Fanfic / Here Comes The New Boss

The Butchers' Chorus.^note Top row: Butcher I. Second row, from left to right: Dirty Rotter/Butcher IV and Bearskin/Butcher IX. Third row, from left to right: Stoneknapper/Butcher VIII and Quarrel/Butcher XIV. Fourth row, from left to right: Anchorage/Butcher XI, Muramasa/Butcher XIII and Firecracker/Butcher VI. Fifth row: Vladimir/Butcher II, Tactical/Butcher X and Needler/Butcher V. Bottom row, from left to right: Flinch/Butcher III, Nemean/Butcher XII (back), Taylor Hebert/Elpis/Butcher XV (front), and Tock Tick/Butcher VII.

All credit to SpaceBattles poster Metaphorical Grapevine

"Oh come on, I just wanna know! The Butcher's been gone two weeks now, none of them have ever taken so long to show themselves! Hey," he turned back to me eagerly, "how close were they to Winslow? Like, did you see them or anything?"
The voices started shouting all at once at that, roaring, jeering, mocking the horror I felt from remembering, urging me to hurt him. I didn’t realise I'd clenched my hands into fists until the knuckles popped.

Here Comes The New Boss, Nothing Like The Old Boss is a Worm fanfic by Howling Guardian, inspired by The Butcher's Bill.

Each inheritor of the Butcher mantle, in addition to the powers of their predecessors, also gets to have all the previous Butchers' consciousnesses living in their head. If the inheritor is a duly promoted member of the Teeth, the voices will work together. If not, as was the case with Butcher III, the voices will reject their host and drive them mad until the Teeth can reclaim their property. Or, at least, that's how it has always worked before.

After accidentally killing the Butcher during her trigger event, Taylor Hebert becomes the Butcher XV. But rather than go insane like all the Butchers before her, thanks to her minion master power, Taylor can control the voices. And no one knows she is the Butcher...

There is also a spinoff story called Hostile Takeover where Taylor teleports out of the locker and is immediately outed.

Published on SpaceBattles.com (here) and Archive of Our Own (here).

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Here Come The New Tropes:

