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Parahumans
Khepri
Taylor Hebert
An immensely powerful Master parahuman who is largely responsible for stopping Gold Morning. Her actual identity was Taylor Hebert, known first as Skitter and then as Weaver, who submitted herself to modification by Panacea and Bonesaw to increase her power. For her tropes in Worm, see here.- An Arm and a Leg: Khepri was missing her right arm thanks to Sveta.
- The Dreaded: Given how she basically seized control over almost every parahuman on every world to use as weapons against Scion, everyone who knows about her is pretty scared of her. People don't even say her name for fear of catching her attention.
- I Did What I Had to Do: When talking about what she did, Glory Girl refers to her mass mastering of capes as 'controversial'. Implying that, at least Victoria believes that while what Khepri did was undeniably horrible for those who were affected by it, it's ultimately what stopped Scion.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Everything in her basic description up above is a pretty hefty spoiler for Worm.
- The Masquerade: Parahumans do their best to never talk about her.
- People Puppets: Anyone who got within 15 feet of her was automatically turned into her puppet, though they returned to normal as soon as they left her range.
- Sanity Slippage: Part of why people fear her so much is that her passenger took over more and more of her mind as Golden Morning went on, to the point that it could speak through her.
- The Scottish Trope: Parahumans avoid referring to her by name if they can't avoid talking about her at all in the first place. Even then, "Khepri" is the only moniker used; Victoria, one of the few people still alive who remembers her as Taylor Hebert, has never referred to her by that name.
- The Speechless: Brain damage from her power left her completely unable to understand language.
- Un-person: Parahumans who know about her won't talk about her, and will react with hostility towards anyone who pushes for information. Though Victoria Dallon admits that this won't last forever, and at some point in the future people at large will find out about what it was she did.
- Weak, but Skilled: Despite her reputation, her power wasn't that impressive. What made her so effective was that she managed to get her hands on two very powerful parahumans early on, one to create micro portals she could extend her influence through, and one to give her the omniscience needed to find every parahuman in every Earth.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: In-universe. Nobody but Contessa and the core surviving Undersiders (Tattletale, Imp, Bitch) knows what happened to her after Golden Morning, and they live in fear of her coming back.
Contessa
Fortuna
An exceptionally powerful Parahuman who founded Cauldron with the goal of saving the world. She killed the Eden Entity and neutralized Kherpi following Gold Morning. She has since withdrawn from the world of capes. For tropes pertaining to her appearance in Worm see here.Classification: Thinker
- Badass in Distress: According to Tattletale, she has somehow been captured by an unknown party. It was Teacher who managed to do so.
- Combat Clairvoyance: Her power, "Path to Victory," gives her an absurdly powerful version of this that allows her to succeed in any endeavor as long as any feasible path to success exists.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: In Worm she had "blind spots" in her power revolving around Scion, the Endbringers, and Eidolon which she'd have to work around. In Ward this is further clarified to include other powerful capes like Valkyrie and Teacher, powerful tinker tech, "messy portals," and broken triggers.
- Hidden Depths: While she's not the most explored character in Worm/Ward, the rare glimpses into her inner-self shows that she suffers from low self-esteem and indecision despite the nature of her power. After being rescued by Breakthrough and the Undersiders, she admits to having only made five personal decisions in her life with most of them being disastrous for her, and is why she resolves to have other people make decisions for her power.
- Humanoid Abomination: Gets turned into a Titan due to being in close proximity to another cape's broken second trigger. She then becomes a springboard for reality to break further that causes even more random capes to turn into Titans.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: She wanted to live without relying on her power after Gold Morning. It's ultimately why she got captured after merely two days of not using her powers allowed Teacher to ambush her.
