Character page for the Worm fanfic Atonement. Work is in progress, and the sheer size of the fic's cast means that this page will most likely eventually be split into multiple pages.

All spoilers on this page are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Brockton Bay Wards- Current

The junior wing of the Protectorate, composed of parahuman heroes who have yet to turn 18. The Wards program was intended as a sort of superheroing-with-training-wheels for kids to get ahold of their powers, but Brockton Bay's status as a crime-ridden Weirdness Magnet means the Wards are more often than not on active duty, fighting dangerous villains. Their success at that has made them fairly famous. Taking down the Slaughterhouse Nine without the main Protectorate will do that.

Tether

Madison Clements (Tether)

I'm sorry, Taylor.

Atonement's Protagonist and narrator. Formerly a Number Two to Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess, she distances herself from the two after the tragedy of the locker prank and Taylor's death, and triggers in the process. Possesses the ability to manifest "lines" between any two nonliving objects, she can "pull" and "push" on one or both of the objects to push them apart or pull them together, coupled with a Danger Sense that tells her when those near her are in imminent danger.

Classification: Shaker 6, Breaker 1, Thinker 2

Achilles' Heel: Madison's power only works on objects she can see, and only nonliving ones. As such, her powers are largely useless in the dark (Which Grue exploits during their fight in the mall) and against enemies with Super-Toughness, since the majority of her attacks are dependent on brute force- she has it especially hard against Horde, whose minions are to shrug off her attacks, and can't just be thrown aside.
Action Girl: Don't let her cutesy appearance fool you- Mads is an incredibly strong fighter, in no small part due to her large amounts of experience fighting a variety of villains, despite her relative inexperience in comparison with more "capable" heroes.
The Atoner: As the fanfic's title will tell you. Taylor's death and Madison's subsequent trigger event and joining of the Wards is what starts the plot.
Badass Adorable: Bit older than the average example, but Madison has always been considered "cute" rather than pretty, and is definitely a competent badass.
Battle Couple: With Mars.
Break the Cutie: Madison... doesn't take it well when Coil blackmails Shadow Stalker into killing her parents. She recovers, thankfully.
Cheap Costume: She starts out with one, although she gets a proper superhero costume when she becomes a Ward.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: She gets creative when it comes to dissuading people who do stuff like stealing from hospitals or following the Slaughterhouse Nine. Two words: Human Yoyo.
Cool Big Sis: To Mika. She tries to be this to Missy, but the latter isn't having any of it.
Danger Sense: The second half of her power, manifesting as a red line between her and other people that gets darker the worse trouble they're about to be in. It doesn't work on her, though, only people around her.
Deadpan Snarker: Mostly as Tether, to the point that she becomes rather infamous for breaking villains by talking while beating them up all the while. She still has snarky moments in her civilian guise, but they're far less frequent and mostly aimed at Dennis. She notes that in her past as a bully, she used sarcasm and witty banter to disguise her insults so she wouldn't break her 'cute nice girl' facade.
Drives Like Crazy: It's partially due to her Required Secondary Powers giving her a skewed sense of motion, but that doesn't stop Dennis, Marissa, and even Hunter from mocking her for it.
Expy: Of Spider-Man, with some elements specific to Spider-Gwen. She's a sassy superheroine motivated to be a hero by causing the death of someone she knew (Taylor, in this case). Her powers allow her to yank things around and travel quickly by connecting herself to other objects, and she has a Danger Sense. Her costume is even inspired by Spider-Gwen's.
Girly Bruiser: Madison is probably the most girly member of the main cast, and she's also quite the accomplished fighter.
Happily Adopted: It takes a while, but she eventually adjusts to having Sam and Ethan as foster parents.
Heart Is an Awesome Power: You wouldn't think 'Super-Therapy' would be something to write home about, but given that Triggering automatically saddles all capes with a Conflict Ball and Madison can remove said ball, it's a large part of why Atonement is Lighter and Softer than canon. It's also helped keep her team together and redeemed numerous villains who would otherwise be S-class threats, like Bonesaw and Glastig Uaine (though this one is in progress). Madison has even managed to get Contessa to loosen up and drop her ends-justify-the-means mindset.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Missy, Crystal, and Jess.
Invulnerable Knuckles: Not part of her power set, but has this while wearing her Wards costume, which has "impact gel" in the gloves that hardens like stone on contact with any substance, allowing her to land power-assisted blows all day without hurting herself.
I Shall Taunt You: Shoots her mouth off a lot to people she fights. Some fall for it, some don't.
Logical Weakness: She's Manton-limited and thus can't affect biological matter. She usually gets around this by manipulating people's clothes, but she can't do this to Pandora, whose clothes are part of her own biomass.
Magnetic Hero: According to Ciara, this is her real power. Her "True Healer" shard suppresses the shards' need for conflict, causing capes who spend a lot of time around her to become more stable and allowing her to redeem numerous villains.
Mind over Matter: Her power, more or less- it allows her to attach intangible "lines" between any two (nonliving) objects, and pull them together or push them apart at will. Heavy objects or capes with Super-Strength are partially immune to being pushed and pulled, however.
My Suit Is Also Super: A minor example, as it has 'impact gel' in its knuckles to protect Mads from backlash when she uses her power to enhance her punches.
No Self-Buffs: Her danger sense does not work on herself, only on others.
Not Quite Flight: Can approximate flight by "pushing" herself away from buildings or "pulling" herself towards them. It's not quite fast enough to keep up with actual fliers, but is still quite mobile.
Official Couple: With Marissa, as of Arc 9.
Pink Means Feminine: Madison is by far the most girly member of the Wards and as such is often associated with the color pink- her Wards costume even includes pink Tron Lines.
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Comments about giving Teacher "the finger" before killing him by throwing Pandora's finger at him and allowing Pandora to absorb him.
Required Secondary Powers: Her body is toughened to be resistant to recoil and whiplash, and extends this protection to whoever she's using her powers on, so as to avoid getting seriously injured whenever she pulls or pushes with her powers particularly hard.
Squee: When she meets Legend for the first time. It ends with her giving him a Glomp.
These Hands Have Killed: She's understandably traumatized after being forced to kill Teacher during the Birdcage riot in Arc 14, even though she herself admits that Teacher is a really, really nasty dude.
Underestimating Badassery: A lot of characters, both heroes and villains, tend to underestimate her, though this largely stops after her massive contribution to saving lives during the Leviathan fight.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Dennis. She also gets this relationship with Cassie after the latter undergoes Character Development.
Warrior Therapist: Madison's true strength. She's great at helping people feel accepted and get through their issues. Ciara considers it her actual super power- she can avoid Poor Communication Kills and avert conflict before it starts because her shard is the True Healer.
Weak, but Skilled: In terms of sheer power, Mads is a lightweight. But the sheer versatility of her power more than offsets the difference, allowing her to fight on even ground with anyone from Lung to Leviathan.

Flechette

Lily (Flechette)

The Brockton Bay Wards' current leader, an Asian-American orphan with the power to imbue objects to seamlessly pass through any substance and completely ignore typically constraints of gravity and also possesses an enhanced sense of timing. Originally a member of the Maine Wards, she transfers to Brockton Bay after the Anubis fight.

Classification: Striker, Thinker

Action Girl: She can keep pace with the other Wards any day, and really gets to show her stuff during the Anubis fight and the ABB brawl at Arcadia.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Her power allows touched objects to pass through any substance, this include piercing Impasse's otherwise-impenetrable force-field and completely ignoring Lung's regeneration.
- No "Arc" in "Archery": The secondary part of her touch-based power.
Awesome, but Impractical: What her arbalest ultimately ends up becoming. It's tinker-made, and therefore requires constant maintenance to avoid falling apart or getting damaged, hence not being very useful in ongoing battles. As a result, she ends up ditching it.
BFG: Up until the Anubis fight, Lily's weapon is an arbalest, an enormous crossbow designed for siege warfare.
The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: As a side-effect of her Improbable Aiming Skills, Lily's abnormally talented with darts and throwing knives.
Conveniently an Orphan: The ease of moving her around as a result of this trope is what lands her in the Maine Wards, and later the Brockton Bay Wards.
Cool Big Sis: To Mika. They are adopted sisters, after all.
Fights Like a Normal: Aside from her enhanced aiming, all of Lily's fighting is pure skill enhanced by her armor-piercing power.
Happily Adopted: By the Kanse family, unlike in canon, where her home life is said to be rather chaotic and unhappy.
I Did What I Had to Do: Lily has killed at least three villains over the course of the series- Impasse, Lung, and Valefor- but remains largely disaffected from it. It’s Justified, though, all three of said villains are utter monsters.
Improvised Weapon: Anything can be a deadly weapon if Flechette empowers it.
Improbable Aiming Skills: Courtesy of her enhanced sense of timing. During Anubis' initial assault on Maine, she shoots clean through two zombified wolves with a single crossbow bolt, not even missing a beat.
The Leader: Of the Brockton Bay Wards, since she's the oldest.
Multi-Ranged Master: And a Multi-Melee Master, too. As the other tropes on this list will tell you, Lily's proficient with crossbows, whips, rapiers, darts, throwing knives, and probably a couple other weapons besides.
Post Mortem One Liner: To Impasse, who she's just killed through his force field when he tried to negotiate with Amy as a hostage:
Now, let's hear your counter-offer.
Royal Rapier: Wielded one before switching to her arbalest, and goes back to using one after she ditches the arbalest post-Anubis.
Supporting Leader: Lily's The Leader of the Brockton Bay Wards, but Madison remains The Protagonist.

Kid Win

Christopher/"Chris" (Kid Win)

The Brockton Bay Wards' resident Tinker, with a specialty in modular weaponry. He serves as the team's tech support, Flying Firepower, and Straight Man.

Classification: Tinker 4/Modular weaponry

Badass Bookworm
Bash Brothers: With Dennis.
BFG: His jetpack sports two large laser cannons.
Character Development: Chris noticeably becomes more outspoken and confident as time goes on, coming into his own as a Tinker and leaving a lot of his anxiety issues behind.
Deadpan Snarker: Not to the same degree as Dennis, though.
Flying Firepower: Represents this combat archetype for the Brockton Bay Wards. His jetpack enables flight, and he's never lacking in the Frickin' Laser Beams department.
Gadgeteer Genius: It's standard Tinker territory, and Chris definitely develops into this trope after he Took a Level in Badass.
Hero Worship: He idolizes Hero, and heavily designed his costume and fighting style off the latter.
Intergenerational Friendship: With Mika, though the gap is a lot smaller than most examples- Chris is 17 and Mika's 11.
Nerves of Steel: After taking a level in badass, Chris shows this off on a regular basis, most notably during the Slaughterhouse Nine attack, where he calmly and quickly builds a high-tech facial recognition software program in a matter of hours, from scratch, despite the fact that software engineering is not even his Tinker speciality.
Odd Friendship: He's friends with Aisha, of all people. Granted, he didn't know she was a villain at the time, but it's still pretty strange.
Out of Focus: Increasingly so as the story goes on. Along with Madison and Missy, Chris is only one of three Wards still around from the story's beginning, but he has spectacularly little Character Focus, and probably receives the least screentime out of all the Wards.
Straight Man: He's a frequent observer to Madison and Dennis' antics, sighing and snarking all the way.
Took a Level in Badass: See Character Development above.

