Lady Shiva
Lady Shiva
shiva_portrait.png
Portrayed by
Statistics
Full Name Sandra Wu-San
Age 35
Height 5'8"
Build Martial
Eyes Brown
Hair Black
Skin Tan
Factions

Quoted!

Reputation

In the world of government and criminal conspiracies, the Lady Shiva is an eccentric but legendary assassin. In the old depths of the martial arts community, she is a semi-mythical ghost story: an insatiable monster who slaughters anyone who dares call themselves a master. She considers herself a simple artist.

Biography

Sandra Wu-San was born to a working-class family in Detroit. The unfortunate quirk of their surname, courtesy of a poor experience with U.S. immigration back when accuracy was more of a suggestion, spoke to their long residence in the Motor City. Unfortunately, Sandra's family had followed Detroit in spiraling into financial decline before her birth. Sandra's childhood was unpleasant by most standards, though the distance between her and her parents was balanced by her intensely close relationship with her sister, Carolyn.

Sandra and Carolyn often acted as street performers for money, acting out elaborate fight routines based on their shared enjoyment of old Hong Kong action films. This, of all things, doomed Sandra. By chance, they one day attracted the attention of the assassin David Cain. Cain took an interest in Sandra's potential, and expressed this by brutally murdering Carolyn and leaving her body and a few clues for Sandra to find.

Sandra found the depths of her rage that day. She spent the next several years hunting down Carolyn's killer. Her quest took her across the world to abuse the hospitality of a godfather she had never met, a seemingly-eccentric martial artist teacher called O-Sensei. After briefly mistaking one of O-Sensei's itinerant students for Carolyn's killer, Sandra found her way to where David Cain and the League of Shadows awaited her. Despite having excelled at combat with actual training, Sandra was subdued by the League.

It was then that Cain 'offered' Sandra a deal: in exchange for Sandra's life, she would bear Cain's child to be raised as Cain saw fit. Sandra reached into the depths her rage had revealed and found there was nothing but emptiness. Killing this man wouldn't be enough. Killing the one who directed him wouldn't be enough, nor the one who wanted this bespoke murder child. It was a world of assassins who had produced the need for Carolyn to die. Sandra had discarded everything in her life save fighting to avenge her sister, but it was impossible. All Sandra had left was the fight.

She accepted Cain's offer. On the day Sandra gave birth, she beat Cain within an inch of his life, delivered her child, and left her in Cain's arms before disappearing.

Sandra returned to O-Sensei. There, she encountered the students she once attacked — a man named Richard Dragon and his associate Ben Turner. The two of them had begun working for GOOD, a shady organization running "low impact" (read: no guns or tech) anti-criminal and anti-terrorism operations across East and Southeast Asia. Sandra, eager to throw herself into dangerous situations in an attempt to find meaning in her life, joined them. Sandra's increasingly violent methods eventually caused her to leave. Years later, she discovered that GOOD had been a front for SHIELD to perform quiet interventions in diplomatically perilous countries without committing any equipment footprint.

Sandra's growing obsession with fighting took her on a bloody path across the world through the next several years, during which she slaughtered many who claimed to be masters of the art. Her reputation once again drew the League's interest, but she had grown too dangerous to merely subdue. Instead, they offered her collaboration: work for them, payment in information and access to further targets. Sandra accepted. Her vicious culling of ancient masters and seeming invincibility in the League's combative hierarchy drew admirers who began calling her the name she would come to take as her own: the Lady Shiva.

Shiva has moved with greater purpose in recent years. A strangely fixed member of the League's ever-shifting inner circle, she nevertheless seems to spend most of her time wandering the world on her own whims. The murders come less often, but they are more keenly felt — Shiva is more particular about who deserves her attention. Those who hope she will one day retire to contemplation are always proven tragically wrong.

After all, fighting is the only thing Sandra has left.

Character Details

Sandra Wu-San is a woman who has had the unique fortune of having her true passion thrust upon her at a relatively early age. She has discarded her previous life and reinvented herself with all of the unnecessary parts sheared away. Sandra is not running away from her life — at least not anymore. She simply prefers to focus on what she has, not what she lacks.

The Lady Shiva sees a fundamental distinction between artists and laborers. While it is an unavoidable fact of this world that artists must sometimes detour into labor to achieve their greater goals, she exists to practice her passion without regard for the mundanities of the world. Shiva is most alive when communicating through her passion, and is always eager to find fellow artists. Inspecting their efforts is typically illuminating, but she lives to find the rare artists who manage to surprise her.

Despite her past traumas and current reputation, Shiva is an idealist. That not everyone has sense of possibility enough to pursue their potential merely means that she must occasionally expand a person's worldview. This imperfect world crushes so many spirits before they have a chance to know themselves. Shiva will not free them all by following her passion, but she may free a few.

Above all else, Sandra is confident and in control of herself for the first time in her life. She does what she wishes, when she wishes. She is comfortable with allowing others to do what they wish. She is fully aware of the consequences of her actions and is prepared to the accept the results without argument.

All of this sounds very pretty and nice until one recalls that her passion is a killing art.

Relationships

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