Originally a small villain group of thieves from the original Brockton Bay, the Undersiders grew into warlords of the city and have since become major players in New Brockton after Golden Morning. Due to a shared and complicated history with Antares and the fact that they're one of the only villain groups that still try to hold to the unwritten rules, they're on surprisingly good terms with Breakthrough.
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In General
- Breaking the Fellowship: Due to varying goals among members that only grew as the group did, as well as Tattletale's lack of leadership in comparison to Skitter or Grue, the Undersiders have broken up into multiple sub-groups.
- Friendly Enemy: Technically Breakthrough and the Undersiders are on opposite sides of the law, such as it is post-Gold Morning, but if they've got goals in common they're willing to work together closely.
- Demoted to Extra: Ironically so considering they've actually had a major step up in terms of influence and power, they're not as prominent in Victoria's story as they were in Taylor's, but that's to be expected when the viewpoint character shifts to one not in the group. This ends up being subverted later on as Chicken Little and Kenzie making friends has Breakthrough and the Undersiders hanging around and working together more often than not.
The Undersiders
Tattletale
Lisa Wilbourn (Tattletale)
The leader of the Undersiders, a major criminal organization that runs much of New Brockton from behind the scenes. Her power is "superpowered intuition"; given a small bit of information about a topic, her power gives her information and allows her to take logical leaps well beyond what is possible for a normal person, though it is vulnerable to inaccuracy if the information she starts with is faulty. For tropes applying to her appearance in Worm, see here.Classification: Thinker
- Accentuate the Negative: Given true data to start with, Tattletale's power will always give her true conclusions. However, she has come to realize that it will always tell her the most negative possible conclusion that the starting evidence could have led to. If she sees someone make a face at her, she'll know all about the terrible reason that person doesn't like her in that moment, but it won't tell her a thing about what that person might like about her, either.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Is on the receiving end for once. When asked if she regrets her role in Amy's fall, she doesn't deny it, but tries to deflect the issue, showing that she was genuinely rattled.
- Byronic Hero: Is convinced that she's the only one that can hold the world together in the face of gathering threats, and is abrasive and cold to even nominal allies, such as Breakthrough-when they come to her to offer help against March, she includes at least one trauma-related insult per team member in her vitriolic agreement.
- Giver of Lame Names: Gave Dinah the cape name Kid Cassandra to intentionally annoy her, which it does more so as she grows older.
- Greater-Scope Villain: She isn't personally working against the protagonists, but she is hiring out her power and advice to the people that are.
- Headbutting Heroes: On the occasions when Tattletale can be described as a hero, she and Victoria are this in spades. They can barely manage thirty seconds in the presence of the other without stooping to petty insults, cutting sideswipes, and pointless arguing.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Befitting her paranoia and unfettered nature, it's a toss-up in any given story arc whether she'll be assisting the protagonists or working against them. During the raid on the Fallen compound, she switches sides multiple times in the span of a couple hours as the conflict spirals completely out of her (or anyone else's) control.
- Heroic Host: Like all parahumans, but in her case Lisa's connection to her passenger has evolved to the point that they have a limited form of communication, even if it only ever seems to tell her negative things.
- They seem to have a relationship that hovers around frenemy territory: when they get along and have a clear goal, it's five-by-five and firing on all available, if still Zion-crippled, cylinders. When they don't, it's headbutting, migraine-a-go-go time; hold any effectiveness. Both hugely resent how they were crippled from the starting gate; it makes them just as snippy with each other as Lisa is with others.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Even leaving aside her Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies, she DOES regret her role in Amy's fall, even if she doesn't want to admit it.
- Similarly, as soon as she realises exactly how badly screwed-up Rain's cluster actually is (and how skewed her picture of them was), she comes over as being very, very sheepish for having tried to use him (and them) the way she did. She genuinely bodged that one up, and is therefore trying to kind of make amends, even though she won't quite fully admit how epically she messed up.
