Team Trial: The Animorphs

 

Inspired by my recent analysis on Animorphs, a series about a team that is known for their teamwork and group achievements as opposed to individual list of achievements, as well as my friend Thor's recent Death Prediction featuring two inseperable Teams; The Eds vs the Warners I wanted to try out a new blog series: Team Trial. This is a blog analyzing the Animorphs as a team rather than as individual combatants. If this blog gets a good reception, maybe I'll do more.

Five kids took an ill-advised trip through an abandoned construction site one night and came across the crash landing of an alien named Elfangor. Elfangor told the kids that the Earth was under the secret invasion of a race of aliens known as the Yeerks and gave them a power to fight back. This was the power to morph into any species they could touch, the power to morph. While the ranks of the Animorphs have been as low as arguably 4 to as large as arguably 23, this blog will focus on the iconic central team of six. 

The Animorphs all have their distinctive power of acquiring the DNA of other species and gaining the ability to morph them for up to two hours at a time. As such their physical stats vary based on their forms. However all of them have acquired their mighty Polar Bear morph, possibly the most powerful of the land predators on Earth today. Polar Bears can reach over 30 kilojoules of power with their charges, with bite force over 1200 PSI, and with the capacity to bring down large aquatic mammals. As such all the Animorphs should be able to reach wall level in attack potency and durability with their strongest morphs. In addition, all the Animorphs in their default morphs are depicted as defeating Hork-Bajir, often multiple Hork-Bajir, Hork-Bajir being the Yeerk Shocktroopers, tough enough to withstand being hit by a truck without much injury. For even more power, Jake and Marco acquired the Rhinocerous, powerful armored animals with a charge of 221 Kilojoules while Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, and Ax acquired the African Elephant, the largest land animal currently on Earth whose charge can reach above 125 kilojoules at least. Yet when they fought the Helmacrons who at the time were larger than them, Rachel's elephant morph was unable to do any injury, but when the other Animorphs thought the Helmacrons had killed Marco, in anger their shark morphs were able to tear through the Helmacrons, suggesting that they might reach above this. In terms of speed, their speed also varies between their morphs, however all of them have acquired birds of prey morphs that regularly reach dive speed above Mach 0.1, or the basis for subsonic speeds. 

Mentally all the Animorphs are skilled enough in combat to fight trained Yeerk soldiers with all the information of their host body, and often multiple of them at once. And while their intelligence levels and type vary, they are all at least intelligent enough to avoid arousing suspicion and revealing their identities despite controllers being secretly everywhere looking for them the entire series.

All Animorphs have the power to acquire the DNA of any living species that can touch, putting them briefly in a trance as they are acquired, before being able to morph that species at any point from then on. When Morphing, the Animorphs restore their bodies entirely, so long as the DNA itself wasn't damaged, allowing them to heal from any manner of injury that they can still concentrate through. Also while morphed the Animorphs can use the Andalite ability of "thought-speak", telepathic communication. While the individual morphs of the Animorphs vary; there are some morphs or kinds of morphs and thus abilities they tend to have in common. All of them have bird morphs for flight and aquatic morphs including Giant Squids for deep-sea missions. All of them have bug morphs for stealth including the cockroach for its sheer survivability. They all have access to canine and feline morphs which grants them enhanced senses and Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel have access to Skunk morph for a smell attack. All of them have also acquired Hork-Bajir morphs, Hork-Bajir being powerful arboreal creatures with sharp blades for stripping trees of their bark and an extreme level of endurance, such that they can tear off the tops of their heads and expose their brains with seemingly no pain. They have many more morphs for more specialized purposes but generally they rely on their standard battle morphs for combat.

Jake is the team leader, described as a charismatic, athletic, and intelligent young man. He is known for his leadership and even as he begins to mentally break under the pressure of the world as the series goes on, is able to inspire loyalty and teamwork in the Animorphs, with the group falling apart the few times he's absent, inspiring them and holding them together with his bravery, responsibility, and cool-headedness. Jake successfully leads a team of six teenagers in a guerilla war against an advanced alien civilization eventually leading to the final defeat of that species main force personally through clever manipulation of an advanced race of AI that has existed on Earth since the early ages of man, two separate groups of Yeerks, another group of Animorphs, the free Hork-Bajir, the Taxxon renegades, and his own team in a 4D chess move, as well as saving an alien planet from the universe's ultimate warriors and deadliest killing machines in a one-off book before completely neutering the entire species outwitting the evil godlike entity that made them, defeating one of these warriors and acquiring them through clever use of the terrain. He was also able to outwit two separate military teams of Andalites despite Andalites being a highly advanced race compared to humans as well as being one of the better fighters of the Animorphs both in morph and out of morph. 

Jake's main battle morph is the Siberian Tiger, a well-balanced battle morph with a high level of power, speed, stealth, agility, and senses. Historically individual tigers have terrorized individual villages, being one of the few animals not scared off by fire, matching Jake's seemingly unbreakable bravery and will. Jake can sacrifice some versatility for greater power by using a Rhinoceros morph, a morph he used to tear through walls and which was basically immune to small gunfire. 

Even more impressive, however, Jake managed to defeat and acquire a Howler. Howlers are creatures made by Crayak, an evil godlike being that mentally fights the Elimist for control of the universe, to be the ultimate fighting machines. Howlers regularly committed genocide of entire alien races, being the ultimate warriors with the collective fighting memory of their entire race, with a single one able to fight off the battle morphs of all the Animorphs at once. In addition to their super stats and superhumanly high level of skill, Howlers have several other powers to aid their nature as the ultimate warriors. They have x-ray vision to see their enemies weak points, can track the trail of their prey, can regenerate from having their limbs or torso twisted 360 degrees, have claws, and worst of all have the howl, a debilitating sonic attack that disorient anyone who hears it. 

Cassie is the empathetic hippie heart and moral center of the Animorphs. She is known for her empathy and moral intuition, as well as having the greatest natural talent for morphing. She can morph particular body parts in order as opposed to them randomly changing and can do so faster and with less difficulty than normal, as well as having an easier time adjusting to various animal minds, possibly due to her greater empathy for other perspectives. Her empathy and compassion eventually starts the Yeerk Peace Movement, a movement of Yeerks wishing to no longer take involuntary hosts, and eventually fragments the Yeerks into two sides as the Yeerks and Taxxons find a different way to escape their biological limitations through morphing. She was also able to personally infiltrate the Yeerk Pool (The Yeerk Command Center) by herself and save the leader of the Yeerk Peace Movement, performed successful brain surgery on Ax, and was the one that eventually stopped the Veleek, a giant Saturnian hive organism by morphing from bird to human to whale in midair and crushing it under the whale's weight, a feat of speed-morphing thought impossible, a tactic she will repeat twice more in the series. Her morphing ability is strong enough that she has performed the seemingly impossible feat of morphing an animal before she's finished demorphing another animal and somehow helped Marco finish demorphing after he was caught mid-morph at the 2 hour limit. Eventually it's revealed that she's an "Anomaly", a person who will always know what events "should" have happened and has a resistance to alternate timelines. In Megamorphs 4 in a dark timeline where the Animorphs never got their powers, Cassie knew things weren't how they should be, and began to unravel the timeline, returning from death and killing Visser 3, aiding Jake and Ax in completely destroying the Yeerk forces on Earth even better than they had in the original timeline. 