A-D

• Accidental Murder: How Taylor becomes Butcher XV. She just had her trigger event, and was overloaded by the sensation of taking control of every nearby insect in the vicinity. Butcher XIV, Quarrel, was rampaging nearby and ended up drowning in insects when Taylor lashed out at the loudest, most dangerous thing by instinct.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Taylor gets the Superpower Lottery by virtue of her Accidental Murder of Quarrel and gaining all the powers that come with the Butcher mantle. Unfortunately, said powers also come with fourteen voices in her head, the majority of whom are all villains and tend to drive their hosts insane.
  • The Merchants, which had only three capes to their name, are larger and form earlier than in canon.
• Adaptational Heroism: Ironically, Taylor herself becomes a hero instead of a villain, despite having 14 serial killers in her head giving advice. She's on reasonably good terms with the PRT and New Wave, and Armsmaster respects her.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • The Undersiders have an additional member in the form of Whirlygig, a cape who joined the Merchants post-Leviathan in the web serial.
  • 6.6 features the long-awaited confrontation between Taylor and Lung. Taylor receives a request for back-up from Gargoyle to help subdue Lung as he's chasing after the Undersiders in retribution. Taylor still saves them as she did in canon, but she doesn't defeat Lung since she risks exposing herself as Butcher XV due to using more of her powersets in full view of the heroes and risks dying to Lung, and in turn making him Butcher XVI and her part of the Choir.
• Amnesiac Resonance: Nemean is a Case 53, which means all of her pre-Earth Bet memories were wiped. Despite this, she occasionally has flashes of insight and understanding, like knowing what kangaroo meat would taste like.
• Anchors Away: Anchorage apparently took her pre-Butcher cape name from her use of an actual stolen anchor as a signature weapon.
• And I Must Scream: When Taylor pushes the Butcher voices down, they basically get a taste of sensory deprivation, alone in the dark until they gradually return. It's unpleasant enough that they grudgingly give her a measure of cooperation rather than spend more time there (although they still routinely test her limits).
• Anti-Regeneration: When facing Lung, Taylor's Butcher instincts kick in, because the past Butchers have fought regenerators before and know how to win.
  The first trick was to immobilise them...
  The second trick was to attack rapidly and give their healing a lot to deal with...
  Lingering injuries were better than clean injuries— jamming objects into the wounds was another effective tactic...
• "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: Gender-Inverted example. Anchorage is very vocal about being Afro-American, and a lesbian, and having a history of being mistreated by cops before she became the Butcher. Suffice it to say that she by herself provides a supermajority of the hivemind's antipathy and grievances against Taylor cooperating with local law enforcement.
• Armed with Pepper Spray: The opening scene has Dirty Rotter scoffing at Taylor carrying pepper spray, and advising her to get a knife instead. Instead, as Elpis, she leans into it, designing projectiles with a mixture of pepper and chalk dust to take villains down with minimal danger of lasting harm.
• Ascended Extra: The story explores many of the minor characters from Worm canon.
  • Spitfire is a minor character in the source material. She gets an interlude and appears a few times, but her past remains a mystery. In New Boss, she is a homeless girl whom Taylor finds being accosted by a bunch of Empire thugs and later joins Elpis' own group.
  • The Butcher was a one-shot villain in canon with very little information about them, and when they do make their debut proper, they're swiftly killed off and transferred to Cherish, who is shipped to parts unknown so as to prevent contact with any other parahumans. In New Boss, every Butcher between the original Butcher and the fourteenth, Quarrel, is given their own fleshed-out personality.
  • The Teeth also get an appearance. This includes Vex, Spree, Animos, Hemorrhagia, and Reaver.
  • Jotunn was little more than a name in Worm and Ward, but here he has been expanded to a member of the Empire with the power to make ice weapons and turn invisible.
• Atrocious Alias: Konnigit named himself after a bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but was confused for an Empire cape as his name sounded like German, a racial slur, or a German racial slur. Upon hearing his name for the first time, Miss Militia (who knew the reference thanks to Mouse Protector) groans in disbelief. He eventually changes it to Ironclad.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The owner of a bar starts playing Dropkick Murphys on the jukebox as a signal that it's time to kick some Empire thugs in the teeth.
  Liam pulled a hand out of his pocket and held it up. A dollar coin gleamed between the knuckles of his first and second fingers. "Billy?"
  "Yeah?"
  Liam tossed the coin to him. "Go put on B7, there’s a lad."
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Chief Director Costa-Brown tells New Wave that she's sure a government approved team of independent heroes can use discretion in these difficult times — and then makes it clear that the team she's talking about is the Undersiders, who contributed much more to the Noelle takedown than New Wave did. Carol is furious.
• Bar Brawl: Taylor goes to an Irish Bar on Saint Patrick's day due, aiming to drink to Alice's memory on behalf of the Butchers, when the Empire comes strolling in. The Irish are not happy and order them to leave. They don't. Take a guess what happens next.
  Liam: He said get out, boy. That's walking or crawling, but you're going out.
• Battle Trophy:
  • After killing Hemorraghia, Alabaster takes a kitschy keychain she always wore around her neck. Quarrel in Taylor's head is enraged at seeing proof of her friend's death.
  • Nemean, after becoming the Butcher, wore her predecessor's skull as part of her costume. This became a tradition for the following Butchers until Taylor.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Bearskin complains that he'd rather watch paint dry than spectate on Taylor's breakfast small talk with her dad. Firecracker warns him that if Taylor can spend all night practising silat, then chances are that she would actually watch paint dry if she found a good reason, so he shouldn't mention it.
  "If someone told her watching paint would make her ‘a better hero’,” I could feel the quote marks in there, "I bet she’d be there staring at it."
  There was a sudden lull as the Butchers considered the thought.
  "She would," Anchorage said at last.
  "Yup," Nemean grunted.
  "Without question," Muramasa agreed.
• Berserk Button:
  • Taylor manages to keep her anger at Madison under check well enough and doesn't retaliate. At least not until Madison tries to tell a couple of girls that she played a "prank or two" on her. In the next second, Amy has to calm Taylor down when the latter pins Madison to a wall and is about ready to let the Butchers have some fun.
  • Considering Nemean went on a legendary murder spree killing pedophiles, going after kids is a big one for her. When Taylor learns Coil is going after a twelve-year-old girl (Dinah) for her powers, Nemean gets so pissed her power activates all on its own and threatens to overpower Taylor in a bid to murder Coil on the spot.
• Beyond the Impossible: Up until Taylor came along, it was believed to be impossible to control the Butchers, as whoever becomes the next Butcher will be driven insane or broken down if they don't align with the previous Butchers' own ideals.
• Big Fancy Gun: The Butchers have a minigun that they call Caroline, first used by Tactical. It's only really portable due to the Butcher's Super-Strength.
• Big Fancy Sword: After getting some inspiration from Kid Win's modular Tinkering, Taylor reveals a new feature of her electrified swords during the Empire's attempt to rescue Stormtiger, combining the two together to form a single weapon longer than she is tall. Unfortunately she doesn't have a scabbard that size.
• Black-and-White Morality: Carol Dallon has this view when it comes to criminals. After Coil is apprehended she advocates capturing the Undersiders alongside Armsmaster despite their contribution in taking down their former boss and calls Elpis a disgrace when she intervenes and vouches for them.
  • This worldview partially extends to New Wave as a whole, or at least its younger members. Crystal is naturally wary of the Undersiders and is skeptical of their Heel–Face Turn whereas Amy was convinced Taylor was a monster in human skin by virtue of being the Butcher in spite of her hero status (though she's slowly beginning to understand Taylor isn't necessarily evil).
• Blessed with Suck: Taylor inherited the Butcher Mantle, but has the ability to moderate the voices in her head. So she gets great power, with none of the insanity. Sounds great! Or, so you would think. As Taylor rightfully points out to Amy Dallon, whoever kills her becomes the next Butcher and she joins the Choir, and in turn whoever becomes Butcher XVI and beyond will also have the power to manage the Choir, making her a very tempting target for an ambitious villain if anyone knew about it. Plus, she can't turn off the voices all the time without becoming emotionally numb, so she has to deal with over a dozen psychopathic serial killers taunting her and trying to turn her toward unbridled violence.
• Blinded by Rage: Bearskin's rage induction power isn't always useful (besides being distinctive), but it can be quite effective at preventing an opponent from escaping or strategising, provided that you're ready to deal with a direct assault. Elpis uses it to stop Hookwolf from fleeing to inform Kaiser of her identity; he immediately stops running and leaps at her.
• Blood Knight: The Butchers love a good fight, and this general enthusiasm feeds through to Taylor who can lose herself in the heat of the moment. Their preference would be ultraviolent murder, but any fighting suits them better than staying peaceful, so they're willing to compromise and help Taylor fight the way she wants (ie no killing or maiming) rather than get nothing.
• Boring, but Practical: Taylor is surprised to see that the Undersiders now have a van, but it turns out they just rented it.
  It was surprisingly mundane, but sometimes the boring legal way was useful even to criminals.
• Broken Pedestal: Not that there was much of one to begin with, but Brandish's opinion of Elpis drops significantly after she forces Armsmaster to let the Undersiders go. Brandish calls her a disgrace after the operation is said and done.
• Brown Note: Cricket's power lets her emit waves of nauseating, debilitating sound. By studying that and the Butcher's pain blast ability, Elpis is able to replicate some of the effect in a module on her spear. Just the edges of it, without being the direct target, sound to her like "a high-pitched shriek like someone playing a violin with a hacksaw."
  Even for someone who didn't currently have ears, that had to hurt.
• Bullet Hole Spelling: Quarrel had intended to announce the Teeth's return to Brockton by drawing the gang's symbol on a wall using Caroline, but she was interrupted by Taylor.
