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Bystanders
Lincoln Chambers
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.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Lincoln Chambers is a damn good reporter. 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.
- Good Parents: He and Flick are very close, and he did a good job bringing her up on his own.
- Happily Married: 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.
- Intrepid Reporter: 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.
- Locked Out of the Loop: 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. This becomes heartbreaking when Flick learns the real reason Joselyn left and can't tell him.
- This comes to an end once he overcomes the Bystander Effect and is quickly filled in by Asenath and Twister.
- May–December Romance: Unbeknownst to either of them, his relationship with Joselyn was this. She was roughly 98 when they met and he was in his 20s.
- Mountain Man: Lincoln's large frame, long hair, and thick beard all make him look like this.
- Muggle: As a Bystander, Lincoln can't retain any knowledge of the supernatural. This doesn't last.
- Mysterious Note: Lincoln is first clued in to the various conspiracies surrounding his life when an envelope containing footage of his wife over a decade before she was supposed to have been born is left at his desk by a large black man named Gabriel.
- Panicky Expectant Father: He straight up freaked out when Felicity was born, to his wife's amusement.
- Parental Substitute: 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.
- Parental Obliviousness: 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 Mysterious Envelope is left at his desk, prompting him to wonder if Flick received something similar.
- 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.
- Properly Paranoid: 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. 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.
- Spanner in the Works: Meeting and falling in love with Lincoln derailed Joselyn's Memory Gambit.
- Underestimating Badassery: His own daughter, who practically hero-worships him as a journalist, is surprised at the extent of his investigative skills when she discovers that he's looked into the "October 28th attack" enough to trace it back to Fossor.
- Unknown Rival: Deveron, Joselyn's first and still living husband, is out there and Lincoln has no idea.
Joselyn Chambers
- 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.
Flick's Missing Mom, 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.
It quickly becomes clear that there's more to this story when her Stranger son Ammon shows up. A lot more, as it turns out. You can find out more in the Joselyn Atherby section of the Spoiler Character folder.
- Ambiguous Situation: 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 mind control powers, raising the possibility that she was being controlled against her will.
- Blatant Lies: 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.
- Broken Pedestal: 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.
- Good Parents: It's clear from Flick's recollections that Joselyn really was a fantastic mother prior to leaving.
- Happily Married: To Lincoln until she left. He was completely blindsided.
- Hot-Blooded: 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.
- Military Brat: 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. Which makes sense, since none of it is true.
- Missing Mom: Flick's.
- Parental Neglect: 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. Neither situation is her fault.
Scott Utell
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.
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.
- Big Brother Mentor: To Flick.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Maybe even too reasonable. He probably shouldn't let Flick get away with as much as she does.
- While You Were in Diapers: He babysat Flick when she was a baby and he's not shy about reminding her.
Abigail Fellows
The mother of Koren Fellows. Abigail is a bystander who has no idea what Crossroads Academy is really doing with her daughter. She's also Flick's half-sister. Her birth name is Koren Atherby.
- Big Sister Instinct: Quickly develops this towards Flick. She and Wyatt privately agree to prioritize their little sister's safety over their mother's freedom.
- Good Is Not Dumb: 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.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: 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.
- Insistent Terminology: Refuses to refer to Seosten with broken possession powers as Lies.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Like Lincoln Chambers, Abigail doesn't know anything about what kind of school Crossroads Academy really is.
- 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.
- Long-Lost Relative: 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.
- Muggle
- Nerves of Steel: The crazy, possessed werewolf she's looking for takes her hostage? Abigail doesn't flinch and helps talk Lies down.
- Not Now, Kiddo: 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. 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.
- Save the Villain: Is dead-set on saving Pace AND Lies.
- Separated at Birth: The Committee separated Abigail from her twin brother to hide them from their father and the rebellion.
Independent Heretics
Haiden Moon
A former Eden's Garden Heretic of the Lost Scar tribe who left the Garden to start a family 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.
- Animorphism: Haiden is capable of transforming into a large hawk.
- Cool Sword: A black and crimson transforming one.
- Good Parents: In addition to being a wonderful father for Vanessa and Tristan he immediately decides Tabbris is his daughter in every way that matters, though she's not his flesh and blood.
- Happily Married: Formerly. He's still married, but he hasn't seen his wife in a decade so it's not really all that happy.
- Interspecies Romance: He's a human, his wife is Seostenic.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Seosten banishment also wiped his memories of his family. He knew he had one but couldn't remember anything more. 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.
- The Maiden Name Debate: His original last name was Holt, but he gave it up in favor of Moon when he got married.
- Mind over Matter: Haiden has some telekinetic capabilities, as his interlude has him raising the floor and flinging large rocks around.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: 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.
- Papa Wolf: 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.
- Parental Abandonment: He and his wife were forcibly separated from their children and each other when they were flung across separate worlds.
- Parrying Bullets: He's good enough at this to return bullet fire.
- Super-Toughness: He can No-Sell concrete breaking punches.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: Haiden's sword has gun barrels built into it, which are usually hidden.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: One of its forms is a double barreled shotgun with the blade as a bayonet.
