Nikkos Ashling

12 Year old Nikkos

Name: Nikkos Ashling

D.O.B: February 13, 1995

Sired: January 12, 2008

Transcended: December 15, 2015

Species: Former child Vampire, now unknown demon

Occupation: Musician, and part time blackmailer

Association: WolfeCorp

Born in a small town near LA, to what he thought was an average lower middleclass family, Nikkos’ early life was much the same as anyone’s: spent mostly ignorant to the odd occurrences. But when he was six years old, his parents were set upon by a clan of Adar demons, for failing to follow through with an old agreement they had made.

The Ashlings had been deep into the dark magic in their youth, and in return for access to the Adar’s store of rather potent spells, they had promised their first born son.

Nikkos was taken by the clan and for a little over a year he’d been primed for a ceremony offering him as a vessel for the power of their god Adramelech. Before the spell could be finished however, a young Slayer burst into the cult shrine and slaughtered the demons. The Slayer left, without taking the time to notice him, spattered with the blood of the demons who’d pampered him for a year treating him better than his family ever had, whispering promises of power to him. With the demonic god waiting in his mind, a constant companion until the ritual was completed. He wandered the dark streets alone for almost a month, until he was eventually picked up by child services.

No family would keep him for long; he was an oddly quiet boy, with a strange darkness to him. He tried to act the part people wanted to see, but his differences went deeper than just being raised by demons. He began studying the dark arts very early, his mind turned by whispers of the power such things could bring him, even more than the demons had promised him. He began attempting to reach out to the demonic subculture lurking in the city, and, when another shuffling of foster homes brought him to Sunnydale, he began making solid connections in the underworld. A little over twelve, Nikkos began dabbling in alchemy and mysticism, as well as the simple enchanting and conjuring he had toyed with previously. He had only had one trial run, and it was only a partial success.

However after that, a vampire he didn’t recognize viciously attacked him on the way to the magic shop. The vampire appeared to be only a boy, underfed and poorly taken care of; Nikkos didn’t know what had happened until he awoke with the boy’s fangs bared in his face, demanding he make him a weapon.

The making of the weapon was too much however, and though the spell was a success, Nikkos had over exerted himself, and poured his own life force into it. He awoke lying in the corner of the vampire’s home, feeling…different. The boy told him that he’d been close to death, so the dark haired vampire had sired him to save him. When Nikkos asked why, the kid just shrugged and said “To keep you ‘Alive’ and pretty.” The vampire's name was Jacob Thorne.

Nikkos took to the child vampire like a younger brother, almost hero worshiping him sometimes, despite all that happened, he never forgot where he came from. In fact, he used his new connections to re establish old connections, regaining what the Slayer in Los Angeles had taken from him. He began reconnecting to his demonic god, Adramelech, the one constant in his life. Always there, in the back of his mind, before he even knew about any of the demons, vampires and other oddities in the world. The God had known what was his, and Nikkos’ soul had belonged to him since before the boy was born. The reconnection, was essentially forming a more solid connection, realising it’s potential. His magic was borrowed, a gift from Adramelech to help protect him, he learned to draw more power through that connection, as well as how to give back, via human sacrifice.

Eventually, Jacob demanded that he take up the position of ‘War’ in a group of vampires calling themselves the Horsemen, who were attempting to bring about the apocalypse. He gladly accepted and took to his new, havoc-reeking role with joy, pleased to have a new ‘family’ and an outlet for Adramelech's chaos driven power.

Eventually however, as it appeared the plan wasn‘t going quite as planned, he decided to give up the relative protection of his Sire and return to Los Angeles to re-establish the cult there, and to find the few surviving Adar demons, Adramelech had told him were hiding out somewhere in the city. Running on nothing but that information, he skipped town, not even bothering to say his goodbyes until a rumour that his Sire had been slain, followed by another devastating Slayer attack on his slowly rebuilding cult, one that this time nearly killed him, sent him running back to Sunnydale.

21 Year old Nikkos

Still recovering from the devastating loss of the cult, and his own near death, Nikkos has an unfortunate encounter with the enthusiastic young Yurik, which ended in his being sent to the 'hell' dimension Pylea. While Nikkos found himself physically stronger from fighting for his life every day, the dimensional crossover broke his contact to Adramelech, greatly decreasing his overall power, especially his magicks which were never his own, merely power borrowed from the god. While in the dimension, Nikkos found another citizen of Sunnydale, who he reacquainted himself with, Susan, or Janisu Amatsuka.

A series of child sacrifices and a ritual involving drinking the blood of one of the few remaining Adar demons, allowed Nikkos to re-establish contact with Adramelech, as well as take him the first step toward what his life had originally been traded for: Summoning Adramelech. The contact was still not full, but he could feel Adramelech gaining power within him.

Adam

A faithful servant for over eight years, Nikkos began to question his god, and, after finding a way to fully separate his true thoughts from the ones the god planted in his mind, he was quickly losing faith. Surprising himself as much as anyone, Nikkos chose to purposefully botch the final summoning ritual, which would essentially have killed him, allowing the spirit of the god to take full control of his body. Instead, Nikkos managed to reverse it. Instead of being a human sacrifice, giving his life, freedom and body to the god, he sacrificed Adramelech to himself, taking on his power and much of his knowledge. And much to his surprise, the gods life as well.

A vampire no longer, he had taken on an aspect somewhere between the human he never really had a chance to be, and the demon god he refused to surrender to.