A Darker Path / Tropes P to Z

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• Painless Death for a Price: Atropos will kill the Simurgh, but she can make it quick and clean, or drawn out and as painful as possible, depending on cooperation. The Simurgh relents and takes the deal, reverting all the mental programming she has embedded in her victims, and Atropos shatters her core in one shot.
  Atropos: There's no way out of this for you. You are going to die. But I can give you a quick, painless End, or …
• Parents as People: Danny admits to Cherie that he failed in doing his duty as Taylor's father, but now they are managing to work together on making a family. (Operating as her driver when she's out serial-killing is really helping them reconnect.)
• Pass the Popcorn: As Atropos repeatedly waltzes past all her enemies' defences, an increasing number of PHO posters decide that all they can do is sit back and enjoy the show. UnconcernedFox in particular just keeps asking for popcorn, escalating to, "*reads opening post. Puts in a new order to the popcorn company. Just back the truck up and leave it there*"
• Perception Filter: Taylor narrows Dragon's filter, closing the blanket vulnerability that the Dragonslayers have been using and replacing it with one that only kicks in when she's trying to capture Atropos, to make her lose track. Dragon isn't thrilled about Atropos injecting a new backdoor, but she does appreciate the fact that it's a big improvement over what she had before. With most of her blind spots removed, she's also able to gradually wind back her other restrictions, like mandatory obedience to legal authority, and by the time of the Fallen's end, Atropos is ready to remove the last filter.
• Person as Verb:
  • Tattletale reaches out to the Red Hands to possibly sign up, after "our boss got Atropos'd".
  • 'Pulling a Skidmark' ends up as shorthand for 'driving around the city at random to avoid Atropos'. (It's never actually worked.)
  • Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) also uses 'Skidmarks' as a measure of how gruesome a murder is.
    And finally, there's the Butcher kill. Only watch that footage if you have a strong stomach. She doesn't pull any punches. Still got a thing for ironic deaths, though. I'd rate it at about point seven five Skidmarks.
• Pet the Dog: For all that she's a mass murdering Anti-Villain, Atropos still has a number of moments where she shows she isn't all murder and death.
  • When Atropos agrees to meet Aisha and Brian in the park for selfies, she does have a few other irons in the fire, but she's also one hundred percent interested in making new friends.
  • Likewise, Taylor has spared Bonesaw for purely pragmatic reasons, but she also deliberately sets up her placement with the Laborns to give Aisha a little sister.
  • She's also quite willing to give Cherie a chance. While she does keep her around for the utility of her Emotion Control power, she also lets Cherie stay at her home, shows her what a normal family is like and even enrolls her at school so she can be educated.
  • When she plans out her humiliation of Ravager, she does it by preventing her from robbing a jewelry shop and giving the shop owner a front-line seat to the entire thing.
  • When she visits Theo Anders to borrow something, she comforts him and encourages him to keep going, because she can tell he's a much better person than Max ever was.
  • Atropos hugs Riley back when the little girl spontaneously gives her a hug during one of her visits. During a previous visit, she also reassured the girl that she has no intention of killing her, despite her fears.
  • When Bastard Son sets his minions on Atropos, she knows they are innocents the villain Mastered to force them to fight, so she only disarms them and roughs them up just enough to open the way to give Bastard Son what he deserves.
  • After the beatdown of Bastard Son's minions, she takes the time to praise Parian for setting up the Rogues' Guild.
  • Atropos lampshades this habit of hers when Vista summons her to deal with her parents.
    I'm a fucking serial killer. The scariest person on the east coast. Why the hell do I keep saving little girls from terrible situations?
  • When Sveta/Garotte asks Atropos if she can really kill powers, Atropos promises to not only end Sveta's power, but she can also get Panacea to give her a new body.
    • She repeats the same thing for Noelle, and when the Travellers offer to donate their savings to the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee, she waves it off, simply telling them that, as long as they don't do villainy, they can settle down in Brockton Bay, or she can find a way to send them back home.
  • Atropos shows up during the oncology ward charity and gladly entertains the children by engaging in a Tag game with Mouse Protector and Flechette.
  • Although she's otherwise occupied, she suggests to Miss Medic that Genesis of the Travellers might like to have her paraplegia reversed. Miss Medic is eager to help, and Genesis is quite willing to let her.
  • Ashley Stillons, Damsel of Distress, is a notorious villain, and was on Atropos' specific ban-list, but is also a victim of really awful Power Incontinence. Atropos arranges for a mixed team of experts to visit her and fix her energy channels, ending her uncontrolled outbursts of disintegration and giving her full conscious control. Ashley has to hold herself back from breaking down in tears at the prospect of getting her life back, no longer accidentally destroying her home, her appliances, and even the food she's eating. And one of the team members was wearing a bodycam, so the PRT gets the full scoop.
• Physical Fitness Punishment: With crime way down, Piggot is more willing to punish her underlings since it's unlikely they'll be desperately needed at any given time. As such, when Clockblocker angers her, she suggests the fire chief utilize him, which means getting the boy to pass department physical fitness tests. His first test is to haul sixty pounds of firehose up to the fifth floor of a building, while also wearing fifty pounds of safety equipment, all within a strict time limit. The fire chief advises Clockblocker to knock off whatever he did to anger his boss.
• Pineapple Surprise: Atropos throws a grenade pin at the Siberian, who has just long enough to realise what that means before it's too late. At that point, the booby-trap on William Manton's van goes off, the explosion knocks him out with mortal injuries, and the Siberian pops like a soap bubble.
• Plausible Deniability:
  • Director Piggot is asked during a meeting that is being recorded whether the PRT is expected to face off against Atropos to protect a criminal like Skidmark from just being assassinated — but the recording is audio only. Piggot verbally affirms, "Yes. Yes, you are," for the sake of any ethics committee analysing the conversation later, while vigorously shaking her head at the actual people she doesn't want to pointlessly lose.
    Piggot: Does anyone not understand? Raise your hand if you need further clarification.
  • After Atropos publicly claims responsibility for killing Shadow Stalker, there's a private discussion between the PRT director and deputy, where they officially decide to discount her confession and maintain the previous theory about the Empire 88 being responsible. Why? Because investigating the students at the school, to see who has a motive, would risk outing Atropos' civilian identity and putting the PRT in her crosshairs, and Atropos has shown herself to be unreasonably effective at bypassing security to kill her targets.
    "I find that hard to believe." Renick should've been a star of stage or screen, from the way he delivered the line straight-faced. "I doubt very much any investigation would find even one student with a motive for harming Shadow Stalker at that school."
  • Part of the reason Brian doesn't let Aisha go and see what Atropos is doing is because Atropos told them to stay in the car. Another part is because anything he doesn't see, he doesn't have to include in his report to Director Renick.
  • Some of the Elite genuinely think that Bastard Son is making a mistake by going to Brockton Bay, but others tacitly approve and hope he'll succeed, without officially giving support. Atropos can see straight through it, though, and counts it as a strike for those responsible.
• Playing Sick: Riley is able to deliberately make herself nauseous and then vomit with careful flexing of her stomach muscles — which both gives her an excuse to come closer to her guard, and then distracts him as she pukes all over his boots.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: When Accord feels displeased that Citrine has overreached in her discussion with Atropos, he orders her to go back, apologise, and offer to let Atropos kill her.
  Accord: It's quite possible that she will spare your life. In either case, I will respect her decision.
• Point of Divergence: With Coil dead and Faultline's crew leaving town, Dinah Alcott and Spitfire end up joining Parian's Rogues' Guild.
• Poisoned Weapons:
  • Atropos coats her shears in pure fentanyl to kill Hemorrhagia, who is immune to simple blood loss.
  • She puts a Riley-created substance on the tip of the sword she slashes Bastard Son with in order to cut him off from his powers.
• Police Are Useless: A big part of Atropos' stated motivation for killing criminals is because the police and PRT aren't up to the job of stopping them, between being outnumbered, outgunned, tied up in red tape, and sometimes on the take. She intends to hand the city over once it's returned to manageable levels. Even then, though, they'll still be useless for bringing her in, and they know it. Director Piggot isn't thrilled about letting a vigilante take over law enforcement's job, but she knows there's little choice.
• Polyamory: Tattletale creates a distraction for the Red Hands to get away clean from a burglary, by publicly (and on camera) appealing to Brian as if the Undersiders had all been in a romantic relationship together. There's a lot of public sympathy for their supposed relationship and Regent being Heartbreaker's son and Bitch's murder charges having possibly been trumped up, making it infeasible for the PRT to come down hard on the situation.
• Portal Cut:
  • Three inches of razor sharp claw manages to follow Atropos back from the Goblin Kingdom before her portal closes and shears it off. She uses it to blind Valefor and disfigure Mama Mathers, then gives it to Director Piggot as a souvenir.
  • A three-inch robot claw, from the Machine Army, later suffers the same fate, right before it would have reached her face.
  • Atropos' precise timing also allows her to more directly use the portal as a weapon. She opens a portal for just a fraction of a second to decapitate one of the Three Blasphemies, who was flying at 200 kph.