• Busman's Holiday: Taylor is not happy that her St Patrick's Day was interrupted by the Empire invading the bar, and she gives them reason to regret the intrusion.
  This was my night off. This was a night for Tactical to connect with his roots, and for Quarrel to mourn her friend, and the Butchers to have fun and drinks, and for me to relax away from cape stuff for a bit.
  But the Empire just had to be here.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Tarquin brings up one of the new heroes in conversation, mentioning his activities with approval and telling people how to pronounce his name, "Konnigit".
• Butterfly of Doom:
  • Had Quarrel and the Teeth not returned to Brockton Bay to re-establish their dominance over the city, or did so later, odds are Taylor wouldn't have become Butcher XV.
  • Taylor's earlier and more aggressive career results in several capes going different ways.
    • Spitfire is picked up by Elpis before she would have met Faultline's crew, and later joins the Wards.
    • Whirlygig joins the Undersiders, since Taylor didn't join them but did break the Merchants.
• Cat Girl: Nemean, Butcher XII, is a Case 53 that resembles a female lion. Her name is taken from the fact that her skin is nigh-unbreakable, she never sleeps, and she can extend her fangs and claws.
• The Cavalry:
  • Taylor is holding her own against Mush, but struggling to tip the scales and actually beat him, and every clash results in more junk he can pick up — until New Wave arrives and trounces him.
  • When the battle to fend off the Empire while Hookwolf is transported to the Birdcage starts to go against them, Elpis adjusts the settings on her sonic spear and swings it around, emitting a warbling whistle that can be heard for blocks around. Moments later, the Undersiders charge in; Grue disrupts Kaiser's aim, Bitch and Tattletale slaughter Crusader's ghosts, and Whirligig bombards Rune's aerial platform.
• Character Development: Taylor and the Butchers are causing this on each other. While Taylor grows to become more self-confident, capable, and pragmatic, the Butchers are enjoying the order that Taylor's power has provided, show a willingness to aid Taylor in her quest to become a hero (as opposed to the alternative of being completely bored), and become more prone to proposing nonviolent solutions to problems. Especially with the less murderous Butchers, like Flinch, gaining more self-confidence and becoming more assertive.
• Cherry Tapping: Some of the Butchers consider Quarrel's death this. For context: Taylor had just undergone her Trigger Event and had her powers for maybe a minute. Then she killed Quarrel by accident by swarming her with every bug nearby. She didn't kill the Butcher in an ambush, a duel, or in combat; she killed her by accident.
• Classical Movie Vampire: Vladimir portrayed himself as a vampire due to his power's focus on blood, complete with bad accent.
• Classified Information: Chief Director Costa-Brown declares that no one outside the room can talk about anything related to the Noelle fight, which is being treated retroactively as an S-class threat. That specifically includes the revelation that Elpis is the Butcher; she's been acting as a hero and Rebecca doesn't want someone much worse murdering her in order to inherit.
• Combat Commentator: The Butchers often comment on Taylor's fighting. This includes advice, jokes, leering at anything vaguely sexual, and general commentary. They can be considered a combination of peanut gallery, teacher, and sports commentator.
• Combo Platter Powers: Each Butcher receives a weakened copy of the powers of all previous Butchers in addition to their minds. Some of them just stack more improvements to Taylor's Super-Strength and Super-Toughness, but she also gains such eclectic abilities as seeing blood vessels through walls, reshaping stone and metal like putty, and clockwork-based Tinkering, in addition to her canonical bug control.
• Contrived Coincidence: 6.4 reveals Ironclad is Tarquin, one of Taylor's friends from school. This makes some of the Butcher collective suspicious and demand Taylor investigate to see whether him joining her was really coincidence.
• Cool Car: The Chariot, Taylor's mode of transportation around the city. It's a Tinker creation assembled from pieces of several cars that Taylor claimed as spoils of war from the Merchants.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: Vladimir disliked the cape name the Protectorate kept using for him (Sanguine), so he spelled out his preferred name on a billboard in blood.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Taylor's powers almost all count as this, especially her bug control, because the first usage of her powers led to her being called "Swarm" by the public since Quarrel was killed by a swarm of bugs. As a result, she tries not to use some of the Butcher's more blatantly obvious powers and styles herself as a Tinker. Since she used Rotter's power on Victor, Taylor fears he might put two-and-two together. She's later forced to use more of her abilities while fighting Lung, albeit ones that would be unnoticeable to other capes, such as rotten wounds (which Lung can easily regenerate from) or pain blasts...in full view of Tattletale, whose power specializes in dredging up all kinds of information. Ultimately, it's the explosive teleport power from Firecracker that outs Taylor during her fight with Hookwolf, which the latter recognizes despite Taylor trying to convince him otherwise.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Elpis tries to send Ironclad out of the room before she executes Hookwolf so that he doesn't have to see it happen.
• Cursed with Awesome: Taylor isn't pleased by inheriting the Butcher mantle, but she has to admit that the assortment of powers has its perks. Also, it gave her more confidence, helping her end the bullying problems.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Taylor, being a case of Bad Powers, Good People. She's the latest inheritor of the Butcher's powers and all the baggage that comes with it, but she's able to manage them to a certain extent and uses her newfound powers to become a hero.
• Dartboard of Hate: Taylor blows off steam by forming statues in the likenesses of various villains and then smashing them.
• Dead Man Writing: Taylor prepares a number of letters, from herself and various previous Butchers, to be delivered to loved ones when she's exposed or killed. She leaves them with Amy, who is taken back by the request but does come to realize that the Butchers are human too. Once Taylor has been exposed to the Travellers and Faultline's Crew, she asks Amy to go ahead and deliver them.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Most of the Chorus doesn't really hate Taylor (I and XIV being the exceptions), but they routinely speculate on the prospect of her getting killed, because for them it just means picking up a new power and a new "neighbour". They're also rather inured to the experience of dying, since they've all died already (and, in fact, killed each other).
• Decapitated Army: Lacking the Butcher, the Teeth just don't put their all into fighting like they normally would. They're in a holding pattern, waiting for their leader's return, and the Empire punishes them for it.
  Victor had been disappointed in the encounters he'd had with them— there was something missing in them, a fire that had gone out. Without their leader, they were lacking.
• Deliberately Non-Lethal Attack: After their first encounter with Elpis, the Undersiders aren't happy about what she was hitting them with, but Tattletale recognizes that her compressed air cannon and pepper dust rounds are "About as non-lethal as you can get."
• Dope Slap: Spree smacks Reaver for deciding to take Squealer as a prisoner.
• Dirty Old Man: Dirty Rotter, as befitting his name, is the oldest of the Butchers and by far the most lecherous.
• Disposing of a Body: Butcher I claims to have previously turned bodies into school cafeteria food to get rid of them. Taylor thinks he's making it up, not because she has any high opinion of cafeteria food, but because she doesn't think he would bother to hide a body at all.
• Disproportionate Retribution: When Taylor is uncomfortable about being put on the spot to introduce herself in homeroom at her new school, the Chorus' suggestions for payback are along the lines of throwing a pencil through her teacher's eye. And with the Butcher's Brute rating and history, that's Not Hyperbole.
• Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Taylor crushes a fork while becoming accustomed to her new strength, though she can repair it with Stoneknapper's power.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Upon first encountering Elpis, Miss Militia has a go at spooking her into joining the Protectorate by warning her about how the gangs will try to forcibly recruit Tinkers, and how there's speculation that even Butcher isn't dead. The Chorus finds it hilarious.
  • Danny learns about Taylor spending time with Amy, and is impressed that she's friends with a real-life cape. Taylor almost bites through her own tongue upon hearing that.
• Dramatic Unmask: Downplayed. After mending things with Spitfire, Taylor unmasks herself as proof she considers Spitfire a friend and teammate. She's not the only one to unmask either. To Taylor's shock, Ironclad calls her by her civilian name before he unmasks; as it turns out, Ironclad is Tarquin, her friend and classmate from Arcadia.
• The Dreaded:
  • Lung, for obvious reasons. The Choir considers him an ideal inheritor because of his powers, so Taylor decides to avoid confronting him to the best of her abilities at present. 6.6 reminds readers why he's one of the most dangerous capes in Brockton Bay as Taylor fights for dear life against him, despite having back-up from Gargoyle and Battery.
  • The Butcher is a figure of nightmare for most capes. Armed with a plethora of abilities, each of them powerful enough to kill the previous Butcher; invariably driven insane by all the voices; and if you somehow kill him/her, you still lose, because you're the next host, and your power just got added to the collective to make your own rampage even deadlier than the previous ones. Panacea realises that Elpis is Butcher and immediately freaks out.
• Driven to Madness: How Butcher III and other inheritors were forced to accept their new position. If their host doesn't align with them, the Choir will drive them to the breaking point until they break down. Taylor has so far managed to avoid this thanks to her power giving her the ability to temporarily silence the Butchers when they get rowdy, at the cost of numbing her emotions.
• Dynamic Entry: On Taylor's debut, she takes a suggestion from Firecracker, and instead of just approaching a circle of Merchants on foot, she jumps down dramatically from an overhead girder, then seizes two of them and throws them at the others. The shock of her arrival is enough to make one of them inhale the joint he was smoking, which sends Firecracker into fits of laughter.
• Dysfunction Junction: Given the nature of parahuman powers and how they get them, every member of the Choir has a variety of issues. Oddly, this is also what gives Taylor a small foundation of emotional support, providing the collective aren't being a bunch of assholes.

