Villain Teleportation



""Xayide and her giants drove through the earth and into the underworld of Fantasia; here they could travel with the speed of darkness, which was faster than the speed of light.""

- Narration, The Neverending Story II

Teleportation is an awesome power to have. Even with the risks involved, it's hands down the best way to travel in fiction. Of course, as powers go it tends to be a case of winning the Superpower Lottery. A hero with this ability could simply whisk up to a MacGuffin, dump The Dragon in jail and spray holy water on the Big Bad before he even shuffles off his throne.

This is why heroes tend not to have the power to teleport, or at least not with the ease and grace of their villain. Because it's such a huge advantage and potential conflict killer, giving a villain the power of teleportation will make most heroes' lives that much harder and the conflict that much more uphill. After the hero clears out all the enemies in the hidden temple, the villain will teleport in and snatch that MacGuffin right out of the hero's hands.

Not just that, but they can combine it with Offscreen Teleportation to really get around, and even combine it with a Circling Monologue to taunt the hero from just out of their reach. When combat starts, they'll use Teleport Spam to avoid being attacked and whap the hero upside the head. However, don't expect them to just shoot the hero... or teleport half of them somewhere else.

Of course, their evil teleporting will be black and smoky for extra creepiness. If it's given a flavorful description, their teleporting power will come from The Dark Side, or cutting a path through the Dark World or some equally nasty Hell facsimile. If the heroes can teleport, it'll often be in a much more limited manner, having limits in range or precision or "casting time" that make it impossible to use with the same devastating effects a villain can.

Compare Invisible Jerkass, a Sister Trope. See also Mobile Menace.

Anime & Manga
So far how much he's used it to directly influence things in the present is incredibly minimal: he's delayed a group to let two people hold their fight uninterrupted, saved one of his allies once, took down two minor enemies. and He went a long time without apparently using them at all, and afterward mostly uses it to command his subordinates and taunt/inform his enemies. His reasoning for the first is likely to help preserve his true identity, and for the later appears to be that he's in some sort of weakened state and he becomes vulnerable when he actually interacts with anything.
 * Mystifyingly, many of the villains in Sailor Moon (except Eudial) just teleport away when the Monster of the Week is beaten. Fridge Logic screams "Why aren't they teleporting away" when The Plot Reaper sloooowly announces they're about to die? Saffir of the Dark Moon Tribe did this...once, but he died anyways.
 * Eudial really gets the bad end of it, as she actually drives her car from and to the villain headquarters.
 * Another amusing example with Fridge Logic is Tuxedo Mask who has made a Face Heel Turn when under Mind Control by Queen Beryl. A splendid example of Fridge Logic since while he is evil he has the teleportation power, but not anymore after.
 * Slayers loves villain teleportation. Most of the time, it's justified, as the primary villains throughout most of the series are the Mazoku, the Exclusively Evil demon race. While they can take physical forms, they're actually nonphysical beings whose true home is on the astral plane, and can phase in and out of it at will, for Stealth Hi Bye. But since Spiritual (fully) and Black Magic (partially) work in Astral, against such spells hiding there is no better than taking cover behind a paper curtain. So they also have tactical teleport via space pockets—in Next a Mazoku even pulled the party inside. It's so typical, in Perfect it was a tell-tale sign for both Lina and Naga: “He did spatial shift? Ah. Must be a Mazoku.” A few non-Mazoku magi like Rezo teleport somehow, but never jump around in combat, so they could use proper astral travel for all we know.
 * Of course, Lina manages to one-up them upon inventing the ragna blade spell, with which she slashes right through the universe to impale monsters hiding in subspace.
 * Similar to the Zone of the Enders example below, Dolores i has Dolores fight her 'younger sister' who is capable of this, only to unlock the technique midway through their final fight.
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, the only character who make constant use of teleportation are Fate (the Big Bad/The Dragon) and Evangeline (who's nominally evil but helps the good guys and spends most of her time under a Power Limiter). Oddly, Kotaro also has the ability to teleport, although it's more limited and the few times he actually uses it, it doesn't help that much.
 * Chao also more or less teleports around,
 * Fate and Eva's teleport spells are useful only at long distance, as they take some time to work. It is also said to be a high-level spell, so it seems that only people with a lot of time on their hands bother with it. In combat, fighters have almost-teleport Flash Step ability which is a lot faster, less detectable and not restricted to long-lived magic-users.
 * from Naruto is a villain and one of the only two characters that could really teleport. The other, heroic one is the Fourth Hokage, but he's dead and his power was much more limited: can apparently go anywhere he knows how to get to and can also phase through things, but the Fourth can only teleport to certain fixed points.
 * Additionally, Zetsu cannot actually teleport, but he can move undetected through natural terrain by merging with the ground and traveling through roots and water veins. However, he doesn't seem to have a lot of offensive power, so he mostly acts as a spy, look-out, corpse disposer, and Combat Commentator.
 * The aliens from Tokyo Mew Mew possess this kind of powers.
 * The members of the Oni Clan in Harukanaru Toki no Naka de (and Ran when she is on their side) all have teleportation powers; at least one incident in the Hachiyou Shou TV series shows that these can be cancelled out through Onmyodo-based shields, but only if the user is sufficiently weak.
 * There are two powers in One Piece that more or less amount to teleportation. Kuma can teleport anything he wants anywhere by 'pushing' them. Well, effectively. Presumably it can't go through walls very well. Blueno has the ability to open doors wherever he likes, which may or may not have a range limitation. Blueno doesn't use his ability nearly as well as Kuma.
 * In addition, Enel can effectively teleport with his lightning powers, either by fazing through conductive material or transforming into lightning. Admiral Kizaru can also use his light based powers to teleport
 * In Umineko no Naku Koro ni, various witches and other supernatural beings can teleport (dissolving into a could of gold butterflies and reforming somewhere else), but the demon Gaap specifically has the power to teleport herself and others, which she mostly uses to set up impossible closed-room mysteries.
 * Echidna Parass, The Dark Chick in Black Cat is a teleporter.

