Characters / Punishing: Gray Raven - Playable Constructs

Punishing: Gray Raven Main Character Index
Playable Constructs
Non-playable Characters: People of Babylonia | Factions on Earth

Warning: Punishing's Chinese servers were active before others, and thus have released more story and gameplay elements compared to international regions. As such, there will be spoilers aplenty, marked and unmarked. New players are advised to read at their own discretion, or avoid this page entirely.

Constructs (Omniframes)

In General

• Ambiguous Robots: While they claim to be cyborgs, the degree of modification the constructs can undergo, along with the fact their consciousness is separate to their bodies makes it hard to see where the human ends and the augmentations begin. Some of their bodies are so extreme they could be more readily called androids with human memories.
• Body Backup Drive: Death is theoretically cheap, thanks to the Inver-Devices that allow them to pull their consciousness out of their bodies split-seconds before death. However, it is still possible to suffer a true death if the mind doesn't get out in time.
• Brain Uploading: The M.I.N.D allows Constructs to keep their consciousness separate to their bodies, allowing them to easily slip between frames as necessary. The best example is when Vera switches between her Rozen and Garnet frames during The Last Spark, where the latter is actually dropped onto the operation site as an empty shell that Vera only needs a few minutes to enter.
• Child Soldier: Most of the playable constructs were converted as teens or younger. Lucia in particular was converted at such a young age that NPCs express open discomfort with it and Nikola admits that although he considers it necessary to the war effort, they're probably going to Hell for this.
• Damager, Healer, Tank: All the characters are broadly classified into Attack, "Armor" (Tank), and "Support" (Healer) roles. Later, the hybrid "Vanguard" and "Amplifier" classes were added.
• Horned Humanoid: Some Constructs have their Inver Devices shaped like horns.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The alternate frames are usually canonical upgrades, with the characters keeping their new looks in-universe afterwards.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Commandant accrues some very strange recruits over the course of the game. While nominally the Gray Raven squad, members come from far and wide, including disavowed constructs, those from foreign armies and even oddballs that apparently just came in out of the rain.
• Retcon: The game originally strictly divided character classes into "Constructs" and "Transcendants" due to lore reasons, such as Transcendants being reserved for "Dead Zones", but as the cast expanded and began to include characters who were distinctly never human, the classes were retitled "Omniframes" and "Uniframes", making them more arbitrary.

Lucia (BPL-01)

Voiced by: Xiao N ^* 小N (Chinese) Yui Ishikawa (Japanese), Sura Siu (English)

Gray Raven squad Attack-type Construct

^{Click here to see Dawn} 

^{Click here to see Plume} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 18
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: June 15
• Service Time: 6 Years
• Weight: 48kg
• Height: 165cm

"Commandant, I am the Lucia you gave life to. That day when I touched your hand and felt your warmth — that was the moment I truly came alive. Alive to everything in the world."

The stern captain of the Gray Raven squad. As a modified military-type construct, she has developed great strength and a firm will in the long war. Nowadays, her tacit understanding with the Commandant is widely considered a model on the battlefield. However, her unusual memories show crucial aspects of her past have been buried.

Lucia's frame variations are Lotus, Dawn, Plume, Crimson Abyss, and Crimson Weave.

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• The Ace: She's a great asset to Babylonia for the purpose of fighting the virus, just like the original.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Two of Lotus's coatings are these.
  • "Daybreak" is given as a reward of the 500.000 pre-registration milestone.
  • "Rain Walking" is given as a reward of first time top-up.
• Badass Biker: Whenever a driving sequence occurs in the game, she's the one who is put behind the bars.
• Big Brother Instinct: Protecting her sister was basically the only thing keeping her going in the past, until her death. Time with Gray Raven squad has made her a bit better.
• Blow You Away: A rare blizzard variant. Plume frame 's cannon can shoot out a whirlwind of blizzard.
• Cool Shades: Upgraded Lotus coating gave her this beneath her Inver Device. The final upgrade version has a red tint.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Lucia admits that cooking is a weakness for her. Despite learning from other constructs in her spare time, her creations still tend to be "special". In her White Day side story, Lucia tries making popcorn for the Commandant, which somehow involves chocolate, sugar, curry powder, coffee powder, dried tomatoes and more. The Commandant manages to swallow the concoction, and offers to help Lucia with her cooking in the future. The Panini: Gray Raven gag anime ups this to Lethal Chef, as one of her dishes outright kills those who eat it during the end credits.
• Cuteness Proximity: One of her favorite gifts player can give to her is a stuffed frog keyring. In the past, she used to give her sister a huggable sized stuffed frog to calm her whenever she went to find foods.
  • In the Panini anime, she's shown to be in a warm delight receiving one from the commandant. She's also shown to kept hordes of them in her locker.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Always on the receiving end of this whenever fighting with Alpha is concerned. This is, however, slowly getting averted as time goes on.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was an orphan who looked after her younger sister, who had to fight Corrupted and scavenge for food. She just about gave up when her sister died in a failed conversion into a Construct, only half-heartedly continuing because Nikola told her fighting the Corrupted would be a better use of her life. This is complicated by the fact that this Lucia is not the one who experienced these events.
• Death of Personality: At the end of Kowloong Metropolis, Lucia dons the Plume frame to defeat Qu, but the initialization process requires her to lose her memories. The Lucia that follows after will only be able to read them as data, but not be emotionally connected to them. Ironically, however, she began to be more emotional after the initialization.
• Dual Wielding: Lotus and Dawn frames have the abilities that give her additional blades to allow her to do this.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Dawn has a coating named "Gothic", which recolors her default palette into monochrome.
• Elemental Powers: Three of her frame variants have different elemental abilities, besides physical damage:
  • Playing with Fire: Lotus deals 20% fire damage.
  • Shock and Awe: Dawn deals 60% lightning damage.
  • An Ice Person: Plume deals 80% ice damage.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Each of three of her four frames has one of per element.
• Foreshadowing: Her visual receiver gave Alpha's face in shadow on their first encounter.
  • At some points on the story, Kamui noted that Lucia never cared about him before and that now she's a nicer person. Lucia is visibly confused by these statements.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: During a mission, she and Liv together secured two stuffed animals in a nearby mall where the mission took place.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her frames sports different variants of pigtails.
  • Lotus has her pigtails done on the front side of her hair.
  • Dawn has the standard style.
  • Plume has her pigtails positioned more on the back of her head.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Kowloong Metropolis, Lucia sacrifices her memories in order to fully activate her Plume frame, allowing her to defeat Qu and save the Commandant. She does this, believing the Commandant's memories of the old her is proof enough of her existence.
• Hot Blade: Lotus's Blue Orb "Lotus - Wave Slash" skill flares up her blade for extra fire damage.
• Iconic Outfit: Of all her frames, Dawn is used most for Punishing's marketing.
• Identical Stranger: Her Lotus look is actually how Alpha looked like before she gets infected.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Her past memories are intact, save for some previously unknown holes in her memories.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Her color signifies her role in the Gray Raven team.
• Limit Break:
  • Lotus has her do Criss-Cross Attack and ended by Storm of Blades.
  • Plume has her do a leap and deal massive ice damage from midair.
• Limited Wardrobe: Subverted by her actual variation of coatings. Lotus's first secret file stated that she keeps many similar red scarfs.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: While she recieves two, switching to her Dawn frame for Consumed by Darkness and Plume during Kowloong Metropolis, it's also inverted; she ditches the Dawn frame after Consumed by Darkness and reverts to Lotus until she upgrades to Plume. No reason is given for this.
• Privileged Rival: Towards Alpha, who has to survive the world on her own. Lucia on the other hand, enjoys maintenances, new upgraded bodies and has a reliable Commandant courtesy of Babylonia.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Lotus's default coating sports these.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her default eye color, which points her to be the strongest in the Gray Raven team.
• Replacement Goldfish: She is this to Babylonia, replacing Alpha.
• The Stoic: She generally has a calm personality that signifies being a professional.
• Super Mode:
  • Lotus gives her an ability in which, pinging 3 Red Orbs within 4 seconds will allow her to use "Dual Blade" skill.
  • Dawn gives her four floating swords for her Ultimate to boost her attack.
  • Plume makes it integral to her attack style: activating Ice Mode grants her a whole new set of powerful ice-based attacks for a limited time, and it is only then that she can use her Limit Break.
• Spy Catsuit: Lotus's coating "Daybreak" gives her this with combination of fingerless gloves, a Underboob Window and an upper bottom window.
• Starter Mon: You start the game with her B-Ranked Lotus variation as your Attacker to make initial headway into the game with.
• Sword and Gun: Plume gives her a freezer cannon that is carried on her back and can be attached on her left arm.
• Synchronization: Due to their connection, in Wintry Shackles, Lucia and Alpha begin sharing sensations. Unfortunately, this also means Alpha also becomes a vector through which the Ascension Network begins infecting Lucia, slowing turning her into an Ascendant.
• Winter Royal Lady: Subverted within the aesthetic department. When Plume is compared to Alpha, she's certainly the more privileged Construct with ice powers.

Liv (BPN-08)

Voiced by: Duo Duo(Chinese) Ai Kayano (2019-2021) Miku Itō (2021-Current) (Japanese), Brianna Knickerbocker (English)

Gray Raven squad Support-type construct

^{Click here to see Lux} 

^{Click here to see Luminance} 

^{Click here to see Empyrea} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 16
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: August 10
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 43kg
• Height: 155cm

A member of Gray Raven recruited from Star of Life Medical. Liv is polite and understanding. Despite her weak appearance, she can withstand extraordinary amounts of pressure. As the latest Support-type construct, she provides the team with critical backup. Even in this age of war, Liv's heart continues to hold an innocent dream.

Liv's frame variations are Eclipse, Lux, Luminance and Empyrea.

---

• All-Loving Hero: She never showed anything but kindness to others, whether it was her spoiled step-family, or soldiers on the battlefield telling her to save herself. In fact, this trait was so admirable she was asked to keep living as a construct and helping others, rather than die. It reaches its logical conclusion in The Surviving Lucem when she agrees to don the Empyrea frame, which would have her purifying the Punishing Virus in the area at the cost of herself, had Lucia and the Commandant not saved her M.I.N.D.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Her Empyrea frame uses powers derived from the Punishing Virus. Rather than using it to infect and destroy, Liv uses it to purify others of the infection, though it comes at the cost of drawing the virus and its malice into herself. In game, Empyrea is the first of the Amplifier class, which can certainly dish out damage, but has higher value in its unique buffing and healing utility.
• Beam Spam: How her offensive skills work.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Her willingness to heal any Constructs in the battlefield doesn't stop her to be the sole survivor in her first outing against the Punishing virus. This is also when she was a human.
• Cinderella Plot: Her past is analogous to the original tale, step-family and all. But instead of marrying a prince, Liv becomes a celebrated war hero, and is transformed into a Construct.
• Combat Medic: She's no slouch in attacking, but their delays feel uncomfortably long compared to the non-stop onslaught other constructs are capable of. However, she's one of the few characters capable of healing herself or other teammates with her skills.
• Controllable Helplessness: At the end of Evernight Beat, Liv defiantly continues fighting the Unidentified Twins, even after they defeat Lee and Lucia. During this sequence, Liv can only stagger around weakly, and attack slowly, while the Twins effortlessly dodge each time and slowly whittle her down.
• A Day in the Limelight: Liv takes centerstage in The Survival Lucem, as she desperately does her best to keep survivors alive amid dwindling supplies and food during the game's Darkest Hour.
• Death from Above: Luminance has a Limit Break where she does Beam Spam rained down on her enemies.
• Defiant Captive: In Forgotten Sand she gets kidnapped by Watanabe. While she's being transported, she calmly tells Watanabe to stop the car and let her off, or have all of Babylonia out for his blood.
• Dub Name Change: Her Empyrea frame was originally titled "Solaeter" when it was first released in CN servers.
• Eye Colour Change: Her Empyrea frame unusually changes her normally pink irises to gray ones, giving away that her powers come from being infected by the Punishing Virus.
• Flawed Prototype: The Empyrea frame is a band-aid solution Babylonia rushes to the frontline in order to deploy their prototype Omega Weaponry on the Hetero-Creatures running rampant on Earth. It is combined with Ascendant data so that it can pull in the Virus to have it be drained away by the Omega Weapon, but there's no safe way to protect the Construct from the virus as it filters through their M.I.N.D. It can only operate for a limited period of time before the frame turns into another Corrupted, and by that point the only thing Babylonia can do is hit an EMP to fry the Construct. Liv volunteers anyways.
• Frills of Justice: Some of her coatings give her these.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite the massive danger involved in using the Empyrea frame in the story, none of this is reflected in its gameplay form, which Liv can use freely without any indication of encroaching infection.
• Girlish Pigtails: Several of her coatings sports her hair this way in different ways.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: During a mission, she and Lucia together secured two stuffed animals in a nearby mall where the mission took place.
• Heroic RRoD: Liv dons the Empyrea frame, which is only expected to function for three hours before she succumbs from absorbing all the Punishing Virus from other victims. Even when the Commandant and Lucia rescue her, her mind is in such a mess they fear she'll never recover.
• High-Class Gloves: Luminance has bridal style fashion complete with these.
• Important Haircut: Her Lux and Luminance frames sport shorter haircuts, canonically after Liv cut her own hair to cut ties with her old commandant, Vanessa, who gave Liv her Lux frame.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Her step-family pushed her away to bring attention to themselves, then refused to fight in the war because they wanted to enjoy their wealth and fame. Liv, meanwhile, enlists in the army, and inadvertently gets the last laugh when she is lauded for her heroism and becomes the member of the family the people celebrate.
• Light Is Not Good: Her Empyrea frame gives her the appearance of an angelic savior come to purge the Punishing Virus from victims, but its power is derived from Liv's own willing exposure to the Virus. In The Surviving Lucem, Liv's M.I.N.D. during this chapter takes the form of a nightmarish hellscape, and it also appears when she use her frame's Limit Break, showing the dark secret hidden under her new divine look.
• Meido: Eclipse has a maid-style coating named "Maid of Time".
• Pink Means Feminine: She has pink for almost every coating and she's the more feminine compared to Lucia.
• Playing with Fire: Her Empyrea frame gives her 90% fire damage
• Power Floats: Her Luminance frame makes her permanently airborne, emphasizing her almost fragile grace, and the fact she's a flying fortress armed with two massive laser guns.
• Reassignment Backfire: Her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing step-family convince her to join the army to get rid of her, seemingly expecting her to either die on the battlefield or become just another anonymous medic. Instead, she saves 35 wounded soldiers nearly at the cost of her own life, and earns both a First-Class Merit and conversion into a Construct, leaving the step-siblings that once looked down on her now envious of her achievements they can never replicate.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Luminance has her back completely exposed.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Despite her non-threatening appearance and demeanor, her mind is made of steel. Watanabe is surprised when he found her to be very calm when he kidnapped her.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The end of Echo Aria depicts a scene in Liv's past, which coincides with another in Lucia's "Treasure" interlude where she fought with some Constructs over the Commandant. Coincedentally, not long after she would be transferred to the undermanned Gray Raven squad.
• Shock and Awe: Lux deals 80% lightning damage.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: She's a tiny girl with two floating guns as her weapons.
• Sole Survivor: She survived her first outing as a human soldier. In the gag anime, she's the only one to not die to Lucia's cooking in the outro, apparently because she doesn't eat said food.
• Starter Mon: Liv's B-Ranked Eclipse variation is given to the player as their first Support-class Construct.
• Technicolor Fire: Her Empyrea frame grants her fire-damage attacks that is presented as white energy.
• You Can't Go Home Again: After her transformation into a construct, Liv sends a letter citing this as her reason she won't ever return to her family.

Lee (BPN-06)

Voiced by: Xia Hou Luo Feng (Chinese) Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Japanese), Chris Hackney (English)

Gray Raven squad Attack-type Construct

^{Click here to see Entropy} 

^{Click here to see Hyperreal} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 18
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: July 23
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 63kg
• Height: 175cm

A member of Gray Raven originally from Kurono Ops. Lee comes with a wealth of engineering knowledge and experience with firearms. While he puts up an indifferent and outspoken appearance, in battle he will actively protect those close to him. A younger brother waits for him.

Lee's frame variations are Palefire, Entropy, and Hyperreal.

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• Big Brother Instinct: He did everything he could to look after his younger brother, Murray. When the latter's heart condition worsened, he volunteered to become a construct in exchange for Murray's heart transplant, even donating his own heart.
• A Day in the Limelight: Lee becomes the central figure of Spiral of Chronos, as he dons the Hyperreal frame and climbs the mysterious tower that is broadcasting a Hate Plague.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Lee's Hyperreal frame can stock Red and Yellow 3-Pings, which then activate along with his "Hyperdimensional Space" passive, which causes duplicates of him to attack at the same time as him.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Lee showed talent for hardware and computer science — he built robots in his spare time and it's implied he anonymously submitted articles to science magazines. Whatever future he had there was cut short by his transformation into a construct, though he still serves as The Engineer for Gray Raven squad.
• The Gunslinger: A true blue Woo, full of Gun Fu. His attack animations involve him spinning, charging, and flipping around while firing his two handguns.

• Icy Blue Eyes: In contrast to Palefire and Entropy, Hyperreal's eyes are a stark ice blue.
• Meaningful Rename: His birth name was Morian; when he did mercenary work to support himself and Murray, he used "Lee" as his alias. As a construct, Lee is now the only name he uses.
• Mental Time Travel: His Hyperreal frame has enormous computing power. When Lee enters the tower in Spiral of Chronos, he becomes capable of perceiving alternate timelines, communicating with alternate selves, and eventually altering events earlier in his past to provide himself the tools to proceed further. In terms of gameplay, this is why Hyperreal is built around the Doppelgänger Attack: he's actually summoning Lees from alternate timelines to fight with him.
• No Sense of Direction: Tends to get lost when on his own- according to one of Eclipse's secrets, Liv once watched him wander around on radar for two hours before finally finding the right path.
• The One Guy: In the Gray Raven squad.
• Playing with Fire: His Palefire variation appropriately gives him some fire-damage attacks, including a grenade that leaves a persisting Area of Effect that burns enemies and converts any attacks made on them into the same element.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Entropy's victory animation has him point one of his guns at the camera, before quickly pulling it back next to his head.
• Sour Supporter: He's the snarkiest, grumpiest, and most cynical member of the team, but he still displays unwavering loyalty and trust in the Commandant.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The weapon class for Hyperreal is the tellingly named "Composite Arms". While initially resembling a handgun and a suitcase, it also serves as a convenient bludgeon, sniper rifle and BFG.