E-N

• Eating the Eye Candy: The Chorus quite enjoy checking out anyone Taylor looks at, to the point of suggesting that she tip a waitress well "for the show", and between them they pretty much represent every sexual orientation. Taylor tries to avoid looking at anyone else in the girls' change rooms at school, but in the process, she inadvertently gives some of her friends the impression that she's gay because they assume she wouldn't be concerned about where her eyes wander if she were straight.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Most of the Choir doesn't really respect Taylor's principles or personally like her much, but they're usually pragmatic enough to work with her against people like the Merchants (whether it's because they really dislike the Merchants, or just don't want to be bored), granting her insights and fighting instincts, and not dragging their feet too much.
  • When Taylor is having some difficulty tracking down Skidmark and Squealer, she subdues and ties up some ABB members and asks them for directions.
    Elpis: I'm sure you can see the upside in cooperating with heroes to snitch on your enemies.
  • After the assault on Coil, the Undersiders approach Elpis and offer a Heel–Face Turn to work with her because they're hoping that she can help protect them from his retaliation.
  • The Undersiders are shocked and scared to realise that Elpis is Butcher XV, but they still pitch in to help her take down Hookwolf, since Elpis still seems to be on their side and Hookwolf very much isn't.
  • Armsmaster declares that as an A-class threat, the assault on Noelle is being handled under Endbringer Truce conditions, so villains can assist without fear of retaliation. Miss Militia is visibly uncomfortable about working with the Butcher, but once Elpis has confirmed she's there to help, Militia lets it go and focuses on getting the job done.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The previous Butchers represented a mixture of gender, race, and sexual orientation. As such, they're equally horrible to everyone outside of the Teeth and kids.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The AMA mentions that Muramasa burns incense at his mother's grave every year... and then befouls his father's grave.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The AMA reveals that several of the Butchers still maintained contact with their families, such as Anchorage who would always sneak her parents money and offered to bribe some of her sister's professors to help her graduate.
  • Quarrel considers many in the Teeth close companions, Alice most of all. As one can imagine, she becomes enraged upon learning the Empire killed Alice, and demands Taylor kill them all in retribution.
  • Taylor privately admits to herself that the Butchers actually had more friends than she herself had before inheriting.
    Some twisted little part of me cared about what happened to the Teeth, the part that remembered parties after jobs and patching up injuries together, the camaraderie of monsters. The Teeth were by no means affectionate, and the Butchers cared more about the gang as a concept than as people, but there was a bond there stronger than anything I'd had in years.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Whatever the Butchers may do as leader of the Teeth, the "initiation" of Empire goons by murdering minority families infuriates several of them. Considering most of them would fit the criteria of "initiation targets" (the author confirmed the original Butcher triggered while being the victim of such an "initiation"), this certainly makes sense.
  • The Butchers do not target children or go after kids. It's implied they were this even before Nemean, who killed pedophiles, became an inheritor. They actually seem to hold some fondness for them, with few if any of them giving any kind of rude or scathing remarks as Taylor tends to a child whose family was being attacked by Empire goons.
  • They also unitedly condemn Emma's betrayal, and even show some compassion for Taylor having been through it.
• Everyone Has Standards: As aloof as he is, even Armsmaster is a little put-off by Spitfire blowing up at Elpis for seemingly leaving her to fend for herself during the Empire raid and asking to join the Wards and initially tries to have her reconsider her options.
• Exact Words: As Dirty Rotter notes, Taylor technically isn't lying when she explains beating Hookwolf by saying that "I just threw everything I had at him." She just isn't elaborating on what that "everything" includes.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Panacea heals up Elpis, she sees the changes the latter underwent due to her Trigger, and notes that had Elpis appeared earlier people would have mistaken her for the Butcher, what with the Healing Factor, and the tough skin, and the extra photoreceptors, and extra row of teeth, in combination with being a Tinker... and Panacea realizes all of a sudden that she's enclosed in a room with the latest incarnation of the country's biggest Serial Killer.
  Panacea: I mean, one of the Butchers was a regenerator, and another was a Case 53, so you’d… really… be…
• Extreme Omnisexual: Whatever their original preference, each new Butcher tends to shift towards this due to personality bleedover from the Chorus, which represents a mix of both genders, several orientations, and little regard for self-control.
  Taylor: You do realise I'm straight, right?
  Anchorage: Oh, give it time, you'll be swinging every which way soon!
• Fantastic Racism: A variant in the Empire's attitude toward the Butcher, holding that because previous hosts have included several minorities, the current Butcher is equally tainted regardless of their actual race.
• Fate Worse than Death: Former Butchers end up as voices inside the head of the current host. Their only sensory input is from the host, and they have no ability to affect the outside world.
• Flight: The Chorus would really like to pick up a flight power. The first time Taylor sees Glory Girl at school, Stoneknapper loudly wishes that they'd been killed by her instead.
  Quarrel immediately started raging at him, so I pushed them both back into the dark as the argument built up steam, but privately I wished I'd got something like her powers myself. Flight was the power every little kid dreamed of having at some point in their life.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten:
  • Bearskin was a typical racist, homophobic Empire cape until he inherited the Butcher mantle. While the Chorus broke him of his opinions, they have never let him forget and will quickly lash out if he shows any signs of backsliding.
    Bearskin: How many times do I have to apologise before you stop bringing that up?
    Muramasa: A few thousand more, I’d say.
  • Defied with Madison. Taylor, under no circumstance, considers forgiving her for the hell she caused her back at Winslow and makes her opinion very clear.
• Girls Love Chocolate: Amy is grouchy about narrowly missing out on the last chocolate puddings in the school cafeteria. Veers toward Heartbreak and Ice Cream when Taylor hears about what Amy has to deal with on a daily basis, and promptly swaps her own (chocolate) pudding for Amy's vanilla.
  Bearskin: Taylor, no. I'm serious, don't do it. Taylor, don't, no, no, no, not the pudding—
• Give Chase with Angry Natives: Squealer tries to shake Elpis' pursuit by driving through the middle of a second car chase cum running battle, between the Empire and the Teeth, with razor force fields and rifles making the whole area deadly. Elpis responds by just pressing the accelerator.
• The Gloves Come Off:
  • Hookwolf is about to kill the Undersiders during a brawl, and Taylor can't move fast enough to intercept him, so she instinctively teleports in his way — and both he and the Undersiders recognise the distinctive flames. With her identity busted wide open, she throws aside restraint and draws on her full power set — teleports, festering wounds, pain blasts, weakness seeking — to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown until he's unconscious and she's covered in red.
  • Trickster shoots a Noelle-clone, but Taylor doesn't know about Noelle's power and doesn't realise it's not the real Amy. She embraces the Butchers' fury and power, throwing aside concerns about her identity and leaving the Travellers' groaning crippled bodies all over the floor — some of them only alive due to Perdition's time-rewinding power.
  • Noelle absorbs half a dozen capes and goes on a rampage. Recognizing the danger level and knowing her identity as the Butcher is already likely to be out, Taylor stops hiding what she can do, and fights the clone army alongside the PRT with her full powers, wading through blood by the end.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Before setting up to repel the Empire's attempts to retrieve Hookwolf, Taylor arranges for the Undersiders to wait out of sight, with not even the heroes knowing about them. She signals them at the right time to tip the balance of the fight, blocking Kaiser's sight with Grue's darkness, keeping Rune too busy dodging Whirlygig's projectiles to contribute and slaughtering Crusader's ghosts.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: L33t rigs up a device that's meant to cure Noelle. Instead, it sends her on a rampage, starting by absorbing Trickster, Ballistic, and Faultline, then adding Leet and Glory Girl and nearly Panacea, by which time the PRT have become aware of her...in the end, Noelle is actually cured, but only after creating dozens of clones that the heroes have to fight their way through, and Taylor herself is nearly lost.
• Good Feels Good: The Chorus isn't quite sure how to deal with having teenagers look up to Elpis; they like it, but it's weird for them. Bearskin's reaction to Taylor concluding that her identity is busted is, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."
  Dirty Rotter: Having kids pass around photos and think we're cool? We never had that.
  Quarrel: We did have that.
  Vladimir: We had a handful of weirdos on the internet thinking that some of our costumes looked interesting- and those were usually the sort of idiots we wouldn't even care about stepping on. This is the general public approving of us.
• Goomba Springboard: Running midair with Laserdream's help, Taylor does a double stomp to jump off one of Crusader's ghosts. Anchorage bursts out laughing and directly compares the situation to Super Mario.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Elpis' armour has a pair of grappling hook launchers built in, one in each wrist, apparently looking like a pair of crossbows stuck together back to back. She uses them for roof-running, and also tactically, such as anchoring herself to Rune's floating platform and to Ironclad, so as to slow the platform down.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Deconstructed when an Empire thug on the losing end of a bar brawl grabs a bottle and tries to break it to make a weapon. Instead he ends up with a fistful of shattered glass and blood. While applying a tourniquet, Taylor relays a Butcher story about another tough who did the same thing, only for his opponent to grab the bloody hand and squeeze.
• Grievous Harm with a Body:
  • Before meeting Elpis and getting some proper training, Konnigit reportedly beat up several E88 members using another member. Assault even quotes this trope.
  • Lung uses Gargoyle as a club to knock Elpis down the street (which clues Tattletale in that Elpis is unusually resilient).
  • At least one Noelle-clone of Ballistic has the power to turn body parts, instead of inanimate objects, into high-speed projectiles.
    Nemean: I think that was a head.
• Groin Attack:
  • Faced with a rapidly growing Lung, Taylor buys herself some time with a Rotter-empowered punch to the groin. She figures it won't last since he's a regenerator, which should conceal the evidence of her distinctive power usage.
  • After Taylor mentions to Spitfire that trigger events shouldn't become widespread knowledge, because then idiots would kill themselves trying to get powers through stunts like connecting car batteries to their genitals, the Chorus is amused and impressed by her creativity — except, as she points out to them, it's not something she came up with, it's something the Butcher actually did.
    Tock Tick: She's right. That guy who sold us those booby-trapped guns, when Bearskin was driving? You cornered him at a chop shop and got creative.
    Bearskin: Oh yeah. Man, that guy could scream.
  • Elpis hesitates to attack a thug who was foolish enough to stuff a pistol in the front of his waistband, lest the gun go off and emasculate him; she waits until he's drawn it before snatching it away and throwing him at his friends.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Taylor is constantly struggling to keep her temper under control, both in and out of costume. She initially blames the Butchers, but Danny later notes she inherited his temper; the Butchers just made it worse.
• He Knows Too Much: After Taylor beats Hookwolf by using her full power set, she can't see any viable alternative to killing him, or he'll expose her as the Butcher, to Kaiser and/or the PRT. Tattletale offers the option of getting him express-delivered to the Birdcage by Dragon before he can tell anyone.
• Healing Factor: Taylor inherits fast healing from Nemean. Which Panacea notices; Taylor's concussion heals in a matter of moments, and she's at peak health — fresh cartilage, no toxin buildups, no scars — in a way that can't be maintained without constant regeneration.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • The Undersiders approach Elpis after Coil's downfall, in hopes that she can help them mend bridges with the PRT and make the switch to heroes because Coil is unhappy with them and they're worried about revenge attacks. The PRT isn't keen on giving them a free pass without having them arrested and tried, but activities like rescuing a building full of people from one of Bakuda's bombs have an impact on public opinion. Once they help with the Echidna takedown, Director Costa-Brown instructs that they be treated as government-approved independents — with corresponding obligations to keep their mouths shut about Elpis being the Butcher, because Costa-Brown doesn't want any ambitious villains aspiring to become Butcher XVI.
  • Taylor isn't aware of any villains successfully rebranding as heroes, although she recognises that it could have happened and been covered up. (She doesn't know about Assault's history as Madcap.)
• Heroic Build: The Butchers have a variety of physical enhancements that take Taylor pretty much immediately from "tall and skinny" to "tall and buff" when she inherits. She has some difficulty adjusting to a new image of herself as fit and attractive.
  I glanced down at my arms— I'd always been naturally skinny no matter what I did, which meant that the results of the various Brute packages and Needler's regeneration stood out like rocks on a string. I wasn't exactly disappointed at gaining muscles with minimal effort, but the change was too sudden for me to be used to it yet.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In her civilian life, Taylor has a somewhat negative reputation at Arcadia. When she first transferred, she blew up at one of the popular students when he pressed her for gossip about the Butcher. This is briefly up ramped when Madison also transfers to Arcadia and claims Taylor rebuked her apologies for "silly pranks". Elpis' debut also gets some negative press for her use of an improvised flamethrower.
• Hidden Depths: The Butchers have demonstrated a wide range of talents, interests, and general knowledge which would not be expected given their reputation as bloodthirsty maniacs.
