Info
REAL NAME:
IDENTITY:
AFFILIATION:
REGISTERED?:
​RELATIVE AGE:
MARITAL STATUS:
DIED:
Yakov Stepanovich Orlov
Classified Soviet state secret
Villain/Russian (Soviet)
Yes
15-45 during service
Single
in 1980 (state said 'murdered'; actual: suicide)
ALIAS(ES):
CURRENT TEAM:
FIRST APPEARANCE:
APPEARANCE DATE:
CREATED BY:
CREATION DATE:
History
Yakov Stepanovich Orlov was born into a proud Cossack-descended family whose history, traditions, and regional loyalty made them suspect under Stalin’s rule. During the 1930s, the Orlov family was stripped of property, identity, and protection. Their records were destroyed, their name was marked politically unreliable, and surviving relatives were transported east into the Siberian prison-labor and experimental system.
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The facility that changed Yakov was not officially a hospital, prison, or military base. It was all three. There, Soviet scientists conducted immoral research on prisoners, political undesirables, and purged families. The experiments included radiation trials, chemical resilience testing, nerve stimulation, blood-serum studies, and early attempts at producing soldiers who could survive otherwise fatal battlefield trauma.
Most subjects died.
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Yakov survived.
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At first, the scientists believed he had simply developed enhanced resistance to injury. Then a dying prisoner recovered after touching him. Further testing revealed that Yakov’s body produced a restorative bioelectric field capable of stabilizing damaged tissue in others. He could close wounds, slow internal bleeding, reduce shock, repair trauma, and in rare cases revive those who had only just died.
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From that moment forward, Yakov was no longer treated as a prisoner.
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He became property.
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By 1950, the Soviet state had formally folded him into the classified support structure of the Red Guard. Given the codename Zhivitel, meaning “Life-Giver” or “Reviver,” he was dressed in a Red Guard medical-hero uniform and deployed only when major casualties were expected. He was not used for public morale, medical outreach, or humanitarian service. He was brought out for catastrophic operations, secret wars, failed containment missions, internal purges, and battles where politically valuable Soviet assets needed to survive.
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His handlers controlled him through a heavy electrical charge collar. Mystyck later reinforced that control with occult implants placed into his body and nervous system. These devices suppressed resistance, punished disobedience, and prevented him from speaking certain truths about his imprisonment.
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Despite everything done to him, Yakov remained gentle.
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He was quiet, sad, and withdrawn, but he never became cruel. He healed soldiers who feared him, officers who used him, and strangers caught in the wreckage of Soviet ambition. He found meaning only in the act of saving lives. Yet even kindness became dangerous. Yakov avoided friendships because anyone seen caring for him could be questioned, reassigned, punished, or accused of sympathizing with a controlled state asset.
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By 1980, after thirty years of service, his body and mind were failing. His healing powers still functioned, but every major use caused greater pain, exhaustion, and emotional collapse. Eventually, Yakov found a way to end his captivity permanently.
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The Soviet state buried the truth. Officially, Zhivitel was declared a martyr murdered by Western assassins during a classified operation. This lie protected the regime, concealed the experimental program, hid Mystyck’s involvement, and allowed the state to continue using his image as propaganda.
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In private Soviet Guard memory, Zhivitel became something else entirely: a sad man in a red uniform who could save everyone except himself.
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Powers
Bioelectric Healing Field:
Zhivitel’s primary power was a restorative bioelectric field generated by his altered nervous system and cellular structure. Through direct contact, he could accelerate tissue repair, close wounds, stabilize damaged organs, reduce shock, and restore battlefield casualties from injuries that would normally be fatal.
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Trauma Repair:
He could heal bullet wounds, burns, broken bones, internal bleeding, nerve damage, battlefield lacerations, infection complications, moderate radiation exposure, and severe blunt-force trauma. His powers were especially effective when used shortly after injury.
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Emergency Revival:
In rare cases, Zhivitel could revive a person who had only recently died, provided the body had not suffered total destruction or irreversible brain damage. This ability was unreliable, physically devastating, and emotionally traumatic. Successful revival often left him weak, shaking, temporarily blind, bleeding from the nose or ears, or unable to stand.
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Pain Absorption:
Zhivitel did not heal without cost. When repairing severe injuries, he absorbed echoes of the victim’s trauma into his own nervous system. He felt reflected pain from burns, fractures, suffocation, organ failure, shrapnel wounds, radiation sickness, and near-death terror. The wounds did not always appear on his body, but the suffering passed through him.
