Shroud vs. Coil | B&B BATTLE BLOGS!

 

“Brains will always conquer brawn, in the end. The soldiers can flex their muscles all they want, but the well-thought-out tactics of the generals are what win the war.” - Patrick Hall

Shroud, leader of the Red Ring and scourge of the Superhero Dispatch Network.

Coil, crime boss of Brockton Bay and one of its most calculating Parahumans.

In a world of larger-than-life heroes faster than speeding bullets and more powerful than locomotives, it’s hard to imagine someone without that same kind of power becoming a feared supervillain. But these two have proven the exact opposite - Their powers of prediction and their dangerous minds allowed them to become some of the most terrifying, fearsome villains in their cities. But when these two masterminds and their criminal organizations go toe-to-toe, which one will prove themselves the better? Time to find out, on a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Begin… 

What we’re covering in this fight is more complicated than it may initially seem. For materials, Shroud will be getting the Dispatch game and its tie in comics, while Coil will be getting the Worm web serial and any relevant word of god information from series creator Wildbow, who is typically very reliable with his information, establishing things like power limitations or what would happen in alternate timelines. You should play and read both of those, by the way, they’re really good.

More notably, we’ll be giving both of them the full output of their organizations, rather than making this a one-on-one slugfest. Given the modus operandi of these two villains, a direct fight is hardly something they prefer to engage in. Additionally, as neither of them are the type to blindly attack another organization without reason, some ground rules will have to be set for this fight.

First, We will be assuming a hybrid city of Torrance and Brockton Bay, in which both figures have a lay of the land. Since this is an urban fight with two crime lords ruling large portions of their cities’ underworld, setting the fight in neutral territory makes the most sense.

Second, We will not be equalizing their sources of superpowers for this fight. This is surprisingly important to a couple characters here, but essentially, all powers in the Parahumans series come from the same, extremely specific source, while powers in Dispatch can come from a variety of sources such as alien physiology, genetic mutations, or supernatural forces. This will determine how certain characters’ powers interact, which we’ll get into later.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, We will be assuming the organizations are at the peak of their membership, even if some of those members would later go on to betray or be betrayed by the organization. Specifically…

• This means that Shroud and the Red Ring will also have access to Invisi-gal despite her ultimately betraying him in the end, as he did have her as a double agent through the whole story. Additionally, we’ll be giving him access to both Coupé and Sonar despite their membership to the Red Ring being mutually exclusive. We will also be giving him access to the Astral Pulse. Even though he only held it for a very brief time in the main story of dispatch, acquiring it was his goal throughout the story, and he also helped to build it.

• For Coil’s side, he will have access to Faultline’s mercenary crew, as he’s hired them before. He’ll also have access to the Undersiders despite betraying and trying to kill them, as he only did that once their use outweighed the cost they were asking of him, that being to release Dinah. There are a few other particulars that we’ll get to later as they come up. However, equipment or abilities acquired by these characters outside of their employment (Like one of the undersiders later becoming a hero and gaining a jetpack) will not be counted. We also won’t include members of the organization or sub-groups that joined after Coil’s death, like Parian and Foil for the undersiders, the Irregulars of Faultline’s crew, or anyone from Accord’s team.

Also, there won’t be a dedicated skill and experience section in the blog, because these two both employ powers that directly increase and affect their tactics and intelligence. As a result, those feats will be included in their relevant sections.

As always, special thanks goes to:

• The Death Battle Crew

• VS Battles Wiki (For calcs for both series)

• The Worm and Dispatch Wikis (For refreshing my memory on powers and scenes)

• Wildbow and AdHoc Studio, for creating some of my favorite superhero media

• GuyOfEvil’s Coil Respect Thread

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Backstory 

Shroud

“You, your dad, Chase, your little team of turncoats—you think you can beat the bad by being good, but there's no solving human nature. You can't stop evil. All you can do is control it.”

In the west coast city of Torrance, when you find yourself besieged by evil, never fear! You can look to the sky and see its very own group of protectors, on the way to save you: The Brave Brigade, featuring famous heroes like Vitalia, Trackstar, and its leader, the prestigious Mecha Man. With an armored suit powered by the wondrous Astral Pulse, there’s no doubt that Mecha Man is someone you can count on… At least, that’s what the public would tell you. Elliot “Eli” Connors, the engineer behind the Astral Pulse, would tell you a different story about Mecha Man, or Robert “Robbie” Robertson II. 

Elliot was a genius in his own right despite his lack of powers, and alongside Robbie helped to build the Astral Pulse that powered the Mecha Man armor. All he asked in return was for help building a mech of his own, so he could be a hero on the Brave Brigade just like his best friend. Unfortunately, Robbie had other plans. Despite Elliot’s commitment to being a hero to the point of cybernetically enhancing himself, Robbie repeatedly shelved or cancelled the team vote to let him onto the team. This came to a head when, after the fifth cancellation, Eli confronted him directly, only for Robbie to all but spit in his face and mock him for his ambition. The two came to blows, and even without his suit, Robbie beat the hell out of Elliot, only saved thanks to fellow hero Trackstar’s intervention.

The damage was so bad Elliot needed a healer to get back into fighting shape, but some scars would never heal. During their fight, Robbie threw a towel in Elliot’s face, taunting “Let’s lift the shroud so you can see this one coming.” That insult stung, and when Eli was back in fighting shape, he took Robbie’s own revolver and used it to kill Mecha Man in revenge, leaving the Brave Brigade and adopting the moniker of the very thing used to mock him: Shroud.

Unfortunately for him (And luckily for the rest of Torrance), Shroud was captured and imprisoned for fifteen years, and outside of his cell, the world changed. Robbie’s son, Robert III, took over the mantle as Mecha Man Blue, still using the Astral Pulse after all these years and becoming an effective superhero despite his own lack of powers. Shroud hated that, and he wanted the Astral Pulse he believed was rightfully his. So he busted out of jail, gathered all the supervillains he could find - Toxic, Lightningstruck, and Invisibitch, among others - and founded the criminal syndicate: The Red Ring. 

Gathering up members wasn’t hard - Shroud’s technological expertise meant he could fix up just about anybody with his cybernetic enhancements, like helping Invisibitch’s asthma by mechanically extending her lungs - And all they would have to do to keep the enhancements running was pay off their debts. The plan was simple: Lure Mecha Man into a warehouse using one villain, before ganging up on him just long enough to disable the suit and get the astral pulse from inside, leaving Robert at Shroud’s mercy. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite go the way shroud planned - Robert escaped, although the bomb Invisibitch planted on the mech’s back laid hidden long enough to detonate, destroying the suit beyond repair and leaving the Astral Pulse missing. Even though he couldn’t continue his hero work, Robert found a job at the Superhero Dispatch Network, working in Project Phoenix to help reform villains into a squad called the Z-Team while trying to recreate the Astral Pulse on the side despite all the failed attempts. That left Shroud with an opportunity. If he could find the Astral Pulse first, he could amp up his enhancements, bypass his own limitations, and truly control the city. 

To that end, he did everything he could to interfere in the Z-Team’s operations - Sending in Invisibitch to join Project Phoenix under the alias Invisigal, immediately picking up cut members of the Z-team like Sonar or Coupé to pull under his wings, knocking out power across the city and even launching a coordinated assault on all of Torrance and SDN. Creating his own Astral Pulse substitute to power a mech of his own making, Shroud and his henchmen launched a final attack to kill Robert and wipe out Mecha Man once and for all…

…But even he couldn’t predict everything that would happen along the way. Invisigal ended up catching feelings for Robert, and stole back the Astral Pulse for him. Alongside the Z-team, Robert took down Shroud and his Mech, but in his efforts to regain control over the situation, Shroud revealed Invisigal’s treachery and took Robert’s Dog hostage - He’d only hand him over in exchange for the Astral Pulse. 

What happens next depends on Robert’s actions. Maybe he gave Shroud the pulse, finally giving him the power he so craved. Maybe he gave him one of the faulty prototypes, a trick he saw through immediately. But perhaps Robert gave him one of each. A complete 50-50 split that not even Robert himself could guess, and that Shroud’s predictions completely failed against. In his obsession with controlling the evils of humanity, Elliot had become too afraid to make his own predictions, too reliant on his enhancements to take every step. He took a gamble… and he plugged in the wrong one, the prototype overloading and disabling his augments - Just in time for Invisigal to stab him in the back and take his mask for herself, or to take a bullet for Robert when Shroud lashed out in a rage.

No matter what happened to Elliot in the end, though, one thing was for certain - The Red Ring may very well be the deadliest threat Torrance has ever faced. If that crimson mask appears out of the darkness, if your life falls into his hands… Well, you’d better damn hope you win that coin toss.

Coil

 

“Don’t get me wrong. I will not claim to be a good person – I assure you I am not. That said, you are likely to discover I am a proud man. I would consider it a catastrophic failure on my part if this city did not thrive under my rule, a tremendous blow to my ego.”

The world of Earth Bet is far from a happy one. Despite the existence of caped crusaders that do battle against evil, these superpowered individuals, known as “Capes” or “Parahumans”, are just men and women like you and I. Between the heinous and devastating actions of villainous organizations like the Slaughterhouse Nine, or the living natural disasters known as Endbringers that may very well end the world in a matter of decades, it feels like humanity is always one step away from complete and utter chaos. 

In the coastal city of Brockton Bay, it was much the same. Gang violence from groups like the Azn Bad Boyz or Empire 88’s Neo Nazis made it unsafe for even other villains to operate, let alone heroes and civilians. Someone needed to step up. Someone needed to bring a sense of order and control to the city, and to do that, he needed to become so powerful none could stand against him. That someone was Thomas Calvert, better known as Coil.

Before he became a supervillain, however, Thomas was a member of the PRT (Parahuman Response Team), a military group trained to take on parahuman threats. Not just any member - He was a member of the organization’s special forces, the best of the best as far as unpowered members went. However, everything went wrong during an investigation into the overrun town of Ellisburg. A recently-triggered parahuman calling himself Nilbog had entirely swarmed the town with monsters of his own creation, and when the PRT was sent in to stop them, the capes assigned to the mission pulled out from the nightmares they saw within, leaving the soldiers on the ground to fend for themselves. 

In the end, Calvert was one of a mere two survivors, having shot his captain when he was too slow to get on the escape chopper and facing a prison sentence for the murder. More than that, however, what weighed on his mind was Nilbog. The PRT had decided in the aftermath of the disastrous mission that they would simply wall off the city altogether, letting the demented cape be the god of his own little world and keeping the real one away from him. What was worse, Calvert had hoped he would get powers of his own, triggering in his lowest moment… but there was no such luck. It seemed he was doomed to remain just another faceless soldier in the crowd…

Until an organization called Cauldron came knocking on his door. They offered a solution - A formula that could trigger superpowers in those who took it. The process would be expensive, would financially set him back years, but the promise of power was too great to ignore. He took it, and he was blessed with an incredible ability that he claimed could decide destiny itself. With this new power, Calvert took on the masked identity of Coil, spending years manipulating the stock market to pay off his debt and amass a fortune, slowly building a criminal empire and pulling other villain groups and independent parahumans into his clutches. The Travelers, The Undersiders… If they weren’t already snatched up, they were fair game. 

Eventually, this included Dinah Alcott, an unfortunate young girl with powers of incredible prediction years into the future. Coil had to have her power for himself, and so he kidnapped the girl and used drugs to keep her under his control. Unfortunately, one villain under his command - Skitter, an insect manipulator working with the Undersiders - took issue with the way he was treating the 12-year-old precog, and he made a deal: He would release her if Skitter could prove to be more useful towards him than Dinah. And so, she and the rest of her team busted their asses under his command. They decimated the Slaughterhouse Nine, they survived an encounter with Leviathan, they made sure that Coil’s organization was far and away the strongest force in Brockton Bay…

But of course, his costume has a snake on it for a reason. Coil never really intended to release Dinah - Skitter was the one that had to be gotten rid of. So he unleashed a meticulous plan, to kill her in an “accident” while making it look like she had betrayed her team. Unfortunately for him, Skitter and the Undersiders were able to get the better of him. For all his plotting and scheming, at the end of the day, Thomas Calvert still found himself at the end of a gun barrel. And despite his attempts to appeal to Skitter’s heroic side, to tell her that she wasn’t a killer…

"No. But I suppose in a roundabout way, you made me one."

His life ended in a destiny he couldn’t change, and his organization fell into the Undersiders’ hands. 

