Esha

**Key Features** | »Martial arts and claw gauntlets»*"Jiao Li"* training»Classic qipao under Tibetan armour»Steel rings from training days»Paper fan (with dragon motif)

*"你已经死了." (You are already dead.)*

- Motto of *"Jiao Li"*

## Tactical Analysis

* **Hit once. Die twice.:** Though exceptionally old for a commando. Esha's claw-enhanced punches go far worse than death despite her age, it's enough to state anything ranging in between flesh and tanks is doomed at first glance. Her pressure point techniques allow her to end a man's life with a single punch, and crack a tank like an egg effortlessly, not even aircraft are safe as she has a set of throwing knives that will always hit its target. Add to this the fact that Esha is unbelievably quick and can run over water for her age (aided by her psychic powers), and you pretty much have a grasp of what you're up against as a normal footsoldier.

* **Temple of Wisdom:** With literally decades of experience under her belt. Esha is able to teach and guide the younger diciples, increasing their ferocity in battle and the amount of knowledge they gain in combat. She can enter a praying trance to further increase the range and potency of her guidance but she must be still to maintain the chants.

* **Still mortal:** Tough, strong, fast, and deadly, Esha is still human (and an old one at that), and with no protection apart from her armour, she is still vulnerable to normal anti-infantry weapons, though she can simply evade them with her speed and her psychic shield gives her some protection.

* **I was quite the looker:** Even though Jiao Li has a technique to remain permanently youthful, Esha has only ever used this technique in a worthy battle and/or desperation, due to her self-discipline and oath to remain at her true, immortal, age. Upon using this technique Esha's body will completely rewind back to her mid-twenties/early-thirties, and with her strength and vigor back in their prime she will discard both her armour and her gauntlets, partially because they're now slowing her and partially out of vain beauty. Now at the peak of her abilities, Esha becomes a one-woman army capable of ripping apart an Apocalypse with her bare hands, leap up to supersonic jets to pry the pilot out of their seats before gracefully landing back down, and taking the full brunt of a Proton Collider with only a scratch. But her deadliest technique she used in her youth is the "Wǔ Diǎn Quán", where she strikes targets who are nearly dead with a different pressure point technique to turn them into timed bombs, the resonance forcing the object, or person, to explode after a set amount of time, taking those around it with it.

## Description

 File:ChinaMingxia.jpg
The famed *"Woman of a Million Strikes"*, **Esha** is the last master of the ancient martial art *"Jiao Li"*, which is reputed to be the very first organized martial art in human history. Based upon striking pressure points across the body to cause effects ranging from unconsciousness to spontaneous combustion, *"Jiao Li"* requires agility, discipline, precision, and more than a little physical fitness.

*"Jiao Li"* is a difficult art to master; it is said to be impossible to teach the entire art to more than one student, so instead the whole of the art is passed down directly from a master to a single student, of which Esha is the last. Though others can learn elements of the art, only the single student, mostly female, selected by the master will possess the full technique, and the difference it makes is astonishing. At the conclusion of the training, it can accurately be said that the master of *"Jiao Li"* is the single most dangerous person in the world who seemingly never ages (this is because, unknowingly, *"Jiao Li"* techniques unlock the hidden psychic potential in a human and pushes it to its peak, though the strain to gain such power meant that most students burn out from overload).

When a tiny infant, orphaned by the Boxer Rebellion, was brought to the ancient monastery in Tibet where *"Jiao Li"* is taught, nobody expected much of her. Small and weak, most were convinced that she would amount to nothing, but the master took her in to train alongside the other prospective students.

Mockingly named *"Bright Heroine"* by her cruel teachers, she was singled out as an orphan and a peasant with no future. Despite this adversity, the young girl was disciplined and determined beyond any other, eventually winning the attention of the master. When Esha finally emerged from the inner sanctum of the monastery, it was with nearly the full art of *"Jiao Li"* imparted to her.

Capable of defeating anyone in single combat, Esha also learned that the last part of her training was not that which could be taught; it must be learned by walking the earth and fighting against the darkest elements. Promising to return only when she was ready, Esha stepped out of the monastery. She stepped into China's Warlord Era where she fought multiple battles to protect the innocent.

And then the madness of the Civil War came.

In those first days, Esha learned a valuable lesson about how little she knew. She was robbed at gunpoint by ill-disciplined soldiers within a day, and she spent the next two months adrift in a world that dwarfed her and her art. Shocked by the reality of her insignificance, Esha drifted with hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the constant warfare, struck with fear and indecision. For all her skill and training, Esha was reduced to being a lost girl, without direction, incapable of action. What could one person do against such endless horror? When the bombs fell and the world seemed to end, Esha welcomed it.

In the dark days afterward, when black rain fell and the sun was hidden behind clouds of ash, the refugees Esha, now a lady in her seventies, was traveling with were confronted by the ragged remains of a military unit, their allegiance impossible to determine under the soot and mud, who began shooting at them and looting the possessions of the dead. Enraged by the sight, Esha shook off the shock that she had carried since the first day, throwing herself at the men and beating them down with her bare hands.

At that moment, she understood the final lesson of *"Jiao Li"*; it does not matter what you know, it matters only what you do. In that moment, Esha put herself in between the innocent and the unjust, and when the day had ended she had hunted down and destroyed the unit, and began to lead the refugees to the safety of the mountain monastery.

When she arrived, however, the students were dead and the monastery was destroyed. An agent of the new Atomic Kingdom was examining the wreckage, and he told Esha that the Viceroy was gathering forces to take revenge upon those who had committed or enabled the atrocities that had occurred. But Esha knew from looking at the agent that the Atomic Kingdom only cared for blind vengeance, and were selfish to the core by only caring for their people who would doom the innocent because they weren't Chinese. Esha swiftly punched a hole right through the agent's chest and spit upon his corpse for pretending to be just, right in front of observing Kingdom forces.

Now considered an enemy of the Kingdom, and the NRA and PLA, Esha would flee further into Tibets mountains, doing her best to keep the refugees safe. Eventually, she found the tunnels that would lead to her finding the bunkers where the monks and martial artists, including remnants of the *"Jiao Li"*, had fled when the bombs fell, including her young friend Tenzin who now leads these "Enlightened Conclave", and asked her to join him in their goal to restore China.

Esha could see in his eyes that what he said was genuine, unlike that two-headed snake of the Viceroy, and immediately pledged her loyalty, swearing to avenge the fallen and bring swift justice to those responsible.

## Behind the Scenes

Esha is primarily based on Kenshiro of the anime *"Fist of the North Star"* as well as female protagonists from Chinese martial arts and historical fantasy movies. Appearance-wise she bears a resemblance to (old) Katara from Legend of Korra, while her Heroic upgrade turns her into (young) Katara from Avatar.

 **Detailed Information** | TBA