Bianca (BPO-87)

Voiced by: Yun He Zhui (Chinese) Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese), Skyler Davenport (English)

Purifying Force Attack-type Construct

^{Click here to see Veritas} 

^{Click here to see Abystigma} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 25
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: November 21
• Service Time: 6 Years
• Weight: 57kg
• Height: 172cm

The chief of the Purifying Force. This elegant and rigorous construct is not only certified to kill the Corrupted, but also any construct infected by the Punishing virus, even if it is on Babylonia's side. Because of her special status, few people know who she really is, though rumours swirl of her past as a nun.

Bianca's frame variations are Zero, Veritas and Abystigma.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: The "Adaptation Fitting — Toniris" short story reveals Bianca was often treated with suspicion because of her job in the Purifying Force. Any friendly greeting or courtesy to remember others by name was always misinterpreted as Bianca "keeping tabs" on suspects or "warning them" not to befall the same fate.
• Badass Fingersnap: Some of Bianca's skills are prefaced by an audible snapping of her fingers. For Veritas, it signals her blue "Magnetic Thunder" skill, a self-buff that can also trigger her Sniper Mode, while for Abystimga, it signals the activation of her Luminous Space passive. Either way, they both are cues that Bianca is about to lay down sudden bursts of damage.
• Badass Preacher: In her past life before becoming a Construct, she was a nun.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: In an inversion to the Mid-Season Upgrade most of the characters have, her Veritas frame is actually her first body in-universe, and she switched to a less powerful Babylonia body when she cut ties with Daedalus Corp. She reluctantly returns to it in Eternal Engine, needing more power to deal with the threats of that arc.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her Abystigma frame looks like it belongs to a full-blown villain, with a jagged black sword, ghoulish purple effects, and her pale appearance, but while Bianca comes close to Sanity Slippage during Voyage Among the Remains, she remains steadfastly focused on destroying the Hetero-Creatures in that storyline.
• Defector from Decadence: She used to work for Daedalus Corp, believing she was working as a peacekeeper, until she found out she was actually an Unwitting Pawn to the company's secret human-trafficking business where they were forcibly converting victims into constructs. Afterwards she proceeded to destroy the organisation, up to killing the CEO who hired her in the first place.
• The Dreaded: As the leader of the Purifying Force, Bianca is often met with wariness at best and sheer terror at worst by other Constructs whenever she appears on the field.
• Dual Boss: She and Karenina are fought together as the boss of Chapter 6.
• Evil Makeover: Her Abystigma frame metaphorically has her embrace her identity as a "witch", and her appearance comes with a deathly pallour and Excessive Evil Eyeshadow. While her Abystigma frame had her look more normal, by the end, getting swept up by the Red Tide in Voyage Among the Remains changed her appearance.
• Expy: Having Ayako Kawasumi voice a dignified blonde woman was always a nod towards Saber from the Fate Series, but her Abystigma frame makes the reference even more blatant, with Bianca wielding a sword like Saber, and her Limit Break being a Sword Beam with a red and purple tint, making it strongly resemble Saber Alter's Excalibur Morgan.
• Flawed Prototype: The Abystigma frame is built with a function to read past data embedded in the Punishing Virus to learn more about it, but given Bianca is taking it on its first test run, the results are mixed, as she's hammered with hallucinations in the process. While she survives the mission, she ditches the frame so it can be further stabilized.
• Glass Cannon: Her Veritas frame in particular is an absolute monster in lightning damage, but her meager health means that she can actually get killed in a single blow if the player isn't careful keeping her out of trouble.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Despite easily being able to defeat her and Karenina, the story of Chapter 6 treats it as if it were Bianca and Karen who handily defeated Gray Raven squad.
• Heroic Vow: "Qianzi, if it were you...you would definitely make the same choice. Wait for me,, I'll be there soon." said by Bianca before Qianzi's boss fight. The sad twist is that in the Gestalt simulation where Bianca becomes the witch and humanity loses, Qianzi is unable to raise a hand against Bianca at the battle along the coast and lets herself be killed.
• Lady of War: She has the most lady-like aura of all the characters, and uses a lot of balletic flips and spins as she fights. Her Veritas Interlude even has a moment where her former boss, Wen, insists she learn etiquette despite being a combat cyborg.
  Wen: You have been bestowed power, but etiquette forms habit and restraint. It is a self-reminder, one that reminds you of your identity and your duty.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Abystigma has a caveat that it doesn't go into Matrix on a dodge, and rather needs to be manually enter "Luminous Space", which itself comes with one second of completely freezing the enemy.
• Of Corsets Sexy: She wears one that highlights her ample bustline in all of her frame variations.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In Chapter 7, she has all the authority needed to hunt down Kamui due to his growing infection. After listening to the arguments of Gray Raven squad and Chrome, she compromises, allowing Gray Raven to follow along to see if they can cure him first, within the limits of her mission parameters.
• Shock and Awe: Her Veritas variation focuses on Lightning-type damage, with her Limit Break involving an arrow shot upwards that rains down a series of thunderbolts.
• Shoot the Dog: The Purifying Force is all about this. Bianca herself on two different occasions had to Mercy Kill people who showed her nothing but kindness after they got infected by the Punishing virus and went on a rampage.'
• Stance System:
  • Veritas can enter "Sniper Mode", where Bianca's basic attack is replaced by a long range, extremely powerful series of shots.
  • Abystigma can enter "Sword Mode", where Bianca loses her orbs, but gains immensely powerful basic combos as well as a series of Sword Beams, as well as her Limit Break.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: Zero and Veritas both use bows, despite the prevalence of firearms in the setting.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Bianca's Interlude "Faith on the Snow" and Watanabe's, "Fostered by Blade" wind up both taking place at the same incident at Snow Plain Church, the events of which profoundly impacted them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the hidden node of her Veritas Interlude, Bianca meets Hassen, who thanks her for destroying Daedalus. She bitterly insists she's nothing more than a killer, but Hassen shows her data proving that all the targets she had killed ultimately saved more lives down the line, potentially preventing entire cities from collapsing.

Kamui (BPE-72)

Voiced by: DK(Chinese) Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Patrick Guia (English)

Strike Hawk squad Armor-type Construct

^{Click here to see Tenebrion} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 19
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: October 23
• Service Time: 3 Years
• Weight: 72kg
• Height: 180cm

Kamui is a member of the Strike Hawk squad, each of whom operate alone. Whether in daily life or in combat, he remains optimistic, though his "screw-loose" personality has caused him equal amounts of trouble. For all his kindness and forbearance, he often pays a great price for it.

Kamui's frame variations are Bastion, and Tenebrion.

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• BFS: His weapon of choice. It's large enough to double as an impromptu shield, befitting his Armor class.
• The Ditz: Par excellence. He's cheerful, friendly, and has absolutely no common sense.
• Establishing Character Moment: His very first appearance story-wise has him throw his greatsword at an enemy attacking the Gray Ravens, then cheerfully introduce himself only to be caught off-guard by the enemy, which had survived his attack. Lee lampshades this to himself, noting that he can already tell the two of them aren't going to get along.
• Horned Humanoid: He has a metal spike protruding from his head to indicate his nature as a construct.
• Manchild: Excitable and naive, and his favorite gift is a handheld console.
• Mighty Glacier: Out of the playable cast, Bastion fits this archetype the best: he's one of, if not the slowest playable character in the game, but he hits hard, can block and parry attacks, and can give himself shields up to around half his max HP.
• Sixth Ranger: Despite being part of Strike Hawk squad, the events of the initial chapters has him tag along with Gray Raven squad for an extended period.
• Split Personality: He has one in the form of his Enemy Within, Camu. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say he's Camu's second personality.
• Stepford Smiler: While it was already implied by his bio, it's all but confirmed in Imprisoned Sight that Kamui hides a lot of his problems behind his upbeat persona, as he's heard muttering Koya's name after waking up from Vonnegut's hacking, only to state that he was shown a video game level he was stuck on^note keep in mind that during this scene, Chrome saw the part in his first Interlude where he failed to complete the Commandant tests, an event that radically altered his life.
• Super Mode: His aptly named "Dark Mode" for his Tenebrion variation, which boosts Dark damage output and changes all his moves into ones with stun resistance.
• The Heart: Bastion's bio mentions that since Strike Hawk isn't exactly a close-knit team, Kamui often plays the messenger to bring the others together, essentially making him this.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Kamui is not the original owner of his body. He is fact an artificial personality Camu requested be made to suppress his when getting converted into a construct.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: During Nona Ouroboros Kamui disguises himself as a woman to infiltrate the Nighter's more secretive "trade fair". As it turns out, he manages to pull off the look, so long as he stays quiet.

Nanami (MPL-00)

Voiced by: Zhao Shuang(Chinese) Minami Tanaka (Japanese), Melody Peng (English)

Unknown Armor-type Mechanoid

^{Click here to see Pulse} 

^{Click here to see Starfarer} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: Unknown
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 45kg
• Height: 145cm

Nanami is a mysterious mechanoid whose affiliation is unknown and unaccounted for and has a knack for making friends with other machines. Why she grew a human-like consciousness is also unknown. She is lively, and has a unique style of dialogue and taste. When she fights, it seems more like she is playing. She claims her favorite hobby is observing humans.

Nanami's frame variations are Storm, Pulse, and Starfarer.

---

• A God I Am Not: In the future simulations of Her Last Bow, her reaction to discovering a cult of Awakened Machines who worship her as the "Sagemachina" − the first and most advanced Awakened − is one of fear and discomfort, considering what this cult ended up doing (namely driving humanity to extinction). She makes it clear that she is no God and never wanted any of this.
• Barrier Warrior: Her role as an armor-type is performed via dropping protecting domes around herself and her teammates.
• Benevolent A.I.: She is an Awakened Machine, but her greatest interest is to have fun and play with her friends. When she realises that humanity and the planet is on the road to destruction, Nanami doesn't hesitate to find a way to stop Gestalt's predictions.
• Chainsaw Good: Her weapon of choice.
• A Day in the Limelight: While she has appeared in various side stories and minigames that appear in every chapter and event, it all culminates in Her Last Bow, which centers on her specifically, while The Ark Beyond follows up and finishes that part of her storyline.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Mini-Mecha she pilots for her Starfarer frame is the "Paradigmatic Omnipotent Weapon-Edge Remake", which she shortens to "POWER".
• Future Badass: An alternate timeline Nanami from a future where she leads the Awakened Machines off the doomed Earth is capable of sending data to the game's timeline from where she is. At the climax of Voyage Among the Remains, she embeds data that she calls "a gift called 'future'" into Chiko's body to be recovered after Bianca kills her.
• Creepy Crosses: For her Storm frame, she has cross motif decorations on her skirt as part of the Elegant Gothic Lolita design.
• Genki Girl: Cheerful even when in battle. Her stage victory animation always involves her jumping for joy and throwing V Signs
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: She has a cheerful demeanor that is frighteningly paired with a chainsaw.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Nanami loves humanity because of all the awesome TV shows and movies they made. This has a tendency to perplex A.I.s like Gestalt or Huaxu, who only have mathematical predictions of humanity's survival, while Nanami empathizes with humans and their legacy on a personal level.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Her Starfarer frame fires off missiles for her blue skill, and switching her out lets her keep firing missiles from off screen for several more seconds as support.
• Mental Time Travel: Her Last Bow follows Nanami as she experiences simulations of how the war will end in 10 years, none of which are in humanity's favor.
• Mini-Mecha: Her Starfarer frame puts her in the seat of a war robot equipped with a chainsaw, missiles and a Pile Bunker.
• Parts Unknown: Just because she is seen, doesn't mean she can be explained, as her profile data shows. By Fake Ascension, Gestalt outright says she is neither human, machine, construct, nor Corrupted. Her Last Bow identifies her as the Machine Sage, the first to achieve true sentience on her own, without the need of the Punishing Virus.
• The Power of Love:
  • Despite catching the virus at the end of her first interlude, she discovers her body has successfully purged it, which she concludes was because she managed to cling to the memories and love of her family, keeping her mind intact.
  • In Her Last Bow, she reaffirms her belief that Humans Are Special because their capacity for love is their source of limitless potential.
  "Where there is humankind, there is love. Love transcends time and space, and shows humankind where they should go in the infinite expanse that is the universe."
• Roller Blade Good: Her Pulse frame has her feet altered to include disc-like wheels, letting her skate around on the battlefield, and even give a burning tackle for her Limit Break.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In Her Last Bow, Nanami experiences a number of simulations from Gestalt showing her a number of Bad Futures. Seeing this, Nanami sets out to find a way to avert the predictions, first by seeking out The Merciful One.
• Starter Mon: Nanami's B-ranked Storm variation is always the first Gacha reward you get while being walked through the system, and thus the first Armor type you receive in game.
• Shout-Out:
  • She tends to coopt catchphrases from various series such as Kamen Rider for her own use, starting with her introduction in the story:
  "Indeed... Walking the path of heavens... The Construct who will rule everything... My name is... Nanami."
  • Later Gundam in the first file of her interaction story:
  "Then bring Nanami with you and Nanami will shining finger them all to death!"
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Near the end of her Devour interlude, she gets infected by the Punishing virus, causing her to see everyone as rampaging machines.
• Tomato in the Mirror: In her interlude, she found out that she's a machine after getting infected by the Punishing virus when she went out to save people from the infected machines.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her Last Bow confirms that Nanami is actually the Machine Sage. The artwork she leaves around and the machine "friends" she has been making is accidentally turning her into a leader of a new faction of Awakened Machines, which Gestalt predicts could lead to the potential enslavement of mankind in 10 years.
• Wild Card: She has no affiliation, and while she aids Gray Raven at times, she definitely is working on her own agendas. As of Fake Ascension, she's working with Gestalt, Babylonia's AI, and in Her Last Bow it turns out she is a potential leader of new superpower composed of sentient robots.

Watanabe (BPO-29)

Voiced by: Sen Zhong Ren(Chinese) Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese), Daman Mills (English)

The Forsaken's Attack-type Construct

^{Click here to see Astral} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 26
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: April 12
• Service Time: 6 Years
• Weight: 76kg
• Height: 185cm

The leader of the Forsaken: constructs and humans who have gone AWOL and are considered a rabble of defectors and traitors. Watanabe carries complex experiences and opinions due to his emotional connection to others. He and his comrades, who have been forgotten by the world, now together protect an oasis, hoping to bring the hope of mankind in their own way.

Watanabe's frame variations are Nightblade, and Astral.

---

• Ace Pilot: Fallen Star reveals that Watanabe's original role was as a Construct fighter pilot, and was considered probably the second best pilot in the world shortly before his defection to the Forsaken.
• Anti-Hero: Whatever his good intentions, he makes sure the Forsaken benefit first. Watanabe causes a mess that lasts two chapters because he'd rather kidnap Liv to have her rescue the trapped minds of his men, since he refuses to trust Babylonia at first.
• Back Stab: He can deal bonus damage by attacking enemies in the back.
• Character Development: In his interlude, he began as a military careerist and a slight coward, hoping to avoid battle and find a job as a VIP bodyguard far away from battle. The death of his friend Bruce was what compelled him to take the war more seriously in his memory.
• Criss-Cross Attack: Nightblade's fighting style.
• Defector from Decadence: What he sees himself and fellow Forsaken. He initially joined the Forsaken because he was dissenting against World Government on Babylonia, and believes that he can lead the Forsaken, and humanity by extension, down a more righteous path.
• Dual Wield: His weapon are a pair of Kukri-style blades.
• Flash Step: The dash of his Nightblade variation makes him immaterial for a moment, allowing him to dash through enemies and appear behind them, which also conveniently synergizes with some of his passives that have bonus Back Stab damage.
• Hero of Another Story: Though the full picture is never depicted, there are fragments of story suggesting that Watanabe makes great contribution for peace and unity of human factions on Earth, ending the chaotic civil wars caused by strained resources and messy exodus of World Government to Babylonia. The story K-44 Line is one example, detailing Forsaken's and his attempt at resolving conflict between two factions of human army remnant.
• I Owe You My Life: After Liv succeeds in rescuing the consciousnesses of several Forsaken members from a memory container used by the Ascendants, Watanabe apologizes for his actions and offers his allegiance to Gray Raven squad, and them alone, allowing them free access to his territory.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Watanabe orchestrates a plan to distract Gray Raven with the local Corrupted by "gifting" the Commandant a local mint that attracts Vassago, a giant machine, allowing him to kidnap Liv in the confusion and evacuation.
• Parental Substitute: His profile mentions that he secretly considers Liv as something of a surrogate daughter. He certainly shows particular affection towards Liv whenever he's with Gray Raven.
• Shout-Out: If you pay attention, he has an iDROID attached on the left side of his shoulder. In-game, the thing only presents when Nightblade received an upgraded costume.
• Tragic Keepsake: His weapons are inspired by a "Ghurka knife" that was awarded to him and Bruce during their days as cadets, which Bruce then took with him, until he was killed, and the weapon subsequently passed onto Watanabe.

Karenina (BPD-72)

Voiced by: Hua Ling ^* 花玲 (Chinese) Haruka Tomatsu (Japanese), Heather Gonzalez (English)

Engineering Force Attack-type Construct

^{Click here to see Ember} 

^{Click here to see Scire} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 16
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: March 2
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 42kg
• Height: 163cm

Karenina hails from the Engineering Force of the Cosmos Technician Union. The Engineering Force has long provided external assistance for the Purifying Force. Because Karenina is easy to tease, she is more wary of people she meets for the first time. And she seems to have a little quirk about explosions.

Karenina's frame variations are Blast, Ember and Scire.