Coil’s reign over Brockton Bay may have ended in his death, but there’s no denying how wide his influence in the city was. For anyone planning to get into the business of caped crusades, you’d better keep an eye out. If Coil sets his sights on you, it’s more than likely your fate has already been sealed.

Equipment 

Shroud

Revolver 

The revolver belonging to the second Mecha Man, which Shroud stole and used as a murder weapon against him. He’s kept it around ever since, and even though it doesn’t have any special properties, it works pretty damn well all things considered.

Costume and Mask

Shroud’s signature costume, mask and all. This stylish black coat and red faceplate, beyond just looking cool, also allows him to easily blend into the shadows to get the drop on trained fighters like Invisigal. The mask also appears to either enhance or visualize his calculations, allowing him to better predict outcomes using his cybernetic powers, and it also protects him from the effects of his smoke grenades. It’s hard to say if it has any other powers or abilities like his hero costume, but damn does it look cool.

Brave Brigade Costume

The costume that Shroud wore when he was a hero. It had a pair of blades that sprouted from the forearms as well as generally providing protection and increasing his physicality, though it was taken away from him after his original arrest. 

Grenades

Grenades that shroud had access to, and presumably built himself. When activated, they spew out a choking red poison smoke that suffocates those that inhale it. As referenced by the bartender at one of his hideouts, the poison makes its victims’ faces “all red and puffy”, implying that it swells up their faces enough to close their airways.

Spider Mech

A mech that Shroud built himself, ultimately not needing the help of Robbie to build it after the second Mecha Man never came through on his promise. This six-limbed, house-sized monstrosity was Shroud’s personal vehicle when the Red Ring raided Torrance SDN, and it’s just as threatening and fearsome as it looks. Although that’s not really a giant eye - The interior of the mech is tinted to disguise its pilot inside, with that glowing “eye” segment being the substitute Astral Pulse that Shroud made to power it. Even though it’s nowhere near the real thing, it’s still potent enough to enhance Shroud’s prediction capabilities, which we’ll touch on later.

Even one of those four main limbs is strong enough to physically restrain Blonde Blazer, one of the strongest superheroes in the region, and it’s tough enough to withstand a sustained assault by the entire Z-team, including Phenomaman, or even using itself as a weapon, bashing its center segment into an astral pulse-powered Mecha Man. Obviously, given its shape, it’s able to quickly scale surfaces and move around, and despite it towering over the likes of Golem and even the Mecha Man armor, it’s so quiet that nobody in SDN was able to hear it approaching until it was literally on top of the building.

But physical attacks aren’t its entire capabilities - Not only is each large limb capable of projecting powerful energy bolts that can shatter Prism’s light constructs, they also have thrusters that allow it to fly, requiring only two to get off the ground and leaving the others to fight. Finally, the central eye of the mech has an extremely powerful laser that it can fire, capable of one-shotting Blonde Blazer and even knocking Phenomaman into the stratosphere for an extended period of time. The downside to that is that the laser has to charge, and it has a visible charging meter that its targets are able to see. Great for intimidation, if a little predictable.

Also, it has two really oddly-realistic smaller hands for finer manipulation. That’s about all they do, I just really wanted to include them cause they’re really gross and I love that.

The Astral Pulse

Shroud’s greatest invention, and the object of his obsession for over fifteen years. The Astral Pulse, created as a collaboration between Elliot and Robbie, is two pieces of tech together, with the pulse itself being a hyper-advanced energy cell with an energy source called the Stellar Core. According to Royd, the Astral Pulse mixes controlled fusion, a process that fuses atomic nuclei together at temperatures around 100 million degrees celsius, with containment of super-energized plasma, as if you captured a small star and put it in a bottle. 

While Robbie used the pulse to power his mech, Shroud had greater visions with it. He would put it in his implants directly, dramatically increasing the capabilities of his predictive software. In fact, just putting the Astral Pulse in filled him with so much energy it made a visible aura and caused Shroud to start floating, and was able to amplify all of the technology that was implanted in the rest of the Red Ring just by proxy. 

While we barely got to see its true effects before Shroud was killed or incapacitated, there’s no doubt that the Astral Pulse is bad news for anyone Shroud points it at. In fact, when it was originally lost, it passed through several groups that all failed to harness its power due to how dangerous and powerful it was. If even supervillains want nothing to do with this thing, that’s how you know it’s a proper power source.

Coil

Costume

Coil’s costume, a simple black jumpsuit that coats his entire body from head to toe, including his face. The only distinguishing feature on it is a white snake print that spirals around his entire body before ending at his head. The costume is pretty simple, without any particular special properties, but it completely hides his identity and allows him to see despite his face being entirely covered.

Handgun

Like any supervillain crime lord, Coil carries around a handgun for self-defense… or for execution. We don’t actually know what kind of gun that he carries, but at the end of the day, it’s still a gun. You point this at someone and pull the trigger, most people are gonna die.

Abilities 

Shroud

Cybernetic Enhancements

Despite not having any innate powers, Shroud’s technological genius allowed him to augment himself with cybernetic parts in order to enhance his abilities. He’s developed more than a few enhancements given to himself and others, but in Elliot’s own case, he has an enhanced brain implant with a slot for the Astral Pulse. 

This implant is what allows him to make the incredible predictions he’s capable of as Shroud, but it also connects to all of the other implants he’s placed in his subordinates. He’s able to remotely turn off their implants, like turning off Invisigal’s lung extensions, and he can also transfer energy remotely to them. When he equips the Astral Pulse and powers up, so do all of his henchmen, allowing someone like Armstrong to restrain Phenomaman.

However, this also comes at a drawback - Were Shroud’s implants to be overloaded or glitched, this would also happen to any implants he’s sharing energy with. For example, when he put in the prototype astral pulse, which severely weakened him and caused him to throw up, the same thing happened to his henchmen.

 

Calculations

The primary ability of Shroud’s cybernetic enhancements, aided by his mask. Shroud’s augments allow him to make complex calculations in his head based on whatever variables are in the current situation. It’s this ability that’s allowed him to become as much of a threat as he is, and amass so many rogues to his side - In short, he has the power to predict people’s actions and movements.

On the day that he took Mecha Man out of hero work for good, he was also able to accurately calculate exactly how much energy Robert’s mech had left on his forcefield before it lost power and went dead, and then immediately predicted that Robert was trying to divert all of his power to his shields. Before the fight even began, he anticipated Robert sneaking into the Red Ring hideout, putting one of his subordinates in his place. Later on, when Blonde Blazer stormed one of the Red Ring hideouts that Shroud was holding Robert in, she claimed that she could take half of the villains there with her, and Shroud called her bluff, determining it was closer to 32%.

Of course, being as much of a criminal mastermind as he is, Shroud’s very good at leveraging this ability for intimidation or to get what he wants, but as it stands, his power isn’t infallible by any means. His predictions can and have failed before due to variables he didn’t consider. For example, he didn’t predict that Invisigal would double-cross him at the last moment to steal the Astral Pulse for herself instead of giving it to him or Robert. However, Shroud is quite aware of these weaknesses, which is what makes the Astral Pulse and its capabilities so important to him. 

Even with the substitute pulse plugged into his spider mech, Shroud’s predictive engine was vastly improved, allowing him to not only take on the entire Z-team and hold an advantage despite their general unpredictability, but predict things as precise as Robert’s next words, repeating Robert’s lines at the same time in order to throw him off and easily dodging and precisely intercepting dozens of cluster bombs at once. He was even able to, despite not predicting Prism would make a light clone of Blonde Blazer, still intercept the clone’s high-speed attack from behind. As soon as Prism was actually in the fight, he was able to immediately start accounting for her, knowing the moves of Prism, Flambae, Blonde Blazer, and Robert all at the same time before they made them. It ultimately took the entire Z-team, Robert, Blonde Blazer, Phenomaman, and Trackstar (Who specifically bypassed all of Shroud’s predictions by taking on Blonde Blazer’s power amulet to destroy his astral pulse duplicate with a surprise attack using his superspeed) to finally take him and his mech down.

When Shroud plugged the Astral Pulse into his implants, the power increase was immense. According to Shroud himself, he was able to see every permutation, every outcome, and see much further into the future. He was able to calculate his chances of living in the long-term based on whether or not he let Robert live or die, but at the end of the fight, he was still taken off-guard by Invisigal either taking a bullet for Robert or stabbing Shroud through the throat while invisible. As it stands, as fearsome as Shroud’s power is, it’s still vulnerable to unexpected variables.

Coil

Parahuman Physiology 

Okay, this is a complicated one, and not all of it applies to Coil himself, but the terminology is important for his organization, so bear with me.

Coil is a “Cape”, or a Parahuman, a powered individual on the world of Earth-Bet. But powers in the world of Worm aren’t just genetic mutations - Their origin is far, far stranger. All Parahumans are connected to a “Shard”, a higher-dimensional cell of an incomprehensible entity that arrived on Earth long ago. Each Shard fulfills a different function - Generating defenses, seeing the future, et cetera, and when a Shard is linked to a person, it causes a mutation in their brain known as the Corona Pollentia, a segment of the brain that connects to the Shard directly. 

Shards can influence their hosts’ personality and vice versa, and for those with a poor connection with their shard, it can sometimes refuse to work for them or even overwrite their will, as seen in individuals like Echidna. This is especially true due to the origin of powers: Trigger Events. Essentially, when a person is at the lowest point of their life, that breaking point is when a person triggers their powers. As a result, most people with powers tend to be… rather unstable, emotionally. Or at least, have a lot of baggage. Under points of extreme duress when powered, a Shard may reach out to other shards in an attempt to save their host, refining and enhancing a host’s ability in a Second Trigger, although this tends to ruin a person emotionally and do more harm than good.

Coil, however, has an advantage in that his power comes from a Cauldron formula that artificially connected him to a shard instead of naturally growing one. This gives his power much more stability compared to some parahumans and prevents it from being tied to the lowest point in his life, leading to a more stable personality.

More importantly, this means powers cannot be nullified or altered by typical means. Abilities in the Worm universe that can do so like Grue’s power come from shards directly connecting to eachother and transmitting messages, like supercomputers. For example, Jack Slash is considered untouchable by most parahumans due to his shard directly communicating to the shards of his opponents, convincing them to influence their hosts in ways to make him essentially untouchable. To take away a parahuman’s power, an opponent would have to either damage the Corona Pollentia (which can have extreme effects like rapidly evolving someone’s power instead of nullifying it), or interface with a four-dimensional supercomputer to do so.

The purpose of shards is to discover creative way of using their abilities, so rather than giving the full brunt of their powers to their hosts, they only allow access to a sliver of the shard’s full potential. For example, the Queen Administrator shard at its full potential allowed its user to mind control thousands of superpowered individuals, creating an unstoppable army, may limit its user to simply controlling simple minds like insects, crabs, and worms instead. Additionally, they’ll impose limits to stop the host from accidentally hurting themselves or “cheating”, like someone who can turn intangible not falling through the ground, or someone who can make portals not being able to just spawn them inside people. These limitations are called the Manton Effect.

The PRT classifies powers in twelve categories, as well as giving them numerical values based on their potential threat level to civilians and response teams, with a 1 being considered a non-threat that a normal person could deal with, and a 15 being a potential planet-level threat. Some powers can have subcategories due to power side-effects, such as a master biotechnician (Tinker) who can use her knowledge to interfere with powers (Trump) or alter a person’s mind (Master). Some powers can be considered hybrids, such as someone who can bounce quickly off of surface (Mover) and produce explosions on impact (Shaker).

The twelve categories are as follows:

• Mover: Mobile abilities such as superspeed or the ability to jump superhumanly high.

• Shaker: Abilities with an area of effect, such as forcefields or earthquake creation.

• Brute: Abilities that enhance the physical body, such as forcefields or regeneration.

• Breaker: Abilities that change a person into a powered state, like into a laser or into fire.

• Master: Abilities that control and manipulate others, such as insect manipulation.

• Tinker: Abilities that let the user create wondrous technology like laser guns or jetpacks.

• Blaster: Abilities related to energy projection, like pyrokinesis, laser vision, etc.

• Thinker: Abilities that enhance the user’s brain, like precognition or telepathy.

• Striker: Abilities with a melee range, like stopping time for a target on contact.

• Changer: Abilities that change a person’s appearance, like bone manipulation.

• Trump: Abilities that can affect another’s powers, like nullifying or copying them

• Stranger: Stealth and subterfuge-related abilities such as invisibility.

