Project Red Son
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."Nikolai "Nico" Abramovich Kuznetsov
| {Age} |27
| {Species} |Metahuman
| {Gender} |Male
| {Appearance} |Nikolai is a largely built man born of Russian stock, clocking in at 6'3 and 212 lbs, any room he entered would be hard pressed not to notice him doing so. His eyes are a shade of blue that seem piercing that stares right through and hold people captive. Long-healed burn scars cover his arms and back, rarely ever exposed to anyone else besides himself. A five-pointed red star is tattooed on his left shoulder with the Roman numerals 'XVII' below.
| {Equipment and Personal Belongings} |Uniform"Torchbearer" Modified Kalashnikov SVK
Combat Knife
Pistol: MP-412
Grappling Hook
GPS Tracking Beacon
| {Physical Abilities} |Tactical Espionage
Multilingual
CCQ Specialist
Firearms Specialist
| {Superpowers} |Enhanced Physical Conditioning – Nikolai has been experimented on by the Red Room to produce the ideal supersoldier. As a result, Nikolai's body was enhanced to the peak of human potential of strength, agility, stamina, speed, etc.
Internalized Pyrokinesis - An unintended side effect of the undergone experimentations also triggered a suppressed metagene in Nikolai. The internal makings of his body are made up of flames that make him nigh-invulnerable to extreme heats, and this 'inner fire' of his can be imbued into inorganic material.
| {Limitations} |On top of the serious debilitating health effects, which have not shown up, from the augmentations that made Nikolai a supersoldier. These lasting effects vary in severity from anywhere between semi-permanent blindness, increased risk of heart failure to sudden blackouts. His core body temperature needs to maintain itself above 195° Fahrenheit lest his body shuts down.
| {Personality} |Nikolai is reserved and tries best to keep to himself come R&R off of his missions, much appreciating some time spent alone. However he hardly ever seems to appear cold to others, still being as kind and patient with those around him all the while keeping distance from coming too close. For he understands that some kindness shown can inspire more good in the world further down the line. If anything, outside of anything short of a firefight he corners the market on the 'gentle giant' shtick.
For a latent pyrokinetic, Nikolai is hardly ever described to be hotheaded and for the most part, this is accurate. He values the practicality of cold, calculated anger far better than being short-fused and driven solely by emotion. That being said, he is not a boundless well of calm and patience, for when his temper rises he bottles it up inside and later vents it all off in one, red-hot conflagration. Scorched fields that once would litter the empty, frozen plains of Siberia would prove this true.
| {Place of Origin} |Krasnodar, Russia
| {Background} |At the peak of its power, the Soviet Union had foreseen the rise of a new type of warfare, one that would be waged with the metahumans, men and women who wielded power unimaginable before. And so, the Red Room was born to counter metas with metas of their own. A number of projects were launched, all designed to properly arm a select number of their population with abilities that'd match and surpass Mother Russia's future adversaries. A few had already proven successful but one stood apart from the rest: Project Red Son.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vasyutin was born to a family of nine, being the youngest out of seven brothers. Theirs was a family in poverty, already little to eat amongst a large household. So when GRU agents had approached his parents with an offer for him, without hesitating they made the trade for a week’s worth of rations. Though at his young age, not knowing any better, he’d believe he was given up for the ‘greater good of the Soviet Union’. How nice it must have been to be that naive once. And so, for the better part of his childhood, the Red Room would have been his home.
His indoctrination and training were nothing short of harsh and unforgiving, dozens of experimental enhancements were conducted on a number of children with specific, malleable genes. Nikolai was XVII, the 17th in a line of failed experiments that couldn't be described as anything but inhumane. Being an unprecedented success in the Red Room's history, with his outstanding, red-hot abilities and near-perfect mission record, considerable resources were allocated to him being groomed into the project's namesake: the Red Son, defender of the Motherland and the first of many more Soviet supersoldiers to come.
For the better part of the last century, he lived his life behind the trigger of a gun from mission to mission and on the cold surface of a lab table when he wasn't. In order to preserve the 'shelf life' of the living weapon that Nikolai was, measures had to be taken and so in-between his initial training and well into his assignment, he was put into cryogenic stasis to ensure his longevity.
However their long aspirations of a supersoldier army would not come to be realized, the fall of the Soviet Union had scattered many of the Red Room's assets with even Project Red Son having been forgotten in the wayside. Nikolai would eventually have been found in his pod by the Finnish government then promptly exchanged over to the Americans. Recognizing him for what he was, they themselves were quick to utilize him for their own clandestine interests in discrete parts of the world. Still, the same soldier with the same orders, even into the new century he follows the orders given without fault, proof of his conditioning as a living weapon.
But the ones he answered to now, they would prove to be more relaxed with how he spends his time off missions and it would seem Nikolai would find himself a genuine humanity to himself he hadn't realized during his days with the Red Room. It would be much later when the supersoldier of a bygone superpower would reform himself into something resembling a superhero, determined to clean all that blood in his ledger.
| {Timeline} |
08.13.1954 | Subject {Designate: XVII} was born
01.15.1961 | XVII was inducted into Project {Designate: Red Son}
02.17.1965 | XVII began physical conditioning training
05.23.1969 | XVII underwent Phase 1-3 of supersoldier enhancement
12.27.1971 | XVII deemed successful - Greenlit
01.15.1972 | XVII passed Red Room {updateDesignate: Red Son}
01.15.1972 | Red Son assigned multiple missions {assigned_total: 13}
09.16.1972 | REDACTED INFORMATION
09.17.1972 | Red Son put into cryogenic stasis {length_time: INDEF}
04.29.1984 | Facility holding Red Son is de-commissioned and -staffed
10.02.2009 | Red Son discovered by Finnish authorities
10.09.2009 | Red Son re-possessed by U.S. Special Intelligence
09.01.2010 | Red Son transferred to research facility {site_local: REDACTED}
06.01.2011 | Red Son entered U.S. service {handler_ID: REDACTED}
11.02.2012 | Red Son tasked to eliminate terrorist cells in REDACTED
01.09.2013 | Red Son critically injured in firefight {recover_time: 29 days}
01.11.2013 | Red Son assigned to POTUS security detail
03.21.2014 | Red Son reassigned to research facility for voluntary experimenting
03.22.2014 | Project {Designate: Boy Scouts} initiated for wide-scale U.S. supersoldier enhancement
03.19.2015 | Project Boy Scouts discontinued with lack of results
03.21.2015 | Red Son given leave of absence after co-operation {surveil_detail: 9}
01.01.2016 | Red Son spotted across the globe multiple times over course of the next year
02.29.2017 | Red Son resurfaced in Volchansk, Russia {surveil_detail: 0}
03.02.2017 | Red Son returned to active U.S. service
05.14.2017 | Red Son assigned to combat possible metahuman criminal element
05.18.2018 | Result of previous assignment inconclusive – possible defection
12.31.2018 | Red Son detained and heavily sedated after accidental exposure to experimental hallucinogen
01.09.2019 | Red Son expressed desire to become a "Cape" {psych_session: #117}
04.20.2019 | Red Son breached site protocol and put out nearby forest fire {metahuman_case: #2990}
08.01.2020 | Red Son further expressed previous desire-now request-vehemently
01.23.2020 | Red Son "let loose" under permission by handler {clearance_level: MAX}
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