History Characters / AeonLegionLabyrinth

* MentorOccupationalHazard: [[spoiler:Subverted. Instead all of Alya's squires die or go missing while she continues to survive. Seems to be the source of her GuiltComplex.]]

* [[OneManArmy One Woman Army]]: Orion even says so. She proves it during the second battle with Hanns when she defeats an army of SS soldiers.

* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: What she does to Vand. [[KickTheSonOfABitch Not that anyone had a problem with that.]]

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Hikari kicks Vand while he is down after the instructor turns his back.

* BrutalHonesty: [[spoiler:Most notable when she rips into Lycus for comparing her to Kairos.]]

* NotGoodWithPeople: As Roland points out, Terra's blunt nature and lack of tact will win her few allies.

* OverarchingVillain: [[spoiler:Orion seems to think that Kairos is now the greatest threat to the Aeon Legion and Saturn City.]] %%I am still a little unsure if this example fits or if it is Greater Scope Villain?

* DarthVaderClone: [[spoiler:Mask? Check. [[EvilSoundsDeep Distorted voice]]? Check. [[BlackKnight Black armor]]? Check. FallenHero? Check. [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil Same mentor as the hero]]? Check. [[BlackSwordsAreBetter Black sword with a red energy edge]]? Check.]] %%Maybe trying to hard to be cute. Cut this?

* NotSoDifferent: To Terra. Many note how the two look similar to each other.

* StoneWall: has a knack for taking damage but has a rather pitiful offence

* Stone wall: she has a knack for taking a lot of hits but has a terrible offence.

* MagnificentBastard: Resourceful and cunning, he is one of the few characters in an entire universe full of hyper evolving monsters, super powered war machines, and singularity weapon wielding super soldiers to give Alya Silverwind a run for her money and even almost beat her with technology from the 40s. [[spoiler:He even robs the Archives in Saturn City with weapons that can circumvent the shieldwatch after willingly getting captured.]]

* LivingLieDetector: Terra is pretty good and cutting through Roland's lies and Hanns's weak justifications. Too bad she isn't very good at arguing back. %%Not sure this applies since this is not a supernatural ability?

* RoaringRampageofRevenge: [[spoiler:Terra comes close to one of these when the Manticore kills Zaid.]]

Hikari Urashima is a Japanese girl from the SengokuPeriod and the top student at the Aveum Academy. Already skilled in hand to hand combat, she also quickly masters the shieldwatch and seems obsessed with getting an aeon edge. She remains distant from the other students and ends up becoming Terra's rival as the story goes on.

* [[spoiler:ImmuneToFate]]: [[spoiler:Terra is a null, someone who has no connection with fate at all.]]

* [[spoiler:TheUnchosenOne]]: [[spoiler:Terra discovers she is a null, someone without a connection to fate. She keeps going regardless.]]

* [[spoiler:BloodKnight]]: [[spoiler:What Lycus claims Alya is.]]

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast]]: [[spoiler:Hinted at by Lycus. Terra is unable to find out for sure since Saturn City erased all information on Saturnian War crimes from their Archives.]]

* [[spoiler:JerkWithAHeartOfGold]]: [[spoiler:Terra manages to bring out Roland's better traits during the Trial of War. He is also the only person to help her after Terra nearly quits because of losing Zaid.]]

* [[spoiler:MoralityChain]]: [[spoiler:What Terra becomes to Roland when she finally goads him into helping her save the other strike teams during the Trial of War.]]

* [[spoiler:TookALevelInIdealism]]: [[spoiler:At least a temporary level during the Trial of War.]]

* [[spoiler:APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil]]: [[spoiler:She was Alya's greatest squire.]]

* [[spoiler:BlackKnight]]: [[spoiler:Kairos even dresses in black to separate herself from the white uniforms of the Legion.]]
* [[spoiler:BlackSwordsAreBetter]]: [[spoiler:Kairos's new blade is called Exile.]]

* [[spoiler:CameBackWrong]]: [[spoiler:When she did finally return, she was forever changed. She claimed to have been to both the Beginning and End of Time. Where she found her mask and new aeon edge is still a mystery.]]

