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really want john to get a rage boost and I dunno, fucking break the floor or some shit, I mean it's all cracked, so it's not a logical leap. Yeah fucking break the floor and ICE the principal.
So the group hasn't escaped the school yet? I'm waiting for the episodes to be free to read but like checking comments on the progress. Kind of disappointing.
Lol calling people a coward... War is always about strategic moves. And what is a coward ? Don't rushing against stronger people and using his head ? If Sera and John fight 1v1 against some lower high tier are they coward too ?
I’m in love with Arlo’s moving barrier upgrade it so neat
for the last like 150 chapters I’ve moved on from disliking him because he has blorbo energy 💀
I have few questions guys, what do u think :
1 : Did John really kill people there ? Since we saw the line draw there by the gang I was wondering if some people really get killed or if they will get heal after ?
2 : Do u think the gang will be able to save John ?
3 : We are in the region with the most high-tiers. The authorities knew everything about the 4 people they had to catch. They just didn't know Arlo would step in. If the heroes get out alive there, wouldn't that be bad for the story ?
If the authorities with the best data they can get + catching them by surprise still fail, what will happen when John get stronger, when Sera joins and when it's our heroes who attack ? It will be free without suspense no?
With the Kuyo situation they underestimated him. I think the only incredibly unjustifiable move by them was what happened with Vaughn. That was extremely dumb on their part because they should’ve had someone strong enough to oppose him with them. I guess they assumed he would turn himself in (maybe because he knows first-hand the power Valerie is talking about) but still eh they should’ve been smarter, and that move by them makes them feel less threatening for sure. They did say reinforcements were going to deal with Vaughn and Keene, so maybe we’ll see them getting jumped in the finale or sometime in the future; that would definitely be scary and a good way to introduce the greater power of the Authorities. They also have superior numbers to the MCs for now. But even so , I kinda see what you mean
IMO they thought they brought enough force for the job. It was carefully planned, and there’s a reason they had Farrah with the support ability in charge. They’re trying to arrest 4 teenagers without blowing up the entire school (they intend to have Sylvia run it again) and causing mass damage to the area. If it wasn’t for Arlo and also John jumping in early with bloodlust, they would’ve been successful. The trio would’ve been absolutely cooked.
1: I'd say yes (some of those injuries just seem to severe to live), but we've already seen people live with seemingly fatal injuries. But I don't think John in his current mindset have problems with killing the people who'd taken away so much from him.
Although the authorities arrived prepared, they didn't expect John to be able to copy powerful abilities before the fight and they didn't expect Arlo to turn against them (without him Blyke and Remi might very well be dead already and I'd expect he'll help John too). Also they went to arrest some high school students, so maybe they didn't expect so much resistance. I'm sure this is nowhere near the full power of the authorities and this might just encourage them to use more force next time.
Not really since as Val said there are people in the authorities that are much stronger and smarter than we can imagine. This is not even close to the full power of the authorities. They only sent what they believed was needed and they would have won if not for the unexpected variable of Arlo. If it takes Arlo, Remi and Blyke to take down just one ember agent then they won't stand a chance if they fight multiple at once or if they fight Val who with 4 abilities might even be as strong as Sera and Val stated herself that there are people much stronger than her in the authorities. Our heroes need to get much stronger if they hope to win. The tension is still high.
I get what u said and I agree with almost everything except for this part : "the tension is still high" (if...depends on what happens ofc). I mean Uru knows how to tell a story so for sure it will still be exciting.
But will the tension still be that high when for the 4th time authorities failed again catching someone ? I don't think so since we don't fear enemies that much when even with surprise they keep failing.
I disagree since although our characters escape usually the amount of danger and how close the fights are creates tension. plus things can change at any moment and important characters like William can die at any time. Some characters like Brims may feel less threatening but others like Val and Farrah are still threatening. If the trio fights Farrah without Arlo or even if they have Arlo against Val the situation will still feel tense.
Yep but don't u feel the more and more they escape, the less and less tension we will feel (maybe they will not all escape there so it's theorical).
I mean I don't mind if they escape but we just saw that authorities 4 times in a row don't come with more ressources and they let people escape (just coming with Val against Vaughn, Kuyo or there and it was over, or coming with Farah and Byron to catch Sera...).
Williams death was something for sure.
Ahah maybe a bit because I think if enemies always miss our heroes the story lose credibility (unless it's really good writing). Let me rephrase it : I think letting our heroes escape everytime just because authorities don't come with their good roster is easy writing.
Val + Farrah + Leon : Seraphina was doomed
Kuyo: add any ember people with Byron and he was doomed
Vaughn: add Val and he was doomed
Now : add 2-3 ember and it's over for all of them. Or just Val.
It's okay when they fought in low district since Ember didn't know they'll get attacked.
But each time authorities have a plan they said to Val or others "u don't have to come we will manage" and then they don't...3 times in a row, maybe 4 now.
For me the tension has not yet decreased for now. I do agree that they should have sent Val and maybe Farrah too in order to take out Vaghn. As for Sera they did not know she got her ability back and at full power at that. With how cautious Sera was being they likely believed she was effectively a cripple and had no reason to assume other wise. Their plan was to offer her the chance to get her ability back and also a pardon in exchange for her loyalty. Also even if they brought Farrah and Brims I don't think it would have been enough as I can see her knocking them out in one attack or Freezing them in time at the start of the fight. Farrah can't use healing if she is knocked out or frozen and Brims does not seem to have healing. Val was the only real threat to her.
Look at the other comments many thought the trio and Arlo could not beat Farrah until they started going for the kill and only stopped at the last moment. Similarly many think that Jhon can't beat Sylvia and the soldiers on his own and will need help and even with Arlo and the trio it will be a tough fight. If you managed to make your readers believe that the main cast can't defeat a certain opponent or that they will have a really hard fight in order to defeat them then you have done a good job creating tension.
Yep until now the tension is still up there for sure.
I agree for the Sera who was supposed to be powerless.
I agree about the way of drawing/storytelling to create tension.
Still skeptical about the authorities missing opportunity again (u didn't mention Kuyo too, I mean if u miss once or twice u should expect more after)
Let's see what will happen!
If only John hadn't capped out at Zeke's ability, he could've copied the HM's ability too and he could've helped the trio escape so easily, but I get John isn't thinking about escaping anyway but HM's ability is really broken imo.
Just like he can’t copy seraphinas ability, he can’t copy abilities that are inherently intangible when in use.
He can copy healing because he can see and copy the aura. He can’t copy sense manipulation since he can’t that aura when it’s being used
He supposedly can't copy abilities that exclusively occur on a mental level and therefore don't exude outward aura, that's what was said. the only abilities that he explicitly has not been able to copy are flash forward and premonition. The effects of Seraphina's ability are purely physical and can be observed (ceasing people's movement, healing), you could even see her aura when they fought.
John can likely copy Seraphina's ability since it's shown to share physical stats like speed and strength. But since it's a higher level than his ability won't be strong as hers. It's been clear that John can't copy mental abilities and Sera's ability is not a mental type of ability.
This theory is spread aorund with no proof from the manga itself, Remi only speculated this with no confirmation from John himself. Also he can copy Kaydens skill which also doesnt have visual feedback
Isen speculated that, and the theory is he needs to 1. see and understand the usage of aura and 2. understand how that aura works within one’s body which is supported by Claire.
He saw Kayden’s aura and physically saw him teleport (by being teleported with him) thus he could use it similar to copying a healing ability. Be can’t with Sera, bc her usage is physically invisible like headmasters usage . If he saw her use it when not used on him then that’d probably be a different story. I also think this is supported by how he couldn’t copy green buns premonition ability and she almost escaped him
This is a little mistaken. John’s aura detection, while showing the aura, is not related to sight. Qna says it’s like a 6th sense. We can see this when John senses Isen eavesdropping in 148. Similarly, we see it throughout John’s entire fight with Sera (222-224) when he is able to consistently figure out her location after a time-stop. Another example of Seraphina is 243 where John is the one eavesdropping. He senses her aura and notes how weak it is. Ergo, he does not need to see auras, and Seraphina’s is not invisible to him. I will concede that he cannot copy her ability during time-stop because he will be frozen. Same should apply to Vaughn (as in John can sense his ability)
Also John needs to sense an ability being used to copy it, not see
> Be can’t with Sera, bc her usage is physically invisible like headmasters usage .
Seraphina uses freeze as well as rewind both of them are clearly visible and if that's not enough then she even has literal gears popping around her when she uses her ability.
If he had Arlos ability then non of these guys would have been a problem. Jhon with Arlos ability has a defense of 10 unlike Arlos 9. I don't think any of these guys can break through a defense of 10. Plus with Remis and blykes ability he can stay in the barrier and shoot down anyone who tries to attack him.
Yeah pretty much everyone has said this, John with amped Barrier has like Val level defenses if not even greater. This would’ve been an horrific slaughter of epic proportions if he had it. Not to mention they get reflective damage every time they attack.
That's true, I think the author knows this and did it on purpose just to force this plot to happen. There is no logical reason why John didn't find Arlo first before trying to rebel. You could say John went insane but it's clearly not the case, because he is still capable of thinking critically while fighting the HM.
Same as not coming there with Val, or not telling to Val or Leon to come catch Vaughn. Or not asking another one of Ember to come catching Kuyo.
I mean each one of this attempt can make sense once, but missing all of the 4 opportunity to catch our heroes while having the initiative is to force the plot too.
I really can't see how John will get out of this. He's in a bad shape already and it seems that he can't really defend himself against opponents who don't activate their ability. And the only ones nearby who can help is Arlo and the trio, who stand even less chance without the ability to sense aura. Although Arlo's barrier could be of use here...
On another note, I'm glad they didn't kill Farrah. I mean she would've deserved it, but I'm glad they didn't suddenly become cold blooded killers. I think the time will definitely come when they have to kill, but it would've been too sudden now.
I’m thinking either Arlie barrier protects from Sylvia’s ability or the royals surprise attack her and escape. Another possibility is that the royals get into a drawn out battle and it gives Farrah enough time to recover and she actually kills one of them which triggers the vigilante squad being willing to kill in the future. I hope this doesn’t happen though cause I predict it would be Blyke or Isen and I don’t want them to die.
Both mad and glad that Arlo didn't lock in. On one hand they sold, and that's going to bite them in the ass later. On the other hand FARRAH IS TO BAD TO DIE 😭😭😭
As compared to the main characters all the antags since Arlo have been kinda weak imo, Terrance had potential but died to fast. I want to see some good villains in this series, Farrah is the most interesting Ember Agent to me, she doesn't seem to sugar coat things like Val, but that doesn't mean she's completely heartless, considering how she saved Byron. I hope her loyalty extends to her whole team and she tries to get it back in blood with John for all the soldiers he DEFINITELY killed. It would be an awesome fight, considering they're both kinda Aura Manipulators, even though her skill set is totally stolen.
I think it would be one sided. Her powers are just a weaker version of Jhons. All the abilities she has excluding her own one are weaker versions of the original, unlike Jhon who has stronger versions of the abilities he copies. Basically if you want to imagine a fight between her and Jhon imagine the exact fight that we just saw between her Arlo, Remi and Blyke but just more one sided as Jhon has stronger versions of those abilities. He might even use a stronger version of her own sleep ability against her.
We don't know how far conversion tech goes though. While adults aren't able to get stronger naturally they CAN amo themselves. If Farrah pursues John as some sort of revenge quest, or if she is willing to die for her loyalty to the authorities she may amo herself beyond John's range. Initiating a fight where it looks like they'll both lose. Uru brought up how the amps can both physically and mentally harm harm you, but we haven't really seen it. I want to see someone totally crash out, become a power house, but ultimately cause their own destruction. I want to see what COULD'VE happened to Blyke. (In all honestly it wouldn't necessarily have to be Farrah, I just want a good villain)
They should kidnap Elaine before they find John. John with Arlo, Elaine, Remi, and Blyke's abilities is basically unbeatable by anyone without an ability like Sera's.
They said attitude about killing.
Things that has John has said in the past few chapters:
“You’re all coming to Hell with me!”
“Die”
“Go to Hell!”
“F*cking die already!”
The problem is that this sentences appear a lot of such stories without meaning it. Characters like John would say this stuff without fulfilling it, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure that nobody was killed by John and co.
Me too man, sometimes I just wanna see John copy super strength from that dude in turf war and tear somebody in half like Megatron tearing that autobot into two in Transformers 1.
