Editing Echidna (section)

==Abilities and Powers ==
Echidna consumes tissue and 'evolves' body parts, varying from wolf-like heads to legs. When she comes into contact with a lifeform, she will vomit a [[Echidna Clones|clone]] of it that is stronger and more violent than the original. If she maintains contact with the original, she can produce clones of them at will. If she clones a [[parahuman]], the clone will possess either a stronger or modified version of the original's powers.<ref>Some of the time, the powers would be different.  Most of the time, going by precedent, they were stronger.  Trickster was left to wonder how Perdition’s powers had changed.  Duration?  Range?  The amount of time reversed? - [[Migration 17.8]]</ref>

Echidna's clones are usually physically tougher than the original, resistant to pain and injury. They vary based on how long she spent creating them - clones that are produced too rapidly are fragile, half-formed and missing body parts, while clones that are held inside too long are heavily mutated to the point of having difficulty moving.<ref>Noelle tagged several of the bodies in her internal stomachs, felt flesh constrict tight against them, felt the pre-prepared nuggets of flesh in her gullet forming into close replicas in an instant.  Timing was crucial; if she spat them out too soon, they’d be malformed, missing limbs or features.  Too late, and there was extra material. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/interlude-18/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 18]]</ref> Even the most human-looking clones are visibly different from the original. 

Echidna can also create hostile versions of rats, insects, spiders, and other organisms that she absorbs, and can mutate fungi and bacteria into a form that temporarily debilitates anyone she captures.<ref name="19.1">With that thought, it dawned on me.  Noelle absorbed living things, and that apparently extended to bacteria.  Where others had bacteria in their digestive systems to help them digest food, Noelle, Echidna, had no need for such.  When she absorbed the ambient bacteria and molds from her surroundings, she was storing them, weaponizing them like she did with rats and insects.  They were used to debilitate her victims, render them unable to fight back while her clones got the upper hand. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/scourge-19-1/ Excerpt] from [[Scourge 19.1]]</ref> Anyone Echidna touches is absorbed and, if a [[parahuman]], has their powers suppressed.<ref>[Echidna has] touch-based power/ dampening & absorption - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/39cfrs/why_didnt_the_travelers_try_having_panacea_fix/cs287bv/?context=3 Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> Anyone ingested also experiences vivid hallucinations based on the worst moments of their lives. 

[[Tattletale]] considers Echidna to be as physically strong as [[Leviathan]], though not as durable.<ref name="18.3"> “She’s as strong as Leviathan, physically,” Tattletale said, “She’s not as tough, based on what I’ve seen. - [[Queen 18.3]]</ref> She is able to move quite fast despite her size, with powerful legs that carry her body. While seemingly indestructible due to her quick regeneration, she can be damaged and killed. Echidna has a core in her lower body, and anything cut away from this core will deteriorate and die. Anything left attached to the core will rapidly regenerate. If Echidna's core is destroyed, the rest of her is destroyed as well.<ref name="19.5">"The following information has been disseminated, and remains unconfirmed.  Echidna is in a rage state.  The monster is in control, not the girl.  Seventeen capes are currently within her.  Her rate of regeneration and production of clones is derived from a central core within her lower body that produces an endless quantity of biological material.  A body part severed from the core will die.  Destroying the core in entirety will destroy her…"<br /><br />[[Tattletale]], I thought.  She'd passed on the info she'd gleaned. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/scourge-19-5/ Excerpt] from [[Scourge 19.5]]</ref>

Echidna has a thinker ability that interprets parahumans through "smell." She can smell across the city, meaning it can serve as a powerful tracking aid, and can help to identify the powers parahumans have to facilitate planning the creation of clones. She can rank parahumans by "intensity" of smell and identify untriggered parahumans. Through this, she can recognize parahumans with altered shard connections, such as those with a [[Trigger Event#Double Trigger|double trigger]], [[Trigger Event#Second Trigger|second trigger]], or an [[Eidolon|otherwise complex shard relationship]].<ref>One was [[Missy Biron|the little space-warper]], another was a copy of [[Circus|the firebreathing acrobat]] with [[multitrigger|the rich smell]], and three were copies of the unpowered people she’d absorbed.<br />[...]<br />Regent might work against this girl in white, but his influence would be too minor in the big picture.  His smell was weakest of the three.<br /><br />Not that it was really a smell… but she was peculiarly aware of the people with powers, active or otherwise.  Each had a texture and a tone and a ''flavor'', something she felt like she could come to understand.  She might have said it was ''taste'', might have compared it to when she’d tried wine that one time and tried to see what the wine aficionados looked for when they sampled a vintage.  Except the word ‘smell’ worked better, because smell and taste were really very similar and smell worked over distances.<br /><br />There was a difference in [[Skitter]], [[Grue#Expansion|Grue’s]] and [[Eidolon|Eidolon’s]] smells, along with a handful of the other visiting capes.  A smell that set them apart from the other parahumans in the same way that the other parahumans were set apart from the people who ''could'' have powers but didn’t.  An ''intensity''. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/interlude-18/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 18]]</ref> 

It is likely that Echidna's power was affected by the fact that Echidna was administered only half of a dose of a [[Cauldron Vial|Cauldron vial]]; her unstable temperament and monstrous lower body were probably not in the intended spectrum of effects. [[Oliver]], who drank the other half of the dose, may have received the portion of the power intended to moderate and control these effects.