Aphel Ephialtes

This article, Aphel Ephialtes, is property of Agni Blackheart.

— Aphel's trademark quote.

Aphel Ephialtes
Titles	The Spider Laughing at Others' Deaths
Nickname	DEATH
Alias	Moon Crown of Spades
Symbol
Characteristics
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Age	23
Appearance
Outfit	Black, White, Silver
Traits
Birthday	May 22th
Handedness	Left
Complexion	White
Height	5"8"
Weight	149 lbs
Hair Color	Purple
Eye Color	Blue
Semblance	Nightmare: The Consumer
Blood Type	B-
Professional Status
Affiliation	Schwarzstern
Previous Affiliation	Shade Academy
Occupation	Assassin
Previous Occupation	Student
Personal Status
Status	Active
Relative(s)	Noctis Ephialtes (younger brother) Verdell Ephialtes (older brother)
Media
Voice Actor	Doug Erholtz (NA) Yuichi Nakamura (JP)

Aphel Ephialtes is a former student of Shade Academy, an Atlesian assassin and one of the Four Moon Crowns of Schwarzstern, a terrorist organization. He doesn't use any weapons and fight with his fists only.

Aphel enrolled in Shade because of its higher violent environment. After finishing his studies, he keeps the family assassination business active. With the disappearance of his younger brother Noctis Ephialtes in the Battle of Beacon, he's enlisted by his older brother Verdell Ephialtes to a search squad and leaves Atlas to find Noctis.

Appearance

Aphel is average tall and he has a white complexion, purple hair and blue eyes.

He wears a torn black tanktop shirt with a black vest on top of ot. Above those two pieces of clothing, he wears a long sleeved black coat. He wears a pair of ripped black jeans, two decorative belts and a pair of shoes with metallic soles. He has a keychain in one of his belts and two tails embedded on his pants. He also wears spiked bracelets and black gloves.

Aphel has a choker scar on his neck and tattoos all over his body, with the exception of the marks in his arms. They are different than the tattoos and react to Aphel's Semblance, shining once their active. He wears a communicator on his left ear.

Personality

A taunting sadist that likes to pick at a person's darkest secrets to torment them. Aphel loves a fight to the death and will use of cheap tactics to get what he wants. Has a brother complex towards Noctis and a rivalry against Verdell.

If anything, Aphel doesn't fit the image of an assassin, as he's not coldhearted and emotionless. Rather, he's a sadist that loves to make someone else suffer. He doesn't lose his focus on the objective to kill, but tries to make sure that he'll have fun in the end. Ally or enemy, everyone's subjected to Nemain's foul way of living with others.

To Aphel, the end justifies the means, which means he'll use of anything to get what he wants, even if he has to betray or cheat. He doesn't care about morals if he's going to be the winner in the end.

Aphel, however, has a brother complex towards Noctis his younger brother. With the determination of growing him into an assassin, Aphel does all that he can to please Noctis in order to sway him to join assassination. He admitted to care for him as a family, but that comes in second place.

This same relationship isn't present with Verdell. They consider each other as rivals, or as enemies even. Because Verdell insists that Noctis should follow his own path, Aphel declared to be against him and his ideals, calling his brother weak and so goes on. They don't tend to share the same space or they might kill each other.

History

Aphel is the middle of three male sons of the Ephialtes family. The Ephialtes are a noble Atlesian family, but its members are assassins specialized in executing Huntsmen and Huntresses that don't follow the rules or commit crimes, although they began as criminals in the past. Whether male or female, you are trained from childhood to adulthood as a killer of the corrupted. Sometimes, the jobs done by the Ephialtes also include nobility who decide to abuse of their financial or social power to dominate others who are lower than them. Taken as sort of punishers, the Council of Atlas has knowledge of the danger the family brings to others. However, their attempts to stop them were near to fruitless, as they've never managed to get the ones whose command the scheme. As such, the Ephialtes family continues to run amok up until this day, being one of the main public enemies of the military and the Council.

Aphel decided to follow the path of Verdell and his ancestors, becoming an assassin apprentice. As his initial training ensued, the family noticed how he was liking the idea more and more, even though he was a child. They tried to balance it between having a normal life and his assassination teachings, but he simply didn't try to be normal and not raise suspicion. As time passed, Aphel became more and more interested in his family's work and decided to expand his horizons in killing methods. Instead of choosing a weapon, however, he decided to use his own fists to kill people, claiming it to be a funnier method than a knife or any weapon. Aphel's strength and violence grew so much that his profile ended being unnaceptable to Atlas, which is why he was sent to Vacuo instead.

After joining Shade Academy, the violent environment was something that Aphel liked and that rose a desire within him to inflict varied types of pain towards others, leading him to create a sadist personality. Training ensued and his Aura began to be notable. His Semblance, in the moment of its discovery, also boosted his violent personality. While walking in the corridors of Shade, he was cornered by a group of students who didn't like him and wanted to beat him down. As they tried to ambush him, however, he drained the fear one of the ambushers felt towards him and converted into extra stamina. The first of them began the battle, but Aphel fought incessantly, almost as if he never was tired at all. He switched to fight another student and, at the end of it, left it bleeding, scaring the other students away. This kept itself repeating until the graduation.

Considering Verdell was not leading the business well, Aphel decided to take the place of their late father and lead the whole job. He commanded the group of assassins and did missions himself as well. Because of that, he ended calling the attention of Dougal Charna, who recruited Aphel himself in the Schwarzstern as a "business trade". Since Huntsmen and Huntresses are a part of Aphel's long list of enemies, he saw the interest in their destruction and joined the organization. As an exception to the rule for the Moon Crowns, Aphel was enlisted as one because of his deep connection with a large number of assassins spread throughout the world. Gaining his own set of soldiers, Aphel easily conducted his organization and the Schwarztern's Atlas Branch. 