- Lonely at the Top: Tattletale no longer has anyone she can confide in on an emotional level, as she could with Taylor, and is aware that most anyone who tries to approach her for such a friendship is just going to be after her powers and her information.
- Mama Bear: To Aiden (and the other Chicken Tenders, to a lesser extent). She jumps in front of a knife with zero hesitation to keep them safe.
- Spanner in the Works: Plays a major role exposing Teacher's conspiracy to create rifts within parahuman teams and greater society along with Victoria.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Thanks to Aiden giving Kenzie access to Lisa's files, she finds herself forced to work with Victoria. As she's quick to point out, that doesn't make them friends.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In Pitch 6.8, she goes into detail about how each member of Team Therapy has either done something terrible, or is someone terrible.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While to the people in-universe she doesn't seem to have changed that much, it's very clear to those out of it that she hasn't become kinder over the years thanks to the pressure of being the new leader of the Undersiders. While back in Worm she always had that knack of going to the jugular when it comes to enemies, you could always count on her doing it with her typical Grin of Audacity and cheerful and smug demeanor, but in private she wouldn't enjoy it very much. Now it seems to be her go-to reaction to almost everyone outside of the Undersiders and her social and outgoing demeanor is gone, completely replaced with biting remarks and a new policy of doling out "The Reason You Suck" Speech to everyone she talks to but her teammates. Her Interlude shows that this is the result of her being very lonely without Taylor, and that she isn't very close with the other members of her team (with Foil outright resenting her), while everyone else outside of it just wants her for her power and position in the cape community. On top of which, her power tends to inform her of what the people she's talking to really think of her, causing her to lash out for no visible reason during seemingly civil conversations. In short, she is tired, lonely, and without support.
- The Unfettered: She'll do anything if it means keeping the peace in the city, no matter what she has to do or how far she has to sink to accomplish the goal. It's the major sticking point between her and Victoria, and the big reason why despite their common goals they're so fundamentally incapable of seeing eye-to-eye.
- Used to Be More Social: A social extrovert, she used to throw herself into conversations and meaningless chatter. Now she sits back and watches.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Her relationship with Victoria gradually becomes this as they are forced to work together and learn about each other. They move from viciously attacking each other's insecurities to giving each other crap but actually kind of liking each other and working well together.
- You Are in Command Now: She's now the leader of the Undersiders following Taylor's disappearance at the end of Worm, and is clearly struggling to keep the team together in the latter's absence. Her interlude reveals she's exhausted and is constantly overstraining her power to keep everything together.
Chicken Little
Aiden Tate (Chicken Little)
A young boy who was taken in, along with several other children, by Skitter after being orphaned by Leviathan. Aiden has the ability to indirectly control birds, by mentally giving them "flags" to fly to, and giving them general orders (attack, harass, etc). He can also see and hear what his birds do, although not while directly controlling them. He triggered early when Taylor's shard matured and budded, with the offspring binding to him.
Classification: Master; Thinker
- Atrocious Alias: Seriously, Chicken Little. Apparently, there was some discussion over what to call him, with Tattletale pushing for Hitchcock and Imp supporting Unkindness, but he got the final choice.
- The Beastmaster: He has limited control over birds, capable of setting points for them to go towards or away from. He can also see through their eyes, though not while controlling them.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Both Darlene and Kenzie (the latter of which makes Tattletale groan at the realization) are nursing crushes on him.
- Giant Flyer: Among his numerous birds is a Haast eagle, one of the largest species of eagle ever, obtained from an Earth where they hadn't gone extinct.
- Giver of Lame Names:
- His Interlude reveals that he decided to name the Haast eagle "Chicken Large". Upon telling Imp about it, she told him not to call it that again in her presence or he'd be banned from field missions.
- Besides that, he also named himself Chicken Little, and named his new junior cape team with Kenzie and Darlene "Chicken Tenders".
