Nightlife
225361
REAL NAME: Victor Volesky / Shadow of Joy
ALIAS: Nightlife
IDENTITY STATUS: Public
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
RELATIVES: Adrian Volesky (brother, deceased)
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Port Oakes, Etoile Islands
PLACE OF BIRTH: Port Oakes, Etoile Islands
LEGAL STATUS: Etoile Citizen, Wanted (see below)
OCCUPATION: Night Club Owner
AFFILIATIONS: The Marcone Crime Family (former), Verandi Crime Family, the Council (former)
ENEMIES: Marcone Crime Family, the Council, Void Hunters, RIP, Longbow
HEIGHT: 5'11" WEIGHT: 167lbs EYES: Dark Brown HAIR: Blond
Abilities: Dark Energy Manipulation, Shapeshifting (specific forms), Teleportation, Flight, Energy Drain
BACKGROUND
The person who calls himself “Nightlife” was once Victor Volesky, born in Port Oakes to Roman and Mina Volesky. Though posing as an immigrant, evidence points to Roman fleeing former mob associates and Belarusian authorities.
As such, Roman knew how to operate in the Marcones’ backyard. He opened a cafe, the Dvina, and ran it with his family until he died only ten years later.
Victor was poised to take over the family business, but chose instead to sell the Dvina to open a nightclub, known as the Pearl. The enterprise was kept afloat by heavy Marcone investment.
Though ambitious and having some early success, the Pearl’s attendance began to dwindle after Rikti attacks put Port Oakes businesses on the backfoot. Unsurprisingly, the Marcone’s began to squeeze Volesky when he failed to make payments on time.
The dispute culminated in an attack on his younger brother, Adrian, and the kidnapping of his niece, Sonja, for ransom - on top of what Victor already owed.
Volesky sold everything he had. He emptied his savings. But it wasn’t enough. So Victor agreed to do a job for the Marcones. One that would clear his debt once and for all. He and a motley crew of other misfits were tasked with knocking over the Double Sixes Casino in St. Martial. Which I don’t have to tell you is a death sentence for the likes of Victor.
But to everyone’s surprise, the heist went off without a hitch. Victor and his accomplices brought back a van full of cash - a cool ten million dollars - to their Marcone handlers, waiting in a parking lot in the Black Mariah.
There, Victor and the others were gunned down in cold blood. The Marcones took the money and left them for dead.
This is where the story gets strange. When the RIP finally arrived to document the scene, Victor’s body was nowhere to be found.
The next day, the Marcone triggermen turn up dead. But not from gunshots, explosives, or even poison. Aside from some bruising and broken bones, there was no obvious cause of death. The RIP coroner described the bodies as appearing “dessicated”.
Two days later, Victor’s niece Sonja is rescued from Marcone captivity in Port Oakes, leaving no survivors and even more of the drained-looking corpses.
For a week, the Marcones were on high alert. Something - or someone - was taking a bite out of their operations, and they still had no idea who they were dealing with.
Though it seems obvious in retrospect, at the time they never considered that it could be Victor.
The veil was lifted after another week of paranoia, when a lone Nictus attacked the Pearl, now under Marcone management. Inhabiting Victor’s body, the new personality had dubbed itself ‘Nightlife’, and declared a vendetta against the Marcones.
The subsequent slaughter is, to this day, known as the Pearl Massacre, and it landed Nightlife squarely on the Marcones’ shitlist.
Though the Pearl was destroyed in Nightlife’s attack, he has begun making overtures of opening a new club somewhere in the Isles. In the meantime, he remains at large, occasionally carrying out attacks on Marcone operations - and taking other odd jobs to maintain cashflow.
We have thus far not been able to ascertain how and when Victor came into contact with the Nictus. The simplest explanation is that Victor made contact the night he was presumed dead, as he had no prior affiliation with the Council. It is likely that the Nictus that joined with Victor is a defector, with its own designs on the Rogue Isles.
But pending further data, it remains an open question.
THREAT ASSESSMENT
Nightlife’s attacks on Marcone operations are a matter of record, and while the Marcones have the upper hand in terms of organization, numbers and equipment, Nightlife prevails by choosing his targets carefully and overwhelming them at their weakest points. But when that fails - and it sometimes does - he leans harder on his Warshade abilities.
Like all Nictus, Nightlife is a being of dark energy. He can manipulate it at will into barriers and ranged attacks, or leverage it to fly and even teleport.
Natural shapeshifters, the Nictus can take many forms, each a ghost of a previous host, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.
This makes Nightlife formidable at any range, difficult to predict and even harder to pin down. Nightlife is known to shift forms often and quickly, sometimes so quickly that his opponents believe they are being attacked by multiple assailants.
Finally, via dark energy, Nightlife is able to tap the life force of a living creature and siphon it for his own sustenance, often to the point of killing his targets and healing his wounds. He does this through touch, but with exertion, he can draw life force at short distances. Field reports seem to agree that this is limited, somehow, to plants, fresh bodies and some animals.
Standard protocol with engaging hostile Nictus is to engage by surprise, with overwhelming force and always from a distance. Quantum weaponry is a necessity. Nictus are known to be susceptible to magic, but can, on occasion, resist powerful psionics, especially when bound to a host voluntarily.
Nightlife appears to be more cunning than Victor ever was, and relatively shrewd in business dealings. That said, he has yet to impress with any of his schemes, and still relies on only a handful of known contacts. Nightlife’s reputation, thus far, leans almost entirely on the fact that crossing him ends in a gruesome death. He’s something of a bogeyman in the eyes of some on the street, but he is not considered a power player. Time will tell if he can maintain that air of intimidation or become a heavy hitter in the Isles.