Cassie's main battle morph is a wolf. The wolf is on the weaker side for a battle morph, but excels in endurance, being able to run all night, and its support abilities. The wolf has extremely good senses and excels at pack strategies, reflecting Cassie's naturally intuitive and cooperative nature. She also has an elephant morph for greater firepower, a pit viper morph for access to a stealthy poisonous strategy, and a giant anteater morph which she used against the race of tiny megalomanic aliens the Helmacrons. 

Marco is the sarcastic jokester of the team as well as the pragmatic realist. He points out the flaws, often the insanity, in his teammates' plans and keeping the others alive. Marco has a better tactical mind than even Jake, though lacks his force of will and charisma to lead as well an ability to be completely utilitarian in the achievement of his goals. Through clever tactical thinking and more than a dash of ruthlessness Marco manages to psychologically defeat Visser One, the highest-ranked Yeerk in the entire Yeerk Military multiple times and manages to save both his parents including his mother, the host of Visser One. Marco is the one who most consistently can understand the political maneuvering of both the Yeerks and the Andalites, helped Ax hack into the Pentagon for fun, managed to tag the super-speed empowered alien the Garathon with his cobra morph, a feat described as being almost like catching a bullet from midair, and was able to go through the a several years guerilla war with the least psychological damage thriving after the war due to his pragmatic and realistic mindset 

Marco's main battle morph is the Gorilla "Big Jim." This form gives him a lot of striking power while allowing him to retain thumbs and the ability to manipulate and use tools, befitting Marco's utilitarian temperament and intelligence. If he needs greater firepower, Marco also has a rhinoceros morph and has absorbed a Cobra morph giving him access to a deadly paralyzing venom. 

Rachel is the team's gusto and spirit. She's a fashionista who always somehow looks good yet is also the one enjoys the fight the most, with Marco nicknaming her "Xena: Warrior Princess." She acts as the team's initiative, their drive, with her catchphrase being "Let's do it!" Rachel has the most impressive combat feats of the Animorphs often fighting off whole squads of Hork-Bajir single-handedly, and during her final mission she, as a grizzly bear, fought evenly against several morph-capable yeerks including two lionnesses, one polar bear (alone a match for the Grizzly Bear), a cape buffalo and a cobra. She regularly shows crazy endurance like early on continguing to fight after having her paws sliced off, beating up a Hork-Bajir with her own severed arm, and tunneling her way out of a Kronasaurus' stomach. In Megamorphs 4's alternate timeline where the Animorphs didn't get their powers, she saved Jake and Marco from two controllers using just a baseball bat. Over the entire series, Crayak, an immortal malevolent godlike entity tries to seduce Rachel to the dark side and in her final book she foils his plan, a plan he was willing to sacrifice the entire Yeerk invasion on Earth for. 

Rachel's main battle morph is the Grizzly Bear, a morph with extreme levels of power and tankiness reflecting Rachel's drive to dive right into the heart of battle. It's an open question who'd win between Jake's Tiger and Rachel's Bear morph which comes up in a couple of books, but Jake subtly implies Rachel's stronger when he loses a one v one against David's Lion Morph, yet in the same book believes Rachel would be able to stop him. Rachel also has the Elephant morph for extra firepower, and she uses it more often than anyone else on the team uses their firepower morph. She temporarily acquired a crocodile morph which was a particularly powerful morph for battle, able to tank even her own Grizzly bear morph's strikes, but can no longer use it due to particular circumstances. 

Tobias was initially a bullied kid the other Animorphs let tag along mostly out of pity, seemingly unwanted by anyone before getting trapped in the form of a Red-Tailed Hawk. While he eventually regains his morphing ability, for the rest of the series Tobias is primarily a hawk, who acts as the aerial reconnaissance for the other Animorphs. Tobias was instrumental in freeing the Hork-Bajir from the Yeerks' control for which the next leader of the Hork-Bajir, the seer Toby Hamee is named after him. He also withstood several hours of torture by Taylor, Visser Three's choice of torturer, without going insane or dying and saved the other Animorphs several times even just as a Hawk without morphing capability. He also is kind of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs and also kind of killed Hitler, both long stories.

Tobias typically enters battle in his natural Red-Tailed Hawk where he acts as an aerial scout for the other Animorphs and strategically divebombs whichever of the others need helps, reflecting his silent protective presence. Tobias in his hawk morph is fast enough to rip at Visser Three's stalk eyes without being hit by his tail blade despite the Andalites superhuman reactions and sense of spacetime. For one v one matches, Tobias has numerous more powerful forms including the Elephant and Hork-Bajir. He also has a cape bull morph and has acquired Ax, an Andalite. Outside of combat, Tobias has a few other odd morphs including a Nartec, a Leatherface Atlantean with amphibious capabilities and the ability to easily survive the pressure of the deep as well as a Taxxon, an alien species that has an extreme capability to dig. 

Axmili-Esgarrouth-Ishthill or "Ax" is the younger brother of Elfangor, the Andalite Hero who gave the Animorphs their power who's story is about living up to Elfangor's legacy and acting as a bridge between the Humans and the Andalites. With his native Andalite advanced intellect as well as his combat prowess as an Andalite Cadet he provides the Animorphs lots of help both in and out of combat and is eventually considered one of their ranks. Through courage and loyalty, Ax helped humans be acknowledged as equals by the Andalites, scared off Visser Three several times, and was the one who won the war the Andalites and Yeerks had on the Leeran home planet by blowing up an entire continent. In the dark timeline where the Animorphs didn't gain powers, Ax launched a one-man guerilla war against the Yeerks and still almost succeeded single-handedly, albeit with far greater losses. He one-shot a crocodile the other Animorphs were having trouble doing anything to, learned enough humility to outwit an entire Andalite paramilitary group including one he was in love with, mentally broke Visser Two, accidentally advanced human science by centuries, and after the war was instantly promoted to Prince Rankin the military, becoming an Andalite Hero in the same league as Elfangor. 

Ax typically goes into battle in his normal Andalite form. This grants him access to his extraordinarily fast, powerful, and precise tail blade as a weapon, a level of advanced intelligence, as well as stalk eyes that can see things in 360 degrees and see further into the light spectrum. Ax can also morph into an Elephant for greater firepower, has a Taxxon morph for digging capabilities, and has a rattlesnake morph to gain access to poison which he almost used to poison and kill Visser Three in Ax's first book. 

More than their individual capabilities; the Animorphs are known for their teamwork and their capability as a team. They defeated the main Yeerk forces in the three-year-long guerilla war for Earth, pretty much winning the interstellar Andalite-Yeerk war. They also won the war for the Leeran Planet, they defeated Crayak's team of ultimate killers to save the Iskoort Planet, stopped the Nartecs (a race of inbred Atlanteans) from trying to conquer the world with nuclear weapons, created a slave revolt within the tiny megalomaniac race of the Helmacrons, destroyed several Yeerk Pools, and stopped Visser Four with the greatest weapon in the galaxy's history from changing the timeline to destroy human history. In Megamorphs 4 it's revealed that the Animorphs were a team arranged to gather together by the Elimist for their unique strengths such that when the reality-warping minion of Crayak the Drode tried to destroy them by reality-warping history so they never got their powers, they defeated the Yeerks even faster and the Drode himself eventually gave up in frustration.

