LF2 fan theories

[prince_freeza]

I thought we could discuss some theories and other aspects of LF2 in here.
i have had this one theory about jack & justin for as long as i can remember, i think we even discussed it once on the IRC chat but nothing with much details, so it would be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions about it and maybe even share some theories of your own.

Jack is Justin ~ Pf (Click to View)

LF2 Theory: Jack & Justin are the same person.

This theory suggests that Jack and Justin are the same person, offering his soul to Julian in exchange for power Jack gets transformed into Justin becoming one of Julian's minions.
i don't have much details on the way julian takes over a certain character, but i like to think he offers them a "mask" similar to his and the moment they put it on it brings out the evil in them and they become submissive to the one that wears the bigger or rather "original" mask which is Julian.

Similar move set?!
Both characters have the a very similar move set which consists of 2 moves, a projectile shooting move and a close range (melee) move.

D>A

Note how Jack and Justin spawn similar looking energy balls in their D>A, Justin's ball looks slightly bigger but in the same time looses its traveling distance and falls apart after a few yards.

D^A to DvA

Their melee attacks are so similar yet so different in the same time.
Jack relies on kicks in all of his attacks (super punch,dash,d^a...etc)
Justin relies on punches in all of his attacks (super punch,dash,dva...etc)
we can clearly see right here:

Firzen is Julian ~ mono (Click to View)

Same idea have been in my head from the time when I learned about LF2 game (6-7 years ago).


Also, I have another theory about Julian and Firzen.

Julian is evil side of the Firzen. Let's say that when evil side gets separated it becomes darker, because its evil, and gets a mask covering its face. Like in Bleach anime about hollows.

Standing.
They are mirror images of each other. Like in the mirror, they say that you can see monster inside yourself.


Defence.
Like PF have said about attacks being different yet the same. Its same with this one. They look different and the same. Firzen is using shield to hide himself because his counter punch would not be powerful enough to knock the attacker. He relies more the defence. His attacks intend to defend more than attack. What I see in his explosion is that the explosion freezes enemy and stops them but also because of Firen mixture, it spawns some fire balls and attacks.Same about his final flash like wave. It uses energy to spawn weak energy waves but many of them to keep someone from attacking, not to attack.
Julian relies more on offensive power. Look at his defending arm. Its just showing that he is defending but his other arm says " I will punch you right after you fail attacking". As his explosion, it sends enemy away like the
real explosion. His kamehame like energy ball destroys everything in his way.


Punch.
Both have 4 frames for two punches together  

Notice how one goes up and another goes down and Firzen changes its facial expression? Same with Julians eyes, it starts glowing.

Jump attack.
It explains the same thing with mirror image.


Explosion.
Both have 3 Images (I found 3 images for CHARGING) and how they release their explosions?
Look how Firzen looks like trying to defend himself and yet to charge some energy. Why I said defend. Its because he is worried that he might not pull that explosion off. When he release his explosive power, yes Firen have same way of doing but Firzen is doing it because he is trying to defend. Like making a barier when he waves with his arms after explosion is done. His face expression. Look at it. His eyes are closed and we can see his teeths. He is trying hard. And when you are trying hard to do something? You do exact same expression. When you try to lift something, hold something heavy. Your face muscles forces you to make this expression because they also gets some pressure.
sure.You do not feel confident enough and you close your eyes or "bite" your teeths because you are scare of the result which might be bad if you wont pull this off.
Julians case is different. He is confident. He has the power to attack, he cares more about atk than def. He knows that he will pull this of and as a result he leaves himself wide open. This is actualy a good strategy to leave yourself open when you charging energy so your enemys would come closer and you could destroy them. We cannot see his facial expression but we can see that his pose. His pose is like the ruling person would have. Arms raised up (yes, his attack goes up) saying "I am the king, I am the master, I am the powerful one here" He might be anger but he is showing that he is more powerfull being than you.



