Character page for all three adaptations of Mardock Scramble.
open/close all folders
Protagonists
Rune-Balot
Rune-Balot
Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English)
Rune-Balot is a teenage prostitute who is nearly murdered by her current keeper, a professional gambler and crooked businessman named Shell-Septinos. She is saved by the team of Doctor Easter and Oeufcoque-Penteano, who rebuild her into a cybernetic organism with the ability to control any electronic device, and sets out to discover why Shell wanted her dead.- Abusive Parents: Balot's mother was an unstable addict who was physically and verbally abusive toward her because she had to resort to in-vitro fertilization to have Balot, and her father raped her repeatedly.
- Action Girl: With her new artificial skin, technopathic skills, and Oeufcoque as her partner, Balot becomes a lethal gunslinger, capable of shooting her enemies’ bullets in midair.
- Arc Words: "Why me?"
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Rune’s father was an out-of-work laborer with a degenerative neurological disorder, who raped her several times. Her mother was a mentally unbalanced, emotionally and physically abusive drug addict. And her brother was forced to resort to gunrunning for money, and nearly killed their father after learning about the aforementioned rape. Currently both parents are hospitalized, and her brother is serving a prison sentence.
- Broken Bird: Her nightmarish backstory (abused by her mother, raped by her father, raped by volunteers at the Welfare Institute, forced into prostitution, abused and used by practically everyone she’s ever known), has left her thoroughly shattered, at least at the beginning of the novel. She even tells herself that she’d be better off dead.
- Celibate Hero: Balot’s history has resulted in her having absolutely no interest in sex whatsoever.
- Cute Mute: Her vocal cords were incinerated, so she can only speak by snarking nearby speakers or screens. In the manga, this was because Shell slit her throat before blowing up the car.
- Cyborg: After she's blown up by Shell, the Doctor saves her by sheathing her burned skin in regenerative metal fibers known as Lightite. The fibers meld seamlessly with her skin and grant her control over basically all electronic devices, as well as allowing her to control her own physical processes and sense her surroundings.
- Dark Action Girl: Balot slides toward this end of the trope when she begins to enjoy killing the Bandersnatchers in horrible and painful ways. Also applies with regard to her disregarding Œufcoque's initial pleas for her to stop abusing his powers.
- Emotionless Girl: This was her selling point as a prostitute; she withdrew into herself and became, effectively, a sex doll with a pulse. A lot of clients got off on it.
- Heel Realization: When she snaps out of her brief power trip and sees how badly she's mutilated Welldone, and even more so when she realizes that she broke her promise to Oeufcoque never to abuse his power.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: She is, at her core, a good person who has been horrendously treated by the world around her.
- Hidden Depths: She's interested in fossils, and Oeufcoque suggests that she could be an archaeologist when she grows up.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Much of Balot's character arc involves her trying to find someone who loves her unconditionally, and generally just trying to work out what unconditional love is anyway.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Balot is good enough that shooting bullets out of the air isn't even a strain for her. Justified taking into account just how big a Game-Breaker her new skin makes her.
- Instant Expert: Balot is a natural with her new skin, and its snarking function affords her instinctual mastery of any electronics she comes into contact with. She also picks up very quickly on the various casino games the Doctor introduces her to, especially blackjack and roulette.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: She tends to wear very snug clothing, and wanders around naked a few times without really noticing what she's doing.
- It's All My Fault: She apparently believes that her family's disintegration was entirely her fault.
- Machine Empathy: Her snark ability lets her control and manipulate machinery at a very fine level.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Boiled tells her that Oeufcoque has rejected her because she's abusing him, Balot is horrified by the realization that she's become no better than all the men who abused her over the years. This sends her into a spiral of panic and guilt.
- Parental Incest: Balot lost her virginity when her father raped her one day after school. She was twelve.
- Playful Hacker: Balot can snark virtually any electronic device, and displays a sadistic mischievousness about it when she does so to the Bandersnatchers. Less seriously, she uses it to punish some teenagers for parking in spaces reserved for handicapped persons by locking them in the garage.
- Rape as Backstory: Her father raped her several times when she was only twelve years old, and she was also sexually assaulted at the welfare institute she was sent to after her family fell apart.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She is described as having black hair and pale skin.
- Super-Reflexes: Balot can snark her own body to react at the speed of her Super-Senses, and can use this ability to shoot bullets out of midair and dodge incoming fire.