Timeline Simulation

Coil is a Thinker, with an unknown threat rating. However, those who know the true nature of his ability will find it to be incredibly high. 

Calvert is a Precognitive with the ability to simulate mental timelines in his head - Specifically, he creates and predicts two identical timelines with perfect accuracy, that diverge based on the actions that he takes in both. This allows him to live in two timelines at once, retaining the knowledge from both futures. There isn’t any confirmed upper limit to how long he can maintain both timelines, giving him a frankly terrifying ability to collect information and see through his enemies’ tricks. After all, he can call any bluff he wants without consequences simply by trying it in one timeline or ignoring it in another.

To put it more simply, say you’re lost, and you come to a branching path. Do you go left, or do you go right? For most people, once they make that decision, they have to live with it. But for Coil, he can pick both options, and then choose whichever outcome he wants from that.

Given Coil’s meticulousness and paranoia, he’s developed this power to a frankly frightening degree of efficiency, often working through the night in one timeline while he sleeps through the other, allowing him to wake up well-rested with plenty of information and knowledge from the night before. He’ll use alternate timelines to torture his subordinates for information, using this to figure out if anyone is planning to betray him. In fact, even mere conversations with his subordinates are ones he prefers to be able to erase if they don’t go his way, to maintain his control over his world. He’ll send out strikes in one timeline to finish off weakened factions while maintaining his guard in another to test the waters, and he can even use this technique in the middle of missions to support his subordinates, helping them make more beneficial decisions.

Of course, such a power does have its limits. Coil isn’t actually creating two new timelines - Rather, it’s accurate precognition. Once he picks which timeline he wants to go down, his body will essentially autopilot down that path. Time will always move forward, so he can’t ever go back along a point in either of the timelines he creates. In other words, if both options lead to bad outcomes, he’ll still have to pick one to go down, and he can’t create more than two timelines. 

Additionally, the energy of shards are vast, but not infinite. Though running out of power is essentially impossible for a single person, there are certain scenarios where a shard can limit the power of its user - More specifically, Coil’s power tends to get disrupted if he runs into another precog using their power, as the stacking of precog on top of precog tends to drain shards’ energy much faster. Beings like the Endbringers, who are immune to precognition, can also disrupt this power - In either case, the standard “Thinker Headaches” tend to apply until he can get his ability back online.

Organizations 

The Red Ring

The criminal organization set up by Shroud. The Red Ring was a scourge on Torrance from the moment it was put together, taking down Mecha Man Blue with just a few members before even growing to its full size, and they only grew in power and influence from there until they became capable of taking on the entire city by themselves. The Red Ring is an incredibly dangerous group with a wide range of abilities, mostly employing hired henchmen, assassins, and independent supervillains, but each and every one of their members is armed to the teeth with cybernetic enhancements or high-tech weapons to push them beyond their original capabilities - Toxic, without his super form, could survive being stomped on by a giant mech and even heal his broken limbs after. 

Its many members have metal attachments to their limbs to increase their strength and carry advanced rifles that fire out blasts of red energy strong enough to wear down even Mecha Man’s shields with a sustained barrage. Although some of them prefer harpoons that can pierce through mechanical armor, rocket launchers, or just straight-up baseball bats.

The Red Ring also has several hideouts they operate in, including a villain bar and a steelworks factory, but they have reach all over Torrance, even able to cut the power to the entire city at once. While their exact number is unknown, during their mass attack on Torrance, their numbers were high enough that they could target individual buildings with so many goons that a duplicating hero couldn’t take them all on. The organization favors tactics that cause chaos and disorder, hitting cities hard and fast to try and spread its defenders thin with various tactics, including but not limited to:

• City-wide arson attacks

• Releasing dangerous science experiments

• Cutting city power

• Hacking into enemy trackers to prevent communication

• Sending bombs to city hall

• Ambushing and capturing individual heroes to use as leverage 

Toxic

“Shroud’s augments are pretty good when normies like you use ‘em, but when you put ‘em on someone who already has powers… Fuckin’ chef’s kiss.”

Shroud’s right-hand man, or the closest thing to it. Don’t let his soothing voice fool you - this ex-military criminal’s personality matches his villain name. Toxic is rude, egotistical, and foul-mouthed, but still a dangerous supervillain that just refuses to go down. Though he may look like a normal, uncostumed human, don’t be fooled. When he changes into his true form, that facade melts away with his clothing, leaving a being composed of toxic acid… And one that’s naked head to toe. He’s very proud of his “perfect dick”, by the way. Thanks to his augmentations from Shroud, his already fearsome powers are amped up, and he has plenty of abilities to choose from, including:

• Acid Form: Toxic’s main power - He’s able to change form into a humanoid made of acid. Not only is he highly dangerous to the touch, with even injuring him causing acid to splash everywhere, but he can also fire out blasts and concentrated streams of acid. Even one splash from the stuff can burn a hole right through the Mecha Man armor in a matter of seconds.

• Healing Factor: Even in his unpowered form, Shroud’s augmentations give Toxic an impressive healing factor, letting him get stomped and punted around by Mecha Man and heal off the broken bones and dislocations in just a few seconds.

• Enhanced Endurance: Toxic is a tank to take down. In his powered state, he took on a relentless assault from Mecha Man, who was frankly beating him senseless and smashing him through all sorts of factory equipment. Even in human form, he was able to survive being stepped on by the Mecha Man armor.

• Enhanced Strength: Despite the nature of his powers, Toxic is deceptively strong, able to lift up massive steel beams and swing them around as weapons, or send the Mecha Man suit flying with a dropkick.

• Flight: And of course, he can fly on top of everything else, ensuring that even if you try to run away, you won’t be safe from him in the end.

Invisigal 

“I have fuckin' villain powers. I can turn invisible and skulk in the shadows. My powers let me steal shit and watch famous people fuck. Being a villain is my fate. It's in the fucking stars. In the same way Blonde Blazer was always meant to be a hero.”

Otherwise known as Courtney, Invisigal (Or Invisibitch as she goes by as a villain) has played the roles of both villain and hero, never quite showing her true colors to anyone. With assault, larceny, and robbery under her belt, Courtney joined the Red Ring in exchange for cybernetic lung enhancements that allowed her to breathe easier - Probably necessary, given the double-whammy of asthma requiring regular inhaler usage even on the job and her bad habit of smoking despite that. Despite these health issues, though, Invisigal is nothing short of a terrifying opponent, even taking out Shroud himself in some scenarios. 

Invisigal is, all things considered, surprisingly strong. She won’t be lifting cars or anything, but she’s able to swing around Malevola’s huge sword like it’s nothing. She’s also a skilled Martial Artist who loves to get the drop on foes with kicking and grappling, and is acrobatic enough to jump between the arms of a giant mech mid-combat. Of course, you might have guessed from her name that that’s not where she shines - Invisigal can turn completely invisible to others by holding her breath, allowing her to get the drop on just about anyone - Even shroud himself when he was amplified by the Astral Pulse. 

While she’s mostly a martial artist, she’s no stranger to bringing out something like C4 when shit needs to get blown up. She’s done this twice, actually, both against Giant Mechs. Go figure.

Her hero abilities include:

• Lone Wolf: When sent out on a mission alone, Invisigal is much more efficient, reducing the travel time and call completion. She can move as fast as fliers like Coupe and Sonar do when alone.

• Wolf Pack: When a mission is completed with Invisigal on the team, XP rewards for participants are doubled.

• Ear to the Ground: With her connections, Invisigal can figure out certain crimes before they happen, revealing what type it is and how many people may need to be sent for it.

Sonar 

“Half man, half bat, all freak.”

True name Victor. Sonar graduated from the prestigious Harvard University (A fact he won’t ever shut up about), and turned his unique talents and mutation to… white-collar crime. Yeah, that sounds about right for a crypto nerd voiced by MoistCritikal. This man-bat hybrid ran some of the most successful Silicon Valley investment frauds in US history, with charges of embezzlement, extortion, forgery, fraud, money laundering, perjury, cyberbullying… and drugs. This man loves his cocaine. …You think that giant nose of his lets him take more of it at once? 

Well, despite his numerous addictions to the point of sneaking drugs into work, Sonar is a highly intelligent conman and a self-described “professional bullshitter”, who’s capable of echolocation on top of that. However, what you really have to be worried about is his mega-bat form, a hulking monster that converts a lot of that super-intelligence into brute strength and speed. With a sonic scream that can disable cameras and shatter glass, wings that let him fly at high speed, surprisingly adept stealth in the darkness, and brutal fangs and claws that can tear you apart once he’s done the same to your life savings, this is the kind of guy you don’t want against you.

Unfortunately, Sonar’s lackluster performance as a hero led to him being fired from the Phoenix Program, but he found someone else willing to take in his talents. Shroud not only welcomed him into the Red Ring, but hooked him up with augments that turned his sonic scream into an outright laser, a continuous stream of crimson energy that can send Mechs flying and even overpower Blonde Blazer. He can keep it up for a good while too, but the drawback is if anyone can reach that neck button of his, they can just turn the beam right off.

His hero abilities include:

• Instincts: After returning from a mission, Sonar transforms between his hybrid and bat states, swapping his business intelligence with combat skill and his charisma with brute strength. In-universe, Sonar has trained to be able to transform and fight at will. He can still carry a conversation and make decisions as a megabat, but he’ll be a little more focused on… you know… murder. 

• Batshit: When he’s transformed, Sonar is immune to injuries (Not literally speaking, of course - More than likely this refers to his enhanced durability and resistance to things like broken bones), and he can recover from missions twice as quickly.

• Talk Shit: Remember how I said Sonar was a professional bullshitter? When not transformed, Sonar can talk his way out of failed calls to reattempt the mission, even when dealing with things like stopping planes… somehow.

• Strong Back: When transformed, Sonar can fly to mission locations, greatly decreasing his travel time. He’s also strong enough to carry other non-flier heroes without slowing down.

  

Coupe

“Swift as the night. Sharp as my knife.”

Real name Janelle. Once upon a time, this graceful assassin worked for the mob, before eventually going independent. She had an unprecedented, flawless record of 68 assassinations without a single failed mission, up until she met a certain invincible strongman. That failed assassination… well, led to a different kind of battle, let’s just say, and she ended up joining the Phoenix Program… until she was cut, unable to truly get over the murderous nature that had been instilled into her over the years of her career. 

All that assassin training has made her into one of the deadliest villains in Torrance, and she has the powers and skills to show for it - Namely, Umbrakinesis. Shrouding herself in the darkness, Coupe can augment those mechanical wings of her to fly at high speeds, and create knives. Despite being listed as umbrakinetic weapons, these knives are very much real, with Robert even keeping one as a souvenir after she threw it at him in a rage. Speaking of throwing, Coupe is superhumanly accurate, being able to land three bullseyes in a row at darts, while drunk.

And of course, joining the Red Ring made her even deadlier, as Shroud affixed her with a new set of wings boasting dozens upon dozens of knives. And this time, she can not only throw them with the same accuracy as before, but control all of them telekinetically. By sticking enough of them in an opponent, she can even lift up things as heavy as the mecha man armor up into the sky, her domain. Also, she can form a kickass sword by combining them together, so that’s cool. The one drawback is that if her wings are severed, so is her control over her knives.

Her hero abilities include:

• En Pointe/À la Seconde: Depending on what slot Coupe is placed in on a mission, she receives an incredible boost to either her combat skill or mobility.

• Pirouette: Just like Sonar, if Coupe fails a call, her unique set of skills are enough for her to try again and reattempt it.

• En L’air: As a flier, Coupe can greatly decrease her travel time simply by flying to other locations.

Other Supers 

Failed phoenixes and toxic goons aren’t the only people in Shroud’s employ, however. He has plenty of other supervillains working under him, and each one has been augmented with his technology to increase their performance. For the most part, we don’t actually know the names of most of these villains, so for the sake of easy reference, we’ll use fan nicknames for them, putting them in quotations to denote when we’re making a guess.

Some of the other villains Shroud has at his disposal include:

• “White Lightning”: One of the villains Shroud recruited to take down Mecha Man. A villain clad in a white-and-blue suit, notably different from most of the Red Ring. Whoever she may be, she’s an electrokinetic, who can fire blasts of lightning or continuous streams of it, powerful enough to wear down Mecha Man’s shields alongside the rest of her squad.