Comics

 * The Spider-Man villain The Spot seems to run off this.
 * In The Flash comics, there's "Peek-A-Boo", whose teleportation ability is unstable and can have dangerous side-effects (such as a big implosion at the point she just teleported away from). She didn't want to be a villain, but was forced into the role by her circumstances.
 * One of the various villains easily dispatched by Madame Mirage was a cowboy-themed teleporter called Cotton Eyed Joe.
 * Ambush Bug would count from his villain days

Film

 * Jumper gives us an entire organization of Knights Templar lead by Samuel L. Jackson who dedicate unbelievable money and effort to killing teleporters for no other reason than assuming this trope applies.
 * Which it pretty much does. The only teleporters we see turned out to be robbers and murderers who can't take responsiblity for their actions....and then try to say they're innocent victims of the templars.
 * Rasputin in Hellboy.
 * Azazel in X-Men First Class. And does he know how to use it. Subverted by his more popular counterpart Nightcrawler, obviously. Who in the comics is Azazel's son.
 * Villains in Harry Potter often travel as black smoke to teleport, everyone else just 'twists' or 'pops' in and out of existence. For the majority of the series, the main characters don't have this ability...which is forbidden to children under the age of 17. Of course, most of the series takes place at Hogwarts, where it's impossible to apparate, so it the villains can only use it during scenes that take place outside the school grounds.

Literature
": It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere, if you are a fool in all places."
 * One group of antagonists in Book of Amber acquired transportation power—that is, more convenient than walking Shadows and using Trumps as all main players do. Eventually one of them deserved a remark (which he jumped to dis prove):


 * In The Bad Place by Dean Koontz, Frank Pollard and his insane brother Candy (the main villain) have this ability. With Candy its more reliable and controlled, but Frank can't control where he goes and how he reassembles himself.
 * As Valentin Ivashchenko likes his elves to be different, elves in Warrior and Mage and Dancing Flame hold the portal spell and the "forest road" spell (dimension border walking as shortcuts) in high secrecy. Earl Valle, the protagonist, being something of a Marty Stu, discovers his own improved version of the latter spell before graduation and develops his own portal spell in the second book, although the book implies that
 * Myrddraal in the Wheel of Time books can teleport between shadows. It's uncertain what other limitations are at play, although it seems logical that there must be a maximum effective range since only those nations closest to where Myrddraal are known to live take the precaution of extra light sources, and the lack of Teleport Spam during fight scenes that take place in shadowy areas implies some kind of cooldown timer or other limitation on how often it can be used. Even the evil super-scientist who created them doesn't seem too sure how it works, though that applies to pretty much everything about Myrddraal.