- Super-Senses: Balot’s new skin, on top of affording her incredible technopathic ability, gives her a spatial perception that affords her total awareness of her immediate surroundings in a 360 degree radius.
- Throwing The Game: After taking Eggnog Blue to the cleaners and collecting the four special chips she needs, Balot proceeds to deliberately lose to Shell, allowing him to take the chips back before leaving.
Oeufcoque-Penteano
Oeufcoque-Penteano
Voiced by: Norito Yashima (Japanese), Andy McAvin (English)
An All-Purpose Tool and Private Investigator who most often takes the shape of a gold-furred mouse, Oeufcoque become Balot’s partner, best friend, and maybe something more. He was formerly partnered with Dimsdale-Boiled.- Dimensional Traveler: Œufcoque is some kind of multi-dimensional being. Though this only means he exists in several dimensions simultaneously, not that he can teleport or open wormholes like the trope usually refers to. He can, however, shunt his mass between dimensions, which is what gives him his shapeshifting abilities.
- From a Single Cell: The Doctor notes that he can regenerate his original form even if he's split into pieces. This ability comes in handy when Boiled blows him in half during their first confrontation.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: His fur is gold, and he is bar none the nicest person in the story.
- Half The Mouse He Used To Be: During Balot’s first proper confrontation with Boiled, Boiled shoots Oeufcoque with his Hand Cannon and blows him in half. Fortunately, he gets better.
- Red Baron: In the novel, he’s referred to as the Golden Egg, as he was an entirely unique and extraordinary achievement.
- Super Prototype: He was designed as the world's first All-Purpose Tool, meant to be the strongest hand-to-hand combat weapon ever made. However, due to prohibitive costs and postwar politics, no more like him were ever made.
- Super-Senses: His sense of smell is keen enough to identify subtle shifts in emotional states, even in crowded rooms, and he's implanted with omnidirectional receivers that allow him to continually perceive everything around him. It makes him an excellent surveillance tool.
- Taking the Bullet: He throws himself between Balot and Boiled's gun and gets blown apart for his troubles. Fortunately for him, he's able to regenerate with some help from the Doctor.
- Uplifted Animal: Formerly a simple mouse, Oeufcoque was transformed into a polymorphic genius with the ability to shunt his mass between dimensions, allowing him to transform into almost any kind of technological device as well as a variety of clothing items.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: As a mouse, Oeufcoque doesn't really grasp the finer points of human emotion, which becomes an issue when dealing with Balot and her complicated feelings toward him.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Oeufcoque and the Doctor often bicker and poke fun at each other.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Œufcoque is implied to be able to literally Turn into almost anything, though he insists he could never become a human, and seems restricted to inanimate objects.
Doctor Easter
Doctor Easter
Voiced by: Hiroki Tochi (Japanese), David Matranga (English)
A brilliant researcher and cyberneticist, the Doctor is a Private Investigator who has teamed up with Oeufcoque to save lives and prove the usefulness of the forbidden technologies he helped develop during the Commonwealth-Continent War.- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Doctor is eccentric and a little spacey, but he's also a genius cyberneticist who developed nearly all the technology that Balot has been implanted with. He's also a ruthless card sharp who easily takes Eggnog Blue to the cleaners when playing poker.
- For Science!: This seems to have been his motivation back in his days at Paradise, but since leaving the research facility, he's developed a more humanistic outlook.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: The Doctor usually dresses like a punk rocker who decided to cosplay as a physician. When going into Eggnog Blue, he dyes his hair silver, dons a nice suit, and generally manages to make himself look much more presentable.
- Nice Guy: The Doctor is nothing but kind, patient, and understanding with Balot. He even tries to grow her a new set of vocal cords without prompting, just because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
- Non-Action Guy: He generally stays out of the fighting, though at one point he grabs a rifle to try and drive off Boiled.
- Replacement Goldfish: About two-thirds of the way through the novel, he admits that he's begun to see Balot as a replacement for his estranged daughter; he even notes that they're about the same age.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Oeufcoque often bicker and poke fun at each other.
Antagonists
Dimsdale-Boiled
Dimsdale-Boiled
Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe (Japanese), David Wald (English)
An ex-soldier and professional killer, formerly partnered with Oeufcoque. He still works as a Private Investigator, though his methods for solving cases tend to be . . . extreme.- Blood Knight: Boiled is no longer capable of experiencing anything even resembling emotional sensation unless he is in combat.
