Thursday, October 30, 2014

Character Bios, Part Four (Excelion Universe)

Ehh... The author is not quite sure about this one, but doesn't have anything else lined up at the moment. Hopefully, he'll get around to editing it eventually.

Name: Maximum Dalton
Aliases: Red Prince, Demon Core Thief
Age: 29 (Probably) Somewhere around three thousand (Possibly)
Occupation: Mysterious Aerospace Executive
Affiliations: Alhazren Investigation Group (Terminated), Jacinta Aerospace Company, Brave Crown (Terribly mysterious)
Clearances: Azure (Official), Ultraviolet (Suspected access)
Equipment: Prehensile Scarf (living, or possibly mechanical), Custom Bracers, Demon Core
Super Mode: Duke of Braves
Appearance: A cleanshaven man in a somewhat armored business suit, combat boots, and a pair of thick black metal bracers that cover the lower half of each forearm. He wears a very nice silver scarf, and his eyes are an amber brown that looks red from some angles.
Character Notes: Superhumanly strong, but mostly in his upper body. Can affect psychic fields, and give directives of similar insistance to extreme hunger by eye contact. Both usually wear off rather quickly, but can be nasty in a fight. Wears a silver scarf that he can move at will, block most attacks with by spinning it, and used to belong to a friend of his. He may be keeping it as a memento, or possibly to return it at a later date, but either way he is very angry if it is damaged, and this is the only known way to consistently get him to activate the Demon Core.

His moveset:
  • Charge/Parry: Scarf wraps around his neck. Blocks or deflects almost anything at torso or head level from any side. Anyone who gets too close feels a shorter range version of his charge shot at roughly a quarter power.
  • Charge Attack:
    • No charge: Scarf strikes out with a punch about half as strong as his others, but with better range and can be used in combination with other attacks.
    • Partial charge: Scarf unwraps rapidly, deals slightly stronger hits than normal and hits several times in quick succession. The more charge time beforehand, the less initial range, and the more time to build up inertia.
    • Full charge: Same as partial charge, just at maximum power.
      • Super Mode Activation: The scarf is too tightly wrapped to deflect an incoming attack, and is damaged. Max goes at least briefly berserk, his eyes turn red, and he activates as the Duke of Braves. A red mist also begins to rise from his body, signifying the change.
  • Main Attack: Max punches out. Decent damage, can alternate arms to increase speed. Pretty good if it gets going, but difficult to turn after building up inertia.
  • Psychotrope Move: Max extends an arm, and if any opponents are facing him, he can give them a simple command. In practice, this means his player can press a button on his controller and either autopress or disable that button for his victims, depending on the action (stuff like hitting or cutting things autopress, stuff like guns disable).

Name: Grace
Aliases: Subject Tiamat, Dark Light Patient Seven, Jennifer Green
Age: 12-14 (birth date unknown, at least nine)
Occupation: Dark Light Test Subject (stable), (ward of state)
Affiliations: Dark Light Project (status unknown)
Clearances: Vermillion, Azure (by proxy of her legal guardians)
Equipment: High Durability Hospital Robe, Dark Light Symbiote
Super Mode: Dark Light Stage Six; “Saving Grace”
Appearance: A young girl, probably no older than fifteen, with straight black hair in several layers, with the outer layers several inches shorter than the inner ones, creating the impression of a waterfall or plate armor. Her skin is a dark greyish cream that looks almost natural, and can be mistaken for such from a distance. There is a hexagonal grid of thin, dark grey lines over her entire body, and the ones on her forearms and hands are nearly black, although on closer inspection they are actually the breaks where the flesh has separated and started to crystallize. Her irises are also a faintly glowing violet, but her expression is vacant. Combined with the lack of shoes and the sheer, thin, knee length gown she wears constantly, the whole effect is of a long term hospital patient with a very unusual condition.
Character Notes: Was present, and partially responsible for, the Dark Light Incident. Hasn’t deliberately killed anyone, probably hasn’t directly caused anyone’s death either, although it was probably a close thing. May or may not want to return to the Dark Light Analysis and Engineering Institute, which has been her home for the last eight and a half years.
Design Notes: Dark Light shares several similarities with the Jormungandr Microbe, and both are derived from the same source. Nevertheless, they behave quite differently in many respects, most notably in how they progress. While Jormungandr Microbes are passive most of the time, relying on their Cores for all production and commands, and collecting until they can complete their task in one stage, Dark Light is much more active, and probably as a result almost constantly emits a particle that triggers a phenomenon latent in humans, which arrests both the progress of Dark Light and the human’s higher mental processes while inducing a great desire to extinguish the source of the particle. As Dark Light is the only major source of the particle, and it had not yet been synthesized when the phenomenon was discovered, it is classified as a substage of Dark Light itself, although the proper term for uninfected humans reacting to it is Extinguishers. Most personal forcefields can block the particle, although this is useless if the person it is trying to shield is emitting it. Dark Light progresses in stages, and more advanced stages increase strength to compensate segmenting the body into ever more crystalline shards. In the few advanced cases on record, it also increases mental capabilities enough to partially compensate for Extinguisher Syndrome, although there is a notable personality change to the point of disconnect, probably because the lower brain functions are being used to emulate higher functions. Grace is actually a name that Jennifer Green, also a placeholder name, chose for her Dark Light persona.
See Also: Dark Light Stages

