gradient attacks are incredibly powerful moves the main squad can begin unlocking in act two. each character can have upwards of three possible move sets , each one unlocking after story events or when leveling up a relationship. gustave did not have the opportunity to gain gradient attacks due to the nature of his storyline , but if he was given the opportunity to gain these skills , here is the list of moves he would of had.
first gradient attack ﹙ 1 AP / DPS ﹚ ﹕ thunderdome.
second gradient attack ﹙ 2 AP / CC ﹚ ﹕ double strike.
final gradient attack ﹙ 3 AP / AoE ﹚ ﹕ legacy.
thunderdome ﹕ medium single target lightening damage. one hit. an attack that cascades down on an enemy , enveloping them in a thunderous like cage of destruction. acquired shortly after healing from renoir's attack at stone wave cliffs. the survival of the encounter only further affirms gustave's need to protect maelle , as well as the rest of his friends on the expedition team.
double strike ﹕ high lightening damage. hits based on number of charges. can break. leaves target stunned for two turns. gustave leaps up into the air & punches the enemy in question when making this move , the shock shaking the target with each hit stacking in damage. acquired after spending time with gustave in the camp , gaining his trust & slowly stirring up a friendship & sharing common ground over their need to take on the paintress.
legacy ﹕ extreme lightening damage to all enemies. fills overcharge bar immediately after use. can burn. a rageful storm will surround the enemies & engulf them in a terror of gustave's own design , shaking the earth beneath them & sometimes leaving a burning after effect. gained in act 3 & after the completion of the reacher quest / maxing gustave's relationship. a move meant to both honor sophie's passing words of wisdom , while also reminding gustave that he is responsible for leaving his own mark in this world , painted or not.
Elizabeth’s form is made up of atom sized nanites; they number approximately seven billion billion billion (the same approximate number of atoms in the human body). They are typically forming an impeccable replication of human anatomy. If you cut her, she bleeds. She sweats, salivates, etc. Anything that leaves her body remains what it is (blood, skin, bone etc) until she commands it otherwise. Sweat ‘evaporates’ and is reclaimed. If blood is drawn for testing etc she may allow it to remain in its form in perpetuity or may return it to its base form - individually basically imperceptible due to their size - or order them to self destruct themselves, crumbling into almost nothing. The individual nanites are self replicating and self repairing, meaning she can create more to replace any that are lost and can survive and reproduce enough (eventually) nanites to recreate her chosen form if even a single atom sized nanite survives.
If she reverts to her base components it looks very similar to the chromatic liquid of the fluidic terminator.
This does also mean that she can choose and change her form. She prefers the one she has chosen and as she typically presents herself and it requires a conscious decision to reformat her shape. Ie, if she is asleep etc she will still be in her human form.
She does breathe, she can eat and drink, but these are not necessary for her. She automatically filters out poisons, disease, toxins, chemical warfare type particles etc on a cellular level. She can simply choose not to breathe if she’s in danger of “drowning” or suffocation. She doesn’t require food or water but can enjoy them and can gain energy from them. She can also gain energy from kinetic, electric, solar, radiation etc and can basically transform any kind of energy into raw energy her cells are powered from.
She can be knocked unconscious by a massive electric strike such as would happen with a lightning strike or a concentrated enough emp burst; her cells are shielded from a certain amount of an electromagnetic pulse but at a high enough level she could be knocked temporarily unconscious. Her body would continue its basic programmed function. Ie, she’d still appear as an unconscious human.
She can communicate with other computers and technology based equipment that has any form of WiFi / Bluetooth etc that she can hack into. This can be on a global level including satellites but the further she’s extending her reach and the more she’s trying to absorb and communicate through at any given time the more she has to concentrate to the point that she may go unresponsive and seem to be unconscious or otherwise entirely unaware of her surroundings. Depending on the level of technology of whatever universe she is in, she’s generally going to be one of the most elite forms of technology with some exceptions being Doctor Who where there are many many more potentially advanced species depending, BSG, Stargate, etc. some Star Trek societies, some Halo tech, etc, WestWorld depending on season and so on.