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Self-Regeneration:
Yakov possessed moderate self-healing, though it was far weaker than his ability to heal others. He could recover from injuries that would kill ordinary humans, but not instantly and not without lasting wear. Years of punishment, experimentation, starvation, and power overuse left permanent damage.
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Life Sense:
Zhivitel could sense living beings nearby, especially the injured or dying. Severe trauma registered to him as pressure, heat, or a painful pull in his nervous system. This allowed him to locate casualties in smoke, rubble, darkness, and chaotic battlefield conditions.
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Emotional Stabilization Effect:
Those healed by Zhivitel often experienced temporary calm, warmth, or relief from fear. This was not mind control, but a side effect of his healing field stabilizing the nervous system. Some soldiers privately described the sensation as being touched by mercy.
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Limitations:
Zhivitel could not restore a destroyed brain, reverse old age, reliably regrow lost limbs, or save everyone in mass casualty situations. Large-scale healing rapidly exhausted him. His powers could be disrupted by electrical punishment through his collar, and Mystyck’s implants limited his ability to resist orders or act freely.
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Equipment
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Electrical Control Collar:
Zhivitel wore a heavy electrical charge collar used to punish, disable, track, and control him. The collar could deliver pain-compliance shocks, muscle-locking current, nervous system disruption, sleep-deprivation pulses, and emergency incapacitation surges. It was both a restraint and a symbol of his captivity.
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Mystyck’s Mind-Control Implants:
​Mystyck implanted occult control devices into Yakov’s body and nervous system. These devices combined mystical binding, psychological conditioning, and Soviet control technology. They suppressed defiance, induced obedience, clouded memory, blocked escape attempts, triggered pain responses, and prevented him from revealing certain truths.
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Medical Restraint Harness:
Beneath the uniform, Yakov wore a reinforced harness with locking shoulder straps, bioelectric monitors, sedative injection ports, grounding conductors, and power-dampening components. The harness allowed handlers to restrain him during transport, after overuse of his powers, or whenever he was considered emotionally unstable.
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Field Recovery Kit:
Although his healing abilities reduced his need for conventional tools, Zhivitel was often accompanied by a military recovery kit containing bandages, plasma substitute packs, antiseptic ampoules, sedatives, surgical clamps, casualty tags, radiation counters, and restraint syringes.
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Handler Control Unit:
Soviet Guard handlers assigned to Zhivitel carried a remote control unit linked to his collar and restraint harness. This device allowed authorized personnel to administer shocks, trigger incapacitation protocols, monitor his bioelectric output, and prevent unauthorized movement.
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Talents
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Battlefield Medicine:
Zhivitel developed strong practical medical knowledge through decades of casualty work. He understood trauma care, shock stabilization, burn treatment, fracture support, blood loss management, infection signs, and emergency battlefield recovery.
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Triage:
He was highly skilled at determining which casualties required immediate attention, which could survive delayed treatment, and which were beyond his ability to save. This was one of his most painful talents, as he remembered many of the people he could not help.
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Pain Endurance:
Years of experimentation, collar punishment, and absorbed trauma gave Yakov extraordinary pain tolerance. This was not fearlessness, but the result of long-term suffering and survival conditioning.
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Survival Under Captivity:
Yakov learned how to survive within systems designed to break people. He knew when to speak, when to remain silent, when to obey, when to lower his eyes, and how to hide small acts of mercy inside forced obedience.
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Quiet Observation:
Zhivitel became an excellent reader of people. He could sense mood, danger, cruelty, fear, pity, rank, and hidden kindness with remarkable accuracy. This helped him survive around officers, handlers, scientists, and soldiers.
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Cossack Cultural Memory:
Although the Soviet state tried to erase his family identity, Yakov retained fragments of his Cossack heritage, including old sayings, family stories, songs, prayers, and memories of a proud ancestry he was never allowed to openly claim.
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Emotional Restraint:
Zhivitel learned to control his outward emotions with great discipline. He rarely showed anger, panic, or grief in front of handlers. His restraint protected him, but it also deepened his isolation.
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Compassion:
Despite decades of abuse, Yakov never lost his instinct to help the suffering. His compassion was his greatest strength, his deepest wound, and the reason the Soviet state was able to use him for so long.
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