Behind the Hero: Heaven Song
By SolarGemX
Nǐ hǎo (Hello!) We greet our viewers with honor and respect, from one of the most cultural hot spots is all of East Asia, Shanghai China. This bountiful country is steeped in many traditions expanding over a legacy over 5000 years strong. The various festivals like the spring and lantern festival, tomb-sweeping day or the Lunar New Year festival are all widely known in today's age. Not only that, but China is also home to enormous plethora of ancient myths and tales like "Pagu and the Egg of the World," "Journey to the West" or the tales of "The Jade Rabbit" no matter where you look, China is a wellspring of tales, history, and culture. But do not forget, just as there were plenty of tales about famous figures and godlike beings there were plenty of more mystical creatures that would make even a virtuous hero balk in incredulity. Like many any other countries, China is no stranger to superheroes and villains, many taking inspiration from said myths, including todays hero group. Inheriting the power and wisdom of their ancestors and the blessings of the Celestial Realm, six heroes emerge from shadows to combat those that would disturb the order of the world. In today's episode of Behind the Hero, we take a look at Shanghai's Champions, Team Heaven Song.
Active for a little over a decade, the team is composed of six members , all taking inspiration from Chinese myths, primarily creatures that embody various virtues like protection, prosperity, and strength; hoping that they can manifest said virtues in the Shanghai populace. Whit that in mind, let's start with the fur covered illusionist of the group, Fang Li, otherwise known as Tail Wisp. Mr. Li is a male dysmorphic individual of around 28 years of age, he takes the form of anthropomorphic fox with a glowing golden tail. As the oldest of the group, Mr. Li has taken it unto himself to make sure the rest of the team is kept safe, and are capable of dealing with whatever comes their way. He does this by employing small palm sized balls of light that emanate from his tail. Dubbed will-o-wisps by the Chinese community, these little balls of lights are far more dangerous than meets the eye. You see these small spheres are capable of generating several types of illusions all controlled by Tail Wisp, and these illusions can vary depending on the amount of exposure. While floating around the caster, he is capable of making small hallucinations capable of affecting the five senses, but if a fight drags on, or Tail Wisp is capable of hitting his opponents with the spheres, these illusions grow exponentially in strength. On one occasion, when a bronze level behemoth had made its way into the city, Tail Wisp managed to enthrall it so deeply in his illusions he made it bash his head against a solid steel wall repeatedly until it fell unconscious, where it was easily killed without any trouble. It is noted that hallucinations of that level require some time to build up and sufficiently well-trained individuals have been able to resist or even ignore the illusions, although these events have been few and far between.
The second member of the team Shi Yang, also known as wind bellowing Tiger Dog, Gust Guardian. Mr. Yang (25 years old) has a transformative power, letting take the form of car size four-legged Tiger-dog hybrid with some wind capabilities. This form gives the hero enhanced senses, speed, and a surprising amount of bite force, making Mr. Yang one of the de facto bruisers of the team. Additionally, he is capable of breathing out potent gust of wind capable of sending a grown man flying or circulating wind around his paws with enough force to carry himself and up to 2 persons into the air, in a form of pseudo flight. Before becoming a hero, Mr. Yang actually worked as a temple keeper at the Jade Buddha Temple, making sure that any religious services and cultural events were done without incidents. On some occasions Gust Guardian has even offered his services to temple visitors, taking them un top of his transformed back or even slightly floating above ground to entertain kids that had visited for the day. Many people say that his calm demeanor and friendliness to over rambunctious children make him one of the easiest heroes to talk with; but being very fluffy also helps as well.
The Third member of the group is the flamboyant flaming dancer of Heaven Song, Hougan Guo, or Fenghuang. Dressed in traditional dancer garb and an Orange-Red phoenix mask, Mr. Guo (Age 24) is a practitioner of various Chinese dancing arts including fan dancing, sword dancing, the dragon dance, and the Chinese peacock dance; all of which he uses with deadly grace while fighting his opponents. Like his name implies Fenghuang is a pyrokinetic, he is capable of generating a giant set of flaming tail feathers from hos back, just like a peacock, and is capable of launching them with deadly precision every time he moves his body. Another fact that makes him similar to the enigmatic fire bird of myth is the fact that he has a minor set of regeneration capabilities, with fire or heat actually increasing his regenerative properties. The fact his body is basically immune to fire does help, although the opposite is also true; ice and the cold actually hampers his healing.
The cold makes him uncomfortable, it's one of the reasons he slightly dislikes wintertime. It's been a topic of debate in various Chinese forums of who would win in a fight between Tail Wisp and Fenghuang, but neither member is interested in answering that question. When not doing hero work, Mr. Guo is actually a dance instructor, teaching many youths of any gender the wonders of dance, these lessons are quite impressive, especially when Mr. Guo is capable of tricking his teammate Impersonape into helping him with lessons.
