Line #23 Characters/HereticalEdgeBystandersAndIndependentHeretics


1	[[center: [-[[Characters/{{HereticalEdge}} Index]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeCrossroadsAcademyStudents Crossroads Students]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeCrossroadsAcademyStaff Crossroads Staff]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeOtherCrossroadsHeretics Other Crossroads Heretics]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeStrangers Strangers]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeNocen Nocen]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeGardenHeretics Garden Heretics]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeSeostenEmpire Seosten Empire]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeTheAtherbyClan The Atherby Clan]] \| [[Characters/HereticalEdgeSpoilerCharacters Spoiler Characters]] ]]-]
2
3	[[foldercontrol]]
4
5	[[WMG: Bystanders]]
6
7	[[folder: Lincoln Chambers]]
8
9	Flick's father. Lincoln was a reporter in Los Angeles before he moved to Wyoming to marry Joselyn, who he was deeply in love with (he still wears his wedding ring a decade after she left). Fortunately, he didn't let his wife's disappearance get in the way of being a generally awesome dad to Flick.
10
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12
13	* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Lincoln Chambers is a damn good reporter. [[spoiler: He eventually figures out ''a lot'' about what's going on by noting the changes in his daughter's behavior and figuring out how they tie in to the secrets being kept by Crossroads, footage of Joselyn from 1963, Asenath's presence in his home, and the "terrorist attack" Fossor launched on Flick's birthday.]]
14	* GoodParents: He and Flick are very close, and he did a good job bringing her up on his own.
15	* HappilyMarried: Well, he ''was'' until Joselyn ran off with some guy she pulled over. He still holds out hope that she'll come back and continues to wear his wedding ring ten years later.
16	* IntrepidReporter: The man spent years investigating criminals when he was a reporter in L.A. Now he just works for a small paper in Laramie Falls.
17	* LockedOutOfTheLoop: He doesn't know anything about what Crossroads is actually doing with Flick. She would love to tell him everything, but can't because he's a Bystander. [[spoiler: This becomes heartbreaking when Flick learns the real reason Joselyn left and can't tell him.]]
18	** [[spoiler: This comes to an end once he overcomes the Bystander Effect and is quickly filled in by Asenath and Twister.]]
19	* MayDecemberRomance: [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to either of them, his relationship with Joselyn was this. She was roughly 98 when they met and he was in his 20s.]]
20	* MountainMan: Lincoln's large frame, long hair, and thick beard all make him look like this.
21	* {{Muggle}}: As a Bystander, Lincoln can't retain any knowledge of the supernatural. [[spoiler: This doesn't last.]]
22	* MysteriousNote: Lincoln is first clued in to the various conspiracies surrounding his life when an envelope [[spoiler: containing footage of his wife over a decade before she was supposed to have been born]] is left at his desk [[spoiler: by a large black man named Gabriel]].
23	* PanickyExpectantFather: He straight up freaked out when Felicity was born, to his wife's amusement.
24	* ParentalSubstitute: [[spoiler: To Tabbris. Sort of. He didn't know about her, but because she was riding along inside Flick he was the closest thing she had with Larissa MIA.]]
25	* ParentalObliviousness: Averted. While he literally cannot know what Flick is doing at Crossroads thanks to the Bystander Effect, Lincoln still notices changes in her behavior and questions her about them. He grows more suspicious when a [[MysteriousNote Mysterious Envelope]] is left at his desk, prompting him to wonder if Flick received something similar.
26	** [[spoiler: This trope is shot to hell in Interlude 22B, when Lincoln overcomes the Bystander Effect (after it was weakened) and figures out a large part of the plot on his own without Asenath or Twister noticing.]]
27	* ProperlyParanoid: He's cautious with his daughter and her safety. Occasionally too cautious, in her opinion. She tells us this right after she got herself involved in a drug bust without his knowledge, so you can't really blame him for it. [[spoiler: Furthermore, neither he nor Flick have any idea how close she came to being abducted (twice!) when she was seven.]] If anything, he should be ''more'' cautious.
28	* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler: Meeting and falling in love with Lincoln derailed Joselyn's MemoryGambit.]]
29	* UnderestimatingBadassery: His own daughter, who practically hero-worships him as a journalist, is surprised at the extent of his investigative skills [[spoiler: when she discovers that he's looked into the "October 28th attack" enough to trace it back to Fossor.]]