Live Action TV

 * As pictured above, one of the super villains in No Ordinary Family can teleport. However, he's killed off within the episode, and his death is the catalyst that starts off the Hidden Agenda Villain's story.
 * Extreeemely common in Charmed particularly from season 3 onwards. It causes a massive Plot Hole as to why the demons never attempt to kill the protagonists in their sleep.
 * Extremely common in Power Rangers, particularly the early seasons. The good guys teleport in streaks of light, but the bad guys use smoke and such personal touches as, in one case, a bouncing skull superimposed over the screen. Ranger teleportation is slowly phased out (to vanish entirely for Lightspeed, with a comeback in Ninja Storm) but villains make great use of teleportation, often with elaborate special effects that let you know who's coming before they materialize. Due to an early episode featuring an important teleportation device, SPD lacks it - it wouldn't make sense if all bad guys could just teleport at will, so many sentai scenes of villains going ka-poof were edited. RPM lacks villain teleportation as well, as it would also not do for villains to be able to get through the city's barrier just by thinking about it. However, this results in villain escapes making little sense - as they just walk off, you'd really think the Rangers would try to stop them.
 * The Cult of Skaro Daleks used their ability to "emergency temporal shift" to evade The Doctor many times, much to his annoyance. Of course this backfires when the cult is wiped out leaving just Caan who shifts straight into
 * John Druitt from Sanctuary is not always a villain, but definitely not nicest person in a world. And he can teleport. So can her daughter, but her power came with being Brainwashed and Crazy.
 * Kamen Rider Double has the Zone Dopant, a Monster of the Week that can move people around as if they were pieces on a giant game board. The deadly potential of this is first demonstrated when it teleports The Hero outside a building...while he's about 20 stories up (don't worry, he lives). An improved copy of the Zone power pops up in The Movie, where the Big Bad uses it to summon all 26 of the improved Transformation Trinkets.
 * In Mahou Sentai Magiranger, this is the only way for the vast majority of the forces of Infershia to even reach the surface, owing to a powerful seal placed on the Gate of Infershia before the start of the series.

Tabletop Games

 * There are quite a few ways to move around quickly in Exalted, but combat-speed teleportation is far less common- two significant examples being defensive Charms from Hungry Ghost Style and the Ebon Dragon's Yozi Charms. The former is far from limited to people from the creeoy side of the tracks, but it's strongly associated with the Abyssals and generally really bloody creepy. The latter, however, is available (almost) only to Infernals, makes you disappear in a puff of black smoke, and is an ability belonging to the cosmic embodiment of dicking everyone else over to put yourself on top.

Video Games

 * Dracula in Castlevania just loves the warp tactic, combining it with fireballs.
 * In Kingdom Hearts, Maleficent could teleport lots of places, and one clue Riku went bad is that he learned the same type of evil teleport. Also, every member of Organization XIII can do it, and in a bit of a subversion they use it tactically in battle too; they zip around the map most annoyingly. In fact, teleporting is so evil in Kingdom Hearts that Ansem the Wise described it as embracing darkness to travel between worlds.
 * This is justified as an evil power since the teleport involves stepping into the darkness between worlds and stepping out again. Good guys can only do this if they are protected (by armor or gummi ships) so only somebody who's heart is open to the darkness can do it on their own. Riku and Mickey - both of whom have learned to control a combination of light and dark, can actually do it and remain good guys.
 * Anubis from Zone of the Enders was for most of the two games the only orbital frame capable of using metatron to jump large distances of space. Once you get it, the fights get... interesting.
 * In Cave Story, the protagonists can only teleport by means of a network of teleporting pads. Misery (and to a lesser extent, the Doctor) could use magic to teleport herself (or others, or very large objects) anywhere at all.
 * In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Ex-Death has an attack that lets him teleport around the arena. It's very useful because normally he moves at approximately the speed of...well, he is a tree, after all...
 * Also in Dissidia, The Cloud of Darkness does this to Onion Knight in a cutscene. Given what she is, the way she combines it with the Circling Monologue makes for one of the eeriest scenes in the game. Which, given that Dissidia is an action game, is saying something.
 * Also, Golbez teleports rather than physically jumps. Combine this with his quintuple-jumping and if you spam jump 5 times in a rwo you can suddenly have a time slot of 2 seconds where Golbez is not on the map at all and is completely invulnerable. Ninja-Golbez!
 * Every single villain in Final Fantasy Tactics possesses the ability to Teleport in and out of battlefields at their leisure (or just before you're able to deal the finishing blow.) Marquis Elmdore and the Final Boss also possess the specific battle ability Master Teleport which allows them to appear anywhere on the battlefield without penalty or risk of failure (whereas the player's Teleport may fail at longer distances.)
 * While Suikoden has Viki as the good guy Teleporter, she doesn't have the same level of control or Style as Yuber, Windy, Luc and Neclord. Though Yuber uses this ability the most - being somewhat of a Dirty Coward. Aside from Windy, none of them have as much power in their teleportation (Viki's can handle Mass Teleportation and even Time Travel, though she's only ever done the latter by accident), but Viki's control is quite poor.
 * In Blaz Blue, Yandere Robot Girl Nu-13, her not-quite-evil sister Lambda-11 and the insane Eldritch Abomination Arakune can teleport in play. While the decidedly heroic Rachel Alucard can teleport in story, she can't do so in gameplay. Oddly, The Man Behind the Man  doesn't seem to show this ability (yet?)
 * He does vanish and reappear during one of his Distortion Drives, but that might be a Flash Step.
 * An odd example in the first game - in routes before the True Story, "defeating" Hakumen means surviving against him until another character forcibly teleports him away (the exception is Tager, who would normally be setting up the teleporter beacons off-screen while your character fights Hakumen, and is one of the few characters strong enough to actually hurt him).
 * Jason in Friday the 13 th for the NES.
 * In Tales of Symphonia, all of the Seraphim demonstrate this ability at one point or another. Oddly, not all of them use it in battle.
 * Golden Sun's Alex could Warp, which was a strange type of Psynergy that no other character could use.
 * In Homeworld Cataclysm, the  can either move incredibly fast or hyperspace jump in a second, appear anywhere on the map, blast your units and disappear again.
 * Fire Emblem 7 had this on Ephidel and some of the other morphs.
 * Both inverted and played straight in City of Heroes and City of Villains. Not matter what you are, you can take the teleportation power set - although you can only go places you can see. As long as there isn't anything in the way.
 * There are good teleporters in the Kirby series, but none use it as much as the bad guys in combat. Nightmare, Dark Mind and Daroach use Teleport Spam most prominently.
 * Plot-important characters in Baldur's Gate II often have the ability to teleport with "Dimension Door" (which spell when it was usable by players in the previous game didn't work like that) for convenience. They're usually the villains, most notably the Big Bad Irenicus himself, in whose case it's easily justified since he's an insanely powerful wizard. They can also teleport others with them, a handy way of kidnapping.
 * Pops up in The Legend of Zelda. It's one of the main abilities of the Wizzrobes whenever they appear. While Ganon himself hardly ever uses it (preferring to engage Link in direct swordplay instead), this is a favorite technique of Zant and Ghirahim; battles against those two have to be planned based on the assumption that they'll occasionally teleport behind Link and try to strike at him.
 * Ghirahim's teleport is interesting. He vanishes in a flurry of orange, black, and white diamond shapes.
 * In Brain Dead 13, during the intro, Fritz is next to Lance when Lance first meets Neurosis, and when Dr. Nero Neurosis goes into a rage, Fritz goes offscreen, but the second Dr. Nero Neurosis tells Fritz to kill Lance, Fritz is above Lance.
 * In Ys II, Dalles has a habit of suddenly appearing to do his evil work and then promptly disappearing with an Evil Laugh.

