Victor sat alone in the dimness of his apartment, the faint glow of the Idol System interface fading away into the background. The silence was heavy, but his mind was anything but quiet. Memories from a past life—the life he had tried so hard to bury—began to stir, creeping into his thoughts like shadows in the corners of his consciousness. No matter how far he had come in this new world, no matter how much he focused on his journey as an idol, his past always found a way to catch up with him.
---
He was Victor Nightshade—no, Doctor Victor Nightshade—the brilliant scientist turned villain, whose obsession with perfection had led to his downfall. In the world he had left behind, he was feared. His name had been whispered in the dark with terror and awe. He had sought control, mastery over life itself. The world had seen him as a monster, but in his eyes, he had been something more: a creator, an architect of power and brilliance. But that ambition, that drive for perfection, had consumed him. And in the end, it had destroyed him.
The lab had always been his sanctuary. Everything had been meticulously ordered: surgical tools laid out in precise rows, the hum of machinery running calculations faster than any human mind could fathom. Victor had thrived there, in a world of logic and cold efficiency, where the only limits were the ones he chose to acknowledge. Control was everything—control over his work, over others, and most importantly, over himself.
Victor's jaw tightened as he remembered how his former self had thought. Emotions had been a weakness, distractions from the greater pursuit of knowledge and power. He had manipulated people as easily as he manipulated the DNA strands in his experiments. Compassion, empathy—those were for the weak. He had no time for such things.
He had treated the people in his life like tools, mere variables in his grand equation. His colleagues, his assistants, even those who had trusted him… they were all pieces on a chessboard, to be moved and sacrificed as he saw fit. His pursuit of knowledge, of ultimate creation, was all that mattered.
---
It wasn't just science that drove him—it was the need to be better. Better than anyone. His mind had been his greatest weapon, and he wielded it with precision, cutting through the limitations that held others back. But with that brilliance came isolation. He had been alone, not by choice, but because no one could understand him. They feared him, resented him, and in time, sought to destroy him. But Victor hadn't cared. Fear, after all, was just another form of respect.
Much like a certain dark vigilante from old stories, Victor had been a creature of control. His plans had been meticulous, his strategies layered with contingencies. He had left nothing to chance, not in his experiments, and certainly not in his interactions with others. He had used fear and intimidation as tools to keep everyone at a distance. Emotions were dangerous, uncontrollable, and if there was one thing Victor had hated, it was unpredictability.
But unlike that vigilante, who had used his darkness for some twisted sense of justice, Victor's motivations had been purely selfish. He hadn't cared about saving anyone. His work had been driven by the need to prove something—mostly to himself. He had pushed the boundaries of what was possible not because the world needed it, but because he craved the satisfaction of knowing he could.
---
The moment of his downfall remained vivid in his mind, a bitter memory that wouldn't fade. He had prided himself on his ability to control everything—his experiments, his assistants, the results. But control had slipped through his fingers the moment he created it—his greatest and most catastrophic mistake.
The experiment had been the culmination of years of research, the pinnacle of his career. The creature had been everything Victor wanted: strong, intelligent, obedient. Or so he had thought.
But the flaw in his design had been his own arrogance. He had believed he could shape life itself to his will, but the creature had its own desires, its own mind. And when it turned on him, the realization that he had lost control had been more terrifying than the creature itself.
---
The memory played out in his mind again, as it had so many nights before.
The creature stood before him, towering and menacing, its eyes glowing with cold, calculating intelligence. It had looked at him—not with fear, not with the respect Victor had come to expect—but with something else. Contempt.
"You were supposed to be mine," Victor had whispered, his voice shaking with disbelief. "I created you."
But the creature had only stared back, silent and unyielding. With a single strike, it had ended Victor's life. And with that blow, it had ended Doctor Victor Nightshade's reign.
---
Victor's hands clenched into fists as he returned to the present, his heart pounding in his chest. That was who he had been—a man who had played god, who had pushed too far in his quest for control. And in the end, it had cost him everything. His ambition, his need for perfection, had consumed him, and it had destroyed him.
But that was the past. That life was gone. Or it was supposed to be.
In this new world, he had a different talent, a different path. He wasn't a scientist anymore—he was a singer. A performer. It was almost laughable to him, but the Idol System had forced him into this role, and now, he was beginning to see its value. Music, unlike science, wasn't something he could control with logic and precision. It demanded emotion, vulnerability, and raw, unfiltered expression. The very things he had spent his entire life avoiding.
---
Victor had always hated unpredictability. He had built his entire existence around systems, around control, but in this new life, he was forced to confront something he had never allowed himself to feel before: emotions. In his performances, in his songs, he had to tap into something deeper, something real. And it terrified him.
The irony wasn't lost on him. In his past life, he had created a monster, only to be destroyed by it. Now, in this life, he was becoming something else, something equally uncontrollable. His voice, his music, was powerful in a way he had never understood. It allowed him to connect with others in ways science never could. But it also made him vulnerable. And vulnerability was a terrifying thing for a man like Victor Nightshade.
He stood up from his chair and walked to the mirror on the opposite wall. His reflection stared back at him, but it wasn't the face of the mad scientist he had once been. It was the face of a man in transition, a man trying to reconcile who he had been with who he was becoming.
His past would never truly leave him. The darkness, the ambition, the obsession with control—those things would always be a part of him. But in this world, he had a chance to rewrite his story. Redemption? He wasn't sure if that was possible for someone like him. But if there was any way to find it, it would be through this new path. Not through control or domination, but through the raw, unfiltered expression of his voice.
He wouldn't let his past define him. Not anymore.
---
IDOL SYSTEM INSIGHT
No stat changes: Flashbacks of Victor's past life reveal his hunger for power and control. His journey now is about finding redemption through vulnerability, as he faces the challenge of mastering his new life as a singer, where emotions, not logic, are his greatest tools.