Name: Eska

Age: 22

Gender: Female

Physical Description: Standing at 5'9" Eska has a slender figure with muscles that are toned from years of training. Her thick, dark chestnut brown hair reaches to the middle of her back, and is usually in a loose side braid on the left side of her head. Long bangs frame her face, with two little blue beads resting half an inch from their tips keeping them out of it. Her face gracefully slopes down to a heart shaped chin, with cheekbones lightly dotted with freckles. Eska's icy blue eyes seem to peer straight into souls, though will never linger too long. While she does stick to the traditional blues and whites of the water tribe, her clothing is light due to Republic City's climate and is loose so that she is free to move as she pleases. She normally wears navy joggers, tucked into light brown, slim calf boots that hug the shape of her feet and point at the tip of them. She wears a light blue tunic with a traditional collar that ends at her hips, sloping down to mid-thigh on the right side.

Backstory: Eska, of no relation to Desna and Eska, was born of Northern and Southern Water Tribe descent. Her father was a part of the Northern Water Tribe and her mother that of the Southern Tribe. They initially resided in the Northern Tribe, where her father worked in the government and provided Eska and her mother with a comfortable life. Her mother was a bender, who was overjoyed to see her daughter was gifted as well. With enough convincing, Eska's father allowed her to begin training at the age of seven. She mostly trained in the Northern bending style, yet whenever her family took vacations to the Southern Tribe she would receive lessons from her mother's side of the family. Thus, she was trained in both the Northern and Southern styles of water bending. Despite this gift, her father always taught her how to be humble and only use her bending when she necessarily needed it.

As a young girl, she admired Avatar Korra and Katara, daydreaming of adventures across the world. The years passed, and her fantasies dissolved as she learnt that the world was falling into a time where there was no balance. At the age of fifteen she moved to Republic City, where her father was sent to be a small time diplomat. There she learned of the political strife that laid thickly over Republic City, and she began to miss the peace of the water tribes. Homesick, she began to bury herself in her bending training. Eventually she began to adjust to life in Republic City, although her father worries about her safety in the city. Despite his wish for her to live at home, she moved out and into her own apartment at the age of 20. She found a job teaching the basics of water bending to young benders, and has found a fascination in the spiritual side of bending. She taught herself basic healing techniques within the span of a month, and continued to hone her bending.

Now at 22, Eska prefers to keep her bending to a minumum, though she continues to teach young benders and train. She plans to travel to the Southern Water Tribe within a few months to become a a master bender.

While she may not use her bending in public she always carries a small amount of water with her, as if it were pepper spray. She keeps a level-headed, playful atmosphere about her, with a few close friends in the city and a whole bookcase of bending knowledge in her room. Always tuned into the news, she has a feeling deep down that she wants to do more for Republic City.

Bender/Non-bender: Water bender of moderate skill; knows the basics of healing and fighting styles of the Northern and Southern Water Tribes.

Standing at a daunting six foot three inches, Shao has a very athletic build with noticeable muscles. His body posture is almost always tense and proper unless he is alone. The serious look ever-present in his features normally sets people off from speaking with him. Numerous days spent in the blazing sun has darkened his normally pale skin. Several scars decorate his upper torso, with a concentration in his center back, that has long since healed. All of his clothing is selected to cover up said scars, but his preferred attire is a long, red over-coat with a buttoned shirt underneath and black trousers made of a tough and durable material. His dark brown hair has the appearance of almost being black and is normally cut short while leaving the bangs a little long. Despite his fierce impression, Shao is a relatively handsome person which can often earn him unwanted attention when he is a new location. Sharp, brilliant blue eyes are perhaps his most noticeable feature.

The second son of a wealthy family and a prominent general within the Fire Nation, there was much expected of Shao Jin-Hwan right from his birth. A rigid and structured upbringing did not provide him with much freedom and thus his creativity never truly developed. Instead, a deep sense of duty and doing what is necessary was instilled into him. Alongside his normal education, which was excellent by most standards, he was taught military history and theories. It was his father's intentions for the young Shao to train and grow into a great general like himself. When Shao became old enough, he was sent to a military school to further his education. There he surprised everyone with the dedication in which he completed his assignments while failing to do activities expected of someone his age.