- Magnetic Hero: While technically a villain, he has a knack for forging connections with others.
- Meaningful Name: Imp's suggestion for his cape name was Unkindness, in reference to the term for a large group of ravens.
- Replacement Goldfish: After "failing" to save her brother and Taylor, Lisa sees Aiden as her last chance to protect someone she cares about.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Part of the reason Tattletale latched onto him is that, since his shard budded from Taylor's, in a way, he's her last legacy."He controls a swarm of birds?" I asked. I arched an eyebrow."It reminded me of a friend, believe it or not. He needed a mentor, and it seemed natural."
- Zerg Rush: His Interlude has him killing a creature by mobbing it to death with birds.
Snuff
One of Tattletale's henchmen.
Classification: Shaker(?)
- Affably Evil: He seems pretty friendly to Victoria even when he's on the job.
- The Dragon: He's by far Tattletale's most prominent minion, serving as her muscle and appearing with her in almost every scene she shows up in.
- The Gadfly: When Antares and Tattletale get him involved in their bickering, he proceeds to stir the pot for amusement.
- Gravity Master: His power lets him make miniature black holes.
- Malevolent Masked Man: He wears an executioner's hood with a series of stitches making a frowny face, which all but screams "cape."
- Not Enough to Bury: He is reduced to a fine red paste by the Impaler Titan.
- Mundane Utility: He uses his power to vacuum up the smoke of his cigarettes.
- Only in It for the Money: Sort of. He cares about his reputation and how serving Tattletale advances his career more than physical cash, but the basic principle is the same; her power constantly reminds her that his loyalty to her is strictly business.
The Heartbroken
Imp
Aisha Laborn (Imp)
One of the earliest members of the Undersiders and sister to their original leader, Grue. She later became the leader of the Heartbroken by killing Heartbreaker and enlisting his children. Her power causes others to fail to notice her with any of their senses, and to forget any details about her, including the fact of her existence. This power is always on and must be deliberately suppressed in order for her to interact with anyone else. For tropes related to her appearance in Worm, see here.
Classification: Stranger 5
- Ambiguously Bi: Imp has been making ambiguously-sincere jokes and passes at other women since her first appearances, and comes pretty damn close to confirming it in Breaking 15.2
, but, as the statement is made as part of a joke about kidnappings, it's hard to judge its sincerity:- Imp: Gotta rate 'em one to ten on the sexy scale. Slim and wearing clothes that fit are better than muscle. Then you rate 'em one to ten on the dark, sarcastic humor scale. Add 'em together. Guys' gotta be a thirteen to count. I'll take a girl, but I'm pickier, she's got to be a sixteen by my system.
- An Arm and a Leg: A slight variant on this trope; she gets her original arm replaced by someone else's (disconcertingly muscular and hairy) arm while trying to protect the Heartbroken children from an attack by March and her gang of cluster triggers. It's implied that she got her original arm back after the defeat of Cradle.
- Devious Daggers: She's a villain whose main method of dispatching people is using her power to sneak up on them from behind and slit their throats with a knife.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: A Discussed Trope due to her powers. Imp's power is always active unless she consciously suppresses it, and since images, recordings, and written documents of her fade over time, she and Tattletale are concerned that she could be permanently forgotten should she die or be badly injured and have been looking for a way to change this.
- Morality Chain: She's this for most of the Heartbroken, being the person who keeps them from indulging their worst impulses, and is the only person Florence consistently listens to without the threat of lethal force.
- Perception Filter: What her power is, preventing anyone from registering her with any of their senses and suppressing existing memory of her while active. Due to having her arm swapped out for someone else's, however, it doesn't work as well as it used to. Since shards are known to key to DNA and the arm presumably does not have the same DNA as the rest of her, the arm can be noticed by others even when her power is active. This does lead to some strange and hilarious scenes where characters notice a burly arm doing something out of nowhere and not being able to notice whose arm it is.