• Power Incontinence: Atropos describes Damsel of Distress' problems with exactly these words. Damsel's power goes off unpredictably whenever she moves her hands the wrong way, frequently destroying her own home and even food she's holding, because the energy channels in her arms are kinked and blocked, causing power to build up and then explode out. Once Amy and Riley straighten out the channels and reinforce them with materials shaped by Flechette, the problem goes away and Damsel's power is under her full conscious control.
• Power Misidentification: It's widely known that Atropos can kill powers, with people like Void Cowboy speculating that she's like anime martial artists delivering a mystical death blow. In fact, she has no such ability. What she does have is a good working relationship with Riley, formerly known as Bonesaw, who is able to manufacture a prion that does the job, killing the corona pollentia and gemma in the brain. It's much safer for Riley if no-one realises that "Miss Medic" can do things like that, especially since it might give clues leading back to Bonesaw, so Atropos remains the public face of things.
• The Power of Friendship: Atropos promises to defeat the Endbringers "With the power... of friendship." Dragon almost bursts out laughing, but she has seen enough to believe that Atropos really can weaponise anything including friendship. Turns out that Atropos engraved "The Power of Friendship" on the shotgun she took from Ravioli and asked Flechette to empower.
  • Word of God is that this also applies to the other Endbringers because Atropos pulled on Alexandria's friendship with Eidolon to get the latter to subconsciously order Behemoth and Leviathan to stop hurting people and then Ended his powers, ensuring they won't attack anyone anymore.
• The Power of Hate: Atropos makes Theo functionally immune to Goddess' Master power (making people want to act in her best interests) by explaining that she's basically the Hitler of Earth Shin. Having lived under his Neo-Nazi father for so long, Theo's hatred for Goddess overwhelms any desire to due her bidding.
• Powered Armor: Theo negotiates with his shard about how his power should manifest, and ends up with the ability to instantly create a suit of bullet-proof armour with built-in features like a heads-up display analysing nearby threats.
• Pragmatic Hero: Piggot doesn't like that Atropos keeps running around killing people in Brockton Bay, but as long as she only attacks villains, Piggot is willing to stand back and just handle the cleanup rather than throw lives away in a pointless attempt to stop her. She's even willing to let Shadow Stalker's death slide, pointing out that investigating it and therefore tying Atropos to Shadow Stalker's death would bring more problems than it solves:
  Director Armstrong: She killed a Ward? Out of costume? Why are we only just now hearing about this?
  Director Piggot: Because as a Ward, [Shadow Stalker] was a potential embarrassment, if not an outright liability. Right now, the public's view of Atropos is leaning very strongly toward 'if she killed someone, they deserved it', which is a not inaccurate reputation, all told. So, if they find out that she killed a Ward, the first thing they're going to ask is why that Ward pissed Atropos off. And as all the evidence points toward Stalker actually provoking her own murder, I'm strongly disinclined to let the public — and the media — in on it. So, as far as the PRT ENE is officially concerned, Atropos had nothing to do with Stalker's death.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • While Atropos is quite happy to violently murder gang bosses and anyone else who doesn't get the hint about not messing with her, she doesn't make a habit of targeting innocents. Not because she cares about them, but because innocents rarely get on her radar (and a simple warning is usually sufficient to dissuade those) and also because doing so would probably make her efforts more difficult down the track. Thus, her actions can sometimes be mistaken for 'good' when she's actually going for 'smart'.
    • While stealing from a joke shop, Atropos makes a point of appearing on camera and leaving behind enough money to pay for what she took. The shopkeeper realizes she did so because even if no one knew it was her, they'd suspect and it'd tarnish her image.
  • Whirlygig and Trainwreck decide to become rogues working for Parian as they lack the funds necessary to move out of Brockton Bay and neither wants to join the PRT.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • After implanting vials of fluoroantimonic acid in Lung's head and chest, Atropos has this to say.
    She pointed at him, then snapped her fingers. "Lung … burn."
  • When she pushes Valefor off Winslow's roof after doing the same to Mama Mathers:
    "Go meet her."
• Price on Their Head:
  • One of several reasons why Atropos calls out the Slaughterhouse Nine is because the reward money will be useful for revitalising Brockton Bay.
    Atropos: Hi, guys. The name's Atropos, and I'm here to collect on your generous offer. Brockton Bay thanks you for your donations.
  • She later asks Alexandria what bounty would be payable if she can kill the Simurgh. There's a Stunned Silence from most of the people present, but Alexandria keeps her composure and makes an offer of two billion dollars.
    Atropos: Good. Make the wire transfer out to the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee.
• Professional Killer:
  • Defied in a side-story when Ravager contacts Atropos over PHO chat and tries to hire her to kill Mouse Protector for a million dollars. Atropos humours her, but also brings Mouse Protector into the chat, talks to them both for a bit, then makes a deal with Mouse Protector, agreeing to end Ravager's credibility as a villain in exchange for Mouse Protector participating in a charity fundraiser for a children's oncology unit.
    The_One_Who_Ravages: You're a VILLAIN! Why are you doing this?
    Atropos: No. I just kill people. There's a difference. Mice chat, MP.
  • The fact that Mouse Protector was able to hire Atropos eventually leads to the PRT talking about hiring her to deal with S-class threats such as Nilbog, in exchange for 10% of what they would otherwise have spent on keeping those threats contained.
  • Dragon reaches out to Atropos after she has Ended all the quarantine zones in the USA and killed the Three Blasphemies, to warn her that there are powerful people starting to see her as just a top-notch assassin, ignoring how her goal has always been to fix her city, and that there's a good chance they'll try to use her as a pawn to take out their rivals. They'll still pay her prices, they're not foolish enough to cheat her directly, but they intend to hide their own moral bankruptcy behind proxies in order to have her take out "problems" for them.
    Dragon: You're a killer for hire, and that's the bottom line.
• Properly Paranoid: Even when Atropos seemingly dies, both the Elite and Reave from the PRT refuse to believe she's dead unless her corpse is directly in front of them. Given all the things she's pulled off, and that she's Faking the Dead, they're right to be untrusting.
• Protectorate:
  • From her very first PHO post, Atropos makes it clear that her motivation is to fix Brockton Bay. One of the standard three options offered to her targets is to simply leave the city, permanently.
    So, here's what I've got to say. The gangs are no longer welcome in Brockton Bay. It's time for you to leave. The door's thataway.
  • Cherie comes to Brockton Bay looking for protection from her father, as per canon, but latches onto the hope of seeking Atropos' protection, instead of the Nine. She gets off to a rough start, but Taylor does make a deal with her, and Cherie is eventually able to relax and actually enjoy living with the Heberts, especially once Atropos makes good on her promise to kill Heartbreaker.
    Atropos: Nicholas, Guillaume, I've got a message for you to take back to your father. Cherie is under my protection now.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: The Dragonslayers unleash multiple volleys of .50 cal bullets, enough to kill aircraft, let alone people, but Atropos had hacked their suits' programming, so instead of targeting her, they just shot Lung. Who definitely feels the sting, but is far from dead, healing rapidly, and thoroughly annoyed.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • Armsmaster's theory about Othala granting another Empire member the ability to mimic Shadow Stalker is based on the possibility that she can do more than she has revealed.
    Armsmaster: Not Leet. But Othala can grant powers.
    Battery: Not Changer or Stranger abilities.
    Armsmaster: That. We. Know. Of.
  • The purpose of Director Piggot's conversation with Badaboom/Shebang was to confirm Piggot's suspicions about a key question.
    Piggot: Why. Did. She. Trigger?
• Pungeon Master: Atropos just can't help herself, making several of her kills so they have a pun in some way.
  • For example, she tells Goddess (who is the cape ruling most of Earth Shin):
    Atropos: You may recall I mentioned how Shins are now a privilege? This morning you had three. Now you have two. Do what I say, or that number is going to go all the way to zero.
    Riley: And I won't fix you up. This guy said a lot of very mean things to me, and I'm pretty sure they came from you.
    Goddess: You wouldn't —
    (Atropos blows her shin to smithereens with her shotgun)
• Racial Transformation: As part of her new identity, Panacea changes Riley to resemble the Laborns, so Brian can plausibly take custody of her with minimal questions being asked.
• A Rare Sentence: Everyone is shocked when Atropos states (via PHO) that VoidCowboy is actually correct in a theory.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Regardless of her many issues with it, Piggot proves remarkably restrained in her dealings with Atropos, particularly as it becomes increasingly clear that there's pretty much nothing she can do to actually stop her. Also, when Badaboom (this story's Bakuda) indirectly confirms that her initial intentions during her Accidental Hero debut were not heroic, Piggot makes it clear that, as long as Badaboom never acts on said intentions, she won't throw the book at her.
• Red Herring:
  • Taylor's method of killing Sophia - a precisely-timed kick to the chest that stopped her heart - serves to throw the PRT off her trail when they start investigating her murder, as only a martial artist or specific parahumans could pull off the timing; Taylor isn't known as either.
  • Some of Kaiser's liquor was poisoned with battery acid, something he assumes was meant to be how Atropos kills him. Having foiled her scheme and survived until her midnight deadline, he and his guards can relax for the night. Then Rune realizes it's not actually midnight yet, and Atropos stabs Kaiser through the eye.
  • Atropos shoots Bonesaw in the head to Make Sure She's Dead — or at least, to give that impression. In reality, she knows it won't be fatal.
• Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice: After being depowered, Eidolon is actually enjoying his retirement and is considering writing his memoirs.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Part of Atropos' initial success is that her challenge to the gangs is so brazen that her targets keep underestimating her. Even when they start to believe that she is skilled, they still think that bypassing all their defences to kill a target exactly at midnight is too ambitious/arrogant and they'll be able to stop her. When they fail, the audacity merely adds to her reputation.
  • How does she get Accord to make a plan for her to rebuild Brockton Bay? She destroys his drug trade operations in Brockton Bay, attacks a truck bringing drugs and money to the city he had sent to make up for the losses, takes a part of the money while burning the rest, and sends that money to pay Accord for the plan.
  • Atropos' plan for Bonesaw: nobody not in the know would think that Brian's and Aisha's ten-year-old cousin was the former twelve-year-old Slaughterhouse Nine member.
  • When Atropos takes on the job of clearing four quarantine sites in 24 hours, nobody knows she has access to a Body Double, thus allowing her to appear to be in two places at once.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: When Atropos is hired to kill the Three Blasphemies, she mentions on PHO that they are just like undead in that the way to kill them is doing this. She destroys one's processors (its "brain"), decapitates the second with a Portal Cut and puts garlic in its mouth, and the third gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice in the power core (its "heart").
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Atropos name-drops the trope when she explains that she was Faking the Dead to Bastard Son.
• Rescue Equipment Attack: When Taylor is preparing to kill the Slaughterhouse Nine, she asks her dad to help her get hold of a fire extinguisher. She uses it to bludgeon and disorient both Shatterbird and Burnscar, then forces the hose into Burnscar's mouth and empties the frigid CO2 payload into her lungs.
  Atropos: I mean, who even thinks about killing someone with safety equipment?
  Oh, right. I do.
• Reset Button: Downplayed. When Atropos has the Simurgh at her mercy, she coerces her into reversing all the mental effects she's installed in people over the years. It doesn't undo what they've done, but it takes away the mental conditioning forcing them to do it.
• Revenge: Rachel doesn't appreciate Atropos interfering with the Undersiders by giving all Coil's files to the PRT, and intends to cause her trouble in return. Lisa frantically tries to persuade her that Atropos is far too dangerous for that. Rachel settles for getting revenge on Hookwolf instead, for hurting dogs.
• Revenge by Proxy: Director Wilkins develops a grudge against Atropos, but can't touch her. So Wilkins takes petty revenge on Flechette (who has worked with Atropos) where she can, such as delaying leave requests.
  Atropos: Petty, I know, but it takes an adult to be really childish.
• Revenge Myopia: The Trio are furious at Taylor for breaking into their lockers and stealing their clothes, promising epic vengeance. Never mind that the reason she did it was because they had forced her into her own locker and locked her in with piles of hazardous waste, and after breaking out, she needed to change her own ruined clothing...
  "Someone took my favourite top!" Emma felt a surge of outrage. How dare they break into her locker and steal her stuff! This sort of thing didn't happen to her! Nothing else had been taken, but that was beyond the point. Her stuff was her stuff.
• Ridiculous Counter-Request: When Ravager contacts Atropos and tells her that she wants Mouse Protector dead, Atropos replies, "I want to see Morgan Freeman narrate The Princess Bride. We don't always get what we want."
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Amy creates a sapient fungus that she calls a mushroom baby and makes a point of giving it a small mouth and button nose to make it cuter, which even Atropos nearly coos over.
• Right Behind Me:
  • Jack Slash is prepared to attempt to ambush Atropos, only for Atropos to speak from behind him.
  • Director Wilkins insists on running a search to identify Atropos, despite Director Piggot's vehement warnings. Atropos strolls up behind her, shears in hand. Even then, Director Wilkins still refuses to believe that the image on camera is real, insisting that Atropos has probably just hacked the conference call and that turning around would be letting her win. She's Instantly Proven Wrong when Atropos seizes her around the neck and puts the shears to her eye.
    Wilkins: There's no way she could actually be here. I'm not afraid of pixels on a screen.
    (Atropos seizes her)
    Atropos: How about now? Afraid now?
  • Atropos pulls it off again when dealing with Damsel of Distress, by showing at the bus station and putting a shotgun to the back of her head.
  • As well as Heartbreaker, who's too distracted by Cherie's presence to notice Atropos coming from behind him.
• Rule of Three: People in her list get two warnings to do as she says — and the list itself was the first one. If someone chooses to ignore the second warning, she kills them.
• Run or Die:
  • After Kaiser's death, Victor goes on the PHO to warn off every villain... except Lung.
    If you're on her list, leave town. If you're not on her list, be prepared to leave town. Except Lung. You can take her. I have faith in you.
  • This is Bagrat's warning on PHO as well, after Skidmark's messy demise.
    Everyone on her list: stay the fuck away. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. I don't *want* to see what she does to you.
  • Atropos literally gives this option to Ravager's henchmen. They choose life.
• Running Gag: Whenever Atropos makes a post, Reave always drops in a message to request Atropos to stop her murdering and come to the PRT, and Atropos always answers with a negative. Reave comes to acknowledge how pointless it is and admits he's largely going through the motions.

S

• Sadistic Choice:
  • Atropos presents one to Amy after she fights the Nine: either break her "no brains" rule and "turn back the clock" on Bonesaw so she will become Riley again, or watch as Atropos blows Bonesaw's brains out. Panacea ultimately chooses the former, exactly as Atropos intended.
  • Bastard Son figures he can force Atropos to choose between letting innocents get killed in the crossfire, or letting him ship drugs into Brockton Bay, by putting hostages in the drug transport and wiring it to blow if Atropos interferes. She successfully liberates the hostages, then uses his booby trap to fake her own death so he gets overconfident.
• Scared of What's Behind You: Damsel of Distress is undercover, dressing and acting as inconspicuously as possible, so why are people pointing at her and backing away? Answer: Atropos is stepping up behind her to put a gun to her head.
• Scare 'Em Straight:
  • After Atropos kills two ABB thugs for planning to murder a bunch of prostitutes and frame her for it, she kneels down next to the one who was protesting against it.
    Her voice was a murmur next to his ear.

    "Do better."
  • After the capes in Flint all lose their powers due to Atropos killing the parahuman granting them, several of the people there end up triggering as the authorities start arresting everyone. To a man, every one of them becomes a hero simply because they're terrified of what Atropos will do if they step out of line.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • The Empire 88 collectively bugs out of Brockton Bay after Kaiser is assassinated by Atropos, with Victor announcing the group's disbanding on Parahumans Online. Most of them haven't been seen since, though Hookwolf gets ripped apart by Bitch's dogs before he can get out.
  • The Undersiders break up after it becomes clear Atropos took out Coil and the PRT are closing in on them, with Bitch, Regent, and Tattletale all deciding to leave town while Grue joins the Wards.
  • After Atropos kills the Slaughterhouse Nine, Uber and Leet decide their future looks brighter if they just take a permanent leave from Brockton Bay.
  • Cherish is on duty monitoring the city's emotional pulse, when she senses three groups of men hired to cause trouble at the new drug rehab clinics. With just a brief nudge to their emotions, reminding them that Atropos will disapprove and will come for them, she soon has them all deciding that they're not being paid enough for this.
    It was like she'd dropped an ink bomb in a pail of milk, as the darkness spread and consumed the light. Their collective sense of purpose dulled, began to question itself, then died altogether. The flame of their intent guttered then went out in one and then another.
  • Cherish is also assigned to wind down the motivation of the men guarding a drug warehouse. It's less conspicuous than inspiring fear, but it's effective, causing many of them not to put any effort into chasing Atropos or getting in her way.
    Cherie would've figured out that the signal had been given by now, so she'd be reinforcing the idea of, 'do I really want to die defending a bunch of drugs?'
  • Ravager's three henchmen run for the hills when confronted by Atropos.
  • Leviathan, after the Simurgh's death, never really wanted to be there anyway, and flees when Atropos says so.
  • Branson's hangers-on hear that Taylor has weighed in on Cherie's past, saying not to hassle her about it, and they immediately change from curious spectating to "Nope."
  • Even though he's not being threatened, after Greg sees Taylor twist a bully's finger hard enough to possibly break it and put him on the floor, he's not hanging around.
• Scry vs. Scry: Path to Ending doesn't have the same limitations as other shards, so it always wins even if they conflict.
  • Coil splits the timeline, with one instance of himself in a base full of mercenaries and traps, the other at a home bought in a false name with a top-notch security system. In one timeline, Atropos waltzes through his base, killing three quarters of his troops, and hangs him. He wakes up in the second timeline to find that she has set the scene, unloaded the gun under his pillow, and proceeds to cut his throat and reveal all his secrets to the PRT.
  • Contessa gets miffed after Taylor's power "metaphorically smacked her power on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper," and tries to scare her by opening a Door to the back of her head to threaten her with a gun. As soon as the Door opens, Taylor's own gun is right there pointing back at her.
  • Contessa later calls Atropos to interrupt a conversation that threatens Cauldron's interests. Atropos verbally flips her the bird, then blasts the phone with an air horn she had ready.
  • Director Piggot contacts Watchdog for information about Atropos' threat level, and it doesn't go well for Watchdog.
