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kapuchuFan Zhong
WEAPONS INSTRUCTOR
” If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.”
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Full Name
Fan Zhong
Nicknames
One-Hand Fan
Age
26
Gender
Male
Sexuality
Heterosexual
Abilities
“The first weapon you wield is vigilance. The second is the knife in your sleeve.”
Fan is a master of the Qing Dao (Shortsword), the Shéng biāo (Rope Dart), the Sleeve Arrow, and an array of flying blades, and has some moderate hand-to-hand skills. His agileness and limberness also granted him impressive parkour and free-running skills, allowing him to scale almost any surface or terrain quickly and squeeze through most barriers and small spaces with noticeable ease, and was once considered a master of stealth.
However, due to his injury, the most valuable asset the once-assassin now possess is his extensive knowledge. While the other Bending Masters may focus on their particular bending style, or martial arts, or philosophies, it is the duty of Fan is teach the Avatar both personal defense and the ways of the world. The most recent avatars had endured many trials and tribulations during their journeys, most often due to ignorance and Fan would see this Avatar suffer a little less.
His sharp eye are on constant lookout for any attempt on the Avatar’s life and is attempting to teach her what so knows so that she might thrive once she has completed her education and he is no longer around. His personal experience has given a veritable treasure trove and knowledge to impart on her: diplomacy, history, courtly intrigue, the identities foreign officials and their stations, laws and politics, customs and traditions, camouflage and survival, strategy and warfare, counter espionage, herbs and their uses both medicinal and poison, in addition to his knowledge of the human body, his own assassination techniques, and most importantly… Pai Sho.
Fighting Style
“You know who was honorable? A lot of people who died, that’s who.”
Fan wholeheartedly believe that one should do whatever they can to ensure survival in a fight, and demonstrates this philosophy in his own combat style, which centers around speed and agility, dodging enemy attacks instead of blocking them. For this reason, he does not wear heavy armor or capes or use loose robes, but instead relies on just his sword and knives. Fan typically opens with his more ranged attacks before closing the gap to engage the opponent with melee as swiftly as possible before they’ve had the chance to recover mentally and physically. Fan actively employs an entire arsenal of dirty fighting, looking for any weakness in an opponent and exploiting it as brutally as possible, seeking to win by any means necessary. Using an extensive knowledge of chi and artery points of the human body, the Avatar’s Martial Instructor seeks to end combat as swiftly as possible.
This is all, assuming of course, that Fan hasn’t already poisoned everyone’s tea.
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Physical Appearance
Fan is a tall man of about six feet,with his face framed by length of black hair pulled back. He wear the traditional dark greens of his homeland, the Earth Kingdom, his outfit design to keep his movement as unimpeded as possible. His only visible weapon is his Qing Dao, the others carefully hidden up his only sleeve or elsewhere on his body. Wooden sandals adorn his feet, and his body is taut with lean but firm muscles. A sense of tired weariness hangs about his amber eyes.
Most peculiar is his left arm, or rather, the lack of it. His empty sleeve is carefully pinned to his clothing, and underneath, a patch of scar tissue that clearly showed where his arm was.
Equipment and Personal Belongings
“And I will place my Chrysanthemum… here…”
His weapons, a pair of steel shin and forearms guards, caltrops, a set of worn climbing spikes, and an extremely battered Pai Sho set that he insists on bringing everywhere.
Goal
“The recluses’ dream / coming true vividly / the peach blossoms”
Fan had actually been contemplating starting a peach orchard before being chosen as the Avatar’s instructor. Right now, keeping the Avatar alive long enough to realize the orchard seems like a worthy goal, if a little selfish.
Secret
"The quest for truth above all else."
Due to the events of the Avatar Korra’s life, the White Lotus have a greater understanding of the Avatar Cycle and Spirit, as well as the potential for destruction an Avatar could truly cause. In the event of the Avatar going rogue, or utilized against their will as a weapon, Fan has orders to neutralize her without hesitation. As bad as President San’s Republic might be, the thought of another Unalaq was reason enough to make this a viable option.
Habits
"Yes! High Fi-.... other hand."
In the occasional excitement of things, Fan sometimes forgets that he’s missing a particular limb much to his annoyance and the amusement of others.
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Likes
“Come on… just one more round!”
o Pai Sho
O Peach anything.
o A well organized plan that survives contact!
Dislikes
“Here we go- Again.”
o When the Avatar doesn’t heed his advice or chooses to skip her lessons.
o The “Fight First, Think Later,” mentality he views most Benders to have
o His four year losing streak to Kariya Amaris.