30	* UnknownRival: [[spoiler: Deveron, Joselyn's first and still living husband, is out there and Lincoln has no idea.]]
31
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder: Joselyn Chambers]]
35	--> '''Flick''': ''She had disappeared entirely, and with her had gone any chance of me ever liking the name Felicity. She’d loved the name, and I didn’t want anything to ever remind me of the bitch who had made my father cry when he didn’t know I was watching.''
36
37	Flick's MissingMom, who named her Felicity. Joselyn was a Country Sheriff until one day she up and abandoned her family with some random guy she pulled over for speeding, leaving them deeply hurt and confused.
38
39	It quickly becomes clear that there's more to this story when her Stranger son Ammon shows up. [[spoiler: A ''lot'' more, as it turns out. You can find out more in the Joselyn Atherby section of the Spoiler Character folder.]]
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42
43	* AmbiguousSituation: Did she leave willingly or was she kidnapped? Flick's last memory of her was when she was driven off with packed bags, suggesting that she chose to go. But her son Ammon has [[CompellingVoice mind control powers]], raising the possibility that she was being controlled against her will.
44	* BlatantLies: The last time Flick saw her mother, she was telling her that she would be right back. While packing suitcases. Flick was young enough to believe her.
45	* BrokenPedestal: Felicity adored her mother as a child, mentioning at one point that she was so proud to be Joselyn's daughter that she practically worshiped the ground she walked on. All that love, pride, and adoration turned into bitter hatred when Joselyn left.
46	* GoodParents: It's clear from Flick's recollections that Joselyn really was a fantastic mother prior to leaving.
47	* HappilyMarried: To Lincoln until she left. He was completely blindsided.
48	* HotBlooded: As Lincoln puts it, she didn't wear her emotions on her sleeve. She turned them into a mech suit and uses it to smash the people she thought deserved it.
49	* MilitaryBrat: Moved around a lot as a child, which is why she wanted to stay in a stable town like Laramie Falls, Wyoming. Apparently this led to strain between them and her, as she wasn't on speaking terms with them by the time she met Lincoln. He noted to himself how unemotional she was about the whole thing, as if she didn't really care all that much. [[spoiler: Which makes sense, since [[FakeMemories none of it is true]].]]
50	* MissingMom: Flick's.
51	* ParentalNeglect: Not only has she not seen her daughter in over a decade, it's implied that she doesn't have a lot to do with raising Ammon. [[spoiler: Neither situation is her fault.]]
52
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder: Scott Utell]]
56
57	A Sheriff's Deputy in Laramie Falls. He's known the Chambers family since he was a teenager and even babysat for Flick when she was a baby. Nowadays Flick keeps talking him into doing things he shouldn't be doing, like giving her the entrance code to the Sheriff office's rooftop entrance or helping her plan and execute a drug bust.
58
59	[[spoiler: He is secretly a Pooka sent by Gabriel Prosser to watch over Joselyn and her family. More on him can be found on the Spoiler Characters page.]]
60
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62
63	* BigBrotherMentor: To Flick.
64	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Maybe even too reasonable. He probably shouldn't let Flick get away with as much as she does.
65	* WhileYouWereInDiapers: He babysat Flick when she was a baby and he's not shy about reminding her.
66
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder: Abigail Fellows]]
70
71	The mother of Koren Fellows. Abigail is a bystander who has no idea what Crossroads Academy is really doing with her daughter. [[spoiler: She's also Flick's half-sister. Her birth name is Koren Atherby.]]
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74
75	* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: [[spoiler: Quickly develops this towards Flick. She and Wyatt privately agree to prioritize their little sister's safety over their mother's freedom.]]
76	* GoodIsNotDumb: [[spoiler: Yes, she sees Lies (the character) as just as much of a victim as Pace is. That doesn't mean she expects Lies to be reasonable or nice about things, because she knows full well that Lies is seriously mentally ill.]]
77	* IgnoranceIsBliss: [[spoiler: Because she grew up without knowledge of the supernatural, Abigail has no idea that she's been under surveillance her entire life. She is ''much'' better adjusted than her twin brother Wyatt as a result.]]
78	* InsistentTerminology: [[spoiler: Refuses to refer to Seosten with broken possession powers as Lies.]]
79	* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Like Lincoln Chambers, Abigail doesn't know anything about what kind of school Crossroads Academy really is.