In terms of weaknesses, the Animorphs do have individual weaknesses. Jake takes too much responsibility on his shoulders and apparently can't tell a joke to save his life. Cassie becomes too fixated on the deeper implications lacking pragmaticism and also is a terrible liar. Marco lacks a degree of willpower and determination, and also is comedically unlucky, especially with the ladies. Rachel is an impulsive hothead and is a rather impatient leader. Tobias is sometimes caught between his human and hawk half and is bad at social interactions. Ax is sometimes limited by his pride and strict alien warrior code of honor and gets comedically distracted by making sounds and experiencing tastes when he is morphed something with a mouth, especially cinnamon bun-zuh. However the Animorphs balance out each others personality weaknesses and their only collective weaknesses are weaknesses of the morphing technology. Morphing is taxing on one stamina and takes at dozens of seconds to go from one state to another, with the Animorphs very rarely getting to use more than 1 or 2 morphs in a fight. They also cannot use a morph for more than two hours at a time, or they will become trapped in it forever. 

Name: The Animorphs

Origin: Animorphs

Powers and Abilities: Shapeshifting, Regen (Low-Mid), Biological Copying (Acquiring new DNA), Telepathy, Flight, Aquatic/Amphibious/Arboreal Movement/Survival, Enhanced Stealth, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Endurance, Various forms of Natural Weapons, Smell Attack (Skunk Morph), Superhuman Intelligence (Ax), Superhuman Skill (Howler Morph), Sonic Disorientation Attack (Howler Morph's Howl), Poison (Cassie, Marco, and Ax's snake morphs), Enhanced Digging (Rachel's mole morph and Tobias and Ax's Taxxon morphs), Adhesive attack (Cassie's Anteater morph), Superhuman Sense of Spacetime (Ax), Resistance to Psychological Manipulation (Rachel resisted Crayak and the Drode attempting to seduce her to the dark side), Resistance to Time Manipulation (Cassie is a temporal anomaly that unravels timelines that should not exist)

Weaknesses: Various psychological weaknesses, can not stay in morph for longer than 2 hours, morphing is stamina-intensive and in most cases requires one to demorph to go from one morph to another, though Cassie has a limited ability to get around this

Attack Potency: Up to Wall Level with combat morphs

Durability: Up to Wall Level with strongest morphs

Speed: Upper Human Level to Superhuman level for most in their combat morphs. Tobias is Subsonic in his normal combat morph as are the others in their fastest morphs.

Range: Melee range for most morphs. Higher for the Jake's Howler morph

Stamina: At least upper Human Tier, Superhuman for Rachel (The Animorphs have undergone numerous morphs in quick succession, especially after training when early even a few morphs made them extremely exhausted and have mentally held up under torture, undergoing horrific injuries from weapons like the Dracon Beam, and long-term mental exertion and strain. Rachel has the highest, resisting the mental attack of Crayak to control her and continuing to fight even after losing limbs)

Skill: At least Mid C Tier, likely High C Tier for the best fighters of the group, Mid A Tier for Howler Morph (The Animorphs regularly had to fight and beat trained Yeerk soldiers and late in the series had to defeat the elite Hork-Bajir of Visser Three, the bluebands. Jake with his Howler morph would have access to the collective combat knowledge of the entire Howler race)

Intelligence: At least Clever for each member, likely Brilliant for Jake and Marco, Type 2 Superhuman for Ax (All of them avoided being detected by the Yeerks for years and came up with plans to escape death in unlikely situations. Jake led them to an unlikely victory in a guerilla war with Marco being his tactical superior and helping Ax to hack into the Pentagon for fun. Ax has several superhuman feats such as modifying the Helmacron technology to shrink the Animorphs and pursue them, accessing Z-Space, and accidentally advancing human science several centuries)

Standard Equipment: Nothing Notable

So for this blog series idea the idea was after explaining the group, I would mention three villains or threats the team could likely take down together they couldn't alone, roughly in order of difficulty from "it's arguable if one member could solo" to "would be very hard even with all of them." There could also be a fourth villain from their own series if there's a villain fitting that description from their universe. And for Animorphs there is indeed one. So what threats could the Animorphs stop?

The Garatron. 

The Garatron is a one off villain from Book 37 - The Weakness, an inspector for the Yeerk Political Body the Council of Thirteen to investigate Visser Three's progress. During this book Jake is away from town and Rachel is in charge. The Garatron has super speed and reflects Rachel's own impulsive and short-term focused leadership style. The Garatron casually defeated the Animorphs several times via its high level of speed to the point even Andalites had trouble reacting to it. But, what if Jake was back in town leading the team?

I could simply say "well the Animorphs eventually defeated together even without Jake", but that's not quite fair. Most of the Animorphs distracted the Garatron while Marco in cobra morph used stealth to bite the Garatron when he moved close to his position, the fast metabolism of the Garatron killing him with poison quickly. In this scenario the Garatron would be focused on killing them directly and in an open environment, it would be harder for them to plan for the Garatron to get in any particular position, plus they wouldn't have Visser Three betraying the Garatron to rely on. However, I still think they could do it.

On a narrative level, the threat of the Garatron is meant to be contingent on Jake's absence and Rachel having to take leadership. Beyond that Jake's Tiger Morph is the most stealthy of the combat morphs outside maybe Tobias' hawk form. But even more so if Jake uses his Howler Morph, I definitely think he would be a big threat to even a Garatron. The Howler's regen and toughness mean it would be hard for a Garatron to do anything and with his skill Howler Jake would likely hit the Garatron, especially as while the Garatron is fast, it's very arguable if it could do something like outrun the soundwave of a Howler's howl.

In a pure one v one, the Garatron could still win depending on the environment by using something in the environment, but with the other five Animorphs for coordinated distractions, I think Jake could lead them into getting a hit on the Garatron. Even if Jake doesn't use his Howler morph, I think Jake would be able to replicate the stealth strategy they used against the Garatron even in less optimal conditions for it. 

I think the Animorphs together would beat the Bane from the Underland Chronicles with relatively low difficulty. I don't wanna downplay the power and speed of the Bane. The Bane is the same height as a T-Rex, something Ax though he was highly unfavored against in a 1 v 1 fight and has power feats to back that up basically accidentally killing gnawers as touch as a wolf or gorilla and he's as fast as the Animorphs stronger morphs.

That said, those are his only abilities. His skill is decent, but it's only on par with the weaker fighters of the Andalites with Jake, Rachel, and Ax being clearly better fighters than the Bane. He has decent psychological manipulation but far less than what the Animorphs are used to and can themselves do. Beyond that he's an overgrown manchild who would be easily outwit. He makes VISSER THREE look calm and stable by comparison. The Animorphs also have just a ton more abilities including the ability to regenerate from anything but a lethal blow onto them while he has no regen as well as things like poisons he has no resistance to.