- Logical Weakness: Her ability to be able to see whatever possible steps are necessary in achieving any goal makes her one of, if not the, strongest Thinkers in existence, but if she doesn't have any goal in mind, or simply doesn't use her power, it's possible to cut off her options and subdue her,as was the case when she got captured by Teacher. It also can't help her if her goal is truly impossible, based on the conditions around her at the time she asks the question and the particulars of the end state she is looking for. For example, when she is freed in Teacher's base, the situation has deteriorated to the point that the three things her rescuers want from her—eliminate Teacher, save the maximum number of heroes, and save the maximum number of all human lives—are now impossible to all achieve at the same time. Contessa is thus forced to present three options, each of which maximizes one of the goals at the expense of all or some of the others.
- Required Secondary Powers: The ability to always see a step-by-step path to success at whatever endeavor she chooses is already very strong, but what makes it truly overpowered is the superpowered precision and timing that allows her to perfectly execute the steps every time. Contessa doesn't have to try to follow the path, she just does it.
- Retired Badass: She has supposedly attempted to withdraw from cape life since the end of Worm, to the point that her old allies don't even attempt to enlist her aid in stabilizing the city.
- Spanner in the Works: Her being freed is the main catalyst that allows the heroes to foil Teacher's plan. She's also this to Dinah's intentions as well.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While achieving whatever goal she's pursuing has caused unimaginable problems and collateral damage as a side effect throughout her life, in Arc 17.y it comes to a head as her escorting a captured Teacher through the middle of a tense standoff between Cheit authorities, an anti-parahuman mob, and undermanned Heroes sparks off a riot that ends with Fume Hood having a broken second trigger that starts tearing apart reality to begin the second apocalypse.
- Womanchild: Described as such by Citrine. Due to receiving her powers at such a young age, as well as her power making nearly everything she does succeed with ease, it's observed that she's not fully developed as a person.
Dinah Alcott/Kid Cassandra
A young girl who foresaw the end of the world, and in general can forsee the probability of any future event with ludicrous precision. Her whereabouts were unknown at the start of the story. For tropes pertaining to her appearance in Worm see here.
Classification: Thinker
- Atrocious Alias: Her cape name annoys her as she grows older. Of course, that's why Tattletale gave it to her in the first place.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Dinah spends a large chunk of the early story inflaming anti-parahuman sentiment in the City behind the scenes. Even after she moves into the open, her exact motives remain unclear.
- Seers: She is capable of predicting the probability of certain events happening in the future.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: As Dinah's power lets her see the probability of particular events happening in the future, she is capable of determining which courses of action will decrease human suffering. She will then follow these courses of action, even if she has no knowledge exactly how they will end up being beneficial, and they involve harming others. This mindset is fully on display with her manipulation of Gary. She gives him the information and resources needed to inflame anti-cape sentiment in the City as part of a gambit to prevent more violent extremists from ending up holding the reins of public anger. It works for a while, but Contessa throws it into disarray.
Jeanne Wynn/Citrine
Jeanne Wynn
Debut: Interlude 2
The CEO of Martori Construction and a leading candidate in the election for Mayor of the City. She is actually Citrine of the Ambassadors and oversees a successor organization to Cauldron. For tropes pertaining to her appearance in Worm see here.Classification: Shaker
- Big Damn Heroes: She, Number Man, and various Heroes from the Mega-City show up at the end of Heavens to prevent Cradle from getting away from Antares.
- Benevolent Conspiracy: Although she conceals her true identity and plans to secretly undermine the political power non-Parahumans have in the City, her intentions to use Accord's plans to help the city survive are ultimately heroic.
- Happily Married: With Kurt, aka the Number Man.
- Mundane Utility: She uses her powers, in conjunction with the Number Man, to help him drive faster and pass other cars in traffic.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: While she can come across as smug and aloof, she is reasonable when dealing with Breakthrough and is serious about dealing with the issues facing the city.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Inherited this flaw from Cauldron.Tattletale: New Cauldron, same as the old Cauldron. Doing things that everyone should be unambiguously on board for and making every enemy possible along the way.