* [[spoiler:DarthVaderClone]]: [[spoiler:Mask? Check. [[EvilSoundsDeep Distorted voice]]? Check. [[BlackKnight Black armor]]? Check. FallenHero? Check. [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil Same mentor as the hero]]? Check. [[BlackSwordsAreBetter Black sword with a red energy edge]]? Check.]] %%Maybe trying to hard to be cute. Cut this?
* [[spoiler:TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]]: [[spoiler:What Kairos claims she is trying to advert by murdering time travelers.]]
* [[spoiler:EvilCounterpart]]: [[spoiler:To Terra.]]
* [[spoiler:EvilSoundsDeep]]: [[spoiler:Kairos's Kalian style mask distorts her voice.]]
* [[spoiler:TheFaceless]]: [[spoiler:The trope, not the creatures mentioned in the story. Kairos wears a mask that covers her face. Terra notes that it has a very Kalian design to it.]]
* [[spoiler:FallenHero]]: [[spoiler:Now that she is trying to destroy the very place she once protected.]]

* [[spoiler:HerosEvilPredecessor]]: [[spoiler:Kairos was once Alya's squire just like Terra.]]
* [[spoiler:HeroKiller]]: [[spoiler:Her first act upon her return is to kill Lycus Cerberus in a Trial of Blades. She also claims she will hunt down every last Legendary Blade and kill them to return the time they stole.]]
* [[spoiler:KnightOfCerebus]]: [[spoiler:The very chapter Kairos returns is very dark in tone and her very first act upon returning is to kill one of the most powerful people in the Aeon Legion.]]
* [[spoiler:KnightTemplar]]: [[spoiler:Kairos is willing to destroy the very city she fought to protect and even slaughter her own friends if that is what it takes to save the Edge of Time.]] %%Not sure if this example fits the trope?
* [[spoiler:MurderIsTheBestSolution]]: [[spoiler:Kairos believes that by murdering time travelers, she can return the time they stole.]]

* [[spoiler:OverarchingVillain]]: [[spoiler:Orion seems to think that Kairos is now the greatest threat to the Aeon Legion and Saturn City.]] %%I am still a little unsure if this example fits or if it is Greater Scope Villain?
* [[spoiler:ShadowArchetype]]: [[spoiler:To Terra. Terra's journey is symbolically represented as the transition from stone to steel. Kairos is constantly compared to steel herself, but she is often standing in the shadows of steel. Kairos is a shadow of steel, basically a shadow of Terra herself.]]
* [[spoiler:WellIntentionedExtremist]]: [[spoiler:Kairos claims she is trying to save the world.]]

* [[spoiler:HeelRealization]]: [[spoiler:Happened after he killed a heroic Kalian soldier who protected civilians at the cost of his own life. The event set off his eventual realization of his status as a villain.]]

* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal]]: [[spoiler:Kairos kills him near the end of the book.]]

* [[spoiler:SacrificialLion]]: [[spoiler:He dies by Kairos's hand at the end of the story.]]

* [[spoiler:WouldHurtAChild]]: [[spoiler:He did before his HeelRealization.]]

* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal]]: [[spoiler:Zaid dies in the Labyrinth after the Manticore, Sero, kills him.]]

* [[spoiler:MentorOccupationalHazard]]: [[spoiler:He dies when the Manticore kills him in the Trial of the Beast.]]

* [[spoiler:SacrificialLamb]]: [[spoiler:He dies in the Trial of the Beast likely to prove how dangerous the Labyrinth is.]]

* BadAss: Her leadership rallied the Legion during its darkest hour against the only threat that almost completely destroyed them.

* BadAss: Lycus beats up an entire group of shieldwatch users without a shieldwatch himself. He even defeats an entire of team of seasoned legionnaires, one of whom had beaten Hikari. He has also won thousands of Trial of Blades. The number of Trail of Blades he lost? Two.

* TheMentor: To Terra, though to a lessor extent. She seems to take a very hands off approach, though Alya herself has openly said she dislikes teaching most of the things that Terra could learn at the Academy anyway.

* ActionGirl: What Terra eventually becomes

* FacePalm: Terra seems fond of these.

* NervesOfSteel: Terra does not flinch.

* BrokenAce: Strongly implied by Lycus.

* DanceBattler: Alya is very fast and impossibly graceful when she battles.

* [[OneManArmy One Woman Army]]: Orion even says so.

* BrilliantButLazy: He always takes the path of least resistance.
* CombatPragmatist: Very much so. Even though Roland's swordsmanship skills are nearly second to none, he still prefers to use clever tricks to win his battles.