The fourth member of Heaven Song is the jet-black scout of the team Hao Xú, also known as Yatagarasu. Mr. Xú (Age 21) is capable of transforming himself into jet black crow, all the while keeping the strength of a full-grown adult. Theres nothing quite like seeing a crow swoop in from above, slap a criminal with its wing and see a full-grown man fold like a piece of paper. One of Yatagarasu's most famous moments is when he wing-slapped a criminal mid-monologue and have him do a backflip before landing on his feet… and falling face first into the pavement. Even with all this, Yatagarasu's most intriguing power in held withing his talons. You see, anything scratched by them is marked with an "invisible" beacon for the next 72 hours, and Mr. Xú is capable of tracking them, no matter the distance. This makes any criminal that thinks they can escape from a fight with the small flier immediately regret getting out of bed that morning. Theres has been speculations if there can be more than one mark at a time, but the young Crow has not confirmed or denied these speculations. (He actually can track up to 3 marks at a time)
The fifth member of the champions of Shanghai is the onyx bound trickster of the team Impersonape or Jian Zhao to his friends and family. 23 years old, Mr. Zhao is actually considered "The most annoying enemy to fight with" by several criminals in Shanghai's underground, primarily due to the fact that Impersonape; in his own words, is a little s**t. Dressed in a combination of Chinese armor, a military vest, pants with a LOT of pockets and a Chinese traditional monkey mask, you would be remised to think that the hero is a serious combatant during battle… you would be wrong. You see, Mr. Zhao has taken it upon himself to be the most annoying motormouth this side of the planet. He constantly likes to taunt and quip against criminals in order to see just how mad he can make them, which helps immensely in order to ensnare them with his powers. Impersonape's main ability is twofold, as he fight's he is capable of making his opponent copy his every movement, up to three at a time. Once ensnared normal criminals are incapable of doing anything, which the hero uses to his advantage. His uniform/costume has a huge variety of equipment including a taser, bolas, a retractable staff, zip ties, metal marbles and on one occasion, a pack of gummy worms.
Kind of hard to defend yourself when your opponent doesn't have any reach, and you have a long stick huh? Sadly, Impersonape cant completely bind an opponent with abilities or limbs he does not have, like tails, extra arms, or an ability to shoot fire for example. The other factor to Mr. Zhao's power is that he is capable of imitating movements he sees, making him very good at imitating and exploiting other forms of physical combat, however he does not keep the copied movements if he doesn't practice with them. One of the few movements he has copied and mastered, much to his chagrin, is Fenghuang's dance moves, which has caused the flamboyant hero to constantly bring Mr. Zhao to his dance lessons as a dance partner. From personal interviews Impersonape doesn't mind dancing, it's the fact that Fenghuang constantly tricks them into the dance lessons that annoys him, since he is the self-proclaimed master of tricks.
The final member of this group of heroes is the one-man army, Terracotta Shogun or Caishen Song. Mr. Song main power is the ability to generate a clay like substance from his hands, this clay can be molded with extreme precision into a variety of clays with steel like durability. Terracotta Shogun can then give the sculpture a set of instructions and they will follow them to a T, but they will only do their given instruction and nothing else, and need to be touched again by Mr. Song before they can do something else. While cumbersome at times, Terracotta Shogun has managed to surpass various challenges using his troops, it's probably no surprise to find out that because of this Mr. Song is an avid fan of strategy games like go and chess.
What a mystical cast of heroes huh? From the mysterious, to the serious and the unbelievably flamboyant, team Heaven Song really sure does cover a wide demographic. Apparently, they have their fair share of local female fans and a couple of males too. Well, it's been a pleasure talking about these Shanghai superstars, but I do believe it's about time for me to catch my flight, since I still need to head over to Japan for our next episode. Thank you for watching, this has been Behind the Hero, signing off.
Authors note:
Weeeeee… that's 10.
I should probably not write at 12 in the morning….
OK! After several days of proper sleep, managed to return to this and finish it properly. Just ignore sleep deprived SGX up there. Anyways, here is the Chinese inspired team of Shanghai, Heaven Song. Named after various myths of Chinese origin, these include:
Tail Wisp: Being inspired by fox spirits, Will-o-Wisps and Yoko, The Grateful Mayakashi.
Gust Guardian: Foo dogs and SMT5 Hayataro.
Fenghuang: Was originally named after the Vermillion Bird, but the name changed after the latest chapter and the fact one of the (probable) bad guys is named Vermillion Bird. He was originally called Vermillion Sun Bird, just changed the name to the Chinese word for phoenix. Also thought about making the other cardinal beasts but backed out.
Yatagarasu: Inspired by Yatagarasu and a bit from Red Huntress, just without the escalation.
Impersonape: Inspired by the saying "monkey see, Monkey do" and a bit of Shikamaru Nara from Naruto.
Terracotta Shogun: Inspired by the Terracotta knights of myth, also my proposed name for Handyman way back when.
