Ironbound (Virtue)
Affiliations
Ironbound is a student with Squadron X (Virtue Supergroups). He also maintains close ties with the Eastern Orthodox Church in his native Russia, and through them he has an informal support network in the United States and Paragon City. Should he need them, Ironbound can rely upon clerical support from the religious community.
Backstory
Standing just shy of 7-feet tall and weighing nearly 400 pounds of solid muscle at age 16, Nikolai was clearly a mutant from his infancy. His mother, an unidentified woman from Chernobyl who was forced into prostitution in order to survive, nearly died carrying Nikolai to term. Unable to support her very large son, she abandoned him at an Eastern Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg and was never seen again. The clerics of the church gave him the name Nikolai Volstok, naming him in honor of a cleric who recently passed. A cleric named Andrei Gorchev took Nikolai under his care and became the only true father he ever had.
Nikolai was raised within the Orthodox Church, growing larger and stronger with every passing year. Although someone of his stature could have easily found work in the military, police units, a government agency, or even in a criminal organization Nikolai was kept on a righteous path. The solace Nikolai found within the Church helped him to find peace with God, and contrary to his immense size and physical strength he was very much a pacifist and gentle soul. It was Nikolai's dream to become a cleric as well, but destiny chose another path for him.
When Nikolai was 15 he discovered by accident that Gorchev was being extorted by the local Organizatsiya for relying upon the services of underage prostitutes. Despite his size Nikolai was able to remain hidden within the Church as the mafia enforcers confronted Gorchev and began to beat him for holding back on his payments to them. Nikolai swiftly jumped out at the thugs, crushing one of them nearly to death with a single blow of his fist while hurling another across the cathedral and breaking his back on a marble pillar. At this point the remaining enforcer pulled a gun on Nikolai and opened fire before running from the cathedral, but Gorchev stepped in front of him and shielded Nikolai from most of the bullets. A single bullet struck Nikolai in the chest - but it flattened against his skin and fell harmlessly to the floor. Nikolai, however, didn't realize this until after he scrambled over to Gorchev. The old man died in Nikolai's arms, unable to confess his sins and ask for forgiveness.
Nikolai was now in danger of retaliation from the Organizatsiya, and the Church knew that the best way to protect their ward was to get him out of St. Petersburg. The clerics managed to contact GIFT and arranged for Nikolai to be safely transported to Paragon City, where he arrived in January of 2008. Nikolai has since enrolled in one of GIFT's training programs for young mutants, a program called Squadron X (Virtue Supergroups).
Nikolai is still a devout Orthodox Christian and attends weekly mass without fail. When Nikolai is not spending time improving his English he focuses on developing his mutant abilities. Nikolai is becoming stronger every day and is still growing; he has also noticed that when he concentrates his skin begins to harden and take on a dull gray color similar to that of steel or iron. Although Nikolai never dreamed of becoming a super hero, he has become quite fond of the nickname his classmates have given him because of his hardening skin and superhuman strength - Ironbound.
Contact Information
Ironbound may be contacted on Virtue by e-mail using his name, Ironbound. His global channel that is valid across all servers is @Major Paragon.