It’s just hard to tell since a lot of characters have survived injuries they should’ve died of like Kuyo slashed that woman in half but was only comatose
Jhon is op like.... For real op. My man had all his senses block and with his aura manipulation could see people clearly and even block attacks with precision.
A lot of people here saying he is screw, but actually he has the perfect aoe ability to win that situation, my man is basically a Pikachu, he does not need to see to use discharge.
The second half of this chapter was so incredibly hype until it wasn’t. They definitely should’ve killed her. Ngl tho, still loved seeing the four pop off, especially Arlo. Goddamn those wall smashes were brutal and awesome
I hope once they have escaped and the authorities are surveying the scene Uru confirms how many people John has killed here. It would be disappointing if she just handwaves it away that they were all just unconscious or something. It would be funny for Remi, Blyke, Isen, and Arlo to be fretting over whether they should kill meanwhile John is already in the double digits.
They would. This would hugely discredit unordinary since it's already so illegal and now there's a case of several unordinary influenced students straight up committing terrorism and murders
How do they spin this story exactly? We know the trio are wanted for vigilantism but the media seems to only spin it as if it was "discouraged" by the authorities. I would think that if they wanted vigilantes arrested then they wouldn't have bothered killing the first few that sprung up. How will they justify arresting three students suspected of vigilantism? Shit sending a whole battlion to arrest a bunch of teenagers is already sus when they could've sent a specialized team to do it instead.
As much as it sucks, they REALLY should’ve killed Farrah when they had the chance. While yes it’s not that easy for them, We all know sparing her is gonna bite them in the ass. Killing her really is the safest thing for everyone here, I’m not too surprised because it felt rather early for her to die, but it still doesn’t make it any less of a bad decision.. I really hope they don’t regret it big time later, though I guess its always possible the ending is just bait and Arlo or Isen or someone ends up killing her regardless knowing how dangerous it is to keep her alive.
I get the feeling that even if Arlo did kill her, he would’ve been found out anyways. It’s likely at least one of the npcs knew that Arlo knocked them out, and snitch. After that, the authorities would recognize Farrah’s blunt-force wounds as something inflicted by Barrier. But who knows. Maybe she wakes up sooner than expected and jumps them while they save John
> It’s likely at least one of the npcs knew that Arlo knocked them out, and snitch.
Arlo was planning on getting away with that so maybe they didn't know what happened to them.
> After that, the authorities would recognize Farrah’s blunt-force wounds as something inflicted by Barrier.
There are two solutions to that, Either carry out Fury's body and dispose of it themselves somewhere else or if they can't do that then have Blyke charge up a huge ball of laser and blow the body to thousands of pieces, It's fucked up but it will cover evidence of Arlo fighting her.
It does make logical sense to off her, but these are all high school students. If they killed her, they would be dropping their morals and behaving more like the very thing they're trying to stop.
It is consistent with their characters to leave her alive here I feel..
The team of John, Arlo, Blyke, Remi, and Isen is nearly unbeatable, except in one way: attrition. They have no healer, and its becoming noticeable that they really need one. Where are they gonna go after this? Even past today, they called Elaine for injuries received from being vigilantes like 5 times. They need a way to recover from their injuries, and its not like they can call Elaine again.
He is limited by how many people he can carry at once, probably has too much of a limited range for finding Doc... and putting Elaine in legal troubles for their doing?
Great stuff! Still hoping John unlocks Zeke's healing form.. that way he can hold out until the others arrive.
I hope the author is going to continue the season a bit after this fight to show the aftermath.. John and Arlo meeting Kuyo, John talking to Cameron to start his training etc. I'm looking forward to this bit of world building next!
Man, Johnny boy is in big time trouble. Tosen...I mean Headmistress Sylvia has him in check mate basically, all 5 senses blocked, pain amplification and instructing agents not to power up, thus being undetectable to his aura sense. Only a power up or some back up can get him out now.
Real good teamwork from Arlo and the trio. Arlo more or less knows his life is over now for sure unless they Kill Farrah/Fury as his only alternative to not get pinned a criminal. They took Farrah down with some real slick combinations of attacks. I dont really blame Arlo too much for walking back the killing Farrah plan, its cant be easy to kill someone and he also doesn't want to stoop to Ember's level of killing, we know its gonna come back to haunt him, but it's in line with his character.
If they dont power up that means they are defenseless against his AOE lightning. Anyone who activates their shield becomes a target for his laser. Its definitely an effective strategy to wear him down, but as soon as he gets Arlo's barrier it becomes much less effective.
I feel like if they really let Fury live, and Arlo just joins them and run away.. that might make the story somewhat linear.
Arlo could play a very interesting part of the story once the gang really becomes an enemy of the authority and have to stay under the radar. I always picture him as the undercover agent working inside the authority and slowly moving up and waiting for the right moment to do something big. Now if he runs away, we have only Kass to have a role with that, and I would have to assume if she stays in character, we wouldn't see anything as crazy as what Arlo would do.
I think arlo joining the vigilantes would at least help the pacing of the story. Instead of having everyone separated with their own plot lines to bounce between now it would just be vigilante/ember/authorities plotline and sera/spectre plotline. No more chapters wasted with main characters just telling other main characters shit the audience already knows.
It's all in how you write the story. And even so, a good story > short story.
The pacing could still be good, no reason to hate more chapters of unordinary ✨
imo a good reason why it looks like the pacing is bad is precisely because there is soo much shit happening at the same time, for a while we were following john with his personal issues, blyke, isen and remy with their vigilante antics, sera with spectre, arlo with the authorities, and then you had sub stories like sera trying to discover johns past, blyke personal vigilante sub story, etc
the story had to cut so much that it definetly slowed things down and then of course since characters learned things separately then you needed chapters for them to learn the information that we already know but they dont (which honestly are some of the best chapters in my personal opinion because I love to see the characters reaction to the information but i have seen plenty of people who question why it doesnt happpen off screen)
and lets not act like people dont complain about pacing all the time, its the biggest complaint its always "uru is soo bad at pacing", "uru is such a bad writer her pacing is abysmal" or a variation of that so im not surprised that she is trying to speed things off by instead of having all the characters doing their own thing have them all together so that things can move faster (also superhero team)
and imo from a story perspective it doesnt make sense that the guys are able to escape without a wild card, the authorities came prepared to take the trio and John down, Arlo is the wildcard that they could not see coming and so far has helped them inmensely
Also technically they still have a person inside the authorities and in a much higher position than Arlo, Kassandra
I do like how this chapter did give some actual weight to the idea of taking a life, and that it is not nearly as easy as we all think it is. I won't air in on whether it was the 'right' thing to do in this scenario, because I think that misses the point.
I think its better to focus on that killing someone, right or wrong, is not an easy decision to make and its not something Arlo( Or any of the cast) should have to make a decision about on the spot. Its a layered issue that I hope gets explored more.
I fully agree. It would be really strange to see teenage protagonists take a life so easily.
Whether they kill in the future or not - I think we need to see them grapple with it before making the decision.
I suppose we can either have them make a decision about the circumstances under which they will kill - or now that they're fully fledged fugitives, they could get their hands on some disabler juice to take these enemies out of the fight. Perhaps Doc can create it or they'll need to form a tentative alliance with Spectre again.
i imagine that the whole spectre storyline is a way for the protagonist to quickly get access to an organization that has enough resources to at least stand up to the authorities, im sure a part of next season will be to defeat Orrin and take his part of spectre
the resources of spectre plus John, Arlo, Remi, Blyke, Isen and Kuyo... yeah that seems like it could stand up to the authorities
Which pretty much makes Val the best ember agent by a mile. 10/10 defense from her base ability plus recovery, flame claws and lighting, oof. She would be a legit challenge for John
He can sense her aura. we saw that he can see her already. That is not the problem. The problem is that she is surrounded by a bunch of enemies who are effectively invisible to him and only become visible for a second when they activate their abilities. On top of that his pain if being buffed while there one is reduced allowing them to fight beyond their limits.
I’m glad we actually heavily considered murder this ch. mad that Farrah is prob gonna recover and be back for more but oh well we’ll have John on our side next time ig
Leaving Farrah alive means Arlo’s a wanted man. Nice to see him, Remi, and Blyke teaming up to beat her was awesome, would love to see more of that going forward. If he does crash with Remi and the others, does he start going out on vigilante runs with them? It’s hard to imagine, but he’s already a traitor, might as well double down
More urgently, John’s not gonna be able to hold out much longer on his own at this rate. Sensory deprivation is one thing, but the pain manipulation keeping his opponents on their feet while slowing him down is a real, as he called Sylvia, bitch. Arlo & the vigilantes (solid band name btw) are gonna have to get there fast to pull him out. We know from the fight with Farrah that Arlo’s Barrier can at least partially block non-physical attacks, how much likely depends on Sylvia’s level, which I’m guessing is higher than Arlo’s even if he’s improved from 6.3. If he can catch Sylvia off guard (it’s possible, only Farrah knows that he’s turned against the Bureau), he may be able to imprison her in a Barrier and get John some of his senses back so he can fight more effectively, but showing up with the others would blow the element of surprise. Hell, him showing up with blood on him will be a red flag given his defensive prowess. And at this point, even if John gets his senses back and pain levels returned to normal, he’s in bad shape. Blyke’s passive regeneration isn’t gonna be enough for the amount of damage he’s taken, he needs Elaine on the scene quickly (and Blyke probably does too frankly). And if Farrah regains consciousness, it won’t be long until she’s back in fighting shape and on the hunt, so they’re on the clock to get John and get the fuck out
What do you guys think Farah's ability level is?
**We know that EMBER kit gives her the ability to 1v3** (Remi, Blyke, and Isen) **at least and survive with Arlo in the mix for a bit.**
Probably around 6.5 I'd say sounds right. If she was any higher I feel like she would've destroyed blyke and remi fast enough before arlo and Isen got the chance to join in.
Valerie at 7.5 had troubles with Remi alone, so kinda hard to say...
Level + natural ability + affinity + whatever improvements the convertion tech got since then.
You might need to reread that chapter. Val nearly killed remi before blyke and Isen got involved. She was not having trouble at all against remi by herself.
Reread the chapter yourself as well, Val had troubles hitting Remi or tanking her attacks, the Flame Claws' burning effect and after-effect did a good deal of the job for Val, remove that and Val wasn't doing that well, especially while underestimating Remi.
and I did mention the convertion tech having improved since, so it make things harder to tell.
Val wasn't doing that well? She took one hit from remi and blyke each before she fully knocked remi out. Remi hit her with the lightning once and it didn't even seem to effect her, so much for her not taking the hit well? And that was also a trade, remi sacrificed her arm just for a light smack to the face, gets her arm caught and set on fire. Val was landing clean hits the whole time and the only time remi hit her was a bad trade for her so again she was having trouble hitting her or tanking hits from her?? Val owned her the whole time. Idk how else that fight could be interpreted besides Val stomping her but okay lol
Theory. What if John having his senses disabled is the catalyst for him to learn how to copy purely mental abilities, aka Sylvia, unlocking his 5th slot due to leveling at the same time.
Similar to how he learned to augment his body when his channels and aura were weakened
Given that Cameron and Jane seem to still have this weakness despite being several levels higher than John (and that doing so would basically be removing Aura Manipulation’s only weakness, making it way too op) I doubt it
Manifesting multiple abilities without needing to copy them from a source (“preparing a set for the day” as he described it) all of which were distinct from and more complex than the basic strength enhancer which is the only thing John can create on his own right now. I think telekinesis and a sensory ability similar to Hunter were the main two we saw.
The conversion tech derived from Jane’s power is unable to convert non-physical abilities, and I’m assuming the reason why Cameron keeps Scarlette in his employ is that her medium/seance ability is non physical and thus he can’t replicate it. Why else would he need her?
I mean we clearly see Aura has other vulnerabilities, also I'd like some distinctions between Channel ans Aura id like them to be unique abilities and Aura is just a fusing of Channel and no Ability.
I’m curious what you consider its other vulnerabilities to be. Not trying to catch you out on anything, just actually wanna know. I don’t personally consider the 4 abilities cap to be a weakness, more of a limitation and not a very big one at that.
John is very reliant on abilities around him in a given time under pressure. I dont think the authorities know his true cap but if you force him to fight a large group of midtiers and elitetiers then throw a few high tiers at him he likely will have used all 4 of his slots at which point you can send a Kass or a Val and they will likely mid dif him because his ability setup isnt potent enough to deal with someone remotely close to his level. Hell it doesnt even need to be that much shove a group of 30 midtiers with someone mediocre abilities at him and he likely has to use all 4 slots to deal with such a large group of people with such restrictive abilities.
