Backstory: Kai was born to a royal Kirin family that once ruled the Peaks of Peril. When Kai was a baby, his father did everything he could to take care of him. Unfortunately, just as Kai was growing up, he had frequent arguments with his father just to the point where the latter snapped and became the Nirik King, causing the family's reign to end. Shortly after his father was banished into limbo, Kai's mother had no choice but to move to a small neighborhood near Ponyville with him. There, Kai began to discover his passion of martial arts because it allowed him to defend himself, and it took years and years of practice. During that time, he also made friends, especially Sugar Mele, DJ Emo, Skateboard Jo, Flora, Uni-Candy, and Lolly Pop, who became his students. However, Sugar had lessons with Kai individually, while the rest of his students were taught altogether. Because there were times when Kai was easily stressed out, the five of his students would try to make him feel better by either pulling harmless pranks on him or tickling him, which he quite enjoyed because these things gave him the opportunity to bond with his students more. Kai also had a student who became his ex-girlfriend: Flare the Doe, but she only went out with him because she thought that doing this would make her "cool." However, they didn't get along very much, which resulted in Flare breaking up with Kai and abandoning her studies.
When his training with his students completed, Kai sent Sugar off to Ponyville to befriend his five students. Since Sugar was the only student of his who never had feelings for him, she felt a bit left out, but she was very fortunate thanks to the comfort of her friends after realizing that what they all had in common was that they were Kai's students, and together, they formed the Awesome 6, with Sugar becoming the leader of it. Kai did check on Sugar every once in a while to see how she was doing, in which at one point, he kissed her on the cheek, causing Sugar to develop feelings for him, although she tried to deny it, only to accept her feelings with the help of her friends.
Just as the Nirik King returned, Kai led his students to defeat the king, and even used his martial arts skills against him, but Sugar learned that despite the significance of martial arts, the magic of friendship is more powerful than fighting, and together, the Awesome 6 used that power to defeat the Nirik King and restore him to his past self. After the King was revealed to be Kai's father, he apologized to his son for his actions, and the two reunited. Shortly afterwards, a magical spirit turned Sugar Mele into an Alicorn princess due to her leadership and inspiration to others.
During Sugar's coronation, after Sugar was crowned as "The Princess of Awesomeness," Sugar was able to confess her feelings in front of Kai, and together, they shared their first kiss. The two have been together since then, and they still have a lot of peace to maintain while also learning about friendship.
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I am quite happy with how Kai's new design turned out. I'll admit, I actually thought up of this OC since before Kirins were introduced to FiM (Which explains why I made his design a bit different from the ones in the show), and during the time I created the Awesome 6, I actually intended Kai to be the villain who was once Sugar's ex-crush. When creating him, I took partial inspiration from Wilbur Robinson and Li Shang from Meet the Robinsons and Mulan respectively, while most of the inspiration for the character came from my favorite martial arts actors, such as Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. It should be worth mentioning that if it weren't for my love and interest in martial arts, I wouldn't be here as a fan of FiM (I know it's complicated, but this journal should help), nor would this character have been created.
Feel free to draw Kai, or any of my OCs if you like! :) (Smile)
I hope you enjoy, and more art will be coming soon!