---

• All of the Other Reindeer: Despite being one of many street kids in her city, Karenina wound up being bullied by others.
• Attack Drone: Her Ember frame allows her to summon a trio of drones for additional attacks.
• A Day in the Limelight: She becomes a major character in A New Divide, when she is chosen to investigate the Zero-Point Reactor on the Moon and discovers what her adoptive grandfather was up to up there.
• Destructive Saviour: She's the one best known for providing blunt answers to tricky problems. In The New Divide, this actually leads to some hesitation on her part, as she realizes that destroying the Corrupted Zero Point Energy reactor might mean the end of humanity's hope for a better future. In the end though, her friends and Babylonia side with her, agreeing that saving the lives of the scientists who can recreate the reactor is more important than the reactor itself.
• Dual Boss: She and Bianca are fought together as the boss of Chapter 6.
• Girlish Pigtails: Combined with Ojou Ringlets for Ember frame.
• Gravity Master: The theme of her Scire frame, which in the setting has gravity manipulating equipment in order to operate in space. In game, this gives her the ability to pull off air combos or create damaging fields portrayed as Unrealistic Black Holes.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Despite easily being able to defeat her and Bianca, the story of Chapter 6 treats it as if it were Bianca and Karenina who handily defeated Gray Raven squad.
• Hidden Depths: In A New Divide, it's revealed that Karenina is one of the few leading authorities on Zero Point Energy, doubtlessly in no part thanks to being inspired by her grandfather's association with the technology.
• Hospital Hottie: Global server's first event gave Ember a coating based on this trope, named "Bloody Love". Complete with medicine vials fashioned as if daggers stored on her right thigh.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: One of the more foul-mouthed characters in the series, to the point the game itself censors some of her curses when in battle.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Scire is the first ever frame to have an honest-to-god air combo mechanic, complete with a Launcher Move. When in the air, Karenina can attack and air dash, and this itself fuels a gauge that increases the damage of her Limit Break. The fact the Launcher Move can cause more damage based on the number of potential 3-Pings in the orb queue means a player is almost encouraged to ignore the orb mechanic in favor of fighting in the air.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Her weapon class for her Scire variation is a massive hammer that doubles as a gravity manipulating cannon.
• Moon Rabbit: Her Scire frame references the legend: her weapon is a hammmer, her ideal support unit is a robot rabbit, and her story has her use this frame in order to go to the Moon.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Blast's Limit Break has her doing a twirl before a gun plant, then she closes her ears and stuff blows up.
• Playing with Fire: The elemental specialty of her Blast and Ember frames.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Ember's "Bloody Love" coating tinted her eyes red, as opposed to her regular yellow eyes.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: She's certainly slight of frame, but she also has no trouble swinging one of the largest modeled weapons in the game around like it weighs nothing.
• Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: She's essentially armed with an artillery piece, but its proper use only occurs during her Limit Break. Otherwise, it gets swung around as a bludgeon.
• Street Urchin: She grew up on the streets as one of many scrappy survivors.
• Took a Level in Kindness: For a while, anyways, when she was raised by her adoptive grandfather. She used to have a fearsome reputation as "Queen of the streets", but softened up under his care. Today her happy-medium is being a Tsundere.
• Tsundere: In the Panini anime, she mocked Lucia's inability of finishing a VR training. Later she was embarrassed and denies Bianca's idea congratulating her victory in said VR training.
• Unknown Rival: In the Panini anime, one of the running gags is that she wants to defeat Lucia. But much to her chagrin, Lucia never sees her as an actual opponent and constantly ignores her.
• What You Are in the Dark: In her Interlude, despite the other street kids bullying her and even killing her adoptive grandfather to rob him, Karenina ultimately decides to cover their escape, while she instead rampages against invading Corrupted.

Ayla (BPF-22)

Voiced by: Dafan Gong (Chinese) Shizuka Itō (Japanese), Kelsey Jaffer (English)

Arts Association Armor-type Construct

^{Click here to see Kaleido} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 18
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: December 15
• Service Time: 1 Year
• Weight: 64kg
• Height: 167cm

The World Government Association of Arts is one of Babylonia's youngest organisations. One of its members, the self-confident Ayla, expresses her passion for art by being part of its archaeological team, which unearths and preserves remnants of human culture from before the Punishing virus.

Ayla's frame variations are Brilliance and Kaleido.

---

• Adaptational Skimpiness: Downplayed heavily, but Ayla (Brilliance)'s final generic outfit outside of the Chinese version of the game is lower-cut than it was originally, showing off more of her chest.
• Art Attacker: Her artistic attributes are emphasized in her Kaleido frame, which gives her attacks that splatter paint across the battlefield, while her Limit Break even lets her essentially mark her handiwork with her signature.
• Charged Attack: Her passive ability allows her to use one after fully-powered special attacks, complete with added durability to power through any damage taken in that time.
• A Day in the Limelight: Ayla is one of the main characters for Fallen Star, with its Hidden Chapters following her search for Selena. Much later, she returns as a leading protagonist in Renaissant le Fantastique, which specifically concerns the Arts Association and its members.
• Gilded Cage: Her Interlude examines life aboard the Babylonia as a human civilian — despite excelling as artists, Ayla and Selena both come to realize that they will never grow as people so long as they remain naive and unaware of the harsh reality outside the space station, motivating them to eventually sign up for military service as Constructs.
• An Ice Person: Kaleido has 100% Ice damage.
• I Will Find You: She will stop at nothing to bring Selena back home. In Renaissant le Fantastique she actually manages to reunite with Selena for a moment, and though she begs her to stay, Selena chooses to depart to deal with her own unfinished business, satisfied that she now knows she has a home waiting for her.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The weapon of her Kaleido frame is a combination of a spear, paint gun, brush and even a Flying Broomstick.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her Kaleido frame is easily the most eye-catching, as she is basically wearing a leotard with a Showgirl Skirt, which shows off her much of her bare skin.
• The Klutz: She's not exactly the most coordinated. Her idle animation goes so far as to show her drop her scythe by accident.
• Sinister Scythe: Her Brilliance frame has the same weapon class as Chrome and Haicma.
• True Companions: She and Selena are extremely close, with Ayla crediting Selena as being an inspiration for her artistic pursuits, and later decision to become a Construct. When she discovers Selena may still be alive, she drops everything to go on a solo mission to the corrupted International Space Station, while it is in the middle of a massive battle with Babylonia.

Sophia (ADL-22)

Voiced by: Cai Na(Chinese) Ami Koshimizu (Japanese), Christina Costello (English)

Akdilek Support-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 15
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: November 3
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 36kg
• Height: 153cm

Sophia is from the Akdilek Commercial Alliance, and joined the Gray Raven squad as its representative. Once an orphan born aboard Akdilek's train, she is now one of the most powerful enforcers serving Jamilah, the Alliance's leader.

Sophia's frame is Silverfang.

---

• Combat Medic: As a Support character, Sophia's main contribution to a fight is her heals and buffs, though they come in an odder manner than her counterparts.
• A Day in the Limelight: Sophia acts as one of the main characters for Eternal Engine.
• Gun Fu: Like Lee, she uses two guns, though she shows less gunslinging flair, instead relying more on raw firepower.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Usually, Support characters heal the moment the relevant skill is triggered. Sophia, meanwhile, drops on-stage pickups when she performs various actions, which then other characters can collect for both healing and, more uniquely, fire-damage buffs.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: She carries two extra mechanical arms on her waist, which come equipped with their own weapons.
• Mundane Luxury: As a half-starved orphan, her first job as a train engineer was practically paradise.
  It was everything she has dreamt of — bed fluffier than steel slabs and asbestos, two whole meals a day, at least 6 hours of sleep every night, a hot shower every two days...
• Never Learned to Read: As an orphan, she never got an education. During her Interlude, Sophia tries writing a journal, which is riddled with spelling errors.
• Playing with Fire: Her elemental damage type is fire. Uniquely, her support abilities also grant some fire-damage to teammates as well.
• Status Buff: The pickups she creates can grant fire-damage buffs to teammates, and Sophia can also pick them up herself to gain "heat" points, which buffs her damage up to 15% depending on how much she has.
• Street Urchin: She grew up alone as scavenger aboard the commoner trains, living in its ducts and abandoned rooms, and originally only known as "Hyena" from people she stole from.
• Tyke Bomb: One of Akdilek's aristocrats, Ashlar, attempted to use Sophia as an assassin by converting her into a construct and pointing her at Jamilah by claiming she was responsible for the massacre of the maintenance team that became her surrogate family. Jamilah is able to tell Sophia the truth, defusing her.
• Undying Loyalty: Sophia is more or less Jamila's loyal attack dog and always seems to carry out the silver lining behind the queen's words. When the Akdilek Commercial Alliance and the Forgotten are given a chance to fight over who gets the lion's share of the goods offered by Pulao, Sophia attacks Watanabe, claiming that it was a slip of hand, but Watanabe knows better, given he pushed Jamila's buttons while negotiating with her earlier.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: After becoming one of the few survivors of the maintenance team, Sophia falls into the clutches of the Aristocracy, who forcibly convert her into a construct to use as a weapon.
• Wrench Wench: Knows her way around machines, enough that she got recruited into Asslam's maintenance crews, who essentially became her first surrogate family.

Chrome (BPE-07)

Voiced by: Da Bai(Chinese) Daisuke Hirakawa (Japanese), Brett Calo (English)

Strike Hawk squad Armor-type Construct

^{Click here to see Glory} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 19
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: July 31
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 60kg
• Height: 178cm

Chrome is the captain of Strike Hawk squad. As such, he considers his subordinates a great responsibility. However, it is still his personal code of conduct to finish any mission given to him perfectly and down to the last objective.

Chrome's frame variations are Arclight and Glory.

---

• Abusive Parents: His adoptive father, John Smith, who demanded blind loyalty and "perfection" in exchange for privilege of being his son. Part of that "perfection" included John's micromanaging Chrome's childhood, deleting text he didn't approve of, and expecting perfect scores all the time.
• Be Yourself: At the end of Chrome's Interlude, he decides to abandon his old human identity and fulfil his own desires, rather than just do what his father expected of him.
• Broken Ace: As a human, Chrome was admired, but never befriended since his intelligence intimidated other students. Meanwhile his father pushed unrealistic expectations onto him, and Chrome overworked himself due to perfectionist tendencies he developed. His Interlude even implies he engaged in self-harm to stay awake, and he persisted in dangerous Commandant simulations because it was unthinkable for him to fail.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Any enemy hit by his blue skill will get marked for several seconds, causing them to receive additional damage per hit, while Chrome will take less from their attacks.
• A Day in the Limelight: Imprisoned Sight puts the focus on Chrome, as he spearheads a mission that has him confront the newest group of Ascendants.
• Deflector Shields: Any blue skill that follows a three-orb combo will temporarily grant him some shield health. If it expires, or gets refreshed, the shield will explode and deal Lightning damage to enemies around Chrome.
• A Father to His Men: Chrome cares much about any squad he leads, and never takes any sacrifice lightly. All of his squad members respect him as a result.
• Fission Mailed: During Imprisoned Sight Chrome has to escape the Red Tide flowing in. While the sequence implies that it is possible to escape, the relentless enemy attacks and growing infection-based debuffs make Chrome's defeat inevitable, which the mission still counts as a success.
• An Ice Person: His Glory frame variation gives him Ice damage.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: At the end of Chapter 11's Hidden Story, Huaxu attempts to trap Chrome in a fantasy world where he is the human Commandant of Strike Hawk Squad, has his father's unconditional love, and humanity is on the verge of reclaiming Earth. Thankfully, he shakes off the illusion.
• Multiform Balance: Glory gives him this by making the player juggle a Mana Shield: Chrome is normally granted a continually regenerating shield, making him incredibly durable. But when he triggers his powerful AOE skills, which grants him a freezing aura, it drains his shields, making him truly vulnerable.
• Reverse Grip: Glory has him wield his sword with the tip pointed backwards.
• Sinister Scythe: Arclight frame variation weapon.
• Shock and Awe: Arclight frame variation focuses on Lightning damage.
• Sword and Gun: His weapon type, unique to the Glory frame, is a high-tech sword that has a pistol holstered in its pommel, which he draws to use for certain attacks in a manner not unlike an Iaijutsu Practitioner.
• Team Dad: Functions as the Straight Man in Strike Hawk. But this manner of his has instead become a running joke among fans calling him "Mama Chrome", and later acknowledged in the official spin-off comic Overlord Celica where he's seen wearing an apron.
• That Man Is Dead: As a human, he used to be known as Langston Smith, but after becoming a construct, he fully identifies as Chrome, abandoning all expectations he had before.

Vera (BPN-13)

Voiced by: Jiang Yue (Chinese) Marina Inoue (Japanese), Dawn M. Bennett (English)

Cerberus squad Support-type Construct

^{Click here to see Garnet} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 17
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: October 31
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 44kg
• Height: 164cm

"You're just too dumb."

The captain of Cerberus squad, and a member of the experimental long-range memory connection project. She is controversial for her "pain is proof of life" mentality and method, and her harsh, elusive attitude... not that she cares. She is skilled at close-quarters combat, where she can put herself closer to pain and danger.

Vera's frame variations are Rozen and Garnet.

---

• Battleaxe Nurse: In the past, she used to battlefield medic, her reputation as a jinx and her various frustrations made her a poor fit for the job, and she eventually joined the frontline as a combatant. This past of hers is referenced in her Rozen kit: despite being a Support class, she seems to be doing everything in her power to function like an Attacker with healing skills.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Her spear weapon of her Garnet variation splits in two into a short spear and a sword for certain attacks.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Similar to Bianca's Veritas suit, Vera's Garnet variation was her first and more powerful body. It also has a dark reputation of being built specifically to destroy other Constructs.
• Charged Attack: Her passive gives her a Collect type, where a separate meter fills and can be expended with what is likely her strongest set of attacks.
• Combat Medic: Another who can attack while having skills focused on healing herself and teammates; in fact, Vera's priorities are so skewed she is more "combat" than "medic".
• Curtains Match the Window: In bright red.
• A Day in the Limelight: While a recurring presence throughout the story, she becomes one of the focal characters of The Last Spark. She later returns as a major character in Left Unsaid, accompanying Bombinata and Vanessa in their mission.
• Dual Wielding: She begins with a stance in which she has a Reverse Grip on her left hand.
• Double Weapon: Player equipped katana will be mounted under the hilt of her flipped left-handed sword during certain moves.
• Exact Words: Vera plays loose with the spirit of Lee's favor when he asks her to pull back from the hunt for Kamui. When Nikola orders her back onto the field, she insists her hands are tied. She also "promises" to honor Lee's favor personally, but also says she can't say the same for the rest of Cerberus squad.
• Gradual Regeneration: Vera's healing skills won't return big chunks of health like Liv and Sophia, but playing her correctly will let them keep proccing almost nonstop.
• Javelin Thrower: Her weapon for her Garnet variation is a double-bladed spear she can throw as a javelin. For an extra bit of flair, every time Vera slams it into the ground, the shaft also produces a digital banner, as if it were a war flag.
• Leaning on the Furniture: Her idle animation for her Garnet variation has her stab her spear in the ground in order to lean against it, highlighting her maverick nature.
• Noble Demon: She's a bitch to a lot of people, but she's not heartless. When No.21 was put in her care, she became the former's Stern Teacher, teaching her to become more independent and probably was one of the few people at that point of No.21's life who valued her as an individual. It is indicated that her questionable behaviors are not out of mere malice, but are either not serious, justified or even has goodwill behind them, and she becomes bitter partly because she never let goes of all the misfortunes she witnessed. As per the comment of her colleagues, she is just a pragmatist that cares more about goals than niceties. And since this is a Crapsack World, she considers that being harsh is indeed a responsible choice both for others (to make them have better grasp on reality) and herself (to vent out her sorrow). Still, it seems she has somewhat Becoming the Mask.
  • In the personal story of Rozen, she once used an illegal drug to amplify the pain of a dying construct, as this was the only way to keep the latter's will to live.
  • In the personal story of Garnet, she encouraged a dying girl to live while operating on her, albeit in a harsh tone. While she used Commandant as a bait to draw out the Corrupted, this was because she was confident that she could keep Commandant alive, and she immediately dropped it when she discovered stronger enemies.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Which underlines her sadistic tendencies.
• Shock and Awe: Her Garnet variation focuses on Lightning-type damage and debuffs, with her three-orb combos converting her physical damage into elemental damage.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: During Left Unsaid she gains one in the commandant Vanessa, whom she butts heads with throughout the mission, leading to an almost non-stop campaign of insults and snark from both people.
• Slasher Smile: Whips this out in her ultimate attacks.
• Square Race, Round Class: Rozen is supposed to be a Support character, but in reality her damage output means she's really an Attacker in practice (though in a full team, its best she's relegated to actually doing her class role).
• The Tease: Vera makes many suggestive comments toward the Commandant, especially if appointed as their assistant. Garnet's victory animation even has her bending over and putting her fingers on the Commandant's chin.
• Troll: Befitting her sadism, Vera often makes life difficult for the Commandant (and the player) to revel in their trouble.
  • During the Poisson D'Avril event, Vera interferes with the Commandant's command system, causing him to mix up all the characters' appearance.
  • In the Eden Festival event, any minigame that she presides over is always extra difficult: the "Transport" games have the fastest and most complicated obstacle movements, the "Evasion" games will include intermittent laser attacks atop the walls you're supposed to dodge, and the "Guard" games will include kamikaze Jitterbugs and enemies with Area of Effect attacks.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Vera's ultimate ability is an Area of Effect that continually deals dark elemental damage to any enemies within, while healing herself and any teammates at the same time.

Rosetta (IH-31C)

Voiced by: He Wenxiao (Chinese) Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese) Sam Slade (English)

Arctic Route Union Armor-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 18
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: December 25
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 65kg
• Height: 177cm

"This body exists only to protect. Originally the leader of The Forest Guards, Rosetta shall become your sword."

Rosetta is the leader of the Forest Guards, a group of constructs that serve the Arctic Route Union. However, she has been accepted into Babylonia as a special member.

Rosetta's frame is Rigor. Her main weapon is a spear, alongside a shield on her other arm.

---

• BFG: A major part of her gameplay. Holding the attack button makes her use a railgun for a ranged attack, which can periodically fire its strongest attack based on the condition of her passive. Her ultimate attack also uses an energy cannon to fire Death from Above.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Rosetta's spear and shield are joined together to form the railgun when she uses it to attack.
• Body Horror: ARU-brand constructs care little for looking or feeling human. Rosetta is essentially a head jammed onto a metal body; her "Einherjar" skin makes this even more apparent, as her transparent torso shows it only contains a metal spine.
• Born Unlucky: Played for laughs in her side story. Her naturally bad luck causes her to lose a bet in a card game, forcing her to do survey tests in the Arctic. This leads to a hilariously disastrous camping trip the Commandant is pulled into, though she also manages to be Unluckily Lucky thanks to a robotic bear she gets help from by accident.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Her unique "Spear of Insight" debuff reduces an enemy's defense against physical damage.
• A Day in the Limelight: Rosetta serves as the main character of both Frozen Darkness and Firn Night.
• Death from Above: Her ultimate attack has her fly upwards and shoot her railgun.
• Discard and Draw: In universe, Babylonia removed Rosetta's centaur-like module due to their inability to maintain it. To make up for it, Rosetta received a new spear and shield.
• Gratuitous Latin: The inscription on the torso of her Howling Crown coating is actually a quotation from Book 3 of Virgil's The Aeneid.^note Interea magnum sol circumvolvitur annum / et glacialis hiemps aquilonibus asperat undas, or "Now had the sun rolled through the year's full circle / and the waves were rough with icy winter's northern gales."
• Meaningful Name: The Rosette Nebula can be found in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way, and "monoceros" is Latin for "one horn" — in other words, a narwhal, like how Rosetta and Derek are closely tied together.
• Odd Friendship: She is close friends with a "Narwhal", or a giant bionic whale she names Derek.
• Power Floats: She can fly around with "high-frequency magnetic levitation equipment" that look like wings on her back.
• Promoted to Playable: Originally the boss of the Frozen Darkness event, but later made into a fully playable character.
• Taking You with Me: During Kowloong Metropolis, she tries to defeat Alpha by allowing herself to get impaled, and then detonating Golden Vortex particles while Alpha is close.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Rosetta's blue orb skill lets her fling her shield at enemies with a chance to drag them back.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: The ARU forcibly turned her into a construct and a Forest Guard as punishment for defending Derek in her childhood. But also because she is a descendant of some of Amberia's research team, even though she is unaware of this.

