Hunters by attracting them to a cross corridor of the castle with several Counterstrike Mirrors connected to a huge energy network that would drain energy from the dam and the thermal energy of the factory and his Golden Defense an inexhaustible energy source.

### **Parade**

Kran is taken to Saturn's car cabin to protect his commander and eventually lead the Parade. When Blue Knight tries to open the cabin with his K-Saber, Kran is eject from the mirror and stops him with his Golden Defense. He stays until the plan has been completed and gets amazed by the "sea of lasers" that was destroying the highway. Captain Elika jumps on the vehicle driven by Kerbekeros and then kicks Kran to his demise, but he manages to withdraw to teleport back to where he came from in the last moment, but that permited the Navigator Nora to track him and discover their invasion in the Iberian Castle.

While Kran was out to help Saturn with the preparations for the Parade, the package containing Jammers from the mysterious Dealer that the Neo Mavericks bought was about to reach the Iberian Castle, but the delivery man was killed by The Rats, that stole and activated them in the Sewers, were he couldn't control.

### **Siege of the Iberian Castle**

Kran receives X and Zero in the castle's Reception Hall and calls Elika a coward for not coming to face him after what he did. He tells them about the incident with the Jammers and asks them to retrieve the package for him, throwing both in a pit with explosives, although it lead them to the sewers anyway.
After a few hours, the Mysterious Man ordered Kran to leave the Iberian Castle as soon as possible but he didn't answered, instead he stayed in the castle waiting for the Maverick Hunters to fight him and be killed in the Orchestra of Lights. After Alia detected his presence in search of the Castechno units, X, Zero and Snacman were sent to find him.
*Recomended reading: Orchestra of Lights.*

With the convenient "help" of CTI-026 Gladius, Kran fought only two of three Hunters at once, being able to first defeat Snacman by breaking his neck and disabling him. Even though they noticed most of Kran's weaknesses and essential patterns, his attack sequences and strategies were still unpredictable and he could win the fight.

Kran was about to smash X with his own body, protected by the **Golden Defense** and accelerated by his Counterstrike Mirrors, when Zero appeared with Gladius' heavy shield in hands to stop him. Kran could still confuse the Hunters and cause damage enough to make them stop moving. He then started to tell why he was on Saturn's side and raised the **Punishment Parabolic Melter**, his ultimate destruction weapon that would shine the light that marks the new world, created by the Neo Mavericks.

Snacman's auto repairs made it possible for him to stand up for a few more moments, and he jumped in front of his partners when he saw the situation. Kran didn't believe Snacman's sacrifice would change anything and fired the cannons, creating a powerful laser that was supposed to *evaporate* the trio. However, Snacman resisted the death ray almost destroyed, because the crystal in his chest absorbed all the energy coming from the focal point of the *PPM*, turning his own ultimate attack in a huge boost to his enemy, that drubbed Kran with a frenzy of charged shots and a double slash attack before deactivating again. This attack was enough to dismantle the Golden Defense and shatter his armor, meaning **he lost the ability to maintain the energy field**. X then tried to convince Kran to solve things with a peaceful settlement and that he would even try to soften the penalty if he was really willing to stop, but some phrases touched Kran's tragic past and he was totally blinded by hatred after Zero called whoever dear to him that the Maverick Hunters killed (Maestro) was just a miserable Maverick in the end.

### **Last Stand**

*Recomended reading: Shattered Shine**.***

Kran starts to attack the Hunters desperately with his Teravolt Light Amplifiers until they get malfunctions, just to escape to one of his mirrors. Zero and Snacman return to the base, and X stays alone to finish him, now willing to really defeat him.

Kran detachs two of his Counterstrike Mirrors and sets them to hover, using them as game changers to make his attack possibilities even wider. X only needed one shot to end it all, but Kran used complex attack sequences involving even fake movements, always preventing X to shoot him because in those situations, it would certainly trigger the chain reaction in the network and destroy everything.

When X finally had the right oportunity, Kran detached one more mirror and **reflected himself on it, in midair**, and activated the Energy Amplification Device of his Teravolt Buster in his own hands to make a last attack, but X could hold for a few more seconds. Kran reveals that he might be a Reploid with a potential to evolve his mind indefinitely, **at the point of easily learning how not only his opponents fight, but also how their mind works, and deduces how X feels about his own existance, his acts and how they affect mankind**.

X says Kran was right, but he couldn't see any good in having a superior intellect, capable of defeating two Class S Hunters if he couldn't use it to clear the "evil cloud of revenge" that haze his sight of a world of peace. Then, X unleashes a power last seen only decades before, in The Day of Σ, that could be related to his Unlimited Evolutionary Potential, and destroys Kran's hands, also taking his sanity. Kran forces his brain to detach all of the mirrors and exceeds his capacity by commanding all of them at once, only to confuse and corner X and finally throw him in a dillema that would be Kran's last try to punish him.

Instead of escaping, Kran decided to make a suicidal attack that would leave X with only two options: give up and let Kran crash with him in a hovering mirror and kill both in the explosion or destroy the mirror that appeared in the center of the room, annihilating Kran from existence and getting himself a chance of being thrown away by the violent air movement caused by the humongous amount of energy being channeled upwards, but having a chance of causing a catastrophical damage to all of the surroundings of the Iberian Castle, including the cities.

*X assumes his comrades would be once again demoralized if he died and would not be able to prevent the war between the Earth's Army and the Neo Maverick Army, and damages of the magnitude he was about to cause would be dealt over and over again. X shoots the mirror before Kran is able to materialize, making the mirror expell an energy beam upwards with more energy than a nuclear bomb in the first fraction of seconds, making a shockwave strong enough to throw X for more than a half kilometer away. After this, the already shattered surface starts to shoot powerful energy bursts in other directions, hitting the nearby cities until it finally becomes an explosion. The Iberian Castle falls apart, with only a small area of Castechno Inc. standing.*

*In the end, Widhalm fought to punish innocent people for being thrown to pay for sins he didn't commit in the obscure world, seeking to avenge the man that was the wicked mastermind of the misunderstanding that caused suffering and irreversible damages for years after his death. His only mistake was not willing to listen the appeals of the other side, but now only what remains of Widhalm is the shining wave of energy that was formed from his body, travelling through a never ending space.*