• Hold the Line: An assault by the full might of the Empire 88 is not something easily stopped, but all Taylor has to do is hold them back long enough for Dragon to collect Hookwolf and fly him off to the Birdcage.
  Armsmaster: If we can hold out long enough to get Hookwolf onto the transport, we’ve won.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Taylor's plan to keep people from realizing that she's the new Butcher right away is to pass herself off as just a Tinker. It helps that one of the past Butchers was actually a Tinker, so she can genuinely create Tinkertech, but her Powered Armor is also a cover for Brute powers like Nemean's Super-Toughness.
• I Call It "Vera": The Butcher's giant gun is called Caroline.
• An Ice Person: Jotunn (an extremely minor character from canon) is now a member of the Empire who can generate weapons out of clear ice that explode on impact, freezing whatever they hit. When moving quickly, he also becomes see-through.
• Immortal Life Is Cheap: Taylor sticks to nonlethal takedowns as part of her Elpis persona, but has no problem with brutalizing Crusader's ghosts, or cutting Alabaster in two after he brags about killing Hemorraghia.
• Immune to Bullets: Taylor stops a Merchant from shooting at her (and possibly hurting someone with ricochets) by placing her armoured hands over his gun. The extent of the damage is that emptying the pistol manages to dent the hand armour (though Tock Tick is disappointed that it managed even that much).
  Tactical: Pistol fire from point blank range to the weakest part of the suit. I'd say it held up great.
• Immune to Fire: Spitfire is completely fireproof, which is important for using her napalm spit safely. Her costume, however, is not, so if she goes too crazy, she runs the risk of ending up naked.
• Improvised Weapon:
  • The Merchants fight back against Taylor not only with guns and knives but also a blowtorch and a thrown stack of hubcaps. The Choir laughs at the ineffectiveness of the last one, which is about on par with throwing Frisbees.
  • Mush, however, with an arsenal of broken glass, concrete fragments, and nauseating stench, not to mention his armour-like covering, is much less of a joke. Taylor fights back with a circular saw and a hastily Tinkered flamethrower.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Firecracker has this reaction to Spitfire when the latter suggests she could light her fists on fire for, quote, "flaming fists of fury."
• Incendiary Exponent: Nemean once charged into a fight while covered in burning oil. Cleaning the remaining oil off her fur was a pain but she felt it was worth the hassle for the awesome factor.
• I Need A Drink: Director Piggot can't drink due to her medical problems, but when dealing with the apparent disappearance of the Butcher, she wants one.
• Inertial Impalement: Elpis teleports in front of a charging Hookwolf with her sword out, and his own momentum drives him onto it, deep enough to harm his core and partially revert his transformation.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Amy heals Elpis after a fight, then realises that her non-standard biology matches up with the Butcher powers. However, Taylor persuades her to keep it quiet by pointing out that revealing it would mean no more nice shiny Elpis, just Butcher XV, and would lead to bloodshed. She meant that she'd be killed by Butcher XVI hopefuls, but Amy thought she was threatening to go after Amy's family.
  • Hookwolf recognises Elpis' distinctive teleports when they fight, though it's not quite public; Ironclad and the Undersiders are present, and are shocked, but they're willing to help her cover it up and send Hookwolf to the Birdcage via Dragon express so he can't talk. Unfortunately, they didn't think about the fact that Dragon monitors the Birdcage and can talk. Specifically, she relays Hookwolf's story to Armsmaster, who launches a discreet investigation.
  • Noelle goes on a rampage when Leet's cure has side effects, and in the ensuing crisis, Elpis' abilities are made apparent to the PRT, New Wave, Faultline's Crew, the Travellers, and Uber and Leet. However, Chief Director Costa-Brown orders everyone to cover it up and not tell anyone, because Elpis was vitally helpful in resolving the situation and no-one wants more villains coming to town in hopes of inheriting.
• I Resemble That Remark!: Knapper points out that only a crazy person would want to kill the Butcher, but of course everyone in the Chorus has killed the Butcher. Anchorage pipes up to invoke this trope verbatim.
• I Shall Taunt You: One of the uses for Bearskin's rage aura is preventing enemies from running, if you can handle them furiously attacking you instead. (Which the Butcher usually can.) Taylor uses it to stop Hookwolf from escaping and revealing her to Kaiser.
• Kryptonite Ring: In an attempt to gain Panacea's trust after she figures out her identity as Butcher XV, Taylor meets up with her later and hands her a journal full of all of the Butcher's powers and histories, much to Tactical's displeasure.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • Taylor and all the Butchers simultaneously groan when Battery says Assault's joke about ursine fractals "bears repeating".
  • Needler is disgusted by Bearskin's reference to "a cache of cash."
    Needler: Are you proud of yourself? Are you proud of that stupid joke you just made?
• Laugh Themselves Sick: Subverted; when Taylor's appearance shocks a Merchant guard into dropping his cigarette right before she pummels him, Dirty Rotter takes advantage of the fact that he no longer breathes to laugh beyond normal human capacity.
• Leave No Survivors: Kaiser is actually upset by some of the Teeth surrendering because it obligates him to leave them alive (albeit bound and left for the authorities to arrest). He was hoping to entirely exterminate them, but he's aware that executing prisoners is terrible PR.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After Elpis instinctively teleports to stop Hookwolf from killing Whirlygig, Tattletale nervously suggests that she's willing to pretend that was just Tinkertech and move on, if everyone else is game. Hookwolf, however, isn't.
• Literal Disarming:
  • Before Ironclad spars with Brandish, Elpis makes sure to check that Panacea is able to to reattach severed limbs.
    Panacea: It's not going to get that bad.
    Spitfire: But you can, right?
  • Uber loses an arm to Taylor's rampage, but is rewound by Perdition. However, she then crushes his hand and takes out Perdition before he can rewind again.
• Magic Fire: It's not clear exactly how Bakuda's bomb works, but the resulting flames are pink, even after spreading to other materials, and much hotter than normal.
• Make Them Rot: Dirty Rotter's power causes its target to rapidly decay, working most effectively on anything organic. Taylor doesn't like to use it, partly because it's nasty, but mostly because it's too distinctive. She does pull it out when pressed, though, such as against Lung, who can heal and thus hide the evidence, or Hookwolf after he finds out who she is.
• Martial Pacifist: Taylor's unwillingness to let people be killed results in her intervening in a conflict between the Empire and the Teeth, and having to beat up and tie up both sides.
  Elpis: I wasn’t going to let him cut you up. I can't let you guys do any killing either.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Taylor is the new boss of the Butcher Mantle, and she actually has control of the voices. Hence the title.
  • Taylor's hero name is "Elpis", the Greek spirit of Hope. In Greek Mythology, Pandora opened the jar and let evil into the world. However, at the bottom of the box was Hope, aka Elpis. Taylor's intention is to let the many evils of the Butcher go, and just hold on to what's good. It helps that a Cape pulling a name straight from mythology is pretentious enough to almost be an Atrocious Alias, which hopefully throws people off from how dangerous she really is (the Chorus all dislike the name, which is a good clue that no one will be suspicious of it).
  • Spitfire, whose name implies exactly what it means.
• Metaphorically True: Taylor claims to be a cluster trigger, and tells Amy that the reason she hides her extra powers is because "there's people with similar powers who all hate my guts." The Butchers did indeed have similar powers, and most of them do want her to die.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Hardly anyone knows about Tock Tick's reign, and in fairness, he only held the mantle for a week before being replaced. He's somewhat bitter about the lack of recognition, but it's actually an asset to Taylor since she doesn't have to hide her Tinker abilities.
  First Guy hummed. "That… might work," he said reluctantly, like he didn't want to admit to them having a point. "I mean, I don't think there's ever been a Tinker Butcher, right?"
  "Excuse me?" Tock Tick screeched. "What am I, chopped liver?"
• Mind Hive: Each inheritor of the Butcher mantle, in addition to the powers of their predecessors, also gets to have all their consciousnesses living in their head. If the inheritor is a duly promoted member of the Teeth, the voices will work together. If not, as was the case with Butcher III, the voices will reject their host and drive them mad until the Teeth can reclaim their property. At least, until Taylor Hebert got ahold of them...
• Mistaken Death Confirmation: After hearing three gunshots and using insect vision to recognise one as a headshot and roughly identify the body, Taylor doesn't think there's any doubt. But she doesn't know about Noelle's ability to make clones.
• Moral Dilemma: Taylor is faced with one in 6.9. The Undersiders help capture Coil, but afterwards Armsmaster plans to capture and bring them in as well since they're villains. While Taylor does understand where he's coming from, she feels it's unfair to arrest them when they played a key role and saved many lives. She decides to intervene and forces Armsmaster to back off.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Madison, after transferring to Arcadia, tries to pick up where she left off in bullying Taylor, who unbeknownst to her is the latest Butcher and doing her best to resist her predecessors' murderous urges.
  • An ABB gang member pulls an actual katana on Elpis. Muramasa takes one look at him and sneers; Elpis disarms him after a single swing.
    Muramasa: Slow draw, poor grip, terrible stance- and is that a shirazaya sheath? Pathetic.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Stoneknapper's hobby was using his power to mold stone and metal into sculptures.
  • Taylor uses Muramasa's Absurdly Sharp Blade power and Stoneknapper's metal shaping to give herself multiple facial piercings overnight in order to disguise herself at a meeting, knowing that her Healing Factor can remove the holes as soon as she takes the piercings out. She also borrows a Boston accent from one of the previous Butchers.
  • When Taylor first encounters Spitfire, the latter has just used her power to start a fire hot enough to melt bricks, in order to keep warm. It seems to Taylor like extreme overkill, but Firecracker is sympathetic to being homeless and out of good options.
  • When teaming up to spar, New Wave's share of the food includes laser-seared kebabs, and they do a barbecue by placing force fields over Spitfire's flames.
    Ironclad: You guys cook with lasers?
    Laserdream: Old family recipe.
  • In between fixing her armour, Taylor uses the blowtorch to melt cheese on toast. It doesn't matter how hot it gets, either, thanks to Nemean's pain immunity.
  • By combining her bug proprioception and Quarrel's aiming power, Taylor is able to throw a bag of mouldy grapes directly from the fridge into the bin.
  • With practice, Whirligig can make her personal tornado separate items of different sizes, enabling her to filter trash out of a beach and put everything larger than sand into a recycling bin. Assault and Dauntless are impressed by the community spirit.
• Mythology Gag: Taylor causes Lung's crotch to rot.
• Named by the Adaptation: Each of the Butchers' identities between the original and the 14th are given names. In order, they are: Butcher, Vladimir, Flinch, Dirty Rotter, Needler, Firecracker, Tock Tick, Stoneknapper, Bearskin, Tactical, Anchorage, Nemean, Muramasa, Quarrel, and Elpis (current).
• Narm: In-Universe, the Butchers are thoroughly unimpressed by a horror movie's attempts at blood and gore, since they have much more expertise in such things and can see how unrealistic it is.
  Butcher I: Head wounds don't bleed like that!
• Narrative Profanity Filter:
  • Taylor's internal monologue is unfiltered, but she does at one point hear a Merchant let fly with "every swear word I’d ever heard of, and a few I needed the Butcher’s memories to understand."
  • When Callum asserts that Butcher has been gone long enough that he's probably dead for good, the actual Butcher in Taylor's head "descended into a howling rant laden with every obscenity, aimed at Callum, me, and the rest of the world. He didn’t even seem to notice as I pushed him into the dark as far as he could go."
• Never Heard That One Before: Firecracker's been making the same joke about how the current Butcher must be crazy since they're hearing voices in their head for a decade, much to the exasperation of Muramasa.
• Nitro Boost: Tock Tick helps Taylor to enhance the "Chariot" with an intake for Spitfire's napalm spit, which can be used for a temporary speed boost during a chase.
  Spitfire finished pouring fiery loogies down the pipe and closed the hatch. "How bad is this gonna be?"
  I clicked a second button, and a rush of heat intense enough to soften steel rushed through the turbine mounted on the back of the chariot, spinning the blades to the limit of the inbuilt cooling system and sending a long tongue of superheated air licking out behind us.
  The chariot leaped forward, slamming the two of us back into our seats as another 40mph was instantly added to our speed, shooting us up the long straight of 56th street.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Brandish has such strong Black-and-White Morality about villains that she isn't even surprised to learn that the Undersiders worked for Coil until they turned on him; she considers such backstabbing to be par for the course.
• No-Sell: Taylor's bloodsight and her bug proprioception work normally inside Grue's darkness, allowing her to largely ignore it.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Thanks to the Butchers, Taylor remembers how the world changed forever with the appearance of the first Endbringer.
  Needler: Less than two weeks to Christmas, and then we turned on the news, and it was like the devil had crawled out of hell halfway around the world. For years after that, people would ask ‘Where were you when you first heard?’
• Nothing Personal: Skidmark complains about Elpis coming after him when all he did was sell drugs and throw parties. Her reply is that it's nothing personal, he's just "a disgusting waste of a person."
• Not Hyperbole:
  • When Elpis tells the Undersiders to "Don't burn the place down while I'm gone," Whirlygig protests that they're not that bad. Turns out it's force of habit, because the Teeth actually did that once.
  • When she says that Firecracker punched Needler through the back of the head, she doesn't mean "in," she means "through."
• Not So Above It All: Amy is cynical, snarky, and determined to remain suspicious of Taylor, but is coming around despite herself. When she eventually visits Taylor's lair full of bugs, she starts playing hopscotch and giggling as Taylor makes the bugs dodge her feet, until both of them are laughing and breathless.
  Amy: That was so dumb.
  Taylor: You started it. Don't act like you weren't enjoying it.
• Not So Invincible After All: Nemean was so used to being nigh-invincible that she completely underestimated Muramasa, who managed to behead her with a single blow of his power-sharpened blade.

