Echidna Parass

Echidna Paras is a major antagonist in the manga Black Cat and its anime adaptation. She is a member of the Apostles of the Star and one of Creed Diskenth's closest advisors. She is only introduced when all the Apostles gather for the first time but she is soon revealed to be even closer to Creed than Shiki herself, as she is aware of his most confidential projects. While Shiki is the second-in-command of the Apostles of the Star, it appears that Doctor and Echidna are Creed's de facto right-hands and the closest things to a friend that the demented anarchist has. Indeed among all the Apostles, she is the one who speaks the most formally to him. Echidna seems to be in love with Creed, which explains why she follows him.

Background
Before joining the Apostles of the Star, Echidna was a famous actress. (International star would be more accurate.) Apparently her talent and her beauty led her to the top in a few years. She is said to have been featured in more than twenty movies and to have won many awards. Because of this she is sometimes recognized by her enemies, who wonder why she joined a terrorist group. Echidna's past of fame is further displayed in the anime, where Sharden and Kyoko go to the cinema to see one of her movies (apparently a romantic one) and where everyone in a room full of people regognize her immediatly after she entered.

Personality
Echidna Paras is someone courteous and polite who greets friends and foes alike the same way. But she is more importantly someone cold, distant and calculated, who rarely loses her calm, even when surprized or angered. She is extremely devoted to Creed, with whom she appears to be in love, but she is by no mean blindly obedient, as she often voices her opinion out loud. Echidna is perhaps the only Apostle of the Star (with the possible exception of Doctor) who dares giving open lectures to Creed and expresses her opinion out loud, though she often does so to distanciate herself with possible blames.

Echidna seems to disdain her past, and is very dedicated to the Apostle's cause and confident in her abilities. She is also a quick thinker and she knows how to analize a situation. She seems to despise those whom she deems weak, though in a much lesser extend than Creed. Deep down in her heart, she is afraid of Creed's most twisted projects but she never demonstrates it.

Powers and Abilities
Echidna's power of Tao is called "Gate." She is able to create two holes in space that links two different places and enables her to separate her body and to warp between one place to another. When she uses a Fuda (a piece of paper with an incantation written of it) in which she concentrates her ki, she can create much bigger holes that links two more distant places and which can be used as a mean of transport by several other people. Because of this she is often tasked to transport the Apostles of the Star from one place to another, or to bring "guests" where Creed's wants them to.

Echidna's power isn't limited to creating only two holes, she can create many holes at the same time and link one hole to several others, which makes her power extremely useful in battle. Echidna often attacks and participates in battles, but she is never seen fighting for real, even though Shiki describes her as an elite warrior on the same level as every other Apostles of the Star. A claim that she fullfils without any doubt. She uses either a dagger or a gun in battle and she is seen using these with immense proficiency. She is even seen using grenades. With her power, Echidna can attack at distance and strike from every side she wants, making her attacks umpredictable and almost unavoidable. When she attacks with a gun, she fires several bullets and sends them into a hole, before creating several holes around her target to strike from several points at the same time. No doubt that she can use her power to turn her enemie's projectiles and even weapons against them, or make an attack that her enemy has just dodged pass into a hole to strike again. One can even imagine how nightmarish it would be if she were to empty a full load of bullets, and continuously harrass her enemy by sending them over and over through multiple holes.

Echidna often uses her power to strike by surprise, appearing unnoticed from behind and landing a fatal blow. She specialize in stealthy attacks and surprise strikes. (pretty under-handed ones) It is likely that she uses her power over her ki to locate people in another room or place to be able to strike them from where she is.

There is a mistake in the anime about Echidna's power, as her arm is once seen appearing through three differents holes at the same time. This is likely a downright misinterpretation, as it is made clear that Echidna cannot duplicate what she warps through her holes.

Role in the Manga
Echidna first appeats when Creed gathers every Apostle on Clarken Island before the terrorist attack on the World Conference, where they slaughter twenty country leaders and all the soldiers who protect them. Echidna is seen during the slaughter, casually sitting on a car surrounded by her victims' corpses, discussing with Shiki, whom she tells that she kills people rather crually and who answers that she is not one to speak.

Echidna takes part in the other attacks on the suborganizations of Chronos, and witnesses Durham's execution, cynically stating that this is the end for him.

When Creed has the thief for hire Rinslet Walker brought into his castle, it is Echidna who prevents her from escaping, using her power to give the impression that she stabbed her. Echidna later restrains Rinslet and tells her that if she tries to escape she will kill her for real, and that she can be sure that Creed will kill her no matter what. Echidna brings back Maro, Sharden and Leon to the throne room after the three Chrono Numbers who stormed into the castle to kill Creed has escaped them. Shiki asks her precisions about Creed's true goals and the secret experiments on nanomachines, and she seems bemused by the fact that they thought Creed was relying only on Tao.

Echidna then strikes the Chrono Number V Naizer Blackheimer from behind with a gunshot in the heart, that Naizer barely avoids at the last second, still being critically wounded. She then joins the fight between Creed and the Numbers, bringing Maro and Shiki along with her. When the castle is about to explode, Echidna opens a gate that leads all the Apostles of the Star to their airplane. She later returns into the fray and takes Creed to safety. After the castles explodes, Echidna scolds Creed for overdoing and losing his arm.

