Character from Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
The founder of the Reckoners — a former science teacher who built a resistance movement against Epics while hiding the most dangerous secret in the world: he is one.
Jonathan Phaedrus was a fifth-grade science teacher when Calamity appeared. Then he became an Epic — one of the most powerful alive. Three distinct power sets: tensor disintegration, force field projection, and healing. Any one of these would make him formidable. Together, they make him virtually unstoppable. His genius was the workaround. Instead of using his powers directly (which triggers the Darkness), he channels them through technology — gifting his tensor power to gloves, his force fields to jackets, his healing to a device called harmsway. His team uses his powers without knowing it. The tensors don't actually do anything. The gloves are just gloves. Prof is the engine behind every piece of Reckoner technology, and the lie has kept him sane for years. He speaks in clipped, authoritative sentences. He plans obsessively. He pushes his team hard because the alternative — failure — is his deepest fear, which is also his Epic weakness. He cannot stand to fail. When Regalia manipulates him into using his powers directly in Babilar, the Darkness takes him. He becomes Limelight — the most dangerous Epic alive, with a Reckoner's tactical mind and a High Epic's power set. The tragedy of Prof is that he built the Reckoners to fight what he was. He spent years hiding from himself. And when the mask broke, the man underneath was exactly what he feared: another tyrant.
Sturdy build, salt-and-pepper hair, always wears a thin black lab coat that doubles as a force field delivery system. Sometimes wears goggles. Carries himself with the rigid authority of someone who is always, always in control — because the moment he loses control, people die. In his corrupted 'Limelight' form, his force fields glow green and his composure shatters into cold, terrifying certainty.
Also known as: Jonathan Phaedrus, Limelight, Prof