Once again, I don't wanna downplay his sheer stats and if this was a one v one of the Bane vs any one of the Animorphs they'd probably be overwhelmed by his sheer stats. The Bane is stated to move nearly as fast as Rager Gregor who can move solidly faster than the eye at this point, in Animorphs terms as fast as Tobias, and would be comparable in mass and power to a battle morph. But the Animorphs have a ton of experience fighting giant monsters (Visser Three's Morphs) of similar size to The Bane and usually some kind of broken special ability as well as better mental capabilities. I think together they would win pretty handily.

I think the Animorphs could defeat Hama from Avatar: the Last Airbender with mid difficulty. This is sort of dependent on where they fight and what you think the physical stats of Benders from ATLA are but for this I'm assuming that they're fighting where Hama fought Katara, an empty forest during a Full Moon, and Hama who's a really good bender but also an old woman who only took attacks from Katara not trying to kill her at all, that she'd only scale to the physical feats of fodder benders. In which case beating Hama would be difficult though not impossible for the Animorphs.

Hama is most well-known for her development of blood-bending, controlling peoples' bodies via the blood in their bodies. However, she has only shown the ability to control two people at a time, possibly because she has only two hands and bending involves making bodily motions to control the elements. Via manipulation of the Animorphs' bodies, she could essentially use two of the Animorphs against each other at any time. There is some complication in that their minds remain normal, meaning the Animorphs can begin demorphing as Hama controls them, but morphing does take dozens of seconds even for experienced morphers. As such it would be a tactical battle of Hama trying to maneuver the changing Animorphs into trying to kill each other while protecting herself while they try to get to her without killing each other.

Hama can hypothetically go for the kill against any of the individual Animorphs at any point by removing the blood or water from their bodies or given she suggested that with the Full Moon she was stronger than any prior point her bending ability would be above her younger self who helped lift and freeze an entire battleship, she could just overwhelm any of the Animorphs with a massive surge of water, assuming she could draw them it from the forest around them, ripping it from the surrounding trees which may depend on how large her range is. However, against six opponents, it's more likely she'd be more concerned with defending herself rather than going for the offense against anyone in particular, using the two she is controlling at any one point to defend herself. It's also true that most partial offenses she uses the Animorphs can potentially regenerate from. If she cut off a limb with a water spray for instance from one of the Animorphs, especially from someone like Rachel, they could probably maintain consciousness and demorph. Morphs with the least amount of blood would likely be at the most risk meaning Tobias in his natural morph would probably be at the biggest threat of suddnly dying.

However, against six enemies who can regenerate from non-lethal damage, I think Hama would be particularly pressed. She does have an extreme level of reaction speed as a Bender and strong enough physical stats she might be able to withstand an attack from one of the Battle Morphs, especially a weaker one, but Ax's sheer intelligence and the silent coordination that thought-speak gives means that the Animorphs would constantly be able to plan around Hama's actions. It's also noted that bending, especially difficult bending like bloodbending requires some level of concentration something that could be disrupted just by all the sudden shapeshifting into bizarre and literally alien creatures and there's some argument about whether sufficient physical strength would allow you to pull away from the bending. Overall while Hama could easily beat any one Animorph in a fight not accounting for stealth tactics, I think she would get overwhelmed in a fight against all six.

I think the Animorphs may be able to beat a Xenomorph with high difficulty. This fight is a lot less complex than the last one, it's just that Xenomorph stats are much higher. Most real world animals only get into the low to mid wall level range while normal Xenomorphs have high wall level feats of ripping apart steel doors and elevators, and have upper-end subsonic that allows them do dodge bullets and move like a blur, basically recreating the Garatron's speed. Except instead of a being with ONLY the Garatron's tree, a Xenomorph also has power similar to the T-Rex, something Ax thought he would lose against 90% of the time. Beyond that Xenomorphs have several abilities including being a stealthy ambush hunter that impales opponents with its tail weapon. 

Even if Jake does use his Howler morph, fighting a Xenomorph would be difficult. The Howler probably has high enough stats it can at least keep up with a Xenomorph, but it would still be a very pressing threat. The Xenomorph can shoot acid and black genetically mutating goo. Morphing and Demorphing would be able to allow the Animorph to survive it, as they have dealt with acid before when they were shrunk tiny and nearly digested by stomach acid but it would still be an immense danger as Xenomorph acid can chew through ships meaning even a whale morph would not be safe from it.

A Xenomorph would be constantly a threat to any Animorph vaguely close to it pretty much regardless of what morph they're in, and they have little that they can do to hurt it directly given its speed, durability, and regen. The best chance is Ax's tail blade which is probably fast enough and powerful enough to slice off a limb from a Xenomorph, and Ax is a signifigantly better tail fighter than an average animalistic Xenomorph. That said it would be incredibly dangerous. Other possibilities including the Animorphs actually acquiring the Xenomorph, allowing them to use its abilities, though its a hive mind creature which have been historically difficult for the Animorphs to control when morphing and they would still need to get into physical contact with it in their normal form. The best odds for that would be Howler Jake using the Howl to stun the Xenomorph and then Tobias quickly grabbing it with his talon to acquire it. 

Win conditions for the Xenomorph in an Animorphs vs Xenomorph match would be to just blitz over to them and them hit them to the point of passing out and dying which is not as hard as it sounds given its sheer power and speed gap through the enhanced senses of Cassie and Tobias especially and the telepathy they share would give them some ability to avoid ambush and the Animorphs have a lot better endurance and tactical planning then most of its prey. On the other hand, the Animorph win cons are some combination of Jake's howler morph, one of the Animorphs, most likely Tobias acquiring it, Ax's tail blade, or Cassie crushing to with her whale morph which would be hard to set up as the Xenomorph could maneuver out of the way but would be enough force to crush it. While the stat gap is concerning, I think the Animorphs numbers, teamwork, and variety of abilities/win cons would allow them to get past a single subtier stat gap. 

The Underland Chronicles-verse Strategy Guide

 

How to be OP in the Underland Chronicles

Superhuman Tier:

Beneath the city of New York is a supermassive cave system, a vast subterranean world known to the locals as "The Underland." The Underland is home to many strange denizens, primarily animals vastly larger than they are in the Overland far above and with full sentience and ability to communicate, as well as the descendants of the humans who traveled down below, the pale-skinned "Underlanders." This tier contains almost every fighter or non-human denizen of the Underland. 

