Rolan Baranov

Creator:
Grim Reaper

Nationality:
Russian

Age:
17

Gender:
Male

Appearance:
Rolan is an athletic sort, due to his abilities. He keeps his body well maintained and grooms to match. He likes having an appearance of order. He keeps his black hair cut short in a high and tight fashion. He shaves his face every morning whether stubble has grown or not. He walks and stands with an air of somebody that would like to be respected, but not arrogant. He stands at just above 1.8 meters and weighs 102 kilograms. His eyes are a sort of grey blue like tempered steel. Like most Russians, his skin is a bit pale, but it goes well with his eyes. His face is hard, but handsome. It almost makes you afraid to like him, but you do anyway. He did attempt at one point to get tattoos and piercings but his body rejected the ink and the piercings kept closing no matter what he did.

Clothing:
Rolan loves being active so he tends to wear clothes that match his constantly on the go nature. He's a fan of comfortable running shoes, shirts that breath well (if he has put one on) and gym shorts. He does own a few sets of dress up clothes for special occasions, but he avoids these as much as he can. He doesn't care for the material and stitching because it's very obtrusive to his movement. He's far from a fashion model and doesn't try to be. Most of his shirts are grey or black, ironed, and hung up to stay neat. If a t-shirt and shorts won't get him by for an occasion, but it's not a black tie affair, he does own a few pairs of button up shirts and jeans which usually stay somewhere near the back of the closet out of disuse.

Personality:
In complete contrast to the image he projects with his appearance, Rolan is a bit of a loose cannon. His appearance is only maintained as such from the way he was raised. He's got a reckless streak and an adrenaline junkie mentality that seems to be insatiable at times. His abilities make it difficult for him to find the rush and this is frustrating to him at times. It makes him feel isolated when his body chemically refuses to give him the same types of feeling a normal person would experience in situations. Therefore, you will most commonly find him trying to do something to push the envelope a little further. Whether that be climbing to a high place and dangling over the edge or even jumping off, or perhaps starting a fight with some wanna-be gangster and his cronies.

Beyond his need to feel more alive, Rolan has entered a phase of his life where he's placed too much confidence in his abilities. He's manipulated the idea of his incredible resilience for one of near immortality. He is mistaken of course. But unfortunately, the combination of teenage arrogance and abilities like his are a dangerous mixture that will most likely be his undoing one day, or nearly so. He also doesn't work extremely well with others, feeling they slow him down at at times.

He is not so one dimensional though. He does have emotional range like any other person, even if he doesn't always show it. He may fall back on a stereotypical, hard Russian appearance from time to time, but he can be sweet and a good, loyal friend. He has a large capacity to love, though may not trust quickly. At the end of the day, he wants what most people want, to be accepted for who he is.

Background:
Rolan is quite plainly from Russia (with love, had to.) His accent is thick, but he speaks decent English. His mother was a stay at home parent and also his teacher. His father was a military man, as were most of the men in the line of his family. Rolan had a relatively normal childhood by his standards. His parents were never too concerned with what they always just thought was young vitality and a bit of a hyper streak. They thought their son was quite remarkable, the way he never seemed to get tired and must have had quite the immune system as he never got sick and healed from injuries with incredible speed. His father always bragged about what a great soldier he'd make someday.

It wasn't until he broke his leg that his parents realized there was something different about him. He'd been put in a cast as most people would, but merely 2 weeks later when he was brought back in to the doctor, something amazing was discovered. The doctor ordered an x-ray to make sure the bones were still set well and beginning to take to each other. What he observed instead was a completely intact femur. There was no sign what-so-ever that the bone had been broken. His parents rushed him home and decided he'd be home schooled. They didn't want to take a chance of more people discovering what their son was capable of. They thought he'd become some sort of lab rat.

As he became older and more curious, he asked his parents questions to which they honestly didn't have answers to. The best his father ever figured out was that his abilities were possibly genetic. He'd always heard stories of his Great-Great-Grandfather who'd been one of the greatest soldiers Russia had ever seen. His endurance and tolerance for pain were stuff of legend. But perhaps it turns out, it was something more.

Talents/Skills/Capabilities:
Rolan does have a talent for most athletics, though he has an unfair advantage. His father taught him many survival type skills over the years in case he ended up with the military. Though he was never presented with many other opportunities, he is open-minded to learning new things.

