Arkadi Orlov

(Note: Arkadi Orlov is from my upcoming webcomic "The Blue Tri". Currently, all background histories for characters are not finalized just yet, so take everything about them revealed thus far as a grain of salt.)

"Unlike my buddies here, I gain no thrill out of this. Simply pay the $10 and we'll leave politely. Otherwise my friends are going to be harping on me to continue."

- Arkadi whispering to Plio in his debut that he isn't the bully he initially seems...

Arkadi Orlov (Russian: Аркадий Орлов) is a Russian/American (Though his heritage is seemingly hiding something...) 11 year old male student at the time of debut, and during his early days in The Blue Tri, is a bully towards Plio Kenson. However, while his specific gang DOES beat up Plio if Plio doesn't pay them $10 every time they show up at the end of the day, Arkadi is simply in it for the money, and doesn't participate in the beatings themselves. When Arkadi learns his second in command had snuck in knives with them to school to personally kill Plio for even more money, Arkadi was shocked and ditched them for places unknown, and he indirectly witnessed Kerason (under a possessed state) beat the living daylights out of his four former friends, and is absolutely horrified later in the day after Elasmoblades is destroyed that the only reason Plio kept saving the other four in addition to Arkadi himself was because it was simply the right thing to do. The next week, Arkadi's four friends are arrested, and he is spared solely because he didn't participate in the beatings on Plio, and this is the beginning of Arkadi's path towards a heroic role in the series.

Personality/Background
Early on in his debut, it's clear that out of the five bullies Plio currently has, that Arkadi is the outright nicest of them even though he's the leader of them. All he wants is the money from Plio, and nothing else, and it's actually his own friends' faults for beating up Plio and stealing other things from him, whereas all he wanted was actual money. Due to his lack of direct action in the antagonizing of Plio, he is spared by Kerason during his possessed state when Kerason finds spots Arkadi having witnessed Kerason's possessed rampage, and the possessed persona later revealed to be Fryz taunts Arkadi to dare try and fight him, to which Arkadi flat out flees the premises.

When it's revealed after Chapter 2 that somebody tattled on the bullies, it's none other than Arkadi himself who actually told the principal about his four friends and what they've done. However, while Arkadi intended to take the easy way out and simply get himself suspended and work off whatever he has to do obediently, his friends don't get so lucky. William Kenson arrives in absolute fury that his son had been beaten up by four thugs, and calls them the absolute scum of the entire school food chain, which are words that his wife had told him to say when he arrives with police forces and has the four of Arkadi's friends arrested when they were caught in the middle of the act of attempted murder by William as he was storming his way towards the principal's office, and this leaves Arkadi in absolute grief, and and the principal, out of sheer horror of William's hasty actions, lies to William that Arkadi is innocent to spare Arkadi from William's tranquil fury, and William leaves to head back home with Plio for the remainder of the week.

Later in the week, on Saturday, Arkadi sneaks over to Plio's house during the night and knocks pebbles against Plio's window to get his attention, where he apologizes for his actions by simply asking if he could visit. Plio is unsure as to why Arkadi tried to apologize in secret, as this is when Arkadi points out to Plio what William decided to do to his four friends, and states that Plio is currently the only one in school he even remotely knows. Plio, after contemplating about it with KeraBeast, agrees to let Arkadi into his room through the secret passageway, and here both of them learn they both share an interest in Beasts of Power, to where Arkadi makes a promise to find Plio a copy of the complete Season 1 disc for Plio, although he can't promise when exactly he'll get it to him.

Arkadi, at this point, is only semi-redeemed, as while he's on good terms with Plio, he still is powerless in trying to become a hero just like Plio. However, Plio is willing to trust him enough to inform him about the idea he may be subconsciously possessed by some demonic entity, to which Arkadi recalls Kerason's out of character behavior in the first part of Chapter 2, and believes him about it, simply because he's witnessed the fact that when Plio is possessed, Kerason's eyes turn purple, and as KeraMaster, his eyes are pitch black voids of where they should normally be. Given how Plio was hesitant on telling his parents, it shows how much Plio is willing to actually give Arkadi a second chance, since Plio outright acknowledges the only reason Arkadi was a bully was for money...

...and then Plio learns WHY Arkadi was only in it for the money during their weekly Saturday meeting in Chapter 10, when Blades is apparently stalking the both of them, and Arkadi spills, out of panic, that all he wants is to be able to afford food for himself at home. Shocked, Plio tracks down Arkadi's home one night when Blades is getting more persistent with the stalking, and learns Arkadi's family is incredibly poor and barely surviving off of the income they make, and Plio learns the money he wanted while Arkadi was a bully was simply to get himself something to eat that would keep him fed. After Blades is dealt with, Plio invites Arkadi's family over to his house for dinner. While William is silently against it, Brenda has no quarrels with cooking all of them a feast, which causes William to cave in and be his usual self as he joins his own family and Arkadi's for the feast at the end of Chapter 10.