Vista

Missy Biron (Vista)

They don't get to walk away from this. Not this time.

Veteran member of the Brockton Bay Wards, despite only being thirteen, a fact she resents as it causes the PRT to treat her like a child. Possesses space-warping powers that allow her to bend, stretch, and pull dimensions around her- though this power grows weaker in the presence of others, courtesy of the Manton Effect. She and Madison become close friends after the latter joins the team.

Classification: Shaker 9

Action Girl: Despite being only thirteen years old, Vista is by no means a pushover in a fight, and she becomes even more dangerous after taking to using Director Simms' pistol in combat.
A-Cup Angst: She's not really happy with being a "late bloomer", and Madison even notes that her Wards costume includes a small Breast Plate.
Badass Adorable
Break the Cutie: Played With. Dean's death hits her hard, but it also inspires her to strive to take down the Nine even more than before.
Child Soldiers: Defied. Missy may only be thirteen, but she's Wise Beyond Her Years and will not be treated like "just a kid".
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Madison.
I Did What I Had to Do: She pushes Madison to go for the killing blow if she has the chance during the Slaughterhouse Nine's attack on the city, and later kills Shatterbird herself when the latter attempts to escape the PRT building.
Mythology Gag: Missy still kills Shatterbird, just like in canon- but the circumstances are very, very different.
No Social Skills: She has trouble interacting with non-capes, and even then was never very close with any of the Wards or other heroes before Madison started urging her to come out of her shell.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the Outliars vs. Wards fight in Arc 12, Missy takes down Pursuit single-handedly without even taking a hit. Unfortunately for readers, it happens entirely offscreen.
Precocious Crush: On Dean/Gallant, though expect a Death Glare if you ever refer to it as such.
Space Master: Which gives her a lot of cool synergy with Madison's Mind over Matter powers.
Superhero Packing Heat: She starts using Director Simms' explosive-rounds pistol after he's put out of action during Shatterbird's attack on the PRT building in Arc 25, which comes in handy later on against Hatchet Face and Tether uses one to kill Jack Slash.
Underestimating Badassery: Take. Her Seriously. Or don't—and then realize what happened to Pursuit and Shatterbird.
Token Mini-Moe: Of the Brockton Bay Wards, though it's somewhat Deconstructed, as she wants to be a respected hero and resents the "baby" status her young age grants her. She's replaced in this role after Mika joins the team, though, and loses it entirely after turning fourteen.
Two Girls to a Team: With Sophia, initially, for the Brockton Bay Wards. She's not happy with this, and is predictably pleased when Madison joins the team.
Wise Beyond Her Years: Missy is only thirteen (later fourteen), but Madison picks up from the start that she's one of the team's most mature members.

Reach

Cassie Herren (Reach/Rune)

Formerly the supervillainess Rune of Empire Eighty-Eight, Cassie ends up in PRT custody after the gang folds early-on in the story. She eventually, albeit reluctantly, joins the Wards post-Leviathan fight. Initially a racist and a bit of an asshole, bonding with Madison and the other Wards gradually cools her down. Cassie possesses Mind over Matter powers that allow her to telekinetically lift just about any object, so long as she touches it first.

Classification: Shaker, Striker (?)

Action Girl
- Dark Action Girl: Pre-Heel–Face Turn.
Ascended Extra: Canon Rune was a minor character whose only real traits were being a teenage Empire 88 member and her power. She wasn't even given a civilian name, and certainly didn't join the Wards.
Battle Couple: With Theo.
Because You Were Nice to Me: Initially, all the Wards were suspicious of her and still thought of her as Rune the Teenaged Nazi (not helped by her casual use of racist slurs). Madison, on the other hand, having seen the consequences of shunning a probationary Ward and letting her continue her bad behavior in Sophia, made an effort to reach out to her and become her friend. It paid off when Reach was willing to go into the Birdcage to save Mads.
Character Development: Initially, Cassie was a racist Jerkass who did not work well with people. However, time coupled with friendship and a good influence from Madison causes her to develop into a much better person with some of the strongest morals of the cast.
Cultured Badass: She's well-read on famous literature, and makes frequent references to Shakespeare and other well-known writers.
Deadpan Snarker: A trait that Character Development does little to remove from her.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Went from 'racist anti-social Jerkass' to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who's genuine friends with the multi-ethnic Wards.
Freudian Excuse: A minor case, but Cassie's racism is mostly because her family was racist, so she grew up thinking hating minorities was normal. She doesn't really have any reason of her own to be a racist, and slowly loses it after becoming a Ward.
Good Costume Switch: After initially hanging onto her robes, Cassie officially makes the switch to a legitimate Wards costume after the Birdcage riot, which is also the point in time where she cements her Character Development.
Grammar Nazi: Pun aside, Cassie is noted to be extremely strict with grammar both in- and out of universe courtesy of her Nazi upbringing, which earns her the In-Series Nickname of "The Grammazon".
Happily Adopted: Kayden isn't legally Cassie's guardian, but Cassie lives with her after E88 folds, and the two are quite close.
Heel–Face Turn: As Rune, she was a neo-Nazi supervillainess. After Kayden prompts her to join the Wards and she befriends some better influences, she grows into a true heroine.
Innocent Bigot: Cassie had a very racist upbringing courtesy of her Neo-Nazi parents, and she keeps these tendencies well into adulthood. When Madison finally confronts her on using yet another racist slur, Cassie responds that until recently she'd never hung around anyone who didn't use slurs casually, and so she hadn't thought that doing so was wrong. It takes time, but she eventually stops using them, much to everyone's relief (including her own).
Jerkass Woobie: Initially. She may have been an anti-social racist, but she'd also been abandoned by her family, was forced to choose between the Wards and Juvie, and then the Wards treated her with suscpicion. It's a good thing Madison was there to help emphasize that she was trying to change and slowly move her away from this.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Was originally a Jerkass. Then Character Development happened, and she became this.
Mind over Matter: Can telekinetically manipulate anything she touches. It even trumps Shatterbird's silica-control power, which is how she ends up capturing her.
Official Couple: With Theo.
Post-Kiss Catatonia: "Stunned" would be a very apt word to describe Cassie after she has her First Kiss with Theo in Arc 12.
Putting on the Reich: Her costume as Rune includes a number of Nazi swastikas, which are removed after she joins the Wards.
Reformed, but Rejected: Averted through serious effort on Madison's part. Most of the other Wards treated her like she was still a super-Nazi only pretending to be a hero, but Madison decided to treat her like she really was a hero, lest she decide Then Let Me Be Evil.
Sir Swears-A-Lot/Mouthy Kid: Even without the racist slurs that she eventually ditches, Cassie has a very foul mouth, and isn't one for authority.
Spy Catsuit: Her Wards costume is a more practical, less revealing version of this.
Teacher/Student Romance: Sorta, with Theo. She offers to train him and make him tougher due to a sense of pity, but ends up falling in love with him in the process.
- Sexy Mentor: She's definitely this, though.
Those Wacky Nazis: Formerly of Empire Eighty-Eight, and it takes her quite a while to lose the influences of her racist, strict upbringing.
Tsundere: She's a Type B to Theo and sometimes to Madison, and a Type A to everyone else.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Madison, and a bit with Victoria.
What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: It's obvious from their awkward First Kiss that Cassie is attracted to Theo, but she struggles for a while with her feelings before she can finally face them and officially become a couple with him.

Aid

Theodore "Theo" Anders (Aid)

The son of Empire Eighty-Eight leader Kaiser, Theo becomes an orphan after his father is killed by Coil early-on in the story. Developing a close relationship with Cassie during the fallout of Empire Eighty-Eight, he triggers in desperation after she gets trapped in the Birdcage by Defiant, developing a Tinker powerset with a specialty on search-and-protect based tech. He subsequently joins the Wards as Aid.

Classification: Tinker/Search and defense

Badass Bookworm: Theo doesn't need superpowers or enhanced reflexes to beat up the bad guys- all he needs is his tinker-tech and a little ingenuity
Battle Couple: With Cassie.
Big Brother Instinct: Towards Astrid.
Big Damn Heroes: Together with Marissa in Arc 30, to save Madison, Cassie and Missy from the Noblemen.
Carry a Big Stick: His weapon is a tinker-tech mace that he built himself.
Character Development: Theo starts the story as a pudgy, quiet, unassuming kid who can't do anything to save his life. Nowadays, he's a competent Gadgeteer Genius who's more muscle than fat, and can fight on even ground with any of the other Wards. He's also lost a lot of his shyness.
Combat Medic: What his Tinker specialty allows to be, more or less. He can build drones that can treat and clean injuries, but he also carries a mace and wears a set of Powered Armor, and knows how to use both.
Extreme Doormat: A product of his dad's extremely strict upbringing. Character Development eventually brings him out of it.
Gadgeteer Genius: Hell yes. See Swiss-Army Superpower below.
Happily Adopted: By Kayden.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: Theo can't give himself a compliment to save his life, which the other Wards pick up on quickly. He eventually gets better about this, thankfully.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: It fires Frickin' Laser Beams, too.
Nice Guy: What remains of his Extreme Doormat status after Character Development. The submissiveness is mostly gone, but he's still unfailingly nice to everyone.
Powered Armor: Wears a set that he built with a little help from Chris. Its full capabilities aren't identified, but it can be equipped and removed at will, stores and charges his drones, and includes a television screen inside the helmet.
Samurai: Isn't one, but his Wards costume has a lot of samurai motifs to it.
Robot Buddy: His drones, though they aren't sentient like Jalopy.
Shrinking Violet: He's not great at dealing with people, and often stutters and whispers when he talks. It's a side-effect of being an Extreme Doormat.
Swiss-Army Superpower: Well, Swiss Army Tinker Specialty. "Search and protect" is a pretty broad specialization, and it shows: Theo can build anything from robotic drones to Powered Armor to surveillance tech, all with little to no loss in quality.
Teacher/Student Romance: See Cassie's entry.

Sparrow

Mika Kanse (Sparrow)

Youngest member of the Brockton Bay Wards, an adorable, excitable 11-year-old girl who many believe is the next Eidolon. Her power allows her imbue a touched object with a special power of choice, which she can activate every so often, with an upper limit of five objects at a time. A Maine Wards team was initially created around her after she triggered, but she subsequently joins the Brockton Bay Wards alongside Lily after the Anubis fight.

Classification: Trump, Striker (?)

Action Girl: Mika's only eleven, but she'll still kick your ass given half the chance.
Badass Adorable: Mika may be Just a Kid, but that by no means indicates she can't hold her own in a fight. Madison even refers to her as such.
Combo Platter Powers: She can have up to five powers at a time thanks to her power-imbuing touch, which naturally leads to this. They include:
- An Ice Person: Has a pouch of little balls on her belt that can be empowered to freeze objects on impact.
- Barrier Warrior: Her staff can project bright pink force-fields.
- Extra-ore-dinary: Can manipulate metal with her gloves.
- Flight: Her most commonly-seen power, granted by her bracelets.
- Improvised Golems: Has an action figure that can produce one of these. She affectionately refers to it as "Fuzzerbutt".
- Me's a Crowd: Her belt buckle can produce statues that look like her, which she can then teleport inside of to reappear somewhere else.
- Super-Strength: She eventually switches out the power in her gloves to grant this instead.
Genki Girl: She's excitable and ready to go at all times. In fact, acting like this trope during her introduction in Lily's Interlude is very much her Establishing Character Moment.
Girly Bruiser: In much the same vein as Madison.
Pink Means Feminine: Her Wards costume has pink Tron Lines on it, much like Madison, and even her force-fields are bright, bubblegum-pink.
Swiss-Army Superpower: Her powers are whatever she wants them to be.

