Ather City/Characters
Ather City
Player Characters
Mike
Was a member of the Council of mutants, and a rather important persona in it. Possessed shadow powers until Dominic attacked him and killed him, or tried to kill him. The attempt evidently purified Mike completely, replacing his shadow powers for light ones and his dark and evil personality by a heavenly one. He acted as a sort of guide to the adventurers, aiding Dominic in his last strike against Cepheus by granting his powers onto Dominic's blade. He also advises the survivors of the final battle on their future, before disappearing.
Michael 'Silencer' Bolt
Little is known about his life before the blast, other than that he was a night security guard for the Ather Corporation. Word of God implies that he and Nick were one good friends before the explosion. One of the survivors of the blast that ravaged Ather City, Michael originally led the Underworld faction in an initial campaign of chaos and destruction. When the city's population was further wiped out, he took to the shadows, watching and getting involved in other character's plans. While acting as a servant to Cepheus, he was given a arm composed of brimstone, which was later replaced by a robotic prosthesis created by Nick.
- Anti-Villain
- Ax Crazy: There is literally no other way to describe someone who, in order:
- Kills a snake demon and makes a scythe/sword out of its bones;
- Gouges out a dragon's eye after it rips one of his arms from its socket;
- Has someone throw him at one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- Badass Normal: Up until he receives the brimstone arm
- Badass Transplant
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Michael gets Brought Down To Normal during the fight against the dragon, he's bleeding out, and then he gouges the dragon's eye out with his good arm.
- Determinator: See above
- Diagnosis From Doctor Badass: several non-dialogue versions
- Evil Weapon: his brimstone arm physically attacks him a few times
- Fastball Special: invoked by name
- The Dragon: Temporarily, and against his will
Marvin
Matthew
- Super Soldier: He was the second in his series, the first being unsuccessful.
Daniel Crest
Daniel was a good friend of John's when John saved him from Void. He was a good friend right up until he killed someone innocent, then attacked John right in front of Janine. Janine then stabbed him and John pushed him off the roof they were on.
Eclipsis 'Void' Eclipsion
A tentacled, finger-blade-wielding mutant, survivor of the Bomb and de facto leader of the Council after his recruitment into it; he deliberately buried his past from before the Bomb, even changing his name to make sure it was gone completely. He also had a major rivalry with Dominic, to the point where they ended up fighting if they so much as saw each other.
- Chewing the Scenery: Whilst not a Large Ham in and of himself, Void does lapse into screaming/shouting fits regularly, usually due to some action of Dominic's.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Averted in terms of speech, but played straight in several fighting situations - notably his decapitation, and subsequent electrocution and fall to Earth. His tentacles helped there too.
- Hunter of His Own Kind: ...yeah.
- Ineffectual Loner: To some extent, after the Council is forcibly disbanded.
- Master Swordsman: Implied; he does have ten long blades attached to his fingers, after all.
- Peek-a-Bangs: His lank, messy hair falls over his left eye.
- Skyward Scream: When the Council headquarters is destroyed.
Dominic
A trained martial artist and master swordsman, he was Head of Security for the Special Weapons Division of the Main Research complex in Downtown Ather City. After the events of the Bomb he joined with one of the major factions that sprouted from the chaos. Through a series of events involving bounty hunting, vials of mutagenic liquid, and a healthy dose of conscience/survivor's guilt, Dominic would become leader of the group safeguarding the remaining human survivors from the monsters roaming the massive city.
- Master Swordsman: Trained by his teacher Richard Dregg since his youth, he was without equal in Ather City.
- Hot for Student: Dominic spent as much time training as he did fending off his teacher's lecherous advances. It actually, unbelievably, gets better after the Bomb, since Dick was only into little boys.
- Shock and Awe: The second power he receives from a vial he took from the Speedster hideout.
- Teleport Spam: The first power he receives.
- Took a Level in Badass: While already a strong warrior before receiving his powers, with them he became the most powerful mutant in Ather City.
- Loss of Identity: Since he automatically became a mutant upon receiving his powers despite the lack of cosmetic change to his appearance, Dominic struggled for a long time to find a way to identify himself that did not involve associating with the monsters he hated. In the end he accepts his permanent change and renounces his humanity, resolving to keep his ideals in his new form.
- Hunter of His Own Kind: As a mutant, he fought and killed many of his kind even after accepting his new identity. Granted, most of the time he was defending himself and the humans under his protection but the notion still holds.
- Laser Blade: Given to him by an opponent, before he leaves the town. Said opponent spent all his life creating it.
- He used the same weapon against Cepheus as it was his strongest weapon.
Riley Smithson
The orphan heroine whose life forever changed upon meeting Dominic. Living a regular life before the Bomb, Riley was a topnotch student in medical school, and a martial arts trainee. Master Li, her mentor and guardian, helped her overcome many obstacles, to include those in her personal and professional life as well. The weeks following the Bomb, Riley found herself alone and in terrible need of some guidance. She had been stripped of the last person she cared for, and it wasn't until she met the swordsman that she was able to open up emotionally, as well as learn her purpose in life.