In Chapter 11 and 12, it the progress between Plio and Arkadi's friendship still stands, as throughout the entire chapter, while Arkadi is scared shitless of the entity that soon becomes Fryz, he and Chioma team up to inform the proper authorities when Plio is believed to be dead, all the while Arkadi accidentally finds Blades's offsite lab during a cave-in caused by Fryz's rampage, and steals equipment from Blades to revive Plio back into fighting condition, all the while Blades only let's him escape because the cold weather makes it impossible to even bother with a full on chase. At the end of Chapter 12 when KeraMaster destroys Fryz, and Plio is in the hospital with a now robotic right arm replacement due to the injuries he suffered at the hands of Fryz, Chioma and Arkadi are both supportive of Plio in differing ways, and though Chioma's more silent due to the beginning of a blooming romance with Plio, Arkadi still has the chance to live up to his promise and get the disc of Season 1 of Beasts of Power for Plio to watch in the hospital (Although it's Chioma who presents the gift, since Arkadi insisted she'd be the one to present it to him), as the chapter ends with all three of them watching the complete Season.

In Season 2 of The Blue Tri, Arkadi begins a rather clumsy friendship with Chioma even considering their earlier meetings in Chapter 11 and 12 of Season 1, but here is where they both acknowledge each other as friends, although Chioma does check out the possibility of a romance with Arkadi before Arkadi immediately shoots her down by simply saying "He's not interested" in that sort of romance, which alludes to the fact he's later revealed to be queer. In early Season 2, Arkadi tries to help keep the fact Chioma has Fryz's powers now a secret, but KasuBuster forces his hand and forces him to tell Plio about it, in which most of the interaction between the trio shifts focus to Plio and Chioma, as Arkadi senses what is beginning to go on between the two and gladly steps to the sidelines to avoid embarrassing them. In mid-Season 2, Arkadi winds up captured by a being called "The Slave Rider", where he meets two people he befriends; an overly flamboyant Silicon humanoid of his own age, and a gigantic Dinoid called RakoRider. With the determination to free RakoRider, he earns his new silicon friend's respective for his bravery, and RakoRider repays Arkadi by giving his own powers to him, allowing Arkadi to transform into Rakokadi (humanoid form) and RakoMaster (Dinoid Form). He and his new friend make their escapes from the asteroid prison in haste with RakoMaster's horse-like agility, and arrives just in time to save Plio from The Slave Rider, and both KeraMaster and RakoMaster kill the bastard in quick haste as they evacuate all of the prisoners and escape from the asteroid mines.



In late Season 2, Arkadi's respect for Plio is shown when Plio asks him to advice on how to approach Chioma for Valentine's Day, in which Arkadi can simply respond that he's not well suited for approaching a girl, where his flamboyant silicon friend is revealed to be a male as both he and Arkadi are a couple by this point, and Plio is at first awkward about it, but simply leaves them be as he looks for another way to approach Chioma. For the remainder of the series, similar to Chioma, Arkadi only appears in fights to help out if he's absolutely needed, but even more so than with Chioma, since all three of them note RakoMaster's combat style as too destructive to work as often as KeraMaster and KasuMaster, hence the minimal time with Arkadi in the remainder of Season 2. However, his role increases in Season 3 where he's separate from the other two surveying other planets in search of Omnicron's hideout, and makes better use of RakoMaster's abilities here than he could on Earth, where Plio and Chioma continue to fight against the remaining villains in the series until all three of them reunite to take down Omnicron once Omnicron is done with trying to hide.

Appearance
Arkadi Orlov, both when he debuts and even to the present, always has had a fashion of looking like "The Bad Boy" type of guy when it comes to his looks. The reason is actually more of a character study, but for the moment, he simply wants to be viewed as somebody who is tough and can certainly prove it. Even after he acquires RakoRider as his partner, he still maintains the look since he says removing any of it would be a waste of money, especially considering some of the jewelry he's wearing are actual diamonds, which he stole from The Slave Rider after he was killed, since he technically inherited everything he owned due to being his illegitimate son after the Dinoids. Even with the Dinoids and Humans arranged a trial, they all came to the conclusion that everything belonging to The Slave Rider now belonged to Arkadi.

