Yabu, also known as Dark Yabu, is an ancient villain who is the main antagonist of the videogame Vexx.
He is voiced by Brian Cox, who also played Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter, Killearn in Rob Roy, Hermann Goering in Nuremberg, Ward Abbott in the Jason Bourne film series, Dark Yabu in Vexx, William Stryker in X2: X-Men United, Lionel Starkweather in Manhunt, Agamemnon in Troy, Scolar Visari in Killzone, Pariah Dark in Danny Phantom, General Hemmer in Battle for Terra, Mr. Kreeg in Trick 'r Treat, Jack Denham in Syndicate, Conrad in Bob the Builder, Logan Roy in Succession, Kostas Becker in The Simpsons and Niander Wallace, Sr. in Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
Biography[]
Dark Yabu is a powerful Shadowraith that emerged from the Shadow Realm, he was let into Astara when the Astani's build the hub, a teleporter. When he emerged he lead the other Shadowraiths into battle against the Astani's.
After a enormous war, Astara is broken into pieces, and only one Astani (Reia) and one Shadowraith (Dark Yabu himself) remained, but Dark Yabu retreated to build up his forces until he is ready to invade Astara again, but Reia is able to locate Dark Yabu, she is unable to kill him herself for revenge so she is forced to go into hiding.
Many years after the war, Dark Yabu re-emerged and attacked Astara once more, starting with Overwood, where a primitive species was living, he enslaved them and put them in chains, the only ones to resist were Vexx and his Grandfather Vargas. Dark Yabu had Vexx's species put to work for him, but Vexx was furious after having to work for him and decided to strike against one of Yabu's guards, but Dark Yabu stops Vexx from attacking with his powers, Dark Yabu would have killed Vexx at that time, but Vargas attacked Yabu, which caused Yabu to turn his rage towards Vargas, and Vargas is presumedly killed by Yabu.
Vexx was furious and wished to have revenge, so he sneaked aboard Yabu's ship in order to find away to exact revenge, but it was not revenge he found, but fortune, the Astani War Talons, which bound themselves to Vexx's hands, which expells a large amount of energy, causing Yabu's ship to explode.
Vexx found out that his grandfather was not dead, but had been imprisoned by Dark Yabu in an amulet in order to feed on Vargas until he was no more. Vexx awoke to find an old man named Darby who claimed that Yabu destroyed Overwood village in rage, and that Darby had dragged Vexx away from Overwood to safety.
Darby claimed that him and Vexx are the last of there kind, Darby decided to help Vexx by giving him information on how to defeat Yabu, by finding all of the wraithhearts (which are the hearts of the dead Shadowraiths from the war of Astara), he said this would power the hub to access other parts of Astara and eventually open the rift to find Yabu and get revenge.
After collecting a lot of wraith hearts and opening half of the rift doors, Darby appeared, and an elevator taking Vexx and Darby down to a lower level started up.
When they reached the bottom they were surprised to find a mysterious woman , she yelled "You!", and then charged up her staff to attack them, Vexx dodged the blast from her staff but Darby was not so lucky, he dropped to the ground, but he began to laugh and turn into Dark Yabu himself. Vexx was enraged and pounced at Dark Yabu, but Yabu bound Vexx to a column in the room, Dark Yabu said "Ah Reia, last of the accursed Astani, so proud, so regal, so... foolish!" after which, he bound her to a column too, Dark Yabu taunted Reia, saying there was nothing she can do now, Reia spat at him and yelled "You will never rule Astara!", Dark Yabu was annoyed and roared at her, but grabbed her staff and said "We (the wraiths) don't want to rule it, we want to devour it!", he then proceeded to the gateway, but before he left, he told Vexx "Thank you boy, you made this all possible!" Vexx freed himself and pounced at Yabu again, but he was too late and Yabu left before Vexx got the chance.
Vexx freed Reia, Reia told him that Yabu has been fooling him this entire time, Yabu made Vexx collect the wraithearts so he could gain Reia's staff and access the Shadow Realm, Reia told Vexx that he will need a lot more wraithhearts to power the rift to gain access to the Shadow Realm.
With that information, Vexx went back to collecting more wraith hearts.
Once Vexx had enough wraith hearts, he opened the rift to the Shadow Realm, and stood before Dark Yabu. Yabu told him "You were a fool for coming here! But don't worry, you won't be staying long". He then summoned some Shadowcreeps and sent them to attack Vexx, after Vexx had killed them, Yabu decided to fight Vexx himself. Vexx injures him, so Yabu teleported away and summoned some more Shadowcreeps and started attacking Vexx along with them.
After weakening Dark Yabu, he absorbed the Shadowcreeps and became a spider/wraith hybrid, and fights Vexx in hand to hand combat.
But Vexx weakened him more, as Yabu teleported away, he noticed that his amulet was gone, he had dropped it and it was within Vexx's grasp, so Vexx grabbed it, the amulet supercharged his talons, at which point Dark Yabu summoned more Shadowcreeps and created a pillar that rose him up higher away from Vexx.
After Yabu's minions are dead, Yabu started throwing fireballs at Vexx, which Vexx slashed at them with his talons and sent them flying at the pillars Yabu is standing on, each time a pillar is destroyed, more of the arena fell apart.
Eventually Dark Yabu ran out of pillars, and is forced to attack from the ground, and threw another fireball, which was his last as Vexx yet again reflected it back and sent it flying towards the screaming Yabu.
Dark Yabu, now too weakened to continue fighting, angrily yelled at Vexx, "Curse you boy, I won't... let it end... like this, my hate, my hate... will keep me...", Dark Yabu then dropped the staff and faded away, presumably defeated for good.