- Action Girl
- Badass Bookworm
- BFG
- The Chick
- Morph Weapon
Victor Sonic
The son of a falsely convicted man, and a chemical engineer by profession, he lost all his past memory after the Bomb. After a short term residence with another mutant named Brad, ending with Brad's brutal death in the hands of feral mutants, he met Riley, aka Rogue, and thereafter joined Dominic's group and assisted in defending the humans. With a mind connection with Cepheus, along with frequent visits to the mental 'gym' of 'Lavaland', Victor soon became Dominic's loyal right hand, assisting him in the destruction of Cepheus, and fulfilling his final wish.
- Playing with Fire: Primary mutation. He can also absorb fire and gain its powers.
- Jekyll and Hyde: Once Cepheus took hold of his mind, anything dark made him momentarily forget his loyalty to Dominic and get urges to attack his own allies.
- Psychic Link: Between him and Cepheus. Though at first controlled by Cepheus, he managed to use it against him after some time, gaining insight into his foe's actions.
Nick Keyes
The head of Weapons Development for the Ather Corporation, and the leader of the Hive in the beginning of the game. Eventually disbands, and joins Dominic. Possessor of remarkable genius, Nick later mutated, and was the first to attain access to 'Mindscape', an alternate dimensional location.
John Matthews
An American world-famous boxer, going to Ather City for a fight and was caught up in the events. Begun the game with gravity defying powers, but changed to super strength and telepathy, thanks to a dosage of Entropy (mutagen) by the Grey. Husband of Janine Matthews, with whom he fathered two sons. Was captured by the Grey twice, the second time being right before the hellhole opened up.
Big Larry
An NUO experiment, made to resemble a giant crab.
- Dumb Muscle: His one wish when meeting up with John, Goodkat and Victor was for walnuts. When he realised the group didn't have them, he tried to eat Victor's gun instead,until Dominic intervened.
Gerald Goodkat
An assassin.
Non-player characters - Villainy
Cepheus
The Big Bad, and the ruler of hell. He had plans regarding Ather City (Basically, he was going to take over the mortal realm starting with it). After he was double crossed by Michael Bolt, his offer to make him general in his army refused by Dominic, and his failing to control Victor Sonic, he surfaced, along with his Horsemen.
Plague
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Quirky Miniboss Squad of Cepheus's, introduced and killed in the finale
War
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Quirky Miniboss Squad of Cepheus's, introduced and killed in the finale.
Non-player characters - Other
Janine Matthews
John Matthews' wife, with whom she had two sons. She had no powers and was promptly killed by Cepheus.
The World After
Player Characters
Andrus Sonic
The chosen protagonist of the story - the one that would be featured on the cover art, had there been any. A Frenchman, he's had a calm childhood when Paris was still intact in the post-apocalyptic world. After its destruction, Andrus began Walking the Earth in sorrow, looking for events to find him.
- Cool Sword: Made of Orichalcum, and can absorb all forms of energy, and take a relevant form.
- It should be noted that it can also absorb some materials, and possibly elements. This was seen in the prequel, where it became imbibed with chlorine.
- Orichalcum is also the opposite in powers to Brimstone, which it was seen to repel in the prequel, when the weapon in question was used to challenge the wielder of a brimstone weapon.
- Identical Grandson: A descendant of Victor Sonic from the first game - and eerily similar.
- Magic Knight: Wields both a sword and his fire mutant abilities, later supplemented by Paititi's magic.
- Wrecked Weapon: Courtesy to Colonel Howard's self destructive attack, his Orichalcum sword was reduced to a mere sheet of the metal.
- Playing with Fire: Primary mutation, or inheritance. Possibly both. Actually, he can manipulate energy. Although fire is the type he produces.
- The Hero: Chosen by the GM to be the lead protagonist. Ingame, people tend to follow his advice.
- Breath Weapon: Fire, and sometimes smoke.
- Ancient Artifact: Victor passed on his powers, which also consisted of a part of Cepheus's might, into a steel gauntlet. Andrus rarely dons it (having worn it only thrice). It evidently grants him access to 'Lavaland', and increases his energy sensing and manipulation prowess.
- Having a Blast: Displayed in both the fight against the Golem near the Stonehenge, as well as against General Monash in Dreadbay Prison. This is usually done by causing streams of fire to move within the target, and then send a wave of energy within to make it explode.
- Battle Aura: He covers himself in flames.
- Sword Beam: Orichalcum can let off controlled blasts and arcs of absorbed energy.
- Reforged Blade: The Orichalcum sword is reforged on reaching Giza. The overall shape of the weapon itself is somewhat altered, along with the whole weapon being made significantly more damage-resistant.
- Healing Hands: Using Self Magic, wounds can be healed to an extent.
- Energy Ball: During the spar against Dominic along the Nile
- The subtrope Fireballs is also frequently invoked.
- Flaming Sword
- Dishing Out Dirt: Earth Magic is his selected element for mastery.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: When his Berserk Mode/Subconscious takes over.
- Hot Blade: From the destruction of the Orichalcum sword to its reappearance, he mostly heated the blades of his 'backup' weapons.
- Super-Powered Evil Side: The 'voice in his head'. To be specific, the 'mutant Andrus'.
- Explosion Propulsion: His almost too-frequently used method of getting to high places as well as dodging in battle.
- Cutlass Between the Teeth: In the fight against Isis in Thinis.
- Talking Is a Free Action: At least, talking with subconscious mutant Andrus. Before pretty much any action in a battle, the two go into a pretty lengthy discussion of the the factors that affect the combat.