- Cutting the Knot: On Boiled's last case with the Doctor and Oeufcoque, the three of them found themselves trapped in a no-win situation. They had been hired to protect a university student who had apparently run afoul of a drug ring, only to discover that their client was in fact the leader of the drug ring, and that he'd been dealing with corrupt police officers on the side. If they told the truth, they would ruin many innocent lives and trigger a huge scandal. If they concealed the truth, they would likely face arrest or even execution for having failed to solve the case. Boiled resolved the issue by using Oeufcoque to kill everyone who was even remotely involved.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Boiled's lost empathy is due to being implanted with Paradise's experimental technology.
- Death Seeker: It becomes increasingly clear that more than anything, Boiled is tired and wants his miserable life to end.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Despite Balot’s ultimate goal being to take down Shell, Boiled is by far the greater presence and more significant threat throughout the story.
- Dragon Their Feet: He doesn't hesitate to abandon Shell once the latter has been exposed and arrested, only coming back because he still wants to kill Balot and reclaim Oeufcoque.
- Friend or Foe?: When he was a fighter pilot in the Airborne Division, he dropped half a tonne of incendiary bombs onto his old unit due to a combination of exhaustion and being high on amphetamines.
- Gravity Master: Boiled has magnetic field generators implanted into his limbs and brain, allowing him to create an artificial gravitational pull in any direction. This was originally technology meant to allow soldiers to fight in zero gravity, but he’s figured out how to use it to walk on walls and ceilings.
- Hand Cannon: His personal weapon is an immense revolver that can blow holes through concrete and hardened steel. When Oeufcoque turns into a duplicate for Balot to use, the recoil nearly breaks her wrist.
- Hidden Depths: He engages in a serious and fairly complex discussion on morality, ethics, and values systems with Professor Faceman in the second part of the novel, subverting his image as a brute killing machine.
- Implacable Man: You could be forgiven for mistaking him for the Terminator.
- Made of Iron: He tanks multiple bullet wounds with no apparent trouble and isn’t slowed down at all by losing two of his limbs during his final battle against Balot and Oeufcoque.
- Morality Pet: Oeufcoque used to be his. It's implied that losing Oeufcoque is really what pushed Boiled over the edge and transformed him into a nihilistic killing machine.
- Professional Killer: Boiled is basically this, despite being a licensed case officer.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: He served in the Airborne Division during the Commonwealth’s war with the Continent, during which he accidentally dropped a half-tonne of incendiary bombs onto his old unit, and this left him with a severe case of PTSD and an addiction to amphetamines, which is why he volunteered to be a guinea pig for Paradise’s researchers.
- Some Kind of Force Field: Boiled’s Gravity Master powers can generate a nearly impenetrable personal shield.
- Would Hurt a Child: His primary target is Balot, a fifteen-year-old girl.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He says this nearly word-for-word to Flesh after Balot has killed or crippled the rest of the Bandersnatch Company. He didn’t expect them to actually kill Balot; he wanted to see what she would do when confronted with a threat to her life. Now that he knows this, he has no further use for the Bandersnatchers. He then kills Flesh himself.
Shell-Septinos
Shell-Septinos
Voiced by: Kazuya Nakai (Japanese), Kalob Martinez (English)
A professional gambler and businessman, Shell is also a pedophilic serial killer who triggers the events of Mardock Scramble by attempting to kill Balot with a car bomb. Her efforts to bring him to justice and to unravel the mystery of why he tried to kill her form the main plot of the novel, manga, and anime.- Cool Shades: He wears Chameleon Glasses, the lenses of which change color depending on his mood.
- Freudian Excuse: Shell’s murderous impulses are rooted in having been raped by his mother for years. This leads to him targeting women who were also sexually abused by their parents and making them “clean” again by turning them into blue diamonds. Doctor Easter theorizes that his neurological disorder is also a factor since it has robbed him of the capacity to develop stress coping mechanisms.
- Functional Addict: He drinks a lot and frequently pops Heroic Pills, which are a kind of narcotic with wide-ranging effects. He apparently does this to cope with the side effects of the surgery that ruined his memory.
- Kick the Dog: Near the end of the novel, he murders his mentally challenged wife for no apparent reason other than a fit of pique.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Shell-Septinos is a lot of things: a show gambler, a crooked businessman, and a serial killer. But a skilled fighter is not one of them.
- Parental Incest: Shell was a victim of this for years at the hands of his mother. This is, in fact, the detail that connects all of the women he has killed, and the answer to why Balot was to be his next victim.