Development Notes: Grace may be based (very loosely) on elements from Prototype, an old, violent, videogame from 2009, of which the author has read excellent fanfic, and he may have intended to include the variant of telekinesis from Elfen Lied, which he thought was really cool and wishes was in a series he would actually watch. It has been quite some time since the author came up with her, and he has sadly forgotten what other elements went into her design, besides parts of his own vampire mechanics, but on reflection, he also vaguely remembers being somewhat proud of this one for being completely his work besides the naming theme.

Her Moveset:
  • Charge/Parry: Grace holds up her arms and the segments begin to spread out, blacken, and grow into large crystalline spikes. Guard area fairly quickly spreads from middle torso area to full chest and upper leg coverage, and anything that hits the shields cause the segments to break apart and spread faster.
  • Charge Attack:
    • No charge: Grace turns her fingertips into claws and grabs with them, dealing damage while she’s holding on to her target. Her grip is fairly easy to break due to her small frame, but can be used on walls to scale them.
    • Partial charge: Grace launches some of the shards from her arm. She can later absorb scattered shards to regain health. Reasonably accurate, low damage individually but can be combined with constant charge for significantly longer rapid fire at the cost of reduced guard coverage. Shards embedded in solid surfaces are sharp enough to do damage on contact with anyone besides Grace, and can unbalance anyone who walks over them.
    • Full charge: Grace holds up both arms, now massive sections of crystal spikes, and detonates them. Spikes fly everywhere, and each has several times the velocity, and therefore damage, of the partial charge. Enough get launched, over a long enough period, to ricochet off the first set rather than embedding themselves.
      • If something hits Grace while her shields are fully formed but before her feet have properly latched into the floor, she will fall over, hit her head, and slip into unconciousness due to how thin her body is spread, deactivating the Extinguisher effect. She will then promptly progress to Dark Light Stage Six, with her entire body turning to white crystal shards, healing any wounds she has, and allowing Grace to take over without waking Jennifer, although when Jennifer does wake up, and therefore reactivates the Extinguisher effect, she regresses to Stage Five.
  • Main Attack: Grace kicks out with a leg sweep, revealing the flowing shorts under the gown. Mostly good for tripping people, for which, due to her enhanced strength, it is quite effective, and requires bracing to stay upright against.
  • Psychotrope Move: Grace turns one of her arms into a crystal spike, then extends it rapidly. At close range, it moves fast enough to do extensive damage to heavy armor and even get a short way past personal forcefields, exposing the target to unfiltered Dark Light particles and briefly inducing Extinguisher Syndrome in the process, although the exposure is not long enough for actual infection. (Ingame, ES causes an autopilot to take over for six to ten seconds, depending on the dose, with different autopilots for each character, and different levels to which they can be overridden. Both Francis and Max are completely immune to it.)

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Character Bios, Part Three (Excelion Universe)

The author would like to formally apologize for being such a flake. He also just realized that he forgot to complete the second moveset, so he will attempt to make it up by posting the updated Part One and post Makoto's moveset later.

EDIT: The author has long since fixed the above, but isn't really sure about his final game analyses. Maybe he'll update them later?