Glory Girl

Victoria Dallon (Glory Girl)

Former member of New Wave before it broke up, and (adopted) sister of Amy. A Flying Brick whose defensive abilities come from a powerful forcefield that inspires awe in her allies and terror in her enemies. Has a very unfortunate tendency to stick her foot in her mouth.

Anti-Hero: She's brash, impulsive, and doesn't always notice how her actions hurt others, but ultimately she wants to do the right thing. A verbal smacking from Madison and a large helping of Character Development eventually helps her drop the 'anti' part.
Black-and-White Morality: Heroes= Good. Villains= Bad. Beating up villains= good. Villains being Anti Villains or switching sides= does not compute.
Character Development: Eventually realizes how she's been accidentally hurting others with her impulsive actions and drops her Black-and-White Morality.
Death by Adaptation: She survives Worm and goes on to narrate its sequel, Ward. Here, she dies in action against the fourth Endbringer, Anubis.
Deflector Shields: Her personal force field allows her to fly, defends her from any attack (although it needs time to recharge afterwards), and projects an aura that affects how people see her- allies see her as amazing, enemies as terrifying.
Dying Moment of Awesome: Flies directly into Anubis's body to retrieve his final zombie and render him vulnerable, ignoring the fear aura that had paralyzed every other hero that tried simply because she was that bullheadedly confident that she could. After Anubis is rendered vulnerable, he begins to fight personally- starting by killing Glory Girl with his death line attack.
Flying Brick: Though the 'brick' part is because of her force field.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: ... but unluckily, it can't protect her against an attack that manifests inside it, like Anubis's death line.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Doesn't often think through what she says.
Politically Incorrect Hero: A Fantastic Racism version, as she dismisses clones as being people next to Pandora.

Jalopy

Well, technically not a member of the Wards, but as useful as any one of them. Jalopy is a one of Riley's spider-mechs, given to Tether as a bodyguard. He can spit acid, leap incredible distances, take down opponents up to and including Lung, and play music.

Badass Adorable: He's a tiny little robot who is an incredibly good fighter.
Combat Pragmatist: He definitely has a flair for the dramatic, but in combat he'll go immediately for weak points like eyes and ears, and attempt to disable the opponent as soon as possible.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Even the audience must acknowledge Jalopy's awesomeness.
Eye Scream: Sinks tiny buzzsaws into Lung's eyes. Lung can heal, but yow.
Human Resources: Well, Pandora resources, as he contains organic material from them.
Interspecies Romance: He has a crush on Jess, a human.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: A tiny spider robot who can kick Lung's ass to classic rock.
Power Floats: It's confirmed that he incorporates anti-gravity tech.

Brockton Bay Protectorate - Current

The main superhero organization of Brockton Bay, and after New Wave's dissolution, the only one (not counting Team Dinah). Sometimes morally grey (with a few individual members shading to black), often bogged down by red tape, and always outnumbered by super villains, they are still trying their hardest to protect the city.

Laserdream

Crystal Pelham (Laserdream)

Daughter of Sarah Pelham/Lady Photon and a former member of New Wave before the group split up upon the death of Brandish. One of the few voices of sanity in the story.

Discard and Draw: Her lasers are more powerful than her mother's, but in trade her shields are weaker.
Energy Weapon: Uses those. They're more powerful than her mother's, but at the cost of some of her force field's strength.
Flight: Capable of this.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Capable of producing a force field, though not as strong as Lady Photon's or Shielder's.
Mundane Utility: Uses her force field as a flashlight at one point.
Only Sane Woman: To the rest of New Wave and/or the Protectorate, at times.

Assault

Ethan O'Connell (Assault)

Formerly the supervillain Madcap, who made a business breaking out people going to the Birdcage. He eventually gave it up after courting the hero Battery. They're now Happily Married and both members of the Protectorate. He has the power to re-direct kinetic energy.

Dating Catwoman: He was the Catwoman before his Heel–Face Turn.
Happily Married: With Samantha.
Heel–Face Turn: Had one a while ago.

Battery

Samantha O'Connell (Battery)

Many years ago, Samantha O'Connell made a deal with the secretive organization known as Cauldron: They would grant her powers, and in exchange she would pay both in money and in three favors. They held up their end of the bargain: Samantha did indeed gain the promised powers, and she soon joined first the Wards, then the Protectorate. Over time, she completed two of Cauldron's three favors, and fell in love with and married the former villain Assault. In the aftermath of the Leviathan fight, Dr. Mother contacted her to call in her third favor. Samantha was instructed to take in Madison, now orphaned after her parents were murdered.

Classification: Mover ?, Breaker ?

Happily Married: With Ethan.
Poor Communication Kills: Averted. Both Ethan and Madison take the revelation of her past with Cauldron surprisingly well. It probably helped that her third favor was the fairly harmless 'adopt Madison' rather than canon's 'make sure Shatterbird and the Siberian survive'.

Penance

Kayden Russell (Penance/Purity)

Formerly Kaiser's wife, who didn't really like the villain angle and wanted to become a hero. In order to do this, she helped Coil implicate the E88 for kidnapping Panacea. It worked, and the Protectorate took her on under the codename Penance. Her power is the ability to absorb sunlight, use it to fly, and release it in concussive blasts.

The Atoner: She wants to become a hero and make up for her neo-nazi past.
Deal with the Devil: Her participation in Coil's plan was essentially this.
The Dog Bites Back: She was Kaiser's abused wife before she decided to strike against him.
Energy Weapon: Capable of producing these.
Flight: One of her main powers.
Light 'em Up: Capable of releasing concussive blasts of light.
Trapped in Villainy: Was this in canon. In Atonement, she breaks out.

Clockblocker

Dennis (Clockblocker)

A former member of the Wards who joined the Protectorate upon turning 18. His power is freezing an object he touches in time for a short duration. And yes, he chose his own name.

Deadpan Snarker: He's the other wit of the Wards, besides Madison.
Nigh-Invulnerable: Every object he freezes. Even paper can be an invincible shield when he gets his hands on it. He puts this to good use by freezing coats to allow himself and Freezetag to close in on Leviathan and allow her use her power.

Sundancer

Marissa Newland (Sundancer)

Former member of the Travellers, a video game club from Earth Aleph that was thrown to Earth Bet by the Simurgh and gained powers from Cauldron vials. Before Madison showed up, Marissa's (along with the other Travellers) greatest priority was to find someone who could help their teammate Noelle, whose powers came with extremely dangerous side effects and were slowly turning her into a monster. After a heart-to-heart with Madison, she decided that what the Travellers were doing crossed her line, and left. Her power is the ability to create a miniature sun.

Always Save the Girl: She and Madison have a discussion on how far she should take this trope.
Glass Cannon: She's a very powerful Blaster, but aside from her fire immunity has no defensive ability.
Godzilla Threshold: Crosses it during the Leviathan fight. She mentions later that that was the first time ever when she was not trying to control her sun in the slightest, but instead trying to make it as big and hot as possible. Ironically, cutting lose that way was what finally let her figure out how to tone down the heat when she wanted to.
Person of Mass Destruction: Her suns allow her to do a lot of damage, as seen when she decides to forgo trying to control it against Leviathan in favor of burning the f&#%er to the ground, where she does possibly the most damage of any cape there.
Power of the Sun: Her power allows her to create a miniature sun. Controlling it was rather a problem, but she got better after the Leviathan battle.
Required Secondary Powers: She's immune to fire.

Genesis

Jess Carman (Genesis)

Former member of the Travellers, with the power to project alternate forms with their own powers when she's asleep. Eventually left the group when it became clear that Krouse/Trickster was obsessed with Noelle, and was leading the team down a dangerous path.

Imagination-Based Superpower: When she sleeps, she can take on any form she can imagine.
Obfuscating Disability: Plays at still being wheelchair-bound to trick Krouse, but she is perfectly able to walk, as she had Panacea heal her when she broke off with the Travellers and joined the Protectorate.

Independent Heroes/Rogues

Parahumans who aren't part of the Protectorate and don't want to be villains. Some are heroes on their own without Protectorate support, while some just want to live a normal life and, if possible, use their power to make a legal profit.

Panacea

Amy Dallon

A biokinetic capable of manipulating anything living that she touches who has used that power to become the world's best cape healer. Also a massive bundle of issues related to her neglectful mother, her aura-induced crush on her sister, her kidnapping by Coil (who she thought was Kaiser), finding out that she has a clone (Pandora), and discovering that her dad is the supervillain Marquis, who's actually more loving than her adoptive parents were. Thankfully, she's been getting over it and has joined Riley and Pandora with their experiments in biological horror.

Actual Pacifist: At first, though she's gotten more willing to use her power offensively.
Badass Boast: On Crawler- "He killed my father. If I wasn't sure he was dead, I'd still be there, killing him."
Sister-Sister Incest: Has (unrequited) feelings for her adopted sister Victoria, caused by Vicky's emotion-altering aura.
Character Development: Slowly getting over her many, many problems.
Combat Medic: Grows into this.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Permakilled Crawl er by reversing his Healing Factor to attack his body rather than boost it.
The Fettered: She actually can do brains, and she can do much more with people than heal them. She just doesn't use her power on brains because she respects others' free will, and she sticks to healing because she doesn't want to become the next Nilbog.
Healing Hands: Her biggest use of her power, though it's far from the only one. At first, she sticks to it because she's scared of what she can do, but after hanging around with Riley and Pandora, she starts relaxing somewhat and helps them with their biotechnological experiments.
No Self-Buffs: She is unable to use her power on herself. Pandora, as her clone, inverts this trope- her powers only work on herself.
Parental Neglect: Carol Dallon was unable to see Amy as a daughter because of her own serious trust issues (it involved a case of Stockholm Syndrome), along with Amy being the daughter of a supervillain.
Person of Mass Destruction: Potentially.
Willfully Weak: She holds back a lot, partially because she's an Actual Pacifist and partially because she doesn't want to be labeled the second coming of Nilbog.

Dinah Alcott

Niece of Brockton Bay's mayor, and a powerful precog who can get answers about the future in the form of percentages of a certain thing happening (e.g. 'chance of me dying if I execute this plan'- 24%). She was kidnapped by Coil for her power, but escaped along with Pandora. She has now taken up the position of being Pandora's Morality Pet full time, along with wrangling several other potential S-class threats in need of some semblance of a normal life and morality. The group currently consists of Dinah, Pandora, Riley, Emma, and Keiara Manton/The Custodian.

Blessed with Suck: Her power may be incredibly good, but it's also the reason she ended up kidnapped by Coil.
Fluffy Tamer: At one point she wonders if there's some sort of award for collecting People of Mass Destruction like they were pokemon.
Framing the Guilty Party: How she gets rid of a thug terrorizing an ice cream store- she plants drugs and a weapon in his car and then tells the police about that.
Heroic RRoD: Gets headaches if she asks too many big questions. It's a Restraining Bolt put on her power by the Entities.
Morality Pet: For Pandora, and later Riley and Emma.
Seers: She's one of the most powerful precogs out there, which is why Coil wanted her.
Wise Beyond Their Years: Poor girl was forced to grow up fast.