Shao graduated from the school with flying colors and was recruited into the official army of the Fire Nation under an program for officer's. His instructors quickly found out that while Shao was superb in executing any order give to him, he has a hard time being in charge himself. Distance from his family's influence gradually allowed Shao to begin thinking for himself, and in turn reflect on his life. One night while visiting a town close to the military base, Shao found himself in the middle of a argument between a few soldiers from the base and a couple civilians. Despite his best efforts, the soldiers were intoxicated and insisted on using force. Shao was outnumbered but he still took them on, allowing the civilians to escape. With careful use of martial arts and his fire-bending, he was able to fend off the drunken soldiers but he took a few serious wounds due to two of them using knives.

That fight, as insignificant as it might seem, had a profound effect on Shao's self-reflection and motivation. He realized that he was not happy with his life and he simply did not understand who he was. It was a few nights after the incident that he decided to run away, not just from his family but from the Fire Nation itself. Shao gathered a small collection of money and belongings into a single backpack, then boarded a vessel bound for Republic City. There he could hide from the influence of his family and do some much needed soul searching. Having just arrived, Shao is unsure where to progress from here now that freedom is finally his.

Shao is a fire-bender that prefers to use his bending in close-ranged engagements. Military training has allowed him a great deal of control over both his body and fire-bending. Before he left the military, Shao was close to grasping the technique needed for lighting bending.

Name: Jun-He Tung
Age: Fifteen
Gender: Male

Physical Description: Jun-He seems sort of ratty and ageless—you’re honestly not sure if he’s ten or twenty-five, though his shrill voice and terrible grammar might make you think (or at least hope) he’s on the younger side. His growth is actually physically stunted and he seems very scrawny to boot, with thin, slender limbs and bony ribs. He’s clearly of pseudo-oriental descent, with short-cropped black hair, straight bangs, and tanned skin. He would almost have a beautiful, symmetrical face if not for the almost caricature-like skew of his more prominent features—his slanting eyes are enormous and muddy green. He’s often squinting or stares without blinking at someone he’s talking to (note that he has terrible eyesight.) He also has a huge, broad mouth with a smile that shows all his teeth at one time, which unfortunately also shows off a large gap between his top incisors. You’ll find he prefers to wear large adult clothing, resulting in giant shirts that drag past his knees like huge smocks or are otherwise stuffed/tucked into unflattering high-waisted pants. Jun-He has many part-time jobs and can usually be found wearing some part of their uniform depending on where he is. If you’re lucky, you might get to see Jun-He run—he’s shockingly speedy for such a little guy, and very tough to spot from behind. Hope he doesn’t have your wallet.

Backstory: Sure, it’s Republic City in the modern age and it’s never been a better time to be a city dweller—but not everyone has such comfortable urban origins. Even skyscrapers are built on bedrock. Jun-He comes from a rural mining town deep in the mountains of the Earth Kingdom near the historical Northern Air Temple. There his people drill tirelessly for valuable ores, stones, and other useful building materials to feed the relentlessly-growing metropolises across their kingdom and the world. Out on the quarries Earthbenders are in high demand, and a miner or worker with the ability can make three or four times what a non-bender can in the right conditions. When Jun-He was born, his impoverished family was overjoyed at their good fortune. Their son, with his talent, could single-handedly turn their lives around.

Well, ‘talent’ was a little bit of a stretch. Jun-He was never the most adept Earthbender, but he could throw rocks and dig holes, and that seemed to be enough. He started working in the mines at an early age to help his family, though he was never the most ‘applied’ or ‘reliable’ worker. Exposure to so many hard minerals can have a negative effect on someone so young, however—mild cases of lead poisoning all his life stunted his growth and impacted his health, leaving him with a feeble, easily-upset stomach and even stranger compulsions. Perhaps this had something to do with his mental development as well, but more likely it was just his utter lack of education. There were no schools because there were so few families with children on the quarry, and his parents were too poor to fund transport to a different town.

When he was ten years old, the Earth Liberation Front set up a base in the mining town and began to offer free education (or ‘re-education’) to the townspeople. Jun-He was, thankfully, too stupid to be effectively indoctrinated into what was definitely systemized propaganda, though some distrust of government may stem from these ‘re-education’ years. As time went on, Jun-He’s limited usefulness as a miner and Earthbender was going as dry as the dwindling mines themselves, and his parents sent him away to Republic City as an apprentice to a respectable craftsman to make real money to support the family. That lasted about a week. Now he lives under a bridge.