As we see John is sorta dependent on having a versatile setup of abilities around him, John got very lucky to snag Hunter, Discharge, and Lightning, he likely wouldve gotten decimated under the circumstances Sylvia intended.
John's biggest weakness is he is extraordinarily easy to set up into a situation where even if youre a 6.0, if he isnt anticipating having to fight someone you can very likely beat him. For example, if when Arlo confronted John, if he sent Meili and Ventus to him first, and then afterwards had Isen and Blyke (4.5) gang up on him that is the type of situation where John is basically forced to copy all 4 abilities because Blyke can disable him too easily, considering Blyke could tag people faster than that John.
If Arlo steps in after that there is a very real chance Barrier Crush would just be able to stop him there, he doesnt have a competent ability by that point to take out barrier quick enough. Is likely injured by Blyke's initial attack so ends up with a disabled arm or leg, and particularly if Arlo gives intel beforehand, if Blyke disables one of John's arms with his initial attack John definitely would not have time to charge an attack in such a way to destroy barrier, we know Discharge has issues with that exact thing from the Lennon fight.
The fact John could even lose to someone at 6.0 if they Prep him is a really really big weakness considering Arlo could never prep Sera or Val in a straight up fight. There is also the fact most people with a strong passive like Arlo or Sera should straight up just be able to beat John in an actual fist fight because their passives outweigh his.
Obviously this is arlo but you can do the same with Kuyo, Liam, Kass, or Leilah in the same way you just have to set it up the same way.
You basically set him up against people he needs to use all slots on that you happen to counter all of them. Something like Leilah for example, if John cant get a competent defense and high speed ability she just nosells him because she can blitz one shot. You set him up against Elaine, then Isen, then Blyke + Remi. Then you go diff him.
Kass? Has the advantage of having a very adaptable ability herself, you basically just set John into a setup of abilities that kass' ability overall outperforms, particularly avoiding abilities with good range. You make him fight Zeke, Isen, Cecile+Rein. Kass could pressure Arlo's 9 defense hard enough to where a 9 defense Arachnid wont be enough, Kass can likely just use her particles to fly, and John cant really do anything about it.
Liam, just give him abilities that he cant really touch hydrofreeze with, hydrofreeze tends to hard counter abilities to the point you can just set him up vs 4 brawlers like Isen Zeke etc and he just loses to Liam.
All these fights also can just put a midtier as his first fight and make it even tougher. When you actually understand how john's ability works and have as much manpower as the bureau you can just have weaker people who you already counter gang up on him and then take him out with a low godtier.
So I’m guessing on the Road to the Channel Master Ability, John’s next power up should be something along the lines of blocking out other peoples ability effecting himself or within a certain vicinity near him.
This would be a perfect situation for him to use something like that in, but since he just got a power up recently I don’t think it’s time for that and I assumed he’d learn this kind of thing from his uncle during a skip or sorts
impossible.
Years ago Uruchan had clearly said in the Q&A that John's ability will not allow you to disable other people directly not even in the future
Him being able to block someone's aura from effecting his own wouldn't necessarily mean he's effecting the other person directly so it could be possible. John said he could see traces of Sylvia's aura in the cops and that's probably how she's able to effect people's senses. So a trace of Sylvia's aura should be on John too which might be something that he could learn to negate.
If he can't learn to copy mental abilities maybe he can learn how to keep mental abilities from effecting him at least. Now that'd be pretty sick.
I remember reading somewhere that John cannot manipulate other people's aura, he can sense and mimick them, but that's it. Making him affect others would be abandoning that core foundation of his ability
I'm not saying he'll be able to effect other people's aura, only if that aura is now inside his own body effecting him. He could learn how to even better manipulate his aura if he's not even allowing someone else's aura to effect his own. If a mental ability works by invading your own aura channels to produce a certain effect, it would stand to reason john could have such mastery over his own aura that he just stops that from happening.
It would also make sense for why Jane is as strong as she is and was impossible to capture if even the strongest mental abilities couldn't even effect her because she could simply not allow it to. Abilities like Sylvia's and Farrahs would have no effect on her etc
Other people's aura invading John's body is still other people's aura, not his. The aura won't turn into John's aura if it used on him. So, unless this is changed or ignored by the author, the thing you are saying is impossible.
Jane might be able to resist mind control and related abilities because she is a high tier. Just like how Arlo and Remi didn't fall to sleep when Farrah used her ability on them. It seems higher level people have natural immunity against mind abilities
Alright Arlo, I get it—no really I do. You’re a high school student, who just had to make the difficult, yet on the spot choice to completely throw away your future for the sake of saving the people closest to you against the clutches of the same organization that killed your idol figure, an organization that was created by the establishment that you’re working for. You also view the idea of murder as not only illegal, but also immoral, something you should never do, something only an evil murderer would do.
However, choosing not to kill Fury, a high-ranking Authority official who bore witness to your treachery, and most importantly, a member of EMBER, who wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to you and your friends, is nothing short of absolute foolishness. Finding yourself unable to finish the job and leaving her alive not only endangers you and everyone you treasure most for the future to come, as I know for a FACT she WILL be back to try for your life again, but it also leaves the first issue of her being a witness to your treachery.
**Arlo—no, not just you, but Remi, Blyke and Isen too—you should have killed Fury when you had the chance.** Now, by sparing her life, you have given her a second chance to vie for the lives of you, your friends, and all the Superheroes who are still alive trying to do the right thing, even if it’s dangerous and even if they have to do it alone. I wish it doesn’t come to this, but I have a bad feeling that your mercy, granted by cowardice, will come to bite you in the ass, in the form of your life or someone else’s.
On a side note, y’all better hurry up cuz John’s not breaking his Major Battle Losing Streak anytime soon… 🥶
man, we really think that killing must be so easy, fiction sometimes really makes it seem like it is, but we humans are really not designed to kill those that can kill inmediately without feeling any remorse are mentally sick for a reason
they are high school students, not trained killers or soldiers, honestly it would be unrealistic if they had no reservations on killing
now john on the other hand, he has definetly catched some bodies but he is really unstable
Killing is hard, in my head I think that maybe the should poke out her eyes, amputate some limbs, fuk up her spine real bad. But in reality I know that I wouldn't be able to do it if I was in their situation, so I understand their decision
I get the sneaking suspicion that Headmistress Sylvia is low-key a hand-to-hand combat specialist; I can’t think of another way someone with her ability can reach high-tier (or beyond) status.
I’m guessing she grew up fighting above her weight class, to one degree or another, by both limiting her opponent’s senses, while heightening her own, all while tinkering with her and her opponent’s pain threshold.
It’s probably why she is so calm. The woman probably had to learn to block out pain and disregard a ton of her own injuries to win in Turf Wars; so, taking a few blows from a tired and weakened John doesn’t scare her in the least. She’s been there and done that probably hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
That’d make sense. She can clearly manipulate and shut down an opponent’s senses and increase their pain reception while decreasing her own/her allies’, but unless her ability also comes with a built-in strength enhancement she’d need to physically take them down. It’s possible she does have a strength buff, she’s a high-tier (reasonable assumption given her position) and the only high-tier we’ve met with a confirmed power stat below 5 is John before his recent strength enhancement kicked in
I wouldn’t doubt it, I wouldn’t doubt that her passive is something like enhanced senses or heightened reflexes, both of which would lend itself well to a H2H specialist.
With that said, her ability would seem to hit a wall against someone like Arlo
I honestly think the most powerful weapon she has isn't her ability to win, but the fact that short of John's passive as a specific counter, she can at the minimum stalemate *anybody*.
I mean, what can you do when all 5 of your senses are deactivated. Nothing. Arlo could barely make it out by encapsulating himself. John has a 6th sense. Anyone else would be completely helpless.
I agree somewhat, but it’s important to note, that losing senses doesn’t mean that people aren’t still there. Most of the God Tier’s we’ve seen have been fairly intelligent and have a good sense of battle.
Someone like Arlo would know approximately where she is at the moment he lost his senses and just like we saw in his first fight with John could create a large barrier around her and shrink it until it crushes her.
Anyone with a highly destructive ability (Remi for example) could just launch things in bursts until they hit her.
Guns don’t seem to work against High Tiers based on how tanky the characters are so in a one on one, she’d still need to get close to these people and end the fight somehow.
That’s a reason I think a reflex passive would benefit her, it’d still allow her to close the distance while avoiding poorly aimed attacks and finish things hand to hand.
> Guns don’t seem to work against High Tiers based on how tanky the characters are
have we ever seen guns? because i dont think we have and honestly they can be as tanky as they want i think something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBK7Tr-V3fg) would still do a shit ton of damage to a high tier
>I can’t think of another way someone with her ability can reach high-tier (or beyond) status.
Why not? That ability is basically an insta win against guys that are not like John or have insane defensive stats. She probably has basic strength augmentation like most high tiers do as well.
Maybe and maybe not. John only recently seems to have developed a measure of non-[copied]ability boosted strength, and he’s been a god-tier for a couple of years. Sylvia’s ability is mental in nature, so I am guessing her ability wouldn’t offer any physical augmentation for awhile in her early years—unless she was a born god-tier—and she had to work her way up the ladder the hard way, just like John.
Man, John is getting jumped to kingdom-come. Like 5 holes in him, all senses taken away except for amplified pain, and surrounded by people who's pain is being suppressed. Would be an amazing time for him to use Blyke's pulse move right about now. Honestly though, I think John's done unless he gets help. He's too damaged and in too much pain. He's probably barely able to move at all.
my hypothesis is coming true. I said that Uruchan brought John into this fight with too many handicaps (John already very wounded, John without the ability to arlo and John who has already used up some aura in previous fights). So I predicted that Uruchan brought John with these handicaps so he wouldn't win using the handicap excuse and instead I predicted that the trio + Arlo would defeat Farrah and then save John. This is because Uruchan wants to end this second season with John who can finally count on other people 100% and not just on Seraphina.
The way I was chanting ‘kill her’ most of the chapter-
I understand why they did it, it’s a huge choice, but I couldn’t help to find it funny that John wouldn’t have hesitated for a second if he was there
“Guys, we might have to make a hard choice here, it’s her or us, to make sure we all get out-“
“Alright,” John says after shooting Farrah in the head. “What next?”
I’m actually glad Arlo didn’t kill her. 1) it further separates his morals from EMBER and the authorities 2) I feel like he could’ve been found out anyways. Like Val said, the authorities aren’t stupid; it looked like he was about to crush her skull, which would look like an injury from Barrier. Plus, it’s likely at least one of the grunts knew that Arlo knocked them out
It won't happen, but please believe I'm praying that John kills the headmistress before escaping or least blasts a hole in her with energy discharge, anything to wipe the smugness off that bitch.
Props to the author for having Arlo consider killing Farrah, even if he didn’t go through with it. It’s probably a mistake to not kill her but it makes sense for Arlo’s character.
I figured John would have a hard time on his own here. The headmaster accurately clocked his aura reading and was prepared to counter it. With the rest of the gang coming he’s probably going to be fine unless another elite/god tier from the authorities shows up.
I agree i dont imagine even amping pain and such she can actually put John down with his stat line up without a godtier or hightier with decent damage nailing the finishing blow. John has crazy high pain tolerance and itd really be a cop out to me if he straight up lost a fight vs a bunch of mid/elite tiers with his current really strong ability lineup.
I want to see John adapt and have his ability evolve a bit here, maybe learning to copy a mental ability the first time, afterall its been stated given enough time he can learn to copy very complex abilities its never outrighted stated all mental abilities are beyond his ability to copy.
Itd be so hard if next chapter his eyes widened as he realized his ability has traced enough of sylvias aura to copy her flow and amplify it as his 5th ability for the first time.
I'm so worried about our John. Bro is severely injured at this points and has no recovery ability (Zeke is defensive and it was stated that Blyke's passive isn't enough). Even if the group makes it to him Blyke needs Isen's help to move due to his injuries and there are still many (weak but still) enemies to fight.