Pandora

A Noelle clone of Panacea created when Coil kidnapped Panacea and had her try to heal Noelle (Panacea must touch someone to heal them, and Noelle clones any parahuman who touches her). The result was a clone with an inversion of Panacea's power- instead of being able to manipulate the biology of anyone except herself, she has absolute control over her own biology, as well as the ability to absorb people with a touch and use absorbed biomass to duplicate herself. Nice job releasing Alex Mercer's Distaff Counterpart, Coil. The original Pandora was killed (mostly) early on, leaving her other bodies on their own, learning about morality from Madison and Dinah. The resulting Pandora Collective diverged individually as time went on, leaving 18 distinct personalities in constant telepathic contact, named after the Greek alphabet.

Blue-and-Orange Morality: Originally, Pandora's morality was based mostly on usefulness, but she's been moving on.
Cannibalism Superpower: She can gain traits from people she eats, which is how the original Pandora got rid of her Noelle-clone programming; she ate Mr. Pitter, and by comparing his brain to hers, realized that she had biological imperatives that prevented her from achieving her full potential, and used the data from his brain to erase them. She can also manifest parahuman powers if she eats a parahuman, but doesn't usually do this because doing so means that the body in question can't use her normal powers, which are often more useful than the absorbed powers.
Clone Angst Pandora's biggest motive is to define herself as a real person and not just a bad copy of Panacea.
Cranial Processing Unit: Averted. After Pandora-Prime was killed via Boom, Headshot!, the other Pandoras randomized the location of their brains, just to be safe.
Discard and Draw: Lost her memories from Panacea (and her social skills along with them) when she rewrote her own brain, but in exchange gained the ability to grow beyond the typical evil Noelle clone.
The Dreaded: Quickly becomes very feared on Brockton's streets, to the point where criminals would turn themselves in because prison was safer than the streets Pandora patrolled.
Expy: Pandora is pretty much Rule 63 Alex Mercer with self-cloning abilities.
Flight: A Pandora (later revealed to be Pandora-Theta) absorbs this ability from a dead cape during the Levianthan fight and saves Madison with it.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: Originally, she was programmed to comply to three directives- protect Echidna, stop anything that came between Echidna and her continued evolution, and get rid of anything Panacea saw as a threat. When she realized these directives were there, she basically forced this trope by rewriting her brain using her biology control to get rid of the programming, since it was hampering her own ability to survive and grow. The removal of Pandora Prime allowed the other Pandoras to grow even further, becoming their own people.
Healing Factor: Anything short of total destruction of the brain is basically nothing to a Pandora, and even if one body is destroyed, the others can return her from their Mind Hive whenever they want. The only way to kill a Pandora for real is if the body used had been altered to make use of the powers of another parahuman, which negates their ability to regenerate. Power Nullifiers also work, as Hatchet Face proved when he killed Pandora-Eta and Pandora-Rho.
Humanoid Abomination: She's a Noelle clone with an inversion of Panacea's power (can only alter herself, rather than altering anyone but herself) who rewrote her own brain to get rid of (most of) the insanity plaguing Noelle clones at the expense of most of her memories from Panacea.
In-Series Nickname: Panda.
Mind Hive: Originally, Pandora was one person who could duplicate herself with all bodies sharing a Hive Mind. Then Pandora-Prime died, and the various Pandoras gained their own personality and diverged into this.
Morality Pet: Dinah, Madison, and later, Emma.
No-Sell: She is unaffected by trigger vision memory erasure because of her Hive Mind- her memory of the vision is shared between all bodies, only one of whom was in actual range of the vision. Therefore, when that one forgot, the others still had a copy of the memory, which they returned to the affected Pandora.
No Social Skills: Self-inflicted. She originally had all of Panacea's memories (and thus social skills), but got rid of those as a side effect of removing the biological imperatives that drive Noelle clones to be Evil Knockoffs.
Person of Mass Destruction: Absent a hard counter (like Hatchet Face, who used his power nullification to kill two Pandoras), they are this, as their Hive Mind, Voluntary Shapeshifting, insane Healing Factor, and ability to absorb whoever they touch means that they're a potential S-class threat. It's shown to beautiful effect with Pandora vs. Raider Army on Ragnarok.
Pungeon Master: Pandora-Lambda.
Single-Minded Twins: While the Pandoras aren't technically twins, Xi and Omicron fit this, as their shtick is 'identical twin Pandoras'.
Sociopathic Hero: Originally, but they're getting better.
Trademark Favorite Food: All the Pandoras have their own. Pandora-Gamma likes French fries, and Lambda likes pickles.
Technically Naked Shapeshifter: Pandora's costume is created from her own biomass.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Their most obvious power.
Verbal Tic: She refers to people by name and then relationship to her (-self/iteration/sister [once the Collective began diverging], -friend, -ally, -undetermined, -person, -enemy, -lost).
Younger Than They Look: Pandora looks however old she wants to look, but in reality has only existed since near the beginning of the story, when Coil decided to clone Panacea.

Bones

Riley

Formerly Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and a fangirl of Tether, which is how she split off from the Nine and ended up hooking up with Dinah and Pandora, beginning her Heel–Face Turn. Riley is a tinker specializing in organics, which meant that Pandora's complete control of her own body was quite helpful in her experiments.

The Atoner: For her time with the Nine.
Badass Adorable: She's a little girl and one of the most powerful Tinkers on the planet.
Body Horror: She can create this quite easily.
Creepy Good: Currently.
Cute and Psycho: Formerly.
Disappointed by the Motive: In her first outing as Bones, she's kinda disappointed that the thugs she's stopping just want to rob a grocery store and not, say, set up a massacre or infect all the produce with a flesh-eating virus or something.
- Later on, she pretends a member of the biker gang she's taking on is 'Professor Neferevil' with a supervillain plan The Techno Queen *KRAKATHOOM* would be proud of, because him just being an average thug is boring.
Genki Girl: She's quite cheerful and exciteable. Even when dealing with things most would consider squicky.
Giver of Lame Names: She isn't very creative with changing her cape name.
Heel–Face Turn: Bonesaw was a mass murderer and a Mad Doctor. Riley is instrumental in saving lives against Anubis, saving Noelle, and is starting out as an independent heroine.
The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Even as Bonesaw she was quite the fan of Tether, and her first appearance in the story (via her remote-controlled spider robots) has her asking Tether for an autograph.
Mad Doctor: Was this as Bonesaw. To an extent, she still is, but she now has Pandora, who can take it, as a test subject.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Explains to Mika that a lot of her Large Ham behavior is a cover for her (considerably less amusing) real psychological issues.
Power Armor: Uses a biological version as Bones.
Sweet Polly Oliver: Her 'Bones' persona is male.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: So, that new Endbringer's main threat is that he creates a zombie virus? We need an antidote so we don't have to worry about fighting our zombified allies? Sounds like just the job for an extremely skilled bio-tinker. Now, if only we can convince everyone else she's not still a Mad Doctor...

Oversight

Emma Barnes

Another member of the trio who bullied Taylor Hebert until she eventually died. Emma was once Taylor's best friend, until a traumatic experience and being saved by Sophia Hess got her to take Sophia's predator/prey mindset to heart. Emma then bullied her former friend, using information gained by their closeness to strike hard where it hurt. When Dinah forced her to acknowledge her role in Taylor's death, she broke down and triggered with the Queen Administrator shard, gaining control over machines.

Armor-Piercing Question: From Dinah: "Who was your best friend? And what did you do to her?"
The Atoner: Eventually, though it took an Armor-Piercing Question to get there.
Break the Cutie: Happened to her in her backstory when she was kidnapped and threatened by a gang. Unfortunately she was saved by Sophia, who corrupted Emma with her 'the strong survive' mindset. Dinah had to re-break her by forcing her to confront her crimes to start her back on the path to good.
Excuse Me While I Multitask: Part and parcel of the Queen Administrator power.
Heel–Face Turn: Eventually followed Madison in regretting what she'd done to Taylor and becoming a hero, though her trauma meant that it was harder to do.
Heel Realization: Induced by Dinah, who forced her to confront that she betrayed Taylor, her best friend, and eventually helped murder her.
Ignored Epiphany: Before Dinah forced her hand.
Person of Mass Destruction: She's a member of Dinah's team of potential S-class threats.
Psychological Projection: When she bullied Taylor, it was mostly because she saw Taylor as herself prior to her trauma, and she thought of her old self as weak.
Shrinking Violet: After Dinah induces a Heel Realization, her self-esteem takes a major drop.
Spoiled Brat: She's the daughter of a rich lawyer who enabled her bullying behavior by threatening a Frivolous Lawsuit against Danny if he ever tried to bring the horrific campaign of torture to light.
Superpower Lottery: She essentially gets Taylor's canon power, except focused on machines instead of bugs. This grants her a lot more versatility, especially since she has multiple powerful Tinkers on her side.
Technopath: Her power.

Ruin

Hunter Pritt

One of the vanishingly few Birdcage inmates who isn't an irredeemably horrible person. Ruin is instead a fairly normal and kind girl who triggered with the power to disintegrate every bit of biological matter in front of her for a long range when she speaks. After killing a lot of people after her trigger event, she asked to be sent to the Birdcage so she wouldn't hurt anyone. While in there, she got training from Glaistig Uaine on controlling her power, and eventually left with Tether and her friends when they managed to get out.

All Asians Know Martial Arts: Although she learned it from her French mother rather than her Japanese father.
Armor-Piercing Attack: It doesn't matter if there's inanimate matter in the way- if it's biological and in her range, she disintegrates it.
Boxing Lessons for Superman: Well, her mom taught her prior to her trigger, but the effect's the same. Hunter is very good at fighting without using her powers, which is a good thing.
Break the Cutie: Jack Slash wanted to break her to be the Slaughterhouse Nine's weapon by torturing her until she cried out in pain and killed the children imprisoned in front of her, but she managed to resist until another cape who hated gangs threw a Spanner in the Works by freeing her.
Broken Bird: Poor girl was so broken by her powers manifesting that she asked for the Birdcage.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Every battle that she decides to cut loose in ends with a word or two from her and a dead opponent. This includes Horde of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
Cursed with Awesome: Her power can do some incredible damage and one use is enough to end most battles- but if she makes any sound outside of combat, she'll inadvertently kill everyone around her.
Cute Mute: If only because otherwise she'd kill everyone around her.
Godzilla Threshold: Any situation Ruin would consider using her power is very likely to be this.
Expy: Of Marvel's Black Bolt, except Manton-limited.
Person of Mass Destruction: She can do a lot of damage with her power. It's a shame about that Power Incontinence, though.
Power Incontinence: Hunter cannot speak without activating her power. She has trained in not saying anything when she doesn't want to to minimize the effect of this.
Power Limiter: Eventually gets one that allows her to speak in a whisper without activating her powers.
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Anything she says is this, because of her power. She's not one for snark, though. Usually, she just says 'no', or 'no more', and her opponent is disintegrated.
Self-Made Orphan: It's hinted that her Power Incontinence killed her parents.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Ruin's power is great for crowd control and taking out Mook Maker enemies like Horde.
Wave-Motion Gun: Her power is essentially a voice-activated version of this that disintegrates anything biological in its range no matter what is in the way.