…You been to Republic City? You’ve probably run into Jun-He somewhere. He always seems to get hired and fired from a new part-time job in the same week, and his gap-toothed smile is surprisingly memorable. Lying (blatantly) about his qualifications during job interviews, spinning a new wild tale about how he came to the city every time he meets a new face… well, even someone as literally stupid as Jun-He will pick up a thing or two after working somewhere. A skill. A story. Maybe even a secret. The top paper accidentally snatched off a desk beneath his notice of termination—the Pai Sho piece that fell into his boot during a high-stakes game he’d tried to cheat in—maybe even the conversation he heard at the end of the night as a busboy clearing off tables, a conversation forgotten after he dropped all the water glasses and broke them on the ground. Funny how that happens.

Bender/Non-bender: Earthbender. Technically.
Nothing that wouldn’t be functional in a mining environment, mostly lifting and removing quantities of rock and shale or using his bending to dig/drill. Excavation, not really combat.

Age: 47
Gender: female

Earth/Metal bender


Statuesque - that's the word one often hears when talking about Yun Song. Standing taller than most men, with an elegant bone structure and a prominent gaze, she is one of those who can draw up their height and bring it to bear in any conversation. With sheer presence alone, she has dominated numerous political maneuvering. Her eyes are a deep green and copious silver strands are beginning to show in her black hair.

But the first thing anyone ever notices upon meeting Yun Song is her metal arm. During the Transformation process that changed the authoritarian monarchical Earth nation into a union of autonomous states under a parliament, several towns revolted. There were too many skirmishes to call it a mere revolt, but none of the revolting states found a common leader to unite under, considering King Wu himself gave his blessings for the Transformation. But they went on for so long that even King Wu's successor has to still deal with them. Yun Song proved her worth first in these never-ending battles, and also lost her left arm to a Lava bender. She later used her metal bending to construct an arm for herself, one that was far more versatile than what nature had given her. She spent years training to bend with her metal arm. The arm can extend to longer than its normal length, and has a couple of nasty surprises.


Yun Song was the only daughter of a wealthy merchant couple in Zaofu. She was quite the spoiled brat growing up, and her parents would only rush to please her, no matter the outrageous nature of her childish demands. While not exactly the lap of luxury, she had had a comfortable upbringing. As soon as it was discovered that she could metal bend, she enrolled in the Beifong Academy and was a middling student.

But all that changed when her father lost the shares to his company on a stupid Probending bet. Rather than renege on a bet and save his family, her father chose to save his honour. Right up to the point when he took his own life. The board was not cruel. Mother and daughter were given a modest stipend and a house to stay in. But Yun's demands were no longer being fulfilled. She grew adamant. She wanted more from life than a simple peasant's existence. Her thirst for finer things shaped her into a competitive and fierce young woman. She wanted a life untouched by the random vagaries of existence - one where her comfort was guaranteed.

She pushed herself to excel. She knew Bending would get her to the life she desired. She worked at it like a woman possessed. She became the youngest cadet in the Earth Union's prestigious Commando unit. During the Transformation, when the Union was beginning to consolidate rebel states, she lost her arm and gained a reputation. She was decorated as a War hero and was given a choice. A generous early retirement package owing to her injury, or a desk job in the fledgling Committee for Union Security. But Yun had not had enough. She needed more. She was 30, single, and did not like the prospect of settling down in a farm somewhere.

One-armed and ambitious, Yun chose the desk job. In retrospective, it turned out to be the right move. The Committee was woefully understaffed, and anyone with half a brain could get promoted. Within a couple of years, she found herself advising the Prime Minister on security matters. She single-handedly (literally) formed the Secret Service, a group of elite Lava and Metal benders who are responsible for the Prime Minister's security. Along the way, she also built herself a metal arm, with parts intricate enough to put a Futuron satomobile to shame.

She is now, officially, the Chief of Security - a position created for her, as the bureaucrats were finding it difficult to assign her a salary. Unofficially, she is called the Enforcer. No one dare call her that to her face, of course. But everyone knows she is the Prime Minister's muscle.

