Bi Feng is a regular presence at the Ox & Carriage. A fellow Android, Bi Feng serves as Rocky's bouncer, ensuring the rowdy regulars don't overstep and wreck up the place. A reserved and stoic personality, Bi Feng is a master of the Illusion Fist style of martial arts and is an extremely capable fighter. "My name is Bi Feng, take it as a warning". He will often address a pubgoer before intervening to subdue and eject them, and regulars generally know to take the hint and avoid the storm brewing in their future. Newcomers, overserved by a story-loving bartender, don't often take a hologram as a serious threat and very quickly learn a new lesson in their travels.
- Bi Feng can be hired for jobs, but only if the cause is sufficiently noble.
- Bi Feng accepts challenges to his Illusion Fist style from starfarers who want to test their mettle.
Like Red Raven's Clover, Bi Feng is an android manufactured by Accra Intelligent Systems Laboratories. Accra androids are small floating drones whose synthetic intelligence and skillsets are trained on archives of old Terran media. Bi Feng was trained on archival footage of Terran martial arts with the intent to create an android who can lead group exercise and promote physical wellness. Bi Feng's growing AI found a hook from clinical martial arts demonstrations to the wuxia film tradition, and from there into "other representations of martial arts in media". All Accra Systems androids choose their own appearance as self-identity and Bi Feng's reflects his AI being steeped in cinematic martial arts, his personality built with virtue and self-restraint as its foundation. Bi Feng has worked as a fitness instructor in mining companies- which was where he met Rocky- but enough cocky miners wanted to challenge the hologram man to a fight that he soon learned the real value of his training and joined Rocky to advance his style and see more of the Sol System.
Hard light constructs are generally not known to be dangerous. Accra Systems androids are built to project hard light bodies, and striking them can feel like striking loose sand- with enough force a hand can pass through them. The secret to Bi Feng's effectiveness as a fighter made of light is that his drone body has a small forcefield generator inside it, seen as the yellow ring around his bulkier-than-average chassis. Using this scaled-down version of starship shield technology, Bi Feng can infuse forcefield waves into one region of his projected self at a time, giving them a rock-solid surface. A limitation of this trick is Bi Feng often has to choose which part of his body he wants to harden with forcefield waves, so he has to be mindful about his defense and choose the right moment to go on the offensive, making a fight with Bi Feng feel precise and calculated. Defeating him means hitting his drone body and knocking him out enough that he stops projecting his hard light form, but like Clover he can hide his drone "weak spot" somewhere in his body, either in his head or in his upper or lower torso. He has four sturdy hovering petals designed to deflect blows and allow him to defend himself, but in true wuxia fasion a strong hit to his weak point will win you the fight- the only problem is actually landing it.
The ultimate technique of the Illusion Fist style is the Hurricane Strike. Bi Feng's hard light body runs physics simulations but it isn't bound by gravity or friction- when performing the Hurricane Strike he will move forward at lightning speed, pivoting on a dime to approach at a vulnerable angle and land a full-force strike to the opponent's center of mass. The speed he moves at gives his forcefield-woven fist immense power that produces a ring of dust around the point of impact and has been known to launch a challenger out the door or through the window of the Ox & Carriage. In order to perform the Hurricane Strike Bi Feng needs to project his body away from his droid form, leaving him exposed in that moment and vulnerable to a counterattack himself until he can zip back into his projection. He is calculating enough that he will choose the right moment to employ this strike, should he need it, but the risks in executing it are understood.
A few of the Red Raven and Timberwolf crewmembers are capable fighters themselves- coming from backgrounds that encourage defending yourself in dangerous situations- and after a few rounds of drinks it's not uncommon for the group to goad someone into challenging the Illusion Fist, particularly when the rival crews are sharing drinks together. Bryce has tried it; the Hurricane Strike cracked him right out of his carapace form. Haley has tried using her astronav computer to plot the trajectory of Bi Feng's drone body and found a knock-out kick at her planned intercept point. Slug, the hunter, had a good run against Bi Feng before the android struck their evo suit hard enough that its front hatch popped open and a torrent of water sloshed out, carrying the little Europan with it. Emily's given it a shot, attempting to brute force her way through a punch to land one of her own, only to learn that Bi Feng's forcefield-laden fist does not bend like his hard light body does. Amy agreed not to use her Gift of Sol to simply short out Bi Feng's drone body and claim a hollow win, but she did activate her Firewalker Form to make use of her ram horns and tail strikes in her attempt. While guarding a blow from Bi Feng she fired the grappling hook from her prosthetic arm into Bi Feng's chest, guessing that he wasn't hiding his form in his head this time- she managed to pull the drone body out to the cheers of the pub's onlookers, but before she could deliver a winning blow she caught a glimpse of Bi Feng's flickering hard light form delivering an enormous haymaker right to the sternum.
Amy went spiraling out the glass window and into the pedestrian walkway outside the Ox & Carriage; she has so far been the closest of anyone to defeating Bi Feng's Illusion Fist style thanks to her grappling hook trick, and while Bi Feng has evolved his style to be more mindful of similar tricks from opponents with cybernetics, she and her friends have earned the android's respect. Bi Feng thanks them for showing him their style, and Rocky thanks them for an interesting show with a round of drinks on the house. The crews just need to go fetch that night's challenger and dust them off before they can come back inside and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