Changyu (ADL-17)

Voiced by: kinsen ^* 金船(Chinese) Natsuki Hanae (Japanese), Caleb Yen (English)

Akdilek Armor-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 16
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: April 17
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 51kg
• Height: 157cm

"Oi, are you treating me like a kid?"

Born in Kowloong, Changyu was sold to Akdilek, where became one of the train's guards alongside Sophia. The tension and agility his construct body provides allows him to utilize his martial arts at its full potential.

Changyu's frame is Qilin.

---

• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Naturally, the character most overtly Chinese in design is also the one who specializes in hand to hand combat.
• Ascended Extra: Originally a side character in Eternal Engine, he finally became playable by Lost Chapter.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Unlike every other character, Changyu relies on his fists to do damage.
• Corporate Samurai: Essentially his job, showing how Akdilek is powerful enough to field their own constructs separate to Babylonia.
• A Day in the Limelight: His past before becoming an Akdilek Construct is revealed in Lost Chapter.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Unlike Jamilah, he doesn't recognize Noan, despite having saved the latter's life four years prior to meeting him again.
• An Ice Person: Contrasting Sophia's fire element, Changyu is an ice-element tank.
• Made a Slave: Changyu is proof of the dark side of Akdilek's willingness to market anything. He was sold to the train, and became a construct for them.
• Not Quite Dead: He gets wrecked rather badly halfway through Eternal Engine, but returns near the end, while shrugging off his previous condition as superficial damage and blacking out.
• Power Fist: His weapon type are mechanical gauntlets.
• Precision F-Strike: In the hidden node of his interlude, he notes that if he ever sees Huainan again, he's "so going to beat the shit out of him".
• Sexy Backless Outfit: The rare male example, with a tight shirt that just happens to only cover the front of his body.
• Tattoo as Character Type: His Sexy Backless Outfit provides a good view of an elaborate tattoo on his upper back, a decoration that's unique to him compared to other constructs.

A2 (YoRHa Type A No. 2)

Voiced by: Ayaka Suwa (Japanese)

YoRHa Armor-type Android

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: Unknown
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 139.2kg
• Height: 168cm

Guest starring from NieR: Automata, this abandoned Type A model is a prototype YoRHa android designed for close-quarters combat.

A2's frame is A2. Her weapon class in this game is spears, with her representative weapon from NieR: Automata being the Type-4O Lance.

---

• Advertised Extra: While the YoRHa characters are fully functional playable characters, they never appear in the Untold Naraka story itself, and only have a few plotless cutscenes and a boss fight against Machiavelli that is only referred to as "recovered data".
• Attack Drone: She comes with a Pod from her home game, which is used for certain attacks and can also attack independently of the player.
• The Berserker: With a buff that eats health and shields, the latter of which is regenerated by attacking, A2 encourages a relentless offense to outpace her own health drain.
• Cast From HP: Like in her home game, her Berserk mode drains her health until it reaches a certain threshold, or is deactivated manually. It feeds off any shield-type health first, as described below, incentivizing its use.
• Guest Fighter: This marks her first appearance outside NieR: Automata in a game not personally overseen by Yoko Taro. Many of her moves are taken straight from her original game, including more obscure techniques like her sliding dash.
• Inspiration Nod: The official trailer for the Untold Naraka event associates her with Alpha, both of whom are predecessors of their respective game's mascot characters, and wander the world pursuing initially hidden agendas.
• Mythology Gag: Her unlockable alternate costume is a copy of the older Brother Nier's outfit from the very first NieR game, which was also her DLC costume in Automata, making this a double-layered reference.
• Regenerating Shield, Static Health: Befitting her Armor-class, a major component of her gameplay is buffering her health with additional blue "shield" health, which builds up with various attacks. As her Berserk Mode depletes this health first, the two mechanics together form the crux of her gameplay style.
• Set Bonus: Her team buffs only affect other YoRHa characters, encouraging them to be used together.
• Shaped Like Itself: Unlike other characters, A2's frame is simply named after herself.
• Weapons That Suck: One of her special attacks is based on the A140: Gravity Pod program, which creates a vortex that can pull several enemies together.

9S (YoRHa No. 9 Type S)

Voiced by: Natsuki Hanae (Japanese)

YoRHa Support-type Android

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: January 30
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 129.9kg
• Height: 160cm

Guest starring from NieR: Automata, 9S possesses combat abilities, but this android is specifically designed for investigation. As a member of YoRHa, his primary skill is collecting data through hacking.

9S's frame is 9S.

---

• Actor Allusion: The official trailer for the Untold Naraka event associates him with Chang Yu, who is voiced by the same actor in Japan.
• Advertised Extra: While the YoRHa characters are fully functional playable characters, they never appear in the Untold Naraka story itself, and only have a few plotless cutscenes and a boss fight against Machiavelli that is only referred to as "recovered data".
• Attack Drone: He comes with several Pods from his home game, which he uses for his special attacks and can also attack independently of the player.
• Combat Medic: As a Support character, he can heal other teammates using his A080: Wave skill, and he is equally handy with his sword and offensive hacking powers.
• Guest Fighter: This marks his first appearance outside NieR: Automata in a game not personally overseen by Yoko Taro. Many of his moves are taken straight from his original game, such as the his Pod-based special attacks.
• Hacking Minigame: The form 9S's Limit Break takes, which recreates the Bullet Hell style gameplay from Automata to deal damage when successfully completed.
• Mythology Gag: His unlockable alternate costume is a copy of the younger Brother Nier's outfit from the very first NieR game, which was also his DLC costume in Automata, making this a double-layered reference.
• Set Bonus: His team buffs only affect other YoRHa characters, encouraging them to be used together.
• Shaped Like Itself: Unlike other characters, 9S's frame is simply named after himself.
• Time Stands Still: His A110: Slow skill creates a sphere that both damages and slows down any enemy caught in its range.

2B (YoRHa No. 2 Type B)

Voiced by: Yui Ishikawa (Japanese)

YoRHa Attack-type Android

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: Unknown
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 148.8kg
• Height: 168cm

Guest starring from NieR: Automata, 2B is a general purpose combat android affiliated with YoRHa. She combats machines with her swords in close quarters, while utilizing the Pod support system when at range.

2B's frame is 2B.

---

• Actor Allusion: The official trailer for the Untold Naraka event associates her with Lucia, who is voiced by the same actor in Japan.
• Adaptational Modesty: 2B's infamous leotard is toned down in the CN version, being cut low on the hip, which keeps her waist generously covered. The JPN version, meanwhile, uses the original design.
• Advertised Extra: While the YoRHa characters are fully functional playable characters, they never appear in the Untold Naraka story itself, and only have a few plotless cutscenes and a boss fight against Machiavelli that is only referred to as "recovered data".
• Attack Drone: Like the others she comes with an independently attacking Pod, though its presence is downplayed since most of her skills focus on her swordfighting
• Blade Spam: Her yellow skill imitates the R020: Mirage Pod program from her original game, which lets her unleash a sphere of rapid slashes around her.
• Dual Wielding: Her weapons of choice are Virtuous Contract and Virtuous Treaty, which she switches between depending on the attack she is using.
• Guest Fighter: She originally hails from NieR: Automata. Many of her moves and animations are taken straight from the game, including her infamous dress-destroying self-destruct move.
• Sword Beam: Using a three yellow orb combo will temporarily let her unleash projectiles with her normal attacks, similar to what happens if a player equipped the Shock Wave chip in NieR: Automata.
• Mythology Gag: Her unlockable alternate costume is a copy of Kaine's outfit from the very first NieR game, which was also her DLC costume in Automata, making this a double-layered reference.
• Set Bonus: Her team buffs only affect other YoRHa characters, encouraging them to be used together.
• Shaped Like Itself: Unlike other characters, 2B's frame is simply named after herself.

Wanshi (BPE-47)

Voiced by: Sun Peng (Chinese) Akira Ishida (Japanese), Corey Wilder (English)

Strike Hawk squad Support-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 20
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: May 21
• Service Time: 1 Year
• Weight: 64kg
• Height: 178cm

*Yawn* "... Time to start work."

This member of Strike Hawk squad constantly looks sleep deprived. But after spending some time with him, one will realize he is a reliable presence to have in dangerous circumstances. In missions where Wanshi is involved, squads are noted to take 80% less damage than in normal situations.

Wanshi's frame is Hypnos.

---

• Awesomeness by Analysis: Befitting his role as a scout, Wanshi's excellent at making deductions, even when he isn't cleared to know every detail. In Echo Aria he makes a few reasonable assumptions based on the Red Tide's prior movements as well as its relationship with the Hetero-Core fragments, and realises that Babylonia's plan for a wide-scale bombardment is unlikely to work.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: Wanshi's name was changed to Banji in the Japanese dub solely because his name (万事) is pronounced differently in Japanese compared to Chinese.
• Cold Sniper: Unintentional pun aside, Wanshi's sleepy demeanour also gives him a cold and detached look that combines his sniping skills. Calmness even informs his gameplay, with his Stance System encouraging continued fire until the last second, and his Ultimate needing awareness of enemy positioning to maximize damage. In story, he's also a very pragmatic and goal-minded operative.
• Combat Medic: As a Support character, he can heal teammates with his skills while also putting out effective damage.
• A Day in the Limelight: Wanshi figures heavily in Echo Aria, where he helps the Commandant scout out the Red Tide-drowned tributary, correctly reasoning that Babylonia needs to pinpoint its source, rather than fruitlessly bombard the area.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: That, along with Exhausted Eye Bags and crinkled eyelids, allude to his tired persona.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Wanshi makes his first visible appearance in Fake Ascension, though he's seen as far back as the Hidden story of Nona Ouroboros, when Chrome sees a version of him while he's trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Wanshi wears a black visor on his forehead, and only there. Of course, given his personality, it might also jokingly resemble a sleep mask.
• The Gunslinger: Similar to Lee and Sophia, Wanshi fights primarily with a handgun and a sniper rifle, though he compliments it with hand-to-hand strikes and grenades.
• Healing Shiv: While Support units' heals tend to just happen to also do damage to enemies, Wanshi's blue skill outright has him lob a grenade that somehow also heals teammates if it explodes near them.
• An Ice Person: Wanshi's element is ice, and his blue skill has him use a grenade that leaves a freezing Area of Effect that slows down enemies.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is a cold and calculating scout, but read between the lines, and you can see he's willing to do the right thing along the way. In Echo Aria, a boy from a settlement goes missing. While Wanshi remains focused on his own goal, he doesn't bother disputing the Commandant over looking for the boy, either, and simply starts searching.
• Long-Range Fighter: His fighting style encourages standing his ground to sustain fire. He has a skill to slow enemy movement, three-orb combos grant him temporary super armor, and his Tactical Shooting Stance always exits in a dodge and counter attack, giving him breathing room.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He might act like he's perpetually lazy, but he frequently shows flashes of a cold, calculating mind underneath. When he and the Commandant find the source of the Red Tide in Echo Aria, he completely drops any pretense of lethargy for his true, intense profesionalism.
• One-Hit Polykill: Attacks from his sniper rifle, whether from his Bloom Shot passive or his Zero Bloom Limit Break, go in a straight line through enemies, so it is preferable to have enemies in a column, rather than grouped horizontally.
• Sleepyhead: He's constantly yawning, stretching, and generally looking like he'd rather sleep than get into a fight.
• Stance System: After a three-orb combo, holding the attack button will put Wanshi into a Tactical Shooting Stance, where he will fire nonstop. Exiting the stance gives him a stamina-free dodge that can still trigger Bullet Time, as well as extended invulnerability, encouraging the player to not exit prematurely.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Being as pragmatic and curt as Lee, the two tend to have the same thoughts, to the point Lee can begin a sentence, before Wanshi cuts him short, already knowing what he'll say.

No. 21 (BPH-22)

Voiced by: Qian Chen (Chinese) Inori Minase (Japanese), Sarah Anne Williams (English)

Cerberus squad Armor-type Construct

^{Click here to see Feral Scent} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 22
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: January 21
• Service Time: 2 Years
• Weight: 42kg
• Height: 154cm

Originally an experimental subject of Daedalus Corp, No.21 is currently a member of Cerberus squad. She has a muddled perception of human emotion, and is gloomy and seemingly expressionless in appearance. However, she is exceptionally vicious and dangerous when at her extreme.

No.21's frames are XXI and Feral Scent.

---

• Animal Motifs: Wolves. She focuses heavily on identifying people by scent, is intensely loyal to those in her "pack" (to the point that thinking that Vera was destroyed triggered a berserk rampage), and to top it off, one of her skins has her dressed up as Red Riding Hood. Her Feral Scent variation pushes even further into this, as she gains bionic lupine features and Wolverine Claws.
• Be Yourself: Her main inner conflict during Chaos Unsnarled is her desire to be more human, and to be accepted by people, something she feels she's incapable of with her unstable and animalistic M.I.N.D. While the Hetero-Creature Fenrir tempts her to join its Mind Hive, the Commandant tells No.21 that all humans are different, while Vera tells her that rather than acting like an obedient dog to gain the approval of others, No.21 should make people accept her for who she is. Ultimately, No.21 accepts her "inhumanity", but also that she is a member of Cerberus.
• The Beastmaster: Her weapon class are drones, which can attack independently, and are also the source of some of her skills. Because of that, some awareness of their positioning is required. Notably, one of the drones is always present on the field if she's in the squad, letting it assist other team members.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: She develops a very strong bond with the other members of Cerberus because, in their own way, they were far nicer to her than most humans and treated her with their own rough form of respect. She develops a similar bond with the Commandant when they ended up linked together, as the Commandant shows concern and respect toward her. No. 21 doesn't completely get the emotions she feels around them, but if the Commandant, Vera, or Noctis are hurt (or she thinks they're hurt) she gets upset.
• Button Mashing: Her Limit Break has the unique twist where the majority of the damage has to be inputted directly by the player in a limited time, so naturally one has to mash buttons to make sure as many pillars drop onto the enemy during that time.
• Cast From HP: In her Feral Scent frame, her 3-pings take health, but also replaces it with shields. Luckily her passive also grants her a self-heal, allowing her to recover any lost vitality.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Because of her isolated upbringing, she doesn't have a many examples to compare knowledge with. In her birthday video, she decides showing her affection to the Commandant means eating them, since that's what she saw a pack of wolves do in a video she watched the day before. Moreover, the "eating" suggestion was first made by Vera as an obvious Double Entendre, but it wound up confusing No. 21, who took it literally.
• Cute Oversized Sleeves: Her arms are completely enveloped in a pair of sleeves. It not only emphasizes her childish nature but is also reminiscent of the loose sleeves of a straitjacket, alluding to her past as a test subject.
• Creepy Good: She may be on your side, but she has a deathly pallor, a creepy laugh and a Nightmare Face she pulls when she uses her Limit Break.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: During her Interlude, she eventually meets a researcher who claims to be her father, and argues that he gave her up to Daedalus because she was born with illness, and that the experiments and eventual construct conversion were intended to improve her health. No.21, however, rejects the man who basically admits to being a passive accomplice to her suffering.
• A Day in the Limelight: No.21 is a major POV character for Inscription of Labyrinth, and is the focal character of Chaos Unsnarled, where she deals with her personal issues while fighting the Hetero-Creatures around the Purified Zone.
• Doesn't Know Their Own Birthday: According to her Secrets, her real activation date is unknown, and the one in her profile was assigned by someone else.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She has a portraitless presence during Kowloong Metropolis, long before her playable appearance in Inscription of Labyrinth.
• Life Drain: In her Feral Scent variation, after filling her passive gauge, No.21 can use a Spam Attack that will heal her while she hits her enemy. This is what allows her to recover from the innate health drain of her 3-pin attacks.
• Long-Range Fighter: Her normal attack strings release projectiles, her passive refunds dodge meter when used correctly, she has drones for back up, and one of her skills traps her enemies in place. All in all, her kit expects her to stay on the move while keeping enemies locked down so she can blast them.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • The nature of her Haywire ability means that No. 21 benefits from periodically getting hit, as it lets her counterattack and generate shields off of those hits if she dodges immediately afterward. She also uses dodge charges immediately when pinging three red orbs to inflict extra damage.
  • Her entire kit is area-of effect and crowd-control abilities, and she works best in terms of raw damage when she can group entire packs of enemies close together, which makes her an effective hybrid Attack and Tank construct who is focused on killing waves of lesser enemies but is less effective against single strong enemies.
  • She's best deployed in the red or yellow squad positions, as her signature generates and triggers blue orbs. This lets her deploy the team member in the blue squad position alongside 21's signature to do extra damage or healing.
• Mood-Swinger: Because of the unstable nature of her M.I.N.D. when she was taken from Daedalus, No.21 can swing between a uncontrollable berserk fighting machine, and a curious, obedient child in an instant.
• No Social Skills: Having been raised in complete isolation in a lab with minimal contact with other humans beyond having to participate in painful experiments, No. 21 has zero experience to draw on when it comes to actually interacting with other people in a social setting. However, she's slowly learning how to be social thanks to the Commandant and Vera's efforts.
• Older Than They Look: Her big, baggy clothes makes her look child-like, but she's actually older than Vera, Cerberus's squad leader.
• One Degree of Separation: No.21 used to belong to Daedalus; "used to" because it got destroyed by Bianca in the past, after she discovered their human-trafficking operation while working for them. In fact she Escaped from the Lab precisely because Bianca's rampage was happening at the same time.
• Raised by Wolves: A sci-fi version played for drama. No.21's unstable M.I.N.D translates to actual dysphoria-like conditions where the more human-like her frame is, the more liable she is to go berserk. In Chaos Unsnarled, she hallucinates being a white wolf, that wishes to join the "furless wolves", even it if means tearing her claws off. By that point her Feral Scent frame was also being used to restrain her M.I.N.D, even if it warped her personality and made her more timid, and the story follows her learning to accept herself.
• Robot Buddy: Her "Collaborative Unit". It was a medical droid that tried to keep alive after she tried to escape in the middle of her construct conversion surgery, got an M.I.N.D. interface built into it to help stabilise her, as well as weapons, and now acts like an extension of her.
• Shaped Like Itself: Her frame's name is just her own in Roman numerals, highlighting her dehumanisation.
• Shock and Awe: Feral Scent has 100% Lightning damage.
• Tastes Like Purple: She has a tendency to associate things with scents, which she then further describes as colors or temperature.
• Tested on Humans: She was a test subject before she got recruited into Cerberus squad.
• Trap Master: Her passive lets her drop energy pylons that refund her dodge meter and later explode.
• The Unsmile: She has no idea how to smile in a way that isn't unsettling, and during Inscription of Labyrinth she's unhappy that the memories of Luna and Lucia's childhood made her unconsciously smile. At the end of Chaos Unsnarled, the Commandant amusedly wonders how long it will take for No.21 to realise she's smiling normally now.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Her XXI Interlude's hidden node establishes that when Cerberus was formed, she and Vera had already known each other for some time, but neither knew Noctis.
• Wolverine Claws: Feral Scent's weapon class.
• You Are Number 6: She's only known by the number 21. Her first interlude suggests she was raised in Daedalus's lab all her life, meaning she never even got a real name.
• You're Not My Father: When she meets a researcher who claims to be her father, she rejects the relation. Just as well, her "father" only admitted it when his life was endangered by Vera and he begged for mercy. When he even claims No.21's real name is "Aurora", Vera quickly realizes he's just using the name of a nearby toy, showing how little his "daughter" really means to her.