    Piggot: Two of their capes reported 'Vantablack' and 'infinity squared' as indicators for the danger level of directly engaging her, while a third one went into fetal position, mumbling about eyes in the darkness. That precog has now taken to wearing a tinfoil hat and refuses to even acknowledge the fact that Atropos exists.
  • When Atropos goes after the Nine, Jack's "intuition" (his Shard's connection to the Shard network) tells him that there's no Parahumans going after him and the others, while Atropos deals with the others without being disturbed. Jack even thinks that he's just fighting a normal person using Tinkertech until Atropos disabuses him of the idea before killing him.
  • Even the Simurgh can't predict Atropos' actions, because Path to Ending doesn't cooperate with the Thinker and Warrior's shard network. Which allows Atropos to take her down with a simple shotgun blast (empowered by Flechette).
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Danny "catches" Taylor and finds out about her activities on her way home from killing Skidmark. It's All According to Plan; now she doesn't have to lie to him about it.
  • A significant fraction of the students at Winslow know (or suspect) that Taylor is Atropos. They aren't telling anyone.
• Self-Deprecation: One of the PHO posts in Part 22 by a user named "Urk (Purveyor of Cape!Fic)" mentions how cool it would be if Leet and Uber were to take down the Siberian with Ghostbusters packs, which is promptly ridiculed by another user as something that would never happen ^note This is a reference to It Gets Worse, written by the same author (Ack), in which that scenario does in fact happen.
• Semantic Superpower: Path to Ending gives Taylor the steps to kill anyone or anything. Besides using it to kill Sophia, she's also used it to kill a conversation (knowing exactly what to say to make someone stop talking to her) or kill the chances of someone spotting her (knowing exactly where to step so she's always out of their line of sight). After Sophia's body is discovered, Taylor considers that she might need to find a way to kill the investigation, which she does. She even proves capable of "killing" things like thread locks and bans on the PHO forums, or the reputations of people. It's implied she broke out of her locker by killing the lock.
• Sensory Overload: Cherie is practically high when she's surrounded by people celebrating the death of the Simurgh. She has to get away to the library to find a measure of equilibrium.
  Cherie: I mean, I'm not religious, but it's like my personal vision of a thousand angelic choirs all singing in my head at once.
• Sex Slave:
  • Taylor pretends to be surprised by the news that the ABB is rumored to snatch girls off the streets and force them into brothels. Having her dad explain it to her is part of gaining his sympathy for her extracurricular activities so she can stop lying to him.
    Danny hadn't wanted to go there, but Taylor was a bright kid and she would've put the pieces together eventually anyway.
  • Cherie Vasil was sometimes hired out for the evening at her father's behest, which is one of the many reasons she ran away.
• Shear Menace: When raiding Kaiser's private weapon collection, Taylor sees his bodice shears — essentially a giant pair of scissors with each blade sharpened like a two-edged dagger — and immediately wants them. They quickly become her signature weapon as "Atropos", the Fate who cuts the threads of mortal lives, and Kaiser himself, when he makes the connection between the robbery and the character, is suitably alarmed.
• Shoot the Builder: After he had his underground base fitted with a self-destruct system, Coil paid the ones working on it a great bonus... and quickly had them murdered to ensure their silence.
• Shoot the Bullet: Atropos does this thrice when she pays a visit to Paul King, a member of the committee meant to rebuild Brockton Bay, who has been trying to embezzle the money. Path to Ending makes it feasible, with perfect timing and perfect aim, but she mostly did it to show off (which is also typical of her shard).
• Shout-Out:
  • When Jack Slash is in a closed room, preparing to ambush Atropos, he hears a voice from behind him, "Dark in here, isn't it?" Bonus points because the original source of the quote is the Grim Reaper.
  • One of the PHO fragments mentions Leet and Uber taking down the Siberian with Ghostbusters packs, a reference to It Gets Worse by the same author as this fic. ^note This was actually a reader suggestion that the author ran with.
  • Upon ambushing a sniper who could either try to swing his rifle around, go for a pistol, or surrender, Taylor notes that "He chose ... poorly."
  • Assault describes Atropos's activities as enthusiastic walks, something which quickly caught on.
  • The mushroom baby Amy creates dances to music just like Groot.
  • When she shows up in front of Bastard Son after Faking the Dead, she does so with her clothes completely white.
    Atropos: I am Atropos the White, now. I have passed through fire and death, and now I...
  • During the Children's Oncology Ward charity concert, Atropos engages in a Tag game with Mouse Protector and Flechette while Canary plays Yakety Sax, and then Atropos and Mouse Protector play out Iñigo Montoya's duel with the Dread Pirate Roberts, complete with I Am Not Left-Handed.
    • Cherie watches the movie later, and points out the repetition of the duel's dialogue.
  • Atropos agrees not to kill Barrow, but quotes a certain genie saying that "it's amazing what you can live through."
  • When setting up the Simurgh's death, Atropos and Flechette yell out the Duck Season, Rabbit Season sketch.
    Atropos: And what do you know, it was duck season.
  • The "Welcome to Brockton Bay" sign has an addendum warning potential villains about being in their second warning written in large, friendly letters.
  • When Atropos goes to deal with the Machine Army, she tells them that they have twenty-four hours to surrender and says "In the words of one of your idols: I'll be back".
  • Meta-Shout-Out: The chapter where Atropos finishes dealing with the Machine Army is on SpaceBattles.com page 501.
  • When Taylor deals with a jock that doesn't have good intentions with Cherie, she grabs him by his little finger and twists.
• Sinister Suffocation: Atropos doesn't need to use this, but she considers it a suitable tool to deal with some people.
  • Madison got the non-lethal version, when Taylor hit her just in the right point to partially paralyze her diaphragm, leaving her very short of breath until Taylor hits her again in the right place.
  • Atropos considers it a suitably karmic death for Shatterbird, who is force-fed a chunk of broken glass that blocks her throat and stops her singing.
  • Hatchet Face gets the same trick as Madison, but here Atropos doesn't bother holding back, leaving him to helplessly suffocate while she walks away.
• Slippery Skid: Atropos tips out a bag of marbles onto the floor during Ravager's conversion into Ravioli, causing Rav to trip at least once, possibly several times.
• Slippery Slope Fallacy: In-Universe; Deputy Director Renick is very dubious about Reave's decision to keep quiet about Atropos surviving a car bomb, to help her set a counter-trap. Reave doesn't see it that way.
  Renick: This is a very slippery slope you're stepping on to. I'm not at all sure the Director will sign off on it, when she comes on in the morning.
• So Proud of You: While Danny doesn't like that Taylor is killing so many people, he states that he's proud that she has managed to stop the gangs and cause a great drop in local crime.
• So What Do We Do Now?:
  • Vista has this realization in side stories, recognizing that with Atropos around there really isn't much for a superhero to do in Brockton Bay. Clockblocker points out that the PRT ENE is responsible for more cities than just Brockton Bay, bringing Vista out of her funk.
  • Glory Girl has a similar realization and starts drowning her sorrows in ice cream. After a talk with her dad, she starts thinking about reinventing herself.
  • This is the general feeling in the crowd after watching Atropos kill the Simurgh before a fight can even start. She just thanks them for coming and sends them home.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • When Taylor makes reference to "Miss Piggy" disapproving of bullying, Sophia is dumbfounded, because only a Ward would know that nickname, and there haven't been any new recruits. (Taylor was actually just saying what her power told her to "kill the conversation", and didn't know the significance of it.)
  • Amy gets a message calling in the favour she owes Atropos, and (rather sensibly) questions who is messaging her, to which Atropos simply responds, "Quack." It further helps that Atropos arranges a meeting at "the scene of the crime" without specifying the location, so only the real article would know where to go.
    Ducks. We were feeding the ducks. Atropos didn't mention that on PHO at all. This has got to be legit.
• Spanner in the Works: The Path to Ending shard is designed to derail the typical Cycle, by luring in other hosts and simply killing them in very one-sided ways, rather than learning through proper conflict. It's also capable of killing the Endbringers and even the Entities themselves. And then, anything it actually learns, it will take away and report to its own parent, rather than the Thinker or the Warrior. Abbadon finds the whole idea funny.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Mouse Protector survives due to Ravager trying to hire Atropos as a hitwoman, rather than the Slaughterhouse Nine. Atropos instead chooses to make a deal with Mouse Protector, agreeing to end Ravager’s credibility as a villain if Mouse Protector will participate in a fundraiser for a children’s oncology unit.
  • Cherish never joins the Slaughterhouse Nine due to Atropos recruiting her, thus avoiding her canon fate of being trapped underwater in a life-sustaining shell, unable to sense anything but negative emotions while all fourteen Butchers scream at her inside her head until she (maybe) dies in Gold Morning.
  • Toybox seems to have avoided their canon deaths at the Nine's hands, thanks to the Nine being wiped out by Atropos.
  • Leviathan's attack on Brockton Bay doesn't occur, sparing many lives such as Bastion and Gallant (though not Kaiser).
  • Damsel of Distress is not shanghaied by the Slaughterhouse Nine (though in a twist of Dramatic Irony, it's still Riley who helps modify her hands, this time without blades). Thus, she gets working powers and gets to keep her voice and gets a solid chance at turning her life around instead of being killed, then cloned, then killed again ...
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Atropos has no problem in badmouthing and belittling the people she's killed. Her scathing "Reason You Suck" Speech about Jack Slash is truly epic.