- Hand Blast: Utilizing fire produced by his body.
- After obtaining magic, he uses fire magic instead, for similar effects.
- Finger-Snap Lighter: Displayed as an offensive ability for the first time against Isis.
- Master Swordsman: While not even near Dominic level, he is a skilful swordsman.
- Shock and Awe: Utilizing a mix of Fire magic and Reverse-Fire magic to form a cloud and an obsidian rod hurled at supersonic speed through it, he allows a lightning bolt to follow the ionized path and strike his Orichalcum sword, which he then uses to attack Isis.
- Granted, the accompanying rain plays a more vital role, preventing the Priestess from using her mutant ability to turn into sand and evade all attacks.
Rick Matthews
An Englishman, he had a very, very bad childhood, with his parents beating him up and throwing him out at 18 years old. Since then, he's been wandering the streets, until he found Jake. The two journeyed to City of the Dying, in which he saved Andrus's life from two members of the criminal gang Klilox, and is generally looked upon by Andrus as a brother.
- Cool Hat: Although everybody seems to have forgotten, he does wear a cowboy hat.
- Super Speed: Although he never seems to use it.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Physically and mentally abused by someone who he thought was his father, but was in fact a shapeshifter who took over the family when his real dad had to run from the NUO.
- Boom! Headshot!: He was killed by a NUO sniper.
- Pink Mist: Accompanying the above trope.
Jake
An Englishman, born in London, who has the ability to create a copy of himself. He met with Rick Matthews in London, and the two became friends. He stayed with him and the rest of the group right up until he got slaughtered by a sniper and had his head blown off.
Lee Matthews
An Englishman, and brother to Rick. He would have had a childhood as bad as Rick's, but the shapeshifter who took over the family was outwitted by his real father and Lee was saved by him.
- Compelling Voice: His hypnosis works through his voice.
- Mind Manipulation: His ability is short-range hypnosis.
Solaris Embarta
Granddaughter of Eclipsis 'Void' Eclipsion. Joined the gaggle shortly after the visit in the City of the Dying. Used to be obsessed with being sexual towards her grandfather, whom she met outside the aforementioned city. After his death, her urges were transferred to everything else.
- Badass Longcoat
- Casting a Shadow: Achieves type 2 near the middle of the story.
- Cool Hat: The loss of which is apparently the driving force behind her anti-NUO endeavours.
- She was clearly against the NUO even before that. The hat's loss only strengthened her resolve... or something along those lines.
- Cool Sword: Pharoah Osiris' sword once it fell into her hands.
- Doubles as a BFS (assuming an average height of 180cm for Egyptians in-game, the sword has a minimum length of three and a half metres) and an Absurdly Sharp Blade (comparing its sharpness with that of her own finger blades, Solaris figures that it could probably cut through the titanium-esque hides of the sandworms from earlier with ease).
- Expy: Solaris' bodily form (but not attire) is very similar to one Mis(ao) Kusakabe... aside from the tentacles and claws, of course.
- Extreme Omnivore: As a side effect of her regenerative abilities.
- Genre Savvy: Having obtained Pharoah Osiris' sword after he died, she correctly figures out that someone important used to own it...
- Wrong Genre Savvy: ...on the following logical basis:
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Surprisingly, this has been averted so far with her.
- Hollywood Science: One of the defining traits of her lightbending ability is that this trope is completely averted.
- Lamarck Was Right: She has the same mutant powers as her grandfather, although in a diluted version, purely through inheritance - her story doesn't feature any unnatural exposures to radiation of any kind.
- Light'Em Up: Can modify paths of light, letting her hide areas, create invisibility fields...
- Frickin' Laser Beams: ...or turn light coherent and amass it in a thin beam.
- Wave Motion Gun: Or a massive beam, potentially. There haven't been any caps set on what exactly she can do with her lightbending powers as of yet, other than that what she does has to obey real physics.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: ...or turn light coherent and amass it in a thin beam.
- Naughty Tentacles: Quite.
- Shipper on Deck: For Lucinda and Andrus. Not that she minds if they AREN'T together...
Conglacior Solus
A baby silver dragon hatched from an egg in the ruins of Dreadbay Prison. Adopted by Solaris, although Jack seems to be an adoptive parent as well, seeing as Solus' loyalty is open to the one with more tasty, meaty treats.
Lucinda Alice Berelan
A newcomer to the story. Born in France, she is a member of a clan, females of which have access to a disembodied bank of memories of their ancestresses. She spent most of her life on the sea, isolated from the happenings of the mainland.
- Blade on a Stick: Received an adamantine partisan from the Creator after the encounter with him.
- Brought Down to Normal: Cancelled at the end of Paititi arc, causing her ability to be weakened or surpressed to almost nothing. The shared memories stayed, though.
- Expy: Looks very, very similar to a certain other Alice. One acts as a puppeteer to her own body and immediate surroundings, the other uses dolls.
- Flying Brick: Her ability to manipulate herself has let her move around pretty much as fast as she wants while taking no harm from it.
- Glacier Waif: And her looks don't hint at her ability at all - in fact, she has a below-average build. Her muscles didn't have to do any work themselves, so they only developed as much as outside-force-caused contractions prompted them to, and never feeling tired, she ate and even breathed less than an average human.