* ImmortalitySeeker: Roland's primary goal.

* LivingForeverIsAwesome: Roland thinks so. He seems fixated on it.

* TheWorfEffect: [[spoiler:Kairos knocks Roland out with only her scabbard.]]

* AttackAttackAttack: Hikari's combat style.

* HatesEveryoneEqually: Seems to dislike everyone around her.

* TheRival: Gradually becomes one to Terra.

* TheWorfEffect: [[spoiler:Hikari is incapacitated by Kairos's backhand.]]

* AxCrazy: [[spoiler:The second of Lycus's personalities, the one he calls the beast, Cerberus after his aeon edge.]]

* GateGuardian: During the Trial of Storms.

[[folder:Alya Silverwind]]

* KnightInSourArmor: What Roland actually is which defies Terra's [[KnightInShiningArmor expectations]].

* [[spoiler:[[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil A Pupil of Mine Until She Turned to Evil]]]]: [[spoiler:She was Alya's greatest squire.]]

[[folder:Lycus Cerberus]]

->[[spoiler:“I sacrificed my normal life to come here before I discovered I was fated to die in an accident. I chose to stay here and continue on even when everyone else told me to quit, that I wasn't good enough. Even the Sybil think I'm nothing. I don't care! I am not Kairos! Everything came naturally to her while I had to scrape and claw my way past every obstacle. I barely made it, but I did it on my own. No fate or destiny ever helped me. No one chose me so I chose myself and I will become a heroine of Saturn City, the Aeon Legion, and all of Time! Because I can choose to be the hero you failed to be! Now get out of my way!”]]

* {{Determinator}}: Her strongest feature. Terra refuses to give up. Even before she underwent TrainingFromHell others noted how she would not flinch. She wins many of her fights after being knocked down and her opponent assumes she is beaten only for Terra to get right back up.

* [[spoiler:HeroicBSOD: After Zaid dies. She almost doesn't go on, but Roland nudges her forward into the next Trial.]]
* [[spoiler:IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: One reason Terra does not kill Hanns.]]

* [[spoiler:ImmuneToFate: Terra is a null, someone who has no connection with fate at all.]]
* LivingLieDetector: Terra is pretty good and cutting through Roland's lies and Hanns's weak justifications. Too bad she isn't very good at arguing back.
* MadeOfIron: She is so tough that often her foes can't hurt her, but she herself is terrible at attacking. Often she wins through sheer attrition. Lycus even refers to Terra's level of endurance as “ downright scary”.
* MeaningfulName: “Terra” the Latin word for Earth and her last name “Mason”, the name of a stone worker. It fits with her interest in geology, the study of the intersection of Earth and Time. Alya even finds Terra in a quarry which goes along with Terra's symbolic journey from stone to steel. Hence why everyone keeps telling Terra that “[[ArcWords I have seen the steel in you]].”

* NewMeat: Nearly everyone expects Terra to 'dust out' or fail the training program as even many hardened soldiers fail their first attempts.

* ThatLiarLies: Terra tries to tell an instructor about Roland's trick with switching the swords only for the instructor to berate her for turning on one of her fellow recruits.

* [[spoiler:TheUnchosenOne: Terra discovers she is a null, someone without a connection to fate.]]
* WideEyedIdealist: Terra has a few shades of this, especially with her expectations of history.

->“She treats my orders more like amusing suggestions and that's when she doesn't laugh in my face.”

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Terra sees Alya as a super heroine and role model. [[spoiler:Lycus sees Alya as another butcher who slaughtered countless people during the [[GreatOffscreenWar First Temporal War]].]]

* [[spoiler:BloodKnight: What Lycus claims Alya is.]]

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast: Hinted at by Lycus. Terra is unable to find out for sure since Saturn City erased all information on Saturnian War crimes from their Archives.]]

* LeeroyJenkins: Alya's primary battle style. However, she is so skilled that she pulls it off anyway.

* [[spoiler:MentorOccupationalHazard: Subverted. Instead all of Alya's squires die or go missing while she continues to survive. Seems to be the source of her GuiltComplex.]]

* PersonOfMassDestruction: She takes out an entire platoon in chapter two. Later on she devastates and entire encampment of SS troops and then is disappointed that they didn't put up much of a fight.
* RageAgainstTheMentor: Which Terra almost does, not that Alya would really care.