By the time his younger brother Noctis Ephialtes had decided to join Huntsmanship, Aphel tried to convince him of joining the family's business under his guidance. All of his efforts were in vain, as two things stopped him: Noctis' own desire to protect the people from Grimm and Verdell's constant interference in his attempts to convince Noctis to join assassination. This eventually led him to fear a time where they would be enemies. While such thoughts never happened with Verdell, Aphel didn't want to kill Noctis nor he wished for Schwarzstern to do this instead. In order to keep this from happening, Aphel talked with Landare Charna, a fellow member and mother of Dougal. After explaining and pleading for the safety of Noctis, Landare said she'd guarantee that he wouldn't become their target, giving Aphel a relief he never felt before. 

With Noctis leaving for Vale and studying there, Aphel kept running the assassin organization while working for Schwarzstern under Verdell's nose. Years passed and the Battle of Beacon happened. Absent from the whole event, Aphel suddenly remembered that Noctis was studying there and immediately ordered his subordinate Aster Lazuli to search for him. However, the order wasn't carried and the news that Noctis disappeared amidst the chaos reached his ears. Verdell called him to form a search squad and Aphel accepted to be part of it, without second questions. Now, they need to find and rescue Noctis, wherever he is.

Powers and Abilities

Aphel's fighting style is mainly composed of street fighting mixed with grappling. He doesn't follow any specific style and ends up mixing them all to fight his foes. He's also very offensive and doesn't give a rest to attacking until the opponent's down, even if it means killing them with his fists. He doesn't use any weapon, as he considers that they would only hinder him down.

Aphel's Aura is very basic and it doesn't have any special features outside of what is already known, nor does it have any higher effect, resistance or weakness.

Semblance

— Aphel explaining his Semblance.

The Ephialtes family carries a hereditary Semblance called Nightmare, which is the manipulation of fear. It allows its user to control fear energy in offensive and defensive capabilities. Unlike the Schnee family's Glyphs, each family member has a variant of Nightmare and they work differently for each user.

Aphel's variant, The Consumer, makes him capable of draining his opponent's fear to boost his fighting prowess. For as long as the opponent will keep fearing him, he'll be able to drain the emotional energy and use it in two options: convert it into extra stamina so that he can get less tired from fighting or convert it into physical strength to give more impact into his attacks, making them more deadly.

The Consumer produces three stacks of fear energy max. If the stack is red colored, it means more damage. If the stack is blue colored, it means extra stamina. Aphel can only use one stack at a time and each effect lasts for the maximum of 15 seconds before disappearing.

However, this Semblance has no relation to Aura whatsoever except for the fact that it's only usable if Aphel's Aura is active. This fear energy conversion has no relation to Aura restoration or to enhance his Aura's healing prowess. This is only a way for Aphel to keep fighting at the utmost of his capabilities, not for him to recover from his injuries at any moment.

Also, the fear energy that Aphel can obtain must be specific from the emotion of fear towards him. Other sources of fear like traumas or nightmares are not considered as qualified energy and will be ignored by The Consumer.

Another backfire to The Consumer is that, if the fear energy being drained is suddenly inversed to bravery, courage or any emotion that's not fear, Aphel will weaken for as long as he's draining it. Those emotions who are the opposite of fear act like poison, giving him the reverse effect of the Semblance: losing stamina and strength, being susceptible to instant knockouts.

Combat Stats

Aphel Ephialtes's Stats :

Primary Role	1-v-1 Duelist
Secondary Role	Assassin

Weapon Attack		7/10
Defense		4/10
Health		4/10
Armor		3/10
Dust Attack		0/10
Aura		5/10
Precision		5/10
Critical Rate		5/10
Movement Speed		6/10
Attack Speed		6/10
Evasion		4/10

       ~Inspired from Jollyjo

Gallery

Appearance basis for Aphel.

Aphel's Symbol.

Trivia

• CNR: his name means "dark one" in Hebrew and his surname means "nightmare" in Greek, which directly points to color selection of his clothing, being black, white and silver, and to his hair being purple, a color generally used to illustrate darkness in some videogames and other series.
• Aphel's design is a based off from Add (Elsword) in his Lunatic Psyker class. All credits are given to Hwansang, the original artist of the image.

Navigation

Agni's Castle
Silver Knights	Noctis Ephialtes • Hiroka Kazuhoshi • Rucio Ontario • Oriole Jokull Arkar Lazuli • Kekai Kamakana • Rubina Penna • Parvati Enzeru
Schwarzstern	Dougal Charna • Landare Charna • Aphel Ephialtes • Catmint Hellebore • Xanthe Asheran Aster Lazuli • Amanda Rabbit • Enki Wayra • Chthonia Orphne
Anti-Heroes	Verdell Ephialtes • Amari Kazuhoshi • Aquamarina Penna • Kama Renma
Team KAZE	Keir Aither • Asuma Ouki • Zaibas Hedley • Endrit Caelum
Faunus of Menagerie	Io Arnfrid • Daiki Rihito • Azalea Periwinkle • Orpheus Blaeingr • Merriam Blaeingr
Team CHLK	Ceruleo Mondlicht • Halverd Varten • Liliana Rinus • Kurogane Murasaki Ookami
Team BLDR	Beltzane Samara Melantha • Lilith Iolite Kearn • Demeter Tinuviel Livia • Russell Wardi Kearn
Blackheart Family	Lumino Whitesoul • Claire Blackheart • Aciano Khazran • Ishildur Verdant Terra Whitesoul • Rosangela Blackheart • Kaltrina Arianell • Uriel Malherbe