NIKOLAI LUKIN
(source: Reiji Namikawa, Death Note)Gender: Male |
Age: 26
Ability: Nikolai’s mutation allows him to manipulate sand to quite impressive extremes. Using his ability, Nikolai can telekinetically move any sand that is near him or in the ground. He can form this sand into nearly anything, and can maintain the form of this sand quite easily, though it depends on the size of what he has created. Nikolai can also compact this sand, enough to form a deadly projectile. Nikolai is quite skilled with his ability, having honed his skills to have incredible accuracy with his sand. With his prowess, minorly manipulating sand for everyday uses is nearly a subconscious act. However, while he is quite skilled, his ability does naturally have its limits. Sand must be within a 200 metre radius area for him to manipulate it. Furthermore, at his current potential, Nikolai can only manipulate technical sand (no more than 2 mm in diameter).
Skills: Along with his skillful mastery of his ability, Nikolai is trained in taekwondo, and has some knowledge of various other martial arts such as karate and jujutsu. In terms of social intelligence, Nikolai understands how others think quite well, and can be quite manipulative and convincing if he needs to be. He can speak several different languages, including English, Russian, and Gaelic. Nikolai is a rather accomplished pianist, and is very impressive in chess and other strategical games.
Appearance: Nikolai is a rather tall, lithe man, with pale skin and quite straight black hair that falls to just past his shoulders. Nikolai has a long, narrow face, with sharp, defined features. His eyes are a dark, grey-green colour. Nikolai usually dresses quite formally, wearing suits in the quite neutral shades of black, grey, and white. He can often be seen wearing a black trenchcoat.
Personality: Nikolai Lukin is what one might refer to as a genius. He is quite intuitive, and is a very quick, strategic thinker. Along with this ingenuity, Nikolai is a survivor. He has massive ambition, though highest amongst those ambitions is simply his desire to survive. Nikolai is not afraid to bend rules to achieve this ultimate goal, though he rarely technically breaks rules. Rather, he finds loopholes, never following yet never actually breaking rules and laws. Nikolai does what needs to be done for the survival of him and those he wishes to protect, regardless of whether others might view it as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, as such concepts don’t really exist in his mind. Rather, Nikolai sees life as a canvas painted with many shades of grey; there is no ultimate ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘evil’, there are simply different ways of seeing issues. Nikolai is quite aware that in one’s mind, they will almost certainly be right in some way, and have a reason that they consider to be valid, for anything. Nikolai is rather quiet by nature, though not in an insecure or shy way. Rather, he is silently confident and observant, sometimes to the point of intimidation. Nikolai leads through his actions and competence rather than through his words; he is the type one might strive to impress simply because they are impressed by him and his great ambition, dedication, and skill. Although Nikolai is not an overly warm and welcoming person, and his tendency to do whatever he must to survive may seem to be one of a dishonest, disloyal, and untrustworthy person, Nikolai is actually quite loyal once one has earned his trust. His trust is difficult to earn, though it is even harder to regain once it has been lost. Nikolai will go to great lengths to protect those who he truly trusts, willing to sacrifice even his own life for the good of his team.
History: Raised in a small town in the Ryn Desert, Nikolai certainly never lacked exposure to sand. From his birth to the age of seven, Nikolai lived in a small village home to no more than two hundred people. As a child, Nikolai was rather quiet, to the point of shyness, and never interacted much with his peers. He had few friends due to his timid personality, although he was at heart quite a kind child, and often wished for nothing more than to be loved and cherished. Alas, Nikolai spent much of his time in isolation. Living only with his rather distant mother, seeing as his father had vanished several months before his birth, Nikolai had no close bonds as a child, not even with his family.