* ConsummateLiar: Roland lies his way into the academy and lies his way past many of his tests. Very few are able to see through his lies as well. Terra seems to be the best at it. However, Zaid is also the one other person to call Roland out on his lies.
* TheCynic: In rare moments, Roland drops his charismatic facade and reveal just how cynical he really is.

* DeadpanSnarker: Terra's match in terms of sheer snark.

* [[spoiler:JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Terra manages to bring out Roland's better traits during the Trial of War. He is also the only person to help her after Terra nearly quits because of losing Zaid.]]
* KnightInShiningArmor: What Terra thinks Roland should be.
* KnightInSourArmor: What Roland actually is.

* LovableRogue: He certainly fits the role though Terra, Hikari, and Zaid would disagree with the loveable part.

* [[spoiler:MoralityChain: What Terra becomes to Roland when she finally goads him into helping her save the other strike teams during the Trial of War.]]
* OldSchoolChivalry: Averted. Roland even finds the concept childish.
** Roland's garb is that of a crusader putting him from the 1100s while the concept of chivalry itself (or at least the version modern audiences recognize) didn't surface until around the 1400s. It is very likely that Roland has never even heard of the concept or at least how it relates to honor even if he was a knight.

* [[spoiler:TookALevelInIdealism: At least a temporary level during the Trial of War.]]
* [[spoiler:TheWorfEffect: Kairos knocks Roland out with only her scabbard.]]

* AttackAttackAttack: Hikari's default combat style.

* [[spoiler:FriendlyRivalry: Eventually with Terra.]]

* [[spoiler:ParryingBullets: Hikari does this to Hanns's troops when they start shooting bullets that can pierce her shieldwatch stasis shield.]]

* [[spoiler:TheWorfEffect: Hikari is incapacitated by Kairos's backhand.]]

Hanns Joachim Speer is the leader of the Nazi Zeitmacht, a time traveling force based in 1940s Nazi Germany. He wholeheartedly believes in the Nazi ideology and seems completely ignorant of their many atrocities. Despite being a Nazi, he is a fairly sympathetic character. Polite, well spoken, cunning, resourceful, and an underdog, Hanns could easily be the hero of a pulp science fiction story, if he just wasn't a Nazi. He serves as the primary antagonist of the first book.

* AntiVillain: [[SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains A villain in name only on the sliding scale]].
* BadassNormal: In a universe full of threats so great that they could end time itself, Hanns manages to throw the entire Aeon Legion in to disarray with only his cunning, a few gadgets, and a little bit of help. He even almost beats Alya during the first battle using nothing more than a wad of papers.

* {{Deuteragonist}}: A strong case could be made that Hanns is a Deuteragonist. He is the only other character to get P.O.V. chapters in the book (minus Endymion in the epilogue). Like Terra, he is a NaiveNewcomer struggling to prove himself to his peers and an underdog. Both possess similar flaws and strengths and both use cunning to defeat their foes without restoring to tactics that could be considered despicable. [[spoiler: And by the end of the book, Hanns loses, but survives implying that his journey, like Terra's, is not yet finished.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He tries to stop the SS from firing on civilians.
* {{Expy}}: Hanns often compares himself to Odysseus, the Greek hero who designed the Trojan Horse. [[spoiler:Which is fitting given that he himself manages to infiltrate Saturn City to steal all of the information in the Archives.]]
* FairForItsDay: Despite Hanns's ignorance of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities, he is strangely ahead of his time on eugenics often referring to it as “Garbage science.”
* FantasticScience: Hanns invents a time machine pretty much by himself. Other characters comment upon his ability to work with extremely advanced technology despite being from the 1940s.
* GadgeteerGenius: [[spoiler:Hanns designs a bullet which is able to punch through the stasis shield of the Legion's shieldwatch. He uses it when he raids the Archives.]]
* [[spoiler:HeelRealization: Set up, but adverted. Hanns never sees himself as anything less than a hero. He does survive though, implying that he may yet realize that the Nazi Party is just not worth salvaging.]]