- Gadgeteer Genius: After the Paititi arc, she acts like one, having loads and loads of equipment left over by the Tourist, with some usually being fitting for the situation.
- Gender-Restricted Ability: Only the family's females have access to shared memories.
- Implacable Woman: There was no defined cap for the amount of force Lucinda could put in both stopping her flesh from changing shape or causing her whole body to move.
- She did, however, keep her movement below 1% light speed at all times, as she was not willing to explore the realm of relativity.
- Lamarck Was Right: If the shared memories are a result of a mutation, this applies, since every female in the family has had the ability since a long time ago - possibly since the happenings of Ather City.
- Light'Em Up: Lucinda was a natural, if somewhat dim, light source. No, not dim in this way, the light was weak.
- Shown Their Work: Lucinda used to mumble the kinetic energy formula to calculate how hard she will or has hit something.
Eclipsis Void
Solaris' grandfather, and one of the few survivors of Ather City. Dropped the latter part of his name, Eclipsion, after an unspecified time, and had since wandered the planet. Was killed by Dominic after threatening to rape Rick's mother (to make a point clear, however, he felt he was justified in merely threatening to do so, and never actually intended to rape her). His soul was brought to the Floating Islands by Mike after his death, an act for which he ended up confessing that he loved Mike over.
- Berserk Button: Don't call him Tentacles. Ever.
- Casting a Shadow: Type 1, in the form of an expandable aura of fear around himself.
- Deader Than Dead: Hoo-boy. See Rasputinian Death below.
- Died Happily Ever After: Almost certainly because Mike brought Void's soul to the Floating Islands, with permission, after God-equivalent Dominic personally excommunicated the latter.
- Extreme Omnivore: He is capable of drinking several bottles of spirits before getting drunk (and then only for a short while), and is essentially capable of digesting anything he eats without ill effect. Except that one rare strain of plant put into his breakfast that one time...
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Mostly averted in AC2, although he would likely have died in his attempts to calm down the Nazi army from WWII without it.
- If It's You It's Okay: For Mike, as he realises once brought to the Islands by him.
- I'm a Humanitarian: He eats a large portion of a Nazi army from WWII after he kills them off... to recover biomass, of course, but the Squick is still there in spades.
- Large Ham: His name. The character himself wasn't one.
- Really? That's a shame... I was going more for Awesome McCoolname than anything else.
- Peek-a-Bangs: His lank, messy hair STILL falls over his left eye. You'd think he'd have done something about it in the last two hundred and fifty years, but...
- Maybe he really likes that hair style?
- Or it's stuck like that due to his regenerative abilities. Either one.
- Maybe he really likes that hair style?
- Rasputinian Death / Family-Unfriendly Death: Having survived for two hundred and fifty years, Void finally suffers a long, gory, painful, thorough death after pissing off Dominic a tad too much (see character description). Thus, in order:
- He is disembowelled;
- His heart is ripped from his chest;
- He is impaled hundreds of times below the neck;
- His body is crushed into a paste between two slabs of rock, at which point he would have died anyway...
- ...and then his head is incinerated to the point of total disintegration, just to make sure. Ouch.
- Red Herring Twist: The vials of Entropy and Eden on that belt he's wearing? They are never brought up in-story. His ability to create an aura of sheer terror around him is also, for the most part, ignored.
- The NUO did get their hands on a few vials of Entropy, though, as shown during the fight against General Monash; he may or may not have been the source.
- Technical Pacifist: Not stated in-game, but in contrast to the violent slaughter he engages in in the first game, he only ends up killing or attempting to kill in the second game through instinctive reactions against mindless creatures (as with the mutant dog in the first town he is seen in) or as a last resort against sentient creatures who cannot otherwise be reasoned with (as with the Nazi army, and, of course, against Dominic).
- The Smart Guy: Enough so, after a hundred and fifty years of studying, to re-engineer a cure for mutation, as well as an agent to induce it, from a single vial of the former.
Jack Scarlet
Second in command, and a loyal friend to Andrus Sonic, Jack is literally 'The Gunman'. Completing the duo of gun and sword, Jack has remarkable talent in ranged weapons. He is self-trained, and has a painful past, in which his town was overran by feral mutants, and he was forced to take up arms thereon. Calm, quiet and reassuring, Jack is greatly trusted by the others, for his reliability and quick thinking.
- Abnormal Ammo: His gun, a Soul Gun, shoots bullets which harm the soul of the target, while also causing physical damage.
- The Lancer
- The Quiet One
- Wrecked Weapon: The Soul Gun is destroyed by Colonel Howard and his self-destructive explosion.
- Talking in Your Dreams: Not only does Jack have the ability to converse with his ancestor through dreams, he also practices the special 'art' of 'dream fighting', where a loss usually spells mental distress. It helps him to train his skills.
- The Gunslinger: A mix of A and D.
Weed
A 'grimeling' from the South American jungle. Totally savage and illiterate for most of the story. Met in the Paititi arc for the first time, but only joined the gaggle after being thrown to Japan from Paititi. He thinks that Andrus owes him a prize, a misconception arising from one of the latter's speeches during their first meeting.
- Plant Person
- The Speechless: This changes only late in the story, after the Paititi arc.
Michael 'Silencer' Bolt
One of the few survivors of Ather City.