Inventory:
There aren't many things Rolan ever had growing up that he could consider a precious heirloom. But his most prized possession that he keeps with him at all times is a bullet dug out of his father's bullet-proof vest. He turned it into a necklace and it stays around his neck always.

Powers:
Rolan has a super human endurance and durability. It takes him an incredibly long time to get tired where a regular person would be near dead from physical exhaustion. He could run for hours, go weeks without water if he had to, and take a punch easier than any professional fighter. He also has an accelerated healing rate. Minor wounds heal in a matter of minutes, while major ones take a good deal longer depending on the degree. While his endurance is impressive, there is always room for improvement. His healing isn't as impressive, though it would take a high level of destruction to do him serious harm. This power comes from a physical, evolutionary mutation in his family's DNA and shows up every few generations, a little stronger than the previous appearance.

Weaknesses:
No matter how you spin it, Rolan is still a mortal man. Too much of anything would eventually kill him. Also, there are some things that no matter what, you just don't bounce back from. If his brain was destroyed or his body blown apart to an extensive degree, he would die like anyone else. He is unaware at this point whether he could successfully reattach a limb.

Sample:
Rolan sat quietly in the living room of the small house he'd grown up in. He still lived with his parents, but that may be changing soon. His mother told him that she'd received a call from a school far away and that a scout would be coming to meet him. He didn't have high expectations or desires, but he had been sheltered most of his life and didn't know much about anything beyond his home. He knew he was different though and wouldn't work out in a university. He was bound for the military. He'd be useful there. He leaned his head onto the back of the chair he was occupying, staring at the ceiling and watching the dust in a beam of sunlight swirl.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and Rolan jumped to his feet. His mother walked past the living room doorway that led into the foyer, waving a hand at him that said to sit back down. "I'll get the door Rolan, calm yourself," she said. Rolan tried to relax himself but didn't find himself sitting back down in the chair. Instead he remained standing and gripped his hands together behind his back.

A man entered the room and gave Rolan a quick up and down look. Rolan returned the look but without moving his head. The man extended his hand for Rolan to shake, whom after a long moment, reached out and grasped it firmly but respectfully. The man spoke to him in Russian. "Hello Rolan. I'm the scout your mother probably told you about. It's nice to meet you." Rolan somewhat forced a smile, "It is nice to meet you too." They released hands and the scout spoke up again. "Do you mind if we speak in English?" Rolan nodded in answer. The man replied again, no longer speaking Rolan's home language. "I'm Scout, by the way." Rolan raised an eyebrow in confusion. Hadn't he said this already? Or was Rolan's understanding of English not as good as he'd thought it was. "Um, yes. You said this already." Scout returned the quizzical look and then seemed to understand Rolan's confusion. "No, no. Sorry, my name is Scout, although I see that's confusing in that my job title is also...a scout. Let's just move on, shall we?" Rolan nodded again in reply, finally catching on.

"I'm here on behalf of a school. A special Academy actually, for people that are also special in their own ways." Rolan shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "I'm not special. I'm normal person. I live normal life." Scout tilted his head slightly and smiled. "Ah, but Rolan...you're not. And there is no use in lying to me about it. You see, I'm special too." Faster than Rolan could blink, Scout was sitting on the couch across the room from him. It was impossible. He hadn't moved a muscle, yet one second he was standing in front of him, and the next he was 10 feet away sitting down, the smile still on his face. "How...how did you do this?" Rolan was bewildered, he wasn't alone. "The same way you do your special talents. Unbelievable endurance and accelerated healing as I understand it, yes?" Rolan began to nod again but stopped.

"This academy. How don't I know it isn't trick for me to be experimented on? How am I supposed to trust you?" Rolan felt oddly aware of the bullet necklace he was wearing. "I should be serving the Motherland, like my fathers before me. I will serve my purpose there." Scout rose from his seat and observed Rolan, a look of empathy on his face. "Rolan, if being experimented on is what you are afraid of, I'm not the one you should be worried about. What do you think the military will do when they discover your unique abilities. The life of one man if they could crack your genome and make millions of super soldiers? You're kidding yourself if you think there is more honor in war than that. I'm just here to offer you an opportunity. An opportunity to be with your own kind. An opportunity to serve a greater purpose than you've imagined. An opportunity...to be accepted for who you are."

Rolan stared at Scout hard, his blood pulsing and his mind racing at a billion thoughts a second. Scout didn't avert his eyes, but stared back with the continued look of empathy. Rolan's face slowly softened. "I go."