Xiao Long Bao

Xiao was Season 1's Rookie of the Year! By Agustian Noor.

## The Coconut Crab

In Xiao Long Bao's family, everyone practiced nunchucks. Her Mom and Dad were experts and her little brother was the apple of their eye, practicing day and night. The only problem was: Xiao hated nunchucks! She had a different passion: cooking. Xiao's childhood was one endless battle with her family, who all insisted Xiao practice nunchucks in equal measure to Xiao's refusal to do so. On her 18th birthday, Xiao left home to attend culinary school and never looked back.

For the first time, Xiao was free. She turned her attention fully toward cooking and became a great chef; however, the total peace she anticipated eluded her. After years of fighting with her parents about practicing nunchucks, Xiao had the love for battle in her heart. She would never be complete without it.

At school, she'd heard whispers in the hallway about a famous battle-chef who lived on the edge of the marine desert, cooking freshly caught seafood. To fill the void for battle in her belly, Xiao sought out this famous, highly reclusive battle-chef and became her student.

Hammer realized in Xiao a natural sneakiness and honed the young chef's abilities both in battle and in the kitchen. Xiao learned how to walk in the Step of the Shadow to catch and cook seafood as her master did. Under Hammer's tutelage, she perfected her stealthiness and even found in herself a way to refine her innate talent as a grappler. She studied the coastal region's most ferocious and powerful creature, thus naming her own style after it: The Coconut Crab.

One day, Hammer announced Xiao's training complete and vanished. With no idea where to go next, Xiao headed back inland to find her brother and prove her martial arts were superior...

## Fight History

##### GOLDEN AGE: SEASON 1

SIBLING RIVALRY: XIAO V. GOLDFISH

In Rinkutown, Goldfish' big mouth has really annoyed a few people who tell Xiao they will pay her good money if she kicks him in the balls. Xiao takes the money for the fight, knowing full-well she would never do such a terrible thing to her own brother. However, once the fight gets going, Goldfish starts mouthing off to her. So incindiary is Goldfish's goading that she loses herself. Her scruples disappear and she does the deed she was paid for.

SIBLING RIVALRY #3: XIAO/FOOT V. GOLDFISH/MINNO

Goldfish is drinking in pub just outside Rinkutown with his girlfriend when Xiao enters. Minno is appalled by Xiao's willingness to kick her own brother in the scrotum. Xiao considers explaining that Goldfish asked for it before deciding she doesn't owe anyone an explanation for her actions. Feeling disrespected, Minno instigates a bar-brawl with Xiao. Goldfish takes her side.

Meanwhile, a well-intentioned man sitting at the bar sees this two-on-one assault and naturally steps in to assist Xiao with Goldfish and Minno. Feeling reinvigorated from his discussion with Asha, Foot puts up a beautiful defense against Goldfish. This allows Xiao to get the best of both her opponents and she performs a DOUBLE NI BAO LE, ending the fight with dumplings deep in the windpipe of both her brother and his girlfriend.

\*Xiao is the first fighter to break 10,000 organically (suspected)

STEP OF THE SHADOW: BLIGHT V. XIAO

Feeling quite confident after defeating her brother twice, Xiao decides to investigate the fights Foot told her about. She arrives in the Preservation just in time to see Blight V. Legend. Feeling cocky and hoping to make a name for herself in this new environment, Xiao sneak attacks Blight directly after the fight. Though Xiao gives it her best, she cannot overpower Blight. This woman is "simply inhuman." When Blight's "electronic attack stuff" displays its massive and horrific power, Xiao politely concedes defeat and disappears without a trace.

DID YOU KNOW: Though most people who witness Blight over this evening are left wondering about the nature of reality, Xiao isn't. She's the kind of person who can accept wildly different things easily. This is why she excels during the red fiends invasion.

CARNAGE AT CANNIBAL COURT

In a very short time, Xiao's life is hugely transformed. It all began a few moments ago, when she witnessed her brother effortlessly slain at the hands of the Butcher. Xiao immediately tries to get revenge on the Butcher but is stopped when the arena suddenly explodes into violence as a family of underground-dwelling cannibals attack. Xiao uses her stealthiness to keep a low profile during the fight, slowly closing in on the Butcher. However, when she sees Blight in big trouble, she decides to stay and help the others fight instead of pursuing her revenge against Butcher. She tackles Mutt off of Blight before being overtaken by the cannibals and descending into unconsciousness.

##### GOLDEN AGE: SEASON 2

PEE DRINKERS #2: XIAO V. ASHA

Xiao is in the worst place she's ever been and out of her natural mind. When the cannibals force her to fight another prisoner, she's operating on pure muscle memory and Asha is too drunk to withstand the onslaught. Even while under heavy influence of alcohol, Xiao is simply too fast. The fight ends with Xiao grabbing a handful of dirt, thinking it to be a dumpling and jamming it in Asha's mouth.

DUMPLING OF SHADOW : XIAO V. APSU

Ever since escaping Carcass Caverns, Xiao has been in a rough place. She has remained in isolation, coming to grips with the death of her brother and trying to piece together the events on the night he died. One day, she hears that Apsu fought her old master and goes looking for information. She uses her sneakiness to infiltrate the fighter camp in Scottsdale and confronts Apsu. He condemns her for sneaking into his room and they fight. Xiao wins the battle but Apsu is conspicuously reserved during the event. Perhaps he is trying not to destroy his bedroom, perhaps he has learned a thing or two from his encounter with Hammer. After their battle is through, Apsu admits he can supply Xiao with no information but suggests hanging around the P-town fights if she wants to find Hammer.

AIN'T ALWAYS CHUNKY: MUTT V. XIAO

Apsu was a man of his word. He put in a good word for Xiao with the management and they offered her a contract. Xiao has remained for several weeks and bested a few competitors, bolstering her piggybank but has still not caught sight of her master Hammer nor gained much information about the man who killed her brother. Meanwhile, Mutt continues his reign of terror in Cannibal Court. He has brutally defeated dozens of newcomers and rumors are spreading about a fight between him and the one who bested him the night the cannibals attacked. Xiao is assigned her first high-purse battle in a while and assured that if she defeats Mutt, she'll be allowed to leave Cannibal Court and be moved to nicer fights in the Scrapyard. During the fight, Mutt takes Xiao off guard with a psychological attack. He's not the brutish oaf she imagined. He gets inside her head and breaks down her confidence. Mutt's headgames are brutal. Xiao is surprised to find that he knows of her loss and even calls them "the same," both having lost a brother recently. Without her focus, Xiao is overpowered by Mutt and lies beaten on the floor of Cannibal Court.

DEALING WITH THE DARKNESS: BUTCHER V. XIAO

 After realizing how she was manipulated by the organizers in the Preservation, she leaves the fight scene mid-contract. Her travels in the contested zone between the Preservation, Rinkutown and the American Territories finally shed some light on the location of the man who killed her brother. Xiao puts on her finest dinner service clothes to hand out some cold revenge to the Butcher. Instead, the Butcher drops some truth bombs on her stop her dead in her tracks. Unlike her ecounter with Mutt which left her broken and confused, the Butcher's psychological smackdown imbues in her a sense of direction and hope. Though she loses the match, she walks away from the encounter having gotten closure and feeling more whole than ever.

## Trivia

Xiao was created January 16th, 2017 by Liz K. Liz was inspired by a character "with an absurd steamed-bun hat, wrap-around karate top who just runs up and jams a dumpling in her opponent's mouth."

Xiao's fatal flaw is that she is explosively emotional. She is at-times over-confident and short-sighted. Ironically, these are the same characteristics she chastised her brother for.