Same goes with good and evil. Good always fights back but it also have a mission to defend. Good is weaker but in the end it still beats evil. Bad side is always more confident and wants to destroy weaker and rule the world because he is more powerful but that makes him loose because he forgets about everything else and depends only on firepower

Crimson stone in john amulet, louis armor ~ YinYin (Click to View)

The red gems inside Johns amulet and Louis’ trident armor are of the same material: crimson stone. Johns amulet is an artefact passed down to him. He might know about its power, but chooses not to abuse it. The gem in Louis’ armor is the magical power source that allows him to transform it into the trident.
But there is more.
It is not uncommon for conflicts to break out over resources. And this rare ore supposedly charged with energy is of great interest to Julian. Why? Because his very own mask, which greatly boosted his power, uses this material as an energy source. Have you noticed his eyes glowing red, opposed to his purple energy signature? The mask has a layer made from crimson powder on the inside, fusing it directly to his face. And being a demonic artefact the mask not only gave him power but also changed his physique: a much bulkier body, grey skin and flesh and the responsible crimson energy can still be seen glowing through his eyes.
Julian himself may not need any more crimson stone. His mask makes him strong enough already. But for every new loyal minion he wants to create he needs to craft a weak copy of it. Bandits are just too stupid for the job and prone to desertion.
But what will he do once he has control over all crimson mines? Conquer space?

Little fighters have a master ~ STM1993 (Click to View)

It is popular to believe that the 10 main characters are a group of Little Fighters with a master, so that's where we'll begin. My whole LF2 story lies in two key factors:
* Some characters only ever appear in stage 5 and nowhere else - Bat, Justin, Knight and the only enemy Monk in 5-1.
* Cloning is possible - which is why there are multiple copies of hero characters (the regular mooks are generic anyway).

Shortly after coming back from exploring, Bat and the LFs' master (a Monk) would go missing. The LFs set out to look for them, at first believing them kidnapped by the bandits under Mark. The LFs then search the Stanley Prison for them, believing they could be wrongly caught for a crime. That is when they saw their own clones, tipping them off that something was wrong. They recall a legend about Julian and Bat's recent exploration in the same area, so they decide to set off in that direction via the Great Wall.

After beating Louis' clone, they reached the legendary Queen's Island. Unfortunately, Firzen had allied himself with Julian and guarded the entrance to the Forbidden Tower alongside Firen/Freeze clones. Upon arriving in Forbidden Tower, the LFs encountered a clone of their master and defeated him, then freed the original shortly after. That is when the conspiracy is revealed.

Julian had returned. Bat encountered Julian in his travels and was brainwashed into serving Julian, whereupon he would return to kidnap the LFs' master. Using the knowledge the master had of the LFs' fighting styles, Julian was able to create clones of the LFs as part of his army, and also planned to use this to infiltrate the people. Bat had not been cloned because he was caught before Julian learned of the power and was too useful as his right-hand man. Yadda yadda, they knock Bat into his senses, manage to convince a clone of Louis(EX) to join their side, take down a Firzen clone, then finish off Julian.

Julian is Davis ~ T@I (Click to View)

* Same users speculated that Davis and Julian have a connection, perhaps they're even the same person!
- Both have a slight resemblance in appearance, especially in the hair: both have a brown and spiky hair, with Julian's just being longer. Also, both have ears.
- Both share a light resemblance in some of their movements. I'll start with their upper-cuts:
For some reason, Davis' Dragon-Punch glows while Julian's Upper-Cut doesn't. I suspect that the Dragon Punch is pure and holy, so when Davis bacame cottupted, the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...) left him. So he still knows how to do the trick, but without the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).
- As for the Energy Blast, Julian's blasts look more like Davis' than Dennis'. Julians blasts are whay more powerful and much faster. That means of course that Julian gained much more power by sacrificing his good side and the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).
- They also share a similar basic movement: Both Dash attacks deal 80 damage (please conform this) and both move the same when they runattack, but Julian glows and charges his run attack. That might bt the substitue to the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).

the link between John and Jan ~ Lutichris (Click to View)

Jan is actually John who is conspiring to become Davis's lover without him knowing.
Although their appearance is vastly different John has been known to be a little extravagant in his wardrobe and is often depicted as sexually frustrated with the same sex. Jan and John both both wear a red pendant and cast magical healing spells and even though she uses an orb instead of wand they could still be linked to one another... maybe they're even the same item!