* OnlySaneMan: How Hanns feels about the rest of the Nazi Party.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: His dislike of Jewish culture seems to stem from a largely economic perspective rather than antisemitism. [[ValuesDissonance Of course, when compared to his contemporaries Hanns's viewpoint looks down right progressive even if it would be contemptible today.]] Still, he seems unaware of the Holocaust and is even horrified by the idea.
** If Hanns is from 1940, then the Holocaust had only started gaining steam as much of the killing started in 1941. It would explain why he is so unaware of Nazi atrocities as the worst had yet to come.
* SpeaksInShoutOuts: He quotes the Illiad several times.
* SmugSnake: Even when capture. [[spoiler:Justified since everything is going according to plan.]]

* [[spoiler:[[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil A Pupil of Mine Until She Turned to Evil]]: She was Alya's greatest squire.]]

* BigDamnHeroes: She was this for the whole Legion.

* [[spoiler:BlackKnight: Kairos even dresses in black to separate herself from the white uniforms of the Legion.]]
* [[spoiler:BlackSwordsAreBetter: Kairos's new blade is called Exile.]]

* [[spoiler:CameBackWrong: When she did finally return, she was forever changed. She claimed to have been to both the Beginning and End of Time. Where she found her mask and aeon edge is still a mystery.]]

* [[spoiler:DarthVaderClone: Mask? Check. [[EvilSoundsDeep Distorted voice]]? Check. [[BlackKnight Black armor]]? Check. FallenHero? Check. [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil Same mentor as the hero]]? Check. [[BlackSwordsAreBetter Black sword with a red energy edge]]? Check.]]
* [[spoiler:TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: What Kairos claims she is trying to advert by murdering time travelers.]]
* [[spoiler:EvilCounterpart: To Terra.]]
* [[spoiler:EvilSoundsDeep: Kairos's Kalian style mask distorts her voice.]]
* [[spoiler:TheFaceless: The trope, not the creatures mentioned in the story. Kairos wears a mask that covers her face. Terra notes that it has a very Kalian design to it.]]
* [[spoiler:FallenHero: Now that she is trying to destroy the very place she once protected.]]

* [[spoiler:HerosEvilPredecessor: Kairos was Alya's best squire just like Terra.]]
* [[spoiler:HeroKiller: Her first act upon her return is to kill Lycus Cerberus in a Trial of Blades. She also claims she will hunt down every last Legendary Blade and kill them to return the time they stole.]]
* [[spoiler:KnightOfCerebus: The very chapter Kairos returns is very dark in tone and her very first act upon returning is to kill one of the most powerful people in the Aeon Legion.]]
* [[spoiler:KnightTemplar: Kairos is willing to destroy the very city she fought to protect and even slaughter her own friends if that is what it takes to save the Edge of Time.]]
* [[spoiler:MurderIsTheBestSolution: Kairos believes that by murdering time travelers, she can return the time they stole.]]

* [[spoiler:OverarchingVillain: Orion seems to think that Kairos is now the greatest threat to the Aeon Legion and Saturn City.]]
* [[spoiler:ShadowArchetype: To Terra. Terra's journey is symbolically represented as the transition from stone to steel. Kairos is constantly compared to steel herself, but she is often standing in the shadows of steel. Kairos is a shadow of steel, basically a shadow of Terra herself.]]
* [[spoiler:TheUnfettered: Kairos has become this in order to complete her mission.]]
* [[spoiler:WellIntentionedExtremist: Kairos claims she is trying to save the world.]]

* [[spoiler:TheAtoner: One of his personalities, specifically the Captain.]]
* [[spoiler:AxCrazy: The second of Lycus's personalities, the one he calls the beast, Cerberus after his aeon edge.]]

* [[spoiler:BloodKnight: What Lycus was in his past. It is actually what he still is, but he seems to be able to control his bloodlust better now.]]

* TheChooserOfTheOne: Not to the same extent as Alya, but he does get final say as to who passes the academy. [[spoiler:However, he and Alya do agree that the most important quality for a recruit to have is a desire to be a hero.]]

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast: He outright confesses to Terra that he is a war criminal and that Saturn City covered it up.]]

* [[spoiler:GuiltComplex: This seems to be his core motive for becoming the head of the academy. His guilt over his bloody past drove him to take over the training of the academy in order to prevent someone like him from ever joining the Aeon Legion again.]]
* [[spoiler:HeelRealization: Happened after he killed a heroic Kalian soldier who protected civilians at the cost of his own life. The event set off his eventual realization of his status as a villain.]]
* [[spoiler:HiddenDepths: What Terra assumes at first is that Lycus is just a bullying headmaster of the academy. As time goes on she finds that others are deeply loyal to Lycus and that his harsh training is designed to weed out those who might become monsters like Lycus himself once was.]]
* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal: Kairos kills him near the end of the book.]]
* [[spoiler:MustMakeAmends: his reason for running the Legion’s training program.]]
* [[spoiler:OnlyTheWorthyMayPass: He tells this to Terra during the trial of storms in response to her question about why he is here.]]