Selena (BPF-06)

Voiced by: Liu Zhixiao (Chinese) Satomi Sato (Japanese), Judy Alice Lee (English)

Arts Association Amplifier-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 20
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: September 27
• Service Time: 3 Years
• Weight: 41kg
• Height: 163cm

"Thank you for enjoying the flamboyant music."

This spare body was built at the urging of an artist from the Arts Association. As its name implies, it is a fantasy sonata, but the emotions contained therein are by no means false.

Selena's frame variations are Tempest and Capriccio.

---

• Author Avatar: In-Universe, Recitativo di Fantasia's story is from a play written by Selena. Ayla subsequently modified one of Selena's bodies so she could take part in her own production, so this "Selena" is a fictional character.
• Combat Medic: As an Amplifier-class character, she's capable of healing and buffing her teammates when summoned via QTE.
• Criss-Cross Attack: Her Limit Break allows players to manually do one, with a series of unique orbs that allows Selena to dash around, striking everyone along the way.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Her passive lets her leave behind copies that repeat her last three-ping attack, allowing Selena to continue attack even in the pauses between her skills.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: At least in the world of the play. As the Commandant continues resisting Hamlet, new endings are unlocked where the Dragon is defeated without having to sacrifice the Piper. In those ones, the world heals, while the Piper reunites with the Witch, or travels the world together with the Champion.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Selena's character in the narration of the play is only known as the Piper, or the Princess.
• Fix Fic: Capriccio's Affection Stories are about this, where her mind re-runs the scenarios in which she and the Commandant do not meet and instead do so properly like they wanted. This happy dream goes for three chapters until she remembers that she never saw the Commandant's face in the fourth, breaking the illusion apart.
• The Hero Dies: In the unaltered storyline, the Piper realises the only way to defeat the dragon is to connect her life to it, and then die to take it with her.
• Instrument of Murder: Her weapon for this variation is actually a flute, albeit one that projects a blade from one end. Her Six-Star class weapons is even named "Sarastro".
• King Incognito: In the story, the Princess spends so long wandering the world and trying to fight the Dragon that most people only know her as the Piper, unaware of her true identity.
• Meaningful Name: "Capriccio" refers to an instrumental piece, but can also be defined as "fancy" or "whimsy", while the Chinese name for this frame outright translates to "phantom". In the same way, the Selena here is a character she is portraying in one of her plays.
• Musical Assassin: As before, she has a musical motif, with her attack animations including her playing her flute mid-combo.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Because the Piper keeps appearing wherever the Dragon rampages, people begin to assume she's somehow controlling the Dragon, when it's actually she's chasing after it while trying to find out how to kill it.
• Royal Rapier: The thin blade of her weapon makes it resemble a rapier, and her attacks present her as an elegant fighter.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: She's actually the princess of the kingdom, but has spent her whole life trying to fight the dragon.
• Ship Tease: Like her real-life inspiration, the Piper's story teases strong relationships between Selena, Ayla and the Commandant, of whom the latter two are cast as the Witch and Champion. The Piper treasures the Witch as her closest friend, and travels the world with the Champion.
• Star Power: Her attacks has her produce constellations, galaxies and nebulas. Her ultimate skill outright transforms the ground into an image of the galaxy.
• Video Game Dashing: Her passive is activated with a three-ping followed by a direction, which causes her to dash separately of her normal dodging attack.
• Walking the Earth: The Piper travels the land, doing good while tracking down the Dragon. In the Golden Ending, she goes back to travelling, now with the Champion as her companion.

Bombinata (BPM-11)

Voiced by: Xuefei Lanlan (Chinese) Rina Hidaka (Japanese) Lexi Fontaine (English)

Egret squad Attack-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 9
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: December 5
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 29kg
• Height: 135.5cm

"By master's order, Bombinata is here to help you. Bombinata will be under your command when in mission, Commandant."

This construct's body has undergone a series of optimizations based on Kurono's early construct experiments, and currently serves as a member of Egret squad.

Bombinata's frame is Vitrum.

---

• Abusive Parents: She was adopted by Vanessa's parents, and while it appeared they put all their attention on her at Vanessa's expense, in reality they were not good parents to either of them: Bombinata was just another experimental subject who they cared for while researching her memory problems, and saw her as "just" a construct, not even expecting her to have dinner with them since constructs don't need to eat. In the end, it was Vanessa who wound up bonding with her, despite their rocky start.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Her weapon class are "Mantis Blades", which spring out from her forearms for certain orb attacks as well as her Limit Break.
• Body Horror: Playing into her doll/marionette motif, Bombinata has one of the most dramatic displays of mechanisation next to Rosetta, with her torso being hollowed out with a visible gap in the front and back to reveal her machinery in the center.
• Conflicting Loyalty: In her childhood, she had difficulty parsing her own desires, which made things difficult because she wasn't sure whether to obey her adoptive parents or follow Vanessa, who tries to care for her. In the end, Left Unsaid proves that her love for her sister is stronger.
• Criss-Cross Attack: Her Limit Break has her dash back and forth while slashing an enemy. If it's fully powered up by her passive, it has a unique animation to finish it off.
• Dance Battler: Her moves are inspired by ballet, with her leaping, kicking and pirouetting like a ballerina with knives. In the past, it was Vanessa who inspired Bombinata to practice ballet, and it seemed to be something she was talented in and genuinely liked.
• A Day in the Limelight: Bombinata, along with her commandant Vanessa, are the central figures of Left Unsaid, which explores their shared past while embarking on a vital mission for Babylonia.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Bombinata makes her first visible appearance in Voyage Among the Remains, though her first speaking role is while accompanying Vanessa during Echo Aria's Hidden story.
• Expy: Not Bombinata herself, but her Mantis Blades are pretty clearly inspired by the weapons of the same name and make that appear in Cyberpunk 2077
• Forgetful Jones: Bombinata suffers from serious memory issues, and regularly forgets people. This actually translates to her in-game mechanic, where doing a 3-ping skill from her Thread Pull state causes her to "forget" that orb, leaving the orb queue to fill with the remaining ones. If she can completely forget all her orb skills before doing her Limit Break, it will do more damage. Some of her animations also show her momentarily blanking out mid-attack, before rousing herself as if just waking up.
• An Ice Person: Her damage type is Ice, which her skills convert to if they're a 3-ping.
• Knows the Ropes: Following her doll/marionette motif, some of Bombinata's attacks have a string theme, most notably her passive skills, where she pulls herself through the air on a set of strings, as if a puppet master is dragging her around. Another attack from exiting Thread Pull lets her pull in enemies attached to her via a string.
• Marionette Motion: She has a doll motif, which translates to various animations depicting her being puppeted around on strings. Rather than looking unnaturally jerky, though, she instead shows a smooothness and grace that seems inhuman.
• Meaningful Name: If one renders her name as the Global version does, "Bambinata" is Italian for "a childish action", which is appropriate for the youngest playable character in the game.
• Nice Guy: Bombinata is a naturally kind girl. In the past, despite Vanessa's initial hatred of her, Bombinata wholeheartedly believed that becoming her "younger sister" meant supporting Vanessa, no matter what. Today, she's become more like an Extreme Doormat, loyally obeying her "master" Vanessa, despite the latter's coldness to her.
• Not Quite Flight: Her "Thread Pull" state of her passive, where she is pulled into the air on a set of strings, which becomes the starting point for a variety of attacks.
• Sole Survivor: Unlike Gray Raven squad, the Egret squad has an unfortunate habit of losing members. By the time Left Unsaid starts, Bombinata is literally the only soldier in it.
• Spell My Name With An S: The Global version of the game renders her name as "Bambinata".
• Undying Loyalty: She has steadfastly remained at Vanessa's side. At the climax of Left Unsaid Bombinata finally realizes that she truly wishes to be with Vanessa and support her as an equal.
• Wistful Amnesia: Despite her memory issues, many still linger in her subconscious. At the end of Left Unsaid, after Madeira tries to hack her, Bombinata finally dreams of her childhood memories with Vanessa.

Hanying (MPK-12)

Voiced by: Xie Ying (Chinese) Aya Endo (Japanese) Emi Lo (English)

Church of Machina Support-type Mechanoid

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: July 24
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 53kg
• Height: 169cm

"Nice to meet you, commandant. I am Hanying. Pulao told me a lot about Babylonia and you, and I have wished to meet you ever since. Please take care of me from now on."

Hanying is the crystallization of Kowloong's mechanical technology, and is infinitely close to human in appearance. She once lived aboard the Nighter and befriended Pulao and the other ship's inhabitants. Until recently she has lain dormant in the Church of the Machine, but has now finally awakened.

Hanying's frame is Zitherwoe.

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• Ascended Extra: Once a supporting character in Pulao's backstory, now a fully-fledged playable character.
• Become a Real Boy: Hanying often expresses doubts over the authenticity of her feelings, and wonders if she has a "heart". Her friends, however, think she feels more than enough. Neville of the Machine Church notes that her self-destruction in the past to protect Yoyo can only be considered "self-sacrifice", which only living beings are capable of.
• A Day in the Limelight: Hanying is the main protagonist of The Floating Reverie, where she reawakens and tries to finish her unfulfilled promise from years ago, which requires her to rescue Pulao from The Remnant of the anti-Kowloong faction "Cradle".
• Combat Hand Fan: Her weapon type.
• Combat Medic: As a Support-class character, she can heal her allies while also dishing out damage.
• Cool Big Sis: She is considered one by Pulao, who treats her like an older sibling.
• Flawed Prototype: She was Villier's first attempt at creating a vessel to house Huaxu in, though her inability to fulfill her purpose, plus the fact she eventually developed her own ego, caused Villier to abandon her as a failure while he moved his focus to constructs. Despite that, Hanying is incredibly advanced as is, and still capable of combat.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: That outfit is extremely elegant-looking, yet she can fight in it all the same.
• Lady of War: She's one of the most elegant playable characters in the game next to Bianca.
• Ms. Fanservice: Hanying is a graceful, curvaceous woman wearing a robe that is simultaneously low and high-cut, baring both her shoulders, back, cleavage, and her long legs. Throw in her elegant, dance-like attacks and you have a character who is easy on the eyes.
• The Promise: Years ago, she promised a girl named Yoyo that she would help her find her parents. Years later, in The Floating Reverie, she attempts to make good on that promise. At the end of the story, Hanying reunites Pulao with her parents, but with her own missing memories, Pulao never realises the elderly couple are her parents. But the two thank Hanying for reuniting them, all the same.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: In universe, Hanying was purpose built to be especially human-like, and many machines express both awe and confusion at how Hanying prefers living with other humans.
• Set Bonus: She gives passive damage buffs to both Qu and Pulao if they're in the same party, incentivizing the player to use them together.

Noctis (BPO-03)

Voiced by: Zicheng Shaozu (Chinese) Katsuyuki Konishi (Japanese) Bill Butts (English)

Cerberus squad Attack-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 24
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: March 25
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 80kg
• Height: 183cm

Once a member of the Purifying Force, Noctis was forced to resign as a result of a treacherous conspiracy. Now, he is a member of Cerberus Squad, where he serves as the fangs of Nikola's three-headed hunting hound.

Noctis's frame is Indomitus.

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• Bare-Fisted Monk: Noctis fights entirely bare-handed. Unlike Changyu, he doesn't even wear gauntlets: his weapon class is his mechanical arm.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: When the dodge button is tapped, instead of dancing out of the way, Noctis will sit there and block the attack. It functions essentially the same, with a perfectly-timed block even triggering Bullet Time, just like a dodge.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end of Sands of Wrath, Noctis is invited to stay at New Auclair, having helped protect it from Nigel's attacks. While Vera says the choice is up to him, Noctis decides to honor the Commandant's promise and return to Babylonia.
• Covered with Scars: He's got quite a few to show, and that's just on his face and upper arms.
• A Day in the Limelight: Sands of Wrath follows Noctis as he chases down Nigel, an enemy from his past, even if it means getting caught up in a Fugitive Arc.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Noctis' first appearance was actually all the way back in Eternal Engine, where he serves as Bianca's Kurono contact. He wasn't even established as a Cerberus member until Kowloong Metropolis.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: As noted above, Noctis is the first character whose dodge meter is used for blocking instead, allowing him to remain close to his enemies to pummel them.
• Power Fist: His weapon class is his entire mechanical left arm. Fittingly, his Limit Break also takes the form of a very exaggerate (and very explosive) Megaton Punch.
• Promoted to Playable: While he made several story appearances beforehand, Noctis wasn't playable until Sands of Wrath.
• Revenge: Nigel's murder of Noctis's beloved mentor Ballard is what also got him booted out of the Purifying Force, and for years he's been waiting for a chance to settle the score. That chance comes in Sands of Wrath, and Noctis wastes no time chasing the lead on Nigel.
• The One Guy: In Cerberus.
• Shock and Awe: Indomitus is 100% Lightning damage.
• Taking the Heat: At the beginning of Sands of Wrath, Noctis takes the blame from Vera for the release of No.21's restraints druing Chaos Unsnarled, saying it was done with malicious intent. This protects Vera and No.21, and gives him a chance to rejoin the Purifying Force and a chance for revenge.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: He carries a supply of grenades on him, and his Super Mode visually begins with him tossing one at enemies. It's actually a plot point in Sands of Wrath, as bombs that use the same formula as Noctis's are used to attack him and the Commandant, making him realize he's being framed, and that his nemesis Nigel — the one person who also knows the formula — is involved.

Alisa (UPC-15)

Voiced by: Aya (Chinese) Chika Anzai (Japanese) Ashely Biski (English)

Unknown Amplifier-class Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 16
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: March 22
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 41kg
• Height: 159cm

"Justice... it shouldn't be like this... I need... I need to see it for myself!"

Accompanied by her "sister", a special "weapon armor" named Cecilie whose consciousness is connected to hers, Alisa now wanders the land so she can truly understand the concept of justice.

Alisa's frame is Echo.

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• Abusive Parents: She was adopted by a scientist named Pickman, who was actually Kurono Kukawa, but in reality he merely singled her out for her potential for a M.I.N.D. fusion experiment, and developed her rigid sense of justice in preparation to sync her to hundreds of minds. Ultimately, Alisa gets her revenge and kills Pickman before he can repeat his crimes all over again.
• Assist Character: Cecilie attacks alongside Alisa, but isn't directly controlled.
• Charged Attack: Triggering several Mantra Orbs in a row allows Alisa to charge up her Penance Arrow attack: when fully charged, it triggers the next stage of her passive on top of doing more damage.
• Combat Medic: As an Amplifier, she buffs critical damage and provides healing for Physical teams.
• Cowboy Cop: Her Establishing Character Moment in Renassaint le Fantastique is hunting down Teasell, a defector to the Ascendants, before getting warned that she will join her next mission, or she will be the one who gets hunted down by the Purifying Force. Unsurprisingly, her strong values eventually makes her go rogue, anyways.
• Combination Attack: One of Alisa and Cecilie's specialties, and a crucial part of their moveset.
• A Day in the Limelight: Everglowing Justice stars her and Cecilie, as they team up with the Commandant to rescue their comrade Lena and stop the Kurono-aligned Utopia facility, which is engaged in horrific experiments she escaped from.
• Energy Bow: Shares her weapon class with Bianca.
• For Great Justice: She's driven by a strong, but rigid sense of justice instilled into her in her youth. Eventually, though, she undergoes character development, and she goes Walking the Earth in order to understand what she's fighting for.
• Fugitive Arc: As Alisa is on the run during Everglowing Justice, she has to avoid Babylonia, and is wary of the Commandant at first. She eventually exonerates herself, and gets the arrest warrant removed, thanks to Asimov.
• I Have Many Names: Alisa takes on a few different aliases over her story, first going by "Lena" in Renassaint le Fantastique, before calling herself "Echo" when she connects to Cecilie. The later she considers a Meaningful Rename, first identifying herself as an echo of the grudges and victims within the armor, before resolving to become an "echo of justice" in memory of her sister figure.
• Long-Range Fighter: All her attacks are projectile based, including those from Cecilie, and some of her skills move her around and create space, so she's never within arms reach of an enemy if she can help it.
• Mind Hive: Cecilie has the collective M.I.N.Ds of at least 246 constructs, including Alisa's sister figure, the original namesake, and Lena, Alisa's comrade. Because Alisa is connected to it, she's part of this group too. The fusion initially overwhelmed her, causing her to become the final boss of Renassaint le Fantastique, though by Everglowing Justice, she's regained enough sense of self to become independent again, even if she still hears the voices within. In fact, the fusion of M.I.N.Ds was part of the Cthylla Project, to create a M.I.N.D. capable of turning into an Ascendant, and indeed Teasell notes that Alisa can become a Transcendant.
• Promoted to Playable: Initially the boss of Renassaint le Fantastique, who was later added to the playable roster in Everglowing Justice.
• Puppet Fighter: Alisa's gimmick is that Cecilie has its own set of skill orbs. By holding down the attack button, these orbs become accessible, allowing the player to continue attacking in the interim while Alisa charges her own.
• Scales of Justice: One of Alisa's main motifs, alongside the gavel.
• Sword Beam: Cecilie will unleash these every time Alisa uses a Mantra Orb.
• Synchronization: Alisa and Cecilie are noted to have an interconnected consciousness, allowing them to better fight in tandem.

