There are a lot secrets and conspiracies at the heart of Heretical Edge, and the characters listed here are almost impossible to discuss without cracking through a layer or two of at least one of them.
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Joselyn's Allies
The Mysterious Backers of Joselyn Atherby who helped her get her revolution off the ground. They are a group of powerful magic users that operate behind the scenes to combat Seostenic influence on earth (or so they claim), and they see breaking Crossroads and Eden's Garden of their intense xenophobia as an important step to that end.
They attempted to find Joselyn after she was banished, but failed to reach her before Fossor. Instead they found her first husband, Deveron Adams, and restored his memories. Later, he convinced them to cast a memory spell of their own to aid in his infiltration of Crossroads Academy.
Known members are the naturally made Reaper Heretic Gabriel Prosser, Lancelot/Guinevere of the Round Table, and the renegade Seosten Michael.
- Big Good: They have the best claim on this title. Their stated goal is to stop the Seosten from controlling humanity, and they're working to the end of the genocidal xenophobia that characterizes both major Heretic organizations.
- Mysterious Backer: To Joselyn Atherby during her rebellion and to her allies after the memory spell, ensuring some of her allies manage to recover some knowledge about what happened.
- Secret War: They're waging one against the Seosten. And they take the "secret" part of it very seriously, especially since Joselyn was captured. She told nobody about them. Not even her husband.
The Heretical Edge
The device invented by Hieronymus Bosch that turns people into Heretics, constructed from the severed head of the Hangman demon that made him into a Heretic. Unbeknownst to most, the demon is still alive.
- Ambiguous Situation: During the war, Joselyn was able to use it to circumvent Crossroads' security. Whether she did this by convincing it to side with her through even more unknown means or whether it's an empty shell capable of being used by anyone with the right knowledge is unknown.
- Everything Heretics teach about how and why it was made into the Heretical Edge becomes suspect when it's revealed that Bosch was a Seosten puppet. Is it really a Hangman? Or is it a normal Reaper?
- And I Must Scream: It was killed by Bosch, either remaining in a semi-living state for years or resurrected by him. Now it's nothing but a severed head kept perpetually alive and pumped for magical energy in order to create more Heretics.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Joselyn was the first and only Heretic to ever treat the Edge kindly. The Edge repaid her by secretly adding her to the Committee's power-linking ritual when they added Ruthers to it.
- Off with His Head!: The head is the only part of its body that remains.
- Super-Empowering: It's the source of the Crossroads committee's power, allowing all of them access to all the powers of the others. It's also capable of adding others to this shared power group without their knowledge or permission.
- Teleportation: It's capable of teleporting people through some unknown means.
The Real Pace
- And I Must Scream: Trapped in her own body while being possessed by Theia. But Pace has it worse than other Seosten hosts due to Theia's disability. She can only leave a host's body when they die. Unless there are ways to eject Theia safely, Pace is trapped until her death.
- The good news is that it appears that acquiring a power that blocks possession will eject Theia, and Theia is on board with that. The bad news is that Theia can't relinquish control even when she wants to.
- Fighting from the Inside: Pace is occasionally able to resist Theia to prevent something she finds truly horrific. Lies actually finds this amusing.
- She manages to talk Theia into allying with her former enemies after Manakel starts trying to kill her and she defects. Even when she can't control her body and powers, Pace manages to talk the one controlling them around to her side.
- Foil: The real Pace is one to Joselyn of all people. Like her, Pace saw how wrong Crossroads and Eden's Garden are about "Strangers," and set out to help them. But she wasn't as careful as Joselyn was, and that resulted in her getting possessed by an insane Seosten when she tried to help a werewolf.
- Genki Girl
- Heel–Face Turn: Started out as just another party line heretic, then she came home to discover the homeless shelter she'd volunteered at as a little girl and her grandmother had helped at turned out to be a werecritter safe house full of perfectly nice people who just happened to be non-human.