Connor Gray
Born into the Hive and has been a member of them for his entire life.
Seren
He returns in the sequel, and has white blood which can heal all wounds. He seems to fear a mutant who had tortured him. After a maniacal outburst in City of the Dying, he was shunned by Andrus and his team, whereupon he flew away. He was killed by Dominic as he was fighting in the streets of the City of the Dying.
Sol Shard
Born in Africa, is a reincarnation of someone killed in Ather City. He came to Africa after his family was completely hunted down by the war Government, and, in City of the Dying, met Andrus and his team. He wields a spear, and knows the secret rainforest magic.
- Blade on a Stick: Wields one from the rainforest. Said weapon also has magic imbued in it.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Loss of an arm did not really deter his adventuring with the party.
- Missing Mom
- Brought Down to Normal
- Magical Incantation: Unlike 'conventional' magic, rainforest magic requires Sol to utter elaborate incantations in Swahili.
- An Arm and a Leg: Type 2. The former, in Dreadbay Prison, Australia.
Jarret Rayford
Can drain anything for energy, or convert something to something else using said energy.
The Jester
A maniac living in Brazil. He dressed as a jester, and enjoyed torturing people without any reason. He was killed by Dominic when the latter came to Brazil and was attacked by the former.
Dana Black
Matt
Dominic
Escapes from Hell in the time between the two games, and is immortal. When Nick offers him the choice to stay on earth or stay in the Mindscape, he chooses the latter.
- Hero-Killer
- Physical God: Dominic wields almost as many powers as Jonathan, including, amongst other things, immortality, use of five different forms of magic at a master level (magical mastery being confined to one element per character in any other case), teleportation, flight, and massively enhanced speed and strength.
- Of note, these powers allow him to destroy the physical form of a conglomeration of all eight Phases of Light at once. These being the nearly-omnipotent beings destined to destroy the True King of Hell when it rises to Earth from Hell.
- Ghost in the Machine: His soul has possessed Matthew's body.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Invoked against Andrus while sparring against him during the Nile cruise. Said energy beam consisted mostly of electricity.
Mike
He reappears in the sequel, and helps Jack, his descendant, in attaining magic from the Stonehenge. He also brings Void's soul into the Floating Islands after his death.
- Spirit Advisor: He is effectively dead, but still reappears to aid his descendant whenever he requires it.
Jonathan Newton
A powerful telepath suffering from self-inflicted amnesia for unknown reasons. He used to be a member of the Novus Ordo Seclorum high council, but succeeded in leaving the organization. His abilities are Telekinesis and Telepathy, but using these in creative ways gives him a huge selection of powers.
- An Ice Person: He can freeze things by slowing down air molecules. Combine this with his Deflector Shields and he can make "fake ice", which is tougher than his regular force fields. Johann especially likes to use this power.
- Author Existence Failure: The creator of this character stated that he has no more time to participate in TWA. Jonathan was Put on a Bus forever along with Jennifer Lorenz.
- Awesome By Analysis: All of his powers stem from telekinesis and telepathy. He can use them in creative ways.
- Badass Boast: Nathan did this in his first appearance.
Nathan: I live. And the world shall suffer.
- Badass Longcoat: Badass long black leather duster. It's so badass that it's fireproof, as lampshaded by Jonas.
- Barrier Warrior: He uses telekinesis to make Deflector Shields. Like all of his other powers, these can be used in different ways, such as shields, blades, or battering rams.
- Battle Couple: He's this with Jenny.
- Bullet Time: He can speed up his perception of time and thus slowing down everything else. He can use this to detect Super Speed users.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Jonas tends to use rather... colorful language.
- Curb Stomp Battle: Nathan tends to do this to anyone stupid enough to try and stop him. Compared to Jonathan's other three personalities, Nathan is on an entirely different level...
- An example: John, Johann, and Jonas get thoroughly trounced by a gigantic, incredibly tough, regenerative, five-headed dragon. Cue Nathan, who instantly obliterates all five of the dragon's heads, unleashes a freaking Gatling railgun on its body, then grinds the creature to dust with millions of microscopic force fields.
- Nepycros then suspects that John is Not Himself. He instantly gets atomized. Good thing he can respawn.
- An example: John, Johann, and Jonas get thoroughly trounced by a gigantic, incredibly tough, regenerative, five-headed dragon. Cue Nathan, who instantly obliterates all five of the dragon's heads, unleashes a freaking Gatling railgun on its body, then grinds the creature to dust with millions of microscopic force fields.
- Feel No Pain: He can block out pain with mind control.
- Flying Brick: His "psionic armor" makes him into this. It's a dense force field wrapped around his entire body that gives him super strength, durability, and flight.
- Green Lantern Ring: His telekinesis is essentially this. Its strength even scales directly with willpower.
- The Heartless: Nathan.
- Instant Armor: Psionic armor.
- Kaleidoscope Eyes: His eye color varies depending on which personality is on control. John is yellow, Jonas red, and Johann blue.
- And Nathan an incredibly dark purple.
- The original Jonathan Newton has light purple eyes.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Performed on himself, no less. He deleted all memories of his past but left those regarding the usage of his abilities intact.
- Mathematician's Answer: Not surprisingly, Johann.
Johann: "I estimate that an edge thickness of four hundred sixty-seven point three nine nanometers or less is required to cut through its molecular bonds."