* [[spoiler:SacrificialLion: He dies by Kairos's hand at the end of the story.]]

* SeenItAll: Lycus rips apart Terra's preconceptions of being a ChosenOne. He is also surprisingly perceptive on 21st century American culture. He does not seem interested in what Terra is less so than what she will do in order to gain entry into the academy's training program.

* [[spoiler:SuperpoweredEvilSide: His Cerberus side is TheBerserker.]]

* [[spoiler:TheUnfettered: He was before his HeelRealization]]
* [[spoiler:WouldHurtAChild: He did before his HeelRealization.]]

!! Zaid Karim

* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal: Zaid dies in the Labyrinth after the Manticore, Sero, kills him.]]
* LivingLieDetector: The only other character to see through Roland's lies.

* [[spoiler:MentorOccupationalHazard: Played straight in Zaid's case. He dies when the Manticore kills him in the Trial of the Beast.]]

* [[spoiler:SacrificialLamb: He dies in the Trial of the Beast likely to prove how dangerous the Labyrinth is.]]

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast: Hinted at by Lycus. “Orion cultivated his own garden of corpses”.]]

->“People adore me because I am like a star. Beautiful, but distant and sculpted by people's imaginations rather than what is actually there. ”

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: What Terra assumes Delphia to be at first. Delphia is just really indirect since she has be living with ageless immortals her entire life who constantly remind her of her inexperience.

* IndifferentBeauty: Delphia seems aware of her beauty, but never calls attention it herself. She even seems to slightly resent that people see her beauty rather than her, but never directly blames her beauty.

* TheBully: He steals Terra's coin, forms a gang of minions, and even tries to push around Hikari. Too bad he is a bully in an academy full of badasses.
* {{Deconstruction}}: Of bully characters. [[spoiler:Lycus outright states that people like Vand have no place in the Aeon Legion. In many stories, Vand would stay around to menace Terra through the entire training process. However, Vand's sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies make him a poor match for the Aeon Legion that requires constant self sacrifice. Even his bullying would be sub-par compared to Lycus's intentional antagonism towards the other recruits. Such a person would only get in the way and could never be made a part of the training.]]

* [[spoiler:LaserGuidedAmnesia: After Lycus snaps Vand's spine in order to show the limitations of the shieldwatch's HealingFactor.]]

* [[spoiler:CompleteMonster: In his past.]]

->[[spoiler:“I sacrificed my normal life to come here before I discovered I was fated to die in an accident. I chose to stay here and continue on even when everyone else told me to quit, that I wasn't good enough. Even the Sybil think I'm nothing. I don't care! I am not Kairos! Everything came naturally to her while I had to scrape and claw my way past every obstacle. I barely made it, but I did it on my own. No fate or destiny ever helped me. No one chose me so I chose myself and I will become a heroine of Saturn City, the Aeon Legion, and all of Time! Because I can choose to be the hero you failed to be! Now get out of my way!”]]

* BrutalHonesty

* DeadpanSnarker

* EnduranceDuel: What most of Terra's fights turn into. She is so tough that often her foe can't hurt her, but she herself is terrible at attacking. Often she wins through sheer attrition.

* MadeOfIron

* NewMeat
* NervesOfSteel
* NoSocialSkills: Terra's social skills are not that bad, but they are deficient due to her lack of tact which gets her in trouble more than once.
* NotGoodWithPeople: As Roland points out, Terra's blunt nature will win her few allies.

* UnfazedEveryman: Terra gradually grows into this.
* WideEyedIdealist: Terra has a few shades of this.

Alya Silverwind is one of the greatest of the Legendary Blades, an elite group of 12 individuals who are the strongest in the Aeon Legion. In her opening introduction alone she disables an entire platoon of Nazi soldiers without killing them. She is the first person to truly recognize Terra's potential and decides to take Terra on as a Squire. Then she dumps Terra off at the Aveum Academy and ignores her.

