Characters featured in The Children of ARES.
Anthony is a current hopeful of Beacon Academy and former mercenary who had an abrupt change of lifestyle after a mission gone awry. He is a nineteen-year-old white man with a muscular build, messy brown hair tied in a low ponytail, one blue eye and one green eye. He wears a black muscle shirt with olive-brown pants and brown sandals. He is partnered with Rohan McDougal.
Associated Tropes:
- Blood Knight: He absolutely relishes the thought of combat and killing, and his zealous expressions of this can unnerve people around him.
- Combat Pragmatist: Uses himself as a distraction for Jesse to shoot down the Bullhead and uses his pinwheel machetes to distract Blake for a stranglehold "A for Anthony". During the Beacon initiation, he immediately high-tails it while encountering a Fenrir with an incapacitated Rohan on his back.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Implies it whenever his "mentor" is brought up in conversations.
- Deadpan Snarker: Delves into this when he's not extremely angry or hammy.
- Genius Bruiser: Has his own situations of tact and is quite capable of taking the lead.
- Hidden Depths: His conversations with Jesse show that there's more to him than the irritable and rough-hearted person he demonstrates himself to be.
- Knight in Sour Armor: And he's very sour.
- Rousing Speech: In "A March to Hell" and prior to leaving the rotunda, Anthony gives one of these to encourage the rest of the students to stay and fight instead of trying to run straight to the objective. Though, his Blood Knight tendencies do get in the way of his words a little...
- Sociopathic Hero: Heavily emphasized in "A for Anthony".
Rohan McDougal is a hopeful at Beacon Academy. He is a fifteen-year-old white guy with long black hair and gray eyes. He wears a faded blue one-piece jumpsuit and black boots.
Associated Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Type II in "R for Rohan".
- Badass Adorable: He's got a rather innocent flair about him, despite his darker nature.
- Body Horror: His regeneration factor.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Based from what is seen in "R for Rohan", his upbringing is a lot more disturbing than what the other members of ARES had to go through.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: His regeneration factor.
- Nervous Wreck: Behaves like this a little while after his first meeting with Anthony before regressing to a more stoic demeanor.
Elisha Gould is a former mercenary and a hopeful of Beacon Academy. He is a seventeen-year-old white guy with black hair tied into a high ponytail and black eyes. He wears a gray tunic with white trimmings and a black vest over it, cotton white pants and dark brown combat boots with leg bracers.
Associated Tropes:
- Blood Knight: Just like Anthony, Elisha enjoys fighting. But unlike Anthony, he treasures the beauty and thrill of the fight rather than the blood and brutality it rewards.
- Iaijutsu Practitioner: While more often than not he fights regularly, there are instances in where he'll do this.
- Lightning Bruiser: Is a hard hitter and can move very quickly against his opponents.
- Master Swordsman: Is the only one out of his group to wield an actual sword in combat, and he's pretty darn good at using it.
- Rōnin: His original "job" before coming to Beacon.
Elisha's Weapon:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Can slice right through Beowolves like butter.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: The author says that Elisha's weapon was based off of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance character Jetstream Sam's. Meaning that it'd also need stupendous reflexes to use properly and holds the risk of ripping off the user's arm.
- Katanas Are Just Better
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: Has a rifle trigger built in the scabbard to help "fire" the sword and allow for lightning-fast quick-draw attacks.
Seth McCarty is a former mercenary and a hopeful of Beacon Academy. He is a sixteen-year-old white guy with stringy brown hair combed back and blue eyes. He wears a gray-jean short-sleeve shirt over a black long-sleeved undershirt, black jeans, fingerless gloves and cowboy boots fixed with spurs.