- Heroic Willpower: Manages to take back her body for long enough to prevent Isaac from murdering a pixie.
- Internal Reformist: The real Pace is disgusted by what Eden's Garden and Crossroads does to Strangers. She wound up getting possessed in the process of trying to help a captured werewolf that turned out to be her predecessor as Lies' host.
Tabbris
Tabbris is a young Seosten who was secretly sent by her mother, Sariel Moon, and Larissa Mason to hide inside Flick when they were both children.
- Apologizes a Lot: Tabbris apologizes for basically anything she did before making contact, even when she really shouldn't feel any need to apologize. Little things like slipping out of Flick's body to just walk around the house at night.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Tabby has possession abilities just like every other Seosten. She's used them only to hide and block loyalist Seosten attempts to body snatch Flick.
- Being Good Sucks: Because she uses her possession abilities ethically, Tabbris has had almost no opportunity to do anything, instead merely watching the world through Flick's eyes.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Helpful as it was, the fact remains that Tabbris has spent nearly a decade violating Flick's privacy. She starts pleading with Flick not to hate her when she finally reveals herself.
- Big Damn Heroes: Tabbris finally reveals herself to free Flick after she's abducted by Charmeine.
- Child Prodigy: She's nine, and has repeatedly countered the magic of enemies thousands of years her senior.
- Her skills with possession are incredibly advanced. The Aelaestiam Seosten kids are just learning to use the power on purpose, while Tabbris can use various advanced functions with the skill of a practiced veteran, thanks to the memory packets her mother left with her to teach her.
- Child by Rape: Tabbris was conceived and born after Sariel was shipped off to Kushiel's Baby Factory.
- Convenient Coma: She can put herself into a sleep state, which she uses to avoid watching Flick at private moments.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Due to having spent almost all of her life possessing Flick, Tabbris is extremely uncoordinated when using her own body, especially by Seosten standards. She improves with practice, but she still gets nicknamed Foal by her brother over it.
- Foil: Essentially the Good Counterpart to Ammon. Both are children born of unconsenting mothers to be raised as weapons. But Tabris's mother was able to send her away from her captors' influence. She grew up to be a sweet-natured child while Ammon was twisted into a monster.
- Both have powers that allow them to control people. Ammon abuses his Compelling Voice for fun, but Tabbris only exercises actual control when absolutely necessary.
- Ammon is a Half-Human Hybrid and a Heretic, Tabbris is a pure-blooded Seosten.
- Both arguably experienced Flick's fate by proxy. Tabbris was riding along in Flick since she was about eight years old, and Ammon lived through the life Flick would have had if Fossor had abducted her.
- Flick quickly comes to love Tabbris and is eager to call her a little sister, but hates Ammon and only acknowledges that he's her half-brother on a genetic level.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Given the nature of her birth, Tabbris understandably doesn't think much of whoever her biological father is. She doesn't even think of him negatively, she simply doesn't consider herself to have a father.
- Guardian Angel: The Seosten portray themselves as angels, and Tabbris has little power but acts in subtle ways to guide Flick and defend her against her evil counterparts.
- Happily Adopted: Sibling variant. Flick's decided Tabbris is her little sister, and they're both really happy about it. Later she develops a father/daughter relationship with Flick's dad.
- Meaningful Name: Tabbris is the name of the angel of self-determination
. Fitting for a child of an angelic race whose presence prevented her host from being controlled. In-Universe as well, where Tabbris was a Seosten Seraphim who created a world safe from the Seosten before wiping it from everyone's memory to ensure its safety. - Parental Sexuality Squick: She is not happy when she notices Flick checking out an image of her mother.
- The Power of Trust: Her relationship with Flick relies heavily on this. Initially because there's nothing stopping her from taking control of Flick besides her own morals (although whether this holds true after Flick inherits Charmeine's possession power is ambiguous), and soon because the trust Flick consistently shows in her is a strong confidence builder.
