Phantom Star Brigade

The Phantom Star Brigade are a group of cyborg-soldiers created by the Apostles of the Star, the antagonists of the manga Black Cat and its anime adaptation. The Brigade consists in five warriors selected among the best members of the Apostles' private army, the Shooting Star unit, who were willingly used as guinea-pigs for experiments to create super-soldiers, through the use of nanomachines. They were all fused with their weapons and turned into very powerful cyborgs. They are introduced in the final battle, when Echidna Paras is forced to sent them to the battlefield, while they are to deal with Sven Vollfield and Eve, two of the main protagonists, and the Chrono Numbers IV, VII, VIII and X, when almost every Apostle has been defeated.

Every cyborg from the Phantom Star Brigade is a ruthless and sadistic assassin, sometimes to the point of psychosis, whose only goal inlife is to fight. The are powerful but exceedingly overconfident, as they consider themselves as superior to every opponent they may face, should it be a Chrono Number. They even regards themselves as stronger than the Tao-wielders. When Echidna sets them free, she separates the gang and tasks them to kill one precise target, but they are ultimately defeated, most of them even being destroyed. It must be noted that the Phantom Star Brigade only actually appears in the manga. Only two of them are seen in the anime adaptation, where they are seen attacking Train Heartnet, the primary protagonist, and later seen defeated.

The Cyborgs' robotic body grants them strenght, speed and durability way beyond human levels and serves as an armor, which protects them against bullets and may other regular attacks and weapons, but not against all. They are also equiped with sensors that vastly enhance their perceptions.

The Flying Cyborg
The Flying Cyborg is one of the two members of the Phantom Star Brigade whose entire fight is seen, as he is ordered to destroy the protagonists. He is the only cyborg whose face is (partialy) reavealed and he is only seen yelling with joy with his mouth wide open. Of all the cyborgs from the Phantom Star Brigade, he is the most deranged and the most sadistic. He is able to fly thanks to a jetpack-like system on his back and he can also separate his torso from his lower body, while still controlling both. He has a retractable blade, a machine gun and a flamethrower in each of his arms, as well as a rocket launcher in his belly and he is very fast.

He engages an aerial battle against Eve, who can fly by sprouting angel-like winds from her back and he gains the upper hand in the beginning of the fight by separating his body and attacking her from two sides at the same time, but she cuts his legs into tiny pieces before asking him if he chose to become a cyborg. Upon learning the thruth, she answers "I have no reasons togo easy on you." Eve then grabs him by the arm and violently tosses him on the ground, disabling him. It is likely that he survived, given that Eve wouldn't bring herself to kill anyone, also given that he is seen twitching on the ground.

The Golem Cyborg
The other of the two cyborgs sent to fight the protagonists. The "Golem" is a huge and massively built cyborg with countless gatling guns of variable sizes hidden in his body and even in his arms. He has also many rocket launchers on his back and he has extreme physical strenght. He seems to have little patience and to care very little about everything his enemy might say. Echidna sends him to fight Sven but the bulky warrior is unable to land a single hit on the bounty hunter, even when firing with all of his gatlings at the same time. This is due to Sven's own special power: the Grasper Eye, which enables him to control the speed of everything he sees, and as such to slow down every bullet and easily avoid them.

Despite this disadvantage, the "Golem" is impervious to any gun, and if he were to be struck by a grenade and a powerful attack, all the ammunitions inside him would ignite, resulting in an explosion powerful enough to obliterate the bridge they are fighting on. Sven ends up using a "water cut," a canon which fires a highly pressurized water jet, able to cut through almost anything, slicing the cyborg in half.

The Snail Cyborg
The Snail Cyborg seems to be weaker than the Golem ot the Flying one. Despite this, he is extremely cocky, and he cannot stand when his enemy isn't afraid of him. He has a huge mettalic shell integrated to his back, inside which he can hide. When he does so, he is protected from almost every possible attack and he can perform dangerous rollout attacks at variable speed. He attacks Jenos Hazard, the Chrono Number VI and gets angry because Jenos remains calm. Eventually, Jenos makes a pillar collapse upin him, which stops his rolling attack and causes him to exit his shell, wide open for te Number's blow. Jenos takes pity on the fanatic cyborg and decides to spare his life.

The Snake Cyborg
This cyborg is never seen fighting so his level of power and his weapons remain unknown. One can guess that he figths mainly with his metallic tail, who is likely sharp as a blade. He may also throw acid or poison at his enemy. He is easily destroyed by Lin Shao Lee, the Chrono Number X, who finishes him of while he complains about losing despite "being invincible," saying that he challenged the wrong opponent.

The Four-armed Cyborg
The four-armed Cyborg is as big and bulky as the "Golem," and possibly equally strong. He is never seen fighting and as such, his level power and his weapons are never revealed. He is apparently extremely (over)confident in his abilities as he challenges Kranz Maduke and Baldorias Fanghini, the Chrono Numbers IV and VIII. Two merciless fighters almost as devoted to their organization as the Phantom Star Brigade. As we can see on the picture, the confrontation obviously didn't go well for him.