- Serial Killer: Shell has made a ritual of taking in young women, killing them when he finds out they've looked into the fake IDs he gives them, and turning their remains into blue diamonds. Balot was set up to be his next victim.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Balot actually feels sorry for Shell once she understands the full extent of his psychosis.
- Villainous Breakdown: He suffers one every time the subject of Balot comes up, since he literally cannot remember why this girl is so important, and why it is that she’s after him.
Cleanwill John October
- Abusive Parents: He kept his mentally challenged daughter locked away from society, since she was considered an embarrassment to the family, then effectively sold her to Shell-Septinos as part of a business deal. It's also implied that he may have sexually abused her.
- Bad Boss: As is standard for CEOs in cyberpunk novels. He outright threatens to have Shell killed if he can't get the special million-dollar chips back from Balot and immediately throws him under the bus as soon as his schemes are found out.
- Depraved Bisexual: When Balot and the Doctor uncover his hiding spot in the bar to which he lured them as part of a failed assassination attempt, he's reclining on a couch with several underage prostitutes of both sexes strewn around him.
- Fat Bastard: He's depicted as quite overweight.
- Gonk: The manga depicts him as a hideously ugly monster of a man.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Shell-Septinos works for him, and OctoberCorp is strongly implied to be behind much of the organized crime in the city, particularly drug trafficking and money laundering. The Doctor and Oeufcoque are out to take him down, which is how they get involved in Balot's case to begin with.
- Meaningful Name: Discussed by the Doctor. He's a john (i.e. someone who visits prostitutes) who is also clean-living (he keeps up a veneer of honesty and respectability while indulging in all kinds of depraved exploits and dirty business deals behind the scenes).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: This seems to be his default attitude toward life.
- The Unfought: He's a fat Non-Action Guy who uses his underlings to do all his dirty work, so he never actually crosses swords with Balot and Oeufcoque.
The Bandersnatch Company
In General
The Bandersnatchers are a gang of psychopathic fetishists who are hired to kill Balot. They present the first major test of her new abilities.
- Body Horror: Let's see, we've got: a guy who replaces his fingers with those of his victims, a man with eyeballs implanted all over his chest and arms, a cackling sadist whose skin and hair are a patchwork of grafts taken from his victims, a Fat Bastard with human breasts grafted all over his body, and... the Pussyhand.
- Electronic Eyes: The Bandersnatchers all have cybernetic eyes as a standard feature. This backfires on them pretty nastily when Œufcoque is able to hack their network and screw their visual receptors all to hell.
- Freudian Excuse: They get one of these in the manga, and the novel to a lesser extent. In the manga, they were a tight-knit squad serving in the Commonwealth-Continent War, and Welldone initially refused to force cyberization on them. Soon after, however the horrors of war caught up with them and they were all mentally broken. Having fallen into despair, Welldone gave in and allowed them to be converted into cyborg killing machines. In the novel, the story isn't much different; though the whole implantation angle is dropped, Flesh tells Boiled about how they were surrounded and cut off for three months and forced to slaughter thousands of enemy soldiers before being rescued.
- Human Resources: They pride themselves on not letting any parts of their kills go to waste.
- Kick The Son Of A Bitch: They're a bunch of Killers hired by Shell to take out Balot, and have become absolutely addicted to Implanting their victims parts onto their artificially enhanced bodies to cope with the trauma of the war they fought in. Their "test" by Shell is to murder a room full of his guests. They include a mother who just happened to witness it, and her son after she tried to spare him by telling him not to visit Shell's meeting room and he disobeys. They also witness Balot showering, go through her underwear, and even eat her cooking. As cruel as Balot is to them subsequently, the Manga assures us that their defeat and betrayal by Boiled was a long time coming and very well deserved.
- Professional Killer: They are certainly very good at killing, though this is only a side-effect of their chosen career.
- Psycho for Hire: They didn’t even want money for the Rune Balot job. They fancied her parts so much that they considered the job and the payment to be one and the same.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: They effectively serve this role in the story; they're more threatening than the faceless Mooks Balot confronted previously, but they're also far less dangerous than Boiled.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: It's implied by Flesh that all five of them are suffering from this to some degree, since they all served in the Commonwealth-Continent War.
Welldone the Pussyhand
Welldone
Voiced by: Masahiko Tanaka (Japanese), Chris Ayres (English)
The leader of the Bandersnatch Company.- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: His nickname. He does, in fact, have a vulva and vagina grafted into his left hand, and he's looking for another one for his right hand.