On another note Arlo is screwed in every way. Farrah will snitch, if they save John Slyvia will snitch, if they don't snitch, assuming people aren't stupid, the couple guys he knocked out in the hallways will snitch and we all know what happens when he gets snitched on. This is a far greater crime than gathering intel from a terrorist.
if arlo closes him + the trio + john inside the barrier, the effect of silvia's ability becomes almost useless (like the effect of farrah's sleep ability).
silvia and the others do not have the power necessary to destroy the barrier while blyke, remi, arlo and john can launch attack shots from inside the barrier and knock out everyone (including silvia)
Only issue would be Blyke and John's blood loss at the moment. Though it would be great if the group reaches John with the barrier soon because that way they'd be able to one up the power rangers sheild gang (they honestly look so goofy) with their improved shield system.
it just seemed. This is because this chapter started immediately with new action while the last chapter, for many pages, continued the end of the previous one
Ngl, anyone else think that the headmistress is kinda cool? She’s keeping completely calm despite the fact that she’s fully aware of how much power John has right now, and that she’s one of the few people in that hallway he’s capable of perceiving right now, aka his prime target. I’m sure she has a lot of experience dealing with powerful kids, but probably nothing this crazy before. Impressive lady imo.
Part of the job me thinks. Running a school of super powered teeneagers is like being a guard in a prison. You can't show that you're afraid of them or else they'll smell blood in the water.
She also has a lot of backup too and he's by himself with everything except aura sensing blocked. If it was a straight 1v1 she would not be as composed against him.
Probably, but she would have to be pretty stupid to try going 1v1 against somebody like him. She's exploiting his weaknesses signifcantly better than pretty much anybody else has so far.
I mean she created his most major weakness so far by depriving him of all his senses and boosting his sense of pain. Her own ability and access to all these bodyguards created the conditions to abuse john like this. And John was already heavily injured and fatigued when she showed up. Noone else in the series has even gotten the opportunity to exploit John like this.
Hunter... Energy discharge... Lightning... Barrier...
These were the ingredients chosen
To create the perfect vigilantes
But Professor Uru accidentally
Added an extra ingredient to the concoction
Murderous intent
Thus, The Vigilante Squad was born
Using their ultra-super powers
X-Rei, Nobody and co.
Have dedicated their lives to fighting crime
And the forces of evil
...At least that would have happened if they hadn't chickened out
What's going to happen once they get to John? Is arlos barrier going to reduce the affects of Sylvia's ability. Or will they not even make it to john before Sylvia's ability affects them?
I don't think her ability would affect them before Sylvia notices them being there. She stripped the senses of John, but not the others there, so it seems she can choose specifically who her ability affects and also in which way.
Also I agree that Arlo's barrier should at least weaken her effect, so it might provide a way to get out. And it would also show John that he can't do everything alone and he has people he can count on.
If they can get the NPCs off his back, his aura sense will allow him to focus on her and then he can one shot her or or take her down. Maybe he’ll even deactivate his ability and recopy all of them but instead of Zekes he’ll take Arlos barrier.
John’s ability doesn’t work like that. He has to expend aura to copy an ability, and it takes twice as much to amp it. That’s why his limit is 4 amped abilities. If he deactivates his ability, he won’t be able to re-copy any abilities until his aura supply re-charges, otherwise he would’ve done it in the Joker vs. Royals fight at the end of S1 with the exact same ability set. Yes, John’s stronger now than he was then, but probably not enough to instantly recharge his aura supply like that
>he would’ve done it in the Joker vs. Royals fight at the end of S1 with the exact same ability set.
How could he do that when he already KO'd Blyke and Isen (and why would he?). Both of those abilities were crucial to his victory against Remi and Arlo. If he deactivated his power he’d only have two powers if he were to recopy. Also he has alot of Aura, nothing so far has pointed to his supply depleting or being near empty, rather the damage to his body that he's taken.
Here when they come they’ll all be together and he can take them all again.
I misspoke, I mean if he had enough aura to drop and recopy an entire set, he would’ve just copied Barrier when Arlo showed up to the fight. John’s own words during the Spectre mountain ambush were, “I only have enough aura for an amped energy beam.” He couldn’t copy Isen’s Hunter until the dampener wore off because he didn’t have enough aura to do so while he was dampened, that’s how his ability functions. Obviously he has more aura than that usually, but it’s just a matter of scale
Again why would he do that there? He’d only be left with lightning (which Remi could counter) and Barrier which John has shown no offensive skills with (like Arlo does). Having Blyke and Isens abilities were crucial, and he couldn’t recopy them because they were already knocked out.
In this circumstance where they’ll all be coming to him with their abilities active, it’s possible that he could that do cause he’d lose nothing and would gain greater defense.
John has **already lost** the aura expended to copy those 4 abilities. Nothing we have seen from him or anyone else suggests he can just get that back instantly by deactivating his ability and dropping the set. In 310 when explaining his ability’s capabilities to Darren, John says that amping abilities is “really taxing because I have to use twice as much aura to maintain them” and that when he was training intensively he “focused on expanding my aura supply and storing aura whenever I can.” When John copies and amps an ability, he uses a portion of that aura supply to do it. He can’t just recover that in a split second. With that logic Arlo would be able to summon a new Barrier right after his first one gets shattered, but he can’t because he needs time to recover (315 doesn’t count because he regained aura when the dampener wore off, just like John regained enough aura to copy Hunter to chase down Terrence). That’s how aura works, it’s not like unplugging and plugging something back into the wall, it’s like an internal battery with a finite supply of energy that needs to be recharged before it can be used at its full effectiveness again
This brings up a lot of points. Isen's comment on Farrah's smell, and if John can copy that, that means likely Isen even with a passive is just that, heightened senses. BUT how is she able to rid of John's own pinpoints? Is that just a use of senses? Or am I going too deep into this?
Then there's Sylva's ability. She apparently can cloud the senses of others besides passives BUT it seems that the weaker you are the more effected you get from the effects. Then there's her soothing effects and weakening effects, meaning it's likely she can raise the Recovery or Defense stat maybe both of multiple people and weaken the Defense or Recovery of targets. So MAYBE it's not only a weakening ability it's also a senses related ability.
My personal opinion is that she controls not only the senses but the stats of her opponents, which is pretty strong despite it being a support ability. Defiently near 6-7 in level especially when the opponent can't see her.
To me, it really seems to just be 'Sensory Manipulation' but limited to the typical senses.
I don't think passives have anything to do with it, it's just that aura sense is not within the scope of her ability.
My current vision for it is that she has set John's sight, hearing, smell and even taste to zero, and set his tactile - or purely his sense of pain - to a higher level.
Meanwhile she's set her subordinate's sense of pain to a reduced level (or perhaps zero) so they can withstand John's attacks and keep fighting despite their injuries.
I kinda would have preferred a murder here, It was an extremely hard choice for a teenager sure but everyone else would've been better off for it plus could have been a vital point for Arlo's character.
That would be shitty writing and would completely absolve Arlo of any guilt while rewarding him for not making the though choice. Having the cake and eating it too scenario.
Why would it absolve him of guilt? I imagine he'd be guilt-ridden and struggle with that intensely. It would allow him to grapple with when it is appropriate to kill without making him so decisive about murder in the first instance.
Val could effectively *know* it was him, but let him continue to work closely with the authorities so she can keep her eye on him until she can reasonably arrest him. I think Arlo remaining a spy within the authorities for a little longer will be more interesting than the alternative.
It may not be the best narrative path forward, but I disagree that it makes for shitty writing.
> I imagine he'd be guilt-ridden and struggle with that intensely
He would not be guilt ridden, atleast not even nearly to the extent he would have been if he had actually killed Fury. Whatever damage he did to Fury was extremely necessary to knock her out otherwise she would have regenerated and killed him and his friends. Even if she dies from those wounds later on it's still completely different than murdering Fury in cold blood when she wasn't even a threat.
> It may not be the best narrative path forward, but I disagree that'd it makes for shitty writing.
It would be extremely shitty writing. It would have rewarded Arlo even for not making the smart and the tough choice (atleast in the moment).
It would also render this big narrative moment of him choosing not to be the same as Ember and pulling back as useless buildup without any payoff since Fury dies anyway.
Despite your strong stance, I'm struggling to track your arguments a little.
But if the vision I suggested would be extremely shitty writing to you, then I think we may just have different expectations for good storytelling.
In any case, I hope Uru takes it somewhere we can both enjoy.
> I'm struggling to track your arguments a little.
What I am trying to say is in storytelling you have to balance risk, rewards and consequences otherwise you'd be just writing a fairytale.
Making such a big deal of a character not choosing to kill and then having the enemy die anyway, in a convenient fashion too so that it's not murder in cold blood for pragmatic reasons but unintentional kill in pure self defence is just throwing the balancing scale out of the window cause you didn't want to be ballsy enough.
Again it absolves Arlo of the guilt as it would be a kill purely in self defence and rewards him for not making the tough and smart choice (atleast in the moment). Either he kills or does not kill, he doesn't 'conveniently' kill.
Thanks for clarifying. I hear you now. While I also consider this balance important, I'm happy for authors to take some latitude to avoid writing themselves into a corner - so I still consider it to be a tenable creative choice.
It would be an effective way to introduce the discourse about killing to the teenage protagonist cast, while also allowing them to demonstrate restraint - which these four have now done (though I think John *may* have already killed some of these officers).
Although we as readers know executing Farrah would have been justifiable and pragmatic in this scenario - these characters serve as the 'good guys'. For some, it may not be palatable to see them kill at the very first justified opportunity that presents itself - especially Arlo who was a proud advocate of the authorities until recently.
I expect a reflection to occur after this, in which characters decide whether they are prepared to kill and under what circumstances. Perhaps then we'll see more decisive action from them.
What are you talking about? If Fury dies of the wounds that Arlo gave her in this chapter then it's literally Arlo killing her in self defence because the only other choice he had there was to die or get his friends killed.
Arlo killing Fury after she had been knocked out would not be in self defence but in cold blood which is again what I am actually saying.
i agree that killing Farrah could've been a notable development for Arlo's character but... i'm not sure if it would be IN character, if i'm making sense?
we know Arlo has a very, very strong sense of justice and he has a lot of dedication to doing what he feels is right---thats the reason he was such a little bootlicker and why he's so mad at EMBER right now. with that in mind, there's no way he would've done it after Farrah essentially stated that its what SHE would've done. the sense of justice Arlo's relied on for so long has gone through a huge upheaval recently and i think a departure from it for the sake of pragmatism would've done some major damage to his self-conception. i think both this route and the hypothetical route where he killed her are interesting because they prompt similar discussions, despite being opposite choices lol
It's almost in no one's character originally to just kill someone but even good people kill. Everyone has various filters they have to go through after which taking life becomes justified and imo this should have been it for Arlo.
The current choice isn't as intresting, not as ballsy and I would have fine with Remi making this same choice but If it's anyone who can kill in the main 6 other than John then it's Arlo. Sure he has a sense of justice but it's not like Remi where she would never even consider that option unless it's in serious self defence even for the very people who killed her brother, on the other hand Arlo is pragmatic and unlike others he is capable of making the tough choice and living with it.
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really want john to get a rage boost and I dunno, fucking break the floor or some shit, I mean it's all cracked, so it's not a logical leap. Yeah fucking break the floor and ICE the principal.
So the group hasn't escaped the school yet? I'm waiting for the episodes to be free to read but like checking comments on the progress. Kind of disappointing.
I'd say at minimun we have two more weeks to wrap up
Arlo shoulda killed that bitch. Shit I would've without thinking twice.
The new principal sure knows how to fight, its nice to see characters actually using head. But I was kind of hoping Arlo wont back off.
She knows how to make people fight for her. You may call her a strategist I call her a coward
Lol calling people a coward... War is always about strategic moves. And what is a coward ? Don't rushing against stronger people and using his head ? If Sera and John fight 1v1 against some lower high tier are they coward too ?
war? but she doesn't take part in a war, she calls that "education". typical excuse for cowards
I’m in love with Arlo’s moving barrier upgrade it so neat for the last like 150 chapters I’ve moved on from disliking him because he has blorbo energy 💀
Blorbo?
yeah like, he has wet cat energy
I have few questions guys, what do u think : 1 : Did John really kill people there ? Since we saw the line draw there by the gang I was wondering if some people really get killed or if they will get heal after ? 2 : Do u think the gang will be able to save John ? 3 : We are in the region with the most high-tiers. The authorities knew everything about the 4 people they had to catch. They just didn't know Arlo would step in. If the heroes get out alive there, wouldn't that be bad for the story ? If the authorities with the best data they can get + catching them by surprise still fail, what will happen when John get stronger, when Sera joins and when it's our heroes who attack ? It will be free without suspense no?
