Koba

Koba Bato is the Clansmoot's former kayak salesman and current scout for The Lost City of Saxon. He paralyzed the lower half of his body taking on a dangerous rapid in search of his lost brother, Volk. With the help of the Corsairs he found both an ancient lost city and his missing brother. Using The Lost City of Saxon's advanced technology, Koba regained the use of his legs. However, little does he know that the Fire Giant who rules the city uses Koba and Volk's talents to amass an army in hopes to one day conquer the spheres.

Early Life

Koba grew up a son of the Bato Clan, renowned for producing skilled scouts and kayakers. Like many of his ilk, Koba acquired a lust for exploration in his youth. However, his slight stature meant that interest manifested more through books and maps than the rough and tumble kayakers among his siblings.
Nevertheless, Koba developed a strong bond with his older brother and the Clan's lead scout, Volk. The two's shared interest and different strengths complimented each other well, with Koba using his book smarts to help guide his brother's kayaking expeditions. In exchange, Volk shared some of his kayaking wisdom in hopes that Koba would become a famous explorer in his own right.

A Missing Brother

One tale Koba ended up regretting sharing with his brother was that of The Lost City of Saxon. Said to be technologically advanced and full of wondrous treasure, it remained inaccessible due to sitting behind Jotun's most dangerous rapid, Broken Skull Pass. None who ever attempted the rapid had returned from their expedition.
Volk hoped to be the exception to that rule, but like so many others, he also never came back. The clan wrote him off as another fool who wasted his talents on a dangerous fairy tale. Koba, however, refused to accept the truth that seemed obvious to everyone else and kept believing that his brother was alive. He continued his scout training, now with the goal of one day finding his brother and the lost city he sought.

Broken Skull Pass

Several years later, Koba got his chance to follow in his brother's footsteps. The Bato Clan had joined Jorund Brighthoof's Clansmoot and the Bato scouts would be joining them on a voyage to the North Sea. Koba joined up with the other scouts and dutifully served, biding his time until they would near Broken Skull pass.
Eventually, he got his opportunity. However, the rapid proved too difficult for him to handle. His kayak dashed against an iceberg and left him paralyzed from the waist down. He likely would have died had a strong wind not blown his kayak's wreckage back to the other scouts. Bound to a wheelchair, many would have taken these events as a lesson to relinquish their foolish dreams, however Koba emerged more certain than ever that his brother was alive. For amidst the wreckage blown out with Koba's body was Volk's own journal, filled with kayaking tips for his younger brother, and scratched with cryptic clues about how to surmount Broken Skull Pass's deadly obstacles.
No longer able to walk, Koba was put in charge of the Clansmoot's kayak store. Day after day, he watched his family depart on their scouting missions while he was bound to the docks. No matter how much he pleaded, none of his family would listen to his pleas to go on a kayak for one more run at Broken Skull Pass.

Voyage to the Lost City

Koba found the guides he needed in the very Corsairs who had become Jotun's greatest heroes during the battle of the north sea. Much to his surprise, they agreed to help him take a run at broken skull pass. The rapids were among the toughest the Corsairs had ever faced, but with experience under their belt and deciphering Volk's cryptic clues, they emerged on the other side unscathed.
They arrived at a hidden, technologically advanced city where Geit and fire giants appeared to be living in harmony. A group of police officers riding on flying kayaks, accosted the Corsairs. Before they could arrest the group, a second police kayak appeared carrying Koba’s long lost brother, Volk, who was also wearing a police uniform and whose arms and legs had been replaced by mechanical limbs. Volk took them to the police station to get them visitor visas in the city. There, they watched a video narrated by a kindly older Geit who called himself, “The Speaker”. The Speaker explained that thousands of years ago, a great storm destroyed all of the first Geit cities. In the aftermath, a tribe of Geit were left behind to wander the frozen wastes of Jotun. There, they stumbled across a city of fire giants who took them in. Since that time, the Geit of the city and fire giants had lived in harmony.
Koba was overjoyed to find not only that his brother was alive, but the new city he occupied had the power to restore the use of his legs. While eager to join the city, Koba was told by his brother to slow down. Getting the prosthetics was a life-saving operation for Volk, resulting in cybernetics that required power from the city's core to keep him alive. If Koba got the same operation, he would need to live in the city for the rest of his life and would only be able to leave for short periods to go on scouting missions for the fire giants. Koba hardly needed to think to come to his decision, but Volk encouraged him to wait until he had time to think about it.
While visiting the city, Koba and the Corsairs stayed with Volk and his new wife, Kira, as well as a Fire Giant dog they had adopted named Melt. Koba was excited to explore the city, but Volk kept trying to push him away. Apparently, he was busy trying to root out insurgents within the city who were responsible for murdering several fire giants.
In order to prove that he was more than dead weight, Koba again enlisted the Corsairs' aid to take part in a race using the city's flying kayaks, known as zodyaks. Together, they managed to beat the other teams--including Volk's--wining them a fancy new next-generation Zodyak Mk. 2. However, their win did not earn Koba the respect of his brother he sought, and his rising star in the city only seemed to drive a further wedge between the two brothers.

Joining Saxon's Finest

Despite Koba's repeated insistence, Volk continued to stall whenever he asked to have the operation that would restore his legs and let him join the scouts. What Koba did not know was that Volk was actually involved with the insurgents and that prior to a slave rebellion that occurred in the city the previous generation, the Geit in the city's lives little were more than a breeding and forced labor camp for Geit whom the fire giants had captured and sent on forced marches to the North Pole to recover artifacts and nectar to fuel the city's true leader, a Fire Giant named Saxon's, ambitions to build an army to conquer the spheres.
The rebellion had improved the quality of life for Geit living in the city, but it hadn't put a stop to Saxon's ambitions of conquest. Volk pushing his brother away was for his own protection, as he himself planned to destroy the city core that powered the residents' cybernetics, in a bid to finally destroy Saxon.
As the Corsairs and the City came to learn of Volk's plan, they interceded by offering Koba the operation he had been craving. Not knowing the consequences his actions would have, he happily agreed and went to the hospital behind Volk's back. While Koba was anesthetized, Volk reneged on the insurgent's plan to break into the hospital and save him, begging the Corsairs to take him out of the city.
Together, they brought Koba's unconscious body to the city limits where they encountered the leader of the Geit rebellion, Hakkon. These days he had served as the city's Speaker, trying to placate their Fire Giant overlords while letting his fellow Geit live under the illusion of utopia. He reasoned that he could control the damage of the Corsairs escape, but Saxon was adamant on the Bato brothers’ return to the city. Hakkon did not dispute that Saxon was evil, but his army was still many generations off from being able to take over the spheres. In the meantime, Hakkon wanted to provide a good life for the people in the city who had been enslaved by the fire giants.
Volk begged the Corsairs to leave with Koba, but they reasoned that returning him would save people’s lives and that the boy would have a better life in the city where he could walk and be happy. The Speaker promised the Corsairs patronship from the city in exchange for their cooperation. The Corsairs returned to the Nomad while the Speaker took Volk and Koba back to serve The Lost City of Saxon. When Koba awoke, he was back on his feet and living his dream of serving as a scout with his brother--wholly unaware of the sinister cause to which he was now a slave.