- Groin Attack: Balot empties her gun into his crotch several times over during their showdown.
- The Leader: Of the Bandersnatchers.
- Made of Iron: Balot fills him with bullets, and he’s still able to keep coming at her. She has to literally shoot him to pieces before he finally stops.
- Red Right Hand: His left hand, actually, which contains a grafted vulva. He keeps it covered with a bondage glove.
Medium the Fingernail
Medium the Fingernail
- Artificial Limbs: He replaces his maimed hand with mechanical implants.
- Avenging the Villain: Medium intends to do this for his fallen comrades by teaming up with Boiled and attacking the Paradise research facility, unaware that Boiled set up his team to lose in the first place and only intends to use him as a distraction.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: He is brutally killed by the Cherubim during his failed assault on Paradise. First, they bite down on his arms and legs and pull him into the air, shredding his limbs in the process. Then they start eating him from the crotch upward. Then they pile in and tear him to bits.
- Dragon Their Feet: Subverted; he's the last survivor of the Bandersnatch Company, but he doesn't get to confront Balot again before he's killed.
- Eye Scream: Balot shoots out one of his eyes.
- Fingore: Balot blows off most of the fingers on his right hand during their initial encounter.
- Groin Attack: The Cherubim of Paradise inflict this on him right before they tear him to shreds.
- The Lancer: He's Welldone's second-in-command.
- Lecherous Licking: He licks the tears off the face of one of Paradise's inhabitants while he's mutilating her.
Rare the Hair
Rare the Hair
Voiced by: Mika Kanai (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)
Part of the Bandersnatch Company.- Friend or Foe?: Rare stabs and kills Mincemeat due to his visual and audio receptors having been hacked. He doesn't take this very well.
- I Love the Dead: It’s strongly implied that Rare is a necrophile.
- Psychopathic Manchild: He dances around and giggles constantly, even when they're on the hunt, and the novel even describes him as acting like a child at play. He also flips out and throws a tantrum at Flesh when he finds out he's accidentally killed Mincemeat.
Mincemeat the Wink
Mincemeat the Wink
Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese), Andrew Love (English)
The Brute of the Bandersnatch Company.- Ace Pilot: He was apparently a skilled helicopter pilot during the war.
- Ambiguously Brown: The novel describes his skin as being brown like a scorpion's, but doesn't elaborate on his ethnicity beyond that.
- The Brute: He is the largest and strongest of the Bandersnatchers.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Mincemeat’s upper body is covered in stolen eyes.
- Eye Scream: Balot shoots out every single one of the eyes implanted into his arms and torso, which drives him into a rage.
- Friend or Foe?: He's stabbed to death by Rare, who mistakes him for an enemy due to having his audiovisual implants hacked by Oeufcoque and Balot.
- I Love the Dead: It’s strongly implied that Mincemeat is a necrophile.
Flesh the Pike
Flesh the Pike
Voiced by: Tomohiro Waki (Japanese), Rob Mungle (English)
The tech expert and Mission Control for the Bandersnatch Company.- Fat Bastard: He was apparently pretty fat even before he started transplanting stolen human breasts onto his body.
- Mission Control: He serves as this for the Bandersnatch Company.
- Spell My Name With An S: In the novel, he's Flesh. In the manga, he's Fresh.
Other Characters
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Tweedledee
Tweedledum Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese), Mark Laskowski (English)
Tweedledee Voiced by: Yumiko Kobayashi (Japanese), Corey Hartzog (English)
Another pair-bonded group of experimental subjects, much like Balot and Oeufcoque. They live in Paradise, the advanced research facility where all the Scramble 09 technology was developed. Tweedledee is a human boy about Balot's age, while Tweedledum is a dolphin.- An Arm and a Leg: Medium severs one of Tweedledee's arms in a fit of sadistic anger. Since Tweedledee can control his pain response, this has little effect on him.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Averted. Tweedledum claims that he and Tweedledee are lovers who have sex all the time, but no one else comments on it and the subject is quickly dropped.
- Bio-Augmentation: Tweedledee was born paralyzed and with various ailments that would have likely killed him before he turned three. He's received extensive biological modifications from the researchers at Paradise; as a result, he can not only walk, he can now communicate electronically via an organic transmitter growing from his forehead and control his own pain responses. He doesn't even need to breathe or eat anymore.