- Mind Manipulation: If he tries hard enough, he can control minds. Including his own, which leads to a few interesting usages.
- Mind Over Matter: One of his basic abilities is creating energy particles called "psions" from his mind. Those particles can interact with real matter, enabling him to move stuff with his mind.
- Mind Probe: Though the target doesn't feel pain, just uneasiness.
- Mind Rape: Nathan can do this. His first attempt on Jenny was stopped by The Power of Love.
- Photographic Memory: Jonathan can control his own mind and make himself not forget anything important. His powers can be used in so many ways that it literally requires eidetic memory to remember them all. This also allows him to be an Instant Expert, since if he can do something right once, he can do it right every time.
- Playing with Fire: He can create fire by heating up air molecules with telekinesis. Jonas's fighting style focuses on this.
- Power Born of Madness: Nathan.
- The Power of Hate: This is what fuels Nathan's powers to absurd levels.
- Sharpened to a Single Atom: Johann can produce such ice blades.
- Shock and Awe: With telekinesis, he can create intangible conductive wires that direct electricity. This looks a lot like a lightning bolt, but John specifically says that it's not electrostatic discharge, since real lightning is almost impossible to control. This is John's main method of offense since it allows him to knock out enemies without killing them.
- Split Personality: He has three that can communicate among themselves. They form a Freudian Trio, with John as the ego, Jonas as the id, and Johann as the superego.
- Super-Powered Evil Side: Nathan again.
Jennifer Lorenz
Jonathan's girlfriend and partner in Novus Ordo Seclorum. Like her boyfriend, she also wishes to leave the organization, and successfully does so when her cross is destroyed.
- Action Girl
- Amnesiac Lover: Jonathan is this to her. But it all works out for her, when she allows Jonathan to probe her mind to make sure that they really were a couple before.
- Author Existence Failure: See Jonathan's entry.
- Badass in Distress: Her power doesn't work on non-biological things. She had to be rescued twice from monsters made of stone.
- Battle Couple: With Jonathan.
- The Empath: Unlike Jonathan, Jenny can read thoughts directly without using a Mind Probe.
- Healing Factor: Jenny has an energy field permeating her body that constantly heals her, going as far as creating organic matter out of nothing.
- Healing Hands: She can also extend this healing field onto other objects.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Leather jacket, pants, and boots. And it's justified too. Her ability to repair biological tissues means that she can repair clothing made of tanned animal hide.
- Mundane Utility: Among other things, Jenny uses her power to trim her fingernails, keep her skin flawless, and regrow a piece of half-eaten steak.
- The Power of Love: When Nathan tried to Mind Rape her, Jenny suppressed him by showing him happy memories of them together.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: She is shown to be able to stay for more than fifteen minutes on the bottom of a lake. Probably because her healing power repairs any cellular damage caused by oxygen deprivation.
- Universal Poison: In addition to healing, she can destroy organic matter as well. Any organic matter, no matter how tough.
Professor Abel
A shapeshifting mutant originally born in Machu Pichu, his immense intellect led him to try and discover as much about the physical world as possible; then, when he discovered mostly everything, to try and find out more about the realms outside that which the game is set in. Having done so to some extent, he ended up being hired by the NUO in the guise of an exceptionally intelligent human, mostly because he would receive both the resources and the protection he needed to bring to life his most ambitious invention: the soul transferral machine.
- Lightning Bruiser: Well, his mutation grants him a host of ability-esque side effects, like the fact that he has a ridiculously high IQ, can transfer muscle to melee attacks for extremely strong punches and transform parts of himself into virtually any substance, he can build nearly anything, teleport anything he can imagine to an area in front of him (with a weight limit below 100kg), and oh yes he wields an automatically reloading Ray Gun with exploding plasma packets for projectiles. Yes, this trope definitely applies here.
- Ray Gun: One which fires exploding plasma packets at speeds higher than those of modern weapons.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: Justified in that they aren't real lasers, but packets of hydrogen heated to a plasma that explode upon hitting anything. And they still fly as fast as, if not faster than regular bullets.
- Shapeshifting: An extremely diverse type of shapeshifting, too - he can transform the atoms of his body and anything he touches into other atoms completely, presumably through some form of quantum mechanics that only he would understand in the game's context, therefore allowing him to create any substance he likes to use to his own ends, as a weapon or otherwise.
- The Smart Guy
- Genius Bruiser: When one can transfer large amounts of muscle to an area whenever one throws a punch - one usually backed by spikes of some form to boot - despite appearing to be an old-ish scientist-type guy, this trope would apply.
Prisoner 001
- Mr. Smith: The usual kind.
- Mismatched Eyes: In his original form, one eye is blue, the other red.
- Vampiric Draining: His secondary power. Draining requires physical contact, however. Drained victims are converted into lifeless shells.
Frost (Wu Shuang)
The son of a runaway Chinese prince and a an exiled sorceress, Frost is a wandering swordsman who wishes simply to observe the world and maintain balance. He is Wu Ming's younger cousin, and a former foot soldier of Novus Ordo Seclorum.
- Ambition Is Evil: He firmly believes that all ambition invariably leads to downfall. The reasons for such a belief have not yet been revealed.
- Bag of Holding: The Mundane Utility of his Mindscape.
- But Not Too Foreign: Half Chinese, half British.
