Implacable

Real Name: Arkady Tereshkov
Also Known As: Ark
Hero Name: Implacable
Alignment: Lawful Good
Age: 54 (appears 33)
Gender: Male
Race:Human
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 178 lbs
Blood type: AB+



Most of the time, Arkady confines himself to his hazard suit, which is dark in coloration. The faceplate that makes up this suit is tinted one-way plexiglass, and it doesn’t allow anyone to see inside. Anyone who can see inside would notice a man stuck in his Thirties with brown hair and unkempt facial hair.



Arkady is a taciturn man who keeps to himself, but he doesn’t take kindly to know-it-alls that go out of their way to be insufferable to others. Though it’s probably justified by his borderline-invulnerable body, he hardly panics under pressure, even in a combat scenario or when put in outright outlandish scenarios.

An expert within his field, Arkady only boasts of his ability as much as he needs to get his point across, but is an otherwise humble and laid-back soul with a strong moral compass. Given his self-imposed confinement to his hazard suit, Arkady is also extraordinarily lonely and unable to relate to others.



Born 1979 in what used to be the Ukrainian SSR, Arkady grew up relatively well-off, even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Moral, self-disciplined, and intelligent, he qualified for university surprisingly young and worked towards a Doctorate, taking particular interest in Nuclear Physics.

In Ukraine, unusual happenings occurred in the Exclusion Zone that surrounded the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. An explosion of unknown origin occurred in 2006, followed by psychic emission that overwhelmed all of the country’s military in the area. Since then, mutated animals and entire fields where the laws of physics were outright violated appeared throughout the Exclusion Zone.

The government cordoned off the newly-renamed Chernobyl Anomalous Zone and, low on volunteers in 2010, began to conscript its citizens in an effort to contain the phenomenon. Arkady had just gotten his degree in 2011 when he was conscripted; he did a brief two-year stint along the Zone’s perimeter before mustering out.

As fate would have it, a government-funded faction of scientists (colloquially called the “Ecologists”) extended him a contract owing to both his outstanding academics and his prior experience in the Zone. He was stationed in the northern end, in one of their mobile bunkers, near Yaniv railway station, near Pripyat.

He was acting escort for a team of scientists when they all got caught in a space-time anomaly. They subsequently got lost in the anomalous fog of the other world; a few days had passed, and much of the team died. Following a trace on an artifact detector he was carrying, Arkady followed the source, hoping that he would find a way out along the way. The detector led him right to a Firefly - one of the rarest anomalous artifacts known to the Zone’s researchers.

The very second he closed his hands around it, the anomalous world went white, and he found himself in the abandoned Jupiter military factory left over from the evacuation back in 1986. The Firefly had completely disappeared, and was nowhere to be found - but there was something wrong with the detector. It seemed to read an artifact inside Arkady’s body, but his immediate priority was to report in.

Fighting mutants and bandits alike, Arkady was halfway across the region when he felt faint and collapsed. Waking up in an infirmary within the Ecologists’ bunker, he noticed that Geiger counters were ticking like crazy around him, and he was doped to the gills on potassium iodide and other radiation treatments. Somehow, through complete violation of physics, the Firefly had ended up inside of him, and was occupying the exact same space as his heart.

In spite of all investigations, it was deemed that removing the artifact would prove fatal barring a complete heart transplant. Given the rapid cell division the Firefly spurred, it was doubtful the procedure could be successfully carried out. Thus, Arkady was kept under observation, provided with several radiation-reducing artifacts, and left to recover from his ordeal. In spite of having absorbed close to 8 Grays in radiation, Arkady beat the long odds of recovering from such a severe case of Acute Radiation Syndrome.

Unable to return to society with a constantly irradiated body, Arkady confined himself to a hazard suit, with an Urchin artifact to keep his own radiation in check. Due to his seeming inability to die, Arkady got pegged with the moniker “Implacable”. These days, Arkady doesn’t do much in the way of traveling or heroism, being a scientist, first and foremost.

