Tikhon Shepkin

Tatarinov Shepkin - Father Karolina Shepkina - Mother Lavro Shepkin - Older Brother Ruslan Shepkin - Older Brother Abram Shepkin - Younger Brother Senta Shepkina - Older Sister Emma Shepkina - Younger Sister Danila Fillipov - Close Friend/Team Member Ignati Suslekov - Friend/Team Member Kirill Prokhorov - Friend/Team Member Lyev Prokhorov - Friend/Team Member Timyr Zlenov - Friend/Recruit Lu Jianhao - Adversary Bai Shirong - Adversary Duan Zhaohui (†) - Adversary Shao Chunhua - Adversary Cheng Qiaolian - Adversary Jia Wenqian - Adversary/Murderer

But Tikhon was worth more to them than a simple debt paid in violence. He had intelligence, potential, something they could use. Instead of punishing him outright, the Nubagami abducted him to a discreet location and introduced him to Danila Fillipov. There, they made their intentions clear: the two of them were to form a team and work under the Nubagami until their debts were paid off.

Whilst his relationship with Danila Fillipov started off rocky, they soon grew closer as they got more accustomed to living around each other, through the nights they talked spent in a shared apartment. Their small talk became long discussions that would transition into shared jokes and laughs, their similar personalities rubbing off of each other. Growing so close that Danila would give him a barbed wooden bat as a gift to make him look intimidating. A bat that Tikhon would cherish forever.

As more people were pulled into the Zoo, Tikhon’s intelligence and his instinct to understand people’s struggles pushed him into an unexpected role. He never saw himself as a leader, not in the way his siblings had fought to be, but the others gravitated toward him anyway. He listened, he cared, and he made decisions that kept them alive. Before long, he became the de facto head of the group — not because he wanted power, but because he was the one they trusted to guide them out of situations that should have killed them.

But that leadership would be tested, when they accepted their final job to pay off their debt. One that would change their lives forever.

Unbeknownst of him. That was the last time he saw daylight ever again.

His first few weeks outside of his family were rough. His mother tried to support him as best she could, but after the attempt to expose his father she was unable to transfer him enough money to live properly as his father grew far more paranoid about the people around him. He’d try his best to get back on his feet, saving up his money whilst working a news printing job and living through the poor conditions government issued Khrushchevka's kept within.

His dreams of peace would never come to reality after the unmaintained hatred and ego set against one nation to another would finally reach its destructive consequence. The Third International War, while it had not yet arrived at his doorstep Tikhon could see the writing on the wall. Dreading the effects on the already corroding Union that would affect its future.

His mothers donations ceased; and eventually he had to spend days within evacuation shelters just to protect himself from shelling as NETO troops approached Noskow. He couldn't help but to feel a desperate need to make things right. Putting into use his savings to fund an ambitious insurance company that would put all his money to helping those affected by the war.

But Tikhon’s refusal to break his promises—and his instinct to give more than he kept—eventually ruined him financially. Most of his money went to people who genuinely needed help, but his naivety drew in others who took advantage of his generosity, asking for outrageous sums and knowing he wouldn’t say no. His savings vanished quickly. His desire to keep helping the vulnerable slowly pushed him into the same desperation they lived with. To keep his small business alive, he took out several loans from the Nubagami, loans he had no realistic way to repay.

His life flipped almost overnight. He had just turned eighteen when it happened — the first time he ever stepped into his father’s office. The Second Kibestani Revolution was tearing through the region, violence spreading across the hills, and his father was away arranging deals with the rebels, promising them the ammunition they wanted. With the house quiet and his father’s quarters left empty, curiosity finally got the better of Tikhon. He slipped inside the office and began sifting through the scattered files on the desk, reading them slowly, trying to understand the world his father operated in. He was horrified.

Several documents, all financial transfers to different clients, and these weren't standard clients, no. Payments to both the Bratva and the Nubagami. All of which promised firearms and ammunition crates in exchange for personal gain. The more he read into it the extent of his fathers sins became gravely apparent to him; there were so many officials that his father had bribed he lost count. It only took a personal letter from Volk Baranov addressing his fathers support to make him stop reading entirely.

