Abhorror
<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Abhorror</default></title>
<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>
<label>Status</label><format><label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox>Abhorror is the name given to multiple clones of Brian Laborn created by Echidna. They shared his memories, but, like all Echidna clones, felt a driving desire to destroy everything their original cared about.
Personality[edit]
Abhorrors were naturally protective toward Echidna, surrounding her in defensive positions. This was most likely due to Grue's own protective personality.<ref name="protect">He turned his back to her as the darkness covered his face, squared his shoulders. The body language was clear. He was protecting her.
He’s one of the useful ones, then. Her copies of the little space warper had been like that. Naturally inclined toward teamwork, disciplined. The other three were more likely to run off. They were still useful, but they did things in their own way. - Excerpt from Interlude 18</ref> They were short-spoken, speaking in short, staggered sentences.<ref>“I’m angry,” the Grue-clone said. “Uneasy. Like I need to hit things. Hurt people until my hands are raw. Gotta get out of here.” - Excerpt from the Missing Interlude</ref>
Appearance[edit]
Before he cloaked himself in darkness, one Abhorror was described as muscular, broad-shouldered, with angry red ulcers studding his skin at set intervals. His eyes were completely black from corner to corner, and both his teeth and fingernails were large and misshapen. His teeth were tangled together to the point that he couldn't open his mouth, forcing him into a perpetual grimace with his teeth bared.<ref>Noelle only had a glimpse of her Grue’s real form before he started cloaking himself in darkness. He was muscular, broad-shouldered, his long hair slicked to his head by the fluids of the vomit. Angry red ulcers studded his dark skin at set intervals.
He cast a glance over his shoulder at her as the darkness crept up over his shoulders and the back of his head. His eyes were black from corner to corner, his teeth too large, misshapen much like his fingernails were, tangled together to the point that he couldn’t open his mouth. It forced him into a perpetual grimace with his teeth bared. - Excerpt from Interlude 18</ref>
Abilities and Powers[edit]
One Abhorror used globular clusters of darkness that he could control in mid-air through a small link of shadow between his hand and the sphere. They stuck to targets like gum and allowed the Abhorror to absorb the captured target's powers.<ref name="sphere">Spheres of darkness appeared in her Grue’s hands. One after the other, he hurled them at the girl in white. The first missed, and the second seemed like it might do the same, until it arced in the air to strike her from the side.
The darkness was more like gum than smoke, and she struggled. Noelle’s Grue closed the distance, moving over the surface of the road much as the girl in white had.
Then Noelle saw why and how. A thread of darkness, barely thicker than a finger, extended from the sticky darkness to her Grue. That would be how he’d moved the projectile in the air, and how he was absorbing her power. - Excerpt from Interlude 18</ref>
Another Abhorror was capable of teleporting himself and others through his darkness. The range of his darkness was large and spanned across city blocks.<ref name="scatter" /> This darkness was thin and was described as "sloshing" around.<ref name="teleport">And the Grue swept darkness over Skitter One. She disintegrated, reappeared as the darkness sloshed against the far wall.
Teleporting things via his darkness. As divergences from the base powerset went, it was pretty extreme. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.1</ref>
History[edit]
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine[edit]
During Echidna's first fight against the heroes, Trickster turned on the heroes and teleported Grue into Echidna's range, allowing her to capture him.<ref>Trickster was already turning. Grue was only beginning to raise a cloud of darkness around us when he disappeared, Trickster standing in his place.
“Grue!” I screamed. He was where Trickster had been, half a city block away from Noelle.
Noelle lunged. Trickster could have moved out of the way fast enough. Grue wasn’t so lucky. The shattered ground under her feet shifted, and she slammed into him, her lower body catching Grue, adhering to him.
He was giving her us. - Excerpt from Queen 18.8</ref> When she was fighting Grace, Echidna created her first Abhorror, one that could shoot clusters of darkness that absorbed powers.<ref name="sphere" />
Echidna saw Abhorrors as useful to her and later created more.<ref name="protect" /> One Abhorror accompanied the two Chitters during Echidna's attack on Coil's base. This Abhorror had the ability to teleport himself and others with his darkness.<ref name="teleport" /> He used this ability to assist the Chitters and later used it to free Echidna from the wreckage of Coil's base, after it had self-destructed.<ref>It was too late. The Grue that was accompanying Echidna emerged from the hole she’d dug. He raised his hands, and I could see the wave of darkness rolling out from the entrance to a parking garage to sweep over the assembled heroes.
She wasn’t beneath the fallen base. With her shapeshifting and the teleporting Grue’s help, she’d found her way through a side tunnel, clawed or punched her way up into a nearby parking garage, a place where she could stage her attack.
Echidna materialized out of the darkness the Grue had created. She was nearly twice the height she’d been before, to the point that the human body on the top was miniscule, a speck by comparison. A human figure atop a broad three-story building. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.4</ref> He also used his power to scatter and spread out the heroes over the span of several city blocks, throwing them out of formation and disorienting them.<ref name="scatter">He’d scattered us. Our tight battle lines were now spread out over city blocks, and people were having a surprising amount of trouble getting their bearings. One of the team leaders managed to get his squad organized, pointing them in the right direction, before Echnidna’s Grue hit them again. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.5</ref> He was eventually killed by Skitter, who used her bugs to tie one end of a silk cord around his neck and the other end to Echidna. As she moved, Echidna's incredibly fast acceleration caused the cord to snap the Abhorror's neck, killing him instantly.<ref>The Psycho-Grue took shelter, ducking to one side of a nearby dumpster. At the same time, Echidna did just what I’d hoped for: she bolted. The cord went taut, and the Grue was pulled off his feet by the suddenness and force of her movement.
I hadn’t tied it into a proper noose, but the cord was around his neck. I’d read somewhere that nooses tended to kill because they broke the neck rather than by suffocation, provided they were tied right and there was enough of a drop.
This wasn’t a drop, but it was a tough cord around his neck, and the creature on the other end weighed no less than fifteen tons, maybe twice that. She’d accelerated from zero to fifty in an instant, and he went limp almost immediately, dead or completely disabled in a heartbeat. My bugs cut the cord and held it ready. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.5</ref>
The rest of the Abhorrors were killed throughout the Battle against Echidna and the cleanup afterward.
Chapter Appearances[edit]
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Trivia[edit]
- Abhorror is only named in the tags of the chapters he appears in.
- The word Abhorror is a portmanteau of "abhor," meaning 'to regard with extreme repugnance or aversion,' and "horror," meaning 'an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.' The two words combined serve as an exaggeration of the Old English definition of "grue," which is 'creepy or disturbing.'<ref name="e.x c1">Is not actually from that. Grue is old english meaning ‘creepy’ or ‘disturbing’. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude: End</ref>
References[edit]
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| Leader | Echidna {{#switch: deceased | deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Clones | Abhorror {{#switch: deceased | deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Apocrypha {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Carnie {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Charlatan {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Chitter {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Gross {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Ignis Fatuus {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Pwn {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Scape {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Temblor {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Unter {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Vizier {{#switch: deceased |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} • Witness {{#switch: noncanon |
deceased=† | noncanon=≠ | former=‡ | unknown=* | #DEFAULT=
}} |