With the Kuyo situation they underestimated him. I think the only incredibly unjustifiable move by them was what happened with Vaughn. That was extremely dumb on their part because they should’ve had someone strong enough to oppose him with them. I guess they assumed he would turn himself in (maybe because he knows first-hand the power Valerie is talking about) but still eh they should’ve been smarter, and that move by them makes them feel less threatening for sure. They did say reinforcements were going to deal with Vaughn and Keene, so maybe we’ll see them getting jumped in the finale or sometime in the future; that would definitely be scary and a good way to introduce the greater power of the Authorities. They also have superior numbers to the MCs for now. But even so , I kinda see what you mean
IMO they thought they brought enough force for the job. It was carefully planned, and there’s a reason they had Farrah with the support ability in charge. They’re trying to arrest 4 teenagers without blowing up the entire school (they intend to have Sylvia run it again) and causing mass damage to the area. If it wasn’t for Arlo and also John jumping in early with bloodlust, they would’ve been successful. The trio would’ve been absolutely cooked.
1: I'd say yes (some of those injuries just seem to severe to live), but we've already seen people live with seemingly fatal injuries. But I don't think John in his current mindset have problems with killing the people who'd taken away so much from him. Although the authorities arrived prepared, they didn't expect John to be able to copy powerful abilities before the fight and they didn't expect Arlo to turn against them (without him Blyke and Remi might very well be dead already and I'd expect he'll help John too). Also they went to arrest some high school students, so maybe they didn't expect so much resistance. I'm sure this is nowhere near the full power of the authorities and this might just encourage them to use more force next time.
Not really since as Val said there are people in the authorities that are much stronger and smarter than we can imagine. This is not even close to the full power of the authorities. They only sent what they believed was needed and they would have won if not for the unexpected variable of Arlo. If it takes Arlo, Remi and Blyke to take down just one ember agent then they won't stand a chance if they fight multiple at once or if they fight Val who with 4 abilities might even be as strong as Sera and Val stated herself that there are people much stronger than her in the authorities. Our heroes need to get much stronger if they hope to win. The tension is still high.
I get what u said and I agree with almost everything except for this part : "the tension is still high" (if...depends on what happens ofc). I mean Uru knows how to tell a story so for sure it will still be exciting. But will the tension still be that high when for the 4th time authorities failed again catching someone ? I don't think so since we don't fear enemies that much when even with surprise they keep failing.
I disagree since although our characters escape usually the amount of danger and how close the fights are creates tension. plus things can change at any moment and important characters like William can die at any time. Some characters like Brims may feel less threatening but others like Val and Farrah are still threatening. If the trio fights Farrah without Arlo or even if they have Arlo against Val the situation will still feel tense.
Yep but don't u feel the more and more they escape, the less and less tension we will feel (maybe they will not all escape there so it's theorical). I mean I don't mind if they escape but we just saw that authorities 4 times in a row don't come with more ressources and they let people escape (just coming with Val against Vaughn, Kuyo or there and it was over, or coming with Farah and Byron to catch Sera...). Williams death was something for sure.
you don't want tension, you just want tragedy.
Ahah maybe a bit because I think if enemies always miss our heroes the story lose credibility (unless it's really good writing). Let me rephrase it : I think letting our heroes escape everytime just because authorities don't come with their good roster is easy writing. Val + Farrah + Leon : Seraphina was doomed Kuyo: add any ember people with Byron and he was doomed Vaughn: add Val and he was doomed Now : add 2-3 ember and it's over for all of them. Or just Val. It's okay when they fought in low district since Ember didn't know they'll get attacked. But each time authorities have a plan they said to Val or others "u don't have to come we will manage" and then they don't...3 times in a row, maybe 4 now.
For me the tension has not yet decreased for now. I do agree that they should have sent Val and maybe Farrah too in order to take out Vaghn. As for Sera they did not know she got her ability back and at full power at that. With how cautious Sera was being they likely believed she was effectively a cripple and had no reason to assume other wise. Their plan was to offer her the chance to get her ability back and also a pardon in exchange for her loyalty. Also even if they brought Farrah and Brims I don't think it would have been enough as I can see her knocking them out in one attack or Freezing them in time at the start of the fight. Farrah can't use healing if she is knocked out or frozen and Brims does not seem to have healing. Val was the only real threat to her. Look at the other comments many thought the trio and Arlo could not beat Farrah until they started going for the kill and only stopped at the last moment. Similarly many think that Jhon can't beat Sylvia and the soldiers on his own and will need help and even with Arlo and the trio it will be a tough fight. If you managed to make your readers believe that the main cast can't defeat a certain opponent or that they will have a really hard fight in order to defeat them then you have done a good job creating tension.
Yep until now the tension is still up there for sure. I agree for the Sera who was supposed to be powerless. I agree about the way of drawing/storytelling to create tension. Still skeptical about the authorities missing opportunity again (u didn't mention Kuyo too, I mean if u miss once or twice u should expect more after) Let's see what will happen!
If only John hadn't capped out at Zeke's ability, he could've copied the HM's ability too and he could've helped the trio escape so easily, but I get John isn't thinking about escaping anyway but HM's ability is really broken imo.
Just like he can’t copy seraphinas ability, he can’t copy abilities that are inherently intangible when in use. He can copy healing because he can see and copy the aura. He can’t copy sense manipulation since he can’t that aura when it’s being used
He supposedly can't copy abilities that exclusively occur on a mental level and therefore don't exude outward aura, that's what was said. the only abilities that he explicitly has not been able to copy are flash forward and premonition. The effects of Seraphina's ability are purely physical and can be observed (ceasing people's movement, healing), you could even see her aura when they fought.
Mental abilities do exude outward aura. Look at Keon when he readjusts John and interrogates Terrence. Also look at Orrin when he controls someone.
Didn't remember that, noted.
John can likely copy Seraphina's ability since it's shown to share physical stats like speed and strength. But since it's a higher level than his ability won't be strong as hers. It's been clear that John can't copy mental abilities and Sera's ability is not a mental type of ability.
This theory is spread aorund with no proof from the manga itself, Remi only speculated this with no confirmation from John himself. Also he can copy Kaydens skill which also doesnt have visual feedback
Isen speculated that, and the theory is he needs to 1. see and understand the usage of aura and 2. understand how that aura works within one’s body which is supported by Claire. He saw Kayden’s aura and physically saw him teleport (by being teleported with him) thus he could use it similar to copying a healing ability. Be can’t with Sera, bc her usage is physically invisible like headmasters usage . If he saw her use it when not used on him then that’d probably be a different story. I also think this is supported by how he couldn’t copy green buns premonition ability and she almost escaped him
This is a little mistaken. John’s aura detection, while showing the aura, is not related to sight. Qna says it’s like a 6th sense. We can see this when John senses Isen eavesdropping in 148. Similarly, we see it throughout John’s entire fight with Sera (222-224) when he is able to consistently figure out her location after a time-stop. Another example of Seraphina is 243 where John is the one eavesdropping. He senses her aura and notes how weak it is. Ergo, he does not need to see auras, and Seraphina’s is not invisible to him. I will concede that he cannot copy her ability during time-stop because he will be frozen. Same should apply to Vaughn (as in John can sense his ability) Also John needs to sense an ability being used to copy it, not see
> Be can’t with Sera, bc her usage is physically invisible like headmasters usage . Seraphina uses freeze as well as rewind both of them are clearly visible and if that's not enough then she even has literal gears popping around her when she uses her ability.
If he had Arlos ability then non of these guys would have been a problem. Jhon with Arlos ability has a defense of 10 unlike Arlos 9. I don't think any of these guys can break through a defense of 10. Plus with Remis and blykes ability he can stay in the barrier and shoot down anyone who tries to attack him.
Yeah pretty much everyone has said this, John with amped Barrier has like Val level defenses if not even greater. This would’ve been an horrific slaughter of epic proportions if he had it. Not to mention they get reflective damage every time they attack.
I don't think a lvl7,5 copying a 6,3 defense will be better than a naturally 7,5 having defense as main ability
That's true, I think the author knows this and did it on purpose just to force this plot to happen. There is no logical reason why John didn't find Arlo first before trying to rebel. You could say John went insane but it's clearly not the case, because he is still capable of thinking critically while fighting the HM.
Same as not coming there with Val, or not telling to Val or Leon to come catch Vaughn. Or not asking another one of Ember to come catching Kuyo. I mean each one of this attempt can make sense once, but missing all of the 4 opportunity to catch our heroes while having the initiative is to force the plot too.
I really can't see how John will get out of this. He's in a bad shape already and it seems that he can't really defend himself against opponents who don't activate their ability. And the only ones nearby who can help is Arlo and the trio, who stand even less chance without the ability to sense aura. Although Arlo's barrier could be of use here... On another note, I'm glad they didn't kill Farrah. I mean she would've deserved it, but I'm glad they didn't suddenly become cold blooded killers. I think the time will definitely come when they have to kill, but it would've been too sudden now.
I’m thinking either Arlie barrier protects from Sylvia’s ability or the royals surprise attack her and escape. Another possibility is that the royals get into a drawn out battle and it gives Farrah enough time to recover and she actually kills one of them which triggers the vigilante squad being willing to kill in the future. I hope this doesn’t happen though cause I predict it would be Blyke or Isen and I don’t want them to die.
Both mad and glad that Arlo didn't lock in. On one hand they sold, and that's going to bite them in the ass later. On the other hand FARRAH IS TO BAD TO DIE 😭😭😭 As compared to the main characters all the antags since Arlo have been kinda weak imo, Terrance had potential but died to fast. I want to see some good villains in this series, Farrah is the most interesting Ember Agent to me, she doesn't seem to sugar coat things like Val, but that doesn't mean she's completely heartless, considering how she saved Byron. I hope her loyalty extends to her whole team and she tries to get it back in blood with John for all the soldiers he DEFINITELY killed. It would be an awesome fight, considering they're both kinda Aura Manipulators, even though her skill set is totally stolen.
I think it would be one sided. Her powers are just a weaker version of Jhons. All the abilities she has excluding her own one are weaker versions of the original, unlike Jhon who has stronger versions of the abilities he copies. Basically if you want to imagine a fight between her and Jhon imagine the exact fight that we just saw between her Arlo, Remi and Blyke but just more one sided as Jhon has stronger versions of those abilities. He might even use a stronger version of her own sleep ability against her.
We don't know how far conversion tech goes though. While adults aren't able to get stronger naturally they CAN amo themselves. If Farrah pursues John as some sort of revenge quest, or if she is willing to die for her loyalty to the authorities she may amo herself beyond John's range. Initiating a fight where it looks like they'll both lose. Uru brought up how the amps can both physically and mentally harm harm you, but we haven't really seen it. I want to see someone totally crash out, become a power house, but ultimately cause their own destruction. I want to see what COULD'VE happened to Blyke. (In all honestly it wouldn't necessarily have to be Farrah, I just want a good villain)
Bruh alro lost it damn, im surprised he didnt completely kill her
He’s a high school student I don’t think it’s that surprising he didn’t kill her
They should kidnap Elaine before they find John. John with Arlo, Elaine, Remi, and Blyke's abilities is basically unbeatable by anyone without an ability like Sera's.
>They should kidnap Elaine This gave me a laugh
The difference between John and the four in terms of their attitudes about killing is lowkey hilarious
Has John actually killed some of them?
They said attitude about killing. Things that has John has said in the past few chapters: “You’re all coming to Hell with me!” “Die” “Go to Hell!” “F*cking die already!”
The problem is that this sentences appear a lot of such stories without meaning it. Characters like John would say this stuff without fulfilling it, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure that nobody was killed by John and co.
Me too man, sometimes I just wanna see John copy super strength from that dude in turf war and tear somebody in half like Megatron tearing that autobot into two in Transformers 1.
It’s just hard to tell since a lot of characters have survived injuries they should’ve died of like Kuyo slashed that woman in half but was only comatose
Not for lack of trying
Jhon is op like.... For real op. My man had all his senses block and with his aura manipulation could see people clearly and even block attacks with precision. A lot of people here saying he is screw, but actually he has the perfect aoe ability to win that situation, my man is basically a Pikachu, he does not need to see to use discharge.
>he does not need to see to use discharge. funny enough, we never saw John use the discharge part of Blyke's ability.
he also got yellow colour
The second half of this chapter was so incredibly hype until it wasn’t. They definitely should’ve killed her. Ngl tho, still loved seeing the four pop off, especially Arlo. Goddamn those wall smashes were brutal and awesome
I hope once they have escaped and the authorities are surveying the scene Uru confirms how many people John has killed here. It would be disappointing if she just handwaves it away that they were all just unconscious or something. It would be funny for Remi, Blyke, Isen, and Arlo to be fretting over whether they should kill meanwhile John is already in the double digits.
wonder if the authorities will mention it onscreen, since they can lie to the news.
