Justice (Guilty Gear)

"My mission... is genocide."

- Justice

Justice is one of the main villains from the Guilty Gear series. She is a female Gear, the first "complete" Gear that was created by "That Man". She was the instigator of the Crusades, a hundred year war against humans and Gears that is the foundation for the majority of the Guilty Gear storyline. Justice was eventually defeated and destroyed by Sol Badguy.

Background
Justice was once a woman know as Aria, lover of a man named Frederick as well as a fellow scientist in the Gear Project. A unnamed scientist, known only as “That Man”, used Aria and Frederick for his experiments, but it is not known if they were volunteers or were forced by him(though Sol implies in Guilty Gear: Overture that his conversion into a Gear was involuntary). Aria became the first complete Gear, a humanoid with an immense magical power, but lost all of her memories, then taking the name Justice. A series of gears were created after her, but they didn't had their own sentience like Justice. Justice had the unique power of controlling all other Gears, starting to think that humans were inferior to the Gears. Never tolerating the existence of humans, Justice decided to eliminate all humans from earth, starting a bloody war that became known as the Crusades. The Sacred Order of Holy Knights was created to fight Justice and her army of Gears. The Crusades went on for one hundred years, resulting in the mass genocide of many countries, especially Japan.

Guilty Gear XX
Justice fought and defeated the leaders of the Holy Knights, Kliff Undersn and Ky Kiske, then fighting Sol Badguy, who was also a Holy Knight at the time. After defeating Sol, she realizes that he is also a Gear, and attempts to control him. However, Sol never falls into her submission, knocking out Justice and allowing Ky and the rest of the Holy Knights to defeat Justice and seal her away, thus ending the Crusades.

Guilty Gear
All was peaceful until came the notice that the seal of Justice was cracking. The Post War Administration Bureau decides to create a tournament that was called the Holy Order Tournament, in order to gather warriors and create a new Holy Order to fight the imminent menace of Justice. Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske enter the tournament, knowing that something was wrong in it, since the tournament had no rules and even criminals were allowed to compete. Sol Badguy eventually wins the tournament, meeting with Testament, who was a Gear that created the tournament in order to gather the sacrifices required to break Justice's seal. With only one more sacrifice needed, Testament fought Sol but lost, deciding to use his own blood as a sacrifice. Justice is unsealed, recognizing her old enemy and deciding to kill him, so that she can resume her war against humans. Sol defeats Justice, who recovers her memories before dying, saying to Sol that she wished that the three of them could talk a last time, recognizing Sol as her former lover Frederick. Sol destroys Justice and prays for her soul to find peace, before vowing to take his revenge against “That Man”.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus
Justice's Story Mode here is a retelling of her resurrection by Testament in the original Guilty Gear, her last confrontation with Ky Kiske and Kliff, finally meeting her end at the hands of Sol Badguy. In Story Mode for all other characters, Justice appears as a regular opponent, but these are only copies created by Crow and used as guardians.

Gameplay
In Guilty Gear, she is the game's final boss. In Guilty Gear X she is absent from the game, except in the Plus version, where she and Kliff are hidden characters unlocked via missions. In Guilty Gear X2 however, she is a secret character only unlocked by beating her on Level 230 in Survival Mode, accumulating ninety-six hours of normal gameplay, beating all sixty Story Paths, or completing forty of the game's missions in Mission Mode. Despite her inclusion in these games, her well-above-average attack power, reach, speed, and defense make her illegal in most formal tournaments.

Before the recent Accent Core Plus R, Justice was the most overpowered character in the game, being able to deal an insane amount of damage as well as having the best mobility and defense of any character, boasting a fast running dash, a triple airdash, and a triple jump. Her normals are also fast, have ridiculous priority, and extremely long reach. In fact, Justice is the only character in the game that is so overpowered outside of Gold Mode that some of her combos are guaranteed to deal 100% damage. Justice can also zone very effectively using her N.B. Blasts, and she possesses an extremely powerful counter called Valkyrie Arc that counters all attacks, regardless of where the attack is intended to hit, or even if the attack is an Overdrive or Instant Kill. Her only weakness is that her Overdrives are extremely hard to pull off, forcing inexperienced players to use nothing but regular attacks and special moves.

The recently announced Accent Core Plus R is allowing, Justice and Kliff, for the first time ever, to be playable and balanced for arcade play, meaning she is now officially tournament-legal. As such, Justice has been retooled considerably: she has lost practically all of her mobility, as her walk speed is extremely slowed down and she can no longer dash, triple jump, or airdash. Valkyrie Arc no longer works on low attacks, and her damage output is severely weakened. To make up for this, she has been given all new versions of her N.B. Blasts that travel in different arcs and directions. Her gameplan revolves around setting up bomb traps to gain meter, then making use of her Force Break, Saperia Trance, to travel across the screen while causing wallbounce to go into devastating combos.

As of the second location test, she has gained a brand new Overdrive called Omega Shift. The move acts similarly to Sol's Dragon Install, granting Justice all of her old mobility options back (triple jump, dash, triple airdash). This adds yet another option to her gameplan: to build meter so she can use this move to transition to an offensive playstyle.

Powers & Abilities
Justice uses her innate powers as well as her armor's claws and appendages to deal out damage. She is considered to one of the series's most powerful characters, surpassed only by Sol Badguy, Slayer, That Man, Judgment, Dizzy and Ramletherl Valentine.

References & Abilities

 * Her name could also be a homage to Metallica album and song "...And Justice for All."
 * Justice's (and Dizzy's) overdrive named Gamma Ray shares its name with a well-known German power-metal band.

Trivia

 * Due to mistranslations in the first Guilty Gear game, and the blue ischium between the character sprite's legs, it was previously believed that Justice was male. This theory is proven false in GGXX^Core.
 * It is stated and confirmed in the Drama CD Side Black that she is Dizzy's biological mother.
 * It is heavily hinted that Justice was originally a human woman named Aria, Fredrick's (now Sol Badguy) former lover. It is not known whether or not she volunteered to become a Gear or was forced by That Man. Regardless, as a result, it is very likely that she lost all her memories of Fredrick and her former life, taking on the name of Justice.
 * Justice is the only character that can air dash from one end of a stage to the other.
 * It is speculated that Justice is wearing a heavy armor as a shell, and a woman is hiding underneath. Evidence of this is seen in her character art in Accent Core.
 * After their deaths in the storyline, the developers never balanced Justice and Kliff's gameplays to meet the level of other characters', since they're just extra characters. Because of this, they are considered overpowered, and as such, are banned from being used in tournaments. This is no longer the case in Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Plus R.
 * In Accent Core Plus, Justice gains only one new move: a Force Break which is a somewhat powerful dash. Also the sound effect for her dash seems to be removed.
 * Justice's hair color was orange until Guilty Gear XX, where it was change into a red color. Also the blue on her color scheme is a little more vivid.
 * In the original Guilty Gear, Justice had no respect action; she simply froze momentarily.
 * Justice's appearance and design are based on the anime Tekkaman Blade.