As the official protector of the man who led the Earth Union, which currently happened to be the detestable Lee Beifong, it was her job to make sure nothing happened to threaten that man. Recent reports, however, were beginning to trouble her. Korra's death put all plans out of whack. The White Lotus seemed to have gone underground, with no word as to whether they have any clue about the next Avatar's location. Considering Korra was a Water bender first, it made sense that the next Avatar would have already born somewhere in the vast Earth Union. And considering the White Lotus were there when Korra died, it was quite possible they knew exactly where. She had to find them, and figure out a way to use this to the Union's benefit. Surely, having the Avatar grow up under the watchful and protective eye of the Earth Union wouldn't be a bad thing!

It was because of this little side mission of hers that she found herself in Republic City, chasing down a very important lead. She had friends in high places here, making it easier for her to run this down rather than some underling. Staying at the fashionable Four Elements hotel, she now awaits her meeting with the Chief of Police of Republic City.

Age: 23
Gender: Male

Earthbender


He's surprisingly lean, for an Earthbender. Most tend to build their muscles and become bulky, but Shu seems to have rejected that image like a bad stereotype. He has sharp facial features, or perhaps he's just angry all the time, it's hard to tell with him really. His black hair is short for the most part, save for the back where it's grown out enough to be kept in a thin, tightly tied braid. His wardrobe consists of a tight, black, long-sleeved shirt worn under a looser-fitting green and yellow blazer with its collar always popped upward. The blazer itself is green on the outside and yellow on the inside, looking like he could put it on inside-out to reverse the colors. He has brown trousers and work boots to round out the outfit. He stands reasonably tall, just over average for young man of his age, and as stated above his weight and physique are surprisingly lean, not what most people or opponents expect to find in an Earthbender.


To put it simply, Shu is a loose cannon. He's angry, opinionated, and most of the time this is made worse by a short temper. While this does make him seem like a complete thug to most people, there is in fact a kinder guy somewhere in there. He's nice enough to kids, never once letting his anger get the better of him if children are present, and he even becomes oddly protective of them when they're in any kind of danger. Some people who have worked with him before will swear up and down that Shu just seems to hate all forms of authority. Whatever job he was working, it was like giving him orders was borderline impossible without a fist fight breaking out. Whether this is because he's some kind of self-proclaimed rebel or due to other issues, no one's really sure.


Shu grew up in what could only described as an abusive home. His father, Wu Yang, started as the star of a Probending team but let his career go downhill due to alcoholism, which of course only ended up making things worse. Once he was officially kicked out of the pro circuit, he became a drunkard that was constantly in search of new jobs after being fired from a previous one due to his drinking. He pretty much always came home angry or drunk or both, often taking these frustrations out on his wife and son. Unlike his mother Lin, though, Shu became increasingly quick tempered and had more of a tendency to fight back as he got older. Eventually after getting into an actual fight with his father that nearly got one of them killed, Shu stormed out of his childhood home and never looked back.

Having his father's... talent, for Earthbending, Shu tried his hand at Probending. Sure enough he got on a team and things went rather well for a while. But the anger he inherited from his father started to rear its ugly head. He would get into arguments with the coach or the referees, eventually leading to him punching one of them out and like his father before him, Shu was banned from Probending. After this, Shu actually tried his hand at being a police officer. Perhaps on the force, he could put that frustration to good use in stopping bad guys? It went well, briefly, but when Shu started beating criminals practically to death... he was of course discharged and forced to hand over his badge.

The fact that Shu was rapidly becoming his father was not lost on him. The only difference was that Shu refused to turn to drinking. He was determined fix his problems in his own way. That was when he overheard two upper class gentlemen talking about the recent winnings they earned from something they called the "Battle Club". Shu had never heard of anything like this, but he did some digging and eventually discovered an underground fighting circuit called Battle Club. Combatants of all possible backgrounds and skillsets stepped into the cage to fight, and only one walked out as the victor. With no other place to turn to, Shu decided to become a fighter.

As a Battle Club fighter, Shu excelled. He could fight to his heart's content, beat his opponents into a bloody pulp. And not once would he be reprimanded or punished for it. In fact, it was just the opposite. He was praised and cheered for his ability to fight like a beast in the Cage. It was almost... intoxicating to be in an environment that not only enabled, but actively rewarded him for letting his anger fly on his opponents. Maybe that was why he barely noticed that - in some fights - he would start imagining his father in his opponent's place. That Shu would then fly into a rage that was barely noticeable, violently beating his opponent and even coming close to killing them, all the while looking more and more like the very man he hated so much.