Name: Jane Trimble Quell
Aliases: Officer Quell (preferred title), Crazy Magic Cyborg
Age: 27 (looks about twenty two)
Occupation: Magic Circle Field Agent, Combat Specialty
Affiliations: Magic Circle, Northeast America Coalition
Clearances: Cyan (General), Indigo (Case Specific)
Equipment: Magic Circle Experimental Heavy Prosthetic (Rebounding Projectile Forcefield Generator, Doppler Core, Telekinetic Grappling Hook Line), Glove Mounted Shock Prongs, Heavy Riot Sword (experimental, forcefield based, requires major power source)
Super Mode: Riot Quell
Appearance: A twentysomething woman with auburn hair in a tight bun, a darkish grey police or military uniform, well starched with gold trim, and a very large prosthetic right arm. Said prosthetic is a light grey, half the width of her torso, and separated at the elbow. There is no obvious attachment between the two sections, but the forearm stays afloat anyway. At each side of the break, there is a three pronged clamp, positioned not to get in each other’s way, and in the center of each clamp is a red, glowing, half submerged sphere. The gauntlet fingers are clawed, and the palm has a green lense in the center, surrounded by a raised metal rim. On her other hand, she has a pair of prongs attached to the back of a black glove, with gold circuitry patterns.
Character Notes: Loves her job, but didn’t actually try to lose her arm so she could get her prosthetic. Is thrilled with it anyway, and remarkably dextrous with it, despite the pointed fingers the width of her nose. She has since had the option to regrow her human arm, but declined it.

Design Notes: Her prosthetic arm is powered by the Doppler Core- a matched set of devices that appear as red spheres, and repel each other with more force the closer they are brought together. This repulsion can be partially harvested for energy, and at usual distances can power the light pink multiuse rebound type forcefields launched by it’s primary weapon system, as well as the telekinetic attachment between their two housings. This, as well as safety concerns, are why she cannot use her projectile weapon while the arm is extended in grappling hook form. On contact, however, the two spheres emit enough energy to power both her Riot Sword, a rapid fire version of her forcefield weapon, and seriously increase her personal shielding and strength boosting capabilities while turning the applicable forcefields a bright amber. Unfortunately, the stress on the clamps is high while doing this, especially if the energy is not being siphoned off to power high energy activities such as charged Riot Sword blows or rapid fire forcefield launcher use, requiring rapid deactivation or else risk permanent and possibly explosive damage to her equipment or person. The other main limiting factor is the amount of force it takes to force the Cores that close together in the first place, and the only known onboard method is to charge a forcefield to maximum and have it pushed back into the palm by something heavy or explosive. This can be imitated by falling at least three meters with the palm and charged forcefield stretched toward the ground, but it mostly relies on a successful execution boosting defensive capabilities enough to survive without serious injury, and is thus not recommended.

Development Notes: Based originally on Omega of Megaman Zero Three and probably Quistis Trepe, at least for her face. Some abilities are probably inspired by other Megaman games.

Her Moveset:
  • Charge/Parry: Quell holds up her prosthetic and starts making a forcefield ball from the lense on the palm. Deflects anything the forcefield would affect and Quell automatically tries to move it to block anything she can see coming.
  • Charge Attack:
    • No charge: Textbook hammerblow with prosthetic arm. Decent damage, decent chance of knockdown even for braced characters, decent knockback, slow recovery.
    • Partial charge: Bright pink forcefield ball fired at high speed. It ricochets off walls and opponents, and both duration and damage depend on charge level.
    • Full charge: Massive forcefield ball, double the minimum size, with four small ones behind it in a square spread pattern. Really, really powerful. Doesn’t take long to charge, either, making Quell a fairly high tier character by itself.
      • Super Mode Activation: Quell’s charged forcefield is too powerful to contain while it blocks an incoming attack, but she’s braced for it anyway and uses the explosion to connect her Doppler Cores, activating Riot Mode, although it’s better known as Riot Quell.
  • Main Attack: Quell launches her arm forward, grabbing the first thing it can (unless the player holds the button, in which case it becomes a psudeorocket punch). She can then reel it to her if it’s lighter than her and mobile, pull herself to it if it’s heavier or well braced, and pivot around it/slam it into things if she’s close enough. Good damage, decent range, leaves her wide open while she does it, requiring strategy to make useful.
  • Antiarmor Move: Quell’s Shock Prongs. A weakish punch, followed by latching on and electrocuting whatever they hit. Causes disorientation, can grab walls and ceilings. Decent damage, difficult to escape, leaves her wide open to other opponents. Pair with grab attack for best effect, and so you can drop them quickly if you need to.

Final Analysis: Quell is a brawler, and good at it. Decent ranged attacks, decent melee abilities, fairly slow unless she uses the grappling hook, which can be difficult to master. A fun character. to use, and fairly good at attrition thanks to high health.