- Dissonant Serenity: Even after having an arm cut off, Tweedledee remains his usual cheerful self. It helps that he can turn his pain response on and off at will.
- Feel No Pain: Tweedledee can switch his pain response on and off at will. This comes in handy when Medium decides to try and torture him.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Tweedledee barely blinks when Medium cuts his arm off.
- Mr. Exposition: Tweedledee fills Balot in on Paradise's nature and purpose, and Tweedledum walks her through using the facility's pool as a terminal to access the Net and delve into Shell's past.
- Theme Naming: As with many of the other characters and places in the novel, they're named for characters from the works of Lewis Carroll.
- Those Two Guys: As implied by their names.
- Uplifted Animal: Much like Oeufcoque, Tweedledum is an ordinary animal (in this case, a dolphin) granted enhanced intelligence and special abilities by Paradise's technology.
Professor Faceman
Voiced by: Kinryū Arimoto (Japanese), Carl Masterson (English)
The director of Paradise and last of the Three Magi, the original founders of the research facility.- As the Good Book Says...: He quotes the Bible, specifically the Book of Genesis, a few times throughout his portion of the novel.
- Big Good: Debatable, but he's the leader of Paradise and is generally benevolent: he's shown to support the Mardock Scramble process, grants Balot and the Doctor sanctuary, and allows Balot access to the information terminal which lets her work out the details of Shell's schemes. He even expresses remorse for Boiled's lost empathy and broken life.
- For Science!: Strongly implied to be his chief motivation in life, but he also has a surprisingly well-developed sense of empathy for the Frankenstein's monsters his lab has helped create, even Dimsdale-Boiled.
- Losing Your Head: His solution to developing terminal cancer was to have his head removed and placed into a special life-support cage. He doesn't seem that bothered by it.
- Meaningful Rename: After his whole-body-ectomy, the other researchers in Paradise started calling him Faceman. He didn't hesitate to adopt the moniker, regarding it as quite suited to his new existence.
Ashley Harvest
- The Ace: Ashley is almost supernaturally skilled at stacking the deck to his advantage. Appropriately enough, his so-called "special move" involves stacking several aces in a row to mess with the opposing player.
- Bringing in the Expert: After Balot and the Doctor have shut down a cheating poker dealer, the casino's star roulette croupier, and one of its best blackjack dealers, Ashley is dispatched to kill their winning streak.
- Didn't See That Coming: When Balot stakes both her million-dollar chips on her current hand, Ashley believes that there is no way Balot would pass up a potential six-million-dollar payout, and is stunned when she calls for "even money".note
- Fixing the Game: This is Ashley's specialty; he is capable of stacking the deck in such a way that any ordinary gambler would lose all their money to him in short order. Only the team of Balot and Oeufcoque are able to beat him.
- Graceful Loser: He cheerfully admits defeat when Balot passes up her chance at a six-million-dollar payout to ensure she gets the chips she needs from him.
- Punch-Clock Villain: He's just doing his job by trying to shut down Balot and the Doctor. He doesn't particularly like Shell, who is his boss, and he quits the casino soon after his game with Balot is over.
- Sherlock Scan: Ashley studies Balot and the Doctor and quickly deduces that they are no ordinary punters. He is also able to figure out that Balot's gloves (which are really Oeufcoque in disguise) are giving her some kind of advantage simply by watching security footage of her.
- Stone Wall: This is his specialty; if a punter is doing too well at the tables, he steps in to wear them down and then use his extraordinary shuffling skills to stack the deck in his favor and clean them out.
- Stroke the Beard: He has a large and bristly mustache which he strokes when he's thinking.
- Worthy Opponent: After Balot survives his special move, he begins to regard her as one.
Bell Wing
Voiced by: Toshiko Fujita (Japanese), Susan Koozin (English)
A master roulette croupier at the Eggnog Blue Casino.- The Ace: She's described as being the best roulette croupier in the business, such that casinos are competing to hire her.
- Cool Big Sis: In the short time that she and Balot spend together, Balot comes to see her like this.
- In Love with the Mark: In a platonic sense. While she initially sees Balot as only another punter to be rooked of all their money, she comes to like Balot so much that she quits the casino after their game, then stands by her side during the final game with Shell. She even declares that she'd be happy to train Balot as her successor, much to the dismay and envy of the other croupiers at the casino.
- Spell My Name With An S: In the novel, she's Bell Wing. In the manga, she's Belle Wing.