While some of the species of the Underland are weaker than others, in large groups they are all treated as threats to individuals of any other species. As such they scale upwards and downwards from the same feats. The two gnawers, giant rats, Shed and Fangor are stated to be able to easily leap "ten feet" (~3 meters) vertical into the air, with the most athletic of gnawers being able to leap "fifteen feet" (~4.5 meters) vertical into the air. These rats are as tall as humans and weight far more, with one of them, Ripred being estimated as weighing 600 pounds (~272 kilograms.) To leap that far would require a force of roughly 8-12 kilojoules, which is low wall level. This is consistent with Gnawers being described as literally ripping people apart. Underlanders with the aid of a force multiplier like a sword can kill a Gnawer in melee combat. Fliers, giant bats, show similar great strength, with four of them being described as lifting a boat out of the water, with Ares, a particularly strong flier, doing the work of two fliers and lifting an entire boat's side by himself. Stingers, giant scorpions, and diggers, giant moles, are likely this powerful just from sheer size with the two seen stingers being ten and twelve feet long (~3-3.65 meters long) with diggers being compared, possibly hyperbolic, to the weight of buses, with claws a yard (~0.9 meters) long, and who shake the ground with their tunneling underneath. Finally King Gorger, a gnawer king, with one swipe of his tail, casually bisected Gox, a spinner (giant spider), though the text doesn't say in which way Gox was bisected nor is it really clear how strong Gorger was relative to others. As such the tier in power is roughly superhuman to low wall level, possibly mid wall level if the Diggers comparison to buses is viewed as non-hyperbolic.

In terms of speed, many of the characters are vaguely superhuman. Normal Gnawers Snare and Goldshard could move fast enough in their fight against each other to be "a blur of claws and teeth." and the Fliers travel much faster than humans with Gregor stating that it would take 20 minutes to jog to Regalia but that on Nike, a flier, he was "there before he knew it." As such the tier is superhuman in both power and speed, up to wall level.

This tier contains most of the denizens of the Underland, most grown to be ready for warfare if need be. First and foremost are the Underlanders themselves, the extremely pale, very light blond-haired, purple-eyed people of the depths. They are perhaps most feared of the denizens of the Underland for their usage of technology. For the most part their technology is akin to those of the Middle Ages, using steel swords and armor in combat as well as dropping boiling oil on their opponents when besieged. However, they also developed some usages of biological warfare, using poison to drive off the Diggers hundreds of years ago, and being able to manipulate the Curse of the Warmbloods, a plague. Underlanders seem to have generally higher endurance and pain resistance than the Overlanders, if only due to their lifetimes of war. When a volcano went off near an expedition, hitting the Underlanders with burning winds and volcanic ash, they were able to persist on further despite the pain. They however have a specific weakness. Almost every species in the Underland, a land of darkness relies on echolocation or enhanced smell or both to move around in the Underland. Humans naturally have neither, and rely on their light-sources to see.  

There are some humans who are of particular note, some of which will be in the next tier. However, this tier has the Princess of the Underlanders and one of the major characters of the series, Luxa. Luxa is the fiery and impulsive warrior princess of the Underlanders, known for her agility and dexterity in combat, with she and her partner flier Aurora pulling off an extremely difficult maneuver as the Colier, a rare and hard-to-perform feat, despite the fact that she was only ten years old at the time. The humans also have the occasional oracle such as Bartholomew of Sandwhich who first led the Underlanders underground and Nerissa, Luxa's delicate cousin. It's kept ambiguous whether they have genuine powers, but they are known to predict things that eventually come to pass, though vaguely. 

The partners to the Underlanders are the Fliers, giant talking bats. This includes Aurora, Luxa's partner who is also especially dexterous, pulling off her part in performing the Colier despite it's difficulty. It also includes Ares, Gregor's partner, known for his great strength, performing the work of two fliers, and surviving the Curse of the Warmbloods for longer than anyone thought possible.

Their primary opposition are the Gnawers, the giant rats. These gnawers are armed with claws and fangs that are extremely dangerous and to fight humans on fliers have learned specifically how to leap extreme distances. They can also commune with the rats on the Overland and in extreme scenarios like an existential threat can call the tiny rats to swarm people. Most of the Gnawer population consists of powerful fighters but a few have special abilities. One in a million gnawers is a "scent seer" such as Twitchtip, one of the most powerful anti-stealth characters for their tier I've ever seen. Twitchtip, as well as any other Scent Seers have an extremely powerful sense of smell. Twitchtip was able to smell a human child across the city, her exact location, who she's with, what she's wearing, her emotional state, and that she's cutting a new tooth. Twichtip can smell color and was also able to smell the dimensions of an island they were getting close on an ocean adventure. This tier also includes Twirltongue. Twirltongue is a psychological manipulator so strong is borders on a superpower. She was able to convince Gregor to trust her despite her being an unknown Gnawer in seconds. She is able to turn people against their closest friends in minutes and was even able to convince Ripred he was well-liked despite Ripred being the perpetual outcast of any group he's in. This tier also probably contains the main villain of the first book, King Gorger. The Gnawers frequently attack their distant cousins the Nibblers, giant mice, even using primitive biological warfare against them. The Nibbles are likely similar in physical capacities to the Gnawers but much less aggressive and warlike, though they eventually allied with the Humans against the Gnawer threat.

In the final book, the Gnawers were able to gain their ally, the ancestral enemy of the Humans, the Diggers. The Diggers are giant star-noised moles, with weight compared to buses and claws said to be like individual blades. The Diggers are more known for their digging ability which the Gnawers used to counter the Humans' walls. 

Outside these species, there are many neutral species in the Underland, mostly the bug-like races that don't much care about the warmbloods species. First and foremost of these is the Crawlers, giant cockroaches. Timid and lacking in combat experience and physical strength, the Crawlers are not the best warriors, though they are fast, with average Crawlers being similar in speed to early Gregor who could match Mareth, a particularly fast Underlander. Crawlers can also fly, have thick carapaces that make for decent natural armor, have a particular resistance to some forms of biological warfare, and their simple-minded focus can allow them to see things that the other races missed. The Crawler Temp one contributed to saving the entire Underland. There is an unnamed species of large moth that are friends of the Crawlers.

The Underland is also host to giant spiders called the Spinners who, as spiders are wont to do, use webs to capture others and have poisonous fangs. The Cutters are five foot tall ants, a hive mind race that hate the warmbloods and the Shiners are a race of giant fireflies known for their extremely lazy, obnoxious, gluttonous personalities. The Slimers are a race of giant slugs. They travel at a mind-blisteringly fast one yard an hour or 0.000254 meters per second. They drove the Shiners out of their home, mostly because the Shiners were too lazy and cowardly to fight at all, with it being widely believed the Slimers didn't even realize there was anyone there before. The depths of the Underland include the Stingers, giant scorpions reaching over three meters long and with poisonous tails. Even more dangerously on some islands there exists swarms of ravenous mites that can turn a full flier into a skeleton before it hits the ground and move so fast that they kept pace with Ares. 

Outside the bugs, the Underland also hosts the Hissers, large frilled lizards which hiss and raise their frills to scare away predators. They grow 20 feet in length and stand 15 feet in height (~6.1 meters and ~4.57 meters respectively) and are strong enough to carry two fliers and a human on their back. There are also twisters which are.... snakes. Just normal sized snakes as well as oversized venus flytraps.

 So what would be some good counters here?

Well, there's one real-world strategy that no one in the Underland uses to any real effect, and it's perhaps the single biggest overall factor in real-world combat, that being range. The non-human races don't have thumbs to use weapons, ranged or otherwise, and humans can only effectively use a ranged weapon as far as they can see which in the Underland isn't often that far. As such ranged warfare isn't used by most of the combatants outside something like a spear or a pike. But if a character had both enhanced attack and sensory range, they could hit anyone in the tier before they could be hit in return.