Name: Makoto No Dachi
Aliases: Sa So Ri, The Puppeteer Swordsman
Age: 32 (looks like he could be anywhere between twenty five and forty)
Occupation: Wandering Swordsman, Handyman, Toymaker
Affiliations: Sakurajima Republic (former, unconfirmed), The Individual Thirteen (former, theorized, unconfirmed)
Clearances: None (Unregistered Citizen)
Equipment: Kumo To Arashi (paired swords, a wakizashi and a nodachi respectively), Harpoon Dolls
Super Mode: Tetsuo-Ō
Appearance: A large man with short black hair. He carries two swords, a very large one on his back and a shorter one on his waist. He wears a loose green garment that at first appears to have a lighter green floral pattern but on close examination actually depicts gears and pulleys. He seems much more comfortable with the larger sword, sometimes seeming to forget the smaller one is there. He is large man, with a round belly, but always seems elegant nonetheless. His sleeves contain tools and parts, and he often makes simple four legged, ball shaped dolls to act as grappling hooks or assist him in combat with their poisoned needles. Has a small black beard and moustache.
Character Notes: Fought and killed Hachisaburo, a member of the Individual Thirteen at the time, and took his shortsword, Kumo. The theory that he was Hachisaburo’s former or current apprentice at the time is a popular one among the Thirteen’s fanbase, but is unconfirmed. Hachisaburo was not able to use Kumo’s purification abilities, probably because his gravity powers were incompatible with it. It is unknown if Arashi has purification powers of it’s own or even if it can be used to channel those of Kumo, although Makoto has either not been able to successfully. Both swords abilities have become stronger in each other’s presence, this is most prominent when he holds both of them, to the point that they can damage Excelion armor. Together, they allow him to assume the form of Tetsuo-Ō, the title of the king and hero the swords were traditionally passed down to, although he has yet to fully master the swords powers, and so far can only assume the transformation in combat.

Development Notes:
Makoto is inspired by Ame-No-Murakumo-No-Tsurugi, or more accurately the myth behind it being renamed Kusanagi No Tsurugi, with references (mostly just names or vague descriptions), intentional or not, to; AKIRA, The Burning Throne (Legend of the Five Rings campaign, posted on Larry Correia's website), Akatsuki Member Sasori of Naruto, and probably something else, but is now mostly my own invention. Oh, and Hachisaburo is a reference to Rokusaburo of Spellbound, also by Larry Correia. Along with the then inert Kumo, Hachisaburo used his signature double barreled shotgun, which resembled two stretched four chamber revolvers, one on top of the other with the top one behind the bottom, chambers within a millimeter of each other, although with a longer barrel on top so it could end at the same place as the bottom one. Evidently, something other than a normal hammer was used to trigger the rounds.

His Moveset:
  • Charge/Parry: Makoto raises his swords and concentrates. Any physical projectiles that get too close will be at least partially deflected by winds, no matter the direction, and he will attempt to bat anything heavier away with his swords. Lastly, Kumo will automatically cleanse him of illusions, psychotropes, compulsions, and most poisons while he does this, although the time this takes varies depending on the effect.
  • Charge Attack:
    • No charge: Makoto swipes with his larger sword. Reasonable damage, decent range, can alternate with his smaller sword very quickly.
    • Partial charge: Makoto makes a very fast cut with his larger sword. Slightly better range than no charge, also causes a breeze in whatever direction he was aiming at. Strength of breeze and strike both increase proportional to charge time. Can be used to intercept some projectiles more safely than the parry, such as Hannah’s rockets.
    • Full charge: Makoto slashes with both his swords, and uses the momentum to begin spinning. Creates a whirlwind around him, and anything which gets too close is flung away hard, usually causing more damage with flung debris than by direct contact damage. Lasts about fifteen seconds, and drags up dust and small gravel by destroying the floor. Takes a while to accelerate in any direction, but lets him move more than twice his walking speed with three seconds of acceleration time, and if he can trap an opponent against a wall with it, they will likely be very badly injured, even in Super Mode.
      • Super Mode Activation: Makoto reaches a state of full meditation, and then intercepts an attack directly, opening his eyes, awakening his swords, and assuming the form of Tetsuo-Ō. Ornate white and grey samurai armor forms over his clothes, and there is a wind dragon theme to it, complimenting the swords, whose pommelstones glow green beginning from a slit in the center, crafting the image of opening eyes.
  • Main Attack: Makoto sheaths Kumo, if it is out, and draws a four legged, spherical doll from his sleeve, assembling it in the process. The doll is attached to some mechanism in his sleeve by a wire, and he launches it as a grappling hook in whichever direction he is aiming at. If it latches on to a wall or ceiling, he can swing from it, or detach the doll and reel the wire back in so he can launch another one. If he does this, the doll will attempt to launch itself at any opponents that get too close, latching on and stabbing them repeatedly, inflicting reasonable damage until they are shaken off or run out of power on their own.
  • Antiarmor Move: Makoto draws Kumo, if he doesn’t have it out already, and attacks with it. Kumo will automatically pierce defensive forcefields, cleanse the effects of Psychotrope Moves, and render both briefly inoperable on contact.