Lamia (ATL-01)

Voiced by: Hua Yin bb (Chinese) Saori Goto (Japanese) Julia Ling (English)

Ascendant Attack-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 15
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: February 2
• Service Time:
• Weight: 49kg
• Height: 169cm

Lamia's new body — created when Luna used her Ascendant powers to upgrade Lamia's previous frame — is able to freely switch between human and mermaid forms. Although Lamia whispered a request for a "height of 170", her humanoid height is only 169cm.

Lamia's frame is Lost Lullaby.

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• Bad Liar: Ironically despite her skill with disguises, she can't tell lies without making them obvious, let alone keep one up since her disguises are so perfect that no one needed to question her. In her Affection Story, the Commandant nearly outs her "Irene" disguise because she kept looking at them, but their taking apart her lies triggers a memory of her time in Atlantis when she tried to tell lies to try get breaks from the experiments, only to be seen through by the scientists. When the Commandant finally asks if she's lying, this sets her off, breaking down crying, emotionally venting part-truths (she herself doesn't know if she was being intentional or not) that keep the Commandant off her case.
• A Day in the Limelight: Lamia makes her gameplay debut in Cradle Parade.
• Field Power Effect: Part of Lamia's kit allows her to use her unique skill orbs to change the weather of the stage to "heavy rain" or "stormy", which increases her damage. Also, the stage gets flooded with water to accommodate her mermaid Dark Tide form when it's in use.
• Graceful in Their Element: Her animations show her being clearly uncomfortable with her humanoid form, as she stands knock-kneed and hunched over her spear, stumbles as she dodges, and has long range attacks to keep her away from danger. When she's in her mermaid "Dark Tide" form, she instantly becomes insanely agile in the water, and her attacks become rapid, hard hitting melee strikes. Even when she's set as the lobby assistant she chooses to be a mermaid.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: All throughout her life, not once has she ever been given any form of simple affection. During her Affection Story though, the Commandant interrogates her about her suspicious actions looking at them, only to unintentionally set off a memory of the scientists in Atlantis seeing through her lies. This made her cry from pent-up emotional baggage, and after calming down, she asks the Commandant to hug her to make up for it. They do, and Lamia has found herself missing the warmth ever since they separated.
• Making a Splash: Naturally, all her orb skills and attacks are portrayed as her hurling water at her enemies. Her passive even allows her to convert her 3-pings into a tidal wave that slams into the stage.
• Master of Disguise: Her upgrades have allowed her to change her entire body into different shapes, like that of a little girl with disabled legs named Irene in her Affection Story.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her new body very much resembles a pale but exotic mermaid complete with a lot of exposed skin.
• Nubile Savage: Her design has elements of this. Wearing little more than a high-tech bikini, it shows that Lamia's quite distant from social norms, and is more accustomed to the wilderness of the sea.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: She's a cyborg with a body that can change into a form designed to navigate underwater, plus, it's one that's been remodeled from an older frame.
• Progressively Prettier: Her old body, and her boss form, was positively ghoulish, and her lower body was definitely monstrous and disproportionate. In her playable form, she resembles a traditional mermaid, and while still very pale, it's definitely now angled towards having an exotic beauty.
• Prongs of Poseidon: When she enters her Dark Tide form, her spear opens up into a high tech trident, which is more than appropriate given she controls the water and the weather, like Poseidon does in mythology.
• Shrinking Violet: Her childhood in Atlantis being raised by unfeeling scientists has given her horrible self-esteem, not helped with her constantly getting the short end of the stick as an Ascendant thanks to other characters. Lamia even remarks in one line about how boring her past is, so it's surprising to her that the Commandant insists on listening.
• Stance System: Fittingly, Lamia's at her worst in her humanoid form, and her goal is to jump into her Dark Tide form, which has her most powerful attacks and her Limit Break.
• Stripperific: Somewhat appropriate, given her design is based off of mermaids, the only thing covering her otherwise completely exposed body is a somewhat skimpy two-piece swimsuit.
• Trauma Button: Vera, the psycho who trounced her in The Last Spark.
  • One of her voice lines has her hide behind the Commandant when she makes eye contact with Vera, expressing how scary she is. She's then taken aback by the Commandant saying she isn't.
  • In her first Affection episode, upon recognizing the disguised Commandant, she immediately looks around for the rest of Gray Raven, and more importantly to her, "a crazy woman with red hair".
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: In humanoid form, she's basically wearing a cybernetic two-piece at all times.

Alpha (α) (Spoilers)

Voiced by: Xiao N ^* 小N (Chinese) Yui Ishikawa (Japanese), Sura Siu (English)

Crimson Abyss

^{Click here to see Crimson Weave} 

Profile

• Psychological Age: 17
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: June 15
• Service Time: 6 Years
• Weight: 45kg
• Height: 165cm

"Die in the abyss."

Lucia Alpha — that is to say, the original owner of the construct Lucia's memories. Despite contracting the Punishing virus, she has managed to stay alive all this time as she is now part of the Ascendants. She wanders the planet, fighting the Corrupted by her lonesome. In terms of gameplay she is considered the Crimson Abyss and Crimson Weave frames for Lucia, but the story treats the two as separate characters.

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• Amazonian Beauty: Downplayed in that her musculature is more compact and lean, but her Crimson Weave frame has a pretty toned midsection.
• Badass Biker: Alpha tends to be associated with motorcycles, especially in her Unchained animated movie. It even becomes a gameplay mechanic for her Crimson Weave frame, as her ideal CUB unit is actulaly her motorcycle, which she can summon to ride on and ram her enemies.
• Badass Normal: Subverted. This only applies when she's compared to the other infected Constructs.
• Big Brother Instinct: Discovering that Luna isn't dead, rekindles her sisterly instinct. Luna is the only reason Alpha joined the Ascendants.
• Blade Spam: The form her Limit Break takes — Alpha slashes an enemy dozens of time in an instant, before dramatically sheathing her sword, which causes more damage, after.
• Broken Ace: She is so good at fighting that Babylonia need to create a clone of her with modified memories. Even then, she has improved on her own and vastly overpowers Lucia's ''Plume'' frame. But she shouldered the loss of her sister, team and therefore as a whole; faith in humanity. Fortunately, she later found out that her sister is still alive.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: As you up her Affection levels, she starts behaving like this towards the Commandant, with two particularly telling lines:
  Affection Up 8: "Looks like you finally know which Lucia you should be paying more attention to."
  Affection Up 10: "Forget about her and those other Constructs... You just need me, and only me."
• Cool Shades: Her swimsuit coating, Seaside Sunbath, gave her a pair of glasses that form the word "COOL". Literally◊.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Everytime Lucia encounters Alpha, the latter always wins.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lucia's hellish backstory is actually hers. It's arguably even worse, because after becoming a Construct, she befriended her squad, only to be betrayed by her Commandant, who also reported her dead. This made her develop misanthropy towards humans and eventually made her join the Ascendants.
• A Day in the Limelight: Alpha becomes a major player in Wintry Shackles, as she seeks out Winterhold in the hopes a device there can help her resist the influence of the Ascension Network, which is now actively trying to turn her into an Agent.
• Dual Wielding: Her Crimson Weave frame gives her two swords mimicking a samurai's daisho, though exaggerated in length, so that one is more like a short sword and the other is an absurdly huge odachi. She switches between them based on her Stance System.
• Defector from Decadence: Babylonia left her to die because of her infection.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Crimson Weave's release was the most technically complex Frame at the time, having a multitude of different moves tied to button combinations and contexts, atop a Stance System. But in return, this gives players a large number of options to respond to any situation.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Against her will, the Ascension Network forcibly transforms her into her Crimson Weave frame so as to become an Agent, making her even more powerful than when she was doing fine with her skills alone.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Subverted, as she's not actively chased after. Outside the Ascendants, she's technically very much unwanted. Babylonia don't want the Corrupted Lucia to exist for obvious reasons like compromising humankind's safety. In the wild, she's just another prey for the other Corrupted machines and Constructs. Following Luna's defection, she may have added the Ascendants to the list of her pursuers too.
• Expy: Her moves are likely to be inspired by Vergil. The moves become even more referential with her Crimson Weave frame.
• Family of Choice: Her multiple dog-tags and jealousy towards Lucia hints at her strong attachment of her previous team.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: her Crimson Weave frame emphasizes her heterocrhomia, has a red arm that doesn't match her right, and only one pant leg.
• Fights Like a Normal: All of her abilities are a result of pure skill, compared to Lucia, who fights with increasingly advanced Construct frames. Moreover, while she can command the Punishing virus, she doesn't. In Imprisoned Sight she was even offered a chance to upgrade her control over the virus to be on the level of Luna, Vonnegut and the Merciful One, and she still refuses.
• Foreshadowing: The familiar pins on her red scarf are hints that she share a part of Lucia's (Lotus frame) identity.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Her swimsuit coating idle animation has her remove her hat and poke the stuffed rabbit decoration on the hat.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She's violently jealous of Lucia's relationship with the rest of Gray Raven, especially since Alpha lost her own Gray Raven squad, after being betrayed by her old Commandant, Ravenge, no less.
• Had to Be Sharp: One of the reasons why her skills are superior to Lucia may have been because of her experiences out in the wild. In which she had to survive on limited resources at all time, as opposed to have the luxury of getting cool-downs and maintenances after each battle like back then in Babylonia.
• I Hate Past Me: She often gets fed up with Lucia because she keeps seeing this idiot based on her old backup who's constantly espousing her loyalty to Babylonia and trust in humanity when they're the ones who threw Alpha aside.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Alpha is the boss of the prologue, and players will be lucky if their fresh Lucia can drain even one of her 30 health bars, before getting defeated and being taken to the next cutscene, where Alpha seriously wounds Lucia.
  • This extends to Panini anime, where she's a boss that Lucia can't beat in a video game.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Her fighting style, contrasting the other Lucia. She always keeps her sword in a sheath mounted on a Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance-style articulating arm, only drawing whenever she needs to attack. Her Crimson Weave frame incorporates even more elaborate iaijutsu moves.
• Identical Stranger: Lucia's Lotus look is actually how Alpha looked like before she gets infected. But then the corruption process bleached her hair.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Her Limit Break demonstrates that she can cut through anything, including the empty spaces. Meanwhile the animated shorts show that her slashes will cut through anything no matter the distance.
• Ineffectual Loner: Subverted. Effectively removed herself from the humankind following her infection, until she discovers Luna is still alive.
• Katanas Are Just Better: It serves her well.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: During Spiral of Chronos, Alpha adopts a stray cat, which makes an appearance in the Unchained animated movie. The care she shows it provides some humanizing moments for her.
• Master Swordsman: There's no way to touch her once she draw her blade out of the scabbard.
• Meaningful Rename: "Alpha" means "no. 1" in Greek. She's the original Lucia.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Alpha's Crimson Weave frame actually divides her orbs between the two states of her Stance System, with her blue orbs appearing in one, while the red and yellow orbs appear in the other. To get the full use of her, players have to work towards her second stance, where the majority of her attacks are.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Her outfit has a large cutout in the chest that exposes her cleavage and midriff, although her cleavage is obscured by her dog-tags.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Frozen Darkness, she infected Rosetta's narwhal companion with the Punishing virus, which eventually leads to its death. Unfortunately, the narwhal's whale songs were what keeping the ARU's Mechanical Abomination, Amberia, asleep, who later wakes up in Firn Night.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: She's only following the Ascendants because Luna is their leader. The moment Luna goes missing, she takes off again to go looking for her. Even her relationship with Punishing virus is ambivalent in the same way — she was offered a chance to either gain further control of the Ascension Network or be removed from it completely, and she refused both, as she only desired its link to her sister, not the power. However, by Wintry Shackles, the Ascension Network gets tired of this attitude and decides to forcibly increase its connection to Alpha, turning her into the Crimson Weave frame, though she continues to keep resisting and fighting its control. She also refuses to ally with Vonnegut, though the latter merely hopes she won't get in his way down the road.
• Not So Stoic: She broke down in tears when she found out that Luna is still alive.
  • In the 1st anniversary short, she has a glimpse of shock when Lucia still came back for the second and the third times.
• One-Man Army: Managed to survive all Corrupted machines and Constructs on her own through wandering, after her abandonment.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Gabriel finally gets his comeuppance for his actions at Alpha's hands during Imprisoned Sight.
• Red Right Hand: She has heterochromia that shows her Punishing infection.
• Reforged into a Minion: Attempted by the Ascension Network, which transforms Alpha into her Crimson Weave form while trying to make her an Agent, but Alpha manages to maintain control over herself, though she's still tied closer to the Network than before.
• Sheath Strike: She parries Lucia's first strike with her sheath in the Different Routes animated short. Her Crimson Weave frame also incorporates sheath strikes for some of her basic combos.
• Shock and Awe: Her Crimson Weave frame favors Lightning damage.
• Something about a Rose: Her "Azure Apocalypse" coating gives her a blue rose motif, both from a rose-themed eyepatch and the new graphics used in her Ultimate, which replaces her Diagonal Cuts with rose vines and flowers.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Her disenchantment towards the world is justified, considering she lost her only family in her childhood, then her team and abandoned by humanity.
• Stance System: Her Crimson Weave frame uses the Signature Move button to switch Alpha to her odachi, which comes with a different moveset, and only allows her to use her Limit Break from that state, which then switches her back to her basic stance. Mastering both is required to maximize her potential.
• The Stoic: She's rarely fazed by anything, especially in combat.
• Super Prototype: Lucia just can't catch a break in order to catch on her.
• Sword Beam: Her core passive skill, when activated, gives her a stock of projectiles she can unleash by swinging her sword. In her Crimson Weave frame, it's transferred to one of her moves, where hitting attack after a dodge lets her send a short burst of projectiles.
• Synchronization: In Wintry Shackles she starts trading sensations with Lucia.
• Tan Lines: Her swimsuit coating, Seaside Sunbath, has her sporting these.
• Tragic Keepsake: Her extra dog-tags originally belonged to Hiro, Murol and Xun — her former teammates of the first Gray Raven squad.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In Lucia's interlude, she's shown to be a kind and a very reliable sister in her childhood.
• Villain Protagonist: She's one of the Ascendants. All of her story segments involve her doing missions for them and generally creating problems for Babylonia and Gray Raven squad down the road.
• Walking the Earth: She becomes a wanderer after she was abandoned.

Luna (CDR-02) (Spoilers)

Voiced by: Si Bai (Chinese) Rie Kugimiya (Japanese), Suzie Yeung (English)

Ascendant Attack-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 16
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: October 26
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 39kg
• Height: 159cm

"Punishment will descent upon here."

The complete combat form of the Ascendants' leader, who possesses the ability to direct and shape the Punishing virus into energy or objects to attack. Her body retains the essence of the girl when she first participated in becoming a construct, while all her equipment is formed by the virus. She has extraordinary defenses despite being insanely light. Perhaps due to her obsession with being thrown away, she notices when her body is stained with dirt.

Luna's frame is Laurel.

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• A Day in the Limelight: She and her past becomes the focus of Fake Ascension.
• Death from Above: In her Annihilation State, she's given several "Annihilation Orbs" that fire off her floating spikes to drop down on enemies above for immense damage.
• Depower: During A New Divide, Luna finds her control over the Punishing has been removed, but she hasn't been rejected from the Ascension Network or reduced to a Corrupted for her failure. After spending some time soul searching, she eventually regains her connection at the end of the story.
• Deuteragonist: Luna winds up taking up significant screen time during A New Divide, as she's tries to find a reason to continue living after the events of Fake Ascension.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: In Fake Ascension, she's the final member of your Connector squad, but she only unlocks after completing the chapter's main storyline, and only serves as extra firepower for the stat checks if you haven't unlocked some of the side-stories yet.
• Exotic Eye Designs: She has clover-shaped pupils.
• Glass Cannon: Her core passive means she'll constantly be either in her powered-up Annihilation State or triggering multiple 3-Ping-level skills to build it up, giving her immense firepower. The trade off is her comparatively tiny health pool, which makes her unable to make any mistakes in combat.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: During A New Divide, Luna undergoes some soul searching and realizes that for all her claims of superiority, she ultimately had the very human desire to keep living. She realizes she's not so different from humans, and later sees that Babylonia has changed when it chooses not to sacrifice the Moon base to protect the infected Zero Point Energy reactor. With that, she chooses to find a new path where she can live peacefully with her sister; if need be, with humans or with Ascendants.
• Image Song: 月 ("Moon") sung by Xia Tongzi.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Fake Ascension's story has the Commandant follow Luna through her memories after getting trapped in her M.I.N.D. following Gabriel's betrayal.
• Power Floats: Similar to Rosetta, she's always airborne when fighting.
• Promoted to Playable: One of the greatest examples. For Punishing's first anniversary, Luna's design got a visual overhaul as well as the ability to be recruited.
• Put on a Bus: Following the chaos in the aftermath of Fake Ascension, Luna goes missing, prompting Alpha to go search for her, while Babylonia wrings its collective hands at what became of the former Ascendant leader. Her whereabouts are revealed in A New Divide, where she had been held captive on the Moon as research into the Ascendants. Though she has a brush with death after being drained of the Punishing Virus, she regains her connection to the Ascension Network and returns to Earth.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Luna's weapons (and clothing) are actually made from solidified Punishing Virus. Her ability to manipulate it so great she can actually cause spikes of pure virus to burst from the ground as one of her special attacks.
• Stance System: Doing 3-Ping skills will fill a meter that she can then activate to go into Annihilation State. During this, she gets a very powerful Dark-damage combo chain and a set of Annihilation Orbs that essentially equates to free instant damage as you fire them off.