Kurt/The Number Man
Kurt Wynn
Debut: Interlude 2
Jeanne Wynn's assistant and husband. He is actually Number Man of Cauldron and helps her oversee a successor organization to Cauldron. For tropes pertaining to his appearance in Worm see here.Classification: Thinker
- Good with Numbers: As to be expected of the Number Man, his mathematical skills are as powerful as ever.
- Happily Married: With Jeanne AKA Citrine.
- Has a Type: Citrine notes by the reactions all of his younger selves have when interacting with her, that she fits his likes in a woman. It helps explain why they're married.
- Killed Offscreen: Killed by a car bomb planted by an anti-parahuman extremist at the same time as the raid on Teacher's base. Dinah claims this was orchestrated by Contessa as part of a Path, as Contessa ordered one of the Harbingers to tell him and Jeanne not to participate in the raid, resulting in him being killed by the bomb that he otherwise would have noticed.
- Mundane Utility: He uses his power to bypass traffic and drive to destinations in as little time as possible.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Is greatly irritated when his younger clones act like him, or even when they don't act like him.
The Harbingers
Kurt Wynn
Debut: Interlude 5.x
The five surviving clones of Harbinger/Number Man that were created for the Slaughterhouse 9000. They've fallen in with their older brother and the original Harbinger, now known as the Number Man, as part of Cauldron's successor organization.- Exact Words: If ordered not to kill someone, they have no problems with inflicting a Fate Worse than Death instead.
- Good with Numbers: Just like the original, their power is an innate understanding of mathematics.
- Identical Twin Id Tag: When going out as Harbinger(s), they wear numbered masks to tell them apart.
- In-Universe Nickname: When two of them come out to assist Breakthrough wearing their numbered masks, they are quickly labeled as Thing One and Thing Two by the team.
- Me's a Crowd: There's five of them, all pretty much identical.
- Morally Superior Copy: The fifth Harbinger clone develops a sense of morality that the original and his fellow clones lack, to the point that he feels remorse for his original template's involvement in the creation of Case 53s, and in the epilogue chooses to become a hero.
- Like Brother and Sister: The remaining Damsel clones and them kind of rub along even while being snippy. Heck, Ashley Black and Swansong translate their deliberate evasions, omissions and oblique observations for others like tattling sisters just happy to shove spanners in their brothers' various trolling attempts. Yet, they coordinate with minimal cues, as well.
- Polygamy: According to one of them, "one" of them wouldn't get in a relationship because they come as a set.
- Sociopathic Hero:
- Like the original, they're now on the side of the utilitarian greater good, but they have absolutely no morals or conscience themselves. In fact, they are even more sociopathic than the original, since their personalities were based on his exaggerated reputation.
- Subverted with the fifth clone, who starts to develop morals independently of the others.
- Twin Desynch: They're similar but not identical, as seen by how one of them begins to develop a conscience and feelings of remorse, especially towards Sveta, which the others consider dangerous.
- Twin Telepathy: They are able to feel each other's emotions as well as share experiences via dreams.
- Unwitting Pawn: One of them passes a message to Kurt and Jeanne at Contessa's request, which ends up distracting them enough that they don't notice a car bomb, leading to Kurt's death.
- White Sheep: The fifth and last Harbinger Clone becomes this in relationship to his brothers and even his "father;" developing a conscience which leads him to protect Sveta, as well as aiding Case 53s in general out of remorse and guilt over what the original Number Man did to them. He eventually becomes the 4th member of the Major Malfunctions, who rename themselves to the Majors, as between their greater experience and the firepower that the 5th Harbinger brings they are now very capable of taking on serious threats.
Egg
A Case 53 and former member of the Irregulars.
Classification: Master
- Aggressive Categorism: Views anyone who isn't precisely in the same situation as typical Case 53s and with the exact same outlook and loyalties as traitors, and not really part of the community.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Not Egg himself, but his power. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be more to it than well... being an egg. His skin is eggshell, he bleeds yolk, and while he can regenerate fairly quickly, that doesn't mean much when he breaks so easily in the first place. It turns out that his body acts as a portal to a bunch of "godbirds", gigantic creatures vaguely shaped like egg laying animals that can go toe to toe with Titans when fully unleashed.