• “Spiderlegs”: A villain with Red Ring enhancements who fought Robert and the Z-team in a barfight. He’s capable of sprouting four spider-like energy constructs, which can grapple people to hit them repeatedly, and could probably be used to scale walls. We only really see him in one scene so it’s hard to say.

• Armstrong: A villain with oddly-undeveloped arms, Shroud souped him up with a pair of giant mechanical ones that could function even when his own were broken. He has a grudge against Invisigal, and those massive metal arms of his are nothing to scoff at in terms of power, being so tough they can even tank hits from Malevola’s space-cutting sword! That said, his real ones are so weak that regular humans can easily break them.

• Lightningstruck: A repeat villain who terrorized the Z-team in the early days, escaping captivity twice due to Invisigal’s negligence before he was finally taken in by her. Not only does he have the standard Red Ring augments, he wields a pair of powerful electric gauntlets that can knock out normal people with one hit with the spheres of electricity that they can fire.

• “Khopesh”: One of Shroud’s original villains recruited to take down Mecha Man. He wields a pair of nasty-looking energy Khopesh with crazy cutting power, and by swinging them around, he can shoot energy blades out of them that can wear down Mecha Man’s forcefields over time.

• “Long”: A mountain of a villain with tattoos and scales across his body, and an oddly lizard-like mouth. It’s not just for show - Long is a pyrokinetic who can build up flames in his throat before firing them from his mouth. Oddly enough, these fireballs can… reflect off of mirrors, somehow?

• “Psychic”: A psychic villainess who fought in the siege of SDN. She’s a flier, and a telekinetic that can toss plenty of heavy objects around, and can survive being lit on fire by Flambae. Interestingly, her design was originally going to be used for one of the Z-team members.

• Thumbstick: A hockey-masked villain that even Invisigal considered to be a legitimate threat. He has wicked-sharp blades on his thumbs, and is apparently known for his rather brutal methodology. Though we didn’t get to see much of him before he was taken down by one of shroud’s high-tech rifles.

• Blob Goon: One of the original villains that Shroud employed to take down Mecha Man. This alien-looking motherfucker can manipulate his body at will, spreading it out as a sort of gelatinous substance that can catch attacks and restrain people with ease - Something he can even do to Mecha Man.

• “Blaster Villain”: A villain present at the raid to get the Astral Pulse. Her augments gave her a pair of blasters on her arms that can fire large red beams of energy.

• SmileMore: A villainess with red ring implants that took over a radio station. Her implants let her convince people of anything, but people with strong enough mental fortitude can fight it off.

• “Mister Not-So-Fantastic:” A villain with stretchy accordion-like limbs that can use them to get around high spaces quickly. We never actually see him fighting though, so who knows how strong he is.

• Red Ring Lieutenants: A trio of lieutenants for the Red Ring that attacked the Southlands when the organization made its move. These include Beefcake (A villainess with a durability enhancement), Wormheart (A villain with a mobility enhancement), and Mister Fister (A villain with an attack enhancement). We never see them onscreen, so it’s hard to say what they actually do.

• Mindfucker: A supervillain hacker that might also be a brain in a jar? He attacked SDN’s systems, but was forced out by Robert.

Other Forces

The Red Ring, beyond its normal super lineup and standard goons, does have a couple other things to look at.

• VANDCO Delivery Bots: Delivery bots that were hacked and taken over by Shroud’s modifications. They gained sentience and the Z-team couldn’t successfully reprogram to not attack humans. 

• Mole People: A group of human-mole hybrids. No, seriously. They were living in the sewers, and the Red Ring picked them up after the Z-team failed to establish diplomatic relations.

• Kaiju: A kaiju controlled via a Red Ring control collar, which Shroud used in his attack on the city. It was strong enough to contend with multiple Z-team members at once, but since it was in the dispatch missions, we don’t actually… know what it does, or looks like, or even how big it is.

Coil’s Organization

The organization run by Coil, and the way he planned to take over the city, operates in a way that can only be called efficient. Brockton Bay has no shortage of major players, and Coil knew this very well, so gathering the funds and resources to control an entire city was something he put years of effort into. It certainly helps that Coil himself is a skilled manipulator and calculating tactician. By the time he truly made his move to control the city, factions like the ABB, the Merchants, and Empire 88 had all been outright taken out, much of which can be directly attributed to his organization.

Coil’s rank and file members outside of capes are made of mercenaries, ex-soldiers including medics, snipers, and more. Alongside your standard firearms, grenades, molotovs and the like, Coil equips his mercs with top-of-the-line Tinkertech - No small thing to consider, given that some tinkertech weaponry like Kid Win’s guns can disintegrate vending machines in a single blast. Now, just imagine what that would do to a human body. It’s not just weapons, though. Coil’s men have employed plenty of Tinkertech from his subordinates before, including a teleportation device, a device that can control insects, and PRT Containment foam, a special expanding compound meant to rapidly grow and restrain capes before hardening and trapping them.

Coil’s main base of operations is a secure compound underneath Brockton Bay, but he’s operated his men out of warehouses and the like before to avoid drawing attention to himself. Rather than blitzkrieg tactics, Coil prefers a slower, more methodical approach of erasing a target’s support systems and heavy hitters bit by bit before moving in to strike, a method fitting his costume and name. Of course, rather than staying in the action himself, he generally prefers to leave things to his men, utilizing his powers to support them at every turn and make more helpful decisions. 

Some of the plans he’s laid out include:

• Causing a bank robbery as a distraction for a kidnapping 

• Using a body double to fake his cape identity’s death at a public event

• “Exposing” one of his own double agents in order to oust the director of the PRT

• Using tinkertech and a fake Skitter to make her teammates think she betrayed them

• Convincing other gangs to join forces and take out the ABB, weakening themselves in the process

• Using a teleporter to trap Skitter in a burning building surrounded by men and clean of insects, even using Hexagonal screws on the boards to make sure she couldn’t just unscrew them

But of course, Coil has access to plenty of capes to bolster his ranks. So, let’s talk about them!

The Undersiders 

One of Coil’s most-used teams, and certainly one of his most prolific. The Undersiders are rising stars directly sponsored by Coil, and quickly became one of the most feared groups in Brockton bay despite being teenagers. In fact, after Coil’s death, they were the ones who ended up taking on most of the city. The Undersiders employ a rotating leadership strategy where whoever’s “in charge” varies depending on the situation, and though they aren’t the most powerful supervillain group in Coil’s employ, they’re certainly people you don’t want to mess with. Thanks to one of their members, the Undersiders wear suits made out of spider-silk, an incredibly flexible substance that’s stronger than steel by volume.

• Tattletale: Real name Lisa Wilbourn. Thinker 7. Coil’s go-between for the Undersiders, and the closest thing to a right-hand that he has amongst his cape subordinates, who ended up taking over the organization after his death. Tattletale isn’t much of a fighter, but her ability makes her a short-ranged clairvoyant in essence, letting her extrapolate and intuit large amounts of information from tiny context clues, like guessing people’s relationships by the shift in their facial muscles, figuring out a safe code based on trace damage to the printed buttons, and figuring out people’s powers and weaknesses. She also carries a PRT-issue laser gun, which is very illegal to own.

• Skitter: Real name Taylor Hebert. Master 8, Thinker 1. Originally a high schooler with aspirations to be a hero, Taylor quickly turned to villainy after the attitude of the protectorate disappointed her. Skitter has an incredible ability to control simple invertebrates within a three-block range, and to some degree sense things through them, even being able to read conversations by letting her bugs sense vibrations. She’s certainly one of the most dangerous Undersiders, as she can swarm you with millions of bugs with enough time to gather them all, and she cares plenty of backup equipment like a knife, epi-pens, bandages, and pepper spray (which she’s a fan of coating her insects’ shells in). Thanks to a biokinetic she met along the way, she also rides a giant beetle called Atlas, and has special relay bugs that can transfer her control to an even higher range.

• Grue: Real name Brian Laborn. Shaker, Trump 7. Often the face of the undersiders, Grue learned how to fight to defend himself against his mother’s abusive boyfriend, and triggered the power to emit darkness from himself. This smoky darkness is able to mute light sources, radiation, radio frequencies and sound, and can even nullify sound-based powers like Shatterbird’s. Even moving through it provides some difficulty due to it being oddly resistant. After his second trigger at the hands of the Slaughterhouse Nine, his smoke gained the power to copy the powers of other capes inside his darkness, suppressing them at the same time, although he doesn’t become a master at them, and he can’t copy mental powers like Thinkers or Tinkers.

• Regent: Real name Alec Vasil. Master 8. Child of infamous supervillain Heartbreaker, Alec traveled to the US to make a name for himself and escape his father’s abuse. Though he carries a staff with a stun function at the end of it, his real power allows him to control the involuntary reactions of another’s body, causing them to spasm, drop their weapons, or even vomit with a thought. However, what makes him the highest-rated master in the city is what happens if he can use his powers on someone for hours, like if they’re restrained. At that point, he gains the ability to share senses with his victim, and completely control every bodily function, including their powers. Of course, this requires a lot of prep to pull off, but he’s treated with concern  by even his allies for a very, very good reason.

• Bitch: Real name Rachel Lindt. Master. A child who ran away from home after getting a stray dog she took care of to maul her abusive foster family to death, Rachel’s trigger gives her an inherent understanding towards dogs instead of humans. While it makes her standoffish and often aggressive, it also allows her to use her power on them - Rachel can mutate dogs into car-sized warhounds with bony armor, spikes, prehensile tails, and more. She can do this to multiple dogs at once, with their true bodies being contained in the center of the mutants, and she’s trained her dogs to respond to whistles and commands.

• Imp: Real name Aisha Laborn. Stranger 5. The younger sister of Grue, Imp’s darkness manifested in a very different way, as a passive effect that erases any memory and perception of her from the minds of others, also providing resistance to mind control. While she can still be detected via smell or caught on video cameras, and has about a 50/50 chance of her power dropping when she attacks, She’s fine-tuned her control enough to even erase last bits of a conversation in a person’s mind, letting her try over and over to get the response she wants. Even records of her will decay over time, ensuring you won’t see her coming or remember her leaving.

The Travelers

Another often-used team, the Travelers aren’t capes from this world. Rather, they come from Earth-Aleph, an alternate world with a hometown that was wrecked by an endbringer, and traveled to this world through Tinkertech, making a deal with Coil to follow his orders in exchange for a fix to a… certain problem they were having. More on that later… While the Undersiders specialize in subterfuge and skill, when Coil needs something blown the fuck up, he sends in the Travelers.

• Trickster: Real name Francis Krouse. Mover. The de facto leader of the Travelers, Trickster is disliked even by his own teammates due to his… annoying behavior. Trickster is a teleporter with the ability to swap objects in his line of sight, as long as they’re of a similar mass. The larger the difference is, the longer it takes to do it, as he has to make up the difference by targeting surrounding air, but he can feel out the weight of an object just by looking at it thanks to his powers.

• Sundancer: Real name Marissa Newland. Blaster. Sundancer is a heliokinetic, with the ability to create a burning, miniature sun that she can control. The more time she spends to create the sun, the larger it becomes, with its max size being that of a building. She’s incredibly trained with it, able to put out fires by flash-burning oxygen to snuff them out, and the Manton effect normalizes temperature around her to protect her from her own heat.

• Genesis: Real name Jess. Master, publicly believed to be a Changer 9. Despite being wheelchair-bound, Genesis can operate while she’s asleep, creating a new body to control that builds up a charge while she’s awake. These bodies are physical, and she can customize them at will to form all sorts of shapes, like a cyborg triceratops, an eight-foot gargoyle with smoke breath, a lady knight in shining armor, a giant sea slug that can fire water, and even mythical animals like a pterodactyl or griffon to carry her allies.

• Ballistic: Real name Luke Brito. Striker/Blaster. Ballistic is an offensive powerhouse, as he’s able to imbue objects with the velocity of a bullet and send them flying at his foes. He can do this with any object ranging from a ball bearing to something as big as a car, but it only affects inanimate objects. He’s careful not to cause accidental casualties, so he’s quite restrained and selective with his power.

Faultline’s Crew 

Differing from the Undersiders or Travelers, Faultline’s crew of villains-for-hire were mercenaries that Coil could pay off whenever he saw fit to hire a little extra muscle. These capes operate out of the Palanquin, a nightclub in Brockton Bay, and sold their services to the highest bidder. Though their membership has grown and changed over the years, during their time in Coil’s service, the crew consisted of six members. Despite their status as villains, Faultline and her crew operate under a code, and draw the line at outright murder. Still, their success on jobs, with only a couple failures under their belt, can’t be overstated.