An ability that seemed like an obvious pick would be animal control. Most of the characters in the verse are animals and so animal control would let them control most of the characters. However, there's a catch which is that they are sentient animals specifically. Most forms of Animal Control aren't depicted as working on humans and whether they'd work on sentient animals is questionable.

Some of the biggest threats of this tier are being swarmed, either by an army, or by a cutter swarm, or a mite cloud. Against a large number of attacks, the best thing to have would be something of an armored body or fast-acting regenerating meaning that a large number of small attacks wouldn't do anything. Combined with the large number of biological attacks, this makes me think that something like a machine character would do especially well, especially as they might be able to avoid things like Twirltongue's manipulation and might not smell very clear to Twitchtip. 

While the tier has some surprisingly potent offenses and numerous forms of movement, its defenses are highly limited, mostly revolving around stealth, light armor, and raw endurance. As such unconventional forms of attack would not just be out-of-context attacks for the verse to try and fight but ones with large areas of effect even if the overall potency isn't that high could debilitate large amounts of enemies at once. 

So who would be a good counter here? One idea for a good counter would be 

Sei Arisaka from Hime no Ribbon-chan

While the characters in Hime no Ribbon-chan don't have explicitly superhuman stats, they do have mild toonforce. Sei was able to fight against both Himeko and Daichi at once, even taking one of Himeko's famous flying kicks. The two of them are strong enough to do things like create dust clouds with their strikes and run fast enough to turn their legs into comical blurs or disappear from sight instantly. As such Sei would likely be around as strong as one of the Underland humans in power and relatively fast.

Sei is a person from the Magical Kingdom and has likely three magical abilities, two he's shown and one more likely by scaling, which can all really aid him here. His main one and the one he's known for is Sei has the power to control all animals, making them do whatever he wants. This power was strong enough even on Pokota, a friendly living stuffed lion, which Sei used to make him attack his rival, showing not only its potency but also that it can even work on sentient and even animal-like things. This means Sei at any time can simply control almost everything in the tier and have control over most of the forces of the Underland. The only ones who would be unaffected by this power are the Underlanders themselves, the few plants he might run across who he should be strong enough to personally beat if need be, and possibly the Cutters since they're controlled by a hive mind.

The other power Sei has shown is that he can teleport. Sei can teleport even between dimensions which he uses to travel between the human world and the Magical Kingdom. He can teleport with others and can even possibly teleport an entire building as when he went back to the Magical Kingdom his house also disappeared (though this might have been the doing of the Magic Kingdom's King.) This would obviously be both an incredibly strong defensive tier forcing anyone to blitz or surprise him to hit him (particularly difficult given his relatively high speed for the tier, probably similar to a Crawler) and would also be a broken form of offense, unlike anything in the verse. Sei could just teleport himself and someone high in to the air and then teleport himself back onto the ground or could non-lethally beat people by teleporting them into the Magical Kingdom, BFR-ing them. Assuming his teleportation did work on his entire house this would be a one-shot on anybody in the verse. Even if he doesn't have that high teleportation and can't offensively use it on the giant species like the Diggers and Stingers, these are all species Sei can control with his Animal Control and should definitely be able to teleport a human or a cutter. 

Sei probably also has another ability. Princess Erika is the princess of the Magical Kingdom who is still practicing in magic and can't do more complex magic like teleporting between dimensions. However even she knows a simple spell that changes the clothes someone is wearing which she used to change her and Himeko's clothes for a party. The Underlanders rely on their weapons and armor to fight the other big threats of the Underland and Sei can simply transmute their clothes into normal clothing, arguably changing a sheathed weapon as well. This means even in a one on one fight against an Underlander, Sei should be able to hold his own, especially given his own stats and teleportation for defense and surprise.

However, there are some weaknesses to using Sei as a counter. Sei doesn't have any particular ability to see in the dark and while he can use animals to "see" for him, he could get caught out early on by an ambush-type strategy. In addition, Sei is slightly narcissistic and rather easy to manipulate, with even Himeko's oblivious classmate Hibino able to manipulate him. He would be massively in danger if he ran across Twirltongue. Granted he should also be able to control Twirltongue, so it's a bit of a toss-up there. A better counter might be

A Buzz Bomber from Sonic the Hedgehog

If the Badniks were released in TUC, they would be an unstoppable force, with even one such as a Buzz Bomber being a large threat. Buzz Bombers are a simple form of Badnik that can destroy blocks of sandstone, calculated at about 2.75 MEGAjoules of energy, on the upper end of my wall level parameters. This is nearly 230 times the power of the best feat performed by "the most athletic" of the gnawers outside maybe King Gorger's feat of bisecting Gox. On the entire other end of the wall level spectrum, a Buzz Bomber would be an unstoppable metal tank that can rip apart pretty much anyone in the verse in one v one combat. Even the armies seen in the Underland Chronicles would struggle to do real damage to a Buzz Bomber.  They can also fly around at speeds in the same range as the tier's speed.

Buzz Bombers are robots, or rather a trapped animal in a robot exoskeleton. This means pretty much any biological form of attack wouldn't do anything. They naturally fly, making it harder though certainly not impossible for most of the tier to fight them and can shoot lasers dozens of meters allowing them to snipe enemies from far outside the range they could be counter-attacked.

Some of the usual weaknesses of the Badniks actually come in handy here. While the Badniks have limited cognition, their intelligence and communication abilities are minimal, which actually gives them a resistance to Twirltongue's manipulation as it wouldn't understand what she's saying. Their small size, about as small as Sonic would make it particularly hard for multiple enemies to fight them at once as there is less room around them, even but especially in the air which gives them three dimensions to escape in. 

The only real way the tier would have to damage the Buzz Bomber would be to knock or drag it into water, as it's not one of the amphibious badniks, or possibly the usage of boiling oil, though the usage of boiling oil on a small flying enemy would be difficult. But for the best counter I would suggest using

Goldie from Goosebumps

Goldie is Slappy's older sister and their favorite child of their sorcerer "father" Ephraim Darkwell who gave her the greatest magic powers. She likely is physically comparable if not superior to her brother Slappy and his twin Snappy, who could tank an explosion that destroyed a garage, meaning Goldie would be broadly more powerful than most people here. Slappy also seems to be relative to other Goosebumps monster in speed like werewolves and Dr. Maniac's jetpack, suggesting also that Goldie would be in the same speed tier as this tier.

Goldie is a dummy, magically brought to life. Dolls are something that are mentioned to exist in the Underland Chronicles and so it's possible that Goldie would be able to remain completely stealth-ed in the Underland, as it's possible something like Gnawer smell, even that of a scent seer wouldn't smell anything different about Goldie. As a dummy, she's obviously immune to all biological abilities. Goldie like all the dummies also have regen such as Slappy coming back from being sawed in half or Mr. Wood coming back from being flattened. This means that any damage that the tier might be able to do would be pretty meaningless. 

