VA-DS Villains: Nashvrag

Nashvrag ("Our Enemy") is the dreaded name given to the Krasyne Opeka's one recurring nemesis. Before they were the Dezhurtsva Soyuz, the Krasyne Opeka did not battle very many 'supervillains,' mostly content to be superhuman propaganda that ocassionally intervened in various affairs at the behest of the Kremlin, containing natural disasters or confronting vague supernatural threats. The man who would become Nashvrag was the one exception to this, becoming a frequent nemesis of the Russian heroes, and he would forever leave his mark on the team by instigating the events that lead to their disappearance.

Born in a small town outside Budapest, Franz Kokemesdy spent most of his childhood years embroiled in the midst of WWII. In the later years of the war he and his family experienced the hard pressures of the Nazi occupation, and secretly led a resistance against them. Here he gained a distaste for dictatorial regimes, and participated in the effort against the Nazis. During and after the war he developed a remarkable skill and understanding of science and mathematics, and enrolled at the University of Szeged.

He was in his early twenties when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began. Largely perceiving the Soviets in the same light as the Nazis, he was among the thousands that gathered to protest and fight them. In the end, he was captured attempting to flee into West Germany following the change of fortune, and promptly deported into the USSR. Due to his remarkable credentials as a science student he was pressed into service as a member of his gulag’s sharashka, the secret system of laboratories and research centers within the Soviet prisons. Here he was assigned to a staff of researchers constructing a device for Khrushchev’s superhero program, aimed to endow selected candidates with superpowers. It was this device that gave Tugarin his plasma-based abilities.

Unknown to his peers or overseers, Franz had in secret installed a series of modifications to the machine in order to endow himself with even greater powers, having grown only more bitter and resentful of his captors and Soviet Union. After managing to complete his work without detection, he placed himself within it and activated the machine. He achieved success beyond his wildest dreams, emerging as an enormously powerful superhuman. He leveled the laboratory and slew all except his fellow prisoners, then flew to Moscow, his goal to completely eradicate the Kremlin and burn the city down. The mad superhuman blasted through all attempts to stop him, but was finally confronted by the Krasnye Opeka. Despite his vast powers, Franz’s inexperience and their superior numbers forced him to retreat, sparing Moscow much of his wrath. He vowed revenge upon the entirety of Russia, the superheroes, and their communist masters.

He reappeared in Hungary, sporting a regal armored appearance and calling himself Felszabadító, “The Liberator.” Demonstrating his power by utterly destroying the resident Soviet forces, he rallied together an army of supporters against the USSR, declaring Hungary to no longer be under the Warsaw pact. But in the end, his plan was doomed to failure; while he once more battled the Krasnye Opeka, military divisions quickly quelled his supporters, and he was decisively beaten in combat. Despite this defeat he eluded capture and escaped into the West. During this time he encountered several superheroes and villains; his activities had left an impression upon the latter, and he was invited to join a conspiracy of the world’s greatest supervillains and criminal masterminds. The goal of this council hinged on two key goals: the total obliteration of the world’s superheroes, and global domination. Together they amassed an army of superpowered minions and lesser villains, and launched an attack of unprecedented scale. Franz naturally led the assault upon the USSR, and in his invasion came the closest he ever would to an outright victory. He and his minions were some of the few superhumans that were not a part of the massive endgame battle of the world’s supers, instead focused squarely upon the Soviet military and Krasnye Opeka. In the end, like his colleagues he too was defeated in an epic battle outside Stalingrad and captured as a prisoner of war.

The vast majority of supers, hero and villain alike, died in the final battle of what was dubbed “The Super War,” and this terrible toll left a mark on all such activities. Combined with a declining popularity among populations due to the conflict’s destruction and carnage, and superheroes simply began to fade away. While being led to his public execution, the man now called Nashvrag managed to break free and overpower his escorts. The Krasnye Opeka quickly caught up to and pursued him, and his race to escape sent them into the far north of Siberia. Exactly what happened is unknown; a week after contact was lost, search parties found Franz kneeling in the snow, dazed but alive, with no recollection of what had occurred. For the third and last time he was sent to prison, and discovered that a great deal of his power was no longer available to him. Unable to be executed for fear that his powers would be reactivated by whatever method employed, he remained a prisoner of the state for many decades to come, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sometime before his participation in the Super War, Franz fell in love with a girl in Poland and began an affair with her. The relationship did not last and he left her shortly before she gave birth to a set of triplets. Pursuing Russian authorities captured her, but not before she sent two of them to an orphanage. This pair later grew up into a duo of career criminals affiliated with the mob of Timur Mogilevich, inheriting a fraction of their father’s power, while the third child was raised in the KBG superhuman agent project, growing up to become a skilled spy and partner of Nightingale codenamed Rusalka. Along with the Dezhurstva Soyuz, all three became caught up in a cat-and-mouse scheme by the considerably aged but still potent Franz, who manipulated all sides from his prison cell against each other. While an apocalyptic conflict between factions ensued, he himself took advantage of the mayhem and manifested his powers for the first time in decades, escaping prison only to seemingly die when confronted by the Dezhurstva Soyuz. Despite this development his original plan, to get his progeny together and guided toward the employment of a mysterious benefactor, proved to be an overwhelming success. Whether he is truly dead or merely operating in the shadows now remains to be seen...

Nashvrag may very well be the most powerful opponent the Krasyne Opeka and Dezhurtsva Soyuz has ever faced. He possesses vast powers of energy and matter manipulation. He can fly, is stronger and tougher than even Velikisyn, can channel, absorb, and control tremendous nuclear energies, alter his body’s density, is completely immune to biological hazards, and utilize the transmutation of matter to transform physical objects. Furthermore, thanks to his powers his aging has significantly slowed; despite being almost 80 years in age, he appears to be half that age.


Nashvrag and all things Vigilant Alliance are (c)
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