Valerie Xiao

From a young age, Valerie was a precocious child that excelled academically and had a sweet smile that easily won over the adults that fawned over her. Her grandfather (head of the Golden Phoenix Guild), doted on her and favored her over her many cousins.

This blatant favoritism went to her head as she matured. She developed a megalomaniac personality with a tendancy for chaos and violence. As the favored child, she was often allowed to get away with incidents, which further solidified her gradiose thoughts of her own invincibility.

From high school on, she began to imitiate her elders in playing gangster, running her own childish faction, first in her schooyard. She dabbled in petty criminal activities such as protection racketing and loan sharking. Soon she expanded outside her schoolyard to running a small, disorganized street gang. Despite its rough beginnings, Valerie's little mob soon solidified into a serious faction of thugs and delinquents who pledged an unshakeable loyalty to her out of fear and respect.

Amused with the development of her once childish games, her grandfather secretly favored her with funding and support for her relatively minor schemes and anticipated her maturing into a full fledged mobster. The family deputies were far less impressed at what they widely considered to be a childish thug recket. She and her faction were looked down upon by the other deputies and was generally considered a minor nuisance.

After the untimely deaths of the blood birthright heir to the head of the Phoenix, there was much unrest in the Phoenix as to who Xiao Wei, the head, would favor as the next heir. In anticipation of his retirement, Xiao Wei, head of the Phoenix guild instead announced that he would choose the succession hierarchy through a competition of expansion. He declared that whichever of his deputies could accumulate the greatest sphere of influence would earn the right of succession to his seat. For this reason, the Golden Phoenix Guild has been particularly active in recent years.

By now Valerie's faction had already become quite sizeable, if informal compared to the well established traditional branches. However, she quickly recognized that to be able to claim the victory she would undoubtedly need to usurp the assets of another family deputy. Ambitiously, she selected the competition's forerunner, Xiao Jin, her uncle, as her target. At once she began a dual pronged strategy to infiltrate his faction and plant damning evidence of Jin conspiring secretly against the Phoenix (which, unbeknownst to her, was actually one of his intentions).

She recruited and planted a great number of moles into Jin's ranks. One particularly noteable agent of hers, Jasper Shi, managed to infiltrate into not one but two, of Jin's secretive projects: his affliation with the Birdcage and his private research commission PROJECT:GHOST. With the information fed to her by Jasper and the rest of her agents, she was able to time a strategic takeover of Jin's assets.

After the untimely deaths of the blood birthright heir to the head of the Phoenix, there was much unrest in the Phoenix as to who Xiao Wei, the head, would favor as the next heir. In anticipation of his retirement, Xiao Wei, head of the Phoenix guild instead announced that he would choose the succession hierarchy through a competition of expansion. He declared that whichever of his deputies could accumulate the greatest sphere of influence would earn the right of succession to his seat. For this reason, the Golden Phoenix Guild has been particularly active in recent years.

By now Valerie's faction had already become quite sizeable, if informal compared to the well established traditional branches. However, she quickly recognized that to be able to claim the victory she would undoubtedly need to usurp the assets of another family deputy. Ambitiously, she selected the competition's forerunner, Xiao Jin, her uncle, as her target. At once she began a dual pronged strategy to infiltrate his faction and plant damning evidence of Jin conspiring secretly against the Phoenix (which, unbeknownst to her, was actually one of his intentions).

She recruited and planted a great number of moles into Jin's ranks. One particularly noteable agent of hers, Jasper Shi, managed to infiltrate into not one but two, of Jin's secretive projects: his affliation with the Birdcage and his private research commission PROJECT:GHOST. With the information fed to her by Jasper and the rest of her agents, she was able to time a strategic takeover of Jin's assets.