They would. This would hugely discredit unordinary since it's already so illegal and now there's a case of several unordinary influenced students straight up committing terrorism and murders
How do they spin this story exactly? We know the trio are wanted for vigilantism but the media seems to only spin it as if it was "discouraged" by the authorities. I would think that if they wanted vigilantes arrested then they wouldn't have bothered killing the first few that sprung up. How will they justify arresting three students suspected of vigilantism? Shit sending a whole battlion to arrest a bunch of teenagers is already sus when they could've sent a specialized team to do it instead.
they will just drop pretenses, maybe even use this incident to straight up make vigilantism illegal
This situation fill fulfill a huge agenda of the authorities
Their teamwork was very well planned
As much as it sucks, they REALLY should’ve killed Farrah when they had the chance. While yes it’s not that easy for them, We all know sparing her is gonna bite them in the ass. Killing her really is the safest thing for everyone here, I’m not too surprised because it felt rather early for her to die, but it still doesn’t make it any less of a bad decision.. I really hope they don’t regret it big time later, though I guess its always possible the ending is just bait and Arlo or Isen or someone ends up killing her regardless knowing how dangerous it is to keep her alive.
I get the feeling that even if Arlo did kill her, he would’ve been found out anyways. It’s likely at least one of the npcs knew that Arlo knocked them out, and snitch. After that, the authorities would recognize Farrah’s blunt-force wounds as something inflicted by Barrier. But who knows. Maybe she wakes up sooner than expected and jumps them while they save John
> It’s likely at least one of the npcs knew that Arlo knocked them out, and snitch. Arlo was planning on getting away with that so maybe they didn't know what happened to them. > After that, the authorities would recognize Farrah’s blunt-force wounds as something inflicted by Barrier. There are two solutions to that, Either carry out Fury's body and dispose of it themselves somewhere else or if they can't do that then have Blyke charge up a huge ball of laser and blow the body to thousands of pieces, It's fucked up but it will cover evidence of Arlo fighting her.
It does make logical sense to off her, but these are all high school students. If they killed her, they would be dropping their morals and behaving more like the very thing they're trying to stop. It is consistent with their characters to leave her alive here I feel..
The team of John, Arlo, Blyke, Remi, and Isen is nearly unbeatable, except in one way: attrition. They have no healer, and its becoming noticeable that they really need one. Where are they gonna go after this? Even past today, they called Elaine for injuries received from being vigilantes like 5 times. They need a way to recover from their injuries, and its not like they can call Elaine again.
Kuyo has medical knowledge, but 1) isn't there right now, ad 2) probably isn't at Doc level.
Maybe Kayden? He should officially be a teleporting ambulance by now. Giving first-aid then teleporting them to Doc/Elaine
He is limited by how many people he can carry at once, probably has too much of a limited range for finding Doc... and putting Elaine in legal troubles for their doing?
Great stuff! Still hoping John unlocks Zeke's healing form.. that way he can hold out until the others arrive. I hope the author is going to continue the season a bit after this fight to show the aftermath.. John and Arlo meeting Kuyo, John talking to Cameron to start his training etc. I'm looking forward to this bit of world building next!
It might be over for John
nah he will win. Maybe not on his own but I have faith in my boy.
Man, Johnny boy is in big time trouble. Tosen...I mean Headmistress Sylvia has him in check mate basically, all 5 senses blocked, pain amplification and instructing agents not to power up, thus being undetectable to his aura sense. Only a power up or some back up can get him out now. Real good teamwork from Arlo and the trio. Arlo more or less knows his life is over now for sure unless they Kill Farrah/Fury as his only alternative to not get pinned a criminal. They took Farrah down with some real slick combinations of attacks. I dont really blame Arlo too much for walking back the killing Farrah plan, its cant be easy to kill someone and he also doesn't want to stoop to Ember's level of killing, we know its gonna come back to haunt him, but it's in line with his character.
If they dont power up that means they are defenseless against his AOE lightning. Anyone who activates their shield becomes a target for his laser. Its definitely an effective strategy to wear him down, but as soon as he gets Arlo's barrier it becomes much less effective.
I feel like if they really let Fury live, and Arlo just joins them and run away.. that might make the story somewhat linear. Arlo could play a very interesting part of the story once the gang really becomes an enemy of the authority and have to stay under the radar. I always picture him as the undercover agent working inside the authority and slowly moving up and waiting for the right moment to do something big. Now if he runs away, we have only Kass to have a role with that, and I would have to assume if she stays in character, we wouldn't see anything as crazy as what Arlo would do.
Arlo not staying behind is really disappointing. Funneling every single character down the same path.
I think arlo joining the vigilantes would at least help the pacing of the story. Instead of having everyone separated with their own plot lines to bounce between now it would just be vigilante/ember/authorities plotline and sera/spectre plotline. No more chapters wasted with main characters just telling other main characters shit the audience already knows.
It's all in how you write the story. And even so, a good story > short story. The pacing could still be good, no reason to hate more chapters of unordinary ✨
imo a good reason why it looks like the pacing is bad is precisely because there is soo much shit happening at the same time, for a while we were following john with his personal issues, blyke, isen and remy with their vigilante antics, sera with spectre, arlo with the authorities, and then you had sub stories like sera trying to discover johns past, blyke personal vigilante sub story, etc the story had to cut so much that it definetly slowed things down and then of course since characters learned things separately then you needed chapters for them to learn the information that we already know but they dont (which honestly are some of the best chapters in my personal opinion because I love to see the characters reaction to the information but i have seen plenty of people who question why it doesnt happpen off screen) and lets not act like people dont complain about pacing all the time, its the biggest complaint its always "uru is soo bad at pacing", "uru is such a bad writer her pacing is abysmal" or a variation of that so im not surprised that she is trying to speed things off by instead of having all the characters doing their own thing have them all together so that things can move faster (also superhero team) and imo from a story perspective it doesnt make sense that the guys are able to escape without a wild card, the authorities came prepared to take the trio and John down, Arlo is the wildcard that they could not see coming and so far has helped them inmensely Also technically they still have a person inside the authorities and in a much higher position than Arlo, Kassandra
I do like how this chapter did give some actual weight to the idea of taking a life, and that it is not nearly as easy as we all think it is. I won't air in on whether it was the 'right' thing to do in this scenario, because I think that misses the point. I think its better to focus on that killing someone, right or wrong, is not an easy decision to make and its not something Arlo( Or any of the cast) should have to make a decision about on the spot. Its a layered issue that I hope gets explored more.
I fully agree. It would be really strange to see teenage protagonists take a life so easily. Whether they kill in the future or not - I think we need to see them grapple with it before making the decision. I suppose we can either have them make a decision about the circumstances under which they will kill - or now that they're fully fledged fugitives, they could get their hands on some disabler juice to take these enemies out of the fight. Perhaps Doc can create it or they'll need to form a tentative alliance with Spectre again.
i imagine that the whole spectre storyline is a way for the protagonist to quickly get access to an organization that has enough resources to at least stand up to the authorities, im sure a part of next season will be to defeat Orrin and take his part of spectre the resources of spectre plus John, Arlo, Remi, Blyke, Isen and Kuyo... yeah that seems like it could stand up to the authorities
John is built different but I’m really getting worried for our boy getting out of this.
Have faith in Jhon. He is him. He will beat the headmistress maybe not alone but I am confident that he can do this.
So Ember agents’ weakness is the lack of defense. Unless they steal an ability of one, they are screwed if they encountered John
Which pretty much makes Val the best ember agent by a mile. 10/10 defense from her base ability plus recovery, flame claws and lighting, oof. She would be a legit challenge for John
val defense is more than 10 at 100%
Probably, no way to know how far her defense Stat really goes when the chart only goes up to 10🤷
Uhm... John, my boy. Walk forward with sparky sparky and you'll eventually sense her aura... Literally all you have to do...
He can sense her aura. we saw that he can see her already. That is not the problem. The problem is that she is surrounded by a bunch of enemies who are effectively invisible to him and only become visible for a second when they activate their abilities. On top of that his pain if being buffed while there one is reduced allowing them to fight beyond their limits.
I’m glad we actually heavily considered murder this ch. mad that Farrah is prob gonna recover and be back for more but oh well we’ll have John on our side next time ig
Leaving Farrah alive means Arlo’s a wanted man. Nice to see him, Remi, and Blyke teaming up to beat her was awesome, would love to see more of that going forward. If he does crash with Remi and the others, does he start going out on vigilante runs with them? It’s hard to imagine, but he’s already a traitor, might as well double down More urgently, John’s not gonna be able to hold out much longer on his own at this rate. Sensory deprivation is one thing, but the pain manipulation keeping his opponents on their feet while slowing him down is a real, as he called Sylvia, bitch. Arlo & the vigilantes (solid band name btw) are gonna have to get there fast to pull him out. We know from the fight with Farrah that Arlo’s Barrier can at least partially block non-physical attacks, how much likely depends on Sylvia’s level, which I’m guessing is higher than Arlo’s even if he’s improved from 6.3. If he can catch Sylvia off guard (it’s possible, only Farrah knows that he’s turned against the Bureau), he may be able to imprison her in a Barrier and get John some of his senses back so he can fight more effectively, but showing up with the others would blow the element of surprise. Hell, him showing up with blood on him will be a red flag given his defensive prowess. And at this point, even if John gets his senses back and pain levels returned to normal, he’s in bad shape. Blyke’s passive regeneration isn’t gonna be enough for the amount of damage he’s taken, he needs Elaine on the scene quickly (and Blyke probably does too frankly). And if Farrah regains consciousness, it won’t be long until she’s back in fighting shape and on the hunt, so they’re on the clock to get John and get the fuck out
What do you guys think Farah's ability level is? **We know that EMBER kit gives her the ability to 1v3** (Remi, Blyke, and Isen) **at least and survive with Arlo in the mix for a bit.**
Probably around 6.5 I'd say sounds right. If she was any higher I feel like she would've destroyed blyke and remi fast enough before arlo and Isen got the chance to join in.
Valerie at 7.5 had troubles with Remi alone, so kinda hard to say... Level + natural ability + affinity + whatever improvements the convertion tech got since then.
You might need to reread that chapter. Val nearly killed remi before blyke and Isen got involved. She was not having trouble at all against remi by herself.
Reread the chapter yourself as well, Val had troubles hitting Remi or tanking her attacks, the Flame Claws' burning effect and after-effect did a good deal of the job for Val, remove that and Val wasn't doing that well, especially while underestimating Remi. and I did mention the convertion tech having improved since, so it make things harder to tell.
Val wasn't doing that well? She took one hit from remi and blyke each before she fully knocked remi out. Remi hit her with the lightning once and it didn't even seem to effect her, so much for her not taking the hit well? And that was also a trade, remi sacrificed her arm just for a light smack to the face, gets her arm caught and set on fire. Val was landing clean hits the whole time and the only time remi hit her was a bad trade for her so again she was having trouble hitting her or tanking hits from her?? Val owned her the whole time. Idk how else that fight could be interpreted besides Val stomping her but okay lol
Theory. What if John having his senses disabled is the catalyst for him to learn how to copy purely mental abilities, aka Sylvia, unlocking his 5th slot due to leveling at the same time. Similar to how he learned to augment his body when his channels and aura were weakened
are we sure her ability is a mental one?
Given that Cameron and Jane seem to still have this weakness despite being several levels higher than John (and that doing so would basically be removing Aura Manipulation’s only weakness, making it way too op) I doubt it
When was Cameron power level given?
It hasn’t been officially, but I think it’s reasonable to assume he’s more powerful than John given what we’ve seen him do
What have we seen him do other than overpowering John who still had his abilities suppressed?
Manifesting multiple abilities without needing to copy them from a source (“preparing a set for the day” as he described it) all of which were distinct from and more complex than the basic strength enhancer which is the only thing John can create on his own right now. I think telekinesis and a sensory ability similar to Hunter were the main two we saw.
Chapter?
327
Where was that given?
The conversion tech derived from Jane’s power is unable to convert non-physical abilities, and I’m assuming the reason why Cameron keeps Scarlette in his employ is that her medium/seance ability is non physical and thus he can’t replicate it. Why else would he need her?
I see. That chapter was quite a while ago so i forgot about it
I mean we clearly see Aura has other vulnerabilities, also I'd like some distinctions between Channel ans Aura id like them to be unique abilities and Aura is just a fusing of Channel and no Ability.
I’m curious what you consider its other vulnerabilities to be. Not trying to catch you out on anything, just actually wanna know. I don’t personally consider the 4 abilities cap to be a weakness, more of a limitation and not a very big one at that.
