Tengu
/Work in progress!/
In note form for the time being:
History:
o Mysterious Ancient Monastery devoted to mastery of time - 'Unbroken Circle'. (Names subject to change)
o The UC believe time is an illusion, and linearity can be transcended with sufficient enlightenment. While no-one has ever achieved this, their extensive training and discipline enables them to sense when the timeline has shifted - and remain cognizant of events as they were and as they are now. Reincarnated students have a tendency to remember flashes of their past lives and seek out the temple.
o The first abbot creates the Mirror as a meditation aid. An immense circular dish, the Mirror allows one - with sufficient concentration - to gaze into the future or the past, depending on the mirror's alignment in relation to the sun.
o 2008: A student - wealthy, arrogant, power-hungry, but also a prodigy - feigns his devotion to the temple and is instructed in the advanced mystic arts by the Grandmaster. He uses the Mirror to contact his past self, instructing him to overthrow the abbot and create a duplicate Mirror. This changes the timeline and paves the way for the monastery's evolution into its current incarnation. He doesn't notice that the strain of changing history creates minute cracks in the mirror's surface.
o The two Mirrors, aligned just so, reflect one another infinitely and create time tunnels leading to the past and future. The student uses this to turn the temple into his own personal secret society of mystic, time-travelling assassins and manipulators for the express purpose of controlling the world. Each new Grandmaster is an incarnation of himself and followers gathered from that particular era. But the UC was not hitherto martial in nature and an emphasis on forsaking material possessions has not endowed it with much wealth. Ergo, the undertaking requires skilled fighters and capital. These it acquires through subtle political and temporal manipulation in several eras.
o In Sengoku-era Japan, the UC subverts a ninja clan for its own purposes. One of the ninja, ? Tanaka, discovers the deception and tracks the perpetrator all the way back to the mountain retreat. From the shadows, he watches the Mirrors in use, but fails to grasp their true purpose. He mimics what he saw and launches himself through the western-aligned mirror - catapulting himself into the future.
o In a possible dystopian future Tokyo created by this puppeteering, several businessmen band covertly band together to fight the UC's corrupting influence. They are brutually quashed, but the hitherto lackadaisical but technologically-gifted son of one of the members, Tatsuya ?, discovers what transpired and vows revenge. He, too, discovers the Mirrors and also fails to fully grasp their function - and is hurtled into the past.
o Both time travellers are flung into 2008, where they temporally collide to create one being - a being that combines extreme martial arts proficiency and technological aptitude. He dubs himself 'Tatsuya Tanaka' - a composite of both his names.
o The strain of the collision shatters the mirrors, preventing his return to the future or past - but also cripples UC operations. The shards of the mirrors are scattered all across the world and become prized mystic artifacts, sought after by collectors and increasingly-desperate UC agents alike.
o Tatsuya steals a suit of armour and tries to put an end to the UC once and for all, but is overwhelmed and forced to retreat.
o Using his technological expertise, he drastically modifies what was otherwise an advanced but relatively mundane suit of combat armour. One half of his persona understands the value of anonymity, deception and blending in. But the other understands the value of symbolism and marketing. These two disparite notions compromise with the creation of a new superheroic alias - the great TENGU.