- Body Horror: He is actually a Master, and his eggshell skin contains several enormous beings he calls "godbirds", which are more or less under his command.
- Bizarre Human Biology: As his name implies, his skin is more or less an eggshell, and he has a bodily fluid which is akin to yolk.
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: The fragility of his body prevents him from any sexual acts, even self-applied ones, without certain parts breaking off; which contributes further to his frustrations and bitterness.
- Healing Factor: Fortunately for him, considering his skin is about as fragile as an actual eggshell, he heals at an accelerated rate.
- Jerkass: To Sveta.
- Knight Templar: He was a member of the more violent faction of the Irregulars, which was singularly focused on brutally punishing Cauldron's members.
- No True Scotsman: His definition of Case 53 is 'was abducted by Cauldron, given a vial, has the tattoo, is physically mutated and lost their memories'. He uses this to exclude Sveta (now that she has a new body) and Shamrock (because the vial didn't mutate her and she retained her memories), but includes Bijou (who triggered naturally and has no connections to Cauldron).
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to give Case 53s hope in undoing the damage done to them, but goes about it by hijacking the attempts to utilize the dimensional tears to battle against the Titans.
- With Us or Against Us: Considers anyone who wasn't part of the more violent Irregular faction during Gold Morning as traitors, especially Weld and Sveta but even fellow Case 53s who simply weren't part of the Irregulars, but didn't hinder them.
Bijou
An honorary Case 53 who now works with the Irregulars.
Classification: Brute/Stranger
- The Ageless: The bodies she takes over don't decay, but they also don't age.
- Anti-Villain: She and Matryoshka take over the bodies of civilians and dead Patrol members to infiltrate the group who go into Rain's dream room, with the intention of finding a cure for Case 53's. However, they don't attack the heroes and ultimately stand down from their mission without doing any damage. Bijou even says that she's actually fine with her body, as she can take over other bodies, but she wants to help the Case 53's.
- Body Horror: She can take over human bodies and wear them like other people wear clothes, but with a lot more hacking and slashing. Her actual form resembles a doll's head with multiple doll's limbs on threads.
- Canon Immigrant: She originally appeared as 'The Locked-In Girl'
, a character Wildbow described on Reddit, but who never appeared in an actual story. - Fate Worse than Death: She/the Locked-In Girl had seizures as a child, and eventually had one that put her in a coma. When she came out of the coma, she found that she'd not only come out of it with Locked-In Syndrome, while she was unconscious, her parents had put her through the Ashley Treatment.
- Meat Puppet: Her power is to take over human bodies, turning them into these.
The Patrol Block
The Group as a Whole
- Badass Normal: The Patrol Block consists entirely of normal humans without powers (barring the occasional incognito parahuman, like Victoria), but are often called upon to respond to powered fights and generally hold their own, applying professional military and police tactics to support the heroes.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The institutional version. The Patrol Block seems to be a combination of police force, paramilitary organization, militia, youth group, and after-school program.
Gilpatrick
Sean Gilpatrick
Debut: Daybreak 1.1
The leader of the Patrol Block group Victoria worked at, and a former career PRT agent.- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: After he triggers in Rain's dream room, he gains the power to visually see people, or their personalities, as they really are, behind the lies they tell themselves and others. Seeing as he works with parahumans, and most of them have horrible backgrounds and mental issues, he usually doesn't like what he sees and calls Victoria "a sight for sore eyes" without referring to her physical body at all.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: His powers make others appear this way to him.
- Aura Vision: How his superpower works. He sees other people's true personalities as if they were physically represented in their appearance.
- The Empath: His new power gives him a form of superpowered empathy.