- Taken for Granite: Another one of his powers is to encase people with stone shells.
- Teleportation: One of his powers.
- Took a Level in Badass: Haiden Moon before the Seosten messed with his family: Normal heretic. Haiden Moon afterwords? Unstoppable killing machine slaughtering his way across an interstellar empire.
- Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: He and Sariel had twins, Vanessa and Tristan.]]
- Warrior Therapist: Downplayed, but acted as a stand in for his wife. It's difficult to get therapy while hiding from an alien conspiracy.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: Even back when he was a party line Heretic he couldn't bring himself to kill Alter kids.
- You Fight Like a Cow: He's not shy about carrying on a conversation with his enemies, although he remains relatively quiet while actually doing something.
Nicholas Petan
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. He's also the noble from Flick's Edge vision who saved Gaia and Seller, as well as an ancestor of Haiden Moon's.
- All Trolls Are Different: Nicholas became a Heretic when his blood was mixed with a troll's, giving him a neat laundry list of powers such as:
- A Healing Factor.
- Immunity to disease and aging.
- Super-Strength
- Resistance to physical damage (other than fire).
- The ability to adapt to his environment to withstand extreme temperatures or a lack of oxygen.
- The power to induce fear in a target.
- Arch-Enemy: The Seosten.
- Badass Boast: His first introduction involves him giving one of these.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.
- Badass Normal: The guy could kick the asses of a group of Alters single-handed before he became a Heretic. He later upgraded to Badass Abnormal when he was buried alive with the body of a dead troll.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Petan doesn't talk or shout or yell in combat. He just systematically silently kills whoever is dumb enough to fight him.
- Instant Runes: Averted, his teleport spell requires him to draw a diagram manually, then imbue it.
- One-Man Army: Casually tears apart numerous Fomorian monsters in his interlude.
- Papa Wolf: To his descendants.
- Squishy Wizard: 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.
Harrison Fredericks
The first Heretic to create cyberforms, the animal 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.
- Gadgeteer Genius: 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.
- Reclusive Artist: 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.
- Sole Survivor: 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.
- Shout-Out: It's implied that the alternate-reality human "witch" he killed to gain his ability was a Tinker.
King Arthur
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. That group eventually became the Atherby Clan, Flick's maternal ancestors.
- The Dreaded: Fossor is scared of this guy coming back.
- Excalibur: He wouldn't be King Arthur without his Cool Sword. It was forged from the tooth he ripped out of the dragon he became a Heretic from.
- Known powers include hitting possessing Seosten without hitting the host.
- Happily Adopted: Raised by Nimue/ Athena/Auriel after his hometown was burned down by a dragon.
- Living Macguffin: 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.
- Merlin: Merlin was actually an invention of Arthur, a second identity he took on and used when he needed to.
- No-Sell: Arthur is immune to magic. All magic. This is exactly as broken as it sounds.
- Only Mostly Dead: 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.
- Athena doesn't call him dead, merely saying that "his power is broken".
- One-Man Army: 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.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Being a Dragon-Heretic made Arthur one of the single most powerful Heretics to ever live. Word of God states that Arthur would be stronger than Gabriel Prosser.
Lancelot/Guenevere
Lancelot and Guenevere are actually the same woman - King Arthur's wife and greatest knight, who used the Lancelot identity to fight. She's currently infiltrating Crossroads as Harper Hayes.
- Battle Couple: With Arthur.
- Happily Adopted: Was raised by the rogue Seosten Michael after being abandoned.
- Master of Disguise: She's used a lot of identities over the years.
- One-Woman Army: The only tricky part about wiping out a Seosten kill squad going after Avalon was doing it without there being any sign at all of the battle.
- Super-Reflexes: 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-".
- Undying Loyalty: To Arthur. He always comes first for her.
- Wholesome Crossdresser
The Ba Xian
The 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.
In General
- Decadent Court: The competition among Chinese Heretics to join the Ba Xian is absolutely deadly, with assassinations and blackmail common, and there are potential members that Would Hurt a Child.
- Foil: To the Committee and Victors. The Ba Xian lack the Black-and-White Insanity of the leaders of Crossroads and Eden's Garden 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.
- Legacy Character: 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.
Liang
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.
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.
- Badass in Distress: He's missing at the start of the story, with his loved ones suspecting that he's been taken by his enemies. Jiao is searching for him in order to reunite him with their daughter.
- Interspecies Romance: With a vampire. Although the Ba Xian don't see human-Akharu as another species, so he doesn't think of their relations such.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Once gave up his own child in order to protect her from his enemies.
The Hunahpu and Xbalanque
A tradition of Heretics that started with the ancient Mayans. They were founded by the Hun and Vocub Hunahpu, legendary figures of Mayan Mythology. 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.
The Hunahpu
Named after Hun Hunaphu, this branch focuses primarily on hunting and physical prowess.
The Xbalanque
Named for Vocub Hunahpu, this branch focuses primarily on the use and development of magic.