If there is no wireless connection, if she can get a hard wired connection, ie, some nanites into the machine, it acts as a hot spot and allows her to connect.
Also, she can lend nanites to act as antibodies to help someone else fight an infection or disease, or to help form temporary”cybernetics” prosthetics / duplications of blood, limbs, organs, etc as a last ditch effort to keep someone alive until they can receive proper care. This is something she does very, very rarely as it obviously reveals the true nature of what she is and raises a lot of questions and leads to potential risks to herself / whoever she tries to help etc depending on the circumstances … and she’s had experiences where her true nature coming out ruins even very close relationships.
The ability to see the possible future(s) of a person, place or thing.
Postcognition.
The ability to see the past of a person, place or thing.
True Sight.
Reese has the ability to see someone's true nature whether they are glamoured or in possession of a body that is not their own etc. This may present as aspects, such as horns, wings, halos, or something else that her mind can interpret as to represent the true nature of the creature she's observing. She generally, again, believes these to be hallucinations and strives to ignore them though what she sees is typically incorporated into the drawings / paintings that she does of those that she sees.
Psychometry.
By touching something, someone, a place, an item etc. that is connected to an emotionally charged event she may see glimpses of that event. This is usually the past but may sometimes be of an event that has not yet occurred. She typically believes this to be another manifestation of a mental illness and or a sensory issue and is one of a few reasons that she typically wears elbow length gloves and keeps the majority of her skin covered.
Dreamwalking.
This ability is typically restricted to those that operate on a higher mental, spiritual or psychic level; meaning supernatural entities, deities, non-humans, other psychics etc. She is not generally aware of what she sees, where she visits, who she connects to or how she believes them to be aspects of her diagnosis or imagination. She does tend to be drawn back to the same dreamscapes often, at least for those that do not have their own dream lands warded or protected, etc. She may, on occasion, connect with those that she is close to, emotionally, but these instances are far less common. She rarely remembers much other than fragmented images or snippets of conversation. The places and people she sees in her dreams are often subjects of her drawings and art.
Divine Touch (Immortality).
While Reese is not (typically) aware of this fact, she has been touched by a divine entity and blessed / cursed with predestination meaning that until she has completed the task or feat that she is destined for, she is unable to die. This does not preclude her from sustaining damage, however. She simply does not die / stay dead from injuries that would otherwise be fatal. In cases of systemic / traumatic damage she remains in a comatose state until her body has healed to the point that it is functional again. She does heal at an accelerated rate and the more traumatic the initial injury the quicker her body will initially recover until she has regained a more regulated state. She can scar and her body does show signs of previous trauma sustained but the more severe injuries tend to heal at a rapid enough rate to prevent scarring or permanent damage.
Cryomancy
The manipulation of water molecules, particularly the ability to shape and drop the temperature of water (in the air, in the ground, bodies of water, in living beings that have water in their biological makeup etc etc) to below freezing temperatures at incredibly high rates. More info to come.
It is extremely important to note that in initial stages of planning and interacting with people, Reese very rarely is aware of any of these abilities. She has been led to believe that she is mentally unwell with diagnosis from bipolar to schizophrenia having been applied over the years. She believes that she is simply prone to auditory and visual hallucinations and does not typically know that she is actually psychic or in any way gifted.
enhanced tracking » pin points exact location of target. overpowered by stronger scents, losing scents of ordinary things.
So I gathered fistfuls / of ash, dark as ink, / hammered them / into marrow, into / a skull thick / enough to keep / the gentle curse / of dreams.
⸺ Essay on Craft, Ocean Vuong (2014)
𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚞𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.
In the early days of using his power, he would close his eyes and ignore other sensory information to concentrate on the scent profile of whoever or whatever he was tracking. Over time, his sense of smell has been so attuned to this skill that he no longer needed to completely shut his eyes and cover his ears.
Now, he usually remains stationary, and the only visible indication that he’s using his power is the flare of his nostrils and his eyes turning into slits.
This is in no way visible to anyone else, but in his head, what happens is akin to seismic location (inspiration: Toph Beifong). It also visually looks similar to Tanjiro Kamado being able to pinpoint the location of demons through smell.
𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚜.