- Calling Your Attacks: All of his attacks are named.
- Cool Sword: The Heaven-Devouring Blade, made of an alloy of iron, orichalcum, and adamantium. His Frosted Sky Blade also counts literally, being frigidly cold by absorbing ambient heat to strengthen itself.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Cheryl Smith likes to call him Frosty.
- Instant Armor: Frosted Sky Armor, made of Life Energy and ambient heat.
- Ki Attacks: All of his ranged attacks.
- Master Swordsman: With neither side using any supernatural abilities, he fought Dominic to a tie.
- Necromancer: He can reanimate a single corpse at a time and control it, through a combination of Life Energy and death magic.
- Nerves of Steel. The few instances when he does show fear or some other emotion are often emphasized.
- Supernatural Martial Arts: A trademark of the Wu family.
- Sword Beam: His main method of attack.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The deaths of his parents are too traumatic for him to consciously remember.
- Walking the Earth
- What Is This Thing You Call Love?: He doesn't seem to realize that he's attracted to Cheryl.
Cheryl Smith
A young woman pursued by the Japanese Neo-Shogunate for the Evil Weapon she possesses.
- Action Girl
- But Not Too Foreign: Half American, half Japanese.
- Combat Clairvoyance: Quite underdeveloped at the moment. Probably because foreseeing yourself horribly wounded, mutilated, or killed isn't exactly a pleasant experience.
- Her subconsciousness can use this extremely well, it seems.
- Determinator
- Evil Weapon: The Juuchiyosamu, or Ten Thousand Cold Nights katana, forged from iron, brimstone, and bloodsteel, using dark magic. It gives her an incredible boost in power, but tends to turn her into a bloodthirsty killing machine.
- Fiery Redhead
- Flaming Sword
- Girlish Pigtails
- Though she lets her hair down after her mother's death is avenged.
- Hellfire: While using the aforementioned Evil Weapon, Cheryl's flames turn from bright crimson to black and blood red. They emit next to no heat or light, and burns even nonflammable things.
- Her subconscious side can use this dark fire without the sword's help. She calls it the highest form of destructive Fire magic, since it burns everything and wastes no energy emitting needless heat and light.
- Hot-Blooded
- Hot Chick with a Sword
- Mundane Utility: She has magical spells for instantly cleaning her clothes and constructing tents from nearby earthen materials.
- Playing with Fire
- Power Nullifier: One of her powers. Unfortunately it also negates her own powers.
- Her subconscious side can use this power on itself to temporarily disable it, which allows her to trade reijutsu for real magic according to the game's rules.
- Shout-Out
- Super-Powered Evil Side: A bloodthirsty killing machine while using the Ten Thousand Cold Nights sword. With Red Eyes, Take Warning and Hellish Pupils to boot.
- When the sword possesses her fully, she gains Tainted Veins and Black Eyes of Crazy.
- Her subconsciousness too, though without the Hellish Pupils. Not quite evil, but does have little regard for the safety and wellbeing of others. For example, she uses a potentially lethal attack in a sparring match against Frost just because her clairvoyance foresees Frost successfully defending against it.
- Tsundere
- You Killed My Mother: Promptly before unleashing Roaring Rampage of Revenge on Hikaru's son Tatsuyou. The battle even manages to catch Dominic's attention.
Amy Narsk
An NUO sniper, and has been all her life.
- The Atoner: After realising she was brainwashed, after Sarah died, she decided to stop obeying the NUO and go and help the main group, because of her actions under Sarah's sway.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: By Sarah.
- Cold Sniper: Averted.
Aether
A Self elemental born from a magical ritual gone haywire, Aether walks the Earth to seek others like himself.
- Elemental Shapeshifting: The effect of his magic is to transform into any substance he can survive touching. Elemental Baggage and Shapeshifter Baggage included as parts of the ability.
- Reverse Polarity: His magic mimics the environment. Running it backwards makes the environment mimic him, releasing magic that corrupts matter and energy alike. Too bad this also reverses his morality.
Non-player characters - Villainy
Tycho Wallenquist
Ex-Big Bad, now dead by Riley.
Lucius Ferre
Leader of the extremely secretive Novus Ordo Seclorum organization, and the current Big Bad.
Lucius: ...but I was BORN Ascended! I was chosen by the World to do Its Will!
- Ancient Conspiracy: Considering that he knows all the events of the first game, Lucius has probably been around for a long time.
- Dark Messiah
- Extra Ore Dinary
- Fantastic Racism: He vehemently despises non-mutant, non-mage, ordinary humans without special powers.
- Faux Symbolism: His insignia is a silver cross with three pairs of white angelic wings. He gives silver crosses to all Novus Ordo Seclorum members. His Mindscape looks like a church. His name looks like "Lucifer". NOS members refer to one another as "Brothers" and "Sisters". Other than those, no references to Christianity has been made regarding Lucius yet.
- Kill All Humans: Seems to be his primary goal.
- Light'Em Up
- Light Is Not Good
- Meaningful Name: "Lucius Ferre" sounds like "Lucifer"; his first and last names also refer to his abilities over light and metal respectively.
- Manipulative Bastard
- Mental World: His Mindscape, the headquarters of Novus Ordo Seclorum.