- Save Scumming: Since we last saw her in Worm she's been practicing with her power, and now has the ability to cause people to selectively forget parts of conversations and events involving her. This allows her to "replay" conversations and interactions until she gets the result that she wants.
- Team Mom: Imp takes on this role for the Heartbroken. This seems to have initially been out of loyalty to Regent, but she quickly comes to care very strongly about them. Doing so plays a large part in making her more caring and mature by the time of Ward.
Samuel
Classification: Thinker
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The exact mechanics are unclear, but his power allows him to cut through mental defenses with physical pain. It works best when in an actual fight by directing him to hit them in the right place at the right time to psychologically break them, but it also allows him to serve as an expert torturer.
- The Confidant: He's the only Heartbroken that Imp interacts with as a friend and equal instead of a guardian.
- Fights Like a Normal: His complete abilities are unknown, but are implied to be unhelpful in a direct fight.
- Killed Offscreen: He dies offscreen fighting Teacher's forces, with his corpse being shown wrapped inside a shroud in Dying 15.z.
- Number Two: He seems to be Imp's most trusted subordinate and is usually in charge of wrangling the rest when she isn't around.
- Only Sane Man: Serves this role in the Heartbroken most of the time, being the only one without serious quirks past sharing his brother Regent's love of causing discomfort.
- Shared Family Quirks: He's apparently the most like Regent, specifically sharing his enjoyment of causing discomfort.
- Super-Senses: His power allows him to sense the emotions of others.
- Torture Always Works: Enforced by his power. His methods are highly efficient but brutal, with his power directing the precise means to break his victims as needed.
Decadent
Candy (Decadent)
Classification: Master- Accentuate the Negative: The traumatic experience of being effectively force-fed her favorite food significantly impacted her ability to enjoy things without anxiety. As a result, she tends to focus on negative experiences.
- Ambiguously Gay: She's strongly suggested to have a mutual crush with Kenzie. Candy rejects the latter's confession but it's implied to be the result of Commitment Issues rather than Incompatible Orientation.
- Does Not Like Men: Being effectively pimped out by her own father left means that being around guys (outside Aiden and her half-brothers) makes her uncomfortable.
- Foil: She's not got the range or the sheer overwhelmingly versatile emotion-based readout on and adjustment of others that her half-sister, Cherie, had; but, what she lacks in comparative oomph, she more than makes up for with a quiver stuffed full of observant IQ points. She puts loads of detective work into sussing out the differences between what she can read of other people's desires and how they actually behave in practice... and, what that means about who they are and how she should approach them.
- The Gadfly: She's Alec's half-sister, alright. But, she puts way more work into adjusting the kind of baiting she uses to suit the situation than he ever did. Her power helps her shift gears, as well as target appropriate sore points when getting her banter kicks.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: A variant. Based on the events seen entering the dream room, Candy was essentially prostituted by her father. However, one client simply, without overt maliciousness, overfed her so much that she was reduced to vomiting, yet continued to give her food and encourage her to eat, before offering her the opportunity to escape Heartbreaker over a third dessert consisting of her favorite ice cream. This led to her trigger event.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: More of an "I Like You" Stigma, but she has issues expressing fondness for people/things due to the circumstances surrounding her trigger.
- Little Miss Snarker: She's shown to be very caustic, especially with her family. Mind you, given said family... most respond best to sincere acid; false sugar tends to bring them out in rampant, retributive sadism. She knows what works.
- Radish Cure: A variant. A full blast of her power causes short-term hallucinations leading to permanent aversion towards whatever the target desired at that time.
- Sibling Rivalry: With Darlene. Hoo, boy — the girl just wears that puppy love on her sleeve like a tempting target...