Strengths
- “I'm paid to kill and protect people. Friends get a discount."
o Stealth and Acrobatics
o Worldly Knowledge and Experience
o Complete Mastery over his few chosen weapons
o A mind for tactics, strategy, and counter espionage.
Weaknesses
“If I was five years younger..."
o The loss of his left arm has considerably lessened his fighting ability and action economy. Simple things, such as holding heavy objects, tasks that require the use of more than one hand (holding a sword AND opening a door for example), are extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. Further more, while he is quite adept at hiding in the shadows and maintaining silence, personal disguises have become all but useless with his most identifying lack of a feature.
o Unlike a bender whose body is a weapon at all times, Fan has a limited number of weapons, especially flying daggers and arrows. These must be either recollected or replaced when used. In addition, if he is utterly disarmed or loses his sword, his handicap has made it so that his own martial arts is not enough to engage a skilled bender and win.
o Was trained for mores for agility instead of endurance, and while is fully capable of dodging blasts from a Bender, he has no method to defend himself from them, and probably could not survive more lethal blows.
Personality
“If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.”
Fan is sarcastic, with a black sense of humor, and a pragmatic, amoral philosophy for life. He will often be the first to offer the most direct, albeit cold solution to problems, regardless of how it may affect the emotions of others, stemming from years of mission triage: achieving the greatest return on investment for his actions. He is rather apathetic to the idea of killing someone with his methods, arguing that what he does is no different than any Bender in existence.
However, he is not completely heartless, nor is he sadistic. He takes his duty of mentoring and guarding the Avatar very seriously, and views the success of this mission as not just simply protecting an innocent girl, but rather, the safety of the entire world. He is utterly loyal with the Avatar and while he may not always agree with her actions or ideals, he will do his best to ensure that she is safe in her endeavors of them.
As a tutor, he is a firm but gentle teacher, seeking to guide his charge rather than beating the lesson into her brain. Most lessons will involve a practical or physical aspect for the Avatar to utilize, showing through demonstration and careful explanation rather than a lecture or countless repetitions.
He is someone who will go to lengths to ensure that his own survival and the survival of his charge is paramount, but fully knows that he is not the sole teacher of the Avatar, and that his fellow instructors are vital for her training. Therefor, while he may not be as merry of lighthearted as his compatriots, he will gladly consort with them to develop their charge into the Avatar she is meant to be. Fan is actually rather shy about talking about himself, seeing this as an uncomfortable broach of his work-relationship.
Brief History
“Kill one, save ten. Kill ten, save a hundred. Kill a hundred…”
To tell the story of Fan, one must first tell the tale of the White Lotus, for the two are inexplicably entwined together. In the years following the Red Lotus Cell lead by the Airbender Zaheer, the Grand Masters of the Order met together to restructure the Order. The most recent debacle showed the desperate need for some drastic changes; once barely two dozen masters had stood against an occupied Ba Sing Sei held by thousands of Fire Nation soldiers and had achieved victory in almost an hour. Shortly after the Hundred Year War's conclusion, the society stopped concealing itself from the public eye and began to serve the world and the Avatar more openly, expanding their operations and recruiting more openly, swelling their numbers.
But it was only after the incident with the Red that the White begin to reflect that quantity did not always equal quality. Where before they had masters, now they had many, arguably skilled, but lackluster sentries. They had been reduced to glorified bodyguards, while the Red Lotus had focused on skills and resources, working in secret to produce the highest quality of Masters. Every instance before, from Unalaq to Amon, the White Lotus could do little but slow down attempts on their charge. Even now, they knew not of the whereabouts of the Red Lotus remnants, their numbers, or their powers.
A change was necessary. The few decades would find a rise of more off the books practices in lieu of their public face as the White Lotus saught to consolidate its power once more.
Their enemies had fallen into the shadows.
The White Lotus would follow.
Fan Zhong was born the only child to two Sentinels of the White Lotus who had stood guard during the reign of Avatar Korra, and had been inducted into the Order at a rather young age, and had since considered the Order almost as his birthplace and home rather than any city or nation. The son of two benders, it was considered mild disappointment when he inherited neither of his parents talents, though his place in the Order was still assured.
Fan grew up against the backdrop of the civil unrest in the Earth Kingdom, as territories slowly splintered from the unrest caused by President San. His family became accustomed to living in occupied territory, moving from base to base with other cells of the White Lotus to stay ahead of the encroaching forces. It was during one these particular moves that Fan first came into contact with Zhen, an old bounty hunter with a cordial affiliation to the Order of the White Lotus. Zhen was a grizzled mercenary, a true money-grubber willing to do anything to make a quick buck who constantly acted like a wild hedonist unable to save a dollar ahead in his life. He made his living by selling them information, taking operatives from the Red and selling them back to the White for an inflated price. But the Order could only acknowledge his skills, and the coins changed hands frequently enough for him to become a reliable source.