The little Red pendant around John's neck could tighten up and retract itself close to his neck when he transforms into Jan. Lets also consider the fact that he wears blue. Jan has two versions of herself a blue one and a pink one. Maybe the cloned version is really the pink one (you fight them anyways in stage mode) you also get to free the blue one that's tied up.

Ah but what if we have two of them in the room (John and Jan)?
And the #1 answer to everything in this universe is.... you guessed it. CLONES!

John probably already knows how to cast clones because in Hero Fighter's we see Taylor (a mage) do the exact same thing. So it's possible that John had his clones tied up and was captured by Julian and exploited John's ability on clone-making to build a massive pink army of Jan's. Thus John felt guilty (thinking he was responsible for the whole incident) and vowed never to do clones again. Or so he thinks... it's possible Rudolf could have been a double agent in disguise and shared his knowledge about clone making to begin with. But I digress...

... it may just as well be a theory. A Gamy Theory!

Jason-Dennis-Julian & signs of demonic corruption ~ STM1993 (Click to View)

I have another theory regarding Julian (and Dennis) which would also tie up several other theories, but it requires looking at Marti's older games.

Meet Jason. He is the final boss of Fight (1994).
His moveset in Fight 1994 includes:
1) v > A = Big Green Ball that destroys all smaller projectiles
2) v < A = Grounded uppercut with green energy
3) Has an attack where he swaps bodies with his opponent
Before you say that its Louis, the game has the following characters:
* Davis, Woody, Louis, Henry(wearing green), Mark, Bat(wearing dark green & orange), Jack, Jason.(you can see a very faithful remake of Jason & Bat in their Fight forms in YinYin's LF 1/2.)

Sound familiar? His dressing style, big green ball being just like Julian's D>J, idea of using a charged punch like >>A match perfectly. I will get back to this later. But for now, notice that Dennis has a similar head and hadouken, but has blue energy and uses more kicks instead. Jason is Dennis' brother.
Julian appears as a secret character, but notably he has blue hair, without a mask and doesn't use Soul Bomb. When he is KO'd, he is also the only character where an angel doesn't appear. So here's where I tie up a few theories together:

Jason was defeated in Fight (1994). In his wanders, he met the demon Julian, who plotted to take over the LF world. While grappling each other, Jason tried to bodyswap to confuse his opponent as he always had. Unfortunately, Julian managed to bend Jason to his will just before they swapped bodies. Julian took over the body of a champion fighter while gaining a powerful pawn. The lingering evil influence in Julian's body would further corrupt Jason's soul, preventing it from doing bodyswaps again and dooming it forever.

The tournament in LF1 was about to begin. This was the perfect opportunity for Julian to get to know his opponent, so he used his new pawn to enter the tournament as himself. Jason was believed to be missing, so Dennis took his place in the LF1 tournament, where he unknowingly fights and defeats his brother, destroying his soul (thus no angel appears when KO'd). Having accessed his opponents, Julian decided he would need to build an army while also subverting the enemy's defenses.

Julian soon learned about the crimson gems, and used them to create masks to strengthen himself as well as to control lesser men. By donning the mask, Julian's body transforms into its grey skin and red-haired form we now know.
What about Firzen & Bat? Notice that they're the only two characters with red pupils, and originally Bat didn't have red pupils. You can also argue that Firzen shouldn't have red eyes either - Firen + Freeze = Firzen, and both Firen & Freeze have blue eyes - so Firzen should normally have blue eyes too!

You'd also notice that Bat, Justin, Julian, Firzen (and Knight, but they are expected to be stiff) have a few things in common:
1) Stiff walking - look at their arms when they stand and walk.
2) Only one weapon swing and weapon throw sprite animation.

We also established that Firzen and Bat were under the control of Julian.

What can we conclude?
Red pupils are a symptom of demonic corruption, and also causes the way you fight to become more stiff and aggressive. They are among the first characters to be controlled by Julian in LF2, and stuck around just long enough to gradually become like Julian/Justin, but they did not put on masks and so did not have grey skin and glowing red eyes. So rather than Julian being like Firzen, it was Firzen being like Julian.