- My Greatest Failure: When he was 25, he was giving advice and looking after a teenage cape called Lucky Break. Despite his efforts to lead him down a good path, LB entered a relationship with an older supervillain, and a few months later, he was found in a barrel filled with concrete at the bottom of a lake. Reliving this experience in the dream room, combined with the other stress he was under, caused him to trigger with a power that lets him see through the lies that others tell themselves.
- Power Incontinence: Based on his pleased reaction to seeing Victoria and his description of his power, it's implied that he can't turn it off.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Gilpatrick is committed to keeping order in the area, and willing to grant reasonable requests from his subordinates. If and when he is forced to fire an employee, he is willing to help them find another job, provide emotional support, and even give them a temporary place to stay if they need it.
- He is reasonable enough that Victoria later calls upon him in situations where unpowered support is needed and he and his group actually answer the call, knowing that it must be serious if Antares the Flying Brick needs his help.
Jasper
Debut: Daybreak 1.1
A normal human who works as a youth mentor/police officer for the Patrol Block.- Self-Applied Nickname: Jasper gets a tattoo of a Jester on his arm and starts insisting others call him that. However, he's generally good-natured and well-liked enough that most people go along with it. It may also help that he lives in a world full of superheroes who all go by their code names, even if he is unpowered.
- The Reliable One: Victoria sees him as this, despite his frequent joking.
Miscellaneous Unpowered Characters
Gary Nieves
Debut: Interlude 2
A former candidate for the city's mayoralty, who dropped out after failing to make headway against Jeanne Wynn (aka Citrine). He comes to blame parahumans for the world's troubles, and leads a movement against them.- A Lighter Shade of Black: Gary is not a particularly nice person, but he scrupulously avoids the use of violence, which is not the case for many other anti-parahuman extremists, some of who even plant a car bomb with the goal of killing the Mayor.
- Bullying a Dragon: While he does have some genuine criticism and concerns against parahumans, he tends to veer more into this territory in his confrontations with the Breakthrough members by hammering at each individual's personal issues.
- Genre Blind: Apparently Gary never realized that anyone who suddenly appears out of nowhere, offering a specific person a perfect solution to a problem they're struggling with probably has ulterior motives.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Interactions between capes and the unpowered aren't good, it's true, but there are better solutions than sabotaging plans that are guaranteed to make the world a better place so the capes won't get ahead.
- Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: He's an ordinary guy stuck trying to survive while capes and cape-related matters (Gold Morning, broken triggers and so on) wreak havoc around him.
- Unwitting Pawn: He gives voice to an anti-parahuman movement, not realizing that he and his ilk are actually being used by Teacher to stoke further unrest against Earth Gimel's heroes and government in order to topple them. He is also one to Dinah, if not to the same degree.
Jessica Yamada
Debut: Daybreak 1.8
A therapist who formerly worked for the PRT with the Wards and in the asylum that housed Sveta and Victoria. She runs the therapy group that eventually becomes Breakthrough.For tropes pertaining to her appearance in Worm see here.- Reasonable Authority Figure: A highly competent therapist and very caring individual, Jessica easily fits this role for the whole of Breakthrough. In more than half of them she's the only adult and authority figure that actually cares about them and their mental health. It's because of this and their own issues that after her fate is left unknown at the end of Arc 5 Vicky doesn't know what the team would do without her. This also leaves Victoria trying to pick up the heavy sack that is being the responsible and independent adult of the group with very mixed results. In general, however, she also seems to be this to all of her patients as well.
- Out-of-Character Moment: The years of stress from treating mentally unstable, potentially violent, superpowered individuals while often ignoring her own needs and feelings eventually gets to her and while trapped in another dimension with only a superpowered former mass-murderer and a few others for company, scraping to survive, she snaps and attempts to strangle Riley (formerly Bonesaw).
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After the crisis where she attempted to murder Riley, and her return to society from the alternate earth she was trapped on, she realizes that she needed to step back and take time to take care of herself as she had been helping improve others' mental health at the expense of her own. This leads her to drop several patients, including Victoria.