Undersiders

A former minor gang of Brockton Bay, turned parahuman investigation agency when their patron Coil was imprisoned.

Veritas

Noelle Meinhardt

Former leader of the Travellers back when they were a gaming club and girlfriend of Trickster/Francis Krouse. After drinking half a vial of Cauldron Super Serum, she ended up as a Case 53 with the power to absorb biomass and use it to clone any parahuman who touches her. Because she only drunk half the bottle, however, she missed out on the 'control' portion of the powers (that part went to Oliver, who got the power to look attractive to anyone who sees him), which caused her to slowly lose her sanity and go on rampages if not well 'fed' with biomass. Her powers are used three times in the story- once with Dinah to produce a body double that could be killed in front of Panacea, once with Panacea to create Pandora, and once with Trickster to create Defiant. She eventually loses her powers when she takes a Cauldron vial that Riley, Amy, and Pandora had worked on which caused her to essentially reverse-trigger. She then regular-triggered with the power to sense intent to deceive. Taking on the cape name Veritas, she became leader of the Undersiders.

Brought Down to Normal: Courtesy of a Cauldron vial that Amy, Riley, and Pandora altered to remove powers instead of give them. It doesn't last long before she re-triggers as Veritas, but it does seriously confuse Scion.
Evil Knockoff: All clones she creates are this.
Got the Call on Speed Dial: Immediately after being Brought Down to Normal, she triggers again with a new set of powers (that are thankfully much more controllable than her last set)
Living Lie Detector: Her new set of powers, most likely relating to the fact that to get rid of her old set, she had to trust the word of complete strangers and people she was told were her enemies that the vial they gave her was a power remover.
Power Incontinence: As Echidna, she couldn't control her faulty powers. As Veritas, she does much better.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Her first act as leader of the Undersiders? Declare that all of them (including her) need to see a therapist.
Spanner in the Works: Lisa recruits her as leader of the Undersiders after Grue's death because even aside from her strategic skills (she was leader of a highly successful pro-gaming club before losing her mind), she can be this. Coil can't exactly plan for what she'll do because he's never seen her sane and doesn't even know that she managed to get cured.
- Even before she recovered her sanity, she did this to Coil. The reason Pandora was able to change her nature and escape is because Noelle forced Coil to keep the timeline where Pandora killed Mr. Pitter by cloning Sundancer in the other timeline. Clonedancer had the power to turn herself into a human version of the original Sundancer's mini-sun, and promptly went on a rampage, forcing him to either drop the timeline or accept the loss of his base and half his mercenary force. And then Pandora escaped and killed half his mercenaries anyway.
Spared by the Adaptation: In canon, she lost herself completely, attacked Brockton Bay as the antagonist of the Echidna arc, and was Mercy Killed by Sundancer. Here, she is able to get rid of her uncontrollable powers, gets new powers, and joins the Undersiders.
Superpower Russian Roulette: The other Travellers got fairly useful powers (Except for Oliver, who instead got What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?). Noelle got incredibly destructive powers that slowly drove her insane. Arguably the Travellers brought this one on themselves by splitting a vial between Noelle and Oliver. Entered the regular Superpower Lottery after losing her original powers and did much better, becoming a Living Lie Detector.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: As Echidna, she's an Endbringer-level threat, but has very little control over herself. Her power as Veritas is far weaker, but she's sane.

Tattletale

Lisa

Member of the Undersiders, a minor gang in service of Coil. When Coil was taken down, it was her idea to re-brand the Undersiders as a parahuman detective agency. Her power is essentially super-inituition.

Cut Lex Luthor a Check: As soon as she gets out from under Coil, she and the rest of the Undersiders become rogues using their powers to be a detective agency.
Demoted to Extra: Downplayed. Since Madison, unlike Taylor, doesn't join the Undersiders, she remains a side character, although she does continue to play a role in the plot.
Even Evil Has Standards: She's an Anti-Villain rather than outright evil, but it still applies when she figured out what Sophia had done and called her a c__t for it.
Sherlock Scan: How her power works.
The Smart Guy: Grue (and later Veritas) is the leader of the Undersiders (Lisa admits she's not good at leading others), but she's the brains.
The Starscream: Was plotting to overthrow Coil, and teams up with Tether to do it.
Trapped in Villainy: She was essentially working for Coil with a gun to her head, and when he's Birdcaged, she takes the first opportunity she can to go legit as a parahuman investigator.

Grue

Brian Laborn

Leader of the Undersiders. He's in it for the money to protect his little sister Aisha. His power is to create a cloud of darkness that dampens sound and parahuman powers.

Death by Adaptation: He survives the canon Slaughterhouse Nine arc and second-triggers with the ability to use the powers of any parahuman in his area of effect. Here, he's killed by Mannequin, causing Aisha to second-trigger in his place.
Demoted to Extra: He was a major character in canon and Taylor's love interest, but here Taylor's dead, Madison's gay, and he's a side character who doesn't really do anything plot-related and eventually dies during the Slaughterhouse Nine arc.
Casting a Shadow: His power.
Shout-Out: He's named after a memetic monster from Zork that ate you if you were ever in total darkness.

Freezetag

Aisha Laborn

Grue's little sister, who triggered after he was captured by the Wards. Unlike her canon Perception Filter power, she has the ability to freeze whoever she touches in place until someone else touches them. Grue's death causes her to second trigger with the ability to take on the form and use the powers of any parahuman who'd died since she used her power on them.

Adaptational Badass: While her canon powers and Atonement powers are too different to be easily compared, her 'freezetag' power has more offensive potential. By teaming up with Clockblocker, she even manages to freeze Leviathan in place, allowing long-range heroes to hit him with everything they had, becoming a large part of why Leviathan did the least damage of any Endbringer attack ever. She's made even more badass with her second trigger.
Break the Cutie: Her brother's death.
Mega Manning: Gets it with her second trigger. So far, she's shown access to Grue, Glory Girl and Brandish's powersets.
Some Kind of Force Field: By Word of God, her power works by surrounding people she touches in a force field that's impervious from the inside but not the outside, freezing people in place but allowing people to 'tag' them to unfreeze them.

Bitch

Rachel Lindt

A blunt girl with the ability to power up dogs. She is also far more comfortable with them than with people, partially because her power forcibly replaced her human instincts with dog ones. Gets sent to the Birdcage by Defiant and Teacher, but later gets out.

Blessed with Suck: Her power's basically taken away her ability to easily relate with people.
Canine Companion: The basis of her super power.
No Social Skills: Though it's her power's fault. She actually has incredible social skills, it's just that they're dog social skills.
Unfortunate Name: The Protectorate actually calls her Hellhound because it's not used colloquially as a slur against women, but Rachel prefers Bitch.

Vacate

Elias Anders

A former street thug who triggered after an encounter with Pandora, who was at that point killing anyone she thought was wasting the life given to them. He eventually joined the Undersiders as Vacate, and has the power to create 'tunnels' of normality within otherwise stopped time, allowing him to effectively teleport. Any relation to Max Anders (Kaiser) is unconfirmed, but would need some serious explaining as Elias is black.

Time Stands Still: Outside his tunnels.
Original Character: Even if he did exist in canon, Pandora's nonexistence would mean he wouldn't trigger and join the Undersiders.

Regent

Alec/ Jean-Paul Vasil

A child of Nicolas Vasil/Heartbreaker. Because of his horrible, horrible childhood, he has the ability to control others' nervous systems and serious emotional scars that make it difficult for him to feel anything. Controls Browbeat when the hero stumbles on something he shouldn't have, and dies early on to Leviathan.

Demoted to Extra: The most he really does is control Browbeat, and he dies before he can get any of his canon Character Development.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dies offscreen during Leviathan's attack.
Freudian Excuse: Having your parent be a sociopathic emotion manipulator who was entirely willing to inflict extreme fear on you just for not picking up the remote is one of the best excuses there is.
People Puppets: He usually didn't use his power for this (he instead caused muscle twitches, tripped people, threw off aim, that sort of thing), but Coil insisted he do it to Browbeat.
The Sociopath: Though this is more because of what Heartbreaker did to him than anything natural.

Ballistic

Luke

A former member of the Travellers, before they split up. Afterwards, he followed Noelle into the Undersiders. His power is the ability to send things that he touches rocketing off in a specific direction.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Is on the receiving end of this against Contessa.
Small Role, Big Impact: He's a fairly minor character, but he was the one who delivered a Boom, Headshot! to Pandora Prime and allowed the other Pandoras to grow as individuals.

Villains

For some, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. For others, it's just an excuse to serve their own desires and hurt others. These parahumans tried that, only to come up against Tether and company. They tend not to last too long afterwards.

Coil

Thomas Calvert (Coil)

Up-and-coming criminal mastermind (he even has his own underground base) with the power to split a timeline along one decision, living in both simultaneously until he decides to collapse one and accept the other. As such, he's very difficult to work against- it's quite hard to fight against someone who can make your victory never have happened. Was put into the Birdcage by Tether, but escaped and is currently hiding out in Ragnarok with several other villains.

Cruel Mercy: The reason Tether let him live- he'd go into the Birdcage and live his life with the knowledge that she beat him.
Engineered Public Confession: Tricked into one by Tether.
Morton's Fork: The biggest weakness of his power is that it doesn't stop this from occurring, and since he can only have two timelines up at a time, the more time they're up for increases the chance that both timelines will have something bad happening in them. He was forced to keep the timeline in which Pandora killed Mr. Pitter and escaped, for example, because the other one involved a Noelle clone of Sundancer rampaging around and destroying his base. This is also eventually used to catch him, as Tether forces him to pick between the timeline in which they pulled an Engineered Public Confession and the timeline in which Pandora killed him.
Mundane Utility: Uses his power to learn things and get a good night's sleep at the same time.
Power Perversion Potential: Not sexual, but he uses his power to have outbursts, torture, and kill people in throwaway timelines. This bites him in the butt when Tether's danger sense notices what's happening in the alternate timeline, putting her on his tail.
Smug Snake: He likes lording his power and knowledge over people, but even he can make mistakes. Like, say, forgetting that Pandora is a Voluntary Shapeshifter when he tries to steal Purity's baby.
Villain with Good Publicity: As Thomas Calvert, he's trusted enough to be head of the newly headed PCIPS department of the PRT.
Would Hurt a Child: He'd hurt anyone he needs to make his plans happen. A list of harmed minors:
- Dinah Alcott, the mayor's precognitive niece, who he addicted to drugs so she could answer questions for him.
- Amy Dallon, also known as Panacea, who he kidnapped with the intent of having her do what she could to fix Noelle (along with getting rid of the Empire 88 by blaming the kidnapping on Kaiser).
- Aster, Kayden's baby, kidnapped as leverage so Kayden wouldn't betray him.

Shadow Stalker

Sophia Hess

The third member of the trio who bullied Taylor Hebert to death. Also a Ward by the moniker of Shadow Stalker, with the power to shift into an intangible 'shadow-state'. She is ultimately the reason that Taylor's bullying started; as a vigilante, she saved Emma Barnes from a gang. She then shared her worldview of predators and prey, and the survival of the strong. The traumatized Emma took it to heart and tried to get rid of anything from her "weak" old self- like her best friend, Taylor. Sophia encouraged the bullying and was ultimately the one to shove Taylor in the locker, killing her. After being exposed by Tether, she went on the run, and was eventually found by Coil, who forced her to work for him on pain of detonating the bomb he placed in her head. Coil was captured, but the bomb wasn't removed, forcing Sophia to work for whoever had the remote—first Krouse, and then the Outliars. She eventually stole a prototype biological Powered Armor that Amy and Riley made, and put it on. Bad idea to end all bad ideas- the suit hooked onto her and is now too entwined with her brain to be removed, and it's messing with her brain.