Transcendants (Uniframes)

In General

• Character Select Forcing: Transcendant characters were introduced intended to be used in Dead Zone maps, which in lore have viral densities so high that normal constructs will not survive. While they can be used in normal maps, and normal constructs in Dead Zones, the mismatch saddled them with debuffs, encouraging players to use them where they were intended. This has become less applicable over time, as more maps and modes allows Transcendants as usual, alongside retitling the class "Uniframes", decoupling the meaning even more.
• Counter-Attack: Starting from Reveries With a Whale, Transcendants gained unique counter moves they could activate after dodging certain enemy attacks.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Transcendants waffle between this and Awesome, but Impractical. On paper, an individual Transcendant is a Lightning Bruiser, with insane damage output and mobility, but the reality is that they aren't team players: Before Reveries With a Whale, Transcendants couldn't be put on a unit with normal constructs, and furthermore do not even synergize with each other. As a result, attacking is the only thing they can do. The one measure of safety they all share is a passive that grants them temporary shields and a damage buff when a new Compositer is switched in. When paired with constructs, Transcendants received a 30% damage debuff for each construct in the team.
• Finishing Move: Reveries With a Whale began giving Transcendants unique execution animations they can perform on weakened enemies.
• Heinz Hybrid: Being a "Transcendant" means one is half-Ascendant, or 'stage one', as it were, by integrating the Punishing Virus, without connecting to a network.
• Retcon: The game originally strictly divided character classes into "Constructs" and "Transcendants" due to lore reasons, such as Transcendants being reserved for "Dead Zones", but as the Transcendant group began to include uninfected characters, the classes were retitled "Omniframes" and "Uniframes", making them more arbitrary.

Camu (EXN-03)

Voiced by: DK (Chinese) Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Patrick Guia (English)

Strike Hawk squad Vanguard-type Transcendant

Profile

• Psychological Age: 19
• Vital Fluid Type: B
• Activation Date: October 23
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 72kg
• Height: 180cm

"Everything I hate should be destroyed."

Originally a successful "lab rat" from Babylonia's top secret project, he is now a special executor for them, in charge of missions specifically involving the Dead Zone. A very expressive person, who strongly displays his emotions and believes in his instincts above all else. His custom-tuned body allows him to move freely within the Dead Zone.

Camu's frame is Crocotta.

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• Animal Motif: Wild dogs. One of Camu's generic costumes includes a muzzle, his attack animations are aggressive and animalistic, with his Super Mode outright having him claw and tear at enemies, and his frame's name, "Crocotta", refer to a mythological dog-wolf the size of a horse.
• BFS: Wields one, just like Kamui.
• Broken Pedestal: Camu used to look up to Mao Zhen, a man who took him off the streets, trained him, and encouraged him to join Kurono. When he realizes Mao Zhen betrayed him and the rest of his squad on Kurono's orders, Camu chases him down and kills him in revenge.
• Do Not Go Gentle: When he and his squad discover they've been intentionally infected with the Punishing Virus and will likely die from it sooner or later, Camu rallies his men to take revenge on Kurono rather than run and hide. They succeed in destroying a local headquarters in their rampage.
• Enemy Within: He used to serve as one to Kamui, at one point even trying to retake control their body after believing Kamui was too weak to survive.
• He Who Fights Monsters: He once tried to fight the Corrupted as a human, but when he realized he had been intentionally infected, he willingly went on an almost animalistic rampage to take revenge on Kurono, and Mao Zhen notes how much Camu is acting like a Corrupted.
• Horned Humanoid: Like Kamui, Camu also has a small metal horn.
• Irony: His backstory is full of it: His mentor always advised him to keep calm, yet Camu's true strength is tapping into his Unstoppable Rage; he expected to die for revenge before succumbing to the virus, but instead became the sole survivor that exhibited unusual resilience; and, of course, his operations against the Corrupted eventually made him something close to one himself.
• Literal Split Personality: Originally the true personality inhabiting Kamui's body, Asimov eventually transferred Camu's consciousness over into a new body, separating the two.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: His top is unzipped down to his navel.
• Promoted to Playable: He was originally one of Punishing's bosses, known as Dark or Berserk Kamui, but has has since been turned into a fully realized character.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In his final fight against Mao Zhen, the latter insists that everything Kurono did with its experiments into Constructs and the Punishing Virus were just ways to save humanity. Camu then tells him off, saying that Mao Zhen and Kurono are the sort of people who would use people for their own ends, virus or no virus.
• Super Mode: Similar to Kamui, his Ultimate is a "Berserk Mode" that temporarily replaces all his attacks with quick and vicious dark element moves.
• Unwitting Test Subject: In the past, he was selected to join Kurono as a human foot soldier, but the serum that supposedly would make him immune to the Punishing Virus was actually mixed with the virus itself to see if the body could withstand it. When Kurono tries to wipe out his squad due to being a failure, it just inspires him to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

Qu (KCS-01)

Voiced by: Ye Zhiqiu (Chinese) Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Stephanie Novak (English)

Kowloong Vanguard-type Transcendant

Profile

• Psychological Age: 18
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: January 3
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 43kg
• Height: 162cm

"I am the owner of the United Commonwealth, the vessel of Kowloong's conciousness."

The last ruler of Kowloong. After the battle on the Metropolis, she went underground. As the mastermind behind the Tabula Akasha, she voluntarily converted herself into a construct to keep protecting this "record of humanity". By chance this also turned her into a Transcendant, which Babylonia mistook as becoming an Ascendant. The rise of the Dead Zones, however, have finally let people properly categorize her.

Qu's frame is Pavo. Her weapon class remains types of glaives.

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• Assist Character: Her ultimate move lets her summon an ethereal peafowl, which persists for several more seconds after her initial attack to continue attacking enemies.
• Balcony Speech: During Lost Chapter Qu gives an epic (and fully voice acted!) address to the panicking citizens of Kowloon, essentially calling on her people to Dare to Be Badass and help fight the Corrupted so that others can choose to evacuate.
• Batman Gambit: In Fake Ascension, it turns out Qu allowed Huaxu to be stolen by the Ascendants, providing her enemies a poisoned prize that would secretly resist, while encouraging other factions to focus on them.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: She has two brothers, Dai (AKA Villier) and Yin, who were also eligible to be Kowloong's leader: Dai was a nihilistic misanthrope who couldn't have cared less, and Yin was Axe-Crazy. Qu somehow turned out to be the least crazy and most responsible of the three.
• The Chains of Commanding: Lost Chapter shows the incredible pressure Qu was under to both organize and personally defend Kowloong during the initial Pandemic, and while she bears it with great dignity and composure, she still had to witness many close friends and subordinates die for her.
• A Day in the Limelight: Qu's backstory is further expanded in Lost Chapter.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Her first Affection Story starts off with her on the Nighter, anonymous, looking for a partner by holding what is basically a talent show, rejecting every participant who doesn't meet her standards until the Commandant beats her in a fight by proxy through another Construct they command. When the Commandant finds her after, she explains that her family wanted for her to find a partner who could accompany her for life, even though she's more confident in working alone. Still, she has to keep to tradition and her word, and has the Commandant accompany her. Since then, the following chapters are about Qu learning what it means to have a partner and warming up to the Commandant.
  • In the sixth chapter, the Construct she was controlling makes an attempt on the Commandant's life out of misguided loyalty to Qu. Qu herself saves the Commandant just in time, but becomes guilt-ridden over the fact that in spite of the strength she boasts of, she could not always be around to protect them, though the Commandant reassures her that they're fine. Suffice to say, they're at least one step short of being True Companions by that point.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Qu's passive allows her to temporarily treat any orb as a 3-Ping, but only if she does an ordinary 3-Ping twice, or if she uses her Limit Break. This can overwhelm a player trying to choose the right orbs or time when to use her Signature move atop of trying to keep track of the fight itself, so as not to be stuck with a bunch of single orbs when the passive runs out. But if a player can manage this, Qu can use 3-Ping moves nonstop and constantly have her Signature ready to use.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Initially one of her goals was to destroy Babylonia, but her time with Gray Raven's commandant mellowed her out of that. That still means she's willing to agree to subdue Babylonia's AI in the future, in exchange for a chance to kill Luna, who she feels is too dangerous to live.
• I Work Alone: All her unlockable upgrades only involve stat boosts to her attack, with nothing intended to buff any other construct in her team. In fact, according to her statistics her "support" rating is the lowest, while everything else is near the top.
  • This forms the plot of her Affection Stories, where she takes the Commandant as her partner per a family tradition without really knowing what it means to work with someone else, having been betrayed by her own family, leaving her cynical of companionship and becoming the lone ruler of Kowloong. She does come to subvert the trope in the end though.
• Just the First Citizen: Qu is Modest Royalty; her unlockable Secrets show that she avoids being called the ruler of Kowloong as much as possible, and gets embarrassed seeing herself in print, even if she understands the importance of public relations.
• Lady of War: Her fighting style has a graceful, refined air, and her use of technology looks more like fantasy magic than anything, especially when she summons Huiyu, a bionic bird, to attack, rather than any sort of drone.
• The Needs of the Many: Her backstory indicates she puts the welfare of Kowloong over herself. Despite not actually wanting to, she assumed leadership because she felt she had a duty to, especially compared to her two brothers.
• Not So Stoic: Her profile and Secrets aside, her Affection Stories are rife with a lot of moments where Qu fails at something or breaks composure, some of which can be attributed to the weak body she is controlling at those times. To name a few examples:
  • In the first chapter, she pouts after failing to humiliate the Commandant.
  • In the second, she tries to get into Kowloong only for nothing to happen and gets stopped by a guard who thinks he's stopping a loon since 1) Huaxu's absence messed with her authority system and 2) she's still controlling an ordinary Construct on the outside. The Commandant has to bail the Kowloong (not-so-)Supreme out.
  • The sixth chapter is a lot more serious, in which after Qu stops an attempt on the Commandant's life, she fusses over the Commandant's injuries, on the verge of tears, and hugs them out of guilt for not being there.
• Promoted to Playable: The boss of Nona Ouroboros and Kowloong Metropolis, now a recruitable character.
• Show Some Leg: Her coatings make hers prominent. Pavo's black dress in particular covers most of her upper body but has a short hem that leaves her pale legs bare up to her thighs, which stand out more in its later stages when she lets her shin-length hair down.
• Weapon Twirling: Her ultimate attack has her doing this before landing the finishing blow.
• Workaholic: Her unlockable Secrets make her out as one. She may have a strict work-rest schedule she adheres to, but according to two other secrets, a rare chance to rest after going into hiding was short-lived as she quickly returned to work on the Tabula Akasha, and on one occasion, she rested for three minutes on a cushion, became guilty over that for a long time, and then ordered all soft furniture in Kowloong destroyed.
• You Remind Me of X: Tells Murray in the Fake Ascension side story "Engraver" that he reminds her of Villier.

Selena (BPF-06)

Voiced by: Liu Zhixiao (Chinese) Satomi Sato (Japanese), Judy Alice Lee (English)

Unknown Vanguard-type Transcendant

Profile

• Psychological Age: 20
• Vital Fluid Type: O
• Activation Date: September 27
• Service Time: 3 Years
• Weight: 41kg
• Height: 163cm

"I hear it ... the signals deep within the storm."

Kind and resilient in nature, Selena was born on Babylonia and received a privileged education. She possesses a wonderful singing voice and outstanding musical and artistic talent that made her one of the Arts Association's most promising members. Formerly part of its archeology team, she has also performed as an opera singer, artist, and now is a Transcendant.

Selena's frame variations are Tempest and Capriccio.

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• All for Nothing: Selena at times felt this during her tribulations. All of her idealism achieved nothing, she could not save anyone, merely adding herself as another meaningless casualty in the meat grinder of war. Though, as pointed out by the dying captain she tended to on International Space Station, this is actually an Averted Trope, as she did brought hope for others, however fragile and fleeting it is. In the end, it is the same idealism that makes her stay on the righteous path and endures through all the ordeals to reach deliverance.
• And I Must Scream: Before she was rebuilt into a Transcendant, Selena was physically ripped apart by the International Space Station's Riot. After that, she spent an unknown amount of time trapped in an isolated compartment, rigged up to a terminal and barely able to do anything else but send out SOS signals embedded in the white noise of the space station. Ayla believes her strength of will was basically the only thing keeping her alive. Still, there was a worse fate awaiting her ahead…
  • She was thrown by Gabriel into the Red Tide to use the Hetero-core fragment inside her body as its fuel. She was perverted into Siren, being used as the helpless core of Red Tide, all the while being constantly disassembled and reformed, with Punishing corruption that never relented. The days on International Space Station looked halcyon in comparison.
• Ascended Extra: She was introduced as a Damsel in Distress used to provide motivation for Ayla's entrance into the story. Now she's a playable character capable of pulling her weight in a fight.
• But Now I Must Go: In Renaissant le Fantastique, Selena and Ayla momentarily reunite, and though the latter begs her to stay, Selena chooses to depart while Ayla is unconscious, knowing the time isn't right. Selena, however, is satisfied in knowing that she has a "home" that she can return to one day.
• Came Back Strong: She was barely alive when first seen. Now she's a Transcendant, a specialized type of construct.
• Cosmic Plaything: The world of this game is not known for being merciful, but poor Selena still stands out as being particularly cursed. A supposedly low-risk relic collection mission went wrong, killed everyone sans the crippled Selena. She then got abandoned by superior and ripped apart by Riot, suffered under the yoke of Punishing infection for several years. When rescue finally came, she was abducted by Gabriel before that could happen, causing her further torments at the hands of the Ascendants. The Hetero-Core fragment hidden in her body, the very trophy payed with the lives of her comrades, which she vowed to them that will be delivered to humanity's hand as vital intelligence on Punishing, ended up as fuel for Red Tide and turned her into Siren, forced to do Punishing's world-ending bidding. Though she got better as a Transcendant, she was still left with a hazy memory on earth.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Her profile said her mind is often rampant with imagination, and she has a tendency to unknowingly say or do embarrassing things.
• Damsel in Distress: She's the objective of Ayla's rescue attempts. Unfortunately, she also happens to be Gabriel's objective, who retrieves her first.
• Easy Amnesia: Her resurrection as a Transcendant has sadly left her with no clue of her identity, leaving her to go Wandering the Earth.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Her sixth Affection Story shows that one day in the future, she will likely regain enough of her memories that she will finally contact and reunite with the Commandant, though the ambiguity of the story makes it impossible to work out the context, especially since no dialogue appears in it.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Her design emphasizes that she only has one organic-looking leg, with the rest of her limbs being clearly mechanical.
• Flower Motifs: Selena is associated with purple irises, which tend to appear in one form or another around her.
• Generation Xerox: Her father was a famous artist who joined the army and eventually sacrificed his life. A wild goose never laid a tame egg indeed.
  • The life of Selena's father, who himself was inspired by another artist that took up arms.
• Gilded Cage: Ayla's and her Interludes show how they were praised and respected artists who, nevertheless, had a naive ignorance of how harsh life was outside Babylonia. When Selena tried to create a play based on the war against the Punishing Virus, an audience member, a construct, criticizes her for glorifying battle. The event helps convince her to convert herself into a construct and join the fight.
  Commandant's perspective from Affection Story Chapter 2: She is an innocent little girl who has never experienced any setbacks in life. She does not have to worry about anything other than herself. Only a greenhouse free of any contaminants would be able to produce such innocence. A flower of Eden that knows nothing of the real world.
• The Idealist: Selena is a born romantic that has a tendency to view things through rose-colored glasses. Despite the later realization of her naivety and the woes that befall her making her more mature and melancholic, this trait still shines through at times. Even when trapped in Red Tide or just before the orbital strike, she took the time to marvel at the beauty of the earth. In the profile of Tempest, it is stated that the pursuit of art is among the few things that Selena is still certain about after rebirth.
• Instrument of Murder: Her weapon is a high-tech cello (and bow), which has a blade for an endpin. Some of her animations even has her play it like a normal instrument.
• Irony: In the past, she was endlessly curious about what Earth's surface is like, and always wished to visit it. At the end of Echo Aria, she is free to explore Earth as she pleases, immune to the Punishing Virus, but only because she's become a Transcendant and an amnesiac with no recollection of her old fascination with the surface.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Selena's opera, soldiers that stayed behind to cover the retreat exchanged blessings with leaving comrades, and the cast had the leisure to mourn and sing a requiem for the fallen. Eventually, Selena learned the truth behind the veteran's criticism the hard way on International Space Station. Their retreat quickly degenerated into a rout, with no time to spare on the dead. Their superior abandoned them, presumed that they were beyond salvation due to the overwhelming enemy force and lost of contact. At that moment, Selena felt the same wrath and hatred of the veteran, his forsaken comrades, and civilians left behind during the Operation Arcadia (Evacuation of Earth). Eventually a Downplayed Trope, as Selena was merely ignorant, never malicious, and she could and did redeem herself in the end.
  • On the positive side of things, the current head of Art Association, Allen, was enlightened onto the path of art by Selena's father. After his mentor's martyrdom, his guidance on Selena's performance was arguably the key factor that helped the girl to successfully encourage her mother and steel herself in pursuit of art, creating a more uplifting legacy in the process.
  • Selena later ended up on the giving end of this trope. It is implied that an old soldier she saved after she became a Transcendant was in fact the very same artist that inspired her father.
• Living MacGuffin: Due to the fallout of her ill-fated mission aboard the International Space Station, she wound up with a fragment of the Hetero-Core lodged in her chest, which becomes useful to the Ascendants later on for their own research into the Red Tide. She's eventually freed from her status after the Merciful One rebuilds her body, shattering the fragment in the process.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: When trapped in the Red Tide, Selena's mind re-did several important points in her life to right what was wrong, like trying to meet Commandant in person and finding a way to save her comrades from the hellish battlefield of International Space Station. It is indicated that she willingly entered this state, for it was arduous to be awake and sane in Red Tide.
• Musical Assassin: Her theme. Besides attacking with her instrument, which makes noise on its own, her Limit Break takes the form of waves of sound she releases around herself, while her gameplay loop of trying to maintain buffs and debuffs based on coloured notes is similar to a musician trying to hold a performance.
• Nice Girl: One of her defining traits that is called out in her profile. She always thinks about others no matter what hardship she is under. It is said that even all the tragedies in her path to her current status as a Transcendant do little to change that, which is shown in her dialogues, as she shows concern to the well-being of Commandant, treats her teammates politely, and her Finish Battle quote is a lament about those falls in battle.
  Selena (Battle quote 3): "The quality of mercy is not strained."
  • When she was a child, despite feeling sad for her father's martyrdom on the battlefield, she refused to indulge in sorrow, instead thinking about how to comfort her heartbroken mother and honor her late father's legacy.
  • She felt ashamed when a veteran construct called her out for glorifying the war in her opera. This constitutes one of her reasons to enlist and become a construct.
  • She lied to the dying captain about the reinforcement that would never come during the doomed International Space Station mission and sang a requiem to satisfy the man's last wish, to make sure he passed away peacefully. It should be noted that she herself was physically crippled by battle and mentally devastated by the very news of denied help at that point.
  • After being tortured by Punishing infection for several years with a crippled body in the International Space Station, she finally sees Ayla coming to rescue her, yet insists that Ayla help Commandant fight against Riot first. Even though her mind is not lucid enough to recognize who Commandant is, she did not want others to suffer the same tragic fate at the hand of Riot. Unbeknownst to her, sending Ayla away created the perfect chance for Gabriel to seize her. What an epitome of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Even then, Selena chose to save Commandant again in the hallucination she experienced in the Red Tide.
  • When she is trapped in the Red Tide as Siren, she happily calls down an orbital strike on herself in the brief moment of consciousness after being defeated, while pushing Commandant away to safety, content that her death will ensure humanity's safety.
  • After she becomes a Transcendant, she comes across two Punishing-infected humans, a soldier and a girl. She tries to help them, but stops because her approach seemed to exacerbate their symptoms (considering that Selena is a Transcendant, maybe the Punishing infection inside her body was hurting them). Still, she uses the soldier's communicator to call help for them.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Selena was born with brown hair, which she retained when she became a construct. After she becomes a Transcendant, her hair became black. This was because Selena's mental state was severely degraded by all the trauma she suffered, with her old personality shattered and previous memory unstable. Thus she has a greatly changed body to reflect her new persona.
• Proper Lady: Selena is always polite, with underlying gentleness to back it up.
• Shock and Awe: Her elemental damage type is electricity, with one of her skills being an outright lightning strike from above.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Selena's gentleness and naivety may be taken for weakness, which is not lost in the Commandant's or her own eyes, but she repeatedly proved that she is made of sterner stuff than people imagined.
  • As a human, she became a Construct and braved the battlefield despite her privileged station.
  • On the International Space Station, she immediately offers to join the fight when seeing the overwhelming Corrupted presence, despite having no such obligation as a member of the archaeological unit. Even when she runs to safety and dispatches all the pursuing enemies, she returns to search for survivors after hearing her superior's abandonment of all forces onboard.
  • Selena stabs herself in the chest twice: the first time was to hide the Hetero-Core fragment from Riot, and the second time was to plant the orbital strike beacon to ensure her own demise as Siren.
• Ship Tease: She and the Commandant are shown to have a close, almost intimate relationship over the long correspondence as pen pals, while the sixth affection story really ramps up the undertones when the two finally reunite, and celebrate by dancing together.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Sort of this to the Commandant, Downplayed Trope for they are only pen pals. Still, in the two times they try to meet up, they miss each other for reasons beyond their control. The time they finally came face-to-face? It is when Commandant recognized the core of Siren as Selena, and Selena soon committed suicide by taking Commandant's orbital strike beacon to save humanity, with the Commandant being pushed away and forced to leave with the guilt of contributing to Selena's demise. It at least gets somewhat better when the Commandant is invited to Earth by Selena in the distant future of Tempest's sixth Affection Story. Still, with Selena's body reconstituted into a Transcendent and her original persona shattered, things will never be the same.
• Status Buff: A three-orb combo will give Selena a colored note corresponding to the combo. If the next skill orb matches the note, it will trigger a "Concerto" Damage-Increasing Debuff on the enemy, while a mismatch will trigger a "Solo" buff on Selena that improves her damage.
• Tareme Eyes: Selena has them during her existence as a human, indicating her sweet and innocent character. As she became a Construct and then a Transcendant, she shifted toward Tsurime Eyes as a sign of her maturation.
• Tempting Fate: When Selena writes a letter to Commandant just before her sortie to the International Space Station, one of her comrades jokingly says Selena is writing a death note and assures her that this is only a regular archaeological mission with little risk. Little did they know this was a one-way ticket to doom.
• True Companions: She had a very close friendship with Ayla, who later came to try and rescue her after she discovered she was still alive.
• Undying Loyalty: It was Selena's camaraderie with her comrades-at-arms that encouraged her to survive until she could deliver the intelligence they gathered to humanity, despite being abandoned with no reinforcements. Later, Selena stayed loyal to humanity despite the hellish experience of Punishing infection and tempting offer of the Ascendant Network. Still, it is her devotion to Commandant that is the most notable, viewing the latter as a guiding light in her life. Even one of her reasons to become a Construct is to protect Commandant.
• Walking the Earth: After being rebuilt and revived by the Merciful One, Selena, stuck with amnesia and isolated from Babylonia, has no choice but to explore Earth's surface by her lonesome.
• We Can Rebuild Her: At the end of Echo Aria, the Merciful One finds the remains of her body after Babylonia destroys Siren, which was built around her. The Merciful One uses the vestiges of the Red Tide around her to rebuild it into its current form, and then leaves.