80	** [[spoiler: And she obviously isn't aware of anything regarding her biological parents and siblings, which includes the fact that the aforementioned and probably-younger-than-her Lincoln is technically her stepfather.]]
81	* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler: Abigail is one of Joselyn and Deveron's twins. Her twin brother is Wyatt Rendell, Flick and Ammon are their much younger half-siblings, and Seller is their ancestor.]]
82	* {{Muggle}}
83	* NervesOfSteel: [[spoiler: The crazy, possessed werewolf she's looking for takes her hostage? Abigail doesn't flinch and helps talk Lies down.]]
84	* NotNowKiddo: When she and her husband found ten year old Koren sleeping on the outside trampoline instead of her bed, they dismissed the episode as a nightmare that drove her outside and don't listen to her protests that someone was in the house with her. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because they're Bystanders and incapable of remembering anything supernatural like the man who terrorized Koren. And they did take steps to alleviate her fears because they could see how terrified she was.
85	* SaveTheVillain: [[spoiler: Is dead-set on saving Pace AND Lies.]]
86	* SeparatedAtBirth: [[spoiler: The Committee separated Abigail from her twin brother to hide them from their father and the rebellion.]]
87
88
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[WMG: Independent Heretics]]
92
93	[[folder: Haiden Moon]]
94
95	A former Eden's Garden Heretic of the Lost Scar tribe who left the Garden to start a family [[spoiler: with the Seosten, Sariel. They had twins together]]. Haiden was separated from said family when a Stranger attempted to abduct his wife and he interrupted. This stopped the Stranger, but also scattered him, his wife, and their son across multiple dimensions. Only their daughter, Vanessa, was left behind on Earth.
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98
99	* {{Animorphism}}: Haiden is capable of transforming into a large hawk.
100	* CoolSword: A black and crimson transforming one.
101	* GoodParents: In addition to being a wonderful father for Vanessa and Tristan he [[spoiler: immediately decides Tabbris is his daughter in every way that matters, though she's not his flesh and blood.]]
102	* HappilyMarried: Formerly. He's still married, but he hasn't seen his wife in a decade so it's not really all that happy.
103	* InterspeciesRomance: He's a human, his wife is Seostenic.
104	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The Seosten banishment also wiped his memories of his family. He knew he had one but couldn't remember anything more. [[spoiler: Vanessa showing up by projection in Interlude 29B restores his memories of her, and when she mentions Tristan and Uncle Apollo the rest come back.]]
105	* TheMaidenNameDebate: His original last name was Holt, but he gave it up in favor of Moon when he got married.
106	* MindOverMatter: Haiden has some telekinetic capabilities, as his interlude has him raising the floor and flinging large rocks around.
107	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Breaking the object that was dragging his wife into another dimension ''did'' interfere with her abduction. But it had the side effect of flinging everyone in the room other than Vanessa into separate dimensions, including the abductor.
108	* PapaWolf: Haiden just wants his family back. If he needs to butcher his way through the Seosten civilization to undo the spell keeping them apart? He'll do that.
109	* ParentalAbandonment: He and his wife were forcibly separated from their children and each other when they were flung across separate worlds.
110	* ParryingBullets: He's good enough at this to [[AttackReflector return bullet fire]].
111	* SuperToughness: He can NoSell concrete breaking punches.
112	* SwissArmyWeapon: Haiden's sword has gun barrels built into it, which are usually hidden.
113	** ShotgunsAreJustBetter: One of its forms is a double barreled shotgun with the blade as a bayonet.
114	* TakenForGranite: Another one of his powers is to encase people with stone shells.
115	* {{Teleportation}}: One of his powers.
116	* TookALevelInBadass: Haiden Moon before the Seosten messed with his family: Normal heretic. Haiden Moon afterwords? Unstoppable killing machine slaughtering his way across an interstellar empire.
117	* UntoUsASonAndDaughterAreBorn: He and Sariel had twins, Vanessa and Tristan.]]
118	* WarriorTherapist: Downplayed, but acted as a stand in for his wife. It's difficult to get therapy while hiding from an alien conspiracy.
119	* WouldNotHurtAChild: Even back when he was a party line Heretic he couldn't bring himself to kill Alter kids.
120	* YouFightLikeACow: He's not shy about carrying on a conversation with his enemies, although he remains relatively quiet while actually doing something.