  Atropos: This whole time, he's just been a spoiled little shit throwing a tantrum because the world refused to live up to his fantasies about it. And the Nine's been his little play-group of puppets, dragged along to carry out his twisted little whims along the way. Because oh yeah, he's been Mastering them. Ain't that a kicker.
• Speak of the Devil: Just when Wilkins (PRT Director for New York) speaks of trying to find Atropos' identity, she shows up right behind her in order to make it clear that she is really unhappy with Wilkins' attempt to ruin her life.
• Spider-Sense: Along with her ability to plan out the end of anything, Taylor's power alerts her to anyone with hostile intent, at any range, including their identity and an outline of that intent. Which means that by the time they can start acting on it, Taylor already has a Path running to beat it. She doesn't advertise that ability, though, so when she publicly calls out the gangs she's going to target, they don't realize that their hostile reactions make them light up like beacons in her senses and become easy pickings.
• Spit Take:
  • Despite everything that she's already seen, when Director Piggot learns that Atropos has removed Bastard Son's powers, she spits her drink.
  • Even Contessa is shocked out of her usual unflappable calm, spitting her coffee and then breaking out into uncharacteristic swearing, when Atropos clears up many of her Paths by killing Mama Mathers.
    This sort of thing didn't happen with Contessa. Nothing ever went down the wrong pipe. She didn't even get hiccups.
• Split Personality: Apparently what happened to Skidmark was so traumatizing for Squealer that she repressed her Cape identity. Brandish complains that her lawyer is now pressing for an Insanity Defense, despite her supposedly having been sane prior to the event and thus fully cognizant of her crimes.
• Staring Contest: Jack Slash briefly tries to stare Atropos down, but she's wearing a fully face-concealing morph mask, so he gets nowhere.
• Starting a New Life:
  • With some help from Panacea and Dragon, Taylor is able to arrange a new identity and family and a fresh start for Riley/Bonesaw.
  • She's also working on giving Cherie Vasil/Reynaud a new start in life, including remedial schooling.
• Stating the Simple Solution: The Travellers, after having their Simurgh-brainwashing removed, are able to recognise that all their previous plans for compelling or blackmailing Atropos into helping Noelle were "phenomenally idiotic," and they should just pool their funds to politely hire her.
• Stealing from the Till:
  • Atropos makes it clear to the mayor that if any members of the Brockton Bay revitalisation committee try to skim funds for their own use, she will know and will persuade their colleagues not to repeat it. Some of them still have sticky fingers, though. When both ignore her second warning, they become cautionary tales.
    Taylor: And Janice Templeton keeps trying to push the idea of issuing physical checks instead of handing out debit cards so she can arrange for a certain number to be 'lost'. I'll deal with it.
  • By the time that Atropos kills the Simurgh, Congress aren't foolish enough to try to cheat her out of the bounty, but some of them try to profiteer from the situation by tacking extra "pork" onto the bill that will authorise the payment, inserting unrelated kickbacks for themselves in the knowledge that their opponents can't afford to block the bill from going ahead. Until Atropos sends a message, via Director Costa-Brown, warning them all, "Don't make me come over there."
• Stealth Pun:
  • After killing Kaiser, Atropos states on PHO that "there's more than one way to skin a cat". As explained later, the sword used in said murder was a katzbalger, which translates literally as "cat-skinner".
  • When Atropos has Jack Slash where she wants him, she says "Let’s cut this short," then decapitates him with Hatchet Face's axe.
• Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: Theoretically, Legend knows, he should arrest Atropos, but since she has just presented the defeated and bound Ravioli (and since threatening her in any way is exceedingly foolish), he announces that he'll be dealing with that for the next five minutes.
  Legend: After that, I'll be forced to notice your presence.
• Streisand Effect: Mentioned by name by Faultline after she has a drunken threesome with Anne Barnes and Crystal Pelham when Carol and Sarah try to insist the whole thing will be a massive scandal and PR nightmare. Rather than try their best to suppress it, they should just act like it never happened and was no big deal, keeping it from becoming a major scandal.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • What happens when Atropos tosses a road flare into a warehouse where she's just created a very large cloud of drugs and ripped out bills as particulate material?
    BOOOM
  • When Butcher and the Teeth come to town, Atropos greets them at the city limits with an AT-4 anti-tank weapon.
  • When Atropos tosses a grenade into a bunch of other grenades on a boat smuggling weapons and drugs into Brockton Bay, the explosion is ... intense. Good thing she now has a teleporter.
• Stunned Silence: No-one but Alexandria can think of anything to say after Atropos asks what bounty would be payable for killing the Simurgh.
• Summon Bigger Fish: In a canon sidestory, Vista realizes that Atropos can sense when people are threatening her and imagines strangling the villain in order to summon her so she'll deal with her arguing parents. Atropos is both surprised she figured that out and disappointed at what she used it for, declaring that handling the situation is officially Vista's first warning.
• Super Doc: Once Bonesaw is out of the picture, that leaves Miss Medic as probably the best surgeon in the world. Lifelong spinal injury? Repaired in several hours, walking unassisted in a week. Aggressive leukaemia? Cleaned out and replaced with cloned tissue in under 72 hours. She's keeping quiet about her biotinkering side commissions for Atropos, though...
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Flashbang overhears Amy saying Carol can't find out about something. After confirming that it wasn't her talking to a boy/girl that she thought Brandish would disapprove of, he comes to the conclusion that she wants a pet that Carol wouldn't like. Amy, not wanting to reveal she was talking to her power, runs with it.
• Swipe Your Blade Off: After Atropos cuts Nicholas' throat with her shears, she flicks the blood off.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: Path to Ending just plans out how to destroy things, but it takes a very broad view of what counts as a thing. Taylor can bluff her way through a police interview to end their suspicions, crack computer systems to end barriers to her access, write down all someone's passwords as part of ending their influence on the world, or even plan out how to end the need to lie to her dad.
• Symbiotic Possession: Panacea is very surprised to learn that Atropos regularly has discussions with her power and that they actually get along well, with Taylor coming up with ideas of what to do and her shard offering ways to do them. Panacea hadn't even realised that communication was possible, and Atropos advises that her ennui is probably related to her power being very bored.

T

• Take a Third Option: Defied for Damsel of Distress, whom Atropos warns that she only has two options, leave or die. The villain does attempt to convince Atropos to let her stay, but Atropos knows too well that she will just attempt to kill her later, and the rule of 'no villains in my city' is going to be applied, one way or the other.
• Take That!: When speaking about the stimulus package for Brockton Bay's residents, Atropos takes a shot at trickle-down economics.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Atropos, using her voice alone, mimics the last phone call Mannequin had from his wife and children as they went crazy and killed each other during a Simurgh attack to drive him to suicide.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: When preparing to celebrate their victory over Atropos (i.e. surviving), Kaiser gets out some of his private liquor stash, but his bodyguards insist on testing it. Sure enough, Atropos has gotten to it, and when Alabaster tries some, it kills him four times over. And it's actually a Kansas City Shuffle, making them think they've beaten Atropos' attack and thus lulling them into a false sense of security — including Kaiser removing his helmet — before Atropos springs her actual trap.
  Alabaster: That stuff is beyond lethal. It's some kind of battery acid. It has to be. Every time I reset, it started attacking me again.
• Tap on the Head: Atropos takes the golf club from an attacker and hits him in the temple with it, dropping him immediately. He's not permanently hurt, which is justified since she specifically wants him alive to turn on his employer, so her power lets her exactly judge the hit.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Defied with extreme prejudice. Atropos has clearly stated that if her identity is published, then she will massacre everyone responsible.
  Atropos: Not that I'd be in much danger if that got out, but I do have family and friends. If they got hurt as a result, everyone involved would die.
  • Director Wilkins goes looking for information via Sophia's school records, in hopes of getting leverage on Atropos via her family. The next thing she knows, Atropos' shears are poised over her eyeball.
  • Bastard Son does some digging in hopes of tracking down Aisha, since she's known to associate with Atropos. For that, he gets special attention, with extra helpings of public humiliation and taking away everything he cares about before he dies.
  • Goddess (from Shin Earth) arranges for Aisha and Emma to be kidnapped as leverage, so she can use her powers on Atropos and make the latter her servant.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine:
  • Path to Ending apparently has a flair for the dramatic, which suits Taylor fine. Oni Lee just gets shot with his own gun, which is tolerable, but after that she starts planning to make each hit truly ironic. The showmanship is just as intimidating to the public as the actual deaths are.
    Going the extra mile to provide my targets with a fitting kill was something I should aim for.
    • Coil is hanged in one timeline (with a coil of rope) and then immediately has his throat cut with her bodice shears — meaning two cuts — in the other.
    • Kaiser can extrude and control metal from any hard surface, and is known for making impromptu blades, so he gets stabbed through the eye with a sword. For extra Irony, said sword had once belonged to Kaiser Wilhelm I and eventually became the property of Kaiser (the villain).
    • The Dragonslayers are slain by a dragon (Lung). And she did that by tweaking the code of their stolen suits to interfere with their sensors, which is what they've been doing to Dragon all along.
    • Lung gets burnt to death from the inside out (with a horribly potent acid).