Firzen never joins the players because he was corrupted for longer than Bat and lost his identity like Jason had. He is also encountered twice with red eyes because he was only cloned much later, when Firzen was already experiencing demonic corruption symptoms.


tl;dr:
Jason is Dennis' brother.
LF2!Julian is in Jason's body. Jason's soul was in LF1!Julian's original body and got corrupted/controlled.
Bat & Firzen have red pupils and very stiff fighting like Justin/Julian; a sign of demonic corruption without outright putting on the mask.

Relation between characters ~ T@I (Click to View)

Here, I will talk about the characteristics of some of the fighters:

Davis, Woody and Dennis are related to each other, as it can be seen in one of the official images in the official site of the game:

As you see, they are from Tai Hom Village. I prefer thinking that they are just friends rather than brothers.
Davis is obviously the leader of the Little Fighters: He is the mascot of the game (see his action figure), he always stands at the center in group shots and in general has the look of a leader. The Dragon Punch looks the most sacred attack in the game.

Dennis looks younger than the other tow (and one of the younger heroes in the game). To me, he looks insecure and Probably sees Davis as some kind of a mentor to him.

I'm not sure what to think about Woody, his LFO counterpart looks chill and looks like he likes to fight, but in this "universe" he has serious facial expressions. Looking at his swift and influenced game play style, the LFO approach actually fits better.


Looking at other images from the official site, you can see these pictures:

Deep and Henry are related. They live in the Lion Forest, maybe it's just their home or maybe they're "Guiardins Of The Forest" (I've heard that s**t too many times).
Deep's character reminds me of Vegeta's: Both are strong and both will fight for the sake of others, but the main reason they fight is for themselves, to prove that they are the strongest. They will also ditch the team and fight their own way.
Deep feels committed to Henry for some reason, as having friends doesn't feel like his style at all.

Henry, on the other hand, looks chill and happy but he is serious when he needs to (unlike LFO's Woody who is still chill when fighting). He probably likes to tell jokes - especially ones that Deeps hates. Fighting isn't Henry's purpose in life and he doesn't desire to fight too much, he will fight only when he needs to (meaning that he's not a pacifist, he just prefers doing other things).
Henry deeply respects Deep (pun intended) and gives him the space he needs in fights. Sometimes, he secretly covers him up (he won't tell that because it will hurt Deep's ego).



Firzen. Nothing else to say here.
Actually, there's a lot to say, but I have no clue who he is. If he's the real deal, that means Firen and Freeze are the bad guys, and I don't want to think that. If he's a fusion of FF clones, than it's just lame, and I don't want to think that either.



LouisEX in the Forbidden Tower. I think he is the REAL Louis and not some kind of a clone. He is the most serious fighter and defeating Julian is his #1 priority.
I have tow theories about his story of becoming Louis Ex:
- Louis probably tried to Fight Julian by himself and lost. Julian either brainwashed him or promised him greater powers, and the later submitted. When fought in Stage 3, he retreated back to the tower (same goes to Firzen in Stage 4. It can't be seen and I can only guess that because the lack of cut scenes). In Stage 5, he finally came back to his senses and rejoined the Little Fighters.
- When he's Louis Ex, he's wild, savage and can't control himself. The armor contains these powers. Julian managed to take control of him (not by fighting him) and released his powers.


The remaining characters are John and Rudolf. I have no idea who either of them are, but I can makes something up:
Rudolf is mysterious. How original.

John is and not fully trained:
- He is knocked back when firing energy blasts.
- It take relatively long time to cast his skills.
- It takes a lot of Mana to cast his skills. Also, by comparing to Jan, the skills aren't rewarding like hers: Her cure requires less Mana and summons a heal angle to all the team, while John's requires about twice the mana, and only one cure. Jan's devils are summoned by the number of the opponents and John's Disk just hit whatever is on its way; Sure, players can benefit from the Disk better with enough training, but we can all agree that even if it's deadlier, it's also clumsier than Jan's Devils.
Also, I think than he's the youngest fighter alongside Dennis.