121
122	[[/folder]]
123
124	[[folder: Nicholas Petan]]
125
126	A Natural Troll Heretic who is not affiliated with Crossroads or Eden's Garden. He's somehow amassed a group of Alter followers and has abducted the Meregan children. [[spoiler: He's also the noble from Flick's Edge vision who saved Gaia and Seller, as well as an ancestor of Haiden Moon's.]]
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129
130	* AllTrollsAreDifferent: Nicholas became a Heretic when his blood was mixed with a troll's, giving him a neat laundry list of powers such as:
131	** A HealingFactor.
132	** [[TheImmune Immunity to disease]] and [[TheAgeless aging]].
133	** SuperStrength
134	** [[NighInvulnerability Resistance to physical damage]] ([[KryptoniteFactor other than]] [[KillItWithFire fire]]).
135	** The ability to [[AdaptiveAbility adapt]] to his environment to withstand extreme temperatures or a lack of oxygen.
136	** The power to [[SupernaturalFearInducer induce fear]] in a target.
137	* ArchEnemy: The Seosten.
138	* BadassBoast: His first introduction involves him giving one of these.
139	--> '''Approach in turns or as one, beasts. For all that the order of your attacks shall change is the picture your blood will paint upon the ground.'''
140	* BadassNormal: The guy could kick the asses of a group of Alters single-handed ''before'' he became a Heretic. He later upgraded to BadassAbnormal when he was buried alive with the body of a dead [[AllTrollsAreDifferent troll]].
141	* BewareTheQuietOnes: Petan doesn't talk or shout or yell in combat. He just systematically silently kills whoever is dumb enough to fight him.
142	* InstantRunes: Averted, his teleport spell requires him to draw a diagram manually, then imbue it.
143	* OneManArmy: Casually tears apart numerous Fomorian monsters in his interlude.
144	* PapaWolf: To his descendants.
145	* SquishyWizard: Oh so averted. Petan does basically everything he does with magic, but one of his powers that's NOT Heretical magic is troll derived regeneration and toughness.
146
147	[[/folder]]
148
149	[[folder: Harrison Fredericks]]
150
151	The first Heretic to create cyberforms, the animal [[RobotBuddy Robot Buddies]] some Heretics have as weapons. He's not the only person who can build them, but his designs are very difficult to reverse engineer and he makes about seventy percent of them.
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154
155	* GadgeteerGenius: Averted. He brought the cyberforms to Heretic society, but he didn't actually invent them. The ability to build them is a power he inherited.
156	* ReclusiveArtist: Ever since he returned from the expedition where he picked up the power to build cyberforms. Nowadays he sells his creations to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they're part of Crossroads or Eden's Garden.
157	* SoleSurvivor: Not quite ''sole'', because there was one other survivor, but Fredericks and one companion are the only ones to have come back from an expedition to another dimension. He claims it was another reality's earth.
158	* ShoutOut: It's implied that the alternate-reality human "witch" he killed to gain his ability was a [[{{Literature/Worm}} Tinker]].
159
160	[[/folder]]
161
162	[[folder: King Arthur]]
163
164	The legendary leader of the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur was a natural Dragon-Heretic who was betrayed and apparently murdered a very long time ago. One of his knights, Percival, now sits on the Crossroads Committee. Some of the others joined together to form a new group to continue honoring his legacy. [[spoiler: That group eventually became the Atherby Clan, Flick's maternal ancestors.]]
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167
168	* TheDreaded: Fossor is scared of this guy coming back.
169	* {{Excalibur}}: He wouldn't be King Arthur without his CoolSword. It was forged from the tooth he ripped out of the dragon he became a Heretic from.
170	** Known powers include hitting possessing Seosten without hitting the host.
171	* HappilyAdopted: Raised by Nimue/[[spoiler: Athena/Auriel]] after his hometown was burned down by a dragon.
172	* LivingMacguffin: Not him, but the mysterious "Key of Merlin," known by some to be one of Flick's classmates, that seems to be connected to him. Even Fossor and the Seosten don't want to risk endangering whoever it is.
173	* {{Myth/Merlin}}: Merlin was actually an invention of Arthur, a second identity he took on and used when he needed to.
174	* NoSell: Arthur is immune to magic. All magic. This is exactly as broken as it sounds.