At this point, I think Zhan Lei has been so dependent on his olfactory sense to feel the presence of people around him that without it, he would feel a great sense of loss.
I believe Zhan Lei’s enhanced smell doesn’t necessarily have much of a detrimental effect on his other senses on a day-to-day basis. It does irk him when strong smells are present and lingering, because his heightened sense is able to pick up on them lightning-quick, and these strong smells — whether pleasant or pungent, can disorient him.
When used to near full extent, however, it could potentially dull his sight, hearing, or touch all at once, but not permanently. On the other hand, I imagine his sense of taste being amplified by the use of his power, since taste and smell sort of have a link.
Zhan Lei does not feel much when using his power, except perhaps a sort of tingling sensation that starts from his nose towards his head, spreading throughout the body.
𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑.
I imagine Zhan has an excellent memory for scents, and in the few seconds that he encounters a scent he’s focusing on for the first time, he would already have it filed inside his brain, and is able to recognize it should he happen across it again. His ability has been honed through time and training that he is able to pinpoint a target’s exact location with frightening precision, even moving targets.
It took time and training, but I imagine he is now able to track a target’s location even while he’s moving, so it’s quite literally “you can run but you can’t hide” when dealing with Zhan Lei.
𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜.
At first, he had to be completely immobile when he used his powers. Now, there are still times when he struggles to use his super-enhanced tracking while moving, and it hampers his speed especially during a high stakes chase. This is something he is continuously training on. He is at least able to get a general sense of his target’s location while he’s moving, but it’s not as astonishingly accurate as when he’s immobile while tracking.
Stronger smells are also able to overpower his nose, disorienting him and making him lose track of whatever/whoever he’s chasing. An especially strong (either pleasant or pungent) smell can even serve to drown out his own sense of smell, like a block on his nostrils that gives him a constant head-splitting headache, making him lose sense of ordinary smells around him. And while the pain is something Zhan Lei could deal with, the loss of his sense of smell makes him feel helpless.
𝚏𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.
As part of the House of Cicada, his extraordinary ability to track the exact location of his targets through smell alone has proven useful, and at times essential. During manhunts, he is always present, used as a powerful tool to ensure capture of many miscreants. With Zhan Lei part of the vampiric society’s law enforcement, the chances of evading capture from their clutches has dropped dramatically (well, never zero, but still...). I imagine one has to pray Zhan is not on the manhunt task force so they have a chance at escape.
𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛.
His power alone is not enough to survive day to day as a member of his beloved house, which mercilessly knocks them down their tiers at any small sign of mediocrity. He saw it as his lifelong duty and obligation to continuously hone himself in different styles of combat, and weaponry.
Since he has a leaner body than some, unable to develop bulky muscles, he chose to study martial arts that focus on using an opponent’s brute force and strength against them, most of which are defensive. As a law enforcer, he doesn’t resort to violence immediately, choosing to defend himself only when attacked.
I think he mostly uses long-range weapons during chases, as he is able to hit them even without seeing them (through the help of his nose). But he is flexible enough to fight close combat when needed, never really stopping the training he started when he was still human and fighting tooth and nail against his own relatives. He knows it’s essential to be able to fight in close proximity with his enemies.
Honestly, a lot of the close combat sparring he does these days is when he’s fighting his own wife (whose ability is to nullify his powers).
Within almost 3 centuries of life, he has learned how to use hundreds of weapons, but chose to master only a few: bow and arrow, spears, butterfly swords, and two butterfly knives (balisong). Headcanon: he’s ambidextrous.
okay but we need to talk about THIS panel in Silk #4 because this literally is one of my favorite moments and confirms my headcanon about Reed and how his emotions and mental state of mind affect his powers. He talks about anxiety and his struggle with it, how it quite literally takes everything he has to hold himself together and I relate to that so much. not on an I’ll literally turn into a puddle if I’m not careful level but on a level where I get how your body affects your mind and in turn your mind can affect your physical health. Like, it’s such an underrated moment and something I really admire about Reed and how transparent he is when talking about his mental health -- and encouraging someone younger and struggling with it that it’s a safe space to talk about her anxiety too.