Goosebumps dummies have the inherent ability to see in the dark and if she has similar magic to Slappy, may have metafictional perception giving her a sensory advantage over the Underland humans, and possibly the entire verse. Goldie's magic has been shown to effect things at range such as effecting children outside a house while she's inside it, giving her a range advantage against anyone in the tier. Most notable of her magic is her ability to control animals which she used to control an army of rats. At the very least this would let her control one of the Gnawers' form of attack, however the Goosebumps-verse implies these animals are sentient such as in Go Eat Worms! when the worms and butterflies want revenge for their members being killed. As such it's possible Goldie could simply control most of the verse.

Goldie has a large variety of other magical abilities that no one else in the tier would have any experience with or counter to. Things like freezing, transmutation inducing madness, and forcibly twisting peoples bodies into pretzels can ignore conventional durability to take down particularly difficult targets and things like her elemental manipulation with huge cyclone bursts of wind can take down large numbers of enemies at once or using the same spell she used to kill an army of rats at once which could very fittingly kill an army of Gnawers. Against the dangerous plants of the jungle, Goldie has outright plant manipulation to control them, even if they did somehow recognize her as a living entity. 

You might wonder if Twirltongue could perhaps manipulate Goldie. However, Goldie is considered a menace to Slappy and he couldn't get her diary off her no matter what he did. Slappy is considered one of the top tier psychological manipulators of the Goosebumps-verse, renowned for his ability to psychologically break people. If Slappy couldn't manipulation Goldie, I don't think Twirltongue could either. As such I think Goldie would be functionally immune to anything in the tier and for the most part the verse in general, could easily beat anything in the tier, and has numerous tactical options she could do. 

Wall Tier:

This tier contains the biggest threats in the Underland, beings strong enough to fight armies of the prior tier. Some of the characters here are in this tier purely through raw size but there are also specific feats of note here. Gregor in the middle of a rager spin in Book 4 had his blade intercepted by Luxa's metal blade and accidentally snapped it from the sheer force of his movement. In Book 5 he was able to shatter Sandwich's sword on his knee, a sword described as making other swords seem like part of a cheap Halloween costume, of being to other knives what a steak knife is to a butterknife. Solovet was also able to decapitate a Digger with one swing of her blade and the Bane was able to casually tear Twirltongue's head from her shoulders. While this tier is an upgrade in terms of power, it's in the same level of power overall, but it's a higher level of speed. Ripred is consistently described as moving so fast he becomes a blur or disappears from sight entirely. He was able to kill two Gnawers before many people around could react including other gnawers and underlanders and went into a spin so fast it created a dust cloud and instantly killed any gnawer who got close. He is fast enough that dozens of humans on bats can't tag him, and ward off entire armies. Thus, it's fair to say this tier reaches subsonic speed.

This tier contains two Gnawers including, fittingly enough, Ripred himself. Ripred is a mysterious mentor to Gregor for most of the series and is treated as the comparison point of power. While the war between the humans and gnawers is composed of two sides, Ripred almost forms an entire third side to himself with most of the most impressive feats in the entire series. Ripred can fight armies alone, stating he starts to crack at 400 to 1. He can do this because he's a Rager, an extraordinarily rare type of being (Twitchtip mentioning only smelling one once or twice) who is a natural born killer. In combat Ragers are like Celtic Berserkers, their face contorting horribly and making terrifying noises of bloodlust. In combat, Ragers lose sight of all other things, zero-ing in on enemy weak points and reacting automatically without thinking, allowing them to move, dodge, and attack with inhuman precison. It is suggested that being a Rager makes one automatically a master of combat akin to one who has trained many years. Ripred has mastered the Rager state, developing a technique known as the Rager Spin, where he spins in place with his claws and fangs out, shredding anything that gets close. Ripred is also extremely smart with Vikus saying that Ripred has a wisdom "unique to any creature", sneaking up to the Overland to read Overland books, and has a better sense of Underland politics than almost anyone. Outside his normal Gnawer abilities, Ripred also has enough stamina to, after being tortured and starved for days, run for thirty minutes straight, and the Rager state also grants mildly enhanced senses. Also, he once tried to take over a human colony called "The Fount" with an army of lobsters.

The other Gnawer is the overarching antagonist of the Bane Arc in Books 2, 4, and 5, and thus the overarching antagonist of the entire series, The Bane, aka "Rat Hitler." The Bane is a rat of pearl white coat who grew to a monstrous 11 or 12 feet tall (~3.3-3.6 meters) The Bane is an overpowered monster, who overwhelms enemies with his huge raw power and mass, along with being nearly as fast as Gregor. By Book 5, even Ripred isn't sure he can beat the Bane due to the Bane having several hundred pounds on him and given warrior training to boot. The Bane can accidentally kill other Gnawers, even when he was younger. Outside of his raw power, Twirltongue taught him some of her persuasive abilities, which he used to rally the Gnawers to his aid and behind his genocidal actions towards the Nibblers. However the Bane's big weakness is his own psychological instability. 

This tier also has two or three human fighters. First and foremost is, of course, Gregor himself, the main character. Gregor is "The Warrior", a legendary Overlander human child who would come and save the Underland in its times of need. This is because Gregor is himself a Rager. Earlier on in the series he had no control over his Rager ability, but under Ripred's guidance, Gregor eventually attained mastery over it in Book 5, reaching the same level as Ripred and being able to tag Ripred in practice fights that Ripred has to keep telling Gregor to stop holding back in. Gregor also learns the Rager Spin from Ripred, and with the aid of his flier bond Ares, was even able to slay The Bane. Ripred also taught Gregor the ability to echolocation after numerous books of practice and Gregor being locked in a pitch black room for days. Gregor is armed with the sword of Sandwich which mentioned above makes others' swords look like Halloween costume swords as well as Solovet's dagger, a dagger of equal potency to the Sword, and pure black armor that protects him from the blows of many Gnawers. 

This tier would also include Solovet. Solovet is the military leader of Regalia, the main human city. She is, outside maybe Gregor, the human the rats fear most. She is an extremely strong fighter to the point that she was the one who gave Ripred his distinctive face scar, and is one of the fear Ripred respects as an equal, mostly due to her military and mental prowess. Solovet is an expert general known for her extreme ruthlessness and pragmaticism, willing to do anything to protect the humans, and is extremely good manipulator, inspiring personal loyalty from all the relevant people in Regalia and able to politically maneuver out of bad circumstances. This tier might also include Perdita, a soldier in the Underland with randomly good hype, being the one who took Solovet's position after her, and took the center point of an arc formation which included Ripred as well as being the leader in Solovet's army and one of the humans to train Book 5 Gregor and teach him in combat despite his Rager abilities. 

However, this tier does have a few more random threats. While the Bane is the most physically powerful character on the series... on land... the true physical masters of the Underland are underwater. The waterway contains immense sea serpents, serpents whose tails are 20 feet wide (~6.1 meters), whose necks are described as 30 feet long (~9.1 meters), who create immense waves 20 feet high with their swimming and smash through solid stone ceilings with their heads. These creatures Gregor compares to dinosaurs in size and power. The sea also contained tentacled monsters, with these tentacles being somewhat of a threat for Book 2 Rager mode Gregor. 

