| Ace Lightning character | |
| Lady Illusion | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lady Illusion |
| Nicknames | Snookums (previous lovename from Lord Fear) |
| Species | Elf/CGI/metabeing |
| Affiliation | Lightning Knights, previously a villain |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | N/A |
| Abilities | Shapeshifting, teleportation, attacks with explosive crystal balls, speed of a spider, can give emotions to other characters. |
| Weaknesses | Hopelessly in love with Ace Lightning, leading her to put herself at risk of reprisal from her teammates. |
| Voice Actor | Tamara Bernier |
Lady Illusion is a hero/villain from the BBC programme Ace Lightning. Originally programmed to be Lord Fear's sidekick, Lady Illusion quickly abandoned her programming and fell in love with Ace, who had never experienced emotions before. Despite the fact she is supposed to hate Ace, Lady Illusion cannot find it in her heart to hate him and she helps him secretly. Lady Illusion is a mistress of illusion, able to shapeshift into any human or animal form. She is unique among the show's villains in that she isn't shown to have a carnival attraction in which she recovers her strength.
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Lady Illusion appears in the show as a green-skinned elven female with spider-like hair dressed in a neon-coloured battlesuit. Her original character programming involved her being Lord Fear's assistant and love interest, although she rebelled against him at one point which ultimately led to a forbidden romantic relationship with Ace Lightning, whilst remains a secret until the end of the show's first season. She is a master of illusions, her signature ability being her skill to shapeshift into other living forms.
In the earliest episodes, Lady Illusion is depicted as a character with little to no personality, appearing to be a one-dimensional loyalist to Lord Fear. However, by episode six of the first season, Lady Illusion's personality comes out. She acts out aggressively towards those who irritate her, is not very ladylike but does act sweet and charming towards Lord Fear, until her betrayal where she at first pretty much grovels at his feet until she grows fed up and acts freely towards Lord Fear and Staff Head. Towards Ace, she is rather flirtatious and eventually warms to him as their romantic relationship grows. She does show kindness towards Mark Hollander when in Ace's presence but she can also be aggressive towards him, Mark's opinions on the relationship between Ace and Lady Illusion throughout the show. She shows extreme hostility and possible jealousy towards Sparx, mentioning "revenge" towards Sparx, hinting that they may have had a past encounter prior to the events of the show. The two clash at every meeting they have, often insulting each other and getting into catfights, Lady Illusion repeatedly accusing Sparx of trying to become Ace's lover - although this is not the case, when Sparx is questioned by Kat Adams if she and Ace are a couple, but she admittedly points out that Ace loves Lady Illusion, the villain in question eavesdropping on the conversation. She shows disturbance to Kilobyte's fondness of her, and he occasionally stroke her face with one of his tentacles.
Lady Illusion is a mistress of illusion and her signature ability is that of shapeshifting. Lady Illusion can take the form of a human or animal form, although she has only transformed into two different species of dog over the course of the series. She has transformed into several characters including Mark, Sparx, science teacher Mr. Cheseborough, and a middle-aged male carnival employee. She shows an ability to teleport which she employs for quick escape, spinning around until she vanishes in a flash of light. She also appears to have a connection to spiders, as she is able to stick to and scale walls with ease, has impressive jumping capabilities, and can summon giant spiders in the video game adaptation for the PlayStation 2 and PC.
Her main form of attack is in the form of explosives resembling misty crystal balls. Lady Illusion can summon these orbs and toss them, causing an explosion which releases a cloud of smoke. This will either wound a person, make them go delirious for a time as seen with Chuck Mugel, or fall unconscious thanks to the smoke. In Season 2, Kilobyte upgrades Lady Illusion with two new abilities, which gives her the most abilities out of all of the game characters. Her explosives are upgraded to resemble an orange fireball of sorts, although her old ones are still used. The new "fireball" explosive appears to be stronger, and can also appear to give characters unstable human emotions that will wipe out their original programming and give them new ones. This is performed upon Ace intentionally, causing him to experience vast mood swings throughout the season. Ace appears to gain new emotions every time he is struck by the explosive, including anger, fear and sadness. Lady Illusion mentions that she has the power to remove the emotions.
Like most of the other characters, Lady Illusion's background is a mystery. She was known to possess a manor estate dubbed the House of Illusion, as seen in the video games. She was also in league with Lord Fear for sometime, being imprisoned with him inside the Sixth Dimension although it was by her doing that the villains escaped. She was loyal to Lord Fear at the beginning of the show, assisting him in trying to assassinate Mark via her shapeshifting abilities. Her loyalty eventually wavered when she fell in love with Ace, although she remained by Lord Fear's side until the end of Season 1 where her treachery was revealed.
Between the end of the first season and the beginning of the second, Lady Illusion kept an eye on Ace after her departure at the conclusion of the first season. She disguised herself as a human housekeeper named Felicity Fury (played by Brooke D'Orsay) and used this guise to steal Amulet pieces from Mark's house to give a vengeful Lord Fear. She was upgraded by Kilobyte and deceived into giving him human emotions, which later learnt may have been a mistake. The two lovers find themselves at odds and have little time to be together due to their other problems. Lady Illusion believed Ace no longer loved her when he picked Sparx over her to save, and she rejoined the villains. She discovered that Ace still loved her by eavesdropping on a conversation between Sparx and Kat, and made the ultimate sacrifice by disguising herself as Ace and was mortally wounded by Lord Fear, which she predicted would occur. She died shortly afterwards in Ace's arms, but not before she offered to remove Ace's emotions as her last gift to him. Ace refused, admitting that the real gift was their love, and cries as single tear when Lady Illusion dies.
In the cancelled Season 3, Lady Illusion was hinted to be alive and that Ace would rescue her in the Sixth Dimension.
Lady Illusion's character is very similar to Mystique, a villain from the X-Men franchise. Both character have odd appearances, are shapeshifters, and have had relationships with heroes. Interestingly, Lady Illusion's voice actor Tamara Bernier has since gone on to voice Mystique in Wolverine and the X-Men. Bernier is the second of the show's voice actors to voice a character of the X-Men franchise, Random Virus' voice actor, Cathal J. Dodd having voiced Wolverine.