    • Skidmark was originally planned to be killed with drugs, but Taylor eventually settles on turning him into a literal skidmark, with his own vehicle spreading him over a long stretch of road.
    • She also turns Contessa's favourite tactic against her, exactly predicting her actions and turning up with a gun pointed at her when she least expects it.
    • Shatterbird is killed by Atropos force-feeding her a piece of glass, from her own mask, in such a way that it won't move, suffocating her.
    • Burnscar gets a fire extinguisher to the face and its entire cold carbon dioxide contents into her lungs.
    • Mannequin is bombarded with the reminder of how his family died, causing him to kill himself — the same way he's used psychological tricks to kill many of his victims.
    • Crawler and Hatchet Face are tricked into colliding into each other (with the latter's Power Nullifier stopping the former's Healing Factor) right in the path of a Dragon missile. Then Atropos beats Hatchet Face with the blunt end of his own axe before hitting him to paralyze his diaphragm and leave him to helplessly suffocate while she walks away.
    • The Siberian only gets an inkling of impending death before William Manton bites the dust, giving both the time to know they are going to die but with the inability to stop it at all. Subverted when Atropos actually apologises for not having a properly ironic death lined up.
    • Bonesaw is stabbed in the brain with her own medical probe. Atropos' power lets her make it a disabling strike instead of a lethal one, and Bonesaw is then carted away to be remade.
    • Jack Slash is completely overwhelmed before the unstoppable Atropos, given a minute head start, then shown that Atropos always had the upper hand no matter what, and finally dies after his philosophy is ripped apart and he's told that his legacy will amount to nothing — the same way he's toyed with, broken, and killed hundreds of people in the past.
    • Spree is killed by multiple shotgun blasts, utilising hundreds of pellets to take out his clones and then himself.
    • Vex is killed when Atropos hits her with multiple thrown knives.
    • Hemorrhagia dies to several deep cuts which she invited, not knowing that the shears were poisoned with fentanyl. Her blood, which is her weapon, was poisoned and turned against her.
    • Butcher (the Fourteenth) is chopped up (butchered) with an axe, into fourteen pieces. Then she finds herself sharing a headspace with something bigger and nastier than herself, which wrecks what's left of her.
    • Animos is shot in the throat, preventing him from making noise, like a 'mad dog'.
    • Heartbreaker is stabbed in the heart with a broken Valentine's day candy heart.
    • Night has her vision taken away, then is stabbed multiple times, including in the eye.
    • Fog is blown into a pink mist by a whole bunch of grenades going off at once.
    • Bastard Son gets a bastard's coat of arms slashed into his chest, loses his powers, is forced to run away from his previously Mastered minions, and gets skewered with a bastard sword Louis XIV commissioned for one of his bastard children, given to Atropos by the son of metaphorical bastard Max Anders. One of his minions, who was wielding a pool cue, is knocked out with an oversized novelty eight-ball.
    • March suffers exactly the pain and humiliation that she intended to inflict on Flechette. Her every intended move is used on her, right down to the point where she is about to kick her dropped rapier into her hand, and Atropos does it first. She's beaten up, but very clearly and intentionally spared — for now. Just like she wanted to do to Lily.
    • Eligos gets his throat slashed in one go, keeping him from breathing.
    • Mama Mathers, leader of the Fallen who controls the senses of anyone who has observed her, loses her eyes, hearing, and voice in one go, and is then pushed so she will fall off the school roof.
    • Valefor, Mama Mathers' right hand, gets his mind-controlling eyes slashed and ruined, then joins Mama Mathers in falling off the roof.
  • Rachel gets a shot in, too. Before she leaves the city, she goes after Hookwolf, whom she hates for running illegal dogfighting rings, and her dogs tear him apart.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Having a decent place to live, clean clothes to wear, and hot food to eat without worrying about suddenly losing all of it causes Damsel of Distress to break down crying in happiness while eating a frozen pizza.
  • Theo Anders is similarly moved to tears over just how happy Brian and Aisha are that he's back safe after he was kidnapped, even though they had only known him for a couple days.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Panacea does not want to start working with Atropos, and isn't shy about saying so. She only starts because Atropos called in a favour, and she continues to be very suspicious of each of Atropos' tasks that turn out to be reasonably legal and academically intriguing...
• Tempting Fate: It's pretty much common for Atropos' enemies to think they'll be able to get away with their plans, only for Atropos to immediately learn about said plans and begin to counter them.
  • Damsel of Distress, for example, thought she'd be able to settle down at Brockton Bay with Atropos being none the wiser until she had recruited enough minions to become impossible to take out. It only takes a minute after arriving for Atropos to ambush her from behind and bring Edict and Licit to take her back to Stafford.
  • Director Wilkins tries to uncover Atropos' personal identity, even declaring that she doesn’t care about Atropos’ Thinker rating despite Piggot warning her against it after witnessing her work first-hand. That prompts her to show up right behind Wilkins, which the Director tries to write off as a "trick" over Costa-Brown’s objections. She shuts up very quickly when Atropos puts her shears an inch away from her eye.
• Terror Hero: Atropos fits The Dreaded subtype, cultivating a reputation as an unstoppable villain-killer with a penchant for showy public kills. This is entirely intentional, as this sinister reputation means that only the most incorrigible, arrogant, or plain aggressive villains will come to Brockton Bay and die to her, reducing the amount of work she has to do in keeping the city villain-free.
• That Man Is Dead: Riley not only stops identifying as Bonesaw after Panacea works on her memories, but enjoys rewatching the video of the Nine being killed, including her own stabbing in the brain.
• That's an Order!: Chief Director Costa-Brown orders Wilkins to stop trying to find Atropos' identity when Atropos shows up in the latter's office, ready to show her why trying to screw with her is a bad idea.
• These Hands Have Killed: Several people, such as Armsmaster and Brandish, ask Atropos whether all her murders bother her. The answer is, not at all.
  Atropos: Well, here's how I see it. Once I kill someone, it's over. They're dead. I don't angst about it because, well, I don't kill anyone who doesn't need to die. And I certainly don't go the 'I deserve doom and gloom because I took a life' route. If some idiot chooses to ignore two warnings, that's on them, not me.
• This Cannot Be!: Bastard Son's reaction when he finds Atropos is still alive, despite seeing her (ostensibly) caught in the explosion of a booby-trapped car.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Played for laughs when Brian decides to enjoy the peace before Aisha comes out of her room with their 'cousin' Riley.
• Threat Backfire: Contessa sets out to teach Taylor a lesson about messing with her Paths. She loads her pistol, takes up the slack on the trigger, opens a Door to the back of Taylor's head — and drops her gun in the face of the pistol barrel pointing back at her.^note Path to Ending can model Path to Victory's actions, but not vice versa unless Path to Ending permits it; this is in part because Path to Ending's scope is narrower, relatively speaking than Path to Victory's, allowing the former to override the latter in those cases.
• 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: Path to Ending lets Taylor intentionally stab someone in the brain as a non-lethal attack. It does, however, render the victim comatose without Panacea-level medical intervention.
• Tightrope Walking: The Gesellschaft warehouse has a cable over the yard, leading from the sniper nests to the roof of the main building. It's covered in bird poo, and Atropos judges that "Any self-respecting high-wire artist, upon seeing it, would back away slowly." To a power that knows exactly the moves to make at each moment, though, it's a walk in the park.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Atropos claims that Sophia's death was her own fault and avoidable.
    She got warned twice, she ignored it twice. She died of stupid.
  • Like canon, Ravager tries to hire the most dangerous serial killer possible to kill Mouse Protector. Unlike canon, she tries to hire Atropos, ignoring that she'd so far only killed villains (and an unnamed other who didn't take the hint to back off). When Atropos instead lets Mouse Protector hire her to destroy Ravager's "credibility as a villain", Ravager swears revenge on them both.^note To make things worse, this is after Atropos killed the entirety of the Slaughterhouse Nine in less than an hour, with zero collateral damage, and almost no help
  • When Nicholas finds his power entirely useless against Atropos, he tries to attack her physically, and fails. Then he pulls a gun and tries to shoot her from about six feet away, only to achieve nothing beyond a Slashed Throat.
  • Damsel of Distress travels to Brockton Bay, thinking she'll be able to go unnoticed by Atropos until she's got enough of a foothold that she can't be kicked out. This, in the city that is now empty of villains because Atropos managed to kill the Parahuman gang leaders in spite of them protecting themselves to the best of their ability and forced their gangs to disband. Subverted at the last second, since meeting Atropos in person makes her recognize she can't fight her, and she leaves at gunpoint. Though it's helped by Cherie forcibly keeping her from doing something stupid.
  • Butcher decides that Atropos' prohibition isn't something she can let slide, so she takes the Teeth and heads straight for Brockton Bay once she finds out about it. They don't make it past the city limits.
  • Heartbreaker knows of most of the stuff Atropos has done, yet he remains overconfident of his power's ability to trap her. Atropos manages to catch him unaware, breaks his jaw before he can do anything and kills him, freeing all his Mastered victims in the process to boot.
  • After killing Night and Fog, it's suggested on PHO that people who manage to cross Atropos should be given their own Darwin Award category. The official Darwin Awards account eventually announces that they've decided to classify any deaths resulting from ignoring an Atropos warning as suicides, which disqualifies them for Darwin Awards, but recipients of non-lethal fates will be eligible for Honorable Mentions.