Accidental Murder: She didn't really mean to kill Taylor, or those thugs she shot with crossbow bolts. She just doesn't care enough to be careful with what she does.
Achilles' Heel: Her shadow state does nothing to protect her from electricity.
Being Evil Sucks: Being a bitch hasn't really done Shadow Stalker any favors. She ends up on the run, with no one to turn to, and wired to a Flawed Prototype bio-suit that's messing with her and pushing her deeper into her predator/prey mindset.
Explosive Leash: Courtesy of Coil.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Was this to the Wards, which is one reason why they're so eager to take Tether over her.
Intangible Man: Her Shadow-form.
Never My Fault: No, she didn't just murder an innocent girl. It was just a prank and it's Taylor's fault for not getting it and having a heart attack.
Nigh-Invulnerable: In her shadow form, she's the Made of Air version. It doesn't stop electricity, though.
Nominal Hero: Before being booted out of the Wards. She was only there in the first place because it was that or juvie.
The Social Darwinist: Her philosophy. As a vigilante, she even applied it to people she saved- if they struggled, she would intervene, if they didn't do anything she'd just stand and watch.
Took a Level in Jerkass: She's even more unpleasant than in the original canon. Which is no mean feat.
Vigilante Man: Before being foricibly inducted into the Wards.
Villainous Breakdown: A minor one after Taylor's death.

Trickster

Francis Krouse

Head of the Travellers, before they broke up. Has the power to switch any item with any other similar item. Singlemindedly focused on saving his girlfriend Noelle, to the exclusion of all other priorities and all other potential solutions to Noelle's problem (he's trained himself to think that he can't trust anyone and that he's the only one who can save her). Also not so good in the long term planning department.

Always Save the Girl: His top priority is saving Noelle.
Didn't Think This Through: Has a definite tendency to do things without thinking of the long-term consequences. Like creating a Noelle clone of himself, or kidnapping Genesis for information.
Heel–Face Turn: Had a Heel Realization when Tether and a healed Noelle try to talk to him. They don't realize it until a while later, since he decided to play the 'can't see sense' role to give Noelle some closure.
I Reject Your Reality: He's been on his path so long that he's started rejecting the possibility of others finding a solution, and he initially rejects the real Noelle once she's cured and talks to him.
Mind Rape: He's actually not entirely at fault for his actions, as the Simurgh set him up to make sure that he would let Noelle get to the mini-Endbringer level threat she was in canon.
Spanner in the Works: A minor one for Clepsydra. When she gave him the mission to 'capture a Pandora', it was an Uriah Gambit, as she expected Pandora to eat him. However, despite appearances he was smart enough to not test himself against Pandora and went after his former teammate Jess/Genesis instead, ending up captured, but alive.

Defiant

Defiant/ Clone Krouse

In canon, Defiant was an alternate identity for Armsmaster. Here, he's actually a Noelle clone of Trickster, because Krouse is bad at thinking ahead. His natural power is the ability to swap himself and any adult male in the world for a short time, but he also has a minor Tinker power from Teacher. Kicks off the Birdcage arc by acting as Teacher's minion in the outside world and using a piece of Professor Haywire tech to teleport Madison and several others (Miss Militia, Trevor Clements, Rachel Lindt/Bitch, and Cassie Herren/Reach) into the Birdcage.

Anti-Villain: Surprisingly for a Noelle clone, he's actually not that bad on his own, and he really does want to be a hero. His villainous actions are because Teacher got him addicted to his power.
Clone Angst: He, like Pandora, wants to become his own person, though unlike Pandora he can't rewrite his brain to help.
The Dragon: To Teacher. He's the one free to act outside the Birdcage.
Mind Rape: He's a Noelle clone of Trickster with a power from Teacher, meaning he's under three separate mind-whammies (The Simurgh's, Noelle's, and Teacher's) at the same time.
The Ophelia: Male example. He's really not all there, which probably has something to do with the three separate mind whammies mentioned above.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: His power isn't that useful for crimefighting, but 'any adult male in the world' includes the Birdcage, which is normally impossible to get out of.

Teacher

An inmate of the Birdcage with the power to give others minor Thinker and Tinker powers, or to enhance existing powers. The powers are addictive, and he uses that to amass minions.

And Then What?: A major problem of his, as noted by several commenters—his plans work well, but tend to leave him in the long run in a worse position and with a lot of people mad at him.
Bad Powers, Bad People: His granted powers are basically Fantastic Drugs and take away free will. He's the sort of person who is absolutely fine with this.
Deal with the Devil: Any deal with him comes with a major catch. Too bad Trevor wasn't paranoid enough when dealing with him.
Death by Adaptation: Survives the Golden Morning and sets up his own little extradimensional protectorate. Here, he takes Madison hostage after a scheme of his doesn't play out, and to escape, she lets Pandora absorb him.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Before getting his power, he was a random person. Now, he's a super villain so feared he was incarcerated in the Birdcage.
Killed Off for Real: Is absorbed by Pandora.
The Man Behind the Man: To Defiant and Saint.
More than Mind Control: What happens to people he empowers.
Super-Empowering: He can give others powers that also serve as a Fantastic Drug.
Smug Snake: Loves showing off his intelligence and mastermind-ness, and freaks when it turns out that his plans didn't work as expected.
Villainous Breakdown: After he fails to kill Alexandria with Void's suicide bombing.

Void

An inmate of the Birdcage, and one of Teacher's disciples/slaves. His natural power is the inability to be affected by any parahuman. Teacher has enhanced this so that he can also protect the person closest to him, preventing them from using their powers if they are parahumans.

Anti-Magic: His power.
Flat Character: Doesn't say anything or do anything beyond helping Teacher capture Mads and later being a suicide bomber against Alexandria.
Suicide Attack: Defiant switches places with him in an attempt to get him close enough to Alexandria as Rebecca Costa-Brown that her powers would be negated, and the bombs planted on Void would kill her. It doesn't work out.

Lung

Kenta

Leader of the Azn Bad Boys, a pan-Asian gang terrorizing Brockton Bay. Has the power to transform into a giant armored dragon, with his power increasing the longer he fights.

Death by Adaptation: Got sent to the Birdcage in canon, but was let out for Golden Morning and ultimately survived. He was also Birdcaged in Atonement, but broke out and was influenced by Mnemosyne into attacking Arcadia, resulting in Tether and Flechette killing him.
Flight: He gets wings when he's ramped up enough.
Killed Off for Real: By a crane boom empowered by Flechette to be an Armor-Piercing Attack.
Nigh-Invulnerable: In draconic form.
Playing with Fire: Can do this in draconic form.

Impasse

A force field user and absolute sadistic asshole, his use of his power to do things like trap people in burning buildings ended up getting him sent to the Birdcage. Unfortunately for everyone involved, he escaped and joined up with Lung. Fortunately for everyone but him, he was killed by Flechette after taking Panacea hostage.

Didn't Think This Through: Tether notes that his force field has protected him so long, he thinks he's immune to consequences. It's why he won't listen to warnings that harming Amy meant pissing off Marquis.
Killed Off for Real: By Flechette. Turns out, force fields of any kind are useless against Sting.
Sadist: He enjoys using his power to cause suffering.
Some Kind of Force Field: His power. It's impenetrable by normal means, but unfortunately for him, when they say that Flechette's power is an Armor-Piercing Attack, they mean Armor-Piercing Attack.

Clepsydra

Haley Prescott

Real leader of the Outliars gang. The illegitimate daughter of Kaiser, who took her heritage as a sign she was destined to lead her own gang and take over Brockton Bay's underground. After acquiring a set of Cauldron vials, she did just that- starting with giving herself the power to set unlimited internal countdowns for herself. The countdowns can be used to 'program' her to do an action for a certain length of time (e.g. 'I want to nap for exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes') or for precognition ('How long until X happens'?). The precognitive aspect of her powers is limited to up to 10 minutes in the future.

Bastard Bastard: The illegitimate daughter of Max Anders/Kaiser wants to live up to her father's reputation as a gang leader.
Chekhov's Gunman: She debuts fairly early as the girl Tether saves who's more concerned that Tether didn't get her bag. Turns out she did have a valid reason- the bag contained her life savings and the vial of superpowers she had purchased (she stole more later).
Clock King: Her power, in essence. She even named herself after a type of water clock.
Gambit Roulette: Several of her plans. It bites her in the rear when Contessa gets involved and turns one on its head.
Hidden Villain: For now, she's content to keep her head down and lead the Outliars from the shadows (Duelitist is the public leader). Currently, Tether's only met her once, as a bystander.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Though it's not something she'd regret if she knew about it, she ended up stopping a serious threat to the world by throwing a vial of Cauldron superpowers in the Wards' path. Team Dinah was eventually able to reverse the vial's effect, making it remove superpowers instead of giving them. Giving the power-removing vial to Noelle prevented Echidna (an Endbringer-level threat) from ever coming to be (she'd actually intended to grab the power remover for herself and then give it to Noelle so she'd be indebted to Clepsydra, but a surprise Contessa nixed that).
Super-Empowering: Got ahold of a set of Cauldron vials that let her do this to anyone she deems worthy.

Duelitist

Brent

Public leader of the Outliars gang (though really a decoy for Clepsydra), and the one who gave them their name. Enjoys portmanteaus, and has enhanced agility and the ability to control all metal within a few feet of his body.

Extra-ore-dinary: Though only within a very short range.
Instant Armor: Uses his metallokinesis to make this.
The Mole: He is apparently high enough placed in the PRT to be able to break Scintillant out of prison, although doing so would blow his cover.

Mnemosyne

Amanda

A former vigilante whose brother was killed by gangs. She hates the drug trade and joined Clepsydra in order to stop it, and was given one of Clepsydra's Cauldron vials, granting her the power to make suggestions that others believe are their own thoughts (e.g. "I have every right to be here" or "You want to go home right now"). The power does not work on something the subject is absolutely opposed to doing (like saying to a hero "you should go massacre random civilians now") since they'll just dismiss the thought, but it's amazing the dumb things people will do when they think they thought of it.

Anti-Villain: She's in the Outliars because she wants to clamp down on the drug trade, and she's not adverse to helping Hunter out of a horrific situation.
Big Damn Heroes: Frees Hunter from the Slaughterhouse Nine because she hates gangs, and the Nine are really just the worst gang of them all.
More than Mind Control: Her power works by making others think her suggestions are their own. It's less effective the more out-of-character the suggestion is, and more effective if she gives reasons why they'd want to do it (e.g. "go try to unmask the Wards at Arcadia because if you don't strike them where it hurts, your thugs will think you're weak because you were beaten by kids").
Spanner in the Works: The Slaughterhouse Nine might have gotten a new member in Ruin had she not interfered, turned Burnscar against the rest of the Nine, and freed Hunter.