As for his physical structure, you'll notice his legs are more like Sauropod feet in how heavily built they are, and appear to lack human-like feet at the bottom. The real reason, rather than artstyle, is due to Arkadi actually being of Silicon Based Biochemistry with the reveal his mother is a pure Silicon Lifeform, and his father is a Half Silicon Lifeform. This also explains why he decides to wear all of the diamonds he has on him, as to show that he doesn't care as to what others think of him if they view him as truly human or not, or if they view him as a Silicon Lifeform instead. His body, as a result, is also heavily muscular for his age when in comes to looking more like a human than what he truly is.

Season 3 introduces Arkadi as having grown not just tall, but also incredibly buff for his stature. His legs are not as long, but they are well built in terms of keeping him standing, much like his younger legs were. As a 18-20 year old, Arkadi's muscular build is a homage to The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, and as Rakokadi, he maintains this muscular build as RakoRider, via Plio, was modified to have a shield function that would allow Arkadi to take better advantage of his own size. He is, however, downright shocked in that she is only barely taller than Brenda, who had previously held the record for being the absolute tallest in the group as a whole. William suggests that Arkadi's silicon based DNA is the reason why he's grown the way he had.

Season 1
TBA

Season 2
TBA

OMNICRON Arc
In the finale, Arkadi, as RakoMaster, tries to impale Omnicron 1B directly, but is seemingly disintegrated in the effort. However, he simply had his soul split into several fragments, all of which would revive Arkadi if found and pieced back together. In the final moments of the finale, he is seen alongside the other four heroes celebrating alongside all of the Terran Alliance in victory over Omnicron thanks to Plio's efforts as KeraKing.

Design Notes
Arkadi was originally designed as a bully for Plio and nothing else, and would've been among his friends being arrested by William in Chapter 3. When it was decided to make Arkadi into the host of RakoRider's powers, a power set long intended to rival KeraBeast's own, Arkadi was given more redeeming qualities and more of a reason for his entire motivation as a bully, since his bully simply wanted money as all he gained in return for sparing anyone who pays up, while his family's financial situation is extremely poor to the point Arkadi doesn't often get fed a full meal on certain days, and thus resulted in Arkadi becoming desperate to simply feed himself and stay healthy.

The acknowledgment of the "Russian Guy Suffers Most" trope was not known at the time of Arkadi's creation and design, but as a whole, it was somewhat acknowledged by what Russia has become in the 2200s; Russia, due to Tyrannox's destruction of a good portion of Earth soil during 2159, became a very hostile environment to live in due to intensively hot summers, and insanely cold winters. All life native to Russia had permanently migrated to the southern portions of Europe and/or Asia to avoid this, and humans still living in Russia have the most expensive housing units that are designed to protect civilians from the weather, but are being controlled by a corrupted government which is basically being blackmailed into allowing a criminal organization to rule over them.

In short, Arkadi's family had moved to the US with what little money they had to escape this, as they knew the criminal organization would kill them if they continued to stay. As Arkadi's development as a character progressed, it is shown that the only true suffering he goes through most of the time in his new home is simply having enough food to eat, in addition to fears that he can't properly interact with students of his school anymore because of the fact he had become a bully just to help his family stay alive, but even then, he had his limits. When he meets RakoRider in Season 2, he basically turns his family's situation for the better by, in secret, transporting himself to Russia and laying waste to entire bases of the criminal organization that had once ruled over him and his fellow Russians like tyrants.

Originally, during the early conception of The Blue Tri when it was nothing more than a day dream, one of Arkadi's early concepts for his ranger form and mecha was having him as a Western Dragon. However, eventually he and the female ranger from that moment of the day dreams were scrapped in favor for an evil ranger, until eventually both Arkadi and the female ranger, who would become Chioma, were added back in with both of them featuring Ceratopsian based animal mecha forms.

Trivia

 * As of 3/25/2015, Arkadi does not have his hero form design finished yet.
 * Originally the design of his legs were not meant to indicate a possible Alien parent or two. It was originally just the way it was decided his design would look in-order to make him look more bulky than what a person his age would look like.
 * In addition, his ears are a tad bit pointed, almost Elf-like but more rounded. Although, it should be noted that only his father has human-like ears, and they're not the same shape as Arkadi's.
 * Another interesting note is that there was originally no chance of redemption for Arkadi at all, and that he was a minor character simply around for early Season 1. However, I then decided that it would've been a waste of potential, and retconned some of his backstory leading up to the events of his gang wanting to kill Plio, to where the idea in general wasn't even his to begin with, and that his own gang forced him into doing it along with them.
 * During the Valentines Day chapter involving Plio and Chioma getting together, Arkadi is sharing a dance with a Silicon based humanoid of the same gender he is, which is meant to silently indicate both he and his partner are queer without actually pointing it out. This same character he's attracted to is also one of his first real friends from his path to redemption, and both of them up this point had more of a "bromance" before actually getting together.