* TheAce

* BadassTeacher

* BrokenAce

* CelebrityIsOverrated: Alya seems to think so.
* TheChooserOfTheOne: Every person Alya choses as her squire always becomes famous and stops some great threat to Time. However, they all die doing so.

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast: Hinted at by Lycus. Terra is unable to find out for sure since Saturn City erased all information on Saturian War crimes from their Archives.]]
* DanceBattler
* DeadpanSnarker: Not as snarky as Terra or Roland, but she had her moments.
* FamedInStory: Alya is famous since her squires all end up saving the Aeon Legion.
* GuiltComplex: Seems to suffer from this since all of her squires keep dying or vanishing.

* LivingLegend: Alya is a member of the Legendary Blades.

* MentorOccupationalHazard: Subverted. Instead all of Alya's squires die or go missing while she continues to survive.

* [[OneManArmy One Woman Army]]

* Really700YearsOld

* SirSwearsALot: ''“Crash”'' in Saturnian culture is a curse word and Alya is very fond of it.

* BrilliantButLazy

* {{Foil}}: Again to Terra. Roland's confidence contrasts with Terra's constant self doubt. He is also well liked, but ultimately cynical as opposed to Terra who is disliked by others, but ultimately idealistic. Roland's very nature as a liar clashes with Terra's brutal honesty. The biggest contrast though his Roland's innate skill and mastery of both the shieldwatch and sword, both of which Terra struggles to master with nothing more than hard work.
* GuileHero

* [[spoiler:JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Terra manages to bring out Roland's better traits during the Trial of War.]]

* LovableRogue: He certainly fits the role though Terra would disagree with the loveable part.
* ManipulativeBastard

* TheSlacker

* TallDarkAndSnarky

Hikari Urashima is a Japanese girl from the SengokuPeriod and the top tiro/student at the Aveum Academy. Already skilled in hand to hand combat, she also quickly masters the shieldwatch and seems obsessed with getting an aeon edge. She remains distant from the other tirones/students and ends up becoming Terra's rival as the story goes on.

* TheAce
* ActionGirl

* AnythingYouCanDoICanDoBetter: Especially if someone as lowly as Terra can do it.

* BrokenAce
* CantTakeCriticism: Which Roland exploits.
* CompetitionFreak: Hikari's competative nature seems partially driven by her inability to find a real challenge.
* {{Determinator}}: Almost as much as Terra. Hikari can match Terra in a battle of wills, but Terra has more stamina than Hikari. [[spoiler:She later tells Terra that this is because her father forbid her from competing with others since it would not be fair.]]
* DoesNotKnowHowToSayThanks

* IneffectualLoner

* NotAMorningPerson

* WorthyOpponent: [[spoiler:To Terra. Eventually.]]

* AntiVillain
* BadassNormal

* Big Bad

* CounterpartComparison: Hanns often compares himself to Odysseus, the Greek hero who designed the Trojan Horse. [[spoiler:Which is fitting given that he himself manages to infiltrate Saturn City to steal all of the information in the Archives.]]

* FantasticScience

* HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Adverted. Hanns never sees himself as anything less than a hero.]]
* MagnificentBastard: Oh so very much.

* NobleDemon

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: His dislike of Jewish culture seems to stem from a largely economic perspective rather than anti-semetism. [[ValuesDissonance Of course, when compared to his contemporaries Hanns's viewpoint looks down right progressive even if it would be contemptible today.]] Still, he seems unaware of the Holocaust and is even horrified by the idea.

* TheProfessor: Hanns would be this if he just wasn't a Nazi.
* SmugSnake
* VillainousValour: Hanns '''IS''' this. Resourceful and cunning, he is one of the few characters in an entire universe full of hyper evolving monsters, super powered war machines, and singularity weapon wielding super soldiers to give Alya Silverwind a run for her money and even almost beat her with technology from the 40s. [[spoiler:He even robs the Archives in Saturn City with weapons that can circumvent the shieldwatch after willingly getting captured.]]
* VisionaryVillain
* WellIntentionedExtremist
* WhatYearIsThis
* WideEyedIdealist

Kairos was Alya's last squire before Terra. Kairos ascended through the Aeon Legion's ranks during the Faceless War and was largely responsible for their very narrow victory. During the waning years of the war, Kairos left her blade to Alya and then vanished. She has not been seen in nearly a century by the time the events of Labryinth take place and Alya discovers Terra.