- Uncertain Doom: The building she was working in vanished amid a storm of portals during a terror attack by the Fallen. Her fate was unclear for several arcs. She was later confirmed to be alive during Valkyrie's interlude, alongside Riley and Nilbog, and a few arcs after that re-joined the story as an active side character.
Director Armstrong
Kamil Armstrong
A former PRT Director from Boston, notable for his compassionate approach to parahumans, who serves as a surrogate parental figure for Weld. He currently works with the conventional police force, but retains close connections to the Wardens and many cape teams.- Armchair Military: He's not particularly physically fit, but he still served as a PRT Director due to his compassionate and level-headed leadership.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Armstrong has a special ability for finding similarities between himself and parahumans, explaining why he's able to get along so well with many of them. For example, he is able to connect Cryptid's discomfort with his normal human form to his own dissatisfaction with his physique.Kamil knew he had a longstanding habit of finding parts of himself in others. Empathy run amok, maybe. When he was young he had alienated people, responding to every complaint and problem by relating to it.
- Parental Substitute: He's one for Weld.
- Perpetual Frowner: He has a look of perpetual anger on his face even though he's quite friendly.
- Positive Friend Influence: He generally has a positive influence on parahumans he gets involved with. While he's not magic, even parahumans such as the original Damsel of Distress are better off for him trying to help.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He was generally regarded as one of the best PRT directors in the country.
Eric
A college student interning with the Wardens, serving as an assistant to Cinereal.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Eric's criticisms of Victoria and her tendency to ignore mandated oversight have merit (and reflect the opinions of lots of the Wardens brass) but ring rather hollow coming from a power-tripping intern.
- Muggle Power: Eric is insistent about the importance of heroes obeying the unpowered. Vicky is unimpressed.
- Nepotism: It is implied by Tattletale that he owes his spot at university, where there are very few spots available, thanks to connections from a "powerful relative."
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Eric constantly gets in Victoria's way during negotiations with Shin even when her input and participation is useful, in large part due to his personal dislike of her causing him to stretch his orders from Cinereal to keep an eye on her to the extreme.
- Rage Breaking Point: Eric finally loses it when Vicky insists on the importance of making a phone call to Red Queen in order prevent a war between Gimel and Shin, taking her phone out of her hand and slapping it onto the table.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Eric is a mere intern for the Wardens, but that doesn't stop him from having an inflated view of his importance.[Cinereal] was out there in the thick of it. His boss. His partner in some ways.
"Gas Mask" (unmarked spoilers)
Debut: Interlude 17.y
A violent anti-parahuman that ends up triggering the second apocalypse.- Badass Normal: Thanks to his equipment and sharp reflexes, he's able to get the upper hand on and severely wound Fume Hood without having any powers himself.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Gets a full dose of Fume Hood's flesh melting gas.
- No Name Given: Doesn't get a name during his short and only appearance. The unofficial "Gas Mask" refers of course to the gas mask he wears to take on Fume Hood.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Only appears in one chapter, in which he is killed off. His attack on Fume Hood and threatening of the Major Malfunctions drives Fume to unconsciously use her most lethal power on him and a bunch of bystanders, causing her to have a broken second trigger, leading to the fabric of reality finally cracking, and creating the Titans.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He wanted to get revenge on Fume Hood for her past as a villain and unintentionally causing a miscarriage, and instead ends up precipitating the creation of a bunch of mini-endbringers hell-bent on restarting the Cycle and blowing up the Earth.
- Walking Spoiler: His first and only appearance has him play a major role in the most pivotal point of the story so far.
- Would Hurt a Child: His primary target is Fume Hood, but he isn't above threatening to shoot the Major Malfunctions when they come to protect her from him.
Non-humans (Unmarked Spoilers)
Grasping Self
Debut: Heavens 12.f (perspective), From Within 16.8 (appearance)
Cradle's shard. A Tinker shard specializing in artificial limbs. It is the first shard the characters (and therefore the readers) see and interact with directly.