175	* OnlyMostlyDead: Gabriel Prosser is hesitant to say that Arthur is dead, and statements by Fossor about letting sleeping dragons lie hint that he may be able to return to life.
176	** [[spoiler: Athena doesn't call him dead, merely saying that "his power is broken".]]
177	* OneManArmy: Quite literally. In his final battle Puriel needed to use an entire army to take him out AFTER he was exhausted from fighting Chayyiel. If he hadn't fought Chayyiel first a Seosten Empire army would have been just a speed bump.
178	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Being a Dragon-Heretic made Arthur one of the single most powerful Heretics to ever live. WordOfGod states that Arthur would be stronger than Gabriel Prosser.
179
180	[[/folder]]
181	[[folder: Lancelot/Guenevere]]
182
183	Lancelot and Guenevere are actually the same woman - King Arthur's wife and greatest knight, who used the Lancelot identity to fight.
184	[[spoiler: She's currently infiltrating Crossroads as Harper Hayes.]]
185
186	* BattleCouple: With Arthur.
187	* HappilyAdopted: Was raised by the [[spoiler: rogue Seosten Michael]] after being abandoned.
188	* MasterOfDisguise: She's used a lot of identities over the years.
189	* OneWomanArmy: The only tricky part about wiping out a [[spoiler:Seosten]] kill squad going after [[spoiler: Avalon]] was doing it without there being any sign at all of the battle.
190	* SuperReflexes: Why didn't she get hit with Ammon's command voice? Because she realized what he was doing and cast a teleport spell to get out of range in the time it took him to say "My name is Ammon, hurt-".
191	* UndyingLoyalty: To Arthur. He always comes first for her.
192	* WholesomeCrossdresser
193
194	[[/folder]]
195
196	[[WMG: The Ba Xian]]
197
198	The [[Myth/ChineseMythology Eight Immortals of Chinese Legend]] are essentially the Chinese equivalent to the Committee. The name of each immortal now functions as a title, with each successor taking on the identity.
199
200	[[folder: In General]]
201
202	* DecadentCourt: The competition among Chinese Heretics to join the Ba Xian is absolutely deadly, with assassinations and blackmail common, and there are potential members that WouldHurtAChild.
203	* {{Foil}}: To the Committee and Victors. The Ba Xian lack the BlackAndWhiteInsanity of the leaders of Crossroads and Eden's Garden [[spoiler: because they developed outside of Seostenic influence]], so they don't assume all nonhumans are evil. At the same time, their organization is significantly more prone to internal conflict than their Western counterparts.
204	* LegacyCharacter: All of them. The original immortals weren't truly immortal. They could be killed, and they knew it, so they set their identities up as titles to be passed on to new generations.
205	[[/folder]]
206
207	[[folder: Liang]]
208
209	A relatively recent addition to the Ba Xian. He joined at some point in the last seventeen years or so. Before that he was well known as a likely successor to his predecessor. He is currently missing.
210
211	[[spoiler: He's Shiori's biological father. It was the danger brought on by his position as a likely successor that led him and Jiao to give her up as a baby.]]
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214
215	* BadassInDistress: He's missing at the start of the story, with his loved ones suspecting that he's been taken by his enemies. [[spoiler: Jiao is searching for him in order to reunite him with their daughter.]]
216	* InterspeciesRomance: With a vampire. Although the Ba Xian don't see human-Akharu as another species, so he doesn't think of their relations such.
217	* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: Once gave up his own child in order to protect her from his enemies.
218
219	[[/folder]]
220
221	[[WMG: The Hunahpu and Xbalanque]]
222
223	A tradition of Heretics that started with [[UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations the ancient Mayans]]. They were founded by the Hun and Vocub Hunahpu, legendary figures of Myth/MayanMythology. They're split into two branches. The Hunahpu focus on physical fighting and hunting, while the Xbalanque are based around magic. Their territory encompasses all of Central America and most of Mexico.
224
225	[[folder: The Hunahpu]]
226
227	Named after Hun Hunaphu, this branch focuses primarily on hunting and physical prowess.
228
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230
231	* HunterOfMonsters
232
233	[[/folder]]
234
235	[[folder: The Xbalanque]]
236
237	Named for Vocub Hunahpu, this branch focuses primarily on the use and development of magic.
238

Context Characters / HereticalEdgeBystandersAndIndependentHeretics