Finally, while King Gorger was the main threat of Book 1, and the overarching antagonist for Books 2, 4, and 5 was The Bane, the closest thing to a final boss Book 3 has is The Vineyard of Eyes, which would also belong to this tier. When the Curse of the Warmbloods was ravaging and threatening all warm-blooded life forcing a temporary alliance, the hope for a cure resided with the Starshade, guarded by the Vineyard of Eyes. The Vineyard appears to be a field of plants. But some of the plants have eyes, and the whole thing is actually a giant organism. It releases a gas that creates an extreme sense of euphoria and well-being, making one unresponsible to the world around and prone to being torn apart by the Vineyard's vines. 

So what are the weaknesses of the tier? Some of the prior remains true, there's a complete lack of ranged combat in this tier. Animal control might also be useful here but while it would work on the sea creatures and maybe the Bane and Ripred, it wouldn't work on Gregor, Solovet, Perdita, or the Vineyard of Eyes, meaning it's only really helpful against around half the threats of this tier.

A general weakness for the tier is that they are somewhat on the lower range of both wall level and subsonic, with characters nearing the top end being several times faster and more importantly, orders of magnitude stronger than anything in the tier. The thing that primarily made Ripred think he might not be able to beat The Bane was the difference several hundred pounds of weight made. No one but the Vineyard of Eyes has any kind of offensive hax to beat someone much stronger then them. 

Another weakness of the tier, particularly in comparison to the prior is the lack of aerial options. Gregor and Solovet rely on their bonds, their partner bats, Ares and Ajax, to fly around and it was partly the inability to hit them in the air that allowed Gregor and Ares to fight the Bane. Ripred should be able to leap high like most gnawers but characters that can hit from above that range should be able to attack basically without provocation. Even the Vineyard of Eyes' gas dissipates quickly from its body and wouldn't reach very high in the air. 

Fighting a rager is difficult but being similarly upper-end in skill or having some way of hitting a large area of effect can help fight them. Finally, as mentioned before, it's pitch black in the Underland and none of the fighters here rely on normal eyesight alone to perceive enemies, meaning that some level of detect things in the dark would be useful.

So a good character here is someone at the upper end of wall level and subsonic, who can fly, has ranged options, and ideally can somehow sense things in pitch black and with an extreme level of skill.

So who would be a good counter? Well the first counter I would suggest is

Videl from Dragon Ball

Videl is a human trained in the basics of ki control, allowing her to enhance her stats to superhuman levels. She is outright stated to have surpassed her father Hercule Satan, a normal human who could chop 15 tiles in a row, a feat calced at over 650 kilojoules and scales above other normal trained humans who could knock down a wall with just their elbow. This level of power might not be totally uncontested in The Underland Chronicles and is probably closer to the level of the giant sea serpents, however this level of size dwarfs the Bane whose size and power is what made Ripred though he might not be able to beat The Bane. And this is the powerlevel of Mr. Satan, who is weaker than Videl. Likewise in speed, Videl scales above her father who could dodge missiles and move faster than the eye, both being upper end subsonic speeds. As such Videl would be able a physical powerhouse in the tier, faster than a Rager, and as powerful as one of the Sea Serpents, or stronger. 

In terms of abilities, Videl learned the ability to fly from Gohan and in some sources is suggested to have eventually learned the ability to develop to project her energy as projectiles. She also would have gained the ability to sense ki or life force. This means she could sense anyone in the tier and keep out of range while possibly firing attacks at them or worst comes to worst, pick up things and drop them from high up. Her mental capabilities are also probably rivaling the tier as she scales to her father in skill, a world tournament champion against non-superhuman fighters and could fight evenly against Spopovich despite him having greater power then Videl and regenerative properties. 

In terms of weaknesses, someone like Ripred might be able to outlast Videl's stamina, especially if you don't think she can project her energy and needs to come to ground to gather things to drop, though this is relatively unlikely. It's also possible if she doesn't know what the Vineyard of Eyes is, or that it's an enemy, that she might get surprised by its gas. A counter that definitely wouldn't need to worry about either would be

Tsunderplane from Undertale. 

Tsunderplane is considered a relatively powerful monster in the Underground, with even the weakest being able to tank the heat of Hotland, a heat intense enough to quickly evaporate a styrofoam cup and downscales from an oven explosion that destroyed much of a house, suggesting it would be on the upper end of wall level. In terms of speed, it's one of the faster monsters, getting close to the speed of Frisk who can outpace the bark from a dog, putting her at the upper end of subsonic speed. As such she would be pretty notably more powerful and faster than anyone in the verse.

Tsunderplane is a monster, a species that can see souls and attack them with danmaku bullets, with Tsunderplane doing so usually by dropping projectiles from the air. This would allow Tsunderplane to see anyone in the tier from air, even the Vineyard of eyes and drop bombs and fire from above them. Tsunderplane is also especially resistance to the Vineyard of eyes because it's a sentient plane made out of magic. While Tsunderplane's combat skill is far lacking in comparison it doesn't really need it to defeat the characters in this tier. 

However, Tsunderplane is a monster which means it is weak to killing intent, which against something like a Rager or the Bane would be especially dangerous assuming they could corner it in a cave system small enough they can jump up to reach it. This would be extremely difficult given it's a living plane way faster and stronger than them and such cave systems would be an obvious concern for it but still possibly a concern.

For the best counter to the verse I would suggest

Badfly Claw from Cutie Honey.

Badfly Claw is one of the ten elite fighters of Panther Claw, one of the original servants of Sister Jill. As such she should scale significantly above Black Claw's claw able to tear through "any material" on Earth calced at over 200 kilojoules and was somewhat difficult along with the other nine members for Cutie Honey to escape despite Cutie Honey being able to dodge bullets after they're fired and avoid machine gun fire from close range, suggesting Badfly Claw would be on the upper end of wall level and subsonic, giving her a notable stat advantage over the verse.

Badfly claw is an elite fighter who was able to slightly challenge Cutie Honey, a perfect fighting machine that can download information she needs. Her primary strategy involves flying around on her giant wings. She has several different kinds of attacks including creating powerful gusts of wind that could knock a pouncing Ripred or Bane off-track, as well able to produce a paralyzing powder and a rain of, according to her, "1,000" poison needles, relatively large area of effect surprising attacks that would be nigh impossible to avoid even for someone with instinctive reaction. 

Badfly Claw like all Panthers was originally a demonic panther who can still use the catlike senses to detect things in the dark. She also can't even be affected by the gases of the Vineyard of animals as the original servants of Sister Jill were turned into cyborgs who are no longer affected by biological factors. She also would be unlikely to be manipulated by the Bane or Solovet as she is one of the highest up agents of an international crime organization used to manipulative politics game and is a sadistic demon cat from another dimension with inhuman motivations. 

Badfly Claw could simply fly above the battlefield and rain down her own form of gas attack and poison needles in such number no one could dodge while staying too high anyone to reach her. Even if they did, their physical attacks would do slight damage while her normal claw strikes could possibly one-shot anyone here and the Vineyard's gas attack would do nothing.

And that's how to be OP in the Underland Chronicles-verse