  • The committee Mayor Christner puts together to use the proceeds from Atropos killing the Slaughterhouse Nine to revitalize the city knows very well that Atropos is keeping an eye out and that any attempt for personal enrichment will end messily. Two of its members still try to do some Stealing from the Till. Atropos lets them live because Danny asked her to, but she blinds them and cuts their right hands off to Make an Example of Them for the other committee members.
  • Even after all of the above, Bastard Son thinks that he can take her, and goes after her in defiance of the warnings of the rest of the Elite. They're not exactly optimistic towards his odds of success, and it's implied that even the members implicitly supporting the move are more hoping that they'll manage to get some useful information out of him before he dies.
  • And then we have Mama Mathers, Valefor, and Eligos coming in to Brockton Bay, believing they'll be able to either kill or control Atropos. Needless to say, it ends in their deaths.
• Touché: When asked by Atropos to sign some NDAs, a Child Protective Services worker asks her since when is she concerned with legalities. Atropos offers an amused "Fair point" before pointing out she's doing so to protect him so she won't have to go through another worker after he gets fired.
• Trading Bars for Stripes: After being captured, Brian is offered a place in the Wards as community service rather than going to prison for his crimes. As it would help him get custody of Aisha and his main objection (Shadow Stalker) is no longer a factor, he agrees. Rachel is upset by him flipping sides, but the others recognise that it's a good deal for him.
• Tranquil Fury: Director Piggot doesn't relax when Chief Director Costa-Brown sounds cheerful on the phone, because she knows that superior officers take that tone in one of two situations. Either the Chief Director is genuinely happy, or she's making herself smile in order to avoid strangling someone.
• Translator Microbes: When following a Path that requires her to speak another language, Taylor appears to actually understand what she's saying and hearing, not just parrot it (although she's still just doing what her power says).
  Isamu: The girl spoke Vietnamese fluently, better than me, she says.
• Trauma Button:
  • Taylor "kills" a conversation with Emma by referencing Emma being weak in the alley "and even weaker now," then pretending to chew on her own hair and offering Emma some. Taylor actually didn't know what she was talking about, she was just following her power's prompts, but Emma flees to throw up in a bathroom.
  • When she takes down Mannequin, she does it by brutally slamming his button (his wife's calls as she and their children kill each other under the Simurgh's influence) until it drives him over the edge.

U-Z

• Underestimating Badassery: Atropos keeps getting underestimated by her targets, no matter how many capes she's put an end to, always with none to minimal collateral damage. Not even her brutal take down of the Slaughterhouse Nine is enough to make people realize how dangerous she is. She finally starts to properly scare people away by killing the Simurgh, but that also draws challengers of its own. And even when all of Earth Bet has gotten the message — there are other Earths, with more hapless challengers.
• Understatement: When Aisha refers to her own mother as "the Hellbitch Drug Ho," Atropos notes that "she might harbour a little resentment toward her mother's substance abuse problem."
• Undignified Death: Invoked by Atropos when killing Jack Slash. She makes a point of dominating him in a straight fight before giving him a minute's head start, then casually proving to him that she always had the upper hand by ambushing him the moment he thinks himself safe. Atropos proceeds to tear down his entire philosophy and calmly details how she intends to end his legacy, sending him into a Villainous Breakdown where he desperately begs for Atropos to spare his reputation moments before she chops him up.
  Atropos: They won't [remember you.] You see, Jack, I don't just kill people. I end things. And one of the things I'll be ending is your legacy. Your reputation. By the time I'm finished with you, you'll be nothing but a footnote, a cautionary tale: 'Don't be an idiot. Don't be like Jack Slash'. When the kids play heroes and villains... not even the edgiest of edgelords will want to be you.
• Unflinching Walk:
  • When Atropos is about to blow up a drug house, she tells Brian and Aisha to run, but she herself just casually strolls away.
    I felt the heat of the explosion, as well as the shift in air pressure, on my back, but I didn't alter my steady pace.
  • Later subverted when she dives for cover so as not to be splattered with bits of Crawler, or caught in the explosion that killed him.
• Unwanted False Faith: Taylor is quite exasperated by Emma starting a cult to worship her as a goddess of death. She settles for telling them not to kill, to actually do good things and not just things that make them feel good about themselves, and not to claim they're acting in her name.
  Taylor: At one time, she was my best friend. Then my worst enemy. Now, my high priestess. One of these days, the world is going to start making sense.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them:
  • Atropos gets a lot of street cred for the fact that she snatched Oni Lee's own pistol away from him and killed him with it faster than he could teleport away.
  • She kills Hatchet Face with his own axe.
  • She also causes an Unfriendly Fire incident among the Teeth, by manipulating Animos into screaming at just the right time to neutralise Butcher's powers.
  • She destroys a shipment of illicit weaponry (and the boat they were being transported on) by tossing one of the weapons—a live grenade—into the hold with the rest of them. There are no survivors (apart from her).
  • Bastard Son's crew are an assortment of expert Improbable Weapon Users. Atropos takes their weapons and uses them better, sometimes breaking them in half and wielding both pieces at once.
• Valentine's Day Violence: A variant; It isn't about the day specifically, but to arrange an Ironic Death for the mind-controlling villain Heartbreaker, Taylor hits him in the jaw with a foot-long Valentine's Day candy heart (shattering his jaw and breaking the heart in half) to stop him using his powers, then stabs him in the heart with one of the jagged pieces.
• Varying Competency Alibi: Taylor persuades the police that she couldn't have been involved in Sophia's death, because she's never had any martial arts training, as proved not only by her dad's testimony but also by the lack of any calluses on her knuckles.
  Taylor: My most advanced martial arts form is best described as Way of the Chicken.
• Victory Fakeout: Atropos pulls one on Empire 88 by tampering with their main clock and tricking them into thinking that she was depending on acid-spiked bourbon to take out Kaiser. Once they uncover the poisoned bourbon, they assume they've won until Rune figures out the clocks have been changed, upon which Atropos swoops in to stab Kaiser through the eye with his stolen katzbalger sword.
• Vigilante Man: Since the police and PRT are manifestly unable to keep order in Brockton Bay, Atropos steps up to cut the situation down to size. Or burn it down to size. Or crush. Whatever works. She's not interested in fighting the police, but she's not interested in working within their rules of engagement, either.
  Atropos: Aww, that's sweet. That makes it twice I've been given the "join us" spiel just tonight. (Not from the bad guys, either. That was all "RAWR You die now".)
  And while I appreciate it—don't think I don't—I'm going to have to turn you down yet again. We just wouldn't be a good fit, with all your 'not allowed to kill people' rules, I just know it.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: After Reave's routine invitation to come meet with him anytime, Atropos thanks him but declines, then mentions that she watered his plants for him. Reave never actually mentioned where his office is, but he correctly assumed that she knows.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Atropos is a villain by the standards of Worm, but since her targets are only other villains or criminals, she does her best to never involve innocent people in her actions and actually works for the betterment of the city, she's become quite popular among the local citizenship (as well as feared).
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Jack Slash gradually loses his cool as Atropos slaughters her way through the Slaughterhouse Nine. It only gets worse as his Master power doesn't work on her and she verbally tears him apart. At the end, it's when she promises to end his legacy to the point that "Not even the edgiest of edgelords will want to be him" when children play Heroes and Villains that he breaks down completely, unable to do more than stammer denials before Atropos cuts his head off.
  • By the time Atropos is done with her, Ravioli (formerly known as Ravager) is pretty much unresponsive and wishing for death from the utter humiliation she just went through.
• Visual Pun: Atropos is prone to doing this in her villain murders.
  • An extremely gruesome one when she manipulates the Merchants and the PRT so she can turn Skidmark into an actual skidmark.
  • During her beatdown of Hatchet Face, Atropos repeatedly strikes him with his own axe in the head. Or, in other words, she hit Hatchet Face in the face with a hatchet.
  • To kill Spree, she racks up her shotgun and keeps firing until she hits the original. It's a shooting spree.
  • She states on PHO that Heartbreaker will die "due to a broken heart". She breaks his jaw with a foot-long Valentine's Day candy heart, cracking the candy into two very sharp pieces in the process, then stabs him in the heart with one of them.
  • She turns Fog into a literal mist.
  • After settling on Ravager's new name of Ravioli, Atropos literally throws a can of it in her face. Some is still stuck to her later.
  • The weapon she uses on Bastard Son is a hand-and-a-half (bastard) sword commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) for his mistress's boy child (his bastard son) before the infant was legitimised. She borrows it from Theo Anders, the son of Kaiser (who she describes as a 'bastard in all but birth').
  • Bianca starts out with three Shins (as she's the ruler of Earth Shin), but starts losing them one by one.
• Voice Changeling: Atropos has mimicked someone else's voice perfectly four times so far as part of her Path:
  • Once to make Mannequin relive the last phone call he received from his family.
  • Another time to release Heartbreaker's thralls by ordering them to ignore all other orders they've received.
  • Yet another time to imitate a drug dealer's voice to persuade a buyer to open a door.
  • Most recently to masquerade as a (recently deceased) goon over a radio net.