* TheAce: Those Lycus describes her as more of a BrokenAce.

* BigGood: Was this during the Faceless War. [[spoiler:Not so much when she returns and kills Lycus before declaring she would destroy Saturn City.]]

* [[spoiler:CameBackWrong: When she did finally return, she was forever changed. She claimed to have been to both the Beginning and End of Time. Where she found her mask and an aeon edge is still a mystery.]]

* [[spoiler:TheFaceless: Kairos is not a Faceless, but she does wear a mask that covers her face. Terra notes that it has a very Kalian design to it.]]
* [[spoiler:FallenHero]]
* FamedInStory: Kairos is consider the greatest of Alya's squires.

* [[spoiler:OverarchingVillain]]
* TheChosenOne
* [[spoiler:TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: What Kairos claims she is trying to advert by murdering time travelers.]]

* BadAss: Lycus beats up an entire group of shieldwatch users without a shieldwatch himself. He even defeats an entire of team of seasoned legionnaires, one of whom had beaten Hikari.

* [[spoiler:BloodKnight: What Lycus was in his past.]]
* BrokenAce
* ByronicHero

* [[spoiler:DarkAndTroubledPast: He outright confesses to Terra that he was a war criminal and that Saturn City covered it up.]]

* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal]]
* MustMakeAmends
* MyGreatestFailure
* OnlyTheWorthyMayPass
* Really700YearsOld

* {{Sadist}}: He seems so at first. [[spoiler:He is a sadist, or at least partially. His Cerberus personality seems to delight in destruction.]]
* SeenItAll: Lycus tears down Terra's preconceptions of her dubious status as a ChosenOne. He is also surprisingly perceptive on 21st century American culture. He does not seem interested in what Terra is less so that what she will do in order to gain entry into the Academy's training program.

* SplitPersonality

* The Bully: “I am the only bully allowed here.”
* ThresholdGuardians
* TroubledBackstoryFlashback: A few of these are revealed through chapter epigraphs. Two are particularly notable. One details just how many Lycus has killed. [[spoiler:It's a lot.]] The other confirms Lycus's story about his own guilt.

!! Zaid Karim

* FireForgedFriends
* [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal: Zaid dies in the Labyrinth after the Manticore Sero kills him.]]

* MauveShirt

* [[spoiler:SacrificialLamb]]
* TheReliableOne

->[[spoiler:“I sacrificed my normal life to come here before I discovered I was fated to die in an accident. I chose to stay here and continue on even when everyone else told me to quit, that I wasn't good enough. Even the Sybil think I'm nothing. I don't care! I am not Kairos! Everything came naturally to her while I had to scrape and claw my way past every obstacle. I barely made it, but I did it on my own. No fate or destiny ever helped me. No one chose me so I chose myself and I will become a heroine of Saturn City, the Aeon Legion, and all of Time! Because I can choose to be the hero you failed to be! Now get out of my way!”]]


The novel's main protagonist. Terra Mason is a fairly average 18 year old girl from present times whose only notable qualities, other than her stubbornness, is her mild fascination with history and sizable rock collection. But when she finds she is the only person left to stop a time traveling Nazi, she steps up and manages to delay Hanns just long enough for Alya to stop him. Alya then offers Terra a chance only normally reserved for history's finest soldiers; a chance to join the Aeon Legion.

[[folder:Hanns]]
!!Hanns Joachim Speer
->“There are those of us who choose not to build a political platform on hate and garbage science. Some of us want to build the party on more solid foundations.”


Hanns Joachim Speer is the leader of the Nazi Zeitmacht, a time traveling force based in 1940s Nazi Germany. He wholeheartedly believes in the Nazi ideology and seems completely ignorant of their many atrocities. Despite being a Nazi, he is a fairly sympathetic character. Polite, well spoken, cunning, resourceful, and an underdog, Hanns could easily be the hero of a pulp science fiction story, if he just wasn't a Nazi. He serves as the antagonist of the first book.

* AffablyEvil: Hans is pretty nice for a Nazi. In fact he seems rather bothered by everyone's assumption that he is a card carrying villain.

* PlayingNiceForNow: After Hans is captured, he becomes Tartarus's model prisoner. [[spoiler:Mostly so he can get a chance to break into the Archives.]]