Webcomics

 * Wayward Sons: Doctor Chu's power. Normally limited by his knowledge of his surroundings, he once teleported from Egypt to East Asia instictively to survive a fatal attack. Without knowing where he was, it took him years to find his way back.
 * Homestuck: After, Jack Noir gains this ability and goes on a series of murder teleportation sprees.
 * The Order of the Stick: Vaarsuvius, the titular Order's resident wizard, has Conjuration as one of his/her barred schools, thus denying the party the ability to teleport. The villains have no such limitation, naturally. And with Vaarsuvius made a Deal with the Devil(s) to temporarily gain immense magical power, he/she was able to not only teleport, but do so on a truly Epic scale.

Web Original

 * The Slender Man seems to have this ability, what with all his snatching yo people up and Offscreen Teleportation.

Western Animation
"Robin, as the secret base crumbles around them: "Raven, get us out of here." And she does."
 * Vampyro of Wakfu has a cape-twirling version of this power. Main villain Nox can teleport as well with his Time Powers, but his movements aren't smoky and mysterious.
 * Might be worth noting that his entire species can do that in the original Video Game, and they aren't Exclusively Evil.
 * freely abuses his teleportation powers to give the heroes a hard time.
 * Skywarp, a Decepticon Mook from Transformers Generation 1, can teleport. He does it rarely, however, and doesn't see to accomplish anything useful with it.
 * The Splund from one episode of The Trap Door had the ability to teleport, for seemingly no reason other to make him all the more freaky.
 * The Teen Titans rarely make use of their resident lottery winner's teleportation, preferring instead to travel in the T-car, but it is shown to work quite well when they do.


 * Not used in "Wavelength" where Brother Blood's Underwater Base is flooded and Beast Boy has to save them as she comments that she wouldn't mind drowning.
 * Season Three Big Bad Brother Blood also has the power to teleport, as do HIVE member Kyd Wykkyd and Slade after becoming Trigon's minion.
 * In the animated series of The Legend of Zelda, Ganon teleported everywhere. One scene had him teleporting all around his room in the middle of a monologue, for no reason. He usually teleports extremely short distances but he does walk around sometimes. When he does it appears to be random.
 * Discord from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic teleports frequently, but he's not above a little skating around on soap.