• Faultline: The leader of the crew, a woman with a lot of pride in her abilities. Striker. Her power lets her separate molecular bonds in whatever she touches (Manton-limited to inorganic matter only) to form holes and cuts in it. Although it’s not the most powerful of abilities, she’s very strategic in its use, using it to weaken the ground and create traps, or collapse walls and buildings with well-placed weak points. Her costume is armored, and she uses a semi-automatic pistol and flare gun hid under it. Even her ponytail has spikes to stab anyone who attempts to grab her by it.

• Labyrinth: Real name Elle. Shaker 12. Though Labyrinth appears initially to be lost in her own world most of the time, not cognizant of the world around her… well, that’s not entirely wrong, just not for the reason most would assume. Labyrinth is one of the most powerful Shakers around, able to create pocket realities and bring them into the world around her. Now, Labyrinth has to remain still to create this power, but given enough time she can spread its effects to a whole building. Unfortunately for her, the more lucid she is, the less powerful she is. Sometimes a power’s drawback isn’t just physical…

• Newter: A Case 53, someone whose physical body was affected by a Cauldron formula, as his blue hair, lizardlike feet, tail, and orange skin might tip you off to. Striker, Mover. Newter’s unusual body gives him a prehensile tail, enhanced agility, and the ability to scale walls like a gecko, but the real danger is all of his bodily fluids, including his sweat. Newter secretes a powerful hallucinogen, and just one touch can send people off to la-la land for hours.

• Gregor the Snail: Another Case 53, and much less conventionally attractive given his translucent skin, lack of any kind of hair, and spiral growths covering his body. Blaster. He’s more durable than most humans, but his real power is his ability to mix chemicals in his stomach and project them through his skin, being able to make fire retardants, lubricants, adhesives, and strong acids.

• Spitfire: Real name Emily. Blaster. The fireproof suit and gas mask tell a story here. Spitfire can spit out a napalm-esque chemical from her mouth that ignites on contact with objects. It isn’t manton-limited, but unlike many capes, Spitfire isn’t immune to her own powers, with the suit protecting her from its effects.

• Shamrock: The most unusual of the bunch. Thinker/Shaker. Shamrock could be described as supernaturally lucky if you met her, but in reality, her power is anything but. Shamrock’s powers mix small-scale clairvoyance with microtelekinesis - Basically, she can slightly move things around her subconsciously to make sure she’s always “lucky” - Making bullets hit where she needs them to, landing on ice without slipping, dodging attacks… and of course, cheating casinos. It can interfere with other precogs just like other similar abilities.

Dinah 

The catalyst of everything. Rather than a combatant, Dinah was an innocent girl that happened to trigger with one of the most powerful Precog abilities ever recorded. Had Coil not kidnapped her, she very well may have gone on to neglect her power entirely. Unfortunately for Dinah, the poor girl would find herself in the villain’s clutches, put through hell and drugged heavily in order to keep her compliant.

Dinah’s ability has to do with grand-scale percentage questions. When Dinah is asked a question about a certain outcome, her mind will immediately sift through trillions of universes and sort them into groups to put it together into a percentage chance, used to answer even grand-scale questions. She was able to predict even things around blind-spots for typical precogs, like the end of the world. Obviously, alongside Coil’s own power, Dinah’s predictions made him nearly untouchable right up until the very end. 

There are drawbacks, however. Dinah tends to get a headache if she uses her powers too often. While she’s trained her power to be able to ask more and more questions, at the time of being in Coil’s captivity, she was able to ask about 15 in a day. Coil couldn’t use his power to double that either, as their powers will just cancel eachother out. Even so, as long as he has her in his clutches, it just becomes that much more difficult to target him.

Echidna (Debatable)

So, remember that problem I was talking about that the Travelers were experiencing? This is Noelle. Brute 8+, Changer 2, Striker/Master 10, Master/Trump. When the Travelers all took the stolen cauldron formulas responsible for their powers, one of these was split in half, used on an injured Noelle and Oliver (A non-combatant member of the Travelers kept out of the action). Oliver got an extremely weak power, and Noelle began to mutate uncontrollably into this building-sized abomination and mass of flesh, growing more insane and carnivorous as the Shard connected to her began to take control of her. She’s an S-class threat, the most dangerous kind there is, on par with city-ending threats like the Endbringers or the Slaughterhouse Nine.

However, Coil does not have direct command over Noelle - Or Echidna as the PRT classified her when she escaped. Rather, he kept her in tight containment deep underground, keeping her safe and everyone else safe from her. It was as a final act of spite as he died that he made the identity of his killer known to Noelle, who then burst out of containment searching for her and became just another disaster of Brockton Bay.

Echidna’s body has a mind of its own, and that body is made up of tentacles, claws, extra limbs, beastheads, and more, all stemming from a core that endlessly produces biomass. The top half of Noelle’s body on top of the mass is mostly for show, as the core is able to regenerate it entirely. Making things worse, this body is highly flexible, able to squeeze into tight spaces and dissolve its own bones to do so. Even MORE nightmarishly, it absorbs any biological matter it comes into contact with and can weaponize it, ranging from as small as mold and diseases to as large and powerful as… other capes.

And this is where the true nightmare begins. Once Echidna has devoured a cape, she can produce copies of these capes by spitting out mutated clones of them. These clones don’t always have the same powers (Skitter’s clone, Chitter, controlled rats instead of bugs), and often have distorted appearances, but they’re driven by a desire to destroy the things the original cared about. Apocrypha, a clone of Alexandria, used this to reveal the original’s identity as head of the PRT and completely destabilize it. Capes trapped inside of Echidna don’t die, but they can’t use their powers, and they’re stuck in hallucinations of the worst moments of their lives.

As long as Echidna’s core isn’t destroyed, she’ll just keep absorbing and attacking things around her - Tattletale’s power surmised that if she kept going, she could eventually grow to the size of the moon. However, she’s not invincible. Sundancer’s sun, if she makes it strong enough, was able to pierce through her regeneration and break into the core behind it. If someone were strong enough to overtax her abilities and get past her cape army, then maybe, just maybe, the world could be saved.

Echidna is far and away not an option Coil is going to use under any circumstances except with his very dying breath. However, should she be released… god help anyone who has to deal with the aftermath.

Others

Various other villains and capes that Coil either has under his direct employment or has hired before. 

• Leet and Uber: A pair of, uh… videogame-themed criminals, who stream their crimes. They’re considered to be rather pathetic, but even these losers are something Coil can get work out of. Leet is a Tinker, with the ability to make anything… once. The closer something is to something he’s made before, the more likely it is to fail and blow up in his face. Still, he’s a good source of technology for Coil at times. Uber is a Thinker who can give himself high amounts of skill in any technique by focusing on it, like a martial arts recovery or an announcer’s voice, although he can’t keep the fundamentals. They’re… not all that useful in an actual fight.

• Chariot: A Tinker with a specialization in movement and transportation, a teen sent to join the Wards undercover. Among his many inventions include a teleportation device that emulates Trickster’s power, a jetpack, and power armor with built-in roller skates. 

• Trainwreck: A Tinker, and a Case 53 with a mostly-immobile limbless body that he can form pseudopods out of. The tech he makes isn’t pretty or neat, but it’s fast to produce, he can make it out of scrap, and it works. He uses power armor, and his body serves as its own power source.

• Circus: A Grab-bag cape, a kind of parahuman with a variety of smaller powers with a similar theme. Stranger, Striker, Thinker. This genderfluid clown-themed villain boasts enhanced balance, coordination, and spatial awareness, giving them incredible aim to the point of being able to hit a horsefly out of the air by spitting at it. They can also use a pocket space to store throwing knives, disguises, road torches they can blow into to create fireballs, and a colorful sledgehammer. Oh, hi, Harley Quinn.

• Shatterbird: A member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a silicon manipulator. Shaker. A proud warrior who would kill anyone who dared insult her, Shatterbird would never debase herself to working for coil… unfortunately, Regent had other plans, making her into a thrall of his up until her untimely demise. Shatterbird’s power is immense - She can manipulate sand and glass using high-frequency sounds, that when built up enough can shatter all the glass across Brockton Bay by rippling and cascading the effect of her power. She can kill people by exploding their glasses, create glass barriers and projectiles, tear flesh with bursts of sand, and create massive glass constructs two stories tall and fire them like spears. Using fine glass dust, she can cover injuries like bandages, and she can even fly with glass wings and a glass “dress” she coats herself in. Additionally, like all members of the nine, she was modified to have a subdermal mesh over her arteries and organs and wire reinforcement in her bones to enhance her durability and survive bullet wounds. Even pathogens and emotional manipulation don’t work on her thanks to her enhancements. Thanks to Regent’s control, Coil has a powerful ally to call on. But were he to be killed in battle, freeing her… well, the resulting massacre certainly wouldn’t be pretty.

Feats and Scaling

Because neither Shroud nor Coil are physical fighters themselves, and by the nature of their respective media there aren’t really a lot of crazy onscreen showings, they don’t really have many feats on their own. Instead, this section will offer a more widespread look at the feats their organizations have performed, as well as feats they might scale to.

Shroud and The Red Ring

Overall 

• Created the Astral Pulse and Spider-Mech

• Killed the original Mecha Man with his own gun

• Founded the Red Ring and made them the most dangerous villain group in Torrance

• Made Invisigal into a double agent that nobody found out until he revealed it

• Destroyed the Mecha Man armor and ended the hero’s lineage

• Knocked out power to the entire city

• Defeated Mecha Man Blue, Blonde Blazer, Prism

• Led a siege across all of the Southland

Physicality 

• Sonar’s beam can overpower Blonde Blazer over time

• Invisigal can move as fast as fliers when alone and dodge Lightningstruck’s electric blasts

• Toxic can lift a water tower and use it as a weapon

• Red Ring Goons can survive being hit in the dick by Punch-up

• Sonar and Coupe each can catch a Light Aircraft (183 Megajoules, max)

• Catching the plane requires a 10 in Vigor, which is incredibly unlikely for any individual hero to have even with level-ups (Even Phenomaman, who’s physically a cut above other heroes, has a Vigor of 7), but Sonar has a base Vigor of 3 in his bat form before being upgraded by the Red Ring, which would be about 54 Megajoules)

• Light Aircraft like the Cessna 172 have a cruising speed at around 140 miles per hour, though as it was falling, it may have been closer to 120 miles per hour at Terminal Velocity.

• The Spider Mech

• Smashed Mecha Man into a hole (2 tons of TNT)

• Sent Phenomaman into space with a blast of his charge beam (Mach 16.8, Laser only)

• Its laser parted the clouds (19 Tons of TNT, Laser only)

• One-shot Blonde blazer

• Fought the entire Z-team at once

Scaling

• Malevola can cut through concrete, and her portals can cut the wings of a plane

• Phenomaman can lift a giant car-crushing boulder

• Phenomaman considered flying into the sun and absorbing its energy (See Before the Verdict)

• Robert Robertson survived his crashing Mecha

• Punch-up has the strength of ten men and density manipulation

• Mecha Man can create explosions (9 Megajoules)

• Mecha Man can fly at high speeds (54 Miles Per Hour)

• Flambae can throw Mecha Man hard enough to destroy a pillar (109 Megajoules)

• Flambae gets stronger the more he burns and the more successful he is, and at that point nobody had been able to stop him)

• On their shift, the Z-team (Including an unaugmented Sonar and Coupe) can:

• Lift giant monster parts for cleanup

• Catch up to a runaway train (Torrance has Inter-city trains which are expected to reach at least 125 mph)

• Incinerate a bomb before it detonates (Flambae specifically)

• Lift 25-ton Whales and drag them back into the ocean

• Wrestle a baby kaiju

• Royd can lift giant pieces of the Mecha Man armor

Coil and His Organization

Overall

• One of two survivors of the Nilbog incident

• Spent years gaming the stock market to pay off his debt to Cauldron 

• Became one of Brockton Bay’s fiercest supervillains

• Drew the Undersiders and the Travelers to his side

• Kidnapped the mayor’s daughter using a Bank robbery as a cover up

• Orchestrated the plan to take down the ABB 

• Helped fight off the Slaughterhouse Nine

• Became the Director of the PRT and faked his cape death

• His organization outlasted every other gang in Brockton Bay

• Devised a concerningly-elaborate plan to take Skitter out of the picture

Physicality 

• Bitch’s massive dogs can run at the speed of cars (217 Kilojoules)