The following day, after Creed murders the doctor whom he coerced to take care of his wounds, he asks Echidna to search for Train Heartnet, the main protagonist and Creed's former partner. Creed resolves to destroy everything that creates Train his environment of bounty-hunter, with the delusional hope that it would bring him back to his side. Echidna traps Train's partners Sven Vollfield and Eve and teleports them into a church where Creed is waiting for them, before telling Train and Rinslet about Creed's intentions. Echidna then goes to the church and asks why Creed haven't killed Sven yet. When Train takes the "Lucifer" bullet that Creed destined to Sven, he and Echidna departs and join the others Apostles.

Echidna is next seen leading a squadron of the Shooting Star Unit (the Apostles of the Star regular soldiers) into the house of the world's greatest nanotechnologist, dr Tearyu Lunatic. Doctor and Shiki visited dr Tearyu a few days earlier to ask her cooperation for the creation of a nanomachine that would make Creed immortal, and Echidna came to ask what her answer would be. Given that dr Tearyu refuses to work with them, Echidna, who suspected this brought with her the newest Apostle of the Star, Eathes, a monkey able to copy anyone and to transform into them. Eathes transforms into dr Tearyu, who then becomes disposable, and Echidna orders her soldiers to shoot her down. Tearyu is saved by Sven, Eve and Train who were in Tearyu's house and Echidna witnesses Train's new ability: the devastating "Rail Gun shot."

Irked, Echidna tries to stab Train, but her attack is predicted and countered by Sven and Echidna departs, reflecting on the threat posed by the trio.

Echidna is next seen when Train, Eve and two fellow bounty hunters enter the Apostles' manor on Clarken Island. She greets them, prompting one of the bounty hunter to recognize her and she teleports Creed in the entrance, as the demented anarchist wants to speak with Train. After Creed orders the remaining Apostles to kill Train and his comrades, Echidna monitors their progress in the control room. She watches Eathes departs, commenting on how Eathes now acts like a human, and then watches Doctor's experiment on the "Berserker" nanomachines expressing her disgust. Later, Echidna gives orders to the soldiers of the Shooting Star Unit, while worriedly witnessing the defeat of every Apostles. Creed joins her and they both see that the Chrono Number I Sephiria Arks has sneaked into the manor in person to challenge Creed in a duel, and Echidna brings them both in Creed's private quarters.

As almost every Apostle has been taken down, Echidna resolves to unleash the Phantom Star Brigade, the first five members of the army of cybernetic supersoldiers that the Apostles of the Star are trying to create, in spite of them still being in the testing stages. She dispatches three cyborgs in the manor to deal with the Chrono Numbers VII, X, IV and VIII and goes with the other two on the midair bridge that leads to Creed's quarters, waiting for Train, Sven and Eve. When they arrive, Echidna only allows Train to pass, as she'd rather hand him to Creed, confident that none can defeat Creed who gained immortality. Echidna then orders the Golem Cyborg and the Flying Cyborg to dispose of Sven, Eve and Eathes, whom she labels as a traitor because they forced him to guide them through the manor.

When the cyborgs are defeated, Echidna decides to take the matter in hand and attacks Sven with a multi-sided shot. However, Sven's newfound power the "Grasper Eye" enables him to dodge every attack, from every side. Echidna then activates a grenade and warps it near Eve. The young girl only owes her life to Eathes, who kicks the grenade away because Eve protected him earlier from the Flying Cyborg's attack. Furious, Echidna lashes out insults but Sven simply asks her why she does so much for a madman like Creed.

After Train defeats Creed and Leon brings them both to the midair bridge, Echidna listens Train telling Creed that he must bear the weight of his crimes like a human. When Eve destroys Creed's nanomachines of immortality, reverting him to a mortal state, Echidna does nothing to stop her, as she confesses that she was afraid all along that Creed would become something out of her reach. She then departs with Creed and brings him in a house in the mountains, taking care of the nearly vegetative man he has become.

Role in the Anime
In the Anime, Echidna's role and personality are quite the same, though as Creed has less secrets to hide from his Apostles, Echidna share less with him. Also Echidna doesn't need Fudas to create big holes and she can use her power to a greater extand than in the manga.

Echidna always remains by Creed's side and it is her not Doctor who accompanies him when he invades the building of the World Conference. She enters the room of the gathering through one of her gates and introduces them to Creed who kills them all.

Echidna takes part in the showdown of the ancient castle and she monitors the battle of Clarken Island as she does in the manga, but when she comes to warn him that the Chrono Numbers arrived on the Island, Creed is busy playing the piano and focuses only on Train, barely paying her any attention. Also when she tells him that Leon has been defeated, he answers that he never knew anyone by his name. (To emphasize Eve's point when she was telling him that Creed doesn't care about him.) Echidna engages a one-on-one battle against Sephiria Arks who came to kill Creed. The battle is unexplainedly seen accelerated (perhaps to fit the tempo of Creed's song on the piano) and Sephiria manages to knock her out by using one of her own holes.

When Creed is defeated, Echidna departs with him and brings him in a house in the mountains to treat his wounds, but she soon sees that he is fully healed and that he is watching away, perched on the window. Creed and Echidna later appears during the final stages of the battle against the Zero Numbers and "Eden." She gets badly wounded when taking an attack from the Zero Number's leader Mason Ordrosso, who was aiming for Creed. She laments that all she was able to do for him was to die in his place but she ultimately survives.

During the ending of the anime, she is seen living with Creed in their mountain house, as the former anarchist is painting a landscape.