Viktor Rascalov

Viktor Rascalov is the bloodthirsty cousin of Darko Rascalov and his successor as leader of the Rascalov crime family. He was involved in a conflict with Agent Darren Johnson and Frank Blackstone when attempting to takeover City 17. He later came under employment of Gordon Freeman, and is the tertiary antagonist-turned-antihero of Half-Life: City Twenty.

Black Mesa
Vikor Rascalov was an employer at the Black Mesa Research Facility, working in the top secret research labs and acting as the right-hand man to administrator Wallace Breen. The pair of them plotted to trigger the Resonance Cascade as well as stealing alien specimens extracted from the borderworld Xen, although Viktor was seemingly unaware of Breen's true intentions.

City 17 Street
During the Combine occupation Viktor joined the Resistance. However unlike them he wasn't too interested in humanity's freedom and only looked to advance his own goals. He joined up with a few secret members as part of a group known as the Rogue Resistance and began operating in a warehouse near the canals. They started working on digging up important information on Combine activities, but chose to sell on their findings instead of reporting to the Resistance.

When the Rogue Resistance got the name of a Civil Protection officer named Samuel Pade, they abducted his daughter Vanessa. Viktor hoped to use the girl to blackmail Samuel into handing over vital information on the Combine's activities, although he planned on killing the girl. But unfortunately for Viktor and the rogue Resistance Samuel tracked them down to their warehouse and killed several of the members. Viktor held Vanessa at knife point, but Samuel shot him and caused Viktor to tumble into the canal and to his apparent death.

Viktor survived his fall and went off the grid. In the aftermath of The Uprising and the Combine's downfall, he reunited with his long lost cousin Darko Rascalov and the pair moved to City 18 to start up their own criminal empire. Here they founded the Rascalov crime family, with Darko heading the group and Viktor as his associate and gunman. Viktor carried out violent assassinations on Rascalov's enemies and helped build the family up.

Viktor ended up going to prison for an unknown crime, and during this imprisonment the Rascalov family received a heavy blow when Samuel himself infiltrated their operations while on an undercover operation. Darko and the Rascalov family then moved their operations to City 17 and started engaging in a war with the Simmons crime family and the Gelatray crime family.

Five years after his sentence Viktor was released and reunited with Darko. The Rascalov family began getting heavily involved in the drug trade. Viktor met Darko's friend and associate Nathan Johnson, but didn't trust him and warned Darko that they should kill him. Darko stood by Nathan and assured Viktor everything would be fine. But Nathan backed out of helping the Rascalov's after the death of Paisley Hills at the hands of Tony Angelo. Feeling betrayed, Darko ordered to kill Nathan but this failed, and Nathan got his revenge by planting a car bomb in Darko's vehicle, which blew him up and killed him. Viktor took over the Rascalov family, but wasn't as good a leader as his cousin and his ruthless and vengeful behaviour made him slip up. Another criminal named Frank Blackstone took advantage of this and waged a war against Viktor, even pitting his agent Darren Johnson (who is Nathan's son) against him. Darko attempted to hold City 17 to ransom, threatening to detonate several bombs but Frank scoffed at his threats, knowing that Darko is merely a criminal and not a terrorist. Darko attempted to make Darren back away by kidnapping his little sister Samantha Johnson, but Darren rescued the girl.

Viktor ended up being kidnapped and tied up and gagged by Frank, who managed to buy out Viktor's goons who came to realise their new boss wasn't all he was cracked up to be. Viktor was held at a construction site, but rather than kill him Frank chose to humiliate Viktor and have him arrested by police. Viktor was taken into custody and charged for numerous offenses including trafficking, kidnapping and racketeering. With his men now working for Frank, the Rascalov family was dissolved and Viktor was left with nothing.

Viktor managed to escape prison and went on the run. Getting hold of teleportation technology left over from the Race X, Viktor made a link with the Nihilanth in the past and made him a deal to open a gateway to allow his Xenian army to travel through to modern day earth. Viktor steals a Xenian Crystal along with Gordon Freeman and later kidnaps Samantha again, in order to get revenge on Nathan. Viktor and Freeman take the girl to Isaac Kleiner's lab and uses his teleporter to travel back in time, just prior to the Black Mesa Incident. Viktor narrowly escapes being caught by Nathan and manages to take Samantha with him. Arriving in Black Mesa, Viktor knocks the past Gordon Freeman out before he can collect his HEV suit and dons it himself. Viktor ties up Samantha and imprisons her inside a locker with an unconscious Freeman. Viktor heads to the test chamber and carries out the experiment, thus unleashing the Xenian forces. He travels directly to Xen to meet the Nihilanth, with Nathan and Freeman in pursuit. Viktor arrives at the Nihilanth's chamber and gives him the link to the modern earth, and the creature prepares to send him forces into the future. But Viktor is betrayed by Nihilanth, who fires his electric orbs and Viktor, who is consumed and killed instantly.

Trivia

 * Originally it was intended for Viktor to escape prison and go into hiding, which would leave open a possible return.
 * Several stories were planned which would include Viktor's return. One story would see him captured by followers of the deceased serial killer Chicken Man and strapped into a trap, in which his former kidnap victim Vanessa Pade would be forced to choose whether or not to save him.

List of appearances

 * City 17 Street
 * 2013
 * "The Xenian Invasion"
 * City 17 Street Lost Episodes
 * "Rescuing Vanessa"
 * Black Mesa
 * "Pilot"
 * "Questionable Ethics"
 * "Unforeseen Consequences"