O-Z

• Oh, Crap!: Amy's reaction to realizing Taylor is the Butcher. She tries to flee at first, but Taylor stops her and convinces her not to say anything.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The Boston Games occurred years ago while Nemean was out of town and the other Butchers have never stopped nagging her about missing so much fun chaos.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Taylor points out that if Panacea let out that Taylor is the Butcher, "death would happen", Taylor means that the reveal would put her and her father in great danger, but Panacea (not aided by Taylor's previous mention of what happened to Fleur) believes Taylor is threatening to kill her family. The Butchers find it hilarious that Taylor threatened her family by accident.
  Vladimir: Who's on first! What's on second, and Somebody is going to die!
• One-Man Army: Elpis can't normally show just how powerful she is without outing herself, but her Combo Platter Powers make her a serious Lightning Bruiser, able to fight a large group and win singlehandedly. While the heroes's combined efforts struggle to take down one floor of Noelle's clones, Elpis goes ahead and clears three floors by herself, with claws, knives (both wielded in melee and thrown with Quarrel's perfect aiming), swords, axes, kicking out kneecaps, martial arts, neck twists, pain blasts, enraging aura, and of course her stinging and devouring insect swarms, until she's covered in clone blood and guts.
• Original Character: Several of these appear in Here Comes The New Boss.
  • Various minor and secondary characters to fill out Taylor's classes once she's switched schools to Arcadia.
  • Gargoyle of the Wards is a Changer who can turn himself into living stone, hence the name.
  • Spittoon and Mudslide, of the Merchants.
  • Konnigit is a vigilante who can form metal armor around himself.
  • Spektakular is a Master of Illusion who works at a theater. He apparently suffers from mental illness.
  • An unnamed teleporter who can also create explosions. He's briefly mentioned by the PRT as one of the potential identities of Butcher XV.
• Outside Ride: Taylor pursues Squealer by firing a grappling hook into her truck and then surfing up to it on a disposable Tinkertech shield, before climbing over the cab. The Chorus is impressed by the cool factor.
  Stoneknapper: I think this might be a genuinely new experience for us.
• Pass the Popcorn: Firecracker wishes he had popcorn for watching Taylor's confrontation with Amy, saying he hasn't seen anything so dramatic outside a soap opera.
• Pet Gets the Keys: An unusual exploited variant; Taylor intentionally designs her lair with a locking mechanism that can be operated from the inside by her bugs rather than using a key.
• Pet the Dog:
  • While Taylor is ready to punish any of the Butchers who get too uppity, she's willing to help them. For example, she lets one of the Butchers take temporary control of her hands so he can write a letter to his family, listen to music they like, and good-naturedly banters and jokes with them as she becomes familiar with them. She also keeps Alice's keychain with her after she reclaims it from Alabaster, much to the Chorus' joy.
  • When Danny hears about Taylor's altercation with Madison, who transferred to Arcadia, he wants to hear her side of the story first, and as soon as she tells him Madison is one of the girls who bullied her from Winslow, sees nothing wrong with her defending herself.
• Playing with Fire: Since Spitfire has discovered that she's immune to her own flames, she suggests setting her hands on fire going into battle. The Chorus is impressed, but Taylor points out that she won't be able to do anything else with her hands, like picking up money.
  Spitfire: Hey, I'm not going to burn stuff for fun, give me some credit!
  Elpis: Fine. Still, flaming fists bad. I'll give you some knuckledusters if you want to punch better.
• Plunder: Taylor raids a Merchant workshop after putting down the gang members defending it, and uses the parts to construct her souped-up "chariot". Glory Girl and Miss Militia confirm that there is a degree of leeway for vigilantes to claim spoils, especially Tinkers.
  Elpis: Glory Girl said the rule of thumb is- what, no drugs, no guns, no Tinkertech?
• Poor Communication Kills: The crux of Spitfire and Elpis' fallout. Because Taylor acts far more mature than someone her age should, Spitfire mistakenly believes she's an adult woman and begins to think of her as a Parental Substitute, whereas Taylor sees Spitfire as a peer. It isn't until after the blowup that Taylor decides to make amends and clear up some misunderstandings, starting by unmasking herself to Spitfire, who is surprised to learn Elpis is actually a teenage girl.
• Powered Armor: Taylor makes use of Tock Tick's tinker abilities to make herself a suit. Not only is it endlessly useful in its own right, and conceals her face much better than a mask, it also provides a cover story for her Super-Strength and Super-Toughness.
• Power Fist: Taylor picks up a set of brass knuckles dropped by a gang member in a Bar Brawl, and uses them to put another ganger down — although it's mostly a cover for her Super-Strength, which is entirely capable of punching someone out without any weapon. When she tries to claim afterward that she doesn't intend to get into any similar fights, she then realises that not only did she take the knuckles with her, she even instinctively used Stoneknapper's power to reshape them to properly fit her.
• Power Misidentification: Taylor deliberately conceals most of the Butcher powers by presenting herself as a Tinker. Powered Armor makes an excellent excuse for Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, and Super-Senses. Tock Tick, the actual Tinker in the collective, is quite pleased, too; his power hasn't been used so heavily in years, and fortunately his (clockwork) specialty isn't visually distinctive enough to give her away.
• Precocious Crush:
  • Taylor is disturbed to find that one of her teachers resembles a professor whom Anchorage had a crush on. Taylor has to keep Anchorage muted all through their first class to avoid feeling secondhand attraction.
  • Shielder (Eric Pelham) develops a crush on Elpis, much to his parents' amusement.
• Press-Ganged: The reason that Accord broke Coil out? They owe him money, and he is expecting a solid return on his investment, one way or another.
• Pressure Point: Elpis temporarily incapacitates Uber with a strike to the liver (guided by Needler's weakness-seeking power). This is Truth in Television since the liver is a focal point of blood circulation; hitting it solidly can cause a sudden drop in heart rate and dilation of blood vessels throughout the body, resulting in immediate fatigue and loss of breath, as well as being very painful.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: After Elpis is nearly killed fighting against the Teeth, Spitfire insists that she "Don't. Do. That. Ever. Again," while pounding on her chestplate.
• Ramming Always Works: Taylor equips her bike with a ramming frame to ensure it can survive this move against vehicles or Brutes.
• Redeeming Replacement: Taylor's goal is to use the Butcher's mantle to be a hero when all but two of her predecessors have been villains.
• Reincarnation: After seeing (currently homeless) Spitfire demolish a sandwich, Anchorage expresses pity for the sandwich, and Needler jokingly suggests that it must have done something horrible in a past life.
• Required Secondary Powers: These are discussed multiple times.
  • Taylor can temporarily repress a voice, at the cost of numbing her emotions some. While she can’t permanently stop the voices from yelling at her, she can punish them if they get too rowdy. This has led the Butchers to become better-behaved and reduced the toll on Taylor's sanity.^note It's likely that this is a result of her canonical ability to offload emotions into her bugs, although this version of Taylor hasn't made that connection yet.
  • Thanks to Butcher VII, Tock Tick, Taylor's Tinker specialty is themed around clockwork, and it requires metal to get the best out of it. However, metalworking tools are expensive and very conspicuous. Thankfully, Taylor can use Stoneknapper's material-shaping power as a substitute for most tools, allowing her to work much faster than she otherwise would be able to do.
  • Spitfire is immune to flames. However, she didn't realize it until her coat accidentally caught on fire, and she ran around in panic until she realised she wasn't in any pain.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In Interlude 6 after Coil is busted, the Protectorate discusses Elpis and her actions involving the Undersiders, specifically her forcing Armsmaster to let them go despite their villain status. Assault proposes she's either a hero trying to make a comeback or a reformed villain. These are both true on a technicality: Two previous Butchers were heroes who were driven insane, and while she's not open about it, Taylor is trying her best to redeem the Butcher identity by using her newfound powers to help Brockton Bay.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Taylor leaves a pile of groaning and crippled bodies, some of whom actually died and had to be rewound by Perdition, after she sees Trickster shoot a Noelle-clone of Amy and thinks it's the original. Butcher I is cackling and cheering as she steamrolls her way through the combined efforts of the Travellers, Uber and Leet, maiming anyone not protected by Leet's force field.
• Rocket-Powered Weapon: For very tough targets, Elpis can spin her air cannon around and attach her kinetic flail to it, resulting in a jet-propelled warhammer. Tock Tick is quite pleased by the results; even Hookwolf is knocked around, though not out, by it.
• Rule of Symbolism: Taylor views her cape as the symbol of her heroic resolve as Elpis to use the Butcher's power for good. Two times she has lost the cape while fighting Hookwolf and the Travelers, and each time she has come close to giving in to the Butcher's murderous rage.
• Running Gag: People keep being surprised that Elpis has eyebrows built into her mask.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Many of the Butchers resent Taylor for not going back to the Teeth, but at the same time, they acknowledge that the order Taylor imposed upon the Butcher Collective is a breath of fresh air from the screaming chaos of previous Butchers.
• Second Super-Identity: With such an assortment of powers, and with Elpis' features entirely hidden by her Powered Armor, Taylor is sometimes able to pass herself off as a different hero entirely, such as an unnamed glass manipulator, or a generic newbie cape in black. Especially relevant when she's investigating Coil covertly, not wanting him to know that Elpis is coming for him.
• Secret-Keeper: Taylor would actually have preferred not to reveal herself to Panacea, but it does mean that she has someone to freely talk to other than the Chorus, someone who can hold onto letters to be delivered in the event of her death, or who she can relax with and not worry about giving herself away with Super-Strength, and it opens more avenues for collaboration.
• Seen It All: Stacey and Frankie have difficulty falling asleep after watching a horror movie, but the Butchers just jeer at the unrealistic special effects.
  Butcher: Head wounds don't bleed like that!
• Sense Freak: The Butchers share sensations with their host and one way to appease them is by supplying them with foods or music they enjoy. This is helped by Nemean giving Taylor an enhanced sense of taste, making even a single piece of chocolate that much better. On the other hand, whatever pain Taylor feels is reflected to the Butchers. Nemean gawks at how painful the aftermath of a four-way battle between the Teeth, Empire, and Merchants was.
• Sensory Overload: Nemean's enhanced sense of smell isn't much fun when fighting garbage controller Mush.
  The filter deadened it somewhat, but I could still pick out overripe banana, coffee grounds, burst tomatoes, rotten fish, and even a hint of dead rat in there. I had to fight down my gag reflex with every breath.
• Sex Is Violence: When Taylor scans a target building with bugs and blood sight, finding around 200 people of which an unknown number are armed, Bearskin remarks that he'd be feeling extremely horny if he still had a body.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Taylor is trying to decide on a cape name, she goes through the list of synonyms for "brave" and singles out "Intrepid" as being a good option.
  • Konnigit is a walking Shout-Out to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from his initial hero name to some of his one liners.
  • Taylor's friend Frankie mentions her grandmother having a pet rabbit named Mr. Herriman.
  • Vladimir and Tactical quote the "I feel the need" scene from Top Gun when Taylor has a car chase with the Merchants.
  • When Taylor tests her emotional control under Glory Girl's fear aura, some of the Butchers recite "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, the Litany Against Fear, and River's monologue from Serenity.
  • When Taylor realizes that inheriting so many memories has left her feeling like an adult, and desperately wants to deny being old, Muramasa taunts her, "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
  • In Taylor's first encounter with the Undersiders, before she knows anything about them, she internally starts referring to Grue as Dark Helmet.
  • When Taylor realises that Laserdream is giving her brief platforms to jump on and jumps off the head of a Crusader ghost, Anchorage bursts into laughter and compares their situation to Super Mario.