- Mysterious Protector: She's Flick's protector against Seosten possession and magic. Attempts to possess her failed because Tabby was already doing it, and she counters or deactivates any magic Charmeine or other agents attempt to use on Flick.
- One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: Her possession of Flick lets her work around some of the major Heretic weaknesses.
- Tabbris can and does take control of Flick in the split second where she's distracted by the kill rush to keep anyone from exploiting it.
- As an entire separate individual, while possessing Flick she can focus on and use separate powers from Flick herself. Considering how Flick's admitted that she doesn't always remember to use all her powers and several of them require focus she can't spare in the middle of a fight, having Tabbris to co-pilot powers makes her much more effective than she would otherwise be.
- She can tell Flick what powers she gets from Alters, allowing Flick to skip the process of trying to figure it out.
- Rewatch Bonus: Rereading the story with the knowledge that Tabbris is with Flick the whole time casts a new light on some of Flick's actions and decisions that initially appear to be her own intuition.
- Shrinking Violet: Tabbris is extremely nervous about leaving Flick, only doing it when she has to and clearly afraid of being out in the open when she does.
- Spanner in the Works: She's the spanner her mother threw into the Seosten's plans.
- Symbiotic Possession: Flick doesn't know about it until she reveals herself, but Tabby's secret possession has been mutually beneficial to both of them. Not only has she been protecting Flick from being controlled or affected by Seosten, in doing so she was also hiding from the same Seosten who would raise her to be a weapon.
- Tabbris only ever "controls" Flick in small ways, such as making her need to go to the bathroom right before being tested for possession, or prompting the right memories to make Flick realize the woman Vanessa saw with her father was Larissa Mason.
- In full force as of New York Minutemen 27-04. After putting aside her initial discomfort, Felicity invites Tabbris back in and they're now consciously working together, leveraging her Photographic Memory and boosting abilities to get back to their team fast enough to thwart Charmeine.
- As of Field Trip and Uprising, Flick "lends" Tabbris various parts of her body when needed to use a skill only Tabbris has, like certain spells or speaking Latin / Old Seosten.
- Later on they practice working together to use Flick's powers, with Flick herself focusing on combat and direct engagement while Tabbris handles the powers that require concentration and multitasking Flick can't spare.
- Token Heroic Orc: The majority of Seosten operate as body-snatching parasites, and even renegades like Apollo and Sariel spent centuries working for the Empire before leaving. Tabbris's relationship with Flick is entirely symbiotic and built on necessity (before revealing herself to Flick) and trust (after revealing herself).
- Tyke-Bomb: In a round about way. While Sariel managed to prevent her people from raising Tabbris to be another imperial spy and assassin by having Larissa summon her across space to hide inside Flick, Tabbris still wound up being a sort of child soldier while defending Flick.
- Weak, but Skilled: As a nine-year-old who has barely ever gotten to actually do anything, Tabbris is substantially less powerful than a mature Seosten. What she does have is enough to let her dispel or counter magic from adult Seosten operatives and Fossor.
Spark
Sariel's eldest full Seosten daughter. Has the broken possession power that gets Seosten labelled as lies. Thought to be dead after Puriel apparently absorbed her, but still alive inside him.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Zig-Zagged. Kushiel broke protocol to gave her an actual name... but that name literally means "nothing" and was intended to be even more insulting than just calling her 'Lie' as normal.
- No One Could Survive That!: Nobody would have expected her to survive possessing Puriel in normal circumstances. The gulf between their personal powers as a five year old and a multi-thousand year old super soldier is too great and she should have been absorbed by him almost immediately. Fortunately, he's been making a constant effort to ensure that wouldn't happen and is still alive inside of him.
- Sharing a Body: Hiding out in Puriel.
- The Woobie: Sariel couldn't save her from Kushiel, who was planning to use her as raw research material for her experiments.