- Alien Geometries: Comes with the territory of being a four-dimensional being. Victoria also notes that it seems to become larger the closer she gets to it: from far away it looks to be about 20 feet across, but up close it appears to be the size of a planet.
- Artificial Limbs: It specializes in artifical limbs, and its name, Grasping Self, comes from all the limbs (Whether hand, paw, or pseudopod) its previous hosts had over the eons.
- Eldritch Abomination: It appears in the dream room as an enormous mass of arms of varying shapes and sizes, with various limbs appearing or disappearing in impossible ways as it moves fourth-dimensionally. When Victoria gets close enough to him, it appears the size of a planet.
- It's All About Me: In a parallel to Cradle, it's just as selfish towards its fellow shards as Cradle is to other people.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: It has hundreds or even thousands of arms, and uses them to fight off around fifteen people at once, while also tinkering to build more devastating weapons and defenses.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Its creation of the Dream Room ends up unintentionally creating a backdoor into Sharspace, which the main characters then exploit to take down Teacher and minimize the spread of the cracks in reality.
- The Resenter: It doesn't appear to enjoy working with other shards, and is angry when Cradle triggers as part of a cluster. It set up the dream room in an attempt to skew things in Cradle's favor over the other members and their shards.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Hates the other shards in its cluster in general for having to share power, but hates Rain's shard Cloven Stranger in particular for being a bud and therefore in its eyes adding insult to injury over the whole arrangement.
"Waste"/The Fragile One
Debut: Heavens 12.all (perspective), From Within 16.12 (appearance)
Victoria's shard. A young bud created out of cast-off remains of other, older shards, too young and undefined to even have its own identity. For more details and power specifics, see the second half of Victoria's entry under Ward Breakthrough.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: It has trouble understanding Victoria's thoughts, emotions, and values. It can sense she resents it (the "wretch"), but doesn't get why. It wants to be more helpful to her, but can't understand her desires. And a shard's idea of "helpful" isn't the same as a human's: its goal is to make Victoria into a "tyrant", dominating over all others, and it honestly seems to think this would make her happy too.
- Glass Cannon: In both its own body in shardspace and its manifestation in the real world as Victoria's forcefield, it hits like a truck and is hard as steel. However, much like hardened steel, it's brittle and can be shattered easily.
- Hero Worship: It seems to be in awe of Victoria and her mental fortitude and creativity. Much of its narration is praising her and wishing it could be more helpful to her.
- No Name Given:
- Unlike other shards whose perspective we see, this one doesn't seem to have a defined name. It calls itself "waste", and that's how fans tend to refer to it.
- Victoria herself takes to calling it "the Fragile One", a reference to how its forcefield can only take one hit before collapsing, and also referring to it as a person with the gender pronouns "she" and "her".
- Power Glows: In shardspace it glows with a golden light and hits very hard.
- Self-Deprecation: It doesn't seem to have a high opinion of itself, considering itself to be young, weak, and isolated. It attributes Victoria's successes not to the power it's granting her, but to her own ingenuity in using that power.
Anguished Heart
Debut: Infrared 19.b
Love Lost's shard. It specializes in emotional manipulation.
- Alien Geometries: Gilpatrick notes that when it moves, "its shape seemed to change by rules [he] couldn’t understand". When the people in the room shoot at it, it starts breaking apart... but not the wolf itself, sections apart from the main body *they can't see*.
- Animalistic Abomination: Its avatar looks like a "blade cut in the shape of a wolf" with a red blue gradient that moves in strange ways, but this in only the tip of the iceberg of the whole Shard.
- Emotion Control: Obviously. It's not just a random old shard that can control emotions though, it's also partially responsible for trigger events. Infrared 19.b ends with it casually incapacitating all the unpowered people in the Dream Room, and giving Gilpatrick a trigger event.