Roland (BPB-26)

Voiced by: Lengquan Yeyue (Chinese) Koji Yusa (Japanese), Alan Lee (English)

Unknown Vanguard-type Transcendant

Profile

• Psychological Age: 19 Years
• Vital Fluid Type: AB
• Activation Date: May 2
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 70kg
• Height: 178cm

"This silly play about reclaiming earth and all from Babylonia, I'm actually sick of watching it. The main cast of this play, they struggle in all this deprivation and insanity — It's rather amusing, but it's gone on for too long. Well then, let's see how much longer you can struggle for. After all, it's rare to see a different kind of performance. Just don't let my hopes down so easily, will ya?"

Formerly an actor during the Golden Age, Roland's words and deeds may seem unpredictable, but his true nature is actually quite serious. As an Ascendant, he has worked around the world. After experiencing many twists and turns, his previous body was severely damaged, and its present form was rebuilt by a benefactor he met.

Roland's frame is Flambeau.

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• Counter-Attack: When he gets a successful Matrix dodge in, Roland can use his combo-ending move immediately from there.
• Coup de Grâce: Roland's unique Finishing Move has him stomp on a fallen enemy before giving them the business end of his shotgun.
• Costume Evolution: His character design got revamped for his playable form, canonically due to receiving a new body from The Merciful One.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His left arm notably clashes with the rest of his body, with a differing pauldron, visible elbow joint and a hand with red fingertips.
• Jerkass Realization: In the Hidden Story of Evernight Beat, Roland tricks a group of scavengers into entering the corrupted Central Purification Filter 40 in order to feed their emotional responses to the incubating Hetero-Hive Mother. Before long, though, he becomes inwardly disgusted by how he's secretly watching them suffer reminding him of what he himself went through in his Interlude, motivating him to secretly help the survivors escape.
• Mad Artist: He tends look at situations as if they were theatrical performances, even in the middle of a fight, where he considers activating his Limit Break the "climax" of the show.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He is the first chracter to not use Punishing's classic Match Three combo mechanic; if anything his system is more like an expanded version of how boss characters are played in the Hidden Chapters. Rather than matching signal orbs, Roland must use a combo-ending special attack to charge a meter his orb-type moves run on, and the orb moves in turn fuel the gauge for his Limit Break.
• Playing with Fire: His elemental damage type is fire.
• Promoted to Playable: While he had been playable in the past, the Evernight Beat update marks his arrival to the Gacha as a fully realized character.
• Super Mode: His Limit Break temporarily supercharges all his orb moves and makes them usable all the time, giving him far more powerful fire-element attacks that also better resemble his attacks from when he was a boss.
• Sword and Gun: His unique weapon type is a Whip Sword and Hand Cannon that are collectively known as "Durandal".
• "Truman Show" Plot: His Interlude story reveals that he initially thought he was participating in one as a cast member, secretly managing an android who was tricked into thinking he was human and the show that he is a part of are actually real events. However, Roland later finds out to his horror that he is actually the main character of the show, and was secretly being manipulated and trained by the crew to be the perfect actor on live television. Naturally, this gives Roland serious trust issues that carry over into his Ascendant existence.
• Villainous Harlequin: A secondary motif he has, to go with his Mad Artist stage performer theme. His purchasable costume, "Fool's Fables" gives him jester-like apparel, while his unique Memory set depicts an expy of The Joker.

Pulao (KCS-54)

Voiced by: Yan Ning (Chinese) Maria Naganawa (Japanese), Liana Bedwi (English)

Kowloong Vanguard-type Construct

Profile

• Psychological Age: 14
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: August 15
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 32kg
• Height: 140cm

"Evil parties and evil ways, retreat!"

While Pulao's body is not made with conventional components, it has been carefully adjusted to be compatible with Pulao's M.I.N.D. This allows her to better exert her extraordinary strength.

Pulao's frame is Dragontoll.

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• Art Attacker: Her attacks have a calligraphy motif, with her strikes creating black and red ink-like effects, while her skills and Limit Break produce whole paintings of mountains and dragons.
• Ascended Extra: Originally introduced as a side character for Nona Ouroboros and Kowloong Metropolis, Pulao eventually got a whole playable form for the Reveries With a Whale update. Outside of the game, she had a short stint as a sort of promo mascot, especially for the Global version's half-anniversary video.
• BFS: Pulao's weapon class are massive curved swords. Unlike most examples, Pulao doesn't wield it by hand, as it's self propelled, and instead uses it as a throwing weapon.
• Cute Bruiser: She's among the smallest and cheeriest of the cast, but she fights primarily with hand to hand techniques that visibly warp the air.
• A Day in the Limelight: Pulao is the star of the Reveries With a Whale story.
• Flying Weapon: Her weapon can actually fly on its own, and even produces jets of vapor to correct its position. This element actually is part of Pulao's kit, in fact.
• It's All Junk: At the end of The Floating Reverie Hanying offers Pulao a data drive that contains all of the latter's missing memories. However, Pulao refuses to take it, satisfied with who she is in the present, and she tells Hanying she's already found what she's looking for.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In her childhood, Pulao was separated from her parents, but rescued by a female robot she would name Hanying. Hanying promised to help Pulao find her parents, but when the robot gets hacked in an attempt to assassinate Villier, Pulao converts herself into construct to stop her. But in order to pay for the surgery, Pulao sells her memories of from before meeting Hanying, including the knowledge of her parents.
• Sky Surfing: Pulao momentarily rides her weapon in her Limit Break before divebombing her enemy. Amusingly, her idle animation has her try to stand atop her sword, before quickly losing her balance and jumping off.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: Pulao can expend a small amount of energy to throw her sword, which will then continue circling around the stage in a wide arc. She can also recall and rethrow it with the same command, but if she uses a 3-Ping skill just as it arrives, the skill's properties will be further enhanced.
• That Man Is Dead: She used to be known as Yoyo , but her memory of her old identity is long gone, leaving only Pulao.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: She has a unique Finishing Move where she can bat an enemy with her sword and watch them disappear into the sky.

Haicma (MPA-01)

Voiced by: Hou Xiaofei (Chinese) Rie Tanaka (Japanese), Brittany Cox (English)

Church of Machina Vanguard-type Mechanoid

Profile

• Psychological Age: Unknown
• Vital Fluid Type: Unknown
• Activation Date: Unknown
• Service Time: Unknown
• Weight: 50kg
• Height: 166cm

"The machines on Earth were creations discarded by humanity. They have always been seeking a purpose for their existence. They have always believed the Sagemachina would show them the way. I need to find her..."

The Awakened Machines, having gathered together to form a church, comb Earth in search of their mechanical forefather. Haicma, however, unlike other machines, seems to have ulterior motives for seeking the Sagemachina.

Haicma's frame is Starveil.

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• A.I.-cronym: "Haicma" is a contraction of "Heuristic Artificial Intelligence Caretaking Machine-Alpha". Nanami was the one who named her, far back in the past.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Ark Beyond follows her trek around the world as she searches for the Sagemachina.
• Deadly Lunge: Her passive ability gives her a Charged Attack that turns into a leaping strike that causes massive ice damage. The attack can only activate when the charge is full, but she also automatically dodges any attack made on her if she has any dodge meter.
• Emotionless Girl: As a machine, Haicma delivers a flat tone of delivery and a logical mindset, though amusingly some of her optional dialogue shows she has "settings" that allows her to speak in different tones.
• The Fog of Ages: She remembers being tasked with finding the Sagemachina, but after decades of searching, most of the details of her mission, such as who tasked her, or why, is a blur to her.
• An Ice Person: Her damage type is ice.
• Sinister Scythe: Following Ayla and Chrome, Haicma also uses scythes.
• The Slow Walk: Her passive Charged Attack reduces her movement speed to a prowling saunter. Given that she can also use this move while her Limit Break freezes them in place, what seems like a disadvantage winds up making her look like encroaching death.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Haicma began her life assuming she was an AI caretaker and monitor for the subjects of the Machine Consciousness experiments, and considered herself just another duty-bound program who just incidentally now occupied a body. Near the end of The Ark Beyond, Gestalt reveals she was actually another subject who's since proven to have sentience and emotions. Unlike most examples of this trope, this surprise proves positive for Haicma's development, as it makes her realize she's a conscious being whose choices matter.
• I Will Find You: She's been searching for the Sagemachina for easily over a century. She's seeking out Nanami, specifically, after the researchers that created them both asked Haicma to find and protect Nanami before dying during the Punishing Virus outbreak.

Noan (BPZ-01)

Voiced by: Sun Lulu (Chinese) Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese) Maximilian Reid (English)

Dark Aries Squad Vanguard-type Transcendant

Profile

• Psychological Age: 21
• Vital Fluid Type: A
• Activation Date: August 8
• Service Time: Less than a year
• Weight: 69kg
• Height: 182cm

"Hello, Commandant. Let me introduce myself again. My name is Noan, my real name... eh? Is another name more familiar to you?"

This frame was made by a mysterious figure to save Noan's life. It was built with many degraded components in order to reduce the user’s movement, and initially weighed only 41.3kg. Normal functionality was restored after Noan underwent Babylonia’s improvements.

Noan's frame is Arca.

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• All for Nothing: For a few years, he believed that the rebellion he took part in was this, as it killed a large portion of Asslam's population including a lot of his friends, his mentor Rachel tried to get him to pretend he was The Mole for the nobility who put an end to the rebellion and killed her (including forcing him to do the latter stage) with the intention of having him spearhead a future rebellion in her stead, and when he doesn't do so, he gets thrown off Asslam, believing he failed Rachel and nothing truly changed. When he later learns of the events of Eternal Engine, including Ashlar being overthrown, this gets subverted as he realizes something did come out of that rebellion.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Noan has power over the Punishing Virus that arguably exceeds Liv's Empyrea frame, especially if he's in the presence of an Ascendant. He already used his control to force Corrupted to commit suicide to save other soldiers, and Asimov believes Noan could help make safer Anti-Punishing weaponry.
• Button Mashing: Noan's main gimmick is that after any 3-ping, mashing the attack button charges up a follow-up attack. If consecutive charged attacks are charged more than the preceding one, their damage increases, incentivizing the player to mash as fast as they can.
• Dark and Troubled Past: PGR's setting is tough, but Noan's life has been a particular rollercoaster of hardship. He was a commoner who lived aboard Asslam, got caught up in political machinations that resulted in a violent rebellion that killed all his friends and family, got exiled, lived hand-to-mouth as a scavenger, eventually got infected by the Punishing Virus, and became a Transcendant and a personal plaything of an Ascendant. Even now, in Babylonia, he's still at the center of much intrigue regarding his power over the Punishing virus, but he's finally decided to not regret his past.
• A Day in the Limelight: Cinder Burns is about Noan, his life story, and how he figures into the war between Babylonia and the Ascendants.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Went through this for a while after he got thrown off Asslam, as he associates "Noan" with his Dark and Troubled Past, and preferred to go by Shrek instead. He gets better about it after deciding not to regret the past.
• Dual Wielding: While he has a main sword, he wields a second shorter sword in tandem for his attacks.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He first appeared several chapters back, in Fake Ascension, where a side story followed his troubles with the Red Tide when he was a scavenger going by the name of Shrek. He later makes a reappearance in The Surviving Lucem as a merchant moving between the various conservation areas.
• Expy: His fighting style and weapon take strong cues from Nero of Devil May Cry. Similar to Nero's Exceed system, Noan can build up three charges that he can expend to deliver a massive burst of Lightning damage on his next move, and his swords have a motorcycle-style throttle, like Nero's Red Queen. They even share a voice actor.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During The Surviving Lucem, a critically injured "Shrek" is knocked out of the Asslam train as it is attacked by the Unidentified Twins. While Lee grabs hold, "Shrek" lets go, while holding onto a pouch containing a prototype Omega Weapon, and blows himself up with it, allowing the train to escape as the tunnel caves in. Unfortunately, that leaves him barely alive, and in the hands of the Ascendants, who now have their hands on a new "sample".
• Hero with Bad Publicity: He spends nearly all of Cinder Burns being one for different reasons. He's initially hated on Asslam for factors out of his control, hated after the riot because Ashlar framed him as The Mole amongst the lower-class rioters, and hated as a Transcendant because he's mistaken for a defector to the Ascendants (or an Ascendant who pretended to be a regular, amnesiac Construct) who intentionally got nearly everyone at Medical Center 09 killed by Lithos.
• Hidden Depths: He's got quite a lot of medical knowledge, one of his secrets states that he's quite good at most survival skills besides cooking, and Cinder Bruns reveals he enjoys drawing.
• I Have Many Names: Over the course of his story, he jumps between Noan, Shrek, and "A" as names, and even feeds into his conflict about accepting himself and his place in the world after all the hardships he's faced, with Bella at one point in his past telling him that adopting "Shrek" means he hasn't come to terms with being Noan.
• The Jinx: Describes himself as that, feeling that he brings bad luck to others, while coincidentally seeming to always have the good fortune to survive. Before he sacrifices himself to detonate the Omega Weapon, he bets that he'll somehow survive even that. He does, though it means falling into the hands of the Ascendants and turning into a Transcendent.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Noan starts Cinder Burns unaware of even his own name, and spend the time recollecting his past. As it turns out, he's been turned into a Transcendant by the Ascendant Lithos, who's also been regularly wiping his memories in the hopes Noan will eventually stay with him for good.
• Pocket Protector: After refusing to give Rachel's terminal to Ashlar, he gets shot and thrown off Asslam: he survived the former because he kept the mechanical firefly toy he got from his friend Field with him.
• Power Incontinence: He doesn't have much control over his ability to control the Punishing Virus when Lithos isn't around, subconsciously attacking Construct soldiers when he was trying to get their help while desperately telling them that he doesn't want to hurt them. It certainly doesn't help his Hero with Bad Publicity status.
• Shock and Awe: His damage type is Lightning.
• Shout-Out: No, "Shrek" isn't just coincidental, he actually took his alias from the William Steig book that was adapted into the famous animated movie series. It doubles as a Meaningful Name, too: like the ogre, Noan is a virus-filled monster in search of a happy ending of his own.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Almost everyone on board Asslam's lower class cars hated Noan when he was a child for the fact that his late father was an aristocrat and his mother had worked with higher-up passengers. It wasn't until he stepped in to save a boy named Field from a fake guard that the Cargo Crew started to trust him more.

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