I think that's it for now...

ideas and thoughts are welcome of course, and in case anyone has a theory of their own please do share

[Hellblazer]

Ah, the word theories usually describes to games that are developed by huge studios. I don't think this has any speciality in it. Also, if we make certain characters, most things are similar. So why not say that they are same and let's apply a theory!
(well dont take this as an offense, just my opinion)

[Gespenst]

Same idea have been in my head from the time when I learned about LF2 game (6-7 years ago).


Also, I have another theory about Julian and Firzen.

Julian is evil side of the Firzen. Let's say that when evil side gets separated it becomes darker, because its evil, and gets a mask covering its face. Like in Bleach anime about hollows.

Standing.
They are mirror images of each other. Like in the mirror, they say that you can see monster inside yourself.

//ear shapes

Defence.
Like PF have said about attacks being different yet the same. Its same with this one. They look different and the same. Firzen is using shield to hide himself because his counter punch would not be powerful enough to knock the attacker. He relies more the defence. His attacks intend to defend more than attack. What I see in his explosion is that the explosion freezes enemy and stops them but also because of Firen mixture, it spawns some fire balls and attacks.Same about his final flash like wave. It uses energy to spawn weak energy waves but many of them to keep someone from attacking, not to attack.
Julian relies more on offensive power. Look at his defending arm. Its just showing that he is defending but his other arm says " I will punch you right after you fail attacking". As his explosion, it sends enemy away like the
real explosion. His kamehame like energy ball destroys everything in his way.


Punch.
Both have 4 frames for two punches together  

Notice how one goes up and another goes down and Firzen changes its facial expression? Same with Julians eyes, it starts glowing.

Jump attack.
It explains the same thing with mirror image.


Explosion.
Both have 3 Images (I found 3 images for CHARGING) and how they release their explosions?
Look how Firzen looks like trying to defend himself and yet to charge some energy. Why I said defend. Its because he is worried that he might not pull that explosion off. When he release his explosive power, yes Firen have same way of doing but Firzen is doing it because he is trying to defend. Like making a barier when he waves with his arms after explosion is done. His face expression. Look at it. His eyes are closed and we can see his teeths. He is trying hard. And when you are trying hard to do something? You do exact same expression. When you try to lift something, hold something heavy. Your face muscles forces you to make this expression because they also gets some pressure.
sure.You do not feel confident enough and you close your eyes or "bite" your teeths because you are scare of the result which might be bad if you wont pull this off.
Julians case is different. He is confident. He has the power to attack, he cares more about atk than def. He knows that he will pull this of and as a result he leaves himself wide open. This is actualy a good strategy to leave yourself open when you charging energy so your enemys would come closer and you could destroy them. We cannot see his facial expression but we can see that his pose. His pose is like the ruling person would have. Arms raised up (yes, his attack goes up) saying "I am the king, I am the master, I am the powerful one here" He might be anger but he is showing that he is more powerfull being than you.



Same goes with good and evil. Good always fights back but it also have a mission to defend. Good is weaker but in the end it still beats evil. Bad side is always more confident and wants to destroy weaker and rule the world because he is more powerful but that makes him loose because he forgets about everything else and depends only on firepower.


Or Julian and Justin came from another dimension. It can be another universe where Firzen was born bad because Firen and Freeze could not control new powers from fusing together. Or its just human like creatures created from the evil energy. Since there cannot be two exact same things existing in one world (this might apply to doppelgangers)




PF, this is good topic

I this quote "but hey it's just a theory" - Matt Patt

Ariyan (Click to View)