Jack Slash

Jacob

Leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and all-around bad news. A charming sociopath who's good enough at herding cats to get together a team of the most evil, psychotic, and downright dangerous people in the world and point them at causing random havoc. Visits Brockton Bay in order to potentially get Riley back, kill the people who took her, and keep control of the Nine.

Bad Powers, Bad People: Extending the edges of his knives. Bit hard to be heroic with that.
Breaking Speech: Very good at giving these. In fact, it's part of his power- he can understand how parahumans work enough to get under their skin.
Break the Cutie: He's the one who broke Riley until she became Bonesaw. He tried to break Hunter by torturing her until she accidentally used her power to kill children, but another cape interfered.
The Corrupter: Uses his secondary power for this.
Danger Sense: His 'understand parahumans' secondary power also allows him to predict their attacks.
Death by Adaptation: He survives canon, for a certain value of 'survives'. In Atonement, Tether ends up killing him during his visit to Brockton Bay.
The Dreaded: Along with the rest of the Nine. Psychological warfare is part of his thing, and it works. Many people would rather commit suicide rather than take the chance of the Nine getting them.
Foil: To Tether. They both have secondary powers that makes it easier for them to connect to other parahumans, but while Tether uses it to comfort them and help them with their issues, Jack Slash just wants to corrupt them even further.
For the Evulz: He's pretty much the embodiment of the "some men just want to watch the world burn" speech.
Hannibal Lecture: Again, very good at giving these.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Going to Brockton Bay lead to the deaths of everyone in the Nine except Burnscar and Mannequin and the end of the Slaughterhouse Nine as a threat.
Sword Beam: His primary power.
Villainous Breakdown: A rather understated one when Tether and company confront him.
Would Hurt a Child: Tortured Riley so much that she broke under pressure and became Bonesaw.

Hatchet Face

A member of the Slaughterhouse Nine with a very useful power combo- he can prevent any parahumans from using their power in his range, and he himself has a Brute rating which isn't affected by his first power, meaning that any fight with him is going to be 'normal person vs. super strong tank'. In canon, he's a Posthumous Character, killed by Cherish in order to get into the Nine. Here, Riley defected early because she was a Tether fangirl, meaning Jack had no Bonesaw to upgrade the Nine against Cherish's powers, and so he killed her rather than have to deal with her sudden but inevitable betrayal. Hatchet Face thus remains with the Slaughterhouse Nine, killing capes for Jack.

Hero Killer: His power-nullifying range means that he's the only person so far to actually perma-kill a Pandora, getting Eta and Rho when they were on guard duty.
Logical Weakness: Subverted, then played straight. While the usual weakness of power nullifiers is that they're still vulnerable to regular attacks, Hatchet Face is also a brute, meaning that physical attacks are also ineffective. However, that's not his only weakness. His field prevents capes from using their powers inside it, instead of simply negating all powers (like Void's power), so he can be killed by a cape whose power outranges his (how Cherish canonically got him) and he's very vulnerable to Tinkers, whose use of their power happens long before the battle starts (how Riley kills him- she uses one of her upgrades to breathe acid in his face).
Power Nullifier: Within a certain distance of him, capes can't use their powers.
Silent Bob: He has no lines.
Super-Strength: Even behind the power nullification field, he's still a brute.
Super-Toughness: The problem with simply fighting him powerless is that he still has this and the Super-Strength above.

Horde

An Original Character member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. She is a young girl whose power allows her to absorb people she touches (alive or dead) and then manifest them as a super-strong golem made out of an emerald-like substance. As a side effect, she gains a twisted version of their personality.

Anti-Climax Boss: Tether even muses on how she'd expected for Horde to be a tough fight, only for Horde to die against Ruin in a battle she could never hope to win.
Blessed with Suck: Her power is strong, but not great for her mental stability.
Killed Off for Real: By Ruin's disintegration wave.
Mood-Swinger: When she switches personalities.
Mook Maker: How her power works. The minions are very strong and are considered living material, making her a very good counter to Tether. Unfortunately, this also means that they're affected by Ruin's power.
Oh, Crap!: Has a second or so to see Ruin's disintegration wave coming before it one-shots her.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Her power is on Burnscar levels of screwing with her head.

Valefor

A member of the Fallen, a Cult that worships Endbringers. He styles himself after the Simurgh, and has the ability to give geass- like commands to anyone who he makes eye contact with. In canon, he ends up fighting Skitter and having his 'must make eye contact' limitation gruesomely exploited (hint: maggots). Here, he joins the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Immediately disowns the Nine and tries to negotiate with Tether when it's clear she's overcome his power. It doesn't work, because they've already gotten the required information from elsewhere. He then gets killed just offscreen by Flechette.
Compelling Voice: To anyone he makes eye contact with.
Killed Off for Real: By Flechette.
Logical Weakness: Madison and Company get around his power by putting in earplugs that block his voice and then repeat his words later in a voice of their choosing (Mickey Mouse, for example), since his orders do no good if the subject is unable to hear them.
Religion of Evil: He's a member of a cult who worship the freaking Endbringers.
Villainous Breakdown: Once Madison makes it clear she's No Sold him.

Shatterbird

A middle eastern woman with the power to telekinetically manipulate silicon. Captured by Tether and Rune, then killed by Vista in an escape attempt.

Dishing Out Dirt: Though she usually uses her power to manipulate glass.
Killed Off for Real: Cauldron doesn't interfere to keep her alive like in canon (as Contessa decided against it after remembering Madison's morality essay), so she gets a Boom, Headshot! from Vista while trying to escape prison.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Her power works through sound waves.
Person of Mass Destruction: Her opening 'shatter all the glass in the city' move hurts a lot.

The Siberian

William Manton

Formerly a famous parahuman researcher and namesake of the Manton Limit. Then his daughter apparently died from the failure of a Cauldron formula and he went around the bend. He used another formula on himself to create a Nigh-Invulnerable black-and-white-striped projection in the shape of his dead daughter. He then used said projection to attack his former Cauldron compatriots, killing Hero and tearing out Alexandria's eye. After that, he joined the Slaughterhouse Nine as the Siberian, but broke off from them to go seek out Bonesaw (who'd split to become part of Team Dinah). He is eventually defeated and knocked out by Faultline's Crew and delivered to Dinah, who had Riley lock down his powers and traded him for The Custodian, who's actually his daughter Keiara.

Achilles' Heel: He can only project the Siberian while he's conscious, and he has no powers other than her. Thus, after Labyrinth breaks open the van he's in, Faultline's Crew win easily by having Newter (a Case 53 whose bodily fluids are all drugs of some sort) touch him.
Humanoid Abomination: The Siberian is a black-and-white striped humanoid woman with the ability to either tear through or grant invulnerability to whatever she touches. She's also an Implacable Man who shrugs off any hit (excepting other unstoppable powers like Flechette's Sting).
I'm a Humanitarian: As the Siberian, he was a cannibal.
It's All About Me: Even before going nuts, he was quite selfish.
Nigh-Invulnerable: The Siberian, who can also make anything she touches invulnerable.
Replacement Goldfish: Bonesaw was this to Keiara/The Custodian, which is why he left the Nine to search for her. This eventually got him captured by Faultline's Crew on Dinah's orders.
Restraining Bolt: Riley installs one before they trade him to Cauldron.

Crawler

A member of the Slaughterhouse Nine with the ability to adapt to anything that doesn't kill him. He's been active so long, he's turned into a very, very powerful monster, and actively seeks out fights in the hope to either get stronger or have someone finally kill him.

Adaptive Ability: His superpower.
Combat Sadomasochist: Actively seeks out those who can hurt him.
Extra Eyes: Has a lot of these.
Killed Off for Real: Amy uses her biokinesis to order every bit of his biology to attack the other bits. By the end of it, he's just goo.
Nigh-Invulnerable: He's been hurt by a lot, so now he can't be hurt by much. Even his eyes are as hard as stone.
You Killed My Father: Maybe he shouldn't have killed off Amy's father just as she was getting to understand him. He might have lived longer that way.

Mannequin

Alan Gramme

Formerly the famous tinker Sphere, before the Simurgh got involved. Sphere's specialty was enclosed environments, and his dream was to be able to create a functional moon colony. Then the Simurgh destroyed his life's work and killed his family, driving him insane. He sealed himself in a suit of molecularly-bonded armor and started killing off any other tinker who looks to be succeeding at doing the thing he failed so miserably at- making a difference in the world. At some point, he joined the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Hero Killer: He kills Grue, causing Aisha to second-trigger.
Mind Rape: The Simurgh set him up to be what he is.
Reed Richards Is Useless: Once planned to avert it. Now he enforces it by seeking out any Reed Richards who's not being useless and killing them, because he can't stand that others could be successful at changing the world, when doing so cost him everything.

Sovereign

Not the main antagonist from Mass Effect. This Sovereign is the leader of the Noblemen, misogynists who name themselves after noble titles. Sovereign firmly believes that women should Stay in the Kitchen... and he's willing to kidnap, torture, and brainwash them to make them the perfect wives for his dream colony on an alternate Earth. To make matters worse, he's also a very powerful Trump, with the ability to amplify, suppress, or redirect the powers of other parahumans.

Gone Horribly Wrong: His alt-Earth colony idea. The Earth picked turned out to be Ragnarok, a.k.a. the source of the Endbringers.
He-Man Woman Hater: Leads an entire group of them.
Mind Rape: His misogynistic views are the result of Simurgh tampering.
Unwitting Pawn: It eventually turns out that he's a Simurgh-bomb intended to keep Tether safely out of the way while she attacked Brockton Bay (which ultimately didn't work, as Glastig Uaine was Most Unhappy that her monthly Tether visit was being interfered with).

Others

Normal humans and parahumans who don't fit into any of the above categories.

Trevor Clements

Madison's older, non-cape brother. Your average Hormone-Addled Teenager with very little sense of responsibility, until he gets teleported to the Birdcage. He survived with Miss Militia's aid, until his desire to be special drives him to take a Tinker power from Teacher.

The Atoner: Eventually, he realizes what he'd done by allying with Teacher, to the point of volunteering to stay at the Birdcage with Glastig Uaine for a year.
Brother–Sister Incest: He thinks Tether, whose Secret Identity is his little sister, is cute (though to be fair, he didn't know of their relationship for a while, and was horrified when he did find out).
Hormone-Addled Teenager: Spends a bit too much time ruminating on Miss Militia's butt when in the Birdcage.
I Just Want to Be Special: Why he accpets Teacher's offer.
It's All About Me: Followed Teacher's orders to unmask Madison (with the clear intent of threatening her civilian family if she didn't do what he said) because he wanted the superpowers Teacher gave him. It took Teacher blowing up the PRT headquarters with a nuke to shake him out of it.
The Mole: For Teacher, since Madison trusted her brother until he betrayed her and revealed her identity.
Pet the Dog: He used that Tinker power he got to make a device to help Ruin.

Glastig Uaine

Ciara

The self-proclaimed Fairy Queen, and powerful enough to back up that statement. She's more than a little insane, but she knows a lot more about what's really going on than people think- even if she thinks the genre is fantasy instead of sci-fi. Her power is the ability to absorb the powers of parahumans who die near her, and then manifest a 'ghost' of them to use their power. She's absorbed quite a few by now, and the only thing keeping her from being a world-class threat is her current residence in the Birdcage. Of course, even something like the Birdcage might well be a Cardboard Prison to someone like the Fairy Queen...

