TheArtOfScience

Wu Wei sits behind a roughshod wooden desk in a nameless King's Row apartment building. He is alone, so his pale skin can breath in the musty air. Light filters through a tattered vinyl shade, illuminating dust motes that mesmerize him as he silently contemplates.

He turns his attention back to the papers in front of him. Unconsciously running his fingertips across the deep scab in his side where he was recently wounded. He feels the pain but does not feel it. He accepts it as part of him and lets it wash over him like a rock in a stream.

He is troubled.

The papers require concentratino to decipher, as they are in code. Should the Tsoo find his location and raid it they would find nothing of value to them in this room. Deciphering the code takes time and patience. Wu has inexhaustible patience...but dwindling time. He makes himself focus and goes down the list.

Swift Midnight...reported in
Silver Cheetah...reported in
Oni no Omitsu...reported in
Crimson Silver...reported in

For every ninja under his watch that has reported in he sees at least one or two who have missed their appointments.

Wu rubs his eyes and ponders. He has no doubt that many of them are dead. His clan was woefully unprepared for the resistance they met on these shores. Their training did not teach them how to parry blasts of energy and ice. Their hours of meditation could not save them from the clutches of arcane creatures who seized their mind.

He had watched many of his clan fall. The first wave of ninja had broken against the shores of Rhode Island like a violent wave....and was now peacefully receding like the tide.

The ninja he can account for are learning quickly, adapting. Adaptation was not something stressed enough in their classes. They were taught to do things a certain way but...

Wu shakes his head, to clear his doubts and his thoughts. He has a report to write and it must be completed. Despite the losses the Lotus Clan was moving ahead with their plans.

Soon the elders would be taking a more active interest in Paragon. It was inevitable...as soon as they were told of the large Tsoo presence Wu could sense their agitation from thousands of miles away.

Wu swept the papers from his desk in a rare moment of frustration. They had tasked him with organizing this intrusion. With keeping his clanmates alive. Yet so many had fallen. And now the elders were coming with absolutely no idea what dangers awaited them. More ninja were needed. More time was needed. More resources were needed.

But he could not dwell on these concerns...for they were not his. To follow his directives was his duty and he would do it until he took his last breath...which would not be long from now the way things are looking. But he would die honorably, with his blade deep in the innards of a traitorous Tsoo.

Should he let his clanmates know they were fighting a losing battle? Should he continue to bolster them with talk of the Tsoo weakness when in fact they were exponentially outnumbered. No...best they not know. Best they just did what they were trained to do.

So many had already found peace in battle. The peace of death and the return to the Tao. Many more will find that peace before this bloody business is over.

Pushing away from the desk Wu rises and says softly to the empty room, "Our days are temporary...our enlightenment eternal. Let us find peace in battle."

Then he reaches for his mask.

~TAOS

NOTE: CLan is on Justice server

The Lotus Clan has its root in ancient Japan in what was once known as the Koga province and what is currently reffered to as the Mie Province. This is generally considered to be the "home" of the ninja tradition, if not its birthplace.

During this great time of war there were many ninja clans but as the great Nobunaga waged war many of them scattered, becoming thieves or mercenaries or citizens.

Nobunaga's greatest threat, however, was the fellow daimyo Tokugawa. Tokugawa saw the possibilites of the ninja clans and drew several of them together under his banner, utilizing them as spies and saboteurs in siege warfare.

They distinguished themselves in the battle of Sekigahara and Tokugawa granted them land within his domain and thus the Lotus Clan survived the Shimabara Rebellion.

After the rebellion there was a long period of peace in which the Lotus Clan slowly but surely built it's school and formalized its traditions. Several other ninja clans did the same, being located relatively close to each other yet operating separately.

This was a period of growth for the Lotus Clan and their numbers burgeoned. The ways of Christianity never made it to their mountain home so Buddhism was taught and the formerly warlike Lotus Clan became the scholarly...monk like Lotus Clan of Eternal Enlightenment.

Unfortunately enlightenment may be eternal...but peace is not. The Lotus clan would learn this harsh lesson.

The world spins on. Revolving. Seasons come and go. Years pass. Things change but the Tao remains the Tao.

Human nature is human nature.

Fast forward a few centuries and you've got Levi Jeans and Disco music and fast food and automobiles. You've got tourists and what were once sacred traditions are now whored for their novelty value to strangers.

Somewhere in the Mie province...you have a small but tightly knit sect of warrior/monks who had all but forgotten the warrior part of their nature. The school maintained itself off of tourism...offering tours and making a show of their simplest techniques to amaze others as a child is amazed by the first snowflake of winter. Their teachings...their history...their roots, however, remained their own.

In the large, bustling cities of Japan that war had both built and destroyed fads came and went and human nature dictates that there would be those who would take advantage of this.

The Yakuza.

At first many clans...including the powerful Lotus Clan and Tsoo clan looked at these city boys as nothing but westernized fops. Wannabe gangsters that were butchering their own traditions in order to relive the past glories of war that had ravaged their land.

In many cases the Yakuza fascination with the past was voracious. They would tattoo their bodies...offer thier fingers and limbs as penance for failure. There was a blurring of bushido/taoism/traditional values. A mish-mash that made the Yakuza feel that it was keeping on dying traditions when it was only melding them together into a perverse form of cultism.

These Yakuza...though not below the use of guns... encouraged their members to take up the sword again.

And they did.

Operating in a society recovering from WW2 the Yakuza crept into every aspect of their society like the Kudzu creeping up the walls of the Lotus Clan's mountain home.

The Yakuza wanted money...power...control. They also wanted knowledge of the past. Secrets lost to them. Knowledge. The Lotus clan had traded its swords for knowledge but it was about to find out that knowledge can also be obtained by the sword...
And so they attacked the Lotus Clan.