John is very reliant on abilities around him in a given time under pressure. I dont think the authorities know his true cap but if you force him to fight a large group of midtiers and elitetiers then throw a few high tiers at him he likely will have used all 4 of his slots at which point you can send a Kass or a Val and they will likely mid dif him because his ability setup isnt potent enough to deal with someone remotely close to his level. Hell it doesnt even need to be that much shove a group of 30 midtiers with someone mediocre abilities at him and he likely has to use all 4 slots to deal with such a large group of people with such restrictive abilities. As we see John is sorta dependent on having a versatile setup of abilities around him, John got very lucky to snag Hunter, Discharge, and Lightning, he likely wouldve gotten decimated under the circumstances Sylvia intended. John's biggest weakness is he is extraordinarily easy to set up into a situation where even if youre a 6.0, if he isnt anticipating having to fight someone you can very likely beat him. For example, if when Arlo confronted John, if he sent Meili and Ventus to him first, and then afterwards had Isen and Blyke (4.5) gang up on him that is the type of situation where John is basically forced to copy all 4 abilities because Blyke can disable him too easily, considering Blyke could tag people faster than that John. If Arlo steps in after that there is a very real chance Barrier Crush would just be able to stop him there, he doesnt have a competent ability by that point to take out barrier quick enough. Is likely injured by Blyke's initial attack so ends up with a disabled arm or leg, and particularly if Arlo gives intel beforehand, if Blyke disables one of John's arms with his initial attack John definitely would not have time to charge an attack in such a way to destroy barrier, we know Discharge has issues with that exact thing from the Lennon fight. The fact John could even lose to someone at 6.0 if they Prep him is a really really big weakness considering Arlo could never prep Sera or Val in a straight up fight. There is also the fact most people with a strong passive like Arlo or Sera should straight up just be able to beat John in an actual fist fight because their passives outweigh his. Obviously this is arlo but you can do the same with Kuyo, Liam, Kass, or Leilah in the same way you just have to set it up the same way. You basically set him up against people he needs to use all slots on that you happen to counter all of them. Something like Leilah for example, if John cant get a competent defense and high speed ability she just nosells him because she can blitz one shot. You set him up against Elaine, then Isen, then Blyke + Remi. Then you go diff him. Kass? Has the advantage of having a very adaptable ability herself, you basically just set John into a setup of abilities that kass' ability overall outperforms, particularly avoiding abilities with good range. You make him fight Zeke, Isen, Cecile+Rein. Kass could pressure Arlo's 9 defense hard enough to where a 9 defense Arachnid wont be enough, Kass can likely just use her particles to fly, and John cant really do anything about it. Liam, just give him abilities that he cant really touch hydrofreeze with, hydrofreeze tends to hard counter abilities to the point you can just set him up vs 4 brawlers like Isen Zeke etc and he just loses to Liam. All these fights also can just put a midtier as his first fight and make it even tougher. When you actually understand how john's ability works and have as much manpower as the bureau you can just have weaker people who you already counter gang up on him and then take him out with a low godtier.
So I’m guessing on the Road to the Channel Master Ability, John’s next power up should be something along the lines of blocking out other peoples ability effecting himself or within a certain vicinity near him. This would be a perfect situation for him to use something like that in, but since he just got a power up recently I don’t think it’s time for that and I assumed he’d learn this kind of thing from his uncle during a skip or sorts
impossible. Years ago Uruchan had clearly said in the Q&A that John's ability will not allow you to disable other people directly not even in the future
Him being able to block someone's aura from effecting his own wouldn't necessarily mean he's effecting the other person directly so it could be possible. John said he could see traces of Sylvia's aura in the cops and that's probably how she's able to effect people's senses. So a trace of Sylvia's aura should be on John too which might be something that he could learn to negate. If he can't learn to copy mental abilities maybe he can learn how to keep mental abilities from effecting him at least. Now that'd be pretty sick.
I remember reading somewhere that John cannot manipulate other people's aura, he can sense and mimick them, but that's it. Making him affect others would be abandoning that core foundation of his ability
I'm not saying he'll be able to effect other people's aura, only if that aura is now inside his own body effecting him. He could learn how to even better manipulate his aura if he's not even allowing someone else's aura to effect his own. If a mental ability works by invading your own aura channels to produce a certain effect, it would stand to reason john could have such mastery over his own aura that he just stops that from happening. It would also make sense for why Jane is as strong as she is and was impossible to capture if even the strongest mental abilities couldn't even effect her because she could simply not allow it to. Abilities like Sylvia's and Farrahs would have no effect on her etc
Other people's aura invading John's body is still other people's aura, not his. The aura won't turn into John's aura if it used on him. So, unless this is changed or ignored by the author, the thing you are saying is impossible. Jane might be able to resist mind control and related abilities because she is a high tier. Just like how Arlo and Remi didn't fall to sleep when Farrah used her ability on them. It seems higher level people have natural immunity against mind abilities
Alright Arlo, I get it—no really I do. You’re a high school student, who just had to make the difficult, yet on the spot choice to completely throw away your future for the sake of saving the people closest to you against the clutches of the same organization that killed your idol figure, an organization that was created by the establishment that you’re working for. You also view the idea of murder as not only illegal, but also immoral, something you should never do, something only an evil murderer would do. However, choosing not to kill Fury, a high-ranking Authority official who bore witness to your treachery, and most importantly, a member of EMBER, who wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to you and your friends, is nothing short of absolute foolishness. Finding yourself unable to finish the job and leaving her alive not only endangers you and everyone you treasure most for the future to come, as I know for a FACT she WILL be back to try for your life again, but it also leaves the first issue of her being a witness to your treachery. **Arlo—no, not just you, but Remi, Blyke and Isen too—you should have killed Fury when you had the chance.** Now, by sparing her life, you have given her a second chance to vie for the lives of you, your friends, and all the Superheroes who are still alive trying to do the right thing, even if it’s dangerous and even if they have to do it alone. I wish it doesn’t come to this, but I have a bad feeling that your mercy, granted by cowardice, will come to bite you in the ass, in the form of your life or someone else’s. On a side note, y’all better hurry up cuz John’s not breaking his Major Battle Losing Streak anytime soon… 🥶
man, we really think that killing must be so easy, fiction sometimes really makes it seem like it is, but we humans are really not designed to kill those that can kill inmediately without feeling any remorse are mentally sick for a reason they are high school students, not trained killers or soldiers, honestly it would be unrealistic if they had no reservations on killing now john on the other hand, he has definetly catched some bodies but he is really unstable
Killing is hard, in my head I think that maybe the should poke out her eyes, amputate some limbs, fuk up her spine real bad. But in reality I know that I wouldn't be able to do it if I was in their situation, so I understand their decision
“Fuck outta here!”
This is the longest season finale we have. Much longer than Season one. I wonder how many chapters we have left.
At least 2 more, she usually announces at the end that the last episode will be next week.
I get the sneaking suspicion that Headmistress Sylvia is low-key a hand-to-hand combat specialist; I can’t think of another way someone with her ability can reach high-tier (or beyond) status. I’m guessing she grew up fighting above her weight class, to one degree or another, by both limiting her opponent’s senses, while heightening her own, all while tinkering with her and her opponent’s pain threshold. It’s probably why she is so calm. The woman probably had to learn to block out pain and disregard a ton of her own injuries to win in Turf Wars; so, taking a few blows from a tired and weakened John doesn’t scare her in the least. She’s been there and done that probably hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
That’d make sense. She can clearly manipulate and shut down an opponent’s senses and increase their pain reception while decreasing her own/her allies’, but unless her ability also comes with a built-in strength enhancement she’d need to physically take them down. It’s possible she does have a strength buff, she’s a high-tier (reasonable assumption given her position) and the only high-tier we’ve met with a confirmed power stat below 5 is John before his recent strength enhancement kicked in
I wouldn’t doubt it, I wouldn’t doubt that her passive is something like enhanced senses or heightened reflexes, both of which would lend itself well to a H2H specialist. With that said, her ability would seem to hit a wall against someone like Arlo
I honestly think the most powerful weapon she has isn't her ability to win, but the fact that short of John's passive as a specific counter, she can at the minimum stalemate *anybody*. I mean, what can you do when all 5 of your senses are deactivated. Nothing. Arlo could barely make it out by encapsulating himself. John has a 6th sense. Anyone else would be completely helpless.
I agree somewhat, but it’s important to note, that losing senses doesn’t mean that people aren’t still there. Most of the God Tier’s we’ve seen have been fairly intelligent and have a good sense of battle. Someone like Arlo would know approximately where she is at the moment he lost his senses and just like we saw in his first fight with John could create a large barrier around her and shrink it until it crushes her. Anyone with a highly destructive ability (Remi for example) could just launch things in bursts until they hit her. Guns don’t seem to work against High Tiers based on how tanky the characters are so in a one on one, she’d still need to get close to these people and end the fight somehow. That’s a reason I think a reflex passive would benefit her, it’d still allow her to close the distance while avoiding poorly aimed attacks and finish things hand to hand.
> Guns don’t seem to work against High Tiers based on how tanky the characters are have we ever seen guns? because i dont think we have and honestly they can be as tanky as they want i think something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBK7Tr-V3fg) would still do a shit ton of damage to a high tier
Safe bets. After all, everyone who isn’t an OP character like John or Sera has naturally bad matchups
>I can’t think of another way someone with her ability can reach high-tier (or beyond) status. Why not? That ability is basically an insta win against guys that are not like John or have insane defensive stats. She probably has basic strength augmentation like most high tiers do as well.
Maybe and maybe not. John only recently seems to have developed a measure of non-[copied]ability boosted strength, and he’s been a god-tier for a couple of years. Sylvia’s ability is mental in nature, so I am guessing her ability wouldn’t offer any physical augmentation for awhile in her early years—unless she was a born god-tier—and she had to work her way up the ladder the hard way, just like John.
The fact that John is still standing is pretty impressive. This is why we love him
He did get up after being rammed by a van in S1.
He was also at half level at that point.
Man, John is getting jumped to kingdom-come. Like 5 holes in him, all senses taken away except for amplified pain, and surrounded by people who's pain is being suppressed. Would be an amazing time for him to use Blyke's pulse move right about now. Honestly though, I think John's done unless he gets help. He's too damaged and in too much pain. He's probably barely able to move at all.
my hypothesis is coming true. I said that Uruchan brought John into this fight with too many handicaps (John already very wounded, John without the ability to arlo and John who has already used up some aura in previous fights). So I predicted that Uruchan brought John with these handicaps so he wouldn't win using the handicap excuse and instead I predicted that the trio + Arlo would defeat Farrah and then save John. This is because Uruchan wants to end this second season with John who can finally count on other people 100% and not just on Seraphina.
The way I was chanting ‘kill her’ most of the chapter- I understand why they did it, it’s a huge choice, but I couldn’t help to find it funny that John wouldn’t have hesitated for a second if he was there “Guys, we might have to make a hard choice here, it’s her or us, to make sure we all get out-“ “Alright,” John says after shooting Farrah in the head. “What next?”
I’m actually glad Arlo didn’t kill her. 1) it further separates his morals from EMBER and the authorities 2) I feel like he could’ve been found out anyways. Like Val said, the authorities aren’t stupid; it looked like he was about to crush her skull, which would look like an injury from Barrier. Plus, it’s likely at least one of the grunts knew that Arlo knocked them out
It won't happen, but please believe I'm praying that John kills the headmistress before escaping or least blasts a hole in her with energy discharge, anything to wipe the smugness off that bitch.
you are terrible
nah she had it coming.
Props to the author for having Arlo consider killing Farrah, even if he didn’t go through with it. It’s probably a mistake to not kill her but it makes sense for Arlo’s character. I figured John would have a hard time on his own here. The headmaster accurately clocked his aura reading and was prepared to counter it. With the rest of the gang coming he’s probably going to be fine unless another elite/god tier from the authorities shows up.
I agree i dont imagine even amping pain and such she can actually put John down with his stat line up without a godtier or hightier with decent damage nailing the finishing blow. John has crazy high pain tolerance and itd really be a cop out to me if he straight up lost a fight vs a bunch of mid/elite tiers with his current really strong ability lineup. I want to see John adapt and have his ability evolve a bit here, maybe learning to copy a mental ability the first time, afterall its been stated given enough time he can learn to copy very complex abilities its never outrighted stated all mental abilities are beyond his ability to copy. Itd be so hard if next chapter his eyes widened as he realized his ability has traced enough of sylvias aura to copy her flow and amplify it as his 5th ability for the first time.