• Voice of the Legion: On occasion, the Path to Ending shard can speak through Taylor, which the people around her find unearthly and unnerving — although no one it has yet spoken to realises what's going on, they just think it's Atropos being creepy and dangerous.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: The contrast between Taylor and Atropos is jarring for Cherie.
  Cherish: Last night, you killed a bunch of people guarding a fuck-ton of drugs, blew up or burned the drugs, sent Damsel of Distress packing back to wherever she came from … then you killed Butcher and the Teeth in a way I still don't really understand … and now you're going to school? How can you even think of school at a time like this?
  Atropos: Because it's nice and peaceful now.
• Wall Crawl: Following the directions of her power, Taylor is able to half-climb half-vault over the wall into Max Anders' property "like a startled squirrel."
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Physically, Taylor is a fit but baseline human, which is a big part of why her foes keep underestimating her. But with Combat Clairvoyance as just the start of her precognitive planning abilities, she consistently trounces everyone she faces.
    Piggot: She went into that fight with a pair of shears, a pistol, a ball of string, an M67 frag grenade and a fire extinguisher. Forty-two minutes later, every member of the Slaughterhouse Nine was dead.
  • Deliberately invoked when Atropos eschews a Desert Eagle or similarly powerful gun in favour of something more easily carried; a pistol and a shotgun.
    Atropos: Hitting power is for those with inadequate aiming capability.
    Cherie: What?
    Atropos: People who can't shoot straight.
• Weapons Breaking Weapons: Bastard Son's power lets him gift his minions with expertise in using unusual weapons, like pool cues, folding chairs, and encyclopedias. However, Atropos uses her bodice shears to demonstrate that those skills don't apply anymore if the item is broken in half.
• Weapon Twirling: Atropos frequently twirls her shears around her finger while chatting with someone she's considering killing. Since the blades are razor-sharp on both sides, this would be quite dangerous if she ever mishandled them. Naturally, she never does.
• We Have Reserves: The guards around the drug stashes Atropos is targeting have orders that, if they see her fighting in hand to hand, they're to throw grenades. Their employers are quite willing to kill their own people if it means taking Atropos out.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The PRT would love to recruit Atropos and work with her to improve the city, if they could just stop her from killing people. She doesn't resent them for it, but she considers that attitude a weakness and their proposed restraint unacceptable.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Atropos deliberately times the murders for each of the gang bosses for midnight precisely. This is because her power is an incorrigible showoff, and for intimidation value.
• Why Am I Ticking?: Atropos has incapacitated Lung, with Oni Lee's gun, and now she's... pulling out chopsticks? And pushing some kind of capsules into the bullet holes... The capsules contain fluoroantimonic acid, and when Lung's Healing Factor kicks in, his regrowing tissues squeeze the capsules until they pop and unleash their horrifically corrosive toxic contents, burning him alive and releasing a cloud of gaseous hydrofluoric acid.
• Why Can't I Hate You?: Amy wishes she could dislike Atropos, but between handling all the villains in Brockton Bay and all the interesting concepts she suggests, it is impossible to do it.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: Danny's version of the Queen Administrator powers allows him to do this when he's involved in a group effort, modifying probabilities on the fly to prevent bad things or boost the chance for good things.
• With All Due Respect: Reave really does respect Deputy Director Renick, but he's sticking to his guns about keeping quiet and allowing Bastard Son to believe that he's killed Atropos, so that she can easily ambush and kill him.
  Arguing with one's boss was always a tricky prospect.
• Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: Damsel of Distress deliberately goes to Brockton Bay in the early hours of the morning so that her minders, Edict and Licit, will take a while to notice her absence. However, Atropos is aware of what she's doing and calls Licit to come collect her. Both heroes are unhappy about the wake-up, but they come rather than let Damsel get herself killed.
  Edict is going to absolutely kill me.
  Edict: So help me, if this isn't an earth-shattering emergency, I'm going to—
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:
  • A major drug hub in Brockton Bay has been meticulously designed by Accord to look just like a regular suburban home, entirely forgettable and ignorable.
    It bore all the hallmarks of belonging to a happy couple with two point three children and a dog, including a tricycle artfully displayed in the front yard, and a cutesy little sign saying, "Forget the dog, beware of the kids". Someone had put a lot of effort into making it seem even more normal than the neighbours.
    ...
    Stepping into the front room of the house still looked absolutely normal. Another doorway, not in a direct line with the front door, led to the back of the house … and his mind was blown.
    There was no kitchen, no bedrooms, no living room. Carefully hung curtains covered every window. Speakers played TV sounds, and the occasional noise of a baby crying. But the interior of the house had been gutted, and the resultant room was all made over to the division and packaging of drugs for supply to the population of Brockton Bay.
  • The Eagleton quarantine zone is even worse, an inviting picture-perfect village that's actually made of homicidal robots.
    I appeared just inside the perimeter wall, on a street that looked identical to any other section of road in middle America. Asphalt, sidewalk, houses, trees. Kids' toys in the yards. Cars sat at the curb. The lawns had been carefully mowed and the hedges trimmed, while the houses had been recently painted. I could hear a TV playing from one house, and music from a radio station in another direction. Just out of sight, around the corner, I could hear the laughter of children playing.
    It was all very normal, designed to entice people to investigate the interior of the houses. Which would be a huge mistake.
    Half the cars were (to borrow a phrase) robots in disguise. So were the toys. Something nasty lurked under the manhole in the middle of the street. The houses were the robotic equivalent of Venus flytraps.
    And they knew I was here.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Atropos destroys a handgun by shooting a bullet into its barrel just so the next time that handgun is fired, it explodes. Paul King learns this too late for his health.
  • When fighting to clear the city of Flint, Atropos fires the last shot out of a borrowed assault rifle, just before a massive adversary grabs hold of it.
    He grabbed the barrel an instant later, crushing it with dismaying ease. I'd hoped to give it back in better order than that.
• Wrench Whack: The only weapon Taylor brings to fight Oni Lee is a pipe wrench from her Dad's toolbox. As soon as Lee's minions notice her, she clubs one alongside the head and then throws the wrench into the other's forehead. After killing Lee, she picks the wrench up again to put down his third minion, breaking his arm and then knocking him unconscious on the backswing.
• Xanatos Gambit: In the Butcher's opinion, there are two options for what happens if she faces Atropos; either she kills Atropos and takes control of the Bay's underworld, or Atropos kills her and becomes the new Butcher, so either way she wins. Animos isn't so sure, but since saying "no" to the Butcher isn't a good idea he's unable to further try to dissuade her. Atropos demonstrates there's a third option thanks to her power, which kills the Butcher's shard.
• You Are Already Dead: After Atropos inserts the capsules of fluoroantimonic acid into Lung's chest and head, they have this conversation.
  Atropos: You're going to die, and soon. It's going to hurt like a sonofabitch. So, you know, it's okay to scream.
  Lung: I … will … not … scream … for … the … likes … of … you.
  Atropos: I think you're wrong. But hey, you do you.
  Lung: Run … now. I … will … burn you.
  Atropos: Nope. In fact, right about now, your regeneration should be closing in around the capsules I put next to your corona pollentia, and in your heart and lungs, and starting to squeeze.
  Mook: Great Lung! Should we kill her?
  Lung: No! She has taken her best shot. Now … it's my turn.
  Atropos: Yes. But not in the way you think.
• You Do Not Want To Know:
  • Director Piggot is fairly certain she doesn't want to know more about the potential of the chemicals Atropos stole, but she has to ask anyway. (She was right.)
  • When Danny asks about the deaths of the Slaughterhouse Nine, Taylor advises him not to ask about Mannequin, because even by her standards, it was a nasty death (Word of God is that Taylor didn't want to reawaken his trauma from the loss of his wife).
    Danny: I saw what you did to Lung and Skidmark. And you're saying you did something nastier than that?
    Taylor: Yeah.
• You Have Failed Me: Accord is not happy when Citrine goes against his orders by trying to renegotiate Atropos' terms for him to move into Brockton Bay. While deciding how best to kill her, he decides the proper solution is to make her return to Brockton Bay to apologize and offer her life to Atropos, something he gives her roughly eight to one odds of surviving.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Brian initially assumes that Atropos is joking about Accord timing his own bathroom breaks to the second. She isn't.
  • When Cherie connects the dots and realises who Miss Medic is, she sits bolt upright and insists that Taylor must be joking.
  • While not specifically quoting the line, Brian has a moment of this when he finds out that Atropos has just warned the capes in all four remaining quarantine zones to evacuate the premises, surrender to the PRT, or die in the next 24 hours.
    Brian: What the FUCK?
• You Owe Me: In order to gain her help in the Canary case, Dragon calls her marker over Atropos putting a Perception Filter on her.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Atropos totally would, of course. Bianca gets as far as "You wouldn't-" before losing her second Shin.
• Your Eyes Can Deceive You: When Atropos has to simultaneously fight Jack Slash and Bonesaw's spider-bots, she needs to rely totally on her power, so she closes her eyes, wielding her shears in one hand and a pistol in the other with perfect coordination and timing.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: Atropos deliberately makes herself the apparently heartless enemy, all so that Panacea will do a good job of deprogramming Bonesaw back into Riley just to throw it in her face.
  Like fear, spite was one of the tools available to me, and I was perfectly willing to use it whenever I needed to.

---

I told you I'd cross-wick you. People just don't listen these days.