• Tinkertech weapons can disintegrate vending machines (39 Megajoules)

• Most Tinkers don’t give out their best stuff to others due to the difficulties of Maintenance; It’s possible for Offensive capes to be comparable if not stronger

• Ballistic can launch cars at the speed of bullets (.22 Tons of TNT)

• The energy varies as he launches everything at the same speed

• Sundancer vaporized a large hole with her Sun (5.2 Kilotons of TNT, Takes time to charge to this level)

• Notably does not scale to anyone physically, as it even one-shot Echidna

• Skitter’s Spider-silk suits can stop bullets

• Shatterbird can launch a massive cone of solid glass if she gathers enough of it (1 - 311 Tons of TNT)

Scaling

• Bitch’s strongest dogs can catch and damage Mannequin, who can fight Speedster capes

• Assault can move up to 100mph

• The Undersiders have defeated Lung and Glory Girl

• Glory Girl can fly at 80 miles per hour

• Lung can immolate a hallway (250 Kilojoules)

• Echidna is stated to be as strong as Leviathan (4.44 Tons)

• Okay that’s about it honestly scaling in Worm is really hard we’ll talk about it in a bit

• Shatterbird’s barriers can block the brunt of attacks from Purity, whose lasers are considered to be on par with Legend’s

• Legend’s lasers can punch holes in Echidna

• Skitter’s bugs can sense Alexandria’s flight speed

• Alexandria flies as fast as a person running when time has slowed her down to a tenth of her normal speed 

Weaknesses 

Shroud

For as impressive as Shroud and his augments are, they aren’t perfect. While his augments can connect to and empower his allies, they’re susceptible to the very opposite as well, risking damaging his entire team should a virus get into them, or something like the prototype Astral Pulse. Additionally, over the years, he has grown heavily reliant on his predictive software to live his life and make his plans. This ultimately made him afraid to make his own decisions, even if he didn’t realize it himself. And given that his predictions aren’t always accurate due to unexpected variables, that isn’t a good thing. 

When Robert gave him both the astral pulse and its prototype, Shroud was… completely dumbfounded. Mecha Man had fooled him in the only way he knew how. If he didn’t know which was which, then Shroud couldn’t make that call either. It came down to a coin toss, and he chose wrong. Ultimately, against someone who went with his gut and trusted the people around him… the Shroud was lifted, and everyone could see the kind of pathetic man that Elliot really was. The kind that even a normal human like Robert could beat within an inch of his life with ease.

Coil

Behind the meticulous, collected nature of the supervillain Coil is a desperate man. His powers came from Cauldron, and even after paying off his financial debt, the favor he owes them, whatever it may be, is something hanging endlessly over his head. As a result, Coil is an extremely paranoid shell of a man beneath the composure and incredible wealth. As much of a burden as this is, his inability to give up his influence in response to a deal ultimately proved to be his undoing, when his refusal to release Dinah in exchange for Skitter’s continued service ultimately led to his own death.

After all, his power isn’t omniscient, as much as he likes to pretend it is. It can only see two timelines at once, and if failure or death arrives in both timelines, there’s nothing he can do to change it. After all, his body will automatically move along his actions, towards his fate even if he’s seen the end of it. And when he’s a normal human underneath that suit, putting him down is… well, it’s certainly not easy, but if you have him dead to rights, it’s best to go ahead and pull that trigger.

Before The Verdict 

Stats in Worm and Dispatch 

So, TLDR, you might have noticed a pretty easy Sundancer-shaped discrepancy within the numbers here. After all, she’s able to create a kiloton-level sun-construct. Given other capes should be comparable to her, certainly this means it’s an easy stomp, right?

Well, no, not really. See, in the Wormverse, cape powers are incredibly specific, and while they can provide physical buffs, 11 out of 12 power categories… just don’t give superstrength as a default. Most wormverse characters can be put down with a normal bullet, even the ones with blatant feats that are building level or higher, as their powers are often manton-limited to avoid hurting them, or have specifics that change the nature of the feats. Similarly, someone like Ballistic can launch cars at bullet-level speeds, but other uses of his power on smaller objects wouldn’t scale to this, because he launches everything at the same speeds.

Okay, so it should be easy for someone like Shroud then, right? His mech has a blatant city block level feat, and the Z-team beat him, and they’re certainly comparable to his many augmented villains. Surely the scaling there should be easy.

Well, no, not really. Just like in Worm, in Dispatch, there’s a few instances of superpowered characters having the shit kicked out of them by non-super characters, or having their attacks be tanked. Robert Robertson, a hero explicitly without any powers, could rip Red Ring implants out of their users and even survive hits from the spider-legged villain. Hell, he beat the absolute Shit out of a Shroud with the Astral Pulse in him. Most of the Z-team doesn’t directly scale to the mech’s actual armor anyway - Sonar damaged it by biting its exposed wires, it was the combination of Trackstar with Blonde Blazer’s powers that was able to pierce its shell, Invisigal used C4, and Malevola used her space-cutting portals.

While Dispatch does overall have a slightly higher leeway for villains having enhanced strength, there aren’t any blanket stats that either team is really going to scale to, just individual powers or abilities that are going to hit higher. It’s certainly possible to draw scaling from the feats above, but this will be talked about in more detail in the verdicts section.

Phenomaman Scaling

(Look, he looks ENOUGH like Omni-Man that I can blame that fucking Disk that I hate)

Phenomaman is… interesting to discuss scaling to. He’s an alien from another planet, specifically Urgot-52dc, and flies fast enough to reach the moon and back in a few hours. Rather infamously, he has a statement that he was contemplating flying into the sun, absorbing all of its energy, and casting the planet into infinite darkness. All of these things would imply some degree of high-speed (potentially MFTL) spaceflight, as well as a level of energy absorption capable of absorbing the sun itself in a rather short timeframe. Given that, and given Armstrong capable of restraining him and the Spider Mech capable of blasting him into space, surely this should be enough to give Shroud the easy stat advantage, right?

Well, it’s not so simple. You see, Phenomaman is incredibly depressed (to the point where it’s actually an ingame ability) due to his breakup with Blonde Blazer after Episode 2. As a result, all of Phenomaman’s operations throughout the game are when he’s far from his best, having a lesser rank and power level than Blonde Blazer. No other feat ingame, including those performed by him, comes anywhere near close to what this feat would imply. We know that he’s holding back due to his depression because of his stats - His mobility is lower than Blonde Blazer’s despite her stating outright that he flies faster than her. 

And despite all of this, Shroud isn’t… actually able to hurt him. Even the fully-charged beam from his mech only sends Phenomaman away for a minute, and he comes back completely fine afterwards with a satellite in tow. Hell, even if you wanted to scale them, all that Phenomaman was doing was absorbing the sun over an unknown period of time. Surviving the heat of the Surface of the Sun is only .29 Tons of TNT, 805 Tons if you survive the heat of the core, and we don’t know how he would do this. It wouldn’t amount to much beyond Shroud’s laser being stronger - And no, Armstrong wouldn’t scale, as as soon as Phenomaman started trying, he very easily broke out of Armstrong’s grip and overpowered him.

So, TLDR, very little changes if you scale Shroud’s laser, but there’s no basis for any kind of scaling to Phenomaman. Even if you did scale people to Phenomaman’s speed, you could also scale Coil’s faction to the top speeds of people like Alexandria and Eidolon flying across half the planet in a much shorter timeframe with similar leeway, which are significantly faster than Phenomaman flying to the moon.

The Verdict

Physicality 

We have a lot to cover, and none of it is simple. First, let’s talk strength and durability.

Of course, Shroud and Coil in a direct physical fight is pretty obvious. Shroud is an enhanced cyborg with an armored suit, and Coil… isn’t. So, to really determine this, we have to look at their armies. Both teams have plenty of members that vary in strength, so even a seemingly clear advantage isn’t quite what it seems. At a base level, Red Ring villains can do things like throw around water towers, while Worm villains can disintegrate vending machines. 

In terms of where most of their physically-enhanced characters scale, the Red Ring’s typical heavy hitters scale around 54 Megajoules for being able to catch a light aircraft. Comparatively, tinkertech from Coil’s organization can disintegrate vending machines, which is worth about 39 Megajoules. Characters like Mannequin can tank tinkertech hits, and strong characters like Bitch’s dogs have physically contended with him in the past. The scaling chain is a little more complex for Coil’s side, but that should be about where they stand. As a result, this makes the Red Ring members about 38% stronger overall. Not a staggering advantage by any means, but it’s still significant in this fight. 

This gap only further widens when the Spider mech is brought out. Shroud’s mech is far above what any physical fighters on Coil’s team are going to be capable of, with a power of around 2 tons of TNT. Echidna, with her statements of being comparable to Leviathan, could be a little over twice as strong at 4.44 tons of TNT, but as elaborated on earlier, it’s extremely unlikely for her to actually play a factor in this fight. While Shatterbird can potentially downscale to this, this only applies to her glass barriers, and not to her own physicality.

As a result, Shroud takes Strength.

Durability is a similar story, though it’s a little more clear-cut. 

Just as before, the physical capabilities of the Red Ring are slightly higher than that of Coil’s organization, but when it comes to durability, this gap widens even further, as most of Coil’s capes are physically regular humans, able to be rather easily taken out with a good hit from someone enhanced. Even Shatterbird, past the glass barriers she creates, is “only” bulletproof, and someone like Toxic or Sonar, or certainly the Spider Mech, should oneshot basically anyone on Coil’s team if they get those hits in. 

There are exceptions of course - The physical fighters mentioned before like Bitch’s dogs, Genesis’ summons, Trainwreck in his armor - But someone like sundancer will be extremely vulnerable if the fight actually becomes physical. As a result, Shroud also takes Durability.

Finally is Speed, which is a rather simple category to compare. Both of these teams have various mobile characters, and both of them have feats in a pretty similar ballpark, with members of Coil’s organization being able to keep up with Glory Girl and Echidna, both of whom can move at 80 miles per hour, and with speedsters like Assault, who can move at up to 100 miles per hour.

Comparatively, the fliers in Shroud’s camp are able to keep up with and catch a moving plane - Light aircraft, particularly common ones like the Cessna 17, have a cruising speed of 140 miles per hour, and if they’re falling, terminal velocity is closer to 120 miles per hour. This would make Shroud’s capes at a bare minimum 20% faster, and at absolute maximum 75% faster, depending on what ends you take for both. 

It’s close, but the Red Ring has the speed advantage in this fight.

However, we also need to consider their Mobility. How fast they can mobilize troops and get around from place to place is going to be as important in this war as how fast they can throw a punch or fly.

Shroud has four fliers - The psychic, Toxic, Coupe, and Sonar. Comparatively, Coil has the same number - Shatterbird, Skitter, Genesis, and Chariot. However, Skitter can only fly using Atlas, who can be taken out and leave her without it. Genesis requires certain forms to be able to fly, and Chariot is a non-combatant who Coil mostly relies on for his technology rather than his combat skills. Comparatively, Shroud’s fliers only have one member reliant on external technology, Coupe with her wings. The other three are all-natural. This means Shroud has a slight advantage when it comes to his fliers, moreso when you consider that his spider mech can also fly.

However, he’s rather sorely outmatched at that point. Outside of those fliers, the only notable mobile people he has are Invisigal, who’s just skilled and acrobatic, and that one guy with stretchy limbs. By comparison, Coil has a teleporter in the form of Trickster, Bitch’s dogs that can and have been used to transport troops, similar acrobatic potential in the forms of Uber, Circus, and Newter, and most importantly, Chariot’s technology. Chariot may not be a fighter, but he IS a tinker specialized in mobility and transport tinkertech. He’s built things like flight packs, hoverboards, roller skates, and more. Most importantly is his teleportation technology that Coil has used to transport troops before. Given this, while Coil’s team may be slightly slower, he also has a much greater ability to maneuver around the battlefield.

As a result, Coil takes Mobility.

Our final category, and where things get complicated, are when we start to look at the energy capabilities of their armies and equipment - Or in other words, their power output. Given the nature of powers in Worm and the mech in Dispatch, these two can reach far above their team’s typical strength level. However, this benefits one far more than the other.