Since you don't think much and go with very basic overused things, I will just say one thing.
DBZ is not the only source we can make theories of and relate things/facts. Somewhere even was topic/post about Jack design realy being from Titanic movie character also name Jack which is played by Leonardo Dicaprio, and vice verse.
Some might say that Davis is based on Ryu from Street Fighter series, Julian is Akuma also from SF series.
Rudolf can be mixture of ninja games and also same Rurouni Kenshin anime.
There can be theory that Louis is British because of his hair color and his status. He looks like a knight and noble, that could mean royality. Britania is well known with being royal.
Jack and Deep and Henry being travelers from the past. Time travel and wizards are well known in fairy tails and they are bonded together.
John and Louis can be Merlin and Kind Arthur.
Mark is totaly a Arnold Schwarzenegger
Monk being just Monk.
There could be a theory that Bat is a looner because his only friends are bats and he was raised by bats (he is batman)

[Shtrudel]

As Appendix said, I don't think that the game has hidden lore within the game, except for the basic "You're the good guys, they're the bad guys. Kick their butts". Similarities in desing may be explained by budget limits, as making sprites based on other existing sprites makes it much easier and much faster.
But leave that aside, I want to expand the lore of the game!

I really like this theory. It makes sense. You can also see how Jack is untrained with firing energy blast, as seen in his sprites. You also get to feel that through gameplay: It takes for him a lot of time to cast and fire the blasts, and in order to rapidly fire again, instead of just pressing A again - Like Davis and Dennis do - you need to press the whole combination again (D>A); As Justing, he gave up the range and the rapidfire for short range shots and consistent-yet-a-bit-slower cast speed of his energy blasts.
I won't related to the kick/punch point, as you summed it up well enough.

Other theories/speculations:
* Why didn't the creators list certain move sets for some characters? I'm talking about Knight's D>A, Bat's DVA from grabbing and LouisEX's J from grabbing. Those moves are listed in their data files, but not in the move set. Maybe those are leftovers and they forgot to remove them out of the game?
* Why did Jan and Monk appeared the least as enemies in Stage Mode? (Jan appear in 4-4 and 5-1, and Monk appeared only on 5-1)
* In my forum, users speculated that Knights are actually Makrs wearing armors, As you see Mark for the last time at the 2nd phase of Stage 5-2.

* Same users speculated that Davis and Julian have a connection, perhaps they're even the same person!
- Both have a slight resemblance in appearance, especially in the hair: both have a brown and spiky hair, with Julian's just being longer. Also, both have ears.
- Both share a light resemblance in some of their movements. I'll start with their upper-cuts:
For some reason, Davis' Dragon-Punch glows while Julian's Upper-Cut doesn't. I suspect that the Dragon Punch is pure and holy, so when Davis bacame cottupted, the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...) left him. So he still knows how to do the trick, but without the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).
- As for the Energy Blast, Julian's blasts look more like Davis' than Dennis'. Julians blasts are whay more powerful and much faster. That means of course that Julian gained much more power by sacrificing his good side and the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).
- They also share a similar basic movement: Both Dash attacks deal 80 damage (please conform this) and both move the same when they runattack, but Julian glows and charges his run attack. That might bt the substitue to the soul of the dragon (or something like that I don't know...).
Edit: Julian does look more like Firzen than Davis, bu I still like to think about the Corrupted Hero thing. P:


May I post your theory in my forum? I promise to give you credit and post a link to this post!

[prince_freeza]

As Appendix said, I don't think that the game has hidden lore within the game, except for the basic "You're the good guys, they're the bad guys. Kick their butts". Similarities in desing may be explained by budget limits, as making sprites based on other existing sprites makes it much easier and much faster.
But leave that aside, I want to expand the lore of the game!

well the title might have been misleading in the beginning so i edited it. these are fan theories, nobody knows what was marti thinking or what kind of plan did he have for these character :P so this is why we call them "theories" each member has their own theory or vision on certain aspects of lf2 and we are here to exchange thoughts and ideas

May I post your theory in my forum? I promise to give you credit and post a link to this post!

yeah why not go ahead

@mono very interesting, i love reading such things from others so thanks for sharing

[STM1993]

Well, if you accept a full-blown story about what I think LF2's plot is:

It is popular to believe that the 10 main characters are a group of Little Fighters with a master, so that's where we'll begin. My whole LF2 story lies in two key factors:
* Some characters only ever appear in stage 5 and nowhere else - Bat, Justin, Knight and the only enemy Monk in 5-1.
* Cloning is possible - which is why there are multiple copies of hero characters (the regular mooks are generic anyway).