• Accelerated Cell-Division: Thanks to the anomalous artifact grafted to his heart, Arkady’s cell division and osteoblast production is higher than a normal human’s by a factor of about 20, meaning he can recover from injuries and fractures in a matter of minutes or days what a normal human would require days or even weeks to recover from.
  
  
• Delayed Aging: It’s hypothesized by Arkady’s fellow scientists that having the Firefly grafted so finely to his body is increasing the Hayflick Limit (the theoretical point at which somatic cell division stops, and a major factor behind physical age) within his body, accomplished by the telomeres on the newly-formed cells being kept from shortening each time cell division occurs. In layman’s terms, this means that Arkady’s body is constantly being maintained at the age it was at the time the Firefly fused to his heart.
  

• Click-Click-Clickity: Since the Firefly artifact within his body emits ionizing radiation that can affect not only him but anyone around him, Arkady needs to keep a radiation-nullifying artifact on his person at all times (or undergo frequent treatment for acute radiation syndrome) to keep his body from failing due to Acute Radiation Syndrome. In addition, he emits radiation within a radius, and has to confine himself to his hazard suit in order to minimize the effect his radiation emission has on others. Even with the suit on, his presence is easily given away by both Geiger counters as well as anomalous detection equipment.
  
  
• Built too Tough: Surgical procedures that would remove the Firefly would invariably kill him, plus his cell division is so rapid that normal surgical procedures are difficult to perform due to his body healing so quickly.
  
  
• I’m Not a Lizard: His cellular regeneration cannot regrow dismembered or atomized parts. Not only would he need his original limb, but it would also have to be relatively fresh to properly function once grafted on.
  
  
• Boom, HEADSHOT!: Some things are just plain fatal to the human body, regardless of how fast one heals. Arkady is no less vulnerable to a well-placed bullet to the head or complete decapitation than any other human would be. The shot would have to be very well-placed, because if the shot is delivered in such a way as to fail to stop non-conscious functions (such as regulating the circulatory system), the body can still recover.
  

SEVA Suit: a CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) protective suit manufactured by one of Kiev's defense research institutes for use in the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone. This bodysuit, intended for conducting research in the Zone, combines a closed-cycle respiratory module and an external isolation coating, resulting in excellent protection from anomalies.
The bulletproof vest attached to it is fairly low-grade, only effective against small-caliber armaments. As such, while able to stand up better in a fight compared to dedicated scientist suits, the SEVA cannot take much behind a light skirmish.

Features of the Suit:

• High Thermal, Electrical, and Chemical protections: Due to the materials used in the suit alongside its extensive life support systems, the wearer is well insulated against heat and electricity, and the protective coating makes it resistant to leakage of chemicals.
  
  
• Radiation Protection: Designed to operate within radiation areas, the suit inhibits the transmission of ionizing radiation through the material. Fortunately for anyone traveling with Arkady, this works both ways, as radiation emitted from his own body is also slowed.
  
  
• Closed-Circuit Respiration System: The suit boasts an extensive life-support system in its backpack, including a spare air canister and lithium peroxide canisters that act as Carbon Dioxide scrubbers for the sealed helmet. This comes at the expense of weight. The suit is about 9.5 kg.
  
  
• Artifact Application Modules: the suit has two artifact modules, designed to allow the wearer to use the properties of an artifact inside while insulating against a certain level of radiation output. One of the two modules is currently in use:
  
  
  • Artifact “Urchin”: Through mechanics unable to be replicated in lab conditions, this anomalous artifact increases blood pressure to expel both red blood cells and stored radiation from the body. The side effects are frequent bleeding from the nose and the ears. This allows Arkady to keep the radiation he emits under control, but also means wounds sustained from bullets or lacerations bleed more profusely, necessitating prompt medical care.
    
  
  
  

Weaponry: Anomaly fields are hardly the only danger within the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone; there are mutants, thugs, mercenaries, and other opportunists aplenty. For opponents like these, there’s always the classic rifle and handgun combination. With no need to reinvent the wheel, Arkady is often equipped with Warsaw Pact armaments or derivatives thereof, usually an AKS-74M, along with a Fort-12.





Given his profession, any RPs that involve Arkady would take place exclusively in Continental Europe.