 

Both of them have access to large explosives, with Shroud having a better onscreen advantage as he’s blown up entire neighborhoods with his bombs. Additionally, Shroud’s spider mech is extremely powerful, being able to partially split the clouds with its laser and even send Phenomaman flying into space. This would put the power of his mech’s laser at around 18 tons of TNT. Certainly strong…

But nowhere near the strength of Coil’s heaviest hitters. Ballistic is able to throw cars at the speed of bullets, which is around .22 tons of TNT, strong enough to take down anything on Shroud’s team if he lands a hit short of the spider mech itself. Shatterbird, given enough glass, can launch large glass constructs with anywhere from 1 to over 300 tons of TNT, and Sundancer’s sun is strong enough to vaporize massive amounts of asphalt and concrete, giving it a strength of over 5 Kilotons of TNT, enough to completely destroy anything the Red Ring has to offer, provided she’s able to charge it up.

While Coil most certainly has the edge in physical strength, The upper echelons of Coil’s heavy hitters take a comfortable edge in max power. Even if nobody scales to it physically, one’s going to be dishing out a hell of a lot more energy than the other. Coil takes the edge in Power.

So, as you can see, even something as simple as physical stats isn’t easy to consider. Physically, Shroud’s goons certainly have the advantage - Makes sense, given their cybernetic enhancements - But the higher-ends and specifics favor Coil.

So, what about Mentality? Well, let’s talk about that.

Mentality 

We’ll consider Intelligence first. Both of these two are evil geniuses who know how to manipulate a city in their favor. You might expect this to go to Coil, since Shroud has been called out as being overreliant on his predictive software, but we’ll discuss predictions later. Let’s look at their actual accomplishments. Coil is a skilled politician capable of wresting control of the Brockton Bay protectorate out from Emily Piggot, surviving the likes of Nilbog, and managing multiple groups of Supervillains. However, he’s just that - A skilled manipulator. He’s just as reliant on his own power to get things done as Shroud is, and that’s a power that was provided for him - Unlike shroud. 

Keep in mind, all Shroud’s implants do to him is give him physical enhancements and his prediction powers, but he built all of that himself, and even helped to build the Astral Pulse. As we’ll discuss later in the Technology section, Shroud has built some truly wondrous devices on par with Tinkertech in the Wormverse, all without having any powers of his own. While Coil is skilled, his actual intelligence is more in business and social manipulation than it is in tech. And as stated before, this debate is incredibly close and boils down to the most granular details - Everything has to be looked at carefully.

Similarly, Coil does have people like Chariot, who has made all sorts of high-end tech of his own, but being a tinker means his Shard is also doing a lot of the work there. Shroud’s all-natural, baby. Hell, even comparing their manipulative abilities, Shroud may not quite be on par with Coil, but he’s still no slouch himself, being able to manage the Red Ring and its many often-clashing figures.

Shroud takes Intelligence, and I’m just realizing how fucking mad I am that I’m the type of person to type with a lot of dashes so this keeps reading like ChatGPT oh my god dude-

So, Shroud takes the edge in pure Brains, but what about combat skill? These two have wide organizations with plenty of feats of their own, so let’s have a look at what their organizations are able to think up in a fight. 

…Would you believe me if I said this is probably the most clear-cut category?

The Red Ring is no slouch, make no mistake, but outside of Shroud and the failed Z-teamers, they also tend to be… a little incompetent. Toxic seemingly didn’t even bother to fly out of Punch-Up’s range when he was facing a 3-foot-tall guy who punches good and could… you know, fly, and use ranged attacks. The Red Ring as a whole got taken out by the Z-team even after they had the entire group at gunpoint and dead to rights, and Phenomaman wasn’t even doing most of the work there. There’s Armstrong’s obsession with breaking people’s arms, and there’s Thumbstick taking a break from his invasion of SDN to piss in a plant. 

As Invisigal said, they’re dangerous, but they’re idiots. 

Compare this with Coil and his team. Hell, even the Undersiders alone would be enough to take this category. Skitter on her own has taken down powerhouses like Lung, a pyrokinetic who gets stronger the longer a fight goes on, and doesn’t hesitate to use tactics like having her bugs attack the privates, coating her insects’ shells in pepper spray to blind foes, or even forcing them down the airway of a cape who was otherwise literally invincible, to kill her via suffocation. 

Ironically, the more limited nature of powers in the Worm universe also drags out far more creativity from its capes. Hell, it’s literally the entire purpose of the shards - force creativity in their hosts so they can learn new ways of using their powers. Someone like Imp can literally terrorize one of the world’s most dangerous villains into suicide, and she’s only a teenager. Unlike the Red Ring, Coil’s organization and the sub-groups under it have some proper feats under their belt, and have contended with far more dangerous individuals and organizations like the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Coil - Or rather, his organization, takes Skill.

Which brings us to their tactics, their modus operandi. How do these two villain groups operate, and when pitted head to head, how will these tactics pan out? Shroud is the smarter direct individual, while Coil commands more skilled fighters.

Well, let’s return to their typical operations, and rather directly compare the situations that they were in, since Shroud and Coil have both made plays against large hero groups.

The Red Ring uses fast and violent attack tactics - taking over infrastructure like trains and hospitals, causing widespread arson, unleashing bombs - They’re a force that makes the heroes spread themselves thin, run themselves ragged just trying to keep up with all the chaos happening. By comparison, Coil’s organization is more of an infiltrator, talking things out, getting other groups to weaken themselves in order to take hold, faking deaths with body doubles and teleportation. They’re a force that waits until the last moment to sweep the rug out from under someone.

Both of them have a couple similar tactics - Sending in spies, using kidnappings - but broadly, the Red Ring operates under much more of an offensive strategy, while Coil prefers stalling and a long game. There isn’t any particular advantage that one has over the other in that regard, but what we can do is look at their actual resources.

The Red Ring wasn’t founded until very recently. Remember, Shroud had only just recently broken out of prison at the start of the game, after having spent fifteen years there, and their more rag-tag nature meant they were operating out of a dingy bar for their hideout. Comparatively, Coil spent years gaming the stock market and gathering support to both pay off his debt and take over the city, and part of that included taking down the ABB - The Azn Bad Boyz, a gang who acted in much the same way to the red ring - Bomb threats, brute force, causing chaos for chaos’ sake. Hell, just the fact that he gets two tries here thanks to his power is enough to give him a tactical edge - Much of Coil’s tactics boil down to “send them in in one timeline, keep them back in another”, and then using the information from the former to then retry it again with extra prep and intel.

Their bases are a notable factor in this as well - Unlike Shroud, Coil operates out of a secure underground facility away from all the fighting. Shroud has no way of immediately locating his base, while Coil has figures like Skitter and Tattletale to sweep entire blocks and infer the big picture. This choice of locale gives him far more room to decide the pace of the fight and keep the ball in his field. After all, Shroud isn’t dealing with a group of heroes focused on saving everyone. Coil is a self-admitted bad person, and though he’s one with a lot of pride in his territory, he’s also very well aware that sometimes losses have to be cut - He isn’t going to risk his life and all the power he’s built up just to rush out and stop them early.

Ultimately, Coil’s tactics are a natural opposite to the Red Ring, which would certainly be a problem were they to be placed in a straight firefight. Unfortunately for Shroud, Coil’s extreme paranoia and resources have put him in the perfect place for his tactics to serve as a direct counter. As a result, Coil and his organization take the edge in Tactics.

Ability 

Now time for the fun part! Both of these two have plenty of minions, and plenty of abilities between them. Putting aside their predictions for a moment, how are they going to fare when comparing their abilities together? 

Well, it’s obvious just from a glance that most powers in Worm are… a lot more complicated than those in Dispatch. You have someone with stretchy limbs, someone who fires lightning, and someone who turns invisible against enhanced multitasking and mass mind control of insects, someone who creates darkness that dampens frequencies and manipulates powers, and someone who mutates dogs into monsters, among others. For the most part, Shroud has much more simple powersets under his belt. While this makes them easier to figure out, it also means they have fewer caveats, fewer drawbacks and weaknesses between them. 

In terms of who actually gets verified scaling to the higher feats, we have a couple people on each side to consider for this.

On Shroud’s side, we have:

• Toxic directly compares to an earlier Mecha Man who has fought Flambae, and survived repeated hits to the dick from Punch-up, although he never fights Mecha Man’s upgraded armor.

• Sonar can contend with upgraded Mecha Man, and his laser can match and slowly overpower Blonde Blazer’s.

• Coupe’s knives are able to pierce an upgraded Mecha Man’s armor, although Blonde Blazer can easily restrain her physically.

• The Spider Mech, obviously, was able to fight the entire Z-team all at once.

• Blob Goon could briefly restrain an earlier Mecha Man, but he also easily pierced him with his energy blade and it was implied he couldn’t hold him more than a few seconds.

• Invisigal doesn’t scale directly, but she does have C4 that can break the window of the Spider Mech, and take an earlier Mecha Man out of commission.

Meanwhile, on Coil’s side, we have:

• Bitch can mutate her dogs into monsters capable of contending with the likes of Mannequin, who can tank Tinkertech shots.

• Ballistic has an attack much higher than typical scaling via launching cars.

• Sundancer obviously can take out basically anyone here with her sun, including the likes of Echidna.

• Shatterbird can block the brunt of attacks that can damage Echidna, as well as having a higher feat on her own level.

• Grue can potentially reach this level if he uses his power on one of his teammates that scales.

• Genesis can dream up creatures physically comparable to the other heavy hitters.

So, Shroud has a slight advantage in who gets direct physical scaling to the higher feats, although Bitch can help even these numbers, as she’s able to control and amp up multiple dogs at once. Something to consider is how everyone’s powers are going to interact, as only one side has abilities linked to shards. This also gives Shroud another slight advantage, in that Grue isn’t able to copy his or the Red Ring’s powers due to them not coming from a shard. Even the Cauldron formulas are sourced from dead shards, so it isn’t likely that Grue being able to copy someone like the Siberian (who got her power from a formula) means he would be able to also copy someone like, say, Toxic.

Also, if you consider their powers to be subject to verse equalization, then Coil and Shroud’s powers just… don’t work. Precogs cancel each other out, which kind of removes the entire purpose of this fight to begin with, so we’re not going to do that.

Comparing their powers as a whole, the Red Ring’s powerset benefits their tactics more, letting them hit harder, cause more general destruction, and break through defenses. On the other hand, Coil’s organization has a powerset more based on crowd control, versatility, and disruption. If you refer back to our tactics blog, this isn’t great for the Red Ring in the long-term, but how about short-term? Well, Coil’s organization has no shortage of chaos-causing abilities themselves.

Skitter is able to fill entire city blocks with insect swarms, and she can sense anything going on inside, letting her pick off and disorient enemies as well as incapacitating them with pepper spray and venom. This would also let her detect and take out someone like Invisigal through her invisibility, who also suffers from Asthma and would be particularly susceptible to having her air flow restricted by insect stings. Grue’s darkness isn’t something the Red Ring has ever really had to deal with, and the Undersiders are very used to fighting in and around it due to their team coordination. 

In terms of Fear Factor, we have a trained assassin like Coupe, fast and able to attack from above, and Sonar, another flyer who’s also a big scary bat monster. But Coil also has fliers of his own in the forms of Shatterbird and Genesis, and Genesis has produced some truly grotesque monsters before, not to mention Bitch’s dogs being of a similar size and head-biting ferocity as Sonar. People like Ballistic and Sundancer obviously are a huge threat thanks to their ability to oneshot anyone, and Sundancer in general just has insane battlefield control due to the heat and power of her sun being able to destroy roads and bridges, and to vaporize opponents as large as Echidna.

For Battlefield control and disruption, beyond Grue and Skitter, Trickster can teleport people around semi-freely, allowing him to get targets in more vulnerable positions. Hell, he could even take on something like the Spider-Mech with a little help - Its central window means it’s vulnerable to Trickster being able to just teleport Shroud out of the mech if he gets line of sight. Imp is someone that the Red Ring really just doesn’t have any counter against, unless they get lucky enough to catch her in a stray blast or bomb attack. Save somebody like Sonar, who could at least track her scent (Although actually tracing that back to her is difficult), she could basically slit the throat of anyone on the ground, Shroud himself included. After all, we see from his encounter with Invisigal in her villain route that he’s not immune to being taken off-guard by a knife to the chest, even with the astral pulse.

Now, it isn’t like Shroud is entirely without hax here - He has his own set of advantages. Shroud has several more fliers compared to his opponent - Toxic, the Psychic lady, Coupe, and Sonar makes four compared to coil, with much more natural flight capabilities, as we covered in the mobility section. There’s also SmileMore and her ability to control people through the radio, which if Coil isn’t careful could severely mess with his allies, especially someone like Grue, whose mental trauma would render him susceptible to this. However, her control isn’t absolute, and it’s also reliant on hijacking a radio station, meaning she would need to actually get one of Coil’s radios in order to get into their systems, or turn civilians against the organization.