Shortly after coming back from exploring, Bat and the LFs' master (a Monk) would go missing. The LFs set out to look for them, at first believing them kidnapped by the bandits under Mark. The LFs then search the Stanley Prison for them, believing they could be wrongly caught for a crime. That is when they saw their own clones, tipping them off that something was wrong. They recall a legend about Julian and Bat's recent exploration in the same area, so they decide to set off in that direction via the Great Wall.

After beating Louis' clone, they reached the legendary Queen's Island. Unfortunately, Firzen had allied himself with Julian and guarded the entrance to the Forbidden Tower alongside Firen/Freeze clones. Upon arriving in Forbidden Tower, the LFs encountered a clone of their master and defeated him, then freed the original shortly after. That is when the conspiracy is revealed.

Julian had returned. Bat encountered Julian in his travels and was brainwashed into serving Julian, whereupon he would return to kidnap the LFs' master. Using the knowledge the master had of the LFs' fighting styles, Julian was able to create clones of the LFs as part of his army, and also planned to use this to infiltrate the people. Bat had not been cloned because he was caught before Julian learned of the power and was too useful as his right-hand man. Yadda yadda, they knock Bat into his senses, manage to convince a clone of Louis(EX) to join their side, take down a Firzen clone, then finish off Julian.

End of story.

tl;dr: The whole story is the LFs trying to look for their missing Monk master and Bat, and then stumbling onto Julian's conspiracy before he could finish it.
(edit: I realize Louis is a hole in my story though... regular people don't go around wearing plate armor and you only see that in stage 5. Maybe the Forbidden Tower was indeed ruled by Louis, but he left the place on his own while visting the LFs, and Julian took the opportunity to take over in his absence.)

[Shtrudel]

@mono:
As I said, I agree with your theory, and Stage Mode clears that:
In stage 5, Firzen is the only boss who doesn't join you after his defeat. Instead, he is reanimated as the almighty Julian.

Also, I want to expand about the visuals: You can see that Julian's clothings are torn apart, and Julian being a big creature, it can mean that Firzen transformed into Julian, and Julian being a large creature, is tearin the clothes. Kind like the Hulk. P:
Also, you see that Julian's skin is grey, like a zombie skin. so perhaps Julian is a soul inside the mask? And maybe when he possesses the person who's wearing it, he sucks their energy and soul and taking over their mind? I don't know, it's hard to make theories in English and explain them as it's not my native language. xD

[Deep]

The thing that everyone knows:-

Firzen is Firen and Freeze.

[Lauli]

I just remembered this thread; somewhat related: LF2 backgrounds - real life places
YinYin mentioned mapping out the real places of stage mode and seeing a more or less connected route.

[LutiChris]

Jan is actually John who is conspiring to become Davis's lover without him knowing.
Although their appearance is vastly different John has been known to be a little extravagant in his wardrobe and is often depicted as sexually frustrated with the same sex. Jan and John both both wear a red pendant and cast magical healing spells and even though she uses an orb instead of wand they could still be linked to one another... maybe they're even the same item!



The little Red pendant around John's neck could tighten up and retract itself close to his neck when he transforms into Jan. Lets also consider the fact that he wears blue. Jan has two versions of herself a blue one and a pink one. Maybe the cloned version is really the pink one (you fight them anyways in stage mode) you also get to free the blue one that's tied up.

Ah but what if we have two of them in the room (John and Jan)?
And the #1 answer to everything in this universe is.... you guessed it. CLONES!

John probably already knows how to cast clones because in Hero Fighter's we see Taylor (a mage) do the exact same thing. So it's possible that John had his clones tied up and was captured by Julian and exploited John's ability on clone-making to build a massive pink army of Jan's. Thus John felt guilty (thinking he was responsible for the whole incident) and vowed never to do clones again. Or so he thinks... it's possible Rudolf could have been a double agent in disguise and shared his knowledge about clone making to begin with. But I digress...

... it may just as well be a theory. A Game Theory!