- Shipper on Deck: She's almost as bad as Chastity for shipping any likely pairing (or poly) that comes into view. But, in her case, it's partly because Chastity feels she needs to ship as a means to stick two fingers up at what their father tried to turn them all into. And, Candy is so very down with doing and learning anything that fucks what Daddy wanted over. On top of caring about her Big Sis.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Subverted in chapter 16.10. It looks like she's going to give Tattletale one of these in retaliation for the completely uncalled-for one she just gave Victoria, but it ends up more like You Are Better Than You Think You Are.Reality check. You helped give us the best years we ever had. I know Imp went to you for money now and again and you paid, even though we were more hers than yours. I know you found the tutors and you found the fashion people and junk. I know you found Aroa's mom and I know that didn't go well but it was real nice you tried.
- Your Heart's Desire: She can produce a hallucination of her target's favorite thing, which perpetuates to the point that they get sick of it. The Required Secondary Powers? Having some handle on what makes them tick and what switches them right off, even if the specifics can escape her.
Syndicate
Darlene (Syndicate)
Has yet to come up with an acceptable cape name for herself at the beginning of the story; the consensus among the adults in the Undersiders and Breakthrough is that letting Chicken Little try to name her is a bad idea. Rejected names that he has brought forward so far include Hookup and Cahoot. She ultimately takes the name Syndicate.Classification: Thinker/Master
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Exaggerated. Darlene triggered on her birthday, and while alterations were possibly made to the specifics of the event when it was viewed entering the dream room, it appears that Heartbreaker took over another girl's birthday party and deliberately induced the trigger by forcing her to pick out a single child from there for him to kill.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She has a huge, poorly-concealed crush on Aiden.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Subverted. She can make her enemies feel the same pain she does, whether inflicted by others or herself, once they're linked together, but she doesn't enjoy it any more than they do. Still, she winds up hurting herself often in combat versus a determined opponent, because she knows the pain is coming before her enemy does and is prepared for it, while it throws them off.
- Psychic Link: Her power allows her to link the emotions and senses of others.
- Shipper on Deck: A very likely side-effect of her own power, yes. She isn't as vocal about it as either Chastity or Candy are, but... Yup. Those two together can read her like an open book. And, her reactions to others' existing emotional connections in turn fuel who and how they ship.
- Yandere: She nearly murders Kenzie, one of her best friends, for making Aiden moderately upset.
Catena
Juliette (Catena)
Classification: Master- Body-Count Competition: Nonlethal variant, but Roman and Juliette have an ongoing competition to get the most takedowns.
- Cain and Abel: She and Roman are among the most likely Heartbroken to end up killing each other.
- Creepy Monotone: Her voice shows very little inflection and she's described as cold-blooded.
- Emotions vs. Stoicism: With Juliette as the unempathetic Ice Queen and Roman as the hot-headed berserker.
- The Paralyzer: She can paralyze whoever she focuses on, but only while remaining still.
- Pause Scumming: She primarily uses her "freezing" ability in this way, halting people mid-step so they fall, mid-turn so they crash, or mid-swallow so they choke.
- People Puppets: A limited use— She can freeze someone in place for as long as she freezes herself.
- Stealing the Credit: She takes credit for Operator Red's apparent death. Interestingly, it is implied that she does this as much for Darlene's benefit as her own.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Although she's heavily weighted towards ice, she's protective of Chicken... and the younger kids, especially. She's unlikely to break out the hugs and is always ready with criticism, but she will go the extra mile to act as their shield when things get serious and will triple check that they're as OK both physically and emotionally as Heartbroken get. Except for Roman. He can die in a fire.
Chastity
Classification: Striker
- Abduction Is Love: She once "dragged off" a man and had to be hunted down by the other Heartbroken.
- Big Sister Instinct: Revealed to have had this towards Candy while growing up under their father, though it doesn't stop her from immediately putting a stop to her little sister's potentially dangerous mischief.
- Emotion Bomb: Inflicts despair on an opponent through contact, usually causing them to give up immediately.
- Ethical Slut: She may be a shameless flirt desperately searching for a relationship, but makes it clear that anyone who is currently in a relationship had better stay faithful.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: She's close friends with Cassie.