  • Leet hides the warehouse where he's curing Noelle under an SEP, or "Somebody Else's Problem", field.
  • After learning all of the important factors her employers left out which nearly led to her team's death, Faultline declares "I feel I was denied critical, need-to-know, information."
  • Preparing to face an army of Noelle-clones, Stoneknapper intones, "We who are about to die will laugh at anything."
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Taylor routinely interrupts the Chorus' insults, insinuations, and innuendos by shoving the offending voice away, often mid-sentence.
  "Pushing the armour out doesn’t change the fact you’d need two pushup bras to look-"
  Whatever she was going to say next was cut off as I shoved her into the darkness. I had added a sort of keel to the breastplate to change my silhouette a bit more, but I still didn’t have to take that from her.
• Sinister Surveillance: Downplayed and justified. Since Dragon is in charge of the Birdcage, she naturally has various cameras set up to observe the inmates. It's thanks to this that she learns that Elpis is actually Butcher XV, overhearing Hookwolf's conversation with Marquis about recent events in Brockton Bay.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Several Butchers use profanity routinely, and none of them are shy about it. Firecracker surprises everyone by letting out a string of insults without profanity, but then reveals that it's just to increase the impact when the swearing returns.
  Firecracker: I kinda wanted to see how rude I could get without it. Like training with weights on, y'know? Then you take 'em off and BOOM!
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The Teeth started a tradition of wearing their enemies' bones on their costumes under Dirty Rotter, as his power would leave nothing else from his enemies. Starting with Nemean, each Butcher has also worn the skull of their predecessor as part of their costume.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Muramasa and Quarrel were bitter rivals who also detested each other personally due to their differing views on their Japanese heritage. One of their many arguments eventually escalated into a single night of passion. This ended up squicking both of them out after Quarrel became Butcher and they got a look at each other's memories.
• The Sleepless: Thanks to a previous Butcher, Nemean, Taylor can go without any sleep. On the one hand, she has to hide it in her civilian identity. On the other hand, it's really helpful for allowing her to go out hero-ing without missing school or being found out by her father. It's eventually revealed that she still could sleep, but hasn't dared since inheriting, because she's sure she would have nightmares.
• Spider-Sense: Taylor inherits a danger sense from Flinch, a hero who accidentally became the third Butcher.
• Spirit Advisor: The Butchers act like this on occasion for Taylor. Often times they give observations and advice during fights.
• Spit Take:
  • When Taylor ambushes a group of Merchants sharing a joint, the shock causes the current user to inhale the whole thing, leaving him gasping and leaking smoke. Firecracker finds it utterly hilarious, but Taylor ensures that the victim gets specific medical attention once she's subdued them all.
  • Taylor inhales in shock when Amy slams a lunch tray down at her table — right after she took a big bite of her sloppy joe, at Nemean's insistence. After she pounds on her own back enough times to clear her airway, Quarrel complains about almost choking to death twice.
  • Assault starts coughing and thumping himself on the chest upon hearing Elpis mention that she knows the Protectorate doesn't take in villains.
    Assault: Sorry. Choked on some spit.
• Stunned Silence: When Quarrel reveals her plan to draw the Teeth's symbol on a wall with a minigun to show they were back in Brockton, the rest of the Butchers are rendered speechless until Rotter gives his awed approval.
• Stupid Sacrifice: Although Flinch is proud of Taylor for being willing to put her life on the line, he gently points out that it would be a mistake to do that at a Simurgh fight, since it could result in an unkillable uncontrollable Simurgh bomb (either from the Chorus being directly affected, or being inherited by someone who was). Amy is initially taken aback to hear that the the Chorus persuaded Taylor not to take the risk.
• Super-Strength: Taylor has super strength thanks to several of the previous Butchers each giving a minor boost. One reason for pretending to be a Tinker is to pretend the power armor is why she's strong.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In 7.1, an Empire goon tries to turn a glass beer bottle into a weapon by breaking it. While great in theory, the bottle completely shatters and shreds his hand. He's left bleeding out on the floor as a result.
• Talented, but Trained: Taylor inherits muscle memory of Needler's silat martial arts style, but to really make it effective, she needs to practise until the movements are really her own. Fortunately she doesn't sleep anymore.
• Team Mom: Despite being physically 15, Taylor acts somewhat maternally to Spitfire and Konnigit (later rebranding himself Ironclad), ensuring they have a place to stay, giving advice in training, supplying them with equipment, and trying to keep them out of danger. When Taylor unmasks herself to Spitfire in 6.4, the latter is shocked that Taylor's a teen like her since she acts more mature.
• Tempting Fate: Dirty Rotter insists that after taking down the minions, Skidmark will be easy. Firecracker replies that he's just jinxed them.
• Terror Hero: One of Taylor's extra cape identities is Ruin, intentionally created to terrify ABB mooks. She kills the lights before confronting them, wearing a burlap sack as a mask, ragged clothing, and three-inch blades protruding from her gloves, which she uses to scratch up the walls as she strolls toward them and speaks through a voice changer to turn her words into a metallic rasp.
  Taylor: The wicked shall fall to Ruin...
• This Cannot Be!: In 7.7, Tarquin is in total shock upon learning Taylor is Butcher XV, as are the Undersiders.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • Flinch was a hero before becoming Butcher III and has been at the mercy of the collective ever since. Taylor's presence has allowed him to slowly regain his voice and confidence.
  • Tock Tick isn't too awful, by comparison to the others, but he doesn't actually provide any kind of moral compass to Taylor, he's just focused on Tinkering. He is at least enthusiastically supportive of her work, because he's excited about how much she's using his power, which is a nice change from the others' calls for violence, sex, violence, drugs, and violence.
• Too Dumb to Live: To Taylor's chagrin, Madison somehow managed to transfer to Arcadia and wants to resume the bullying campaign. Surprisingly, her efforts all fall in vain as Taylor's friends and Amy refuse to buy her bullshit, and the teachers, whom Taylor had informed of her personal history with Madison, don't buy her attempts at crying wolf either.
• Too Much Information:
  • Taylor removes lice and other parasites from homeless people within her range as she passes through the docks — but it's only partly from compassion.
    I really didn't need the mental feedback that came from pubic lice.
  • Tattletale is aware of all the weird kinks of every passer-by, including when they're fantasising about her specifically. Amy knows just what kinds of horrifying bacteria lurk in public bathrooms. But both agree it's not as bad as Taylor having 14 onlookers shouting out those kinks and fantasies about every passer-by and watching when she uses a bathroom.
• Training Montage: Midway through Arc 5, Elpis and her team partner with New Wave for a series of sparring matches.
• Trauma Button: Taylor's new locker at Arcadia is clean and safe, but she still hesitates to open it on her first day and needs encouragement from both her dad and the Chorus before she can steel herself and turn the dial.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Taylor adds eyebrows to her helmet to help her convey expressions while wearing it.
• Vampiric Draining: Vladimir's power allows Taylor to drain blood with a touch, and then burn that blood as fuel for a temporary speed boost. It's too distinctive for her to regularly use, though. But she does use it to weaken Lung, who will quickly regenerate it and hopefully not notice the loss.
• Vegetarian for a Day: Laserdream went vegetarian for a while in the past after learning more about how meat is produced. Amy suspects that her own work contributed, as well, when Crystal walked in on an accident victim with intestines everywhere. By the time of the story, however, Crystal is embarrassed to be reminded of it.
• Vein-o-Vision: One of Taylor's inherited powers is "bloodsight", seeing blood through obstacles. It's not as detailed an image as regular sight, but it's inconspicuous enough for her to use it freely, it's quite good at spotting concealed enemies, and it works even without light, or with her eyes closed.
• Vibroweapon: With inspiration from Muramasa and relying on Tock Tick's power, Taylor adds a device to her swords that lets them vibrate several thousand times a minute, easily cutting through almost any mundane object.
• Villainous Friendship: The Teeth may be psychotic murderers, but friendships are still formed between the members, even with the Butcher. Taylor finds herself overwhelmed by grief and rage when she learns one of Quarrel's friends was killed by the Empire.
• Vulnerable Convoy: Accord's Ambassadors manage to break Coil out of his PRT convoy after the latter's arrest.
• Weapons Breaking Weapons: With her sword enhanced by Muramasa's sharpening power, Taylor is able to carve off Hookwolf's blades, disarming him and exposing his core.
• Weld the Lock: To keep her costume secret from her dad, Taylor uses Stoneknapper's power to reshape the concrete and entirely seal off her alcove under the house.
  I'd thought for a long time how I was going to hide my work from Dad, until Stoneknapper had shown me that the best kind of lock is one that only exists for you.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Glory Girl briefly tears into Elpis for her excessive use of violence and setting Mush on fire, even if he wasn't seriously injured.
  • Spitfire lashes out at Elpis for seemingly leaving her to fend for herself while she was out fighting the Empire Eighty-Eight during the raid. She even goes so far as to leave Taylor's team and join the Wards. They get better in 6.2, with Taylor unmasking herself to Spitfire and Ironclad, with the latter two following suit.
• Willfully Weak: Taylor has access to a wide variety of powers, thanks to previous Butchers, but to hide that she's the new host she has to avoid showing them too obviously. This means she either can't use some of the abilities to their full potential or straight-up can't use them at all, such as the trademark explosive teleportation. She ends up having to use Rotter's power during the E88 raid to help get the upper hand, but she only uses it for a brief instance.
• With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Taylor quickly developed a notably muscular body due to the combination of multiple weak Brute powers and Needler's regeneration.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Being a Case 53, the former Butcher Nemean has Identity Amnesia. Still, she woke up with a strong maternal instinct, leading her to feel protective of Taylor, Spitfire, and Konnigit (aka: Ironclad) in the present day. Her Noodle Incident, the "lambskin murders", involved her hunting down a ring of pedophiles and skinning them alive.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Madison deliberately falls over during basketball and accuses Taylor of fouling her. Which might have been more effective if Amy wasn't present and able to confirm with a touch that she has zero signs of it.
  Amy: If you're going to try and fake an injury, maybe don't do it when I'm around.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: As with all other events where the Butcher is killed, Taylor inherits the mantle and the powers of her predecessors when she kills Quarrel. Unlike other cases, Taylor is still sane and can force the more rowdy Butchers to quiet down when needed.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Vicky is accustomed to her fear aura making her opponents freeze up or panic. When she uses it in a spar, however, Elpis reacts very differently; the fear brings the Chorus closer to the surface and she attacks Vicky with frenzied and lethal intent.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Taylor has double the reason to reconsider any time the Butchers are pleased with her, first because they're mostly unrepentant serial killers, and second because they'd quite like to replace her with a more violent host (and get a new power into the bargain). Sometimes she's angry enough to persevere even in the face of their cheers, though — and they do sometimes have useful input, especially knowing how to fight. When the original Butcher makes an approving remark about her power's potential for torturing people with fire ant pits, Rotter is pleased, but Taylor shoves them both down.
• Zorro Mark: Muramasa used to mark the scenes of his gang's victories by slashing the Teeth's symbol on a wall with his swords. Quarrel had planned to do something similar with Caroline the minigun.