Name: Gao Xiang
Age: 25
Gender: Male

Physical Description: A skinny young man though physically fit Gao has lightly tanned white skin, and dark brown eyes. He has dark brown hair that's been clean cut. He refuses to shave all the way through opting to remove as much hair as possible while keeping enough on his head to appear distinct. He has no facial hair, and no noticeable scars on his body though his calloused hands, and bruises on his arms, and legs tell that he is experienced enough upon close inspection. Gao typically is not considered a handsome man, but he isn't ugly either he is extremely plain and tends to blend in with a crowd of average people. He typically wears a simple loose brown shirt, and sometimes a black jacket. His pants are likewise unremarkable simply being a pair of worn white pants.

Backstory: Born in the Earth Sphere in a small village young Gao was nothing worth noting initially his parents were farmers, and his fellow villagers generally unimportant. His life in his young years was rather uneventful as the Earth Sphere's issues were rarely brought into the village due to their remote location in the northern earth sphere. He spent most of his life learning farming, and hunting as he viewed cities grow in size from afar and from an outsider's prospective he fought it fascinating. These massive cities were large, and prosperous. So many things he'd never seen before were housed there, and it led his imagination wild. However his grand father warned him that nothing good came from the cities that bad men ruled them, and that they would continue to do so into the near future. His grand father had gone to these cities, and had seen many things in his youth from air benders to, metal benders in Republic City the patriarch of the Xiang family knew many things.

But after some consideration Gao, and his friend Yu decided to travel to one of the cities in the earth kingdom to understand just what exactly they were. After some time travelling, and experiencing the sights all seemed to go the opposite of what his grand father had warned him about. The city, and the machines in it were all amazing and being very self sufficient the duo managed to live a rather poor but ok life in the city for a few months before a gang attacked, and scarred Yu for life burning his hand. An Earth Bender tried to force money out of Gao by force, whom had none at the time, and decided to fight back. During the fight he learned that he was an air bender after knocking the earth bender on his rear end through a window, and managing to blow out the fire bender with sheer force. He was a strong bender in terms of power but it tired him greatly to use his power. Bringing Yu to a doctor they had met he had his friend treated, and then returned home shortly after. His grand father was not surprised to learn of his gift, but his parents were. It had been known that air benders on occasion popped up out of nowhere.

After discussing it with his village elders young Gao left his village with his grand father, though old he was he insisted to come with Gao, and learn more about himself after he refused to join the air nomads because he knew nothing about them just yet. He didn't want to become a part of something he knew so very little about. Living day to day Gao, and his grand father traveled from place to place as he saw more of the world he saw more cruelty, and less kindness. People who had power refused to act, or sometimes chose to help those who hurt the innocent. Though there were good people often their acts of kindness left voids where evil simply reappeared once the heroes left, or died. He learned air bending through his grand father's example, though his grand father was not an air bender he knew one as a child, and through scrolls purchased from people in the markets. Though most of the air temples were taken back by the new air nation at this point he chose to visit some of the ruins that were deemed unable to be repopulated minor settlements in the former air nomad nation. He didn't get a bison while there but he did pick up an old air nomad flier built from a man whose family sold them to the modern air nomads.

By the time the air nation noticed him, and found him he had grown despondent to the world disliking morality seeing too much black, and white that it blended into grey. He would do as he wanted to, and live life as he would. Refusing to join the kind air nation he left on his own journey. He would go through the Earth Sphere learning, training, and fighting through the wilderness, and thugs that tried to stop him learning combat techniques as he learned much about avatar korra's journey, and some of the villains such as Zaheer who he summed up as a zealot though with his own merits from what he had been told. As he is now he is a simple traveler, and occasional vigilante. He doesn't want for glory, or to move up the food chain. He simply travels to better himself, and become stronger as an individual. Though the grey world he walks in sometimes disgusts him he chooses not to use his power for his own gain, and or to force his opinions onto others. A wandering 'nomad' in a sense he has a home though he doesn't return to it. When the world has finally given him a purpose he hopes its for the best.

Bender/Non-bender: Air Bender - A blunt, and straight forward bender he has more in common with some earth benders than the air nation. However he is still light on his feet, and capable of dodging with ease simply willing to dodge when needed but engage directly with heavy blasts of wind, and subversive uses of wind to knock people off balance before delivering a brutal gust of wind.