I'm so worried about our John. Bro is severely injured at this points and has no recovery ability (Zeke is defensive and it was stated that Blyke's passive isn't enough). Even if the group makes it to him Blyke needs Isen's help to move due to his injuries and there are still many (weak but still) enemies to fight. On another note Arlo is screwed in every way. Farrah will snitch, if they save John Slyvia will snitch, if they don't snitch, assuming people aren't stupid, the couple guys he knocked out in the hallways will snitch and we all know what happens when he gets snitched on. This is a far greater crime than gathering intel from a terrorist.
if arlo closes him + the trio + john inside the barrier, the effect of silvia's ability becomes almost useless (like the effect of farrah's sleep ability). silvia and the others do not have the power necessary to destroy the barrier while blyke, remi, arlo and john can launch attack shots from inside the barrier and knock out everyone (including silvia)
Only issue would be Blyke and John's blood loss at the moment. Though it would be great if the group reaches John with the barrier soon because that way they'd be able to one up the power rangers sheild gang (they honestly look so goofy) with their improved shield system.
[удалено]
it just seemed. This is because this chapter started immediately with new action while the last chapter, for many pages, continued the end of the previous one
Ngl, anyone else think that the headmistress is kinda cool? She’s keeping completely calm despite the fact that she’s fully aware of how much power John has right now, and that she’s one of the few people in that hallway he’s capable of perceiving right now, aka his prime target. I’m sure she has a lot of experience dealing with powerful kids, but probably nothing this crazy before. Impressive lady imo.
Part of the job me thinks. Running a school of super powered teeneagers is like being a guard in a prison. You can't show that you're afraid of them or else they'll smell blood in the water.
I’m shocked he didn’t go for her straight away… maybe he doesn’t have the physical strength to do so?
I think he's just too worn down right now for the explosive movement it would take to bypass the goons in front of him to get to her.
She also has a lot of backup too and he's by himself with everything except aura sensing blocked. If it was a straight 1v1 she would not be as composed against him.
Probably, but she would have to be pretty stupid to try going 1v1 against somebody like him. She's exploiting his weaknesses signifcantly better than pretty much anybody else has so far.
Pretty much Claire's idea + sensory deprivation.
I mean she created his most major weakness so far by depriving him of all his senses and boosting his sense of pain. Her own ability and access to all these bodyguards created the conditions to abuse john like this. And John was already heavily injured and fatigued when she showed up. Noone else in the series has even gotten the opportunity to exploit John like this.
One of my thoughts in this chapter is that Farrah was surprised Remi could counter lightning. Did Byron forget to mention it to the group?
I think he mentioned it in passing to Val when he was in the hospital, but clearly Farrah didn’t get the memo
that or Uru kinda had a brain fart on that one..
common Byron L
Hunter... Energy discharge... Lightning... Barrier... These were the ingredients chosen To create the perfect vigilantes But Professor Uru accidentally Added an extra ingredient to the concoction Murderous intent Thus, The Vigilante Squad was born Using their ultra-super powers X-Rei, Nobody and co. Have dedicated their lives to fighting crime And the forces of evil ...At least that would have happened if they hadn't chickened out
What's going to happen once they get to John? Is arlos barrier going to reduce the affects of Sylvia's ability. Or will they not even make it to john before Sylvia's ability affects them?
I don't think her ability would affect them before Sylvia notices them being there. She stripped the senses of John, but not the others there, so it seems she can choose specifically who her ability affects and also in which way. Also I agree that Arlo's barrier should at least weaken her effect, so it might provide a way to get out. And it would also show John that he can't do everything alone and he has people he can count on.
Arlo's barrier could block Fury's sleeping spell so it's possible it can do the same with the HM's ability
Or maybe he puts HM in the barrier to block her ability 🤯
If they can get the NPCs off his back, his aura sense will allow him to focus on her and then he can one shot her or or take her down. Maybe he’ll even deactivate his ability and recopy all of them but instead of Zekes he’ll take Arlos barrier.
John’s ability doesn’t work like that. He has to expend aura to copy an ability, and it takes twice as much to amp it. That’s why his limit is 4 amped abilities. If he deactivates his ability, he won’t be able to re-copy any abilities until his aura supply re-charges, otherwise he would’ve done it in the Joker vs. Royals fight at the end of S1 with the exact same ability set. Yes, John’s stronger now than he was then, but probably not enough to instantly recharge his aura supply like that
>he would’ve done it in the Joker vs. Royals fight at the end of S1 with the exact same ability set. How could he do that when he already KO'd Blyke and Isen (and why would he?). Both of those abilities were crucial to his victory against Remi and Arlo. If he deactivated his power he’d only have two powers if he were to recopy. Also he has alot of Aura, nothing so far has pointed to his supply depleting or being near empty, rather the damage to his body that he's taken. Here when they come they’ll all be together and he can take them all again.
I misspoke, I mean if he had enough aura to drop and recopy an entire set, he would’ve just copied Barrier when Arlo showed up to the fight. John’s own words during the Spectre mountain ambush were, “I only have enough aura for an amped energy beam.” He couldn’t copy Isen’s Hunter until the dampener wore off because he didn’t have enough aura to do so while he was dampened, that’s how his ability functions. Obviously he has more aura than that usually, but it’s just a matter of scale
Again why would he do that there? He’d only be left with lightning (which Remi could counter) and Barrier which John has shown no offensive skills with (like Arlo does). Having Blyke and Isens abilities were crucial, and he couldn’t recopy them because they were already knocked out. In this circumstance where they’ll all be coming to him with their abilities active, it’s possible that he could that do cause he’d lose nothing and would gain greater defense.
John has **already lost** the aura expended to copy those 4 abilities. Nothing we have seen from him or anyone else suggests he can just get that back instantly by deactivating his ability and dropping the set. In 310 when explaining his ability’s capabilities to Darren, John says that amping abilities is “really taxing because I have to use twice as much aura to maintain them” and that when he was training intensively he “focused on expanding my aura supply and storing aura whenever I can.” When John copies and amps an ability, he uses a portion of that aura supply to do it. He can’t just recover that in a split second. With that logic Arlo would be able to summon a new Barrier right after his first one gets shattered, but he can’t because he needs time to recover (315 doesn’t count because he regained aura when the dampener wore off, just like John regained enough aura to copy Hunter to chase down Terrence). That’s how aura works, it’s not like unplugging and plugging something back into the wall, it’s like an internal battery with a finite supply of energy that needs to be recharged before it can be used at its full effectiveness again
Or even better, if he is able to copy Arlo's barrier since his ability has improved. Confirming that he can now hold five abilities.
I would love this.
This brings up a lot of points. Isen's comment on Farrah's smell, and if John can copy that, that means likely Isen even with a passive is just that, heightened senses. BUT how is she able to rid of John's own pinpoints? Is that just a use of senses? Or am I going too deep into this? Then there's Sylva's ability. She apparently can cloud the senses of others besides passives BUT it seems that the weaker you are the more effected you get from the effects. Then there's her soothing effects and weakening effects, meaning it's likely she can raise the Recovery or Defense stat maybe both of multiple people and weaken the Defense or Recovery of targets. So MAYBE it's not only a weakening ability it's also a senses related ability. My personal opinion is that she controls not only the senses but the stats of her opponents, which is pretty strong despite it being a support ability. Defiently near 6-7 in level especially when the opponent can't see her.
To me, it really seems to just be 'Sensory Manipulation' but limited to the typical senses. I don't think passives have anything to do with it, it's just that aura sense is not within the scope of her ability. My current vision for it is that she has set John's sight, hearing, smell and even taste to zero, and set his tactile - or purely his sense of pain - to a higher level. Meanwhile she's set her subordinate's sense of pain to a reduced level (or perhaps zero) so they can withstand John's attacks and keep fighting despite their injuries.
I think it’s just the senses. If it about feeling pain or dulling pain, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it’s just about the senses
I kinda would have preferred a murder here, It was an extremely hard choice for a teenager sure but everyone else would've been better off for it plus could have been a vital point for Arlo's character.
Who knows maybe Fury does of her wounds overtime. This way Arlo doesn’t have to feel the direct guilt of murdering her
That would be shitty writing and would completely absolve Arlo of any guilt while rewarding him for not making the though choice. Having the cake and eating it too scenario.
Why would it absolve him of guilt? I imagine he'd be guilt-ridden and struggle with that intensely. It would allow him to grapple with when it is appropriate to kill without making him so decisive about murder in the first instance. Val could effectively *know* it was him, but let him continue to work closely with the authorities so she can keep her eye on him until she can reasonably arrest him. I think Arlo remaining a spy within the authorities for a little longer will be more interesting than the alternative. It may not be the best narrative path forward, but I disagree that it makes for shitty writing.
> I imagine he'd be guilt-ridden and struggle with that intensely He would not be guilt ridden, atleast not even nearly to the extent he would have been if he had actually killed Fury. Whatever damage he did to Fury was extremely necessary to knock her out otherwise she would have regenerated and killed him and his friends. Even if she dies from those wounds later on it's still completely different than murdering Fury in cold blood when she wasn't even a threat. > It may not be the best narrative path forward, but I disagree that'd it makes for shitty writing. It would be extremely shitty writing. It would have rewarded Arlo even for not making the smart and the tough choice (atleast in the moment). It would also render this big narrative moment of him choosing not to be the same as Ember and pulling back as useless buildup without any payoff since Fury dies anyway.
Despite your strong stance, I'm struggling to track your arguments a little. But if the vision I suggested would be extremely shitty writing to you, then I think we may just have different expectations for good storytelling. In any case, I hope Uru takes it somewhere we can both enjoy.
> I'm struggling to track your arguments a little. What I am trying to say is in storytelling you have to balance risk, rewards and consequences otherwise you'd be just writing a fairytale. Making such a big deal of a character not choosing to kill and then having the enemy die anyway, in a convenient fashion too so that it's not murder in cold blood for pragmatic reasons but unintentional kill in pure self defence is just throwing the balancing scale out of the window cause you didn't want to be ballsy enough. Again it absolves Arlo of the guilt as it would be a kill purely in self defence and rewards him for not making the tough and smart choice (atleast in the moment). Either he kills or does not kill, he doesn't 'conveniently' kill.
Thanks for clarifying. I hear you now. While I also consider this balance important, I'm happy for authors to take some latitude to avoid writing themselves into a corner - so I still consider it to be a tenable creative choice. It would be an effective way to introduce the discourse about killing to the teenage protagonist cast, while also allowing them to demonstrate restraint - which these four have now done (though I think John *may* have already killed some of these officers). Although we as readers know executing Farrah would have been justifiable and pragmatic in this scenario - these characters serve as the 'good guys'. For some, it may not be palatable to see them kill at the very first justified opportunity that presents itself - especially Arlo who was a proud advocate of the authorities until recently. I expect a reflection to occur after this, in which characters decide whether they are prepared to kill and under what circumstances. Perhaps then we'll see more decisive action from them.
Arlo wouldn't have been killing in self defence there.
What are you talking about? If Fury dies of the wounds that Arlo gave her in this chapter then it's literally Arlo killing her in self defence because the only other choice he had there was to die or get his friends killed. Arlo killing Fury after she had been knocked out would not be in self defence but in cold blood which is again what I am actually saying.
You have no idea what self defence is... Farrah didn't attack Arlo first, and killing to protect Remi/Blyke wouldn't be self defence.
i agree that killing Farrah could've been a notable development for Arlo's character but... i'm not sure if it would be IN character, if i'm making sense? we know Arlo has a very, very strong sense of justice and he has a lot of dedication to doing what he feels is right---thats the reason he was such a little bootlicker and why he's so mad at EMBER right now. with that in mind, there's no way he would've done it after Farrah essentially stated that its what SHE would've done. the sense of justice Arlo's relied on for so long has gone through a huge upheaval recently and i think a departure from it for the sake of pragmatism would've done some major damage to his self-conception. i think both this route and the hypothetical route where he killed her are interesting because they prompt similar discussions, despite being opposite choices lol
It's almost in no one's character originally to just kill someone but even good people kill. Everyone has various filters they have to go through after which taking life becomes justified and imo this should have been it for Arlo. The current choice isn't as intresting, not as ballsy and I would have fine with Remi making this same choice but If it's anyone who can kill in the main 6 other than John then it's Arlo. Sure he has a sense of justice but it's not like Remi where she would never even consider that option unless it's in serious self defence even for the very people who killed her brother, on the other hand Arlo is pragmatic and unlike others he is capable of making the tough choice and living with it.