- Hidden Depths: Despite her outwardly flirty and confident appearance, inside she's rather self-aware of how damaged her family life has made her and her siblings, possesses quite a few insecurities, and still cares deeply for certain members of her family.
- Hollywood Beauty Standards: She has some very unrealistic ideas about beauty thanks to being raised by Heartbreaker, which fuels her desperate desire to find a partner at a young age.
- Ironic Name: She's not very chaste in mindset.
- Psychoactive Powers: Her power hits harder the more untouchable she looks, but falls apart as soon as she loses any face.
- Really Gets Around: She comes onto Precipice the first time she even talks to him.
- Shipper on Deck: If she finds a relationship dynamic to be both cute and compatible, she ships — Adrian is a common victim of her shipping (but, she's not exclusive; she'll ship whomever!). She quite openly ships hard (and embarrassingly... if you are part of that ship). Having other Heartbroken around as emotion-reading sounding-boards (for when her own reading isn't enough by itself) only makes her a more enthusiastic shipper. Candy is often a conspirator-shipper. Also, Darlene... when not being shipped/trolled by either of those two.
- Super-Senses: Her power gives her some feedback into a person's physical condition when they're near; such as allowing her to perceive the fact Swansong doesn't biologically have hands.
- The Tease: A version of this that takes fidelity surprisingly seriously.
- Weapon Specialization: She uses a bullwhip in battle.
Roman
Classification: Master
- The Berserker: As a consequence of his powers, he becomes a Leeroy Jenkins with Unstoppable Rage once he's enhanced.
- Blood Knight: Roman's been known to go out at night for the sole purpose of picking lopsided fights.
- Body-Count Competition: Nonlethal variant, but Roman and Juliette have an ongoing competition to get the most takedowns.
- Cain and Abel: He and Juliette are among the most likely Heartbroken to end up killing each other.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Changes his name from Romeo to Roman. Possibly to prevent any association between himself, Juliette, and Shakespeare's play.
- Emotion Bomb: Inflicts rage on an opponent and himself, causing them to throw caution to the wind and attack wildly.
- Emotions vs. Stoicism: With Juliette as the unempathetic Ice Queen and Roman as the hot-headed berserker.
- Hate Plague: His ability has to be used on others in addition to himself and enrages its targets to homicidal levels.
- Hot-Blooded: Very aggressive and outgoing despite being only 12.
- Lightning Bruiser: In his enhanced state, he's capable of defeating adults and is shown to be faster than is possible for a normal human.
- What You Are in the Dark: He risks his life without prompting to save Juliette during the Undersiders' fight against Oberon.
Aroa
Classification: Blaster/Master
- Agony Beam: A very weak one that only stings a bit, but it causes the target to enjoy the feeling, priming them to take more hits in the future.
- The Gadfly: Thrives on instigating conflict.
- Sadist: Tattletale describes her as one.
Florence
Classification: Master
- Compelling Voice: She has the power of permanent hypnosis through physical contact.
- Enfant Terrible: Despite being one of the youngest, she's easily among the most psychotic Heartbroken, which is saying something.
- Feral Child: She constantly has a Slasher Smile and frequently needs to be tied up to prevent her from attacking others.
- Token Evil Teammate: To the Heartbroken as their most unambiguously malicious member. While Flor is hardly the only one to enjoy the suffering of others, Juliette limits her most violent actions to Pay Evil unto Evil (or her feud with Roman) and Aroa spends most of her time engaging in annoying pranks or cruel comments. In contrast, Florence seems to be a kill order waiting to happen.
Nicholas
Classification: Master
- Scarily Competent Tracker: He was responsible for hunting Cherish to bring her back to Heartbreaker along with their other brother Guillame. Their persistence is what eventually drove her to the Slaughterhouse 9.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: He can induce waves of paralyzing terror.