The mountain home of the Clan was invaded by veiled invaders who had come to pillage the school of its books, scrolls, and antiques.

But the heart of the Lotus Clan sprang forth and the Yakuza were met by a small, unarmed force that fought back so vociferously that they were forced to retreat down the mountain. Their shiny new SUV paint jobs ruined by the peppering of arrows.

A meeting was held amongst the Clan Elders and it was decided that the Lotus Clan would again take up arms and cull the herd of these Yakuza. They wished to "put them in their place" by showing them the true nature of their arts.

The nameless leader of the Lotus Clan called for a council among the few remaining Clans that fought alongside Tokugawa centuries before. A meeting was held. An alliance was formed. The battle would be taken to the Yakuza and no mercy would be shown.

The mountain clans of the Mie Province began rigorously training their students. Emphasizing combat and becoming more aggressive. These students were not learning techiniques so that they could pass them on..they were learning techniques to use against their enemies in combat. Much that was forgotten was relearned. Slowly...but certainly.

By this time the streets of every major city in Japan were ruled by various Yakuza factions. It was here that the skirmishes took place and by cover of night the ninja rode the winds of hatred again.

The Yakuza responded immediately...but to no avail. The ninja clans ambushed them, attacking by night or by disguise. Misdirecting them and planting spies in their midst. Fighting battles on several fronts they desperately reached out for some secret weapon to beat back the guerilla tactics of the ninja clans fighting them.

Technology. The next best thing. The shinier the better. It doesn't get any better than Crey. It doesn't get any better than alien technology. The Yakuza...once so focused on bringing about a resurgence of tradition turned their back on it and looked for any weapon to use against the wind of death that was blowing through their long nights.

The Yakuza's eyes turned to Paragon City.

They needed the technology and brute force that the city of heroes offered. With such power at their disposal they would have no problem closing their grip on the underworld in the land of the rising sun.

If they allocated their resources to the west, however, they would leave themselves dangerously thin at home on the front lines. They couldn't do it by themselves. They needed help.

They needed traitors.

They found their traitor in the Tsoo clan.

The Tsoo set up a council meeting of the clans during which the majority of clan elders were all murdered in an honorless rocket attack on the building the meeting was held in.

With the ensuing confusion the Tsoo used this to their advantage to gather many other clans under their banner, consolidating into a larger...much more formidable group.

Not everyone was fooled. After the rocket attack and the tragic loss of so much knowledge and history even some of the Yakuza could no longer stomach what they had become.

The Tsoo attempted to "help" the Lotus Clan rebuild but the Lotus Clan lost the fewest members in the explosion, having never fully trusted the Tsoo in the first place, and immediately sent out spies to determine the truth behind the matter.

One of thes ninja acting in the role of Shinobi saw all the proof he needed after his arrival in the west. He was there ostensibly as a clerk to work out shipping details on supplies for the clan. What he found was an incredibly large and potent contingent of the Tsoo clan already in place in the West. Even more alarming was that they were in no way benign. One of their first actions was to declare war on a group knows as "The Family"...Paragon City's counterpart to the Yakuza. Organized Crime.

This lone ninja...codename Wu Wei...sent back a hasty and alarming message to the Clan elders who at once began to mobilize. Knowing they had been betrayed they issued announcements denouncing the Tsoo and these were somewhat effective. Many of the more traditional students flocked to the Lotus school, sickened by the greed around them. Even certain sects of the Yakuza themself ran to the mountains, fortifying themselves for the war to come. Sides were being taken and lines were being drawn. It would not be long until swords were drawn as well.

Several of the Clan elders including the authoritative teacher of naturalism known as Pie O' Pah and the illustrious instructor Inazuma formed a small cadre of ninja to go to Paragon City.

Their duty was to establish a foothold in the west. They were to remain hidden and observe the Tsoo. THen when strong enough to harass and disrupt the Tsoo operations there as much as possible.

Once the clan has established a foothold in Paragon City more clanmates from the mountain home would come, bringing stronger and more varied warriors and putting all of their strength to bear on the Tsoo.

It was quickly becoming apparent that the war that started in their own cities would soon be a war fought on another continent. The first to master the ways of Paragon and its "heroes" would be the first to take these secrets home and crush their opposition.

That brings us up to today...where the small cadre of ninja fight using their training and steel against super powered enemies and an overwhelming Tsoo force. Outnumbered and outgunned they rely on the same skills that their forefathers relied on in centuries past.

They remain unseen. When they strike they do so without warning and they leave no trace. They tread unseen through a city filled with colorful heroes and gadgets and millions of distractions and dangers. They are cautious yet fearless...willing to put their lives on the line for the honor of their clan and the future of their home.

Attrition is hitting them hard...as ninja fall to the likes of mutants and robots and the Tsoo themselves have begun an active search for the clan cell's headquarters. (which is why there isn't one)

They must hold fast in their ever shrinking circle of blades and dig their heels in until help arrives from the west.

Do you have what it takes to face these daunting odds? Do you have the wits...skill...and tenacity necessary to fight super powered evil with ancient technique? If so the clan sect's designated messenger is Wu Wei. The first of the clan to hit Paragon's shores and one of the clan's foremost Shinobi.

***current openings in clan are for Katana/Super Reflexes scrappers. Please see other topics or ask me via email in game (Wu Wei) if you have additional questions.***


DISCLAIMER:PS. This is a mixture of both historical and pop culture information. Please do not pick this apart because I choose to use real names of people and provinces and because I reference an actual battle doesn't mean I need a 5000 dissertation on ninjas and buddhism or schools or pretty much anything. Offer ideas but correcting my history is pointless

~TAOS