All Your Powers Combined: Got this with her second trigger.
Broken Bird: When we finally hear her backstory. She was an orphan who didn't get adopted, ran off and befriended a dog, triggering when it died. She then found a friend and caretaker in another parahuman, who she helped use her power to its best extent (Ciara's original power being to be able to sense and understand the powers of parahumans). When that person died, she second-triggered into the powerset she has today.
The Cloud Cuckoo Lander Was Right: She may be somewhat out there, but she's more insightful than people think.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Manages to clear out the Birdcage of Teacher's minions in a few minutes while talking to someone else, and while said minions were under guard, without anyone noticing. Later, she tops that by using a precog negator and a Wave-Motion Gun to beat back the Simurgh.
Did You Just Punch Out The Simurgh?
Defrosting Ice Queen: Occuring slowly but surely as she gets more Madison-style therapy.
Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: She is quite capable of getting out of the Birdcage by herself, as she proves when she exits to curbstomp the Simurgh when the Endbringer got in the way of her monthly visit with Madison.
Morality Pet: She likes Madison, who she calls the True Healer, and who has the unique ability to talk sense into her and get her to listen. Madison even gets her to tell her backstory.
Older Than They Look: She looks like a little kid, but that's because one of her ghosts is able to store age. She's really one of the older parahumans out there.
The Ophelia: She's not all there at the best of times.
Person of Mass Destruction: Oh. So. Much. The Protectorate wouldn't have had a chance of holding her if she hadn't walked into the Birdcage herself.
Voice of the Legion: Speaks with the combined voice of all the parahumans she's absorbed.

Marquis

A former crime lord of Brockton Bay, caught and Birdcaged. He became a cell block leader there and eventually escaped when Tether was extracted. He has the ability to manipulate bones (his own and his enemies', if he can see them), and is Amy's biological father.

Affably Evil: He's a vicious crime lord, sure, but he has a code of honor and he's genuinely accepting towards Panacea and Pandora.
Death by Adaptation: Dies to Crawler's acid during the Slaughterhouse Nine arc.
Genre Savvy: They can call the Birdcage 'inescapable' all they want, he's pretty sure that Tether and the other heroes drawn in there by Defiant won't be staying forever.
Good Parents: He's as good a father as his situation allows to Amy. He even accepts the Pandoras as his daughters when he finds out about them, after some initial shock.
Heroic Sacrifice: Takes one of Crawler's acid blasts to save Amy.
Mundane Utility: Uses his bones to protect Tether and Reach's modesty when they're staying with him in the Birdcage.
Swiss-Army Superpower: Turns out, growing and manipulating bones can do a lot. He uses it for armor, flight via bone wings, forcing open Crawler's grip, and as a shower curtain.

Contessa

Fortuna

Cauldron's top boogeyman, the Mysterious Unnaturally Competent Woman in a Suit, the most bullshit Thinker around, wielder of the Path to Victory. Also Madison's substitute teacher Ms. Fortune.

Badass in a Nice Suit: She loves her tailored suits.
Becoming the Mask: She finds that she likes being Madison's history teacher.
Cool Teacher: For Madison and her class.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Courtesy of her power, any fight she finds herself in is this.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Madison (of course) provides the first push with an essay on how Visionary (a villain who could see the best and worst possible things a person could do) could have used his power better. It takes to the point where Contessa allows Shatterbird (a glass-manipulating supervillain and member of the Slaughterhouse Nine) to die rather than escape as her path shows.
Good Angel, Bad Angel: Her memory of Madison reciting her essay on Visionary and the steps to releasing Shatterbird her power is giving her serve these respective roles.
Mundane Utility: Her Path to Victory power, which is one of the most broken abilities in the setting, comes in very handy for controlling a class and grading papers.
Spanner in the Works: The reason Madison and company were able to reach and cure Noelle (against Clepsydra's plan to steal the vial and cure Noelle herself, thus gaining Noelle's loyalty) is because Contessa got there first and curbstomped all the mercenaries guarding Noelle before snatching Oliver and leaving.
- Madison also did this to Contessa. While she had no way of actually preventing Contessa from saving Shatterbird, her morality essay got Fortuna to voluntarily stop pursuing that path, which lead to Shatterbird's death.

Athenaeum

A former Ward from an unknown location with the power to sense attacks coming in her area of effect. This worked out well for her until she had a second trigger event that granted her the ability to know everything in her area of effect. Attacks, parahuman powers, information in books or computers, memories, and deals made and favors done for a mysterious organization responsible for many horrific atrocities are all within her purview, which is bad news for the resident super Illuminati, Cauldron. After finding out exactly how deep Cauldron's influence went, she formed the villain group Tender. Obstentially an anarchist group made up of former Wards, that's just a smokescreen for Tender's real mission- uncover and destroy Cauldron.

Break the Cutie: Word of God says that if third triggers were possible, she'd have had one when she found out that Alexandria was a Cauldron member.
Broken Pedestal: Alexandria was her hero, and of course she went straight to her when she discovered that the Protectorate was infiltrated by a strange group... only to learn that Alexandria was in the inner circle of said group. After that she decided to form Tender, and changed her name to Athenaeum, in honor of what she had believed Alexandria to be.
Living Lie Detector: Since she knows everything about everyone in her general vicinity.
Meaningful Rename: An 'Athenaeum' is a place of learning, much like the Library of Alexandria (the source of the super heroine Alexandria's code name). Athenaeum calls herself that in honor of the Alexandria that she looked up to before learning that the Triumvirate was part of Cauldron.
Power Incontinence: She cannot shut off her power.
Ron the Death Eater: In-Universe. Athenaeum's power, as is standard for Thinker powers, redacts all information relating to Scion and the entities, so she gets to learn about all the atrocities Cauldron committed without knowing their motive (desperately trying to find some strategy that would enable the world to survive against Scion when he went on a rampage), which made it look to her like they were creating Case 53, allowing horrible villains to go unchecked, and generally manipulating everything For the Evulz instead of being Well-Intentioned Extremists trying to stop The End of the World as We Know It.
Spanner in the Works: She's trying to be one to Cauldron. She got a good head start in with her second-trigger power (triggers cannot be predicted by precognitives), which allowed her to essentially read the minds of anyone involved in the conspiracy.
Superpower Lottery: Her original superpower was rather tame. Her second-trigger power is less so, especially in a world full of secrets and plotting like Worm, because as long as you're in her range, there's no hiding anything from Athenaeum.

Denizens Of Ragnarok

Earth Bet may be a Crapsack World, but places like Ragnarok prove that it can, indeed get worse. Ragnarok was the Entities' beta-testing world, and all 20 Endbringers (locally known as Titans) are stored here (four- Behemoth, Leviathan, The Simurgh, and Anubis- later leaving to go attack Earth Bet). There are a few mostly unconfigured shards floating around, and people who trigger with them are called Fate-Lords. Since Fate-Lords don't have most of the Restraining Bolts that Earth Bet's parahumans do, they are often more powerful- but, since that includes the safety measures, they also sometimes lack Required Secondary Powers. Second-generation triggers (or buds) are called Fate-Touched. They tend to be less powerful than Fate-Lords, but also lack the element of Superpower Russian Roulette Fate-Lords have. All Ragnarok denizens are immune to precognitive abilities in the same manner as the Endbringers are.

Hephaestus

Andrew Richter (Hephaestus)

The Fate-Lord of Artifice, and the closest Fate-Lord to the portal the Noblemen opened to Ragnarok. Can theoretically build anything, but severely hampered by lack of materials. Dimensional counterpart to Dragon's creator.

Classification: Tinker ? (omnidisciplinary).

The Gimmick: Inverted. As a Fate-Lord level Tinker, he is not restricted to a specialty.

Savant

Born into a raider tribe, Savant would undoubtedly have grown up as twisted as her dimensional counterpart Sophia Hess, had her tribe not been hit by Zephyr and Hephaestus. The two Fate-Lords took her in and gradually civilized her, and she eventually became a Fate-Touched of Hephaestus.

Classification: Tinker ? (personal weapons).

Do Not Call Me "Paul": She doesn't like being called Sophia, as it associates her with Earth Bet!Sophia's bad habits that she herself grew out of with the help of Hephaestus.
Evil Counterpart: Inverted: She's essentially a good counterpart to Shadow Stalker, albeit with a totally different powerset.
Foil: Unlike Bet!Sophia, who was born into civilization and degenerated into savagery, she was born into savagery and learned how to be civilized.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Despite what she thinks, personal weaponry is actually a fairly good Tinker specialty. She just happens to hold court with Hephaestus, who can work in any field.

Zephyr

Zephyr (Sarah Pelham)

When she was still a teenager, Sarah and her sister Carol ventured into a badly damaged shopping mall to retrieve food, food her family desperately needed as a result of being driven from their home by the Titan Cerberus. But the mall's damage was so severe that it collapsed around them, and before Sarah could dig her out, Carol had suffocated. Her sister had died from a lack of oxygen, a lack of air. And so from that moment on, the girl who would become known as the Fate-Lord Zephyr possessed an absolute and total dominion over air itself.

Classification: Blaster ?, Shaker ?

Back from the Dead: After Strix kills her, she is brought back by Asclepius's Lazarus Draught. Interestingly, this causes her to be restored to the physical age at which the draught was first created (though she retained her memories).
Blow You Away: Her power, at Fate-Lord levels.

Strix

A Fate-Lord raider, Strix has the power to gain other Fate-Lords' and Fate-Toucheds' powers temporarily at half-strength if he drinks their blood- or permanently if he eats their hearts. He has no qualm with exploiting this.

Bad Powers, Bad People: He kills people, eats their hearts, and then steals their power. What part of that says 'good guy' to you?
Cannibalism Superpower: If he doesn't want his stolen powers to fade away after a few hours, he has to eat the hearts of their previous wielders.
Healing Factor: Heals very quickly.

Anubis

The fourth Endbringer, Anubis makes its first appearance at the end of Arc 16. While it lacks the raw destructiveness of Behemoth or Leviathan, its Puzzle Boss aspects and the long-lasting effects of its death aura give it a long-term threat level.

Classification: S-Class Threat

Animate Dead: Its primary power. It pumps out a radiation-like energy that infuses anything that gets too near it. Anything that dies with that energy in its system, or dies in an area charged by that energy, reanimates as a zombie.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Its "death line" attack manifests simultaneously at every point along its length. This is what allowed it to bypass Glory Girl's forcefield, since it manifested inside the field.
Boss Arena Urgency: The longer it has to drift around, the bigger an area it can charge with its necrotic energy, which never leaves.
It Only Works Once: Anubis seems designed to counter the tactics that took down Leviathan in the first fight. Its zombies are everywhere and are classified as organic, countering Tether, and the main endbringer 'body' is aimless and indestructible until its zombies are all taken out (and doesn't even need to move to attack even after it does begin attacking personally), countering Freezetag.
One-Hit Kill: After all zombies have been destroyed, Anubis will begin to fight personally- with a 'death line' attack that kills anyone in its range.
Puzzle Boss: Anubis itself is effectively invincible as long as it has active zombies, which is a large part of what made the first fight against it so difficult, since nobody knew exactly what to target.
Zombie Apocalypse: What happens if you let it stick around for too long.

Characters / Atonement (Worm)

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