All that said, there’s two people in their organizations standing head and shoulders above everyone else. So, let’s talk about Toxic and Shatterbird.

Toxic can fly, he has stats, and he can coat his body in acid AND fire it out at a range. He can pretty much take down anyone here if he isn’t caught off-guard by Sundancer or Ballistic. Skitter’s insects aren’t going to work on him, Grue’s power can’t weaken his due to shard rules, his flight means he stays out of the reach of Bitch’s dogs, and probably of Sundancer’s sun. Can anyone actually beat him? Well…

So, Glass, right? It’s a really interesting substance. Fragile on its own, but the silicone-oxygen atomic bonds that make its molecules up are EXTREMELY strong, and it’s a very inert substance. Basically, it’s highly acid resistant. This is a huge problem for Toxic, because Shatterbird is literally covered in the stuff, and manipulates it as her main power, WITH defenses stronger than his power output, and with a max power output stronger than his defenses. 

Making this worse for him, she’s also being controlled by someone else, meaning she can even ignore any injuries he might make on her as long as they aren’t fatal - After all, Regent was able to make Shadow Stalker hang herself, and even as she was dying, she still wasn’t able to break his control. And given his range and ability to share senses, he doesn’t even have to be there to make her fight. So, if these two go head to head, she has a significant advantage. Shatterbird also serves as probably Shroud’s biggest weakness thanks to her finer control, when you consider that Shroud and all of his lackeys are covered in or implanted with advanced technology. 

You know, the stuff with circuits made of Silica? Or the mech with a big glass window on the front? Or the Astral Pulse with a glass case plugged directly into Shroud’s brain?

Yeah, Shroud’s technology and augments give him a severe advantage in this fight, but they also render his entire team and arsenal vulnerable to the attack of Shatterbird. Even something as simple as Glasses can kill people when she uses them as a weapon by shooting glass shards into their brain through their eyes. 

To recap, Shroud’s notable forces, and Coil’s counters to them, include:

Invisibitch: Invisibility and Stealth make her very difficult to even catch, and she can fool Shroud with the Astral Pulse.	Skitter’s bugs can even catch strangers like Imp, who just has a better version of her power. Speaking of, Imp has a better version of her power.
Toxic: Acid can melt through steel, and he has super-strength, durability, and flight on top of that.	Regent and Shatterbird hard-counter him. Glass is chemically highly resistant to Acid, and with enough glass, she can hit with enough power to one-shot him if she makes contact, which Regent can throw him off long-enough for.
SmileMore: Mind control works through radios, giving her extreme range and the ability to disrupt Coil’s forces.	SmileMore’s control can be fought off with enough willpower, which many of Coil’s organizations have demonstrated. Imp is unaffected by Master effects much stronger than SmileMore’s while her power is up.
Spider Mech: Extreme durability and power can simply one-shot most capes, as well as enhancing Shroud’s predictive powers to avoid abilities that can actually damage it.	Trickster can swap himself or someone else with Shroud in order to get him out of the mech - Something Shroud shouldn’t be able to predict given that it’s essentially  Instantaneous. Shatterbird can just disable it, or even break the glass
Coupe: A trained assassin able to restrain people like Mecha Man with her knives and their abilities. Sonar: A strong bat in his full monster form who should be able to outmuscle anyone on Coil’s team besides Echidna.	Shatterbird’s ability to disable technology by destroying the silica inside circuitry hard-counters both of them, leaving Coupe grounded and Sonar as just a strong bat guy

On the other hand, Coil’s major powers, and Shroud’s counters to them, include:

Sundancer: At max power, her sun is just straight-up capable of one-shotting anything in Shroud’s arsenal. Regent: Capable of messing with anyone in range to incapacitate even stronger heroes without them being able to dodge. Trickster: Can easily disrupt enemy tactics by switching their locations or teleporting his allies directly into their range. Tattletale: Information-gathering skill would let her quickly figure out things like the astral pulse or the implants. Ballistic: Launching large enough objects can take out just about anyone on Coil’s side besides the mech.	These characters are regular humans and can be easily killed by a mobile or stealthy enough character like Coupe or Invisigal.
Shatterbird: Extremely wide range. Can disable technology by manipulating Silica inside it. Could damage the circuitry of red ring implants.	No counter besides just killing her, or killing Regent, which makes her everyone’s problem, not just his.
Grue: His powers dampen frequencies and inhibit communications, as well as weakening and copying powers.	Because powers in Dispatch don’t come from shards, his power likely wouldn’t be able to mess with them.
Skitter: Not only are her bugs extremely wide-range, she can use them to attack en-masse and sense everyone inside her swarm to track their position.	Higher-end members of the Red Ring have the stats or abilities to just shrug off her attacks. No counter for her ability to sense bugs besides just killing them all.
Newter: Even an extremely diluted amount of his poison can incapacitate someone for hours just by touching them.	Requires ranged attacks to take out. Toxic’s acidic skin would probably nullify Newter’s attacks.
Dinah: Coil can ask 15 questions to get exact percentages of success or outcomes, allowing him to further plan around Shroud.	No counter, especially since she’s kept underground in a secure facility.
Imp: Can very easily sneak around and kill anyone as long as she isn’t spotted, which is difficult thanks to her power.	No counter besides getting lucky enough to take her out when she attacks, or for her to get caught in a stray attack from someone else.

Ultimately, while Shroud isn’t without his advantages, Coil’s team is just far more put-together and well-rounded, having the abilities necessary to disrupt the Red Ring’s operations and  counter their ranks as well as having hard-counters to most of Shroud’s options, while the same just cannot be said in reverse. As a result, Coil takes the advantage in Capes.

Which brings us to their final, most important trump cards. Both of these two are known for one thing: Prediction and Planning. They’re not villains who brute-forced their way into a fight, they’re masterminds that brought together massive criminal organizations with their enhanced mental powers. Even if Coil has the advantage in capes and firepower, if Shroud can anticipate his moves and plan around them, then no amount of difference in tactics is going to help.

So, let’s finally talk about the Astral Pulse.

Shroud has extremely impressive prediction, that unlike Coil’s is going to actually help him in a battle by predicting moment-to-moment moves and trajectories, at least once he enters his Spider Mech. Even without it, he’s able to make inferences like figuring out Invisigal double-crossed both him and Robert, and predicting that Robert would fall for Invisigal/Blazer (Depending on the route). When he’s in the mech, he’s able to fight half a dozen capes at once, constantly predicting their movements and baiting Blazer into an attack to take her down. While Coil can predict two timelines at once, he also has a weakness in that, if he dies in both timelines, there’s nothing he can do about it. With the Astral Pulse, according to Shroud himself, he won’t even have to make any predictions, he’ll just know the percentages and outcomes of everything.

However, when you actually start to look at his showings, things start falling apart for him fast. His prediction, even with the pulse, is far from perfect, and wasn’t able to save him from his defeat at the end. Let’s look at the list:

• He couldn’t predict that Robert didn’t glass the Bartender at the Sardine

• He lost the coin toss on figuring out which Astral Pulse was real

• [Spider Mech] He didn’t predict that Prism would replace Blazer with a hardlight illusion

• [Spider Mech] He was entirely caught off-guard by Trackstar getting Blonde Blazer’s power

• [Spider Mech] He couldn’t overpower the Z-team even with his predictions once they were all working together

• [Astral Pulse] He didn’t predict Visi taking a bullet for Robert, admitting “I guess I can still be surprised”, and then wasn’t able to stop Robert from jumping him.

• [Astral Pulse] In Invisigal’s villain route, he didn’t predict her backstabbing him at the last moment to take his mask and pulse for herself.

So as we see here, His predictions have failed against large groups, unknown variables, individual people’s decisions, and 50-50 coin tosses. Ironic, given that Coil’s ability basically allows him to play both sides of said coin toss, and Shroud is going up against someone who can use his power to change the decisions he makes, with an army of powers far more esoteric than any he’s familiar with. Speaking of, compared to Shroud’s faulty predictive software, Coil’s precognition is powered by a legitimate four-dimensional supercomputer. The only things in Worm that are able to throw it off are characters whose shards give them explicit blind spots to his ability, like the Endbringers, Scion, or Contessa. Given that none of the powers in Dispatch have shards of their own, there’s no reason their power would cancel out Coil’s own, leaving his precog essentially absolute as far as the Red Ring and Coil’s organization is confirmed.

Speaking of organizations, given the statements on what exactly the pulse is capable of when Shroud plugs it in, Coil… also kind of has a version of that, in the form of Dinah. Someone able to see all of the absolute outcomes of a situation based on questions asked. Obviously, he’s limited by how many times he uses her power, but the fact that he has her, and that her predictions should still be more reliable and absolute than the pulse’s, is a HUGE asset. On top of that, Tattletale is able to make the exact same kind of inferences as normal Shroud, with a much greater track record for her power actually working.

Essentially, what this all means is that Coil’s allies give him the exact same range of predictive abilities as Shroud, all of which are notably more reliable. Granted, Dinah only having 15 questions is a notable drawback that Shroud doesn’t have, but that reliability is a notable factor. On its own, this would probably render these two tied in predictions… if it wasn’t for Coil’s own ability letting them also try everything twice. 

Simply the fact that he gets multiple attempts and can try multiple angles means that his efforts are going to have twice as many chances to succeed as Shroud. If Shroud dies in one timeline, Coil can just actualize that. If Coil dies in one timeline, he can just actualize the other one, provided he doesn’t die in both. And in a battle with as many variables and potential deciding factors as this one, that is a HUGE advantage that Shroud doesn’t have any real counters for.

It’s close, but thanks to his support, Coil takes Predictions.

Summary

Shroud

“What the fuck is this, Robert?”

Advantages:

• More consistent firepower among his ranks

• Slightly faster overall

• Has more minions with enhanced physicality

• Prediction is better for moment-to-moment operations

• The Spider-Mech and Toxic are very hard to deal with

• All-natural intelligence

• Has legitimate mind control…

• Actually has visual media (God Coil was hard to find good images for)

Disadvantages:

• Minions are comparatively much less competent and organized

• No direct counters to many of Coil’s members like Skitter, Shatterbird, Trickster

• Subordinate powers are much more basic and beat stick-y

• Even the Spider-Mech can’t stand up to the full power of Shatterbird or Sundancer

• Too many variables for his prediction to effectively work

• …But it can be fought off with willpower

• Only gets one shot

• His game lost player’s voice to a fucking gacha

Coil

“I’ll admit I am not proud of my failure to see the bigger picture, and I assure you, it is not a mistake I am prepared to make again.”

Advantages:

• Much stronger with highest-end powers

• Subordinates have much more unpredictable powers

• Prediction is better for playing the long game

• More organized operations

• Individual subordinates have much better feats of tactics and independence

• Superior planning ability with Tattletale and Dinah

• Better battlefield control 

• More named capes under his command

• His predictions are absolute

• Echidna just wins…

Disadvantages:

• Subordinates are much more frail 

• Slightly slower overall

• Weaker firepower overall

• Doesn’t have as many heavy hitters like Toxic 

• …But Echidna just wins

Make no mistake, this was an extremely difficult fight to decide. Neither combatant possessed any single overwhelming advantages to even the playing field, and both had plenty of advantages of their own. In fact, I would argue that Shroud actually won more times than not, having the advantage in a straight-up firefight with his slight physical advantages and more straightforwardly-offensive style. However, Coil’s better long game, better tactics and battlefield control, and the combination of Tattletale and Dinah to boost his decision making meant he could make the times where he does win far more likely to happen.

His modus operandi meant he would likely be going into any decisive battle with full information on his opponents and their powers, something that Shroud couldn’t make happen for certain - The Astral Pulse is far from omnipotent and his predictions have failed more often than they’ve succeeded, while Coil and Dinah’s predictions could only be rendered inaccurate by a few characters in Worm that specifically have Blind Spots thanks to their shards, like Contessa. And let’s be honest, Shroud is not Contessa.

The Red Ring was a terrifying force for anyone to go up against, but Coil’s superior tactics, predictions, and support let him worm his way to victory, leaving Shroud without a pulse.

The winner is Coil.

Next Time on Bun & Bot Battle Blogs!