Nathan
- Butt-Monkey: The unfortunate result of being a Muggle Born of Mages in a Big, Screwed-Up Family. He's been the victim of Candy, Nicholas, and Flor's powers.
- Muggle Born of Mages: One of Heartbreaker's children who didn't develop any powers.
Sons of Bitch
Bitch
Rachel Lindt (Bitch/Hellhound)
A blunt and generally abrasive woman who was one of the original Undersiders. Has the ability to empower dogs and cause them to grow into extremely large, super-tough dog monsters. To go along with this she has an innate ability to understand and interact with her dogs. For tropes related to her appearance in Worm, see here.Classification: Master 6
- Canine Companion: Always has a bunch of dogs around her and being a member of her group means being paired up with a dog to serve as your partner.
- Canis Major: She can turn wolves, dogs, and other canines into hulking monsters that can climb walls and shrug off gunfire.
- Insistent Terminology: Her cape name is "Bitch", not "Hellhound", and she hates it when people try to use the latter. When Victoria says she isn't comfortable with the name "Bitch" regardless, she gets permission to just use "Rachel" instead.
- Odd Friendship: Seems to have stricken one with Vista, from Brockton Bay, of all people. She also seems to have an okay relationship with Miss Militia if, according to Vista, she is willing to vouch for her to go to a "Brockton Bay reunion" during Polarize 10.10.
- Took a Level in Kindness:
- She's shown being a mentor figure to the Heartbroken, actively trying to reach out and connect with them; a far cry from the completely antisocial person she started out as in Worm. The Heartbroken call her "Aunt Rachel" in return. She's still Bitch, however, and doesn't think anything of having one of her dogs grab a man's head in its mouth for "looking at her funny". To her credit, that was one of the mercenaries who had betrayed them to March.
- Further demonstrated when Kenzie steals one of her puppies because she was desperate for emotional support. Rachel "merely" becomes furious, takes the dog back and tries to cut off contact with Kenzie and Breakthrough, rather than behave violently like she would have during Worm.
Cassie
An un-powered henchwoman of Rachel's who has worked for her since before Gold Morning.
- Badass Normal: Cassie has no interest in becoming a cape. Pretty logical, considering what she knows about them.
- The Beastmaster: She is shown to be nearly as skilled at controlling and riding Rachel's dogs as Bitch herself.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: She's close friends with Chastity.
- Odd Friendship: Surprisingly, she's best friends with the flirtatious Chastity.
- The Reliable One: Bitch considers Cassie to be someone who's never disappointed her.
- Undying Loyalty: Her allegiance is to Rachel first and foremost.
Needlepoints
Parian
Sabah (Parian)
One of the longer-standing members of the Undersiders, though not one of the original team. Has the ability to telekinetically control needles, thread, fluff, fabric, and other clothesmaking materials and create "doll-golems" with them. For tropes relating to her appearance in Worm, see here.
Classification: Master 6, Shaker(?)
- Bad Powers, Good People: One of the most good-aligned members of the Undersiders, past and present membership included, and yet her true ability to control the skin of corpses and knit them together into horrific constructs is the most overtly villainous power out of all of them, Skitter and Regent included. At least at the core, her use of it averts this, double so when it's revealed she was only consciously aware of her actual power's true use for a little over a year, and starts actively not using it. But even when she does start to use the horrifying aspect of her power, she still goes out of her way to get the consent of the teammates of the dead heroes whose skin and muscles she is stitching into a monster before using it.
- Body Horror: Her real power. Her power was never meant to work with needles, thread, and the fabrics she uses to make her dolls. It was meant to work with human skin and other dead tissues.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The nature of Parian's true power is hinted at earlier in the same chapter it is is revealed. Partway through Radiation 18.6 Foil gets a ride on a giant leather bird created by Parian and comments to Antares that Parian must be running low on materials, because leather always seemed to be a better material for her power and she tries to hold it in reserve. Leather is of course made of the skin of a dead animal. Then a little later, she is shown using clothes stripped from dead heroes for material, out of desperation. At the end of the chapter, it's finally shown that her true power is the telekinetic manipulation of dead human skin and other tissues.
