Lance Xiao

Lance is Valerie's younger half sibling by one of their father's mistresses, a Thai woman named "Alita" Dara Saelim. Being an illegitimate child of mixed ancestry, Lance and his mother were sent away from the Phoenix family's main terrority of China/East Asia. Lance was born and raised in Brisbane, Australia with his mother's surname as Calvin Saelim.

Cassian Lo, a cousin to Xiao Xianzhang and head of the Queensland sector of the Phoenix, became Calvin's adoptive father. Calvin's classmates were well aware of Calvin's family's Triad connections, and he was often vilified by his peers and teachers alike. This caused him to become withdrawn and sullen, and Cassian enrolled him in multiple martial arts disciplines to try to toughen him up against the schoolyard bullies.

Xiao Xianzhang was displeased with his son's temperment, and he entered Calvin to be experimented upon in DNA splicing trials. Despite the adminstering researcher, Jared Wang's reticence towards working with such a young subject, Xiao Jin (future Birdcage agent Canary) pushed the trial through after threatening financial pressure.

The splicing drastically changed Calvin's temperment, making him quite ferocious and daring. He would often become unpredictably violent when provoked. Calvin went from being the school outcast to the school bully, and caused a lot of trouble in his schools, causing him to be expelled from multiple schools before Cassian got tired of it and just paid off his last institution to keep him enrolled.

Calvin and Valerie were raised as cousins, but Valerie and Calvin were always well aware that Calvin was her younger half brother, and they were much closer to each other than their various cousins despite their geographic location.

Valerie and Calvin were great friends due to their similar unpredictable passions. Even from a young age, Calvin recognized the difference in their status and always followed her lead without question, backing her in any fight, even against reprimands from their elders. Calvin's mother called him Valerie's "Ngao" (a Thai polearm weapon, pronounced NAO), which became his primary nickname at home and at school.

When Ngao graduated high school, he started working with Cassian in the Phoenix Guild. He expected an exciting life of regular fights and turf wars, but found out most of what the smaller factions of the Phoenix did was mostly bully and cowe helpless civilians in various barely legal money schemes. He found this work to be extremely dull, and often started unneeded fights and altercations that caused a series of irritating complications for Cassian.

When Cassian had just about had it with his adopted son, Ngao suddenly announced he was going to instead become a mixed martial artist in the local tournament. Grateful for the distraction, Cassian encouraged him to do so.

This didn't sit well with Valerie, who felt that was a waste of time. She instead brought him into her much more fast paced and quickly growing faction and he became a loyal lieutenant to her that she deployed to terrorize their rivals.

He played a crucial part in her campaigns during the Succession War, being able to almost singlehandedly decimate small factions whose territories and influence Valerie's group would then absorb. When Valerie ultimately won the Succession contest, she used her newfound status to legitimize Ngao and give him the respected Xiao last name.

He legally changed his name to Lance Xiao, Lance being a translation of his nickname that he used far more than his birthname. However, most of his family and old friends (including Valerie) still refer to him as Nao .

Though she herself was the one who gave Jasper Shi his starting funding and initial small faction in the Phoenix, Oriole soon came to regret this decision as Jasper began expanding his influence almost instantly. Having seen firsthand Jasper's capability for duplicity, she recognized that he would become quite a threat if left unchecked.

Oriole had initially given Jasper command of her faction at the Birdcage after her initiation, but she decided to instead induct Lance, someone she knew she could entirely trust, to become her second-in-command at the Birdcage.

To add insult to injury, Lance was formally given a codename, Vireo, solidifying his superiority over the once powerful Jasper. Since taking command of the Oriole faction at the Birdcage, he's severely tightened the leniencies Jasper had once allowed.