He didn’t care what it would cost him financially. Every shipment his father sent out eventually found its way into the hands of people who hurt innocent families, and Tikhon couldn’t stomach being part of that legacy. His father had to be held accountable. In a rush of conviction, he called several Union agencies, reporting what he’d found and trying to lay out the details as clearly as he could. But he underestimated just how deep his father’s influence ran. Without realizing it, he had given everything to one of the officers his father kept on his payroll — a man who immediately informed his father of the betrayal.

But his father didn't care for that. For he had developed his own course to figure out who would succeed him after death. Tikhon could not escape this indoctrination. Through his many private-professors, his intellect synergized with his natural curiosity of the world. Flowing through his paper a beautiful mural of his undiscovered talent, his professors caught on, his lessons increasingly arduous in difficulty; yet was nothing that young Tikhon couldn't handle. He excelled far beyond the average material given to the children his age; a worthy successor for the title that sat upon his father’s head.

To his father’s dismay, all the conditioning in the world only sharpened Tikhon’s mind, not his loyalty. His mother’s influence won out over every attempt to mold him into something colder, something useful. Eventually, his father wrote him off as a failed heir and shifted his attention to another child. While his siblings pushed themselves to prove their worth — physically, academically, politically—Tikhon was left to his own devices, forgotten in the corners of the house. He spent that time studying the world, forming his own opinions about the Union and the problems eating away at its society. And as he grew older, he pieced together the truth: it was his mother who had been quietly taking money from the family accounts. He never said a word. He would never betray the only person who had ever truly cared for him.

For many people, being born into privilege is something to dream about. Tikhon actually lived it. Born in 1973 in an upper‑class district of Yaroslavy, he grew up surrounded by siblings and comfort. His father held a government post overseeing the Ministry’s ammunition production for the Union’s military and its allies. Some admired him for how efficiently he kept the factories running; others despised him for the same reason, knowing his bullets went to whoever paid the most. Even his marriage carried that stain; Tikhon’s mother wasn’t so much a partner as a “repayment” offered to his father by another official. Still, Tikhon loved his mother. Even as his siblings tore into each other like wild dogs trying to secure a future in their father’s shadow, he never felt that life suited him. The idea of stepping into his father’s position went against everything he believed in; he’d always leaned toward pacifism, toward work that felt diplomatic and safe. His siblings mocked him for it, desperate for their father’s approval, and their obsession only pushed him closer to his mother. She was the one person he trusted, the one who made him feel like he didn’t have to become what everyone else expected.

Even though his mother was trapped in a marriage she never chose, she never let it break her spirit. Quietly, she funneled money from her husband’s account to help other women who would never have access to that kind of support. Tikhon grew to value her more than anyone else. Her lessons became the core of who he was, especially the day she told him not to feel ashamed for being gentle. She said his softness wasn’t a weakness—it was his greatest strength. Showing care, and backing it with action, was how he could make the world better.

When he’s not wearing his signature white chicken mask, Tikhon has black hair braided on the left side, threaded with multicolored beads. A bandage sits squarely on his left cheek. In Forgotten Garages, he wears a red letterman jacket with the letter N sewn into it and the number 1 on the back of it, a grey‑green shirt underneath, and hand wrappings from knuckle to wrist. He finishes the look with khaki pants and sturdy boots.

Whilst his reputation as a leader of "the Zoo" may make many wrongfully believe that Tikhon is a leader picked for his brutality, that is not the case. For those who know him personally, Tikhon comes off as a quiet yet highly empathetic individual who would do anything if it meant a better survival rate for his team, being recognized as both intelligent and well spoken; his nature as a pacifist conflict with his far more violent actions confusing to the ones in his life.

Name: Tikhon Shepkin

Age: 26

Occupation: Ex-CEO

Creator: MiroCev