- Godzilla Threshold: In Radiation 18.6, the threat of the Titans is sufficient to drive her to use her power for its true purpose.
- Master of Threads: Can control cloth and thread, which turns out to be a subset of her true power, which is the ability to control dead material, of which cloth made of plant or animal fibers barely counts as. This true ability is hinted at when Foil notes that Parian's power works even better with leather than cloth fiber, which is more directly dead skin.
- Mind over Matter: She can control lightweight materials, though her control falters on items larger than half a pound. She primarily uses this to control cloth to form golem-like minions, as her power can "soak into" the material and compensate for its larger size.
- Necromancer: The true expression of her power is to telekinetically control human skin and other dead tissue rather than cloth, and so everything we've seen her do with her cloth dolls, she can actually do with corpses. It's likely that the only reason she could even control cloth and thread is that it is often primarily made from dead organic matter to begin with.
- Official Couple: Has been with Foil since Worm.
- Token Good Teammate: Along with Foil, she's the most morally upstanding member of the Undersiders.
Foil
Lily (Foil, formerly Flechette)
A member of the Undersiders who joined slightly after Parian did in order to be with her, defecting from the Wards in the process. She originally triggered when her older sister attempted to murder her via incoming subway train, but failed, along with two others who were pushed onto the tracks, one of those people being March. Has the ability to empower any object she touches with an effect that breaks the laws of physics and allows it to penetrate through and stick to anything, plus an enhanced sense of timing and accuracy to allow her to effectively employ it at any range. Favors using it on swords, darts, and crossbow bolts. For tropes related to her appearance in Worm, see here.
Classification: Striker, Blaster, Thinker
- Dark and Troubled Past: On top of being a ward of the foster care system, her trigger was the result of her own sibling attempting to murder her out of a twisted belief that she was the cause of everything messed up in her life.
- Formerly Fit: Downplayed, as she's still a capable fighter, but Tattletale's power notes that she's put on weight and relaxed her old workout routines due to being happy in her relationship with Parian.
- Impaled Palm: Twice. On one occasion, she fires a gun through her own hand, in order to imbue the bullet with her power; she says this is the only way to effectively use her power on bullets as they move too fast for her to touch otherwise, and trying to do so through the gun tends to break it. The second time, she blocks March's rapier with her hand. Vista had used her power to shorten the blade, so it didn't penetrate all the way through and only the surface of the palm experienced the effect of March's power, exploding away from Foil and doing little damage.
- Official Couple: Has been with Parian since Worm.
- Logical Weakness: Using her power on bullets is extremely difficult and not worth attempting in most cases. This is because her power allows objects to selectively ignore the laws of physics, but guns are mechanical devices that require action and reaction to cause the round to fire. If her power "soaks" completely through the gun, nothing moves; if it only soaks partway, the parts tend to phase through each other and/or fuse together. And because the bullet is inside the gun when it fires, she can't just affect it alone, unless she's willing to put her hand in the way of a speeding bullet...
- Royal Rapier: Her primary weapon is a rapier as part of her knight and lady aesthetic with Parian.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Interlude 10 reveals that even after all this time Foil still resents Tattletale for in her eyes forcing Parian into villainy, which the latter's power reminds her of at every given opportunity. That said, in Blinding 11.10 when she sets the record straight with Victoria regarding how the Undersiders took over Brockton Bay, she shows that she's well aware of Tattletale's more positive qualities.
- Token Good Teammate: Along with Parian, she's the most morally upstanding member of the Undersiders.
- Unblockable Attack: Items she touches can be imbued with properties that allow them to ignore most laws of physics, letting them clip right through physical matter until the effect times out. With her Thinker power to give her incredible judgement for timing, this is usually when it's already where she wants it.