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The following tropes have suffered a Hostile Takeover:

A-Z

• Big Damn Heroes: Taylor shows up and saves Gallant and Vista from Hookwolf right as the former was about to fight him with no armor.
• Big Fancy Gun: Taylor retrieves her signature minigun, Caroline, from the PRT. Vista privately calls it the biggest gun she's ever seen.
  It looked like Butcher had welded a couple of rifles together, and then added a grenade launcher.
• Bring My Brown Pants: After realizing, first that Taylor is a powerful cape, then that Taylor is the new Butcher (and will have a grudge), Madison finally realizes that there's something warm and wet running down her leg.
• Broken Pedestal: Taylor initially had a cordial, if tense relationship with the PRT due to her villain status (courtesy of being Butcher XV). Despite being the Hero with Bad Publicity, she nonetheless goes out of her way to help the Wards. Whatever opinion Taylor has of them plummets to rock bottom after Tattletale figures out Shadow Stalker was responsible for her Trigger Event and reveals this information to her. Naturally, Taylor is furious and almost goes apeshit on the Wards until Amy stops her.
• Car Fu: When Taylor rides a motorcycle toward Trainwreck, he raises his fists — but he isn't ready for her to do a front flip over the handlebars and throw the entire bike at him.
• Commonality Connection: Trainwreck is stunned to realise that the Butcher knows what it's like to be a case 53; Nemean (Butcher XII) was one.
  Butcher: You wake up in an alleyway. Or under a bridge, or in a forest, or in your case, I'm guessing a junkyard. Even before you open your eyes you can tell there's something wrong. You don't feel right. And you open your eyes, and you don't recognize the place you're in. And then you look down at your body, and you don't recognise that either, but you know immediately that this isn't the way you’re supposed to look. You try to remember how you got there. And you can't. You try to remember where you've been before— and you can't. You try to remember your own name— and you can't. I know what I'm talking about, Trainwreck. And I'm sorry.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Taylor uses an assortment of very distinctive powers immediately, starting with teleporting out of the locker, and erases any chance of keeping her inheritance secret.
  Sophia: Strength, matter shaping, teleporting— and pain blasting. Those are some of Butcher’s powers.
• Everyone Has Standards: Taylor informs Hookwolf that the Butchers were thinking of recruiting him at one point, but that was before he became a Nazi and started hurting children.
  Taylor: Even the Teeth have standards.
• Eye Scream: Trainwreck complains that Butcher completely wrecked his suit. Then Butcher reveals that his steam blast burst her eyeballs, which has resulted in her being unsympathetic.
  "Wait a second," Aegis asked as Butcher slipped the mask back on. "If your eyes burst, how are you seeing?"
  Butcher shrugged. "It's mostly Vladimir's bloodsight, and a touch of Flinch's danger sense for dodging."
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Taylor still wants to be a hero, but since she's immediately outed as Butcher, everyone assumes she's a dire threat. However, her actions in taking down criminals, saving Vista and Gallant from Hookwolf, and various acts of charity and good publicity have the public eventually become sympathetic to her in spite of the PRT saying otherwise.
• I Owe You My Life: After Panacea saves Danny's life, Taylor promises to make it up to her in any way that she can, although Panacea doesn't foresee a need for the Butcher's particular violent skillset. When the Undersiders rob the Brockton Bay Central Bank, taking Panacea hostage, Taylor makes good on her promise, hitting them hard and turning the tables in the Wards' favour.
• Mega Meal Challenge: Taylor successfully finishes the 2000-calorie Fugly Bob's Challenger, which is free if you can actually eat it all — but she leaves a fifty dollar tip anyway.
• Never Shall The Selves Meet: The Trading Places non-canon omake involves Elpis from the main story meeting Butcher XV from Hostile Takeover thanks to Uber and Leet's shenanigans. After clearing up initial misconceptions, the two happily decide to swap places for the time being. Elpis lets her inner Butcher out in XV's world for some stress relief while XV gets to enjoy some quality time with Danny in Elpis' world.
• Nice to the Waiter: When Taylor has to leave a restaurant in a hurry, she just puts down a wad of bills for her meal and a tip. The waitress counts them up and is shocked to find that it's over a month's rent.
• Shout-Out: Taylor's choice of drink at the Palanquin club is a Traffic Light Special, which Faultline has sampled before and found to resemble "being hit with a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick."
• Terrifying Rescuer: When Taylor arrives to bail the heroes out (eg saving Vista and Gallant from Hookwolf), dressed in skulls, tattoos, and weapons, their usual reaction isn't relief, it's "Things just went From Bad to Worse."
• What If?: Whereas the main story has Taylor numbing her emotions to the point of appearing catatonic, in this story she outs herself after being overwhelmed by the Choir suddenly appearing in her head and using her powers in public. While Taylor is flagged as a villain, she still intends on redeeming the Butcher name by becoming a hero, and seems to be succeeding as of Hostile Takeover 5.

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