Final Analysis: An unusual character, heavily melee focused, with one of the rare trap abilities. Dangerous if used correctly, but mostly a lower tier character with a middle tier charge attack.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Overlord Complex

The author really needs to start setting these up in advance. Next week, more Character Bios!

Overlord Complex is the last of the three powersets. It is in some ways the least physical, as it has no obvious effect on the body by default. On the other hand, however, it can act as a strength enhancer, and is the only one that can actually allow the user to fly. Overlord Complex is also unique in that it is the only one of the three with an inherent ranged ability*, as Rival Complex needs things to throw, and Hero Complex is similarly limited to things the Hero has had contact with.

Overlord Complex allows the user to create bright purple orbs of energy around or near various parts of their body, most instinctively the hands, that repel all matter. The Overlord is normally unaffected by their own power, even if their powers are being used to lift something that would crush them otherwise. Their clothes are not inherently granted the same immunity, however, causing danger of wardrobe failure if not outright crushing to the inexperienced. The sphere of force that makes up the orbs can be focused, rapidly expanding a small section to the shape of a beam, consuming the rest of the orb in the process. The length and width of the beam can also be controlled, further concentrating the force. While the orbs push towards their surfaces in all directions, the beams push in far fewer, although this can be manipulated with experience. As their own clothing must be excluded from the effects of the forcefields manually, amateur Overlords cannot safely use Overlord beams with nearly the same intensity or speed as experienced ones.

The main ability that experienced Overlords gain is to manipulate the generation points of forcefields. By making multiple projection orbs at once, the Overlord can get a slightly lower intensity beam that lasts much longer, many dispersed beams, or slightly staggered beams from slightly different origin points, causing the rapid generation of heat in the area of overlap.

Notably, the beams can be consciously directed to affect the Overlord, and act as instant, reactionless propulsion along their path, allowing flight if used correctly. The standard method is to create a constantly refreshed sphere around both feet, then create a wide, short range beam around the calves, allowing full movement, although there are better methods for rapid acceleration or sustained flight. Veteran Overlords often create a full body forcefield, then add a lower one  generating a beam around their entire body. This method has the side effect of making the user feel as if they are falling, however, so it is often modified to only push the legs or torso.

The last particularly notable effect of Overlord Complex is that the second most simple focus for the forcefields are the eyes, and a interesting quirk renders the irises the same shade as the forcefields instinctively, requiring active concentration to suppress the effect. It seems to correlate with readiness to use the Overlord powers, sometimes deactivating on their own when an Overlord is relaxed.

*Some Rivals have demonstrated the ability to shatter and launch their own armor, but this seems to be more of an exploitable side effect than an inherent function.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Rival Complex

The author is holding off on posting the third Character Bio set for the Excelion universe, as it requires further editing. So you get this instead.

Rival Complex is the only one of the three powersets that appears to be incomplete, at least at first.
Rival Complex is characterized by white, glowing armor that at first appears in pieces. When it progresses to it’s final stage, it covers the whole body. The consistent trait between cases where it appears is a deep, often desperate desire for power. Specifically, it seems to show up in people who desperately desire an alternative to several bad options.

The primary ability of Rival Complex is to control force transmission between the armor and anything it is in contact with. A properly trained rival is capable of being nearly unstoppable simply by redirecting all opposing force away from themselves, and can propel themselves very rapidly by jumping and directing all force towards themselves. This ability can also be used to allow Rivals to run on surfaces that could not possibly hold their weight, jump off of freefalling objects without changing their trajectory, and survive almost anything besides an Overlord beam, a Hero bypassing their armor, or a fellow Rival overpowering them.