Realizing that the tragedies he saw in his childhood were common occurrences in the world, the teenage Fan stole away from home to became a freelancer like Zhen to hunt down Red remnants around the world, acting as the man’s assistant…
…after Zhen knocked him down a mountain in protest of becoming the boy’s morally questionable guardian.
The mercenary trained him not only in bounty hunting, but in tracking, assassination, and all types of weaponry. At first, he only got in Zhen's way, but he eventually became his partner and equal. The Masters of the White Lotus saw the budding skill in Fan, especially those of discreet missions, and began to rely more and more on the two for such things. Year after year, Fan and Zhen traveled the globe from the icebergs of the two Tribes to the great pyramids of Omashu and everything in-between, hunting their quarry through ruined Sun Temples and the darkest slums of Ba Sing Sei. Many Red Lotus operatives were either caught or killed by the two, who were inducted deeper into the Order to allow Fan more training, especially against various bending styles, and by extension, Zhen. Sabotage, murder, blackmail, espionage: each act a move on the Pai Sho board of Red and White flowers. With the less than innocent actions of President San and his Task Force assassins to claim the Avatar, the battle in the shadows was erupting into full scale war.
About four years ago, word reached the White Lotus of a Red Lava-Bending master named Mao Lifu, who was unifying various bandits in an attempt to destabilize the already fragile Earth Kingdom countryside. Once again, Zhen and Fan were tasked with his capture or disposal and a cadre of Order sentinels were tasked to accompany them. It was as they were readying their bags the night before their journey that Zhen spoke the first affectionate words to his young apprentice.
It was to be their final mission together. He explained that he had been troubled over Fan following the same path as him due to the fact that he has too much potential in killing, displayed by emotionlessly their targets in a manner that took others many years to accomplish. He explained that even with such talent, doing what is necessary should not come before doing what the person wished to accomplish, likening such people to machines.
Those words set the stage for whappened next.
Somehow, the Red Lotus knew that they were coming and were ready for them. They were ambushed enroute to location of their target, on the downward slope of a rocky hill. Ultimately, the events of what followed are unknown to the White Lotus, save that the mission ended in a pyrrhic success. Fan Zhang returned alone, bloodied and with a ruined, blackened left arm, carrying the head of Mao Lifu. When asked what had occurred to the rest of his squad, including his mentor, Fan would only reply that there weren’t enough ashes left to warrant their retrieval.
It was after this mission that Fan became disillusioned with his ideal of any real change in the world, as it was impossible to save one person without losing another. Nothing could be done to save the man’s charred arm, resulting in its amputation, and Fan took the long road of recovery with nothing but silent determination, trying to adjust to his new life. While his recovery was all but assured, given the talent of the Order’s healers, it slowly became an issue of what to do with him.
His bladework was still sharp, and his mind even moreso, but their was still a hesitancy to give him any new tasks given his disability. The game the two Orders played was one where every failure meant perhaps hundreds of innocent deaths, yet to waste the man’s knowledge would have been a sin in of itself.
A solution was offered. Fan was still capable of serving the Order of the White Lotus, but he would be removed from active field-work, forced into a quasi-retirement as he worked as a mentor, and bodyguard, to the new Avatar. It was a task that would assuredly be a soft-job given the presence of the other masters and White Lotus sentinels. A “reward” for his years of faithful service and for his accomplishment of slaying one of the Red Lotus Masters.
After nearly years of recovery and training, the job was finally accepted with the same silent nod Fan had always given. He would protect and train the Avatar, to ready her for all the battles to come.
For this time, by saving one, he could save millions.
It was revealed during the fight with Mao Lifu that Zhen, the man who Fan has come to appreciate almost as a second father, was in fact a Red Lotus Spy who had wormed deeper into the White Lotus's operations by gaining their trust as a mercenary, first by offering up smaller operatives, then by training one of their own. Between the mercenary and the Lava-Bending Master, the cadre of White Lotus sentinels was swiftly obliterated. When Mao Lifu stood over an injured and burned Fan, ready to strike the final blow, Zhen would not allow him to touch his student. The two then came to blows, only to end once Fan himself came behind Mao Lifu and cut this throat, ending the Red Master's life. Devastated by the betrayal and too hurt to stop him, Fan watched as Zhen cleaned his blades off on the still warm body of his comrade and leave, amicably promising the two would meet again... and that the White Lotus would only squander his talents.
Fan has never told anyone the truth about Zhen, or the events of that night.
Fan has never told anyone the truth about Zhen, or the events of that night.