It was at the age of seven that Nikolai’s mutation manifested. While off playing on his own in an area of the desert not too far from the settlement, Nikolai was approached by a masked woman. The woman, after cryptically taunting him as to how he was unloved in this world, even by his own mother, pulled a knife on Nikolai and attempted to kill him, seemingly overcome by hatred for him. It was then that Nikolai’s mutation instinctively activated, with a wall of sand coming to his defense. The woman, rather startled, made no further attempt to attack Nikolai. Instead, stumbling backwards, she lost her balance and fell, resulting in the mask slipping from her face, revealing that she was Nikolai’s mother. His mother, seeing no point in hiding the truth any longer, revealed that his father had been a mutant, and the probability of him having a mutation of his own had been high from the beginning. Furthermore, Nikolai had had a brother, however he was accidentally killed by his father’s mutant abilities before Nikolai was born. It was then that his father vanished, and his mother developed a deep hatred for mutants. Eventually, she was driven to such a point of hatred that she could not bear to think that her child was very likely to be a mutant, and she decided that she would rather he be dead than have even the possibility of being a ‘monster’.
With enough sanity left in her to run while she could, Nikolai’s mother abandoned him, traumatized in the desert. A rather sensible child, Nikolai gathered himself enough to return to the village, where he was found in the streets by a fellow villager. In such a small settlement, there was nowhere left for him to go. Thus, he was taken away to a new home - a foster family settled in the Scottish Highlands.
It was from the ages of eight to fifteen that Nikolai resided in Scotland. Over these years, he lived in relative seclusion. Although there was a town rather close by, Nikolai rarely made contact with others, preferring to spend his time venturing the highlands. Though he was no longer quite as shy as he had been, Nikolai was still very quiet, favoring silence over unnecessary interaction. His foster family was quite kind, though Nikolai never connected much with them either.
At the age of eleven, Nikolai met a blind mutant in the highlands who called himself ‘Kairos’. This man seemed to have the ability of precognition, and although he was generally rather cryptic in his words, he willingly offered Nikolai much knowledge on mutants, mutations, and controlling one’s abilities. For four years, Nikolai trained to master his control over sand, until he was yet again forced to relocate. After this mutant vanished, Nikolai began to fear that Kairos had left due to a threat to mutants in the area, or, worse yet, he had been taken. Concerned for his wellbeing, Nikolai deserted the highlands, fleeing to the US.
At barely sixteen years of age, Nikolai was capable of living on his own, though it certainly was not desirable. However, Nikolai was not forced to remain alone for long. Within months of his arrival in New York, Nikolai was introduced to an underground network of mutants, all living in hiding on the city’s streets, as was he. Through this network, Nikolai was able to connect with other mutants, and sustain himself with much less difficulty.
At the age of twenty-one, having become quite well known within the mutant network, Nikolai founded a mutant team. This team was made up of those who he trusted immensely, mutants from within the network that he had known for nearly all of his time in New York. As a low-profile team, they ventured out of New York, seeking out struggling mutants to provide them with the offer of refuge in the New York mutant network, and various other networks across the US. Along with these recruitment missions, Nikolai’s team acted as a small, travelling version of the main networks, in a way. Another of their primary missions was locating young mutants and educating them as to what their mutations were and how to use them.
After several years of this work, the mutant networks became afraid that teams such as Nikolai’s could begin drawing attention to mutants. In light of this, these teams were either disbanded or turned to much more minor operations, as Nikolai’s team did. Remaining together, the team took on much smaller tasks occasionally, though they largely worked for solely themselves, simply attempting to survive. Nikolai and his team continued their work for several years - occasionally reaching out to other mutants, though above all else, surviving, navigating, and observing the world from the shadows.
At the age of twenty-five, no longer interested in simply hiding and doing little good for mutantkind, Nikolai formed an elite team. Seeing as the mutant network was against this notion, Nikolai chose to cut his ties to the network, allowing him to act much more freely. However, much of his team - which had grown rather large - wished to remain affiliated with the network. In the end, only six of his team chose to continue following him, however this was little concern to Nikolai - it revealed their true loyalties. Over the next year, Nikolai’s new elite team took on many feats - and, although they still worked mainly from the shadows, they began to induce much bigger changes in the world. Instead of simply helping other struggling mutants, they began to influence the government, which, although having limited knowledge of mutants, had several sectors dedicated to the study of mutants. Nikolai’s team worked to free several mutant captives from government facilities, and went as far as altering government records and studies to omit pieces of information that would have a more harmful effect on the mutant community.
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