Rival armor materializes around the skin of the Rival, and preserves anything that was already there, with the sole exception of foreign living human flesh, which is ejected from the area. Only human flesh will trigger this, and the current suspicion is that this is related to humans being the only things known to manifest Hero, Rival, or Overlord Complex. This means that clothing is preserved, although if the Rival is wearing something that would only partly be caught in the effect, such as a backpack, they are advised to remove it before summoning their armor.
Rival armor is skintight, but parts can be removed if the Rival is willing. Otherwise, such as when shattered by bullets, the pieces will fade from existence like they do when dismissed.

Rival armor appears to be somewhat malleable, in that it allows a full range of motion to its user and never chafes. It is, in fact, completely rigid, and sufficient damage will cause it to shatter. The misconception comes from the tendency to add or remove pieces around joints automatically as needed, simulating the effect of a stretchable covering. The default seems to be to form contiguous segments with breaks at the joints, however, so this is difficult to prove.

There are a few known ways to counter Rival armor. The first is that it is opaque, meaning that even someone who has mastered Rival Complex cannot armor their eyes without obstructing their vision, creating an obvious weak point that their powers cannot directly affect. The second is that they cannot easily redirect force from two directions at once, making them somewhat vulnerable to crushing. The third is surprise. If they are hit by something that breaks their armor or kills them before they know to counter it, it will. The fourth is to overheat them. Rival Complex armor can act as a perfect thermal insulator, but once again the need for eyeholes interferes with this, and so does the potential for overheating from the inside, although both are surpassable. The beams Overlord Complex produces can bypass their ability completely, because they impart force without using mass as a transmitter, and Hero Complex can convert glowing Rival armor with difficulty, although the process destroys both. Finally, other Rivals can counter the force redirection ability, simply making it a fight between very strong people in very sturdy armor who can run on walls or airborne gravel.

The other quirks of Rival Complex include finer hearing and touch than humanly possible, movement without muscular support, the ability to suspend all chemical reactions in areas of the body covered by the armor, and the ability to delay breathing indefinitely without problem, presumably as an extension of the former. Some mechanism also seems to be in place to keep the brain running without requiring the normal nutrients necessary to do so. Therefore, if someone is willing to seal the eyeholes and completely enclose themselves in their armor, then they can live indefinitely, even if poisoned, missing large fractions of their body, or in hard vacuum, although some dementia seems to be inevitable if used to prolong age for too long. None of the abilities are available outside of the armor, however, and therefore most of the more advanced uses are unavailable or at least unsafe until the armor is completed.

Lastly, the shape of the armor is unique to every person, and it is believed that the reason it is not all available from the start is that the pieces are still being decided by the users actions.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Hero Complex

The author is very apologetic. He had this ready yesterday afternoon, but inexplicably forgot to post it. Fortunately, it is still Thursday somewhere. He hopes.

Hero Complex is the standard name for a specific set of superpowers. It is gained through unknown means, but all recorded cases seem to include the choice to not betray one’s principles. All known cases of Hero Complex have the same ability.

Hero Complex grants the ability to phase matter the Hero is in contact with, including their own body, and by extension rapidly reshape it. Phasing is accomplished by the Hero touching something solid and activating the effect, allowing the Hero to shift either themselves, their targets, or both into a completely light absorbing state that is then automatically counted as part of the Hero. The process can be reversed with roughly equal ease.

All matter in the altered state is preserved on a chemical scale, even if compressed or reshaped massively while in the altered state. If it is left in that altered form when it reverts to normal matter, however, chemical bonds usually stretch far beyond the breaking point, causing rapid combustion in almost all cases. While it is theoretically possible to force nuclear fusion or fission with this process, in practice it requires the same force to keep an object in a different shape than it was when first converted as it would to reshape it manually.
Anything in the affected state can be reflected off solid matter instead of phasing either party, and this is actually the default. The only restrictions on what can be subjected to the altered state are that no object can be altered, or even phased through, (as phasing is a subset of the alteration) if it is glowing, and an unknown mass limit per Hero, strongly suspected to be a result of the human brain being unable to properly comprehend more.

As all objects glow in some spectrums, one of the more notable quirks of Hero Complex is to annihilate small amounts of matter in the altered state while removing all radiation from the target of alteration. It is unknown what happens to the matter and energy that is seemingly destroyed in this process, but it is suspected to involve a similar and probably parallel mechanism to how Overlord Complex is supplied with energy.

A notable side effect of the phasing and shapeshifting is the ability to make what are, in essence, perfect cuts and grafts, usually paired with ridiculously thin blades. Heroes frequently use their powers for construction, vastly speeding the process and replacing the need for most heavy equipment.