- Nigh Invulnerable: His whole body is made of luciferite, a nearly indestructible silvery white metal. Only Chaos's Anti-Magic black fire was shown destroying it.
- Soul Jar: Used to have hundreds of them scattered around the world, but most have been recently destroyed.
- Soul Power: His substitute for Telepathy.
- Space Master: Bending the curvature of space also doubles as Gravity Master as well.
Evangeline Wright
- Making a Splash
- Retcon: Not any more. Now she has a secret power than nobody else knows about.
Vladimir Minkowski
Wu Ming
- Blow You Away
- Calling Your Attacks
- Complete Monster: His cold, bloodthirsty ruthlessness is repeatedly emphasized. He had no second thoughts about killing his own father, who treated him with love and care and gave him everything he ever wanted.
- Cool Sword: One made of luciferite.
- Ki Attacks
- Master Swordsman
- Razor Wind
- Soulless Shell: Currently a meat puppet reanimated by Frost.
- Sword Beam
Isis Ptolemy
- Death From Above: "Tears of Ra", a shower of etinarg spikes.
- Especially impressive considering that etinarg falls up, not down like normal rock such as granite.
- Dishing Out Dirt
David Smith
Kyomura Zanji
- Curb Stomp Battle: On the receiving end from Jonathan.
- Doppelganger Spin: Sadly, this did not work when he used it on Jonathan, a telepath.
- Flash Step
- Ninja
- Super Speed
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Killed off as soon as he was introduced.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Before being killed by Lucius.
Legion
A Self elemental, originally formed without its own sapience and with the ability to corrupt matter, it underwent a series of soul infusion experiments enacted by Professor Abel. These souls did grant it sapience of a kind, although this belonged entirely to the souls in question; only when the five hundredth soul had been infused into it did its own sapience emerge, rapidly suppressing that of the other five hundred, and granting it an entirely new ability in the process - that of Animancy, or soul control. With this, it annihilated the inhabitants of the bunker it had previously inhabited, then turned its gaze upon the rest of the planet...
- Enemy to All Living Things: Implied by the fact that it basically eats souls to grow more powerful.
- Perhaps even moreso before its sapience started up - its ability back then was to spread a corrupting influence through nearby infrastructure and living beings alike, a certain death sentence without a shot of an antidotal fluid developed by Abel.
- Mind Probe: It can do this to any souls it makes contact with. Generally, this means absorbing the soul; however, it has been shown to be capable of doing this without absorbing the soul, as it did with, ah... Abel. You know, the one with knowledge of practically everything? Yeah, him...
- Omnicidal Maniac: So its first act upon gaining its own sapience is to essentially kill the inhabitants of an entire NUO bunker. Its second act is to begin doing exactly the same thing to nearby Berlin. Either this trope applies perfectly, or Legion is trying to set up a soul harvesting scheme for itself.
- It's been revealed that something close to the latter is true.
- Our Souls Are Different: Souls it absorbs appear as cyan spheres of energy within the spherical construct on its back. Or rather, they do to anyone who has the opportunity to see into it without being absorbed in the process.
- Soul Jar: A living example - rather than being sent to the Floating Islands or Hell, souls absorbed by Legion are kept inside its body in what is described as a soul pit, to be used as a source of power for it to absorb even more souls.
- Voice of the Legion / I Am Legion: Duh.
- Wave Motion Gun: Made of souls, no less.
Arthur McQuietus
Originally the bodyguard of Kazu Nakamura’s grand grandson, and a well trained member of the NUO, Arthur was altered radically after being exposed to the horribly powerful 'Furor', a form of mutagen derived from Entropy. Transformed into a raging monster, he mercilessly slaughtered people, sometimes willingly, at other times, without conscious knowledge. He gained partial immortality, as well as two other 'stages' of himself, which he himself named Pictor Rang, and the Angel of Death. With mysterious deeds and heinous secrets in tow, that slowly earned him the power to manipulate 'Paint' (purified Furor, that can be used to form structures) and black magic abilities, Arthur McQuietus set his sights on his one real aim: destruction of the mortal world, and all who live in it.
- Clean Cut: The last standing soldier after he came out of the ruins of Central London.
- Enemy to All Living Things: At night, the touch of his dark magic causes grass to curl and die, and animals shy away from his presence.
- Mad Artist: Pictor Rang, as demonstrated by his 'artworks' during destruction of London.
- Psycho Serum: Furor, as well as Paint.
- Casting a Shadow: A mix of Types 1 and 5.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Without doubt. The destruction of the world is his only aim.
Sarah Matthews
Mother of Rick and Lee Matthew.
- Berserk Button: She has one, that apparently causes her to go so mad she stabs her own son.
- Break the Cutie: Done on both Solaris and Lee.
- Light Is Not Good: She resembles and angel, with the wings and long white robe, but then she indirectly kills Rick. Her own son
- Mind Manipulation: Her ability is telepathy.
- Mind Rape: Done on her own son. The one she didn't kill, that is.
- Freudian Excuse: Subverted. It appears to be the reason she attacked Rick... then it turns out she was addicted to her own telepathy and one of the side effects was mood swings. She totally lied about being raped.
- And she admits this to Solaris specifically, just to break her slightly more than she already had been by the loss of her grandfather.
Chaos
A guy with a giant airship powered by mutant abilities. He can also negate powers with fire or something... really, someone else can do this.